Merry Christmas[!] and The Battle for Blogland - Ch.9: Decisive Measures

Merry Christmas everybody! I know that for a lot of you, it's still Christmas Eve, but it's Christmas Day here, and I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas anyway!

So...

Sparky - Here's a bowl of Turtle Soup. Merry Christmas.

Nix - Here's some gloves. Because I didn't really get them for your birthday.

Ivy - *hands a baby wrapped in a pink blanket* It's name is Glorious.

Luce - Here's a Nyan Cat hoodie. Have fun with that.

Eve - Here's a goat. He sings.

Hel - here's a blanket. I'm not sure what you can use this for...

Ink - Here's the remnants of a Disturbed shirt. *hands her a plastic bag* Unfortunately, The Warrior vowed to Never Again, under the influence of The Curse, Forsaken a Deceiver so as to not Run into Fear any longer. That's what he said on this note, anyway. *hands her the note too* Not sure what to make of it. Have fun with that.

Lav - Here's a drawing of a book that you will read sometime in the near future.

Lynx - Here's a pot plant without the plant.

Flame - Here's a bucket of water.

Thrust - Here's a hammer. Yeah.

Izz - Here's a dead snake. It died fighting the lion I was going to give you, which also died.

Kes - Here's a dead lion. It died fighting the snake I was going to give you, which also died.

And for everyone else - HERE ARE M&MS.

Merry Christmas everyone!

And, uh, here's the chapter.



Theme:
"When We Die" by Bowling For Soup
---------

9

DECISIVE MEASURES

The next few weeks following the whole battle of the city and the thing that ended it were not easy ones. Indeed, nothing was easy anymore, considering the circumstances, but with the death of Star Inkbright still fresh in our minds and weighing down on us; it made everything so much harder. The first few weeks after the incident were filled simply with emptiness, depression hot on its proverbial heels. After that was more emptiness and then a sense of hopelessness, which continued in a seemingly never ending spiral of nothing.

After turning away from the city, we walked for a few hours and found a weird forest kind of thing, only the leaves glowed a deep green in the dark. After that, we just stayed there. There were a few people who had remained mostly normal in the time after Star’s death while the rest of us had been cast away into horrible hopelessness. Among these people were Sparky, Lynxia and Ivy. Each of them tried their best to get us each to snap out of it, for while they had been changed under the circumstances, they remained pretty much in control.

Sparky continuously repeated the phrase ‘survive now, mourn later’, but no one payed neither her nor her phrase any attention.

Lynxia was the person who pretty much caught rabbit and other weird creatures in the forest for everyone. She attempted to get us to do something productive with the reward of food. But each time she did this, a few hours escaped her time in which no one payed any attention to this, and she ended up giving us the food anyway, lest we each starve ourselves.

Ivy, while obviously affected by the loss of Star, was the one who had become the most unlike herself after the city. Sparky had become more aggressive and irritable and Lynxia displayed forms of depression and sadness. However, Ivy had become – for the most part – disturbingly unlike herself. She had stopped all weird jokes entirely. These were replaced with deathly silences and withering glares. This was a difference from the rest of us simply because she did not spend her time wrapped away feeling depressed or empty. She didn’t really do anything, but she wasn’t gone or distant like the rest of us. She was in the moment and conscious of everything – even if everything at this point in time just meant scary silences. None of this was not a dismissal of the absence of Star; just everyone’s different ways of reacting.

As for the rest of us, most people remained wrapped in an impenetrable cocoon of nothingness and hopelessness with varying degrees of emotional display. Lavender in particular seemed prone to sudden outbreaks of crying. It didn’t really affect any of us. Lynxia was usually off gathering food, Sparky would occasionally glance up and Ivy would sometimes scowl, but no one said anything to this. The rest of us spent our days curled up against trees or old stumps of trees, heads down, not talking. Occasionally, I thought I heard Nixion muttering quietly, but I could never be sure. 

All this was really from what I could gather, which wasn’t exactly clear as I was too hidden away in a closed off world at this point in time. So none of this is exactly reliable, but that’s what I remember, anyway.

