Ghostwriter

Sorry for the wait. The front office needed me to work with a couple old coins for a moment-- reissues are soon.

"you'd best get to leaving now," say someone. indeed, they do, they trudge on through the night in rain and mud, belfry and yatterhorn bickering incessantly. dime finally snaps like a twig. "this is what happens to refugees, belfry," he says. he's been against the takeover from the start, and for what? to protect his culture? WHAT culture, the one that was utterly supplanted he was never familiar with? or the one he personally destroyed? well now it's useless. now his only hope, as he sees it, is to turn coat and work with yatterhorn and the reptilian shapeshifters

Of course. The armed tripodal isn't here to kill the trio, he never was a man of that volition; his intentions are to clear his home of a reptilian, a guilty-looking businessman, and a complete alien. He says, "You'd best get to leaving, now."

Belfry protests. "Please. It's freezing cold out there, we don't mean any of you harm."

"Yeah," says Rocks, who stands beside Puffy. "and a pal'f ours says he overheard you sayin' he made it that way." She sticks out an arm to point at Dime, who is still wide-eyed. "You reap what you sow. Go freeze to death, for all we care."

There isn't a thing they can do.

The sky outside has become a dingy grayish-black, and the downpour makes the crevices between mountains flood a slurry of mud and dirty water; they consider standing underneath the shelter of the overhang outside the entrance to try and get some moments of dryness, but one more prod from the inhabitants rules this out as an option. Without any willingness, the trio begin to trek down the valley's stretch, their bodies far apart and their minds further scattered.

"You could fly us out of here," mutters Yaffenhash. "You've shown you're capable."

Belfry shakes her head slowly. Her blue hat is drained of color. "Too much downpour."

"Well," the reptilian huffs, "where are we going, then? What the hell's the plan?"

"We find someone else who can take us in."

"We'll still be on this damn island, and it's probably next on the cataclysmic list. We need to get to high ground... find a plane, helicopter, something. My headset isn't working--"

The Refugian grasps her old friend's head and rips the earpiece straight from her exposed earhole, and stomps it into the ground. All three of them stop, with Dime huffing slowly, staring off into nothing. Belfry shouts, "We wouldn't all have to live on islands if my people took us to their planet. No more earthquakes, no more shit! The world ending is the best thing that's ever happened to us!"

Yaffenhash clutches her head in horror-- no more connection to her people. "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to us! All of us, I don't care where you're putting the dividing lines!"

"She's r-right," Dime stammers slowly. His defeated body is only being more pained by the weather, which almost deafens the three of them. They both tilt to face him, confused. "I screwed up. I'm the reason everything is like this. I just... wanted to do something. But..."

he just destroyed his whole civilization. if he was simply a bit bitter before, he's utterly despondent now. dime has no more brook for optimism — i said "his only hope," but he has none any longer, this is his darkest hour. and there is a bit of sense to it: the culture he wanted to save is GONE, and yatterhorn is right there telling him the lizard invasion will actually be a good thing. at the very least it's a sure thing, and dime wants some stability to cling to right now, as is his nature. it's not the wisest or most noble course, it's a dark turn by someone who's scared and hurt.

"I don't know if th-the aliens are just gonna... make everything okay. But I think that she can. A-And... I need something... for sure, right now."

Belfry's eyes are open, and shine a moment amidst the torrential rain, which is only picking up further. "There's nothing sure except that her people want to destroy the last of your culture, of your people." She must shout above the noise of weather; her body is getting tired.

"...but i-it's all gone, isn't it? It's already all gone. My s-species has been sh-shit to me my whole life. She's s-saying there's a way to fix it all, and... we sh-should do that. And then if Refugia c-comes to save us..."

The blue-clothed girl glares. "If Refugia comes to save us, they'll be their next target." She tries to breathe, but there's hardly anything but water; raising, raising, raising in the tiny valley, and while it hasn't reached much past the grass, it's filling the air with moisture and suffocating. "Please, Dime, I don't know what the hell it's going to take you to just believe me! We can't just give up trying to fix things now!"

Belief is hard. Dime sinks into himself, and begins to cry. Nothing seems sensible. "I killed everyone I know," he mutters softly, but it's lost to the wind.

Yaffenhash grabs both of them with force. "If we don't move now, we're going to die! Come on! None of us gets what we want if we're all dead!"

But the tripodal man in sopping, freezing black clothes has no solace. When Yaffenhash begins to drag him along, his legs respond halfheartedly. The trio move in tense and pained silence, and the water is raising, turning the island into wetland, the grass into swamp. It pelts them against their weakened bodies, and as they crest yet another hill with nothing behind it, their situation looks more grim than ever.

The world is collapsing inward, one island at a time, and Dime, Yaffenhash and Belfry get the feeling that their island is next.

...

This is harsh, for our characters. Perhaps this, like the earlier possible event, is one way their stories may turn sour-- death. If we're to take the ghosts now, they will be nothing if not unstable in their conflicts between each other, and their story will be surely unfulfilled.

But it's always an option. We must question now where we can take their story... hopeless as it seems now, many have escaped worse. More complicated is the fate of their respective species, and if anyone will end up safe in the end.

Let's get to figuring this out.