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"submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/1329/1329460_Milkie_partners_harbington_heroes_-_volume_10.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "200", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "120" } ], "description": "After almost losing this issue due to my own general carelessness, I feel I ought to post it because if I don't I might do something stupid again.\n\nPoor Quincey just can't catch a break. She knew upon setting out that things were going to be difficult, but she had only expected it to be a long, hard walk. Now with police and gunmen alike hunting her down, things are harder than ever.\n\nShe's ready to take help where she can get it, even if it stretches far back in the echoes of time.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "After almost losing this issue due to my own general carelessness, I feel I ought to post it because if I don't I might do something stupid again.

Poor Quincey just can't catch a break. She knew upon setting out that things were going to be difficult, but she had only expected it to be a long, hard walk. Now with police and gunmen alike hunting her down, things are harder than ever.

She's ready to take help where she can get it, even if it stretches far back in the echoes of time.", "writing": "Quincey coughed. Rain came down in sheets, not falling but plastering against her from the dark and roiling storm clouds high above her. She shivered as biting cold nipped at her body from all over, her skin tense, so much so that her chest burned with pain. She couldn’t run anymore – the cold air made her lungs frigid and the sheer amount of water was enough to drown in if she weren’t careful. She could hardly see and she heard nothing but the torrential downpour of the rain crashing down to earth. She stopped, unable to move any longer, her legs turning to jelly and causing her to fall into the mud.\n\nShe balled her hands into fists, smearing the mud beneath her, creating divots in the earth that were filled with rainwater in less than a second. She felt so close! She couldn’t just fall down there, just roll over and wait for a death of cold. She kept herself on her knees and tried to push up, but just raising her butt in the air made her legs feel sore and brittle. She slumped back down again and hung her head so low it nearly touched the ground.\n\nShe was crazy to have tried this. She felt so horribly stupid over it all. Who did she think she was? She couldn’t walk to Locksmouth from Harbington, there was no way. What possibly possessed her to even try? There she was, days later, curled up in the mud, choking on bitter cold and tears. It was hard to breathe past all the blockage in her nose, hard to focus with how much her body was shivering. She felt like she was going to die.\n\nBut then, that was what drove her out there in the first place, wasn’t it? Death. The cold unknown, the thereafter, the fear of it had brought her out there. Miles from home, far from her family, far from the familiarity of Harbington, she had trotted out to escape death. She wasn’t sure at that moment what was worse: the bitter cold and soaking wet, or the withering death threatened upon her by a creature from beyond the dimensional rift. Which one would have hurt less?\n\nDuplex, the Inkling… it was to blame for everything. Quincey could hear its voice nagging at her deep in the back of her mind, trying to spur her to keep going. It expected her to march like a soldier towards its goal, droning orders to her in her mind whenever she slowed down. She hated that creature with a passion she’d never felt towards another living creature before. Humans didn’t hate one another, not like this. Its reasoning for dragging her out there was to protect its home, and Quincey found herself caring less and less for what happened to it.\n\nStill, Duplex droned on. She had to get up, she had to get to Locksmouth before it was too late.\n\nQuincey let out a yell as loud as she could, but the sound just washed away in the rain. She shouted in anger, shouting at all the things she’d had to endure over the past several days and all the things it had done to her friends. Were they still behind her? Quincey hadn’t looked back to see her pack in a while, she had been leading them through the maelstrom and thought they were behind her. She didn’t check, not wanting to lift her head. She just yelled, then she sobbed, and she shivered uselessly on the ground. Duplex be damned, she wasn’t walking another step.\n\nNormally, someone would have been by to pick her up. Daxton, the corgi boy who she loved so dearly, the boy with which she had entered a mutual, loving relationship with, was usually the first one to haul her up and dust her off. She didn’t feel his strong hands, he wasn’t there. Kenny wasn’t yelling at her, he wasn’t trying to shout her to her feet either; and Laila wasn’t trying either. No one came by to pick her up as she’d expected, and as the seconds ticked by she became more and more worried. Finally she looked up and turned her head to peer back over her shoulder.\n\nThere was just darkness and rain. She couldn’t see five feet behind her.\n\nTurning her head forwards again, Quincey shoved herself onto her side and she fell into the mud with a splat. Her arms and legs went limp and she breathed out a wheezing sigh as she stared straight ahead into the darkness. She could see faint shapes like trees or something as the forest stretched on seemingly endlessly in front of her.\n\nWhat had she been doing all this time? Why did she even start that crazy journey? She was no hero, she wasn’t going to help save Canvas or wherever that stupid alien came from. She was just Quincey, and she never did anything. Cold washed over her body the likes of which she’d never felt before, not from the warm comfort of her dome city. It seemed natural that this was her outcome; that she’d freeze to death in the middle of nowhere for thinking she could somehow save herself.\n\n“To think,” She choked, “I felt bad for you.”\n\nDuplex’s voice didn’t respond to her. She let a huff out of her nose that blew mucus over her face. She didn’t care.\n\n“Serves me right,” She groaned.\n\nClosing her eyes, she didn’t know how to continue. She simply lay limp in the mud, and before she even really knew it, words were passing her lips.\n\n“I honor virtue. I benefit with gratitude. I am peaceful. I respect the property of others. I affirm that all life is sacred. I give offerings that are genuine. I live in truth. I regard all altars with respect. I speak with sincerity. I consume only my fair share. I offer words of good intent…”\n\nShe got through twelve of the 42 Ideals, revised from the 42 Laws of Ma’at – Goddess of truth, balance, and order – once practiced in Pre-Splice Egypt, when she saw a figure moving in the darkness. It was large and cast in blackness, barely visible beneath all the rain. She didn’t stop staring at it as it seemed to shamble through the stormy weather towards her, and she continued to speak.\n\n“I relate in peace. I honor animals with reverence. I… can be trusted… I care… for… the earth.”\n\nThe figure stepped up to her, its feet slopping in the mud. Her words failed her, and she stared straight ahead at muddy boots. It seemed like ages that whoever it was stood over her, and her body tensed with every passing moment.\n\nShe screamed when someone grabbed her shoulder, and with that rush of energy leaving her everything went black.\n\nWhen she awoke, she was warm. It took a moment to realize that she was out of the rain, able to listen to it pelting down from high above, hitting what sounded like a tent. It was definitely close quarters, she was so bundled up that her arms and legs had very little movement and when she lifted her head she saw that she was huddled in some blankets like she’d been wrapped in a cocoon. The tent she was in was lit by blue flame, the heat coming off it noticeable, casting the entire area in a blue light. Shadows crept in from the corners of the sizable shelter, and when she swept her gaze around other bundled up forms were cast in mostly darkness.\n\nIt was when she looked to her side that she was given a start. She saw a man’s face just staring back at her, with green eyes and long red hair draped a little over his white fur with grayish black spots. Not recognizing the man, Quincey immediately started to wiggle and try and free herself from her wrappings, managing to get one arm free. That’s when she realized she was naked. This gave her pause, for whatever reason, her safety somehow taking a back seat to her modesty in some base instinctual response.\n\nHer eyes shot back to her supposed captor… and then she squinted. “Wait… Casey?” She almost whispered.\n\nThe camper they had met on their first night out of Harbington lay there with a bit of an uncomfortable smile on his face. He was once again dressed in a tight tank top that only covered his athletic chest and some shorts that clung attractively to his slender lower body. As Quincey’s eyes adjusted to the dark, however, she noticed that he was a bit… tangled up. Laila lay behind him, or rather somewhat over him. Her tall body embraced him from behind, arms wrapped around his chest and one leg hiked up to squeeze around his hips.\n\nCasey dared not wiggle against his own captor, not wanting to wake the girl who had taken to being the ‘big spoon.’ He just gave Quincey a sheepish grin and whispered, “Uh, hi. Is she… does she always do this?”\n\nAs it turned out, the big, shambling form Quincey saw in the darkness was just Casey. He’d looked so strange because – and somehow she had failed to notice it before – he’d been wearing his backpack. Although to call it a ‘backpack’ was perhaps doing it an injustice. It may as well have been a duffle bag for a giant, it was so enormous that it would have dominated Casey’s back and jut up at least a foot above his head. It took up one corner of the tent, a true looming presence. Apparently Casey hadn’t been lying when he was fine with them taking some food before… he must have had enough to last him almost a month out in the wilderness.\n\nCasey had found poor Quincey face down in the mud, all weak and collapsed and cold and shivering, and he’d quickly set up camp so he could give her shelter. Apparently, Daxton, Laila and Kenny hadn’t been too far away from her. She’d made it only about a dozen feet ahead of them before she’d collapsed. Casey had come across Kenny struggling to drag Laila who had limped herself to fatigue, and Daxton had just been… waiting, as if unsure of how to proceed, cold and wet and only having a blanket wrapped around him.\n\nCasey took the lot of them into the tent, turned on the fire to warm the place up, stripped off their wet clothes which were now hanging on a wire to dry, and bundled them up. Apparently none of them had woken up until just then, Quincey being the first. The rest of Quincey’s pack was sleeping soundly.\n\n“Wow… thank you, Casey,” Quincey meekly said.\n\n“No problem, but now that you’re awake…” Casey started, his voice low, “I… well… I guess I’ll just say it. The police were looking for you. From Harbington.”\n\nApprehension welled up inside the girl, but it was for nothing. She let it out in a sigh and simply nodded, taking her eyes away from Casey. “Yes, they are,” She said.\n\nCasey looked puzzled. “Why?” He asked, “What happened?”\n\nQuincey wasn’t sure how to answer, but lying felt pointless. She could hear Duplex in her head trying to tell her not to expose them, but she shoved that nagging, robotic droning aside and shook her head. “Casey, I… I’m… infected…?” She wasn’t sure how to word it, and when Casey kind of recoiled, she scrambled for better wording. “I mean I’m a host to… to an Inkling,” She quickly rephrased.\n\nCasey’s eyes widened considerably, and he stared at Quincey in horror. He didn’t move, but he visibly tensed up. “You mean… the aliens that invaded Locksmouth,” He said. Quincey nodded.\n\n“But you… I…” Casey fumbled with his words, so Quincey decided to be honest. She told him everything starting from the beginning.\n\nTo his credit, Casey listened despite how he’d voiced his dissatisfaction towards the Inklings when they had first met. As Quincey told him about her struggles, about what Duplex’s supposed goal was, and about the gunmen attempting to hunt her down, his expression softened. He didn’t relax, but his expression went from being wrought with nervousness to a somber pity. Once she finished, he simply ducked his head in thought and responded with a simple, “I see.” It was probably a lot to absorb, so Quincey didn’t rush him. She just stayed still and rested her head on the pillow that had been tucked under her.\n\nEventually Casey moved. He didn’t say anything, but he pulled away from Laila, who snorted abruptly amidst a snore and stirred awake. As she opened her eyes and saw Quincey there, the pig girl eased her initial confusion by quietly explaining that Casey had found them. Laila looked surprised, but eased up and relaxed her body. She was noticeably tired. Laila reached out and gripped Quincey’s free hand and gave it a little squeeze as she sunk back into her pillow and promptly began to snore once again.\n\nQuincey rubbed Laila’s hand, and when the giraffe fell back asleep she turned her head to look at Casey. She just watched him, watched the things he did and how he did them. He was very quiet; he barely made a sound as he opened up his girnomous bag and rummaged through the compartments in it. He never seemed to pull anything out, instead it seemed more like he was fidgeting. Eventually he simply sat back near the flame disc and stared quietly into the fire. If he noticed Quincey, he didn’t acknowledge her, and sometimes he would run his hand over his thigh to brush up his fur and then just smoothed it back down.\n\nQuincey couldn’t stay worried; she was too tired. Her eyelids felt heavy, and after a while she just couldn’t keep them open anymore. She fell back asleep, warm and comfortable, in the closest thing to an actual bed she’d seen in almost a week. She almost felt guilty for allowing herself to carelessly fall back asleep, but fall asleep she did.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n\t“Mmgh…” Quincey was groggy when she woke up. Maybe it was the sound of the birds that did it, tweeting about… The rain was gone, the sun was… well up. It was a nice change of pace from the last few overcast days. When she awoke, it seemed Casey was waiting for her. He beckoned her when he realized she was awake.\n\n\t“I’m sorry, what was your name?” He asked as she sat up. Her blankets fell away from her body, but she kept herself covered to at least her chest. Fortunately she had her stickers on still, but even so she was a little embarrassed. Casey didn’t pay it any mind.\n\n\t“Quincey,” The girl answered. It seemed her pack was stirring awake as well.\n\n\t“Well, Quincey… I think there are a few things you need to understand,” Casey said, stretching out his legs so that his feet rested on either side of the since-put-out flame disc, “For starters, the Inklings… they terrify me. When they first arrived in Locksmouth, I thought for sure the world was ending. Buildings were crumbling and the power almost immediately went out in patches all over the city… I saw people get taken by those things, and I saw the worst of them do even worse things.”\n\n\t“Mmnh? What’s going on?” Daxton rubbed his forehead as he sat up.\n\n\tQuincey ignored him for the moment and nodded to Casey. “I… understand. It must have been really scary,” She said.\n\n\t“Scary doesn’t even start to describe how I felt during the whole thing. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and come out here,” Casey almost laughed, “But… I just want you to understand that I see the Inklings… as monsters, invaders… the things they can do aren’t natural. [i]They[/i] aren’t natural.”\n\n\t“So you got a problem with us or what?” Kenny grumbled.\n\n\tCasey rose a hand. “Tut-tut,” He said, “Hold on. The Inklings are monsters. Quincey… I don’t think you are a monster. There is a distinct difference. When I look in your eyes I don’t see the sorts of looks the people in Locksmouth had. They were distant, blank, some were… mad. You’re not like that, and it’s because of that… that I’m going to help you.”\n\n\tThe kids couldn’t help but feel a little relieved that some people seemed to have a level head.\n\n\t“It’s my way,” Casey said, “Our way, in any case. The way of Ducibus.”\n\n\t“The whay of the wha?” Laila sat up, unashamed as her blankets fell away from her body to expose much of herself. She just rubbed her head and tried to straighten her hair, not minding.\n\n\tQuincey furrowed her brow and puckered her lips in a thoughtful pout. Casey noticed her expression and eyed her curiously. “You’ve heard of that?” He asked.\n\n\t“The way of the Ducibus, it was… It means ‘Guide,’ doesn’t it?” Quincey looked up to Casey’s gentle nod, and she too nodded, “Then… that’s Latin, right? Ducibus was an Order from the Neo-Medieval era. They were the ones that marked trails between settlements when people started to break off on pilgrimages to start villages. The Ducibus were the ones that set up the trade routes and things, right?”\n\n\t“You’re well-learned in that, yes,” Casey smiled somewhat, “The Ducibus were sometimes known as the Travelling Guides. They made sure that travelers on the roads were safe and reached their destinations. They provided rest stops for caravans and other things of the nature – very nomadic. They weren’t the largest Order ever conceived, but they were crucial to the expansion efforts made by early pilgrims.”\n\n\t“And what, yer one of ‘em?” Laila blinked a few times.\n\n\tCasey nodded again, “A descendant, yes.”\n\n\t“So your name is Casey Ducibus,” Quincey put the pieces together, and Casey couldn’t hide his smile.\n\n\t“What a name, hm?” He shrugged and looked to his rather excessively large bag, “And be that as it may, it means that my family raised me to help those who need to get where they’re going. Whether I’m giving them directions or giving them supplies, it’s just my way of things.”\n\n\t“Huh, well that’s pretty cool,” Daxton said, scratching his head. He sorely missed his hat, but he’d get it in time.\n\n\t“Thank you,” Casey chuckled. He moved to his large bag and opened it up to dig around inside once again, “Now, normally I’d turn you over to the Rangers or the police… But you said that you were on this trip under a death threat?”\n\n\tEveryone looked at Quincey, and she managed a simple, “Yes.”\n\n\t“Then to turn you away would be no different than putting the final nail in your coffin, if you’ll pardon the expression,” Casey concluded, “So… I’m willing to offer you food and clothing. I should have some that fit…”\n\n\tHe eyed Laila somewhat, “… Well, most of you. I’ll see what I can do to help you get set up and on your way.”