1 EP 1 - Left Or Right

"So those are stars?"

The taller figure chuckled lightly as he sat next to his younger son up above on a high platform. He held the night star projector up towards the ceiling as the light beams reflected brightly against it.

"That's right. And one day, I'll take you up on the surface. And we'll all get to see the stars together. The real ones. No worries. Just those sparkly, cosmic stars."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Hey! Knox! You up there?"

The voice came from below, and familiar voice is was. Knox and his father looked down to find the familiar voice also had a familiar face. It was his friend, Noel.

Knox smiled and lowered himself down, but not before looking back towards his dad who gave him a approving nod in return.

"If you need me, just call. I'm always nearby." he said, switching off the star projector.

"Okay. Thanks for showing me that, dad."

Knox made his way down the metal staircase and met level ground again as his friend approached with something cradled in his hands. He couldn't place what it was, but he soon understood it as an instrument of some kind after his friend began plucking random strings.

"Hey! Guess what this is?" his friend challenged him as he held the tan, wooden instrument higher from it's bridge in proud display. He grinned even wider when he found Knox glancing to the side in thought.

"Um, I dunno, some kind of instrument? I heard someone playing earlier, but I've never seen that kind before...even though I've only ever seen one other kind...it's definitely not a guitar."

"It's a lute!" Noel revealed, transitioning into a playing position and picked the strings with more intention, trying to make a melody. "My mom fixed an old one up that was just sitting around in one of the storage rooms. Wanna try it?"

"Looks weird...sure, why not?"

Knox reached for the foreign instrument and had just wrapped a hand around the bridge before-

BOOOOOOM

The first thing Knox had registered was the enormous wooden log that had penetrated the burrow ceiling.

"Knox..."

The second was Noel screaming in a frightened panic as the dust began to gather swiftly and whirled around their forms, their scared and confused shouting the only thing giving away their locations.

"Hey...hey, Knox?"

And the third thing Knox had registered next was the desperate calls of his father from above who still resided on the platform. The desperate calls of someone who was just as scared as he was, if not more.

Then, a colossal silhouette through the build up of dust. as fast as it had appeared, it had launched itself at his form-

"Knox, wake up."

Knox shook and sharply pulled his head up from the ground, looking around in a panic before laying eyes on a well-acquainted face. The brunette hair she had was enough information to relax him from his brief daze.

The morning sun's heat was almost as strong as the rays it had directed into his eyes. He rubbed his eyelids and collapsed back onto the grass.

"Morning Kara...bad dream, if you already couldn't tell."

Kara giggled and looked back at the nearby figure that leaned against a nearby tree. She got up and glanced at his groggy companion.

"Well, you almost headbutted me right out of your sleep...so yeah, I could tell."

It was only then that Knox had fully drawn his attention the various melodic sounds being made not far from where he lay. Sighing, Knox forced himself up on his feet, grunting and stretching off the excess stiffness. He looked around almost immediately after and trailed his eyes to the red saya scabbard that housed his precious katana blade. It was one of the first things he checked for when he awoke for the day.

"You two ready for some good ol' lootin' yet?" a friendly voice called from close by, which the sword-wielding human quickly registered as another good friend.

Knox strapped the katana around his side and yawned. He grabbed his book bag next and store up at the small gaps in the branches and leaves above them which hid a blue, radiant sky from view.

"Yeah, Lute. We're ready now."

Kara rested on the thick tree branch nearly 20 feet up beside Knox, who gazed analytically through the worn-out pair of binoculars. The glass within the portable microscope that magnified his vision was fairly scratched from years and years of use and abandonment, but it still did the trick.

"See anything yet?"

Knox scanned the building they were after a second time with hawk-like eyes. One slip up or false assumption could easily spell the death of them. So he needed be absolutely sure no one else was present when they arrived to do their thing. The bright star in the morning sky made it all the easier for things to both go smoother and screw everything up.

A solid red 'LUBO'S Supermarket' logo was barely holding on against the front of the goods store, the cords that had once fastened it straight against the building now the only things struggling to keeping it on full display and not on the ground.

Knox then trailed the binoculars to the long stretch of road that went down past the left of the convenient store in front of them and continued behind their current position. There was an abandoned neighborhood next to the forest of enormously tall trees just to the west of them as well, so Knox made tabs with what he observed and brung the binoculars from his eyes, nodding to Kara.

"Okay, everything's quiet and clear. There's a neighborhood to our west, too. So if we find ourselves with extra time, we can check that out." Knox informed, placing the binoculars in his bag and getting ready to lower himself down.

