I feel like it's been a while since I've uploaded a chapter. But...I dunno. For those of you reading this, after it's complete YOU LUCKY DOGS YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HARD THESE PEOPLE HAVE IT. YOU TAKE ALL THESE CHAPTERS FOR GRANTED. WHAT IF I JUST STOPPED RIGHT HERE? HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THAT?

But of course I won't. This story needs to be finished. So on with the show, I suppose.

Window to the Past

Chapter 17: Welcome to Wyvern

The lights were in your eyes...they were so bright...Black things are above you. They're talking, but you can't hear them very well. Your eyes are stinging for some reason, and you can't feel anything from your neck down. There's something soft on the back of your head. What is that? What happened? One of the black things is crying. They ran away.

Don't go...

You close your eyes as you feel the pain returning to your neck. A prick. Your breathing slows.

"I suppose I was right."

Alice was thrusted into the world of the living with only that girl's voice as an introduction. She tried to force her eyes open, but closed them immediately as they were confronted by an extremely harsh set of colours. "H-huh...?"

"You're not dead."

"What?"

"You're not dead."

Alice frowned. "N-no, I know what you...said, but why would I be dead?"

"...You're not dead," the girl asserted, her voice slowly taking on the patronizing tone of an adult to a four-year-old.

"No! I mean...what would make you say that I'm not dead?"

There was a long silence. "The fact...that you...aren't dead."

Alice groaned. "Neither are you."

There was another unbearably long silence. "...Oh, you mean - sorry. Do you not remember?"

Alice tried again to force her eyes open. The harshness of her surroundings once again assaulted her, but she kept it up, and after a while, was finally able to see where she was located.

It was a small wooden cabin. That's what the roof told her. There was a window to her right that she couldn't see out of; it was covered in frost. Pushing herself up into a sitting position, she was able to take a look at the rest of the room. The walls and floor clearly juxtaposed the rustic look of the roof. The walls looked wooden enough, yet Alice could barely see them through all the steel and chrome medical equipment that lined them. The floor was a ceramic tile that looked quite a bit colder than the cot that Alice was currently stationed on. A smallish white puffball was watching her warily from the other side of the room. Alice assumed this was the one who had spoken to her.

It was at this moment that Alice registered what the girl had said to her. "Uh...what have I been doing for the past twenty-four hours or so?"

"I don't know about the last twenty-four hours," the white puffball shrugged as best she could. "But about...five hours ago I found you passed out in front of the Facility-Wide. My name's Liz."

"Uh...Cece," Alice said after a bit of hesitation. "What's Facility-Wide? Is that a city?"

Liz blinked. "You...don't know what Facility-Wide is?" she asked, before lowering her voice and looking at the ground. "I suppose it's a nickname, but she should still be able to tell...especially if she's been in there..."

Alice felt uncomfortable. What had the others been up to while she'd been out? She frowned. That time had been strange. As if she were being forced underwater by someone's hand. She didn't like that feeling. She looked around her, searching for her green bag. But she couldn't find it. "Uh...do you know where my bag is?"

"You mean your Tac Sack?" Liz asked. "Ash confiscated it to make sure it didn't have anything dangerous or valuable in it. You should go see him if you want it back." She then looked out the window, as if in thought. "Actually, you should go see him anyways. He wants to talk to you about what you did."

"Oh, no..." Alice groaned. "What did I do?"

"Again, Ash'll be the one to talk to you about that," Liz asserted. "But for now...how do your feet feel?"

"My...feet?" Alice asked, confused. She wiggled them around experimentally, since she couldn't really see them. "I can feel them, if that's what you mean."

"Okay, good. And you can move them, too," Liz said, nodding. "So you're in better shape than you were earlier. It's a wonder you got out of Facility-Wide alive..."

Alice, growing more and more concerned the more Liz said, experimentally slipped out of bed. After a bit of steadying herself, she noted she could at least stand up. That was good.

"You might want to get to Ash quick once you're out the door, too. It's gotten pretty chilly here the past few days. Though," she turned towards the door and opened it, letting a harsh blast of cold wind inside. "I'd assume you'd know all about that, Ms. Cece."

