Chapter 1-The Meteor

Blazing in the Sky

Garret bolted upright and smacked his head on the metal workbench above him.

"OW! Shi- wait, what Whhheeere am I? Whhhhy can't I see a blaaaashted thing?"

His words were groggy and came out slurred from his mouth like molasses that dripped onto the dusty floor. Some of his facial muscles had still not gotten the memo that the human was awake and left his visage half drooping and melting away along with his speech. It was also the reason for why the poor man was half-blind and dazed while staring blankly at the floor.

Loose bits of metal shavings and misshapen screws were scattered about as he attempted to drag himself into a less uncomfortable sitting position in order to get his bearings. Unfortunately, his left leg had been under all two-hundred-fifteen pounds of him, and its email had not been working for some time now, so the muscles in it had thought they had gotten lucky and called in a sick day. As a result, Garret's brain was not receiving any feeling from this particular leg, not to mention any movement. The leg therefore, had to go through the awkward and slightly painful phases of having blood return to it and get the nerves working again.

That suited Garret just fine because he wasn't in any hurry to smack his head against the flat, cold iron a second time. He also tended to wake up slowly naturally, like a steam train running its engine up to the correct temperature for water to boil before lurching, and finally, rolling deliberately forward. However, when Garret's engine was running awake, it tended to keep him rolling for hours without any need for rest or relaxation. Where most men were staggering to catch their breath while clutching their sides in stitching pain, he would be running backwards yelling words of taunting encouragement. This often resulted in him hearing the faint sound of voices cursing his name. But, he didn't care. If they needed a breather, then he would see them at the finish line. He had places to go and things to do.

What ran even faster than his body was his mind. His mind buzzed with activity as it attempted in vain to get his leg to cooperate with it. He was currently in the pins-and-needles-so-sensitive-you-can't-even-put-weight-on-it stage of returning feeling. The nerves in his brain were angrily yelling at his lazy leg muscles to quit slacking on the job. They knew the muscles weren't sick and if they didn't get themselves back to work they were as good as fired.

Wasn't there somewhere I was just now? There was this place and I can't seem to picture it in my mind, Garret thought to himself very carefully. His mind seemed to be urgently reminding him of something important, but all he came up with was a blank slate of confusion.

Maybe he had dreamed something? Garret didn't tend to dream unless it was something of importance. He knew that all dreams were really just a representative slideshow of what the brain had experienced. Although, what the brain showed through the mind tended to vary. It could have been a repeat of an event that happened a week ago, or a scene from a movie he had watched, or even just an abstract universe with different laws that defied all physics with the central purpose of reflecting his inner emotions and deeper psyche.

Nerd translation: It could have just been because he was slightly ticked off at Aaron for having used his toolbox without asking and thrown all his tools in the wrong drawers. Again.

Whatever he had dreamed, he didn't dwell too long on it and focused on finally bringing himself to his feet. Perhaps the prospect of losing their jobs had gotten his muscles to finally cooperate and support his climb upwards-

-and straight into the radio dish he had been fiddling with all last night.

"OUCH! Son of a- seriously?! I can't walk two feet without risking my brains being pounded to mush and melting out of my ears!" Garret exclaimed out his pain while rubbing the back of his head, pushing around his disheveled blonde hair as he felt a spreading bruise with his hand.

"Mornin', Sleeping Beauty. How was the floor last night?" said a deep, baritone voice that echoed its tones throughout the stockroom. "Bet it was nice and comfortable taking a snooze with the roaches."

"Yeah, first class, nice bedding too! Nothing beats stone hard slate to rest your head against," Garret replied, annoyed that the first person to find him conked out beneath his worktable was Aaron Halifax.

His back cracked, audibly and physically, in protest against having laid on said floor for some time. He turned his head to face the elder man, who was currently leaning against a dilapidated tractor that was unceremoniously decorated with spare tires and parts. One of Aaron's arms was casually rested on top of the seat, the brown leather eaten through by moths and hazardous mixtures of chemicals. It looked like an inside out block of Swiss cheese that someone had left out in the sun too long.

Aaron, who had been hauling lumber into his shop yesterday, also had the half-burnt look of baking in the summer's rays. His massive arms were tinged a reddish-brown, as if they had been recently removed from a potter's brick oven with the smell of earth and heat. The dirt had been lovingly packed into his leathery skin, the canyons of wrinkles etched deep into his frame by time and effort. Fifty long years of effort. On most men, these signs of age were seen as a curse. But to Aaron, they were the river's long trails, giving him the strength and wisdom as ancient as the Earth it carved beneath his feet.

