When Iso saw Bell’s figure be dragged up the mountain, her face lit up in confused recognition. “What are you doing here?” she yelled out, more in surprise than anything else.

Meanwhile, Dema stopped walking and stared at Iso. “What are you doing here!” she shouted in wild disbelief, her facial expression screeching to an empty and stunned halt. Eyes wide in gleaming amber, as her brain was processing the sight.

At the same time, it looked like Bell simply wanted to disappear. To have her jellyfish body, mostly comprised of water, splash into a puddle and flow down the mountain, or seep into the ground, never to be seen again. Dissolve into the rain, or puff into mist.

But Dema held her firm.

Theora buried her eyes in her palms. This was too much. Where was her bed? She needed her bed.

And in that way, by closing off most of her sensory input, her brain both wanted to shut down but also, unfortunately, started working again.

Bell was the heroine Iso had mentioned?

Bell and Iso had coincidentally met because they had, coincidentally, been assigned the same side quests by the System. And then, coincidentally, ended up in Hallmark, after a few decades of following the System’s lead?

The very place Theora had coincidentally been unable to leave due to Afterthoughts running wild that entire time.

Afterthoughts, who were corrupt stray data branching off from the System.

It took a moment for the ridiculousness to wash away, for the happiness of seeing Iso again to drain, for her complete lack of understanding to calm down. And then, slowly, the true and utter horror of this situation started to creep into Theora’s mind.

In fact, ‘horror’ didn’t even begin to describe it. She felt like being cast into cold water, shivers going over her body, prickles showering her extremities as the blood slowly drained from them.

If she hadn’t already lashed out at the System that day, she would have done so now. Blood-curdling, unspeakable.

Theora forced her eyes open, and saw Dema cry.

Just sobbing and sniffling, tentacles still tightly grasped in a hand limply hanging down, the other busy wiping tears and snot out of her face. “You’re back,” she whimpered and couldn’t take her eyes off Iso.

At the same time, Iso was stumped in a totally different way. Staring at Dema wide-eyed, her gaze softly hovering over her mother’s features, taking them all in, studying them, perceiving them for the first time. Her mouth stood open, and she didn’t move at all, petrified.

“Hug?” Dema asked, and Iso nodded, promptly jumping up from the bench. Within a second, they wrapped arms around each other, resulting in a yelp from Bell.

Sob after desperate sob issued from Dema’s throat, and each of them made Theora want to get up and hug her too. The girl cried and cried, bowing down onto Isobel’s shoulder, who gently stroked over her back, to comfort.

“It’s okay!” Iso said in a bright and short gush of her voice. “Did you want us to meet so much? Oh, if only I had known.”

“Yeah!” Dema rasped, and it was a heart-wrenching sound. “You ran away and I thought you were gone! I thought we were never gonna meet!”

“It was just so dry and so bright,” Iso muttered. “I couldn’t see! Didn’t even know you were there.”

Meanwhile, the hissing and sizzling continued. Dema hadn’t let go of Bell, just pulled her along, and now she was uncomfortably hanging to the side of the hug, staring at Theora in a mute and desperate plea for help.

“I think you can let her go,” Theora suggested, and immediately, Dema nodded awkwardly and broke the hug.

“Sorry,” she said to Iso. “Just… the hormones again.”

“Hormones?” Iso asked.

Theora shook her head. “I meant—”

“Oh!” Dema shouted as she realised. “Yeah, our new travelling companion!” She held up the tentacles like a trophy, though her gaze snapped back to Iso every second. “Uhh…” Dema blinked, trying to get her thoughts in order. “That’s Bell,” she eventually brought out. “Met her earlier. And I was like — damn, a jellyfish girl! We gotta get one!” Dema wasn’t fully focused, still distracted by Iso’s presence. “So… I thought I’d just fetch her! And then you started boasting, so I knew where you were, so we, like, came straight here!”

“You just fetched her? Against her will?” Theora asked.

Dema’s eyes widened. She finally let go of the tentacles in a last fizzle. “No! No, she agreed! Right? You said yes!”

Theora’s gaze switched to Bell, who was looking down at the ground in defeat. “Bell, you agreed to become our travelling companion?”

The girl gulped. “Well, technically… Yes. Technically, regrettably, I have to admit that I might have said yes.”

“This makes absolutely no sense to me,” Iso let out, glances switching between the two of them.

Theora agreed. None of this made sense. These two were definitely leaving out about 99 percent of the story. Leaning back against the bench, she rubbed her eyes. The terror of her earlier realisation still echoed through her bones.

