It had been not actually a super long time but things were about to happen and Lyre would start to do stuff very soon.

In order to do all that stuff her plan said to be in a good place and she was heading there but she had to be careful about it too. Where she was there was a bunch of thin spots in the sand and she wasn’t supposed to step on those parts and her plan was super specific about where she had to go so she went that way. It was a lot slower than walking in a straight line but it was what she was going to do.

Mostly it was really super important that Lyre wasn’t in the thin part or anywhere close because apparently it was not good but there was more of course. Basically even though Lyre knew her way through the sand and how to not touch the thin spots and stuff so did the sentry too that was going to see her somewhere forwards and then it would get her anyway. Getting out of the thin part to the rest of the plan was a little bit far so that's why she knew so much about the thin part of the sand and staying there but also even though it was far the plan was really specific about doing it so she was doing it.

If she didn’t have to go through the thin part then she could start some other parts of the plan but instead she would have to do some of it when she got there and if nothing invisible happened it would appear right away after. There was a big rock in the ceiling and it was pretty loose so if she hit it with a rock where the plan said to then it would fall. Then after it wouldn’t be done yet but then with the gun she was holding she would shoot where the plan said to and then it would be done except there would be a new problem.

Then to fix the new problem the plan said where she had to dig and then it would be okay and then it was just the one food one water shelter sleep wake up find Spike which was good because when she got there she could just do all that without having to follow a bunch of other plans. Then everything would be good and everything was always good after the plans and Lyre wanted to see Spike. Even if he was firm and invisible and she didn’t like either of those.

So she was walking walking walking around the thin parts and then there weren’t any thin parts and she could walk in a straight line and her plan was closer but still not super close. Actually while she was doing the plan she could make another plan and probably it wouldn't be super good because it was too far away but Lyre liked to think about plans and she could always fix it later.

It was annoying because actually she still didn’t know where Spike was and her plan couldn’t figure it out either because he was so super invisible but it was fine because instead she would make a plan for when he wasn’t invisible anymore and she met him. It was really hard to see of course which was what happened when her plans were too far away. But if she looked hard enough Lyre could see the part where they went West and then there was the big Wall too and then they were on the other side and they were all there and then she couldn’t see farther than that at all.

But then that was when it happened because there was a thing and she didn’t know what it was at all so she asked about it. Then it turned out when she was thinking about Spike and how he was invisible she didn’t even need to make a plan about him at all because he was right there but now everything was confusing because her plans were all out of order and Lyre had no clue what to do.

Even when she was making plans he was getting closer and closer to her and he made a noise and touched her and she had to do something but because her plans were weird and confusing she didn’t even know which one to listen to so maybe she would have to just stop and make another one. The first thing she did was ask what to do right now immediately and the new plan said stop so she stopped and then Spike stopped too and now she had more time to think about things and Spike would still be there which was a good thing.

Spike was right in front of her now and he was waving things in front of her face like his hand and his knife but Lyre wasn’t supposed to do anything about that stuff so she didn’t. Then she had enough time to think about stuff but maybe not a super long time so she asked if she should follow the Spike plan or the danger plan and the danger was always more important so she should just ignore Spike for now.

But now the problem was she was thinking for way way way too long about things because she got confused and now maybe the danger plan was different. So Lyre asked about the danger plan except now it was totally different and that was really confusing too because now there were just too many plans and she couldn’t do all of them at all. Apparently the old plan didn’t work so she would listen to the new plan.

The new plan was so totally different from the old plan though that now everything needed to be different and Lyre didn’t have anything to work from and she needed the plan for very close so it wouldn’t even be done. Now the sentry is actually way closer than she thought it would be so she had to figure out the most important parts of the plan. Luckily she could just ask which parts of the plan were most important and then she knew what to figure out.

There wasn’t anywhere to go anymore so she didn’t have to worry about finding anything or anywhere but she was supposed to go in a specific direction and then it would work. But the problem was Spike was here now and since he was invisible and he was also supposed to be part of the plan because he was here and the plan didn’t know exactly where he fit but it had sort of an idea so she would listen to the plan.

