He enters back into the store floor where some of the prisoners have decided to strike a conversation with one another. He shoos them out of the building himself, the veins in his forehead pulsing. And when that is completed, he finally knocks on the door his pink-haired employee slipped into before.
"Clyde? Hey, Clyde. We need to talk. I'm sorry, boy."
The door unlocks, and Clyde stares at Keria and Maddie. He wipes his eyes with his right wrist, one at a time, and he then lets Ruedi into his space. It's an office and bedroom, with a comfortably large bed, closet, desk, and rolling chair.
"Who are t-they? Did s-something happen?"
Maddie notices Clyde, who catches her attention.
"Oh wow. You're really cute. I'm Maddie! We just ruined Ruedi's business and freed all the prisoners."
She moves a little closer, her tail waving awkwardly.
"How about you? Do you live here? How old are you? I'm 1164, turning 1165 in March."
Maddie lets out a series of questions, her social etiquette eroded by hundreds of years of isolation.
Keria steps forward and puts a gentle hand on her shoulder, pulling her back from Clyde.
"Now, Maddie, please pace your questions. Don't overwhelm the poor boy."
Keria smiles warmly at Clyde, doing her best to try and calm him, as she's not sure if he's an accomplice or a victim.
"Let's start simple. I am Keria, and this is Maddie. Put simply, we are immortal beings simply travelling through... And you are?"
"W-What? Um—uh, that's a lot."
Tears well up in the corners of his eyes again despite the fact his face is already red from crying. He sniffles and lies across his bed, and he digs his hands in his hair.
"I live here. I'm seventeen. I'm C-Clyde Siskin... The chocolate store—it's over? Is Ruedi in t-trouble? Am I in trouble? I—I don't know what to s-say."
Ruedi sits down on Clyde's office chair, and he rolls it into the corner of the room. He waits for an opening in all the commotion.
Then, he says, "Yeah, they ruined us. I really hoped the day would never come, but it means I'm going to have to lay you off. I don't need you associated with my brand anymore—not while I have to think about what I'm going to do with it. I'm sorry. I really do mean that. You've been the best employee I could have asked for. Genuinely."
He digs his face in his jacket.
"Oh. Hmmph. You're still a kid. If you were a little older I'd ask to kiss you. Oh well."
Maddie turns to Keria, tugging at her arm gently.
"Can we head out soon? I want to go to the grocery store and get some hot chocolate that doesn't make me want to puke when I think about how it was made. I feel sick knowing that I almost ate some of that stuff."
Keria solemnly nods her head as Ruedi talks, looking down at Clyde.
"My friend here couldn't let those prisoners stay here. I've… done what I can to give Ruedi a second chance without erasing what he did… It's a fine line to walk, especially when I know Ruedi doesn't have to be the way he is."
Keria turns to Maddie, nodding her head.
"We'll go soon Maddie, just let me finish talking. And please don't say things like that to strangers. It's weird."
She turns back to Clyde, observing the room as she narrows her eyes.
"If you're being laid off… do you have anywhere to go? It looks like this is where you stay."
"But, but—Boss, isn't it the b-best time to give you a helping hand if they're f-freed and the business is changing...? Uh, you're not going to—well, imprison more people a-again, are you?"
He folds his arms over his pink necktie as he continues to cry. He's still gathering from his net of thoughts and emotions. He, too, feels sick thinking about mostly the chocolate.
"T-Thank you Keria, and Maddie, but... Uh, yeah, I think I ought to a-apply for jobs and hope someone else wants me for any w-work... N-Nobody wants a baker here; I hope I don't become homeless. I can't stay, R-Ruedi?"
"No, boy. You can't stay. I'm trying to do this for your protection. I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry. Forget about me. Don't mention me to anyone. You can't be associated with me since some people are going to know what happened. Unwelcome people. Do you understand?"
He drags his crumpled wallet from his jacket and rips a few hundred-dollar bills out. He waves them at Clyde. His face is reddening.
"Take the money and run—and Keria, can you take some of the liability and find somewhere else for him to work and live? If you couldn't tell, you're what he's got now. He's your responsibility now. I was all he damn had!"
He shoves the money to Clyde and storms to the exit.
Keria sighs and watches Ruedi storm out. Once he's left Keria crouches down to be eye level with the crying boy.
"I'm sorry I uprooted you like this. I try not to meddle in others' affairs, but… you understand, I'm sure. Do you have anywhere to go in the meantime…? No parents, no place of your own? I'm certain, eventually, Ruedi can take you back in, but… I doubt he can be convinced now or anytime soon."
