Day 16

Time: 3:50 PM

Location: North

The mechanical hum of the machine surrounded them, holding them gently and softly, like a cradle. The bumps of their walk over the ice with rhythmic and, at one point, jarring, but now had melted into the background, and even as a leg hit the ice below them and the machine lurched, Darius barely noticed.

The gait of the machine, and the way it drifted gently from side to side, was almost hypnotic, and all too often Darius felt his head loll to the side, and his eyelids get dangerously close. And every time they did, he woke up violently, shaking himself awake. He wasn't exactly sure why his reaction to falling asleep was so jarred and violent, but he also couldn't stop it.

Perhaps that was a good thing. Darius didn't want to fall asleep, not right now. He'd wait until dark, to make sure his sleep schedule wasn't completely screwed up.

Unfortunately, most of the people around him must not have gotten the memo. Beside him, Ai switched between increments of her head resting on her shoulder, waking up, making a face, before staying awake for at least a couple minutes before doing it all again. Behind him, Molly and Misfortune were leaning against each other, whispering. They had been doing that for nonstop since Misfortune had gotten on, and Darius was still amazed by their ability to carry on a conversation this long. How did they still have things to talk about?

On the other hand, Luca and Greg were leaning against each other, dead to the world. Greg snored, softly, and Luca also snored, but loudly. Darius was a little worried for them, but he supposed they'd stayed up late last night reading the journal, so Darius didn't bother waking them up. It was fine if they were catching up on sleep, right?

Last night was the first time Darius had heard Luca reading, or, well, paid attention to it. He had been surprised to find that Luca's reading wasn't the best, and he often stumbled over the words he was reading, or read them confidently, and very incorrectly, like he only understood a bit of the words he was reading.

Darius supposed he wasn't that good at reading out loud either, but still... Luca seemed way worse.

At least he hadn't seemed embarrassed about it. Whenever Luca came across a word he didn't know or couldn't pronounce, he did it anyway, and didn't stop until he was done.

Darius supposed that was admirable.

And the last person, Sunny... Darius wasn't sure if he was sleeping or not. He couldn't see Sunny without completely twisting around, and Darius wasn't exactly keen on doing that, especially with the keen possibility of being caught.

Sunny didn't talk to anyone, if he even could, and he didn't interact with the people around him. But sometimes, Darius felt him shuffle, or look to the side, as if spying on their friends exactly like Darius was doing. So jury was still out, and Darius supposed it didn't matter enough for him to really be worried about it.

In his case, Darius knew that he was starting to nod off again, head falling forward and eyelids closing in a blink that lasted a little too long. Beside him, Ai poked him, and Darius' head snapped up, blinking blearily, confused, before he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Great.

"Thanks," he whispered to Ai, and she nodded in a way she probably felt was normal, but to Darius looked as if she had fallen asleep, woken up, fallen asleep, and then woken up in quick succession.

God, they needed a distraction. In more of a desperate bid than anything, Darius flicked on his watch, clicking on the radio icon.

...Seems like they were still too far. Nothing came up, not even terrible and lonely radio stations that had seemed to crop up in the middle of nowhere at home. Darius waited for a minute, and when even that didn't yield anything, he sighed, giving up.

Instead, he went somewhere else, somewhere he knew was going to yield results.

It wasn't going to do anyone else any favours, but at least it give Darius something to do.

He clicked on the file.

St--: Finally, he reveals himself.

Sn--: How could he do this?! How could he... how could he...

A--: A better question would be to ask WHAT he's doing.

Sn--: He just forced us out? Why? Weren't we his friends?

St--: Well...

A--: No.

O--: What are we going to do now...?

C--: H-He's g-gonna kill us. He's gonna k-kill us!

Sn--: No!

St--: We'll see. In the mean time...

P--: We need to find him.

A--: H--? Found. Walk backwards a few steps.

P--: NO. The original one. We need to find him.

A--: ...You're joking.

P--: We're better with him then we are with H--, and especially out here.

