Adam peered at the cover of yet another book. This one... was this one useful? From what Ada could remember... no. He tossed it to the side, and caught a glimpse of Dib squinting at him. He sighed. Alright, maybe the words 'when I get back' were a little suspicious by themselves, but it's been an hour, and Adam had already cracked under the pressure and explained everything. Was all this really necessary?

Eventually, Adam dropped his bag with a tired sigh. "What?" he hissed Dib.

"What?" Dib huffed. "You're being suspicious."

"I already explained everything!"

"You gave a suspicious answer!"

Adam rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Just don't tell Kipo. Or Mira, Mira would try to stop me, too."

Unsurprisingly, Dib's eyes narrowed, and Adam groaned. "Oh, so they're suspicious now?"

"Kipo is pink!" Dib was shouting now, and his chair screeched as he stood up. "She's probably an alien or... something! Can't you see that?!"

"I'm not blind, of course I can!" Adam crossed his arms, huffing. "Besides, she said she's half... half... mute?"

Dib's eyes narrowed even further. He looked like he was squinting. "Suspicious."

Adam's lip curled in a sneer. Isn't that what he said before to Wirt, all those times? He was still angry, thinking only about how angry he was that he was still stuck in a video game, and how desperate he was to get out. He'd made a bad call, and now Wirt had to pay the price. He remembered when he was climbing up those trees when the storm was raging around him, where he watched Kipo leap out to Wirt, how she'd reached out her hand... and the look on Wirt's face when he hadn't immediately taken it. He hadn't trusted her... and Adam knew he could only blame himself. He still wasn't sure if Kipo was a real person or not, but he DID know she wasn't going to suddenly betray them.

But Dib didn't know that, unfortunately.

Adam struggled with what to say as he shrugged on his backpack. Could he convince Dib that Kipo was ok before he left? Not if he wanted to leave as soon as possible, which he did.

Adam glared at Dib, thinking, and Dib glared right back.

Yeah, there was zero way Adam was changing his mind right now. Whatever, he'd worry about it later.

When he got back.

"Don't miss me too much," Adam called back sarcastically. All in all, Dib wasn't too bad of a guy, otherwise Adam would be studying in some other place far away from him everyday. Adam certainly thought he was over the top and crazy at times, but Dib was also... kind of smart? He helped Adam find all the information he now had on the bone dragons, so that was something, and it was the only thing that made Adam actually turn around, and say a very quiet "thanks!" before the library doors closed.

Unfortunately, they didn't close fast enough for Adam to miss the surprised look on Dib's face. He must not get gratitude that often.

Shaking out his head, Adam turned, squaring his shoulders and adjusting his backpack. He'd been planning this for a long time, for days now, and his backpack was adequately filled with food (perishable, unfortunately), the books he'd need, and, of course, weapons. He was pretty sure he was prepared to leave, so now all he had to do was sneak past Kipo and Mira.

While Adam was happy that Kipo was now here and safe, it really was unfortunate that she'd arrived today, of all days. How was he supposed to sneak out with her wandering the town? Adam regretted not sending her to a specific place before she left. It'd certainly make this easier. But he was stalling.

Adam took a deep breath, and took a long, deep breath before he took a careful look around his surroundings. He didn't see her... so far, he was safe.

Adam hurried through the buildings, in alleys, and sometimes even inside buildings. Anything to get out of town faster. Adam doubted Kipo would do anything drastic if she found out what he was doing but he couldn't say the same thing about Mira. Well, maybe not the hospital. What good would an empty hospital do? She'd send him right to a cemetery.

Luckily, he was almost home free. The edge of town was just around the corner, and if he could just get out without being seen-.

"So you're saying that the new girl ISN'T the coolest person you've ever seen. She looks even cooler than Wendy. Ish. So far the two of them are neck and neck on the coolness chart."

Adam slammed back around the corner, and then sighed at his jumpiness. It was just the twins, Dipper and Mabel. He supposed he didn't really need to hide from them, but he didn't really want the interruption.

"Coolness chart?" Dipper repeated. "Wait, where am I on the coolness chart? Wait, nevermind, I don't want to know."

"I'm sorry, bro, but you know the coolness chart can't be run by bias," Mabel told him sympathetically. "Hey, do you think she has a cool ride she uses to get around? Or a horse? Cool people in fantasy stories always ride horses."

"Where the heck would she be hiding those things?" Dipper asked, amused, but soon his voice turned serious. "Where is she, anyway? She seems to have disappeared..."

Adam heard a smack, and imagined Mabel hitting her brother playfully. "Don't you dare pull out the 'I'm Mr Suspicious' voice, Dipper! I want to be friends with her before you start suspecting that she's evil! Besides, I saw her with Mira, she's in that weird shop with all the tables and stuff."

Adam stiffened. They were there the entire time?! That was on the other side of town, he was doing all this sneaking around for nothing!

Still slightly peeved, Adam imagined Dipper rolling his eyes at his sister's antics. "We need to keep our guard up, Mabel. I'm still not certain that this isn't one of Bill's tricks."

Adam resisted the urge to sigh. Dipper hadn't said anything at first, but he eventually revealed that he suspected that an evil interdimensional demon named 'Bill' who was also a triangle, like an actual 2D triangle, had made and then trapped them in this world. Adam wasn't holding his breath.

It seemed everyone here had a different opinion of where they were and who brought them here. Dib insisted that this was a virtual reality that an alien named 'Zim' had forced them into. Kipo had figured that she had somehow ended up in a different dimension. Wirt thought that he'd been forced back into a place called The Unknown (Adam still had no clue what that was. A The Hollow rip off game? Something that wasn't a video game at all? Adam had no clue). Tulip suspected that they were on a weird 'Infinity Train', and then that boy, Norman, thought they were in purgatory. Even the two travelers that weren't even here had different theories. Anne, like Kipo, guessed they were in a different dimension, and Fei Fei thought they were on a different planet.

Adam wasn't sure how to feel about any of those. He was still certain they were in a video game, none of those other ones made any sense.

Adam shook himself out of his thoughts. In any case, the twins had moved on, still debating the friend potential of Kipo. Adam wasn't worried about that, Kipo and Mabel would practically be blood sisters by dusk. Meanwhile, Adam needed to move on.

As the siblings moved on one way, Adam slipped out, hurrying out of the town and racing across the fields towards the mountain that loomed over them.

Unfortunately, shortly after depositing Kipo into the town, Tulip had returned to the mountain. Adam had been a bit surprised when he couldn't find her in the town, he'd expected her to want to help people. She seemed to think that if they helped enough people, they'd be let out of here. It wasn't impossible, Adam supposed, but where the heck did the train come into that?

Maybe she thought she'd already helped Kipo, by taking her to Adam. Or maybe she just wanted to go back to the mountain. Adam couldn't blame her, that mountain was definitely weird.

