Erin was having a hard time paying attention in class. It wasn’t that she was uninterested. It just felt so pointless, given that apparently she was no longer going to be taking Pre-Splice Literature 102 anymore as of tomorrow. Besides which, she had a lot on her mind. Bits and pieces of the lecture floated their way into her consciousness, but for the most part she found herself focused on her more pressing issues.

There was the punishment, of course. She was not relishing whatever it was that Dr. Baas had planned for them, and she certainly wasn’t relishing the inevitable fights as she and Ursula and Vienna were forced to – she shuddered – cooperate. And then there was what she had witnessed in the bathroom. It had been almost a full school day, and she still couldn’t quite get it out of her mind. She wasn’t entirely sure why her mind was so focused on it, really. It felt beyond merely empathizing with Viola’s plight, the risk of being taken away and put into a metal box until she stopped being crazy. Maybe she was just vicariously afraid of the same happening to her. Maybe she just didn’t relish the idea of never getting to stare at those delightfully wide hips again. Whatever it was, it kept the concept firmly in her mind no matter how she tried to not think about it, and-

“Erin, since you seem to be paying rapt attention right now, you can have the honour of reading the story to the class. All six thousand seven hundred words of it.”

Erin jerked slightly, rudely torn from her reverie. “Ah, um. Yes, sorry.” She had, at least, brought up the story they were going to be covering in advance, and since she was reading the whole thing she didn’t have to worry about figuring out where they were. “Um. ‘Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette...’”

Erin read the way every high school student throughout human history read when called to do so out loud. Dry and soft-spoken and awkward. It didn’t matter how gripping the story might be. Any enthusiasm one might have for literature completely fades into the background when made to read it out loud in front of a classroom full of peers, unless you’re a theatre kid. Erin was not a theatre kid, and so she merely recited the words. “‘AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet... AM has won, simply... he has taken his revenge... I have no mouth. And I must scream.’”

“What do you think?” Mrs. Eckstein was sitting on the edge of her desk, smiling that almost smug smile that seemed to be her default facial expression.

“It was very... vivid,” Erin replied.

“It’s a notoriously uncomfortable read. Terrible, terrible things happening to ordinary people, orchestrated by a mad god of their own creation.”

“Well, not really.” Erin frowned slightly. “The author doesn’t really go into detail about who the characters were before AM got its hands on them, but I don’t get the impression that any of them were involved in its creation.”

“An interesting point! One that makes the situation all the crueller. Humanity as a whole did not create AM, but Humanity as a whole suffers because of that creation. The five main characters seem chosen almost at random, condemned to suffer an eternity of torment for the crime of existing at the wrong place and time.”

“It all seems almost needlessly cruel.”

“Think of it as a metaphor. Given the state the world was in at the time, the author almost certainly felt that reality was similarly cruel.”

Erin relished the distraction from her own troubles, diving headfirst into analyzing the story, back and forth with Mrs. Eckstein. Less a class and more a one-on-one conversation, with the rest of the students halfheartedly taking notes until the period was over.

“That will be all for today, class. Next time we’ll be moving forward into the latter half of the twentieth century to lighten the mood a bit by taking a look at Star Wars. Make sure to actually watch the movie before class this time, everyone. I don’t want a repeat of 2001. Erin, if you could stay after class for a moment, I’d like to have a few words with you.”

“Hm? Um, okay.” It wasn’t like Erin had anywhere in particular to go, but she couldn’t really fathom why Mrs. Eckstein might want to speak with her. The other students filed out eagerly, quickly leaving the two alone. “Um, so-”

“I spoke with Mary about your current situation and we agreed that removing you from this course entirely is a bit much. You’ll still be spending the final period of every day doing community service, of course. Punishment is punishment. But in the meantime, you’ll still be taking Pre-Splice Literature 102. Just on your own time, which is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh.” This caught Erin somewhat off guard, but wasn’t an unwelcome development. “Um, thank you, Mrs. Eckstein.”

“Azalea, please. We’re not in class and you’re my daughter’s girlfriend, there’s no need for formalities.” 

“I’m her packmate, not her girlfriend.”

Azalea shrugged, hopping off of her desk. “Essentially the same thing, kid.” Erin suppressed a groan as the bat walked over to her desk and sat on top of it, turning her body to face her. “Let’s not argue over semantics. We’ve got more important things to talk about right now.”

Erin often found herself wondering exactly what, if anything, Ursula had gotten from her mother. Certainly not her size – Azalea was decidedly a shortstack, smaller than even the twins. And certainly not her temperament, or her intelligence (or lack thereof). Both the bat and the dane were very even tempered, almost laid back. And Azalea in particular had a seemingly bottomless confidence in every situation. A far cry from Ursula’s short fuse and violent tendencies. Perhaps she had inherited those from one of her other parents. There were a total of five people in the Eckstein pack, though Erin only really personally knew of the two who taught at Esterwood High.

“You’re probably gonna hafta give up a big chunk of your weekends, if we wanna cram a full week’s worth of lessons into whatever free time you’ve got and still leave you with time for other classes and sleep and such.”

“That’s fine. I would rather give up my weekend than risk not getting into college.”

“Locksmouth, right? I’ve sent off my letter of recommendation, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“You sure you wanna go there, though?”

Erin sighed. “Yes, I am sure.”

“It’s quite a ways away from home.”

“Esterwood is not my home,” Erin replied tersely. “Besides which, it’s only about an hour away by trans. Honestly if anything it’s a bit too close for my tastes, but it’s where my parents work so it’s convenient enough.”

“Well, if you’re sure. Just try not to rush into a decision for the wrong reasons.”

“I have to go somewhere.”

“Yes, but it’s still important to not go there for the wrong reasons. Anyway, I’m going to transfer a tentative schedule to your PET. Let me know if there’s any conflicts.”

Erin sighed but was content to drop the subject for now. “I will, thank you.”

