Unfamiliar Territory

A sound. Like wood meeting stone. It echoed in my head so loudly that I had to open my eyes again. Slowly, the bright red and yellow of the flames, the singed smell, the continual cries of Trout, all came back to me. But something new was there.

An owl. Brown and white feathers, bright yellow eyes, big, fluffy eyebrows. Its large claws were resting on a walking stick that was lying before me. My walking stick.

“Do not disappoint our Lady again,” Hornroot said before taking off into the air.

I looked from the shattered window and black smoke into which he disappeared, to the polished piece of wood. Trout had stopped screaming. I could barely make him out as he held himself. The flames were starting to reach him.

“I’m coming, Trout!”

I grabbed the walking stick and used it as leverage to pull myself up. The burning table where Trout was stranded couldn’t be more than a few dozen feet away. I could not believe how close I had gotten before giving up.

I moved as fast as I could, putting my weight on the cane. The flames were too close. I ditched the shoes that were burning and melting and held in the screams as my feet started to burn. The cane finally caught fire before I tossed it aside and leapt through the wall of flames that stood between me and Trout.

Trout gasped into my chest when I grabbed him, but soon deteriorated into violent coughing. Without the cane, I was back on my knees with nowhere to go. Trout wouldn’t stop coughing. I held him to me as I searched through the blindingly bright flames.

It didn’t take long to find Maple.

She still held her hand towards her mother, though the latter was now nothing more than a charred corpse. The smell hit me when I saw her. It was thousands of times worse than anything I had smelled thus far. I gagged, coughed, and turned to try shield Trout from the fire, but it was everywhere.

“Maple!” I screamed through the smoke in my lungs. “Stop! It’s over!”

”It glows it burns it flows it churns!”

Her song still wasn’t over. She continued to sing with white hot intensity in her words. Did she want to bring down everyone in this room?

I tried to scream again, but it only devolved into more coughing.

“Fox!”

A voice called out to me over the crackling flames. Squinting against the bright rays of fire, I saw something I thought I would never see again. A dark face consumed with worry. Stallion’s face. Stallion’s very much alive face.

He waved over to me and Trout while Gust sat on his shoulders, waving the hand that was still a wooden blade.“C’mon man, you gotta jump!” Stallion called, holding out his arms. “It’s gonna be alright, I’ll catch you!”

I felt like crying. I attempted to stand, only to be reminded of my gimped leg when I nearly tumbled into the fire. Trout’s small hands gripped into the skin of my shoulders. I couldn’t stop coughing. I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t able to jump.

I looked at Stallion, arms wide, face sweating. He had once been in the same position when I was helpless in his arms.

I got back to my knees, planted my good foot down on the table so Stallion and Gust could see Trout when I held him in the air.

“No,” the little boy in my hands cried. “No, Foxy, no.”

You have to trust me.

I held Stallion’s eyes until he tilted his head down, once. With a burst of my fleeting strength, I threw the boy high into the air, over the flames, and into Stallion’s waiting arms.

But he did not see how close to the burning tree he had gotten, how close to the crumbling floors. As soon as he caught Trout, he was gone. Just a series of thundering cracks of marble and he, Gust, and Trout vanished beneath the burning tree.

I collapsed onto the polished stone of the table top.

Was I even surprised?

I couldn’t breathe anymore. The fire was so smothering. It should have reached me by now, burned me alive, but it continued to dance around the table. Close enough to warm my skin and steal my air but not close enough to burn. A slow death.

Then Kat was there, standing over me. He grey skin and purple veins were gone as well. I really cried that time when I saw those bright green eyes looking down at me so intensely.

She reached a hand towards me. “Get up. This isn’t over yet.”

“It sure does make a show.”

“Maple...” I croaked out.

“Maple’s next.” Kat reached down and grabbed one of my wrists, attempted to pull me up. “Now get up, Foxy.”

“Alright, okay, I’m getting up,” I said. I grabbed her arm back as she pulled me, but I nearly fell on top of her when my leg threatened to give out yet again and the injuries in my hands and side flared up. “Sorry, that damn boar—”

I interrupted myself with my own coughing. Without another word, Kat navigated me to climbing on to her back. A familiar experience. I stood there amidst the flames.

