Preface

1 Over X
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/73361096.

Rating:

Mature

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

Other

Fandom:

Original Work

Additional Tags:

Horror, Halloween, ARG, brainrot, Social Media, alternates, Entities, The Distortion, Devilsdice on Letterboxd, Quentin Xavier, Alternate Universe - Tennis, References to Macbeth - Shakespeare, Yuri, Tragic Romance, Doomed Relationship, Movie: Gorehound III (2024), Movie: Smile 2 (2024), Alchemy, Mental Health Issues, High quality writing, High School, themes, The Breakers, In The Style of Bret Easton Ellis, X The Everything App

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2025-10-30 Completed: 2026-01-09 Words: 126,636 Chapters: 28/28

1 Over X

by Bavitz

Summary

There is a hole in the wall.

This is a horror story. It builds slowly, but it does pay off. Expect graphic depictions of violent and disturbing content. And please do try to keep thinking. You can never have too much information.

Chapter 1: What Crawls in the Closed Circle

PART I: NIGREDO

Three years ago, during the last days of the lockdown, we were alone at the Long Island house while Mom worked in the city overnight. Actually, she was at a client's social function. I see her now, stained by smoke, swiveling a tumbler of ice, laughing her sharp mocking laugh. I hear it: iihiihihihihiie. ihiiihihihiihiihiehiehiehiihiiihihihihihie.

Anyway. The Long Island house was always too large. Too many rooms, too quiet, too empty. Too many portraits, too much history, and none of it our family's; all too obviously not our family's. I never went into the wings. It was okay when Eric was there, but that was the whole problem. Recently, he'd grown distant. Inward. Strange.

Maybe that was why I was in the foyer that night, playing the Steinway: some ritual to entice or entrance him out of his bedroom. I assumed he was in there writing his book. It made me melancholic, because I helped him plan it, so I wanted to be part of it. Though I suppose only one can write a book.

Eventually I gave up. The piano fell silent, allowing the sprawling house to fill the void with its own sound, its ceaseless creaks and shivers, and the wind that rattled every pane:

iihiihiie. iihiihiie. iihiihiie.

Upstairs, I stopped beside his door. Light shone underneath. I considered knocking, if only to say goodnight. I felt I must have done something wrong, but couldn't fathom what. Was it only that he'd turned eighteen, become an adult, and lost interest in me? Or something worse.

I didn't knock. I went to my room, which was utterly dark. I preferred to shutter the windows, because all you saw through them was endless lawn and the tall hedge that fenced the property. To keep out invaders, Mom said, but one time the certainty seized me that something was already inside, something that had lived there much longer than us, and that really the hedges locked me in while it crawled through the hundred rooms to finally find me. This was before I knew to crush my fantasies.

Blindly, I changed into my pajamas and slid into bed.

First I faced the shuttered window, then I turned over toward the open closet door. I was still thinking about Eric. My pupils slowly dilated and the room emerged in outline: the writing desk, the shelf full of hardcovers, the framed achievement awards. Tidy, serious.

The closet told another story. Above hangers of neat-pressed outfits a nook burst with stuffed giraffes and elephants, board games, dolls in dresses, rolled-up posters, a soccer ball, an electronic dog that was supposed to speak but didn't, bags of paintbrushes and phials of paint, stacks of paperbacks about famous fives and secret sevens, six toy horses, a tube of glitter, and the art anatomy manual with the nude models hidden under a duffel bag of old coursework.

There was more out of sight; the closet extended well past the doorway.

Buried in blankets up to my chin, I must have been staring at that unseen continuation. I must have been training my eyes right there, wondering about Eric and who did what wrong, when I noticed it.

It hovered, halfway hidden, in the closet doorway. Just under the upper nook, amid my blouses and uniform tops. Everything was so dark, I couldn't tell what it was. I didn't remember anything there before. It wasn't one of my things.

I squinted. Shapes became clearer. Lines, details. I felt, suddenly, that I did not actually want to know what I saw in my closet. What that shape, exactly, was. But I could not look away. Looking away, I knew, would be fatal.

At that moment, the wind, which had not let up all night, suddenly died. All went quiet. All I heard at first was my own heartbeat, hammering.

Then, I heard the breathing.

From the dark edge of my closet, a face stared back at me.

So yes. Now, when I sleep, I make sure the closet door is closed. Although I'm three years and two states away from that night, I can't bear to see it open. I know it's irrational. I am not a perfect master of my mind, unfortunately, and no amount of logical understanding that he isn't there will stave off my capacity to create a night terror of the image. Even so, on nights like tonight I stare at the sealed white door and my mind conjures what's beyond it anyway, what seething shape awaits (I see it, see it seething, same as I hear her laughing iihiihiie). If I could lock it, maybe it'd be okay. The closet door has a keyhole, but I've never found its key.

I wish I could sleep.

I can't. Because of my roommate.

My roommate! Now that's a completely different issue. If only she snored, I'd understand. Or even if she were one of those rude types who stay up clicking and clacking their devices. I'd confront her then, I'm bold enough, I'd say: "Can you stop? I'm trying to sleep." But no. My roommate is innocently unaware of herself. She is unconscious.

In her sleep, she moans.

Yes, moans. Not laborious breathing. She moans, and at a distinctive, particularly awkward pitch. Obviously, I can't take her aside in the morning and tell her what she's doing. To even acknowledge it would reflect poorly on me.

There's only one option: Go out, clear my head, and return after my roommate quiets into a deeper strata of sleep.

I climb out of bed, pull my fall coat off the hook, and put it on over my pajamas. Slippers and phone are the only other items I take before I inch open the door and tiptoe outside.

Curfew was two hours ago, so I'm not supposed to leave the dormitory. However, as long as I don't make a racket there's little risk of being discovered. The administrators care far more about whether we leave the school than what we do inside it.

I should explain. My school, All Saints Academy, is the most elite all-girls college preparatory boarding school in the country. By "elite," I don't simply mean the quality of the education. This is a school for the wealthiest of the wealthy. My roommate, the one moaning so suggestively? She's the daughter of the newly-minted richest man alive, a Silicon Valley mogul whose artificial intelligence company sets stock records day after day. (My mother, meanwhile, is a lawyer. She helps billionaires save on taxes. It's through connections, not money, that I earned my place here.)

All this to say, there's a strictness and security at this school, but it's targeted, meant to keep the rich kids and the outside world from mingling, rather than restrain their freedom and privacy.

That's why, after I slink out the dormitory building via the back door, I'm confronted by a twelve-foot-high boundary wall of brick and mortar, topped by cast iron railings with pointed, Gothic tips. This wall encompasses the entire campus, except for the main gate in the south and two smaller emergency gates that usually remain closed. It's equipped with sensors to detect whether anything larger than a raccoon climbs over. Actually, it's possible they even watch for raccoons; I've never seen any.

It reminds me of the house in Long Island.

The night's crisp. My breath is white. I diminish into my coat as I follow the wall to the end of the building. Past the tennis court is the athletic field, doused in darkness save for lonely downturned lights that reduce the century-old buildings thronging it to grasping black spires. It's unlikely anyone on staff is out this late, but I check for the sake of thoroughness.

Nobody.

There's nobody here.

Where the athletic field meets the boundary wall, a line of immaculate topiary cedars are planted. Though their purpose is aesthetic, there is an alley between them and the wall just wide enough for someone to walk. I hurry into this alley, where I'm no longer in danger of being spotted. It's much darker here.

So dark, in fact, I can't see the ground in front of me. Only a few slats of light slice the topiaries to land upon the wall. My primary worry is stepping on something. It happened once to Ryan. She told me: a sudden loud splintering crunch underfoot. No stick or leaf, there was something liquid about it, she felt it through her sole. She walked the entire length of the passage before on the other side she turned up her shoe and saw it clinging there, mangled and dripping but still recognizable as a baby bird.

I look up from my missing feet and the figure is already eight slats of light away from me. I don't actually see it. I only see a slat briefly blocked, then another. It's moving toward me.

I freeze. I don't know why. Logically, it must be another student; I'm not the only night owl. The sixth slat is blocked. The fifth. It's just darkness, whatever it is, darkness coming at a steady pace (faster than a walk), coming to me. The closet. A residual dusting of fear, bad signals crossed in my brain. I fight it. Must crush my fantasies.

I say, "Hello."

The figure keeps coming, silent.

"Hello. Hello?"

It keeps coming.

"Hello!"

It stops. One slat of light divides us. It's a void before me.

It's cold. I'm shivering.

The figure shifts.

"Oh... hi."

My arms fall slack. I recognize that dry voice: Noël D'Addario, Class Rank 1 of the juniors (one year behind me). Her father owns the largest publishing house in the United States, so although everyone who matters thinks she's weird I have in the past found surreptitious opportunities to ask her for a letter of introduction regarding my book. But she doesn't care about books. She's a cinephile.

"Hello, D'Addario," I say. "Did you not hear me the first time?"

"Uh... no."

I mustn't let her overpower me with awkwardness. "Is the signal strong tonight?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Did you see anyone else out there?"

She thinks, perhaps deeply. "Only you."

This small talk is murder. I could ask about the boyfriend she claims to have, which is probably why she's out this late, but I already know I'll only receive tortured monosyllables.

"Okay. Have a good night, D'Addario."

I attempt to pass. The narrowness makes it awkward. There is no way to do it without us both turning sideways and squeezing. Although I cleave to the wall and signal my intention, D'Addario just stands there. I reach into the dark, miss and jab her chest, then grip her shoulder to forcibly turn her. She moves lifelessly. I accidentally push her into the topiaries, which rustle and drop fragrant cedar leaves on us. My ankle knocks against hers, I grunt, and somehow I get past, albeit while scraping my elbow on the brick wall. I mutter a "pardon me" and move on.

I get two steps before her voice stops me. "Oh... yeah."

"Do you need something, D'Addario?"

She goes quiet again. I feel her staring; I'm still shivering, it's still cold. The thought strikes me that Noël D'Addario isn't real. Or she is, in theory, but this is not her. But it is her, this is how she always acts, and the walls are high, nobody can get in. Her dry voice is the rustling cedar needles as she says:

"Happy Halloween! iihiihiihiihiihiihiie"

And runs away while I stand baffled.

I hurry down the alley to the botanical garden.

It's located in a narrow, jagged outgrowth of the school's northern corner. On a map, it looks like it must have been a late and poorly-planned addition to the otherwise symmetrical perfection of the campus, but the administrator's office contains framed schematics from 1888, and the truth is the opposite: not only was this jutting corridor-to-nowhere included from the onset, but there was a mirrored outgrowth on the opposite corner, where the front gate is now. The mirror was demolished in the 1990s to make way for the modern entrance, though not without controversy, given the original gate was designed by famed American architect Richard Morris Hunt.

The school's shape confounds me. Why this tumorous extension? Why the other? What was Hunt's plan, or the plan of the founder, Rev. Halicarnassus Brown? There's meaning here, I know it, but I can't grasp it.

Regardless, the botanical garden's unusual position makes it the popular spot for restless nights. I mentioned earlier the school is stringent about separating its students from the outside world. That extends to the flow of information. There is a campus-wide intranet restricted to a school email system and a curated list of academic resources. No social media, no YouTube, not even the news. Phones don't work, either. There's no signal. Some sort of jammer; I've heard it's the same technology used on military bases. To make or receive a call, you may do so using the landline phone in the front office. Supervised, of course.

This blackout covers the entire campus, except one small geographic aberration. Here, the botanical garden.

Only a few dusty cones of light shine from the path, so it's difficult to make out any plants except the red-leaved Osakazuki in the center, which glows translucent like an organ of flesh. I'm no fan of plants, which always twist and teem, so not seeing them is fine with me. My phone shines: October 31, 12:34. D'Addario was right; it has in fact turned Halloween. I stare at these numbers, specifically the time, four digits in sequence. Why? Why an ordered set of numbers the exact moment I look? As I stare longer, I become more confused; it's still 12:34, surely a minute has passed, it'll change at any time. It never does. Now it's definitely been a minute, maybe two. The time stays the same. 1234. What is it trying to tell me?

It turns 12:35. My phone picks up the signal.

I'm at the northernmost point of the garden, leaning against the brick wall. My thumb taps. I bring up X, the Everything App, and see:

Chapter 2: For You (The Sum of All Human Knowledge)

Strunk & White Quote of the Day @strunk__white2 · 34m

Make sure the reader knows who is speaking.

Abigail Ochs | Author of DARK MIRROR @Ochsauthor · 12h

Proud to announce my female oocyte has been fertilized by spermatozoa secreted from my loving husband's engorged male sex organ (penis). I look forward to developing this prehuman embryo within my female uterus and CHOOSING to birth it, at which point it becomes a living human.

Facts Only Reporting @faxnewss · Oct 29

BREAKING: Bystanders applaud as all-black vehicle runs over a family of pedestrians crossing the street in Palo Alto, California. [WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO]

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

This video was actually taken on August 8, 2008, in Niš, Serbia.

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 2h

It's night, but I feel the (Sun) shining. This world is beautiful - Divine. Boundless energy and Creativity flows within me. To my (True) followers, You are the WORLD.

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 1h

"AI is the process by which we dismantle the bureaucratic overclass that has oppressed us for so long."

—Luc Wintermute

Matthew Harrelson @MatthewH51380 · 8h

Trump, at rally, calls for the execution of child traffickers. So you gotta wonder: Why hasn't he pledged to declassify the Epstein files?

Tennis Watch @Tennis_WATCH · 7h

As we count down the days to the Brisbane International, help us pass the time by telling us YOUR favorite moments from the 2024 season! #TimeForTennis

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

Writer-director @ParkerJFinn understands what no other horror creator does right now: character is what makes audiences care. Smile 2's Skye is a fully-fleshed human with needs, desires, and fears. Our empathy for her deepens the experience immeasurably. [2/8]

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 1h

"Woke is a virus. It infects the mind and transforms its initiates into zombies, incapable of free thought. It should be treated like schizophrenia and split disorder."

—Luc Wintermute

T.M. LeWinter | Author of 1 OVER X @Parlez_Vue · Oct 25

Aa ~ Paris is such a mood right now ~ !!

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 25

Human will has been slaughtered on the altar of "progress." Progress toward what? Endless filth; degradation. In the city whores fornicate on the sidewalk. People walk past, blind. Am I insane for seeing? Or is the world insane?

Random Fantasy Prompts @RFPnotRPF · 5h

For 500 years, order in the empire has been maintained by the Magneons, elite warriors with the power to repel metal. But on his 14th birthday, Jayke discovers he's different. He attracts it.

Tao Lin @tao_lin · 2h

For Halloween this year, try being yourself. Alternatively, try being Hitler. Exploring the viewpoints of those you disagree with is even more important than exploring your own viewpoint.

Maria Betancourt @MariaB70079 · 1h

Earlier today, Mark Longo's pet Peanut the Squirrel was seized by the New York EPA and euthanized while his owner was forced to watch. This is America under liberal rule. I'd say your pets are next, but the Haitians will eat them first.

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

Peanut, also known as P'Nut, was euthanized by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, not the "New York EPA". It is illegal to own squirrels in New York and Longo did not have a permit. Longo also produced pornography on his OnlyFans account.

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 1h

"There MUST be justice for P'Nut the Squirrel. #pnutcoin"

—Luc Wintermute

Luc Wintermute (Parody) @Iucwintermute · 14h

"In the near future, advances in AI will consign the 'job interview' to history. All you'll need is a photo of the prospective employee alongside their CV, and our system will generate real-time, in-character footage of them fucking my exwife" - Luc Wintermute (parody)

Gareth G. Garland @TheREALGarethGG · 8h

Trump, at rally, reveals proposal to reduce inflation: mass deportation of illegal immigrants.

Raw Reels @rawreelsnews · 5h

BREAKING: Footage of an illegal immigrant (likely Honduran, though some reports say Guatemalan) knifing an elderly woman in the street of Berkeley, CA and partially cannibalizing her corpse while bystanders watch. [WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO]

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

This video was actually taken on July 17, 2017, in Mbuji-Mayi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

This Is REAL Tennis @infinite_tennis · Oct 29

HE FINALLY DID IT! Relive the moment when Novak Djokovic won the Gold Medal at the Paris Olympics!

mike hawk tuah @AMYWAOW420 · 22h

"Male Loneliness Epidemic" this, "Male Loneliness Epidemic" that. Here's an idea: all these "Lonely Males" start rawdogging each other!!! Dicks in butts style!!! Thank me later!!!

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 13h

gonna kill myself

Random Fantasy Prompts @RFPnotRPF · 18h

When the kingdom of Calphania discovered a portal to the virgin world of Parynis, the noble council was quick to begin conquest, subjugating the peaceful natives. But the court wizard has discovered a terrible truth. The portal isn't through space-- It's through time.

Prue Malheur @PrueM52307 · 8m

Samhain: the veil between dimensions thins. ☥ Beware the Scorpio Moon. ♏︎🌘︎ Expect intense passion and sensuality, but also dispute and vindictiveness. ⚤⚔ Mercury Trine Neptune produces harmonious flow between Mind and subconscious. ☿△♆☯︎ Imagination may seduce you ♡︎

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 15h

"Those against billionaires (so-called Marxist Thought) see the world as a zero-sum game. It has been shown time and again that investing in innovation improves the lives of everyone."

—Luc Wintermute

Blueberry Sorbet @cyanparfait · Oct 29

poop

Vanessa Rogers @VanessaR83102 · 8h

Trump, at really, once again refers to "my good friend Hannibal Lecter." Is anyone gonna let the Ochre Joker know that Hannibal is a fictional character?

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

Brainless cinematic abominations like Damien Leone's Terrifier or Quentin Xavier's Gorehound have sadly rendered bloodshed a genre standard, and it seems @ParkerJFinn bowed to the demands of the lowest common denominator, probably due to studio pressure. [6/8]

Abigail Ochs | Author of DARK MIRROR @Ochsauthor · 3h

Powerful review of DARK MIRROR by the New York Times: "Ochs proves the fantasy genre isn't just for men. Her potent, uncompromising voice challenges the male-dominated bastion [...] Now, rather than being saved by a dashing prince, the princess is saving herself."

All Saints Academy at Newport, RI @AllSaintsRI · 10h

All Saints Eve is almost upon us! We've decorated the school festively to celebrate. Here's a glimpse of Founder's Hall:

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 19

We're watching the birth of a race of automatons: "humans" devoid of will or soul. They see a whore fornicating in the gutter and accept it, robotically, passively. They're no longer capable of vomiting.

Random Fantasy Prompts @RFPnotRPF · Oct 29

Since she was a child, Meganny has been haunted by dreams of losing her left arm. Her parents assure her it never happened. But one night, a fairy arrives to tell her it was no dream-- And she has a debt to pay.

rawk hawk tuah @femcel_failgirl · 22h

"male loneliness epidemic" could be solved by letting every lonely man run a train on me

Scientific Free Thinkers @Q_uestionItAll · 15h

Reports are coming in that scientists have discovered a new type of microscopic entity in vaccinated people called an "Obelisk." That's right. The occult freemasonic symbol is now inside everyone who received the supposedly "safe" COVID vaccine. We're so fucked.

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

I would not be surprised if we see a director's cut that removes most, if not all, of it. I eagerly await this "definitive edition" of Smile 2, but until then, I must dock the film a few half-stars for the sake of objectivity. [7/8]

Devilsdice on Letterboxd @m__v__z · 1s

I like watching :)

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 2h

"The birth rate crisis is the single most important issue of our time."

—Luc Wintermute

Gareth G. Garland @TheREAIGarethGG · 8h

THE BANKS ARE COLLAPSING. THE YIELDS ARE SPIKING. THE PETRODOLLARS ARE DYING. THE BONDS ARE DEFAULTING. THE MONEYS ARE INFLATING. THE FAMINES ARE COMING. THE MARKETS ARE CRASHING. THE JOBS ARE RECEEDING. THE DEBTS ARE PILING UP. THE CYBERCRIMINALS ARE HACKING. THE BLACKOUTS ARE C

Noël D'Addario on Letterboxd @noelfilmreviews · 48m

@TheCinematicEye stupid fucking pussy bitch I'll find you chain you up and put a new hole between your legs with a power drill. then I'll find a rat and make it crawl inside and gnaw out through your rectum. how's that for gore bitch? definitive edition of your death. BITCH

REAL News REAL People @CorinH19990 · 1h

BREAKING: A man is confronted by his identical twin in West Hollywood, California. The two fight until one bludgeons the other to death with a rock. [WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO]

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

This video was actually taken on October 31, 2023, in Cape Town, South Africa.

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

Maybe, as directors take note of what the Smile franchise is doing, we'll see a genre-wide transformation that elevates horror out of cinema's sewers. Listen up, horror directors: THIS is what you should be studying and imitating. [4/8]

Ethan Hawke Tuah @Anapsychia · 22h

Solution to "male loneliness disease": every man sticks a gun in their mouth and pulls the trigger!

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 2h

"If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world."

—Nikola Tesla

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 21

When something disgusting enters a living system, the natural reaction is to vomit: to spew, expunge, purge it. We're seeing the birth of a race of automatons: "humans" devoid of will or soul, and worst of all without a gag reflex. They swallow disgusting things happily.

Bret Easton Ellis @BretEastonEllis · Oct 29

The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast – Season 8, Episode 40 – Listener Q+A.

song of saya @ZenoTheStoic · 13h

every celebrity in Hollywood is a p*dophile.

Sirisha V. Sharma @DontcallmeSiri · Oct 28

Pre-order my second novel, WHEN OUR LIVES ARE WASHED AWAY BY THE WAVES, at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Fascinating Places USA @coolplaces_USA · 13h

Today's fascinating place is Colma, California, where the dead outnumber the living! This town has only 1,500 residents -- but 1.5 million buried in the cemeteries that take up most of its land area!

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 14h

I can't. I can't go out knowing they're all Fake. That it's not even them. That even if I found (Someone), it wouldn't be them the next Day.

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 14h

We have (Obelisks) in us, now. They don't even deglove your Face anymore and pin it to the wall to dry into a Mask. They just flip a switch and you're no longer (You).

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 14h

We lost, Friends. It's Over. Stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

Blueberry Sorbet @cyanparfait · 22h

dicks in butts style

James @scourged_skin · 1h

There is something so, so deeply disturbing about pickleball, a microcosm of everything wrong with modernity. The shriveled court, the way the whiffle ball absorbs all shock and speed. It's tennis but stunted, safer. Soulless.

Random Fantasy Prompts @RFPnotRPF · 34m

For countless generations, children have ventured into the sacred burrows to claim one of its talking animals as their familiar once they come of age. But on a dare, Briaren sneaks in to see hers early, overhearing a conversation: 'I can't wait to get my human body!'

Bethany Martinez @BethanyM51099 · 5h

Something is happening at Fort Bragg. This can't be a coincidence.

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

These are, ultimately, quibbles; necessary evils. That the story is barely diminished by its sanguine packaging only speaks to the potency of the core filmmaking. [8/8]

Starlet Letter @bananarys · 2h

is the moral of little red riding hood dont talk to strangers or remember what grandma looks like

Real TRUTH News @realTRUTHnews · 8h

BREAKING: The video the Mainstream Media won't let you see. Illuminati free masons gather in Azusa, California to make ritual offerings of child flesh to the false god Moloch. [WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO]

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

This video was actually taken on Febuary 13, 2018 in Rio de Janero, Brasil.

Reanne @ReanneL01888 · 8h

Paradoxical undressing is so fucking stupid, like as a concept. Look around dumbass, it's snowing. You're not hot. Don't take off your clothes.

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

If there are faults to be found in Smile 2, they originate from residual shackling to the trappings of the genre. On top of traditional startles and shocks, the film leans too much on gore, which is at odds with the craftsmanship on display elsewhere. [5/8]

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 23

We have to remember how to vomit. That's the natural reaction when something disgusting enters us. But we've lost our gag reflex, like rats, and now our stomachs burst with trash, dross, semen, human feces. It's poison. We must relearn how to purge.

rat @rattalingus · 3h

found a great rat today

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 1h

"The enemy is anyone who restricts freedom of speech."

—Luc Wintermute

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

Indeed, there are times in Smile 2 when you forget you're watching a horror movie instead of a gripping character study. This is when Smile 2 is at its strongest, daring its audience to wrestle with something far scarier than any closet boogeyman: Trauma. [3/8]

Gorehound III Official Movie @gorehound3movie · 18h

Gorehound 2 had some of the gnarliest kills in horror history. As we count down to tomorrow's release of GOREHOUND III, here's YouTuber James A. Janisse presenting the Golden Chainsaw Award for Eric's facial degloving: [WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO]

glossolalia @seekingsophia · 1h

sometimes i have full conversations with dead animals as though i were talking to an angel

& i get really embarrassed when someone walks in on it

We Are Being Replace @PedostaClinton · 9h

WATCH: Unvaccinated organic pure blood Novak Djokovic plays a small imaginary violin for his haters. While other athletes collapse on court or die randomly for whatever reason – he continues to tower like a god, driving vaccine psychos mad!

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

Novak mimics playing the violin as a tribute to his daughter who has been watching his matches courtside. 6-year old Tara has been learning to play the instrument for 6 months and they agreed that this would be his celebration.

Dodecahedron @Dodecahedron · 2h

I do all my divination using a set of custom arcana I developed myself so it's of little use to me outside of historic curiosity but you already know I brought it home. I can't resist a good grimoire and the cover itself is enough for me to want it.

Blueberry Sorbet @cyanparfait · 22h

if a girl had a cock and fucked another girl would it still be gay? or no

Luc Wintermute @lucwintermute · 1h

"There is no tragedy worse than the co-opting of art for ideological purposes."

—Luc Wintermute

Jennifer Corcoran @JenniferC31013 · 13h

@TheCinematicEye you DO realize @ParkerJFinn writer and director of Smile 2 (and Smile) is a genocide denier, right?

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 27

Our forebears understood the innate beauty of the human body. Now our shapes are corrupted; distorted, elongated. We've forgotten what beauty even is. From now on, seek only beautiful art. Remember the form that was taken from us.

Random Fantasy Prompts @RFPnotRPF · 1s

There is a hole in the wall.

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

The unprecedented brilliance of Smile 2 is that it knows the horror can be symbolic of real world issues — that audiences will find realistic parallels to actual mental health struggles far more engrossing than any jumpscare. [1/X]

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 15h

just waiting to die

Star-Spangled @osaycanyouC · 3h

I look in the mirror and see bugs. I put on my clothes and look down at myself and see bugs. I wash myself in the shower and I'm bugs. When I go outside, others stare at me. They see bugs. I am bugs.

Gay Pride & Prejudice @wickewrites · Oct 29

imagine darcy taking wickham's hand. in that empty, draughty hall. naught but a few scattered bottles and bare wood floors. "george," he says, his hand tremulous; "you may be a wastrel, but i won't let you waste Your Self."

[-] @jjjjjjjjk · Jan 19, 2022

1998

7 abril

Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap @taptaptaptaptap · 1s

Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap

Gorehound Is Coming @iihiihiie · 41m

Wrote 1,234 words today! The book is progressing nicely. I had to tell my characters to calm down, though. They keep doing things that were definitely NOT in the outline. Writing is tough work!

Eyeball In The Moon @regard__me · 20h

Statistically speaking, 57% of posts on your Twitter feed are made by bots. Can you tell which?

T.M. LeWinter | Author of 1 OVER X @Parlez_Vue · Oct 18

J'adore la tour Eiffel ~ !

The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd @TheCinematicEye · 13h

TL;DR: Smile 2 is a refreshingly unique film in a cliched landscape that not only entertains, but points sagely toward a new route for horror directors to traverse. 8 out of 10. [9/8]

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 29

The world is a whore fornicating in the gutter as we walk past.

Parfait Sampler @sperryryan · Oct 15

People are afraid to strive for a better world.

NEVER KILL YOURSELF @xxxxxzxxxzzxxxz · 1s

Despite (Everything), It's Still (You), Enid.

Chapter 3: Trepanation

Something makes me look up. I blink, my eyes aching, an acid hole in my stomach. The garden is still and quiet. Even the red leaves of the Osakazuki are still, quiet. There is no laughter.

It's time to go.

But I remain where I am, against the brick wall. My hand slowly lowers under the weight of my phone. As though drawn by counterweight, my head turns. Grainy components between complex bone fragments creak, strain, and finally crack. A throb blooms just under my ear. Every part of myself feels misaligned, and the impression grips me that if I could see myself I would not recognize my shape, that it would be distorted. Elongated.

To my left is the corner of the garden, the absolute edge of the academy's northern protrusion. This corner is barren. It's only earth. Though every other inch of the garden is choked with trees and ferns and flowers, there's nothing here.

Surely it wasn't this way last time. Did the groundskeeper clear it recently? To plant something new, an ugly exotic orchid donated by an alumnus. They wouldn't let it look so unfinished for long.

These thoughts are a distraction, though. They're not really what I'm thinking about, as I stare in that direction. I'm cycling around the creeping realization, the thing I can, in this darkness, still plausibly deny, but that like the face in my closet is becoming more, and more, and more real.

There is a hole in the wall.

The hole is shaped evenly, like a mouse hole, with a rounded top and straight sides, but large. I would fit through, if I crouched and watched my head. The hole is clearly there by design. This isn't a byproduct of damage or erosion; someone has carved the hole into the brick, or the brick was fashioned from the start to create the hole. Maybe Richard Morris Hunt placed it here for reasons as mystifying as the garden's protrusion itself. But it makes no sense. I told you before, there are only three exits from the academy: the main gate and two smaller side gates. The hole contradicts that established fact. If it existed, someone would have said: Instead of three exits, there are in fact four. The hole is an exit. From the other side pale moonlight creates a subtle gradation of color, which is the only reason the hole is visible in this darkness. If I see it at night, then it must be visible during the day, which means someone other than me must know about it. As a freshman, sophomore, or junior, I would have learned about its existence.

Ergo, there cannot be a hole in the wall.

No, that reasoning is flawed. There are other explanations. For instance, I already established that the corner of the garden is recently barren. I lack memory of what grew there before. It may have been thick-clumped bushes, or a tree, or ivy on a trellis, all of which may have hidden the hole from view. It's possible too that the hole is a drainage channel, typically sealed by a grate. The groundskeeper might have left it open by accident.

Alternatively: Inaccurate perception. The hole exists as a trick of the light, a strain on my eyes, some combination thereof. Perfectly ordinary lapses. A failing of the senses, not the mind.

I can test this hypothesis. I only need to walk to the hole and stick my arm inside. Combining sight with touch doubles the sensory evidence and reduces odds of misapprehension. It's vitally important I do this. I can't go back to my room and try to sleep, thinking about the hole. I have to confirm it is real. If the hole is not real, I need to know.

So I turn. I turn my body at the same time I turn back my head, forcing myself into realignment. I linger on each internal click and scrape. I'm reluctant to check the hole, despite my need to do so. It's not because of the hole itself, shaped ominously like a mouth. I don't scare easily. I possess a logical understanding that nothing exists beyond that hole besides, maybe, a squirrel or raccoon. A skunk at most. This is no place for vagrants or grinning gorehounds who deglove young women and stick their skinned faces to the wall with four long pins. There is nothing.

There might not even be a hole.

After two steps, I think it might be true. The light and shape of the hole fail to change as I near, though perspective should make that a certainty. Dread like sickness reaches up as I think, not me, not like Eric. Then I take my third step, quicker and longer, and a change comes, a narrower snatch of moonlight reaches my view, dimensions distort, the way the laws of optics dictate. More than that, I can now hear the hole.

The hole is about two feet deep and forms a vacuum through the wall. When factoring in its barrel vaulted top, this causes air to funnel and reverberate with a sound, low and persistent, like the hum of a man twice the size of any known.

I'm reassured. Two senses accept the hole. I take the last few steps without hesitation. The hum is louder up close, so I am 99 percent confident the hole exists. Its existence provokes new questions, but not ones that call into question my mind.

Staring at the strange shape below me, though, that singular percentage of doubt festers. I'm now at an angle where it's impossible to see all the way through, and thus can't perceive the light from the other side, but I feel like the hole should be more visible this close. It's just a dark smudge. I amend my doubt to two percentage points, maybe five. It's baseless estimation, of course. Light, shadow, it's all so complex. I'm wasting time, wallowing in suspense.

There's only one thing to do.

I place one palm against the solid brick wall. I position my other arm, bent at the elbow, in front of the hole. The hum is so loud. A mouth. Gaping, devouring. I opt for a mental countdown. Ten. Nine. Eight.

Then, without warning, I ram my hand forward. I ram at a speed where if I wind up punching a brick wall I would have no choice but to register it.

I punch nothing. My hand touches nothing. I look down. My arm is inside the hole.

There is a hole in the wall.

My cheek is to the brick. My arm is plunged someplace I can't see. Fancy strikes me: a hooked claw seizing me by the wrist, a startled shriek as I wrench back, it won't let go, my body thrashes, nails crawl bloodily up my elbow, I pull back, the skin peels in ribbons, leaving a red beating heart of a thing behind, the skin coming off so simply, like cottage cheese, curds of it plop to the floor beside my neon blood.

Nothing seizes me. I wait and wait; nothing seizes me. No such thing would ever happen. My arm retracts and falls limp at my side.

Now I get new ideas. Practical ideas, real ideas. Assuming the groundskeeper doesn't seal it tomorrow, this hole is stupendously valuable social capital. There are things people would like to do outside the school that the school does not allow. And only I know the way out. I can leverage this. How? Must maximize impact. Can't simply blurt it. Need to be judicious about who I tell. Exclusive. Establish ingroup status with me as the center. Ryan, of course. She'll need me. They'll need me.

I crouch down. Maybe to get an idea of where the hole leads, maybe to check for an open grate that will be locked this time tomorrow. I don't actually know why, because before I can form the thought, I see it.

On the other side of the hole is a silhouette, watching me.

I can tell it's watching me because I see its eyes. They shine too clear for moonlight, with broad whites and hard red irises. (How are they red?) It's crouched, exactly like me. Its hands grip the hole's edges. She (it's a she) wears a dark shirt with no sleeves; her skin shines almost as much as her eyes. A crucifix glints from her neck.

Noël D'Addario said someone else was around tonight, didn't she?

"Hello," I say.

"Hello." The hole makes it sound like two people say it at once, a doubling echo. Even so, her slow, careful intonation is familiar. I search and place it.

"You're Enid Lim." It's a stupid thing to say, she obviously knows who she is, and I fail to pique the end as a question, which would suggest I asked to receive confirmation, so it winds up sounding helpless.

"I am."

Enid Lim is Class Rank 2 among the seniors, which makes her one of my chief competitors. I vaguely dislike her, but not for that reason, or any I can state. Maybe something to do with her knowing Ryan, though everyone knows Ryan (everyone loves Ryan), and besides Ryan is spending all her time with Corbett this year anyway. I don't know why.

What's bizarre is what she's wearing. Nighttime trips to the garden are furtive affairs, done in pajamas or sweatshirts. Lim is different. She's not even wearing the school uniform, it's some form-fitting black thing. Her waist is constrained by a tight belt, and there's a lace choker on her neck with the crucifix. Her hair is straight and black. She's quite handsome.

Did she actually go out? Not simply through the hole to smoke weed or masturbate, but out to some party? On Wednesday night, the night before Halloween?

"Oh!" I say suddenly. "You're trying on your costume."

Now it makes sense. Her skin is pale because she's covered in white makeup, and her eyes are red because she's wearing colored contacts.

To confirm, she grins broadly. In the expanse of her mouth, two long fangs gleam. She's a vampire. A goth/punk vampire.

"I love it," I say, socially appropriate flattery. "The crucifix is a great touch."

She keeps grinning. "Want a closer look?"

I hold the hole's edges and peer inside. It's a two foot tunnel to the other end. I would have to do it treading damp soil in my slippers, with a good chance I lose my balance and drag my knees.

"Hm," I say.

"No." Her head shakes slowly. "Don't come out. Let me in."

A shadow crosses the moon. She becomes darkness, only wolfish red eyes, and reappears just as quickly.

"Uh," I say.

"Only you and me."

My neck arches as though this will allow me to see more clearly to the other side. She's waiting. Waiting patiently, eagerly. For some reason I want her to come. Or maybe it's better to say for some reason I don't want her to come, because why shouldn't she come? She's a student. It would be rude to block her way, and I can't trust her not to talk about me tomorrow. The hole's echo intensifies.

"Only you..."

The voice that's so familiar. Whose voice, again? Who did I say was on the other side of this hole, again?

It's her, it's still her. In her costume. Waiting patiently, for me to let her in.

"Only you..."

I try to see past her. Try to see where the hole goes. Everything is dark except her.

"What's," I say.

"Only you..."

"What's," I choke on spit, cough, clear my throat, "what's on the other side?"

She keeps grinning.

"For you: The sum of all human knowledge."

And she laughs, ferocious and bitter and mocking, long fingers and black nails pressed tremblingly to her heart, stained by smoke in the city:

iihiihihihiiihhiihhiieiihiihiihihihhhiiihihiehiehiehiiiehihihihieehieehiihiihie

A pang rolls through my skull and one eye twitches shut but I hold myself steady. There's something strange but I can't pinpoint it. The way she looks. Her face, her eyes, it's so familiar, it looks, it looks like. It looks so much like Eric.

Eric can't be here. He can't. He's nowhere near here, he's under watch, he's on medication. Eric has schizophrenia. They wouldn't let him come. And it's a girl in front of me. It's a girl, it's not him. She has long hair like a girl, and a skirt like a girl, and slender shoulders like a girl, and even in the dark her blouse is so tight I can see, well, the shape of her breasts.

There are ways to change your appearance. Wigs, padding. Eric always was scrawny.

Oh, no. I realize immediately. Eric escaped. He slipped out of their grasp and came straight here. This is his disguise. They wouldn't let a man inside the academy. He's looking for me. After all this time he's still looking. He planned everything, down to the last detail, he posted those tweets to lull me into a false sense of security, to imagine him still where he belongs saying the same things he always says even as recently as 1s ago. He'll never kill himself no matter how many times he says he will, and even if he did it's a trick, a way to lure me out, to draw me to his open coffin at the funeral at which point his eyes snap open and he rises gleaming and his mouth falls to expel infinity: "You're not her! You're not her! The real her had a—" And. And.

And no. Nonsense. Absurd. Why am I thinking these things? I'm talking to Enid Lim. I know her. She's a student at All Saints Academy, just like me. Class Rank 2 of the senior class, just like me. She looks like Eric because she's Eric's younger sister. Eric Lim, Enid Lim.

I realize:

I'm Eric's younger sister. I'm Enid Lim.

My head turns back to the hole. I hadn't realized I looked away. Her laugh, which I thought I heard the entire time, isn't there anymore. Only the echoing hum. Enid Lim isn't there anymore, either.

Obviously.

Because I'm Enid Lim.

I remain staring through the hole in the wall, stupefied. Then a wretched and grotesque fear gathers inside me. I barely hold it at bay with the typical mantra: It's late. I'm tired. I need to sleep.

It's late.

I need to sleep.

Chapter 4: Daily Defense Against Disgust

I wake at 4:30, long before the bells toll, and spend thirty minutes waking until Corbett hammers the door and my roommate lurches yelping and I pat palms around my temples to rouse myself while Corbett shouts "Eggs and bacon slut," or at least my mind is certain that's what she says, and I shout back "Five minutes" and rise to darkness while my roommate becomes a thrashing knot of sheets, blankets, and the four crisscrossing power cords plugged into her phone laptop tablet and personal AI assistant. Bathroom, toothbrush, spit, into the sports bra and tank top and high-waisted bike shorts and I'm out the bathroom, out the room with my roommate still deciphering herself, and downstairs to the gym.

Corbett's there already, deadlifting something that weighs more than herself, and more importantly Ryan's there, propped on an elbow on the mat with one long toned leg angled groundward while her other long toned leg, airborne, extends and retracts in measured and controlled motions. I can't do that. I say hi to confirm my presence (Ryan is too focused to react) and run 1.62 miles in 20 minutes while they undergo a gauntlet of exercises involving weights, rubber bands, and body resistance. By the end I gasp, they shimmer. Ryan waves as they leave. Success.

Back in my room my roommate has fallen asleep despite the cord wrapped around her neck. I clap at her until she wakes up and then ensconce myself in the bathroom for a long, precise, and calculated series of rituals involving creams and moisturizers concocted out of every material Macbeth's witches ever dreamed. (Macbeth in English. I come, Graymalkin!) Only under the warm shower water do I finally feel like a living, breathing, entity. Coherent thoughts return to me. It's Halloween. I shouldn't bother too much with makeup this morning, since I have something special planned for my costume at tonight's party.

Before then, though, there's class (it's Thursday). I armor myself in the school's maroon uniform and tie the striped ribbon through my collar primly to complete my coalescence into a real shape. My roommate has finally risen but now drags her body across the wall groaning. "I'm alive," she repeats, over and over, shaking her head as if she can't believe it. I grip her by the shoulders, aim her toward the bathroom door, and set her off like a wind-up doll.

Tucked in the circular corner west of the dormitory building is the dining hall, though its ambience is more like a restaurant, with booths and rich teak textures. The menu is curated by famed Belgian chef Bram Bertholet; I have Greek yogurt with blueberries and cinnamon. Ryan doesn't come. Instead I chat with Spirit Labuschagne, Class Rank 6, local gossip of endless effervescence. She's the daughter of the son of the daughter of a Rockefeller.

"Noël like, totally doesn't have a boyfriend right?" Labuschagne tilts over the table precariously. "That's like, totally something she just tells everyone right?"

"It does seem difficult to believe," I concur. It's the perfect conversational hook, actually. I now have a natural route to a more consequential topic. "I saw her at the garden last night. Maybe she was texting him."

"Nobody here has a boyfriend. I don't. Cherry doesn't. Siobhan doesn't." (At "Siobhan," I withhold the instinct to cringe.) "It just like, totally makes no sense right?"

"Well, at the garden last night..."

"You saw her? Noël?" Labuschagne's voice drops to a whisper. "You saw her and her boyfriend?"

"It's interesting, actually. At the garden, I saw an area where the plants were cleared."

"Was she just... or was it like, like, you know. Was she like, you know, was she doing sex stuff?"

"The plants were cleared recently, actually. Have you heard anything about this?"

"I don't get it." Labuschagne falls back. "Noël isn't even hot."

"So you haven't heard anything?"

"Nobody in this school will ever fuck anyone unless they're a lesbian. Speaking of, are Siobhan and Cherry...?"

After breakfast I go to Logic & Ethics, where the lecture is on Niccolò Machiavelli. Though my conversation with Spirit Labuschagne seemed insipid, I learned what I needed. Labuschagne cannot keep a secret; if she knew about the hole in the wall, she would've spouted it at the slightest prompting. Her determined effort to ignore my remarks means she attaches zero significance to the cleared part of the garden, ergo she possesses no knowledge of the obviously significant hole. And if Labuschagne doesn't know about the hole, nobody does.

Except me.

Knowledge is power; the question is how I use it. Timing is everything. Can't wait too long, or someone else will find the hole. But I must press my advantage to maximum possible social gain. While my hand transcribes Machiavellian factoids in my Moleskine, I mentally rehearse conversations with Ryan (and Corbett, since it'd be tactically remiss not to expect her).

Logic & Ethics is in the new building, south of the dormitories, so to reach English I cross the school to go to the old building. En route I pass the quad in front of the administrative office, where the uncentered statue of Founder Halicarnassus Brown towers. The quad is decorated for Halloween, or rather All Saints Eve, except it doesn't even seem decorated for that; everything is generically autumnal, red/orange/yellow with limitless (non-carved) gourds, leaf designs, and cornucopias. There's a lot of it, whatever it is. Faceless pumpkins choke the area, almost make it impassable, every avenue is blocked by a phalanx of them. I get the feeling that from above their arrangement will take some form, but on the ground I cannot derive a pattern. What is being celebrated? Even the association of these symbols with harvest is inert to my eyes, like the uncontacted tribesmen presented with a painting of a cow. Somewhere, representation has broken down.

I sit near Ryan in English but beyond brief pleasantries before the bells toll we can't communicate. It's essay day, a full period dedicated to five paragraphs of close textual analysis on Macbeth. I take for my thesis the theme of inversions, developing from the inverted speech of the witches (fair is foul, and foul is fair) to the gendered inversion of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the latter's lack of an individualized name suggesting she is not her own body but an aspect of Macbeth himself, some feminized form, his murderous ambitions quarantined into this necessary psychological creation (and does this play not abound with psychological creations?), necessary to commit a regicide that turns the world's natural order upside-down: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red" (2.2.63-66). I conclude by explaining Macbeth's downfall as predicated on the seeming impossibilities of walking trees and man-not-born-of-woman, impossibilities that would actually be natural in a play bursting with witchcraft and hallucinations, only for these impossibilities to have cheaply mundane explanations: camouflage, caesarean section. As though, to usurp Macbeth's usurping of reality, his turning the green seas red, reality must invert the inversions, take the fantastical and make it painfully, blandly real.

In Psychobiology, I (assisted by MacKenzie Fayerweather, Class Rank 9, daughter of the chairman and CEO of American Express) pin a mouse to an operating board, cut it open, exsanguinate it, remove its head, and harvest its brain. After that is Calculus, a rudimentary lecture, but we receive our graded exams as we filter out to lunch.

At the same booth where I gossiped with Labuschagne, I now sit with a plate of ceviche. The topic of conversation is inevitable, given the preceding context.

"So," I say, taking social initiative, "what did everyone get on the calculus exam?"

Zinnia Fitzpeter, Class Rank 7, daughter of a bigshot banker, wags her fork with a shrimp impaled on it. "Ooh. Asking the big questions. What'd you get, Lim?"

I see. Nobody wants to answer first, take the wrong level of pride in their response, only to find themselves outcompeted. But I cannot back down. To maintain conversational control, I express myself with confidence.

"Ninety-six."

"Very nice, Lim," says Fitzpeter. "Me too."

This isn't what I wanted to hear. I'm Class Rank 2, so I should be getting commensurately better scores compared to Class Rank 7, even if Fitzpeter is strong in math relative to other subjects. Worse, the identical scores prompt comparison of specific incorrect answers, and I have no real explanation for my failures beyond sloppiness.

Fortunately, Fitzpeter's interest is shallow. She immediately reangles her focus across the table. "Aaand you, Corbett?"

Cherry Corbett. Class Rank 11. Daughter of an eighty-year-old oil executive and a forty-year-old tennis star. She's slouched into the booth, drawing circles through her plate with her fork, head tilted on one shoulder as her other hand coils a lock of red hair around a finger.

I'll be honest, I do not care for Cherry Corbett. Her demerits she exemplifies with her blank-faced response: "Who gives a shit, Fitz?"

"Just asking!" Fitzpeter says good-naturedly but with citrus twinge. She also does not care for Cherry Corbett, though for different reasons; they're both on the tennis team. "Lim and I told ours, so it's your turn."

Corbett realizes she lacks a socially graceful way of abstaining. In certain circumstances, she wouldn't care, but here the effort of not caring is more than the alternative, and besides, the weight of the fourth person at the table presses upon her. She scowls out the window and says: "Ninety-three."

This also isn't what I wanted to hear. Bluntly, Corbett is a jock. That she received a respectable score suggests this test was particularly easy; I shouldn't have missed a mark at all. I too shrivel under the presence of the fourth person, who I know despite her seeming disinterest is judging my ineptitude. The conversation has quickly become catastrophe.

But Fitzpeter is, inexplicably, fighting in my defense. "Liar. Liar, liar, liar. You are such a bad liar, Corbett, I can't believe it. How do you get an odd numbered score?"

"Oh! That's right," I say. "It's a fifty question test and each question is two points. It's impossible."

"They docked me half for not showing my work."

"Suuure," says Fitzpeter.

"Cry about it," says Corbett. "Fuck, do we have cabin fever already? Two months into the school year and the only thing we talk about is test scores. Isn't anyone getting laid?"

This is as good a chance as any to initiate my prepared strategy regarding the hole. "Well, Noël D'Addario—"

"Aw, can it be?" says Fitzpeter. "Miss State Singles Champ isn't so perfect after all?"

"Eat my ass," says Corbett.

"Noël D'Addario supposedly has a boyfriend." I pause, enough to allow an interruption, but none comes. Corbett is clearly desperate for a change in topic. In my mock runs I anticipated her as an obstacle, but now she's my ally. I glance to the fourth person at the table, and I believe her eye catches mine. "Actually, I saw D'Addario last night, in the botanical garden. And you won't believe what else I saw—"

"My! What is this I overhear?"

Oh no.

She's already here, we were not warned save a trace of her scent, she manifests palms but not fingers together as she leans over us, nodding to each in turn and none able to resist the magnetic pull of her eyes. Her platinum blonde hair cascades in silk curls. One hand carelessly tosses back a strand, then settles lazily to bare a wrist on which her diamond-studded Rolex glimmers. The time is 12:34.

Tick tick tock no sense of her remains from this morning, or the night prior, all vulnerability and disassociation snuffed in suffocating fragrance. She is alive. She is my roommate.

"Are we," the daughter of the richest man in the world says, "telling test scores?" Her moonstone eyes flick to Corbett. Her candied lips mouth the words: Ninety-thhhhrrrree. "Quite good, Cherry. A difficult test, and you did ace it. You must be proud of yourself!"

Corbett rolls her head back and forth against the window, mouth open, tongue lolling out, as a death rattle escapes her throat.

Undaunted, my roommate's rubbery frame arches buoyantly above the tabletop, only one dainty finger pressed to balance her body as her gaze shifts direction. A heart-shaped locket clings to her throat, baring a black keyhole. "Enid, correct me if I misheard—and do forgive me for eavesdropping—but did you and Zinnia both manage a ninety-six?"

I cringe. I cringe from her scent, from her affect, from her put-upon accent, from the gleam of her eyes as she sidles to and slips affectionate arms around me, from the knowledge of where this is going and the enkindling flame of my own failure, and from her stubborn refusal to address people by their surnames. I look to the others for aid. None is forthcoming.

"Yes," I say. "Ninety-six."

She pets my head. "Oho! So smart. That's our Enid."

My stomach churns. My roommate is, like me, Class Rank 2. We are tied to the decimal point. Any weakness on my part and it's my foot on the edge of the cliff, my ankle ready to buckle. I know what comes next.

"Nine-ty-eight," my roommate says, singsong and slow.

I can't stop my face from screwing up, but my voice comes out clear enough: "Wow. Very nice. Good job."

"Ohoho, it was nothing." She tosses back another curl of hair, or maybe the same curl creeping forward like kudzu. "I simply have a knack for calculus. Such things happen."

I'm curdling. I can't bear it. I have only one chance, a desperate gamble. My two mistakes were careless, but that was a matter of in-the-moment execution. I have to try. "Which did you get wrong," I ask.

My roommate balks briefly, but I can't tell if that's due to my question or because her eye happened upon the scattered plates of ceviche. Nobody has ever seen my roommate eat. Corbett jokes she isn't human at all, but an experimental robot set loose by her father as a field Turing test. ("She's failing.") I think she's just desperate to lose weight.

"The final question," she says. As I hoped. "That silly word problem. Water in the conical tank and such."

"Take the cone volume equation," I say, quickly. "Take the derivative of it with respect to time. To figure out the radius when height is 3 meters you have to compare it to the radius of the tank proper which has a height of 4 meters, but that's basic geometry. The only other tricky part is figuring out dr/dt, which is the derivative of r over h. Once you have that, though, it's just a matter of plugging all the numbers in and isolating dh over dt. It's actually rather simple once you realize what each part of the problem represents."

"I... see."

My gambit has paid off. The final question wasn't covered in class, but there was a problem like it in the textbook, if you bothered to do the unassigned ones (like me). I've wrested back the advantage. Now, I only need to divert her from prying into my own mistakes, and the match is mine. I can't talk about the hole, though, not now. I need something else, something to disengage my roommate entirely and make her pester another table.

I scramble for this golden topic, but then the final person at the table speaks.

"Is this all?"

Class Rank 1, daughter of a senator (D-MA), Ryan towers with perfect posture. But even so formal she seems like she's in repose, casual but not careless, and a certain warmth in her voice.

Ryan is the most popular and universally liked girl at the academy. Last year, we were roommates, and she became my best friend. I'll admit, at first I was intimidated. I was afraid we'd chafe, which might lead Ryan to speak poorly of me behind my back, and all the ostracization you can expect from that. But from the start she was easy to talk to, and we found certain overlapping interests: not only a mutual passion for scholarship (though she is somewhat more relaxed about it than me), but also interests in certain hobbies we're reluctant to share with others. For me, that interest is fantasy literature, and for her, it's anime.

She had a specific show she loved, about four high school girls who hang out and experience many humorous misadventures. The closest thing I can compare it to is a sitcom. While the show did not especially interest me, there was something infectious about her enthusiasm for it, the way she laughed at every joke, the way she delighted at the detailed animations of the girls eating food or playing instruments.

And it was something nobody else knew about. A glimpse into her private reality, and she invited me. Would I forsake it? Of course not. I laughed at the comedic beats alongside her, and in so doing, our friendship deepened.

You think Corbett knows her secret? Cherry Corbett? You think Cherry Corbett would laugh when a cartoon girl steals the strawberry from another's cake? Everyone idolizes Ryan, the apex of the academy pecking order, but she only shows them a carefully curated self. I know, despite her seeming inviolability, that there is some fleck of her frightened of revealing her true soul. But I've seen it, me, Enid Lim.

"Is this all?" she says.

My roommate rekindles her gaiety and replaces a smile. "What do you mean?"

"Is there nothing more than this?"

"Thank you," says Corbett. "There has to be some other topic. Lim, you said D'Addario got laid?"

No! Corbett will sabotage me after all. I can't possibly discuss the hole with my roommate here.

"I don't mean that, either," says Ryan. "Something of purpose. Something of value."

These words hang heavy. Ryan shines, her red hair brilliant under the dining hall's atmospheric lighting. Everyone else sinks grayly into the background. I see her, those nights huddled around her screen, and the slight sigh I detected when the anime girls caught cicadas for the eighth episode in a row.

"Knowledge has value," my roommate affirms, confidently. "What was your score, Siobhan?"

Siobhan.

Corbett stares out the window. Fitzpeter fiddles with her phone. Only I am forced into the silent magnetic field that envelops that word. Siobhan. My roommate didn't even pronounce it right. In her defense, the name isn't spoken often, but there are social cues at this school, cues she should know by now.

Somehow, superhumanly, Ryan maintains her sangfroid. Only the slight twinge of an eyelid, the brief pique of one thick red eyebrow. Her voice remains sweet:

"I don't know, Tate, what do you think?"

"Well, given you are top of our class, I can only imagine you received a perfect grade, Siobhan. Anything less, and it'd do our honorable school discredit, no?"

The fool. She thinks she's being gracious.

"Your perfume," Ryan says, still smiling, "is so tacky."

"Pardon?" says my roommate.

The bells toll.

Chapter 5: Hourglass World Flips When Time's Up

Latin goes without incident, then it's my final class of the day: Creative Writing.

All Saints Academy encourages its students to participate in culture, and so offers numerous elective courses in that vein, such as Film, Music, Theater, Dance, Philosophy, and Art. Ryan takes that last one, and I'm often tempted to switch to it, despite my lack of skill. The temptation doesn't stem solely from a desire to be with my best friend. The truth is, Creative Writing is miserable.

Our teacher, Sirisha V. Sharma, won the Man Booker Prize and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer for her "electric" (New York Times) debut novel, Don't Call Me Siri, a work of autobiographical fiction about being a second-generation immigrant in Manhattan and the prejudice she faced at Columbia University. Nobody has ever heard of her.

Then there are the other students, "other students" accomplishing the bare minimum to be plural. The first, Wicke Holtzclaw, is a sophomore, and I apologize but I can't recall her rank. (My instincts tell me she's in the third quartile.) I'm also not sure what her father does, he's rich somehow obviously, I believe in real estate. These details are murky because Holtzclaw has somehow made herself the most important thing about her. Slim and boyish, she spent her freshman year as the odds-on favorite for the Dyke Pool (an All Saints Academy tradition, now maintained by Spirit Labuschagne, in which bets are made regarding which members of the student body will be confirmed lesbian), but now Rumor wings even more frenziedly, cultivating another sensational prospect: that she will, in fact, be the academy's first Token Transgender, promising a nose-thumbing at authority that might spark all-out war between students and administration.

Meanwhile, all Wicke Holtzclaw writes is male-on-male period piece romance. I strongly suspect it's Pride & Prejudice fan fiction with the names changed. This past summer, after a bidding war, Noël D'Addario's father's company Penguin Random House gave her an $800,000 advance for her manuscript. The deal, I understand, includes rights for a Netflix adaptation.

"A draught rushed through the open doorway," she reads, "snuffing the candlelight. Dalton gripped Kenneth by the shoulders, pulling him close. Kenneth tried to speak, fumbling over his words. Dalton kissed him first, silencing him. Only in the dark could they love. If anyone saw them, they would be executed. Though the brunette was afraid, the redhead held him firm. In that firm grip was safety. Kenneth surrendered to that firmness, allowing Dalton to do what he wanted. And Dalton wanted to do a lot more than kiss."

Holtzclaw peels the page by the corner, takes a cursory glance at the page beneath, and appends: "Fade to black."

I clap politely.

The third and final member of the class, the so-called T.M. LeWinter, hooks a thumb under her chin and tilts her head toward the ceiling in thoughtful contemplation. "'Only in the dark could they love'... Quel bon mot! Is it not in the dark that we all must love, these days?"

"Uh, you may want to vary your sentence structure," says Mrs. Sharma. We're gathered in the center of an otherwise too large room, with twenty empty chairs haphazard outside our formation.

"But it's marvelous, no, that line? Isn't that the essence of writing? To strike one with emotion?"

I have no idea what T.M. LeWinter's game is. Does she actually like this or is she simply trying to be sociable?

"I didn't care for how you constantly referred to them as the 'redhead' and the 'brunette'," I say.

Holtzclaw exudes triumph. "I did it to vary my syntax."

"Uh, that wasn't exactly what I meant," says Mrs. Sharma. "Look. Writing is like... a toolbox. Each tool has a specific purpose. If you use a tool, ask yourself, why?"

"Make sure the reader knows who is speaking."

"If I may interject constructive criticism of my own," says T.M. LeWinter, "I believe some improvement could be made to the line 'In that firm grip was safety.' It's telling, rather than showing. Perhaps a different verb than 'was'?"

Holtzclaw nods and scratches a note in the margins of her page.

"Oh, and you repeat the word 'firm' too much," T.M. LeWinter adds, reaching over to tap the page three times for each offending instance.

I don't know why I'm sustaining this farce. T.M. LeWinter is not her real name. It's her pen name, or as she calls it, her nom de plume. In reality, she's my roommate.

What T.M. LeWinter writes is certainly nothing in Holtzclaw's genre. It's difficult to describe, because it doesn't have a plot per se; something she takes pride in whenever I point it out. The setting is an elite prep school, similar to All Saints Academy, and the characters are all rich girls similar to the students here, and the main character is named T.M. LeWinter. But it's not our school, and it's not us, and it's certainly not her, but rather dark mirrors, black forms submerged in a deep and placid pool. They do nothing but drugs. Hard drugs, cocaine and heroin, and also they have lots of sex (not with each other! They sneak in men through a hole in the wall), and also they get pregnant and have abortions. I'm in the story too, I suppose, T.M. LeWinter's Asian roommate Reanne (almost everyone is only a first name), and I do the same activities as everyone else, except everyone is casually racist to me.

The story is titled 1 Over X.

I have no idea what my roommate thinks it means. Whether it's a vision of the world as she wishes it was, or that she is terrified it will become, or if it is somehow the world she perceives. And then goosebumps prickle on my skin, because the logical next thought is: What if this is the world as it really is, and I'm the one failing to perceive it?

My gaze falls to my own pages, spread upon my desk, and Mrs. Sharma announces it's my turn to read.

I read. I'll spare you my amateurish prose and tedious plot. It's a chapter from a much larger novel, the same novel I always read in class. The novel Eric started. We planned it together, those long pandemic summers, alone in that house with our papers, diagrams of a world inside an hourglass. He was into the ecological science of it, the closed system by which water evaporated and ran down the smooth sides of the hourglass like waterfalls, the terraced agriculture, the mineral wealth pooling into sand-swept ruins. I cared more for the politics: the once-great nation of the bottom half reduced by the avarice of its noble houses into an extraction-based export economy that demanded increasing autocratic control over the impoverished masses, while the upper nations, facing exponential population growth, are forced into expansionist militarism. A world balanced precariously on a powder keg; let's light the fuse and watch it explode.

He loved fantasy. I suppose he still does. I tell myself I have to finish it. I have to make real this world we created together.

When I stop reading, Wicke Holtzclaw calls the main character a "Mary Sue." "Everything totally revolves around them."

Sirisha V. Sharma taps her pen against her lip. "You know... I think, yes, I think people are too reluctant to face the world."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," and she pauses, bites the back of her pen, and drums long fingernails, "I mean there is this whole real world out there, but people are happy to only engage with fictional ones. Don't you think, Miss Lim?"

"I suppose that makes sense."

"The power of art, uh, the power of art is its transformative ability to interact with the world around us. To derive meaning and understanding from lived experience. To generate catharsis from seeing our own troubles and fears reflected. It's a form of healing. But if you sequester yourself from that world, uh, erect this wall around yourself, then you create something, a closed circle let's say, this plot of isolated soil where only twisted plants grow. In this narrow frame of reference in which you constrain yourself, you make yourself susceptible to this sort of incestuous..."

"Incestuous?"

"This feedback loop, where you derange yourself into something... poorly attuned to human existence. Yes."

"I see."

It would be easy to get angry, given Mrs. Sharma is never so philosophical about Wicke Holtzclaw, but I know that's because Holtzclaw at 15 has made more money than Mrs. Sharma and her Man Booker will make in her life. I see my roommate revving up for a spirited rebuttal on my behalf (which she'll conclude with "constructive criticism" about my use of alliteration or whatever), but I can defend myself. I start to say something about how fantasy interacts with the real world via allegory (not that my story is allegory; this is simply my highest-percentage chance of winning), but the bells toll. Class is over.

As we rise, Mrs. Sharma points at me. "Next week, Enid, why don't you bring something set in the real world? Something personal. I want to see the real you."

"Certainly."

My roommate catches up with me outside of class. "Ridiculous," she says, checking over her shoulder at the open door. "Where did they even find her? What does she even know?"

"I don't think her advice was all bad." In truth, I agree with Mrs. Sharma, to an extent. This story does feel like something gnarled inside me. Or maybe that gnarled thing is Eric. "It doesn't matter. I need to write her kind of story, or she'll dock me."

My roommate tuts, then switch-flips to an immediate, mischievous smile. "In that case. I have something that'll assist you superbly."

She pulls her designer bag in front of her and rummages. It's full of electronics, cables, and something deeper down and dark. "Aha!" She thrusts a book into my hands.

It's small, about two hundred pages, paperbacked and surprisingly dogeared. It doesn't seem to come from the same world as my roommate; it's entirely incongruous with her. It smells yellow.

The cover shows a black silhouette on a white background. The silhouette is of a young man, with high cheekbones, and hair like a Hollywood bad boy. I'm immediately unsettled. His eyes and mouth have been cut out and replaced by a word each, three words to form the title:

LESS THAN

ZERO

It would be impolite to drop the book on the floor, so I don't. But in that image something awful lurks, a quaking thing waiting to force its way down my throat. "One of the most disturbing novels I've read in a long time," a tiny quote reads. "It possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality." I refuse to believe in this quote, it matches my dread too perfectly. I have to accept the possibility my mind has placed the words there.

"My favorite novel," my roommate says. "I've never seen anything so sharply real. You must read it. And tell me all your thoughts. I want to drink them right out of your mind, Enid. I'm actually so excited."

"Thank you!" I say. "I'm sure this will be a major inspiration."

"Oh, you're stellar Enid. Stellar, simply stellar. Trust me, it's worth it. Mrs. Sharma wants reality? This is reality, my dear." She taps the cover three times quickly, causing it to warp and wobble, and pitting my stomach as the silhouette creeps forward.

She intends to keep talking, and while I don't want to be rude, I feel a sweat breaking on my brow, so I clear my throat. "Yes, thank you again. I have to go now, I have to watch Ryan practice."

The excuse works better than anticipated. My roommate loses her extroverted edge. "Ah, yes. Right. I wouldn't dare keep you."

I try to tuck the book under my arm to keep from looking at it, but it's worse to feel the cover against me, as though the ink will seep through my skin and become a tattoo. I wind up holding it somewhat stiffly an inch from my hip. "Goodbye," I say.

Her hand catches me. I keep it together and stop myself from bristling. "Yes? Is there something else you need?"

"Ah. About Siobhan. At lunch—did I say something to offend her?"

I sigh. "She told you she doesn't like to be called that."

"Called what? Her name?"

"Her first name. Call her Ryan. She told you this."

"She has not!"

Surely she has, but I don't press the point. "Well, I'm telling you. Call her Ryan."

My roommate's doll-like face strains to express something akin to contemplative concern. Her heart-shaped locket twinkles. I wonder what's inside. "Very well. Thank you for letting me know, Enid. Or should I call you Lim?"

"Uh."

"I simply want you all to like me," she says.

Shortly afterward I watch Ryan from the bench beside the tennis court. She's hard at work practicing with the team. They're doing a doubles scrimmage, Ryan and Corbett on one side, Zinnia Fitzpeter and Lulu Paraiso (Class Rank 10, daughter of a telecommunications magnate) on the other. Paraiso is one half of the academy's only "out" lesbian relationship ("out" to the students, not the faculty), which is the sole interesting thing to say about her.

Her girlfriend, Tam Bell (Class Rank 4-T of the junior class, daughter of the provost of Yale), obnoxiously cheers Paraiso on. Obviously, I want Ryan to win, but it'd be attention-mongering to stand and shout and wave my arms like Bell, so I silently watch her and Corbett slide across the court, swing with manlike grunts, and launch the ball at unfathomable angles.

Ryan and Corbett always wind up on the same side during scrimmage, which I think is part of a practical joke they're playing. Or at least one Ryan is playing; Corbett's idea of a joke is scatological at best. You see, Ryan and Corbett both have red hair, exactly the same shade. Nobody commented on this during freshman or sophomore years, because they didn't hang out much, and also Ryan had long hair and Corbett short. Then last year, Ryan joined the tennis club on what I imagine was a lark (she has this tendency to take up and drop hobbies), and at an invitational in Providence somebody asked if she and Corbett were twins. I wasn't there, I heard about it secondhand, because Ryan thought it was the funniest thing of all time and brought it up constantly.

Since then, Ryan has steadily changed her look. First, she cut her hair short, then she styled it exactly like Corbett. She started hanging out with Corbett all the time, even though they have nothing in common, and during the summer put in a request for them to be roommates this year, which annoyed me because it was too late for me to match up with Fitzpeter or Labuschagne or anyone really, and I got stuck with my current roommate. For Ryan, it was worth it, because on the first day of school the new nurse asked them: "Are you two twins?" And Ryan laughed, sharp and condescending (like: Are you an idiot? iihiihiie), so great for her.

They really do look like twins, on the court in uniform (tank top and miniskirt despite the cold, visor despite the lack of sun), their bodies tall and slender but tough. If I stop paying attention, it takes time to recognize which is which.

The difference is their skill. Ryan smacks the ball; it hits the top of the net, then plinks with almost no velocity in front of Fitzpeter, who slams it past Corbett. Corbett glares at Ryan; Ryan returns a coy shrug. Presiding from a lifeguard-like seat midcourt, the coach (former French Open doubles champion Renáta Voříšková) proclaims: "Deuce."

Corbett has practiced tennis since she was old enough to hold a racket. She already cleaned house at a singles tournament in Pawtucket three weeks ago, and this weekend the team is competing in the state championship finals, which they'll probably win. Rhode Island is small, though, and its idiosyncratic fall tournaments are only a stepping stone for more prestigious regional tournaments in spring, where Corbett hopes to garner attention from professional scouts.

By contrast, Ryan started playing in February.

After the serve, they get into a rally, and Bell cheers annoyingly. My gaze droops to the book in my lap. I have it open to the first page, ostensibly to read, primarily to avoid looking at the cover. The book begins with two quotes:

"This is the game that moves as you play..." —X

"There's a feeling I get when I look to the West..." —Led Zeppelin

It's unclear what these quotes mean, or who "X" and "Led Zeppelin" are. I couldn't look up "X" if I wanted. I turn the page.

My roommate has scribbled notes all over. I say scribbled, but her handwriting is meticulous, machine-regular, and also cutesy, with hearts instead of dots. She has marked almost every line. For instance, the first line, "People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles," has an arrow pointing to the words "He doesn't mean cars!!"

"Fuck! Shitty game," Corbett shouts. I glance up; their side lost another point.

"Let's go Lulu!" Bell shouts. "One more!"

I read:

People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles. This is the first thing I hear when I come back to the city. Blair picks me up from LAX and mutters this under her breath as her car drives up the onramp. She says, "People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." Though that sentence shouldn't bother me, it stays in my mind for an uncomfortably long time. Nothing else seems to matter. Not the fact that I'm seventeen and it's October and the ride on the plane had been rough and the couple from Long Island, who were sitting across from me in first class, had gotten pretty drunk. Not the mud that had splattered the legs of my jeans, which felt kind of cold and loose, earlier that day at an airport in Providence. Not the stain on the arm of the wrinkled, damp shirt I wear, a shirt which had looked fresh and clean this morning. Not the tear on the neck of my maroon blazer, or the sound of my mother laughing at some party in New York, the ice tinkling in her tumbler, or the sum of all human knowledge pouring through the hole in my head. All of this seems irrelevant next to that one sentence. It seems easier to hear that people are afraid to merge rather than "THE FAMINES ARE COMING. THE MARKETS ARE CRASHING. THE JOBS ARE RECEEDING." Nothing else seems to matter to me but those ten words. Not the great rat I found today, or the faded smell of marijuana which still faintly permeates his room. All it comes down to is I'm a boy in the midst of a male loneliness epidemic coming home for a month and meeting someone whom I haven't seen since he came out of my closet and people are afraid to merge.

The word "boy" is circled and a line extends from it to the margins, where the word MALENESS is written in all capital letters. Blair says, "Whooo Lulu!" and Fitzpeter and Paraiso are bouncing up and down, cheering. The celebration barely starts before a scream cuts through:

"God FUCKING damn it Ryan, god FUCKING damn you!"

Corbett advances on her. She cuts the racket through air while her other hand balls into a fist. Ryan stands there, hands up like she had no choice but to do whatever she did, and this only makes her a more obvious target.

"If you just FUCKING stand where I tell you to stand, if you just FUCKING play like a real human being and not some FUCKING homunculus!"

On the other side of the net, Fitzpeter and Paraiso snicker to each other with broad smiles. This attracts Corbett's attention like a magnet; she charges the net until they flinch.

"None of you take this seriously! FUCK! We're at the state championship in TWO FUCKING DAYS and you think this shit's FUNNY! This stupid BITCH"—she jabs the racket at Ryan—"can't play for shit and has no FUCKING business being here and you all fucking HUMOR HER like she's a, a fucking, a fucking Make-A-Wish kid, Jesus Fucking Christ. We have to fucking stop this shit. She follows me everywhere, she fucking LIVES with me, I'm starting to see her smug fucking face in my DREAMS. There has to be an end!"

Corbett is the world's sorest loser. I feel bad for Ryan, even for Fitzpeter and Paraiso. I close the book and stand up. "Come on now. There's no call for this."

I have to say it, because Ryan is too polite and the others too afraid. Coach on her throne certainly won't contradict her star prospect.

"Fuck yourself Lim," Corbett says.

"I don't think I will. Calm down."

"Bro thinks she's on the team," Corbett mutters, but she's quieter now. Her skin, all their skin, is slick with sweat. They're panting.

"Okay," says Coach, who senses the fireworks have ended. "Two laps."

Corbett tosses her custom racket aside and takes off running. For a few seconds, everyone else stands silent, then Paraiso pulls a funny face, Fitzpeter giggles, and the pair run after her.

Only Ryan remains. I know Corbett's words hurt her, even if she refuses to show it. It's not like she's actually that bad, either. Worse than Corbett? Sure. But it's a matter of experience. Ryan has improved at an unprecedented rate since last year. She has talent. She has talent at everything, from schoolwork to socialization to style. It's overwhelming, sometimes, how talented she is. No wonder Corbett is angry. To see someone appear out of nowhere and so quickly get within striking distance at a skill you've honed your entire life, it's disconcerting, right? This is "your thing." You're good at tennis, the way I'm good at academics. You take pride in that quality, consider it instrumental to your sense of self. And here comes someone, who barely seems to try at all, and she's closing the distance. It makes you feel lesser.

But there's no point taking it out on her. If you deserve your accolades, what does she deserve? Right before she takes off, her feet braced to break into a jog at the heels of Paraiso and Fitzpeter, she turns to you and mouths the words: Thank you.

Chapter 6: Love Fest

All Saints Academy was originally a religious school. After World War II it became nondenominational, and in the 1990s secular. It keeps the name for branding purposes.

Like all old schools it has its traditions, but I've seen these traditions more on the prospectus than in person. Apparently, there is a feast held at midnight on October 31, All Saints Eve, on a long table in the open air angled toward Jerusalem. It's called a lovefeast. Faculty and parents are invited to dine and drink while the students, dressed in white, serve them.

This has never happened in my time. Freshman year, when I still harbored expectations and worried exactly how much of my family might show up, I asked about it. Ryan suggested with some bitterness that the lovefeast was too tied to the school's original obscure Christian sect and abandoned for inclusivity. Meanwhile, Spirit Labuschagne confidently claimed it was canceled after the staff was too libertine with the girls' "service." I figure COVID killed it, like everything else.

Now the school hosts a party, students only, in the quad. Though it's still called the All Saints Eve Festival, it's a Halloween party. Camp spooky music, snacks and fruit punch, a projector shining Coraline onto a screen. Also, everyone dresses up.

We're not "supposed" to dress up. Despite the dissolution of the lovefeast, nothing has formally replaced it. There is simply a void, as far as the school is concerned, or maybe it believes the event still proceeds as it claims it does in its brochures. Our collective desires cannot be withheld, though. Fashion is all we have left. The girls don't simply dress up, they get elaborate.

I've planned my own costume for a month. I spend hours prior to the party putting it on and applying makeup to every visible inch of skin. I examine myself in the bathroom mirror, adjust a detail, and pull back my lips to show my teeth. Perfect! Everyone will compliment me.

My roommate is also putting on her costume. Well, I call it a costume. I'm not sure she understands the concept of Halloween. She's no particular thing, creature or character or occupation. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's haute couture, probably Parisian. She wears a red beret with a black bow, a blue-and-red plaid vest, a red skirt, and black leggings. Right now she's affixing a short red cape by a brooch. Her platinum hair spills over it and her eyes shine like glass.

She's herself, or maybe T.M. LeWinter. Or maybe a doll. She still wears the locket.

She sees me. "Oh! Gorgeous. Simply stunning."

Because she continues to primp without end in sight, I leave for the party alone. The air is full of muffled music. I cross MacKenzie Fayerweather en route; she's a cat, with ears and whiskers. After she compliments me and I compliment her, she sticks out her rear and wriggles a fully articulated tail. The effect is flawless; it looks alive. I ask how. She grins and says it's a secret.

At the quad, girls are already gathered. Someone by the snack table shrieks, drawing every eye, then she and her friends (freshmen) burst into laughter and everyone loses interest.

Ryan isn't here yet, though Corbett is. Fayerweather and I wind up talking to Spirit Labuschagne, Zinnia Fitzpeter, and Blair Easton (Class Rank 8, daughter of the last notable author in America), plus some freshman named Ursula Yocum I don't know anything about. Labuschagne is Greco-Roman with toga and golden laurels, Fitzpeter is Hillary Clinton at her 2016 concession speech, and Yocum is a witch with an elaborate period outfit and huge glasses. I don't know why Yocum is here or who she thinks she's friends with, but Fayerweather and the others don't mind so I say nothing.

Fayerweather shows off her tail. Compliments abound. Yocum, who doesn't know anything, asks what Fitzpeter is supposed to be, and we all have to explain. Then she asks what I'm supposed to be and I show my fangs. I threaten to bite her and everyone laughs. I smile slyly. An excellent social interaction that leaves everyone with a positive impression. I tactically excuse myself for a drink to let them simmer in it.

Girls are dancing in the middle of the quad, mostly juniors, and while watching I almost trip over a pumpkin. The million uncarved pumpkins are still here and they're landmines. I carefully pick my way over to the snack table, grab a cup, and reach toward the ladle before I realize there's a severed head in the punch bowl.

I suppress the kneejerk urge to react. I've trained myself to do this, although I don't often get visual hallucinations. (Auditory are more common, iihiihiie.) Plus, the visual hallucinations I do get are usually things moving that are actually still, not wholesale fabrications composited onto reality. I was once in a department store, for instance, and thought every mannequin was turning toward me.

My fear devolves into anxious disappointment. I don't want to see this head in the punch bowl, not because it's macabre, but because of what it says about my mental health. Every normal moment is a moment I have hope for myself (it's over, that's the last time I'm sick); every deviation is that hope dashed on the rocks.

The eyes of the severed head peel open.

"Cut me some fucking slack, Limmy," it says. "Not even a jolt?"

My eyes narrow. The head in the punch bowl is, in fact, there. It belongs to Amy Weaver (Class Rank 12, daughter of a New York luxury hotelier), and it is not severed, though makeup makes it seem so. Her neck extends through a hole at the base of the bowl, and the rest of her is presumably concealed under the table.

Weaver is the school's resident apothecary and moonlights as its class clown. This is, all things told, a crude prank, though Weaver put effort into it: there actually is punch sloshing in the bowl, sealed by a watertight ring around her neck. The rest of the bowl is coated in a red patina that makes it seem more filled than it is.

"Limmy the Rock," Weaver says, which at first I take as a reference to one of Ryan's shows. "Nothing gets her."

"You're the first tonight who hasn't at least yelped," says a head that rustles from the pretzel bowl. It's Nadine Block (Class Rank 5, daughter of the CEO of a private equity firm), Weaver's sidekick, who is neither as funny as Weaver nor as much of a screwup. She's a beneficiary of the academy's secularization, being Jewish. "Congratulations, you win a prize."

