Part 3: The Renegades

VALENTINE

Note: First of all, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! I feel I should mention this because the overall story here isn't rated M, but this particular Part in Epidemic has a few more graphic scenes and tons of naughty language. Tons for a rated T story-it's all relative, basically.

Second, as you're reading, the chronology might throw you off. To avoid that, I'll go ahead and say that this all takes place right at the dawning of the Wave. I didn't spell out the setting clearly. Hopefully, if you're a stricter reader, you'll skim over my notes and figure it out on your own. Otherwise, I feel condescending. xD Oops. Sorry. :3

That's all I'll say for now. Enjoy the madness~!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pocket Monsters! (They'd keep eating holes in my pants.)

There was yelling and screaming.

All of the yelling came from the humans and all of the screaming from the blighted. There were sounds I that I'd never thought I would hear on our streets and in our houses. Allegedly, how I thought or felt never mattered, and I had always preferred it that way. It was seldom I hadn't the means necessary to make things the way I wanted them to be. Where my name gave people chills for some pathetic reason, I could barely get to my feet anymore. These days were rougher than Valentine was willing to step outside to see tainted sunlight or poison rain. I was nothing anymore, like a brown, shriveled leaf on the ground. That's what you felt like if you were in your right mind. You felt small. Maybe you were going to become small, and then you'd be eaten by your neighbors and your friends for being something that they didn't want walking among them.

There was so much yelling. I wanted to hear it all, and I did, but it did nothing to make me move. I knew the first movement it should've goaded out of me was to lift my arms and hands over my ears, but I needed to listen to every terrible thing said between friend and family, peer and teacher, worker and worker. It was gasoline. I was empty. I wanted to go, but nothing lifted me from my seat by the window, with the last of the sun filtering through, dust and particulate, all of the streaks sifted through the canopy above Orion Avenue.

Cars passed, some too slow, some too fast. Some didn't belong here, and some hadn't moved from here for some time. There were always police cars in the mix, some hiding and more moving along, searching for people dubbed animals by logic of the outbreak. Occasionally, those animals passed right in front of the house, running or flying away from the things behind them. Rarely did anything give chase on foot, were it not another blight victim.

I slouched, my arms crossing as a huff escaped my nose. The dining room chair creaked. I didn't take my eyes from the window, and for a moment, there was nothing there. No one ran through the streets. No car or truck or van raced by. All of the noises drifted off. I lost interest. The chair creaked when I pushed myself to my feet, a palm on the windowsill. After I stood, I looked at the back of my hand. My knuckles were white. I turned my hand over. My palm was red, with subtle indentations where my fingers pressed into. My quiet eyes gave the windowsill a scan; this was the place where the dust settled. There was a print of my hand, and another, and another. I turned away, leaving the chair, an audience of none.

In the restroom, I met my eyes in the mirror. They were cold, amber, feral. I ran my hands through the water as though it stung, flicking droplets into the sink before twisting the knob to stop the flow. I didn't dry my hands. Back straight, I perused my reflection in the mirror, dotted with water spots. My hair, black as oil, was getting longer. Strands touched my shoulders. I grimaced.

I placed my hands against the counter and leaned into my arms, averting my attention from the mirror. There was a long, misshapen blotch on my wrist, like a puddle of red. It was always there, and I found comfort in it. That was all I needed, so I let it sit itself in my chest and stir.

I walked to my room. For once, the floor was everywhere, not a paper or a book or a weight or barbell to be seen. My bed was made, red covers flat over white sheets. Ditch was coiled on top of the pillow sloppily. I walked up to the bed and sat down, looking at Ditch. I couldn't see his face, but I knew it was there, smiling because he had no other choice. I found his tail and touched it, lifting it between my finger and thumb. I pulled him onto my lap, unraveling him like a big cotton noodle. I lay Ditch over my legs, his head touching my waist. His pattern was wearing out, green color fading into white. I grasped his head and pointed it toward me. There was the smile. I returned it, leaning in with a kiss to his fuzzy snout.

You're a damn mess. And you know it.

I had always given Ditch a voice, but today I let my cobra sleep. I put him back onto the pillow, carefully guiding his tail in a circle so that he could be comfortable and warm. His body was still soft, but it was growing stiff and more difficult to bend. He was old, but he was still my baby.