This statement only left Alice even more confused about where she was and what they'd done. "Uh...where can I find Ash?"

Liz pointed out the door. "He's on the other end of the street, in the Sheriff's office."

Crap, I messed with the sheriff! Alice berated herself, cringing. You guys would be so dead if you weren't me!

"Alright, thanks!" Alice said awkwardly, putting on a facade of happiness. She stepped out the door and felt it close behind her.

Liz was right. It was cold outside. There was no snow, but the town was covered in a thin frame of frost. Alice shivered as she felt tiny flakes of snow rest on her for but a moment before melting before freezing again. Alice decided it'd be a good idea to get out of the cold before this strange snowfall froze her solid. Stepping down from the wooden deck, Alice's feet touched the cold hard dirt below her, sending a shiver through her body. A cold breeze made its way across Alice's body, seemingly chilling Alice's heart as it went. She looked back at the door to Liz's place and whimpered. This place wasn't like anywhere she'd ever been before. In the few fleeting moments she spent in Wayford, writing in the diary, she had felt as if the entire city was oppressing her as if nobody alive wanted her there. But here...here, she was just cold.

Taking a deep breath, she ran forward onto the street, flinching from the unbearably frozen ground below her. Small buildings flanked her on either side, sporting signs that seemed cracked and faded, a far cry from the bright colourful invitations they must've once been.

"Sheriff," Alice whispered under her breath, looking for said word on one of the abraded signs. "Why'd you guys have to mess with the sheriff...?"

As she made her way down the avenue, she felt a prickling sensation on the back of her neck, as if someone were watching her. Turning around quickly, she saw the fleeting face of Liz peeking out her door before it retreated, earning another light click from the door. Alice turned back and frowned. The feeling was still there. Was she being watched?

Alice stopped in front of the building that read 'Sheriff' in front of it. Swallowing the fear that had lodged itself in her throat, Alice stepped up and knocked on the door. She heard footsteps coming from inside, and a few seconds later, the click of a doorknob. The door swung open revealing a red puffball about Alice's height.

He didn't even wait for Alice to introduce herself. "Yer the one that Liz found up on Mt. Leftalon?"

"Uh, yeah. My name's Cece," Alice said, trying to keep a sweet overtone as to not betray how much she wanted to faint on the spot.

"Yeah? Well, then, Cece," he said, chuckling to himself. "Yer a damn fool."

"...What?"

"Liz and Ash, hm?" Chaos said as he looked over my shoulder. "Those names sound familiar."

"They're from Legend of the Watch. The old one," I said. "I decided to bring a few of them back."

"Last I checked, Ash wasn't the sheriff," Chaos said flatly.

I looked back at the laptop, then to Chaos again. "He isn't the sheriff."

Chaos stared at me again, then nodded. "Ah, okay."

He was a bit different. His eyes had bags under them as if he had lost sleep. Which was weird since we didn't really need sleep at all. His gingerish hair stuck out under his flat cap in an ironically chaotic manner that seemed uncharacteristic to him.

"Uh...are you alright, Chaos?" I asked, eyeing his unevenly buttoned cardigan.

"Yeah, Multi, I'm fine."

I frowned. "I'm not Multikirby, Chaos."

He blinked as if realizing his mistake. "Right. Sorry. I know Multikirby, and you aren't him."

I gave a slow nod before turning back to the laptop.

Ash handed Alice a mug of hot water. Simply holding it in her hands seemed to warm her up immensely.

"So...are you the sheriff, Ash?" she asked, holding the mug close to herself to wean off of the radiating heat.

Ash shook his head. "Nope. Not yet, anyways. I'm fillin' in fer him until the residents decide who's best fer the job."

"What happened to the old shepherd?" Alice asked.

This earned her an odd stare from Ash. "Sheriff. He died way up there on Mt. Leftalon in an avalanche accident a few days ago. Sad, but I ain't gonna lie, I had my eye on his position fer quite a while. That's why I volunteered t' fill in as th' unofficial sheriff. I figure if I do my job right now, they'll figure me the right one for the job," Ash looked down at his cup of water. Then he brought his head back up and stared at Alice with a piercing glare. "But we're not here to talk about me. Now," he said, and with a little difficulty due to the shape of his body, leaned forward on his chair. "What the hell were you doin' up on Mt. Leftalon, in front of Facility-Wide, no less!?"

