2022

Ally was quiet on the ride home from the therapist’s office. She had been quiet since the events of the Nasseu Incident faded from view. She lost a lot more than she thought she had that day—and all of it had gone too soon. George and Jaclyn Fae think that in time she’ll move on from what happened and things will return to normal. That anything but normal will be fine.

She lost her new friends. That fact alone was enough to shake her up completely. But that wasn’t the worst of it. It was the utter destruction of her belief that bad things happened to people that deserved them. That hard work and perseverance got you anywhere but a broken heart, and...Jace. She lost Jace. Whatever it was that Lilly did...he hadn’t come back to her since that point.

She gripped her fist tight into a ball and kept from screaming out—that would be bad. They’d think something was worse...and even though it was, she couldn’t let that leak. For all intents and purposes she had practically shut down. She needed answers, and had an idea of how to find them...but it scared her.

There’s a voice in the back of her head that’s like an echo—like the remnant of a stench left long ago. She doesn’t know for sure, but she feels she can almost hear the voice calling out to her. Maybe if she were to chase it…

That night, she worked on convincing herself to just do it. Do it already you coward. You have lost so much by not acting brave. Are you going to let the rest of your life be determined by how stupid and scared you are?!

No.

She packs her backpack with two changes of clothes and sneaks down into the kitchen after the Faes have gone to sleep. The Faes...nice people, but they were too...normal to understand what she was going through. They couldn’t translate what she had seen. She wonders if by calling them that if she were mentally separating herself from the name Fae already...no. She liked them—more than any foster family she’s been with before. She was Ally Fae.

She took some of the canned food and stuffs it into her pack. She tried it on to see if It was too heavy...damn. She can lift it—but it’d be too much over time. She took a few of them out, and turned to see the knife holder right in front of her. She slides one of the butcher’s knives out and sticks it inside. When she’s satisfied she walks out the front door and into the darkness.

She’s got the winter coat wrapped tightly around her—the late September air had hung a cold IOU note as plain as she could see. It was going to get really chilly soon, and any embarrassment she’s got over the coat had easily chipped off.

She closes her eyes and listens for the voice. She can’t make out anything coherent—It was more like a faint moan hanging suspended in the air. The trail almost glows brightly in front of her—beckoning. She held her pack tight and began walking.

She walks until the next night. She’s avoided being spotted by keeping to the town during the night and finally entering the outskirts as the sun began to rise. No doubt George and Jaclyn have begun to freak out wondering where she is. She left a note, but she couldn’t explain much of what was in her head. The only thing it said was “Sorry.”

She hated that the cops were going to be called and have to waste their time. She’s not sure how she knew, but she knew that they wouldn’t find her. She also didn’t know what that meant, because it certainly didn’t sound good, but still, she followed the voice.

She reached a building after a long while wandering near the highway—keeping closer to the woods as the sun was up. It looked like a rest stop—trash littered the parking lot. Maybe it wasn’t used and cleaned as often?

Whatever the case, she needed a spot to sit down. Her legs ached horribly and she bet that she had sores starting to tear through her feet.

She made it to the edge of the building and sets her pack down, sitting beside it. The temperature had dropped tremendously since last night. She held the coat closely around her and closes her eyes. She took in a deep breath and hears the voice in her head, but louder. It was familiar, and then smiled wide...but what’s he saying? Ide...ide…

“Hide!”

She opens her eyes quickly and there’s...something out on the horizon. The sun...a glowing white sphere of...why’s it here at night? Why’s it...growing?

“Hide!”

The entire sky fills with a bright, blinding white. She jumps to her feet and slings the pack on her back, looking around. She saw a dumpster and dashes toward it. Flipping open the latch, It was empty inside. Oh thank god, she thinks. She heaves herself up and inside, shutting the latch. She crawls to the corner and sat with her knees bent in front of her, shaking.

“What’s happening? Jace, is that you?”

“Stay...until I tell you...”

She closes her eyes, and the loudest sound she’s ever heard drowns out everything else. She sat in silence afterward, her body tense as wood.

“You’re safe now.”

The voice fades from her head. She cries out for him and when he doesn’t respond, she slowly climbs up and pushes the latch open. Immediately she’s greeted with harsh sunlight and a thick, pungent aroma. She peeks her head out and saw a swamp all around—the building she’s next to isn’t the rest area—but a smaller shack that looked just as abandoned.

What...is this? All of this?

