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sylvia-forest · 3 months

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[CN] Shaw's 6th Anniversary event - Day 4

⚡ Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for an Event which hasn't been released in EN yet!⚡

[Day 4]

MC: Why did you suddenly buy a suitcase? MC: We've been traveling in the RV this whole time, so we shouldn't need it, right? Shaw: Did you forget about all the things you've collected from various small shops along the way? Shaw: A pile of odds and ends needs a box when you take it home. MC: Oh, right! But is the graffiti on it is the masterpiece of Mr. Shaw? Shaw: Obviously, that's correct. Shaw: But if you want to praise me, put it on hold for now. Shaw: Come over, grab a spray can, and let's finish it together.

MC: You left a spot for me? I'm coming~ Shaw: Of course, doing graffiti together is more fun. MC: Shaw, I think I have a rough idea of what the "thing" you hid during our trip is. MC: Based on my understanding of you and my extensive search efforts… MC: Firstly, it's probably not a physical object, right? Shaw: Seeing that you've analyzed it to this level, I'll make an exception and give you a hint. Shaw: Indeed, it's not a physical object. MC: Oh~ I think I have a good idea now. MC: Let me observe the rest!

—

MC: Wow, this vast sea of flowers is too beautiful and splendid! Shaw: Big producer, can you enrich your vocabulary a bit? Shaw: Everywhere we go is full of beauty, and I'm getting aesthetically tired from it. MC: Then you show me how it's done? Shaw: There's a barbecue restaurant ahead, and the food they grill is crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Shaw: Pair that with spicy sauce, and I guarantee it'll make some people drool. MC: Very well, although what you said is ordinary, it still made my mouth water. Let's go!

—

In winter, the surroundings here are full of the lively atmosphere of spring. Bees dance among the flowers, and Shaw and I stroll through this floral town, as if enjoying a colorful oil painting.

MC: Such a beautiful place. What should we do here?

I hinted, and Shaw shrugged with a knowing smile.

Shaw: To be honest, I haven't planned anything. After all, we've been well-prepared throughout this journey, and I'm getting a bit tired of it.

He took a step back, covering my eyes from behind.

Shaw: So, let's just go with a random itinerary. You get to decide where we go. MC: Haha, can we really play like this? Shaw: Of course, aren't you the one claiming to be a lucky charm? It's time to test your luck.

After Shaw spun me around in place, I pointed forward casually.

He promptly released his hand, and following my fingertip, I found it happened to point to a shop.

The storefront displayed various heart-shaped items, and the signboard above had a pink and white name—Love Challenge.

Shaw: Your luck in choosing places is quite something, picking one I'm least interested in. MC: Do you already know what the shop is about? Shaw: No idea, but just by the name, it seems to have an intentionally created atmosphere, quite artificial.

Seeing a hint of disdain on his face, I mischievously pushed him into the shop.

MC: You set the rules yourself, so just follow them.

Inside, the shop was lively. Besides numerous couples, many harmonious families were also queuing up in front of the long corridor.

A staff member dressed in a mascot costume approached us, handing over a card with instructions.

Staff member: Welcome! This is a love-themed pop-up shop, focusing on a game called "You Guess More Than I Do." Staff member: Based on drawing lots, each person is assigned a "role," and the one in charge of gesturing comes up with a question for the other to guess.

After a brief introduction, I carefully read the instructions on the card and nudged Shaw with my elbow.

MC: It looks simple enough. With our skills, we should be able to win a plush toy reward. Want to give it a try?

Shaw raised an eyebrow, signifying his agreement.

After drawing lots, I became the guesser.

After Shaw finished writing the "question," we were led into a room with a floor-to-ceiling glass separating us at both ends, even blocking our voices.

Watching the countdown clock start ticking, I gestured to Shaw to start gesturing.

However, he seemed in no hurry, nonchalantly making two "thumbs up" gestures next to his ear.

MC: Rabbit...? Rabbit! What's next?

He then pointed to himself and drew a circle, finishing with a thumbs-up.

MC: …..??

I checked the time and gestured for him to repeat it. After he did, I was still puzzled.

Rabbit, Shaw, circle, thumbs up?

What does it mean?

Seemingly sensing my confusion, he sighed deeply with his hands on his hips.

I pursed my lips, decided to break the deadlock by playing defensively, and raised my hand to make the "1" gesture, planning to go one by one.

MC: The first word is rabbit, right?

I made a gesture resembling rabbit ears, tilting my head to confirm with him.

Seeing Shaw nod, I clenched both fists, mimicking the shape of red panda ears.

Worried he might not understand, I also drew the shape of a chubby tail behind me and shook it left and right.

Shaw: .......!

Perhaps I acted too enthusiastically, he chuckled, immediately took out his phone, and aimed it at me for a moment.

Then, he swiftly swiped and drew on the screen until he stopped, then beckoned me with his finger.

I seemed to understand something and quickly looked around, only to find no cameras here. I chuckled.

Unexpectedly, this person would "go easy" on me.

So I walked briskly to the glass, and he also turned his phone screen toward me—

The expected answer wasn't there, but instead, it captured a moment where he "parodied" me.

In addition to my pouting appearance, he drew reddish-brown red panda ears on my head and a long chubby tail behind me.

It was exactly the mimicry I had just done, but he added a touch of humor to it.

MC: ………

Watching the remaining time, I anxiously knocked on the glass, signaling him to be serious.

But he just shrugged carelessly and then flicked my forehead across the barrier.

Shaw: "......."

Although I didn't hear anything, that familiar mouth shape automatically filled in the voice of him teasing me, "Really stupid."

At that moment, the ending signal sounded.

I could only pout, grab a paper and pen, and replayed his actions in my mind repeatedly.

Firstly, the rabbit was undoubtedly correct. As for the red panda... he did point to himself, so it should be right?

I wrote down the phrase "Rabbits and red pandas are the best!" and showed it to him, thinking I got it right.

Shaw leaned over to look at the answer I wrote, and then his eyes slowly filled with laughter.

Just when I thought I guessed correctly, he made a crossing gesture in front of his chest.

MC: Shaw, you made me lose the plush toy reward for nothing! No, I need to see what you wrote!

Wrong answer.

—

After leaving the shop, the more I thought about it, the more unwilling I became. I reached out to grab the note from his pocket, but he skillfully dodged. As I continued to stomp toward him...

A chubby little pink rabbit pendant swung in front of my eyes.

Shaw: The prize plushies they offer aren't cute at all. Don't you think this one suits you better? Shaw: Consider it compensation from me.

The rabbit, nibbling on a carrot in the sunlight, looked adorable, and I instantly calmed down by half.

MC: When did you buy it?

Shaw: While you were touching up your makeup in the bathroom, I wandered around nearby. MC: You have a little conscience, but don't think you can divert my attention. Quickly, tell me what you wrote!

Shaw: You couldn't guess something so simple; it's your fault. So, you have to accept the consequences. MC: You! Shaw: Alright, it's time to add a finishing touch. This time, I'll treat you to hot pot, and you'll foot the bill. How about that?

Seeing that he was determined not to tell me, I glared at him with widened eyes.

MC: You didn't plan anything at all. I don't want any finishing touch. Shaw: Is that so? Then, I'll just confiscate this rabbit.

I quickly reached for the little rabbit, but he lifted it high.

Thinking about how to get it back, I first noticed the note hanging precariously at the edge of his pocket.

Humph, he was careless.

While pretending to reach for the rabbit, my other hand swiftly grabbed the crumpled note.

Shaw: ...Hey, don't be unfair. Give it back quickly. MC: I won't. Clearly, someone else is being unfair~

I grinned and quickly turned around to open the note. The words on it were vividly revealed—

"With you silly rabbit by my side, everything goes well."

I couldn't help but hum happily. Just as I was about to say something, my vision was suddenly blocked by someone.

MC: Humph, I've seen it already. MC: Although you call me stupid, I understand the meaning of this sentence because I am considerate.

I crouched down to escape his restraint while triumphantly waved the note in my hand.

MC: Since it's an expression of feelings, why hide it?

Shaw: Who said it's hidden? I just don't want to see certain people being smug.

Seeing him stubborn, a thought flashed through my mind, and I slowly started to smile.

MC: Shaw, didn't you say you hid a "something" before? MC: It wouldn't happen to be your feelings, right?

He glanced at me, and interest sparked in his eyes.

Shaw: If you're trying to probe me, I advise you to give up. MC: Why would I be probing? You clearly said we could find it before the end of the journey. Now, we're at the last stop. MC: Moreover, you mentioned it's not a physical item, meaning...

I paused, my gaze softening.

MC: It could be a sentence, a message you want to convey, or the understanding between us. MC: And after these days of little moments, I am convinced that the "answer" you hid is actually—

Before I could finish my sentence, he gently covered my mouth with the rabbit pendant.

