Vitaly S Alexius

Where the Predators Prowl [92, 93]

Added 2025-08-08 18:17:10 +0000 UTC

92. Together Forever

The first fat raindrops splattered against the trail, and within seconds a diresome wall of clouds reached us. The sky unleashed a torrential downpour and by the time I pulled out the ponchos, we were both soaked to the bone.

"THIS IS WORSE THAN THE SPIDERWEBS!" Nessy yelled over the roar of rain. "AT LEAST SPIDERS ARE DRY!"

"The cabins—" I shouted, pointing at the trail.

"Too far! The path ahead is getting flooded! Look!"

I looked. “Didn’t we take the blue trail?!”

“I distracted you and led us down the orange trail,” she confessed. “Cus I… didn’t want to run into Kristi. And I wanted to get to the caves.”

“Damn it Ness,” I growled.

Lightning cracked overhead, far too close. The thunder that followed made us both jump.

“Which way to the caves?” I growled.

“There!” She pointed.

I spotted a dark opening in the rocky outcropping to our left.

We scrambled off the trail, sliding on wet leaves and mud. Nessy reached the cave first, shaking herself violently and sending water everywhere once we were inside.

"Bleh!" She threw off the poncho at me and continued shaking, fur standing out in all directions. "This is your fault! You and your human…!"

"How exactly is rain my fault?!"

"You summon rain with your human weather powers!"

"Those don't exist."

“Yea they do, it’s called cloud seeding,” Nessy stated. “Humans invented it. Silver iodine dropped from planes! I read all about it on the net. Therefore I blame your people for this weather.”

“Not every storm is cloud seeded.”

“This one assuredly is. I bet the raptors paid for it.”

“Why?”

“The raptors own the weather stations. It’s an anti-dog plot.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Am not! You and your…” She paused mid-speech, pulling out her phone to check the time. Her ears perked up oddly. "Wait. That's... huh?"

"What?"

She stared at the clock on the phone, her entire face twitching. "We're early."

"Early for what?"

"I'm not entirely sure. Just... early. It feels like… like we're ahead of schedule somehow." She shook her head, sending more droplets flying. "It doesn't make sense."

"You're not making sense."

"Shh! This is different non-sense!" She paced in a small circle, leaving wet pawprints on the cave floor.

“What?”

"I got up at like 4 AM because I wanted to see you so bad. Couldn't sleep. Brain was all buzzy."

"Four AM? Nessy, that's getting a bit obsesso." I pulled off my backpack, stretching.

She whirled on me, eyes wide. "Obsesso? OBSESSO?! I'm not obsesso! I just... I just wanted to be with you! There’s nothing wrong with that. We're best friends! Best friends Syn-pack who want to be together all the time! That's normal! That's the most normal thing ever!"

She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Accept your best friend-ness!”

"I will if you stop shaking me right now."

"Shaking is love! It's how you distribute affection evenly!" She shook harder. "Feel the love! FEEL IT!"

"Ness please chill out.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re being ridiculous and… clingy.”

“Am not! This is perfectly normal prad behaviour when…”

“Kristi doesn't behave like this," I said.

The shaking stopped. Nessy's paws froze on my shoulders, her eyes going dark.

"What. Did. You. Just. Say?"

"I just meant—" I waved a hand in front of her face. “That she's a prad and maybe you could le—”

She bit me. Hard. Her teeth sank into my hand before I could pull away, sharp canines breaking skin. Blood welled up immediately.

"OW! What the fuck?! You bit me!”

“I warned you! Stop bringing up the raptor! This is your own fault! You and your big mouth and…”

I stared at her, my heart beating fast.

Nessy never bit me. Sure, she bit other people before, but never me and never this hard. What was wrong with her today?

She stared at my bloody hand and then her ears flattened against her skull. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry!" She grabbed my bleeding hand, licking at the wound frantically. "I didn't mean—I just—you keep talking about HER and something is terribly wrong and I—"

"That hurt, you jerk!" I yanked my hand back.

"You can do whatever you want back to me!" She thrust her paws at me. "Bite me! Hit me! Whatever makes it even! I deserve it!"

"I'm not going to bite or hit you, Nessy. I’m not a prad."

“College… you were supposed to promise me things about the future… but I guess we skipped over that, hum.”

