It took more tries than he would like to admit for Flick to get to grips with fighting alongside others, the glowing spot on his cheek from where Scratch’s fist summoned a fine bump proved to be a very poor teacher, though a memorable one. Despite that, after a couple dozen sparring sessions, he was starting to understand how to ‘see’ Scratch as he fought.

  In his mind it was like a big, complicated game. One where he had to not only predict the enemy’s movement, but his allies’ too. By the time their last-minute practice sessions came to a close both Scratch and Flick were much more comfortable moving around each other, enough to reliably fight together. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to get by.

  “You’re too slow.” Scratch complained, for the umpteenth time that evening.

  “Slow?” Flick replied, “you’re too fast! If you want though, I could show you how quickly you’d be on your ass if you fought me? Lets see if that’s ‘slow’!”

  He snarled, spitting in the general direction of Flick as they paced the corridors of the base, “Oh you fuckin’ wish! There’s no way a limp dick loser like you could outperform me!”

  “Was that supposed to be a sex joke? Because it was a pretty shitty attempt,”

  “You’re a shitty attempt,” Scratch muttered.

  Flick chuckled to himself, “Wow! Very mature, did you damage that brain of yours when Chip tripped you earlier?”

  “Nah my brains fine, your Dad seemed to like it anyway”.

  A chorus of children, admiring the burn they just overheard, erupted from a nearby room, one dedicated solely to the noble cause of sleeping after a long day. After hearing the oohs and aahs of what must have been every kid in SMILE, Flick knew he had lost even though he didn’t quite know what he had lost to, grinning and shaking his head to hide the flush rising in his cheeks.

  Coincidentally, the laughter from everyone around him reminded Flick that the two of them were wandering these halls in search of a place to sleep. And by what he could gather, they just passed it.

  “Hey,” Flick said, breaking the newfound silence left after Scratch’s victory, "Didn’t we just past the sleeping quarters? Where the fuck are we going?”

  Scratch swivelled around to face Flick, keeping his stride smoothly, “Indeed we did dumbass, you don’t get to sleep with others,” He chuckled, “You get the V.I.P treatment,”

  Before he could get excited they rounded a corner only to be greeted with towers of ancient boxes caked in dust that must’ve been older than the two of them combined. He debated asking Scratch why they were here, but based off his smug grin it was clear the answer was already said.

  “No…” Flick frowned, “You can’t be serious Scratch,”

  “Oh but I am,” He gestured his arms wide, “This is your V.I.P suite for the night! Be careful though you’ve probably got thirty or so room-mates huddled on that web in the corner”.

  “How did a spider even get here?” Flick retorted, plainly disturbed.

  He shrugged “Beats me, we stopped counting after the fifth one moved in” Seeing how poorly the room was received by Flick, he tried to soften the blow as best he could, “Cheer up dipshit, the room has a special secret only me and Pop know of,”

  Intrigued, Flick followed the boy behind a myriad of crates and shelves, all emptied with only fragments of wood shavings dusting their insides. Then, there in the corner, a table fashioned out of a box. Dimly lit orange by a hanging lamp that was foreign to the room’s usual neon fluorescent lights. Scratch gestured for Flick to sit on a pillow on one side of the table, saddling himself on the other.

  He reached to one side of the box ‘table’ and plunged his arm as far down over the side as it could go, his small fingers tracing the surface of the container until they came across a patch of cork. Scratch grinned smugly as he pulled at the plug until it came loose, jolting the table and Flick at the same time. Pulling his arm back he revealed two cloudy bottles, already half filled with some mysterious substance Flick had never seen before.

  Scratch slid one over to his new companion, popping the makeshift stopper from his own and taking a huge swig of the liquid inside. Flick was wary to follow in his example, simply because he knew Scratch enough by now to assume he’d slip something nasty in the bottle when he wasn’t looking. The moment he cracked the seal on it however, the strong smell of potato distilled spirits began singeing the nerves in his nose.

  Flick stared at Scratch in disbelief, “…Is this?”

  “Yep” Scratch said, “This is that strong stuff, pretty hard to get now I’ve heard.”

  Flick frowned, “Pretty hard to get since its contraband”.

  “Contra what?”

  “Its illegal” Flick replied

  “Ah” he glanced at the small letters in red paint on the corner of the box. “So that’s what that means! I guess you learn something new every day huh,” he gulped another cupful of the liquor down.

