I stopped crying in Audrey’s arms. I remembered nothing of the time between eating those people and now. I looked up at Will and Sarah with tears in my eyes and dotting my face. They looked down at me expressionless, and I tried to ask them if they hated me. The words didn’t come out. I tried to tell them that I was sorry, and I should have never acted like that, but I could not move my mouth in a way that made any sound at all. I opened my mouth to scream again but Audrey cmped it closed with her strong arms. I looked at her terrified of what they had done to me, but she quietly opened my mouth and said, “You broke your ability to talk because you were screaming so much. Please don’t try to speak for a while. We can rest here for a bit.”

  I felt around in my mouth for a minute, making sure everything was still there. I felt my tongue, my teeth and the roof of my mouth. I then tried to reach back and see if my vocal cords were still there, but Audrey stopped me and pulled my arm out of my mouth.

  “Not today, sweet thing. Lie down for a second. You need some rest.”

  I did as she told me. My brain was too weak to go against anything anyone would have said to me. I tried to move my legs and found that I could not, so I just id back, and then Audrey extended my legs so I was lying down and looking up at the sky.

  “You overextended yourself. I’m going to stay here with you while they go and get some food for us. Water as well of course.”

  I signed to Audrey, “How long has it been since the four of us left?”

  “About 14 hours. You can tell by the sky.”

  I did see the sky. It was a smattering of stars, and this far away from civilization, you could see the streak of the gaxy right above us.

  “Where are we trying to go?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “Why won’t you tell me exactly where we’re going. And why are we going?”

  “Because I don’t want you to be scared. I don’t want you to make things up.”

  “Where would we be going that would make me scared?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes!”

  “We’re going to a different city. Somewhere that can help you. I understand that you’ve been seeking help all around our city, but those people can’t help you. You know that. We’re taking you somewhere safe where they can help you. I…don’t know if I can be honest with you.”

  “Please.”

  “I don’t know if they can actually help. I just want to tell Will and Sarah that we should call the whole thing off and just live here in the forest for the rest of our lives.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be able to help?”

  “Sweetie…”

  “Audrey, why won’t they be able to help me?”

  “Because I don’t know if anyone can be helped. I don’t know. I don’t know. God, I’m so sorry. I should never have-”

  I hugged Audrey before she could break down in tears. I rested my head against her shoulder, and I said, “It’s okay, I understand. You didn’t give me any ideas. I just don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I just want to help you but it’s just been people after people and pce after pce, and nothing’s worked. Sure, you’ve been stopped from hurting people, but the root of the problem hasn’t been solved. I don’t-”

  “I don’t think it will be either. I don’t think they can help me. I don’t know how I could be helped. I’m sorry that you had to hear it from me. I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore. I can barely know if I’m going to die day by day or live. I don’t even know if it’s really you talking to me right now.”

  Audrey hugged me once again. I felt her warmth and then colpsed to the ground again. Audrey stood over me with an expression of mild worry on her face, but she softened as she saw me staring past her and at the stars. I saw the ghosts there again, and Audrey stared up at the sky as if to see what I saw. I remembered learning about the consteltions in school, and I remembered the names of some of them. Aquarius, Norma, and Pegasus. They were the only ones I could identify through the noise and past the ghostly figures that danced among the stars, sweeping comet tails behind them and creating their own perfect light show for everyone to see. Some of the comet dust fell upon me, and I ate it all as it fell onto my body. I saw the ghosts smile at me, which was the first time they had done that in a long time. I smiled back at them, and then they disappeared leaving me to see Sculptor and Fornax in all their glory. I thought about the ideas presented to me by the high school I went to about beauty standards and how I was not meeting them because I was too fat or too thin or not talkative enough or too violent. I thought about where those people were now, if they were dead or torturing someone to death, and if they were not, if they were doing anything even close to looking up at the stars and naming the consteltions. Being book smart was actually considered a bad thing in every school I went to, even the college, and I knew that I was the only person in those gray and green hallways who read a book in the years that we spent in each other’s presence. I regretted staying at a college where no one read, but I did not mind it so much now. I was better than them because I understood, and they would never understand. I could take soce in that.

