Episode VI

Star Buddy

After being attacked by her reflection, roughing it through a forest, and getting enslaved, Amaris had to admit: flying on a private jet was a welcome change of pace. The clouds whizzed by out the window as she reclined in a leather seat with far too much stuffing in it, a fizzing blue drink in her hand. She just felt so fancy she had to extend her pinky while holding the glass, even though it was just blue raspberry soda.

With her other hand, she was lazily doodling in her notebook. Pictures of the mirror, the bottle of shadow, the dryads, the Predateor, and even Toad himself. There was something cathartic about drawing the monstrous and mysterious. Here, on the page, they were under her control. She knew what they were.

She took a sip of her drink, contemplating the most recent picture she’d drawn—a sketch of the suit that had been forced upon her. Most looking at her illustration wouldn’t have called it art—there were too many geometric shapes and mathematical constructions for that. Her work would more accurately be called a diagram. Despite having devoted much of her time with the girls to drawing pictures relating to her adventures, Amaris still wasn’t satisfied with her skill. She wanted accurate representations, not this cross-hatch nonsense.

If only the suit had forced me to get better at drawing, she thought, snorting to herself.

There was a soft bing-bong tone that let Amaris know the pilot wanted to talk to her. She lazily set her drink down and pressed a button on the armrest. “Go ahead.”

“Miss Kelvin, we will be landing in Adderfield in a few minutes. Prepare to disembark.”

“Understood. Connect me to Genk, if you can, please.”

“Yes, Miss Kelvin…” Immediately, the clear, distinct sound was replaced with a ton of static that made Amaris wince slightly. However, despite the horrible quality of sound, a voice came through.

“Amaris? Is that you?”

Amaris’ smile brightened. “Hey, Suuk! Yes, it’s me.”

“Your voice sounds like it’s being run through a garbage disposal…”

“We are near the edge of Genk’s transmission towers,” Amaris said as she packed all her things back up into her backpack—taking a moment to feed Pitch a snack. “I’ll be landing in Adderfield in a few minutes, actually.”

“Sarah wanted me to apologize that we couldn’t send you further south. I’m not going to.” Amaris could easily imagine her smug, toothy grin. “It’s not our fault there’s no airports further south.”

“It’s what I get for wanting to go off the edge of the map,” Amaris said.

“Your plan still the same?”

“Yep,” Amaris said. “Get to the bottom of the triangle peninsula, see if I can get any information on what lies to the far east. Hopefully that’s where home is.”

“Still say you should have taken a car.”

“I can’t drive,” Amaris deadpanned.

Suuk chuckled. “So you keep saying…” She fell silent.

“You still there, Suuk?”

“This’ll be the last time we talk, is all,” Suuk said.

“…Yeah…” Amaris sagged a little. “…How are things going on your end?”

“Absolutely terribly, people are yelling, industry has ground to a halt, and we’re burning through money like hot cakes. But… people seem to be listening to Sarah, and she thinks it’ll turn around later.” Amaris heard Suuk tap her nails on the table through the static. “Don’t worry about us, you have your own problems.”

Amaris glanced out the window, noticing that the private jet was angling downward, aiming for a runway. “I wonder what ‘interesting’ thing life will throw at me next.”

“Hey, do me a favor, when you get settled in and grow up or whatever, find a way to get back to us and tell us all the crap your ‘curse’ put you through.”

Amaris winked at the speaker even though Suuk couldn’t see her. “I’ll do my best!”

“Later, then.” Suuk cut the transmission.

For some reason, Amaris couldn’t help but smile. She focused more intently out the window, watching carefully as they set down on the runway. It wasn’t a full fledged airport, more like just a tiny strip on a fringe town. Adderfield wasn’t even a proper city: it consisted mostly of farmland sprawling out over great green rolling hills, dotted with fantastical trees in every color of the rainbow. Amaris made it a goal to collect a leaf of every color before she left this area of the world.

The private jet landed and the door slid open, allowing Amaris to walk down the stairs and onto the ground below. Since this wasn’t a proper airport, there were no terminals or baggage claims and there were only a couple other planes around. Genk had been an industrial metropolis; Adderfield looked tiny by comparison.

However, Amaris didn’t care. There was life here. Sparsely populated though it was, the fields of gold and green filled her with delight. This was no desolate wasteland, this was a land of plenty. Not to mention the sun - something she was still appreciating, now that she was free of Toad’s control.

Gripping the straps of her backpack, she pushed on. Although she knew inwardly how strong she’d become, the ease with which she carried all that stuff still surprised her. She almost didn’t even feel the weight!

As she left the “airport” she found herself walking down what a nearby street sign told her was Main Street, one of the few properly paved roads in the entire settlement. The sun was high in the sky and more than a little hot, so she took her jacket off, hanging it off the same strap as her bow.

Pitch poked his head out of the pack and licked the air. Seemingly satisfied, he took up residence on Amaris’ head and coiled up to take a nap.

“I swear, you do nothing but sleep,” Amaris said with a roll of her eyes.

Pitch let out an indignant hiss.

“I did all those shows, you only got thrown around that one time. Seems like a lot of sleeping to me.”

