#but goddamn we are so understaffed. I’m already being 2-3 people. I can’t be a manager too. as much as I’ve been trying to help. I gotta | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

beelieveinfandom · 7 years

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Haunted and Hunted Chapter Three

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 AO3 Link

AO3 is highly advised due to Tumblr having formatting issues.

Magi Hurtzog,

Please excuse the primitive nature of this notice. Conventional means of communication are to be assumed compromised.

We are contacting you with an offer we believe to be of special interest to you. A creature, one you’ve expressed significant interest in facing in the past, is in a position of extreme weakness. This window of opportunity will be very short lived, and it is paramount that the situation be contained and controlled before it closes.

We are willing to pay tenfold your normal rate for taking care of an S-class entity.

If you wish to pursue this opportunity, please get to the coordinates on the back of this sheet as soon as you are able.

Thank you for your consideration.

“I think I’m picking up on something,” Renee said, the dowsing rod she made tugging on her arms gently.

“Oh, is it the river?”

“Vin, this points to food, not water.”

“Could it point to the river anyway? I still really want to see a river.”

“Sure, we’ll just eat the river.” She flicked her wrist. “It would sustain us for at least the time it would take us to get caught for hanging out somewhere that exposed.”

“Oh, hold the phone, Renee.” Vin stopped walking and put a hand to his forehead. “I’m getting some future vision going down. We gotta go to the river, or uh, we’ll like die or some shit. So I’m cool either way but I figured maybe you might want to head riverward?”

“How could I ever manage without you?”

“He’s a helper,” Charlie said.

Charlie was feeling a lot better than the day before. Or, not better, because Charlie hadn’t been feeling particularly bad per se, but more normal. Or, not more normal, because normally ze wasn’t walking on heavily blistered feet with an awful pressure filling zir head, normally ze didn’t have a deep exhaustion weighing down zir bones so soon after waking, normally ze didn’t have aches in every muscle like a thousand toothless hounds were clamping down on them with powerful jaws. Real. Charlie was feeling a lot more real than the day before.

As pain blossomed along the sole of zir foot, Charlie couldn’t help but regret exactly how real ze felt today. Dissociation was easier to deal with.

“I’m the best helper,” Vin chirped. “Goddamn fifth time nominee of the helper of the year award right here, and this time I’m in it to win. Going to be so helpful you won't know what to do with yourself, ‘cause I’ll already be doing it for you. Gonna unleash the goddamn helpocalypse on the unsuspecting masses, getting cats out of trees and old ladies across the street until everyone is slightly grateful but mostly rightfully afraid of my apparently limitless ability to arrive from seemingly nowhere with unasked-for assistance.”

They followed the rod’s pull as much as they could through the thick woodland.

“Hey, Charlie?” Vin asked.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your deal, anyway? You still got some miraculously helpful family somewhere that you could deus ex machina outta your ass or are you another orphan or what?”

“Vin!” Renee cried.

“What?”

“You can’t just pry into someone’s past like that,” she said with crossed arms.

“Maybe you can’t,” Vin said, “but I can and did.”

“No, it’s okay,” Charlie said. “I don’t mind talking about it. I do have some family, but I don’t imagine they could be helpful here. My sister’s the only one I’ve ever really talked to, and she’s younger than I am.”

“She from the foster home too?” Vin asked.

“No, she lives with my parents.”

“Wait, you still have parents?” Vin cocked his head. “Why are you living in a home then?”

“It’s a foster home, not like, a dead parent club.” Charlie shrugged. “Lots of us still have living parents somewhere. Mine gave me up to the State when I was a baby. I’m guessing they probably got testing and decided they didn’t want to deal with a child with Autism? We’ve never talked so I’m not sure.”

“What the actual fuck?” Vin exclaimed. “Is that even legal?”

“Well yeah,” Charlie said, “you can give up a kid for pretty much any reason. They don’t want people killing their kids to get out of parenthood or whatever. It’s probably for the best for me; I can’t imagine what it would be like to be raised by people who treat the way I act as some great burden. And I like living in the home. The kids there are nice and I like the caretakers, even if we did tend to be understaffed.”

“So…” Vin grinned slyly. “I guess you could say that the home fostered good feelings in you?”

“Oh lordy,” Renee sighed.

“Living there really filled me with end orphans .” Charlie grinned back.

“Charlie.” Renee turned to zir with a hand over her heart. “Charlie no. You were supposed to save me from this madness, not become one with it.”

“Well,” Charlie said slowly, “maybe you should have been more sans parent about your anti-pun agenda.”

Vin opened his beak widely.

“I have been perfectly explicit about my anti-pun agenda, so much so that it has become synonymous with my very being. No longer Renee Etheridge, I have become Renee Funslayer, Hater of Puns. She with Fury Most Righteous for the Lowest Humor. The only conceivable way I could possibly have been any clearer was if I broke out of our solitary vigil to custom order a massive, illuminated billboard reading ‘please stop’.”

“So you could say you really want to see them all ex pun ged?” Vin’s tail bobbed rapidly.

“Without impunity,” Renee said, “in the most punctual manner possible.”

“Don’t you mean punceivable?” Vin asked.

“What? Why would I mean such a thing? Did you not hear my earlier statement? About the names, and the billboard?” Renee asked, almost sounding hurt. “I have been nothing but punctilious about my disdain for such an awful form of humor.”

“Look, we get that you absolutely, definitely hate puns,” Vin said. “No need to puntificate about this.”

“Not to change the subject... ” Charlie stopped. “While actually yes to change the subject because I really don’t have the punseverance to compete here, but do either of you know where we are? Like, geographic ways?”

“Oh that’s easy,” Vin chirped. “We’re in the woods.”

“If memory serves,” Renee said, “I would guess we’re somewhere in the Midwest. I vaguely remember this being what the forest regions looked like there. It has been a long time since I was moving around the continent, though.”

“You use to travel a lot?” Vin asked. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’m not sure ‘travel’ is really the word I would use,” Renee said. “It implies a certain degree of consent and knowledge that I utterly lacked at the time.”

“Oh yeah,” Charlie said. “Didn’t you end up dragged all over the continent through preternatural trafficking or something?”

“...Yes.” She said flatly.

“Oh, is that not a thing I should have blurted?” Charlie stared at the ground ahead of zir. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” she sighed, “it’s alright. You’re not wrong, it’s why I was at the foster home to begin with, and the main reason no serious effort was made to return me to my original parents. I was too young to remember them at the time, and could have originated from pretty much anywhere. It’s quite likely they either ended up in trafficking rings as well or died. Either way, the ambiguity of my origin combined with my difficult attitude and the fact my gills were badly mutilated meant that there weren't exactly lines of possible extended family desperate to claim me.”

“Hey, what’s all this?” said Vin. “I didn’t know you came from the pet ring.”

“Well it isn’t exactly the first thing I like to tell people.” She cleared her throat. “Ah, Mx. Hypothetical, is it? That’s a nice name. I, too, have a very nice name, but first let me tell you all about my awful traumatic childhood.”

“How come ze gets to know?” Vin whined.

“Because young children, and for that matter overworked caretakers, have absolutely no regards to the idea of personal privacy.”

“This is bullshit,” Vin declared. “You know all about my tragic backstory.”

“What is your tragic backstory?” said Charlie. “Since we’re all sharing anyway.”

“Can’t tell you that.” Vin shrugged. “If anyone were to know my Tragic Backstory it would weaken its value as a secret. As it stands right now, it isn’t known and has high emotional significance. I could get some huge favors for something like that. Don’t quote me but I heard that if you earn enough secret points there’s a guy who will give you a stuffed walrus the size of a car.”

“You just said that Renee knows it, though.”

“Renee already knows everything so it doesn't really matter.”

“It fits nicely with how Vin knows nothing,” Renee said. “It’s astounding that it’s actually possible to communicate in a way that passes along absolutely no information. Scientists are baffled. I’m almost ashamed to be an accessory in the deprivation of their ability to enlighten the world with answers.”

“Crime of the fucking year right there,” Vin said. “If you don’t turn around to turn my sorry ass in this minute I have half a mind to report you.”

“You have a whole half a mind?” Renee said with mock surprise. “Astonishing, I was estimating it to be a much lower fraction.”

“Hey, I never said it was my mind,” Vin said. “It could be like, half a mosquito mind. Fucker thought she could take my sweet, sweet blood juice? Hell no, now I got her brain. Or, at least I have half of it.”

“What happened to the other half?”

“She couldn’t pay off her college debt so some loan sharks repossessed it.”

“Such are the inescapable ways of Nature.” Renee lowered her head with her hand over her heart. “Only she would be so cruel that no desperate plea or hasty flight could save the debt-ridden. The world will soon forget this innocent soul, but within us she will live on, for nothing save Time itself can rid us of our precious memories. The times we shared, the laughs we had, the tears we shed, these things we will carry forever more, and through them we will strive to carry her on, just as she strived to carry your sweet, sweet blood juice.”

“I’ll treat this new duty with the utmost importance it deserves,” Charlie said, somewhat distantly. Ze felt really dizzy and hot.

“I’m glad someone’s taking that task head on ‘cause I’m going to forget about her within the hour.” Vin said.

“So soon would you forget? Have you no heart?” Renee said sharply. “She lost her very life trying to ease your burdens of blood-having, and you would willfully abandon her memory to Time’s piercing arrows? With such callousness resting in your soul you might as well wield that awesome and terrible bow yourself, and slay our memories of her as you so ruthlessly slayed her body.”