My closet had been rolled open. There weren't as many clothes as there used to be. I was told I wouldn't need them soon. I kept the sweaters and a few shirts, as well as the black, sleeveless gi from mixed martial arts, and the belts I had accumulated over my life. I looked down. I was wearing a dark gray tube top—nothing special. My jeans were pale blue, because too much black gave me the wrong image. I shouldn't have given a care, but goth was something I'd no interest in.

I was dressed for the heat, but I knew the air outside was cool and fetid.

"Kat?" My father called from the hall. Voice aside, I knew who he was as soon as he dropped the remainder of my name. No one called me Kat. No one but him and any exceptions along the way. "You still around?"

"As a matter of fact, I am." I answered, quiet, half expecting the dearest fool to ask his question again; though, he didn't. Instead, he replied with footsteps, boot-covered footfalls against hardwood floor. He stopped at my door, a palm on its surface.

"He's not getting up, you know." Lee grumbled. I shot him a glare.

"You don't know that." I said.

"Neither do you."

"I know him, Lee. I know him. He's-"

"Makes no difference. He's got limits like you and I. You're upset. I understand wholly."

"There is no one else in this goddamn town like him."

"Makes the claim right there. We need to leave. We're leaving tonight."

"We're not leaving." I growled, pushing my fist into the bed.

"Hey, you're more rational than this. Neither you nor I want to split hairs over the only thing we can control in a bigger mess of things we can't." He stopped, leaning into the door with his arm raised above his head, elbow pushing the door into the wall. I gave him a brief glance.

Lee was a burly man, towering at somewhere around six feet and some-ten-or-eleven-inches. He had the same eyes as me, if not a shade darker, with a pointed goatee guilty of gray hairs. His head was shaved, or recovering from such, with a couple scars hidden in the fuzz. The guy's head was as jaded and square a head could get, a box with cheeks and a nose that's felt a few punches and maybe a bat or a crowbar. Like father, like daughter: We dressed with the same color in mind. He stuck to leather jackets and patched black pants from all of the exhaust burns on his Harley, torn black boots with misshapen soles. The gearhead, like all of them, reeked of smoke and some hint of propane—all two hundred fourty-five pounds of the big biker.

"He'll wake up, Kat, but you gotta ask yourself different questions here: Where is he by now? What is he by now?" He added, his presence at my doorway becoming more awkward than informative or comforting—whatever he wanted from it. Still, I gave the questions some thought, if any. As I did that, it stung like all hell, because they were the questions I would've asked myself in any other situation, for a placeholder—anyone but the guy I actually felt sympathy and concern for. I wasn't afraid to admit that. Uncomfortable, maybe, but that was another problem.

One of us would not leave this hometown without the other. That was the vow. As the days passed, it got heavier on our shoulders. It hadn't ever gotten to the point where we couldn't carry it. And right now, I was about to lob it away. The shit about it was that it made the most sense out of all the other options.

Lee told me to pack whatever would fit into one suitcase. I went through clothing like it was obligatory, pulling tops and leggings from their hangers and hurling them over my shoulder. I froze once I reached my gi. Again, I watched the back of my palm, my eyes shifting between my knuckles and the burn on my wrist. I skipped the gi, grabbing a few wool scarfs and tossing them to the bedpost. My hand got caught on something in mid-motion and I cursed. I squeezed my wrist with the available hand, opening my palm as though that was where I took the hit. It was right on the burn, a proper whack. I shook it off.

I turned to see what mess I'd made, before realizing that I likely hadn't a need for this many clothes, or clothes at all, seeing as how the common trend was for people to leave them on the streets and run away. That could be me. I had just as well a chance to "turn" as anyone else, but at least I could've said I wasn't to be caught catching the flu in my gi. I knew the honor game. It was a bitch to play, but when you won, you wanted to keep playing; it was probably like most things.

The dusty mahogany dresser would've been my next destination had I not lost interest in the activity—whatever you wanted to call it. I left the room after what felt and probably was an hour of standing by the window and looking at the weeds in our backyard. I couldn't see what their purpose was. I didn't think they were important.

