Wacky Burger

I stared at the box for what must have been hours, but it felt like three weeks. It was getting darker and a chill breeze fluttered through the trees.

I waffled agonizingly back and forth between what I wanted to do and what I should do. This wasn’t her handwriting or her paper.

I had no reason to think she wrote it or that she was even alive anymore. My imagination had started to get the best of me and I could clearly envision all the hideous things that would be staring back at me from the box’s depths; a ruptured organ, a severed head. I couldn’t imagine anything good being in the box. It was too much to take. For the first time in my life I made the responsible decision. I wouldn’t let Nook get to me like this.

I returned the lid to the box, picking it up gingerly by the sides. My legs were heavy as I walked down to the shore. In one swift motion I flung the box out to sea where it sputtered on the waves, dipped, and sank beneath the depths. I said goodbye to Penny. I suddenly felt very tired. Instead of building my raft I stood on the shore watching the clouds.

The sky was cloudless that evening and the only thing worth mentioning was a funny putter in the distance, like somebody was receiving a very loud raspberry, but it soon ended. Eventually the other residents began to return to camp. They looked tired too and a little distant. Nobody said a word that evening, which was perfectly fine with me.

The next few days were long and dreary. I would sit on the shore, intently watching where sky met sea and thinking of Penny. As hard as I tried to stay positive I couldn’t keep the images out of my head. A stray vision would flash behind my eyes, of a sad girl, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks, missing an arm and a tongue and who knows what else. Or I would find myself imagining how it had happened, the horror she had felt waking up to find herself in pieces the way I had when I lost my eye. I imagined her misery and fear mixed with the boundless optimism she would always display in her letters. She was the bravest person I knew, but now she was dead. Dead. The word had only begun to sink in. Permanently gone. It was a concept I couldn’t fully understand. Who would be brave for me?

I stood on the shore again that night, crescent moon above me.

The tide rolled in and out again but made no sound. In the distance the waves flattened out to a black ink, as though the ocean were made of hardened oil. Before me, the sea shimmered oddly in the moonlight, catching my attention.

A gash erupted from the oily plane, draped in a black dress almost indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. It began to slide toward me. I rubbed my eyes, terror creeping into my skin and planting small bumps along my arms and neck. The form was coming toward me faster now, and arms formed from its sides, stretching toward me in the dim celestial light. As it neared I could make out its shape, the silhouette of a young girl now moving at terrifying speed toward me. Her face was an inky mask but lips unexpectedly formed on its blank canvas. I was frozen in place, petrified as the featureless face paused scant inches before me.

In an unearthly whisper, she breathed: “Why did you throw me away, Billy?” The voice sucked the breath out of my lungs and I choked violently for air…

I awoke in a cold sweat. The nightmare was overwhelmingly lucid. Dawn was breaking and I went down to the shore slowly, tentatively, as if expecting to see Penny’s ethereal visage beckoning to me in the soft morning light. There was nothing but the rolling waves and I watched them suspiciously. As time passed they became mesmerizing.

I didn’t know if it was the influence of the gyroids or an overwhelming depression that had dug itself into me with a parasitic fervor, but I stared over the side of a small ocean cliff into its inviting wake breaking on the rocks beneath me, dreaming of release.

The desire to end it, everything, was starting to feel… right…

Without warning I had fallen into the water, as though I had been pulled in and the tide was dragging me out to sea. I made no effort to stop it. I stared down into the murky sediment and could see no more than a foot below me, salt water stinging my wounded face until even that went numb. I secretly reveled in a vision as close to nothingness as I had ever imagined. Somehow my sight had gone even darker.

I’m coming, Penny. I love you.

A foggy vision came to me. Maybe this is what it feels like to see your life flash before your eyes.

When I woke up the second time my head was doing cartwheels. Was my mind playing cruel tricks on me? I suddenly thrashed to my side and vomited, salt water pouring from my gut. I hadn’t been dreaming? What the HECK what going on? I grabbed my axe and headed downstairs, anxious to return to the shore but was waylaid by an unexpected visitor.

The dirt near my front door burst forth and a resident I had never seen before shouted at me:9sorry its in screen shoots so no speech for you…=P)
He abruptly burrowed away from sight, like he had never been here at all.

They had… saved me from dying? RESCUED ME? FROM DYING? This was it, this was my life. I couldn’t escape. I was alone. They wouldn’t even let me die. Why?

I hear ya, figment of my imagination… No rational thought echoed in my head. I felt an unexpected physical and quite literal snap reverberate through my skull and my body felt different. I may have lost my mind. It kind of tickled. I giggled and looked at my axe, gleaming in the sunlight. It was shinier than I remembered. So pretty.

Let’s all go to the Nook n’ Go. I was happy to see Tom, even if he looked funny today. He was wearing a bandage on his head. What a goof! He had to meet my new friend, Mr. Axe. As I burst into the store, Tom was shouting something at me.
I think it was:

WAIT, STOP! LET ME EXPLAIN…

But I know Tom Nook is a liar, so I really don’t see how it mattered. All I wanted to do was introduce him to Mr. Axe. I think they became good friends.

I don’t remember what happened after that very well. A bunch of animals came to join our party. They took away Mr. Axe. They dragged away Nook. They held me down. I don’t remember…

I’m writing this story because she asked me to. She said it would help her a lot and make the island a better place for everyone, and I’m just glad I can help. She had all kinds of good news! I was finally starting to fit in around camp! We just got a bunch of new guard dogs… and they caught a terrible thief that was terrorizing camp!

Don’t worry about me, I really do feel better now! Oh, did I forget to tell you? I finally met Penny! She’s very nice.

She said I shouldn’t hurt people, even liars, but she said after I write this for her she wants me to come to her house for a special party, just the two of us. I’m very excited.

A few days ago, she told me that we’d be getting someone new in town. I can’t wait to meet him.

I think we’ll be best friends.

THE END. AGAIN.

I know I shouldn’t look. In my head I went back and forth a million times… should I look? Could I go on without knowing? I must have thought about it for almost twenty minutes but it felt like three days. In my wildest fantasies I just couldn’t convince myself that anything good could possibly be in that box. But I’m just human and whoever tied this to a balloon knew it.

I peer cautiously into the box’s depths awaiting my one good eye to confirm my frantic suspicions; a severed limb, an AWOL organ, a whole freaking head leering at me askew. My heart raced as I glimpsed the contents. A thick red goo covered the bottom, bulbous chunks providing some unwelcome depth. I could feel my adrenaline kick in…

I blinked, confused.

Some cracked glass? A black metal frame and a power cord? If I didn’t know better I’d say someone had put a lava lamp in here and it had busted in the fall. It was a lava lamp. What? This was Penny’s last gift?

Wait a second. You have to weigh the balloon down to keep it from flying off. On a hunch I began to feel my way through the lamp sludge when my fingers wrapped around something unexpectedly heavy and smooth.

It was a key. And it had Nook’s symbol on it. The burden of the anticipated horror I had been carrying lightened an ounce. Could Penny possibly still be out there, being held captive, being tortured… stop it. I had to focus.

So this was how Penny got into the shop that night. I wonder how she had managed to snag it. It had only been about a week but it seemed like a lifetime ago. Screw the raft; I was taking the express route. I don’t even know how to build a raft.

It really was Nook’s key.

It was the middle of the day but Nook had locked up his shop tight, which was suspicious because I still hadn’t seen a single resident in town. I unlocked it and it slid open with a familiar whoosh. Even with light shining through the windows it was unsettling to be in Nook’s store alone. My nerves were tingling at the very real possibility that I was walking into a trap. Were animal-people going to start swarming out of hidden panels to give me another beating? Something told me they wouldn’t. It didn’t add up. What was going on around here?

It didn’t take long to find the secret passage.

After a few minutes of wandering around, I had the thought to push the large green dollar sign on his cash register. A small trap door popped open on the floor in front of me. Predictable.

A narrow ladder led into ominous pitch abyss. If it had been me instead of Penny that night I would have promptly turned around and gone back to talking to my gyroids, but I wasn’t the same Billy anymore. I didn’t even care about escape any more. The only thing I wanted was to see Penny and if that was impossible, I shuddered, I was going to see blood.

I looked around the store and noticed that Nook had a camping lantern on sale today. Five finger discount. I was lucky- it came pre-loaded and I flicked it on to its woefully inadequate brightest setting. I looked over the side of the opening into the murky darkness.

It smelled like wet earth and rotting plants. With the sun beating down outside it was surprising to be somewhere this cold. The tunnel was short and crude at best with roots and earthworms dotting the earthen walls. My palms were clammy. I tightened the grip on my axe.

I was going to see how deep this rabbit hole went.

I didn’t get far.

An old fear gripped me but it was quickly replaced with new determination. I was a new Billy. I guess this was as good a time as any- it was just us, no hope of escape. He looked genuinely surprised to see me. I squared off with the raccoon, my arch-nemesis, the cause of all my pain and suffering, axe trembling in my unsteady hands.

I’LL KILL YOU, NOOK! I’M NOT AFRAID OF YOU ANYMORE!

He just stood there, motionless. He stared me in the eyes. I could tell he was trying to make a decision. An immeasurable moment passed between us before he replied, shoulders visibly slumping.

…do it. I won’t stop you.

I took a step forward, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It had to be a trick but it was now or never. I took another step and swung with the untrained wrath of a furious eight year old fighting for his life.

