the trail
We had begun to follow Amark out into town. People shot him odd looks as he carried what looked like a corpse or at the very least some unconscious victim through the town, but he continued to mutter some words and tap people to pass by with no problem. "Memmi," I whispered, "what do you think he's doing to them?"
"Rewriting their own internal behaviors? That might be what we're seeing. It's not good. This is the Watcher the three of them said arrived with his memories completely intact, he remembers every bit of The Watchers, but time has not been good to him. I'd wager there's more than a screw loose. Probably the whole bracket, it's all ready to come crashing down..."
I nodded, and slowed my pace to catch up to Craggy. "So what happened when he tapped you earlier, passing through?"
"Ｉ ｗａｓ ｄｏｉｎｇ ｍｙ ｂｅｓｔ ｔｏ ｂｌｏｃｋ ｔｈｅ ｄｏｏｒ, ｂｕｔ ｔｈｅｎ ｈｅ ｔｏｕｃｈｅｄ ｍｅ ａｎｄ Ｉ ｆｅｌｔ ｌｉｋｅ... ｌｉｋｅ Ｉ ｓｈｏｕｌｄ ｌｅｔ ｈｉｍ ｐａｓｓ. Ｌｉｋｅ Ｉ ｈａｄ ｎｏ ｏｔｈｅｒ ｃｈｏｉｃｅ. "
"Weird.
"Ｉｔ ｊｕｓｔ ｆｅｌｔ ｌｉｋｅ ｔｈｅ ｒｉｇｈｔ ｔｈｉｎｇ ｔｏ ｄｏ ｅｖｅｎ ｔｈｏｕｇｈ Ｉ ｋｎｅｗ ｉｔ ｗａｓｎ'ｔ..."
"Well... you can punch him straight into the ground in one blow when we catch up to him and he drops Richard."
"Ｉ'ｄ ｌｏｖｅ ｔｈａｔ ａｎ ａｗｆｕｌ ｌｏｔ. "
"And I'd pay to see it!" Scriff said.
I looked back and saw Emmi solemnly trailing behind. "Hey, what's wrong?" I asked.
"I didn't mean to let some mean guy in... I just wanted to help..."
"It's okay, it's okay!" I replied quietly, "You've been in what, three chapters so far? When I started my fourth chapter, I was face-deep in problems, too! And I solved them with all my friends here."
"Every one of them?" she asked.
I winced, took in a sharp breath, and then forced out a "More or less" to ease the pain.
"What's he doing?" Memmi said to herself.
I looked over. Amark was walking into a train tunnel. It's going to be dark. We're going to lose sight of him, aren't we?
"I'll keep an eye on him. Here," she said, taking Scriff by the hand, who grabbed onto Flux, creating a chain that she then invited Simon, James, and Craggy to join in on, who then passed along a helping hand to Emmi and then finally myself.
I didn't know how to feel, I was holding my own hand. Weird. We carefully clung to the outer wall of the tunnel, Memmi keeping track of Amark in the dark.
Adark. Sorry, I'll focus. "Cut across," Memmi said quietly as we headed into the other part of a fork in the track.
"The old afterward?" I asked.
"Seems like it. What would he want down there?" she asked.
"Maybe Tammy?"
I could feel a very strong hesitation from Memmi to say anything, I can't really explain it, but we continued nonetheless. Eventually a faint light came into view, and Amark stepped out into it, emerging into the old train station, climbing onto the platform, and heading for the door.
We continued along in silence, farther away. We could get away with being, say, ten paces behind Amark in the crowded streets but in an abandoned town he'd definitely know we were following him. I felt kinda worried, though. Amark is capable of directly bending minds. And Memmi was risking herself to come down here and chase after him. She was risking all of us. It kind of scared me, to be honest. Nobody would know we were gone. Memmi doesn't have much to do in the afterward these days, none of us had any other friends, nobody would know we were gone.
Nobody would know we were gone.
I had to stop thinking about this. It's not good for me. We'll make it out of this, I just know it. We've gotta. At last, Amark stood on the street, looked about for a second, and then began to head towards the beach. "I see what he's doing," Memmi whispered, a chain of hand tightening running down the line.
Amark walked through the rocky sand, what was once an ocean now completely emptied, under a decaying building atop a boardwalk, and back up onto a second shore. We quickly hid under the boardwalk to stay out of his sight. After enough time passed, we headed up onto the boardwalk as well. At the end sat a large building. In weathered, grimy letters atop the building the words "afterward welcome center" were written.
We stopped at the doors about 45 seconds after Amark had passed through, and made certain he had vanished before opening the door ourselves. "The locked room," Memmi whispered as she approached the door.
"L-I-N-O-L-E-U-M," she said, punching in a code to the door.
There was a loud click that clung to every surface and bounced around the entire building. Amark had to have heard it. There's no way he didn't. She pushed the door open slowly, trying to peer into the crack, but then suddenly a hand reached out and dragged her in.
Craggy broke the minutes-long hand-hold and smashed the door clean in, wedging it firmly into the wall. Amark was sitting at one end of a table. On the table was Richard, still unconscious, and sitting in a chair adjacent to Amark was Memmi, pale with solid white eyes.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