Lyre ran in the direction the plan said and continued putting it all together. She had five bullets in the gun so she asked exactly where she should shoot them and then she had an idea of exactly how to escape the danger but not all the way. The plan didn’t tell her when she would be able to do all that and she couldn’t figure out all of it or else the sentry would be there because it was so close and she wouldn’t have a plan so instead she just asked what to start doing and then she knew and then she didn’t have long.

Then she had enough time for just one more question so she asked maybe when some good times would be to shoot not exactly when because it would take too long but generally and then she knew that too and she would do it if she was able to ever. Then that was it and it was time for the plan to happen and even though it wasn’t done Lyre knew she made good plans and it was good enough and she would be okay.

She didn’t know exactly where the sentry was but she was out of time so she looked around. There was a lot of nothing and then a big drone that was sort of close and so she asked if that was the danger and it was so she turned towards it. It had a bunch of stuff on it which was actually even more than last time but Lyre didn’t know if she should do anything about any of it so she didn’t and it didn’t really do anything at first.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

It had a bunch of arms and one of them was doing something and Lyre didn’t know what and she didn’t bother asking about it and it kept getting closer. She wasn’t supposed to do much of anything until it got really close so she waited and waited and waited and then suddenly it was there and one of its arms was coming towards her.

Then it was time to do the thing and before it could get her with the arm she brought the gun up and held it there and it missed. Then it reached for the gun but Lyre pulled it out of the way fast and she ducked and ran around its side and it had to turn around to get her. All its arms were moving around all over the place and that meant she wasn’t allowed to shoot it yet so she didn’t do it yet and instead she waited.

But then she was out of time and it went to grab her again and she did the exact same thing again and it didn’t quite get her this time either. She still couldn’t shoot it at all which was confusing because then that meant the plan wouldn’t finish and Lyre wasn’t sure what to do if the plan couldn’t finish and she didn’t really have enough time to make a new one right now either.

If she kept doing the same thing though then maybe she could think about it and she could probably do all this without thinking too much. She started thinking up a plan and it was really tough because it was all happening right now but she tried anyway. The problem was that the plan knew she only had five bullets and they all had really specific places to go and if another plan tried to use them then she wouldn’t be able to finish any of them.

She could also maybe use just her hands to do something but the plan didn’t help with that either because it was super hard to figure out anything she could do like that. It was also possible that maybe she could go somewhere except that was really hard because she would need to get away from the sentry and it was faster than her and when she asked about that it said the only way to get the sentry slower was to follow the original plan.

Basically there was not a whole lot for Lyre to do and she would have thought about it even more but then for some reason the sentry grabbed far to her right where she was going and got her. Lyre wasn’t sure how it did that because the plan made sure she was always a certain distance too far to the right than it would try to grab but maybe something invisible happened and it broke the plan.

Now there was no plan at all that Lyre knew what to do with and she couldn’t do anything without a plan. There were lots of invisible parts to the plan and she had no idea what would happen because they were invisible and when she tried thinking of a plan now she couldn’t come up with much at all. The one thing she figured out was that the sentry just had her gun not her whole arm or anything so she had to hold it in front of her so it didn’t grab her for real. But then the gun was against her neck too and it was hard to breathe and apparently that was bad but she didn’t know what to do about it at all.

In her head thinking of plans it was a whole lot of nothing and she had no idea at all.

Lyre thought and thought and thought about all of it but instead of coming up with a plan it was harder to think and then she saw something else…

~

Red.

Lyre saw a lot of red.

There were spots brighter than others. Evenly spaced, exactly spaced.

It was too blurry to see anything else. She couldn’t hear much. She couldn’t feel much either.

It didn’t look cozy but it felt cozy to her and she didn’t know why.