Keria glances back to Maddie, really really hoping that Clyde has somewhere to go. If not, then Ruedi was right in a way, Keria is responsible for Clyde's state, and she has to help fix it, likely by taking him in for a short time. She'd really rather not slowly gather a troupe of random individuals she's uprooted… a talk with Maddie is likely in order to prevent something like this from happening again.
Maddie gets on her tiptoes to whisper into Keria's ear.
"Should we take him back with us? He's just a normal person so I don't know how he'd do in the forest. Do mortals explode when they enter the forest? That'd be awful. And kinda cool."
Maddie turns towards Clyde, tail waving back and forth.
Ruedi Gobeli gives a fatalistic look at the door that'll soon be vacant of Clyde and his belongings.
He disables the lights, slips into the hallway to the factory, and grabs latex-free gloves and cleaning chemicals in a closet.
Clyde watches Ruedi leave for as long as he can, unsure if he would encounter his old boss again in amicable terms. Clyde knows Ruedi must be thinking about the people intrinsic to this deal with the prisoners that take a percentage of the company. He then notices the subtle difference in color in Keria's recently grown arm compared to the rest of her pale, plant-like surface. And Maddie's fuzzy features. These immortal beings of Keria and Maddie didn't seem to have much in common.
"I understand, c-course. Well, I haven't saw my d-dad since I was a little kid, and I ran away from my mom's house a few years ago. I just lived here since—then... I can call my m-mom if y-you really want..."
There's a remarkable amount of bile in Clyde's gentle voice with his suggestion of his mother.
Keria takes a moment to think about the way Clyde said that and sighs quietly, rolling the ideas around in her head.
"If you had to guess… how likely would it be that… going back to her causes some kind of lasting damage to you, mentally or physically?"
Keria frowns as she asks this, feeling like she may already know the answer.
Maddie pauses, thinking about the question, even though it wasn't aimed towards her.
"I haven't seen my mom in over a thousand years. I got taken by the government when I was 16 and experimented on for a few years. She probably got incinerated with everyone else."
Maddie's ears flatten down, saddened by the thought of her long-dead family.
"Oh you poor thing. I'm so sorry."
Keria offers a hug to Maddie, looking away from the boy momentarily as she waits for a response.
He returns Keria's frown, and he simply nods at her line of questioning.
He rolls out a large suitcase from under his bed, and he packs inside all of his clothes from his limited wardrobe. He then places inside some folders, personal products, and even a snow globe from his deck. He just holds his cellphone.
He says meanwhile, "I'm s-sorry. That's really sad. 1164 years old, p-pretty much w-without anyone... Um, where did everyone get—i-incinerated? Near this forest you brought up?"
"Nope. It's a pretty long story. I was in another universe; the one I came from. On Earth, a bunch of scientists were making devices to siphon energy from the sun. Similar group of scientists were trying to create immortality. They experimented on me, injected me a lot, I even grew cat parts from it. One day, one group failed, and the other succeeded. They made me immortal... just in time to blow up the sun. The entire planet was incinerated and melted into an empty glass wasteland. But I was okay. So I sat there alone for a thousand years until Keria found me and brought me out."
Maddie looks up at Keria.
"But that's all behind me now! I want to use this time I have now to live and enjoy the privilege of being immortal! It has its downsides, but the upsides are pretty fun!"
Keria nods along as Maddie speaks.
"I am from the space between universes... a grand and endless forest connecting all universes."
Keria shakes her head and stands up, glancing back at the door as she does.
"But... right now that's not particularly important. So... nowhere to go, and a couple hundred isn't gonna get you a hotel for very long..."
Keria sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose as her face scrunches up.
"Ugh... Normally I wouldn't do this. But... if you cannot find a place to stay... I could keep you for a short time."
"That's awful... I'm so s-sorry, Maddie. I can only h-hazard a guess at—h-how much pain you've been through."
He walks up to Maddie to hug her as Keria did too. He's hurt second-hand, only not crying because of how much he has already.
"This m-magic forest, Keria, sounds amazing but... W-What do you mean by k-keep me? Keep me in the forest? I'm not sure that's a good idea. Maddie thought I could e-explode, right? We s-shouldn't risk that..."
He finally stops hugging Maddie, and he stands close to Keria. He looks at his hands.
Maddie enjoys the hug, still starved for affection and human contact after a thousand years of solitude.
"Well, I don't know for sure if you'll explode. I just made that up on the spot. I'm sure you could stay for a little bit! We could find you a new home, a new world, and all that. However, I want another hug."
