peckenpaugh | HE IS HERE

the vines have run wild

it's over Everything is in shambles. Walls and floors torn and broken from roots and branches sprouting through. They block doors and crowd passages and pulse with sick life. The Thing sits in the center of it all, angry and starving, its trunk both still and moving in ways you catch only when it is in the corner of your vision. Branches that look less like bark and more like skin stretch in every direction, lush with shadowy leaves and dotted with bits of glowing blue. The ruined floor is littered with those little twinkling dots. Seeds. Everywhere, seeds. They hang on boughs, and rest on banisters in the upper levels. The one thing in this nightmare that doesn't radiate that awful, pervasive hunger.

The roof is gone, replaced with a writhing canopy of shadow and muck. Some parts of it are complex spiderwebs of tendrilly shapes, others solid formless movement. The only consistent thing about it is that it is terrible to behold, faintly nauseating to look at for too long. Ash rains down between gaps in its branches, and what glimpses of sky are visible are nothing but swirling gray clouds. What stars still shine are magic, man-made, floated between balconies by prom committee before the dance.

Those remaining begin to stir. Each one of you has heard Pocket's words, "Find the roots." And if you want to save your friends, your family, the holler — hell, maybe even the world — that's exactly what you're going to do.

You climb from protective cocoons of dying moss, push your way past walls of solid ice, emerging into utter destruction. Things move and make noise at the edge of your vision, but for now, at least, all is calm. What to do? Where to start?

it's ruined Among the twinkling maple seeds are the dropped possessions of students and staff, lost when they were pulled away. A compact mirror, a cell phone, a pair of glasses, cups of punch spilling across the floor. A single red heel sits at the edge of the jagged pit that peers down into the Sorting Path. The air here is hot. Too hot. If you jump, you'll surely be boiled alive.

Though locked when everyone tried to flee, vines and roots have torn the doors to the auditorium off their hinges. The splintered remains of heavy oak doors litter the entrance halls and stairwell alcoves, leaving an open path outside. Not that you'd want to flee, by the looks of it.

A cool night breeze is the only relief from the growing heat of the auditorium, yes, but even that is tainted by the heavy scent of flowers. Outside, vines and purple flowers have exploded over every surface. They climb up lamp posts, engulf buildings whole, hang from trees. It would be beautiful if it weren't horrifying. Campus is unrecognizable.

there is no hope Roots and vines clog the way to the Sorting Path, and most stairwells are completely obstructed by the growths of that horrible tree. Up above, something buzzes and wails, a mockery of a cicada's cry, and beyond that the twittering of birds nesting in the tree's highest branches.

Pouch coalesces in the middle of it all, a one-winged magimagicicada, weak and weary but undaunted. Resolute, if not reinvigorated. He bends down to touch a seed, and the moment his obsidian fingers light on it, a blue-white portal to somewhere else rips right through reality. A memory begins to play. Somehow, the bug seems to know what he's seeing.

She gave us what we need, the one who ran says to the gathered students, his voice in their heads as much as the air. Let's all not let her down, huh?

Find your friends. Find my siblings. It's time to fight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cedar sprints through the portal so fast they trip over the edge of the boat and splash straight into the water.

Hawthorne is less gung go than Cedar, but the boat's rocking too hard by the time he steps into the memory and he is immediately pitched into the water as well.

Kirby grabs Cedar's hands to haul them out of the water, intending to help Hawthorne next. He has a feeling he may have to rescue his friends a lot.

"What if—what if—what if—what if—" Cedar splutters, starting over each time their head disappears and reappears from the water. They cling to Kirby's hand, clawing into his arm as they pull themself toward the boat.

"What if this is the exploding bogfish memory?" they finally gasp out.

"It's not that one," Hawthorne insists, immediately getting water up his nose and choking. "The water in that one tasted cleaner." Blech.

Kirby holds tightly to Cedar's arm and lugs them toward the boat. "Hawthorne, are you okay? You're not going to drown, are you?" His voice quivers with fear, but he takes a deep breath and tries to hide his nerves, to be seen as the one in control.

