#ib 01

☆ — An elevator was something of DAILY use to most people. For others, the CRAMPED space was something of nightmares. Speckles doubted a day would ever come that she would be able to enter without the STRANGE feeling erupting in her stomach, without the urge to cry and kick and scream.

Now, the same feeling was there. Her throat felt like it was getting TIGHTER and TIGHTER, her lungs restricting and collapsing on themselves in a desperate attempt to pump oxygen through her bloodstream. Her hands knotted around the blanket in her lap, the DAUNTING doors only seeming BIGGER as the seconds passed. FEAR was branching from every limb, and she hadn’t even breached the doors.

"Oh? What a beautiful flower. Did an admirer give it to you, I wonder?”

A little girl...? Certainly, it’s a good thing that she’s alive in the midst of all the rubble and mess, but where are her parents, or even her caretakers if she’s without any? (...Are they dead, trapped somewhere beneath the ruins of a fallen structure? Or has she been brought here without them, as much a prey to human curiosity and cruelty as everyone else?)

A child...? What was she doing in the ruined remains of a sector destroyed by fire the previous night?

     Jessica was tired out. She couldn’t handle being in such a large crowd. She panted and fell to her knees in a park, hands curling up into fists. She tore up some grass, dirt getting under her nails and getting her hands all messy. She closed her eyes and took a moment to calm herself down, at least a bit.

     When she had finally gotten her breathing back to normal, she sat back and looked around herself. There weren’t many people around, but the ones that were, were casting her strange looks. She wanted to yell. She couldn’t help it--! Wouldn’t they have reacted the same way if they were shoved into a foreign new world.

     Jess sniffed and brought her dirtied hands to her face, tearing up. She bit her bottom lip, screwing her eyes shut. I can’t do it, she thought to herself. It was too much..! First demons and now this?! She hadn’t even been able to find anyone. She was alone again-- And it hadn’t even been 24 hours.

“I had this coming...”

Amidst the winter snow, everything seemed quiet and still. Right there, right then, the city seemed at peace. It was beautiful. It didn’t last.

There was, suddenly, a loud sound and a localised shower of snow. Something had landed in a snowdrift with little grace and less dignity.

    Sector six had, in a way, been his home for the longest time. Even when he first arrived, he’d been housed in its underbelly where the plants were carnivorous, heck, sometimes sentient. He was more than glad to move out of there, that was for sure, but sometimes the plants would find their way up, a few little snappers would find their way up to the surface through drainpipes or tunnels to the underground district. Dipper knew well which plants to avoid thanks to his friendship with the local flower shop’s owner (and admittedly some personal experience), but that didn’t always mean that everyone else did. That group happened to include a girl a few years younger than him, one who Dipper had narrowly tugged away from the toothy snap of a stalk of yellow petals.

     After a few hours of wandering around, James found himself in a rose garden. It was actually quite beautiful-- Someone was obviously taking great care of it. James had always loved the smell of roses. When he was small, his mother always wore a rose perfume. It brought him back to his days in Iowa, where he was a troublemaker with almost no worries in the world.

     The captain paused, eyes falling on a little girl that was sitting alone. He blinked and got down on one knee next to her, offering a hand.