Amid the conversation happening around him Zephyr noticed a young girl standing just outside the conversational circle looking rather awkward. Like maybe she wanted to say something but wasn't sure how to start. After being a bus driver for a while Zephyr got decent at guesstimating how old kids were, and judging by how this girl looked he would guess high school, maybe grade 9 or 10. Zephyr was once an awkward teenager, not able to talk to people, not many friends. And while under normal circumstances a 25 year old trying to be friendly with a high schooler would be creepy these were not exactly ordinary circumstances.

"What about you, Arizona shirt?" Zephyr said, gesturing to the girl so she knew he was talking to her. "How was your trip? I'm hoping at least some people had an alright time getting here."

Matthew couldn't help but shutter as Zephy mentioned a dude that was literally on fire and how he would never forget the man. His friendly smile twisted into a grimace as everything that had happened flashed through his brain, all twisted faces and bloodied snow. He shook his head, trying to banish the images again, not even noticing his travailing companions obvious displeasure at him telling their story of life and death struggle so flippantly.

It was lucky for him that Mira herself pointed him at some new distraction, the second most dreamlike thing he'd seen after all this started. What had happened to that man, he wondered, that caused him to end up with parts of someones garden where his hand should have been? He could only picture this man, hands necrotizing and falling to pieces after some awful battle, only for some kind of tiny little gnome to run up, plant a kiss on them, and cause them to bloom into what they were now. Were gnomes real? Was there a gnome on staff here? He didn't know, but the image was certainly a lot more whimsical than the other ones floating around in his head right now.

He was so distracted by thoughts like this that his attention as only drawn back to Zephry when the guy started talking to someone else. When Matthew saw who it was he felt a lump in his stomach drag him violently back to reality. She was just kid. Another kid. Why the hell did this violet aurora crap keep grabbing kids?

God, he hoped her story at least was really boring.

Angie waited for a moment for a reply before quickly excusing herself “Uh- Actually before we chit-chat I’m going to go find some people to find out a bit more about what exactly I’ve gotten myself into. It’d be nice to have some gal-pals about so maybe I’ll see you later!” She pushed her way out of the girl’s bathroom and back towards where everyone had gathered. She caught the tail-end of a conversation, only the last few words about Mike’s hands.

“Oh- That was me, actually.” She cut in and waved briefly at Mike to catch his attention before looking around, spotting Mark disappear into the crowd. “Aw, I was gonna try a little like… ‘Heyyy M&M’ joke, you know… Like the… like the chocolate?” She trailed off a little awkwardly and laughed half-heartedly, the joke wasn’t exactly her best work but the whole situation was so strange she wasn’t sure what else to do at the moment. “Uh- anyways I actually wanted to ask a few questions, you know about everything. I mean I probably should have talked more on the drive, but you know… Shell shock I guess. Now I’m here though it’s like everything’s been thrown in my hands and all I got to work with is some trail mix and water-” She laughed a bit more genuinely this time and pulled out the trail mix packet and wiggled it around until one of the m&m’s came forward. “Hey, haha, m&ms…”

Mike and Míra stared at her for a moment, slightly dumbfounded by her sudden appearance and rapid fire barrage of confectionary based jokes.

“Uh… yeah, that’s funny.” Mike nodded, good naturedly, though it sounded a bit more like he was agreeing to something than amused. “Yeah, that’s a good joke. Míra, this is Angie, she fixed my hands.”

“That so?” Míra raised a dark eyebrow at Angie. “That’s quite the talent, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who can do that - even if his hands look a bit like my abuela’s garden now.”

Angeline, blissfully unaware of the good-natured politeness of the response simply smiled until she was addressed again. “Oh gosh, yeah sorry I never introduced myself, Angie, like he said, or Angeline, whatever…” She looked at his hands “Oh, yeah haha I dunno… He looked like he was in so much pain that I was desperate to try anything… I don’t know, maybe if I try fixing them again they might get more normal? It’s far-fetched but so was the initial idea… It just seemed like a good idea at the time.” She ran her hands over her hair, smoothing down any flyaways as she contemplated her ‘work’ “At least the other ones a bit less… Plushy.” She decided. Shifting her weight from foot to foot she looked rather uncomfortable thinking about it, What if his hands stayed like that forever? It was a thought she couldn’t get off her mind but she was never going to say it aloud. It was like she was some evil witch who cursed him or something…

“Oh right! What I came over here for… Um not to sound impatient or anything but well what do we do now? I get this is like a safe haven or something for people who can… Do things like that but is that like it?” Angie wrung her hands together nervously, feeling her dry skin from dehydration, making a mental note to chug that water later. “We just sit around and hide and hope no one finds us?”

“Well, the general idea is that we’re gonna keep everyone housed here for a little while, just ‘til the heat dies down ‘n’ what not.” Mike replied, rubbing the moss hand idly.

“Yep. A few weeks at most. Then we’re going to relocate people to more permanent hiding spots and boltholes, where the population density is a little lower.” Míra added.

“An’ of course, if people are wantin’ to give the Underground a helping hand in a more active sorta way, we’re always lookin’ for more manpower. If you were thinkin’ of volunteering, trust me when I say that a person with your unique skillset,” he held up his hands, “is oh so incredibly welcome.”

Míra shuffled on her feet a little, taking a step closer in to the conversation.

“Mike, cool it, will you? The poor girl’s only been here for half a fuckin’ hour.”

“Ah, yeah. Beg your pardon. What I mean to say is that we have a sort of general policy of shelterin’ everyone - there’s no need for you to provide any sorta service or skill that you’re not completely happy providin’, is what I mean - and of course we ain’t hardly gonna kick you out if you don’t wanna take a more active role or anythin’. But we do also have a big shortage of folks who can provide vegan prosthesis.” He gave another big, cowboy grin.

Míra sighed.

“As for your magic, yeah. From what the few mages I know have told me - Mike included - that’s basically how it starts. You have this subconscious epiphany, you have an urge to do something that doesn’t really make sense, but makes sense to you - that kind of thing.” Míra gave a glare in the vague direction of Mark, who had finally produced a coffee out of thin air and was talking to some guy in hushed tones across the hall. Eventually she refocused on the conversation. “Eventually, more things will start to come into focus in your mind, you’ll get more of those ‘good ideas’ and most of them will work - and then, once you have a grasp of the basic principles of what you in particular can and can’t do…” she waved her hands in a particularly emphatic shrug.

“Then you start experimenting.” Mike’s grin broadened. “First time I did that little jump thing you saw me do back then, I just sort of instinctively leapt from my office into a toilet cubicle. I was darn lucky it was unoccupied, let me tell you.”

Then, he had a sudden realisation. His face lit up, and he thrust his hands in the direction of Angie.

“Hey, I meant to show you earlier, look at this!” He used his more solid hand to sort of push the moss on the other one aside, and-

Flesh.

The beginnings of it, at least. Sinewy and thin, not enough to provide real structure yet, not enough to use… but it wasn’t a plant.

“I reckon your plant magic is even better than we thought!”

Angeline looked incredibly nervous at the thought of getting even more involved than she already was, but she supposed if she was stuck here already… Well what else was there to do? If she really could help then surely that is the best thing she could do with her time here… It was something she would have to ponder over a lot more, really.

She nodded along slowly with the explanation of ‘magic’. It did seem pretty much exactly what she experienced. Angie supposed, like anything, that practice made perfect and if she were to be at the impressive level of Mike and probably most of the other mages around here, she’d have to put her Botanics to work, chuckling at the story, things were a bit tense around here and a little laugh was much appreciated.

At the exposure of some quite raw looking flesh, Angeline looked genuinely surprised, before catching her expression and apologising “Gosh - I’m sure that look doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence but- well wow… I mean I guess it’s kind of like a skin graft with moss?” She leaned in and looked at it curiously, she supposed the magic worked over a period of time to replace the skin lost. “So you think after a while your hands will be back to normal again? Oh- Well I guess I’m supposed to be the expert but wow I’m just glad you won’t have plant-hands forever. It’s not exactly subtle…”

Abigail was starting to crash, big time. Now that the initial shock wore off and the twinge of fear from being technically alone had started to quietly worsen, All she could think about was how tired she was and how much she didn't want to be standing around talking to strangers. Unfortunately for her, that's precisely what happened; all eyes turned to the kid in the crowd who looked bewildered at the sudden influx in attention. "What? Oh. Uhh…"

There was something in the way Zephyr said it that made her situation seem almost... comforting. Cool as it was to stand off against giant centipedes, the burning Man imprinted on someone's memory - she didn't catch who - made her realise that not only had she got off lucky, but that everyone really wanted to hear that she did. Exaggerating her trauma or complaining about the way she felt was just going to be another nail in the coffin. These people were adults, they were meant to know what they were doing. Everything was scary and uncertainty seeped down into her pores. The anxiety alone was enough to make Abigail yearn for a brisk jog around the mall to get away from these atrocious vibes. But if she could alleviate it, just a little - give these haggard souls some watery sense of relief…

"I actually started casting magic by accident in front of my folks. Grandma freaked out and I bolted like a jack rabbit 'cause I was so scared." It wasn't truly a lie if she just omitted what she was scared of, right? Abigail chuckled and continued. "Well it turns out this guy had scoped out my place and was waiting for me to turn. Followed me a mile out into the brush, calmed me down... said it was going to be okay if I'd just get in the car with him. Nat'rally, I didn't believe him at all. But y'know, the FOE were coming and he ain't got no badge so I hopped in. Guy was super nice, in fact. He had drinks and snacks and everything. We met up with another fella out by a shed and there was a little scuffle with the cops but nobody got hurt bad and I spent the rest of the journey hiking in the woods, which was chill."

Abigail...amended some parts, omitted many, but when she looked at it that way she was just thankful that the ride had been comparatively smooth. She smiled drowsily at Zephyr. "So yeah, I got off lucky I guess," she added on, stifling a yawn as her legs started to feel leaden. She felt better after talking about it though and seemed a little proud to be included in the grown up talk. After all, nothing was more validating for a teenager than being treated like an adult when it suited them.

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It wasn’t exactly the worst of places to fall asleep. Abigail wasn’t picky; she could sleep on a vaguely flat rock if the situation demanded it. It was the vibe that kept her awake, a heavy miasma of anxiety, uncertainty, loss, fear that emanated from every shuffling and rustling body in the women’s lingerie department. Rows upon rows of terrified souls not too much unlike herself who had recently had their lives upended and were deposited neatly amongst the empty shelves and disembodied torsos of the store. Abigail regarded one of these mannequins and tried to figure out which sick fuck thought to keep the creepiest of props in the same place where a bunch of freshly traumatised mages slept.

She wriggled her arm out of her sleeping bag, pointed her index finger and levelled her finger gun at the peeling model. “Pew, pew”, she breathed, pretending to shoot it - and flinched and rolled over and curled in on herself as a brief, candle-sized puff of purple flame quietly fizzled out of her fingertip and dissipated into the darkness. Multiple disapproving glares were thrown her way. “Sorry,” she apologised a little louder, pulling the hood of the sleeping bag further down so she could cover her blush.

Sleep came for Abigail, in that creeping, insidious way that it sometimes does in times of strife - little by little, falling into slumber then waking, falling deeper each time, head and mind growing clouded and foggy.

Until she was asleep, and her eyes opened.

