Trying to draw in the tpn style made me want to tear my hair out and RAHHHHHH. yk? 

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The morning of October thirteenth was rainy, as layers of bleak grey clouds huddled in the dreary sky. Poppy and I set out into the forest as soon as the tests were over. I had to find out where in Grace Field we were before I could even hope to locate Emma and Norman, who would see the wall for the first time today, so I'd need as much time as possible.

Poppy pulled the rope of spare tablecloths from the bush, and climbed easily up the tree to tie it around a sturdy-looking branch. She jumped down from over five metres with ease, and gave the rope a tug or two. "I think it'll hold... And it looks long enough..." 

She looked back to me with a salute. "See you at the top!"

She ran at the wall at her highest speed, clinging to the rope. As she reached the base of the wall, she yanked down as hard as she could, pulling herself diagonally up the steep surface. As she reached a height higher than the branch, she released the rope, using her momentum to propel herself as high as she could. She pushed herself atop the wall as if it were second nature, and waved to me from above. "You can do it!"

I grabbed the idly swinging rope and took a few paces back. No matter how you look at this, it's a stupid idea... I should've built a ladder... Or, even better, like a human slingshot. Nothing could go wrong with that at all...

I took a sharp inhale and started toward the wall. I mimicked Poppy's movements as best I could in my smaller, less-coordinated body. I yanked down on the rope as my feet struggled for friction against the smooth, 90º surface, and released it once it would no longer help.

I managed to just barely snag the edge of the wall with a hand, but fortunately Poppy was there, pulling me up until we both toppled over.

"Thanks," I said breathlessly. Fuck this. We're building a ladder. I am never doing that again.

Spoiler: I didn't build the ladder.

"No problem!"

We rose to our feet and took a few steps closer to the other side of the wall. Slowly, it revealed the cliff. Impassably wide, and dismayingly deep, it was a great source of discouragement. An impossible obstacle. Or so it was supposed to be.

"Oh..." Poppy murmured, the only word she could manage.

I took a step closer to the edge. "There's really no railing. Kinda stupid, don't you think? Nothing to stop me from, you know... Wee...!"

I glanced to Poppy, but she hardly took notice of me, her hands fiddling nervously with her braids. I slapped her on the back, startling her out of her stupor. "We'll figure it out! So let's get a move on."

We jogged across the perimeter of the massive wall to the right, and Poppy's mouth soon fell agape as we encountered a split, where the wall continued in two directions. As we continued moving, we could see the reflection of our plant in its grounds. "It's another Grace Field! How many are there?"

"They're triangles," I hummed. "Judging by the angles, the whole thing probably forms a hexagon of six separate lots."

We moved along the wall to the next plant, and this time, it was different. This lot was barren, not a tree in sight. A Grace Field house laid in the centre of the lot - yet not quite the same. I also knew that beneath the building would extend the underground Grace Field headquarters.

"Look, there's a bridge!" Across from a huge opening in the wall spanned a massive concrete slab. Again, there were no railings. Maybe it was to weed out the stupid ones. Like, If you're dumb enough to walk close enough to the ledge to fall off, we don't want you working here anyway? I guessed the same theory could be applied to us farm children. If you're stupid enough to die, we don't want your brains anyway, or something like that?

"This place could be where the new babies come from," I said. 

Now I knew how to answer the kids when they asked about it. Y/N, how are babies made? Well you see, Tommy, babies are mass-produced in farm headquarters through cloning and the artificial impregnation of slaves.  Oh, making children cry. It never gets old.

 "And workers, too," I added, "– like moms and demons."If Poppy could only hear what I'm thinking right now... She'd probably try to get me exorcised. 

"That makes sense... Is this all you wanted to see, then? Should we head back now?"

I shook my head. I now knew that Poppy and I can from plant two out of five. Which would mean the plant directly to the left of ours was plant three – the plant home to all of the Grace Field escapees. "I want to check on the other plants," I said, "Just to be certain. You should go back to the others on the way, just in case Yukko starts getting suspicious."

"Okay."

We moved quickly along the wall until we made it to our plant. As Poppy dropped down the wall, she called up to me. "Hurry up! We only have an hour or so left of free time."

