I screamed, terrified I was about to see Roux get melted by an acidic vat of Elka.

The pit of slime burst at them like a geyser, but once it landed, the room went silent, the terrifying whispers and voices fading. Roux didn’t look like they were in pain as the slime formed around them, almost looking like body armor as it turned a lighter blue hue.

“Oh…interesting!” Roux said. They nodded. “Mhm, mhm!”

“Roux, you good?” Diast asked, cautiously stepping forward.

“She’s lighter than you’d expect,” Roux said.

“She?” Oka said.

"Mhm!" Roux answered easily.

Diast stroked her chin as she looked around Roux. The slime recoiled, changing from armor to a blob moving from Roux’s back to front, as if it were hiding from Diast. “Do you want us to get her off of you?”

"I think she might not like that,” Roux said.

"Like in a way that you're in immediate danger?" Diast asked.

"Naw, she's friendly," Roux said. "She said it was cold before."

“And she's communicating...with you?” Diast asked.

“You mean you can’t hear her?”

I was still in panic mode, eyes darting back and forth between Roux and the way we came in, where my mother could be arriving at any moment.

“Um…my mom is still…?” I said.

Kara nodded. “We’ll keep an eye out, don’t worry.”

Kara and Mars went to go on lookout.

"While we wait, I guess we can try to figure this situation out," Diast said.

"What's there to figure out?" Roux asked. "Can't we bring her with? She said her world is already gone."

As each minute passed without mom showing up, I was able to breathe my way through the almost-panic attack. Enough so that I started thinking about the implications of Roux's new friend.

“Dr. Diast, if it turns out that each time we’ve fought a void monster that we’ve been killing an innocent creature I am gonna be very displeased with you in addition to the whole trauma that’s gonna give me," I said.

“You haven’t been ‘killing’ them—" Diast said.

“That sounds like what you’d say if you were lying,” Oka said.

“I’m not lying! We’ve been over this a ton in class, it’s the condensation cycle of Elka,” Diast said. “This one’s…different.”

The bluish entity perked up, as if she sensed all the eyes on her. She retreated back behind Roux.

"We'll have to analyze later," Caya said. "Tik, would you want to try your powers on this space as Zeta and Stella are with us?"

Tik checked her watch, a small round one on a chain. "It seems our guest is running late, so we may as well." She didn't waste time readying her powers, using Stella and I as some kind of genetic link to see visions of our mother's past.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but it has been a while,” Oka said as Tik conjured a cloudy 'screen' in the center of the room. "Can I get a refresher on where we left off?"

“There was my dad, my mom, my dad’s sister River, Tik, and those two other guys," I said, trying to remember everything we'd seen of Tik's visions so far. "My parents got exiled because that stage fell on that old guy. And Tik and River had a fight in the wreckage of the stage, and Tik got hurt and sucked into that magic crystal. Sorry if this summary is a bit lacking."

"I think that covered what we’d gathered so far quite well," Tik said.

"Thanks," I said. "And sorry Roux, you’re part of this family drama memory thing I guess."

“Hm? Sure, sure…” Roux was more focused on their new friend, who was perched on their shoulder, morphed to look like a tiny blobby bird.

"I had hoped to pull up something with Octa's recent encounters in this cave with Caeda," Tik said as images took shape, ones of River shortly after where we'd left off with her. In the sessions with Tik that followed that one, there had been a long stretch of visions of my parents early in their exile wandering around the island they'd landed on without much of note, so it was refreshing to see my aunt again.

Even if the vision did start with her bursting through some tall bushes, stumbling onto a campfire where my parents sat.

"While I'm refreshing myself, those two are Zeta's parents," Oka said. "And the two guys with them are the ones that were making out when the stage collapsed. Er, I remember that part, at least. I'm mainly just saying that part if Roux was curious is all!"

Roux wasn't even listening, now throwing their new slime friend against the wall and catching her. The slime didn't seem to mind, chirping happily each time Roux caught her.

"Right, anyways," Oka said.

"So River met up with my parents right after she got exiled," I said, watching as River and my father stared at each other, completely stunned.

My father rose, rushing to River. The two embraced.

“What happened?” The siblings asked in unison.

They each explained their journey as quickly as they could, from my father going over the stage accident and the exile, with River doing the same for her situation with Tik, who was now trapped in the Atrian crystal on River's necklace.

While they talked, the other guys didn't react much. But my mom stood herself, and slinked away from the group. Was she shy?

"Were you able to see any of this from the crystal?" I asked.

"Bits and pieces," Tik said. "I hadn't quite gotten the hang of projecting myself out from the space in the crystal."

"Should we maybe follow Mom then?" I asked.

Tik nodded, shifting her power to focus on Mom. She wandered along the coastline away from the group, all the way to a village. It was populated with the villagers armored with robotics. Or were part robotic, I wasn’t fully sure on their biology.

"Right, this is Vita Coa too," Oka said. "I miss the Exumi! Roux, this where we were when...were you even along for that, I can't remember..."

"Sure, sure," Roux said, now holding the slime like a phone. "Hm? No, no I can still talk!"

"I probably shouldn't bother," Oka said.

A group of Exumi villagers were gathered around a dark pit on the beach. One looked familiar, the elder I had met on one of my Vita Coa visits. His name was Mawiril, and he knew my parents. So they must have met pretty quickly to the village.

"Oh! Sorry..." Mom said as she accidentally bumped into one of the villagers. "What are you all doing?"

"It's no issue, traveler," the villager Mom bumped into said. "I'm not quite sure what we're looking at here. Mawiril?"

The elder stared into the abyss. It looked almost like the pit we had just stared into before it turned into that slime being.

“It’s a fissure,” Mawiril said.

"What does that mean?" Mom asked. She gulped, maybe swallowing the same dread I felt watching that pit.

“Worlds collapsed in that space," Mawiril said. "Don't take a step closer, if one were to fall into this pit, it'd serve as a gate to an dead world, an abyss you wouldn't return from."

"Hey, Tik!" Kara called out. "Someone's coming!"

Tik shut off the vision abruptly, the cloud dissipating. We all were deathly silent listening to the footsteps approaching. The panic began to build in me again as I followed Tik to her companions, gripping tightly to Oka's hand, making sure Stella and Dr. Diast were close, too. I needed all of them near me, especially when our guest arrived, a woman in a long trench coat, arms crossed, a blank expression across her face. If my mother was surprised to find us waiting for her, she didn't show it.

I imagine she was even less prepared for Oka to charge at her, screaming as she conjured vines in each hand, ready to attack.