Abigail was struck by the sun, like a radiant gunshot, as she looked up into the sky through the skylight in the centre of Goodnight almost by reflex. It was luminous and blinding, and warm and welcoming, and alive.

And so was Goodnight.

For but the briefest of moments, Abilgail was surrounded by the hubbub of a busy, thriving mall. She could smell food - not just uncleaned greasetraps, but real, freshly cooked food - and she could taste excitement. She had never tasted it before, but there it was, like wine but much better - or like soda, but much heavier.

Then it was gone.

The sun was still up, the skylights still there and clean, the floor tiles still sparkling and bleached - but the place was empty.

Where there once was the wine of life, there was now something bitter and sour and salty - like tears, or the wide wide sea, or loss.

In the distance, breathing; ragged and sad.

The air felt a little like water.

Abigail rubbed her nose on the back of her hand and looked around. She wasn’t quite taking in the details of her surroundings just yet but recognised the mall and its vast emptiness. Her feet already took her towards the source of the breathing with no motive other than to sate her impulsive curiosity.

She went up the escalators - still and quiet now - and around the pillars of the food court - silent and frozen - and she wound around and around the building until the sound finally localised itself.

Behind a service door. Then up more stairs. Then round one of those invisible corridors that staff use to get around and appear where they’re needed, seen only when appropriate, heard almost never.

Eventually, she found the manager’s office. The proprietor’s office? It was too fancy, somehow, to simply be the office of a general manager, as she pushed the door open and took in the plush beige carpet, not yet stained by sun, the long dangling white blinds, hanging like half raised hands on the current of the breeze flowing from one open window to the other - the bottle, rich brown glass and black lacquered label, glistening in the light of the sun, which somehow was setting now, resting on the rich oak of the desk.

Behind the desk there sat a man. He was tall and lanky, young looking but tired, wearing a brown tweed business suit that - to anyone else - would have clearly been finely tailored.

He raised a glass to his lips and swallowed the delicate amber therein, before his ragged breathing resumed. It took only a moment for his eyes, red and puffy, to clench shut again, and his body to be wracked with silent sobbing.

The only other thing on the desk was a photo frame, facing him.

Abigail was about to make a move to hastily leave this man and his emotions to himself but a twinge of pathos stilled her feet. She knocked on the door instead, though her presence was already made known. “Hey, uh,” she wracked her brains for a good, empathetic opening to an awkward conversation. “Y’all good?” was all she could come up with.

The man behind the desk stirred - but not in her direction.

“Fuck, fuck. I’m sorry dad.” His hand took ahold of the photo frame, like he was trying to lean on it, like he would fall if he didn’t, and never get up again. “I’m so fucking sorry, dad.”

After a moment, he became lost in sobbing again, tearing his gaze away from the photo like he couldn’t stand looking at it any more - and pouring himself another drink, by reflex.

Far off in the distance, Abigail might have heard footsteps. Or mumbling.

Or nothing.

“I’ll uh...I’ll leave you to it,” Abigail rubbed the back of her neck. She gave it her best shot and it either fell short or the man was intentionally ignoring her. Either way, she knew she wasn’t welcome here. She felt it in her gut and didn’t need anyone having a mental breakdown to prove it. There was something nagging the back of her head and it gradually pushed her onwards until her errant wanderings became a sort of slow jog and, as she covered more distance, traversed the winding corridors and glass facades of the endless mall with an increasing sense of urgency, her mind became preoccupied then dominated by the fact everything was too clean, too empty. “Fuck’s going on?” she said out loud, if only to hear a voice in this pristine replica of Goodnight.

“What?” Came another voice - unrecognisable, but nearby, even if it sounded distant. “Who are you?”

“Ain’t nobody important,” Abigail responded warily, slowing down to a halt and spinning this way and that to find the source. “Where you at? Come on out, I don’t bite.”

Footsteps.

Footsteps.

Footsteps.

Two pairs of footsteps, neither of them hers, both of them approaching.

That wrongness in Abigail’s gut increased sharply. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to just make her presence known in this strange alternate Goodnight. If she was her old self - her good, Christian self who didn’t dabble in witchcraft - then now would have been a good time to hit the bricks. But Abigail had fire now, and all her previous experiences with fire had always ended up poorly for everyone involved. She was feeling brave and, with all the arrogance of youth, she was feeling invincible. She stood her ground.

After a moment, around the corner came -

Nobody.

The footsteps stopped, they’d been coming from that direction, there should be someone in front of her right now.

“Who are you?” Came a voice - not too close, but present - from behind her.

Abigail wheeled around and fell clean on her ass.

In front and above of her, there was a thin man with a patchy black beard and a gaunt, unpleasant face. He wore a navy hoodie with a bizarrely indistinguishable logo or design of some sort on it, and black skinny jeans.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I live here, dumbass!” Abigail shouted back, scrambling to her feet. “This here’s my home!” It was imperative, said some animal hindbrain hardwired to keep Abigail from dying, that she didn’t give away too much information to this scruffy looking stranger in an abandoned mall. “Question is who are you?”

He frowned.

“I… you… you live here?”

Abigail latched onto the confusion like a terrier latching onto an ankle. “Don’t seem too surprised, you hobo-looking sumbitch. Everybody’s gotta have a roof under their heads. Just what the hell are you doing wandering ‘round late at night?” What time was it? Abigail was too engrossed to check. Her legs tingled and her heart raced. First sign of danger, she’d blast this man in the beard and take to the hills.

He took a moment, the confusion on his face faded to a deeper expression - one of complex thought, calculating mind.

“You can’t live here. Not if you can see me. Not unless…” He inhaled tentatively, as if deciding what to say. “Unless you’re dreaming. Like me.”

“Oh yeah?” Abigail said, a mixture of hotheadedness and fear bubbling away in her chest as she realised she was losing the upper hand - quickly. “Would someone who’s dreaming be able to do this?!” She raised her arm, tried to use her fire spell-

And woke up to burning plastic and a lot of heat everywhere. Abigail shot out of her sleeping bag like a bat out of hell with a shriek of surprise, scrambling backwards, patting out the smouldering spots on her clothes with a sheen of sweat. All she could do was stare at the burning heap as her heart rattled in her ribcage and she took quick, fluttering breaths. She could feel the eyes on her from every direction as her head swivelled this way and that, looking for the bearded stranger.

“Anyone got a spare sleeping bag?” she called out, trying to lighten the mood. “Think mine’s bust!”

It took a minute for anyone to respond, as the tension in the air built and built; who was this fucking girl, setting shit on fire and making our lives even worse? Who the fuck was that, burning valuable supplies and wasting our resources? Which stupid child was too dangerous to be kept around?

After a moment, a gentleman at the entrance to the storefront sighed. It was one of the guys from earlier, when they’d been giving speeches - the one with hair.

“I’m sorry, kid. We don’t have any more sleeping bags. You wanna come with me for a bit, please?”

“I ain’t done nothing,” Abigail responded levelly. “Ain’t done nothing on purpose,” she added on after some thought. In her contempt, she left the sleeping bag to burn and smoulder and release rancid chemical fumes into the room - partially because she felt it was vindicating for her unjust treatment, and partially because she didn’t know how to make things stop burning when they started.

“Right. Jack, make sure that fire is out, get some air freshener or something. Sorry about this folks, I’ll…” he paused for a moment, realising that there wasn’t actually a lot he could do to make it better in the moment,”... see you at breakfast, I guess. Come on kid, follow me.”

He turned and walked down the walkway, overlooking the ground floor, as his compatriot sighed too, and moved to stamp on the sticky remains of a polymer sleeping bag.

“Alright. What happened?” He said, looking back at her with exhausted eyes, still walking.

Abigail mulled it over. ‘I tried to torch a homeless man’ didn’t seem like a suitable excuse. She worked her jaw and rubbed the back of her neck. “Been havin’ real lifelike dreams lately, and I tried to use my magic in one,” she admitted reluctantly. Something felt off when it came to her weird night-time hallucinations but she wasn’t too keen on letting other people know in case she came off as crazy.

For a moment, the man stopped in his tracks - not quite enough to break his stride, just enough of a hesitation to interrupt it.

“Right.”

He picked up the pace a little, then abruptly turned left and headed down the frozen escalators to the ground floor - and then further back, towards the rear of the mall.

“I see. Tell me more about these dreams of yours, kid. In fact, what’s your name? I’m Simon.” He said as they reached what was clearly some sort of makeshift HQ - lit by electric lanterns and heated by no more than the warmth of the few bodies still there, it occupied the ground floor of a generic, empty department store. There were a couple of tables that didn’t fit the remnants of the original shop’s aesthetic at all, and they were either covered in supplies, or in maps and paperwork.

Apart from one, which had a row of coffee urns on it.

Simon sat down on a rickety chair near the map table, and someone pushed another such chair towards him as Abi approached.

Abigail regarded everything with suspicion. She did not vibe well with this office space, these strange and official-looking figures and the row of coffee urns. As she leant back in her rickety chair to better regard the map in a blatant attempt to snoop around, she only gave Simon a modicum of respect hidden under several bundled up layers of caginess and distrust. This place was the principal’s office and a police station all at once. She regretted mentioning her dreams the moment she picked up on the surreptitious change in atmosphere and it gave her lockjaw ever since. Her gaze slipped around the room in the hopes of catching a gaudy parka, or a dishevelled old man with a bullet wound.

Simon’s eyes were large, but narrowed. He raised an eyebrow as she looked around.

“Hey, I’d really like to hear more about these dreams of yours.” His voice was quiet, but firm. Not teacherly, exactly, but certainly businesslike - definitely serious. “If they’re the sort of thing that are going to have you keep setting yourself on fire, or setting things on fire, or setting other people on fire, then I need to know as much as you can tell me.”

“No, it’s-...it’s fine, I won’t do it again.” But it had nothing to do with the fire. Abigail wouldn’t meet his gaze and became interested in her fidgeting fingers instead. She knew that it had nothing to do with the fire the moment he hesitated, and this wasn’t middle school - none of the people in this room, or this building, owed her anything. They weren’t bound by trivial matters such as ‘law’. Abigail picked up on that pretty quickly through Simon’s tone, some subconscious survival instinct kicking in and telling her to quit acting out and do what she’s told.

After a long hesitation, she decided to own up a bit more. “I’ve only had two,” she started. “They’re-...super lifelike. Nothing weird happens in them. Well, like, there’s -weird- stuff in it, but not like, flying pigs n’ shit,” Abigail caught herself rambling, her gaze flickering uncertainly up to Simon’s then sharply back to her hands. “I always remember ‘em. Clear as day. More like they’re memories than dreams, y’know?”

Simon nodded, then looked up at one of the other people in the room. Attention had subtly shifted onto the conversation they were having.

Out of Abigail’s view, the person Simon had looked to nodded briefly.

Simon took a moment.

“Thank you for that. What’s your name, kid?” His expression softened. In the background, there was movement as two of the people who had been at work over the maps before Simon had come in left.

“Am I in trouble?” Abigail met Simon’s gaze now. Things may be uncertain, and her dreams may make her burst into flames on a whim, but she knew where she stood when it came to being in trouble. It was a point of pride for her to at least show no fear in the face of a solid scolding.

Again, Simon took a moment, mulling over her sentence in his head.