Shaw: Stop. When did I say this is the last stop? Shaw: The organizers designed it as the final destination, not me.

Shaw smirked triumphantly, pulled me along without another word.

MC: Wait, where are we going?

Shaw: Wherever we walk is where we end up. Since it's not the last stop yet, there's no reason to stop.

—

🚐 Finale

#mlqc spoilers #mlqc cn #mlqc shaw #mlqc ling xiao #mlqc translations #mr love queen's choice #mlqc #love and producer

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sunseteyes · 3 years

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FLUFFVEMBER DAY 17: TETSUROU KUROO

prompt: studying (prompts are by @jojosmilktea)

word count: 902 words | themes: fluff. flirting.

tags: @kuroolongtea @mrs-kuroojinguji @liliannyah (uhm i just thought to tag you hope it’s okay!!) @kacchanori @chickynn @todominica @brinthie @sparkleswritings @bitchtrynafck @patricia-ceballos @giyuus-wife @kawaiinishii @moonlightaangel (send a dm/ask to be part of our regulars!)

rv: happy birthday kuroo (っ◕‿◕)っ i have got to admit and i’m only admitting this once but kuroo was my crush like even way before i watched haikyuu (*ﾉ∀`*) please dont tell kenma heheheh

✒︎ mondays

you met kuroo at the library.

he didn’t caught your attention. you never even expected you’d meet someone like him when you sat down carefully on the chair, leaning backwards, momentarily closeing your eyes, relishing on the cold atmosphere that the air condition brought to your warm body.

you originally wanted to rest there as you let the time pass by, hoping the peace would be enough to soothe your mind from the hectic day that you had passed through. for now, you plan on doing a light reading on the course subject you have for tomorrow, feeling a bit productive now that your body is relaxed under the comforts of the cold.

you did a lot that day, now that you gave it a thought. indeed, mondays are the busiest day in your week and you are now glad that it is about to come to an end. what you didn't know, is that this monday has something in store for you still.

glancing over at the man that was seated a couple of chairs opposite from yours, you met his eyes, small, thin and shaped like a cat, even. it was as if he had been eyeing you ever since.

you look away automatically, suddenly feeling weirded out for having such a big and dangerous-looking guy like him to stare at you. you debated in your mind whether you'd change your table but it might just be in your mind, right? maybe you two made an unexpected eye contact and he didn't mean it.

however before you could even check if your assumptions were right, someone was already taking a seat right in front of you.

"hey there, cutie."

you felt a shiver run down your arms as you saw the same man from earlier smile up at you, his eyes squinting, making it shaped smaller than it originally was. his voice was made to be in a hush, which is acceptable since you two are in a library, of course.

actually, he didn't look scary. no, it's not his problem. it was yours.

you never had someone flirted with you before. after all, you avoided them with all of your might. the moment you sense that someone is interested on you, you walk away. you didn't mean it, honestly. even if it was embarrassing to say, it was because you never had an ounce of flirtation in your body.

for short, you don't know how to flirt.

gnawing on your bottom lip, you looked down at the book on your front, lying on top of the table, already forgotten just by the mere encounter.

"you must be a law student." he says, catching your gaze once again.

"how did you know?"

he points at below you with his eyes, "that's one big book over there. only law students get those. and med students, but there aren't medicine courses here so that only means one thing."

you were surprised at how he practically figured you out, but it also amazed you with how his words made sense. you didn't even noticed how your shoulders ease up and your lips were curling into a small smile.

"yeah, we do have lots of big books, but this is what i came here for, i'm prepared."

he makes a hum that resembles as one of amusement, raising his arm to the table to place his chin on his palm, leaning his upper body forward. "i'm tetsurou kuroo, by the way. what's your name, nerd?"

"nerd?" your brows furrow then, "i'm not a nerd," he shrugs with a sly smirk. "oh yes you are."

your lips form a pout but for some apparent reason, you didn't feel offended.

in fact, you felt comfortable with him.

"i'm (y/n) (l/n). it's nice to meet you."

he still sports a smile on his face, but he looks down at your book, removing himself from his arm to lean more onto the table. "well, i guess i shouldn't interrupt you more. you seem to have a lot on your plate."

you felt it again, the sudden hit of shyness from before. though this time, you closed your book and waved your hands, giving him a reassuring smile.

"oh no, it's fine. i didn't intend to study anyway. i'm just here for the air condition." what has gotten into you? that, you don't know.

kuroo chuckles a bit, but he then makes a move to stand, leaning across the table with palms flat on the surface, his figure towering over yours.

"it's really nice to meet you (y/n), but i'd hate to see you fail on your studies because of me." his voice was low, attempting to make it sound nothing more to others. however, he merely smiles at you with the same smile he showed earlier and leaned back, giving you a wink before fully turning to the exit of the library.

your back slumped on your seat when something caught your eye. glancing down at the paper that he left on the table and taking it with your hand, you knew that despite giving you time for your studies, you'd barely be able to focus now that you were one dial away from hearing his voice again and having him converse with you without making you feel uncomfortable with your own skin.

you’d hate to admit it, but this monday turned out better than the other mondays.

#tetsurou kuroo #tetsurō kuroo #kuroo x reader #haikyuu x reader #kuroo fluff #fluffvember 2020 #fluffvember #roze.fluffvember #roze.daydream #roze.hq

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thebraingremlinsaremad · 3 years

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Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme 😭. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

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redditnosleep · 7 years

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I'm A Search And Rescue Officer For The US Forest Service, I Have Some Stories To Tell

by searchandrescuewoods.

One of the topics that I get asked about a lot, here and in real life, involve things like The Rake, the Wendigo, and other related legends. I can't honestly say that I know a lot about any of them, but based on some light reading I did I can say that I've heard stories that seem to be loosely related to them. You've heard the old adage that legends like that come from somewhere, and I'm sure that's true, but as you all know I do try to take things with a grain of salt. You have to, out here. It's sort of like working in a hospital, I'd imagine. You could spend all day thinking about how many people have died there, and how there are probably ghosts, or whatever you want to call them, all over the place, but it doesn't do you any good. It just makes it harder to do your job. I think a lot of us feel that way, and that's why we try to just go about our work like everything is fine. Once you get paranoid, there's not really any going back, and a lot of cadets quit because of it. My park especially seems to have a high turn-over rate because the cadets graduate and get so freaked out about everything, and they can't seem to let it go. You have to learn to internalize things and shut off.

I've talked to K.D a bit about her experience, because I wanted to know what she thought about the Wendigo. She didn't really have anything in particular to say about it, aside from that she didn't want to think about it that much, but she told me a friend of hers had had something similar happen. I contacted this person, H, over Skype, and they agreed to talk to me a bit. They're aware of my work here, and they're fine with me posting the story exactly as they wrote it:

"I grew up in Central Oregon, and there's a reservation called Warm Springs about two or so hours from where I lived. I only mention that because a lot of people in my area have friends there, and a lot of the land in that area belongs to that tribe. When I was a kid, we used to go camping up there. Not on the res, of course, but in that area, and I met a lot of kids who grew up there. I got to know one kid really well, his name was Nolan, and we ended up hanging out a lot when our families were in the area. Our folks got to know each other so we'd all get in touch and camp out around the same time. We'd camp for about two weeks, so we were out there for a long time. [I asked him if he camped in an RV.] Yeah, my dad had one, so I guess it wasn't really camping but we'd take our tents and stuff and set them up out away from camp most nights. I didn't like sleeping in there because I like being outside. [We talked for a bit about camping]

So anyway, sorry, one year Nolan and I were out there, I think we must have been like twelve or so. We wanted to go out and camp near the river because we wanted to try night fishing, I think we must have been about a third of a mile from the main camp. Far enough away that we couldn't hear or see anyone else, I remember that. We were messing around most of the day, I don't really remember much about it, but we ended up building a fire at some point and I was really impressed because he had this flint or something that he used to start it. I'd never seen anyone do that before so I thought it was pretty cool. I got him to teach me how to do it and we lit some stuff on fire, which looking back was really stupid because it was the middle of fucking summer, and if I remember right the fire warning was either at yellow or orange. But thankfully we didn't start anything major, and when it got dark we sat around and talked about whatever it is twelve year olds talk about, I don't really remember. What I do remember is that at some point, he looked over my shoulder at the river and asked me if I could see something.

The way our camp was set up, we were about ten feet from the river, and we were at the widest point, so it was probably about twenty feet to the other bank. It gets hot up there in the summer but the water's still cold, which is important.