He kindly shared some of that wisdom to Garret, "Ya know, one of these days you're gonna end up giving yourself more than a couple of wallops to the head. Might I remind you of that time you passed out on the Larringtons' roof. You were lucky you only broke a couple of your fingers on the gutter instead of ending up bound to a wheelchair the rest of your life."

"Oh, come off it. That was one time and I had been trying to fix their radiator in eight-degrees Fahrenheit for six hours."

"Maybe you shouldn't have taken so long then?"

"The reactor coils got stuck to each other and I was literally freezing my ass off!"

"Heh-that woulda been convenient. Could've used it to preserve all the meat instead of havin' to wrestle with the coolant system to keep the ice from melting. Speaking of which, it's gone down again."

"All right, old man. Just because you own the building I live in doesn't mean you get to use my body parts as you please."

"I also own the place where you sleep, where you should be-ya know-sleeping. Just because you have this grandiose project doesn't mean you get to slack off here." Aaron reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a worn-out blue rag. "Before you do, though, wipe off the floor. You drooled all over it."

After being tossed the rag, Garret looked down in annoyed disgust and slight embarrassment to see a dark, watery stain plastered on his overalls. It seems his words were not the only things dripping onto the floor.

Great.

[-]

The stairs creaked as Garret shuffled his way up.

His bedroom was in the attic of the place he worked, Eaden General, a three-story shop that dealt in pretty much anything the residents of the town (conveniently, also named Eaden) needed. Clothes, fishing wire, bug spray, groceries, light bulbs, and other assorted miscellaneous goods. Most of it came from Aaron's dealings with other residents and shipments that came in every two weeks from Depot, the nearest town. And by nearest, it meant an overnight drive in open, boundless Michigan country. Over fifty miles away.

With that fact in mind, it wasn't hard to imagine that Aaron was an extremely busy entrepreneur. His hours often varied with how much activity the town was seeing. Not that one hundred and fourteen people made that much activity in the first place. But still, Aaron liked to see that the people he saw everyday were well-fed, taken care of, and staying out of trouble.

Garret knew that Aaron, despite his constant jabs and "sagely advice", truly did care about him. Their daily jousting contest of sarcastic comments about each other's misery was just their routine. Mostly, it was Garret storming off with his shoulders hunched while the old man was giving his back that slow, knowing smile of his. You know, the one where he's slightly amused and annoyingly victorious because he had just won the argument.

It was with one of those smiles that Garret had just left the stockroom with. It was just another day. Just another morning. Just another start.

Garret spent most of his days working under Aaron as his employee. Restocking shelves, running the cash register, cleaning the fish tank (he was not particularly fond of that one), and just keeping the massive building in a reasonable sense of order.

He also happened to have a very innate talent and passion for anything involving machinery. That meant that he also spent his days going around Eaden working as a handyman. Anything from cars, electrical systems, computer software, parts scavenged from ruin sites, tiny microchips. Basically, anything that involved metal, silicon, and programming, he could fix. And dismantle. And reassemble. And repurpose. And modify beyond anything that was included in the original design, within reason. And sometimes without.

It was his current project that had had him up all night trying to readjust the wavelength-size parameters of a radio dish.

Foxglove.

At least, that's what he called her. Most of Eaden called her "that-dang-huge-radio-tower-that's-supposed-to-get-us-better-reception."

He had been working on her for the last three years now, spending countless hours threading together seemingly random pieces of hardware found in the stockroom. Most of them had been lying around the place for decades because they had been simply forgotten. Garret figured that if they were just laying around taking up space, then he should do his best to at least have them laying somewhere where they could actually be of some use.

So, this is how he spent most of his free hours. He had cut, welded, adjusted, bored, sautered, melted, and just plain beaten the pieces until they shifted and settled in together. It was if he was taking the broken, twisted jungle of metalwork and forcing it skyward until it scraped the very atmosphere. That way, when he finally got her working, she would broadcast from one endless plain of honeyed wheat to the other. A mosaic of rusty metal, binary, electrified frayed wires, fiber glass, protocols, blood, and sweat. Many would assume she was a modern-day recreation of the Tower of Babel. However, instead in it resulting in the divine severance of humanity with separation of languages, she would instead merge the broken pieces by providing the bridges of communication.