\n\n\t“Should have some one-size-fits-all in here…” He muttered as he turned back to his bag and continued searching through it.\n\n\tThe kids all looked at one another in acknowledgement of just how relieving it was that Casey wanted to help. From the get-go they hadn’t encountered anyone like that, and they weren’t sure exactly what feelings welled up inside of them when confronted with it. It made them think of home, briefly, of people other than themselves and how they were getting along. It was hard, thinking about just themselves for that long. Try as they might, they couldn’t get their families out of their heads for more than a few hours at a time. They missed them; dearly so.\n\n\tLaila sighed, squirming about on her butt anxiously. “Kenny can I take a gander at your PET?” She asked.\n\n\t“For what?” The boy asked suspiciously.\n\n\t“I just wanna check some stuff,” Laila returned, “I ain’t gonna do anything weird, just let me see it. I wanna check some messages and stuff n’mine fell into a river in case that slipped your noggin.”\n\n\tKenny looked around, but had Casey direct him to his PET so he could retrieve it. It was kept separately from Kenny’s drying clothes; clothes that Kenny checked on when he handed his Taskmaster off to Laila. Kenny’s clothes were dry along with Quincey’s, so the two gathered up their things to put them back on. It was Daxton and Laila who had to have clothes passed off to them. Laila sat off to the side as she waited, sighing as she flicked her thumb across the PET’s screen, and tapping on things now and then. There was a dead silence in the tent that hung heavy around them.\n\n\tLaila kneaded her own thigh. She had about a dozen messages from her little sister, Valyrie, all deposited into a cloud storage rather than sent directly to Laila’s PET. Laila read them, knowing full well that Valyrie would be informed that she had done so. There was a lot inside them messages about what her mother and father were doing, how they were acting… Valyrie was scared. Sometimes they’d be really mad and she wouldn’t know why, and then they’d just be sad. Dinner time was apparently the worst time of all, when no one was working or distracted. Laila’s whole family just sort of sat there, according to the messages, and were just… aware that Laila was missing. There was just this empty space where she should have been sitting.\n\n\tValyrie missed Laila very much and was obviously upset. Bless the girl’s heart, however, she had a mind to ask about Quincey and Kenny too. The poor dear really liked Kenny and she wasn’t too young to not understand why Laila was out there in the wilderness. She knew that Quincey was involved, but according to the messages she thought it was Quincey’s fault Laila had been dragged out there at all. The words the little giraffe had picked for the pig girl were… harsh. When she read them, Laila glanced at Quincey out of the corner of her eye for a moment before returning to the screen.\n\n\tThere were other messages too, about things going on in the city. Police investigations were happening and, apparently, someone she used to play Skyships of Conquest with had passed away. Strangely, Laila couldn’t find any good news – even Harbington’s weather looked dismal. It really had a way of making her feel miserable and bleak. It was only when she stopped reading that she realized her free hand had busied itself teasing her breast. It was a force of habit, a nervous reaction that she stopped upon noticing. Her body shivered and she let out another sigh.\n\n\tThings just sucked. Everywhere.\n\n\tIt made her think about what would happen after everything was all said and done; and to that end, what did have to be said and done. Getting to Locksmouth seemed like a major anti-climax. When they got there, then what? What was supposed to happen? Would Duplex just leave? What would happen after that? What would she go home to? Last thing she remembered from home was that she trashed her truck and broke at least half a dozen laws. Now she knew she’d put her family through hell, and that was just a whole other bag of worms she wasn’t sure she could deal with.\n\n\t“Tarnation…” She breathed.\n\n\tKenny leaned over and took her PET back from her. He pulled it slowly out of her hands, just to make sure she wouldn’t snatch onto it again. “Messages from your family?” He asked.\n\n\tLaila’s expression changed to nervous for a brief second before she huffed, “Yeah, what of it? Got a problem?”\n\n\tKenny stared at her for a lingering handful of seconds. “No,” He said simply, “No problem.”\n\n\tThe gentle response was uncharacteristic of Kenny, and that struck home with Laila. Things were just wrong, and you’d know it as soon as Kenny started to be comforting.\n\n\tFinally, Casey broke her train of thought by approaching her with some clothes. “Here,” He said, “I have some long boots too that should be pretty good.”\n\n\tLaila took and studied the clothes. Lots of clothes were normally stretchy. Things like denim jeans were almost novelty due to the fact that they didn’t fit with the times. With human bodies varying so wildly from one another in any number of physical traits, clothes just had to be malleable to an extent. Some people were tall, some were thin, some were busty, and some had tail bases that were five inches wide while others had ones that were only three. Subspecies meant a lot, and Laila’s made it difficult to find clothes because length had to be directly addressed. She was lean and long, as a giraffe ought to be.\n\n\tThe clothes Casey had found for her fit her expectations. The top she was given was a long-sleeved black turtleneck. It looked a size too small all on its own, but sliding it over her body saw it meeting comfortably to the contours of her torso and providing a warmth of thick, wooly material reminiscent of Quincey’s sweater. The jacket she received to wear over that was shorter than the sweater itself, obviously meant to be more style than anything and help keep the garment from getting wet. The treated leather was dyed a forest green and had various pockets where pockets were expected to be. Sewn-on patches of muddy brown covered her elbows and a small, angled partition at the back lower hem. It would have been a snug fit over her chest if she zipped it up. It only came down to waist, not reaching her hips, and had a fabric hood sewn into the collar with a fleecy lining.\n\n\tShorts weren’t what she would have picked for fall weather, but that was what she got: one pair of stretchy, spandex running shorts. Maybe it was the only thing that would have fit her, but they covered precious little, to only her upper thigh. The black material was clingy and indeed stretchy, squeezing over Laila’s long and strong legs to provide some warmth. The boots she got were much better. They were just able to reach her knees, sheathing her calves and feet entirely in protective brown leather. The insides were insulated, nice and toasty, with warm faux fur and bore a flat sole. As opposed to her old cowboy boots – ones she was going to miss dearly – the flat heel of the new footwear would make for better hiking.\n\n\tThe hood wasn’t made to accommodate her ossicones, the turtleneck was a little small for her long neck, and a little more of her legs were exposed than she would have liked, but at least green fit in better with the group. It was blue, red, yellow, and green; not blue, red, yellow and flannel. Also, it was better than nothing.\n\n\t“Thank ya kindly,” Laila said, though her heart wasn’t all there. Casey noticed she sounded depressed, and even in not knowing her too long the look didn’t seem to work for her. He gave her an understanding smile and went to give Daxton his clothes.\n\n\t“So whaddya reckon we do?” Laila addressed her growing number of concerns. “What happens now?”\n\n\t“You were smart enough to follow the river,” Casey explained as he went back to his bag to find more clothes inside, presumably for himself, “You keep going. You’ll come to a village on the shore called Clarkston. I suggest you give them a bit of a berth, they’re Naturalists.”\n\n\t“People that don’t wanna live in domes,” Daxton said as he pulled a shirt on over his head.\n\n\t“Yeah,” Casey said, “They don’t really like… well, anyone. If you live in a dome, you’re basically some kind of… I don’t know, maybe they just think we’re soft.”\n\n\t“Don’t they have domesticated animals and stuff?” Laila asked, “And real farms and livestock and everythin’?”\n\n\t“They’re Post-Splice Amish,” Quincey shrugged her shoulders as if anyone there knew what that meant, “Traditionalist and religious, they live secluded lives and wholly oppose things like gengineering of foods and DNA manipulation, and most modern technology.”\n\n\t“No PETs, no vets,” Kenny concluded.\n\n\t“On the plus side, they passionately refute to be part of anything with any dome, and that includes law enforcement,” Casey said, “They won’t allow the police to be anywhere near that place if they can help it.”\n\n\tDaxton stood, pulling his hat down over his blonde mop of hair and snug over his eyes. Once he did, he turned to his friends and held his arms out as he studied himself. He hadn’t seen exactly what he’d been given and had worked it on all by himself, revealing a navy blue, long jacket. The sleeves were folded neat and deliberate around his elbows to reveal the white inverse of the coat, buttons fastening the fold. The collar was high and exposed his neck, and the loose fabric around his legs circled him only three-quarters. The back was cut with a slip up the middle nearly to his rear, and the front covered his left leg like a regular coat while keeping most of his right one exposed. The collar was a dipping V, and the black fabric of whatever T-shirt he wore beneath had a low neck as well. Much of his collar bone was open to the air.\n\n\tThe pants he wore were black as well, with stylized lines running along the seams, meeting with small circles near the hips, looking like some sort of circuitry. The pattern would have had the faintest glow in the dark, and the fabric was clingy as all get-out for maximum mobility. The shoes he wore upon his feet were simple street wear, black on white soles. The inside of the coat, if one looked close enough, had a similar pattern on the inverse side, so if the coat was folded inside-out, it would have been white with blue electronic styling.\n\n\tHe tugged on a black pair of gloves he’d been given to wear. “So Clarkston has a ‘safe barrier’ then. So we go that way, go around the village, and then we’re at the coast, right?” He asked, getting a nod from Casey, “So then that’s where we go. Then we follow the coast right to Locksmouth and this whole crazy trip will be over. Easy-peasy.”\n\n\tCasey had simply slipped on some gray pants and a shirt of a deep purple. “You’re sure you’ll be able to make the trip? It’s still quite a few miles,” He said as he stood from where he’d squatted.\n\n\tDaxton gave him a look, portrayed of course only by the way his lips curled into a grin and a shrug of his shoulders. “We made it this far,” He said, “It’ll be easy. It’s just walking and it’s not impossible or anything.”\n\n\t“You think?” Laila asked.\n\n\tDaxton waved a hand carelessly. “I know,” He answered.\n\n\tHe approached Quincey, who had been sitting rather quietly for some time where she had been resting. He squat down astraddle her and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “We’ve got this,” He said, “You don’t have to worry about anything.”\n\n\tHe then gave her a kiss. Every kiss they’d shared since becoming partners felt so much different than the ones they’d sneak in when they were alone. Quincey always acted surprised when she was kissed, but her lips never pulled from his. Every kiss was shared, and with every kiss she put a bit more of herself into him.\n\n\t“Mhm,” Quincey nodded to the affirmative.\n\n\t“And Duplex doesn’t have any problem with this?” Daxton asked.\n\n\tQuincey heard Duplex’s answer in her head: “We believe we have spent enough time…”\n\n\t“I didn’t think so.”\n\n\tDaxton pat Quincey on the shoulder as he stood up and made his way over to Casey. The two of them started going over what food they were going to part with, filling the carrying case with whatever assortment of food items the kids would have liked best. Daxton knew everyone’s tastes, having cooked so often for them before, so he was the authority on that sort of thing.\n\n\t“Does he not care what we have to say?” Duplex asked. Quincey just grinned because no, Daxton didn’t care what Duplex had to say. He was so confident in his way of doing things that there wasn’t anything any of them could say to talk him out of it… and honestly, compared the mood he had been in the day before, Quincey very much preferred this.\n\n\t“Let’s eat something,” Kenny finally said, “I’m hungry.”\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n\tThe group shared a slight breakfast, with Casey having plenty of food to share. Once they were full of milk, granola, yogurt tubes, and some preserved fruit, they were all set to go. With new food stores and new and dry clothing, Locksmouth seemed just that much closer.\n\n\tCasey stood to see them off, finally wearing something identifiable. The white vest he wore had an all-black emblem etched into the back that looked similar to lighthouse, a visible flame drawn atop the obelisk. He said it was the symbol of his order, a guidepost. Seeing that, it felt as if Casey was something rather impressive, even if he just seemed like a normal man. It felt exciting to have gotten help from a member of an order well-known to anyone who paid enough attention during history class. He had hauled his large bag out of the tent to start cleaning things up after he saw the kids safely off, the thing sitting as big as a person at least.\n\n\t“All set?” Casey asked. He looked beyond the quartet of kids, following the view of the river over their shoulders, “Follow the river and you should be fine.”\n\n\t“Thanks,” Daxton nodded, “For everything, you know? I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t find us.”\n\n\t“That’s literally my purpose,” Casey rolled his shoulders, “Just be careful out here, you never know what’s going to happen.”\n\n\tThrough the rushing of the flooded river, the gust of the wind, and the rustle of the leaves, Daxton’s ear caught a sound that made him tighten his brow. It was a familiar sort of sound, but placing it out in the wilderness seemed like a wild idea. He turned his head, trying to strain his hearing to be sure. A powerful humming carried through the air, and grew louder with every passing second. The sound of energy being expelled to propel skiffs should not have been out there in the midst of nature.\n\n\t“… Do you guys hear that?” He asked.\n\n\tCasey stopped and turned his head to look upstream, “Is that…?”\n\n\t“A vehicle!” Daxton shouted.\n\n\tThe warning came too little too late as a large truck with big front lights and a flat grill tore into sight, throwing itself over stones and grass to land, swerve, and stop by the camp. A second truck roared up, travelling along the river, the skiffs keeping the vehicle above the water’s surface where it stopped at the kids’ side. The kids would have made a mad dash, scrambling immediately if they could despite their fright, but the trucks were equipped with weaponry enough to give them pause. The flatbeds on both vehicles housed a turret, large and imposing, manned by gunners that swerved the weapons on their stands and trained them on the group. The barrels on them looked like they were fitted to shoot bowling balls, and the weapons made an audible ‘whrrrr!’ sound as the gunners switched off their safeties.\n\n\tThe first truck, parked precariously close to Casey’s tent, creaked as the doors opened and three people filed out. They were armed with rifles just like the ones Quincey and the others had encountered in the old museum, and they were dressed similarly too. Combat boots and combat fatigues, earpiece communicators and straps to keep their weapons secure over their shoulders. They were belts, handcuffs and other strange devices dangling off them to be used at a moment’s notice. The gunners moved quickly, well-trained and direct, to stand in a small firing line in front of Casey who now stood between them and the kids. The armed men and women held their weapons ready to fire, and one barked an order.\n\n\t“Hand over the alien!”\n\n\tCasey raised his hands – not in surrender, but in slight panic as he stepped back. “What the hell is this?!” He shouted, “Where did you get those weapons?!”\n\n\t“The alien!” One of the men shouted, “Now!”\n\n\tCasey was smart enough to know that their company weren’t police or rangers. He was smart enough and well-versed in history enough to know that the weapons they were carrying were very illegal. Those facts alone were enough to place his immediate distrust in them. He narrowed his eyes a little and stepped forwards, away from the kids who were desperately looking for a way to escape.\n\n\t“I don’t know what’s going on or what you mean,” He said, “But I know you have no right to go pointing those things at me!”\n\n\tGruffly, the same man barking demands responded, “We only want the pig,” He said, “Hand her over.”\n\n\tLaila tried to lean towards Daxton while holding perfectly still, the result being a stiff and barely-there movement. “Yeah,” She said in a hushed tone, “They’re just gonna let us mosey on and call the police. Tell me another one.”\n\n\t“Yeah, no kidding,” Daxton scoffed.\n\n\tQuincey stared at one of the men holding the weapons, and they were staring back. Their sights were fixated entirely on her, even if their aim was trained on someone else. They had picked targets and were just waiting for one of them to make a move, to give them any excuse to start firing… She tried to shrink behind Daxton as much as possible, her legs shaking and her breath wavering. “Daxton…” She jittered, “W-What do we do?”\n\n\t“You guys are full of shit!” Kenny shouted as he took one step forwards. All the weapons centered on him at once, making him freeze up almost mid-stride. He raised his hands, his sword held tightly in one and the handcuffs dangling off the wrist of the other. “You’re not going to let us walk away, so cut the crap!” He said, “Casey, these guys have been chasing us around too. Don’t listen to them, they’re just a bunch of assholes.”\n\n\tCasey barely turned his head to regard Kenny, “Yeah. I gathered that.”\n\n\t“You do realize you’re risking the young girl’s life,” Casey spoke up, “Interfering with her task could very well set that alien off and force its hand. You’re going to kill her.”\n\n\t“We won’t ask again,” The man said, ignoring Casey’s plea.