The problem is that, while I’ve been reading, I haven’t been rereading the books I want to review; I’ve been reading Discworld, the City Watch books. I don’t particularly want to review Discworld because I hae a feeling it would have to be an all-or-nothing kind of deal and I should really prepare for it. I’ve finished all of my new City Watch books (and thus the whole set of them actually), so I’ll be on to something new next week.
   I know what I’ll be reading through this coming fortnight, therefore. It’s what I’ll be reviewing a week from now, my newest favourite series, and I think it might not be as well-known as it deserves to be. We’ll see. But that’s in the future, this week I’ve picked out The Sight and its sequel Fell, by David Clement-Davies.

   David Clement-Davies may be more well known for his first novel, Fire Bringer, set in long ago Scotland and about a red deer named Rannoch. The Sight and Fell are set later, in 1400′s Transylvania and mainly follow Larka and Fell, sister and brother (respectively) wolves.
   You may be noticing a pattern. David Clement-Davies has written other fantasy books but is most known for his xenoficion, that is, novels written about and from the perspective of non-human beings (e.g. animals or aliens). He writes toward the more animal side of the genre, as opposed to a more anthropomorphic style like, say, Redwall. I would compare his books to Watership Down, but I’ve not yet gotten and read it.
   So The Sight and Fell follow wolves, acting like wolves, from the perspective of wolves. It’s not just about wolves though, like Fire Bringer before them, The Sight and Fell have a strong and active mythology. The titular Sight is a power that wolves are sometimes born with which allows them to see visions in water and see through the eyes of other Lera, and do a few other things that saying would be a bit spoiling.

   The books use a bit of alternate terminology (Lera=animals, Putnar=hunter/predator, Dragga=alpha male, Drappa=Alpha female). It helps show that the characters are not human, but might also be a bit distracting since everything else is written in English. The characters’ thought processes are not really human either, but you follow what they’re doing and why.
   The mythology in the books is strong. The powers of the sight, implications of gods and demons, the afterlife, magic, and beliefs. They’re there and part of the world and the story, but they don’t overpower them. The mythology also isn’t all made up. Some of the beliefs, stories, and mythological figures are definitely recognisable. A different version of the myth of Romulus and Remus is included, for example.

   All of the main characters are distinct and dynamic. They grow, and learn, and change. Fell is definitely the biggest example in both books, but every other main character has, by the end of Fell, grown from who they were at the beginning of The Sight.
   The main antagonist through the two books is Larka’s and Fell’s aunt, Morgra, who also has the Sight and some shady motives of her own. I will describe her as wicked, and probably villainous, but how ‘evil’ she is really should be left up to the reader. Nothing in either book is really that black and white except Fell’s and Larka’s pelts.

   The books explore the natures of the Lera, what good and evil really are, and the motives and driving forces of the characters. The other theme and the driving force behind the books’ plots is the nature of the relationship between Man and (the rest of) Nature. Things build up and the fate of the world may be at stake, though in kind of a distant way. Some characters do die and it’s very sad when they do. Death, not just of characters but also the fact that the characters are carnivores, is handled very well.
   The message the books give about that present, about man’s relationship with nature, is that it’s not good and we’re really messing things up, but also that there’s hope and we need to realize we’re also part of nature. This is emphasised toward the ends of both books. I think how well you feel the message was handled will depend on how much you agree with it. It fit very well into the plots, but felt a bit heavy-handed. Then again, it’s probably important enough that it should be.

   The settings are well described, though sometimes a bit plain (it is mainly forest, though). The books focus most on the characters and also on the plots, but you still know where it is, when it is, and the world the book are taking place in. It’s easy to go there and lose yourself in the land beyond the forest. The time period they take place in and the humans’ actions are especially well written.

   The books are a bit on the long side. They’re only about 500~ish pages each, but the writing style is a bit complicated and lengthy. It’s not excessive description or anything, but the paragraphs can sometimes take a while to say what they’re saying. You don’t want to try reading these when you’re falling asleep or distracted. But the books draw you in fairly well actually, especially in the beginnings, so you might not have too big a problem with the ‘distraction’ part.