Eventually, he leaned back on the chair too, and closed his eyes for a moment.

“No. I don’t think you’re in trouble - or at least, trouble isn’t the right word. You were having one of these dreams when you… well, set yourself on fire, right? What were you doing in the dream when it happened?”

“I was trying to scare off some guy.” That seemed like a valid enough explanation. “He said that the only way I’d have been able to see him was if I was dreaming too, if that helps any. So I tried to scare him off, and set myself on fire.”

And just like that, the seriousness was back.

“You saw someone in your dream? Did he give you his name?”

Abigail shrank. “I ain’t even given -you- my name, what’d you think?” She snapped, going on the defensive. “Even there I was certain to make sure I didn’t say nothing stupid!”

Except…

Abigail looked away again. Oh god. Oh fuck. She was quick to cover up her nervousness. “H-he had a scruffy beard, he was wearing a uh, blue hoodie, dark hair...He looked pretty mean, I didn’t trust him. Not one bit.”

“Right. What did he say? And what did you say?”

Abigail shrank back even further. Her legs got tingly. She was used to denying everything, saying nothing and occasionally insulting authority figures. But this was way, way out of her element. “He kept asking who I was, and what I was doing there. I told him in no uncertain terms to get fucked and get lost, and he sorta clocked on that, if I could see him, then I was dreaming...Then I said something like ‘oh yeah? Could a dreaming person do this?’ And then I set myself on fire.” Abigail added in the voices and the theatrics. She gesticulated. She rambled. She tried her damndest to avoid that one key detail that gnawed away at her insides like maggots.

Somewhere tucked away in the back of the office space, things started to shift imperceptibly in the gloom. It was just a few papers here and there, gently starting to lift as if some slight but very steady breeze caught them. The coffee urns made gentle shifting noises that went largely ignored as Abigail played out her theatrics and Simon kept a close eye on her expression.

“Are you sure you’re not leaving anything out?” Simon leaned in a little, his eyes grim.

“W-what’s the punishment gonna be like if I did?” she asked. “It’s still a dream, after all, and I was more scared of him than I was anything else.”

“Punishment?” Simon seemed surprised. “No, look, kid, that’s not how this works. Nobody- nobody is gonna, fucking, punish you, or leave you behind, or hand you over to the FOE. We’re not that kind of people. You’re a whole damn person, we’re not gonna fucking, like, hurt you. We just need to know everything you can tell us. If something happened that might put some of us, or you, in danger, well I just need to be able to plan for it, ok?”

It took Abigail a considerable amount of time to confess. She spent a lot of that time fidgeting, wriggling, looking for an easy out and hanging her head in shame. “And if,” she croaked, feeling the bile rise in her throat out of sheer undiluted terror, “and if...the dream just so happened to be in, in some kinda different version of the mall, and I said that I lived there…?” Her voice petered out into a hoarse squeak.

Simon’s eyes closed as she said it.

Slowly, he nodded.

“Aw, fuck me.” He breathed slowly, sinking into the chair a little.

Several coffee urns dropped back onto the desk in unison, making a resounding crash. Most of them clattered onto the floor - a couple of them broke. Abigail doubled over at the sound and covered the back of her neck and her head with her hands. “I didn’t mean to!” she cried out, shifting her chair back with a kick of her legs to put distance between herself and her interrogator. The room responded in kind - a lot of the little things on the desks put distance between themselves and the surfaces, maybe an inch or two, as staplers and maps and empty coffee mugs lazily drifted upwards. “I-I-I was just trying to scare him, I was trying hard not to tell’im nothin’!”

“Ho-lee sheeyit!” someone yelped as a flood of still-warm coffee soaked the floor.

“Woah, hey, hey, kid, it’s ok. It’s gonna be ok, we’re not- we’re not fucking angry, ok?” Simon gave a start as the noise started, reaching forward instinctively to try and calm Abi down. “Seriously, kid, I mean it, I- I know you tried your best, ok? We’re not- we’re not gonna-”

And like that, he twigged.

“We’re not gonna hurt you, kid, really. We’re- we’re here to protect you, alright?” He got onto his knees to reach forwards, gently, towards Abi, staying below her rather than above her, his stutter resurfacing for a moment.

“How many people,” Abigail groaned, “did I just put into danger with my big fuckin’ mouth? What are these stupid dreams anyhow?! Why’s it matter! It’s just a dumb hobo!”

“I don’t know how many, if any, might be in danger now - and I don’t know very much about the dreams, either, but I know someone who might.” Simon laid his hand on her shoulder. She flinched at the touch and kept still. “All I know is that some magic users, they sometimes get weird dreams like yours, and that sometimes two people who are having those dreams, they can stumble into eachother and meet. Is that right, Syl?” Simon looked up at a tall, black woman, who was busy standing up the coffee urns.

“Close.” She replied curtly. “It’s not always people who you find in those dreams. But close.”

“Can you make’em stop?” Abigail croaked, wishing she hadn’t immolated her sleeping bag and much preferring the cold hard floor to this fresh nightmare.

Sylvia turned to face Abi, face expressionless.

“Not exactly.”

“Y’aint got some sorta sedative or sommin’ that can stop me from dreaming up anything?” Abigail ventured.

“Not one a child should be taking - or that you could use for very long.” She turned back to the coffee, sighing at the mess. There was a gentle tap as one of the free-floating paperweights bonked into the side of a filing cabinet.

Abigail hid her head in between her knees, trying to fold herself up into nonexistence. She kept quiet for a while longer before asking “what happens now?”

Simon exhaled.

“I’m gonna let you use my sleeping bag to try and get some rest, kid. Then I’m gonna go see about reorganising our watch. Tomorrow we’ll see about these dreams of yours - we were planning on giving everyone some basic safety training and stuff anyway, right Syl?”

She didn’t reply.

“Ok. Come on, kid. Let’s get you a glass of water or something.”

---

---

It was looking at him. Matthew could swear he could see an evil glint in the two points of concentrated darkness that passed for the things eyes, like it could go for him the second it got the chance. He took a deep breath, his thumb shaking slightly above the button on the flashlight, hesitating. Halting. He tensed his legs, ready to run at any moment. He pressed down, and the thing disappeared as the light winked out.

Just a second later the light was flicked back on, but the thing hadn't moved. It's bald egg like head still poked over the line that had been carved in the wall with black ink, it's bulbous nose still hanging down over the edge in plain defiance again how any human fave should work. It's fingers still gripped the top of the black, as though ready to fling itself across the length of what he assumed was some kind of old chocolate cafe based on the distant whiffs of fudge that lingered in the air. He summoned his courage and flickered his flashlight again.

No movement. There he was, still plastered on the far wall right above the abandoned counter.

Kilroy was still here.

---

It hadn't taken long for Matthew to go kind of stir crazy cooped up in here. After the relaxed euphoria of a shower and having something proper in his stomach had worn off he realized he hadn't brought much of anything to occupy his mind in his new life of refuge/fugitive. This normally wouldn't be a problem, his usual response when he had nothing to occupy his time was to reminisce. Think of friends, relive exciting moments, replay movies he'd seen, he'd just let the memories float up and enjoy them.

Unfortunately, the only memories he was getting right now involved blood on snow.

So to suppress that he needed to do something.

He thought about volunteering his services to the people in charge, but after that girl from earlier had popped off in the middle of the first night and destroyed her sleeping bag, he thought better of that. It had to be hard enough corralling and managing the lot of them without having to waste time doing some on the job training for a guy whose only real skill was going fast. His next thought was bury himself in the arcade and lose himself to videogames, but that presented its own problems in a group of six to eight children that had staked their claim on that room to the exclusion of all challengers. He'd been trying to barter for entry using the 76 cents he had to his name, but those negotiations had broken down when a little boy who in retrospect was playing Galaga with way more intensity than it warranted had quietly threatened to put Matthew's blood "somewhere else" unless he stopped talking and went away. Not the tiniest itty-bittyest bit intimidated, and recognizing these kids probably had bigger issues they needed to repress than him, Matthew went on his way sans three quarters.

He'd spotted his calling by accident, really. His eyes were drawn to a support pillar as he passed by on a aimless walk around the mall, to someones crude depiction of a little bird. It was pretty cute, like a child's drawing. A circle for the body, two little dots for eyes, a triangle for a beak. Stick legs leading to three tiny toes. No wings. It looked kind of like a Kiwi bird.

He pulled out his keys and scratched off the legs.

---

He wasn't paranoid. He felt like he had to emphasize that to himself as he reared back and threw a plastic clothes hanger at Kilroy. It hit him square in the eye and clattered to the floor. He didn't really think he'd get any reaction as another hanger spun off Kilroy's bald head. This was mostly just something to do, to take his mind of the situation. Besides, what did it really hurt to be sure>

He advanced on the unmoving Kilroy, keeping the beam of the small crappy flashlight on his key-ring trained directly on it. In his other hand he gripped a key, teeth worn down from use. He jumped the counter and went to work breaking up Kilroys shape. Matthew separated the drawings head into just four curved lines and stepped back to observe. If he hadn't tried to kill Matthew for that he probably wasn't gonna. Maybe Goodrest wasn't actually any safer for what he was doing, but one day he'd be able to reminisce on this and laugh at how stupid he was being.

Maybe tomorrow.

Angeline, after laying painstakingly awake all night in a room filled with other people trying to sleep, had basically pretended to be asleep all night, keeping still and now her muscles ached from the effort. Light was spilling into the room, she really wasn’t sure what time it was but now it would be socially acceptable for her to escape, so escape she shall. She got up and looked at her sleeping back, did she have to take it with her or leave it there..? She opted for leave it there and took her big duffel bag with her to the bathroom to freshen up.

Grateful she’d brought deodorant and perfume she dressed herself in the mostly private space of the girl’s bathroom, save for a few weary eye-d people wandering in, keeping their eyes mostly closed as to not wake up too much so they could go and reclaim what little sleep they had. Speaking of, she leaned into the mirror and gently ran a finger over the dark circles under her eyes. She patted on some concealer and sighed at her upsettingly low stash, she had intended to buy a new one next week but that probably wasn’t going to happen now. She changed into some leggings, her sports bra, a vest and a hoodie and carefully crafted a neat little ponytail at the top of her head. She looked in the mirror and at the very least was satisfied that she looked like a normal person. Carefully re-packing her precious bag, all she had left to live with, she exited the bathroom.

She had cast her gaze around the hall, small bubbles of activity were starting up and she didn’t want to take up too much space on stretching out her sore muscles. She found a large-ish alcove, where perhaps a seating area for a cafe had once been and sat on the floor, starting with some warm up stretches, just relaxing her muscles a little from the tension of the night and the days prior. It felt good to do something that was typically so routine to her. A semblance of normality.

Ever since Abigail did away with her sleeping bag she's had to sleep on the floor. She tried to sync up the times she'd shuffle, half-awake, to the bathroom with the times she'd then shuffle out into the cold, blue expanse of night and light it up with purple. She was pretty sure her name was starting to stick out amongst the staff...as of yet, nobody else seemed to have as much trouble as she did with containment of her magic. She had burnt holes through the metal trash can but it was better than great jets of violet flame pouring out into the sky like a big, obvious, magical flare for nosy neighbours or overzealous FOE agents trying to scoop up the stragglers. Every time she used that spell, it hurt. Her palms blistered, went red and shiny. It woke her up every time, and then left her hungry as her skin peeled and shed off to reveal healthier, pinker flesh underneath - all in the span of fifteen or so minutes.