Sn--: We... yeah, you're right. We should. We need him to help H--!

A--: Really? You think he'd HELP H--? H—kind of signed his own death warrant by doing this. Not to mention ours...

Sn--: I'm sure we didn't know what he was doing!

O--: Of course he knew what he was doing. He just didn't think about the consequences for us or him.

P--: We need to go find him.

Sn--: Yeah...

A--: You have GOT to be kidding me-!

St--: Hmm. It certainly be an interesting action for you all to take.

O--: I think there's more troubling implications with that idea than just 'insteresting'.

O--: And... wait. Why'd you say 'you all'? St--, you're coming with is, right?

St--: Well...

A--: Where else are you going to go?

Sn--: We have to stick together!

O--: Sn—'s right. Whatever H—did, we have to stick together right now. We can't just go off alone right now.

...

O--: Right...?

St--: I suppose that's true... for some of us.

A--: What does THAT mean?

St--: ...I'm honestly surprised. None of you thought to prepare?

O--: Prepare for what? THIS?

St--: Well, yes.

A--: How could anyone have prepared for betrayal? None of us ever expect friends to stab them in the back.

St--: Well, not that exactly. But after hundreds and hundreds of years... well, something was bound to change.

P--: No. No it wasn't. The system worked! The odds were a million to one!

St--: By that logic, those odds may seem slim, but if you do something a million times...

P--: That's not what I-!

O--: Enough of this. St--, what are you saying exactly?

St--: In simple terms, I guess I'm saying... goodbye.

...

Sn--: You can't. We need you.

A--: How can you even say that?! Where are you even going to go?

St--: That's for me to know. Now, friends, if we can even call each other that... I suppose I will miss you. But I want to survive, and I've been planning this a little too long to let this go to waste. So...

O--: You can't even take us with you...

St--: Again, apologies. Goodbye, everyone.

--------

"Hey, what's that?" Ai asked from beside him, and Darius jumped. He looked to her, at her lidded eyes and her agape mouth. Darius frowned. He wasn't sure how much of this she was going to retain.

"Darius...?" Ai asked nervously, and Darius realised that Ai wasn't the only one blanking on the conversation.

"Uh... just some files I found," Darius told her. He held up his watch. "On my watch."

Ai looked at it, blinking. Her lips twisted and a certain emotion Darius couldn't place flickered across her face. Darius lowered it, almost defensively, and Ai shook her head, as if snapping out of something.

"Oh," she said, the first thing she said in a long while. "What's in them?"

"The watch?"

"The files."

"Oh." Darius looked down at his watch. Was 'I have no idea?' a good answer.

"It's, um... hm," Darius looked at Ai cautiously as he bit his lip, deep in thought. "I guess... it's about these people, and... and something bad happened to them, something that really messed them up. They aren't exactly sure what to do or how to proceed, so they just start looking for other people, like..."

Here, Darius paused, thinking. Of course, at odd moments during the day, he had thought back to the odd characters hidden on his watch and wondered about their blanked-out names. Why were they like that? Darius had yet to come to a satisfying conclusion.

"Like old friends," he finally decided. "Old friends who, I think, betrayed them, or created the problem that they're running from in the first place. But they aren't doing to well, because they don't seem to like each other, and none of them can agree on anything... they all seem to have different things each of them want and they trick the others into doing it, but the others find out... it puts a strain on their relationships, more than what's already there, so I think they'll kill each other at the end of it.

"Anyway, basically, it's..." Darius mentally counted. "It's four-no, five, people who are trying to survive and find their friends, but they're not doing very well. Honestly, if they don't kill each other at the end of this, I'll be surprised."

As he finished, Darius looked back to Ai. Her head was tilted, and she had an intrigued look on her face. But before she could any ideas...

"It's not a very good story," Darius told her, quickly. And it really wasn't. It certainly wouldn't be HIS first choice of literature. "It's strange and all over the place, the characters are annoying, and each file seems to be something completely different, like it's just excerpts out of a bigger story."