Maddie hugs Clyde, tail waving happily. She lets go after a moment, satisfied.
"N-no, you won't explode. People and animals fall in all the time... Why do you think I have so many checkpoints with amenities?"
Keria almost visibly seizes up as Maddie mentions taking Clyde out of this world.
"No, no, we cannot do that. Clyde is going to stay in his world; I've already messed up enough things here, removing an entire person would simply make it worse. But a temporary stay in The Space Between would be okay."
Keria glances around the room at the other two, thinking of just how much she's messed up since her arrival.
"Again... apologies for all of this."
"A new world? W-What's wrong with this o-one?"
Clyde shows little other than a nod for being hugged again, and he then leans against Keria's side and takes in a deep breath.
"I d-didn't want to leave my planet anyway. You didn't do a-anything wrong, Keria. I understand. You did something I—I should've. I always been told I was the c-coward."
He winces. After a long pause, he rolls his suitcase out of the bedroom and office and beckons them to lead him.
Maddie's ears perk up as she sees the giant suitcase, then she nimbly climbs onto the suitcase, at which point she lies down, loafing like a cat. It's incredibly inconvenient, and she purrs softly.
Keria puts a hand on Clyde's shoulder, a serious look on her face again.
"You are not a coward. I've seen... a lot of people in situations similar to yours. The kind of manipulation and fear instilled in you by others does not make you weak... the cowards are those who trap people like you in situations that you cannot escape from no matter what you do. You are strong just for enduring."
Without waiting for him to respond, she stands and whips around, leading him out of the room.
The sun is much lower in the sky now. Passersby are wearing jackets, and some seem just as interested in Clyde's vibrantly pink hair as they did for the two immortals' own signature odd features. There's also a distant noise of police sirens, although it's not approaching them or fading away.
Clyde says, "That's a n-nice thing of you to say, Keria..." He considers mentioning that he thinks his old boss also wouldn't be a coward by this definition, but he doesn't want to provoke his new company. They continue into the park, and he pets Maddie. "Thank you."
Maddie closes her eyes at the petting, purring once more as she rides on the suitcase.
"You're good at petting. Have you ever had a pet or something? That felt really nice."
Maddie opens her eyes once more, looking around and drinking in what to her feels like a vibrant city bustling with activity, despite it being a normal day for the residents. She sighs contentedly, deciding that she enjoys being alive.
Keria wanders across the park, turning back to Clyde.
"So... you mentioned bakeries? Is that what you'd like to do for a new job?"
Keria awkwardly fidgets, clearly a bit out of her element. Despite all of her endless experience and wisdom she has never had to consider getting a job for herself or anyone else.
"Are there any bakeries nearby we could visit?"
"Yeah, Keria, I t-think so. It's my passion. What are y-you passionate for?"
He points toward the general direction of the police sirens—downtown, 6:30 PM Seamont. He doesn't watch the local news much these days, or any other television for that matter.
"They're all in that c-crop... To a-answer Maddie, we had a cat named Jelly back home. He was cute..."
Keria sits on a bench as Clyde chats. Perhaps jumping right into job searching wouldn't be good for the poor boy. His life did just get torn in two. Perhaps just some time not focusing on it would do him some good.
"Ah... I suppose I don't have a passion so much as a complete and innate duty. I was born to protect The Space Between. I suppose that counts as a passion to some, and not to others. Aside from that, I pick up a lot of eclectic hobbies. There's not always some threat to handle, so finding ways to fill the time has always been important."
Keria stares out into the sky a bit pensively, thoughts about her self and her being rolling through her mind like waves.
"Can we go to a bakery anyways? I want something to eat. Something distinctly non-chocolatey. Maybe a croissant? Ooohh could we go to the grocery store? I want juice."
Maddie has leapt off the suitcase by this point, walking alongside Keria. She's clearly pretty excited, enjoying being in the city.
Keria chuckles at Maddie's excitement, giving her a few pats on the head as she nods.
"Yeah... I think we could do that. If Clyde is okay with joining us for it."
Keria hoists herself up from the bench, a bit of an effort as it seems to have been made for slightly smaller individuals in mind.
"I suppose... Clyde knows this place better than us, if he'd like to take the lead."
Clyde looks to where Keria is looking in the sky and then closes his eyes.
"I think that should be c-called a passion. What do you protect there from? Well... I know a good small place for anything you need, M-Maddie and Keria. I'm o-okay with it, course."
