Day: 1230

Days Left: 4250

Lives Saved: 6

Annika held the amphibian mask in her hand, turning it and inspecting the design. She pressed her fingers tightly, wondering how much force would snap it when the painful gasps of breath distracted her.

On the ground before her was a frail man, his skin an unnatural ghostly pale blue, blotched and peeling away, almost translucent. Even through his clothes, she could easily see how thin and malnourished he was, one of his legs crippled with a sizable dent where rope had wound around. And then there was the constant coughing, hacking, gasping for air as he clutched his frail hand to his chest, clawing at it.

Annika glanced at the amphibian mask, considering it, then handing it to a nearby peon, no longer wishing to break it on a whim. "He should be no trouble now," she said, moving away from the pained man, forcing herself not to dare look again. She glanced around and saw her followers' guilt on their faces, how horrified they were to see the man suffocating, but then mixed as they took care of the injured from the fire demon's rampage, a few of them unmoving or likely damaged their brains enough to have memory loss.

It's all fine, Annika told herself. We have most of them, and the others will surrender now that we have hostages. So they won't be a threat anymore.

She was glad that the princess slaughtered so many, proving that they were, in fact, a danger to the group. And those who had lost their memories... well, it was undoubtedly a tragedy, martyrs they will be. And their new selves will be all the more fiercely loyal, distrusting of outsiders as they should be. The others would have learned their lesson, always to trust what she said and never to doubt her leadership.

"Do you see what they are capable of!" Annika motioned to the wounded and temporarily dead. "If only we had attacked sooner! We would have prevented this! But we let them alone as they built up time to attack us!"

Calixte's pained suffocating cries partially drowned out Annika's speech. Her followers did not know who to look at, they attempted to ignore the suffering man, but he continued to writhe on the ground.

"Their charade of wanting to trade was only to discover our camps' weaknesses!" Annika continued shouting louder so that she could be heard. "This is a lesson! Never again should we allow another group to tear us apart!"

There was a moment of silence; even Annika could not focus on her rallying speech as everyone looked to Calixte, the man having finally suffocated and ran out of air to the point of fainting into unconsciousness. Annika glanced at the captured tied to the tree, the tears streaming down the captives' faces.

No, no, mustn't make any of them seem human, Annika thought. They're monsters; they're a threat to us all. What we did was right. I did what I had to protect the group, I...

"We must stay vigilant!" Annika shouted, regaining most of her peons' attention. "We have not apprehended all of them just yet! We-"

A hand grabbed her ankle, and Annika recoiled as one of the injured monsters reached out to her, barely able to beg for help with its jaw almost hacked clean off, blood spilling and dribbling out, until eventually, it collapsed back down from blood loss.

"This place is ours!" Annika holstered her gun. "We fought for this place! We always knew another group would dare to try and take it from us! Do we want to have to fight for scraps again!"

The group of prisoners and monsters stared at her, some mumbling "no," or shaking their heads.

Annika had hoped for a more vocal and rage-filled answer, but she continued, "do we want to go back to hiding and try to sleep in the cold and dark!"

Again, she received a lukewarm response.

"Then we must continue to fight for our home! To defend against those who try to take it from us!" She glanced at the unconscious Calixte, then shouted with one last breath. "We will make them regret attacking our home, our people!"

Finally, she was answered with a few cries of agreement, weapons raised in the air.

As the wounded were taken care of and the temporarily dead were dragged to the side, Annika paced around nervously, watching everyone else make preparations to receive the other captured interlopes who would likely not come quietly. Then, finally, she caught the eye of Kai, who, instead of anger or fear like the others, looked at her in almost resigned disappointment.

She snatched out his gag. "What's with that look?" she hissed.

Kai sighed. "You're not going to win," he mumbled.

Annika smirked. "I already have."

Kai shook his head, then motioned to her followers. "You've lost them... no, you lost them quite some time ago."

Annika frowned, wondering what he meant.

"Once the truth comes out," Kai continued. "They won't follow you anymore."

"They won't believe any lies you all spout," Annika snapped. "Especially after that little stunt your spoiled princess did." She motioned to Princess Alfreda, whose eyes sent death threats to Annika. "She's sealed all your fates. There's nothing you can do anymore to persuade them-"

"You haven't met our leader." Kai smiled.

Annika scoffed. "I doubt the handless woman will prove much of a threat-"

"She doesn't need to fight; all she needs to do is talk. Almost all of our group were once her enemy, and yet here we all are, best friends because of her-"

"She's mute." Annika placed the gag back into Kai's mouth. "She'll be doing no talking, and I won't give her time to write some peace campaign."