Ai, who had seemed taken aback by Darius' outburst, smiled and leaned in again.

"Still," she said, grinning. "It's sounds interesting. Is it?"

"No," Darius replied, shortly. And then gave her an apologetic look. "Uh... not to be rude, but no."

"Huh," Ai said. She looked to his watch, then back to him. "Do you read often?"

The question surprised Darius. "Huh? Oh, no... well, unless nonfiction counts, I read a lot of stuff about dinosaurs. It's basically all I read..."

Ai looked thoughtful. "You did seem to know a lot about dinosaurs."

Darius shifted awkwardly, embarrassed, but also pleased.

"What about you?" he asked, mostly by way of politeness, but also because he was actually curious.

But as soon as the question left his mouth, Ai frowned, looking away.

"Oh... not really," she said, sounding embarrassed, and Darius mentally kicked himself.

"Well, that's fine," he admonished hastily. "You're still cool if you don't like reading a lot, Ai, plenty of people are-."

"I do..." Ai interrupted, and Darius' mouth snapped shut. Ai didn't look at him. "I do like reading. But I'm not very good at it... and I didn't leave the house a lot, so I didn't ever go to the library... I probably should have read more, but I couldn't work up the courage to get any books, so I mostly stayed on the internet all day."

Darius looked at Ai closely, wondering if this was a confession, or catharsis. Wisely, he kept his mouth shut.

He saw Ai fiddling with her hands.

"It was hard for me, going outside after... after..." Ai trailed off, her eyes blank, before she shook herself. "Anyway, I'm not proud of it, but I think that after I shut myself off from the world, I ended up becoming estranged from parts of myself, too... I never imagined that so much of myself exist outside of my room."

Again, Ai paused. And again, Darius didn't say a thing. She'd probably continue, when she was ready.

And when Ai straighten, slapping her hands onto her think, winter pants, she did, looking for comfortable that Darius thought he'd ever seen her.

"I got better, though," she told him. "Getting out, even if it was technically just to save my friend, really helped! And I met new friends, better friends, so I had more of a reason to go out! ...At least I did. We had a fight, and I wasn't able to make up for it before coming here."

Ai looked away from him again, contemplative, and Darius found himself playing with his hands, biting at his own lip. These stops and starts were beginning to get uncomfortable... was he supposed to do something?

Ai shifted again, and Darius nearly jumped away. He followed her gaze down, and saw it locked onto his wrist.

Ai smiled again, almost wistfully, as Darius started reaching for his watch, only to pause.

"Do you really think they'd hate each other enough for violence?" Ai asked, quietly. "Isn't there safety in numbers?"

Darius inwardly sighed, desperately wishing he knew what exactly was going on, so he could choose his answer more wisely, as it was, though...

"...They've been through a lot," Darius told Ai truthfully, clutching at his wrist. "More, I think, than they've said. I-I don't really know, but I feel like there's a lot going on in this story that I'm only catching a glimpse of. But, as for your question..."

Darius bit his lip, his gaze dropping to his watch as he thought hard, trying to remember their interacts and what, exactly, they'd all said to one another. Did they hate each other enough to kill, or was there something else going on?

And, also, if they did hate each other enough to kill, why didn't they just do it already?

"I'm not sure," Darius answered, shaking his head. He gave Ai an apologetic smile. "I mean, I'm nowhere near through the whole thing, I'll just have to see."

Perhaps it wasn't exactly the answer Ai wanted, but she grinned at him nonetheless, pleased, before her grin suddenly turned shy.

"Hey... you wouldn't mind reading it to me, would you?" Ai asked, and once again, she looked embarrassed.

Misfortune, on the other hand, was not. She turned around like a top, a huge smile on her face, splitting it from ear to ear.

"Oh, please!" she cried. "Will you? Will you? I like stories!"

Molly turned to him then, and then Sunny. And then Luca and Greg, who'd startled awake, looked at him, too.

Darius looked at all the faces around him, then shrugged, smiling.