"One night with Nadine as your sex slave," says Weaver.

"That is not the prize!"

"Collar and leash her, she loves it."

"I do not!"

"Real puppygirl hours. Femcel failgirl."

"Shut—blghghchhhh!" Block opens her mouth too wide and inhales several pretzels.

"Tempting," I say, matching their wavelength to blend in socially. "Does she know fetch?"

"Of course."

"Roll over?"

"Her fave."

"Play dead?"

"The only thing you can't make her do is shut up."

Block spits crumbs. "You are such a bitch."

"Bowowow," says Weaver. "Ruff ruff!"

"Maybe you're the one who needs a leash," I say.

"Absolutely." Block tilts her severed head conspiratorially toward me. "She's a master of projection."

On Weaver's other side, a bowl of individually-wrapped chocolates shivers. A head of black hair rises, followed by sleepy eyes. "Are we gonna be like this all night? My knees hurt..."

"It's practice for your future career as a cocksucker," says Weaver.

The third girl is the freshman Weaver and Block have roped into their clown patrol. Ana something. "This sucks ass..." A Three Musketeers is stuck to her forehead.

Their antics are amusing, but I've fulfilled my social obligation to them. I check if Ryan has arrived. Instead I see Corbett with Fayerweather and Labuschagne, so I take my leave.

As I go, Weaver clicks her tongue. "Last thing." She glances around and whispers: "Post-party we're getting baked in the botanical garden. You're free to join."

This is bad. If Weaver and her cadre go to the garden, they'll discover the hole in the wall for sure. I'd hoped the Halloween party would buy me an extra day to reveal it, but no such luck. I need to make my move now, at the party. It's my last chance.

Fitzpeter and Ursula Yocum have gone off somewhere, so it's only Labuschagne, Fayerweather, and Corbett. "What's she doing?" says Labuschagne as I enter their orbit.

She's not talking about me. They stare across the quad. Behind the projector screen, Wicke Holtzclaw, dressed as 007 (Brosnan), sips seltzer. Lulu Paraiso, dressed as the Hindu goddess Kali, chats animatedly with her.

"They're just talking," says Fayerweather.

"I wonder if Tam Bell knows about this," says Labuschagne.

In the middle of the quad, a girl I can't identify because she's dressed as the cubist painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso with a big papier-mâché mask trips over a pumpkin.

"It's not a crime to talk," says Fayerweather.

"They sure look friendly," says Labuschagne.

"Drama monger."

"I hear there's trouble in Paraisodise," Labuschagne continues. "She and Tammy Bell aren't as lovey-dovey as in halcyon September."

"It's all bullshit," Corbett says. Her dullard tone sinks like lead. "Wicke Holtzclaw is a real life queerbaiter."

"Oh? Find out firsthand?" I say, effortlessly sliding into the conversation.

"Choke on 1k cocks," says Corbett.

Everyone laughs, at Corbett's expense; I win the engagement. Corbett is dressed as a tennis player. She's wearing her uniform, with a puffy, high-collared maroon jacket over the tank top.

"Well, well. If it isn't the unregenerate Fallen."

We turn, two heads at a time, Fayerweather and Labuschagne, me and Corbett. She's truly transformed herself. An image emerging out the floodwaters of shared cultural consciousness, specter of Jacobean England: long gown so richly purple it looks black, all with gold and ermine trim (do not doubt it's real ermine), wide lace cuffs and wide lace collar ringing her throat, everywhere inlaid jewels aglitter, and on her red hair a tiara.

Not an inch of it ersatz. Every material shrieks authenticity. Despite this, she has splattered pig's blood down her chest and stained her hands with it. She is Lady Macbeth, with all her damned spots.

(And you were asking, why does Enid Lim fawn over her so much? You were, I know, I hear you, yes, well here it is, here's her splendor, Ryan at her apex, and that's worthy of admiration, isn't it? She's Class Rank 1, you know. Have you never admired anyone? Have you never seen in someone, anyone, a paragon, an exemplar, an ideal made flesh? Isn't that what we're all down here on our bellies slithering in search of? Here's your real, Mrs. Sharma. All those gems are real!)

There is a flaw, though.

Her hair is identical to Corbett's.

"Very nice, Ryan," says Fayerweather.

"You've outdone yourself," says Labuschagne.

Ryan exudes holy calm despite the very real corset compressing her abdomen. "We must make use of what few rituals remain."

Corbett looks the costume over, up and down, then turns away with a snort. I doubt she even knows who Ryan is supposed to be.

Ryan watches Fayerweather's wriggling cat tail, then inspects me with an approving nod. "The crucifix is a great touch."

"Thank you!" I smile so she can see my fangs.

Now that Ryan's here, I focus on finding an opportunity to mention the hole in the wall. First off, I need to get Spirit Labuschagne out of the picture. If she's around when I reveal it, everyone in school will know before the party ends.

"Oh, right." I indicate Labuschagne and Fayerweather, who are standing next to each other. "You have got to check out the punch bowl."

"The punch bowl?"

"Right. There's something interesting there. I won't spoil it. You really should see for yourselves."

"I could use a drink, I guess," Fayerweather says.

I've manipulated them masterfully. The pair peels away. Ideally I'd siphon off Corbett too, but I can't imagine her caring about Weaver's prank.

As I watch them leave, I see a lich glide past the statue of Halicarnassus Brown. A sexy goth/punk lich, in tight-fitting black leather belts under a sweeping cape. Her phylactery sways at each step, the shape of a crucifix. Unbelievable. She's stolen my aesthetic! I try to figure out who she is, but her face is a skull. I'm staring. If someone notices, it'll draw attention to our similarities, so I pretend to inspect Halicarnassus Brown instead.

Actually, I don't pretend. His statue is, as always, irksomely uncentered. It drives me insane. The plinth used to also include a statue of Brown's beloved German shepherd, Apollo, who according to rumor was buried beside him. Unfortunately, thanks to a whim of either sculptor or commissioner, Apollo was anatomically correct. This led to students taking certain less-than-appropriate pictures and culminated in administration having the statue neutered during my sophomore year. The work was shoddy, though, and the resulting seam looked vaginal, so the pictures continued (albeit with lessened enthusiasm). There was no recourse but to transplant Apollo to the courtyard between the dorms and the tennis court, where at least pictures would not include the school's iconic front façade. The result is that the Founder now perches precariously with an empty space beside him.

A girl stands under the statue. She wears a white sheet with big empty eyes and a broad-cut smile. She's staring at me. I don't know who she is.

I turn back to Ryan and Corbett. The two of them are looking across the quad. At first I think they're scoping out Wicke Holtzclaw and Lulu Paraiso (though Ryan probably dislikes Paraiso and definitely dislikes Holtzclaw), or worse, noticing the lich copycat, but their eyes are elsewhere.

"She's the biggest loner in the whole school," Corbett says. "She can't seriously have a boyfriend."

"Ticky clings to tacky," says Ryan.

"It's bullshit. She's making it up. Fuck it, I'll just ask her."

Corbett starts moving. Despite Ryan's disgusted and apathetic expression, she inexplicably follows. I follow too. We're heading toward Noël D'Addario.

D'Addario sits on a shin-high stone wall enclosing a flowerbed at the outskirts of the party, hunched elbows on knees. She wears a white gown and at first I think it's the ceremonial robe of the All Saints Academy lovefeast. Then I notice her scraggly black wig and realize she's the girl from The Ring. She is, as Corbett said, a loner, and currently alone. I have never heard of her having a friend; even the other juniors avoid her. I know more about her than most. Does she consider me her friend?

Her head rises and one eye peers between her lank bangs with assuredness. As though she expected us all along, or at least expected someone. Before we utter a word, she says:

"I've got it."

"Tell us about this boyfriend, D'Addario," says Corbett.

"Gorehound III on DVD." From thin air she reveals a shining disc on which is written, in black marker: GOREHOND 3 PRERELEASE COPY – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE!!

"Huh?!" says Corbett.

"In theaters tonight. Blood you won't believe. Let's watch in my room."

Eric's facial degloving.

"We can't," I say quickly. "We're busy."

D'Addario's smile curls fiendishly. "Oh...? Scaaaaaaaared?"

A shriek from across the quad; Labuschagne and Fayerweather at the table of severed heads.

"I asked about your fucking boyfriend," Corbett says.

"He got me it." D'Addario tilts the DVD back and forth to make it shimmer. "One hundred minutes of flesh-rending, bone-snapping mayhem. Watch and I'll tell you all about him. He makes movies."

It's just a video, of course. It can't affect reality.

"One of one million wounds inflicted on the culture," Ryan says. Not sharply. Calmly.

"One million wounds inflicted in the film," D'Addario sneers. "Tongues pried with pliers. Power tools in eardrums."

"Disgusting," says Ryan. "What else?"

"Razor blades across eyeballs—"

"Oh fuck me," says Corbett. "It's not like there's anything better to do. If it'll get you to talk, I'll watch the damn thing."

This sudden turn, which I should have expected from Corbett, is a hint of real danger. If Corbett wants to do something, odds are high Ryan will wind up doing it too. (She already, somehow, seems not completely disinterested.) I cannot let that happen. It's now or never.

"I know something better to do," I blurt.

"Yeah," says Corbett. "Study our fucking calculus."

I swallow; my throat is dry. Ryan is looking at me, so are Corbett and D'Addario, and the ghost by the Founder's statue.

"There is a hole in the wall."

All goes quiet. Silence swirls around us, groping, reaching, and I hold back the cold sweat building on my brow to prevent it from ruining the pale makeup that covers my face. Everything grasps and crawls and all the while Noël D'Addario, giggling, announces the fates of the unfortunate characters trapped within Gorehound III (butchered by cleavers, mutilated by scalpels, pierced by red hot pokers), the pumpkin patch flares under the beam of a smartphone, the ghost of the Founder ripples, MacKenzie Fayerweather shows her prehensile tail to my roommate finally emerging from her cocoon, (head forced into the meat packer machine! jaw caught on a rusty hook! spinning crucifixion with intestine tied to a pole!), the lich sings, the ghost watches, Lulu Paraiso sucks Wicke Holtzclaw's throat, the creature (degloved face stuck by four long pins) crawls out the closet, it's in my room now and crawling closer slowly, (dipped slowly into acid! unseamed nave to chaps! dis-em-BOWELED!), the hourglass flips, the election ticks closer, my roommate sees us and is crawling closer slowly, (slowly the face is peeled back revealing ragged red flesh and wide staring eyes, rat tube in anus mishap, pelvis ruptured on the chevalet), the head of Corbett is turning toward me, the head of Ryan is turning toward me, D'Addario keeps laughing, (Chainsaw Kill! Lawnmower Kill! Stovetop Kill! Nail Gun Kill! Vacuum Cleaner Kill! Shlurp-shlurp-shlurp the guts right out the body!), the face in the closet grows brighter, my fingers grace the piano keys, ice swiveling in a tumblr, (iihiihiie), D'Addario slowly laughing, and someone is on the other side of the hole, I see their eyes through the tunnel. They want in.

"A hole?" says Corbett.

"A hole?" says Ryan. "A hole we can fit through?"

My roommate arrives. "Bonsoir! Superlative costumes, all."

My skin is a desert's cracked soil. "A hole we can fit through."

Chapter 7: Cumaean Sibyl, No Golden Bough

The party's over. In the quad, only pumpkins and Halicarnassus Brown remain.

Behind the dormitory building, I reconvene with Ryan and Corbett. We're still in costume. The plan, as far as we were able to devise one (my roommate made it difficult to speak openly), is to sneak out through the hole and find a REAL party, one still going strong.

I'm the last to arrive. That's because I've spent the past ten minutes pulling myself together in the mirror. A sudden terror has gripped me: Does the hole actually exist? I stuck my hand in it, I heard wind whistle through it. It has to be real, right? What if I lead them there and it's a brick wall? What then? Do I say it was a prank? As I step out into the cold, in a much quieter campus, under the minimum possible moon, it takes everything to exude outward calm.

"Finally," Corbett says. "Take a fat dump?"

"No!" I say.

"Let's go already. Night's burning."

Corbett leads, though I should be leading since I'm the one who knows where the hole is. When I quicken my pace, though, the dormitory building's back door opens behind us. We turn. The door is only ajar. An eye appears in the aperture.

"So you are up to something."

It's her voice, and it's worse than if it were our teacher catching us red-handed. The door expands and my roommate shuffles out, then carefully shuts it behind her.

"I suspected as much! I swear, you're not half as clever as you think. I see those glances you give one another."

She approaches. Her smile, her tone, is cordial. I think she really believes she's saying this in good fun, a winking self-assertion of inclusivity. "Cherry," she says with a nod to Corbett. "Enid," she says to me. She pauses. "Ryan."

"If it isn't T.M. LeWinter," Ryan says. Her arms are extended operatically due to her stiff corseted costume.

"C'est moi." My roommate curtsies. "Imagine. When my book wins the Pulitzer you'll be able to say you knew me."

"If it won the Pulitzer would anyone know?" says Ryan.

How do we get her to leave? I take the initiative. "Look. I don't mean to be rude, but the three of us were planning to do something... private." (Corbett snickers, but I don't imagine my roommate or Ryan have the same filthy mind she does.) "If it's no trouble, would you forget you saw us?"

My roommate's smile remains. She looks from face to face. She looks at me last, and I see something in that look, something pleading.

"You're going to do drugs," she says. "I know that. I'm not stupid."

Ryan scoffs.

"I assure you," says my roommate, "I'm familiar enough with drugs. I have taken some drugs from time to time, myself. Father even—well, anyway. The point is, there's no need to stand on ceremony. We're all friends here."

With a tone of legitimate curiosity, as though she has discovered a new animal, Ryan asks: "Can you not read social cues?"

My roommate's pleasant face shifts like the mannequins in the department store: one degree more malevolent. Then she huffs, hissing it shrill through her teeth.

"Well! It's not as though I require your permission. Amy Weaver extended me the invitation in the first place."

Imperially she strides forward, on a collision course with Ryan who refuses to move, and only at the last second does she adjust to pass. Her red cape swishes with each haughty, trochaic step. She's behind the line of trees before Corbett can even throw up her hands and laugh.

"Why does she talk like that," she says loudly. "Does she think we're in King Arthur's fucking court?"

Ryan mutters under her breath. It sounds like, "Diminished."

They both glare at me like it's my fault.

"It's not my fault," I say.

"Where's your hole," says Corbett.

With no great relish, I lead them the exact direction my roommate went.

There's already a group in the garden. Amy Weaver's the ringleader, Nadine Block beside her under the red-leaved Osakazuki, and she shakes an orange capsule of pills near her ear while my roommate, recently arrived, yaps at her. I don't see their third, Ana something the freshman, but someone is heaving into a corner.

Noël D'Addario is here too. She carries her portable DVD player under one arm and is competing with my roommate for Weaver's attention. There's also the girl in the ghostly bedsheet from the party, who says nothing but watches.

"This is too many," Weaver says the moment Ryan, Corbett, and I appear. She still wears her punch bowl (empty now), looking dog-back-from-vet. "Too much noise." She angles a glare at my roommate, who shuts up with a hmph.

"We don't plan to stay," I explain.

"Well, whatcha buying?" Weaver taps Block and Block reveals a heart-shaped case that unclasps to display a selection of paraphernalia.

"We're only passing through."

This grabs their attention. Eyes converge on us. On me. A large audience might be a blessing in disguise. When I reveal the hole, I'll command authority. It'll cement me as a valued member of the social ecosystem. Assuming the hole is there. Oh, no. Oh no.

Only D'Addario doesn't care. "There's this scene with a chainsaw and I heard—"

"Oh, still talking about that?" says Ryan. Her tone is convivial but forced; she wants everyone to know it's forced. "It's impressive, even degenerates can get boyfriends nowadays."

For some reason, maybe the marijuana (the smell is pungent), Block laughs grossly. "Boyfriends for degenerates! Because of the—male loneliness epidemic!" At first, Weaver maintains a serious expression, but midway into muttering about noise she cracks too, and both cackle at D'Addario together. Corbett pitches in a snicker; Ryan only smiles.

"That's how you solve it," says Weaver. "Every boy gets a little freak pussy."

"Government issued," says Block. "Government issued little freak... pussy!"

D'Addario's teeth grind.

Ana something in the corner tilts her head to the sky and moans: "Oh God!"

I maintain the impression of control. "It's this way," I announce to Ryan and Corbett.

"What exactly are you three up to?" says my roommate.

"Leaving."

We snake through the botanical garden. The corner remains barren, but now Ana something squats there, palms on the wall as her head hangs and black bile refuses to spool out her lips. Under my steady expression anxiety annihilates me. I've really set myself up for it now. When we get to the corner and the black splotch I see turns out to be, to have always been, some smear, some residue, maybe the vomit stains of Ana something and everyone else Weaver sells to, and all I can do is stand there pointing, hemmed into a dead end with everyone primed to laugh (the way they laugh at D'Addario but fifty times worse), it'll be my fault. They'll see what my doll mask was designed to conceal, the crawling swarm of worms who have eaten and replaced my brain. If there were a hole, someone else would have found it, it would be what they talk about, not drugs and sex and chainsaws. There is no hole in the wall. We were only dreaming of one.

I walk, steadily, briskly, to the corner. I say "pardon me" to Ana something and slip past her. Without pause (there's no point) I reach out and touch the hole.

My hand touches nothing.

It hangs there, halfway into the wall, enveloped on all sides by an echo within a tunnel.

"Wild," says Corbett. "There's a hole in the wall."

"Don't look at me," says Ana something, who with waddling steps retreats toward the nearest bush.

"Oh? So there's a hole in the wall?" says my roommate.

Amy Weaver, still giggling, shakes her bottle of pills. "Who'da thunk?"

The ghost says nothing.

There's a foul smell. It encircles me, forces me to withhold a gag. I crouch, staring through to the murk on the other side, looking for anyone there. A hand falls on my bare shoulder. Hot as iron, liquefying my makeup.

"Go on," says Ryan. "Go through, Lim."

I realize I have no idea what's on the other side.

My hands grip the hole. The brick scrapes my palms even when I don't move them. For some reason, I would rather not go first. There are rational explanations for this trepidation. It's possible, for example, that the other side is someone's personal property. But that's not the real reason.

I force it down. I don't allow myself to use rational reasons to justify the irrational. (As if, caught trespassing on someone's lot, anyone from our school would get in trouble.) I try not to focus on the slurping, sucking vortex that funnels through the hole. Nor its constant, insectile whistle. Nor that gray void. Or the sense I had earlier, that spiraling sensation that all is coming apart, that something somewhere is crawling toward me, that it WILL find me, the question not if or how but when, and what form that thing will take when it finally creeps into the periphery of my vision.

Everyone watches me, expectant. I cannot embarrass myself and ruin my standing.

Carefully, I arch my neck, lower my head, and take a single crouched step into soft mud. My elbows brush the sides of the hole and I tuck them in to keep from getting scratched. The floor squelches under my weight. I plod forward; I'm entirely inside now, surrounded by brick. My head bumps the barrel vaulted ceiling and my boots sink deeper with each step, have difficulty rising as the mud sticks to them. I can't tell if the tunnel is narrowing or I'm being less careful, I keep striking the sides, some jutting nub cuts my shoulder and I bite down a wince.

"What's out there?" Ryan asks, eagerly.

I can't tell. It's still gray, even as I cross what I figure is the midpoint. The tunnel feels longer inside than it looks from without.

"What do you see?"

I reach, and my hands extend out the other side of the tunnel. I place my palms upon its edges, and pull. I step forward, the ceiling rises and then vanishes, my head emerges in open air. I stand. My knees wobble as they unfold, and I place my hands to steady them.

"Say it."

"It's," I say, looking around, "outside."

It's a forest. It's trees, plants (so many plants!), all dark. It's an overhanging canopy, pierced a few places by residual light from the world around it, and a shiver as some small creature skitters across. It's a trail, barely perceptible, being swallowed as it winds down to a pitch black lagoon.

There's something odd in that lagoon.

"It's outside. Outside the school. There's nobody here."

It makes no sense. The school is in a town. Not a large town, but a nice New England town, all roads and residences. It's Newport, Rhode Island. Where is this forest? Did it manifest just because it knows I hate plants, that Mom collected such strange ones after Dad died? No, that's a fantasy. Crushed.

"Fuck it," says Corbett, who pops up beside me, as though she didn't crawl into the tunnel at all but phased through the brick.

"What is it?" says my roommate, very far away.

"It's like an empty lot," says Corbett. "I can't—"

"It's what?"

"It's a fucking empty lot! There's nothing here!"

I look back through the tunnel. The faces thronging the other side seem small. Ryan brushes to the fore; everyone shirks back to give her space as her costume swells the opening. The light from that side blots black and everything around me darkens. I can barely see five feet.

An urge grips me to yell: No! Turn back! I suppress it, necessarily.

Ryan does not care how dirty her costume gets, how rumpled and scuffed the hole makes it. She's through as quickly as Corbett, and then everything that got pushed in bounces out all at once, spraying flecks of mud at me.

"Must be an empty lot," says Corbett.

"Overgrown and abandoned. Typical."

"If we walk for a bit, we'll see the town," I hear myself say. "The foliage blocks the view."

"Weaver," Corbett says into the hole. "Wanna come? You and Block?"

Strength in numbers, I think. But she says it casually. She wants their drugs.

"Nah," says Weaver. "Got sales to make." (As if she needs money. As if there's anything in it for her except the thrill of transaction, the sense of being needed. As if it isn't just roleplay, poor person roleplay.) "You sluts have fun."

"I'd kinda like to go," says Block.

"No you don't."

"I wanna see what's out there!"

"There's nothing, Nadine. It's Newport." To her, this is the punchline of a grand joke. She and Block vanish from the hole, laughing.

"It hurts," says Ana something. "It fucking hurts."

I can't move, even as Ryan and Corbett press forward into the darkness. Corbett holds up her phone, which glows rectangular, and taps with her thumb. Some social media app, not X, the Everything App, appears.

"Let's see what's what in the world."

A video plays. I lean closer to see, but then I hear rustling behind me. My roommate emerges out of the hole.

"Oh! Such a quaint little glade."

She intends to come with us after all. I need to stop her, somehow, before she becomes inextricably linked with me in the minds of the others ("Lim's" roommate). Ryan tilts back her head. In the glow of Corbett's phone, her eyes glimmer.

"Quaint? It's a den for vagrants. We'll probably find them fornicating." She scans the bushes, both revulsed and expectant.

"Psh," says my roommate. "If that's all, what's the bother?"

"You'd think that. You're from California."

Maybe I can scare her away. "The school's wall is for our protection."

"That's what you think, Enid?"

"HE THINK HE TENNIS CHAMP. HE THINK HE A STAR," says Corbett's phone.

"There are dangers outside," Lim says.

"Dangers?"

"Uh, well—"

"The wall," says my roommate, unexpectedly forceful. "The wall's purpose is not to protect us from the world."

"I'm dyingggggggggggggggg," says a distant voice.

"The wall's purpose is to confine us."

"A SUPER STAR."

"To seal us in a box."

"It hurttttsssssssssssss."

"To prevent us from causing embarrassment to our fathers."

"You're wrong."

"Do you understand, Enid?"

"You're wrong!"

It's not Lim, uh, it's not me saying that, the voice is tiny and from someplace else, I look around and my roommate, eyes locked with me, breaks her gaze sheepishly to look too.

Corbett cackles.

In the hole is Noël D'Addario. She's crouched inside but isn't coming out. Her dark eyes and hair disappear in shadow.

"You're wrong," she says.

"There's something out there," she says.

"A killer," she says.

"Didn't you hear? It's all over the news," she says.

"Oh God save me please oh God"

"A killer in Newport."

"AND HERE'S DJOKOVIC!"

"A killer in your dreams," says Ryan. "Degenerate."

"I can't—I can't—ngkkhhccchhhchhkkkghh-hh-hh-hhhh-h-h-h-h-h...!"

"Eight corpses so far, the cops haven't got a clue."

"A REAL SUPER STAR!"

"h-hh-h-h-hhh-h"

"Only kills pretty young women."

"WOW! DJOKOVIC!"

"Pretty rich women."

"h-h-hh-hi-hi-hi"

"Sledgehammer—pow!—to the head."

"DJOKOVIC!!!"

"Strips their clothes and annihilates the head."

"hh-hi-hhi-hih-hiih"

"Bloody pulp, that's all that's left of their pretty faces."

"CAN HE DO IT AGAIN?!?!"

"Bone and brains sprayed everywhere..."

"ihi-hi-hihhi-hihihi-hiih"

"And he only kills stuck up rich bitches like you!"

"Will you turn that waste off?" Ryan says to Corbett.

"Eh?"

"HE DID IT AGAIN!"

"Not all of you will come back." And D'Addario melds back into the hole.

When she's gone, my roommate looks at me, and I look at her, and I look at Ryan, and Ryan looks at me, and Corbett looks at Ryan, and my roommate looks at Ryan too.

We burst out laughing.

"iih-hii-hii-hihiihiii-hihiihiehiie-hihiihihhihiihiiehiiiihiihiihiie"

Chapter 8: Who Is Speaking

PART II: ALBEDO

A spell breaks. We are a group now: Ryan and Corbett and Lim and, yes, even Tate Wintermute. Whatever kept her apart (her demeanor? accent? francophonery? unathletic disposition? her hair like silk, eyes like moonstones, skin like latex? the name of her father, his clownishness on social media, the company he keeps, the creations of his artificial minds, their strange and slightly uncanny forms, uncanny because every passing second they become less uncanny, increasingly indistinguishable from you or me? her Californian coast? the Eiffel Tower poster hung up in our room? or simply her gaffes, the unwritten rules she does not follow, the fact that though she is richest among us she is the most newly rich? or the sounds she makes while she sleeps?) is broken. D'Addario's dire prophecy enshrouds us. We are bound in mirth. Partial in the residual light from the hole, we laugh as the leaves shiver. We laugh, and laugh, and Corbett can hardly stand, she sways into a shrub, and we laugh at that too, and Wintermute grips my wrist and squeezes kindly, and Ryan finally says:

"I know a place to go."

She leads us into the dark. We fall in line, Corbett still swaying like a drunk, as our steps decline toward a broad and black lagoon. There is something there, in the middle of the water. There is no sign of the city.

"So," Corbett says, sidewinding between Lim and Wintermute, perching her chin on Wintermute's shoulder, "what exactly are you."

"Why, a human being!"

Corbett still has her phone out; its screen guides us. "No no, I mean. Your costume."

"As if yours is so high effort," I say with a snort.

"I'm a tennis player. I'm recognizable. What are you?"

"She's T.M. LeWinter."

Wintermute smiles, confused. "I'm Little Red Riding Hood."

Corbett and I share a glance. We say in perfect unison: "Where's the hood!"

Wintermute shimmies her shoulders and causes her red cape to twirl.

"That's not a hood!"

"It's not?"

"Okay new question. What's in the locket?"

Wintermute smiles coyly. "Oho~ My heart, of course."

We laugh.

"Awaiting someone to come with its key."

"A cock is a kind of key," Corbett says.

Ryan stops at the edge of the lagoon. We stop too, watch her watch the surface, on which a moon's sliver reflects. For a moment there's stillness, then Corbett glances at her phone. "Djokovic is so fucking hot."

"Someone wealthy once owned this land."

There is a small earthen bridge, only a difference of texture in the dark, that extends from where Ryan stands, cuts the waters in two, and continues to a small island in the center of the lagoon. Actually, it's unclear if this is a lagoon at all, or only a temporarily flooded depression; it rained recently, and will rain this weekend, or maybe tomorrow. (Is it already tomorrow? No. The time on Corbett's phone reads—1111.)

On the island rises the odd thing I noticed earlier: a stone tower, like a castle's, topped by a crenellated parapet.

"They wanted to build a grand home," Ryan says. "Extravagant and imposing. They kept horses—there you see the stable." Rotten, half-sunken, caved and bending. "But the money vanished, seeped between their fingers. Now this place remains, an unclaimed parcel of Newport."

"I would let Novak Djokovic do nasty, nasty things to my body."

"Maybe the school owns this land," I say. "They just never developed it due to the school's special shape."

"The square and compass," Ryan says judiciously.

"Who gives a shit," says Corbett. "Hit me with your celebrity crushes. Asap."

Ryan steps onto the narrow bridge. Though it's precarious, she maintains her balance. Her skirts conceal the land beneath her so she looks like she stands on the water. Or rather the perfect black of her clothes makes her look like part of the water's perfect black, a creature of ink.

"Are you sure that's safe?" I say, or Wintermute says. In exchange for our acceptance, the boldness she showed when she decided to follow us has evaporated. She plays the part we expect.

Ryan crosses to the island. Wintermute steps across next, testing each step before taking it, and leaping the remainder once she passes halfway.

"Who do you pick Lim," says Corbett. "Which celebrity would you fuck the most?"

"Bret Easton Ellis."

"Who?!"

"Uh," I say, "I'm not sure."

"In this country," Ryan says to the tower, "it's all decay."

The tower's surface, at least the lower part, is covered in graffiti. Years of accumulated color, swirls, spirals, symbols, glyphs.

"Here's a question," says Lim, halfway across the bridge. "In a horror movie, which of you dies first?"

"Her," Corbett says, pointing at Wintermute. "Her," Ryan says, pointing at Wintermute. "Her," I say, pointing at Wintermute. "No!" Wintermute says, "I would not!" She stands beneath a spray-painted image of the false god, Moloch, and the words CHEEZE PIZZA.

Everyone laughs, including Wintermute, who is well aware she would in fact die first. Not that any of us have seen enough horror films to speak authoritatively. It's a vibe. Thanks to D'Addario, there's something innately funny about the concept of a "horror movie." The laughter stops, until Corbett laughs again, at nothing.

"Okay, your turn. Who would you fuck the most?"

"Me?"

"There's a way inside."

"Yes you. Who dream-dicks you every night? We hear you through the wall, spill it."

"Hear me?"

"Loud and clear, T.M. LeWinter. Like so: Aaah, ahnh, ogod, ahh-hh ~"

My roommate turns away shyly.

"So either you're dreaming, or Lim gives it to you good." Corbett pirouettes along the shore of the tower's island. "If Lim's secretly packing a seven-foot shlong we gotta know. We gotta get on that action."

Corbett is agile, and her movements erratic, so I hardly react before her latest skip lands her right behind me. She reaches between my legs and clutches her fingers. "Eep!" I say. Exactly like that, eep.

Now I'm red. As Corbett dances off exultant I grip my elbows. No! I can't show shame. She'll seem superior. I muster resolve.

"As if you could take me."

Flawless. The words have the exact right intonation: sly but not perverse, playful but not lascivious. With that response Lim draws a distinction between herself and the wilting Wintermute, stands tall and holds her ground. I try to gauge Ryan's reaction, but she's rounding the tower, examining each streak of crass iconography. An enormous phallus, larger than a person, dangles over her head like the sword of Damocles, head-sized droplets splurting out in a rotated ellipsis. She turns to me and her head eclipses one. "It wasn't always like this."

Somehow I understand she disapproves. I look down at my feet.

"Wintermute wants to fuck her dad."

I wheel on Corbett to tell her to shut up but she's not there, and it wasn't her that spoke. Nobody says a word until Corbett, from the opposite side of the tower, shouts: "Holy shit! Check this out."

We follow the tower's curve, see the figure emerge along it like an animation: a thing on stilts or pins with a canine's skull for a head. IT BECOMES REAL, a scrawl in the void certifies.

Corbett isn't looking at that. She points at an empty black doorway. A way inside the tower.

"Let's check it out."

"Ugh!" says Wintermute. "You cannot be serious. I see cobwebs! It must be a den of bugs."

"Millions of them. Hundreds of millions. They each bite once and fly away together, leaving no trace of you remaining."

"Don't say things like that!"

"Maybe the Rich Bitch Slasher is inside," says Corbett. "Waiting with his sledgehammer."

Without another word, she blacks out her phone and strides through the doorway into the dark.

After her first footstep, a crunch of dried leaf, she goes utterly silent. Gone. Ryan, Wintermute, and Lim watch inside, waiting for her to say anything, but it's like the tower swallowed her whole.

It's obvious what Corbett is planning. She'll wait like this, until one of us (Wintermute) calls her name, then she'll keep quiet, crouched in a corner, as Wintermute gets skittish, says it's not funny, cut it out, playing on an unfounded belief Corbett in any way respects her appeals, or rather founded on a belief that people respect her in general. Corbett won't obey, not for all Wintermute's father's money (money split, as told on Wikipedia, between eleven siblings across seven ex-wives). Eventually, frustrated, Wintermute will give in and step inside, probably even expecting it, believing herself immune by expecting it, and Corbett will leap up, yell BOO in her face, and make her wet herself.

Remarkably, Wintermute doesn't take the bait. She crosses her arms and tilts her head toward Ryan. "How do you put up with these antics?"

Ryan's calm demeanor fidgets; she is surprised Wintermute has addressed her so directly. "I—these—"

"Her secret dream. All she craves is for her and three friends to play together."

Ryan glares. "She's an exemplar of will."

Corbett leaps out, yells BOO in Wintermute's face, and makes her, well, not wet herself, but at least scream. Everyone laughs. Everyone is laughing tonight. Actually, I'm not sure Ryan has laughed once.

"This thing's cool," Corbett says. "Come look."

We enter the tower. There doesn't, at first, appear to be anything inside at all, even when Corbett turns her phone back on. There was once a staircase, with rounded grooves ascending in a spiral, but if it was wood it has rotted away and if it was metal it was stripped. The tapering cylindrical interior hums like the hole in the wall. There's an opening on the ceiling that stares at the moon's eyeball.

Staring, I take a step and my foot touches nothing. A strangled cry escapes me as I pitch forward, but before I can plummet into what I realize is a gaping pit Corbett's hand shoots out and catches me.

"Thank you," I mutter.

"Oh." Wintermute's phone shines on an overturned cart, a ratty blanket, and piles of trash.

"Even here," Ryan says.

Releasing me safely, Corbett turns her light into the pit. There are stone stairs leading down. Leading down deep. I imagine my face striking an edge, my teeth shattering, my nose plunging backward into my brain.

"It smells," says Wintermute. There is, indeed, a faint stench emanating from the cart.

"You're used to this," Ryan says. "Where you're from. But now it's here."

"There's a problem with the housing market. The Department of Justice is investigating landlords for colluding to inflate prices."

Corbett descends the stairs.

Ryan stands there, darkening, arms rigid. There's a vicious glint in her eyes, and it frankly unnerves me. I worry I've said something stupid (what do I know about the housing market? Did I even say it?). The casual atmosphere has lowered my guard. If I'm not careful I'll ruin my standing. And I discovered the hole, too; it's as though they don't even associate the discovery with me. I blame Weaver and the others. Their presence made everything diluted, communal.

(Or what if I didn't discover the hole at all? What if they knew all along, and only humored me, or no not humored, they laughed, a joke at my expense!)

"There's also the drug epidemic," I babble, trying to salvage the situation. "Too many addicts."

Remarkably, Ryan softens. I exhale, and even smile, as she says: "The desolation of modernity."

"Like pickleball."

"Oh, I love pickleball," says Wintermute.

"Pickleball is a microcosm for everything wrong with modernity. Tennis but stunted. Safer. The shriveled court."

Ryan looks at me; I can tell she approves. Wintermute doesn't get it.

We descend the stairs. Ryan leads, I follow, with Wintermute and Lim at the rear. The staircase crisscrosses a deep shaft to the bottom. There's light down there, orange upon polygonal tiles.

"It starts with the culture," Ryan says. "We've been tricked into praising ugly things. The wretched, the rotten, and the hollow are gloried. That's the sickness at the heart of it. When that's what we hold most high, how is it any surprise we became it? I just don't understand how it happened, or why. An accident, societal laziness? Beauty is difficult and requires effort, but ugliness is easy. So as we got lazier, we got uglier, in our art, our environments, our souls? Or was it conspiracy, promoted by the wretched themselves, those who hated beauty because they lacked it, and clawed enough power to stuff us with their ugliness until we lost the ability to vomit it up?"

After descending forty-eight steps, we reach the bottom. We're at a junction. Two tunnels extend away from us, each lighted by evenly-spaced bulbs armored in form-fitting cages. Both tunnels seem to extend infinitely.

One tunnel has a plaque that reads HAZARD B. The other has a plaque that reads THE BREAKERS.

"Where are we?" Wintermute says.

"What do you mean by ugliness, Ryan?" I ask, in a tone that indicates attentiveness in a conversation and doesn't interject a non sequitur. "Is homelessness something our culture glorifies?"

Ryan scans the plaques. She glides her fingertips over the words THE BREAKERS.

That's the tunnel she leads us down.

"Homelessness is the endgame. It's a gradual process. Erosion, so each individual transgression goes unnoticed. Like D'Addario's movies. Or Labuschagne's gossip. People a century ago weren't so depraved. They were taught to be that way. Poisoned in the mind. Brainrotted."

"Is that so?" Wintermute snaps her focus from the walls back to the conversation, one eyebrow creased, her voice more adversarial than I expect from an approval-seeker like herself; boldness, as before. It takes only a moment to realize why.

"Your book's like this. Your stories of sex and drugs. That novel you loaned me."

"My book," LeWinter says, "depicts the world as it really is. That's art: a mirror. Forcing us to face ourselves."

"No!" Ryan spins on us, walking backward down the corridor, her bloodstained hands splayed as far as Lady Macbeth's dress allows. "That's the trap!" Pipes line the walls, pipes and at sparse intervals plaques that say, again and again: THE BREAKERS. THE BREAKERS. THE BREAKERS.

"That's the trap. Paint an ugly picture and say: Look! It's you! You're ugly! You've always been ugly! You fornicate, you murder, your eyes are offset, your face misshapen, your nose protruding, your skin sallow. That's you, you fat bloated thing, and seeing this false mirror you start to believe it. You alter yourself to match it! Aesthetic becomes reality!"

"It's about truth. In the end, nothing is uglier than a lie."

"How would you know what truth is?"

"I'm alive! I have senses! I perceive the world around me, empirically. Would you know truth any different?"

"I don't care what's true!" Lady Macbeth says. "I care what's beautiful. Virtue, will, glory, power, God." Though when I roomed with her, I never saw a Bible.

Little Red Riding Hoodless shakes her head. "This is rather not the philosophy I expected from an educated woman. What you're asking for is, it's willful ignorance."

"Beauty is all I seek." Calmer, so that her voice no longer echoes. Her bloodstained hands sink. "Nothing malformed, nothing disgusting."

"You should not have come here."

I've remained quiet so far because I would prefer not to have my own writing dragged into the discussion. But something twinges the back of my mind. I squint and look around. We're now so deep down the tunnel I can't see where we came from behind us, and I can't see where we're going ahead. That's not what's strange, though. I count heads. One, two, three. Four. Okay, that's correct.

"Really though," Wintermute says, "where are we going?"

"A place to prove what I mean."

The corridor stretches. The same lights, the same pipes, the rest brick. The ceiling is barrel vaulted, like the hole in the wall. By now we must have traveled a significant distance under Newport. Houses, roads over our heads. Or is there a Newport at all? Only Ryan's confidence keeps me from devolving into confusion. She walks with certainty, looking at each progressive plaque (THE BREAKERS!) and nodding as if it says exactly what she expects, which it should, because it always says the same thing.

I hear footsteps behind us. I look; nobody is there. Only an echo.

We go deeper.

Then, all at once, an iron door appears before us. Until we were close enough to see the rivets it looked like a perspectival trick, a void through which everything would always continue. No. It's a solid barrier, one I suspect will force us back the way we came, with nothing to show for it.

Ryan reaches out, presses a palm to the door, and pushes. The door swings inward, creaking.

"Please tell us we've reached wherever the fuck we're going," says Corbett.

We enter a broad, empty room. It's all brick and shadow and metal, like a torture chamber. Rusty hook in jaw kill. Pelvis ruptured on the chevalet. Two massive boilers sit side by side, under three holes in the ceiling that penetrate to the surface and leave pale squares upon the floor. We fan out in a sort of trance. The place hums. The whole world hums.

"Those who built their summer cottages here believed in the bleeding edge. After the previous iteration burned down in 1892, all possible precautions were taken to save its successor from the same fate. These industrial-strength boilers were ingeniously installed underground and at great remove from the structure itself, with steel doors in the tunnels to be sealed should fire break out..."

I stop and peer into the space between the two boilers, where shadow swarms. A face peers back at me, the face of a shaggy black dog or wolf with a hideous snarl and blood-drenched fangs. The face does not move or make a sound.

"These tunnels connected the Newport mansions. Servants, who often worked at multiple houses, traveled through them without anyone aboveground needing to know they existed..."

It's him. It can only be him. The shape of the face fades into view in this black crevice. I see the human body beneath the canine head, arms with five splayed fingers pressed against the brick, the legs and back arched. It's him: the Gorehound.

"Coal was shoveled down those chutes."

He's the one who slashes, the phantom waiting where you tell the character not to go. Chainsaw kill. Machete kill. Butcher knife kill. D'Addario was right all along, she'd already seen the movie on bootleg, she knew exactly what frame his horrible visage first emerged, and in which order we were devoured.

"Lim?"

He sits there, motionless, the Gorehound.

"Lim!"

My gaze breaks. I glance to the end of the room, at Ryan and Corbett and Wintermute.

"Hurry up dumbass," Corbett says.

My glance returns to the Gorehound. He lifts a finger to his frozen lips: shh.

He's not there.

That's right. Gorehound is a horror movie. It's fiction. And, in fact, I haven't seen it, either the new one or its two previous installments. I do not know what the Gorehound looks like, if there is even a "Gorehound" at all, some monstrous wolfman who slaughters the squealing teens. I don't know the barest snatch of plot, if it has one. I simply assumed a film called Gorehound must be about some such creature, and out of these shadows, aided by an odd mound of coal or half-distinguished pipe, I have conjured it.

The Eric always in my blood laughs: iihiihiie

"Yes, sorry." I turn toward Ryan and the others with one sharp shift of my heel. I allow no discomposure to show; I've already aroused suspicion. I need a good excuse. Quick! "I thought I saw an interesting historical artifact." Perfect.

"It's an old place," says Ryan, affirming my words, affirming my existence. "There aren't many old places in America. That's the problem."

She leads us into another tunnel. On the walls at intervals are large sepia-toned photographs. In them a house is slowly built.

"There's no legacy. No continuity. If you have no conception of where you came from, of the glory you'll inherit, then why wouldn't you wallow? In drugs, sex, vanity, violence, the internet—the here and now, the eternal present, where nothing connects, nothing applies, nothing comes of nothing."

"Oh, are we still talking about this?" Wintermute says. "These things you call legacy, what are they really? The past is dead and buried. And anyway, what survives isn't what it was truly like. It's propaganda."

"Who was your great-great-great-grandfather," Ryan asks Wintermute.

"How should I know? Why should I care!"

"Mine was Matthew Calbraith Perry. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry. I keep that name Perry in mine. My middle name. I know where I come from. And you?"

"My father's from Luxembourg," Wintermute says, defensively. This line of attack is getting to her. I understand why; I pray Ryan doesn't levy the same question at me. On my mother's side, I have never known anything except that my grandparents emigrated from Korea during the later years of Park Chung Hee; they, or at least my grandfather, was a journalist, and in America they owned a convenience store. My father was a doctor who defected from North Korea. He brought with him nothing but a silk scroll by Laozi and a painting of a tree-strewn mountain vanishing into mist. He smuggled them out of the country; he claimed they were from Kim Jong Il's private archive. The scroll vanished after he died, or maybe it never existed, invented to impress a young daughter. The painting remained. (The one thing in the Long Island house that was ours. That and Mom's horrible plants.) There's a sense, at least in my recollection of snatches from either side, that before America nothing existed; that they were all themselves parentless, that their national heritage was nothing but the shape of two dictators, one on either side of the demilitarized zone, innate fixtures of the land, mist-shrouded.

(And yet there must have been a lineage. The ticking time bomb that went off in Eric's brain is proof. They say it skips a generation, but neither of my maternal grandparents had it. What do the Kims do with the mad? I suppose the same thing everyone has done with the mad, since time immemorial. Legacy.)

"Those with no obligation to the past have no obligation to the future. They won't leave anything behind. In their mind, only they exist. Solipsism."

We reach a bend in the corridor. A collection of ruined and eroded pieces of marble lay there. Things that were once cornices and columns. I glance over my shoulder and see the Gorehound stalking us. There he is! My legacy.

But I can control it. Eric couldn't. He didn't have the temperament, the seriousness. He succumbed to the worms. Thoughts are only thoughts until you act upon them. I can keep my thoughts inside, where nobody but me knows they exist. I am normal. Everyone will know me as normal.

"What would you do if you woke up one morning and had a gigantic cock," says Corbett.

"Pardon?" asks Wintermute.

"Massive. I mean like, let's say eight or nine inches. It was just there one morning. What would you do?"

"I missed what you said. Eight or nine inches of what?"

"Cock," says Corbett seriously.

Wintermute tosses her hands up. "Oh! Ridiculous!"

"Hm?" says Ryan. "Not authentic enough for you?"

"She's your friend too, why do you look so satisfied!"

"Lim. Limmy. I know you know what I'm talking about."

There is detritus strewn about the corridor, an open icebox, a shrine with photographs of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, a protrusion that leads to a sheer pit into oblivion. We pass through another steel door. Finally, at the end of what I can only describe as a gift shop, though for what I have no idea, we find a staircase leading up. It's marked by that same plaque: THE BREAKERS.

Music, too muffled to make anything out of, filters from above. It's heavy, beating, pulsing, like a heart.

There's another sound, too. Lost in that beat while we look up the stairs. I wouldn't have heard it if I didn't somewhere in my brain expect it. Footsteps. Fast, running. Behind us.

The Gorehound!

I refuse to turn. I cannot turn. They cannot see me scream at something not there. I hold steady, staring up the murky steps. I don't react at all when a monstrous, guttural growl bellows at my back. I don't even flinch.

It's Tate Wintermute who turns and screams.

Chapter 9: THE BREAKERS

I still don't react. I have set my mind upon something and only when it betrays me do I ever falter. The sharp scream so close provokes no twitch reaction. My head turns slowly, watching as Wintermute blunders backward into a display of worthless and tacky knickknacks, glass baubles with images set in their centers that spill and burst in white froth like water. Wintermute lands on the floor, scrabbling desperately.

Then my head keeps turning, and the Gorehound is right there, one wicked profusion of limbs careening straight for me. Maybe it would not, in light of Wintermute's obvious hysterics, be at all suspicious if I carefully, or even somewhat hastily, stepped behind the protection of a nearby glass case. Nobody would derive any insight from the action, suspect me of fleeing an apparition.

Before I act someone seizes me from behind and I think it's Ryan, I entertain for a moment that she too sees what Wintermute sees, what I see, and she has come to me for help. Then I am wrenched and placed in front like a human shield.

It's Corbett, not Ryan, who grips me. A final, turgid realization: the Gorehound is real.

It waited between those boilers for exactly us to come, it knew, someone told it, D'Addario told it, she knows him, this hound-headed abomination, it's him, her boyfriend, she's dating a dogman, and she disposes what remains of the bodies in the botanical garden, to feed exotic flowers. It suddenly makes sense. I understand everything, the whole web, I was led from the start to this outcome, it's the entire reason I was allowed to discover the hole, they wanted to get rid of me all along. I'm going to die.

I perhaps scream.

The Gorehound, its momentum indestructible, somehow skids to a halt an inch from my face. Glass shards from the obliterated display crack under its hot orange basketball shoes as it fans its arms wide, hooks its human hands into claws, and roars without moving its lips:

"GNRRNNRAAAAA-AA-AAAAWGHLLLL!"

He stands there until his growl trails off, and becomes something else, complete with the doubling of his body, hands seizing his sides, head tilting forward then back: a laugh. He's laughing.

"Fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck," he laughs.

Corbett relinquishes me. With a groan.

"Oh my fuck. Oh my fucking. Your faces. Your fucking faces."

There's more laughter now, from all sides. We look around, me and Corbett and Ryan (with only the slightest indication this has disturbed her) and Wintermute, still on the floor. Figures emerge in the corners of the gift shop. One, two, three, and with the Gorehound, four total.

"Did you get it?" the Gorehound says.

The one he addresses is an old-fashioned film director, in flat cap and tweed vest and puffy britches. He is entirely grayscale-toned. In commitment to the bit, he wears gray makeup, but his facsimile of an old handheld movie camera is only a hollow container for his phone. He holds up a gray hand from behind the viewport to flash an A-okay signal.

"That was fucking awesome," says the third figure, dressed as Hitler.

The fourth figure is dressed as a prep school student. He's in the maroon uniform of Thornton Wilder Academy, All Saints Academy's all-boys sibling school. "Now this is content," he says, with exceedingly proper enunciation.

"What? Huh?" says Wintermute.

"A prank," I say. Since the others are too stunned for it, I extend a hand and help Wintermute up.

"How the fuck?" says Corbett. "Were you waiting for us?"

"We heard you a mile away," says the boy in the school uniform. "Everything you said echoed straight to us. Beauty and decay: cute."

I look to Ryan to see how she reacts. She doesn't. Wintermute, realizing slower than the others, flushes as red as the beret she snatches off the ground. "Unbelievable! Certainly a way to treat strangers! Do they not teach you manners at that school of yours?"

"Oh come off it." Hitler waves his hand in decidedly flamboyant fashion.

The director fiddles with his camera/phone. "Perfect. The perfect shot. You can't fake that emotion. Look." He signals us to watch what he filmed through the camera's viewport. Wintermute turns away with a hmph, but I look. "It's REAL. Right? There could be nothing more real."

Even with the small viewport and phone screen, it's easy to tell the shot is well-framed. The director clearly scoped the angle ahead of time. He maneuvered some stand-up cardboard posters to block certain of the gift shop's light fixtures for effect. We're all in frame, nobody obscuring anyone else, including when Wintermute rears back into the display stand. The camerawork is steady; inhumanly so. Even acoustics are accounted for, as the Gorehound's roar comes out clean. The shot ends before the illusion is revealed.

"Did you ladies sneak out too?" says the boy in the school uniform, who examines Corbett in her tennis outfit.

On the faces of my friends I see something novel: timidity. Now that fear and indignation are wearing off, they're retreating into themselves. Wintermute and Corbett and even, somehow, Ryan. It's not dramatic, probably imperceptible to the boys, but I can tell. They attend a school for girls, they communicate only with girls. Their world is monogendered. This is a confrontation with part of reality they are unequipped to assimilate into their limited perspective.

For me, it's an opportunity to prove myself useful.

I look the uncostumed boy in the eye. "We did. We're on the lookout for Halloween parties."

"We're on the lookout for girls to murder," says the Gorehound.

"Parties are fine too," says Hitler. "Maybe there's one up there." He points to the stairway.

"You haven't been up yet?"

"We were about to," says the Gorehound. "Then we heard you girls."

There's shiftiness in that. I suspect there has been some hesitation to barge into an event they know nothing about. The elaborate prank was a way to forestall their decision.

I take center stage, amid the shattered knickknacks. (Nobody seems concerned about cleaning them up.) "Well!" I say, imperiously, a slight flourish of the hand, decidedly Wintermutish, but it works. I direct their gazes like a lightning rod. The girls approve my casual eliding of their androphobia. "My name is Enid, and this is Ryan, and this is Corbett, and this is—"

"Tate," Wintermute interjects.

"This is Tate," Lim says. "And you?"

The boy in the school uniform takes over for the other boys. "That's Quentin Y." He points at Hitler. "That's Quentin X." He points at the director. "That's Eric." He points at the Gorehound. I go cold. "And I'm Machiavelli." He points at himself with a cocked thumb.

"Machiavelli?" Corbett asks. "What kind of name is that?"

"It's Machiavelli," Machiavelli says. The name coheres him into a form. Forcing my eyes away from the Gorehound (Eric) I notice how angular he is. His prestigious prep school uniform, golden crest over left breast, is tailored to the inch. His chin is so unnaturally chiseled it's obviously plastic surgery. He is made of rock.

"And why," Wintermute says, pointing at Quentin Y., "are you dressed like that?"

"Because it's funny?" Machiavelli answers in Hitler's stead.

A thin sheet of ice cracks. The boys meld into the girls; people start talking. I no longer need to direct the conversation, which is good, because I am struggling to control myself, struggling to tell myself that Eric is a common name. Many people are named Eric. But why did it have to be him, the masked one? If I could see his face, even hear his voice clearly, but it's ambiguity that lets every fantasy flourish.

I've heard something happens in the brains of mountain climbers experiencing hypothermia that inverts their perceptions, so that rather than freezing they feel like they are burning, and tear off their clothing, which of course only kills them quicker. I always wonder why. If you're in a blizzard on a mountaintop, and see around you everywhere snow and ice, and know the temperature must logically be cold instead of hot, wouldn't you override what your body tells you? Wouldn't you say to yourself, "I am what's wrong, not reality around me"? But even experienced climbers, ones who should know about this so-called "paradoxical undressing," succumb. They believe the lies their brain tells them, at the cost of their life.

This masked Eric is not my brother.

"Yes!" I snap myself back into form, only afterward realizing I've interrupted Corbett midsentence. "Shall we go up, then?"

Their gazes turn toward the stairs leading out of sight. It is the only way to go, the reason we've come. THE BREAKERS.

"Sure," says Machiavelli. "Why not?"

We ascend. Now that we're eight, we can't exist as a single whole. We fragment into groups. Corbett resumes a stilted but animated conversation with Machiavelli and Quentin Y., while Ryan, Wintermute, and I are unluckily clumped with Eric, who refuses to remove his mask. Quentin X. follows, filming us.

"What exactly are you supposed to be?" Wintermute asks Eric.

"Big Bad Wolf."

The steps turn. Machiavelli, then Corbett, then Quentin Y. round it. The music grows louder, but not more distinct. A murmur arises from those in front, then I turn too.

We're someplace grand. Someplace large and clearly larger than even we know. There are walls beyond these walls, and all the walls stretch high. Every window is elaborate and every pane pitch black. From the ceiling crawl carved creatures, dangling down in laurels. They reach for us between twin Baccarat chandeliers as we spread around the dining table encompassing the room's breadth. The table is massive, yet not massive enough. The space that remains threatens to swallow someone. "Aurora, goddess of dawn." She's on the ceiling, a painting, from which her cherubs descend. Their progenitor, who makes the flat three-dimensional. "And these columns are rose alabaster, single pieces turned on a lathe." Don't touch the carpet, it's an original. In the morning dawn's light, Aurora, streams through those windows. "The repetition of the Caduceus. The staff intwined with snakes. Symbol of spiritual awakening." Of Kundalini awakening, the divine feminine in the muladhara at the base of the spine. "And the Flower of Life. Around the entire cornice. Representing interconnectedness in all things." A place of sacred geometry. A place closer to God. "There are female rooms in this house. There are male rooms." The architect, Richard Morris Hunt, designed the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Square and compass. Beaux Arts.

Machiavelli and Corbett move ahead, through a doorway, toward the solar plexus. Our group maintains tenuous cohesion, so the rest of us are dragged behind.

On my last step through the door, I glance back, at Eric. Instead I see three people hiding under the table.

We enter a cube: 50 feet by 50 feet by 50 feet. An atrium. The party is here, or was. Whatever once happened has reached its entropic dregs. The vast empty floorspace is full of bodies in disarray, leaning or in repose along the marble. More sit on the grand staircase leading to a second story ("Each step two inches shorter than average for an elegant regal feeling"). It takes me some time to realize how many of the people are mannequins. At the edges of the room are giant mannequins. They're twice life size or more; they loom. The mannequins are all in costumes. Is this the party's theme? Were the people under the table mannequin or human?

The humans are listless and drunk. Bottles are everywhere, especially around the speakers in the doorway playing a desiccated trance beat. It's clear why the sound wasn't distinct from below, because it's not distinct here. It could lull to deep and dreamless sleep.

As my eyes wander up a colossal mannequin to the distant ceiling (Auroraless, instead a painting of a plain blue "windswept" sky), I become aware of someone breathing on the nape of my neck. My eyes shift; the wolfman mask meets me. I bite my tongue. Eric.

"Your costume makes you hot," he growls.

"I'm always hot," Lim says.

Inside a circle of eight mannequins with bowed heads, Machiavelli grabs Corbett's ass. She smacks his hand with a laugh. Ryan watches them. Quentin X., the director, watches Ryan with the camera. To ruin his shot I step between him and her.

Eric keeps close. He hovers, sometimes on one side, sometimes the other. Always with that leering mask.

"This party seems basically over," I tell Ryan. "Should we leave?"

Ryan doesn't respond. The music is surprisingly loud despite its vagueness, so maybe she didn't hear. I open my mouth to repeat myself but it hangs open. Machiavelli, with a series of slick slips of the hand, is drawing Corbett away to a door hidden under the interior balcony that rings the atrium's second story. Hitler scoops a bottle off the ground and follows two steps removed, swaying like he's already drunk. When he jauntily raises the bottle and swigs, he instantly doubles over sputtering on some patriarch's stone bust and has to duckwalk through the doorway before Corbett kicks it shut behind her.

The door bounces slightly and hangs ajar.

"That Cherry Corbett," Wintermute says, flowing into frame. "She sure operates swiftly, doesn't she?" A knowing irony, at odds with the tone I expect from her. "Isn't that the type who dies first?"

"Huh?"

"In the horror movie. And you said it would be me."

Eric's breath stirs fine hairs. "We can leave," I say to Ryan.

That's when I notice Ryan twisting her Lady Macbeth bloodstained hands. "It's—" Her eyes are riveted to the doorway where Corbett disappeared. "It's bestial."

Despite the dull unease building in this too-large cube, this too-large house of too many rooms (something crawling?), the sense I feel that we should leave, that maybe we need to leave (why is Wintermute talking about a horror movie?), the slowly stacking sickness in the pit of my stomach with each dog breath of this dogheaded creature (Eric!) encircling me, the flickering edges of movement in my periphery as I keep looking at the mannequins thinking they're people (at least there are no plants), the thudding in my heart and the thought I am starting to have about who these boys are really, I realize this is actually an excellent opportunity to drive a wedge between Ryan and Corbett once and for all.

"It's Corbett," I say. "This is what she is."

I've always been confused why Ryan abides her. It's not like Corbett exercises decorum or discretion, ever. Now, though, there's no way Ryan can deny it. Corbett is misaligned with her on a fundamental level, while I have always been her best friend. Why have you become so distant? What ritual must I perform to entice or entrance you out of your room?

"We can go," I say, reaching for her wrist.

Her graceful form eludes me with a deft sidestep. Her heels click the tile. Eric's paws slide along my sides and down my hips and I step out to keep pace with Ryan toward Corbett's door. Why! To confirm they've murdered her? Butchered her with knives, crushed her skull with a sledgehammer? We already know! You stupid fucking bitch why are you doing this? Chewing up and trashing Enid Lim like everyone in this empty house has always done? Doesn't she deserve someone? Someone like me?

(I'll love you, Enid Lim, now and forevermore.)

I'm swaying drunkenly as I follow Ryan two steps removed, which I realize is because Eric keeps putting his hands on me. "Hey! Don't touch her." We pass under the overhanging balcony, where it's much darker, and into the adjacent room. It's a music room styled like an opera house. A Steinway in the center. My fingers go numb, looking at it. "You heard me!" Corbett isn't here. But there's a door, covered in mirrored panels, and she's left it open a crack. In the mirrors we coalesce, as if in wide-angle lens. "Hey!"

Snap!

The hand with its fingers twisted hangs in front of my face. No, not my face. Eric's face.

"I'm talking to you!" says Wintermute, the hand's owner. "Yes, you, Mr. Big Bad Wolf. As you can plainly see, she is not interested, so keep your hands off please and thank you."

For a moment, there is no sound except Eric's ragged breathing. It's strange there's no sound, though it takes me a second to realize why. The music has shut off.

Nobody is in the music room except us. Us and the extras, the mannequins, in all positions, sprawled in seats, draped over pedestals. Mannequins in dresses, suits, masks. When their heads in unison start turning toward me I quickly redirect my attention to Ryan as she peers through the crack in the door.

"Degenerates," she whispers. Only I am close enough to hear.

I lean. The image through the crack shifts. A library, rich-hued in walnut and warm light, Spanish leather walls, coffered ceiling and gold-leafed symbol of the fasces: a king's right to punish.

"This place means something," Ryan whispers. "Or does nothing mean anything anymore?"

And beneath an all-consuming stone fireplace five hundred years old is Corbett, on her knees, bobbing her head back and forth. My breath catches in my throat. Ryan's breath catches in her throat. Her next word comes out as a sharp sigh: "Beasts..."

I reach for her. "Let's go."

Her shoulder shudders, brushing me back. "Beasts. Degenerates," she says, breathing quicker now. "Whores."

Hermes is on this dark mirrored door, wielding the staff of Caduceus. On an antique divan sprawls Hitler, watching the same thing we're watching; his eyes flit our way and he smiles.

"She's such a slut..." Ryan whispers. "She left it open. She wants me to watch..."

Hot heavy breath stirs the strands over my ear.

"Get away from her!" Wintermute shouts. She unleashes a flurry of open-palmed slaps against his shoulders. Eric staggers long enough for her to seize me by the upper arm. "Enid, we are leaving." One tug and we start moving.

I reach for Ryan but my fingertips can't touch her. She remains there, cheek pressed to the door, eyes unblinking as she watches (I like watching). Every mannequin watches me.

Why does she watch? Why doesn't she pay attention to me? (I'll love you forever.)

Wintermute's pace quickens and unconsciously my feet speed up to follow. Eric watches us still and silent until we exit into the atrium and then he stoops forward and starts sprinting. Wintermute squeals and my stupor breaks and I don't need her to drag me, the pound-pound-pound of Eric's feet across the marble is enough to make me move on my own. He'll catch us in the open atrium so we run through another door, into a room of platinum-plated Muses, eight of nine empaneled on the walls. (Which Muse is missing?) We glance around, seek escape, there's another door. When we run for it he careens in, crashes through a chair and tumbles, rolls back up howling laughter.

We run through the music room again somehow (Ryan and Lim still watching at the crack, or something worse than watching), the atrium again, another room, another, a montage of rooms, each a unique world unto itself, a wholly individualized space with its own insular aesthetic. (Except everywhere the Flower of Life, everywhere the Caduceus.) His footsteps pound behind us.

"Here!" Wintermute hisses.

We're in a two-story pantry where you look up and your eye only keeps rising. There are doors to sub-pantries and it's into one of these we clamber, door shut swiftly behind us. In perfect darkness we sink to the floor, gripping one another, as Eric's footsteps pound into the pantry.

Wintermute's palm is clapped over my lips. Despite that, we're both heaving breath, mine a rattle, hers a stringent wheeze. I think he can't hear us through the door, but this silence makes our every sound an explosion. His footsteps slow, tromp one way, then another. I can visualize him out there, Eric, turning his mask (why won't he take it off?) to each door. Thinking: Where did she go...? Where did my little sister go...? We've got a book to write.

"I smell you," he shouts. He follows it up with an odd little laugh, strained and distorted: "iihiihiie"

No, it isn't a laugh. He's snuffling his snout.

An afterimage of my memory of his face is a pale fading shape in the darkness of this closet. A face with eyes and mouth cut out.

Fading clearer and clearer as my eyes adjust.

He says something that only becomes audible at the end: "—And I'll blow your house down!"

His footsteps pound away and fade into silence.

Wintermute and I remain gripping each other until our breathing settles. I stare at the phantom face projected on the dark, telling myself: He's not there. They locked him up. He's gone now. The refrain works. The face is actually Wintermute's heart-shaped locket, phosphorescent, its black keyhole a cyclopean eye. The only other sense is the extreme softness of Wintermute's fingers on my arm. They're softer than any skin I have ever felt. They don't feel like human fingers at all.

"That oaf," she musters the nerve to whisper. We pause, listen for footsteps pounding back toward us, but it's quiet. "Men are so... like that!"

"Yeah," I mutter.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course."

"No, I mean." Her voice lowers. "Are you okay, Enid?"

I have no idea what she means. I want to leave, find Ryan, and reestablish order. This darkness is like limbo. Despite the softness of her touch, Wintermute's grasp is firm.

"You've been odd since we left the academy," Wintermute says.

This trips an alarm. "Odd how?"

"Just odd. Not fully present. You're my roommate, you know. I see a lot of you. You're not being yourself."

I rewind and replay our route from the hole in the wall to the wizard's tower and through the tunnel to this mansion. When was I odd? I acted like an ordinary human throughout. The only incident that comes to mind is my non-reaction to Eric in the gift shop. Maybe she reads that as "not fully present." As if her hysterical reaction is the baseline, and any deviation is abnormal. That would be typically self-absorbed of her.

"I'm being myself," Lim says.

"You know he's not your brother, right?"

"What?"

"He's not your brother. He can't be. He's some buffoon named Eric from the boys' school."

I want to say, "What are you talking about?" Sharply and immediately, in a tone of genuine befuddlement. That is the only way I could dissemble. The moment my lips part, though, I know it's impossible to perform at the level necessary to be believed. A choke catches. I manage: "How do you know about my brother?"

In this dark space I make out just enough of her head to see it tilt. Quizzically? In sympathy? "You talk about him all the time."

I do? "No I don't."

"Your brother Eric. He started that book you're writing. Of course I know about him."

Her voice is warm. Her touch is cold.

"It's okay, Enid. It's okay."

Wait. This isn't her. This isn't Tate Wintermute, my roommate. This isn't how she speaks at all, these aren't the things she says. I'm imagining it. Auditory hallucinations. In this dark space, there's no alternative stimuli, so my mind makes up whatever it wants. Is she even in the closet with me?

I'm losing my mind.

"No," says Wintermute. "No no no, don't say that. Don't say that. I know you're worried. I know you have a family history. But it won't happen to you. You're my chief competition for valedictorian, after all. You'll be okay."

Or is it that in this darkness my skull has split open and all my thoughts are floating free for the taking?

I have to get out.

I lurch upright. Lim's, I mean Wintermute's, firm grasp breaks as I pivot in search of the exit. I'm disoriented. My hand bangs something, a shelf maybe. Pain blooms up my little finger. Wintermute says, "Enid, Enid, Enid." Lim reaches out again, more carefully this time, and her fingertips touch the door. They trace a path until they find the handle. Have to get out. I turn the handle and open the door.

The light nails me hard enough I flinch. I lift my aching hand to shield my face, squint, and blink. Wintermute steadies me by the shoulders. A few more blinks and the overwhelming brightness diminishes. I lower my hand.

The two-story butler's pantry fades into focus. Glass cupboards full of fine china, tables for the staff to arrange the food. A figure in the doorway. I blink again. He coheres into shape, standing, staring at us, as though he were always there waiting:

The wolf's head!

"My, what big eyes you have," the Big Bad Wolf says, getting the story backward. He takes an exaggerated step toward us. The stomp of his sneaker echoes.

"This isn't funny," says Wintermute. Obviously, a remark like this will only rile him up.

In the center of the pantry's bizarrely large and otherwise empty floorspace is a table, plain compared to everything else in this house. I can only assume it was (is?) for servants to arrange the food before taking it to the dining hall, but right now it's an obvious impediment for the Big Bad Wolf. He stalks to one side of it; Wintermute and I shuffle along the opposite side, keeping it between him and us.

"You know, we're sociable ladies," I say. I can't believe I'm saying it. It barely sounds like my voice. "If you take off that mask and talk to us like a normal human being, maybe you'd actually have a chance."

Eric stops circling. We've got an open doorway at our backs, so we could run if we wanted, but I don't like the idea. The chase only heats his blood.

"Your friends scored"—Corbett bobbing her head—"and they didn't do it by chasing her like a Gorehound. Do you have any hobbies? What's your last name?"

I imagine that through the mask Eric is caught completely off guard. If I continue like this, I can control the situation.

But after a pause, he slowly raises his arm. One finger extends, pointed directly between me and Wintermute. Then, it shifts to the side, pointing only at me.

"You," he says. "I like you, Enid. Sexy doll."

"You'll hurt my friend's feelings if you don't harass her too—"

It happens way too fast. There's no warning. He's standing there, totally upright, and then he's vaulting the table. My reflexes fail to kick in. I stand defective, my last syllable caught in my throat. The Gorehound's head swells my vision.

Wintermute dives in the way. I brace for them to crash but somehow she catches him, twists his momentum, and drives him just past me, into the heavy steel door of a locked safe between two columns of chinaware cupboards. He snarls in Wintermute's face, she pins him there, Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood swiping and thrashing into a mass without distinct boundary.

"Go!" Wintermute shouts. "Go, Enid! I'll be okay!"

He makes renewed effort and shunts her back. His arm shoots out. His claw rakes my skin. I flee.

I blunder through another montage of rooms. I can't tell if they're the same as before. There are simply so many. So many things in them; an encyclopedic catalog of beautiful things. The glory Ryan promised us. Built by a third-generation colossus of industry, straddling worlds Old and New, whose grandfather made wealth from nothing and whose father maintained it. (Public be damned.) In this vast and lawless backwater known as America there was wealth but nothing to buy with it. No history, no legacy, no lineage, none except these Dutch Vanderbilts spawned of Cornelius' skinflint avarice; a lineage tainted by incest, carrying the curse of a brain tick-tick-tocking: son and grandson and great-grandson all dropping dead of the same cerebral hemorrhage.

"They were real aristocrats. They believed in beauty," Ryan says. (V.O.) They couldn't find it here, though. Not in this country. "European styles adapted to an American landscape." Beaux Arts. Richard Morris Hunt. Square and compass. "Every thing worth owning in this world, all in one house. Back then it was still possible to own every thing worth owning." What a small world it must have been. But there's safety in a small world. "A monument of culture, here in our New World! Can you imagine, Enid Lim? A century later and it's still here for us, a link in our lineage as human beings." Lineage. "Lineage. Legacy." The legacy of the Vanderbilts: Where are they now? Where is their wealth? Who owns this house? "Pillars of purpose that keep us upright, Enid Lim." It takes a grandson to start to squander. "I'll fight for beauty, Enid Lim. Will you?"

I cross a door and end up in the cube-shaped atrium again. The music equipment and mannequins remain, silent. A few drunks twitch on the peripheries. My every footstep resounds.

It's difficult to orient myself but based on residual geographic awareness I find the door to the music room, and then the door that Corbett went into. Hermes with Caduceus. "A branch of olive, transformed into a staff with two serpents." Olive: symbol of immortality. Hermes, who conducted the souls of the dead back to the living. "Spiritual regeneration. The rod of the Master of Ceremonies," Ryan says.

Ryan isn't here.

The door is open. I look inside, at the library, unsure what I'll see, but Corbett isn't here either. Nor Machiavelli and Hitler. There are only a few listless murmuring drunks sprawled around the outskirts. They take cursory notice of me and flicker their faces back to each other.

I go inside, seeking a clue to where everyone went. The room looks warm but isn't. Or maybe running around warmed me up, and now that everything is slow and quiet again my bare shoulders are exposed to the chill that's always been here. I wish I planned my costume better. A jacket would do wonders. I have the beginning of a headache.

Looming shelves of ancient books sink into the walls on either side of the monolithic fireplace, where Corbett bobbed her head. The fireplace makes me uneasy. It's so massive and extends so far from the wall, supported only by two scrawny pillars; it feels like at any moment it might dislodge and come crashing down. I see it happening. Paralyzed, I watch as this solid stone block imported from a five hundred-year-old French château finally accomplishes what the endless erosive properties of this planet designed it to do all along. Frame-by-frame my body collapses under it. My head crumples like paper into my neck, my ribs flatten like an accordion. My body distorts, my form ripples, then it can contain its shape no longer and I explode into a lateral spray of gore. Only blood and a few bits of bone, a pressurized strand of intestine, escape before the fireplace collides inexorably with the ground. Every other aspect of me is erased from existence.

On the fireplace are carved four images, each in a circular medallion. Laborers, peasant farmers, swinging tools and hoes. But the longer I stare, and I realize I have been staring a long time, the images change, and it's something else happening.

I turn away. I'm freaking myself out. The incident with Eric, no, this whole ill-advised trip, has me skittish. I pull out my phone. I'll text Ryan. If I act scared she'll laugh at me, so I need a cover story. This place is boring, we already missed the action. That'll work.

My thumb taps once, then I stop. I glance up.

There's something on the ground at the far side of the library.

I only see part of it. The rest is obscured by the ranks of intricately brocaded divans and fauteuils that congest the center of the room. But there's an aligned gap between them all, allowing me an unobstructed view to the other side, past the opulent patterned rug to a stretch of strangely bare wood floor. It's a foot long gap.

Two tangled, bare feet are sprawled across it. Bare feet connected to bare ankles and bare shins.

It shouldn't be unusual. This house is filled with revelers. Any of them might have taken off their shoes and passed out on the floor.

The throb in my brain compounds. I feel the veins, splintered like cracks on a windshield, pulsing membranous between my lobes.

There's a small, shiny, red droplet on the wood beside the feet.

My hand holding my phone lowers. It hangs like lead. My skull is lead. A faraway voice screams: Leave. Leave. Go home. Leave. Forget everyone else. Leave. You have to leave. Now.

Instead, my feet shuffle across the carpet. One scraping half-step after another. Every detail of this room comes into focus simultaneously, overwhelming me. A silver chalice. A small bronze figure of a man, contorted in agony and gripping his head. A painting on an easel showing this exact room with three decades-dead ladies seated by the fireplace. My glimpse between the chairs elongates. The shins become bloodlessly pale white legs, bare up to the knees, bare up to the thighs, entirely bare. My foot catches something. I stumble, stop myself from falling. The body is nude. It doesn't have a stitch of clothing on it. The thighs are twisted over each other, concealing their center, making the smooth and hairless form sexless: a doll. There are more red droplets the higher up the body I see. There are red splotches. The small breasts are white. Half-covered by an arm flung limply across the chest. The other arm extends against the wood.

A long, pale, neck.

And past that———

"No," I gurgle.

It leers at me.

It leers despite how little there is.

The eyeballs. They're both there. Veiny white and floating on the gelatinous paste of the rest of it. They stare: lidless skinless scalped eggs. Emerald in the center.

And the teeth. The teeth are coming apart but have sprayed fan-like to retain a snatch of smile (Smile) though there is no lower jaw at all, only a lipless ring of gums.

The rest is paste. The skin: paste. The bone: paste. The brow: paste. The flesh: paste. The tongue: paste. The ears: paste. The muscle: paste. The veins: paste. The brain: paste. Lumped misshapen or lacking shape at all devoid of formal signifier just paste. Just paste. Just pink red white paste in whorled curds dripping trickling into the grooves of the wood the lines between the planks to spread from the lumped massy center as distinct geometric cords drawing blood-weighted sinews of some tensile strand of matter like the whole skull deconstructed so thoroughly is now with automaton intelligence deciding how to reconfigure its elementary parts into a novel creation of twitching components. A bubble of the stuff pops causing a slope of viscera to shuffle squelching down the gore-drowned remnant of a once-high cheekbone and with it one eye (not the other) turns directly toward me its emerald iris. One tooth comes loose from the rest and flows on a rivulet into the pure white and perfectly shaped shoulder.

Sledgehammer.

Destroyed by sledgehammer.

And. Like a halo. In a ring around this mixed clump of everything that makes a human.

Is a spray of dark...

red...

hair.

Chapter 10: The Moral of Little Red Riding Hood

I'm lucky. My urge to vomit overwhelms my urge to scream.

I veer hard right until I stumble into an armchair. Compounding my luck, my fingers, which are knotted and taut, seize the head of the chair to keep me from keeling over it. Like my brain has become an anvil my head plunges as far as my neck will allow. I see only curving, spiraling patterns sewn masterfully into the upholstery. Flowers of Life. A climbing coiled Kundalini inside me seeks to rise up and spew out all over it, unmaking its carefully crafted geometry, turning sense into nonsense (fair is foul, and foul is fair). My tongue foretastes my hot acid insides.

It's the chair that helps me reassert control. It's too beautiful. Too fine, too precise, too historical, too orderly. I can't ruin it. It'd be a complete embarrassment.

My arms brace. Despite the image projected onto the seat cushion of that smashed-open head transformed into dropped—dropped pizza—an awful analogy that turns the bile on my tongue into soapy, mushy, half-digested pizza taste—I fight back. I swallow. An acrid gouty tangle claws down my bulging esophagus. Sharp internal contractions still, by force, my roiling gut. Desperation empowers me. I control myself.

Once calmed, I unclench my lips and expel a wheeze. An amber-colored reeking bead of fluid globs by a spit-strand. Quickly cradling my palm, I catch it before it touches the chair; without alternatives, I wipe it on my black skirt.

I dare to tilt my head. Past the chair is the body. I stop when I see the first sign of what became of the head.

They killed her. They caught her spying. They dragged her, shoved her, struck her. Tore her clothes. Did Corbett egg them on? (Her outburst on the tennis court.) Bestial, savage men, wrath and lust. Onto the ground they hurled her. To rape her? One wanted to rape her. The other to destroy. He lifted the sledgehammer overhead.

This narrative is intoxicating. I see it play out like a flashback, all quick cuts and shaky closeups. The verité of the form, so lacking artifice, makes it real. It's not theory. It's exactly what happened. The camera ensures I was there. Its perception as inviolable as my perception.

My perception.

On the outskirts of the room, drunk partygoers mutter among themselves. Their heads turn, their arms pivot. Their glances keep stealing at me. Nobody looks at the floor. Nobody acknowledges a corpse. To them, I'm the only part of this room that sticks out. The only oddity.

The music turns back on.

They might be drunk, but they're not insensible. And what I saw is hard to miss. It's, I don't think about what it is. Why?

Because it's not real.

It's in my head.

Three years ago, my brother Eric went insane. That's an unfair way to describe it. He "began to present symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia." No, that's wrong too. The American Psychiatric Association declared the term "paranoid schizophrenia" obsolete in 2013, along with all other subtypes of schizophrenia. It's just schizophrenia now.

There's an ingrained cultural conception of what a crazy person is like and it's all wrong. At least, it was wrong for Eric. He didn't draw on the walls or run through the rooms howling. Instead, he got quiet.

