The night started out awesome: ice cream, video games, nail polish, and Em. A real girls’ night in, doing girly things, to make up for all the time Em had been spending recently with that guy she’d met online. LambChop, or whatever his real name was.

It was just at the pinkest part of dusk, and Wayne was in the kitchen, fetching food while Em lounged around on the couch, newly painted toenails up in a foam thingie. They were a good hour into their main activity for the night, replaying Remnant World 2: Red August without saving (or dying) in order to unlock the final costume. It was about three hours of gameplay, if they took the short route (which they would). Em was working through the “normal day” intro scenes, up until the opening of the August Room, after which she would hand the controller over to Wayne and spend most of the rest of the evening hiding behind a pillow.

It was that sort of game.

Wayne was adding choc chips to their ice cream when she heard, “Wayne! Cutscene!”

She hurried back into the lounge room with the bowls, just in time to watch Carol rip the red tape off the August Room door. Wayne had played RW2 at least five times already, and the scene was still creepy as hell. Watching Carol walk into the featureless corridor, Wayne silently chanting Go back go back Carol go back as the latter vanished farther and farther into the blackness, knowing what she’d find on the other side, the room full of—

The lights flickered.

Distracted from the screen, Wayne looked up at the ceiling before sharing a glance with Em. They weren’t that far along, but . . .

“Is it still raining outside?”

“Nah, I think it’s cleared,” Wayne said. On the screen, Carol came to the end of the Black Hall and opened the First Door.

Em opened her mouth to reply, but it was about then that every single light in the house went dark.

“Uh . . .”

The click-whirr of the Inferno and the TV restarting happened first, then all the lights flickering back to life.

“Aurgh!”

They both curled up, covering their ears against the roar of static coming from the TV. Em lunged for the controller and started dialing down the volume. The little bar on the screen was filled all the way to the right, which was totally not how they’d left it.

Also, why was their digital TV playing static? And why wasn’t the Inferno coming back online?

“What the fucking Christ was that?” Em said as soon as they could hear themselves think above the white-noise roar.

Wayne had scooted in front of the TV and was poking at the console. The lights were all on, but it didn’t seem to be spinning the disc.

The TV flickered as Em tried cycling through the channels: a flash of blackness followed by another burst of static, over and over again.

“What the hell . . . ?”

“Is it fried?” Wayne peered at the TV screen.

“Something like that.” Em sounded thoughtful. “I can’t see how, though. Every channel is dead.”

“Yeah. Inferno’s gone too . . .” Wayne stood up. Whatever was wrong with the thing, poking at it wasn’t going to help.

“Hell of a thing to happen, tonight of all nights.”

“Creepy,” Wayne agreed, just as the lights flickered again. Em flinched, but Wayne pretended not to notice.

“We should check the other TV.” Em tapped her toenails, checking whether the polish had set. Then she pulled out the separators. “See whether it’s just the one in here that’s screwed.”

The second TV was in Em’s room. A tiny, ancient CRT she’d been lugging around since high school and kept in memory of the epic battle she’d waged with her parents over being allowed to have it in the first place. Wayne thought that probably made it the most cost-to-viewing-hours effective TV in the history of time, even if the picture was crap and the tiny mono speaker made everyone sound like they were Skyping on 3G in a thunderstorm. Still, it worked. Usually.

Not tonight.

“Damn.” Em was flicking through channels, using the buttons on the front, scowling as channel after channel of static appeared. “Maybe something’s taken out the broadcast towers?”

“Why would that break the Inferno?” A thought occurred, and Wayne shook Em’s computer to life with the mouse. Or tried to, anyway. “Computer’s dead, too.”

“What! No way!” Em’s computer meant more to her than all the TVs and consoles in the house combined, and Wayne found herself shouldered aside as Em went through the motions of flicking switches on and off and trying to reboot. She got the disks whirring up, but the pained beeping from the motherboard made her pull the plug.

“That’s no good . . .”

