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It was dark. Of course that was a given - it was nighttime, after all, at least - well, at least as far as Mason could tell. But there was something wrong with this sort of nighttime - it was dark. It was black. He couldn't even see the stars - well, he could, but they were just little white specks - shadows, really. But they were bright. It was as if a dark black film (or maybe just a lot of smog - but they were in Destiny City, not Los Angeles!) had been stretched out over the stars and hid them from view.

And they were stars, he could tell that much - he couldn't tell that much these days. He was tired and he stank (two weeks, no bath - yeah, that tended to do bad things to your hygiene), and he was pretty hungry - it had been hard, looking for food, too, and he was absolutely starved. He'd found a little every so often but it was never enough. At least he wasn't eating other people. At least he wasn't a - a zombie.

He hadn't encountered any yet that he'd been able to put a name and a face to - and the zombies he'd passed were just good to run from. Mason had probably chopped about a minute off his mile run time by now. If that even mattered anymore. And he hadn't spoken to any living humans - seen any living humans - since that encounter with Pierrette. They had to exist, though, because the zombies were getting sustenance from somewhere, right? He must've just kept missing them. Lucky Mason. Needless to say he was starved for interaction with someone - anyone.

He leaned now against the side of one of the gyms, staring up at the sky - it was dark. But he could make out the stars even if just barely and that had to count for something, right?

Someone was shouting about evil aliens. Mason looked up immediately - it was a startling thing to be shouting about. As far as he knew there were only hungry zombies - definitely not any evil aliens. He couldn't see anything from the voice's direction, though - it was way too dark for that. There was a lengthy silence before he heard the voice again - he looked over and squinted.

Oh. Maybe there was a girl's silhouette in that direction. (He only knew it was a girl because of the voice - it wasn't that Tara was not feminine, but rather that Mason had horrible night vision.) He couldn’t recognize her, or that voice, either, other than, well, he had to have heard it before because they went to the same school duh (were they even really going to school anymore? There were no teachers, and normally that would be a cause for celebration but it also meant there was no drama class.). They probably did, anyway – he hadn’t seen anyone lately that wasn’t in a Barren Pines uniform.

He thought a little more before answering her question. It didn’t hurt – besides, if she were a zombie, she’d already know if he were dead…right? He hadn’t seen any zombies eating each other. “And kicking – uh, not really. There’s nothing to kick but the wall and I think that would hurt.” He paused.

“And are you…green?” Mason honestly had no idea how to phrase it; he was honestly just taking a leaf out of Pierrette’s book. It was probably a pointless question but it was a safe one.

“You do?” he asked, bewildered. “I don’t know – I’ve heard your voice somewhere but I have no idea who you could be.” Mason did not unfortunately remember the names of anyone other than his fellow performing arts buddies and the people he followed around every day – Lucy and Melody were exceptions (it was hard to forget people that constantly carried around big giant cello cases, which hurt a lot when they were used to hit your head – case in point: Lucy. He was never getting on her bad side ever again. If he ever saw her again.), and Andeon Boskovic was not a theater buddy but he was a theater person.

He hadn’t even seen any of them recently who was he kidding. He could recognize them all though. He definitely could! If they walked up to him, even all – well. He didn’t honestly want to think about his friends all messed up and green.

“Yeah, that’s what Pierrette called – you’re not trying to eat me?” That was good. There were pacifist zombies out there. “In case you do, I totally have a weapon.” (If his acting skills counted, anyway.) It was a little bit before he realized she’d said a name – and then he backtracked. Wait – Tara, Tara – she’d been one of the girls in the science club that died from (strangely inexplicable wounds, his mind told him) bacterial meningitis, hadn’t she? And that hadn’t been all –

“You’re in Pneumonia House, aren’t you?” He’d known her! Mason wasn’t even thinking about her being a zombie anymore. He had hardly spoken to her (she was way out of his league – he was nowhere near that smart), but he had, right? They’d eaten meals together! This was a bond. Mason could not entertain the idea of leaving her alone now. “I’m Mason Everheart! You know – love dumpling!”

He had probably tried to get her to call him that at some point. He didn't remember; he asked everyone to call him that.

Oh. Right. Right. Mason had just assumed she didn’t have any strange impulses to eat him (duh). The teenager poked around the wall – there weren’t even long sticks or anything lying around to poke at her. Or something. Not that he’d need it, anyway – science geniuses had a lot of willpower. Right?

“I’m not sure what happened,” said Mason, and then realized that he should really listen to everything she said before replying. “I mean, yeah, there was a fire – that’s why the entire dorms are missing, see – and I had to run, I had to – I couldn’t have saved anyone even if I tried– but I mean.” The boy stopped babbling for a moment, hoping he was making some sort of sense. “I don’t know why people are turning green.” That was a safe way to put it, right? That didn’t make any references to food. Unless Tara ate money. Even mad scientists didn’t do that as far as he knew, so Mason was reassured. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before though,” he said. “It just happened, well – not – I guess you could say it just happened now. I don’t know.”