“Hey, no problem. So! Homework! You’re gonna have more to do ‘cause you’ve only got one class a week. For now, catch up on all three of the original Star Wars movies, Terminator one and two, and Star Trek six. Now you should get going, I’ve got teacher stuff to do and you’ve probably got student stuff to do.”

Erin was more than willing to take the chance to leave. The conversation had gotten decidedly awkward. She stood up and left the classroom without a further word.

~~~~~~

Victoria Marie Ares had no friends. She didn’t particularly like to admit it, but it was true. She would not go so far as to say that everyone hated her. In fact, she was fairly popular. She was a very physically attractive person, was at least decent at most sports, got fairly good grades, and was the captain of the school’s modest cheerleading squad. It was only natural that she had a fairly large cadre of mostly indistinguishable hangers-on. But, well, that was kind of the problem. She had “friends” but she didn’t have any friends. Being a mean girl was hard, thankless work, but someone had to do it.

Well okay no that was a lie there was absolutely no reason for her to be a mean girl aside from having the social skills of a lemon. But she was eighteen and she’d been a mean girl for her whole life so what was the point of changing? It was easier to just stick to her brand. She had a circle of people who mostly tolerated her presence, and that was good enough for her. Certainly easier to maintain than a proper pack. She didn’t even really know any of their names. Out loud she could get away with pronouns, and in her head she just called them all Heather.

Of course the problem arose when you realized that all of Vicky’s friends were insufferable, shallow, vapid, unpleasant bitches. Honestly, it was weirdly impressive that the school had so many fellow mean girls for Vicky to associate with given the town’s population was so small. But they existed and they were all awful. Every time she was together with one or more of them, they would spend most of the time shit-talking the ones who weren’t there. She could only assume the same was true when she wasn’t there, though the thing about people talking behind your back is you can’t be certain it’s happening unless they’re really bad at the behind your back part.

The mild hypocrisy of complaining about the Heathers behind their backs, even just to herself, was not lost on Vicky. She knew that it wasn’t something people were supposed to do. It was, well, mean. Everything about her social circle was mean and she knew it and she wanted to stop but she didn’t really know how.

Which, she supposed, explained her fascination with Vienna. She was a very physically attractive person, was at least decent at most sports, got fairly good grades, and while she wasn’t the captain of the cheerleading squad she probably could have been if she wanted to be. But she wasn’t. And she didn’t have a squad of Heathers, unless you counted Erin. Which, really, Vicky didn’t. Say what you will about the Heathers, but they were at least better at dealing with people than Erin. Vienna had the life that Vicky had secretly desired for ages. All of the positives, none of the venom. Shit, she even had real friends. They hated each other, but at least they were fucking honest about it.

They still hated each other, though. That was another thing. Vicky saw so much of herself in Vienna and, in a weird sort of way, wanted her to be happy. She deserved happiness. She had to, because if she didn’t then neither did Vicky.

And, well, they’d both probably be happiest if they ditched their loser friends.

That was realistically never going to happen, though. Not for lack of trying on Vicky’s part, but Vienna was stubbornly attached to this group of people who made her miserable. Probably because of her sister. They were a package deal – if you wanted Vienna, you had to take Viola as well. And unfortunately, Viola was frumpy, spent most of gym class on the sidelines, got average grades at best, and spent most of her free time doing weird occult shit. Vicky had approximately zero interest in finding common ground with Viola, and Vienna wasn’t going to leave her twin for any reason even if it was clearly and obviously the best course of action for everyone involved.

But, well. Vicky couldn’t really blame her on that front.

Esterwood was, as established, not particularly large. Even taking into account that the vast majority of cities had far more city than they had people, Esterwood’s population was tiny. The practical upshot was that the elementary school and the high school were the same building. There weren’t enough students or faculty to justify dedicating two separate facilities to education. The building was divided cleanly in half – one side was for grades one through six, the other for grades seven through twelve. Vicky currently found herself in the former half of the school, wading her way through the sparse crowds of anklebiters in search of a very specific anklebiter.

“Vicky!”

You would think that by now Vicky would have gotten used to getting tacklehugged out of nowhere, considering it happened every single school day. “Oof!” But no, it still never failed to surprise her. In spite of how small the one doing the tackling was, she still had enough mass to knock the unsuspecting Vicky onto her face. “Hi, Sophie.”

Sophia Elizabeth Ares had much in common with her sister, with the key difference that Sophie actually had a collection of real friends. Vicky felt bad to admit that she didn’t really know any of them by name. It wasn’t really unusual, nor was it her fault. There wasn’t much overlap between their social circles and frankly Vicky was intent on keeping it that way. Not that she wasn’t interested in her baby sister’s friends, but she certainly didn’t want her own bad habits rubbing off on the kid.

“We learned about planets! Oh, oh, and we’re gonna be starting with algebra this year! And-and-and we did all of Russian class in Russian and I only sort of got lost! And we’re gonna read another chapter book and this one’s pre-splice!” Sophie had been very excited when she was made to read her first chapter book for school, and had never quite gotten over the novelty. She continued rattling on and on about the minutiae of her day while Vicky struggled to pull herself upright. The task was made more difficult by the fact that Sophie had a stranglehold on her midsection from behind and didn’t seem all that keen on letting go.

“That’s all very nice but I can’t breathe,” Vicky said, which Sophie seemed mostly content to ignore. The other elementary school children milled around them like a river parting around a particularly large rock, but eventually Vicky managed to stand up and pry Sophie off of her. “C’mon, kiddo. We can talk more on the way home.”

“How was your day?”

“It was fine.” The difference was stark. A tragic but inevitable casualty of her teenage years. Even the best educational system couldn’t hope to stand up to the ravages puberty performed on a child’s enthusiasm for talking about how their day went.

“Come on, I wanna know what you did!”

“We did stuff. I dunno.” Vicky shrugged. “I’ve got a ton of homework and you’ve probably got some too, so we need to get you home.”

“Awww, fine.” It was almost surreal how Sophie was ten years old and still remained as excited about school as she was.

“Tell you what, once you finish your homework I’ll take you out to the arcade and then we can grab some pizza for dinner.”

That got Sophie’s attention. “Pizza? Pizza! Are you sure we can have pizza for dinner? Pizza!”

“Mom and dad said that I’m in charge while they’re away. If I said so we could have Burger Dictator for every meal. So we’re havin’ pizza and that’s final.”

“Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”

Vicky couldn’t help but smile, in spite of herself. Sophie’s enthusiasm for pizza was infectious. Sophie’s enthusiasm was infectious in general. Likely moreso for Vicky than it would have been for someone else. That was the nature of sibling bonds, she supposed. She certainly didn’t get along with Sophie all the time – the kid could be a stubborn little brat when she wanted to be. But no matter how they might fight, Vicky could never bring herself to abandon her sister.

Vicky nodded to herself. “Right. Pizza it is. But remember that you’ve gotta do your homework first!” It was clear to Vicky now that Vienna felt the same way about Viola as she did about Sophie.

She might not have much interest in finding common ground with Viola. But, if she were in Vienna’s shoes, and someone was offering her a way out of her situation with the Heathers on the condition that she abandoned Sophie, well. She would be about as receptive of it as Vienna was being of her own olive branches. The solution was staring her in the face. Really, she was surprised she’d not noticed it sooner.

Right now, she had to deal with her sister, and she had her own homework to do. But tomorrow her first priority was to enact her new plan. Step one; befriend Viola Coniglio.

Vicky saw absolutely no way that this could go wrong.