Spakry and Lynxia were the only two that ever really talked, but after their frustration at the lack of its effect on us took place, they stopped doing that as well. Lynxia begun to hunt less and less and soon any animals that were either stupid enough or unfortunate enough to stray near to us were killed, cooked, skinned, then eaten. Water was immediately a problem, but Lynxia soon found sources for that too. Flame occasionally produced some for everyone to have, but it was rare and the quantities were insufficient. No one wanted to do anything though, so when Lynxia went off less and less, the people who were wrapped in a world of nothing begun to take choices.

Half of us returned for the most part when food and water was becoming scarce. The other half remained curled in a void of nothing and a void of black where fragments of Hollow Men and explosions presumably haunted them and hunted them. I snapped out of it when dying of starvation became an issue. When I pulled around, Nixion had awoken from his coma state as well. Flame came back soon after as well, but Gabriel, Lavender and Johanna remained in their own little world and no extra attempts to get them to start doing anything were made. They were left alone expect for the occasional attempt from Sparky and Lynxia again.

After Nixion and I pulled ourselves back into conscious thought and regular functioning, we helped Lynxia obtain food and search for water while Flame remained with Sparky and Ivy. There were a surprisingly large amount of animals living in the weird glowing forest, so we figured that there would have had to have been a decent water source scattered around the place. We found a particularly large lake thing one day and carried back amounts of it that lasted us for a while.

We stayed there in that glowing forest for a few weeks after Nixion, Flame and I regained normality and pretty much spent our days sitting around and talking to Sparky and Lynxia. Ivy joined us, but offered nothing to the feeble conversations that were exchanged. She just sat there, not talking, reflecting on whatever she felt like reflecting on. We didn’t attempt to rush the others into regaining their senses and returning to what normality was defined as under these new circumstances. It took three full weeks for everyone to pull around. Johanna came back to us first, followed by Gabriel. Lavender was the last to revive herself from the void of nothing, but when she did, she was hardened and angry.

Finally, when everyone had become fully conscious and fully aware of everything that was happening, we all sat down and discussed what we would do next.

“This is stupid,” Sparky said, straight off the bat. “It’s been weeks since we first left. Anything could have happened between now and then. There was already that other huge army that stormed the city. If it wasn’t the same group of Hollow Men, then there’s still a large chance that the others have moved on by now anyway. We’ve already lost Ink and we’re going to have to go back eventually anyway.”

“I don’t like it,” said Gabriel. “You guys just encountered Hollow Men at Central, but when we were there, there were zombies too. By now there might be vampires as well and maybe even some other creatures just to keep us out. And like you said, we already lost Ink. Why go back for pointless bloodshed when we could easily make it out here?”

“So you just want to run around Blogland for the rest of our lives until we each die off?” asked Lynxia. “No. As we’ve all already seen, we really don’t know what we can expect with Blogland. What we thought was everything was comprised of a lake, a volcano, a forest, mountains and a cliff all generally close together. But we’ve gone from deserts to plains to cities in the time that we’ve been gone. There could be countless other environments out there that will be too harsh to survive in. We can’t just keep running about hoping that there’ll be food to eat and water to drink. I agree with Sparky. Let’s try and get back to Central and take back what’s ours. Or at least get close enough to see what we’re up against.”

“Most of us have weapons,” Nixion spoke up. “And it looks like half of us are ready to tear anything apart for what happened anyway. I agree with Sparky too. Let’s just go. I’m tired of running.”

“We’ll be running into a pointless battle where half of us will probably die,” Johanna said. “I really don’t see a point to that at all! Even staying in this forest is fine. There’s water, there’s food. We’ve lasted for five weeks here since the city, we can last for longer!”

“And how long is it going to be before we run out of supplies?” I asked. “And then, when we do, we’re just going to be walking around blindly through unknown territory where anything could be waiting, or absolutely nothing could be waiting. I agree as well. I think we should get back to Central.”

“I still think you’re all overlooking the fact that we will all probably die if we go back there looking for a battle,” Gabriel said, anger biting the edges of his voice.

“If we die,” Flame said. “We die fighting for something that’s ours. Let’s go back.”

“You’re all mad,” Johanna muttered. “We’ll all be killed.”

“I’m going back,” Ivy said quietly. She was looking at the ground blankly, though without actually seeing. She hadn’t needed to raise her voice to be heard.

