Wendy, Dipper, and Kevin ran through the ruins of the city, ran for all they were worth, monsters at their heels.
"You don't have love!?" Kevin demanded of him between panting breaths. "She's your girlfriend! She's you're little angel! You don't have love!?"
"We have love!" Wendy claimed.
"Shut up!" Dipper yelled right back at him. "Shut up shut up you don't have love either!"
"What was it then, were you into him for the money?" Kevin prodded her. "His family's got stacks, I know it! Old science money! And you! She's pretty, huh? Yeah, you like my sister, you got your trophy wife!"
"Okay, we all messed up!" Wendy admitted. "We boned it, okay, but you shut up, Kevin!"
"You make me!" He snapped.
"Yeah keep talking, you're just oozing wisdom and love right now aren't ya!" Wendy said.
"Look, just run, okay?" Dipper said wisely.
That's what they were doing, and that's what they did.
Half this city had been built atop the lake. The lake had since reclaimed that half, which was this half, and the remains of the foundations formed a ruinous discontinuous maze standing above the thin blue ice, and the pale shards of ancient walkways had to be leapt between as often as ran or climbed.
The unseeing at their heels were their match in leaping and running, but their stubby hands were short of the task of climbing, and so the distance of pursuit gradually widened. But the noise was drawing others. They were never quite away, and the going was tough. A piece of rubble broke beneath Wendy on a tricky jump, and Kevin sprang to catch her before she fell in the water. The unseeing would have got her as she hung if Dipper hadn't thrown a rock that hit their leader in the nose, and sent it sprawling for the water. The ice shattered below it and drifted back together over top of it, as if it had never been.
Kevin pulled her the rest of the way to safety.
"I do love you!" Kevin said. "I do I do, I swear I do, I swear it I swear!"
They made it to safety.
A high roof over tall walls; attaining it involved jumping and catching on a narrow handhold; a leap the unseen couldn't make. The three of them spent a minute or two sucking oxygen and spitting vapor with their hands on their knees, while the creatures gathered below.
"What now?" Wendy weezed.
The Unseeing were climbing over each other. One of them managed to get up onto the roof. The others grabbed at its ankles to get up too. They had to get out of the city. They needed down off the mountain.
"The raft!" Kevin gasped.
"Yeah." Dipper agreed.
They found a gap in the crowd, and jumped, and kept running. The others were making such a racket that less than a dozen managed to hear and follow them.
Monsters blocked the direct course back toward the raft, so they needed to angle off to the right, away from the water and deeper into the more intact parts of of the city, where pillars and pieces of walls stood thick and close enough to resemble a dense forest, with rubble for underbrush. Running was noisy and exhausting. Through gaps in the pillars they saw the Unseeing moving to flank them, and through they never dared look back, their pursuers couldn't be far. Dipper thought they were gaining ground against them, Wendy thought they were losing. But soon they would run out of space to double back for the raft. And then what? Another lap around the city? They would be lucky to last this lap, and who knew what was lurlking elsewhere to meet them?
"Dip, there's one way out of this." Wendy panted. "You two make for the raft, I'll hold them off. I'll kill 'em."
"Kill them ALL?" Dipper gasped for air.
"You CAN'T kill them!" Kevin reminded her.
"Can too! ...And if it doesn't take, I'll go back and do it again!" Wendy stumbled briefly in her stride, as she felt around her pockets and belt for weapons. She found only a knife. "You got that rifle?"
"It's only got one shot left in it though." Dipper tossed it to her. "But LOOK! WAIT NO! GIMME THAT BACK WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?! We've seen these things in action! Any injury heals in... What? Four minutes? THREE?!? If it takes you longer than that to kill them all, the first ones you killed will be back up and the fight will never end!"
"Yeah a whole three minutes and there's only..." She glanced back over her shoulder to count. "Nine I see nine? That makes for a whole... What, uhh? Three times sixty is a-"
"Twenty!"
"Twenty! A whole twenty seconds apiece!" She began looking around for something to use for a weapon. There wasn't much besides rocks, but rocks weren't nothing. "I could kill a monster in twenty seconds."
