Collin ran with his girlfriend’s hand clutched in his own.

He and Shelby had started dating less than six months ago, but what a wonderful six months it had been. At first, he had been skeptical that any sort of meaningful relationship could form from a cheesy dating website, that feeling only reinforced as he was forced to enter pages of what felt like unnecessary information before signing up.

But then he was matched with Shelby, and he considered it money and time well spent. He didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but a few days ago he was starting to think he could see a real, long-term future with this girl.

Now, though, he had trouble seeing any sort of future. With her or anyone else.

For the last two days they had been hiding out in her apartment, but as sounds of destruction outside increased and food and water supplies inside dwindled, they grew more and more desperate. An hour ago, they decided to make a run for it, sneaking out of the building into the abandoned streets below.

Less than an hour later they were running for their lives, sprinting through the streets from the strange ooze that inexorably pursued them. They were in an area of downtown Collin wasn’t familiar with, lost and turning corners blindly, hoping the slimy monster wouldn’t be behind them the next time they looked back. But it always was.

Once, Collin even considered letting go of the soft hand he held, his girlfriend slower than the pace he knew he could maintain if he was alone. But he only considered it once, rejecting it just as quickly. They would escape together or not at all.

They turned the latest corner, too late realizing the alley lead to a dead-end, the ooze filling the entryway behind them. As if it could tell they had nowhere else to go, the ooze slowed in its approach, slowly undulating towards them. Collin pushed Shelby behind him, raising his fists in a last hopeless act of defiance towards the slime.

But then suddenly the slime wasn’t there, a whoosh of flame rising from where a wolf-sized monster previously had been. The flames quickly died down, the last vestiges of the ooze evaporating into the air to reveal a new form behind it.

A girl. Maybe eight or nine years old, she stood in a tattered and bloody dress, a small lighter held in one hand, a knife in the other. But the only things he could focus on were her eyes, endless pools of orange gazing into his own, a constant stream of tears dripping from the mesmerizing orbs.

- Collin and Shelby, Inclusion +2 days 04:19 hours

We're standing at the edge of some trees, a clearing of about twenty yards ahead of us. And on the other side of that clearing stands another forest. But this one…different.

The trees, while still the same pines and spruces we've been walking through, are stunted and twisted. The undergrowth is thicker than anything we've forced our way through before. And although the sun is shining bright across the twenty yards of clearing, the forest is unnaturally shadowed. A chill breeze blows into our faces causing Styx to shiver in place.

"Well that's not intimidating at all," Melete comments.

"Sam, any ideas on what this is?" I ask.

"I…am not sure," Sam replies. "Flora similar to that of earth can be found on many different worlds, yet rarely has flora ever become powerful enough that it is deemed to have 'conquered' the world, and even more rare is the plant that chooses to take their chances on a newly included world. Powerful flora are typically intricately and inseparably tied to the world they originate from. Instinctually, they refuse to travel to new worlds."

Huh. So all the new creatures on earth had some sort of choice to be moved here from their original worlds? I make a note to myself to ask Sam about it more later.

"So it's probably not alien trees. Is there anything else that could make normal earth trees look like…that?" Styx asks.

"Unfortunately, not that I know of. But my lack of knowledge is not necessarily unusual. As a diplomat, while I am more familiar with the many varied creatures that inhabit the many different worlds the Alatir are on, I am by no means aware of every possible species. The universe is a large place. And always, the universe advances."

I pull out the map, always watching the dark forest out of the corner of my eye, deciding to take Sam at its word. "Well, it looks like the quickest way back to Clayton is directly through there, assuming I've got our location correct." The cold breeze from the forest picks up, the groaning and creaking of trees echoing in the wind.

"You know, I'm not feeling particularly rushed to get back home. The scenic route sounds good to me," Melete says. Styx doesn't take her eyes off of the forest ahead but gives a small nod of agreement.

"I would like to mention," Sam says, its legs twitching as it also stares at the dark woods. "Although flora rarely choose to leave those worlds they have conquered, those worlds dominated by plants are widely known to be the most…inhospitable to any non-native creature."

