Isabelle's Point of View

A sudden glimpse of orange fur as I stepped out into the break between two houses sent me leaping back behind the wall and out of sight again. Someone was there. Why was someone there? I thought the streets were meant to be empty around this time. For a beat, I lingered behind the wall where I had surrendered to a hiding place from the new and unexpected animal, processing what I had noticed and unsure whether to approach or just keep moving, before I let my curiosity get the best of me and peered around the corner. There was an animal off to the side of the road, standing between the two houses. One of the first things that I was able to catch sight of was that he hadn't realized my presence yet, since his back was to me as he arranged the display on a cart that hadn't been there before. He was an animal that I had never once crossed paths with until now—One with a dark blue apron tied around his waist, vivid orange fur, a fluffy tail and pointed ears. A kitsune. But what was he doing there?

The alarms of suspicion were already flashing through my mind at such an odd sight, but I had to know more. I emerged from my hiding place at last, drifting closer to the kitsune at work and trying to peer around him to see the display he was organizing. From where I stood, I was able to spy a variety of paintings and sculptures set up along the cart, but I wasn't yet at a decent angle to observe them thoroughly. The knowledge of how to successfully sustain a conversation was still something I lacked to this present moment, but as I was already a few yards behind the kitsune and would bring attention to myself if I tried to escape, I saw no other option but to speak.

"Hello," I said hesitantly, skeptical of the fact that making conversation was the best thing to do.

Expectedly, the kitsune seemed to hear my voice as soon as I spoke, promptly turning around to face and address me and revealing the large logo of a ginkgo leaf on his apron. The moment he laid eyes on me, a mischievous smirk grew on his face at the sight of me.

"Oh, hello there!" he greeted me enthusiastically. "You scared me a little, popping out of nowhere like that. Where did you come from?"

"Oh, um..." I stammered through an answer, struggling to grasp the best words to respond with.

Based on the smile on his face and the lighthearted tone he spoke with, I could tell that explaining I had been spying on him was only going to provoke a reason to tease me. Plus, discomfort was already sending painful jabs to my stomach at the way I was being treated by a complete stranger. The way he was looking at me with his first glance was not the most settling.

"Nearby," I decided eventually. "I'm sorry that I scared you."

"Nah, don't worry about that," the kitsune assured me dismissively before allowing another teasing grin slip into sight and shifting the subject. "Can I interest you in any of my sales? Do my low, low prices for priceless one-of-a-kind artwork intrigue you? We've got a special deal on them just for today. What do you think?"

I wasn't carrying any Bells on me to be able to accept this offer in the first place, but I still took a moment to glance past the kitsune at the cart before I could jump into an answer. As I was a bit closer now, I was able to observe a display of paintings and sculptures set up across the surface of the cart, some of which I was not familiar with but some that sparked a flicker of remembrance in my immediate thoughts. A few of the paintings I could examine behind the kitsune were, in fact, very commonly known even by first glance, and although I could not recall the titles right at the moment, it was clear that they were among the most valuable pieces of art in my knowledge.

~

CURRENT RANKINGS

(subject to frequent or infrequent change)

VIP STATUS

1. MARIO 2. LUIGI

3. PEACH 4. DAISY

PRIMARY STATUS

5. BOWSER 6. ISABELLE

7. ROSALINA 8. DONKEY KONG

9. INKLING 10. SORA

As per usual, I pushed my way through the double doors into Resident Services barely a hint after eight thirty. The usual sunlight was absent from the surfaces as today was a cloudy day instead. Tom appeared to have just arrived recently as well, delicately setting his computer down at his desk across from mine and raising his head as I strode into the room with my knit bag bouncing from my hip at every brisk step.

"Oh, good morning, Isabelle," Tom greeted me.

I opened my mouth and drew in a breath to prepare to speak but jolted to a stop in the middle of the orange-tiled floor. A peculiar sensation had just sharply descended onto me and snatched my words before I could have even put them forward. It was like I had just unknowingly stepped through a threshold into an unfamiliar, bizarre pocket dimension where the air threatened to buzz against my fur. My stomach had lurched like I had just witnessed something heart-wrenching and my entire body had been overrun by a tingly uncertainty. It was as if I suddenly hadn't the faintest clue where I even was, who everyone around me was, nothing.

