Everything was just a little too much.


Everything about Funderland from its garish lights to its saccharine carnival songs to... the people. Wandering in masses like grinning zombies, eating junk food and spilling it on the ground. Ants and flies and other bugs swarm fallen ice cream like vultures. Children cry and scream and sneeze, and rub snotty noses over their hands that they then use to touch everything. The adults were hardly better. They tossed trash to the pavement and the boardwalk. Watching it all, Cleo could only imagine that the place smelled like a dumpster... not that she could tell through her gas mask. Even inside the large commercial van that she was hiding in the parking lot within, she didn't trust that the air would be properly filtered through the AC unit enough to allow her to breathe.

But then, within the crowds, the sea of disease-ridden people, Cleo would catch glimpses.


Glimpses of the other changelings, the other Lost in the city of Sacramento. Not all of them... no, some of them liked to hide like Cleo did. Others didn't need or want to. But they all came here for more or less the same things: Friends and Glamour. And Cleo felt like she could use both right about now.

But to get either, she would need to get through the ocean of dirty... things. And she couldn't wear her gas mask. No, that stood out too much in a crowd, even if she waited until dark. Not enough places to hide.


Cleo takes off her mask and holds her breath... slowly releasing the air in her lungs. Another pause, another hold. Then she inhales a tiny iota of air. It didn't kill her. She takes in a little more. Stale. Cold. AC air. Nothing more. Cleo couldn't taste the amusement park, not yet. She'd have to try outside.

The changeling sets her gasmask aside, putting it behind the passenger seat and next to the mattress that Cleo calls a bed, and covers it with blankets to hide it. Then she pulls a blue surgical mask from the glove compartment. Less strange. Less effective, though. She'd have to try. She fits it on, takes in a deep breath of the stale AC air and opens the door. Then, after grabbing her computer bag, she steps out, feeling an uncomfortably warm and bright sun. She exhales... and once again repeats the process of taking in the air one baby breath at a time, fully prepared to be brought to tears from the toxic, caustic smell.


Cleo is surprised then when the air doesn't suffocate her. It in fact... smells quite good.


The food the dirty people were eating and throwing on the ground was more powerful than they were. Hot ovens linked to hot ventilation pipes pumped out fried food smell and sugary food smell into the atmosphere. Salty, buttery popcorn, and discarded fruit pops boiling in the sun. The asphalt is hot and sends a powdery, rubbery smell to Cleo's nostrils. The hint of cleaning supplies and paint and wood products underneath everything else.

The changeling rocks back and forth on her feet for a moment, excited. Maybe this would be easy! All that was left to do was get through the crowd. She moves forward confidently; The parking lot is sparsely populated.

When she gets to the entrance, Cleo begins to retreat into herself a little bit. She is in a series of lines, with people in front and behind her... but she isn't surrounded. She can go further.


When she gets into the park, Cleo wraps her arms around herself, as if she is cold. People on all sides. It makes her anxious, being unable to see all of them at once. What were the ones just outside of her peripheral vision doing when she wasn't looking? Were they watching her? Were they getting closer? Cleo shakes her head, as if to physically cast aside the intrusive thoughts. She could do this, just a little further...


Then someone bumped into Cleo. She jolts and steps to the side, bumping into another person. Both of them turn to look at her, and one stammers out the start of an apology. Cleo simply runs out of the park. They touched her... touched her. With their greasy, stinking, germ-y hands. She could smell their sweat, taste their cheap deodorant. It made her sick. Retreating to the van, Cleo squirts a healthy dose of sanitizer onto her hands and rubs them together. The cool touch of the gel is instantly gratifying, and with each wringing of her fingers she feels her heart slow down. She takes off her mask and breathes in the car-air. She had failed.


...but not by much.


When the anxiety passes, Cleo finds herself smiling. She'd gotten close... she just needed to be prepared. More clothes, perhaps, covering all her skin. Gloves. And maybe she could look up when the park was the least busy online, and come then. She'd put up with far worse in the other place, hadn't she? And how many other Lost had to go through the same hurdles... the ones sent to places of decay and death, places of poison and venom, places of spines and sharp things? If they could find their place inside, so could Cleo.


Next time.