Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

Jetsam

Kipo quickly looked away from Alice, focusing on where Luz was pointing, but it didn't take long for Kipo to see what Luz was referring to.

"Oh!" Kipo gasped. The castle was much closer now, seemingly just over this river. It was shrouded in shadow, but even so, it was bigger than it had been before. Kipo's eyes widened. Then that meant, if they just got over this river...

A sudden clatter drew Kipo's attention, and she looked down to find that Kris had somehow found a boat, and was hanging onto it. Kipo blinked, and then looked around to find that the river was full of identical boats. It looked a little creepy to Kipo...

But apparently not to Luz.

"Ooh, lucky, a boat!" she said, and clambered onto it, immediately helping Alice in after. "You're going to drive, Kris? Cool. We'll be over this river in no time!"

Kipo... sincerely doubted that was true, but she didn't argue, instead climbing into the boat as well, and Kris got into the back. A short second later, they were moving, but they didn't immediately to go across the lake, instead, Kris moved them forward, along the dock.

Kipo frowned, and Luz turned around, confused.

"Kris, why aren't we... oh... there's a track... And you can't get out of it?...Oh, ok, then!" Luz turned around, smiling again, but she didn't seem as confident as before. "That's fine, I guess... it's probably going across the lake anyway!"

Kipo's frown only deepened, and she shifted until she was looking over the side of the boat. It was hard to make out in the dark, even for Kipo, but sometimes the moonlight glinted off the track, and Kipo could follow it. She saw that Luz was almost right... it did go in the direction of the castle, but then it stopped, leading into a dark, shadowy house that made Kipo's stomach drop. What monster would be waiting for them in there?!

It was slowly getting closer and closer...

"It's a copycat monster, alright?" Dib sneered. "It's called the Imposter, and it can take the form of anyone and anything, and can smoothly infiltrate any group it wants, feeding off their paranoia and fear while it kills them off one by one. No one ever knows it's there until they're being killed by it, and the only way to find it is a small symbol on its neck."

Dib paused dramatically, but unfortunately, Six seemed unimpressed.

"And you say it's here," she asked, but it wasn't really a question. "Hunting you."

"Well... I'm not one hundred percent certain," Dib corrected sheepishly. "But... weird things have been happening around here, suspicious things."

Six huffed, but Dib only took that as an incentive to continue.

"One time, when Anne and I were talking, she told me that her favourite band was the 'Whites and Pinks', which is a band that makes awful music, but another time, she said it was 'Two Directions', which is a band that doesn't even exist!" Dib told her. Six stared at him, and while she was speechless, it wasn't the awe-struck, 'everything makes sense now' speechless. It was an 'are you serious' speechless, which just made Dib grit his teeth in annoyance.

"That isn't all!" he snapped. "Once, Wirt came by and asked if there was anything he could do to help Kipo, and I told him to get more crystals, but then he never came back! And another time, Fei Fei and I were having a conversation, and I mentioned your stupid explanation, and she suddenly didn't know what I was talking about, even though she'd heard you say it before! And...!... uh...."

Well, technically, that was it. Seemed small when Dib said it all out loud like that. He waited for Six's verdict, but with each passing second that she didn't say anything, he got more and more agitated.