~~~~~~

Ursula came from a big family. She was an only child, but made up for it by having five parents. And each of those five had their own extended family to some degree or another. Azalea didn’t like to talk about her parents much, and Scarlet’s had passed away before Ursula was born. Leanne was a rabbit, though, and as a result Ursula had something like twenty aunts and uncles on that particular branch of the family tree (well okay no that was hyperbole but there were still a lot of them). Mindy and Dan had more reasonably sized families, but they were still enough that combined with Leanne’s extended family the house was packed like goddamn sardines.

It was, thusly, a somewhat surreal experience to come home to a house that was almost completely empty. Leanne worked as a biologist over in Locksmouth, and was currently away monitoring the local animals outside the dome. Scarlet had left with her, so she wouldn’t have to be alone in the wilderness. And Dan and Azalea were both still at school, doing teacher things. That left Mindy. Typically, she was also out and about when Ursula got home, busy with some civic project or another. Considering how stagnant Esterwood was, it was surprising just how busy the Arbitrators often found themselves. Today, at least, that didn’t seem to be the case. Ursula could hear Mindy humming to herself, puttering around the kitchen. Presumably she was preparing dinner, or something. Ursula didn’t really care. She was having a hard time caring about pretty much anything at the moment.

“Hi, honey! How was school?”

“The usual,” Ursula grunted in response, shrugging off her backpack, unceremoniously dumping it on the floor before flopping face-first onto the couch. “I hate everything and want to die.”

“I wish you wouldn’t joke about that kind of thing, dear,” Mindy said from the kitchen. The Eckstein house was very open concept in design, of course, so they might as well have been in the same room. There were very few places that Ursula could go within the confines of her house and expect to be left alone or even have any token privacy unless she was outright the only person in the house.

“Sorry. Just had kind of a bad day.”

“Mmm. I heard what happened.”

“Fuck.”

“Language, dear.” Mindy put down whatever it was she was working on and came into the family room. “Are you going to be okay?”

“No.” Ursula pulled herself upright.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Talking about it hasn’t really helped much so far.” Still, she scooted to the right so that her mother had room to sit down next to her. The poodle did so without needing to exchange words on the subject, and Ursula had to stifle a groan. “Mom could you maybe consider wearing clothing around the house?”

“I have an apron on. And understickers, too.” It wasn’t exactly much of an apron, though. It was slightly undersized on her plush frame, and sitting down made it bend and contour in weird ways. “Besides, I should be allowed to go naked in my own house if I want.”

“Mom, ew.”

Mindy laughed, and gently tousled Ursula’s short hair. “Tell you what. I’ll go put some jeans on, but only if you promise to speak with me about what happened.”

“... I’ve got homework to do.” Ursula grabbed her backpack and stood up. “Call me when it’s dinner. Or whatever.”

“I’m not gonna force you to talk to me, dear.”

“Yeah.”

“But I wish you wouldn’t bottle things up.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not healthy, dear.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Ursula snapped. “Look, I know what you’re gonna say. You all always say the exact same things, every time, and lemme tell you, the routine’s getting kinda tired.”

“Ursula, wai-” but she had already stormed off upstairs, presumably to her room. Mindy sighed. “... maybe I’m not very good at this,” she muttered to herself. It wasn’t that she was a bad parent, or at least she didn’t think so. It’s just that she was used to having four other people on hand to help her deal with Ursula, and currently none of them were at home.

She drifted to the kitchen, nervously fiddling with her ears. She had to continue preparing dinner, but found her heart was no longer in it. She wasn’t sure why she was so worried about this. It was hardly the first time Ursula and her pack had gotten into trouble, after all. But something felt different this time. Mindy wasn’t sure exactly why, but she had been on edge for the past few days.