"Isabelle?" Tom prompted, jerking me back into reality and reminding me that I was just getting too far in my head for some reason. "Are you all right?"

"Oh. Yes, sorry," I told him, uneasily fidgeting with the knit strap hanging from my shoulder. "I just got a really bad vibe for some reason."

"A bad vibe?" Tom echoed blankly, withdrawing his paw from his laptop computer again as he fully faced me. Evidently, that was conversation-worthy. "How so?"

"I don't know," I confessed. After all, I had no idea where it had come from in the first place. I had no idea whether it had even been real. I tended to have occasional bouts of anxiety due to the trauma that lay in my past, so maybe it was just that. Maybe.

"Is it something I've done?" Tom asked. The concern shimmered in his deep blue eyes.

"No, not at all," I assured him, restlessly adjusting the strap of my bag again and starting off once more towards my seat. "I think it's something in the atmosphere."

"In the atmosphere?" Tom repeated as I weaved past the hinged flap at the end of the counter near my desk.

"I don't really know," I admitted again, dropping the flap and cautiously sinking into my swivel chair at my seat. I needed to begin morning announcements, but I was also drawn to consider what in the world had just happened when I walked into the room. "Just a feeling."

It was like my normal morning routine had been wiped clean from my memory as well. I sat for several minutes in my office chair, sluggishly trying to remember just what I had to do and noticing every anxious glance towards me from Tom across the way at his computer. Eventually, I finally got myself up to retrieve and set up the camera, but a lingering problem remained—Most days, I at least gathered a hint of what I planned to say to fill the space before the camera went up, but my mind was still empty. I positioned and arranged the camera at my desk to begin announcements with a heavy desolation hanging over the room that I couldn't help but fall surrender to, launched the recording and waited for the blinking red light to let me know that I was live, and plopped back down into my seat. Soon, perhaps the entire island was about to be watching me, and it was my responsibility to deliver their news.

But the words didn't arrive. Not a sound leapt from my tongue as I stared into the round lens of the camera in front of me, watching the room distort in the dark surface. The pressure to speak didn't exactly sink in, either. It was as if I was stuck in the moment, gazing into the invisible faces that were collecting to listen, and there were no words needing to be spoken. Only several seconds later, as the faint creak in Tom's chair implied him shifting to glance past his camera at me to check what was bringing about my silence, did I realize that I needed to say something, no matter what. I had to begin with my introduction and maybe the words would come rolling out.

"Oh, um..." I stammered hesitantly. Another creak in Tom's chair told me that he had returned to his casual seat. The red light on the side of the camera continued to flicker at me with every creeping second. "It's about nine o'clock on Friday, October twenty-ninth."

A swelling sensation prickled in the back of my mind. It was the oddly self-aware, self-conscious feeling of being actively watched behind my back. Well, obviously I was being watched on the other side of a screen, but it wasn't like that. It was like someone concealed from my vision had set their eyes on me, monitoring my every move and observing the likeness of my presence where I couldn't find them. I snuck a glance past the camera to discover that it wasn't Tom watching me again as he had returned his focus to the glowing screen of his computer. Something wasn't right and I didn't have the slightest clue what.

"Um..." I mumbled.

I didn't have any announcements. A morning that brought no news to the table was common and I usually understood how to handle it. What did I usually say instead? What was relevant in my current life that I could have used to occupy the space?

"I don't have many big announcements to share today, but I have noticed some changes in the weather," I spoke up at last, grasping ahold of my verbal control. "With autumn in full swing, temperatures are dropping and the air is becoming quite brisk. Make sure to bundle up nicely. Make sure to keep yourselves warm, and... And make sure to take good care of yourselves."

After blurting out the last segment, it occurred to me that I didn't know where it had come from. I hadn't meant to say it. I hadn't had any previous intentions to share something like that. Once I had started talking, it had just sort of tumbled out. Like I was in danger. Like we were in danger. I shut my mouth as my paw shot over to the camera again, shutting off the recording and pulling myself out of the public eye. Suddenly freed from the witness of the islanders, I settled back down in my seat, setting my elbows on the desk in front of me and running my paws firmly across my face. More and more, the theory that I had stumbled into a completely different and bizarre world seemed all the more plausible.

"Is everything all right?" Tom asked from behind his computer.

