Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Stormy Skies

Gale-Amenos-Hurricane flipped through the screen, looking for her friends as Kipo sank deeper and deeper into uncomfortableness. She stared at the dark figure across from her, clutching the notebook she'd taken back out in her hands.

It wasn't confirmed, she reminded herself, it was just a theory. But if it was true... and too many things made sense for it to not be true... Kipo couldn't ignore it. Those flowers that everyone had gathered, why does he want them? They're definitely not an offering for him... so what else could he use them for?

Kipo couldn't really begin to guess, but she'd assume that the guy who destroyed their town and then disguised himself as a person who wanted to help was not the kind of guy to use them for anything good.

So the question remained: what could she do?

"Here they are," Hurricane told her, and despite herself, Kipo leaned forward to see. Her eyes widened when she saw that Mira wasn't among them. What happened to Mira?

"No..."

Kai and Tulip stood in the road, in the same crossroads they had been in when everyone first split up. They both could see their town on the horizon, still being attacked by that violent storm. It'd be a miracle if anything was left, and Tulip wondered if they'd still try and make their home there, or if they'd have to go somewhere else.

"Tulip!" Mabel cried, tears in her eyes. "Kai!"

Despite feeling horrible, Tulip smiled, turning around to wave at the approaching group. Mabel's face lit up with relief, and she ran forward, full sprint, and enveloped the two of them in a tight hug, knocking them over.

"We were so worried about you!" Mabel wailed, covering up the sounds of both Tulip and Kai's groans of pain. "We're so glad you're okay-!"

"Mabel, please, I think my leg is-," Tulip cut herself off with a groan of pain. Mabel blinked up at her, before slowly getting up, seeming to properly see Tulip and Kai for the first time. She gasped.

"Your leg-!" Mabel looked at Kai and her expression changed to one that was even more horrified. "Your eye-!"

"What happened to you?" Fei Fei asked them, sounding concerned. The rest of the group: Fei Fei, Coraline and Luz, had finally caught up.

"My leg is broken," Tulip told them. "And Kai's eye..."

"I hadn't seen that coming," Kai cut in, before wincing. "Ow."

"What?" Fei Fei asked. Tulip shook her head, looking up at them... before pausing.

"Hey... where's everyone else?" she asked slowly, and practically everyone looked away. Even Six seemed reluctant to break the news, which was particularly odd. She never seemed careful with these things before. She was watching Luz, mostly.

"I... we lost them," Fei Fei finally admitted. "We don't know what happened to Kris and-Um... well, I saw Anne... die... and we all saw what happened to Mira, too."

"You mean-," Tulip cut herself off, unable to say it. "Yeah... we thought so."

"We should have gone back to check-," Kai mumbled miserably, but Luz shook her head.

"What, no!" she cried. "In your condition..."

Kai rolled his eyes, but quickly remembered that the action was incredibly painful.

Coraline frowned down at him. "We need to get you both bandaged up. That's painful!"

"That's an understatement," Tulip sighed, before holding up her flowers. "We have all of these, right?"