“Get on, we have to hurry.”

“Okay, getting on.”

I mentally smacked myself as I wrapped my arms around her neck and my good leg around her waist. How could I be getting embarrassed now? I looked at the spot on her neck where Widow had bitten her. The bite was still there, but there was no more black skin or purple veins. It just looked like some regular, not poison-infested, psycho decided to chomp her.

Kat grabbed onto my legs and leapt into the air, just over the walls of fire. But, as she soared through the air, I realized how dark it had become.

There was still fire, but it was no longer spreading throughout the ballroom. There were now only rings of flames. One around the table where Kat and I once were, one around the charred corpse of the witch, and one around Maple. Everything else was ashes and blackened plants. Nothing appeared to have escaped the fire’s wrath.

Kat landed back to the ground, just outside of Maple’s ring, kicking up black ash as she did. I could barely make Maple out through the fire and ash, but I could see she wasn’t looking at us. She was clinging on to her ruined shorts as she stared at what was once her mother.

“Maple,” Kat said, slowly, carefully. “Can you hear me?”

The young girl’s dark eyes shot over to her and I felt Kat flinch.

“Miss Elizabeth.” Her voice was dry, raspy. She cleared her throat. “Hello, Miss Elizabeth.”

She was wearing the same clothes that I had last seen her in. Loose gym shorts, plain white t-shirt, red bow ties that kept her hair close to her head. They were all stained heavily by mud and ash.

“Can you please lower your fire, so we can talk?” Kat asked.

Maple looked between her and me before shaking her head. “No.”

“We just want to help you,” I spoke up, still struggling with my own raspy throat.

“I don’t need help.” Maple turned away from both of us and went back to staring at the black skeleton. “I did it myself.”

“Well, now it’s time to go. We need to find your father and your siblings,” Kat said. I could feel the sweat from her face drip onto my arms.

“Daddy’s dead.”

Kat held her breath and squeezed the skin under my thighs enough to make me wince. I looked away from the girl to the skeleton. There was nothing behind those words.

“What did you—?”

“I’m your Master now,” Maple said, her dark eyes moving back to Kat. “You will find my brothers and sisters and take them far away from here. You will look after them until you die. You will never try to find me.”

Kat took a step towards the wall of fire. “Listen to me—”

“Stop.”

Kat stopped, frozen in place.

“Maple—”

“Stop talking.”

Kat did not say another word.

“Put Foxy down.”

She dropped me like a dead weight. I cursed at new pain in my backside.

“Maple, this isn’t going to fix anything,” I groaned, before having to cough again.

I tried to stand, but only succeeded in falling back down. I held in the desire to cry out as all my injuries flared at once.

“I saw what you did to Meadow.”

That stopped me from saying another word. From crying out. Maple stared down at me. Mr. Mallard, Kat – no one looked at me the way she did. I couldn’t look back at her. I wanted to disappear. The damn tears were coming back again.

“I’m—”

“I don’t care.”

I sunk my head lower; I gripped the burnt vines at my feet.

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Just stay here and die.”

“I wish I could take it back!” I cried, forcing myself to meet those dark eyes. “I wish I could take back everything. I’m sorry Meadow ever met me. I’m sorry I tried to help; I didn’t know what else to do. You guys are all I have left!”

“Kat, get away from him.”

Kat moved away without a word. When she turned to face me, I could see the tears in her own eyes.

Slowly, Maple raised her hand towards me. I tried to beg, to shout, but the words died in my throat.

I was going to die, just like her mother. Burned without mercy.

The flames that were forming a ring around her snaked away and circled around me instead. When I tried to move away from them, they lashed out at me, like whips, searing the skin on my legs and arms. I soon found that they remained encircling me if I did not move. Holding me in place, just like back on the table. A slow death.

“Now you have nothing left,” Maple said before turning away, heading back out the room from where she came.

With a wave of her hand, the fire around her mother died away. “Kat, find my brothers and sisters. Take them far away from here and never come back.”

Kat did not look at me again. Perhaps she could not. She walked past me, tears still falling silently down her face, and climbed down the burnt tree.

