The four of them began to wander in search of an exit. They walked for hours, finding only locked trap doors and dead ends amongst the vast sea of tunnels. Trying yet another new pathway, they kept walking until they heard voices, even music.

As they got closer, they could see a small, contained fire, and a group of people gathered around it. Catching sight of Alice’s crew approaching, they were immediately on the defense, clutching weapons of their own and turning off their boombox.

“We’re not going to hurt you!” Alice insisted. Stepping closer and getting a better look at the people before her, she gasped. There were four of them, and they looked like death.

“We know.” Spoke the short one in front. She couldn’t have been any older than early high school, and her clothing, though badass and very cool, reflected that. A jagged tartan skirt stuck out beneath an oversized hoodie, and deep black eyeshadow lined her eyes. Her skin was a dark, cool brown, and seemed nearly iridescent as it caught the light of the fire. She wore her red and black hair in chunky braids and dreadlocks and was only taller than Alice because of her massive platform goth boots. Also, she had bloody laser wounds in her stomach, chest, and forehead.

The other three stepped forward. There was a young man with steel rebar lodged in his neck and head who pulled them out to use in self-defense. Blood gurgled and sputtered as the metal slid through flesh and bone. He wore his black hair in a death hawk, and wore sharp, heavy eyeliner and white foundation. The blood running down the side of his face trickled onto his lips, causing him to spit and wipe his mouth.

One of the taller ones had shaggy, crimped red hair, and his right eye was hanging out of the socket by a thread. He had pale, almost translucent skin, and mascara bleeding down his cheeks like a sad clown. His right arm and leg were skeletal, with no skin, flesh, or muscles to be found on them. He was clutching a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, and little bits of hair were clumped and caught in the spiky points. He also wore a sick denim jacket.

The fourth and final person had a choppy blonde mullet and tanned, freckled skin. They primarily wore black leather, and it was clear that many of their bones were broken beneath their bruised skin. With sharply crooked fingers, they clutched a hammer, and their bones crackled and popped with every movement. It was a gruesome scene, seeing them all together.

“Who are you, and what are you doing down here?” The short one asked, brandishing twin daggers with skulls on them. Her hands were tightly wrapped in bandages.

“Are you even old enough to have bought those yourself?” Alice gestured at the daggers, clearly purchased at a shopping mall.

“What are you, a cop?” She stepped forward threateningly.

“Fuck you, do we look like cops?” Retorted Alice.

“You look like faction,” said the one with crimped red hair. “But you’re different.” He pointed towards Toffee with his bat. “You’re from down here, aren’t you?”

Toffee glanced at Alice and then back to the redhead. “How do you...”

“There are more like you.” said the broken, blonde one. “They’re scarred differently, but the eyes are always the same.”

“I... we were made. They threw us away down here; I was just lucky enough to find my way out.” Toffee stared at his feet, self-conscious and self-aware.

Torie stepped forward.

“We’re all faction or friends of it. The people that did this to him, they took a dear friend of ours. We were forced down here after we were attacked.”

The short one in goth boots raised an eyebrow, which was shaved off and then drawn back on in liquid liner, perfectly symmetrical with the other.

“Should’ve started with that.” She put away her daggers. “I’m Lena, and this is Ivan,” gesturing to the young man with the death hawk. He slid the rebar back into his head and neck and smiled; his teeth and gums were bloody and red.

“This is Sidney,” nodding at the tall one with crimped hair. He waved, and the eye hanging out of its socket wiggled as he moved. “And this is Nox.”

The freckled blonde smiled slightly.

“We’re dead. Pleased to meet you.” Alice was no stranger to the unusual, and after everything she had learned about Toffee, little was surprising anymore.

Alice and her group introduced themselves, and Lena invited them into their space. The fire brought much needed warmth and illuminated enough of the wall space to show the intricate graffiti plastered all over. There were a couple milk crates with old, moldy pillows on top, and a pile of old comics and cassette tapes. Cans of spray paint littered the ground.

“You spend a lot of time down here then,” observed Alice.

“Yeah. Folks on the surface don’t tend to respond kindly when they see us, so we mostly come out at night.”

“Mostly.” Chimed Sidney.

“What happened to you all?” Alice inquired.

Lena laughed and looked at Sidney.

“Society happened to us.”

“Yeah, okay, speak for yourself, I drove into a tree.” Nox rolled their eyes.

Ignoring that comment, Lena continued.

“Allowing its children to be cut down in their classrooms wasn’t enough for The Man. It had to find new and more creative ways to kill us. That’s why it's funding whatever it is that made you.”

Toffee resented that second comment; he was brought into a world that wanted him to be an agent of death, and he feared that was all anyone would ever see him as. Alice noticed him tense up and changed the subject.

“So we could get to the facility from here?”

“I mean, yeah,” Lena paused. “It wouldn’t be easy though, or very safe.”

“The others like me could be anywhere.” Toffee muttered.

“The closer we get, the more dangerous it will be. We’re already cutting it close, but we’ve had this hideout for ages. We can’t give it up now, you know?” Lena shrugged. The fire had died down, and Ivan poked at the smoldering embers with a stick.

“Is it safe to be burning all that down here?” Alice asked, looking at Ivan.

“These tunnels weren’t built without any ventilation at all, you know. It isn’t great, but it’s good enough.” He shrugged. “The smoke doesn’t affect us anyway.”

“Where is the nearest exit from here?” Torie piped up.

“It’s a walk, but it’s not terribly far. It’s closer to the facility though.” Lena responded. “We’ll have to be on guard. All of us.”

“Are you two armed?” Sidney gestured at Torie and Fritz.

Torie shook her head. Her dangly earrings glistened in the light of the fire.

“Take these then.” He procured a crowbar which he handed to Fritz, and a small blaster for Torie.

“Let’s go.”