It towered over them, and there was a blue glow at its peak, shrouded in clouds and mystery. Once, Fei Fei and Anne had tried to climb up there, and from what Mira had told him, the first kilometer or two went fine, but then strange things started happening. They started hearing voices in the air around them. There were strange bouts of cold and warm wind. Once they suddenly felt that they were caught in a tornado that threw them from the mountain, but before they could hit the ground they woke up. But perhaps the strangest thing, and the thing that made them turn around, was the fact that when they got high enough, they found the top of the mountain was made of this strange, foggy, glass-like texture. They couldn't see through it, or break it, and they couldn't get a proper hold on it. They couldn't climb the mountain anymore, so Anne and Fei Fei came back, mostly intact and very perplexed.

It must have been strange, Adam thought, but that's not what he was worried about today. The mountain was nestled at the foot of the valley, wedged in between the sides, so there was no way around. The only way out of the valley was to either go the other way... or through the mountain.

Adam paused at the wall in front of him with a seventeen written on it. He got out his sheet of numbers and letters: the key for the mountain's puzzle. Like he said, he'd been planning this for a while.

Inside the mountain was a large labyrinth, complete with a lot of annoying puzzles. If Adam had to figure all this out himself, he doubted that he'd be able to traverse through it at all. Luckily...

Adam checked the cheat seat in his hand. "Quill," he read out, and stepped through the rock wall. It wasn't exactly like he hadn't believed Tulip when she told him what would happen, but it was still weird to walk through solid rock. It felt like he was exploiting a video game glitch. He might be, actually.

When Adam stepped through, he found a twisty, complicated maze in front him, with about thirty ways to go. Adam grimaced, glancing down at his cheat sheet. He really was lucky to have it, but even with it, this looked nigh impossible.

Adam sighed, starting down a path he was fifty percent sure was correct.

-

Adam groaned out the sight of yet another passage that didn't look like the map in his hand. No matter how neat and clear Tulip made her notes, this was far, far too complicated, and the fact that Tulip could draw in 3D (very well) didn't help matters either.

"This is impossible," Adam huffed, turning the map around once again. This didn't make any sense, this place was so confusing, he wasn't sure if he could get out if he wanted to.

Whooosh~

Against his will, Adam stiffened. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood up, and an involuntary shiver ran through him. The corridor... suddenly felt cold.

Adam reached into his bag, drawing out a knife. When he held it in front of him protectively, he tried to ignore how his hands were shaking.

Whooooosh~

Adam turned in a slow circle. That noise... it wasn't only affecting his eyes, but his entire body. There was a circle of cold dread in his stomach, a ball that made his eyes dart around in anticipation.

Whoooosh~

There were a lot of noises around. The distant, but clear, rush of a stream. The clink of crumbling rocks as the wall around him eroded and fell to the ground. There were the steps of Adam's own feet when they fell down on the ground breath him as he turned, and there was his breath, shaky, uneven, and far, far too loud.

The lights above him, which he had thought of as 'pretty' when he first saw them, seemed to damper into a more sinister light. Now, they felt like thousands of little blue eyes, watching him.

Whoosh~

Suddenly, Adam felt himself bend, getting lower to the floor, like something was pushing him there. He was under a microscope, he was being studied, he was the deer in the headlights of a car. He'd been noticed.

Adam's knife shook, even harder then before. He was being hunted.

Whoosh~

Something hooked itself under Adam's foot, and he let out a yell that echoed off the cave walls as he fell backwards, hitting his head against the floor and dropping his knife. Quickly, Adam skootched away, more terrified that he'd like to admit. When he kicked out his foot at the thing that tripped him, a jolt of pain shot up through his ankle, and he hissed. But the tree branch his foot collided with didn't move.

Adam blinked at it, and then huffed, scrambling back to his feet. He was being ridiculous. There was nothing around except for Adam, he was completely alone here. Yet as he bent down to pick up his knife, he couldn't completely shake off the leftover apprehension from the feeling of being watched. Had he just been imagining all that? He must have been, but he wasn't sure.

At least the scare had done something for Adam, other than scaring the hell out of him. The tree branch he'd tripped over was a definite clue to wherever the forest might be, and when he looked down the corridor, he saw more of them, sticking out of the rock like fish jumping out of the ocean. They were leading him somewhere, probably. Adam shoved the knife back in his back, shrugged it back onto his shoulders, and followed them to wherever they might be leading him.

It was only a short while later that the rock floor of the cave had changed completely to a waving sea of tree roots poking and twisting over the floor. Adam had to traverse them carefully, but at least he could see where he was going now.

Right in front of him, illuminated by the soft blue spotlights, the roots twisted themselves into a column that went straight up and out of the cave. When Adam first saw it, he had thought it was a tree, but now that he was closer... most trees were hollow, right?

Adam paused, now standing right in front of it. He studied it, the overlapping, twisting patterns of the wood, and the intricate designs they made. He wasn't too big, if Adam wanted to, he could wrap his arms all the way around it. Out of curiosity, he reached forward, poking his hand into one of the holes and wrapping his hands around one of the cylinders of wood. It looked like a vine, but it stayed as strong as wood, even when Adam tugged on it, trying to break it. The wood held fast.

Adam dropped his hand, walking around the column, studying it from all sides. Eventually, he stood in front of a small opening at the bottom of it. He could probably fit through that, if he wanted. So that's exactly what Adam did. He dropped to his knees, crawling through the small opening and into the wood column. Inside, it reminded him of a cage.

Adam looked up, through the wooden cage, and to his surprise, saw stars. He blinked. Outside the cage, he'd thought they were just more of the crystals, but when he really looked at them.... Adam shivered as a gush of wind funneled in from the hole.

Whoooosh~

That really was the outside, and though he couldn't see them well, Adam thought he could make out leaves and bushes. Was he really in the forest?

Only one way to find out. Adam lifted his hands, grasping the wood around him, and then pulling himself up. He could feel his excitement grow as he neared the top. Was he really out of that creepy tunnel?

Adam reached out his hand, and to his relief, he grasped, long, cool grass. He was out! Adam swung his other hand over the hole, and with considerable effort, pulled himself up. Why couldn't this video game have given him powers, too?

Adam groaned from the effort, but before he was completely out of the hole, he noticed something odd. There was about a foot of dirt and rock on the hole's walls, and when Adam studied them closely... he thought he saw scratches, like something had dug this hole. It did kind of make sense, but Adam oddly found himself getting worried anyway. Why did those scratches make him so nervous? Maybe that wooden cage really WAS a cage, like he'd been suspecting.

Adam suddenly shook his head, emptying out those thoughts. Even if it had been a cage at one point, it wasn't anymore, and whatever had escaped clearly wasn't around. Adam pulled himself up the rest of the way, falling down on the grass and breathing heavily. Above him, the moon shone down, casting everything in a light not unlike the ones in the cave. But this light... Adam thought it was far nicer than the one in the cave.