"That's stupid!" Kevin said.
"You're NOT gonna solo them!" Dipper told her. "We are DONE talking about this!"
Something grim and dark and powerful tightened in her heart, as she knew that they truly were done talking about it. And in that moment, as she glanced over at him, she felt love. Real love; more love than she'd ever had for another. It filled her, drove out every thought she could think, a feeling that made her want to climb a mountain or chop up a tree or tear out her heart. And she knew what she had to do.
They kept running for a minute. Then a minute more. The unseeing grew closer behind them. There was the sunken trench of an old footpath blocking their way, half filled with water. Wendy saw it and jumped over it, Kevin did too, Dipper did not. His feet broke through the ice and his legs plunged into the frozen water. "Help!"
Kevin turned back to help. He slid down the bank and his legs ended up in the water too. The shock numbed them; they would be a few precious seconds getting out, and with it, Wendy saw her excuse. She turned, jumped back over the path, and barreled straight toward the approaching pack of creatures. "Run run run!" She cried back at them. "And don't turn around!"
"No!" Dipper cried.
"No!" Kevin cried.
She was already too far now. They couldn't reach her before the creatures did. And even if she wanted to, and she didn't, she couldn't turn around now. Dipper realized it was out of his hands. All he could do was trust her. "Go."
"They'll get her." Kevin's voice was like tangled vines. "They'll kill her. They'll TURN her!"
"And maybe they won't. Go." All he could do was trust her. "GO. KEVIN."
They staggered out of the trench on wet and wobbly legs, snow thrashing in their wake, and made for the raft.
Dipper glanced back just once, and saw it begin.
She came at the first one with her bare hands. The fingers of her right clasped the hair on the back of its head, her left grabbed its chin, and she spun its head backwards. It staggered and stumbled, neck broken. She lunged over it, toward the others.
She had their attention now; they all turned to face her.
She drew her knife.
Dipper turned away from her, and he ran and he ran.
Behind him, the sounds of monsters moaning and grinding their teeth. Grunting and yelling from her. A splashing as she fell into the water on top of one. A single muffled gunshot. A crumbling noise as something heavy was driven into a fragile pillar. As he ran Dipper counted off the seconds beneath his breath. "Twenty... Forty... Sixty..." Would they even need that long to heal? Could she handle all nine at once? What if they came at her from behind? Could she have really killed three people already in such a short time? I trust you Wendy, but why did you tell me to keep running?!
Really, It had been a bad call on her part. And if either of them had taken the time to think it through; they should have known that two would be better than one, and three better still. But decisions can turn unwise in the heat of the moment. His next would be equally foolish.
All in a sudden, a noise echoed through the still December air which stopped Dipper dead in his tracks. The sound of a scream. Wendy's scream.
He'd never heard such a noise from her before. Perhaps he wouldn't have believed her capable of something so full of such panic, such fear and despair, such pain. That scream filled him in a moment with such fire and anger, such real and actual love, that against all reason he turned and sprinted back.
Kevin lagged only a second behind him.
The scream faltered in a second and was replaced by words, five words, the last five clear and English words, screamed into the still air: "LABYRINTH! STATOR! SIGNAGE! ABSOLVE! PHILIA!" Then nothing.
He did not remember those words himself, but there was something mechanical in his brain which did, for those were the code words. They were her half of the password. Now, he only to give his own half.
"EARNEST! MEDIAN!" He sprinted faster than he ever had before, faster than Kevin, the sweat seemed to freeze as it left his skin. And as he did he spoke his code. "EVANGELISM! PASCAL! AGAPE!"
Both halves of the code were complete.
The sounds of the fight ahead had faded.
Now coming through the rubble back toward them could be seen the nine creatures. One of them walked with a crooked head. Another with a bad limp. One had the blade of a knife snapped off inside its skull. Another one had a bullet hole clear through its head. Not one of them intact and whole.
And their jaws were dripping with red and metallic silver: Wendy's blood.
Kevin screamed.
"We couldn't have missed it." Dipper whispered.
"SHE'S DEAD!"