Her first goal was the library. It was a very small building, but it had an atlas she could look at—not that it gave her any new information. There was a larger city further down the peninsula, Irest, but that had been out of the Genk’s transmitter range. With luck, Amaris could find more information there. It would still be a long journey through old, worn roads, but she was prepared for it.

Amaris didn’t leave Adderfield right away, though. She checked into an inn, paying in gold coins. This got her odd looks, but nothing more—essentially, what she’d expected. After all, outside Genk, Genk credits didn’t mean anything, so Amaris had been provided with some rare but more universal metal coinage. Hopefully everywhere she went would have some use for it, whenever she needed to buy things.

She was also aware it might put a target on her back, but being a child out alone had a similar effect. She decided she’d rather have money than not. Or, at least, that’s what Petra eventually convinced her to do.

If I get mugged, it’s on you, Petra.

She paused as her thoughts turned to the blind girl.

I hope you’re doing better...

Amaris went to her hotel room and broke out some snacks. At first she tried to eat the Genk patented nutri-bars, but she wasn’t anywhere near hungry enough for that so she returned to the old stores of food Coleus had made her—which were still good. The dryad really had tried her best to make nonperishables. She munched on some dried fruits, and in the process found the old wind-up cat from the Cat-Ival. With a shrug, she twirled its key, getting its paw to wave and a new message to appear. “Friend!”

Amaris felt a small pang of sadness poke at her. Her friends were back in Genk. Here she was, out on her own again…

Pushing the thought out of her mind, she returned to her notebook, this time attempting to solve some mathematical brainteasers—eventually settling on the “four fours” game, where she attempted to count using only four number fours and arithmetic operators. She did this until she fell asleep, face in her notebook.

She awoke the next day without much fanfare, took a shower, got dressed, and marched out of the inn, stopping only to take a single pancake from the complimentary breakfast. Like that, she was off—heading directly south at a brisk pace. The road quickly became one of gravel, but she didn’t mind, she liked the sound of its crunch beneath her shoes.

The trees were an amazing deciduous variety that came in every color of the rainbow. Amaris stopped her trek every now and then to pick a leaf of a particularly interesting color and press it into the pages of her notebook. More progress on that promise!

This was how she spent the entire day. Walking, picking leaves, and walking. The trees never cluttered in a particularly dense formation and since she stuck to the road she never got lost.

About halfway through the day she passed through a small, cozy little town named Faifield. She bought a blue apple from a kind-looking old vendor and ate it on the road, the flavor somehow similar to blueberries.

At this point, she didn’t expect to make it to the next town, but that wasn’t an issue for her, not anymore. As night started to fall she turned off the main road and found a flat, grassy area where she set up the simple one-person tent she’d been sent with. It was a small thing, but it was designed for an adult, so it was spacious enough for her. She unrolled a sleeping bag and pillow she’d gotten to replace the tattered items from the orphanage and laid down, a smile on her face.

“Today was a good day, Pitch,” she said, stroking him with a finger. “Much better than trekking through the forest. …Or maybe it’s the same and I’m just stronger.” She yawned and stretched, putting her hands behind her head. Looking up through the see-through screen topping the tent, she calmly observed as the stars came out, winking into a dark sky one by one.

Take that, curse. Nothing happened today. Her eyelids drooped as the embrace of sleep took hold of her. Even though she was more than capable of the hike she’d just performed, she did expend considerable amounts of energy and was ready for sleep.

However, reality had other plans.

Just before her eyes would have closed for the last time, something caught Amaris’ attention in the sky: one of the stars had grown brighter. Now that she was aware of it, her curious mind tore her from the desire to dream, focusing on the star. In a few seconds, it was clearly even brighter. The longer she watched it, the brighter it became, until she was able to notice a faint trail it was leaving in the sky.

She knew what a meteor was, and given her luck, it wasn’t all that unreasonable to assume it was going to flatten her. So she jumped up and ran out of the tent, rudely awakening Pitch in the process. She ran around the tent in semi-cartwheel fashion, elegantly removing the four stakes keeping the tent pinned to the ground. The whole tent was heavy, but she had carried everything within it on her back all day: all she had to do was grab it and scramble away.

Amaris made it quite a long way away, all things considered. Her only issue was that the meteor was never going to crash into her tent, and she was in fact running toward the place it was hurtling at.

Luckily, she wasn’t that fast, and the impact occurred a fair distance in front of her. Blinding light flashed through the trees. For a moment, Amaris was blinded, and then some earthy projectile smacked her forehead, giving her a splitting headache.

Amaris prepared to make a run for it: meteors lit on fire when going through the atmosphere, and that impact was likely going to initiate the equivalent of a forest fire. Holding up her hands to block out the now-fading light, she began to turn to make her way out—but, glancing at the now-visible blast site, she belatedly realized there was a severe absence of fire or smoke.

At this point, her curiosity got the better of her. Leaving the tent behind and on its side, she walked toward the impact site—walking slowly, so Pitch could catch up to her, only increasing speed when he was resting neatly on her shoulder.

The crash was not hard to find. After all, it was a bright yellow glowing five-pointed star the size of a truck, with one of its rounded points embedded in the ground. It was fuzzy around the edges, all-in-all looking like it had come right from the pages of a young-reader’s picture book.

Amaris blinked. “What.”