Charlie stumbled forward, catching zirself before ze fell completely, and took a few shaky steps forward.

“Are you okay?” Renee asked.

“Well, I’m fine,” Alcor said. “But Charlie just checked out.”

“What do you mean ‘just checked out’?” Renee asked, leaning close to Charlie’s body. “What happened?”

“I mean ze was exerting control over the body, and now ze isn’t,” Alcor said.

“Holy shit did Charlie just fucking die?” Vin asked. “Please tell me that Charlie didn’t just die.”

“What? No!” exclaimed Alcor. “If Charlie was dead, why would I be wasting my time inhabiting this flesh sack?”

“Hey man, I don’t know, maybe you’re into that?” Vin shrugged. “I’m in no position to judge; wasting time and inhabiting a flesh sack are two of my only skills.”

“As far as I can tell ze’s as fine as can be expected for the circumstances.”

“What did you even do?” Renee asked.

“Excuse me?” Alcor leaned forward towards Renee. “What did I do? I don’t know, maybe catch the kid before ze fell and hurt zirself even more?”

“People don’t just randomly faint!” she cried, pulling her tightly balled fists to her chest. “Not that this was exactly random, not that being sedated for a solid week and then going straight to walking for hours is probably good on the body, not that ze was a paragon of health in the first place. Not that we didn’t already know that ze is dying. So you’re right, I’m sorry, it doesn’t really make sense for this to be your fault. Ze is just literally dying, that’s all! And it’s happening faster than I thought it would and I sure don’t know enough about possession to fix this. I don’t know enough about anything to fix this. I don’t even know that this can be fixed.”

“Hey. Renee.” Alcor pinched Charlie’s nose and then lay zir palms down. “Charlie isn’t dead yet. There’s a huge difference between fainting and dying. And I know plenty about my own magic. We still have time to fix this.”

“Right. Time. We have so much time. What with being hunted and all. And needing to find food and stuff. And - ” she pressed her closed fists against her forehead. “And we’re working on those problems too. One thing at a time; Charlie isn’t dead yet.”

She took a deep breath and spread her fingers flat on the exhale.

“You should sit down,” she said to Alcor. “If Charlie’s body is doing badly enough that ze fainted we shouldn’t just keep walking.”

Alcor plopped down on a large, moss-covered rock, resting Charlie’s elbows on zir bouncing knees. Stopping felt wrong, almost intolerable. The pace that they had been moving had been frustratingly slow - which was to say that they had been pacing themselves perfectly reasonably for what was potentially a day long walk through difficult terrain, but it was slower than Alcor wanted to be moving. Much slower. And now they had to stop. Probably because this body hadn’t actually slept in two days, and whose fault was that?

“Not that I’m saying the dowsing rod won’t work,” Alcor said, “but since we’re concerned about time why don’t we have Vin fly above the tree line and see if he can spot some farms or something?”

“Because that’s a thing I can do,” Vin said. “Very first thing they teach you in test subject school (which is for test subjects) is how to fly the fuck away and never look back.”

“Just how long were you at the facility?” Alcor asked.

Vin shrugged his wings and arms. “Fuck I don’t know, about how long can a bird remember shit? Like I vaguely remember there being a before but I couldn’t tell you anything about it.”

“Wow,” Alcor said. “You guys manage to make my childhood look positively enviable.”

“What happened to you as a kid?” Vin asked.

“Well,” Alcor laughed, “I died, for starters, and then my parents kicked me out because they couldn’t deal with what I had become, and then puberty happened and I was pretty much constantly in pain for awhile… It wasn’t great is what I’m saying.”

“Yeah that sounds pretty damn suck,” Vin said.

“But you guys…” Alcor shook Charlie’s head. “Damn.”

“So what?” Vin asked. “Suffering ain’t a contest; what you went through sounds shitty as hell. I can’t think of much I’d want less then getting offed without the sweet release of death. And to go through that and then get abandoned? Shit.”

“I mean, it wasn’t really their fault. Of course they couldn’t deal with what I had become. I couldn’t deal with what I had become. They didn’t sign up for that.”

“And you did?” Renee asked pointedly.

“I didn’t have anyone intentionally hurting me is what I’m saying,” Alcor said, “and I still had a support network that understood - well - that was aware of what I was going through.”

“All I’m saying is that, when it comes down to how shitty a thing was, the intent of the people involved doesn’t really matter,” Vin said. “You were hurt and no amount of well wishes can change that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it definitely matters if you want to try and unburn those bridges or whatever, but the thing that happened? Abandoning you when you really needed the support? Still shitty.”

Alcor sighed. “It doesn’t matter much anyway; that was a long time ago.”

“Right,” Vin said, drawing out the word. “You’ve long moved past having shitty things happening in your childhood. Now you can reap the sweet sweet reward of having shitty things happen to you as an adult.”

“Hold on,” Alcor straightened Charlie’s back. “I think Charlie might be regaining consciousness.”

Charlie was very confused.

Everything shifted. Charlie was sitting now. Why was ze sitting? When did ze sit down?

As Charlie attempted to push zirself up the world spun, less like a top and more like an inexpertly used gyroscope; it didn’t gracefully rotate so much as it wobbled, moving too quickly to be easy to follow but too slowly to hold itself up. The world spun like it was missing the ground more by pure chance than anything else.

Sitting down might be a good idea.

Charlie let zir head fall into zir knees. Ze couldn’t figure out how to sit down. There was something in the way of sitting and the knowledge of what, exactly, this might be eluded zir like financial stability from a freshly indebted college student.

This was stupid. The fact that this was stupid was the only solid anchor that Charlie had, and ze clung to it like a life preserver. The ground wouldn’t hold still, and that was dumb. Charlie couldn’t figure out how to sit down and if that wasn’t the single most moronic possible outcome of any possible series of events to conceivably transpire then Charlie was perfectly happy with how these past few days had gone. That is to say, the idea of an infinite multiverse had been accepted as a practical fact by the scientific community for centuries, so there was a high chance that any outcome permissible by the laws of physics was, in fact, a reality that was realized somewhere in the vastness of existence. There was a reality where Charlie’s response to the stress of what was happening was to simply lie facedown on the ground, eat some dirt, and try to hand sort passing fire ants by how friendly they looked. There was a reality where it was the fashion to wear highly venomous octopuses as shawls and people used breakdancing as the primary mode of communication. There was a reality where archaic laws and largely ignored voter suppression caused someone whose main experience was going bankrupt to become one of the most powerful people on the planet and everyone just kinda let it happen. There were realities that couldn’t even begin to be sufficiently summarized using the word “stupid”. Realities so senseless and imbecilic that to try and communicate the exact extent of their stupidity would be folly. And yet, somehow, despite this inevitable outcome of probability, Charlie had found the singular moment of peak asininity; right the fuck here and now as ze couldn’t fucking figure out how to sit down.

At least, that’s probably what Charlie would be thinking if zir brain could actually string two sentences together.

Charlie needed to get zir head to stop reeling. Zir thoughts spun with no sign of crashing downwards. They spun like an astronaut curling into themself, nauseatingly quickly and growing in speed. Except it was more aggressive than that. It was like zir head was a tumbler that someone put a ball made of nails into.

This was stupid.

Charlie’s knees pressed into zir eyes. Take things one at a time. What was in the way of zir sitting?

This rock.

Ze couldn’t sit through the rock.

The rock that ze was

sitting

on.

This.

This was stupid.

Okay, now that Charlie had chalked up and solved the world’s most idiotic mystery like ze was the protagonist in a book written for toddlers by someone half a drink away from alcohol poisoning, it was time to actually figure out what was going on.

Charlie was still in the woods, obviously.

Renee and Vin were stopped.

Renee was talking.

And now she was looking at zir expectantly.

Zir thoughts were slightly clearer now. It was less like they were churning and more like there was a thick, heavy fog in zir head.

After a moment of focus Charlie managed to make words happen.

“What… What?” ze somehow uttered.

“You fainted. Are you feeling alright?”

“Oh.” Charlie went quiet. That made sense. The thick fog clouding zir thoughts was dispersing somewhat.

“Are you okay?” Renee prompted again.

Charlie gave a hollow laugh. “Apparently not? I mean I feel fine - well no. No I don’t feel fine! Everything still hurts and it sucks, and I’m really confused right now, but I don’t feel any worse than I did yesterday which is apparently bad enough that I might just randomly faint and I haven’t fainted before and I’m dying and none of us have any idea how to make this better.”

Charlie’s hands were flapping agitatedly. “So no, I’m not okay. I’m not physically okay and I’m not okay with what’s going on. I am Not Okay.”

For what it’s worth, if we can get somewhere safe there are some things I can try to test the nature of the binding. Not having any sort of magicore makes things harder, but people did magic without them for a long time.

But we’re not going to find a safe place to experiment with magic! They’re not going to stop hunting us and next time we encounter them they’re going to have a real plan and someone who can actually deal with you.

Oh, they aren’t going to have someone who can deal with me. They might think they do, but if so it’s only because they vastly underestimate my power.

Well it’s great to know that you’re going to get out of this just fine.

Of course I’m going to get out of here just fine. That’s never been a question.

“Things may look pretty bad right now,” Renee said, “but we don’t know that a basic banishment won’t work. I don’t want to act without getting more information, but caution may be driving us to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

“...right,” Charlie mumbled.

