Veronica

I never wanted to leave you behind.

If only it hadn't taken them so long to get there.

Sitting atop @clive.sunder.my's shell in the recess of a cave, her hands on her thighs. The roar of the wind outside was the only noise she could hear, echoing throughout the space endlessly.

It'd been a long few months. This world was greener than her own, but still so foreign.

arms over her torso.

A theoretical structure? What was he talking about?

Veronica looked at the computer before her but couldn't make heads or tails of some of the data. The measurements used were baffling.

"...yeah, alright. Let's go through. It can't be worse than home, right?" she forced a laugh, then folded her

"What'd it see?"

the road.

Someone else may have seen it and might be coming out toward it, although she didn't know who it might be. Any signs of human life in the area was long covered with weeds or thin rods of dying grass, and even as she thought it she glanced to the side and saw a long-rusted car chassis on the side of

Approximately 30 feet wide and 30 feet tall, it was just large enough for Clive to fit through if he lowered his tail, which made her wary about why it was here. Had someone created this portal to lead them somewhere, knowing only Clive could have detected it?

No. That was a dangerous assumption.

moving, although she couldn't hear that as much as she could see the legs moving and the sound, so often heard, repeated in her head.

"That's the portal?"

Her voice was rough and she leaned forward, a hand raising to rub the grogginess out of them.

A swirling vortex of light shimmered in the air.

2 days of travel had them arriving in Nebraska. A land of small rolling hills, mostly desolate landscape, with vegetation gathered in small ditches, the life reaching up toward the sky for a last desperate grasp of sunlight.

The only sound was the wind and the mechanical whir of Clive's legs

"What's wrong, Clive?" she noted that they'd stopped moving and brushed some hair out of her face, groggily pushing herself so she sat upright in the chair.

I have to do this.

Until they weren't.

"She'll be better off here," she reminded herself, the words repeated so oft that she barely registered they'd been whispered at all. "She doesn't have Actium and these people can protect her.

And I have to do this."

A mantra that had become a daily event. A morning ritual.

she asked him to?

The next week was filled with her tearing her heart in half. Every step, every mechanical whir of his feet, felt like a hook connected to half her heart was being pulled out of her chest, one half named Veronica and the other named Clarice.

They were inseparable.

stopping. She hadn't listened. His upgrades made him better, made him a more powerful protector for her, his subject, but...

what about her? Had she gotten better? Over the months since they'd found and joined Haven Lake, what had she accomplished that wasn't just Clive blowing something up because

soon after, the only tie that she'd think to follow in order to ask the space man.

So instead, they left. Veronica watched as Clarice hugged Claire, then turned around and climbed into the SKRPN shell and they headed off, heading due East.

He'd rambled on about how far he could travel without

something new, something better would appear.

But that wouldn't happen if they didn't close the portal.

She'd meant to ask the space man if he knew how to close portals, but he left, vanishing overnight with his daughter and by the time she went to ask, he was nowhere to be found. Lorelei left

do back home.

Like die. Die in a pointless, bloody battle to close a portal, not to save humanity. Humanity was gone. With her death, the last remnant of humanity on that Earth would be a chapter closed, but maybe something else could spring up one day. From the ashes of their broken world, maybe

It made sense, at the time.

Clarice had a new family. A family that knew how to take care of each other. A brother, a mother. Titles that she never would've had back home.

This wasn't their world. It wasn't their turf, not their fight. They were outside of the natural order, and there was more to

She let out a shaky breath, then did as Eddie instructed.

"I feel... incredible, honestly. I- I didn't know that that had to happen. I'm sorry I scared you."

At least, she assumed she did. "...ready to go back to the harvest?"

equally imposing.

It was as if nothing had happened, although there were no Christmas lights coming from her back anymore.

Veronica woke with a start and then stood up and shuddered, pressing her hands to her face. She got onto her feet and stretched, feeling as if she'd gotten a full night's rest and the best sleep in the world.

"Wow. I- Eddie?" she stepped beside Eddie, then mimicked her pose, trying to look

It's something tangible that will help her feel grounded, so she's quick to accept and climb onto Eddie, wrapping her arms around her and her legs around her waist.

"I hope I don't explode," she whispered. "I don't think I will."

felt like it was fogging over.

“N... Yes. Yeah. I'll-”

Veronica cleared her throat, then pulled the shirt down and looked back at Eddie, her eyes wide with fear. Her hands folded tightly over her chest and her knees were bent inward, a tremble running through her body.

She was terrified and had no idea what to do. Her brain

She stopped walking, then turned toward Eddie, then thought of it and turned back around and hiked her shirt up the back to show the spine.

“It's glowing?! What colors??”

Tirum? He's from space.

Veronica turned but didn't stop walking, confusion clear in her purple eyes.

“What's a Christmas tree?”

alternating red and blue LEDs—and that was certainly *not* happening last they spoke.