Angosin stands from his chair, his knees creaking. His eyes, the vacant stare of which had made him seem as if he were looking at something far, far away, regain their focus– and he is looking at Geoul’s mother.

What seems to be his mother, anyways. Despite his eyes, he could not bring himself to believe that any woman like this– smiling grotesquely whilst drenched in blood, holding the severed head of her twin as she is– could have birthed a person like Geoul.

Angosin found himself barely lucid of the danger the knife-bearing woman posed as his eyes drifted from her to Geoul.

He feels a rising in his chest as he sees Geoul’s brow coming to a glisten, once again. Geoul’s teeth are gritted so hard, as he holds the eyes of the full-bodied visage of his mother, that they may just shatter.

Geoul barely notices, through the water in his eyes, wisps of smoke drifting from the hallway behind the woman.

“Go-Go, baby–” the woman says, her voice sending Geoul far away, to a time when he was younger, and his mother had been stronger and happier. “–hold this for me, won’t you?”

At this, the woman tosses the severed head to Geoul– a ginger, underhand toss.

When Geoul rears back to catch it, like a football, his tears finally spill.

Despite the orange glow pulsating to one side of Angosin’s peripheral vision, his eyes remain locked on the scene.

By the time that Geoul has, with trembling, red-painted hands, turned the head to meet its face, the full-bodied woman has already begun her charge.

Her movements are those of a trained killer, as she winds the knife back, at stomach-level. With her right hand placed over the butt of the blade, her other holding its handle, she is looking most un-motherly.

The moment he sees her sick grin, not unlike that of a piranha’s jaw viewed from the wrong angle, Geoul’s tear-ducts shut.

 However, by the time he’s bent to a ready stance, she has already moved in too close– past any defense it may have offered.

Meanwhile, back in the cavernous sewer, Jocelyn is approaching a door built into one of the sloping walls.

It had once preceded some manner of storage closet; now, whatever painted text that indicated its purpose has faded beyond comprehension, and there is a dim light coming from beneath the door’s frame.

Jocelyn knocks on it, her two knuckle-taps against its surface illuminating that it is a hollow, metal thing, and flimsy; it shakes almost like tin-foil in response to the impact.

Without waiting for a response, Jocelyn creaks the door open, and steps in.

There, offering only a sideways glance in notice of her entrance, the long-nosed, wheelchair-bound man continues eating from his can of soup.

“He’s awake, Rudy”, she muttered, in her usual, bored tone.

Rudy– the old man, still didn’t look at her. He just stared, contemplatingly, at the bottom of the soup can. Mostly empty, now.

He was starting to regret telling her his name. He didn’t miss much from his time with the foundation, but the title of “captain” was something he wished he still had.

“Jocelyn, I’d like him not to know my name.”, he imagined himself saying. “I’d like him to call me captain.”

He didn’t say any of that to her, however, as he knew what the response would be.

He’d get that bored stare, and a gut-wrenching silence.

No, he instead just crushed the can, proud of the fact his arms had remained so strong, and wheeled himself out of  the still-open door.

After tugging out his flashlight, he found had to jiggle it a bit before it spewed its beam into the grimy black of the tunnel. Jocelyn could see much better in the dark– he’d always attributed it to her ag–

A crocodile lunges at him from the canal at the tunnel’s center, frightening the flashlight out of his hand.

Though he is startled, his vocal chords tighten instinctively, with only a small wheeze escaping in place of a yell, or scream. The foundation’s stealth-training had stuck well.

He nearly loses control of his wheelchair, the nightmarish scenario of his falling into the shallow canal white-hot in his mind.

He steadies himself, however, keeping his eyes fixed on the creature, and seeing that it is actually struggling to make it out of the stream.

The flashlight falling into the water, its beam continuing to point up, it illuminates just what is weighing the creature down, and causing it to thrash around in such a frenzied manner.

The young man, laying chest-down on the crocodile’s back, must have been riding it!

One of their arms seems to be hooked around the thing’s torso, the other’s hand struggling to hold the end of its tail.

Jordan’s gaze is intense, as he looks up at Rudy. He’s soaked, and grunting as he grapples with the creature.

Rudy hears him exhale hard, as he tightens his grip on the tail. He’s astonished to see smoke begin to billow from underneath the young man’s clenched hand, with the crocodile hissing hard in response.

As the thing continues thrashing, now even more fevered, Rudy sees a shadowed, humanoid figure floating behind Jordan. Its hand seems to be overlapping with that of Jordan’s, as he twists the creature’s tail.

Rudy starts, ever-so-slowly, backpedalling down the path, away from the grisly scene.