The tip of the star that was closest to the ground popped open, revealing an interior dancing with electronic beeps, spring noises, and what Amaris swore was the meow of a kitten.

“A spaceship…?” Amaris tilted her head in confusion. Who designed their spaceship to look like a cartoony star?

Her answer was evident when the occupant of the ship popped out. The clear alien glowed a soft yellow and had five limbs arranged in such a way that, from the back, it looked exactly like its ship, albeit only the size of Amaris’ head.

It turned around to face Amaris. A big smile took up most of its lower body, and two massive eyes with brilliant orange irises and enlarged pupils stared up at her. When it opened its mouth, it didn’t speak words, but rather let out a soft chirping sound that resembled the best parts of puppy, kitten, and songbird calls.

Amaris’ jaw dropped. “You…”

It waddled toward her like a fat penguin, waving excitedly at her.

“You…” Amaris couldn’t help herself, she ran to the alien and scooped it up in her arms, hugging it tightly. It was slightly fuzzy and exceptionally soft. “You are the cutest thing ever.”

It let out a noise of what she could only guess was happiness. She was even more clueless about this thing than Pitch. It was smiling, though, that had to be good—at least the facial features could be read. It did seem awfully happy for someone whose ship had just crashed.

I might be hugging an alien ambassador like a common pet.

With a cough, she gently placed the starry creature on the ground. “Uh… sorry about that, I just…”

It closed its eyes and let out a happy chirp, bouncing up and down. It didn’t seem upset at all.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Amaris wiped her brow. “I was worried there for a second… uh…” She frowned. “You don’t understand a thing I’m saying, do you?”

Pitch licked her ear as if to say of course it doesn’t.

“Right… uh…” Amaris scratched the back of her head as she watched the alien waddle around. “I have no idea what to do here. Uh… can I look in your ship?” Right, how on earth is he going to answer that?

The alien wasn’t even looking at her anymore, it was waddling up to the trunk of the nearest tree, one with orange leaves. It poked the trunk, prompting a piece of bark to fall off. This seemed to delight the creature and, despite not having any visible fingers to speak of, it picked the broken chunk off and waved it in the air like a sword.

“Aww…”

Pitch hissed in Amaris’ ear.

“Oh, you’re just jealous.” Amaris rolled her eyes. She was about to say more, but the alien approached her, waving the piece of bark adorably, as if showing off to her. Amaris kneeled down and patted it on the tip on top of its “head.” Although, strictly speaking, it was basically all head. “Yes, you got the treasure, buddy!”

The alien let out a cheer and threw the piece of bark into the air. It entered a cart wheeling roll on all five of its tips, letting out a hilarious slide-whistle-like sound the entire time.

Amaris giggled. “See, look at that, Pitch. Adorable.”

Pitch flicked his tongue out in Amaris’ ear.

“Rude.”

The next time the alien looked at Amaris, she waved her hands to get its attention. She pointed at herself, then pointed at the opening in the ship. Slowly, she made motions to go toward the ship.

The alien didn’t seem to care, since the moment she moved, it turned away, waddling around aimlessly.

Amairs shrugged and poked her head inside the spaceship. The interior was exceptionally bright but otherwise rather boring. Circuitry patterns ran along the entire interior while sparks of light floated in the center, but Amaris saw no buttons, controls, interfaces, or even a seat. She realized with some concern that she had no idea if the ship was even broken or if crashing was just how it landed.

Either way, she was too large to fit inside, so she wasn’t going to be able to do anything. Laying her hand on the ship’s hull, she found it to be slightly fuzzy—though significantly more rigid than the plush nature of the alien itself.

Amaris turned her head to give Pitch a smile. “You wanna go in there?”

Pitch slithered down her shirt, taking refuge around her stomach to enjoy her body heat without having to deal with her crazy ideas.

“You really don’t like this, do you?” As Amaris took a step back from the ship, a frown crossed her face. Before her was a cute, adorable, and soft alien that not only seemed completely harmless but also walked around with permanent joy on its features. It seemed to know nothing but play and how to make adorable noises. However, for all she knew it was a bloodthirsty monster luring her into a false sense of security, waiting for her to let her guard down so it could dive down her throat and eat her heart…

Amaris shook her head. What’s wrong with me? Not everything has wanted to kill me. Coleus was great. This little guy might be like that. Still… Now that the thought had entered her mind, she was on edge. This creature was part of the curse, and that curse had made her life a living nightmare. She’d need to be careful. Careful of a potential mon—

An owl swooped down and grabbed the alien in its claws, taking off into the sky. Instinct kicked in. Amaris launched herself at the side of the nearest tree, using the trunk as a springboard to push herself even higher into the air, allowing her to grab the branch of another tree and swing forward in a summersault. She was not fast enough to catch the owl, but she didn’t need to be—she just needed a clear shot. With a single arcing motion, she ripped a small branch off a tree and threw it, smacking the owl in the back. Startled, it dropped the alien: a glowing star falling to earth once more.

Amaris was ready. She plowed into the ground, rolling into a run for three steps before jumping horizontally, grabbing the alien before it hit the earth.

It let out a delighted squee as Amaris got grass stains all over her shirt and pants. It patted her on the head as a reward for her heroic actions.