I look over my shoulder and I could see something wading into the river on the other side. From where we were it looked like a deer but we couldn't really tell because of the fire. I got up to look closer and I saw a pair of antlers, so I figured it was a buck. But I thought it was weird that it was wading into the water, and it was definitely heading for us, and I asked Nolan what he thought we should do. He's looking at the fire with this weird expression and he tells me to sit down and shut up, so I do, because I'd never seen him act that way before. He's whispering at me to ignore it, and to just keep talking like we were but I couldn't think of anything to say. He was saying something about an episode of some show, but I could hear the deer coming through the water, so I wasn't really paying any attention, and I kept trying to see over his shoulder, but every time I did he'd sort of hit me on the arm and make me look at him. I wasn't really scared, I remember, I was just sort of confused. But then I hear the deer come out of the water, and I could kind of make out what it looked like, and I realized it wasn't a deer because whatever it was was walking on two legs. I started to get up, I was super freaked out, but Nolan just yanked me back down and talked louder about this television show, and I could tell he was just as scared as I was, probably even more. He leaned in and poked the fire with a stick, and he whispered that whatever I do, I can't speak to it. I could see it come closer, and it stood right behind Nolan's back. I was about ready to pee my pants, and I think I'd probably have run if I'd been alone, but I didn't want to leave Nolan, so I kept sitting really still and sneaking glances at it. It wasn't that tall, but the way it carried itself was just wrong, like its center of balance was screwed up. I can't really describe it, but it was kind of like it kept shifting too far forward. It just stood there behind Nolan for a long time, and eventually Nolan ran out of things to say and we just kind of sat there for a second. The fire was making noise, but I thought I could hear this thing talking in a really low voice. I couldn't hear what it was saying, and I leaned forward a tiny little bit, and I actually DID pee my pants when it leaned forward too. I couldn't see its face, but I saw its eyes.

They were cloudy and milky, and if you want to know what they looked like, find that scene from Lord of the Rings where Frodo falls in that lake and all the dead people are floating toward him. That's what its eyes looked like. So all I saw were these two white eyes floating above Nolan's head, and the really vague shape of the antlers coming out of its head. I don't know what my face looked like but at exactly the same time Nolan and I fucking booked it out of there, and we ran non-stop until we got back to the main camp. My pants were soaked with pee, so I took them off as we were running and threw them in the bushes. We both stopped once we were in front of my dad's RV and we couldn't see anything chasing us, so we stood there and caught our breath. I asked him what that thing was but he said he didn't know. He said his grandpa had only warned him that if anything ever came up to him when he was out in the desert, he was never, ever supposed to talk to it or listen to anything it had to say. I wanted to know if he'd heard it talking too, and he said that the only thing he'd been able to understand was 'help you'. I think we ended up sleeping in the RV with my parents, and the next night we went back out and didn't see anything.

That does remind me, in a lot of ways, of the Wendigo legend. There's a phrase used to describe it that I think fits perfectly, which is that the Wendigo is 'the spirit of the lonely places.' I know sometimes when I'm out in the wilds, where I know there's no one around me for miles and miles, I get this weird kind of craving that I can't really explain. I don't know if it happens to anyone else, but it's this desire to consume. It's not like I crave anything in particular, but more of this weird, distracting hunger that comes from every part of my gut.

I also wanted to find out more about the faceless man, if I was able, and found a few similar things. I asked around my circle of friends, and one of them said when he was out doing repairs at a park in his area, he saw something kind of like that.

We were having dinner in town, five of us including myself. This guy, he was re-painting an information booth and heard a man ask him for directions to the nearest campsite. He didn't turn around because he was up on a ladder, but he informed the man that there weren't any campsites nearby, but that if he headed down the road about four miles, he'd find one at another park. He asked if he could be of any other help, but the man said no, and thanked him. My friend said he kept painting, but he was listening, and never heard the man leave.

"The second he came up and talked to me, the hairs on my neck stood up, but I wasn't sure why. I just had this really uneasy feeling about the whole thing, and I wanted to finish painting and get out of there. I figured maybe part of it was that I couldn't turn around to look at him, but something just felt off. There was also this weird smell floating around even before the guy talked to me, kind of like old period blood. I had looked around to see what was causing it but I didn't find anything. So I waited for the guy to walk away, but I didn't hear him leave, which made me think he was just standing there and watching me, so I asked again if I could do anything for him, and he didn't answer. I knew he was there though, because I hadn't heard him leave, so I did this awkward turn on the ladder to look down and see what he was doing. Now I admit it could have just been my brain fucking up, but I swear to you, Russ, for a split second when I turned around, that fucker didn't have a face. Like he had no face. It was almost concave, and totally smooth, and I just about had a fucking heart attack because I couldn't even wrap my brain around what I was seeing. I think I started to say something but there was this kind of 'pop' inside my head and suddenly he was just a normal looking guy. I must have looked weird because he asked me if I was okay, and I was just like 'yeah, I'm fine.' He asks about the campsite again and I point to where he has to go, and he's like 'I'm not from around here, can you help me get there?' Now this is when I know something is really up because there's no way this guy got out here and didn't know where he was. And for that matter, there's no car around, so how'd he get here in the first place? I said I was sorry but that I couldn't take him anywhere in a company vehicle, and he's like 'please? I really don't know where I am, can you come with me and help me get there?' So now I'm seriously weirded out, and I start wondering if this is some kind of ambush or whatever. I told him I could call him a taxi to come out and take him where he wants to go, and I pull out my phone and he just goes 'no' and walks away really quickly. But he doesn't walk out of the park, he walks back into the fucking trees and I got right in my fucking truck and start to get out of there, fuck the paint or whatever. I looked in my mirror to see where he was as I was leaving and he was standing right at the tree line again, I don't know how he got there so fast, but this time I know that fucker didn't have a face. He was just watching me leave, and right before I turned the corner he took a big step back into the trees and kind of dissolved, I guess. Maybe it was just dark so he blended in, but it felt more like he just melted away."

Interestingly, right after this guy finished his story, someone else, piped up with another one, but with a slightly different twist.

"You know actually, I had something sort of weird like that happen a while back. I was out doing some trail scouting, and I was out in the middle of nowhere figuring out where we were gonna have this trail run through. I hadn't seen anyone else for probably a good two hours, so I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going, I was just looking at the ground for the most part. Then out of nowhere, I crested this little hill and almost ran into this guy. He was older, probably in his sixties, and I started to apologize to him for running into him. And then I noticed his face, and I probably looked like a complete douchebag because I stopped and just stared at him. It took me a second to figure out what was wrong, but this guy's face was huge. I know that sounds weird, but that's the only way I can describe it. His head wasn't big or anything, it was normal, but the amount of space his face took up was just way too much. Like if you took someone's face and enlarged it all by about two times. He doesn't say anything, he just kind of looks at me, and I backed up and was kind of stuttering and saying I was sorry, and I went around him and fucking got out of there and did what I needed to do. The whole time, I kept looking behind me because I was so freaked out that he'd pop up behind me or something. I know it sounds ridiculous but I swear to you it was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen."

I switched the topic to the stairs a little later, and there was a definite shift in enthusiasm. No one spoke up at first; there is a real stigma around discussing them, even when we're away from work. But I broke the ice with a story of my own, and the guy who told the story about the faceless man told this one, albeit very quietly.

"Couple years ago, I was camping with my girlfriend, and were out about two miles from the road at this site I know. We went to bed that night, but we couldn't sleep because-"

Someone interjected a funny comment, and we were dangerously close to going off on another subject, but I got us back on track.

"-yeah, really funny, you fucker. No, it was because we kept hearing that grinding noise. My brother used to grind his teeth in his sleep, and it kind of reminds me of that. My girlfriend was freaking out but I just kept telling her to ignore it because I've heard it before and you just have to ignore it. It goes away eventually, you guys know what I mean."

We all knew what he meant.

"So eventually I got her to go to sleep, but I woke up probably two hours later because something was just off. I rolled over and she wasn't there, and I kind of freaked out, because..."

He thought for a second and then he took a very long drink.

"Anyway, I ran out of the tent calling her name, but I didn't have to go far. She was standing at the edge of the camp looking at something in the trees and I could see she was really pale. The fire was low but bright enough to see her. Anyway, so I ran up to see what was going on and she was dead asleep, but her eyes were open. She had this real spaced-out look, y'know. So I put my arm around her to lead her back, but she wouldn't move. She just said really quietly something like 'I have to go now, Eddie. I have to go, it's here.' I was like 'you're just sleepwalking, come back to bed' but she wouldn't budge. She just kept standing there and saying that she had to go. And I looked where she was looking, and there was a fucking staircase right there about fifteen yards away. Grey one, concrete. And she started to walk toward it but I yanked her back and that woke her up. She looked at me like I was fucking out of my mind, and she asked what the fuck she was doing out of the tent. I didn't tell her anything, I just told her she was sleepwalking. The grinding was gone, so she just went back to the tent with me and fell asleep again. I don't know... I don't like thinking about it, y'know?"

We all knew.