The unexpected heft of the axe carried me off-balance into the tunnel wall, the blade falling short and biting into Nook’s leg. He dropped to the dirt, emotionless. Crimson gushed from the deep gash in his thigh and my stomach did somersaults at the sight of drawn blood.

What the heck are you doing?

C’mon, boy. Get it over with.

NO! What did you do to Penny?! Where is she?!

Nook raised his head heavily, sweat hanging from his brow. He was clearly in excruciating pain. He braved a wry grin, sadness hanging from the edge of mouth.

You’ve been a pain in the butt since you showed up, Billy. Forget Penny, just get out of here. That key will work on the boat on the west end of the island.

PLEASE!

He sighed heavily, the sigh of a man letting go of whatever little he had left. In the faint light of the dropped lamp I could make out his dilated raccoon eyes staring a thousand miles away. His breathing had started to get heavy.

We were building a resort. Half the crew quit because of those stupid gyroids. We offered to pay double to anyone that would stay. It wasn’t long before they started to turn into animals.

STOP IT! Just tell me where Penny is! Did she cross? Did you eat her?!

Shut up, Billy. Shut up or kill me. It’s your choice.

Tears were starting to well up in my eyes. Tears that I thought had been lost permanently.

There were over a hundred of us, helplessly turning into these abominations. When you cross, you lose your mind for a little while, Billy. Things got bad. I had to lock up K.K. because he was attacking people randomly. Calling it the Lord of the Flies would be an understatement. Several separate gangs formed and we did horrible things to each other for territory… that was a long time ago. Over time you’ll start to regain your memories but you never forget what you’ve done.

His eyes had become glossy. He suddenly stared right at me with a force that was almost tangible.

I sent you those letters, Billy.

I almost had an aneurism. I choked on my strained reply.

LIAR!! You’re the leader! You’re controlling everything! You just want to keep children here until they cross and then you eat them, you piece of crap! I read your papers! I read your JOURNAL!

Eat you? I thought you were smarter than that.

What?

You can’t escape this island, Billy. We’re hundreds of miles from the coast of Japan. This island isn’t even on any maps. Oh, you’re welcome to try and I hope you make it. God knows I’ve tried. Look what I got for my effort…

He tapped his right arm against the rocky dirt wall, the hollow clack of plastic echoing down the tunnel. Fake arm. I can’t believe I never noticed, but then it was hard to tell it was plastic beneath the matted fur he had attached to it. For the first time I noticed a slight effort in his voice, an inability to form sharp sounds. No tongue.

I’m not the leader, I’m just in charge of the cells. In the early days they used to torture the new kids but I was able to convince them it would be easier this way. I’ve tried to make all of you as comfortable as I could. Most of them are happy and stupid enough that they never even know what’s going on… even after they cross. But sometimes we get kids like you.

This can’t be right; it’s another one of Nook’s lies! He’s just trying to keep me confused, guessing! After all this time, how could he claim to be looking out for us, trying to make our lives better? Indignation coursed through my veins.

You’re a liar. I don’t believe you! Why would you pretend to be Penny?! Why would you give me your own journal? Why have you been sending me mixed messages like that creepy letter and then put your key in there?!

Look at me, Billy. Look at your face. This is what happens when you try to escape, they take something from you. The only thing I can give you is hope. Hope that there’s someone else out there. Didn’t you notice that I did nothing but encourage you to wait longer and longer? Try to scare you into doing nothing? Wouldn’t let you take any action? I have to admit, I didn’t predict you’d use the balloons to map the island. It never should have taken this long. You should have crossed by now. At least then maybe you could finally accept that you’re stuck here. I sent you one last letter to try to scare you into letting it all go and giving up. I gave you my key. I wasn’t lying, I don’t need it anymore. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d see you down here.

I was starting to lose it. Something deep in my gut told me that he wasn’t lying. He was bleeding out in front of my eyes and he didn’t care. It answered some questions that had been gnawing the back of my mind that I had been trying to ignore… how could a little girl like Penny have broken into Nook’s house and just happened to find his private papers and journal? Why would she run back to her own cell? How could she get away with putting together a package every day? Tears were streaming down my face.

Then… there’s no Penny? She was never real?

Oh, she’s real all right.

He must have seen the shock on my face. He averted his eyes and continued.

Penny runs this freak show. I’m sorry, kid. I had to use her name on the letters because I couldn’t risk someone else finding the messages by accident and tracking them back to me. Nobody would question a message from Penny.

He managed a weak smile.

I’m running out of limbs.

No… no…

Crap, I shouldn’t have told you this. C’mon, get out of here. Make a run for it. You’re smarter than the rest of them, I think you have a real shot.

No… it’s not true and I can prove it! What about the end of your journal?! Why would you say that you need more children? Why did you say rabbits are your favorite?

The smile on his lips melted away and he groaned and shivered, almost indistinguishably. He leaned back and rested his head against the tunnel wall.

Listen, you’re not supposed to know some things…

I finally snapped. I punched him hard across the face and grabbed him by the collar, pulling his face to mine. I screamed:

YOU THINK YOU’VE SUFFERED? YOU THINK YOU’RE A SAINT BECAUSE YOU TRIED TO MAKE THIS PLACE ‘COMFORTABLE’? YOU, YOU COWARD! YOU THINK I GOT ANYTHING LEFT TO LOSE?! HUH?! NOW TELL ME EVERYTHING!

He looked me in the eyes. The tension hung in the air like a baby grand piano and there was a metallic tinge floating in the musty tunnel you could almost taste.

Penny was my… is my wife.

She was living with me on the dig site the whole time. She didn’t cross over the same way the rest of us did. She never recovered. She lost her mind. Everyone is afraid of her, they do whatever she says… the things she did to some of the other animals… she skinned some of them alive and wore their…

He trailed off for a fraction of a second.

I think her cancer messed with the crossing. She was terminal. The only reason I bought this place is because we wanted to live the rest of her days in comfort on a tropical paradise. This was going to make us enough money to never have to worry about her medical bills again. It was all for her. She had a full team of round-the-clock doctors we paid to keep on the island. They all crossed too.

Then something happened that surprised me more than I thought was possible anymore. Nook began to sob. This wasn’t the Nook I knew. This wasn’t the Nook I wanted dead. This was a broken man named Tom.

She took over the house and took over the journal and the business. She came up with a plan to get new residents… she never did anything to me but… she, she’s insane. She thinks that she can replace the cancerous parts of her body with… the children are… she thinks we’ll be together forever…

With unexpected dexterity, a gleam flashed from underneath his clerk’s apron. It was a knife! I covered my face with my arms, waiting for the pain. When I finally looked, Tom’s body was slumped, his vacant eyes staring at me, begging forgiveness.

Tom died unloved and alone in a dirty hole like an animal.
What was I supposed to do now?
I don’t know how long I stood there in disbelief. A thousand thoughts buzzed through my battered mind like an angry swarm of bees. Memories of these horrid months of my life flashed like a slideshow behind in my eyes. One in particular stood out.
I think it’s time to finally meet Penny.

I realized how alone I really was.

In the beginning there was still the hope that I could connect to some of the other residents. Then I had the gyroids, as misguided as that was… at least I could pretend. Then Penny. And now I realized that the man I had hated this whole time was my only friend. And I had practically killed him myself.

Maybe I could escape, maybe I’d be luckier than Tom and get away in the night, travel hundreds of miles in the right direction without running out of fuel and land in a foreign country that could send me back home. Maybe. Or I could be caught, mutilated and sent back to camp to wait for some crazy mouse to come take my organs.

No, there was only one way out of here.

I used the map “Penny” sent me of the island’s underground to find my way to the house in the middle of the island.

To call it a house is an understatement. It was a mansion, and I came up from the tunnel to see it from the back, its ominous silhouette accentuated by a halo of occluded sunlight. On the other side of the house I could make out the murmur of a large gathering, the kind of low din a mob makes. I wondered if that’s where all the residents had gone and why they were here. Even sneaking around to look would have been suicide. Lucky for me, a back door hung open like the mouth of a giant angry gyroid waiting to swallow me up.

Did Tom leave this door open for me?

There was no going back now. My hands hurt from the death grip I had on my axe.

The house was a complete disaster. Trash covered the floor and previously elegant furniture was smashed into pieces and pushed up against torn wallpaper. No lights were on in the gloomy foyer. The house appeared to have the same layout as all the other ones they built in camp, but this one was much larger. I knew where Penny would be. I made my way up to the third floor.

The bedroom door hung slightly ajar and from inside I could hear the shuffle of movement. Through the crack I could make out two large French doors on front of the room that were open to a balcony.

It looked as though Penny was about to make an announcement to the crowd like some kind of deranged dictator.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Was I really going to do this? I didn’t even know what I was going to do… run in there, chop her into tiny pieces and try to make it back to the tunnels without anyone seeing me? There was no rational course of action left… there was just action.

My arm reached for the door and it creaked aside. I saw her. She was sitting at a dresser, fixing her… face…

Tom, dear, is that you? Did you bring that boy I told you to fetch? DID YOU HAVE TO HURT HIM?!

Her voice shifted from a rational person to someone who had seriously lost their mind, with the sort of gleeful malevolence found only in comic books. She turned slightly and caught my eye in her mirror. I almost fainted.

Her face was… falling apart. It was clear a hideous disease was eating her alive. Her eyes were wrong- one was the dark black marble you’d expect of a mouse, but the other was… oh crap. It was my eye.