“Well… guess you owe me now…” Amaris let out a wheeze, sitting up with the alien in her arms. “And you have no idea that you owe me, but once you figure out our language, you’ll totally know.”

Pitch slithered up to them—evidentially he’d fallen out in the middle of Amaris’ acrobatic maneuver.

“Pitch, look at this little guy.” She set the alien on the ground. “He’s helpless. Just about got carried off by an owl and eaten for crying out loud.”

Pitch turned his gaze to the alien, flicked out his tongue, and turned back to Amaris.

“Don’t give me that.” Amaris patted the alien’s tip again. “This guy is… okay, I need to come up with something else to call you, buddy.”

At the word “buddy” the alien perked up and turned to look at Amaris.

“I… guess I did call you buddy earlier.” Amaris put her finger to her chin. “All right, for now, I call you Star Buddy. Sound good?”

The mixture of a meow with an exaggerated spring sound effect was good enough for Amaris to adopt the “name” herself. Her little Star Buddy was right in front of her, no longer an owl’s future dinner.

“Now… what are we going to do with you?” Amaris frowned. “You should stay near your ship, just in case help arrives. Or if it’s not even broken. Or… I don’t know anything.” She facepalmed.

Buddy lost interest again and wandered to the nearest fascinating thing—a small frog resting on a wet rock, croaking every few seconds. It didn’t hop away when Buddy approached, it just kept croaking.

Buddy opened his mouth in a wide “O” shape. A beam of rainbow energy accompanied with a sparkle sound effect burst from the orifice, enveloping the frog. The rainbows only lasted for a moment, but when they were done, the frog—and the rock it had been sitting on—were nothing but dust.

Amaris stared at the result wide-eyed. Pitch let out a hiss as if to say “I told you so.”

“He could have lasered us at any time…” Amaris said, cocking her head. “He could have lasered the owl. Hey! Buddy!” Buddy turned to her. “Why don’t you do that more often?” She pointed to her mouth and tried to make a glittering noise, but instead only gurgled.

Buddy either didn’t understand or decided not to respond, since he flopped onto the ground, face directed to the sky while letting out a call not unlike a cross between a dove and a mouse.

Pitch slithered up Amaris’ leg and glared at Buddy.

“He won’t hurt us,” Amaris asserted, folding her arms. “You saw what happened with the owl. …I think he might just be an idiot.”

Pitch chose to rest around her midsection once again, opting out of any further interactions with the alien creature. Amaris let him brood, walking up to Buddy and picking him up. “You know what we’re going to do? I’m going to show you my stuff! And that means we can stay in the tent where no owls are going to try to eat you.” She marched to where she left the tent, dragging it with one hand back to Buddy’s crashed ship. Her belongings were thrown about in an absolute mess due to her dragging the tent in a blind run through the forest, but everything was there, and it gave her an opportunity to go through and show Buddy her things.

She was careful to watch his mouth, just in case he decided to burn a hole through any of her belongings, but no sign of the rainbow laser appeared. Instead, Buddy was absolutely entranced by the sketches in her notebooks, and he loved the little trail mix snacks from the Cat-Ival—despite the fact that they were definitely stale at this point. The broken mirror seemed to unnerve him, though, so she kept that put away. Even though there was no way he understood, he was even interested in the mathematics scratch work she’d done, something she couldn’t even get Petra to care about back in Genk. In fact, only Suuk had been interested at all, and they hadn’t been on good terms until the very end.

Buddy must have sensed that she was getting sad, because he patted her gently on the knee and let out a delighted chirp, bringing a smile to Amaris’ face. “You’re like a happiness charm, aren’t you?” Getting an idea, she turned to a blank page in the notebook and started sketching Buddy. Unlike the other things she had encountered, Buddy was easy to draw—and if the end result looked cartoony, well, that was fine, since he actually looked that way. Amaris drew, and the alien watched in rapt fascination as his spitting image appeared in the pages.

“Look, it’s you!” Amaris said, showing her work off. Buddy did a little spinning dance, more excited at the drawing of him than anything else so far. Then he picked up the pencil and started drawing a bunch of random, shaky squiggles. Nonsense. Like someone who’d never held a pencil before.

Then he stabbed a hole in the page with the pencil’s tip, letting out a sound like bubbles popping.

“Hey, don’t ruin my paper!” Amaris huffed, trying to smooth it out. “Great…”

Buddy didn’t seem to understand that he’d upset her since he turned to start pushing buttons on her calculator. Deciding to go with his interest, she began to show him the graphing functions of the calculator… but before she got very far, she heard something.

The whirring of approaching helicopter blades.

Uh-oh.

She quickly picked Buddy up. “I have to protect you again. Please, please, please don’t get mad.”

He gurgled with a rubbery boink mixed with a buzzing noise.

“Right… hope you understand.” She stuffed him in her backpack and zipped it up, making sure to give him the calculator just so he could press buttons and be entertained for a while. On top, she packed in the pillow, finding it satisfactorily muffled his adorable noises.

Then she stepped out of the tent. Sure enough, she could see a helicopter spotlight coming in; actually, she could see three separate ones. There was no way she was going to be able to outrun that, so she was going to have to face whatever this was. Her money was on government bigwigs possibly in on some alien conspiracy.

