Location: 8°58'29.26"N 83°07'09.06"W

Time since asteroid impact 3 Years 4 months 2 days


Letting out a long sigh, Henry responded. "Would you like the simple, or complicated answer?"

"What does that even mean?" Negev questioned, "You know what, never mind that. Simple answer first."

The walking continued, though a tad slower than before. "If you insist. Russel, is my brother." He had spoken casually, or was it coldly, there was a blur between the two in his voice.

Negev abruptly stopped at that instant, as well as Pelias and even Spot, "Hang on, you've never mentioned him before. Is this some kind of joke?"

"You wanted the simple answer and I gave you it. Russel's my bother and that's that." Even though Henry was still continuing on forward, Negev soon made a stop to that.

"We're not gonna get closer to Clawtooth until you tell what's with you and this Russel guy." Negev had raised his tone, but what ever effect he was looking for Henry showed no signs of it. Instead, Henry begun to move around the sauropod as if he were merely a lone tree.

"Are you even listening?" Negev celled out, but to no avail.

To Negev, Henry wasn't even acknowledging them. Even Spot had made a small noise to call out to him, no response either.

"Henry?" Henry stopped at Pelias' voice, turning around to look at the three of them. "Did something happen between you and Russel?"

Negev looked to see any reaction, just in time to see Henry flinch at the question. "Why are you lot so stubborn to know everything about me?" The cold tone had evaporated, replaced by a mix of confusion and annoyance.

"Because, you are a mystery of mysteries. First with you and your family, your location, then all of these weird places we kept going to, and now you're telling us there's more to your family than what you've told us."

"It's more than that, Negev." Pelias spoke up, forcing the other three to listen. "I don't understand what you mean by 'weird places'- but Henry, Negev, as you two may already know the border is designed to allow those to pass through. what you may not have thought about is the fact that it's a two-way system. Those from the north can come south just as easily as those from the south can come to the north. Before the sky mountain hit, the amount coming from the north matched equally with those from the south. Not too long after however, we received almost no one from the north."

Negev fumed to face Pelias more directly. "But they could have just gone to Oykot."

"That's what we initially thought too, but there are places where going south is much easier off. Oykot isn't the only big hub you know? Anyways, eventually we had gotten word of what was going on, both directly and indirectly. That mountain had a much greater impact up north than it down south, cases of massive waves going further inland than was thought possible, along with more powerful quakes, extreme heat waves, a pounding shock wave and a destructive blast wave. All of which could only be avoided by those on high enough ground as well as shielded."

Pelias took a breath or two before continuing, "Henry, You are the only case where more than an individual has survived in a single spot. At this rate, all of your family are alive. Which brings me onto the topic I was about to raise. Before any of you had come over, we at the border received notice from Oykot concerning two kids that arrived on the same day that had come from the same location."

"Clawtooth?"

"You guessed it. They didn't specify any names, and I have no doubt now that they're the Arlo and Verena you mentioned earlier. However, when I learned further on what procedure would occur with the two, I decided personally to allow the ones mentioned in the transcript. I believe I wasn't the only one who had seen the transcript either; as Russel, Ramsey and Nash had been let through as well."

Henry spoke not a word after, "They're up north as you said right? We can get there and meet up with them."

"One step at a time, Henry." Pelias said, "Don't you want to know what happened to Oykot?"

Negev and Henry raised a concerned look to each other, before looking back at Pelias, "We learned not even a week ago that Oykot has been destroyed, Iron Mountain erupted like a volcano, more so than any typical kind. Reports came in that something inside triggered the initial eruption, but others say that a deep quake had caused it to become powerful enough to reach the city. While there isn't too much about any survivors, I haven't an idea whether or not Arlo and Verena made it out from its reach."