"You guys remember that kid with... I can't remember what it was, some kind of brain fuck-up, not Down's but something like it." Someone else brought up. "Well I got to read the report he gave when they found him a week after he went missing and it was fucked up beyond belief. I mean you have to take it with a grain of salt because who knows what that kid actually thinks is real, but some of this stuff, I don't think he could have made up."

"Like what?"

"Well first of all, he talked about the stairs. He said he'd been watching his dad build a fire and the stairs 'came up to him', and he had to go up them or something bad would happen. The cops couldn't really understand what he was talking about after that, because he just kept saying 'like the campfire' over and over. And he kept mentioning sounds, but he couldn't say what sounds, just that it was loud and he covered his ears so he couldn't hear them. But the thing I remember most is that they asked him where exactly he'd gone, and he just said he was right there. He kept pointing at himself, and they said they thought that meant that he thought he'd never left. He said he wasn't scared because the stairs were there and he said they talked to him, but not like people talk. Like I said, it was really convoluted and hard to understand, and I have a feeling the cops didn't take most of it down. They ended up just saying that the kid had some kind of amnesia or fugue, and that they didn't think foul play was involved. Doesn't really explain why he came back a week later perfectly fine without a speck of dirt on him and well fed, but hey, what the cops say goes."

#search and rescue series #creepy #horror story #series

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threeorphanpilgrimage · 6 years

Text

Chapter 78 - Maturity

"You ready?" asked Clementine as she adjusted her grip on Sarah.

"I… I don't know," admitted an uneasy Sarah. "I guess so."

"Okay, hold on." Clementine pushed the bike forward as Sarah began to pedal. It wasn't long before Clem could feel the bike beginning to pull away from her and before she knew it had flown right out of her grip.

"Don't let go until—"

"I already did!" Clem watched as Sarah looked back over her shoulder. "Pedal!" Clem felt a lump in her throat as the bike wobbled beneath Sarah as she tried to pedal faster.

"I… I… I'm actually doing it," realized Sarah as she found her balance. "I'm… I'm riding a bike, without training wheels!"

"You did it!" cheered an overjoyed Clem as Sarah made a u-turn and came racing back.

"I can't believe it," professed a still exhilarated Sarah as she skidded to a stop in front of Clem. "I know you said I was going to finally ride a bike today, but I didn't think it'd actually happen."

"Me neither, I thought we could just get in a little practice after lunch," admitted Clem. "Maybe you're a natural?"

"I never thought I'd like riding a bike so much," said Sarah as she turned the bike back towards the road.

"Oh, let me get my bike, we can ride together real quick." Clem hurried past the gate and around the back of the Brave. She removed her bike from the rack, which wasn't easy since it was so heavy. Rolling it forward, Clem arrived back at the gate just in time to watch Sarah take off into the distance.

"Sarah, wait! Where are you going?" Clem mounted her bike and started pedaling as fast as she could but couldn't catch him. Sarah raced into the forest surrounding the farm and Clem soon lost sight of her behind some trees as she banked around a corner with surprising speed. Clem's heart was beating against her chest now as the trees were flying by her so fast that they all melded together into a blur.

Suddenly, the woods disappeared, and Clem was sailing along a lush field that spread out into the horizon like a green sea, and just off in the distance was Sarah standing in the middle of the road.

"Hey!" called Clem as she slid her bike to a sudden stop. "Wait… wait up," pleaded Clem between breaths as she wiped the sweat off her face.

"Sorry," said Sarah as she looked back at Clem. "It's just…"

"It's just like… flying," spoke an exhausted Clem with a smile. "I know."

"I guess, but, I just realized, I haven't left the farm since we got here."

"You haven't?"

"No. Everyone else has left at some point, usually to get stuff, even Sin went with Devlin and Patty when they got the backhoe. Other than Omid, I'm the only one who's never been away from the farm," said Sarah as she stared out at the horizon. "Do you ever miss it?"

"Miss what?"

"Moving around, like we used to?"

"No," answered Clem bluntly. "You do?"

"I don't know, maybe a little? I mean, some of it wasn't bad."

"Like what?"

"Like going to the Space Center," reminded Sarah. "That was a lot of fun. And seeing Disney World was kind of cool, even if it was wrecked, and that time we went to a mall and played with toys and got new clothes and—"

"Those people almost stole the Brave," concluded Clem.

"Yeah…"

Clem looked around at the empty fields surrounding the lonely road they were standing on. Other than the grass swaying slightly in the wind, there was nothing to see, just untarnished earth beneath a clear blue sky. It was as if looking out on empty space itself, and the longer Clem stared at it, the more afraid she became of it, and what could fill it.

"We should head back," blurted out Clem as she turned away.

"Oh come on, I just learned how to ride," pleaded Sarah.

"It might not be safe," reasoned Clem. "And besides, you were just telling everyone at lunch how we need to start harvesting some of our crops today."

"Oh yeah, and I'm the only one who knows how to do that… sort of."

Clem looked over at Sarah and saw the weariness on her face.

"I'm sure if you do it it'll be fine," assured Clem. "You're always really careful and double check everything."

"If I'm not I'll be the one who has to figure out how to fix it later…"

Clem looked over at Sarah and could see tell she was probably tired just thinking about the pending harvest. "I'm sorry," spoke a sympathetic Clem. "But everyone's going to pitch in so you can take your birthday off tomorrow, and we'll have fresh stuff to eat, and I'll make you a really tasty dinner like we used to have when we had the garden, and—"

"And the day after that everything goes back to normal." Sarah looked over at Clem, then turned away in shame. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't complain."

"It's okay. I get tired of it too… a lot."

"I wish we had gotten more time not having to do this stuff," said Sarah. "I keep thinking back to when I stayed at Shaffer's, you know, before I met you. My dad would always tell me I should enjoy myself, and not worry about things because he would worry about stuff for both of us. For a long time, I thought he was just saying that because he thought I couldn't handle things or that I was stupid… now I think he meant it."

"Anytime I told my mom I was sick of being little she always told me I shouldn't because I'll just be sick of being grown up when I got older… I thought she was crazy." Clem turned her bike around and looked out at the thick woods that concealed their humble home from view. "Come on, they're probably all waiting on us… well, waiting on you."

Pedaling back through the woods, Clem felt a mix of relief and fatigue as she saw a familiar two-story farmhouse come into view. The chainlink fence surrounding it, the two RV's and a truck parked in the driveway, the rows upon rows of tall plants growing in the field across from them, even the three apple saplings they pedaled past all felt comforting yet constricting. She meant it when she told Sarah she hadn't missed living on the road, but for every day they spent living in this small oasis they created the rest of the world felt that much more barren, and Clem dreaded there'd be nothing left in it at all before long.

"There you are." An impatient Sin was waiting for the pair outside the gate, along with everyone else. They had all gathered outside with baskets under their arms and looked at Sarah with anticipation, almost like children waiting for their mother's permission to open their Christmas presents. The only exception was Omid, who happily strolled past the group to greet the pair personally.

"Kem-men, Sah-rah, aye-gah-dah-pree-bee!" he announced as he held up a dandelion clutched between his tiny fingers.

"I was showing him how to pick a flower while you two were gone," informed Patty before noticing Sarah's bike. "Did… did you manage without training wheels?"

"Yeah," said Sarah.

"She's a natural on a bike," added Clem.

"That's great Sarah, congrats," the forced enthusiasm in Patty's voice barely lasted through the word 'congrats'. "So…"

"Let me just grab my notes on harvesting things so I make sure I'm not doing anything wrong," said Sarah as she wheeled the bike past the gate. "Then we'll get started."

Sarah returned from the house with a binder under one arm and a step ladder under the other. Everyone instinctively followed her single file into the field like mice following the pied piper. Slowly leading Omid by the hand between two rows of corn stalks, Clem still found it hard to wrap her mind around how tall they had gotten. It seemed like only yesterday they were just struggling sprouts that came up to her ankles; now they towered over everyone and cast so much shade that it was noticeably cooler in the space between them.

Omid kept stopping to look at the plants more closely, eventually pulling free from Clementine's grip. Clem watched as a curious Omid got down on his knees to examine a large leaf hanging from a vine between two corn stalks. He babbled softly to himself as he crawled underneath it, then started giggling loudly. Carefully pulling back the leaf, Clem could see Omid slapping his hands on a small, green pumpkin nestled in the dirt.

"Come on," Clem said as she picked up Omid. "That ball isn't ripe yet."

"Buh-aye-wah-ib!" protested Omid as he was plucked from the dirt. "No!"

"Come on," said Clem as she cradled the heavy boy in her arms. "Sarah said there's plenty of stuff we can take today."