She is right about that. If this was supposed to be a temporary thing they might not have bothered complicating the banishment process. They clearly didn’t have plans for what to do if we escaped.

So if we’re lucky I’ll *just* be a selkie with my skin in hostile hands. Sounds great.

Right. We really need to find a way to get that back.

…

You got something you want to say, kiddo?

what if

we just surrender?

What? You want to go back to the institution that did this to you in the first place?

i don’t *want* to but it’s kinda feeling like maybe the only way i might get out of this alive.

And then you would be right back in there hands. You know they aren’t going to let you go, right? You’re too much of a liability.

if you’re really so powerful, couldn’t you just make them let me go once you’re out of me?

Banishment rituals generally have the side effect of weakening the banished entity. If they have any competence - and in the interest of caution we must ignore all evidence to the contrary and assume they are somewhat competent - they will take advantage of the ritual to weaken me as much as they can. They’re going to prioritize controlling me, because as far as they’re concerned they are dead if they don’t. They’re going to use you as a method of controlling me, and because they have your coat they have a functional killswitch that I can’t do much about.

whatever happened to you being fine no matter what happens?

I would be fine. They could only weaken me temporarily. I would just need a bit of time, but in that time who knows what would happen to you?

It’s entirely possible they want something from me that I can’t deliver.

It is very likely that they wouldn’t believe me if I told them that I couldn’t do what they asked of me.

And your wellbeing is the one thing they actually have as a bargaining chip.

Given time I could absolutely locate your coat and get you as far away from them as is physically possible. But if we were to go back there, I don’t think we would have that time.

that makes sense i guess.

i’m just going to die, huh?

No. We are going to figure this out.

Once we get me out of you, things are going to get better, okay?

We just need to get me out of you and I can fix this.

right

“Hey Vin?” Renee said. “You wouldn’t happen to have any profound feelings of insight as to the nature Charlie’s predicament, would you?”

“I got no more clue about what should happen next than a baby dropped in the middle of a courthouse.”

“Well, if you’re not feeling anything at all I suspect that we at least have a little time; I’ve been keeping an eye on them and they don’t appear to be making an effort to mobilize at all yet. It seems we might have a bit of breathing room before they make their next move.”

“Not that I normally have much more understanding than a baby,” Vin mused. “Like, what kinda magic makes cars stay in the air like that? I have literally no clue. What kinda magic is a differential equation anyway? I don’t know, but damn can I chew on some shiny keys and start crying.”

“I’m sorry I’m not more helpful,” Charlie said.

“It’s fine,” Vin said. “We can’t all be masters of crying and sticking shit in our glob holes.”

“No, I’m serious. You guys both have all this great stuff you can do and I’m just over here dying.”

“So?” Vin shrugged. “You’re cool to have around. You actually appreciate my awesome jokes, unlike someone I could name.”

“But I’m such an obstacle for you guys!” Charlie cried. “You have such useful abilities and I’m what? Carrying someone in my head. And from what I can tell they’re a lot more interested in containing the two of us than they are you so I’m bringing in extra danger, and I’m slowing you down-”

“Do you perform some kinda cost/benefit analysis with all your friends?” Vin said with a laugh. “You’re nice to have around, so I’m happy you're here. Isn’t that why people hang out in the first place?”

“You don’t have to earn the right to exist,” Renee said. “I understand it’s hard to distance yourself from an idea so deeply ingrained in our culture, but you deserve survival and freedom.”

“Also, you did kinda save our asses yesterday. I mean I guess the guy in your head saved our asses, but he wouldn’t be here without you, so you can probably seize the credit for that if you want. I won’t say nothing about it.”

“But -”

“Anyway,” Vin said sharply, “you want to talk about ‘useful abilities’? Let me tell you about the utter bullshit that is my thing. So I get these impulses and intuitions, right? But I have no idea what they’re leading towards. I was assuming they were just directly helping me get what I want at any point, but then why did I save you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I did, but like, that wasn’t really something I wanted to do at the time. Or was even aware that I could do. So now I’m just kinda hoping that the agenda of whatever forces guide my powers keeps aligning with my own agenda because otherwise I’m fucker than fucked. Oh yeah and also I can sort of see the future but whenever I actually try and control that I apparently look too far and hit blinding city: population pain.”

“I’ve never fully understood your grievance with your more passive abilities,” Renee said. “It seems to me that they strongly liken you to the characters in your comics, which I would think you would appreciate.”

“What?” Vin said. “Nah. The whole point of those things is if you got powers you gotta use them to like, further society and fight crime and repeatedly destroy some place called ‘New York’. Heroes are selfless people of great virtue and greater destructive power, whereas I have all the destructive potential of a damp paper towel and am a small selfish bird who just wants to use my powers to further my own goal of hiding in the woods forever.”

“And,” Renee pointed skyward, “who nobly saved the life of a child using a powerful bomb of his own design.”

“What?” Vin narrowed his eyes. “No, that wasn’t what that was about. That was a happy accident, not some dramatic character moment. I blew up some shit and pulled a fire alarm; I didn’t have some soul-shattering revelation about how I have to find a likeminded group of freaks and responsibly destroy some fictional city.”

“You just found a likeminded freak and fought back against a nefarious organization.”

“Okay, look.” Vin crossed his arms. “I’m not a hero, and - man this really sounds like some reluctant hero bullshit, doesn’t it.”

“Just a tad.” Renee smiled.

“I can’t be a hero because I’m not willing to be a hero and I’m sure as fuck not willing to play out some shitty overdone trope of some guy being obviously a hero but unwilling to admit that he just stopped some masked tool and is clearly a force for good. I’ve never even seen a guy with a mask.”

Renee looked hard at Vin. “Vin. most of the people you’ve ever interacted with have been wearing masks.”

“Surgical masks do not count,” Vin said. “It’s gotta be some thin cloth covering the eyes and like, nothing else. It’s not a proper villain mask unless it’s completely fucking useless against anyone who has eyes and more than ten seconds of memory.”

“It’s so rare to encounter such humility.” Renee shook her head. “It’s quite a noble trait.”

“Nooooope,” Vin said, stretching out the ‘o’ as if he could drown out the rest of the conversation in a single syllable. “I don’t have a single humble bone in my body. I have obstinate denial; it’s an ugly and undesirable trait.”

“Honestly it’s rather inspiring,” Renee said.

“Your face is rather inspiring.”

“Why, I do believe that I’ve found my muse.” Renee covered her mouth with a hand. “She has long been suffering in the lackluster inspirational drought of my dreary existence, but now she spurs something deep within me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vin asked.

“If ever a hero were I to know,” Renee spoke clearly.

“What are you doing?” Vin asked, concerned.

“My dearest friend Vin I would have to show.”

“You do not get to write a ballad about me. I refuse.”

“To be fair,” Charlie interjected, “she isn’t writing anything.”

Vin narrowed his eyes. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“The greatest intuition that could be,” her voice picked up, leaving no room for interruptions. Saving us from no end of tragedy. With a bomb most mighty and timing rife, He thoroughly saved this here child’s life. And although he will say it’s just fate’s way, From the hero’s path he never will stray."

Vin tucked his head under a wing. ”Why are you like this,” he groaned.

Charlie looked pointedly at the ground and said, “Wouldn’t ‘with but only a bomb and timing rife’ work better?”

“Why, thank you Charlie!” Renee grinned. “That is an undeniable improvement.”

“What.” Vin stared at Charlie. “Charlie, what are you doing? You’re supposed to be on my side. Has all our time together meant nothing to you? I thought we were in pun cahoots. Would you really break the sacred bonds of punhootshood for this???”

“It seems like you’re the one considering breaking punhootshood over this,” Charlie pointed out.

“Charlie. Charlie. Chaaaaarlie.” Vin leaned his long neck back, pointing his head skyward. “Why you gotta be all bringing logic into this. I am but a poor, simple soul, trying my hardest to do what every simple soul is trying to do: make it through this rough life with as few couplets written about me as possible. That’s it. That’s all I want. Not better poetry. Not logic telling me who was really threatening to break what bonds. Just for the number of poems about me to stay at a reasonable, nonexistent amount. Is that too much to ask for, Charlie? Is it?”

“Yes,” Charlie said solemnly.

“Is it really?” Vin asked.

“It is, absolutely, 100% too much to ask for.” Charlie shook zir head. “Sometimes in this crazy messed up life you get featured in poems, and you just gotta learn to own up to it with grace.”

“It sounds like you’re not taking my plight very seriously, Charlie.” Vin narrowed his eyes. “I’m up to my crest in these choice-ass words that have been spewed upon me against my consent, gumming my feathers together like the nasty shit they are, and you’re pinning the blame on me? The problem is that I’m not owning up to it? How would you like it if someone just went out and made a poem about you?”

“You know,” Charlie said, “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that.”

“Oh, you’re asking for it,” Vin said. “Keep this up and I’ll show you what it’s like the hard way.”

“Oh no.” Charlie widened zir eyes. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I could say to change your mind?”

“Nope. This shit’s happening.” Vin cleared his throat.

“There once was a seal whose tuckus,

Made quite an extraordinary ruckus .

Wow, rhyming is hard,

I’m not a bard.

I’m just gonna say fuck this.”

“That was incredible,” Charlie said. “I’m going to get it tattooed on my gravestone.”

