"Where are we?"
"I don't know."

The words were bitter. I didn't intend for them to be; My own anger surprised me. The others, however, didn't seem to notice. They were too busy observing their new surroundings.
Well, more like lack of surroundings – the ground and the sky were both an endless abyss of white, speckled with color of what I presumed to be other creatures. The lack of definite ground gave me a creepy feeling: like I was floating, but grounded at the same time. I shivered and drew my arms closer, looking sideways.
Wide eyes stared back.
I shrieked in surprise, backing up.

"Zelemay, don't DO that!"

My sister didn't even flinch. I looked away, angry at myself for jumping, but soon felt her hand guide my face back around. I shook it off, glaring.
"What do you want, Zelemay?!"

"Garin…" She murmured, reaching out to touch my face. She looked absolutely distraught, horrified, and amazed at the same time – as I reached up to grab her wrist, I realized why.
My hand was covered in pale skin, wrist bones poking out, with fingernails stuck on the end.
I jerked my hand back, holding it up to my face. It wouldn't hold still – I tried unsuccessfully to calm down, with even my voice wavering.
"Zelemay…" I mumbled, running a separate hand down the skinny, white one that was apparently mine. "W-where's my fur?"

I suddenly took my sister in for full effect. Where she used to have dark blue, starry fur was now suntanned skin – the mask of yellow around her eyes was now a rim of freckles below them. Her soft, grape-green irises stayed the same, as did her flame of orange hair, and even the two angel wings poking out of her back. However, there was no denying it.

She was human.

My sister's broken voice stumbled out this stranger's mouth, a terrified whisper as she reached forward and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.  "I guess…there's no anthros…here."
I swallowed harshly, drawing my knees up to my chin. No anthros – no half-human, half-animal creatures. All human here.

There was a choked whimper-slash-sob behind me. Zelemay and I both looked for the source, and found a small huddle of denim on the ground. Zelemay was up in an instant, running to comfort our little brother - I stayed where I was, slightly shell-shocked.
She lifted his head, and instantly the resemblance between them struck me. Both had orange hair and freckles, but his bloodshot blue eyes were rimmed with tears – her eyes were only backed by pain.

"It was about time, I guess…" My other sister mumbled. I glanced at her – tall, white-blonde hair, glasses. As adoptees, it was no wonder we didn't look like our other two siblings. But in this strange place, we didn't even look ourselves – not really, anyway.

I looked down; my standard outfit of red shirt, black pants stayed the same. Zelemay had on a white dress, and our other sister, Hiss, had on her patent grey one. Even our little brother wore his favorite overalls, with a 'C' sewn onto the pocket. Jokes from years and years felt faded in my head, where Zelemay would say the letter stood for 'cookie' instead of Chester.
Then again, it had been years and years, hadn't it?

"I agree with Hiss." I declared, spine chilling as the words echoed. "We haven't been written about in years."
Chester sniffed and looked up at me, words spilling from his mouth. "B-but…"
Zelemay silenced him, wrapping him in her arms and stroking his hair. "Garin and Hiss are right." She murmured, eyes beginning to glass over. All of the sudden, I felt a lump in my own throat – quickly, I swallowed it back, not allowing myself to cry. Even so, the weight on my chest refused to let up; the anxiety, the pain, the fear.

Where were we, really, and where do we go from here?

"I guess we need to go talk to somebody." Hiss suddenly commanded. She stood up determinedly, peering around. I remained seated, as did Zelemay and Chester. Our oldest sister glanced down at us disapprovingly.
"Come on. Moping around won't solve much, y'know."

After thinking about this, I realized she was right, and stood up with a sigh. Zelemay soon followed suit, five-year-old Chester piggybacking. Hiss nodded.
"Okay. Let's go talk to…her." And pointed to a yellow blob in the distance.

