Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

     A distant, screeching sound rumbles the walls of the house.

     Jillian’s stomach knots itself once more, a feat she would have thought impossible before… god, when did this all start? She remembers, a bit against her will, that first day… standing in the doorway being greeted by her husband, looking forward to a relaxing night after work. The calendar on the wall said it was a Friday.

     Eight days then, if she’s been counting correctly. More than a week of the apocalypse.

     She sighs through her nose, jolting at another unidentifiable noise outside. Next to her a body stirs, and gently she rubs her son’s back to soothe him back to uneasy sleep.

     It’s bad enough that she had to be around for the end of days. If she’d known her kids would’ve been right in the middle of it... they should be in school, not curled up against a bunch of blankets in a closet wondering if they’ll wake up in the morning. 

     They will. Jillian tells herself in her head that Charles will, and that Madison will, and that she will do whatever it takes to keep them safe.

     They’re spending the night in the closet in the first place because one of the living room windows is broken. He broke it a few days ago, in a half-aware haze trying to get the rest of his family to look. Jillian has been trying not to think about it much. About the way that his twitching body collapsed under the heavy weight of the frying pan. About the way that parts of him stuck to her palms as she hauled his body to their bedroom and barricaded the door, and about the way she nearly rubbed them raw afterwards.

     It had been smashed through the curtains. She didn’t look. She did not look. No matter how many times she reiterates this to herself in her internal monologue, the fear doesn’t go away. She thinks it’ll stay there for the rest of her life actually? Right next to the fear of death that’s lived in her core since she was a child.

     Maybe the fear of looking outside is equivocal to the fear of death, and that’s why she’s so afraid.

     She carefully leans against the wall, taking in another quiet breath so as to not disturb her children. She’ll have to figure out what food they have left tomorrow… who knows when this will end? She can’t go outside to find more food while the mysterious Thing is there. And what if something else gets inside? She has no idea how the Thing works. Cameron barely got a glimpse of it through the door and he still lost it. Is it an eye contact thing? Would just being outside do it? Could it be blocked by clothes? What if there isn’t any way out of this?

NO

No.

     Spiraling, she’s spiraling, get it together. Jill shuts her eyes tight, watching the darkness swirl in on itself over and over behind her eyelids.

     Charles will wake up in the morning. Madison will wake up in the morning. She will wake up in the morning.

     Waking up, however, requires falling asleep.

     Jillian drifts off in the darkness of the closet, her world at her sides.

–

     “Mom…?”

     Jolting awake in a way that absolutely does not agree with her back, Jillian whirls around towards the thing that woke her. After a moment of her eyes adjusting to the dark her mind comes back down to Earth. Right. Children. They tend to do that.

     Madison is sitting on her knees, hands up and a worried expression on her face. With a soft sigh Jillian repositions herself, reaching up a hand to try and assuage the knot in her shoulder. No noise from outside, so she feels safe whispering back. “Hi sweetie… did you get some sleep?”

     Madison gives a slight nod, pushing some of her hair out of the way- it’s all frizzy from such an awkward sleeping spot and Jillian makes an internal note to check the travel bags in here for detangler. “There was a- a noise, earlier. Not close, but…” She thinks for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she tries to figure out what exactly she heard

     With a stifled groan Jillian gets to her feet, Charles mumbling as he’s roused from next to her. “I’ll check the house and see if I hear it too, ok?” Taking a step towards the closet door, she stops just before resting her hand on the doorknob. “You two are not to come out of here until I come get you.”

     Madison shifts, pulling some of the blankets that had smushed up against the wall over herself. She nods in understanding, rubbing some sleep from her eyes. Just before Jillian shuts the door behind her, she hears her daughter murmur something quietly.

     “Please come back.”

…

     Ouhhh. She pauses to wipe the tears welling in her eyes, before turning towards the dark hallway. They’d been taking refuge in a closet under the stairs to the small, loft-like second floor. Any noise she could’ve heard had to be loud but far if it wasn’t enough to rouse her or her son.

     Something is immediately off as she starts to walk down the hall. It’s about the lighting. If she had to guess, it’s somewhere around 7, maybe 8:30 in the morning? And the way the light filters through the curtains makes it actually look the part. A far cry from the multichromatic hues that had been dappling her floors since this nightmare started, no matter the time of day. Could something have changed outside?

     Probably got worse, if she had to guess.

     Avoiding the exposed living room, she instead chooses to lurk in the kitchen, stilling in her effort to listen for anything beyond the house.

     There’s a muffled sound somewhere between a screech and the croon of a morning bird, closely followed by yipping and snapping layering over itself more times than she can discern. Very good choice to avoid the living room, it seems! If there’s some little… things, out there fighting, she can only imagine it’ll draw those that are bigger and hungrier-

     Something else. Something else hits her ears, and she knows in that moment that has to be what her daughter heard.

     It’s definitely not close to the house, the sound carrying over the wind and snaking its way into her abode. Whatever it is, it has got to be very, very loud. Something whistling in a tone so shrill and sharp she wouldn’t be shocked if this entire half of the globe heard it.

     She waits for the whistle to pass, and waits for a few minutes after that to ensure its genuine departure. Once she is reassured of this fact she cautiously opens a cabinet, pulling out two granola bars from a stash she’d been keeping to try and make the kids eat something before heading to school. While she’s here, a phone is also retrieved out of a different drawer. Her phone’s barely hanging on battery-wise, but she’d rather keep Charles’ safe for emergencies.

     Cameron’s phone is in there.

She. shuts. the. drawer.

     With the same caution she approached the kitchen with, she returns to the hallway closet, opening the door to hand the granola bars to Madison. She doesn’t miss the way her little girl’s shoulder sag with relief when it is in fact her mother opening the door and not something else. It makes Jillian’s already heavy heart ache.

     Charles is awake now too, reaching out for one of the bars as Madison unwraps hers and mumbling a subdued ‘thank you’ for the food. Jillian leans against the door, waiting for the phone to power on. She’s been trying every day to call people she knows. Work colleagues that might’ve been stuck at the vet office when this all started, a friend or two from college that she still talks to, and especially her siblings.

     Caleb’s down in Florida, with his son Arven. She has faith in her heart that they’re both ok- he’s got plenty of friends if his social media posts have anything to say about it. She’s choosing to ignore the idea of what the Thing could have done to marine life, because frankly anything she comes up with will be unpleasant and stress her out.

Sam might be dead.

She doesn’t think she could handle that.

     Just as the phone screen shifts from that pure white and to the unlock screen, all three of them jolt at noise from the house. Close noise. ‘Inside the house’ noise. 

     Jillian practically shoves the phone into Madison’s hands, reaching around the doorframe to grab the frying pan leaned against the wall. She puts her hand up to her lips to indicate silence to her children before once again shutting the door.

     Apparently, whatever was close and outside had not been chased away by the whistling. At least that’s what she’s assuming. Trying to yank her sleeves down over her arms further is a futile attempt, so Jillian just hopes that whatever sounds like it’s scrabbling at the window isn’t partial to biting.

     There’s some muffled noise from around the corner leading into the living room accompanied by the sound of splintering glass. Is the thing chewing on it? This is so bad.

     She takes a deep, trembling breath, and steps through the doorway.

Chapter Text

     “Can you just give me a minute-”

     A long, shimmering, teeth-lined red tube clamps four sections of itself onto another portion of the glass and wrenches it back, cracking it away from the pane and spitting it out to the side. The tube (it’s a head, Jillian realizes as the rest of the body starts to haul itself through the window) bends unnaturally, almost folding down in a scarf-like way until the stranger steps inside. 

     Once there’s no risk of seriously slicing itself on the glass it unfurls once more, eyes dotted along each section scanning around Jillian’s living room until it sees her. A moment of silence between the two is shared with the older woman unable to read the expression of the stranger.

     Because that is a person, isn’t it? Behind the twisting of the body as a result of the Thing in the sky outside is someone who was human. Her hands grip the handle of the frying pan harder. Could she be risking herself by being so close to the window especially now that it’s broken open? The light seems normal, but that doesn’t exactly mean anything-

     She jolts as the person’s tube-like head stretches towards her, too many eyes scrutinizing her, before twisting back towards the open glass.

     “Nevermind!” A distinctly coherent voice echoes out from between flesh and teeth, and Jillian remembers that the stranger was talking while tearing the window apart. “There’s alive people in this one, did the next door house look abandoned?”

     Another shape appears past the window, a haggard young man holding a battered baseball bat on his shoulder. His expression seems confused before he spots Jillian and more importantly the weapon in Jillian’s hands. That makes him jump rushing to the windows ledge and propping himself up on it.

     “Please-” He starts, voice tinged with desperation. “Friendly! That’s my sister, we’re friendly!”

     Jillian lets out a sigh she didn't know she was holding, but doesn’t lower her weapon yet. “How are- how are you out there and not…?” Her voice is sharp as she questions him, but she falters on how exactly to describe the changes without  saying something that could be rude to the aforementioned sister.

     The girl just laughs, the teeth within her head grinding awkwardly against each other at the motion. “Not sick as hell like me? Cause the big eye’s all gone!”

     “The eye??”

     The brother lifts himself away from the windowsill, but winces, having forgotten about the shards of glass still present along the bottom that scratched up his arm. Jillian spots that in her peripheral vision and sighs.

     “Well, listen, you-” She starts, and the girl helpfully supplies her with ‘Bailey’ as an identifier, “-Bailey, you’re already, in my house, how about you-” She turns fully to the man, frying pan coming down to her side. “-come around to the front, ok?”

     He nods, tired eyes glimmering with more relief at the extension of kindness. “Isaac.” He introduces himself similarly to his sister. “What’s your name, mam?”

     “Jillian. Come on…” She nods her head towards the front of her house, starting off towards the front door. She can hear Bailey’s footsteps by her side as she walks. The clicking of nails reminds her of the sound of skittering dogs.

     Isaac gets into the house without issue, awkwardly pressing his arms together to try and staunch the bleeding without letting go of his bat. Jillian shuts the door behind him, but before she does her eyes catch sight of the sky.

     An early morning blue, if not a bit muddied by plumes of smoke from distant buildings. Maybe not 7 am early but close.

     Despite its normalcy she can’t help but feel her throat tighten, and the harsh way she shuts the door is absolutely noticed by her guests- though not commented upon.

     The three walk over to the kitchen. Bailey hops into the seat still standing against the bar counter resting her long head against the cool material. Jillian ducks down into one of her cabinets- a lot of stuff had been messily tossed around the house during the start of the ordeal to facilitate easy access. She has bandages in here, she just has to find them. 

     Isaac clears his throat. “We’re uhm- sorry, about the window.” He chimes meekly.

     “I’m not!”

     Jillian can hear the very recognizable sounds of sibling violence, someone (probably Isaac) elbowing someone else (probably Bailey) and getting whacked in return. She lets out a huff of a laugh despite herself, grabbing the box of bandages and using the counter to push herself into a standing position once more.

     Isaac, nursing a slightly wounded pride from being bapped by a giant tube head in the ribs, continues. “We were just- you know, running low on supplies. She could go out but it’s not like it was safe- still hardly is.”

     He gratefully accepts the offered bandages when they’re slid across the counter, and Bailey flashes a toothy grin that spans all four of the separations in her head. “You should’ve SEEN some of the beasts that were out there! I saw a flock of pigeons eat a guy like cartoon piranhas!” Sitting up, she holds her head in her right hand, the other arms tendrils curling around her body. “Not a lot of supplies to get when I had to be busy biting people…”

     Jillian leans against the counter and rubs the bridge of her nose. “Listen- I’m just glad you two didn’t try to kill me.” A strand of hair that escaped her hastily put together bun scratches against her neck irritatingly, and she goes to fix that as she continues speaking. “I don’t even know how I’m going to start looking for more stuff, this has been just- such a shit week. I feel like I’ve been losing my mind.”

     Isaac nods in understanding, finishing up the bandaging of his arm and sliding the roll back to Jill. “Isolation’ll do that to you… Would you want to stick together, maybe?” His eyes brighten a bit as the suggestion comes to mind. “Higher numbers would probably be better for survival and stuff…”

     Bailey’s head perks up, all her eyes darting to meet her brothers seconds apart from each other. “Won’t that mean needing more stuff though??” Isaac quickly shoots back a rebuttal that finding stuff would be easier with more eyes and hands, to which Bailey replies something about ‘suspiciously people shaped hellcars’, and it’s really a miracle that Jillian’s able to get a word in edgewise. Probably the experience of breaking up bickering children she already has.

     Speaking of.

     “That’s, it’s a very kind offer, thank you Issac.” She starts, raising a hand to catch the two’s attention. “I don’t know if it’ll be… great, though.

     Isaac’s soft eyes land back on her, and he raises a brow. “What makes you say that?”

     There’s a moment of silence as she tries to figure out how to back out of this without outing her kids to the strangers, but the changed girl beats her to it. “Probably because of her kids.”

     Is that one telepathic. Jillian startles at the direct mention of them.

     Bailey raises her hand defensively. “Listen lady, we aren’t gonna eat them or anything!” Her defense comes quick and in a way that is so distinctly practiced. “I can smell them. Ok that also sounds bad. But I mean-” the girl gestures to her worm like head, tendrils at the base of her neck flicking wildly. “-can you blame me?”

     Jillian stammers for a moment in an attempt to recover, before conceding and letting out a strained sigh. Once Isaac sees the confirmatory resignation in her eyes, he chimes in once more. “I mean- that wouldn’t be an issue for us.” He slings a bag around from the back of the chair to his lap, digging through it. “We’ve got to get back up to Montreal to meet up with our parents, so I get if that distance is more than you’re comfortable with-”

     Jillian thinks of the phone in the closet.

     “Let me… let me go get them.” She says reluctantly, stepping out from behind the island. “I need to think about this- but they’ll have a say too. Don’t take anything from the kitchen.”

     She can’t help but warn against it, her nerves shot and just constantly expecting the worst. Isaac nods, a quick little ‘of course not!’ escaping him as she starts off down the hallway and towards the closet. 

     Two hours. That’s about the distance between Ottawa and Montreal by train. How long would that end up being on foot? Her stomach twists and knots itself at the confirmation that her brother’s been that close for as long as he has. Five years. She remembers his face as she sat in his apartment talking with him, her kids happily competing against one another on the game system.

     They’d called since, of course. But life got busy. That’s just how it is, isn’t it? 

     That thought from earlier creeps back in. Sam might be dead. She walks right into the door.