I felt dizzy and the room started to spin. My legs were about to buckle.

At the last second I pulled myself back together. I prayed that this would end quickly, one way or the other. I stumbled on my words- I wasn’t even sure what reaction I was trying to get.

Tom’s… dead. I killed him.

Dead? Phooey, that rascal, always getting into trouble. Now where am I supposed to find a child whose favorite animal is raccoons? Maybe Nebraska….

She didn’t even care. She had completely lost it.

I, I have to kill you, Penny.

I brandished my axe as menacingly as a dirty, malnutritioned child could muster. At this point a shout went up from the crowd below. All eyes had turned to the drama playing out in the bedroom.

Yes dear, that’s fine, in a little bit. We can’t keep the crowd waiting, can we? No, we can’t. It’s a good thing you showed up.

My heart seized up. OH GOD… what have I done? Tom knew what was going on here. He told me to run because he knew everyone had gathered here and it would be a long time before they started to look for me. I had a real shot, he said… He knew what was going to happen here and it was so horrible he’d rather be dead than play any part in it.

I was so focused on the hideous freak that Penny had become that I hadn’t noticed her personal guard dogs looming in the shadows behind me. They grabbed my arms with unnatural strength, twisting the axe from my hands. It fell harmlessly to the floor with a dull thud and I stared at it like a skydiver with a faulty parachute.

C’mon, Billy. This will be fun!

The guards dragged me downstairs while Penny addressed the crowd from her balcony. I could hear her voice muffled through the walls of the house but it was hard to make out complete sentences.

What I could make out was this: she was very upset about her documents and journal being stolen. She didn’t know who did it but she was going to find out and I was going to help. She ordered everyone to… line up?

We emerged from the front of the house, the sharp sunlight making the figures before me indistinguishable and blurry until my eyes had adjusted.

In front of me was a long row of children, most crying, some expressionless. Some were missing legs or ears or other pieces I couldn’t plainly see. They were being held against their will by their respective guard dogs, the residents of each camp watching from behind. I tried not to fall apart but I had a terrible premonition that I knew what was about to happen.

Penny screamed to me like a banshee from the balcony:

WELL, BILLY? Would you be so kind as to tell me which one of your friends here stole my belongings?

She didn’t know. She couldn’t understand that Tom betrayed her and now somebody was going to suffer for his actions. There was no time left to think.

It was me! I did it, leave them alone! LEAVE THEM ALONE!

Poor, brave Billy. You’ve already paid for your crime, don’t make me add lying to your list of punishments. I know you were in your own camp, so it couldn’t have been you. I’m very busy, and I’d really like to know who sent you those papers, Billy.

It was Tom! Tom did it! He did everything! Please… please just let them go…

Penny motioned to the first child in the line. The boy’s guards looked panicked but resigned to do Penny’s will. Begrudgingly, they dragged the boy, screaming, to the back of the house. Penny turned and left the balcony. Several minutes passed, blood-curdling screams filling the air.

The screaming stopped abruptly.

From inside the house, the dull thumps of someone heavily climbing the stairs could be heard. Penny returned to the balcony with her prize. She held out her arm… and waved around the arm she was holding.

Look, Harold’s waving goodbye to all of you. Now how about the truth this time, Billy?

The crowd collectively gasped, children intermittently screaming for their own lives. I doubled over, trying to heave but my stomach had nothing to give up.

Too much. I couldn’t deal with this. She was making me choose who to slaughter like livestock and if I didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear she’d drag each one of these kids behind the house… she was making a show of this so nobody would ever cross her again.

Well? Think carefully this time, won’t you?

My mind was blank. We were all going to die here, gutted by an insane monster until no one was left. Then they’d ship in a new batch of children.

It would go on forever.
For the first time I didn’t have any options, no hopeful plan or bed to hide in. Penny knew it wasn’t me that took her papers. She didn’t believe it was Nook. I don’t even know who she thought did it but if I guessed wrong she’d keep killing until I guessed right… or there was no one left. I don’t know if I could live with that. And then what would she do to me? Thoughts flew through my head like bullets but were inevitably rejected like golf balls off a brick wall. I didn’t know what to do. Seconds passed like eons.

“It was me!”

Shocked, I glanced over to see a gangly figure. A tall, relatively older boy had stepped forward. He was missing a leg from the knee down and moved slowly on a makeshift crutch.

What are you doing?!

The sides of his head were flat, lacking the telltale silhouette of ears. He couldn’t hear me.

Oh Phillip. You always were a troublemaker, hmm? Why don’t we take a walk together?

She giggled to herself at the thought of forcing Phillip to hobble alongside her on a pleasant afternoon stroll before again leaving the balcony. Phil. I knew that name. He was one of the children that had sent back a message to me when I was mapping the island. No guards dragged him along. As he shambled past and caught my eye there was the briefest hint of a grin on his lips. I was beginning to think that everyone had lost it when I realized that Phil had a plan of his own. But whatever Phil was planning to do wouldn’t work. Penny would never believe that this boy, barely able to round the corner of the house, was capable of breaking in at night and running off with her documents.

Phillip, don’t!

He was already gone. The entire crowd was mesmerized, staring into the empty side lot where Phillip had disappeared from sight, waiting for screams or for Penny to appear again from the balcony. And then what, we’d choose another sacrifice and go on like this into the night? This was the closest thing to a shot in heck I’d ever have and my body reacted before my brain could tell it to stop.

I spontaneously twisted from the grip of the guard who had, himself, become transfixed by the anticipation of the scene and made a break for side where Phillip had disappeared. Maybe between the two of us we could overpower the deranged mouse, maybe without her canine entourage we stood a chance.

We didn’t.

I turned the corner to see Penny hunched over the boy like a vulture. Both figures were covered in blood but one was not moving. Phillip was dead, yet the blood was not entirely his. On the ground beside Phillip was his crutch, the end of which had been sharpened to a dull point. I hadn’t noticed before. In Penny’s side a deep gash oozed inhumanly thick, dark blood. At the sound of footsteps behind her she had stopped what she was doing to look. She had been digging through his chest with her clawed arm like a gleeful child rooting through a discount bin of video games, looking for organs she’d like to keep and tossing the rest haphazardly to the ground around her.

My sight suddenly went black, as if to save me from the inescapable trauma, but in truth it was because guard dogs had plowed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground. The key in my pocket dug heavily into my thigh before springing freely onto the dirt.

As my vision returned I was shocked by Penny’s gruesome visage hovering over me, key in hand, eyes blazing.

WHERE DID YOU GET THIS, BOY?

There was nothing to say. Penny grasped me with uncanny strength for a mouse with a gut wound and literally dragged me through the mud, through the back entrance of the house and up the stairs.

She shrieked to the guards:
STAY!

Back in the bedroom, she propelled me with superhuman force against a wall and I slumped to the floor. She closed the doors to the balcony and rushed at me, burying her claw deep into my shoulder to hold me in place. Her face pressed against mine and my terror rose as I was forced to stare deeply into my own eye.

Where is Tom? WHY ISN’T HE HERE?

I…

My voice cracked. Her clawed fist was cutting off my windpipe.

T..told you, Tom’s dead.

She slammed me hard against the wall.

You couldn’t kill a fly, you weak waste of meat. WHERE’S TOM?

I don’t know why I hadn’t realized it sooner but Penny wasn’t unaffected by Tom’s death. She just hadn’t believed me until now. Vitriol was beginning to boil in my veins. I exploded furiously:

He killed himself! He killed himself because he couldn’t stand the thought of having to live one more minute with a hideous failure of nature like YOU! He’d rather be dead than have to wake up every morning next to a MONSTER!

Penny’s face suddenly twisted between unimaginable rage and emotional anguish before settling on something approaching neutrality. She let go of my punctured shoulder, small rivulets of blood trickling down my chest, and took a step back. Her voice buckled from that of a shrieking ghoul to an unfamiliarly human tone.

He committed suicide? Because of… me?

I was transfixed by the emotional rollercoaster playing out before me. Penny was looking past me now, her eyes glazed over, her thoughts a thousand miles away.

Tom, we were supposed to be together. You said it would only be a few more days before they got here. Just a few more days. We were supposed to be together. Forever.

Her face, distorted as it was, had begun to display the sincere appearance of regret. It was almost more disturbing than her wrath, which unexpectedly regained control as her gaze returned to me. A deranged grin overtook the corner of her mouth like some unseen puppeteer had pulled it there.

Do you know what I’m going to do, Billy? I’m not going to kill you. No, that would not be fitting. I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU HURT. FOREVER. That’s what Tom would want. I’m going to start with your hands and feet…

Penny began listing the ways in which she would happily mutilate me for as long as possible. She had lost herself in bloodlust, dreamily gazing skyward while she fantasized about every possible way she could make me suffer. It was terrifying and I believed every word of it.

But Penny had made a mistake. She was used to ruling with fear and it had served her well for a long time. Penny never knew fear, herself. She didn’t know it the way I did. She didn’t understand that she was a virus and that every shot she injected me with built up my tolerance. This was her last shot and it was a big one, but it couldn’t kill me.

I was the vaccine.