There was a storm brewing. And she had a sinking feeling that it was going to hit sooner, rather than later.

~~~~~~

Erin slammed the door. Her parents would have yelled at her for it if they were home, but they were away on business in Locksmouth. Again. So fuck it, she’d slam the door if she wanted. She stormed her way into her room, slamming that door shut too. There wasn’t really a reason to slam it given that she was alone in the house, but again; fuck it. She needed some god damned catharsis at this point. She flopped face first onto her bed and screamed into her pillow. Kicking and screaming and crying like she was a goddamn two year old throwing a tantrum. Which, really, the only part of that that wasn’t true was that she was eighteen, not two.

Still, she needed the release. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she spent pitching a fit, and frankly she didn’t really give a fuck. There was no one around to judge her and she needed a good cry. But inevitably she ran out of energy to keep crying. So she stopped. Lay face-down on her bed like a dead thing. Empty. Tired.

Things weren’t quite as bad as they could be, she supposed. She was, at least, still getting that Pre-Splice Lit 102 credit, for what it was worth. Which admittedly wasn’t much. And for all they were getting punished, it was ultimately just a slap on the wrist. And, well, that was it for the bright sides to the situation. Maybe there would be some miracle and this would repair her relationship with her pack, but she doubted it.

Erin slowly heaved herself up and off her bed, standing awkwardly in the middle of her bedroom. She needed to take her mind off of the situation. She needed to relax. She needed... well, she needed a lot of things that she wouldn’t be getting, really.

Well. There was one thing that Erin could do to help herself. It was a small thing. She turned to face her closet, the door of which doubled as a full body mirror. It let her take a good, long look at herself. She was tall, six feet even, rail thin with breasts that were, if she was honest, enormous. She was a lot of mouse.

And every goddamn inch of it was a fucking lie.

Erin inhaled deeply. And then she let go.

~~~~~~

“Hey, I’m home.”

Upon opening the door, Vienna was hit with a wall of aroma. Like getting punched in the face with Italian food. “Heya, sport! Your mother’s been working on a nice Sunday Gravy all day and lemme tell you, it smells great.”

“That’s nice,” Vienna replied with a shrug. Their mother was usually making something hearty for dinner, usually with unreasonably large portions. She took a seat across from her father. “I could probably use the carbs.”

“Yeah, the school called.” That was all that Vinnie Coniglio said on the subject. He’d always had a good sense for when his daughters didn’t want to talk about something, and was content to drop the subject.

“Unreasonable!” Clara Coniglio, on the other hand, was not one to drop a subject when she was angry. “What did you do wrong? Get into an argument? That doesn’t warrant community service! They’re treating you like some kind of criminal!”

“Where’s Viola?” Vinnie interjected, giving Vienna a weary look that communicated the fact that he’d been dealing with this shit all day fairly well.

“I dunno, she kind of went off on her own after school.”

“Did she go into the Woods on her own? Again? Honestly, that girl of ours.”

Vinnie sighed, adjusting his glasses. “She’ll be fine, dear.”

“The Woods are dangerous! Why do you think they’re still woods and not buildings!” Clara poked her head through the doorway to the kitchen, floppy brown ears swaying with the motions. The twins had mostly taken after their mother, in that they were all rabbits while Vinnie was a horse. The big thing they inherited from their father was their colours – Clara was brown all over, while Vinnie had splotches of black and white. The twins’ fur was more of a neat black and white patchwork, like a checkerboard. The term was, apparently, harlequin magpie.

“It’ll be fine, dear. Viola goes into the Woods all the time and she’s not hurt herself yet.”

“I still don’t approve!” Clara snapped. After a brief moment of silence, she continued; “Vienna, make sure to call your sister and tell her to come home by dinner.”

“I will, mama.”

“Good!” Clara darted back into the kitchen, and the sounds of furious cooking erupted forth. Clara spent most of her time cooking. Most of Vienna’s memories of her mother took place in the kitchen, or in the backyard garden. The vast majority of their food was home grown, with almost every variety of vegetable and herb and meat imaginable somewhere in their massive garden. It took a lot of work to maintain, but Clara had a lot of free time. Vinnie had a fairly lucrative job as an engineer over in Locksmouth, so the household’s income was more than enough.

“Ah, yeah, let her know that I’m gonna be gone for a few days while you’re at it.” Typically Vinnie would just take the train in the morning and evenings and that was enough, but every now and then he found himself needing to eliminate the commute time for whatever reason, and that meant staying overnight.

“I’ll let her know.” Vienna was only sort of aware of what her father did for a living, really. Not from a lack of interest, but because most of the details honestly completely flew over her head.

“And make sure to do your homework!” There was a loud clang from some pot or pan or another getting dropped. “Fuck! And tell Viola to also make sure to do her homework!”

“Yes, mama.” Vienna pulled herself up off the couch.

“Aren’t you going to tell me how your day went?”

Vienna groaned slightly. “You already know how my day went,” she replied tersely.

“Fair, fair. Dinner’s in about an hour.”

“‘kay.” Vienna waved dismissively as she headed to her room. She tossed her backpack onto the floor beside her closet and then walked across the room and flopped backwards onto her bed. “Ugh.” She buried her face in her hands as she tried and failed to not think about things.

She didn’t bother to call up Viola. She knew from experience that there wasn’t gonna be an answer if she did. The best thing to do was to let her work things out in her own time. Still, Vienna couldn’t help but worry. That was another thing she’d inherited from her mother – she worried. It was instinctive. Her mind kept wandering to the rumours that circulated around the Woods, no matter how she tried to keep her mind off of it.

“Fuck, maybe doing homework’ll help.” She sat up and grabbed her backpack, fishing around for some schoolwork to take her mind off of things.

It took her a moment, but she eventually stopped and looked over at where her backpack had been lying until just a moment ago. Across the room.

“... Fuck.”

~~~~~~

The Nilsen household was completely empty. It usually was, aside from Lars himself. His parents were almost constantly away, either on business or vacation (currently it was the latter). And, like most of Esterwood’s teens he was an only child.

But that was fine. Lars liked to be alone.

He didn’t bother to turn on the lights. He hated the cold, lifeless illumination of artificial light. Candlelight was better, in that regard. His parents wouldn’t let him use candles when they were around, but they were never around so fucking whatever. He lit some candles in the living room and pulled out his PET.

After a moment’s consideration, he flipped to the night’s reading material of choice; a biography of Houdini, written in the Neo-Victorian era. Not exactly a firsthand account, but Lars didn’t trust anything pre-splice. There was this enormous gap of time that were completely and utterly blank. As far as he was concerned, anything anyone knew from before that was suspect. How could they prove they weren’t just making shit up?

The irony of trusting post-splice information about pre-splice figures more than pre-splice information about pre-splice figures was mostly lost on him. Or perhaps it wasn’t and he just didn’t give a fuck. The biography was, in actual fact, almost entirely fiction beyond the fact that a man who went by Harry Houdini did in fact exist. There were other real historical details, twisted to fit into the mystical narrative. That was what had sold during the period, and so that’s what the author had written.

People had always craved something to believe in. Certainly Lars did. And, deep down, he knew that. But he also didn’t really care. Any feeble doubts he might have had, seeds planted by his conversation with Viola and germinated by his common sense, were forcefully pushed aside. This was the truth. This was real. Magic existed, and it had power.

It had to.

