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Sixty-Three || Flowers

Hey! How are you guys?

Okay, so technically, as I'm writing this A/N, it's 12:25 and I am 25 minutes late, but I stayed up all night to finish this chapter for y'all, and the owl can testify.

OKAY PLEASE READ THIS FRIENDS ITS HIGHLY IMPORTANT okay so there was this lovely idea sent in by ArchAvenger about a fourth wall break character and all this cool stuff, so basically frenchwwl, author of the lovely Running Home, and I, (and I'm pretty sure forestflicker, author of Aliquid), have made a one shot type thing where essentially you all get a MEET AND GREET. So y'all will read and then you will comment with questions, other stuff, idk it's late and I'm not functioning on all cylinders, but the point is you basically get to talk to the characters through the comments. It's super cool, and creative, and interactive, and fun. So that will be up sometime this week on the Late Night Fluff book (found on my profile) and you can go to town. If you're really curious what Wren typically eats for breakfast, or perhaps you wish to know Jensen's opinion on the new Voltron reboot, or maybe you'd like to speculate who would win in a fight, Lyra or the Flash, you can have all your questions answered there! So go my children! It will be up on Monday hopefully, but you've all experienced my crappy scheduling abilities so yeah! But it's super cool and you'll all have fun and we'll have fun and it's like a family friendly Deadpool-style chapter!

So that's that. I'm actually too tired to do anything about anything at the moment so I'm terribly sorry but no dedication tonight and no art bc I'm literally falling asleep as I type this.

So I hope you have a lovely existence and that you enjoy the chapter!

(it's unedited forgive me)

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I don't actually hear Kenna.

I see her chest heaving and the whites around her eyes, I see the sweat making her forehead shine even in the cold air, I see her breaths coming out in fast, panicked puffs of fog.

I process the word collapsing, and then I'm running.

Coal shouts my name; I don't need to look behind me to know he's telling Kenna everything will be alright.

Something in my mind is telling me to walk. Terra probably has it handled; after all, it's literally her element. It will be fine. The expectation is a deluded mixture of blind hope and a prayer. We're always fine.

The rest of my mind is telling me that breathing can wait, run faster.

I reach the hospital in less than a minute, but it seems as though fate decided to entertain my fantasies. People are out, the building has stopped crumbling, figures are standing in the falling dust.

Too dizzy to process anything yet, I go to my default. Headcount, get a headcount. I catalogue Eli, Elliot, and Halle, and I search the sea of dirty faces to find my dirty faces.

Owen, one. I find familiar hands, postures, movements, counting up. I get to twelve, find Maple and Sparky to make fourteen. I don't know exactly where Coal and Kenna are but it's not in the hospital. sixteen.

Four. I'm missing four.

"Audrey!" I shout.

She looks up from smearing the dirt away from Maple's eyes. I'm grasping at tendrils of sanity, dizzy from running so fast.

"Tick," I gasp out, "and Tock. Where are they?"

Audrey's face is one I never want to see again.