"Yeah, it's fine," I mumbled, dropping my paws again. I noticed his blue eyes peering at me past his screen. "I don't really know why I felt compelled to say that. I just felt like it needed to be out there."

I hadn't remembered just how brisk the late-October air was today until the office doors kept swinging open with the occasional resident visit. A visit wasn't uncommon, of course, in fact sometimes there were several in a single day. For environmental questions and concerns, a stool was positioned on the other side of the counter next to Tom's desk, and for the same in regards to the social community, one next to mine. Every time the doors flung open at the entry of a visitor, being an animal or human that lived somewhere on the island, a surge of chilly air swept into the room and sent a shiver down my spine.

I set my focus to my work throughout the crawling morning, but it didn't help. I signed paperwork, scanned documents, and more, but my mind wandered the entire time. Not only was the temperature in the room slipping further and further down due to the rushes of cool air coming in from outside, but I was constantly straining myself from stumbling over the edge into an anxiety attack. My chest throbbed like sandpaper rubbing together. My stomach squeezed and released with clenching waves of stress. I repeatedly found myself rushing through my work as if there was a prompt deadline sneaking up on me that I couldn't afford to miss. I kept myself steady, but I wasn't completely sure that I would have been able to pull myself through without an attack. As nine o'clock rotated into ten and then eleven, a single question beat down on me as frequently as a little blink.

Why? Why was this happening to me? Sure, I had my rounds of anxiety from time to time—Everyone did—But not like this. This was different. This was the closest I had leaned into a full-blown attack for years. They were more expected during the most heavily traumatic periods of my life, as with Redd or Ganondorf, but I had no reason for an attack in this day and age.

Maybe I just needed a good, healthy lunch. Maybe I was lacking important nutrients today that would have otherwise helped me remain a bit more mentally stable. Yes, that sounded about right. The bells in my ponytail rattled as I raised my head to look up towards the clock hung from the wall, setting down the stack of documents I had been skimming through. It was nearly ten past eleven. It was a bit early for lunch, but at the very least, it was more in the lunch range than breakfast.

"Would it be okay if I take my lunch break early?" I inquired, glancing over at Tom across from me. I watched his paw grip the top of his computer screen to lower it and listen as I spoke. "I think I'm a bit hungry."

"Of course, go right ahead," Tom said politely with a slow nod of his head. His paw still rested atop the screen of his computer, waiting to return to his work. "Whatever feels right."

"Thank you," I replied, bending down to reach into my knit bag at my feet. I pried past the button, fishing out my bento lunchbox in the bottom. "I think I'm going to eat outside. I should get some fresh air."

"I hope the weather is nice," Tom remarked, watching as I climbed to my feet with my lunchbox.

"It's a bit chilly," I admitted. "But I don't mind it."

"That's good," Tom replied, raising his computer screen again and shifting his focus back to his work. Sensing that the conversation had ended, I carried my lunchbox by the handle and ducked through the hinged flap in the counter to reach the doors. It was just as I was hustling to cross the orange tile that Tom spoke up again, bringing me to a stop to face him and listen. "I hope you don't get too cold."

"Thank you," I said. "If it's too cold, I'll come back inside."

The yellow leaves of mid-autumn fluttered on their trees circling the building under the passing breeze, just as biting as it was before. Even for October, that was a bit strange. I plopped down into a seat on the rising steps, perching my lunchbox on my lap and unzipping it to begin my lunch. I flipped open the bento box, finding the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, small bin of baby carrots, and a brownie square waiting for me. I started with the sandwich, raising it between both of my paws and sinking my teeth into it as another soft breeze swept across the area.

The tranquility of the outdoors contrasted greatly from the air congested with stress. I allowed the brisk air to deeply fill my lungs as I chewed my way through my sandwich and silently appreciated the taste. With the rapid pace of life's demand, something like a fond taste was easily overlooked. As I worked through my lunch, I looked around at the world, observing every flutter of a leaf and the swish of a blade of grass. Even my nerves were evening out again. With fresh air and a good lunch, I was going to be okay.

