System Lost: My Own Best Friend

The hike back isn't quite as grueling downhill, but it's still annoyingly long.

"I wonder if it would be better for us to set ourselves up outside," I suggest. "It's warmer out there."

"I think our current camp is more defensible," Violet argues. "Not to mention closer to our only water source."

"I guess, it's just..." I trail off, chewing on my lip. "There's, y'know, the bodies? And it can't be good for us, being in a dark cave all the time."

"We'll move outside eventually," she promises. "We just need to prepare."

I don't disagree with her, I just wish I knew what sort of preparations would be enough. Maybe if we can find the camp of the people who attacked us, they'll have a map or something we can use to find our way to civilization...assuming civilization doesn't want to kill us.

Nope. No. I shake off the gloomy thoughts and tighten my grip on the spear. We'll be fine. Everything is going to be fine. We've got a way out of the cave now, so that's something.

I wrinkle my nose as I approach the cave where we've made our de facto "camp." After being away from it for a few hours, it's hard not to notice the oddly metallic smell of blood hanging in the air and clinging to my clothes. My eyes are inexorably drawn to the source of the smell—muddy brown stains painting the floor in grisly streaks, leading to the corner where the bodies are...

"Uh, Vi?" My voice wavers and a cold sweat prickles the back of my neck. "Where did the bodies go?"

"I..." she hesitates, at a loss for words. "You don't think that Nipper...?"

As if responding to the sound of his name, despite being deaf, the offending worm slithers out from behind the pack of magic candles. He's definitely grown. When we first encountered his kind, they were each finger-sized little grubs, the ones that nearly killed us were about the size of my hand—including Nipper himself—and in the weeks since he'd slowly grown to about the length of my forearm, which was how we left him a few hours ago.

Now he's about the size of my entire leg.

Gone is the chubby little grub creature wriggling clumsily around and nibbling on everything in sight. Nipper is now a lithe serpentine thing slithering gracefully across the cavern. He darts over to us faster than I've ever seen him move and wraps around my legs, tracing a figure eight around my feet. It's actually kind of endearing.

Oh no, I'm starting to come around to Maggie's point of view. Nipper might actually be a little cute.

I reach down to offer a hand. "Hey buddy! Did you miss us?"

He rears up and coils around my arm, nibbling gently on my fingers and covering them in sticky saliva that makes my skin itch.

"Okay, still gross," I mutter with a grimace. "How did you get so big, anyway?"

"I think a better question would be 'Why isn't he bigger?'" Violet remarks.

"He, like, tripled in size in the last few hours?"

"And he must have eaten at least twenty times his own mass in the process," she retorts. "It doesn't add up."

"It's like Maggie was saying, he's got that magic stomach thingy."

I give Nipper a gentle scratch on the head, then make my way over to our pile of stolen clothes, the worm following close behind. I put my hands on my hips and sigh as I review the blood-stained garments. I'm a little tired, but I think I've got the energy to knock out one more chore before bedding down for the night. It'll be good to have these clean and dry. The sizing is awkward, and I've got some serious mixed feelings about how we acquired them, but beggars can't be choosers.

I gather them up and start marching down the Mushroom Tunnel with Nipper on my heels.

"Maggie's been out a long while," I muse aloud. "I hope she's okay."

"She—" Violet starts before correcting herself. "We both went through a lot today."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I offer.

"I—I don't think I'm ready for that," she mumbles quietly. "But thank you for offering."

"You want to talk?" Maggie interjects suddenly. "Cause there's only one thing I want you to tell me Allison—where the fuck were you?!"

I stiffen up, adjusting my grip on the laundry and giving the mold patch a wide berth. "Uh, hey Maggie. I'm sorry I wasn't—"

"I don't want your fucking apology, I want to know why!" she interrupts angrily. "Your one fucking job is to deal with people, and the one fucking time it matters, you're nowhere to be found and we're the ones that have to pay for it!"

"Maggie, where is this coming from?" Violet asks. "I thought you—"

"Shut up!" she interrupts. "I know what I said. I want to hear her say it. In your own words, Allison, why weren't you there?"

I frown. I don't think this is just Maggie trying to get a rise out of me. There's real hurt behind her words, and I can feel how upset she is. I bite back the reflex to defend myself. I don't think I could have done anything to change what happened, but I also don't think that's the point.

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When we "sleep" while someone else is fronting, we're not really gone. I can remember the fight and what led up to it, but it feels distant. Like something that happened weeks or months ago, not literally today. If Violet is asleep and we're in danger, she wakes up—usually straight to the front. Maggie was asleep, but when I said something that upset her, she appeared right away.

So then the core of Maggie's question isn't about what I could have done to change things, or even if I could. Past experience suggests that I could have woken up when those people found us—maybe even should have. So why didn't I?

The more I think about it, the more it starts to bother me too. What the heck?

"I don't know," I admit. "Can I think about it for a while?"

"Whatever," Maggie grumps. "Wake me up when you figure it out."

And with that, she's gone again.

"Ouch," I mutter, noticing the way she turned my words back on me.

"Don't mind her," Vi tries to reassure me. "She's still shaken up from earlier. We all are."