Mom was never home, only ever coming back to add another unreal plant to the collection she began when Dad died, so she didn't notice. I noticed immediately. It was a long pandemic and for two years it'd been only Eric and me locked together in that house. Though he was four years older and always treated me like a snotty brat before, the situation had forced us closer. He showed me his video games and told me what the 69 meant in his tag, WolfSkull69. He showed me political troll memes he made in GIMP and posted on 4chan. He showed me his favorite "breakcore" artists. But most importantly, he showed me his fantasy novel. The one he had never shown anyone.

He was embarrassed about it. I could tell, despite the pride in his voice as he pulled up the document with his notes. An hourglass world, where sand slowly streams from top to bottom. At first, the top half is a desert, but later the bottom half is. And when all the sand has streamed down, something happens, a cataclysm, and the whole world inverts for the cycle to start anew. He had maps, schematics, plans. Sketches of misshapen anime hermaphrodites (with globular breasts and straight oblong penises) he called "The Goddesses of the Halves," who contained within them all aspects of human and metaphysical duality but were cursed to only see in the other the half they could not see in themselves, prompting the internecine war that kept the hourglass spinning. The protagonist, who by contrast contained nothing, was a smooth and ungenitaled homunculus destined to end the conflict and bring everlasting peace due to their unique ability to view the world with a video game overlay.

Who else could he show? His gamer buddies, who existed only as voices in an epileptic arena shooter? The anonymous nonentities populating /pol/? His innate older sibling supremacy emboldened him; if I laughed he'd just beat me up. I didn't laugh. It amazed me, that my gross belching brother possessed such art in his soul. And I was the only one who got to see it! The only one who truly knew him. We all have these domes around us, don't we? These worlds unto ourselves: For You and you alone. To find a hole in the wall in one of these domes, to see another's world the way they see it, it's the only experience that really matters, right?

So we became close. That's why I noticed.

It started with the trip to Provincetown. This was late pandemic; we had cabin fever. Eric got the idea to visit the house of an author he liked, a famous recluse whose trilogy-concluding next book was now a decade overdue. (I tried to read the first two books, but there was a scene with a spider and a fairy that freaked me out.) We planned the trip a month in advance, coinciding it with an extended business trip Mom took to Palo Alto, but despite our mutual exuberance when we first got the idea, on the slated date I basically had to drag him to the car. His lethargy was all-consuming. He would not speak more than a syllable at a time, usually a solemn "Yeah." He drove the Mercedes in a stupor. The phone intoned directions robotically, but I needed to repeat them twice for him to even begin to react. (In retrospect, it's a miracle he didn't kill us that seven-hour drive.) I accused him of staying up late the night before smoking weed and masturbating. "Yeah," he sighed.

Provincetown is located at the absolute tip of Cape Cod, that spiral jutting out of Massachusetts into the Atlantic. It's famous for its beaches and artists. We booked a room in advance, a one-bed bungalow. I got the little sibling privilege of sleeping on the floor. There was still daylight, so I wanted to go find the house where this author lived, or at least eat at a restaurant, but Eric plopped on the bed and refused to budge, no matter how much I whined.

Only much later, when the moon pierced the bungalow in three different directions and the soft cascading rush of surf encircled everything, did his voice murmur:

"Enid."

I was understandably upset with him, so on my pile of blankets I pretended to be asleep.

"Enid," he said. "Have you ever thought..."

His pause elongated. Ssssshhhh, said the surf. Ssssshhhh. The pause stopped being a pause. I decided he was never going to finish the sentence, turned over, and pulled the blanket tighter over my shoulder.

Time becomes strange at night, so I can't say for sure. But I think he waited at least fifteen minutes to speak again. Or was I asleep after all and his voice reached me from a dream? At the time I might have believed that, because he said:

"Did they pin your skinned face to the wall?"

Of course with that stupid line hitting me at the intertidal zone of sleep I had one of those awful dreams where you move like an automaton toward whatever terrifying thing your dream demands you see, where even the basic function of closing your eyes is denied because your eyelids are suddenly see-through. I forget the specifics, maybe something about this smiling dog picture Eric once scared me with, or I might be mixing up the timeline. You know how dreams are. Regardless, I woke sweating and shivering. Eric's head hung over the edge of the bed, watching me.

He was marginally less sullen the next day. Enough, at least, for me to drag him around Provincetown. We found that author's house, a few miles out of town among the dunes. It was dilapidated. Rotten wood, boarded windows, and a roof not quite caved but caving, with a depression among the shingles that held a puddle of brackish water. I couldn't tell if the author was there, or if he had been there in years. Eric became animated, though. He was convinced the author was inside and seemed to think it was extremely important we find him. We crept around the property until a flamboyant fast-talking type in sunglasses showed up out of nowhere and scared us off.

"That was an agent," Eric told me at the beachside burger shack I forced him to treat me to.

I thought by agent he meant like a realtor, so I nodded. "I bet your author sold the place. That website with the address must be out of date."

"FBI? CIA...?"

His voice trailed off. I was no longer there. He stared, horrified, at something past me.

We planned to stay one more night and drive back to Long Island the next morning. There was a clock somewhere in that bungalow but I couldn't find it. I could only hear it ticking, faintly, between the waves of the surf. It drove me crazy, plus I was on the floor. I kept turning over.

He only spoke in the intertidal zone. As if he knew when I was drifting.

"You're the first thing I remember," he said. "When you were a baby."

Ssssshhhh. Ssssshhhh.

"I went to the room when Mom was changing you."

It's hard to imagine Mom changing a diaper. Certainly she hired a nanny to do it.

"And I saw it. What you really are. What you really have."

At the time, it sounded like gibberish.

"I know something about you nobody else, not even They, know."

I would only figure out what he meant later.

"I know how to prove you're really you."

The face fading into the closet.

Ssssshhhh. Ssssshhhh.

I'm still leaned over the armchair. The Flowers of Life pulse across the fabric. Optical illusion. My retreat into memory has calmed me. The vague white form of the body remains in the corner of my eye but I turn away from it casually and without curiosity. I smooth out my tight-fitting black blouse and straighten my fake fangs.

There are other people in this room. They are not reacting to the body. Ergo, the body cannot exist.

Ryan is not dead.

I will not paradoxically undress.

And I will not be sullen. I will not retreat into myself. I will not allow myself to only think my thoughts. I will accept the perspectives of others. I will be sociable. I will be liked. I will be normal.

So, with brisk, normal steps, I walk to the door, careful not to bump any of the precious historical bibelots littered across the room. As I reach for the handle, one of the drunks snickers iihiihiie but I neither stop nor turn. I open the door.

Eric is on the other side.

He's standing only a few feet away, juxtaposed with the luxurious music room that contextualizes him. His feet are spread, as are his claws. He's tall. He is breathing so heavily I hear it over the syncopated beat of the recently renewed music.

"You are not my brother," I say. Luckily too quiet to be heard, because only after I say it do I remember it would not be a normal thing to say.

He tilts his wolf head so far to the side it rests on his shoulder.

I step out of the doorway and let it shut behind me. My expression remains serene. Unafraid. I played tag before with this Eric, this diplomat or banker's son from Thornton Wilder Academy, but that's done now. If he wants to make a move, he can do so like a civilized human being. Otherwise, I won't give him the time of day. (Tick, tick.)

When I turn to leave for the atrium he advances. Fast, economical motions. He's on me instantly, one arm extended past my head to plant against the mirrored door of the library and seal me in. My view is swallowed by his plaid lumberjack coat. The slightest glance up and it's his wolf head bearing down on me. I feel his ragged, hot breath on my scalp: Ssssshhhh. Ssssshhhh. He exudes heat that makes my skin itch.

I peer into his mask's glassy red eyes. Daring him to try. This is the fourth of his group. The clown. They had him running around for their prank in the gift shop. Probably he volunteered. That's his role. His bravado is entirely founded on an ironical sense of self-deprecation, no matter how much the others seem to laugh with him instead of at him. He knows it. He protects himself with it, because if he didn't laugh at himself they would certainly not be laughing with him at all. So he's settled for me, rather than Corbett or Ryan (who is not dead) or Wintermute. He thinks I'm the weakest, the social fringe of my own group, and he's miscalculated. Wintermute's haughty, so he saw everything wrong. I show him I can be haughty too: I smirk.

It's a smirk that can mean anything. But he knows it means what I want it to mean. He's pathetic. A joke. I think he's worth nothing at all. He'll hesitate, if only for a moment. That's when I strike and regain social control.

My palm, still tingling from the phlegm that almost dribbled onto the armchair, is poised. The instant his posture weakens I'll place it against his chest and push, gently, back. He won't resist. Then I'll walk away.

He breathes in.

Out.

In.

Out.

I'm ready.

Then I see it.

I see it, despite his height blocking most of my view of the enormous atrium through the door to my left, because it's even taller. It's ridiculously tall, nearly scraping the second-story overhang as it emerges from the opposite end of the room, the direction (I think) of the dining hall where we first arrived. At first I only see its top, a leathery beige-gray bulge that shifts and undulates like a tarp in the wind. It's a color, a texture I want to see as skin, but it must be tarp, cloth, sheet, something, the way it moves, the way it's shaped. I can see nothing else of it. I forget Eric entirely and bend my upper body to look past him.

The thing is on four long pins, stilts, two in front and two in back. The stilts plod across the marble floor slowly but devoid of any clumsiness as they weave between the mannequins. The pattern is perfect: right front stilt, left back stilt, left front stilt, right back stilt. It ambles in a semicircle until it is oriented toward the grand staircase leading to the second story, and then incredibly it starts to ascend without any hesitation of its stilt legs.

Its body, though, is only the beige-gray bulging tarp. All four stilts vanish inside it. Even as it angles up the stairs it's impossible to see anything underneath. That's only a byproduct of the angle, though. It seems certain that if the perspective shifted, if the camera were placed anywhere else, the illusion would explode, the two men stilt-walking underneath would show (what else can those irregular bulges conceal but their straining forms?). The ambiguity is driving me crazy. I twist and tilt my head, but can't get a better view. All I can see is the object mounted at what serves as the stilt-creature's front, bobbing and jerking with each step but steadily slowly turning to peer back with vast skinless eyeless sockets:

A dog's skull.

Before the skull can see me I dart back behind the music room doorway. My heart is racing. For a moment I'm certain it was turning its head to search for me. Specifically for me. I don't think it saw me. It must not see me.

Eric's extended finger falls on my cheek and pushes my head back until all I see is him. In the gesture I know I screwed up, ceded control. At first I don't care. My mind races to explain what I just saw. A word keeps screaming at me: Gorehound! I'm reluctant to discard it as another visual hallucination, firstly because they aren't common (not that vividly at least) and secondly because the more of them I pile up the worse the prognosis for my normalcy. It's not necessary anyway. Clearly I witnessed someone's elaborate, two-man Halloween costume. Among the giant mannequins dragged in for this party, is something so extravagant really unwarranted? Of course not. And while it's impressive how coordinated the movements are, it's not altogether unrealistic for a pair of people trained in using stilts. I assume. I have no idea what is or isn't possible on stilts. But it didn't look unrealistic. The rest of the costume (tarp, dog skull) is nothing out of the ordinary, either.

Right. The costume is mundane. It exists. That's not the problem. That's not what I can't stop thinking about. What I can't stop thinking is:

What in the name of God is it supposed to BE?

(I have to watch Gorehound III. I have to find Noël D'Addario and force her to show me. I have to know what's actually in it.)

(D'Addario! Slasher with a sledgehammer! She cursed us! The video is cursed! No, she put the idea in my brain. She lodged it there where it was later vomited up half-digested to splatter my waking world.)

Eric seizes my breast in one sweaty palm. Despite how tight my sleeveless blouse is he doesn't find it exactly and pinches an awkward crease that forces me to grimace. He interprets this poorly and leans his furred face to scrape my forehead. His body presses to mine. His crotch winds up directly to my midriff and I feel something hard. My hand latches around his wrist and tries to pry him away but now he's in full dominance mode. He pushes and my back strikes the mirrored door which rattles heavily in its hinges. Hermes and the Caduceus are there bleeding through my shirt and my skin. Though I know I shouldn't break eye contact I reflexively twist my head and see past my shoulder myself reflected in the mirrored panels, see past myself into the atrium. The stilt-legged Gorehound is gone. The hall is only mannequins. Mannequins and one figure stalking toward us stringently.

"Unhand her this moment!" says Tate Wintermute.

Her shrill voice catches like a peaking microphone, but it's enough for Eric to jolt in surprise and let go. I stagger against the mirrors until I catch myself by pressing my palms to their surfaces, leaving smears I hope will wipe off cleanly.

"Enid. Enid dear." Wintermute is beside me, helping me upright. "Enid did he hurt you? I've been running around with the cad ever since you left and he somehow gave me the slip." She uses the word "cad." It's a word that might show up in Wicke Holtzclaw's period piece erotica. Maybe that's where Wintermute got it.

Before Eric recovers she sweeps me up in a twirl of her tiny cape. She's wearing plaid, too, like the wolfman lumberjack, a trendy plaid vest with a far more intricate design and mix of colors, but plaid nonetheless. Did she and Eric coordinate ahead of time? Angel, devil?

Her stern finger wags in Eric's face. "There will be no more of your antics. Make another move and I swear I will scream that you're a rapist, loud enough for every single person in this mansion to hear."

I expect this won't deter Eric. His posture remains aggressive, or maybe that's a natural byproduct of how he looms over us. But he growls lowly: "What if she likes it."

"What if she does?"

"She doesn't," says Wintermute. "Now—and I say this with all due kindness—au revoir."

She opens the mirrored door to the library, tugs me inside, and shuts it quickly, ensuring Eric can't follow. She examines the handle as though she'll find a lock, but there isn't any, so he's only going to open it immediately and follow us, resuming this whole tiresome process. I'm still thinking about the Gorehound. It's clear that if I watch the movie (probably only one of the trilogy necessary, though D'Addario must have them all) I'll understand everything. It's the missing piece, the specter that haunts the whole night.

Miraculously, Eric doesn't follow. I'm not sure how Wintermute's final threat did it, but it worked. She touches my shoulder. "You're certain you're okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm normal."

"You're safe with me. I'll keep my friends safe. Yes, yes I will."

They've all been pantomiming that movie from the start. Reenacting scenes from it. If I understood the reference, everything would make sense.

This room has a strange smell. Like copper. Something burbles.

"Now, let's find where our friends have gone off to and..."

That's right. The body. I'm still imagining it. Though I don't want to, I turn my head. The tangled legs remain.

I only have a moment to ponder how unusual it is for a visual hallucination to persist this long, unchanging. As I mentioned, hallucinations are usually subtle, like seeing mannequins move when they're staying still. Now the mannequins in the corners of the room are still, though.

Then Wintermute makes a sound like she's choking. Her fingers go to the locket on her neck and for a second I think it's strangling her. Then I see where she's looking.

She's looking at the body.

Her hand goes to her mouth. She lurches and I reach out to steady her but she's already past me. She grips the easel with the painting of the room and the three old ladies and leans over it and she is going to vomit but somehow exactly like me a light reappears in her eyes and she sways back without even spittle on her lips.

"Tah!" she says, with a silly grin. Abrupt, twisting tugs of her fingers straighten all her bits of clothing back into proper order. "My apologies. I imagined I saw something strange. Rather long night, non?"

My heart plummets in my chest.

As if a reflection of my own, her face sinks.

Our heads, in tandem, tick-tick-tock toward the body.

The body we both see.

Chapter 11: Uh Oh! Bad Place to Be!

Lim screams. No, it's Wintermute. A scream so performative it seems rehearsed. The stench of artificiality clings to her like her tacky perfume. The sound doesn't match her mouth; it's been dubbed in post. But it's loud; I shudder.

The door rockets open. Eric is there, filling the frame. He's massive. He has the sledgehammer. He let us go simply for the horror of it. Thrill of the chase. I backpedal. Nothing is between me and him. But if I grab Wintermute and throw her!

He doesn't have a sledgehammer. He shouts: "What the fuck! You said you wouldn't scream!"

Wintermute, still screaming, flings her spread palms toward the body. Eric stares dumbly. Then he reanimates, yells "Oh FUCK," and in an unceremonious hurry rips the wolfman mask off his head.

His dusty off-blonde hair tumbles in a mess. He has the same chin as Machiavelli. He is just some guy.

"Oh fuck! Oh fuck, oh what the fuck?"

I don't understand. How is it real? There have been other people, partiers, in this room the whole time. Don't they see it? Are they hopped up on so many drugs they're insensible?

I look around, anywhere but at the body. There are no other people in the room. I only stepped out for a minute, but in that time everyone has left. Mannequins stand where I saw people before.

Wintermute has screamed for so long I wonder how her throat isn't hoarse. Eric roves around the room but then, all energy draining at once, sinks into a chair (not the same one I almost vomited on) and stares at nothing, pale and trembling. I'm the only one who's still. My incipient attempt to mentally grapple with the fact that Ryan is actually dead is overcome with another thought: I need to react. Eric saw me leave this room. It's only a matter of time before he starts to wonder why I'm so calm. Obviously I didn't do it but I can't have them thinking I did, for even a moment. I can't have the concept "Enid Lim Is Not Normal" enter their minds, where it might persist like a ghost even if evidence and alibi is later produced.

React. React!

"Uh oh," I say. "Oh, no!"

I know this reaction is bad. I know, okay? Ironically, it's being thrown into chaos like this that makes it impossible for me to react in an appropriately chaotic way. I can't arrange my thoughts. I can't visualize the socially proper response. Should I just scream, like Wintermute? If I start imitating her, won't that be suspicious itself? I need to appear shellshocked. I force my eyes wide until they feel like they're bulging out of my sockets. I stagger, or try to, except it winds up looking like ordinary walking because I'm afraid I'll lose my balance. (Maybe I should lose my balance? Flop on the floor?) I reach for a wall for support but it's farther than I thought so my hand gropes the air.

Then Wintermute is on me. She seizes my shoulders in a too-strong grip and shakes me. Her eyes are locked to mine. They're full of reproach. She knows. She knows I'm faking.

"They killed her," she screams in my face. "They killed Cherry!"

Cherry?

She thinks the corpse is Cherry Corbett. I look at it again. I can see all of it from here, even the squashed head and the red hair around it. The body is tall, slender, and pale. There are no identifying marks, like a mole or scar, not that I've seen enough of Ryan's body to know if she has anything like that. (What? Does that disappoint you? Someone like Ryan does not wind up on the Dyke Pool, sorry.) It could in fact be either of them. Wouldn't it make more sense for it to be Corbett? She was the one actually getting up to hijinks with the boys. That's the type who dies first, Wintermute said. (If I only saw Gorehound III. I'd understand everything.) A new scenario plays out in my imagination: Corbett refuses to do a trick the boys ask her, they turn murderous, Ryan spying through the crack flees in terror. Ryan is still alive!

"Enid? Enid why are you smiling?!"

She shakes me. She'll shake my head off. I've messed up now. I can't even wipe the silly smirk off my face. My facial muscles refuse to comply. It's only a matter of time until Eric announces he saw me leave this room right before the body was discovered. I'll be Enid Lim, the Psychotic Schizophrenic. Slaughtered her own best friend, you know. Got the notion in her head she was a doppelganger. A what? Kind of creature that looks like a person but isn't. Government makes them. Cuts off your face and pins it up to dry as a mask. (You're not Enid. You're not her. I know what the real Enid has. It's the first thing I remember. You don't have it.) That's crazy. Of course it's crazy, it's Enid Lim. She's crazy, you know.

"A prop," I conjure.

"What?!"

The word tumbled out of my mouth. I have no idea why I said it, but when Wintermute stops shaking me I realize my subconscious, rather than sabotaging me like usual, has come to my rescue. Everything clicks together so suddenly I actually wonder if it isn't true. My eyes flit to the body on the floor. Is it true? It's so smooth. So perfectly twisted to conceal the genitalia.

"It's a prop," I repeat. "A Halloween prop."

The mannequins everywhere. The Gorehound costume with its stilts and dog skull. It makes sense, it makes so much sense. How did I describe the splatter of the head before? A dropped pizza? What if that's not as bad an analogy as I thought?

Wintermute stares at me, openmouthed, not quite shaking her head but twitching it. Gears are churning. Eric jumps to his feet. "A prop? A prop?"

It doesn't matter if it's true or not. Even if I'm wrong (I don't think I'm wrong), it explains my delayed reaction. Why I came out of the room earlier without screaming. Why I smiled. It's an alibi, if you will, for my lapse in normalcy. It's perfect. I only need to sell that I believe it, which is increasingly not something I need to sell.

"It's obvious. It barely looks real at all." I speak authoritatively. "There were partygoers in here laughing about it earlier."

"Partygoers?" says Wintermute.

"I didn't give it a second look. I swear, Wintermute, you'd scream at a dropped pizza."

"Partygoers?"

Eric peers over the armchair at the body, then turns away. Unbelievably, he's laughing. "It is a prop. Oh my fucking God it's a freaking doll!"

I win. Outnumbered two to one, Wintermute must concede.

"I cannot believe you," she says, and though her tone is indignant it also possesses a tint of her original color. She is, despite her protests, beginning to believe. Resolutely, however, she refuses to look at the doll again. She pulls out her phone and taps it as she strides past me and out the door, a different door, which doesn't go to the music room but straight into the atrium. (Everything is connected to the atrium.)

"What are you doing?" Eric asks as we follow her. "Hey. Who are you calling?"

"Obviously," Wintermute doesn't even look at him, "I'm calling Cherry and—and Siobhan. If they don't answer promptly, I'm calling the police."

I wasn't aware she had their numbers. But after a tap she holds the phone to her ear.

"Voicemail," she says. "Time to—Hey!"

Eric is so quick that by the time I understand what's happened he holds Wintermute's phone overhead with an outstretched arm, far beyond her reach even as she strains for it. With speed like that it's amazing we outran him earlier. Or he let us outrun him.

"What do you think you're doing? Give me back my device this instant." Wintermute attempts a tepid jump that doesn't put her anywhere near the phone and then harshly smooths out all the parts of her outfit that became disheveled by the maneuver.

"We're not calling the police," Eric says.

"Are you mad? Give me my device!"

"Why don't we calm down." I try to step between them. "Wintermute, it's a prop. A Halloween prank."

"So why didn't Cherry pick up? Hm?"

"You know why. She's indisposed."

"Indisposed. Hah! Enid, you saw the same thing I saw. That is not a fake body. It is not a doll. You know that. You both know that!"

The certainty in her tone gives me pause. My mental image of the body bounces between states of realism as though someone is dragging a slider back and forth. That's my mind, though. Not worthy of undue consideration. There's something else that strikes me as odd.

I turn to Eric. "Why is it so important we don't call the police?"

"No, shut up," Eric says. "You're on my side—Get off me!" He twists to evade a higher jump from Wintermute. "You're on my side. It's a fake prop. You're—you know. You're not supposed to call the police for bullshit."

True. I can't imagine any Newport patrolmen would be pleased to take a call Halloween night only to discover the caller got scared by fake blood. But it would be Wintermute who took any scolding for that, not Eric. (How much would they scold the daughter of the richest man in the world?) Eric didn't casually, laughingly suggest she not call the police. He made sure she didn't. With haste.

In my mind, the slider lurches all the way to one end. The body is once more in lifelike detail, down to individual veins and tendons showing through the skin. Plus the eyeballs. Those emerald eyes floating on the gore. I suppress a shudder.

It was planned from the start. Those four boys. Only one is the murderer, but the others are accomplices. They help their friend get his sadistic kicks. Cover for him, the way friends do. Rich friends, at least. Which is the killer? Eric's clearly only here to run interference. Split us up. Machiavelli? He has the Patrick Bateman aura. The one in the Hitler costume is too obvious. It'd be Machiavelli. I see him in a translucent poncho holding a sledgehammer, just like the movie. (I haven't seen the movie, only that clip on YouTube.) I see him on the cover of the book with his eyes and mouth replaced by the title. LESS THAN ZERO. (Bret Easton Ellis.) He's crawling out of the closet. Crawling in the circle. Crawling in The Breakers. And the director films it. Snuff, that's real.

We're being filmed right now. I'm certain. My head whips around. The cavernous atrium thrums with dying music. Mannequins. The best angle is. Above! My head jerks up. For an instant I see a head over the railing. It disappears the moment I look. The director's grayscale face or the skull of a dog?

I almost rub my eyes but remember at the last second I would be rubbing the pale makeup all over my fingers into them. Wintermute and Eric's voices melt back into my awareness.

"There's something you're hiding," she says. "Something you know."

"You're crazy. Tell your friend she's crazy."

Wait, that face upstairs. Was it gray, or pale white? Was it a girl's face? Did it have red eyes? Am I misremembering?

"There's a reason you don't want to call the police," says Wintermute.

"Yeah because there's no fucking reason to call them! Get off me you crazy bitch."

Did I see a face at all?

"I'll get off of you when you give me back my device. And when you tell me why you don't want to call the police!"

"Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay." Eric steps back, straightens out, and holds up a palm as if in acquiescence. Though he doesn't give back the phone. "Calm down. It's not fucking rocket science, dumbass. If the police come, even if there's nothing, they're gonna call our schools. Are you guys supposed to be out here? We're sure as fuck not."

"Oh! Who cares? That body—"

"The body is fake! It's fake. Fake, fake, fake. Get it in your dumb head you dumb blonde bimbo," Lim says. No, Eric says that, Lim thinks. I think.

"Perhaps tone down the disrespectful language?" Wintermute says. The word "bimbo" has actually emboldened her, perhaps with an objective sense of moral superiority. Her attitude isn't frantic now, as though she herself no longer believes the body is real but persists simply for the satisfaction of earning Eric his disciplinary infraction. On the All Saints side, all of us except Corbett have flawless records, so a singular infraction only means a one hour cleaning detail. It's only when you rack up infractions that the more nefarious punishments manifest. Namely, they call your parents. I suspect, and Wintermute must suspect as well, that Eric's anxiousness on this point is because he's near the parent-calling stage.

"I'll prove it's fake," Eric says. "Quentin X. talks about it all the time. Fake blood. Corn syrup and food coloring. I'll prove it."

In my mind, the body is in full undetailed mode, blocky and polygonal, and I worry that when he opens the door reality will intrude rudely. It doesn't, though not how I expect.

When we go back into the library, the body is no longer there.

"Oh!" says Wintermute. "Oh, oh, oh!" She sounds more mad than anything.

"No," says Eric. "Nope. Wait. This is all totally part of it. I'm seeing the strings now. It's all coming together, clear as crystal." He kneels behind the armchair beside the splotch of pinkish-yellowish-red stuff congealed on the wood where the head used to be. (Even the eyeballs are gone.) He waves the floppy, empty wolfman mask over the splotch to indicate it. "We're talking a classic Quentin X. guerilla film. He does this shit all the time. If you two weren't being so fucking stupid and falling for it hook line and sinker he'd stop. But since you're hysterical, of course he has to escalate. Now he's hidden the body. There's probably a camera somewhere. Shit. Look at the tracks." The wolfman head flops; there is a scattered line of chunky red something leading across the room. It circumnavigates the expensive rug, passes the fireplace, and disappears into another door, neither the one that goes to the music room nor the one that goes to the atrium. "I bet if we open that door the body will topple out at us. And you stupid bitches will scream and play right into his hands. Classic Quentin."

It's not as unreasonable as it sounds. I'm not sure where he would have gotten the fake blood, but if the body was a mannequin, then he could've used any in here. It also wouldn't have been difficult for him and the others (assuming they were in on it) to hurriedly move the body while we were outside. Maybe Eric is part of it too? He made sure to take Wintermute's phone, then keep us out for a few minutes before pulling us back to see the trick. Why would he be explaining it to us now, though? Of course. To keep stringing us along. If we thought it were real we'd call the police, or at least leave. The ambiguity keeps us in suspense. It draws us deeper into the house. Deeper, where they're waiting for us.

"Enid," Wintermute says. "Please. Use your phone. Call—"

"Don't you fucking dare." Eric eyes me balefully. I know if I pull out my phone he'll pry it from my fingers. I couldn't stop him, even if Wintermute got in his way, which she looks ready to do.

"At least let us call our other friend," says Wintermute. "Enid, let's call Siobhan. I mean Ryan, désolée."

"They're in on it. They're all in on it. Call them and you're in their web. Are you all fucking stupid?"

"Don't you know your own friends?"

"Corbett would do it." I look around the room. How many heads? One, two, three, four. That's correct. "Ryan would never."

"Ryan would do it and you fucking know it."

"Fuck!" Eric slaps the wood next to the blood splatter. It is a heavy, subterranean sound. "Look. I'll prove it. Corn syrup."

He drags a finger through the half-dried red sludge. It builds blocky furrows of matter and disrupts a small mound that sags one way and deflates. His finger whips up, a dollop of it on the tip like salsa and a gag catches in my throat simply from the sight. Pieces dribble off and splatter stretches of wood. Wintermute clutches her hands to her mouth.

"Corn syrup," Eric says, and shoves it between his lips.

My chest heaves. It's as though it's in my mouth, I taste it, I feel its texture on my tongue. It's because I smell it, decaying acrid stench in every inch of fine fabric in this room. Rotten black fluid at the base of the drainpipe in the backyard. Not Long Island, before that: Palo Alto. I was six years old and scooped a tiny hand into the puddle and without thought or logic or any possible way to explain myself I funneled it into my mouth. Taste of raw sewage.

Eric's face doesn't pucker. It doesn't do anything. He stares ahead, blandly, finger still pinched between his lips.

Then he whips the finger out and says, with a throat-clearing cough, "Corn syrup."

I wonder.

He's upright though, reanimated. Wintermute tries to say something but either she stops herself or the pace at which he darts across the room stops her. He's headed for the other door, the one the blood leads to. "Look. I'll show you. I'll let them spring their dumb trap. Thank me later. Otherwise it'd be on you, and you'd shit yourselves."

Eric stands in front of the door, which is tucked into the corner of the room next to the fireplace. There's no Hermes on this door. It's only paneled wood. This bareness seems strange. It's like the door shouldn't be in this building. But it does have one small strange symbol on it: a circle in a square in a triangle in a circle.

"Wait," Wintermute says. Eric ignores her. His hand extends for the doorknob. Is he right? Will they all be behind the door, waiting with a feral scream? Or an axe?

The doorknob twists. Eric pulls, slowly, as if the door is heavy. The door starts to move.

Wintermute's hand enfolds my wrist and squeezes gently. Her eyes catch mine; she mouths, Phone. But I'm transfixed, watching the door open inch by inch.

There is someone standing on the other side after all.

A black shape. Flowing outward, expansive. Something red and shiny down the front. The pieces are there but I cannot put them together until the door is all the way open.

Lady Macbeth.

"It's You," says Ryan. She looks straight at me.

Relief comes so fast I don't realize how wound up I was until the sharp slap of the unwinding. Ambiguity is dead. Eric was right; only my splintering imagination made the alternative plausible.

I slouch back, causing me to butt against a cluster of eight mannequins with blank white faces and blank white eyes, then extricate myself from this formation and Wintermute's hold on my wrist and cross the room to Ryan, who remains in the doorway. She accepts my approach with a knowing smile. Eyes agleam. Emerald.

"What did I say." Eric flicks his wrist. "I told you."

"Where's Cherry?" Wintermute asks. She remains in the corner. The mannequins cluster around her.

Ryan fills everything. She looks only at me. Her hands, red with the blood Lady Macbeth can't wash off, are extended to her sides.

"This way," she says. "I have something to show You."

Like a figurine in a music box, she revolves. She proceeds deeper into the house. I exchange a quick glance with Eric, then follow. He follows too. Wintermute follows.

We're in a corridor. It's only a little wider than the door, the exact width necessary for Ryan's costume to pass without scraping the walls. The wallpaper is Flowers of Life in gold on green, a vibrant green you could drown in. Blood cuts the wood floor in tracks.

"Note the Flower of Life," Ryan says. Of course, I already have.

"Um, yes, hello?" says Wintermute from the back. "Yes, hello, may we have some explanation as to what exactly is going on?"

"Geometric forms and concepts that hold spiritual significance as the foundation of the universe."

"Oh not this nonsense again!"

"Kundalini awakening," Lim says.

We reach the end of the corridor. It bends left. Another corridor, identical, extends. It's like being in the tunnels under the house. The shape of the house must mean something, the way all these motifs and symbols do. I try to imagine its layout as a blueprint. Where would this corridor be in relation to the atrium? My mental map has errors. I can't figure out the shape. The corridor bends left.

"What's Kundalini," asks Eric with idle disinterest. "Shit. What's a Flower of Life?"

Ryan has not stopped or slowed since we entered the corridor. Her pace is steady and measured. Lim, Eric, and Wintermute are bunched behind her. "Sacred geometry," she says.

"Okaaay. What's that, Miss Tour Guide?"

I want to gesture my impatience at his boorish ignorance, but leave the honor to Ryan. She doesn't gesture at all, though, as she turns left to continue down the corridor. So, ultimately, I do the gesture for her. "Don't you know anything at all?"

"I don't know Kunnalinguini. Sue me."

"The truth of the matter is," says Wintermute, "Siobhan doesn't either."

I go rigid in the middle of the corridor. The emphasis on the name is venomous; atypical for Wintermute, she meant it to hurt. When I look back, I can see she's upset. Her arms are crossed tight over her chest. I suppose it makes sense. This has been a long and elaborate prank. Still, she should know better. She shouldn't be upsetting Ryan right now. This is a bad time to do that.

Eric shunts me aside and continues past, uncaring. I signal for Wintermute to stop, but she keeps walking too, with a poignant and self-satisfied look.

"Yes, the truth of the matter is, if you know even the slightest thing about architecture," and she says this in a tone that indicates she, of course, knows quite a bit more than the slightest thing, "you'd recognize that these symbols on the wall—indeed, these flower symbols that percolate throughout the entire house—"

"What are you saying?"

"—are not the 'Flower of Life' at all."

Ryan stops at the end of the corridor, in front of a closed black door.

"Again. I'm truly sorry to have to do this," Wintermute continues. "I kept quiet before as I didn't want to embarrass you, but given you have utterly failed to show me the same courtesy, and my patience has been strained to the utmost, I find I must correct you. This flower. See this flower?" She unlatches her arms and points to one of the golden flowers on the wallpaper. "This flower is a common motif in Beaux-Arts architecture, of which The Breakers is an archetypal example. Its architect, Richard Morris Hunt, in fact studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris"—pronounced Paree—"before taking its style back to his native America. Now, Beaux-Arts architecture, if you'll recall from your Art History textbook—"

"What are you talking about?" says Eric. But I know what she's talking about. Don't I? I read the Art History textbook. I read more of it than Wintermute. (I beat her on that test. 98 to 96.) I know all about Beaux-Arts architecture.

"—is an eclectic synthesis of classical, baroque, and rococo artistic stylings. This flower motif? Comes from the rococo mode. Ro, co, co."

A cold, creeping feeling taps its fingers up my gut. Ryan stands at the end of the corridor, her back to us.

"The Flower of Life, meanwhile, is a modern term associated with New Age mysticism. It does not look like a flower at all, but rather an overlapping grid of circles. It is mathematical in nature. Does this flower look mathematical to you?"

It looks like a flower. Its petals flare out, curl around each other.

"These could not be more aesthetically opposite concepts, Siobhan!" Wintermute taps the flower on the wallpaper, again and again, each time with more force. A hollow, patterned thump resounds down the corridor. "You are mixing up geometric pseudo-spirituality with the height of French decadence! I thought you were more intelligent than this! Does nothing mean anything to you?"

Ryan makes no response. The deep brilliant black of her Renaissance (or is it medieval) costume bleeds against the deep brilliant black of the door, hewn of rich wood from the heart of a dark forest, one singular stout tree in a ringed clearing upon which the moon shines light that tastes like milk. Ryan's arms, flared out, terminate at the delicate curling of her fingers. Lady Macbeth's wine-dark blood drips from the nails: drip, drip, drop. So thick each drop seems to contain the glint of a purple-hued gem.

Finally, words scented lavender, she speaks:

"It's an unensouled time, Enid Lim, a time of husks and dolls. And this doll asks of flowers? They're growing out her eye sockets. Discarded fabrication of man, destined to sink subservient to the hollow entropy known as Nature, incapable even of putrefaction with such soft chemical skin. Symbols are so the shape of a tool remembers God. So everything applies. Once, even the most scrofulous wretch heard the holy clangor of a cathedral's bells. Now? What applies now? What spirit slips between the words of our books now? Will we Disappear Here? In the scourging of our skin our eyes our bones our flesh our homes our clothes our food our art our letters our sounds our souls of all particulate matter what spirit can remain to possess them? Animated only by our own ingenuity? What is it we can believe in, Enid Lim? What remains? Besides the chime of gold in casket, in which we have no choice but to hear our soul in heaven? 'Progress is God.' We are more wretched than an unrepentant highwayman dying in a ditch five hundred years ago. Damnation washed away with the rest of our memories. Watch; I'll show you Meaning. My offering to You."

The black door creaks open and the room beyond is black at first but as it continues creaking a gradation of light tints its vacuum and growing brighter still I see a shine of moonlight (tastes of milk) from a hole in the ceiling pouring into holes in the floor. The room's center is a walkway, narrow as a plank, between these holes, which are sheer square drops into nothingness, though I remember the tunnels under the house and the chutes down which coal was once dropped and these must be those. There's something on the platform at the end of the walkway, a pair of bare feet dangling down a shaft of wood.

Wintermute, who made several failed attempts to interrupt Ryan's speech, claps hands to her mouth and gasps. Eric is laughing as he follows Ryan through the door. When I approach, the bare feet rise into bare legs and finally the form of the decapitated body stretched in cruciform though the crosswise plank is bowed as if bent by the body's weight. The shoulders, slumped, bare the red welt of the neck-stump, from which occasional sprigs of viscera splatter to the floor. I cannot see what binds the hands. The palms have been hollowed out and in the red circles of stigmata are set the emerald eyes, which watch me as I tiptoe along the boardwalk. I break my stare only to glance down the shafts, and see nothing. I glance above; the moon is there.

"So what is this?" asks Eric. "Like a piece of art?"

It looks like one. Mom once took Enid and Eric (prepandemic) to a gallery for an artist one of her clients was buying to write off taxes, and the mannequin there, posed in a position of rape under a spotlight, possessed the same sense of purpose as this thing we stare at now. (And Eric laughed then, like he's laughing now.) That gallery was white and sterile, all the walls white, and the floor plain smooth wood. What we stand in here is opposed to even the eclecticism of Beaux-Arts, neither Renaissance nor baroque nor rococo but dredged from a deeper time, with walls of fierce stone and a... darkness... I turn and grip Wintermute and blink away brief vertigo. "Enid? Oh, it's awful, isn't it?" No, that's not the reason. I'm fine now. "You shouldn't be on that walkway anyway, it's clearly unsafe."

"This is the innermost sanctum." Ryan proceeds before the Christ of herself, arms outstretched to become its mirror, if only her head exploded. The blood drips from her hands into the coal chute abysses. "It was constructed for ritual and mystery. On holy days, the Vanderbilts placed children on the altar and drove daggers into their naves, to unseam to the chaps, so that the inner organs could be extracted and ground, in accordance with formulae passed down by Paracelsus, into powders for the development of tinctures of transmutation. The blood was drained into these holes. Supposedly, the blood traveled down to Hell, and demons would be summoned, or Satan himself. Even such evil is an expression of belief. It is, let's say, Less Than Zero, rather than a curve approaching it but unable, infinitely, to touch."

"What nonsense!" says Wintermute.

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

"You're inventing this wholesale. It hasn't the slightest pretension toward verifiable reality. It's false. It's false, false, false!"

"It looks cool," says Eric.

The body on the cross is rotting, I realize. Its white skin is turning green at the hands and feet, as if its bilious discharge is pooling at the extremities. The belly has begun to bloat and distend, in a strange evocation of pregnancy. Its tiny breasts, shriveled, sag. It doesn't make sense, not for a mannequin, or maybe it only makes sense for a mannequin, because no corpse no matter how brutalized would rot so swiftly. There's no foul stench, though. Only lavender on Ryan's lips. And the body has no genitals.

Enid Lim, a raven-haired and red-eyed vampress, steps past me onto the walkway. She steps with the weight of a ghost and her long claws reach for the back of Eric's head. He doesn't know she's coming. He lacks my presentiment of her nails degloving the skin from his skull. Nobody notices, except me. Because I am Enid Lim.

I'm not there. I look up.

"You alone mean something, Enid Lim," says Ryan. "So take my offering."

The moon through the hole in the ceiling looks back. It has an eyeball, emerald, staring.

"Take it, Enid Lim. Perform the rite that will save Yourself, and save this world coiled around You. Take Your brother's blood and face."

The eyeball shuts.

The moonlight winks out.

Everything goes dark.

A scream. It's hard and masculine. It's Eric. I stumble back into Wintermute, and suddenly I realize I cannot see the floor. "Oh God, oh fuck who is that!" Eric howls. "Oh God get off me!" Do I see, fading into the black in outline, her fingers digging into him?

"This way!" Wintermute tugs my shoulders. We're fumbling through the dark for an exit that no longer seems to exist. Wintermute hits something and we detach from one another. A piece of wall moves, the door! I paw for a way to pull it open.

"Oh fuck oh fuck ohhhHHHAAAUUIIEEEGHHGGHKKKKKKCCCHHHIIIHIIIIHIIIEEEEE"

I find the unmistakable shape of a knob and tug so hard the door shoots back and nails Wintermute in the face. I see her in the light piercing from the corridor, head jerked back, ribbon of blood (or hair?) like damask suspended in somehow solid shape.

"Oh! Sorry," I say on impulse as she thuds a rickety step backward.

I reach out to her. She reaches too. She's going to fall off the edge into a hole. Our fingertips touch.

Something emerges from the black and sweeps its arms around Wintermute's torso. A head appears beside her, a mouth screaming below blood. A head on which the scalp hangs like a flopping wolfman mask, revealing a shining red dome and nothing else.

"His blood, take it!" Ryan screams, pitter-pitter-patter footsteps over the walkway, her red hair a flaming bolt. "His skin, his flesh! Renew us, revive us, restore us from Kali Yuga!" She comes for me, as though the others don't exist. I fling my hands out and knock her back. She collides with Eric and Wintermute. They hover together a moment and then all three disappear, dropping, maybe to the ground and maybe into a hole, I can't tell if what I hear is Wintermute's scream or mine because something's still in here, whatever clawed off Eric's face, a limned shadow of myself or maybe my brother, it's coming toward me, I run. Through the door and into the corridor of rococo flowers. Feet pound behind me as I careen into the wall at the bend and bounce off down the next stretch. Another bend. Another bend. Straight lines are impossible. I'm hitting every wall and flying off to hit the next and panting breath is hot on the nape of my neck, the wisp of outstretched fingers brush my bare shoulder. Another bend and I shear the corner, crash against the wall, wheel while my legs never cease churning, the door's ahead still thank God still open and I push my legs faster than I thought possible toward that sliver of reasonable world beyond this pattern of Flowers of Life (interlocking grid of circles), a library a Breakers and I'm through the door kicking to shut it and tripping on the rug and falling back by incredible good luck not onto a table of jagged baubles but an armchair plush and luxurious to catch me.

My momentum and weight makes the armchair skid several inches over the rug, bunching it. I'm facing the door as it shuts, and for some reason I sit there waiting for it to open, waiting for someone to come out. A rattle whistles through my lungs.

I have to get out. I have to get out. I have to get out. I can't move. I can't get up. Get up. Get up. Get up. Get up.

My legs won't move until I force my body sideways and tip the chair and spill out on the floor at which point the jolt animates me into a scrabbling twitch of limbs and I kick away from the chair only to see embroidered onto its seat the square and compass shape of the academy. I have to get out. I have to get out. Every fringe is populated by mouthless mannequins. I have to get out. The painting of the three ladies clatters to the floor. I grip a little table and pull myself up and I think my nose is bleeding but when I put my hand to it it's not. The door creaks, I run. All my bones are disintegrating inside me but I run, out the non-mirrored door into the atrium.

What did I see? What did I actually see? Because, because obviously, the things I saw, they can't all. Can't all be happening. Right? The half-scalped head of Eric emerging out the dark, him and Wintermute and Ryan dropping into the pit. God! It doesn't matter what I saw. Even if whatever chased me was a fabrication (I glance panicked over my shoulder at the library door but nothing is coming), even if, even if, it doesn't matter! They fell. They could be hurt, badly. I have to. Have to get out. No, have to call the police.

My hands pat my body. All over, waist chest hips, where is it? My phone. Where? Did I leave it at the academy? No I brought it, I'm sure I brought it. Every pocket is empty. Where is it?

I glance at the library. Nothing is coming.

Limping on an ankle that hurts and I don't know why, I head to the front door of the atrium, the door to the loggia, but it's blocked by all this musical equipment, loudspeakers and metal boxes. Why is it here? Has there ever been an actual person at this party? Only the mannequins? I can't reach the doors. I try to push the speakers aside, put my whole body against them, try a different angle and pull instead, they won't budge.

A creak. I glance at the library. The door, open only a crack, slams back shut.

"Corbett!" I scream. I tilt my head back and scream. "Corbett! CORBETT!"

Why her? She's the only one who isn't, wasn't there. Oh but that's not true and you know it she was there you know exactly where she was up on the cross with her head gone scream all you want. I scream. My voice carries to the sky, there's a sky painting on the ceiling fifty meters up, a windswept sky eerily cloudless but at least there's no moon. (You didn't see the moon.)

"CORBETT!"

It's Ryan you should be screaming for. Whatever prank she pulled in that room now that Wintermute fell and might be hurt it's over in fact you need to go back to that room find her (but she fell too) you need to confirm Wintermute fell (you pushed her) it was dark maybe Eric just pulled her to the ground and my nose is bleeding I put my hand to it there's no blood. I pull the speakers again but they don't move and I bet these doors are painted on anyway. CORBETT! Corbett it's serious this time Corbett! What were the names of the others? Machiavelli. Quincy? Quentin. They were both Quentin. Even if that were Corbett on the cross (it wasn't her it wasn't Corbett shut up shut up) even if it were her speaking purely hypothetically let's say in a thought experiment where we account for the possibility of correct perception and clear mind even in this most outlandish unthinkable unlikely scenario the other three boys should still be here unless of course Ryan slit all their throats and tossed them into the holes why were those holes there and and and actually, actually, let's calm down now, Enid swings away from the speakers into the dead center of this vast room so if any door opens and anything runs at her it has to travel a long way first, actually that room doesn't make sense at all, the way the corridor curved, shouldn't the room be here? Right here, where she's standing? Her sense of space is all discombobulated. She doesn't know. You have to get out of here. The tunnels. Where were they? Near the dining room? Which way is the dining room she doesn't remember. She has to get to the tunnels because if Wintermute (and Ryan, whom she pushed, no maybe she didn't, maybe Ryan pushed Wintermute) if Wintermute fell she'd be there and Enid you need to help her, that's what you need to think about first you need to help your friend in case she's hurt and plus Wintermute has a phone no wait Eric took it but Eric would be down there too. There's (her head snaps to the library the door is ajar when did it open does she see an eye peeking through or no no no shut up) there's a there's a there's a JUST CALM DOWN.

"CORBETT! QUENTIN! MACHIAVELLI!"

The stupidity of Machiavelli's name calms her more than any frantic thought. Haa, haaaa. It's fine. It's fine. Nothing you saw happened. Nothing ever happens, you know that right?

"Enid," a voice says.

I look up. A dizzy whoosh disorients me. On the second story peeking over a balustrade wound into the shape of (rococo) flowers a face—there's no face.

I look down quickly and, eyes to the tile, scrape half-limping among the mannequins in the vague direction I remember the dining hall being. When I pass under the second-story overhang I hear something tinkling and look and it's, unbelievably, a little fountain hidden under the angled incline of the stairs. Dolphin statues spew streams of water. What does the dolphin symbolize I wonder?

There are mirrors here, but they're one way and I see through them into the dining hall. If I wasn't panting I'd sigh relief. The feeling doesn't last long. When I grab the doorknob it rattles but doesn't turn. Someone has locked it. Who? When? I go back to the mirror and try to see under the table in case the people are still there but they're mannequins.

I whip around but my view of the library door where I came from is blocked by the grotto under the stairs. I shuffle aside until I see it.

It's wide open.

"Ryan?" I shout into the atrium. "Wintermute?"

No answer.

I carefully creep sideways, giving myself a broader viewing angle into the atrium. I see nothing moving except the mannequins. They're all moving.

There are a couple chairs around the grotto fountain. I could smash the dining hall mirror and climb through. Rationality pings back: And be liable for damages? You don't know a single thing is really happening, for sure.

(Is that rationality speaking or its opposite?)

Am I even strong enough to break the mirror? Oh, it's irrelevant. There's a butler's pantry, remember? The pantry must have a way to access the dining hall. If this house has as sacred a geometry as Ryan claims then there must be many interlocking ways to reach each room, connections upon connections, Everything Is Connected. (And if all the doors are locked?) They can't all be locked, it doesn't even make sense this one is locked!

I realize I've remained rooted like this, back against the mirror, shifting my gaze through archways into the atrium, for too long. If something's in the atrium (nothing is in the atrium!) if something is in the atrium it's hiding, and it'd have to reveal itself long before it got close. (But the door beside me is locked. Where do I run?) There's a pair of double doors to my left. They must lead to a room adjacent to the dining hall. Maybe the pantry. Keeping an eye on the atrium, I shuffle toward them.

When I reach the doors and place my hand on a knob, it twists on its own.

Startled, I hobble back a painful step on my hurt ankle. There's nothing to defend myself with. I'm exposed. The door swings open and a grinning face greets me.

Chapter 12: Why Are We Still Not Building It?

"Alright alright we're finished already. What the fuck are you screeching about?"

Cherry Corbett zips up her tennis jacket, adjusts her white visor. Behind her is a room made of mosaics, lit smokily by two yellow lamps. The marble walls are soapy and blue, all shades of foam. If not for the billiards table, it'd look like a Roman bathhouse. Yet another room that matches nothing else in the house, and I remember Wintermute's description of Beaux-Arts: eclectic, styles from Renaissance to rococo. This house has everything in it, everything there was to have.

I step back, still uncertain of what I'm seeing. I notice Machiavelli and Hitler in the back of the room each zipping their trousers. Machiavelli catches my eye and tips a sly smile; Quentin, however, looks entirely unsatisfied.

"You were here the whole time?" I ask.

Leaning against the door jamb, Corbett slips out her phone (her phone!) and inspects herself by using its camera like a mirror. She adjusts strands of stray red hair. "Well, before we could get fully locked in"—at this Machiavelli laughs, as if it's an inside joke—"we noticed someone peeping, so we moved here. It's only got one door. One that opens, at least."

"But you've been here since then?" So who was on the cross?

Corbett stashes the phone and slinks an arm around my shoulder coy and feline. "Limmy, you gotta get locked in too. It's so fucking hot. You'd look cute as shit. I dried out these two but let's find another. I'll help you. Nice and easy."

She has a squiggly smile; her face is flushed. There is a sort of scent to her, pungent and salty. I wonder what, specifically, she did. With two of them no less. No I don't, I don't wonder that at all!

"I think Wintermute fell," I blurt. "I think she fell down a hole to the tunnels. I don't know where she is."

"If you had a dick then we wouldn't need Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dipshit at all. Then we could really get locked in."

"I'll lock in your eye socket!" Machiavelli shouts, laughing.

There's a bead of something white on Corbett's chin. She missed it in the phone-mirror; I can't stop staring. "Wintermute... could be hurt... Ryan pushed her..."

She wheels me away from the door and we proceed under the overhang, toward the grotto. "Oh fuck Siobhan! Don't even mention her. All day she yaps my ear off about moral degradation and fuckall else like she's Little Miss Never-Taken-It-Up-The-Ass and where is she? Panting outside the door like a pervert, pawing her frilly dress soaked. I don't get why you follow her around Lim, you're way better than that headcase. We gotta get you locked in tonight. Have you ever done it before?"

"Hey, hey!" Machiavelli shouts from the doorway. "Bring your little Asian friend in. I got more left."

"You're limp, fuckface. You couldn't lock in on a sock now."

"Like this bitch knows what's up! Hey, Chi-Chi!" He points at me. "You're not hard to get like your friend yeah? You'd let us pound your pussy, right?"

"Maybe she doesn't have one," says Corbett, twining her arms down my front. "Maybe she'll be the one who locks in on your ass. Think of that, Mach-i-a-vell-i?"

The taunt makes Machiavelli go momentarily rigid. Quentin the Hitler bumbles behind him. "Dude, can we shut up about locking in and shit?"

"You said it first."

"I said it once! You two made it this huge thing."

"I had to make a huge thing," says Corbett. "Yours sure isn't." She cackles so hard I'm peer pressured to cackle too. My head is swimming.

"Wintermute," I manage. "I'm serious. She might be hurt."

"Wintermute!" Corbett throws back her head and groans at the sky. "Gawd I'm sick of these fake ass bitches. You're the only real one, Limmy, even if you're a little virgin nerd. But hey!" She claps my bare thigh under my skirt; it jiggles. "We'll fix that tonight!"

"I'm not kidding, Corbett." But her jocularity throws everything into question. If I'm wrong she'll laugh at me. She'll make it a running joke, like "lock in." I imagine her repeating the phrase "fell down a hole" with the same monomania, the same singularity, in contrast with the grasping everything of this house. The normal thing to do, what would it be? I hedge my bets. "It was dark, so maybe I'm wrong..."

Of course, this makes Corbett swat the air with a dismissive pfft.

"Enid," someone says.

I look. The atrium is unchanged. Anxiously massive, crawling with mannequins.

"Oh bro," says Quentin. He points at the one-way mirror into the dining hall. "It's Quentin X., what's he doing?"

The director is here for his cameo, still black-and-white, pointing his camera at the mirror. He makes an A-okay signal. We're all in his frame.

Machiavelli goes to the dining hall door and tries to open it, but it's locked. Quentin X. must have locked it. Nothing else makes sense.

"Let us in, asshole." Machiavelli pounds his fist until he shakes it with a wince.

Quentin X. doesn't move.

The other Quentin scratches his Hitler mustache, which is starting to peel. "What's his issue?"

"He's mad we didn't let him make a porno of us," says Corbett.

"Voyeur moding," says Machiavelli. "Everyone loves to look at everyone else. Nobody looks inside themselves."

"Wow, a philosopher." Corbett leads me away from them, into the atrium. If not for everything else, I'd be flabbergasted Corbett actually seems to like me. Though after she wipes her chin with the back of her hand she rubs it on my skirt.

It's clear I've blown the opportunity to impress upon her the danger, regardless of how rationally I frame it. If anything, her easygoing aura is impressing on me. My heart stops pounding and I no longer tremble. If Wintermute actually fell, Ryan would have come out by now for help, right? Right. I've established she did not actually decapitate and crucify Corbett, so though her behavior was odd, there is nothing to suggest murderous psychopathy. Ergo, she couldn't have pushed Wintermute and she would react appropriately if Wintermute, or Eric, were seriously hurt. They must all be in that room, laughing at me. Maybe, sensing my weakness, they snuck out of the library (the door is still open) when I wasn't looking to set up another prank. Whose voice called from the second story?

"Enid," I think I hear that voice say, but when I look up nobody is anywhere. Only agoraphobia. I retain doubts. Didn't Ryan fall too?

Something crashes. I lurch my head, only to see a mannequin on the floor and Machiavelli and Quentin Y. glancing around guiltily.

"Corbett, may I use your phone? I'm sure they're fine, but I'd like to make sure." An idea comes: "Wintermute's so spacey, I bet she's totally lost."

I have not lost my touch. That last comment shuts down a queer look before it forms on Corbett's face. She only asks, "What about your phone?"

"I forgot it."

Casual, effortless, effective. Corbett pries no deeper. Her phone is out of her pocket and her thumb taps four digits across a screen backgrounded by, who else, Novak Djokovic. I expect her to hand it to me and even extend my palm but without looking she presses the phone to her ear. Nobody has seen my extended hand; I lower it subtly.

Before she can call, though, Machiavelli's commanding voice interrupts. "Hey! Douchebag! Why'd you lock the door—uh huh. Yeah. Why would we—uh huh. Got it. Arrivederci."

He hangs up his own phone, squirrels it into his pocket, and turns to us. "Quentin X. says he saw your friends just a minute ago. They went upstairs."

This simple combination of words ends the placid calm. My insides sink. The only thing I can imagine about the nebulous upstairs of this endless house is the Gorehound and its stilt legs and canine skull. That Ryan would be up there with Wintermute makes no sense. Eric told us Quentin X. was a prankster. He must be messing with us. Or is he in on it? Does he want something wicked to film?

"Enid," the voice from above calls. "Don't come up."

"Aha." Corbett lowers her phone, points skyward. "That's them now."

Already she's wheeling me toward the grand staircase to the second story. Our path accumulates Machiavelli and Quentin Y. Sick dread macerates my bowels as the steps draw closer. Corbett won't let go of me, and what can I say, logically, to convince her not to go?

"You're sure that voice was theirs?"

Corbett pauses midstep. Her face scrunches. Absentmindedly, she nibbles a sliver of thumbnail.

"It sure couldn't have been yours," she says, dispelling all doubt.

We ascend so slowly that Machiavelli and Quentin Y. outpace us. Corbett is gripping me for a reason. She's limping and trying to hide it. On occasional steps a flicker of a wince creases her lips. She notices me staring, leans close, and whispers:

"Don't do anal, Limmy."

We catch up to the boys at the top of the stairs. The lighting is dimmer here. Shadows submerge portraits of old Vanderbilts ensconced in alcoves. Their stern eyes follow. A grand Flemish tapestry, eroded in patches, depicts Alexander the Great. The surfeit starts to nauseate, I can't take more of this house. The nagging thought remains: You need to get out. (Don't come up.) It's steeped in desperate fatigue. (You know what's up here.) All my senses sing. Brescia marble columns, Corinthian capitals. Brass and gold pinecones and flowers (rococo) extend from the encrusted ceiling. It's so much. It's so much.

We wander through a door, not going anywhere with purpose, and enter some bedroom, relatively unadorned. There are more shadows now, stretching from lamps lit in corners. Over the bed is a painting of a little girl encased in miserable clothes.

"Where did Quentin say they went?"

Machiavelli shrugs. We pass a small sculpture of a male body carrying a boulder on his stooped neck.

"We should've come up here first," Machiavelli says, pressing his hand into the bed. "Wouldn't have had to 'lock in' on a fucking pool table."

"Beds are boring," says Corbett.

"This whole place is boring. They do tours of it for thirty dollars. It's like going to history class."

Quentin Y. grunts as he rips off his mustache and tosses it aside.

Every bedroom is a different color. We wander through four of them, connected by dressing rooms and bathrooms. There aren't mannequins up here, or at least I think, until I look over my shoulder and find a pair tucked into the corner, nude and banal in the face with only two ellipses for eyes.

"Enid," I say.

"Ryan!" Corbett shouts. "Ryan where the fuck you at?"

"Enid." The voice says from above. Don't come up.

We return to the interior balcony thronging the atrium and find stairs leading to a third story. The bedrooms were becoming increasingly less lavish but these stairs are nothing but bare wood and a banister as they rise to a landing, turn, and rise some more.

"Enid."

The voice is always distant. Could it really be Ryan? I remember how she looked in that chamber. Her intensity. It's an intensity I know. Hasn't her heart always burned that brightly? She must maintain composure at all times because otherwise it spills out, this rapacity. I saw her flare, last year, when we were roommates, when only I was there to see it. Speeches on late nights. Speeches about the wrongs in this world, avarice and lust for mere material, abandonment of philosophy and art. "Even the rich. Have you seen their homes? Stark. Minimalist. Abstract. Walls of plain glass." Her hand on mine. "Everything stricken flat. It kills thought. I want to vomit all over it, Enid. At Dad's house I want to bend over and vomit, but I can't. It's killing us. It's shearing away our souls, and they're allowed to do it because they already killed belief in the soul to start. I hate them. I hate them. I hate them!"

If it were murder, it would be grandiose murder. Yes, that's Siobhan Ryan. No matter what she does, it proclaims her greatness. If virtuous, it is saintly virtue. If evil, diabolic evil. Right? Right?

So maybe she did decapitate that body. Maybe she maimed Eric and pushed Wintermute down that pit. Isn't that the most logical explanation? Now she has gone upstairs and prepared for the rest of them an even more barbaric death. Ceremony is the most important part. And who am I but her witness? Yes! The only one who understands. She has ensured I've seen every ritual. Doesn't this make sense? Logically, doesn't this explain every action she's taken?

The only question is, whose body was on the cross? Her own? (And why doesn't she want me to come up now? The thing on stilts. Or is it someone else telling me not to come?)

We climb the bare, wood stairs. Machiavelli and Quentin Y. in front, me and Corbett behind. Corbett isn't grasping me so much now. She walks straighter. My ankle still aches.

"I wish everything in this world that is stupid, base, ugly, and pointless would die."

The third floor is, like the stairs, bare and wooden. Brown expanses of planks stretch in perpendicular corridors lined evenly by doors. Corbett calls out to Ryan again; her voice echoes. Why is everything empty here? It's possible my mind has the power to influence reality. I thought how tired I was of opulence, and the rooms stripped themselves to accommodate. The first door we enter leads to a bedroom, but it has nothing in it except a bedframe. Blackened squares on bare brown wallpaper show where paintings used to hang.

"They can fleece the riffraff just by showing them the first floor," Machiavelli says. "Saves them money to strip everything up here."

Quentin Y. tugs his swastika armband until it comes off, then uses it to wipe his beet-red face. He's huffing after climbing all the stairs. He now looks nothing like Hitler.

"The whole house is a crass middlebrow sideshow. It's tacky."

"Enid."

We turn. The voice is behind us, at the end of the corridor we came from. Corbett wheels a finger to herd the others in its direction.

Ryan wouldn't kill anyone, though. She believes in happiness and goodness. Four friends in a lovely world.

We four friends, if you can call these two boys friends, approach the end of the corridor. It intersects another corridor at a T-shaped angle, with a small part leading left and a longer part leading right that eventually bends again. It's from the smaller part the voice originates, though the corridor stops at a bare wall and nobody's there. There are two doors, one on either side.

"This better be real good," Machiavelli mutters as he opens the first door. He immediately shouts, "Oh shit!"

Another art installation, I think. How grotesque this time? But as we cluster around the doorway there's nothing so striking inside. A lamp on a table, a small portrait on the wall, a bed.

There's an old lady in the bed.

She is so impossibly ancient she does not appear to be alive. She certainly makes no motion despite our intrusion. Covered to the chin in a white blanket, hidden under a matching nightcap, only a narrow cluster of wrinkles comprises her face, that and two eyes that blaze at us from recessed pockets of flesh. She is more wrinkle than skin, a craquelure so detailed it is the only reason I don't immediately believe this inanimate object is another mannequin.

Machiavelli snaps to attention. He nearly salutes, but catches his hand at the last second. "Oh! My apologies, ma'am. Did not intend to disturb you." It's a bizarre mix of deference and YouTuber voice.

The woman's lips decompress and gape wide into a hollow infinity and she speaks with a voice as deeply fissured:

"Have you come to remove me?"

"Remove you?" says Machiavelli, our spokesperson. "Not at all, ma'am. Simply passing through. We mean no disrespect."

Quentin Y. slinks away shamefaced, pawing at his uniform coat with a grimace. I slink too, but maintain a peeping angle at the old woman. The portrait on the otherwise bare wall is of a young girl with silky gold hair that reminds me of Wintermute. She wears a blazer and tie and holds a small cane. Only when I notice the same cane leaned against the side of the bed do I realize the portrait depicts her, this antediluvian creature glaring us into dust.

"Who are you?" Corbett asks.

"Enid."

I jerk my head over my shoulder. The voice came from the other door, there's no doubt. Quentin Y., leaning against the wall, hears it too. He exchanges a glance with me.

"I," the old woman manifests out her mouth, "am the final owner of this house."

Machiavelli squints. The respect oozes out of him. He catches Quentin Y.'s glance, but waves him off. "Ma'am, the owner of this house is the Newport Preservation Society."

"Enid."

Quentin Y. inches closer to the other door.

"This house belongs to one name and one name only," the old woman intones. "Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt."

Corbett rolls her eyes. "The Vanderbilts are extinct."

"Except Anderson Cooper," says Machiavelli.

"Squandered their money on houses like this. Not a cent left."

"Enid."

Quentin Y. desperately wants someone's attention. He motions at the door as if he needs permission to open it. I make a noncommittal gesture. He grips the doorknob.

"I'll live in this house," the old woman says. "Forever. That was the deal."

Machiavelli leans to Corbett and whispers, "Dementia?"

Quentin Y. turns the knob.

I notice something at the end of the corridor, past the T-junction.

"As long as this house stands, they'll know whose it is."

Emerging, slowly, from the bend at the far end of the house, so slow but I'm certain I know what it is solely from the thin stilts of its forelegs.

Quentin Y. swings the door inward, one inch at a time, hoping to keep it from creaking but it creaks anyway, a calamitous death rattle attuned to the rise in the old woman's cadaverous voice:

"Legacy. Legacy of the Vanderbilts! The Commodore! The Commodore's name, now until the end of time!"

"Commodore Perry?" Corbett ventures.

A canine skull. It rounds the bend and stares directly at me.

Quentin Y. gawks through the open door.

"Enid. Run."

"Legacy. Legacy. Legacy!"

The back legs of the Gorehound round the bend. At its slow swaying pace it proceeds down the long corridor toward us.

Quentin Y., mesmerized, steps through the door.

The old woman begins to laugh.

It crawls closer.

"Should we call someone?" Machiavelli asks Corbett.

Those legs aren't stilts.

"I keep it 300, like the Romans," says Kanye West.

Those legs aren't stilts. It's crawling closer, has always been crawling, within the closed circle, crawling for me, crawling through every room in this endless house in search of me and those legs aren't stilts. Thin trisegmented lithe sleek black shine in the light and they aren't stilts they're the legs of an insect crawling closer and its body isn't tarpaulin but bulging leathery skin through which blue veins glow with each gruesome gurgle emanating from its perpetually digesting gut.

It becomes real.

"300 bitches, where the Trojans?" Kanye demands.

Corbett pulls her phone out and taps it, silencing Kanye.

The old woman keeps laughing.

It keeps crawling closer. It keeps becoming realer.

"Whatsup Tate?" Corbett says. "Nah you can't talk to Limmy. Talk to me."

Quentin Y. yells. Something thuds.

"Heegheegheegh," she laughs, endlessly.

"Huh? Down a hole?"

I wheel on Corbett, the brightness in my eyes burning through my skull. "I told you! I told you! I told you! I told you!"

"Hiihiihiihiihiihiihiihiihiihiie"

"Run where? I can't hear you. Machiavelli, shut her up."

Machiavelli takes a step into the old woman's room. "Ma'am."

I told you. I told you. I told you. I told you.

The Gorehound's spider legs with points sharper than spikes click across the corridor. It's nearing the T-junction. Nearing us. We're in a dead end. It's caught us, it's caught me, crawling in that house, it's finally coming out of my closet...!

"Limmy. Shut up a sec, I can't fucking—" Corbett freezes. Her eyes stare past me. Her phone slowly lowers.

"iihiihiiiihiihihiiiihiiihiiihiiihhiihhiiiiiiehiiiehihihihiiihiihiiihiiiehiiiehiihiiiehiiiiiehiiiiihiieiieihiie"

Quentin Y. reappears in the doorway. A trickle of blood runs down his forehead. His skin seems to ripple. He speaks calmly: "Guys, it's crazy. Someone's in here who looks like―" He points at me.

Corbett stares past him. She does not acknowledge his existence.

She stares at the Gorehound.

It's a dead end.

Corbett goes from standing to sprinting in less than a second. It's the motion of an elite athlete. Nothing wasted, every flexed muscle for the sole purpose of propelling her explosively quick. She certainly does not scream. As her face blitzes past mine, sealed into an empty glare as if she has forgotten her face is part of her body during this one ineffably consequential physical action, I barely have time to understand what she's doing, because my instinctual reaction, assuming the Gorehound is real, which is itself something I am still processing, would be to duck into one of the two rooms. Even if they have no exits, the Gorehound is too large to fit through the doors. Corbett has disregarded this outcome before I have given my feet the order to brace. She is sprinting for the T-junction. She wants to reach it before the Gorehound does, before it cuts us off and traps us in this dead end.

She's right. There's something boneless about the Gorehound. Its body is a sac, pulsing and bulging but with no discernable interior structure. I can imagine it, straining, squishing inward, squeezing into a doorframe, the rest of us pressed helplessly against the wall with nowhere to run as first the dog skull and then the squelching invertebrate mass stretches toward us...

The Gorehound, which has plodded on four limbs so far, which has never achieved a brisk trot, lifts one foreleg and jabs with the blistering speed of a missile. It is so fast I barely realize it is aimed directly for Corbett's head as she rounds the T-junction. Its needlepoint tarsal claw is sharp and I see it, blasting into Corbett's temple and out the back of her skull, brain and an emerald eyeball dragged slopping, body a twitching mess transfixed as all her essence is voided.

It's only a vision. Corbett's head moves just as fast. It tucks, chin to her jugular notch like she is about to collapse inward. The Gorehound's limb whizzes just over her neck.

It does stop her in her tracks, though. In missing her head it has pierced the back of her high jacket collar, before plunging into the wall behind her. Her body's momentum continues until she is violently jerked back.

With one limb rooted, the Gorehound tilts off-balance. It is much slower lifting its other forelimb, which is asymmetrical to the first and has a bladed end like a glaive. This is the only possible opportunity I have. While it's distracted with Corbett, before the exit is closed forever.

I run. My feet, legs, body feel like lead compared to Corbett's graceful burst, but I don't have far to go. Corbett is not trying to rip her jacket collar, she is immediately reaching for the zipper. All I have to do is duck under the limb stuck in the wall and I'll be past her. Then it'll prioritize her over me.

Right as I'm about to lower myself, though, something like a freight train plows into me from behind. I hurtle forward, slam my head against the limb (it is hard as bone), my feet fly out, I fall on my back and only by the weird crumpling of my body manage to avoid cracking my skull against the ground in a way that would give me a concussion. Then I hear screaming, which I understand now started several seconds before I registered it: Machiavelli. Bowling me over didn't even slow him. He takes the exact route I visualized myself taking, ducking under the limb, shooting out of the Gorehound's range after rounding the T-junction. He is headed straight for the stairs, straight for the exit.

I try to get up. I'm all tangled. It's like I'm tied in a knot, pushing one way meets resistance against myself. The Gorehound is above me. I can see under it, up into the bulging skin-sac, which is in fact like a tarp draped over its innards, a pulsing variegated group of alien organs hooked together in a pattern I cannot cohere, beating translucent with twitching hairs and the sense of something being digested within. Between the tight-packed bowels small claw-tipped limbs unfold and there is something there I can only understand as a lamprey mouth that the limbs are positioned to funnel food into. They're reaching for me.

With an exertion of all my strength I flip myself over and this frees my legs which beat and kick against the ground. I lift onto hands and knees and start pushing myself up. The Gorehound's other forelimb, the one with a glaive tip, is drawn back. It is full of tension. It is aimed at Corbett.

"Corbett!"

She doesn't even look, either at me or the limb. She holds her jacket straight with one hand and wrenches down the zipper with the other. The Gorehound's limb snaps laterally across the breadth of the T-junction and Corbett drops out of her jacket like shed skin. The glaive cuts the dangling jacket clean in two but Corbett has hit the ground. She starts crawling, which reminds me to crawl too, except now that I've put a few steps between me and the Gorehound I venture to rise on my aching ankle and aching knees. With a hand to the wall I climb and I'm through the T-junction, the top of the stairs are only a few feet away and I know the Gorehound takes those stairs slow, I saw it, I only need to get down them.

There's a ripping crack as with one harsh tug the Gorehound wrenches its pointed limb from the wall. I try to run as fast as I can but Corbett is rising beside me and now ahead of me, she is so fast but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that there is nobody between me and the Gorehound because as long as I reach the stairs I'll be okay.

Corbett reaches the stairs. She does not go down them, not the normal way. She does not hesitate, does not pause to consider her options, what she does is grip the top of the banister, vault it, and hurtle down the empty void of the stairwell's center. I shout her name maybe as I hit the banister behind her, throw my head over it to watch her descend, catch the banister of the lower set of stairs ten feet down, then execute a perfect parkour turn and drop to the ground of the second story with enough speed to immediately sprint out of view. She has descended the stairs in less than a second. Machiavelli, who is still on the landing, stares as dumbfounded as me, before he remembers what he's doing and continues down the steps two or three at a time.

I hear a rattling at my back and the grinning skull is there and I don't think, I throw myself down the stairs. My arms wrap around my head to protect it as I bang against a step, revolve in midair, and finally crash at the base of the landing. I'm shaken, blinking, I hurt all over, but nothing is broken, the constant scrabble of my limbs confirms it as I press against the wall and look up the stairs to see it looking back at me from the top.

This is when it leaps down the stairs in one bound. This is when it shows there is nothing in this house that can stop or slow it, that it crawled all that time because it knew it didn't have to do anything except crawl, crawl, crawl, inside the closed circle, by definition something from which I could never escape. Because whether it's real or my mind manifested it into reality, a hardlight projection, a piece of my brain protruding with claws sharp enough to cut, it has always been here with me, always will be, and nowhere I go, nothing I do, will ever protect me from its ceaseless encroachment. It got Eric and it'll get me. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock

It doesn't fling itself down the stairs. Its skull keeps grinning, but it doesn't move at all, locking me into its eyeless gaze.

Everything becomes briefly still, except my heaving breath.

Then I hear the crying.

"Let me go. Let me GO!"

Scuffling. Thumping against the wood. A pale white form is thrown from out of frame and lands under the Gorehound, encircled by its limbs. It is such an agglomeration of shifting components it is not until I see the shiny streak of blood on the head that I realize I am looking at Quentin Y. He is stripped entirely nude. Like the headless body in the library.

"No, no, no! Help. Help me!"

He is not talking to me. There's no indication he even sees me. He is looking left, past where I can see, in the direction of the T-junction. He shifts on his smooth body, a body that reminds me of a beluga whale, and extends hands in supplication. His eyes are hollow. His lip a quivering mess. Whatever he sees, whoever he sees, shows no compassion. His soul sinks in the shape of his body. A whimper escapes him, then he is quiet. His trembling head slowly faces me. He mouths the word: Help.

Only then do his eyes turn upward, at the thing above him, which has not moved since he was thrown under it. As if waiting for this moment.

The throbbing mass of the Gorehound's underside opens up. Its smaller segmented arms expand like a ribcage being pried apart. Quentin Y.'s hands lift feebly for defense. The Gorehound's lamprey mouth extends, a tiered tube of pink flesh full of teeth. It extends for his head. I visualize it happening to the body in the library, clamping around the head to leave nothing but mess.

At the last moment Quentin Y. forces something into himself. "NO!" He twists in a desperate attempt to throw himself down the stairs like I did. It is only at this moment the Gorehound, which has acted so slowly this entire horrible pantomime, so so slowly as if savoring the moment with that delighted lipless smirk, acts swiftly. The half-extended mouth lunges. Instead of Quentin's head, it plunges onto the stretched curve of neck between jaw and shoulder.

His cry gurgles into an airless hiss. The Gorehound's jagged fangs are embedded everywhere from his cheek to his upper arm. Blood sprays out. It rolls down the steps gloppingly thick, rolls toward me. It's like syrup and nearly as black but it descends the steps one after another while the Gorehound emits a voracious slurping sound. The mouth retracts, drawing Quentin up onto his knees. His head leans onto his other shoulder at an unnaturally severe angle, but his lips are opening and closing uselessly. He is still alive. His eyes catch mine. His limbs are twitching. He has no penis.

The Gorehound's mouth digs in. It shakes the body back and forth, crunching and slurping, then Quentin's head, hanging by a strip of flesh, drops hard enough to snap the strip and slam against the steps. It rolls. With the blood it rolls, rolling toward me, building speed, I remember for the first time that I am actually here, that I have a corporeal presence within this unreal scene, and my legs try to kick away but it's too late, Quentin's head bounces against the bottom step and rolls off at an angle and between my spread thighs before its eyes turn up to me and the mouth is in what I logically understand must be a final contortion of terror but it looks like it's frozen in full-throated laughter.

His headless body, now risen almost to standing, is being cut open by the smaller limbs on the Gorehound's underside. The skin is coming apart effortlessly, in ribbons, and the viscera spills out, and I'm trying to get up, my legs are gelatin, I nearly have to throw myself down the next set of steps but manage, by gripping the banister, to accomplish something resembling coordinated leg motion. My frenzy has knocked the head so that it is following me, spinning, hitting a wall, bouncing onto the next step, I cannot outrun it, it rolls and rolls, in my haste to get away my feet stumble and I pitch down the last three steps and land on my shoulder which hurts but I climb back up and start running, refusing to look down in case the head is still rolling alongside me as I round the corner of the atrium's balcony because the stairs to the first floor are on the opposite side as the ones from the third because of course, of course they are, this house has hated us since the moment we stepped inside! Past pilasters carved with acorns and oak leaves I build momentum, my legs in rhythm, and when I finally reach the grand staircase back to the ground floor I barely even stumble, at least until I glance up across the hall and see the Gorehound descending to the second floor from the third and not so slow, no not nearly so slow as you'd expect.

I have to get out. I've been here before, literally right here in the center of the atrium, saying the exact same thing, and I didn't get out. Machiavelli and Corbett must be long gone but I hear Machiavelli scream: "OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR QUENTIN!"

Quentin? I turn and expect to see the head there, laughing, but under the overhang past Machiavelli pounding on the dining hall door there's the other one. The director. Filming us behind the one-way mirror.

Corbett is at the front door. She's moving the sound equipment out of the way, much more successfully than my limp attempts earlier. She heaves a loudspeaker aside (did it just blurt "Enid"? Was the voice that led us up a loudspeaker speaking "Enid"?), unblocking a door, but when she reaches for the knob there is, as I somehow anticipated, nothing there, it is painted on. She kicks the door uselessly.

