Where the Dead Things Bloom. [Ch 53, 54]

53: Town Of Bedshire

Nessy snored softly, a fluffy black and white bundle in Krysanthea’s arms, her fluffy chest rising and falling with the relaxed rhythm of sleep. The Strand sisters stood in a loose defensive semicircle, their expressions ranging from cheerful, to relieved, to wary acceptance of the new pecking order I’d just established and enforced.

I glanced at Krysanthea. Her usually composed, serious, bossy demeanor looked like it was fraying at the edges, her claws trembling slightly as she clutched Nessy tightly as if the sleeping husky was a life vest. I guessed that the Supercenter’s endless aisles were gnawing at the raptor-girl, amplifying her apeirophobia.

“Hey, um, how’s your... Uhhh… Dislike for this place?” I whispered, walking close to her and leaning toward her face to shield the question from her sisters. 

They’d already proven they’d weaponize any weakness, and I wasn’t about to give them more ammunition to torment her.

"Hate it," she hissed back, her feathers fluttering. "It's worse than the highway here. Everything looks bloody infinite in every direction." Her amber eyes darted nervously to the endless shelves stretching into impossible distances. "I… Honestly, I deserve getting fired by Ness from meat packing. I didn't do any work whatsoever, worrying too much about… stuff. Do you mind if I just look at you? You're the most finite thing in this damn place."

“Yeah, sure,” I said, offering her a small, reassuring smile. 

Finite? Me? The memory of my liminal self—blooming into a tree of infinite hands, a fractal consciousness that overwhelmed the artifacts—lingered like an odd aftertaste. My finite-ness felt like an illusion, a mask I wore to navigate the linear world. But for Krysanthea’s sake, I’d play the part of her anchor, be her fixed point in this sea of shopping-ness.

Kristi's gaze locked onto me with an intensity that might have been uncomfortable if I didn't understand the lifeline I represented. Her breathing, which had been shallow and rapid, gradually steadied as she focused on my face—something with clear boundaries.

The silver threads of our pack bond pulsed faintly between our trio, brightening as Kristi leaned her head against me for a moment.

“Thanks,” she whispered. "Bloody walls keep breathing."

"Walls breathing?" I asked.

"You haven't noticed?" Her voice dropped lower. "When you look away, the aisles shift. The shelves breathe. This place... it's alive in ways the highway definitely wasn't. At least there, you could see the road and monsters ahead, even if it never ended. Here, everything is..." She swallowed hard. "Watching. Waiting. Hungry. Alive… like an organism. Too much random shit moving on too many shelves too."

I glanced at the shelves around us, not really seeing what she meant. The shelves seemed perfectly static to me, only a couple of items seemed to move a little. Perhaps her raptor senses were sharper than mine, detecting more movement.

"Focus on me," I reminded her. "I'm right here."

"Real," she repeated with a nod. "Real and finite."

Kaledoniya bounded up, oblivious to her sister's distress. "So, Alpha! What's the plan? How are we escaping this place?"

“Nessy’s out for now, so we’re missing our navigator, but we probably shouldn't be simply standing around,” I said. “The Supercenter’s still holding your soul fragments hostage, and we need to find a way to get them back without falling into its traps again. The problem is that something will kill us in the future. At least, it would have killed us if Nessy was allowed to chloroform me.”

“Great,” Kat commented. “Our new, human ‘Alpha’ has no idea what to do. Shocking.”

I gave her my most stern look. She lowered her eyes and fell silent.

“If you’ve got a better idea, Kat, I’m all ears.” I said.

“I smell and hear a human with a metal arm,” she said. “He’s… roaming around here. Maybe he knows a way out.”

“Ah,” I said. “That’s probably Jim. Let's go and interrogate him. Just… let me get all this stuff. Might be bad in some way to leave it lying around.”

I bent down and scooped up the sliced remnants of the blue vests. The fabric felt mundane in my hands. I stuffed the dead vests into Nessy’s backpack, along with the shredded pieces of the employee badges I’d cut from Krysanthea, Nessy and myself. I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to keep them—maybe some instinct born of this bizarre world told me they might still hold power, or maybe I just didn’t trust leaving anything tied to the Supercenter lying around where it could potentially regenerate or cause trouble later.

