(23) CAT CAT CAT

Something white sped past the garage door at top speed.

“...The fuck was that?”

Marcy shrugged, not looking away from the game on the TV. She was winning.

Chrys watched the door for a little longer, but gave up after a few seconds.

Wait, there it was again!

Was that… Louie?

Yeah, that was definitely Marcy’s dog speeding past at top speed, chasing a small black cat. The two animals were making big loops in the grass, one slightly less enthusiastic than the other.

Chrys whacked Marcy lightly with the back of her hand, causing the older girl to start. “Check this out.”

“What? Louie! Come here, girl!”

The white dog paused for just a small enough moment for the black cat to change tactics and charge into the garage, coming to a sliding halt behind a storage unit.

The dog quickly followed suit, scampering in after…

...and promptly running straight into Marcy.

She screamed, tumbling down onto the ground. Louie refused to stop, instead choosing to run over her owner in an attempt to get the cat. Of course, when the dog slammed into the plastic storage units due to the momentum, the cat easily jumped over and ran into the wilds.

Marcy groaned.

---

I GOTTA POST THESE BEFORE MIDNIGHT OH MY GOD I CANT CARE ABOUT TYPOS

(22) nature's retaking

Their school was overgrown.

Windows broken, massive plants bursting out the doorways. It wasn’t possible for anyone to go to the upper floors anymore-- the stairs were too broken, too unpredictable. The classrooms still had old maps on their walls, documentation of previous countries and borders.

The lockers had all rusted, weathered away. Some of the locker doors had fallen off, allowing glimpses of the kids who had once gone there. There were still binders, old coffee cups, pictures of friends.

A few lockers still had coats in them. Some people had left before they could grab them.

The cities were massive, gaping wounds. Buildings crumbled, highway overpasses collapsed. Cars stopped to sit in the middle of the road for all eternity. Banks cracked open, useless money left to flutter away.

The air felt worse in the cities, as if it remembered the poison that bled the people who lived there.

Empty houses lingered for miles and miles, nothing more than hollow shells waiting to be scavenged. The roads were green with age, attempting to fade back into the landscape.

Marcy flat out refused to drive by her old house. She said the memories were too strong, even years later.

One of them might pass by a few dogs on their way through the streets, pets that reverted back to their older roots. Feral cats that would stare at you in indignation if you stepped too far into their territory.

Of course, there were other things that started to stare back, as well. Much wilder, less natural things that grew into being after the skies opened up and brought on the apocalypse.

The silence was the most deafening, at first. The lack of electricity and hubbub of life was shocking when they got back home and everything was different. Those things had been there for as long as they were alive.

Of course, there had also been people.

Now everything had a different kind of noise. The wind blew through trees and echoed through buildings before it reached them. Birds sang all morning long, wild animals made their way through the ruins of a civilization. The rain thrummed on rooftops, dripping into puddles.

Without light pollution the stars shone at full force at night, the milky way bright enough to reassure anyone that they were not alone.

But when it got down to it, the Cattlayans were still endangered, and there was only a few of them left. And when they die or disappear to become bedtime stories halfway across the galaxy, life will still continue without them.

---

WHO LIVES, WHO DIES, WHO TELLS YOUR STORY

this kind of ended on a... weird note

also i may or may not post 3 parts tomorrow. i don't know.

(21) vacation

reminder: this is a continuation of part 20!!

---

Rui jerked back to consciousness, and without prior warning there was water water water everywhere and panic and her arms began to kick and struggle and go towards the light and she broke the surface of the lake with a loud splash.

Guess Steve won that bet, then.

...Just like all the bets previous.

With a groan, the girl swam towards what looked like a shoreline. The moon, wherever she was, appeared to be bright and full. Thankfully it gave her enough to see by. There was a lake and rocks and a sandy shore she was now pulling herself onto, but after that it was just grasslands for miles and miles.