The crocodile lunges, again, at the path’s edge. This time, it manages to get its head and fore-claws up, scratching at the flat surface!

Jordan drags himself up as fast as he can without the use of his legs, Scorched ‘El lifting and pushing him as best it can; he’s using the creature’s head as a bridge to the sidewalk.

Looking to Rudy, this old, bewheelchaired man that he doesn’t recognize, he gurgles:

“Hckk–help–”

Jordan outstretches a hand as he shifts his torso onto the walk, with Rudy watching as the crocodile, freed of its burden, hisses and splashes back into the water.

Seeing what’s to come, Rudy starts turning rubber. He strains his back-muscles, pushing his wheelchair as fast as it can go.

He sees the reptile rearing back in the water as Jordan struggles to keep from slipping back.

Once he’s confident in his momentum, the cracked walkway threatening to turn his chair straight into the water, Rudy releases the wheels!

With a newly-freed hand, Rudy grabs Jordan’s arm by the wrist, his momentum betraying him as it does little to bring Jordan out– his soaked, heavy body stops Rudy in his tracks, and worse; his chair’s wheels are now directed towards the water!

Rudy curses as the chair’s rusted brake doesn’t budge an inch! He’s pulling Jordan up, but he may just take him straight back down with him!

He had no choice but to use his guardian spirit, My Hero!

With it, he eliminates momentum! His chair comes to a grinding halt, and the alligator’s jaws lose half their strength as they close on Jordan’s leg– barely breaking the skin.

As this happens, Jordan sees the same golden light as he did falling from the mountain; a  hovering, armor-clad spirit is its source, as it floats behind the old man.

As the alligator waits for the warm trickle of blood that will not come, Rudy turns his chair away from the water’s edge, and rips Jordan from its jaw.

Now fully on dry land, and sopping wet, Jordan allows himself a moment to catch his breath.

The alligator hisses at Rudy from the water, their eyes locked. He remains between the creature and Jordan, as the latter splutters up water.

The alligator lowers itself into the shallow pool, its eyes being the last to sink beneath it.

The flashlight, at the bottom of the stream, finally loses power. At this, Rudy curses again, under his breath this time. It’d had a full battery.

Soon enough, he and Jordan were both sitting in the closet-space, the door shut tight behind them.

Rudy sees that Jordan’d placed himself in the corner farthest from him and Jocelyn.

He’d dried well enough, with the extra tarps he’d wrapped himself with. Seems he wasn’t ready to talk yet.

The way his eyes darted between them, frenzying at the slightest movement, worried him.

However, what worried him most was regarding Jocelyn.

She’d likely heard the splashing– the creature’s hissing, too. The door was hollow, so she likely heard the entire exchange.

Rudy, without turning to face her, snuck a glance at her face. There was no hint of alarm, nor any real interest in the situation at hand on her face. She just stared, her eyes half-shut, at the ground.

He could’ve been dying, for all she’d’ve known. She’d seen just how silently the foundation’s operatives could kill.

Some paternal instinct in him was happy at her inaction, strangely. In some way, he was happy she hadn’t put herself in danger.

But did she really care so little that she wouldn’t check? The door may’ve even still been open some when he dropped the flashlight!

Jordan raised a finger at the two.

“You’re going to tell me, right now, who you are, where I am, and why I’m here– in that order.”

Rudy couldn’t help but think that Jordan’s eyes lingered more on him, than on Jocelyn.

Jocelyn sighed, planting her head against the wall to her right, as if to say “please, just leave me out of this.”

Rudy faltered for a moment. There wasn’t any good answer to why they’d brought him here, as far as he knew.

Jocelyn’s the one that’d pointed him out, in the first place. It seemed out of character, her helping someone because it was the right thing to do, but they’d worked together to bring him down here, to safety, all the same.

Jordan sounds aggravated as he continues to pressure them: “Guys, I rode an alligator, or crocodile, or whatever the hell that thing was, to get here. ‘Had to burn  its tail just to get it to move how I wanted. Answer my questions.”

Despite how wet and smelly he was, Jordan’d felt pretty cool after saying that. He’d felt cool riding that crocodile.

Sighing, Rudy finally speaks up.

“My name’s Rudy, and hers is Jocely–”

“Not what I meant,” Jordan cut in. 

“I wanna know stuff like why you’ve got that symbol on your back.”

Rudy immediately became aware of how precarious this situation was. If this young man has the same sort of “thing” in him as he and Jocelyn, they could be in serious trouble.

Unconsciously, Rudy’s hand went to his back, tracing the mark he’d once with so much gusto tried to remove from his vest.

This was a closed, and very limited space. His spirit, whatever it was, was likely what had allowed him to burn that creature.