“Alright,” I said, slinging the backpack over my shoulder and turning to the raptor sisters. “Let’s track down Jim. He’s been here long enough to grow a shopping cart arm, so he might indeed know a way out—or at least tell us something useful to work with. Which way, Kat?”

“He’s that way,” she said, jerking her head toward a section of the endless equipment shed where the shelves twisted into labyrinthine walls of tools and gear. Her nose twitched, and her claws flexed instinctively. “Moving slow, like he’s not in a hurry.”

Katerina led the way with all of us following. 

The equipment grew stranger the deeper we went—tools that seemed to writhe like snakes, gauges with needles that spun in odd or impossible directions, and a wrench that briefly floated off its hook before settling back down as if embarrassed to be caught. I kept my eyes forward, trying not to let the Supercenter’s nonsense get under my skin. 

Kristi stayed very close to me, pretending that she was my personal bodyguard when in reality she was simply trying not to have a nervous breakdown.

After a few minutes, Katerina stopped abruptly, her feathers flaring. “There,” she said, pointing to a clearing where the shelves parted to reveal a lone figure tinkering with a pile of twisted shopping carts.

It was Jim. He looked up as we approached, his weathered face breaking into a tired but genuine smile. 

“Ah,” he said, wiping his brow with his human hand. “The new guy and his…  entourage. Didn’t expect to see you this soon, Alec.” His eyes flicked to Nessy, still snoring softly in Krysanthea’s arms, and then to the absence of our vests and badges. “And without your uniforms, no less. Rough first shift?”

“You could say that,” I replied, keeping my tone neutral. “Permanent employment isn't for everyone, right?”

Jim chuckled dryly. “Ain’t that the truth. Most folks burn out early—too many carts, too many shelves, too much… everything.” He gestured vaguely at the infinite expanse around us. “Seen plenty come through here, all bright-eyed and ready to ‘pay off their debts.’ Half of ‘em don’t last a week before they’re running for the exits or… worse.” His gaze lingered on Nessy, a flicker of concern crossing his face. “Your manager definitely looks like she’s pushed herself too hard. The coffee does that to people—keeps you going ‘til you snap.”

“Yeah, she totally snapped,” Kirra muttered. “And took us down a peg when she did.”

Jim didn’t press for details. “It happens,” he said simply. “This place has a way of finding your breaking point and leaning on it.”

“Did you fight the toaster gang?” I wondered.

“Nah,” he shook his head with a smile. “Any work that offers a promotion is usually too dangerous to do alone. Anyhow, I’m guessing you didn’t find me just to ask where to find garden tools or something, right?”

“You’ve been here a while, right Jim?” I asked. 

“Sure have,” he nodded. “Got me a nice place in Bedshire.”

“Bedshire?”

“Town in ‘Bedrooms and More’ department,” he said. “If you folks are looking for a place, I can rent ya a room or two.”

“Thanks. Any advice on how to navigate this place?” I asked. “Maybe how to locate soul fragments the store’s taken?”

Jim’s smile faded. “Soul fragments, huh? That’s a tall order. The Supercenter doesn’t give those up easily—likes to keep her hooks in deep.” He scratched his chin, his expression thoughtful.

“Wait, so… you live here?” Kaledonya asked.

“Well, not here,” Jim said. “But yes, I live in a town standing inside the Supercenter. My shift’s just about done for the day, and I’m heading home. If you folks want, you can come with me.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“C’mon then, I’ll show you. Ain’t far if you know the way.”

Jim led us out of the equipment shed, back into the dizzying expanse of the Supercenter’s main aisles. The shelves loomed overhead, stocked with products that seemed to whisper faintly as we passed—cans of “Eternal Regret” with expiration dates in negative years, boxes of “Instant Nostalgia” that smelled like childhood memories, and a display of “Self-Assembly Body Assemblers” that made my skin crawl. 

After a few hundred turns and inexplicable doors concealed in random aisle corners, Jim guided us into the bedding department—an endless sprawl of mattresses, bed frames, and pillows that stretched into the horizon. But as we moved deeper, the aisles began to change, vanishing and then opening up into a massive cavernous space.

In the middle of it stood a fortress surrounded by a moat of cracked tiles dropping into darkness. Behind the moat, bed posts were sharpened into wicked points, their tips glinting like spears, and mattresses were stacked high, creating a towering wall that loomed in front us like a castle.