“Well, I agree with Jo,” Gab said. “This is insane.”

“Sanity’s boring anyway,” Lavender said. “When are we going?”

No one answered at first, and then everyone turned to Sparky. She didn’t really seem to mind that everyone was looking to her for answers. She just seemed set on doing what needed to be done. Sparky looked up through the dense forest leaves above. The sun was just beginning to set as she did this.

“Tomorrow morning,” she decided. “First thing. If there’s anyone that doesn’t feel as though they should come, they can stay.” She didn’t look at Johanna or Gabriel as she finished. She just stood up and walked off.

And slowly, we each left the area too, heading off to our own places to either rest or discuss other matters with other people.

Tomorrow, it seemed, we would return to Central.

***

No one got much sleep. Ever since the city, no one ever really got much sleep. That night, despite what we were planning to do the next morning, nothing was different. It wasn’t any worse, which could have been a good thing, but it wasn’t any better either, so any effect this may have had was nullified. Either way, everyone managed to get in a few hours of sleep before morning.

Like usual Sparky and Lynxia were the first two up, but the rest of us quickly rose from sleep. The sun hadn’t yet emerged, so we were still in darkness save the glowing leaves that hung from the trees above us. The plan was to leave straight away once everyone had awoken. Unfortunately, there were a few people that were still bent on remaining in the forest.

“I still think that this idea of yours is mad,” Gabriel said, not bothering to hide any contempt in his tone. “You will all – get – killed. ”

“If you don’t want to come,” Lynxia said. “Don’t. You can stay here.”

“I’m planning on it,” Gabriel said. “But I’m still firm on this – you’ll all die if you get into another battle. Escaping last time was a complete fluke. Next time we won’t be so lucky.”

“We’re fine here,” Johanna agreed. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to stay here too. I agree with Gab. There’s no point in running head first into a battle that no one wants and no one’s ready for. Any advantages that taking Central back might give us are outweighed by the threats of going back there to me. I’m staying here. And I really think that you all should too. I also don’t think that splitting up is a good idea. We need to stick together.”

“Well, you can suit yourself,” Nixion said, and offered nothing more. In the dim, glowing light of the green leaves attached to the trees, we saw Johanna nod once, and go quiet.

“Fine,” Sparky said. “Is there anyone else staying here, or are we all going to go now?”

“I’m staying,” Lavender announced abruptly. Everyone looked at her. “I gave it a lot of thought last night, but eventually decided that they’re right. All that’s going to happen if we go back is get killed. And I really don’t want to die. I won’t try and convince you guys to stay, because I know you won’t. But I’m going to stay here too.”

No one said anything for a few long moments. No one had expected Lavender to want to stay. But then a few more moments passed, and Sparky nodded.

“Alright. We’re leaving now.” She stood up. “You three. Good luck.”

There was confusion, but no one protested. Lavender went quiet. Gabriel and Johanna each gave each other uneasy glances in the dark. The rest of us rose to our feet. Goodbyes were exchanged between us and the three that were staying.

“Let’s go,” Sparky said. She gave Lavender a final parting nod, hesitated, then begun walking out through the forest.

“See you around,” Johanna said uncertainly.

“Maybe,” Flame said. We all began walking after Sparky, leaving the three in the darkness behind.

“Don’t get yourselves killed,” Gabriel called after us. Lavender Hope said nothing.

“We get back there as quick as we can,” Sparky said. “It took us about three or so days of full walking to get where we are now, and that was with lagging behind and long stops. We’ll stop when we need to and rest when we have to. Once we’re there, we look around and get a better idea of what’s there, what isn’t and what we’re up against. We’ll work the rest out after that.”

No one said anything. We exited the forest, and the sun slowly rose out of the horizon and into the sky. It was always going to be uneasy, leaving three of us behind in the forest. But they had wanted to remain there. Everyone was affected by Ink’s passing in different ways. Maybe those three were right to remain back. But we did what we had to. And what we had to do was exactly what Sparky had said. We stopped when we needed to, rested when we had to, and spent the whole first day walking, kept on the right course by Ivy and Nixion.

We were back on the road again.

Merry Christmas!