     Reeling back with a sharp curse under her breath, she shakes out her head before reaching a hand out to the door. Within the closet Charles is on his feet, meeting her with the powered on phone in his hands. He looks worried, swallowing hard as his eyes flicker between her and the hallway she’d just walked down.

     “It’s ok!” Her reassurance is soft and quick, and the kids' shoulders loosen some. “It’s just some, ah- other people, other not…” Madison pokes her head up from the blankets and pillows piled high in the corner. “Not messed up like dad?”

     The words send a painful twang through Jillian’s heart and she forces herself to nod. She can’t let them worry about how their grieving affects her on top of everything else from the apocalypse. “Something like that. If you two want to come out, it’s ok to.” She takes the phone from her son's hands, its weight resting comfortably alongside the frying pan in her other hand.

     “Could I go to my room?” Madison asks, freeing herself from the plush prison she’d somehow ended up in. “I want to grab Jam.”

     Which plushy was that again…? She thinks for a moment. The moose, right- how Jillian could ever forget the hunt for the signature toy she doesn’t know. Madison was insistent that she wanted that one though, and not the normal one the brand sold. Jillian gives another hesitant nod. “Grab your luggage from your closet too. If you hear anything odd, you come right out to the kitchen with me, ok? And stay away from the window.”

     A happy grin splits across her daughter’s face as she nods obediently, slipping out past Jillian to go on the hunt. When she steps back, Charles lingers near her. “I’ll come with you.” He says quietly, fiddling with the string of the hoodie he’d fallen asleep in. With that settled, she starts off towards the kitchen once more. It’s a relief to see Bailey and Isaac haven’t moved from their spots. The former is craning her head over the latter's shoulder, the two of them scrutinizing something he’d laid out on the counter.

     Charles stops a few steps behind Jillian at the sight of Bailey. Jill turns around to him, eyebrows furrowing as she tries to give him a reassuring glance, gesturing for him to follow her to the other side of the counter. His shoulders shake as he takes a deep breath in and follows her lead.

     As the two clear the side of the counter, she’s able to see that Isaac had pulled out a map. Fitting, she thinks. He looks up as the two of them approach, offering a friendly smile to her son. Bailey also looks up with her several pairs of eyes, head curling back to a more relaxed position. “Nice to meet you, kid!” She chimes, offering out her good hand for a handshake.

     Charles seems a bit taken aback, but does accept the extension of good will, mumbling a little ‘nice to meet you too’ in response. Seemingly sensing the whole vibe here, Bailey leans back, kicking her brother under the counter to start doing the talking. He takes the not-so-subtle cue.

     “So, we have to make our way to Montreal to… try , and meet up with our parents.” He starts, turning the map around so she and Charles can see. “There’s not really a chance of us catching a ride there, I imagine, so we’d have to make the trek by foot. There’s of course going to be the chance to do the whole ‘supply scavenging’, uhm, that whole routine before we leave the city, but we’ll have to be careful while on that actual stretch of road. I don’t know how we’ll camp out if we can’t find buildings… I mean they’d build leaf houses on Survivor-” 

     “I don’t think you’re thinking of the right show.” Bailey chimes, unhelpfully if Isaac had anything to say about it.

     Jillian stares at the map, computing some numbers in her head. Charles does the same, before looking up at her. “Do you think Sam is ok?” He asks softly.

     Desperately, Jillian hopes her doubt hides on her face. “I don’t know, but I want to think he is. It’ll be better to be as…” Thinking of her youngest brother who’s not even in the country, she can’t hide the wince. “...as close as we can be.”

     Isaac tilts his head to the side slightly. “Have family there too?”

     The two nod, Jillian elaborating with “My brother” at the same time as Charles saying “My uncle”. Isaac nods in understanding.

     There’s a moment of silence shared as everyone thinks, before Charles pipes up. “Don’t we still have the camping stuff from last Christmas?” He asks, looking up to his mom. Jillian thinks for a moment, before nodding. They’d bought it with the intention of going camping during the winter break from school, but had deeply underestimated the availability of spots. The kids had been fine with it, cozying inside with their video games for the winter, and suddenly she is very relieved she never got around to returning it.

     “That’d be great.” Isaac says. “Anything would, really. If you wouldn’t mind using it?”

     “I wouldn’t mind, honestly, I just…” She pauses for a moment, before turning to her son. “It could be dangerous, heading up there. I don’t know what it’ll be like past our house.” She explains, gentle but honest. “I’d never let anything happen to you or your sister, but we don’t have to go if you don’t-”

     “No more dangerous than staying.” Charles cuts in, looking a bit apologetic as he realizes she wasn’t finished. However, he keeps talking when she gives him the floor. “I mean- we’ll run out of food either way, right? All the fridge stuff is bad. Then you’d have to go out looking anyways, and if everything nearby goes it’s kind of the same as moving now?”

     Jillian nods slowly as he speaks, sighing deeply. Her lungs feel tight in her chest. He’s such a good kid, such a good kid.

     Bailey leans forward on the counter to chime in. “Everyone who’s been out there is going to be thrown off by all the change. The pretty eye going away, people starting to leave their homes, yadda yadda ya. Personally I think it’s better to get the jump on travel before their hunting schedules have time to adjust.”

     Isaac shoots her a look for the choice of words, but the kid actually nods in agreement. “Yea. Yea, I- I want to go.”

     “Then it’s settled… mostly.” Jillian straightens up. “Could you go check in with your sister, and see what she thinks?” He nods in response, taking a few steps away from the counter. “I can find the camping stuff in the attic too!” The offer comes with a bit more hope than she’s heard in his voice recently.

     “You’re allowed to get it down if you don’t hurt yourself coming down the stairs. Follow the same rules I gave Madison, ok?” With one last nod he starts off out of view. Attention focuses back on the two guests.

     “You two are staying for the night.” It’s less of an offer and more of a statement, one that neither of the duo seems eager to fight. “I’m not leaving this house until I feel like we’re at least moderately prepared. The kids have their own luggage. Bailey, do you want a bag for stuff?” She asks, given that Isaac has his own and seems to have already packed from wherever they were residing. Bailey shakes the end of her head no, pupils upturning happily. Ok. Guess that does what eyelids were made to do. “Alright…”

     Isaac pushes up from the chair. “We can barricade the window we made worse, right Bailey?” He chimes, coming to grab one of the twitching tendrils around her neck and drag her off as if he’s pulling her ear, her ‘ouch’-ing all the way. Jillian watches them head back towards the living room and feels herself worry for them. They’re older than her kids, but still very young. More people she has to be strong for.

     Not necessarily a complaint, just a worry. She’d want someone else to do the same for her own, after all.

     With the guests busy fixing their property damage and her children probably busy packing their belongings, she stares down at the one thing left to tackle. The phone, a brick held in her hands.

     Silently she navigates to Caleb’s contact information. The attempted call doesn’t even go through- although she isn’t surprised. His area of Florida has shaky cell reception at the best of times, and the apocalypse is a lot worse than the hurricanes that frequently hit the state.

     Then she switches to Sam’s information. The date his last message was sent is visible, and she swallows through a suddenly dry mouth at the sight. She navigates to his number, and presses the button to call.

It rings once.

It rings twice.

It rings a third time.

     Then it cuts to voicemail. His voice, a few years younger, crackles out from the speaker. “ Hey! Sam! I’m uh-” the message pauses and she thinks she can hear the sound of a store just faintly through the noise of the phone. “ -busy, right now. Can’t come to the phone! Call me back!”

And then the call disconnects.

     Jillian’s stares at the screen for a moment before shutting it off. The phone comes up to her head as she slumps forward on the counter, eyes shut tight and a shuddering breath coursing through her. “ You assholes better still be alive. ” Her voice is so quiet as she murmurs that she can hardly even hear it. Silence hangs in the kitchen air, waiting for her weird near-silent not-prayer to finish.

     With another huff she straightens up again, shifting to the side to crack her back slightly. She slides the phone into her pocket and starts off in the direction of her kids, and the master bedroom. She has to start packing and make sure that they aren’t filling every item they’ve ever owned into their bags. She also has to tell her husband she’s heading off.

Maybe through the silence of death, he’ll hear her.

Chapter Text

     Sam thought that fighting the giant, swirling thing the astronomers became would take the cake as the scariest moment of his life. You know, when a giant angel-looking horror tells you to run before it ‘obliterates’ you (or whatever they were saying, truthfully it was hard to hear over the sound of his heart hammering in his chest), one tends to exhibit fear!

     He should’ve known better, thinking that. Jinxed himself from the moment the idea scrambled across the forefront of his mind.

     There was hardly a moment for him to reel from the sheer gravity of his conversation with the Visitor before awareness of his body returned to him and then processing contact with an unfathomable entity became truly the last thing on his mind. 

     In the moment all he could do was tell himself to breathe. Still his body (a Sisyphean task given just how many limbs had to coordinate, and even the thought about how they all connected and felt made him feel unwell ok think about something else- ), focus on his consciousness, and then go from there. A really simple series of steps on paper! Unfortunately he was in real life at the moment and things were a lot more difficult than simply saying ‘be calm’ and it being so.

     However, miraculously, he didn’t break. Crack? Maybe, but not break.

     When he finally feels put-together enough to check back in with the real world, the first thing he registers is thankfully not the feeling of several thousand limbs wrapped around and over buildings. It’s a distinct, sharp feeling. He’s being stabbed. It’s odd- the pain is as sharp as he’d expect it to be normally, but it also felt far away. As if it were coming through in two separate feedback channels

     He’ll unpack that later.

     There’s a moment of internal clumsiness as he lifts a limb up, but he is able to extend a few eyes to try and orient himself. He desperately hopes that whatever he is right now doesn’t have a stomach as a wave of dizziness assaults his consciousness, but with a moment of staring hard at the stone wall of the building next door it fades to something… manageable.

     Carefully the eyes twist, and he realizes that the feeling was coming from the apartment roof- THE GROUP

     It was coming from the roof, where the rest of the group was!

     Hellen was standing closest to where he’d lifted his limb from, pulling a small knife from one of her pockets. Not her cleaver- she’d had it during the fight with the astronomers, hadn’t she? Papineau was standing behind her with the pitchfork at his side. It wasn’t raised in hostility, and even from his strange point of view he could feel the man's eyes bore into his soul. Joel was pressed close to his side, and a pang of guilt runs through Sam. Bringing the kid up to the roof wasn’t his greatest decision. Not to discount Joel’s capability to defend himself- 

     He jolts as another close-yet-far shock of pain ripples out from a point in his limb. One of the eyestalks twists towards the source instinctively and, powering through the new disorienting wave that came with looking in two places at once, he recognizes the cause.

     There’s Hellen’s cleaver!

…

     Ohhh. No, ok, now it hits him. He turns back towards them, lowering his limb carefully onto the roof. He’s afraid the building’s going to crumble under him, but none of the three seem unsteady as he comes down, so that has to be a good sign.

     Hellen’s quick to take the opportunity to strike before he recoils away once more, Sam shuddering at the slice and accompanying sting. He hopes Mutt didn’t have too much poison in that blade. He tries to say something, yelling out a frantic “Easy easy it’s Sam! It’s Sam!” in his own mind, but of course it isn’t that easy. A sharp whistle fills the air around them. It’s not as loud as his earlier breathing exercises were (not that he knows that), but it’s certainly not something anyone’s ignoring.

     Hellen recovers from him shifting his limb back slightly, bringing the knife around in her hand and staring at him in an intimidating silence. Before she can get in another hit, however, Joel rushes forward. 

     “Miss Hellen!” He calls, rushing over to her. She huffs, not looking over her shoulder but still placing herself between Sam and Joel. “Not the time, Joel-”

     “No, it’s- hhh-” He comes up right to her side, but keeps a bit of distance so she can’t nudge him out of the way, “-I don’t think it’s trying to fight!”

     Hellen considers this for a moment, watching the limb. Sam, of course, is not trying to fight them. He tries to pull back some to maybe ease the situation, but a bit of himself catches on the edge of the roof and it makes him jolt. Papineau is the last to approach the whole situation, resting the pitchfork on his shoulder.

     “Kid does seem to be right.” He says calmly, blowing a bit of hair out of his face. “The shape might be…” There’s a moment's pause as the man considers his choice of words, with Sam extending a few more eyestalks in the meantime. None of the three look real roughed up, thankfully. “...entropic, in nature, but we’ve seen enough fights picked to know when that’s something's goal.”

     There’s a quieter whistle from Sam, more akin to a sigh of relief, thank you Papineau!

     Hellen grumbles, the sound almost indistinguishable under her paper mask, but ultimately she relents. The poison knife comes to rest at her side, and she starts to look at Sam with a cooler head.

     Joel’s the first one to speak up once more, stepping forward. Sam focuses his eyes on the kid. “Uhm- do you… you have a lot of eyes .” and oh he doesn't even know the half of it. “Did you see our friend Mr. Sam?” Fiddling with the end of his t-shirt as he talks, Joel's jaws grind anxiously. “He’s- hhh - He’s taller than me, but shorter than them-” There’s a quick nod sent towards Hellen and Papineau. “-and, he was wearing a purple sweater, and-”

     There’s a distinct terror at being described to himself that Sam can feel skirt under the surface of his mind, but again, that’s something he can unpack later. He wills himself to nod furiously, eyes shutting on each eyestalk as they shake up and down. Some of them curl back and press against the end of the limb from which they originate. He whistles some more, short and quick bursts escaping his form as he tries to confirm that he is Sam. Joel stops once he cuts in and he can spot the way his face twists in the motion of furrowing brows. Behind him Papineau and Hellen are similarly trying to decipher what the frantic motions mean.

     Funnily enough, they all seem to hit the realization at the same time. 

“Deputy?” Papineau chimes, eyes widening.

“You’re kidding me.” Hellen tilts her head slightly to the side, as if the motion will help her take him in better.

“Mr. Sam??” Joel’s voice pipes up the loudest.

     A resounding shrill whistle cracks through the air. Yes, yes oh thank god they realized! He brings his limb down to rest on the roof, forcing himself to stop internally cheering when he finally clocks just how loud the sounds he makes can get.

     Joel lets out a surprised gasp, jumping in place before rushing forward to hug Sam. Well, it’s less of a hug given Sam’s diameter and more just Joel bumping the side of his body into the limb like a cat’s headbutt. Several of Sam's eyestalks creep out, either looking down at the kid or draping along his shoulders in the closest thing to reciprocation he can offer.

     Papineau walks up to his left side, leaning the wide end of the pitchfork on the roof. “You’re holding up?” He asks, voice soft but serious. One of the free eyestalks looks at him and nods, before Papineau smiles and ‘claps it on the back’. Of course this sends it falling momentarily limp before it twists back up to glare semi-indignantly at the janitor. “That’s what I like to hear! I’d hate to see you fall in the line of duty, although it would have been a rather glorious end.”

