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Ahote frowns disapprovingly. "Very well. I was asking your discretion for the sake of everyone's safety, but I suppose I'll just have to trust in your better judgment." He sighs. "I can't keep this a secret from you in good conscience so I came to you immediately." He leads you out the back door into the night-shrouded parking lot where the two buses are parked under dual gray tarpaulins.

"What is it? I don't see anything," Tiva complains. "What's going—"

"You can come out!" Ahote calls, and you see a man-shaped shadow move behind one of the tarpaulins. "It's okay! No one's going to hurt you."

A hunched figure covered in tattered rags shuffles out from behind the bus. It carries with it a stench of wrong-ness, of blood and death. Pitch-black eyes stare out from beneath a ragged hood, each haunted orb set deep within a skull wrapped by stretched, pale skin. It hesitates. Then steps forward and opens its mouth.

"Tiva…" it rasps.

She steps back, away from the advancing figure. "No," Tiva whispers. "No no no no no no…" Her eyes flick to Ahote. "What is this? Why are you doing this to me?"

The elder's eyes never leave the wraith-like figure and he replies simply. "You had the right to know."

The creature removes its hood and it takes you several seconds before you recognize who it is that you're facing. He's been changed. Shaped in hideous ways as though torn apart and rebuilt by an architect unfamiliar with the building blocks of humanity.

Tiva steps forward on shaking legs, eyes shrink-wrapped in tears. She meets the figure halfway, their reunion backlit by the light of the moon.

"I've missed you, love," the creature rasps.

"I've missed you too, Lapu."

End