Heya guys, it's me, Jesspikapal, but you probably already knew that~!

So anyhow, here I am yet again with another chapter of The Wonders of Human Contact. You'd think I'd have a life by now, eh? But no, all I have is to update this piece of crap and please you guys. So that's just what I'll do. :D

PLEASE review, and I'd just like to thank you to the people who have reviewed and followed this story so far! Also, I have been planning out a sequel to this fic as well, so this one may have a bit of an "abrupt" (by default, since the sequel, if I write it, will be straight in the action) ending. So stay tuned for that when I eventually get round to it. Also, updates will be getting a LOT more frequent as my Summer holidays roll in on the 23rd of July. So yeah, I may even be updating daily due to a boring lifestyle and... no life, obviously. Woop!

That's all, folks. Enjoy the chapter!

~Jess~

X x

"Stop!" Whimsy heard for the fourth time that day. Or night. Truth be told, she wasn't even sure which one it was any more. The sun kept rising and falling with no strict pattern – sometimes it was minutes, sometimes it was hours and sometimes it was one or the other continuously. She just couldn't get her head around it any more! What was even worse was that they were running low on food by now – they would have to go out and get some more soon... all she could do was pray that Maxwell would eventually tire of his stupid game and simply revert the days back to normal, if only with slightly less time, just to satisfy his selfish sadism.

She watched as Wilson threw down a plank of wood angrily.

"Will you come and hold this torch?!" he snapped, and she flinched at his rough tone, holding her own torch close to her face. She wasn't used to him being angry and snappy at all... it was an unpleasant experience, honestly. But, as expected, he sighed sorrowfully. "I'm sorry, Whimsy. You know I don't mean to get myself all worked up and shout at you...," he murmured towards the floor, looking at her sadly. The smaller girl simply smiled a melancholy smile and nodded. She understood perfectly. His irritation wasn't exactly unreasonable.

"Sure, I'll hold it for you, Wilson." she grinned, getting to her feet, making her way over to him and accepting his torch. He nodded happily, before adjusting the way she was holding it meticulously. Then, smoothing over his W-shaped hair and taking a deep inhalation of midnight air, he forced his inner nerves to still.

"Thank you," he stated sincerely, before continuing to create "home materials". Home was a very funny word to use in this context, she felt; it was simply odd to picture anything as her home other than the house she was born and raised in, with the people she was also born and raised with. She briefly took a moment to think about her family – she wondered if her parents had even noticed she was missing. They were close, but Whimsy often stayed away whilst she was studying. She had planned to open up a little business of her own once she had the means to support herself, like her father with the photography business, but she had been yanked here before she could do so. Speaking of which, she was thinking about how Wilson had even got here. And was he curious about how she had? She couldn't tell, he hadn't even once thought to ask her, it seemed.

But it had been an ordinary day when she had been maliciously subtracted from her daily life and brought to this living nightmare; so ordinary, she was almost wishing something strange would happen, in fact. Apparently, she wished too hard.

"You seem to be in deep thought." Wilson's voice brought her out of her precarious thoughts. Who actually cared how she got here? There wasn't a wide variation of people to give a damn, and she certainly didn't want to think about it, and didn't expect Wilson to either. He had his own existence to juggle around with after all.

"I am," she answered carefully, straightening out her arm as Wilson gestured for her to do so. Eventually stopping his movements, he looked at her and exhaled softly.

"What has your mind so captivated?" Wilson questioned, leaning against his machine with an undeniable confidence about him. She felt odd admitting to herself that she rather liked his confidence and tried desperately to shove the thought to the back of her mind, staring past him instead of giving him eye contact.

"Nothing." she frowned.

Wilson pulled back slightly, confusion painted across his face. If he had been a piece of art, he would have gotten first place for being the most precariously balanced. He tutted.

"That's clearly both a contradiction and a lie..."

"I allow that." Whimsy argued languidly.

"Science does not."

"I think you need to take a step away from that machine," she deadpanned, taking his shoulders and steering him away from his creation slightly. He opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. Instead, they simply stared one another down, and soon enough, she began to feel uncomfortable. "F-Fine. If I say, will you quit being so weird and actually take a break from your work. You look exhausted..."

The exhaustion, he couldn't deny, but it was definitely being numbed by a warm feeling in his gut. There was no telling what his body was playing at, but it hadn't happened before; in fact, the feeling was so alien and unnecessary that he found himself shrugging it off, disturbed by the arrival of yet another problem: his apparent indecisiveness. His head was a mess of questions, but a collected mess. An organised chaos. Yet it didn't stop him from losing his mind from time to time. There were times when he had behaved as wild as the only slightly intelligent pigs of this world and there were other times when he had stooped to collecting manure and measuring it precisely. It seemed he could never quite work out where he was in Maxwell's mess of a world, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to be grateful for that or not.

