So someone asked, and since I reasoned that more of you are asking the question, too, I'll clear this up. Cece's body is not a boy or a girl (Cece being what I'm calling the main character because I don't want to type out six names every time). My theory (unfounded but it makes sense to me) is that puffballs' genders are decided by identification. So what that means is that if you're a puffball and you think you're a girl, you're a girl. So Cece literally switches between being a boy and a girl every time the personalities switch. The More You Know.
Window to the Past
Chapter 10: You May Not Rest Now
"We got the journal back! Yay!" Toby celebrated. "It feels good to write in this thing again. So we should probably update everything so we can piece together what happened. So all I know is I woke up in the treetops, ate apples, then Vi called to me. I climbed down, and she ended up telling me that they induce insomnia. So...sorry about that. Anyways, we found Tac, I guess. Vi's taking back what was stolen from her. It looks like a cassette tape recorder-"
"We got another call from Dad," Adrian wrote slowly. "He said we could talk to him again. And...after he hung up, I felt like I was choking on water. I couldn't breathe. I don't know what happened. But...I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to go near water anytime soon."
"I keep having these bad dreams," David wrote. "Theyre scary. and I always feel like I can't breath in them."
"I know what you're talking about, actually," Alice responded. "Does anyone else?"
"The nightmares?" Adrian guessed. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure we all have them. What about the phone call? Anyone scared pantsless by water now?"
"I wouldn't say I'm 'scared pantsless', but I definitely have a dislike for water now," Daphne answered.
"Uh, guys...Fey's gone," Toby wrote. "She left. And now we're alone again. She said something creepy, though. When we were fighting Tac, she said she saw someone in our body she didn't recognize. She said whoever it was completely ignored her, as if she was a stranger or something. Who is it? Do...did any of you ignore her?"
"I don't remember ignoring Vi..." Alice answered. "All of us were more or less friendly with her, right?"
"More or less," Adrian wrote.
"So there's someone else here, too," Daphne concluded.
"Are...are you talking to each other?"
"Whoever that was, you've gotta sign what you wrote or we don't know who you are," Alice reminded.
"I don't want to. I don't want you knowing my name."
"This is our enigma," Adrian guessed. "Dude, we are literally you. There's no real point in concealing anything. You're just being stupid."
"Adrian," Daphne chided. "If you want him to cooperate, calling him stupid isn't the way to go about it. Why don't you try being nice?"
"Why don't you try taking that stick out of your-"
"NOT IN FRONT OF DAVID," Alice scrawled, scribbling out the last part of Adrian's message.
"What what what what what was he gonna say? was it another big word?" David asked.
"Okay, Daphne, for you. Because I like you so much," Adrian wrote, pressing the pen into the page so hard it nearly ripped. "Person we don't know, could you please write your name at the end of your sentences?"
"You're all insane," he answered. He had written his name but scribbled it out.
"They are," Toby said. "But they're okay once you get to know them. Sort of."
"I'm going to choose to ignore that comment," Alice wrote, drawing an arrow to the 'Sort of' in Toby's message.
"We've all shared our names with you," Daphne reasoned. "The least you could do is tell us who you are."
"He's US, you idiot!" Adrian wrote.
"I didn't mean it that way, of course," Daphne answered. "Please take the intended meaning of the sender into account before responding."
"This has been a Public Service Announcement by your local SELF-RIGHTEOUS-" Adrian retorted.
"NOT IN FRONT OF DAVID," Alice wrote again, over the last part of Adrian's message.
"Give me a break! I keep forgetting, okay?" Adrian wrote.
"I feel like we aren't really giving the guy a very good first impression," Toby wrote in a small font.
"It's...my name is Tristan."
"Took you long enough!" Adrian wrote in large letters.
"That's Adrian; we ignore him," Alice responded.
"Took you long enough!" David repeated.
"See what you did?!" Alice yelled.
Toby stared down at the diary. Poor Tristan, he thought to himself. He probably thinks we're all going to be the death of him.
Then he frowned. What Fey had said bothered him. Out of the six people in this body, only one of them was real. Everyone else was just the product of their imagination. He looked through the pages, reading the words and messages of his friends and acquaintances. To think that only one of them truly existed was a scary thought. He decided not to tell them; there were enough rifts as is. Closing the diary, he picked it up and began to walk out of the cavern.
Suddenly he remembered something. Turning around, he looked at Tac's bag, then at the diary in his hands. A short while later, Toby was digging through the nearby mounds of junk, looking for anything that could be useful. He settled on a canteen, what looked like a pair of chocolate bars, and a small pillow. Stuffing them along with the diary in the bag he had emptied earlier, Toby picked it up and began walking towards where Fey had told him the exit was. A natural light was shining down through the hole in the ceiling, betraying the metallic sheen of the ladder. Gripping the bag in his teeth, he climbed up the ladder, his eyes staring at the dying light above him.
"They induce temporary insomnia."
"Insomnia? What...does that mean what I think it means?" Toby said, dreading the answer.
"If you think it means you can't sleep," Vi said, nodding, "then yes."
Toby's heart dropped, remembering the last night he had spent awake. It wasn't going to happen again this time, no sir. This time would be different.
This time, if he heard any noise at all, he'd sprint off in the other direction in a last-ditch act of self-preservation.
This is a good plan.
"This was a bad plan," Toby muttered. The forest was dark, and he couldn't see anything past the thick towering outlines of the trees. Which, at this point of the night, looked terrifying.