~

But then it wasn’t red anymore, it was bright and beige from the sand and she could hear stuff and she could feel stuff and the sentry was there but so was something else. She asked who and actually it was Spike, Spike who was invisible and broke the plan even more, but Lyre was okay with that because now things were different and maybe she could even make a new plan.

Before even doing anything like that she realized now the sentry was turned slightly and the arms parted and then her target was right there and she was supposed to shoot now so she did. Then after she shot she did it again because she was still supposed to and then she turned the gun and did it one more time and the arm she shot fell off just like the plan said it would.

Then it still had a bunch of other arms so it went to grab Lyre again so she tried her strategy from before but it failed again because of invisible stuff probably and it got her gun again. She couldn’t let it pull the gun away or grab her so she did the same thing and blocked it from grabbing her with the gun but it was slightly different now and not on her neck so there was no danger from that this time. She couldn’t come up with a plan right away but actually it was okay because Spike was invisible and did some invisible stuff and Lyre was fine again.

Then she was supposed to go away so the sentry didn’t grab her so she did and now she had to figure out exactly what was going on so her plan would be okay. First she asked super fast if there was danger right now immediately and there sort of was but it would be fine if she ran away from the sentry so she did. Then she wanted to know exactly what was going on so Lyre started asking more.

The first thing she realized was that actually Spike was helpful to the plan instead of breaking it because now he actually broke one of the parts she was supposed to shoot and because it was broken now she actually didn’t have to shoot it which was good. But now she had another bullet and she didn’t know exactly what to do with it so Lyre kept asking questions.

But now the other thing she learned was even though there wasn’t danger for Lyre or at least it was easy to avoid it there was some danger for Spike which was bad because Spike had to avoid danger too. What was actually going on was now even though Spike helped with the plan the sentry was doing something bad with one of the arms and it was danger for Spike so now that was another thing she needed a plan for so Lyre asked what to do.

She was very lucky because the two things helped each other. Apparently now she had the extra bullet and she could actually use the extra bullet to get rid of Spike’s danger which would be perfect so she would do that. First though the sentry kept moving too much so she finished her original plan and shot the gun one more time and it hit another one of its legs and it fell to the ground and couldn’t get up.

Now the sentry couldn’t reach her at all and the new plan needed Lyre to stop moving so she could aim better because the sentry was still moving too much. So she stopped moving and then she figured out exactly which arm she was supposed to get and she aimed at it and shot it. Then she asked if it worked and apparently it did but Spike wasn’t getting up and she didn’t know if he got danger or not.

Apparently he didn’t but it was actually danger for him to just be there anyway so then she had to make a plan to not leave him there. Lyre knew she needed the one food one water and shelter and then also Spike also needed shelter not food not water so she asked for a plan and the plan said to just take him to the food water shelter with her which wouldn’t be hard at all so she would do that.

The plan said it was bad to do anything to Spike’s hand or his head because that was danger so Lyre picked him up by the armpits instead and dragged him like that on the ground to the food water shelter. It was boring for a while and they didn’t get super close to the end of the plan but sort of close and then Spike woke up which Lyre expected and started squirming and thrashing which she also expected. She had made sure to ask what he would do when she was there because she knew she was there and it made sense.

She knew exactly how to not make him hit her so she moved out of the way every time and then she let him get up on his own. Because he was firm even though her plan didn’t know exactly it told Lyre he might not follow plans and do invisible stuff instead and what she could do was just try not to interact too much or else he wouldn’t do the stuff he had to do. This meant Lyre couldn’t help him because then maybe things would turn invisible and she didn’t want that.

She needed Spike to come with her but she wasn’t exactly sure how to do that of course and neither did her plan. And this was one of those times when she knew maybe if she could think about stuff where she was right now immediately then maybe she would know exactly how to do that but she didn’t. The one thing her plan did know was that she had to say exactly what she needed or else Spike wouldn’t know and then if he didn’t know he wouldn’t think about it at all and she needed him to think about it and maybe do it.

There wasn’t a whole lot she could do before it was invisible. Lyre believed her plan would work. They always worked. So she obeyed.

“Follow.”