"Uh... why not?" he agreed, and Misfortune cheered.

-

"And then O says, uh: 'you noticed?!' and Sn says-Woah!"

Darius, as well as the rest of them, sending pitched forward, sent sprawling all over the pocket of the machine and their vehicle suddenly tipped forward suddenly, lurching towards the ground as snow filled the outside vision of the cockpit... and then stopped, the window so close to touching the snow, but not quite there.

Darius stared out at it from where he laid, sprawled out on the... seat? Well, he wasn't sure was a seat, it was more a place where the sitting area merged into the much smaller floor area before it touched the wall-.

Someone elbowed Darius in the gut and he let out a grunt.

"Hey-! What...?" Suddenly, Darius winced, hurriedly getting up and away. "Sorry, Sunny."

Sunny only shook his head, and Darius had no idea what to say to that.

"What happened?!" Ai cried out, laying by the window. She had also crashed on someone, but she moved off a lot quicker than Darius had.

"It's... stopped?" Luca asked, sounding nervous. He had also been thrown about, but unlike Ai and Darius he had managed to more or less stick to himself. Greg, who had been sitting beside him but wasn't anymore, groaned softly.

"Yeah!" Misfortune cried, and almost everyone in the machine gave her a strange look. This didn't seem to deter her in the slightest. "We've arrived! Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

"Um..." Darius gave a nervous look to the window. Their surroundings hadn't seemed to have changed in the slightest. He and Molly exchanged a worried look.

Beside him, Luca shifted. Darius looked to him just in time to avoid getting squashed.

"Luca!" he cried. "Are you okay?"

Luca frowned, rubbing at his head before shaking it.

"I... don't know," he told Darius truthfully. "I... I must have hit my head, or something..."

He moved again, this time using his hands to steady himself as he got to his feet. Darius kept his hands up, juts in case, but this time, Luca was successful.

Once he had stood up, Luca raised his arms to the top of the pod, where, just like before all this happened, the emergency exit had rest. And still rests, juts a little more obscured.

For the first time, it occurred to Darius to ask Luca just what he had stood up for. So he did, and Luca looked to him, hands still reaching for the emergency door.

"We should look, right?" Luca asked, now sounding nervous and unsure. "Right? And see what happened...?"

Darius blinked. He hadn't exactly been planning on sitting in this cold metal sphere all day, but that hadn't really occurred to him before. He stood up, and Ai did, too.

"Yes, we should," Ai agreed before Darius could do so himself.

"I'll come, too," Molly offered, still on the ground and waving her arms as if the other three could miss her.

Darius tilted his head to her. "You sure? It's warmer here, and I don't think all of us need to go out."

"I want to," Molly told him hastily. She gave him a smile. "Four eyes are better than three, right?"

"Uh..." Ai said, her face scrunching up in confusion. Darius couldn't help but laugh.

"I don't think that's how the saying goes," he told her. "But don't worry, you're welcome to come along."

Only a few minutes later, Darius was slipping down the frigid, smooth metal of the machine, leaving the intense cold sweeping in through his glove behind as his boots thudded into the crunchy snow below, making a sound like breaking glass that permeated even through the head coverings he'd thrown on. As Darius looked out across the vast expanse around him, he imagined the sound travelling through it unbothered for what could be miles.

Darius would be worried, if he thought anyone, or anything, could live here.

Luca was already on the ground, surveying the machine, and a second later, Darius heard Ai thud down beside him as well. He looked to her, and found that her arms had already been wrapped tight around herself as she shivered.

Molly was the last, and when she landed, she looked at both Ai and Darius with was Darius was sure was a big grin.

"What are you two waiting for?" she asked them, and without waiting for a response, took them each in her fingerless mitts and pulled them along, to the place Darius saw Luca was.

As they walked, Darius looked at the machine, and was immediately able to figure out what the problem was. It seemed all that had happened was that one of the machine's legs had fallen into a hole into the ice, and it hadn't been able, or hadn't tried, to remove itself. And then, Darius supposed, the other legs had stopped, perhaps sensing a problem.