“What?”

"Whatever, not important. You're running away regardless. Then... then..." She spun away, suddenly leaping towards and digging frantically through my backpack. "Where is it where is it where IS it—"

"What are you doing?"

She pulled out my camping knife, the blade glinting in the dim light filtering through the rain.

"Nessy, put that down."

Instead, she pressed the blade to her right paw. "If you won't hurt me back, I'll do it myself. Make it even. Make it correct. Blood for blood."

"Nessy! Don't—"

But she was already cutting, carving deliberate lines into her paw pad. Blood beaded up, mixing with the rainwater still dripping from her fur. I stared, mouth open wide.

She wasn't just randomly cutting—she was making a shape on her paw.

"Nessy, what are you—"

"Dagaz," she said, showing me her bleeding paw, momentarily lit by a flash of lightning. "The rune of breakthrough. Of transformation. Of endless binding." She finished the symbol with another stab. Two triangles touching at their points, forming a sideways hourglass. Blood ran down her paw, dripping onto the cave floor.

"Ness. You're scaring me," I stepped back, shuddering.

Thunder crashed outside, shaking the entire mountain. In the flash of lightning, I saw her face. Her expression was desperate, wild, but also strangely distant, like she wasn’t entirely here.

"Shake on it," she said, holding out her bloody paw. "So we can be together forever. No matter what. No matter where. No matter WHEN."

"Nessy—"

"Please." Her voice cracked. "Please, Alec. I love you. I love you so much it feels like I'm going to explode. Like there's too much of it for one body. Like I've loved you before and I'll love you again and it just goes on forever and ever and I need you to understand—"

"This is crazy."

"Everything's crazy! Reality is holographic! Time isn't real!”

“Ness you’re taking my granddad’s book too far and…”

“Am not!” She dug into her backpack, pulling out the ‘Holofractals’ book. I stared at the scruffy cover.

“Did you… steal my grandfather’s book?! When did you even?!”

“I’m a fast doggo. Look, it’s all here. I read it while you two slept. The door to everywhere is already open. It’s just a matter of… staying together when the end comes.”

I stared at the poor, insane husky. She had to be in cycle. This was the only rational explanation for her irrational behaviour. Her cycle must have finally started and…

“Alec!” She thrust her bleeding paw at me again, dropping the book. "—this is real. This matters!"

“What?”

“We have to shake on it! One handshake! Then it will all make sense, I… think!”

“You think?!”

The rain pounded harder, a solid wall of water beyond the cave mouth. I looked at her outstretched paw, the Dagaz symbol still bleeding, her eyes desperate.

"I... okay," I said finally, reaching out reluctantly. "Okay. One handshake. Just, no more biting, kay?"

“No bites,” she nodded. “Just a… harmless handshake between friends.”

Our hands connected, her blood mixing with mine. The moment our wounds touched, thunder exploded directly overhead, the flash so bright it turned the cave white.

I blinked.

"Yes!" Nessy gripped my hand tighter, not letting go. "In the name of Infinity Paradox Proxima! By Number Eight! Bind the past and future, all timelines, all possibilities! Bind Alec Benoit Foster to Nessy Rex Whitepaw! A bridge from the forgotten past to the nameless future!”

Her other paw slammed into the ground, claws digging into the mossy rock. "I bind us to the current moment itself! I bind Namelesness to this place, this time, this moment—CLASHRIDGE PEAK!"

I struggled in her grip, unable to escape her stronger pradavarian hand.

The world lurched sideways, like my body was a record and someone had just bumped the needle.

Everything skipped, stuttered, felt wrong. Skewered.

"Forever," she was saying, or had already said, or would say. "No matter how many times. No matter how many lives. You and me, Alec. Always."

“Nessy… what are you on…” I began.

This was wrong. Something was off. She was right. We were early. She was much more aggressive. Much more clingy. Much more… musical.

Things lined up and also didn’t line up.

"Nessy, what—"

"I fixed it," she grinned, still gripping my hand. "I fixed everything. Now you can never leave me. And I can never leave you. Even if we die. Even if the world ends. Even if—"

Lightning struck directly outside the cave, the boom so loud it knocked us both to the ground. When my vision cleared, Nessy was on top of me, rain and blood dripping from her fur onto my face.