My body had become a processing plant for adrenaline. As Penny continued to blather on about my torturous future, I slowly rose to my feet. My muscles were clenched so hard they ached. I finally did what I had been too afraid to do in the past. What Tom had been too afraid to do.
Pushing off the wall I dove at Penny, balled fists wailing at her malformed head, her stomach wound, her neck and shoulder- anything that presented itself a target. Utterly taken off guard by the assault she stumbled backwards, trying to protect herself. An occasional swipe from her clawed arm would tear into clothes leaving sharp gouges but I couldn’t feel a thing. She stumbled to the floor, a dumbfounded expression on her face. I pursued Penny, who had driven herself up against the doors to the balcony and resumed my frenzy. She screamed in agony and crashed through the french doors, fresh hatchet wounds scoring her body. I lunged after her, slamming us both against the balcony railing. The entire population of the island stood below, overcome by the bloody
spectacle.

As I pressed onward with the grim melee, action became a blur; I no longer knew what I was striking, just that I couldn’t stop. In one last blood-curdling moan, Penny lifted herself over the balcony, grasping around my waist and neck and I toppled over with her, axe flung from my hand.

We landed three stories below with a moist thud. Penny was crushed beneath me. I could feel my chest shudder from the impact; a rib may have snapped. Penny was not so lucky, as she had absorbed the full impact plus my own weight. I raised myself to my knees and dropped my fist into her unprotected face heavily. I did it again. And again. Until it was nothing but bloody pulp. Her head tilted to the side, unmoving. Her face had been distorted beyond recognition from the thrashing and my eye rolled freely from it. I picked it up and held it like I had won some sort of demented carnival prize.
This is mine.
The crowd gathered in a circle around the scene, mouths agape. The air hung heavily around us, soundless, except for my weighty breathing. Pain was starting to seep back into my limbs when another sound floated in on the breeze- a low hum that seemed to pulse from an indeterminable distance.

Residents began to look towards the sky, confused by the barrage of strange events that were throwing their world into disarray. Suddenly a shout went up from the far end of the crowd.

“Helicopter!”

Slowly a dark speck on the horizon came into view, moving rapidly toward us until the trees around the house were disturbed by the hovering aircraft.

I glanced nervously at the animal residents. Some had started to flee. Some stood in a terrified stupor. The guard next to me looked at the corpse, then at me, then at the chopper hanging in the sky as though he were trying to piece together what had just happened and had blown a fuse. I expected residents to start raining down upon me, avenging their leader, but the wrath never came. They just stood there blankly as the helicopter touched down on the large patch of grass in the mansion’s front yard. On the helicopter’s side was a symbol; a white field with a radiating red sun.

Armed men hopped from the helicopter and formed a perimeter. A tall man in a suit waded through the bewildered crowd to where I was standing.

He offered his badge for inspection and asked with a slight accent “Are you Tom?”

And that’s where my story ends.

EPILOGUE

If you’re reading this journal, I suppose you’re wondering what happened next. I’d feel remiss if I didn’t transcribe it here, at least for my own peace of mind.

I was taken into custody and returned to the US. The United States government asked me to record what happened on that island and I wrote up this official document. It’s taken years of professional psychiatric care to get to the point where I can even think about it without having a mental breakdown. I’m almost thirty years old now. And sitting here, looking at the big picture I can barely believe any of this myself. I’m sure all of this will be filed away under “C” for crazy and never seen again.

But it helps to see it written down.

I still haven’t returned home. It’s been a long time and by now I’m sure my mother has moved on. Maybe I would just shock and upset her. Maybe I’m just afraid to go home. But I’ll do it someday soon. Honest.

Oh, I guess for posterity’s sake I should mention how they found us. It was much later that I learned a distress beacon had been set from the mansion. I think Nook had told Penny that he was going to fly in more doctors to help her. She had killed most of the originals.

But that left me wondering for a long time why he had to die if he thought someone was coming to rescue them.

Why did he kill himself? My psychiatrist says that when people experience severe trauma they often validate their fears. She thinks that Tom was so afraid his last plan for escape would fail like everything else that he killed himself to make sure it came true. I think that’s crap. Tom died because he was past his breaking point. I had learned that Tom was my only real friend. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it went both ways; I was his only friend. When Penny had ordered him to bring me to the mansion he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want the memories. He didn’t want the guilt. He didn’t want the judgment. He took the easy way out.

I was hooked into a government laboratory for months. They ran a lot of medical tests on me since my days on the island. There was something different about me. I was resistant to the gyroids. They aren’t sure if the gyroids produce a biological or chemical reaction in people or if there’s some other explanation, some sort of undiscovered mystical power. But they were able to use samples of my blood to make a vaccine that seems to be relatively effective in combating it.

Penny didn’t cross right the first time, so when she had my eye implanted into her own head and she began to revert, her body rejected it. It was literally killing her. It made me wonder if she used to be even worse, even stronger. If she hadn’t been weakened by the transplant could I possibly have taken her down? Better not to think about it.

In other residents, my genes would occasionally slowly reverse the gyroids’ effects. Some of the residents they used it on even slowly returned to their human selves, as though the crossing were just a virus or a radiation that could be purged. Though I was resistant, I was not immune. Nobody can tell me just how long it would have taken me to cross. Maybe months, maybe days.

Some people say everything happens for a reason. Would I do it all again if I knew I could save these people? The honest truth is… I don’t know.

The island has been condemned. The Japanese military, not knowing what to do with the dangerous gyroid statues, began to ferry them out in small numbers to a particularly deep part of the ocean and sink them. I guess it’s safer than keeping them in a lab or using them to develop weapons, but something occurred to me just recently. Even though they would only dispose of small numbers of the gyroids at a time, at the bottom of the ocean they must be piling up in large amounts. And I can’t help but wonder; if they turn humans into animals…

What do they turn animals into?

THE END

PART 9: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

I woke up with a headache so severe I immediately puked over the side of the bed.

I could only remember fragments of last night but I remembered enough to know what I had read.

The other residents had suddenly broken into my house.

They somehow knew I had the documents. They dragged me from the house, a makeshift grave already dug for me, where they buried me up to my waist and set to beating me with their hooves and claws.

I thought this would be the end. Eventually I blacked out.

Now I was back in my bed. I was really having trouble focusing my vision and it was making me nauseous. I went to rub my eyes when I felt the patch. They had beaten me pretty bad and then bandaged me up. They didn’t want to kill me; they just wanted to break me. The entire side of my head was numb with pain.

Somehow my thoughts flew back to Penny. If they could do this to me just for reading something I shouldn’t have, what would they do to her? Was she dead? It was almost too much to bear. I had to know, I had to find out if she was ok.

I managed to hobble onto my feet and head downstairs.

I suppose I wasn’t surprised to find out they had taken everything I had made or owned. The house was utterly empty except for the gyroids. The monstrosities.

Nothing had changed. The residents acted as though nothing had happened, they openly mocked me, as if we had all shared a wonderful spot of tea and biscuits last night.

In my mind, I imagined a knife plunging into their horrid faces over and over. A horse-shaped resident walked by awkwardly. He looked at me oddly, with more sympathy than I had ever seen from anyone besides K.K.

I felt like shit, but I don’t think he was apologizing for a beating. What did he mean about Nook being obsessed with “that kind of thing”? Did he mean the part where Nook freaking EATS you?! Suddenly a new kind of numbness started to set in and I realized it wasn’t just emotional. I couldn’t feel my left eye. I poked my patch and it depressed. Too much. They took my eye.

THEY TOOK MY FREAKING EYE.

A month ago, I would have cried until I was spent. I would have run to my bed and pulled the covers over my head and prayed for a quick death. This was just Nook’s way of saying I had seen too much. But I was beyond afraid. I felt nothing.

A dozen sea-shell letters were sent over the wall in the next few days where they must have started to pile up. There wasn’t much else I could do. I had fallen into a terrible state of antipathy. Nothing mattered, my existence was pointless. I would never escape and one day my ambitions would be nothing. The only thing that kept me going was the hope that Penny was still alive.
I would spend all my time staring east in a catatonic state, as if Penny were going about her daily business, preparing a balloon with a smile on her face, anxiously awaiting a reply. I knew that wasn’t the reality of it. At the very least she would be locked up and under constant supervision. But a glimmer of hope crossed my mind- maybe it’s too important to Nook that we cross over. Maybe he won’t kill his victims because he needs us more than we need him. Even at the darkest times, hope springs eternal. I knew that I wouldn’t give up until I rescued Penny.
She would do the same for me.
A week passed and my depression and physical pain had started to wane but I was beginning to have vivid nightmares. I wouldn’t go for more than a few hours without screaming myself awake. I guess it wasn’t surprising; my whole life had become one big nightmare. One morning was especially bad. I didn’t know what Penny looked like but I could imagine her shrieking in terrible pain. As I woke up in a panic that morning, the voice faded off into the morning light and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I unexpectedly remembered something that had been kicked out of me a few nights before. I knew what I was going to do.
I remembered the axe I had bought from Nook. I had hidden it away under my bed for an emergency like this and I prayed they hadn’t found it. They hadn’t. I was going to chop down some trees, make a raft and float around the rocky outer shore to Penny’s camp where I’d bust into her cabin and save her and we’d float off into the sunset. I knew it seemed stupid and impossible but I was tired of complicated plans and tired of failing. I was finally prepared to take action. I dared anyone to get in my way, almost wished they would.

With the sun high in the sky I headed to the water and started hacking at the closest tree.

Not only did it not attract the attention I thought it might, I hadn’t seen any residents at all that day. It was a little eerie, to be honest, but I wouldn’t be distracted. If they were off at a security meeting or some other crap, all the better.

All my bravado vanished with a flicker on the horizon.