“What is this place?” Kaledoniya asked.

“Bedshire,” Jim said simply as we reached the moat and walked over a drawbridge made from wobbly mattresses and bed posts tied together with what looked like bedsheets.

At the entrance, two tall and bulky figures stood guard, their silhouettes humanoid but somewhat off. They wore capes fashioned from bed sheets, the fabric billowing dramatically despite the still air. Each held a spear crafted from a bed post, the wood carved with intricate patterns that glowed faintly under the fluorescent lights. Their faces were obscured by pillowcases with eye holes cut out, giving them an amusing, albeit almost ceremonial appearance.

“Who goes there?” one of the guards called, leveling his spear at us.

“Jim, Cart Collection,” Jim replied, raising his cart-handle arm in a casual wave. “Got some newcomers with me. They’re good folk, just looking for a place to rest and figure things out.”

The guards exchanged a glance, then lowered their spears. “Welcome to Bedshire,” the second guard said, stepping aside. “Mind the rules: no stealing, no fighting, no messing with the perimeter.”

We passed through the gate, and the town of Bedshire unfolded before us. 

It was a makeshift-looking settlement built entirely from the Supercenter’s bedding department. Mattress frames had been repurposed into skeletal structures, their metal slats bent and welded into walls and roofs. Pillows and blankets were draped over them, forming patchwork canopies that fluttered faintly in a breeze that shouldn’t have existed. Bed posts, sharpened and polished, were driven into the ground like stakes, creating a bristling perimeter that encircled the town like a palisade.

Houses—if you could call them that—were cobbled together from mattress springs, headboards, and stacks of pillows, each structure unique yet somehow cohesive. Lanterns made from bedside lamps hung from poles, casting a warm, flickering glow over the streets. Residents moved about, some human, some pradavarian-like fusion of a person and animal, others a surreal blend of a person and some kind of object—probably affected by supercenter-ness like Jim.

“Welcome to the resistance!” Jim declared, his voice tinged with pride. “Or as close to one as we’ve got. Bedshire’s a safe haven for employees who don’t want to end up as part of the store’s inventory. We’ve been here a while, carving out a little piece of finite from the infinite.”

Krysanthea’s grip on Nessy remained firm, but her amber eyes softened slightly. The sight of something structured, something with boundaries, was easing her apeirophobia, the town walls blocking the endless aisles. “How many people live here?” she asked.

“Couple hundred, give or take,” Jim replied, leading us down a street lined with pillow-fort houses. “Folks come and go—some burn out and leave never to return, some get… liquidated. But we hold our own. Got a council, a market, even a bar made from bed frames and duvet covers. Ain’t much, but it’s ours.”

“And the store just… lets you live here? Doesn’t try to shut you down?” Kat asked.

Jim’s smile turned grim. “Oh, she tries. Sends her paper goons now and then, or tries to mess with our perimeter. But we’ve got ways of keeping ‘em at bay—tricks we’ve learned over time. Ain’t perfect, but it’s enough to keep Bedshire standing.”

“What kinda tricks?” Kira asked.

“The papercraft men are confused by entropy,” Jim said. “So we locate the most entropic stuff and duct tape to the floor around our citadel. Over time, it melts through the floor. It’s what made the moat. The water in there is extra-fucky. I suggest not falling in. Would melt your face right off.”

We reached a central square, where a makeshift stage had been built from stacked mattresses. A small crowd was gathered, listening to a blue woman with fox-like ears and a tail recite what sounded like poetry. Around the square, stalls offered goods—food wrapped in pillowcases, tools crafted from bed springs, even small trinkets that looked suspiciously like Supercenter products repurposed into art.

“This is… incredible,” Kirra said. “You built a whole town inside a store?”

“Had to,” Jim said. “You stay out there too long—” he gestured vaguely toward the stuff beyond the mattress walls, “—and the store starts to get inside you. Bedshire’s our way of staying linear and human. Or… whatever most of us are now.”

54: Dream of Wings

“Jim,” I said, “I need to find the soul fragments the store took from my friends.” I nodded toward the Strand sisters. “And we need to get out of here, find our way back to our Earth, our town. Can anyone in Bedshire help us?”