“Sounds like the RAM,” Wayne said. Of all the things that could be wrong, it’d be the least worst.

“This is seriously weird, man.” Wayne could all but see the churning gears reflected in Em’s glasses. “It’s like some massive EMP pulse fried everything.”

Wayne decided not to point out the redundancy. “I don’t think that sort of thing really happens.”

“Me either, but do you have a better theory?”

Wayne did, sort of, but she wasn’t about to tell Em about it. Not just yet. Instead, she said, “Better go see if my stuff is dead, too.”

Wayne’s room was next down the hall, not far at all, and her door was closed. She put her hand on the handle and—

Thump.

Em jumped. “What the hell was that?”

It’d come from Wayne’s room. “Something falling off the shelf, maybe?” She had a bunch of action figures that were a bit unstable, and the slightest jiggle in the floor could send them tumbling. Except . . .

Except it hadn’t sounded like action figures. Too heavy. And almost . . . wet.

But Em was wide eyed and skittish, because the creepy stuff got to her. Em knew it was irrational, but that didn’t help much, when it was dark and things went bump. So Wayne said, “It’s probably nothing.”

She opened the door.

And it was true, what she’d said. It was probably nothing. It almost always was, after all: every bump in the night, every unidentified noise. Just nothing. Just normal sounds, taken out of context.

Wayne’s room was set in shadow, the only light spilling in from the hallway, their silhouettes casting long streaks across the carpet. There was something on the floor, a Final Fantasy statue Wayne had bought years ago. It must’ve been what had made the noise. Just nothing, except . . .

Except there was something in the room. Hiding in the far corner, between the foot of her bed and the closet. Wayne couldn’t see it in the gloom, couldn’t make out anything except the sheen of the hall light against slick, wet skin and the overpowering stench of rot and filth and misery and holy crap!

Wayne slammed the door shut.

“There’s something in your room!” Em’s eyes were wide, her face ashen. She was a skeptic. One who didn’t believe in monsters or demons or ghosts. But she did believe in fear, and Wayne could see it in her now.

Which is probably why, heart racing, she said, “Possum?”

Em’s eyes said, No it fucking wasn’t, you liar, but her mouth said, “Yeah. Yeah maybe.” She gave a forced laugh, and Wayne returned it. Silly girls, jumping at shadows, scared of nothing.

Except it hadn’t been a possum, or a stray dog, or a bloody dropbear. None of those things had flesh that glistened like an oil slick. None of them stank of fear and loathing and, gods, Wayne could still smell it, even through the door. Thick and meaty and then, in the space between breaths, Wayne was fifteen again. Sleeping in the spare room in her grandparents’ house in Blacktown, the place where her grandfather had decayed during his last, painful months. And Mardi had changed the sheets and Dad had flipped the mattress, but cancer was a brutal master and it hadn’t taken Pardi easy.

This was that smell, the rot of sickness and of pain. Of inevitability, of despair.

Of things denied a decent death.

And Em said, “I’ll go get a broom. You know . . .” She trailed off, miming chasing something in a halfhearted sort of way.

“Yeah. I’ll . . . I’ll come with.” To carry the other end of the broom. Or something.

The broom was in the cupboard next to the front door. It was maybe a thirty-second walk. It felt like an hour. The lights kept flickering, and something about the walls just didn’t look right. They seemed damp. Soft somehow. Bulging.

(“we fell into a hell dimension and nearly died”)

A weird, offhanded comment. And this was the part Wayne was trying not to think about. About what that meant, exactly. About . . . about the thing Sigmund had told her about Lain and how that had seemed so much cooler in the middle of the day in Diamond Square and so much less so now in the brooding rot of their not-quite house.

They got the broom and returned to the closed bedroom door. Wayne felt her fingers tighten around the handle and her feet start to slide outward. Into the beginnings of ma bu, the first fighting stance she’d ever learned. The one that always came back when she felt violence itch against her mind.