“I hope killing me makes you feel better!” I shouted after Maple, but already the smoke was reentering my lungs. I barely got that out before I was coughing— suffocating.

Maple said nothing and soon she disappeared into the darkened doorway, leaving me alone with her fire.

Again, I tried to stand, but the leg was nothing more than dead weight. The bleeding had lessened, but I knew I must have lost too much blood after being gouged and stabbed so many times. Everything was starting to feel weak.

If Meadow hadn’t saved me, I would never have gotten this far.

But for what? So Maple could kill her mother with her own magic? Her own hands. What did I even do? Did I just make things worse? I tried to save Gust and Trout, but when the witch died, Stallion and Kat were freed and took care of it themselves.

Damn them. Damn them all. Was it too much to ask to try and do good? Even after all the crap that happened to me, I still tried. Didn’t that count for anything?

I heard a flap of wings. The owl was watching me from the rafters. Was he disappointed that I failed again? Didn’t live up to standards again?

Well screw you and your ‘Lady’.

Wait, that’s right. Screw them! Screw anyone who wants to try and tell me what I should do. What did they know? They think plucking a kid out of his normal life and tearing apart his sanity and turning him into some damn witch’s pet is a ‘good’ idea. Fuck them. From withered old man to sweet little girl, fuck them all. If they tell you to do something, you’re better off doing the opposite.

“So, you want me to stay here and die?”

I pressed my hands against the ground. I pushed past the pain, the weakness, the nothingness. I kept my feet against the ground.

“Well you can just piss off, kid.”

All of these burns, these cuts, these holes – they are products of witches, so they can go to hell. I won’t listen to them. They can’t tell me what to do. That damn boar wants me to not move because he managed to stick his tusk into my thigh? Piss off. Those witches want me to be bothered because they cut and burned me with their demonically possessed plants and fire? Piss off too.

I was standing. There was still fire, but I was standing.

“Hell yes.”

The fire was too high to jump over it. That stupid, clever kid probably considered that.

“You think I give a damn about your fire now!?”

I jumped through it. My arms burned like nothing I had ever felt before, but I got through it. I screamed and pounded into the cracked marble and black ash as the skin on my arms bubbled and boiled.

“Fuck off fuck off fuck off fuck off!”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to ignore the pain that time. I tried to control my breathing as I held my arms aloft in front of me. Looking at them made me feel sick. I screamed again, less because of the pain and more because I just had to.

Another scream answered back: “FOXY!”

It was so close, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned in time to see Mutt charging on all fours out from that same damn doorway.

Only, when I looked closer, it wasn’t entirely on all fours.

I felt even sicker. “Mutt!? What the hell happened to your—?!”

The bastard then slugged me across the face mid-stride before toppling into me and sending us rolling across the ash. I shoved him off when we stopped, crying out as the burning in my arms got worse.

“What the fuck are you doing!? Do you not see my—?”

Another hard punch across my face. Mutt tried to get at me with his hands, snapping and snarling, and forced me to put a foot on his chest to keep him off of me.

“What is with you?” I shouted. When he tried to grab onto my leg, I kicked him straight in the face with my free foot, throwing him back. “It’s me, idiot! Foxy— your friend. Don’t make me have to kick you again!”

“You’re not my friend!” Mutt snarled, pulling himself back up. I saw his face then, the clenched teeth and the tears. “I’m going to kill you for what you did!”

He lunged at me again and I kicked him again. He only got back up a moment later, ready for more.

“What the hell did I do?!”

He was on me faster than I could recover. He grabbed one of my arms, but I managed to get the other up under his jaw. He tried to snap his jaws down on my face. I was barely keeping him off.

“Mutt, listen—”

He shoved his free hand onto my face. I struggled ever more to fight him off when he began pushing my head back, tilting it so my neck was sticking out.

My arms had to have caught on fire again. I was going to black out from the pain before he could even get to me.

“Mutt! Get offa him!”

Stallion, my savior, shouted this a moment before Mutt came off of me. He struggled against Stallion’s mighty grip around his midsection, even bit into the guy’s forearm. Stallion shouted and was forced to let go.

I prepared myself for another attack, but when Mutt fell he remained sitting there, his eyes the widest I had ever seen them.