Clem carried a fussy Omid towards the edge of the field where everyone was watching Sarah inspect a corn stalk. Even with the stepladder, she could barely reach the ear of corn that had sprouted near the top. Carefully, Sarah peeled back a portion of the husk, revealing the golden kernels glittering inside. Next, she removed a pin from her pocket and punctured one, which caused a white substance to ooze out.

"Oh shit, that's bad isn't it?" asked an anxious Anthony. "It's a sign of corn herpes or some other stupid disease we've never heard of."

"No, it's good," said Sarah, the pleasant surprise in her voice easing the group's concerns. "That means it's ripe." Sarah twisted the ear off the stalk and then peeled back more of the husk. Clem shifted her grip on Omid so that he could see the little rows of bright yellow kernels nestled inside like so much treasure just waiting to be collected by his chubby hands; then Sarah took a bite out of it.

"Damn Sarah, are you really that hungry?" asked Patty. "We just ate."

"It's good, really good," she said between mouthfuls, sounding almost happy enough to cry. "Try it."

"Raw?" said Patty as Sarah passed the corn down to her.

"Yeah, just try it."

Patty shrugged, then took the corn and bit into it. "What… what the hell?"

"What's wrong with it?" Patty passed Sin the corn, who sampled it next.

"It's… it's not wrong, but…"

Clem watched as Sin's normally chiseled face started contorting into odd shapes as his mood seemed to rapidly shift between confused and pleasantly surprised. He tried to pass the corn to Jet next but Anthony intercepted it and took a bite out of it, forcing Jet to wrest it from his hands as the same strange wave of pleasant confusion seemed to infect Anthony next.

"That isn't corn," spoke a puzzled Anthony between chews. "It's really damn good, but it's not corn."

"I know, right," said Patty as Jet handed Clem the mostly eaten ear next, a certain eagerness in the way he passed it to her.

Clem bit into a small chunk of kernels the others hadn't eaten yet, and found herself finally succumbing to the baffling but not unwelcome taste everyone else was discussing. The corn was sweet, very sweet, like sugar almost, and the kernels burst into a sticky milk as Clem bit into them.

"It tastes more like creamed corn than regular corn," concluded Jet as Clem passed what remained of the ear to an eager Devlin.

"Or corn milk," added Sin. "I always thought that was just a name."

"Or candy corn," added Clem after finally swallowing her morsel.

"It certainly doesn't take like regular corn," mumbled Devlin with the same sense of conflicted wonderment as the others.

"It's regular sweet corn, it's just fresh," explained Sarah as she moved her step ladder to the next nearest stalk. "The books I read said corn is actually really, really sweet when you first pick it, and it's only after it dries out after a day or so does it become like the corn we used to buy in stores."

"So, the corn we were getting in stores all this time was stale?" asked Anthony in disbelief.

"It's not stale, it's just after you pick it, the sugar inside starts turning into starch, so it gets less sweet," explained Sarah as she pricked another ear of corn with her needle. "That's why you usually boiled it before eating it, but since this corn is so fresh, you don't even need to cook it."

"But if we just left the corn out for a while after we picked it, it'd be more like the corn we used to get in stores?" asked Jet.

"Why would you ever want that again?" asked Anthony.

"I liked the boiled starchy corn," insisted Jet.

"We could do that," assured Sarah. "We might even get to try popcorn again someday. We're gonna have to leave some of the corn to dry out and turn into hard kernels we can use for seeds next year. But if we get enough of them, we can try popping a few of them to eat."

"Migh, migh!" Clem suddenly noticed Omid was trying to grab the ear of corn Devlin was still holding. Devlin eyed the mostly empty cob in his hand and spotted a few loose kernels that hadn't been eaten. He removed a knife from his belt and carefully sliced them off before handing them to Clem. Clem fed Omid the sticky kernels and nearly lost her fingers doing so as Omid bit down the second he got a taste of the corn. He made happy noises as he chewed, signaling his approval, then looked at Clem.

"You want some more?" she asked.

"More!"

The harvest went slowly, but hardly felt like work due to the group literally getting to reap the rewards of what they sowed. Sarah led the way the entire time, examining plants, explaining how to know when they should be picked, and how much they should take, and how they should pick them. It was a little much for Clem to absorb, but seeing the baskets the others brought slowly be filled with corn, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce was enough for her to hang on Sarah's every word.

They were only picking a small portion of the entire field, and Sarah advised them that the pumpkins, wheat, potatoes, carrots, and onions were still not ready to be harvested. It was actually a relief for Clem to hear that since just collecting the crops that were ready was taking a very long time. Sarah was very meticulous in their process, often stopping to request water or soil for a particular plant before resuming the harvest.

Something that eased the burden of the task at hand was Sarah saying the group could eat anything they picked, and eat they did. Devlin sliced off loose kernels for Omid while chewing on green beans he plucked right from the vines wrapped around the corn stalks. Anthony seemed almost addicted to corn now and would eat through one ear after another. Jet and Sin shaved slices off a large cucumber and passed them out like refreshingly cool chips. Patty was eating tomatoes raw off the vine, and so was Clem. Even Sarah could be seen chewing on a little lettuce in-between dispensing instructions and consulting her binder.

It was late into the afternoon when Sarah announced they had enough. Clem broke away from the group and went to remove the soiled sack covering their scarecrow's head. Sin had deduced if walkers can't sense the living through a bloodied raincoat, then covering their heads with something soaked in the same substance would effectively blindfold them. It had worked remarkably well, with Buster going silent almost immediately after being bagged and loudly moaning back to life anytime he was unmasked. Walking with the others back to the house, Clem felt secure knowing Buster's loud groans would chase away any hungry birds eying their crops.

By the time they had left the field, everyone in the group was carrying plenty of produce, both in baskets and in their stomachs. Setting out the haul on the front porch, Clem was utterly stunned at the bounty of fresh food laid out before them. They only had picked a small portion of the crops they visited, and they had only visited half their field, and now they had enough to eat for a couple of weeks, and eat well; very well.

"This is so weird…" said Anthony as he stared at the baskets.

"What is?" asked Clem.

"I see food, but I don't want to eat it," he said. "I think this is what people used to call 'full'."

"And there's still tons of it in the field," added Jet in awe.

"Literally," commented Sin.

"Aye-migh!" declared Omid as he placed his hands on the basket full of corn.

"If only Tulsa had stood long enough to see this," mused a sentimental Devlin.

"At least we lived long enough to see it," said Patty with a smile as her eyes gazed up at the cracked sign hanging over the porch. "Hallelujah, Ceres Acres has arrived."

"Not yet it hasn't," corrected Sarah as she emerged from the house with a different binder in her hands. "This is a lot right now, but it won't do us any good if it all rots before the winter; we need to preserve it."

"Now?" asked Clem in disbelief.

"None us have ever made our own canned goods before, so if we want to get it right we should start now, that way we have time to fix any mistakes we make before it's too late," explained Sarah as she thumbed through her notes.

"Well let's just not harvest anything other than what we eat," suggested Patty. "At least until we get closer to winter, then there will be less to preserve because we ate a bunch in the meantime."

"We can leave some crops out there for a while, but there are limits," said Sarah.

"Limits?" repeated Jet.

"The sugar in corn turns to starch even when it's on the stalk, just much more slowly. Eventually, it'll dry out and become stuff that's too hard to eat without grinding it up first," said Sarah as she flipped past a couple of pages. "We need to pick the beans and tomatoes soon so hopefully more will grow before the winter; cucumbers eventually turn yellow and bitter if you wait too long; the lettuce will become bitter as it gets hotter."

"God plants are fussy," griped Patty. "Every time it feels like we're getting ahead on this farming stuff we get hit with another dose of reality."

"Tell me about it. After this we gotta learn how to get enough seeds so we can try to do all this again next year," said Sarah with a weary sigh as she closed her binder. "All right; Anthony, Jet, I'll need your help today to try and preserve some of this stuff."

"Got it," said Jet.

"With pleasure," added an enthusiastic Anthony.

"We've still got a lot of daylight left," noted Sin as he turned to Devlin. "You and I could probably finish the second rainwater collector."

"Sounds good to me," said Devlin.

"We already watered everything today, so that just leaves you and me for babysitting and gopher duty," noted Patty as she looked at Clem. "I was the gopher yesterday."

"All right, I'll go get my radio," said Clem as she pried Omid away from the basket of corn.

"No! Aye-wah-da-pree-bee!" he protested as Clem handed him to Patty.

"Is it okay if I give him one of the corn to play with?" Clem asked Sarah.

"Sure. In fact, you should take a little of everything so you can practice cooking with it."

"We get to have this stuff for dinner too?" asked an excited Jet.

"For every meal," answered Sarah.

"For tomorrow, or a week, or how long exactly?" asked Patty.

"Well, probably the rest of the summer really. We probably should have spaced out when we planted the seeds so things would come in gradually, but we didn't…" said Sarah with a hint of shame. "Since we'll have a lot all at once, we're gonna have to eat as much as we can while it's still fresh and preserve whatever we can't before it spoils."