~~~~~~

A significant portion of Esterwood was undeveloped forest. They called it the Woods District, or just the Woods. It was, ostensibly, a nature preserve. A little slice of outside within the safety of the dome. That was mostly an excuse, though. The real reason was the rumours.

Supposedly, the Woods was haunted. Viola, at least, had never actually experienced any evidence that the Woods was haunted. But the lack of evidence didn’t stop people from believing something so obviously wrong any more than basic common fucking sense stopped Lars from being as obviously wrong as he always was about everything ever.

The legend went, supposedly, that deep within the Woods there was a small, empty shack that there were no records of anyone building. Anyone who entered the supposed shack would supposedly get calls on their PET from a supposed unknown source and if you answered the supposed calls you would die. Supposedly. What it likely actually was, as far as Viola could figure out, was that early settlers of what eventually became Esterwood encountered some weird technological interference in the general area, probably from a buried pre-splice city (there were a lot of those), and just sort of assumed that it was a ghost.

Viola prided herself on her rationality, at least within limits. If she actually encountered a Flicker in person she would reconsider her stance on their veracity, just a little bit. But for now, she’d gone to the Woods on a regular basis for all of her fucking life and hadn’t once encountered anything supernatural so fuck it.

Of course, she still made a point of not going too deep in the Woods. She was a skeptic, yes, but she wasn’t stupid. If ghosts were fake and she didn’t go too deep in the not-haunted forest then she just never went too deep into the not-haunted forest, big fucking deal. But if ghosts somehow turned out to be real and she didn’t go too deep in the actually haunted forest then she didn’t run the risk of being killed by a ghost. It was a win-win situation, as far as she was concerned.

Still, she liked to spend time there, even if only in the outskirts. Mostly because no one else could stand the place. If she ever wanted to be alone, then she could go to the Woods and be safe in the knowledge that no one would follow her. There was nothing but her and the trees, as far as the eye could see. Which, granted, wasn’t very far because the foliage was very dense. There was someone whose job it was to ensure the forest stayed healthy – it was technically a nature preserve, after all – but Viola had never encountered them.

She couldn’t stay for long. Not today, at least. She had a pending conversation with Aubrey, and that required a mirror. Last she’d checked there weren’t any mirrors in the forest. But, well. She sorely needed some extensive alone time. Aubrey could wait a few hours. Viola pulled out her cards, with which to practice some flourishes, flipped her hoodie up – the fabric doubled as headphones – and fiddled with her PET before settling on an old favourite. A surviving pre-splice album that her father had introduced her to, and his father had introduced him too, going back generations.

“Welcome! You have entered the cranial vistas of psychogenisis. This is the place of no-time and no-space. Do not be afraid, for I am merely the vocal manifestation of your eternal dreams. I am as water, as air – like breath itself. Do not be afraid.”

Viola closed her eyes and smiled as the soundscape washed over her. Eventually, she’d have to return to the real world. But for now she was content to lose herself to the music and travel into another world. A world where there was no Lars, no Dr. Baas, no Ursula or Erin or Vienna or anyone she knew.

And for now that was enough.

~~~~~~

Of course, escapism was only temporary. By necessity – any kind of permanent escapism was likely the result of mental illness. And Viola had enough doubts about the state of her mental health as it was. So eventually the album ended and she returned home.

“You’re late! Where were you, I was worried!”

“Sorry,” Viola replied to her mother.

“Well, you’re here now,” Vinnie interjected, ever the peacemaker. “Give your mother a minute to cook a fresh batch of rigatoni and then you can grab some dinner.”

“‘kay.” Viola flipped her hoodie back and pulled out her PET. She wasn’t really particularly looking at anything, but she found that she was more likely to be left alone if it looked like she was busy. “Sorry for being late,” she said again, halfheartedly.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Sometimes you need to be alone. Just, uh, try to be home in time for dinner next time?”

“Pah, the gravy’s better now. ‘s had time to sit.” Clara swooped in with an enormous bowl of meat and sauce and pasta, shoving it in her daughter’s hands. “Just call next time. And stay out of the Woods! They’re dangerous!”

“Yes’m,” Viola said, taking the bowl which was quickly followed by a fork and a spoon. “I’m gonna eat in my room.”

“Not feeling particularly social tonight?”

“Not really.”

“That’s fine. Remember to bring your plate down when you’re done.”

“I will,” Viola lied, turning to walk up the stairs to her room. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be in Locksmouth tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Viola turned back around and put her bowl and utensils on the nearest flat surface before scurrying over to her father and giving him a big hug. “I love you, papa.”

“Love you too, princess.” Vinnie smiled warmly, reaching down and gently tousling his daughter’s hair.

“That’s enough of that. Go eat! Before it gets cold!”

“Listen to your mother, dear.”

“‘kay.” Viola released her father before scurrying back to her food, grabbing it, and heading upstairs. “Thanks for dinner!” she shouted down as she went.

The twins had always had the luxury of having their own rooms. The Coniglio household had more room than there were people in the Coniglio family. Which suited Viola just fine, frankly. She liked the privacy.

Especially when she wanted to speak with Aubrey.

There had been a period when her family had removed every mirror in her room, around the same time that the threat of time in the Brain Bullet had been hanging over her head like a sword of Damocles. But she had since successfully convinced her family that she was no longer talking to people who didn’t exist and so had been given the privilege of a small table-top mirror. It only took a moment of looking into it for Aubrey to make her presence known.

“Are you feeling better?” She spoke in a hushed tone, and Viola replied in kind.

“No.”

Aubrey sighed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes but I don’t think I can.”

“That’s fair.”

“I mean, they always told me you’re not real. And they’re probably right. But here you are. Again. Like, I was thinking that this morning was probably a fluke. Maybe I was just tired or stressed. But no, I’ve had two whole hours of no pressure whatsoever and here you are, immediately.” Viola carefully pushed her bowl of pasta out of the way before gently slamming her face into her desk. “God, do you have any idea what it’s like to know for a fact that you’re crazy?”

“I can go away if you want.”

“No! Uh, I mean. No. I don’t want you to go away again.”

Aubrey sighed. “Well, for what it’s worth, in my experience crazy people usually don’t worry if they’re crazy or not. I don’t know if that’s very reassuring, though.”

“Is it? I’d rather not be crazy.”

“Yes, but imagine the alternative. If I’m not imaginary, then what am I?”

Viola sighed. “That’s a good question. What are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t.” That wasn’t news to Viola. Aubrey didn’t even remember her name – Aubrey Kadabra was just something that Viola had made up as a child, for the sake of having something to call her.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Viola replied, her tone of voice making it clear that it wasn’t really fine. “It’s not your fault you don’t remember who you are. It’s not your fault you exist, it’s my fault for not just ignoring you.”

“Well,” Aubrey replied after a moment of silence. “I appreciate you not just ignoring me.”

“It wouldn’t be fair. Even if you don’t exist you still deserve someone to talk to.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s fine,” Viola repeated, turning back to her pasta. “I’m gonna eat dinner and then we can work on some magic tricks. Just like old times.”

“Just like old times.

