I actually wrote three chapters in advance and then sort of stopped, unsure how to go on. Then I decided 'what the heck' and pulled them up here. Maybe I'll actually finish this story someday. And god these attempts at drama fail sooooo bad.

The facility was too familiar. Depressingly familiar. Even more depressing was how they quickly fell into their old ruts again, as if they had never left.

Though it seemed the other monsters had forgotten about freedom (even Link), Ginormica couldn't tear her mind away from the idea. After all, she had been free only a few days before, and it hadn't even been a month when she had had a regular life. The others' hopes had been tempered by time. It didn't stop the giantess from bringing up the topic.

While Link and B.O.B. were playing one of their many card games (with Insecto assisting, of course), Susan sat near Dr. Cockroach, who was working on…something.

"We need something like a…a…an uncharted island, uninhabited too, something like that. A place nobody could ever find, where we could hide."

"No island stays uncharted for long, my dear," said the doctor, testing the flexibility of a wire.

Susan scrunched up her face for a short while. "You could make some kind of…thing that could block satellites and divert ships and planes. You make lots of stuff like that," she pointed out. The cockroach-man didn't say a thing. "So you could build that. And since it's an island, Link would have a lot of room to swim, and there would be fish for him to eat. And maybe you could make a lab in the volcano - "

"That seems unpleasantly dangerous."

"Okay, what if it was a dormant volcano?"

"A mountain would be better, really."

"Fine, you could build a lab in a mountain. And the island would be big, so Insecto will have enough room to walk around…"

"Won't food be a problem for both of you? And you do realize we won't be able to supply you with any shampoo or a place to shower?" Susan puzzled over this for a while, which gave the doctor adequate time to have something explode in his face. Playing devil's advocate had distracted him from the delicate process of producing francium.

While he dusted himself off, Susan sighed in defeat, having once again been thwarted by logic. "You're really frustrating sometimes, doc."

"Just trying to make sure you think things through." Straightening his antennae, he started the whole experiment over again.

"…Doc? Do you think we'll ever be just…you know, left alone?"

Dr. Cockroach froze, making the francium disappear again (at least less violently than before).

Of course they could never be left alone. They were abnormal. Nobody left anything abnormal alone – they either killed it or poked at it until it did something. And then killed it. Honestly, the safest place was probably in the cold, white, humming walls of Area 52.

But…he couldn't tell that to her.

"Anything can happen, my dear…" The cockroach man smiled only because the beautiful giantess smiled, but his grin felt as hard as his exoskeleton.

"…Any nines?" drawled Link as Ginormica started the brainstorming process again. B.O.B. handed over a card, exclaiming all the while that the fish-ape must be psychic.

"Okay, so how about…a planet - "

"Now I'm afraid you're going into sci-fi territory," chuckled the doctor as Susan sighed in annoyance once more.

It was a night like any other…only it wasn't.

The doctor sat on his bed, wide awake. It was pitch black in his cell, but he didn't need to see anything. He was just thinking.

Susan's ideas couldn't work. Once you thought them through, they fell apart like so many IKEA products. Still, they stuck in his head, and he couldn't help but toy with them, see how far they stretched before snapping apart…

…The mind is built upon 'what if's. So is the world.