Eaden did not specifically know when "it" had become "she". Garret had initially thrown himself headfirst off the boat christened Great Sanity with just as much unadulterated gusto as his other previous works. However, in the ensuing drowning spell he had put himself through just trying to get her to stand up straight, Garret had developed an all-consuming passion for Foxglove. Just the act of giving the tower a name had caught some people off guard. Some thought it was cute, like he was giving a name to a pet he had rescued off the street. Others had less kind things to say, usually involving the words "no" and "life".

He honestly didn't care.

Was it wrong to say he had now arrived to the point of obsession? Perhaps. However, Garret didn't like to use just one word to describe how he felt about his creation. He was… proud. Amazed. Thankful. Miserable (only because she kept him working so late). Astonished. You just couldn't sum her up in one word, just as a man cannot sum up in one word why he loves a woman. To do that would belittle her, and Foxglove deserved more. Garret had caressed her, held onto her, and he knew her better than anyone. It was almost as if he subconsciously was trying to transfer his own pulse into her, giving her life, watching her thrive, and hearing her sing.

Nothing in the world would had made him happier.

Well, successfully finding his PDA was currently becoming a close second.

That was what he had started doing the moment he entered his room. Actually, his room looked more like a colossal junkyard that had been maliciously assaulted by a Category Five Hurricane, followed by a private army testing their latest automated warheads.

At first glance, any normal person would say that Garret had long ago abandoned any resemblance of what they might call a decent living space. Any small pieces of interesting machinery that weren't too big were laying in scattered heaps all over. That included the small crawlspace that served as his closet and the creaky spring mattress that served as his bed. Clothes hung from the bars that supported the roof of the building, most of them blackened with motor oil and frayed at the seams from overuse. Shelves filled with technical manuals were crammed in the back corner next to a small, dusty window. Their insides burst with papers, so they hurled their contents helter-skelter onto the floor. It looked like an especially horrendous crime scene, where the books had been stabbed multiple times with a very sharp, very deadly knife.

A work desk sat under the circular window, dimly lit by the first rays of the early morning. It served as an examination table for Garret's autopsies of broken machinery. He used it to find out their functions when they were alive, how they had died, and what use they could be put to, if any. Dozens of sketches were sprawled across its wooden surface. Most were in a scattered mess, depending on whether Garret was currently studying them or if he was saving them for a rainy day.

At first glance, Mr. Rickey's personal workspace was a disorganized mess. Yet, Garret never seemed to lose anything for long. Upon closer detail, someone could observe that he knew where everything was. Every one of his sketches were relatively in close proximity to one another. The lines that were drawn on them had been depicted with striking precision. This precision could only have come from someone with a discerning eye for detail. So yes, there was indeed a nausea-inducing, crooked, and crude method to his madness. Garret understood it, and that's what mattered.

Garret finally found his PDA uncomfortably sandwiched between a handbrake and an old pre-Combine book full of guitar tabs for rock songs. Its orange lettering left a dim afterglow on his face as he picked it up and read it:

TASK LIST

TO-DO

TAKE STOCK OF FOOD ITEMS

FEED FISH

DUST COUNTER

SWEEP FLOOR

RESTOCK SHELVES

FIX MRS. KENT'S PLUMBING ISSUE

FOXGLOVE

RECONFIGURE SATELLITE DISH 25 BROADCAST PARAMETERS

FUSE 10MM WIRES CONNECTED TO PRIMARY DIGITAL ROUTER

INITIATE BOOT UP SEQUENCE TRIAL #427

DEBUG SECONDARY DIGITAL PROCESSING UNITS

CALCULATE AND REPOSITION DISHES 4, 13, 17, AND 22

PERSONAL

SLEEP

This task list was his lifesaver.

Although Garret could always make sense out of his own mess, he had trouble keeping everyone else's mess straight with his own. Headlines detailing which category which particular task fell into were bolded with blocky text. Work tasks he did for Aaron or maintenance jobs he was currently employed for fell under "Daily" and were put first to remind him of their importance, despite their mundanity. The work he did on Foxglove used to fall under his "Personal" category, but Garret eventually had to separate his passion from his biological needs.

He always carried his PDA wherever he went. Not only did it keep his daily routine in check, it also was portable. Portability was essential when working on a project that was over twenty feet high, had wires hanging loosely off of it, and was just generally a constant falling hazard.