He nods and walks along their side toward downtown, then, still lugging his suitcase around. It'd have somewhere to go eventually with all his possessions, he knew it.
Downtown Seamont, despite being a few blocks away, is a far cry from the attractive park and boardwalk. There are a lot of dimly-lit corners, alleys, and even whole streets. And some undomesticated critters wander around the dirty sidewalks. One of the traffic lights is disabled, making the four-way interaction a series of stop signs, and a customer standing outside is arguing with an owner leaning out a second-story window.
The grocery store, deli, and bakery Clyde leads them inside is nice, however. It's not inexpensive, but it's quiet and reliable. He picks up a starfruit and rotates it in his hands.
Maddie wanders off into the store in the direction of the cold foods section. A few minutes later, she returns with a gallon jug of grape juice. She clutches it as if it's her most prized possession, which it probably would be if the store didn't own it. She quietly drops it into the shopping cart.
"Okay I'm done shopping. Oh, wait, can we get some bread as well? I miss bread."
Maddie points towards the bakery section, where an array of baked goods are on display in cases.
Keria rubs the back of her head and thinks for a moment in response to Clyde's question.
"I suppose all kinds of things. Many things can slip between realities. Anything from destructive creatures to nuclear waste, even a nuclear bomb once. Bet the guys who lost that were real confused. Most often it's harmless, but with an infinite number of dimensions crazy stuff happens frequently."
She turns away from him, intending to let that be it but she jumps a bit and turns back to Clyde.
"Oh! But don't worry, my bases have been carefully put together to keep people safe. Individuals fall in there all the time, it's why I have so many bases set up. And with me there it'll be doubly safe for you to stay."
As they head into the store, Keria hangs around, poking through some random stuff with not too much interest as she lets Maddie shop.
"Are those the only two things you want? Think hard."
Keria then turns back to Clyde, frowning a bit.
"Normally I'd just convince the employees I already bought the items, but I'd like to not steal at these smaller local stores. Can you cover it, Clyde? I'll repay you somehow."
Clyde smiles politely at the jug of grape juice in the shopping cart. He places in a box of cake mix, carton of eggs, and bottle of vegetable oil in too, and he helps Maddie toward the bakery.
"A n-nuclear bomb...? W—Well, thank you for keeping the forest so safe! Oh, I was thinking I'd make you a simple cake. Do you have a k-kitchen? If you really do take me to one of your b-bases, I would take pleasure in making something you'd like, if you don't mind."
He grabs a French roll from a rack and a cinnamon raisin loaf. He reads the ingredients list on the nutrition information of the latter.
"What kind of bread do you want, Maddie? I c-can buy it, Keria. It's o-okay."
"I like Arnesch badgets! Oh... right. Arnesch was the name of a country in my world. It had this big tower in the capital made of metal bars, that had 6 legs and was kinda like a tall cylinder. They were famous for these long bread sticks called 'badgets.' Do you have something similar to that? I really like it with butter."
Maddie casually adds a bag of chips into the cart, which she grabbed while no one was looking.
Keria just shrugs and eyes the bag of chips Maddie thought she was being sneaky about. She elects not to bring it up, and then glances over to Clyde to see if he has an answer for Maddie's badgets question.
"There must be whole d-different cultures in different worlds... Is this sort of like what you remember?"
Clyde holds up a baguette. He places it into the cart and ventures into the chilled aisles for spreadable butter for the bread and butter for the cake, too. Although, is butter the same thing to him as it is to Maddie anyway, he wonders?
"Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted!" Maddie breathes in deeply, enjoying the smell of fresh baked bread. "Smells just as good as it did back at home. I miss my home."
Maddie watches Clyde go and get the butter, which is exactly the same as it was in her world except that it was reddish instead of a yellowy white.
"If things are close to each other in The Space Between, then they're gonna be pretty similar worlds. Ones right next to each other are only very slightly different, so it makes sense most things will be pretty similar here. If there's anything else you want we can probably find it!"
Keria thinks back to Maddie's tree, in its own little clearing... It makes sense it'd be standing alone, a fate like that separates it quite a lot...
"B-But w-wait..."
Clyde shivers, and he bumps the shopping cart into the end cap of a display, knocking over one box of cheap pastries. He walks away with both of his hands held up beside his chin, his fingers curled.
"If our w-worlds are so similar, and o-one of them got put in the f-flames of the sun, wouldn't that—Keria, w-wouldn't that surely mean..."
"Well, they can't be that similar. You don't see anyone building a thing around the sun, do you? In my world things were a lot more advanced than this one. We had teleporters and communism. It was pretty awesome, until we blew up the sun by accident."