  Flick looked at his bottle curiously, “How did you even get this, man? Higher ups can’t even get this stuff easily-“

  “I know,” Scratch retorted, “Would you believe me if I said I found them here?”

  “The fuck I would?!” He finally took a sip of his drink, confirming it was indeed the spirit he thought it was,

  “No seriously! This place was here wayyyy before any of us got here y’know, this shit’s crazy old” Scratch chuckled to himself, “It used to be one of those bunkers! The… uh, those ones that were around…”

  “… You mean a Pill?” Flick replied.

  The moment the term bunker came up Flick knew exactly what Scratch was talking about, the idea of a Pill wasn’t exactly foreign to him either. He heard down the grapevine, during his time as a cutter, that sometimes the workers would stumble upon these leftover shelters from the pillar war. Their grand stories of finding hidden treasures in their remains were always taken half seriously though, usually because the people who did claim those stories always came back the next day no richer than the weeks before. After all, a Pill was designed for wartime use so there couldn’t exactly be anything extravagant or useful besides the occasional spare oxygen bubble or fuel.

  In retrospect, it made much more sense that this was a Pill in the first place, there was no way a child could make all this. But, just by how large this particular Pill was, it was still pretty difficult for Flick to wrap his head around why it was made. Or why it had illegal alcohol too for that matter.

  “Y-Yeah! Those things!” Scratch was much more receptive to questions now, the drink loosening his usually tight knit self, “We found a whole bunch of shit here actually; the helmets, the food, the blades-“

  “Really?” Flick’s interest was piqued, “How were the engine blades here of all places? They were made after the war so the only weapons should be old guns right?”

  “THAT’S WHAT I WAS THINKING! I kept telling EVERYONE that it didn’t make sense y’know.” He raised his bottle to point at the room, “I mean, how the fuck does something like Caliburn get left behind in one of these things?!”

  Flick raised an eyebrow, “You found that here?”

  “What? No, no that was the people wayyyy before my time…” Scratch thought pensively, “…They’re all gone now, so… good luck figuring that shit out”.

  “Wow, they all died huh? You would’ve thought someone got concerned about all the dead kids by now,”

  “Is it that surprising asshole?” he retorted, “we’re all slum kids here, most of us were either orphaned at birth or later on in life,

  Haven’t you noticed by now? Its not like the people here chose to be like this, I can’t count the amount of dead parents I’ve heard about in the last month alone. Everyone comes here to get their lives back, Flick.”

  Scratch hung his head lower than Flick had ever seen it go, it was the first time he had seen him genuinely upset and he still wasn’t quite sure what it was over yet.

  “Anyway,” Scratch continued, wiping the damp spot beneath his eye, “Everyone here is slum, even someone like Pop! I hardly believed it myself when she wandered in here all prim and proper and pretty, saying she was from my district of all places! A girl like that, from pillar seven’s commercial district? I’ve seen slugs more attractive than most of the people in that shit hole!”

  Flick sipped his drink, smirking at his new companion, “So… pretty huh?”

  Scratch froze, the red flush in his face from the drink doing little to disguise his embarrassment. Nor did it hide how sore his cheeks looked from, smiling so much as he spoke about his ‘friend’.

  Flick leaned closer, “And Attractive?”

  “You heard N o t h i n g, we clear?”

  “Sure thing, lover boy,” Flick leaned back on his stool, finally being comfortable enough with the drink to down it like water. However, Scratch was on the edge his seat, the panic of his secret being exposed proving too much for his semi-drunk nerves,

  “Okay relax man,” Flick held his hand to his chest, “I wont tell a soul about your crush-“

  “Not a crush” Scratch interrupted

  “Sure it’s not buddy, point is no one outside this room will know,” he leaned in once again, “But, once you get back here again you have to confess,”

  Flick was expecting another big reaction out of the teenager, he was definitely enjoying teasing him just a bit too much after all. However, to his surprise Scratch just slumped back into his stool in defeat.

  “…Flick,” He started, trying to hide his face as much as possible, “…We aren’t coming back here,”

  “What? How come?”

  “In a couple days, not sure exactly how many, we’ll be getting close to another star. Surely you knew that right?”

  He did, or at least he used to. Whenever a star gets close enough to earth for the sky to be lit up again there was always a grand celebration across all pillars, so of course he knew. Flick had no idea a daytime festival was going to happen so soon though, and he specifically kept an extra ear out just in case he could hear any mention of one.