I continued on my way across the wall alone, out of breath by the time I made it to the wall dividing my plant and the one beside it. If there's one thing I need to work on, I thought wryly, It's my athletic ability. At this rate, I won't be able to run from a blind old man, let alone 10,000 kg satanspawn. Ugh, why couldn't I have been reborn in something peaceful? Maybe like the romance genre... or slice of life... Somewhere where there's internet, instant noodles, and no impending doom and certain death. Is that too much to ask?

As I trailed along the perimeter of the plant, my ears caught on to a voice before I saw the owner. "Nothing... But this wall's about two or three metres thick... And it's pretty tall..."

I stepped out from behind a tree, and there was Emma, her shock of orange hair setting her apart from the landscape. She sat straddling a branch, trying to get a good vantage point at the wall. Her eyes suddenly flicked to me, who stood rather dumbly atop the slab of concrete, completely frozen.

"Wha...!?" the ginger startled, nearly falling out of her tree. "Who are you!?"

I stuttered through my response, my initial instinct to say: A whole snack – same as you, literally. Instead I managed a fumbled. "Candi - Uh... Well..."

"Emma!?" Came Norman's voice from below, obscured by the wall. "What's the matter?"

Everything was suddenly very, vey real. I knew... way too much about these two. Their past, their future... and yet I'd never dreamed of meeting them in person. For a moment, I felt oddly like an observer, almost forgetting I had a physical form they could perceive. "Um..."

"Emma?" Norman called again, as Emma was at a loss for words, trying to take me in, and what my presence meant – Was I friend or foe?

Norman's head came into view as he backed away from the wall, trying to get a glimpse at what Emma was staring so intensely at. He looked to his companion urgently. "Get down from there, Emma!" As the girl leapt down from the branch, Norman placed himself between us, his blue eyes rapidly calculating. "Who are you?"

"Uh..." I started again, finally managing to wrangle a few stray braincells bouncing around in my mind. "My name's Y/N. I come from... next door?"

"Next door?" Emma echoed, glancing uncertainly between Norman and I.

"Yeah." I nodded, glancing over my shoulder. "Uh, what are you guys doing here?"

"We could ask the same of you."

I tried to wrap my head around their perspective.  I was clearly a child, and one who looked remarkably like Norman, at that – but they were in a situation where their world as a whole had been shaken. Their perceptions of reality was skewed, and right now, they couldn't afford to trust appearances alone.

Play it cool, Y/N. You're a cattle child who has recently discovered the truth. You've just stumbled upon two other cattle children by the wall. What would your reaction be?

"What..." I took a breath, "What do you know?"

Emma's face was twisted with uncertainty, whereas Norman's was cold and detached. "I don't know what you mean by that."

I let out a hum and stepped forward, taking a seat on the ledge of the wall. "That this place is a farm, I mean. Did you know?"

Norman and Emma startled, sharing a nervous glance. "What do you know?" Emma asked.

I grinned. "More than you do, I bet." I tapped my chin, debating on how much I could really say. "When I say I come from next door, I mean I come from another orphanage right beside yours. There are five in total, all producing merchandise for the renowned Grace Field farm."

"Five!?" Emma said. "Then you're..."

"Yeah." I pulled down the collar of my shirt, revealing the ID code printed on my neck. "I only found there were more of us today, so you can imagine my surprise when I find two others lingering by the wall. So I'll ask again... What do you know? And how?"

The two children remained wearily silent.

I sighed. "Surely you know about the tracking devices, at least? If your mother checks her pocket watch, she'll know you went beyond the boundary." At their shock-ridden faces, I let my brows raise. "Well, clearly that's a no. Then I suggest you start heading back, lest she check."

"That isn't good!" Emma exclaimed, glancing frightfully over her shoulder.

Norman remained where he stood, his head tilted to one side. "Why are you helping us?"

"I dunno," I said. "Why wouldn't I?" I pushed myself to my feet, my shoulders giving a little shrug. "But take my words with a grain of salt, I guess. You don't really have any reason to trust me. 

"For now, I've got to get back to my plant before free time is over, else my mother get suspicious. I'll come back around this time tomorrow, if you're interested in meeting."

I skipped a few steps away from the wall, raising a hand in a wave. "Bye!"

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