     Hellen had saddled up to the right of the limb, just looking over his features and nodding. “Good to see you.” She says simply. “Can I have my cleaver back.”

     An eyestalk closer to her nods (hey, the split-screen nausea is easing!) and he carefully pushes more of the limb closer to the side of the roof. Once the weapon is in reach she wrenches it free from his flesh, sliding the poison knife into a pocket.

     “You’re so big!!” Joel says excitedly, stepping away from the limb and glancing towards the other end of the roof. Sam doesn’t follow his gaze but the feeling of his body just barely registers in his mind. That’s where the main part of him is, he believes. It’s not saddled up next to the apartment complex like this particular limb, but it’s close enough to be easily seen and spoken at from the roof. “You’ve gotta have, like- hhh - like a million parts!”

     There’s an airy sound, more like windchimes than whistling, as Sam chuckles at the enthusiasm. It’s nice to think of it like that, instead of the overwhelming mess controlling all of himself would be in this moment.

     “Papineau, how the hell are you unchanged?”

     Hellen asks, her usually rather monotone voice carrying a hint of disbelief as the realization hits her. Sam realizes as well, several stalks shooting up to start scanning the janitor. Had he looked outside? Sam doesn’t remember asking. Probably was the blood loss that made him forget to.

     “I-” The man starts, but something flickers behind his eyes and he changes his tone. “-am simply too well trained against the forces of chaos. My duty shields me.”

     “That’s not a functional response.” Hellen shoots back, shoulders tensing.

     “I think it’s perfectly functional, because it is the truth!”

     “You’re a pretty big liar.”

     “Guys…” Joel pipes up, and some of Sam’s eyestalks shoot out between the two to try and break up whatever this weird thing is. He gestures towards the stairwell, and then down. They’ve been up here for a while- at least that’s what it feels like to him.

     Joel rocks on his heels a little bit, catching onto what Sam is trying to say. “Yea, we- hhh - we should go check on everyone! Tell them that the Visitor went away!” He bounds a few paces away towards the stairwell entrance, before turning back towards the rest of the group. 

     “Mr Sam! Do you- hhh- want us to open up windows so you can come inside with your eyes?”

     Sam nods once more, whistling something in appreciation. Hellen huffs in Papineau’s general direction, simply telling Sam that they’ll be back. Papineau nods in respect to his ally, following the group as they go back inside. 

     Sam watches them go and carefully navigates his limb from the roof and more into the alley between his complex and the neighboring building. It’s far from graceful, and he definitely bumps into both sides more then once, but he gets to a decent height without bringing either down and really when life has gone so off the rails you have to take the small victories.

     Now, which of these windows leads to his apartment.

—

     Night comes on that first day post-Visitor, and then the sun rises after that, and everybody begins the slow process of adjusting to what the world is now. The kids had wanted to have a roof ‘sleepover’, especially since Sam wasn’t currently able to reach very far into the apartment, but between the trembling spires of tormented flesh and the cursed who were capable of flight it was decided to postpone that event until things began to cool down.

     The Shadow had actually come up to hang out on the roof, as close to Sam’s main body as it could get.  It seemed to enjoy the relative quiet up there compared to within the apartment. Sam was initially worried (especially because he was not confident in his ability to protect it while still watching the apartment), but things were fine. The cursed weaving through the sky or lurking on other rooftops either didn’t notice its presence or simply didn’t care.

     Sam took a lot of that time to think about his current situation. He couldn’t really verbalize to anyone as it would all come out as whistles- would he be able to at some point? He vaguely remembers Dan talking about some sort of code or cipher after getting home from exploring the complex once. Maybe he’s got some sort of alternative communication method Sam could use.

     The future is a horrifically scary prospect. The extent of this forms growth? Its upkeep requirements? Potential Immortality? All concepts that are so deeply complicated and intricate that even in this moment he finds the prospect of sitting down to unpack them in their entirety overwhelming. He’s going to have to ( especially that last one), but it’s been a day. Surely it can wait?

     Nope. Doesn’t stop them from lingering around the edges of his mind like the smell of gasoline. Ah well, you can't win all internal battles.

     The easier thing to think about is actually the Visitor. 

     It was pleasant. Benevolent? He’s pretty sure benevolent is the right word. It took well enough to the unfortunate news of ‘the world's kind of falling apart when you look at it’ that he had to deliver. 

     It said it hadn’t thought before. Did Sam do that? In their efforts to understand each other, had Sam managed to change the visitor just as it had changed him?

     He hadn’t thought to ask it any questions, and truthfully he was too frazzled and awestruck in the moment to have come up with any if the thought had crossed his mind. It had to stretch an unfathomable distance out in the empty void of space. Did its existence confirm further life out in the stars, or was it a one-off occurrence? Is there anything in the world there for it?

     He hopes so. The thought that interacting with Sam had granted it some kind of sapience only for it to be unable to see or speak to anything else for the rest of eternity was really fucked up. 

     In a series of concepts that may or may not be related, the thought of his family finally crawls through to the surface and it feels like a terrible electric shock. His phone had been dead when he woke up on the first morning and by the time he’d gotten back from checking on his neighbors the thought of charging it had fully disappeared from his mind. The internet was still functional though, his computer had been working the few times Joel and Sophie had borrowed it to play some game he didn’t know. The Shadow had even been using it once, too. 

     He hadn’t… spoken in depth, to his siblings, in a few months, but did that matter in the end of the world? The thought of them sending their last words to a chatroom he hadn’t viewed was distressing in ways Sam didn’t think were possible. He also couldn’t exactly speak to them now. Shhhhhit.

     The rising sun is something he feels before he sees, the air warming him and prompting him to look around from the limbs he was able to consciously control. A few perspectives broke through from different parts of his body and while the visual was still something that disoriented him, it was nothing compared to yesterday. Small victories. Small victories.

     He waits until the apartments occupants start to get up before he plays a long, grueling game of charades with Ratthew, desperate to get him to put Sam’s phone to charge. Eventually though the little guy gets it and is very delighted to receive headpats as a reward for his skills.

     Papineau takes on making the kids breakfast while Hellen comes in to inform him that she’s going to comb the convenience store for supplies that could be useful in the coming days. Mostly gardening stuff. Leigh scrambles over Dan and out the door behind Hellen after hearing the taller woman mention something about ‘getting Sam’s help in dealing with the worm.’

     He mostly just watches from the street as the two bait the crawling thing out and Leigh barrels into it in a mass of teeth and flesh. Seeing it in daylight, Sam’s pretty glad he didn’t confront it when the group had ducked in in search of a blank VHS tape. A fight like that after a day of trudging through the sewers and dodging the lumbering pipe-filled cursed wouldn’t have done great things for him. Besides, Leigh seems more than thrilled to get at it after missing the brawl on the roof.

     Once it’s properly dispatched, he… mostly just watches through the glass as they start browsing the shelves. There’s a few of the patrons from Mutt’s that poke their heads in after a while, likely investigating the noise that came from the worm brawl. They’d looked at his tendrils through the window with fairly reasonable concern, but the worst of it seemed to fade when Hellen would (assumedly, he can’t hear her from outside) explain what went down.

Lots of watching. Looooots of watching. It makes him antsy.

     After a while he pulls his awareness back towards the top of the building. Papineau and Joel had joined the Shadow on the roof, the three of them examining several branching masses of organic matter patterned along the walls and reaching into the sky. He extends a few eyestalks, forcing their eyes shut before using them to wave. Joel waves back, and the other two greet him with friendly nods.

     “How’d things go downstairs?” Papineau calls up. He’d been in the party when everyone had ducked into the convenience store, so he had at least an image of what the others would’ve fought. Sam hesitates for a moment, brain stalling as it tries to figure out how to get this body to give a thumbs up, before he gives up on the attempt. Instead he gives a nod of confirmation accompanied by a short whistle. The custodian seems to understand, murmuring “good, good…” under his breath. 

     Joel walks up to the edge of the roof, peering over the side at one of the larger organic pillars. Between the heavy breathing and low groaning from more misshapen mouths than Sam can count, it gives off a low ambient noise almost like wind in a storm. Rows upon rows of rib cages cracked open towards the sky, lungs and hearts and other organs twitching and pulsating with twisted life

     If he pushes his senses just a bit, he can feel the way several of his limbs wrap around similar pillars throughout the city. He doesn’t fully step into those areas of his body, not yet. Some of his limbs are winding around or draped atop buildings just as they are around the flesh pillars. Even as he makes his mind small he knows a wrong move or two could topple them. 

     He wants to help people, people that are out there hiding or stuck or injured, but he’s no help to anyone if he can’t keep his body from causing harm.

     Also, being functionally alone with his thoughts for an extended period of time is something he needs to psyche himself up for.

     He brings his limb down, carefully, towards where Joel is standing. The kid seems… perturbed, staring at the pillar. When he speaks his voice is quiet, wavering slightly. “Mr. Sam…?” He asks, shifting to look towards Sam. “Do… Do you think there’s any way to help them?”

     Sam’s been beaten, stabbed, burned, thrown, bitten and chewed through in every which way since the Visitor’s arrival. He’s also felt guilt in more ways than he thought possible since the Visitor’s arrival (killing in self defense doesn’t make the ‘killing’ part any easier to swallow, his nightmares seem to say). And still, that question makes his heart hurt.

     He’s quiet for a long moment, before he reaches out a few eyestalks to pat Joel’s shoulder. A low, unsure noise escapes a few of the spiracles dotting this limb. He isn’t sure, but he doesn’t think so.

     Joel lets out a sigh that makes him sound weary beyond his years before nodding. He steps back from the ledge of the roof. “I’m- hhh - I’m gonna go back and play some games with Sophie.” He says this more to himself than to anyone else, but does give Sam a little departing wave before he trots off to the stairwell. Sam watches him go, memories of the kid's apartment welling up before he can set them aside.

     He didn’t want to hurt any of them. He’d tried, tried talking Clint down, but nothing he’d said got through. The last attack Clint had tried to throw at him, Sam wasn’t able to bring the bat up fast enough to block, but instead he’d cracked it into the side of his neighbor’s head. Trying to talk to Madison hadn’t gone any better.

     A very, very wide berth was given to their daughter.

     Could he have done anything? Maybe. Maybe he could’ve just left them alone. Should he have just left them alone? He hadn’t even been able to do the bare minimum and be a somewhat stable presence for Joel in the wake of it all. He was a giant thing now. It’s day one post-visitor, the rational part of his mind tells him, but the louder part tells him he should be doing more. Something, anything, he’d been out checking on neighbors and looking for supplies from morning to night every day why can’t he be as productive now-

     “Sam, you there?”

     Papineau had come closer to the ledge, sticking the blunt end of the pitchfork out to poke his limb. The Shadow was scribbling down things on a notepad behind him. Sam thinks he can spot some name-brand cleaning items on there.

     Right, he’s being spoken to. He whistles slightly to let Papineau know he’s present, turning his attention towards his friend. 

     “Figured you were spiraling.” man. He’s not wrong. “The… specter and I are going to work on tidying up the roof. Make it a safe… safer spot for folks to get some sunshine. Maybe get a garden going too. There’s certainly the space for it.”

     Sam perks up, pointing to one of the visible organic tendrils curling around the roof (one that isn’t his own) and whistling supportively. He could handle that! Gladly!

     Papineau turns to see what he’s pointing at, thinking for a moment before responding. “Those will need to get… moved, but we won’t be dealing with that for a while I bet. With the supplies we’ve got available, it’ll be better to work one area at a time. Small progress is still progress.”

     He must visibly deflate, because one of the man's brows raises before he nods in understanding. “Difficult to find stuff here to help with?”

     There’s a moment's pause and then quiet, embarrassed nodding from Sam’s tendrils. Papineau huffs, probably the closest thing he’s ever given to a laugh in the time Sam’s known him, before leaning against the ledge of the roof. “Deputy, your determination is a star quality. For one to carry the burden we do it is a necessity.”

     He looks over the edge of the roof, out towards the wider city of Montreal. “The end of the fight isn’t as close as I had thought it to be a few days ago. It will always end, of course…” The two of them watch the numerous flesh pillars gently pulsate and waver in the sky. Something with wings and tongues crashes into one farther out and begins to whack at it with its many limbs. Some buildings sport holes or crushed walls where they could not support the weight of what came to rest on them. “...and we certainly aren’t any better off, but it’s doable.”

     Papineau’s eyes land back on Sam’s. “Surviving looks doable.”

     The two sit in that silence that they’d often shared since Papineau had been found in the bottom floor bathroom. Sam with exhaustion seemingly permanently etched onto his face, a shoulder that ended in bloodied bandages, and a child clinging close at his back. Papineau with acceptance of the way things were now hanging heavy on his shoulders. The silence of finding another adult who may not get it in the way you do, but still gets it.

     With a grunt Papineau straightens up, resting the pitchfork on his shoulder. “It’s been a day. No battle was won in a day, so try not to feel bad about what you can’t do. Buuut-” He nods respectfully at Sam’s limb. “-We’ll see what we can do about sending some expeditions further than the building. You’d be a great help in managing the larger cursed there.”

     A smile opens across Sam’s numerous eyestalks- Weird sentence, don’t think about it- and he whistles appreciatively at his friend. Satisfied that he reassured Sam how he could, Papineau turns back towards the Shadow to continue their discussion about cleaning up the roof. Well, less of a discussion and more of Papineau musing to himself and the Shadow nodding and taking notes. Whatever makes them happy.

     Sam carefully maneuvers his limb away from the roof, coiling it sort of on top of itself  in the street as he tries to take his friend's reassurance to heart.

     …It’s been a while since he’s had anyone to do that for him. Most of the time it was his own internal monologue telling him those things. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, telling himself things like ‘you can only pour from what’s in your cup’ or ‘your best is the best you can give’ or ‘you’ve had one wild ass day you need to take five minutes to breathe’ never did much to actually dissipate the negative feelings they were meant to dissipate.

     He wasn’t even the one who came up with that stuff (well, except for the bit about the wild day), he learned a lot of emotional regulation stuff from Jill.

     There was some awkwardness, growing up with the more sizable age gaps that he and his siblings had, but that was something he’d only come to realize as an adult. Their parents tended to… fluctuate, in the level of interest they had in their children’s lives. It was fun to have a cute little baby to carry around, and the same was to be said about toddlers. However upon hitting the age where ‘hobbies’ and ‘opinions’ and ‘complex emotional regulation skills’ started developing, things seemed to go from fun to ‘work’ for his mother and father.