Her clothes were soaking wet, but Rui just sat there for a minute or two to catch her breath. Her heart was fucking pounding. Slowly, she peeled off her jacket, flinging it onto a rock to dry. Her feet were starting to get an uncomfortable wooly feel, so she took off both her boots and socks. Now, she was just sitting in her dress.

Her very, very wet dress.

...Maybe she should take that off too. There wasn’t anyone around, after all.

Not long after that, Rui was sitting on the beach in nothing but her underwear, which turned out to be a massive fucking mistake.

There was sand everywhere!

Well.. it was a beach.

When was the last time she had even been to a beach?

The island with the mountains and the dumbass monkeys did not fucking count.

After trying to manically shake as much sand off of herself as possible, Rui found herself migrating towards another dry rock and draping herself over it.

She neglected to check her phone’s state of affairs (did it even really matter anymore?). The sky was just so bright and starry. Her limbs were warmed by the heat retained by the rock from the previous day.

Rui let herself relax. Or, well, she tried to. She was still shaking with adrenaline from before, and couldn’t settle into a nice position.

Maybe she should just stay at the lodge for a while after this, when she gets back. Take it easy, right? That would be nice. No adventures, nothing trying to kill her for once.

Sometimes… sometimes she just gets so tired.

They all do, really.

It comes whenever she’s someplace that isn’t her home world, when she’s alone and the only one of her kind for lightyears. Those are the times that their endangered species status becomes even more apparent.

If everything was the same, if she’d never screwed up, she’d be in college right now. She’d major in biology or some shit, and go home to visit her mom during breaks, and date cute girls in coffee shops, and go shopping with friends and… and…

It wasn’t good to dwell on the past but she kept fucking doing it.

Fuck.

It felt like her head was buzzing.

When she got back to the lodge it was cold and dark and snowing like a bitch. When Rui got back into her room, she tried to change into something warm as quietly as she could, but ended up stumbling around obnoxiously for a bit.

“Rui.” Scarlet mumbled. Christ, she looked like a fucking burrito, all wrapped up in blankets.

Wincing, Rui whispered, “Sorry.” She slid under the covers with more care, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend. Mmm, her little hot water bottle of a girlfriend. Who needed a fireplace when you had a girlfriend.

That… sounded a little weird when you thought longer about it.

But there, warm under the covers, Rui could finally stop shaking.

---

rui blames herself for a lot of things that aren’t necessarily her fault

(20) mountains

Run, run run!

Fuck, this was bad. This was like, all kinds of bad. This was like the lovechild of Until Dawn and Alien fucking Isolation1. If Rui had thought, when she woke up this morning, that she would have to deal with this shit, she would have just gone back to bed.

Who knew this island was full of hairless spider monkey-like monsters. Monsters who just love the taste of scared (scarred) teenage flesh. She tried to fight them, but there were way too many. She’d ended up hiding in a cave for an hour, only to nearly be assaulted by Aragog2 on steroids.

There was a gap, though. Higher up, on one of the mountains (volcano?). She’d ran without thinking, alerting all of the monkey monsters to her position before she really should have.

Motherfucker, She should have known that sneaking was the only way. She should’ve gone all Ripley Jr 3 on that shit.

The only problem was that it was pretty dang hard to sneak in an alien jungle.

Which, by the way, was not green-- it was mostly blue. Blue plants, blue dirt, blue monkeys.

Blue hairless monkeys that were trying to take her flesh and wear it like that one guy in The Office4.

Whatever, just focus on running up the space mountain.

Wait, space mountain was actually a pretty good ride wasn’t it5?

Whatever! Go!

A monkey flew at her face, screeching, and Rui screeched in response, smacking it with the shaft of her spear. The monkey was propelled away from her, but Rui kept running without ever stopping in the first place.

Hot damn, this was annoying.

How the fuck did video game protagonists usually deal with hairless monsters? Guns, maybe, but those didn’t work a concerning amount of the time. Fire, then, would be the best.