He could stop bullets, and weaken a predator’s bite, but he couldn’t slow fire.

This young man, violence in his eyes, really did have control of the situation.

“Fine”, Rudy conceded.

“I worked with the foundation, once. At the same outpost you’ve just come from, too.”

Rudy expected some violent, angry response, but Jordan simply kept listening. All the same, his eyes betrayed a lingering stress.

“Jocelyn, here–” Rudy continues, gesturing to her.

“was one of their… objects of study, like I’m guessing you were.”

Jordan nods, slowly.

“I helped her escape. In order to do it, I had to… expose myself to a certain object.”

Jordan interrupts, again: “I’m not giving you any space to be vague.”

As he says this, anger rising in his voice, a spectral arm manifests from out of his shoulder, slapping the wall behind him– it creates a gross squelching sound as it does, before disappearing.

Rudy sees a large splatter of a maroon-red sludge spread over the spot where the hand had landed, blinking to find it had melted a hole in the metal wall.

“Right.” Rudy said, swallowing nervously.

“It was an arrow. Whoever was cut by it either found themselves dying, as if from some viral infection, or…”

“Or?”

“Or found a ghost following them.”

Jordan had had his suspicions, but now he was sure of it. That arrow Zain’d been obsessing over, that was the source of this fucking weirdness.

“As for where you are,” Rudy continued– “we’re underneath Haleswood, a town by the mountains’ base, in a maze of long-decomissioned sewer tunnels. The water out there’s from some stream that’s been leaking in, so you don’t hafta worry about any infection.”

Rudy smiled at Jordan, hoping this news would cheer him some. No such luck.

Jordan now instead wore a grimace. “And, why are you down in a sewer, and not in a house?”

“‘Cause we’ve got to remain hidden. We’re still damn close to that containment center, and they’d known where we were headed. It was by dumb luck me and Jocelyn’d found these sewers. I’d bet no-one the foundation knows about these.”

“Why haven’t you used them to leave?”

Rudy felt like he might’ve laughed, if it weren’t for the fact he’d be the only one.

“Two things. One; they’ve got what’s called amnestic gas. They spray it over this town regularly, making the people forget certain stuff. The batch they use for this place’s designed only for cold temperatures, and it’s considerably farther from freezing down here, so it loses its gaseous form. Here, we’re safe from it.”

“What’s the other thing?” Jordan hurries him, impatient.

“They’ve got a damn tight perimeter around the town and its adjacent forests. Jocelyn found it. They had it set up not long after we’d ‘escaped’”.

Jordan nods, looking to the ground thoughtfully.

“Hell, it’s only ‘cause of Jocelyn’s little ability that we saw you falling at all.”

With that, it all clicks. The photos.

Jordan takes the sheaf of laminates from his shirt pocket.

“Why so many pictures of the mountain?”

“Because, it’s as close as we could get to seeing the facility itself. Jocelyn wanted to keep an eye on it, as well as Haleswood, as well as– most all of the tunnels.”

“Speaking of–” Jocelyn finally pipes up, standing and stepping to Jordan: “give me those.”

Snatching them from Jordan, Jocelyn shoves them into her coat’s one large pocket. As she does this, Jordan sees the glinting corner of some metallic thing in said pocket. A camera?

“…Fine.” Jordan says, not protesting to her taking the seemingly magical photographs.

“You said she’d taken those photos? ‘That her ghost-power, making moving pictures?”

“It’s more useful than you may think.” Rudy says, smiling at Jordan.

Jocelyn doesn’t respond, simply returning to her seat, and beginning the task of wiping each photo dry.

“See,” he continues, “we saw you falling in one of the photos, assumedly after jumping, or being thrown off the cliff above. We’d been watching them for a time, since a minute earlier we’d seen a great deal of men stationing themselves along the mountain’s sheer walls. My little number, here–”

The flash hits the room, again. Hovering behind Rudy is My Hero, the golden spirit Jordan’s seen three times, now.

“–I can make it up and appear in any spot I can see. Then, it can eliminate momentum from anything around it. Long story short, I saw you through the photograph, and sent in my ghost. It slowed the bullets down, and even slowed your fall.”

“…Jesus. Uh– thanks.”

Jordan’s voice is free of hostility, now. Maybe he was just feeling desperate, but he was starting to like this guy.

Unbeknownst to any of them, far above; the quaint little town was on fire. Moments earlier, the last of their under-cover operatives had reported their being in position. Following that, they’d received an all-clear to reduce the place to ash. No heed was given to the residents, save for the ending of their lives. The fires had quickly spread to the surrounding forests, which they’d intended. Wherever those escapees were, they’d be burning.