Adam let out a deep breath, and before he knew it, his vision was going dark, and his eyes were sliding closed. He suddenly felt tired, and without much fight, he felt himself drifting off.

He'd finally made it. He was finally back in the forest.

Adam groaned, shoving something wet and sticky off of him. "C'mon, Puddles...knock it off already... it can't be time to get up yet..."

Unfortunately, the licking didn't stop. Adam couldn't stop himself from chuckling, patting his dog. In the back of his mind, he realized that Puddles was missing all the soft parts he loved about him.

"'M still tired..." Adam complained when the assault didn't stop, but nonetheless, he attempted to sit up. However, before he could...

'Is this... Kipo?'

Kipo. Bipo. Wirt. The bone dragons.

Adam shot up, and whatever had been on him came tumbling off. Adam glared at the offending pile of bones, and winced when he saw a black tongue that looked somewhat like tar rolled back into their mouth. Was that...?

Bipo fixed him with an offended gaze, but all Adam did was glared right back. It was like a staring contest, but Adam knew he had no chance at winning. Not with a thing without eyes, anyway.

"Jerk," Adam muttered as he stood up, breaking eye contact.

'What does that mean?'

Adam jumped, looking around the space wilding, but all he saw were trees, and the occasional pink flower. Adam's eyes widened, and his hands suddenly flew to his face. The flower... it was on again. Once again fixed to his face by a mysterious individual. It was relieving, but who was doing it?

Eventually, Adam slowly turned to Bipo, who was watching him curiously.

'...What?'

The voice was in his head, like something was in there, so that Adam could only hear it with his mind, not his ears.

"That's you," Adam gasped, as realization dawned on him. "You're the one talking to me."

Bipo suddenly looked annoyed. 'Stop saying things I can't understand. Speak like this if you want to talk.'

'How will talking like this be any better than talking out loud?' Adam asked. 'What even is this? How are you doing this? What's going on? This wasn't in the books.'

'...You have to be kidding me,' Bipo huffed. Adam could hear them huffing in annoyance, in his head. 'Do I really have to answer all that?'

'OF COURSE YOU DO!'

'Oh, fine,' Bipo huffed. 'But if you ask me, you all are the weird ones. Why do you make all those noises?'

'Noises?' Adam repeated, right before he sneezed. He quickly adjusted his mask.

'Those are the ones,' Bipo said. 'One of you makes one noise, and another one makes another noise back.'

It took Adam a minute to realize what they were referring to. 'Huh? No, I just sneezed,' Adam told them, feeling weird about explaining all this. Besides, talking inside his head... It was an odd experience. It wasn't like talking out loud. It felt more like Adam was texting instead of just saying stuff. Like everytime he wanted to say something to bipo, he had to 'send' it to them. In one way, it was kind of a blessing. Adam was having a lot of thoughts that he didn't want to broadcast to Bipo. 'Sneezing isn't like talking.'

"What are you even talking about.' That didn't even sound like a question, with how flat Bipo's voice was, but Adam felt inclined to answer it anyway.

'When I sneeze, I'm doing it to get something out of my nose,' Adam explained, not all that willing to wonder whether Bipo could sneeze or not. 'But when we say something, we're just talking.'

Bipo stared hard at him. Adam felt like he was being judged. '... That sounds ridiculous.'

'Not as ridiculous as this stupid telepathy,' Adam shot back. Bipo raised their head, just a little bit, and it told Adam they were interested. Just a little bit, though, because other than that, they just looked tired.

'What's telepathy?'

'It's what we're doing right now,' Adam told them, somewhat taken aback. What else would you call this? 'Talking with our minds.'

Bipo shook their head. 'We're not talking.'

'...What do you mean, yes we are,' Adam raised his eyebrow at Bipo. Did they even know what an eyebrow was? 'We're having a conversation.'

'No. We are exchanging information.'

Adam glared down at Bipo. 'That's literally what I just said. Having a conversation, exchanging information, it's the same thing.'

'No, talking is what you do, with those weird sounds you make.'

'That's not-,' Adam cut himself off with a sigh. Arguing was pointless, Bipo always did seem kind of stubborn. 'Whatever. There's a reason I came back, do you-.'

'There was a creature that made those sounds once,' Bipo suddenly said, and Adam blinked.

'What?'

'There was a creature,' Bipo told him. 'That Kipo had helped. It was in the tunnels and something happened to it. You remember, don't you?'

Adam winced. That was right before everything went wrong. 'Yeah, I remember. But what does that have to do with anything?'

Bipo yawned. They actually made noise when they yawned, Adam realized. 'It made noises like you do,' Bipo told him. 'It... talked.'

'What?' Adam's eyebrows knit together. What was Bipo talking about? 'What does that even mean? What'd it say?'

Bipo stayed quiet for a moment after that, long enough for Adam to wonder if they'd really spoken at all. But eventually, they sighed, standing up.

'I guess I'm awake enough to show you,' Bipo groaned, and Adam blinked.

'What? Wait, no!' Adam stepped forward, but for a creature that Adam had mostly written off as lazy, Bipo moved pretty quickly. 'We can't-We don't have time for any of that!'

'Just over this way!' Bipo called back, completely ignoring him. Adam groaned. Bipo's new(?) ability to communicate had really caught him off guard, and it threw a complete wrench in his plan. Well, technically. Adam's original plan was to get to the forest, grab Bipo, and drag them back to the town, but now he wasn't sure if he could listen to all of Bipo's griping and complaining all the way back.

Besides, if Bipo told Kipo or Mira what he'd done...

Adam suddenly groaned, shaking his head. Who cared if Mira and Kipo were mad at him for that?! The bone dragons would be off their back and they'd have Wirt, safe and sound. They'd probably not be too angry after that!

Adam turned to glare at the retreating bone dragon. Well, now that Bipo could 'talk', there was another option, but if he wanted to try and convince Bipo to come, he'd have to do it fast. None of Bipo's stubborn nonsense.

Adam grit his teeth, and hurried after Bipo.

Adam caught up with Bipo a short ways away from a weird tree, and he had to pause, staring at it in confusion. It took him a minute to fully comprehend what he was seeing.

"Oh... a treehouse."

Bipo, who had paused at the base of the tree and was lying down, suddenly looked irritated. 'I told you not to do that.'

'Whoops,' Adam said, not at all sorry. 'What is this place?'

'Why don't you have a conversation with it and find out?' Bipo snarked dryly. Adam huffed, and more out of spite than anything else, he cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Hey!" he called out, making Bipo jump. "Anyone home?"

The only thing that answered was the gentle rustle of wind through the leaves, and eventually, and stepped back, shrugging. 'Guess it's not in the mood to talk,' he told Bipo, who was glaring at him. 'Anyway, there's something-.'

"...T-Traveler..."

Adam started, jumping back. He looked around the space wildly, back there was no one there except for him and Bipo, who was staring at him.

Adam hesitated for a second. 'Was that-?'