"Around it is then," I state decisively, and my friends breathe out a sigh of relief. I roll up the map and we turn north, following the edge of the cleaning with the strange forest to our left.

Despite keeping a fair distance from the clearly defined border of what I’ve started to think of as the ‘haunted woods’, my heart beats heavily in my chest. Over the scores of hours traveling with my friends, maintaining conversation as we hike without sacrificing vigilance or speed has become second nature. And even in the many hours of silence, there is an easy camaraderie that makes the silence comfortable. Unlike a few of my friendships at my old school, a constant stream of words isn’t required to keep awkwardness at bay.

But as we continue to hike within sight of the haunted woods, the minutes dragging out to an hour, the silence weighs heavily on me. The breeze continually blows from our left, bringing with it haunting ambient noises. Nothing truly unusual; every noise I hear is something natural to a forest. But the proportions seem all wrong. Creaking wood constantly echoes, accompanied by the howling of the wind between the trunks. But I don’t hear the shifting of branches or leaves, nor the buzzing of insects, nor the chirping of birds.

The sounds of leaves crunching beneath my feet seem unnaturally loud. Pallas steps on a stick, breaking it with a loud crack. I jump and turn to the noise, machete in my hand. We stare at each other until I carefully sheath my machete, deliberately relaxing my grip on the handle as I turn and resume our journey. I would be embarrassed about my reaction if the rest of my friends hadn’t reacted just as strongly, Pallas included.

I struggle to think of a conversation topic, anything to break the suppressive hold the haunted forest has on our moods. Styx beats me to it.

“Anyone up for a game of ‘I, spy’?”

I cringe. I was hoping it would be something a little less...forced than that.

“Ooh, me, me! I go first!” Melete exclaims before anyone else can react. She pauses in thought for only a moment before continuing. “I spy something dark, foreboding, and that has gusts of wind.”

I give her a look, slowly lifting my arm to point to the haunted woods within throwing distance.

“Wrong!” she shouts happily. “Any other guesses? No? It’s Atlas!” My friends just look at her curiously. When no one responds, she continues. “Seriously? Are we not gonna talk more about what happened back in the Alatir colony? I know you and Sam weren’t there, Styx, but you should have seen him. All intimidating and evil-looking.” She holds up one of her knives vaguely in the direction of Sam’s eye, deepening her voice in a weak parody of my own. “‘Do you want us as an ally, or an enemy?’”

Styx suddenly chokes, bending over to stifle her uncontrollable giggles. When I glare at her, she coughs a few times and straightens. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that sounds nothing like you.” But I can see the corners of her mouth fighting to keep from turning up, and I find I’m struggling to keep my own face straight.

“I mean, it worked in the situation we were in, so props for that, but come on!” Melete says. “For a minute I was worried you were going to start screaming over and over about how it killed your father.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had such a good view,” I retort. “I could have sworn you were puking your guts out at the time.”

“Chemical warfare,” she responds immediately, nose in the air. “My plan was coming together for when yours fell apart. Miraculously, we didn’t need it, but I was ready in any case.”

I snort. Pallas hasn’t spoken, but I can see the grin on his face from where he’s standing. Deciding to take the high ground, I turn and walk away, my friends following. As we walk, Melete continues her impressions of me, deciding Styx and Sam need a full visual and audio play-by-play of how our encounter with the Alatir council went down. With creative license, of course. As ridiculous as she is, when she finally starts acting out Pallas’ role as well I can’t argue that her impression is anything but accurate.

It takes fifteen minutes for Melete to finish her production. I make sure to keep an eye on the haunted woods as we walk, as well as on the rest of our surroundings, but I’m pleased to notice that, while the wind and noises from the woods continue, I’m not afraid anymore.

A companionable silence falls as I continue to lead my friends.

“Gusts of wind?” Pallas asks.

I glance back at him without stopping. “What?”

“The game of ‘I, spy’,” he says, looking at Melete. “Dark, foreboding, and gusts of wind?”