‘What?” Vin exlamed. “No, that’s the wrong response. It’s terrible and you’re supposed to hate it. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, this is like, basic-ass poem reception. You should have learned this in fucking grade school. First day of second grade, teacher comes in and is all ‘hello everyone we’ll do introductions in a moment but first - Poems: They’re awful and you should - holy fuck what the hell is that?”

Rotating slowly in front of Vin was a large brown animal suspended from a branch. The webbing that ensnared it was impressively thick and tightly wound.

“I think it’s a deer…” Renee said. “We should be careful; anything large enough to catch deer is either large enough to consider us - or at the very least you two - food, or they’re a person. Or possibly both, I suppose.”

“So…” Vin said slowly, “we should keep our eyes out for some very large spiders is what you’re saying.”

“That is the basic takeaway here, yes.”

“Like, a very large, hairy spider person with thick legs and big eyes?” Vin asked.

“Actually that sounds more like a tarantula or possibly a jumping spider,” Charlie said. “Web weavers have thin legs and small eyes, and tend to have less hair.”

“Oh. That’s a relief,” Vin said. “I was worried we were looking out for that person over there.”

“What ‽ ” Renee squealed, turning quickly to where Vin had gestured.

Looking at the with bemused interest was an arachnimorph. They looked to be on the upper end of middle aged, their carapace mostly covered in short white hair with a few black spots. A grimy t-shirt covering their front was the only clothing they wore.

There was really only one aspect of their appearance that Renee parsed, however.

They had goggles on, the kind common in species whose eyes couldn’t handle more compact computational devices.

There was no way they weren’t connected to the Net.

There was no way that the computer hadn’t already identified them.

It was going to notify the facility.

They were going to be found and this time the facility would be better prepared and they wouldn’t be able to escape and…

Renee took a deep breath.

One thing at a time. They weren’t here yet.

Renee moved protectively in front of Vin and Charlie. It was a little late for an illusion - the arachnimorph’s computer would see straight through it anyway. It was a little late for anything, really. She should have been paying more attention. If she had just been fucking around a little less she might have seen this coming and been able to stop it, but no, she had to come up with a dumb poem. Clearly a reasonable use of her energy. Obviously.

Berating herself wasn’t going to help either.

She took another breath, and tried to release some of the tension held in her churning guts.

Her thoughts wouldn’t stop racing. Wouldn’t stop coming up with the ways everything would could go worse. But that was fine. They could go ahead and do that if they wanted. She had more important things to focus on.

“Don’t be worrying about little old me now,” the arachnimorph said. Renee couldn’t help but envy how calm they sounded. “I don’t eat demons.”

“Well,” Renee said, “I just might eat pesky mortals who interfere with my… business. So have you any wisdom I would advise you to flee.”

“Before I eat you,” she continued, “please.”

The arachnimorph didn’t appear to be buying it. In fact, they looked a bit like they may have been considering buying it when they first glanced at it from an aisle away but now were investigating it and finding that it was not only a completely different item than they originally thought but it was also gaudily designed, broken and about three times more expensive than expected. They were considering returning some items they had bought just for coming from the same store as it.

“Wow, with those kinda mad persuasion skills we need to get you a late night infomercial show. Like, right now. We got mad…” Vin looked around. “Leaves that you could be hawking off as medicinal or something.”

“Vin.” Renee glared at him.

“Oh, sorry. I mean, I am Vinzel Tharp… um. Tharpicus. Archdemon of shitty jokes and shittier poetry. Tremble before me and despair, mortal, or face my inescapable tirade of awful words.”

“ Vin! ” Renee hissed.

“Excuse me, it’s Tharpicus.” He shook his head. “You gotta fucking immerse yourself in the scenario. Find your demonsona. Become one with it. And then eat them I guess, if that’s what you’re into now?”

“Now I may not be an expert on demons,” the arachnimorph said, “but I’m pretty sure they don’t normally walk around in the middle of nowhere reciting poems at each other.”

“Well, it turns out you know even less about demons than you thought,” Renee said, almost pleadingly. “Now leave before I make it so you know a lot less about everything.”

“You don’t need to be so worried, kid,” they said. “I’m not going to report you.”

“You don’t need to do anything,” Renee said. “I’m sure your computer already has.”

They laughed. “You think I haven’t disabled that crap? Do I look like I want the government spying on my every move? This thing doesn’t download or upload anything without my say-so.”

“Isn’t that, um…” Charlie spoke quiety, looking at the ground, “illegal?”

“Hah! Probably. But it’s a dumb law, and what’s the point of living fifty miles away from any cops if you’re going to follow every dumb law, huh?”

“I can think of plenty of reasons a law abiding citizen might want to avoid cops,” Renee pointed out. “Especially a preternatural person.”

“Fair enough,” they said, walking up to the deer. “Look, I gotta get this guy home. And if you kids wanna follow me and maybe get a meal in you and a roof over your head for the night, well, I won't say nothin’ to no one.”

They maneuvered a levitating platform under the deer and cut some webbing with a large knife, causing the deer to drop. Using what looked sort of like an aerosol can, they replaced the broken webbing, jumping several times their own height into the trees to anchor the new web.

“The names Marcus, by the way. She/her,” Marcus said. “And if you wanna leave and get as far away from me as ya can I understand. I probably wouldn’t trust me neither. But the invite’s open, if you want it.”

And with that she started to walk away, deer carcass following behind like a large and morbid puppy.

“I like her,” Vin declared.

“A living space would probably be a better option than the woods to try and figure out Charlie’s… problem.” Renee said. “But… I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right, to put it mildly.”

“Well, I’m following her,” Vin said, and started to do just that.

“Vin!” Renee cried out. “We should talk about this first!”

“What’s there to talk about?” Vin asked. “You’re going to say that you don’t like it, and go back and forth about how you don’t trust it but it would be nice if it was legit, and there you’re going to end up asking me how I feel about it and I feel like I’m going to follow her, so why bother with all the other stuff?”

Renee put a hand over her face. “Weren’t you just talking about how you’re not sure if you can trust the source of your intuition?”

“Yeah but let’s be real, we have nothing better to go off of and you were absolutely going to ask me about it anyway.” Vin continued to walk after Marcus.

“Vin!” Renee slithered after him. “Would it kill you to actually think things through for once?”

“You’re just mad cause I’m right.”

“No, I’m mad because you don’t seem to be taking this seriously at all. You can’t just-” She took a deep breath. “Look, are you sure this is safe?”

“I mean, no. But I got a good feeling about it and I want to see where this is going, so…” Vin shrugged. “It’s not like pseudo-randomly meandering through the woods is much better, if we’re gonna be real.”

“Charlie?” she asked. “What do you think?”

“Um. I’m not great at judging how trustworthy someone is but I think I would much rather sleep on a bed or a couch or something than the ground.”

“Alright. I suppose that’s valid.” She sighed. “Let’s do this, I guess.”

“See how much easier everything is when you just admit that I’m right?” Vin asked.

“Vin,” she said. “If I admitted you were right all the time we never would have tried escaping.”

“And then we wouldn’t have to make all these hard decisions.” Vin spread his fingers widely. “Just imagine how much easier everything would be.”

Renee shook her head. “Let’s just catch up with Marcus.”

Marcus was pretty easy to catch up to, as she wasn’t exactly racing through the woods.

“Hey, you’re back,” she said. “Think you want to spend the night at my place?”

“That does seem to be the plan…” Renee confirmed. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“I hope not, ‘cause ya just did.”

“I meant an additional question.”

“Who am I to stop a terrifying demon from asking me a question?”

“It’s about that, actually.” Renee said. “How are you so sure that we’re not demons? It certainly wouldn’t be unheard of for demons to pretend to be something innocuous like some teenagers.”

“Kid, the way I see it, if you are a demon, you want something from me or that attempt to scare me off would have been a lot better. And I’m still not an expert in demons but I’m pretty sure going against a demon's plans is a good way to end up dead, especially when you’re as far away from potential help as we are out here. But I’m pretty sure you’re not demons.”

“Why is that?” Renee asked.

“Cause there’s an old lot not far from here that’s awfully well trafficked for someplace long abandoned, and people don’t put that much effort into hiding something that don’t need to be hid,” Marcus said. “And I know enough about history to know that sometimes classifying entities as A or S class can just be another way of hiding things.”

“Maybe they were doing experimentation on demons and we escaped,” Renee said.

“I’m pretty sure if three actual demons escaped from, well, anything really, there would be a bit more fireworks than there have been. I don’t see demons as being the ‘quietly slip out during the night’ types.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Renee admitted. “Demons aren’t really known for being subtle when angered.”

“Um. I have a question too,” Charlie said.

“So shoot.”

Charlie stared at zir feet. “Why are you using fake webbing to hunt? Aren’t you a jumping spider?”

Marcus laughed. “Well I’m a bit old to go chasing things down through the woods, ain’t I? My joints don’t work like they used to, and do you have any idea how much time active hunting takes? I have other things going on in my life.”

“But why use webs at all?” Charlie asked.

Marcus crossed her arms. “Who ever heard of a spider hunting with a bear trap, huh? It’s ridiculous.”

“I mean a bear trap is somewhat analogous to how trapdoor spiders hunt…” Charlie murmured.

“Ri-dic-u-lous.” Marcus repeated, stretching each syllable out like a bored child playing with their gum. “But enough about me. Whatcha kids doing wandering through the woods, anyway?”

“Reciting bad poetry at each other, apparently,” Charlie said.

“I’m not sure it would be wise to share the circumstances that brought us here,” Renee said.