I was in the kitchen. Lee was there, pulling the chair from the dining room window and sliding it underneath the table, wood scraping against linoleum. He kept telling me to wash my hands and I did, but only after the last time he said so. I did it to keep him quiet, because he was panicked. I had no trouble outing my own fear. It didn't show how other people wanted it to. It was a bit different and involved a victim of physical exertion.

Lee went into the garage and I felt obligated to follow, but stopped when the garage door closed on me. Next to it was a stand with two small, framed pictures. I found myself looking at one of them, with the other in my peripheral. It was me, groomed up for my first class of karate, naïve, young, clumsy. It looked like I should've still been learning to walk. Next to that picture was my mom. I never talked about her. She was mythical, nothing but a ghost in frozen color. The picture frame meant more than me than a phantom, but this phantom was still worth being framed to begin with.

The front door was feet from me. And then it was inches. Then my fingers were wrapped around the handle, thumb pressing the bolt lever. I opened it and took a breath. The air was still as cold as I remembered, and there was the smell of pond water, algae and oak; October had its way of greeting Autumnridge. I stepped off of the raised slab of concrete before the door, closing it behind me, and walked to the porch's single column, leaning into it. There were bees hovering around the display of wilting plants near me. I furrowed my eyebrows at them. It felt like they didn't belong, at least not here and now, and it made the next breath I took feel colder, fresher. Maybe I was like the autumn bee. I gave it quick regard, then threw it aside. There were screams off elsewhere.

I stepped further from the porch, all the way out to the driveway. My dad's neglected truck was here, red paint flaking away. He always told me it looked much better on the inside. Somehow, I believed him. I climbed up to the tailgate section, a foot on the wheel outcropping, hoisting myself over. The truck bounced with my landing. From here, I sat on the ridge, one leg hanging over the side and the other against the old fiberglass. Both of my hands grasped the ridge of the tailgate wall. I spectated Orion Avenue closer than I'd anticipated. I didn't really know why I came out here.

A few cars came by. The drivers were human. One of them looked at me. He got whatever he made of my eyes as a response. Where to, I thought. Anywhere but here? This thing was already spreading and you weren't safe until you crossed water. But I didn't know anything about the blight, so my thoughts meant dirt.

The infected already ran Autumnridge, as much as the cops wanted them out. The only problem was that they were both here first, so the territory question hadn't really a place here. I lifted my gaze to the trees arching over Orion, creating a tunnel of leaves and wood, like a wonderland where nature felt comfortable enough to hug us, or pin us down, I couldn't really tell. There were screams in the distance again. I looked down and shuddered. And then I heard the rotor blades of a chopper, slicing and hacking wind. A siren blared. The noises were all abuzz, everything unleashed at once. A bee flew near my face. I swiped at it, but it persisted. The chopper flew directly overhead, and I couldn't tell where the bee was.

I grunted, leaping from the truck and stomping my way back to the porch. There was a cry behind me, drowned out by the blades above. The atmosphere was loud. My skull was shaking. I pushed the front door open, and the cry got louder than the blades. I turned around.

"HELP ME!" She bawled, the pink blur swerving to my face, eyes watering, then bolting beside me, her small body worming its way through the gap between the door and its frame. I hadn't the time to make any sense of the creature's face, aside from her bright eyes and her loud, pink patterns. I looked into the house and swallowed spit. My mind failed to register the footsteps on the walkway. There was a hand at my shoulder. It was covered with thick leather. The fingers squeezed near my neck.

Before I saw his face, I grabbed his wrist and pushed his arm above my own head, attempting to swerve around him. But there was another one there, and he stopped me with a palm to my chest, pushing me away.

You fucking idiot, Valentine.

"She's potential." One of them said, heads covered with masks that looked like nothing like a human face. "Get her to the van. I'll get the lizard." He ordered. I coughed, and suddenly my arms were behind my back, my nose pushed against the porch's column. I gritted my teeth together, grinding, growling.

"What in the shit are you doing?!" I roared, jerking my shoulders at one-second intervals. I felt the nose of the mask touching at the back of my head. The man was there, holding me. He was stronger than me. I had to use his movement against him, but he wasn't moving, dammit, he wasn't moving. The other raced by us, shoulder slamming the door open, a cylindrical device in his arms, held like a rifle.