   The plot of The Sight follows Larka, her family and how they deal with Morgra’s machinations. Larka’s discovery and mastering of the Sight, and finally the climax Morgra has built in accordance with an ancient prophesy. Fell follows, well, Fell as he deals and comes to terms with the events from The Sight. Also introduced is a human girl who has a mysterious history and an important destiny herself, and Fell has to get her to it. The Sight has an interesting, entertaining, and very well-planned plot that starts a lot fo things and takes you along with them. Fell has it’s own plot, just as good as The Sight‘s, but it also gives some longer resolution to and ties up all of the loose threads (even ones you forgot about or didn’t realize were still a bit loose) from The Sight, and is very satisfying about it.

• Characters – 9.5/10
– Very believable and dynamic and very much more wolves than humans.
• Setting – 7/10
– The physical setting can be sparse, but the time period is very well written as it is in all David Clement-Davies’ works. The books focus less on the surroundings and more on the strong characters and plots.
• Plots – 9/10
– The plots are very strong and rather original, and never really fell victim to cliche. Most twists were foreshadowed enough that you could guess what was going to happen, but never distractingly so.
• Themes – 9/10
– The messages are very well explored and portrayed; they are similar in each book but are approached in different ways by two very different characters, and remains very satisfying all the way through.
• Writing – 7.5/10
– I like it when authors do their homework, David Clement-Davies definitely did, he knew what he was writing about. His writing style still reads a bit slowly, though.

For a grand total of 4.2 out of 5. If you’re looking for some fantasy a bit different, you should think about hunting down and devouring some of David Clement-Davies’s books. I would recommend to teenagers and up, to anyone who likes stories about realistic animals, and any of David Clement-Davies to historical fiction fans.

   High scores all around my reviews so far, yes? The main reason for this is that I’m reviewing books I own and I try to only buy good books. Don’t worry, there are books or series I will eventually review that will get lower scores in areas.
   I personally digested next weeks’ books, so I hope it gets a similar score (4.5+).

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So, this week my article’s reviewing the latest instalment of Windows, Windows 7, which I recently got for my new laptop.

As far as how Windows 7 is actually different from Windows Vista, there’s really not that many differences. There are a few more preinstalled things (including Mah Jong , a program called Snipping Tool, Sticky Notes, and this funky program called Math Input Panel, where you can write math equations and it‘ll solve them for you and such), but other than that all the programs and stuff run pretty similar to Vista.

The one main change that I’ve seen so far is the toolbar at the bottom. It’s a lot bigger and clunkier than the one that all previous instalments of Windows had. In this screenshot, you can see that even though I have mine set on the small setting, it’s still a lot bigger than Vista’s toolbar. Also, it doesn’t have the programs in rectangles like everyone’s used to, they’re in smaller ones, that when rolled over show all the windows you have open with that program. It’s a lot less convenient in my opinion, especially for mass chatting on MSN or when you have several browser windows open at once. Apparently there’s some way to change it back to the way it looked in Vista, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

As far as how Windows 7 works, it actually works pretty well. None of the (although I had very few) problems I had in Vista have resurfaced in 7. And nothing has exploded or anything yet, which is always good. Also, it’s extremely backwards compatible with all the Vista programs, almost anything that can run on Vista can run on Windows 7 just fine. I actually think that Windows 7 should be called Windows Vista 2, because that’s really all it is. It didn’t add anything new, except for the new toolbar at the bottom (which is ugly), a bunch of bug fixes, and a bunch of pre installed programs that if you really needed them you probably could have found them on the internet anyway.

So, Windows 7 is great, but really doesn’t add anything new, and most of the things it added are either useless or unliked (by me). But still, the bug fixes are appreciated.

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Because most of the others have done a list of things, I have decided to collate together a small and short list of Disney films that I think everyone should see. (more…)

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Article written by myself: Net Neutrality and Open Source
I have received a few e-mails about this article from telcom trolls trying to get me to change my position on these topics because of this article. Since it went live on my website, I have gotten over 100 hits. I spent at least a week writing this article. It all stemmed from reading the ‘back of the package’ info for the song Flickr by Jonathan Coulton. That was a great article. It definitely should have raised the standard of the quality of the work LW showcases. I really wish that were true.