That was probably a good thing. Darius wouldn't have wanted to see what would happen if the machine had just kept going. Perhaps he should give the engineers more credit.

Despite himself, Darius found himself relaxing. Stuck in a hole... yeah, they could deal with that. They'd just get it out of the hole, get the machine working again, and then be good to go!

He should have known.

As he got closer, Darius' eye followed the long metal leg down into the ice and through the hole, stopping in something that gave Darius pause.

Beside him, Molly gasped, and Ai cried out: "What is that?!"

Darius and Luca shook their heads, unsure. It was Molly who answered.

"It's Rot," she told them quietly, and Darius straightened, suddenly remembering what he had heard so long ago, back on the Moon Quarter.

"Rot..." he repeated, whispering the word as he frowned. He remembered, only vaguely, what StarSpeaker had said. "What is Rot?"

This was directed to Molly, who pressed her mouth into a thin, tight line, as if she didn't want to answer. But eventually, she sighed, shaking her head.

"It's a disease," she told them, looking into the hole. Darius followed her gaze, staring down into the swirling, slimy mass of black that frothed in the hole, withering and shaking as if desperately trying to get out. Darius took a cautious step back. "It forms on the world in random spots, far away from each other and hard to find, but connected through the crust of the earth. It's trying to kill it."

"The earth?" Ai was confused. "Not the alive things on the earth?"

Molly frowned, and tilted her head, as if listening. "Yeah... the earth. It's trying to kill the world, somehow."

"Where'd you hear that?" Darius asked her. At first, he thought it might have been StarSpeaker, but even he didn't know those things.

Unfortunately, Molly could only shrug. "Just... around."

Darius frowned. Luca, who had been looking to Molly, turned back to the hole with concern.

"Is it dangerous?" he asked her, and Molly nodded.

"Yeah, but only if it touches you," she explained. She grinned weakly. "So, let's just be careful, alright?"

"I wouldn't want to touch that anyway," Darius grumbled.

Together, the four moved closer, surrounding the hole but keep a stark distance from the Rot inside. Grasping onto the cold metal, Darius widened his stance and prepared himself.

"On three," Luca told them. "One... two-woah!"

Before Luca could finish, or any of the rest of them could do anything, the leg they had been holding onto suddenly raised, ripping itself out of the grasp. It moved forward, out of the hole, throwing the four off of it.

Darius stumbled back, thrown onto his back into the cold snow. As the ice pierced him, he hissed out through his teeth, pained. He squinted at the leg being raised high above him, and frowned when he saw some residue Rot on the leg sink into it.

Suddenly, the leg stopped raising, and Darius' eyes widened as it came down again, right onto him. Crying out, Darius rolled to the side, just in time to feel the sharp metal land on the snow right beside him.

"No!" Darius heard Luca cry from behind him. He looked back to find that the machine had thrown Luca forward, nearly into the hole and the Rot, and Luca had just barely managed to avoid it.

"Stop it!" Luca screamed, pointing towards the machine. "It won't stop! We have to get on before we're left behind!"

Darius's eyes widened, and he quickly rolled onto his hands and knees, scrambling up and desperately pushing himself forward in the snow, running forward to try and catch up to the runaway machine. But already, it was far too late. The machine, now back on track, was moving far faster than Darius could ever hope to, flying over the snow, graceful, when Darius was stuck gasping and flailing.

Darius stared after the disappearing machine in despair. It was too late...

Wait. No, the machine was coming back, turning around in a big loop, and then flying back towards them, skimming over the ice.

Darius brightened. Had the mechanics built something into it? Had Misfortune and Greg somehow learned how to control it? Whatever it was, Darius was grateful, and he sat back in the snow, waiting.

He didn't have to wait long, barely a minute. But as the machine came closer and close, Darius' relieved feeling started to dim as something closer to dread took over. He couldn't explain it, but something was wrong.

The machine didn't stop or slow. It just barrelled towards him, and if it didn't stop...