"So, just every meal basically?" asked Clem.

"Um, yeah, basically." That last bit of confirmation along with a slight smile from Sarah was enough to send everyone to work with a zeal they hadn't felt since first arriving here. Clem didn't mind 'gopher' duty since she had some freedom to move around. Basically, she was just a spare hand wherever it was needed, and she divided her time between minor chores that always needed doing or running to aid whoever called her on the radio.

She started with just fetching water from the pond and dumping it in one of the barrels close to the house. They always needed water, and not long after she started she could see Jet scooping it out of the barrel by the literal bucket load. Clem did that for a while until her arms began to hurt, then stopped long enough to check in on Patty and Omid in the Brave. Patty was entertaining the boy by stacking empty cups for him to push over, which, much to Clem's surprise, Omid would then try to stack for Patty to push over.

Before Clem could join them, she got her first call as gopher from Sin and Devlin. She headed over to the two semi-trailers which were now parked across from the short side of the field. The pair had already built a new set of barrels and pipes to store rainwater that were nearly identical to the ones set up by the barn, and Devlin had painstakingly bolted gutters across the side of each trailer.

All that remained was to create a roof to actually catch the water. Devlin had welded fence posts on the tops of the trailers and they just needed to run a tarp over them now to form a kind of tent that rain could roll down. The only trouble was to get the tarp sufficiently taut by Sin's standards, both men had to be pulling on it as hard as they could, meaning they needed someone else to tie it off. Balancing on a ladder, leaning over a gutter, and tying a knot all at the same time was tricky for Clem, but she managed to do it enough times to secure the tarp to both trailers.

After stepping off the ladder to admire the big blue tent top they had erected, Clem asked Sin if this would actually work. He said functionally it was the same as what they had done at the barn, right down to the blue tarp serving as a roof after the barn lost its own roof. Moving back around to the barrels, Clem asked if this would be enough to water the whole field, and Sin said it should. Clem then looked up, hoping to spot a sign of incoming rain, but the sky was perfectly clear.

A rumbling sound drew Clem's attention back down to the ground where she caught eye of Anthony emerging from the opposite side of one of the trailers. He was hurrying back towards the house with a couple of cases of glass jars tucked under his arms, to which Devlin informed her was actually Anthony's third time doing so today. Clem asked Devlin and Sin if they needed her for anything else, and when they said they didn't she returned to the pond to fetch more water.

Clem's arms started to ache again before long and by now she noticed the sun was setting. She returned to the Brave and, with Patty's help, started preparing the crops they picked for dinner. Shucking the corn was easy enough, and the lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers all made for a nice salad again, of which Patty was all too happy to handle herself. Before Clem could start on her own dish, she got a call from Sarah. She looked forward to visiting her, but all Sarah needed was some nutmeg, something Jet arrived to retrieve shortly after Clem confirmed they had some in the Brave.

With Patty hard at work mixing the salad and Omid loudly exclaiming his love for the already perfectly edible corn, that just left Clem to prepare the green beans. Removing the actual beans from the pods was tedious and time-consuming. Clem eventually resorted to cutting them in half with scissors then peeling the skins off. Throwing them all into a pot, Clem realized the only beans she cooked were ones from cans, which she usually just added spices to as a way to offset the bland flavor.

She did use to make simple stews back in Spokeston, but they had carrots and onions then, which weren't ready yet, leaving Clem only with her spices, except for the nutmeg. No matter what she did, she couldn't seem to make anything other than watery green beans with seasonings floating around. Most of the canned beans she used already had some kind of broth or gravy with them, and the ones that didn't they just ate without cooking into anything.

Clem alternated between digging through the Brave's overstuffed closet for anything to add to the soup and standing idly in front of a hot stove trying to think of anything else she could do to improve the dish. She repeated this pattern for so long that she was actually surprised when Patty informed her it was dark out now. Looking down at the watery concoction, Clem sighed and turned off the burner. Patty carefully placed the salad bowl and a couple of bottles of dressing in the basket with the corn while Clem strained her already sore arms toting her pot of bean soup outside.

Omid followed the pair across the yard to the big picnic table being illuminated by a couple of electric lanterns. Walking up to it, Clem discovered the table was covered with dozens upon dozens of jars that left her almost no room to place her pot. Past the table was a trail of discarded cartons, cornless cobs, and empty buckets leading over to a couple of grills where everyone else was already standing.

"Oh, hi Clem!" said Sarah as she turned away from the grill. Her glasses were missing and she had a messy apron on along with a couple of stained oven mitts. Standing beside her was Anthony and Jet wearing similar attire, and next to them Devlin and Sin, who just seemed to be awing at the filthy pressure cookers resting on the grills.

"Here, you gotta try this." Sarah picked up an open jar half-filled with a red substance and thrust it towards Clem. "Try it."

"What is it?" asked Clem as she eyed the concoction.

"Jam," answered Jet.

"A damn good jam," added Devlin.

Clem dabbed her finger in the sticky red substance and tasted it, and then had to resist the urge to eat her own finger.

"Oh my God…"

"Oh, let me try," insisted Patty as she inched in to sample the jam.

"You made this?" asked Clem in disbelief. "From what?"

"Tomatoes, sugar, lemon juice, a bit salt and a hint of nutmeg," listed Anthony.

"And pressure cookers," added a weary Jet as he threw off his apron.

"I was just going to can the tomatoes, but then I remembered what Winnie said about pepper jam, and one of the jars came with a recipe for that and… I thought why not make jam instead?"

"Migh! Migh!" Patty lifted Omid up, who immediately plunged his hand into the jar. He pulled out a large dollop of jam and stuffed it into his mouth. "More!" sputtered Omid before trying to grab more jam.

"I think that's enough for now," chuckled Patty as she set Omid down.

"No, it's okay, we got a lot," said Sarah as she tossed off her oven mitts and headed over to the table.

"These are all jam?" asked Clem as she eyed the dozens of jars.

"No, these are all jams." Sarah gestured to a couple of rows. "These are just regular canned tomatoes; I wanted to make a few to be sure they were okay. These are canned green beans, lettuce, cucumbers, corn."

"You canned all of that stuff?" asked Clem in disbelief. "And how did you can corn?"

"Ugh, that was a pain in the ass," said Anthony as he picked up a couple of cobs and tossed them in a bucket. "We had to slice off the kernels in big strips, every single one of them."

"It was almost as bad as the pickles," added Jet.

"You made pickles?" asked a surprised Clem.

"Just a few jars. We didn't have any dill, but we had the chives we planted and some other stuff, so we decided to try it out." Pulling a jar out of the stack, Clem was surprised to see it stuffed with slices of cucumbers floating in a briny looking substance. "It's gotta set overnight before we can try it, so I don't know how it tastes. We're supposed to let the jam set too but… we couldn't resist."

"I didn't know you could can lettuce," said Patty as she eyed a jar stuffed with a green leafy substance.

"It takes a lot of lettuce to fill a single jar," said Sarah as she untied her apron. "But I think almost anything can be… canned."

"Pree-bee!" Turning to Omid, Clem spotted him hurrying towards a clothesline where ears of corn and green beans were hanging.

"What are those?" asked Patty as she followed after Omid.

"That's our attempt at drying stuff," informed Jet.

"I get the corn, but what did you do to the green beans?"

Moving in for a closer look herself, Clem could see dozens of green beans had been stuck together with a single string running through the center of them. They twirled in place slightly with the breeze, almost like they were an elaborate wind chime that made no noise. "What… what is this?" Clem finally asked out loud.

"Leather britches," answered Sarah.

"Leather britches?" repeated Clem.

"You run a string through a bunch of greens beans, then you hang them up for a few weeks and let them dry," explained Sarah.

"And… that preserves them?" asked Clem.

"Hopefully," said Sarah. "It's a lot easier to do that than canning them."

"You just thread a needle through them and that's it," said Jet. "Sort of like making garland for Christmas."

"Cept I'd rather have popcorn than green beans," groused Anthony.

"If the corn we hung up to dry works out, we might actually have popcorn again," said Sarah with a smile.

"Migh!" giggled Omid as he swung his hands up at the dangling row of beans. His fingers managed to tap the bottom and sent them all spinning in place like a top, prompting Omid to giggle even louder.

"This is amazing Sarah," complimented Patty.

"Yeah, it really is," said Clem as she looked out at everything Sarah had accomplished. "I can't believe you did all this in one afternoon."

"Too bad we can't just have this stuff for dinner." Clem couldn't help feeling a little wounded upon hearing Patty say that. "But I guess we need to save it for the winter."

"Actually," said Sin as he set down one of the pressure cookers. "Sarah and I were discussing the need to test her canning techniques."