“Maybe we… calm down a moment and then talk it all out?” Iso suggested.

“Cool with me!” Dema said. “Got a lot of catching up to do, after all!” She rubbed a few tears out of her eyes and then, her face lit up. “Ah! I was gonna tell you your name. It’s Iso! Short for Isobel. Not gonna have to use it if you don’t like it. But since I’m your mom I took the chance!”

“Oh, yes,” Iso said, and nodded in a click-clack. “Yes. Theora already told me about it. I do like the name. Please use it.”

“Damn!” Dema whined. “Other mommy was quicker!”

For a second, nothing happened.

The rain pattered onto the leaves, distant shouts echoed up the hill, a bird chirped something from the tree. Iso just stared at Dema, and then, slowly, turned back to Theora.

“Other mommy?” she asked slowly, in a very high tone.

Dema nodded, slightly confused. “What, Theora didn’t tell you! Why, nevermind, that’s kinda typical for her. She helped make you! We resurrected you together. She’s your mom too!”

“Wait,” Isobel murmured, switching glances between the two of them. “Wait. I have two parents? I thought I only had you!” She frowned, and her feelers twitched. “Oh, no! Theora, I treated you horribly!”

“You didn’t treat me horribly,” Theora said weakly.

“I called you ‘little girl’!”

“You are much older than I am,” Theora offered.

Dema grinned. “Damn! I think I must have missed quite a lot!”

“I think that much is true for all of us,” Bell murmured very quietly.

“Oh!” Isobel went as if something had just occurred to her. “Wait! I thought the two of you were just travelling companions, but that means you’re like — together?”

That question completely decommissioned both Theora and Dema at once. Theora blushed in record-time as her brain shut down, and Dema recoiled at the question in shocked surprise.

Isobel waited for a moment, and as nothing happened, a look of uncertainty made itself across her face. She pulled her feelers up and side-eyed her mothers awkwardly. “Did I say something wrong? Something I’m not getting?”

“These two obviously have issues to work through,” Bell mumbled. “Just leave them be.”

“I— Okay!” Iso yelped.

“We should find some place where we can talk in peace,” Theora suggested with a dry throat, gathering all her power to change the topic. “I suppose there is a lot of… catching up to do.”

“Can come home with us!” Dema let out, still somewhat flustered but distracted by the prospect.

“Our home might not be large enough for six people to just sit there,” Theora opined, monotonously.

Iso jumped, her carapace bursting into a short cacophony of klinks. “Can come to our place! We found an empty house, so we’ve been staying there. It’s big!”

Theora pulled up her eyebrows. “You found an empty house?”

“Lots of empty buildings now,” Dema said, and nodded. “Kinda like… half? Half the people are gone. Lots of space now!”

Half the population had left?

Of course, Theora’d been aware that some people weren’t staying but… She swallowed. Half the population had left, and because she’d been so lost in her own world, she’d never even realised.

“Yeah,” Iso said. “We had a lot of options, so we chose a pretty spacious one.”

If there was so much space in town now, why had Balinth and Hell never moved out? Zeka had moved out as a teenager, and that hadn’t seemed too strange to Theora, but the others… Had they just never considered the space too small?

Theora herself was only ever home to sleep and to sometimes spend an evening listening to the others talking while dozing off, so moving out hadn't been a concern for her… Maybe she should have, to leave the others more space.

On the other hand, Balinth had said, back on their first day, that they didn’t mind company.

They really hadn’t minded Theora’s company at all, for almost forty years? Just like that, they’d been fine with someone in their midst who was only ever gone or slept?

And now, here were Iso and Bell. Bell, who had apparently agreed to become a travelling companion, and Iso, who’d returned to her parents first chance she’d got.

Dema was one thing. Dema was forced to be with Theora; they travelled the world together because of the promise they’d made when they first met. Dema was just following Theora to fulfil her last wish.

At least, that’s what Theora had always thought. But now, so many people chose to be with her, for reasons she couldn’t at all comprehend.

As she was losing herself in these thoughts, Isobel and Dema sorted out the plan for the rest of the day — and then, the group started moving.

To ‘sort things out’.

To ‘catch up’.

Theora walked after them, watching Iso and Dema exchange their first few stories, with Bell occasionally being forced to give her input or opinion by both of the others. Oh, this reminded Theora of that day a very long time ago — that night, when Dema and Magda had led her through this town at the very start of its sullen process of decay.

Walking home together with friends. Theora really didn’t understand. She was not able to process.

How had all the horrifying and flawed choices she’d made in her life managed to get her here?

It felt almost like family.