“Cana, do you wanna check out the post office we saw earlier?” I whisper to the blonde as we eat. Her eyes light up and she nods quickly, I grin and get up.

“I gotta take a trip somewhere, everyone okay with that?” I ask.

“Yeah, go on ahead and do whatever, just don’t stay out after morning or I’ll be filing a missing persons report when you come back.” Ross half-jokes.

I laugh, “I’ll just be gone for a little bit. Is it okay for Cana to come too?”

Mist quirks an eyebrow at me, “for what reason?”

“She just wants to check out the place I’m going so why not,” I shrug and walk out with Cana in tow.

We’re walking for a little before Cana pipes up curiously. “Are you sending letters?”

“To my old man and the inn, yeah. I just need paper and some time to write.” I reply as we turn a corner to said post office. Oddly closer than anticipated.

We walk in and up to the front, “is there any spare paper for writing?”

A scrawny male nods, handing me two pieces and a crappy pen from the cup of writing utensils. I tell him thanks, which he huffs a ‘your welcome’ in response before I sit at a table, Cana deciding to loom over my shoulder as I do.

August 18,

Old Man and Co.,

I met some new people. Ross, Cana, and Mist, all while I was out. They’re now my travel companions. I’m visiting Little D’melio right now, it’s a little town West of Yalev because a couple Curio caught onto my training. But now I can control my output (somewhat).

Stop crying already, I’ll come back soon,

Jyra

With satisfaction, I get up and retrieve an envelope. I come back to see Cana scribbling something on the bottom.

“Talk about vandalism,” I joke, startling the criminal.

“It’s not vandilism, it’s saying hi,” Cana pouts. I look over and that’s exactly what she did.

Cana says hi 🙂

I add a ‘P.S.’ and fold it up to deliver. “There we go, let’s head back then.” I chirrup and we walk out.

“How is it dark already?!”

----------------------------------------

“Took you long enough, Cana. How long does a trip to a building take for talkative people?” Mist grumbles at my return.

“Not long…” I accentuate the ‘long’, “we just went to the post office.”

“That’s all?” She makes a questioning look towards my forehead.

“Yep, these are postige stamps,” I point a thumb to my forehead, where I stuck a stamp of an orange fruit onto. “Want one?” I go rifling through my pockets.

“What were you doing at the postige office then?”

I plop on to the bed, “Jyra was writing a letter there an’ stuffs.”

“What did it say?”

“Old Man and co, I met some new people. Now he can control his output somewhat, stop crying already.”

“Anything else?”

“Auggie-something one-eight at the top, why?”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“We don’t know what day it is, don’t you remember that?”

“We can just ask Jyra or Ross for that stuff,” I say, bluntly showing my confusion.

“Fair,” Mist pauses before snatching up the strip of postige stamps I finally found.

“Hey!” I yelp, attempting to snatch them back to be met with air as she pulled it away.

“Wow, rude,” I huff as she casts another unreadable look towards me.

She sticks her tongue out for a milimoment with a snarky grin before flipping the stamps back towards me. We settle down for sleep, resting our heads on the opposite sides of the bed. The big, Jyra-sized bed.

“Do you think we can find other Tested before they get caught?” Mist asks after a pause.

“I mean, Sam can go invisible, Honeycomb can camouflage with her liquid, and Flit and Ghost help as well. Plus all you need is Knives to even out the quiet people.” I smile, “they’ll be fine.

“Let’s hope I get some information tonight,” Mist sighs solemnly.

“Let’s hope.”

----------------------------------------

I wake up and arise slightly. It’s night and I’m surrounded by dirting clothing. White dirty clothing. I hear slight weeping accompanied by twitching beside me.

“N-no! I- Honeyco-” then a sharp inhale. I recognise the voice from the Lab’s Tested. On my other side, I feel the unnatural churning of skin.

Knives, I instantly recognize. The twitchy body stops and squeezes my arm.

“Sam… are you awake still..?”

I feel a sudden arousal as I come to on the messy bed of Cana and I’s room. “Mist! Miist.. Mist! Get up!”

“You’re making me want to choose violence,” I growl.

“Did you see anything? Any Tested? Anything?” Cana asks.

“I found Knives, Sam, and a couple others.”

“Really? Where? Are they close by?” The blonde looks into my eyes hopefully.

“Near… over that way a while and we should find the relative area they’re in. They’re probably following the ditch we hid in up that way.”

“We should tell the guys! This is great!” Cana laughs, hopping around happily.

“Yeah okay,” I shrug and walk out the door.

. . .

“You found where your friends are? Nice,” Jyrasck comments casually as Ross goes deep into thought.

“Mmhm, and they were going that way,” Cana points to the inn-door. I grab her wrist and point her hand in the correct direction.

“I think I might know a good route that way..” Jyrasck muses as he chews a sausage link.

Ross’ eyes follow Cana’s finger, “ if it’s in that direction… Were they in a city?”

“Dunno, it was cold though.”

“Cold…” Ross fiddles with his pen thoughtfully. “So that indicates a drafty area where wind can reach the spectated being..”

“Either an abandoned building on the outskirts of a nearby town or in a ditch somewhere,” Jyrasck finishes Ross’ sentence.

“So what did the ground look like?” Ross asks, a mix of determination and something unknown in his gaze.

“It felt cold and dirty,” I restate more monotonously. Ross starts writing a bunch in his notebook before looking back up.

“If we find more information about where they’re going and for what reason, we can convince them to help our cause,” Ross states before asking me further questions.

“Who did you see?”

“Knives, Sam, a girl and I think another person.”

“Samuel Johnson?” He glances up, hand holding multiple pages open.

“I guess, Cana knows more about that than I do.”

“Unless there’s another Sam that knows Knives that well, yes,” Cana shrugs lightly at her answer.

“Alright, if we can keep eyes on them and their location, we can get the ideal equipment on hand before we head out,” Ross explains with a click of his pen and swift closing of his notes.

“So how and what is this ‘ideal equipment’ going to become on hand?” Jyrasck questions with a slightly doubting tone, immediately turning Ross into lecture mode. I tune out after it got to the third sentence.

“. . . It should take two-three days of preparation before we set out to the town in that direction.”

“Okay, three days of downtime before we set out. It wouldn’t hurt to do some work for some group allowance.” Jyrasck grabs up the emptied plates from the table, “any place to do that?”

“The butcher’s is always up for some labor,” Ross replies.

“I’ll do that with Jyra,” Cana chirps.

“I guess I can work on keeping tabs on the group of Tested via. Aberra.”

“Alright, so we should get to work on that,” Ross pops up from his seat with a smile of satisfaction.