“Kelly, you can’t keep doing stuff like this,” Colin said as he pulled the arm of the little girl away from where the kids and couple were still whispering.
“But he was planning on exploring tonight! And now he won’t!” the girl replied.
Colin sighed, wondering how he had gotten into this situation, guardian of a creepy horror child. She still hadn’t told him her real name, but he and Shelby had taken to calling her ‘Kelly’ in lieu of ‘girl who adopted us’ after arriving in Bothell.
Well, at least Colin had taken to calling her Kelly. As time passed and the reports of the outside world didn’t improve, Shelby had grown more and more distant, less likely to leave her bed with each passing day. Colin was at the end of his rope, trying to take care of her in addition to the little girl who somehow ended up their ‘child.’
And then ‘Kelly’ would go and do something like this, freaking out one of the other kids with her glowing eyes and a creepy knife-licking monster-summoning act. He knew it had something to do with her strange ability he had grown to trust over the days of travel from Clayton, but he couldn’t help but be slightly thankful whenever her orange eyes lost their glow. Those few times, like now, when he could pretend that he was a normal dad, chewing out a normal little girl named Kelly.
“You know people are talking about you, right? What they’re calling you, and that parents are scared of you almost more than the monsters outside? You won’t be able to make friends if you keep acting like this,” Colin said. The girl’s eyes welled up with tears as she dropped her head to her chest, and Colin immediately felt guilty at his harsh words. “I’m sorry,” he said as he knelt and pulled the girl into a hug.
She sniffled into his shoulder, whimpering. “...I know. Some of them have almost killed me, even…” she mumbled. “...I just can’t stop seeing it.”
“I know, honey,” Colin lied, patting her head. “It’s okay.”
- Colin, Inclusion +17 days 16:04 hours
The car is tempting. Oh, so tempting. We find a set of keys in the house, and the car starts within the garage without issue, and even has over half a tank of gas. We could be at our homes within an easy thirty minute drive, rather than another full day of walking. Not to mention, the car is a make and model I never dreamed I’d have the chance to drive, not at least for another decade.
But in the end we leave it behind, resuming our trek on foot. Maybe it’s the fact that we have yet to see a moving car since the inclusion. Maybe it’s reluctance to disturb the absolute stillness of the neighborhood. Maybe it’s simple irrational fear and sticking to what we are familiar with. But something inside of me recoils at the thought of taking the car through the town. I say it’s just my instincts, but Styx says it could be my higher wisdom and intelligence Numbers making their contribution known, and the others are inclined to agree with her.
So when we start out early the next morning, we are once again walking. I activate my second skill and bond with Sam and Pallas. Pallas, because he stands on the opposite side of our walking formation from me and so offers the widest field of view, and Sam, because of its eye’s strange sensitivity to movement. Through my bond with Sam, I focus on the surrounding houses, ready to react at even the slightest sign of a shifting curtain.
But despite my vigilance, and that of my companions, we see hardly any signs of life as we make our way through the neighborhoods to larger roads. Only a few cats, practically feral after the last few weeks and quick to disappear after spotting us, disturb the utter stillness of our surroundings.
The houses on the edge of town remain opulent, but we avoid exploring inside any additional homes. We have enough food and water for the rest of today, and unless something interrupts us, we should make it to Pallas’ house, who’s home is the furthest east of our small group, before dark.
We stay on the outskirts of the city, but still we notice more signs of monsters as we travel further. The majority of the houses we pass now have obviously been raided, the front doors broken inward and the windows shattered. Whether it was by desperate humans or by monsters desperate for humans’ Numbers, it is difficult to tell, although in some cases the deep gashes in the top of the doorframe and lingering smell of death are evidence enough of monsters being the culprits.
“...should we check if anyone needs help?” Styx whispers as we pause outside of a particularly gruesome house. Dried blood decorates the front porch and no sounds can be heard from inside. The look on Styx’s face says that she hopes we’ll convince her it’s a bad idea to explore.
Which it likely is.
Just from glancing in the window, I can see a dried red circle five feet across soaked into the carpet, way too much blood for someone to lose and still survive. Exploring this house will probably only give us more fuel for nightmares.
But I can’t entirely convince myself to argue that point.
Likely. Probably. The evidence is overwhelmingly in support that no one left alive is in the house, that the original occupants died days, if not weeks, ago. But it isn’t certain. There’s still a chance, minuscule as it may be, for someone to be injured and hiding away in the corner of the house, waiting for help that, if we don’t choose to explore, won’t ever come.
My instincts, the same ones which warned me against taking the car, warn me against going inside the house. And I almost listen to them, am just a second away from leading my friends further up the street before I hesitate, seeing what made Styx suggest entering the house in the first place: the toys.
Scattered throughout the yard are obvious children’s toys: a tricycle, a colorful yellow water-sprinkler, a tiny plastic see-saw. I know it’s foolish, that hundreds of the other houses we’ve passed had children in them at some point too, but I can’t bring myself to ignore the blatant signs of a potential young child in danger.
Explore for us? I send through my bond to Sam. Its large eye swings to me before it scuttles through the open doorway into the dark.