I finished my sandwich and crunched down onto my first baby carrot. I registered a voice somewhere in the distance, close enough to be heard but far enough to fail to distinguish the words, but I hardly spent a thought on it as it continued to converse. The heavy crunch of the carrot was the only sensation to overtake my ears as I finished the first, gulping it down before my eyes snapped up from my meal to wander curiously. The voice wasn't just talking. It was arguing, overlapping a couple of other consoling voices. As I looked up, a trio of rabbits had emerged out onto the plaza, two of them staggering to hold back another that was desperately and seemingly frustratedly stomping towards the doors of the offices.

"No, I'm gonna say something," the aggravated rabbit, one of white fur and the occasional black spot, snapped as he thrust his paws into his friends to push them back. "This is ridiculous."

Uh oh. As someone responsible for the social affairs of the island, I had to divert the fight. I rushed to zip up my lunchbox again and clambered to my feet as one of the friends, a dark brown rabbit, answered.

"No, you can't, it's not their fault," the second rabbit insisted. "They probably don't know anything about it. Let's just deal with this calmly, okay?"

"Excuse me!" I blurted out to stop them. Not a single one of the rabbits turned their heads to look at me as if I thought I was speaking, but in reality, only I could hear it. "What's happening here?"

"I'm not going to deal with this calmly," the first rabbit retorted. At least he had stopped moving towards the building, but instead was just yelling in his friend's face. "Do you even realize how much money I lost today? Someone needs to hear about it."

"Yeah, someone who's trained to help! Like the police!" The second rabbit protested. "You can't just barge in and demand someone help you."

"Excuse me, what's the problem here?" I repeated, but once again, I was ignored.

"Sometimes it's the only way to get help around here," the first rabbit grumbled. "How are more animals not talking about this? You'd think they wouldn't allow someone to scam someone like that. And what do I have to show for it? A stupid piece of art that's not even real?"

The shock hit me like a ton of bricks. Like I had just slammed face-first into a wall hard enough to smash the bones in my nose. No. It couldn't be that. My mouth hung open from my previous protests, ready for more, but every word in existence had just been wiped from my mind. The rabbits were still struggling in front of me. Arguing. I stood and could only stare. An outsider in a once familiar world, staring in where nobody could find me.

He uses kindness and charisma to cover up his suspicious tracks and manipulates others into thinking he's trustworthy, which provides him the opportunity to present the art he sells. That's his corrupt technique, to gain as much fortune as he possibly can selling art for inflated prices, and sometimes it isn't even real.

I blinked, sinking back into my surroundings of Resident Services' interior. I wasn't sure when I had come back inside or when I had made the decision to. My silent shuffle into the room and the doors falling shut behind me implied some time recently. Tom was still seated at his desk. His computer was propped open and his eyes were fixed upon me, shimmering with surprise and concern.

"What's the matter?" He asked as I drifted numbly back across the room. "Is everything all right?"

"I'm fine. It's nothing," I said. Each word was conscious as I remembered how to speak, ducking under the flap of the counter and settling back down into my seat with the handle of my lunchbox still in paw. "It was just some trouble outside."

"Some trouble?" Tom echoed, hastily shutting his laptop and leaping to his feet. "What's going on?"

"No, it's fine," I said. While my mind focused on words, my paws absentmindedly unzipped my bag again to keep eating. "I handled it."

"You handled it?" Tom echoed again, slowly easing back down into his seat as he watched me. "What happened?"

"It was like a fight or something," I mumbled blankly. My lunch bag lay open in front of me on the desk, showing off my brownie and baby carrot bin. "I don't really know... I don't know."

"A fight? Are you all right?" Tom asked. He set his paw over the edge of his laptop, waiting for the right moment to open it again, but still attentively awaited my answer.

I didn't know what he was asking for. Was I emotionally okay? I wasn't sure. I wasn't losing it. I wasn't overwhelmed. It was just that I was slowly teaching myself how to speak my native tongue again, I was trapped in a conscious and involuntary daze, and memories of someone whom I thought I had left behind years ago, that I assumed had been locked away in the depths of my mind, refused to budge from my mind. Was I physically okay?

"Mm-hmm," I muttered, picking up another baby carrot from the bin and lifting it to take a bite.

The house was cloaked in shadows when I pulled myself through the door after unlocking it and letting myself in. I tossed my belongings down onto the counter next to the door, first my keys and then my bag, and tugged the door shut after me. After the day I'd had, finally arriving at home for the night was a breath of relief. I pushed out a sigh, setting my back against the door as I ran my paws over my face, pushing my bangs out of my eyes and holding them there.