Maddie grabs the cheap pastries, putting them in the cart. They're soft sugar cookies with thick pink frosting on them. They look nasty, yet incredibly enticing.
Keria begins to open her mouth, prepared to give a bit of a lecture, but then Maddie cuts her off with her explanation. She simply nods towards the cat with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
"Yeah... that's about it. Besides, her tree was in a large clearing, and... well it was very unique to say the least. It seemed to be damaged even in the space between."
Clyde bites his lip and returns to the cart to lead it to the checkout, trusting their word for the fate of this world. They've only grabbed a few items, and it would still be a small dent in his remaining funds, but he felt okay scanning them in self-checkout. Optimistic, even. The future's uncertain now, but it's new.
"T-Teleporters and communism? Woah... Here probably seems p-primitive. I'm nothing awfully special either."
"You guys probably don't even have hyperscrongulation chambers here. A shame, but I'll be fine without them I suppose. Can I have a cookie now by the way? Now that you've bought them I can start eating, right?"
Maddie rummages around the shopping cart, pulling out a sugar cookie. She begins munching on it happily.
"So, what are we doing now? Are we going to find somewhere for you to stay?"
"Oh hush now Clyde, you've got quite a strange and fantastical life despite its… odd horrors, you're quite fascinating in that way."
Keria tilts her head at Maddie's mention of 'hyperscrongulation'. She's pretty sure Maddie just made that up, but puts the thought aside for more pressing matters.
"I suppose a job would be first in line, then a place to stay after. Does that sound okay, Clyde?"
He can only speculate on the purpose of a hyperscrongulation chamber, especially since Keria—for all her apparent wisdom—doesn't appear to know what that is either. They leave the grocery store with a couple paper bags, and it's already pitch dark outside wherever there isn't artificial light.
"N-Not sure many businesses would be open for interviews when it's d-dead like this. Would it be alright if we t-tried at the crack of dawn?"
"I don't really know where we'd sleep! Can I have like a cardboard box? I could nap in one of those."
Maddie pokes the suitcase, not unlike a cat pawing at something. Her tail wags back and forth, clearly excited at the thought of a nice comfy cardboard box to sleep in.
"We can just go back to where we rested earlier, Maddie. I'm not going to make Clyde here sleep in an alleyway. Come on, we'll have our snacks and then go to bed."
Keria heads toward the exit, aiming to return to the park.
Clyde pets Maddie and nods at Keria's suggestion.
"If it's still okay with you t-two."
He wonders what method the immortals used to enter his world. He imagines a form of ritual involving planting glowing, magical plants and fungi in a sort of fairy ring. Or maybe Keria can open fantastical waygates anywhere at all. He follows the druid as he's lost in these imaginations.
Maddie curls up on top of the suitcase, and quickly begins snoring softly as they head towards the park.
Keria simply walks on up to a large tree with a hole in the base, the same one they came out from initially. She ungracefully clambers through the hole, barely fitting through, eventually she squeezes through and her arm pops out of the hole, inviting Maddie in.
Clyde rubs the side of his cheek. He rolls his luggage beside the tree's cavity, and he peers inside. The trunk, then, is dim and hollow. He's not really convinced Maddie's going to be able to sleep during baggage handoff, as stubborn as all cats are.
The luggage is handed through the hole, and then Clyde follows. He dusts off his jeans, and he's all but patient for what Keria has in mind.
Clyde is definitely yanked a bit harder through the tree than he would be expected, and the small hole in the tree opens into a massive shaft down, a hollowed out tree with many branches crisscrossing their way down to a solid floor some distance down.
"Can you climb? I can give a hand if you're afraid of heights."
Clyde tumbles over a particularly thorny set of these branches on his first step down, but he's able to collect himself and ladder down now with his hands and shoes. He's familiar with scaling trees even though he's been settling into big city adulthood these past couple years.
Hopefully the eggs survive in the grocery bags.
Maddie falls off the suitcase and tumbles down into the tree. She falls for several seconds and then wakes up right before hitting the ground. She twists in midair and lands on all fours at the bottom of the tree and then promptly curls up on the floor and goes back to sleep.
Despite Maddie's immortality, Clyde paused to inspect the site and noise of the impact. The futuristic rituals that transformed Maddie into a catgirl must have also granted her new instincts. Human beings developing superhuman habits at all intrigues him now. It also pushes back the immediate concern of falling after her. He continues after Keria and Maddie, and he soon touches down on the floor below. He wanders into the strange space...