Curfew

Chapter Five

Stella^^

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When I wake up, I see that the ashy sky is just getting lit up by the sun. I check the watch on my nightstand. 6:17.

I look around my shack. Phoebe and Gemma are cuddled up at the end of my bed. Midnight is laying down underneath it. Isaak is curled up on the floor. We're all still in our clothes from the day before. I hear some roars in the distance, and then a roar at the bottom of our stacks. I dare to peak out of the window after stepping lightly over Isaak. My stack of cars is still swaying, but not as bad as the previous night.

I try to make out the bottom of my stack, to see if the Beastie (or Beasties, you never know if more joined the other one), but both the bad lighting and my view from the window made the ground obscured from my sight. I unlock and open my door, tiptoeing (I don't really know why, it wouldn't do much) to the edge before glancing over the side. There was no Beastie in sight. Correction; there was no alive Beastie in sight. At the bottom of my stack there was something that sort of, if you tilted your head the correct way, maybe looked like the Beastie that was chasing Gemma and Phoebe the previous day.

It was pretty gruesome. It's head was hanging on by a thread-literally-of torn muscle. Its eyes were gorged out, and there was a huge gap in part of its skull, its brains all but gone, what little left was oozing out and already drying up by the steadily increasing heat as the sun rose higher. Most of the thing's face was gone, bits of bone and fur in random places. Its body was destroyed as well. The Beastie who must have eaten it was even more sadist than them all because it seemed to have literally licked the bones clean and put them in a flipping pile. If that's not insane, I don't want to know what is.

The main point of this is one thing: If you are out past eight, you're a painfully dead person, try not to suffer to much, good day, and Beasties aren't even safe from their own kind, hahaha lalala we're all happy in this wonderful world, and I'm going to pass out or something.

I take a deep breath and stumble back into my humble little adobe before I pass out and fall off my stack and lay there peacefully dead with the Beastie I poisoned.

That was really gross.

A realization hits me in the face like a rock. If I reacted this way, how would Gemma, Phoebe, or even Isaak react to this...disturbance in the force.

I close the door and lean up against it, sitting down. Think you blonde buffoon. You're Stella Thorn, legendary jedi who saved the universe too many times to count. Why on Earth are you going insane? You are Stella Thorn. You can't just give up hope. Figure out what the heck is going on, be a hero, maybe even get some decent food for once if this is all planned or something and we become rich...

My thoughts trail off as Midnight licks me in the face and then stretches. Who knows, maybe I really will get some good food... My stomach grumbles in agreement.

I take another glance at my watch, which shows it's now 7:02.

We still got at least an hour before we can do anything. Even if it's all messed up because of what happened yesterday, we would do better being safe rather than sorry.

Midnight starts lumbering around the tiny room, stepping on Isaak's stomach which causes him to groan painfully and wake up. I snort a little. He wrinkles his nose at me, his eyes still closed.

Midnight climbs up onto the bed and lays on top of Gemma and Phoebe. The girls wake up, startled by the sudden weight on them. Their reaction pushes Midnight off of them and the bed and back onto Isaak's stomach. As Midnight scrambles to get off of him, she steps multiple times on his stomach and...other regions...