Did Abigail have a right to complain? Absolutely not. As far as she could tell, she was one of the lucky ones. Nobody had died - nobody important, at least - and she didn't kill anyone when she awakened. Did she desperately want to? Yes, but not here, and not to anyone she knew. Homesickness was a coming and going urge that she was surprised hadn't been so prominent in her mind, perhaps because of how definitively her old life ended. She wanted things to be the way they used to be - just like everybody else in this crumbling ruin. Goodnight felt like a liminal space, a place of stasis. It was the biggest bus stop she could possibly imagine, or perhaps a train station (though she'd never used a train before). It felt like people were waiting to move on. "Am I in purgatory?" she asked the singed trash can with its nasty old garbage fumes mixing with the mists of dawn, and got an odd look from one of the guards. That made her indignant. She turned to stare him down and raised her voice. "Well?" she barked. "Am I?"

"Nah, you ain't," grunted the man, pulling his scarf up a bit higher to keep out the chill.

"Just checking."

Abigail stank to high heaven thanks to teenage BO and a lack of deodorant. She wasn't wearing any of her old clothes except for the ruined baseball cap. They were secondhand and musty and suited her just fine, even if a lot of them were too big. She wandered around the sparse tiled halls of Goodnight trying to find something to do. The arcade kids didn't want much to do with her after she melted one of the joysticks. She couldn't tell which of the adults were helpers, survivors, sane or bonkers. A lot of the ones her age were all over the place, as if it were their first time away from home or something. Usually, an opportunity to kill time presented itself. This time, it presented itself in the form of one lady in an alcove stretching.

Abigail watched her for a bit. She was really pretty with the morning light coming in from the windows, a bit like an angel. And she didn't look all sad and worried like everyone else. She looked up and down the corridor and then loitered her way over to the stranger, rubbing her forearm awkwardly. "Whatcha doing?" she asked.

Angeline was right in the middle of stretching out her hip flexors, curled over, pressing the bases of her feet together and leaning to rest her forehead on the shoes before she heard a voice come from above her. She slowly lifted herself back out of the stretch and looked at that scruffy kid she gave lady’s products to. Unfortunately down-wind she caught a whiff and started to wish she’d offered other products to her as well… Would it be rude to-... Yes absolutely, she’ll politely ignore it. “I’m uh- well I’m just stretching out a bit I guess, the floor wasn’t the comfiest bed I’ve slept on and I guess I wanted to shake off that fresh-floor-feeling.” She joked and stood up dusting herself down and eyeing her over.

“Gotta… Keep the cogs oiled n whatnot.” Angie added a sort of quasi-explanation as to why she was just randomly loosening up. She fished out one of the water bottles she’d retrieved the day before from her bag and took a sip “Why, what are you doing?” She enquired. From her experience, this girl was a little rough around the edges so she tried to keep her questions as gentle as possible as to not make them feel accusatory.

Siobhan stood outside. Inhale. Exhale. She breathed through a smouldering stick of tobacco, feeling her mouth burn and her lungs groan... And her veins still and slow and her mind steady. She was still coming to terms with the fact that she could live her life... Normally. As a person without crippling headaches each and every day. How did one adjust? She had only been in her early twenties (at her best guess) when the pain had started, but now, closing on thirty, the idea that she didn't have to deal with the pain seemed... Wrong. Like a part of her life was missing. A horrible part of her life but one could miss the bad just as easily as they could the good.

She would flick her butt and stomp it down, turning to walk back inside Goodnight. Littering wasn't exactly high on the issues here, so she didn't feel too concerned about anyone finding out, and this place was already a concrete splotch against nature, so it wasn't as if she was ruining some pristine wilderness or anything. Nothing held her back- no sudden call from a person or tug of the moon, and so it was that she would end up moping through the rundown locale for the umpteenth time, wondering what, exactly, she was to make of life now.

Evenually though, her eyes would be drawn to a figure stretching- she knew the position immediately, because she wasn't exactly a stranger to yoga. When you were constantly moving, you needed a form of exercise that was low-maintanence and could be done without any expensive gym equipment. Pilates, yoga, even simple stretches, but it was yoga she had done the most of, mostly on her plasticy roll mat. Keeping her distance for now, she would just observe- if she seemed ameanable to exercising with others, she'd probably hop on in.

---

---

---

---

Míra was tired. She was exhausted, in fact - shattered, even.

Shattered, actually, was probably the best word. The English language - perhaps on account of the English tendency towards sour humour, poor moods, and crappy weather - was blessed with a glorious variety of words to describe fatigue, and how one can become it, but Míra wasn't just tired in the mundane sense, she was shattered.

She was tired. But she was broken too.

Lieutenant Míra Mendez was good at compartmentalising because she had to be. The other night had not been the first time she'd witnessed men die - nor had it been the first time she'd had cause to pull her gun and get involved, or even the first time she'd seen cops die - but, like it always did, it stuck with her. It made her feel irrationally angry, spiteful at the way the world worked, dread for when it would finally be her turn - but more than anything else, it made her feel tired, and it made her feel broken.

Míra had never been good at hiding her emotions.

When she found him, she wasn't even completely sure that she'd been meaning to - but if nothing else he was a distraction, and he was... definitely acting weird.

"Hey, Matt? Everything ok with you man?" Míra looked over the counter at the younger man, having just finished his work on the unassuming form of Kilroy.

"You uh, wanna talk, or anything?"

---

---

@Gentlemanvaultboy

Zephyr found himself up and unable to get back to sleep just before the sun rose in the morning. Old habits from being a bus driver he supposed. Being up early would be good for him, it would let him do some morning meditation in peace. There were a few others milling about, Zephyr gave them a friendly smile then carried on, eventually finding a quiet little corner for him to do his meditation. Usually his meditation was for him to just have some quiet, and to quell any rage he may have been feeling. Today was a bit of a different exercise, he was trying to meditate on the exact nature of the abilities he had been gifted.

As he breathed his thoughts drifted to when he lifted the debris out of the way so the car could get through. He hadn't really thought about it in the moment, he just acted. He had called on Kratos and the deities of earth, so it seemed he could give himself great strength as well as be protected by the earth. Zephyr always tried to get in turn with the element of earth, steady, constant. In reality he was probably more in tune with fire, able to both provide protection but could turn and ruin you if not treated with care.

Through Zephyrs meditation he felt his abilities within in, not their exact nature, but glimpses. Not only could he sharpen his senses, he could also shut off his sense of pain should he need it. He could give himself strength, protect himself with the earth, and there was another ability there that didn't seem related to any of the gods but within himself, though he couldn't figure out what this ability was. What he was most excited about though was trying to make something from the earth. Finding a large planter pot with whatever had once lived in it long dead he used the earth to create a Bo-Staff, his preferred weapon from his time teaching Tae Kwon Do. The staff held up pretty well as he swung it around, although if it made contact with a surface too roughly it fell apart, good to know.

After doing staff forms for a while in his little corner people seemed to be up and about, and Zephyr decided it was time for a little break. He made his way back to what he supposed was the main area of the mall where he now lived. Looking around what caught his eye was a woman doing yoga, and she seemed to be talking with the Arizona girl from the other day, did she give her name? If she had Zephyr couldn't remember it right now. He'd always meant to try yoga as a means to stay fit and meditate at the same time but Tae Kwon Do had always eaten up so much of his time. Well there was no time like the present, Zephyr made his way over to the two, "hey there. I couldn't help but notice you doing yoga, mind if I watch and try to copy your moves? I've always wanted to try yoga, see how it compares to martial arts."

Angeline started to look a little nervous as yet another person approached. It’s not that she was nervous about stretching in front of people, she’d done much crazier stuff on stage but she never considered herself much of a teacher. “Hi - Yeah of- of course I mean I’m not exactly the best at explaining stuff but I guess if you look at what I’m doing and roughly can replicate it it should be alright… Does martial arts take a lot of flexibility?” she asked, looking actually curious, she supposed it was a little like dancing, high kicks and a lot of control. Lost in her thought, she looked around, there wasn’t any mats or anything to comfortably stretch on, she hadn’t even brought her own, regrettably. Supposedly though, this new life wouldn’t be exactly as cush as she’d been used to. “Oh I’m getting distracted - But I can tell you whereabouts you’re supposed to feel the stretch so you know if you’re doing it wrong if you don’t feel anything..” While it wasn’t exactly instructor level, it definitely helped her in her conditioning classes.

“I was just warming up, anyhow so I guess just sit down with me and stretch out your hip-flexors like this-” She sat, pressing the bases of her shoes together, pulled them close toward her crotch and folded herself over “The aim is to try and get your forehead to rest on-...” She looked at her shoes “Like the sides of the balls of your feet?” She leant down “Usually someone pushes my shoulders down so I go deeper, but well my muscles ache enough so I’m just going to do these solo. Oh and hold each pose for roughly twenty to thirty seconds.” Her voice is slightly strained as the ache in her legs is being stretched out. After a while she sits back up “Or, well, as long as you want really don’t push yourself too far.” Angie added, trying to think of her relaxingly-voiced instructor, if only she could sound so carefree and chill. “Um - and then just to keep relaxed on the floor here just, uh, put your legs into a straddle position-” She stretches her legs out in front of her then moves them apart “And like… Try and touch your toes with one hand, and reach the other one over your head? It should be stretching like the back of your knee? Like your hamstrings and the arm over your head should just let gravity pull your obliques out so along your ribcage and the opposite side of your body from the leg you’re touching..” She can easily wrap her hand around her shoes, focusing more on the stretch on her obliques and shoulder joint.

When she straightens herself up she gets a blank look on her face “I’ve just realised I never even introduced myself.” she laughed, a little embarrassed at how flattered she was at being asked to demonstrate some stretches. “Um, right well my name is Angeline Harrison - I’m uh - I was a ballerina so I’m not like a professional yoga instructor or anything” She switches to the other side, holding the base of her foot and stretching her arm over the top of her head, aiming to try and touch her toes with her other hand.

Matthew jumped as the voice cut through the darkness, spinning around with a look not unlike a teenager whose mom had caught him looking at boobies on the family computer. "Uhhhhh..." he started, trying to come up with an excuse that didn't sound like he was cracking up, but he couldn't find anything to say except the truth. "You know, just keeping busy." He said, jumping up and sitting in front of her on the counter. "Trying to stay out of the way." He gestured over his shoulder to poor, freshly trepanned Kilroy. "Maybe do a little good. Probably not. I don't know."

Come to think of it, she was pretty far out of the way herself. In fact she didn't look all that different from how he felt. "It's just that every time I close my eyes I can see it. The cops, the centipede, the violet dawn, and it's all perfect. Perfect. Like I'm living it again. It's weird, I've never had anything I wanted to forget before."

He flipped the key between all his fingers, then held offered it to her. "You want to give it a try? It's been making me feel a little better."