Em noticed. “It . . . it wasn’t a possum, hey.”

Wayne swallowed. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t a possum. But it was in my room. Knocking over my stuff.” And it was funny, really, how calm she felt, care of a life spent in and out of dojos.

(thanks for the lessons, Dad. bet you never had this in mind)

The first thump against the door made Em scream. Just a bit. More of a startled gasp, really. The second had her backing off down the hall. Wayne stood resolute.

(this is it, this is where it matters)

One.

“Better get back, dooder.”

Em nodded, retreating into the doorway of her own room.

Two.

Another wet thud, this one almost enough to splinter wood. The door opened inward. Wayne figured the whatever it was probably didn’t care.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Three.

It was remarkably easy to kick the door in. Much easier than Wayne would’ve thought, even if now she’d have to get a new door and, ha, if it really was a possum Em would never let her forget it.

It wasn’t a possum.

As far as Wayne could tell, it wasn’t anything. She got the briefest glimpse of glistening meat and quivering limbs, then the thing moved. Fast.

It lunged toward Wayne and she brought the broom down, the end of the wood sinking into the creature’s flesh with a gelatinous sucking noise that Wayne was pretty sure she’d remember until she died.

It didn’t stop coming, and Wayne leaped backward against the far wall, readying her—

(staff)

—broom for another strike. The lights flickered as the thing finally emerged, and Wayne got one impression of writhing and fear and hate before the mass feinted left and was gone, vanishing down the corridor and into the living room. Em’s scream as the mass passed was punctuated by the sound of the front windows smashing as it, presumably, escaped.

For a moment, nothing. Just the sound of their breathing and the death rattle of failing light globes.

Then: “What the fucking hell Christ was that fucking thing?”

Wayne turned to look at Em, her entire body so tense she was surprised it wasn’t creaking.

Em was wide eyed and breathing hard. “That thing—that thing was no fucking possum Wayne what the fucking fuck is happening I don’t fucking believe any of this shit we were supposed to be fucking having fun and now fucking what the fuck man!”

(“fell into a hell dimension and nearly died”)

“Sigmund!”

“What?”

The thing had left a trail of . . . best not to finish that sentence, actually. Just a trail as it had passed, and Wayne almost slipped on it in her haste. She’d left her phone on the desk next to her computer, within easy reach of the door. There was nothing in the room now, but she still retreated back into the sick yellow light of the corridor once her fingers closed around smooth black glass and chrome.

Sigmund’s number was two finger taps away, and Wayne put it on speaker as she dialed.

When the call connected, the static scream that echoed out of the phone’s speaker made her wish she hadn’t. She slapped disconnect.

“What the fuck?”

Em was freaking out. She probably would be for a while yet, which left Wayne as designated driver.

Something was very, very obviously not right. The monster in her bedroom—well, the monster out in the street now, she supposed—was a pretty strong hint, and Wayne kept flashing back to Sigmund and Lain in the square earlier that day. Sigmund didn’t lie, and he’d looked pretty frayed. And Lain . . . was a god. Apparently. At least, Sigmund seemed to think so, and Lain seemed on board with the idea. Sigmund couldn’t lie, but he wasn’t an idiot either. He wouldn’t be saying ridiculous things unless he had some pretty concrete proof of them being true. Like, say, falling into some horrific alternate universe.

Wayne didn’t know whether they were in danger or not, but there was something about the house that was starting to feel wrong. The fact that the lights were screwed up, but also the place just looked . . . worse than Wayne remembered. Shabbier, more destitute. As if the only things that had share-housed here for years were rising damp, mold, and cockroaches.

Lain, as far as Wayne knew, was at Sigmund’s place, having dinner. Whether he was a god or not, he seemed to be familiar with whatever was happening. And if he was a god, then surely he could fix it. Or at least, if he was feeling noninterventionist today, point them in the direction of what they needed to do.

So. Sigmund’s house, then Lain.