"I think I did it right, but the best way to know is just for everyone to take some jars with them," said Sarah. "Everyone can eat some of it over the next few days, and then another jar like a month later or so to make sure they were preserved right. Just make sure to sniff them after you open them; if they smell bad don't eat them."

"This day just keeps getting better and better," said Patty as she immediately pocked one of the jars of jam.

"Oh, you guys made us a salad," said Sarah as she noticed the bowl.

"Yeah, I figured it was a hit when you and I made one last time so why not make another?" said Patty with a smirk.

"Pree-bee!" said Omid as he picked up an ear of corn from the basket and offered it to Sarah.

"Clem, what'd you make?" Before Clem could answer Sarah took the lid off the pot.

"It's… green bean soup," said Clem without much enthusiasm.

"You took the beans out of the pods?" noted Sarah.

"Yeah… was I not supposed to?"

"Well, you can, it's just you don't need to."

"I… didn't know that."

"Really?" asked a surprised Anthony. "That's how they always show them on the packing for canned green beans, with the skins on."

"I… guess I haven't eaten green beans in a while."

"It's all right Clem," assured Devlin with a smile. "I prefer string beans with the skins off."

"Thanks," said Clem as she managed to crack a little smile of her own. "It was a real pain peeling the skins off."

"You didn't string them?"

"String them?"

Devlin looked over at the beans hanging from the clothesline. "Those going to be okay if I took one off from the bottom?"

"Go ahead," insisted Anthony. "We're gonna have millions of them by the end of the summer."

Clem followed Devlin as he headed over to the nearest set of green beans. "All right, you see this little tail part?" Devlin gestured to the pointed end of the pod.

"Yeah."

"You just pinch this, give it a little force to crack it, and…" Clem watched in disbelief as pulling on the tail also peeled away a thin green strip that ran across the length of the bean. "It's sort of like peeling a banana, except then you gotta pinch the other end, and peel it back the other way." Devlin tugged on the other end and continued to peel away the strip until it made a complete circle around the entire pod. "And that's why they're called string beans."

"I thought they were called green beans," said Clem.

"Either one, my momma always called them string beans," said Devlin as he handed Clem the 'string' before easily removing a few loose beans from the pod he 'strung'.

"I wish I knew that before," said Clem as she looked at the string.

"It's fine," said Devlin as he chewed a couple of beans. "Hell, I shouldn't be spoiling my appetite like this, you made us a soup and everything."

"Let's eat already," suggested Anthony. "Running a farm is hungry work."

Everyone sat down and dug into the small feast that had been prepared. The salad, the fresh corn, and what remained of the open jam were all practically devoured by the hungry group. The only thing people weren't scarfing down had been the 'soup' Clementine prepared. Almost everyone had taken a couple of spoonfuls, then just stopped eating it, except Anthony, who didn't want any, and Omid, who refused to eat it no matter how much Clem tried to convince him otherwise. The exception was Devlin, who couldn't seem to get enough of it, but then Clem had just seen him eat raw green beans.

Her soup aside, everything was delicious, arguably the best meal Clem had eaten in a long time, and yet she found it hard to enjoy herself. Everyone was talking to Sarah, thanking her for what she had done, asking what she wanted to do for her birthday tomorrow. She seemed a little overwhelmed by the sudden swell of attention, but mostly she appeared flattered and even a little excited by the outpouring of gratitude.

Clem was glad to see Sarah smiling so much, but what she really wanted was just to talk her friend. She kept trying to, but couldn't seem to get a word in edgewise over the others, and the one time she did, Omid managed to spill salad dressing all over himself. Clem hurried him up to the bathroom and scrubbed the boy until he stopped smelling like ranch. Clem needed a bath herself but had to find someone to watch Omid first.

Heading back outside, she was a little relieved actually to see the meal was over now and everyone was just helping to clean up. Sarah had already passed out a couple of jars of preserves to everyone and just had gotten back from storing the rest in the kitchen. She came over to Clem and tickled Omid in a way that made them both laugh. Clem looked forward to finally spending some time alone with Sarah, and that's when Patty proposed an improv celebration.

Before Clem knew it, everyone had gathered in the living room and a small party had broken out. Sarah put on music, Patty fetched beer, and Jet stopped her from wasting their only fire extinguishers on cooling said beer. Everyone was enjoying themselves, and even Sin found some amusement in Omid's reactions to him speaking Thai. All Clem wanted was just to sneak off to get a bath, but apparently Sarah had the same idea because the bathroom was locked and Clem couldn't find her anywhere downstairs.

What she did eventually find was Patty coddling a sleepy Omid in her lap. Clem was happy to take him to upstairs, and the relative quiet of Omid's bedroom gave her a much-needed respite from the noisy party. Tucking Omid in, giving him his stuffed elephant, turning on his baby monitor were all strangely cathartic for Clem, and she almost didn't want to go back downstairs. Heading out into the hall, Clem noticed the bathroom door was open now. She grabbed a change of clothes, hurried inside, and quickly discovered there was no water left.

Frustrated, Clem tossed her clean clothes aside and grabbed an empty bucket. She headed out past the party and into the dark where she managed to gather about half a bucket's worth of water from the nearly empty barrel she spent so much of the day filling. Clem toted the bucket back upstairs, her already sore arms begging for relief by the time she reached the top step. Finally making it back to the bathroom, a weary Clem tossed off her dirty clothes, grabbed a rag, and climbed into the tub.

A rag bath with water she strained through some cheesecloth was a poor substitute for the Brave's semi-functional shower, but it hadn't rained in a while and they already had used up the water in the Brave's tank. Still, Clem did find some comfort in scrubbing off the layer of dirt that seems to come with every day of living on a farm. She was finally starting to relax a little after such a long day, then she noticed a pair of eyes staring at her from the door.

"Hey!" Clem ducked into the tub just as she heard the bathroom door slam shut. Peeking up past the edge, she saw the door was closed now. Clem quickly grabbed a towel, hurried over to lock it and then got dressed as fast as she possibly could, a sickly feeling settling in her stomach as she did. Heading back downstairs, Clem discovered the music had stopped and everyone was gathered in a circle around a very guilty looking Jet.

"What'd he do?" Sin immediately asked Clem.

"He… he was watching me take a bath," said Clem, hardly able to believe her own words.

"What?" asked Sarah in disbelief.

"You little fucker," swore Patty as she glared at Jet. "She's ten!"

"Wait, hold on," said Anthony. "How the hell did Jet get in the bathroom if you were already there?"

"The door was unlocked, it was an accident," insisted Jet as he tried not to cry. "I didn't mean to."

"Is that true?" Patty asked Clem.

"I… I might have forgotten to lock the door, I don't know," mumbled Clem as she tried to remember.

"So he walked in on her by accident, case closed," concluded Anthony.

"But he… he was staring at me, I saw it!" accused Clem as she glared at a quivering Jet. "And you didn't stop until I saw you."

"I wasn't—"

"You apologize to Clementine!" ordered an infuriated Sin. "Right now!"

"I'm sorry," cried Jet. "But—"

"Don't make excuses!" dictated Sin as he slapped the back of Jet's head.

"Hey!" Devlin grabbed Sin by the wrist.

"Unhand me!"

"Only if you tell me that hand isn't hitting that kid again."

"I barely touched him," insisted Sin as he pulled his hand free. "And how is that the issue after what he did?"

"You don't answer one wrong with another."

Jet suddenly took off running. Everyone listened as they heard him rush upstairs, dash across the hall, and slam his door closed behind him.

"That a regular thing?" asked Devlin.

"Him locking himself in his room? It's not uncommon," answered Sin.

"I wasn't asking about him."

Sin scowled at Devlin in response. "Not that it's any of your business, but Jet's never done anything like this before, at least, not that I know of."

"And smacking him is only reserved for this kind of thing?" Sin's scowl deepened before he pushed past Devlin and out the door.

"Well, I guess the party is over." Devlin sighed and looked over at the others. "If any of you need me, you know where to find me." Clem watched as Devlin headed for the back door.

"I can't believe Sin hit him," said Sarah in a whisper.

"I saw it; it was hardly a tap," dismissed Patty as she looked at Sarah. "Jet peeping on Clem is what you should be worried about."

"Oh good, another thing to worry about." Sarah yawned. "I'm gonna go to bed; it's been a long day."

"Tomorrow won't be, not for you," assured Clem as she followed after Sarah. "You're not gonna have to work on your birthday."

"Happy?" Clem just barely heard Anthony say in the distance.

"About what?" retorted Patty in a harsh tone as Clem turned around.

"About making the kid public enemy number one?"

"He gets caught perving on a ten-year-old girl and naturally you take his side," accused Patty.

"Nobody else is," shrugged Anthony.