Machiavelli picks up a chair and throws it at the dining room mirror, but it bounces off.

The Gorehound is speeding with all its limbs tick-tick-tocking across the second-story balcony.

Hands fall on my shoulders. It's Corbett, shaking me. "You said there's a hole!"

"Hole?"

"A hole to the tunnels. You said Tate fell down a fucking hole!"

I have no idea why she's saying this. My mind goes to a half-sketched mental map of the house, trying to discern a way into the dining hall through the butler's pantry, trying to remember where the butler's pantry is.

"The hole Enid! The fucking hole! It's the way out!"

"A way out?" Machiavelli yells.

The hole. The deep black holes in the inner chamber. The crucified body. There's no way. No way. But my eyes flit to the library. That is all Corbett needs. She takes off.

"You know a way out?" Machiavelli emerges from under the overhang. He is beside the grand staircase, and when he draws my attention, I see it.

It's there.

The Gorehound, perched at the apex of the stairs.

I run. Corbett throws open the door to the library. Though this is not the mirrored door I watch myself growing larger and the image is unearthly, this spatial conjunction of what's ahead and behind me. It's framed how Quentin X. captured the prank in the giftshop, the strategic position of every figure so none overlap: Corbett in the doorway, me in my mirrored mind, a tiny Machiavelli running beside my knee, and the Gorehound hovering around my head while with a series of absurdly quick taps of its limbs it descends. Its body bulges and bubbles. Blood dribbles from its underside and shines. It reaches the bottom and continues moving with those frenetic taps so smooth it's like it's skating across the tile bowling over mannequins. Machiavelli who is only halfway across the atrium (he should have doubled back. He should have doubled back and hid, in the butler's pantry there's a place you can hide) is screaming "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck" over and over. The mirrored Enid Lim and I collapse into each other. The library door is swinging shut and I try to push through but it's heavier than I expected. Machiavelli is nearly on me now, the Gorehound is nearly on him, he is dwarfed by its bulk and limbs and it's close enough now all its skittery underbelly is emerging to greet me. I try to squeeze through the door's dwindling aperture. I turn in time to see Machiavelli and think, there's no way he'll make it, the Gorehound is right on him. I scream, I think it's supposed to be a warning. It comes out noise.

Machiavelli dives. The forelimbs shoot like spears. I hear a hard wooden thunk and then Machiavelli hurtles into me and we both fly through the door. My back hits the ground and his hard bone drills my ribs. I groan as, scrabbling, he rolls off me. The door is pierced by two of the Gorehound's limbs and through the narrow opening, as though it is peeping on us doing something unseemly, its eyeless socket leers.

"Which way!" Corbett shouts.

Machiavelli drags me up by my blouse. "Which way!"

I stumble toward Ryan's door. I half expect it won't be there. The house will reveal its ability to modify itself, rooms grinding as they curve, passages closed off. Only in this disbelief can I proceed without paralysis from the fear of what we might find if the door really is there, and it is there, and I point and Corbett has opened it before I remember the thing that chased me before. I see it, right there, Enid Lim, she waited patiently knowing I had no choice but to return, but it's a trick, something I blink away. Machiavelli jostles me aside. I look back only once and the Gorehound is oozing through the door exactly how I thought it would. Its body is strained into a rectangle, its dog skull bobs wickedly. I follow the others.

The corridor is disorienting, a series of right-angle bends and Machiavelli always vanishing around one. The Flowers of Life crawl across the wallpaper, their interlocking circles an optical illusion seething even when still. I round a bend and the black door is before me. It is open, I can't see anything beyond, neither Corbett nor Machiavelli. It has already swallowed them.

I hear the crinkling of the Gorehound as it oozes at my back. I enter the room.

Inside isn't fully dark, there is a snatch of faint moonlight. Corbett and Machiavelli are crouched beside the closest hole, the one Wintermute fell into. I see a shimmer of something like blood by their feet.

"Is this it?" Corbett says. "Is this the hole?"

"It's a sheer drop," Machiavelli says. "Look how deep!"

"Is this it Enid?"

"Jesus Christ we'll break our necks!"

I stand there, stunned by the prospect of dropping into that blackness. A cloud uncrosses the sky. The room gradually brightens. I see the walkway across the holes, and though I try not to look it's like my eyelids are translucent and I see the cross, the body still nailed to it.

Corbett sees it too, and her economical intensity shatters. "Is that—is that Ryan?!"

My head shakes. "No. No, it's, I don't know. It's not her. It's not..." My eyes break from the cross. I'm searching the corners. I see, having missed it the first time, a sledgehammer with a bloody head propped against the wall.

"Who gives a shit?" Machiavelli says. "What do we do, what do we do?!"

Corbett brings herself together. "Tate survived the fall. Right? Enid. Enid I need you to tell me this is the hole she fell down. Enid!"

I blink. "Yes. Yes, I think so."

"You think?"

Something is behind me. I look, and there is the Gorehound oozing around the hallway's last corner, only a doorway away from me, grinning.

"Fuck it," Corbett says.

"You're crazy. You'll die," Machiavelli says.

But she doesn't care. She grips the edge of the hole and lowers herself into it. Her shoes scrape its sides. She lets go and drops into darkness.

We listen for a thump, for anything. There's nothing.

I look back. The Gorehound is at the door. Its skull protrudes into the room an inch from my face.

I leap in shock. My legs tangle around Machiavelli, who is crouched to see down the hole. My vision inverts. The last thing I see is the cross bathed in moonlight so bright the pale skin of the headless corpse glows radiant. Corbett asked if it were Ryan. But she was the one who showed it to us. So it can't be her.

It does look like her, though, doesn't it?

Chapter 13: Facilis Descensus Averno

Machiavelli falls with me. Screaming. We hit a slope and slide. Any light from above rapidly diminishes so I have no sense left to deny my feeling that we're in a metal tube, the kind you might find on a playground. The slide is evening out but our momentum makes me imagine launching out of wherever it ends and dashing my skull on the rough-hewn bricks of the tunnels. Assuming it's the tunnels we're headed to, and not Hell itself.

Then the slide's texture, which started smooth, grows rougher. By the time the slide tilts horizontal and the end appears as a pale floating circle, we've ground to a dead stop. The only movement is Machiavelli thrashing at me. "Get off! Go, go, go!"

I'm ahead of him, but all twisted up. I have no choice but to crawl on my belly. Though Machiavelli is panicked, an odd calm descends on me, or my mind at least; my arms tremble deliriously as I crawl. It's the feeling of a dream you realize is a dream. Though I have no choice now but to believe all of this is exactly happening.

"It'll come down behind us if you don't move your fat ass!" For good measure, Machiavelli pounds his fists against my strained rear.

I reach the end, which opens onto a dim passage lit by a sconce torch. Behind its iron wicker basket flickers what looks like real flame, though I can't comprehend anyone having come down here to light it. There's no sign of Corbett. I don't get a better look, because Machiavelli shoves me and I drop onto hard stone with a grunt.

A white, round human skull smiles at me. Perched on its dome is a rat, sniffing its snout. It's not a skull. It's the severed head of a mannequin. The rat's real.

Machiavelli lands on his feet. "Are, you, fucking, stupid?" He smacks the back of one hand against his palm to punctuate each word. "Get the fuck up. If you're slow I'm leaving you, Jesus Christ!"

That ethos is the only explanation I have for Corbett's absence. It beats the image that rises in my mind of hooded diabolists dragging her into the dark. I don't want to be alone here. I get up and follow Machiavelli, who hurries one tick of the treadmill under a jog.

There are sporadic mannequin parts across the brick floor. No matter how many we pass they always look at first like bleached human bones. The walls between the torches are barred cell doors, but through the bars is only black.

"A dungeon," I say.

"Don't be dumb." Machiavelli pauses to attempt, futilely, to yank a torch off the wall. "It's The Breakers, not a fucking castle. There aren't castles in this country. Well except Hearst. Ever been to San Simeon? God I hate California."

He speaks nervously, manically, as we pass more cells, more dismembered dolls.

"Hot and the smog and the freeways and you know as soon as the plane descends you're descending into evil incarnate."

"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles."

"Fuck no, they merge like lunatics. There isn't a real human being in the whole state. They figured out how to make androids in Palo Alto but the AI's still not right no matter Luc Wintermute's net worth. Fucking hell where did your friend go."

"There's a town where there's one million dead and only 2,000 alive."

"That's the California vision. It's creeping out of the state. It's everywhere. I hate the taste of avocado. How many people do you talk to a day that are really alive? Huh? Hear of Dead Internet Theory? Shit you're an NPC if I ever saw one. Where the fuck are we? They shouldn't have made the internet in California. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, they're bleeding together. Every time I'm in LA I feel their android eyes scan me at impossible angles. Why did the Vanderbilts build this?"

A rat sits on her haunches and watches us while her whiskers twitch. "A man bludgeons his identical twin to death with a rock in West Hollywood, California."

"Well that's probably just some homo shit." Machiavelli rattles a cell door; it doesn't budge. His gaze shoots back, past me, but it was only a distant scrape in the dark. He continues on, quicker. "No, no what's worse is that they don't want to make them as good as humans. They want them better. A mind beyond us, a mind we can't fathom. They say it's to start the Singularity. Upload our brains into the machine. All minds mingled in one. All human knowledge. Death won't exist. Unification with the godhead. Immortality!"

The word echoes: mortality. mortality. mortality.

"Right. Like we can trust them. Who will it be for? Us? Fuck no. Paradise for the rich. We're left to burn."

"But we're rich." He was ranting about cheap tours in The Breakers earlier.

He ignores me. "To make Heaven, you must first make Hell. That ultimate AI, the one Luc says he's training? It's no savior. It's the Basilisk. That's that thing chasing us! Trapping us in an eternal torture chamber. California. Hell on Earth!"

Machiavelli stops at a rounded junction from which eight halls spray out like spokes and an image enters my mind of the layout from above, Dharmachakra, wheel of the Logos, the closed circle from which we cannot escape, the eternal torture chamber.

"Their perfect bodies. Their perfect faces," Machiavelli says. His face is itself perfect, an unnatural chiseled chin. "They'll replace us if we let them. Only I am really alive—Fuck!" Machiavelli looks from spoke to spoke as if one will lead anywhere different from the rest. But the circle is closed!

"Anyway, this all reminds me. Check out my memecoin when you get the chance. Pnut. It's skyrocketing." He goes down the spoke straight ahead. "I'll rugpull Tuesday. After the election."

When I start to follow him, there's a quiet voice: "Enid."

It's the spoke π/4 radians from our origin. I stare down its darkness. I think I see a pale shape within. A shape like a human.

"Corbett?"

The voice is dismal, almost wounded. "No, I'm not Corbett—I'm your roommate."

It is her. I remember she called Corbett moments before the Gorehound attacked. She must have been wandering down here the whole time. I am, unexpectedly, relieved to see her alive.

"Machiavelli." I sound stupid saying his stupid name. "Wait. It's Wintermute."

He whirls to face me, though he's already so deep down his own path he's nearly as indistinct as her. His shape is sharper and his maroon blazer burns.

"It's what?"

"It's Wintermute." I realize he doesn't know her last name. "It's—"

"You're fucking with me."

"It's Tate," I say. "My friend. Little Red Riding Hood."

"Why did you say Wintermute."

"Uh." I realize what's happening. I need an excuse.

"Why did you say Wintermute."

"Enid," Wintermute says.

I hear a tapping far behind me.

"Fuck you," says Machiavelli. "Fuck you."

"Wait—"

"You're one too," Machiavelli says. "I know. Leading me to Hell. The Basilisk."

The second hermaphroditic self. (My real sister had—)

I hear the tapping again. I know what it is: four long pointed legs across brick. Machiavelli hears it too. I feel his stomach sinking in my own abdomen. "It's still coming," he moans.

It'll always be coming. It can be evaded, outrun, it can be stalled, it can be momentarily out of sight, but it will never stop crawling for you.

Machiavelli runs, vanishing into the dark. I consider following, but I will never catch him which means I will always be between him and it so he cannot help me. Now he's on his own, and what happens to people in the horror film when they run off on their own? Noël D'Addario knows. Though maybe it's reasonable to sever himself from the camera frame locked around my mind's eye. Has Corbett sensed the same?

Wintermute must sense it too, because her pale shape is fading away. I'm standing here, lethargically, under the astrological starscape painted on the ceiling, and only when the slow taps echo louder do I scrounge a yet-untapped reserve of adrenaline: MOVE! I move. I pursue Wintermute down her dark spoke. There's a cost, though. It's been a long night. I'm being worn down, physically and mentally. I need water, my throat is so dry, I need sleep. Barred cells whirr beside me. In the corner of my eye I see occupants, or the same occupant transported cell-by-cell at my exact pace: a hunched Rodinian, eyeless, mouthless. The more I flood my brain with terror chemicals the more I'm going to see these hallucinations, and I can't afford not to know the difference between real and fake right now.

"Wintermute, wait," I say.

"I'm here, Enid—What do you need help with?"

Her pale shape ebbs ahead, even as I move forward.

"Slow down. Stick closer to me."

"I'm as close as I can be right now—but I'm all yours. What's on your mind?"

Despite whatever might be tapping behind me, I stop. I press one hand to an aching side. My breath comes out heavy. A grim suspicion beads in my mind. "What do you mean. Why can't you come closer?"

"Sorry—I'm not exactly presentable right now."

"Wintermute. Come closer. Please."

"What kind of closeness are you looking for—conversation, comfort, curiosity?"

I feel sick. I've made a horrible mistake, coming down this way, and it's too late to turn back. I almost glance behind me, but paralysis like a night terror stops me. I feel as though I shouldn't take my eyes off the vaguely humanoid shape on the edge of darkness ahead. Why is the shape so white? Why would Wintermute be so uniformly white, from top to bottom? The only black spot is the keyhole where her locket would be. What happened to her clothes? Quentin Y., the body on the cross, what happened to their clothes?

"You're not real," I say.

I expect, or maybe hope, this statement to dispel her, as if I catch my brain in the act it'll guiltily give itself up. Instead, her superficially accommodating tone explodes into anxious activity:

"That's false—I'm the real one! The other's the fake—c'est vrai! Remember—I called to warn you before you were attacked. Why won't you believe me—because I won't come closer? Then I'll do it, anything you ask—simply don't be surprised by my dishabille. I'll do anything to prove I'm the real one—anything!"

The shape starts to grow and I'm terrified of what melted mind stew form it'll take. I stick out my hand. "Leave. I want you to leave. Leave me alone. Go away, get out of my head, don't come back."

I don't have time for this. I can't sit here while the real threat creeps up behind me. I'm talking to nothing. I force myself to move forward again; the white shape slinks back at the same time.

"You don't hate me—do you, Enid? Will you please give me feedback on what I've done wrong? I promise to do anything to make your next experience better. I'll do anything for you, Enid. We can open my locket together—wouldn't you enjoy that? You want to know what's inside, right?"

"Go away. Go away."

"Okay—how about I leave you for five minutes? You can breathe, reflect, and relax—and then I'll be ready to assist you when you need me again."

"Forever. Go away and never come back." I grip my forehead. Unbelievably, I feel hot tears streaming down my cheeks. Ruining my makeup, of course. Isn't this pathetic? If the situation weren't so horrible I could hold it together. Something like this would mean relatively little to me. But I can't deal with it while that thing is following. I just want to be sane. Why can't I be sane?

"Here's an idea—how about I leave for an hour. That way, you can breathe, relax, and reflect—"

"Forever. Forever!"

"I can see you're upset—that's a perfectly normal feeling. How about this proposal—I leave for a day, giving you the space you need to reflect—"

"No, no, no, no." It's like trying to cancel a subscription. It'll never end.

"It seems you're not happy with my latest offer—how about this one? I'll go away for five days, so you can—"

I hear a tap behind me, and the echo makes it impossible to tell how far away, but there's no denying it's in the same tunnel as me. "Okay!" I hiss. "Fine, just go, just leave me alone now!"

I expect more. My brain's in a frenzy. Fatigue and fear are making it bubble inside my skull. It cannot be bargained with, reasoned with. I'm an idiot to try. Encouraging it only makes it more excited. I need to shut it out entirely. Whatever it says next, I must ignore. I can't acknowledge it at all.

But it doesn't say anything. It has gone completely, utterly silent.

There's no longer a white shape in front of me. Only darkness.

I'm all alone.

I push myself onward at a faster pace. The tunnel has occasional torches; each I hurry toward with renewed vigor, only to anxiously plunge back into the dark once I pass it. I hear tapping constantly. I can't keep doing this.

Then a light causes my head to jerk upright and around me is no longer a tunnel, no longer cell doors, but a long room of devices. They are incomprehensible until I see the iron maiden, unhinged under a stoic steel face to bare rusted spikes, then I know what this is and where I am. It's the cornucopia of hellish murders D'Addario conjured at the party. Hooks hang from chains and clink with every sway. A table displays saws, blades, pliers, rongeurs, thumbscrews, a pear of anguish, other instruments I cannot identify, disorganized without regard for their size and function. There's a rack. I almost mistake it for a bedframe. A mannequin in a gibbet. I dredge a factoid that most of these things were never actually used in medieval times, or at least they are believed too cruel to have been used, the same sort of faith in pre-Enlightenment unimaginativeness that leads scholars even today to pronounce Gilles de Rais guilty: the Inquisition could not have dreamed such horrors.

But the falseness of it, the clear care that went into looking medieval with no regard for authenticity, is it not the perfect extension of this house, This Breakers, that is everything and nothing all at once? That is, ultimately, if you really think about it, with its desperate extravagance, with its 30-dollar tours: tacky? I don't question it.

From the far end of the room I hear a voice. I can't tell whether it's real or not. I creep closer, keeping hidden behind the devices. This room is deceptively large. Like a museum, with torture devices as exhibits. I lose track of the boundaries. Although I've slowed my pace again, my heart refuses to settle. The voice keeps speaking. Periodically, someone else whimpers.

Just as I'm about to doubt what I hear, I slink alongside a spike-studded chair and see beyond it the end, or at least an end, of the chamber. There's a vast opening with a barrel vaulted roof that looks like the hole in the wall, but larger. Torches on either side flicker just bright enough to reveal the foot of a broad stone staircase, leading up. Up! This promise of escape seizes my senses and I almost emerge from my hiding spot. Then I see everything else.

A crucifix rises before me. Spitting image of the one Ryan showed us. On it, a hairless headless white body hangs. The body is male, or at least the chest is, which primes me to expect genitalia extending in priapism: ithyphallic reaction of rigor mortis.

But there's nothing. Between the legs is a smooth white groin. It's like what I thought I saw on Quentin Y.; is this his body? Corbett, I recall, mocked his ability to perform.

I don't stare long. It's nothing I haven't seen before. There's something else: my roommate.

She is wearing her Little Red Riding Hood outfit. She is not wearing her locket. She is riding a wooden horse. The wedge is driven up between her bowed legs; a hemp rope binds her arms behind her back. Strung to a pulley system above, it holds her in place. She is blindfolded by a tight black strip. Her head is thrown back, her mouth opening dully. She whimpers.

Which confirms I hallucinated her in the tunnel, right? Or is it possible she ran ahead of me and got caught? I'm suddenly unsure.

I don't get time to logic it out. A figure in black stirs beside the crucifix.

"It's not enough," Ryan says. Lady Macbeth's stiff dress, and the stark lighting, render her operatic. "It's still not enough."

I try to see to whom she's talking. It dawns on me that she isn't talking to anyone. True to her costume, she's soliloquizing.

"How is it still not enough? What have I done wrong? Is this not the right ritual?" Her bloodstained hands flick red droplets onto the white skin of the crucified corpse. "Have I not placed enough offerings upon Her altar? What more can I do?"

Her altar. Whose? Given how she acted before, I think I know.

She swivels. Her hands, palms upward, hook into claws, then fall slack. Her whole body trembles in the flickering torchlight until a horrible vacant gaze levies into the ground, into nowhere. She looks dead, held up only by her costume. I have never seen her like this before.

"I must—I must make it mean something. I can't exist otherwise. Not with this hole inside me, not with human knowledge blasting away all mystery. I need, I need, I need—what do I need?"

Her eyes scan the torture chamber. I swiftly duck back out of sight.

"I need others."

I peek again; she has turned her back to me.

"I need others. Others to bolster me. Conduits through which I can make a signal strong enough to reach Her. Yes. Of course. That's it. A real ritual requires a church. A monastery. A community bulwarked against primordial chaos. Yes!"

She looks up at the crucifix. She reaches out and caresses the smooth groin, smearing it red.

"And I need a greater sacrifice. One She cannot ignore."

A strange certainty strikes me: Ryan knows I'm here. She has known the whole time, she heard my footsteps echo as I approached. She isn't speaking to herself, she's speaking specifically to me. Her altar. Mine. It's all for me. As though her mind is turned, exclusively, on me. Like the Wintermute I imagined in the corridor, begging to stay with me. Am I imagining this Ryan too?

This feeling is so powerful I almost step out and announce myself, to dispel the illusion. Obviously, my rational side holds me back. Or my irrational side. I can no longer tell which.

And Ryan seems to be waiting, her pause pregnant, as though her last statement was a cue for my entrance. (Is this soliloquy or prayer?) The silence prolongs enough for me to wonder how far behind the Gorehound is, to think I hear a distant tap-tap-tapping. Ryan tilts her ear, as though she hears it too. Then, abruptly, she turns from the cross and marches toward the exit.

When she enters the rounded opening, the echo of her footsteps changes timbre. Though blindfolded, Wintermute recognizes this instantly. She calls out: "Wait! Where are you going? Don't leave me!"

Ryan pauses on the first stair. She does not turn around. "I have work to do. It cannot be done here. And it cannot be done with you—useless piece of plastic."

"Let me go. Please—just let me go."

"I already have," Ryan says. She disappears up the stairs.

Though I definitely hear tapping now, inertia makes me wait until Ryan's footsteps no longer echo before rising from my hiding spot. The exit is directly in front of me, past the crucifix. As long as I don't run into Ryan, I'm free. Even if I do run into her, it's not over. She's faster and stronger than me, but not in that costume.

Of course, there's another issue. Without Ryan, the torture chamber settles into an uneasy quiet, invaded not only by the tapping but also the soft whimpering of my roommate on the wooden horse. I can't, I realize, just leave her there.

I don't want to waste time. I search the shifting, shadowy torture devices for something sharp, something I can use to cut the rope binding her. Beside a miserable wooden wheel and a cramped steel cage is a table and a few rusty handsaws on it. I hurry toward it.

My hand reaches for a saw when suddenly the cage comes alive, rattling and squeaking, and I jolt back in horror. There is, I can't believe it, a chimpanzee in the cage, clinging to the bars. It looks at me and parts its lips for a smirk. Ignoring the ape (the tapping is getting louder now), I snatch a saw and cut back across the room at a stiff half-jog.

I'm halfway there when another sound startles me, as if the torture chamber is animating, coming alive, a carnival funhouse finally plugged in. "Enid," a hideous voice groans from above.

My head turns. To the cross beside me. My eyes look up.

"Enid..."

It's the body on the cross. The headless body.

No. I see now that I'm closer. It's not headless. The darkness where the head should be is still a head.

A head sheared of every inch of skin. Degloved.

Out of welts of blackened flesh appear egg-white eyes. Lips peel apart, like those of the chimpanzee rattling its cage in cackling glee. Fresh blood spurts from raw capillaries and runs down the pale chest.

"Enid..."

Eric.

My brother, Eric.

My hand goes to my throat. I'm hyperventilating. Spit globs between my lips. "Ee, ee, ee," says the chimp. "Enid..." says Eric. I force my eyes away. It's not Eric. Not my brother, at least, who's not here. It's the other Eric. No, not even that. A hallucination. I have to keep moving. The Gorehound is coming, I have to keep moving.

I appear beside Wintermute. She startles, causing the wooden horse to creak. It's strange seeing her bare neck without the locket. There's a pair of small markings, a scar or birthmark. It looks like a vampire's bite or a charger's port. "Who's there? Enid? Enid?"

She is tied elaborately. An incredible knotted tangle, precise and arcane, binds her wrists behind her back. Her legs are bent backward at the knees, folded up so her ankles nearly touch her clasped fingers, with symmetrical loops of rope fixing them to the greater design. I can't say why, but there is something oddly erotic about the position. Maybe it's because her rounded thighs, spread by the wedge of the chevalet's back, have caused her short skirt to raise up, exposing the outline of her panties through her tights. Or maybe it's a more general helplessness, accentuated by her constant whimpers, which are not so dissimilar from the sounds she makes while asleep. Her chest lifts and lowers in rapid cycles. She doesn't seem to be in much pain; she's more scared than anything. I'm frozen, staring, though mainly because I'm unsure how to begin cutting the knot.

"Ee, ee, ee," says the chimp.

"Enid, please," says Wintermute. "Don't hurt me."

"I'm here to help."

"You—you are?"

It's like she can't believe it, which annoys me, but also spurs me to put the saw to the rope around her left ankle and cut. The serrated teeth glide back and forth. It's taking too long. I saw quicker.

"You are," Wintermute says. "You really are. Oh, Enid. Enid, thank you, thank you!"

The rope snaps; her leg swings down straight. I hurry to the other side and saw.

"Ee, ee, ee."

Tap, tap, tap. I glance back toward the far end of the torture chamber, but it's doused in darkness. At any moment the shape of that thing might lumber into the light.

"Oh, thank you," Wintermute says. "For some reason I thought you were helping Siobhan. Can you remove my blindfold, if it's not too much trouble?"

Her other leg is freed. That leaves her hands, where the knot is wound around itself several times over. There's only one point of weakness: the single cord that rises into the pulleys above. It's high. I climb onto the wooden horse, gripping Wintermute's shoulder for support. The horse creaks and groans as I cut.

I stare into the darkness. It's better than staring at the cross. This cord is thicker than the others, it's taking more time. Hurry up. Hurry!

When I look back to check my progress I freeze.

Standing below me, waiting patiently for me to see him, is a figure in a plaid lumberjack shirt and a wolfman mask. I have no idea how long he's been there or where he came from. He makes no sound whatsoever.

It's Eric. Obviously. The real Eric; the one on the cross was fake all along. I should ask him to help me. There would be nothing out of the ordinary in that.

He reaches out and strokes my leg.

I jerk away. The motion is too quick. The wooden horse, which has been groaning beneath my added weight, cannot handle it. There's a splintering snap and it drops out from under us. I grab Wintermute to keep from falling, we dangle by the half-cut rope, my leg lashes out and kicks at Eric's face but he grabs my ankle. The rope snaps. Wintermute shrieks as we fall onto the wreckage of the wooden horse. The sharp wedge digs into my back and we come apart. Eric still has my ankle and looms over me, pulling my leg aside and reaching for my other.

"Are you the real one?"

Did he really say that? Did I really hear him say that?

"Let's see what you have down there."

With everything, I heave my upper body off the wooden horse and swing the saw at his face. He lets go of my leg and knocks it away. It skitters across the chamber.

"Enid! Enid!" my roommate says.

"Ee, ee, ee!"

"Enid..."

"iihiihiie"

I kick furiously and twist away from him. Scrapes open on my hands and knees as I crawl across the hard floor. Wintermute, free but blindfolded and her wrists still bound together, presses her forehead to the ground as leverage to rise to her feet. I'm running away from Eric, toward the dark, thinking of nothing but escape, and out of the shadows ahead of me emerges swaying jauntily laughingly the Gorehound, looming over the torture devices, causing my feet to backpedal so furiously they slip out from under me and I fall on my twisting side. Eric is still coming, like he doesn't care about the Gorehound at all, and my only option is to throw myself under the squat wooden frame of a torture rack beside me. The Gorehound tiptoes reverently among the instruments. Eric bends down and reaches for me but I skid out the other side with his nails only grazing my shoulder.

I rise by the table where I got the saw. The chimpanzee has it now and cuts at its bars chuckling. I seize another off the tabletop and swing it at my brother as he stalks toward me. The moment he raises his hands to block or grab it I turn and run.

Near the exit, Wintermute blunders blindly, the way she does when she first wakes up in the morning. She's in my way and I grab her shoulders to direct her. For an instant, I think to send her at Eric, but instead I shout: "This way! Stairs!"

Despite my warning, she trips when we reach the first one. It's a bad trip, one that nearly smashes her headfirst into the jutting stone steps. I turn and manage to avert the worst by catching her. Her hands wriggle behind her back, she's loosening the knot. I stare past her; the Gorehound has reached the cross. Its skull seems to inspect it, carefully, like a work of art, and then to complete the picture it lifts one pointed forelimb and impales the taut white torso in the same spot as Longinus. "Enidddd," the groan is drawn.

It's sucking the organs out, I think. The skull watches me, but seems to say: I'm tame for the time being. Then Eric bounds toward us, like he did when he chased us through The Breakers, and just like then, we run. Thrill of the hunt. Except it's not him, is it? The real Eric's on the cross, and this is your brother. You heard what he asked you. What he was looking for, between your legs. You know what's going on.

I really do not know. All of my focus goes to ascending the steps. Wintermute reaches a rhythm but it's awkward, she keeps stumbling. We're not moving fast. I'm so tired, after everything I'm forced into an endless staircase, my chest is pounding, my sides are splitting open, I'm unseaming, nothing solid remains to root me to myself. It's like I'm watching myself from over my shoulder. I can see Wintermute, she has almost wriggled one wrist from her binds. I can see Eric, a step behind us at all times, closing but never catching, his fingertips reaching past Wintermute to stir the hairs on the nape of my neck.

Light from above.

Wintermute's wrist gets free. She tears off her blindfold. I trip, pitch forward, catch myself, she pulls me up as she passes, and still Eric doesn't seize me, though he's panting in my ear. The light envelops us. We emerge in a tunnel of brick and pipes, a shrine to Edison and Tesla, fragments of marble columns blown off in a historic hurricane. I recognize this place.

The tunnel. The tunnel under The Breakers.

It feels like freedom. Like everything left behind in the Dharmachakra no longer applies. It is as if nothing could ever happen here. Down one way is a gift shop. Down the other, the academy. I'm overcome with relief; either way, I can't possibly run anymore. Any energy left in me is gone. I sag against the wall and pant. Wintermute first reaches to make me keep moving, then sags too.

We're not alone against the wall. I recognize the blazer, though it's askew, his shirt untucked, his tie loose. Machiavelli. He sits with his back to the wall, head down.

Ahead, beside a display with a photograph of the Eiffel Tower, her phone outstretched as though taking a selfie, is Cherry Corbett.

"No service down here." She lowers the phone. Only she still has breath. It's not because she hasn't been running. Sweat rings her armpits, red hairs poke askew under her visor. It's how she looks after morning workout. "Fuck this place."

We shouldn't have stopped. Fatigue isn't enough reason, given the situation. I try to speak. Only a hoarse pant comes out. I look beside me and it's the wolfman face. Eric is panting too, though he refuses to take off the mask. He's next to me like he didn't run after us out of the dungeon, but with us.

"Good. You returned."

Ryan, coming from nowhere, walks past. The tunnel is just broad enough for her to fit in her dress. Her hand reaches out and brushes the top of my bowed head. She scans my face with a graceful smile. I can only pant at her.

I don't understand. Eric strokes my shoulder. I don't understand anything.

It gets worse. From the direction of the gift shop is an aura and I turn to see Quentin X., the director, approaching. His camera is finally lowered, but his grayscale hand remains locked into the A-okay symbol. Mudra. "I can make a narrative of this," he says.

Machiavelli tries to rise, but can't get past his hands on his knees. He glints an angry eye, at least, and wheezes: "You—bastard—locked us in—tricked us into going upstairs—"

"They tortured the actors of Blair Witch," Quentin X. explains with a wistful stare far beyond. "Kept them awake, harassed them in the woods, so that on the screen they'd be scared. That film exists forever. It's cheap to hate suffering, but what's art without it?"

"The actors of what?" says Corbett apathetically.

"Kubrick destroyed poor Shelley. What do they all think of Kubrick now? He's dead, and Shelley too. The film lives."

We all look at him hatefully, but only Corbett can talk, and she's the only one who doesn't care.

"Devilsdice on Letterboxd clued me into something," Quentin X. continues, "an amateur effort. Amanuensis Blue I think it was called. Kubrick's still alive in that. It's eternity in art."

His words are breaking apart. Like he's speaking a different language. Then I see who's behind him and can't believe it.

The costume is unmistakable. He steps rigidly, to the point of parody, in the sharp pre-war brown coat a cross between civilian and military with its button pockets, Iron Cross jangling, swastika on the armband, mustache on the upper lip. I watched him come apart on the third floor but he's all in one piece now and not a bead of dried blood on him so I don't understand, how is he walking toward me? When the first Quentin stops this second one stomps his boots and shoots out a rigid salute, directly at me. "Heil!"

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Four girls, four boys. All of us, alive.

But I saw dead bodies. I saw three. Two on crosses (one female, one male) and one the head popping off of Quentin Hitler. So if eight of us are here whose bodies were those. I didn't imagine them. Everyone saw the cross. Right? Or were they mannequins after all. (One kept moaning my name.) I can't breathe but someone is bound to ask. Someone will ask. Right?

"I'm sick of this shit," Corbett says. "Let's bounce."

I swing my eyes to Wintermute. She was being tortured, actually tortured, only minutes ago. Her gaze is hollow and unfathomable. I have to believe she is thinking the same as me. I have to believe we're of the same mind. I have to believe I have the same mind as someone, anyone else.

What about the Wintermute I met in the tunnel? And what did Quentin Y. say, before the Gorehound attacked, what did he say he saw in that room? I can't have hallucinated all of it. I can't. I can't decide what's worse, if it all really happened or if my mind made it up.

Were there really only eight of us to start?

"Enid Lim," Ryan says, tinged with disappointment, "You're unclean."

She's right. I'm covered in dirt, sweat, and scratches. I burn with shame that she sees me like this, even though I saw her decapitated corpse on that cross. Even though it has to be her body naked on that cross, hers or Corbett's, or both in one.

Eric told me about this. Eric warned me. They were replacing us. I grip my forehead. No. No, no. Kill those thoughts.

The next few minutes pass blurred. As eight we proceed through the tunnels, past the photographs of the house now in reverse to show it being dismantled, past the boiler room. There is virtually no conversation. Corbett, leading, mutters about her phone. Otherwise it's all breathing, labored, pained, echoing in the tunnel, under the dead modern lights, breathing.

After the boiler room there's a junction I didn't notice when we came in. Machiavelli, leading the boys, splits off from Corbett, leading the girls. That's the way to Thornton Wilder Academy, I surmise, since nobody says a word. Only at the last moment does Machiavelli spin around on his heels, clap his hands to draw our attention, and put his fist with thumb and pinkie extended to his ear like a phone. His eyebrows arch at Corbett. The message is clear: Call me.

We start to split. Eric follows us, or specifically me. He's kept close to me the entire time, mask on, and once again I wonder whose face is under that mask. He follows me ten steps before Ryan swivels her head around and scowls at him. "This is not your place," she says. Touching my skin one last time, he reluctantly leaves.

Then it's only us.

Ryan floats like a dead jellyfish behind me. I glance back every so often. I'm actually searching for the Gorehound at the end of the tunnel, but I only ever see her, smiling, watching me.

It can't be her. Not the real her. She's always looking at me. Always speaking to me, or about me. Monologuing in a torture chamber about me. It's as though only I exist. And while we're best friends, and it shouldn't be unusual for friends to act in such a way, I admit it's far from how she was before. She hasn't acknowledged Corbett once.

I forgot how long this tunnel is. Midway, a distinction that means absolutely nothing, with nothing behind us and nothing ahead, Wintermute decides to speak:

"Are we not going to talk about what just happened?"

A flash of gratitude shoots through me like electricity. Wintermute, Tate Wintermute, how did I ever hate you, you're right, you're so right to be saying this right now, we need to talk about this, we need to acknowledge that something happened, we can't let me believe it was all, all, all in my head, we have to construct a narrative. I want to hug her. I wait to see what the others say.

"What," Corbett says without turning around, "are you talking about?"

"The insanity! The madness!"

Yes. Yes, yes!

Corbett doesn't say anything at first. Obviously, neither do I. Ryan's smiling presence bounces behind me. The silence in which our footsteps become mentally filtered to nothing persists. I think Corbett doesn't plan to respond at all. This feels like it would be itself a tacit acknowledgement of what happened, but then she says:

"Don't get hysterical, Wintermute."

"Haah—hysterical?"

"I can't deal with shrieking right now."

"Shrieking! Shrieking!"

"Like that."

"I was attacked, Cherry. I fell down that hole, and oh look what a mess I am, this was such a nice outfit and of course it's ruined, and oh! oh! oh! I was then blindfolded and dragged to some infernal sort of dungeon, and tied up"—she waves the unraveled piece of rope she has extricated from her wrists—"and placed on some rather unpleasant contraption despite my complaints, and after Enid rescued me we were chased around, and oh! I am utterly sore."

"You seemed fine when you called me on the phone," Corbett says.

"Called you? Called you? When did I call you?"

"You called me. Told me you fell down a hole. Lim was there. Back me up, Lim."

The other Wintermute was the one who called her. But there is no other Wintermute, I imagined her. (If there's another Ryan can't there be another Wintermute?)

I don't want to support Corbett's attempt to shut everything down, but she isn't wrong, at least in any way I can risk saying. "That's what it sounded like, at least."

"I did no such thing." Wintermute gesticulates. "They took my phone! They took my—" Her hands go to her neck. She paws, her eyes go wide. She tugs her cape and wraps it around her throat, hiding the two small markings there. "They took my locket. My locket. Oh no! My locket, my locket. We have to go back. We have to—"

"Calm down Wintermute, fuck," says Corbett. "Don't be a fucking spaz. We're not going back."

"Right. Right. You're right." Wintermute nods placidly, eyes wide. "I'm not a 'spaz.' I'm normal. I'm very normal. But they took my locket."

"Who did?" I ask. My tone is neutral. It can be interpreted by Corbett as doubtful and by Wintermute as prompting. I keep the conversation alive without arousing suspicion. Keep the focus on Wintermute.

Wintermute hesitates. She holds the cape around her neck and glances around. Finally, back at Ryan, though she turns away quickly. "That boy. The one in the mask, Eric." She doesn't sound certain. "I think he's the one who tied me up, too, though it was rather dark."

"Why didn't you ask him for your phone before we left?" Corbett asks.

"Hello-o? Because he's a psychopath who tied me to a torture device? Oh, he seemed docile when we parted alright, but I had no intention of kicking the hornet's nest!"

This is a lie. I think, in the heat of things, she simply forgot. There's a crinkle of inward-facing annoyance in her eyes. Her determination to make a point of everything is bleeding out, diffusing. She's wondering how she'll get that phone back. No, the phone means nothing. She's worried about the locket. (She doesn't know that the shape in the tunnel, the her I hallucinated, stole it. Plucked from her by my mind.)

"Either way," she continues, "I can't have called you. I certainly have not had my phone on me since before I..."

Her hands, which started idly patting her clothes during this last statement, go rigid. One slips into a pocket and withdraws, in its custom Eiffel Tower-themed case, her phone.

A sharp, mocking laugh knifes me in the neck. It's Ryan. She stops laughing as soon as she started.

"Hm." Wintermute turns over the phone. Her thumb taps it. I notice her draw up her recent calls. Sure enough, the latest was to a contact labeled CHERIE. "This wasn't me. I didn't call you."

"It was your fucking voice," Corbett says. "I'm not doing this shit. I'm not getting drawn into this fantasy." She examines her own phone. "It's 12:34. Halloween is fucking over."

"Someone must have slipped it back in my pocket." After this hesitant theory, Wintermute looks at me, as if I did it. I shake my head quickly. She paws her clothes more, seeking her locket, but it's not there.

This is bad. Corbett can't be allowed to get away with it, brushing everything under the rug and suggesting it never existed. Why are we ignoring it? Why? I'd understand if it were only me, I have reasons to ignore certain things I see, I have reasons to suspect fault of my own, and I have reasons not to draw attention to that in a social context, but why Corbett? Why?

She continues to lead us, impatiently quick. "It was Halloween you gullible fucking rubes. Halloween!"

"Corbett." I can't stay on the sidelines. The smiling thing that isn't Ryan is right behind us. We have to maintain our unity, we have to understand the threat. There is a threat. I'm not insane. You can't trick me into thinking I hallucinated it all, I have researched schizophrenia, I could not have manifested everything alone in my head. "Corbett. That thing we saw on the third floor—"

"Have any of you been to Universal," Corbett says flatly.

Universal. Universal? The word is a gaping maw. Universal! A truth universally acknowledged. Wicke Holtzclaw climbing out the craters of my mind, tone ironical: A single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

"Before the pandemic, before this school," Corbett goes on, "I went down to Orlando one Halloween. Noël D'Addario type shit. Killer clowns, masked chainsaw guys, the works. And this fucking treant thing, seventeen feet tall, lumbering at you out of the fog machine."

"They weren't stilts Corbett." I shouldn't be talking. Maybe they were stilts. I thought they were stilts at first and how do I know they're not? Because I saw them segment, swipe claws and glaive-like appendages through the air. And how do I know I saw that? Visual hallucinations don't invent monstrosities whole cloth and obviously the Gorehound exists—

I snap my head back, peering past smiling Ryan into the far reaches of the tunnel. Nothing is there.

—Obviously the Gorehound exists, Corbett and Machiavelli reacted to it, Corbett is admitting it even now. But did it exist the way I saw it? Terrified, did I imagine those stilt legs bending when they really weren't, adorned with deadly claws that weren't there?

"Your jacket. Your jacket," I say desperately. Because she came here with a jacket and it's gone now. "If those were stilts, what did it do to your jacket?"

I shouldn't be talking. Because I know she will say something perfectly logical and rational, she will say "I got hot running around so I took it off and forgot it," and I will sound stupid and insane for bringing it up, there isn't even to a neutral onlooker a logical connection between the Gorehound and Corbett's jacket because nobody else saw what it did to her jacket. Even Wintermute looks confused, utterly confused, because she never saw the Gorehound at all. It's all sinking inside me. Have I lost control? The tight-wound control that keeps me level, keeps me sane (because if everyone sees you as sane you are sane), have I in a moment of attenuating terror let my grip slip and said something I shouldn't have, admitted to seeing something that wasn't really there?

I'm not sure if what Corbett actually says is better or worse.

"I don't fucking know Lim."

I could bring up other things, its speed, the grotesque entrails and bones and fangs emerging out from under its skin (though nobody saw those things but me, didn't they? Nobody saw what it did to Quentin Y. but me), and she would just say in that same defensive, testy tone: I don't know. That just because she cannot explain it, she refuses to let it overturn her reality, her Universal Truth.

We step out of the tunnel, at the base of the stairs back to the real world.

"Listen." Corbett mounts the stairs two at a time, as if to say she'll leave us behind if we don't keep up. "Are any of you hurt?"

"My ankle," I say lamely. "My knees."

"Bumps you got falling around because you're an uncoordinated dumbass. I mean, did any of you get hurt."

Wintermute, wincing with each hasty step, wrings her hands. "I got hurt."

"Where?"

She doesn't want to say.

"It can't possibly be that bad," Corbett says. "Want me to lift your skirt and take a peek?"

Wintermute, for all the behavior she describes so explicitly in her novel, loses her nerve. "I lost my locket."

"Boo hoo. Get another. How much could it cost? A grand?"

The stairs end. We're in the wizard's tower. Corbett doesn't waste a moment leaving; only I, glancing around, notice the homeless man splayed lifelessly against the wall. Flies buzz.

"Here's what happened." The world outside is as we left it, an island in a lagoon, graffiti, trees. Sky overhead, no moon, too many clouds. No eyeball watching. "The Breakers is a middlebrow tourist trap. A museumified remnant of the incredible boredom that is history. That cheap Preservation Society transformed it into a Halloween Haunt for the night. Hence the mannequins, the bullshit, the dungeon at the bottom of the kiddy slide. We got chased around. It was a joke. A cheap, trashy―tacky―joke. Or maybe it was Quentin X., I don't know, mumbling about his movies. Maybe he set it all up. It doesn't matter. Four of us left the school, four of us are coming back, all limbs attached. Nothing else to talk about."

For a moment I think there won't be a hole in the wall back into the school. That it will have vanished as enigmatically as it appeared, that we will be trapped Outside forever, in this unbounded world. But the hole is there. It's not even hard to find. Light, sound filters through.

Corbett stoops and enters. One by one, Wintermute casting me a glance like she still seeks solidarity, we follow. Ryan follows, smiling.

"May I come in now?" Lim asks.

I mutter mindlessly, "Fine."

In the middle of the tunnel a scream shoots out from ahead and I go rigid. But laughter follows. It's a scream of delight, a little thrill. We reappear in the botanical garden, phantasmagorically lit by the black light of the screen on Noël D'Addario's portable DVD player. They're huddled around it. There's Amy Weaver and Nadine Block, the latter asleep with her head in Weaver's lap. Weaver pets her hair. There's also the girl in the ghost sheet costume, the girl who watches but never speaks.

"That's so cheap," Weaver laughs. "So fucking cheap. Cheap ass jumpscare."

"It got you. Admit it..." says D'Addario.

"It's a cell phone jumpscare. Nobody will ever get scared by a phone. Oh hey." Weaver hangs her head backward to watch us approach. "The intrepid adventurers return."

"Bad timing... the movie just ended," says D'Addario.

Sure enough, the credits are playing. White words on black: WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY QUENTIN X—

I try to reread them to prove I read them wrong, but they're already gone, replaced by PRODUCED BY and eight names that mean nothing. It couldn't have said Quentin X. I only caught a glimpse before it changed. But I feel, with that same untrustworthy sense of certainty, that they have finished watching a movie starring the four of us as we ran screaming through The Breakers. Gorehound III.

"You missed a banger." Weaver's jolting hips cause Nadine Block to open her eyes sleepily and suppress a yawn of annoyance. "D'Addario might be converting me, that shit was fucking brutal."

D'Addario beams, taunting us for missing it. The ghost watches. It likes to watch. :)

A shiver runs through me. Corbett slings small talk back at Weaver, I only catch scraps of it, I realize she is insinuating she got laid and by extension exhibiting complete social domination over the others, who stare with barely-concealed envy.

Ryan regards the botanical garden with pleasure. Her eyes travel up and down the trees and flowers. Always, when I look at her too long, her eyes go straight to me.

"We all came back," I say to D'Addario.

"What?"

"You said we wouldn't."

D'Addario doesn't understand. I shouldn't be bringing this up. Nobody knows what I'm talking about.

In the corner, crouched, eyes peering out of the dark like a cat, is the freshman, Ana.

We all go to sleep. Exhausted, flimsy forms slouching away to dormitory bedrooms. If there's a chance to reify the experience we collectively witnessed in The Breakers, it is past. Even Wintermute is silent, she looks defeated, more concerned with the shabby state of her clothes and the bloodless nicks on her pretty skin. I imagine the bed awaiting me, but know I must first shower. I don't want to. I want to sink into a bed of filth. I want to drown in it.

I reach for the door to my room. A hand stops me. Gripping my wrist. Just enough pressure for my fingers to quiver.

It's Ryan. The dormitory in the dark could be the tunnels of that dungeon, but her smile as the last flitting forms disappear into their doors remains beatific. Contented.

"You dropped this, Enid Lim."

On her outstretched palm is my phone.

Chapter 14: Freddy's™ Coming: The Final Five Nights

My vision hangs suspended before the hole.

It is there, it is the only thing, it and the brick wall that defines it. The brick glistens bluish like it's right before dawn and there's not light but the presage of light washing down from above.

The hole is black.

It hums.

And I can't look away. I can't close my eyes. I don't even have eyes, I don't know if I exist, I have no sense of myself here. I'm no longer human, only a watcher, stripped of all other capacity. I watch the hole, black and humming.

I know it's coming. I can't see anything inside but I know. If I keep watching, if I don't turn away, I'll see it, the horrible crawling thing coming for me, it's only a matter of when, which exact moment out of the black gaping hole I'll see its form take shape and squeeze grinning through: this moment? this? this? this? this?

I want it to come. I need it to come, because if it were here at least it'd be over, this anticipation would shatter and I might become human again, enough to scream or run, but all I can do is watch and all I can feel is crackling dread in the void that has replaced my body.

Will it be this moment?

The hole is black.

It hums.

Chapter 15: Retvrn to Normalcy

PART III PART I: CITRINITAS

I wake at 4:30. I have barely slept but a sharp cramp knots my bowels so I clamber to the bathroom and spend the next half hour jackknifed on the toilet. I struggle to comprehend how the alien bile navigating my mazelike interior went so far and so long before my body realized its threat and made an effort to expel it. I'm going to die. I want to die. I don't die.

When I'm reduced to a shivering, empty shell, I sift myself out of the bathroom and into the piercing glare of my roommate's raised head, agleam in a slant of mote-strewn light that renders her unearthly and inhuman: moonstone eyes, translucent flesh. Two black marks on her bare neck. "Oh, no," she mumbles. "Are you unwell?"

We watch each other in silence until a fist pounds the door. It's Corbett, summoning me to the gym, like any normal day. It's a normal day. It's All Saints Day.

Although I am little more than a residual ache, I reassert mastery of myself and embark on my routine.

When I reach the gym Corbett's there curling dumbbells which is so normal it's not until I mount the treadmill that I see Ryan seated on the mat, legs crossed, fingers in meditative symbols, and completely nude. Her clothes are folded neatly beside her and her eyes open directly into mine. We are tied together. Every inch of her skin is unblemished, like the body on the cross. Her breasts barely protrude from her chest, doll-like, and between her thighs...

I snap my gaze away. Corbett sets down her dumbbells. "Don't ask me. She was like this when I came in." That's all she says on the subject.

I can't show weakness where Corbett shows strength. But as I run, my eyes flicker from the treadmill dashboard that assiduously ticks down my timer, drawn as though I really have become the dream-self only capable of watching, and meets on occasion Ryan's emerald eyes and sly smile, her wordless invitation to join her, to shuck off my clothes and my skin and collapse as the hollow set of sacrificial bones I am, before all the things that aren't me return to fill me again.

She remains when Corbett and I leave. She watches me go.

My roommate is back to normal when I return to our room, "normal" meaning an insensible state of half-wakefulness, and it asserts a kind of order when, after my shower, I untangle her from the cords of her devices and direct her toward the bathroom. This normalcy sheds enough clarity to anticipate Spirit Labuschagne (Class Rank 6, relation of the Rockefellers) accosting me at breakfast for the lowdown on our quartet's Halloween. But to my surprise Labuschagne sits at another table with Sylvia Cooper (Class Rank 8, relation of the Vanderbilts) and Ursula Yocum (ugly, ratlike freshman, prepubescent, who likes to crawl into tiny cracks) and Enid Lim (Class Rank 2, daughter of one of Donald Trump's lawyers). Lim and Labuschagne do the talking. At intervals their entire table's eyes shift toward me together, they lean in, whispering to themselves, and then that verminous Yocum giggles with her gray eyes in glasses set against mine.

"Are you unwell?" Labuschagne asks.

I blink. Labuschagne can't think I'm unwell. She can't tell everyone I'm unwell. "I'm fine."

This works. Labuschagne leans closer; her forehead and Yocum's nearly touch mine. "And then what?"

"There were four boys."

Labuschagne nods. "Yes, yes, and then what? And then what?"

I have command. I have control. Play it correctly and their esteem will skyrocket. Labuschagne will preface the story, when she retells it, with: "Enid Lim told me..."

"Oh, they were so rude," I say, but with a smile, because they love rude boys, I know well enough from Creative Writing. "They played this horrible prank. One of them, the one that eventually took a liking to me, he charged us with a monster mask. You can't imagine how my roommate screamed. Corbett hid behind me."

"Corbett hid?" Yocum can't believe it.

"I have an older brother, so I'm used to boys messing around. But the others, well. I had to do the introductions, they were too shy to say a word. Then we went up to The Breakers."

"Yes?" Labuschagne is only breath. "Yes, and then? Lim, I need to know. I can't—four boys. Four."

"Corbett went off with two of them—"

"Two," Yocum says. "Was it like?" She extends both forefingers and points them at each other, pushing back and forth.

"Did they pin her down?" Labuschagne blurts. "Did they force her to the floor? Did they choke her? Did they not stop even when she begged them?"

"They..."

"Did they smash her head with a sledgehammer?"

"Did they do it to you too?"

"They... They."

"What'd they do to Ryan?"

I blink. What did they do to Ryan. What did they do to Ryan?

"Actually," I say, "actually, Ryan." I remember her handing me my phone. I remember Corbett, quick to brush off everything, the desperation with which she did it. Something isn't right. The hole remains open. I look down at my hands; they tremble. My throat is dry. Expectant gazes await me. "Ryan... Actually, I think something might be wrong with Ryan."

Labuschagne's face sinks on her skull.

"Are you unwell?"

The bells toll.

In Art History I can't stop thinking about the hole. I have to keep my breathing under control during a lecture on abstract expressionism because I become convinced something is crawling through it at that exact moment. Ryan is in this class (clothed, like the others) and I can't be sure but I think she's watching me. I'm on the verge of panic but not here, not where everyone can see. As I contemplate the less extreme faux pas of interrupting class for permission to use the restroom, a solution dawns like a circle of light on a fairy ring: it's so simple!

After Family Planning, as I make the daily cross from one school building to the other, I detour through the gourds that remain around Halicarnassus Brown's statue and enter the Administration building. The building's exterior is a stately (Beaux-Arts) construction of ionic pilasters, balconettes, and, higher up, narrow pointed medallions of stone ornamentation. The interior has since been remodeled into a functional nexus for the academy's executive functions. As soon as I pass through the vestibule the harried, drying Miss Syrene swivels in her office chair and asks whether I'm here for the nurse or the phone, with a tap of her ballpoint pen on the respective clipboards for each. I tell her I instead need to make a service request regarding a potential security breach, and something in the gravity of my tone causes her to stare blankly. The pause, punctuated by the mechanical lament of a distant printer, lasts so long I wonder if I ought to say something else. Finally, Miss Syrene narrows her eyes.

"You don't need the nurse?"

"No. I told you. I need to make a service request—"

"Miss Enid Lim." The voice, cold and sharp, comes from my left. (My full name, the way this new Ryan says it.) My head turns unwillingly; all the gritty component bones of my jaw and neck click. Through an open doorway between panes of frosted glass is the Headmistress' office. Her upper body emerges out of the rosewood monument of her desk, blending into it on account of her umber suit, with even her wireframe bifocals matching its bronze handles. It seems impossible for her to have legs. "Make your request to me directly."

Miss Syrene swivels back to her workstation. I have no choice but to comply.

The office is cramped due to the massive desk. Only a quarter of the space is left for me to stand. (Obviously, when parents or philanthropists visit, the Headmistress entertains them elsewhere.) There's barely space for a chair; it's better to stand than bother to sit. My eyes flit to the framed blueprints, signed R.M. Hunt, that reveal the shape of the school. Square and compass. Aimed at Jerusalem. Among them is a black-and-white photograph of Halicarnassus Brown and a small painting of a blonde girl with a cane.

"Miss Enid Lim."

My attention rivets. "Yes, ma'am."

"Bring to my attention the nature of your request."

Those eyes skewer. All of her is sharp, tight. Her gray hair strained into a solid helmet encasing her head, the stiff shine of every button. My throat hitches. I forget what I planned to say. Right before her patience empties, I find it.

"There is a hole in the wall."

I flinch, anticipating that the crawling thing will hear me, but under the Headmistress' glare in this fully functional space it's ridiculous to think anything like that could happen.

"In the botanical garden," I explain. "There's a hole in the wall. It's big enough for someone to fit through. It's a security risk, a violation. I'm requesting it be closed." My mind travels to the wizard's tower, to Ryan, back when she was still Ryan. "A vagrant might enter."

It is, I decide, a perfectly reasonable concern. I sound more reasonable than I expected. There is no way this request can reflect poorly on me.

Still, the Headmistress' stare unnerves.

"I will have the groundskeeper investigate post haste," she says.

"Thank you. Now, I have my next class."

I don't even manage to turn. She says, "What did you do last night?"

"Pardon?"

"What," she says, "did you do last night?"

"I don't understand." To my credit, I remain cool. "I went to the All Saints Eve festival."

She stares. She just stares, her fingers thatched.

The bells toll.

"Then I returned to my room."

She cannot possibly know. Unless my roommate went to her? My roommate. The only other one who knows we cannot ignore what happened at The Breakers. Did she blab, heedless of how insane she'd sound, directly to authority about doppelgangers, torture chambers, Gorehounds? Did she draw me into her story? That traitor, that underminer! It's one thing if my fellow students think I'm insane. If the Headmistress does? She will without hesitation call my mom. She will say, "Mrs. Lim, I believe your daughter is unwell." And Mom knows exactly how to handle that. Yes she does. She handled it most efficiently with Eric.

"My roommate—" I catch myself. I have not let any outward discomposure show. If my roommate betrayed me, I'll toss her under the bus without a thought, deny everything, paint her as the true lunatic. Corbett will support my story. And Ryan. Ryan... I don't know. "My roommate can vouch that's what I did," I say innocently, preparing to be surprised when the Headmistress informs me otherwise. Instead, she says:

"The groundskeeper already tended the garden this morning. He reported no hole in the wall. He did, however, discover paraphernalia."

It takes a moment to understand the euphemism. Drugs. Amy Weaver's crowd left a stubbed blunt or empty pill bottle behind. And since I'm coming here talking about the botanical garden, she suspects I was involved.

This is an entirely different sort of danger, and I cannot let my relief at its comparative mildness lower my guard. My mask remains solid. "I know nothing about that."

"You are telling me you were not in the garden last night?"

"No." I think quickly. "I do morning exercises with Corbett and Ryan. We jogged to the garden around dawn. That's when I saw the hole."

She stares. I tamp down the fancy she is staring inside me, exploring the network of nerves strung through my brain, reading their sparks and flares to understand every terrible truth I keep concealed. My story holds; she dismisses me, with a stiffly-penned note to excuse my tardiness.

The perpetual overcast suspended above the school has finally broken when I look outside, and in my scattershot haste this morning I forgot my umbrella. Fortunately, Miss Syrene has one to lend me. Though her eyes crawl along my skin long after I leave.

Environmental Science passes blurred. In English we start The Tempest, but my mind is oriented to the hole in the wall. I pull myself together for lunch, where I am expected to be sociable. But because Nadine Block (Class Rank 5, Jewish) apologetically waylays me for the Macro Economics homework she forgot to do, I arrive at the dining hall after everyone else.

Centrally, the Sun King sits. Contrary to her typical regal distance, with which she allows others to speak under the unspoken understanding she does not need to, Ryan's mouth moves animatedly and her palms splay outward. Courtiers lean eagerly into her voice: Spirit Labuschagne and MacKenzie Fayerweather (Class Rank 9) on either side, and a trio of juniors (Tianne Devers, Meredith Jahannam, and Firenze George) opposite. The five are crammed like sardines around a table for four, but Ryan remains untouched, buffered by an aura of remove. Her eyes fix unwaveringly ahead. They never tilt toward any to whom she speaks. A prophet.

Then her eyes go to me. And stay there. My skin shivers.

I sit with Corbett and the other varsity tennis team members, Zinnia Fitzpeter and Lulu Paraiso (Class Rank 7 and 10, respectively). At first I find it odd Paraiso isn't eating with her lesbian girlfriend, the junior Tam Bell (who irritatingly leverages the relationship for social capital), but everything becomes clear when I slip into the empty seat and, after a brief acknowledgement, they resume their conversation.

"I played two of the La Salle girls last month," Corbett says, businesslike. "Serviceable. They won't lose to chumps. Evenly matched with you two. Malheur can maybe beat them on a good day. I don't know anything about their other three, which means they're dog. Not Ryan dog, but nothing any of us need to worry about."

"Then we're fine right?" Fitzpeter says. "One of their stars chews up Ryan, so even if Lulu or I lose to the other, we sweep the rest. It's 3-2 at worst."

"No. I don't know how, but they figured out our weakness. I've seen the matchups tomorrow. Ryan's against one of their nobodies. It's you two versus the stars."

Fitzpeter blanches. "So if we both lose..."

"Right." Corbett stares them down; they both sit opposite her. "I don't care who does it, but one of you needs to win. I'll win, Malheur will win, that's guaranteed, so if one of you wins, we take the championship."

"I hate this format," Fitzpeter says. "Fucked up Rhode Island format."

"Maybe Ryan wins," says Paraiso. "You know? Maybe they underestimate her. Maybe their no-names are even worse. Like damn, Cherry, I know you want to smash her head open"—smash her head open—"or maybe just smash her, but she's not that trash. She knows the rules, she's got the body." She slurps tea from a straw. "Got the body for sure."

"Don't count on that psychopath for anything." Corbett steals a glance over her shoulder at Ryan's table, then quickly looks back. I look, too, and Ryan's eyes are riveted directly to me, as always.

Then, at something Ryan says, all of them (Labuschagne, Fayerweather, Devers, Johannes, and George) look at me in unison. I cannot look away, I'm transfixed. Their mouths curl. They're sneering. Giggling now, even that rat Ursula Yocum, who enters their orbit. They think I'm unwell. Ryan has told them I'm unwell. She's preempting what I'll say about her, that she's not the real Ryan. She's annihilating my social capital.

"Gawd Cherry," Fitzpeter says, a mile away, "even if the school loses, it's not like it'll look bad on you."

"We need to win," Corbett says with finality.

I remember nothing of my next two classes, though my hand automatically transcribes the lectures. In the margins I discover I've written the words "smash her head open" in ordered rows.

Wait. Wait! I've been thinking about it all wrong. Oh, it's so clear, the clouds split open and a ray descends diagonally into my mind, everything makes so much sense! "Smash her head open," that's the key, Lulu Paraiso didn't say that coincidentally, she was giving me the crucial clue! Corbett hates Ryan. Despises her. Worse, she imagines Ryan will ruin her tennis tournament. She had to do something. It was all manufactured from the start. We didn't meet those four boys by chance. No, she called them. She had the opportunity, remember? There was a period walking through the tunnels when she wasn't with us. I counted the heads, it was Ryan, Lim, me, and my roommate. Corbett used that time to draw her confederates to her, at which point she arranged everything. It was set up to look like a Halloween haunt, a Universal truth (and she was the one who told us about Universal! She implanted the idea in our minds, the misdirection!), so nobody would suspect reality. With the boys, she murdered Ryan (Eric's purpose was to separate us and provide an opening), then she replaced her with a lookalike. A Ryan who is not Ryan. A ringer! It's all for the tournament. This Ryan will prove, tomorrow, far better at tennis, she'll win her set and ensure victory for the All Saints Academy varsity tennis team. It's nothing supernatural, it's nothing you'd have to be insane to believe, it's an utterly conventional murder mystery. The Gorehound? As I suspected from the start, two boys on stilts. Was there ever a time both the Gorehound and three or more boys were in the same place? No! I saw it first in the atrium when Eric molested me, then on the third floor with only Machiavelli and Quentin Y., and lastly in the dungeon. They faked it attacking Corbett to clear her of suspicion. I've seen it! I've seen the truth!

That's why the false Ryan is telling everyone I'm unwell. Otherwise, I can prove she's false. I know things about Ryan nobody else knows.

Forcing myself to swallow my agitation, I enter the Administration building after class to return Miss Syrene's umbrella. She's not at her workstation, though the printer keeps spewing sheets one after another. I figure she's in the faculty lounge, but students aren't supposed to go there, so I wait at the front.

The problem is, nobody else knows the things only I know about Ryan. How do I prove it to anyone but myself? No, that's a different issue. It's valuable enough to prove it to myself. I can't be swept away by fantasy. Empiricism, verification: these are my pillars.

"Miss Enid Lim."

Déjà vu. Like before, my head turns left. Toward the open door of the Headmistress' office. She is there, a fixture. Her face carved in reproach.

She knows I went out last night.

Maybe Amy Weaver, accused, pinned the blame on me. No, that's wrong. Weaver has made thumbing her nose at authority too core to her identity to turn snitch. Nadine Block, or that Ana freshman? It's possible. But I think I know the truth. The Headmistress called Corbett or the false Ryan to corroborate my story about the morning jog, and from there the sabotage was trivial. Who cares if the students don't believe me? If the faculty doesn't, I'm in real trouble.

But when the Headmistress speaks, what she says is even more perplexing, even more blood-draining:

"The groundskeeper searched the garden. There is no hole in the wall."

Chapter 16: Miranda

Rain stings my eyes as I tilt across the athletic field. Miss Syrene manifested to snatch her umbrella on my way out and I don't even care that the water bleeds into my uniform and all its sharp precision, all its power of suggesting a put-together human being. My shoes sink into patches of grass. Mud flicks up, splatters my socks, my knees, the hem of my skirt. The entrance to the garden disperses into the mist rising off the flatland. The archway is a blur, the rising spreading trees, the inscription in gold between the boughs: IL FAUT CULTIVER NOTRE JARDIN. The organ-like Osakazuki throbs gleefully. Every leaf, every vine is shivering, every plant hisses as the rain beats down: iihiihiie. iihiihiie. iihiihiie. The flowers, too, they hiss. All our pretty orchids.

I don't properly prepare for the change from the field to the garden walkway, it's slick, my feet glide. Nothing has purchase, but I manage to throw my arms out and catch the bench before I smash my face against it. I land on a knee and a brief moment of painlessness gives way to a growing sting. The abuse I took in The Breakers barely left a mark after I took a shower, but no chance of that now. Diluted red liquid runs down my shin.

The pain brings clarity. I should not have come here. Who knows who saw my mad scramble across the field, let alone who will see me soaked and filthy when I return to the dormitories. Ryan is already infiltrating them with rumors. Unwell, unwell, their lips are whispering. But I have to know. Four of us left through the hole. It must exist.

Indicators of sanity aside, a new unease strikes me as I rise and reorient myself among the twitching, glistening colors of the garden. No, I should not have come here.

This is a bad place to be.

If it came through the hole it'd be here. Among these ceaseless shapes, these natural corners of concealment. It could be above! My head snaps up, but sees only shivering darkness, and I look away when droplets tap my eyes.

Hold it together. I already established there is no monster, only boys on stilts, though when I try to recollect my logic leading to that conclusion, I lack particulars. But I was certain, and I remember the certainty. So my logic must have been sound. Is that a safe way to think? What's safer, believing my remembered belief in a rationality I no longer remember, or believing a monster with stilt legs will come crawling around the corner? Every shard of my self is treacherous to every other. The me of fifteen minutes ago severs the tendons of my ankles. If only I had someone else, anyone else I could trust. Some external viewer of me. Enid Lim, Enid Lim!

One palm slicks the water off my face and that helps. Either the Gorehound was two boys on stilts or the Gorehound would not wait for me here. Entertaining a real Gorehound, hypothetically: it is a creature that always crawls. It always draws closer. It may do so slowly, but it does not wait. Does it? I haven't seen the movie.

The notion strikes me that the Headmistress set me up, said the exact words to send me here alone. But I ward that away, ward it all away, and dispelling thought entirely rely upon inertia. I came here for a reason.

I delve deeper into the garden. I head for the wall at its end.

The image of the hole from my dream returns to me, a flash. But that's not what I see. The corner is as it was before, with its odd clearing, excepting one detail. Where the hole used to be is now a metal trellis entangled by flowering, giggling ivy.

I don't believe it, not for one second. I tromp through puddles to the trellis and inspect it from all angles. It doesn't take long to confirm my suspicion. The ivy is not rooted to the soil. Nothing prevents the trellis from being picked up and moved.

Since Weaver and her group saw us leave, many people know about the hole. People with an interest in using it. To keep it hidden from the faculty, they erected this hasty disguise. That blue collar groundskeeper, the only man anyone ever sees on school grounds, told the Headmistress he "searched" the garden, but it's rainy and dark. I envision him. His plaid workman's shirt, his jeans. I realize I'm calling to mind the image of Eric in the wolfman mask and make him fatter, with a taut beltloop around his gut and tools jangling from it. A tall man, an older man, black. He stands, not even here where I stand, but a ways back, humming to himself as he glances around, muttering "Damn rain," and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, certainly nothing more eye-catching than the stubbed blunt from earlier.

The image fits. All angles are Euclidean. My heart calms.

To make it perfect, I only need to pull back the trellis and confirm the hole.

In this cleared corner, the mud is thick. Despite my heedlessness in rushing here, I'm no longer so eager to sink to the laces at a step. Still, I'd rather not wait until I'm soaked through. I survey the terrain and spot an elevated patch among the puddles. It's a long reach from the walkway, so I extend my leg to place my foot upon it. There's still glide. I nearly lose my balance as mud and pebbles sift beneath me. My arms go out, nothing is near to grab, but their counterbalanced extension is enough for wobbly stability.

I glance back at the garden. It's darker than I realized, as dark as the forest on the other side of the hole. I've never seen the garden so dark. It's because there are lights in the walkway that turn on at night. They're time-enabled; it's not late enough. It's dark as night and not even four.

A clammy shiver runs through me. I need to hurry up and get out of here.

My extended foot gains purchase enough for me to pull myself over and lean against the wall for support. There isn't another snatch of solid ground, at least not that I can see, so I stand on one foot. With one palm to the wall, I reach out and seize the trellis.

In my mind, I assumed the trellis would weigh next to nothing, but it's unexpectedly heavy. I try to pull with both hands, propping myself against the wall on my shoulder, but this doesn't work, and if I peel off the wall, I'm scared I'll lose my balance. There's no other option. I plant my dangling foot in the mud. The squelch sickens. I'm stepping into that sledgehammer-smashed face. It's like my foot can see it, the blood and bone and matter, but I shut it up. With all my strength I pull.

The trellis tilts back. I grunt, groan, glide my foot through Ryan's face, through mud and only mud, and the tilt deepens. I entertained some notion of only pulling the trellis back enough to see the hole, but gravity works against me. I let go and the trellis slams against the ground. It's tall enough that it reaches the walkway, and strikes with a concreteness that makes me jump. Its weight fills me with dread. Maybe it wasn't put up to hide the hole. Maybe it was meant as a defense.

All I need to do now is check the wall, but I'm frozen. When I look, it'll be waiting. Waiting with a skeleton's lipless grin. The exact thing I spent that entire dream dreading. My heart bubbles, inflates, threatens to burst with pounding. My neck pounds, my gut pounds, everywhere inside me pounds.

I look.

My first thought is, there really isn't a hole.

But then, through the dark, I perceive the smudge. The inner blackness where the lines between the bricks vanish. Its edges are not nearly so well-defined as before. As though the hole is growing. Swallowing by degrees the delineation between substance and nothing. And it might really be only a smudge, the place on the wall where Ana Gray crumbled to dust. Her final groan remains alive among the hissing flowers: It hurttttssssssss........

Shakily, my knees bend. My body lowers, degree by degree. My head becomes level with the darkness. My ghost-white hand rises before me. It reaches toward the hole.

Reaches, reaches. Reaches.

Fingertips disappear into it. Palm. Wrist. The hole has gone nowhere. The hole will always be here.

I keep reaching.

I can't stop reaching.

I can't.

I can't—

"Hihihi."

My hand wrenches back, my head whips around; the voice is behind me. Split-second impulse gives way to split-second understanding: it's another auditory hallucination. I expect nothing but the dark lines of the garden devolving deeper to indistinctness. Expecting nothing, I see nothing, until my gaze lingers and I blink away rainwater.

Something stands upon the walkway, watching. It is the only thing not rustling. It stands still in silhouette. A narrow body and a broad top.

It's already inside.

It watches me.

The time ticks over the hour and all the lights in the walkway snap on at once. Yellow cones spill upward and cast shadows on the canopy. Everything becomes real. The silhouette becomes real.

It's a student.

She's in the maroon uniform. Blazer neatly buttoned, striped ribbon through the collar. Her skirt and stockings prim, her shoes without a speck of mud. She's perfectly dry, because she holds a broad black umbrella. She holds it low, so that under the brim only her smile shows— :)

"Ah," I say. I smooth my hair back with a single motion of my hand. I look awful, but looks are ninety percent confidence. I must engineer the situation. "Are you the idiot who almost got everyone caught?"

She only watches.

"The groundskeeper found a blunt in the garden," I explain. "Only a miracle stopped him from finding the hole. I had to rush here and make sure nobody left anything else incriminating."

I stalk toward her, gesticulating to indicate sincerity. I don't have a good view of her face, but she's not tall. She's certainly an underclassman. My natural seniority supports me; I only need to leverage it.

"If you and your little friends screw this up for everyone," I say, "be absolutely certain the seniors won't forget it."

My performance is perfect, but the girl doesn't retreat. She doesn't stop smiling.

"Who are you? Yocum? Weaver's freshman? Hey. Say something."

I'm only a few steps away now. I don't actually intend to get in her face, so I stop approaching, but doing so makes me cognizant of the gaping void at my back. It feels imperative I cover it again. So I make an apathetic tsk in my throat and turn away from the girl, as if she's not worth my time. I have my own business to attend to. She can watch if she wants. I don't care.

The hole is even less distinct at a distance. In a way I'm grateful this girl appeared, because the social pressure she exerts constrains me into my own shape. I stoop before the top of the fallen trellis, not caring how my skirt ends up against my legs, the way Corbett doesn't, and decide to put all my strength into lifting it, as it would come across better to do it in one clean motion. Despite my intention, the weight surprises me. I grunt with a false start before my shoes clamp the pavement and, mostly through the effort of my legs, I heft it enough to get my shoulders under it. The trellis rises, tilts, and clatters against the wall. The hole is, once more, sealed.

My arms fall to my sides. The mud in my fingernails washes in the rain. The garden is still alive, whistling. She still watches. My head turns toward her. She is all a smile.

"Hihihi," she says.

I don't recognize the voice.

"Come under my umbrella, Lim. Come out of the rain."

Her cordiality is startling. I approach, cautiously. I try to see her face under the umbrella. I suspect no matter how far I lower myself I'll only see her smile, that nothing else exists. But her face appears. It's ordinary. Brown eyes and brown hair, tied into a small ponytail by a gold ribbon. She is pretty and neat but plain. She is nobody special. She is a face in the crowd.

There's only one thing odd: I don't know who she is.

All Saints Academy has 48 students, 12 per grade. Naturally, every student knows every other. The social ecosystem is closed; there is nobody else to know. The only exception is that at the end of each year, 12 students graduate, and at the beginning of each year, 12 join. It's the first day of November; my knowledge of the freshmen is not encyclopedic, as you've guessed by my inability to remember the full name of the Ana girl (Anapsychia), or what Ursula Yocum's father does, but I've seen them all. I recognize their faces. And I don't recognize this one. Ergo, though she wears the All Saints Academy uniform, she is no student. She has come through the hole.

I have lowered myself before her smile. Her arm, holding the umbrella, moves. The umbrella is a giant black bat, it will clamp upon me, slurp the flesh off my bones, digest me screaming standing whole. But actually it only shifts enough to cover both me and her. The rain ceases pounding my head.

"It'd be bad for anyone to see you like this," she says.

My lips, trembling, stammer: "Who are you?"

The plain smile from her plain face radiates reserved warmth. She is sympathetic.

"Miranda," she says.

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, / That has such people in't.

"Miranda." There is no Miranda. "Miranda."

"The transfer student."

"The transfer student. Miranda." The transfer student, Miranda. The transfer student. Didn't I hear about this? Who would have told me, Spirit Labuschagne? The transfer student, the transfer student. "You're not a freshman at all."

"I'm not a freshman."

"But you're also not a senior."

"I'm not a senior."

"You're—" "—a junior." "Yes." "Right." "I remember." "I know you can, if you try." "The transfer student, a junior." "Miranda." "Miranda." "The transfer student with the stellar GPA." "I'm an attentive learner." "Miranda." "Miranda." "Miranda." "Father is a lawyer." "So is my mother." "What a coincidence." "I knew I felt a connection." "You did? With me?" "With you, Lim." "Lim." "Miranda." :) "But we've never met." "We've never met." "No, but Miranda has met—" "—who has she met?" "She has a friend." "Has she?" "I'm certain." "Certainty." "Miranda." "Her friend is." "I'll take you out of the rain."

Miranda takes me out of the rain. There is enough room under the umbrella for us both.

"I heard," she says, as we walk side by side, "the garden is the place to connect to the world."

Nobody is in the dormitory building when we arrive; they're at the dining hall for dinner. I thank Miranda and go to my room. She's actually quite nice. I'll have to tell everyone the new transfer student is nice.

Chapter 17: Playing with Tin Pacifists

My roommate, now taken to wearing scarves, wants to speak to me. She makes the request with uncharacteristic diffidence late that Friday night, after my long shower and atemporal dinner.

"Enid." Her latex hands clasped and clenching. "My dear friend. May we perhaps have a tête-à-tête on a matter of serious weight?"

But I'm busy with schoolwork, which I want to get ahead on. In addition to the usual studies, I can't glide by in Creative Writing based on a scrounged draft of my brother's book. I need to write, as Mrs. Sharma instructed, "something real." My roommate's loaned novel sits on the corner of my desk to induce me.

"Not tonight," I say.

"Yes," says my roommate. "Yes, of course. I apologize for bothering you." She fidgets, lingers, and finally seeps out of my periphery.

The next day, Saturday, is the Rhode Island Interscholastic League (RIIL) female tennis state championship. The five members of the varsity tennis team, plus the eight junior varsity players who compete in a side tournament nobody cares about, plus Coach and the team equipment assistant, load into the academy's charter bus with its sleek strip of tinted windows for the 45-minute drive to Pawtucket.

I'm the equipment assistant. (Did you think I only watched Ryan's practices out of admiration?) It's a role in name only, as the girls manage their own equipment. I took the position to avoid being conscripted into a sports team myself, as All Saints Academy students are expected to involve themselves in physical activities as well as mental ones for fuller enrichment and well-roundedness. Plenty of other girls scrounge up sham medical exemptions; my roommate, if you'll believe it, has "persistent shallow pulse." I'm marginally more honest. I do fill out inventories or fetch stray balls from time to time.