"Does that mean it's the armfish memory?" Cedar pants as Kirby hauls them up, hooking an elbow over the edge of the boat and kicking their feet for Hawthorne to grab. As long as Hawthorne wants to grab flailing feet.

"CHEESE TREE if you DROWN then I'm taking this one home with me." They jab a finger at the frozen Hawthorne, stabbing at Kirby's eyes in the process.

All that rocking has the boat pitching side to side. Cedar - the one that isn't frozen - is almost back into the boat when the whole thing flips over.

Hawthorne's relief at not being in the capsized boat is absolutely palpable, and after a quick, relieved exhale, he tries to flip the boat back over to free his siblings (frozen and moving) and Kirby. "If the boat's supposed to be flipping it's the muskrat memory, actually."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea. I think your parents would notice the difference," Kirby says while hoisting Cedar into the boat. His efforts, however, are in vain when the boat tips over, plunging Kirby into the water. He swims to the surface, coughing and spluttering, and treads water while looking around to make sure the triplets are okay. So much for being the hero. He joins Hawthorne in pushing at the boat. "What memory are you talking about?"

"The MUSKRAT MEMORY!!" Cedar screeches, falling backward into a flailing backstroke. "Then I think we need to, uhhhhhh..." They don't finish their sentence, they just keep backing away as fast as they can.

"But don't touch the muskrat nest," Cedar warns, though they now realize they can't remember where that muskrat nest was.

"I won't," Kirby promises, though he doesn't see a muskrat nest anywhere. After making sure Cedar isn't drowning, he looks around, inspecting the items that have fallen out of the flipped boat.

Hawthorne spent at least four hours trapped in a bathroom tonight, and now he's all waterlogged, too. This is miserable.

He ignores the things floating around him, only passingly aware of just how you're supposed to get a memory going, again. "Maybe we have to bite Willow to get it started. Like the muskrats did."

"WHAT IF SHE BITES US!!" Cedar hollers, words half-drowned as they bob through the water. "A BUG punched me EARLIER!!"

Some of the objects from earlier are floating in the water, but not all of them. Maybe the rest are beneath the boat? Hopefully nothing sunk...

"Um, I'd avoid biting if I were you," Kirby says. He reaches underneath the boat to retrieve whatever objects have fallen under it.

"Willow doesn't bite that hard," Hawthorne says, speaking from experience.

He watches Kirby grope around in the dark water for more of the things lost when the boat capsized, reluctant to help himself. He'll only make it worse, right? "Watch out for muskrats."

"I will," Kirby says obligingly. He picks up the spork and twiddles it in his hands. "And if there is one, I'll just poke it in the eye with this." He points the fork end of the spork away from him, trying to look menacing. "The Fearsome and Furious Fork Fighter. Or something."

Cedar has found a tree near the edge of the bog and is trying to climb up the very narrow branch, out of the murky waters.

"Maybe we should ALL get sporks!" they suggest, shimmying further along the branch. "Everyone KNOWS muskrats hate getting their eyes poked."

"There's only one spork, but you can have it," Kirby says, wading forward and reaching up to hand the wrench to Cedar. "And I'll take...a wrench. That'll do as a weapon." He picks up the wrench and waves it around, knocking it against the side of the boat. "No muskrat will dare come near us now."

Touching the spork restarts the memory.

Unfortunately, the boat is still flipped. The memory Quackenbushes don't seem to mind, though, and they continue their conversation underwater, burbling in loud tones. At least two of them are yelling. They freeze again.

Kirby hopes the memory Quackenbushes won't drown down there. Then he remembers this is a memory and they've survived into the present day, right? So they must be okay. When the memory freezes again, he pushes at the boat, trying to flip it back over.

Just like that, a hole opens in the water. Not a swirling vortex descending into some vacuum like someone pulled the plug on the bog. No, it's just a void where nothing else is, like someone tried to divide by zero. A peak reveals light, as if shining from the end of some kind of tunnel. You might as well jump.

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared

MEMORY: Always Prepared