~~~~~~

For most of her life, Ursula had suffered from recurring nightmares. Though, really, she wasn’t quite sure that nightmare was the right term for what they were. They weren’t scary, per se. Nothing horrific happened in them. But there was something about them, a sort of fundamental wrongness. Like... Well, like something. She’d never been great at metaphor.

Everything was outlined in red, for one. A deep, dark purple-y hue of red, like wine, in thick, broad strokes. Like a comic book but fucked up – most comic book characters weren’t starscapes. It was like she had been dropped in the infinite void of space, but it wasn’t space, it was some kind of office building and the only reason she could tell the difference was because, again, everything was outlined in magenta.

It hurt to look at for long periods of time. But she couldn’t close her eyes, no matter how hard she tried.

There were people there, the same starscapes with the same outlines, but moving and talking, and honestly that just made it worse. Talking wasn’t really the right word for it. They opened the voids where their mouths should have been and what came out was most often just noise, a loud harsh buzzing like a recording that had gotten corrupted. Every now and then, though, she managed to catch bits and pieces of intelligible conversation.

“How’s progress?”

“Agonizing. I’m convinced they’re asking us to do the impossible.”

“It’s clearly not impossible. Doctor #$^@!%& managed just fine.”

“Yes, well, Doctor &^$#&%^ is a freak of fucking nature. We’re just normal people, we can’t do this in the timeframe they’ve given us.”

“You’re not just normal people, you’re experts. I’m sure you can make it.”

“Well, how’s your half going, then?”

Silence.

“Yeah, I thought so.” The figure slumped down in the strange facsimile of a chair, burying what should have been his face in what should have been his hands. “I heard they’re gonna kill off *(#%@.”

“What? That’s not what I heard. They’re supposed to be just %*$*(@)*)@#*(.”

“How far along are you with that, then? Could you guys keep him alive?”

“No.”

“My point exactly. It’s a death sentence, and it’s a death sentence that puts more pressure on us because who’s gonna deal with *(^*$)%*(#%@%?”

“That’s what we’re here for.”

“Yeah and we’re one hundred percent not ready to take up the mantle! We’ve got like four guys who are sort of ready and *%#$@ is barely functional, let alone self aware.”

The other figure buried its face in its hands. “It’s too much pressure. We need some kind of breakthrough.”

“I don’t think that’s in the cards at the rate we’re going.”

“Well,” said the second figure, slowly pulling itself upright in a way that made Ursula want to vomit. “We’re definitely not making any progress just sitting in the break room complaining. I’m gonna get back to work.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute. Let me finish my coffee. Oh, by the way, have you talked with Gen-” and then it devolved back into distorted buzzing. Ursula’s hands jumped to her ears, in a futile attempt to block out the noise. Futile because she had no hands, or ears. Not in the dream. It was like she was a ghost, watching people live their lives in abstract. It made getting a restful sleep almost impossible. And it wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t wake up, not until the morning.

And right now, the morning felt a very, very long way off.

~~~~~~

Vienna was in school. It wasn’t actually school. If she were awake, it would have registered instantly that nowhere in school was nearly this vast and open. But she was dreaming, and so she just instinctively knew that it was school. Wherever she was, it seemed like everyone else was there also. People milled about the space, collecting into sparse groups or just wandering about aimlessly. Vienna was doing the latter. But she wanted to be doing the former. She was looking for her friends. That was why she was here.

It wasn’t hard to find them, of course. They stood out in the crowd of faceless strangers. That wasn’t the problem. Vienna’d had this dream before, variations of the same basic theme. She knew what was coming next. She took a step forward, and a massive wall erupted from the ground. Deep red brickwork, with white mortar that almost seemed to undulate. Like it was alive. “No.” She wasn’t entirely sure whether she herself said it, or someone else. She attempted to walk around, but the wall seemed to move, without actually moving. Placing itself between her and her destination no matter where she went.

There was a chink in the wall. Just large enough for her to look through and see her pack. Erin and Ursula and Viola. They were arguing, passionately. Ursula shouted, Erin spoke with unbridled venom, while Viola frowned and fidgeted with her clothing, muttering her own complaints under her breath. “It’s for the best,” said the voice. She was still unsure if it was her own – she felt like she would be aware of it if it was, but there was a strange sort of disconnect. Like it was her, but also wasn’t at the same time. “They only cause pain. Better to be alone but safe. Let me protect you.”

“I don’t want to be protected,” Vienna replied. Presumably this meant the voice wasn’t her, but there was still that doubt in her mind and she wasn’t really sure why.

“Preposterous folly. But I cannot stop you. Only here, I can keep you safe. Safety requires sacrifice.”

“Bullshit.”

“None of this is real,” the voice said wearily. “I cannot help you when you are awake. So I will help you here. I am sorry.”

The ground beneath Vienna’s feet began to rumble, like an earthquake. Shifting and rippling and breaking as more wall erupted forth. She darted to her left, and was blocked by brickwork. Before she even had a chance to turn around her right was blocked by a third wall. Slowly, she turned to face the last path that was open to her. “Please,” she managed to say. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry,” the voice said again as Vienna was slowly engulfed by darkness