"Because what he did was wrong; really wrong," dictated Clem as she moved back over to the pair. "But I guess you don't think so."

"I just think your roommate walking in on you by accident doesn't make him a sex offender," rambled Anthony half-heartedly as he headed for the door. "But you two have made it clear before what I think doesn't matter."

Clem scowled as Anthony stepped outside.

"Man that guy pisses me off," groused Patty.

"Yeah, me too," added Clem. "It's like anytime something happens to us, he always tries to make it sound like it's our fault."

"He was like that constantly when the two of us used to go out looking for food. Anything ever went slightly wrong, and he'd always make it sound like it was my fault, then he'd tell me he was joking, that's when he wasn't hitting on me, then say he was joking about that! But he never actually stopped until that night you and I told him off, although I guess he didn't stop then either, least not entirely." Patty looked over at Clem, her scowl disappearing as soon as they made eye contact. "Are you all right? Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"I… think I'm okay," said Clem. "It's not like I got hurt, but…"

"You feel violated, and by someone you thought you could trust."

"Yeah…" conceded a weary Clem. "I thought Jet was my friend."

"Yeah, sadly, you never really know what goes through someone else's head. I've seen people go to pretty crazy lengths to make you think they're your buddy just because they wanted something off you."

"Yeah, me too…" Clem took a deep breath. "Does… does this mean Jet was just pretending to be friends with me because… because he wanted to see me naked?"

"I doubt that Clem. He was probably just being stupid, and needed a stern reminder not to be," said Patty in a harsh tone as she removed her cigarettes from her jacket. "But like I said, you never really know what's going through a person's head, and something like this always leaves you wondering." Patty pulled a cigarette from her pack and popped it in her mouth. "Anything else like that happens you just come get me, okay?"

"I will." Patty gave Clem a reassuring nod, then headed out of the house, leaving Clem alone in the living room. She headed upstairs and couldn't help eying Jet's door with suspicion as she walked past it. Walking into her own bedroom, she found an already half-undressed Sarah lying on the bed, staring at her diary.

"I thought you were going to bed," said Clem.

"I was, but then I realized I hadn't worked on my diary today, but it's so late, and I don't know…" rambled Sarah in a tired voice.

"You don't have to write in it," suggested Clem as she slipped off her hat and tossed it on the dresser.

"I know that, and it's weird writing down everything that's happened to us, especially when so much of it was bad," said Sarah as she sat up.

"Then why do you keep writing it?"

Sarah's eyes drifted towards the baby monitor. "I figure one day Omid will be old enough to want to know this stuff; know about his mom, and why we're living on this farm, and who these other people are, and how we met them, and this diary can tell him all that."

"We could always tell him that stuff ourselves someday."

"I know, but the longer I wait, the harder it gets to remember everything. I start mixing up details or forgetting things and…" Sarah looked down at the pages. "I don't want to forget anything about all the people who helped us before, and everything they did for us. Writing it down in a journal isn't much, but…"

"I'm sure they'd be happy knowing that you're thinking of them," assured Clem as she kicked off her pants. "Do you mind if I read it?"

"Go ahead," said Sarah as she slipped off the bed. "I can't write without my glasses anyway, and I left those in the bathroom."

"You should get dressed; Jet might still be up," warned a bitter Clem.

"I've got a shirt on," reminded Sarah as she headed for the door.

"He might try to pull it up."

"He wouldn't do that."

"I didn't think he'd watch me take a bath, but—"

"I really don't think you and Patty were being fair to him," said Sarah as she turned around.

"Fair to him?" repeated an indignant Clem. "What about me?"

"I really think it was an accident, like he said. Sin even said he's never done anything like that before, and—"

"He was staring at me, I saw it," insisted Clem. "And I've known people who never did anything really terrible, until they just did one day."

"I don't think Jet is like that," insisted Sarah. "He was crying just now."

"He could have been faking it," suggested Clem. "You never really know what goes through another person's head."

"So… I could be faking being friends with you then," concluded Sarah. "And I'm really just someone horrible who's really good at hiding it."

"What? No, of course not. I know you."

"Do you? You just said you never know," repeated Sarah.

"That's different, I…" Clem took a breath. "Just forget it, okay, it's late."

"All right." Sarah stepped outside and Clem just stretched out on the bed, glad yet another long day was finally over. Picking up the diary, she flipped through the pages, her eyes falling on the familiar names of Nick, Carlos, Walter, Pete, Matthew, and Christa. Skimming through the book, Clem found herself recalling their night at the ranger station, the week they spent imprisoned at Shaffer's, the long and miserable journey to Saint Christopher's, and Omid's birth.

Looking at the last few pages, Clem found herself reading out loud. "Even though it was only a week, it had felt like we had been trapped at Shaffer's for years, and now that we finally escaped, we suddenly realized we had no idea where to go next.

"Racking my tired mind for some sort of answer, I suddenly found myself envisioning us, all of us, living out on some sort of farm, far away from Shaffer's and all the terrible people who would hurt us, where we could grow our own food, and Omid could grow up, and we could just live together, and be happy, and it all felt like a dream, but I could see it, and so I said Oklahoma… maybe it was Kansas."

Turning the page, Clem saw the rest of the journal was blank. She set it on the nightstand, then realized Sarah still wasn't back, and the bathroom was just next door. Clem was about to step out into the hall when Sarah suddenly emerged in the door frame.

"Whoa!" said a surprised Sarah.

"There you are," said Clem. "What took you so long?"

"Oh, I forgot, I actually took off my glasses when we were canning because the pressure cookers were steaming them up, not when I was taking a bath, so I had to run outside real quick and find them."

"You should have come gotten me, I would have helped you find them."

"Oh I found them right away, but Anthony was taking out some garbage at the same time and I stopped to talk to him for a minute."

"You… you let Anthony see you in your underwear?" asked Clem, concern seeping into her voice.

"What? No, I… I had my shirt on."

"And no pants."

"It's no different than when he saw me in a swimsuit."

"He couldn't see your underwear when you were in a swimsuit."

"He didn't see them a minute ago."

"I can see your underwear right now." Sarah started tugging her shirt down in embarrassment after hearing that. "What did you talk about?"

"What?"

"What did you talk about with Anthony?" repeated Clem.

"Why do you want to know?" asked Sarah in a defensive tone.

"Because, Anthony acted like Jet watching me in the bath was no big deal, and he was always hitting on Patty even though she told him to stop, and now stopped to talk to you when you weren't even dressed and—"

"I stopped to say hi to him, he didn't stop me," corrected Sarah. "And all he said was the jam I made was the best he ever had and wished me an early happy birthday, that's it," reported Sarah with a groan. "It's… it's like I can't even speak to him without you getting mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you; I'm worried about you," insisted Clem.

"I don't think you are," accused Sarah.

"What? Of course I am. What else could I be?"

"I… I think you're just jealous someone other than you really likes me."

"You mean like how Mick liked you?" Clem immediately regretted saying that. She watched as the stunned expression on Sarah's face quickly twisted to one of anger. "Sarah, I'm—" Sarah marched over to the dresser and hurriedly put her pants on. "You.. you don't need to get dressed now, we're going to—" Clem watched in disbelief as Sarah stomped out of the bedroom. "Sarah, wait! Where are you going?"

Clem hurried after Sarah, only to remember she wasn't dressed either as she passed the threshold. She rushed back inside and cursed herself as her pant legs bunched up from trying to get dressed so fast. Clem zipped up her fly as she stumbled out of the bedroom. Hurrying down the stairs, Clem found the front door was wide open, and rushing outside, Clem finally caught sight of Sarah entering Anthony's camper.

"Sarah, wait!" Clem watched as the door to the camper slammed shut behind her. "Sarah!" repeated Clem as she rushed over to Anthony's camper. "Sarah I'm sorry, just come to bed." Clem tried opening the door but it was locked. She hurried over to the left front tire of Anthony's truck and found the key box hidden there, but there was no actual key inside.

"Dammit," swore Clem as she put the box back. "Sarah!" called Clem even louder as she returned to the camper door. "I said I'm sorry, just talk to me." Clem tried fruitlessly to open the door again, then pounded her fist against it. "Come on, you can't stay in there all night." Clem waited for a response, but received only silence. "Seriously, you'll have to come out sooner or later." Still no answer. "Just say something!" demanded Clem as she angrily banged her fist against the door. "Just… just talk to me… please." Clem's pleas were met with only more silence.

Eventually, after several awkward minutes of silence, Clem started back towards the house. She walked away slowly, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sarah covertly exiting Anthony's camper; no such luck. After that, Clem moved back upstairs, hoping to hear Sarah coming up behind her; she didn't. Finally, Clem got into bed and turned off the light, praying Sarah would be along any moment and everything would be as it always was; she fell asleep waiting for her.

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#TOP #three orphan pilgrimage #Chapter 78

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