"Mine," she said. “From now and forever. From this moment onto eternity.”

I blinked up at her. She kissed me fiercely. I struggled to dislodge her.

Again, the feeling of unreality returned, like a wave rushing across everything.

Lighting flashed, revealing a very large spiderweb hanging above us. One of Nessy’s eyes ignited silver, flickering erratically.

This was when I kick her away, tell her to piss off and head to Kristi’s cabin. Except time isn’t correct. It should be late evening. The blood pact didn't happen exactly like this…

My thoughts crawled over each other like an entire kicked anthill.

Wrong. Far too many things have gone off course today. But why was there a course at all?

“Alec, come on,” Nessy panted, holding me down. “Come on, come on. Tell me you love me. I love you. So much. So very very much.” She repeated, her breath hot against my face. "This is the part where you say it back.”

“Ness, I…” I stared at her. “This isn’t…”

“Isn’t what?”

"Something's wrong. This isn't—this isn't how it's supposed to happen!"

She laughed, but it came out fractured, almost like two voices overlapping. “Obviously not. I derailed the past by binding it to the future.”

“You… what?”

“The mall didn’t want to let us go,” she grinned. “So I’m not going to let it go either.”

“The mall?”

“The Nameless Mall, Alec,” she huffed. “Do try to keep up.”

“I don’t…”

“This memory,” She let one of my hands go waving at the cave and the rain. “This doomed world that got overwritten by your wish but also didn’t. This moment in space and time. It’s ours. Yours and mine. The moment when I bound myself to you using the rune from that book.”

She pointed at the ‘Holofractals’ book on the floor, the dog-eared page flipped to the Dagaz rune.

I stared at her, then the book, then at the spiderweb above us filled with hundreds of black spiders. The spiders looked down at us with beady, black eyes.

“Think, Alec, think!” She declared, looking a bit manic.

There was something off about her expression. Something… A bit… foxy? A bit… loopy?

I choked, my mind snapping sideways, the name blooming to the forefront of my thoughts. “Candace… what the fuck have you done?”

“I bound the past to the future, Alec!” she revealed, “I bound entropy-chewed up namelessness that sought to consume us and leave only hollow husks behind… to Clashridge Peak! I didn’t just give that damned dungeon mall a name… I gave it… ALL of Clashridge! I gave it the concept of Pradavarian Earth in 2018 without magic! I filled an empty space with a very particular time and place. I bound a very heavy, very syntropic idea of something into a dimensional hole, sheared that entire damned mall to smitheerees!”

Mad giggles escaped her husky throat, one eye flaring bright silver.

93. In Between Past and Future

I opened my mouth and closed. “I don't understand. You bound the past to the future? Why?”

“Because we need to get back to the present. The Nameless Mall fucked us.”

“Huh?”

“Do you know how black holes work? They bend time Alec. Our time got shafted by that mall as soon as we entered it and the deeper we went in the worse it got! Want a more magical metaphor? It’s like… Like a fae circle where time runs faster! We basically lost a few centuries while we walked around it.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. That’s not acceptable! I want to go back to Cascade the moment when we left it, not a thousand years after everyone’s dead and the dragons are all gone. I owe Kristi one date on the beach! You think I want her to be pissed at me because I fucked up her date with you? It’s my fault as a Binder that Denver sent us to Eureka and then to your human Earth devoured by Systemfall.”

The spider web above us swayed in the wind from the storm, and for a second I could have sworn I saw movement of dozens, hundreds, thousands of wriggling spiders there.

"The movie," I choked out, my mind bubbling with more memories. "We're still in the movie? The Nameless Mall! That’s Murdoch's web above us, right?"

“Yes and also no. Because it was never a movie. It was a trap. A binding loop.”

“A trap?”

“Yeah,” Nessy nodded. “A dimensional funnel. Like the kind an Antlion makes for dumb prey, except less sand and more space-time. The spiders and the First Person Hunters planned to devour our paralyzed bodies in the future while our minds were trapped in our whimsical past. So, I reverse Uno-ed the fuck out of their Antlion time-hole. The Movie Theater made a rookie mistake. Nobody fucks with a concept Binder using Dimensional Binding magic!”