What would happen if she just like… set this entire forest on fire. What would happen.

Hm. Something to think about later.

When she finally (finally!) got to the opening, Rui leapt and willed herself away.

Thousands of light years later and a few dimensions over, she popped out again, landing-- wait she wasn’t landing she was falling down and fuck--

With a jolt, Rui was submerged in water.

---

1.  Until Dawn and Alien Isolation are two pretty cool horror games that have kinda spindly flesh-eating monsters.

2. Giant magic territorial spider. tchhhhchchc, come here my spider minions

3. Ripley Jr. (kinda not really) is from Alien Isolation. She’s like, 500% times smarter than the protags of Until Dawn. Those guys are basically just college kids who make SUPER bad decisions depending on what choices you make in the game.

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmb1tqYqyII

5. what is that in like disneyland or smthn. i actually have no idea. whatever, it’s an amusement park ride. I won’t look that up, but i’ll totally look up the scene from the office because it’s fucking great

this is gonna be continued in like. the next part. tomorrow, defs.

I HAVE FIVE MORE C'MON I CAN DO IT

(19) free time

Chrys sat in the middle of her room, surrounded by book upon book upon book, most too old or foreign for her to understand. Because of that, a translating sheet was conveniently yet precariously balanced on her knee as she copied the texts from one ancient tome to another.

There was a knock on her door, and Steve pushed his head in. “Hey, Chrys-- oh Christ what are you doing.”

“Translating.” She responded without looking up.

“At this hour in the morning? It’s what, seven? What time did you wake up?”

Chrys shrugged, not wanting to admit to her older brother that she had never gone to sleep.

“What exactly are you translating?” Steve came into the room further, letting more early morning sunlight filter in. The atmosphere in Chrys’ room was mostly dim, but she did have one desk lamp turned on and sitting on the floor right next to her.

“That,” she pointed to the pile on her desk, “Is from Rome. That’s a hobby. The rest of this shit is from other worlds.”

“What… what is it?”

“The thing I’m working on right now is a story, I think, but it could also just be a really elaborate shopping list.”

“Chrys.” Steve took the key from her, regardless of her protests. “I think you need to take a break.”

“It’s fine, Steven.” She tried to snatch it back, but her brother just grabbed her forehead to hold her back. Chrys made a sound of indignation, but couldn’t break free.

“You never slept.”

Hmm. Well. Looks like the secret’s out.

“It’s cool, I’ll just sleep later. Give that back.” She grabbed for the paper again, randomly waving her hands in an effort to grab anything.

“That’s not healthy, Chrys.”

“Lots of things aren’t healthy.” Fuck, give me back my key!

“No. No, I’m confiscating this until you get some sleep.” He pulled away abruptly, walking to the door with the key in hand.

“Steven, no!”

“Whoops,” He turned, sliding backwards out of the door. “Too late. Oh no, I’m uncontrollable, I’m not responsible for my own actions. Tell-Tell my wife I love her!” Getting more and more theatrical and dramatic the more he spoke, Steve shut the door with a flourish, leaving Chrys sitting in the middle of the room with no way to translate.

“Well, fuck.” She sighed, standing and stretching, and was rewarded with a satisfying ‘pop’ from her spine. She turned off the lamp, then walked to the bookcase to put the books back, placing them just on the line between things she’d translated and things she had yet to figure out.

It was a little late. Well, early. Whatever. It was late for her, but Steve, that self righteous asshole, could never know that.

What she did with her time was her own business.

Chrys collapsed on her bed, burrowing into the covers the best she could and exhaling.

Outside, it started to pour rain. The sound of water on the rooftops lulled her to sleep.

