“Phhhhssssaawww! Gods, I’m glad that’s done.” Wiping dust and sweat from her forehead, Rebecca half staggered as she passed the last box to Matthew. Without even bothering to watch him shove it into the black hole they’d been using for storage, she leaned back against one of the racks and slowly allowed herself to slide down along it, until she was completely sitting on the floor.

“Tired from that little?” Raising an eyebrow slightly, Matthew carefully eased his hand under the dark portal and gently gripped the ring on the table. Sliding it back upon his finger, he closed the portal and then eased over and slide down to rest beside Rebecca. Gently tugging wrapping his arm around her grimy shoulders, he tugged her up gently beside him. Resting her head gently on his shoulder, Matthew wrinkled his nose slightly while asking, “How’d the hell you manage to get this nasty anyway?”

“You weren’t the one having to stick your head and shoulders back into those shelves and pull crap forward out of them while those damn vines fell apart and covered you in dust!” To tired to resist, Rebecca closed her eyes and simply rested against Matthew’s chest, completely ignoring his hand which slid down from her shoulder to cup and massage her breast. “My nose is so full of vine crap that I can hardly breath through it,” Rebecca complained pitifully. “For the first hour or so, I sneezed myself silly – at least I did until I couldn’t sneeze anymore!”

“Awwww! Poor thing!” Half laughing, Matthew leaned forward and gently kissed her on the forehead, before gently asking, “Do you think you can get up and walk with me? It’ll be dark soon and there’s a few things I’d like to do quickly before we go get Jennifer. I really don’t want to leave her alone down in those tunnels once they swap over to nighttime mode.”

“Give me just a few minutes,” Rebecca pleaded, lifting her head to stare desperately into Matthew’s eyes. “I swear, I’m pooped out,” she half whimpered. “Believe it or not, all this damn physical work today got me a whole point of strength and a point and a half of stamina. I feel like I could just pass out at any moment.” Too tired to keep her eyes opened anymore, she slowly drooped her head back against Matthew’s chest and closed them in exhaustion.

“Fine. Fine.” Half laughing, Matthew squeezed her left breast with his hand once again while gently kissing her on her forehead another time. Leaning forward, he gently wrapped his other arm around her body and then gave her a gentle tug over to sit in his lap. “How about we do it like this then?” Chuckling slightly, Matthew wrapped his arms around her and slowly stood up. While snuggling her close against his chest, he gently carried her back out of the storeroom and into the main cafeteria, like a groom might carry a bride across the threshold of her new home.

To tired to even realize what was happening, Rebecca snored softly, wrapped up in a blanket of exhausted sleep.

“Hey. Hey.” Matthew gently shook Rebecca several times. “You might want to see this.”

“Huuuuuuh?” Yawning widely, Rebecca blinked several times and rubbed her eyes trying to clear the dried dust and matter out of them. “Where? Where are we?” Blinking weakly, her exhausted mind couldn’t sort out her confusion. One moment she was down in the storeroom leaning on Matthew, and now she was laying down on the ground of roof somewhere. On the floor of the roof? On top of a roof? She couldn’t even puzzle out what the hell to call it when you’re laying down on the flat surface of a rooftop, at the moment, much less anything else!

Laughing merrily at the look of blank comprehension on her face, Matthew walked over, leaned down, and gently held a hand out to her. “You passed out down in the storeroom,” he explained patiently. “I wanted to do a quick job scouting the school once again, before we went to pick Jennifer up, and now we’re up on the roof. I thought you might want to wake up and take a look at the view here with me, and watch the sunset. It seems peaceful enough out here at the moment, and I wanted to share this with you.”

“I’m awake,” Rebecca yawned, trying to convince herself as much as she was Matthew. Reaching for his hand, she allowed him to gently help tug her to her feet, before wrapping her in his arms. Wiping her eyes one last time, she forced herself to swallow down another yawn as she turned her head left and right and took in the view.

“Wha… what the hell?!” Jaw falling open, Rebecca shivered as if someone had suddenly tossed icy water down her back. Exhaustion disappeared instantly, as it was replaced with pure shock. “What the hells happened to everything?!”

At first, staring out across the parking lot, nothing had appeared to have changed much. The few corpses of students which she had seen earlier were still crumpled lifelessly where they’d fallen, with their flesh now mainly picked clean from them by whatever strange birds had been feeding on them. Cars and a few buses were still parked out in the lot, looking forlornly forgotten by their owners, giving the scene out front almost the feeling of a quiet graveyard.

Off to her left, most of the view was still the same as she’d expect, as she gazed out over the hillside and across the second floor of the building. A few powerlines, the road, and out in the distance several houses sat scattered across the landscape. Nothing too unusual, except for the pileup of vehicles which blocked the exit of the school’s entrance onto the main highway, and the lack of lights or sirens which should’ve been almost overwhelming at the accident from police and rescue personnel.

What truly caused her mouth to drop open and her eyes to open wide in shock was the view off to her right. “The… The tennis courts are gone,” she stammered, gaping at the thick layer of greenery which had grown up and completely swallowed them. Not only was the tennis courts gone, but so was everything else as far as her eyes could see in that direction. Sometime in the last few days, somehow, a forest had grown up and grown hundreds of meters in height, seemingly overtaking everything to the south and west of the school.

“What.. what the hell could do such a thing?” Swallowing down a lump of fear in her throat, Rebecca half shivered while snuggling tightly up against Matthew’s chest. “Do.. Do you think there might be another dungeon core out there changing things like we found in here?” If there was, and it was this close to the irregular one here at the school, who knew what might happen! Just thinking about it was enough to make her knees knock together in worry.

“I don’t think it’s another dungeon,” Matthew assured her, frowning slightly as he said it. “I don’t sense anything which would make me think that there’s a core close by, and from my experience – even from playing games on the internet and stuff from before all this happened – dungeons usually aren’t found that close to each other. I don’t think it’s a core influencing the environment to create an outdoor style dungeon,” Matthew repeated insistently, though the frown never left his face as he wrapped his arms around Rebecca and held her close.

“Then what the hell could do such a thing,” Rebecca asked, shivering?

“I don’t know,” Matthew admitted softly, “and that worries me.” Without bothering to say any more, he wrapped his arms even tighter around Rebecca and rocked her gently, his steely gaze never wavering as he stared intently at the newborn, albeit giant, forest.

Neither of them paid any attention to vibrant hues of orange and red as the sun slowly set across the sky, as both were lost in their own worries and speculation about what the future might hold.