"Maybe, but I don't think it's that simple. Mags is smart, but she's not the best at expressing herself. Whatever she's trying to tell me must be important."

"If you say so..." Vi says, sounding unconvinced.

I spend the rest of the night seriously thinking about it while I sit by the edge of the river and scrub clothes until my fingers are numb and raw and my butt is sore from sitting on stone—I should have brought the pack.

Like before, I find it oddly comforting to just sit and wash clothes for a bit. Just the right combination of mindless enough to give me time to think, while occupying my hands enough to keep me from getting bored. And as an added bonus, it makes me feel like I'm doing something productive. I wonder if doing this is going to unlock some sort of [Washer] class. Maybe with a skill for getting rid of bloodstains. I really wish I didn't feel the need for a skill like that.

I purse my lips, chewing on that thought for a bit while I work at a particularly bad stain—oh yeah, that's not coming out. Is that the problem? I don't want to wash out the blood? It's a weird thought, but I'm trying to think like Maggie—to see the links between things that seem unrelated.

The idea plagues me until I'm finished with the washing. I can't control when I wake up if someone else is in front, but I bet it's similar to how we end up fronting in the first place. Like Maggie taught us, it's about what we want. Not just what we say or think consciously, but on a deeper, subconscious level. Does that mean I didn't want to wake up when we met the goat people? Why not?

I refill both the waterskins, drink my fill, relieve my bladder, and try not to think about how fricking hungry I am as Nipper and I head back to our little alcove by the creepy statue. Violet drifted off a while ago, so it's just me and the worm to hang up the wet clothes. Unfortunately, his lack of arms relegates Nipper to moral support.

"You know, now that you're growing up, if you wanna stay in this house you're gonna need to start pulling your weight, little dude."

Nipper drools on the leg of my jeans, showing no sign of understanding the responsibilities of adulthood.

"Good talk, buddy."

I yawn and stretch once I finish hanging the laundry. To get ready for bed, I find a reasonably comfortable looking patch of rock—a truly depressing skill to have developed—and drag the candle-burrito over before setting aside the belt pouch, weapons, and waterskins within arm's reach. I'm actually pretty impressed that the gross hair-twine has managed to hold on for so long. It still makes me a bit grumpy to think about, but at least my lost hair is being put to good use.

Nipper curls up behind the makeshift pillow as I lie down and pull the cloak over myself like a blanket. You'd think sleeping would be a bit tricky when both your pillow and blanket are packed full of light sources, but honestly those are probably the least weird things I've gotten used to since arriving in this world.

I lie awake for a while, staring up at the cave ceiling.

"Hey, Maggie?" I call out softly, feeling her presence coalesce next to me, as though we're lying side-by-side and gazing at a sky that exists only within our minds.

"What?" she responds tersely.

"This isn't an excuse," I preface. "I don't know why I didn't wake up before, but I think I was just scared. If I failed, then I'd have blood on my hands. Not just theirs, but yours, Violet's, mine...maybe even Nipper's."

"Uh huh," she says without emotion. "And how did inaction turn out?"

"Bloody," I admit. "Maybe it would have ended up that way regardless, but I didn't even try. I couldn't. I...I left you and Violet to carry that burden, because I was too scared of what would happen if I failed."

"Hm," she hums thoughtfully for a moment, then nods. I don't know how I can tell that, but I feel it. "Okay."

"Okay?" I repeat. "That's it? Just, 'Okay'?"

"What? You want a fucking medal? You thought about it, you came up with an answer. Okay."

"I just thought you might have an opinion?" I hedge. "Did I get it right?"

"There's no right or wrong answer, dipshit," she huffs. "None that I can give you, anyway. My opinion doesn't matter. How do you feel about it?"

I frown. "Disappointed, I guess? In myself. I want to do better, but I don't really know how."

"Nobody does," she says with a shrug. "But that doesn't mean you can stop trying."

"I guess not," I sigh.

We lay there in silence for a while, just staring up at nothing.

"Hey Maggie?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for not being there for you," I say. "And...thanks for being here for me. I'm going to keep trying."

"Okay."

I try not to smile. "Are you doing okay?"

"Not especially," she answers.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I offer.

"I think we just did," she says. "But thanks for trying or whatever."

I nod, my eyelids growing heavy as I yawn again. "Okay."

Maggie punches my shoulder, though I don't actually feel it physically. I giggle at that, but soon the weight of exhaustion overcomes me, and I drift off to sleep.

* * *

I jolt awake, immediately reaching for my knife before being stopped by a blade pointed right at my throat. I freeze, my eyes tracing the length of the long, thin sword up to the face of a rugged looking goat man with one horn curled back like a ram—the other is broken. To the side, a skinnier one with stubby horns has a bow trained on me while a third—female, with thin twisting horns and long side-swept hair—rifles through our pouch.

"U'uv'na'a," the swordsman warbles coldly.

The language is unintelligible, but the intention is unmistakable—don't move.

"Allison?" I mutter under my breath as I very slowly raise my hands, then stop when he presses the blade to my throat.

"I'm here Vi," she says. "It's okay. We'll be okay. W-we can do this. I hope."

"You'd better hope," Maggie adds. "Because otherwise I'm blowing up every fucking head in this cave."