“Oh man, that isn’t what I was trying to-” Marcus shook her head. “Look, don’t tell me anything incriminating. I don’t wanna know how you got here, I don’t want to know where you came from, I don’t want to know. I was more of wondering, in the vaguest terms possible, what you were wandering through the woods towards.”

“We don’t really-” Renee said hesitantly.

“We don’t know a fucking thing, my guy,” Vin interrupted.

“We do, in fact, know quite a few things,” Renee said.

“That’s fair. We know lots of pointless bullshit. Like, just a whole fuckton of bullshit. Fertilize half the continent with all this shit we’ve got hoarded in our brainpans. We just have no clue what the hell we’re doing.”

“We do have a plan,” Renee said. “It’s just… not very fleshed out.”

“And what’s that then?”

“This seeks food,” she said, holding up her dowsing rod. “The hope was that it would lead us to a farm or something and we could… make things work from there.”

“Well, good luck with that. You’re in the middle of a pretty sizable national park,” Marcus said. “Ain’t no farms for miles. Heck, outside of a the ol’ landfill and few pockets of private land there ain’t nothing but trees for about fifty miles.”

“Well, that’s a pretty reasonable distance to walk in a day, or two if we’re being slow. We aren’t in imminent risk of starvation; last night we found a place that had supplies.”

“You found that old cult hideout?” Marcus said. “I should probably go restock it then, huh?”

“You’re a cultist?” Renee said, as naturally as she could manage.

“Heck no. Demons are already too big for their britches, last thing they need is worship,” Marcus said. “The Circle are good people though, demon aside, and if they’re willing to pay me hard cash just to keep a room in good condition, I’d be a fool to say no. And my mother didn’t raise no fool. She raised two. But I ain’t one of them.”

“We really appreciate your efforts,” Renee said. “Last night was by far the most restful night we’ve had since, well, since stuff you don’t want to know about. And we really needed the supplies.”

“Aw, it weren’t nothin,” Marcus said, flicking one of her wrists. “But going back to your ‘plan’: do you have any defenses against surveillance? ‘Cause most of the farms in the area that grow things that can be eaten without processing do keep cameras about.”

“Unfortunately we don’t.” Renee’s arms dropped. “When we entered the woods we had pretty much nothing. I do know a thing or two about anti-surveillance camouflage, but I don’t have the materials to actually utilize my knowledge.”

“Have I seriously not put any makeup in the safehouse? I don’t know how I could ever make up for that mistake.” Marcus laughed at her own shitty joke. “Seriously though, I got some at my place that you can use.”

“Really?” Renee said. “I cannot overstate how much I appreciate your kindness. This is actually starting to feel like something that could work.”

“Pshaw, it ain’t no thing. I’m just doing what I’d want someone to do to me if I were in a bad spot,” Marcus said. “Anyway, I’m sure you already know, but you’re going to want to be careful not to get caught by any people while wearing it; most designs that break up the face enough to make you invisible to a computer make you stick out like a sore thumb to a person.”

“I’m not terribly worried about getting caught by a person,” Renee said. “I’m pretty skilled with illusions; I should be able to keep anyone from noticing us. Of course, such protections are dependent on my ability to actually notice someone before we’ve tripped over them, so if current historical precedent holds it will be about as useful as a torn screen door in keeping us safe.”

“Ohh, sick burn,” Vin said. “But, protip: you’re generally supposed to save such savagery for other people. Otherwise it’s just kinda sad.”

“And you’re generally supposed to keep an eye out for strangers when you’re on the lam, so I think it’s safe to say that our circumstances have already proven to be just a tad outside of the generality.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it so much,” Marcus said. “You’ve been walking for how long - don’t actually answer that I don’t wanna know - but you’ve been walking for however long it’s been and you finally let your guard down. Well, you weren’t expecting to run into no one in the woods. That’s a pretty reasonable assumption. Not many people out here to run into. If you were raiding some farm though, I’m guessing you’d be more careful. You can’t be on high alert all the time.”

“But there are people out here,” Renee said, “even if they're aren’t many, and running into any of them could prove disastrous. It’s better to be unnecessarily cautious then get caught.”

“Yeah, but you’re not the only one responsible for us staying all safe like,” Vin said. “I’m pretty sure I would notice if we were about to get caught.”

“He has a point,” Marcus said. “Six eyes are better than two. And I’m not saying it would hurt to be a bit more quiet and alert, but if you’re going to let your guard down, here’s the place to do it.”

“... Right,” Renee said, sounding about as convinced as someone who made the mistake of opening their door for some Jehovah’s Witnesses and just wanted to go back to their dinner without being rude.

“So, where are we going, anyway?” Vin asked. “Is it… there?”

“Yep, I live in a tree. You solved my house puzzle, congratulations,” Marcus said. “Anyway it’ll be a while. My place is about an hour and a half away still.”

“Wow, seriously?” Vin whined. “That’s like, an hour and a half more than I wanted to walk.”

“Vin,” Renee said pointedly, “we were planning on walking all day.”

“Which is about a day more than I wanted to walk,” Vin said. “I just didn’t say anything ‘cause I knew you’d be all ‘Vin who cares how sore your legs are we must adhere to the plan or we’ll like, die or some shit’. And you’d say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“We probably wouldn’t die,” Renee corrected. “They would just take us back to where we were before. And then we probably wouldn't get another chance at this, and would possibly be separated.”

“I don’t see what any of that has to do with not dying,” Vin said. “Although, maybe you wouldn’t die? I don’t know, you’re kinda weird sometimes and it ain’t like I can see fakey fake futures or anything.”

Renee narrowed her eyes. “Are you implying that a will to live is a ‘kinda weird’ thing to have?”

“This world sucks, Renee,” Vin said. “It sucks. Planning on spending a hundred plus years here is insane.”

“That’s why we strive to make the world better!” Renee said. “Life has so much to offer! There have been times and places where people made safe and caring communities; we know it can be done.”

“Oh yeah?” Vin said. “Name one thing that life has offered you.”

“Life gave me you,” Renee said quietly.

“Well that really blows my response out of the water,” Charlie said. “I was just going to say ‘edible sticks’.”

“Oh yeah,” Vin said, “edible sticks were pretty great. Even when you went and made them limp like some kinda fucking barbarian.”

“Vin,” Renee said, “I’m being serious.”

“So am I. Why would you put the flaccid in your stomach acid when you could munch the crunch?”

“You flipped shit about the flaccid,” Charlie said. “You refused to be placid after inserting the flaccid in your stomach acid.”

“In my defense,” Vin put his hands out in front of himself, “I’m pretty sure that was the powder stuff that Renee added. It’s my hunch that if I were to munch on the crunch of a salty bunch I’d not be placid at lunch.”

“It was definitely well into the realm of dinner,” Renee said. “And adding a spice mix to uncooked noodles wouldn't work very well; it needs the moisture to stick.”

“Why must you crush my dreams?” Vin said. “Anyway, noodles are great and all, but probably not staying-here-for-a-century great.”

“We have the power to make this world one worth spending a lifetime in,” Renee said. “It’s true that we don’t know that we’ll win our fight, but if we don’t do anything we know things won’t get better. We have to keep fighting and not give into the temptation of apathy. They want us to lose hope, they want us to die, because then we’re letting them maintain the status quo. They’re fighting to keep us too exhausted to fight for change, and we can’t let them win.”

“So what, we have to keep living in this hell just to spite them?” Vin asked. “‘Cause that sounds like it involves a whole lot more fucks given about what some dudes I’ll never meet feel than I can bring myself to have.”

“No, we keep living to make sure that people like them never get power over us again, or at least not anytime soon,” Renee said. “Things have been better before; they will get better again. Spiting them is just a bonus.”

“If there’s one thing history has taught us,” Marcus said, “it’s that empires fall. This one’ll be no different. And it’s gotten so bloated and confident in its own power that it’ll fall sooner rather than later, mark my words.”

“But,” Vin kicked a rock across the path, “doesn’t that just mean that whatever you set up to replace it is doomed from the start? That kinda blows.”

“Yes, at some point things will be worse again,” Renee said. “But when that time comes, they will be able to look back at what we accomplish and be more prepared to improve their own conditions. They will know that things can be better, that people have fought incredible odds and won before, and they will have hope. And that is a legacy that I would be proud to leave behind.”

“Wow, that’s way cooler than the legacy I want to leave behind,” Vin said. “I just want to make a really cool comic.”

“Stories are important. They’re how we pass on our history, how we dream of a better future, how we share our ideals. There is nothing lame about wanting to tell lasting stories,” Renee said. “What do you want to make your comic about?”

“Um. Hell if I know. I just said that I wanted to make a really cool comic, not that I had any sort of plans to make that happen.” Vin shrugged. “Anyways, are we there yet?”

“Vin,” Renee said, “the time we’ve been talking has in no way exceeded five minutes. We are still easily within the original estimate of about an hour and a half.”

“Well, I don’t wanna keep walking is all,” Vin whined.

They kept walking.

They kept talking. Vin kept vocally wondering if they were at Marcus’ place yet.

The path they were on was fairly worn; a huge improvement to trying to find the most passable way through the underbrush. Much to the relief of Renee and Alcor, their speed picked up considerably. They were climbing a steady incline, not so steep that it made walking difficult but definitely enough to be noticeable.