Oh, boy. This is it, Alice thought with a grimace. "Sorry there, sir, but I have no idea what I've done for the past who-knows-how-long! Would you mind filling me in on how many innocent lives I've snuffed out?"

"I don't know," Alice said weakly. She knew this wouldn't be enough. Ash's expression seemed to confirm the notion. "I...have a problem with my head. There's...seven or so people in it, including me, and we switch reins sometimes. And I don't know what the others do when they're in front. Please don't think I'm crazy."

Ash's expression didn't change. "Sister, if that's a lie, yer crazy. If that's th' truth, yer crazy. I don't think you not bein' crazy's a notion worth considerin' right this minute."

Alice sighed in defeat. "Look, can you just tell me what I did?"

Ash sat back in his chair. "Well, all I know is Liz was up in th' mountain fer whatever reason. She saw a hole in th' ground that went down t' Facility-Wide. She ignored it fer a while, an' then she started hearin' voices comin' from inside. An' then she found you out in th' snow in front of one o' the airlock doors. She brought you here, an' came t' see me an' drop off yer bag."

Alice rested against the back of the chair. Okay. That's not too bad. At least I'm alive.

"I'm surprised yer even around t' look me in th' eye, sister. If th' gas didn't kill you, those goshdarn safety measures would! An' yet you escape with but a twitchin' of yer legs!" Ash shook his head and laughed lightly. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you was some kind o' sorcerer."

"Uh..." Alice felt a little awkward, as it wasn't her that had accomplished the feat Ash said she had. "What's Facility-Wide?"

"'S the name we gave that strange factory up there on Mt. Leftalon," Ash explained. "No one quite knows what it's there for, but er'ry so often we hear that damn robotic voice talkin' about them damn safety measures." He took a sip of his water. "Usually means some poor soul's trapped there. Only a few've gotten out before, yerself included."

"I see," Alice said softly, looking down into her water. "So...did you finish searching my bag?"

"Yer Tac Sack?" he asked, slipping off of the chair. "Yep. I got it back here. Though the contents...a bit strange." Ash looked back at Alice's horrified face. "Nothin' illegal, mind you, but from what you're haulin' 'round, someone might get th' idea that yer some sort o' traveler."

"Well, I kind of am," Alice said. "I've been wandering around this continent looking for some place to stay for as long as I can remember."

"Judgin' from recent events, sister, that might not be sayin' too much - Hold on a cherry-pickin' minute!" Ash's voice raised in tone quickly, catching Alice off guard.

"What? What'd I do?!"

"Are you sayin' you've never been to Wyvern before?"

Wyvern.

Alice blanched. "I'm...I'm in Wyvern?"

"Y' don't even know that!?" Ash threw his hands up in defeat. "What're you gonna say next, that you've got an extra face hidden on the back o' yer body!? Sakes alive, yer just like Vi!"

Vi.

If Alice could've blanched further, she probably would've. "You know...Vi?"

Ash, who was facing away from her now, slumped a bit in his stance. "An' now yer gonna tell me you know Vi."

"We met for a while, yeah," Alice confirmed. "In Niccola Forest."

"Nicco - who the hell are you!?" Ash nearly screamed.

The funny thing was it didn't sound like an angry scream. It sounded more as if he was running out of rational explanations as to who she was. Or something like that.

"Yer tryin' t' tell me that yer the one that helped Vi beat up Tac?! Th' one with all those personalities bouncin' 'round in her...an'..." he looked at the door leading to what must've been storage. Finally, he turned to face Alice with an expression so vague it scared her.

"I hardly know whether to kiss you or slap you. Heh," Ash said, smiling as he shook his head in bewilderment, "in older days I might've done both. I'm gonna go get yer bag. Wait here."

Ash opened the storage door and closed it behind him. Alice was left standing there in the sheriff's office, absolutely nonplussed about what happened.

Ring ring ring...