“Um. Okay. What about making the chalk? What about getting the ingredients, to open a door back to Cascade?” I tried to wrap my wobbly thoughts around her words.

“Alec, it’s like I’m talking but you’re not listening.”

“Fine, I’m… listening,” I forced myself to relax. “Go on.”

“The mall causes massive time dilation,” she explained. “Once you get in, that’s it. You’re screwed. If we went on to assemble all of those ingredients and blended it and made the chalk in a linear way… then we’d just open the door to future Ferguson. Maybe a Ferguson in 2444 or something. Not Ferguson in 2020 where we want to go. By binding our past to the future, I’ve created a new loop. A local dimensional loop, something in between the dimensionally-fucked Nameless Mall and 2018 Clashridge.”

She let go of me. My bitten hand was still stinging, bleeding heavily. Nessy dug into my backpack and produced a bandage, gently binding my bleeding hand and then her own sliced paw.

“I don’t get it.” I said.

“You don’t need to get it,” she said, “just trust me. This is fine. We’re on the right path now.”

“This looks like the past.” I looked around the dark cave.

“It does, yes.”

“And there’s no magic here.”

“Mhmmm. There is. Check yo Stats.”

“Stats,” I said.

A menu flashed woven from silver letters across the view.

[Congratulations, punk! You've somehow managed to get temporally displaced, dimensionally fractured, AND soul-bound creating a local space-time paradox all in one afternoon and also not afternoon. Most delvers just die in the ex-Nameless Mall locale due to excessive entropy. You're really overachieving here!]

[Quest Update: "Reality Mixer Shopping List" Status: Incomplete. Time Remaining: ∞ (System Error: Local linear time not found.)

Quest Items Obtained:
✓ Starscape Crossview Spectacles (5/5)
✓ Dimensionally-Sheared Movie Tickets (5/5)
✓ Conceptual Contradictions (∞/5) (You overachieving bastard, way to break everything)

Items Unobtained (no longer existing):
✗ Nostalgia Gems (0/5 gems)
✗ Paradox Markers (0/5 markers)
✗ Time Zest (0/5 ounces)
✗ Forgotten Music (0/5 records)
✗ REALITY MIXER
✗ Dollarstore Chalk Molds

Your ‘genius’ fox packmate has decided to solve time dilation by BINDING A CONCEPT OF AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT EARTH TO A CARNIVOROUS MALL. This is definitely not going to have any horrible consequences whatsoever. Nope. None at all.]

[New Achievement Unlocked: "Temporal Pretzel"] [New Achievement Unlocked: "Why Make Chalk When You Can Just Break Reality?"]

[Congrats for breaking my best, hungriest dungeon. You now have enough XP to evolve to Level 5! I’d take away experience from you, but alas, I gotta pretend to be polite and lawful. Enjoy your temporal victory.]

"Oh good," I muttered, mentally plowing through the sarcastic system messages. “Systemfall’s hella mad at me.”

“She’ll get over it.” Nessy dug in the backpack and pulled out the pink chalk, admiring it.

I stared at the chalk. “Hang on. Is that…?”

“Dimensional chalk, yes.”

“But we haven’t made it yet.”

“Correct. We haven’t made it and yet it already mostly, sorta exists. It’s a paradox. This is what happens when you bind a nameless place to a memory of another time that no longer exists while wanting stuff.”

“I’m starting to get a migraine trying to process all of this shit. Can we use the chalk then?”

“It’s not made yet, my dude. We still have to get the other ingredients.”

“But it’s right there.”

“Yeah and it’s not finished yet. Calm your tits.”

“I don’t have…”

“Bloom some then, then calm them. Slayer, stop nitpicking my idioms.”

“How are we supposed to find shit like… Time Zest or Nostalgia gems in 2018 Clashridge?”

“I’ll find a clock, wind it backwards and bind the idea of such to it and snip off the arrow. Find a shiny gem and bind a nostalgic memory to it. You’ve Syntropic fusion too. We can fuse shit to shit till we get the needed result.”

“And that’s going to work?”

“Probably,” she shrugged. “I broke this whole place. Local reality is a bit like jello now. Poke it hard enough and it will attempt to correct its shape. Like the soul stats you see. Is System and manual corrections.”

“Are we going to ‘correct’ Murdoch?” I eyed the spiders overhead.