"SHE'S NOT! WE WOULD HAVE HEARD THE BLAST! SHE'S ALIVE!"
"WHAT?!"
"RUN!"
They ran. Kevin cried. Dipper held on to faith, barely.
The raft had to be near, which way was it? They made a bad turn, another bad turn, and by the time they made it to the water's edge, they raft was 500 feet to their left, and there were monsters in between.
But there was also something else, coming out of the water; a death light, one of the small quick floating ones that kept the trails clean. Dipper got an idea.
"Go for the raft! I'll draw them into a trap!" He told Kevin. "Paddle out to safety, then back in to get me when it's safe!"
"The heck's your idea?"
"Melt them!" Dipper swore. "They got Wendy, I'll melt 'em down to oil and nothing! If I don't come back, come find us later and bite us! Turn us back!"
"Got it!" Kevin said. He took off toward the raft, and Dipper went for the monsters. He threw rocks at them, yelled and cussed, and got their attention good. They followed him, curving to intersect his path, but his path was curving to match that of the death light. Its path was one of the sunken trails that the Earth Eater's had carved, with a three-foot rise to either side.
He could hear the monsters just a few yards behind him, making plenty of noise as they tumbled into the trench. But just a few yards behind them, the death light hovered forward noiselessly and incredibly fast; the Unseeing had no way to perceive it. Its ghastly blue light was throwing their rapidly-shortening shadows all about his feet, and he saw one of the shadows melt; he was out of time.
He jumped right to scramble out of the trench, out of the way. The Unseeing tried to follow, one grabbed at his jacket, but the death light was faster. It whirled by, the light passed over all of them, all was instantly silent, and nothing was left behind but black oily rot, and a stumped half-melted hand still clinging to Dipper's jacket. He tried to take a few steps away from the trench, stumbled and fell to his face. Feeling the hand still grasping his jacket, he rolled over and grabbed it to fling it off, or at least tried to, but that was when he perceived the full extent of his failure.
The radius of the death light's magic had passed over the left side of his body. There was no pain whatsoever, not even the slightest sensation, but his left pant leg was floppy and stained black up to above the knee, his left jacket sleeve was limp below the wrist, and his left boot sat in the snow on the trenche's edge with no foot inside it. For a moment he sat in shock and disgust and dumb unbelief, staring at what used to be himself.
Kevin made it to the raft, pushed off from shore and paddled fiercely until he was at a safe distance, then turned to look back ashore. "Dipper!" He cried out. "Hey man, did it work?!"
He heard no reply, so there he sat. The metal paddles were cold enough to sting his hands, even through his gloves. "Wendy!?" He called, but of course there was no answer from her. "Dad!? Marcus!? Gus!? Dipper you better not have died! I thought you had a plan!" His cries brought back no answer save a few Unseeing on the shore, who perked up at the noise and crawled out onto the shore to sniff and slaver in his direction. "ANYBODY!" He screamed to nobody.
So now that was it; he was alone, and his first instincts turned his mind toward considerations of logistics.
Dad, Marcus, and Gus had disappeared, therefore they must have escaped, therefore they must be safe by now. And even if they weren't, he had to assume they were, as he couldn't do anything for them. He wished Dad was still here to help, but it was good and fortunate that he'd escaped, so he couldn't complain. As for Dipper and Wendy, he could only assume they had been eaten up by the Unseeing. This was a tragedy but perhaps a boon in disguise, for they were paradoxically safe in their new zombie forms; no need for food or shelter until cured. Kevin himself being the last one uninfected, he would need to now gather his wits and engineer some devilishly clever scheme to A) identify the two of them, B) separate them from the others, and C) bite them without being bit himself... But before that he would have to arrange food and shelter for them, possibly secure them some replacement clothes, and then the most important point of all: finding himself some weapon. He needed a weapon; if he was turned, that would really be the end.
But what other way could this end? Now he considered. What would they do after curing? Just survive? For how long? Could the others who escaped send a rescue mission? But how could a rescue mission find this place, and how could they escape again themselves? So he couldn't count on rescue. They were stuck down here until they could beat that stupid test... How to do that?