“Stallion...” he said under his breath. I barely caught it.

“What are you—”

“Damn, dude, you really bit me,” Stallion said, examining the wound more closely.

“Stallion,” Mutt said again, but this time he was chocking up, tears pouring freely down his eyes. Stallion and I were at a loss for words until Mutt turned and wrapped his arms around Stallion’s legs and started sobbing uncontrollably.

“Whoa, hey man. Yeah, I’m alive,” Stallion said, exchanging looks with me before pulling Mutt off a bit so he could kneel down with him. “Sorry for scaring you.”

Mutt sniffed, still crying heavily. Stallion smiled at him until he happened to look down and catch the missing appendage.

His eyes widened and his face paled in the same instant. “Mutt, holy shit dude, what happened to your leg?!”

“Mr. Mallard cut it off so I could find Foxy and Kat and kill them for killing you,” he said through hiccups and sniffs. They slowly died away as he looked between Stallion and me. “But you aren’t dead.”

“Yeah, they didn’t kill me, man. Why would they do that? We’re friends...Why would Mr. Mallard—”

“That son of a bitch!” I shouted, pulling myself up and nearly passing out when the fire erupted up and down my charred arms. “It was him the whole time! The witch told me he was working with her. He wanted us dead!”

I could not read the look on Mutt’s face, but Stallion just shook his head, chuckling. “C’mon, Foxy, did you hit your head or something? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Then why would he lie to Mutt?” I demanded. “Mallard’s trying to use him to do his dirty work because he doesn’t have the guts to kill us himself!”

“That just doesn’t make sense,” Stallion repeated, smile gone, regarding me with stern eyes. “I know he’s done some pretty questionable things to you, Foxy, but he’s looked out for us, protected us, for years. Why would he just turn around and try to kill us now?”

“The hell if I know. The guy is a prick. There’s probably a list of reasons why he’s trying to kill us!”

“Mutt only said he’s trying to kill you—”

“And Kat.”

Stallion glared and I glared right back. He broke it after a moment with a sigh. “Well...you and Kat both have caused...trouble for him...Maybe...”

“Are you seriously trying to defend that damn psychopath!?” I tried to stand, but it was impossible. I dug my nails into the ground as I sat across from him. “Where the hell do you get off?”

Stallion avoided looking back at me entirely. “Look, I’m not defending him, but maybe its outta his control. Maybe he’s being ordered to get rid of you guys for...doing what ya’ll did.”

“Wait, do you think Kat and I actually tried to kill you?”

“No!” Stallion shot back, meeting my eyes. “Of course not. But I don’t remember anything after I got attacked back home. And now I’m here? How did I even get here? I’m sure you guys didn’t just drag my body around.”

It was my turn to look away. “The witch told me it wasn’t poison that was in their teeth. It was something else. Something that put you and Kat under her control.”

“See? She probably was having me attack you guys and ya’ll defended yourselves.”

I shook my head while biting back the urge to scream. The pain in my arms was only getting worse, but I had to keep a clear head. Had to make him understand. “Stallion, this is my first time seeing you since you were attacked. He had Mutt, Kat, and me convinced you were dead.”

“Maybe he did think I was dead, before I started walkin’ around.”

I remembered the witch saying something similar. But it didn’t matter.

“I’m afraid that does not matter, Stallion.”

That weary voice. So tired, so weak. I shot my head back to the darkened doorway. Mr. Mallard was stepping out of the darkness. His once peaceful features were marred by his cracked glasses and torn and dirtied sweater vest.

He held Mary close to him, a gun with bronze engravings pointed against her head.

“You son of a bitch!” I shouted, trying again to stand.

“Heel.”

Stallion and Mutt stiffened up. I was on shaky feet but forced back the pain and the severe lack of pain. I could feel a weight coming down and gritted my teeth.

“Like hell I’m listening to you!”

“You will heel, kit.” Mary closed her eyes and bit her lip when the old monster pressed the gun against her temple. “Or I shall wipe this mouse from the face of the world without a second thought.”

“You piece of shit.” I couldn’t stop my burning arms from trembling. I took a step towards him and heard something click from the gun. I didn’t know what it meant, but recognized that it was usually followed by a gunshot.