"Get the fuck off of my daughter." Lee warned through his teeth, but the warning fell short of time. I saw something silver go by, and I heard a crack. I was pulled with the man as he fell backward. His grasp on my arms was lost to the blow. I turned, pulling myself up to the column with one arm. The man was against the ground, laying on his back, with my father over him. In two hands was a tire iron. "Go. Now. Leave!" He barked. I saw the masked man fumble, hands reaching for something clunky at his waist. I bit my lip, a foot crashing down on his wrists. He hollered for backup. I glared through his mask. Barefoot though I was, I knew he felt the surge. I knew that it hurt for them when there was hurt for you. "Kat. What's happening?"

"Inside!" I answered, giving Lee all context and no verbiage. I hadn't imagined he saw the other by now.

"Get inside!" He commanded of me, likely thinking it best I get somewhere safe. Quite the opposite, Lee. I obeyed what he spat, hurrying through the door and into the hall after catching no glimpse of a man in the living room. Darting passed my room, I saw him there, throwing things aside, yelling for someone to come out. In my room. My fucking room. I stepped inside and threw myself forward as silent as snowfall, getting low, both hands reaching for his ankles. I pulled his legs out from underneath him and he fell forward, pump rifle flying ahead. His head hit the floor. His legs already started to move, but I stepped on one ankle and punted the other into the dresser. It gave a crack, and he replied with nasty words. I lurched forward, grabbing the back of his head and shoving it into the floor. His elbow struck me in the side. I winced, and reached for his belt. I had my hand around what his comrade tried to retrieve—no clue what it was. I pulled it from the holster and pressed it into his neck. It was yellow with black plating near its barrel. I held it like a gun and I pulled the trigger and there was a howl. His body twitched violently. I heard clicking. Then there was no motion. He was limp, barely responsive.

I threw the stun gun to the wall. I knew he wouldn't be down for long, so I took his ankles again and dragged him through the room. His uniform got caught on the thumbtacks separating my floor from the hardwood. I jerked forward, and his groan became a low whimper. The tack cut a gash in his chest. I dragged him across the floor, to the front door. Lee was still here. He saw me bring the man outside, and I saw the other seated against the wall, his head hanging to one side, then moving to the other. He was concussed.

"Good goddamn, Kat." My father huffed, the tire iron held in one hand. "What'd you do to 'im?"

"Stunner. How long do I have?" I asked, one of my eyes half-closed, stomach in knots.

"What? We have to leave now. These guys will bring-"

"No, dammit, how long do I have?"

"You have as much time as I do."

"What the hell does that even mean? She touched me. I'm infected."

"What?" He squinted. There was a figure on the sidewalk who stopped to look at us. He was little, four-legged, and wore bands of black around his face. I saw only one of his eyes, revealed through a purposeful hole in the dark colored bandages. Half of his body was light blue and the other half dark gray or black. He had a thin tail with a yellow star at the end of it. His legs were wide for his body.

"Get away from them!" Exclaimed the creature. His attention appeared elsewhere, on our lawn, as if watching another figure. But there was no figure there. I looked to the lawn to ensure this. I was wrong. There was a someone there. It was a boy I knew. When I looked back, the creature on the sidewalk was gone.

"What are you?" I heard my father ask. There was fear and fascination clouding his throat. I wanted to answer him, because his voice was thrown to me. "What? What do you... Blessing?" He kept asking. He was stammering now, looking like less of a man by the second.

"Lee? Lee." I repeated, my arms held out to my father as if to question his motives. He never looked at me. "Dad!" I snapped. For a split-second, those eyes struck mine. But they moved right back to the lawn. As did mine. There was nothing here. Moments prior, I saw an unmasked identity wearing a gray hoodie and ripped denims. I knew who that was, but now he was gone, like an apparition. Uncertainty.

I put my hand on his forearm and tugged it. The tire iron fell to the sidewalk with a loud clang. It nearly missed my foot. I stepped away from him, eyes widened by the absence of character in his own. He was hypnotized, or possessed. I didn't know. There was nothing to his face but skin and a name. I pulled him inside, his legs only cooperating because they knew he would've fallen otherwise. The hair on his arm was standing on end and he had goosebumps. This wasn't bullshit. That kind of body language wasn't to be faked.