     Things could have been worse, one hundred percent. They had a roof over their heads, clothes and food and some trinkets and toys, but it always felt like a hollow obligation. Food was in the fridge but it was never cooked with love by them. Clothes were bought but never asked about, toys were purchased from gathered birthday money and the occasional chore.

     The only reason he’d caught onto things as late as he had was because of his sister. 

     Where his parents weren’t, she was. She’d engage with him in little made up games he can hardly remember the plots of now. She’d leave books she’d finished on his bed if he’d shown any interest in them. She’d watch movies with him late into the night during the summer, even the scary ones. Sam had always found the worldbuilding of those movies, really any story he could get his hands on, fascinating. Caleb did too, when he came along. Perhaps most importantly, she’d been the one he went to when his mental health first got really bad.

      A late night call when he was 13 and she was in vet school. His chest painful and tight and his head aching from how hard he’d been holding in tears. It was a bad day at school, and a stressful group project, and the air had been feeling like sludge, and he felt so alone, and he knew going to his parents was a futile effort.

     Jillian had dropped whatever she’d been doing and just sat with him. Listening to him ramble and his voice waver off into tears for what felt like hours. She hadn’t brushed him off with a ‘it’s just a bad day’ or bit back a sigh as she looked at her phone, especially when he said he’d been feeling bad for a while.

     She heard him. Really heard him. Told him she got what he was going through and said she’d talk to their parents about doing something to help.

     A few days later, after a particularly loud phone call, she’d chosen to keep listening to him instead. She’d validated the things he was feeling, suggested ways to work around his prickly mind to stay on track with his schoolwork and health, told him that someday things would get better.

     Knowing how deep those psychological pits could get from some real rough patches throughout his twenties, Jillian had 100% saved his life. And he didn’t even know if she was still alive to repay that to her. He should’ve done more back then.

     There’s little that he wants more right now than to hear her voice over the phone. To hear Caleb’s

     His perspective has changed. The eyestalks he’s looking through now are ones far from the limbs near the apartment. If he had to guess, he’s somewhere near the edge of the city? Lifting up a limb he peers out over buildings and trees, trying to see Ottawa on the horizon line. There’s no way he’s catching sight of Florida from here, but if he tries, maybe he can see how bad it is over there. Maybe he can help. Maybe he can see if, if the cell lines are down or something, before he tries to call.

     Without knowing it, the direction of his body’s growth shifts towards a goal. 

Chapter Text

     It had been a very weird night.

     Thankfully, that ‘weird’ wasn’t the bad kind of weird, but it was still… it’s only been a week since this started, she can’t be that thrown off by somewhat normal human interaction, can she?

     The guests had accompanied her and her children into the hallway with the closet. Not everyone was shoved in there this time (although if anyone had wanted to attempt that, there was certainly not enough room). Instead they’d sort of circled up in the general area. Charles was listening to Isaac talk about some of his stories from college while Madison was occupied with informing Bailey about the intricacies of her Webkinz oc’s lore. Bailey was listening with rapt interest, and that warmed Jillian’s heart. 

     Jillian’s focus was on the upcoming journey. Thankfully Charles and Madison had handled themselves, the two keeping their backpacks in their own designated corners of the closet. The camping gear that had previously been stowed away in the attic was… it would be enough. Not necessarily comfortable, but really none of this was, so what can she do? The kitchen was cleared of as much stuff she could fit into a bag, cans and bags of trail mix and bottles of water stacked atop one another in the most important game of Tetris she’d ever play. Whatever couldn’t fit would probably last until the opportunity to return here arose. Either that or someone else looking for food would find their way in. Either way, it would be put to use eventually.

     Periodic phone calls had been attempted throughout the day leading up to that nighttime circle, enough to drain the rest of the battery life from Jillian’s phone. There were battery packs in the house, but the repeated chest-tightening thoughts that would slice through her steady planning at each unanswered ring were enough for her to wait a while before another attempt.

     Instead she spent that night watching the shadows twist and twirl on the wall. Noises crept through any crevice they could, sending her gaze flickering between each end of the hallway on the lookout for real movement. It’s really a miracle that she got any sleep at all.

     But she did. 

     And now here she was. Stood near the entrance of her home, looking over the four lives that felt dangerously fragile and solely in her hands.

     “Alright.” Clearing her voice from the last vestiges of sleep, she focuses on her children. “I need you both to be so, so aware and careful, ok? No wandering off, no touching anything we… aren’t sure about, and always listen for any directions from us, ok?” ‘Us’ referring to the only other 3 people in the group. Preferably she’d be able to shout any directions for escape to her kids, but you never know! You never know.

     Charles and Madison nod, the former offering out his hand for the latter to hold onto. As they do that, Jillian’s attention turns to the older sibling duo. “You have the map?” She asks, voice giving off just a bit more hesitance than it did when addressing the kids. Isaac nods, patting the front pocket of his bag. “Right in here for easy access.” Jillian nods, hoisting her half of the camping gear up some on her shoulder. Isaac has the other half. The double bag situation definitely isn’t ideal, but at least some of it can be pawned off the Bailey when the group is relatively in the clear.

     Bailey stretches her arms behind her back, the tendril-y one curling over and around the more human-looking one. “You don’t have to worry!” Her tone is light and relaxed as she speaks, “I’ve got everyone’s backs. Getting out of the city’ll be a breeze, and then it’s a straight shot to Montreal!”

     “More like a rough hike.” Isaac does not look super excited at the prospect.

     “We’ll be fine.”

     “Bailey you’re going to give me grey hairs-”

     “We are going to be careful. ” Jillian interjects, giving a very directed look at Bailey. “And avoid attracting unwanted attention if we can. Ok?”

     There’s a prolonged moment of eye contact between the two of them (with Charles carefully stuffing Jam into the outer pocket of Madison’s backpack in the background) before Bailey relents. Her long head droops as if she’s just been told that they have to make a quick trip to the grocery store with no time to look through the bakery section. “Alright, alright…  Just while you’re with us.”

     Isaac lightly taps his sister's shoulder, conveying some threat that he will in fact kill her if she pulls any stunt when they’re alone in the next city over. Jillian just decides to take the lead and, after adjusting the frying pan in her hands, opens the door to keep this from devolving any further. For the first time in 10 days, she steps out into the sunlight.

     The street outside was eerie, to put it lightly. Looking around at these houses that she’s seen every day of her life for years, not knowing what’s going on within their walls. That’s the case for the in-tact ones at least. Looking further down the road she’s able to spot several that have been disturbed in one way or another: one has its entire left wall blown out with most of the building crumbled in the wake of whatever escape, another appears to have been overtaken by plants and a disgustingly pulsating tree, several have some sort of unidentifiable organic mass either breaking its way in or pushing its way out. A deep, shaky breath is taken as she forces her nerves to steel. 

     Isaac follows her out, Bailey taking up the rear behind the kids. “We’ll want to stick to the yards, preferably moving between houses. ‘On the Road’ is really, uhm- vulnerable, but it’s our best method of navigation, so we want to shadow it for as long as we can.”

     “Got it.” Jillian lets Isaac move to the front and the group officially departs from her house. “It’s 174 that we’re trying to reach…” There’s a moment where she trails off, pulling the memories of the roadways to the forefront of her mind.

     Isaac nods towards the turn at the end of the road. “We’ll want to approach it near the park. There’s a big forestry stretch of land right next to it around there, but we… don’t really know, what’s in there?” His tone shifts into a bit of that nervous laughter, but he refrains from actually following through with the sound. “But the residential roads lead all the way up to Montreal Station. No way in hell we’re actually taking a train, but there we can determine if we want to stick closer to the highway.”

     With that plan in mind, everyone falls into an uncomfortable silence. Bailey’s eyes are all scanning the surroundings, looking for any flashes of movement from the sky or the other side of the road. In the early morning sounds carry far over the wind, echoes of images reaching them between rows of what once were homes. 

     Sticking closer to the homes is successful enough as they move towards the park. Most of the vehicles on the road they’re coming from were either still in their driveways or overturned and busted and scraped by some creature nobody had seen. Passing the house with the tree these long, barbed appendages split the bark and start slithering in the air towards them. Bailey hisses at them something fierce, but it’s decided that a quick departure from its possible range is going to be more effective than figuring out how many of those the tree has at its disposal.

     Further along the journey, as they pass into the apartment complexes next to landmark park, something scrambles out of an alleyway with some terrible noise between an airhorn and a caterwaul. It’s off and into the bushes across the road before a good look can be taken at it, but its pursuer lingers on the sidewalk right in front of them. It looks like it was a dog at some point… Its fur is matted and thinning away around its legs, which have changed into something hard and spindly. Some odd shimmering material is protruding from its chest, inflating and deflating with each labored breath.

     It looks over to the five of them as they stand in the grass, close to a cluster of previously well maintained bushes. It’s eyes are a bit glassy, and while it sniffs the air in their general direction it does not move to bare its teeth or attack. Instead, it takes a few stumbling steps back before trotting across the road in the same direction as its prey.

     Bailey checks down the alleyway before anyone continues walking, flashing a thumbs up to let them know the coast is clear of any other changed beings. Madison walks close to the wall, Jam having already made its way out of her backpack pocket as she makes the plush walk along each passing surface. 

     Jillian’s mind is racing, a thousand thoughts a second bubbling just under the tense survival-mode silence permeating her core. She lets herself fall towards the back of the group, deciding that with the walk ahead of them that there is, some time can be spared to ask some questions.

     One of Bailey’s eyes focuses on her as she approaches, the others still keeping omnidirectional watch. She hums inquisitively, not opening her mouth.

     Jillian considers her words for a moment before starting. “You were… outside a lot, while this was all active, right?” A quick nod lets her know to keep going. “What was it like?” One of Jillian’s hands comes up to push some hair out of her face, ignoring the way the strap of the bags she’s carrying shifts uncomfortably on her shoulder.

     One of the divisions of the younger girl’s head splits into a toothy grin. “Oh, it was a dogfight .” With a tone that is far too happy, her human-like hand comes up to gesture as she talks. “It was at its worse probably like… at the midpoint? ‘Cause that’s when most who looked were coming outside. People were scared, hurting, and a lot of them were bloodthirsty.” She points up towards the now clear sky, where distantly a pack of something can be seen soaring by. “There was this giant eye up there, it’s the kind of thing you can’t even describe. Colors that I don't even think were meant to exist filled the sky at all times. It got brighter and darker but it never felt like night and day.” 

     She brings her hand back down, tracing it along the rough brick walls they were passing by. “I don’t know what it's reasoning was for what changed and what didn't and how it changed. Like, on one of my runs out, I saw a truck- the type with the empty spots in the back, I forget the name- where all of the underside stuff was like, guts. They were all trailing after it as it crawled around, these giant hands sticking out of the sides like antlers.” Some of the tendrils on her other arm flickered this way and that, especially as they passed an opening into a parking lot. “It was freaky. I stayed away from it though, a nasty encounter with another car is what gave me this.” Her long head sways slightly towards that aforementioned arm.

     Processing for a moment, Jillian’s eyes go wide. She’s just about to ask if a living car tore off her arm, but Bailey’s quick to beat her to the punch. “I’m fine. If it was going to kill me, I would’ve already been dead.” Some of her eyes that are now trained on Jillian narrow slightly, before relaxing back to how they were before. “Gave me a better way to defend myself. I would’ve thanked them, but a whole bunch of the people who melded with the cars went off in a herd a few days ago.”

     Ok. Backing off of the injury thing, Jillian decides to focus on the whole ‘herd migration’ thing. “Alright… Do you think they were functioning on a herd mindset?” She asks, almost hesitantly. “What do you know about the… the psychological effects, of having seen the eye?”

     Bailey shrugs. “I dunno. It’s definitely not an immediate death sentence-” She gesture to herself, “-obviously. If I had to take a guess, its some thing about exposure?  Like… a lot of people who ended up as cars or trees or whatever, I haven’t seen any of them be very… put together. There were some houses I knocked on the doors to, though, where I caught a glimpse of the people in there. There were definitely a few changed people like me, but they were able to talk to me without trying to drain my blood. Like.. three houses down from the spot we were staying, there was someone who seemed half stuck with some tablet?” She makes a sort of ‘small’ gesture with her hand. “They came up to the door on an office chair and seemed to be coming out of something square. They were nice enough, though.”

     Processing this information, Jillian nods slowly, trying to piece together what little this truly tells her. For a moment she thinks that Bailey has comfortably fallen back into silence, which makes her speaking once more a bit startling. Her voice was already quiet, as any murmuring between the members of the group had been (avoiding unwanted attention and all), but her tone has fallen into something less… confident. Much more like the teenager she still is, and much more like she’s saying something for Jillian’s ears only.

     “I know I changed. Not- not as much as I could have, but I still did. It’s like a burr is stuck on the side of my brain that makes the whole ‘biting and maiming’ idea exciting.” A fair amount of her eyes look forward, staring at the back of Isaac’s head. “It’s… hard. I don’t really care as much about the body stuff as I do about the mind stuff. I’d take being a car if it meant I didn’t feel as lost in a life I still remember.”

     She’s quiet for a moment before taking a breath in and out, the confident wall back up in her voice. “Nothing I can change about it now, I guess. All I can do is do what feels right to get home.”

     Despite how Bailey evidently wants to sweep that under the rug, Jillian can’t find it in her heart to let it go. The idea of having your very psyche changed underneath the gaze of this eye that she described is an idea that rings hollow in her chest. A part of her is so, so thankful that neither of her children were exposed to that, but another part of her aches for this kid who has gone through something she would never want to fathom.

     Wordlessly, Jillian brings an arm around Bailey’s shoulder, head leaning into hers slightly (not all the way, given the other’s head is covered in eyes. “ I think you should tell him that, if you haven’t.” Her voice is a murmur, to keep what was just shared with her private. “ This is a very scary time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been having similar thoughts.. Bottling it up will just hurt you.”

     Jillian straightens up again, arm coming back to rest on one of her bags straps. Several of Bailey’s eyes are trained on her, shocked at the soft reassurance from someone who is effectively a stranger. Her expression twists slightly into something more thoughtful. 

     “I’ll.. I’ll think about it” She says after a moment, tendril arm pressing close to her body. “How about you go make sure he isn’t leading us in circles?”

     Nodding in the understanding that Bailey needs some time to think, Jillian steps forwards, ruffling Charles’ hair playfully as she passes by to return to her place in the front near Isaac. They’d reached a second stretch of houses now, and if memory serves most of the roads from this point lead to the station.