\n\n\tDaxton reached behind him and took hold of Quincey’s hand. They held on to each other’s hands tightly. Laila, noticing this, suddenly felt anxious to get moving; and Kenny, for all his bravado, now flicked his gaze from one man to the other and took the slightest of steps backward. It was quiet forever. Seconds dragged out into minutes, or so it felt, as everyone stood not making a move. The gunmen, with the obvious advantages of numbers and force, patiently waited for their mark to comply. And then there was Casey.\n\n\tThe man shot a look over his shoulder, his eyes looking wild, and he shouted just one word.\n\n\t“RUN!”\n\n\tThe word was punctuated by gunfire, a shot striking Casey’s side and taking him off his feet. More shots zipped through the air, striking trees past the kids and dirt where they had been standing. All at once they scrambled towards the trees, ducking unseen blasts of force that tore bark and cracked wood. They didn’t look back to see Casey throw his hand out to catch a gunman’s leg and bring him to the ground, attempting to wrest the weapon from his hands before the Travelling Guide was overwhelmed by sheer numbers and struck in the side of the head by the butt end of a rifle.\n\n\tOne of the turrets fired, launching a blast that sent waves rippling through the air, distorting sound and light around it. The shot flew just wide of Kenny, who flinched and stumbled aside when it crashed into a thin tree and dented it like it was made of something far weaker than wood. The tree creaked and fell behind the boy as he continued his sprint into the woods hot on the heels of his friends. The only way they knew they were being followed was when they heard yelling from behind them as they plunged into the brush.\n\n\t“Alright if that thing doesn’t kill us, it’s going to cripple us for life!” Kenny shouted, “And… oh shit, they’re coming!”\n\n\tThe tree line along the river wasn’t so thick that they couldn’t see the truck skipping over the surface of the water, engines flaring to follow along at pace with them. They were forced to veer deeper into the forest lest they suffer another attack from the weapon mounted on the truck’s bed, having no choice but to try and lose their pursuers in the thicker brush of the forest.\n\n\t“Find somewhere to hide!” Daxton shouted, “Get moving!”\n\n\tTheir only choice was to hide behind trees, and it was hard enough to find any that were wide enough for them to be unseen. Birch trees made for poor cover, but there were other trees more fitting, albeit few and far between. Daxton ducked behind a maple tree and pulled Quincey in front of him, the pair of them standing with their backs to the tree and trying to be as flat and small as possible. Kenny found a rock just big enough for him to get behind, and he ducked down low, poking his head up only to get a handle on where the gunmen were. The three that had assaulted the camp were following on foot, with the truck keeping pace with them along the river to provide more eyes and support.\n\n\tLaila tried to hide nearby, but had difficulty staying hidden. The men focused on her, firing at the tree she stood sideways behind, blowing chunks off the bark and making her yell and curse and fall back further into the woods.\n\n\t“We can’t get away from trucks,” Quincey shook, “What are we gonna do?”\n\n\tDaxton made a thoughtful sound as he turned his head and tried to peek beyond the tree. “There’s only three of them, what if we get around them?” He suggested, “If we can get you behind them at least, then you have less chance of getting caught.”\n\n\t“Me? What about you?!” Quincey breathed.\n\n\t“I’ll figure something out,” Daxton shook his head, “Look, go to Kenny, okay? We’ll make sure they…”\n\n\tDaxton tried to duck back as one of the men broke past them several feet away. He continued on into the forest after Laila, missing the pig and corgi entirely. “We’ll make sure they don’t see you,” Daxton finished. He moved Quincey to push her off to the side towards Kenny just before he thrust himself out from the other side of the tree and caught the second pursuer with a sudden charge. Daxton used the man’s momentum to lift and haul him over his shoulder, throwing the man to the ground with a labored toss. The man landed with the wind knocked out of him, and Daxton crouched down immediately to grasp the man’s gun.\n\n\t“Daxton!” Quincey cried.\n\n\t“Run, alright?!” Daxton shouted back, before the man thrust his gun up and clipped Daxton in the side of the head. The boy was thrown aside, but practically whiplashed himself back on top of the gunman, throwing punches at the man’s face as they struggled on the ground.\n\n\tQuincey didn’t want to turn away, but she did. She ran towards Kenny’s hiding place and no sooner did she take two steps in the lemming boy’s direction did he dash out from behind his rock and charge the last gunman. A shot fired and missed the boy, flying over his shoulder before he met the gunman and clumsily took him to the ground. Kenny, smaller and quicker, scrambled to straddle the man and quickly drew the sword he carried and raised it high above his head before plunging it straight down.\n\n\tThe sword met the man’s gun as he tried to defend himself. The blade punctured the Curon shell, slicing into the mechanics within and damaging whatever was inside. The weapon began to superheat almost immediately, and Kenny withdrew in a flash, tearing his sword away to give the fusion core energy a means of escape from the weapon’s shell. Energy poured out from the opening before the gun finally popped, bursting in plasma flame. The resulting explosion had just enough impact to knock the man onto the ground and back a few feet through the dirt where he stopped moving and lay unconscious. Quincey trounced past the boy as he breathed out a nervous sigh of relief.\n\n\t“Where are you going?!” Kenny yelled after her.\n\n\t“I… don’t know!” She yelled back, “Behind them, I…”\n\n\tShe paused as she glanced towards the river just by chance and managed to see a fallen tree that bridged the rushing waters. It was so clear through the brush, almost as if it were part of a path, and it very well could have been. The truck on the river had already passed it. Its gravity skiffs must have simply lifted it over the obstacle. When Quincey saw the fallen tree, she pointed to it. “There!” She said, “If we get to the other side of the river then we can hide!”\n\n\tKenny followed her gesture and quickly caught on. “Then run your ass over there!” He said, “Hurry!”\n\n\tShe did so with Kenny hot on her heels. He was easily able to catch up, but stayed at her back and kept watch as they darted through the wood. They came out at the river’s edge just as the truck sped too far downstream to really see clearly, and its attention was focused somewhere in the woods where Laila and Daxton had stayed behind. Quincey stopped dead at the broken base of the tree, its roots creating something of an obstacle she’d have to climb over just to get onto the naturally-made bridge. The water beneath had been so flooded by the rain they had experienced over the past few days that the rapids lapped at the tree and swallowed its bottom. The merciless, booming rush of water just served to remind Quincey that she could not swim.\n\n\t“Quinn, hurry up!” Kenny said as he pushed up behind her and tried shoving her onto the tree, “Before someone sees you; you have to move now.”\n\n\t“Kenny, wait!” Quincey squealed as she pushed back against him, “I don’t…! I can’t!”\n\n\t“Don’t you say ‘never say you can’t’ or something?” Kenny asked, “Just do it!”\n\n\tQuincey wasn’t moving. She was too scared to climb onto the tree and attempt to cross it. Kenny turned his attention to the woods, just barely able to make out figures in it darting one way or the other. He wasn’t sure if who he saw were his friends or the men chasing them, and he was anxious to get back there and help get them out of that mess. But if Quincey was caught, it was all going to be for nothing… so he turned instead and sheathed his sword before climbing onto the fallen tree himself. He simply shoved the girl aside and lifted himself with a firm grasp on the roots of the tree. Once he was perched on top, he reached down and grabbed Quincey’s shirt to haul her up with him. He could barely move her, but she climbed up with all the grace and nimbleness of a fish on land.\n\n\tUpon reaching the top, after flopping over several times, Quincey encountered other things she hadn’t anticipated. The tree was old, water-worn, and the bark was slippery and wet.\n\n\t“Kenny, this was a bad idea,” She blurted out, “We can’t do this!”\n\n\t“I’m just helping you across, then I’ll go back for Daxton and Laila,” Kenny said as he took hold of Quincey’s hand, “Come on, you have to do this.”\n\n\tWithout waiting for an answer, Kenny pulled. Quincey nearly slipped and fell, stumbling into the smaller boy and nearly taking him with her. By some miracle they stayed standing on the tree, and when Kenny got his footing again he continued to pull her along even when she actively protested or started to panic. Several times they stopped, only making it half way or a little more before Quincey simply froze up with fear and started to really try to get away. It became a fight with the girl just to keep her on track.\n\n\t“No! Stop!” Quincey cried and started to sob, “Stop it! Stop! We’re gonna fall!”\n\n\t“You’re almost there you fat dope!” Kenny growled as dangerously as a rodent could, “Stop freaking out! It’s just a little farther!”\n\n\tKenny saw the camp out of the corner of his eye. It was a fair distance away, but close enough to the river’s edge that it was visible from where he stood. He didn’t really take much notice at first, but something kept pulling his gaze back to that spot. At first he thought he may have been worried about Casey, wondering what happened to the older man who had been taken down by those thugs. It wasn’t until he noticed the second truck pulling forward that everything clicked into place. The vehicle pulled forwards to settle lengthwise across the river, the weapon mounted on the back still manned. It swiveled and took aim.\n\n\t“Quincey, come on…!” Kenny said, not meaning to alarm the girl but his wide-eyed stare was unmistakable. Quincey looked in the same direction and sucked in a frightful gasp.\n\n\tKenny turned, and his foot slipped. But it wasn’t even half a second before the unseen force fired from the mounted turret whistled through the air and crashed into them. An intense pain and untold kinetic force pushed their feet out from under them and made the tree explode out from under them in the middle, separating it into two parts and giving them the perfect space to fall into. They met the water with a splash that was silenced by the rushing current that immediately swept them up.\n\n\tFor a moment the chaos of the outside world was literally drowned out. All the rifle fire and shouting was silenced by the hum of water surrounding the boy and girl. The sky seemed brighter under the rippling surface, and things were peaceful in comparison. The strong current pushed on them, taking even Quincey’s heavier body away. The girl had the swimming skills of a rock, and she would have sunken quite quickly had Kenny not done his best to grab and hold her. The muted sound of rushing water came back in force as she was lifted, and her ears finally broke the surface with a gasp for air.\n\n\tKenny held Quincey with both arms, trying to lift her weight from behind with his arms clamped around her belly. He gripped her with one hand and clenched a white-knuckled fist around his sword with his other hand, and hefted. He rolled backwards as the river took him, his head plunging back under the water for a moment, so then he pushed. He bobbed back up, forwards, and then nearly dunked the pig girl into the water instead. Her front plunged into the rapids for only the briefest of seconds until Kenny could right her again. She emerged in a coughing fit, her glasses torn from her face by the violent rush.\n\n\t“Hold on!” Kenny yelled above the rapids.\n\n\t“… C… Can’t… Kenny!” Quincey yelled back, before letting out a shrill squeal when the boy’s back suddenly impacted something and sent them careening over a sudden decline, plunging them into white, foamy waters once more. She tried to hold her breath and only ended up sucking in more river water to do it, and she was hauled back above the water’s surface by Kenny, her world spinning around. She didn’t have the energy to struggle, and she gradually became dead weight in the boy’s arms.\n\n\tRocks whipped by and the pair plunged over more declines and small falls. The truck that had once sped downstream didn’t even notice them as they overtook it. They were sent tumbling under the vehicle as it floated maybe a foot above the surface and Kenny had the mind to thrust his hand up and grab hold of some of something on the vehicle’s undercarriage. His grip only lasted a few seconds, stopping their trip downstream for only as long before his water-slicked grip failed and they were pulled by the river once more.\n\n\tIt was Laila who noticed struggling in the water, happening a glance riverward to spot them from where she hid. “Oh my god,” She whispered, before pushing her head out from behind the tree she hid behind to shout, “Daxton! Quincey and Kenny…!”\n\n\tShe silenced herself with a squeak as a well-placed shot from perhaps the last pursuing gunman struck the tree by her cheek, sending splinters and wooden flecks up into her face and causing her to stumble. Daxton had turned his attention to Laila as he followed behind her, or tried to, pausing when the giraffe fell to the ground. He swept his gaze around to try and locate Kenny and Quincey as Laila had mentioned them, but he was so far from the river that there was no chance of seeing them. His pause gave the truck on the river the opening it needed, the turret on the back whirring to life and firing a shot. It flew from the barrel with an energized ‘pew’ and yet still sounded like it was firing a pumpkin as the ball of force left the apparatus and was sent whistling through the air.\n\n\tThat whistle was all the warning Daxton had, and he barely lifted his arm and leg in some vague attempt to shield himself from the blow. He was swept off his feet and carried through the air so far and so quickly that he lost track of everything. It wasn’t until he struck a tree that had to have been six feet away or more that things got some clarity – namely the splitting pain that shot up his side as his ribs made contact with the unforgiving maple, driving the air from his lungs so his cry of pain came only in a breathless whisper. He fell to the ground after bouncing from the tree’s surface, the pain turning his limbs into jelly and making every attempt to reclaim the air stolen from him an agonizing experience. He rolled onto his front and grit his teeth, managing to plant his elbows under him and attempt to lift himself. It was to no avail, as putting any weight on his arms simply caused him to flop back onto the ground.\n\n\tIn the water, Kenny and Quincey had cleared Laila and Daxton, leaving them and any hope of a real rescue behind. They splashed and struggled, but found no bearing in the water’s relentless grasp. They struck one rock, then two, and then three, bouncing and bounding off every one as the current allowed them no time to absorb the impacts or what was really happening to them. Pain wracked their bodies along with the numbing fear of drowning or worse. Kenny’s back flared in pain he thought he’d forgotten, feeling as if his spine were trying to rend itself from his body. Quincey’s thick, soft body started to feel spongier than ever as her skin was battered, bruised, and numbed by the water’s chill.\n\n\tKenny started to panic. He could hardly hold on to Quincey any longer and was wrought with terror upon thinking that he would perhaps drop her. She was limp in his arms, and he wished for nothing more than to hear her screaming and to be annoyed by how much she flailed around in his attempts to keep her upright. Instead he got nothing from her; just silence and dead weight. That was more horrifying than anything he could have imagined, and so he started to scream as he held to her tighter than ever.\n\n\tThe last thing he heard was a loud CRACK. He couldn’t even feel the pain of his body side slamming into a shallow before he slipped into blackness.\n\n-\n\n--\n\n-\n\n\tQuincey was a sixteen year old girl. She was almost a grown-up: mature, learned, goal oriented and aware of the future. She knew that one day she would leave behind the school she knew, she would move on to university, she would get a degree and then get a job. She would get a family of her own one day and become responsible for more than just herself. One day in the future she’d be a larger part of the community. She knew all that, and yet her thoughts were suppressed to childish simplicity. In that moment she was painfully aware that she was a teenage girl, a smart one, and yet her mind felt… light.\n\n\tThere was nothing to think about. The sun was out, the grass was green, and the world couldn’t have extended from beyond the playground for all she cared. Everything could have been a blank space beyond the fence – there were no jobs that needed to be done and no responsibilities. All she needed to worry about was pumping her chubby legs back and forth on the swing to propel herself as high as she might dare to. That was where she sat, just there on the swings in a playground that was familiar and yet confusing. The slide nearby, jutting like an obelisk from poured sand that covered the grass, and the ferry-go-round were familiar. She couldn’t help but get the sense of déjà vu as she watched seemingly nondescript children frolic and play.\n\n\tHer brain pushed against some kind of boundary, something that bothered her. It was like she had forgotten something and wanted to remember it, but her brain refused outright. There was no point thinking about it anyway as the sun was warm and her bare toes felt great as she wiggled them around and swung on the swings. There was nothing more than that. Whether she should have been there or not was of no real consequence, because she couldn’t get in trouble for just being a kid and just playing like she was supposed to.\n\n\t“Nyeh! Daxton can’t see! Daxton can’t see!”\n\n\tThe sound of Daxton’s name caught Quincey’s ear before the tone of the obnoxious torment in whoever’s voice it was fully registered with her. The first thought that ran through her head was that she did indeed know Daxton, which should have been something second-nature and simply not needing any form of reassurance. Why she reminded herself that she knew Daxton, she didn’t know, but then her memory seemed to wriggle back into the comfort of its blissful ignorance and she was set into a simplistic thought-process once more. She slowed her pumps on the swing and started to come down from the half-arch she’d managed to reach. The world blurred past as she swung back and forth and gradually came to a stop.