The snow on the road from Shambler Village slowly melted away as the now trio ventured closer to Summers. The snow soon gave way to brown grass and fallen leaves, and a path of dirt appeared under their feet. A town soon greeted them with the tattered sign on the outskirts - Welcome to Autumns.

The town looked to have been in disarray, but rebuilding, or rather, patching up efforts had been made, as indicated by the stray planks of wood on the ground. Most of the planks of wood had been added to the roofs or walls, and hammered in - although some had been just propped up against the wall.

A group of teens gathered by one of the better-looking houses spotted Tori, Buzz Buzz and Gran. One looked to be an 18 year old boy, another 16, a third a girl around 15, and the other two about 13. The oldest called out, “Hey! I don’t suppose you could help us out?”

Tori trotted over, Gran following behind her and Buzz Buzz on her shoulder, then asked, “What’s up?”

The other teens murmured amongst themselves, but were soon cut short by the eldest giving them a glare. He looked back at Tori and explained to her, “About a couple of weeks ago, the adults in our town started to go missing, and now there’s only a couple left. We dunno who’s taking them away, and we would look for ourselves, but the Starmen that invaded town have made sure that we can’t get out of town.”

Buzz Buzz looked around for a second before asking, “If you can’t get out of town, then how did you manage to patch it up?”

One of the thirteen year olds told him, “My dad has a bunch lying around! He and his friends helped us all put it in place.”

“Wait is that a talking bug,” the eldest teen asked.

“Yes, I am a talking bug,” Buzz Buzz told him.

“Oh my God.”

“There’s also been some weird voice speaking into our minds… When I say “our”, I mean us teenagers and the younger kids,” the fifteen year old added. “Most of it’s cryptic crap that kinda sounds like a prophecy from a fantasy book or somethin’, the rest is kinda unsettling positivity and reassurance.”

“So if you could help us with either of these problems in any way, that would be great,” the eldest teen finished.

“Of course we’ll help!” Tori replied. “This sounds like a major problem that needs fixing.”

The teenagers’ faces all lit up with grateful smiles.

“Thank you so much!!” the eldest teen exclaimed. “Come on. I’ll lead you to my house.”

The eldest teen took them down the cobblestone path that went through town, then around a few corners until they finally arrived at a large house, presumably the eldest teen’s. The house had a few broken windows and a torn up garden out front. It didn’t seem like the house was going to fall down at any minute, though.

Inside were several children, from as young as kindergarteners to almost as old as the teen who had current ownership of the house. They all looked at him when he entered, then at Tori, Buzz Buzz and Gran.

“Who’re they?” one child, about five, asked loudly.

With a wave, Tori said, “I’m Tori, behind me is Gran, and on my shoulder is Buzz Buzz!”

Just so everyone knew that Tori wasn’t lying, or at least had an imaginary friend, he darted off Tori’s shoulder and said, “Hello!”

The children gasped. Then a second later they all started shouting about how he was a talking bug.

“My, they’re quite noisy, aren’t they?” Gran asked the eldest teen. He just nodded.

“Okay, settle down, settle down!” the eldest teen shouted over the children, which worked to an extent. He decided to ignore the remaining blabbering children as he announced, “These kind visitors are gonna help us find our parents, okay?”

A moment of silence. All the children and teens cheered.

Once they had all settled down, the fifteen year old girl asked, “Bruno! You have the time?”

A child about 10 years old stood up and dashed into another room, then quickly came back and told them, “It’s 10pm!”

“Crap, it got late quick,” Tori muttered.

The fifteen year old clapped twice, grabbing everyone’s attention. “Alright, time for bed! It’s way past it for some of you!”

A chorus of disappointed “aww”s came from the children, though the older teens were happy to finally get some rest.

The kids and teens shuffled around, some heading out to other rooms, others just relocating in the room they were gathered in. Gran sat down in an old chair, and soon found a child no older than eight sitting on one of the chair’s arms.

“Is your name really Gran?” the child asked.

Gran giggled, then replied, “No, but it’s a lot easier to say than my real name.”

“Believe me,” Tori added, “I’m 22 and I’m still trying to figure out how to say it.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t keep you up at night,” Buzz Buzz said, a smirk on his face.

