Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

The Glare of the Sun, The Bite of the Night

When Kipo eventually came to, everything was red. Kipo's brow furrowed, and she turned her head, groaning as she raised her arm over her closed eyes, settling them into a much more comfortable darkness. Ah, that was better.

Yawning, Kipo cracked open her eyes. Now that the pain from them had gone away, Kipo was suddenly very aware that everywhere else hurt, too. She had a pounding headache, for one, and everyone bone in her body ached. Kipo groaned again, sitting up. It was a big job, because as soon as she was up, a big spike of pain stabbed her in the skull.

"KIPO!" someone yelled, much didn't help her headache at all, but Kipo still raised a hand (not very high) and waved to... Kipo had to squint... Anne. Anne paused in front of her, kneeling down. For the first time, Kipo noticed she was on a bench, on some sort of street. They were outside?

"How are you feeling?" Anne asked, peering up at her. Kipo turned her attention to Anne, who, despite being up close, was blurry.

"Um," Kipo said, and then paused. Her voice was scratchy and her throat hurt. Kipo coughed. "Um, it's alright, I guess... do we have any water?"

Anne nodded. "Oh yeah! Tons! Here you go."

Anne handed a bottle over (it looked familiar, Kipo thought, but she couldn't really see it) and Kipo chugged it. It was the best thing she'd ever tasted.

"Uh... you should probably slow down-yeah," Anne winced as Kipo started coughing, making her headache even worse, somehow. "You're probably wondering what's going on."

Kipo nodded. Technically, she hadn't had the chance to wonder that yet, but now she certainly was.

"Well, I don't know when you passed out, but after we did that announcement thing, we were running away, trying to look for an exit, but Fei Fei saw you first," Anne told her. "Good thing, too, because we were all kind of assuming that you were already yet, cause we didn't see you in the arena anymore. But anyway, we went back, and the monkeys were just going insane and attacking the audience, so it was really easy to just slip through, grab you, and get out. The escape was really cool, though, we had to make our way through that stupid maze and eventually we just caved in the roof. Wish you could have seen it."

Kipo shrugged, glancing around.

"We're still in that town," Anne said. "Right now, it's probably late afternoon. You've been asleep for four ish hours, I think. Fei Fei and Kris are over there."

Kipo glanced over, and assumed those two dots were her two other friends.

"Do-," Kipo coughed. "Do you think our plan worked?"

Anne frowned, thinking. "I... don't really know. Maybe? ...I mean, we didn't stick around for long, so we didn't get to see. But I'm very persuasive, so I'm going to assume that there's a revolution going on right now."

Kipo smiled, chuckling, and Anne grinned.

"Anne, what are you doing?"

Kipo and Anne glanced up, and slowly, Fei Fei came into view. Getting clearer and clearer, but no matter how much Kipo focused on her, Fei Fei never became completely clear. That's probably not good...

"You should be leaving Kipo sleeping, Anne," Fei Fei scolded, glaring over at her before turning to Kipo with a much kinder look in her eye. "Are you okay?"

Kipo blinked. "Huh? Oh, yeah, just a headache and..." Kipo paused, suddenly raising her arm to feel her back. She could still fell those monkeys biting into her... but her hand just passed harmlessly over unbroken skin. Kipo frowned. If nothing happened to her human body, then why did she pass out in it anyway?