“Have you become so feral that not even the threat of death of someone close to you gives you control over your instincts?”

Mr. Mallard wrapped his arm around Mary’s throat and held her slightly in the air. He then turned the gun on me. “Well how about this, beast? If you move again I will shoot you. Do you fear the consequences now?”

“I am going to kill you.” My voice shook, but my legs wouldn’t move.

It was the perfect chance. I could rush him down; get to him before he could even shoot. But my legs wouldn’t move. I looked down at my hands, the ones with holes still in them. They were trembling, but for a different reason.

What if he did have a chance to shoot? A voice in my head echoed out from the dark corners.What if he did shoot me?

“Get on your knees or I will shoot you.”

I fell to my knees. I could not stop looking at my shaking, smoldering hands with holes in them.

“Mr. Mallard...” Stallion croaked, like he was straining to even get those words out.

“Ah, yes, I was answering your concerns. Shedding some light on this disagreement you and the kit were having.”

Mary tried to struggle, but her kicks and flails were already slackening, her face turning blue. I looked from her to the barrel of the gun. I still could not move.

“I’m afraid the beast was right. Minerva had betrayed our agreement. My intention was for you all to die.”

Stallion was shaking terribly. Mutt did not move at all.

“Why?” Stallion managed to get out.

Mr. Mallard loosened his grip on Mary just enough for her to take in big gulps of air. He looked at me over the barrel of Mr. Copper’s gun.

His big blue eyes were as cold as ever and a shiver went through my body as he smiled. “I hated you from almost the moment I met you. No spine, no strength, no will of your own. I believed you would be the easiest of them all to control. Of course, I did not recognize what I felt was hatred. It has been so long since I felt much of anything, honestly. But then you started becoming...difficult. Questioning everything, using your subtle wiles to get into the minds of the other familiars. Oh, I really started to hate you then. You were the last one. The last child I had to convert and then I would be done with this life, but you refused to play along.”

Mr. Mallard stepped closer to me, bringing the gun closer to my head. When Mary tried to fight, call out my name, he closed up his arm again.

“It was then that I realized I wanted to kill you. I hadn’t felt such a way for longer than I could remember, but there it was. But why stop there? You had already infected the minds of everyone else; there was no hope of them becoming loyal familiars. So, why not just...try again...”

“Mr. Mallard...” Stallion whispered. He sounded on the verge of tears.

“Does that upset you?” Mr. Mallard asked. “Are you upset to learn of who I really am—a killer, a monster—or does it just bother you that you never realized until it was too late?”

“You about done?” I asked. I clenched my fists and looked above the gun into his squinting blue eyes.

“Something the matter, kit?”

“You might be fooling them— fooling yourself, even—but I know the truth about you.”

His white, fluffy brow rose. A look came across his face that he covered up before I could tell what it was. He kept the gun pointed at me and his finger pulled over the trigger.

I wasn’t shaking any more. I could no longer feel the burning of my flesh. The sounds of Stallion quietly sobbing and Mary’s labored shouting’s were nothing more than dull echoes in my head.

All I could see was the endlessly dark tunnel and the bright blue eyes that hung over it.

The smile slowly sunk away from his wrinkled face. “Then you know that this is the only way.”

There was a noise beside me. Like a cry of rage bubbling up from a ragged and ravaged throat. I turned away from Mr. Mallard and his gun to catch Mutt standing, shouting, and charging at the old monster.

Mr. Mallard reacted quickly, moving the gun to Mutt before I knew what was happening and pulling the trigger.

A loud, empty click answered – echoing throughout the desecrated ball room. I saw his solemn, old face give way to absolute shock before Mutt was upon him.

Mary managed to crawl away while the two struggled on the ground. Mallard put up a decent resistance until Mutt slammed the back of his head into the stained, marble, floor. After that, he went limp while Mutt struck him again and again and again. Screaming, crying, and shouting.

“YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED YOU LIED!”

He did not stop until Stallion gained control of his own body and pulled Mutt off of the old man. By then, it seemed too late. Mallard’s head was a bloody mess. There were more cuts and bruises than skin.