Article written by a LW blogger: Gaz’s Dwarf Fortress or Kieran’s articles
I went back through the whole year to find one. Of all of the articles for the year trying to find one that wasn’t written by myself that continued to entertain and was very well-written and presented, I found four. One was Dwarf Fortress written by Gaz. That one was very fun and really stuck out with me especially since it was later talked about on the TSG forums. The other three were all of Kieran’s articles. His writing was definitely some of the best we have seen. He is a great asset to the staff, and I hope he keeps writing for us when he has the chance.

New show on broadcast television: Community
Joel McHale, Chevy Chase, and Ken Jeong. Do I need to say more? To those of us have been to (or will soon return to) community college: yes, this show is 100% accurate. I am not joking for once in my life, community college is exactly like this show. The fact that they have actual comedians playing every type of student seen in the series just helps ease the pain. The fact that the show is teamed with the rest of NBC’s Thursday comedy lineup (called Must See TV when I was growning up) helps make a viewing block that cannot be messed with.

Returning show on broadcast television: 30 Rock
The show deserves it’s three Emmy’s. It is the best comedy on any network, especially when compared to the other crap other networks show. With Community, they bookend the NBC comedy lineup and are the best shows on most Thursdays. Alec Baldwin is the best actor on television these days across all genres. The show is unbelievably well written and produced. It will remain a top show until they all get bored and move on.

New show on cable television: Stargate: Universe
Stargate x Battlestar Galactica. The series really really is a cross between the two. They even have a Baltar character. I loved the other Stargate series. Battlestar Galactica was the best show in the sci-fi genre. I like that Stargate is using elements that made Galactica great. This is definitely a new direction for Stargate. I hope it works for them.

Returning show on cable television: Dirty Jobs or Deadliest Catch
Two great shows that do a great job of showcasing careers that nobody wants. Dirty Jobs has continued to bring unique and interesting jobs to light. The camel farmers, goose pluckers, and diaper cleaners were all among the jobs shown this year. So many great memories. So many ruined cameras. The drama on the Bering Sea is always interesting to watch. There is always so much on the line and death is always possible. The After the Catch special adds to the drama. We got to meet the captains’ wives this season, and I hope the trade of Jake for Jake is actually done. That would be great. I can’t wait for more episodes of both.

New (to me) anime series (that I will eventually finish): Toradora!
Hyakko is a very close second. I am moved by almost every episode for some reason. It usually has to do with Taiga doing something very touching. I guess I click with her. May be because I have a moe for smaller girls. I just sort of connect with the show as much with Hayate no Gotoku. Taiga is such a good, cute, and fun character. She shows a lot of Kugamiya Rie’s development. Very fun show. Hyakko is also another great show. Torako is such a fun character. The show is short and simple and very worth the time investment. A lot of great voice actresses make appearances too.

Movie: Star Trek
I love that movie. I have been a Trekkie for a long time. After the last few Next Generation era movies were hit or miss (as all pre-Abrams Treks were to date), I was wary of this movie. Then I saw Cloverfield and was convinced of Abrams’ skill in making a great movie. Star Trek Got so much right in reinventing Trek as well as keeping a lot of the cornier elements alive. The criticisms for the movie were all copy and paste from past Trek movies and the cast was well picked. Shatner was a moron for not taking the role that was eventually revealed in the scripts that came out. He would have been perfect. The movie was the best Trek since First Contact. (Like First Contact, it had a Star Wars cameo. R2-D2 appeared in place of the Falcon this time.) PS: The rating for the movie according to Rotten Tomatoes is 95% or almost four times the rating for New Moon.

New game for the Wii: NSMBW
In the land of crap, the gold bar is golden. With all of the crap and faux sequels that came out for the Wii this year, the top choice is obvious. There wasn’t much to get excited about for the Wii this year. At E3, this and Spirit Tracks were their only big games coming out in 2009. As you can read in my recent review of the game, this was a surprisingly well put together game. All of their next great games will be next year at the soonest (starting Jan 26th with No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle), so Nintendo has to hold on to what little successes they have now.