Once inside, I closed the door and locked it. Lee was stuck facing the same direction he had been outside. He was swaying to the left, to the right, to the left again. I thought he would fall. Then, all at once, as though it were orchestrated, the three screamed. I heard the muffled yells through the door, soon muzzled by the cacophony near me. I stepped back, then back again, as my dad reached for his scalp and began to pull. He reached his ears. When he pulled them, there was a reaction. They grew longer, but seemed to move closer to the top of his skull. I lifted an arm, mouth agape, and looked away.

There was a quick motion. He fell to his knees, and his hands were on the floor. I continued to back away, a hand now over half of my face and another over one of my ears, but the other still made clear the orchestra of shifting bones and broken crying. My father's form was distorted, shrunken, with his clothes becoming too large for him, sagging over. Two pointed objects protruded from where his head probably still was. They were black and had yellow rings engraved within. They looked like ears. I could only see the movement of his attire in accordance to the way his body wanted to position itself, his arms in front of his chest and thinning out, a similar thing happening to his legs. His hands lost a lot of detail, before sinking into his sleeves, turning black. I couldn't hear his voice anymore.

He was finally still, blanketed by his shell of black leather and fabric. The fabric appeared to pulse subtly, jerking at the sound of light coughs. He was breathing. I was breathing. He and I were breathing the same air, and he was infected. But I should've been first.

"Dad?" I quipped feebly, still averting my gaze. My head ached, and my chest was tight. It grew tighter at the lack of a response.

We were quiet like death. My hand slipped down my cheek, chest, side and waist, stopping at my thigh with a brief swing of my arm. There came another cough from the pile of clothing. I wanted to remove it. I failed to. I moved away, backing up until something pink floated passed my cheek. I batted at it but missed, closing my eyes and breaking into a run for my room. I didn't close the door, but I should have.

"Wait!" She said. "Wait, I'm sorry! I'm sorry." I heard her voice get louder, but calmer. She was close to me. I looked at her and heaved, thrusting my arm forward and grasping the thing around where her neck seemed to be—her body was just one big tail. I shoved her against the wall, a fist raised, prompted to strike. I wanted to. So badly. I wanted to slam her against this wall over and over.

"You will be." I whispered, squeezing her, pulling her from the wall, bringing the thing closer to my face. She had a long snout and small lips from which a forked tongue slipped through to taste the air, frightened. Her eyes were big and baby blue, arranged on either side of her snout. Those shiny orbs were watching me, pointed ahead. She had long eyelashes, or maybe they were markings near each eye. Even from a distance of a few inches, it was hard to tell.

I loosened my grip. She was shaking and sobbing. The creature, no longer than two feet from nose to the end of her tail, had a cluster of hair strands close to her forehead, sticking up and bending back. They appeared soft, despite being the same color as her scaly body. There were two quills behind the hair which stood up similarly, thicker, appearing as ears, highlighted sky blue at the tip. Behind these were spinier quills that drooped down her serpentine back, stopping midway down.

I lowered my fist, fingers relaxing. She was still crying. She never looked away from me. The floating snake had arms—I guess kind of contradictory. They were slender and feminine, with sharp, fingerless hands and a branching appendage acting as a thumb. Like her quills, her arms ended in bright blue, the darkest points at the back of her hands. Finally, that pattern of hers separated a white underbelly and mouth from a pink back. The pattern was a visible line, curved like fire flowing down each of her sides, all the way to her tail tip.

I let her go. She flew to my bed, burrowing beneath the blankets and shivering. I saw her tail—her lower body, I guess—sticking out. Ditch was a little messed up, slanting off of the pillow. I blinked. Two snakes: one was a flying pink thing and the other a plush cobra, both in my bed, in my room.

I stood in the pile of clothing and sulked, head low, eyes closed, waiting. I was ruined, running out of time. I looked at the digital clock at my nightstand, broken green lines turning a different shape.

My head pounded. I left the room. Lee was free from his prison of leather, wriggling his hind legs free from the pants. He saw me and paused.

"No, Kat. Don't look at me." He said.

"You're okay." I told him. He broke in before I could finish.

"It's not good—it's not okay." He stuttered back. He appeared canid, like a jackal, with a yellow ellipse on each of his legs and a similar colored ring around his tail. His eyes were a shady maroon, like blood. "He's a god."

"Who? What're you—what?!"

"Laza." He preached.