@Bazmund

"Looking for a way to not be bored without getting roped into doing chores," Abigail responded, rubbing her nose on the base of her palm. "Preferably without getting in trouble again, and giving them arcade kids a wiiiide berth. They're creepy as." She regarded Zephyr lazily as he approached and tried to join in, only showing a bare modicum of interest when she found out he was able to do martial arts. As Angeline and Zephyr got along, Abigail was starkly reminded with how her age made her even more of an outsider. She didn’t take part in the lesson yet but sat against a wall and watched them, awkward yet inquisitive. “Is this, like, something you do for fun?” she asked Angeline as she watched the woman contort into what was - in her opinion - painful and unnatural positions.

“What’s it like being a ballerina?” She tucked her greasy hair back into her baseball cap, sprawling against the wall in her own yoga pose of sitting around doing sweet F-A. “You gotta train a lot? Are the guys hot? How do they even get into leotards?” she bombarded Angeline with questions, unaware of her rudeness. She may be an uncultured little shit, but she was a curious uncultured little shit who was at least making an attempt to make friends in the face of life-changing uncertainty. At the very least, one could be thankful she hadn’t found a decent way to make fun of their poses yet.

---

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---

---

Míra sighed, and reached for the key.

It was about fifteen minutes of awkward, scratch-filled, anti-graffiti oriented silence before she spoke again.

She paused mid keyscratch, before shaking her head and slumping back against the back of the shop counter, handing the keys limply back to Matthew - for what little they were worth now.

"I can't stop thinking about how many people we lost." Her voice cracked, just a tiny bit.

Míra shook her head - not quite in disbelief, not quite in sadness, but not quite not both.

"I'm going back home today, I took New Year's and a couple days off - drinking, and the hangover, I told them." She started rubbing the bridge of her nose with fingernail-bitten hands.

"But I stayed here last night, and the talk from the people coordinating this is just..." Míra trailed off, like her heart was an engine stalling, before blinking herself out of the reverie, "... it's heartbreaking, man. We took a lot of fucking losses. A lot of fucking losses."

She rested her head in her hand, leaning on her knee for support. Her other hand idly grabbed a piece of broken tile from the floor and chucked it halfheartedly at the far end of the checkout area of whatever godforsaken store they were occupying.

"This is so fucked."

---

---

@gentlemanvaultboy

Jimmy wasn’t half-bad as a lover. He was a better fisherman, though. Ellen watched his sleeping form in the small cabin’s bed, and then got up and began scooping up her discarded clothing from the floor. He was markedly bad at cleaning, she noted as she took in old dishes still on the dining table to her left. They had eaten out, so the meal must have been from lunch--or prior.

It was late, and Ellen waffled as she began to dress herself. There was a part of her that wanted to crawl back into the bed and snuggle up with Jimmy for warmth. But there was another part of her that knew what could be coming--and wondered how anyone could sleep through it. She had planned to spend the evening alone, just to be safe(r)....but then Jimmy caught up with her at a pool table and the game led to drinks and greasy bar food that was meant to resemble a dinner.

Her phone was plugged into the wall of the houseboat, and Ellen grabbed it, looking at the time before bundling it with the rest of her things. She still had some time before 3am, and decided to hop into the shower. If Jimmy woke up, maybe he would convince her to come back to bed. And maybe she would consider the offer rather than outright declining.

The side of the shower had a window with a glazed film that let in light, but not much else. The boat was on the dock, so in addition to the small bathroom light, she had a few lights from the dock, and the light from the night sky illuminating the area. It seemed calm. Perhaps this year, nothing would happen. Perhaps no one would awaken and people would be left alone this time.

But the people wouldn’t be so lucky. She couldn’t be so lucky. Ellen stood under the water, conditioning rinsing out of her hair when she realized. Her chest tightened, filling with dread as she instantly knew. Most years she stood wondering, worried whether she would even know before her magic ruined her, but this year she knew. Ellen muttered a curse and reached out to turn off the water. Her wet hands couldn’t get a grip on the stupid knob, though. You’re panicking. Ellen told herself. Calm down, take a breath.

Frustrated with the fact that she had mis-judged her timing so thoroughly, Ellen reached out of the shower and grabbed a towel, drying her hand before successfully turning off the shower’s faucet. From there, she moved more quickly. She dried her body and wrapped the towel around her hair. She went to get her clothing, and began to dress. While she dressed, she heard her phone vibrate, and she pulled up the new message.

The message was brief, warning her the FOE was coming and telling her where she could go for safety. It was either trust the mysterious text or go off on her own--and since she hadn’t driven to the docks, she would have been walking an awful long time. The FOE would be here in fifteen, so she set her phone timer for five minutes and got busy.

She had liked Jimmy, but not enough to not steal from him. Desperate times and all…

Her phone and charger went in her purse. Then she finished getting dressed. She grabbed her travel bag. Having just docked that day, she still had all of her clothes from the last fishing season. Everything smelled like the salty sea air, but it was good enough. Her bag already had her essentials, but she helped herself to a few of Jimmy’s things. She took two water bottles from the fridge, a box of poptarts, and a few other snack foods. He didn’t have fruit, naturally. It was far easier to store non-perishables when you went to sea for weeks at a time. She opened a cabinet where his first aid kit was, then hesitated. What if Jimmy didn’t notice she took it and didn’t replace it?

Looking at her phone, she still had 2 minutes before her own timer was up. That would have to be enough time. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Ellen left the ship and began making her way down the dock. She spied a larger fishing vessel, and dropped her bags before stepping onto it. Fortunately, larger vessels needed to keep medical kits within relatively easy access, in case of emergencies. She grabbed a large yellow Marine 600 Medical kit, and then quickly departed before anyone saw her and realized what she was doing. It was a tight fit in her bag, but worth it...hopefully.

Her phone buzzed, and Ellen turned off the alarm. She threw the large bag over her shoulder and checked the specifics of the message once more before shoving the phone in her purse once more and setting off. Too bad the message didn’t say what kind of vehicle they would be using… Then again, they had magic, so maybe they didn’t have a vehicle at all.

Five minutes, some distance, and the start of a fresh snowfall later, the town seemed to erupt in gunfire. It couldn’t have been everywhere, it couldn’t possibly have been that the entire town was shooting itself - but the snow dampened the sound, and the echoes of each shot fired made themselves strange in the tomb-like night sky.

Then, there, around the corner, pulled up to the side of the road.

A hatchback; undistinguished and unremarkable, but for its crew, a man and a woman, daubed in the grey-white of arctic camouflage hunting gear, one of them carrying a carbine rifle in the passenger seat, the other whiteknuckling the steering wheel.

“Ellen, right?” Came a feminine voice from over Ellen’s shoulder, where she could have sworn there wasn’t anyone standing.

Ellen saw the car, which looked like it hadn’t been sitting long enough to accumulate any snow, compared to some of the other vehicles she had seen. She saw the people, then jumped at the voice behind her. Whirling around, Ellen took a step back as she saw that there was, in fact, someone there.

“Uh yea. Yea I’m Ellen.” She replied. Not much point in denying it, since she had sought them out and was walking around with a giant stuffed backpack in the middle of the night. She should have grabbed her pocket knife, but it was at the bottom of the backpack with her other fishing gear. Her hand tightened on the strap of the pack. At least it would be a good blunt object, if she needed to use it as such.

The woman in front of her was short - shorter than Ellen by maybe a bit less than a foot - and slightly rounded in figure. She had a similarly round face, which through lines and crease bore the marks of a frequent and easy smile - though she was not smiling now.

“Super duper.” She said, as naturally as breathing, finally easing back into that comfortable smile that seemed to fit her decidedly Midwestern accent. “You wanna get on in the car, hun? You’re a bit later than expected, and we’ve got all sortsa places to be, dontcha know.”

The car window rolled down.

“Oma, reports of FOE at the houseboat. They won’t be long. Location two is ready for us.” the man with the rifle added, his accent thick and… German?

“Alrighty.” Ellen replied to the smaller woman.

She went up to the car and opened the back door, sliding her bag into the center before sitting along the window seat. She buckled up, and looked at the two in the front. “That’s some gun.” Ellen commented. She would have asked if they were expecting trouble, but given what he just said about the FOE, the answer was obviously yes. “Sorry for taking too long.” She glanced at the friendly woman from before, who was now getting settled in the back beside her bag.

Ellen pulled her bag slightly closer to her, finding the woman’s friendly attitude just a bit suspicious. She felt a pit in her stomach as she realized that the FOE weren’t just at the houseboat--they were at Jimmy’s. Poor Jimmy. “Are they looking for me specifically, or are they going for a no witnesses route?” Ellen asked. Maybe she should have woken him and given him half a chance to get out of there. Or at least encouraged him to put on some pants…

“Well dear, they’re probably just looking for you - and anyone they think is collaborating with you, of course, dear. Your gentleman friend should be ok just so long as he don’t start usin’ magic all of a sudden. Farah, wouldya be a dear and take a quick left there at the stop and go light?” she added.

“Yes, Nanni.” The young woman driving replied, easing down the road on the left hand side - just as a glimpse of a black APC sped past at the next crossing ahead of them, where they’d been going just a moment before, a terrible contrast with the spreading white of the snow on the street behind it.

“Good save.” The German added.

“Thank you so much, Hans dear.”

Ellen nodded in understanding when the woman told her he wouldn't be a problem unless he used magic or helped those with magic. She nearly blurted out a question, but the woman had moved on to giving instructions to the driver.

She had some names now. The driver was Farah, the German Hans, and the grandma was… well, Grandma as best as she could tell. Probably one of those, grandmothers for all, people.

Ellen watched as the APC sped where they would have been going if not for the change in course. That, plus her sudden and silent appearance earlier suggested she was certainly someone with magic. At least she knew how to use it.

"So… do people without magic really help people who do? I mean, I don't see why they would…" Ellen wasn't so cynical as to struggle to imagine anyone acting selflessly. She just couldn't imagine it was common when the stakes were so high. She tended to think of people responding to the awakening with a 'but they did not come for me' attitude.

“Oh, you betcha!” Grandma started. “I won’t beat around the bush with you, dear, I’ve been using magic for about a year now, Farah too, but Hans here just has very strong feelings about how people should be treated, dontcha Hans?”

Hans nodded solemnly.

“I have very strong feelings, yes.” His jaw clenched. “This is not how things should be.”

Farah reached over and squeezed his shoulder silently.

“You’re such a good man, Hans, so brave.” Grandma leaned over towards Ellen, then continued. “He really is such a sweetheart, dontcha know?”

Grandma was as animated as Hans was stoic. They were an interesting pair. Ellen watched the other woman comfort Hans as well, and Ellen got the distinct impression he had a personal stake in this as well. Perhaps he had lost someone...and actually had the means (or will) to do something about it? Did that make Ellen a selfish person for not having done the same?

She shifted in the seat, her winter coat making an awkwardly gravely swish sound with every movement, filling the silence in the car. “I’m sure he is.” Ellen said, noncommittally.

Sure, she didn’t think things should be like this, but...in an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a magical purple fucking light that made people magic. “So you guys got your magic a year ago, and now you...try to stop the FOE from getting other people with magic.” She began, summarizing. “What for?”

Yes, survival was a purpose. But...surviving and living were different things. Ellen had, at times in her life, felt like she was doing one or the other. Grandma seemed calm about their situation, so perhaps she had more to look forward to than just getting by. Maybe these guys had a way to hide the magic, so that they couldn’t be found.

“How did they know to look for me? How did you all know?” She blurted out as the question came to her mind.

“Good question.” Farah mumbled.