'Take a wild guess, why don't you.'

Adam rolled his eyes. 'You're a real jerk, you know. If that wasn't you, then who could it be?'

Bipo yawned. 'Maybe it was the treehouse.'

Alright, by this point Adam was starting to get fed up. 'Bipo-!'

"Traveler... come closer..."

Adam reeled back, for a second thinking that maybe it really WAS the treehouse... before his common sense caught up to him. The mysterious voice was INSIDE the treehouse, duh.

Adam shook his head at his momentary panic. "I'm... coming, I'm coming," he called to the voice, and hurried up to the treehouse. He glanced at Bipo as he went by, pausing by them at the foot of the tree and looking up. It was light now, but he still couldn't see into the darkness of the treehouse. "I'm here now. Who are you supposed to be?"

"..."

Adam glared up at the tree. "No, don't you dare, I am not going crazy in this forest," he hissed.

"You... don't remember... me?"

"I can't even see you," Adam said. Then he remembered what Bipo said. "Wait, you're that ant, right? ...How are you even talking?"

Adam stiffened as a bunch of clicking noises reached his ears. The darkness inside the tree house seemed to shift, before it pulled back to reveal something leaning down. It was just as Adam remembered it: the head of an ant with human pupils in it's bug-like eyes, and instead of pincers were it's mouth should be, there was earlier human-like teeth.

Adam found himself backing away. The ant moved one of its limbs, and a human hand moved into view.

"Yeah... actually, I do remember you," Adam eventually spoke up. "You don't look good."

The ant heaved, and Adam wondered if that was it laughing.

"What happened to you?" Adam asked. He reached into bag, hardly able to look away from the horror in front of him.

The ant hacked. "At first... I wasn't sure. I was so confused... but then I found this place. He explained everything to me."

Adam blinked. "He? Is there someone else up there with you?"

The ant paused for a second, before they backed away. But they didn't go far before something fluttered down to the ground in front of Adam. Adam frowned at it, before finally kneeling down and picking up the paper. "What's this supposed to be?"

"Read it..."

"Don't tell me what to do," Adam muttered, but he held up the piece of paper anyway.

February 28,

Of all my travels in the New World, I believe that this one is the most peculiar. This forest, which I have dubbed the Colossal Forest, seems to hold millions of different kinds of insects, arachnids and bugs of all kinds. However, like the forest, they have been seized up. Very interesting. I have never been more excited to study an ecosystem as I am to this one, and I believe I will get started this very day.

However, I am very aware that this is dangerous, and I could at any moment get injured, or worse, killed. While I'm not exactly worried about that, I'm well aware what the loss of my findings would do to science, so I am both writing this down and recording it. If something happens to me, at least these recordings and notes are lucky enough to reach whatever other traveler seems to pass through, and I really hope they can understand English.

- Drew Moss

Adam frowned. "Drew Moss..." he read. "Let's... Well, I'm assuming he's dead now, so what does this have to do with anything?"

"I... need help... need to find something," the ant coughed. "Help me!"

Before Adam could think, he was stepping forward, up to the tree. He didn't doubt for a second that this creature needed help, and if it did want to hurt him for eat him, well, those hands and teeth probably wouldn't help. But Adam had to pause. There was something he was forgetting...

'Wirt...'

Adam stepped back, shaking his head. "No... No, I'm sorry, but there's something else I need to do. I don't have time for this. I need to get back. I need to... I can't help you."

"W...What?"

Bipo lifted their head as Adam hurried over to them. 'What are you doing? Are you refusing?'

'Yes, I'm refusing,' Adam snapped, but his tone quickly turned pleading. 'Bipo, you need to go back to the town, Wirt's in trouble and we need to get him-.'

Adam suddenly cut himself off, choking on his words. He felt... like he'd gotten stabbed.

"Wha-?"

Suddenly, the world exploded. Adam fell to his knees, feeling like his brain was being stabbed a million times, over and over again. He clutched at his head, distantly aware that he was screaming. But he couldn't hear any of it, he couldn't see anything, hear anything, his sense of feeling was being overridden with pain.

All of a sudden, a slow, calming melody drifted through the storm. A calming voice... Adam grasped at it desperately. 'You are connected with the ant's brain right now,' the nice voice informed him. 'This is the pain they are feeling. Help them.'

At this point, Adam would've agreed to anything. And despite not actually saying, Bipo seemed to know what he wanted, and the pain lessened. Adam collapsed.

'Get up there and help them,' Bipo demanded, and Adam flinched. His brain throbbed painfully.

'Yeah... yeah, I'm going.'

Bipo waited, and eventually, the headache subsided enough for Adam to be able to push himself up to his feet, were he swayed from side to side. When Adam managed to raise his eyes up to the treehouse again, he found a hand beckoning him up. Not wanting to be subjected to Bipo's torture again, Adam hurried forward, and quickly climbed the ladder nailed to the tree.

When he finally pulled himself into the treehouse, he wasn't surprised to find that it was just as destroyed outside as it was inside. There were holes in the walls, with the wood scattered on the floor, with layers of rotting leaves and dust and dirt on the ground. There was even something that looked dead in the corner. Adam wrinkled his nose as something foul reached it.

Adam tried to shake out his head. "What... What did you need help with?"

"Those recordings... I need those recordings..." the ants looked over to him, crawling over the walls and the ceilings. "Find them. I need to go back... home... Back to the war..."

Adam opened his mouth, and then closed it. It looked like the ant was having enough trouble speaking, so he didn't really want to push them. But what on earth did they mean they needed to go back to the war?

Adam shook out his head, pushing around the rubble by his feet. To his surprise, he found another sheet of paper.

March 4,

It has only been a couple of days since my last note, but I have already made numerous scientific discoveries! And such odd discoveries they are, too, if I had not seen them with my own eyes, I doubt I'd believe they were real. I have jotted them down here:

The bugs looked stranger than I had previously thought: their eyes seem to be a cross between human eyes and bug eyes, some of them have human-like mouths, and most of their autonomy seems to be more human than bug. The bugs do not seem to be independent of each other, in fact, they seem to be able to communicate with each other, but not through what they're saying, with the clicks, but rather through movement and smells. There is a whole marketplace type thing in the middle of a bush, with vendors and stalls and all of that. I must have been through at least twenty times, it's just so fascinating!

This place is odder than I had previously thought, and I know it will require further study. I think I'm alright with that, though, I doubt I'll get bored here. My plan is to study the bugs closely. If they have a marketplace, would it be so odd for them to have houses? Recreational places? A whole civilization?

It will be fascinating to find out.

- Drew Moss

Annoyed, Adam threw the piece of paper away. That's it? He'd already figured all that out. Shouldn't the hidden lore around the environment be actually useful? Adam knew all about that, shouldn't these notes be mentioning that war the ant had mentioned.

'Stupid Drew.'

'What?'

'Don't worry about it.'