There was a reason Garret had the muscled arms of a silverback gorilla.

It wasn't the fanciest piece of technology, but it did its job and was durable. Very durable. Durable enough to stand up to getting caught in a generator, run over by a truck, dropped off a radio tower when Garret was busy welding something, and being mistaken for a chew toy by the Hatfields' dog.

Duke tended to bite shiny thing first and bark questions later, usually when said shiny thing was ripped to indiscernible pieces.

With vital lifeline in hand, Garret entered a small alcove to the back of the attic.

This alcove was painted a shade of white that wasn't quite white, but more of a demurred cream. It was painted that way in order to differentiate bedroom/warhead dump site from bathroom. Compared to the rest of the attic, it was plain and uncluttered. A sink and toilet sat against the wall; bare pipes came out of holes in the walls and floor, snaking their way around each other.

A lone mirror was situated above the sink, slightly dusty from the lack of air flow up under the roof. Small cracks could be seen in the corner from where Garret had accidentally shoved into it too many times when he woke up late. There was a small trimmer lying next to the faucet, which Garret picked up when he came to it.

He didn't use a razor because he was too proud of his beard. Never saw the need to completely shave it off. It was like a shimmering, sunlit medal which boasted to the world of Garret's manliness. He had been working on growing it since he was fifteen. Aaron had laughed at his attempts at growing facial hair. However, unlike most people, who are gradually introduced to the dreaded process of puberty, Garret had been hit by a truckload full of it because the driver realized his delivery was due Tuesday and not Thursday. Now, he had to tame the wild beast growing from his face every three days in order to at least look presentable.

He groggily stared at his reflection in the mirror; his eyes ringed by the dark lines of exhaustion. Their shade of blue was a cloudy, misty one, like steam rising from a boiler. His hair, usually a sunlit gold, was now darkened by sunspots of grime. He inwardly groaned as he set to work grooming his mane.

As he trimmed his beard, he absentmindedly glanced down at a yellow piece of paper taped on to the top left corner of the mirror. On it was a short note written in smooth, practiced word that was easily legible:

Don't forget to take care of yourself. Alright?

-Chell

The subject of the note smiled slightly. Chell had given him that note a couple of weeks ago when she had noticed him trying to put socks in the freezer in the shop. She always seemed to notice little things that other people might not pay attention to. For example, she could always tell when Garret was getting a little too involved in Foxglove. She never outright told him to stop working on her, but she would sometimes give him reminders like this. It was part of the reason they had become such close friends. Chell just sort of volunteered herself to make sure he wasn't doing anything to endanger his health. Over the four years he had known her, she had become something of an adoptive older sister.

She also always helped him out on Foxglove. He was always grateful for the help, and she seemed to genuinely like spending time with him.

I'll have to find some way to thank her someday, Garret thought as he finished cleaning up all the trimmings from the sink. Maybe, I'll take her out on a trip. Maybe to Lake Michigan? It is a two-day drive, but I'm sure we could stay a couple of weeks.

As he mused upon this subject, the now less grimy man began gathering all the schematics he would need for that afternoon.

We could bring the rifles and actually shoot a real target. I've heard there's some hunting grounds not too far from there. Just set ourselves up a nice little camp and shoot deer. I could read up on some hunting books and make some traps and lures.

Oh!-I wonder if she wouldn't mind wearing camo. I've always wanted to wear camo. Test to see if the stereotype about it actually working is up to snuff. Although we probably would have to adjust the fabric design to reflect the natural plant life. I could also adjust the insides with porous lining so we don't die sweating our butts off.

He continued this metaphorical hunting trip in his mind, buzzing with all the possibilities of survival gear so that he could enhance the trip. Garret was actually beginning to seriously consider taking Chell on this lake trip, and he felt electrified as he hurried down the creaky stairs. His engine had finally started, and he was ready to meet the morning headfirst.

[-]

The actual store part of Eaden General was situated on the first floor, with the stockroom in an extension to the back. It was through here that Garret briskly walked through, skillfully maneuvering around the shelves and stacked piles of merchandise.

The first impression of the store was very homely. The floor made of sturdy oak wood, giving the room a rich, earthbound surface. Aisles were filled with all assortments of produce, cans, bottles, packages, and spools. Signs were dramatically competing each other for attention; some new and printed cleanly, others with the characteristic mark of a human's unique penmanship.