"Who the hell is Laza?"

There was no answer. Instead, there was banging at the door, then yelling. The commands were swift and gave no room for an alternative. They were like gunshots. My ears hurt. The door let the light through, and there was a pop. Something whizzed by and snatched Lee, entangling him. He fought, but he was netted, and couldn't find a way out. He bit at the rope. Three masked men came in after him, reaching for the notch at one end of the netting and pulling, dragging my father away. It was so easy for them.

Their masks never turned toward me. Their voices, curses and orders, faded off with the footfalls against the walkway. My jaw remained heavy, as I darted to the front door, a large black van parked near the driveway. The three men were loading things into the back. One of them was my father. The other two were infected. I looked down. There was clothing, masks, weapons. Everyone was infected. Everyone was sick.

There were seconds of disagreement, and then the vehicle was moving. Its tires screeched, leaving behind a smoldering mark in the road. I walked forward until stepping off of the raised ledge. I sat down on it, knees bent, arms crossed atop them.

"I go outside for a minute, and..." I hesitated, looking ahead, my watch locked on the spot I last saw Lee. "You're telling me that's all it takes?"

The sun began to flee. The sky's color became a dirty turqoise.

Everything was all too cyclical. One day, a man came into my parents' house and took them away because they were bad. Another day, I didn't have a mother, and my father changed. Then, another day after that, my brother went away because the sky wasn't blue enough for him here. I hadn't heard from him again. Then, a later day, my father changed again, and men came into our house to take him away. I wasn't getting the big picture yet. I needed something to hit or strike or smite me. Me. ME. Not my father or my should-be mother or my has-been brother. I touched that thing. I was sick now. I was blighted, ready to turn. Fuck ME over. Not someone else. Bite me, see how I'd take it.

But you didn't. Did you, "Laza"?

Whoever you were. You didn't. I still sat here as a human. I was still Valentine. Just a sick Valentine. I hung my head like it was waterlogged. There was a loud screech and a crash somewhere and I lifted my head again. There was a hanging boy in front of me, hovering above the ground, translucent. His body was limp, suspended, and I couldn't see the noose around his neck, but I knew who the boy was. He had the gray hoodie and the ripped jeans, muddy hair hanging over his face like a curtain I couldn't see through, despite his transparency. He didn't have a face, but he didn't need that—I knew who he was.

There were no sounds for a moment, then there was heartbeat buried beneath skin. My chest pumped with the heartbeat, but it wasn't my heart. I was heartless, but there was a spot in my chest that still stung like fire and compression; the squeezing was merciless.

He was hung. There was no motion. His corpse just hovered above the concrete, and all the things behind him became darker the longer I looked at his chest, searching for a heart. I pushed myself to my feet. As I did, the world became taller, like it wanted me to be smaller, tiny, a nut or a bolt.

"Cruce.," I spoke. "Is not dead. Don't show me this. Get away from me." I approached the ghost, swiping at it as though it were a swarm of gnats. My hand failed to make contact. It passed through like nothing was here. I ground my teeth together and kept swiping, kept swiping, swiping, jabbing, punching. Wisps of colored air followed the motion of my hands as they passed through him. That heartbeat grew louder, and my chest clenched, ribs curling around my lungs and the heart he gave me. "Go AWAY. GET AWAY! GET AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed, mixing my voice with the others of the blight.

I fell and shrieked, fetal, hugging my knees to my chest. I felt warm, but soaked. I was bleeding, the fluid of my being oozing through my back, through my top, pooling around me, while the pain in my chest branched away. It went to my arms and my legs and my spine, finally my throat, where my scream became a muffled gargle, all the light of the outdoors fading around me.

I heard my name.

I was seated on the front porch, looking into the street. Frenetic, I turned my head toward the lawn and scanned the surrounding area. There was nothing—no, there was an infection victim escaping, but I didn't know him or her. I planted a hand to my chest, beneath my breasts. It reassured me I had my humanity. I coughed a couple times as a result of the hit I'd made. My eyes watered. I wiped them with a fist. I heard my name again. The voice was feminine. I forced myself to my feet, deja vu flickering by like a film.

"Kat!" She hollered from inches behind me. I scowled at the noise. There were plenty of things in this world that bothered me, irked me, made me want to punch a wall... Yeah, that was one of them. No one called me Kat.