  I looked up at Audrey and knew that she was one of the people who understood things like nguage, logic, and metaphors. It seemed like she was a dying person in these times, and it was hard not to feel hopeless when I was not around her. But I sometimes remembered how little attention she paid to the world outside, and I would smile at that, because she was doing the right thing.

  “Is it hard for you to deal with me, Audrey?”

  “No. Of course not. You’re a wonderful person to be around and I just don’t know why you think that you’re such a problem.”

  “Because I’m always screaming and shouting and making you scared of things that aren’t there.”

  “But think about this. What if you were under the protection of people who wanted to hurt you. Like, really wanted to hurt you. Would you feel so awful then?”

  “I’d be feeling awful for a different reason.”

  “No. You wouldn’t be feeling awful at all. They’d present themselves as the best people to ever exist on Earth, and you never know the difference even as they hurt you.”

  “I would know.”

  “That’s what I said, and I had no idea.”

  “What?”

  “Did I never tell you that?”

  “No, you never did.”

  “Okay. I guess I’ll say it now. When I was 17 I was in an abusive retionship, and I had always said that I would know when I was getting close to being abused. The thing was, she never physically abused me, which was actually something she prided herself on. That should have been the first red fg, I guess. She was cruel, mean and spiteful. She always antagonized me and compared an image of a deep sea creature brought to the surface to a dismembered cat, said that one of my friends was pathetic because he wouldn’t read a book that she really liked, and even got me to believe that she was a good person who respected what I wanted to do for a living. Naturally when I tried to step out of my boundaries with her she tried to pull me right back in. I guess…I guess my point is that I hope I’m not like that to you. I hope Will and Sarah aren’t either. I’ve always tried to be receptive to criticism even when I don’t like what you’re saying. I’ve always wanted to take care of you. I know they have as well. I understand that it might not feel like that, but I also know why, and I get it. I get it. Sometimes, I miss her more than anything in the world. And sometimes I want to rip her head off. And I hope you at least feel slightly more positive about me than that.”

  “Audrey, I…I feel so much better about you than that, of course I do. Now I’m worried that you feel like you’re a problem for me.”

  “I do, sometimes. I feel like I put ideas into your head that stay there forever and make you scared.”

  “Never. You’ve never done that.”

  “Never. Not once.”

  “Not even when I gave you the bug infestation?”

  “That wasn’t you. That was something else.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “Hey, where are Sarah and Will?”

  “Don’t change the subject. But, I don’t know, and I think they should be back soon.”

  “Do you really wanna know what caused that to happen?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “He made wasps crawl all over me, and then they started to burrow under my skin.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “He did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to be scared for me, and besides, I thought you already knew.”

  “I didn’t know. I wish I’d known, though. I really wish I’d known. I would have helped you.”

  “How?”

  “By taking you somewhere safe. By forcing them to help you. I don’t know, I would have done something.”

  “Do you think it would have helped?”

  “In hindsight, no, but at that moment I would have really liked to try.”

  “Do you regret not doing anything?”

  “Yes. Very much so.”

  “That’s why I feel like I hurt you. Because I made you regret and hurt because of me.”

  “But it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have controlled it. I don’t think you could control it now.”

  “Do you think you could help now?”

  “No. I don’t. Speaking of, has he been here recently?”

  “No, it’s just the ghosts.”

  “Oh, okay. Is that okay, or is it worse?”

  “It’s been okay, I guess. They’re scary, but they don’t try to kill me like he does.”

  “Okay, good. Do you think he’ll come back like st time?”

  “Probably. It’s in his nature.”

  “He doesn’t have a nature.”

  “I know, I know. We’ve been over this. I get that he’s not real and I understand what that means for me and why I shouldn’t be scared of him. I understand, it’s just hard to understand when he’s right in your face tearing your skin off.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have shouted. Seriously, where are Sarah and Will?”

  “I think they’re on their way back.”

  “Do you mean you hope they’re on their way back?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I really hope they come back soon. I miss Sarah.”

  “Do you miss Will?”

  “Sometimes. I find him kind of scary other times though. He can be kind of disquieting.”

  “I understand. I feel that way about him sometimes too. I miss him, though. I miss Sarah less, but it’s nothing personal.”