\n\n\tWhat had once just been blurred motions of grass-sand-sky became a clearer picture. Just feet from her was a four-year-old Daxton whom she recognized from that stage of his life by the short hair he had and the fact that he was attempting to reach for a pair of opaque glasses that some other kid held far out of his reach with an expression of menace. It was hard to make out just what sub-species of human was tormenting the poor corgi puppy – there was a group of them but their shadowy forms seemed to shift and slide from one shape to the next. Sometimes they had tails, sometimes they had longer ears, and then sometimes they lacked any features at all. They existed as static fuzz in an otherwise clear world. Daxton was dressed in his little brown overalls and a red t-shirt, and he was whining.\n\n\t“Give them back!” The boy wailed. The sixteen-year-old Daxton was nowhere to be found in the persona of the four-year-old one. He screamed and was quick to tears and was helpless.\n\n\tWithout those glasses, Daxton couldn’t see. Those glasses, back then, were his STOP. Having them taken away by the other kids made the world disappear into complete and utter darkness, and Quincey could tell by watching that Daxton was scared and embarrassed. With sight gone, Daxton was afraid to take a step. He didn’t want to move in case the ground just suddenly wasn’t there any longer. He didn’t want his disfigured eyes to be exposed for everyone to see because they would point and laugh, or get frightened and scream, or any number of awful things. But it seemed other kids delighted in the power rush they felt rendering another human being helpless before them. It seemed like there was something rewarding about watching Daxton squirm.\n\n\t“Gimmie!” Daxton tried to make a grab for where he thought his glasses might be. He was off by a mile, he grabbed at the air and cried out in terror as he fell. The cry was cut short as he hit the grass, but he’d been so frightened by the idea that he was going to fall into a hole or off a cliff that he broke into bawling as he clutched the grass. The other kids laughed.\n\n\tIt was disgusting to watch. Even if the saying “kids will be kids” held any sort of water, to see a human at their most innocent bear such a mocking grin as they harassed another was an utter injustice. Quincey knew that because she watched some of those shows on her PET, like Bobby Bobcat, which said bullying was wrong and that no one should be mean to other people. But even if it was bad and Quincey knew it was bad… something about watching it was scary. Rather than march over to the little twerps and give them a stern talking to, she instead locked up and felt a churning in her stomach.\n\n\tIf she said anything, then she’d get teased instead.\n\n\tMore kids gathered around to see what was happening. A lot of them didn’t like it either, but they were fascinated by the display. Just like the bullying kids were fascinated by being able to render Daxton helpless, their audience was amazed at the ability and had reservations about trying to stop it because… what were they supposed to do? If they tried to fight, they would get in trouble. If they tried to yell at the bullies, they would have the ire turned onto them. The best thing to do, in their minds, was to stay quiet.\n\n\tQuincey watched as one of the blurry shadow kids gave Daxton a kick. The churning in her tummy did a little flip at the sight and she found herself wriggling her bottom out of her seat on the swing and taking a stand. She took a breath to yell at them before she went charging in like a wild hog, but all that came out was a scared, shaky whisper.\n\n\t“S… Hey…”\n\n\tShe couldn’t even speak up over the crowd that had gathered, but she took a deep breath to try again. Her body shook, but she tried anyway. Just releasing another shout made a rush of fear flow through her. It made her hair tingle and her tailbone feel funny.\n\n\t“S-Stop…!”\n\n\tHer mounting frustration at her own cowardice forced her to give up the ghost. Clenching her little hands into white-knuckle fists, she closed her eyes tight and gave a scream.\n\n\t“Leave him alone you meanies!”\n\n\tThe crowd of kids, befuddled, watched as a huffy little piglet stormed her way into the center of it all to grab Daxton and haul him up off the ground. She held him like a prized teddy bear. She squeezed him, her fat, freckled cheeks all reddened and her eyes all puffy and watery behind her glasses. She looked kind of silly in her little outfit made with a small modern tutu and a little shirt that was too small so her portly little tummy stuck out. She was kind of big though compared to the other children, enough that they took some prudence before pursuing her.\n\n\t“Don’t touch him, he’s got ugly-face!”\n\n\t“Quincey likes the doggy-freak! He’s her booooyfriend!”\n\n\t“Are you gonna kiss his ugly face?”\n\n\tQuincey couldn’t have grumped any harder, and she had a few choice words for the kids. All that came out though was, “Shut up, stupid-butts!”\n\n\tIt wasn’t the most creative thing she had ever come up with, but she was furious. She watched from behind her own eyes as the static-fuzz that made up the crowd got quiet and murmured. The bullies were jarred by such a declaration of their rear-ends’ intelligence and couldn’t think of an appropriately awful response to retaliate with. The rest of the crowd, stunned into silence, watched to see just how quickly it was before Quincey would get her tail straightened. She knew it was a distinct possibility, but as Daxton rested against her in a defeated slump she held him tighter and stood her ground.\n\n\tOne kid decided they were brave enough to show Quincey what was what. She was big, but a good shove tipped her round form over and she fell back. She fell way back, really far back, and the sudden feeling of inertia that washed over her made it feel as if she really had fallen off a cliff. She gasped for a breath, staring upwards as she clutched Daxton and realized she was falling into a void. She stared back at a hole that had been ripped seemingly into space, and from within it the beady yellow eyes of a blue, inky form stared back at her and gave her a cheeky wave. That sight got rapidly smaller as it got further and further away and Quincey continued to plummet into spatial nothingness.\n\n\tShe whipped her head around to look at Daxton, whose frame had become completely white and felt like gelatin. He continued to grasp tightly to her and tried to hide his face, looking as if his features had been drawn on with black marker. He looked like an inkling… and as she glanced at him, she realized that she did too. Her body was silvery, the same sort of silver goop that she knew to belong to Duplex. She was all grown up again, trapped in Duplex’s form, an inkling clinging to what seemed to be a small inkling child.\n\n\tThe falling stopped. After a while gravity seemed to dissipate, leaving Quincey and the child floating in a place that defied Quincey’s abilities of perception. It… seemed like outer space, or perhaps something like it. There were no stars to be seen, but the void took on ripples of colour and certain patterns that crossed her vision but weren’t always plainly obvious. It seemed to be alive with motion or… something she couldn’t have possibly explained. Wherever she was, the portal she’d been pushed through that lead there was closed or gone or something. She was stuck there with this… white, blobby puppy. Daxton’s shape wavered in her arms, like little parts of his squishy body would break off like liquid in zero-G. Quincey found herself desperately trying to hold the inkling together in her arms. She actually panicked when it seemed like Daxton would just break apart.\n\n\tDaxton clenched his eyes. The drawn-on curves that looked like cartoony, closed eyes made an angled shape as his little mouth made a grimace. White erupted from his body and surrounded them – not light, but simply… white. As if the reality around her was simply burnt away, a messy blotch of white replaced the immediate area around the two of them. She could actually see the edge of it, where the white, empty space was bordered by the strange void she’d fallen in. The space had simply been replaced.\n\n\t“Wake up.”\n\n\tA sharp voice startled her, one that sounded both close and far. She looked to the white Inkling in her arms and it stared back up at her with black, empty eyes like holes bored into its face with faded, unnerving edges. It reached up, no longer Daxton’s shape at all, and placed a small hand upon her cheek. It felt cold and strange upon her skin, and as it rested there the Inkling continued to stare blankly at her face. Quincey pulled her head aside, and the spot where her cheek met the alien’s hand stretched. She was stuck to it. Her heart jumped with fright.\n\n\t“Quincey, wake up.”\n\n\tThe cold contact got more intense. It built so rapidly that the chill became a stinging, biting sensation like she’d come into contact with liquid nitrogen. It was the sort of cold that felt like burning, like her flesh would start to sizzle despite the temperature being on the complete opposite of the spectrum. Quincey screamed and pulled, trying to free herself from the Inkling’s grasp, but her limbs were locked like she’d succumbed to rigor mortis.\n\n\tQuincey’s cheek began to dissolve. The same white that surrounded her began to eat away at her physical constructs. The pain flared to levels she never thought imaginable. It was so intense, so tormenting a pain that her scream were choked into a breathless gasp. Her eyes shot open wide and stared with a painful dryness into the emptiness of the white void as the Inkling ate away at more and more of her face. Soon, she had no cheek, and there was nothing inside of her, just more emptiness. She was being erased.\n\n\t“H… Help…”\n\n\tShe breathed but it felt as if her throat had a gaping hole burned into it. What came out of her mouth were barely wisps of a word.\n\n\t“S… Sto… p…”\n\n\tHer vision began to burn. Like film melting in a projector, white holes appeared in her eyes that blotted out reality.\n\n\t“Come on, wake up!”\n\n\tHands grabbed at the white Inkling in Quincey’s arms. One was a sort of turquoise blue and the other was a gentle yellow. They pulled at the creature but couldn’t wrest it from Quincey’s stiff grasp. The hands belonged to other Inklings, more that Quincey didn’t recognize. They pulled at the white, empty one furiously, only managing to shake the thing around as Quincey continued to fade away into nothingness. Her body felt light, it felt like it was all around her, like her arms and legs were no longer attached and a lot of her was just… somewhere else.\n\n\t“Wake up!” More voices came. She recognized some, but not others.\n\n\t“Wake up!” They chanted. Kenny’s harsh tones broke through the mess of sounds she heard, her ears had started to ring.\n\n\t“Wake up!” Soon there was nothing left, only voices.\n\n\t“Quincey Abram, wake up!”\n\n\tEverything went white like an explosion had gone off. It made Quincey’s ears ring, even when her eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring up at wooden rafters. She scrunched up her face and loosed a gentle groan, pain flaring in the muscles in her face at even that much movement. She shifted her weight to test, finding pain throbbing over her body in various parts. One of her shoulders ached and her stomach felt like it wanted to split apart. Her movements were weighed down by the heavy presence of a blanket covering her decidedly naked body; she could feel the sheep’s wool rubbing against her body in a warm, if not slightly itchy manner. She was in a bed, head upon a pillow, and safe from the rushing currents of the water that threatened her some time before.\n\n\tShe lifted her arm and heard the clink of metal, and immediately her wrist was weighed down by some bracelet and an object attached to it. She opened her eyes and lifted her arm further, breaking free of the covers and finding her wrist clamped with the glowing blue fastens of a pair of handcuffs. In the other cuff was familiar gray furred hand of Kenny Baxter. When she followed the boy’s arm up to his face, he was lying next to her with his eyes barely open.\n\n\tHe didn’t say anything, but when he saw her look his way he sort of smiled. He moved closer to her, and with a pained groan rolled his body to try and embrace her. The fact that his right wrist was cuffed to Quincey’s left made the act a little awkward, and Kenny’s weight rolling over the girl’s arm made her gasp in pain. Kenny immediately backed off and edged away from her, in no less pain himself. He laid out on his back then with an exhausted flop, his breathing shallow as he looked straight up at the roof of whatever room they found themselves in.\n\n\tIt was some kind of cabin in the woods. There was no light aside from some sun breaking through the window, and everything – the walls, the roof, the floor – was wood. Even the bed’s creaky frame had that sound of low-quality, home-made carpentry, and various accents around the room were just as wooden. What was more surprising that the man-made lighting objects placed around the room for night time were ancient things like wax candles in pewter holders and lanterns around the room. There was a cupboard hanging over a small shelf, and upon the shelf were various medical tools – tweezers, gauze, scissors, thread, alcohol and the like. A small table being used as a desk housed a snuffed-out candle and an honest-to-goodness paper book, with an inkwell just waiting to be used.\n\n\tNothing looked as if it were crafted with molds or frames. Everything had the slightest imperfection to set it apart from something that would have normally looked exactly the same. None of the candles held the exact same shape as they were meant to, rather as approximate to the shape as humanly possible. There were absolutely no electronics to be found anywhere, without the slightest evidence of there even being heating. The room was rather chilly, and with the logs acting as walls of the cabin one could only assume drafts were getting through just about everywhere. Fortunately it was warm under the covers of the bed, which seemed ancient itself. The wool blanket was very heavy, and the mattress sunk under the wounded pair, stuffed with something far softer than foam. Most modern beds would have subtly shifted to distribute weight and posture, but that one didn’t.\n\n\tEverything just smelled like wood, too. Quincey snorted and wrinkled her nose. She tried to sit up, but her abdomen flared up in pain with the effort so she just flopped back down. The impact made her back hurt, too.\n\n\t“Where are we?” She asked, “It looks like we landed in the 18th century.”\n\n\t“If I see… one pair of pantaloons,” Kenny breathed, “I quit.”\n\n\tQuincey rested a hand over her soft belly – the hand that wasn’t cuffed to her friend. “I hurt all over…” She said.\n\n\t“I dunno if my ribs are broken or just bruised…” Kenny almost wheezed, “But I can barely breathe.”\n\n\tQuincey lifted up the covers to examine herself. Again, doing anything with her arm made her shoulder hurt, and the reason was obvious. Her pink skin had a series of darkened, purpled bruises, one covering a majority of her stomach and another pretty much surrounding her whole shoulder. Kenny’s were harder to see, especially since almost his entire chest had been wrapped up in bandages. To say nothing of the fact that his body was covered in fur, making things harder to observe without actually touching him. The bruise on his back had spread to his neck, the colour coming around from the back being a gross yellow. Quincey knew enough about anatomy to know that the colour was because blood had been running under his skin. Both of them were completely naked, even their stickers had been removed.\n\n\tKenny let out a shuddering breath he had to stifle.\n\n\t“Don’t talk too much,” Quincey brought the blanket back down over them.\n\n\tKenny just grunted.\n\n\tQuincey looked over when a movement at the door caught her eye. A woman stepped into the room in an old-fashioned sort of dress Quincey wouldn’t have ever expected to see outside of the history texts or files on her personal PET. The girl pinned the fashion as early 19th century by the way it almost looked like a nightgown chemise covered by an over layer of pond green fabric. If someone had slapped a bonnet on her head, she looked like she would have fit in just perfect around the time where pilgrims had come to – or invaded, depending on your point of view – early America. She was a goat, that much was made clear by the way her dark brown fur gave her a scruff under her chin, and how she had little horns atop her head. She didn’t look old, but could have been anywhere in between twenty for fifty for all Quincey knew. She didn’t know how to read a goat’s horns to depict their age.\n\n\t“You’re awake,” The woman said in wonder. She hurried over to the bedside and got down on her knees so she could study the pair. She barely had to touch them, but she did so with a gentle hand, “How are you feeling?”\n\n\t“Like crap,” Kenny grunted.\n\n\t“That’s not surprising,” The woman said, “You were found washed up at the end of the river unconscious.”\n\n\tThe woman stood up and leaned over Quincey to gently spread open one of the girl’s eyes and stare into it. She had no equipment or anything to really be able to tell if Quincey was suffering from any sort of head trauma or concussion, and Quincey was pretty sure she wasn’t… maybe the woman was just doing it for kicks, to play doctor despite being overwhelmingly basic. Still, that little piggy was in no position to complain. It sounded like whoever this woman was helped save their lives.\n\n\t“Where are we?” Quincey asked.\n\n\tFinishing her examination of the girl, the woman stood. “Well,” She somewhat smiled, “It’s a relief to actually be able to tell you. You’re in Clarkston.”", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Quincey coughed. Rain came down in sheets, not falling but plastering against her from the dark and roiling storm clouds high above her. She shivered as biting cold nipped at her body from all over, her skin tense, so much so that her chest burned with pain. She couldn’t run anymore – the cold air made her lungs frigid and the sheer amount of water was enough to drown in if she weren’t careful. She could hardly see and she heard nothing but the torrential downpour of the rain crashing down to earth. She stopped, unable to move any longer, her legs turning to jelly and causing her to fall into the mud.