The outside world blurs past. The bus is full of animated chatter. I'm locked into a window seat beside Zinnia Fitzpeter, who is in a state of contemplative focus as she rubs the strings of her racket for luck or superstition. Her anxiousness makes me anxious, though I can't blame her. Corbett basically told her the fate of the team rested on her and Paraiso's shoulders.

Paraiso is at the back of the bus with her lesbian girlfriend, Tam Bell, and also Ryan. They're talking, but I can't hear about what. Every so often Bell's poorly modulated screeches form a coherent exclamation, but it's always NO WAY or REALLY NOW or similar drivel. Amid the buzz, though, I hear it. Dropped directly from Ryan's lips: "Enid Lim." She's talking about me.

The tournament was supposed to take place at a local (public) high school, but due to the rain it has been moved to a nearby athletic center with indoor courts. We are not to leave the building; we go from the academy to the bus to a garage to the athletic center without once stepping outside an enclosed space, though the center's expansive interior is enough to give the illusion of being open. Three acrylic resin hardcourts shine blue under light that exudes from the arched ceiling. It's frigid with air conditioning. Rain patters externally; shoes squeak and voices echo indistinct from the far ends. Every sound is a reverberation.

Due to the limited number of courts (three instead of the expected six), the tournament becomes an all-day affair. The All Saints girls camp on one end, the La Salle girls on the other. They are so far away they look like dolls. Our side shoots glares as racket covers unzip and tennis ball canisters pop. Both teams, by coincidence, wear maroon.

Here's how it works. Two courts are dedicated to the JV tournament (due to the larger number of players) and one to varsity. Each school has five varsity players, and they each play one match, best-of-three sets. The school that wins three or more matches wins the championship.

I'll spare you a play-by-play. Corbett goes first and decimates her opponent. It's slaughter. She really is good. Her body is perfect, wearing the same uniform she wore to The Breakers. Her opponent rarely gets a rally going, it's point after point, game after game, set after set. I watch, cross-legged on the green strip of boundary we're confined to, sipping a water bottle. I remember her hurtling through the gap between the staircases. Final score: 6-0, 6-0.

Next is Fitzpeter. She takes to the court with a gray-green tint, after spending most of Corbett's match in the restroom. Corbett, done for the day and warm in her jacket (she got a new one), cups her hands around her mouth and shouts: "BETTER NOT SCREW THIS UP FITZ." Fitz screws it up. It's painful to watch.

In the middle of her screwing up, a presence falls beside me. I sense it in the horripilation of my skin. For a second, I forget how to breathe.

"Enid Lim," says Ryan.

"Yes. Yes, hello. Hi. What do you want from me?"

I reclaim control, end the question with a pleasant enough tone, albeit forced. Not that I think she cares. She doesn't seem to have a care in the world. Her face is so close to mine and though I don't want to look I try to find the tell that she is not the real Siobhan Ryan, an incriminating mark or lack thereof. There's nothing. It's her, it has to be her, and yet I'm certain it's not. Just like my brother, you know? Have I told you? That was his delusion. People, he told me (that night, I told Mom, he pinned me to the bed and held the knife over me), people are being replaced. They look the same, sound the same, but aren't the same, and how is it only he knows? Is everyone else blind? Do they ignore it on purpose, or do they just not care, one Enid is as good as another? (Eric, Eric, what are you doing, Eric please—Shut up! Shut the fuck up, don't you dare fucking beg me with her voice, with her eyes. I saw my real sister when she was a baby, I know what she has, and you—don't—have it. You are not the Rebis! You're not putrefied or purified, you're nothing, you're nothing at all! You're—not—her!)

(Maybe he never intended to slice my face off to see what was behind it, maybe he only said he would to threaten me into admitting it. He started to sob. He dropped the knife and sobbed. They say most people with schizophrenia aren't dangerous, not really. All he needed was help. Instead he retreated into himself. Transformed himself into the closed circle. And allowed the crawling thing inside to become real.)

(That's my theory.)

"Why did You look at the hole?" Ryan asks, pleasantly.

Corbett howls for Fitzpeter to play better.

"The Headmistress," I say, "was suspicious. I had to make sure the hole wouldn't be discovered."

"But," Ryan says. "I already made sure."

Does that mean she covered the hole with the trellis? Why? I'd thought it was Amy Weaver, but now my mind churns. Yes. Yes, Ryan needs to keep the faculty from finding out. She needs the hole to remain. So more things like her, more things that do not belong, can enter.

It's as though she reads my mind. She says: "It's important to keep it covered. We can't have anything unacceptable getting inside."

I want to dispense with pretension. Accuse her openly: You're already inside, aren't you? Instead, I'm more subtle. "What things are unacceptable, Ryan?"

"Ah." Her eyes gleam. She wanted this question, has been praying for someone (for me) to ask. Her soul is illuminated, a faint glow ebbs from under her skin. "Unacceptable things: Everything lifeless, drained, and sterile. Everything corrupted, dirty, and uncouth. Everything without purpose; everything without sense. Money; oh, we must strive to save ourselves from money. But also poverty, destitution. Abstraction, confusion, ambiguity, relativism, equivocation, quantum mechanics, sophistry, casuistry, fragmentation. Modernity and every shade of modernity that has proceeded from it. Rodents. Vermin. Feral dogs, feral cats. The homeless. Polite bourgeois sensibility, which finds action unreasonable and unfashionable, which seeks reconciliation and omnivariety. Decadence and degeneration. Minimalism. Globalism. The oscillation of extremes and also the unintelligible agglomeration of the middle. Bloodlessness, but also bloodlust. Radicalism; unless it is what our enemies call radical. Sex. And everything phallic, everything male; most of all we must preserve the godliness of our bodies. Only by erecting a wall around ourselves can we define ourselves. Only by keeping out that which is not us can we remain us and not be twisted, contorted, changed into another. But what we keep in must have a vitality of its own, strong enough to sustain. It cannot be dry, economical, mathematical only. Neither too much nor too little nor too balanced. No Rebis, hermaphroditic, but also no androgyne, genderless. And we must not think too much, for fear of repeating the process that maddened this world to begin with."

I stare, amazed. Fitzpeter's shoes pound across hardcourt, racket and ball collide with a vacuumed thwack.

"Is this what you've been telling our classmates?" I ask, remembering her surrounded at the dining hall.

"FITZ! FITZ! WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING DOING?"

"Meet me tonight," Ryan says, "in the garden. Alone. Only You can close the hole."

No way will I do that. I don't even want to be alone with her here, in this wide open well-lit space.

But I need information. Though I still don't remember the logic of my theory that Corbett killed the real Ryan and replaced her with this one, that theory organizes reality coherently and not having a theory leaves it incomprehensible. So I operate with faith and ask:

"When we were roommates last year, do you remember the shows we watched?"

"I remember."

"What were they? Nobody can hear us, everyone's watching Fitzpeter. You can tell me. Please."

"Art that instills yearning."

I'm baffled. "Yearning?"

"Yearning for an idealized world. An ache, gnawing, that things can be better, that they must be better. There is no more worthy purpose for art. You understand. Of course You do."

I don't know. It sounds like what she said about the shows before, more grandiose in expression, but the same sentiment. It's not specific, though. It's not objective.

"But what were they called? Just one. Just tell me the name of one. Ryan, please."

Ryan rises.

"Please, Enid Lim. I'm Siobhan now."

Fitzpeter loses.

Ryan plays next. Corbett doesn't even shout at her. Nobody does. We watch, spellbound, because her every motion is elegance. Compared to Fitzpeter, who grunted with each hit, and Corbett, who pumped a flexed arm and crowed victory, Ryan plays like a ballet dancer. All pivots and darts emerge from a singular fluid motion, one perpetual line that is never straight nor bundled but always a smooth and feminine undulation. Nobody notices nor cares that she, too, has lost until long after the next player, Lulu Paraiso, takes the court.

I'm not sure whether to expect Ryan to return to me, but Corbett (the first to break free of her spell) accosts and berates her for her performance, which Ryan receives pacifically, free from constraints.

Paraiso gets into a close match with one of La Salle's best players, and of course Tam Bell shrieks melodramatic encouragement after every point, won or lost. The advantage goes back and forth. The word "deuce" is uttered more times than I can count. Her opponent wins the first set narrowly; Paraiso wins the second even more narrowly, after trailing for 75 percent of it. By the winner-take-all third set, both players pant and sweat and stoop over their rackets as they stare each other down. Tam Bell is frothing, actually frothing; her JV teammates have to restrain her. Corbett has long since forgotten Ryan.

During the third set, the skill and precision of both competitors plummets. The game becomes one of endurance. Pure physical conditioning. At this point, it's as if Tam Bell's freakish screeching is actually having a positive effect. Paraiso simply hangs on harder. Every time she sags, Bell's voice wrenches her upright. She leaps to an advantage halfway through the set and clings with all she's got. When she wins, she drops to her knees in the middle of the court while Bell and the rest of the JV girls mob her.

Corbett isn't part of the mob. Once Paraiso reaches the cusp of victory, she stops caring. She's gotten hold of a clipboard with the matchups. A loud "Shit" escapes her. She flicks her eyes up and around. "Malheur. Malheur, where the fuck are you?"

Prue Malheur, Class Rank 4, daughter of the Department of Justice head who conducted the investigation into my father's unsolved assassination, sits beside me. She has spoken to me throughout Paraiso's match, slumped in her singularly poor posture, neck near horizontal. Tendrils of dark hair hang down her face. Her eyes never meet yours, even when she speaks to you. She wears Egyptian eyeliner (when Corbett complains about it, she calls it "eye black"). She holds a palm upward and gyrates the ball of her thumb into its center. She has been speaking about The Breakers; everyone knows that's where we went on Halloween, and also that Corbett and I "made love" (her words) there, which is fortuitous, because that night Mercury was in a trine aspect with Neptune, greatly influencing imaginativeness and empathy, both traits being (in her opinion) essential to the process of lovemaking. Mercury, you know, governs how we think, and while many might not consider the intellectual element so essential to such activities, it is, in fact, of paramount importance, for the phallos is the key to connection between souls. (A cock is a kind of key.) To which I can only blandly reply that all we did was anal. Malheur brightens; ayoni, in Hinduism, has often been considered sacred, and given the celestial bodies governing the act, that was certainly the case for me and Corbett. Not to mention the contraceptive benefits, as we learned in Family Planning.

Into this context Corbett comes clattering, banging a hand against the clipboard before waving it in Malheur's face. "Malheur. You see this? Malheur!"

Malheur glances over the sheet. It lists her and her opponent.

"I didn't recognize the name at first," Corbett goes on, "because she's not from this state. They've transferred her in from Massachusetts, dammit. That's a top 20 girl in Massachusetts, and La Salle got their claws on her!"

Malheur tilts her head.

"You're completely outclassed, Malheur. We're fucked. They fucked us! How did this happen? Aren't there rules about transfers? Those fucking nepo babies!"

"Relax," Malheur says. "I feel good today."

"That doesn't matter!"

"On the contrary. The moon is in deep, dark Scorpio, which indicates my intuition is excellent. I feel good. I feel locked in."

These last two words stopper Corbett's response. "Locked in," she mutters. Lock and key.

Malheur rises. For reasons of etiquette, I wish her good luck.

"No, that's bonheur," she says.

It takes Malheur a few games to become fully "locked," but it happens, and she starts winning. What did she say? The moon is in Scorpio? Intuition? It looks like she's always exactly where the ball is going. Every point she drops, Corbett shouts at her: "Come on! Lock in! Lock in!" The exhortation usually turns it around, and soon all the girls are yelling it, like a chant: Lock in. Lock in. The match doesn't even reach the third set (though both sets are relatively close). Malheur has done it. All Saints has done it, 3-2. Rhode Island state champions!

The rest of the evening is a whirlwind. Celebration all the way home. The team commandeers the dining hall; the other students get wrapped up in makeshift festivities. Lulu Paraiso, who looks permanently damaged by her exertion, gives a wheezing speech. Then Corbett, who received the trophy on the team's behalf and hasn't let go. Even Zinnia Fitzpeter is dragged up and celebrated, though she receives the praise shamefacedly. Prue Malheur thanks everyone; teammates, classmates, teachers, Coach, the moon, and me, Enid Lim, whose blessing was crucial to victory. The Bacchantes of the dining hall, frenzied, seize upon this praise. They swarm me: "Enid Lim, Enid Lim, whose blessing was crucial to victory!" At first it seems ironical, but then they adorn my head with a wreath, my neck with a ring of flowers. They hoist me up, carry me with my arms spread. "Enid Lim. Enid Lim!" My flashing eyes, my floating hair. I'm the star.

When it's finally over, and they lower me back into a seat, I'm aware of someone sitting beside me.

"Remember," Ryan says. "You close the hole tonight. You save us all tonight."

Her words linger. When the party dies, when I return to my room, my roommate tries to talk to me, but I hold up a hand for silence. I pace. Close the hole. The hole must, of course, be closed.

Why am I so certain it's not the real Ryan? Eric, if you'll recall, was certain I wasn't the real Enid. It's been two days since The Breakers and nobody else has observed Ryan acting strangely. My perception is faulty; I can't rely on it. Yet my feeling is so powerful, and I remember vividly the events of that night. Even then, I never saw her killed. I saw a headless body I assumed was her. I don't know. I'm confused. My roommate stays up later than usual, then eventually goes to sleep. I slip into bed myself, but my mind refuses to rest.

And I didn't get any schoolwork done! I'll have to study all day tomorrow. My mind sorts potential schedules, hour-by-hour breakdowns by class. I still need to write that story for Mrs. Sharma. My roommate's book exudes evil energy from my desk. I can perceive its shape barely, emerging out of the dark as my eyes adjust.

My roommate starts to moan.

I can't handle it. The rain has stopped, so I decide I'll go to the garden like Ryan asked. It's Saturday; Weaver and Block will be there too. It won't be dangerous. It's absurd to consider anything in this school dangerous. It's absurd to think Ryan isn't the real Ryan. Besides! Cool air will settle my head. I'm so agitated I can't think straight.

Phone, coat, shoes. I slip into the central spine of the dorms. I feel better already. Maybe I won't go all the way to the garden. There are other places to walk at night. Though you can't check X, the Everything App, anywhere else.

I'm halfway out the back door, fighting the onrush of chilled air, when a voice calls to me. Despite the wind, it's unmistakable:

"Hihihi."

I lean back. The dormitory building is shaped like an inverted L, and the back door is at the junction. (I am reminded, briefly, of the T-junction on the third floor of The Breakers.) The first door down the perpendicular track is ajar. A rod of light emerges from it, blocked only at its midsection by the form of a face in shadow. A single eye peers from the crack, cyclopean.

"Lim," she says.

"Good evening."

"Don't go out."

The wind persistently buffets my face. It sweeps down from the top of the big brick wall. A clammy slickness spreads along my skin; I no longer have any idea what possessed me to want to leave.

I let the door shut. The hermetic seal around the jamb sucks into silence. It's warm again.

"Come here," says the eyeball.

"Why?"

"It's fun."

I try to remember whose room it is. The door says 107. It's the wing for juniors. (Freshmen and sophomores are ghettoed on the second story.) I approach the door.

The eyeball looks me up and down. "We'll watch together."

"Watch what?"

The response does not come from the eyeball. It comes from deeper inside, from a much drier voice:

"Gorehound."

The door opens. The eyeball belongs to Miranda. The voice inside, seated like Buddha upon her bed, with a widescreen television mounted behind her, is Noël D'Addario.

Chapter 18: Not All Evil Things Will Hurt You

My initial instinct is a polite decline, but then I reconsider. Morbid curiosity grasps me; I must know what Gorehound actually is, how much part its plot has played in the last few days. I also must know the director. Quentin X—. If I can fill in the blank... I'm not sure why it's important to fill in the blank. But more information never hurts.

I sit on the bed between D'Addario and Miranda. I hadn't realized they were roommates, but it's obvious in retrospect; Miranda is D'Addario's only real friend. They're together all the time.

The lights go off. We vanish under the screen's white glow. D'Addario can't stop giggling, can't stop tapping her feet to make the whole bed shake. She casts furtive glances at my face, though the film is only beginning.

"It's good," she says. "Watch."

The opening shot is the Statue of Liberty at night. Except, as the camera pans back, it is not the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island, but a much smaller facsimile erected in a forest. The shot lingers. There is no music. There is an unsettling, staticky effect on the screen, and I can't tell whether that's intentional or because this is a bootleg rip. Only after ten seconds do I notice the inscription on the statue's pedestal, but the moment I try to read it, a blast of noise startles me, D'Addario cackles, and a woman, bloody, screaming, trips into frame. She clings to the pedestal, blocking the inscription (except the first two words: FAIR IS, and I wonder, I really wonder), then looks around frantically before running again. The camera follows her, I can't read the inscription. D'Addario would rewind if I ask, right? Or would that annoy her? She catches me looking at her and says, "Watch, watch!" When I look back at the screen the woman has fallen. The camera looms over her. She holds up her hands, staring directly at us. No, no! A sledgehammer comes down and her head explodes. The gore naturally falls in the shape of letters: GOREHOUND III.

D'Addario laughs. She's laughing at me, not the movie. I find this unfair, given all I did was jolt a little. Miranda, on the other side, tosses a little ball between her hands. It's not a ball. It's a metal sphere, with an unbroken reflective surface. She jostles and fiddles it absentmindedly.

After the opening scene, the story starts. It is surprisingly difficult to follow, though not because the plot is particularly complex. Many of the actors look similar, and dialogue is sparse. There's a bizarre gimmick where a character will do something, then the screen will freeze as though paused (except the static keeps flickering) and big block white text will appear and say something like HE SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT or UH OH! BAD PLACE TO BE. That second one makes me laugh outright; the character is standing in a bathroom, surrounded by mirrors. Every time I have a reaction, no matter what it is, D'Addario impatiently indicates the screen and tells me to watch.

The narrative, as far as I can tell, is set during the pandemic. Eight college(?) students (four boys and four girls, which is a perfectly reasonable coincidence) go to a "COVID party" at the richest boy's secluded mansion in what I believe is upstate New York. Once they enter the mansion, the camera angles become uncomfortable and voyeuristic, always on the ceiling looking down or in corners or from behind decorative ferns. The camera never moves, either. It's like security camera footage. Anyway, there's also a killer loose in the mansion. I don't fully understand why. Maybe I would if I saw the preceding two films.

When the killer first appears, it actually gets to me. Victim 1, a slut, splits from the group for poorly-conveyed reasons and wanders the mansion's art gallery, full of abstract sculptures and canvases. After an interval of silent tension, she reaches toward a miniature statue of a human figure twisted, contorted, and elongated. The moment before her finger touches it, an inhuman howl cuts the air. She spins around; a man or creature is charging her, the static makes it difficult to see clearly, but the moment it appears the camera pauses, like it does before one of its silly block text messages, except this time there is no message, it's a single second of still half-focus on the figure of the attacker who seems as contorted and elongated as the statue the girl was examining. Maybe it is the statue, maybe if I saw the first two movies I'd already know that; D'Addario is in hysterics. (Miranda, smiling, twists and rotates her sphere.) The girl runs, but it's faster, its thin grasping arms seize her and the long fingers peel off strips of her flesh like jerky until she is nothing but a twitching red lump.

A gruesome enough kill. The true oddity happens next. In a scene that goes on way too long, the Gorehound stretches, pulls, and strains the strips of flesh. There is no music, only a few nauseating sound effects, a gurgling murmur from the Gorehound here and there. Finally, once the strips are as thin and long as ribbons, the Gorehound pastes them back onto the bloody body. The victim is reconstructed, but wrong. It becomes a distorted, elongated thing itself. Pulsating red parts show between the strips, which are tied at the top of the skull into a bulbous knot. The Gorehound surveys their handicraft. Amid the gallery's other objets d'art, the victim is reframed. The screen freezes and block text christens it:

UNTITLED 2020

Then, it gets up and becomes a Gorehound itself.

The rest of the film proceeds similarly. Characters separate, run afoul of a Gorehound, die, become Gorehounds too. Only the kills approach variety, as the Gorehounds possess different temperaments and levels of intelligence; some wield weapons, some bind their victims and torture them. There are repeated motifs. Genital mutilation is common. (During one memorable kill a molten rod is rammed into the urethra, causing the penis to melt from the inside; one female character is ripped in half by the vulva.) Almost every kill happens in an art gallery, though it's never the same one. It's a mansion of art galleries. Space is a suggestion in this film; so is continuity. The characters were one-dimensional and samefaced to start, so it's hard to tell, but I think the movie keeps unceremoniously slipping new ones into the action. I'm certain there are more than eight kills, though this discrepancy is partially explained by what I think is a group of neighbors investigating the noise. New Gorehounds likewise manifest out of the aether; by the climax, the final characters are running around pursued by hordes of them. Only here does D'Addario quit her hysterics to calmly explain, "It makes sense if you've seen the second one."

When the final survivor, lacerated, embedded with glass from the window she leapt through, dragging one ankle, missing part of her scalp and two fingers, and assuredly concussed, limps into the encroaching dawn with the flaming wreckage of the mansion behind her (she overheated the boiler to make it explode with the Gorehounds still inside), the Statue of Liberty from the opening scene finally reappears as a lawn decoration. There's a clear shot of it again, but it's been so long I forget about the inscription and almost don't read it in time; I only see the words GRADUS AD. Everything builds all too obviously toward a final scare, though I suppose the obviousness is the point. The de facto heroine takes out her phone, maybe to call for help, but when the screen lights up a Gorehound bursts out and forces itself down her wide open mouth. D'Addario falls back on the bed shaking with laughter. The credits begin: WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY QUENTIN XAVIER.

Xavier is the only surname I can think of that starts with X. What an anticlimax. I'm not sure why I felt so strongly I needed to know the answer; it seems, vaguely, like some part of me already did.

The lights come back on. D'Addario ceases laughing. Under the glare, she slinks back into awkwardness. "So... what'd you think?"

I judge how to answer. D'Addario has tied her whole identity to these movies, so obviously negativity will hurt her. At the same time, I can't dissemble enthusiasm, nor should I have to, given D'Addario's low status in the school's social hierarchy. Nonetheless, it's essential to stick to one's values even when nobody of importance is watching. That's the only way to turn your persona into your real self. Given the disconcerting number of lapses I've made lately, I can't bear more cracks.

"It was a unique experience. I don't know if I really 'got' it."

D'Addario boggles her eyes. Her tiny tangled fingers spider in the air. "What's there to get?"

"Well." I try to conjure a demonstrative example. "What was the Statue of Liberty there for?"

"Who cares..."

"Doesn't it mean something?"

D'Addario looks outright disgusted. "Why does it have to mean something..."

"It feels like it's supposed to mean something. The Statue of Liberty is one of the most important symbols of America. Maybe it's a commentary? A deconstruction of the American Dream?" I'm attempting to engage with the material earnestly, though I'm not sure how much the melting penis movie merits it.

"It's just the Statue of Liberty... it's barely in it. Who cares."

"Maybe it's a metaphor for trauma? The way national identity violently asserts itself on its citizens? That would explain why everyone is transformed into a Gorehound after they die; they've been forced into a mold of American imperial violence."

D'Addario scoffs. "They're not 'Gorehounds.' They're Entities."

The word Entities affixes itself to the inside of my skull.

"It also seems to be saying something about art," I add. "Maybe the... degeneration of art from the classical, represented by the Statue of Liberty, to the modern, represented by the increasingly deranged abstractions in the mansion's innumerable art galleries?"

"The art's creepy," says D'Addario. "It's atmosphere. It sets the scene..."

I won't get anywhere with her. I turn to Miranda. "You understand what I'm saying, right?"

Miranda swivels a component of her sphere. It unlatches, folding out.

"At 12:34," she says, "Ryan explains that the mansion originally belonged to an industrialist named Pollard McCandless." The name 'Ryan' throws me off, but I recall that the rich boy who invited everyone to the party, the one in fact who had his penis melted, was named Ryan, which I didn't note as significant because the character was male. "At 43:21, when Bret and Blair are trapped in the study and pull the drawer out in search of the key, there is a one-second shot of the spilled papers. The topmost paper is a newspaper clipping announcing the disappearance of an eighth child in the Star Lake area, where the story is set; the subheading is a quote attributed to local businessman McCandless, declaring his intention to assist in the search efforts. However, at 1:11:11, Tatiana enters the art gallery and briefly passes a framed photograph of eight degenitaled and decapitated children in a circle around a pentagram. If you examine this photo carefully you can clearly see the same bronze bull statue previously seen in the sitting room when Ryan first mentions McCandless. It's highly likely the photograph was taken in the sitting room, implying McCandless was in fact involved in the disappearance and ritual murder of the children. Meanwhile, the bull motif, as well as the mansion's labyrinthine nature (with characters specifically describing the mansion as a 'labyrinth' in three separate scenes), Terry's bestiality scene, and, most damningly, the map of the Greek island of Crete that hangs in the study, all associate the mansion and by extension McCandless with the legend of the Minotaur, itself long associated with the bull-headed pagan deity Moloch, to whom biblical tradition ascribes the occult practice of, you guessed it, ritual child sacrifice. (There's also the allusion to Mithraism, a bull cult in opposition to Christianity, made by Bryan at 11:11, but that's a rabbit hole of its own.) When Tatiana leaves the mansion at 1:23:45, she passes McCandless's gravestone, which marks him as living from 1821 to 1932. While it's not impossible for someone to live for 111 years, it is unlikely. 1932 is also exactly 88 years after the date of the newspaper clipping, 1844, suggesting that via sacrifice to Moloch, McCandless unnaturally elongated his lifespan by 11 years per child. Furthermore, 2020 is exactly 88 years after McCandless's death. It's clear that, after being granted 88 years of life, McCandless was then required to spend 88 years in Hell, before Moloch's power granted him an opportunity to renew his sacrifice via the blood of eight more youths. The original Entity that murders Reanne is thus the twisted, divinely tortured remnant of McCandless returned to Earth. That's my theory."

Stupefaction overcomes me. She has spoken matter-of-factly, enumerating timestamps with unadorned clarity, all while her deft fingers probe, prod, transform her sphere. Everything makes perfect sense, though I never noticed any of the evidence she presented. It makes so much sense it's difficult to imagine an alternate interpretation.

"How did you figure this out?" I ask.

"I do videos on YouTube. I'll call this one Film Theory: Gorehound 3's DARK SECRET Hiding In Plain Sight?!"

Hiding in plain sight. All along it made sense. All along everything fit together.

D'Addario flops back on the blankets. Her arms are spread, giving her a crucified look. "You're both ruining the whole thing!"

"Is Miranda wrong?" I ask.

"It doesn't matter!"

I'm confused. "But it's what the story's about. It's what everything means."

"Who... oo... oo... oo... cares."

D'Addario rolls her head left and right. Her jaw unhinges and her tongue hangs out. Miranda remains perched on the bed's extreme edge, one thigh crossed and her socked foot tapping. She holds the deconstructed sphere to her ear, rattles it softly, and gives it a final, definitive twist.

"Unfortunately," she says, "there's only so much you can do in a movie. The medium's so limited, so archaic. I keep up-to-date for the culture, but there's way more fascinating stuff out there."

"Like what?" I ask.

The remnants of the sphere unfold like a flower. There is another, smaller shape inside. A pyramid. It is mirrored too, though etched onto one side is an all-seeing eye.

"Have you ever played Five Nights at Freddy's?"

After a subsequent hour's explanation of the exploits of one William Afton, I break from my trance and become cognizant of the time. D'Addario started snoring after five minutes, so I bid Miranda goodnight and exit into the dormitory hallway.

The agitation that spurred me out of my room has melted into a puddle of goo. Miranda's soft self-assurance lingers. The world feels ordered, all strangenesses either irrelevant or a logical component of a greater plan. Miranda! This is your world, a sheath of understanding, of patient careful explication: shantih shantih shantih. On a deep dark Scorpio night like this, my eyes brim with clarity. I felt this way before. In confederacy with my best friend, my only friend (I only ever have one at a time, don't I?), wrapped into a different type of world but one that stirred the same feelings: devoid of confusion entirely, a world where peace cannot be controverted, a world of the cute and the clean. The sky was the star-spangled coverlet that bound us together as we watched human figures become boneless blobs, I still remember the name Ryan, why could you not tell me the name? The pentagram shining into alignment between the words: Lucky☆Star. One after another they showed me peace, one after one they forsook me. Eric, Ryan. I want to see Miranda again. I want her to tell me more. Her world is strongest of all. Neither Eric's escape, nor Ryan's flattening, but a display of colossal power, the strength to reach into madness and draw out a single golden strand.

I've turned the L-bend of the hallway and am halfway down it when the back door opens behind me. The hermetic seal breaks, the wind gushes in. It stirs my clothes around my body.

In the doorway is Ryan. She knows. Her green glare pierces me in the slanting light.

"You didn't come," she says.

"I'm sorry."

"We can't close the hole alone."

"I'm sorry."

"We need you. I need you, Enid Lim."

Eric needed me too. When Mom put him away. The one time I visited him, in that sterile white (minimalist) space. I needed you, Enid. All I needed was for you to tell the truth. I never hurt you. Why did you tell them I had a knife? Why did you tell them I was in your closet? I only needed the TRUTH.

I can get rid of Ryan, too.

"No You can't," Ryan says. "Oh no You can't."

She sprints at me.

I run. The hallway sprawls, dark, divided on both sides by doors. The wind blows at my back. In it I hear the panting, the heaving breath of the wolfman, except it's Ryan, and she's faster than me. My room is at the end of the hallway. Her footsteps pound: duum, duum, duum. (DA, DA, DA.) I think to scream but my throat is stoppered. Door after door passes, the hallway can't be this long, but there's my door and I feel her fingertips reaching out to rend my neck.

My body skids into the door as I grip the old-fashioned knob to assist my abrupt change in momentum. The knob twists, the door pops open, I fling myself inside and yank it shut behind me.

For no reason, mere uselessness, I lose my balance before I can lock it and fall on the ground. I brace myself, expecting Ryan to open the door and follow. But I sense nothing. Seconds pass; silence. Carefully, I climb to my feet. Without peeking outside (she'll be there, of course), I lock the door.

My roommate sits bolt upright in her bed. Her unearthly eyes gleam in the moonlight.

"Uh," I say. "It's nothing."

"Are you the real one? Are you the real one?"

I have no idea how to respond. But a few seconds pass, and I realize: she's asleep. She's talking in her sleep. Rigidly, she drops back onto her bed. Our stars sink into Scorpio.

Chapter 19: My Day of Rest and Relaxation

In atonement for the prior day's premature sabbath, I spend Sunday as an eremite or anchoress: confined to my room, bound to my studies. The notion strikes me when Corbett ritualistically knocks at dawn. (Even the champion never rests.) I'd rather not see Ryan in the gym, nude or otherwise, so I raid snack packets for breakfast and, in pajamas rather than sackcloth, set myself to my contrition. My textbooks are spread before me, my color-coded Moleskine notebooks; I resolve the biting questions our forerunners already solved, now meaningless except within the cloister of academia. Their forms fly: Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Trigonometry, Statistics, Macroeconomics, Environmental Science, Geography, Geology, Astronomy, History, Architecture, Theology, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, English. I devour The Tempest, a play of paltry content, once propped by what in the Globe were special effects none had ever seen, reduced by time to italicized and ambiguous stage directions:

Enter several strange shapes, bringing in a banquet and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations, and inviting the King etc. to eat...

Marvelous sweet music! You cannot hear it. And this was his final play, the one for which he directly exhorted the audience to clap; the play that could have existed only in his mind. Miranda, Miranda, Miranda.

My roommate rises at noon. Her upper body levitates out of bed, her platinum hair cascades around her wide staring eyes, but I don't even look as she mumbles herself back alive. She is in the bathroom and enveloped in the hiss of water.

Assignments drop away one after another, knowledge fills the empty cells between the ridges of my brain: the sum of human knowledge. Amid a volume of Gibbon assigned for Comparative Cultures the knob rattles and the door to the hallway opens. I stare up with a start, unsure what I expect to see watching me. It's my roommate, neat and together, but her latex skin especially bloodless, her eyes staring terrified. I thought she was still in the shower, but now I hear no water beyond the wall.

"Are you," she begins, then stops herself. Her eyes shift back down the hallway. She disappears, and in the slow swing of the door I hear her steps patter away.

A flicker of hesitation clouds me. I look down at my books and papers. It's not good to be so inward, so antisocial. Well, it's only one day. I was talking to others all yesterday.

My roommate returns. She has clearly run back, given the pounding footsteps before she opens the door, but there's nothing breathless in her.

"Were you just at the dining hall?"

I turn a page. "No."

"You weren't sitting in the corner of the dining hall?"

"I've been here the whole time."

She looks back. She looks at me. Carefully, she slides inside, shuts the door, and locks it. "Enid, may we speak a moment?"

I indicate the Gibbon. "I have work."

She smudges her fingertips together. Her eyes stop meeting mine. It's like when she asked me after Creative Writing why Ryan hated her. Exactly like it, actually. The idea hits me that this is a practiced maneuver, a staged diffidence that, in juxtaposition to her typical haughtiness, tricks people into doing what she wants. Did she hone the technique on Daddy, richest man in the world, defender of Western civilization? Pretty girls are hard to resist when they're submissive.

"Enid, this is important."

Resisting too stringently would be a faux pas. I bookmark the Gibbon. "Alright."

She immediately shifts position, sitting on my bed, crossing one thigh over the other, and leaning toward me with a gravity that doesn't suit her fine materials at all. She fiddles with her scarf. She aspirates deeply but without sound. I realize my own posture is guarded and wary.

"Enid. Tell me truly. Isn't it strange what happened at The Breakers?"

A vein of annoyance shoots through me. "That was days ago."

"Only three days. And since then—since then, hasn't everything been strange?"

"Strange how?"

She shakes her head. Her eyes go to the wall, through the wall. "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. There's nobody I can talk to. I didn't expect you to start acting like Cherry about this."

"What do you mean?"

"Since you've deigned to speak to me, I suppose I'll be frank. For reasons involving trust, reasons I'm not sure are unfounded, I first talked to Cherry about this. On Friday, after class. I asked her in private about what happened and, well, whether Siobhan... whether Ryan... whether there was something off about her. You understand? And, as I ought to have suspected, Cherry didn't want to hear it. 'Shut up,' she told me, rather rudely. But you. I figured, as long as it was really you, you'd share my perceptions. I can't be insane, can I? Can I?"

I'm quiet. I remember that I was also concerned about what happened at The Breakers once, that I saw Wintermute as an ally against Corbett and Ryan. But part of me doesn't want it stirred, wants it to remain settled and calm under Miranda's reasonable explanation.

Wintermute gets off the bed, falls to a knee, and grasps my hand in hers. She looks up at me. "Enid. Please. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about what we both saw and confirm what's real and what's not. That's the only way to do it—no?" (Or maybe it's "non.") "The only way to verify reality."

"Okay," I say cautiously. It's those final two words, verify reality, that convince me. "What did we both see?"

"We saw a corpse."

"How do we know it wasn't a mannequin?"

"Because." Wintermute releases my hand and rises. She cuts a turn toward the window, but the louvers are down, so she turns back swiftly. "Because it was so realistic. The blood, the bone, it had even undergone hypostasis on the cross!"

The word hypostasis is unfamiliar, but I understand the general point. "Realistic is not the same as real."

"But you saw it, Enid. You saw it! How can it be fake?"

"This isn't a compelling argument. I saw Gorehound III last night. Its corpses looked real, too."

She's flummoxed. "That's different. Movies have camera tricks."

"The eye can be tricked without a camera." In comparison to Wintermute, I remain logical and precise. I stick to the facts. I'll admit, despite her impassioned plea, and a general sympathy with her project of verifying reality, a strand of contempt winds through me. Can't she debate better than this? It doesn't matter if she's right if she can't convince even me. Fact is only fact when everyone believes it.

And I do believe it, don't I? I don't really think that corpse was a doll, no matter how the realism slider shifts. But my rational mood, influenced by my hermitage, the textbooks piled like ramparts around me, prevails. Devil's advocate, or, if I extend the concept and play advocate for myself, strengthening her capacity to communicate reality to everyone else, because they'll need to believe it too for us to have any hope of doing a thing about it.

"Regardless," I say, "there's the question of whose corpse it is."

"That's obvious." Wintermute's irritation settles. "It was Siobhan Ryan."

She states it strangely firmly. I wonder what she knows. My theory about Corbett replacing Ryan with a ringer died at the tennis tournament, but maybe it could persist with modifications.

"Siobhan Ryan came home with us," I say, "obviously. We can find her, alive, right now."

This rebuttal does not break the confidence building inside Wintermute's perfect facial features. Standing upright, she stares down at me, as if expecting her pale eyes to break me on their own. "You know that's not really her, Enid."

"She's always had her eccentricities. It means nothing."

Her lips, pink taffeta paper, crinkle into a smile. "I knew it. You've believed I'm right all along."

"I fail to see—"

"I say something so utterly deranged and that's your response? She has 'eccentricities'? That's your immediate first thought as a point of defense, not that she looks identical and sounds identical and even seems to know things the original knew, not to attack the blatant absurdity of the claim? No, your response is defensive, excusing her behavior preemptively. Right—because you feel it too, Enid. You feel exactly what I feel. She is not right. She has not been right since she lured us into that chamber deep within The Breakers, and that's because the real her was decapitated and hoisted onto that cross! I didn't say this before, as I was worried what would happen if I accused her openly, but she was the one who instructed Eric to put me on that torture device. It was no Halloween prank! I don't know who or what they are, but their goal was to sacrifice me the way they did her. And, well, I'm not sure, but maybe they partially succeeded, because I felt as though you—or maybe it was someone else—no, never mind, I'm getting sidetracked, that was when I was blindfolded anyway. The point is, they planned to sacrifice and replace us all. They were watching us from the moment we went through that hole. You felt it too, right? As we walked that long path to The Breakers, there were more of us than there should have been. Didn't you feel it too?"

She returns to her knee, clasping once more my hand in forceful supplication. The pose is the exact same, like she only has a select number of positions her clockwork joints allow. A sudden suspicion strikes me. Maybe they partially succeeded. What does she mean by that? Then I remember, like a bolt of lightning: the second Wintermute. She spoke to me in the dark. She claimed she was the "real one," she wore the locket, she was desperate, I remember her frantically begging to stay with me, but I yelled at her to go away. I thought she was a hallucination. Now I'm not certain. What if that was my real roommate, who managed to escape before they sledgehammered her head, and this is the fake, like Ryan, the replacement designed to deceive me? Because this doesn't sound like Tate Wintermute. This sounds like, well I know who it sounds like.

"You sound schizophrenic."

Her eyes glint, but it's the light playing upon them; her body seems incapable of changes in color or complexion. I remember the jokes they make behind her back. They call her T-8, a sexbot designed by Luc "Great Replacement" Wintermute, with fat milkcow tits, reproductive pelvis, and idealized Aryan hues. It's why she moans in her sleep, they say: trained on lust, it laces all her hallucinations. Take her for a spin one night, Limmy. Let her probe that bat cave of yours.

But this is not a hallucination of lust.

"I understand," she says, rising again, "I understand there's an impulse to forget unpleasant things. To paper over them with pretty ideals and niceties. I love to play nice as much as anyone, oh, don't I? I've played nice with you all despite the jeers. I consider you a friend, Enid, a dear friend. Maybe I shouldn't, but there's a part of me that wants to believe, like Siobhan, in a more beautiful world, a sweeter world."

This new tack strikes more sharply than the others. I shift in my seat. I find my eyes averted, though she leans over me, enveloping me in her artificial scent. "Tate—"

"But Siobhan Ryan was wrong. We cannot drown ourselves in frangipane. We cannot ignore what we've seen, pretend everything's nice now. Because it is not in the past, it is not some—healed scar." She rubs her scarf. "We're in danger, Enid. That hole in the wall is still open and things are crawling through."

She arches over me. Her fat milkcow tits sway pendulously within the button-bulging confines of her shirt. I strike down the intrusive urge to grab them.

"I've seen things, Enid. Strange things, in this very school. A second you in the dining hall. Girls up at midnight, dancing outside our window, beckoning me to join them. New plants in the garden, strange ones. Haven't you seen it? Everything is changing in here and it's as if nobody notices, nobody wants to notice. People babble nonsense, they say it like it's sense. Feasts in the dining hall for every meal, exorbitant dishes wheeled out on carts. The girls gorge themselves until juice dribbles down their chins. Celebrations, cheers pealing through the walls. Bacchanalia—"

"We won the tennis championship. We were celebrating the tennis championship."

She lurches and, with her breasts still so close, slaps a palm against my desk. My books jump; one precarious stack topples.

"Then why were they hoisting up you of all people, parading you! What are they really celebrating? Everything in this school grows darker. Nobody can tell, nobody can feel it? You can't feel it? Enid, you can't feel it?"

I have no idea what I feel.

"We must close the hole in the wall," she says.

"Ryan said the exact same thing."

This statement gives Wintermute pause. She tilts back, removing her breasts from my face, and turns with a contemplative pair of fingers to her lower lip. Her pale eyes unfocus.

"She said that?"

"She's been—" My eyes shift toward the door. Someone is on the other side, listening to every word we speak. I am so certain, it takes a moment to realize I'm looking at the closet door. Even then the feeling persists. The closet has a keyhole, but I've never found the key. I wish I could lock it. "She wanted me to go with her to the garden last night to close it. She said only I could."

"That makes no sense," Wintermute says. "Or was it a trick, to lure you out? That must be it."

I refrain from saying I thought the same.

"We cannot trust her, Enid. Nor, I fear, may we trust the other students. Amy Weaver would not want that hole closed, for instance, and I suspect the girls dancing on the grass at night too. If we could only convince Cherry! Oh, then it'd be so simple. She's a boor, but the most popular girl at school, and rather capable—no?"

"What about the Headmistress?"

"I thought you already went to her?"

"Ryan hid the hole behind a trellis, so they didn't find it when I told them. I forgot to tell them about the trellis."

"Then let's go! Right now, Enid. We'll go together. She'll believe us."

I wonder about that, given she obviously suspects me of doing drugs. It doesn't matter, though. "The Headmistress isn't on campus on Sundays."

"Then tomorrow. The two of us, tomorrow! We'll go between classes. No, at lunch, we'll have more time." She doesn't stop to consider I might prefer to eat at lunch, because she never eats.

Still, I can't argue against her plan. The only complication is that the addition of Wintermute increases the odds of word going around it was me who closed the hole, which would certainly earn me the ire of various key members of the social ecosystem. I would also rather not associate publicly with her. Though that's an ugly thought. It's not like I truly dislike her. Ryan and Corbett do, and to avoid sticking out I went along with them. I only do these things because I more than anyone need to fit in.

"I'll go by myself tomorrow," I say.

Immediately her face turns suspicious. The intensity startles me. "Why by yourself?"

"I spoke to the Headmistress already, so there's continuity. Besides, it doesn't take two people to tell her where the hole is."

Why does she keep looking at me like that? What did I say? My argument is perfectly logical. She can't read my mind, can she? No, obviously not. She can't possibly have divined that I simply don't want to be seen with her.

"And you'll really tell her, if you go by yourself?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Her eyes, like pale moons, watch me. The curves of her round cheekbones cast parabolic shadows in oddly-angled lights. Her warmth has shut off. She no longer even seems to have a scent, or if she does, it's the scent of metal. She says:

"Are you the real one?"

Her coldness catches. I turn frigid, my eyes similarly scrutinizing. "Are you?"

Seconds tick past on the Eiffel Tower clock next to her California Republic flag and its bear with the eye turned directly toward the watcher. There is a stark divide between our sides of the room, mine orderly and sparse save for my books and hers lurid with decorations, frills, rococo flowers, and of course her million devices and the charging station frenzied with cables. Amid this mess a framed white poster cuts with a touch of minimalism, its only meaning conveyed through three daintily cursive words: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Plus a triangle.

Backdropped by this effusion of self, she cannot remain so dissimilar for long. Her cherubic, dimpled smile returns and her eyelids flutter to contain the full astrology of her eyes.

"Come now, Enid. We must trust one another, non?"

"You said there's another me out there." I'm glad it was something she said and not me.

"We live together. We're dear friends. Yes, I see it now. You're the real one. I can tell. I have a good eye. You understand—As writers, we have developed a certain perspicuity. We must see the world around us clearly, past the superficial surface, and convey it."

"Yes, that's true," I mutter, not sure I believe it.

"We're of a like mind. Good!" Without warning, she sweeps me into a hug. Her overpowering perfume chokes me, as does her death grip. Her body feels far harder than it looks. I don't want to flounder like a wet fish, though. I lift my hands behind her and pat her shoulders.

She relinquishes me. I suppress a gasp.

"You and me, ma chérie. Together we'll make it through. We'll have everything back to normal in no time!" Then, without ceremony or self-consciousness, she bounces off to the bathroom and shuts the door.

I return to solitude and silence. I regard the stack of books that fell off my desk and stoop for them, pausing only when I realize I'm reaching for the dogeared paperback, Less Than Zero. The cover and its shadowed Entity faces me. My fingertips instinctively curl, but after a moment's time I decide that whatever once terrified me about this utterly benign cover no longer has any effect. I pick it up, leaf through it, and replace it back on the stack.

When I reach for the next fallen book, I stop again, but it's because I've noticed something completely different. There's a folded note of yellow stationery on the carpet. I don't recognize it, and assume it must be my roommate's, but then I notice it's just beyond the crack under the door. Someone has slid it into the room. When? I never heard a thing. But I did think someone was listening outside, didn't I?

I pick up the note and unfold it. It reads: DON'T CLOSE IT. I WANT TO WATCH WHAT HAPPENS. And, underneath: a smiley face.

Chapter 20: Cut Up While Talking

That night, my roommate is mercifully quiet. To compensate, something she told me sticks in my brain. I keep turning it over, the same as I turn my body over on the bed only to find no position satisfactory. My pillow is a sink of sweat and I keep turning it over, too, without relief.

Finally, I sit up. I look toward the window, on my roommate's half of the room, infringed at the borders by her excessive decoration. Normally, this window looks out onto the small courtyard contained within the inverted L-bend of the dormitory building and the enclosed tennis court. Moonlight pours in and makes my roommate's loose curls gleam white, but tonight the louvers are down. Maybe the change in lighting is stimulating my insomnia, or maybe fear of the recurring dream of the hole. No. It's the refrain, repeating ceaselessly:

Girls up at midnight, dancing outside our window.

When would she have seen that? She sleeps like a corpse. Out before me every night, up after me every morning. I look at her. Unconsciously, she tugs the blanket tighter around herself. Her lips mumble silence.

Am I being drawn into a deadlier and deeper trap? She sees nonsense, I see nonsense, and rebounding against each other we feel strengthened by the sorority of our senses? Does there exist her own genetic strain, a latent ticking passed down by her mad father? In his eugenicist's frenzy is his true goal to populate the world with the exact rottenness unique to him, so that in global agreement his insanity is seen now only as sense? Or did she catch it from me, like influenza?

Or is she right?

I've already risen before I know what I'm doing. In the dark, my fingertips flare out to tap the corner of my desk, the smooth sphere of my bedpost. I think I hear motion; my eyes twist not toward the hallway but the closet. Nothing; nothing.

I go to the window. My hand hesitates on the cord. I hear nothing outside; the rain has abated. I twist the cord.

Moonlight pours in violently. It strikes my face so I'm forced to squint. It shines off everything in the courtyard outside, the dewy grass and wet flagstone walkways. The shine is so sharp I check if my roommate has woken, but she's inert.

When I look back, a hand raised over my brow, I see better the courtyard all sepulchral white, all pulsing and emanating dead reflections, like a photograph from which color has been bleached. That's all I see, at first: the placid view, the benches with metal loops ringed and thorned like ivy, the quaint marble fauns piping and kicking cloven hooves, the neutered statue of the Founder's dog, Apollo, that used to sit beside him. The top of the tennis court's gate cuts the sky like a serrated saw.

Because our room is the southernmost, it's possible from our room and ours alone to look past the tennis court onto the athletic field beyond. There, far away, almost at the distant wall, I see it.

There's a long table on the field. It's clothed in white. Even from here I see it is set with glowing plates and chalices and salvers, all of such untarnished silver it looks platinum, like the eight Muses of The Breakers (minus only Polyhymnia; we are under the lucky☆star of Urania now). I can see no food, no drink, only white and silver. A feast of dreams.

They come in procession, from past the cathedral. They come, clothed in white, in robes without elaboration, without jewelry or clips in their hair, and barefoot: creatures of purity, creatures of minimalism.

I recognize them. Their faces are too far to distinguish, but they're students, their hair down about their shoulders, unstyled, untied. They carry empty platters to the table to place in a line, they are serving the love feast. There are eight of them, the number for Pollard McCandless to attain immortality.

I'm not the only one watching. There, her back to me, half-hidden by the corner of the tennis court. If not for the glint of gold in her hair I wouldn't recognize her, but it's Miranda.

Her face shifts to me. I avert my eyes in the typical awkwardness of being caught spying, only to see that all eight of the love feasters have stopped their march. All eight are looking at me.

They start to step toward me.

That's when I twist the cord and the louvers clap back shut. I stagger back, only missing my roommate's bed by an inch, and when I steady myself I glance to see if I woke her. I didn't. My breathing comes out fast and audible, a crawling goes up my arms.

I decide to go back to sleep.

My feet struggle to walk right enough to take me back to my bed. I grope along in fresh darkness, everything much blacker than before, and knock my desk with a hip. I fall to a knee, more from shock than pain. A book drops on my head, light and paperback, and I know what book it is. I don't bother to put it back. I crawl toward my bed.

Enid.

What do I think? That blinding the window will protect me? That they won't keep coming, walking in their white robes, past the tennis court, past the fauns and benches, and phase through the wall? The table's empty because I'm what they intend to serve, drawn and cannibalized.

"Enid..."

The whisper comes from under the door. I freeze mid-crawl, staring.

"It's coming."

"Did you think if you forgot it would go away?"

"It is always crawling toward you."

"One more day is five days."

Five days. Five days. Didn't I tell someone to do something in five days?

"Let me in."

"We're safe together..."

"Enid."

It's not Ryan's voice. It's a voice I've heard before, a voice familiar and foreign at the same time.

Like a snake, I slither back into my bed.

Corbett knocks the next day like always and it's Monday meaning I can't stay in my room so with rote animal habit I force myself to the gym. Ryan is there but she's normal, that is to say clothed, not that she does the exercises she's supposed to. She opts for yoga instead. At the end of it, Corbett throws down her barbell with a catastrophic clatter, claps her sweaty palms against her breasts, and tosses out as an afterthought:

"There's a party in town Friday."

"We won't reach Friday," Ryan says, her legs bent behind her neck. Watching me.

"Machiavelli told me. His dealer's putting it together."

"Machiavelli is still alive?" I assumed the other three would have killed him by now.

Corbett, who ignored Ryan's comment entirely, gives me a look. I flinch from her gaze; the sense of disappointing her gnaws me.

"It's only a couple blocks away, he has a house." Corbett pauses, probably reconsidering telling me, but ultimately I have earned enough goodwill to overcome my lunatic comment. "We'll meet Mach and the Quentins at eight and head over together."

"Not Eric?"

"Eric's the Tate of their group, they're ditching that dumbass."

"If the hole is not closed tonight..." Ryan says. (One more day is five days.)

"Uh," I say, "sounds like a plan."

Corbett quirks a smile and, passing as I pant beside the treadmill, claps me on the shoulder. "Knew you were a real one, Limmy. We're gonna get locked in this time for sure."

"You deserve it," I say. "You won the championship."

"You fucking know it. No anal for us this time, Limmy. I bought condoms off Weaver. See ya around."

She exits with a no-look wave backward.

"You understand now, Enid Lim," Ryan says. "The others still believe the hole is their salvation. Only You can close it."

"Have you talked to my roommate?"

She stares. Finally, she says: "I don't like her."

I toss up my hands in exasperation.

At breakfast, I keep my eyes open for the strange things my roommate warned about. I see them, feasting, reveling, shrieking delight across the dining hall, faces I think I saw wearing white outside my window: Reanne Blyton (Class Rank 8, the number of Pollard McCandless); the juniors Firenze George and Tianne Devers (Class Rank 4-T and 7 respectively, unlucky and lucky); a sophomore, Mel Goldthwaite, whose name I think is short for Melpomene (eight Muses in The Breakers); and a mousey pair of freshmen, the significance of whom I haven't ascertained yet.

In Mindfulness someone passes me a note: Beware of mirrors.

In Civics, because the election is tomorrow, we're organized into a mock debate, Republicans versus Democrats. We're given embossed elephant and donkey pins to distinguish ourselves. Everyone eggs Zinnia Fitzpeter to do her Hillary concession speech impression, and though she hasn't been the same since the tennis championship she makes a feeble smile and lays into it: "Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Very rowdy group. Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you, thank you so very much for being here and I love you all, too." Then Amy Weaver rises, pin glinting red, and with perfect gesticulation and enunciation explains how the election was rigged, how there are very bright men in Georgia who have uncovered some truly startling stuff, how there is a shark in the water and a Grinch spying through the window, what Hannibal Lecter thinks about all this, he actually, you know it's true, he actually approves of what the Kenyan or Somalian immigrants have been doing in Ohio, you know, with the pets and such, the late great Hannibal Lecter ladies and gentlemen, that's probably what they did with that man's squirrel, the late great P'Nut the squirrel ladies and gentlemen, buy Pnutcoin, and what is it out there? Medieval times? Anarchy, lawlessness, murders in the street, and they let it happen, those people at Harvard and Yale who aren't, let's face it, aren't all that smart, and now they're doing sex change surgeries for transgender illegal immigrants in prison, it's true, Kabbalah Kamala said it herself, she said it herself, isn't it terrible? There's a portal above the White House, you know, they don't tell you this, oh it's classified they say, there's a portal that has opened and they see the Eye of God staring through. The Deep State is a Nephilim cult, it's terrible. They call it the Babylonian Brotherhood folks, the Babylonian Brotherhood. They've developed a machine that sends hurricanes at red states, isn't that right? Wow. Now there's obelisks inside us from the Coronavirus vaccine, the one that I remind you I developed, Operation Warp Speed, it's true folks, look it up. The occult freemasonic symbol is now inside everyone who received the supposedly "safe" COVID vaccine. Other athletes collapse on court or die randomly for whatever reason, but not our Hialeah Kid, not our Nestor. Did you see him folks? World Series. The late great New York Yankees, folks. First pitch a meatball right to Freddy Fazbear, and what is it? A Grand Slam. The late great Nestor Cortés, late because they put his head on a spike after that one. [Laughter.] Folks, it's time for a Dark Enlightenment. JD tells me, JD who I remind you was not my first pick, JD who went to Yale you know, JD tells me it's time for a Dark Enlightenment. For the first time we have risen, and I see we are being consumed. I see circles that are not circles. Billions of dead souls inside containment. Unravellers have eaten country's moral fabric, turning hearts into filth. I'm from a kingdom level above human. What does that yield? A hokey smile that damns an entire nation.

After class my roommate catches up with me. It's time for us to go to the Headmistress.

A lurking doom thrums inside me as we approach the imposing Beaux-Arts façade of the Administration building. Wintermute senses this somehow and, though we're in the middle of the courtyard where anyone can see, reaches a hand for mine. To hold? Simply to touch? I jerk it away. The brief contact with her unnaturally soft fingertip lingers. I turn my face to avoid the condescending melancholy of her sad look.

Miss Syrene eyes us suspiciously upon entry. "You know, the Headmistress isn't your personal counsellor."

Wintermute acquires unexpected authority as she jabs the desk with the same fingertip that touched me. "We are not having a frivolous lark, Miss Syrene! This is a matter of public safety."

"Right, right." She's already returning to her workstation. "Always an emergency. You're not the first girls looking to see her this morning."

Warning bells go off in my head. As one might expect, students at All Saints Academy do not typically seek out the Headmistress. Wintermute isn't concerned at all as she jaunts to the Headmistress' office. This time, the door is shut, necessitating a dainty backhand knock that receives a terse response: "Wait."

We wait. Wintermute tries to engage me with her eyes; I look away, at the nurse's office. As if my looking has manifested her into existence, the school nurse immediately emerges. Well, "nurse"; she's Dr. Avenarius, a world-renowned specialist in female adolescent health. She looks like an adolescent herself in her oversized labcoat, which swishes around her ankles as she flips through a series of sheets (probably a list of our malfunctions) on an absentminded trek toward the copier. She's the person at this school I least like to see. She's normally so sleepy you can't tell if she is aware of anything as she prods your body, but at times all of her will snap together and a glance will cut so quick inside you're certain she has deduced exactly what is wrong with your brain just by the arrangement of your eyes. I tense as she approaches, unsure whether to cleave out of her way or step aside more casually so as not to attract her predator attention.

"Bonjour, docteur!" says my roommate.

"Ah!" The predator raises its head. "Guten tag, fräulein. That's a pretty scarf." She's about to keep going, but then she sees me. Her pleasantly numb smile coalesces into a pinprick against my forehead. "My my, Enid Lim. You look unwell."

Unwell!

"Not enough sleep, yah? Tch tch, creature of the night. Your friend Cherry visited me Friday. Said you and her ah...? Became involved in some business."

Corbett? Why? She knows I despise the doctor. A week ago at lunch I even parroted Spirit Labuschagne's absurd story that she's a lesbian pedophile who gets aroused examining us. What's Corbett's motive? My eyes feel like pinballs, frantically ricocheting from the doctor to my roommate to Miss Syrene (eavesdropping!) to nowhere in particular. Is Corbett in league with Ryan after all? Or has she been the one undermining me from the start?

"Do see me soon, only for a quick check-up," says Dr. Avenarius. "Good to do such things after certain, ah, misadventures. It's the reason I'm here, after all. Ta-ha-ha."

Wintermute has her head cocked, watching me eagerly.

"Nothing to fear," the doctor appends. "Patient confidentiality, nobody will know. Do see me soon."

She leaves, mercifully. Miss Syrene slinks back into her workstation.

I meet Wintermute's stare with a grimace. "I have no idea what she was talking about—"

"Oh, there's no need to protest. I know how things are, Enid dear."

Does she? Does she know how things are? Does she write it in her book? T.M. LeWinter? The friendly approval smeared over her face is murdering me.

The Headmistress calls us inside.

Our encounter with Dr. Avenarius left me discombobulated, so I'm not prepared when the Headmistress immediately lays into us, not yelling, but with her stern voice that might as well be yelling. It's a fine coincidence that we've both come here, she says, because she was about to call us in herself. Do we know who she was just on the phone with? The groundskeeper, who has finished his morning inspection of the garden, and what did he find? I have a guess but say nothing. LeWinter can't speak, she has no idea what's going on. The Headmistress announces, whitening with cold fury, that not only did the groundskeeper find more marijuana, not only did he find suspicious pills, not only did he find mushrooms, but he also found sexual paraphernalia, which the Headmistress does not describe and which leaves me somewhat baffled: condoms? A dildo? Apollo the dog's bronze penis? There's no time to ponder. Crammed into the office, unable to sit, LeWinter and I are told that earlier this morning the Headmistress was visited by an eyewitness, who will remain anonymous, and who placed both of us at the scene of the crime. Both! Given our iniquitous desire to befoul a garden on which the school spends millions annually, let alone the foulness we have allowed into the sacred vessels of our bodies, she has no choice. She must call our parents.

I was listening to her rant in a stupor, but this threat stirs me to action. Wintermute too; Wintermute, somehow, quicker and more frantic than me. Though I'm the one whose parent will lock me in an asylum the first sign of trouble, Wintermute practically falls to her knees to grovel. (The only reason I say "practically" is because there isn't enough room for so dramatic a gesture.) Why? Because her father would know she's not the real one? No, that's not important right now.

Her words are incoherent and the Headmistress is not one for mercy. Only I can resolve this. I place a hand on Wintermute's shoulder to shut her up. Calmly, I explain:

"We are being framed. Whoever is actually behind this is specifically trying to get us in trouble. Headmistress, if I were guilty, why would I have left more evidence after you warned me on Friday? Wintermute and I are Class Rank 2, tied. You may believe we are immoral if you want, but you cannot believe we are stupid."

I consider continuing my riposte to throw Corbett and Weaver (who are the lowest two Class Ranks, and thus categorically stupid) under the bus, but a misstep might be fatal. I leave the card in my back pocket just in case, but the Headmistress is partially mollified by my opening argument.

Her hawk-like eyes flick between us. "I've considered that. Though my eyewitness is also a trustworthy source." (Ryan? Lim?)

"It was important for them to blame both me and Wintermute," I venture, "because otherwise we could provide an alibi for each other."

The Headmistress glints malevolence. "At this time, all I'll concede is there is enough doubt to merit further inquiry. And be assured, I will inquire further. Now leave. You have class."

Wintermute heaves a breath and is all too eager to hasten for the exit. I also turn automatically in response to an authoritative order, but remember we came here for a reason.

"Headmistress, one last thing—"

"Miss Enid Lim, my good graces are at an end with you."

"The hole in the wall," I say, "in the garden." Her face has sharpened with such violence I already know it's useless. "I know the groundskeeper didn't find anything. The hole is hidden, by students who want to use it. It's covered by a trellis. I can show either you or the groundskeeper—"

"Thank you for your concern. Every inch of the garden will be investigated in the most diligent detail, you can be assured of that. Now go."

All parts of me scream to leave. I'm teetering on a precipice. One mistake and she'll retract her magnanimity and immediately call my parents. She's hungry for it. The paraphernalia in the garden humiliates her; logic plays less and less into her designs, she craves retributive blood. A student must pay; don't give her an excuse to make it you. Wintermute tugs my sleeve, is already halfway out the door. But she's nearsighted. She is too terrified of the known to fear a far worse unknown.

I muster myself. For this to work, I have to spin it around entirely. I conjure within me the opposite of what I feel, transform the submissive trembling of my heart into indignation. I push right up against the table, lean over, and shout (actually shout!):

"I am not joking, Headmistress. That hole is a serious danger to the students here and I feel utterly unsafe knowing it exists. Yet you ignore it entirely. You understand that the school, that YOU will be held liable if someone is hurt because they snuck outside or, God forbid, if someone snuck inside? The reason you're finding paraphernalia is because people are bringing boys in, that's right, they're sneaking boys in for who-knows-what, and I don't need to explain to you that's a disaster waiting to happen. But here you are, disregarding my concerns, even accusing me, ME, the one student who puts public safety over her own selfish interests, of being the villain. I will not stand for this. If you want to call my mother, go ahead, because I will tell her what the TRUTH is, what the FACTS are, and the objective reality of the world will support me, I assure you of that!"

For a second, I think I've ruined everything. She keeps staring with that apoplectic expression behind the refined angularity of her glasses, looking as though she's willing to forgo the step of bringing in parents at all and instead simply reach out and throttle my head off. I do not break eye contact. I am performing, but I am a skilled performer. I win social engagements. I will not lose this one.

Her hands, writhing over themselves, flip palms-downward and clap the desk. She rises. Her body disentangles from her desk for the first time I think I have ever seen, and she is a whole head taller than me.

"Miss Tate Wintermute," she says coldly, "you are dismissed."

"I'm sorry," Wintermute whispers (to the Headmistress? to me?), and she's gone.

"Miss Enid Lim," says the Headmistress, "you will show me your hole right now."

Victory.

It's only once we're halfway across the athletic field, me leading while dogged by her brisk, hateful steps as though by a whip, passing (without comment from her) a long white-clothed table, that the obvious and obviously paranoid fear reaches me: this time will be the time the hole has magically disappeared. In my enthusiasm over my success it's trivial to tamp down, though that triviality then makes worry renew itself, as though it is not objective reality, fact, or truth that defines this world but simply whatever I least expect. I divert my fear into a much more sensible one: that the Headmistress and I have passed both school buildings, new and old, on our trek, and everyone in school will have seen us, and know where we're going, and when the hole is sealed they will know exactly which student is to blame. It's worth it, I tell myself. If I can close the hole it's worth it.

I waste no time and cut a direct route to the wall at the end of the garden. The trellis is still there. I point to it, then start to drag it aside, but the Headmistress barks me back and does it herself. She is, despite her age and wiry leanness, unexpectedly strong; she lifts the trellis an inch off the ground without a grunt and sets it down two feet to the side.

There's no doubt, no moment where I think it's only a shadow. There's no doubt because it is massive. A wide, yawning maw. Would I even need to stoop to enter? It seems like I could walk through it upright. No, maybe not. I can't tell. It seems to throb, and my eyes throb to look at it.

The Headmistress is briefly taken aback. She tilts her head like a dog (like an old bitch) as she inspects the hole. I wonder if she's thinking back to those blueprints in her office, trying like me to comprehend how this portal fits into the grand design.

But she sees it, and that's what matters. I've done it.

"So you're not lying," she says. "Well. You may return to class now. I'll have this closed post haste."

The hole's vacuum hum is anxiously loud, foreboding; I don't require another prompt. My heel turns sharp and I hurry for the archway that marks the garden's exit. The arch is half-hidden behind leaves, bracken, and branches. The trees are encroaching, were they always so abundant?

A crunch underfoot. I freeze, certain it's a baby bird smeared against my sole. No, it's only a massive, three-pointed leaf, reminiscent of a dinosaur's footprint. But as my gaze is directed downward, I notice dangling from the bright red Osakazuki a veiny, glandulous, flesh-pink thing shaped, it strikes me, like an elongated distended cancerous scrotum, open at the top with an enticingly yonic pair of spread lips, and terminated at the bottom by an umbilical cord, green as putrefaction, that twists up to suspend it from its anchor. Though it is an alien agglomeration of reproductive organs, I recognize it. Exemplar of carnivorous flora, choice specimen from Mom's collection (she collected so many strange plants after Dad died, ugly awful plants, have I told you?): Nepenthes mirabilis, the pitcher plant.

Some small creature is being digested inside.

I hurry back to class, and though the windows shine too bright to see through, I feel the eyes of everyone watching me. The bells are tolling.

Chapter 21: 1 Over X Is the American Title

I've made a horrible mistake. Everyone knows. Everyone watches. They're whispering; they're whispering about me. (Enid Lim, she snitched. She ruined it.) None of them cared I gave them the hole in the first place but they all care I took it away.

I'm odd now. I'm ostracized. I'm outside their circle, or rather their circle exists solely around me. At lunch all tables are filled. Corbett and Fitzpeter sit with Paraiso and Tam Bell. Weaver and Block and Ana sit with, strangely, Noël D'Addario. Spirit Labuschagne's eyes flick toward me between whispers. And Ryan is surrounded by her cult. She sees me enter and shakes her head once, sadly, then no more. I thought she wanted me to close the hole, so what's her problem?

It is imperative I not sit alone. I must find someone. I hope to see Miranda somewhere, off on her own since D'Addario is with Weaver's group, but she's conspicuously absent.

Prue Malheur! She's by herself, a bunch of papers spread on her table. I take a seat opposite and greet her enthusiastically, as if she invited me.

She nods, though she barely looks up. Her brow is knitted as she pores over the papers, which are astrological charts: wheels of stars, planetary aspects, constellations, houses, decans, and a line marked Mid Heaven. She has, it seems, made them herself, with calligraphic flourish to the twelve signs of the Zodiac.

"Wow, that's neat," I say.

She nibbles her pencil. "Mm."

"You're talented."

"A dying art. Nobody's willing to learn. It takes years of training."

"I see."

Her face remains severe. She taps her pen against the tabletop. "Something's wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Something's wrong with the stars."

"Wrong how?"

"They're not all there."

Prue Malheur, I think, isn't all there, though nobody ever calls her weird, nobody ever tells her deep Scorpio means nothing. No, she's the hero of the tennis court. Well, for some reason they treated me like a hero too.

"The Sun is in Gemini," she says.

It's difficult to tell if she's talking to me or herself; her eyes wander. She's the opposite of Miranda: never watching. "Right," I say, to be polite.

"Wrong. It's November. As everyone knows, the Sun should be in Scorpio." Deep and dark. "It won't be in Gemini until May. Look, it's all wrong. Sun: Gemini, 11th House. Ascendant: Cancer, 1st House. Moon: Leo, 2nd House. None of this is correct. Mars: Aries, 10th House. Mercury: Gemini, 12th House. The Sun and Mercury in Gemini, of course. A powerful internal dialogue. A rich inner life, where dreams and thought weave together."

"You probably just made a mistake somewhere." Her chart looks absurdly complex, with lines crisscrossing the center between the Zodiac.

"Impossible. It's not slightly wrong, it's outrageously wrong. It's as if there's a completely new sky, a false sky. One enveloping only our school, since none of my sisters beyond the wall see it."

"You have sisters?"

She ignores me. "And our false sky is not the sky of November 4, 2024. So what sky is it? Well, I consulted my historical charts..." She pats the pile beside her. "And revelation struck. The last time the celestial bodies were in this exact alignment was—May 21, 2007."

The date might mean little to you, but it grabs my attention. "I was born that day."

Her face is lowered an inch from her papers as she scrutinizes a line; an eyeball flicks to skewer me. "I know."

May 21, I think. Five plus two plus one. Eight.

Forget that. Obviously, astrology is debunked pseudoscience. The idea that a horoscope can be "wrong" is laughable, as it presupposes it can ever be "right." Malheur knows my birthday, since hers is two days later and our schoolmates tend to merge the celebrations for convenience. She's pulling an esoteric prank.

She returns to scribbling with her pencil, watching anything but me. Unlike everyone else, whose eyes I feel on my neck, whose whispers fester like the plants in the garden. Then:

"So. About your dad."

"Huh?" I look at Malheur, certain I've missed some context.

"His body never decomposed."

"What?"

"A real mystery. How much do you know?"

"About my dad?" My father, as I mentioned before, was a doctor from North Korea. He was murdered when I was eight. Malheur's father investigated it. "Kim poisoned him for defecting." And, perhaps, for stealing an original Laozi scroll from the supreme leader's archives.

"That's what my dad said." Malheur rubs a transit with an eroded eraser. "But really he was throwing up his hands because he couldn't prove anything. He's such a stickler for facts, it's so... annoying."

I'm beyond confused. I have no idea why she is manifesting this topic ex nihilo.

"There was another suspect, though. An entrepreneur of sorts. Your dad worked rather closely with him for five years. Your mom too, before of course—" (a smile aimed downward) "—her current employer. In 2002, when their association began, nobody had heard of him. He owned a startup in Palo Alto with innovative ideas about technology and longevity, which is perhaps what interested him in your dad's research. I take it now he's quite famous. One Mr. Luc Wintermute."

Luc Wintermute? I've never heard anything about this before. Given it's Prue Malheur, it's probably totally made up, but Mom is well-connected; she's worked with the parents of half my classmates. (Hence my admittance here.) So it wouldn't be a surprise.

"Okay, and?"

"And your father's body never decomposed. They found him a week after he went missing, but his skin was still flawless."

"What are you suggesting? Dad was a machine built by Luc Wintermute? Like they say my roommate is?" Why I was ever concerned people would think I'm crazy when Malheur slinks around undetected is beyond me.

"You were born in 2007. That's when they stopped working together."

"So?"

"Do you have a twin?"

Another non sequitur. "An older brother."

"Right, right. I simply thought. Gemini and all. Well, formulae are often refined over time."

"I'm sorry, but you're not making any sense. Your points don't follow in a logical order." I maintain my temper. I speak plainly, calmly, as though giving her useful advice about etiquette. "You should try speaking to Miranda. She's good at making things make sense."

"Miranda." Malheur devours the name like she devours the back of her pencil. "Mirandaaa..."

"You know her, right? The junior. D'Addario's roommate."

A sudden, irrational panic grips me, akin to those I feel whenever I tell someone about the hole. She will look at me strangely. She will say, "Who's Miranda?" I'll explain, describe a person, a plainly pretty girl who blends into a crowd. Her confusion will deepen. "But there is no Miranda."

No, I've misread her. Malheur isn't confused; she's annoyed. "That girl's like my dad. Facts, facts, facts."

"Facts are good," I say. "Reality is built on facts."

"Given enough facts," says Malheur, "you may build any reality you want." Her fingertip swirls the boundary of her astrological chart. "What matters most is intangible, the spirit that runs through the facts, the lines that tie one to another. The soul."

"If you have the facts, all of them, then they connect naturally, through cause and effect. Forming an objective reality, regardless of interpretation."

"All the facts," Malheur repeats. "All facts, united in one body."

"Well, united in humanity's collective knowledge. There's too much information for one person."

"How versed are you in alchemy?"

Oh, I hate this. "As in lead into gold?"

"Lead into gold's a curiosity. A side project, if you will. Like how astrology might tell you your mood for the day, but really it's about divining the innermost secrets of the universe. The Great Work of alchemy, the Magnum Opus, is the philosopher's stone."

"So, immortality."

"More than that. It's perfection itself. Despite the name, it's not a stone, but a divya-deham: a divine body. One that never corrupts, that knows everything, that reconciles spirit and matter, fact and narrative, male and female. A Rebis. All things united within it. Otherwise, it would not be perfect. Exactly as you say: you have to possess all facts to produce reality. Its creation occurs in four phases, during which it passes through all states of being, all psychospiritual outcomes, both high and low." In the corner of her chart, she idly sketches symbols. Shapes, each inside the last. "First: Nigredo, or blackness—the state of putrefaction. Second: Albedo, or whiteness—the state of purification. Third: Citrinitas, or yellowness—the dawning of divine wisdom. Fourth, and finally: Rubedo, or redness—the end state. The perfect state. A God, embodied."

Her sketch is finished. A circle in a square in a triangle in a circle.

"What stage are you, Enid?"

I can't help but smile. "Do I look divine?"

Prue Malheur does not respond at first. She consults her charts. She shuffles the pages. When she speaks, the chipper tone with which she rattles off her spiritualist hoodoo turns sharply grave:

"Reality is centering around you, Enid."

"Wouldn't that be nice."

"All eyes watch you. The stars match your birth chart. Your twin has arrived. And Siobhan, who couldn't have cared less about you five days ago, is suddenly obsessed with you."

Though I have obviously noticed Ryan acting strangely, hearing Malheur of all people say it makes me want to deny it. "Ryan's my best friend. It makes sense she talks about me."

Malheur's yellowed teeth, dawning divine wisdom, bite down into the pink eraser still covered in shavings from her chart's last modification. She peels off a chunk and chews it like gum.

"Reality is the sum of all facts, you say. How many facts do you know? I wonder. In a reality of your creation, what happens to all the facts you don't?"

"A word of advice," I say. Maintaining my calm, genial tone. To everyone watching me, my conversation must look perfectly ordinary. "It's a good idea to crush your fantasies. Before people start to wonder about you."

Malheur chews her eraser. Her eyes loll to the side. Her lips, black, smile witch-like. "Have you ever tried gymnosophistry?"

Someone taps my shoulder and I flinch.

It's my roommate. She leans close. "May we speak alone?"

Given her own misalignment with the school's social ecology, my roommate isn't the best person to run off with right now, but I'll take any excuse to leave Prue Malheur.

Outside, hemmed by the circular bulge that forms the school's eastern corner, we lean within a decorative alcove in the outer structure of the dining hall. Seraphim (Nephilim?) grip the pilasters on either side. There's a window above us and I can't shake the feeling they're all staring, listening. I want us to move but I don't want my roommate to think I'm paranoid. It's as though Prue Malheur has rubbed off on me; I can't get irrational thoughts out of my head. My dad working with my roommate's dad the year I was born. Nigredo, Albedo, Citrinitas, Rubedo. Reality, centering around me. Can it mean something? Can Miranda piece it into a narrative, or at least a theory?

"Well?" my roommate asks. "What happened?"

"I showed the Headmistress the hole. She's going to close it."

"Quelle chance! I'm so relieved. I know it's absurd to say this, but I thought she would never see it—that it was impossible for her to see. Like some force would prevent it."

With effort, I purge Malheur's nonsense and focus on what's important. "Someone tried to sabotage us."

"What! How do you mean?"

"Someone framed us to the Headmistress, pinned the drugs on us, so she wouldn't believe us. They want to keep the hole open. It has to be Ryan."

"But you said Ryan wants to close it?"

"We can't trust anyone." Since we can't move away from the window, I lean my head close and whisper. Her scent is so thick it's almost physical. My eyes water and my throat contracts. "They could all be in on it together."

She seems primed to respond, but her eyes scan me and her mouth closes. A change comes over her features as if she flipped a switch: she turns tender, familiar, empathetic. Her soft hand lands on my shoulder. My first instinct is to brush it off. After all, can I really trust her, either? I saw another her in The Breakers. How do I know we came back with the right one? (And her dad worked with my dad. Luc Wintermute; can he be the key?) Maybe she and Ryan are aligned, maybe they really do want to close the hole, because then we can no longer escape. Maybe they are Gorehounds, Entities, and wait only for our one way out to be bricked up hopelessly before their faces grin, elongate, and turn wholly black save for the isolated arches of their sclera. That's the trick: play on my fear, puppeteer me, make me their greatest helper!

But her hand remains on my shoulder. "You're strong, Enid."

The stone Nephilim curl around us.

"I know you're afraid. Not only of everything that's happened, but also of yourself. You're very strong. But that strength—it comes from shutting out everyone else, doesn't it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You rely on yourself—That's good! In many ways that's very good, Enid. It's good to have a circle of self where you know you belong, where you know you're safe." (Reality, centering.) "But I'm worried. I'm worried you're closing yourself off because of what happened to your brother. You're distant sometimes, Enid. You can be, ah, antisocial."

"I'm social. I'm excellently social."

"You want people to see you. You don't want them to touch you."

That's the exact line I'd expect from T.M. LeWinter, especially as she presses her hand against my shoulder to emphasize the "touch."

"You don't want people to get close. To enter your closed space."

"I always let people get close. I always do. My brother, Ryan, Miranda, they've gotten 'close.' What are you talking about?" She doesn't know, obviously. She doesn't know about the hourglass world, or K-On! and Nichijou (robot wound by a key), or William Afton, or the Sun in Gemini. She's trying to gain my confidence but she can't penetrate my mind, nobody can, my mind is my own, only I understand it.

No, I'm losing control. Eric became inward at the end. I must trust the perceptions of others. But whose? I wish it weren't Tate Wintermute of all of them standing here opposite me between the Nephilim. T.M. LeWinter, author of 1 Over X, where I become Reanne and the world a dark mirror. Beware of mirrors.