  “We’re the opposites of each other, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah, I guess we are. I would miss you the most, though.”

  “Same. I try to never leave unless it’s something really important.”

  “That reminds me. Why did you leave with Will? I missed you then as well.”

  “I got distracted. I tried to double back but my attention got grabbed and I was pulled away. I really wanted to go back, I promise. I should have never left in the first pce. I-”

  “Audrey. It’s okay. I promise. I had Sarah.”

  “Would you have been lost without her?”

  “Probably. But I had her, because you told me to wait. You did the right thing.”

  “But…what did you see while you were waiting?”

  “I saw a man blow an apartment building to pieces, and I saw people crushed under the wheels of cars a thousand times over.”

  Audrey made a facial expression that indicated sadness, but also her unwillingness to express it because it probably would have been seen as cliche.

  “Was the man on fire?”

  “Yes! He was. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Have you seen a man like that before?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes people see him, but sometimes they don’t.”

  From somewhere far away, I heard Sarah ughing. It was the first time I had heard her ugh in a long time. I got up, and stumbled a little bit as I saw her and Will running towards us with food in their hands. It was an assortment of sandwiches, some grilled cheeses, some burgers and some subs. Sarah tossed one to me, and it was a cheeseburger with bacon, eggs, and avocado. I smiled as I wolfed it down, and I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything for about 18 hours. I ate the sandwich too fast to taste it in a meaningful way, and I called for another, and Will tossed me a sub that was thered in oil and mayonnaise and several kinds of meat. I ate one more thing, and requested a drink as well, and then I looked around and finally took stock of the pce we had found ourselves in. It was a very dry field surrounded on all sides by forest, and there was a house in the middle of the field. I felt my back, and off came pine needles and dead grass, the majority of which would come back next spring. A never ending cycle, it was. My stomach was satiated now, and I had just one question for our intrepid explorers.

  “Where’d you get the money?”

  Sarah winked at me, and I immediately understood what had happened. Will did not smile, and instead looked away, and I believed that I felt shame for what he had done, even though Sarah had doubtless told him countless times that it was okay and she didn’t really mind what had happened at all. It would take a while for Will to believe it.

  I smiled and said, happily for the first time since I had left, “What do we do now?”

  Sarah responded quickly, “We keep going. We stop by the house, then we walk through the forest and make it to the other side.”

  I got up from my pce on the ground, and Audrey dusted my back off, and that was that. We kept going, some of us still eating, but some of us just looking up at the stars. I then asked, after a brief moment of silence, “Sarah, how was the city that you went to?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t a city. It was a very small town. The sign said the popution is 197.”

  “Was there more forest beyond that?”

  “No. There was a very big and very empty pin.”

  “Oh, okay. Will we go through there?”

  “No. We’ll get a car and go through the pin that way. There’s a road, and I didn’t see anyone driving on it.”

  “How will we get a car?”

  “I’ve gathered a few favors from the people.”

  “Was it everyone?”

  “No, we had to go to other towns as well. There was one a twenty minute walk away, and one thirty minutes after that.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “About two hours.”

  “I was out for that long?”

  Audrey cut in front of the conversation and simply stated, “Yes.”

  I cringed, and then Audrey said quietly, “It’s okay. There’s no harm done. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  With that said, we entered the house. It was very well lit despite the bleak backdrop of the outside world, and I could see mounds of unopened food cans and piles upon piles of ants id all across the floor. On one of the walls there was a pentagram with a knife directly in the middle, which Sarah ran over and took, crunching the bugs under her foot. I was disgusted, mostly by the smell, as years of rot and death had permeated the walls of this pce. Offhandedly, I asked, “Do you think there’s any dead bodies in here?”

  Will looked at me in the dark, and quietly said, “If there aren’t any, I would be shocked.”