"I can't promise. Unfortunately enough for taking a break, Maxwell doesn't take any pity. He doesn't consider breaks," Wilson carefully chose his words, and smoothed his hair back once he finished, feeling satisfied. Even if he was a mess inside, it certainly didn't seem like it as he stood there with the cool look about him, as if he had all the time in the world to spare.

Therefore he was shocked when he was greeted only by a flat expression.

"You honestly think Maxwell considers anything, Wilson...?" and as if on cue, the sun rose so suddenly it blinded the scientist slightly. Shielding his eyes, he frowned solemnly. He knew that she was correct. That he couldn't keep dodging the need for some rest, no matter how enthusiastic he was about his projects and work. "Anyway," she began again, earning his attention. "I was just thinking about you...," she paused to collect her words, feeling wary. "...how you got here."

He took a moment to swallow the words; surprisingly enough, they were easy to take. Not the usual spoonful of vile medicine he was used to swallowing; people often made the poor gentleman have urges to create a contraption that could not only silence them, but delete them entirely. Stupid people's existence often worked their way into his list of irritating things that he wanted rid of... but Whimsy was surprisingly bright and peppy as far as he was concerned, and he hadn't had the urge to cover her mouth with a huge layer of duct tape even once like he had with most people. There had been moments – slight glimmers of a moment – in which he had wondered whether it would be worth having her travel with him at all, but now, he just couldn't picture doing it without her. She had wormed her way in, and it was slightly alarming to him. It seemed like she hadn't even broken a sweat, getting past his defences. And yet she didn't realise it as she complained about how useless she was, and how she couldn't get anything right. Irritating, yes, but he also noticed a sadness that even she couldn't hide.

"Well, that much is quite simple. I built a machine in order to get transported here. Well, I was instructed, if we're being technical about it," he explained loosely. The sun promptly disappeared once more and the two picked up their torches once more, holding them above their heads. "May we work and talk?"

Whimsy sighed, before handing him a piece of wood, listening to him go on about the things he had seen: the brilliant equations, the answers to life itself, all spinning around his head before giving him what seemed to be the greatest idea for an invention ever. How his radio had spoken to him – it had taken some convincing for Whimsy to believe he just wasn't exceptionally crazy at that moment in time – and guided him through the necessary steps to build the "world-transporting-device" as Wilson so loosely put it. How he had been frightened of his own creation and only through instruction of the screeching radio in the background did he go through with switching it on; how he wished he hadn't. The regret he expressed moved Whimsy, but the pair of them knew there was just no use being wishful. Nothing was going to change now; in fact, the only thing that seemed inter-changeable was whether they lived or died in this land of gruelling misfortune.

Whenever the sun would rise, they would implant their torches into the ground, close to where they were working, so that they could see when Maxwell decided to take it away again; slowly, they were growing accustomed to the way the light would disappear and it began to get less and less shocking as the time went on. They talked for what seemed like decades, until finally, it was time for Whimsy to explain herself.

"So, now you know my tale," Wilson looked up at her from his position on the wooden floorboards beneath his knees. "I'd be delighted to hear yours. How did you find yourself here? Doesn't seem fitting, really," he finished, eyeing her and studying her slowly. Whimsy stopped weaving grass together (she was making hay walls for back up if the stone walls were ever to collapse – they were stronger than Wilson could ever make them due to the intricate motions of the grass and how tightly and precisely they were wrapped together) and peered up at him slowly. The tell-tale signs of an approaching beard scattered his face in the form of tiny lines on his chin and jaw-line, and his hair seemed bushier than normal.

"It was pretty ordinary, really. In fact, a little too ordinary," she began to recount, thinking back to the fateful day that absolutely everything had changed for her. "I had... had a fight with my mother. She of course had an issue with my line of work – saying it promoted false bearings and stupid things like that. So I stormed out. I went to my local park – I always went there when I felt sad, and needed to be alone... it often gave me ideas for sculptures too. I got an idea, and I just remember feeling so happy," she paused, feeling a sudden surge of emotion pass over her. Her entire world seemed to tighten around her as she felt herself grow a little weaker. She hoped it didn't show. She summoned her courage to stay straight-faced and continued, Wilson having long-stopped hammering any kind of wood or stone into the ground. He was simply listening, all ears, and it flattered her slightly to have his undivided attention.

"You miss it, I presume?"

"Of course I do. Anyway, I didn't want to go home so soon though – I hadn't been away from home for long and so decided to go to my father's shop. I knew it would be quiet in there, seen as though he didn't work on a Saturday and I always carried a set of keys with me anyhow, just to be safe. So I went there, and sat in the storage cupboard and planned out my amazing new sculpture. But I felt odd. Almost like... somebody was watching me and tracing every little detail, and I started to feel uneasy. So of course, I set out to leave again. But then... I heard something, and I was just too curious to leave it alone. It turned out to be a photograph. The voice sounded like... it was in my head, but, it was talking-"

"A photograph was talking to you?" Wilson made her halt, his face threatening to break out in a full-blown guffaw.

