Chapter 184

Matis got out of the car and popped the hood to be able to take a look at the guts of the machine. There was a chance that something had crawled into the engine block during the night and caused enough damage to cause the car to not start. Walking around the front, he lifted up the hood and took an inquisitive look inside. Much to his dismay, everything appeared to be in great shape. There was no evidence of even a temporary nester hanging out inside the vehicle during part of the night, not even a paw print on the ground underneath. Slamming the hood back down, he walked over and sat back down in the driver's seat. "So, was there anything wrong with the engine?" Charlene asks, not having left the passenger seat this entire time.

"No. Not that I could tell anyways. It's as if it just died overnight. Then again, I'm not a mechanic so I could be missing something." Matis shrugged. He had no idea what was going on, not even a guess as to a reason for all that was happening. He just wished he had some sort of lead as to what had happened, as he was feeling so lost and confused. As he sat in the driver seat, he realized that he had been glossing over something that he could check and experiment with. Sheera entering Charlene and the duplicating plate.

What if the plate had not been the only thing to be duplicated? What if the food that was brought in with it had been duplicated as well? Was there a limit to how many times or to the size of the item? Could she bring him in to see what was going on inside? Turning to look at his wife, he noticed that she was looking at him with an eyebrow crooked. He must have been making that face yet again. The one where he is deep in thought, yet getting more and more excited the more he thinks about doing something. Without missing a beat, he started going into what he was thinking about and wanting to experiment with. As he went, he could see the excitement in his wife's face growing to match his. After all, it was something new and unprecedented that they had access to explore right away. How could they not get all excited? Slowly, they turned to look at the cougar who was stretched out and relaxing in the back seat of the car soaking up some sun. By the time Sheera noticed both of them looking at her, their faces were covered with a shit eating grin as the ideas of the hoops they would have the cougar jump through ran amok in their minds.

What happened next, Sheera could only think of as rigorous and menial torture. Time and time again she was made to bring things in and out of Charlene, all the while being made to hold a conversation with a language she was just getting the hang of. Thankfully she had heard the Vilkas family speak it so much she was familiar with the words, the problem was just learning how to form them herself. However, the lengths that she was brought to were ridiculous. At one point, there were fifty copies of the family car all sitting piled one atop another before the two were satisfied that they could be duplicated endlessly. Then it was seeing how easy it was to clean up, and discovering that there was a limit of how many could be inside at the same time of the exact same thing. Cleanup therefore took a lot of work, but only for Sheera. By the time the sun was starting to descend from its highest point in the sky, she was already glaring permanently at Matis for bringing up the idea of testing where it could go.

Noticing how much time had passed from them doing experiments, Charlene called it to a halt once everything was cleaned up. "We need to at least make our way down to Chateh today dear. After all, I only packed enough food for dinner and breakfast. Unless of course you want to eat the pile of bacon for dinner and breakfast that Sheera had stored ahead of time?" Sheera took advantage of the break to leap back into Charlene, hiding from Matis and his experimenting ways. This wasn't the first time it had happened, but it was the first time that Charlene did not take any actions to prevent it from going too far. As such, she was just exhausted and took the chance to relax on one of the few patches of grass that she had brought in.

Matis took a minute to think back at the 'sandwich' that had been made for Sheera. It wasn't really much different from her usual, however he had never even considered the option of eating it. "You know, that's a good idea. I like my heart functioning as it does." Charlene just chuckled at that, before taking his hand in hers. Together they walked out to Range Road 45A to make their way to the small town just south of them. It had been just a ten-minute drive outside of town to their parking lot, but that translated to an almost two-hour walk. That gave them plenty of time to shoot back and forth ideas about what may have happened to cause all of this. There were a few things that Char had gotten from Sheera in their conversations, but Sheera was still getting used to the language. There was a large green wave of some sorts that had passed over and through them while they were sleeping apparently. With that being the only hint they had however, that left their knowledge lacking. Ideas were brought up back and forth, but they both agreed on one simple fact. It came from the east, meaning that if they wanted to ever get a clear idea of what had caused all of this, they would have to travel in that direction. As they were coming up to the town, they immediately went on high alert and started having their heads on a swivel. Sounds of combat entered their ears, as well as the screams of people and shrieks of something entirely alien, yet eerily familiar.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, John, Hades, Sir Hellington, Onean, Sebastian, Adam, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

Feel free to join us all on my Discord! https://discord.gg/b8gRkD4