~~~~~~

Viola’s recurring nightmare was much more existential than Ursula’s or Vienna’s. There was nothing uncanny about the setting, no horrible noises, no massive walls erupting from the ground.

She found herself in a crowded street. Far too busy to be Esterwood. It reminded her, dimly, of childhood vacations to Anchorsway or Locksmouth, only moreso. People everywhere, walking and talking and laughing and arguing. It was alive, in a way that nowhere she’d ever been in her life quite had been. Certainly not her hometown.

And she needed help. She wasn’t entirely sure with what, but she needed it. Desperately.  “Excuse me? Hello?” she said. No one responded. They just walked past her – walked through her. “Ah! Um, h-hello? I need help. Please.” She reached out in an attempt to grab at a passerby’s sleeve. Her hand went through his arm like he wasn’t there at all. Like she wasn’t there at all. Dimly, her dream-addled mind registered that it wasn’t actually her hand. It was a pale, translucent blue. Like glass, outlined by dark green.

“Hello?” Viola jumped slightly. She had honestly not expected anyone to acknowledge her, much less talk to her. She turned to the direction of the voice and ran over.

There, standing in the reflective surface of a storefront’s windows, was Viola Coniglio. “You know you should be careful about talking to me in public,” she said to her reflection. The words came naturally, like she was always going to say them.

The reflection of herself nodded silently, and smiled slightly. She placed her hand on the glass, and Viola placed her own hand on her reflection’s. They stood there in silence for just a moment.

“Hey, princess, whatcha’ lookin’ at?” Her father spoke within the window, to her reflection.

“Oh, uh. Nothing, papa. Just a bit tired, is all.”

“That’s fine. We can go home if you want?”

“No, no it’s fine. Sorry, I’ll try and keep up.”

The reflection of her father nodded and left. The reflected Viola turned and gave her a sad look before leaving. Once again, Viola found herself alone. Deeply, profoundly alone.

~~~~~~

Erin found herself within a deep forest. The air was moist and chilly, and crepuscular rays crept through the canopy where there was room. She pulled her arms close to her body and shivered slightly. Her first instinct was to find a way out of the forest. But, dimly, she remembered this dream. She knew how it went. And it would go the same way regardless of what she did. So she might as well save the effort.

She sat down on the soft, verdant ground. Everything in the forest was verdant, bright emerald greens highlighted by the golden sunlight. It was oddly comforting, given that it was also cold and wet and she was sitting on dirt and grass. She felt at peace. Safe.

Small creatures scuttled around on the forest floor, giving her a fairly wide berth. She didn’t really blame them – they were quite tiny, though clearly humanoid. It would probably be easy to accidentally crush them underfoot by just sort of being in their general vicinity. She didn’t particularly want to hurt them, and they certainly didn’t want to be hurt, so it was in everyone’s best interests to stay far apart. She watched them mill about, going about their daily lives. They were too small for her to really quite comprehend exactly what they were doing, but there was something meditative about it. Quiet contemplation of life too small to ever matter to her.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she let the atmosphere wash over her and waited for the other shoe to drop. Sure enough, as she concentrated, she could hear it in the distance. A soft, rubbery noise, distant at first but coming closer and closer with a steady rhythm. Boing, boing, boing. The tiny creatures began to mill about in an approximation of panic, scattering in every direction as they ran for the safety of their homes. Erin felt that meditative state washed away by the impending disaster.

A large, blue rubber ball came bounding into the clearance. It slammed roughly into the ground before bouncing several feet into the air with another loud boing, boing, boing -

Erin darted awake in time with the ball colliding with her face in the dream. “Fuuuuck,” she groaned in frustration, burying her head in her pillow for just a few moments before blindly fumbling for her PET. Two AM. Unsurprising. “God dammit,” she muttered, burying herself deeper in her covers. If she was lucky she might get a few more hours of sleep. But she doubted it. This was, after all, a recurring dream. She couldn’t count the number of times that damned rubber ball had smacked her in the face 

And her friends wondered why she was such a bitch.

~~~~~~

Viola hadn’t slept well. She got the impression that none of her pack had. They all seemed dead-eyed as they wandered into Dr. Baas’s office first thing in the morning. The king cobra, for her part, was bright eyed and about as bushy tailed as someone without fur could be. “Good morning girls! I hope you’re all ready to work, because you’ve got a long afternoon ahead of you. Today you’ll be working with the janitorial staff, but we’ll be handing you around town wherever you’re needed. I’ve already made a deal with the caretaker of the Woods District for you to do a little bit of gardening later in the week, but I want you all to start off slowly for now.”

None of them had the energy to say anything in response, so she had dismissed them. The whole day seemed to blur together. Math class, then chemistry, then a free period, then lunch. It happened, and Viola barely noticed.

“Hey, Viola!” At some point Vicky of all people had sidled up to her. “Sooooooo, History next?”

Viola stared at her like she’d just grown a second head, cringing into herself and leaning away from the sudden intrusion. “Um. Hi?”

“I figure since we’re in the same class, we might as well go together, you know? Woohoo, history, am I right?”

