The hanging flap of my cheek was far from life-threatening, but I'd rarely felt anything as painful, and I'd died more times than I even knew. I'd had a dry socket once, back before the world ended, and this was distressingly similar, if bloodier. It was like an ice cream headache that radiated outward from my jaw at ever-changing levels of intensity.

I had morphine that I'd swiped from a nurse's bag, but I'd stashed it away in my Shadow. My leg shook against the pain as I pressed my palm against the hanging flesh. It was almost embarrassing to be so debilitated by the wound; I'd had bullet wounds that hurt less.

I started looking around for a safe place to open my Shadow door. The van I'd trapped the jumping spider in shook with its thudding escape attempts. The noise would eventually attract attention, and I didn't want to be around for whatever showed up. Human or monster, I wasn't likely to be treated kindly by either.

My stomach was in knots from the pain in my cheek as I hurried down the block, trying the doors of various businesses. With a makeshift spear and crowbar in one hand and a wounded cheek in the other, I raced against a growing pain-induced panic.

Every door I tried was locked fast, but across the street, the garage doors of an oil change place were wide open. I'd hoped to find a safe place to open my Shadow Alcove, someplace abandoned by people as they evacuated town. Hopefully, that was the case for this place.

The garage bay had three stalls for cars, all of which were empty, with exposed floor pits. To one side of the garage was a steel door labeled 'Office.' That door, unfortunately, was locked, as was the bathroom door. My blue-furred hand was shaking, and I felt about ready to throw up as I hurried down the steps to the pit.

I'd hoped to find an empty room with a door I could lock or block, but the urgent need for relief was growing by the second, and I was having trouble thinking clearly. I tried breathing through the pain to give myself time to find a better solution, but each breath brought cold air over the exposed nerve. Caution and safety felt less and less important as a need for immediate relief became more insistent.

Likely, the Shadow entrance would be nearly impossible to see in the pit. Either way, I couldn't hold back any longer.

Stepping through the Shadow was like taking a breath after almost drowning; it was like relieving yourself after almost pissing your pants. The pain vanished, taking the urgency with it, and a pleasant tingle washed through my brain as I let out a sigh of relief.

"Jesus, that hurt," I said with a puff of exhaled breath as I slumped, only my borrowed broom-handle-spear holding me on my feet.

"Who the fuck are you?" Alejandra said.

I was back in my preferred shape—if not my original shape. I was a broad-shouldered guy with somewhat shaggy, nearly black hair and the brown skin of my Mexican heritage. There was no reason I'd be recognized, even in good lighting. As it was, my Shadow was, after all, a shadow, and the only real light came in from the open doorway to the garage.

Trevor, Satoshi, Craig, and Alejandra sat crowded together on the floor of the Alcove, looking tense and ready to fight.

"Sorry," I said, still filled with relief at the lack of pain; I closed my eyes and smiled. "It's Oberon. I mean, I'm Oberon. In here, I match my mental image of myself— voice included," Nia's light tones were completely absent from my voice, and I instead sounded closer to my inner monologue's register.

"Oberon?" Craig said, confused. "How?"

"I was a person before I was a monster. This place just reflects that." I answered, walking closer to the group and sitting down cross-legged.

"Are we there? Did you get back to the bar?" Trevor asked.

I shook my head. "I got away from the monsters, but I got hurt in the process. I have some supplies stored away in here that will help."

"You don't look injured," Satoshi said suspiciously. Or maybe it wasn't suspicious, and I was just distrustful of the man. Talking with him had reminded me of Denis. He was quick to blame me for his problems and to 'other' me out of thoughtless, if mostly understandable, fear.

"Just another perk of this place. I'll still be hurt when I leave, but in here, the rules are more flexible, especially for me."

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"Ok, but is it safe for us to leave yet?" Trevor asked. "I don't really want to stay in here any longer than I have to."

The others nodded along to the statement, and I looked closer at their posture. They weren't afraid of me, or at least not just me. They'd already been bunched up when I walked in. "What's up? Did something happen?"

"Umm, until you opened the door back up, it was pitch black and utterly silent. It felt like complete emptiness. Even the floor barely felt real. We found each other in the dark, thankfully, but we were the only things that still felt real." Alejandra said, and the others murmured sounds of agreement.

"Oh. Well, shit," I said. I hadn't expected that, but I'd also not left anyone waiting in my Shadow before. "Well. I haven't gotten very far, but the bar is only a few blocks away if you want out. With luck, Luke escaped the monsters and will already be there, waiting. I need to get to the hospital, though. I know a doctor there that will stitch up my wound and hopefully get me some more targeted relief than the morphine I came in here to grab."

"Blocks? Then we might run into more monsters," Trevor said uncertainly.

"If you're quiet and careful, you might go unnoticed, but honestly, I expect you'll run into some, yeah."

"I might prefer facing monsters to staying in the empty dark," Alejandra said, standing up.