  It was one of the few events that Flick wanted to see personally for himself as it only happened in rare circumstances. While the festival itself must’ve been fun and all, Flick was most excited to hang out with Simon that day as he distinctly remembered that he promised to ‘actually have fun’ if it were to happen in their lifetimes.

  However, after getting over the initial shock of forgetting the daytime festival, a sudden realisation dawned on Flick.

  Scratch noticed instantly,

  “You understand right?” He said, “The new star’s gonna melt all the carbon ice, a real pretty sight I’ve heard, y’know. You see, pillars? Those are built tall enough to survive that kind of water level, but these pill thingies? Fuck knows if the glass can withstand all that.”

  Flick frowned, “Well, surely they were made with that in mind right-“

  “Flick,” Scratch stared at him with sullen eyes, “…the last daytime festival was before the war, I don’t think these things were built to last in the first place”

  “So… what about all the kids? What happens to them?”

  Scratch smirked, sipping more of his bottle to still his nerves, “What about them? When I say this raid is our last chance I mean it, we wouldn’t be raiding Isaac-fucking-Melbourne if we had any other option.

  We’re bringing everyone with us, everyone. If we succeed then I’m sure we can figure out another living situation. If we don’t? Well, at least no one’s drowning”.

  Flick stared with disbelief at the boy in front of him, it wasn’t entirely clear just how important this mission was before. but now, what he once thought was a semi-confident play by a series of tacticians just changed into a desperate last-ditch effort by the children they were.

  “But we’re gonna get through it! All we have to do is survive a little longer, take down some fucked up people along the way too! We’re gonna win!”

  Nothing made sound any-more somehow, not even the fluorescent light in the room hummed its usual tune. The tension in the room muted everything else to near silence.

  “…Hey, Flick?” Scratch asked, “You’re an adult, can I ask you something?”

  It was clear he was at least a little drunk at this point, but regardless Flick agreed to hear him out.

  He huddled over himself, grabbing his sides to stop his shaking, “Are…are we gonna die tomorrow?”

  Flick had no idea what to say, on one hand he’s never personally seen people as skilled as the SMILE kids were. But, on the other, he’s heard countless stories about the soldiers during the war.

  And these weren’t just soldiers they were fighting either, the people they were supposed to kill are heroes, comic books were written based off of their skills with blades alone. Flick once heard that the comics he used to read were actually edited at some point, that the fights they were based off of were too efficient for a story, they were too unfair for a good narrative.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Honestly, he wasn’t sure if they were gonna survive tomorrow. He didn’t even know if they’d get in the front door for that matter.

  “Of course not!” Flick smiled, “Are you kidding? You guys could run circles around them and still have time to get back for the festival!”

  Scratch looked at the man for a moment, analysing his face for sincerity. Eventually, he wiped the pearled tears from his eyes and forced a smile.

  “You’re cool man, and you’re right too… Were gonna kick ass and come back unscathed,” He finally put his bottle down, leaving it out on top of the crate instead of hiding it away like usual. “Well, get some good sleep dickhead, we’re all gonna need it for tomorrow”.

  Flick barely registered the words, too focused on the drink his friend left behind and its barely touched contents. He couldn’t tell if it was his own tipsiness blinding him or not, but from where Flick was sitting it almost looked as though Scratch’s drink was damn near full.

  The rest of that night passed slowly for everyone that knew the future lying ahead of them, all the other children slept soundly in ignorant bliss. Even though he wasn’t even remotely in the same position as Scratch or Pop in this case however, Flick was surprisingly the one who found it hardest to close his eyes. Trying his best to ignore the jagged nails poking him from the box bed he pushed together was one thing, but the weight of all the kids he was responsible for now was another.

  If they die it’s not his problem, he knew that much, but the sleep deprived man couldn’t shake the feeling that he had to look after everyone. After all, he was the only adult here now, it’s his duty to make sure they made it through this, right?

  Actually, the reason he couldn’t sleep was because of that idea in itself, his duty. The past day or two showed Flick a side of himself he wasn’t sure if he liked. And now, as he stared at the white walls in his huddled blanket wrap, Flick realised that he didn’t know where he stood at all. He was questioning if any of his decisions meant anything, and whether or not they were distinctly his in the first place.

  Okay, not the time for mid-life crisis’ Flick,

  That’s what Sam would say, he reckoned.

  It was odd, but for some reason the idea of those being Sam’s words comforted him more than if they were anyone else’s, even though they had only known each other for a day.