“what”

Vicky draped an arm over Viola’s shoulder. “Look, I figure we got off on the wrong foot. You seem like a nice enough person aside from probably being a bit crazy in the head, you know?”

Viola cringed further, attempting to subtly extricate herself from Vicky’s grasp. “Okay. Please don’t touch me.”

Vicky pressed her body up against the smaller rabbit. Oh god, Viola could feel their breasts touching. “And like, you mostly don’t talk to mirrors anymore apparently, so it’s just the weird occult shit and I figure having a real friend might help keep your mind off of it!”

“Please stop touching me.”

Vicky did not stop touching her. “But, I mean, this can all wait. Come on, we’ve got class to get to!” Without any further words – well, no, with far too many further words, Vicky dragged the hapless rabbit off towards history. “So hey, since my parents are away I’ve got a lot of free time. I mean, I still hafta look after Sophie, but she’s a good kid and you’d probably like her. We can just sorta hang out at my place and watch movies and eat shitty unhealthy food and talk about boys. That’s what friends do, right? I’m pretty sure that’s what friends do. And then we can wait hold on why aren’t we moving anymore-”

Ursula lifted Vicky up, away from Viola, and gave her a good solid glare. “She said not to touch her.”

Vicky swallowed heavily. “Uh, yes’m. Sorry.”

Ursula nodded, putting Vicky down. The sheep scampered off towards class, while Viola let out a deep sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“No problem. C’mon, let’s get to class.” Math was the only class all four of them had together, but Viola shared chemistry with Erin and History with Ursula. It made much more sense to walk to classes with her packmate than with a fucking childhood bully.

Still, she wasn’t entirely thrilled when Ursula unthinkingly grabbed her hand. The gesture sent a shiver down the rabbit’s spine. “Uh, I-I’ll catch up to you in a minute.”

“We don’t got a minute,” Ursula replied wearily. “C’mon, we’re in the back half of the school day, let’s not drag our feet. Okay?”

“O-okay.” Dammit. Viola wasn’t going to be able to get away with sneaking out of Mr. Murphy’s class to masturbate. And with the state she suddenly found herself in, she doubted she’d be able to function at all until she let off some steam. “Okay. Sorry. Let’s go.”

Ursula nodded and then dragged her off towards history, not too dissimilar to the earlier situation with Vicky. At least their boobs weren’t touching, though somehow holding hands was worse.

She darted forward and took the lead, blushing furiously beneath her fur. “Woah, someone’s eager.”

“I just wanna get this over with.”

“Fair enough. I don’t blame you.”

Viola didn’t particularly pay attention to Ursula’s response. She just made a beeline to class and tried to not think about Vicky’s boobs or the way her body had pressed against her or the way she was holding hands with Ursula oh god.

~~~~~~

History was set to go by in a similar fugue state to the rest of the day, for both Ursula and Viola. Mr. Murphy wasn’t the most lively of teachers, a fact that probably had nothing to do with his being a sloth, but it was a coincidence that most students found hilarious. Far funnier than it really was, if they were honest with themselves.

“The geopolitical situation in the Neo-Medieval era was typically strained at best. Wandering warlords with bands of marauders armed with whatever rudimentary weapons they could scrounge up.” It was remarkable how he could make roving bands of barbarians so mind-numbingly boring. Something about his tone of voice. “Now, bear in mind that-”

The lecture was abruptly interrupted when every PET in the classroom abruptly let out a loud, harsh buzzing noise. “What?”

“That’s the emergency alert, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s ever gone off before outside of like scheduled test broadcasts.”

“What’s going on?”

“Now, now. Settle down,” Mr. Murphy droned in a dull monotone. “Whatever it is, you can all check it after the lecture.”

“But it’s an emergency alert.”

“What if we need to evacuate?”

“I’m sure it’s just a test. It can’t possibly be more important than Neo-Medieval geopolitics. Now, everyone please pay attention to-”

Once again, Mr. Murphy’s attempts to return the class to the topic at hand were interrupted. The door abruptly burst open and Mrs. Eckstein stumbled in, followed shortly by Mrs. Rothschild. “Zee, we can’t panic over this. That’ll just make things worse.”

“I’m not fucking panicking. Look at me, I’m the fucking picture of serenity. Ursula, grab your shit, we’re going home. Now.”

Ursula tensed up. Something suddenly felt wrong, deeply and profoundly. “What?” The sensation reminded her of her dreams. She didn’t like it.

“Now just a moment, ladies, you can’t just barge into my classroom shouting expletives and-”

“Check the emergency alert, god dammit, we don’t have time for fucking around!”

Mrs. Rothschild gave the sloth a pained look. “Sorry, it’s just... very stressful for her. For all of us.” She nodded slightly, turning to the students. “You had all better check your PETs. Now.”

Ursula didn’t want to. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt a deep, dark anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Like she knew what was coming and it was a very bad thing. The manic urgency in her mother’s voice, the way Mrs. Rothschild was quaking ever so slightly. And more than that, a deep sense of instinctive apprehension as she tuned into the emergency alert.

“-have been unsuccessful. Every entrance to the dome is sealed and all communications have ceased. We’ve been attempting to get in contact with anyone within the dome, but have been unsuccessful so far.”

“What?”

“What’s going on. What dome?”

“I repeat. There has been... something. I wish I could give more details, but all we know is that there was a series of explosions within Locksmouth. All attempts at communication have been unsuccessful. Every entrance to the dome is sealed and-”

There was a very brief final moment of calm as the message played out a few more times. No one spoke. No one could bring themselves to. Vicky dropped her PET. Ursula was hit by a sudden wave of nausea. Viola shook in her chair, tears welling up in her eyes. Everything turned into a vague blur. Viola wasn’t sure what happened next, but something broke through the quiet before the storm. Someone spoke up, or got up to leave, or Mr. Murphy attempted to calm the class. All of them happened, though Viola wasn’t sure which came first.

All she knew is that immediately after, all hell broke loose.