SAVE POINT 112

Loading A Surfer Bro & A Greenhouse...33.33%

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1155921089491382333/c7bdc661-438d-4f63-9206-b4e90d130d36.png][https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1102021402707628096/1155921088753180882/00f97278-d141-47e3-80d7-c699cb701dd4.png]

Rosabella

"You heard what I heard, right?" I squint at EmeraldCity's face, trying to lock in on her expression, but it's shadowed and lit in odd, rectangular patterns thanks to the hallway windows we're passing.

"Something about light and dark?" The green-haired girl murmurs, her lips moving slowly. —Is that confusion crinkling her forehead and the corner of her eyes? I'd be able to pay more attention if my own didn't keep sweeping the floor and walls for evidence of roaches. Just thinking about them makes my skin crawl, and this is already a weird situation...

"At least it means we're both not going crazy, so that's refreshing," I offer, trying to find some way to break through the girl's wall. She's tricky:

Tough and sarcastic.

And this situation is tricky. She thinks her sister, Skipper, is coming for me? Sending me those threats? And, now, we've both heard the Grand Dragon speaking only to us, saying we have to work together? This is turning out to be a wonderful day—and, yes, that's sarcasm.

"Is it 'refreshing' though?" the green-haired girl pauses mid-step, turning towards me, then, shakes her head and continues in step, "Nothing about this feels a tiny bit 'refreshing' as you put it." Her voice is tight and sour, "...I don't even know what I'm doing here."

"What do you mean?" I have to ask her. To be honest, I think it's pretty ballsy of the girl to show back up at The Higher Place after I'd let her go. She's a mystery, and what's more of a mystery is why we'd both heard the voice in our heads...unless the voice was right...

"Well, I had to get the kid somewhere safe," EmeraldCity babbles, "but, I just followed this bobbing light through the forest, and it had the same voice as I just heard...in my head, which means I am crazy. I'm worried about Skipper being crazy, and I'm the one who literally should be in the loony bin—"

"You're not"—my voice is more empathetic than I'd intended. My arm reaches to grab hers before I can stop it. "Going crazy, I mean," I clarify quickly, "I've heard that voice before. It's the Grand Dragon—"

"Grand—what?!" EmeraldCity snorts in disbelief, "Are you sure you aren't high right now?!" Apparently, my reaction just feeds her incredulousness. She balks at me, "Come on, do you need more or less pills? Shoot straight with me—" she rolls her eyes back into her head.

"I'm being serious," I tell her.

"Well, I don't believe you," she quips, enunciating each word, "I like my theory better: I'm just apparently super emotionally strung out at the moment and clearly not dealing with it too well and you are...a little girl with a big imagination." She takes a cigarette out of her pocket and lights the wobbling end, bringing it to her lips for a long puff.

"Oh, come on, that is not fair," I shake my head, annoyed at her entitlement, "I'm running this place."

"You mean this place is running you." She looks at me down her nose, flicking some ash from the end of her smoke, "Those are some serious bags under your eyes, girl. Wanna come in and crash with me? Take a load and a night off, and call it a slumber party?" She nods towards door we're stopped at—the room I'd promised her. And I know what's behind it: a tidy bedroom with a neatly-turned-down comforter and a headboard piled with fresh pillows. What I wouldn't give to jump onto a bed like that and forget about the worrying and bickering my friends are all drawn into over everything that's been happening...

What I wouldn't give to forget—even for just a second or a few minutes—that I have to deal with it. That there's this physical threat, looming over my head, curtailing my freedom and weighing on my shoulders even when I'm not thinking about it. As though my body just reacts automatically, my shoulders slump. "It doesn't work that way," I tell her glumly.

And she raises her right-eyebrow snarkily, "Your loss, kiddo."

And her hand twists the glass doorknob open.

And I step forward wondering if I can throw in one more word to get her to believe what the Grand Dragon said—

BANG.

The door slams.

EmeraldCity's face, slightly blue and paler than before, turns back towards me. Her fingers shake so badly that she drops her cigarette and has to put it out on the floor with the toe of her shoe.