She had to raise a hand to her eyes when the spotlights shone down on her, but she held her ground. Two of the helicopters landed on the nearby road while the third remained in the air. From the two grounded craft emerged a dozen people in black suits wearing sunglasses. I was either right or close to right.

Most of the people began to circle the craft, ramming metallic posts into the ground that yellow tape could be strung around. A few spread out into the distance, likely to secure the perimeter. One, an older, skinny man with an impressive silver beard, slowly walked to the site and locked eyes with Amaris.

“Why has no one secured the girl?” He asked.

One of the men surrounding the craft glanced up at her. “She has made no move to run, sir. Likely a civilian.”

“She could be one of them hiding in plain sight!” The older man spat.

“…Do you want us to do something, sir?”

“Secure her!”

The man got up with a shrug and walked over to Amaris. Since she didn’t move, he didn’t get very close. “Secured, sir.”

Amaris glanced at the older man and raised an eyebrow. “For the record, I’m not an alien. I’m Amaris.”

The man lowered his head, eyes narrowing as if he were certain “Amaris” was an alien’s name.

Amaris sighed. “Look, I’m Amaris Kelvin, you can radio Genk on those fancy transmitters I’m sure you have and they’ll tell you who I am.”

“Likely story…” the man began to circle her like a shark. “And you just happened to be camping this close to an impact site?”

“No, I moved my tent to be closer. Because, come on, who doesn’t investigate a crashed alien spaceship?” She gestured at the array of men in black scrambling around the area.

The man behind her coughed. “She has a point, sir. This is not the first time civilians got here first.”

“Detain her for later questioning,” the elder grunted.

Amaris coughed. “I don’t think that’ll go over well. See, I was someone of mild importance in Genk. Ever hear of Toad’s Girls?”

“Now I know your lyin’, those girls never leave.”

“We were recently disbanded. You should probably call them to confirm what I’m saying.” She put on a fake, somewhat demeaning smile. “It’s in your best interest.”

“…I hate kids…” the old man grumbled, taking out a phone. “Yeah, yeah, I need a long-distance transmission to Genk... feed me into the relay tower, we should just be able to make it…”

“Sir!” the man behind Amaris shouted. “Her backpack just moved!”

“What!?”

Amaris thought quickly. “That’s just Pitch!” She shouted, quickly reaching into the backpack while using her other hand to pull Pitch off her midsection. She hoped her limbs moved so quickly that they wouldn’t notice Pitch wasn’t coming out of the backpack—the result was a very dazed snake wobbling in the palms of her hands. “See?”

The old man bought the sleight of hand, but his suspicions were raised. “Search her.”

Drat.

The agent who had “secured” her approached and started patting her down. She hoped he’d only perform a routine search, and not rummage through the backpack. But no, after he patted her down, he unzipped the backpack, revealing a soft golden glow…

Amaris backflipped, kicking the man square in the jaw while at the same time pulling out her bow and directing the arrow at the old man. “How about… no?”

Startled by all the jostling, Buddy popped out of the backpack, looking at all the people.

Then, and only then, did Amaris realize the old man was pointing a gun right to her head. Her confidence vanished in an instant. “J-just let us go.”

He didn’t even dignify her with a response, instead addressing one of his men with a nod. There was a soft pop, and something punctured Amaris’ neck.

Again with this…? The drugs inside the sleep dart worked quickly. There was a moment where she could have unleashed the arrow, piercing the old man in the chest or head, but what would have been the point? She’d be captured anyway and that’d probably kill the guy, and she didn’t actually want that. Her last conscious act was the lower the bow… and then she promptly fell flat on her face.