"If it's any luck with your family, I have a funny feeling they escaped before the eruption. Clawtooth's the only way we can know for sure, and that city that most of your family is in is not even a week from here. Lets go!" Negev responded, Henry looked down to Spot, who by now was giving him a warm smile. Not knowing if Spot could even understand the conversation, Henry took it as reassurance. They all hastened then way up north, parallel to the mountains on the right, taking no less than 5 days for the divided city to even become visible.

Searching all around the place, they kindly asked anyone they could find. Most would respond with a description of either one side of the group or the other, and never the two halves combined; a frustration for the four of them. All day they had gone back and forth throughout the city, everyone kept telling them the places that they stayed, but with each look and second look and so on, no one seemed to live in those rooms anymore.

Having a hard time, Henry and the others had almost completed their sweep through the whole place, "This is hopeless, if Ida, Buck, Libby, Russel and the others are not here then who knows where they could be?" Henry called out, mostly to himself and the others. They all knew it was rhetorical, by this point no one could give them anything to go along.

"They're probably beyond the northern border by now!" An unfamiliar voice called out from around the corner of a relatively small farm house. Walking around, the Stego lifted his head up to look at them all. "Buck came over to me to collect some of these Skullcap plants stating that his friend had become quite cranky, and even asked him to find some. I had given him less than the recommended amount, and he then offered me food as payment."

"Do you know what happened after he left?" Henry asked in a hurriedly fashion. The farmer chucked before continuing, "I take it you're his father, Henry was it? Anyways, curiosity got the better of me when I heard the commotion in time to hear a lot about their current situation. They headed on out north more than three weeks ago."

Pelias came up to Henry with a concerned look, "Henry, we know now that they're headed to the same destination, and that they're all still alive after all this. Let's not waste time and get up to speed with them!"

"Look, thank you so much for telling us this, you really didn-"

The farmer interrupted Henry, "No need to thank me, hope things work out between you when you reunite. Safe travels!"

Though Henry and Pelias left the farmer, Negev stayed put, getting the farmer's attention. "Is there something you need, uh..."

"You can call me Negev, and I don't exactly need anything. I'm just wondering, did you hear everything they said?" Negev responded, glancing back every now and then to see if the others had noticed his lack of movement. The farmer seemed to know what Negev was referring to and so changed demeanor to a more serious look.

"Do you want me to try and remember everything I heard from them?"

Negev quickly responded, "No no no, I just want to know about what happened between Henry and Russel. A quick rundown would be better." Once more did he look back, it appeared that the apatosaur and sauropod had begun conversing with each other, he couldn't tell what. That was when he felt something beside him, only to look down and see that Spot had not gone with them. Instead he looked at Negev with a concerned look.

"Don't worry Spot, I'm getting to the bottom of what Henry's hiding. You just wait Henry, you just wait."


Audio Message #29: Subject Member 3 - aka Henry - has traveled 183 miles (296 Km's). With a little bit of new knowledge of Henry's background, it appears as though at least two of Henry's friends are going to figure out the rest of what they currently don't know. It also appears as if Pelias has not yet been informed of the odd events that Negev, Henry and Spot have been through before meeting him. With this, I suspect that their relationship are going to be put to the test. All that settled aside, his current survival rating is at a 4.2 out of 5.

End of message.


A/N: So... here I am... after what? Over a year now? Jeez I didn't expect this story to take this long. When I first started this story I thought I would be done in a month, and like the Authors Notes say, Uni time became a major part of my life, and it will be again soon. And then 2020 came by... BOI was I was not prepared to have my time suddenly become free. After a few weeks however, things became much easier to handle. So, why haven't I released any chapters in all of these months? Well in actuality, I've been writing these chapters, but keeping them until the time for when I've finished this story.

As such, I've finished all the remaining chapters, and will post them one at a time each day.

And I wanted to write in my own time, not on a schedule. As such, the quality and length of these chapters will vary, and it's because of how things were in real life at the time of writing each chapter. Yes it's too slow for a story that has already begun, but this is a practice I will carry over to my next and final story, but more on that in another chapter ;)

Next chapter: Falltain's Crater

Fun Facts: N/A