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"... Why does it sound like you're making this sound easier than what it is?" said Hagan with a groan.

[color=goldenrod]“Hagan, I make everything sound easy,”[/color] said Penny with a smirk. What, would he have rather heard that the thing after them would probably just one shot their lifeboat and if they didn’t die on impact then they would surely die from exposure before making it to shore? That probably the only person who would be quick enough on the draw to react to that thing charging currently only saw the world as an abstract swirl of lights? Sometimes it was better to be dishonest. 

Penny closed her eyes as she tried to visualize the world through sound. She never had the chance to even try, because the very next second the Apparition bull rushed the lifeboat and utterly pulverised it. She threw her arms up to shield her head as she was knocked about by the boat being torn apart. The noise was horrendous and her stomach rose up to her throat. She opened her eyes to see swirls of gray and black in front of her. It was then that her stomach dropped and she swallowed her scream. If they were going to all die together, she wanted to at least go out with some bravado. 

She heard a girl speak as she braced to hit the water.

The hit never came. Instead, Penny felt herself lying uncomfortably on some asphalt. Her blue eyes fluttered open and were immediately hit by the yellow sun. For a split second she was certain that her eyes were still broken before they adjusted to the glare. She let out a sigh of relief that got cut short as a basketball bounced overhead. Penny let out a startled bark as it phased through her face. She shot up to a sitting position as a kid ran through her body towards the hoop, a small pack of children following through her a moment later. Penny glanced around in wide-eyed confusion and then let out a nervous laugh. Either they weren’t real or she was a ghost, and if she was a ghost then her head wouldn’t still be ringing like it was. Fake kids it was then. 

Could be worse. 

Could be real kids.

Penny stood up slowly. Her whole body hurt with a kind of dull pain. She put her hands on the small of her back and stretched. Pops rang out from her body like an uzi, but Penny felt like it almost made her feel worse. She huffed and dusted her clothes off as she looked around to see signs for Paradise this and Paradise that. Her face wrinkled in disgust. The city had yet to live up to even a single iota of its name, but at least there was something in it keeping her alive. She played back the girl’s words in her head. Didn’t want to be lonely anymore? Wanted a place where everyone could be happy? Clearly they didn’t know people that well then.

Penny noticed the second yellow sun that dipped up and down on the horizon. It was Isla’s beanie. She locked the girl’s words in her memory, dipping around a group of kids playing soccer despite knowing that her presence wasn’t going to interrupt anything. She was with the two others who had been on the lifeboat. Penny recognized them by their clothes, and she was just within earshot to catch their names. Trent was the small, scrawny one who had been taking a dirt nap and Finn was the even smaller, even scrawnier one who had been poking at him.

[color=goldenrod]“You and I have a different definitions of fun,”[/color] said Penny lightly as she neared the group. Although, Penny’s definition certainly wasn’t normal. She would’ve had a blast kicking that thing’s ass again.

Penny stopped a few paces from the strangers and folded her arms. Her eyebrow twitched as the boy, Trent, rolled onto his back and let out a choked cry about wanting to go home to the other boy(?) Finn. Penny pushed back the spontaneous annoyance. She couldn’t blame the kid. She wanted to go home, too. She took a few more steps towards them all and squatted down on her haunches next to Trent. She noted the sigil on his shoulder, but it was rougher than the other ones she had seen. Maybe it was just a shoddily done tattoo.

[color=goldenrod]“Well, you ain’t getting home like that. Can you stand?”[/color] said Penny. She thought about giving him a hand. The quicker he was up, the quicker they could join the others. Now that Penny wasn’t around them she felt tense. For all Penny knew, she could be helping up the next Sharon. She hesitated at the thought, and then offered Trent her hand so she could pull him up. [color=goldenrod]“C’mon dude, I gotcha.”[/color]