As much of a scare as it was, the fight this morning had no certain implications of what unsettled me to consider. There were countless morally questionable animals in the world, scammers included. Just because there was one lurking around the island didn't mean that it was the one that had screwed up the mental stability of my teenage years. That being acknowledged, being that there was an untrustworthy animal sneaking around the island at all, that was something that I still had to deal with. It was better than what I thought, but still not good.

I removed myself from the door, twisting the lock and carrying myself to the kitchen for a drink. I usually excused myself a drink about once a week to keep from slipping back into dead habits, but I decided it acceptable to bend the rules tonight. I poured myself a short glass of whiskey with ice, didn't bother watering it down as the intense bitterness was half the enjoyment, and listened to the ice clinking against the glass as I brought it to the living room. My bare feet dragged across the carpet before I dropped down into the large cushions of the white couch, holding my glass in one paw with no surface to set it down and grappling the television remote with the other.

Amidst the dimness of the room and the glow of both the television and the white lights behind it that sliced into it, I slouched into the couch and clicked through the channels. I flicked through a cooking show, a comedy where nothing seemed to be happening at all, a well-known series within a dramatic, heated conversation, a film of a concert, a sci-fi movie, a representation of a modeling show, and more. After an idling dissatisfaction with the options I was passing through, I gave up and let it sit on a nature documentary.

I tipped my head back with a lengthy sip of my drink, my throat nearly physically shuddering at the bitter taste, and rested my head against the back of the couch. I set the bottom of the glass against my knee, staring up at the white ceiling above me. The narrator drawled on in a calm, gentle tone as the rotating glows from the screen flickered through the shadows of the room. I almost felt the sounds of the speakers vibrating through my body, that as well as the thumping palpitations of my heart from the alcohol and the stirring desolation that I had assumed said alcohol was supposed to fix, considering I only had a few gulps left of my first glass.

It was just as the chilled liquid touched my tongue again did the rhythmic buzzing of my phone next to my leg tell me that someone was calling me. I swallowed the sip and glanced down at my phone, discovering that the caller, by the picture and the contact, was none else than my own mother. I left my phone on the couch to ease myself up from my seat, climbing the short set of stairs back up into the main entry to grab my computer from my bag to instead accept as a video call. I slipped my laptop computer from its knit home, descended the steps and sank back down into my cushion, switched off the television, and cracked open the laptop.

When I clicked to answer the call, my mother's face materialized on the screen as she squinted towards her own screen as if trying to figure out how the call functioned. While I usually recognized the pale walls of the dining room behind her, she was somewhere different this time. I first noticed a glowing lamp on a nightstand in the background before I realized she was in her bedroom at her desk. She must have set up a computer there.

"Ah, there you are." Mom leaned back to a normal distance again to face me through the screen. "Oh, honey, it's so dark over there. Are you sitting in the dark?"

"Only because it's nighttime," I admitted. As soon as I spoke, I was already awaiting the comment of how the action was unhealthy for my eyes.

"That's bad for your eyes, you know," Mom told me. I almost laughed at how predictable she was. "You don't want to strain them."

Mom waved away the conversation, seeming to have given all the warnings she needed, and a smile spread across her face as she began the proper greetings.

"Anyway, I didn't call to lecture you," she said. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. Your birthday's coming up, in case you didn't remember. Two more months."

"Of course I remember my birthday," I pointed out, raising my glass to take a long sip before it struck me what I had done.

"Well, I figured that, but it's just so weird to think you're already going to be twenty-six years old," Mom explained. "How the time flies, right? What'cha drinking there?"

"Uh... Iced tea," I lied, gazing down into the last few sips of my glass of whiskey for a few seconds before I carefully lowered it down onto the carpeted floor to keep it from sneaking into frame again.

"Hopefully decaffeinated," Mom remarked as I straightened up again. "Oh, you know, I swear I had something to tell you. I can't believe it's slipping my mind. I'm sorry. I'll think of it. I'm just tired. Well, never mind that. What's been going on in your life over there? What have I missed?"

"Not much, to be honest," I replied. "I told you about that promotion in Smash Ultimate. Other than that, there's really nothing to report."

"That's unfortunate, sweetheart," Mom murmured. "You need more excitement in your life."