Buddy let out a bubbly cheer mixed with the sounds of a ringing bell.

~~~

The first thing Amaris did upon waking up was frantically pat herself down. There was no suit. Good. With that out of the way, she took a more methodical approach to examining her situation. She was amazingly clean; not a single fleck of dirt under her nails, nor a single grass stain on her shirt. Even her hair was behaving perfectly, and it never did that when she wanted it to.

Her backpack, and all her belongings, weren’t with her. In fact, the only other thing in the closet-like room she found herself in was Buddy, who was currently flat on his back, snoring. The room itself was made largely of concrete and held a single cot with minimal furnishings, a dim lightbulb in the ceiling that was less effective at lighting the room than Buddy was, and a single door with an inlaid, barred window.

“Oh, great. Prison.”

At the sound of her voice, Buddy woke up and started letting out cheers with undertones akin to party blowers.

Amaris lifted him up and stroked his tip. “I wonder why they left you in here with me…?”

Buddy hiccupped.

Amaris couldn’t help but roll her eyes—and smile. “Cute. But useless. But… cute. Cute is a plus. But… wait, maybe not useless.” She held him in front of her, pointing his face at the door. “Amazing space alien laser, go!”

Buddy let out a short jingle that ended with a kitten’s meow.

“And thus, the communication barrier removes the simple solution.” Amaris sighed, setting Buddy down and trying to find something, anything she could use to try and escape. No such luck—there were no exits aside from the door, there wasn’t even a knob to try and pick from her side, and the bars were inlaid with reinforced glass. She may have been strong, but she wasn’t anywhere close to that strong.

So she did what she had always seen done in the movies. She banged her fist on the door and screamed. “Hey! Anyone out there!? Helloooo?” Once she finished, she started massaging her hand—banging that hard had made it sore.

After about a minute of silence, she switched to kicking the door, her shoe providing her foot with enough protection to keep up the effort for significantly longer. “It’s your prisoner, awake and ready for whatever nefarious scheme you have! Hellooooooo?”

Nothing. She wasn’t even sure if anyone was out there. All she could see through the window was a blank, white wall. Throwing her hands into the air, she sat down on the cot and folded her arms.

Buddy jumped into her lap and nuzzled her chest. She absent-mindedly pet him as she thought about her predicament. Captured by some government with an alien. She suspected her connections with Genk would ensure her safety, but… Buddy. They probably wanted to dissect him. If she could do anything, she was going to save him.

At the moment, she didn’t have any plans on what to do. The best she had was to try and rush down whoever opened the door, but that was likely doomed to failure since whoever showed up almost assuredly wouldn’t be alone and an alarm would likely be raised immediately. No, she needed to play along.

…Though I can’t play along if nobody comes to see me!

There was a knock at the door. With a start, Amaris looked up to see the face of a wiry, wrinkled man with pointed sunglasses through the window.

“Are you willing to talk?” the man asked; muffled, but understandable.

Amaris nodded slowly, clutching Buddy to her chest.

“I’m going to open the door. There’ll be food, but if you try to run, there will be men outside. They have guns and while they have been ordered not to harm you, I don’t believe you want to take that chance.”

Amaris repeated her nod, still saying nothing.

The man’s face ducked out of view. Only a single lock clicked before the door swung outward, revealing a short hallway. Amaris carefully walked out, looking frantically for anywhere to go, but she only found other cells like her own, a stairwell upward that was blocked by a two burly men, and the room the wrinkled man was leading her toward.

With a deep breath and a cooing alien clutched to her chest, she walked after him.

The room they entered appeared to be part interrogation room, part storage. There was a table with a few chairs, but there were also several filing cabinets overflowing with paper, a few shelves with dozens of random confiscated trinkets, and a safe filled with who knew what. Amaris’ backpack was set atop of that safe, clearly having been rummaged through. She noticed that all the holes Pitch used to move around were closed tight, likely to keep him inside.

She made no motion for her backpack, instead looking silently at the man.

He sat down, gesturing for her to take a seat as well, which she did. “My name is Henry Carmen. And I have some questions for you, Amaris Kelvin.” He picked a briefcase up off the ground and pulled out a file. “As you requested, we contacted Genk, and confirmed your identity.”

“They aren’t going to be happy about this,” she declared.

“They have no idea,” Carmen said, flipping through the folder—which contained many images of Amaris, though most were of low quality. “And it will stay that way.”

“It could. If you let me and Buddy go.”

The man broke into an amused smile. “Amaris, I think you’re a smart enough girl to know we aren’t going to do that.” He picked out another file, this one filled with photocopied pages from her notebooks. “After all, you do keep meticulous records—even if your imagination gets away from you.”

He doesn’t think all the things in there can be real. Amairs broke out into a smug grin. “You have no idea.”

“Yes, I know.” He folded his hands together. “So you are going to enlighten me, illuminating this murky situation to me. Why were you out, all alone, in the middle of the forest?”

“You read my notebook.” Amaris pointed at the file. “You know why I’m here. I’m trying to get home.”

“To a place with a name that doesn’t exist so far as we know.”

“You and I both know the world is much larger than anyone can comprehend.”

“But still, you have to admit, it sounds… fantastic. A girl, torn from home by a curse that makes her keep running into unusual and strange things. A girl who just happens to keep meticulous records…”

Amaris stared at him in disbelief. “…You’ve been eating the fruit from the conspiracy tree, haven’t you?”

“Official records claim you don’t exist before your arrival in Genk and placement among Toad’s Girls, which you managed to overthrow rather quickly, all things considered. You seek to upset the status quo of civilization… a rather insidious aim.”

Amaris wished she hadn’t used the “conspiracy tree” joke earlier, it would have been much more fitting now.

Carmen adjusted his pointed shades. “Clearly, you and this… alien designed specifically to look cute and harmless are related.”

“That’s a stretch and you know it.”

“Is it?” Carmen leaned in, tilting his sunglasses down. “But, Amaris, you see, when we tried to remove it from you, it became violent. Burned several people and vaporized the hand of one of my closest men.”

Amaris couldn’t help but wince. “I’m… sorry about that.”

“Your apology is accepted… conditionally. If you explain your relation to this creature and its ship.”

“I’m… really not sure, I was the first human he saw, I saved him from an owl…”

“You… saved him from an owl.”

Amaris nodded dumbly. “What do you want from me?”

“The truth!” Carmen slammed his fist into the table, upsetting the files.

“See, problem, I haven’t lied since I woke up. I didn’t even lie earlier. I’m an upstanding citizen an—“ She paused. Right, I pointed my bow at that army guy, can’t play the upstanding citizen card. Uh…

“I can see going about it the standard way is useless,” Carmen reached into the briefcase and brought out a syringe filled with blue liquid.

For the briefest of moments, Amaris considered making a run for it. However, the thought returned—the thought that she wouldn’t make it far and have to endure this regardless. So, instead, she extravagantly lifted up her arm and laid it prone on the table. “Have at thee, Carmen. Inject it into my veins and experience the truth!”

Carmen looked at her with narrowed eyes—but he still slammed the needle down on her arm and pulled. The pain was nothing to Amaris, but he had clearly made no attempt to be gentle. It was going to bleed for a little while.

Amaris pulled her arm back and applied pressure to the puncture. Already, she could feel her head swimming. “Woooah… Carmen… Car… men… man? Do you drive a car?” She tried to laugh, but found that required too much energy. She leaned back, intending to fall asleep… but for some reason sleep didn’t come. Her eyelids wouldn’t even close—and were starting to feel dry. “Wh…?”

“Side effects may include loss of facial motor control and extreme drowsiness mixed with an inability to fall asleep. Later on, perception of time may be obscured. Oh, and itchy eyes, but that’s incidental.”

Amaris lazily lifted a finger and physically closed her eyelids. “Much… better…” She wasn’t alarmed at all about the fact that she couldn’t see.

“Now, Amaris, who are you?”

“Already told ya… Amaris Kelvin.”

“And why did you pick that name?”

“Mom and Dad gave it to me… when I was born. I didn’t get to pick anything.” She scrunched her nose. “That’s messed up, we don’t get to pick our names. Somebody should change that.”

“Amaris…” She could hear the strain in his voice. “Why were you outside in the middle of the night?”

“Camping while going home. See… the peninsula looks kinda like the edge of… what I remember of home…”

“How are you connected to the alien?”

“I watched his ship fall out of the sky! Thought it was gonna hit me… Ended up running towards it rather than away, whoops…” She tilted her head down, nuzzling Buddy. “Isn’t Star Buddy the cutest?”

“You… you lie!”

“Wheeeeee….” Amaris slumped forward, ramming her head into the table. She didn’t even care. “Told… you… already…”

“You clearly are an excellent actor and have some kind of immunity to the serum. I should have known from the moment you were eager to take it.” She heard the suitcase close. “We shall return you to your cell. We’ll see if you’re more inclined to talk after being stuck in there for a while.”

“…Wait… food?”

“Food is for the cooperative only.”

“Dumb…”

She was violently dragged out of her chair and back to her cell. Not that she particularly cared in her delirious state. She flopped onto the cot, dropping Buddy to the ground.

The side effects were on the mark—she couldn’t fall asleep. But she was hardly in a position to care.

“Buddy… did you know… that I cheated on a history test? Semester exam… Wow… Haven’t told anyone that before… Y’know, I felt terrible about it… but why was I so concerned…? Whew… this serum’s strong… stuff… makes you…” She took a moment to catch a few breaths. “Makes you… want to talk… but too weak to… do… it…”

She let out a few more incoherent mumbles before she stopped perceiving time properly and everything became a whir.