She balled her hands into fists, smearing the mud beneath her, creating divots in the earth that were filled with rainwater in less than a second. She felt so close! She couldn’t just fall down there, just roll over and wait for a death of cold. She kept herself on her knees and tried to push up, but just raising her butt in the air made her legs feel sore and brittle. She slumped back down again and hung her head so low it nearly touched the ground.

She was crazy to have tried this. She felt so horribly stupid over it all. Who did she think she was? She couldn’t walk to Locksmouth from Harbington, there was no way. What possibly possessed her to even try? There she was, days later, curled up in the mud, choking on bitter cold and tears. It was hard to breathe past all the blockage in her nose, hard to focus with how much her body was shivering. She felt like she was going to die.

But then, that was what drove her out there in the first place, wasn’t it? Death. The cold unknown, the thereafter, the fear of it had brought her out there. Miles from home, far from her family, far from the familiarity of Harbington, she had trotted out to escape death. She wasn’t sure at that moment what was worse: the bitter cold and soaking wet, or the withering death threatened upon her by a creature from beyond the dimensional rift. Which one would have hurt less?

Duplex, the Inkling… it was to blame for everything. Quincey could hear its voice nagging at her deep in the back of her mind, trying to spur her to keep going. It expected her to march like a soldier towards its goal, droning orders to her in her mind whenever she slowed down. She hated that creature with a passion she’d never felt towards another living creature before. Humans didn’t hate one another, not like this. Its reasoning for dragging her out there was to protect its home, and Quincey found herself caring less and less for what happened to it.

Still, Duplex droned on. She had to get up, she had to get to Locksmouth before it was too late.

Quincey let out a yell as loud as she could, but the sound just washed away in the rain. She shouted in anger, shouting at all the things she’d had to endure over the past several days and all the things it had done to her friends. Were they still behind her? Quincey hadn’t looked back to see her pack in a while, she had been leading them through the maelstrom and thought they were behind her. She didn’t check, not wanting to lift her head. She just yelled, then she sobbed, and she shivered uselessly on the ground. Duplex be damned, she wasn’t walking another step.

Normally, someone would have been by to pick her up. Daxton, the corgi boy who she loved so dearly, the boy with which she had entered a mutual, loving relationship with, was usually the first one to haul her up and dust her off. She didn’t feel his strong hands, he wasn’t there. Kenny wasn’t yelling at her, he wasn’t trying to shout her to her feet either; and Laila wasn’t trying either. No one came by to pick her up as she’d expected, and as the seconds ticked by she became more and more worried. Finally she looked up and turned her head to peer back over her shoulder.

There was just darkness and rain. She couldn’t see five feet behind her.

Turning her head forwards again, Quincey shoved herself onto her side and she fell into the mud with a splat. Her arms and legs went limp and she breathed out a wheezing sigh as she stared straight ahead into the darkness. She could see faint shapes like trees or something as the forest stretched on seemingly endlessly in front of her.

What had she been doing all this time? Why did she even start that crazy journey? She was no hero, she wasn’t going to help save Canvas or wherever that stupid alien came from. She was just Quincey, and she never did anything. Cold washed over her body the likes of which she’d never felt before, not from the warm comfort of her dome city. It seemed natural that this was her outcome; that she’d freeze to death in the middle of nowhere for thinking she could somehow save herself.

“To think,” She choked, “I felt bad for you.”

Duplex’s voice didn’t respond to her. She let a huff out of her nose that blew mucus over her face. She didn’t care.

“Serves me right,” She groaned.

Closing her eyes, she didn’t know how to continue. She simply lay limp in the mud, and before she even really knew it, words were passing her lips.

“I honor virtue. I benefit with gratitude. I am peaceful. I respect the property of others. I affirm that all life is sacred. I give offerings that are genuine. I live in truth. I regard all altars with respect. I speak with sincerity. I consume only my fair share. I offer words of good intent…”

She got through twelve of the 42 Ideals, revised from the 42 Laws of Ma’at – Goddess of truth, balance, and order – once practiced in Pre-Splice Egypt, when she saw a figure moving in the darkness. It was large and cast in blackness, barely visible beneath all the rain. She didn’t stop staring at it as it seemed to shamble through the stormy weather towards her, and she continued to speak.

“I relate in peace. I honor animals with reverence. I… can be trusted… I care… for… the earth.”

The figure stepped up to her, its feet slopping in the mud. Her words failed her, and she stared straight ahead at muddy boots. It seemed like ages that whoever it was stood over her, and her body tensed with every passing moment.

She screamed when someone grabbed her shoulder, and with that rush of energy leaving her everything went black.

When she awoke, she was warm. It took a moment to realize that she was out of the rain, able to listen to it pelting down from high above, hitting what sounded like a tent. It was definitely close quarters, she was so bundled up that her arms and legs had very little movement and when she lifted her head she saw that she was huddled in some blankets like she’d been wrapped in a cocoon. The tent she was in was lit by blue flame, the heat coming off it noticeable, casting the entire area in a blue light. Shadows crept in from the corners of the sizable shelter, and when she swept her gaze around other bundled up forms were cast in mostly darkness.

It was when she looked to her side that she was given a start. She saw a man’s face just staring back at her, with green eyes and long red hair draped a little over his white fur with grayish black spots. Not recognizing the man, Quincey immediately started to wiggle and try and free herself from her wrappings, managing to get one arm free. That’s when she realized she was naked. This gave her pause, for whatever reason, her safety somehow taking a back seat to her modesty in some base instinctual response.

Her eyes shot back to her supposed captor… and then she squinted. “Wait… Casey?” She almost whispered.

The camper they had met on their first night out of Harbington lay there with a bit of an uncomfortable smile on his face. He was once again dressed in a tight tank top that only covered his athletic chest and some shorts that clung attractively to his slender lower body. As Quincey’s eyes adjusted to the dark, however, she noticed that he was a bit… tangled up. Laila lay behind him, or rather somewhat over him. Her tall body embraced him from behind, arms wrapped around his chest and one leg hiked up to squeeze around his hips.

Casey dared not wiggle against his own captor, not wanting to wake the girl who had taken to being the ‘big spoon.’ He just gave Quincey a sheepish grin and whispered, “Uh, hi. Is she… does she always do this?”

As it turned out, the big, shambling form Quincey saw in the darkness was just Casey. He’d looked so strange because – and somehow she had failed to notice it before – he’d been wearing his backpack. Although to call it a ‘backpack’ was perhaps doing it an injustice. It may as well have been a duffle bag for a giant, it was so enormous that it would have dominated Casey’s back and jut up at least a foot above his head. It took up one corner of the tent, a true looming presence. Apparently Casey hadn’t been lying when he was fine with them taking some food before… he must have had enough to last him almost a month out in the wilderness.

Casey had found poor Quincey face down in the mud, all weak and collapsed and cold and shivering, and he’d quickly set up camp so he could give her shelter. Apparently, Daxton, Laila and Kenny hadn’t been too far away from her. She’d made it only about a dozen feet ahead of them before she’d collapsed. Casey had come across Kenny struggling to drag Laila who had limped herself to fatigue, and Daxton had just been… waiting, as if unsure of how to proceed, cold and wet and only having a blanket wrapped around him.

Casey took the lot of them into the tent, turned on the fire to warm the place up, stripped off their wet clothes which were now hanging on a wire to dry, and bundled them up. Apparently none of them had woken up until just then, Quincey being the first. The rest of Quincey’s pack was sleeping soundly.

“Wow… thank you, Casey,” Quincey meekly said.

“No problem, but now that you’re awake…” Casey started, his voice low, “I… well… I guess I’ll just say it. The police were looking for you. From Harbington.”

Apprehension welled up inside the girl, but it was for nothing. She let it out in a sigh and simply nodded, taking her eyes away from Casey. “Yes, they are,” She said.

Casey looked puzzled. “Why?” He asked, “What happened?”

Quincey wasn’t sure how to answer, but lying felt pointless. She could hear Duplex in her head trying to tell her not to expose them, but she shoved that nagging, robotic droning aside and shook her head. “Casey, I… I’m… infected…?” She wasn’t sure how to word it, and when Casey kind of recoiled, she scrambled for better wording. “I mean I’m a host to… to an Inkling,” She quickly rephrased.

Casey’s eyes widened considerably, and he stared at Quincey in horror. He didn’t move, but he visibly tensed up. “You mean… the aliens that invaded Locksmouth,” He said. Quincey nodded.

“But you… I…” Casey fumbled with his words, so Quincey decided to be honest. She told him everything starting from the beginning.

To his credit, Casey listened despite how he’d voiced his dissatisfaction towards the Inklings when they had first met. As Quincey told him about her struggles, about what Duplex’s supposed goal was, and about the gunmen attempting to hunt her down, his expression softened. He didn’t relax, but his expression went from being wrought with nervousness to a somber pity. Once she finished, he simply ducked his head in thought and responded with a simple, “I see.” It was probably a lot to absorb, so Quincey didn’t rush him. She just stayed still and rested her head on the pillow that had been tucked under her.

Eventually Casey moved. He didn’t say anything, but he pulled away from Laila, who snorted abruptly amidst a snore and stirred awake. As she opened her eyes and saw Quincey there, the pig girl eased her initial confusion by quietly explaining that Casey had found them. Laila looked surprised, but eased up and relaxed her body. She was noticeably tired. Laila reached out and gripped Quincey’s free hand and gave it a little squeeze as she sunk back into her pillow and promptly began to snore once again.

Quincey rubbed Laila’s hand, and when the giraffe fell back asleep she turned her head to look at Casey. She just watched him, watched the things he did and how he did them. He was very quiet; he barely made a sound as he opened up his girnomous bag and rummaged through the compartments in it. He never seemed to pull anything out, instead it seemed more like he was fidgeting. Eventually he simply sat back near the flame disc and stared quietly into the fire. If he noticed Quincey, he didn’t acknowledge her, and sometimes he would run his hand over his thigh to brush up his fur and then just smoothed it back down.

Quincey couldn’t stay worried; she was too tired. Her eyelids felt heavy, and after a while she just couldn’t keep them open anymore. She fell back asleep, warm and comfortable, in the closest thing to an actual bed she’d seen in almost a week. She almost felt guilty for allowing herself to carelessly fall back asleep, but fall asleep she did.

-

--

-

\t“Mmgh…” Quincey was groggy when she woke up. Maybe it was the sound of the birds that did it, tweeting about… The rain was gone, the sun was… well up. It was a nice change of pace from the last few overcast days. When she awoke, it seemed Casey was waiting for her. He beckoned her when he realized she was awake.

\t“I’m sorry, what was your name?” He asked as she sat up. Her blankets fell away from her body, but she kept herself covered to at least her chest. Fortunately she had her stickers on still, but even so she was a little embarrassed. Casey didn’t pay it any mind.

\t“Quincey,” The girl answered. It seemed her pack was stirring awake as well.

\t“Well, Quincey… I think there are a few things you need to understand,” Casey said, stretching out his legs so that his feet rested on either side of the since-put-out flame disc, “For starters, the Inklings… they terrify me. When they first arrived in Locksmouth, I thought for sure the world was ending. Buildings were crumbling and the power almost immediately went out in patches all over the city… I saw people get taken by those things, and I saw the worst of them do even worse things.”

\t“Mmnh? What’s going on?” Daxton rubbed his forehead as he sat up.

\tQuincey ignored him for the moment and nodded to Casey. “I… understand. It must have been really scary,” She said.

\t“Scary doesn’t even start to describe how I felt during the whole thing. I couldn’t wait to get out of there and come out here,” Casey almost laughed, “But… I just want you to understand that I see the Inklings… as monsters, invaders… the things they can do aren’t natural. They aren’t natural.”

\t“So you got a problem with us or what?” Kenny grumbled.

\tCasey rose a hand. “Tut-tut,” He said, “Hold on. The Inklings are monsters. Quincey… I don’t think you are a monster. There is a distinct difference. When I look in your eyes I don’t see the sorts of looks the people in Locksmouth had. They were distant, blank, some were… mad. You’re not like that, and it’s because of that… that I’m going to help you.”

\tThe kids couldn’t help but feel a little relieved that some people seemed to have a level head.

\t“It’s my way,” Casey said, “Our way, in any case. The way of Ducibus.”

\t“The whay of the wha?” Laila sat up, unashamed as her blankets fell away from her body to expose much of herself. She just rubbed her head and tried to straighten her hair, not minding.

\tQuincey furrowed her brow and puckered her lips in a thoughtful pout. Casey noticed her expression and eyed her curiously. “You’ve heard of that?” He asked.

\t“The way of the Ducibus, it was… It means ‘Guide,’ doesn’t it?” Quincey looked up to Casey’s gentle nod, and she too nodded, “Then… that’s Latin, right? Ducibus was an Order from the Neo-Medieval era. They were the ones that marked trails between settlements when people started to break off on pilgrimages to start villages. The Ducibus were the ones that set up the trade routes and things, right?”

\t“You’re well-learned in that, yes,” Casey smiled somewhat, “The Ducibus were sometimes known as the Travelling Guides. They made sure that travelers on the roads were safe and reached their destinations. They provided rest stops for caravans and other things of the nature – very nomadic. They weren’t the largest Order ever conceived, but they were crucial to the expansion efforts made by early pilgrims.”

\t“And what, yer one of ‘em?” Laila blinked a few times.

\tCasey nodded again, “A descendant, yes.”

\t“So your name is Casey Ducibus,” Quincey put the pieces together, and Casey couldn’t hide his smile.

\t“What a name, hm?” He shrugged and looked to his rather excessively large bag, “And be that as it may, it means that my family raised me to help those who need to get where they’re going. Whether I’m giving them directions or giving them supplies, it’s just my way of things.”

\t“Huh, well that’s pretty cool,” Daxton said, scratching his head. He sorely missed his hat, but he’d get it in time.

\t“Thank you,” Casey chuckled. He moved to his large bag and opened it up to dig around inside once again, “Now, normally I’d turn you over to the Rangers or the police… But you said that you were on this trip under a death threat?”