Adam shifted around the room, ducking under the ant who was scuttling around the roof. What did these recordings actually look like? What was Adam supposed to be looking for anyway?

Suddenly, Adam jumped, letting out a yell and dropping the plank of wood. "What the-?!"

Adam heard scratching as the ant turned around, and started forward. Adam watched as they leaned down and scooped up the aphid Adam had found. The same aphid from the school, and they were chewing on something.

"...I would introduce you, but I can't pronounce her name anymore," the ant mentioned, tugging the piece of paper out of the aphid's mouth. They dropped it down to Adam, who caught it. Adam waited until they had moved on before reading the paper.

March 19,

Yes! It seems my hunch has paid off. I have found a sort of neighborhood, I think, a little hollow where there seem to be families of bugs living, specifically spiders, ladybugs and ants, though I'm not sure if I should include the ants in it, as they are a little bit away in an anthill the size of a mountain. I have not approached it yet, I will do so when I am more prepared. From what I can tell, the 'families' are a bit skewed in the face of numbers, where the lady bugs usually are alone, except for one or two with their gaggle of larvae children, while the spiders have too many children to count.

This place is fascinating. I think I will stay here a while, and I will try to blend in with this little community. Perhaps I can eventually try to communicate with them.

- Drew Moss

"Anthill?" Adam repeated quietly, looking over to the ant. "Hey... did you know Drew Moss? He talked about an anthill, here."

The ant peered at him. "Drew... Moss... I don't remember him. There was a person, once... I guess."

The ant trailed off, and Adam moved on. The ant didn't seem to have much else to say, besides, they did basically confirm that they had seen Drew Moss once.

But that was a little worrying, Adam noted. The last time he saw the ant was when they were in school(?), so how long ago were these notes written?

In the back of his mind, Adam wondered why it was so hard to see in here, after all, outside, it probably couldn't be sunnier if it tried, and there were half a million holes in the wall and the ceiling, which, theoretically, should like up the treehouse pretty well, but Adam still could see more than three feet away from himself.

Probably just a glitch in the lighting or something, Adam thought, trying to shake away the thought of ghosts and zombies. Or maybe they were just trying to scare him. As if to try and set in the mood just a little bit more, Adam found another note.

March 30, day 11 in hollow,

Communication is a problem, and practically non-existent between me and the bugs. They do not have mouths, and I cannot create the unique smells that they can. If this was a movie, I would just create a new invention to solve this simple problem, but as this is real life, I'm completely stuck, and getting rather frustrated.

They don't really seem to like me, and sometimes I fear they want to lock me up for being so annoying.

For the time being, I think the thing I will do is continue to observe these bugs, and hope I can finally break the ice between us somehow. I also wish I could stay outside for longer than I have, my illness seems to be getting worse by the minute.

I think I should lay down now.

- Drew Moss

'...Seriously?' Adam thought, sneering down at the note. 'Are they really resorting to throwing in a random illness to make me more afraid? Cheap.'

'What the hell is even going on up there?' Bipo's voice once again showed up, dry and disinterested and completely startling.

'Nothing important, nothing important,' Adam told them quickly, but he paused as he looked down at the note again. '...Actually... Bipo, are there any hollows, or holes in the ground, I guess, around here?'

'How should I know?'

'I thought you lived here, dimwit.'

'If I'm the dimwit, what does that make you, moron?' Adam rolled his eyes. 'I can't remember any of those things, why?'

'Go look for one. Probably by an anthill.'

Adam could hear Bipo's annoyed yawn. 'I don't want to do that. Too much energy.'

Adam's lip curled. 'Seriously?! I didn't exactly want to come all the way up here to play hero! I've got other things to do! I need to take you back to the town, and I don't have time to waste!'

'I don't want to do that either.'

Adam could practically hear his annoyance bubbling. 'BIPO!'

'WHAT?!'

Adam recoiled a bit from the surprising intensity, but he didn't back down. He did, however, rethink his approach. '...Bipo... please? I know you want to help the ant, and the way you can help is by looking for that hollow. I think the recordings might be in there. This guy, Drew Moss, was there, so I think he left his recordings there.'

'...'

'Bipo?'

'Alright, fine, I found it.'

Adam's head snapped up. 'What?!"

'I heard you when you were reading it, moron, so I started looking for it,' Bipo explained, sounding irritated. 'And then I found it and now I'm back so you two can look for it and I don't have to do any more work.'

Adam jumped up in the air, cheering. The ant looked over to him, but Adam didn't stop. 'Yeah! Good job, Bipo!'

Adam could feel Bipo's embarrassment. 'Ah, well... just get out here, idiot. And don't forget the ant.'

Adam agreed quickly, and then turned to the ant, who had paused their search when Adam had started jumping around erratically. Adam felt himself flush, just a little bit. "Uh..."

"I... assume you've... found something," the ant guessed, and Adam nodded.

"Well, technically it was Bipo, that little bone dragon outside," Adam explained, unsure if they'd been introduced or not. Could the ant even talk to Bipo in the state of pain they were in? "They need us to follow them."

The ant paused, but only for a split second. And then they were out of the treehouse in the blink of an eye. Adam stared after them, shocked. They must really be desperate.

'Sounds like someone else I know,' Adam thought, for a split second irritated, but he tried to shake it away. This wasn't a detour, it was just so Adam could try and get in Bipo's good graces so they'd be inclined to come with him. Besides, helping the ant was good, right?

...Nevertheless, Adam felt like he was wasting time.

Adam followed the ant quickly, dropping down from the treehouse and back onto the ground. His feet had barely touched the grass before the ant was urging Bipo on with the motions of their hands. Bipo, for their part, looked irritated, but started forward anyway.

Now that all three of them were in the light, Adam was once again surprised by the ant. He'd noticed that their body shape was odd before, in the darkness of the treehouse, but he'd just attributed it to them being... well, an ant monster. But that was strictly true, Adam was now realizing: the ant was wearing a coat. Kipo's coat.

'So that's where it went...' Adam thought. He'd noticed that it'd been missing before, but at the moment, there had been bigger things to worry about. So, she'd just been giving her coat to the ant? Why had she tried to hide that from Adam and Wirt...?

Okay, stupid question. Adam knew why.

'Kipo is going to be owed a lot of apologies when I get back,' Adam noted, sighing.

'Why did you leave in the first place?' Adam's startled, and when he looked down at his little guide, he was surprised to find Bipo staring at him intensely. 'Why are you even here? And why do you want me to come back with you?'

Adam winced. 'If I tell you, do you promise not to get mad?'

'No?'

'I guess that's fair,' Adam sighed. 'Don't judge me, alright?'

'No.'

Adam huffed. 'Fine. The truth is that I... kind of... well, do you remember Wirt?'

'You mean Not Kipo Number One?'

Adam snorted. 'If that's Wirt, then who am I?'

'I don't think you want to know.'