“Alex.”

I looked from Mallad to Mary. She was kneeling not far away from the scene, breathing heavily. It was only just then I noticed she was wearing one of her dresses again, a lime green one with blue flowers.

“We need to go,” she said, reaching over and grabbing Mr. Copper’s gun from the floor.

Her eyes seemed a lot smaller then I remembered. When our eyes met, I knew why. Her glasses were gone.

“He did not mention that one of Quincy’s children is trying to burn this place down. We need to get outside.”

“Alright.”

I could no longer move my body. Now that the moment had passed, it took nearly all my concentration to keep from screaming as my arms continued to burn. My vision started to get blurry again as Mary’s small form shifted towards me.

“Need a hand?”

She was reaching down to me with something. Probably her hand. I shook my head, and then held in a curse when the motion made my nose temporarily become the dominant pain. Right, Tusk had broken it.

“Probably not a good idea. I can’t even feel my hands right now, because of the holes in them.”

“Holes?”

There was a moment of silence. I bit the inside of my cheek as I felt eyes on me. I tried to move my hands from the floor, but I wasn’t lying. I couldn’t feel them.

“Alex...” Mary said my name with a voice that almost made me choke. “Here, let me carry you then.”

“What about Mr. Mallard?” Stallion asked. “He’s still breathing.”

“Leave him,” Mary answered.

“You can’t be serious, Mouse.”

When she did not answer, his big blurry shape went to move towards Mr. Mallard’s, but stopped halfway. Another, smaller, shape was kneeling on the ground behind him, holding him back.

“C’mon man, not you too.”

Mutt did not answer him either.

“Alex is right; he was nothing but a monster who wanted to kill us,” Mary said, her voice a veil of barely controlled rage. “Everything that happened to us happened because of him. If you ask me, this is what he deserves.”

“Even if that’s true...it’s not right. It’s not right leaving someone here to burn to death.”

“We are all going to burn to death if we don’t leave soon, you know?”

“Foxy!” Stallion called out to me. I was grateful my poor vision kept me from seeing the expression on his face. “I know your beef with him, man, but you gotta agree with me here. We can’t just leave him to die, it isn’t right.”

Mr. Mallard was still breathing. He was close enough that, even through my declining eyesight, I could see the slow movements in his chest. I couldn’t see it, but I could imagine his eyes were puffed over with bruises, his lips were torn and bleeding, his glasses a shattered mess not far from his face, a few shards of glass probably imbedded in his cheeks.

Not too different, probably, to how I looked after what he made Mutt do to me.

My arms burned like hell.

“You’re right,” I said. “We should finish what Mutt started.”

“What!?” Stallion shouted. He threw off Mutt’s grip so he could stand in front of Mary and I. “How can you even say that?”

“It’s much better than burning to death, you know,” Mary pointed out. “If you think about it, we’re doing him a service. Much more than he ever did for us.”

“You can’t know that.”

I could feel Stallion’s gaze burning down on us. On me. “He could have taken us from terrible homes, broken homes. He might have been trying to give us a purpose. Familiars protect witches—we protect people. Doesn’t that count for somethin’?”

I remembered something Mr. Copper said. About Mary, the life she had. I thought about saying something, but didn’t.

“It doesn’t matter if we had a bad life before this, Stallion. It was our lives; he had no right taking them away from us.”

I blamed it on the growing pain or the tickling in my throat that threatened to turn all my words into coughing fits.

“Well, killing him isn’t going to get your old life back.”

“No, but it’s going to make me feel better about it.”

Mary took a step forward and Stallion blocked her path. I watched as another colorful blur emerged from the shadows behind him.

“I’m not going to let you—”

“Hey, Stallion.”

Kat tapped him on his shoulder. The large boy turned around and was met with a blow of some kind. I don’t know where she hit him, but he wheezed out a surprised gasp, bent over, and, before he could recover, Kat connected the side of her foot to the side of his head with a kick strong enough to send him to the ground. He did not get back up.

None of us said a word. I blamed it on the dire situation. The entire mansion was going to crumble and kill us all of we didn’t move things forward.