"I don't think I can walk," Craig said softly, almost embarrassed. "I twisted my ankle when I fell."

I bit my lip. "The four of you—or three of you, if Craig stays with me—could probably make it back to the bar by backtracking the way we came. With a little luck, you won't see any more monsters than we did on the way in. It's a lot further to the hospital."

"What's the point of going back to the bar?" Satoshi asked. "With Luke gone, maybe even dead, and the front entrance busted open, we won't even have the safety of numbers. I'd rather go to the hospital. At least there's likely to be people there. Maybe even someone with a plan."

I snorted. "Well, you're not wrong, but you might be surprised."

"I don't know if I can stay here if it means going back into the dark either," Craig said again, sounding miserable and trapped. "It presses into me; I keep getting flashes of that boy's death, like phosphenes, but crisp and detailed."

I drummed my fingers against my leg. I needed these people. I really didn't want to show any of them the exit, with the exception of maybe Satoshi. The problem was the inconsistent memories. I didn't know what memories Satoshi would retain, but I knew that the more people gathered, the more their patchy memories could fill in the blanks for each other. "Alright. Fine. " I said. "There's a... backdoor, to this place. Leads to a place called the ether, although I might have made that name up. Either way, it's at least not dark. I've had people stay there without complaint, so it should be fine. I'm going to have to lock you on deck, though; there won't be much to do."

"Anywhere is better than here," Alejandra said.

"It's not like we weren't already locked in," Satoshi half grumbled, making a good point.

"Just— don't make me regret it. And if you meet a floating chrome eyeball the size of a beachball, don't put too much stock in its words."

"What?" Several voices asked at once.

"Its name is Sori, and it's a liar," I replied as I stood and walked away from the entrance where a new portal had appeared. Going into the ether would leave the door to the Shadow Alcove standing open. I could only hope that nothing would sneak in while I guided them to my domain.

"That door wasn't there before, was it?" I heard Satoshi ask his huddled group.

"Help Craig and hurry up; I don't want to leave the door open for long."

Satoshi and Trevor draped Craig's arms over their shoulders, and Alejandra led them behind me and into the ether.

The lower deck of my stone ship wasn't lit any better than the Shadow Alcove, but a golden color shone through the doorway at the end of the hall, illuminating our destination. There were also port holes along one wall that allowed in the green light and black shadows of the unnatural plasma ocean that we floated on impossibly.

"Where are we?" Craig said, awe in his voice as he looked out the windows.

"I'm not sure it is anywhere. Like I said, I call it the ether, but I don't think it's a real place. More like a dream."

"Is it safe?" Trevor asked.

"Well... sort of. Don't go swimming in the plasma, and you should be fine." We walked into the room with the orange-yellow portal Sori had created as an exit from Forest Lake, and I gestured up the steps to the open cellar doors. "After you," I said, standing in front of the exit.

"What is that? Is that the exit you were talking about? Could we just leave?" Satoshi asked hopefully.

I shook my head. "No, I'm sorry. Not yet. The exit won't open for most of a year. We'll get you there, though. I promise."

Satoshi looked torn but nodded and helped Trevor get Craig up the steps.

Following them up, we exited onto the deck of an old-fashioned ship. The kind of ship my inner child gleefully labeled a "pirate ship," with a few key differences. For one, the masts were trees, and the sails were leaves and branches grown out on a flat plane to catch the wind. The two mast-trees grew in line at the middle of the ship.

The deck and the sides of the ship were as hard as granite but colored like a dark sandstone. The cellar door we exited butted up against a cottage where you'd typically expect to find a ship's cabin.

Instead of railing, the ship had an old-school wooden fence, as might be seen on a farm or homestead. The prow, or at least the front triangle of the deck, was a zen garden, complete with rake, scraggly tree, and decorative bolder.

The ship floated on an ocean of silent green and black plasma below a dark blue sky that occasionally flickered with ribbons of blue-white lightning.

While my guest looked around at their temporary sanctuary, I slipped into the cabin. I grabbed my morphine, bandages, a notebook, as well as a stack of board games that had manifested on their own, like the rest of the ship.

I locked the cabin behind me as I went back on deck and handed Alejandra the board games. "Here. I don't have anything to eat or drink, but here are some board games. With any luck, I'll be back in an hour or three. But here's something to pass the time."

I wasn't eager to go back out and face the pain, but I also didn't like leaving my Shadow Alcove open to the world. My Shadow had been stolen before, and I wasn't sure it couldn't happen again. So, with only a few more words exchanged, I left my guests behind, locking the cellar door as well.

There was a strange vulnerability to leaving them with even this much unsupervised freedom in my domain. Still, it was the best solution I had for the moment, so I'd have to deal.

I re-entered my Shadow, eyes scanning the dark for any sign of monsters having found the Alcove, and nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard someone speak.

"Who the hell are you?" Luke asked.