“Sam’s going to check for us,” I say out loud to my friends, explaining Sam’s sudden movement. “It should be much easier for Sam to hide itself if there’s a monster, and it can tell us if someone in there needs help.” My friends nod, Styx looking relieved at not having to explore the house ourselves. A fair compromise to minimize the risk while not abandoning a potential child in need.
Five minutes later, I struggle to choke back vomit and dismiss my bond with Sam. A minute after that, Sam exits the house and we get back on the road.
We don’t stop at any more houses.
----------------------------------------
Despite our brief detour, we make good time. After walking so long through woods and fields it’s amazing how much easier and faster it is to walk along the sidewalk.
It also is much quieter than the woods.
While surrounded by trees, there always seemed to be some ambient noise: the chirping of birds, the buzzing of flies and mosquitos, the crunching of the leaves under our feet, the rustling of branches in the breeze. It created an atmosphere that, while still tense, allowed for quiet conversation and joking while we traveled.
The roads we travel around the city, however, are not like this.
While many of the houses have trees in their yards, the breeze is weak due to the surrounding homes. Our steps on the asphalt are silent, and even the bugs seem quieter compared to the last few days. The few words we use in casual jokes sound painfully loud, and any thought of keeping the conversation going fades immediately.
We walk silently down the road when a loud shrieking caw interrupts our movement.
We freeze, frantically turning our heads to identify the source. I’m the first to spot it, and raise my hand to point out the monster to the others.
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High in the sky a shadow swoops between the clouds, backlit by the sun. It releases another shriek, and my muscles tighten in response. My heart pounds in my chest as I gasp for air, and I frantically look around for someplace to hide. Yet my muscles in my legs don’t obey me, and remain almost painfully clenched.
“Do not move,” Sam’s voice sounds next to me. I know that its ‘voice’ doesn’t actually make any audible noise, but I struggle to keep from wincing at the sound in the quiet that follows the shrieks. “I am hiding us with my illusions, but if you move it will make it more difficult.”
I send a mental okay through my bond with Sam, and attempt to relax. The monster grows in size as it descends closer to the ground.
Every few seconds the giant beast releases another shriek, and each time my body reacts seemingly against my will. It’s a strange reaction, almost contradictory in nature: an intense panic and desire to flee coupled with locked muscles, frozen in place and preventing me from following my desire. The muscles in my neck and head are still working, though, and I’m able to turn to see my friends.
Like me, their lower bodies are frozen in place, but otherwise they appear even more affected by the terror. Styx’s eyes are wide as she turns frantically back and forth, as if looking for an escape. Pallas’ eyes are closed and his head still, but every muscle in the rest of his body is clenched tight, his muscles bulging and veins thick and pushing against his skin. Melete also has her eyes closed, but her head violently rocks forward and back, side-to-side, to the point that I worry for her neck.
With the paralyzing effects of the shriek, their movements aren’t enough to conflict with Sam’s illusions and risk giving us away. But I worry for their sanity in the meantime, their mental resilience from the wisdom Number not as strong as Sam’s or my own. I can still feel the terror from the shrieks clamoring for attention within my head, but the very real plight of my friends pushes it to a distant corner as I regain a measure of focus.
I close my eyes and dismiss my bond with Sam, simultaneously reopening bonds with the rest of my friends. The three new perspectives press down on me like a waterfall, and I struggle to concentrate on what’s important. Luckily, although I can feel additional echoes of the effects of the bird monster’s cries through the bond, the fear is dimmed compared to what I feel through my own body.
It’s okay, I say through my bond to my three friends. We’re hidden. We’re safe. We’re together. I focus on images that calm me, trying to send those images and the associated feelings through the bonds. A beautiful sunny day. A puppy rolling in the grass. Joking together as we hike along a trail.
I’m not sure how much of those visualizations are actually transmitted through the bond, but slowly my friends calm. The terror I feel through the bonds fades as Melete’s and Styx’s perspectives slow their wild shifting.
I’m unsure as to how much time has passed when I finally dismiss the bonds and open my eyes, but the flying monster is gone, never noticing us through Sam’s illusions. My head aches as I fight a surge of vertigo after maintaining the three bonds for so long, and I belatedly realize the paralyzing effects of the shrieks have worn off as I fall clumsily to the pavement.
A few seconds later Styx helps me to my feet. But she’s almost as wobbly, and we end up leaning on each other to stay upright.
“Thanks, Sam, for keeping us safe,” I say. “How about we take a few minutes’ rest under that tree over there?”
My friends give me weak smiles of agreement before Sam leads the way.
----------------------------------------
The rest of the day passes without any more monster sightings, although we do see plenty of signs of monsters. One section of the street is split in two with asphalt cracked and jutting into the air, as if a massive cavern opened up beneath it. It adds a few minutes of travel time, but we detour wide around the broken area, careful to not disturb the potentially precarious section.
No houses appear unaffected by the inclusion. At the very least, unkempt yards and open doors display the abandoned nature of the homes. A little further on the spectrum, most houses have boarded or shattered windows. And then of course there are the homes that are completely destroyed.