New game for the 360: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed 2
I’m not a FPS fan, so ODST and L4D2 are out. Rhythm games are crap so Rock Band and Guitar Hero are out. Of the rest, Arkham Asylum and Assassin’s Creed 2 were my favorite games on the console. Ghostbusters was a great game too, but these two were better. I love going around and stabbing people in this depressing holiday season. The story is a very good and deep one. Assassin’s Creed 2 is a great game overall. Batman is like being in a comic book. A comic starring the voice actors of the cartoon. But, this is not based on a comic book. It is one of the most awesome games ever. Some moron at Gamespy said it was stupid that there is no comic or movie tie-in for the game. That was what made the game better. Two great games. If it came down to is, Batman wins because no one can beat Batman.

New game for the DS: Pokemon Platinum
Take everything good about Diamond and Pearl and make them better. Fix a lot of the bad areas. Add many more Pokemon. Add new features. Add wifi events. Yummy, yummy wifi events. Free, rare Pokemon. Aside from those and many graphical enhancements, this is pretty much like Diamond and Pearl. Except for Spirit Tracks, there wasn’t too much to get very excited about in the DS area this year.

On the PSP and PS3:
I have only recently gotten these systems so I cannot properly give them a best new game yet. Next year, we all know they are going to be Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII.

Podcast: Penny Arcade/PvP/Wil Wheaton D&D Podcast Series 3
The only other contender in this realm was Memories of the Futurecast. I started listening to this podcast with episode 2 during PAX. I went back and listened to to the first two series to catch up. Every week as a wait until the next episode. Then came the last episode. That damn last episode. It is hard not to blame Binwin for what happened, but he doesn’t deserve all the blame or any hatred. It was an honest mistake of his. He was too wrapped in vengeance. Aeofel was being too good of a friend. They broke the cardinal rule and split the party. Mistakes were made. Recent tweets hint on the return of AQI. Series 4 should follow. That and Memories of the Futurecast Volume 2 are two podcasts to look forward to this coming year.

Song: Jonathan Coulton’s The Future Soon
Coulton ain’t new, and the song ain’t new. I just felt that this song best captured how my year has been. I’m a pathetic loser that has interests in science and technology with only glimpses at the idea of what love is. I also have the desire to make giant robots and use them mostly for good… eventually. Oregon and Iran get wiped off the map first then I go totally Iron Man with looser morals and more hatred for humanity. A nerd can dream. (If it proves my point any more that I could be the person in the song, I am currently on a Mac writing this in WordPress on Chrome with a Vocaloid theme and watching an open source Twitter program and listening to Code Monkey after The Future Soon. My Rei plushie is right next to me in case I need to hug someone that I want to hug.) [On a side note: it is almost 2010, shouldn't Ikari Gendo have cloned his wife by now? I'll give anything for one of those clones. If you have seen the show, you know who I am talking about.]

Book I actually read (out of the few I finished):
I am not sure I finished a book that qualifies for this. I’ve read mostly textbooks or graphic novels this year, as with any year. Some of the Japanese archaeology books were pretty cool. The books on physics are cool too since physics is only one step below mathematics which is less than or equal to God depending on your cardinality proofs. My textbook that I used to build neutron stars and white dwarfs was pretty cool too, but I read most of that last year. Oh! Wait! Reboot!
Book I actually read (out of the few I finished): Physics of the Impossible
The pompous and arrogent Michio Kaku proves that most of the cool sci-fi tech can be made some point in the future and all in languages you philistines can understand. This is a very great read. Pick it up.

Graphic novel: Kenjiro Hata’s Hayate no Gotoku Graphic Novel #7
Nagi put Tama in a washing machine. I love Futurama. To quote Free Waterfall Sr from Futurama: ‘We have them trapped like a tiger in a washing machine.’ The GN also features the [holiday doesn't exist] episodes, the Negima! reference issue, and Nagi’s date where Hayate is hidden on every page. All of that is in addition to the usual pure brilliance in comic, anime, internet and video game references. Oh! And the student body officers episode too. That features the moments that class president Izumi (aka Karin to Karin fans) fell for Hayata-kun.

