#cabotcovedormouse

Kim had been going about her day as usual, trying to quiet the voices in her mind as she cheerfully tended to the plants in the garden. When suddenly, reality started to flicker and flash drastically. Kim saw Duncan, back at the panda labs. He was re-working the sorting system, again. He stood up from his work and walked across the room to get something, when the premonition distorted and flashed abnormally. Kim could see his figure lurching and twitching unnaturally as the vision corrupted. When the imagery resumed, Duncan had tripped, and the crescent hammer he was holding in his hand had pierced through his chest. Then, the vision ceased. 

Kim dropped what she was doing immediately. She knew Duncan was fixing the sorting system at this very moment, she didn’t have time to waste. 

Running across the fields of crop, not caring if she damaged them, she grabbed the jetpack she left at the entrance of the island and put it on as fast as she could. “Duncan!” She called out, trying not to let the panic get to her voice. 

She landed on the front steps of the house, pushed the doors open and dashed down stairs “Duncan!” She called again, her heart-rate starting to go faster. “Dunc-“

"What, what’s wrong?" Duncan replied, standing up and brushing himself off from the newly fixed sorting machine. Kim stood there at the base of the stares and wasn’t sure what to say.

"Euuhh.. Nothing. Nothing’s wrong." She said awkwardly, noticing the crescent hammer still in Duncan’s hand. "I uhh, I just needed to borrow the crescent hammer… Yeah." She walked over to him and held out her hands, pulling the most innocent grin she could. 

Duncan laughed and handed it to her, “Alright then, but what do you need it for?” He asked, “We have like three of them you know, you could have just gotten one out of the chest.” 

Kim huffed and side-glanced at the sorting system chests. “The sprinkler in the garden is in the wrong place and I wanted to move it back.” She said, walking over to the newly fixed sorting system and looking in a few of the chests to try and steal the other crescent hammers too, just for good measure. 

"Really?" Duncan said, "How did that happen?"

"Dunno, Enderman maybe?" Kim replied, snatching up the extra wrenches and shoving them in her pockets nonchalantly before turning back and headed upstairs. "WEEEEELLL, Thanks for the hammer Duncan it was nice talking to you, I’m glad we had this little chat, I’m going to go fix the sprinklers now like any normal person would do after they receive something they asked for from their friend, because that’s what we are normal friends, yep! Absolutely nothing wrong here. I’m just going to go fix the thing I said I was gonna fix, okay? Okay. Bye Duncan take care and don’t do anything stupid, alright? Alright!” 

Kim shut the front door to the house and sighed in relief while sliding down the door. She wiped the sweat from her brow, happy that her vision didn’t come true and that the dangerous object from her foresight was safely tucked away in her pockets and far away from hurting anyone. 

She ventured back to the farming island, and took off her jetpack to resume working. It wasn’t five minutes later that the flashing happened again. This time Duncan was smelting ores in the basement of their old base, the furnace had run out of fuel and he was carrying a bucket of lava. The distortion flickered and lurched, the last image Kim was given was of her friend burning to death in the spilled molten rocks. 

Eyes widening, teeth clenched, emotions of sheer panic rushed through her body, she was trying really hard to keep her cool. Kim stood up and walked back to her jetpack she carefully, (without calling out to him this time) flew back to the house. 

Opening the door quietly she did nothing but listen to see if Duncan had already gone through the portal. Not a sound. She then rushed for the book and opened it to the right page. Pressing her finger to the image and shutting her eyes, she warped in to the basement.

Duncan was carrying the bucket of lava to the furnace, whistling to himself. He began pouring the lava into the furnace when his finger slipped and the bucket fell from his hand and onto the floor.

Kim rushed forwards and grabbed the back of Duncan’s coat, pulling him out of the way just in time as the lava spilled everywhere. 

"What did I say about not doing anything stupid!" Kim shouted. 

"Sorry! I was being careful, I swear." Duncan responded. 

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, you’re just lucky I got here in time to save your butt from being burned to death." Kim grumbled

"That’s a good point actually, how’d you know I was in here?"

Kim paused, “I- I didn’t.. I just needed some more.. Cable.”

She smiled sheepishly.

"…You’ve been acting weird, what’s going on." He said.

"Nothing! It’s nothing I promise." 

Duncan crossed his arms. “Right..”

"Really Duncan, I’m fine."

Duncan narrowed his gaze, obvious he wasn’t buying it. “If you say so,” He said. “But if anything happens, you can tell me.” 

"I know!" Kim replied, walking over to a chest and grabbing something she didn’t actually need to make sure her story was secure. "I just came in here to get my things, that’s all." 

Duncan sighed, and Kim warped back to the house. 

"Aaauugh! What is wrong with me?" She exclaimed, once she was sure she was alone. "First the hammer, then the lava? What’s next? He’s gonna fall out of the sky???" 

Just then, another series of flashing happened and Kim was met with the vision of Duncan’s jetpack running out of fuel mid-flight and falling to his doom. 

"You have got to be kidding me.” She groaned, as Duncan warped back to the house. 

"Kidding about what?" He said, obviously asking for clarification since he hadn’t heard all of her previous sentence. 

"Nothing!" Kim responded once again, Duncan rolled his eyes but didn’t ask questions. He opened the front door and turned to look at her. "Okay well I’m gonna go add a solar panel to the roof, so if you need me I’ll be-"  "NO, WAIT! Can we switch jetpacks first?" 

Duncan stopped what he was doing and lowered his gaze at Kim. “Okay, tell me what happened.” 

"Nothing!! Nothing’s happened!…. Not yet anyway.”

"Not yet? What do you mean not yet?" 

Kim’s face turned bright red with embarrassment. She thought she’d said that last bit in her head, and now the jig was up. 

"So?" Duncan pressed. 

"Okay Fine! I’ve been having these weird… Visions." Kim said, stopping herself from going much further, feeling a lump forming in her throat just thinking about it. 

"Visions, you mean like hallucinations? I thought you had those under control." 

"No. It’s more like… Seeing the future." 

"I’m listening."

"Well, Normally its not that bad, you know? I get these sort of visions all the time, and they’re usually just stupid stuff like me going to the toilet or something like that. But this time.. the imagery got distorted and weird, and… And I saw… I saw.." Kim tried to keep her voice from wavering, but she could feel the tears starting to well up in her eyes. 

Duncan looked concerned, and closed the door he had been holding open. He knelt down a bit to be eye level with Kim. “What did you see?”

Kim looked into Duncan’s eyes for a second, so compassionate and peaceful, her heart lurched just thinking about what she had seen, she didn’t want to say it. 

"What did you see, Kim?" Duncan repeated, waiting patiently for her reply.

"I saw you Duncan!" She exclaimed "I saw you dying over and over again! and I kept trying to stop it, but it just kept happening no matter what I did! The visions wouldn’t stop!" She hid her face in her arm to try and hide the fact that she was crying. 

"Kim…" Duncan said, holding on to her shoulder to try and comfort her a bit. "Why didn’t you want to tell me?" 

She sniffed and looked at her friend, “I didn’t want you to think I was being crazy, I didn’t want you to think it was just the taint getting to my head and making me paranoid.” 

Duncan thought for a moment, “But your other visions you talked about, those have all come true?” 

Kim nodded.

"Well, then that’s proof enough. How about we make a deal. You tell me when you have a vision of something bad, and I’ll do my best to avoid it. Okay?" Duncan stood up and started to undo the straps on Kim’s jetpack. "You wanted us to switch, right?" He smiled.