Annika left the prisoners to wallow in their misery, confident they had nothing else up in their sleeves to threaten her. But after Kai's words, there was a slight lingering doubt in Annika's mind. Why had no one else arrived back yet? Where were they? Had they come into trouble? Or was what Kai said true, and their leader had some form of manipulation power over people?

No, stop being so gullible, Annika thought. Nothing's gone wrong. Everything will work out, and soon this whole mess will be over with.

*

Eventually, Rin and Sumit found the river and quickly followed it back to the village, still freaked out by the encounter with the clown. They both jolted upon any sudden noise or movement. Only when they saw the village in the distance did they finally relax, but their sighs of relief were short-lived as a deathly silence loomed over their homes, and not a single person came rushing to greet them like usual.

And then they saw the disturbed grass and soil, the signs of a struggle and multiple footprints; the fire burnt out, and the food in the pot hanging above was charred and cold, and then there were the destroyed remains of Princess Alfreda's wooden house.

"What happened?" muttered Sumit, glancing around to find only a ghost town. "Where is everyone? Did something happen during the blood moon?" He looked to Rin, but she didn't have any answers either.

Rin rummaged through the wreckage of Princess Alfreda's house, confused as to why so much of the house appeared to be missing. Meanwhile, Sumit barged into all the homes and called out everyone's names. But there was no answer.

"You don't think the clown got to them first, do you?" he asked as he paced around and clawed at his curly hair in panic. "What if there's a whole gang of killer clowns?"

"Or it was the other group," said Rin, giving a more reasonable theory, though she had to admit that the thought of a whole army of killer clowns almost gave her a panic attack, and she hoped it wasn't true.

"Quick!" Sumit hushed. "I can hear someone coming!"

They both hid in a nearby house, peeking through the window as they clutched their weapons and masks.

The footsteps grew louder until, eventually, four figures came into sight and entered the village centre. One of them was a woman that Rin did not recognise, but she was relieved to see that Corinna and Lili were by her side, but the other person was-"

"Oscar!" Sumit rushed out of hiding and over to the fourth figure, pulling him into a close embrace.

"Wait, that's not Oscar!" Rin shouted, preparing an arrow on her bow.

"What?"

"Yep," the person mumbled stiff and awkward, in Sumit's hug. "I'm not Oscar."

Sumit looked to Corinna and Lili, who shook their heads, and then he finally let go. "But you look just like..." His eyes darkened, and his hand instinctively reached for his sword at his belt. "Then who are you?"

The imposter sighed and replied, "Rita."

"She's a siren," explained Lili. "She looks like someone else, depending on the person."

"More specifically, I look like someone you would find attractive or have romantic or sexual feelings towards."

"So that's why you look like my boyfriend." Sumit nodded. He cleared his throat. "Sorry for hugging you."

"At least you didn't try to kiss me as others have done in the past," said Rita.

"Who does she look like to you two?" Sumit asked Corinna and Lili.

The two women glanced away.

"Uh..." Lili began. "Well-"

"Just transform back," snapped Rin, still keeping her distance. "Or it'll just confuse."

"I would if I could," replied Rita. "But it's dangerous since my form changes around people. So I must wait almost an hour without contact with other people to do it safely. Otherwise, I might become deformed."

The other woman nodded. "I can vouch for that; her limbs were different sizes and covered in feathers."

"Where is everyone else?" Lili asked.

"We were going to ask you the same thing," said Sumit. "We only just got back."

"No..." Rita looked around. "No, they should all be here! They disobeyed me or were told to go back to camp..."

"What are you on about?" Sumit asked but addressed the question to Lili.

"Their group apparently attacked us and took a few people hostage," answered Lili.

"But we might have been fed some lies," interjected the tall woman as she noticed Sumit's growing anger. "We were told you guys hurt one of our people, but that might not be true."

"We're going to talk with leader' Corinna wrote on her whiteboard hanging around her neck.

"That sounds ridiculous," mumbled Rin, still standing away from the others.

"Considering that they now have captured all of our group apart from us, that seems the only option we have left," said Lili sternly. "Unless you think we can take them all with us four?"

Rin glanced at the ground, scowling.

"It won't just be us," said Rita. "I sent a few others to scout around in search of..." She looked at Rin and Sumit. "Well, to find you two. We might have a higher chance of succeeding with more of us."

"You think you can convince them?" asked Lili.

