Everyone shot out of bed instantly, the same image in each of their minds.
"Man," Yahd shook his head, getting up off the table. He looked up, seeing Mitani and Kalimba getting up as well.
"That was weird," Mitani grumbled. "That felt so real."
"Hold on," Kalimba said, walking up the stairs. As he went up, he saw Zoe coming down, mumbling about how Asher wasn't in his room.
He got to the second floor, looking inside the first door on the left, seeing no one inside, and a messy bed.
"I wanna say," Kalimba said once everyone was in the living room, "I'm not a superstitious person, but right before I woke up…There was like an image in my head. This is gonna sound a little wacky…"
"Asher was dying," Zoe monotoned, looking at the floor.
Yahd looked at her, surprised, then looked around the room; everyone had the same expression—one of sudden realization and dread, except Melody who looked confused.
"Who's Asher?" She asked Palmer.
"We should at least try and search for him, right?" Zoe asked, her voice slightly shaky.
"Yeah," Kalimba swallowed, "Yeah, we should. After all, we're probably just imagining things. Ya know, from what we've been through we probably would have some weird nightmares; only coincidence that it was of the same person."
"I felt energy when I woke up," Yahd said, his eyes glued to the ground.
"This town isn't that big, okay? There's only so many places where he can be," Kalimba said sternly, looking around at each of them. "Come on, we gotta find him, and get outta here."
"No!" Yahd screamed, coming across the town square. "Not again!"
The rest of the group came to where they heard him, all standing, looking at the chunks of human in front of them.
"What's happening?" Melody asked, sniffing the air. "What's that smell?" She tried to let go of Palmer's hand to follow it, but Palmer gripped her tightly.
"Do you think he's one of them?" Zoe asked. Her wide eyes, staring unable to look away.
Before anyone could respond, a distant voice carried through the air, "Oh, it's them again!"
They all spun around, witnessing Leo's female colleague emerge from behind a bush. Simultaneously, Leo and the male colleague stepped out from the front door of a nearby house.
"Oh, goodness," Leo muttered, observing the horrified expressions on the kids' faces.
Leo quickly ushered them a ways away down one of the paths.
"Okay, I'll look for him. But you guys should really get outta here," Leo warned. "By the way, if you want a quicker route to Outback, you go literally straight from there," he pointed straight ahead, "but when you hit the small mountain range, go to the right, not the middle; trust me, it'll save you time."
"Okay thanks," Kalimba said. "You gotta promise, that you'll try to find him."
"Hey, I promise," Leo chuckled. "When you get there, tell em' I sent ya'. Say 'Leo and his three compadres sent us here,' they'll let you in."
'Dude, I'm not saying that,' Kalimba thought. "Yeah, okay," he smiled.
Leo watched as both of their cars flew off into the morning sun. He turned, a yellow aura surrounded him. With a snap of his fingers, the massive condor swooped down once again. Both him and his colleagues hopped on its back, slowly circling the village.
"Ooh," The female colleague clapped her hands, "There it is. The red thingy between those buildings right there,"
"Good eye," Leo grinned.
The condor swooped low and landed in the street.
"Hey ugly!" She yelled.
The beast turned, staring at the group, regarding them with its bright yellow and orange eyes.
"Yikes," the male colleague pulled a face, "That thing has changed a lot."
"Doesn't look all that different than one of us, maybe," Leo observed. "This is just weird," he scratched his chin in deep thought.
Zoe got out of the back seat of the jeep and stared up at the top of the white wall. Several heads peered down at them.
"That goes for you too, woman," Someone at the top of the wall called down.
Zoe sighed, getting on her knees, tossing her knives on the ground in front of her, and holding her CraterID in her hands, then putting them behind her head.
The gears squealed as the heavy metal gates slid open.
Zoe wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't this.
The road within was immaculate, the concrete sidewalks devoid of any blemish. The bright houses stood in a neat row, each with its perfectly manicured lawn, creating a uniformity that seemed to replicate from one plot of land to the next.
A group of figures dressed entirely in black advanced through the gates, each one brandishing a gun aimed at each of them.
One walked behind Zoe, grabbing the card from her hands. She heard a blip as the man scanned it, confirming it was real.
After they had checked the rest of her group, they told them to all stand and follow them.
They didn't walk too far before entering a bright orange two-story home.
"When inside, take off your shoes and sit at the dining room table," One of the men ordered.
The front door opened, and the smell of cooking bread wafted out onto the freshly painted white porch.
They walked through the house, pictures of different families hung on the walls, following the smell, and reaching a large circular oak table.
