"..."

"...Hello? Mr. Pig?"

"Give me a moment please, Grampy. I'm a bit busy right now."

"You're always busy, Mr. Pig. It's about time you swapped up your routine a bit! Life isn't just writing all your feelings away in a small little diary, you know?"

...

"I know, Grampy. Let me just finish this entry. What do you want to do with me anyway?"

"Just chat! I've found a flask of tea earlier, so we can have talk over a hot drink! Well, it's actually not all that hot, but you get what I mean."

Sure do, Grampy. Sure do...

With the last words of my current entry being written down, I clicked the ballpoint pen shut, setting it down on the splintery table. Then I backtracked myself out the shadowy room, back into the main garage area. Rather empty in certain places, but also filled with large toolboxes and tires. The rancid smell of petroleum and...    I'm going to say frying oil hung in the air. The walls were just the same as the exterior - Flaky, white paint on metal. Grampy had set up a table of some kind, by stacking two grimy truck wheels on top of one another. Meanwhile, Mandy was sitting in her wheelchair in the corner, stuck in her thoughts as the crusty lighting above her flickered occasionally.

"Finally!" Grampy joked with me, as I sat down on one of the two makeshift chairs in front of the tire table.

"I know. Finally." I shook my head a bit. "Where's Mr. Rabbit?"

"He went out to find some supplies. That's an issue of hiding inside a garage. Not only is it insanitary, it's also pretty bad for finding food. It's ok if you need to defend yourself, though."

The older rabbit took his own seat in the other chair, before offering me a swig of the tea in the flask. I reluctantly took it, downing the lukewarm liquid as quickly as I could before returning the flask to Grampy. He seemed to take his time with his swig.

"...So." I muttered, "What did you want to talk about."

"Well..." The rabbit scratched his aged, fluffed-up ears a bit, before continuing. "Mainly what we're searching for. What are we trying to do?"

"Uh..." I put my finger to my chin. "...I actually haven't a clue. We probably would've stayed in the supermarket until some kind of help had come along."

"Then I guess that it's a good thing we were chased out of it."

"What?"

"What's the honest point of staying in the same place all the time? Especially in such a dangerous situation such as now?"

"...To stay safe?"

"Safe from what? Trying to set things right?!"

"Ok, ok Grampy. Calm down."

"Sorry Mr. Pig. I'm just kind of annoyed."

"About what?"

"The comfort zone. Sure it keeps you safe, but it actually holds you back from being brave and doing something brilliant. It can hold you back from making friends, or from trying something new, or in this case: From setting the world back to its original ways. The ways that don't involve despair-inducing nightmares. And all it's trying to do is 'protect you'. Silly little piece of the mind, honestly."

"...Yeah."

"That's why it's important to try new things all the time!" The older rabbit gave a small smile at me. I could stop myself from smiling back a bit.

Those smiles soon flooded away from our faces, though.

"Uhm...    Guys? Guys!"

"What is it, Mandy?"

"There's a red light in the air...!"

"A flare?" I questioned.

"I think so..."

"Where'd it come from, Mandy?" Grampy swiftly asked.

"I...    Hold on...       It seems like it was from Windy Castle...    But that's kind of a distance away..."

"Not any distance we can't handle! Come on, we'll go up there right away! Maybe there's more than one person up there!" Grampy immediately leapt to his feet, unintentionally knocking the cold flask of tea off the tires onto the floor. I sat myself out my seat shortly after.

"Yeah...    Let's go check it out."

Before we could even leave the building though, a harsh series of scratches were heard from behind us. It didn't sound natural, though.

...It sounded more or so like someone was using a weapon to get in.

Shoot.

"Well, I guess we don't have a choice..." Mandy lowered her head, wheeling herself to the garage door. I looked around swiftly, trying to find some kind of weapon I could get my hands on.

I ended up relying on a wrench. Bit short, but in this scenario anything's a weapon.

I took a short look at Grampy, who had picked the flask from the soot-covered floor and tucked it in his pocket, simultaneously holding a hatchet.

...Why didn't I think of that?

...Why did I forget about the diary?!

Without any other words, I dashed to the backroom in the garage, catching the attention of the other two animals.

"H-Hey! Mr. Pig!"

I blocked out their concern. Their concern didn't matter right now.

I couldn't leave that diary behind. Not in a hundred years.

Yanking the door open so hard it almost fell off its hinges, I tripped myself forward towards the desk underneath the room's singular window, I seized hold of the stereotypically red leather book, along with the pen next to it. The wrench from earlier had been tucked under my arm, and it gave a nice cooling feeling to the sweatiness of my left armpit.

It wasn't something I could focus on at the moment though, as almost immediately afterwards, shards of glass fell down upon my head. Shooting my head up to face the now broken rectangular window, my sight laid upon a rabbit like figure sticking his head through the gap in the wall.

...My eyes widened in horror.

"M-Mr. Rabbit?!"

"Oh, hey there Piggy! Why don't you come join us?"

"No!"

"Oh, come on, how bad can it be~?"

...

I pushed the immediate intrusive thoughts away, dashing back into the main garage area. Grampy and Mandy gave me swift looks of skeptical concern.

"What is it?"

"It's Mr. Rabbit! H-He-"

"He what?" Mandy asked, her eyes widening.

It pained me quite a bit to explain the truth to them. But I didn't really have any other option, did I? Lying would just make them lose trust in me eventually, while not answering would have them question later.

"He's...     He got converted."

"...Oh."

"Well. At least he was with us for some time." Grampy lowered his head, before jerking it back upwards. "A-Anyways, we need to get to Windy Castle! Mr. Pig, you take Mandy, I'll lead the pack!"

"Ok, just give me a moment-"

"GO!"

"Hey hold on-!"

Too late. Grampy had already dashed out of the garage's front door, in the near-exact direction of Windy Castle's menacingly steep hill. Not wanting to be unintentionally abandoned by him, I swiftly handed Mandy my diary, grabbed a tight hold of her wheelchair and started running, pushing it along the relatively smooth asphalt.

...

My mind was so unfocused during the dashing.

It was head to the ground one moment, swerving away from an incoming pole of some kind the next, some time after that it would be glancing behind to see if they were still chasing us.

Unfortunately, they were.

I tried to funnel my focus into running, but at that point my brain was completely screwballing.

The only major things I could pick up on were trying to keep up at the same pace as Grampy, the slightly increasing gravelly sound below me, and the three rabbits and two zebras chasing the both of us.

Everything else sounded and felt like a blur. Each of my footsteps, Grampy's words, the barely-missed hacks at my back, the gusts of wind skewed directly at my face, even the memories of the original state of our known world.

...

That's going to distract me.

I...      Just need to keep running...

Up this hill...

For...         As long...            As I can...