---

IM AS UNSTOPPABLE AS NSYNC WAS IN THEIR PRIME

AND MAYBE SKIPPING SOME OF THE EDITING PROCESS BUT FUCK THAT AM I RIGHT

im gonna post another one today in order to actually meet the fucking quota. or. maybe that'll be tomorrow. hang on i'll be back.

maybe i'll come back and edit this later

we all know that's a lie

(18) electricity

When he got back, it was pitch black.

Trying the light switches confirmed: the power was out. Steve sighed. All he wanted to do was rest, really, so it didn’t matter, but this really needed to stop happening.

He kicked off his shoes and dumped his bag on the ground by a couch, but took care to prop his sword up against the wall and to hang his jacket up in the closet. A glance at his phone proved that yes, a few people were still in the lodge, but he hadn’t seen any so far.

“Hello?” He called out. It kind of reminded him of bad horror movies, but the lodge was safe.

“‘Sup.” That was Rui, coming from the other room.

Steve walked that way, trying to find a clear path in the dusk lighting. “Where are you?” She wasn’t sitting on a couch or chair or anything, and there wasn’t any kind of photo or computer lighting up anything.

“Here.” There was movement, and Steve could finally see that she was waving at him from… the floor?

Yeah, she was just lying on the floor, flat on her back with her eyes closed.

“What… what are you doing.”

“Resting. What are you doing?”

“I just got back. Is anyone working on the generator?”

Rui shrugged the best she could from her position. “Yeah, I think Marcy is. It was too dark for me to go to my room, so I’m just hanging out here.”

“We do have flashlights, you know.”

“Boo. Come on, join me.” She lifted a hand, beckoning. “It’s relaxing.”

Steve mentally shrugged and got on the floor right next to her, assuming the same corpse-like pose. Rui was right. It was kind of nice, actually, just kind of hanging out there. Re-aligned his back and all that.

He’d fallen asleep before he knew it, only to wake up when the power finally struggled back on. All the same, Chrys still managed to trip over him when she walked into the room. That was a bit of a shock.

---

i have a fucking quota to meet for this month but it took me so long to write part 16 im gonna scream

THIS IS SO SHORT LMAO I DONT HAVE TIME TO CHECK FOR TYPOS

(17) blood wound

The soldier came at her with a sword, but Rui quickly blocked with her spear. She shot out her leg, catching the soldier in the knee, and he shifted backwards. Rui followed, surging forward and knocking him on his back. His helmet flew off, leaving his face exposed, and Rui deftly spun her spear around to hit him directly in the middle of his forehead with the blunt end.

Steve called, “This way!” and ran into the next room in pursuit of other soldiers, followed closely by Gloss. Rui turned, knocking another soldier out of her way, but stopped when she saw Scarlet splayed on her back on the other side of the room.

Fuck.

The black haired teen ran to her, scooping up her girlfriend’s sword on the way. A large crimson spot was on Scarlet’s stomach, growing by the second.

“Hey.” Scarlet rasped when Rui crouched down next to her.

“Hey.” Rui responded quietly.  “You good?”

“Mmm. ‘M fine. ‘Tis but a scratch.” Scarlet tried to move up her arm, to take back her sword, but Rui stopped her, putting the weapon back into its sheath in a few swift movements.

Rui shifted, sitting criss-cross. “I’m just gonna chill with you for a little longer, okay?”

“A’ight. Fine… fine with me.” Scarlet’s words faded substantially near the end of the sentence, and she let out a breath with a heavy wheeze. Her face relaxed.

Rui gently moved some red hair out of the other girl’s eyes, then moved her hand to Scarlet’s neck to check for a pulse.

Nothing.

Rui exhaled, looking away. In her left hand she still held her spear, but in the other she took her girlfriend’s hand in a tight grip.

Softly, she started to count.

---

YOU’RE SECOND HAND SMOKE, SECOND HAND SMOKE,

I BREATHE YOU IN, BUT HONEY I DON’T KNOW

WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO ME, MON CHERI,

BUT THE TRUTH CATCHES UP WITH US EVENTUALLY