It wasn’t a great plan, as far as plans went, but it was what she had. Now all she had to do was figure out how to get Em along for the ride.

“Wayne? Wayne, man, what—?”

“There’s something going on.” Wayne decided to just come right out and say it. There really was no way to make things sound any less unbelievable than they were, and Em was going to flip no matter what. “We, me and Sig, we didn’t tell you about it ’cause, like, we knew you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Believe what?” Em’s expression, Wayne thought, could cut glass. She wasn’t angry, exactly, but . . .

It all came out in a rush. “Lain is a god, or at least, like, Sigmund thinks so. I saw them in town and Sig was looking pretty freaked out. He said something about falling into a hell dimension and nearly dying but I guess he was okay since Lain was there and all except Lain’s not here now and I think we’re in the same place and I’m so sorry we didn’t say anything but we know you wouldn’t have believed us and it all sounds so crazy I know but Sigmund swears it’s true and you know what he’s like and I really, really think we need to go find him, him and Lain, because I’ve no idea what’s going on but something is and it sucks and that was like some kind of freaking monster in my room just now and I don’t want to die and we need help so please please please don’t argue just come, okay? Come to Sigmund’s place with me so maybe we can try and get out of this hellhole.” Wayne was out of breath by the end of it, and she’d squeezed her eyes shut to avoid seeing Em’s expression and, oh crap, she’d stopped talking and that meant Em was going to say something and what Em said, ultimately, was:

“Okay.”

Wayne’s eyes flew open so fast she was surprised the lids didn’t snap. “Oka—what?”

“Okay,” Em said. She looked pale, sort of shaky. “I just . . . okay. If you say this—this is real. We can do that.” She swallowed, hand shaking as she rubbed it across her lips. “Just . . . let me grab my meds first, okay?”

Wayne exhaled, breath coming loud and fast. Em’s medication. Crap. “Of course,” she said. “You gonna be okay?” The lights flickered again, and when they came back, it was dimmer than before. Sicker.

Em nodded. “Yeah. I just . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “I’ll be okay,” she said, voice stronger. “It’s real. I’ll be okay. We should go now, though. Before whatever this is gets worse.”

Wayne had expected an argument. Not getting one had thrown her, and it took a moment for her brain to scramble upright. “Yeah. We can take my car.” Assuming it worked.

Em nodded, and from her expression, Wayne could tell she was thinking the same thing.

“We should . . . we should get some things,” Em said, looking around. “Flashlights.” She almost said radios, Wayne could practically see the word hanging in the air between them. She was glad when it stayed there. There was such a thing as being too genre savvy.

As it turned out, they didn’t actually own a flashlight, but the LEDs on the backs of their phones worked almost as well. While Em rattled around with pill bottles in the bathroom, Wayne got busy with the broom. When Em saw it, her eyeballs nearly bulged against her glasses.

“Wayne!”

“Just in case, man.”

“You can’t go walking around the streets carrying a spear.”

Wayne had pulled the head off the broom, then duct-taped a chef’s knife in its place. Wayne was good with spears, they’d always been the weapon she’d liked the most at training. The one that’d always felt natural.

“It’s just in case,” Wayne said. She didn’t add, In case we meet another thing like in the bedroom, but Em’s expression indicated she heard it anyway. In the end, she pulled a rolling pin out of the drawer.

“Just in case,” she said.

Which was pretty much how they found themselves in Wayne’s car, phone-flashlights and DIY armory and all.

It did start. Wayne thanked whomever for small favors.

----------------------------------------

Give me a minute, Lain had said. Sigmund gave him five, then another three after that.

It hadn’t helped.

“Sigmund.” His dad’s voice was soft, careful. “Maybe we’d better—”

“No. Lain said he’d be back.” He was just going into the study, into that terrifying wall of nothing. Going because Sigmund had been angry, furious even. At Lain, at Baldr, at life, the universe, and everything. For screwing him around, again, just when he thought he’d found something fun. Something secret, something cool.

