“Theo,” I whispered, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.

He shook his head. “I spent most of my childhood learning what children shouldn’t have to. I have the names for them now. Domestic violence. Abuse. Murder suicide. My mom left my dad after one too many times getting hit, and ran away to be safe. It’s what they told me, anyway. I wasn’t around during that time. A few weeks later she realized she was pregnant with me. She spent the next three years trying to find anywhere safe. Once she was certain she shook off my dad, she ended up at my grandma’s. We lived there happily. I loved it.” Theo shrugged, trying to make himself seem nonchalant. Almost like if he forced himself to do it, he might believe it himself. “My dad found us. Tracked us down.” Theo’s hands were shaking as he shoved them in his pockets, glancing at the window leading to the bedroom. “Anyway…”

“Wolfe.”

I didn’t know why I said it. I was still unsure exactly if Theo wanted me to respond. I backed away enough to see both sides of the forest. I pointed toward the wolf territory. Theo watched, brows furrowed.

“On one side, the creature that kills. The creature you drew as a child as you tried to comprehend what your dad, Mr. Wolfe, did,” I whispered. I almost didn’t want him to hear. It felt almost insensitive to talk about his trauma at all. I dropped my hand, then pointed to the other side of the forest. “On the other side, we have the abusive creep who figured out where your mom is. Both sides reflect Mr. Wolfe. The last name you refused to take. Or so the memory orbs led me to believe.”

Theo stood ramrod straight. He started shaking his head, placing his sword in his inventory before staring at me.

“Please.” My memories had been wiped, so I couldn’t be sure, but the feeling in my gut told me Theo rarely begged. This was one of those times. “Please come back to my base camp. I cannot help but think this is… this is some horrible trick to recreate that night.” His chest hitched, the air caught in his lungs. “I cannot… show up… and have you… bleeding everywhere.” The sob he was holding back broke out, and he fell to one knee. I walked toward him, alarmed.

“I won’t die. Theo, we’ve already discovered this. I can’t die,” I said.

He covered his face, and I could tell he was struggling to keep the sob inside him. To keep himself from breaking down. I dropped to my knees too, hugging him tight. I wasn’t hugging him for long when Theo gasped, then pushed me away with all his might. I landed on my back, confused, but not for long.

A black sludge bubbled up from the ground where we were hugging. Theo scrambled to his feet, pulling out his chain saw.

“Theo!” I shouted.

He didn’t respond. He turned on his chainsaw as the sludge shot toward him. He cut the sludge, but I had the same experience before. We couldn’t kill a sludge by cutting it. Theo still tried. He swung the chainsaw wildly, trying to slice the creature into bits. It was what kept me from rushing to his side.

The bits of sludge came together, slamming into Theo’s chest. He grunted, dropping his chainsaw. The sludge pushed the weapon away while also throwing itself into every hole in Theo’s face. I scrambled forward as Theo fell to his knees.

“No,” he croaked as sludge filled his mouth. “Stay away, Quinn.”

I didn’t listen. Instead, I grabbed the stream of sludge heading for his nostrils. The sludge stopped, and Theo gagged. I pulled with everything I had. The sludge was fighting me, needing to crawl into Theo. I looked at my brother’s face, saw the blackness tinged around his lips, the sludge coming out of his ears. He stared at me with black rimmed eyes, begging me to give up. To let him go. I saw so much emotion in Theo’s face, and the biggest one was the lack of pain. This wasn’t painful, what I was doing. It was… embarrassing.

I held on to the sludge, and yanked with all my might. I could almost hear a shriek as the sludge dislodged, landing harmlessly on the ground. Theo gagged, then turned his head to the side, covering his mouth.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Theo?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. I knelt to the ground and placed my hand on his shoulder, trying to get him up. He stiffened at my touch. “It’s alright, Theo. It’s gone.” He shook his head, his hand still covering his mouth. “Theo?”

He made another noise, then his back arched. Next thing I knew, hot black vomit landed all over my cleaning dress and apron. Honestly, it was not the most surprising thing that happened since I woke up in this house at the beginning of the summer.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse, and he didn’t look me in the eye. He was too busy staring in horror at what he’d done. There were tears falling down his cheeks, but the tears were black. “Your… I….” He scrambled to his feet, backing away. “I am so sorry.”