"Because a radio is so much better!" she snapped back, an embarrassed set of colours rising onto her face.

"At least a radio is a form of communication." and with that, he started to laugh. Laugh at her. And she couldn't help but feel slightly betrayed. She had confessed to thinking about these things, so why was he stopping her, picking apart her story and laughing at it? His method of getting here, though much more plausible, didn't cut the bill for being "believable" to anybody who didn't understand or know about this world either... so who did he think he was to point fingers and judge stories?

"Pictures are a form of communication too...," she mumbled dejectedly. Wilson slowly stopped laughing and raised his hands in a defensive manner.

"I didn't mean any harm, Whimsy. I just find the idea so ridiculous. But you're right, a radio isn't much better by any means. Please continue. I wish to know," said the Gentleman Scientist gently, giving her a hopeful smile. The sculptor couldn't help but sigh and smile back; his hope was a beautiful thing. It was like a star on a stormy night – in fact, any hope in this hell-hole was the most beautiful thing to be beheld ever.

"Anyway, the photograph, yes. Talking to me, blah blah blah, telling me that once he was free, he would be able to give me infinite knowledge regarding the art of sculpting and composing pieces. So of course, I built what he instructed me too – he got annoyed with me a couple of times because I tried to be more creative than the instruction he gave me on occasion... but I eventually constructed the sculpture he requested and then... I don't remember anything else. Just a bad headache and different place." she finished. She then felt it necessary to add: "I know, it's not a very believable story, and it's really quite ridiculous, but it is what happened, Wilson..."

Meanwhile, Wilson had zoned out. So again, the trend was that the people who were brought to this place built something. He with the delirious looking machine – the one that nobody would believe he had built. And Whimsy with the sculpture that nobody would ever think to look twice at. He recalled hearing about somebody called Willow back in the earlier days when Maxwell had been mocking him, and she, from his memory, had been instructed to build a tall pyramid of wood and then set it alight. It all seemed so surreal, and so drastically unrealistic that it made even he feel silly to recount it... and yet it was all truth. Unbelievable truth. So unbelievable, he himself thought that he was lying sometimes.

"I believe you...," he whispered weakly, thoughts collapsing on him like a ton of bricks. There just had to be some kind of connection. It was too much of a coincidence for them all to have built something for it not mean something. She noticed his stunned expression and felt a pang of guilt; she hadn't meant to lay thoughts on him like a thick layer of cement. She had just meant to inform him, to tell her story as requested. It seemed she had "broken" him, for lack of a better term.

Nothing else was said. Wilson simply went back to fixing the base up as the day switched between day and night, and both felt an ever-growing need for food as the day – or days – passed on. Whimsy thought to ask Wilson if he had anything to offer in terms of food... but then backed off, feeling too stiff and peculiar to request anything of him. And so she worked on the hay walls, just as she had been doing at the start.

As she sat down to work again, she squeaked in pain as something sharp dug in to the bottom of her leg. Getting to her knees quickly, she patted her pockets and felt something; going in to retrieve the mystery item, she pulled out a key. Ah yes, the key she had brought up from the fishing pond when she had been collecting food. Realising the item was not alien, she relaxed. She laid it in the palm of her hand and studied it closely: it was tiny, minuscule even. And it had an eerie engraving on it, though she couldn't make it out for the life of her. It was so difficult to see anything, only aided by the gentle, quivering light of her torch. She shrugged ambiguously and put it back into her pocket; she saw no point in throwing it out as much as keeping it... so why not keep it anyway? It saved losing an item, even if that item turned out to be useless in the end.

Faintly, she heard Wilson's Science Machine give a buzz of activity, but paid it no heed. Until she felt some kind of hat on her head.

"What is this?" she questioned, as she looked up to see Wilson's hair flattened and mining hat on his head. Realisation dawned on her. She had to have the same thing on.

"I am all for working on this... base-home... place, but I am starving. So, so hungry." he frowned and he touched his hand to her head, switching the bright light of the helmet on. He blinked rapidly, shielding his eyes once more. The amount of times he had done that that very day was astounding! "Whenever the day comes, you can just switch it off to preserve energy. The button is here," he stopped and touched it, and the girl jumped as her world slipped to darkness quickly. He then turned it back on, grinning a somewhat cheeky grin.

"C'mon, let's get out there."

"Wh-What...? R-Right now?"

"Yes." he smirked coolly. "Right now."

X x

Next chapter will have some dark'n'light action so stay tuned. I really wanted to clear up methods of getting to Maxwell's world before I progressed any further. So yeah. But hey, their "home" is coming along nicely! Also, Whimsy's method of getting there hosts importance now – it's why the story isn't explained very well; because I have a plot device coming up that involves it directly, if all goes to plan.

So, please review! I hope you enjoyed! :)

~Jess~