As they came closer to the tops of the cliffs that had walled off the land, the forest to their right began to thin. Large old trees were replaced by younger saplings, like the land had been cleared out at one point. There was still a decent amount of undergrowth, and the trees definitely had some years on them, so whatever had happened occurred long enough ago that the land had time to heal.

The monotony of walking and woodland was broken when Renee caught sight of something above the low treeline.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at what she saw. It was the edge of a mesh disk of some sort. It looked huge.

“That’s my telescope,” Marcus said. “It’s pretty old; I mean obviously it’s old it’s on the planet. It went out of official use ages ago. They were just going to tear it up, believe it or not! I managed to get the land before they started work on it, fortunately. And now I reckon I got the best setup of any amateur astronomer.”

Charlie perked up. “You’re an astronomer?” ze asked.

“Well, a hobbyist at any rate.” Marcus shrugged. “It’s not like I got a degree in it or whatever.”

“Yeah, you just have your own radio telescope, that’s all. It’s not like you’re serious about it or anything.” Charlie stared at the distant disk. “Although, how well does it work? Most telescopes are out of Earth’s atmosphere to avoid atmospheric distortion, right?”

“There’s certainly some electromagnetic interference, but it’s not that big of a deal to filter out. Amateur astronomers have made discoveries using tiny optical telescopes in a city before; I’m far ahead of that curve.”

“That’s so cool!” Charlie flapped zir hands. “I’ve always dreamed of having a really nice telescope but it never even occurred to me to think about a radio telescope as a thing that you could have.”

“You like space?” Marcus said with a smile.

Charlie’s words ran together. “Yeah! It’s so vast and it contains so many cool things, every cool thing, technically. So many stellar objects are still so mysterious, even after a millennia of study. And the scale of it all! It's so incomprehensible. I really like things that I can’t fully comprehend, if that makes any sense.”

“Nah, I feel you there,” Marcus said.

“I’ve thought a lot about going on one of the colony ships,” Charlie said, “but all the ones that are leaving in the next decade are going to have such long journeys. I don’t know if I could spend the rest of my life on a spaceship. Have you thought about leaving the planet at all?”

“I mean, yeah, I’ve thought about it, and I might go to Mars one day just as a tourist, but I’m probably too old to go colonize the stars,” Marcus said. “They don’t really need old geezers past the age of making new people.”

“Yeah, that’s the other reason I’m not sure I could join one of the missions,” Charlie said more slowly. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to want to make new people.”

“It certainly ain’t for everyone,” Marcus said.

“Soooo,” Vin said, “this is it then? You live in a big dish? Shit, my guess of ‘tree’ was way off.”

“Nah, the building below the dish is purely a technical one,” Marcus said. “I live about a mile out still, to reduce electrical interference.”

“Wait.” Vin narrowed his eyes. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“If you think it means that our journey's end eludes us still,” Renee said, “that although the promised destination is almost in sight it is not yet here, and that the rest you so desire sits in wait upon the other side of yet more ‘goddamn walking’, you would be absolutely correct.”

“This is bullshit,” Vin said. “I’m calling bullshit on reality.”

“A little walking never hurt no one,” said Marcus. “It’s good for you, strengthens the carapace.”

Walking under the dish, they were struck by the scale if it. Marcus boasted that it was 30 meters in diameter, and that was simply larger than a single object had any right to be. The technical building beneath it didn’t even make it out halfway to the edge of the disk.

It didn’t take long for them to traverse the remaining mile to Marcus’ place. She lived in a lowset building that made up for its lack of height in its considerable width.

Marcus led them into the nearest of several visible doors.

“The telescope doesn't have any sort of ability for remote operation, so the people who traveled here to use it would stay here,” Marcus said, leading them down some narrow hallways. “They would do research too, so there was quite a lot of space dedicated to computers, which has been useful in my work.”

“What is your work, if you don’t mind me asking?” Renee asked.

“I do network administration for a couple places. Nothin’ too exciting.” Marcus said. “Ah, here we are. Pardon the mess. I really ought to keep the place neater, but my crap keeps creeping further and further out.”

The pardon was well justified. The room looked like where old computers shuffled off to die. Old electronics and parts were strewn around the room, and thick bundles of partially exposed wires hung from the ceiling. It had nothing on the trash cave, but looked as if it had perhaps heard about the trash cave and decided that it quite admired that lifestyle.

“I’ll let you crazy kids settle in on your own. You don’t need some old spider cramping your style.” And with that she turned and left, closing the door behind her.

The area that Marcus had led them to had four rooms connected to a common area. There was a kitchenette on the far wall, and one of the rooms had been converted to a pantry.

“I’m going to scout out food options,” Renee said.

“Maybe olive us should try that. It sounds like a good idea.”

“No,” Renee said. “No, we will not be repeating yesterday's pre-dinner shenanigans.”

“Come on, it’s all ingest,” Vin said, opening his beak widely.

Renee didn’t respond, instead looking around the room.

“Oh gods,” she said, “there’s chocolate chips in here. Honest to goodness chocolate. I think I might cry.”

Pshaw. There’s no way there is actual chocolate in this woman’s pantry. Synthetic cocoa powder is not the same at all.

the same as what?

Ground up cocoa beans, a.k.a. what chocolate was originally made of. Cocoa stopped being commercially farmable forever ago. And unlike vanilla the synthetic version isn’t chemically identical.

chocolate was originally a bean? that sounds super gross.

I don’t even know how to respond to that.

“What are you planning with those?” Charlie asked. “Cookies?”

“Honestly, I was just going to eat them straight from the bag,” Renee said. “I have never made cookies, and have absolutely no understanding of the process outside of the fact I’m pretty sure an oven is involved somewhere. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, should you know how to do it.”

“I can follow a recipe, but it doesn't seem likely that Marcus would have randomly printed one off.” Charlie frowned. “Not being able to look things up is really inconvenient.”

“Then it seems we are destined to consume them raw,” Renee said sagely.

“That’s a little weird, isn’t it?” Charlie asked.

“Charlie.” Renee leaned towards zir, her stare uncomfortably intense. “I have not had anything sweet in literal years. Eating these chips could remove any remaining sliver of possibility for me returning to something vaguely resembling society and I would not give a single fuck. I am going to have some chocolate and it is going to be wonderful and nothing can stop me.”

A little weird? Are you honestly telling me you’ve never eaten chocolate chips straight from the bag before?

no?

What’s wrong with you?

that sort of behavior wasn’t exactly encouraged back at the home.

What’s the point of having no parents if you’re just going to do every little thing you’re told?

i have parents, rules exist for a reason, and if i really wanted some chocolate i would just ask for a candy bar, not raid the baking cabinet.

It’s better free-range.

“Why. Won’t. You. Open ‽ ” Renee growled at the bag, spitting out a stray sliver of excess plastic packaging. The bag was in her hands like it had been since she picked it up, resisting her attempts at opening it, almost as if it had been carefully designed specifically to resist children attempting to tear it open in the sort of craze that can only come from spending several years confined to a small living space eating only flavorless nutrition bars, breaking out, spending a few days meandering about the woods, and then encountering the promise of sweet flavor heaven. Not only were her attempts futile, but outside of a small tear in the excess folded plastic there was no sign that anyone had even tried to open it. It was resisting her attempts in an insultingly casual manner, condescending almost, made even more insulting by the utter inability of the inanimate object to intentionally do anything, especially condescend.

“Why don’t you just use scissors?” Charlie asked.

“Because there aren’t any in here and I thought this would be faster.”

“Okay, but it clearly isn’t, so -”

“It’s not about speed anymore, Charlie. It’s about principle now. I will not be defeated by a millimeter of plastic!”

Charlie watched as she continued to fail to pry the bag’s sides asunder.

“Yeah…” ze said. “I’m going to go get some scissors.”

Charlie returned fairly quickly with the kitchen shears. They had been fairly easy to find, hanging off of a large bar magnet on the wall with the knives. The setup made Charlie more than a little nervous; ze was a bit wary of knives in general, and to have them hanging off the ground was just an accident waiting to happen in zir mind.

Charlie wordlessly offered the scissors to Renee handle first.

Renee glared at them for a minute before taking them.

“Fine,” she said. “But I’ll have you know my method would have worked too.”

“Right.”

“Eventually.”

“Right.”

“I’m only doing it this way because it’s faster,” she said, “and I really really want this chocolate as soon as nagaly possible.”

“Hey, so what’s the deal with chocolate, anyway?” Vin asked. “It gets a lot of noise for something that looks like a tiny shit.”

“Vin.” Renee lowered the bag. “Do you ever actually think about what you say at all or do you just open your mouth and let what happens happen?”

“It’s basically just verbal barfing,” Vin admitted. “Thinking sucks. That’s part of why I talk so much. If I noise barf hard enough, I can’t hear the brain barf and the world is a better place. Anyway. The tiny sugar shits, what’s their deal?”

Charlie shrugged. “Taste good.”

Renee snipped the corner of the bag off with a quick hand movement. “One cannot explain the deal of the ‘tiny sugar shits’. One can only experience it for oneself.”

She poured a small handful into her hand and popped them into her mouth.

And froze.

The sweetness hit her like an very large and enthusiastic puppy. It was wonderful, but so very much. It filled her senses; the melted residue on her finger tips, the smooth mound plastered against her teeth, the rich smell of it, and the taste. Oh the taste. It filled her, becoming her whole world. In that moment nothing else mattered.

She hadn’t remembered chocolate being so overpowering before.