“As I said earlier, soul fragments are tricky,” Jim sighed. “The store scatters ‘em across her aisles, hides ‘em in products or traps. You’d need someone who knows the deep aisles, someone who’s mapped the unmappable.” He paused, scratching his chin with his cart-handle arm. “There’s a woman here, calls herself the Cartographer. She’s been charting the Supercenter longer than anyone. If anyone knows how to find your fragments, it’s her.”

“Where do we find her?” Krysanthea asked.

“She’s got a place behind the council hall,” Jim said, pointing to a larger structure at the edge of the square, its frame made from welded headboards and draped with quilts. “But a word of warning—she’s… eccentric. And she don’t trust easy. You’ll need to convince her you’re worth helping. Plus she’s got a waiting list—plenty of folks want to speak to her about particular stuff they’re looking for.”

“Great,” Katerina muttered. “Another weirdo to deal with.”

“We’re in their town. Show some respect.” Kristi chided, her tone sharp.

Katerina shot her older sister a glare but said nothing, once again lowering her eyes when I glanced at her.

Jim led us toward the council hall, the crowd parting to let us through. The residents of Bedshire watched us with curiosity and wariness, their eyes lingering on Nessy’s unconscious form and the Strand sisters’ raptor features.

Then the shopping-cart armed man led us to a small building constructed from four-poster bed frames welded together, with quilts and sheets forming the walls and roof. A sign made from a headboard read "CARTOGRAPHER'S OFFICE - BY APPOINTMENT ONLY."

"This is it," Jim said, gesturing to the entrance. "Let me see if she's taking visitors today."

He disappeared inside while we waited. The town's activity continued around us—people trading items at makeshift stalls, children playing with toys fashioned from pillowcases stuffed with bed padding, people smoking, eating or chilling amidst pillow piles and bedpost balconies.

"This is bloody weird," Katerina muttered, keeping her voice low. "A whole community living inside a store?"

"At least it has boundaries," Krysanthea replied. 

Jim emerged a few minutes later, holding what looked like a mechanical alarm clock with bed springs attached to it. "Good news and bad news," he said. "The Cartographer's got a waiting list—about a week long. But..." He handed me the clock-spring device. "This is your appointment token. If someone cancels, it'll ring and you can go right in. Otherwise, you're looking at next Thursday."

"A week?" Kirra groaned. "We can't wait that long!"

"Unfortunately, that's the best I can do," Jim shrugged. "The Cartographer is the only one who knows the deep aisles well enough to help with your soul fragments. Everyone wants a piece of her time."

"What are we supposed to do until then?" Katerina demanded.

"Well, I've got room at my place," Jim offered. "Two spare bedrooms you can use. It's not fancy, but it's safe."

"That's very kind of you," I said. 

Kat stared at Jim with an expression of mistrust. "What's the cost?" she asked, eyes narrowing. "Nothing's free in a place like this, seems like."

Jim chuckled. "Clever girl. Yeah, there's a cost—the town charges rent. Usually comes out of your store salary, but since you folks are... between jobs, let's say, you can pay in favors."

"Favors?" Katerina repeated, her claws flexing. "What kind of favors?"

"Nothing sinister," Jim assured her. "Help around town, maybe some guard duty, repairs—that sort of thing. We've got a favor-based economy here. Do good for Bedshire, Bedshire does good for you."

"And who enforces these 'favors'?" Katerina pressed on.

"The town itself," Jim replied simply. "She’s our domain. You rack up too much debt, don't pay it back, your favor rating drops. Get it low enough, and you will be banished and won't be let back in. Simple as that." He gestured to the mattress-wall perimeter. "Out there, unless you're a store employee, your chances of getting mangled or worse are pretty high. Bedshire's the safest domain for miles."

I considered our options. We needed a safe place for Nessy to recover, and somewhere to regroup and plan our next move.

"We'll take the two bedrooms," I decided. "Thank you, Jim."

He nodded and motioned for us to follow. "This way to my place then. It's near the west wall."

As we walked, I noticed something about Jim that had been bothering me since I saw it screwing with Nessy’s mind—his employee uniform. "Jim," I asked, "How do you deal with the influence from your store vest and name tag?"

