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Inside, the boathouse was empty. 

All that remained were the faded blankets that the four once young children would curl up in, when the world had treated them cruelly. Which was almost always in The Lake District. 

Kate Marsh, Tom Darshana, Jasmine Belewa and Flynn Ealdwine found a haven in the un-monitored shack, which the Government guards had presumed was untouched.

Kate breathed a sigh of relief, she felt safer away from the other Lake District dwellers. 

She pulled the oxygen mask from her face easily - it felt as if it was too big for her now. She choked on emotion in the back of her throat, a substitute for air, perhaps.

Knowing or living? Kate pondered this to herself as the metal bolted suit she had seen just an hour ago had left a permanent shell in her mind. Like a snake shedding it's skin, the truth about the Purifiers escaped from Kate's grasp. Only a skeleton had been left behind.  

One thing was for sure. Kate wanted both... The ability to know and live. 

Though she wouldn't have either unless she found out the truth surrounding the Purifiers. About what had been implied but never explained.

The room smelt of rotting timber; it was being worn down by the noxious atmosphere. They did this... Kate thought bitterly as she eyed the wrecked walls of the boathouse. And now we have to suffer for our ancestor's greed.

Kate wanted to punish someone. For everything. Her mother- for abandoning her. Her father for doing the same. Most of all the Government. The ones who had mutilated her body and stolen her human soul.

The soft texture of Jasmine's patterned blanket, felt like both a comfort and a loss, as she held it between her fingers. A condolence maybe? Kate shook the thought from her head, refusing to consider that she might not ever see Jasmine, Flynn or Tom again.

Wrapping the warm gentle material around her shoulders, Kate thought about Tom and imagined him safe with his brother. Jack would promise to protect him, like she remembered him saying before he'd left Tom at the school gates once. Kate had noticed the affection between them even then, unlike her parents, who were too busy arguing to notice much at all. 

With Kate's father and mother separated she was still awarded little attention. Only yesterday, when she had returned to her Mother after 4 years, had she received substantial affection. Though by then it was too late. Sorry wasn't enough for Kate anymore. 

In anger, refined by jealousy, Kate kicked the wall beside her. But the boathouse bit back, leaving her big toe throbbing.

"You know that the big bad wolf blew the house down from the outside right? So if you're planning on knocking it down just kicking it isn't going to work," Tom announced. Kate located Tom in the corner of the room, hidden underneath a grey blanket, a burrow. 

"Ha. Ha," Kate replied sarcastically, stung by being compared to such a monster. The big bad wolf was one of the only creatures she knew about. Tom had read it to the rest of them before they knew anything about the Last Forest. In a time when accepting the stars for the unobtainable riddles of dappled light that they were was enough for the children. 

"Why aren't you in your mansion?" Kate inquired, careful not to reveal her relief of his presence in her tone of voice. "I'll give that a good kicking too if you aren't careful," she continued. "I've just seen Mum. She's all fine and dandy by the way," Kate lied.

"By all means be my guest. Kick as hard as you like," Tom told her sourly. 

Oh the hard life of the upper class Kate thought to herself. 

Tom rolled over so he faced her. His thick black hair hung over a bloody gash in his forehead. He saw the fast flash of worry on his friend's face so calmly shrugged his shoulders. Kate knelt down to get a better view, forgetting her prejudiced jealousy. 

The wound was elevated on Tom's skin and the centre bright red. It was as if the sun from the yester's day had turned his blood to boiling magma under his skin, awakening a dormant volcano and then sending it's seething contents bubbling over.

"Did your family do this?" Kate asked. Tom looked withered but he managed to sit up and nod solemnly. 

"It was a glass picture frame." Tom could barely look at Kate as he told her. 

She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. From what she had seen of the Darshana family they were happy. Yet one of them was angry enough to try to open up his skull. "It's clean now. Spit has healing properties," he finished as he rummaged around behind him and brought out a can of Meat 3. 

All rarely uncontaminated meats had been combined into five different mixtures long ago and stored away. The government issued 6 cans a week to all families in the Lake District. 5 would risk starvation and 7 was far too much to give to the race that killed the earth. 

The smell of the meat mingled miserably with the decaying wood and the smell of an open wound. Though for Kate and Tom, miserable surely tasted much better than nothing at all.

"It looks really painful," Kate said, dragging her eyes away from the can reluctantly, to fix them on his wound. "Who was it?" Tom ignored her question. So she attempted to place her hand on his shoulders but he quickly shifted away and instead filled her half open hand with the can.

Kate dropped the container almost immediately; it's silver and rusty sheen brought to her attention the slowly vanishing orange on the tips of her fingers. Unfortunately for Kate it also caught the attention of Tom and he grabbed her hands to inspect.

"More side effects... That's interesting," he mumbled to himself while Kate eyed him angrily. 

She disliked like being treated like some test subject, with a life inferior enough to be easily disposed of. Like her feelings were trivial ripples in a pond full of endless tsunamis. They'd be washed away in an instance by a force grotesquely more powerful. 