A freezer that usually provided a background droning noise was placed next to the counter, but it was currently going on strike against its employer for unsuitable work conditions. The summer heat made it work overtime, and it was not going to do anything until its needs were satisfied. If Garret didn't meet its demands soon, then all of the meats stored within would eventually rot out. Meat tended to give off the smell of thousands of skunks deciding to die all at once at this temperature, and Aaron would never forgive him if that happened.

The coolant system was located outside of the building so that its noise was muffled by the brick walls. Garret pushed his way through an unlocked, windowed door, a string of bells tinkling behind him.

The air was clear and mild. The sky was a deep blue slightly tinged with gold. It was just early morning, the sun only barely reaching out its rays onto the landscape. Crickets were still playing their natural songs to each other-skreep skreep-their tones gradually softening. The stars dimly shone against the backdrop of the sky, leaving ghostly imprints of their presence before melting away into the rising sun's rays. Some birds came to take their turn in the morning orchestra, greeting the sun in their usual fashion:

-tweet tweet tweet-

-Burreep-

-Cheer-ee! Cheer-ee!-

-RAWWWWWWWWWK-

The crow came in a bit out of key. This, however, seemed to tip off the other birds that it was alright to start screaming their little lungs out. They flew off in pairs, swirling and swooping around each other for first dibs at breakfast. Hey, it was a dog-eat-dog world. Or, in this case, a bird-eat-worm world.

Garret noticed that he had only slept for about four hours, judging by the low position of the sun. He remembered vaguely that it had been pretty dark when he had last checked outside. Technically, he had failed his daily task of getting enough sleep, but he didn't tend to need much sleep anyway. Especially the kind of comatose state he was in under that workbench.

He worked his way around to the coolant box, a grey container with vents in the sides and top. Usually, the vents would be blowing heated excess air, but all it was doing now was sputtering and whispering its protest.

Alright. Let's see if we can get this box talking, Garret thought as he pried open the front panel of the box with a steel rod and reached for the wrench in the pocket of his newly-put-on jeans.

As he set to work, the sun gradually reached its rays out until they stroked the sky with open fingers of orange. The sky beneath them was flushed into a striking vermillion, the brightness reaching outward into the horizon. The stars were just memories now, receding in the basking seraph that was the sun. The sky brightened in its presence, as if happy to see a long departed angel return to rescue it from its despair. A canvas of primary of fiery passion and awakening, only enjoyed in Eaden during the summer months.

The birds had strangely gone silent at this display, as if in awe of the majesty of the moment.

Garret wiped his brow with the bottom of his green-checkered shirt, practically absorbing all of the fiery fingers that stroked his back. After thirty minutes, he had finally deduced that the coolant system would not resume its duties unless one of its air flow tubes was replaced. He took out his PDA from on top of the box and made a note under DAILYto go search the cavernous storeroom for the part.

He looked up and observed that the birds were flying overhead. Usually, they would be black and brown blurs that twirled around each other lazily. However, this time they were all clumped together as one mass heading together in the same place.

That's odd. Usually those birds are fighting each other over scraps. Now, they're flying together all of a sudden? What is going on?

Garret's brow furrowed in confusion as he turned around. Even more birds were heading towards the town, the sounds of their wingbeats pulsing in a hurried frenzy. Garret wasn't exactly a biology expert, but even he knew that when birds freaked out like that, something was definitely wrong.

He picked up a faint smell in the heated air.

What is that? Smells like something burning. Scratch that. Something really burning. Smells like…I don't know. Wood? No. Too rancid for wood. Gas? Nah, I would've known if it was gas. It's…metal?!

Then he saw it.

A blazing flash in the sky, heating the air set markedly red against a halo of orange. It seared through the blue horizon, cutting it into two separate halves as it raced downward. A trail of grey lines marked its path as the mirrored halves scarred like glass struck by lightning. A cacophonous burst of sound announced the object's presence, leaving a ringing sensation in the bewildered spectator's ears. Screeching aftershocks almost left visible scratches across. Gases roiled as the grey lines traced its path, crashing headway into the distance.

Dull rumblings of Earth came out from the ground. Imprints were scorched into the sky; an after-image of the dramatic event. The horizon's halves then fixed themselves, and all that was left was an enveloping silence.

It was quick, but it had left its impression.

"Holy shit!" Garret yelled out, enraptured. His buzzing mind was still trying to process what had just happened. His mouth hung open in an O of surprise before it changed into a slightly dazed grin.