  He didn’t care much to focus on details like that though, the comfort of her vision was enough for now.

  Flick closed his eyes and tried to lull himself into the dark behind his lids, melting into the words he repeated to himself. He kept trying to ignore the hums of footsteps around him, the beating of a pint-sized army shaking the room. However, just as soon as his mind slipped into the plain sleep Flick wanted, he was shook awake by a small pair of hands jabbing into his side.

  Flick lazily sat up to see the black eyes of a SMILE mask staring back, still and lifeless yet intently watching. If there was anyone else still asleep in the pill, the scream of Flick was more than loud enough to get them up, and soon the ones who were awake found themselves poking into the room where the blood curdling cry came from.

  Scratch and Pop were the only ones out of the small crowd to rush inside, blades revved and tensed for battle. The boy that had the courtesy to wake up their newest and tallest member, shot some ten feet back in the air the moment the scream pierced his ears.

  As soon as Scratch saw Flick’s shocked face however, he sighed and put Caliburn back over the sling on his shoulder.

  “Fucking hell,” Scratch began, “Maybe don’t scare the shit out of everyone today?”

  Flick gasped, trying to collect his thoughts along with his lost breath, “Shit,” he panted, “Did I oversleep?”

  Pop followed in Scratch’s example putting away her rapier-like weapon, “Nah we woke up early…” she eyed Scratch, “… For once”.

  He didn’t take the sly jab lightly, making a face at her before continuing, “...Anyway, we’re about to head out soon so you should get ready.”

  “O-okay” Flick replied, still recovering sleep, “Is there anything I should worry about specifically? Like those inversion bombs you guys use; should I bring some?”

  “Don’t worry about those, Chip’s got us covered there,” Scratch gestured towards the huge bag behind him with the boy barely managing to drag it along the ground, “You are here to bring us to Simon once we get inside,”

  “Ah, right, that…” Flick gazed off for a second before suddenly realising something, “Wait how do you plan on getting in the pillar anyway?”

  Pop cut in, “Same way we always do; one of us scales the pillar and cuts their way in, then they let everyone else in through the front door”.

  “Why?”

  “Huh?”

  Flick continued, “Why? I can just go into the pillar myself and let you all in,”

  Scratch and Pop looked at each other, dumbfounded at how they didn’t think of the idea before,

  “Okay...” Scratch shrugged off the fact he didn’t come up with the plan before, “In that case, you are gonna let us in without causing a scene” he went to leave, only to suddenly turn back as he realised something, “Oh! Actually I’ll go with you! We’ll swing by your shithead scientist friend and kill two birds with one stone”

  Pop cut in once more, unimpressed “I guess that means I’m going too,”

  “How come?” Flick asked, Scratch scrunching his eyes at Pop asking the same question with his face,

  “Well, if you’re going to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ then someone has to actually let them in while you two go have your little meeting,”

  The them in question were the two hundred or so children of various heights and builds queued up in the halls, making their wide berth tiny in comparison.

  “M’kay, Just try not to die dummy” Scratch mumbled, heading out of the room to get himself ready,

  “Oh?” Pop chased after him, “Shouldn’t I be telling you that, leader?”

  Flick quickly got himself ready once the two left, hearing their squabbling the entire time as it faded in and out of the rooms they walked through. Even as he chose, against Scratch’s plan, to help move the huge bag with Chip he still heard both of them jabbing at each other. However, the moment the bag reached its resting place the two switched back to their leading positions as if nothing happened.

  He thought it was cute, especially after finding out about Scratches little ‘secret’, that they could still be so close to each other even with what they had ahead of them. And, as Flick looked around, he found that he wasn’t the only one who was endeared to their sweet performance.

  Every child that gathered around the exit alongside Scratch and Pop were magnetised by the back and forth they effortlessly slipped into. It was ironic considering their ages, but to Flick it almost looked like how kids would look up their loving parents. In that moment, however brief it was, they seemed like a small family.

  Once Flick made himself situated with Scratch again, running over the plan just a couple of times more to get it burned into his mind, the entirety of SMILE made their way to the Pill’s exit. With every step towards the door the grins on people’s faces faded more and more until, eventually, they had receded enough for the masks to replace them entirely. Within only a few seconds of being outside the whole mood had shifted, everyone was unrecognisable and the stillness of the black sky grew heavy with their bated breath.