DVD/BluRay: Star Trek
Second place goes to the release of the new Evangelion movies in the US. Since I now have a BluRay player (I love my PS3) [I never said they were a bad console. I just said they were too expensive and had hardware issues.], I can watch BluRays. I don’t normally buy video media since Hayate no Gotoku and Code Geass are the only series out on DVD that I collect. Into the Wild Green Yonder was a great movie as well. I had been waiting for Rebuild of Evangelion since the first moment I have heard of it. You can tell I am serious about a series if I don’t ‘acquire’ it in advance. But, Star Trek had a great release. All of the extras, as well as the DVD and digital copies were a great addition. Sorry Eva. There is always next year when you should be giving me Evangelion 2.0 and 3.0… unless Toradora! or Hyakko is out in the US by then. If that is the case… Well, Tron Legacy would have a December 2010 or January 2011 BluRay at the soonest… Hmm. Then Lucas owes us Star Wars on BluRay… Well. Damn. A lot of good crap is coming to BluRay by 2011. I guess that is one side effect of Obama, getting the BluRay industry to say ‘Yes We Can! (make consumers buy the same thing again)’

Webcomic: Penny Arcade
Daisy Owl, Looking for Group, and How I Killed Your Master were the top contenders as well. There were a lot of great moments in a lot of great webcomics. The ones listed are barely a cap of the iceberg of comics with great moments (the big LOLbat reveal in PvP for one). I felt that once again Penny Arcade were the kings. Just scanning through the first two months, there are many awesome moments in just such a short time. Love them. Plus, Jim and Omin didn’t kill Aeofel. Sorry Scott.

Sporting event: Omegathon 09
MLG is a sport. Therefore, the decathlon of gaming is the top event. I only made it to two of the events: The Beatles: Rock Band and the finals of Skeeball. They were pretty freaking awesome. The Omegathon is the gaming competition attached to PAX. The game tests the gamers in several areas: console gaming, PC gaming, tabletop gaming, rhythm gaming, and all-around gaming. Gamers have to prove themselves across all areas, thus no casual gamers would survive. The tabletop game is usually a board game, Connect Four if memory serves. Mario Kart Wii broke down, so they had to do Double Dash instead. That should have been a harbinger of things to come. Skeeball took over a hour to get working just so that it could break down after every other game. How the frak did they find a real Skeeball game?! That was too awesome. The best part was when Mike and Jerry did battle and Gabe schooled Tycho. It was great. Rock Band was Rock Band. Absolutely nothing special. At all. Because if you’ve seen one rhythm game, you’ve seen them all.

Japan-related event: The life-sized Odaiba Gundam
I was tempted to troll through all of my wacky links I posted throughout the year, but then one thing stuck out in my mind: the 40-meter tall Gundam. It wasn’t just any Gundam. It was Gundam. The original. For lovers of classical anime, especially those of us who grew up on Voltron, seeing Gundam at life-sized was a dream come true. Now all they need to do is make it move then fly then arm it with a laser cannon and everything will be perfect.

Event: January 20th, 2009 at 1200 (noon)
I really hope non-politcos get that. If you don’t, that was the exact moment Barack Obama became the current US President. I couldn’t stop smiling for a week after that moment. The other great event of this year was my graduation from Cal Poly SLO with a Bachelor of Science in Physics. I was depressed by the end of that day, so it definitely wasn’t my favorite event. I also flipped while at PAX, but we’ll get to that later.

Convention: PAX
Going to PAX was the greatest thing that happened to me since my Japan trip. I’ve watched PA TV a few times already since It lets me relive stuff I went through those days. I miss it so much. I finally found a place where everyone from the top-down are exactly like me. I really cannot describe what it is like to have the feelings I felt while at PAX. If you are watching PA TV, skip to part 2 of the pilot. Skip to 4:50 when Freezepop is on stage. Look at the sea of lights. Those are DS Bigs, DS Lites, DSis, PSPs, cellphones, and even some crazy fucker with a MacBook Pro waving to the music like lighters in just the generation before mine. Those are my people.

