They walked away from the peak overlooking Coyote Pass, not holding hands yet but feeling closer than ever because of what they’d just witnessed, the girl for the girl and, likewise, the boy’s death for the observing boy. Deep down, they realized it could have been them. Oh, not by hypnotizing orange trees like with humans Al and Sarah, but something else Mid-Hazel could have concocted especially with mechanoids in mind. And they also came to realized they were suppose to replace these 2, just from the act of being witnesses to the awful spectacle. Tom knew what could come to pass — at the Pass — when he lured them here. “Take a well deserved vacation,” he said to the 2, fresh off their saving of River by turning everything dark and muddled there into light and clear and *clean*. No more chocolate mess. They had worked together there and they would work together in the future to handle a bigger crisis. The pollution of the whole original Bellisseria continent by evil forces of sickening sugary designs much vaster.
“How about the Western Hills of Bellisseria?” he said to them in his office that morning, even providing the pair some scenic landmarks that he said Al had scouted out in his visit there (see first of this here photo-novel). Top of the list: Coyote Canyon Overlook. He *knew*. And so they saw. He didn’t tell them because all lie in a probable reality still, and, anyway, there was nothing they could do about it directly. “Just observe,” they can hear him say as an afterthought in their heads now, after the tragedy was over. Later on, through the pumpkins, they understood something else was involved: alien creatures of a high design indeed.
First up: Butterfingers.
END OF “SUNKLANDS 2023 MORE MIDDLE”!
Sunklands 