One home we pass is split in two as if a massive tree trunk toppled onto the roof -- although the source of the split, be it tree, monster, or something else entirely -- is nowhere to be found. An entire neighborhood of houses we pass is burned to the ground, the remains still radiating warmth and a small amount of smoke as we navigate along the edge of the ruins.
So when we stop in front of a house that’s mostly intact, Pallas releases a huge sigh of relief before running through the front door.
Over the last hundred yards, his pace has steadily increased from a slow walk to a jog, culminating in his desperate run. We had tried to yell-whisper for him to wait up, but he ignored us, forcing us to jog after him.
“Zach!” I hear from inside the house as the rest of us slide through the door single-file with weapons raised. “Mom! Dad!” Luckily, Pallas hasn’t entirely lost his wits, and his voice is at least somewhat moderated. Still loud enough to be heard throughout the house, but nothing like his booming yell when we escaped Carscott.
We’ve lost sight of Pallas as he rushes through the dark hallways, and we move as a group through the unfamiliar house. But after only systematically clearing two rooms, the living room and kitchen, he returns.
“They’re not here,” he says, his voice simultaneously defeated and hopeful.
“Any signs of where they went?” Melete asks.
“No. But lots of stuff is missing. Pictures and sentimental stuff, so it seems like they left by choice.”
I nod, giving Pallas a smile. Honestly, after passing hundreds of destroyed and abandoned houses, this is about the best result I think we could have hoped for. “Let’s not give up yet, though. They may have left behind a message, or at least some clues for where they might have gone.”
Pallas nods, regaining a little life and sanity as he leads us confidently through the house.
We spend the next half-hour exploring room-to-room, looking for any signs for where his family might have fled: maps, notes, anything that could give us a clue. After a while though, we conclude that there aren’t any physical clues left behind for us to find.
“Do you have any family nearby? Anyone they might have tried to go see?” Styx asks while Melete and I raid the kitchen for any food to add to our supplies.
Pallas hesitates before responding. “I have an uncle up in the north part of the state, but he’s almost a full day’s drive away. I don’t think they’d leave me behind for that.” As he talks, he rearranges his pack to accommodate the few mementos left behind in the house. He carefully tucks away two pictures, one of him and his brother shirtless in front of a pool, and one of his full family dressed in Christmas colors taken in the room adjacent to where we sit.
Seeing Pallas’ house, especially his room, surprisingly doesn’t add a whole lot to the picture of who he is. Like his personality, his room is sparsely decorated and his bed carefully made, the few toys and games tucked cleanly away into a closet. His brother’s room, on the other hand, is a riot of color and chaos with toys, games, and posters covering every inch of wall and floor. The only chips in Pallas’ spartan lifestyle can be seen through his brother, some of the more prominent band’s posters in Zach’s room also making an appearance in Pallas’, usually accompanied by a picture of the two of them together at the band’s concert.
“What if they were forced to leave?” Melete asks, pulling her head out of the deep cupboard she had almost climbed into.
“What do you mean? Who would have forced them to leave?” Styx asks.
“The government,” Melete replies with a shrug. “Maybe they tried to evacuate everyone to a nearby town. Either that or a roving gang of feral orphans kidnapped them, led by a really short genius. Or maybe a wizard came along and told them to go...”
“That actually could make sense,” I say, cutting Melete off before she has a chance to go much further down the rabbit hole. “The government idea, I mean. Especially if they were told that the school would evacuate us to wherever they’re going too, they wouldn’t try to wait.”
“Plus that could help explain why the city is so abandoned,” Styx chimes in, and I nod in agreement. That certainly would be a more comforting explanation than that everyone is dead or hiding.
“How do we find out where they went, then?” Pallas asks. And he’s answered with silence.
I speak up before the silence can stretch too long. “Well, before we can even go looking for them, we should visit all of our houses first. Maybe the answer will be there,” I say optimistically.
The rest nod, and in only a few minutes we’ve re-packed our new supplies and are back on the road and walking through at least somewhat familiar neighborhoods. My house is the closest of the three remaining, so we change direction to go there next.
Up until now, I’ve felt relatively relaxed exploring the town. Sure, the tension has been palpable and the terror from the bird monster mind-numbing, but these are feelings I’ve honestly started to grow accustomed to over the last few weeks. I don’t know if I can picture what true relaxation is, not after the constant slow-drip of adrenaline I’ve had since the inclusion. But as we move closer to my house, silently walking through the streets, the pressure grows. Each second we move closer to my home stretches into the distance before me, and yet the collective moments pass in a flash. It feels as if I’m in a dream, or underwater, or trapped in a mirror -- even my normal movements feel unnatural as my focus tightens on what we approach.
Unconsciously, I dismiss the bonds I’ve been maintaining almost all day. It takes constant effort to measure my pace to keep from running ahead like Pallas, but just barely I manage to restrain myself. In minutes, I may be reunited with my parents. I may find them dead. I may find them missing.
And all too soon, we arrive.
S: 153
D: 144
W: 389
I: 362 (+3)
C: 100
0 (+3)(-3)
Skills: Adjust:Self, Bond:Mental