Wisdom and love.
The most wonderful and precious things in the world, and he had none.
Wisdom! He thought. Where can wisdom be found? Do I make it? Mine it? Find it? Hunt it? Where can I search, and who can give it to me? I'm only a kid!
Love! He thought. How can I prove myself loving, or force myself to love? By saving my sister and her boyfriend? Kissing a deer? Learning to love the prettiness of the snow? Giving a Christmas present to one of these monsters?
By crying to mommy?
He considered that, and immediately rejected it.
After a moment's more thought, he considered it again.
He pulled out his compass.
They were all the same, the six compasses. All brass and usually accurate, they had all been brand new on the last Christmas they had spent with her. They were older now than they had been, dusty and scratched and stained with tears, they were all the same, the six compasses. They'd each written their names on them, in marker that was less permanent than the metal and had worn out more quickly, but it really wasn't too important whose was whose; only that all were present, for they belonged to the family. Each possessed all, for each possessed one, and she possessed them too. It was an open secret that they were haunted.
Earth's magnetic field didn't reach into this prison, so they didn't work down here, didn't even spin, just drifted slowly if you shook them.
"I love you mom." He said to the dented brass disk. "I do I do I love you mom I do. I swear I do. Tell me what to do. Tell me where to go. Give me wisdom."
The compass pointed back at himself.
"No, that's not what I asked, don't say you love me!" He said. "Nobody loves me! I'm the jerk, I'm the one Marcus yells at. I pick on Gus. Wendy won't give me the time of day. I'm not as good as Marcus at anything. I don't- Nobody loves me, mom. I don't even love myself. Anyway, I've got work to do." He shoved the compass back into his pocket, and kept paddling. He wanted to get to the opposite shore, to the forest. He would find their camp, build the fire back up, brainstorm ways to get food, to survive... There were no supplies left at camp, nothing at all, and he didn't have much on him, no weapon, so his plans couldn't go much farther than reaching it.
But he didn't even make it that far. The raft was built of heavy logs and floated low; it ran aground on ice. He wasn't as strong as dad or Marcus, couldn't paddle his way through, and couldn't break enough to make a path. Another flow of ice shifted and locked him against the first, so that he was stuck in the middle of the lake. It was too thin to walk on, so he was trapped.
The crows came for him.
Dipper tried to reach a hand to grab his stump to stop whatever bleeding must be occurring, but the whole thing was so revoltingly wet and slippery that he couldn't bring himself to keep his tenuous hold, and his jacket was in the way and his fingers were numb, and he reasoned that logically, such wounds must be fatal within minutes.
He let his head collapse back into the snow, finally ended, feeling the dread of death in all its completeness and violent ice presented, as starkly as he had ever felt it before, or so he thought. Kevin you fool... You let me run off to my doom... And we let Wendy run to hers... And now we die.
And now we die.
But while he lay there, the despair of his death and the dark thoughts which had tormented him for days and nights all came to a sudden end, for his and Wendy's passwords had finished their course, the heavy metal nanogates shielding his synapses retracted, and his brain began to remember, as thawing snow floods a stream.
The secret hidden things he'd barred away these many months ago were finally before him clear, and proved themselves so strange and so wonderful that he forgot the foul blackness entombing his stumps and the merciless ice cradling his head. His nostrils forgave the sense of lingering doom, and pretended, or were deceived into manifesting, the smell of flowers sweet and blooming.
He remembered how it started, on a cold and rainy night, and how it ended, in the Librarian's grotto, on Vinland.
He opened his eyes elsewhen... www fanfiction net/s/14387186/1/Three-Long-Roads
Author's note:
Hey y'all! If you're just coming back to this story after a long time welcome back! It's been a long hiatus, but I'm ready to finish. About half this story so far has been the actual story, and the other half has been a mix between foreshadowing and actual contextless nonsense, which I am eager to now begin to clarify. But that's another story.
Speaking of that another story, I knew this site disallows links, but for some reason I thought it allowed links to within its own domain. Guess not. Anyway, I guess my little plan for a multi-story-story is gonna be a little more rocky than I anticipated. Oops.