"Hey, Knox?" Kara asked suddenly.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Knox narrowed his eyes with an unreadable expression.

"Because they're both associated with writing."

"You're no fun." Kara replied, a bored expression taking over before her eyes widened. "You know what? Actually, that one was pretty good."

Knox gave out a small grunt as he finally made it back to solid ground. Another grunt sounded off behind him as he turned to his friend Lute who was still rested against a nearby tree trunk. "You could of helped us scout, you know? You're a better climber than we are."

The gentle sounds of melody stopped as Lute's two friends approached. He gave them a grin.

"Not if I can't bring ol' 'faithful fragile' up there with me. I mean, what if she falls and breaks?" Lute questioned in a exaggeration of voice. "There isn't a store dedicated to lutes in Las Vistas as far as I know."

Knox began to lead the walk into the open where the convenience store stood above them across the street.

"Why'd you bring it anyways? What if you need to roll or something to get away from an attacker? Won't the lute just get in the way? I'd imagine the roll would hurt too." Knox pressed as he scanned to his left and right.

Lute laughed quietly, taking the strapped instrument off and holding it up by the bridge in a bat position.

"Just felt like the group needed some musical encouragement this time around. Besides, I wouldn't have to. Hard as a rock. A good swing of this thing, and whoever it hits won't remember what happened."

Knox paused suddenly and spun around.

"Wait, I thought you claimed it was fragile...that's why you didn't want to climb the tree, remember? So which is it?"

Lute stood in silence with a similar grin from before.

"Come on, you too. Not much time on our side." Kara reminded from in front as one hand was already gripped on the convenient store's double doors, ready to pull. The other one tightened around a freshly pulled buck knife. She took a glance inside and checked the corners and as far into the store as she could, seeing nothing endangering in particular.

Knox jogged up next to Kara and withdrew his katana, ready for whatever might happen next.

"Slowly." Knox said.

Slowly didn't quite matter in this case. Kara carefully pulled the left double door towards her and was met with an irritatingly loud screech in response.

"Well, so much for the stealth approach..." Kara halfheartedly vocalized. She held it for Knox as he entered first, angling the katana blade around both sides in case someone they hadn't yet seen had the idea of ambushing them.

Luckily for them all, no one appeared to be present. At least near the entrance.

"Alright," Knox looked over his shoulder to his fellow compadres. "Anything worthwhile. Let's make this fast. I'll go further down and let you know if I need you two."

Kara and Lute nodded and stayed behind to check the first row of shelves while Knox went ahead.

"So...what the odds we find absolutely no food of any kind?" Lute said as he scanned the already bare shelving in front of him. He pushed a nearby rusted cart away to check the desolate shelves ahead of him.

"I wouldn't count on any food. Looks like this place was picked clean years ago...maybe something else we can use. A tool of some kind...anything but nothing, really."

As Kara went back near the entrance to check another shelf aisle, she took notice of a worn down poster on the wall next to her. She approached it and read through the difficulty the aging did to it's legibility.

"Save money...re-reduced...prices..here at the good ol'...Lubo's..." Kara mumbled to herself as she squinted her eyes to help her read through.

"Huh." Kara said simply.

Lute popped around the corner, ready to check another aisle.

"What, did you find something?"

"No...what do you think this place was like when it all went down? Can't imagine what it all looked like before..." Kara pulled her eyes away from the Lubo advertisement poster and joined her friend.

"Well, full of useful food and stuff, that's for sure." Lute responded.

"Yeah, no sh-t."

"Hey! Language!" Lute scolded with a finger.

"Ooops, sorry, dad."

"I mean, I get it..." Lute clarified. "It's just the question we keep asking every time we step into a new place. The wonder doesn't seem to ever go away."

Kara blanked out from the conversation, looking further down the aisle she was in front of and caught eye of something. She continued down and found something propped up against the wall. She beamed and gripped the metal pipe with one hand and gave it a swift practice swing.

"Well, at least we know we're not leaving totally empty-handed."

Knox treated every turn as a potential for death. The place was far from small, but he did expect it to be a bit bigger. Everything seemed much larger looking from the outside. Coming in, he hadn't expected to find much. Maybe a metal fork or something. Well, it could at least be used to put an unaware assailant's eye out of commission...but it's not exactly something you risk your life to go looking for. Knox hoped for more as he neared the old deli counter, leaping over the counter to check the backroom that led to lord knows where.