Alice, without even realizing what she was doing, looked around wildly for any sort of phone. She found it on a desk. Tearing through the clutter in the room to get it, she seized the receiver and pressed it up to the side of her face.

"I can't help feeling like you're trying to prove something to me."

Alice's eyes began to water as her father's voice filled her head. "Dad..."

"You're doing some pretty dangerous things. Or, that's what your mother tells me. Look, I know you want to prove yourself to be responsible, but what you're doing isn't the way to go about it. Because what I see is you being hurt. And I don't like seeing you hurt. I can't watch you all day. But I want you to promise me to stay safe, okay? Come back home safe."

"Okay," Alice whispered into the receiver, knowing full well he couldn't hear her. "I will."

Though instead of a flood of memories flooding back, Alice only got a picture. She was sitting beside her mother and father on a bed, reading with them. Over the book, she could see a picture frame on a dresser. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see who was in it. Her father cleared his throat and continued reading.

Alice was forcibly sucked back into reality, namely, the sheriff's office. She heard the door to storage open and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Here's yer bag, Cece," Ash said, thrusting the bag forward into Alice. She stumbled backward a bit, but steadied herself. "Everything's in there, you'll find. I didn't take nothin'."

"Okay," Alice said shakily, silently cursing herself for not clearing up her voice before she spoke. Avoiding Ash's gaze, she dug through the bag and found the journal and pen. "Is there some place I can go to write in this?"

"There's a library down th' street, but it's low on books," Ash suggested. "Still, it'll suit yer needs fine."

"Thanks," Alice said and stepped out the door. She wasn't sure what the plan was now. They'd gotten to Wyvern. What was she supposed to do? Was her family here?

Alice pushed the door to the library open, and sat down at a nearby table, paying no attention to anyone else who might've been in the building. She once again felt that unsettling prickling sensation of someone watching her, but she ignored it.

"Okay, huge update, guys: WE'RE IN WYVERN. One of us got into this factory they called Facility-Wide, and we got out and then almost died or something. Then a girl (another puffball!) called Liz came and brought us to her house. I woke up, said my name was Cece (that's the name we're going by, right?), and we talked for a bit. She told me to go see Ash, and I did, and I ended up telling him about the rest of you. And guess what? HE KNOWS VI. I don't know how, but it sounded like Vi told them about us, too. He was all like 'I don't know whether I should kiss you or slap you'. And he has the cutest cowboy accent! But then! WE GOT A CALL FROM DAD. But I guess you all know about that, right? We all get the call from him for some reason, right? ~Alice"

"That's...a lot of stuff that happened," Toby marveled. "So Liz and Ash are the new faces? What do they look like?"

"I went up the moutnan and into Facltie-Wide by myself," David wrote as the page became spotted with tears. "I...I almost died...and it was so scary! There was this girl talking to me, and she knew my name! She knew about you guys, and she said I killed you! She said I kept you guys down so you couldn't help me and it was so dark and i couldn't breath and someone was yelling at me with all these numbers and i almost DIED!"

"...You did that!?" Adrian asked angrily. "I felt like I was drowning! And I've had enough drowning to last me a lifetime."

"We're in Wyvern..." Tristan wrote slowly. "...And we almost died...Didn't that Sue person say she hated puffballs?"

"David, wait," Alice changed the subject. "You were the one in Facility-Wide? You were the one who got out of there? Everyone I've talked to is treating it like some sort of superhero thing!"

"I am really resisting the urge to just go out there on the street and find out as much as I can about this place because I don't know how you guys would feel about it," Mia hinted, pressing the pen so hard it almost ripped through the page.

"I'm not for the idea of going out and socializing is a very good idea right now," Daphne advised.

"And why the heck not, Little Miss Holier-Than-Thou?" Adrian wrote caustically.

"Cool it, Hothead," Alice berated. "But why were we even coming here again? What was the point?"

"Actually, yeah. Why did we come here?" Toby asked. "That...uh, that is, does anyone remember? It was Glenn that told us about Wyvern, right?"

"Yes, I remember," Daphne confirmed. "He said that if he was going to guess, we would have originated from Wyvern. So if we wanted our memory back, we should've came here. Which we did."