~~~

Amaris awoke screaming. Every muscle in her body wanted to move at once, so she screamed her lungs out while jumping out of the cot. This wasn’t enough—she needed to move. She jumped up, touched her feet to the wall and did a spin, twisting around so she could tap both the ceiling and the opposite wall at the same time. Had she been less coordinated this would have ended in disaster, but she managed to stick the landing, standing shakily on top of the cot, breathing heavily.

That wasn’t on the list of side effects…

With a few deep breaths, she got control of herself and sat down on the cot. Predictably, Buddy jumped into her lap, letting out a happy trill.

“W-well… at least I have you in here.” She frowned. “I hope they’re feeding Pitch. …They might not be. Might be starving him like they’re starving me. But… they wouldn’t.” A haunted look came over her. “Would they?”

Buddy tapped her happily and nuzzled her.

“You’re right, I should be more like you. You don’t have any worries or fears, do you?” She couldn’t help but smirk. “You’re just… you, the little Star Buddy.” She picked him up and held him just above her. “Buddy, I know you can’t understand me, but I want you to know I’m glad I met you, despite all that’s happened. You’re a good little star alien thing, don’t you forget that.”

Buddy let out a sound not unlike a muffled train whistle with glass tinkling in the background.

“That voice of yours really is something special, isn’t it? I—“

She heard an agonized scream somewhere inside the building—a scream that was cut suddenly short, as if someone had taken a recording of someone screaming and stopped it in the middle. This was quickly followed by another scream, cut short equally as fast, and then gunfire.

Lots of gunfire.

The gunfire became so oppressive that Amaris couldn’t make out the screams anymore, but she knew they had to be there—because, as time dragged on, fewer guns kept firing, likely because whoever was shooting them… simply weren’t able to, anymore.

As the sound of gunfire abated, she could hear screams again—and shouts. People giving orders, but the walls muffled the words so much she couldn’t make them out. However, even this sound began to die out. In the far distance, Amaris heard a weather warning siren start up. It almost assuredly had nothing to do with the weather.

The screams were less frequent now, but they were getting closer. And as they got closer, she could hear other sounds accompanying the wails of the men—loud thumping, like footsteps, except much stronger. Intermixed with this was a soft, sparkling jingle, like fairy dust was being dropped onto agonized demons.