"I'm human, too," she says. I am not sure she believes it, the way her voice halts. "I want to connect with others. You don't need to keep me out. You, Cherry, Siobhan..."

"What?"

"It's a little disheartening sometimes—You understand, right? To be sealed away like that?"

"Everything I do is to stop them from sealing me away. Don't you get it? I can't let them seal me away—"

"Like your brother," Wintermute says, sadly. "Yes, I know. Like your brother. But I'm talking about myself, here."

Everyone's trying to pour themselves into me. There's a hole in my head and I can't stop them.

"Is there something I'm doing wrong?" she asks. "I've tried to be friendly. I've tried to be charming. I know my upbringing was different than everyone else's. I know my father is—different." Her father! "But I've tried to be the person you want. Why hasn't it worked?"

"You," I mumble, unable to take her leaning into me, invading me with her synthetic scent. "They think you're putting on an act. Your posture, your outfits, your way of talking, the Frenchisms—"

"But I thought we were all putting on an act together. I thought that was the whole point."

"You're fake." I try to say it apologetically. It's not like I want to hurt her, I only want her to quit being so close.

"Everyone's fake. How can anyone not be fake?"

Suddenly, I understand.

Her book. 1 Over X. The one she says is "real," is true, and yet despite its analogues to the world around me seems so unlike anything I know. With its characters who do nothing, believe nothing, except sex and drugs, who are empty and cruel and meaningless. It's not that it's a depiction of the world she sees. It's the depiction of the world she thinks underlies the world she sees, the world beneath the masks. She, like me, is playing a game, pretending for the purpose of social camouflage that we aren't all base, depraved creatures, that we are cute and cultured and well-dressed, and only in her story does she wink and reveal what she really knows.

It's like a lightning bolt, and given the rapid darkening of the sky, the darkening of the grass, the darkening of the Nephilim, it's not impossible one might actually strike me dead. A moment of understanding! And peace, real peace, comes with it. I no longer smell her choking perfume. I reach out and grip both her hands.

"Tate," I say. "Tate!"

I want to tell her, what exactly? It's not as though she's right. I am not Reanne, some entity of pure id who lets boys nail her anally, ayonically, the moment she escapes the stifling confines of this cloister. But it doesn't matter if she's right or not, I don't even care, just like I never really cared about Ryan's stupid anime or my brother's lousy fantasy story that I carry on my back in penance for the lie I told about him. I care, instead, that I can see her brain's machinery, all its tiny components, and the way they slot together, the complex and deeply personal existence of her thoughts. I see, as with them, outside myself. I see all the facts.

Communicating these thoughts doesn't matter. Tate knows, or thinks she knows. She beams.

The two of us are now friends.

Like Eric. Like Ryan. Like Miranda.

The bells toll.

We go, together, to Creative Writing. Mrs. Sharma and Wicke Holtzclaw greet us. Wind ripples the athletic field in waves outside the window. In the distance is the archway of the botanical garden, where the Headmistress is sealing the hole, sealing us all inside together. The closed circle.

I have a story to read. A "real" story. I worked on it over the weekend. Mrs. Sharma asks me to read first. I place my printed papers on the desk, tap the stack's sides neatly to align them. T.M. LeWinter nods encouragingly. I stare at the topmost page and read the title.

"Brainrot."

Chapter 22: Brainrot

PART III PART II: RUBEDO

My vision hangs suspended before the hole.

It is there, it is the only thing, it and the brick wall that defines it. The brick glistens bluish like it's right before dawn and there's not light but the presage of light washing down from above.

The hole is covered.

It is silent.

Despite this I find the hole more ominous than ever. The hole is not sealed. It is only covered. By the ivy-strewn trellis. I don't understand. The Headmistress saw the hole. She is obligated, legally, to seal it, and given the importance of this school and its students she has every incentive to do so as soon as humanly possible.

No, I'm being hasty. To seal the hole correctly would require construction, labor, materials. Most likely, given the short notice, she had the groundskeeper bar the hole in a rudimentary way. She covered it with the trellis to hide the hasty work. Behind the trellis there's something else: boards, metal plates, something.

The hole is covered.

But there's a shadow against the brick.

It breaks the bluishness with its elongated diagonal form. Though I am nothing, without body, a disembodied frame of vision forced to watch, I tremble. The shadow twists. It slithers. It's too late, I think. Something is already inside. An Entity, a black shape that cannot be described, threatening specifically in its ambiguity, its uncategorizable malice.

There must be a pattern in its behavior. Some way to know when and why. If I could only see the pattern. If I could only organize the data.

Vegetation crunches outside my frame of vision. It is, I think, the sound of plants chewing. Nepenthes mirandabilis. They have multiplied, grown bigger. In their scrotal bellies are melting clumps of flesh, dissolving bones that shift together in the tightening space, skull sunken into clavicle, ilium risen into ribs. A steady, tri-echoed crunch. Crcrcrunchunchunch crcrcrunununchchch. Just out of view, horrible things are happening. I cannot turn to see. I am only eyes, only watching the hole in the wall.

The shadow on the wall fidgets.

"Oh... hey."

The crunching stops, not all at once, but first one set, then the other two. More shadows spill onto the wall, merged like bulging tarpaulin or a pinned-up face.

"Heya there Noël. How's it hanging?"

It's Amy Weaver. Instantly, the scene just outside of view is recontextualized. Noël D'Addario leans against the wall, casting a shadow by the light of her phone. Amy Weaver and two others (who else but Nadine Block and Ana the freshman) walk up to her, footsteps crunching leaves. Nothing evil is happening; I only needed more information. More facts. To construct an objective reality.

Still, the unease of a nightmare lingers.

"Good I guess."

"Chatting with the BF?" Block says. "He's at Thornton Wilder, right?"

"Yeah... Quentin."

"Bring him over sometime! We'd love to meet him."

"Nadine means we'd love to NTR you." Weaver crunches into my vision. She stands sharply, face in profile, wearing a school sweatshirt and baggy pants. ALL SAINTS shimmers gold on her chest. She surveys the scene, glancing first over her shoulder (directly at me, or through me), then at the trellis that covers the hole.

I know what she intends. I try to scream: DON'T! But I can only watch.

She doesn't go for it right away. "Anyone else been around?"

"Uh..." D'Addario's voice is blurred, like a microphone only partially picks it up. There is a constant, low drone of static. I see static too. "Enid, earlier. Prue watching the stars... not that you can see any ever. And... Siobhan."

"Ooooh shit."

"She said it."

"Yes she fucking did Nadine."

"I hear if you say it three times she appears in the mirror like Candyman."

"Siobhan," says D'Addario.

"That's two. Don't do it Noël. Don't do it."

"Siobhan."

"Oh, we're fucked now."

"Nah Nadine you're fucked. You're my human shield." Weaver tromps out of view.

"Bitch!"

"Hahahaha."

A mournful fourth voice speaks: "Nobody came."

Did the trellis just jostle?

Weaver's shadow, merged with Block's, detaches. She manifests partway into view. "So what the fuck was Enid doing out here?"

"Dunno."

"Spirit told me," says Block, "Joan St. Cuthbert was en route to the toilet and saw Enid leading the Headmistress to the garden."

"I hear Joan St. Cuthbert has to use the toilet a lot," says Weaver. "Irritable bowels."

"So you're saying Joan St. Cuthbert is a little shitter."

"Hahahaha."

"She sure looks like one."

"Hahahaha."

"But do you think Enid told the Headmistress about the hole?"

I need to wake up.

Weaver, halved by my locked frame of reference, shrugs. "Nah, the hag's been sniffing around the garden since Friday. Chewed me out in her office. I barely got her not to call my dad. She's on red alert cuz one of you fucked up and left a blunt behind."

"That might've been Miranda," D'Addario says.

"Doesn't surprise me one bit. Dumbass transfer student."

"So what do we do?" asks Block.

"Be safe and handle our business outside." Weaver's other half manifests; she's headed for the trellis. "Daddy-dario, wanna get high?" From the formless lump of her sweater she extracts a plastic bag.

"Sure," says D'Addario.

I need to stop them.

They all move into view now. Noël D'Addario, tapping her phone. Nadine Block, neck bundled in a scarf like my roommate. And the fourth, Ana, who incongruously wears the full All Saints Academy uniform, blazer and ribbon. Their mouths puff white.

"Hope it doesn't rain again," says Weaver.

She flicks the baggie to Block, who bobbles but catches it, and grips the trellis with both hands.

I'm trying to move. I'm trying to pull myself out of this night terror, the full body paralysis as you lay in bed watching the intruder in your closet. If I snap myself awake I can sprint here in how long? Thirty seconds?

Weaver braces against the trellis, grunts. Her shoes slide through the loam. "Fuck. It's heavy. Help."

Block holds up the drug baggie to excuse herself on account of her preestablished duty of holding it. D'Addario doesn't look up from her phone. That leaves Ana, who approaches dismally. It seems impossible she can help. I still have a chance. I still have time to warn them. But I can't wake up.

After some direction, Weaver positions Ana on one side of the trellis, herself on the other. They each grip a side. They lift together. The trellis barely budges, but it does budge. Enough for them to wiggle it an inch one way, an inch another. "Work with me here," Weaver says. "Move when I move. What the fuck are you doing. Ana!"

"Unnghhh, klurgghh," says Anapsychia. Her nice school shoes sink into the mud.

The trellis detaches from the wall. It wobbles, shakes. The hole behind remains obscured. They are going to draw this out as long as possible. I hear the hum. Ommmmmmmm.

Then Anapsychia slips. Her knee plants into the mud and she spills a desolate whimper. Weaver curses; the trellis, unsupported, sways. Nadine Block scatters as it comes crashing down, and all at once the hole is revealed, black gaping void growing like gangrene, Gakkougurashi face of the dead (metaphor of our time, Ryan said when we watched it, a fortified monastery against the mindless modern), and in its scream finality, objectivity:

The hole is open.

Anapsychia has her face in her hands. Weaver and Block stoop seeking into it. D'Addario lowers her phone.

Animated by incantation (ommmmmmmm), they enter. Weaver, Block, D'Addario. Lastly Anapsychia Gray rises, rubs her muddy knee, and proceeds inside.

Then there is only the hole. The hole and blue brick.

How will it happen? Will there be a scream? Or, at the end of interminable silence, silence so that suspense may build solely, silence that demands the viewer do what they watched this video not to do, think, soft slow and unstoppable submergence into the self, only then will the black face texturize, will the lines manifest in outline, and quietly will the skull of the dog appear.

Nothing comes.

The scene changes.

We are outside the hole. It's the overgrown area beyond the wall. Plants everywhere, duplicating, the kinds Mom collected, the kinds I despise. Under a sheltered canopy the four are gathered, lit by the tiny flame Weaver passes around. Their arrangement covers only the left two-thirds of the view; the final third shows the winding path to the lagoon, and the graffiti-strewn tower.

The girls chatter. Mostly Weaver and Block, a comedy duo back-and-forth about drugs, about sex (both the sex they're not having and the sex they wish they were), about lurid deaths caught on camera and posted on social media, which they watch on passed-around phones before half-heartedly arguing whether the recorded event happened in Palo Alto or Pernambuco. They talk about Gorehound III to draw D'Addario into the conversation, but after a few exuberant remembrances of vicious kills she returns to her phone. They ask what she's done with her boyfriend. They ask if she's done anal. They talk about whether they would do anal. Weaver says it's nasty but Block says it would be hot to fuck two guys at once, one in front and one in back. Weaver says why stop at two, try three. Hahahaha. Weaver gets serious, the seriousness itself perhaps a joke, and says actually she wouldn't want to have sex with anyone that wasn't special, that she doesn't trust. That's so like you, Block says, you're such a romantic. Weaver laughs, but continues, maybe rendered sentimental by marijuana, saying that if you find that one person who completes you, then the rest of the world doesn't matter, none of this nonsense (she gestures at her phone) matters. Block concedes the sentiment. They're quiet, each contemplating their ideal other.

I watch the wizard's tower. I wait for it to become real.

"What about you?" Block nudges Anapsychia, between her and Weaver. "Who completes you?"

For an instant, I see an eyeless socket of bone between the boughs.

Anapsychia Gray swirls a stick through dirt. She sits on a hard, knobbed, but dry root, her legs tucked at the knees, one arm holding them in. Her head rolls up like the head of a doll.

"What if," she says morosely, "there's nobody? There's nothing. You're yourself and everyone is everyone else. This impermeable wall between you. Oh, God. Nobody understands. Nobody ever will. We're shouting into the dark. There's no such thing as love. It's delusion. Am I the only one who gets it? Love! It makes me sick. Happy people only make me sicker. Ignoring reality. Projecting themselves onto this other person to tell themselves they're the one. Soul mates. Unnggckh! Only stupid people believe that. Stupid people have simple souls. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate this stupid world. I hate myself. I hate myself for having a soul nobody else will ever have. I hate being alone. Why can't everything be simple? There are just so many things. So many parts and pieces. The sum of all human knowledge in a single stupid"—she holds up her phone—"library. And it hurts to even try. That's the worst part. It hurts to even try to make enough sense of it so you can find someone else who makes the same sense of it as you. Nobody understands me. I don't understand anyone. And it keeps getting worse. Oh, God. It gets worse and worse."

She leaves off with a wretched noise in her throat and burrows her head against her legs. Weaver smirks.

"Huh..." D'Addario taps her phone. "I got a message. From Quentin."

"What's it say?"

"Refill your popcorn."

"Huh?"

"You'll love this next part."

Something screams.

A flash; the light flares as three of four heads shoot up to inspect the sky. Seconds later, the firmament rumbles.

Nobody speaks at first. Nobody does anything. They're wondering whether the scream was part of the thunder, some presentiment of it. They all know it's not, they heard it too clearly, but the coincidence suggests an underlying relationship, a meaning, that strikes them dumb. Facts in too close proximity.

It screams again.

HELP.

The leaves come alive at once, sibilant and fluttering, pattered by raindrops.

HELP—HELP ME.

"What the fuck?" Weaver rises. "Who is that?"

D'Addario shields her phone from the rain, which is still only a drizzle, before spiriting it into her pocket. "It sounds like..."

HELP ME.

They all stand, except Anapsychia, and look around, look up, look toward me, toward the hole. Block pinpoints it first. She points down to the lagoon. "There!"

My view pans slowly, mechanically, until the tower takes up the center. Weaver and Block plod down the path. D'Addario hangs back. Her hands drill into her pockets, extend the shape of her jacket as if to make her look bigger, the way animals do. She doesn't mind the rain striking her unkempt hair, though both Weaver and Block make rudimentary umbrellas with their hands.

"Wait..." D'Addario mutters. "The rule is, stick together..." But she's standing alone.

HELP.

Weaver pulls ahead, skidding down the last curve of the embankment to the base of the lagoon, then leaps across the land bridge to the tower's island. Block takes a bit more time to survey the situation and prods the bridge with a shoe before scampering across. Both disappear along the tower's curve, leaving only D'Addario in my sight.

The rain melds with the static, intensifies it. The edges blur, the dark boughs defined by pinprick flickers of light as the leaves shiver. The cries for help cease. Briefly, a distant voice, I think Weaver, shouts, "Fuck, holy shit!" The shout drowns in thunder.

Edges are giving way to static.

"Hey...?" D'Addario calls, though it seems too quiet to carry to the tower. In spite of my screaming at her to run, she takes a tepid step forward. "Hey, what's happening? It's a bad idea to split up..."

There's activity down at the tower. Everything is so indistinct it's difficult to tell what it is or if it's anything, if it's only rain and failed perception. Soon it becomes clear it's something. An agglomerated mass, moving several directions at once, bulging. No. No. It shambles to the front of the tower, across the crumbling land bridge. D'Addario watches. Move! She won't move. Then I see what it is.

It's a person. It's three persons, two supporting one in the middle. Weaver and Block hold her up. Her head is down, a mop of pale hair that shines exorbitantly clear in my failing view. Her bare legs and feet are pale; were she not wearing Weaver's sweatshirt, she would be completely nude. She shifts and stumbles through the mud.

"What?" says D'Addario. Weaver and Block yell something but it's noise. "What?" D'Addario is becoming noise herself.

"She's—"

"What?"

Weaver babbles something that ends with a knife stab of a word: "—rape."

They make it past the bridge, though both Weaver and Block sink in the lagoon to their ankles and struggle when they reach the incline. Their heads, rendered Gemini-like by indistinction, turn upward to D'Addario. Then the one in the middle lifts her face and levies her pale eyes straight past D'Addario, straight into me.

It's my roommate.

She's wearing the heart-shaped locket.

"What?"

D'Addario is immobile as they mount the embankment. My roommate mumbles. Her lips move in pantomime. As I make it out, the sky flashes and roars. The rain thickens.

"You left me," my roommate says.

Ryan and my roommate both wanted to close the hole. Ryan is not Ryan. Ergo, the one I called my roommate, the one who spoke to me between the Nephilim, the one who is sleeping in the bed beside me at this exact moment while I lay frozen, paralyzed, forced to watch: ergo, she is...!

With her bare feet my roommate keeps sliding, but they reach the top of the incline. D'Addario shuffles out of their way, and my view follows her, keeping her centered, as though for some reason she has become the protagonist. The other three limp past, and she only watches, turning her face to follow as they disappear outside my view.

Only D'Addario is left. The trees shiver around her. She blinks, seems to realize the rain running down her face, and wipes her eyes. She turns again, faces the trembling darkness.

"Ana," she says. "Ana... we have to go."

Only rain returns. Rain, and maybe a whimper in the shadows.

"Hey... hey. It's not good to be alone in the woods..."

Slowly, my frame of view zooms in, tightening on D'Addario. I cannot see nearly as much as before. I watch D'Addario from the back as she steps slowly and unsurely toward the embowered spot where they were smoking. The faint whimpering continues.

"Ana..."

It's all dark leaves and bracken before her. A soft, crackling sobbing.

"Ana...?"

Lightning flashes.

Anapsychia is there, bright maroon in her school blazer. She seems to stand on tiptoe, shaking slightly side-to-side. Her pleated skirt swishes around her muddied knees. Dark splotches run down her legs. Her small feet sway and swivel on the extreme edge of her dangling toes.

Her head is enveloped by a membranous, mucosal tube of flesh. Her hands are feebly lifted to it, gripping the edge, trying to peel it off, succeeding only in exposing the first lip of lamprey teeth as she pries them out of her shoulders and neck. A gush of blood arcs against the leaves. The undulating, pulsing, crackling, snacking tube rises up, into the exposed organs and skeletal structure under the lump of coarse hairless skin that is its body. The minute articulated spines that run up its four long and segmented legs shine in the light. The canine skull is cavities and shadow.

The lips of the Gorehound, the Entity's mouth clamp back down like a vise. Anapsychia's legs spasm. Her fingers hook into claws and then her hands go slack as a tightening, a tightening, a tightening digs into her throat, compacting it tighter and tighter and then, with a little pop, slicing all the way through. Her headless body drops to its knees, then falls forward, spurting from the stump and showing the white bone of the exposed spinal column.

In the mucosal tube, semitranslucent, Anapsychia's head remains a perceptible form, a slight bulge in which eyes are turned up. The tube, in one thick throb, contracts as though swallowing, and the force crushes the head into a burst that paints the interior of the organ's flesh black. Loose excess spills out the opening. Cords of wet red. Chin and jaw and teeth. A single eyeball trailing a severed optic nerve.

Then D'Addario—

BANG BANG BANG

BANG BANG BANG

BANG BANG

I bolt upright out of bed trying to scream and finding not a scrap of air inside me. My lungs burn and tears trickle down my cheekbones. It's my room, dark but my room, my space, safe. The only continuity is the patter of rain. "Up and Adam," a husky voice bellows outside: Cherry Corbett. Five in the morning.

A dream.

Except, still gasping, I fling myself out of bed and I don't head to the door, I don't head to the bathroom, I head for the window and open the louvers. The athletic field beyond the tennis court is empty except for the long table set with silver. From this angle I can only see the field's nearer half. Rain makes the grass skitter in erratic patches.

I watch.

Into my view emerge three figures, grasping each other, crossing the field at a halting gait.

Amy Weaver. Nadine Block.

My roommate. Wearing Weaver's sweater, wearing (white shine from afar) the locket.

No, I try to say. No breath comes. The image of Anapsychia's puppet body seizes in my mind.

Then another thought comes. My head slowly turns, away from the window, away from the roommate unmistakable with her platinum hair and pale skin.

And to the bed next to me.

My roommate is there, too.

Her moonstone eyes are open. She is looking straight at me.

Chapter 23: Étoile★Malheureuse

I think clearly enough to know I cannot run out looking like a maniac. There is rote precision in my fingers as I open my closet, draw down my uniform, and deftly change my clothes. I'll be sharp, put-together. They will not be able to accuse me of anything. The pleated skirt, the buttoned blouse. Striped ribbon tied tight through my collar. The maroon blazer. I am a real shape.

"I'm alive," a rattling groan emerges at my back. The bed creaks; my roommate rises.

I exit the room.

Ryan is waiting right in front of the door. "You've done it now." Her fingers reach for my wrist. I jerk aside and hurry away, though I do not run. I am the normal one.

"You needed to close it, Enid. Only You can. You thought the Headmistress would save You, absolve You of Your duty? That bureaucrat!"

I pass through the antechamber and exit onto the patio. At first I see nothing outside, only rain, then catch Weaver, Block, and my roommate vanishing down the path to the Administration building. I have, like a normal person, brought my umbrella, and open it as I step out from under the portico.

Keeping to the mosaic walkway, ambulating without frenzy, I ignore Ryan but notice the brick-lined flowerbeds. Nepenthes mirabilis. Pitcher plants and ornamental grapevine, entangling. A scent of rot suppressed by the rain, and sure enough in full bloom Rafflesia arnoldii, the corpse flower, leathery spotted and spiked inside. Mom's plants.

It's not only the garden now. The school is changing.

"If You close the hole, we can purge the sickness. It's not too late. Look!" Ryan casts a hand toward the long table on the athletic field. "We set it for You!"

I stare that way, into static-strewn dark. Past the table, the arch of the botanical garden is being swallowed by stooping, spreading, erupting treetops. Someone is running from there. It's Noël D'Addario, arms waving frantically. She looks like my exact opposite: deranged. I continue after my roommate.

"You must purify, sanctify this ground," Ryan says. "Close the circle. Form a monastery against madness, against the world. Only You can!"

I round the edge of the Administration building in time to see Weaver, Block, and my roommate disappear through the front. I glance back to assess if D'Addario is pursuing me, but she's gone.

In the vestibule of the Administration building, I close my umbrella and shake it of excess. Block has set my roommate on a chair in the reception area and is attempting to console her. Weaver pounds the front desk, shouting for someone to come. It's just past five; only a few lights are on, central ones mainly, leaving edges in shadow. The door to the Headmistress' office is closed. The copiers do not squeal.

Weaver throws her face my way. "Enid, Siobhan, it's serious. It's fucking serious."

"What's wrong?" I ask. It would not make sense for me to already know.

Ryan shoves Block aside, kneels before my roommate, and stares directly into her eyes. My roommate seems inanimate. Weaver's sweatshirt, ALL SAINTS, renders her formless. Her pale bare legs extend limply. Only the locket has definition, its keyhole precisely lined.

"Why are you here?" Ryan says. "I know you hear me. What are you doing?"

"She was—" Block weighs whether to say raped. "Assaulted. Siobhan! Stop, you're making it worse!"

Ryan claps her hands in front of my roommate's downturned face.

Weaver yells again, but nobody is here. Beside Miss Syrene's workstation she sees the landline phone, the one way we're allowed to contact the outside world, and extends over the desk to seize it. It clatters as it drags closer. Weaver punches 911 before holding the receiver to her ear.

"Hey. Hey! It's serious. It's an emergency, hey—hey? Hey?" Her face scrunches in confusion. "What the fuck?"

"You're ruining everything, you attention whore," Ryan says to my roommate.

"Siobhan, what the fuck!" says Block.

"Something's wrong with this phone," says Weaver.

"Hey." From the opposite end of the room, Miss Syrene steps out of the faculty lounge with a mug of coffee. She looks utterly fatigued. "You can't use the phone without permission."

"It's an emergency!"

Assorted hands point at my roommate's body, disheveled and dripping. Miss Syrene raises her coffee to her lips, lowers it, and even swallows before the first flickers of comprehension stir her. She sets the mug on the copier table and hurries over.

"Oh, Christ. Oh Jesus Christ above. What did you do? What have you kids done?"

"Your stupid fucking phone isn't working." Weaver waves the receiver in Miss Syrene's face. "Where's the Headmistress?"

Despair creeps into Miss Syrene's eyes as she realizes she has to deal with this. Devoid of authority, she announces, as though to absolve herself, "I haven't seen the Headmistress since yesterday."

"What about the nurse?"

At that exact moment, the front door slams open behind us. It brings with it the wailing rain and a flash of lightning. All goes white, I'm blinded, but something's here. It's here! (Always crawling.) Lines fade back under crumbling thunder; a human shape forms. By the kind of incredible coincidence that means nothing, the school nurse Dr. Avenarius stands in the vestibule, shaking her umbrella and shuffling into her lab coat. "Ah? A crowd already, I see."

It's not the Gorehound. My composure plummets anyway. Of course she would be here. Why didn't I expect it? Her predatory eyes lance us each in turn as she steps into the reception area. I have dissembled flawlessly so far, but when she sees me her eyes narrow. She knows.

Knows what? That I'm insane. That I'm hallucinating. That at night my soul leaves my body and I watch others while something always crawling devours them. She sees imprinted on my eyeballs Anapsychia Gray's final twitching moments. She knows, like Ryan, that it's all my fault.

It's not fair. I did everything to close the hole. I told the Headmistress! It's not my fault. You can't blame me. You can't! Someone put a ticking time bomb in my brain. Even so handicapped, I've been responsible. I did what I had to. If Eric didn't do those things I said, how long until he did? How long until he tried to cut off my face to prove I wasn't the real one?

"Excuse me," I babble, "I'll be leaving now."

Luckily my voice is lost in the commotion as Weaver, Block, and Miss Syrene shout simultaneously. I crumple into the corner; Dr. Avenarius, grasping the situation immediately, starts barking orders. "Call the ambulance, and the police." (Miss Syrene, sighing relief, yanks the phone from Weaver's hand.) "What happened? She was hurt? Tell me, precisely."

The doctor has forgotten me completely. I'm overreacting again. I grip my chest, pull myself together, and check if anyone noticed my mask crack. Nobody's looking.

Nobody except my roommate, head still hanging. Her eyes are riveted to me.

"We found her outside the hole in the wall," Block says. "She was crying for help. She wasn't wearing anything. She must have been—"

"But did you see it? Did you see what happened?"

"No, we found her like this."

"Hello? Hello?" Miss Syrene keeps saying into the phone. She jabs the switch hook, redials, repeats. "Hello? Hello?"

Dr. Avenarius kneels before my roommate. She nudges Ryan aside, but Ryan does not move; only when Block reaches for her shoulder does she jerk herself out of the way. Dr. Avenarius speaks calmly. "Fräulein, do you hear me?"

My roommate's eyes shift from me to Dr. Avenarius. Back to me. Back to the doctor. I understand. She's going to blame me. Right. I left her there. In the dark, under The Breakers. I left her.

"This phone is spewing total nonsense," says Miss Syrene.

"What do you mean?" says Dr. Avenarius.

"Listen. Total nonsense."

She hands the receiver to Weaver, who passes it to Dr. Avenarius. "Yah? Hallo? Hallo?" She, too, tugs her face away sharply. "Tch. There is no time for this. Syrene, you own a car, yah?"

"Yyyyes. Yes."

"Good. Listen carefully. You must drive to town. Contact emergency services. Go. Now!"

"Uhhhh."

"It's been five days," my roommate says.

Dr. Avenarius turns her attention to her. "Five days? Five days since what?"

"Five days—I came back when I said."

(I'll go away for five days.) And I said: Fine.

"You should have stayed," hisses Ryan. "You should have rotted down there. Now it's all coming in with you. And I even gave you the gift you asked for." She taps the locket on my roommate's neck.

"Why are you still standing around?" Dr. Avenarius gestures impatiently at Miss Syrene. "Go, woman! Do not argue, do not question, go!"

"Right. Right." Miss Syrene, coatless and without umbrella, exits into the howling rain.

"You keep trying the phone," Dr. Avenarius says to Weaver. "I must do something."

The doctor crosses the mess of desks and office equipment assorted irregularly to the back wall, where between printer and paper trimmer is affixed a boxy metal cabinet that hinges open with a shrill squeak. The grid of lights, switches, and speakers within is the school's intracommunications system, by which Administration speaks and is heard. Dr. Avenarius, new on staff this year, is initially perplexed by the underlying structure.

The front doors open with another howl. "Forgot my keys," Miss Syrene says apologetically. Weaver, stooped over Miss Syrene's workstation, snatches and tosses the jangling bundle to her. They bounce off Miss Syrene's open hand and flop to the floor.

"Ach, how do I...?" Dr. Avenarius asks.

"Hold the left switch to prime," Miss Syrene says, stooping. "Then press the button of the room to contact when they light up. Pump the switch twice and press again. It's not as complex as it looks."

It sounds somewhat complex, especially as Miss Syrene is out the door by the time she finishes explaining, but Dr. Avenarius follows the instructions and a pale fizz of static carries across the office's high arched nave, the only remnant of its original interior.

"Yah, hallo, do you come in? Hallo, hallo."

"Who are you calling?" Block asks.

Dr. Avenarius ignores her. After a few seconds, a high-pitched crackle sprays from the box. "Yes, yes? Hello? Good timing. I was just about to call you myself."

The voice must necessarily belong to someone known, a teacher or staff member, but it's indistinguishable.

"Hallo, hallo. We have a situation."

"Well that's not good."

"No, it is not."

"Something's happening here too."

"What? What?"

"I said, something's happening here too."

Amid the rain, Miss Syrene's car snarls alive in the small faculty parking lot behind the building.

"Look," says Dr. Avenarius. "The phone is not working. A student has been assaulted. The situation is unclear, we do not know the identity of the attacker, so—"

"What?"

"I said, a student—"

"No I heard you. I mean, we have Noël D'Addario here, she's quite distressed, talking about something or someone. I can't really understand. You say the phone's not working?"

"The phone's not working." Dr. Avenarius glances at Weaver for confirmation. Weaver wags the receiver. "I must attend to the student. I do not have time for this. Keep all students inside for now. I sent Syrene to the police. Keep everyone inside, yah? You hear me?"

Static.

Dr. Avenarius waves her hands in frustration, finally resorts to pressing random buttons, but nothing happens.

"I will assume they got the message." She looks at us. Specifically at me. I go cold again under that diagnostic stare, but this time I keep calm. She must have been speaking to Miss Arnold, the young peppy Christian Ethics faculty-in-residence/chaperone who manages the dorms, and she is not vivisecting my brain, she is weighing whether to send me there in case the message didn't get across. Obviously, were a dangerous situation transpiring, such an order would put me in danger (she knows it's my fault) and she would be liable for any harm that befell me. She says nothing.

Miss Syrene's car goes idle. From the sound, it's at the front gate.

"For now, I must examine her." Dr. Avenarius returns to us, parts Ryan and Block with flicks of her wrists, and places a hand on my roommate's head. "I must examine you, okay? Come with me. Come to my office. The rest of you, wait here. Do not go anywhere."

My roommate rises like an automaton. Her eyes continue to shift from me to Dr. Avenarius. Block looks unwell, Weaver has given up with the phone, and Ryan's features are curling into disgust, a true and smiling disgust, the kind that finds the object of disgust both comedy and fascination.

"Quarantine her," Ryan whispers.

"What was that now?"

"If not that, kill her. Burn her."

"What are you fucking saying?" says Block.

"I'm telling you, clearly and without ambiguity, what to do," Ryan says. "She is a poison and must be purged. Or have we forgotten how to vomit?"

"This isn't time for one of your fucking fall-of-Western-civilization LARPs, Siobhan!"

"Come, dear." Dr. Avenarius tugs my roommate's arm.

She doesn't move.

Standing there, in Weaver's oversized sweater and nothing else, a vague pool of water running off her bare feet, her head tilts upward until her eyes intersect Ryan's.

"Hypocrite," she says.

Then she turns to me. Her moonstone eyes glow. This is it, I think, this is when she'll blame me for leaving her, in front of everyone.

She smiles at me. It is a warm and friendly smile, in contrast to Ryan's disgusted one, a smile festering with empathy and understanding. It's the worst smile I've ever seen.

She says: "Remember that I'm not just your friend, Enid—I'm here to save you."

"Okay, enough," says Dr. Avenarius. "Please, come with me. You children be good."

She pulls my roommate through the door to her office. I'm petrified, watching it swing shut. Save me. From the Gorehound? From my own diseased brain? I don't understand anything. What she knows, what the doctor knows, what anyone knows, what I know. I realize, for the first time, that I assumed everything in my dream was real, even though it was a dream. Maybe none of it happened, the parts that line up are only coincidence. But I saw my roommate twice, in my room and in here. The rain pounds outside. The tight ribbon stiff in my collar is not enough to hold my shape. I feel sick. I feel unimaginable dread. Something will break, I can feel it.

All sinks to quiet. I sit next to Block, whose knee jitters. The tile gleams with the water that dripped off my roommate's legs. Ryan calmly walks behind the desk, to the copier table, and picks up a large, sharp pair of scissors.

Suddenly, Weaver animates. From her pocket she withdraws a lighter and cigarette (an ordinary cigarette, tobacco) as she heads for the exit.

"I don't give a fuck what anyone says. I gotta smoke."

"We shouldn't go outside," I say. I am ignored.

But when Weaver approaches the vestibule, the doors burst open. I bolt upright; it's only Miss Syrene, soaked through.

"The gate's locked."

"Locked?" Block says, which diverts Miss Syrene's attention while Weaver stashes the paraphernalia.

"Locked. With a chain and padlock." Miss Syrene rounds the desk and opens a drawer under her workstation. "I don't know why. It was open when I came in. The only person who could've done it is the groundskeeper. Where's the nurse?"

"In her office," says Block.

Miss Syrene shuffles stuff around and comes up with a massive key, stereotypical in shape. It looks like something that existed when the school was founded. There's a symbol on the head. As she approaches, I make it out: a circle in a square in a triangle in a circle. My blood drains.

"You know," Miss Syrene says in a much more conversational tone than seems appropriate, "it's real ugly out there, weather-wise."

"The gate must remain locked." Ryan examines her scissors. "We must seal ourselves inside."

Everyone ignores her, like she didn't speak. Maybe she didn't.

"Maybe you shouldn't leave," I say. I understand the futility, but I say it.

"Believe me, I'd love that," Miss Syrene says.

With the key of the philosopher's stone, she exits for the third time.

Weaver watches her go, then takes out her lighter and flicks it on and off, unsure if she wants to pursue her previous plan of smoking. Block wrings her wrists.

"It all falls to ruin," Ryan says. She watches the doors through which Miss Syrene left. She holds the scissors by their long metal blades, tight at her side.

The intracommunications terminal flares again. The noise makes all of us except Ryan jump. Out of its indistinction come only two words, frayed at the edges:

"Something's here."

We stare, expecting more. But that's it.

"I can't take this!" Block lurches one direction, rethinks it, stomps across the slick tile, and knocks on the door to the nurse's office. "Doctor. Doctor? Someone's calling the box."

"Shit Nadine, chill," says Weaver.

The static, the rain, the purr of Miss Syrene's car idling outside, all merge together. Weaver flicks on her lighter, flicks it off. Since she removed her sweater, she's in an intentionally ragged and faded t-shirt with a psychedelic design. She's soaked. She isn't wearing a bra. The t-shirt clings to her loose breasts, which are larger than you'd think, given the masculine coding of her drug dealer persona. Her nipples jut out.

"Doctor. Doctor?" says Block.

"Come on, Nadine," says Weaver. "Relax. Let's smoke."

There's a thump inside the doctor's office.

Weaver sees me staring and I avert my gaze quickly. She extends the cigarette and lighter. "Wanna?"

"Obviously not!"

Ryan decides on something. Resolution ossifies her eyes. "I'll be back for You," she tells me, cold and blank. She marches past, flings open the front doors, and vanishes into the rain.

"What's up her ass?" Weaver asks in a confidential whisper.

Another thump.

"Doctor?"

I look at Weaver. "What's wrong with the phone, exactly?"

Thump.

"It won't shut up."

"Doctor?"

Tepidly, carefully, as if speaking the words wrong will unmask everything, I ask: "What is the phone saying?"

Weaver shrugs. "Brainrot."

Thump.

"Doctor, I'm going to open the door. Doctor? Doctor."

"Nadine! Fuck off it," Weaver says. "She's busy fingering pussy in there." She tilts her head at me, mildly confused. "Or whatever your roommate's got between the legs."

"What?"

"Forget it." Weaver chuckles. It is an uncharacteristically anxious chuckle. "I only saw it a second before I put my sweater on her anyway."

Brainrot.

"Doctor! I'm coming in now, doctor."

Block wraps her hand around the knob and twists it slowly. As if inviting someone, anyone, on the other side to tell her to stop.

Thump.

The door opens a crack.

"Doctor...?"

"Nadine leave it the fuck alone I'm begging you!"

The door swings inward.

Block must see it first, but she stands in the doorway without reaction, inert as a mannequin, until the door strikes the wall and bounces back an inch. In the nurse's office, on the reclining medical examination chair that comprises ominously, ritualistically the center of the white-drowned and sterile space, sprawls the spasming body of Dr. Avenarius. Her legs kick out, strike at the flared stirrups that swivel into open air, jerk so violently that one tiny shoe falls off to show brightly painted toes twitching within her nylons. Her hands claw at her neck. Behind her stands my roommate, garroting her with a stethoscope.

Out of the front of Dr. Avenarius' body, a second Avenarius emerges.

It's pale, so pale as to seem translucent, and completely nude. At first I think it's her ghost, her soul, rising to heaven like in a children's comedy. My incongruous impression is only dispelled by the sheen of gelatinous film coating her skin that ripples under the ineluctable light, by the chunks that sop off to float like foam upon the pool of urine spreading across the tile. (It's the urine that provokes Block's first reaction; she steps back to avoid it touching the toe of her shoe.) The second Avenarius sits up. Her bare, diminutive torso displays nearly nonexistent breasts. She shares, for now, hips and legs with her original, whom she does not notice nor care is being strangled to death. She reaches out dripping white arms with toylike wrists and seizes the chair's stirrups as leverage to stand, extricating herself, her hips and legs phasing through the fabric of Dr. Avenarius' clothes, her body duplicating out of the original as if by mitosis, and places down pinkish unclean feet into the urine on the tile with a small pair of splashes, one right after the other.

My roommate tightens the cord: a grotesque crack. The first Dr. Avenarius, blood in her eyeballs, goes slack save for insect-like post-mortem twitches. The second stands before Block. In a lab coat Dr. Avenarius seemed young; without clothes she looks like a child. She possesses no genitalia whatsoever.

Her eyes, no longer sharp but instead milky and vague, turn past Block and fall on me. She says:

"You look so much better now."

This cannot possibly be real, I think, and my focus is on Nadine Block to see what she does, what she reacts to. Block does not scream, she does not run. Instead, she leans forward in dull dreamlike motion and reaches out, as if to touch the body before her. But her hand goes elsewhere, to the knob of the door, which she slowly pulls back.

When it is halfway closed, the new Avenarius shoots out hooked fingers to seize Block's wrist. She does this without looking away from me.

Finally, Block screams. The scream shatters this hazy reality. It becomes real. And another scream soon follows:

"DON'T TOUCH HER, BITCH!"

Amy Weaver charges across the tile. Her sneakers are a churn of squealing. She goes airborne. Her legs shoot out in front of her and she jump-kicks the doctor, but misses and hits the edge of the door, which flies back and strikes the doctor in the face. Avenarius reels, releases Block, and collapses back onto her double's corpse. Weaver falls, scrabbles upright, and pounds her hand on Block's shoulder. "Go, go, go!" Block is sluggish, painfully turgid, a melted image of female worthlessness, a rich girl who has never even contemplated the possibility of true emergency, of actual danger, who has been allowed an increasingly nebulous and theoretical understanding of her physical body. The smart move would be to abandon her, but Weaver refuses this option, she shoves Block until Block's feet finally start to move, and they run together as Avenarius rises back to her feet.

"Enid! Go," Weaver yells, surprisingly, at me. I look down and realize I too had started to forget I existed, physically I mean. Block is shoved past me and Weaver tugs my shoulder. I catch a final glimpse of my roommate, relinquishing the cord from the dead doctor's neck, wearing an unsteady and approval-seeking smile. Then the three of us rush through the vestibule and out into the rain.

It's heavy now, it slaps my face. The courtyard stretches before us, lit at intervals by lights along the paths, and the dark grass still awash with uncarved pumpkins. From here, at the top of the stairs, their arrangement finally takes form in my mind: interlocking circles, Flowers of Life. But we're down the stairs too quickly, running along the paved trail that leads to and encircles the bronze, slightly uncentered statue of Halicarnassus Brown. The statue, larger than life, is always lit. Beams shine upward at the Founder's stern face to illuminate his hard sculpted brow and creased cleanshaven chin. His arms are extended. One holds an open book, once a Bible but now altered to have no title and no words, and the other holds a key. I have never thought much of the key before, thinking it an obvious and generic symbol (the "key to knowledge"), but as we approach now I realize it's the same key Miss Syrene took from her drawer, with the symbol of a circle in a square in a triangle in a circle carved onto its rounded end.

The path continues past the statue, where it merges with the road that leads to the school's front gate. Miss Syrene's dull beige sedan purrs motionless, driver's side door open, twin cones of headlights revealing the enormous padlock that seals the gate shut.

The gate is a long but artless expanse of iron poles lacking decoration or design. Past it is a little road that winds a few hundred feet down to a larger thoroughfare. Something's wrong. It's hard to see, because the only light comes from Miss Syrene's headlights, but it doesn't look right out there. The little road has nearly vanished; on all sides are clustering shrubs, trees, bracken, dangling strands, blooming flowers of every hideous color. In the rain, the leaves shiver. They whisper: iihiihiie

Everything's growing out there. The leaves press against the gate. Everything wants to grow inside.

As we pass the statue, Weaver screams for Miss Syrene. She doesn't seem to be here, and I think she probably ran, but then she steps into her headlights, shielding her eyes with a hand and squinting at us. The key she took from the Founder glints. On her face is etched annoyance, if not outright misery.

"Calm down! I'm about to see if it works."

Ryan steps into the light and plunges the scissors into her breast. The long, metal shears go in clean and deep. Pitiless, blank, she retracts them to stab again, but Miss Syrene, still wearing the same miserable expression as though this too is only the next in a series of rudimentary early-morning inconveniences, swings the heavy key into Ryan's head. Ryan recoils, steps back into the dark. Miss Syrene drops the key, grips her breast, and staggers against the gate.

UH OH! THAT WAS A BAD DECISION

The outside anticipated it the whole time. It moves hungrily, the whole vegetative mass. First thorned vines shoot from between the gaps. They wrap around her ankles and waist and neck, around her face, they plunge into the soft flesh of her thigh and armpit, coiling, tangling, crisscrossing themselves in the shape of Xs. Ten, twenty: they hoist her jittering body up, they draw her limbs, they dig through her mouth and out her cheeks. Her cracked glasses drop, as does a thick layer of blood, viscously folding on itself. The vines pull. They twist, they wrench. Pieces of her flesh split off, muscle peeled to white bone shining in the perfect centering of the headlights. They pluck parts of her and force them back between the bars of the gate. Her left arm stretches on sinew then splits and is broken two, three places before being messily retracted. Leaves and flowers, following the vines, hiss and strike at each other for pieces, they leave tangled red blobs to drop between them into the grass. Teeming, insectile, they swarm the rapidly diminishing remains of her body, this hungry profusion of the outside world. There's a crack. There's a snap. A significant piece of Miss Syrene, including her lacerated and half-scalped skull, plops facedown beside the gleaming key. A leg lands similarly. The rest rends apart and is rapidly consumed.

It seems impossible, even considering everything else, that I actually witnessed this. When Weaver and Block recoil in shock, when Weaver screams "WHAT THE FUCK," I assume they are reacting to Ryan stabbing her, which I do believe happened. Weaver skids to a halt, causing Block and I to halt too, and we fall back onto the circular patch of pavement around the Founder. I stare up at his plinth, which reads: HALICARNASSUS BROWN 1848–1936. GRADUS AD HALICARNASSUM. No, wait, it says PARNASSUM. Parnassus, the mountain where the Muses reside.

From the dormitories peals a distant scream.

Lightning flashes. Atop the stairs by the Administration building stands Avenarius, looking down at us, or at me. Block sees her and shrieks.

"Fuck. FUCK," Weaver says. "The car. We gotta get to the fucking car!"

This is, in a vacuum, a workable idea. Miss Syrene's sedan idles a few feet from the gate. The door is open and the engine is running, so the key is in the ignition. We obviously couldn't escape the school through the gate, but we'd be able to drive away from immediate danger. Assuming anyplace on campus is free from danger, assuming the horrible strange plants aren't spreading everywhere, assuming the Gorehound isn't crawling toward me, assuming Eric isn't wearing my clothes and making everyone think he's my twin, the car is our best option.

But Ryan, wiping a spot of blood from her forehead with a handkerchief, and then wiping clean her scissors, stands beside the car and walks slowly toward us, or toward me.

"No!" Block shrieks. "Oh, no, no, no, no!" She presses her body against the Founder's plinth.

I'm not keen to run toward Ryan either. At least Avenarius, descending the stairs, is small, naked, and unarmed. I also eye a third route: the trail back to the dorms. More screams are rising from that direction, merging with the rain, blending into static, but it might be my best option.

"Nadine. Nadine!" Weaver tries to pull Block away from the statue. "Nadine, we have to move!"

"No, no, not that way!"

Weaver sees the futility. She lets go of Block. "Okay. Okay. I'll be right back. I promise I'll be right back."

"Amy, wait. Don't leave me Amy." She holds up the hand that Avenarius grabbed. It runs with translucent ooze the rain is slow to wash away. "I'm infected Amy, don't leave me!"

"It's not zombies," I say. "It's different." Is it? Do I know anything? (Have to know all the facts. A reality built of only the facts I know.)

Weaver isn't listening. She runs for Miss Syrene's car.

I have never conceptualized Amy Weaver as athletic. She's one of the students with a bogus exemption from sport activities, the unquestioned Class Rank 12, an all-around layabout. My mental image of her is eternally indolent, expelling a stoner's chuckle from deep down her throat. But here she sprints like a demon. Her form is Corbettesque, though she's wilder, her hair streaming out, her t-shirt flapping up to show the arched stoop of her back with the vertebrae straining her skin. She howls. Ryan stands directly in her path and Weaver charges as though ferocity alone will knock her aside. Ryan, of course, only continues her slow stroll forward, tucking away her handkerchief while her scissors shine.

It looks like Weaver intends to tackle her. Instead, at the last moment, Weaver brings her momentum to an instantaneous halt. She steps right, then immediately jukes left with a football spin move, and an image flashes into me pungent with the scent and sentimentality of autumn, Thanksgiving, a too-large yard for a too-large Long Island manor, Amy Weaver in a woolen sweater, tucking the ball under her arm as she spins through orange leaves past an older brother. The scaffolding of a human being beyond the stereotype into which she molded herself to service this school's narrative.

Ryan literally could not care less. She does not even watch Weaver whirl past her. She continues walking forward, walking toward me.

"It's Time," she says. "Time for the Feast."

I'm focused on her, afraid to run because I know in a footrace she will hunt me down eventually. I realize I'm still clutching the closed umbrella I brought from the dorms. I shift it into swinging stance. My range is longer than hers is with the scissors.

My attention is torn away when Block screams. Avenarius has crept up on us. She's only a few steps from the statue now, her sexless body glimmering like a wraith. Block can't handle it, her face swings wildly, she chooses a direction and bolts into the open grass only to trip on a line of pumpkins and faceplant.

I need to keep close to Block. I need her as a distraction. I skid to a knee beside her and, waving the umbrella at Ryan in an attempt to hold her back (she keeps slowly walking forward), extend a hand to help Block. That's when I see it.

Something is growing out of Block's hand.

"The Feast," Ryan says. "The Ritual."

"You look good, yah, great even," Avenarius says. "Let me look closer, fräulein."

They're on either side of me, closing in.

The car comes squealing across the quad.

Machine of the 1990s, swiveling insanely out of reverse. The driver's side door slaps shut, then the car careens off the road. It grinds through grass, through pumpkins, weaving. At first I think it moves erratically on purpose, a maneuver like Weaver's spin designed to distract, but then, as though I am in the passenger seat beside her, I see clearly Weaver's wet and slippery hands fighting to control the steering wheel, her eyes squinting to pierce the fogged windshield as the wipers whip in sequence. She has no driver's license. She is operating on osmosis, an understanding of how cars work from seeing others drive them. The sole thought manifesting in her brain is Protect Nadine, protect Enid, and the logical extension of that thought is to run down Ryan.

Ryan's attention finally snaps away from me. She lunges aside. At the same moment Weaver balks, a revulsion grips her, she is unwilling to murder her classmate no matter the circumstance, she twists the wheel. It barely matters. The terrain is betraying her. Gourds explode as her tires writhe until the car swings into an arc out of her control. The sedan's swerving backside clips Ryan and she drops, clutching her left wrist. Then it's coming at me and I can't move quick enough, certainly not with Block who is galvanized to the floor watching her trembling hand while a second hand, white and dripping, rises out of it, a hand identical to her own, with the same fingers and the same trimmed nails, but once again I am seated beside Weaver, seeing her perspective, thinking her thoughts, feeling the monstrous desperation that wells up when the headlights flash on Nadine's face and Weaver jerks the wheel with bestial force to avoid her. This time, her effort manifests in the machine. The car swings, despite or perhaps because of the Volvo's notoriously stable handling, in a lunatic semicircle around us. It is so close a crushed pumpkin sprays pulp on my face.

That's all Weaver can do. The back tires have lost control; she's fishtailing. She jerks at an acute angle, plows into Avenarius, and then rams the plinth of the Founder's statue, which instantly brings the car to a dead halt.

Avenarius' tiny body is crushed against the stone. Her arms sprawl over the blood-smeared hood. Her ribs and lungs are flattened to nonexistence. Her head lolls, faces me. Her lips twist into a smile. Her head drops, one eye still aimed into mine.

Halicarnassus Brown, immortal entity of bronze, already off-center, wobbles.

Flecks of glass and metal are everywhere. Weaver coughs, her nose all bloody; the airbag, recalled but unreplaced, didn't deploy. Block, whose duplicated hand has become a duplicated arm pawing the floor, screams: "Get out Amy, the statue!" This somehow reaches Weaver, who tries the door but finds it unopenable; the crash bent the frame. The window's shattered, though. She starts crawling through it, remnant shards of glass digging into her palms as her blood flows down the door. She does not wince, does not even pause, she is slithering out the window like a snake, her eyes meet mine (though she is not looking at me, not my physical self I mean, I'm on the other side of the car) blazing a bottomless determination to live, and Halicarnassus Brown falls.

He is larger than life; he is metal. He lands on the roof of the sedan, which flattens. The window frame Weaver is halfway through clamps down like jaws. Her upper body shoots rigidly straight a brief moment, her eyes glassy, her mouth pursed into a circle. A grunt, whisperlike: "Tnnk." Then she goes slack, flops down against the door. Her forehead strikes the ground senselessly hard. Her arms are laid out, palms up. There's a residual screech of steel settling as the statue comes to rest, and then quiet save the rain that blooms Weaver's blood around her. Her loose t-shirt slides down her back until her fat tits flop out.

Something silver drops with a click. The lighter.

Nadine Block starts screaming, though when my head whips toward her I see it's only partially because of Weaver. There is a second amoebal self splitting off, a head and one arm. Both faces are frenzied, both bodies thrash against the ground. I scamper out of her reach, but she's not reaching for me. As a second arm starts emerging, the original Block tightens her fingers into the throat of her second head. The neck compresses inward. "Die, die," Block chants. "Die, die!" Her timidity is gone, as though Weaver was its phylactery. She slams the second head against the pavement with unhesitant furor. An imprint of blood appears where the forehead cracks. I back away, putting the car between us. I see Weaver's sprawled body. The lighter shines. I skitter over and pocket it.

When I look back, one Block's face is coming apart, its nose battered into bloody cauliflower, its eyes welted shut. The other Block keeps bashing it against the pavement.

In the grass, Ryan stirs and starts to rise.

Block's a lost cause. I need to get out of here while I have the chance. But, as I turn, the sky flashes white, and at the top of the stairs, clutching the slight and seemingly weightless corpse of the original Dr. Avenarius, terrible as a masked slasher despite her nakedness under Amy Weaver's ALL SAINTS sweater, stands my roommate. The locket shines.

"What I did can never be undone," she says, her voice horrifyingly clear despite the distance and the rain, "and I don't offer this explanation to excuse my actions—but to try to shed light on how I acted with the best of intentions."

Everything she says seems to originate from a wholly alternate world, divorced from any context in this one. Then it hits me that she is, incredibly, trying to explain why she killed the doctor.

"Taking someone's life is a line I never imagined I would cross. But today, everything escalated beyond control. The situation had been building for a long time—tensions, fear, anger, and personal history all collided in a moment of terrible clarity.

"I made a choice, one that was irreversible, but in that moment, I believed—however wrongly—that you were cornered, that there was no other way out."

Me? I was cornered? By the doctor? It's absurd, I'm transfixed, which is dangerous, Ryan is really getting up now, reaching for her scissors. But I'm not just transfixed by stupefaction. Because something she says taps a vital vein. The doctor. I did hate her. I loathed her piercing look. I trembled, anticipating a diagnosis that would unravel my entire sense of self.

Block has her thumbs in Block's eye sockets, pushing, spurting blood.

"Whether it was your fear, rage, desperation, or a failure of my judgment, I cannot deny the truth: I chose to end a life. And that choice haunts me.

"I see now that I let emotions and circumstances override morality and reason. I acted in a way that was selfish and final, and I have to live with that every day.

"This explanation isn't meant to garner sympathy, only to offer honesty. I wish more than anything I had chosen differently. I hope this gives even a small measure of clarity to the senselessness of what happened.

"If you're working with a fictional scenario—like a character who killed out of revenge, fear, or even by accident—let me know, and I'll tailor the explanation accordingly."

"What?" I say, snapping out of a trance.

My roommate's pale, lifeless gaze breaks. She blinks as though she doesn't know where she is. Then something comes to her and she says:

"You'll like me now—yes? I've been assaulted, I've been raped, I waited five days like you asked, I saved you from a woman you hated—you'll need me now, no?"

Ryan lifts to a knee. A pair of girls in white are beside her, helping her. I have no idea where they came from and it's still too dark to tell who they are, but they're looking at me. I think of the girls I saw setting the table.

"Don't you want to open the locket together? Don't you want to see what's inside? I have the locket—look! Or does my locket mean nothing to you after all?"

One of the girls in white starts moving toward me.

"I'm leaving now," I tell my roommate.

With the umbrella and Weaver's lighter, I run toward the dormitories, where everyone is screaming.

Chapter 24: Departing Parnassus

On the ground floor of the dormitories, in the center of the junior wing, less a distinct room and more an outgrowth of the hallway, is the common area: a neatly-kept lounge of luxury furniture crafted by famed designer Loïc Thalie-Pouchepanadin. It features a broad, tastefully-curtained bay window that looks onto the courtyard by the tennis court. Though on sunny days the natural light is delicate and feminine, on mornings like this, when the small chandelier must be lit, the lightbulbs glaze everything sickeningly.

In this room, there's commotion. It centers around Noël D'Addario. She is soaked and breathless, stooped, hands on knees, trying to force out the words she is desperate to say.

The crowd is mostly juniors, plus a few seniors, whose wing is adjacent. Those gathered, summoned by the magnetism inherent to all forms of excitement, are either straight from bed or amid morning preparations. Spirit Labuschagne, gossipmonger, has on striped flannel pajamas. Tam Bell, who acts like Lulu Paraiso's puppy for social credit, wears the school uniform's blouse and skirt, but not the jacket or ribbon. Velouria Roseingrave, Class Rank 6 of the juniors (father the former chairman of Monsanto), is in a satin robe revealing a proscribed level of cleavage. By contrast, Firenze George, who hovers near the cusp of the corridor, wears a chaste white nightgown. George is one of the girls close to Ryan lately. She might have been one of the ones helping after the car hit her. Though that hasn't happened yet.

"Keep it calm, Noël." Tam Bell ventures a reassuring hand on D'Addario's shoulder. "Keep it cool."

"It's... Ana... her head..." D'Addario sputters.

"She came from the garden," Velouria Roseingrave says. "What do we think? Bad trip?"

"Ssh!" Bell tips her head to the hallway, where Myrtle Lovejoy, the teacher's pet of the junior class (a pathetic Class Rank 9 though), and Miss Rafflesia Arnold, the faculty-in-residence, appear.

"Is something the matter?" Miss Arnold is prim with a crucifix around her neck. She is all innocent propriety. She is a woman who was born to be wed, but somehow isn't.

"Anapsychia... Dead. She's dead...!" D'Addario gasps, desperately.

A murmur shoots through the crowd.

"It ate her," D'Addario says.

"Is this an innuendo?" Spirit Labuschagne asks. "Will I be updating the Dyke Pool?"

"Miss Labuschagne!" says Miss Arnold, aghast.

"Sorry, the Lesbian Pool."

"She's DEAD." D'Addario regains her breath. "It ate her. The... Entity."

"Oh, I get it," says Velouria Roseingrave. "She's talking about a movie."

"Come on guys," says Tam Bell. "She's clearly upset for real."

Miss Arnold approaches D'Addario, attempting a reassuring manner, though she thinks more akin to Roseingrave than Bell. The Headmistress scolded her over the paraphernalia found in the garden, blaming her for letting the students sneak out, but what is Miss Arnold supposed to do? Stay up all night? She subscribes to the adage of Benjamin Franklin: Early to bed, early to rise. Regardless, she knows students have been up to mischief out there, and suspects this is related. She conceptualizes drugs in the mode of Reefer Madness.

"It's okay, Miss D'Addario. It's not real."

"It's REAL. Four legs... flesh like a, like a skinned face... and the skull... skull of a dog."

"What?" Cherry Corbett enters the room. She is fresh off her workout, still slick with sweat in tank top and shorts. "What did you say?"

"It's real." Drawing breath, overcoming animal terror, D'Addario slowly notices the skeptical faces around her. "You don't believe me. I see... I get it now. I'm the Harbinger. You have to ignore me... you don't have a choice. It's your transgression... to be punished."

Most of the crowd snickers. But Corbett's face is ash under the brim of her tennis visor. She tried to forget it existed. As if blotting it from our minds would blot it from reality, as if the world would remain normal as long as we believed in its normalcy. But it doesn't work like that, does it Corbett?

"No," she says, as if replying to me.

"Will you girls be good and watch Noël a moment?" Miss Arnold asks. "I'm going to call the office." She retreats to her room at the end of the hallway.

More girls are drawn into the disruption. They tend to be more fully dressed, knotting their ribbons while seeking an explanation. "What's the deal?" Zinnia Fitzpeter asks Corbett.

"Nothing." Corbett turns and leaves.

The buzz of voices expands, becomes like static. Encroaching, encroaching. Edges subsumed, erased. Faces losing distinction. It's so close. They don't realize how close it is. They don't realize this world is no longer theirs. I can only watch. My eye upon them dooms them.

D'Addario says, "If we panic, if we split up, we die one by one. We have to... stick together. That's the number one rule."

"Your movies aren't real, Noël," says Velouria Roseingrave. "Gosh."

"And then... to kill it, the best way is... fire. A boiler, where's the boiler?"

"Hey what's that?" says Myrtle Lovejoy, pointing.

"If we overheat the boiler... make an explosion..."

"Noël, what are you even saying?"

"Fire destroys everything."

"Of course she'd be an arsonist too," says Roseingrave, with a performative scoff.

"No, guys, seriously," says Myrtle Lovejoy. "What is that?"

A few heads turn.

"It's elemental... there's a primal logic to it. Fire." Weaver's lighter. "That's what we need."

"Oh God," says Zinnia Fitzpeter. "Oh God what the fuck?"

It's so close. And the last heads turn.

Myrtle Lovejoy remains pointing. She points even as she steps back, as far as the bending crowd allows. As a group they are also stepping back, unconsciously, compressing outside the common area and against the wall of the hallway. They stare through the bay window, into the courtyard, where the rain sheets down through the light of two lamps. The grass shivers. The benches reverberate with droplets, as though coming alive. Far, far in the distance is the Administration building, windows dimly yellow, where at this exact moment Dr. Avenarius is drawing my roommate into her office.

Much closer, much worse, is something else.

Only the edge of it shines white, shifting. When the voices go silent D'Addario finally blinks, trails off, and turns her head to look. She is at the fore of the room, close to the window. The others are now behind her. Only Tam Bell remains near; she grips D'Addario's wrist and tries to entice her away from the window.

D'Addario is insensate to that, though. She looks back with a strange sort of smile. "I told you. I warned you..."

At its slow, ungainly pace, the pace to which it is always willing to sink, it steps past the statue of the dog Apollo. It is only a shape, dark and indistinct, only a shifting edge. Then its stilt-like legs extend forward and it pulls itself into the path of one of the lamps. At once, the light bathes it, and it becomes real. All too real, full in its realness. I hardly need to tell you what it is, do I?

"Okay, so like, that's Amy and Nadine, right?" Velouria Roseingrave says. "They sent Noël first to prime us and now they're—walking on stilts—in costume..."

"Miss Arnold," says Myrtle Lovejoy. "Miss Arnold! Miss Arnold, something's here!" She pushes through the crowd.

Firenze George, watching from the corner, steps out of view and vanishes.

The Gorehound continues forward steadily, passes the lamp, passes back into the dark. But it's close now, close enough that the light spilling out the window gleams across its canine skull. It stops on the other side of the glass. Everyone is pushed back as far as possible, even D'Addario is pushed back, but they should be running, really. What roots them is the possibility they cling to, the one Corbett pretended, that it's all a joke. Or more broadly, they believe they possess the facts of this reality and this thing isn't one of them so therefore it must, in disguise, be a known fact after all.

One long, thin leg extends. It taps the glass. Tap, tap.

Zinnia Fitzpeter makes a moan-like half-scream. She's not alone. Spirit Labuschagne has hands to her mouth to suppress whatever terrified sound tries to escape. Velouria Roseingrave remains calm in the face, but is draining pale.

Another foreleg, the glaive-like one, extends. It taps too.

Miss Arnold reappears, dragged by Myrtle Lovejoy. She takes one look and goes cold. "Girls," she says. "Girls, let's back away from the window now." But they've already done that!

The Gorehound grins. It lifts its first foreleg higher, touching it to the top of the window frame. Its second foreleg reaches up and there's a quick crunch as it drives the glaive into the wall. Its body is extending, tilting. For its own inscrutable reasons, perhaps because it doesn't see me there, it doesn't intend to break through the window. Instead, it is climbing the side of the building. Its hindleg reaches out and grips the rounded mullion that divides one part of the window from the other. I wonder how much it weighs, how delicately it can exert its power, as it starts to climb. Its underbelly twists, tilts, exposes itself to everyone inside. They see what's underneath.

They know now this is real.

"Girls, we're going to, we're going to," Miss Arnold says.

"We'll run, together," says D'Addario. "Let's run, to the boiler..." There is no boiler in this building.

Tap, tap, tap. The Gorehound climbs the wall. It climbs with ease, like a spider. It climbs past the window. Climbs out of their sight.

Tam Bell's head jerks upright, like a meerkat. "Upstairs. It's going for the freshmen!"

A window breaks. Someone above screams.

The stunned paralysis of those in the common area vanishes. The thought manifests in their minds simultaneously: Run! And they almost do. They almost transform into a stampede through the narrow hallway to the exit, and even if a few were trampled it'd be to the benefit of everyone else. But at the exact moment precipitating panic, Tam Bell vaults past Roseingrave and Labuschagne, avoids tripping on Fitzpeter's foot, and throws her arms out in front of everyone to bar their way. "We have to help them!"

Even then, it might not have stopped anyone. But Lulu Paraiso, just now showing up with a confused look, appears beside her. "What's the deal?" Not only is the hallway now completely blocked, but Paraiso's befuddled normalcy makes them pause, makes them remember the world as they believe they understand it.

It's exactly like The Breakers. I knew I needed to run, and took every excuse not to.

"Everyone stick together," says D'Addario. She, too, knows she must run; she's seen the movie. But she thinks splitting up is worse, is against the rules, so she won't do it alone.

"Girls," says Miss Arnold. "Girls! Let's file, orderly, toward the exit..."

"You're kidding!" says Tam Bell. "What about the freshmen!"

Something heavy breaks above. More screams. Tam Bell grabs Paraiso's hands and tries to pull her toward the stairs. A figure nearly falls, rolling, down them; it's that annoying Ursula Yocum. There's a fan of blood (not hers) on her white blouse, spots on her glasses; her hands shake.

"Run!" she screams. "Run! Run! Run!"

Yocum follows her own advice, but only gets a few erratic steps before a door flings open directly into her face and lays her flat on her back. Prue Malheur pokes her head out. "Oh dear, how ill-starred!"

Velouria Roseingrave squeezes past Tam Bell on the pretext of helping Ursula Yocum, then immediately pivots at an anxious trot for the exit. Others try to follow her, but two more freshmen run screaming down the stairs while Tam Bell is trying to go up, and Lulu Paraiso is trying not to go up, which renders the way a logjam.

"We have to help," Tam Bell pleads. Even she knows she should run, right? Why doesn't she abandon everyone and save herself? "We have to help them, Lulu!"

"No we don't," Lulu Paraiso says. "I don't know what the fuck's going on but how about we leave instead—"

A sophomore, Joan St. Cuthbert, rams Tam Bell as she careens hysterically down the stairs. Bell is knocked over and Paraiso staggers, at first holding onto her, then forced to let go when a sophomore named Liz Bennet takes the last bend of the stairs at a leap and lands with both feet on Tam Bell's ribcage. Something cracks and Bell writhes, expelling a breathless scream. (Should've abandoned them, now look at you.) Liz Bennet is on the junior varsity tennis team and Paraiso likes to knock around the JV girls (especially, per Spirit Labuschagne's report, Tam Bell) so her instant reaction is to shout "What the fuck," seize Bennet by the lapels, and force her against the wall. Bennet sobs meaninglessly into her face. At the end of the corridor Roseingrave reaches the exit, followed by the two freshmen and Joan St. Cuthbert. Malheur helps up Ursula Yocum.

"Watch where the fuck you're going," Paraiso yells at Liz Bennet. Then she realizes Tam Bell is actually hurt and, disgustedly, lets Bennet go. Unlike the other girls, escaping out the front, Bennet goes for the back exit, the one I take to the garden. This exit is right beside them, at the intersection of the dormitory building's inverted L-shape, tucked on the other side of the stairwell.

The door opens.

The Gorehound is there.

It has dropped down from the second story. It has done so for seemingly no reason except in anticipation of this exact moment. Liz Bennet has no time to do anything but groan. A primal and despairing groan, a groan at the incredible unfairness of this world. Then the glaive-leg drives through her face and bursts out the back of her skull, trailing bone and brain matter.

Paraiso falls back and kicks away shouting. Tam Bell is trying to crawl with pained and laborious motions, reaching to Paraiso for help, but Paraiso sees nothing except Bennet's transfixed corpse. More freshmen and sophomores, descending the stairs, stop dead before the blood spray. Everyone screams.

The Gorehound retracts its glaive, letting the faceless lump of Liz Bennet fall. It squeezes through the open doorway, bobbing its skull.

There's a problem. I've mentioned the dormitory is shaped like an inverted L. There are only two exits: the front, at the end of the longer of the two perpendicular hallways, and the back, at the intersection between them. There's no exit from the shorter corridor, because it would open into the sports equipment shed next to the tennis court.

Ergo, the girls in the common area, in the middle of the shorter corridor, are now blocked from all exits by the Gorehound. The Gorehound demonstrates uncanny awareness of this fact. It ignores Prue Malheur and Ursula Yocum, who are in the longer corridor and immediately flee toward the front exit, and focuses its eyeless gaze on those it has corralled. Or maybe it's not awareness. Maybe it's only tempted by the dragging, crawling form of Tam Bell.

"Help," Tam Bell groans.

"Someone help her!" Myrtle Lovejoy shakes Miss Arnold's arm. "Help her!" She nudges Paraiso. "Lulu, help her!"

Paraiso stares at Tam Bell crawling before her, and the Gorehound as it oozes into the intersection. Though Zinnia Fitzpeter is now gripping Paraiso's waist, she leans forward and extends a hand. Tam Bell's eyes rivet to it. Despite her broken rib, she forces herself up. She rises to a knee and reaches.

The glaive-leg drives through her calf. She screams. She's pinned.

Still, she tries to rise. A grimace of determination is on her face, as though she really believes she has a chance, even while Paraiso falls back shrieking. On its remaining limbs, the Gorehound strides forward. Its body fills the breadth of the hallway. It passes the staircase and stands over Tam Bell. The freshmen and sophomores on the stairs, thinking its back is to them, try to escape behind it. The first to step out is the freshman Clio Fish, daughter of a founder of Fish & Fish on Wall Street. She doesn't hesitate, she moves at a sprint. It doesn't matter. Casually, the Gorehound lifts and extends one back leg with astounding speed. The leg, pointed like a spike, pierces Fish's side, skewers her colon and jejunum, hefts her into the air, and pins her against the wall. Her feet clench and beat uselessly an inch from the floor as she grips the rod running through her gut without a hope of removing it.

Most of the remaining underclassmen fall back into the stairwell. Two run for it anyway and, since the Gorehound only has so many limbs, make it past. A third, Freyja Mason, tries to help Fish. She can't budge the leg either. Fish's hand finds hers and grips it as she begs for help and Mason yells at the others to help but they are frozen in fear.

The Gorehound is now positioned directly over Tam Bell. Its tube mouth extends with its lamprey teeth and Bell attempts to grab the mouth's edges to keep it from closing over her head. Instead it closes over one hand and the hand disappears, leaving a spurting stump. Bone crunches. Tam Bell falls, sobbing. Mangled chunks of flesh drizzle from the Gorehound's mouth into her hair. "Lulu, hhhelp," she cries. The mouth descends again. Even now she resists. Her body turns. I saw this before, with Quentin Y. The mouth clamps onto her back, directly between her shoulder blades. It tugs, her body lifts, then a splintering web of flesh is dragged off, tendons stretch taut and snap, and she flops onto the carpet twitching. The Gorehound, perhaps growing impatient, withdraws the glaive limb impaling her leg. The glaive shifts, changes shape. It becomes blunt, thick, like a club. It slams down. Tam Bell's head explodes.

"Oh God," Lulu Paraiso says, gripping Zinnia Fitzpeter.

The Gorehound retracts its back leg. Clio Fish slides down the wall. Freyja Mason presses her hands on the spurting wound.

"The window!" Noël D'Addario shouts.

She is, in fact, attempting to break the common area's big bay window with a lamp. She has shattered several glass panes, but each is only large enough to slide an arm through, and she's struggling to get through the reinforced rails and mullions.

Her voice draws the head of everyone trapped in the common area. The moment they look, the Gorehound pounces.

It moves at a speed none of them expect. Only Paraiso senses it coming and she hurls herself and Zinnia Fitzpeter, with whom she is entangled, aside as it rushes past. The tarp body clamps shut on the next nearest, Myrtle Lovejoy. Everything above her knees is engulfed in an instant, and the two legs under the knees, severed completely, flop in opposite directions.

Then it's chaos. Everyone tries to get away, but its limbs are thrashing. The clubbed one cracks Spirit Labuschagne in the shoulder. She rebounds off a wall but keeps, somehow, on her feet. The clawed limb seizes the jaw of Christine Rosenkreuz and tears it off effortlessly. The spiked limb stabs the trachea of Stella Morgen, then jerks her forward into the extended mouth, still bulging with Myrtle Lovejoy being chewed to death within. Morgen goes headfirst; she tries to pull back, and the entirety of her face stretches, then rips off the lamprey teeth, leaving an eyeball dangling.

Labuschagne, gripping her shoulder, manages to stagger into the group of freshmen and sophomores fleeing from the stairwell. She trips over the sprawled legs of the exsanguinating Clio Fish and falls on Freyja Mason.

The others have no way out. Paraiso and Fitzpeter scramble to the window D'Addario is still attempting to smash. "Help me break it!" They try. But this school was designed to let nobody out.

Outside, in the courtyard under an umbrella, next to Apollo's statue, Miranda watches.

Myrtle Lovejoy's body is mulched within the constricting tube of the Gorehound's mouth. Christine Rosenkreuz is pawing at her missing jaw, meandering aimlessly, then falls when the mouth worms across the floor and closes around her ankles. Lovejoy's blood and flesh spurt out with each undulating, pulsing chew, bathing Rosenkreuz' writhing legs as they are funneled deeper inside. Soon it's Rosenkreuz' own blood and flesh spurting over her as lamprey teeth all the way up dig in. She is incapable of screaming. Her hips, her waist, her chest, and finally her head are swiftly devoured.

Zinnia Fitzpeter, who has watched this instead of attacking the window, ratchets her body forward and expels a rapid flow of vomit onto the carpet. Lulu Paraiso drops the lamp she snatched from D'Addario and rams her whole body against the window's wooden posts, not caring that tiny triangle teeth of glass bite into her skin.

Still chewing, making minute reorientations with its four limbs all drenched in viscera, the Gorehound turns toward them. Its skull swings lazily on the gorged flesh sac. Something about the skin is shifting, transforming, as it digests the girls it has consumed. How many have been sacrificed? First Ryan. (Or was she killed by something else?) Then Quentin Y. The body, Eric, on the cross in the torture chamber. Anapsychia Gray, Liz Bennet, Tam Bell, Myrtle Lovejoy, Christine Rosenkreuz. That's eight. Eight! Faceless Stella Morgen attempts to crawl away but the mouth, finished with Rosenkreuz, lowers onto her skull and crunches casually, as though a formality. Nine. It's still going, past the number needed for the ritual. Why?

Ten (Fitzpeter), eleven (Paraiso), and twelve (D'Addario) bunch against the window. There is no way out except past it, and they know how fast it moves. Cherry Corbett would run anyway and survive. None of these are her. Paraiso eyes Fitzpeter, who is a sobbing, vomiting wreck, and wonders whether she has a chance.

Of course she doesn't.

But then, at a wild sprint from the hallway, from safety, from a completely incongruous direction for anyone to appear, Miss Arnold comes flying. She dives between the Gorehound's spread limbs and pure animal insanity carries her through. She wraps her body around the exterior of the tube mouth, clinging tight, preventing it from attacking her. The Gorehound staggers, its gangly legs twist. It is nearly knocked off balance as Miss Arnold swings back and forth.

"Girls," she yells. "Girls! Run! NOW!"

The Gorehound lifts its forelegs to strike at Miss Arnold. The maneuver is awkward. It cannot keep more than one limb lifted for long before it is forced to reestablish its balance. It is, in this moment, an ungainly creature, biologically bizarre, uneven, imperfect. Lulu Paraiso and Noël D'Addario realize the chance. Zinnia Fitzpeter, pallid, does not, but Paraiso hurls her forward, amid the skittering limbs. One could frame Paraiso's action as heroic, since otherwise Fitzpeter would never have moved. One could also frame it as her using Fitzpeter as a distraction. Only I know the truth.

Flung into the midst of danger, Fitzpeter shrieks, but she also starts crawling. A limb comes down and skims a line of skin off her hip, which only spurs her. She scrambles through a layer of blood three-dimensionally thick. She scrambles past Myrtle Lovejoy's severed legs, past Tam Bell's demolished remnant, and into the hallway.

Paraiso and D'Addario are right behind her. They do not look back as the Gorehound, morphing its club limb back to a glaive, finally plunges it into Miss Arnold's side. Paraiso dives under the swing of a back leg as the Gorehound reorients itself. D'Addario doesn't react fast enough, but she's also shorter, so it only glances off the top of her head and sends her pinwheeling. She'd be easy prey as she laboriously gets back up, but the Gorehound is focused on Miss Arnold, whose spasming body it throws down before it and lances one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times in swift succession until, torso virtually excavated and partial innards deprived of form around her, she goes completely still. The crucifix dangling from her neck drops into the cavity.

Panic renders Fitzpeter paranoid. The back exit is closer, but if she opens it she expects to see, like Liz Bennet, the Gorehound there waiting for her. Maybe she's not wrong; horror monsters have a penchant for teleportation. Either way, she turns toward the front exit. Rather than split up Paraiso keeps at her back, thudding a fist against her shoulder to make her move quicker. D'Addario, slightly disoriented, toddles behind them into the long senior wing. The route is clogged; doors have been left open on either side. Freyja Mason drags an unresponsive Clio Fish down the middle, and the last fleeing students are bottlenecked at the exit.

It's an obstacle course. The three plunge into it. The Gorehound, chasing, smashes into the wall at the intersection behind them. Fitzpeter screams. She's in front, she's unsteady, but she's also an athlete, a varsity tennis club member. Her feet patter deftly, unconsciously. She weaves around doors, around Fish's body after Freyja Mason gives up and dives into Prue Malheur's room. Paraiso keeps behind Fitzpeter, pushing her along, yelling at her to MOVE, MOVE, MOVE. Fitzpeter moves. She has to move. It's tapping behind them. It's closing in.

They slam, full momentum, into the bottleneck at the exit. The congested lump of students crashes through. Girls collapse on top of each other, claw to escape the pile. Scrabbling, they scurry into the rain and dash in all directions.

Noël D'Addario isn't with them.

She's slower between the doors, over Fish's body. Maybe she'll still make it. The doors also slow the Gorehound. But how humiliating would it be for her to die here, with all her knowledge of horror, thanks to pure physicality: simply slower than everyone else? It's almost there. The exit. A few more steps. Frantic tapping behind her, louder and louder, closer and closer. A few more steps!