"Glenn was the man on the boat, right?" Tristan asked. "I didn't like him."

"You don't like anybody," Mia pointed out.

"So if we came here to remember everything, we should go out and socilze with everyone," David wrote. "If were from here, they'd know us"

"Again, I'm not sure that's the best idea," Daphne countered.

"Why not?" Mia asked. "If the entire point of coming here was to figure out who we were and why we woke up on that field, why would we not go out and talk to everybody? I mean, if we aren't going to do that, then why are we even here?"

"I don't know, guys," Toby said carefully. "I mean, what if we ask around and find out we're some mass murderer or something? Or worse? I'm kind of scared to find out what we are."

"I think we should just leave as soon as possible," Tristan suggested. "I don't like this place, and the less time we spend in it

"...Excuse me?" a soft male voice jolted Tristan out of his conversation. Nearly jumping out of his chair, he turned to face whoever had talked to him. A green puffball was looking at him with concern. "We're closing up for the night, sir. You looked a bit zoned out. Are you okay?"

Tristan snatched his diary off the table, and without saying a word walked briskly out the library door into the cold night air, leaving the green puffball staring after him, confused.

Keeping his head low in case any other late night walkers felt talkative, Tristan scanned the alleyways and crannies for a suitable place to sleep for the night. Choosing a small corner with a cardboard box near the end of the street as his resting place, he pulled up the box over his body in an effort to stay hidden from the street. Evidently, it didn't work too well.

"Cece? What are you doing in the alley?"

Tristan pulled the box down to see who had spoken to him. Considering she knew his 'name', this white puffball must be Liz.

I don't know her. Bad. She knows where I'm sleeping for the night. Bad. Apparently, she saved my life. Good. She saved my life, apparently. Bad. She seems very interested in what I'm doing. Bad? Five bad things. One good thing. Stay defensive, Tristan.

Tristan stared at her but said nothing. Liz returned his stare, and for the first time in a long time, Tristan felt he had met his match. For what felt like hours, the two of them kept eye contact, waiting for the other to relent.

Finally, to his amazement, Tristan cracked. "What?"

"Why are you in the alley?" she asked, a (quite annoying) triumphant undertone seeping into her voice.

"Sleeping."

"You mean freezing," she returned flatly. "I used quite a bit of expensive medical procedures on you, Cece. I don't want to find them gone to waste by seeing your frozen carcass in the alley beside the clinic. I'd also like to think you value your life a bit more than it looks like you do."

"What are you saying?" Tristan said carefully.

Liz donned an unimpressed expression. "I'll make this simple. That alley'll be your deathbed. If you don't like the sound of that, I suggest you find a warmer place to sleep. I have an extra bed."

Another stare-off. Tristan couldn't decide whether she was truly concerned for him or not.

I think she's right. If I sleep here, I'm going to die. If I sleep with her I might die.

With that thread of logic, Tristan reluctantly got up after throwing the box off of him. Liz gave him a small smile and disappeared into the clinic.

Tristan followed her through the door, and saw her pointing at a small room. "You're sleeping in here. I'm going to lock the doors. I'm coming back here at six-thirty in the morning. You're on your own for breakfast."

"Wait, you're locking the doors?" Tristan's heart jumped into his throat as his mind began imagining all the grisly interpretations of what locked doors could mean.

"I have a home. This is a clinic. Goodnight, Cece." With that, she closed the door to the room. Another door closed further away, and a click accompanied it.

Tristan, with nothing better to do, climbed up onto the bed and laid down, a lump in his throat. He closed his eyes, trying to lull himself to sleep as his mind invented over a hundred ways he could be brutally murdered in the six hours he would be asleep.

I sat back from the laptop and smiled. "We're firing on all cylinders now."

"Hmm?" Chaos looked up from his notepad, which had quite a few dark scribbles on it.

"Nothing," I said, my mood dampened a bit by his appearance.

I'm pretty sure Wyvern's an actual word. Hey, here's an idea! You guys should tell me what's still up in the air about this story! What questions you still have. Who knows? If I see a common question, I might answer it a bit earlier than I would otherwise. That's the beauty of semi-improv writing.