He thought. “You were missing for awhile, right? They said – bacterial meningitis? But then – but then they found people with gunshot wounds to the head. And they kept saying that. And now – and now everyone is back, and everyone is – and there aren’t any adults at all around here.” Wow. That was a lot to get off his chest. He hadn’t realized that it was so – that it was weighing so heavily on him. “And we can’t get out, and it’s hard enough – “ he stopped. No food talk. Right. “And now there’s that,” he finished lamely.

He wanted to change the subject to something a lot more pleasant, but unfortunately the only memories he had with Tara were – food. Eating. Breakfast. He hadn’t had real breakfast in so long – then again, he figured, she hadn’t either.

There were sports events, too, but Mason also didn’t know much about sports.

Andeon and Mackenzie were Gemini. Andeon was a member of the Zodiac Guard. Holy s**t.

It was getting hard to tell whether it was the running around, the mass henshin pen summoning, or the sudden lack of spirit that was making Sue feel so rundown. Maybe all three. Probably all three. Whatever the reason, though, the boy wasn't moving as quick now as he had been. He wasn't pretending that he wasn't getting worn out, either. Sue panted and sweated and grunted in supremely undignified manners as they hurried along. This one was taking them damn near full circle, now, back near the gyms where the rest would be waiting. They had to cover all the ground they had before, just to catch up, and all Sue could do was gripe gripe gripe about why this Zodiac couldn't have been here when they'd started out, damn it, it would have been so much faster if.... Bah, it didn't matter.

They finally arrived. Sue felt unsurprised to find that they were met once more by a greenie-survivor pairing - it was more of a depressing truth at this point, that somehow all the survivors they'd been finding out here were desperate enough for company that they'd put themselves in danger to get it.

At least that probably meant that the greenie wasn't openly vicious. Probably.

"C'mon, let's get on with this," Sue muttered gruffly, proceeding forward without caution. He was getting too damned tired to be worried about whether he'd get attacked all the time.

It was the Queen who answered strongly this time: "The girl."

It was as it happened so many times before. Serenity, in Chronos' body, walked fearlessly towards the pair of Mason and Tara -- Tara, who'd been trying so hard and so long not to eat anyone, not to give into the hunger. To chew her braid instead of on Mason. She walked to her before she could even stand up, and dropped to her knees. "This curse is terrible," she said, more to Sue than to Tara herself. "Charonite and Beryl have grown in power since I saw them both last." And she reached forward to Tara --

It seemed that her magic burnt them, from the inside out, as Mason watched too: the white flame that flickered all over Tara Kavanaugh, burning away the green skin that had characterised her as a youma.

"Fluffy stuff and stalker monsters." Tara sighed. That was about as good a lead as 'girl made of blood,' but it was something. "It's a start. Tell me about it. About anything weird you've seen or heard about, even before the fire."

As if on cue, Tara spotted the incoming weirdos and spat out her braid, her nose wrinkling as she tried to get a few loose strands of hair off her tongue. "If you're here because you're going to let me study you, it's not a good time. I already have a living test subject. But come back when the world's not coming to an end, and I'll run your vitals."

It was the only explanation Tara could think of for someone like Sue Gottschalk to approach her. As for the others... she blinked at the redhead, turned to other girl, and tried to form a question. But before she could, pain overtook her. Once, a long time ago, Tara had poured lemon juice on a papercut to see if it hurt as much as everyone said it did. This felt like that all over her body. Only when it was over, instead of lingering pain, she felt rejuvenated. And gloriously not-hungry.

Tara looked at her hands and then, with delight plain on her face, at the mysterious zombie-vaccine person. "You rock! Can you do that again, so I can watch how it works?"

If Sue had been trying to distract Tara, he was extremely successful. "That's amazing!" she said honestly, more interested in his hands than in the pen. Her thoughts spilled out, though she didn't really expect anyone to answer anything just then. "I've never seen magic like that before. Was it up your sleeve? No, of course you won't tell me. A magician never reveals his secrets, right? You're really good though. You even know my sign! But I thought your gift had something to do with cats. Is this a hobby?"

Weird hobby. Weird time to be practicing a weird hobby, what with the aliens attacking and all. But something about the situation felt like this was no simple stage magic. These people meant business. What kind of business, she wasn't sure, but the more she thought about it, the more things became clear.

"I've got it!" she exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "You must be the good aliens come to help us with the evil invading ones. Right?" The pen was probably beamed down from the mothership- though why anyone wanted to beam down a pen, Tara had no clue- and the frilly costumes typical on whatever planet they were from.

Did that mean that Sue was an alien too? An alien at her school for all those years, and she never even noticed? Tara's face fell as she considered the possibility. Some extraterrestrial researcher she was turning out to be. "Or are you possessed by an entity that can't take physical form? That would make a lot more sense. I would have noticed something if it was you all this time, right?" This time, she looked at Sue expecting to get something more than a laugh or bewildered glance in return.