He scanned the small racks that resided against the walls, but nothing still. There was no doubt...everything here had to have been picked clean. Knox let out an exasperated sigh and moved towards the gray door in front of him. The lighting from the sun was proving more and more useless the closer he got, regretting not having found a working, portable light source to bring with him yet. He found there was a small glass window integrated at the top of the door, but saw nothing but blackness through it.

With sharp blade at the ready, he pushed the rusted door back and was met with more darkness. The slither of support the sun had to spare back through the windows of the store entrance only helped with just barely highlighting the silhouettes of unknown items and objects.

Or of creatures and Mutes.

That was a possibility.

That they were just frozen there...as still as statues...

Waiting for his curiosity to lure himself inside.

Into something he wasn't prepared for.

Straight to his demise.

Whether he was overreacting or not did not matter, as Knox did not give himself any chance to reverse his decision to shut the door, turn back and leave in a quick succession. His footsteps were just as quick as his vault back over the deli counter, looking over his shoulder to be sure he wasn't being stalked.

"Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope..."

Kara walked to the right past the final aisle and looked down towards where she last spotted Knox, wondering what was taking so long. "Hey, Lute? can you go check on Knoxy and see what he's up to? I'll stand watch here."

"Knoxy? Seriously? Alright...yeah, fine." Lute pulled a silver switchblade out of his pocket and started to walk forward further into the store. However, a need for a search was cut rather short after Knox appeared from around the corner at the last second.

"Hey, did you find anything?" Lute asked, lowering his switchblade and retracting the blade.

"Um, well...there's a storage room back there...but I wouldn't go in there without a bright light...and a gun." Knox replied.

"Guns are practically gold nowadays, so I guess we'll just have to come back with some light."

"I'm guessing your luck was just as bad as mine?"

"Yep. Too be fair, I did snag this metal pipe." Kara highlighted, raising the pole and twirling it with one hand. "Wasn't expecting much anyways, but at least we kno-"

"Hold on, shhh..." Knox put an emphasizes on his command by placing a finger against his lips. "Do you hear someone? Listen..."

The three humans all went silent, trying to pinpoint the source of Knox's worries. There seemingly wasn't much of anything at first; just the tree leaves whistling within the occasional, brief gusts of wind. But then their suspicions were finally confirmed.

"He could've just drove us here. Dunno why the hell he had us waste precious time walking..."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have had that sissy fit about his job performance. I'm sure that gave him plenty reason to make you walk, and unfortunately for me, I'm your partner this time around. So here I am too."

"The guy's too soft. Should've ended their pathetic lives for what they did...but captured humans are captured humans, right?"

The voices only grew closer. Knox put a hand on Kara and Lute's shoulders and beckoned them to follow him to the back of the store. His decision was wise, as the unknown beings' talking became even more audible.

"Haven't seen this place before. Thought we came through here..."

"No harm in checking." the other voice said.

By the time the Lubo supermarket doors swung open, Knox and his companions were gone. Kara and Lute hopped over the deli counter Knox had checked not even a minute earlier. Pondering their next move, Knox looked over his shoulder to the dreaded door he had not long ago avoided venturing in to. It would have to prove to be their unlikely savior now.

"Hey, guys? Remember the door that I said lead to that very dark place?" Knox asked the two.

They both nodded. Knox looked back.

"Well, it's behind us. And we need to hide in there, now."

A whistling tune let out, and something trailed against the store floor, scraping against it with an eerie screech. Whoever had walked inside was getting much closer. Knox stepped as quietly as he could to the gray door and opened it, getting Lute to hold the door while he retrieved his katana again for safe measure.

Into the unknown, the humans went. Any hope of navigating further without worry dispersed the moment the door had slowly groaned closed. Knox swore under his breath as it did, knowing there was no way that whoever had entered the store after them hadn't heard that.

Knox hated that he was right.

"...you hear that?" one of the voices asked his partner.

"Yeah...yeah I did. We might have some squatters in here. Just to be sure..."

"Dammit..." Knox faced-palmed himself, dragging his hand down his face. "Alright. Alright, we got this. Here's the plan. We wait it out, and if they come to the door and open it, that's when I'll push it back against them. Then we break for it. We'll have to just improvise what comes next...we can't die in this stupid room."

Knox couldn't see anything around him, but he could practically feel the nods Kara and Lute gave him.

This was it. If Knox didn't coordinate this correctly, he was going get them captured. Or worse, killed. He wasn't even sure how many of them they're even were. 'Could be some outside...waiting in case their pals didn't get the job done...'