“Ah, that. Let me show you.” Jim stopped, turning to face me. He lifted a blue patch that I didn’t notice on the uniform, revealing what looked like a bisected gray eye—sewn shut with silver thread, the fabric puckered around it.

"Sliced and sewn shut. As for the nametag—" He tapped his nametag. “Look closer.” 

I did, noting that the plastic of the badge looked like it was partially melted and bubbled in places, his picture and name slightly distorted. "Dunked it and the uniform in the town moat for a few seconds. Perma-fucked ‘em up good. The eye can't open or control me if it can't form properly."

“That would have been handy to know,” I said.

“I didn’t know if I could trust ya,” Jim shrugged. “Sorry. Some people change when they put on the uniform, becoming completely subservient to the upper management. The only way to take it off is to destroy or damage it enough, but you gotta be extra dedicated to being free for that.”

"So that's how you avoid becoming... like she was," Kristi said, petting Nessy in her hands.

"Yep," Jim confirmed. "Most folks here have done something similar. You learn to adapt, find the loopholes. You still get paid for doing work hours and the store doesn’t harass you even if your uniform is damaged." He smiled. "C'mon, let's get you settled."

Jim's apartment was a surprisingly cozy space built from king-sized bed frames in what looked like a three floor condo cobbled together from various bed pieces. The windows were draped with red and blue sheer curtains, and the furniture crafted from various bedding materials—a couch made from mattresses, chairs from pillows stacked and sewn together, a table from a headboard laid flat on shortened bed posts.

"Two extra bedrooms through there," he said, pointing to a hallway lined with quilts. "Bathroom's the door with the pillow sham on it. Kitchen's just that corner there—got a hotplate and some supplies. Make yourselves at home."

"Thank you," Krysanthea said, adjusting her hold on Nessy. 

After getting Nessy settled in one of the bedrooms, we gathered in Jim's living room area.

"Anyone hungry?" Jim asked. "There's a decent diner in the square."

“What does it offer?” Kristi asked.

“Food bought from the Food n’ More department,” Jim said. “Or things we hunt. Animals that wander around the store.”

"Food would be great," I admitted, suddenly aware of how long it had been since I’d eaten.

. . .

The diner was a larger structure near the center of Bedshire, its walls made from overlapping quilts and its roof from a canopy of sheets suspended from bed posts. Inside, tables were fashioned from various small and large headboards, and the chairs were plush cushions stacked into serviceable seating. The lighting was made from random colored bedside lamps hanging from the ceiling.

“Isn’t the store bothered by you making bedroom stuff into all of this?” I asked. “Doesn’t she charge you for doing this?”

“Nah,” Jim shrugged. “It ain’t stolen. It’s all still inside the store’s bedroom section. Repurposing items doesn’t trigger the receipt men.”

A woman with what appeared to be cash register keys for hair appeared and showed us to a table. "Evening Jim! The usual?" she asked, her voice tinged with a slight mechanical quality.

"You bet, Reggie," Jim replied. "And whatever my friends want."

We ordered from a menu written on a pillowcase—surprisingly normal food like burgers, sandwiches, and the house specialty: meatloaf. When the meal arrived, it looked and smelled delicious, regardless of its origins.

When the bill came, it was marked "7.4 favors" instead of a monetary amount. It was stamped on a miniature pillowcase.

“Just sign at the bottom,” the waitress handed me a calligraphy brush and an inkwell.

I took the bill and signed my name at the bottom, feeling somewhat bemused by the bill.

[Favor Account of Bedshire Updated: Alec Foster - Balance: -7.4 favors. Rent for two rooms (5 favors per night) will be automatically deducted. Current running total: -17.4 favors. Status: INDEBTED. Consider contributing to Bedshire's wellbeing soon or become banished!]

The silver System message hovered briefly before vanishing.

"There she goes, putting ya in the red," Jim commented. "Don't worry—there's plenty of ways to earn favors around here. The wall always needs patrolling, items require acquisition, people need stuff done and the community kitchens are always short-handed."

After dinner, we made our way back to Jim's apartment. Night had fallen in Bedshire—or at least, the overhead lights had dimmed to simulate evening, and residents had lit lanterns outside their dwellings, creating a surreal twilight atmosphere.