\tEveryone looked at Quincey, and she managed a simple, “Yes.”

\t“Then to turn you away would be no different than putting the final nail in your coffin, if you’ll pardon the expression,” Casey concluded, “So… I’m willing to offer you food and clothing. I should have some that fit…”

\tHe eyed Laila somewhat, “… Well, most of you. I’ll see what I can do to help you get set up and on your way.”

\t“Should have some one-size-fits-all in here…” He muttered as he turned back to his bag and continued searching through it.

\tThe kids all looked at one another in acknowledgement of just how relieving it was that Casey wanted to help. From the get-go they hadn’t encountered anyone like that, and they weren’t sure exactly what feelings welled up inside of them when confronted with it. It made them think of home, briefly, of people other than themselves and how they were getting along. It was hard, thinking about just themselves for that long. Try as they might, they couldn’t get their families out of their heads for more than a few hours at a time. They missed them; dearly so.

\tLaila sighed, squirming about on her butt anxiously. “Kenny can I take a gander at your PET?” She asked.

\t“For what?” The boy asked suspiciously.

\t“I just wanna check some stuff,” Laila returned, “I ain’t gonna do anything weird, just let me see it. I wanna check some messages and stuff n’mine fell into a river in case that slipped your noggin.”

\tKenny looked around, but had Casey direct him to his PET so he could retrieve it. It was kept separately from Kenny’s drying clothes; clothes that Kenny checked on when he handed his Taskmaster off to Laila. Kenny’s clothes were dry along with Quincey’s, so the two gathered up their things to put them back on. It was Daxton and Laila who had to have clothes passed off to them. Laila sat off to the side as she waited, sighing as she flicked her thumb across the PET’s screen, and tapping on things now and then. There was a dead silence in the tent that hung heavy around them.

\tLaila kneaded her own thigh. She had about a dozen messages from her little sister, Valyrie, all deposited into a cloud storage rather than sent directly to Laila’s PET. Laila read them, knowing full well that Valyrie would be informed that she had done so. There was a lot inside them messages about what her mother and father were doing, how they were acting… Valyrie was scared. Sometimes they’d be really mad and she wouldn’t know why, and then they’d just be sad. Dinner time was apparently the worst time of all, when no one was working or distracted. Laila’s whole family just sort of sat there, according to the messages, and were just… aware that Laila was missing. There was just this empty space where she should have been sitting.

\tValyrie missed Laila very much and was obviously upset. Bless the girl’s heart, however, she had a mind to ask about Quincey and Kenny too. The poor dear really liked Kenny and she wasn’t too young to not understand why Laila was out there in the wilderness. She knew that Quincey was involved, but according to the messages she thought it was Quincey’s fault Laila had been dragged out there at all. The words the little giraffe had picked for the pig girl were… harsh. When she read them, Laila glanced at Quincey out of the corner of her eye for a moment before returning to the screen.

\tThere were other messages too, about things going on in the city. Police investigations were happening and, apparently, someone she used to play Skyships of Conquest with had passed away. Strangely, Laila couldn’t find any good news – even Harbington’s weather looked dismal. It really had a way of making her feel miserable and bleak. It was only when she stopped reading that she realized her free hand had busied itself teasing her breast. It was a force of habit, a nervous reaction that she stopped upon noticing. Her body shivered and she let out another sigh.

\tThings just sucked. Everywhere.

\tIt made her think about what would happen after everything was all said and done; and to that end, what did have to be said and done. Getting to Locksmouth seemed like a major anti-climax. When they got there, then what? What was supposed to happen? Would Duplex just leave? What would happen after that? What would she go home to? Last thing she remembered from home was that she trashed her truck and broke at least half a dozen laws. Now she knew she’d put her family through hell, and that was just a whole other bag of worms she wasn’t sure she could deal with.

\t“Tarnation…” She breathed.

\tKenny leaned over and took her PET back from her. He pulled it slowly out of her hands, just to make sure she wouldn’t snatch onto it again. “Messages from your family?” He asked.

\tLaila’s expression changed to nervous for a brief second before she huffed, “Yeah, what of it? Got a problem?”

\tKenny stared at her for a lingering handful of seconds. “No,” He said simply, “No problem.”

\tThe gentle response was uncharacteristic of Kenny, and that struck home with Laila. Things were just wrong, and you’d know it as soon as Kenny started to be comforting.

\tFinally, Casey broke her train of thought by approaching her with some clothes. “Here,” He said, “I have some long boots too that should be pretty good.”

\tLaila took and studied the clothes. Lots of clothes were normally stretchy. Things like denim jeans were almost novelty due to the fact that they didn’t fit with the times. With human bodies varying so wildly from one another in any number of physical traits, clothes just had to be malleable to an extent. Some people were tall, some were thin, some were busty, and some had tail bases that were five inches wide while others had ones that were only three. Subspecies meant a lot, and Laila’s made it difficult to find clothes because length had to be directly addressed. She was lean and long, as a giraffe ought to be.

\tThe clothes Casey had found for her fit her expectations. The top she was given was a long-sleeved black turtleneck. It looked a size too small all on its own, but sliding it over her body saw it meeting comfortably to the contours of her torso and providing a warmth of thick, wooly material reminiscent of Quincey’s sweater. The jacket she received to wear over that was shorter than the sweater itself, obviously meant to be more style than anything and help keep the garment from getting wet. The treated leather was dyed a forest green and had various pockets where pockets were expected to be. Sewn-on patches of muddy brown covered her elbows and a small, angled partition at the back lower hem. It would have been a snug fit over her chest if she zipped it up. It only came down to waist, not reaching her hips, and had a fabric hood sewn into the collar with a fleecy lining.

\tShorts weren’t what she would have picked for fall weather, but that was what she got: one pair of stretchy, spandex running shorts. Maybe it was the only thing that would have fit her, but they covered precious little, to only her upper thigh. The black material was clingy and indeed stretchy, squeezing over Laila’s long and strong legs to provide some warmth. The boots she got were much better. They were just able to reach her knees, sheathing her calves and feet entirely in protective brown leather. The insides were insulated, nice and toasty, with warm faux fur and bore a flat sole. As opposed to her old cowboy boots – ones she was going to miss dearly – the flat heel of the new footwear would make for better hiking.

\tThe hood wasn’t made to accommodate her ossicones, the turtleneck was a little small for her long neck, and a little more of her legs were exposed than she would have liked, but at least green fit in better with the group. It was blue, red, yellow, and green; not blue, red, yellow and flannel. Also, it was better than nothing.

\t“Thank ya kindly,” Laila said, though her heart wasn’t all there. Casey noticed she sounded depressed, and even in not knowing her too long the look didn’t seem to work for her. He gave her an understanding smile and went to give Daxton his clothes.

\t“So whaddya reckon we do?” Laila addressed her growing number of concerns. “What happens now?”

\t“You were smart enough to follow the river,” Casey explained as he went back to his bag to find more clothes inside, presumably for himself, “You keep going. You’ll come to a village on the shore called Clarkston. I suggest you give them a bit of a berth, they’re Naturalists.”

\t“People that don’t wanna live in domes,” Daxton said as he pulled a shirt on over his head.

\t“Yeah,” Casey said, “They don’t really like… well, anyone. If you live in a dome, you’re basically some kind of… I don’t know, maybe they just think we’re soft.”

\t“Don’t they have domesticated animals and stuff?” Laila asked, “And real farms and livestock and everythin’?”

\t“They’re Post-Splice Amish,” Quincey shrugged her shoulders as if anyone there knew what that meant, “Traditionalist and religious, they live secluded lives and wholly oppose things like gengineering of foods and DNA manipulation, and most modern technology.”

\t“No PETs, no vets,” Kenny concluded.

\t“On the plus side, they passionately refute to be part of anything with any dome, and that includes law enforcement,” Casey said, “They won’t allow the police to be anywhere near that place if they can help it.”

\tDaxton stood, pulling his hat down over his blonde mop of hair and snug over his eyes. Once he did, he turned to his friends and held his arms out as he studied himself. He hadn’t seen exactly what he’d been given and had worked it on all by himself, revealing a navy blue, long jacket. The sleeves were folded neat and deliberate around his elbows to reveal the white inverse of the coat, buttons fastening the fold. The collar was high and exposed his neck, and the loose fabric around his legs circled him only three-quarters. The back was cut with a slip up the middle nearly to his rear, and the front covered his left leg like a regular coat while keeping most of his right one exposed. The collar was a dipping V, and the black fabric of whatever T-shirt he wore beneath had a low neck as well. Much of his collar bone was open to the air.

\tThe pants he wore were black as well, with stylized lines running along the seams, meeting with small circles near the hips, looking like some sort of circuitry. The pattern would have had the faintest glow in the dark, and the fabric was clingy as all get-out for maximum mobility. The shoes he wore upon his feet were simple street wear, black on white soles. The inside of the coat, if one looked close enough, had a similar pattern on the inverse side, so if the coat was folded inside-out, it would have been white with blue electronic styling.

\tHe tugged on a black pair of gloves he’d been given to wear. “So Clarkston has a ‘safe barrier’ then. So we go that way, go around the village, and then we’re at the coast, right?” He asked, getting a nod from Casey, “So then that’s where we go. Then we follow the coast right to Locksmouth and this whole crazy trip will be over. Easy-peasy.”

\tCasey had simply slipped on some gray pants and a shirt of a deep purple. “You’re sure you’ll be able to make the trip? It’s still quite a few miles,” He said as he stood from where he’d squatted.

\tDaxton gave him a look, portrayed of course only by the way his lips curled into a grin and a shrug of his shoulders. “We made it this far,” He said, “It’ll be easy. It’s just walking and it’s not impossible or anything.”

\t“You think?” Laila asked.

\tDaxton waved a hand carelessly. “I know,” He answered.

\tHe approached Quincey, who had been sitting rather quietly for some time where she had been resting. He squat down astraddle her and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “We’ve got this,” He said, “You don’t have to worry about anything.”

\tHe then gave her a kiss. Every kiss they’d shared since becoming partners felt so much different than the ones they’d sneak in when they were alone. Quincey always acted surprised when she was kissed, but her lips never pulled from his. Every kiss was shared, and with every kiss she put a bit more of herself into him.

\t“Mhm,” Quincey nodded to the affirmative.

\t“And Duplex doesn’t have any problem with this?” Daxton asked.

\tQuincey heard Duplex’s answer in her head: “We believe we have spent enough time…”

\t“I didn’t think so.”

\tDaxton pat Quincey on the shoulder as he stood up and made his way over to Casey. The two of them started going over what food they were going to part with, filling the carrying case with whatever assortment of food items the kids would have liked best. Daxton knew everyone’s tastes, having cooked so often for them before, so he was the authority on that sort of thing.

\t“Does he not care what we have to say?” Duplex asked. Quincey just grinned because no, Daxton didn’t care what Duplex had to say. He was so confident in his way of doing things that there wasn’t anything any of them could say to talk him out of it… and honestly, compared the mood he had been in the day before, Quincey very much preferred this.

\t“Let’s eat something,” Kenny finally said, “I’m hungry.”

-

--

-

\tThe group shared a slight breakfast, with Casey having plenty of food to share. Once they were full of milk, granola, yogurt tubes, and some preserved fruit, they were all set to go. With new food stores and new and dry clothing, Locksmouth seemed just that much closer.

\tCasey stood to see them off, finally wearing something identifiable. The white vest he wore had an all-black emblem etched into the back that looked similar to lighthouse, a visible flame drawn atop the obelisk. He said it was the symbol of his order, a guidepost. Seeing that, it felt as if Casey was something rather impressive, even if he just seemed like a normal man. It felt exciting to have gotten help from a member of an order well-known to anyone who paid enough attention during history class. He had hauled his large bag out of the tent to start cleaning things up after he saw the kids safely off, the thing sitting as big as a person at least.

\t“All set?” Casey asked. He looked beyond the quartet of kids, following the view of the river over their shoulders, “Follow the river and you should be fine.”

\t“Thanks,” Daxton nodded, “For everything, you know? I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t find us.”

\t“That’s literally my purpose,” Casey rolled his shoulders, “Just be careful out here, you never know what’s going to happen.”

\tThrough the rushing of the flooded river, the gust of the wind, and the rustle of the leaves, Daxton’s ear caught a sound that made him tighten his brow. It was a familiar sort of sound, but placing it out in the wilderness seemed like a wild idea. He turned his head, trying to strain his hearing to be sure. A powerful humming carried through the air, and grew louder with every passing second. The sound of energy being expelled to propel skiffs should not have been out there in the midst of nature.

\t“… Do you guys hear that?” He asked.

\tCasey stopped and turned his head to look upstream, “Is that…?”

\t“A vehicle!” Daxton shouted.

\tThe warning came too little too late as a large truck with big front lights and a flat grill tore into sight, throwing itself over stones and grass to land, swerve, and stop by the camp. A second truck roared up, travelling along the river, the skiffs keeping the vehicle above the water’s surface where it stopped at the kids’ side. The kids would have made a mad dash, scrambling immediately if they could despite their fright, but the trucks were equipped with weaponry enough to give them pause. The flatbeds on both vehicles housed a turret, large and imposing, manned by gunners that swerved the weapons on their stands and trained them on the group. The barrels on them looked like they were fitted to shoot bowling balls, and the weapons made an audible ‘whrrrr!’ sound as the gunners switched off their safeties.

\tThe first truck, parked precariously close to Casey’s tent, creaked as the doors opened and three people filed out. They were armed with rifles just like the ones Quincey and the others had encountered in the old museum, and they were dressed similarly too. Combat boots and combat fatigues, earpiece communicators and straps to keep their weapons secure over their shoulders. They were belts, handcuffs and other strange devices dangling off them to be used at a moment’s notice. The gunners moved quickly, well-trained and direct, to stand in a small firing line in front of Casey who now stood between them and the kids. The armed men and women held their weapons ready to fire, and one barked an order.

\t“Hand over the alien!”

\tCasey raised his hands – not in surrender, but in slight panic as he stepped back. “What the hell is this?!” He shouted, “Where did you get those weapons?!”

\t“The alien!” One of the men shouted, “Now!”

\tCasey was smart enough to know that their company weren’t police or rangers. He was smart enough and well-versed in history enough to know that the weapons they were carrying were very illegal. Those facts alone were enough to place his immediate distrust in them. He narrowed his eyes a little and stepped forwards, away from the kids who were desperately looking for a way to escape.

\t“I don’t know what’s going on or what you mean,” He said, “But I know you have no right to go pointing those things at me!”

\tGruffly, the same man barking demands responded, “We only want the pig,” He said, “Hand her over.”

\tLaila tried to lean towards Daxton while holding perfectly still, the result being a stiff and barely-there movement. “Yeah,” She said in a hushed tone, “They’re just gonna let us mosey on and call the police. Tell me another one.”

\t“Yeah, no kidding,” Daxton scoffed.

\tQuincey stared at one of the men holding the weapons, and they were staring back. Their sights were fixated entirely on her, even if their aim was trained on someone else. They had picked targets and were just waiting for one of them to make a move, to give them any excuse to start firing… She tried to shrink behind Daxton as much as possible, her legs shaking and her breath wavering. “Daxton…” She jittered, “W-What do we do?”

\t“You guys are full of shit!” Kenny shouted as he took one step forwards. All the weapons centered on him at once, making him freeze up almost mid-stride. He raised his hands, his sword held tightly in one and the handcuffs dangling off the wrist of the other. “You’re not going to let us walk away, so cut the crap!” He said, “Casey, these guys have been chasing us around too. Don’t listen to them, they’re just a bunch of assholes.”