I stood up, brushing off the vomit. “It’s out? Is it all out?”

Theo hesitated, then glanced at something in his vision I couldn’t see. He brushed the black ichor from his cheeks and chin. “It’s… mostly gone.”

I nodded. “Then no harm done.”

As soon as I said that, words appeared in my vision.

Dress and apron coated in essence of them

Unusable until cleaned off

Sewing machine can repair them

At current outfit stats, cannot clean walls or paint until clothes have been repaired

I tried to hold in my sigh, then glanced behind me at the barn. That was still counting down. It didn’t stop the painting I was already doing. It would just put a damper in making that rainbow barn today. I was now committed to that rainbow.

Outside of house 98% cleaned

Must be 100% in order for them to not break through the fence

I flinched at those words, though I realized I could do this now. My gloves were still untouched.

“Quinn?” Theo asked.

I glanced back at him, trying to smile. “It’s nothing.”

Theo was still panting but gestured toward my face. “You made a face. Why? What happened? What did the alien overlords tell you?” I held in my breath to keep myself from reacting. Theo narrowed his eyes. “I would feel a lot better if I knew. And believe me, I feel like crap right now because I quite literally vomited all over my sister.”

I let out a sigh, then stood up, shaking off as much of the essence as possible before I changed into my logging outfit. “I have to repair my cleaning clothes. Since my cleaning clothes involve painting, I’ve got to wait until they’re all repaired before I can go back to painting. It will probably take six hours for each article, as is the way it always is. So tomorrow. I can’t paint the barn until tomorrow.” Before the thought of horror could even take root in Theo’s mind, I simply placed my hand once again on his shoulder. “And it’s going to be alright. There are still two full days ahead of me. I will get that done.”

Theo’s shoulders sagged, and he dropped his gaze. “I’m still sorry.”

“Does this happen often? Do they attack you when you start to panic?” I asked.

Theo nodded, staring intently at his fingertips. “Yeah. Every time. But… this is the first time I’ve vomited.”

“Probably because you haven’t had anyone to pull that stuff out of your nose,” I said.

“It was pretty gross,” Theo said.

“What’d you do before?” I asked.

“Sleep. As always. For hours. Sometimes days. Then it would leak out. I… still feel like I need to sleep,” Theo said.

I kept looking at Theo. Kept staring right at him, but he wouldn’t look at me, his face morphing into one of sadness. “I need to stop talking about this.” He walked past me, toward the back of the house. He wiped some more of those black tears, flicking them away. “Is there anything I can do to help you today?” Theo asked, his back still toward me.

He wanted to drop this. It was something I needed to respect. Despite the questions swirling around in my head, Theo clearly wanted to forget this ever happened. The best thing I could do was let him. But I still put the questions to one side. I’d wait for him to get more comfortable with the conversation before bringing up my questions.

Instead I thought about his question. I thought about my plans for today, that mostly dealt with waiting around for the bricks.

“Traps,” I said. “We talked about a trading system yesterday. I need some scrap metal. If you’d like, I can make some applesauce fast and you can see if it helps your health on the other side of the river.”

Theo nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Give me a second,” I said.

I slipped through the back door into the kitchen. I got together one applesauce as fast as possible while wearing my cooking outfit. I then slipped back out to where Theo was leaning against one of the locked greenhouses.

“Here’s some applesauce. I wouldn’t mind some scrap metal. I might need a lot of it. Just let me know how much this applesauce is worth. I have more apples,” I said.

Theo took the bowl, nodding. He wasn’t smiling. There was still black residue all over him, especially his face. He looked exhausted, and I didn’t blame him. He didn’t look at me, still a deep shame to him as he placed the applesauce in his inventory.

“I’ll be back with the scrap metal. Give me a couple hours,” he said.

“Take it easy today, Theo,” I said.

He said nothing, didn’t even look at me, before slipping through the trees and disappearing to his side of the river.