A BALLOON. It seemed completely impossible but there it was, hanging heavily in the sky. I had lost my slingshot and my depth perception was terribly poor, but I was prepared to fling all the stones on the island to get that balloon to drop. It didn’t take long before the package came down with a damp thud.

I tore away the wrapping paper to find the usual battered envelope. She had always written to me with a particular flowery stationary. This wasn’t it.

What… the heck? My hands went instinctively to the box where I began to tug at the lid. I stopped. Something was wrong with this box. It had slumped to the side and the wrapping paper on the bottom half looked moist like a fast food bag holding a greasy hamburger.

My gut screamed full force to leave the package where it lay. Walk away. In my head I shrieked “DON’T OPEN IT. DON’T OPEN IT,” and it clawed at my brain like fingernails on a chalkboard. I saw my hand reach towards the lid as though I had no control over my muscles. The lid fell to the side.

PART 8: HEART OF DARKNESS
before you read this the journal pages did not show up sorry…
I pondered the box that contained the documents while my brain screamed in horror in the back of my head, as though it was trying to destroy itself through sheer force of will. It was stuck in a loop between desperately wanting to know the truth and trying to jump out of my own skull and drop itself gleefully into the ocean.
And then I began.

The folders contained innumerous business papers, formal contracts with various laborers and contractors to provide construction, the purchase of a private island, various receipts, though I never find a document that says exactly where the island is located. I get the sense that at the time it had only just been discovered.
Apparently, a long time ago, Nook bought this island. It’s hard to tell for sure but judging by some of these dates it looks like he used to be a real hot-shot real-estate agent that did exclusive work for the rich and powerful, the kind of moron you’d see on highway billboards.

Makes me wonder how he got away with looking like a screwed up raccoon.

From these papers, I get the impression Nook wasn’t a one man show. He spent the latter part of his career working with a Japanese businessman who invested a large amount of money to purchase the island, and they had made several trips to the island together to plan out construction.

The guy’s name was Totakeke something…? Toe-tuh Kay-kay? wait, that name… keke, holy crap, it’s talking about K.K. Slider! Slider used to be Nook’s partner?!

I sorted through a dozen or so construction contracts. Only weeks after buying the island, Tom and K.K. began building enclosed private beaches for wealthy tourists. That’s why all these camps are private and artificially walled-off!

It goes on to explain that construction is slow because of the expense of ferrying materials and day-workers. Sounds like we were right about the ferry, too. And it looks like… it never got finished? Something weird happened almost ten years ago. Nook cancelled all the contracts on the same day even though it must have cost him millions. According to some receipts, he also purchased all the digging equipment on the island.

And that’s all I can find… wait a second. There’s a small, spiral-bound notebook tucked away in the back of the box. I checked the inside of the cover and shudder.

Holy crap, its Nook’s personal journal.

For a moment I almost considered not reading it, just burning everything and saving my sanity. I’ve learned to live with not knowing why I’m here. I don’t know if the same can be said once I find out. But it’s impossible. I flip the battered cover and swan-dive into oblivion.

My fingers fly over the pages. I’m reading so fast I only catch glimpses of the entries but they’re converging into one big, horrific picture. With every page I understand more of what has happened here.
(here it starts with no pages…=P)
Nook’s rambling gets worse. Soon the pages just have unintelligible scribbles or childlike drawings. There’s clearly a section of the journal that’s been torn out, probably because it was nothing but pure crazy. I’m surprised to find that the journal picks back up seven years later and seems strangely lucid.
My blood runs cold. I suddenly know exactly what’s happening and have to suppress my gag reflex. I want to shut down, go into shock, but I can’t stop my brain from fitting all the pieces together.

Tom Nook didn’t get away with being a raccoon! Tom Nook used to be a man!

As he was building his luxury island resorts with his partner K.K., the construction crew started unearthing gyroids. Nook began to collect the clay statues but they were doing strange things to the crew, making them act odd. K.K. wanted out, but Nook convinced him to wait one more week. Then the gyroids got to him.

I suddenly flashed back to an old conversation I had with Nook. At the time it seemed utterly insignificant but now I get the context.
Oh crap!

The longer you’re exposed to the gyroids, the more you cross over into some screwed-up mutant animal creature!

I flipped back through the journal and re-read the page carefully as the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Nook called it Animal Crossing.

That’s why the island is full of animal-people… but Nook realized that it takes time. Judging by the dates on the journal entries it can take over six months, and children cross quicker than that. His biggest problem would be keeping people captive and healthy for so long …

Oh crap. Oh my god. It all makes sense.

This entire freaking camp is designed to keep me distracted!

The lie.

The pointless job.

The house.

The trap.

K.K.

Now I know why he looks so sad, like he’s resigned to his fate. That’s why he doesn’t stay at my camp; he probably travels to all the island cells on different days, trying to cheer up the children forced to live here. I decide that if I get out of here I’ll come back for K.K. Then there’s…

The museum.

That’s why it’s empty; it’s a completely pointless waste of time! I bet after each child crosses over they empty out all the shit they’ve collected for the next victim to start all over. Freaking Blathers, always trying to keep my…

Fossils!
I’m an idiot! There are no dinosaur bones at sea level, they’re all planted here! They don’t rise out of the ground, they’re put in!

The residents must go around while I sleep and put in new ones for me to find, that’s why there’s always a mound of dirt where fresh fossils are buried. That’s why other residents never contributed to the museum! That’s why I saw Tangy that night wandering around with a shovel! Wait, then that means…

The gyroids!

Nook wanted me to find them! He wanted me to put them in my house and obsess about them. If he forced me to keep them around I’d fight it, but this way… CRAP! Ever since I found them I’ve been slow, my thoughts have been cloudy. It seems like the more you’re exposed to, the quicker you cross over. I think I’m still human, but I can’t even remember how long I’ve been here anymore…

But that leaves one question. The big one. Why is Nook turning us into animals?

I re-read his journal slowly and tried to think of all the things that had happened to me here, my hands shaking uncontrollably. It all comes back to the gyroids… I know they try to talk to me, but I can only imagine what they say to Nook. He was the first to fall to their influence… he’s the original… what are they telling him to do? And then I figure it out.

He eats us…

That’s why residents just disappear one day without a trace. Once they become an animal he eats them, the sick animal! Are the gyroids telling him to do it?! Is he just playing out some kind of rabid raccoon behavior? What the HECK?!
(had to put this one in=D)

I like rabbits the most =D
I think he… he just likes it…

I tried to catch my breath but it was hard to breathe and the walls were closing in on me. I had completely lost track of time, shuffling through the huge stack of files and papers all day and the sun was starting to come down. I was starting to hyperventilate and felt dizzy. I didn’t know what to do. All I could think about was Penny. What had they done to Penny?!
I might have lost my mind right then if my door hadn’t suddenly been busted down.
Mutant animal freaks swarmed in, their clawed hands scoring my skin as they dragged me screaming from my house into the darkness of night.

PART 7: NIGHT LIGHT

I waited.

And I waited.

All night.

Nook never came.

It must be 3 AM now and drowsiness is starting to make me clumsy and dangerous to the mission. Quiet as death, I slinked around the corner of the store and peered into the inky blackness of the shop, terror seeping into my imaginative brain.

At first I thought I could see shapes shambling in the dark recesses and I almost lost my nerve before realizing it was just the ever-swinging arm of a grandfather clock Nook had on display that day. The ‘closed’ sign had been turned.

The door was locked. The shop was abandoned.
I swore under my breath, utterly perplexed by Nook’s twilight getaway. Could he possibly have known I was watching? Could he really have been that quiet? He is some kind of freaking raccoon, after all- a thief in the night. I strained into the distance hoping to see the hint of a shadowy figure skulking away, but there was nothing.
I had failed and I was beginning to grimly make my way back to my house when I remembered the pit traps. As I began to clear away the evidence, an odd red glow made its way into my peripheral vision. I looked up, slightly curious, slightly panicked, to see that the night clouds were reflecting the soft red glow as though from far away that seemed to be pulsating slightly.
The sky was lit up like dawn, but it wasn’t morning. It was the middle of the night. That’s when I heard the siren, faintly, in the distance.
It was like a fog horn or a air raid siren you would hear during a military strike. Ah-WOOO-ga! It was enthralling and terrifying- could this possibly have something to do with our plans? Why tonight, of all nights?! I quickly gathered up my work and dove into my house, half expecting the door to be busted down by angry residents with machetes and pitchforks.
Cautiously, I peered through the slightest of cracks in my door. To my relief the residents were just as surprised as I was and had starting to come outside to look, though after only a few minutes the red light had faded off. I boldly went out to join them as though I myself had been roused from my bed.

There was some murmuring and a few odd glances but eventually the party died down.

Nobody would tell me what was going on- they all suggested I just go back to bed- but I got the impression they truly didn’t know. As I walked back to my house I overheard a disturbing comment. “Haven’t seen that in a good ten years”, drolled Tortimer. What did he mean? Had this camp really been around for that long? If children had been kidnapped ten years ago, where were they now?

The thought crossed my mind that with all the other children that were starting to find out what was going on here, someone had made a mistake. Maybe there was an escape or a fight. Maybe tonight was the last night for some poor kid on the other side of the island. Maybe our cover was blown. I had to send Penny a message, but first I’d have to wait for the crowd to disperse.
I was already groggy from a sleepless night and morning was just starting to break by the time the residents had gone back to their homes. As usual, I found a likely seashell, marked it and was about the send it flying when I received the third surprise that day.