She turned and made to climb out of the dumpster. As she puts a foot down on the ground something slimy ran up against it. She screams and yanks her foot back. It was a snake-like creature with large, oblong eyes. It had nearly wrapped itself around her leg. That could have been it right there.

Her scream startles the creature and it slithers away back toward the mucky water. Ally held the dumpster tight as her heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm.

“Jace? Are you there? I don’t know where I am...” She calls in her mind, but no voices return her cries.

She tried to imagine the way the Fae household would be if she were to backtrack. She closes her eyes and feels her head turn almost magnetically. That way.

She steels herself and lets go of the dumpster—as if she was letting go of the last link to the old world. And in a way...she was.

For she would never see George or Jaclyn Fae again.

She began to steel herself for the trek through the muck. Her stomach bears the grim reminder that she hadn’t eaten since the morning. The lingering voice at the edge of her consciousness beckons. It was a voice she didn’t honestly believe she would hear again—and that thought terrified her more than anything.

“You’re here, aren’t you? Here, with me?”

The voice was silent, but not for long. “You’re really going to chase after Lilly, aren’t you?”

It was Jace. She knew it deep in her heart. Jace was the figure that she had known within her for as long as she could remember. For the longest time she’s wanted to write a story with him in the starring role, and for a time she believed that she actually would. But ever since the Nasseu Incident, Jace vanished. Lilly had almost seemed to turn him against her—her abilities breaking through her own subconscious and directly pleading with her own.

Since that day, his voice was gone...until now. When she most needed him, he had returned.

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“I am,” she thought back to him. “Issachar and the other Creatures of the Night have gotten away with too much—I’m going to track them down if It was the last thing I do.”

Allison sighs, taking a gaze up at the brush above her—realizing the mounting scope of her goals and how unlikely it seems she’d accomplish any of them.

“Hey, don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye out for any clues of their trail,” he folds his hands across his face like a pair of binoculars.

“You are so annoying,” she said, but not wholly meaning it.

“Yeah, but you accept it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have made me that way.”

He’s right. Being annoying was the only way she could conceive of him to be able to make himself known. Anything else would have been drowned out. Anything else would have been killed by her crippling loneliness.

She’s been lonely for a long, long time, now. Without any warning, she stopped walking, turned to Jace, and screams. Louder than she’s ever screamed—it echoes throughout the distance and she feels so physically spent after.

She’s crying. She misses the twins. She misses Lilly. She misses the Faes. She misses her life in the few short weeks she had claim to it. Things were finally starting to look up. But now all of those things were changed forever. The twins were dead, Lilly was god-knows-where, and she had the horrible feeling that even if she were to make it back to the Fae household...what would greet her wouldn’t be the Faes.

She continues to walk until the sun—noticeably brighter in this new environment—began to set, being replaced by a bright red moon. She’s forced to find a dry corner near some of the dead and decaying trees to crawl up next to—the drop in temperature is more extreme than it was before.

In the old world.

A part of her didn’t know how to reconcile that fact. There was a change, she was sure of that, but how could that be possible? How can the world change so...much? And so quickly? She’s not a stranger to the unexplained, but that didn’t make them any more curious or concerning. In fact, the growing amount of curiosities only seemed to make her feel proportionally small by comparison.

In the old world, things tried to make sense. In the world before Creatures of the Night…she couldn’t finish that thought, because it was a cruel world even before then. There was no kindness in the old world.

She struggles to find comfort in the now near-freezing temperatures of the night. Even the warmth of the coat was overtaken by the gusts that chilled her spirit. Even then, her body began to adjust to the new atmosphere. It is a slow and uncomfortable process, but eventually she—

Footsteps.

She jolts awake. She looked around and saw nothing but darkness highlighted by red.

“Jace, is that you?”

“No, wasn’t me. You’re not that crazy.”

“Kinda wish I was.”

The sound appears behind her again. She slides a hand as quietly as she can manage into the backpack and held the grip of the kitchen knife.

She’s shaking terribly as the sound moves toward her front. It starts to get quieter, then almost silent. She slowly tucks the coat into the pack and slides the knife out fully, holding it close to her chest. When the sound vanishes she stood slowly and began walking in the other direction. The sound is behind her and leaving, so she picks up her pace until she’s full on running.

A man steps out in front of her—she tried to stop, but ran into him. He’s big—almost double her height, so he doesn’t budge much. He isn’t wearing a shirt and his hair is cut inmate-short. His face looked badly burnt.

Her face contorts into a deep fearful look. She turned to run but the man catches her by the arm. She looked back to see his awful grin staring down at her. The next thing she knows, she faints.