–

     Did you know that a multi-day hike with luggage when you aren’t a particularly outdoorsy person is, in fact, not an easy task?

     Jillian is, unfortunately, finding this fact out firsthand.

     By the time that everyone reaches Cumberland, they are positively dead tired. Bailey can hardly keep herself upright, Isaac looks like the slightest wind will shatter him into a million pieces, Madison is not-so-subtly hiding the ache in every step, and Charles has been stifling yawns for the last hour. Jillian, for one, doesn’t think the knot between her shoulders will ever go away.

     They’d reached the station relatively without issue. This lucky streak was, of course, immediately broken once they got close enough to the doors. Something had nearly bust the entire wall down, creaking and wailing with voices layered over voices. A few hours later when the sheer blood-curdling terror of sprinting away from a beast several times their size (and its minions covered in construction gear, who had given Bailey a number of wounds to remember them by) had finally started to subside, Charles had mumbled a question, asking everyone if they thought that the thing had looked anything like a train.

     It was all Jillian could picture on those awful empty stretches of road where even the plant cover grew slim. When an airborne being would soar overhead or the distant patches of trees would creak and wail.  Something long pushing itself forward on twisted gorey masses of flesh resembling hands. Spotting them from kilometers away and rushing forward with a slavering mechanical maw, the kind of snake that sweeping a twig through the grass could not mitigate the danger of-

     She’s snapped out of the image that will be haunting her nightmares by a light tug on her sleeve. Charles is there, nodding his head towards a free spot of land. This place was odd in that, while it was small, the houses were just close together enough to make camping anywhere but the edge of the area feel dangerous. Especially because they don’t know how many in the village were affected by the Eye.

     “Good eye.” Jillian pushes to the front of the group, leading the way into the grass to check it for any small yet unsavory creatures. Once things seem clear a sigh of relief ripples through the five of them, and the camping bags are unceremoniously set down 

     It’s a group effort to get the tent set up and by the end of it all Jillian is just banking on no strong breeze blowing through here during the night. The tent is the type to have a divider right down the middle, and her kids quickly retreat into one of the divisions now that there’s a genuine opportunity to rest their feet.

     Outside, Bailey and Isaac are sort of awkwardly staring between each other, half grabbing the bags shared between them and not-so-subtly looking at the other half of the tent. Jillian straightens up, carefully trying to ease the ache in her back without throwing something out. “You two can get set up over there-” She points to the empty half, “-Just, keep the flap open maybe? At least until I get my kids situated. I can take… I can take first watch, or however we decide to handle this.”

     Without giving either of the pair a chance to fight her on that idea she steps into the left division, crouching down into a sit as her kids grab pillows and a blanket that had been packed between their two bags.

     “How’re you both holding up?” Jillian asks, voice soft despite its weariness. Without looking she opens her own bag, starting to feel inside for these packet meals Caleb had once recommended in the wake of a hurricane. Both kids had asked for a water bottle earlier on the journey, taking sips whenever they felt like they could no longer wait. 

     “ I’msotiiiiiiired…” Madison groans, flopping back onto her pillow and starfishing out on the nylon floor. “I just wanna go to sleep for like a thousand days….”

     “Three years asleep sounds painful.” Charles chimes in, fluffing out the blanket and trying to get it to reach the corners on the other side of his sister. “Imagine how many times you’d get too cold and then also too hot?” 

     “Just sleep with the blanket half on half off. ‘S right there.” Madison points, only sitting up once Jillian reaches out with the food she was feeling for in her bag. Charles laughs a little, rolling his eyes and thanking his mom as he takes the food. “I’m…” There’s a moment where he looks over to Madison who is relievedly digging into a packet with beans pasta and tuna, before back to Jillian. “...just tired.”

     There’s a look in his eyes that she recognizes, a quiet ‘there’s much more to this but I would want to say it to just you’ look, and she nods in understanding.

      “Alright… you two try to get some sleep, ok?” Jillian takes a granola bar out from the bag for herself. “When you’re done with those, leave them next to my pack. I’ll store it away until we pack up in the morning, we can toss these in a garbage bin somewhere around here.”

     Carefully, Jillian makes her way outside of the tent, zipping up the door halfway in her wake. The side that Isaac and Bailey have claimed is still open but it isn’t zipped. She stands there for a moment before deciding against figuring out some sort of ‘watch’ schedule for everyone. Bailey’s nursing wounds from Montreal Station (Jillian has to stifle a shudder at the memory of the grotesque twisted meat stretching out from under the traffic cones, striking out with distorted metal. At least they were awkwardly balanced enough to swing away with her frying pan), and if she really needs to she’ll just shake Isaac awake to ask if he’s up for it.

     That’s probably not happening, though. Besides the fact that the thought of him sitting out here alone makes her sick with nerves, she doesn’t know if she’s getting any sleep herself.

     With a grunt she sits herself down on the side of the tent she’d just departed from, reaching her free hand back to try and work out the pain in her shoulders. The good thing about the spot they’d decided to set up is that, while there was plant life there to block view of their tent, it was situated in a way that made it easy for any of them to look out across the space and keep an eye out for danger. Now, the dip in the land full of tall grass and (most certainly) bugs wasn’t her favorite thing ever… but the options here were total exposure or trying to see if any of these houses were unoccupied, and both felt a lot more dangerous than this.

     Although when everything feels dangerous the specific rankings tend to get lost in the fog.

     She’d never traveled the distance they’re going on foot before, and a part of her wonders whether that new perspective is making her general discomfort worse. Where there were once roads and buildings almost constantly bustling with life there was now silence- relative, silence, the noise of people and cars had been exchanged for the crunching of twigs in the shadows or the gurgling cries of something in the sky or a roar rolling across the empty air like the distant blaring of trumpets.

     Sounds like that last one or like the whistling on that first day really make her worry. For something to be that audible without being visible in the slightest, it has to be large, and from what she does know about those who saw the Eye it seems like the larger something ends up correlates to how likely it is to be hostile. 

     Well, the construction crabs… 

     Yea, no clue, she’s trying to make something out of nothing. Muffling a heavy sigh she sets the frying pan down next to her, allowing her to put her head in her hands and slump forward. On top of the physical pain, all of the uncertainty has coiled up right around her collar, making every breath a tense and difficult effort. The grief is up there too, all knotted in and trying to draw her into someplace dark and dead with the memories of him. Memories that she’s been struggling to look past because she fears the way her heart will break when she can’t ignore it anymore. And right now she can’t. She can’t tell him she’s so sorry, she can’t tell him that she’ll be back to give him the funeral he deserves, she can’t tell Cameron that she remembers their wedding day and the way he dipped her and looked at her like she was the world-

     The distinct, scratchy sound of a zipper unzipping makes her look up, turning around towards the door of the tent to see Charles. He looks at her for a minute, eyes narrowed to help adjust his vision to the dark. There’s a moment between that and when Jillian turns away to wipe her face where he sees her watery eyes, and the silence in the air hangs heavy.

     “ Honey-” She tries to quietly clear her throat, wiping her eyes one last time before looking at him with a bit more composure. “Hey, honey. What’s up?” She scoots over a bit, making some space in the grass for him to sit next to her.

     Charles carefully sits down, picking at some of the grass in front of him. “ Long day… ” He brushes some of his hair out of his face. “I’m… I just keep thinking about…” There’s a pause and he looks out to the grass in front of them both, towards the shadows of buildings nearby, thinking about what exactly he wants to try and verbalize. “It feels like it should be like all of the zombie movies you ever see, and it’s not. It’s so…”

     “Quiet?" Jillian supplies, and her son nods vigorously at the word. “Yea, quiet. But still really fuu…” He trails off, not meeting her eyes before picking the word back up and finishing with, “...eeeeffed up. Yea.”

     Jillian tries to hold a fake ‘stern mom’ look but hardly manages to hold it for five seconds before it devolves into a breathless laugh. “No, I know what you mean.” Leaning back, she casts a look up at the sky, which has at this point darkened to reveal more starlight than she’s seen in a very long time. “I imagine it's just because of the… the nature, of all of this. We don’t know how many people were affected by the Eye, and out of those we don’t know how many people have become more willing to attack others. There’s also what Bailey had mentioned, about people adjusting to the Eye being gone, and we’re not as close to an urban center…” She sighs, relieved when the motion does not send a shock of pain through her back. “The whole world is uncertain right now. In ways, that can be even more dangerous than zombies.”

     “Because when people don’t know what is and isn’t dangerous… they get defensive.” Charles adds, although in ways it sounds more like he’s talking to himself.

     Nodding in agreement, Jillian brings up an arm to lean Charles close to her. “One hundred percent. Believe me when I say I’m speaking from experience here, kiddo.”

     They sit there in that side hug for a while, a quiet murmuring from Isaac and Bailey’s side of the tent filtering through the gaps and the thin material. In the darkness there’s a chorus of odd chirps and clicks and whistles from the night time bugs, and Jillian isn’t sure she can spend any energy to think about how bugs would have changed in the wake of this all, because then she has to think about bacteria and microorganisms and the grass under there feet and there is way too much there to unpack.

     In the quiet someone else exits the flap of the tent, hesitating for a moment behind Jillian before slinking over to her free side. Without even looking she opens her arm, making an opportune space for Madison to slip into the hug as well.

     “You both are doing an amazing job.” Jillian’s voice is barely above a whisper as she stares out into the nothing. “An amazing job, and I’m so proud of you for looking out for each other today. This is so shitty, and I’m sorry. I just hope when we hit Montreal, things will be better.”

     Leaned up against her the way that he is, she can’t see Charles’ face, but she can feel the way that his breath catches in his throat, the way his shoulders tremble with the effort to remain quiet. Madison presses her head harder into the crook of her mothers neck, mumbling a quiet “ I miss things being normal.”

     “ I do too. I do too.”

     The quiet of the night holds them in this moment, it holds the heavy murmuring between Isaac and Bailey behind them in the tent, it holds a group of tenuous connections brought together by near insurmountable uncertainty.

     The three of them don’t stay out there all night, of course. At some point a while after the children had crept out she ushers them back to bed, telling them that they have to get a good night's sleep for the stretch of the journey tomorrow. As Jillian attempts to return to her place on watch, Isaac sticks his head out from the tent flap with eyes that even in the dark look wet and red-rimmed, only to usher her in with the same directions. ‘You need rest too’ he’d said, ‘No difference between one person being out and no one being out if something comes for the tent.’ It didn't make her feel great, but walking with no sleep tomorrow would probably make her feel worse, so it’s the least she can do to try and rest.

     The night passes in… relative silence. There is one moment where the shadow of something cervid-like stretches over Jillian lying awkwardly in the tent. Her entire body goes rigid, watching as its head stretches forward, the nylon bending slightly as some sickly headlight-yellow light diffuses just barely into the room.

     Her prayers were silent but desperate, begging for whatever the deer had turned into to not be hungry, and rest did not return to her until its shadow stepped away and its steps rustling the grass vanished into the insectoid choir of the dark. 

     Soon, finally, dawn breaks. The sun begins to filter into the tent, rousing Jillian first from a surface level sleep. The sound of the tent floor crumpling passes through the divider not long after, and she meets the older siblings outside in the early morning light. 

     Carefully putting her backpack down and starting to rustle through it for some granola bars, she nods to Bailey and Isaac as the two give her a polite ‘good morning’ greeting. She hands one to the both of them, grabbing one to stuff in her pocket for later and straightening up once again. Isaac gratefully tears into his, chomping down about half of it in one bite.

     “How did you both sleep?” Jillian asks, taking her hair out of its bedhead-y bun to try and comb it back with her hands and tie it back in a more neat way. 

     “Not my first time sleeping on the floor” Isaac shrugs, rolling his head around. “Sure the bag wasn’t the most comfortable pillow, but you know when you get so exhausted you don't really care anymore?”

     “Ohh, I know. ” Jillian nods, tightening her hairband and letting go to make sure the ponytail remains structurally sound. 

     Letting her tendril arm break the granola bar into several different chunks, Bailey’s head straightens up in what Jillian can now (relatively) confidently say is a smile. “I slept like a baby!”

     Isaac stifles a little laugh, bringing his hand up to his mouth. “You sleep like the dead. Or like Peter Griffin… yea, I do think Peter Griffin is more accurate-” His jabs are cut off by Bailey ducking down and bringing her head to whack him in the chest. Isaac teeters back from his sitting position, reaching his free arm forward to hook around her tube-like head to at the least take her with him.

     Jillian smiles, rubbing her eyes as the two fall back onto the grass. It sounded like they were talking last night… she wonders if Bailey decided to bring up what she told her the day before with her brother. She doesn’t think she’ll ask- at least right now. It’s a private emotional matter… if Bailey decides to let her know, that’ll be on her terms.

     Her gaze wanders away from the duo and out towards the field, as well as the small brick building that is a lot more visible in the daytime. It’s because she looks up that the catches sight of the stranger standing there, a gun in hand and aimed towards Bailey.

     Jillian is on her feet before she can think, placing herself between the two and the gun with her hands up, mouth already moving to yell out “DON’T-!” before either of the siblings can catch sight of the threat.

     The stranger hesitates for a moment, clearly having not expected her to step in the way. As the barrel of the gun lowers slightly, she gets a better look at his face. He’s an older man, salt and pepper hair poking out in messy curls from under a faded green hat, creeping down his face into a beard. He’s wearing layers that cover his entire body save for his head and neck, a mish-mash of clothes that are meant to be protective.

     His brows furrow, and she watches him sort of jerk his head to the side as if motioning for her to get out of his shot. Isaac and Bailey have gotten up by now, the former keeping a hand on the latters shoulder and holding her behind him.

     The tension in the air in that moment could be cut with a knife, and its really a miracle that Jillian finds her voice. “Please, don’t- don’t shoot. We aren’t hostile, we’re just passing thr-”

     “The hell do you mean you aren’t hostile?” The man questions incredulously. “You’ve got one of the twisted right there!” He jerks the long, thin gun towards where Bailey’s head just slightly pokes out over Jillian’s shoulder, causing her to pull it back to safety.

     Isaac pipes up next, voice cracking slightly as he projects it across the distance between them. “She’s my sister-” The word is emphasized, tone carefully treading the line between friendly and firm, “-and she’s aware. She’s not a danger to anyone.”

     Bailey waves slightly with her more human arm, keeping it close to her body to avoid the action being misconstrued as a threat. “My name’s Bailey. If I wanted him dead I would’ve done it before the whole thing with the eye.” Isaac visibly elbows her in the ribs, muttering something about this not being the time as she mumbles an apology back to him. It’s lost on the stranger with the gun though, whose eyes are starting to widen.