The hall outside began to take on a yellowish hue, lit by some light Amaris couldn’t see. She did the only thing she could—back as far away from the door as possible, which was about four steps, clutching Buddy close to her chest.

This did her no good whatsoever. The yellow light soon filled the entire window. A beautiful dolphin-like call came from the other side… and then there were rainbows. The door to the cell was reduced to dust before Amaris’ eyes. Before she knew what was happening, something had grabbed her—something bright, rounded, and fuzzy.

She was pulled out of the cell and thrown to the ground, dropping Buddy in the process. However, she still had her reflexes and was able to jump back onto her feet to face her attackers.

There were three of them, all twice as tall as a human, and only able to fit in the hallway because their bodies were soft and foldable. They naturally glowed with an inspiring yellow, and their five-pointed bodies were pleasantly plump. Just like Buddy, their faces were delighted smiles and their eyes were huge; larger than Amaris’ whole head.

The one in front had opened his mouth. Amaris could see rainbow lights starting to form within. She was only going to have one shot at this, but if she timed it just right she could jump over the laser and run across them...

Her plans were unnecessary. Buddy jumped forward, placing himself between the large aliens and her. He waved his appendages around and let out a series of springing, meowing noises.

The lead star only let out one noise—a whale-like utterance. It leaned down, bringing its face close to Buddy.

Buddy waved cheerfully at the member of his race, bouncing slightly.

Amaris let out a sigh of relief. Good ol’ Buddy…

The lead star opened his mouth—but no noise came out of it today. Instead, a laser shot forth, completely consuming Buddy in the middle of a baby-like giggle. The little star was reduced to colorless, empty ash in an instant.

Without another noise, the alien stars turned around and walked away, clumsily climbing up the stairs.

Somewhere, the weather warning siren kept blaring.

Eventually, they were joined by vehicle sirens.

Amaris stood, rooted to the spot, staring at the pile of dust that had once been Buddy. Her face laid expressionless, her thoughts empty.

She would never know how long she stood there. Far longer than she should have, that was certain. What eventually brought her out of it was some sort of primal urge to get out.

Stumbling, she entered the interrogation room and put on her backpack with all her belongings affixed to it. Pitch hissed at her from inside, but she didn’t hear him. She walked back into the hallway, over Buddy’s remains, and up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs were several piles of dust, one of which had a pair of pointed sunglasses lying near it, cracked in half. She paid the dust no mind, even when she found dozens upon dozens of piles elsewhere in the building.

She walked right out the front door of the police station—for that was where she was, in the police station of a small town. The parking lot outside was filled with half-disintegrated cars with bulletholes in the parts that were still standing, crevasses burnt into the half-molten asphalt, and a large number of ambulances with people running every which way, many wailing in pain. Not all were fortunate enough to be fully disintegrated by the invaders’ beams. Some had only been grazed.

Amaris didn’t look. Couldn’t look. Not now. She just kept walking. Since she looked healthy, the healthcare workers paid her no mind, instead fixating on the injured and dying.

There was no sign of the aliens themselves. No ships, no bodies of fallen stars, nothing. Just the scars left in the wake of their destruction.

Amaris kept walking. Walking, walking, walking. She eventually left the town entirely, returning to the colored forest. Even then, she kept walking. As the sun set and the stars began to come out, she continued on. Even though it was dark, cold, and the wind howled… she kept moving.

Then, for seemingly no reason, she stopped in her tracks. She looked up at the stars in the sky, face contorting in rage.

“Why!?” She screamed. “Why!?”

Her shouting received no answer.

She slumped to the ground, kneeling directly on the gravel of the road. “Why…? Why would they do that? Why would this happen? Why? Why?” She began to heave, throwing her head into her hands and letting out a series of deep, bitter sobs.

“Why…?” she mumbled, no longer demanding or even expecting an answer. “Why…”

Amaris might have stayed right there, kneeling, for the rest of the night. Bitter sorrow has a powerful hold on the spirit itself, and without any help, it can linger, debilitating anyone’s ability to function.

However, even then, none can remain in that place. The body is not designed to be frozen by its own sensations. Sometimes, it just needs a little push—even if that push is the soft hiss of a reptile trapped in a backpack.

Amaris did not know how many times Pitch had hissed before the noise made it to her brain, but when it did, she stood up, feet planted firmly in the ground. Slowly, she moved her hand to her back and undid one of the flaps that kept Pitch inside. He slithered out immediately, coiling around her arm in a corkscrew pattern until he came to rest on her shoulder, where he began to lick her tears away.

No words were exchanged. Amaris merely stroked his head a few times. She didn’t stop crying. But she did turn off the road and start to unpack her tent. There was no use being miserable out in the cold, after all.

That night, with a lantern heating the tent, Amaris drew pictures of Buddy, every now and then stopping to look up at the cold beauty of the stars above.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, since she woke up and the sun was high in the sky. Once again, she packed up the tent and had a little breakfast before heading back to the road. The brilliant colors of the forest rippled in the wind, forming a myriad of rainbow colors that reminded her of an extremely sugary cereal her parents used to get her on special occasions.

With a sad half-smile on her face, she continued on her journey, snake laying lazily around her neck.