"Well, that ain't happening," she announced tartly.

My eyes widen, "Roaches?"

"Everywhere," she confirms with a curt nod.

And I don't have to double check because I see a leg scurry under the door. ...And, then, there's more legs and bodies. I jump back.

"Come on!" a voice shouts from further up the hall.

I whirl to see a young boy waving us forward. His ruddy cheeks stand out against the pale skin of his frantic face, "Quick, to the conservatory! Everyone's gathered there!"

And he doesn't have to tell me twice.

My hair streams out behind me as I run beside EmeraldCity. Our footfalls join with the boys as we jog and, although my stats are way better than they've ever been, I'm still well out of breath by the time we stop. Fucking ridiculous. At least EmeraldCity looks winded with me...even though I keep trying to shove down my logical mind's explanation of the fact that she had been hiking for hours on end just before arriving here. I need to work to level up at the gym or something; it's downright embarrassing.

"It's just through these doors," the kid points down the brightly-lit hallway: maroon-carpeted floors...a faintly-striped, tan wallpaper that looks like it would belong in a hotel somewhere if it wasn't clearly made from antique fabric. Gold-framed pictures line the walls like this place is a museum and—

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Wait...

I use a finger to straighten the nearest one from hanging crooked, but a quick glance shows me they all are slightly lopsided. I begin to correct the next as we walk by it and look back to notice that the first is crooked again. —What?

"Oh, they're doing that now," the young kid says off-handedly, shrugging, "Drives the Type A people nutsy. We think it might have to do with the cockroaches and fruit-punch."

"We?" I ask. My voice hitches on the syllable, barely daring to breathe.

"Yeah, there's a lot of us..." The boy's long arms flip open wood, double doors at the end of the hall.

And light streams in and over me like a warm blanket. The smell of plants and water, heavy in the air like a fragrant perfume, cascades into my nostrils—filling them: earthy and musky and...strangely comforting. Water drips and gushes in the background. Vibrant, green plants and colorful flowers crowd every wall, table and floor area, save a few scattered paths and an open area, stretching their leaves up to the glass ceiling. It's a greenhouse. How did I not know about this place?

...And there's people—a mass of them—that all look up as we enter. They're clearly hunkered down here. Sleeping bags are spread out in rows. Some are hunched over, dishing out food, while others talk in small circles. The closest group bows low to me.

"Game Maker," a man at front acknowledges respectfully.

I look up at him, "Do you guys have enough rations? Everything you need?"

He nods at a uniformed throng by the doors, "Your Higher Place guards made sure of it, thank you."

I nod again.

"Not trying to ruin this particularly unmeaningful moment, but is there a bathroom somewhere? I've gotta p—" EmeraldCity stops when she sees my constricted face, amending her words, "relieve myself."

I raise an eyebrow at her. The girl has the tact of an elephant.

The man I'd been talking to points to a door on the far wall, "There."

And, thankfully, the green-haired girl disappears from my side, and it's like I can breathe again...in my solitude. Like I can let my face and guard fall for the one second that she's dealing with bodily functions. How are we supposed to work together, like the Grand Dragon said, when we're so different? She doesn't even believe that the Grand Dragon exists!

I'm attempting to suppress these annoying thoughts and the ache in my back when a voice splits loudly through the underlying chatter in the room.

"Oh my stars, it's Rosabella!" the deep baritone sings, "What brings you to slumming it today? Tryin' to blend in? Pull a Cinderella and go out among the people?"

I turn to find a clearly high surfer bro with blonde dreads shuffling towards me with arms outstretched. And, unfortunately, I know the guy...

"Fanboi," I start, trying to keep my voice level and free of the irritation clenching in my chest, "that's impossible, everyone knows what I look like—"

"Yeah, whatever," he interrupts with a wave, "—hey do you think you could make the Legos stop? They're like super annoying."

"What?" I blurt. Is this something for real, or is he just jabberwalkying off the side of the planet...again. He's hard to talk to when sober so...