New software: Chrome
Okay, so Chrome isn’t the newest software, having been released last year. Chrome has become my favorite browser. It is faster and a lot smoother than any of the other browsers out there. It was made for the internet. There aren’t many good themes out there yet. (I’m using the Vocaloid one since my next favorite is the Good Smile Company one, and they ain’t that great.) Extensions can be enabled, and I know there are a lot of good ones out there, but I haven’t really hunted for them. And if I can say this completely uncensored when I heard that Chrome was available on Mac on Dec 8th, I practically came. Anything not to use Safari and it’s horrible slowness anymore.

New web-based toy: Wolfram Alpha
This is what wikipedia would be like if it were written by geniuses instead of morons. The mass of useless facts and magic math solvers and data analysis and pure nerditude makes Alpha the funnest toy any geek would want to play with. A few minutes on Alpha can quickly turn into a Turing test or a battle of wits until you get discouraged that the entry for ‘Penny Arcade’ doesn’t mention Gabe or Tycho.

This work by Elliot James Hayter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at Legal.

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I pointed to the left. Joanna nodded, and we both started to creep down the hallway to the left. We jumped at any sound, even though most of them were just our runners squeaking or us breathing. But we had to stay on our toes. This was our only hope. It was get out of here right here right now, or die. And I really didn’t want to die. Although it terms of cool ways to die, this was pretty high up there. But I didn’t want to die yet, even if it was in a cool way.

We came to the first door. It didn’t seem to lead outside, but you never know. I tried jiggling the handle as quietly as I could. No turning. It was locked. So much for that door. We crept along until we came to another door, but this one seemed to be a darker colour and was on the left side instead of the right side of the hallway. I tried the handle. This one was unlocked.

“Do we try it?” I hissed to Joanna. She nodded, and I slowly opened the door. It opened towards us.

“Wow. That’s exciting.” I said sarcasticly to Joanna. “An empty room.”

“No time to be sarcastic. Close the door and let’s get going to the next one.” Joanna whispered. I nodded, and we backed out of the room, closing the door behind us. We creeped along until we found another door.

“We haven’t seen any windows yet. I think the window plan is officially out.” I told Joanna as I jiggled the handle of the most recent door we found. It sucked, because the window idea was a lot simpler, and easier. But I suppose when they were making this place, assuming it was always ment to be for holding prisoners, they thought about the possibilities that said prisoners would probably want to escape at some point, and they didn’t put in any windows to aid their escaping plans. That sucked for us. And it sucked for me, because it now meant that our whole getting out of here alive thing rested on my shoulders, because I was the one who would have to disable the alarm so we could get out of this place without tripping the alarm.

“I know. Looks like it’s plan B for us then.” Joanna said. “Is the door open?”

I shook my head. This one was locked too. Would we ever find a open door that actually lead to something? I really doubted I could pick a lock with only my makeshift screwdriver hoodie zipper. I really doubted I could even use that thing as a screwdriver.

“Next door then. We have to hurry.” Joanna said in a nervous whisper. “They could come at any second.”

“I am aware of that, thank you.” I snapped as I quietly ran to the next door, which was only a few feet ahead. “This one is open.” I said as I quietly turned the handle of the door.

“Well then open it!” Joanna hissed. I nodded, and opened the door with a small click.

“It looks like an office. We’re never going to get out of here. Now come on!” Joanna said once she had a quick look around the room.

“No, wait.” I said as she started to leave. I walked over to the desk against the corner in the room. “This stuff has our names on it.” I said, looking at the files. There were pictures of me, Joanna, Peter, and some other people I didn’t recognize. There was also a file for each of us, each file labled with one of our names.

“Come ON! I think I can hear someone coming!” Joanna whisper yelled to me.

“Well then get in here, we’ll hide!” I said, drawn away from the files for a moment. She nodded, and closed the door quietly. She ran over beside me, and we both ducked under the desk, although it hardly fit one of us under there.

