The Sketch Survivors: The Enemy Among Us

Epilogue

After Soal returned "home" to Alice's house on his final day of the week before departing again for his "grandparents'", and he had seen enough. The irony in 2019 was off the charts, and it was bringing him back to 2094's horrible crises. But he compulsively wanted more. He wanted an escape to his old life, where he was the director of his own life.

So, he finally decided to open up his small brown bag of precious possessions. He had not done this since just before the time jump, so he was nervous about the condition- or even the existence- of what had been inside. He sat on his short bed in the guest room, which bounced upon his impact, and he placed his bag upon his lap.

He unraveled the opening, and was mightily relieved to find that all of the items were still intact. In fact, it seemed as though nothing at all had changed about them, which was even better. Tearfully, he dug through it, and the first thing he picked out was... his portrait of Queen Retna, returned to him by Irene after he had given it to her after he had left his initial Sketch with it in his bag. That brought him to ponder how it survived the journey into the real world from the Sketch World, but that did not matter much to him right now. He began placing his objects in a pile adjacent to him, on top of his bed's thick covers.

The next item greatly startled Soal. It was a smashed POL soylent bottle, slightly damp, yet obviously empty, from Cliasin's lair; with a crumpled-up poem of his imprisoned inside. How did this get here? Soal was confused, but it was, to him, a neat souvenir. He placed it on the pile with the Retna image.

Next of all was the most inexplicable of all. "What the..." Soal mouthed as he read it to himself. It was a note addressed to him, in Moth's handwriting.

I can't believe you're only reading this now, Soal. I would have expected you to read it a lot sooner. Like, about an hour before you're reading this now. My calculations are rarely wrong. You are a difficult one to predict.

Anyway, I know you're reading this in your room on October 8th, 2019. How's Irene going? Are the Arthurs taking good care of her in Britain? And how has Miss Alice been to you? Oh, and to cut your suspicions, the Heather you now know is not even remotely related to Heather Revaw. You are not being raised by Lint Corp sympathizers anymore.

All in all, the Un-Characters, I bet, are enjoying a nice time in the Venezuelan wilderness now. Don't ask what the British bombers actually did; you're not supposed to know for another seven months.

Be seeing you "in time",

Moth

This was the creepiest thing Soal had ever read; creepier than "Common Repetition," "Loss," or even "The Olympian." Moth's other note, intended to be read on August 30th, 2101, was still in his bag; from his memory, waiting to be read at a time that may never come to Soal. There had always been something off about Moth. Soal could see traces of it even when he first met Porter the Voltale general. But times had changed (ha ha), and Moth was now simply a radar of all of Soal's "future" activities, writing notes for him that would near accurately predict when Soal would read them, and everything that had happened in between, even though the note was clearly written before those things happened in the first place.

Well, Soal did indeed hope to see Moth again sometime. From his words, he knew something would happen that would cause him to return to his old friends. But what...?

That was a question for another day. Soal pulled out another precious object, this one the most precious of all.

His Sketch.

He had nearly forgotten it was here; simply cowering in its plastic bag of a brand Soal hardly recognized, waiting to be freed.

Entranced, Soal opened up the plastic bag, and cautiously pulled out his Sketch. He put both the original bag and the plastic bag on his pile of possessions. Then, he proceeded to simply stare at his ultimate treasure.

When was the last time he had come there? He recognized Cheshire's words, also from so long ago: "When you finally can return, centuries would have passed, and nobody will remember you." For some obvious reasons, Soal did not trust Cheshire with this. And what would be the result of returning to the Sketch after a backwards time leap? Would the Sketch's time also be reversed? Or would it continue forward as usual?

Those four familiar faces beckoned. He reminisced peering down at them in confusion in the boarding school of 2093. The pointy-nosed, scaly dinosaur, with a bright smile and hanging fang... the lumped golden tortoise with a pig's nose, and a child's eyes... the bloated head of an optimistic, feathered bird with small eyes and a disproportionately large beak. Of course, he couldn't ever forget his times among the brown-feathered, large-eyed birds with tan, banana-shaped beaks. Now that he had the time, in a way, he could visit the other three Eras he had heard so much about. And, naturally, he would revisit the central Kiwi Realm first.

But what would Alice think? What would Milton and Heather do? How would Isabel respond? This would change everything. Alice knew Soal was a time traveler, but how would she react if she found out about this? And what about Irene? Would Soal devote himself to the warriors of his first war fought- the kiwis- or to the warrior of his second war, Irene?

There was a stray pencil sitting on a dresser at Soal's bedside, still at the foot of a small, shaded lamp. Soal easily recalled Gordon Gulley's instructions, written on the back of every Sketch with invisible, indelible ink. A simple pencil or pen was required to complete one of the steps of the process. That No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil would get the job done.

Now, it came down to a hard decision. Would he be obedient and secure with Alice and the rest of his newfound family? Would he be honest about everything, yet refuse to scare anyone with the prospect? Would he connect with Irene as an alternative route? Or would he take the risky path, and reenter the Sketch now?

It was an effortless choice. But Soal had not chosen the passage that Moth probably thought he would take.

Soal reached for the pencil.

---= End of Book Three =---

~~ Conclusion of the Sketch Survivors Trilogy ~~