She woke up with her arms and legs bound against her; the strain is heavy against her limbs. The man had tied her up tight. She looked around, strained, and saw she’s suspended from a tree like a carcass. The man is tending to a fire in front of her with his back turned toward her.

She tried to struggle free, but she is bound too tight. He noticed her struggling and turned slowly—the light of the fire highlighting his terrible scars. “So you’re awake. I’d like to skip the part of this where you wear your voice out screaming. I haven’t seen anyone around for miles.”

Ally sat as still as the bindings would allow her. Any slight movement caused her to swing faintly. She does not scream—she’s sure that any sound like that would be her last.

“Do you know what happened?”

Ally answers with more silence.

“You’re not a mute, right?”

She shakes her head, figuring that not answering him this time would be the wrong answer.

“And you know what I’m talking about, right? How the world ain’t right anymore?”

She nodded.

“And you seriously have no clue?”

She shakes her head, almost in a look that said, “How would I?”

“Now that’s just great, The world goes to shit and what do I have to show for it? Middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing to my name. Just great. Just fucking dandy, even!”

He continues like this for a stretch of time Ally doesn’t wish to remember. She can tell he’s talking mainly to himself, but she saw him mentally correct himself to include her in his rants as if she were somehow responsible for the situation they were both in.

“And let me tell you just what kind of just god would do this thing to a just man? A righteous man? A pious man? What kind of god…?”

She continues to listen until it sounded like he was nearing the end of his rant. She guesses that it's been stewing inside him for quite some time.

"...And if we're going to be sent to hell, I'm sure as hell going to be fighting every until I take my last breath." He turned to Ally slowly and shows a wicked smile full of ugly teeth. "And you, my pretty, are my insurance policy. Whether I need you for barter or to use as a shield...or if we happen to be the only two remaining left...well," he smiled wider as the thoughts flow through his mind. A branch snaps in the distance and he's instantly alert and looking around. "You do that?"

Ally looked at him dumbfounded—more concerned with his insinuation than at the sound.

"No, of course not, you stay put. I'll go check it out."

Ally didn't answer, as she knew it wouldn't mean anything.

Another sound in the distance had him hurrying to grab a large blade from his pack. He stopped for a moment and looked up to Ally, almost considering cutting her down and using her like he planned, but he shakes his head and turned away from her. He made off for the distance out of sight and she is left alone in the dark with the fire crackling into the night sky above.

Almost...alone. Jace fades into view slowly beside her, and even though it is cold outside she can feel the warmth returning to her cheeks.

"I thought you were gone forever."

"Not forever," he said. "I just needed to rest. Lilly probably thought I was just an imaginary friend to you—so she didn't expect it to hurt as much as it did."

"Are you not?"

"Come now, let's be real. If I was I wouldn't have had to rest before coming back. I think you know that."

Ally is quiet, an understanding look on her face. Part of her did know. Ever since she had those visions about Carleigh Heights' murder she knew there was something about her that was different than most people, and somehow she was able to make Jace real. Real enough to make a distraction for one disgusting, vile man.

"We don't have long. He'll be rounding back here shortly," Jace said.

There was something about this new world—something that maybe even amplified what natural ability she had before...or maybe it was the field that Issachar had generated around the school that first allowed it to blossom? There were several possibilities, but nothing solid. She had to find those answers, and she had to find Issachar, because if she finds him...

Jace undoes the bindings and she falls to the ground below. She catches herself on her hands and knees but grunts out as she lands. She stood and throws her arms around Jace—and she hugs him. She feels him for a moment before her arms pass through him.

"It took a lot of strength to do that much. Looks like I'm not ready for hugs yet," he smiled, but his eyes shared her disappointment. He faded until she was left by herself in the dark.

Rest well, good friend. She picks a direction and began running, the wind coursing through her hair as she ran as fast as she is able.

Even when the pains start to flare in her lungs and her legs threaten to give way she still pushes forward through the murky darkness. Her feet are soaked through her shoes and every step threatened to alert her presence to anybody else that could be tumbling through the bog.

She had to stop when the pain overrode everything else. She fell to the ground and let out a small cry. Her legs were throbbing—her chest was burning, and her stomach was running on less than empty. The aches had spread through her whole body and it feels like she could just die right here.

I need to rest. I will die if I don't rest. I may die if I do, but I have to take that chance.

She stood and hobbled her way to some of the decrepit trees. They wouldn't do for protection, but they may offer some shade if the sun threatens to cook them all alive. She closes her eyes and nodded off.