'Fine. Anyway, I was certain that you and Kipo were conspiring to betray us. I mean, that's how it usually works in video games...'

'The hell is a video game?' Bipo gave Adam a bewildered look. 'And me and Kipo weren't going to betray you.'

'Well, I know that now!' Adam huffed. 'And I know, it was stupid. I probably should have trusted you both from the beginning, but I didn't, and I tried to convince Wirt that you all were untrustworthy, too. I thought he didn't believe me, but apparently he did, so when the bone dragon grabbed him, and Kipo tried to save him, he didn't trust her enough to let her.'

Adam paused, and, thankfully, Bipo stayed quiet as he tried to gather his thoughts again.

'So now the bone dragon has Wirt, and it's flying around somewhere with it's herd,' Adam eventually continued. 'And it's looking for you, Bipo. Bone dragons care a lot about their families, so they're probably not very happy that Kipo basically kidnapped you.'

Bipo seemed to scowl at that. 'She didn't kidnap me.'

'Uh, yeah, she basically did,' Adam argued, then he sighed. 'Look... Kipo made a bad call, just like I did. Maybe this all would have been avoided if she'd just given you to the bone dragon in the first place. But she didn't, and now the bone dragons have Wirt, and I thought that maybe I could trade you for him.'

'I'm not currency.'

Adam frowned. 'I know... hey, don't you want to go back to the bone dragons?'

'How can I go 'back' to them if I never really left?' Bipo huffed. 'It all just seems like too much work. I don't know anything about the bone dragons except for the fact that they fly around and attack people. Sounds boring.'

Lying around all day also sounded boring to Adam, but he didn't mention that. 'I mean, they don't usually attack people,' Adam said. 'They just did it because they're worried about you.'

'They don't even me,' Bipo grumbled, right before they stared at Adam suspiciously. 'How do you even know that? All they've done is attack us...'

Adam reached into his bag, and Bipo tensed before Adam brought out his book. He opened it up to a random page. 'Over the past few days, I've been researching and trying to learn anything I could about the bone dragons,' he explained, showing the page to Bipo. 'Trust me, they are worried about you, and they care about you.'

Bipo peered at the book closely. Did they even know how to read? 'So you know everything about bone dragons now?'

Adam thought back to when he'd first heard Bipo 'speak'. '...No.'

Bipo stuck their nose in the air. 'Then why should I believe anything you say is in there? The dragons will probably forget about your friend soon, or something. Either way, I'm happy here, I'm not leaving.'

'What?!' Adam nearly dropped his book. 'Bipo-!'

'I've made up my mind!' Bipo started walking faster. 'Leave me alone! Besides, we're almost to the hollow. Tell that slowpoke ant.'

'Bipo...' Adam growled in annoyance, but it was clear that Bipo wasn't listening anymore.

Adam tried not to stare too much as the three of them walked through the equivalent of a neighbourhood, if that neighbourhood had been taken over by nature in a decade long apocalypse. Adam was no stranger to structures that had been overtaken by nature (he liked playing apocalypse type games), but this really was insane.

Or maybe it just resembled normal civilization, but had really been made from the dense forest around them. Adam pondered that as he tried to ignore all the eyes on him. Even though he wasn't staring, doesn't mean everything else wasn't. Spiders climbing out of windows, ladybugs walking beside them on the 'street', ants marching in a line... It was just like what Drew Moss had described.

"We need to find out where Drew Moss lived," Adam said, both outloud and in his head. "Look for... I don't know... empty houses?"

Adam tried to think of the lore-ridden houses in the video games he played, but before he could get a clear picture, Bipo interrupted.

'Done.'

'Wait, what?' Adam blinked at them in a mixture of awe and disbelief. 'You already found it? But how?'

Bipo scowled. 'I told you, I looked.'

Adam stared. He was actually a little impressed, and he didn't know what to say. So, instead, he turned to the ant.

"Er... nevermind... Bipo already found it," he explained, probably not very well. The ant nodded quickly. It seemed to be getting more and more desperate.

Perhaps Bipo noticed, because they didn't waste any time as they hurried through the little neighbourhood. If Adam had to guess, he would assume that there were probably fifty little houses in the small little pocket they found, though the place was so odd and confusing that he really wasn't too sure. The number seemed to fluctuate between forty and five hundred, somehow.

Soon enough, Bipo paused in front of another little house, much smaller than Adam's house (his house in the real world, to be specific). It probably would only really fit one person, and even that would be a little crowded. Moss hung down in front of it, like a curtain, and when Adam looked up at the roof, it looked like there was a little tree growing out of it.

The house actually kind of looked cute in a quaint little way, even though Adam wouldn't want to live here.

Suddenly, Adam felt a shuffle by his side. He looked over to find the ant staring at the house, its human pupils trained on it. It raised a hand to point. "The recordings...they are here...?"

Adam hesitated for a moment. "I mean, I think so. They might be."

The ant didn't wait another second, instead hurrying into the mossy curtain that hung around the house. Adam watched it, feeling a strange apprehension as he watched it disappear. Why did the ant want those recordings again? Did they really think the recordings would ease their suffering...?

Adam really hoped they would.

'What's this?'

Adam jumped, startled out of his thoughts, and looked down to find Bipo nudging something with their foot. Another note, Adam noticed. He knelt down to read it, but before he could, he noticed the dried blood one it. He peered at it closely, and realized that there were pink splotches in the stain. Adam's eyes widened. Pink... just like the fog around them. Was the fog responsible for Drew Moss' illness?

Eventually, though, Adam managed to find the humour in it. Coughing up blood as a symptom of a mysterious and deadly illness? What a classic trope.

'...What are you waiting for?' Bipo huffed, and Adam jumped, realizing for the first time that Bipo was waiting for him to read it.

'Have you been listening every time I've been reading these?'

If Bipo had eyes, they'd be rolling them. 'Oh, come on, who cares about all that?! Just read it already!'

Adam blinked, a little taken aback, before he finally turned his eyes to the page.

March 31, day 12 in hollow,

It has occurred to me that I have not explained the illness plaguing me in these notes, and I apologize to the reader for bringing it up in what must have been a jarring way. However, I'm too tired to write any of that down, so these notes will be focused on the insects. I will make a recording of the effects and progress of my illness later.

And that was where the note ended. The signature was covered in the odd blood, and though Adam knew that was technically all that was missing, he still felt like the note was completely lacking.

'Seriously?!' Adam huffed, annoyed. 'That's it? Drew Moss, you're a terrible scientist!'

Bipo gave him an odd look. 'But he said that the rest of it was in the recording.'

'Yeah, and now I have to waste time looking for the-,' Adam cut himself off as he suddenly realized what he was saying. 'Oh, no, now I sound like you.'

Bipo looked (rightfully) 'Then that's a good thing, you jerk.'

'Maybe,' Adam said, not all that willing to argue. He stood up. 'This side quest is already taking so long. Maybe by some miracle, the ant has already found the recordings. What the heck was this disease Moss was talking about anyway?'