Every rustling bush, every snapping twig, every little subsidiary sound made itself aware to Toby, who was becoming more and more panicked as memories of the night prior forced themselves into his conscious.
Bracing his sack the way you would a weapon, Toby's mind raced actively as he made his way through Niccola Forest.
Should I get out? Should I stay here? Which one's worse? Toby looked up at the canopy, wondering if he could hide up there until the sun rose.
His heart leapt into his throat as he saw small shadows dart back and forth among the branches. The canopy was out.
Maybe if he tried hiding in a bush, Toby could last through the night...
The back of his head prickled as unseen eyes watched him warily from the brush.
Hiding in the bush was out of the question.
Toby's breathing slowed as he steadily ruled out his dwindling options for shelter. The noises surrounding him never showed their faces, never telling Toby exactly how close he was to death.
Go to sleep, he urged himself. Please, Toby, you've got to go to sleep.
His mind refused. Toby's blood rushed and his mind raced as he walked as calmly as he could through Niccola forest.
Go to sleep!
He fell face down on the grass.
Go to sleep!
He closed his eyes...
Go! To! Sleep!
And he screamed.
"GO TO SLEEP! GO TO SLEEP! GO TO SLEEP! GO TO SLEEP!"
Alice lifted her head off the wet grass, wrenching her face up in disgust. Whatever she had slept in, it most definitely was not sanitary and was not dew. The diary was opened in front of her. She went to pick it up, and froze upon reading the page.
"TEN MINUTES GO TO SLEEP GO TO SLEEP LET ME REST PLEASE LET ME CLOSE MY EYES AND SLEEP STOP TALKING TO ME STOP MAKING NOISE WHY DO I HEAR EVERYTHING LET ME GO TO SLEEP BE QUIET AND JUST LET ME REST I NEED REST DON'T EAT THE APPLES DON'T EAT THE APPLES DON'TEATTHEAPPLESDON'TEATTHEAPPLES SLEEPSLEEPSLEEPEPSELLEEPEPSPLEPEEPLSLELEEPEEELPESPLEEEEPEPLEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASSSEEEE"
Shocked, Alice wondered who could have written this. Flipping a few pages back, she grimaced as the answer was presented to her.
"Ten minutes. I can't see straight I'm so scared. There are noiSES EVERYWHERE AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANY OF THEM ARE."
"Ten minutes since my last entry. The rustling from earlier just turned out to be the wind. I think. I don't know, when I checked, nothing was there."
"I am so bored. My last entry was, what, five minutes ago? I don't know. I'm hearing a rustling in a nearby bush. I'm going to go check it out." ~Toby
"Guys, as a warning, don't eat any of the apples in this forest. They suck. I mean, they taste good, but seriously don't eat them." ~Toby
"I'm writing in this thing because I'm bored. Don't expect any sort of important information to be written in this thing. I'm just going to do this regularly because, again, I'm bored because I can't go to sleep." ~Toby
Alice flipped back and forth between the two pages. The messages went on backwards until the first entry he had made.
"I got us a bag, guys! It's Tac's. I filled it with stuff I thought we were going to need. In hindsight, I probably should have included a weapon...sorry. The sun's setting and I can't go to sleep because of the apples I ate. I guess I'm the one paying the price. Which is fair, I guess. I ate all the apples, and I'd feel really bad if one of you had to suffer through the night because of it. Though...I'm feeling pretty bad right now. I'm going to at least try to find a place to wait it out. The way it's looking, though, this place isn't going to be indoors. I'm sorry if the body's a little dirty, Alice." ~Toby
Alice's attention immediately gravitated to herself, searching for any foreign substances. When she didn't find anything past the strange stuff she had apparently slept in earlier, she relaxed, resolving to get the watery stuff off of her as soon as she could. For now, though, she got a look at her surroundings. Behind her was the bag Toby had mentioned. After a quick check of its contents, she packed the journal and set off in the chilly morning forest.
Where exactly she was setting off to, she couldn't decide yet.
"Uhh..." Alice tapped her foot in thought as she stared around her. The forest looked pretty similar to everything she had seen when she was with Vi, so she wasn't able to orient herself very well. Finally, she reasoned that if she walked long enough in a single direction, she would eventually get out of the forest.
"Then what?" she said to herself, slightly amused. The smile faded from her face as she realized that from the start, she never really had that much of a goal.
What, in the grand scheme of things, had she done since waking up in those fields such a long time ago? Drank some water and ate some apples. A bit of a more generous filter had her nearly get killed three times, and meeting someone that left as quickly as she had appeared.
Alice sat down on the grass, now in very deep thought. What was she doing? What was her purpose? Everything up until this point had been relatively pointless...
But I'm not going to do pointless stuff anymore, Alice decided, standing up heroically. I'm going to answer some questions. Who am I? Why did I wake up in that field? What's my purpose in life? How on earth did I get to the edge of the forest without moving?
Alice was staring at a bright light penetrating the comparatively dark lighting of the forest. Shielding her eyes, Alice staggered blindly to the light, like a moth to a lantern. Except without the agonizing fiery death.
No, the agonizing death Alice would get upon exiting the forest would be a lot less fiery.
And a lot more wet.
And hopefully a lot less...death-y.
Alice plummeted from the precarious cliffside into the raging rivers of the ravine below. She didn't even have time to scream.
You can only sleep at night.
You can only sleep at night.
You can only sleep at night.
You can only sleep at night.
You can only sleep at night.
You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby.
Heh. Heh. Jokes in a fanbase outside of Kirby.