"I value peace more than I do excitement," I reminded her. "What about you? What's going on with you and Dad and Digby?"

"Still not much either, but we try," Mom said, a faint sigh slipping from her at the statement. "Digby has been spending so much time at work because of this new project that they're doing. Something about paradise. I don't really know if I'm allowed to tell you until when it's officially established. Right now, it's still in development, I believe. Other than that, your father and I have been attending various life seminars to pass the time."

"What's a life seminar?" I inquired.

"I don't think that's actually what it's called," Mom told me. A knock sounded from her closed bedroom door. Her floppy ears swung at the sides of her head as she swiveled around to look at the door, but she turned her focus back to me without any mention towards it. It was probably just Dad trying to go to bed, which I supposed I couldn't blame him for. "That's just what I call it. It's where we all gather around and talk about the biggest questions of life. It started out as just a way to spend the day, but it's so interesting. Really. If you have any going on over there on your island, you should try it. It's also nice to not be the oldest animals in the room somewhere."

"Mom, you're not old," I reminded her.

"Yes, I am, Isabelle. I'm almost fifty," Mom argued. "I won't get into that, though. It isn't the point."

"Okay," I agreed. "What sort of things do you talk about?"

"Well, you know, last week we were there and we were talking about the things in life that have value," Mom described. "There's some things that have personal value, financial value, emotional value, and more. We got really hooked into this discussion. It was the question of if something has value, no matter what kind of value or how much of it, can it be defined as art?"

He uses kindness and charisma to cover up his suspicious tracks and manipulates others into thinking he's trustworthy, which provides him the opportunity to present the art he sells. That's his corrupt technique, to gain as much fortune as he possibly can selling art for inflated prices, and sometimes it isn't even real.

By the single word, my eyes had been flung open to the truth, the memory of the fight that had unraveled at work hours earlier. I had dismissed it as nothing to worry about, but what if it was? What if these were the signs of the return of the one animal who could make me lose my stable grasp of control on my own life, warnings from the universe to protect myself? What if he was on his way right now, voyaging the violent seas in his boat of lies and deception? What if he was already here? Finding me at work might have been the easy part, but could he have hunted me down all the way to my house and home? Could he figure out where I lived and slept? What if he already knew? Was that why the signs were clawing their way into my life, the final countdown before the inevitable attack?

And then I knew. I wasn't even safe from him in my own home.

"Isabelle?" Mom prompted. "Are you all right? Your eyes—"

I didn't get to hear the rest of her sentence as I slammed my computer shut again, cutting off the video call in a single second. If he already knew where I lived, then there was only a matter of time that he came searching for me. I couldn't let that happen. I had Tom as a backup at work, but here, I was completely alone. I couldn't let him find me. And I knew what I had to do.

I scrambled up from the couch, hearing my computer tumble carelessly onto the carpet. My heart hammered at a million miles an hour. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. I was in my bedroom, knees pressed into the floor to yank open the bottom drawer of my desk. A thick stack of paper was there waiting for me. Exactly what I needed. I snagged at least ten, maybe fifteen. Leaped to my feet and slammed them across the desk. A blue pen flew across the paper, speedily scribbling the same message across the sheets. Get out. Get out. Get out. My chest squeezed in an iron grip. No air. Couldn't breathe.

Tape was an ally, plastering a written sign against every door in the house that I could locate, including the front door leading into the house. That one was most important in case he came to the door. It wasn't enough. I was in the living room, my bare feet against the carpet once again as my head jerked this way and that to find the best means of protection. The window. There was a massive window at the far left of the living room, reaching far higher up than my arm could and leaking midnight's shadows into the room. I was at the window in a second flat. I was slapping pieces of paper across the glass, building up a cover against every square inch. Strips of tape joined the sheets together to conceal me, one after the other after the other. When there was no more paper in my paws, my concealment was complete, blocking sight into the room as far up as I could reach. Blocking sight from me.

The black night sky peered behind the white layer of paper shielding me from the outside world. There were stars—Some—But they were sinking behind layers of coiling gray clouds. Sinking out of sight. And amidst them, a flicker of light, a hint of a shimmer, as a shooting star flung across the dark dome.

. . .

