“So this is it?” Dela said, looking anywhere but the crack in the wall.

“Unless you want to start drinking your own pee, yeah,” Flamer replied. The cadet was tying the last loop in their makeshift rope, it would keep the crack in reality from vanishing and separating them when they went through.

The week of rest had done wonders for all of them. Flamer only had some faded bruises left from her beating, and Alexander was able to move without too much pain. They hadn't been idle either. They each had two sets of clothes to wear, blankets, rain gear, a makeshift first aid kit, and a few survival items, like matches and knives. It wasn't much, but the apartment hadn't exactly been well stocked.

Dwayne smiled encouragingly at her. “It'll be OK. We're rested, mostly healed, and while we're going in blind, we're as ready as we can be.”

'Just check out the other side of the crack, and if it looks OK to go through I can take over if you want. If it isn't jump back and Flamer and I can fight it off,' Alexander thought in her mind.

Nodding to herself, she shifted the small backpack to sit more comfortably on her back. It had hers and Alexander's portion of the rations, two bottles of water, three cans of food and a pack of crackers. Taking the rope from Flamer, she took one last look around the tiny apartment they'd called home for a week. She'd tidied it up a little the day before, it hadn't felt right to take all the food and water, and leave it dirty.

Everyone had called her silly for doing it, but it had made her feel better.

Putting the loop over her wrist, she rolled her shoulders trying to loosen them up. “Everyone ready?” she asked.

Her companions nodded. It was now or never, if the whirling crack in reality disappeared it could be days before another one appeared. Closing her eyes to avoid getting sick as the paint moved unnaturally, she shoved her hand through, quickly followed by her head.

Cold, wet rain fell on her.

Opening her eyes, she saw a dark pine forest. For a moment, she could almost imagine she was back home, hiking or camping with Alexander's family. Keeping her hand in the crack, she ducked her head back. “It's a forest. It's cold and raining, but there's no one right there.”

“Is it big?” Flamer asked.

“It's bigger than here.”

Flamer looked at Dwayne, who shrugged. “The rain will suck, but we should be able to find a way out before too long,” he said.

“Alright,” Flamer said, “let's go.”

Stepping through the crack, she stumbled when her toe hit the dirt. The crack in reality wasn't quite at the same level between the apartment and the forest. Keeping her eyes and ears open, Dela stepped to the side, watching for any potential danger. Other than the rain, the only sounds she heard were a few birds calling to each other in the trees. Despite the cold rain she had to smile. The smell of pine and rain, it swept away the mustiness of the apartment. She could almost imagine that if she closed her eyes she'd wake up back home.

Flamer and Dwayne stepped through the crack. The way they moved reminded her of hawks, no wasted movement, alert, and looking for prey. Would she become like them if they stayed in The Oubliette long enough.

'Go look in the trees,' Alexander thought to her.

She started running towards a tall tree, but came to a sudden halt after three steps. “I'm going to get up high and look around,” she said. Her cheeks burned in embarrassment that she'd forgotten she was now part of a group and had to let them know what she was doing.

Her feet barely touched the ground as she ran lightly through the forest, hopping over branches, nimbly placing her foot on roots and rocks, avoiding the slick mud and tree litter that covered the ground. Leaping up, she grabbed some branches halfway up the tree. Scrambling like a squirrel she reached the top, her hand and toes clutching the thin branches.

Peering around her, there were only trees in every direction, no sign of a clearing, houses, roads or even a path. “At least we'll be able to fill our water bottles,” she said.

'If we don't get hypothermia first,' Alexander thought.

Sliding down the tree, she walked back to their companions. “I can't see anything except trees,” she said.

“All right, lets put on our rain gear and start walking. We'll follow the border and look for a crack,” Flamer said.

Pushing wet hair out of her eyes, Dela noticed something odd about Flamer. “How come you aren't wet?”

“Fire powers,” the cadet said with a big smile. “Keeps me warm and dries the rain before it has a chance to settle.”

“Can you do that for me?”

“I'd rather not, it's a little hard to control when I try it on others. If we have to camp out here, I'll dry a spot and start a fire for us. For now, its safer to cover up and walk to keep warm.”

Pouting, she dug into her pack, taking out what been a child's rain poncho. They'd had to cut off the hood and widen the neck to fit her, but the pink poncho now fit neatly over her head, keeping most of her body dry. She put the hood on her head, the string of braided dental floss attached to the hood went under her chin to hold it in place.

Flamer was wearing a black raincoat that just barely fit over her chest, and Dwayne had a heavily altered trench coat that looked ridiculously small on him along with a rain hat. As ready as they'd ever be, they started hiking through the woods.