“All three are very good questions, dear. Right now our biggest priority is making sure as many folks as possible survive long enough to be relocated to proper hiding places, but we’re sure hopin’ that we can turn the tables on the government once we get the chance to.”

“As for the latter two,” Hans started, “we’re not totally sure how the FOE and their sister organisations know, but some mages have learned how to identify people in the year running up to their awakening. I don’t know for sure how it works, or how reliable it is - but it helps.”

“Ok now, after we go over this bridge here, we’re gonna be approaching a small town where we need to try and make two more pickups, ok? We’re looking for a boy named Timmy, and a girl named Ciara, is that clear with everyone?”

Ellen accepted that first had to come ‘safety.’ She just needed to know there was some bigger...plan,especially now that mages weren’t just killing everything nearby and going crazy after awakening.

“Shit… a year? That would have been nice to know.” Ellen complained. Then again, what would she have done differently? Would she have learned more self-defense? Worked a bit harder at building up her strength? Joined this group months ago if given the chance? There were a multitude of possibilities, but there was really no way to know what she would have done differently. Hell, she had spent a long time thinking about what ifs. Too damn long.

Even so, Ellen had expected this was coming for years, and she hadn’t done any of those things to prepare herself. She hadn’t even started eating healthier, which she had told herself time and time again she would do.

Ellen turned her attention to the world outside of the windows. They were looking for two more. She wondered if Grandma used ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ to mean they were legitimately kids, or if they were potentially adults--in which case the car could get quite cramped. “You don’t have their pictures or something?” She figured they would have like… some sort of social media picture or something. It was basically impossible to avoid having some sort of online presence in this day and age.

Ellen wondered if they had the last names of the pair they were looking for. She could search them up on her phone. Wait … was her phone traceable? Ellen clenched her jaw at the thought of having to ditch her phone, with all of her connections to her previous life. But it wasn't worth her life, or the lives of the people trying to keep her from the EOC. "Hey, I still have my phone. Do we need to like… smash it or remove a chip or something?" Ellen asked, more than a little worried about losing the device. She didn't even really know if she could trust these people yet. And what if she needed to call for emergency services? Well, they probably wouldn't even help her kind anyway...

Everything seemed relatively quiet outside. It was dark, but still lightly snowing, making it a bit harder to actually see. At least they didn’t hear gunshots and see APCs like where she had been.

“Ja, throw it and anything else that can access the internet out of the car.” Hans replied simply.

Ellen nodded, and began to fish the phone out of her purse. Momentarily she debated smashing it to pieces, but it might honestly be better if someone picked it up and started using the device. Maybe it would throw someone off her track if they traveled around or made purchases. She wouldn't need anything on it anymore.

Ellen opened up the phone and pulled up the photo album. She scrolled down to the bottom of the gallery, and took a moment to look at one in particular. The picture was just a memory. Not worth the lives of these people. She rolled down the window and tossed the phone and charger out the window. "That's it." She told them. She didn't have a tablet or Fitbit or anything like that. "Sorry I didn't think about it sooner."

It had briefly occurred to her when she was at the docks, but she had hesitated. What if she had gotten a text after joining these people asking where she was from the mystery number? Or they had to change their meet spot? She wasn't exactly filled with trust for these people yet, but if they were really being honest with her, then maybe they were just legitimately good people.

“That’s just super.” Grandma gave her a pat on the knee. “I know that musta been hard for you, but you’re doing just great.”

After a while, the car began its approach towards the edge of the town - clouds above it lit orange by the glow of a spreading fire.

It was...both reassuring and a little discomforting when Grandma comforted her about tossing out her phone. On the one hand, she appreciated that it was acknowledged she was making a sacrifice--not just the physical sacrifice of the phone, but her connection and memories of her old life. On the other, she felt annoyed that Grandma knew it was hard for her. She didn’t want to look that...reliant on the phone. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she shrugged. “It’s just a phone. It isn’t worth someone’s life.” She didn’t specify whether she meant her own or theirs. Because she honestly hadn’t decided if she had much to offer compared to these folks.

Then again, maybe she could prove herself useful in this new world, too. They probably didn’t need a crab fisher, but she had other skills...and she liked the cold weather. Ellen looked out the window as they approached the town. There was a fire ahead, which wasn’t exactly reassuring, but it probably meant they were in the right place. “It looks like we are doing the right direction...I don’t suppose either of you are particularly good at putting out fires…” She mused, talking to the two people who performed magic in the car.

Grandma chuckled, her eyes gleaming.

“Oh, honey, I can handle the fires. I just need Hans and Farah to handle the kids, and you to take care of yourself for now.”

“Coming up on Timmy.” Farah said, hitting the accelerator a bit harder.

Hans cocked his rifle, and muttered something to himself in German.

The next moment, the car stopped with a jerk, and Grandma was nowhere to be seen.

“Got it.” Ellen didn’t want to cause trouble-- and she certainly didn’t know how to use her magic (whatever it was) like Grandma clearly did. And she wasn’t exactly proficient with a gun, so she wasn’t going to jump at the chance to use one in a very real and very dangerous situation. Maybe this would be easy, like it had been with her. The other two never even had to get out of the car.

When Ellen looked next at Grandma, she had vanished. Well, that explained how she snuck up on Ellen before, and made the woman feel a bit better about being surprised by the sudden voice behind her earlier. Ellen tossed her bag in the trunk of the hatchback, and pushed her purse on the floor to make more space for the new arrival. Then, she turned her attention to the window, looking for any sign of Grandma, and Timmy.

Sure enough, Grandma appeared not long after, herding a boy - couldn’t have been more than 15 - towards the car. He was clutching his backpack in front of him, ghostly pale despite the tan of his skin, and had a bloody nose.

“Go on, get in dear.” Grandma said as the door to the back of the car opened up. “Hans, dear, ETA?”

“FOE on us, three minutes; FOE on target, six minutes. Getting reports of cops around too.”

“Super duper. Let’s rock, kiddies.” Grandma chirped as she threw herself into the car after the boy.

The boy, Timmy, looked up at Ellen.

“Uh. Hi.” He said, as his bag shifted on his lap… on it’s own.

"Hey. I'm Ellen." She held out her right hand to shake his, if he was up for it. "They rounded me up a few minutes ago. You got any tech that can access the internet? Probably best to leave it behind now." She told him the thing she probably should have been told off the bat-- oblivious to the fact that he might be a little too traumatized to be ready for information like that yet.

Whether or not he shook her hand, Ellen grabbed her purse and dug through it for a tissue a minute later. "Here, for your nose…" she explained. "Are you okay?"

“Oh, yeah, uh…” he trails off for a moment, “yeah, yeah no I’m fine, I just tripped, I’m ok. Oh shit, my phone!”

He opens his bag in a panic, reaching into it - and past a live, snow white bunny rabbit - to produce his phone, which he immediately handed to Ellen.

The bunny seemed totally nonplussed, and only paused munching on the celery that had been hastily stuffed into the bag alongside him for a second.

“That’s just Hamlet.” Timmy said without prompting, as he zipped up the bag again the the car jerked to the side as it went around a bend. “How long have you been working for the… guys?” He looked at Ellen again, gesturing around the car.

Ellen tossed the phone out the window. The wet snow outside would likely take care of both of their phones, the water damage making them useless. “Me? Just a few minutes. The driver, Farah, joined up last year, along with Oma. I think she’s like everyone’s grandma. I dunno about Hans.” She knew he didn’t have magic, but she didn’t know how long he had been working with the organization.

She didn’t ask about the bunny, and was glad she hadn’t suggested he toss the bag into the trunk like she did with hers. The car itself was getting pretty crowded, and she wasn’t entirely sure how they would fit another person in. She could offer to sit in the trunk… but these people seemed to have planned this out too well to not account for the lack of seats.

Another few minutes of driving, in a stressed, snowy silence - and they were upon location two.

A teenage girl in baggy jeans and a parka was shivering, clutching a sky blue suitcase, on the kerb of the road. She was backlit by the warm yellow of the streetlight, augmented by the glow of riot fire reflected from the cloud cover above, and as she saw the car turn onto her street her face lit up as well - with hope.

It was in that moment that everything went horrifically wrong.

Grandma suddenly moved, grabbing Ellen’s arm as her eyes went wide.

“Hans!” She shouted, her eyes glazing over - no, icing over, with a delicate, thin layer of frost. “FOE, end of street!”

Hans swore viciously in German as he threw open the door of the moving car and began to step out, just as Farah slammed the brakes and made a turn. He slid as he hit the snow, bringing his rifle up as he slid feet first through it - just as a pair of black vans turned the corner, and started to accelerate.

The sound of the gunshot was incredible - like a savage, hateful knife in the back of quiet, and Hans kept going after the first one. Grandma was nowhere to be seen as the FOE APCs kept charging down the street, and the girl on the street looked like she was about to make a run for it.

Their second pick up was another kid. She looked freezing out there in the cold, and Ellen wondered if she was just going to crawl into their laps. When Grandma called out that the FOE was there, Ellen got the sinking feeling that this was some sort of set-up. Maybe they were using the girl as bait to catch those working for this organization.

Ellen looked over at Hans, throwing himself in harm's way, and Grandma, nowhere to be seen. She had no doubts the woman was doing whatever she could to slow down the FOE. Muttering a curse, Ellen knew she couldn’t just sit around and let...whatever was happening, happen. “Farah, I’ll go down a few blocks with the girl. Catch up with us when you can.” Ellen yelled, and then threw open the back door where Grandma had been a few moments before. She made a dash for the girl, and yelled for her to follow.

“What the fuck?! We can’t fight the-“ Farah screamed after Ellen as she ran, to no avail.

What was her name again? “Ciara! Come on!” Ellen wasn’t a runner, but adrenaline was a powerful thing. They needed to get off this street. At least she hadn’t taken off her jacket in the car. She wasn’t even cold.

“Ok!” The girl screamed, scrambling back into the alley away from the commotion. Behind them, the gunfire paused as Hans emptied his magazine and started pushing himself off the road towards cover - Farah had revved the engine and pulled a U-turn already, leaving Hans and Grandma to deal with the FOE.

The girl followed after Ellen, and they moved swiftly into the alley. She needed to get them off of the road, somewhere narrow enough where the FOE cars couldn't fit. Or hide. She turned around to see if the FOE was on them yet.

"I'm Ellen!" She shouted to the teenager. She was tempted to add that she had no idea what she was doing, but didn't think that would inspire confidence. They came out on another street, and Ellen saw what looked like another alley between two buildings on the next street.

Unfortunately for them, the passage was short. There was a business' dumpster, and a narrow path beside it that ended at a fence spanning between the buildings. "Shit." Ellen said. "How's your climbing?" She asked the girl.

“Shit, it’s shit, I’ve never even been able to climb fucking trees!” Ciara screamed, her hands covering her ears as a cacophony of gunfire erupted from Hans’ direction - far too much to simply be him shooting.

As they glanced back in the direction of the gunfire, however, they caught sight of something more immediately dangerous.

Three men, clad in black riot gear and gas masks with mirrored eyeholes, striding into the alleyway - the man in the center was wearing the iconography of the FOE.

Ellen wasn't great at climbing either. They didn't have a ton of trees in Milan. But she would have pretended and tried. When they turned around and saw a bunch of armed and armored guys, Ellen groaned. Quickly, a few options came to mind.