Kat’s blur lowered over Stallion’s. There was another short stretch of silence before she spoke again. “I took the children to the outskirts of the woods. When you’re done here, leave through the window. Maple already burned away most of the floor below.”

I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to apologize, but I wasn’t entirely sure what for. Words weren’t forming right in my head. They jumbled and mashed together as my vision blurred worse until I couldn’t see anything but messy colors.

“Mutt, come help me with him.”

I couldn’t tell what they were doing. The colors danced. I thought I could hear footsteps, but they echoed, sounding really far away.

Someone touched my shoulder. I sucked in air as the fire raced up and down my arm.

“Did you want me to do it?”

A voice. A girl’s. She sounded close and far away at the same time. It didn’t make sense. Nothing was making sense anymore.

“Do what?”

My own voice sounded far away too. When I coughed, it sounded closer. It wracked my bones and reminded me of the gouges in my thigh and ribs.

“Mallard.”

“I don’t care.”

The answer came easy enough. What did a duck have anything to do with me? What would a girl want with a duck, and why did she need my permission?

Oh well, who cares.

I said that, didn’t I? I was pretty sure I said that. There was a long stretch of silence before the girl’s voice returned. “It’s done...Alex?”

What did she want this time? Did she want my permission to do something with a goat? Or a chicken? A cow, maybe? What did girls want with animals anyways? Eat them? Or...other stuff...

The thought made me laugh –or, want to laugh. When I tried laughing it hurt, really bad. How did I get so hurt? Why couldn’t I move, or see, or hear?

“Alex?!”

The girl’s voice was so far away. Like she was shouting at me from the other end of a dark tunnel. Maybe that’s where we were. It would explain why everything was so dark. But, when I tried to move my feet, I didn’t feel a floor. I didn’t feel anything.

I was weightless.

Oh, wait.

Maybe I was dead.

“...ex...oxy...ed?”

Voices – or echoes of voices. Too far away to understand. They were leaving me, or I was leaving them. Someone might’ve been touching me. I could barely feel it. Like the light tickles and scurrying of bug legs all over my body.

“...one...her...”

They were still talking. Or they had stopped talking long ago and I was just hearing echoes. Words and phrases that followed me when I died, stuck in my subconscious.

The tickling sensation stopped and I was left alone. Even the voices stopped.

It was all still and quiet.

Who am I?

The question filled the void around me, in my head.

I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember. How was that possible? How could I forget? When everything else was gone, I was supposed to still have that. Me. If that too was gone, what did that mean?

That I was dead.

That I was dead?

How did I die? Did someone kill me? Did I have an accident? Was I too old? Too sick?

Why did I die? I wasn’t too old. I couldn’t be. I don’t feel ready. I wasn’t ready. I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want todie I dontwanttodie.

IdontwantodieIdontwanttodieIdontwanttodieIdontwanttodie.

Please. Someone. Help me.

“Hi, my name’s Mutt!”

There was a hand. It connected to an arm, outstretched towards me. That arm was connected to a person. A boy. No older then sixteen or seventeen. His skin was dark, not black, but a dark brown. His eyes and hair were almost the same color as his skin, but a shade lighter.

As he held his hand out to me, he had a very big smile on his face. Someone who didn’t know him would think he was being creepy, too familiar. But I wasn’t one of those people.

“Hi, Mutt,” I said back, grabbing his hand. It was a firm grip. His skin was rough. “I don’t remember my name.”

“Really?” he asked, quirking his head. He had the most expressive face; his chocolate eyes told me everything. Surprise.

“But I know your name. It’s Foxy!”

“That’s a weird name. And why do you know it when I don’t?”

He shrugged, but it wasn’t because he didn’t know, his eyes told me that. “Cause we’re friends, Foxy. Why wouldn’t I know?”

“How did we become friends?”

His smile grew wider. He let go of my hand. Before my eyes, he grew bigger, taller, wider. His skin grew darker, his eyes became more black than brown. His curly hair shortened and tightened against his head.

“I think I first saw you as a friend the moment you let me carry you,” Stallion answered. When he smiled, it wasn’t nearly as big as Mutt’s. When he scratched the back of his head I could see how nervous he was. Strange, considering he was so big. It shouldn’t be easy to make someone like him uncomfortable.

