Two days later the kids in Cyprianus woke up. Two days after that the adults followed. The day after that Mallory and I took Phillip to check on the gray meat. The greenish red hue tinted the water about a foot from the meat. I held up Phillip and let him do his job. Cyprianus had begun to return to its normal, but it was never fixed. We went back there every ten or so days, just to cleanse the water.

Months went by and I even stopped seeing the Scarred Man. Kids stopped going missing, but no one remembered the ones that were already gone.

Mallory’s mother had gotten cleared enough to talk about weaving, though admittedly it wasn’t enough to undo the curse, at least not yet. We learned that our theory about rocky was entirely wrong. Weavers have the ability to place words of power onto objects and do amazing things with them. It has something to do with Weavers having the ability to take the strings that make the fabric of the universe and "weave" those strings into something else. For example, one could take a rotting piece of flesh and put a few words on it that translates into "rot the mind," which, depending on the desired effect, could literally rot your mind, or more metaphorically. As in it can make you fuzzy, that’s what we thought was happening, at least. We asked about blacksmiths but she had no information.

Mallory’s mother informed us only women can be weavers, meaning that the Scarred Man must not be working alone. We thought it was the woman at the security desk, but we had no evidence.

Eventually Mallory’s mother informed her of a ritual that would help unlock her weaving abilities and would allow for easier translations. Mallory wanted to try it but she decided to wait until after our next visit to the water treatment plant.

*****

We always skipped school on the days we went to cleanse the water. Melengelle rarely came with us after the first time, luckily however we didn’t need to have Phillip urinate directly onto the gray meat. What we did was stand at the edge and hold him out.

On this day, when we had entered the vault containing the water vat, the bridge had its stairs protruding from the ground, like we had done on our first visit. It was odd, that had never been the case before.

"That’s weird," Mallory said as she cautiously walked up the stairs. "No one’s up here," Her arm waved at us to walk up with her.

I held Phillip up and he got to work. When I shook him we heard the door loudly squeal open. Despite being given permission to the facility my instinct was to duck. Mallory flattened herself onto the bridge in response to my action. She made a face as if asking herself, "what are we doing?" Mallory moved to return to her feet but froze instantly as a familiar grunt echoed throughout the room. Mallory’s eyes filled with fear. Her lip quivered while the rest of her face contorted into shock.

The Scarred Man spoke with damaged lungs, "she’s right there."

Mallory nearly yelped.

I grabbed her wrist and looked into her eyes. I tried my best to reassure her that it was all okay. I was hoping I could convince her even if I couldn’t convince myself.

Another voice rang out in response to him. It was strong and assertive, yet pleasant. "What’s wrong with it exactly?" The voice asked.

"Your inseam isn’t working," the Scarred Man gruffed.

I heard the sound of water being disturbed by something small.

"No, no it’s working," the voice said.

"What the hell then?" The Scarred Man grew angrier. I didn’t see it but I heard him pull this person up by their collar, "is she getting better!?"

I hear a mild scuffle then the voice, "No it’s not that, this is something different. This is... someone’s doing, I would say it’s another Weaver. But a Weaver this far south... Besides, if she were to get better, that chunk of meat would have already attempted to make its way back to her."

The air around us became red hot before I heard the Scarred Man say, "Who’s doing this?"

"My guess? Someone from the town. Any ideas who?" The voice asked with a level of attitude I would not yet be familiar with.

The Scarred Man growled, "I might."

"Good. Find them and call me when you do. Or don’t. Really doesn’t matter."

I heard the familiar click of key cards being removed and the sound of the stairs retracting entered my ears.

Shit, how will we get off of here? I thought to myself.

"I’ll let Gio know you’re working on this problem. He’ll most likely say to keep working on that until you can get another batch. Of course unless he’s in one of his moods, then you’ll be in deep shit."

The Scarred Man grunted and the door slammed shut.

"How are we gonna get down from here?" Mallory shouted.

"It’s okay Mallory, don’t worry. We can just jump into the water." I put my leg over the guard railing.

"Wait! What if they hear the splash?" She bit the pencil that she had brought with her.

I scowled, "they would have already heard our voices if this place wasn’t sound proof."

"I guess you’re right." She said,

I nodded and jumped into the water. The loud splash was muffled by the water that quickly entered my ears. For a moment I forgot where I was. I forgot how to breathe and how to swim. Wait, I never learned to swim.

I started thrashing about in the water. My vision went black while water filled my lungs. For a second I felt nothing when suddenly my vision came back in an instant. I wasn’t free from the water but I was more than conscious of where I was. As I was trying my best to not get sucked down by the soft pull of the drain, I felt hands grab my arms. Then, I could feel myself being lifted and the next thing I knew I was beside the water, receiving CPR from Mallory.