     “...Let me see you.” He says, voice steady and unrevealing. Isaac looks back over, opening his mouth to say something before Jillian cuts in.

     “Put the gun down first, sir.” She says, tone finding its footing as her hackles remain raised. “She’s a child, and with how you approached this situation I don’t trust you not to shoot her at the opening.”

     It feels like a not-so-great idea to be making demands of the only one here with a long ranged weapon, and silently Jillian’s mind begins to race towards what other paths were probably more conducive to avoiding a gunshot wound. However, miraculously, the man lays the rifle in the grass. There’s a moment after where nobody moves before Jillian relents, stepping to the side some to make her more visible.

     Bailey waves again, her tendril arm pressed close to her body with its end flicking slightly from side to side. Her outfit wrinkled and speckled with some blood, bandages wrapped around a few spots on her legs and arm.

     The man scrutinizes her, looking for anything that may prove to him that this is an elaborate hunting mechanism. “How…?” 

     Bailey’s head sort of curls in on itself, eyes looking awkwardly to the side. “Well, you hear about that world-ending eye in the sky for the past nine days?” She asks, and before she can deliver any sort of punchline the man speaks again. 

     “You’re… you’re really..?”

      Jillian suddenly goes cold, for a reason she can’t quite discern. Isaac instead steps in, pushing his hair out of his face once again. “Looking didn’t… break, everybody. It did to a lot of people, but others just… their looks changed. We don’t really know why.”

     Even from the distance they are from him, they can see the man swallow something fierce, wiping his brow with a gloved hand. “I… I see.” He starts, one hand going to his hip. “You said, ah- something about passing through?” 

     When Isaac nods, the man reciprocates the motion, although it's visible in his eyes that his mind seems to be somewhere else. “Sorry to… sorry to bother you folks, then.” The words come out considerably more subdued compared to his initial approach. He reaches down to retrieve the rifle, keeping its barrel pointed away from them. “I didn’t… realize, I thought you were being attacked.”

     “It’s- It’s fine. It’s been a lot, everyone’s on edge.” Isaac tries to give a reassuring smile, although it comes out rather half hearted. “Isaac. What about you, what's uhm- what’s your name?”

     The man’s shoulders, tense with something none of them can see, heave with his deep breath. For a moment Isaac thinks he isn’t going to respond, but his rough voice reaches him just before the older man turns around. “...Henry. I’ll leave you lot be.”

     As if he hadn’t just nearly shot one of their group members, Henry’s quick to turn around and retreat back beyond the walls of that brick building. Whether he entered it or he was coming from one further down the road, none of them know.

     Once the man is out of sight the siblings let out the heaviest sigh of relief, leaning on each others shoulders. Isaac sneaks in another bite of his granola bar, balling up the wrapping in his hand before turning over to Jillian.

     She swallows hard, shaking her head before leaning down towards the flap of the tent. “I think we should get packed.” She says simply, ducking inside to rouse her children.

     It’s a reasonable assumption that having a gun pointed at her is what rattled her the way it did. Neither of them ask, and the kids weren’t awake to see what was going on. The group gathers their belongings and fights the tent back into the camping gear, they walk up to the main road to toss their food waste into a garbage bin that’s still standing, and once again start on their way. Isaac makes note of the next populated area the road passes through, and Charles offers to take on a bag from Isaac to give his shoulders a bit of a break. 

     Jillian thinks for a long time about that little village after they depart. About the surprise Henry showed at the thought that someone who viewed the eye could maintain awareness. And about what empty plots of land could be used for.

–

     From the point of leaving Jillian’s house to the point they finally pass into Montreal, the journey takes about three and a half days. And they are the longest days that Jillain has ever lived 

     The populated towns ended up being the most stressful parts of the journey. While there were more people and groups were forming of the non-hostile changed and the human survivors, hostile groups and large, aggressive changed were just as much of a threat. They also started to encounter these… monuments, as Isaac would take to calling them. Mounds of organic matter latched onto the buildings around them, pulling up towards the sky in pursuit of something they’ll never reach. 

     The image of looking over the railing of a parking garage, down to figures with distorted shapes cloaked in shadow gathered around the base of a hivemind monument to agony, regarding it with reverence, is something that will haunt Jillian forever. 

     However, supplies needed to be scrounged up, and it was nice to talk to some other sane individuals when the chance arose. In the wake of the collapse of things like the police lines or the medical system, communities in several places had banded together to recreate what was in this moment lost. 

     One such group was encountered upon entering Montreal, just past the road to it from Perrot Island. This was a relief, considering the giant towering beast that had been visible on the skyline for a while. Unfortunately, it did seem to be living here.

     Currently, the group was walking with an individual who had assisted them in chasing off a pack of distorted dogs seemingly fused with different items from the garbage. Corey was a polite 20-something wielding a chipped fire axe with what most would consider a concerning amount of poise. 

     “So, where are you lot headed to?” They’d asked glancing over their shoulder to meet Jillian’s eyes. 

     “My kids and I are trying to get to my brother.” She explained, keeping her head as steady as possible to avoid aggravating the twisted muscle there. “He lives in an apartment complex near Downtown.”

     Isaac chimed in after her, holding onto the frying pan in place of one of his bags (which Charles was taking care of). “We’ve got to get to our parents, they live in Saint Laurent.”

     Corey nodded in consideration, tapping a finger on their chin. “Right, right… well, you’re lucky we’ve made some connections with curious people.” Flashing a toothy grin, they focus back on the path ahead. “There’s this biker group who passed through two days ago, they said they’ve been all over the city. We happened to give them some herbicide we had to spare, and they mentioned owing us a favor. Don’t know why they needed it, but whatever.” A quick shrug lets the idea roll off the young leader’s back like water off a duck. “We can try to meet them not far from here.”

     Bailey struck up some idle conversation with Corey, visibly very interested in their vibe from the moment she laid eyes on them. Jillian’s attention, however, goes to something else. A structure along the sidewalks and alleyways they traverse that seems as normal to Corey as breathing.

     Thick, layered tendrils, the same color that the looming beast appeared to be.

     Looking at them made something scratch at the back of her mind. This intrinsic, frantic sense that she could find no words to explain. The kind of feeling that made her want to pull out her phone and try some phone calls once more, despite every attempt so far having been thwarted by a lack of a signal.

     It was… disconcerting. Let's go with that word, Jillian felt disconcerted when she’d look at them.

     “Uhm… Corey?” Madison had quickened her pace to catch up with them, Jam flopping about in her hand by one of his well loved plush limbs. Corey hummed, distracted from a discussion about what bands probably made it through the apocalypse by the little girl. “I wanted to ask, do you know anything about the… the…” She hesitates for a moment, unsure of what exactly to call them, before deciding to just point at one of the tendrils half-flopped off a roof. 

     “Oh, those?” They look up towards Madison pointed, adjusting their grip on the fire axe resting on their shoulder. “Eh, belongs to some guy further into the city, the big ass tree thing you probably saw on the way in. Ringing a bell?”

     Madison nods, eyes widening. “That was someone?”

     “Still is. That biker group comes from the area where a lot of him is, apparently he’s pretty chill.” They shrug, peeking around a turn in the wall before continuing forward with the others in tow. This leads onto a street, a few people visible moving in the windows of some of the taller buildings. Corey takes them a little further before stopping at the door to an empty cafe. It’s been entered recently though, the door is easily pushed open and it looks as if it’s been in the process of being rearranged.

     “Wait here.” Corey instructs once the five of them are inside. “There’s a group of culinary students from some of the local universities who are trying to get this spot set up as like, a food dispensary, and the bikers stop by every so often to see if they can catch the students and help them find stuff. Just tell the girl with the sticker-ed up helmet that Corey’s asking for some help here, eh?” They flash a toothy grin before departing, slipping out of the door and starting down the path they’d all taken on a light jog. 

     Isaac sighs with relief, heaving his bag down on one of the tables and all but collapsing into the seat. Charles does similarly, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie up more before leaning back in the chair across from the older boy. Bailey’s taking the opportunity to peer over the counter, looking at what’s been rearranged.

     Jillian remains standing, staring out of the glass and tapping her foot anxiously. From behind her Isaac sighs, calling out to her. “It might take a while, you can sit down…?”

     Her shoulders tense for a moment before she turns around, pushing some hair behind her ear. “No, no, I know… I’m just worried about you two.” She walks towards another clear table, leaning on it slightly. “Are you sure you both will be alright? Bailey, how are your cuts?”

     “They’re all good!” She chimes, head swinging around to respond to her. They’d gone to check the wounds a night ago, only to find the broken skin having already sealed over. It’s thin, but Jillian’s certain it continued to thicken over the course of the night and the following day. “We’ll be fine. I didn’t smell anything suspicious on Corey, and it’s not like we’ve got anything special people’d want, right?”

     Bailey walks back over, meeting Jillian’s eyes. “I’d be more worried about you guys. Promise you’ll beat the hell out of anyone trying to mess with you?””

     Jillian’s expression does give, if only slightly, the corner of her mouth twitching up in a smile. “I’d prefer a world where I never have to hold a frying pan again, frankly.” The response gets a laugh out of Bailey, a real one, not something kept quiet to avoid prying eyes. “Isaac, you put my number in your phone?” When the older sibling nods, Jillian shuts her eyes for a long moment. “Good, good. Check in with me if you get the chance, I want you both to get home safe.”

     Isaac offers a mock salute, chiming in with an “Aye aye, captain,” before he’s distracted by something outside the window. Turning to look, Jillian spots what must be the biker gang.

     Less of a gang and more of a group of 4 people, actually. Two of them appear to be unchanged by the eye, slowing to a stop in front of the cafe on differing motorcycles. One of those people takes off a sticker-covered helmet, wincing slightly as her long auburn curls catch on one of its straps. The other flips up their visor, pointing towards the cafe and saying something to the one with the sticker helmet.

     Alongside them are two people who have visibly changed. One appears to have had their bottom half fuse into a longer motorcycle, flesh intertwining with metal to in a way that makes them look more like an ATV centaur than anything. The other is much smaller, pressed more closely to what might’ve once been the seat of their ride.

     The sticker helmet girl looks to the cafe, spotting the five of them within, and fully parks her bike on the sidewalk. She gives some inscrutable hand gesture to her companions before crossing the distance and walking in.

     “Hello?” Her tone is cautious, lingering in the doorway of the cafe. “I, uhm… haven’t seen any of you in here before.”

     Jillian waves, remaining conscious of her moments to avoid tension. “Yes, hello- we’ve just gotten here, traveling from Ottawa.”

     The girl’s eyes widen in surprise, and she fully steps into the store. She’s wearing a worn leather jacket with spots of glue around several of the spikes lining the shoulders. A solid blue t-shirt and jeans accompany it, making her certainly look the part of a biker gang leader. “Wow, seriously? How bad is it over there?” The question comes with more curiosity than it does apprehension. “News is a complete wreck, and there’s too much to sort through on Twitter.”

     “It’s… about what you’d expect. Lots of people looked.” Jillian pulls her bags closer, going to swing one over her shoulder. “We, ah, were directed here by Corey? Who said to inform you they were asking you to help us.” 

     Pushing a hand back through her hair, the girl nods in understanding. “Got it, got it. I’m Audrey, and out there are my friends Milo, Xavier, and Madeleine.” She points to the other humanoid figure, the centaur-like biker, and the smallest biker in the order that she introduces them, before looking back to the group. “How about you lot?”

     “I’m Jillian.” With her hands full holding onto the straps of her bags, Jillian decides to nod in place of offering a handshake. “Those are my kids, Charles and Madison, and we need to get Downtown, my brother lives in an apartment complex there and we’re… hoping to get in touch with him.” Madison and Charles wave when prompted, the former standing up straighter and squeaking out a nervous “I think your helmet’s really pretty!”

     Isaac stands up while Jillian introduces herself, stepping in when she finishes. “I’m Isaac and my sister over there is Bailey. We’re heading to Saint Laurent.”

     Audrey nods slightly, seeming to map something out in her head. Once whatever she’s considering has reached fruition, she smiles wide. “Well, first of all, thank you for the compliment kid!” She tips an imaginary hat towards Madison, who is in delighted at the acknowledgement. Straightening back up she brings her hands together, first pointing to Jillian. “I think we can manage this. You and your kids can come with me and Xavier, and I’ll get Milo and Madeleine to help you two-” her hands twirl around to point at Isaac and Bailey, “-to your destination. That sound good for everyone?”

     When general agreement reaches her, she claps in delight, turning on her heel to go hold the door. “Right on! If everyone would follow me…”

     Audrey commands the group with the same authority of a delightful yet heavily experienced party planner. The rest of the bikers are fine with this escort arrangement, chattering so fast between themselves that Jillian can hardly keep up. They seem to have organized a rendezvous point and things to keep an eye on all in the span of five minutes, because by the time both groups split off Audrey’s bobbing her head along to a song that must be playing in her head, confidence rolling off her in waves.

     It’s a while after the initial split that anybody speaks up above idle chatter, with Charles quickening his pace to walk alongside her motorcycle. “You’ve had internet access?” He asks, voice soft and a little bit rough from soreness.

     Audrey hums in confirmation, adjusting her grip on the handles of her bike. “Yea! My data’s held on strong. We lost power and water about halfway through this whole ordeal. At least with it gone I can take care of all that at the building a few blocks down. Left here, right Xavier?” The changed fellow honks in response, wheels turning as he speeds ahead to scope out the path. “There’s a bunch of people in that building- actually, someone from one of the riding forums I frequent reached out and prompted me to start up our little group. She said something about how they’re trying to check on a lot of the city, and with my friends and I being as fast as we are… ya know.”

     “That sounds really cool.” Charles looks around at the surrounding buildings as they walk. “Did a lot of people make it through?”

     “I don’t know about a lot, but a fair amount did. Enough for us to come together as we have, something made a lot easier now that the Visitor’s all gone.”

     Madison twists around to shove Jam back into the outer pocket of her backpack before trotting up to walk alongside her brother. “The eye?”

     “Yea!” Audrey pauses for a moment, deciding to actually sit on her motorcycle and continue pushing it forward at a slow speed that way. “Most of the people I’ve met have been calling it the Visitor, and it’s not like it’s an inaccurate descriptor-”

     A sudden cacophony of screeching tires and frantic beeping startles everyone out of the conversation. Audrey looks forward, spotting Xavier as he backpedals like a startled dog away from one of the alleyways between buildings. The kids stop in their surprise, allowing her to blitz forward and meet up with her friend. Jillian is quick to approach as well, putting herself between the kids and the threat that makes itself known

     Some terrible mockery of a car drags itself out from the gap in the buildings, cloven hooves scrabbling this way and that to grant it traction. It doesn't even stop as flesh tears from its sides, popping out into the road with a furious snarl directed at the two bikers.