  We continued through the despicable home. There were now cups smashed over the walls and little fragments of hair sticking out from unseen rooms. I thought that the rooms were full of dead bodies and hair left to grow for years and years, but when Audrey pushed open the door and there was nothing in there, nothing at all, not even a table or a chair, I got even worse chills. The strands were definitely hair, but they appeared to be coming from no known source that any of us could identify. I pulled one out, and it seemed to be long dead, and it even crumbled as I pulled it away a bit more.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “There was probably a fight here, and some of the hair got grafted to the wall. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  We continued. I saw strange markings on the wall, probably occult symbols like the one we had seen at the front, and I wondered what they meant. They appeared to depict a massive war against monkeys and strong warriors, and each side had thousands and millions of troops and battle weapons unseen in any other battle. I looked ahead, and I saw a symbol that was unmistakable. A naked and weak man hung at the gallows. I suddenly excimed, “We need to leave, now. Right now.”

  My friends all looked towards me, and they all had blood red eyes that shone in the darkness of this pce.

  “Why should we leave, honey pie?”

  “Because this is a pce where men are murdered because they wanted to be. Because they were brainwashed.”

  Suddenly, their eyes became the normal color again, and Will softly said, “I’ll go ahead into the next room. If it’s what you say it is, we’ll leave immediately.” I nodded to him, and as he walked away, I slumped against the wall and stared toward the pictograph. I now noticed that there were faceless people surrounding the hanged man, all pointing towards him. He was crying and smiling at the same time. It was as if there were two sides to his brain. One that wanted to stay alive and one had been completely warped by what they wanted him to think. I wondered how many people were murdered here and if there were still corpses piled up behind the massive door which Will had forced open. I saw him choke on the smell that had come out of the horrible pce, and he then took out a lighter and lit it against the backdrop of total darkness. I saw him jump, though in response to what I did not know. He pushed the door further open, and I saw a pale body fall near him, but he apparently did not notice that. He was focused entirely on something further within the room, and I soon saw what it was.

  Will pitched the lighter towards the darkness and we all saw several emaciated and pale men running towards us. Will ran away from them and their naked forms, and he shouted at us to run as well. Our fear was indescribable.

  Although I was the only one sitting down, I ran the fastest and I tore through the house, unable to stop even as I crushed more piles of bugs underfoot. I ran out of the house and threw myself to the ground, moving a little further as Sarah and Audrey rushed out of the house. We stopped and stared as Will came charging out of the house, handprint markings on his face and neck and his shirt torn. We all watched as the pitiful creatures that had been chasing us stopped directly at the door, refusing to leave. Even though they were not trapped and they could have left at any time they wished, they simply did not.

  I then saw the reason why. A seven foot tall shirtless man walked right up behind them and uttered one word, which none of us could hear, that made the men shiver and follow their leader immediately. The tall man smmed the door and walked to the window, revealing himself to be naked as well. He took one of the weak men into the air and started having aggressive and angry sex with him.

  It was not friendly, it was not mutually agreed upon, it was not romantic. It was instead violent and clearly painful for the taker. The other weak men stood around and watched, and they did ugh. I turned away in horror, and my friends slowly led me past the house and into the forest once again.

  There was no more talking, we only plodded through the world turned to dust. I tried to take my brain away from the scene I had encountered in public, but those two were inextricably linked in my mind. They only existed as reted events, nothing more.

  Questions flew through my mind. How did they get food? Did their parents know about the situation they were in? Did their friends know they had vanished completely? Did they have any friends to begin with? Again, how did they get food? That was the question that was on my mind the most. If they had been eating each other, that would have been the horror of all horrors. They seemed malnourished enough for it, and my psyche quickly crumpled up further. There was something wrong, and I could only express it with one word. Quietly, I said, “Anthem.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand. It’s not important anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I did not respond. I just looked past the sparse treeline and towards the town. There was mud covering the ground, and I saw people with ragged shoes walking all throughout it and coating their feet with it. I also saw women churning butter and a few men striking at an anvil. In the distance a wood furnace burned. I turned to Sarah and said, “Did it always look like this?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Then where’d you get the car from?”

  “Right there.”

  She then pointed to a pristine red car that was sitting untouched in a spot of grass.

  As we walked into the town and through the mud, there were people looking at me in ways that they did not realize were strange. I imagined only that they saw me struggling through the mud which apparently no one else saw and thought, “Ah, a newcomer to our nd of obviousness. I hope they understand soon.”

  We made it to the car, and Audrey got into the driver's seat, I the passenger's seat, and Will and Sarah took the back. They told me to not worry about my shoes, as they were completely and utterly clean, although I didn’t think so.