  * * *

  It had only been a couple days since Flick left the pillar, but Simon knew he wasn’t making it back anytime soon. At first he paced back and forth in his childhood room, painfully aware of each passing second of each passing hour, but after the chime of the fifth Simon chose to ignore the clock’s ticking. However, even with his newfound ignorance he couldn’t sleep for the whole day afterwards. With the science district going under strict repair since the bombing he had nothing to set his mind to besides the piles of mail he had neglected, not out of choice just lack of giving even the slightest care. The size of the pile probably could’ve kept him busy for the next year, if not longer.

  So for the past day and night Simon chose to continue ignoring them, even Flick being missing wouldn’t enthuse him to do something that boring.

  The time passed, as did his thoughts, and slowly the allure of sleep trumped his insomnia, pulling him into the soft cushions of his mattress and putting his mind to rest.

  A single piece of gravelly rock ticked itself against Simons window.

  Once. Then silence.

  It barely roused him from his long-needed sleep, nor did his body even realise the noise happened in the first place. The murmurs of people outside didn’t do much to bother him either seeing as they ended as fast as they started.

  However, not long after that something did startle Simon awake, that being the noise of a small bolt or screw smashing through his window pane.

  “Fuck! I told you not to throw too hard you jackass!”

  “Relax barely anyone lives here, we’ll be fine!”

  He threw the thin blankets off and dashed towards the shattered pane, slipping a shard of the glass into his hand as a knife. However, as he peered around the open hole at the ground below to try and spot where the hushed voices came from, all he saw was the barren alley’s as unchanged as they always had been.

  Just as Simon began to question his sanity a small click sounded from behind him, followed by the faint creaking of a floorboard. He span himself around on one heel positioning himself in front of the Wayback under his desk, all the while his hair seemed insistent on getting in the way of his eyes.

  Once his vision restored the shadowy figures of two men stood in front of him, even in the deep blue hue of the night Simon could see their outlines clearly. One sat hunched over on the table next to the door, perched like a bird of prey with a hefty sword in place of his talons, whilst the other stood in the entranceway reaching for the light. A chill shot down his spine as he clutched the shard tighter around his fingers, nearly drawing blood from their bony joints. Just as he was about to lunge at the shadows standing in front of him, the worn lightbulb above him hummed and shone to reveal the faces of his late-night visitors.

  The one on the table, surprisingly, matched his silhouette uncannily. The torn cape adoring his shoulders among the creased black shirt that jutted out in every which direction fitted the visage of a predatory bird well, only instead of a majestic and threatening eagle like Simon first thought he seemed more like a finch on the verge of breaking in this light. Unsurprisingly, Simon didn’t recognise him or the hanging blade sitting loosely in his hand. However the other figure now seemed much more recognisable, Simon could’ve guessed who it was a mile away just by the hair alone that was distinctly his in the way it was kept. The veil of the dark made it impossible to tell it was him, but with the light there was no mistaking it.

  “Hey Si,” Flick spoke, touching his neck to hide his embarrassment, “Sorry about the late-night visit again, I’m not very good at timing these am I?”

  “Don’t worry about it, at least you look the part now, thanks to your buddy over there,”

  Scratch glared a little and tried not to be provoked by hearing him referred to as a “buddy”,

  Flick chuckled to himself before continuing, “Well, I’m actually here because of my little buddy,” he could feel the holes being burned into his side just from saying that “I mean Scratch, he’s from smile-“

  “What?” Simon clenched his weapon a bit tighter

  “No no no it okay! They’re good kids with a good cause, just hear them out they only have some questions to ask that’s all!”

  Scratch finally chipped in “…And if you don’t answer there’s always the second option,” he flashed the edges of Caliburn.

  “Y’know death threats don’t work on people with no lives right?” Simon replied, as sharp as ever,

  “Stop that Scratch, I told you, no killing. Just ask the questions okay?”

  Scratch rolled his eyes, as did Simon. Flick questioned whether or not the two were secretly acquainted already, it took him this long to realise how similar the two were in attitude and suddenly he was beginning to question his friend making abilities.

  “So,” Scratch started, “did you make Six disease?”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me dickhead, we’ve been doing this dance for a loooong time now don’t act like there’s nothing wrong here,”

  Simon laughed, “I have zero idea what you’re talking about,”

  “Don’t be dumb,” Scratch raised the tip of his sword to meet Simons gaze, “we’ve seen the smoke from the butchers, from science districts like yours. What the fuck do you know asshole?”