Something deadly.

So he’d been a jerk, thinking Lain would be okay, even though he’d looked kinda nervous and, Jesus. Sigmund didn’t want to know what could make a god nervous.

“Sig, it’ll be okay.” David looked like he was going to continue, to try out that horrible lie,

(it’s not your fault)

except Sigmund didn’t let him. Instead, he spun on his heel, took the few paces down the hall, and threw open the door to the study.

“Fuck!”

Nothing. Nothing at all, but not the same as the nothing from before, which had been something-nothing. This nothing was just . . . nothing. Just the inside of his dad’s study, slightly damp and shabby like everything else, but no monsters, no impenetrable blackness.

And no Lain.

“Lain?” Sigmund lunged into the room, whipping his head around to look into the corners not visible from the corridor, in case Lain was hiding. For some reason.

He wasn’t. He wasn’t hiding under the desk, either. The desk whose bottom drawers had been wrenched open, the safe unlocked.

The gun was gone.

Sigmund stared into the empty drawer. He couldn’t seem to stop blinking and, Christ. It wasn’t because he was about to cry, damnit, it was just . . . It was just . . .

Lain had been here. He’d been here, and he’d taken the gun, and then he’d vanished. Sigmund and David had been standing outside the door the entire time. Sigmund supposed it was possible that Lain could have crept past them, out the study window or just used some kind of magic, secret god-escape route. Except . . . why? Because Sigmund had been kind of a dick? Leaving them alone here, unprotected, seemed like an overly harsh retribution for that. Maybe gods were into that sort of thing.

Either way, now they were alone. Alone in the Bleed and oh fuck what the fuck were they supposed to do, their god was gone and now they had to fend for themselves. Sigmund had to fend for both of them, keep them safe, except he had no idea, no fucking clue what to do and he wasn’t any good at this sort of shit and what the—

(“stop sniveling, girl”)

The words hit his mind like shattering ice, and Sigmund’s eyes snapped open.

(“you don’t have time for this”)

They were his thoughts, except not, coming from somewhere deeper and darker and older than he remembered. A place of endless blue and rolling green. Of dank, dripping darkness and the agonized roars of monsters. Places he knew, yet didn’t.

(“you know what to do”)

Did he? Lain had vanished into thin air and the entire city was sliding into Hel, but they’d had a plan, hadn’t they? Wherever Lain was, he could probably look after himself. The scariest thing here, he’d said, and Sigmund didn’t totally buy it—if nothing else, he’d never found Lain particularly scary—but at least he seemed to know what he was doing. Unlike Sigmund.

(“not knowing and being afraid are not the same thing”)

And that was it, really. Not being afraid, and maybe Sigmund had been afraid all his life. Afraid of failure, afraid of success, afraid of fitting in, of standing out, of being someone, of being no one. Except it looked like that last one was very definitively out. The rest, well they were just choices, weren’t they?

So. What would he choose?

The roar snap of the drawer closing was like a gunshot, and Sigmund almost slammed into his father as he stood up. “We have to go,” he said, as steady and as ancient as a glacier. “We can’t help Lain now, except by staying safe.” It felt true. Sigmund hoped that was enough.

Dad didn’t argue, just followed Sigmund back into the hall, still clutching the fire poker. Sigmund picked up his backpack from the hallway and lead them downstairs, into the smell of smoke and ozone and blood.

He’d seen gods fight, twice now, and survived. That meant something, even if it was just a destroyed living room and ruined dining table.

“What was that?”

“Ignore it, Dad.” Sigmund was. A pitiful, broken sound coming from the darkness beneath the stairs. He knew what it was, knew it couldn’t hurt them and knew there wasn’t anything more they could do for it. They’d tried, once. Peeled the kangaroo’s broken, shattered body off the asphalt and put it in the dark and the quiet while they tried to find someone to help. By the time they had, it’d been too late. Just another lost soul, dying terrified and alone, abandoned in the dark.