A balloon? In the morning? Apparently Penny already had the same idea as me and was a little quicker about it. This one wasn’t like her usual balloons, though. It teetered oddly in the sky, a little too heavy to catch the wind and it was coming down quickly. It almost looked like it had sprung a leak. I helped it along before anyone saw, scooped it up and trucked back to my house.

I read through Penny’s long letter slowly, my fatigued brain stumbling on the words. I feel like such an idiot. Now I understand why I didn’t see Nook leave last night- he builds his escape tunnel directly into each store. That would explain how he can constantly change his merchandise and why I would never see him outside.

Penny couldn’t wait last night. She knew Nook wasn’t in her town and broke into her own store in the middle of the night where she was surprised to discover the underground tunnels. She says there’s a whole network of them under the island that leads to each of the camps and she had sent me a quick sketch of what she had mapped out.

The center of the map is where we previously had a question mark and the white lines showed where the tunnels ran, branching out and running underneath each of the camps.

The real shock was the main tunnel that circled in the middle. Penny had found a ladder that led up from the underground to the surface. She had hoped the tunnel she followed that night would lead to the docks. It didn’t.

It led to Nook’s house.

I would have crapped my pants if I suddenly found myself at Nook’s doorstep and probably run away in fear. Not Penny. She broke in. Nook built his house in the middle of the island, the area I had coincidentally noted with a giant white question mark. Penny says it’s lavishly furnished but completely unprotected. Nook is apparently quite confident that nobody would be visiting any time soon.

But what she wrote next is what blew my mind. As Nook slept in his master bedroom, she found his office and rifled through his personal folders. She stole every scrap of information she could find and was about to take off. That’s when she saw him.
I can only imagine the unbridled horror of looking up to see Nook watching you from the shadows of his own house, rage burning like coals in those dead eyes of his. She ran for her life, broke through a window and tripped the alarm that lit up the sky that night. But she kept running. Somehow she found her way back to her camp but she knew she was in trouble.

Nook had seen her.

She didn’t even have time to read what she had stolen.

Oh my God. It’s all right here. In the box.

I peeked into the box and could immediately see that it wasn’t the usual garbage.

She wasn’t lying. In my hands I held the answers to all my questions, the documents that would tell me the reason I was here and how to escape. The box was overflowing with bent folders, printouts and forms outlining every action Nook made.

I had Nook’s personal files.

PART 6: HURRY UP AND WAIT

It was the same pattern over and over here. The rise before the fall. Everything seems to be looking up, getting better; you can see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel and then the hammer drops and you’re pounded to a level you didn’t know you could sink to.
But somehow life goes on.

I was so lucky to have Penny. If I were alone this new knowledge might have been the end of me, might have made me finally give up, roll over and die. Instead we shared our misery and in some indescribable way it made things livable, even at the worst of times. Alone we were just scared children, but together we felt like we could handle anything. Even Nook.

Some time passed before we could figure out our castaway conundrum. We don’t know what they did, but neither of us managed to stay awake for our fateful cab ride to camp and we both suffered from zero visibility as our driver maneuvered through a torrential downpour. The only possible answer was that something happened to us in that cab, some kind of gas or fume that caused us to pass out and lose time, something that the frog-like cab driver was immune to. Who knows how far we actually traveled?
But then there’s the question of how we arrived on an island. Penny says she can’t picture him anymore- she’s been trapped here several years- but I remember the strange cabbie.

He wanted me to call him Kapp’n. He had an odd, fishy smell and was my first glimpse of the horrible animal residents in camp. He had a salty accent, like a crusty fisherman past his prime. The only explanation that makes sense is that the man runs a boat, maybe one big enough to drive a car onto. Maybe he even operates a car ferry like the ones my family used to take when we make road trips cross-country. Penny thinks this is probably right- she’s always wondered how they found the bottled messages she had flung out to sea.

But our method of capture may be our means of escape. Looking at the map we stitched together, there seems to be two logical locations where a ferry or boat might be docked, on the western or eastern tips where there didn’t appear to be an enclosed camp.

Stealing their own boat would be our best bet- we’d have a reliable getaway and with any luck, they wouldn’t be able to chase us. We just hoped it didn’t have sails.
We knew we couldn’t take all the other captives with us- even with all the other children on the island we were outnumbered 10 to 1. It was obvious that we’d have send help later.
First we needed to escape from our own camps, and I had been failing at this pretty consistently. Even with the prospect of real escape and Penny’s friendship, the gyroids hung like storm clouds in the back of my mind. How could I escape and still take them with me?

I had only been thinking about the problem for a few months, but Penny had a hundred plans.
Water escape was too risky, too many factors.

From the shore we could see tall breakers out in the ocean, rolling over ten feet high. We knew we wouldn’t have the strength to overtake them. And the mere thought of trying to build a full-sized raft under the watchful eyes of Nook and his spies sent a shiver down my spine. Penny was punished for just sending bottles- I don’t know what they’d do if they caught me in the middle of an all-out escape. Not to mention the Kapp’n and his boat which we suspect he’d use to patrol the surrounding waters.

But ground-side looked equally impossible.

Just like my town (and I can only assume, all the rest) Penny reports guard dogs permanently on duty at the camp gates. The only times the gates would be opened were to move animal residents in or out, which they would only do when they were sure nobody was watching. Our saving grace was that over time Penny found out something interesting: there was someone that never used the gates to get around. Tom Nook.
We need to know how Nook traveled between camps after he closed up his shop every evening.
Penny’s problem was that he was almost never in her town anymore, which is where I came in. I wondered why I saw so much of Nook if there were so many different camps to watch over. Are there Tom Nook copies all over the island? That seemed far-fetched, even after the screwed up things we’ve seen so far. No, what probably happened is that Nook will concentrate on fresh meat, spend most of his time on new campers until he’s managed to break them or feels confident that they’re too stupid to understand what’s going on. I’ve been giving him trouble so he may have been sticking around longer than usual.

I would never have figured all this out on my own. Between the two of us, we came up with a plan and put it into action the next evening.

It’s go time.

Nook doesn’t use the gates to get around the island, and we don’t want the guard dogs messing with the plan. As inconspicuously as possible, I spent the day “digging for fossils” in front of my camp gate. Penny helped me come up with a design for a pit trap that I laid over the holes to camouflage them.
If the guards were to come charging out the gates that should slow them down.
My next problem was that once Nook emerged from his shop in the evening it would be tricky to shadow him. I’d have to stay in camo and avoid any residents that were still roaming the camp in the evening light. I’d try to take cover behind trees and make quick dashes if I was going to remain unseen.

Realizing their love for retarded festivals, I put up a notice on the bulletin board that I hoped would keep some of the more stupid residents indoors that night.

The third problem was that once I escaped, I couldn’t just abandon the town without putting everyone on alarm. Once I knew where to find Nook’s secret escape route, we’d have to find one for Penny too- hopefully in a similar spot. Then we’d have to make another effort to find the docks and steal a boat. It was all very risky and complicated and honestly the longer we waited the more my nerves got to me. I wouldn’t allow myself to imagine what would happen to us if we got caught.
The moment of truth. I couldn’t risk being seen, so I strained to hear the beep and woosh of the automatic sliding door that would mark Nook’s departure.
As I hid around the corner of the Nook’n'Go, the sun setting slowly on the horizon, I began to get jittery and paranoid. I jumped at every rustle of the leaves and the buzz of evening insects. I constantly glanced back at the town gates fully expecting guard dogs to come charging around the corner, hurdle the pit traps and sink their spears into my aching chest.
So I waited. It was the longest night of my young life.

PART 5: NOT ALONE

Could there really be someone else like me nearby, trapped in a hellish summer camp nightmare? I have so many questions, but can only fit a few in my reply.

The next challenge is how do I get a response back to her? With the wind blowing westward, a balloon of my own would drift the wrong direction- away from Penny, and besides, where would I get a helium balloon? My mind’s racing but I pause when I vaguely remember Nook selling a child’s slingshot at his store. A crazy idea occurred to me.
I purchase the slingshot as casually as possible. Honestly, I don’t think Nook cares what I do anymore. A few days ago I noticed an axe on display.

It must have been a mistake. Was he really cocky enough to sell me a weapon? Was he taunting me?

One of these days, Nook.
Anyway, using the largest hollow seashell I can find, I tuck my folded up note inside and draw a glaring red X on the outside. I head to the eastern rock wall.

With all the strength an exhausted child can muster I raise my slingshot and let my message-in-a-shell fly over the artificial-looking wall. I was lucky, it cleared the peak. On the wind I could faintly hear the crumbling of loose gravel as it tumbled down the other side. I prayed my hunch would pay off.
And once again I was forced to wait, forced to rely on the good will of a stranger who would inevitably let me down.

When I wasn’t digging I was staring to the east, praying for the slightest hint of the sun glistening off of a shiny, inflated orb. I ran through all the hundreds of scenarios that would lead to my inevitable disappointment. Maybe Penny was caught and punished. Maybe she doesn’t exist. Maybe she’s actually hundreds of miles away. Maybe she never found my letter, for all I know it could be sitting on an empty plot of dirt, never to be seen again.

The chance that she’d find it and send another balloon message was one in a million.

And today I had won the lottery.

I ran like a starving lioness chasing a gazelle.