Meteor showers weren't particularly rare in Michigan. Garret had seen them a couple of times before. Usually they only appeared as vague lines of color, blurred by distance. But this. This. This was huge! The meteorite, by Garret's quick estimates, had landed less than twenty miles from Eaden.

In his bewildered stupor, Garret briefly reflected on how awesome space was. He also noticed the sound of door bells chiming as Aaron swung open the door.

"Wow, that was quite a light show," the store owner mused as Garret spun around to face him. "Never seen something like that come out of the sky since that blue moon we had a couple years back."

"I know right! It landed off somewhere to the northeast. It just kind of came out of nowhere!" The young science enthusiast was beaming his excitement. He raised his arm to point in the direction the meteor had crashed, the other propped on his hip as he raised his posture to see out beyond the fields in the distance.

"Glad you liked it. Ya know, some folks say a shooting star like that is a good omen," Aaron remarked. "Knowing you, you need all the luck you can get." The elder man slightly laughed at this.

"Come on, you know I don't believe in that stuff. What's going to get Foxglove to work is effort and patience, not the vague promise of a space rock. Albeit, a very cool-looking space rock."

Garret began to collect himself as he made his way back towards the store.

Aaron held open the door for him, smiling that all-too-well knowing smile, but this time, with a subtle hint of pride.

"Well, with as much time as you've spent working on her, she sure is long overdue." He scratched his scraggly brunette hair and worked his way behind the counter. "Anyway, cool space rocks or not, I'm gonna need you to get in gear a little bit. I'm going out of town for a couple of days this week handling the shipment from Depot. Travis has got a little under the weather, so I'm going to have to pick it up myself. I need you to hold down the store for me."

Garret perked up at this. Aaron rarely left him in charge on account of how "sniffing too much machine oil" had caused Garret to absentmindedly forget what he supposed to be doing instead of being buried in his work. Especially since he started working on Foxglove. He just couldn't be working in two places at once, much as he wanted to.

Before he could get a word out-"And don't think I won't know if you start getting ideas. Screw this up, and I'll make you scrub the septic tank, by hand."

The young man's face fell with an almost ghastly stare. He started drumming his fingers on the cash register. Memories of previous encounters with the septic tank had left him scarred for life. Last time, he had taken three showers a day for two weeks and still smelled as if he had just bubbled out from a sealed toxic waste dump.

"Yes sir."

"Glad we understand each other."

With that, Aaron very purposefully slapped his employee's back twice, turned his attention to gather groceries for his regular trip to Chell's house/bakery, and left the engineer to his duties.

[-]

-Clang!-

"I just don't seem to know what's come over me all of a sudden. First, my ears started hearing static all the time. I thought it was just because I left the radio on, thing always seems to check out at night, but it started happening all the time. Couldn't make out a word of what anyone was saying! Then, I started seeing purple, squiggly shapes in my eyes. You know the ones that you get after you stare into the sun too long…"

-Clang!-

"…but I started seeing them all the time! They just wouldn't go away, even if I was sitting in total darkness. It reminded me of the time I accidentally got some lemonade in my eye. That was the summer back when Hershel came to visit me. He's such a sweetheart for coming all the way out here…"

-Clang! Hisssssssssssss-

"…thrown my back out making that vase for Ms. Shirley. Dr. Dillon's always on my case about watching myself when doing physical labor. So, here I am half deaf, crippled, and with a broken kitchen sink. Thanks for doing this for me, by the way, dear."

"Uh-huh, sure thing ma'am," Garret replied from under a counter.

He had been half-listening to what Mrs. Emily Kent had been saying for the past half hour. He was busy trying to mend some pipes that had become crooked. As he hammered at them, they hissed in protest to being reshaped from the place they had settled, like a snake laying in a cool cave.

Mrs. Kent was a small, silver-haired woman who lived on the far side of town. She lived alone, so she always gave her sole attention to anyone who came over to her house. Her black eyes seemed to wander into places that other people could not see. She was wearing a dark, long skirt with a slightly frayed, crocheted, grey sweater. The wisps of her hair tried to escape a tightly bound bun, tied from years of practice. She was currently sitting at her kitchen table, fiddling with a small, brown radio.

Her voice was gentle, yet firm. It was the voice of the narrator of a stage play, commenting on all the character's motivations and actions. Most of these plays involved scenes from her own life. In her old age, however, it seemed that she even got more lost in them. It was now that Garret found himself the audience to one of her reveries.