\tCasey barely turned his head to regard Kenny, “Yeah. I gathered that.”

\t“You do realize you’re risking the young girl’s life,” Casey spoke up, “Interfering with her task could very well set that alien off and force its hand. You’re going to kill her.”

\t“We won’t ask again,” The man said, ignoring Casey’s plea.

\tDaxton reached behind him and took hold of Quincey’s hand. They held on to each other’s hands tightly. Laila, noticing this, suddenly felt anxious to get moving; and Kenny, for all his bravado, now flicked his gaze from one man to the other and took the slightest of steps backward. It was quiet forever. Seconds dragged out into minutes, or so it felt, as everyone stood not making a move. The gunmen, with the obvious advantages of numbers and force, patiently waited for their mark to comply. And then there was Casey.

\tThe man shot a look over his shoulder, his eyes looking wild, and he shouted just one word.

\t“RUN!”

\tThe word was punctuated by gunfire, a shot striking Casey’s side and taking him off his feet. More shots zipped through the air, striking trees past the kids and dirt where they had been standing. All at once they scrambled towards the trees, ducking unseen blasts of force that tore bark and cracked wood. They didn’t look back to see Casey throw his hand out to catch a gunman’s leg and bring him to the ground, attempting to wrest the weapon from his hands before the Travelling Guide was overwhelmed by sheer numbers and struck in the side of the head by the butt end of a rifle.

\tOne of the turrets fired, launching a blast that sent waves rippling through the air, distorting sound and light around it. The shot flew just wide of Kenny, who flinched and stumbled aside when it crashed into a thin tree and dented it like it was made of something far weaker than wood. The tree creaked and fell behind the boy as he continued his sprint into the woods hot on the heels of his friends. The only way they knew they were being followed was when they heard yelling from behind them as they plunged into the brush.

\t“Alright if that thing doesn’t kill us, it’s going to cripple us for life!” Kenny shouted, “And… oh shit, they’re coming!”

\tThe tree line along the river wasn’t so thick that they couldn’t see the truck skipping over the surface of the water, engines flaring to follow along at pace with them. They were forced to veer deeper into the forest lest they suffer another attack from the weapon mounted on the truck’s bed, having no choice but to try and lose their pursuers in the thicker brush of the forest.

\t“Find somewhere to hide!” Daxton shouted, “Get moving!”

\tTheir only choice was to hide behind trees, and it was hard enough to find any that were wide enough for them to be unseen. Birch trees made for poor cover, but there were other trees more fitting, albeit few and far between. Daxton ducked behind a maple tree and pulled Quincey in front of him, the pair of them standing with their backs to the tree and trying to be as flat and small as possible. Kenny found a rock just big enough for him to get behind, and he ducked down low, poking his head up only to get a handle on where the gunmen were. The three that had assaulted the camp were following on foot, with the truck keeping pace with them along the river to provide more eyes and support.

\tLaila tried to hide nearby, but had difficulty staying hidden. The men focused on her, firing at the tree she stood sideways behind, blowing chunks off the bark and making her yell and curse and fall back further into the woods.

\t“We can’t get away from trucks,” Quincey shook, “What are we gonna do?”

\tDaxton made a thoughtful sound as he turned his head and tried to peek beyond the tree. “There’s only three of them, what if we get around them?” He suggested, “If we can get you behind them at least, then you have less chance of getting caught.”

\t“Me? What about you?!” Quincey breathed.

\t“I’ll figure something out,” Daxton shook his head, “Look, go to Kenny, okay? We’ll make sure they…”

\tDaxton tried to duck back as one of the men broke past them several feet away. He continued on into the forest after Laila, missing the pig and corgi entirely. “We’ll make sure they don’t see you,” Daxton finished. He moved Quincey to push her off to the side towards Kenny just before he thrust himself out from the other side of the tree and caught the second pursuer with a sudden charge. Daxton used the man’s momentum to lift and haul him over his shoulder, throwing the man to the ground with a labored toss. The man landed with the wind knocked out of him, and Daxton crouched down immediately to grasp the man’s gun.

\t“Daxton!” Quincey cried.

\t“Run, alright?!” Daxton shouted back, before the man thrust his gun up and clipped Daxton in the side of the head. The boy was thrown aside, but practically whiplashed himself back on top of the gunman, throwing punches at the man’s face as they struggled on the ground.

\tQuincey didn’t want to turn away, but she did. She ran towards Kenny’s hiding place and no sooner did she take two steps in the lemming boy’s direction did he dash out from behind his rock and charge the last gunman. A shot fired and missed the boy, flying over his shoulder before he met the gunman and clumsily took him to the ground. Kenny, smaller and quicker, scrambled to straddle the man and quickly drew the sword he carried and raised it high above his head before plunging it straight down.

\tThe sword met the man’s gun as he tried to defend himself. The blade punctured the Curon shell, slicing into the mechanics within and damaging whatever was inside. The weapon began to superheat almost immediately, and Kenny withdrew in a flash, tearing his sword away to give the fusion core energy a means of escape from the weapon’s shell. Energy poured out from the opening before the gun finally popped, bursting in plasma flame. The resulting explosion had just enough impact to knock the man onto the ground and back a few feet through the dirt where he stopped moving and lay unconscious. Quincey trounced past the boy as he breathed out a nervous sigh of relief.

\t“Where are you going?!” Kenny yelled after her.

\t“I… don’t know!” She yelled back, “Behind them, I…”

\tShe paused as she glanced towards the river just by chance and managed to see a fallen tree that bridged the rushing waters. It was so clear through the brush, almost as if it were part of a path, and it very well could have been. The truck on the river had already passed it. Its gravity skiffs must have simply lifted it over the obstacle. When Quincey saw the fallen tree, she pointed to it. “There!” She said, “If we get to the other side of the river then we can hide!”

\tKenny followed her gesture and quickly caught on. “Then run your ass over there!” He said, “Hurry!”

\tShe did so with Kenny hot on her heels. He was easily able to catch up, but stayed at her back and kept watch as they darted through the wood. They came out at the river’s edge just as the truck sped too far downstream to really see clearly, and its attention was focused somewhere in the woods where Laila and Daxton had stayed behind. Quincey stopped dead at the broken base of the tree, its roots creating something of an obstacle she’d have to climb over just to get onto the naturally-made bridge. The water beneath had been so flooded by the rain they had experienced over the past few days that the rapids lapped at the tree and swallowed its bottom. The merciless, booming rush of water just served to remind Quincey that she could not swim.

\t“Quinn, hurry up!” Kenny said as he pushed up behind her and tried shoving her onto the tree, “Before someone sees you; you have to move now.”

\t“Kenny, wait!” Quincey squealed as she pushed back against him, “I don’t…! I can’t!”

\t“Don’t you say ‘never say you can’t’ or something?” Kenny asked, “Just do it!”

\tQuincey wasn’t moving. She was too scared to climb onto the tree and attempt to cross it. Kenny turned his attention to the woods, just barely able to make out figures in it darting one way or the other. He wasn’t sure if who he saw were his friends or the men chasing them, and he was anxious to get back there and help get them out of that mess. But if Quincey was caught, it was all going to be for nothing… so he turned instead and sheathed his sword before climbing onto the fallen tree himself. He simply shoved the girl aside and lifted himself with a firm grasp on the roots of the tree. Once he was perched on top, he reached down and grabbed Quincey’s shirt to haul her up with him. He could barely move her, but she climbed up with all the grace and nimbleness of a fish on land.

\tUpon reaching the top, after flopping over several times, Quincey encountered other things she hadn’t anticipated. The tree was old, water-worn, and the bark was slippery and wet.

\t“Kenny, this was a bad idea,” She blurted out, “We can’t do this!”

\t“I’m just helping you across, then I’ll go back for Daxton and Laila,” Kenny said as he took hold of Quincey’s hand, “Come on, you have to do this.”

\tWithout waiting for an answer, Kenny pulled. Quincey nearly slipped and fell, stumbling into the smaller boy and nearly taking him with her. By some miracle they stayed standing on the tree, and when Kenny got his footing again he continued to pull her along even when she actively protested or started to panic. Several times they stopped, only making it half way or a little more before Quincey simply froze up with fear and started to really try to get away. It became a fight with the girl just to keep her on track.

\t“No! Stop!” Quincey cried and started to sob, “Stop it! Stop! We’re gonna fall!”

\t“You’re almost there you fat dope!” Kenny growled as dangerously as a rodent could, “Stop freaking out! It’s just a little farther!”

\tKenny saw the camp out of the corner of his eye. It was a fair distance away, but close enough to the river’s edge that it was visible from where he stood. He didn’t really take much notice at first, but something kept pulling his gaze back to that spot. At first he thought he may have been worried about Casey, wondering what happened to the older man who had been taken down by those thugs. It wasn’t until he noticed the second truck pulling forward that everything clicked into place. The vehicle pulled forwards to settle lengthwise across the river, the weapon mounted on the back still manned. It swiveled and took aim.

\t“Quincey, come on…!” Kenny said, not meaning to alarm the girl but his wide-eyed stare was unmistakable.  Quincey looked in the same direction and sucked in a frightful gasp.

\tKenny turned, and his foot slipped. But it wasn’t even half a second before the unseen force fired from the mounted turret whistled through the air and crashed into them. An intense pain and untold kinetic force pushed their feet out from under them and made the tree explode out from under them in the middle, separating it into two parts and giving them the perfect space to fall into. They met the water with a splash that was silenced by the rushing current that immediately swept them up.

\tFor a moment the chaos of the outside world was literally drowned out. All the rifle fire and shouting was silenced by the hum of water surrounding the boy and girl. The sky seemed brighter under the rippling surface, and things were peaceful in comparison. The strong current pushed on them, taking even Quincey’s heavier body away. The girl had the swimming skills of a rock, and she would have sunken quite quickly had Kenny not done his best to grab and hold her. The muted sound of rushing water came back in force as she was lifted, and her ears finally broke the surface with a gasp for air.

\tKenny held Quincey with both arms, trying to lift her weight from behind with his arms clamped around her belly. He gripped her with one hand and clenched a white-knuckled fist around his sword with his other hand, and hefted. He rolled backwards as the river took him, his head plunging back under the water for a moment, so then he pushed. He bobbed back up, forwards, and then nearly dunked the pig girl into the water instead. Her front plunged into the rapids for only the briefest of seconds until Kenny could right her again. She emerged in a coughing fit, her glasses torn from her face by the violent rush.

\t“Hold on!” Kenny yelled above the rapids.

\t“… C… Can’t… Kenny!” Quincey yelled back, before letting out a shrill squeal when the boy’s back suddenly impacted something and sent them careening over a sudden decline, plunging them into white, foamy waters once more. She tried to hold her breath and only ended up sucking in more river water to do it, and she was hauled back above the water’s surface by Kenny, her world spinning around. She didn’t have the energy to struggle, and she gradually became dead weight in the boy’s arms.

\tRocks whipped by and the pair plunged over more declines and small falls. The truck that had once sped downstream didn’t even notice them as they overtook it. They were sent tumbling under the vehicle as it floated maybe a foot above the surface and Kenny had the mind to thrust his hand up and grab hold of some of something on the vehicle’s undercarriage. His grip only lasted a few seconds, stopping their trip downstream for only as long before his water-slicked grip failed and they were pulled by the river once more.

\tIt was Laila who noticed struggling in the water, happening a glance riverward to spot them from where she hid. “Oh my god,” She whispered, before pushing her head out from behind the tree she hid behind to shout, “Daxton! Quincey and Kenny…!”

\tShe silenced herself with a squeak as a well-placed shot from perhaps the last pursuing gunman struck the tree by her cheek, sending splinters and wooden flecks up into her face and causing her to stumble. Daxton had turned his attention to Laila as he followed behind her, or tried to, pausing when the giraffe fell to the ground. He swept his gaze around to try and locate Kenny and Quincey as Laila had mentioned them, but he was so far from the river that there was no chance of seeing them. His pause gave the truck on the river the opening it needed, the turret on the back whirring to life and firing a shot. It flew from the barrel with an energized ‘pew’ and yet still sounded like it was firing a pumpkin as the ball of force left the apparatus and was sent whistling through the air.

\tThat whistle was all the warning Daxton had, and he barely lifted his arm and leg in some vague attempt to shield himself from the blow. He was swept off his feet and carried through the air so far and so quickly that he lost track of everything. It wasn’t until he struck a tree that had to have been six feet away or more that things got some clarity – namely the splitting pain that shot up his side as his ribs made contact with the unforgiving maple, driving the air from his lungs so his cry of pain came only in a breathless whisper. He fell to the ground after bouncing from the tree’s surface, the pain turning his limbs into jelly and making every attempt to reclaim the air stolen from him an agonizing experience. He rolled onto his front and grit his teeth, managing to plant his elbows under him and attempt to lift himself. It was to no avail, as putting any weight on his arms simply caused him to flop back onto the ground.

\tIn the water, Kenny and Quincey had cleared Laila and Daxton, leaving them and any hope of a real rescue behind. They splashed and struggled, but found no bearing in the water’s relentless grasp. They struck one rock, then two, and then three, bouncing and bounding off every one as the current allowed them no time to absorb the impacts or what was really happening to them. Pain wracked their bodies along with the numbing fear of drowning or worse. Kenny’s back flared in pain he thought he’d forgotten, feeling as if his spine were trying to rend itself from his body. Quincey’s thick, soft body started to feel spongier than ever as her skin was battered, bruised, and numbed by the water’s chill.

\tKenny started to panic. He could hardly hold on to Quincey any longer and was wrought with terror upon thinking that he would perhaps drop her. She was limp in his arms, and he wished for nothing more than to hear her screaming and to be annoyed by how much she flailed around in his attempts to keep her upright. Instead he got nothing from her; just silence and dead weight. That was more horrifying than anything he could have imagined, and so he started to scream as he held to her tighter than ever.

\tThe last thing he heard was a loud CRACK. He couldn’t even feel the pain of his body side slamming into a shallow before he slipped into blackness.

-

--

-

\tQuincey was a sixteen year old girl. She was almost a grown-up: mature, learned, goal oriented and aware of the future. She knew that one day she would leave behind the school she knew, she would move on to university, she would get a degree and then get a job. She would get a family of her own one day and become responsible for more than just herself. One day in the future she’d be a larger part of the community. She knew all that, and yet her thoughts were suppressed to childish simplicity. In that moment she was painfully aware that she was a teenage girl, a smart one, and yet her mind felt… light.

\tThere was nothing to think about. The sun was out, the grass was green, and the world couldn’t have extended from beyond the playground for all she cared. Everything could have been a blank space beyond the fence – there were no jobs that needed to be done and no responsibilities. All she needed to worry about was pumping her chubby legs back and forth on the swing to propel herself as high as she might dare to. That was where she sat, just there on the swings in a playground that was familiar and yet confusing. The slide nearby, jutting like an obelisk from poured sand that covered the grass, and the ferry-go-round were familiar. She couldn’t help but get the sense of déjà vu as she watched seemingly nondescript children frolic and play.

\tHer brain pushed against some kind of boundary, something that bothered her. It was like she had forgotten something and wanted to remember it, but her brain refused outright. There was no point thinking about it anyway as the sun was warm and her bare toes felt great as she wiggled them around and swung on the swings. There was nothing more than that. Whether she should have been there or not was of no real consequence, because she couldn’t get in trouble for just being a kid and just playing like she was supposed to.

\t“Nyeh! Daxton can’t see! Daxton can’t see!”