With my free time I had been practicing my slingshot skills and now I was a crack shot. In just two thwangs the package came tumbling down. I scooped it up giddily and snuck back to my house, tearing into the wrapping with the closest thing to unbridled joy I had felt since I got here. It was like Christmas day for POWs.
dear billy,
omg i have been alone for so long…
we have to keep writing i m so happy

This time she had sent me a bottle filled with dirt along with her letter. Over time I came to realize that the items in the box were meaningless. All they did was weigh down the helium balloon enough so it wouldn’t float off into the sun. The letters were the real treasure.

In the next few weeks, Penny and I wrote each other in this way constantly and only operated at nighttime. She told me she used to send messages out on the ocean in bottles but she had been caught and punished severely. For her birthday her residents offered to get her one present of her choice and she had said that all she really wanted was one balloon every day until her next birthday to “lift” her spirits. She’s a clever girl.
We started getting into the details of each others’ lives, what was the same and what was different. We both had freaky animal-like residents that would move in and leave at seemingly random times. We both had the same buildings. To my surprise and creeping horror, both of our towns were run by a raccoon calling himself Tom Nook, though Penny tells me he used to be there every day and now she’d only see him once a week, at best.

We discuss the details of our camps. They sound very similar, so I ask her to send me a drawing of her town in the next letter. While I waited, I drew out a map of my own camp to send back.

Though I had long ago become jaded by screwed up events in this camp, I have to admit, my stomach twisted when I finally saw her response.

Except for a few tiny differences, it was almost identical to my map.
Horror started to slink back into my addled brain as a few puzzle pieces came together. I wrote back to Penny that night.

Between Penny and myself, we got to work, slowly sending messages blindly in every direction with notes asking to spread the word. I borrowed some of her balloons and set them adrift in different directions.

To equal delight and disgust we started getting responses from every side.

Jack, Sarah, Aaron, Jimmy, Phillip, Emily… names were starting to roll in and most of them were confused and surprised that there was anyone else out there at all. Some were just a few weeks into their ordeal; some had been captives for years.

All of them were scared.

I started receiving balloon packages at an alarming rate. I began to worry that someone would notice.

We requested maps from our new friends in an attempt to figure out where we were or a way to escape. As various drawings started to come together, I never got used to the fact that they were all virtually carbon copies, all walled-in outdoor cages. I was surprised to find myself start to get excited. Maybe between all of us we can do it! Maybe we really can escape from this hell! But something was bothering me logistically. Something didn’t make sense about these maps. I decided to conduct an experiment.

I had borrowed a lot of blank patterns from our seamstress, who was starting to get a little suspicious of my new-found interest in fashion design.

On each square I began piecing together the maps I had gotten, drawing in their locations as closely as I could figure. I used blue to show the beach area and brown lines to show the camp walls. Little white lines marked the gate leading out of each camp. It turns out the camps shared walls, which, luckily for us was the only thing that allowed Penny to find my messages.

I put a big “X” over my camp and an “O” on Penny’s. Over time, the bigger image started to form in my head. Trying to figure out where everyone was located in relation to each other was turning out to be tricky and I had to break it out into several larger sheets. I needed a space wide enough to lay all this out and get a good look.

In the dead of night I dragged out my creation behind the museum where nobody would see me and started to put together the puzzle I had stitched together thanks to the work of dozens of small, bruised and bleeding hands.

Crap, how big is this place?

Oh no. OH GOD NO. please don’t be right…
For the first time in months I fell to my knees and cried.

PART 4: LET’S START ALL OVER

Things have been… strange for me, lately. All the pieces are in place, I’m ready to put my plan into motion, but I’ve been obsessing over these freaky gyroid statues. Since the day I dug up my first one, I’ve found several more scattered around the campsite, hidden, buried. I wonder how many there are under here?

Oh, and after months of back-breaking labor, I paid off Tom Nook’s debt.

It wasn’t the great accomplishment I thought it would be, though nothing surprises me any more. I went to Nook to get my daily dosage of bitter disappointment, to find that he had used his ill-gotten gains to remodel his shop.

Oh crap. Here it comes.

I make a half-hearted attempt to be diplomatic.

What new house?

He asks me what color roof I like and before I know it, there’s laborers banging on my walls all into the night.

I slept under the stars that night, cold and numb. Now I owe him even more money. He wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Where was he getting the cash for this kind of operation? Was he able to sell the fossils (which he paid me for in leaves) for real cash to some shady third-person party? Maybe the fossils are real after all… was this his plan for me, to mine free archeological child labor? It didn’t seem… devious enough for Nook.

I get back to the grind. I gotta find more gyroids.

I’ve made a little shrine to the gyroids in the corner of my recently engorged house. When I found the first one it would make an occasional noise. Now I had a small collection of them and I had started to see images in my head or hear solitary, tinny words echo through the living room. I’d hear them whisper things like “dig” or “rain” but could never make out a whole sentence.

I would come home and find them in different positions, like they had moved when I wasn’t watching. Now that there’s several, I hear their voices more frequently, as if they talk to each other. I’d wake up in a cold sweat at night and creep downstairs to look at them but they were always motionless.

I know there’s something really wrong about the gyroids, but whenever I think about throwing them out or destroying them my stomach knots up like a punch to the gut. It’s like owning a childhood safety blanket made out of asbestos. In a sick way it’s like they’re my only friends…

I haven’t thought about my escape in weeks, and my actions have become sluggish as though every step is a struggle to wade through swamp muck. When I’m not digging for gyroids, I’m engaging in some kind of mindless activity.
Monday I spent lazily catching bugs.
Tuesday I… don’t remember…
Wednesday I think I fished or collected seashells. Besides Nook, none of the residents had said a word to me for weeks.
I had briefly considered (against my better judgment) trying to form some kind of pathetic relationship with some of them before I realized how futile it was. Residents constantly moved through camp without notice. Occasionally I would check my mail and find a letter stating that they had just packed up and left in the middle of the night.
Their letters carry generic farewells that I’m sure they didn’t write. I don’t even know who “Ribbot” was, but now he’s gone. The houses they lived in are packed up or empty.
Gone overnight. Where are they going? And why?
It doesn’t matter, the only “person” in town who even came close to being sane is a dog that makes an occasional appearance in the museum lounge area.
K.K Slider’s the only one that doesn’t talk like a mental patient. He shows up late Saturday nights to play guitar. Sometimes his songs are the only thing that takes me away from this horror, if only for a few minutes. Over time I’ve realized that he comes here just to comfort me- nobody else ever comes to his shows. I think he truly feels pity for me, he always has a troubled look in his eye, like playing guitar is his way of apologizing…

Sleepy. That’s how I felt all the time. Not tired, just sleepy. And that’s why I was just lying on the ground that day, watching the clouds roll by and listening to the waves break on the shore.

It occurred to me idly that I never saw any birds in this camp, never heard gulls crying on the beach. I never saw any planes or boats go by. All I ever saw was rolling blue sky and puffy white clouds and tiny packages tied to balloons… wait, what? What the HECK?!

The absurdity of this hits me like a bucket of cold water to the face and I jump to my feet, racing to the spot where the strong salty breeze was carrying the balloon swiftly past the rock walls of the camp.

I scanned for something to throw, anything, grabbed for a handful of rocks and started chucking. Just as the balloon was about to breeze past me forever, I made a lucky shot.

The hours spent skipping stones paid off and the package came plummeting down to earth with the faint tinkle of shattered glass.

I handle it cautiously like a bomb waiting for some fool to try to diffuse it. Pulling out the wrapping paper reveals… a busted desk lamp? It’s utterly mystifying, who would set a desk lamp afloat on a balloon from this camp knowing that if it ever came down it would be useless? The thought crossed my mind that Nook was just continuing to play his games with me, but… this didn’t feel like Nook.

I dug carefully around the empty box to make sure I didn’t miss something. I had. In the lining poked a small white triangle, the corner of an envelope tucked away between the wrapping paper and the box. The front was blank. Without a second thought, I tore it open and read.

Is any one else out there
if you get this, please help
me im trapped here all alone
and im scared
from, penny

You have got to be kidding me.

PART 3: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

It’s time to man-up.

I’ve decided to confront Nook. I’m going to demand he let me go and if he refuses, I’ll take him out and burn the whole freaking camp to the ground around me. The only thing I wasn’t prepared for was his response.

He acts like it was his idea, like he’s doing me a favor. As if all I have to do is pay off this house and he’ll personally drive me home. I don’t even want to know what “alternate methods” he thinks I should use to make money. In typical Nook fashion (which I have come to loathe) he continues to smooth talk me. He wants me to know that he’s still the boss, he’s still in control. I don’t give a crap. I don’t work for Nook any more. I’m leaving.

Friend roster? For my own safety?! Son of a pickle… yeah, I’m free to go… nowhere. I’m about to tell him exactly where to go, but I stumble on my thoughts, for some reason I can’t seem to remember where I live. I can’t remember my address. I’ve been here about a month now (maybe more?). But I should still be able to remember…

Maybe I can appeal to the other one.
screw this. I head back to Nook’s and let him know the score.
He laughs, then he gives me a shovel and suggests I start digging. That smug son of a pickle, no court on earth would convict me if I beat the crap out him right here with his own shovel, but the truth is, I’m scared. I’m just a kid. As much as I hate Nook, the thought of actually killing someone makes me sick to my stomach. The icing on the cake is it wouldn’t help me escape. I can’t fight off the whole town.