No. Not the time for speculations. It was the time for action. It was time for now.

The words the group of three heard through the door next solidified what they needed to do.

"There's a door right over there, past the counter. Let's check it out."

Footsteps followed. A heavy clap against the ground echoed lightly as one of the unknown investigators had jumped over the deli counter and slowly approached the door Knox was pressed against.

"Get ready you two...no one left behind." Knox whispered to his friends.

"Let's do this." Kara responded, her buck knife at the ready.

The footsteps finally stopped at the door.

"Looks dark as hell in there...can't see anything through the window."

The moment the door was pulled back, Knox reared himself back and put all his strength into his barge against the door, sending it outwards. A loud bang sounded after.

"Yoouch!" the figure was left to hold his head on the ground in the pain.

Knox had to act quickly. He dashed out of the door and ran into a someone he was not unfamiliar with. In front of him was a humanoid, green frog sporting a professional black tailored slim-cut suit. Tie included.

They were Mod Frogs.

Knox swung his katana at the Mod Frog that remained standing in front of the deli counter, his surprised reaction to the swift cut the blade made through the air leaving him tumbling over the counter in an ungraceful heap.

Kara and Lute wasted no time in darting over the corner, Knox following after them just after noticing the nail-driven bat that rested beside one of the Mod Frogs as he passed by.

The disgraced Mod Frog got up from his tumble and frantically patted over his neck and body to find that the sword failed to make contact. His face contorted into agitation and anger as he yelled to his partner.

"Bukowski! Get your ass up! We've got us some humans to chase."

Knox nearly tripped over himself as he bound for the supermarket entrance, glad to see the sun in it's full glory once more. Kara held the door for him as he joined them in their bid to get as far from the Mod Freaks as fast as humanly possible. The last thing they needed was to get entangled up with them. Everything that could have gone wrong was going wrong. And for what? The katana-wielding human chastised himself as he ran and the fairly distant shouts from behind him and his group didn't help the matter one bit. The frogs were out of the cage now, and they were gaining on them by the second.

"All we have to do is get back to the forest, we can lose them there!" Kara shouted, looking back just in time to see an elongated and pink tongue snake straight towards her head. Her instinct to duck just about saved her life as the Mod Frog's extended tongue retreated back into it's mouth.

"You all won't get very far, I assure you!" the Mod Frog yelled out, unleashing another tongue lash at the group, this one coming mighty close to Lute.

"Yeah? Watch us!" Lute replied, eyeing the body of trees that were growing closer.

Through the adrenaline-filled rush, it was a miracle that any of them noticed the shadows against the road's pavement they were running on. Something lurked from above and Kara was the first to look up.

"No way!" she said gripping the metal pipe in her hands much tighter.

Trailing the commotion from above was a squadron of large differently-colored birds in flight; no more than five and all of their sights on them.

"Humming Bombers!? Are you f-cking kidding me!?" Kara shouted, her legs pumping against the pavement faster.

"Language!" Lute chastised, bounding past her with his lute cradled tightly against his side.

"Not the time!" Kara replied through fatigued breathing. She turned back, but immediately regretted the decision. The Mod Frogs were getting much closer than she was comfortable with. And the Humming Bombers were now in play.

Things weren't looking good at all for them. To Kara, a split-second decision needed to be made.

"Knox, Lute, we need to split. They can't get us easily if we split!" Kara offered.

"No! That's too risky!" he replied. "We can lose them through the forest and head back to-"

"No time!" Kara shot back.

They were now nearing the beginning edge of the forest the group had first come from, and Kara looked to her right and spotted the roofs of the abandoned houses they scoped out earlier.

"They'll end up following us back to the hideout. I'll cut through through the houses! Trust me, we'll regroup!" she assured.

Before Knox could protest, Kara had already twisted and turned sharply to the right. She leapt over a wooden fence and disappeared behind the first house in sight.

"Dammit!" Knox's heart began to race faster than it already was. "What was she thinking!?"

"Knox!"

Knox turned towards his remaining friend, Lute. He had an overly-confident grin on his face.

"Trust her!"

A small pause.

"Okay. We cut through the forest as soon as I say. We can shake the frogs there easily!" Knox told him as he looked back, the Mod Frogs getting visibly exhausted.

"Hey, Mod Freaks!" a voice called up from high above.

The two Mod Frogs trailed their eyes up to the sky to find the pesky Humming Bombers still after them. Two had separated from the others, supposedly to follow after the human that had deserted the group.