“Nah,” Nessy said. “They were going to eat us. Let them be regular, dumb spiders. If they are conceptually strong enough they’ll eventually break outta my binding and become more aware. Maybe even bloom their shop back into existence somewhere on this mountainside. If not, then whatever.”

“I… okay.” I sighed. "You know what bothers me?"

"My devastating adowkable-ness?" Nessy-Candace waggled her eyebrows. “My wise foxxitude?”

"No. You keep binding shit to shit without telling me. First the lawsuit in Denver and now you've bound an entire mall to our past. A heads up would be nice."

Her ears drooped slightly. "I... yeah. Sorry. I did trick ya. But if I'd told you my dastardly mall double-crossing plan, it wouldn't have worked as well."

"Why not?"

"Because you're a liminal tree-soul, Alec. Belief shapes reality, especially if that reality barely has a name and is extra wobbly due to entropic decay. If you knew it was fake, if you knew I was binding the past to trap the mall in it..." She spread her paws. "The binding would've been weaker. Flimsy. The mall could've broken free and chewed us up like two chicken huggets. I needed you to believe, with every branch of your lovely tree-self, that we were really, 100% here... in 2018. On Clashridge. Just... Alec and Nessy, two besties on a hiking trip."

“I feel… pretty bamboozled,” I rubbed the back of my head.

"Bamboozled, but still alive," she pointed out. “Your Reconstitution isn’t limitless. The mall would have permanently devoured us all. Bind our physical bodies, then chew on our souls for a few millennia. I smelled its dastardly plans and made my own. Plus, I got mostly bamboozled myself for a while too… till we did the blood pact handshake. Also, I kinda implied the problem we were facing in my song lyrics.”

I opened my mouth.

“A raptor princess with a soul-chewing curse,

Trapped between timelines, for better or worse.
A fox who binds concepts with silver-bright thread,

Who sees how the future will leave us all dead,” she sang.

“See? We avoided being dead. Praise and pets please.”

“Right. Thanks. You’re… a good… uhh… fox-doggo. So,” I said. “Is Kristi…”

“Kristi is out there. In her fam’s cabin. Probably still thinks it’s 2018. No, scratch that, she definitely thinks it’s 2018. Convincing her of anything else will be hard cus she’s a stubborn critter.”

“And Adelle?”

“Is in Kristi.”

“And Adelle and Candace’s bodies are where?”

“Inside the dimensional bag,” She said, pointing at my hiking bag.

I looked at my backpack. It looked mundane.

“I’ll snap it back into Fern’s dimensional backpack when I feel less exhausted,” Nessy said.

“Fine.”

“Feeling less confused? We cool now?” She asked, holding out her bandaged up paw.

“Yeah, we cool,” I shook her paw. “Good job saving us.”

“Do… You love me?” She looked at me with a slightly concerned expression.

“I… love you,” I said.

She smothered me in a fluffy hug.

“I just don’t like you tricking me.” I let out.

“I won’t do it again,” she rubbed her face against me, licking and kissing my neck. “Unless we’re in danger of becoming chowder and our enemy makes a stupid ass move like generating an entire dimensional funnel to trap us in. Then I’ll totally do it again.”

I sighed.

“Come on, gimme a big smile. See?” She waved her bandaged hand. “The concept of love beats the concept of ‘Nameless Mall Hunger’. We’re the rock to their scissors.”

“I pray that we do not encounter our paper.” I commented.

“We’ll throw the rock into their face at the speed of sound before they deploy any paper.” She grinned. “I cheat.”

“Yes, that you do, you sneaky fox.”

“A doggorific fox! Or maybe a foxxorrrific dog?” She pursed her lips and then laughed.

As we let go of each other I noticed something off about the cave mouth. The rain was still there, coming down in sheets, but… it wasn’t making noise anymore.

"What’s going on with the rain?" I stepped closer to the entrance.

Stillness. Pure and absolute stillness greeted me.

Water droplets hung suspended in mid-air, each one static, catching the light like tiny crystals. I looked up. Lightning permanently etched itself across the clouds as if someone had hit the pause button on the world around us.

"Time's a bit fucky," Nessy admitted. "Side effect of binding a very particular moment from our past to Namelessness. We're in a bubble of sorts now. A pocket of... hrm… Let's call it 'somewhat flexible chronology.'"