I have to get my head straight.
1) I need a plan to get past the guard dogs.
2) I’ll need to stock up on food to make sure I don’t starve after I bust out of here- God only knows where they’ve taken me.
3) I’ll need to be invisible. I’ll stick out like a giant “CATCH ME” sign in this work uniform. Worst of all, after everything that’s happened, Nook’s going to be expecting me to try to break out of here.
4) I’ll have to wait for the right time.

But first, I’ll need to make some cash and let things settle down for a while. Maybe the best plan would be to look like I’m really listening, like I really care about paying off my palatial cardboard estate. But how am I supposed to pay it off?

Nook says he’ll buy almost anything. I don’t ask why.
His answer? Dinosaur bones.
What? Is he just screwing with me? He tells me to go talk to Blathers, the jerk in charge of the camp museum. I head over to the museum to find out what the heck he’s talking about.

While I listened to the owl’s patchwork explanation, I couldn’t help but wonder why there would be dinosaur bones in a flat field on a beach. What exactly used to be here before this camp was built, anyway? And now that I’m thinking about it, why would anyone build a museum that doesn’t have anything in it? The only reply I get from the owl is a shallow snore. Owls don’t freaking snore.

I start to dig randomly. Now I know why Nook thought it would be hilarious to suggest I dig my way out. Only a foot below the topsoil is solid freaking limestone, and that’s as deep as I’m going to get. How am I supposed to find anything like this?
A few hours later I’m starving, exhausted and angry at myself for believing another one of Nook’s stupid lies. I’m about to pack up and wash off in the waterfall when something odd happens. I hit something.

Could it actually be? It’s hard to tell, it’s covered in dirt and kinda abstract. With the sun setting behind me I sprint back to the museum to show the narcoleptic curator.
It seems… authentic, but I’m skeptical. This greedy butthole thinks I should just donate it to his echoing monument to failed ambition; he clearly couldn’t give a wet crap if I’m filthy, hungry and broke. I tell him to shut up, I’ve got raccoons to defraud. Nook’s already closed for the day but tomorrow will mark the first step on my trip out of here.

8:00 AM SHARP.
I make a bee-line for Nook’s.
I’m actually a little surprised when Nook agrees to pay me for my fossil, but my surprise turns to anger when I find out he’s going to pay me in “Bells”, his own imaginary freaking currency. It’s not real money, it’s just a leaf that’s been hole-punched. It’s infuriating to think of how he continues to screw with me at every opportunity, an up-turned smirk on his smarmy face all the while, but I try to play it cool. I think he actually gets satisfaction out of seeing me upset. I take his “money” and leave.

At first I was skeptical of Nook’s decision to stop working me, but over time I’ve come to understand the method to his madness. He’s been forcing me to make difficult decisions: for example, if I pick oranges to sell to him I’ll go hungry, but otherwise I’ll never pay off my debt. The same rule applies to almost everything in camp; I start every day forced to make a decision between working and starving.

I’m “free” but nothing has changed. But there’s still one thing I don’t understand. Why is he keeping me here? What does he want with me? I hate that raccoon.

I spend the next few weeks digging up fossils, getting them inspected and then turning them over to Nook for “cash”, which I’ve started to accumulate en mass. I tried counterfeiting his idiotic system but he somehow knew which Bells were which. To punish me he refused to buy or sell me anything for a week.

After that I bought a fishing rod from him. I’ve been trying to learn to catch fish. Oranges haven’t been providing enough nutrition alone and with the extra effort of digging I’ve begun to have dizzy spells, but most importantly I’m freaking sick of them.

I hated that I was starting to adapt to this life. I was becoming complacent. I hated that I had to play Nook’s deranged game so that I could afford to escape. But I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I had saved up enough to buy a “costume” from the camp seamstress, which I used to secretly fish at night so I could stockpile some food for my escape without the all-seeing eyes of wandering residents. I knew that whatever they saw, Tom saw. I was keeping the fish alive in my house so they wouldn’t go bad.
I told the seamstress it was for the Halloween event coming up soon but in truth it’s going to help me blow this joint. During the day I’d change back into my work clothes to avoid suspicion.

In the meantime, I kept busy digging up fossils, bringing them to Blathers and then selling them to Nook. I was starting to lose track of time and this pushed me more than anything else to keep going.

I had gotten pretty good at recognizing where I might find hidden fossils- there always seemed to be small piles of cracked dirt where the fossils rested.
At first this struck me as being odd- what geological oddity would cause the fossils to be pushed from underneath, as though they were rising to the surface? And why did it seem like new ones appeared each day in areas where I hadn’t seen them before? Over time, though, I would rely on their quirky nature to keep from wasting my entire day toiling in this dusty butt hole of a camp.

Today was different. I was doing my rounds when a disturbed patch of dirt caught my eye, a more obvious crack than I was used to seeing. As I pitched my shovel into the earth, I was suddenly jolted by a screaming chill that shot through my arm like a lightning bolt. I dropped the shovel and it slowly faded off as I stared at the patch of dirt in shock like I had just seen an arm shoot out of it, clawing for brains. There was a long period of silence, nothing happened. I resumed digging and soon hit something lurking just beneath the topsoil.
It was a crude… statue? Like some kind of ancient graven image… and I caught myself muttering out loud “What the heck is this thing?” when it snapped open it’s rust-heavy eyes and stared into my soul, a metallic word pushed itself into my head, where it echoed like a tin can kicked against the wall of an abandoned warehouse.

“Gyroid”

An unexplainable emotion tore through my battered brain, like an unholy mixture of unbridled terror and insatiable curiosity. It was the kind of feeling that made idiots in horror movies open the back-lit door even though they know a maniac is waiting on the other side to chop them into tiny pieces. I had to find more of these. I had to understand what they were.

I wouldn’t be showing this one to the owl.

PART 2:1 evil Week
I cried myself to sleep that night. There was nothing I could do, I was a child out of my element in a world I didn’t understand.
I had tried to call my mom on the phone they put in my bedroom, but all I got was an answering machine that spouted utterly useless Orwellian crap. To my horror, I inspected the back of the phone to find there wasn’t even a cord. Just a cheap prop. They had even gone so far as to nail it down to the shelf.
I slept like crap, bolting up in bed at the slightest sound. I had hazy dreams about a legion of half-animal, half-man shadows busting through my door in the middle of the night and doing unspeakable things.
Nobody came for me.

The next day, I headed back to Nook’s. In the sobering light of morning, my thought was that I would have to come up with a plan to escape, but until then I should lie low, not make a scene. Plus, I was starving and there was no cafeteria or food hall on the entire grounds, just a few orange trees for sustenance.
I asked Nook about food and payment. Nook didn’t give a crap. All he worried about was making sure I was constantly working from sun-up to sun-down.

Over the next week, I was sent on all variety of errands for Tom and delivered crap to every resident in camp, who all had nice, well-furnished homes, though I could never figure out what they did during the day. Occasionally, I’d see them randomly roaming the grounds like zombies, but in general they stayed locked up in their houses.
One day, Nook made a fatal mistake.
He asked me to send a sales flier to a resident in town and gave me a blank envelope. This was my chance. I was going to get a message out to my mom. With any luck, the pelican-woman wouldn’t pay close attention to the address, thinking it was a sales flier from Tom Nook. I took his stationary and scribbled out a brief but clear message.
Clutching the letter in my clammy palms, I forked it over for delivery, sweat cliffhanging from my brow. All I could do now was wait.
I didn’t have to wait long. To my surprise a letter was sitting in my mailbox that evening. From my mom. The very same day.
What’s this, a freaking pun?! I beg for food and she sends me an acorn? Is this some kind of sick joke… oh no. OH HECK NO. My mom never got my letter and she never will. She didn’t write this crap! In one instant all my hopes are shattered and now… they know that I know. I fall into a fog of despair and curl up into my bed hoping to die. But the next day morning comes and hunger drives me from my misery.
Nook claims he’ll pay me for all this work I’ve been doing but I haven’t seen a dime from it. He just gives me more and more errands while the residents mock me.
How does he expect me to pay off this debt? The answer is simple: he doesn’t.
Days go by.
We get a new resident in town named Pate, and if you’re thinking he’s named after a food made from his own “species” you’re right. Nook orders me to deliver a massive throw rug to the toupee-wearing duck-man and I begrudgingly haul it over.
Pate shares a disturbing bit of dialog with me and then something odd happens. I think he meant to call me a “cracker”, but when I get home that evening he has shipped a gas stove to my shack. With winter coming on, it may be the only thing that keeps me alive. Is it possible I’ve made a friend in this screwed up place? I set it up next to my candle. Are things finally looking up?

The seeds of a plan begin to come together. It’s risky, but I’ve got to take any chance I get. That day while Nook’s distracted I steal some paper from his shop. Tonight I’ll send Pate a letter explaining my situation and begging for his help. Since he’s new around here maybe Nook hasn’t already gotten to him. That evening I slip a thin envelope under the mallard’s door. I toss and turn all night.

The next day I’m heading back from a job when I see Pate walking zombie-like back to his house. He looks like he just came from Nook’s. I cautiously approach him, unsure of how to broach the subject. “Hi”, I say.
I should know better by now. Pate’s made a scene and others are starting to notice. Out of the corner of my eye I see the mayor gesturing to me as Pate hurries away. Timidly I meet him.
And that’s when I know what needs to be done. This isn’t the mayor’s work, or the residents or the cab driver. This show’s being run by Tom Nook. And the only way I’m getting out of here is on my own.