FLARE

Phone, away. Pocket is a good place.

He – Spike – he is not so far, not so close. Not that way, exactly; there. Where he would have been, will be. Right and right and up, and go up up up, far. Not so far, but far.

He is very cold and very firm. He is also invisible, right now, but that does not affect the coldness or firmness. Cold is not so good but not so bad either. Firm is very very bad. She does not like firm.

Others, Kiki, Gaunt, are very very far. Not how far to walk but in her mind they are very far and she will not go see them for a while. Also, Spike is already there, so Spike first.

Also there is water and also food. These are important but also all over the place. So she would need one water one food for sunset and also more progress to Spike. Luckily, there is easy water and food very close to path so she can just take it while following current plan.

Sometimes Lyre wonders about what is very very very far too far so she can’t see. Far so everything is invisible. Because it is invisible she does not worry about it because she cannot do much if she cannot see it, but she knows she keeps doing things so she gets to a certain place and she thinks it would be nice to know what that place is.

First go to Spike and then there is a giant wall and she is on the other side with Spike or someone else gets through or something of the sort and then all four are there. Kiki Gaunt Spike Lyre. And then after that is all invisible but she is very interested in seeing what happens, very excited to meet Kiki Gaunt Spike because they all seem good even though they are sort of invisible.

Also things also go in the other direction but not for Lyre. She knows there are things in the other direction, the other way where instead of getting closer and closer she was already there once but will never go there again. Actually she knows that everyone is able to see backwards in the other direction and then because they can see backwards and also because they know where they are right then immediately they can sort of guess where they are supposed to go forwards even if they can’t see that way.

But she has a lot of trouble with those and she doesn’t know why because if the reason why is forwards it is very very very far away. Having trouble knowing where she is is okay. It is very inconvenient sometimes but also because she can see forward usually she can make herself go somewhere that is okay and she can just stay there. But she does not like being blind backwards at all. Seeing forwards is very much not helpful for knowing what is behind her.

Which is very confusing to her and it’s also frustrating sometimes because maybe the answer is behind her and she couldn’t know. Lyre thinks that maybe she used to not be able to see forward because if she did then she would probably have seen forward when she was behind where she is and then she would be able to see those places behind her now. And if she couldn’t see forward then probably she could have seen backwards like normal. So something happened and now the behind is all blank.

And this is one of the reasons why she wishes she could see very very very far away because then maybe she would see herself seeing the behind again and that would make her very happy if she knew. But also she is okay with what she sees now. She is pretty sure she is walking in a good direction and even if she doesn’t see that far off she thinks she will be closer to a good place when she meets Kiki Gaunt Spike. Kiki Gaunt Spike Lyre.

So first she will go to Spike. And also the food and also water of course but because those are everywhere she will have no problem with it no matter where she goes. So of course she needs her path, her plan. If Spike will be right and right and up and up and up then how can I get as close to Spike as I can?

Luckily as far as she can see is very very flat and straight and easy to walk. And Lyre is good at walking when it is easy to walk so maybe Spike is not so far, maybe only a few days far. Also luckily everything is empty which means either it is boring or maybe things are invisible but Lyre doesn’t think a whole lot will be invisible right now. Boring is good because it means her plan is easier.

There is only one part of her plan which is hard but she knows even though it is hard her plans are good so it is best to follow the plan. She thought about other plans but all of them were slow and she didn’t like them. But for this plan she would need extra detours. She thought about the detours and they were okay because even with detours she would still be mostly fast so the plan was good.

Now she had a good plan so she had to think about the one water one food. Where will I get one water one food in my plan? Just as she thought it was very easy though so basically her plan was the same which was good. Lyre liked it best when her plan was the same.

Now that she was happy with her plan she started walking on her path. Like she imagined it was very boring for a while which she was okay with because she didn’t mind boring. There were nice parts if you weren’t bored easily. She liked the soft green grass and how it brushed her calves when she was walking in it and she liked the slightly cool wind that breezed through as she strode. It was very pretty and very nice.

So she kept walking and then she found her first detour for the bad part of her plan. A mud-speckled pistol was lying in the grass. It wouldn’t be super helpful on its own but also there were two other guns and Lyre knew that. She pulled the pistol off the belt it was attached to, which took a bit of pulling until she tried undoing the strap. Then after she was done that she rolled the body over to get the other two guns underneath. These ones were bigger and maybe had a little more powder which would be enough. She knew it was enough. Also she got a metal container from the bag and then she left.