"Don't." I spun around, pointing at the floating snake's mouth. "Do not. Call me. Kat."

"O-okay, sure..." She sulked, leaning back, her tail tip pointing forward. "I heard you scream."

"I didn't scream." I said. I felt the heartbeat again. It seemed to skip once.

"You screamed, because you saw him, didn't you?" She persisted.

"I saw nothing. Go away."

"You did see him. Don't lie." She pestered. I took a moment to respond, because there was something worth considering beyond the irritation. I hated to admit it, but the girl knew something that might've been useful. That made her, likewise, useful. I wouldn't say helpful, but useful. I lifted an eyebrow, apathy across my face.

"Why do you know my name?" I asked—not asked, but demanded an answer.

"Oh, I-" She appeared to hiccup—something like that. It was more of a random squeak. She was stalling. "I know you from somewhere. L-look, that's not important; you saw him. That means you're like me."

"I don't even know who you are."

"I'm Mah... Muh... mmm..." The girl turned away, eyes fixed at something above, with a small hand under her snout, rubbing. "Mmmmm... Maaarrr... ruh... rius?"

I just stared at her.

"I'm Marius?"

"Are you for real?" I queried, arms crossed. I was losing faith, which was a better sign than one may have thought. To lose something, you had to've had it to start with, so... "Quit wasting time."

"I'm not wasting time, hey? I'm... I wanna come with you."

"Excuse me?" I mused, trying not to sound too polite, because why should I? She made a request with more gravity than the goddamn sun.

"I want to come with you, Kat-k-Katalyn... lyn, yeah..."

"No."

"Wha...?"

"No. I do things on my own, and we're not exactly on good terms. You jacked things up. So go. Really. Go."

"I don't wanna. I don't want to see him on my own. He's scary."

"Get out of my way..." I sighed, pushing my way through her. Well, she was smart enough to actually move aside before that. But she followed me. I could practically feel the pest behind me, tongue poking out like it was at the back of my neck. I made a beeline for my room, searching through the pile of clothing on the floor for a piece of clothing I rarely left home without. I picked the red wool scarf up and then tossed it onto the bed, pulling up a casual purple sweater, a single black stripe across the torso. After tugging that over my arms and head. I kicked at the ground, moving the net rifle aside, and revealing a pair of worn down leather boots. I crouched to the floor to lace them up.

"He's gonna come back, hey, and he's going to scare you again." She said. I scoffed.

"'Scare me'. That's funny, kid." I dismissed, pulling the blood band of wool over my face, concealing not only the length of my neck but my lips as well, making a tuck at the front so that the excess of the scarf descended my chest. "You know my name, but you've got no idea who I am."

"I feel like you're the kind of girl I should know."

"You want to know something? Here's a start:" I began closing the distance between the floating girl and I, a finger poking under her chin. "I don't take 'help'. From anyone."

"I-I'm not helping you. I'm asking for your help." She mumbled, tongue wriggling out afterward, uncomfortable.

"I don't have time for you." I stated, spinning around, moving away from her and walking to the doorway. I stopped and face the hall, hands balling into fists. "Cruce isn't dead. I'm going to prove that. And then I'm getting my father back." I turned my head, showing one half of my face to the snake. "Stay out of my way, and we might just get along. I can't promise you'll enjoy any of it."

I left the house, the breeze warmer, carrying the scent of ash. I knew that she followed me. She did it because she was scared, and anyone else seemed somehow less trustworthy. Somehow, I didn't blame her. Somehow, I thought she was making a good choice. Somehow, I knew her.

…

I found a girl who might be able to help me, but she's scary. She thinks I infected her father, but I didn't know I could do that.

There's a ghost who goes by the name of Laza that people become obsessed with when they see, and then, shortly after, they transform into those creatures that are running around, being captured by people called 'authorities'.

This girl I met didn't become hypnotized with Laza. She saw something and became scared. No one else but us could hear the scream she made. I'm sure of it. Because no one heard me when I screamed. There was a sleeping boy there, but he didn't wake up.

This girl says she wants to make sure Cruce is alive. I want to say I know Cruce, just like how I know Kat... Katalyn. She hates being called Kat.

But that's why I remember her.

...

-Umbreon