I walked through the front entrance of the hospital wearing my McGruff costume. Did I look stupid? Yes, maybe even suspicious, but I didn't look like just another monster. Not that it mattered; there didn't seem to be anyone around. Hands's illusions were gone, and—when I got to the physical therapy pool—that too was empty. First Nia, now Hands. Or maybe both at the same time.

Steeling myself for an overreaction, I checked the Chapel. Since defeating Kay's Bogey monster self, she'd stuck close to her Chapel and congregation. They spent their time in prayer and repentance as they awaited judgment. It wasn't exactly useful, but at least they were out of the way and no longer stealing people's autonomy.

The Chapel, too, was empty.

Feeling worried, I hurried up to the second floor and failed to find anyone in the break room. Hurrying around to check other rooms, I eventually came to the conclusion the hospital had been abandoned for some reason.

Chewing my lip with my canines, I decided to check on the Gremlins. As I walked out the back entrance and got close enough to the Gremlin hut, a knot that had been forming in my stomach unclenched. Alice was with them but glanced briefly back at me as I approached. Hopefully, that meant there hadn't been some calamity while Sori had distracted me with his terrible teaching methods.

The three of them were on the ground. Alice was rapping a bundle up in a towel and handing it to one of the Gremlins, presumably Mother. She was lying on the ground panting and generally looking exhausted while being hugged by Father. I dismissed my McGruff mask as I approached. I was hardly the only monster here, and I'd hate to trigger some instinctual threat response if the Gremlins didn't recognize me.

"You were so brave, Mother," Alice said as Mother brought the baby Gremlin close. "You did such a great job; I'm so proud of you. Why don't I give you three some time to bond while I talk to our friend." Alice glanced over her shoulder at me.

From what I could see, the baby Gremlin looked even more like a naked mole rat than its parents. Its face, at least, was far more pink than white, and there was only one small black birthmark on a rodent-like face.

As the Gremlins huddled together, Alice stood, brushed dust off her pants, and walked over. "Third time I've delivered that baby Gremlin. Do you know what they name it?"

I shrugged, unable to speak, and waffled between writing out my words and creating an illusion. It'd be great if I could just open a shadow and rely on that, but Sori said I was still speaking gibberish.

"'Baby Gremlin,'" Alice confirmed. "They use names weird, huh?"

I shrugged again and then sighed before creating a speech bubble. "In a way, we do the same, don't you think, Doctor? At least some of us. Besides, it seems at least as strange that people can go their whole lives known by a single name, no matter how much they change—Maybe even hindering change. Anyway, do you have a second? We need to talk."

Alice's eyes widened, and her eyebrows shot up. "Woah, Sori finally taught you illusions? Is that where you were?" Alice focused for a second, and a white speech bubble appeared above her head, too.

"Did it work?" she asked as I squinted at her illusory dialogue box.

"Your lettering is illegible, but it's a start." I wrote back.

"Why aren't you talking? Did something happen?"

"I was going to ask you that," I said, avoiding the topic of Nia for a moment. "The hospital is empty. Where's Hands?"

Father Gremlin stood from where he'd been embracing Mother and Baby and began to wiggle, his little feet shuffling in the dirt, his rear squirming. Then he was leaping and dancing and shaking his butt, releasing pent-up joy. His voice went back and forth between whispering a rumbled "Baby Gremlin, baby baby Gremlin" in a sing-song voice and his high-pitched chirruping that he and Mother used between each other, his joy evident as he spun and leaped.

Alice smiled at the scene. "They really are too adorable. To answer your question, Hands moved to a bigger pool at the Filton. He said you'd spoken about it."

I hadn't succeeded in clearing the hotel; Alice and Luke's group had shown up with a baby kaiju in tow, and I'd gotten distracted. Then, I'd lost days learning illusions. Presumably, Hands got tired of waiting and solved the problem himself. It made me wonder why he'd asked for my help at all.

"The Sheriff sent deputies out here. They talked Kay and her congregation into coming with them to someplace safer; um, Jon went with them too," Alice said, trying not to add any concern or extra importance to her words. "They wanted Jessica, Anderson, and me to come too, but we talked our way out of that. But we aren't staying either. Jessica went to the hospital downtown, and they're overrun with injuries. I guess we're out of the way for most people in town, and since the Vortex came down right on top of us, nobody knows we're still around. So if we want to help, we need to go to them. The others are already there. I'm just here waiting for you, because, you're right: we need to talk." Alice's voice quavered slightly at the last.

The baby Gremlin started to chirp shrilly, drawing our attention.