"Bro," Yahd huffed, collapsed into a chair. The morning light from a nearby window streamed across his tired face, "Why's everyone gotta make everything so stressful all the time?"
Zoe sat in the chair next to him, crouching on the seat, taking her cards out of the now dirty box of cards, spreading them across the table in front of her.
Yahd watched her for a while, flipping cards, making them disappear and reappear seemingly out of thin air. "You're like really into cards, huh?"
Zoe glanced over at him, "Yes."
"I've just noticed you're constantly messing with them. What do you like about it?"
Zoe thought for a second, "It's not so much that I like doing it; more like, I have to do it."
"What does that mean?" Before he could ask the question, they all turned, hearing someone walk down a set of stairs next to them. Their shoes clicking on the wooden steps.
"Oh hello," a man said. He was slender, with messy brown hair. He wore dark blue slippers, with a word etched in gold on each one. 'Lewis.' As well, he had on brown dress pants and a robe with nothing underneath.
The man walked to the kitchen, grabbing a wooden basket full of fruit on the table, walking back into the dining room, and placed it carefully in the middle of the table.
"Help yourself while I make breakfast. Any requests?"
Everyone exchanged surprised looks.
"Uh," Yahd was the first to speak, "Do you got like, pancakes?" He asked hopefully.
"Yeah sure," he nodded. "Anything else you guys want?"
Everyone shook their heads except Zoe who shot up in her seat, her hand in the air.
"Uh, yes?" He pointed at Zoe.
"Do you have chicken nuggets?"
"As breakfast? I guess…I think so," he turned around, opening the freezer portion of the silver refrigerator. "By the way, my name is Lewis."
Less than fifteen minutes later, all the food was placed in front of them.
"So," Lewis said between bites, "What do you need from us?"
Everyone glanced at Kalimba. "Uh," he mumbled. "Well, I guess we need to call Damon. Tell him that we've completed it and will be back in a few hours."
"Oh, okay," Lewis smiled. "You don't have to drive those cars, you know? We can you some aerial support to the boat."
"You can just get us a helicopter?" Mitani asked.
"Well, yeah, I am one that sits at 'the table of five,' after all," Lewis had a smug smirk on his face.
"What does that even mean?" Palmer asked.
'So I guess he'd be Outback's equivalent to a Hound,' Zoe thought.
"Why are you helping us so much?" Yahd inquired, scooting forward in his seat, looking at Lewis with untrusting eyes.
"Well, an optical answer would be that since we..well, most of us here are of the same ilk. We are like an extended family. But in reality, it'll make us look pretty good, helping out some kids from Crater, of all places."
"Ah, and there it is," Yahd sighed, pushing his empty plate of food toward the center of the table.
"Well, we should get going," Lewis said, noticing everyone had stopped eating. "By the way, there's a phone hanging up on the wall over there. In the hallway with the sunflower wallpaper," he pointed.
Kalimba reached into a backpack, pulling out a business card with Damon's name printed on it with golden letters in large font. Under it was his personal cell phone number, pressed in black ink.
He walked to the house phone, dialing the number. "Oh hey, Damon?" He paused. "Oh yeah, this is Kalimba…Kalimba, the guy you hired to retrieve Melody…Yeah, that's the name of the girl. Anyway, we have her. We're getting a lift by Outback and will be there pretty soon."
The small silver aircraft landed several hundred feet away from the shoreline, right next to the black dinghy.
The group thanked the captain as they hopped out of the vehicle. He nodded and quickly took off, flying back to the colony.
Once everyone else had hopped into the dinghy, Palmer pushed it into the ocean, hopping on himself.
Leo crouched next to the beast; he reached down, prying open its eyelids. Its orange and yellow eye tried to focus on Leo but just couldn't manage to do it.
"You really dosed this guy, huh?" Leo chuckled.
"It wasn't goin' down," His male colleague shrugged.
"What an odd thing, though," Leo poked it in the side with a slim plastic gun he had in his hand. "It's like something trying to imitate a humanoid, but is like an animal at the same time," He scrunched his nose, "The more I look at it, the creepier it looks. Guessing on what we've seen, I'm guessing when it ingests a living thing, it can steal some of the traits or properties of it." He put the gun to the beast's arm, pulling the trigger. "Alright, he's chipped. We can call this a success."
"So now we'll be able to track this thing anywhere in the world, right?" His female colleague asked.
"Yup, basically pinpoint it anywhere. Underwater or hundreds of feet inside a cave, we can keep tabs," Leo reassured. 'I wonder what this thing would turn into if I dropped it in the middle of Outback,' A smile crossed his face as he pondered that thought.
End of Part 1