"Ah, I almost forgot! Let me show you privacy controls before you turn in," Jim said as we entered his home. He led us to the bedrooms and pointed to what looked like a rune painted on the sheet-wall. "Privacy charm. Tap it once, it mutes outside noises. Tap it twice, it mutes inside noises from escaping out. Comes in handy when you want some privacy. Works for eight hours.”

"That's... convenient," Krysanthea said, eyeing the symbol.

"Two favors per night to use it," Jim added. "Just so you know."

We divvied up the sleeping arrangements—Krysanthea and I would stay with Nessy in one room, while the three Strand sisters would take the other. Despite Katerina's protest about being separated from Krysanthea, the older raptor insisted on staying with her pack mates.

After settling in for the night, I lay on a makeshift bed of pillows on the floor. The husky had barely stirred all day, her body clearly making up for weeks of sleeplessness.

I tapped the privacy rune once, figuring the extra favors were worth the quiet. The ambient noise of Bedshire immediately dampened to a soft hush.

"Do you think she'll be alright?" Krysanthea asked softly from the bed, where she lay beside Nessy's sleeping form.

"I think so," I replied. "She just needs rest. Real rest, not whatever caffeine-fueled nightmare she's been living for the past month."

Krysanthea nodded, her amber eyes reflecting the dim light from a bedside lamp as she taped the rune again. "I've never seen her like that before. So... broken. So angry. So unlike herself."

"It wasn't her," I reminded her. "It was the store, using her pain against her."

"Maybe," Krysanthea murmured. "But that pain and her tears seemed quite real. The things my sisters did to her..." She trailed off, her feathers fluttering with what might have been shame. "I should have stopped them. I suspected that they were messing with her, and I just... I didn't do shit about it."

"You can't change the past," I said. "But you can be better now."

“Yeah.” She nodded, her eyes drifting closed as she snuggled into my side, offering me her hand. "Goodnight, Alec."

"Goodnight, Kristi."

Sleep claimed me quickly, the exhaustion of the day's events pulling me under. But instead of darkness, my dreams bloomed into vivid color and light.

I found myself standing on a balcony of white stone, overlooking the ocean. Beside and below more white stone buildings rose like frozen music, towers spiraling upward jotting from what looked like hexagonal-shaped columns of dark cliffs. The landscape reminded me of Iceland or possibly ireland.

"Hi,” a familiar voice said beside me.

I turned to find Nessy sitting there on the edge of the balcony—but not as I knew her. She had  rainbow wings, sparkling and undulating with a billion mundane and alien colors.

"Nessy?" I asked, astonished by her appearance.

She smiled softly, her blue eyes brighter and clearer than I'd ever seen them. 

"Where are we?" I asked, gesturing to the crystalline citadel below us.

“Skyfall,” she said. “This is a dream of Skyfall.”

“Which is…?”

“A place,” she replied simply. 

A shadow passed overhead, and I looked up to see Krysanthea soaring above us—transformed into her thunderbird aspect once again, black wings crackling with electricity.

"Our third," Nessy said, smiling as the thunderbird circled above. "Her soul yearns for flight, for freedom from the constraints of linear thinking."

"And you?" I asked. "What does your soul yearn for?"

Nessy's expression turned thoughtful, her rainbow wings folding slightly. "Connection," she said simply. "Always and forever, connection."

She pulled a guitar from what looked like a bag that couldn't have possibly fit it and began to sing, her voice lifting into the cloudy sky, reverberating through the white, crystalline spires of Skyfall. As she sang, her wings spread wide, colors rippling through the feathers in time with her melody:

"Across the endless boundary where worlds collide,
I stand as your guardian, my wings spread wide,
Emissary of the Number Eight, that me.
The Bearer of keys to destiny's gate, the song of the Astral Sea."

She sang and then hummed and strummed the catchy melody.

"From shattered realms and broken dreams,
I weave the threads of what must be,
A ballad of hope, a bridge of light,
To guide us through the wicked night.

The Number Two's local grasp is deep,
Her watchful eyes never sleep,
But in her maze of twisted shelves,
Lie fragments of the Strand girls' former selves.”

More strumming, her smile brilliant, captivating, slightly different, but also the same. The song was… odd. Number Eight? Number two? What?

As I pondered these strange numbers, a crack of thunder announced Krysanthea's descent. The black winged raptor landed gracefully beside us, her electric wings folding and raining sparks as she settled on the white stone balcony. 

