Lance wondered for a moment how many others in the city were going through the same thing; he didn't really want to ask; he didn't like thinking about all that yet, not until he was sure they were going to survive the night anyway. Still, he knew it was only logical to expect that everyone else was suffering from some sort of mental influence, especially when they'd seen people in the earlier stages of becoming monstrous.

But that wasn't important right now. They had a goal: leaving the building.

***

It took them almost half an hour to find another way out of the building—or at least they found one which seemed like it would be worth taking after checking around its exterior first: there had been several exits near where they came into this room so far, but most of them led to dead-end paths or ones that looped around.

Still, they finally found a stairway that led up. The steps were dusty but still usable. A couple of times they saw signs of blood on the ground as well; they tried not to look too close but just moved along with their eyes fixed on their destination, hoping against hope that if nothing else, it wouldn't end up being worse than what they could already imagine.

They went upstairs for nearly fifteen minutes until they reached another floor.

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"What the hell is this building?" Lance asked.

Jacob shrugged. "I have no idea. I think you just have to roll with it at some point."

Lance was about to ask him why he thought that when he noticed something strange—the walls here weren't made like those in all the other rooms he had seen so far: there were gaps between them as though there wasn't any structure behind them at all. He looked down at his hand before trying to touch one of the cracks in the wall—his hand passed straight through, and he found nothing on the other end.

"Wherever we are, I don't think it's New York," Lance said, drawing his hand back. "Let's back out of this stairwell for now. I don't like it."

Grace nodded, and then she led them backwards into a hall that definitely hadn't been there earlier, while Jacob followed her closely. Sophie brought up the rear, staring intently forward with wide eyes but still without making a sound.

They moved along for another few minutes, and Lance wondered if they would be able to get outside after all if they kept moving upwards. There seemed to be more than enough stairs going up around here, but they might have been getting deeper into this building instead.

They turned another corner and ran across something that stopped their progress entirely: two monsters—one female with black hair and one male with grey hair—were blocking the path with weapons drawn. They didn't look like normal people; the woman was covered in scales from head to toe while the man looked as though he had some sort of shell over his body—or perhaps it just resembled one—with an enormous maw where his mouth should have been. Their hands were extended towards each other in preparation to fight someone or something who was approaching them.

And Lance hadn't detected them.