\tThe sound of Daxton’s name caught Quincey’s ear before the tone of the obnoxious torment in whoever’s voice it was fully registered with her. The first thought that ran through her head was that she did indeed know Daxton, which should have been something second-nature and simply not needing any form of reassurance. Why she reminded herself that she knew Daxton, she didn’t know, but then her memory seemed to wriggle back into the comfort of its blissful ignorance and she was set into a simplistic thought-process once more. She slowed her pumps on the swing and started to come down from the half-arch she’d managed to reach. The world blurred past as she swung back and forth and gradually came to a stop.

\tWhat had once just been blurred motions of grass-sand-sky became a clearer picture. Just feet from her was a four-year-old Daxton whom she recognized from that stage of his life by the short hair he had and the fact that he was attempting to reach for a pair of opaque glasses that some other kid held far out of his reach with an expression of menace. It was hard to make out just what sub-species of human was tormenting the poor corgi puppy – there was a group of them but their shadowy forms seemed to shift and slide from one shape to the next. Sometimes they had tails, sometimes they had longer ears, and then sometimes they lacked any features at all. They existed as static fuzz in an otherwise clear world. Daxton was dressed in his little brown overalls and a red t-shirt, and he was whining.

\t“Give them back!” The boy wailed. The sixteen-year-old Daxton was nowhere to be found in the persona of the four-year-old one. He screamed and was quick to tears and was helpless.

\tWithout those glasses, Daxton couldn’t see. Those glasses, back then, were his STOP. Having them taken away by the other kids made the world disappear into complete and utter darkness, and Quincey could tell by watching that Daxton was scared and embarrassed. With sight gone, Daxton was afraid to take a step. He didn’t want to move in case the ground just suddenly wasn’t there any longer. He didn’t want his disfigured eyes to be exposed for everyone to see because they would point and laugh, or get frightened and scream, or any number of awful things. But it seemed other kids delighted in the power rush they felt rendering another human being helpless before them. It seemed like there was something rewarding about watching Daxton squirm.

\t“Gimmie!” Daxton tried to make a grab for where he thought his glasses might be. He was off by a mile, he grabbed at the air and cried out in terror as he fell. The cry was cut short as he hit the grass, but he’d been so frightened by the idea that he was going to fall into a hole or off a cliff that he broke into bawling as he clutched the grass. The other kids laughed.

\tIt was disgusting to watch. Even if the saying “kids will be kids” held any sort of water, to see a human at their most innocent bear such a mocking grin as they harassed another was an utter injustice. Quincey knew that because she watched some of those shows on her PET, like Bobby Bobcat, which said bullying was wrong and that no one should be mean to other people. But even if it was bad and Quincey knew it was bad… something about watching it was scary. Rather than march over to the little twerps and give them a stern talking to, she instead locked up and felt a churning in her stomach.

\tIf she said anything, then she’d get teased instead.

\tMore kids gathered around to see what was happening. A lot of them didn’t like it either, but they were fascinated by the display. Just like the bullying kids were fascinated by being able to render Daxton helpless, their audience was amazed at the ability and had reservations about trying to stop it because… what were they supposed to do? If they tried to fight, they would get in trouble. If they tried to yell at the bullies, they would have the ire turned onto them. The best thing to do, in their minds, was to stay quiet.

\tQuincey watched as one of the blurry shadow kids gave Daxton a kick. The churning in her tummy did a little flip at the sight and she found herself wriggling her bottom out of her seat on the swing and taking a stand. She took a breath to yell at them before she went charging in like a wild hog, but all that came out was a scared, shaky whisper.

\t“S… Hey…”

\tShe couldn’t even speak up over the crowd that had gathered, but she took a deep breath to try again. Her body shook, but she tried anyway. Just releasing another shout made a rush of fear flow through her. It made her hair tingle and her tailbone feel funny.

\t“S-Stop…!”

\tHer mounting frustration at her own cowardice forced her to give up the ghost. Clenching her little hands into white-knuckle fists, she closed her eyes tight and gave a scream.

\t“Leave him alone you meanies!”

\tThe crowd of kids, befuddled, watched as a huffy little piglet stormed her way into the center of it all to grab Daxton and haul him up off the ground. She held him like a prized teddy bear. She squeezed him, her fat, freckled cheeks all reddened and her eyes all puffy and watery behind her glasses. She looked kind of silly in her little outfit made with a small modern tutu and a little shirt that was too small so her portly little tummy stuck out. She was kind of big though compared to the other children, enough that they took some prudence before pursuing her.

\t“Don’t touch him, he’s got ugly-face!”

\t“Quincey likes the doggy-freak! He’s her booooyfriend!”

\t“Are you gonna kiss his ugly face?”

\tQuincey couldn’t have grumped any harder, and she had a few choice words for the kids. All that came out though was, “Shut up, stupid-butts!”

\tIt wasn’t the most creative thing she had ever come up with, but she was furious. She watched from behind her own eyes as the static-fuzz that made up the crowd got quiet and murmured. The bullies were jarred by such a declaration of their rear-ends’ intelligence and couldn’t think of an appropriately awful response to retaliate with. The rest of the crowd, stunned into silence, watched to see just how quickly it was before Quincey would get her tail straightened. She knew it was a distinct possibility, but as Daxton rested against her in a defeated slump she held him tighter and stood her ground.

\tOne kid decided they were brave enough to show Quincey what was what. She was big, but a good shove tipped her round form over and she fell back. She fell way back, really far back, and the sudden feeling of inertia that washed over her made it feel as if she really had fallen off a cliff. She gasped for a breath, staring upwards as she clutched Daxton and realized she was falling into a void. She stared back at a hole that had been ripped seemingly into space, and from within it the beady yellow eyes of a blue, inky form stared back at her and gave her a cheeky wave. That sight got rapidly smaller as it got further and further away and Quincey continued to plummet into spatial nothingness.

\tShe whipped her head around to look at Daxton, whose frame had become completely white and felt like gelatin. He continued to grasp tightly to her and tried to hide his face, looking as if his features had been drawn on with black marker. He looked like an inkling… and as she glanced at him, she realized that she did too. Her body was silvery, the same sort of silver goop that she knew to belong to Duplex. She was all grown up again, trapped in Duplex’s form, an inkling clinging to what seemed to be a small inkling child.

\tThe falling stopped. After a while gravity seemed to dissipate, leaving Quincey and the child floating in a place that defied Quincey’s abilities of perception. It… seemed like outer space, or perhaps something like it. There were no stars to be seen, but the void took on ripples of colour and certain patterns that crossed her vision but weren’t always plainly obvious. It seemed to be alive with motion or… something she couldn’t have possibly explained. Wherever she was, the portal she’d been pushed through that lead there was closed or gone or something. She was stuck there with this… white, blobby puppy. Daxton’s shape wavered in her arms, like little parts of his squishy body would break off like liquid in zero-G. Quincey found herself desperately trying to hold the inkling together in her arms. She actually panicked when it seemed like Daxton would just break apart.

\tDaxton clenched his eyes. The drawn-on curves that looked like cartoony, closed eyes made an angled shape as his little mouth made a grimace. White erupted from his body and surrounded them – not light, but simply… white. As if the reality around her was simply burnt away, a messy blotch of white replaced the immediate area around the two of them. She could actually see the edge of it, where the white, empty space was bordered by the strange void she’d fallen in. The space had simply been replaced.

\t“Wake up.”

\tA sharp voice startled her, one that sounded both close and far. She looked to the white Inkling in her arms and it stared back up at her with black, empty eyes like holes bored into its face with faded, unnerving edges. It reached up, no longer Daxton’s shape at all, and placed a small hand upon her cheek. It felt cold and strange upon her skin, and as it rested there the Inkling continued to stare blankly at her face. Quincey pulled her head aside, and the spot where her cheek met the alien’s hand stretched. She was stuck to it. Her heart jumped with fright.

\t“Quincey, wake up.”

\tThe cold contact got more intense. It built so rapidly that the chill became a stinging, biting sensation like she’d come into contact with liquid nitrogen. It was the sort of cold that felt like burning, like her flesh would start to sizzle despite the temperature being on the complete opposite of the spectrum. Quincey screamed and pulled, trying to free herself from the Inkling’s grasp, but her limbs were locked like she’d succumbed to rigor mortis.

\tQuincey’s cheek began to dissolve. The same white that surrounded her began to eat away at her physical constructs. The pain flared to levels she never thought imaginable. It was so intense, so tormenting a pain that her scream were choked into a breathless gasp. Her eyes shot open wide and stared with a painful dryness into the emptiness of the white void as the Inkling ate away at more and more of her face. Soon, she had no cheek, and there was nothing inside of her, just more emptiness. She was being erased.

\t“H… Help…”

\tShe breathed but it felt as if her throat had a gaping hole burned into it. What came out of her mouth were barely wisps of a word.

\t“S… Sto… p…”

\tHer vision began to burn. Like film melting in a projector, white holes appeared in her eyes that blotted out reality.

\t“Come on, wake up!”

\tHands grabbed at the white Inkling in Quincey’s arms. One was a sort of turquoise blue and the other was a gentle yellow. They pulled at the creature but couldn’t wrest it from Quincey’s stiff grasp. The hands belonged to other Inklings, more that Quincey didn’t recognize. They pulled at the white, empty one furiously, only managing to shake the thing around as Quincey continued to fade away into nothingness. Her body felt light, it felt like it was all around her, like her arms and legs were no longer attached and a lot of her was just… somewhere else.

\t“Wake up!” More voices came. She recognized some, but not others.

\t“Wake up!” They chanted. Kenny’s harsh tones broke through the mess of sounds she heard, her ears had started to ring.

\t“Wake up!” Soon there was nothing left, only voices.

\t“Quincey Abram, wake up!”

\tEverything went white like an explosion had gone off. It made Quincey’s ears ring, even when her eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring up at wooden rafters. She scrunched up her face and loosed a gentle groan, pain flaring in the muscles in her face at even that much movement. She shifted her weight to test, finding pain throbbing over her body in various parts. One of her shoulders ached and her stomach felt like it wanted to split apart. Her movements were weighed down by the heavy presence of a blanket covering her decidedly naked body; she could feel the sheep’s wool rubbing against her body in a warm, if not slightly itchy manner. She was in a bed, head upon a pillow, and safe from the rushing currents of the water that threatened her some time before.

\tShe lifted her arm and heard the clink of metal, and immediately her wrist was weighed down by some bracelet and an object attached to it. She opened her eyes and lifted her arm further, breaking free of the covers and finding her wrist clamped with the glowing blue fastens of a pair of handcuffs. In the other cuff was familiar gray furred hand of Kenny Baxter. When she followed the boy’s arm up to his face, he was lying next to her with his eyes barely open.

\tHe didn’t say anything, but when he saw her look his way he sort of smiled. He moved closer to her, and with a pained groan rolled his body to try and embrace her. The fact that his right wrist was cuffed to Quincey’s left made the act a little awkward, and Kenny’s weight rolling over the girl’s arm made her gasp in pain. Kenny immediately backed off and edged away from her, in no less pain himself. He laid out on his back then with an exhausted flop, his breathing shallow as he looked straight up at the roof of whatever room they found themselves in.

\tIt was some kind of cabin in the woods. There was no light aside from some sun breaking through the window, and everything – the walls, the roof, the floor – was wood. Even the bed’s creaky frame had that sound of low-quality, home-made carpentry, and various accents around the room were just as wooden. What was more surprising that the man-made lighting objects placed around the room for night time were ancient things like wax candles in pewter holders and lanterns around the room. There was a cupboard hanging over a small shelf, and upon the shelf were various medical tools – tweezers, gauze, scissors, thread, alcohol and the like. A small table being used as a desk housed a snuffed-out candle and an honest-to-goodness paper book, with an inkwell just waiting to be used.

\tNothing looked as if it were crafted with molds or frames. Everything had the slightest imperfection to set it apart from something that would have normally looked exactly the same. None of the candles held the exact same shape as they were meant to, rather as approximate to the shape as humanly possible. There were absolutely no electronics to be found anywhere, without the slightest evidence of there even being heating. The room was rather chilly, and with the logs acting as walls of the cabin one could only assume drafts were getting through just about everywhere. Fortunately it was warm under the covers of the bed, which seemed ancient itself. The wool blanket was very heavy, and the mattress sunk under the wounded pair, stuffed with something far softer than foam. Most modern beds would have subtly shifted to distribute weight and posture, but that one didn’t.

\tEverything just smelled like wood, too. Quincey snorted and wrinkled her nose. She tried to sit up, but her abdomen flared up in pain with the effort so she just flopped back down. The impact made her back hurt, too.

\t“Where are we?” She asked, “It looks like we landed in the 18th century.”

\t“If I see… one pair of pantaloons,” Kenny breathed, “I quit.”

\tQuincey rested a hand over her soft belly – the hand that wasn’t cuffed to her friend. “I hurt all over…” She said.

\t“I dunno if my ribs are broken or just bruised…” Kenny almost wheezed, “But I can barely breathe.”

\tQuincey lifted up the covers to examine herself. Again, doing anything with her arm made her shoulder hurt, and the reason was obvious. Her pink skin had a series of darkened, purpled bruises, one covering a majority of her stomach and another pretty much surrounding her whole shoulder. Kenny’s were harder to see, especially since almost his entire chest had been wrapped up in bandages. To say nothing of the fact that his body was covered in fur, making things harder to observe without actually touching him. The bruise on his back had spread to his neck, the colour coming around from the back being a gross yellow. Quincey knew enough about anatomy to know that the colour was because blood had been running under his skin. Both of them were completely naked, even their stickers had been removed.

\tKenny let out a shuddering breath he had to stifle.

\t“Don’t talk too much,” Quincey brought the blanket back down over them.

\tKenny just grunted.

\tQuincey looked over when a movement at the door caught her eye. A woman stepped into the room in an old-fashioned sort of dress Quincey wouldn’t have ever expected to see outside of the history texts or files on her personal PET. The girl pinned the fashion as early 19th century by the way it almost looked like a nightgown chemise covered by an over layer of pond green fabric. If someone had slapped a bonnet on her head, she looked like she would have fit in just perfect around the time where pilgrims had come to – or invaded, depending on your point of view – early America. She was a goat, that much was made clear by the way her dark brown fur gave her a scruff under her chin, and how she had little horns atop her head. She didn’t look old, but could have been anywhere in between twenty for fifty for all Quincey knew. She didn’t know how to read a goat’s horns to depict their age.

\t“You’re awake,” The woman said in wonder. She hurried over to the bedside and got down on her knees so she could study the pair. She barely had to touch them, but she did so with a gentle hand, “How are you feeling?”

\t“Like crap,” Kenny grunted.

\t“That’s not surprising,” The woman said, “You were found washed up at the end of the river unconscious.”

\tThe woman stood up and leaned over Quincey to gently spread open one of the girl’s eyes and stare into it. She had no equipment or anything to really be able to tell if Quincey was suffering from any sort of head trauma or concussion, and Quincey was pretty sure she wasn’t… maybe the woman was just doing it for kicks, to play doctor despite being overwhelmingly basic. Still, that little piggy was in no position to complain. It sounded like whoever this woman was helped save their lives.

\t“Where are we?” Quincey asked.

\tFinishing her examination of the girl, the woman stood. “Well,” She somewhat smiled, “It’s a relief to actually be able to tell you. You’re in Clarkston.”", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Issue 9: Guidance", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "1", "rating_name": "Mature", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "2", "name": "Nudity", "description": "Nonsexual nudity exposing breasts or genitals (must not show arousal)", "rating_id": "1" }, { "content_tag_id": "3", "name": "Violence", "description": "Mild violence", "rating_id": "1" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "f", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "1", "views": "97" }