That's certainly what the government had thought when they hauled her limp, ash covered body into The Forest Facility. How wrong they are. Kate told herself. To think that I'll just melt away and forgive. Years of unknowingly being the subject of gene splicing began to fuel Kate with revenge.

"Why did you actually come here?" Tom's soothing voice brought Kate back to the present away from the storm torrent splashing against her brain. "People could've seen you in this light. Without your oxygen mask. They would be afraid of someone like you," he concluded honestly. 

As he inspected her arm further Kate noticed tree looking dark tattoo scared onto his own arm, similar to hers.

"Like us," she corrected, snatching Tom's arm before he could retract it. She refused to believe she was the only unnatural one. "It was foggier earlier. I was careful. I had a disguise. Besides Mum wanted me to check on you," Kate lied spitefully, hoping to make Tom jealous - to turn the tables for once.

Mentioning her Mum felt strange now, like in the 4 years of their separation any relationship the family formed before had soon deteriorated. "She fought the government while I was gone, but they were too strong for her." Kate was crafting a model in her mind, of a perfect mother, with kind eyes, composed of pixels brave enough to form a compassionate person, who'd put her own daughter before herself. The complete opposite, Kate believed, of her real mother.

"You can tell her I'm fine and leave now then." 

Kate shook her head, dismissing his order. Then she opened the can of meat that Tom had given her and moved to sit against the boathouse wall. 

Tom sighed in response. It sounded normal for a brief moment until they recalled their broken down lungs. This made both Tom and Kate immediately uncomfortable.

*

Misty morning traveled into arid afternoon. Kate spent the day regaining her strength and plotting - plotting how she could convince Tom to go against the government with her. To show him something that he couldn't hide away from or ignore, like he usually did. She'd have to find out what that was first, though.

Kate continued to spew lies at Tom whenever he asked the occasional question regarding her family. She already felt without an identity, so why did it matter if she made it up?

*

"They've experimented differently on me and you," Kate said to Tom, who was lying down again, curled up in blankets.

Tom scoffed in reply, keeping his eyes closed as if he was imagining somewhere better. "Yes."

"Well what is it that they did differently to you?' Kate saw Tom close his eyes even tighter in response; A-not-so-quiet flinch so that the usual unimpressed frown he wore intensified.

"That's none of your business."

"If you can see me turn into a..." Kate forced herself to say it "A fox. I'm allowed to see what they've done to you."

"They took away my ability to breathe." Tom was beginning to dislike the newest conversation they were having.

"Well that's not all of what happened to you is it? You can't just hide it from me. You've told me nothing about what it was like in there for you." Tom rolled over away from Kate.

"I can hide and I will." Tom cursed himself, knowing that he'd almost given away the secret of his side effects he'd been trying to bury since they'd left The Forest facility. 

Kate lay on her stomach, looking through the holes in the floorboards, she could see the water. Lime yellow things floated in it and she felt as if the beetle like suit could reach out from the water and grab her again. 

She needed to find out exactly what the Purifiers did and why. Kate had the innate human urge to glide her hands across the water for comfort. True, the scarring effluent from factories made sure that the temperature was nearly above boiling when The Lake District became industrialized 100 years ago and would probably burn off her hand. But at least the water wasn't cold like Tom Kate mused.

*

As Kate tried to sleep that night, it was the sense of absence that kept her awake. Jasmine and Flynn had left a gaping hole inside of Kate, through what was increasingly seeming like their non- existence. On top of that, Tom's aloofness added to her loneliness.

After a while she heard him shift from underneath his blanket. The boy missed his friends too but something else bothered him more so, in the space between consciousness and sleep.

Kate's precise vision allowed her to see his erratic movement in the dark.

A throbbing light abruptly illuminated the room. It cast shadows like the spells of a voodoo practitioner. Kate thought at first she was in a dream, but her eyes remained entertained by the strange green glow. 

She watched the fluttering green light as it bounced from wall to wall- this way and that.

Kate went to awake Tom. But the source of them was in fact,  him. The light itself emanated from the heap of bones and muscle next to her on the floor. Kate's earlier suspicions about their differences were justified.  Exactly what Tom was experiencing as the green light lit up his veins Kate didn't know.

She ignored her yearning to lift up the blanket and hit him for not telling her the truth. For trying to make Kate feel like she was the only monster. She decided that manipulating Tom to reveal his secret himself would be far more satisfying. 

So instead of using violence she calmed herself and let the green luminescence filter through her eyes. 

It reminded her of the sunlight that had set-a-glow the lush green leaves in the forest she'd seen those many years ago. 

Authors note- Hi everyone. Unfortunately I doubt I will be able to upload much in the next few weeks because of exams. Rest assured I am dedicated to writing (and eventually completing) this story as it's so important to me. See you all in a few weeks and thanks again. Please comment and vote:)) - hippywitch