The ground came at them fast. Lemony didn't close his eyes.
Instead, he looked at the approaching grey rock and did something he had never done in seventeen years.
He smiled.
There was a sickening thud as his body hit the surface first. His vision shattered into a million dark pieces. His consciousness didn't just fade, it snapped. Sissy tumbled a second later, landing with a series of wet cracks, while the red coat Lemony loved so much was caught by a stray wind and drifted away like a fallen leaf.
Sissy groaned as she came to.
The pain in her legs was a white-hot scream that made her vision swim. She tried to stand but her legs were useless, completely destroyed by the impact.
She didn't care about the pain though.
She began to crawl across the frozen dirt, her fingernails digging into the ground. She reached Lemony's side and saw what was left of him.
She reached out with trembling hands and touched the side of his face. Tears started carving tracks through the dust on her cheeks.
"Why did you do it?"
"You were supposed to be the... empty one."
"You weren't supposed to... care about me."
"I'm sorry, Lemony. I'm so sorry for everything I said."
She pulled his limp head into her lap, ignoring the blood staining her clothes. She just sat there in the dark of the abyss, crying over the boy who had died to make sure she hit the ground a little softer.
But a few feet away, a ghost was watching.
Lemony sat on a rock, looking down at his own corpse.
He felt light.
He moved his lips and felt the phantom sensation of a grin.
"I found them. I found my emotions. It is a bit too late now though. I am already dead."
He finally understood. He was just a pawn. He was a character meant to die so that someone else's story could have more weight.
That was the fate the Great Beastiary had written for him. He looked back at his memories, seeing the small, pathetic kitten he used to be. His parents hadn't even hesitated when they traded him to that merchant. A whole life for a single box of lemons used as props for a circus.
He had spent his childhood being moved from master to master, always a nobody. It wasn't a special kind of suffering.
Thousands of people in this world lived and died exactly like him.
But he couldn't help but wonder about that trade. Was his life really only worth a few pieces of fruit for a stage play?
"If I was eaten after the play, was I at least delicious?"
As a kid, he really thought he was the lemons, not the cat. He thought that if he could be a good prop, he was at least useful.
But that was a lie. He was never the fruit. He was Lemony Xaphan Pamon, and he had been squeezed until there was nothing left but the husk.
He looked down at his ghostly chest.
The brown crest that had finally turned solid was gone. There was nothing there but a hollow space.
His time in this world was officially over.
He was disappearing.
---
Sissy grit her teeth as she reached out for the red fabric snagged on a rock.
Her breathing was ragged, sounding like a broken bellows in the quiet of the abyss. She had already done the unthinkable, using a sharp stone to remove the useless, mangled part of her lower leg that was only slowing her down.
Now, she wrapped Lemony's red coat tightly around the stump, pulling the knot with her teeth until the bleeding slowed to a dull throb.
"I can't waste what he did. I'm not dying here. Not after he gave me this chance."
Her fingers clawed into the cold ground, pulling her broken body forward inch by inch.
She kept crawling into the darkness as the only light coming from the faint, sickly glow of moss high above on the canyon walls.
----------------------------------------------------------
Back at the base of the Leftovers, the air was thick with tension.
Crysorgo Aizzovac, the leader of the group and also a Sheep-kin, slammed his office door open and marched toward the entrance. He nearly collided with Old Horg, who had just stumbled back inside, looking disheveled and pale.
"Horg! Where is Sissy? Where are the others?" Crysorgo demanded, his voice booming through the bone-walled corridor.
Old Horg wouldn't look him in the eye. He stared at the floorboards, his shoulders hunched.
"They were caught," he mumbled.
"The Scavengers... came out of nowhere, and I only made it back because Sissy distracted them. She saved me."
Crysorgo's face went from pale to a deep, dangerous red. He lunged forward, grabbing the old tortoise by his collar and hoisting him up until his toes barely touched the ground.
"Do you even know what you're saying?Sissy was the heart of our scouting team! Now that her sister is gone, she's all we had left. She's like a daughter to me, Horg! And you just left her there?"
Koro stepped out from the shadows.
"You're an old man with maybe fifty years left in you. She was young and she had a whole life. Between the two of you, I don't think you're the one who deserved to live."
Horg's face twisted.
"How can you say that? I've served this base for decades! My experience is worth ten of her!"
He was shaking.
"Plus, it wasn't my fault! It was that stupid cat! He's the one who drew them in!"
Crysorgo didn't even argue with that statement.
He looked at Horg with such pure loathing that the old man flinched. The leader shoved him away and turned back toward his office without another word. Koro didn't let it slide though. He grabbed Horg and threw him hard against the ground.
"Get out of my sight," Koro spat.
Horg scrambled away, ducking into a side tunnel. Once he was sure he was alone, he spat on the floor.
"Idiots. All of them. They'll see. They'll realize I'm the one who keeps this place running while they cry over a butterfly and a stray cat."