'Why don't you go try and find out, lazy?'

'Shut up, Bipo.'

Adam pushed open the mossy curtain, but when he did, he froze, suddenly put off by the sight inside. Adam had been expecting a creepy, decaying place, but it wasn't the scenery that caught his attention at all. As long as he'd known them, he didn't think the ant had ever stopped moving, whether it be painful twitches, frantic searching, or general twitchiness, the ant was always moving.

So, seeing them now, silent and unmoving, facing away from the door and slumped over... Adam felt a gnawing dread in his stomach.

"What the...?" Adam muttered, his eyes widening. Was it... dead? "Hey... did you find the recordings?"

For a second, nothing happened, and Adam started to back away. But then one of the limbs of the ant finally twitched to life, and a click sounded throughout the empty space.

"Testing, testing... yes, it seems to be working now. Drew Moss recording, this is log number seventeen."

Adam's eyes widened. "Hey, you DID find it! Good... job..."

The ant didn't reply, and Adam eventually trailed off. The recording continued.

"I'm not sure how many of these I will be able to continue to do, as my illness seems to be-."

As if to prove it, Drew suddenly cut himself off with a fit of coughing. Adam winced, it sounded painful.

"Yes... I think you get the point," Drew said, as soon as he got himself under control. "I feel I am running out of time. Whatever is happening to me is not just a simple cold, I feel like my organs are being destroyed and my skin is being torn apart every moment of the day. I feel like it has something to do with the fog in the air. A type of airborne fungus, perhaps?

"Well, no matter what it is, it is far too late for me. Perhaps if I had understood the severity of it previously, it would not have come to this, but now I can hardly push this little button, much less get up to research a cure. In fact, I'm uncertain if this disease even has a cure... Nevertheless, it is far too late for me. The only thing I can hope is that you, whoever found this, can take my findings to heart and-."

Once again, Drew cut himself with a bout of coughing, and Adam winced. Thankfully, though, it didn't last long. The recording shut off with a click, and once again, the room was silent.

For a second, Adam didn't know what to say. Even when he opened his mouth, minutes later, he still didn't know what to say.

"I...I'm sorry..." Adam trailed off. His voice sounded weak. "I'm sorry."

"There is no cure," the ant said, in their scratchy, grating voice that never let Adam forget they were contently in pain. "No... escape..."

Adam looked away. He... had a feeling he knew where this was going. "I-I know..."

Finally, the ant moved, but now without the frantic movements of a creature who doesn't want to die. Adam tried to ignore how their movements were slow and drawn out now, as if just trying to keep the agony to a minimum.

"I need you to..."

Adam cut them off quickly. "I know!"

The ant paused in front of him, and Adam looked away. Just because he knew what they wanted didn't mean he could bear to say it, or to even think about actually doing it.

But the ant wasn't going to waste time with Adam's moral dilemma. "Kill me," it hissed, and Adam winced at the sight of its dirty human teeth. They looked like they were rotting, and they smelled horrible.

Adam backed away quickly, but the ant wasn't giving him any time to think. It quickly advanced on him, and, without thinking, Adam drew out his knife and held it in it of him.

The ant pushed its head against it, but the blade only slid across it's smooth armored. The ant groaned in pain; the Adam knew it wasn't from the knife. "Kill me."

"I-," Adam stared, originally going to give an excuse, but then he shook his head. The memory of the ant's pain stuck in his head, and though the thought of killing the creature made his throat feel tight, he raised his knife anyway. Adam's arms shook. What happened? Defending himself used to be so easy.

"I'm sorry," Adam said again, hoping it stuck, before he brought his knife down hard, easily piercing the ants armour and digging into their brain.

At first, nothing happened. Then, Adam watched as each of those human pupils lost their light, and the ant's legs shook before it finally fell forward with a thud. Adam back away quickly. Why did this hurt so much?

Adam felt frozen, staring at the horrifying creatures' body with his knife sticking out of his head. His eyes felt hot, and he cold feel bile rising in his throat.

Adam shut his eyes tightly, wrapping his hands around his head. Nevertheless, he felt a few hot tears trickle down anyway.

'This is stupid,' Adam hissed at himself, feeling silly. 'It's just a game. I've killed hundreds of monsters like that. This doesn't matter at all.'

Despite saying that, it took a long time before he could stand up again, stumbling over to the moss curtain. He didn't want to stay here a second longer than he had to.

When Adam fell through the curtain and flat on his face, Bipo gave him an odd look, as if they somehow weren't aware of what he'd just done.

They knew, and Adam knew they knew. Adam glared at them, pushing himself shakily back to his face.

'We're going back to the town,' he told them, firmly. 'Together. Take me back to the place you found me. Now.'

Bipo must have known what he'd done. They started through the forest without questions or complaints.

When the hole eventually came into view again, Adam breathed a sigh of relief.

"Finally," he groaned out loud. He glared at Bipo. 'Now, we can finally do the IMPORTANT things.'

Bipo didn't answer, they hadn't answered to any of Adam's offhand comments so far. And while Adam knew why they hadn't, he still wished they would just forget about that and talk to him. The silence was getting unbearable.

But no matter how much Adam insisted that the ant made him do it, it didn't seem to matter. Bipo was still angry, and Adam was quickly discovering an angry Bipo was worse than an annoyed one.

But even when Adam tried to tell them that: nothing. He might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

Well, it's not like it matter, Adam noted as he paused by the hole. As soon as he hadn't Bipo off to the bone dragons, it was unlikely that he'd see them ever again.

'Let's go,' Adam said, but before he could drop down into the hole, the ground underneath him started shaking and trembling. Adam fell back onto his butt, wincing.

"What the..." Adam backed away from the hole, and on the other side, he saw that Bipo was doing the same thing. But his attention was quickly pulled away from them, however, when something bust from the hole, knocking Adam back even further. He only stopped when his back hit a tree with a painful thud.

Adam groaned, and glared at whatever had down this. But his angry expression quickly melted into on of horror.

There was a monster emerging from the hole: a humanoid shape with a yellow and black pattern with two black wasp eyes and both pincers and human teeth. It had too many limbs to count, some that were human-like, and some that were shaped much more like a bug's limbs. Each limb, both the ones that had hands and the ones without, and deadly looking knives on the end. Its black eyes met Adam's, and Adam found himself shying away.

This thing was far, far to horrifying to look at, but it was the only thing Adam could see. It rose into the air, and seemed to get back with every flap of its wings until it blocked out the sun.

It stared at Adam, and Adam slowly reached behind himself, drawing out his knife. The sound seemed far too loud in the empty clearing, and Adam's hands were shaking so bad that he nearly dropped his knife.

Here, the two stared at each other. Adam, terrified, looking for any way to escape, and the wasp monster, looking to tear him to pieces.