I bolted up and coughed up the water in my lungs.

"Thank goodness you’re okay!" Mallory hugged me wholeheartedly.

"Thank you," I managed to spit up.

"Can you stand up?"

"Uh, yeah," my vision was clearing up and I noticed that Mallory was a slight shade of pink.

"Why are you pink?"

"Because Phillip was scared!" Mallory turned red.

I didn’t understand why she was red, even if I did we still needed to leave. Phillip knew what I was thinking and he hopped over to the door. He looked at it then back at us.

"Yes Phillip the door is locked we know that." I said.

Phillip sighed as best a horned hopper could then aimed his antlers at the door.

Mallory went over to see what he was pointing out.

"There’s an emergency exit handle on here!" She shouted.

I managed to get to my feet. When I got to them I read what the door said, "alarm will sound."

"If those two are still here we’re gonna have to run," she eyed me up and down with a face of worry. "Are you good enough to run?"

"Yeah, I’m well." I didn’t need to lie, I felt surprisingly well despite almost drowning a few minutes before.

Mallory nodded. I took Phillip under my arm and together we pulled the emergency handle.

* * * * *

Alarms wailed as we ran through the hallway. I swear I heard the aggravated yell of the Scarred Man coming from behind us. That didn’t matter, we kept running. We ran past the empty security desk and out the door. Through the field of puddles ran other people, many of which I assumed were workers at the facility. We hopped onto our bikes and headed back to Cyprianus. Surprisingly we weren’t followed.

* * * * *

Night had enveloped Cyprianus by the time we made it to the northern hill. We were out of breath and our guard was down being that we were just outside of Mallory’s house. We walked our bikes down the hill.

"We should sleep at your house tonight," Mallory said with labored breath.

I nodded. It made sense, the Scarred Man was most likely going to stop by her house in search of us.

We soon reached the bottom of the hill where Mallory asked if she could get stuff from her house. I nodded and decided to wait for her outside her house.

While we were walking across the street I could hear loud heavy footsteps rapidly hitting the pavement.

I turned my head towards the sound. "What the-" I couldn’t even finish my sentence before something big knocked me to the ground. I heard Mallory scream, my eyes snapped to where she had been standing.

There he was. The Scarred Man in nothing but underwear. His body was thin yet lean, like a hairless rabbit. His toenails were unkempt, but we’re proportional to his big feet. His sickly skin truly was covered with scars.

My awe quickly faded when I noticed he held Mallory by the neck. She was kicking and flailing, trying her best to break free. He turned to face the hill and sprinted toward it. The Scarred Man moved with the speed of some sort of predator. I would have never guessed he was capable of such movements.

"Wait!" I shouted as he was climbing higher up the hill. "Wait, I’m the one who saw you! Not her." I managed to get up and run to the foot of the hill. I nearly lost my balance due to a possible concussion, and I managed to catch myself on the pipe.

He stopped abruptly, nearly tripping when he did so. He whipped around after throwing Mallory towards the treeline. He sprinted at me, I barely had time to grab a hand full of dirt and throw it into his face when he got close. It did little more than anger him. The Scarred Man picked me up by the neck. He seemed so much larger than the last time I saw him.

Phillip had hid during the initial encounter, but when he saw I was being hurt he came out from his bush and charged the Scarred Man full force and jammed his antlers into his ankles. The Scarred Man dropped me and I hit the floor, knocking the wind out of me.

The Scarred Man growled with a mix of pain and anger. He pried Phillip from his ankles and tossed the furry one aside.

Phillip squeaked with pain before going limp.

The Scarred Man returned his focus to me. He placed his hand on top of my head and hoisted me by my hair.

"You almost ruined everything. I want you to know that this is your fault." A painful sorrow covered his face.

What does he think is my fault?

I felt myself rise into the chill night sky, then I felt myself be pulled down with more force than gravity could muster. The bottom of my jaw hit the metal pipe. I felt skin and muscle break as the pipe went through my tongue. I could have easily choked on blood, had I been left there after that moment. The pipe, however, wanted to end me so it kept forcing itself trhough my skull, shattered the roof of my mouth. It didn’t hurt, not at first. Those burst veins felt numb before their screaming was echoed by the pain receptors near them. The pipe kept going and soon reached my brain. It slipped right through it before piercing the top of my skull.

I slid to the bottom of the pipe making a sloshing sound. Saying my vision went dark would be untrue, because saying that implies that eyes were still functioning properly. My eyesight began to rapidly deteriorate but before it was fully gone I saw the Scarred Man limp his way up the hill.

When my final breath left my lungs with the sound of a deflating wet balloon I thought to myself, oh, this is my fault.

My vision came to an end and along with it, my life.

Next Chapter: Why Do We Always Have to Come into the Office for Things Like Signing Documents?