(that won’t be me)

When the front door opened, Sigmund was almost surprised. It threatened to stick in the jamb, and the wood was . . . swollen, somehow, but it came free after a few hard pulls. Outside, ash was piling on the ground like snow

(“the fires of Múspell burn eternal”)

but the area around and inside of Lain’s car was clear.

Lain’s car, top down and looming in the driveway where he’d left it.

Sigmund approached the car, Dad hanging back. Sigmund didn’t blame him. Without Lain here, the vehicle radiated a kind of untamed menace that Sigmund hadn’t been expecting. All gleaming chrome and darkness and something wrong between it and the road. Too thick, too many shadows. But it was Lain’s car, and it was the best chance they had.

Sigmund put his hand on the hood—gently, slowly, like touching a half-wild animal—and tried not to flinch when the engine roared to life. Headlights flicking on, lancing clarity through ash and fog.

“Sigmund!”

He flicked the briefest glance back over his shoulder at his dad, before turning to the car again.

“I need you to get us to Lokabrenna,” he said, watching his own distorted reflection in the duco. “Can you do that? Please?”

The engine’s hum changed tone, just slightly. Maybe.

It’d have to do.

Sigmund tried the driver’s door and it popped open. He looked at his dad. “Get in.”

David looked at Sigmund, then at the car. “This is L-Lain’s car?” he asked, approaching it slowly. Like a man walking toward a tamed tiger, or toward the edge of a well-marked cliff.

“Yeah,” Sigmund said, getting in. The driver’s seat smelled of Lain. Sigmund was expecting the stab of melancholy, but it still hurt when it came.

“You have keys?” David opened the passenger door and sat down.

“No.”

“Oh.” A moment, then, “This sure is some car.”

“Heh, yeah.”

Sigmund watched his dad buckle himself in, then glanced upward. The sky wasn’t dark. Instead, it faded out into a kind of nothing-gray just above the streetlights. The light was similarly nondescript, despite the fact that night should’ve been approaching. Sigmund supposed it was the Bleed. He raised one arm, above where the car’s roof would go, if it’d been up. He felt ash fall on his fingers, and when he pulled his hand down again, the flakes smeared onto his skin like oily snow.

“What is it?” his dad asked, watching him from the passenger seat.

“Ash,” Sigmund found himself answering. “From the fires of Múspellsheimr, the Eternal Chaos.” His voice felt like an echo, transmitted down the ages.

David had an expression that Sigmund had never seen before. “Where are we now?” he asked. “You said something before about a ‘bleed’ between worlds?”

Sigmund nodded, or rather the thing inside him did. “This is Niflhel,” he heard himself say. “Land of mists. Home of the forgotten dead, between the glorious city of Helheimr and the wasteland of the Eternal Void.” The ash left long, oily white streaks on his hands.

Then David said, “Who are you? What have you done to my son?”

“An ally.” When Sigmund looked over at his father, David gasped at what he saw. “I have no wish to see your child harmed.”

“Then let him go.” David’s fingers clenched around the poker, though Sigmund knew he wouldn’t use it. Not on his own blood.

“I cannot do this. Nor would I, if I could. Your son and I share a soul.”

Everything seemed far away. Filtered though fog and ash and time. But Sigmund wasn’t afraid, not of this. His dad should know that. “It’s okay, Dad,” he said, and David startled at the change in his voice, blinking and pressing himself against the car door.

“Sigmund?”

“Yeah. It’s cool, see?” He smiled. David didn’t return it.

Movement caught his attention, and Sigmund turned. He could see shapes out there in the fog, lumbering toward them. The car’s idling engine had taken on a different tone. Lower, more threatening.

Sigmund turned back to his father. “We have to go,” he said. “It’s not safe here, but we’re okay so long as we stay in the car.”

He put one hand on the steering wheel, used the other to push the car into reverse.

“Giddyup,” he said, because it seemed appropriate.

The car did.