She had a little bit of trouble holding all the guns because they were heavy but they were not super heavy so she would be okay. Then she went on her path again and it was not to Spike but right to her detour. This one was a little more difficult so she was alright that it was taking more time. Then it was some more time and she got there and it was very hot and the air was very thick. She did not like it here very much but the plan said it was okay. She didn’t have to pick up the rocks and look because she already knew which ones were good for her and she got them in not a lot of time at all.

Now everything was very heavy for her and so she sat down and started making her thing for her plan. Lyre put all the things on the ground and put the container in front of her. First she took the guns apart and she put all the powder into the container. She had to make sure she didn’t spill any of it because that would be bad. She kept the powder in one of the guns, the little one. Then after she got some of the rock which was very tough because she had to scrape it into a powder with another rock and put that in the container too. And she didn’t want it to get too hot of course. Then she was done and her arms hurt so she closed the container and picked it up and it was not too heavy. The gun was also not too heavy. She held one in each hand and then it was time to go to the bad part of the plan.

When she got there it was full of grass again which she liked and there was a big old barn in the way. And she wasn’t walking in the grass anymore because it was too tall but on a dusty dry path, which made sense because it would be very slow to walk in the grass now. When Lyre got close she saw the cameras from all the drones around and she couldn’t let them see her but she knew how to not let them see her. She weaved through the grass around where all the drones were hidden, where someone who couldn’t see like her maybe wouldn’t have known about them, and slipped into the barn.

Here the barn was not good because the drones could see everywhere but it was okay and her plan was okay because of the detour. She couldn’t move from the edge of the barn door and she couldn’t see anything but she would know where to throw and where to shoot because she already checked with her plan. So she grabbed the container and threw it to the far end of the barn. Everything whirred and lasers trained on her which was very scary but then she shot the place where she threw and everything was very bright. Then all the lasers went away because nothing could see anything and even though she couldn’t see either she knew what the plan was so she walked and then felt the cool wind on her face again.

Then the bad part of the plan was over and everything was boring and good. She dropped the gun because she didn’t need it anymore. Then she walked some more and the tall tall grass went on for a bit until it shrank away to very small very dry bits on the ground. All of it looked the same but Lyre knew where to stop because of course she needed the one food one water and she knew where it was. So she stopped and started digging. It was hard to dig but also it wasn’t super deep so it was okay and then she found the bag. It was easy to open and it was full of lots of things like many food many water and other things too like guns and medicine and clothes. But she didn’t need any of that so she took one food one water and walked away.

And then everything was good because she had everything she needed and she was still walking to Spike. But then suddenly one of the invisible things in the plan appeared. Invisible things didn’t happen often but sometimes they did because Lyre would walk and kick little rocks or snap little twigs and then things would move in weird ways and she couldn’t see that at all and that’s what happened here.

She was walking and there was a big old brown snake in front of her and it was making a raspy rattling noise. And Lyre knew that this was not good because the snake was danger and because it was invisible it wasn’t in the plan and she didn’t really know what to do about it. She knew that because it was bad the best thing to do was try to get away from it, and also she knew her plan was to keep walking so that would be going away from things so maybe she would go away from it. And she didn’t like to ignore her plan because then she got confused. She didn’t know how to do things when she was confused. So she decided to stick to the plan because maybe it would keep working anyway.

But it didn’t because she actually got close to the snake, really close, and then it bit her anyway even though she was walking somewhere. Then the snake was gone and the danger was over but now there was a new danger because she was full of snake venom. But this was the kind of danger where she could think of a new plan so she was okay with stopping and thinking of a new plan. It didn’t take long because all she had to do was ask How can I fix the snake bite? And she knew where to go.

The place she had to go was actually the place she already was before where she got one food one water which was kind of annoying because if the snake wasn’t invisible then maybe she would’ve known to pick up the snake antivenom while she was already there. Or of course maybe she would have just avoided the snake. But anyway she had a new plan now and it was still good. She got there pretty quickly and she took the antivenom from the bag and injected it and then there was no danger. And she didn’t need anything from the bag so then she left again in the same direction.

Lyre made it back to where she was with the snake and originally in her old plan she would have gotten even farther than that but now it was dark and she had to sleep because sleep was important just like food and water. She also made it an okay distance so she was okay with that. So she sat down and then opened the water and drank a little bit of it, and then rinsed her hands so she could eat some of the food too.

Just as she started eating she remembered also about the phone in her pocket and the people talking on it. The phone was also important but not like food or water or sleep, it was important in a different way. And she knew this because it was the only way to talk to Kiki Gaunt Spike and of course Kiki Gaunt Spike were important because she was going to meet them. So then everything was done except phone and even though she didn’t really know what to do with the phone she opened it up to make sure everyone was doing okay.

She couldn’t wait to see Spike.