"You must have so much to do. I know Aaron works you to the very bone. And I always see you working on…what did you call it again?"

"Foxglove, ma'am."

"Ah, yes! Foxglove. Pretty flower that is. You know it's said that that flower…."

Garret allowed her to continue on while he refocused his attention on the task at hand, slightly rolling his eyes. He didn't want to seem rude, but Mrs. Kent could literally go on for hours, and he really wanted to get her pipes fixed so he could move on to working on Foxglove. He continued listening to the ongoing commentary.

"…gave one to my cousin as a wedding present. Can you believe it? A can of pepper spray! The nerve! He acted as if he knew the relationship wasn't going to work out. Then again, they did divorce after she threw a hammer at him, but I digress. Speaking of hammers, you use that one quite well! You're a very strapping young man, the kind a lady would abandon everything to have."

Garret winced at that. Strapping wasn't exactly the word he would use to describe himself. Garret saw himself as more rugged or just built. He had noticed that his observer had subtly made him the direct subject of her soliloquy, always catching herself and addressing him directly. Besides, she was steering the half-conversation in a direction he wasn't comfortable with.

He tried to change the subject.

"How's your back doing, ma'am?"

"Oh, I'm fine. It just seems to want to dully ache today. Three days ago, I couldn't get out of bed because it just shot pain every time I tried to move. Used to be limber as a ballerina, now I can't even get ten feet in my own home without endangering my health. Oh, well. That reminds me, ballerinas…well, dancing, I mean. I remember seeing you dancing at the Harvest Festival when you were still going to class at the hall. You were quite good! Do you still dance?"

Another wince, unnoticed because he was mostly hidden from view. A moment of unadulterated silence. A response.

"I…have other…things preoccupying me these days. Like you said, the old man keeps me busy, and so do my personal interests."

Garret got up from under the counter after giving the pipes a final glance-over. Then, he tested to see if they were working. After he turned the valve, the pipes gave a short rumble, a jerk, and finally, water starting flowing normally from the faucet. Just in time, too.

"Well, Mrs. Kent, it seems your sink is all in working order," he said as he began swiftly picking up his tools.

"Thank you again, dear. I wish you luck on your radio tower. I know I'd be grateful for it. Darn radio has quit on me again, right in the middle of the weather report, too. How dreadful!" She said this as she continued turning the device's knobs for a channel that wasn't named SNOW FM.

"Goodbye, ma'am," Garret said to the door as he closed it behind him. Working his way down Mrs. Kent's porch steps, he wiped his brow and gave a small, unconscious sigh of relief.

It was an innocent question, really. It's just that, Garret usually didn't like talking about things that directly involved him personally. He felt it was just unnecessary to talk about them when he would forget about it the next day anyway. Especially after-

He was getting sidetracked.

Garret pulled his lifeline again from his pocket, and also pulled a bag from out the miniature version of his toolbox. His bag smelled of food, and his taste buds flooded his mouth as he pulled out a chicken leg. The hungry man placed the meat between his teeth, put his toolbox on one arm, and started reviewing his adjustments to Foxglove. He looked like a carnival juggler as he tried to balance everything as he walked, setting off into the tower looming in the distance.

[-]

Things had not gone well, today.

Well, that wasn't entirely the truth.

Superficially, Garret had gotten everything on his task list done (well, except sleep). However, there was something that nagged at him.

He had done all of his planned adjustments on Foxglove, run all of the trials he had planned, and had even gotten her to boot up properly. There was just something missing. She had kept defaulting back to the same screen every time he tried to alter her code. He didn't know if it was a glitch, a processing error, a hardware issue, or user error on his part.

An empty, vague hole formed in his mind as he flopped onto the recliner in the stockroom. It was an old piece of furniture, like almost everything else in there, but it was a comfortable one. Especially to a man who had just spent the entire afternoon and early evening climbing up and down a twenty-foot jungle gym. Not to mention, four hours of sleep was also dragging at him. Garret had endurance, but not that much.

It was frustrating and mentally exhausting, on top of being physically exhausted. As he laid back in the recliner, he reached on a nearby end table for a mason jar. It contained a brownish-red liquid that carried the tangy smell of alcohol. It was a personal mixture that Garret had come up with himself. He was an engineer; he liked to experiment with all sorts of things, including his beer. At least, it was partially beer.