Pretending they weren't who these guys were after would be a waste of time. Ellen didn't exactly have heavy weapons to fight back with, though. Tips from an old self-defense against sexual assault class came to mind briefly, though they hardly seemed helpful at the moment. She could surrender. Hah. Hell no. She could pretend she was going to surrender and try to think of something better.

Maybe her elusive magic would actually do something useful for her. "Heya guys!" Ellen said, holding her hands up in the universal sign of defeat. "Turns out we are both pretty shitty climbers, so--" she rambled, looking over the men. Ellen didn't know a lot about FOE, but she knew they had some resistance to magic. And Ellen had some resistance to being murdered, so that gave her something to work with at least.

Behind her, Ciara clearly wasn't in Ellen's head, and didn't know the girl was still trying to come up with a plan to get them out of here.
“Look, just- just stay away! I don’t wanna- I don’t wanna hurt anyone! I’m not a bad person, I- I-” Ciara raised her hands, backing away.

The riot cops advanced.

As one of them drew close, and raised his baton - an ugly, shiny, metre long rod of polymers and metal, capped with solid steel - he froze.

The FOE agent’s head turned to glance at the man when he stopped - but less than a second later, he dropped his baton and started screaming, recoiling from the two women at the end of the alleyway and clutching his arm. He took one step before collapsing, a sharp, crystalline crunch emanating from his legs.

Ciara’s eyes widened in shock, and she turned to the other riot police.

“I’m sorry! I-”

The other riot cop’s entire body tensed up, and he gave a grunt of pain as he too dropped his weapon, and started reaching around the back of his neck, fumbling for something invisible - but he too, after a second, simply collapsed; though this one didn’t keep moving afterwards.

“Oh my fucking god!” screamed Ciara.

In a few moments, both of the regular cops were taken down. Ellen knew it wasn't her magic that had done it-- if for no other reason than Ciara's screams were riddled with guilt. She didn't need to feel guilty, though. These guys chose to hunt down people simply for existing.

As she tuned out the teenager, Ellen realized she wasn't cold. Not even chilly, despite the fact that it was snowing and cold outside, and two men in front of her had frozen. She looked down at her hand, which she had previously tried to keep in her warm sleeves, and saw it had taken on a grayish shiny hue. She couldn't see the rest of her body, but Ellen was sure it was everywhere. Better gray than frozen.

There was only the FOE guy left. Two on one, much better chances than they had before. The area was too narrow for them to split up and each go a different direction. Though she might have come up with a better strategy if she waited, Ellen didn't have time for that. She rushed towards the FOE agent like an American football player shouldering past the other guys as he tried to clear the path for the one carrying the ball. (Ellen had watched enough American football to get the gist, but not enough to understand the position names.) In this case, Ciara was the ball.

It was exactly the kind of brave that gets called foolish in retrospect.

As Ellen’s shoulder was about to meet the FOE agent, they reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, clamping down with a vice-like grip. Ellen’s skin began to burn under the FOE agent’s gloves, stinging like she was being bathed in bleach - and as the black-clad agent slid their baton under Ellen’s arm like a lever, the oily-grey seal skin simply came away like dirt, revealing red-raw human skin under it.

“You fucking vermin!” roared a woman’s voice from behind the gas mask.

There was a gross, dull pop as the FOE agent pushed on their lever and threw Ellen over their suddenly outstretched leg, pulling her shoulder out of joint and flinging her body into the mud like a discarded doll.

Ellen should have expected the FOE agent to grab her, to clearly be trained in grappling and combat. But she wasn't lamenting her poor choice in trying to attack the agent. Instead, she let out a scream as her skin began to burn, and the outer layer of skin pulled away from the layer beneath. She tried to reach out with her free hand to challenge the FOE agent's vice-like grip on her. It was in vain, and after just a few moments, Ellen felt a sharp pain as her arm was pulled out of its socket.

Ellen landed in the muddy ground, and groaned as she shifted her good arm under her to try to get back onto her feet. She really wanted to come up with something clever to say in response to the cunt. But her mind was just filled with pulsing pain instead.

Come on, get your ass up. Ellen told herself, shifting her weight onto her good limbs. Hopefully Ciara was smart enough to take advantage of Ellen's --completely "intentional"-- distraction.

Ciara did try to run - but the FOE agent saw it coming, and she planted a kick square in the centre of Ciara’s chest, sending her flying back into the dumpster with a pathetic yelp.

“You demons! You fucking rats!” The agent screamed, swinging her baton back down towards Ellen, her attention divided between the two of them.

Nothing about this was going to get any easier by waiting. Which seemed the be Ellen's mantra for the moment. She heard the thud and yelp as Ciara was blocked from leaving, and the agent again screamed at them. Jerking her head up towards the FOE agent, Ellen saw the baton about to come down again.

She felt the muddy ground beneath her fingers, knowing it was wet but not feeling the wet or the cold through her strange second skin. She knew she could make it more wet. She could make it slippery-- she didn't know how, but she knew that she could. And so she did.

She reached out with her good hand and grabbed the agent's leg pulling hard. As she only had one hand for her own balance, her weight shifted and pulled hopefully both of them down to the muddy ground.

The Agent slipped and fell backwards, missing her baton strike - but she lashed out with the foot that Ellen had grabbed as she fell, hitting her in the stomach.

Ellen landed on her side, the FOE woman's boot still beside her stomach. Her good arm was under her body, and she quickly planted it in the mud to get up to her feet. She only had moments before this psycho would be trying to hit her again--or drawing her gun.

Ellen thought about trying to grab the woman's gun for a moment, but she didn't have enough hands for that. Instead, she turned and kicked the agent's leg-- not so much to try to hurt her as to push herself away. She scrambled backwards and then grabbed the side of the dumpster to push herself up. If Ciara hadn't moved by now, Ellen was going to leave her ass here.

Ciara looked up at Ellen, and started to try and get up - but it was like watching a foal scramble for their life away from a wolf, not like a person trying to stand.

“Fuuugh.” She slurred. As her head lilted forwards drunkenly, Ellen caught sight of the cause - a dark, wet, bloody mess on dumpster’s edge. Ciara got to her feet- but slowly, and brokenly.

Meanwhile, the FOE agent gave a grim chuckle, hand on the grip of her pistol.

“I’m gonna like this a lot.” She snarled, punctuated by the click of the safety coming off.

Ciara was not faring well, and Ellen was struggling to pull herself up to a standing position with her one good hand. If the other woman wasn't armed, and there wasn't a teenager looking like she was suffering from a concussion, Ellen might have tried to make a run for it. But she couldn't do nothing…

"I am so. Glad. I. Could make. Your day." Ellen said, her words slowed by her need to breathe a lot more than she expected for just talking. The sarcasm, she hoped, was intact.

Oh right. It was all the near dying that happened just moments ago.

She wasn't bulletproof, at least, she was pretty sure she wasn't. But when the FOE agent wasn't using her gun, Ellen hadn't been THAT bad off. Well… it was her only idea.

"Does it make you. Feel powerful? Killing us with. A gun?" Ellen gestured with her head towards Ciara. "She's a kid. Such a threat."

“It’s not about power.” She shook her head, raising the gun - and then tensing, turning, body wracked with shock as she heard the footsteps from behind her just half a second too late.

The gun went off once, twice, as she turned, and Hans flew into her. Her pistol went clattering off a wall as the force of his impact knocked it clean out of her hand, discharging a third time as it hit the wall, then hitting the thin black mud of the alley with a wet squelch.

Hans screamed unintelligibly in German as he tried to bring a knife down on the FOE agent - but she caught his wrist, and punched him solidly in the ribs, screaming right back at him. His outfit, until then a disrupted mess of grey and white, was disturbingly red around his stomach and his left leg - and his gun was totally missing - but for what it was worth, he was putting up an about-equal fight.

Ciara dumbly reached out and grabbed ahold of Ellen’s fucked up arm. For a second there was the sharp pain of a dislocated joint being yanked on - but then, immediately following it, there was a frosty, numb sensation… accompanied by a return of function.

“Fukkem.” Ciara leaned her head back again, closing her eyes.

Ellen gasped in pain as Ciara pulled her arm. The pain dulled quickly, though, and Ellen could move her arm again. Ciara looked like she would have to be carried out of here. And Hans… he was grappling with the FOE agent, and Ellen was sure she saw blood on his clothing.

She could run for it. She could grab Ciara and try to get out of there. Or… Ciara was right. Fuck 'em. The average person probably wouldn't be taking advice from a teenager with a head injury, but today was far from average.

She couldn't leave them behind. Ellen looked around for FOE agent's gun. She had heard it clatter to the ground when Hans arrived. She spotted it after a few moments, and wasted no time grabbing it for herself. Having never fired a gun, Ellen probably wasn't the best person to have the weapon, but she knew which end needed to be aimed at the FOE agent, and she was pretty sure the safety was off, since it had just been fired.

It was now or never.

Ellen aimed at the woman and fired the gun once. The recoil threw her arms up further than she expected, and she watched the scene for a moment before potentially unloading the remaining ammunition.

The bullet hit her in the shoulder - but, in a stroke of luck, that shoulder had an arm attached to it, and that arm was responsible for stopping her being fatally stabbed.

Hans brought the knife down, pushing through the last shreds of strength in the woman’s arm and plunging it into her chest. Then he pulled it out, and stabbed her again. This action was repeated six more times, shrieks of pain giving way to groans, then to a sort of sick wheezing, then to nothing at all.

As he finally retrieved the knife from her body for the last time, Hans wiped it on her vest, and flopped down off of her into the mud as well. He took a second before standing up, hands shaking and limbs weak. It didn’t look like all of the blood on him was his, but some of it definitely was - and it was spreading, too.

“We need to leave.” He spat in German, looking down at the three bodies in the alley with something deeper and heavier than contempt. “Can you carry her?” He said through hoarse, ragged breaths, in English this time, as he winced and grabbed at the wound - or wounds - perforating his leg.

Ellen watched as Hans stabbed the woman repeatedly. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. What if Hans fell, or the stabbing failed, or she got the upper hand? Hans had come back for Ellen and Ciara. It was the least he could do to “cover” him.

The gun shook in her hand a bit, but she kept it steady until the woman was on the ground, umoving. She nodded at his words in German. He was right, they needed to leave. Ellen’s gaze fell upon Hans’ leg, and she nodded. “Yea, I’ll manage.” Ellen replied. She didn’t want to put down the gun, though, so she handed it to Hans and then went over to Ciara and pulled her up. “Come on, Ciara.” She said softly. “You’re going to be okay.” With that, Ellen followed Hans out of the alley, hoping their ride hadn’t left (or been taken down by the rest of the FOE).

Ciara took a while to wake up - and even then, she wasn’t exactly present - but she was up and walking with Ellen’s support before long had passed. Hans went ahead, having taken the pistol off of Ellen and checked the magazine before she’d tried picking Ciara up, and despite the various thorns in their side and the pins in their heels, they eventually made it to a beat up looking hatchback with an old woman leaning on the hood.

“Oh, Hans, dear, what in the world happened to you?” Grandma said, looking up but not quite in their direction. Her eyes were grey, covered over with white film where they hadn’t been before - and her hands were covered in tiny fragments of ice at the joints.

“Got shot, Oma. But I shot back, and I shot better.”