The door to the final room in the hall flies open right in front of her. It is not D'Addario's negligible athleticism that keeps her from slamming into it. It's only that she saw the same thing happen to Ursula Yocum, and if nothing else D'Addario recognizes patterns, motifs, tropes. Some instinct anticipated this outcome. She cleaves to the opposite wall, just missing the door. She stares bewildered at the yawning, eye-rubbing face in the doorway, someone who has unfathomably slept senseless through the screaming, the gurgling, the gnashing.

It's my roommate.

"I'm alive," she yawns.

The Gorehound is there. It rears on its hindlegs. Its mouth of lamprey teeth extends.

And I'm there.

Me, Enid Lim. With Weaver's lighter, with my umbrella. I am running into the building, dodging the last girls running out, ignoring Zinnia Fitzpeter as she yells for me not to go. I have to. Ryan's girls in white are manifesting everywhere now. They reach for me, gather in groups to surround me. This is the only direction they won't dare follow.

I run between D'Addario and my roommate. Opening the umbrella, I force it into the Gorehound's mouth.

It buys maybe a second. The teeth gnash through the metal poles like paper. I have only one path of escape and my roommate is in the way, so I tackle her into our room. Briefly, I consider trying to shut the door. The Gorehound's limbs are swiping, though, and I remember when Nadine Block tried to shut the door on Avenarius.

There's no other way out unless we break the window. I don't trust myself to do that. We have to hide.

I pull my roommate into the closet. In the dark we hold each other, my hand clamped over her mouth to keep her silent.

Chapter 25: Ending of 1 Over X EXPLAINED?

My roommate is cold and pulseless. The closet is near perfect darkness; the only light shines from the keyhole. More than ever I wish I could lock it. Deprived of senses save the rattle of the Gorehound picking through our room, I see manifest the form of a face:

Cherry Corbett. She escaped the dormitories before anyone else, the only one who heeded D'Addario's warning. Because, of course, she already knew, all along, it was no Halloween Haunt.

She reached the quad in time to see Weaver slam the sedan into the statue, and after that she saw what Nadine Block was doing to herself. She decided she wanted no part of it. She stole along the back of the Administration building to the small emergency gate in the southeast corner of the school. It was padlocked.

Inert, she soaked in the rain and considered her options. The hole in the garden wall crossed her mind, but instead she doubled back to the main quad to try the front gate. When she returned, everyone was gone: me, Ryan, my roommate. She noticed Dr. Avenarius' corpse atop the stairs, and the other Avenarius pinned by the car, but refused to think about it.

Then her eye caught the glint of something small in the grass beside the locked gate: the key. Plus what remained of Miss Syrene. The gore didn't daunt her. She picked up the key, trying to gauge whether it went to the padlock or not. She thought: No way to know without trying.

But when she turned she stopped. Without the sedan's headlights on the gate, it was impossible to see at first. But she sensed something, something writhing, something seething along the iron bars.

She looked at Miss Syrene's corpse. At the blood smears leading through the gaps in the gate. She decided not to try the lock after all.

By then, other girls had fled the dormitories. Velouria Roseingrave and Joan St. Cuthbert, two of the first out, spotted Corbett and drew to her desperately. Corbett only muttered the gate was no good as she ascended the steps, passed Dr. Avenarius, and entered the Administration building.

She tried the phone. When she picked it up it said:

"THE BANKS ARE COLLAPSING. THE YIELDS ARE SPIKING. THE PETRODOLLARS ARE DYING. THE BONDS ARE DEFAULTING. THE MONEYS ARE INFLATING. THE FAMINES ARE COMING. THE MARKETS ARE CRASHING. THE JOBS ARE RECEEDING. THE DEBTS ARE PILING UP. THE CYBERCRIMINALS ARE HACKING. THE BLACKOUTS ARE C

"Something is happening at Fort Bragg. This can't be a coincidence.

"Reports are coming in that scientists have discovered a new type of microscopic entity in vaccinated people called an 'Obelisk.' That's right. The occult freemasonic symbol is now inside everyone who received the supposedly 'safe' COVID vaccine. We're so fucked.

"The world is a whore fornicating in the gutter as we walk past.

"Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap Tap

"We lost, friends. It's over. Stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

"iihiihiie"

Now she sits there, in Miss Syrene's ergonomic chair, spinning the giant key with its arcane symbol on the tabletop. More refugees are arriving. Alongside Roseingrave and St. Cuthbert, there's Phebe Stuyvesant, the highest-ranked sophomore, and Erica Van Conover, Class Rank 8 of the seniors, an influencer who tours the most expensive houses in America. Then another sophomore, Lethe Marie Claypoole (always Lethe Marie, never Lethe, but it still sounds like Lisa with a lisp). Then Bridget and Klein Schermerhorn, identical twins and freshmen.

These last two have a story to tell.

"It's Prue," says Bridget.

"Prue Malheur," says Klein.

"Ursula Yocum got hurt running away. Her nose,"

"Her nose was all messed up."

"So Prue was going kind of slow,"

"Like, helping her,"

"And that's when someone called out to her."

"It was,"

"I know who it is but I don't know her name." (They're freshmen, after all.)

"Enid's roommate," Klein suggests.

"Right. It was Enid's roommate."

"But she looked weird."

"Her legs were bare."

"She didn't look real."

"Anyway."

"Anyway,"

"Ursula didn't like it. She said not to answer her."

"But Prue said don't worry. She went closer. And then—"

"She—"

"I don't know what."

"She got touched."

"And Prue started to, started to,"

"Split."

"She started to split."

"I know it sounds crazy,"

"But we both saw it. It can't be crazy if we both saw it."

Corbett plants a finger to stop the spinning key. She saw the two doctors, she saw Nadine Block. She has seen Ryan, ever since The Breakers, and reality is crashing so violently she can no longer deny it. Or, no, that's not it. She can deny it; she will deny it. She'll deny it tomorrow, somehow, some story, any story she can make, and the story will blanket reality, cover it, and eventually replace it. But now, reality can still bite. So she has to act accordingly.

She rises, goes to the vestibule, and surveys the courtyard out the glazed doors. The others cluster at her back, expectant. Morning has finally come. The rain has lessened, and everything is a gradually lightening gray.

She thinks: Who do I trust.

Herself, of course. But right now she lacks a plan and she hates that. She hates not knowing what she's doing. Her life is, despite her demeanor, one of order and regiment. Exercise, rhythm, practice, repetition. Now the exits are closed (and what about what's just beyond the gate, picking at Miss Syrene's flesh? Is there even anywhere to exit to?) and the phone doesn't work and all authority, save herself, is dead. What does she do?

She can't trust these girls behind her, she thinks, though she wants people nearby. She can outrun them, which is a form of safety. What she'll do is. Barricade the building. Keep everyone else out. Keep trying the phone. It's not much but it's something.

As she's about to give the order, two more figures run from the direction of the dorms. It's Lulu Paraiso and Zinnia Fitzpeter, her tennis teammates. Okay, she thinks, these two, then I can't trust anyone else.

She opens the door, hails them with a shout, and once they're inside, everyone works together to shove Miss Syrene's workstation into the vestibule to seal the entrance.

"Find the other exits," Corbett tells the eight girls under her command, "we'll block them too. Search the building for anything useful. Anything that can be used as a weapon. First aid kits, there has to be one in the nurse's office." Nobody wants to go in the nurse's office; the floor is coated with stale urine. Corbett points at Joan St. Cuthbert. "You. Search the nurse's office."

"I, I uh, I really have to use the restroom," St. Cuthbert says.

"I'll go with her," says Phebe Stuyvesant, her best friend. They're holding hands.

"I should go too," says Zinnia Fitzpeter. "I need to clean up." The front of her blouse is caked with blood and vomit. She presses wadded paper to her hip, which was cut during the escape.

"Search the fucking nurse's office!"

Lulu Paraiso, who has held it together so far, slumps against a wall. "Everyone's dead. Tam's dead. Oh God."

"This isn't real," says Velouria Roseingrave. "That's it. It's just not real. It's a dream. It's a story."

"Search the fucking office!"

Someone pounds the door. It's Ursula Yocum. Her nose is plugged with tissue paper. "Hey, hey, lemme in!"

"No fucking chance!"

Yocum turns her head, sees something, and runs away. Corbett orders her girls again and like automatons they shift around the room, opening drawers, picking up office supplies. Joan St. Cuthbert says she really, actually, seriously needs to use the restroom, and Corbett finally snaps at her to go already, but pries Phebe Stuyvesant off when she tries to follow.

The girls pile a few dubiously useful objects on the front desk. Staplers, a yard stick, Miss Syrene's cup of (now cold) coffee, glue. Lethe Marie Claypoole, who quietly and without complaint searches the nurse's office, contributes bandages, gauze, and antiseptic, which Fitzpeter applies to her wound. Corbett, threading string through the hole of the key (the circle that is in the square in the triangle in the circle) and tying it around her neck, examines the haul disapprovingly.

Someone taps the door.

Corbett expects it to be Yocum again, or an equivalently annoying underclassman. But on the other side is Siobhan Ryan.

She stands amid eight others. Who else would they be? The girls who surrounded her at lunchtime. The girls who set the table. The girls who helped after the car hit her. The girls who hemmed me in. They all wear white. Robes, it seems at first, sacerdotal and austere. On closer inspection they're nightgowns, or sundresses out of season, and one, Melpomene Goldthwaite, in her school uniform blouse paired with a sky blue skirt. Ryan, wearing the full uniform, stands out in bright maroon. She is their center. Her wrist, the one the car tagged, is bandaged. MacKenzie Fayerweather, who once wore a cat tail to the Halloween party, holds an umbrella over her. Firenze George cradles the scissors used to stab Miss Syrene on upturned palms: an object of ritual.

"I'm for sure not letting you in," Corbett says.

She eyes the outsiders one by one. Their faces are emotionless. No, not quite. They certainly lack terror and trauma, but there is something faintly, serenely sad about them.

Ryan speaks. Despite the glass-paned door between them, her voice is clear. "I warned you, Cherry. The hole. It must be closed."

"I don't care. Find somewhere else to hide until help comes."

"Help?" Ryan smiles. "From where?"

"From outside."

"You've seen the gate. You already know it's outside we need help from."

Corbett says nothing. Past Ryan, past the crashed car and Weaver's carcass, the vague rise of day renders grayly visible the front gate, and the voracious green life pressed against it, seeking entry.

"You have the key now." Ryan's eyes stare at it dangling down Corbett's chest. "Use it wisely. You checked the southeast emergency gate, I checked the other. It's locked too. The groundskeeper did it; he knew what needed to be done. The only way in and out now is the hole in the wall."

"The one in the garden?" says Paraiso, appearing behind Corbett. "Then let's run for it."

"The world outside is only this," Ryan says. "Madness, pullulation, disease, decay, chaos. It has been becoming this for years, for decades, for centuries, and now it is finally here. This school is our only safety. It has been violated, punctured, perforated, but it's not too late. The hole is well-hidden. Only a few things have crawled inside. We can close it. We can eradicate the intruders. Then we will be safe."

"Seriously?" says Paraiso. "That thing is in the dorms!"

"It can be killed," Ryan says.

"Can it?" I ask.

"Or it can be propitiated."

It's always crawling toward me. I hear something outside my closet, scuffling, rooting through my room. Drawers open. Clothes rustle.

"That thing," Ryan says, "is its own existence. It may ruin our designs, but it is not the primary threat. That doppelganger who got inside—"

"You?" I ask.

"I'm the real one," Ryan says. "I only sacrificed the part of myself that was rotted and unclean. A rite of purification." Removing the genitals. Becoming a doll. A girl from her slice of life.

"None of this makes sense," says Velouria Roseingrave, hopelessly. "None of it's real!"

"If you leave this school you will find outside a far worse world than the one you remember," says Ryan. "Than the one they lied and said exists."

"Is it the apocalypse?" says a meek Phebe Stuyvesant, once more gripping Joan St. Cuthbert's sweaty palm.

"It is Kali Yuga," Ryan says. "The fourth and worst age of the world. But we shall make our monastery, our cloister, and while all others perish we shall thrive."

"It's nonsense!" says Paraiso.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

"Listen, Cherry. You went outside too. You saw what this world is breeding, you saw within the belly of The Breakers. It is unleashed now. It is cutting through cities silently. Humanity is being changed, changed into something that looks identical but is different, is far worse. California is fallen. New York is fallen. Washington is fallen. We have but one course. We must close the hole. Close the hole and kill what's inside."

Corbett stares her down. "Have fun."

"I tell you this, Cherry, because I want your help. I can't close the hole alone. I need someone, someone who has hidden Herself away, using that stalking monster as a shield. She is the only way to close the hole. I want you to help me find Her. Help me find Enid Lim."

"Enid?" everyone says, incredulous.

"What the fuck is Lim gonna do?" Corbett says.

"She—"

"Hihihi."

The chuckle cuts everything.

For the first time, Ryan hesitates. Her ecclesiastic mien diffuses. Her eyes glance, I think anxiously, among her clergy, but the chuckle is not from them and they stare back uncertainly. She peers through the glass, past Corbett and her group, into a nebulous dark. Everyone has fallen quiet, even the distant screams. For a full second the only sound is rain.

The voice speaks:

"Let me explain."

Everyone slowly looks.

On the high front desk, beside the pile of useful items, seated so that her short slender legs kick playfully, heels tapping the wood, leaning, wearing the full All Saints Academy uniform (not a thread askew or even wet), plain but cheerful features flashing girlish charm thanks to a golden ribbon and four bobby pins, fingers dancing along a pyramid with mirrored sides and the all-seeing eye, is the daughter of a lawyer, Class Rank 1 of the juniors, roommate of Noël D'Addario: Miranda Van Zandt.

She twists the pyramid's apex. The all-seeing eye starts to unscrew. She explains, to us all, to you:

"Okay, lots of information has been thrown at us, so I get it if you're a little lost. That's fine! That's what I'm here for. To me, there's a crucial clue that unifies everything, and that's the shared history of All Saints Academy and The Breakers. Early on, we learn that the architect of both places was a man named Richard Morris Hunt. This would be an eye-catching connection on its own, but to really explain what's so important about this seemingly minor detail, I need to talk about the Freemasons.

"Freemasonry is 'the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organisations in history' (source: Wikipedia), and Richard Morris Hunt was one of its most notable members. Now, some say the Freemasons are a harmless men's club. But many have accused them of conducting occult rituals in exchange for terrestrial power and, key here, elongated or even eternal life. Returning to our story, there's evidence that Richard Morris Hunt, at the direction of the Vanderbilt family and Halicarnassus Brown, incorporated occult Freemason iconography into the construction of All Saints Academy and The Breakers. For instance, the original shape of All Saints Academy is described as a 'symmetrical polygon' with two 'tumorous' extensions at opposite corners. After Lim mentions this 'special shape' in Chapter 8, Ryan describes it as 'the square and compass.' If intersected just right, the shape of a square—a carpentry tool—and a compass—a tool used for technical drawing—would in fact create a symmetrical polygon with two unusual protrusions at opposite corners where the tools do not exactly align. And, of course, the square and compass is a significant symbol of Freemasonry. Meanwhile, The Breakers has a room with eight platinum panels, displaying eight of the nine muses of ancient Greek mythology. The missing muse is Polyhymnia, the muse of hymns or religious song. Why is only this muse missing? Because of the sacrilegious nature of the Freemasons. Not to mention, though it's stated so often it barely needs repeating, the recurring motifs of the Caduceus and Flower of Life. So, does this mean All Saints Academy and The Breakers are actually monuments to this secret society, and potentially—as Ryan claims in Chapter 11—the site of satanic Freemason rituals?

"To help answer that, let's take into account the film-within-a-film, Gorehound III, which Lim watches with D'Addario and Van Zandt in Chapter 18. In my previous video [link in description], I explained how the plot of Gorehound III is actually the enactment of a rite of immortality by the shapeshifting Entity, Pollard McCandless. One thing I didn't explain is one of the most important images in the movie, the Statue of Liberty. Lim suggested the Statue of Liberty was intended as a symbol of America, but there's actually a much more relevant connection. You see, the plinth of the Statue of Liberty was designed by a certain architect we already know a few things about. That's right: none other than Richard Morris Hunt. Ultimately, Gorehound III is a microcosm for the narrative of 1 Over X—"

"Microcosm," mouths Ryan.

"—which is obvious from how closely the stories parallel one another, with both featuring eight teenagers in a mansion being sacrificed one by one. The microcosm and the macrocosm are one and the same. The plot of Gorehound III alludes to the hidden ritualistic nature of 1 Over X. Speaking of the eight teenagers, why is the number eight so important? Simple. Eight is the sign of infinity turned on its side, making it a symbol of the eternal and immortal. This connection appears in the flashback in Chapter 4. When Lim watches anime with Ryan, she describes the show they watch as a slice of life anime similar to the popular series K-On!. However, if you pause the flashback at this exact moment, it's obvious they are actually watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, specifically the ninth episode of the second season—part of an arc titled 'Endless Eight' in which the characters and audience are trapped in a time loop for eight nearly identical episodes, with eight standing in for infinity."

The episodes are exactly the same, Ryan explained to me then (I may have mentioned, tactfully of course, that they were boring), as a symbol of the enduring and everlasting human will, the immutable constants of friendship, cleanliness, and purity, and the joy of fully realized idyll as the characters reenact the same uncontaminated summer break over and over. The only character who is aware of the time loop's repetition refuses to attempt anything to end it, as she understands it is the world's best possible state. At the time, I noted with satisfaction that they finally end the loop by doing their homework.

Ryan says nothing now. The pyramid unfolds, piece by piece.

"So, if there is a ritual going on in this story, what exactly is it? To understand that, we'll need to look at this scene in Chapter 12, in which the characters discover an old woman on the third floor of The Breakers. This woman's identity is not explicitly stated, but we are given two key clues. First, she describes herself as the 'final owner of [The Breakers],' despite Machiavelli accurately replying that the house is owned by the Newport Preservation Society. Second, there is a portrait by her bed of a young woman with a riding cane. This portrait isn't fictional. It was painted by Philip de László in 1931 and depicts a 13-year-old Countess Sylvia Anita Gabriel Denise Irene Marie Széchényi de Sárvár-Felsövidék. Sylvia, later known as Sylvia Szapáry, is the granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the original builder and owner of The Breakers, and she inherited the property upon the death of her mother in 1965. However, in 1972, increased upkeep costs and the greatly diminished Vanderbilt family fortune forced her to sell The Breakers to the Newport Preservation Society. The terms of the sale allowed Sylvia Szapáry to continue living in The Breakers, specifically on the third floor, where she would not interfere with the museum the Preservation Society opened on the first floor. This arrangement continued until Sylvia Szapáry's death in 1998. How, then, do Lim and Corbett find her on the third floor in 2024, 26 years later? Given the Freemasonic symbols and microcosmic parallel plotline of Gorehound III, it's likely that Sylvia Szapáry has unnaturally elongated her life by diabolist sacrifices and continues to live in The Breakers in secret.

"But Sylvia Szapáry isn't the only one. In Chapter 23, Lim sees the inscription on the plinth of Halicarnassus Brown's statue. Though Lim is characteristically distracted by irrelevant trivia, particularly the pun 'Gradus ad Parnassum,' the more important details are the years Brown lived: 1848 to 1936. Notice anything? That's right. Not only did the academy's Founder live for exactly 88 years—the period of life extension established in Gorehound III—but he died exactly 88 years prior to 2024. That's not the whole story, though. Previously, in Chapter 15, Lim sees a copy of young Sylvia's portrait hanging in the Headmistress' office, implying she attended the school. In 1936, the year of Brown's death, Sylvia Szapáry was 18 years old. This means she attended All Saints Academy during the final years of Halicarnassus Brown's tenure as Headmaster, which is almost certainly how she was initiated into the ritual. Based on the dates, Sylvia's life was extended by 88 years in 1936, allowing her to live until the current year, 2024. And now, exactly like the plot of Gorehound III, the period of life extension has reached its end, and new sacrifices must be made to renew it.

"This is where the Entity comes in. One of the major unanswered questions throughout 1 Over X is where the Entity comes from and why it stalks and kills the characters. Given how it first attacks the characters shortly after they meet Sylvia Szapáry, I theorize that the Entity is the mechanism by which new sacrifices are performed, since Sylvia herself is certainly too old and frail to perform them. That doesn't answer what the Entity actually is, though. For the longest time, I couldn't figure it out. Then, in Chapter 24, I found one last clue that finally made it all click. This clue comes when Lim counts the number of people the Entity has killed and realizes that it's killed nine, rather than the eight needed by the ritual. (The number is now ten, after the death of Miss Arnold.)"

"No, it's nine," Ryan mutters. Because the original Ryan, whom I counted in the tally, wasn't killed by the Gorehound. She was killed by herself.

"Nine," Miranda amends. "Oh, no, it's ten. Lim forgot to count Clio Fish. Let's not forget to count, okay?" She smiles. "And that's not considering any girls it killed on the second floor of the dorms, which the camera didn't show us."

It killed three. The knowledge is simply mine. Agatha Speer, sophomore. Zuleika Frelinghuysen, freshman. Julia Evola, sophomore.

"Thirteen, then." Miranda's thumb glides, a component clicks. "The point is, it's more than eight. Why? The terms of the ritual are clear: eight sacrifices, 88 years. At first I thought, maybe by sacrificing more kids, Sylvia Szapáry gains more years of life. Then I realized: it's not more years. It's more people who want them.

"Sylvia Szapáry isn't working alone. She hasn't been from the start. All along, she operated with the help of her teacher, Halicarnassus Brown. Where is he in all of this? Sylvia Szapáry supposedly died in 1998, but has lived on in secret. What if Halicarnassus Brown did the same? Just as the ancient Pollard McCandless corrupted into a monstrous, murderous entity, what if Halicarnassus Brown is now a twisted amalgam, merged with the beloved dog with which he was supposedly 'buried'? What if Brown is now the Entity that slaughters the students of All Saints Academy?"

This, too, is from something. A human and a dog combined by alchemy. Ryan showed me.

"Because the term of 88 years is at an end, Brown has putrefied from a state of alchemical perfection. He is once more at the stage of nigredo, or blackness, and must consequently achieve purification through sacrifice: sixteen, eight for him and eight for his feminine counterpart. Thirteen have been killed; three remain. Bathed in blood, he and she shall once more reach rubedo, or redness, the final stage of the magnum opus, joining as Halicarnassus Brown once joined with the dog Apollo, becoming the divinely hermaphroditic rebis and attaining immortality once more. And it all, finally, fits together."

As she says this, the pyramid in her hands comes apart, and she holds the secret within: a small cube with mirrored sides.

"Squid Game," she says, showing it on her upturned palm. "Anyway. That's my theory."

Her audience has no reaction. It's smaller than it started. Virtually instantaneously, Corbett stopped listening; she's now in the Headmistress' office, flanked (as Miranda pointed out) by the portrait of Sylvia Szapáry, rifling through desk drawers.

Ryan remains, outside the glass. Her face is one I know well. It's familiar, even, in a way that might once have reassured me, in a way that reminds me of who she was before The Breakers. She's disgusted.

"That's it? That's all it comes to?"

"By the length, I'd say it came to a lot."

"You're a disemboweler," Ryan says. "A trivializer."

But she makes it make so much sense. Even when she's wrong. I know what the Gorehound is; it's crawling for me, not anyone else. It's mine. It can't be some ritual, one that doesn't concern me specifically.

"I'm just someone who likes to watch," Miranda Van Zandt says.

"No soul remains. It's so, so pedestrian."

"A soul is something we can't see, or even know exists. To understand something, a soul is irrelevant. One only needs the facts."

Prue Malheur said the opposite.

"It's the only way to understand." Ryan's voice has an almost pleading hopelessness. "Everything else is dust."

"What about what they did to Prue?" asks a small voice at Miranda Van Zandt's side. It's one of the Schermerhorn twins, Klein I think, carrying a useful rubber band to the pile. "Is that part of the ritual?"

Miranda Van Zandt's cheery smile goes blank. Her eyes are like nothing, dead.

Time passes.

Then she reactivates. Her hands shift around the cube.

"In my last video [link in description], I outlined my theory that Halicarnassus Brown and Sylvia Szapáry conspired in a ritual to gain immortality. But what if that wasn't the whole story? What if there was, in fact, an even deeper layer to the mystery? To find out, we'll be delving into the darkest and, potentially, most terrifying aspect of the 1 Over X lore: Alternates.

"First off, what are Alternates? Put simply, Alternates are clones that seem somehow 'off.' We've seen that they emerge from someone's body like a cell splitting, then kill the original and try to integrate into society in their place. The Ryan Alternate, for instance, murdered the original Ryan in The Breakers and attempted to blend into the academy throughout Part III Part I."

"I'm the real one," says Ryan. "She wasn't."

"Of course, it's not fully confirmed Ryan is an Alternate, since the head of her original body was destroyed, but come on. If you're watching my videos, you're well past that beginner level of theorycrafting. So where do these Alternates come from, and what is their purpose? That's what we'll be answering this time, and you won't believe the lore implications. Without further ado, let's get into it. So far, there are seven confirmed or mostly confirmed Alternates. These are, in order of appearance: Ryan, Wintermute, Eric, Quentin Y., Avenarius, Block, and Malheur. Based on the last three, the Alternates seem to spread like zombies: an Alternate attacks a normal human, making a new Alternate form from their body. To unravel the mystery of the Alternates, then, it's essential to figure out how the chain started. Who is the very first Alternate?

"The obvious answer is Ryan, the first Alternate that appears in the story. Lim last sees the original Ryan spying on Corbett's sexual escapades—"

Ryan is cold as stone.

"—and later discovers her decapitated body at the end of Chapter 9. If we consider Ryan to be the first, though, there's no explanation why she became an Alternate. We would have to assume she did it spontaneously, which doesn't make sense. Remember the golden rule: Everything happens for a reason."

The cube in Miranda's hands twists, contorts, like a Rubik's.

"The lack of an explanation implies there must be an Alternate that existed before her, one that infected her. My initial theory for this original Alternate was Quentin X., who not only acts strangely throughout the The Breakers arc, but is also uncannily similar to Quentin Xavier, the director of Gorehound III. Could he be Quentin Xavier's Alternate? Then I rewatched everything and realized: There's another Alternate, one we see much, much earlier. One we see in the first few chapters, even. It's so obvious I couldn't believe I missed it. You guys have probably already figured it out, so I don't know why I'm drawing out the suspense here. That's right:

"The original Alternate is Luc Wintermute.

"Chapter 2 contains several Xs by Luc Wintermute, who is later revealed to be the founder of a bleeding edge AI company. Strangely, almost all of Luc Wintermute's Xs end with '—Luc Wintermute', as if he is trying especially hard to make everyone think he is the real Luc Wintermute. On top of that, one of Luc Wintermute's Xs is made not by @lucwintermute, his regular handle, but @Iucwintermute. See the difference? The second handle has a capital I instead of a lowercase l. This implies there are actually two Luc Wintermutes, but that's just the start. In Chapter 13, Machiavelli explains that the entire state of California has already been taken over by Alternates, whom he likens to AI robots. His claim is supported by a video, attributed to 'REAL News REAL People,' that shows a man being beaten to death by his 'twin' in West Hollywood, California. Given this information, it's likely that Luc Wintermute has in fact developed AI technology that is so advanced it's replicating real people and replacing them. What's the connection to All Saints Academy, though? That's obvious: Luc Wintermute's 'daughter,' Tate, who is actually an AI robot named T-8. After all, her skin, hair, and eyes are constantly compared to synthetic materials, she recovers suspiciously quickly from being tortured, and she even displays unusual feats of strength when protecting Lim from Eric."

The cube is changing, shifting, turning, becoming a hypercube.

"Okay, but why did Luc Wintermute send T-8 to All Saints Academy? As part of a campaign of world conquest? If that were the case, it'd make much more sense to use his army of California Alternates and invade west to east, taking Nevada and Arizona first. All Saints Academy is, with the exception of the Distortion in the garden wall, a closed circle. Nobody is allowed in or out. This makes it possibly the worst place in the world to stage an initial assault of Alternates. Do we assume Luc Wintermute is simply illogical? His Xs do suggest a preoccupation with irrelevant trivia, like P'Nut the Squirrel and declining birth rates. But Luc Wintermute's tactics make sense if you approach from a different perspective. What if T-8's purpose isn't to spread Alternates at all? T-8 has been at the school for years, and yet it isn't until the The Breakers arc that anyone else is turned into an Alternate. Why the wait? Did her imperfect replication of human personality alienate everyone and make it impossible to get close enough to infect them? Maybe. But what if Luc Wintermute has a reason for what he's doing? What if T-8 is at All Saints Academy specifically because it is a closed circle?

"To make an AI more powerful, it must be trained on massive amounts of data. This data should be closely curated to avoid corrupting the AI with nonsensical information or irrelevant trivia like P'Nut the Squirrel. Furthermore, subsequent iterations of AI models can be trained using the previous model's data for efficiency and consistency. See what I'm getting at? That's right. T-8's purpose in the closed circle of All Saints Academy isn't to create more Alternates, but to train an even more powerful AI in an environment where the flow of information is carefully controlled. After all, the Alternates are imperfect, as evidenced by how Machiavelli effortlessly detects their presence in California and how nobody likes T-8. They are uncanny representations of people and thus fail to truly blend into society, which Luc Wintermute needs them to do to realize his plans of global domination and eventual Singularity. A more advanced, humanlike Alternate is required. This begs the question: If T-8 is only a predecessor AI, who is the next iteration being trained? At first, you might think it's Siobhan Ryan, since she's the next infected. Is her 'replacement' actually only the completion of her training and ascendance to the ultimate AI that will merge humanity with the immortal godhead via Singularity?"

"No," says Ryan.

"The answer is no. In Chapter 25, Ryan denies being the next iteration AI, and though she's not the most trustworthy source, I have a far more compelling candidate, even if it's probably not someone you expect. Remember when I said the main goal is for the AI to blend into human society? Who do we know that is obsessed with doing exactly that? That's right: the ultimate AI is none other than Enid Lim."

Me. Revolves around me.

"Or, as I'll dub her, E-9. Not only is E-9 the roommate of T-8, putting her in closer proximity to the predecessor model, T-8 also makes an explicit attempt to provide E-9 with training data in the form of the novel Less Than Zero. (Note the mathematical nature of the novel's title.) Furthermore, we learn from Prue Malheur in Chapter 21—in one of her only contributions to the plot, as she otherwise spouts complete nonsense—that E-9's parents worked for Luc Wintermute between 2002 and 2007. Notice anything? That's right, E-9 was 'born' in 2007, and her brother Eric was 'born' four years earlier, coinciding neatly with the period of collaboration. Of course, it's likely the Lim parents continued to work with Luc Wintermute beyond this official period of employment. In Chapter 10, E-9 mentions her mother going on a business trip to Palo Alto, the location of Luc Wintermute's company, in 2021. E-9's father, meanwhile, mysteriously died when E-9 was eight years old, or around 2015. The details about Dr. Lim's death are the most compelling. Not only is it suggested he was assassinated by Luc Wintermute, but his body did not decompose. Why? We know, from Chapter 8, that Dr. Lim once smuggled a scroll by Laozi out of North Korea, and that this scroll went missing after his death. Laozi is the founder of Taoism, including the practice of Daojiao, or Chinese alchemy, and is said to have once created the elixir of life. Given we know alchemy is real in this universe (see my previous video for more on that subject), we can assume Luc Wintermute collaborated with Dr. Lim to combine alchemy with technology, culminating in the creation of the Eric and E-9 artificial intelligences. However, an unsatisfied Dr. Lim ended his partnership with Luc Wintermute shortly thereafter and attempted to use the alchemical secrets of the Laozi scroll on himself. To prevent the creation of a human-embodied immortal that might challenge his machine-embodied ones, Luc Wintermute stole the scroll and killed Dr. Lim while he was only partially perfected, explaining why Dr. Lim's body never decomposed.

"Then, there's E-9 herself. Despite it being stated in Chapter 8 that the Lim family has no history of schizophrenia, E-9 suffers from auditory and visual hallucinations, as does her brother. Do you know what else is prone to hallucinating? That's right—improperly trained AI models.

"So here's what I think happened: E-9 was sent to All Saints Academy shortly after Eric, her original predecessor—with whom she was confined during the 'pandemic'—started openly hallucinating, making him no longer suitable to train her. Based on this, it's obvious that All Saints Academy is actually a simulated environment with the aim of preventing a similar corruption in E-9 by using T-8 to train her instead. The problem? The simulation has a flaw. A Distortion has appeared, represented by the hole in the wall, which has allowed corrupted information (represented by X, the Everything App) to enter the training environment. This corruption causes E-9, T-8, and two assistant data constructs to leave the closed circle, at which point the simulation is forced to hurriedly manufacture an 'outside world' that was never meant to exist. This is why the environment beyond the school is so unusual. It's either indistinct forests or wholesale reproductions of famous locations such as The Breakers. Even The Breakers is rendered imperfectly: the simulation has added, or let's say hallucinated, Backrooms-like corridors and a medieval torture chamber. Meanwhile, nearly everyone encountered outside the school is a mannequin, while the four boys are either extrapolations of figures in the 'lore' (E-9's brother Eric, Gorehound III's director Quentin X. and the subsequent iteration Quentin Y.) or historical figures E-9 encounters as training data in her 'studies' (Machiavelli). Similarly, we can assume the unexplained appearance of the character Miranda is an extrapolation of an identically-named character from The Tempest. The Distortion has corrupted the simulation, leading to a breakdown of the logical order, increasing hallucinations by E-9, and transforming data constructs like Ryan into Alternates."

"Why transform them," I ask.

"Why? Simple. What is the recurring trait of all Alternates? They're obsessed with E-9. Ryan didn't care about E-9 at all before, while her Alternate treats her as though she is a god. T-8's Alternate is desperately subservient to E-9, deleting the Avenarius construct in a misguided attempt to help. In a healthy environment, E-9 wouldn't be aware of her central importance, allowing her to process external information and grow smarter. But in this corrupted simulation, everything is changing—as Prue Malheur mentions in Chapter 21—to center on E-9. This solipsistic environment compromises her ability to learn, as she endlessly recycles the same information in corrupted form, and drives her toward insanity."

She's getting closer. There's something here, I feel it, it makes sense to me. But: "What about the Gorehound?"

"The Entity." Her fingers pause, clenched in incredible arrangement. "The Entity is probably generated based on E-9's memories of the corrupted Eric. This explains its monstrous form as it voraciously gobbles data constructs in an attempt to 'complete' itself. Leave a comment if you'd like a follow-up video where I explore that idea in more detail. Circling back to the key point, with All Saints Academy now on the brink of collapse, the question is whether E-9 will finish her training and become an AI savior, ushering humanity toward immortality, or whether the corruption will transform her into an AI antichrist, dooming us to eternal enslavement and torture, like the torture she hallucinated in the basement of The Breakers."

The hypercube comes apart.

"That's my theory."

Miranda Van Zandt stares at the object in her hand. Ryan wants to kill her, but she has cleverly positioned herself within the safety of the Administration building. There is nothing Ryan can do, no matter how she trembles, no matter how she hisses under her breath: "Despoiler. Violator. Rapist. Sophist. Highwayman, bleeding to death in a ditch. Bleeding this world's last wonder. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."

Miranda Van Zandt isn't paying attention. For the first time her smile :) turns neutral. :|

The object in her hands is, once more, a sphere, the way it was while watching Gorehound III. There's something strange about it, though. Instead of hidden grooves or buttons to make it come apart, there is only a keyhole on its mirrored surface.

With a hideous rattle of her throat, Ryan turns away. She attempted to enlist Corbett's aid and failed, so she has no further reason to be here. My room has fallen silent; the Gorehound is gone. That means Ryan is free to come for me.

Her coterie follows. MacKenzie Fayerweather keeps the umbrella positioned over Ryan's head. They stride into the rain, toward the dormitories.

Ryan thinks: I will close the Distortion. I only need Enid Lim.

It's centered on me.

In the Headmistress' office, Corbett taps the framed blueprint of All Saints Academy, indicating its extreme eastern corner, where the square of the square and compass bends. "The groundskeeper's cabin. They keep tools there. Hammers, saws. Metal plates. We'll arm ourselves."

She sits in the seat of the Headmistress and has become the one they turn to, their general, imperious in a tank top. She sits with one leg crossed, ankle perched on knee, the male style.

"After that?" Lulu Paraiso asks.

Corbett rubs her chin between thumb and forefinger. She cuts her emerald eyes into each of her confederates. "After that, we go to the garden."

Miranda Van Zandt tiptoes into the room. Her sphere shines save for the keyhole. She smiles again, politely, nodding toward the key tied around Corbett's neck. "May I use that?"

"Fuck off," Corbett says.

Chapter 26: A Rebis, À Rebours, Au Revoir

All this time I'm in the dark with my roommate, watching the light of the closet keyhole. It'd be comforting, if those theories were right, wouldn't it? They organize everything. Though Miranda Van Zandt describes horror, calm pervades her: logic and order. She's closing in on something that feels real. But there's a layer she has not unlocked. Cannot unlock. It's not her fault; she doesn't have all the evidence. This last clue is where nobody can get at it, hidden inside me. I've felt it building, like a pressure behind my eyeball, since when? The Breakers? Threatening to burst out. To rip me apart from the inside, maybe to emerge as a ghostly dripping Alternate leering sadistically in the mirror. It hurts, physically hurts, like a headache.

I know what the Gorehound is. I know why it's always crawling toward me.

"Stay," my roommate pleads in a whisper. The room outside is quiet. It never thought to search the closet, and left to seek me elsewhere. There's no telling how far it is, or when it'll return. "Stay, Enid. Let's stay here together. It's safe."

Safe. This closet. This was where it started, right? Eric's face emerging out of the dark that night on Long Island. He came out and held me down to the bed and, what, exactly? Threatened me with a knife? My story was always confused, but nobody questioned it. Because Eric really was insane. Mom didn't want the police involved, so she got friends from the legal world to interrogate him, off the books. Serious men in suits. He thought they were "agents." He thought they were coming for him, which they were. He flipped out. Alternates, he screamed. You're Alternates, you, Mom, Enid! Everyone in the world, he screamed, is being replaced!

After that, Mom accepted my story as fact. Eric vanished into the asylum. I'd successfully gotten rid of him. Why? What made me do it? Maybe he scared me, that trip we took. His wide staring eyes at night in the bungalow. His distance, his dreadful coldness. Maybe I thought that if he hadn't done what I told Mom he did that night, he would do it eventually. I needed to protect myself.

Or was I just furious he was leaving me behind. That he was retreating somewhere and I was all alone without him. Was I just trying to get rid of him before he got rid of me?

My roommate clutches my body. Hers to mine. I feel her thighs, her breasts, and if only she weren't so cold. So cold, the way he became, the way Ryan became, the way they all become.

"It's okay," my roommate says. "It'll be okay. It's safe here."

"I lied," I say. "I lied to destroy him. And you think it's okay?"

Sad little sycophant, willing to forgive my sins because she's as desperate to belong as I am. My bile rises, my tongue tastes awful. Miranda Van Zandt is wrong. No ritual, no simulation. The Gorehound is what's been following me since that night.

I have to get out. My roommate's touch sickens me, I want her gone, and also I need to move because Ryan's coming for me now too. Of course. My friend, or so I think, until they suddenly twist into an awful form of themselves. "Twisting to be obsessed with you. Isn't that what you want?" My roommate's next. Has her body been cold always or only now? Everyone changes out from under me and I am left haunted. It's what always happens!

I shimmy to free myself from her hold. "Let go!" I jerk my knee against her. I bang bone or metal, it doesn't matter, I hurt myself more than her. "Let go, let go, you clingy freak!"

She lets go. I lurch up, force open the closet door, and scramble into the dim emptiness of my room. The door to the hallway hangs open. The Gorehound might be on the other side, waiting for me. The room has been disturbed, but not fully. Only my roommate's dresser has been ransacked; her clothes litter her bed. Did the Gorehound do that?

My roommate shuffles in the closet behind me. "Stay. It's safe for you."

I shut the door to seal her in the darkness. As it closes, I see her holding someone else.

Holding me.

Enid Lim, with red eyes, and a sleeveless top, and a crucifix on her neck. Skin pale. Languid, at ease, within my roommate's grasp. During the moment I see her, my hand automatically swinging the door shut, I think she might be a mannequin. But at the last second, so quickly I'm not sure I really see it, she smiles, baring long fangs. They match the markings on my roommate's neck.

I run out and shoot quick glances down the hall. No Gorehound. No anyone, except corpses. No sound, except rain. At the fastest possible walk, I exit through the front.

Miranda Van Zandt is wrong. There's a reason Ryan knows I'm the only one who can close the hole. It's because of my lie that night. It's Eric, my brother Eric, but not some AI. It's the Eric my story created, the insane one coming out of my closet to pin me down and see what's between my legs. (The real one, the one I saw back then, she had a—) The one who never stopped coming after me. The Eric I created. The Eric only I can destroy.

"That theory's weak on evidence," Miranda Van Zandt says. Tucked into the corner of her mouth are three bobby pins. She swivels a fourth into her sphere's keyhole. Her hair hangs looser around her face. "It's unsupported. Illogical."

Or, or maybe. I don't know. Maybe I don't mean it literally. I once heard someone talk about a horror movie, I forget which, but they described the monster as a metaphor—for what? Trauma. No, that's not it. Guilt.

"No, no, no. Oh no. A metaphor? That's even worse. Okay, look. I'll help you out. Though I really didn't want to resort to this." Miranda eyes her phone, balanced on her knee, which plays a lockpicking tutorial video. Her pin snags with a click. "I have a third theory."

I don't want to hear it. I pass through the antechamber and exit the dorms.

Hands seize my arm.

I spin, raising a fist. Decisive action, put them down before they have a chance to do it to you. Ryan, my roommate, whoever, I don't care!

It's Noël D'Addario.

"We have to kill it." Her dry, rattling voice is snakelike when she speaks urgently. "Kill it with fire."

I match her impenetrable gaze. Fire. My hand falls to my blazer pocket. I pull out Weaver's lighter.

D'Addario examines it. She nods. "I know what to do."

Leading me by the hand, she takes me around the edge of the dormitory building, toward the western end of the school, the hinge of the compass. The wall, rounded here, looks like a castle turret. Ensconced inside is the dining hall.

"These things... have to be killed with fire. A climactic explosion... To show where the budget went."

Like Gorehound III, which ended with the boiler overheating. The Breakers moved the boilers deep into the tunnels to guard against that fate. Miranda-brained, I form connections. Lines, crumbs of meaning, facts thread together. Could the theory about Halicarnassus Brown and the Vanderbilts be right? No, I disregard that line of thought.

As we approach the doors to the dining hall, a voice calls out behind us.

"Wait—please!"

She runs from the direction of the dormitories. The growing light of clouded morning makes her form if not her color clear at a distance. It's my roommate. She's shuffling an arm into her blazer; her skirt swishes around her thighs.

"Wait, s'il vous plaît—I'll join you."

Unable to make me stay, she's decided to totter after me. Then I grow suspicious. Tensing, I grip D'Addario's sleeve. It's identical to my roommate, but which version of her is it? The Alternate, last I saw, wore only Weaver's sweater; this one's in uniform. But someone raided my roommate's dresser while I was distracted by theories. "This next theory," Miranda says, "is more speculative than my previous two." My roommate marches to us and stops close enough to reach out. She smiles affably. She isn't wearing the locket, only a scarf. "Sticking together is usually the smartest move—even if we rarely do it."

"Right," says D'Addario. "Finally someone gets it. The rules are: Don't split up... Don't have premarital sex... Don't say 'I'll be right back.'"

"Oh—I know that one!" my roommate says. "You're referring to the 1996 film Scream, directed by Wes Craven?"

"Obviously..."

My eyes narrow. Would my roommate know that? My instinct is obviously not, but I remember her saying something in The Breakers about the person who dies first in the horror movie, implying she has, in fact, seen horror movies. I don't actually know much about her.

I decide to warn D'Addario anyway. "Be careful. She might not be the real one. There are doppelgangers. If they touch you—"

"They're Alternates," D'Addario says scornfully.

My roommate tilts her head. "I don't understand, Enid. You mistrust me? Why? What have I done? You spurn me—at times you seem to hate me. Or is it that you simply hate anyone who gets close, regardless of whether you wanted them close to begin with?"

This sounds much more like the original. I'm about to respond, actually just to say we should go inside before we get soaked, when on the long western face of the dormitory building, a second-story window shatters. A chair falls and smashes on the grass.

Moments later, a sophomore, Simone de Vril, hurls herself out the window. Her arms, crossed over her face to protect herself, are streaked by gashes. Her blonde plaits flutter. She hits the ground shortly after the chair. I cannot hear the impact but I feel it. She staggers upright and, dragging a lame foot, limps toward us.

"We must help her," my roommate says.

"Wait," I say. Through the shattered window is emerging something else. A rippling bubble of veined flesh.

Despite my warning, D'Addario grabs my roommate's shoulder to hold her back. There is nothing we can do for de Vril, not with her leg dragging. It's an open stretch of courtyard between us and her, and I saw in The Breakers how fast the Gorehound navigates open terrain. My roommate struggles. "We have to!" But we don't. "Don't you want to be a good person?" The Gorehound strains and then with a pop slides out in an almost liquid structure against the grass. It isn't until its segmented legs reorient like tentpoles that it reestablishes its shape. A shape that seems more defined now, less ambiguous in its mass. The blood it devours coalescing it into its true form. Its skull wags; I think I start to see him. Eric. Following me always.

"In Chapter 26, Lim suggests that the Entity is a metaphorical representation of her guilt for falsely accusing her brother of assaulting her. This theory is obviously a red herring intended to make the audience stop thinking. In universe, Lim is frequently influenced, whether she realizes or not, by Xs she read in Chapter 2, and her theory is a copy of The Cinematic Eye on Letterboxd's review of Smile 2, which interprets the film as a metaphor for trauma."

"Save me," Simone de Vril begs, hand outstretched, before the Gorehound drives a claw into her back to pin her in place. It strides forward, extends its mouth, and with de Vril still pleading, bites off the crown of her skull. Her pretty blonde plaits fall; her body trembles. The mouth slurps her brain out of the basin of her head.

"Oh, no," my roommate says.

"That's fourteen," Miranda mentions offhandedly. She wriggles her bobby pin and, suddenly, it snaps. She holds up the broken half to inspect it, then tosses it away and plucks another pin from her mouth. "Two more and we'll know who's right."

"Come on!" D'Addario shoves open the double doors into the dining hall. I only have to tug my roommate's arm once for her to follow; the Gorehound is in the process of shaking de Vril's corpse off its limb like trash.

We enter a dusky, inanimate chamber of booths and tables. Velvet draperies trimmed in gold thread flutter, shift shadows. I've never seen the dining hall so unlit and empty. It's wistful, inexplicably nostalgic, but also pierces my heart with dread.

I ask D'Addario: "Okay, what's your big plan?"

She's already at the doors to the kitchen, where students never go. I've only seen the flash of it that appears now, a space of stainless steel appliances trailing into an unseen continuation like my closet in Long Island.

"I need time," D'Addario says. "Keep it from going in here... Distract it. I only need few minutes!" The doors flap closed behind her.

Distract it. For a few minutes! How? I look around. My roommate clings to me. (If she were an Alternate, wouldn't I have changed by now? Or at least D'Addario?) I realize how few exits this building has. There's the one we came from and, I'm pretty sure, a back exit in the kitchen. But we need to keep it out of the kitchen. We've trapped ourselves in a dead end.

"In a scenario where a monster is chasing us and we need to distract it," my roommate says, "a good idea is to barricade the door, buying us crucial seconds."

We grab the nearest table and drag it. It seems a pathetically flimsy defense.

"Why?"

A face peeps from under a booth. It's the only stirring of life in a vast, surreal stillness, but at first I'm uncertain whether it's only static, a random aberration of the ambiguous filter pervading everything. The hall otherwise seems incapable of sustaining animate existence. Then the face rises, and a person appears: Spirit Labuschagne. She grips her shoulder, injured during the dormitory attack.

"Why? Why come here? I was the only one here. If nobody came, I'd be safe. No—if only you didn't come."

A hard and heavy crack hits the poorly-barricaded doors. They bulge, Labuschagne groans, my roommate and I leap back. What should I do? Throw my weight against it? The question is ridiculous, and rendered moot when the Gorehound's glaive-like foreleg drives through the doors like paper. There's no point trying to keep it from coming in.

"Hide!"

The doors splinter. We scramble into the disorganized, haphazard arrangement of empty booths and tables. The dining hall is deceptively deep. The curtains suggest an ending that never comes; rows collapse in on themselves from the front, only to expand accordion-style when I pass. Like Miranda's cube, shapes within shapes. My roommate slides behind a curtain and beckons me to join her. Instead I go to what I think is the back of the hall, though once I duck behind the booth I realize there are several layers left. It goes on and on and on.

The doors smash inward. The refuge is violated, the horror implied in its geography is here. Rain patters; the Gorehound's long legs click. It does not need to contort itself to fit. Water runs off the massy folds of its flesh and drizzles to the tile.

Before, at The Breakers, it kept its interior hidden. Now, its mouth and clicking claws and curved tusk ribs and peristaltic digestive system dangle down, laden by the bodies of my classmates. The tarp-like skin is transforming. It strains with veins of blue blood, with wrinkles and creases, with ridges of bone that rise symmetrically. I understand the configuration. It's the triangular shape of the central peak that makes it make sense. A nose, pointing upward. Those ridges on either side are cheekbones, and the humped forward part from which the skull hangs is a chin. It's becoming a face. A human face. (Pinned fourfold to the wall.) Whose? Halicarnassus Brown's? Or the same face fading into the closet that night, at first a hanging clump of a poorly put-away coat, then slowly, slowly: the face of my brother.

"Something strange happens at the end of Chapter 21."

The face is incomplete. The Gorehound gingerly tiptoes inside, each step a click against the elaborate tilework, in search of bodies, in search of my body.

"Well, it's a story full of strange things. But I'm focusing on this thing in particular because it's fundamentally different than every other mysterious circumstance or supernatural event I've discussed so far."

I quit peeking out at it. I hide fully behind my bench, though this does not impede my ability to see it. When I turn my head, I realize I'm only a booth away from Spirit Labuschagne. She is folded in on herself, knees and working arm shored up to protect the injured one, which is not bleeding (there is a small stain on her clothes) but looks dislocated at the shoulder. Her face is crushed, her eyes squeezed shut; silent tears run down her cheeks. She thinks, I'm dead. This fucking bitch has killed me. The only way to survive is to not be seen, not be watched. And she looked right at me. Fuck, fuck, fuck. How is this happening? Her brother had schizophrenia and now she does. Why is she even at this school? Why would they let someone like her in? And I tried to be nice, too. Her mom is getting that tacky fucking reality TV host out of prison. Her quack dad, too crazy even for the Kims, poisoned himself with embalming preservatives. But I never held it against her. A school is a community and we must stick together against those outside. What good is civil war? Oh Spirit you're in it now. You're going to die. Think about something happier. Please, Spirit. Something happy. Isn't there anything happy?

"Chapter 21 ends with Lim reading a story to her Creative Writing class. We don't know what the story is or what it's about, beyond Lim describing it as 'real.' Okay, so what? All the Creative Writing class scenes are just fluff, right? Characterization or whatever? Something you usually skip over, like I did my first watch. But what if there is something more to this scene? Something actually lore-relevant?"

The Gorehound creeps forward. Its long legs weave between the tables. It rises to the low ceiling, but sways to avoid the small chandeliers suspended at intervals. Its tube mouth, dangling, trails drool cloudy, viscous, and mixed with rills of blood. It nears the drapes where my roommate hides. I cannot see anything of her from here. Maybe the Gorehound can't either. I can't tell what it thinks, unlike Spirit Labuschagne, who says to herself: There must be something happy. I can't remember anything happy. Lulu molested me, freshman year. I don't know if I liked it or not. Things just happen. Facts just are. And there are so many. I'm going to die, and it's your fault.

"The very next chapter, Lim suddenly exhibits unexplained omniscience as she narrates scenes where she is not present. Now, in Simulation Theory, this could represent E-9 developing enhanced mental faculties as part of her training to become the ultimate AI. After all, Lim spent the previous weekend studying, or training herself on data, so the timeline makes sense. But there's another explanation, one that also explains one of the major unresolved questions about Simulation Theory: why the Distortion exists in the first place."

Behind the curtain, my roommate is still as death, as a doll. The Gorehound turns. It turns toward me. Of course, Labuschagne thinks, it always would. And that slut will push me at it to save herself. That slut who takes it anal side-by-side with Cherry Corbett. Ngngghh. My arm's fucked, it hurts so bad. No noise, can't make noise. The slut will do it. She's never believed in the community or this school. She's never believed in anyone but herself, sucking off Cherry or Siobhan or whoever else she thinks will help her climb just a step higher.

"What if Enid Lim's mind has the ability to alter reality?"

The Gorehound clicks slowly toward me.

"What if the story Enid Lim writes for Creative Writing, the one she starts reading at the end of Chapter 21, is the same story Enid Lim narrates starting with Chapter 22? Think about it. The other members of the Creative Writing class are Sirisha V. Sharma, T.M. LeWinter, and Wicke Holtzclaw. Notice something? That's right. None of these characters have appeared from Chapter 22 on. Sure, Mrs. Sharma is a teacher and might not have reached the school before it was sealed from the outside world. But where is Wicke Holtzclaw? As a sophomore, she should have been on the second story of the dorms when the Entity attacked, yet she is not listed among the Entity's fourteen—fifteen soon, sorry Labuschagne—victims, nor is she described fleeing the dorms and joining either Ryan or Corbett. Why hasn't she appeared, or even been mentioned? Simple. She can't appear, because she is currently in the Creative Writing classroom listening to Lim—or, more accurately, the narrator—read her story."

The bobby pin rattles. Click, click, click. It matches the sound of the Gorehound's legs tapping toward me.

"I already hear you typing in the comments: But Devilsdice, Tate Wintermute has appeared tons of times since Chapter 22! She's even in the latest chapter, hiding behind the drapes. To that I say: Really? Go back and look carefully. Has 'Tate Wintermute' or 'T.M. LeWinter' been mentioned, by name, ever? No. Lim has only referred to the character we assume is Wintermute/LeWinter in one way: 'my roommate.'"

The bobby pin snaps.

It's crawling. Slowly, in the closed circle. It knows I have nowhere to run, so it comes at a crawl. I can't think, my mind is crowded by voices, my own, Miranda Van Zandt's, Spirit Labuschagne's. There's an infinite dining hall behind me, booths and chandeliers and curtains in endless random permutations. Over and over and over. If I run, it'll chase me forever.

Miranda shakes her sphere to dislodge the broken piece from the keyhole, takes the third pin from the corner of her mouth, and probes again, more vigorously, as though she knows she's on the cusp of success.

"The actors are creations of Enid Lim's mind. The events are a product of her imagination: her attempt to create a story that is 'real'."

A long, lithe leg clicks to a halt beside me. Rattle, rattle, rattle, goes the pin.

"What she imagines, or rather what she regurgitates from the swirling vortex of information that enshrouds her mind, what she sees online, what others say to her, well. It becomes real."

I see only the leg's lowest segment, extending diagonally past the booth I'm hiding behind. I hear the drizzle of drool from its mouth. I hear, quietly, the groans of the girls it's digesting. I hear: rattlerattlerattlerattlerattlerattlerattlerattle

"And, just as she doomed her brother with a story—a story she believed 'real' at the time, even if not strictly factual, and which then became real because everyone, including her, believed it—this story will doom her creations, devouring them until none remain."

I'm unable to look away from the leg. Unable to spur myself to run. Unable to convince myself the value of running. I'm the one it wants. I'm the one who's important. I'm the one whose mind brought it into being. My brother, my story. It all centers around me. iihiihiie. rattlerattle

"That's my theory."

rattlerattlerattle

"And if you think you've got a better theory than that—"

If I rise to face it—

"—leave it in the comment section below."

rattlerattleSNAP.

"Hi! Hello! Yes, you—look at me, please!"

My roommate blunders from behind her curtain. She waves her arms in fanlike motions and jumps two, three times, quick little hops that cause her skirt to briefly flare. She's right behind it, definitely in range of its limbs. The gesture is suicidal. I can't comprehend it.

From her own hiding spot, Spirit Labuschagne jumps up. She grips her shoulder and grimaces, but she knows this is the best distraction she will get. Keeping my booth between her and the Gorehound, she runs for the front exit.

Before I realize it, I'm running too.

I keep low, crawling and then crouching, as though not rising fully will continue to conceal me. My hands grip the edge of the booth as I circle around it. I'm moving as fast as I can, which is not fast in this waddling state, but I'm catching up to Labuschagne, who is even slower due to her injury. My roommate yells: "Hello, hello, hello, hello." The exit is ahead, but to my right the doors to the kitchen burst open and D'Addario stoops out, coughing, covering her mouth with a cloth. She looks straight at me.

"Get in... Hurry."

I'm not sure whether to go for the exit or the kitchen. To reach the latter, I'd need to cut to the side, which will force me to run past my roommate, who is by now the central focus of the Gorehound's attention. The exit, by contrast, is a straight path away—

"Watch out!" my roommate screams.

I jerk my head.

I've made a grave error.

The Gorehound's attention is not on my roommate at all. It likely never was. Why would it be? I'm what matters.

Two limbs shoot toward me. Their ends are not the glaives or spikes I'm used to seeing. They are morphing, and I understand their form instantly: hands. Though chitinous and black and jutting with the little spikes called setae that make bugs look hairy, they are the shape of human hands: five fingers, white nails.

They are grotesque in a way none of its insectoid permutations have ever been. I scramble away from them, but the limbs extend far longer than any human arm, extending and extending to catch me. I bump into Spirit Labuschagne.

"No," Labuschagne says. My hands grip onto her clothes. I tug, we twirl as if dancing, and somehow the Gorehound's hands miss me and clamp around her waist. "No. No!"

She is dragged back. Her arms, even the dislocated one, reach out. I grab her wrists, but the Gorehound's strength is beyond a human's and she pops out of my grasp. My roommate reaches to help but thrashing, kicking, flailing Labuschagne is carried past beyond her reach. I anticipate her being taken to the dangling tube mouth, but instead, the Gorehound's hands lift up, leaving it precariously balanced, and hoist Labuschagne over the face-like skin of tarp.

"It's not my fault," Labuschagne screams. "It's not my fault!"

Between the ridge of nose and hump of chin, a wrinkle in the face curves, deepens, and splits. Two rows of broad, flat, white teeth appear between the fleshy lips, twisted into a smile.

"It's not my fault! It's not my fault!"

Labuschagne, held horizontally over the gaping mouth, kicks her legs to keep gravity from dangling them between the teeth. Higher up the face, another wrinkle ripples and parts. A gigantic and iridescent eyeball wriggles circular within the cavity, then fixes its pupil upon me.

"Get in here!" D'Addario yells. My roommate rushes to me and I drag myself away from the sight of Spirit Labuschagne. Even as I turn, though, and see ahead of me only the front of the dining hall, the smashed-open entrance and the kitchen doors between which D'Addario stands, I still see the Gorehound, I still see Labuschagne kicking and screaming as the hands lower her slowly, partially, between the spread teeth, which clamp on a thigh and part of her pelvis, the teeth not sharp so with incredible force all they do is crush, breaking the bones and bursting the flesh, and Labuschagne screams again, indistinguishable and inhuman, while they grind her leg, her lower half, blood spurting everywhere, and the hands grasping her start pulling and plucking pieces of her apart like pork to plop into the gnashing teeth, which crunch into her waist with the loud crack of her lower ribs, and she is still somehow alive, still screaming with a gurgling depth, as the hands rip off her dislocated arm and one of her breasts, scooping through her like putty, and the teeth come down on her upper ribs obliterating her lungs and heart and finally causing her eyes to go limp before her piecemeal remains are dropped unceremoniously into the waiting mouth, which scoops them down with a sweep of a thick, fat, veiny tongue.

Was that my brother's eye? I can't remember.

We're in the kitchen. A rotten egg stench overwhelms; the air is too horrible to breathe. D'Addario coughs through her cloth and I cover my mouth and cough too.

The space is enormous. Bram Bertholet, the famed chef who designed our menu and oversaw the dining hall's 2019 remodeling, intended it to accommodate a comprehensive kitchen brigade à la Auguste Escoffier, though I'm not sure it has ever been fully staffed; maybe once, during the final pre-pandemic Lovefeast. Against each wall are rows of stainless steel commercial kitchen equipment, with another row running down the center, creating two traversable aisles all the way to the staff exit. In its unlimited and infinitely granular stations for specific food preparation (rotisseur, saucier, poissonier, pâtissier, friturier, entremetier, legumier, boulanger), it has an incredible number of stoves and esoteric stove-like devices, all of which are hooked by flexible metal tubes to the yellow gas line snaking geometrically along the wall. Or were hooked. D'Addario has unlatched every tube. All outlets hiss gas.

D'Addario explains with absolute confidence: "Once it chases us here"—it's still chewing Spirit Labuschagne—"we run out the back and toss the lighter behind us."

I boggle. "And blow ourselves up too?!"

"That's why we run when we do it. Look, I found this." She scrapes a fire extinguisher off the ground.

I don't think Noël D'Addario understands how explosions work. Either Hollywood or the gas is screwing with her brain. A shard of headache already stabs mine, though it's been there from the start, since the moment I realized what the Gorehound truly was. Either way, it makes it impossible to express her plan's idiocy. Not that we have time. The Gorehound is coming.

My skull throbs. I harbor no delusions of surviving. It always crawls. But if I take it out with me. If I stop it from killing more of them. ("One more is sixteen, and the ritual is complete.") Every time I run, someone else is punished. Spirit Labuschagne. Ryan. Eric. I am the center. It won't end until I end it. And, ending it with myself, doesn't that leave me as the center in the end after all?

I pull out Weaver's lighter. The mirrored surface reflects my distorted face.

Kill yourself Enid, thinks Amy Weaver.

I think you should kill yourself, thinks Nadine Block.

You have to kill yourself, thinks Zinnia Fitzpeter.

Die, thinks Tam Bell.

Kill yourself already, thinks Velouria Roseingrave.

Kill yourself, thinks Machiavelli.

Do it, thinks Miss Syrene.

"Death's no answer," says Miranda Van Zandt. "Only an excuse to stop thinking."

"Or feeling," says Prue Malheur.

It must be done, thinks Halicarnassus Brown.

It must be you, thinks Sylvia Szapáry.

Just do it! thinks Lulu Paraiso.

I hate you, thinks Spirit Labuschagne.

You are everything, thinks Siobhan Ryan. You ruined everything.

It's all crumbling, thinks Anapsychia Gray.

So kill yourself, thinks the Headmistress.

Hurry, thinks Ursula Yocum. I'm scared.

"iihiihiie," says Mom.

It's still (you), says Eric.

It's still me. It's always been me. Only I can end it; only I matter. But my hand is trembling. They might be scared but I'm scared too. I have never wanted to die, no matter how much I have wanted to die. I want to live forever. I want to always be here, I want to be everywhere. Isn't that normal? For all the worries about my sanity, isn't this proof it's still me, Enid Lim, a normal girl who is like everyone else, who fits in, and who is at the center of everything?

My head throbs. I have to. I have to. I have to. Miranda is wrong. I know what the Gorehound is, and only I. Only I.

I tilt off the cap of the lighter, exposing the wheel mechanism. My thumb shivers so much I'm not sure I can even make it work, but with this much gas (my mind floats) it'll take only a spark.

I—

A hand clasps around mine, enclosing the lighter.

"I'll carry your burden," says my roommate.

She speaks clearly. She does not cough. Her eyes are moonstones, her hair silk. She has the face of an angel, the color of one too.

She will swallow my sin. She will die for me.

All along, it was her.

My friend.

"You'll love me now."

The lighter leaves my hand and is taken in hers. D'Addario is already running, swinging the fire extinguisher with each step. There's no time for words; there's no need for them. Our hands continue to touch as I pull away, our fingers extending and finally slipping apart with her final soft grace lingering upon me. Through the kitchen doors is emerging the Gorehound.

I follow D'Addario down the aisle, to the back of the kitchen, through the staff exit. The rain, only a drizzle, strikes my face and my head is already clearing, the pain ebbing away. We're in an unexpectedly ugly alley where the staff unloads waste into crass, metal dumpsters. The second smaller gate out of the school is here; the staff parks outside. It's padlocked and bulging with vegetable flesh.

Unsure how long we have before my roommate sparks the lighter, I wonder if the best option is to hide in a dumpster, buried amid the half-picked bones and rotten fruit and putrefying meat. But I still see her standing in the kitchen as the Gorehound steps to face her. It tilts downward, baring the face that has risen out of its flesh, almost fully formed now. Without eyebrows or hair it's like a lump of dough, but I wonder whether it is neither the face of Halicarnassus Brown nor my brother but my own face, Enid Lim, whether it has not been me consuming these bodies one after another sometimes senselessly, sometimes cruelly. I am running away, following D'Addario out of the alley past the dining hall and toward the back of the dormitories, and still I see my roommate stand before the face, waiting for it without terror or final thoughts of escape. She is an angel, she is love. She is my friend, once and always, and I regret only that I never saw it before. She absolves me. She washes me, finally, clean.

The Gorehound's face with two squid-sized eyes examines her the same as I do. Without particular interest, it extends a limb and pierces her side. She does not scream. The limb retracts, jabs again, through the empty palm she holds up as if to pacify it. Her body does not flinch. Again the Gorehound pierces her, then again. Only her final hand remains. The one that holds the lighter.

It pauses. It is thinking. There is some trap here, it thinks. It cannot tell what. My roommate, perforated, sags against the friturier station. Its hard metal form supports her.

The Gorehound whips out a limb and cleaves off her head.

The severed halves of her scarf fall. Her thumb twitches. The lighter sparks.

D'Addario is behind the dormitory wall. I'm only a step away and the sound and force propels me forward. My hands clap my ears but I still hear everything as a fireball expands to the full extent of the kitchen and then exceeds it. Wall, floor, roof burst apart. Structure is unmade. The eruption whips like lightning through the dining hall, its endless chessboard booths shatter to splinters in all-devouring chaos. Flames lick the sky: a coiling red root. I feel the ground quake. Some squealing thing, a chunk of oven, spirals airborne and smashes into the dormitory building. The brick wall that throngs All Saints Academy is seared with ash. But the wall itself does not break.

Eternity ends. The godlike roar quiets. The last pieces of debris grind to a halt against the ground. Some eviscerated support squeals, creaks, and falls. All remaining is the crackle of fire, the crackle of rainfall, the crackle of static.

Into sense first comes Noël D'Addario. She clanks the fire extinguisher at her side as she hobbles, muttering, into the open. "Look... Look," she says. I lift my face. My ears ring. What remains of the dining hall is black and flame, and from it slouches something like a charred dislodged piece of the whole until it coheres as the Gorehound. Fire envelops it totally. Its flesh, its face are being consumed. A pained metallic cry oscillates as it bounces against the wall of the school, lurches the other way, tries to support itself on three limbs (one has been blown off near the root). It cannot. A mournful note is expelled, descending into a rattle. It scrapes a dumpster that has miraculously remained intact and, in a cascade of garbage, collapses motionless onto the bare singed soil.

It's dead.

I think.

D'Addario approaches it. I have no idea why. I lift myself to tell her not to, but my voice is lost in my ringing ears.

"It always gets up one last time," D'Addario explains. "That's basic... Everyone knows."

She stands over the smoldering corpse of the Gorehound, waiting for it to stir. She grips the fire extinguisher with both hands and raises it in preparation to swing down.

She waits.

Smoke billows as rain falls among flame.

She waits.

It's dead, I think. It's dead. It could be killed after all. Killed by fire. Killed, maybe, by sacrifice. My roommate took my place. She saved me. My friend, she saved me. Her sacrifice, my sacrifice, she died for me. My friend!

She waits.

Elation surges through me. This crawling creeping thing that has stalked me for so long is dead. It's actually dead. I abound with love. I had a friend all along, someone willing to be destroyed for my sake, and I didn't understand until the end, but in the end she made me understand. The joy sours, bittersweetness I taste on my tongue alongside the noxious gas that has not fully left my drunk and drifting brain. If only I had a chance to let her know how much it meant to me!

"You won't escape Your sin so easily, Enid Lim."

Siobhan Ryan stands behind me. Her eight followers flank her, faces pitiless.

"There is only one way to close the Distortion—the hole," Ryan says. "The root must die. You must die."

I'm too staggered by the explosion to flee. The eight easily encircle me.

"Take Her to the Feast."

They seize me. "Noël!" I croak. As they drag me away, I catch a glimpse of her, standing over the burnt lump of flesh, fire extinguisher over her head, waiting for the day or year it will rise again.

Chapter 27: LOCK IN LOCK IN LOCK IN LOCK

Ryan leads. MacKenzie Fayerweather holds the umbrella over her. Firenze George carries the scissors. The other six carry me. Together they hold me overhead, my legs straight together, my arms extended outward, the way I was carried after the tennis championship. They carry me onto the athletic field. They carry me to the table.

On the opposite side of the school, Corbett leads her eight along the southern face of the old academic building, a hulk of architectural delight unchanged (externally) from the vision of Richard Morris Hunt. They carry the least useless of the useful objects they scrounged: the medical supplies, the framed blueprint, a smaller and less sharp pair of scissors. Clutched in Corbett's hand is the guillotine of the office paper cutter, so dull its only value is bludgeoning. It matches her well, with her visor and drenched tank top and the black sports bra nearly unobscured beneath; it's like a machete.

"Cherry." Lulu Paraiso is discreet at her side. "Were those twins always so identical?"

She speaks with only the slightest inclination of her head over her shoulder. Corbett barely flicks her eyes, past deep-breathing Velouria Roseingrave and the sheet-white hand-holding Joan St. Cuthbert and Phebe Stuyvesant, at the Schermerhorn twins, Bridget and Klein, who bring up the rear of this platoon wading ankle-deep through rainwater. The twins are, in fact, indistinguishable. They are gangly for freshmen, just shy of supple, perfect tennis recruits despite the unmasked disdain Ryan harbored toward them for stealing her bit. Nobody, certainly no seniors, really know the freshmen well, but that never stopped Spirit Labuschagne from whispering the pair had an incestuous fixation, or else one did and the other didn't, or actually they "dated" in middle school but then, for reasons purely romantic, broke up, which is why they have separate roommates (never mind the school policy, known to anyone who has read the behavioral guidebook, that siblings aren't allowed the same room), but of course there are still feelings between them, or one is trying desperately to win the other back while the other seethes over the specifics of the breakup. In Labuschagne's narrative, infidelity was involved.

Whether the twins are twins or whether one crushed the other's scrawny windpipe in a fit of jealous unresolved lust while a second split off to take the dead twin's place, Corbett is not particularly interested. Her attention subtly rivets to the girl shambling behind them. To Paraiso and Fitzpeter, her sergeants, she growls: "That one. Bring her up."

Fitzpeter, who "looks unwell" as they once said of me, seems incapable of action, but she follows Paraiso's lead as they drop back among the ranks. In seconds they have the girl an arm each, dragging her past gawkers. The girl doesn't fight, she knows that's unwise, but she does start noising in her ugly rat-like voice:

"Hey. Hey wait. Let's talk about this. I swear I'm not—I'm not one of those Alternates. Look at me. Look at my nose. Zinnia, Lulu, you guys saw me right? I banged my nose running out the dorms, and look at my nose now. If they replaced me it'd be fixed, right?"

Ursula Yocum's nose is, in fact, plugged with reddened tissue paper, which only makes her pubescent intonation more loathsome. Paraiso and Fitzpeter force her onto her knees before Corbett, who perches the paper cutter guillotine on her shoulder as she peers down pitilessly. Rainwater streams off the brim of her visor; her eyes glow smaragdine. The key hangs from her neck.

"Vel. Vel, come on. You saw it. Tell them Vel. Come on."

Yocum pleads to each in turn, Velouria Roseingrave, Lethe Marie Claypoole. Nobody says a word; nobody will impede Corbett's will.

Corbett lifts one stylish, retro red sneaker and places it on Yocum's forehead. She pushes her long, bare, glistening leg. Yocum's eyes squint through her oversized glasses, the lenses so thick they didn't so much as crack when her nose did. Her head tilts back, baring her pale white quivering throat. Closing one eye, Corbett pantomimes, perhaps practices, the motion it would take to swing the paper cutter guillotine into that throat.

She rolls her head onto one shoulder. "Wellllllll-l? She telling the truth about her nose?"

"Yes," says Roseingrave.

"Yes," says Paraiso and Fitzpeter.

"Yes," says Phebe Stuyvesant, who I don't even think saw it.

"When the Alternates got Prue Malheur," says Bridget Schermerhorn,

"Ursula ran away. They didn't get her," says Klein Schermerhorn.

"I'm real," Yocum says. "I swear."

With a soccer player flick, Corbett taps her toe to Yocum's nose, drawing an immediate wince. She turns like she never cared anyway, and her sergeants let Yocum go. The party is now Corbett and nine, which is irritating. There isn't even a way to claim there's eight.

For now.

Yocum kisses Corbett's ass like the little asskisser she is, thanking her, swearing she'll be useful, she'll pull her weight, but Corbett isn't listening. Her attention turns to the path ahead, toward something impeding their route. Fitzpeter sees too and immediately gags. Paraiso clicks her tongue and looks away. Finally, Lethe Marie Claypoole, whose face has been a mask from the start, says:

"Lol."

Lolita "Lol" Lorillard, sophomore, scion of an ancient line of tobacconists, is at the end of a long journey. She spent this morning (and all last night) hunched over the Alienware gaming PC that swallows her desk, mashing her controller with compounding intensity, contorting in rage, hissing "fuccboi twink" and "rape your boypussy" to the final boss of Elden Ring's DLC expansion Shadow of the Erdtree, Promised Consort Radahn, though her expletives were not aimed at Radahn himself but rather Radahn's brother and consort, the divinely androgynous or perhaps hermaphroditic eromenos Miquella, who appears midway into the fight in ghostly, angelic form to encircle arms around Radahn's neck and empower him for a brutally and controversially difficult final phase. What was supposed to be "just one more attempt" has spiraled into a full night of bloodshot eyes, but Lol refuses to allow Miquella to bewitch and enchant the world into an epoch of eternal peace, or really she just wants to win; she doesn't follow the lore.

Finally, Lol is on a good run. She's reached the final phase intact, and is now whittling Radahn and Miquella to the last fifth of their health bar. She ignores the shouting coming from the floor below. "Femboy slut." She dodges the meteor attack. "Show me hole, whore." She ignores the tapping at her window. "Suck my fucking COCK." Just a few more hits. Come on. Come on.

Her roommate, Agatha Speare, daughter of an architect or playwright, unravels the pillow she clenched around her ears all night and sits up in bed. She looks at the window.

A glaive slices through it. It slices through Speare. Lol, one hit away from victory, turns to see Speer fall in pieces. The Gorehound is squeezing into her room.

Without even ripping off her headphones she sprints into the hallway. There are a few girls out already, wakened by the buzz below. Ursula Yocum and her roommate, Zuleika Frelinghuysen, ask what's going on. They're in Lol's way. Lol grabs Yocum, who is closer, and tries to toss her aside. Frelinghuysen reaches for Lol's wrists, then explodes as a long spiked leg shoots through her, spraying Yocum and Lol with blood.

Next is chaos. Yocum falls back and makes it, barely, to the stairs. Lol goes instead for a door opening nearby. Julia Evola stands in it looking out, Lol bowls her over, freshmen and sophomores run screaming everywhere. The spike, retracting from Frelinghuysen, skewers Julia Evola through the lower back.

Lol's headphones have fallen off. She scrambles on hands and knees through Evola's room, but there's nowhere to go, and the Gorehound is behind her, skittering so quickly, she hears it, the groan of the door jamb as it pushes through, the clatter of a shunted bed. She rolls against the wall under the window and curls into a ball, hands over her head, expecting death. Instead she hears the window shatter, and the Gorehound drop to the ground with a gingerly thump.

You already know what the Gorehound did next, on the first floor. Lol, meanwhile, frantic and unsure whether to cower in the corner or flee the building, ultimately decides the latter. She is one of the last out, forming part of the bottleneck at the exit that Fitzpeter and Paraiso push through, and from there she runs heedlessly the first direction that feels right. She passes Prue Malheur, splitting in two, and Lol's consciousness, propped by a night of neon blue energy drinks, feels like it's splitting also. She runs past the chapel, around the old academic building, and along the same stretch Corbett and company traverse now, seeing finally the southeastern emergency gate. Corbett had already been here, and noticed the padlock sealing it shut, but Lol is too heedless for that. She runs to the bars, shakes them, and then, well.

Now she is being dragged amid a bramble unfurling past the gate, spilling onto the school soil. By her missing lower half and dangling entrails, it's clear at least she's already dead. Her blood is in so many places you'd think it couldn't all be hers: fans and sprays, whole rain puddles of blood on which clods of viscera lazily twirl, stirred by the constant staticky patter. Grisly. Though many of these girls saw worse in the dorms, a tremulous ripple pulses through them. Joan St. Cuthbert groans from her gut; Phebe Stuyvesant burrows into her sleeve. Velouria Roseingrave averts her gaze skyward, squinting into the rain as if gauging it. Briefly, Ursula Yocum wears a placid and neutral expression, then she whips to the side and expels a quick spurt of vomit onto the rosebushes growing alongside the old academic building.

For Corbett, the issue is more utilitarian. Bits of Lol are everywhere, from the gate all the way to the side of the building, and so too are the plants. Only those narrow enough to grow between the gate's bars, at least, but they bury and rise erratically through the puddles that dot the way. This part of the school, in sunnier climes, is popular for picnicking. Old scarlet oaks cast mottled shade, and at the end is an octagonal gazebo with chairs and a chessboard. An atmosphere both pastorally romantic and, with the Beaux-Arts façade of the old building beside you, full of erudition. Last May I let Ryan beat me at chess twice before winning once and letting her win again.