  Simon paused, for the first time in Flick’s memory he saw Simon unable to respond. Even when they were small he had always been able to bite back with something smart or witty. Simon could hit someone in their core with words alone, all while rarely being profane.

  And yet, for once he couldn’t speak. Flick felt the urge to speak to Simon, mostly to ask why he wasn’t able to find his words now of all times, but he couldn’t.

  Regardless of if Flick spoke anyway, Simon knew what was going on in his head just from looking at him. He could see that with every passing second that he didn’t talk the worry on Flick’s face grew heavier.

  “Okay…” Simon, finally, replied, “Where do you want to start bird boy?”

  Flick was on the verge of crying. He could feel the back of his throat tightening itself in anticipation for the tears yet he knew that he somehow that he wouldn’t cry. He was keen on feeling instead of thinking most days, and he could feel that no matter how strong the urge to cry was, he wouldn’t. If he cried right now the tears would cloud his vision. He needed to look Simon in eye as he spoke now, he needed to see if the friend he knew for so long was the same person standing in front of him.

  “Oh wonderful!” Scratch said, hopping off the table and closing the short distance between him and the scientist, “So, most importantly, did you make six disease?”

  “There’s not a simple answer to that question Y’know,”

  Scratch glared, “Just answer the question smart ass,”

  “Fine,” Simon reluctantly sighed, “…Yes and no”.

  “The Fuck is that supposed to mean!?” Flick, this time, was the one to speak. Balling the frustration into his fist as he stared into the man in front of him.

  “… Yes, I made it. No, I didn’t come up with it. that good enough for you?”

  Flick wanted to throw up.

  “Actually no, it isn’t,” Scratch replied, sword still hovering at Simons throat, “I’m gonna need to you to elaborate a little…”

  “Well unfortunately for you that’s all you’re gonna get-“

  Just as Simon turned to go back to his bed he felt a small prick in the side of his neck, followed by a single warm sensation travelling down him in one clean and unbroken line. He looked down to see the slight cut along his skin, not enough to be serious but still enough to draw blood.

  “Unfortunately,” Scratch smirked, “You don’t exactly have a choice. Elaborate, now.”

  “…Fine, you want the truth? Fine, whatever you want as long as you fuck off when this is done okay?”

  Scratch nodded. As did Flick, even though he wasn’t the one being asked.

  Simon glanced around for a second, monitoring the walls before speaking. “Every pillar, every Science district more like, was given strict instructions to make a formulae.

  It was a chemical weapon. designed to be highly infectious, extremely dangerous, and monitored 24/7. Now, I have to be clear here. Mainly to you, Flick. We weren’t stupid, we knew what this was very clearly. He told us himself that it was meant for population control.”

  “The hell does that mean?” Scratch asked, genuinely not understanding the term.

  Simon sighed, “It means to make sure there’s only a certain amount of people alive. We all agreed to the terms, and why wouldn’t we? It makes sense doesn’t it?

  There’s not enough to sustain us, too many mouths to feed and all. We’ve been hurtling through space for how many years now? The pillars can’t last much longer with the supplies we have, there’s too many people. If we didn’t make Six disease then EVERYONE would die, we’d all starve to death within a matter of years. But, with a way to lower the population discreetly? We might be able to keep humanity alive, at least for a little while longer…”

  “How do you know that?” Flick asked, throat sore from holding back his tears.

  Simon cocked his head to the side, like a dog would, as if to ask Flick why he even spoke.

  “How do you know that?! Maybe if you spent more time thinking up a solution to fix the supply issue instead of murdering people we wouldn’t be here!”

  “This is the solution Flick,” Simon responded, deadpan in his tone, “Listen id love if there were any other way to solve this problem but there’s nothing we can do. Besides, only he could’ve thought of a plan that kills two birds with one stone at a time like this.”

  “Two birds huh?” Scratch spoke, finally returning to the conversation. “If lowering the population is one bird then where’s the second?”

  “…”

  Simon turned on his heel to face the broken window once more. Looking down at the streets below he took mental note of every trinket he laid his eyes on, each loosened screw and forgotten toy that littered the corners. He could remember some of them by instinct with the amount of times his heart pictured wandering down these streets, like he used to when he didn’t need to care about things other than growing older.

  He breathed deeply as he moved eyes along the street, up towards the market place where vendors would peddle meat to the starving public.

  The vendors didn’t know. The people didn’t know.

  “Food” he spoke, looking through the cracks in the glass window with sunken eyes. “There wasn’t enough meat to go around.”