Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Paranoia Investigator

The creature behind the wall was a horrible mess of contraption of tool and wires and bolts, but the way it moved wasn't like a machine, instead, its giant body moved as it was flesh and blood. Its main body was gigantic, but somehow, it was being held up by at least eight skinny little legs that skuttled around as it moved. But the weirdest thing about this monster was its face... or faces. It looked like it had about a million human-like faces all over itself, it they all looked like decoration. Kipo couldn't see a face that looked like it could see or talk or hear.

There was also something on top of the monster, something that Kipo couldn't see because the monster was far, far taller than she was, but it seemed to be the thing making the music, and unlike the rest of its body, it seemed to actually move like a machine, spinning around slowly as music flowed from it, and into the surrounding area.

Suddenly, the creature froze, and Kipo startled, quickly leaning back and shoving the rest of her friends back behind the wall, too. The four of them froze, holding their breath, but the creature's music eventually started getting quieter and quieter, and eventually petered out. It left, Kipo realized with a sigh of relief.

Slowly, she turned to the rest of her friends, who were wearing matching looks of confusion that mirrored her own.

"It's gone," Kipo told them, as if they couldn't already tell. She made sure to keep her voice low, just in case. "We should get going, but we should probably keep and eye out for the pig and the dog. We don't want any more surprises here."

"Yeah..." Luz agreed, sounding like she was still thinking about the thing they had seen. Kipo couldn't blame her. "At least it'll be easy to watch out for whatever that was. If it just plays music all the time, then we just stay away from that. And maybe the other ones will be that easy, too!"

Well, that's hopeful, Kip thought. But she doubted it would be that easy. Based on pervious patterns, this was probably doomed to go as wrong as possible as well.

But they'd made it this far. They couldn't give up now, especially since there was nowhere to go back to, and the only place they could go was in front of them.

They definitely couldn't fail, Kipo reminded herself as she took a deep breath.

"Ok," she said, looking back up at the group. "Let's go. Luz, you and me will lead, so Kris, you cover our tracks. And Alice... uh..."

Kipo had to think for a second. "Er... keep an eye out."

Alice nodded happily, thankfully not seeming to notice Kipo's strange pause.

"A-Alright," Kipo said, hoping no one else noticed that. "Everyone good?"

Kris nodded, and Luz gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, and then they were on their way.

Anne was mad at Dib now, apparently.

Well, not mad, Dib supposed, but certainly wasn't very happy with him right now because right now, she was sitting a far distance away from him, not even reading her book Fei Fei brought her to show him just how much she was ignoring him. Not that Dib noticed. He was far too busy watching Six do what looked like literally nothing to look over to Anne every five seconds and wishing he could read her book because HE was bored.

Definitely not that.

In any case, the silence allowed Dib a moment with his thoughts, and he used it to reflect on just how ridiculous Anne, and only Anne, was being. Seriously, all of this just because he wanted to use a codeword? Ridiculous. That whole conversation was ridiculous, but Dib couldn't get it out of his mind.