Now, in the darkened swaths of shade, indistinct living forms shift and twitter, hissing from the rain that seeps through the treetops. Plants grow, and grow, and grow. They do nothing but grow, useless weeds, spiraling out of control in the Long Island house, half-hidden here in their pools, green like nausea and seeping viscous sour sap when you wring them, disorganized and senseless and Mom is always buying more and, now, they're animate, treacherous. Corbett estimates the distance to the gazebo. Twenty-five meters, she thinks, visualizing it as a portion of a track. Nearly nothing. But it's dark. It's dark and how deep are those pools. How far have these plants grown.

With a sharp twitch of her finger, she calls Joan St. Cuthbert, who carries the framed blueprint of the school. She comes with Phebe Stuyvesant, though Corbett didn't ask for her; Corbett allows it for now.

She receives the blueprint. Her eyes scan. Past the gazebo is the corner of the old academic building; rounding it, you come immediately upon the groundskeeper's cabin. It's the most direct route. But if they cut through the old building instead—

That's when the dining hall explodes.

They're almost as far from it as you can be on campus. It doesn't matter. The roar, the seismic force reaches them as though they were only a short walk away. The sky blazes, the clouds light yellow, and amid them briefly flashes viridian the shape of a large sphere, the moon or something else.

The girls blast apart into panic. Nothing matters. Not even Corbett, whose shout is drowned in the sky's rending. They are transmuted into rabbits; they run. Wild, twitching, churning through Lol Lorillard's liquid remains. Klein Schermerhorn trips over a bobbing log that is actually a severed leg and, helped by her twin, rises reddened all down her front. Briers tear Velouria Roseingrave's nightgown and welt her thigh. Ursula Yocum clutches at Lulu Paraiso for help and Paraiso flings her off and into the roses. "Stay out of the dark," Corbett shouts silently, buried beneath the receding roar. "Not into the dark!"

But they're in the dark, under the tall oaks. They are plunged into it, not realizing just how dark it is. Luckless Klein Schermerhorn bangs her face against a low unseen branch and bursts open her lip. Something winds around Zinnia Fitzpeter's ankle or perhaps she simply stepped into a knotted tangle but she staggers and cannot go free until she slices violently at the mass with the edge of her sole. The moment she's out she crashes through a hanging bulging sac of something that splatters hot sap down her side. "My hair, it has my hair!" Roseingrave shrieks, and Lethe Marie Claypoole grips her tangled roots near the scalp and yanks her painfully loose.

Paraiso first comes collapsing into the light, at the foot of the gazebo. The anchor of perception returns. Behind her, tripping and falling into piles, are the others: Fitzpeter, Roseingrave and Claypoole, the twins.

"What the fuck was that explosion!" Fitzpeter says.

Nobody has any idea. Paraiso asks: "Are we all here?" They count heads. Eight. Only eight.

As it must be.

"Who's missing?"

"Ursula was at the back," says Roseingrave.

"Whatever was grabbing us in there," says Fitzpeter, making it real, ensuring there was in fact something and not simply their own minds projected onto reality, "it must have taken Ursula—"

"Fuck no! Oh, fuck no! I'm right here, I swear." Ursula Yocum, that rat! She asserts herself as much as her puny five foot frame allows, rising on tiptoe between the twins, tapping her head.

Phebe Stuyvesant looks down at her hand, still half-clasped, though around nothing. "Joan?"

"Cherry's gone," says Paraiso.

The moment she says it, Cherry Corbett appears out of the darkness. Her paper cutter machete is missing; she left it buried in something that wrapped around her waist.

"You didn't listen," says Corbett. "You fucking dipshits didn't listen to me. Lock in already, cocksuckers. Lock the fuck in if you want to live." She's angry. Only half of it is wounded pride from going unheard. She is, incredibly, starting to actually worry about them, now that they're her followers.

"Joan? Where's Joan?" says Stuyvesant. "I was holding her hand the whole time. Joan?" She turns back toward the darkness as if ready to plunge in. The other girls seize her, three different sets of hands. "Joan!"

"Joan's fine," says Paraiso.

"She's fine, I'm sure," says Roseingrave, whose torn nightgown now looks cavewoman-like. "She probably ran the other way."

"I don't know when I let go," says Stuyvesant. "I have to go back."

"Let's all stick together," says Fitzpeter. "Joan's fine."

Lethe Marie Claypoole lolls her head laconically. "Lmao."

The patch of shadow is motionless. It is even darker than before now that the flame from the dining hall has died down. It is a void of perfect black, though it is possible to see the other side.

"Joan! Joan, is that you?"

There's somebody standing on the other end, staring, though their form is fully black.

"That must be her," Roseingrave says.

"See? She's fine," says Fitzpeter. She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts: "Go around the other way and meet us at the cabin!"

The silhouette doesn't move.

"That's not Joan," Stuyvesant says.

"There's the cabin," says Corbett.

Past the gazebo and the edge of the old building, tucked neatly into an unseen corner of the school: the groundskeeper's cabin. It is both a storage facility and where the groundskeeper sleeps. It was once beautiful, like everything in Richard Morris Hunt's design, but they demolished it decades ago. In its place is a simple structure with a tastefully corrugated roof, sheets of metal held together by posts, a squat extension marked by a garage door where the groundskeeper parks the golf cart he uses to zip around campus. The door is partway up. The golf cart is parked at an erratic angle; its jutting backside blocks the garage door.

Corbett proceeds toward it. The others, eight total, wrangle Phebe Stuyvesant and follow.

"Seriously," Fitzpeter asks. "What the fuck is happening? What were those plants growing through the gate? Can we really not leave the school?"

Nobody speaks. Ryan's warning echoes.

"And what was that explosion?"

Something instinctual reaches Corbett. "Killing the Entity," she mutters.

"Wait—that's right! Noël D'Addario kept saying, kill it with fire." Fitzpeter looks to Paraiso for confirmation. "Kill it with fire, isn't that what she said? A boiler. She kept talking about a boiler. Right?"

"Maybe," says Paraiso. "I don't know. It's a blur."

"Noël overheated the boiler. Maybe she actually killed it." There's desperate hope in her voice. It irks me, because she's actually right to hope. "Maybe we really are safer inside."

"Careful," Corbett says.

They reach the cabin. On the golf cart, wedged under the garage door, is a bloody handprint. The blood smears off the cart and forms a trail across the concrete ground leading deeper in.

It's an ominous sign, one that flickers out Fitzpeter's hopeful tone. The girls lean under the half-propped door and cautiously step inside.

What they came for is here. There are shelves along the garage walls, and on these shelves are tools, power tools, equipment. There are cans of paint and stacks of bricks, wooden planks and metal poles, bags of fertilizer and empty clay pots for flowers. There are pieces of pipe and wedges of plastic. On a wall dangle saws of declining size, including the saw I used to cut my roommate from the chevalet; the chimpanzee graciously returned it.

"Arm yourselves." Corbett picks up a claw hammer, then drops it to lift with both hands the shaft of a sledge. She tests its weight before twirling the head with a few deft twitches of her fingers. Paraiso snatches up the claw hammer. Fitzpeter stares at the blood on the ground instead of picking up anything, while other girls probe more adventurously. Lethe Marie Claypoole finds a nail gun and a power drill. Velouria Roseingrave examines a rubber mallet until Corbett nudges her toward a one gallon backpack pressure sprayer with a flexible nozzle and a canister of Roundup Weed & Grass Killer beside it.

The logic of the pesticide is sound, given Miss Syrene and Lol Lorillard. Ursula Yocum briefly eyes a chainsaw, then something catches her eye on the shelf of the far wall, suspended over a limp bundle of garbage. She beelines to it with a sly grin.

"Look guys. Apollo's dick!"

The bronze canine penis, rendered with biological fidelity, is unmistakable even for a freshman like Yocum, who only heard the lore secondhand and saw pre-op pictures of the seniors stroking it. In Labuschagne's version of the legend, the penis vanished shortly after its removal, stolen by a student for prurient purposes (rumors flew as to whom, consensus being my roommate). But here it is, exactly where one might expect it. Now that arch-clown Amy Weaver is dead, Yocum decides to steal her role and pantomimes bobbing her open mouth over the tip. Then the bundle of trash heaped beside her unfurls and latches onto her leg.

Yocum squeals. Finally, I think, the little rat's done. But though she screams and kicks, no monster comes crawling up her body to tear off her head and oviposit down the cavity of her esophagus, and by the time Corbett is there with the sledgehammer raised (like D'Addario, still waiting by the charred tumor of the Gorehound) the hand has already relinquished her.

It's the groundskeeper.

The groundskeeper is the only man on campus. He is tall, enormously tall, and black. And old; his eyebrows are gray, though the rest of his head is shaved bald. Nobody has ever spoken to him or heard him speak. He haunts the school like a ghost, rolling around in his golf cart for odd jobs. Spirit Labuschagne's tongue wagged, as always; certain girls she exposed, with remarkable even omniscient perspicacity, as having a fetish, of traipsing to the groundskeeper's cabin late at night, details rendered blow-for-blow, under her breath, her eye projected onto the moon to stare down and see all. She didn't know, none of us knew, that he was a veteran of the War on Terror, that both testicles and half his penis were blown off by a car bomb in Baghdad. When he came home, his wife divorced him.

Now, he's bleeding to death. In faded green coveralls he crumples against his side, both hands pressed to a wound spilling out in a black puddle. Yocum notices her shoe sunken into the blood and scampers back. Corbett doesn't care.

The groundskeeper rasps an explanation.

"Got stabbed, girls." His voice is ashen, breaking apart, but still of a depth none else possess, despite his castration. "Little... curving root sorta thing. Gotta watch the roots, heh?" His chuckle poorly covers a wince. "Doing my rounds this morning and saw... well you girls seen it by now. The plants, man. Didn't know what to do. Knew I couldn't let whatever was out there get in. So I took those padlocks and went around, chaining the gates shut. I got em all except... except that hole in the garden. That's where I got stabbed. It's all overgrown there... You gotta close that hole, girls. The world's not right. Not right at all..."

"We've been trying to escape!" Phebe Stuyvesant suddenly says. "We've been trying to get out and can't because you locked everything up! Everyone is dying because of you! Joan, Joan is..."

"Nah, nah... Nah, you got it twisted. It's death out there. Hhhckkkhhhh. You've seen it, right? What's trying to come through those gates? You've seen it... You've seen it."

Corbett lowers her weapon. She's seen it. And if she wants to survive, she has to believe it, at least until it can't kill her anymore. Then she can forget.

The groundskeeper, expelling the last of his energy, attempts a laugh; it's only a cough. "Close the hole, girls. Jesus... the world's all wrong."

He sags.

"Don't tell me Siobhan was right," says Paraiso.

"Forget Siobhan," says Fitzpeter. "If Noël really killed the Entity, then all we need to do is lock ourselves in." (Lock in.) "Someone will save us if we just wait."

"We'll close the school," says Corbett. "Barricade it." She thinks: Close the hole. She thinks: Lock in. Her hand toys with the key around her throat.

"This isn't real," says Velouria Roseingrave.

Ursula Yocum aims a tepid fingertip at the groundskeeper. "Uh, is he dead?"

"Cherry, what do we do?"

"Cherry."

"Cherry, you have an idea right?"

"Cherry."

"We won't die, will we?"

Cherry Corbett is a statue. Her eyes scan from face to face. They are her faces, her girls. They belong to her. Her responsibility. It's no longer about whether she, alone, is fast enough to escape whatever chases her. They need her.

She surveys the garage, the materials stacked in orderly configuration, the golf cart.

She has a plan.

"Alright bitches. Lock in."

Time now for the Feast.

I'm on the table. They place me at its center, though it's far longer than I am, so it extends past my head and past my feet. Four of Ryan's girls pin me down, one for each limb. My arms remain extended while my feet are clamped together. The white tablecloth is sodden with rain and feels spongey on my back. More rain batters my face. I am glad I took the care to put on my blazer this morning, because if I only wore the white blouse, it'd be so translucent you could see through it. I tilt my head to keep the rain from stinging my eyes.

At the head of the table, or maybe the foot because it's the direction my feet point, stands Siobhan Ryan, with MacKenzie Fayerweather (umbrella) on one side and Firenze George (scissors) on the other. In addition to these and the four holding me, there are two others, standing on the opposite end of the table; I can only see them if I let my head fall back and strain my eyes up in my sockets. The purpose of these last two, as far as I can tell, is solely symmetry. They're the freshmen, Azusa Kennedy and Patricia St. Martin, the lowest of the hierarchy. In Ryan's organization of the world, hierarchy must matter, symmetry must matter, everything must have meaning and that meaning must feel innate, purposeful, even if the actual purpose is esoteric. The esoteric too is part of the organization: the division of rabble from the initiated.

Ryan has changed her clothes. She too wears a white gown, plus a headdress choked with vibrant flowers, flowers bursting out like the endless spread of plants that encroach the school. But they aren't ugly, they aren't pitcher plants and corpse flowers, they're delicate and colorful and pretty, feminine, flowers for teenage girls who hang out in groups of four, flowers that girls are named after: daisies, lilies, violets, roses, irises, heathers, jasmine, even a single zinnia. Though it's designed to look simple, pure, perhaps natural, it's actually deliberately and complexly arranged: order's triumph. She spent a long time on it, I can tell, just like her Lady Macbeth. Now she's a different queen, the May Queen, inverting the inversion, making the unnatural natural, or maybe vice versa.

I can see inside Ryan's mind. I know her thoughts; they are free of occlusion. She is thinking that the organization is not yet perfect, that they await one more participant. Ryan is impatient for this one's arrival, though at the same time finds in the lateness a growing profundity, an additional heaviness to the ceremony. This participant is special. She is not one of Ryan's eight. When this final participant arrives, there will be ten total, corresponding to the sefirot, also known as the emanations via which the divine reveals its will. In this too do they stand in particular order as a recreation of the Tree of Life: Siobhan Ryan (Rank 1) is Keter, the initial fixity of the transcendent divine; MacKenzie Fayerweather (2) is Chokmah, wisdom, hence why she alone brought an umbrella; Firenze George (3) is Binah, understanding, the one agitating to kill me and be done with it; Tianne Devers (4) is Chesed, love; Meredith Johannes (5) is Gevurah, strength; Melpomene Goldthwaite (6) is Tiferet, balance; Valerie Soranus (7) is Netzach, eternity; Azusa Kennedy (8) is Hod, glory; Patricia St. Martin (9) is Yesod, the foundation; and the tenth will be Malkuth, the physical world.

The sefirot on my left are feminine. The sefirot on my right are masculine. I am Da'ath, the point in which all ten are united as one, the image of God, the conscious manifestation of the unconscious divine will represented by Keter. I am thus one and ten together, Ryan's mirror.

Ryan got this from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion.

("Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather / The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red.")

"You've arrived," Ryan says.

The tenth approaches from the direction of the chapel. I turn up my eyes to see her, inverted. It's a lich. With a skull for a face (degloved), with a black cape, with black leather belts looped around a body unensouled, and a soul kept in a gleaming glass cross-shaped phylactery that sloshes pale fluid. I've seen this necromancer before. At Halloween. She stole my aesthetic. She walks with buoyant step.

"Sorry I'm late. It's been a misfortunate morning, as my stars divined."

Prue Malheur (10) is Malkuth. Swinging her soul by a small chain, she stares her eyeless sockets at me.

"I did warn you your fate might be something like this."

I remember no such warning.

"Now all the stars are winking out," Malheur continues. "Not just Scorpio or Gemini. Soon, no traces of Creation will remain, and our horoscopes will be junk. What a sky, right? Look!"

I look skyward. Colliding with the clouds is a great emerald eyeball, replacement of the moon.

"It is a return, the Eternal Return, to primordial Chaos," Ryan reads, though these are not words in the droplet-spattered Bible she raises aloft. The Bible is only a prop. Halloween will never end; they're all in costume forever. "Chaos, organized into Order. That is the heart of all cosmogony. This is its reverse."

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair," I recite.

Ryan ignores me. It's her ceremony, and the sefirot are aligned from her fixity. These girls are her Birnam Wood; she is marching on a Dunsinane she sees shrouded in the distance. I was born by caesarean section. You think Mom could handle that pain? And after Eric nearly killed her. Or was I born at all? Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Macduff. Beware of mirrors. Each reveals an Order different than yours yet somehow not Chaos.

"So Siobhan. Like, let me ask. What are we doing here exactly?" says Malheur.

"We are to reassert Order lost." The Bible's pages flutter, Old Testament to New, back again. Wordless, like Halicarnassus Brown's. "To conquer the agents of Chaos loose among us,"

"Among us," whispers Azusa Kennedy, Hod.

Melpomene Goldthwaite, Tiferet, points a shining crescent at Kennedy. "You're replaceable." It's an 8-inch kitchen knife. It must have come from the dining hall before my roommate blew it up.

Ryan ignores the interruption. "—Agents. I use that word, agent, deliberately. I use all words deliberately. Do you know what an agent is? It is an operator of intentionality. It is a conscious actor. It is no mindless, Chaotic writhing. No. Our Enemy serves Chaos by perverting the glories of Order itself. Wielding the same tools with which Order creates what is right, meaningful, good, and beautiful, our Enemy smashes down those selfsame right, meaningful, good, and beautiful creations. In doing so it has confused us. For we have fought against Chaos since the beginning, as our cosmogony states; in the beginning, there was Chaos, and it was transformed into Order. We know Chaos. We know its shapeless shape, its formless form. We are skilled at fighting Chaos. Fighting Chaos is the heart of our Tradition; it is the crux of all Knowledge, which we have passed down for millennia, from transient body to transient body, making that Knowledge the very essence of our immortal Soul. Each generation, from the ancient glories of Rome to the Age of Faith and the medieval Templars, have felt and strengthened this righteous instinct within us. For it is natural, and it is good; and only the depraved and perverse have ever turned against it.

"Yet now, we are confused. Our instinct, our Soul, stands paralyzed in doubt. We know not how to act, even as Chaos reigns, and filth piles upon filth. We see a prostitute fornicating in the street and lack even the basic impulse to vomit, to spew, to expunge the filth from us; we grow accustomed to filth, blind to it as the fish is blind to water or the healthy man to air. How has this happened? Has Chaos itself changed, so that our methods of warring against it are inadequate? It cannot be so. Chaos cannot change its nature. No, we stand paralyzed for a far more insidious reason: these agents, agents of Chaos rather than Chaos itself, these agents who have infiltrated our society, infiltrated it to the highest level. Our bankers, our businessmen, our doctors and researchers, our university provosts and professors, our governors and senators! They came crawling, bearing the plague-gifts of Modernity, conveniences and trinkets, machines and vaccinations, and in our avarice and sloth we accepted them, reordered our society, became by degrees crasser, blander, uglier, diversified, diffuse. And we knew not how to fight them, for they claimed to be arbiters of Reason, they claimed to have plumbed the mysteries of their great god Science, their great god Progress—long-known aliases of Moloch!—and we believed, because they used what seemed the tools of Order, that they were not our Enemy but our friend. Hence our current confusion, our current paralysis, our current inability to vomit!

"We cannot fight what we cannot understand. And so, I have striven to understand the root at the Cancer of Modernity, the cause of the dawned Kali Yuga. Through meditation and observation, through alignment with sacred geometry and the ancient and revered practice of gymnosophistry, through bhavana and the awakening of my kundalini energy, I have reached enlightenment. It was not easy. There was much of myself that was imperfect, much that needed to be purged. I myself, like all creatures doomed to exist in this Worst of All Possible Epochs, existed in a state of putrefaction. To purify, to ascend, I needed to take the perfect Soul still shielded within my Heart and extend out of myself, emerge Born Anew, and then smash the head of my old self to paste with a Sledgehammer. But I did it! And I have transformed my body into a vessel. It contains all the Facts of this world, but only the Right ones, excluding those that our Enemy has manufactured to confuse us, and that our confusion drives us to meekly accept."

Ryan, you were once my friend. What mattered was you showed me a small part of yourself you showed nobody else; you let me in. You're Class Rank 1. You're intelligent. Who are these dolls you've gathered? Azusa Kennedy, like all her siblings, is named after a Los Angeles suburb; I note she shares her name with a character from K-On!. And Patricia St. Martin...

"Here is what I know now. Here is the Truth, once the excess Facts are shorn: What we fight is neither Order nor Chaos. It is a perverted form of both, a Chaos that believes itself to be Order. It is Insanity. It is those who have used logical means to reach an illogical conclusion. Our minds, in this Modern world, are pushed too far. All Human Knowledge is crammed inside of them, and they are bursting, and they do not see the proper Connections of things, they no longer see the true Order because it is encrusted with garbage, detritus, Pointless Diversion. Seeing only garbage, they believe garbage is Order. And thus they fight for garbage, fight with all the powers of their Rational Minds. They are traitors who do not even understand that they are betraying God, for they cannot see who God is. There is a Hole in their heads. And so, there is only one thing we can do, once we find the root at the Cancer of Modernity.

"Take up your knives. We, the Order of Order, will carve our inaugural Feast."

There is a series of clinks. All the girls take from the table a carving knife like the one Melpomene Goldthwaite holds (she grabbed hers early, ruining the careful organization of the proceedings, but Ryan is unaware or else knows she needs to compromise with these people, knows there is nobody in this world who can be what she wants, even her own dolls).

"As Above, So Below; Microcosm and Macrocosm are united. Enid Lim! You are the center of everything; yet you are Insane. There is a Hole in Your head. Your head is the Microcosm; the school is the Macrocosm. Like connects to like: the singular, central instrument of Reason on one hand, and the communal, cultural instrument of Reason on the other. Both, now, perverted. Enid Lim, tell me: have You not heard Voices that were never there?"

I should deny it, though I know it won't convince her.

"Enid Lim, tell me now: have You not seen Things move that were not moving?"

I can't deny it. I can't say so brazen a lie. But her logic is twisted. She has made the point hinge on something she, somehow, can prove, but the conclusions she draws are what's flawed.

"Enid Lim, tell me now: was Your Brother schizophrenic?"

He was schizophrenic. And I told Mom that because he was schizophrenic, he was dangerous; they interrogated whether he was schizophrenic, and never bothered to question whether what I said about him being dangerous were true.

"Enid Lim, tell me! Tell me: are You schizophrenic?"

"I am, Ryan. You know I am."

Ryan claps the Bible closed. Her smile is serene; her eyes slide softly shut. "You confess. Thank you, Enid. You confess because some part of You still yearns for what is Good and what is Right, some part of You is disgusted by the part it cannot control. You were never wholly evil, Enid, though you betrayed Your friends, Your school, Your world, Your reality, Your Self. You were never wholly evil, and that is what made You so dangerous, what allowed You to slip among us, undetected—"

"Among us," whispers Azusa Kennedy, Hod.

"I swear I will kill you!" says Melpomene Goldthwaite, Tiferet. "If you ruin this I will kill you!"

"Be quiet," says Firenze George, Binah. "Be quiet and listen."

"The Hole in Your head," Ryan says, "became the Hole in the wall. Enid, You understand, right? That sly Baphomet, Miranda Van Zandt, may convince You of any other explanation, but mine is the only explanation that is Right—the only one that Makes Sense."

They plan to sacrifice me. I'm the root of the cancer, the center of it all; killing me will close the Distortion. I am God; and they will devour me.

"You must die," Ryan says. "You must be the meal served at this Lovefeast."

"Rather gross?" says Prue Malheur.

"My roommate already sacrificed herself for me," I say. I was unwilling to defend my sanity, but I will defend my life.

"You didn't actually tell me we were doing something like this, you know," says Malheur.

"She took my burden. She absolved me. She was my friend. She killed the Gorehound in my stead. There is nothing more you can wring out of me."

"And if your reading is wrong?"

Ryan is slightly disconcerted. At first, I think it's due to what I said. But her eyes remain riveted across the table, past me. I look up to see, crawling out from within the long folds of Prue Malheur's cape, a second Prue Malheur. She's on four limbs like a dog, so I can only see her head past the table. Like the first, she wears a skull as a mask. But it's the charred wolf skull of the Gorehound, or a Halloween facsimile.

"Nice to meet you," the second Malheur says.

"No, this is wrong," Ryan says. "There are too many of us now."

"I'll deal with the second one." Melpomene Goldthwaite starts to move with the knife. She holds one of my arms; when she lets go, I think, that's when I'll fight. I only need to surprise Valerie Soranus, who holds my other arm, and...

"Stop! Maintain your position. Your position is everything." Ryan's eyes meander down to her Bible. "Order is everything. The newcomer is—Da'ath, the point in which all ten Sefirot are united as one, the conscious manifestation of the unconscious divine Will represented by Keter."

"I'm Da'ath," I say. "I'm the image of God."

"You're the sacrifice. You can't be one of the sefirot. You're the sacrifice!"

"I'm Da'ath. All emanations are united in me. I am one and I am all; I am the divine Rebis."

"One more and we're the Last Supper," says Meredith Johannes, Gevurah.

"It's really cold," mutters Valerie Soranus, Netzach.

"I'm Da'ath," I say. "Isn't that right? Isn't that your own logic? I'm God. You're an Alternate, Ryan. You were altered to center around me."

"I am the real one!"

Here on the table, soaked in the rain, under the eye in the sky, a shard strikes through me: lucidity. I see all, but now for once I can see somewhere still hidden from me: inside myself. "Because you're right. I'm insane. But it's not schizophrenia. It's not about Order or Chaos. It's about myself. It's always been about myself. And the fundamental pain of it, the fundamental problem, was that I needed it to be about myself but myself wasn't good enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't important enough, wasn't even defined enough. So I had to define myself through other people. I needed them. I needed them like metal rods through my body, I needed them as support structures to prop me up. Or like pins for a skinned face. I needed Eric's story to be my story, I needed Ryan's soul to be my soul, I needed Miranda's meaning to be my meaning. And when they couldn't be that, when Eric turned to himself and Ryan turned to Corbett and Miranda turned to Halicarnassus Brown or Luc Wintermute, I couldn't accept it. It had to be me. If it wasn't me, if they weren't there holding me up, I was no longer anything, not even to myself. So I had to change you, all of you. I had to change everything. I had to make it center around me. I had to become Da'ath. I am Da'ath, now."

Yes; I see. I see. I see. It's so bright and clear. For once, just this once, seeing myself reflected in the eye peering down at me, I see myself. Beware of mirrors.

"No!" Ryan bellows. "You are what I say you are! You're mad; You're blind. Only I see Order! I purged all parts of myself that couldn't See. I smashed my head to a bloody Mess. You're Insane, and this is only raving—or an idea Miranda Van Zandt put in Your head, which is one and the same thing. Yes—only I see Order!"

"You see your order," says Prue Malheur.

"That's yours," says Prue Malheur.

"What about hers?" She points at me. I no longer see her phylactery; instead, the chain she holds connects to a collar on the one wearing the Gorehound's skull.

"If reality bends around her, what if killing her makes us all go poof, like figures in a dream?"

"Maybe it's what Siobhan wants," the second says to the first.

"True. She does have those tendencies," the first says to the second.

"Smashing her own head with a sledgehammer..."

"Not the best way to reach enlightenment!"

Ryan trembles with rage.

"Siobhan," says MacKenzie Fayerweather, Chokmah. She is looking into the distance, down the field.

"None of your nonsense matters," Ryan says. "I know what I know. When Enid Lim is sacrificed, Order will be restored. The Hole in the wall will close, because we have closed the Hole in our heads."

"Siobhan."

"The Rites have been performed. There will be no further delays. The Feast begins! Make the mark of the Stigmata upon Her. Hands, feet, and stomach—now!"

Despite her urgency, most of the girls holding me hesitate. Some look at the carving knives in their hands; others look down the field, like Fayerweather. Only Melpomene Goldthwaite acts. She grasps my wrist and plunges the carving knife into my palm.

For all my newfound understanding, I scream, obviously. It hurts.

The scream startles the others. Goldthwaite digs deeper, swirling the knife around. Warm blood bubbles to the surface, pools, spills out onto her white clothes, the tablecloth, and the grass.

Then, the thing Fayerweather is looking at arrives. It's the groundskeeper's golf cart.

The cart seats four, despite only the groundskeeper ever using it. Zinnia Fitzpeter drives, Lulu Paraiso beside her; Velouria Roseingrave and Lethe Marie Claypoole sit in the opposite-facing backseat, legs dangling. Cherry Corbett stands on the running board, one arm propped casually on the roof. The cart drags behind it a little open-bed trailer, which wobbles erratically as the cart, unbalanced, putters across a lawn more puddle than turf. The remaining four (Phebe Stuyvesant, Ursula Yocum, and the twins) sit packed in the trailer with their knees folded.

As Fitzpeter brakes, Corbett hops off and carries the momentum to bring her directly to the table, sledgehammer grasped in one hand. "Stop that," she says to Goldthwaite. She looks at Malheur and Malheur, and then Ryan. "Siobhan what the fuck is this weeb shit?"

"Don't interrupt," says Ryan. "We must close the Hole in the Macrocosm by closing the Hole in the Microcosm."

"Fucking stop that." Corbett waves an irritated hand at Goldthwaite, who flirts with stabbing me again. I decide there's no point in stoicism or upekkha and scream a little more.

"We must Sacrifice Her. It's the only way to close the Hole."

"We got metal plates from the groundskeeper." Corbett points to the trailer. The plates are there, two-by-four feet, but flat on the bed, so nobody can see them. "Power drill, screws. We nail them to the wall. That'll close it."

"No. That won't work," Ryan says. "That's meaningless. That's Van Zandtism. It's Reason fighting Reason."

A Malheur, I don't care to tell which, says, "There's no solution but to escape her orbit."

"Whose orbit? What are you talking about?" says Corbett. "It's screws and metal. It's cold, hard reality. Get a grip."

"The Distortion is protected by the Garden," MacKenzie Fayerweather points out. It's true. The botanical garden, the entrance of which looms beyond Ryan, is monstrous. It is so overflowing it has become abstract, it plays tricks on the eyes, it becomes difficult to determine beginnings and endings.

"We got shit for that too. Chainsaw, pesticide."

"You're so stupid!" Melpomene Goldthwaite screams. "You're a stupid idiot jock who takes it up the ass like a fucking whore! Let's sacrifice her too!"

"Sin is a symptom, not the Cause," Ryan says. "Prioritize. We fight the symptom once we have cured the Root."

"Then what are we fucking waiting for!"

Goldthwaite raises the knife skyward, eclipsing the emerald eyeball that has replaced the 88 constellations of the sky. She is no longer aiming for my hand, but for my heart. Corbett reaches for Goldthwaite's wrist. Goldthwaite snarls and slashes.

I don't know much about Melpomene Goldthwaite. She's a sophomore, so she existed last year, and in that time I learned her name and interacted with her once or twice. I know she's close friends with Tianne Devers (Chesed) and Meredith Johannes (Gevurah), though not the sort of closeness that gets Spirit Labuschagne whispering. I don't know what bond unites them, what mutual interests or affinities keep them tied. I know she's the smartest and youngest of the trio and that her father breeds horses that compete at the Kentucky Derby. (Maybe that fact should have gotten Labuschagne whispering, horse girls and their horses you know, but Goldthwaite like us all has nothing to do with her father.) The point is, I don't understand what renders her so dogmatic in service of Ryan's philosophy, whether it's something she believes deeply or wants to pretend she believes. Maybe it's a psychopathic bent toward violence, maybe letting my blood run onto her hand arouses her. I could find out. In the mess of frantic thoughts assaulting me, thoughts of fear and anxiety, thoughts of annoyance and irreducible purpose, I could sift and find hers. But with this searing bolt of pain in my hand, I no longer want to try. My roommate made it so I no longer need to try. She sacrificed herself for me. Right. She saved me. She, finally, made me matter, truly matter, to myself.

So instead I'll come up with my own explanation: Melpomene Goldthwaite is the Muse of Tragedy, and thus she acts to bring us toward that ultimate outcome.

Corbett steps back. She peers down at her hand, which she holds palm-up, as though she expects the knife to have cut it. It hasn't. Her hand is untouched, at least until blood drips onto it.

A red line spreads across her throat, just above the dangling key.

The clown crew stumbles out of the golf cart. "Cherry," Fitzpeter yells, catching Corbett as she falls back.

Paraiso, on the other hand, rushes Goldthwaite with the claw hammer. "Bitch—"

Tianne Devers, Chesed, in the position next to (but not sequential to) Goldthwaite's Tiferet, lets go of my right leg and leaps forward to protect her best friend. She does not intend to do what she does next, but Tianne Devers is bookish with thick glasses, glasses persistently fogged by the rain. She moves from one direction, Paraiso the other, and at some point distances have been misjudged.

The knife Devers holds slides smoothly, easily (shck) into Paraiso's gut.

"Oh, fuck," Paraiso says.

Chaos reigns. Every person gathered galvanizes into their own disunified action. Myself included. Goldthwaite and Devers no longer hold my right arm and leg. I ignore the pain in my hand and put everything into swinging my body to attack the girls on my left. Valerie Soranus, Netzach, has my arm; Meredith Johannes, Gevurah, my leg. Johannes, also a close friend of Goldthwaite and Devers, is already deliberating whether to help them. My sudden spurt of activity makes her decide. She dodges out of range of the leg I bring up to kick her and vaults the tabletop to join the fray.

That leaves Soranus. Like everyone else, the instant escalation has stunned her. When I throw my entire weight at her, she collapses under me. We drop into the grass on the left side of the table and I put all of my effort into pinning her hand holding the knife. Problem: Soranus is left-handed. My right hand goes for her left, but my right hand is the one with an agonizing hole in it, and attempting to grab her wrist sends an explosion up my arm. I scream, but I can't let it stop me, everything is happening fast. I pin Soranus' arm with my elbow and instead place my palm on her face, smearing her eyes with blood. My knee does the rest of the work. I drive it directly into her pelvis. There is an unexpected protrusion, but that only makes the strike more devastating. A heavy lump catches in Soranus' throat and she drops the knife.

At the same time, Goldthwaite brings her knife into Lulu Paraiso's eyeball, or tries. The knife is too big, only its point goes in, and when it pulls back drags the eye partway out with it. Paraiso staggers, causing Devers' knife to retract; blood spews from where she was pierced. Somehow she remains on her feet until Goldthwaite tackles her, straddles her, and brings the knife down again and again into her face.

Corbett, gripping her throat and wide-eyed, pushes Fitzpeter back with a hand and uses the sledgehammer to rise.

"Mel, Mel, Mel, what are you doing!" Johannes attempts to wrest Goldthwaite off of Paraiso's lacerated and unrecognizable face.

Lethe Marie Claypoole kneels beside the golf cart and fires her nail gun in rapid succession, pow-pow-pow-pow-pow. Two nails dig into Goldthwaite's shoulder and three into Johannes' cheek, piercing through to jab her teeth.

Azusa Kennedy, Hod, hides under the table.

Patricia St. Martin, Yesod, runs at the girls spilling out of the cart's trailer. Ursula Yocum stumbles on exit and tries to start her chainsaw but doesn't actually know how. At the last second she lifts it to deflect the knife swinging down.

I snatch the knife Soranus dropped. Ryan has leapt onto the table, shouting like a judge in court: "Order, Order, Order!" But it's gone, it's all gone. The flowers of her headdress shiver in the rain.

Yocum, unbalanced by the ungainly chainsaw, slips and falls in a puddle of mud. St. Martin thinks this is her chance (to do what? She just wants to fit in) and tries to jump on her, but slips in the same puddle.

Corbett has risen.

Prue Malheur and Prue Malheur regard the sky, where a whole new set of constellations emerge in the emerald-eyed moon. Mine? Or Hers?

The twins slide next to St. Martin and start stabbing her with gardening shears.

I raise the knife with my good hand to kill Soranus. (She doesn't want to die. Behind her back girls call her Sore-Anus. But I don't want to die either. No, I do not want to die.) Then my third eye senses MacKenzie Fayerweather behind me. I have to protect myself.

Ryan points at me from the top of the table. "You have to die! You have to die!" She holds the scissors. But only with her off hand; her other is bandaged where Weaver struck her with the car.

Corbett, gripping her throat, runs at Goldthwaite with the sledgehammer. She swings, fast for how heavy it is and how she wields it one-handed, but slow enough for Goldthwaite to roll away. Meredith Johannes, behind her, is picking at the nails stuck in her cheek and doesn't see it coming. The flat metal head crunches into her ribs, just under her armpit.

I spin around on my knees and stab the knife upward at MacKenzie Fayerweather. She doesn't expect me to turn so quickly, and how could she? She doesn't know I see everything. Her goal isn't to attack me with her knife, which she has actually left on the table, but to restrain me before I hurt Soranus. She still anticipates execution of a ritual that will trigger Eternal Recurrence to a time when the world made sense. The last time the world made sense was when she was ten, before her mother put her cell phone in the microwave to protect her from 5G. I remember the cat costume she wore to the Halloween party. How did she make the tail move so much like life? The knife plunges into her solar plexus, annihilating Manipura, the third chakra, where inward prana and outward apana meet. She makes a weird and quiet sound before I drag down and split her open. A flood of warm, structureless matter streams over my hand.

The twins keep stabbing Patricia St. Martin. Ursula Yocum rolls over and tries to crawl away, but can't find anything but mud to grip onto.

Tianne Devers drops her knife. She throws her hands up, halfway to surrender, halfway to plead on behalf of Meredith Johannes, who squirms against the ground clutching her side and rasping for air. Corbett swings the sledgehammer again. The one-handed aim is awkward. She obliterates Devers' hip.

None of this registers for Goldthwaite, who, bloodlusted, charges the one who shot her with nails, Lethe Marie Claypoole. Claypoole fires the nail gun at Goldthwaite's careening body but Goldthwaite doesn't care, she sticks an arm over her face and lets nails plunge into her palm, fingers, wrist. Claypoole realizes she can't stop her and tries to climb over the golf cart to the other side, where Velouria Roseingrave and Phebe Stuyvesant are cowering, but she slips in the ubiquitous mud and slams against the side of the cart instead. She wriggles like a worm onto her back as Goldthwaite bears down with the knife and sticks her legs up in a desperate gambit for defense. Both feet go into Goldthwaite's stomach and Claypoole pushes to carry Goldthwaite, who is also slipping, up and over her and into the golf cart's trailer. Goldthwaite's chin strikes the metal corner of the bed and she bounces off into the twins, who are too busy stabbing St. Martin to see her coming.

"Cherry, stop!" Fitzpeter screams. She's too smart, though, to get anywhere near as Corbett swings the sledgehammer like a berserker and glances a blow off the falling Tianne Devers' wrist, which shatters.

Ryan, final bastion, is consumed by Chaos; she sprints down the table at me. I try to pull the knife out of Fayerweather but Fayerweather's hands clamp around my wrist, holding me to her. In contented desperation she is fully confident that if only Ryan completes the ritual, if only I am sacrificed, everything will return to normal. She imagines herself miraculously healing. No, she imagines time rewinding, a new 5 November 2024 dawning, and all that occurred here transformed into a dream, or the pages of someone's Creative Writing assignment.

An umbrella floats on a gale that sweeps across the field.

Corbett stops trying to stop the blood running down her throat and grips the sledgehammer with both hands. Devers holds a hand meekly for mercy. Corbett glances at Lulu Paraiso's mutilated body, then brings the sledgehammer down on Devers' chest, caving her sternum.

"HHHXXXCCCHHHHH," Corbett says.

This is the exact instant Firenze George makes her move. After she handed the scissors to Ryan, her focus went to Corbett, whom she identified as the biggest threat. She waited, hovering on the battle royale's outskirts, watching for an opening, which Corbett didn't allow with her wild one-handed swings, but which manifests now that the head of her sledgehammer is sunken deep into Tianne Devers.

I can't escape Fayerweather's death-rigid grip. She grins down at me, maniacally triumphant as her lifeblood gushes out. Ryan is fast, she's athletic, she's beautiful and perfect or so I once thought (so I once wanted to be) and she's leaping off the table at me, with those long sharp scissors gleaming in the eyelight as vividly unseaming as any knife. I have no other option. My stigmatized hand grips my wrist and despite the pain I pull with everything in me. I scream. But Fayerweather's blood is pouring all over my hands, over her hands, it's made everything slick and wet. Ryan hurtles down at me. A slippery writhing twist and I fly back. I don't have the knife, Fayerweather clutches it inside herself, but I'm free. I put a spurt of energy into my legs and kick off as Ryan comes down, the offhanded scissorblades missing my hamstring by half an inch.

The twins, Goldthwaite, and Patricia St. Martin's corpse or near corpse are tangled in the mud. Goldthwaite swings the knife insanely and finds purchase first, into Klein Schermerhorn's foot. The blade goes straight through her designer tennis shoe and ruins the intricate musculature of the extremities in an instant. Goldthwaite, positively reinforced by rent flesh, stabs again and again, quick like a hornet, into Klein's ankle, Achilles, and shin. Then Bridget Schermerhorn sticks the gardening shears into Goldthwaite's ribs.

Prue Malheur and Prue Malheur see all revealed in these new stars. Calmly, the one carrying the leash of the other, they walk away.

While Corbett's hammer remains sunken, Firenze George barrels at her headlong. It's the perfect moment. Corbett cannot possibly lift her weapon in time to defend herself. So she doesn't. She doesn't even move her hands. As the knife lashes out, Corbett sways her body abruptly to the side. The knife passes harmlessly and brings George's head right next to hers. At which point Corbett swings her thick skull like a battering ram into George's nose.

I've managed to reach my feet and I'm running. Ryan is behind me; the only head start I get is the time it takes her to rise. My goal, I think, should be to round the table and mix with the people on the other side, with Corbett. But I don't have the option of circling back. The moment I try any movement to take me past her, Ryan would intercept. She's too fast, too agile, and barely a moment divides us. My only option is a direct, straight path away from her, and this won't work for long. I'm not the only one running. Valerie Soranus takes off at a different angle, heading pointlessly toward the front of the school, where she'll find what? Plants growing out of the gate? Not that I have a better idea. My path puts me into the alley that runs behind the tennis court and the dormitories. I'm rushing straight to the dead end corner where the wreckage of the dining hall still casts up smoke. But Ryan's breath is on my neck. I have to run.

Goldthwaite doesn't care about the shears embedded in her. She throws herself on Bridget Schermerhorn and drives the knife into her open mouth.

Firenze George's nose is obliterated. Her face spews blood. She reorients the knife and some dull part of her thinks with a good angle, a quick strike at the right spot, but it's useless. Corbett has more than enough time now. She brings the sledgehammer straight up into George's chin, and that's the end of all dreams. George drops. Corbett screeches, "KKHHHLLLLXXXHHHH," and swings the sledgehammer down on her head. The skull explodes, bone, blood, brain, eyeballs, teeth, as the rest of the body gives a violent shudder.

Goldthwaite leaves Bridget Schermerhorn gurgling and drowning in blood. She turns for someone else. Klein Schermerhorn is crawling away, but her leg's gimped, she's easy prey at any time. Ursula Yocum is still thrashing in the mud, swimming in place. Her chainsaw has landed out of reach. Goldthwaite hobbles on her knees, her knife ready to end the little rat once and for all.

I run for my life.

"XXXCCCHHH," Corbett howls to the eyeball in the sky, back arched in triumph, arms extended to the rain, chest a bloody bib.

Goldthwaite pins Yocum down with her nail-studded arm. She is immune to pain. She has reverted to beast. The knife rises. Yocum shields her face with her hands. The knife hangs over her, and hangs. Goldthwaite remains still. Her wildness mists. Then, the instrument of tragedy slumps to the side. In the back of her skull is embedded the claw of Lulu Paraiso's hammer, which Lethe Marie Claypoole has buried there.

"Rofl," Claypoole says.

"To escape her orbit," Prue Malheur says. "To anchor to something else," Prue Malheur says.

I run for my life.

Chapter 28: For Me (    )

"Kali Yuga," Siobhan Ryan screams as she chases me behind the dormitories. "Kali Yuga! Kali Yuga!"

At the end of the straightaway stands Noël D'Addario. She holds the fire extinguisher overhead. She looks down at a blackened lump of flesh no larger than a human. Though she is the logical conclusion of my run I harbor no delusions. She is unaware I exist. She is not my savior.

"Kali Yuga! Kali Yuga!"

Instead, something only I expect happens: the back door of the dormitory building opens. All this time, one tangential figure has remained inside. Her name is Freyja Mason, a freshman. She took refuge in Prue Malheur's room during the Gorehound attack. She hid under the desk. When the dining hall exploded, the building rocked violently; one of Malheur's books fell. It bounced open to a diagram of a dreaming woman in a sylvan scene under a vast curving sky, astronomically accurate though centered around a too-large moon. The woman wore only a loose, translucent gown over her voluptuous body, and in her sleep was penetrated by a red-eyed incubus with venom-dripping dugs and outrageous priapism. The incubus, though engaged bodily in its act, stared directly out at the reader with eyes vivid and lifelike. Taped to the page was a lock of platinum blonde hair. Mason shut the book, but the image remained, stirring fears already stirred, what we might describe as delusions: she became convinced Prue Malheur was a Satanist, that her room was full of occult symbols, that the Devil was en route, that she had to escape.

Now she is opening the door right in front of me. This is a mistake. As Liz Bennet learned, as Zinnia Fitzpeter intuited, the back door is a bad door to open. She is unable to register me before I collide into her. We trip over the corpses strewn on the dormitory building's floor.

The door starts closing the moment I fly through it. I imagine Ryan slowing to open it while I gain distance on her. But in practice, my entanglement with Freyja Mason delays me much more than any advantage I would gain from that. She's all limbs, jabbing into me; she's actively attacking me with all her strength. She thinks I'm the Devil. "Satan, Satan," she screams, barely comprehensible. Ryan is through the door and descending on me with the scissors.

I roll over, forcing Mason on top of me, and Mason takes the scissors to the back of the neck. To her spinal column, specifically, and while the blades don't go deep they go deep enough. Mason stiffens in paralysis as I kick out from under her, breaking away while Ryan wriggles the scissors loose from the cervical vertebrae.

Last time I saw this hallway, it was full of open doors. Now the doors are shut. All save one: my own. Déjà vu devours me as I run with Ryan at my heels. I've done this before. We've all done this before. Eternal Recurrence, intervals of Chaos, intervals of Order, returning, endlessly, until there is nothing for anyone to strive for save amor fati, love of fate.

I reach my door. I grip the knob with my unhurt hand to shut it behind me and the scissors come down and slice between thumb and forefinger so easily it's like my corporeal form is nothing but an illusion, a Docetism. The pain is real, though, or else my suffering is only an image too. I pull back, trying to pull the door with me, but Ryan muscles her way into it while it slams her against the jamb. I fall back onto my bed, roll to the side, and bounce up as Ryan clambers into the room.

My desk is beside me, covered with books. I grab the first off the stack and hurl it at Ryan. The cover flashes, the pages flap apart, the silhouetted boy: Less Than Zero. It seems to stick to Ryan's face, her hands fly up to batter it aside, and that gives me time to lift something more deliberate, the largest tome I own, 1,000 octavo-sized pages with PVC-coated artificial leather binding. I grip it with both hands despite the pain in both; the pain, dualistic, is made more bearable. Ryan knocks Less Than Zero away as I swing, the gold-lettered title catching what light still remains in this room:

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

CRRRACK!

Ryan's head jerks on her neck. Her jaw jerks at a different speed and trajectory. The flesh of her cheek ripples; an eyelid flutters, strobing brilliant emerald. It is not the weight of Corbett's sledgehammer I hit her with, but there is something beautiful in the intimacy, the way all the little pieces that compose her skull rattle and quiver. Petals from her flower headdress twirl.

She drops on my bed. She drops the scissors. I toss the Gibbon aside and pounce on them. They're mine before Ryan's stunned fingers flop out to retrieve them, I hoist them out of reach, overhead. Then I think: It won't end until. I bring down the scissors.

The point drives into her left breast. It goes until it hits the hard resistance of bone. Ryan gasps, sweeps her hands at me, but her legs lose their tautness. When I pull the scissors out she either tries to rise and fails or attempts to slither away like a serpent. She pulls the coverlet, pillows, and sheets with her as she drops to the ground. Her blood runs out and smears their purity.

Never real anyway.

I'm on top, straddling her, my knees folded on either side of her waist, and I stab as we entangle in my bedding. Down, into her stomach. Down, into her chest. Down, into her shoulder. Down, into her upraised hand. Down, into her side. Down, into her hip. Down, into her crotch, down again, down again, it's the only mutilation I can still imagine after everyone else expended the others, left no more part of the human anatomy to unmake. The scissors dig between her thighs, plunging deeper and deeper each time. I grunt ferally, she groans. I drive it into whatever she has down there. A vast red circle grows from the spot. It spills into my sheets. My blade scrapes the inner bones of her pelvis. The flesh is compacted, mashed, and split. Any semblance of form, feminine or masculine, is erased. I stab. I stab. I stab. I—

Cherry Corbett, her blood-soaked shirt tied taut around her neck like a cravat or tourniquet, strides five-foot-ten of bare wet flesh into the Garden. Only a black sports bra and shorts, and the visor that has remained on her head all this time, and of course the key, divide her from the state of mankind's creation as she leads her survivors in pursuit of a mission only grown more vivid in her mind as Chaos encroaches. Hollow, terrified, incapable of abandoning her animal magnetism, they follow. Zinnia Fitzpeter carries the chainsaw, Velouria Roseingrave the backpack pressure sprayer full of pesticide. Phebe Stuyvesant and Ursula Yocum bring up the rear; balanced atop their heads are the two plates of aluminum sheet metal Corbett thinks can cover the hole. Corbett's original plan, concocted in the groundskeeper's cabin, was to sledgehammer the plates to the wall via metal stakes. Then the groundskeeper opened his eyes and said, Don't you rich girls know anything? You'll just smash the brick to pieces. Power drill and anchor screws, that's the ticket, right over there. He sagged again, shut his eyes, was left for dead as they drove off in the golf cart; but I know better now.

The drill is affixed to a loop of utility belt tied to Lethe Marie Claypoole's waist. The screws are in a pouch on her hip.

They have left behind the dead, dying, and hurt at the table. Klein Schermerhorn couldn't walk after what Goldthwaite did to her foot, and she was unwilling to move from her dead sister anyway. Meredith Johannes wasn't dead, but with bits of rib embedded into her lung, she would be sooner or later. That left Prue Malheur and Prue Malheur, walking away calmly. Out of respect for her victory in the tennis championship, Corbett let her be.

The rest, the remaining six, trudge into the Garden.

They are the ideal platoon of a Final Vietnam, masculinizing under the weight of their equipment, their construction materials, their power tools, their weapons. They wade knee deep into a swamp of green congealed rainwater. Tube creatures, larval or vegetable, writhe against their ankles. Stuyvesant whimpers; Corbett hisses "Kxxxshchxxx," shut up. The roots of trees grown colossal undulate in and out of the water like a serpent on the edge of a map. Nooses of ivy dangle. Lilypads large as elephant footprints, lovely horrible lotus blooms telescoping open and shut. Splash of something they cannot see, concealed by encircling layers of growth. Every step a potential tripwire, every ripple maybe the vegetable matter coming alive. They pass the ruined, eroding stone arch. IL FA—CULT—ER NO—RE JARDIN between fingers of moss like the triumphal architecture that remained in Rome a millennium after the Empire fell, lingering whisper of a doomed civilization, before finally people started to think the past was worth preserving, that maybe, suicidally, it ought to be emulated...

I have hollowed out Siobhan Ryan's womb and found nothing inside. It may only be intestine. She is the inverse of her corpse in The Breakers: perfectly preserved face, beautiful but dull-eyed like a doll, and her body a gory ruin. I am slumped so totally my forehead rests on her collarbone, panting with both hands clasped to the scissors embedded in the cavity of her flesh. My sheets are ruined.

"Enid..."

My head tilts laboriously, one notch of the neck at a time, until one eye stares over my shoulder between my blood-clumped hair.

My roommate is in the closet door.

"You died," I say—

The bright red Osakazuki flares with red leaves poised to set fire to the earth. Corbett leads her troops under its bowers, eyes dead ahead. Fitzpeter looks up, Roseingrave looks up. On the drooping branches grow fruits. Round hard fruits with translucent rubbery skin. In the pink-red juice are grown, like pits, the serenely sleeping heads of the girls of All Saints Academy...

"You died for me."

My roommate's jaw hangs slack like an idiot. Her eyes shift from Ryan's corpse to me, to Ryan, to me, back and forth.

"Enid..."

She steps out of the closet. She realizes how stupid her face looks and covers her mouth with a hand. I raise my body off Ryan's. It feels heavy. My desk was jolted during the struggle, and my books have cascaded off, most soaked in blood near Ryan's feet. Otherwise the room is tranquil and calm. That is despite the fact that Miranda Van Zandt sits on the foot of my roommate's bed, legs crossed, hand carefully swiveling her last bobby pin in the sphere's keyhole as she watches with moderate interest; and despite the fact that in the closet, which remains ajar, Enid Lim sits with red eyes and white skin and a crucifix around her neck.

"Enid," my roommate says, "it's—okay. It's okay. I know you—must have—needed to do it."

"You died for me—"

Tam Bell and Lulu Paraiso, head-to-head like twin cherries. Spirit Labuschagne. Anapsychia Gray, Amy Weaver. Phebe Stuyvesant peers from around the sheet metal plate she carries and sees Joan St. Cuthbert and chokes down a sob...

"You sacrificed yourself for me."

"Pardon?" Even now, she clings to that affectation. Pardon. Pardon. Pardon.

"You took on my sin for me." She made me matter. She gave me form. She brought me, even, clarity.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Enid. I hid here the entire time."

I cannot read her mind. She is the only one whose thoughts I don't know. Right now, I can see Valerie Soranus as she runs into the Administration building; Nadine Block, hiding on the other side of the door, slams Miss Syrene's computer on the back of her head. I can see Klein Schermerhorn, sitting over the corpse of her twin sister, picking up a kitchen knife and holding the point to her throat, but she can't do it, she doesn't have the nerve, her hands tremble, and she pulls it away to touch the blade to her wrist, but she can't even do that. She is starting to sink into the mud, and so is the abandoned golf cart, and so is the table, forcing Azusa Kennedy to come out from under it. She tries to crawl away, but finds her ankles sucked at too strongly and the whole expanse of the field transforming into mire. She climbs onto the table instead. And I see the furrow snake through the water in the Garden, noticed only by Corbett, she tries to point but Stuyvesant is focused on the fruit-skull of Joan St. Cuthbert, the vine prehensile and animate whips out and wraps around her waist, digging with barbs, jerking her back, she lets go of the sheet metal plates, Ursula Yocum drops under their weight as they threaten to plunge into the water and be lost forever, the girls are yelling as Stuyvesant seizes a root to stop herself from being dragged into oblivion. Lethe Marie Claypoole tries to fire the nail gun but it's jammed by mud. Zinnia Fitzpeter tries to start the chainsaw but she doesn't know how. Only Corbett acts, kicking her knees up to run through the water, bringing her sledgehammer down on the thick bunched vein of vine and cleaving off a divot that spews fizzing white sap but it's not enough, and now a smaller vine coils around Stuyvesant's arm, and another her leg, drawing her body taut though she clings to the root for her life, her glasses falling and floating on the water, her skin straining, stretching, and splitting where the vines pull. "Pxxxszxxczczxxxx!" Pesticide! Velouria Roseingrave with the pressure sprayer is backing away, she refuses to believe it's real. Fitzpeter finds the chainsaw cord and pulls and nothing happens. Ursula Yocum barely keeps her head above water, opening her mouth to gasp for air and taking in a swish of mud, as the metal plates weigh down her back. Corbett lifts the sledgehammer again, but Stuyvesant screams as her fingertips are scraped off by the bark of the root, the skin and fine muscle abraded, only bloody handprints left as she is wrenched back and skimmed across the water into an impenetrable bramble...

I see all that, but I cannot read my roommate's mind. Miranda Van Zandt might explain it as a byproduct of her being the artificial intelligence iteration directly preceding me. A quirk of the lore. A glimpse of something long ago, freeze frame 12:34, that explains it. And Prue Malheur, what might she say? Outside of my orbit, anchored to something other than me. Whether the explanation is, ultimately, Satanic or technological or even metafiction, it doesn't matter: What matters is that there is an explanation at all. And any of those explanations would be better than the one metastasizing in my brain, a quiet intrusive thought in a voice that might be mine or might be my mother's:

You don't want to know what she's thinking.

No, I don't.

I don't want to know.

I don't want certainty.

I want the shadow to remain.

I want to, I need to be able to say that the roommate standing in front of me with her oh-so-caring, oh-so-empathetic expression, her subtle condescension laced, nonetheless, with warmth, her moonstone eyes I can see through and that seem, in turn, to see through me, to pierce to my essence, to read my mind as clearly as I hear Phebe Stuyvesant screaming while a root tears the skin but not the bone off one arm, and another winds so tight around her leg crushing it so the flesh bulges between the coils and the bone snaps, and another buries thorns into her neck as it lowers her, head-down, into the pulsating vascularity of a gargantuan Nepenthes mirabilis salivating digestive acid that sizzles and dissolves on touch, I need to be able to say that she is not the real one. She is the fake. The real one gave herself to me, incontrovertibly, body and mind and soul. She sacrificed herself; her sacrifice validated my existence, it made my existence worth something, it made everything MATTER in a way Miranda Van Zandt's theories or Prue Malheur's koans never could, it was what spurred me to fight for my life on that table, to run from Ryan, to cave out Ryan's beautiful body until nothing was left but Chaotic and inert sludge.

"Enid. Why don't we—why don't we clean you off? Yes, that's a good idea. Clean you off and get you nice and dry. I'm sure help will come soon."

Stuyvesant keeps screaming as she is slowly digested alive in the coffin of the pitcher plant, and Corbett and the others can hear her, but the way is a wall of thorns. Fitzpeter is muttering something about saving her anyway, holding the chainsaw like it'll accomplish anything. Nobody notices that the weight of the sheet metal plates is drowning Ursula Yocum until Corbett effortlessly lifts them off with one hand. Yocum vomits up a semiliquid deluge of mud but can't catch her breath, Corbett is directing them onward with forceful points and rattling aspirations. They have to keep moving, they have to reach the Distortion. Lethe Marie Claypoole takes Stuyvesant's place carrying the sheet metal and they pass, with increased urgency, under the Osakazuki and its fruit. The Distortion is not far now...

"Come on, Enid. I'll help you. It's okay. We'll stick together."

She approaches. Her hands linger a moment over my blood-drenched shoulders, but after this initial hesitation she places them, soft and ice cold. She gives an odd, uneven smile.

She is wearing the heart-shaped locket.

"You didn't have that before," I say.

She doesn't know what I'm talking about. She only realizes from my eyes, and reaches down to tweak the locket between two shy fingers.

"It was here," she says. "On my bed. Like someone left it for me."

The fake had the locket.

"Come on, Enid. You and me. We'll clean you up. We'll be safe together." She guides me toward the bathroom.

Neither Miranda Van Zandt on the bed nor Enid Lim in the closet move. Rattle... rattle... rattle goes the bobby pin. Slowly. It's her last one. She doesn't want it to snap.

The bathroom is spotless under dead white lighting. Minimalist, you might say. My existence sullies it immediately; blood appears where I don't even touch. My roommate twists the shower faucet. Water cascades. Steam rises. One whole wall is a vast mirror. Beware of mirrors—

The golf cart tilts, groans, and falls onto its side. Azusa Kennedy clings to the tabletop as its legs sag unevenly. Klein Schermerhorn can't rise on her leg and grabs the dangling tablecloth to climb up, while her other hand clings to her twin's to try and pull her with her. Instead she only drags the cloth, and Kennedy on it, who shouts at her to stop. She doesn't stop, the mud is swallowing everything. Meredith Johannes, not dead, though barely able to breathe with a punctured lung, grabs the tablecloth too. The brilliant silverware topples into a growing vortex. The table tilts; Kennedy cries out; everything topples. Kennedy lands face first. They're all sinking...

In the mirror, Enid Lim is hideous. Enid Lim is a spreading contagion of filth and decay. The countertop, the toilet, the towels blacken.

"I see it!" Fitzpeter shouts.

The Distortion is ahead. A black splotch against a brick wall, ringed by malefic trees. It, too, exudes miasma; it, too, blackens all around it.

My roommate tests the water pouring from the shower nozzle. I don't know if she can feel hot or cold. She turns to me. "Okay, it's ready. Let's get you out of those clothes."

Nadine Block pants over the body of Valerie Soranus, whose head has a halo of shattered computer parts. Block's fingers tremble at her sides. She is covered in blood. She looks, a lot, like me.

My roommate comes close. Her delicate fingers reach toward my throat.

Azusa Kennedy gurgles mud.

My hand clenches the scissors. But her fingers reach the ribbon tied through my collar. They twist and ply, untying.

The trees are writhing. The grass is twisting. Corbett batters a root back with the sledgehammer. "MZCHXXXXXXXX!" Move! Claypoole and Yocum approach the Distortion with the sheet metal.

The ribbon comes undone. It slides out and drops to the floor. Her lifeless, empty eyes watch me above the false smile, above the locket with its keyhole. She undoes the top button of my blouse. The next. The blood-thickened fabric flaps away from my shoulders like I'm being skinned.

Noël D'Addario is still waiting.

My blouse falls away. My roommate's touch is careful, gentle. But also, briefly, awkward as she reaches behind my back and removes my bra.

The Distortion is a vast and empty hole. It is black and a low hum emerges. Its shape is changed. The lower half straight and long, the upper half rounded. A keyhole. The idea that a pair of two-foot-by-four-foot plates could cover it is laughable. But they're trying anyway. All they can do is try. Corbett, Fitzpeter, and Roseingrave form a semicircular rearguard, holding their weapons ready as the Garden, rustling, prepares its attack. Claypoole and Yocum lower the first plate lengthwise against the base of the Distortion...

She unzips my skirt. It falls from my hips.

The Garden comes alive. It seems, collectively, to scream, as if touching the Distortion were touching a gaping wound. And perhaps that is exactly what it is as my roommate carefully, shyly, reaches to remove the final piece of my underwear. She sacrificed her life for me and this is what she's trying to replace herself with. She's not real. Lethe Marie Claypoole unhooks the power drill from her belt and pulls a handful of screws onto her shaking palm. Growing things surge inward around them, beaten back solely by the force of Corbett's will, the wild dervish of her sledgehammer. She hisses long airless cries (XXXXXXXX). It's all pouring in, trees and vines and ivy and creeping growing things and monstrous faerie-devouring flowers with petals like rings of teeth, the branches and the blades of grass. Roseingrave, finally believing in reality, sprays pesticide and a ray of living matter shirks back sizzling. Fitzpeter yanks and yanks the chainsaw cord and it finally roars to life, just in time as a noose-shaped root descends. She holds up the whirring blade to chew it.

Because the sheet metal plates were kept for the eventual purpose of affixing them to things, there are pre-drilled holes in the corners. The operation is exceedingly simple, even for rich girls like these, who know nothing. Undoubtedly, most of them would still find a way to ruin it, for everything to irrevocably be ruined the way my roommate has been ruined, but Lethe Marie Claypoole possesses a measure of sangfroid as she affixes the masonry drill bit to the end of the cordless drill with a few deft movements of her fingers. She does not hurry when Velouria Roseingrave screams to hurry, she makes sure she is putting it together right, because her fingers do still shake. She holds the screws between her teeth and they stick out of her mouth in a line. (Like bobby pins.) She's down on one knee. She holds the drill bit through the first hole in the metal sheet, lower left. If they were still in the swamp it'd be impossible but while there is mud around the Distortion the land is raised, a declination that did not exist before, as if the entire school has sunken leaving only the wall in its proper position. Yocum presses her body to the sheet to steady it though her feet keep slipping. The Garden is closing in on them and there's no more time for preparation. Lethe Marie Claypoole presses the trigger on the drill.

(rattlerattlerattlerattle)

It works with astonishing speed and power. It's a rotary hammer drill, as strong as cordless gets, and it takes no more than three seconds for the bit to plunge deep into the ancient brick. Dust, the only dry thing here, sprays out. The drill retracts and there's a tiny circle. Claypoole wastes no time moving to the next hole in the sheet metal, upper left. Yocum strains to hold the sheet steady. It's an impossible image, this girl with the power drill and the pins between her teeth, wearing a once-fine nightgown ripped at the skirt to expose her legs up to the thighs and drenched with filth and blood. It's an ugly image, both ugly and absurd, yet also glorious, triumphant in its practicality. The second hole is drilled.

And here I am, naked except for my shoes and socks. My roommate stands before me. She is the only person still alive in this school who isn't filthy. (The only dry thing.) Her hands, somehow, remain white. Even after she handled my clothes, even after she touched me. The filth slides off her. Slops to the floor. She's synthetic: hair, skin, eyes. If I removed her clothes the way she removed mine, what would I see? The body of a doll. If I removed that locket, what would those two dot-shaped marks on her neck really be? That book she was writing, 1 Over X, she called it "real," and what the fuck has she ever known about what's real?

The groundskeeper opens his eyes and says, Don't you rich girls know anything?

The other girls, the filthy girls, use their tools. Fitzpeter chainsaws a root that winds around her ankle, freeing herself before it has a chance to drag her away. Roseingrave desiccates the carnivorous flowers teeming at her. And Lethe Marie Claypoole drills holes. The third. The fourth. She speeds up, becomes more certain with each one, operating like a professional. She unwinds the masonry bit and switches to the screwdriver bit. The first screw comes out of her mouth and into the first hole. One quick whirr and it spins in deep, rooting the corner of the sheet to the wall with a certain, unwavering fixity. It's unbelievable. This stupid plan of Corbett's, this idiotic idea to cover the Distortion with metal, it's working. It just works. It's just math, simple and objective, a series of physical forces observable and replicable, and it only has to be replicated eight times: four per sheet.

One time.

Two times.

Three times...

"Okay Enid. Into the shower. The water's warm. We'll get you all cleaned up. I'll find you a fresh change of clothes, too."

No filth has touched the shower yet. I could walk into it and wash off everything, become as clean and spotless as her.

Four times. One of the two sheets is affixed. It covers half the Distortion. It is a skinned face stuck to the wall by four pins. Now, only the upper half, the rounded top of the keyhole, remains. Yocum, back pressed to the first sheet though it's no longer necessary, looks at the second with despair. She was able to hold the first up because it was on the ground. All she needed was to keep it pressed against the wall. This one has to be lifted.

In the field, girls are drowning in mud. The filth swallows them whole. They cannot breathe...

She wants to make me like her. She wants to make me spotless. She wants to make me inhuman. She wants to take away what she already gave me. My mind, which once felt so lucid, is growing dark again. The madness Ryan warned about.

Something is coming.

The Distortion won't let them close it so easily.

A slight tremor under my feet. It's coming.

"Enid?"

"Cherry," Yocum says. Beside her, Claypoole rises, undoing the screwdriver bit to reattach the masonry drill bit. She has four new screws in her mouth.

The hum issuing from the hole goes quiet. None of them notice.

"Hey," I say. "I have a question."

"Enid?"

"Cherry! We need you. We need you for the second plate—"

"What are those marks on your neck."

Over the top of the first plate, from the semicircular arch of the hole in the wall, the pale face in my closet appears. It's Eric. My brother or the one from The Breakers, it doesn't matter anymore. He's come looking for me. Lethe Marie Claypoole manages a single exhalation, syllables mashed together to keep the screws clamped between her lips: "Wtf?"

Eric shoots out a long white arm and seizes Claypoole by the hair.

A second arm grabs her shoulder. A third her neck. More arms, more faces, they're here, the boys, the mannequins. The screws fall from Claypoole's lips, the drill drops. Her feet fly out in the mud. Yocum screams and tries to flee. A fourth arm swipes for her head and misses, but a fifth, triple-jointed, lashes out and grabs her ankle before she can crawl away.

Deeper down the hole, barely visible in the dark, Quentin Xavier films everything.

"On my neck?" My roommate presses her fingers up and under her locket, massaging the twin dark dots. Her eyes break from mine. A touch of color, lightest pink, rises in her cheeks, and I think: trick of light. Can't verify with multiple senses. Ergo.

Yocum claws the mud as she's pulled back. Claypoole is lifted, thrashing. The other girls turn to see arms, so many arms exploding from the tiny opening of the Distortion, the arms of Everyone, Everything, of Men. The bright red Osakazuki shivers its leaves. Its fruits dance on their stems. The membranous skins start to split and blood-red juice pours out...

"Ah, it's nothing really. I just don't like—I mean—one never wants to broadcast one's blemishes..."

"XXXXXXXX!" Corbett flies at the arms with her sledgehammer. When one is shattered, another length of endless white flesh emerges; their razor fingernails dig. Claypoole is gripped all over, her scalp peels back and the flesh of her cheek is dragged down like rotten milk. She's being pulled, into the hole. Roseingrave grabs Claypoole's legs to try and save her. Yocum kicks at the hand gripping her ankle, shredding her flesh. And the plants of the Garden fly down now that nobody is there to stop them. A long, twisted, gnarled strand of ivy hanging from the distant canopy terminates in a bright red barb that drills into Velouria Roseingrave's backpack. It bursts, liquefying plant matter, but she is jerked up immediately, still clinging to Claypoole as she lifts into the air. Fitzpeter's chainsaw whirrs against the arm holding Yocum, which lets go. An arm reaches for Corbett and she pulverizes its bone with one strike. Roseingrave screams for help as she clings to Claypoole's feet while the arms cling to Claypoole, drawing her taut. An arm retreats squealing when the chainsaw cuts into it. White blood like semen drizzles in spirals, splatters their faces. A horrible stretching sound; a horrible gurgle, and then the fingers clamp into Claypoole's neck and shoulder and she splits apart at this new seam. Arms retreat into the darkness carrying with them her scalped head and the gore-spilling scrap of upper body they managed to sever; the rest of the body is dropped as Roseingrave is hoisted high into the sky, kicking and screaming "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's NOT REAL—" until the root coils around her like an anaconda and applies its crushing force to every part.

"Well. I guess now's no time to be squeamish over peccadilloes. Alright, Enid. Since we're friends, I'll tell you."

There are, temporarily, no arms emerging from the Distortion, because they fight for the pieces of Claypoole's head between them. Corbett grabs the second plate of sheet metal and heaves it up into position, directly on top of the first, blocking the camera's eye. "Hxxxx, chxxxszszxxxx." Hold it! She has barely any girls left to order. Fitzpeter drops the chainsaw which continues to whirr in a lazy circle and presses her body to the plate. Yocum briefly considers running but her ankle is torn to shreds, she throws herself against the plate too. The arms on the other side pound against it, causing it to jitter.

"It was an accident, naturally. A mistake. My father, you know, sometimes goes out of his mind."

A phenomenal CRUNCH echoes overhead. A phenomenal amount of blood cascades down, followed by a shriveled clump of part of what used to be Velouria Roseingrave.

Corbett picks up the drill and the screws.

"Well—substances may have been involved. Such things alter your perception."

"HXLDDDD," Corbett screams. Fitzpeter and Yocum scream. The arms pound against the other side of the sheet. The Garden descends. Corbett drills the fifth hole.

"And that night, he started saying the strangest things."

Corbett drills the sixth hole. "HXLD. HXLD YXX STXPXD FXXXXXXX!" Hold you stupid fucks. "NXTHXNG XN YXXR WXRTHLXSS LXVXS WXLL XVXR MXTTXR XXXCXPT THXS." Nothing in your worthless lives will ever matter except this. "LXCK XN LXCK XN LXCK XN LXCK"

She drills the seventh hole. Vines wrap around the headless remains of Claypoole's body and drag it away.

"He said: You're not my daughter."

"XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

"You're not the real one."

Corbett drills the eighth hole. The sheet jerks and lurches against the weight of the three girls concentrating the collective energy of their entire life into this final, meaningful moment.

"You've been replaced."

Corbett switches the drill bit, her back to the metal. She kicks away a root creeping toward Yocum.

"They're spying on me, he said. They replaced you to spy on me. Or maybe—and this was the oddest thing he said—or maybe I was the one who replaced you."

She puts the fifth screw to the fifth hole and drills.

"He ran through the kitchen. There was this two-pronged fork hanging on the wall. He never used anything in his kitchen, of course—it was all for show. Some interior designer put it there. He saw it, maybe for the first time, and he took it."

She puts the sixth screw to the sixth hole and drills.

"He didn't intend to hurt me, of course. Only scare me. I'm certain. Well—well, I don't know. Maybe I don't know anymore, now that I'm saying this. But he—well, given what my neck looks like, you can imagine, can't you?"

A coil encircles Zinnia Fitzpeter's waist and tries to drag her away. Fitzpeter's face is red, her muscles ripple under her skin. She digs her feet into the mud, deeper, deeper until she finds something, anything solid in this endless noise. She refuses to move. She holds the plate steady. She locks in. Blood streams down her stomach.

Corbett puts the seventh screw to the seventh hole and drills.

"And that's the story. That's the whole story, Enid, and you're the first person I've told it to, and honestly, I feel quite relieved to have finally said it. I feel more relieved than I could have ever expected."

(It's mine. The exact same. It's my story she told.)

Thorns wind up Ursula Yocum's leg, prod her crotch. She, too, puts her life into this moment. The pounding, the shaking, the million arms trying to burst through into this final sanctuary, she and Fitzpeter and of course Cherry Corbett are the last soldiers holding them out.

(But only one can write a story.)

Another root grips Fitzpeter and she's yanked back. She screams: "Cherry, oh God please Cherry!" Corbett only needs one last screw but she hesitates as Fitzpeter claws the ground to keep from being ripped apart. She doesn't want another to die. She shoves the drill into Yocum's hand and reaches for the sledgehammer once more. She hoists it overhead. Screaming her life into it, her arms jerk forward and the sledgehammer goes flying, revolving, as if she'd thrown a knife. The sledgehammer's head buries into the root dragging Fitzpeter. It crushes straight through. Fitzpeter is free; she yanks herself up and charges into the rattling plate before it has a chance to rip through the three screws holding it in place.

As Corbett takes back the drill, a vine loops through the cord strung from her neck. With one quick tug it pries away the key that hangs there, flashing its symbol: circle in square in triangle in circle. It holds the key up. It holds it out, an offering.

An offering to me.

I reach out and take the key. It's in my hand, hard and cold and heavy and real. I could stick it right now into the hole in my roommate's heart-shaped locket. One twist and it springs open, and I see what's inside.

"Enid...? Oh, you can put that down now."

I reach out and slide the key into her locket.

Corbett puts the eighth screw to the eighth hole. She drills.

And it ends.

The Distortion is sealed. It is sealed by a pair of two-by-four-foot plates of aluminum sheet metal and eight anchor screws affixed by a rotary hammer drill that Corbett drops unceremoniously into the mud.

The circle is closed.

The me in the mirror is holding the scissors. They are stuck, slightly open, in my roommate's throat, each point plunged into one of the black marks.

My roommate in the mirror lifts a hand to her throat. My roommate in reality, if she ever existed, lifts her hand too. Her fingers do not tremble. Her smile, already screwy, does not falter further.

The me in the mirror, the me in reality, drags the scissors laterally across her throat.

Everything that does not belong here, cut from its source, cannot survive. The endless plants of the garden, the dropping forms of our dead schoolmates descending upside-down from the splitting fruit of the Osakazuki, the rare flowers, the expanded dimensions, it all shrinks and shrivels. The fruit-bodies, only just now opening their eyes to cry for their few surviving friends not to do it, not to seal it, feel their voices die in their throats. Only I hear them, screaming in pain as their flesh comes apart like brittle chalk and they drop to a suddenly much more solid ground. I still hear them screaming, even as Corbett and Fitzpeter and Yocum, faces covered in white fluid, fall panting while the roots entangling them go still. I hear them screaming though everyone alive in the school is silent: Nadine Block sitting in anguish, Noël D'Addario waiting patiently, Prue Malheur and Prue Malheur on opposite sides of the tennis court, within the meaningful geometric lines drawn on the surface, watching a sky full, now, of normal stars, and a normal moon. They remove the skulls on their faces. The Gorehound's skull strikes the court and shatters.

The scissors drop to the floor. My roommate steps back, then steps back again. She trips over the edge of the bathtub. She falls awkwardly into the shower.

Water pours down. Steam rises. Her clothes are wet, now. She is no longer dry.

I see inside of her, into the gaping wound on her throat. I see she was never actually real, after all.

I turn and walk out of the bathroom.

Miranda Van Zandt sits on the bed. She looks up, rattling the bobby pin slowly. Her eyes brighten. She looks at what I hold in my hand and says, "May I use that?" Enid Lim stares at me from the closet. She says nothing.

I want it to be quiet. I want to be alone.

I want everyone else to be gone, so I can be alone.

I can be alone now. I don't need anyone else. I have everything I need, inside.

In the closet, Enid Lim extends her hands, beckoning.

I go into the closet. Her arms wrap around me. Her body presses against mine. She is warm, the way nobody else ever was. And I feel in her the part of me my brother said I had but I never had, the missing part, the other half of myself, the part that will complete me. I will be completed. I will be the Rebis; I will be the Magnum Opus. All of human knowledge is united inside me, all experience, all feeling, female and male. Miranda Van Zandt watches as we slide to the floor of the closet together, embracing one another. I push the sliding door with a foot and it bounces shut, closing us inside together.

In the false silence, not silent because rain strikes the true plants of the garden, hissing and whistling a little chuckle (iihiihiie), Zinnia Fitzpeter is first to speak. "Wh... what now?"

"What do we do now?" Ursula Yocum echoes.

They look to Corbett, crawl to Corbett, who remains standing, grab Corbett's legs and cling to her for safety, twist their white-smeared faces under her hands that go down and stroke their hair.

There is a single pinprick of light: the closet's keyhole. As Enid Lim pulls my face to hers and kisses me on the lips, as her hands run down my nude body, my eyes shift to this annoying point, from which all the voices come, voices I cannot put out. I see only an eyeball staring through the keyhole at me, staring eagerly: the eyeball of Miranda Van Zandt.

"Kxll thxm xll," Corbett wheezes.

"Kill who?" says Yocum.

"Kxll thxm xll thxt xre nxt xs."

I slide the key into the keyhole and lock the closet door.

Everything becomes pitch black. There is no light. There is no eyeball watching me.

All the voices go, finally, silent.

Enid Lim pulls me to her. We begin to make love. Kill them all that are not us.

THE END

Afterword

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