They'd been walking for an hour through the rain and Dela hated it. She was cold, damp and it didn't look like it was going to stop raining anytime soon. Moving through the forest wasn't exactly easy, even for her. In a lot of places the trees were so close together they had to push through the branches, getting covered in pine sap, slapped by branches and poked by the needles. She really wished that they could find a crack and get somewhere warm and dry.

She was about to tell Alexander she wanted to switch, when something large and brown moved through the trees.

“Oh look, a deer!” she exclaimed, pointing at the animal.

“What?!” Dwayne and Flamer asked at the same time.

She pointed at the deer that was bounding away. “Right there.”

“Crap,” Flamer snarled.

“We've gotta go now,” Dwayne said, pushing through the branches.

She followed along as they picked up the pace. “What's wrong, it's just a deer?”

“If there's an animal here, it's only because it got sent here with a prisoner. And there's no reason a deer would be caught in a fight. It was created by someone, using unreal science,” Dwayne explained.

“Who would want to create a deer? Wouldn't they want a guard animal or something?”

Flamer cursed and started jogging, her head twisting as she moved, looking for something, or someone. Dwayne rested his hand on the knife at his belt, becoming even more grim faced.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“Lycaon,” he said.

“Who?” She could tell Alexander was as confused as she was.

“A genetically altered animal. Someone mixed human and dog DNA together to create a super intelligent and very violent werewolf. He broke free and used the same unreal tech to make more chimeras, including a pack of werewolves. This territory would be his perfect hunting ground, and he could create prey animals to hunt using rats, dogs and anything else that he got his claws on.”

“What will he do if he catches us?”

“If we're lucky, kill us quickly. If not, we'll be experimented on and turned into whatever type of creature he wants.”

'Let me out. If we need to fight I need to be ready. If we need to run, you need to rest,' Alexander told her.

Slowing down a little, Dela let herself go.

They were sitting at the base of a large tree, the branches providing some protection from the incessant rain. They'd been moving for what felt like hours, and there hadn't been any sign of a way out, so they'd stopped to rest. Instead of lighting a fire, they were huddled together with blankets to provide some warmth. It wasn't ideal, but no one wanted to risk a pack of werewolves getting their scent.

“How big is this forest?” Alexander asked.

“Huge, one of the largest parts of The Oubliette,” Dwayn said. “It makes sense that The Hound would claim it for himself. Except for the wood, there isn't much here most prisoners would want.”

“What type of animals does Lycaon have here? Like what can we expect to fight?”

He felt Samantha shrug. She was sitting between him and Dwayne, helping warm them up with her flame powers.

“No idea,” she said.

“I thought you guys studied this stuff.”

She snorted. “I was training to be a superhero. Dwayne was support. We learned the basics of The Oubliette, and studied past supervillains to get an idea of what to expect. The gritty details were for the techies and PR people.”

“For all we know,” Dwayne said, “Lycaon has had a change of heart and is creating cute fluffy animals. Or he's become completely feral and doesn't create his chimeras anymore.”

“Not with our luck,” Samantha said.

They sat in silence for a while, sipping from their water bottles, listening for anything that might warn them of an attack. When the silence became too much for Alexander, he asked, “Why aren't there many animals here?”

“Do you know anything about old fashioned photography?” Dwayne asked.

“Not really,” he admitted.

“The oldest cameras would take hours to take a picture. People and animals wouldn't be in them because they moved too quickly to be captured. Only plants, buildings and statues would show up in the picture. Everything in The Oubliette comes from a real place on Earth, chosen at random by the supercomputer that helped design it. It copied every aspect of the area, creating a near perfect copy here, but it took a few days. Animals, people, most vehicles, they didn't stay in one place long enough to be copied. Some eggs, bugs, bacteria and things like that came along because they didn't move enough to throw off the computer. And a few animals had the same thing happen to them if they were in hibernation or sick and not moving.”

“What about a really lazy or sick person, could they have been recreated to?”

Dwayne snorted. “If that happened it's way above my pay grade.”

Samantha crawled out of the blanket. “It's getting dark. We should stay here for the night, if we try to move at night we'll break an ankle. Go to the bathroom, then we'll eat. I'll take first shift, Alexander you'll be second, then Dela, and finally Dwayne.”

“No fire. Rain. And worrying about werewolves. This is going to suck,” Dwayne said.

“I've been in worse,” Alexander said.

“When?”

“I'll tell you about Camp Chippewa while we eat. I refused to go to summer camp after that.”

“This I've gotta hear.”

“Wake up!” Samantha hissed.

Rubbing his eyes, Alexander groaned in pain. His back and butt ached from lying on the hard ground with only some pine branches to soften it. “What's wrong?”

“Lycaon is hunting,” she said.

In the distance he heard the howling of wolves.

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The Oubliette will be updated every Saturday. My other story Necromancer Unmanned, will be updated every Sunday, and Doom Valley Prep School will be updated every Monday.

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