     “Oh, shit- Xavier, we’ve got to-” Audrey’s cut off by the thing barreling forwards, slamming the front of its body into her friend. He isn’t able to hear her shout its name or spot the blade she frantically goes to pull from her shoe, busy trying to keep the cars razor-sharp teeth from reaching his throat. All four of his wheels come up against what he can reach of the cars underside, grinding against it with a terrible screaming sound.

      Audrey tries to rush forward and plant the blade of a dagger into its side, but she’s deterred by grasping hands reaching out from the gaps where windows should be, instead being forced to hack at them in order to get to the meat of the beast.

     Jillian stands there, eyes wide in horror with one arm outstretched to keep her kids back. She’s about ready to tell them to turn and run, but more movement from the buildings beats her to the punch.

     One of the tendrils pulls itself up and off the roof of a salon building twisting to look down at the scene in the street. Once it seems to have taken in what’s going on it drops frighteningly fast, sweeping forwards to slam directly into the front of the car.

     This sends the beast flying, a thousand pained roars overlapping each other as they escape from its distorted jaw. Its many hooves are quick to push it upright once more, but it wasn’t aware of a second tendril curling around from a side street, grabbing it around the sides almost like one would grab a turtle.

     There’s a loud whistling noise that fills the air, prompting Madison and Charles to cover their ears. The tendril that attacked first twists to look at the red car-like thing, shaking itself in what almost looks like disapproval before it’s dragged away by the second tendril, its screams growing distant before anybody in the road can even hear it past the whistling.

     Audrey watches in awe for a few moments before snapping back to herself, rushing forward to help Xavier back up on all fours. The two are heaving, a repetitive ‘beep, beep, beep’ escaping the motorcycle-man. The tendril lowers itself to the road, and instead of reaching out to crush them or send them flying or any of the thousand terrible scenarios Jillian can imagine, it simply… observes them, twisting this way and that as if looking for injuries.

     “We’re-” Audrey heaves out the word with effort, leaning down with her hands on her knees as she catches her breath. “We’re fine- you’re ok?” Xavier nods frantically, rubbing his chest where the car-thing had made initial impact. Another sigh of relief escapes Audrey and she continues to speak to the tendril. “We’re ok. Holy shit, you’re a lifesaver Sam.”

     She says some more things, but they’re hard to hear, and you can argue that its because she’s several paces up the road or that she’s breathless, but the ringing is definitely exclusive to Jillian.

     Slowly she starts walking to meet the two bikers, her children hesitantly trailing behind her. The tendril nods a few times, slumping with relief- it has eyestalks, she can see as she gets closer, and its body language takes a harsh turn as one of those eyestalks spots her. Because then all of them do. And the two stare at each other in silence.

     Audrey quirks a brow, glancing back to see that ‘Sam’ is looking at Jillian and starting to look back and forth between them. She opens her mouth to say something, but the tendril jerks away sharply before she can, pulling back up over the roof it had come from and disappearing beyond the walls of the building. 

     The biker leader seems… confused, by the weirdness, but shakes it off easily enough. “Real nice guy, uhm, he is.” When all Jillian can do is nod in response, she decides that maybe everyone should get to their destination as quickly as possible. She hops back on her bike, and once again the group starts off.

     Most of the walk between that point and the arrival in Downtown flies by Jillian in a haze, her mind finding a thousands ways to rationalize what she heard and what she saw and what she’s been feeling since she stepped foot into the city. It’s a difficult task, especially as the tendrils increase in size and frequency the closer they get to where she knows her brother’s apartment complex is. It’s a coincidence, a series of errors the universe has patterned in just the right way to get her mind racing, surely things are ok.

     She stops just down the sidewalk, staring at the towering blue figure whose base is just a quick walk from the entrance to that worn out complex she remembers. Audrey looks back, when she realizes the footsteps she’s hearing decrease by 3 people, pushing the visor on her helmet up.

     They share a moment of eye contact, and when she speaks again its slowly, cautiously. “...This is your stop?”

     Jillian hesitates a moment before nodding. “...Yea. Yea, it is.” She lets out a heavy sigh, feeling as though the air that escapes her will never return. “Thank you, Audrey, Xavier, for your help. Please stay safe out there, ok?”

     She starts to walk forward, Charles and Madison sticking close to her sides. Both bikers wave, brows furrowed with an emotion that she doesn’t have the energy to read. “Of course, we’re happy to help. You stay safe too.” Audrey pauses for a moment to flip up the kickstand on her bike, looking towards the back of Jillian’s head. “Hope you have a good talk with your brother.”

     The sound of tires on pavement starts up behind the family trio, fading off into the distance as the bikers set off to meet with the rest of their group. 

     As Jillian and her children approach the door, they almost bump into two people who happen to be leaving the complex at the same time. A short woman with an unsettling grin split across her face, and a figure in robes who’s unidentifiable to her outside of their three shimmering eyes. The grinning woman looks at her much like a hunting dog may look down a rabbits burrow, but something about her makes the other pause. Jillian takes this opportunity to speak up. 

     “I’m- sorry, to bother you ma'am, but would you happen to know where my brother is?” Jillian’s tone remains level, only misted by weariness. “His name is Sam, and he lives here, up on the third floor.”

     Not very subtly, the woman's grin splits wider, a feat which should frankly be impossible. The cloaked figure perks up, eyes widening in the darkness under their clothes.

     “Ah, you seek Sam!” The voice from the cloaked figure is… not nasally, maybe harsh? The kind of voice you might expect out of a cartoon snake. “Well, he would be right ov-”

     The woman shoots a hand out, clamping it over what must be the cloaked figure's mouth. Her expression twists into something devious, and Jillian is distinctly aware of the sheer pressure that grin exudes. As if there’s ten times more mass to the strange woman that she simply can’t see. “Head up to the third floor, check his apartment.” She chimes in a distinctly un-reassuring way. “That’ll probably help. Me’n’Morton here have to go out on an expedition.”

     Her hand comes down from Morton’s mouth, firmly grabbing onto his hand and starting to drag him off down the sidewalk before any sort of response can be formed by Jillian. Well, maybe that’s not a bad thing. Something about her smile made her want to start running.

     Charles seems similarly… offput, stepping through the busted down wall first as Jillian and Madison follow. One of the rooms on the left hallway seems to be occupied by a number of people considering the sounds that emanate from it. Something they can explore later, Jillian decides, especially since the elevator appears to be working.

     The elevator ride up to the third floor is silent between the three of them, Jillian simply pulling her kids closer in a hug. 

     They did it. They made it here, ok, and they’re going to connect with her brother, and things will be easier to figure out from here.

     Stepping out onto the third floor, it looks… like it's seen better days, even for a building as old as this one seemed. There’s no bodies or anything (thank god), but a deep red stain has sunk into the floor, and several doors are either kicked inwards or missing entirely. Well…all except for one.

     Jillian stand on the rugged old welcome mat, staring at the bronze nameplate with ‘33’ engraved into it. She can hear muffled sounds inside, from the TV if she had to guess (how this is happening she could never guess). Without giving herself much more time to catastrophize, she lifts a hand and knocks on the door.

     There’s a few voices in there, but their words are indistinguishable to her. She almost thinks she’ll have to knock again before the doorknob twists and opens.

     She’s staring face to face with a bone white mask. Some pillar of living shadow is looking back at her, red pupils dilating into pinpricks in surprise. She jolts back as well, and the two stare at each other for a moment. It’s actually Madison who breaks the tension, voice wavering just slightly as she looks up to speak to the figure. 

     “Uhm, e-excuse me-” She waves to the strange thing, not reacting as its mask tilts down to look at her. “Is Sam here?”

     It’s still for a moment before shaking its mask ‘no’, shambling back slightly to give the trio a better look at the inside of the apartment. The source of the muffled noise is a lot clearer now, as three children are peeking over the back of the couch at the door. One unchanged girl, one boy whose mouth seems to have taken over his entire face, and… is that a rat? More importantly, whose kids are these??

     “Hi!!” The girl waves excitedly, flopping into the cushions with the motion. “Are you guys here to move in too? Do you want to come play Honko’s Grand Journey with us?”

     Jillian can’t help the slight huff that escapes her at the sheer absurdity of the situation, shaking her head to try and regain her footing. “I’m- sorry, I’m actually looking for my brother, Sam. The owner of this apartment?”

     The little girl's eyes narrow, scrutinizing Jillian and then her kids down to the last detail. In her silence the boy actually speaks up, face twisting upwards in a way she can’t quite discern. “Mr. Sam is- hhh -probably on the roof, with Miss Hellen!” He chimes, pointing to the left of the doorway towards the stairs. 

     Jillian nods, shutting her eyes hard for a moment before she speaks again. “Got it, thank you-”

     “Mom, can we go play with them? Madison asks (more so pleads), giving her mother her best puppy dog eyes. “It’s not as hot in here as it is outside.”

     Part of Jillian wants to say no, the thought of letting her children out of her sight makes her nervous, but another new voice pipes up from a hole in the wall. “If you're his sister, I’m sure Sam wouldn’t mind.” Leaning to the right slightly to look past the Shadow, Jillian makes eye contact with… well. An eye. “I’m Sybil, his neighbor. The Shadow there is fine, we’re just watching the kids play… whatever it is they’re playing.”

     Whoooareallthesepeopleinthisapartment. Jillian must look as skeptical as she feels because Sybil looks over towards the cracked bedroom door, an open window just visible through it. “Anybody can yell to him and he’d be in here in a heartbeat. Besides, I’m… sure you’ll end up needing to send them back down here anyways.

     All of this information turns itself over and over in her mind, and finally Jillian relents. She swings her two bags in through the doorframe, letting them rest against the wall. “Ok. Ok, you two can hang out here. I’ll be… up on the roof. If you need anything you come and get me, ok?” She says, making sure to make eye contact with both kids.

     Madison nods in understanding, dropping her backpack next to the other bags and quickly entering the apartment to make new friends. Charles is slower to do so, looking between the Shadow (who is conveniently looking away to try and look less intimidating) and his mother. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

     The tension in Jillian’s shoulders gives slightly, and she reaches out to ruffle his hair before stepping away. It is a difficult task, to pull herself away from that doorway in the hallway (which is left slightly ajar by that shadow figure), but the sooner she gets this done the sooner she can come back down and keep an eye on her kids.

     It’s surprisingly quiet as she walks onto the roof, the back of a hulking figure meeting her eyes alongside one of the tendrils. The two seem to be talking about some other… mass, sprawled across the rather vast space. She figures that it must be something similar to those monuments of what once were people.

     Mustering up her courage, she clears her throat, ignoring the way that the figure turning to look at her makes her feel desperately underprepared for this. “I’m sorry to intrude-” She starts, already knowing the answer to her question before she asks it. “But is Sam here? He, lives in this building, on the third floor.”

     The hulking figure looks over to the tendril, an unimpressed affect managing to creep through her paper mask. The tendril, in turn, looks like its heart just stopped beating.

     Sam goes to lift up the limb until this is a situation he feels ready to confront but Hellen’s arm shoots out, grabbing onto one of his eyestalks and ‘yanking’ him back down. “Absolutely not.”

     Jillian stands there in silence, looking between the two as her heart is finally forced to accept that this is real and happening. The woman she doesn’t know looks over to her, a hand with a cleaver clutched tightly in it resting at her side. “How do you know him?”

     “I’m his sister.” She replies simply, purposefully ignoring the blade.

     “Makes sense. You two looked alike.” Her head turns back towards the tendril, letting it go but pointing her free hand at him. “Sam, take her up to the stairwell roof. You two should talk there.”

     Sam hesitates for a moment, pulling back slightly before he gives in. His tendril turns towards Jillian, and she nods as a way to communicate that yes she will need help getting up there.

     He moves the limb forward, clusters upon clusters of eyestalks helping sort of prop Jillian up on the base of the limb, only loosening their grip once she’s able to safely drop onto the small patch of roof just above the doorway up here.

     There Jillian brushes herself off, taking a deep and shaky breath before turning around to look at the tendril in his many, many eyes.

     She’s been looking at her brother this whole time.

Chapter Text

     The quiet that had settled between the two of them was an old, old thing. A thing that stretched over their entire lives, making up the distance that words couldn’t reach. A mutual understanding of childhood turned into an expansive gap in adulthood.

     Jillian’s eyes well up with tears.

     It was a startling thing to Sam, who… he didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t that. Hesitantly he reaches out, eyestalks creeping forward and looking at her with expressions twisted in worry. Jillian reaches up, trying to wipe her eyes, but the dam that had been held together with the emotional equivalent of duct tape and a prayer had finally fractured.

     “ Fuck-”  Her voice wavers, hardly able to get that word out without devolving into something indistinguishable. “ I thought you were dead, I couldn’t, I couldn’t reach you-” Something between a laugh and a sob rattles her chest and shoulders. There’s a moment there, where Sam wonders if she’s going to get ‘angry’ about his dead phone and general preoccupation during the Visit, which for Jillian isn’t an explosive anger as much as it is the kind of disappointment from your favorite teacher that tears your heart in two from the inside. But when she looks at him from behind hands desperately trying to push the grief away, her expression holds nothing but pure unfiltered relief.

     “ You’re alive? Honest to god?”

     He is, he really is, and a soft whistle escapes him saying so despite knowing that she won’t be able to understand that. He chooses to lean forwards, bringing several eyestalks around her in the closest thing he can manage to a hug. Another laugh-sob leaves Jillian as she hugs back, eyes shutting tight as she leans into the base of his limb.

     They hold that hug for a while, Sam not moving back until Jillian does and Jillian staying in the moment because she needed it so, so desperately. When she finally finds it in herself to step back her eyes and nose are red from the tears, an immeasurable weight that had been sitting on her shoulders now lifted. She sits down on the rough stairwell roof, leaning back as she takes another deep breath. Sam does as close to the same motion as he can manage, which means he just rests the end of his tendril across from her as carefully as possible.

     A hesitant whistles escapes him, trying to figure out how to ask about her trek here with the kids and, seemingly, without Cameron. A few eyestalks tilt and twist, looking over her with expressions still full of worry. 