"What, you feathered chickens!?" one of the frogs shouted aloud, raising it's nail bat to the sky, as if reaching for them.

"If we can't have those humans, you know very well that no one else can!" the supposed Humming Bomber leader called down. It was only when they realized what the leader was reaching for then that the two frogs had come to a sudden stop.

"Bombs away, suckers!"

Knox and Lute heard the screams of the Mod Frogs that were in hot pursuit, but had failed to realize why they had fallen back in the opposite direction. Until one of them finally got it.

"Lute, don't look up! Run as fast as you can!"

"What?"

"Don't look ba-"

Everything was suddenly loud.

Everything was suddenly spinning.

And then everything was suddenly dark.

"You assholes! You almost killed us!"

"You gonna do something with that bat, froggie?"

"You won't feel so mighty the next time this happens, I swear you that! Let's get outta here, Bukowski. There not worth the time."

The voices became clearer to Knox as he slowly regained consciousness. He almost panicked after he came to, wiping the dirt from his face. But a hand rested on his shoulder and lead him to turn towards the face that calmed him. Lute was right next to him with a pointer finger against his lips. Although Knox rested assured in the fact that they were both still breathing, he saw that Lute's eyes still carried the look of apprehension.

Knox also found that they were both behind one of the many fallen trees that fell during the nectar bomb attack, covered almost completely in leaves that hid their position.

Luckily, the fallen tree the humans were concealed behind wasn't the direction the defeated and irritated Mod Frogs now took their leave towards.

"Good thinking, Lute. You saved our butts." Knox whispered to his partner, giving him a shoulder bump with his fist.

"Yeah...but we're not out of the woods yet."

Knox didn't know if the pun was intentional or not, but it was much appreciated either way, even considering the dire events they were currently in.

"You really think they survived that?" one of the Humming Bombers asked their leader.

"I dunno...maybe a bit too much punch into that one. Keep looking. If we don't find them alive, we'll certainly find them dead. Better that than nothing."

The voices of the grounded Humming Bombers continued a bit further out.

"Maybe we should've just threatened them on the ground. Dammit! We've gone too long without anything to show for it...Scarlemange is gonna be pissed."

The word that Knox had tried so hard to avoid was said loud and clear.

"Come on. Let's take back to the skies. We'll regroup with the others...maybe they caught that other human."

A array of fluttering wings sounded off and within seconds, the Humming Bombers had dispatched and were finally gone.

'Another day to live' Knox thought. 'But at what cost?'

"Come on, Knox. Let's get on Kara's trail. She shouldn't have gotten too far." Lute said as he got to his feet and brushed off the leaves stuck in between his lute's strings.

Knox wobbly got to his feet, still sore and shaken from the nectar bombing. His feet soon found equal balance. He gave a quick glance back at the carnage the bird Mutes had caused in their wake. Luckily, he hadn't lost his katana; it lay right beside him, as if it had an invisible leash connected to it in the form of an unspoken loyalty.

He grunted through the persistent soreness and picked it up, gently sliding it back in it's red scabbard.

"Did you hear what that Humming Bomber said? Scarlemange? So they work for that mystery jerk?"

Knox took a pause in silence.

"Yeah, seems like it. For the self-proclaimed "freedom fliers of the sky " to be lackeys to some whack-job...I honestly still wouldn't be surprised."

A long, deep breath was drawn, and Knox finally pulled the strength to move forward.

Crunched leaves and hurried, heavy footsteps continued into the nearby forest.

Kara had thought she lost those pesky Humming Bombers for the third time, and maybe this time she was right. She wasn't expecting the neighborhood forest to be so big. She continued and felt a pang of relief in her heart as she saw the two Humming Bombers that were trailing her fly past her position through what little view she had through the dense trees. They seemingly lost sight of her.

She stopped and tiredly leaned against the closest tree, slowly sliding down it's rough texture and finding herself catching her breath on the ground.

"Okay...okay, I need...to find..."

Kara paused her self-talk and froze up, a unplaced sensation overtaking her.

She quieted her breathing as best as she could, trying not to lose her composure. The sound could have literally been anything, but it was a strangely particular sound. Still, she searched around from left to right with keen eyes and she found nothing.

Still, she heard it...but just faintly. Like a very subtle fizzing sound.

As Kara slowly removed her knife from it's sheath, she realized that she was spending all of her time looking around her that she failed to look up.

And by the time she did, it was too late.

A quick glance above the tree she rested against was met with the razor fast lunge of something she didn't get to identify.

Then everything went black for her.