draftware

unlikely places

unlikely places

"Was that the fourth stop, or was that the third?" I asked.

"How did you lose count?"

"I think I fell asleep? I don't know."

"Ｆｏｕｒｔｈ. Ｎｅｘｔ ｓｔｏｐ ｉｓ ｆｉｖｅ."

"Oh..."

I sat in silence, the train slightly shaking as it rolled across the tracks. "So, um, Craggy?" I asked.

She looked down at me, I felt a little intimidated. "If you don't mind me asking, um--"

"Ｉｔ'ｓ ｊｕｓｔ ｈｏｗ Ｉ ｔａｌｋ. Ｌｅａｖｅ ｉｔ ｔｈｅｒｅ. "

"--oh, no, I was just going to ask how you did it, not why."

"Ｈｏｗ ｄｏ ｙｏｕ?"

"...Huh. Sorry I asked."

"Ｉ'ｍ ｆｉｎｅ ｗｉｔｈ ｉｔ, ｌｉｔｔｌｅ ｈｕｍａｎ ｐｅｒｓｏｎ."

I at this point was used to Scriff leaning on me how she did, but now Craggy was doing it a little bit, too, and she was easily three times the size. Not that I didn't mind the comfort, but it was still just wild to me. I mean, imagine not knowing anything but beeps and boops and immediately within the day having someone physically attach themselves to you, and then you kind of just spend the rest of your time as everyone's pillow/stuffed animal. "Oh, this must be our stop!" Scriff said as the train slowed, entering a station.

As the doors slid open, three people in red suits stepped onto the train with bags in their hands. Craggy shot up and immediately picked up one of the people and slammed them to the floor. "Whoa, whoa! Simon, we're done with this plan!" the guy shouted.

"Easy there," another one of them said, putting a hand on Craggy's arm before being tossed aside. "Ｗｈａｔ ｄｏ ｙｏｕ ｗａｎｔ?!"

"Okay, so we're not here to hurt you," the third said, "One or more of you had questions about the Watchers, and we had answers. We just didn't want you to see where we lived, so... how about you guys just close your eyes and we'll invite you in. The name's James."

"You sure we can trust these guys?" Scriff said.

"Let's just see where this is going," I replied.

Scriff grabbed Craggy's hand the best she could and I grabbed her hand, and James walked Craggy to where we were headed. I could tell the three were murmuring to themselves, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. I couldn't make out much, actually, everything was kind of buried under the beep boop boop beep again.

"Alright, here we are. You can look again."

I opened my eyes to the sight of some sort of dull red bunker with all sorts of papers, some computers, and something under a sheet in the middle of the room. "What is this place?" I asked.

"This? This is our retconology lab, we're studying the Watchers, trying to figure out what's going on. Each of us woke up with memories from the Watchers, and banded together out here to make sure that our research would be preserved so long as one of us lived. I'm Richard, nice to meet you, you slammed me to the ground. Simon was the guy you tossed towards the wall, and James walked out of this unscathed."

The three guys in red suits looked similar to each other, but not by much. Richard had coarse orange-colored hair and a loose attempt at a goatee, Simon had black hair and a pair of cracked glasses, and James had brown hair and sideburns, each of them looked tired and I was kind of worried about what this place even was, to be honest, but they had to have answers, I just knew it. "So, um, what's all this?"