Darius picked himself up in a hurry, throwing himself to the side just the machine stepped where he had just been. It treaded lightly and easily over the snow, barely disturbing it, but Darius doubted he'd be as lucky.

"Darius!" Ai cried, and instantly, the machine turned to her, as if it had heard her. Before any of them could react, the machine had scampered over to her, raising a leg and slapping Ai away. Darius stared in horror as Ai flew through the air, tumbling head or heels like a ragdoll.

"Ai..." Darius whispered, breathless.

"What is it-?" Molly started to ask, but instantly, the machine turned to her, and Darius saw her expression change from fear and confusion to pure horror.

"Run!" Darius shouted. "RUN!" IT'S TRYING TO KILL US!"

Molly ran.

Unfortunately, the machine ran much faster, catching up to her in less than a minute and raising one of its legs. Molly, still running, didn't seem to notice it as it came down on her, not even as Darius screamed at her, or when she seemed to jump aside at the last second, just barely avoiding the attack.

"What do we do?" Luca asked from Darius' sided, and Darius jumped, or jumped as much as he could from his stomach on the ground. Luca gave him a worried look. "Darius?"

Darius could only shake his head. "I... I don't know. I..."

They could run away, the machine was faster than they, and could kill them in an instant, and they couldn't keep running and dodging forever.

"Our only chance is to fight it," Darius whispered, and Luca gave him a look.

"What?" Luca asked him. "How?"

Darius could only shrug him shoulders, pained. "We need to help Molly. And find Ai."

Darius' sucked in a horrified breath as the machine raised a leg over Molly, who had tripped and collapsed on the ground.

"Go find Ai, now!" Darius shouted to Luca, shoving him away as Darius forced himself to his feet, running across the snow to Molly and the machine.

"Hey!" Darius shouted breathlessly. He saw his shout in the cold air. "HEY! OVER HERE!!!"

The machine, unfortunately, seemed to ignore him, slamming its leg down upon Molly.

"NO!" Darius screamed, nearly tripping over himself. Just for a small minute, he paused, unable to continue in his grief, but as soon as he saw Molly again, thankfully alive but still down in the snow, he redoubled his efforts.

He didn't bother to waste time yelling this time, focusing all on his legs as he pushed himself forward, determined.

The machine raised a leg to squash Molly again, but this time, Darius threw himself in between them, sliding forward and throwing out his arms to protect his friend. This seemed to give the machine pause.

Unfortunately, it gave Darius pause, too, as he had no idea what to do next.

The machine moved, first, raising it's leg even higher as it prepared to bring it down. Darius flinched panicking, but he still didn't move, it couldn't. What-?

Before Darius could figure out what to do and before the machine could finally kill them, they all suddenly heard a scream from behind it, and then, suddenly, Ai appeared over its top, grabbing onto it and then hanging on for dear life.

The machine seemed to topple with the extra weight, falling to the side and stumbling over itself to regain its balance. Darius felt the leg slam onto the snow beside him.

The machine tilted left, before tilting right as Ai banged on it, seeming to be doing almost next to nothing. It had almost seemed to regain it's balance when, suddenly and with out explanation, it fell.

Ai rolled off it with a groan as the other three crowed in, confused. At first they were cautious, but then, as nothing happened, they came closer, staring at it.

"Ai..." Luca asked in awe, his eyes bulging. "What'd you do?"

Ai shook her head, and made a hitting motion with her fist. Then she shrugged.

Suddenly, the top of the machine popped off. The four flinched, but the three that poked out were only Misfortune, Greg and Frog. They all had tell-tale wires clutched in their fists.

Misfortune through her hands up in celebration. "We did it! We killed the monster!"

The others cheered, and Darius almost joined then until something suddenly occurred to him, and the smile slid off his face.

"Guys..." he said, and perhaps it was something in his voice, because they all looked to him. "We just killed our only ticket out of here."

Footnotes:

Level up. The Skill Flight or Flight 2 has increased to Flight or Flight 3.