"Most of us don't want to fight," said the tall woman. "We'd much rather sit around and do nothing than go through all this."

"Did you two encounter anyone? Do you know where any of them could be?" Rita asked Rin and Sumit.

Rin and Sumit both looked at each other, hesitating. "Uh..."

*

It took a few minutes to find the unconscious body of the brutally battered clown.

"Bert?" Rita called out. "Bert, are you alright?"

Rin hesitantly stepped closer, poking the clown with a stick to see if he was alive. "Hey, are you-"

The body jolted, and Rin screamed, kicking the clown in the ribs.

"Rin!" Sumit gasped.

"Sorry!" Rin retreated behind Lili, who she considered the strongest person to be able to protect her from the clown. "Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you again!"

"Bert?" Rita went to the clown's aid. "You awake?"

The clown groaned, slowly heaving himself up. "Yeah," he grumbled.

"Got all of your memories?"

"Yeah..."

"Sorry there, buddy," Sumit squeaked, forcing an apologetic smile.

"No, no, I was attempting to kidnap you both," Bert, the clown, sucked in a pained breath, then turned and smiled, revealing his twisted grin that almost reached his ears, the set of canine teeth, and the-.

Rin screamed again, grabbing Lili and using her as a shield.

Lili sighed. "We're wasting more time; let's just go."

All in agreement, the weird group of seven hurriedly headed to the food drop-off.

Rin remained at the back of the pack, which Sumit thought was due to her fear of clowns, but he noticed that Rin appeared shaky before then and then saw her avoiding looking at Rita the siren. Who did she see? He wondered. Someone who came with perhaps painful memories with the way Rin was responding.

*

"We have to go back to the village!" shouted Jules as he ran through the forest, occasionally stopping as he did not entirely know the way back. "Come on!" He motioned to Talon, who was dragging along behind; they were constantly glancing behind to the camp in the distance.

"I'm not sure about this," Talon mumbled, finally picking up the pace and guiding Jules in the correct direction. "We attacked them. Why would they-"

"They're good people, Talon, trust me!" said Jules. "They'll want to work with us to get their friends back."

"But the others... will they believe that-"

Jules stopped momentarily, sighing as he placed a reassuring hand on Talon's shoulder. "They will believe us when we explain that Annika has been lying to everyone, not telling the truth about all those reports we sent. She started all this violence and conflict; she's responsible if anyone got hurt in all of this."

Talon bowed their head.

"I'll explain my side from spying on them and intruding, the inside job, and then you tell the truth that it was Annika who gave you those wounds and not them!"

"And then what?"

Jules paused. "Well... well, we'll go back to the camp and-"

"Confront Annika?"

Jules nodded. "We'll confront her, expose all the lies she's told and-"

"And she'll shoot us!" Talon took a step back away from Jules. "Our memories will be gone and-"

"She can't shoot us all-"

"Is that really worth it?" Talon's arms wrapped around their body, shaking and clutching onto their long sleeves. "You don't know what it's like, Jules! To wake up with no memories! You don't know how fucking scary that is!"

Jules swallowed and then glanced away. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I... I just can't let this continue. I need to solve this-"

Talon shook their head. "No, no, you don't..." They reached for Jules' hand and squeezed it. "Let's just leave whilst we still can, you and me; we'll get out of this sector and find a new one, one without Annika and-"

"But Annika is probably going to hurt those people-"

"I'm sure everything will work out fine. We don't need to get involved; we don't need to be here-"

"We are involved!" Jules shook off Talon's hand. "We need to be here to tell everyone the truth! If we aren't here, Annika will get away with her lies, and all those innocent people will be hurt just because she's scared they will take away her power!" Jules held his head up high. "I'm going back! Dex and Calanthe, and the imps are still at the village. I'll convince our friends guarding them to join us, and together we will confront Annika. What we need is numbers and..."

Talon was no longer looking at him, perhaps not even listening anymore. Their body was turned away, looking over at somewhere in the distance in distraction.

"Talon?" Jules was about to reach out, but his hand stayed by his side, clenched. "Talon, I need you to be here..."

There was a long moment of silence.

"I..." Talon began, their voice breaking. "I'm not risking getting shot by Annika. I'm not losing my memories again."

Jules stood still for a while, hoping that Talon might change their mind in those seconds until he finally conceded and turned. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, wondering if Talon would still run away and if this would be the last time they saw each other. But Jules bit his bottom lip, sucked in a quick breath and started running again back to the village, leaving Talon alone in the emerald forest.