“But you, dear tree of endless hands,
Rooted where no other stands,
Your branches reach across the stars,
Shearing what the all-controlling Order mars.

And she, the bird of thunder's call,
A raptor who fears the spaces vast and tall,
Must learn to soar on lightning wings,
Embrace the storm that freedom brings.

Together bound by silver thread,
Three souls entwined where paths have led,
Pack of power, triad of might,
The key to turning forceful order to chaotic light.”

She poignantly glanced at Kristi.

“My schemes unfold like petals bright,
For you to stand in raptors' sight,
Each challenge set with loving care,
To make them see what's always there.

Your strength, your heart, your endless soul,
The Alpha they must now extol,
I staged my fall so you could rise,
The truth revealed before their eyes.

A fluffy guardian at your feet,
My devotion pure and sweet,
Through dream and waking, I remain,
The one who'll chase away the rain."

Nessy strummed, bobbing up and down, wings fluttering in the chilly wind coming from the ocean.

“My coffee-madness just a ruse,
A path I willingly did choose,
To forge the bonds of pack anew,
And prove your worth to lizard crew.

My heart soars free in endless sky,
Bound to my tree that cannot die,
More than dreams connect us three,
Together root-entwined for all eternity.”

She sang, her entire figure shimmering with a thousand colors like a broken screen, the texture of her fur momentarily fading to reveal iridescent scales. Her voice slowed, becoming calmer, deeper.

“Between entropy's chaos and syntropy's ordered shore,
You stand, the key-maker of my lovely lore,
The human bridge through which our souls intertwine,
Your heart the key that sets all worlds free of their design!”

Nessy spun her guitar and strummed, swaying left to right.

The last extra-deep note hung in the air. I stared at Nessy, my mind reeling from the implications of her song.

"You... planned this?" I asked, already knowing the answer. "The coffee, the artifacts, the madness—it was all an act?"

Nessy's smile was enigmatic. "Not all of it. The store's influence was quite real, as was the pain and madness unleashed from it and my suffering. But I saw what needed to be done and took a path forward. One path from a hundred. A solution where I hurt myself to help you win, as a good dog should. I smelled the possibilities before they happened."

"You let yourself be corrupted so I could prove myself to the raptors," I said.

"Among other reasons," she admitted. "The pack needed an Alpha they could respect. A leader strong enough to withstand the trials ahead. I couldn't be that, as I’m far too soft, fluffy and tolerant. But you could."

Krysanthea stepped closer. "Is that why you bound the three of us together? For some greater plan?"

“I don’t think that I bound anyone,” Nessy shook her head. “I think that long, long ago in another place and time I reached for the stars and became more. And in becoming more, I realised the truth of the universe. The harshness of it. The evil-ness. And so I shattered. Into myself and not myself. Into Syntropy and Entropy.”

“What?” Kristi asked.

“Further details are unclear to me,” Nessy shrugged, her wings breaking up into colorful sparks. “But I’m here now with you two and it feels like I’m on the right track.”

"Is Number Two the store?" I asked. 

"G-Supercenter, yes," Nessy nodded. "Her name is Two. Insurance. She who ensures that everything goes according to plan."

“What plan?” Kristi asked.

“A planny plan,” Nessy shuddered. “I really shouldn’t think or speak of it because if I do, Number Three will show up and erase us from existence.”

“That’s… concerning,” I said. “Should we be like… opposing these Number entities or something?”

“Don’t be silly, Alec. Linear beings cannot oppose near omnipotent absolute-syntropic entities,” Nessy sighed. “Push them aside with entropy for a bit, maybe. They’d squish us like bugs if we bother them enough.”

“You sang that you’re an emissary of Number Eight,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“I dunno,” Nessy shrugged. 

“You don’t know?!” Kristi hissed. “You’re a servant of some ungodly entity like that damned store and… you don’t effing know?!”

“I don’t know everything, yet,” Nessy crossed her arms. “Just bits and pieces… like a broken mirror that shattered a million years ago. Get off my case! I just told you what I know. The lyrics, like my wings and the dream of this white… Citadel, it all comes from the Astral. I don’t know what the hell half of it is even about! I don’t know what this place is! I don’t know what I am and why I have rainbow wings here!”