“I don’t even know if you remember anymore. Honestly, part of me hopes you forget all that stuff. It wasn’t my proudest moment. I knew you hated me, didn’t trust me. I know it’s messed up for me to say that I didn’t start thinking of you like a friend until you were...like that. But it’s true. Until then, you didn’t seem like much to me. Just another kid pinning after girls and going with the flow of others. But you showed me that you weren’t that. We tore you down to your core, man, and you didn’t give up. I felt it when I held you. Even though you were just skin and bones, man...”

He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke. I could see him sweating, his fists clenching and unclenching. It was very hard for him to admit it to me. Maybe he had wanted to tell me for a very long time.

“I guess you knew I liked Kat from the very beginning, huh?”

He didn’t answer.

“Kat told me, not long ago, that you and her used to be together. If we’re both being honest here, it really hurt when she said that. Part of me knew I wasn’t good enough for her, but to know that it was you she loved the whole time, someone so different from me. I guess that’s what they call a ‘slap from reality’.”

Stallion laughed as he shook his head from side to side. He rubbed a hand over his shaved head before his dark eyes met mine. “She loves Georgie. Not Stallion.”

Before I could ask him what he meant, he changed. Smaller. Thinner. Long blonde hair sprouting from his head. His eyes grew bigger, changed from black to brown – like Mutt’s, but much lighter.

“I loved you, Alex. Both you and Foxy,” Mary said. “Well, maybe love is too strong a word, you know? To be honest, we hardly knew each other for very long. Maybe a more accurate word would be ‘idolized’.”

“Big word,” I said, smiling. It came easy, natural, to smile around her. “What was so great about me?”

“You’ll laugh. It’s because you were the first person to approach me after what happened with the Tea Drinkers. Even though it was because you were forced to, it meant a lot to me.”

I didn’t laugh. “Mary, that’s—”

“Terrible? Sad? Pathetic? There isn’t really a word you can think of about the situation that I haven’t already thought of myself. But it couldn’t be helped, you know? I was lonely. To put it simply, it could have been anyone. It just happened to be you.”

My throat tightened. It was my first sensation. I hated it. I tried to swallow, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

“Why...”

“I know. It’s horrible. The whole thing is fucked, but it can’t be helped. I’m sorry I told you, but you had to know. I don’t know if I’ll get the chance again.”

I tried to speak. “Mary? What do mean?”

She closed her eyes. “Goodbye, Alex.”

She changed. She grew taller, thinner. Her hair shrunk and turned wavy. The blonde grew darker near her scalp; the rest turned a sickly shade of green. When she opened her eyes, I was lost in a sea.

“Hello, Foxy.”

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The grip on my throat loosened, just a bit. I swallowed.

“Everyone’s saying you’re talking to them,” she angled her head, a sly, half-smile breaking through her stony expression. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

Because no one else makes me feel this way.

I wanted to say it to her, but I couldn’t.

“Would you have believed, before that ‘episode’ in the woods, that I cared the most about your well being?” Kat asked, her small smile already fading away. “In a way, we were all bred to be good actors. Stallion acted friendly, sociable, when he never really cared about you one way or the other. Mutt never once seemed guilty over being the one who brought you into all of this in the first place, even though I know it hurt him, on some level. And Mr. Mallard...well, you know all you probably care to know about him.”

She played with some loose strands of her hair. A part of me wanted to reach out and touch them, but I couldn’t move my arms. Even if I could, I wouldn’t dare. May as well be poking a sleeping bear.

“And I...I bossed you around. I acted cold around you. I pushed you away. In reality, I worried about you, I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted someone else to confide in...someone else who understood me.”

Our eyes met, but she didn’t see me. I was far away, across the ocean. A distant world from her. A whole universe apart.

“I was trying to protect you, but maybe you could have been that person. I won’t ever know.”

“I wanted to be that person,” I said.

She saw me. She smiled her half-smile. “I’m glad.”

She faded away into the darkness. I was left alone. But I didn’t feel scared, or sad, or worried. I was alone, but I was not forgotten.

If I was dead, if I could no longer remember who I was, there would be others who would remember me. Who would keep me alive.

It was enough.