----------------------------------------------------------
An hour later, Koro knocked on Crysorgo's door. He found the old leader sitting at his desk, staring at a blank wall. He looked hollow, like someone had scooped out his insides and left a shell.
"Boss? You think she's still alive? Ve and I went back to the meeting spot, but there was nothing. No bodies, no tracks we could follow. So, maybe that cat was really the one who messed up. He was acting weird last night."
Crysorgo didn't look up.
"It doesn't matter who made the mistake, Koro. The Great Beastiary probably just decided they had no more value. To the world, they're just ink on a page that got blotted out."
He let out a dry, rattling laugh.
"You know, when I first found her a hundred years ago, she tried to bite my finger off. She thought I was going to eat her. Hence, I had to give her a piece of dried fruit just to get her to stop crying. She used to follow me around and pull on my beard whenever she wanted a story."
Koro listened, a small, sad smile tugging at his mouth. It was a good memory, one of the few they had in this hellhole. But then he saw the way Crysorgo's hands were shaking.
"Are you actually alright, old man?"
Crysorgo finally looked at him, his eyes wet.
"No. Our shared dream... everything we built here for a hundred years. It feels like it just shattered."
"A shared dream?" Koro asked. He looked genuinely puzzled.
Crysorgo slumped in his chair. He looked like the weight of a century had finally landed on his shoulders.
"Only Sissy and I knew about it. But now that she is gone, I guess it does not matter if the secret stays buried."
The old man took a shaky breath.
He started telling a story about a hundred years ago.
Back when Sissy first arrived with her sister, Cutie Suzlal. For fifty years, they were more than just survivors. Crysorgo, his brother Lukerion, Cutie, and Sissy lived like a real family. They built the hidden base together. They kept each other going when things looked dark.
"But then one day, my brother Lukerion decided he could not take being trapped here anymore. He said he was leaving. Cutie did not want him to go alone, so she followed him."
He paused, his eyes looking at something far away.
"The last time we saw them, they jumped off the cliff of this mountain. We saw the Scavengers raining arrows and spears down on them. We never found out if they actually survived the fall or the wolves. That was our dream. Sissy and I wanted to find them both alive. We planned so much to get out, but we just needed more time. Now, she is probably dead too."
Crysorgo shook his head.
"I do not know if I should even be dreaming anymore. I feel like an empty, hollow shell."
Koro stood up straight.
He did not look depressed at all. Instead, he looked determined.
"Then we will do everything to leave this place! I will help you, old man! I am not losing hope. I have my own dreams to think about."
Koro thought of his own family, somewhere far beyond these bones.
So, he left the office and walked to his room. Ve was waiting there.
"I am leaving this place in four days," Koro told her.
Ve stood up immediately.
"Then I am going too. You are not leaving me behind."
"No," Koro argued.
"If we both go, there is nobody left to protect this base. Someone has to stay."
"Actually, I think a trip outside is exactly what my research needs."
They both turned around. A tiny figure was sitting on a stack of books. It was Pippin, the Pygmy-Jera. He was the smartest person in the base, and he was currently cleaning a small lens with a piece of silk. He looked incredibly calm.
"What? You want to come with us?" Koro asked.
Pippin nodded.
"I really want to leave this place and see the outside world. Plus, I need to analyze the snow density near the wolf fort. I had a thought experiment about it last year that I need to prove."
Koro looked at the tiny genius. Having a brain like that on the team would be amazing. He looked at Ve and sighed.
"Fine. You can come. But we have to be careful. Four days. Then we go to Fort Rib."
----------------------------------------------------------
Down in the abyss, Sissy was still moving.
She was dragging her body through the dirt and stones. There were no trees and no places to hide. She felt like she was about to collapse for good, but then she saw a flicker of orange in the distance.
A fire.
A fire? I can be saved?
She started dragging herself faster.
The hope gave her a sudden burst of energy. She ignored the way her arms screamed in pain. She reached the mouth of a cave and saw a massive creature standing there. It was tall and covered in thick green moss and grey rock. She thought it was going to attack her, but then it tilted its head.
"Who you?" it asked. Its voice was deep but sounded like a curious child.
"I am Sissy Suzlal. I need your help."
The creature looked surprised. It reached into a pocket in its mossy skin and pulled out a small bottle. It handed the bottle to her. Sissy hesitated for a split second, then she drank the whole thing. The white-hot pain in her legs vanished instantly.
"Am I fixed?" she asked, touching her bandages.
"Only now. Effect will be better later," the creature said. It stepped aside and pointed into the cave.
"Come inside."
Sissy crawled in, feeling the warmth of the fire.
"Why are you helping me?"
The creature sat down, making a heavy thumping sound. It looked at her with big, slow eyes.
"You Cutie sister?"
Sissy froze. Her heart skipped a beat.
"Cutie? That is my sister! Do you know her?"
"Yes! Yes!" The moss rock creature started jumping around, looking incredibly happy.
"Why are you so happy? How do you know her?"
"Me helped her... decades ago. But, she leave with sheep decades too."