“So are we just going to hide under here for ever?” Joanna whispered. I shook my head, banging it against my knee in the process.

“We are going to stay in here for a few minutes, and then I’ll peak out and listen to see if anyone’s out there. Hopefully they were just going from one room to another, and we’ll be able to get out of here. Even more hopefully then that, maybe you just thought you heard something or someone or maybe even heard me. And there’s no one and we shall escape and be happy.” I whispered to her.

“Let’s just hope for the best.” Joanna said. I nodded, and then we fell into silence.

“Well, one of us should probably look out now.” I said after about ten minutes.

“You said you’d do it. So go do it.” Joanna said, pushing me out from underneath the desk. I landed with a thump.

“Hello? We are supposed to be QUIET!” I hissed at Joanna. “You probably just gave our cover away.”

“Just go check the door.” Joanna hissed back.

I snuck over to the door, and turned the handle. I peaked out. No one there. I listened. No footsteps, breathing, or any other signs of life.

“It’s clear!” I called back to Joanna. She pulled herself out from underneath the desk, and we both exited the room. We looked down the hall. There were two doors side by side about ten feet ahead.

“You try the left one, I try the right.” I told Joanna as we started quietly jogging towards the doors. She nodded, and as soon as we reached them, jiggled the left door’s handle.

“It’s open.” She said before I even had a chance to put my hand on my door knob. I walked over to her, and she opened the door.

This looked promising. A hallway, with one door at the end.

“Is it just me jumping the gun, or does it look like there’s light coming in through the window in that door?” Joanna whispered excitedly to me. I nodded.

“And there’s a grey box next to it.” I said. “That must be the alarm.”

Joanna and I ran towards the door.

“Now, don’t touch the door until I disable the alarm.” I told her. I shoved the zipper into the first screw hole. It didn’t fit perfectly, but I could make it work. I started to unscrew the first screw. After a bunch of slipping, I finally got it loose enough so that I could unscrew it the rest of the way with my hand.

“One down, three to go.” I whispered to myself. I moved to the next screw, which mysteriously was shaped differently than the first one. “What the hell?” I whispered.

“What is it?” Joanna said, looking over my shoulder.

“The screws aren’t all the same. They’re different sizes. I, in effect, need four screwdrivers to unscrew them all. And I don’t even have one screwdriver.” I told her.

“Well, you only need to undo three, right? And then you could just crack the plastic or something. So just do the three easiest ones.” Joanna offered.

I nodded. The one I had gone to second looked impossible, it was tiiny. So I decided to do the other two. One of them looked similar to the first one, so not too hard. I stuck the zipper in and started to turn.

“Hurry up!” Joanna whispered.

“You try this! It’s not easy.” I snapped at her. “Now just be quiet and keep watch or something.” I heard her walk away from me.

I finally got the second screw out, and started on the third. This one was a lot bigger, and so my screwdriver zipper slipped around a lot. I eventually loosened it enough to take it out with my hands.

“This’ll be loud. So get ready to run as soon as I say so.” I warned Joanna. She nodded, and then came over to me, hand poised right over the door knob.

I pulled on the cover. It just made a quiet creaking noise. I pulled again. Same noise. I pulled for the third time, and it finally snapped with a sound so loud it sounded like gunshot coming from a gun right beside you. I quickly reached into the wires, and started disconnecting them, hoping none of them would set of the alarm. I didn’t have time to try and actually figure out what each of them did.

“NOW!” I told Joanna as soon as I thought I had removed enough wires. Her hand hit the door handle, twisted, and opened the door. No alarm. That was good. We both ran out the door. Still no alarm. This was going well.

“WE’RE…” Joanna started to yell. I clamped my hand over her mouth.

“We’re not free yet. Now RUN!” I whispered to her, pointing diagonally across the paved area. I just hoped we wouldn’t stumble upon Peter’s body, it was probably even more disgusting and decomposed now than it was when I first saw it.

Joanna took off, me right behind her. There wasn’t anyone following us yet.

And then the alarm sounded.

.