“How big of a bubble?”

“I dunno. Ten clicks maybe? Probably doesn’t reach all the way to Ferguson. I’m kind of low mana and would like to chill for a bit as it gets recharged.” She tapped the dragonheart laurel with her claw, the gemstones glinting between black and white locks of her mane.

“And my grandfather…” I began.

“An approximation of your grandfather might exist within this bubble if it reaches his farm. Probably not a super nice one, since it would also likely feature something from the Nameless Mall mixed in.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Not as messed up as this damned book,” Candace picked up the ‘Holofractals’ tome. “This! This is the book that your grandfather must have used to build a gate to Manchester. This is what inspired me in 2018 to bind my soul to you with a Dagaz blood rune, Alec. This book potentially holds the secrets to reality, the universe and everything. I'ma read it all when I get a chance to lie down again.”

“I see,” I said.

She shoved the book into the bag and put it on. “Kay. Am good to go.”

I cautiously reached out and touched one of the suspended droplets. It was cold, wet, but completely motionless until my finger pushed through it. The raindrop exploded on my hand, turning into regular water that dripped down my hand. "This is deeply unsettling."

"You’ll get used to it." She pulled on her poncho, the bright yellow plastic crinkling. "Come on, let's go get Kristi on board.”

I pulled on the poncho, the plastic still damp from earlier. Or later. Or never. Candace’s time-binding nonsense was hard to wrap my mind around. "So we just... walk to the cabin across frozen rain?"

"Timeless rain," she corrected. "Frozen rain is snow or ice. Timeless rain is rain that forgot it's supposed to fall."

"That doesn't make it better."

"Wasn't trying to ‘make it better’. Just more… conceptually accurate." She stepped backwards out of the cave into the suspended droplets, which exploded against her body, rolling off the poncho. "See? Easy-peasy!"

I followed, grimacing as frozen raindrops smacked into my face and immediately liquified. "This is like walking through the world's wettest spider web."

"Except spiders don't taste like mountain water," Nessy said, then immediately licked a suspended droplet. "Mmm. Notes of granite."

"Why would you lick that?" I blanched.

"At what other time would I get a chance to taste timeless rain?" She bounded ahead, leaving a Nessy-shaped tunnel through the hovering rain.

“If time is paused, how are we moving? How are we breathing air?"

“We observe each other, therefore we exist in a linear-state. The rain’s linear state broke slightly. Heh. If time is paused, and we're walking through paused time... we are technically time traveling!"

"What?"

"We're time bandits! Temporal thieves! Chronological criminals!"

"Is that… bad?”

"Probably! We’re walking through STOLEN TIME!" She threw her arms wide, smacking clusters of raindrops that exploded across her poncho.

“Is time police going to come and arrest us?”

“Maybe!” She shrugged and blanched as rain splashed across her entire snout. “Ugh. This isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. It's like… horizontal rain, forever. Going to wave a hand ahead of my face to swat the rain outta the way.”

We continued through the frozen rain, the forest around us eerily still. No birds, no wind, even the trees were locked in place. Only the squelch of our footsteps and the patter of disturbed raindrops falling off us broke the silence.

"This is super creepy," I said.

"Which part? The frozen time? Or that I basically turned an entire predatory mall into a mountain?"

"Yes." I deadpanned.

"Fair." She hopped over a fallen log covered in suspended droplets. "Oh! I just realized something horrible!"

"What now?"

"If time is paused, the MacPaws will never open! No nuggets! A cruel, nuggetless timeline!"

"That's your concern? Not the existential horror of broken causality, but chicken nuggets?"

"Priorities, Alec! Sure, I've shattered the fundamental nature of space-time, but at what cost? AT WHAT COST?!"

"The cost of chicken nuggets, apparently."

"The greatest cost of all." She clutched her chest dramatically. "Future generations will speak of this tragedy. 'Where were you when the nuggets stopped?' they'll ask."

"Nobody will ask that."

"They should! It's historically significant!" She stopped in front of the flooded path and cautiously stepped onto the surface of the water. “Ha! Behold! I'm a wuxia film ninja!”

She quickly walked atop timeless water, not sinking down. “Hurry up! Before 'dis water realizes how it's supposed to behave!”