Running is all you’ve been doing for days. You’re being hunted for a crime you didn’t do, punishable by death through execution. All the trees look the same, until finally you found a little cottage. Strange out here in the woods, but it’s sanctuary for now. You ran in, tired, hungry, and bordering on death when you took in the surrounding area. A fire lit off to the side, and a table with three separate snacks. You felt horrible, but you were desperate for food so you sampled them all. The first? Way too bitter. The second? So sweet you swear you got diabetes. But the third? Absolute perfection and you ate it all up.

Once you’ve eaten, you ventured to the second story of the cottage and began to explore, hoping to find the owner. Instead you found a room with three beds. Again, your guilt took over but one more step, and you’d fall over. The first bed was way too hard, only a stone could sleep on it. The second was so cushioned you kept falling into it. That third bed though, like the last snack, was just perfection. It didn’t take long for you at all, one moment your head hit the pillow and the next? Out like a light.

Hours later

“Remind me why we had to create some cottage for our meetings? You make us look like idiots.”

Sylus mumbled, following Zayne and Caleb through the familiar trail through the woods. Once a month, these three meet up for a week to discuss Ever and their plan for protocore smuggling. Turning humans into Wanderers. One the outside? A cardiologist, the FleetSpace Colonel, and the infamous leader of the N109 Zone. And the deadliest holy trio ever in Linkon City.

Caleb scoffed, rolling his eyes. “It’s completely hidden and not suspicious at all! Not everyone can roll around in jet black mansions, you-!”

“Silence. There’s a disturbance. The door is open.” Zayne’s voice cut through and all three looked. Sure enough…..you left the door open.

Each primed their Evol as they stepped in, nothing was missing except their snack. Bites taken out of Sylus’s bitter fruit cocktail and Zayne’s overly sugary cake, but Caleb held up his completely empty plate of chocolate dipped fruits with a raised eyebrow. Sylus held a finger up, signaling silence as Zayne led the way up the stairs. With silence more quiet than a mouse, Caleb opened the door to their sleeping room. Sylus’s rock solid bed was completely messed up, Caleb’s super bouncy bed had the comforter hanging off, but there was a little lump in the middle of Zayne’s.

“One…..two…..three!”

On Sylus’s count, Caleb ripped the blanket back with Zayne ready to freeze the intruder, but they all froze. This was no trouble from Ever, no ambush, nothing nefarious at all. A sleeping angel covered in small scratches from the branches, curled in a small ball with remnants of the snacks on the nightstand. What was that fairytale? Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Guess they were the big bears now.