The white ceiling of my bedroom flashed above me as a vigorous jolt wrenched me from sleep. A strangled gasp escaped from me as my paws squeezed the blankets, clinging to anything that could keep me grounded. My eyes snapped open, thrusting me back into consciousness before I lay awake.

I was safe. I was at home. I was in my bed. I laid my paws across my eyes, blocking out the fragile morning sun as my heart pounded so rapidly it was as if it were running a marathon. The nightmare that had ripped me from sleep was already deteriorating in my memory, slipping through my paws like sand. A ceaseless experience of running and hiding myself. The draining process of reaching one door to the next in a building unknown to me in search of one that would open for me. The increasingly rising panic in the sensation of being hunted and chased down. An all-too familiar bright-orange face that hadn't haunted my nightmares for years. Until this week.

The light bathing my bedroom told me that it was just about time for my alarm to start ringing. I rolled over in the bed, leaning awkwardly on my shoulder to glance over at my alarm clock on the side table. It was just two minutes to six, two minutes before I would have usually tugged myself out of bed. I flopped back down onto my bed, forcing out a deep sigh and turning my eyes up to the white ceiling above me as I sprawled out under the blankets. At least, now that I had awoken early, I wouldn't have any trouble getting up once my alarm went off. What day was it, anyway? Wednesday? Thursday? Thursday. The fourth of November, in fact. The final month of autumn before the days descend into the bitter cold.

When my alarm began to chime, I shut it off with a careless slap of my paw to the button on top and dragged myself out of bed. I dressed, slipped on my brown flats, and prepared myself a lunch in my kitchen. I brought a short breakfast of buttered toast into the living room to enjoy, my eyes catching on the written signs pasted to every door and the sheets of paper bordering the window as they did every morning before I seated myself. Every time, the sight overshadowed me with a wash of despondency, a melancholic feeling of knowing that life wasn't exactly ideal right now. I worked through and finished my breakfast, packed up my lunch into my knit bag, splashed some water into the soil of my plants, and set off for the airport.

Despite the sunlight seeping into the room when I first woke up, it was cloudy now. Bright white clouds stretched and puffed out across the sky, sending biting breezes across the land that smelled purely of autumn. My bag bounced against my hip with every brisk step that brought my shoes tapping against the sidewalk. The leaves in the trees surrounding the path flickered and fiddled as if waving hello, though I was the only one that walked along. As I shuffled across the path, I considered my upcoming morning at Smash. I recalled the harsh lights and the white walls leading every which way. I thought about the faces I would see once I arrived. I wondered what sort of work I would have been doing today. And then, about ten minutes into my journey, I saw it.

My eyes had been straying across the trees, the far reach of the branches towards each other and the thick coat of leaves they held before I noticed it. In a glimpse between an opening in the leaves, the air was not quite the color it should have been. Somewhere behind the trees, somewhere in the small beach area behind it at the edge of the island, smoke was rising and sifting into the air. I jolted to a halt and jerked my head back, prying my eyes for the opening to return to what I had seen, and caught another glance of the climbing smoke. It clearly wasn't animal or human made, given that any commotion I would have picked up on by the sound or the movement.

Fire.

My stomach sharply hollowed out. I clutched my bag with one paw to hold it still as I leaped forward to emerge into the cluster of trees. I ducked and weaved past the branches, wrestling through the trees and ignoring the nicks of branch ends jabbing into my arms. I broke out of the lining of trees at last, my feet staggering out onto the sand as I began to scour the slim area for what had caught on fire, but the sight waiting for me instantly curbed my hasty movement. The smoke wasn't rising from a fire at all. It was from the pipes of a small boat.

The boat docked against the edge of the sand was something incredibly worn down, considerably shabby. It was a bluish green in color, if ignoring the brown rust spreading in some places, and spurted up gray smoke that poisoned the white-cloud sky. A worn dark wood door led to what was evidently the entrance to the boat and all of the eerie mysteries it contained. At the very top, a square-shaped flag rippled in the soft breeze, one of the distinct logo of a green ginkgo leaf. I had seen that logo before.

Expectedly, the kitsune seemed to hear my voice as soon as I spoke, promptly turning around to face and address me and revealing the large logo of a ginkgo leaf on his apron. The moment he laid eyes on me, a mischievous smirk grew on his face at the sight of me.

It only took a single glance at the flag alone to realize the truth.

Redd was back.