She couldn’t actually remember the last time she had chocolate. She probably hadn’t appreciated it enough. She hadn’t properly appreciated most parts of not being locked in a small living space with a single other person and having all access to the rest of the world strictly controlled.

“Um, Renee?” Charlie’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes were watering.

She really missed sugar.

She really missed doing nice things for herself. Being able to do nice things for herself.

She swallowed, took a breath, and nodded to Charlie.

“I’m sorry, I just… I’m really glad to be out of that awful place.”

“Glad to hear that you’re not like choking and dying or whatever,” Vin said. “It would be really awkward to eat over your freshly corpsed body.”

“You would try eating something after watching me perish directly after consuming it?”

“You’re adding the possibility of death to something that has already gotten as much hype as chocolate?” Vin asked. “I’m sorry Renee, I do love you but there isn’t enough grief in my body to keep me away from that shit.”

“Since death’s off the table how about you just have some chocolate?”

“How could you even say that? Death is absolutely still on the table. Death is sprawled along the length of the table with a single leg seductively sticking out from their robe. Death’s posing for a portrait, that’s how on the table they still are.” Vin shook his head. “Anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to eat the shit outta those weird little mounds, but I’m just not sure how good they can be now that I’ve tried edible sticks and their delicious soggy cousins. I don’t see how anything can beat edible limp sticks, and I’m just worried that I’ve created an unsurpassable standard for what food should be like on the outside.”

“How about you actually try more than one new food before having an existential crisis?” Renee said, tossing the bag to Vin.

“I don’t need more than one food to know when I’ve hit peak,” Vin said, reaching into the bag to grab a couple chips. “I don’t need more than one food to know when my actual soul aligns with the very fabric of the Universe in a single instant of perfect -”

“Vin, stop talking before you put those in your mouth.”

“Me? Stop talking? Renee do you ever think before you open your mouth?” Vin popped his handful of chocolate into his mouth.

“Renee,” he said, spraying bits of chocolate everywhere. “Holy SHIT Renee. This is… I can’t… Edible sticks have nothing on this, it like… It’s like food but, it’s good? Like, it makes my mouth happy? This is good shit, Renee. The best shit. Like, I was constipated for days and now I’m free good shit. My cloaca is a tingling void good shit. My colon is clear and my crops are fertilized is what I’m saying here, this is the best fucking shit to ever be shat.”

“Please never open your mouth again,” Renee said. “Just, stop talking forever.”

“Can I do nothing but eat these things forever?” Vin said. “I think I want to do nothing but eat these things forever.”

Renee shook her head sadly. “I fear that there may be a few obstacles between you and your ascension to the position of infinite and eternal consumer of chocolate.”

“Oh please, like anything could stand in my way.” Vin puffed out his chest. “Name one thing that could possibly get between me and this visceral need to stuff my gob with these tiny god morsels till the end of time.”

“Me,” she said, snatching the bag away from Vin.

“What? Okay this is bullshit, you’ve definitely had way more of this shit throughout your life than I have. You gotta let me have at least that bag to catch up; it’s only fair.”

“Fair this may not be, but I happen to be on the order of ten times your size, so…” She shrugged. “What are you planning on doing about it?”

“Oh, so height makes right now?” Vin asked. “Doesn’t that go against everything you stand for?”

Renee grinned. “I can’t stand for anything; I don’t have legs. And you must understand: there is no fair consumption of chocolate under late capitalism. Whether or not I am to unfairly take the chips that you otherwise may have eaten doesn't change the fact that this chocolate was manufactured using stolen labor. Is it fair that a person can be forced to work a third of their life away to produce this chocolate? Is it fair that that same person may die because they aren’t compensated enough to afford necessary medical treatments? Is it fair that some necessary labor is devalued to the point that those who perform it might struggle to even get chocolate whereas others could obtain ludicrous amounts every second for doing practically nothing?”

“No, but none of those situations relate to me personally so I don’t care,” Vin said. “Now are you going to eat any of that or are you just going to wave it around, taunting me with visions of all the glorious mouth heaven I could be experiencing right now if only I had mad hops?”

“How do you know that you don’t have the jumping prowess necessary to retrieve the artifact of deliciousness?” she said. “You haven’t even attempted reacquisition.”

“My legs are really sore and you’re sitting like, two feet higher than me.” Vin shook his head. “That bag might as well be on another planet for all I could conceivably retrieve it.”

Renee ate a handful of chocolate. “Charlie? Would you like to partake in this indulgence as well?”

“Please,” ze said.

Charlie ate some chocolate. It sure was chocolate alright.

“Hey! How come ze’s not freaking out or crying or anything?”

Charlie shrugged. “It’s just chocolate.”

“It’s just chocolate?” Vin exclaimed. “Just chocolate? I’m over here having a religious experience and you’re all ‘oh whatever it’s just the greatest thing ever created that’s all.’ How can you possibly say that it’s just chocolate that’s absurd it’s the best fucking thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“Haven’t you only eaten like, three things total?” Charlie asked.

Vin crossed his arms. “I don’t see what that’s gotta do with shit.”

“It’s better when it’s mixed with other stuff,” Charlie said.

Vin scoffed. “How the actual fuck could diluting something as great as chocolate with things not as great as chocolate ever make something anything other than a disappointment?”

“Candy bars are going to blow your mind,” Charlie said.

“Like fuck they will. My mind is stable and chill as ice.”

“So, what you are saying is that you melt down at room temperature? I certainly cannot argue with that,” Renee said.

As fantastic as chocolate is, we should probably think about what actual food you’ll be eating.

i could whip up some pasta again. i’m pretty good at pasta.

You fainted earlier. We should do something with higher protein than that.

i don’t really know how to cook anything that’s high protein, and i’m pretty sure i’m the best cook here.

Good thing I’m here then, isn’t it? Go look around the pantry and I’ll see what I can do.

And get some more chocolate before those two eat it all.

Charlie retrieved a handful of chocolate and nibbled on it as ze looked through the pantry. Between the walls and shelves were interlocking rectangular jugs of water. There were a lot of canned goods. So many cans that there was no way of identifying what was in most of them. Walls of canned goods. Too many canned goods.

Charlie had never wanted anything from a can less.

Fortunately there were also non-canned items, albeit fewer of them. Baking supplies, dried fruit and nuts, pasta; it was pretty well stocked. There was a whole shelf of various oils for some reason. There was also a deep freeze that was mostly full of game meat, but did have some other things in it as well.

Okay, how do you feel about something fried? Because I haven’t had fried protein in probably a century and have one heck of a craving.

fried what?

I was thinking tofu, because I get the feeling that you’re going to be needlessly picky about eating any of this meat.

Eating murdered animals is gross. I’m not being ‘needlessly picky’.

The animal’s already dead; eating its remains isn’t going to make it any deader. It’s literally the exact same thing as vat meat now. Actually, it’s a little better than vat meat because there’s pockets of fat and variation in texture.

It’s completely different from vat meat! Vat meat wasn’t a living thing with feelings that was murdered unnecessarily. It also didn’t have a life spent in the outdoors surrounded by pathogens. Do you know how many historical illnesses happened because of how meat was raised?

Generally, illnesses happen when meat isn’t handled and cooked properly. You’re not going to get sick eating well-fried deer. And you know that all vat meat originated from a living animal with feelings that was murdered for its precious, precious cells, right?

yeah but that was like, centuries ago. they didn’t have any other options back then.

And how come crickets and cricket byproducts are okay to eat? Insects have feelings.

crickets don’t need much to be happy.

So it’s about living conditions of the animals then? So what’s the problem with hunted meat?

can we not cross examine my eating habits right now? i haven’t really thought most of this through enough to have words for it.

I’m just trying to understand. If we’re going to be spending any length of time together it’s useful for me to know what you’re willing to eat.

you could just ask, you don’t need to get into the psychology of why.

although it’s occuring to me i never bothered asking you. is there anything i should avoid eating while you’re… while we’re together?

Nah. I’ll eat anything.

there’s not anything you try to avoid?

I mean what I said pretty literally. I’ll eat food, small rocks, electronics that annoy me, not so small rocks, generally whatever.

That said bananas make me feel gross for some reason.

well I can avoid bananas for a little.

Don’t bother. Sometimes it’s nice to feel gross.

…

so fried tofu. what’s that like? I’ve never had it before.

Tofu doesn’t have a very strong flavor, so it mostly just tastes like fried. Slightly chewy fried, since we’re using frozen stuff. Think you could recite some instructions to the others? It’s easiest with more hands.

actually i was thinking… maybe, since you’re the one that knows what you’re doing, you could

you know,

tell them yourself?

You want me to take over for this? Are you sure?

but i think it might be good to have a not terrible experience where you’re in control. it might make it not so bad if you need to take over again in the future.

also i really don’t like telling people what to do, even if they want me to.

Not a bad idea. It will be way easier to teach people if I don’t have to worry about going through you. You want me to start now, or wait a bit?

let’s just get it over with.

Alcor stretched Charlie’s arms and grabbed a few packages of tofu.

Is this okay?

um… yes. this is fine. i’m fine. totally fine.

Great!

“For food that isn’t chocolate, how does fried tofu sound to you two?” Alcor asked.

“I was off board the moment you said ‘food that isn’t chocolate’,” Vin said. “I’m a simple bird with simple needs, and to eat nothing but chocolate for the rest of my life is all of them.”

“That might lead to a life lacking in the longevity department,” Renee said.