“Wow, you’re old!” the child gasped.

“I am old,” Tori agreed.

The child returned their attention of Gran as Tori asked the teens she met outside where she should sleep, and asked, “Are you good at telling stories?”

“I like to think I am, yes.”

By now a gathering of similarly aged children had gathered in front of her, just as curious as the one sitting on the chair’s arm.

“Can you tell us a story?” the child next to Gran asked excitedly.

“Pleeeeeease?” the other children chorused, putting on their biggest smiles.

“Oh, alright,” Gran chuckled. “This one’s called “Donna and the Giant Apple.” Once upon a time, there was a girl named Donna. She was a curious child, and loved to explore. Her parents always told her to never go into the forest, but she didn't listen to them and often went in anyway. One day, she stumbled upon an apple. But it was no ordinary apple. It was the biggest, shiniest apple she had ever seen…”

---

Buzz awoke to a strange, grey room, filled with machinery not quite alien, but not quite human either. Most of it was looming over him, their points gleaming at him menacingly, but only for a moment. Only now did he realise he had no perceivable form - he was invisible, like he was just watching from the outside, but still was still part of the world. He sat up slowly, being careful not to bump the machinery over him. He slid himself off the table he had been lying on, and it disappeared in an instant. The machinery was still very much there, though. It creaked as it slowly turned itself to point in his direction. This didn’t phase him as much as it should have. Eyeing the machinery, he went to the door and slipped out of the room.

The hall he had entered could barely be described as a hall. The walls were just as grey as the last room he was in, but eyes - nearly human - were attached to the wall, and stared at him from every angle, their red pupils piercing through him, somehow. A thin red mist creeped along what could be considered the floor - a black abyss made of something, but what exactly was unknown, and forever would be. Buzz hesitantly walked down the hall, the eyes watching him with every step. They slowly morphed, their sclera turning black and pupils turning white, their shape becoming elongated. More red mist came in from behind him, gathering at his feet and swirling around him. This hall seemed like it would go on forever, but it also seemed as if it ended too soon, as he soon came across a Starman. Said Starman was the spiked kind, though it stood much taller than one. It looked down at Buzz, his eye unblinking, his gaze never shifting. It stood there, unmoving. Buzz reached his hand, wherever it may have been, out, and a click sounded, echoing through the hall. A cut had appeared in the spiked Starman’s body - a perfectly straight, symmetrical cut that led to an inky black abyss.

Just one step past the Starman’s door and already he could feel himself falling. But also rising, but also going down as if he were in elevator, but also being tugged up like someone were gripping his hands, but also not moving at all. However he was moving in that one spot, or not at all, he soon found a white door. This door was not Starman-shaped, but instead one you’d find on a house. It felt… homely. Welcoming, almost, if it didn’t give off an aura of dread. Regardless, Buzz went through, and down another grey corridor. There were no eyes, but the red mist had returned, and now he could hear faint whispers. It was impossible to tell what they were saying, maybe a name, maybe a place, maybe secrets hidden in the deepest reaches of the earth. The hall led to a wide open room, where the red mist receded into nothingness and the whispering faded until all was quiet. In the middle of that room was a child sitting with his back turned to him. A child who should not have been here. A child who had no business in anything he was involved in. He must have stared for a little too long, as he soon dissolved into thin air. And then he heard another voice, completely unfamiliar to him.

“...Hello…?

“...Hello, can you hear me…?

“My name… ...repeat it? My name is…

“...to the Starman base in this town…

“Come to the Starman base in this town…

“There is something you need to know…”

A static.

“Remember… my… ...Leicra…

“Co… arman base in…”

---

Buzz Buzz’s eyes shot open as he gasped. His eyes darted around the room as he tried to calm his breathing to find that Tori had just woken up at the same time as him. They held eye contact for what seemed like ages before Tori asked, “You okay…?”

“Yeah, I just,” Buzz Buzz let out a sigh and said, “I just had a bad dream.”

“You too?” Tori asked, here eyebrows raising.

“Youhad a bad dream as well?” Buzz Buzz questioned.