Taking a swig of his mad brew, Garret observed the stockroom.

This place was a labyrinth of relics from Aaron's personal collection, things his family had brought in before him, and Garret's additions from whenever he went on a scouting trip for parts. Over the years, it had become an impossible maze of broken down cars, microchips, banners, paint cans, and just random memorabilia from time gone by.

Garret had pretty much taken over this room. It was his forge and his factory. The obsessed tech geek had always come here to meld together his ideas and make them into something possible. Aaron often gave him flack for Garret's unauthorized takeover, but his boss had let him have it in order to chase his insane pipe-dreams. No, literally, most of the stuff he built involved pipes or rods of some sort.

Although he never admitted it, Garret was always silently thankful that Aaron put up with him the way he did. It was most of the reason he hadn't given up on Foxglove in the first place. That and his pure pride and admiration for her wouldn't let him.

At first, Eaden had been all too eager to help him. Sometimes, he would have twenty people at a time to direct and lead as he pleased. They all caught up in the storm of limitless passion he brought with him, like a sort of mystical rain dance that was given to him from his ancestors.

However, over the years the volunteers had become less and less. Nowadays, it was either him alone, or Chell helping him however she could. He didn't know why she helped. She obviously had better things to do with her whole bakery business and almost obsessive habit of going out for runs around the town. And yet, she still helped.

He really appreciated that. Especially since most of Eaden had pretty much started seeing Foxglove as more of the amusement of an insane man's delusions. Garret wasn't going to give up because he knew Chell believed in him and because Foxglove herself deserved it.

The insane man finished his brew and got up, planning to at least close up shop before he actually used his musty mattress for its intended purpose. It was currently late into the evening, with the sun's rays receding back behind the darkened earth. The stars were appearing on the canvas of indigo sky, no longer the ghosts they were in the morning hours.

As he went to clean off the counter, the chiming of the bells grabbed his attention. They had been particularly loud, resulting from the centripetal force of the door being yanked off its poor hinges. A woman with dark brown, curly hair wearing a jacket, white T-shirt, boots and dark jeans barged through it.

Garret recognized that it was Romy Hatfield, Chell's best friend of the female persuasion. He usually saw her either at her home/diner, making soup on the days she actually got customers, or chasing a pair of twin space marauders from knocking over the next unfortunate bystander. Those were her twin boys, Max and Jason. Right now, though, she was alternating her head to look in all directions, moving so fast Garret was afraid her head might screw off her neck.

"GARRET! GARRET! Are you here!?" Her words came out of her mouth quick and strong, desperately searching for him. Her face was worn and ragged, with the look of someone who had just witnessed a multi-car crash on the freeway.

"I'm right here. You don't have to shout," Garret replied nonchalantly. He stumbled up to her, dragged by his increasing tiredness. "You sound as if your volume dial's set to eleven."

"Garret!? Oh thank God. You're here!" she sounded incredulously. She was speaking in short, clipped sentences in order to calm herself down.

"Yes, that is indeed my name, now what has got you so riled up that you had to try to send the front door to its early grave?'

Her brow furrowed. "Garret, I don't have time for your quippy nonsense. Where is Chell?"

"I don't know," he scratched the back of his head absentmindedly," I thought she might have been with you or at home. You know how she gets. Sometimes, she just wants to be left to her own devices."

"You haven't seen her either. Oh God, oh god-ohgodohgodohgodohgod-no, No-NO!" Romy stammered.

"Look, there's nothing to get praying to High Heaven about it."

"Garret," she flatly stated. Her dusky eyes glared into his face-"You're not taking this seriously! I haven't seen her, you haven't-no one has."

Her change in expression grabbed him by the head. A rising mixture of rotten dread, cautious fear, and foreboding crawled its way around his neck. He swallowed. Romy had his attention.

"Did you check the fields?"

"Yes."

"The Ottens'?"

"Yes!"

"The hall?"

"Yes, Yes! I checked the whole freaking town, Garret!"

"Did she leave a note?!"

"No, that's just it Garret. She left absolutely nothing. It's as if she just up and vanished! Nothing. Not a single damn thing."

Garret knew what the next thing Romy would say, but he didn't want to hear it. He willed himself to block all sound from his mind so that he wouldn't have to hear it. But, his mind was too fast for him, letting him absorb every vicious detail.

"Chell is gone."