"The Legos," he throws down his hands emphatically, leaning close enough for me to smell his sour-cream-and-onion chip breath—no thank you. "Dude, I walk barefoot everywhere"—he points at his toes, wiggling them—"and literally this has to be like the worst plague I've ever heard of—downright evil."

Plague? I squint at him. Mimi considered the cockroaches and the water turning red a 'plague' but that had nothing to do with toy blocks... "I don't get it," I tell him.

He shifts his weight between his feet, swaying and talking over me like I hadn't said anything at all, "Yeah, I overheard them on the walkie saying this is like biblical shit. There, look, they're sweeping up now." He points to a bent over woman with a dustpan and brush in hand as she sweeps up Lego blocks of all different shapes and sizes into the tray. I gape at the scene. I still don't understand...

"Give it three minutes," Fanboi continues, "Literally, the Legos fall from the sky without, like, falling from the sky and I—ouch! Damn it!"

I look down at the guy's shout. And, sure enough, there's Legos. Scattered everywhere on what was clean floor seconds ago.

"Oh man," the surfer brow bends down to pick one up, his long dreads falling into his face, "These ones are dino-shaped now... Trippy." He brings the Legos up to show me a tiny, T-Rex-shaped Lego.

Is this for real?

"The water's sugar, we're running from bugs, every picture is crooked and the damn Lego deal," Fanboi gripes, "—someone is fucking with us, bro!"

...And I have to admit it; he's right about one thing...

I open my mouth to speak, but it turns out I don't have to.

"Okay, so there's something seriously wrong with that bathroom," EmeraldCity marches towards us, her face shriveled in a complaint as she wipes her hands on the back of her pants, "Whenever I try to enter, it glitches to a prison cell. I had to open the door like fifteen times before it fizzled out into the actual restroom. God, I had to pee so bad—"

"Oh yeah, it does that," Fanboi turns away, uninterested, flagging down a man next to us, "Dude, where's my bong? I need a mega hit. Shit be too real around here."

And Fanboi has left the chat...

Way too glad as the surfer wanders away, I turn towards EmeraldCity, gearing up mentally for a fight, but hoping she'll hear me out, "Listen, I know you don't want to talk about it, but I really think we should talk about the Grand Dragon thing. Things are clearly messed up here. Have you seen the "Legos—"

"Legos, Eggos," the green-haired girl huffs, kicking at the toys underfoot, "No offense, but I really think you're full of horseshit, and I'm tired. I'm gonna lay down here." She plops into the nearest sleeping bag, folding the fluffy layers over her legs and plumping the pillow.

"Hey lady! That's my bag!" A man yells, clearly addressing EmeraldCity.

"The Game Maker requires it!" she shouts back with a half laugh.

I gape at her, "You can't just—"

"Dude, that totally worked," the girl comments, brushing a green strand of hair out of her face. "Listen, I am going to beeedddd"—she sings the last word'—"You do whatever the fuck you want—"

> Work together. Light and Dark.

The Grand Dragon's voice booms in my eardrums. My eyes snap to EmeraldCity's and...

She's heard it too.

I'm giddy. Finally! Finally, the proof I need! Some back up to get the girl to listen!

"Oh my God," the green-haired girl spouts, whispering, "you're never going to stop going on about it now..."

I squat next to the girl, hoping she'll hear me out this time. My voice is hushed and urgent. "Trust me, I like this just about as much as you, but—you heard the voice—we need to work together."

"Fuck my life; she's serious," she drones, rolling her eyes.

"Together," I prod again.

"...Okay, so—hypothetically," she rants, "Where would we start if we were—hypothetically—working together..."

I gulp in air so excitedly that it nearly hurts my stomach, trying to keep my face neutral.

"—But you can't smile like that," EmeraldCity points at my face, "Truly, it's horrifying and bridging on creepy-I-told-you-so—"

"Okay, but you're her sister," I let the words rush out of me, "You know Skipper, even this version of her, better than anyone. Where would we find her?"

"You want my real opinion?" EmeraldCity props herself up on one elbow, "Why the heck are you looking for her? She's gonna find you. Just prepare so you're ready when that happens."

...Who knew the girl was a regular genius???