Borealis Twenty - Adroit Anomalies

     The long, metal hallway was purple and cold. Aurora didn't like it. It was too small and cramped. Where was the sky? Why was it so dark?
     Ember walked along in front, quiet and cautious. "You okay?" she said, looking back, a faint echo following her words.
     "I'm fine," Aurora lied. Her new clothes were too tight.
     "Loosen up, will ya?" Ember said with a slight smirk. "The goal is not to stick out." She thought for a moment. "Not that that's really achievable given that there are no records of you ever living here. Your name isn't on file. Your face--"
     "I thought you said you watched us somehow, even though you're in here. Doesn't that mean other people watch us too, people that know my face?" Aurora said as she tugged at her white shirt and pants with some futility, hoping that they would suddenly free up and stop clinging to her so snugly.
     "Yeah... I guess." Ember turned back around. "I just mean that you're not supposed to be in here, which is sort of 'duh,' right? People can't hide stuff like that with new clothes and a hair brush."
     That was of little comfort to Aurora. "Then what do we do?"
     Ember was silent. "Um," she started. "I never really thought that far ahead. I just wanted to meet you." Ember sighed. "And, it didn't help that Garnet practically forced us through that false wall. What was he thinking anyway?" She threw her hands in the air. "Oh no! A little boy's coming to get us! Oooo!"
     The girls walked on for a few minutes, mostly listening to each other breath. Their footsteps were largely muted by their rubber soled shoes. Aurora wasn't used to shoes either. She very well might have been better off as a new born, pigeon toed duckling. Her movement and posture was almost as awkward, and she wouldn't have looked so much like someone from the desert had she actually been a duckling. Aurora frowned.
     At the end of the hall was the only light the girls could see, and it was the one responsible for all the purple in the hallway. The closer the girls got, the more white the bulb and its light seemed to become. Next to the light, on the right, was a rusted metal door. Aurora didn't like the look of it. Perhaps it led to an even smaller and darker place. She shivered. The thought of it was absolutely dreadful to her.
     Ember, unaware of her friend's fear, started talking again. "Really," she said. "I thought you would have been left shivering on the floor by now."
     "Because it's cold?"
     "No. You have to be claustrophobic on some level, I'd imagine."
     She was. She didn't know the word, however, but she was. Had it not been in her nature to mask any weakness, even around those she trusted, she probably would have just collapsed into shivers upon entering the hallway. She was beginning to have some difficulty breathing as it was... Despite the look of the door and her concerns about it where it might lead, she just wanted something to open up this hallway and give her some more space.
     At the door, the girls stopped and looked at one another. Aurora gave Ember a sheepish smile, but Ember didn't see it in Aurora's silhouette. The silly Roof Rat was standing right in front of the now purplish white light. Ember, rolling her eyes and showing yet another halfway amused smirk, put her hands on the door's wheel handle and turned. It opened with little fuss or force and with almost no squinging or screeching to accompany it.
     "Huh. Wasn't expecting that, " Ember said drollfully.
     They both walked through the door, Ember first and Aurora second. The door closed lightly behind them.
     "Huh. Wasn't expecting that either."
     Before them stretched another hallway, this time well lit, nearly too well lit for the poor outside girl who had never seen artificial light before. The hall was wide, littered with closed doors and intersections, and the end of the hallway wasn't even visible. This was a new source of stress for Aurora.
     She looked over to her friend who had by now gone forward a few steps. "What do we do now?"
     Ember shook her head. "I don't believe it. I can't believe we're just right here."
     "What?" Aurora was confused and starting get a headache from all the fluorescent lighting.
     The fiery blonde whipped around, her grin toothy, straight, and ear to ear.
     "What?" Aurora asked again, this time nervous.
     "Haha!" Ember jumped up and down. "We're on the other side of the city!" She ran up and grabbed Aurora by the shoulders. "Garnet teleported us to the other side of the city! And look!" Aurora followed the girl's finger toward the way they had come. "That door's not even a door anymore! It's a wall! It's a freaking wall!"
     There were no words. The Roof Rat simply raised her eyebrows.
     Her friend ran over a few feet down the hall and then pointed at another wall. "This is my room!"
     "It's a wall."
     "And it's my room! It's hidden! Watch!" Ember ran her finger along the wall, drawing a large rectangle.
     The wall fuzzed briefly and then revealed a simple white door, much like the others that lined the hallway. The door opened. Inside was a room with three large white walls and one giant, wall-sized window that looked out onto a rooftop, the one where Aurora had been captured and the place she had slept after getting tipsy that night. The shards of glass and even a little blood, all of it was still there, glistening in the midday sun.
     Aurora rushed inside to the window, glad to see the outside again. She pressed her face against the window, much like Ember had done before. "I can't believe it," she said. "You were right behind me the entire time!"

Borealis Nineteen - Bad Dog, No Biscuit

     A small burst of sand popped into view behind a nearby sand dune, raining and mixing granules of yellow and beige over and beyond the summit of the guilty desert bulge that covered the explosion's origin. Howl darted behind an empty platform of concrete that sheltered itself beneath a semi-transparent red tarp. He peeked over. Saw nothing. But heard the sound of shifting sand and scooping hands. Five minutes passed, and the sound stopped. Footsteps, boots digging into sand, climbing, replaced the previous sound. Howl waited. The footsteps stopped. Still no sight of the noise maker, the sand blower. Howl crept backward into an alleyway that stretched out behind him, using the shadows it cast as cover. A few seconds passed.
     Suddenly, a black figure, pitch in the desert sun, its shape bulbous and clothes dilapidated, mounted the crest of the dune and dusted itself off. It was a man, and he wore a mask. He would have been spectacular in sight for no one had Howl not been there to see him.
     "Garnet," Howl whispered, sliding deeper into the shadows. "I knew it was you, you filthy Bird."
     Garnet rubbed the lenses of his goggles for a while and then continued his march across the large dune. Toward the bottom, he finally settled down into a trot and began to make his way toward the city's first buildings. Howl glared at the masked man. What was he up to? The boy's mouth began to twitch as he glared. The Grounder Bird slowed his pace even more. Howl bit his lip. Garnet stopped. The Bird was only a few yards away from the young Dog, but the Bird was looking at a different alleyway.
     Silent and slow, a small pocket of air left the world and disappeared into Howl's lungs. It stayed there for a while. Everything was still. Garnet turned and looked right at the boy.
     "Oh! Hello, Killer," the Bird said happily. "The goggles in my mask brighten up dark places for me, you know."
     The boy exhaled violently. He wasn't used to being spotted.
     Garnet tilted his head slightly. "Goodbye for now." A roar of thunder crackled from the Bird. The space around him went black. And he, with the black, vanished.
     Half an hour passed before Howl moved again. During that time he listened for the Bird, sure that the man would reappear somewhere in the city... But he never did. No snap. No thunder. No pop. Garnet was gone. Howl cursed and made a dash for the sand dune, conscious that at any moment Garnet could reappear and thus prevent him from reaching whatever secret rest at the foot of the desert.
     Clouds drew closer as Howl ran up the face of the dune, and the desert threatened to swallow the boy whole as he slid down the other side. Sand went everywhere, strewn about in Howl's haste, erasing most of the tracks and traces Garnet had left behind. Howl didn't care. He just started digging as soon as he stopped sliding. And, after many furious scoops and much more cursing, the boy found something.
     Garnet stepped out from beneath the shadows that had hidden Howl earlier. "Silly boy," he chuckled to himself. "And you thought you weren't supposed to find that."