The forest's gearing up for something.

The air around us seems different. Charged. Almost. . . waiting?

I've heard whispers of rescue plans.

Suze has already voiced the general opinion on this matter. Good luck. If something could've been done it would have been done already. Couriers have tried. That's what Harper tells me, anyways.

Can you believe I actually listen to the bastard? No wonder Suze thinks I'm a deserter.

She's not dead, by the way. So that's always a good thing. One less body to add to the smoulder pit at center camp. She's here and Richard's back, too. Got screwed up pretty badly by Collector by the looks of it. That's what he tells me, anyways.

A flash of red, he says. We see them around a lot. /I/ see them around a lot. A blur of crimson. A spark of what looks like fire, so intense that it sends a painful shot straight to your head and leaves you with an perfect shade of its former self, now teal and gray, exactly where you saw it.

Sometimes, it has eyes. If you're lucky, teeth. A grin a mile wide.

I call him Cheshire.

Camp calls me crazy.

Actually, traitor's the word that's on their lips most of the time. Traitor. Deserter. Back-stabber. They cycle through them. All because I want to play a tune or two every now and then. Or maybe it's because I've been wandering the forest every so often. This place really isn't too bad once you get used to it.

Not like it's safe to go out there. I mean, it was never safe. Just stable. Wander too long and you'd never see camp again. Sometimes I wonder if there's anybody left. The ones who wandered off, I mean. Sometimes I look for them when I'm out there. Listening for something, /anything/, that would tell me that somebody other than the seven of us and our resident 'caretakers' (and I use that word very, /very/ lightly) out there.

I've been unsuccessful. I'm even pretty sure that Cheshire's just a figment of our collective imagination.

But it's nice to pretend.