Grandma nodded.

“Sticks and stones, dear, sticks and stones. Farah, would you be a sweetheart and get in the back with Hans so that he doesn’t bleed to death? Oh, and Ellen, can you drive?”

“Sure, Grandma.” Ellen answered. She reached out to her injured left arm, but it was still comfortably numb. Thanks to Ciara. The car was an automatic, thankfully, and Ellen barely needed both hands to drive. She slid into the driver’s seat, adjusting the rear view as Farah got in the back. It was a tight fit, but once they were all safely in the car, Ellen drove. Her first objective was getting out of the town. She drove, listening to instructions from Grandma if she gave any warnings or updates. She stayed quiet, though. Today had been… a day of Fucking First Times, and the sun hadn’t even risen yet. On the bright side, they weren’t dead, yet. The edge of Ellen’s lip curled a little--a small grin.

Matthew watched her for a long while, aghast in silence. They'd lost a lot of people? Like, a lot? How many? And to add to that here he was, some ass she had risked her life to pull out of the fire that burned a lot of her comrades, acting like he was cracking up. Her actual life. She had a life she had to go back to? She was using her vacation days to be here!? The thought had never even crossed his mind that she wasn't some kind of full time freedom fighter living on the lamb. Now she had to go back to a normal ass life, after all this, and pretend none of it ever happened? She was going to have people all around her expecting her to still be her with no knowledge of the feelings rolling around on the inside?

He was in a bad way, but from his perspective what Mira was walking into was hell.

"Mira." He said, hopping off the counter to stand beside her. "I should have said this earlier, but thank you. You saved my life. You save Jan's life. Without you, we would have both been completely fucked. I know that if you're going by the numbers it might seem like a drop in the bucket, but seriously. Thank you so much."

@Bazmund

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Míra sniffed.

"Thanks man. I mean, you know, it'll be ok - we all knew what we were getting into, you know what I mean?" She chimed with false optimism.

It didn't last - but she didn't start crying. She just shook her head again.

"There's talk of getting the people in the community who help us and bringing them here - or to places like Goodnight - because the risk of them getting outed as collaborators is gonna be way too fucking high after this shit. We weren't just getting killed out there, some of us got taken - and someone's gonna break eventually."

Her jaw clenched.

"Sax." She forced out, like she'd been punched - or shot - and was trying to hide it. "That son of a bitch. I know he'd never give us up. I know it. He's a hard motherfucker. I think he was in the army or some shit. Fought in Vietnam probably, knowing him. Fuck."

Eventually her head fell, and she pressed her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose - hiding tears, and not very well.

"I've gotta go back. I've gotta go back. I can't stay here. I've gotta go back."

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@Gentlemanvaultboy

The rest of the drive was easier. Not easy by any means, but easier. When they got out of the town and the urgency passed, Ellen called out that she had the bright yellow medical kit in her bag in the trunk they could use for Hans, and perhaps Ciara as well. After another hour, they pulled over to the side of the road. Ellen’s skin was still somewhat covered in this strange...blubber-like gray skin, and her arm was beginning to ache. Grandma helped her get the sludge off of her--especially necessary as her arm had begun to ache again, and she grabbed clean clothes from her bag, changing into them. Ellen’s arm was set, and though it still ached, she was capable of driving.

Those capable of driving switched off for the rest of the journey, and a few strange portals later, they arrived at Goodnight. Hans and Ciara had gone off for medical attention right away. Ellen was checked out, but with mostly bruises at that point, she was given a sling for her arm and sent on her way. Ellen wandered towards one of the larger groups just as a man hopped up onto a box and introduced himself and the Underground.

A shower sounded delightful, but the line after Rory’s announcement grew seemingly exponentially, so Ellen went to check on Hans and Ciara. Ciara was asleep, and Ellen sat with her for a few minutes before deciding that she needed to stay a bit more active for a while. She didn’t like being alone with her thoughts. Hans was getting his bandages changed, and Ellen hung around for a bit, trying to stay out of the way. She didn’t know how to thank him for coming to their rescue without sounding...like a damsel in distress. After a few minutes, she settled on something half-decent.

“Thank you for coming back for us.” Ellen said. “I’m sorry that you got shot,” She wasn’t great at taking responsibility for her actions, but she did feel badly that her recklessness got Hans hurt--and nearly got them all killed.

Hans shrugged painfully, grimacing slightly with the movement.

“I have been shot before, successfully and unsuccessfully. What is important is that we completed our mission.”

He reached for a glass of water and brought it to his lips, draining it in one before leaning back on the beach chair they were using as a hospital bed.

“You were very reckless and irresponsible. Even now you have not fully realised how close you came to death, or worse, with the Federal Occult Enforcement agency. Without your impulsive actions I would not have been shot by that agent, nor would I have been forced to engage her with bullets from her comrades still in my stomach, and we certainly would have escaped much faster.”

He paused, before nodding.

“Because I would have stayed behind to hold off the FOE, almost certainly to be killed in action or captured and executed later, while the others fled the FOE and quite likely left Ciara behind. Your actions put yourself in danger and attracted the attention of the enemy - but without them the operation would have failed, and instead we extracted all three of our targets, and killed an enemy as well.”

Hans smiled - a thin, serious, proud smile.

“Ellen, you were outstanding.”

As Hans called her reckless and irresponsible, Ellen’s face reddened. Though she knew she was not the best at making plans before she did stuff, hearing from someone else made her uncomfortable. It didn’t make her feel particularly good to hear him say they would have escaped faster and he wouldn’t have gotten shot or forced to fight her while shot.

Then Hans continued, saying that he would likely be dead, and they wouldn’t have gotten Ciara, either. She glanced in the direction of the makeshift bed where Ciara was resting. A large smile appeared, erasing all of the earlier guilt as Hans called her outstanding. “Thanks, Hans.” She said.

“But you know what they say… Arbeit ist die beste Jacke.” Ellen repeated the German phrase meaning the best way to keep herself warm was to be useful. “Maybe next time, you can give me some orders so I don’t get us in too much more trouble.” Ellen chuckled, wanting Hans to know that she was absolutely up for doing this again. She didn’t want to hide out. She wanted to seize whatever control she could over their situation and DO something.

Hans paused for a moment, his brows furrowing slightly.

“Ja, you would make a good soldier, all you need is training and discipline, I think. Where are you really from?” He asked suddenly, directly.

Ellen frowned slightly at the mention of needing discipline, mostly in jest, but the jovial expression fell completely as he asked where she was from. She knew why. Americans didn’t speak German. They barely spoke English. She had only given an expression, and could have perhaps played it off as having had some grandparent who was German and used the expression still. But she didn’t want to lie to Hans. Besides, the FOE could apparently find her no matter what she said her name was, no matter where she claimed to be her heritage.

“Born and raised in Italia, Romano specifically.” Ellen said. She didn’t think it was necessary to then elaborate that she had traveled a fair bit growing up, and learned multiple languages in school. German was actually one of her weaker languages--she was just conversational, and would have had to sound out written things to be sure of their meaning.

Ellen debated whether to tell him more, to explain a bit of her history, and why she was in the states, but she ultimately decided against it. She looked down at the half of a tattoo on her wrist. She hadn’t told anyone before about her past, and the details were...difficult to bring up.

Hans looked down the bed, towards his legs, face coloured with thought.

“I fought in Kosovo. I was young and silly, and I believed in fighting what I thought of as injustice, so I went abroad and volunteered. I was still in the Bundeswehr, so I should not have done it like that, but it is what I did.” He paused, nodding slightly, remembering the sights. “I am one of the lucky ones. I took leave and was very careful, so I was not discovered by my homeland. NATO were sympathetic to the Kosovar cause, but I had not been authorised to fight. Now that I am fighting over here as well, I will likely be tried and imprisoned if I ever return to Germany.”

He looked up again, to Ellen. His face was softer now, less guarded. He was quite handsome - in a sort of older, mature, weathered kind of way. Hans had the kind of face that looked like he’d seen enough for two or more lifetimes, but through which you could still see a trace of the boy he’d been - just the subtle hint of what he’d looked like when he’d been younger.

Slowly, with great deliberation, and a cringe of pain as he moved wrong, Hans reached over and took a firm hold of Ellen’s hand.

“I am also running from Home. It is a bad feeling, whatever you run from.” He squeezed her hand.

Ellen reached out her good hand to take Hans’, not wanting him to strain himself too much to reach out. "I'm sorry to hear that you can't go back." And really, she couldn't go back either.

For a long time she had told herself that maybe eventually she would return home and see her parents again. Maybe they would rebuild a relationship and they would be able to look at her without seeing her sister. But that option was gone now. "I guess none of us can go back, really." She sighed, and looked around the room. "But that just means we need to keep looking forward."

“Get some rest. You deserve a break after saving my sorry ass.” Ellen grinned and released the man’s hand, then got up and left the man alone to rest. He was a good man, and it sucked that he was dragged into all of this. She knew on some level he had chosen this fight, but that didn’t make it any easier. The more people she saw--the ones who were hurt, scared, or still in shock--the more she hated the FOE. Why couldn’t an organization have come out to help people learn about their abilities? Why did different have to always mean bad or wrong?

These people didn’t deserve to be persecuted.

Ellen went back to the shower line. She talked with a few people about their journeys here. She mostly listened as some focused on the trauma of having to leave their homes suddenly, or pack up only what they could fit in a bag before leaving. Others focused on being pursued by the FOE, or a Bootlegger being lost in an exchange of fire. There were hints dropped here and there by the survivors that the group had not saved nearly as many as they wanted to, that they had lost loyal members of the Violet Underground, but the talk was mostly rumor countered by personal vignettes.

When asked, Ellen talked a little about her own path, saying that her pickup was easy, but they got into a fight with some woman from the FOE when they were picking up someone else. She didn’t want to make herself sound quite as reckless as she was, and glazed over trying to get away, and then holding off long enough for their bootlegger to come and engage with the FOE agent to get them free.

Many of the people talked about what sort of magic they had discovered since their awakening. Some seemed to be sparked by the conversation into actually putting a name/label on what they had recently discovered. Ellen could recall a few things she had done in her fight. She had developed a second skin to protect herself from the bitter cold. (Hence why she was still waiting in the damn line for the shower)... She had made the ground slippery, but where had she gotten the water from? Perhaps she condensed it from the air, or melted it from the snow. Hmm… she would have to think on that more.

Eventually, Ellen showered, then she found and collapsed into her makeshift bed. She didn’t care how uncomfortable it was, and fell asleep rather quickly. Her sleep was fitful, memories of her fight with the FOE agent, trying to protect Ciara, but Ciara transformed into her sister, Chiara, and no matter what she did, Ellen couldn’t stop her sister from being injured by the agents.

In the morning, Ellen spotted some girl applying makeup in the bathroom, and while she admired the girl’s resolve, she couldn’t bring herself to do the same. She looked in the mirror as she washed her hands, deciding that she probably needed to brush her hair. Well, she was pretty sure she needed to. Her contacts were still in the case, and she hadn’t thought to put on her glasses before wandering to the bathroom. She dressed, put on her glasses, then she put back on the sling, even though it made other things annoying and difficult. She wanted to be back at full capacity as soon as possible, and that meant resting up while she could.

Once dressed, and with her sight restored, Ellen went on a hunt for coffee.