“Oh yeah, that,” Melete answers. “On my watch a few nights ago, I made the mistake of setting up downwind of his sleeping area. I have no idea what you’ve been eating, Atlas, but you need help.”

I duck my head and increase my pace, the giggles of Styx and Melete chasing me.

We travel for another four hours before making camp for the night. The clearing has continued to separate the two forests: one a natural green, afternoon light patterning the ground through the leaves, and one a dark, shadowed mess of twisted trees. While the clearing has shifted in size, sometimes as large as a full football field and sometimes only a few paces across, it never disappears, the two woods never merging at any point. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I continue to ponder what may have caused it. Was the clearing here before the inclusion? Is it somehow limiting the growth of whatever is affecting the trees in the haunted woods? Or is it a product of whatever is making the trees creepy and twisted?

Regardless, we retreat about fifty yards into the natural forest before setting up camp. While not abandoning other directions, the majority of our focus for the watches throughout the night is directed west, to the haunted woods.

Our paranoia is unrewarded, however, as the night passes without incident, the morning dawning bright and clear.

“What’s wrong?” Styx asks me as she sits on my left, cradling a pouch of oatmeal in her hands.

The map is unfolded in front of me, my own pouch of oatmeal already choked down. I gesture to the map. “I’m worried about the woods,” I say.

“How so?”

“Well, the Alatir colony was around here, according to Sam. Which means we need to be traveling directly west to get to Clayton. Maybe a little north as well.” I pause, rubbing my face with my hands.

“You’re worried about us getting there,” she says.

I nod in response. “Since we hit the forest, we’ve been going almost directly north. Which isn’t completely out of our way, but it’s not getting us any closer either. And we have no idea how far this forest goes! We could be walking for days just trying to get around it.”

“You think we should turn back and go around to the south? Or cut through?”

I shrug. “That’s the problem. I have no idea. And it’s already been weeks since the inclusion. Who knows if our families are even still in Clayton by now? The longer it takes the harder it will be for us to find them.” I push the map away in frustration, but then quickly reach and take hold of it again, carefully folding up the precious resource. “I just hate not knowing.”

Styx carefully sets her half-empty breakfast to the side. Once her hands are free, she reaches over my shoulder in a side hug, resting her head on my shoulder. I lean into her, savoring the contact.

“It’ll be okay,” she says. “Even if it takes weeks more, we’ll get past this forest. And we’ll get to Clayton eventually. And if our families aren’t there, we’ll find out where they went and follow.” She lifts her head and uses her hand to turn my own. Suddenly I’m facing her, only inches separating us. “We trust you, Atlas.”

Her brown eyes stare into my own. Her short blond hair frames her face, slightly longer and looser than it was a few weeks ago, greasy with dried sweat and blood. There’s a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and her breath smells like the oatmeal I was only barely able to swallow.

But despite all of this, I come to a realization.

She’s beautiful.

There’s a ferocity in her eyes, a refusal to submit, regardless of the circumstances. Two days ago she was on the verge of death from a wound sustained by a monster more terrifying and powerful than anything ever before seen on earth. Two weeks ago she lost her best friend to another set of monsters, weaker than the hive queen but no less terrifying. And yet in both cases she has stuck by her friends, has refused to submit or give up.

I notice the knife she set on the ground to her left, never far from her side. Even now as she comforts me, she is ready to fight.

I glance down to her lips and slowly lean forward.

“You guys ready to go?”

At the sound of Melete’s voice, Styx and I lean away from each other, quickly jumping to our feet.

“Yeah, just about,” I reply, withholding the much angrier words I want to unleash. I pack away the map while Styx picks up her knife and oatmeal, carrying them through the trees to where the others are packing their bags.

But before she rounds the tree where Melete has appeared, face suspicious, Styx glances back to where I am finishing folding up the map. And she smiles.

My frustrations and fears gone, I look back at her. And even if I had tried, even with my powerful skill giving me complete control over all aspects of my body, I wouldn’t be able to stop the smile that forms in response.

S: 148

D:144

W: 321

I: 102

C: 101

0

Skills: Adjust:Self, Bond:Mental