“Yeah! Well, it started out weird, but then it got bad quick,” Tori told him. “There were pigs. Lots of pigs. And a mech. I don’t remember what it looked like.”

Tori was silent for a few moments as she contemplated something, a troubled look on her face as she stared at her pillow. Buzz Buzz picked up on this, and knew what she might have been considering.

“You don’t have to tell me any more than that if you don’t want to,” Buzz Buzz told her. Tori looked over at him with surprise.

She was silent for another moment before recollection spread across her face. “Oh! Another just weird thing - there was this voice that spoke to me? Said their name was Leicra or something? And that I had to go to the Starman base nearby?”

“I heard that same voice too!” Buzz Buzz gasped.

“Huh. Maybe we both need to go to the Starman base?”

Buzz Buzz warmed up his wings, then hovered up. “I think we might, but we should check if Gram got the same message as us first.”

After Tori had hauled herself out of bed, she and Buzz Buzz went down to the lounge. Some of the kids were awake already, though it didn’t seem they had any strange dreams. Gran was awake too, and sitting in the chair she had sat in the previous night. Buzz Buzz spotted her and buzzed over to her.

“Ah, good morning Buzz Buzz!” Gran greeted. “Did you have a good sleep?”

“Uh, yeah,” Buzz Buzz fibbed. “I don’t suppose you had someone speak to you through your dreams last night?”

“No, I didn’t have a dream at all last night, unfortunately,” Gran told him, a look of guilt coming across her face.

“Okay, I was just wondering,” Buzz Buzz replied. He then rushed back over to Tori, who had been chatting with the 13 year olds.

“Did she hear Leicra too?” Tori asked Buzz Buzz as came back.

“No,” he replied. “I guess it will just be me and you.”

“And just when she joined us, too…” Tori was quiet for a moment before changing the subject, “Well, I hear that breakfast will be ready shortly. Not sure what, not expecting much, but I’m still happy to get something to eat!”

Hearing that put a smile on Buzz Buzz’s face. For the 20 minutes they had to wait for the breakfast to be ready, Buzz Buzz and Tori had chats with many of the children in the house. The breakfast was served in the kitchen just right of the lounge. It wasn’t anything spectacular - just soup, but damn if it didn’t taste good. Though all the food made Buzz Buzz realise something.

As he sat on the dinner table next to Tori, he stated, “I just realised, I haven’t felt hungry since I first woke up in this body.”

Tori finished slurping up her soup, and as she put her bowl to the table, she said, “Well the fact that you’re technically dead might have something to do with it.”

Buzz Buzz grimaced.

“Also mutation,” Tori added. “That body you’re in? It’s some kind of rhino beetle, but rhino beetles aren’t usually so anth… anth- ...anthropomorphized. With all this gloom around, I wouldn’t be surprised if it affected the animals physically as well.” She paused before adding, “Though you walking on two legs could also be because of… y’know.”

It wasn’t much longer after their brief chat did the eighteen year old boy collect everyone’s bowls. He actually did a lot of the soup preparation, too. Once everyone had been excused from the table, Tori went up to the eighteen year old while he washed the bowls.

“Oh, hey,” he casually greeted, “what’s up?”

“Me and Buzz Buzz got this voice in our dreams last night, they wanted us to go to the Starman base near here,” Tori explained.

The boy’s eyes widened. “Wait, you don’t mean… Did they tell you their name?!”

“Yeah, it was Leicra.”

The boy was dumbfounded. He simply stood there in stunned silence, staring at the sink for a few moments before uttering, “But… how?” He looked up at Tori and told her, “Well, I dunno why Leicra’s reaching out to adults now, but you must be pretty important if they are. You go to the Starman base. It’s to the west of here.”

Tori nodded, then jogged back into the lounge. She quickly told Gran where she and Buzz Buzz were off too, and Gran understood completely.

“I’ll be watching the kids,” she said. “They’re so endearing - and someone’s got to keep them good company.”

With that, Tori was out the door, Buzz Buzz buzzing beside her. The Autumns Starman Base was a 15 minute run from the house - and it was bigger than anything Tori had ever seen.

“Well crap,” she muttered. “Now what.”