“See? It’s like, the perfect life decision. There are literally no downsides.”

Renee sighed and shook her head. “Why are you asking us instead of Charlie?” And with a note of alarm she continued, “Ze didn’t faint again, did ze?”

“What? No, no, ze’s fine . Charlie’s actually the one that suggested I take over. It will make it easier for me to walk you through the cooking process. And ze’s a-okay right now; I asked and everything.” Alcor touched Charlie’s pointer finger to zir thumb and put the rest of zir fingers up in an archaic gesture. “Oh yeah, that reminds me. The cooking would be easier with more people; are you willing to help out?”

“I’m not sure it would be a good idea to let me fry anything,” Renee said. “Oil is concerningly flammable for my skill level.”

Vin grinned. “I’m totally down to set myself on fire; sign me the fuck up.”

“Neither one of you will be anywhere near the frying pan,” Alcor said. “I just need you to help bread the slices.”

Charlie was, all things considered, a tad less than a-okay. Just a smidgen under the weather. The weather was barely above zir, like ze was flying a small plane through a thunderstorm. But ze wasn’t panicking . That was the important thing. Ze could tell that ze wasn’t panicking because of how much ze was thinking about not panicking. This was okay. Really. Ze just needed to breathe. Except ze couldn’t breathe. Because possession.

On the other hand, possession meant zir heart rate and breathing were totally normal, which meant that ze couldn’t be panicked at all, not even a little, right? Charlie mentally laughed. That was definitely how things worked. Everybody go home, this fear was conquered. Conquered like a fox.

Charlie, are you paying attention?

i’m fine.

So no then. I didn’t think you felt very present. You should watch this; I’ve thawed the tofu and am about to drain it. It’s a pretty important step if you ever want to prepare something like this on your own.

oh, um, okay then. go ahead. i’m watching.

Charlie watched as zir hands piled paper towels on a cutting board and placed a slab of tofu in the center of them, piling more on top and pressing down on the pile with a plate. The words coming out of zir mouth drifted around the room meaninglessly, but the task seemed simple enough that Charlie wasn’t concerned about zir inability to focus on words. Ze focused on zir hands, the pressure of leaning on the plate to press the water out, the peculiar smooth yet slimy feeling of the tofu, the unusual exertion of zir arm muscles from how enthusiastically Alcor did everything. It was calming, sort of. Like experiencing a cooking simulation, if simulations could force your body to move against your will. Calming like some kind of cooking / horror cross-genre simulation. It was, at the very least, more calming than focusing on zir inability to move had been. And ze knew that ze could end it with a word, which became a comforting mantra.

Alcor explained how to to bread the tofu to the two teens. Renee took flour and breadcrumb duties to keep her hands dry while Vin was slightly concerningly enthusiastic about getting his gooey with rehydrated eggs. Alcor handled the actual frying, explaining as he went how to handle hot oil without getting splashed and how to identify when cooking was finished.

could i try taking over frying those last couple? it seems simple enough.

Sure.

Charlie’s heart rate shot up the moment Alcor took a backseat, and zir breathing became rushed and shallow. Ze stretched, partially just to reassure zirself that ze could, and shook out some tension.

Ze was in control.

Ze was fine.

Nothing bad had happened.

“Charlie?” Renee asked, “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” ze said. “I wanted to try to fry something myself. And I was getting a bit claustrophobic stuck in there.”

“So should we be expecting more body sharing in the future?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, carefully lowering a piece of tofu to the oil. “I don’t really like doing it but it doesn’t seem right to keep hogging the front seat. It’s really freaky not being able to control the body you’re in.”

I appreciate the thought, but I really don’t mind that much.

Are you sure?

Yes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly boring, but it’s not like being in control would make wandering around the woods much less boring.

I’m pretty used to not having physical agency. Constantly experiencing physical sensation all the time is actually a step up from normal.

That sounds like an awful way to have to exist.

Can’t say I’d recommend it, but you get used to it eventually.

Well, let me know if you start to get too stir crazy. We’ll work something out.

I will, but I don’t imagine it will come up. I’m in control all night after all.

“Or maybe he doesn’t mind? I guess I’ll probably be fronting while awake.”

“I’m glad that he’s fine taking back seat, since doing so seems to cause you some distress. I’m sorry if this cooking session has been hard for you.”

“It’s fine. It was the most practical way of doing things.”

“Just ‘cause something’s practical don’t mean it doesn’t suck.” Vin said. “Like, those food bars that they gave us. Practical, sure, but they had to be the suckiest food option imaginable.”

Speaking of food options: those are looking like some pretty well fried pieces of tofu.

oh geeze i wasn’t paying attention at all.

Charlie carefully fished the last of the tofu from the oil, putting them with the others on some paper towels.

“Alright, let’s ingest the shit outta these weird rectangles,” Vin said. “They look pretty food bar-y, but chocolate looked like pretty tiny shits and turned out to be a-fucking-mazing so I’m down to give them a try.”

“Are we sure it’s a good idea to introduce fried food to Vin so soon?” Renee asked. “I’m worried such quantities of expanded horizons might result in an malignant case of mind blowage, which could easily result in unrelenting obnoxiousness. I fear the potential for a repeat of the ‘good shit’ speech is high.”

“Oh, like I need an excuse to be unrelentingly obnoxious,” Vin said. “Nice try, Renee , if that even is your real name, but I’m going to eat those crunch munchers and I’m going to be obnoxious as hell, and these two facts will be correlated but not causated.”

Charlie grabbed a piece of tofu while the other two bickered. It was good; crunchy and chewy and mostly tasting of oil.

“Guys,” Vin said, having finally stopped bullshiting with Renee enough to try some tofu. “This is really fucking good. Like, really good. But like, it’s good different ways than chocolate? What is this bullshit??”

“That would be what’s known as ‘flavors’,” Charlie said, loading up a plate with dark brown rice. “There’s like, six different ways that things can taste good, or at least that’s what Big Taste would have you believe.”

Vin’s eyes were wide. “I must try all of them.”

“I’m sure we can make progress on that quest in the upcoming days,” Renee said. “I’ll have to make an effort to find something sour.”

They filled their bellies with the food they made and the space with their conversation. They devoured all the tofu, leaving some of the rice uneaten.

After they finished eating, Charlie went to take a nap. Exhaustion had been seeping through zir like water into a sponge since ze fainted. Ze collapsed onto the bed as a sack of potatoes would out of the tiny useless hands of an overambitious baby. Zir limbs felt like they had weights tied to them. Zir whole body felt like a weight just slightly outside of Charlie's ability to lift. It didn’t take long at all for sleep to overcome zir.

Alcor sat up and looked around the room.

Swinging Charlie’s legs off the bed, he got up and purposely walked to a corner of the room. There was a tablet, probably the better part of a century old, lying screen down on the floor, thick wires connecting it to the wall. Alcor flipped it over and experimentally prodded the screen. It flickered to life after a few long seconds, displaying a temperature graph.

Alcor flicked the thermostat app aside.

“There’s nothing interesting on that that works offline,” Vin said. “I already checked.”

“Oh, I highly doubt you checked for what I’m looking for,” Alcor said.

“And just what is it that you’re looking for?” Renee enquired.

“Gonna call a friend,” Alcor said.

Renee whipped around to face him. “A friend ‽ Are you out of your mind? You can’t connect to the internet, they’ll find us!”

“I didn’t say anything about the internet,” Alcor said calmly. “I doubt I could even use it on this thing; I think Marcus manually disabled its ability to connect.”

“Unless you’re especially close with Minesweeper, I fail to see how this could possibly work.”

“Well, it’s not my fault you don’t know enough,” Alcor said with a shrug. “There are more ways to connect to someone with a computer than by going through the internet. I was pretty skilled at computers once; this should be no problem.”

“And more methods of communication are being monitored than just the internet!” Renee hissed. “You’re going to get Marcus into serious shit!”

“I know you don’t trust me, but could you at least trust that I can think of obvious pitfalls? I’m not just going to send an unsecured message friendward and hope they get it. This friend of mine, they’re really good with computers. And they spread a program, that includes a direct and secure line of communication with them, across all sorts of machines. It’s a virus, really, and it spread very very well, so there’s a decent chance that it might be on this tablet.”

“Your friend made a virus for the sole purpose of opening lines of communication?”

“No, that’s not the point of the virus,” Alcor said, “that’s just a happy coincidence. And technically he didn’t make it, I did. He just improved it a lot.”

“Why did you make a virus?” Renee asked.

“People were writing things about me that I didn’t like, and I wanted to make them stop. After a while I got really into the project and it kinda ballooned out of control.”

“You? Get obsessed with something only to have it go horribly wrong? No way.”

“I wouldn’t say it went horribly wrong,” Alcor said, with a small smile. “Quite the opposite, really. It went wonderfully right.”

Alcor smile widened as a small, pixelated figure appeared on the screen.

“In fact, I’d reckon that a whole lotta things are going to start going wonderfully right.”

Alright! Chapter 3 is done, we're over half way done with the fic.

I've already written the major conflict of the next chapter. It currently looks like it will be a relatively short chapter, and hopefully it wont take me that long to finish writing it. I'm planning on focusing primarily on Haunted and Hunted over my other fic from now on, so ideally updates will come faster.

Thanks to TheItalianScribe for being my poetry consultant for this chapter.

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#Transcendence AU #Fic #Haunted fic #my shit #my fic

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