Our sister set out, and our little pack followed her, trudging behind. For a little while, I was afraid we weren't moving; like those nightmares, where you ran and ran but never got any closer to where you were going. After what I thought was a few hours, though, the yellow blob became bigger and bigger; until she was an object, then a creature, then a person. Her blonde hair hung in sweaty ringlets underneath a beanie, yet her basketball jersey remained completely dry. Her eyes accused us of nothing, though she seemed like the defensive type. Just sympathy.

The athlete smiled at us sadly. "You must be new here."
Zelemay didn't bother with formalities. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
"I've never seen you around here." The girl looked sideways, across the landscape. "You tend to recognize people after a while."
"Where is 'here'?" Hiss interjected, and the girl faced us again, frowning.
"I'm pretty sure you already knew….but this is where the forgotten go." She gestured around us. "Not just pushed to the back of the mind, but completely forgotten. Forgotten characters, mostly, though an idea or two flitters by now and then."

I heard Chester's breath catch, and then he was sobbing again. For some odd reason, I felt a pang of pity; I ignored it, though, and pressed the girl for answers.
"Why don't we look like we once did?"

This surprised her, and suddenly she smiled; a genuine one, something it seemed like her face didn't do often.
"You guys were anthros? Wow…you must be really advanced, then."
"What does that even mean?"
"If you were an anthro, and now you're human, that means you must've had a lot of thought put into you." She chuckled. "I mean, years' worth."

I didn't respond. Zelemay stepped in for me, though: "So, wait. There are other people here?"
"People, yes. Anything else, no."
"So what do you people do around here?"
"We sit. We talk. We help new people get used to it. Most importantly, we wait."

This time, I spoke up. "Wait for what?"

The girl pointed upward. "Even if we are forgotten, we're still here. Eventually, you'll be needed again," She explained. "and you'll find yourself being recycled."

"Recycled?!" Zelemay burst out, eyes wide as she clutched Chester tightly. I understood; the thought of being separated from Chester was more painful to her than simply being forgotten.

The athlete nodded. "Yeah…eventually. Aspects of you are used to create new characters. You'll become them. You never know when you'll be needed, though. It could be a long time…"

Out of nowhere, Chester broke away from Zelemay, screaming at the girl. I stepped backward, surprised; this wasn't like him at all. Yet, there he stood, screaming his lungs out along with whatever tears he had left.

"You don't understand!" He wailed, stomping. It echoed, but nobody turned their heads toward us. "You don't! We weren't just some characters, we were her favorites! We were special!"

Zelemay looked stricken, Chester's behavior amazing her just as much as me. The athlete, though, simply got down on one knee, eye-to-eye with Chester and completely serious.
"'Were' being the operative word, kid." She poked him in the chest. "In the end, you're just the same as the rest of us."

And with that, Chester collapsed into a mass of tears for the third time.

-*-

Turns out the girl was right. There really wasn't ever anything to do. No passing of time. No words to describe the emotionally torment we were going through. Forgotten, abandoned….nothing in the end but ideas. Even our demeanors changed, which athlete girl explained as the fact we were now just characters. We, technically, didn't have a past anymore. Nothing to mold who we were.

Hiss recycled first. One minute she was here, the next, gone. Some time later, Chester went, too; leaving me and an inconsolable Zelemay. At least she disappeared not too long after him. I was left, by myself, for too long to bear. I think I went insane at one point, but when that got dull, I became sane again. We never ate, drank, or slept. We just watched the white walls and waited.

Until, finally, one day, I felt the strangest sensation. Like my feet were there, but not at the same time. I glanced down to find they were fading, color sinking into the ground.

The feeling crept up my legs, and at first, a wave of terror hit me. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to disappear. To die. To be wiped away from existence. I tried running, but it still crept up my body; until I was too tired to do much else except collapse, splayed on the floor.

My entire bottom half was gone. I lay there, breathing heavily, until it slowly took my lungs as well. The last few seconds, I finally began to relax, feeling myself slipping away. Away to a new person. A new being.

Then, there was no more 'me' to speak of.