Suddenly, the one of the monster's limbs twitched, and Adam dived to the side, just barely avoiding get impaled as the creature brought its leg down on the place Adam had been sitting. But he didn't get any time to rest, because in the blink of an eye, the creature nearly seemed to tear itself in half as it twisted its body to stab at him again. Adam raced forward, zig zagging to avoid the creature's assault, but it wasn't long before his breath got laboured, and his lungs started to burn. He strides suddenly got sloppy, and before he knew it, his foot caught on a branch and his front hit the dirt, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

Wheezing, Adam quickly turned around, holding up his knife as a shield just as the blade of the creature's limb stabbed at him. Adam grunted, and his arms shook as he gritted his teeth, trying to hold off the creature. But it wouldn't work for too long, the knife was already starting to dig into his palm, and drops of blood were starting to spill onto his face...

Suddenly, Adam heard a roar, and from the corner of his eyes, he watched a Bipo leapt at the monster, and only seconds after that, the pressure lessened, and Adam watched in amazement as the leg of the creature fell to the side and the wasp flew up, roaring in pain.

At first, Adam was frozen, but a blur of white knocked some sense into him as Bipo pulled him back. Adam stared at them in awe.

'You... You saved me,' Adam gasped. Bipo only glanced back at him.

'Yeah? What of it? There's still a monster in the sky!'

That finally seemed to remind Adam of his smarts. He stopped his running, and, to Bipo's bewilderment, turned to glare at the monster.

'We need to stop it so we can get out of here!' Adam said, but then he paused, glancing nervously at Bipo. Would they still help him if they knew what needed to be done?

Bipo didn't seem happy about it, but they nodded, surprising Adam. 'I-I know. We need to... to stop it. But how?!'

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? Adam turned away from Bipo, studying the monster. They'd managed to wound it, but could they actually kill it? 'There's no way the game developers made it so that we have to take off every single one of the legs, right?' Adam thought to himself. 'No... there's no way. It must be something else...'

Adam's eyes raked the creature for clues, and they widened when they found the wasps big black eye glaring back at him.

"Oh, I get it!" Adam shouted, unaware that he was even shouting out loud. Before the wasp could react, Adam drew his air back, and hurled his knife at the big black target. He held his breath as it sailed through the air.... And then cheered as the wasp's eyes shattered into a million pieces, and it screamed in pain, reeling away.

"Yes!" Adam cried, slightly hysterical. 'Bipo! We need to shatter its eyes! Just do what you did last time!'

Adam could feel Bipo's confusion, but he didn't get the time to explain before the wasp was on him again, once again on him, raising its wicked sharp claws that gleamed in the sunlight.

This time, instead of running away, Adam held a second knife up, and it met the blade with a clang. Adam winced as it dug into his cut even deeper.

'Go, Bipo!' Adam shouted in his mind. 'Get it now-!'

Adam suddenly froze, interrupted by a sharp pain in his side. His eyes widened, and he looked down in horror to find another one of the wasp's blades embedded in his side. Warm blood trickled down his side.

"...Ow," Adam whispered, but before he could say or do or think anything else, the wasp took its limb and through Adam to the side like a ragdoll. Adam rolled to the side, eventually stopping by a tree, right in front of a wicked sharp branch that had fallen and was inches away from Adam's back. Adam wasn't sure it could get any worse, but he was at least thankful that he hadn't been impaled by that thing.

'ADAM!' Adam heard the cry in his mind, and he numbly raised his head. He felt too warm, his vision was blurry and everything hurt. Had he been poisoned again?

A little but away from himself, Adam dimly saw Bipo, backed up against a tree, the wasp monster in front of them, towering over the much smaller bone dragon. Adam blinked, and then his eyes widened as he watched the bone dragon raise on of its limbs.

"NO!"

Suddenly, Adam's vision got sharper, and the pain seemed to disappear. Adam turned around, grabbing the stick and jumping to his feet. He didn't wait for a second as he hurled himself forward. Towards the monster. Towards Bipo.

"HEY!" Adam screamed, raising the long stick. It looked like a lance. "Get away from them!"

The wasp seemed to pause, and it turned to Adam, raising it's limbs like it was getting ready to finish the job. That was its mistake, because Adam jumped forward with an animalistic war cry, jabbing the stick forward and shattering the creature's eye into a million shards. But Adam didn't stop there. He didn't stop until he saw his stick poking out through the other side of the creature's skull.

Only then did Adam stop, and he fell to the ground with the wasp. He felt like he would never move again. Everything was pain, everything was pain, pain, pain.

'Adam?!'

Adam turned his head. He really wanted to sleep. 'Bipo... I think this is the end for me...'

Bipo's face popped up in his vision. They looked more worried than ever before.

'Let me see it,' Bipo demanded. Adam shook his head sadly.

'No... there isn't anything you can do-.'

'Let me see it!'

Rolling his eyes, Adam just decided to humour them. With a wince of pain, he lifted up his shirt, and Bipo's face disappeared. However, a minute later, they reappeared, and they no longer looked concerned. Adam frowned.

'Are you serious?' they're voice was flat again.

'You think I'm joking about getting stabbed?!' Adam asked, enraged.

'It's barely a scratch!'

Adam blinked, and then moved his abdomen the slightest bit. There was definitely a sharp, stinging pain there... but it wasn't a deathly pain. Adam went red. 'Maybe it's poisoned.'

Bipo huffed, and then, to Adam's shock, stuck a long, black tongue out at him. Without thinking, Adam jerked away. Bipo rolled their tongue away.

'Get up, you child.'

Adam huffed, but nonetheless, he did what they asked. He glared at them when Bipo gave them a smug look. 'I swear it hurt earlier.'

'Hurt what? Your feelings?'

Adam scowled. 'Jerk.'

Bipo held up their head. 'Whatever.' Suddenly, their playful demeanor seemed to fall. 'We should probably get going now. Back to that stupid town.'

Adam slowly nodded, and the two started off back to the hole. Adam looked down at Bipo's downtrodden attitude, and sighed.

'You know, maybe I was wrong,' he admitted, and Bipo gave him a curious glance. Adam shrugged. 'I was just thinking... it'd be a shame to have to give you away right when you and Kipo are reuniting.'

Bipo blinked. 'I thought you wanted your other friend back.'

'I do, I do,' Adam said. 'But I was just thinking... There's a lot of things we can do, right? Maybe we can find another way to get us all back together.'

Bipo suddenly looked hopeful. 'You think so?' However, just as quickly, their face changed to annoyance. 'I refuse to do any work.'

Adam laughed. 'Me too,' he agreed. 'We'll just make Kipo do all the work.'

'She'd do it.'

'Probably,' Adam turned his face to the sun. 'I think that Ki-.'

Suddenly, Adam stopped in his tracks. A sudden pain blossomed through his chest, and Adam looked down, wide eyed. The front of his shirt was covered in blood, and, sticking through his chest, was the blade of the wasp.