     She lets out this exhausted huff of a laugh, a lot less teary than the first one was, and pushes some of her hair out of her face. “I’m… I’m not hurt, the kids aren’t, we got here in one piece.” The reassurance coming first is something habitual, but in this instance it helps Jillian too. Saying it helps her remember that it’s true. “Cameron…” Shutting her eyes tight, she swallows in order to force herself to talk. To take her own advice and avoid bottling it up any more. “He looked. He- it was just a glimpse, but he… didn’t handle it well.” She sits forwards, a hand coming up to wipe her eyes once more. “It took a few days to set in, but when it did, he- he tried to get the kids and I to look. I had to…”

     She shakes her head hard, avoiding meeting any of her brother’s many eyes, because she can imagine the look in them and she has to finish talking before the words get stuck behind more tears. “ He couldn’t, come with us. Because I had to keep my kids safe.”

     Sam is silent and still, aware of what the unsaid words there mean. They exist in the exhaustion etched under her eyes, the guilt clouding her expression  and hanging in the air around her. It’s… maybe the most vulnerable he’s ever seen her. The intangible wall that felt as if it’d been built between them over their in-person absence from each others lives was broken down, a wavering connection between them ready to be reestablished.

     ‘ It’s not your fault.’ The thought comes slowly but steadily, a few eyestalks lowering slightly to meet her on her level. ‘ It’s not your fault, but still, I’m… I’m so sorry. He knew how much you loved him, Jill. I don’t think he’d blame you for that.’ A soft, somber whistle drifts into the air, a sound that he wishes he could wrap around her like a blanket to dampen the horror she faced on her own.

     Finally she looks back up at him, expression easing from something laden with self-blame. “ Thank you .” Clearing her throat to chase away some of the roughness, she continues. “I, It’s just been.. a lot, to hold in. I feel like I haven’t gotten any rest in weeks, despite how little time has actually passed…” Pulling her legs closer to her body, she shakes her head slightly to dispel the thoughts for now. “What about you? I mean-” Bringing a hand up to gesture to his whole deal, her face changes into something a bit more worried about him. “What the hell? Did- did you fuse with something, to get like that? Are you ok?”

     Sam nods quickly, the motion repeated by several eyestalks halting to a stop as he realizes he forgot to shut the eyes on half of them and accidentally disoriented himself. Once the shuddering of his vision decreases to a manageable level, he brings some eyestalks together to point towards Hellen on the main roof and to the floor towards his apartment. ‘ It’s thanks to all of them that I made it through, really.’ The thought crosses his mind alongside a wave of appreciation for the people who were willing to stick by him, an unemployed stranger they didn’t know, all the way through the deal with the astronomers. As for his physical state, another cluster of eyestalks come together to gesture between himself and the sky now painted in warm evening hues. He didn’t fuse with anything (the fact that she’s familiar with the concept makes him curious about who exactly she’s seen). He had a conversation with the Visitor! Which feels like it would be a lot harder to believe.

     Jillian watches quietly, looking past the edge of the roof section they were on and towards the looming woman (Hellen? That’s her name?) busying herself with something growing across the rough stone surface. She nods in consideration, eyes only widening a few moments after Sam makes the gesture towards the sky. Where the Eye had been not long ago.

     “...You spoke to it.” It’s said more as a disbelieving statement than a question. When some of the eyestalks look away bashfully, Jillian leans forwards more. “You spoke to it? The end of the world happens, and- and besides the fact that you’re babysitting three kids-” She doesn’t notice his delighted surprise at the fact that she’s already met Sophie, Joel and Ratthew, “- You spoke to the thing in the sky?”

      Sam laughs a little nervously, because hearing someone who has (in his perspective) been living a real horror story these past few days describe the almost cartoonishly absurd turns his life has taken really hammers home how absurd they are. His sister brings a hand up to the side of her head, looking between the floor and himself as if she doesn’t even have the words. 

“I… I don’t even have the words, Sam.” Look at that he was right!! Shrugging, she straightens back up, hand coming down and lingering in the air, like she isn’t quite sure what to do with it. “Was it nice? Did- did you get it to leave or something? How long- I’m.” She pauses, taking a deep breath in and then out. “I’m glad, you’re ok, after that, that’s all I could ask for, I just…. God.. ” 

     Sam nods to the second of her questions, stilling himself once she relents and seemingly decides that the implications of that are something to deal with later. He starts to think of something in response to her words before feeling a tug at his awareness. Such feelings had become increasingly familiar over these past four days. He holds an eyestalk up, signaling for her to give him a moment, before they all retreat back into the end of the limb here at the apartment building.

     Jillian doesn’t object, simply putting her hand back down to the ground and watching as he sort of disappears into himself. For a moment she wonders if the limb is going to pull away, but it remains stationary. A few minutes pass in the silence, and she has a chance to be alone with her thoughts. To process what little she now knows about her little brother's experience since the appearance of the Eye.

     A lot of her fear for him came from the fact that she knew he was alone (not that she was doing a great job keeping that from being the case). He never really mentioned any friends or more social hobbies in the texts the two would share, and he never brought anything up when she’d come to visit him.

     That wasn’t often.

     He could’ve died and the last words she would’ve heard from him would’ve been in the form of a text.

     The realization settles in (or maybe she finally accepts what she's known for a while now), and it wraps itself around her heart like a sack of bricks. She’s more than happy that he’s ok, alive, and seems to have actually made some friends- but it’s the ‘could haves’ that make her feel sick. 

     Nothing like the apocalypse to reframe family tensions, huh?

     She’s here now, she decides in her head, and now is the time to address that fact. No more hiding behind ‘happy holidays’ texts and phone calls where neither can figure out how to stoke the flames of conversation. A lot of the blame for their withering connection falls back on her, at least that’s how she feels, so now that they’re face to face she feels the need to make this right. The same is to be said for Caleb… pulling her phone out she almost goes to call him, but the surprise at seeing that the building has an internet connection stalls her just long enough for Sam to return.

     The eyestalks creep back out into view, him whistling apologetically at the disturbance. “It’s fine.” Jillian waves her hand, phone still in one hand. Watching as he casts a few glances off towards somewhere else in the city Jillian wonders if he has to consciously focus on different parts of himself at a time, something that for her would be like controlling three different bodies at once. After what he went through it feels like he should’ve gotten some sort of omniscience or omnipresence, but… well, she doesn’t know what the inner machinations of the Eye are.

     Sam spots her phone and tilts some of the eyestalks questioningly. Is she trying to call Caleb?

     She nods once more. “Yea, this is the first time I’ve had an actual connection since this all started… maybe it’ll work now?” As she talks she navigates to the littlest brother’s contact information, hitting the call button and falling silent as the phone begins to ring.

     The two watch the screen, a faded selfie of Caleb and his son Arven at a pier staring back at them. There is no voicemail sound when the call doesn’t go through, simply a harsh beep and the accompanying static-y silence.

     “Caleb.” Jillian starts, her tone steady. “If you can, call me back, ok? I’m- I’m ok, Charles and Madison are ok. We’re with Sam. Just… please let us know you’re alive.” A short but sweet message, to the point. Once she’s done she hangs up the unanswered call, turning off her phone and setting it to her side. 

     And then there was silence. The kind of ‘hear a pin drop’ quiet, the siblings staring at each other across that emotional distance that… hasn’t quite closed, but has pulled itself closer. Now or never, right Jillian?

     Taking a deep breath and meeting at least one of Sam’s pairs of eyes, Jillian starts. “I’m… I’m sorry.” 

     Sam leans back a bit in surprise, but she keeps talking. “When our parents passed, I… I struggled more than I’d like to admit. There were a lot of feelings I’d buried around how they’d been with us their whole lives that I didn’t even realize were pushing to the surface.” Taking her hair out of its ponytail as she speaks, she looks down towards the floor. “I don’t regret being there for you and Caleb like I was, not for a second, but I can’t lie and say I wasn’t exhausted. I’d spent my whole life doing their jobs for them but I was still the one taking care of dad and his hospice arrangements and then mom passing so soon after…” Her voice gets a little rough, not the ‘on the verge of tears’ kind of rough but the kind that stems from complicated emotions. “I hated them a lot, but I also cared about them in a way. A part of me felt hurt, I think, seeing how easy it was for you and Caleb to step back from it all. Every time I thought about you I thought about our childhood, and… the stuff I lost the chance to have.”

     Turning her hairband over and over in her hands she looks back to her brother once more. It’s a lot easier to keep talking once you’ve finally started. “I don’t blame either of you, I  know you were going through a rough patch and Caleb was a new dad and they were never really present for either of you, but I still just… couldn’t. Every time I thought about addressing it I felt sick, and while I thought focusing on my kids would be a good way to step back and compose myself, time just…”

     ‘... Slipped through your fingers.’  The end of the thought comes to Sam’s mind, and he watches her seemingly nod to herself. 

     “It’s not an excuse for not reaching out, I’m a grown woman and evidently I can find the right words for it.” Jillian says, demeanor clouded with guilt. “I’m sorry I didn’t try sooner. Before I spent the last week and a half thinking I’d never get to try at all.”

     Internally Sam feels both deeply saddened and very relieved at the same time. On one hand, his own worst fears about the way she thought of him have been somewhat assuaged and she’s actively speaking to him about what the problem these past few years had been. On the other…

     ‘ God, Jill, I’m sorry too.’ A low, sad whistle escapes him, eyestalks lowering down even closer to her level. ‘ I could’ve reached out first, but I just… didn’t even think to. I was so worried about being the disappointing one, you both are so put together and everything was a reminder of that… In trying to ignore that I ended up ignoring you. That wasn’t fair after a lifetime of you making the effort for me.’ As he thinks he gestures between her and himself, trying to convey the idea of him experiencing a similar ‘tried bottling it up and then 5 years passed’ experience, before sort of wilting and looking to the side.

     Memories of that timeframe, the area of fracture come to mind. He’d been just barely crawling out of a deep psychological pit when Jillian had called him with the news that their mother was gone. It felt surreal on that train ride over to Ottawa, not just because he’d managed to arrange a few days off in a row. Thinking of it now, it’s a feeling he can compare to when Hellen had stabbed him. There was a distinct pain to losing them, to knowing that he was now truly ‘adulting’ and ‘on his own’, but in many ways it was muffled. Like it had happened to a separate version of himself a world away. 

     He wishes he could kick himself back then. For not thinking to press deeper on if Jillian was really ok when she lingered by that recliner in the living room, or at their parents dresser staring at a faded jewelry box. For being too worried about figuring out what he could do to help before he had to head back to work.

     Jillian watches him for a moment, eyes soft, before responding. “No, I… I understand… again, I never- I never held blame towards you, or thought badly of you like that.” The words come with that same care and reassurance they used to years and years ago, but they ring stronger without the haze of expectation that was forced around her. “I worried- worry, I worry about you of course, but I worry about Caleb too. I worry about my kids, I worry about everybody I care about. Because there’s nothing I want more than for the people I love to be happy. University or college or not, married or not, whatever ‘happy’ looks like for you.” There’s a pause as she considers something. “What… what do you plan on doing now?” 

     That question is… it’s hard to explain, but it doesn’t feel like an empty conversation filler. It’s something a lot more fragile, held between two siblings that are really looking at each other for the first time in a long time. Despite the many ways Sam has changed, it makes him feel like a person. Makes him feel like Sam. 

     And as the thought crosses his mind he is forced to reckon, at least partially, with that idea of the future. Years ago he’d taken a break before considering attending university, just to try and figure out what exactly he’d wanted to do. The future had always been this nebulous idea that he had trouble conceptualizing, as if every image of himself five years past the present moment was a different person entirely. That gap year turned into a few years, and then before he knew it further education was just… gone. Much like the gap that had formed between him and his siblings, him and the rest of the world, it was something that had passed him by. 

      Now it wasn’t so easy to let go of the thought.

     There's not really any ‘coming back’ from the whole tree thing, when people see his gargantuan form that will be ‘Sam’ to them for the rest of his life. His real face now only exists in the memories of those who he’d met before stepping onto the roof for that last time. This body didn’t seem to need things like food or sleep (could he be photosynthesizing? If he was he sure as hell didn’t know). He was something else entirely.

     A human psyche dropped into a body so utterly alien to what once was.

     However, his mind drifts to the reach he has throughout the city, a reach that is still growing as he and Jillian speak. The way he’s worked on shifting several of his limbs to help lift up rubble and keep some of the more unstable buildings upright. The monitoring of his friends and other apartment-goers as they’ve started to venture out from the building, the connections that have started to form with other survivor groups, the relief on Biker Audrey’s face after he got that car-thing off of Xavier. It goes back to when this first started, back when he fit inside of the apartment complex. Helping the astronomers, helping Jeanne, helping the Freds, the act of helping .

     In response to his sister he shrugs, which comes across as several of the clusters of eyestalks twisting in a mimicry of the motion, before pulling this particular limb up and looking out towards the horizon of the city. He whistles as he points out there, the sound drifting into the air like something hopeful. Jillian follows his gaze, knowing she would understand what he meant even if he’d said nothing about it.

     She can’t help the small smile that crosses her face.

     “That’s a good plan.” And she fully believes it, seeing him now. A side of her brother she thought she lost to the throws of adulthood- his hopefulness. Sure, she didn’t expect that the effective apocalypse would be the nudge it needed to return to his life, but there’s only so much in the world that she can control. The two look out at the sky for a few minutes, taking in the slow sunset, the proof that the world remains moving despite it all. “Would you mind another set of helping hands?”

     That gets Sam to look down at her, wondering what she means by that. Once his attention is on her she elaborates. “I… I want to fix this, fix us. I don’t want all my memories of you and Caleb to feel burdened by parentification, I- I want us to come together on holidays and accidentally bring the same side dish three times in a row. I want to spend time with you both doing things we didn’t get to do as kids. I want to talk like this, without something life-threatening prompting it.” Bringing her hands into her lap, her eyes fall from the darkening sky down to the floor. “I’m not quite ready to go back home yet, either…”

     Sam nods quickly (remembering to shut most of his eyes this time!), whistling delightedly and pointing down towards the apartment building. He wants that too! He’d be happy to have her and the kids stay over! Her work experience could be a huge help to everyone’s efforts (sure there’s a difference between being a veterinarian and a doctor, but right now any medical knowledge is vital), and he could make sure she was ok just like he had been doing for everyone else, and they could connect again. Really connect.

     This talk has been just a start, but things already feel better between them. Glancing down to Jill, he realizes that she must be really good at charades. It feels like he’s hardly had to gesture to get the points across of the things he wants to say! There’s a moment where her expression twists, brow raising in confusion before looking up at him.

     “I’m awful at charades, what are you talking about?”