"I like this part; it's so weird," Alice said, watching. The newborn monster had its head thrown back in a wail that sounded somewhere between a baby chick and a plucked banjo string. Its voice rang out loud and sustained. Then Mother began a whistling chirp of another note, and Father rushed over and joined with a third, leaving the family singing a sustained chord. After a couple seconds, Baby blinked owlishly at its singing parents and quieted. Mother and Father let their own singing trail off and chirped and cooed at each other and their child.

"It sounds like a lot has happened, I'm sorry I wasn't around." I wrote in a speech bubble. While the writing in Alice's bubble had appeared like handwriting, mine appeared as print. I wasn't sure if that was a difference in experience, or in mindset, or something else altogether. "As you see, Sori finally taught me how to do illusions. But, well, he let me get killed by Wisps for like a week, and I didn't realize how much time I'd lost."

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"Wisps?" Alice asked.

"They look like webs of light wafting through the air—"I started before nearly face palming. Rather than describing the thing, I created an illusion of one floating between us like a bag in the wind. "They look like this."

"Huh. You said they're called Wisps? I've not seen one of these since the Vortex came down. Or... wait, maybe I have? That's weird. I feel like I have seen them at some point more recently, but I can't remember anything else."

"Yeah, they're assholes," I said, dismissing the image. "They show up if you get too ambitious with Illusions, more or less. They can take your memories and make you remember something else instead, kind of like the Neuralizer thing from Men In Black. Just be careful; they erase your memories of them and tear down your illusions." I wrote.

"Wow, good to know, I guess. Is that why you were wearing a mask instead of an illusion?" Alice asked.

I tried to think of a good way of explaining, and finally just shrugged and placed an image of my preferred human face over my canine one. My snout poked through the illusory mouth. As Alice looked on with confusion, I could feel the illusion slipping away, so I changed it to the McGruff mask rather than letting it break.

"Oh, the mask was the illusion. Why didn't you cover your, uh, muzzle too? I have feathers that stick up, and Nia has horns, but the illusion can mask those."

I shrugged, as confused as she was. "I don't know," I wrote.

I peered at the illusion covering her head. I knew she had almost a crown of feathers that stuck up on her head, but none were visible, even knowing they were there. Strangely, her aura was visible even through her illusion. My illusions always masked my aura. Pointing at my speech bubble, I added, "I think it has to do with how the illusions are made. Sori told me over and over that Hands does his different—and that he 'cheats,' whatever that means. Also, you and Nia still have Auras when hidden under illusions, but mine is masked."

"Well, then, maybe it's something you can still learn. But I get the impression that's not what you wanted to talk about. But you dodged me before. You can't speak; did something happen to Nia?"

I stood thinking, watching the Gremlins begin to nod off to sleep. I sighed. "I don't know. Back then, I saw you facing the uh... 'proto kaiju' is what I call it. I could tell it saw through your illusion and tried to warn you, but my voice was gone. I think it's been gone ever since. I came here to check on Nia."

Alice's tension was slowly increasing, "Yeah, I guess we really do need to talk. I guess I'm glad I'm hearing this from you, even if I don't love that she's been missing for like a week—I know, you got caught up in things. I just wish I was more confident you were telling me everything."

My brow furrowed, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I found out about Craig's trauma. You left that kid there to die over and over."

"I couldn't save him. I tried. I spent almost a week trying." My speech bubble read.

"But you didn't ask for help. And he wasn't the only one either, was he?"

I went still, unable to meet her eye.

"Luke and I found his brother downtown, a perpetual victim of that Kaiju. Did you know?"

"Alice," I wrote, "There are as many as 100,000 people in town. All of them need my help. I can't afford to fixate on any one person, no matter how tragic."

"You knew Luke's brother needed his help, and you still tried to talk him out of going there." Alice's voice wasn't quite accusatory. Instead, it was more matter-of-fact, with a hint of a doubtful question.

"I tried to save him too. I did save Luke by keeping him away. But nobody is really safe until we evacuate." I wished I wasn't having this conversation through text; there was too much room for misunderstanding.

"That wasn't your call to make," Alice said, a starkness in her voice that I hadn't heard since Maebe was found in my spawn point.

"'With power comes responsibility," I wrote defensively. "You're a surgeon. You have to know about making tough calls."

"Jesus. No, Sam. Oberon. You think I trick my patients so they do what I think best? Treating a patient means getting informed consent. My responsibility is to make my abilities available to my patients, not lie about their options. As the one with the door, your responsibility is just to not lock us out. Make the door available, not unavoidable. What you needed to do, what you should have done, was trust us. I helped Luke save his brother. The only reason I didn't save the other child is that the Gremlins seem to have gotten that bunny monster trained pretty well. Still, he was out in the open, so I helped him change his spawn point so he could be with his family. If you'd told me earlier, I could have helped so much sooner. It makes me wonder what else you're keeping secret. How do I know you aren't lying to me about Nia? How do I know she's not out there needing help you can't give?"

"I don't know where she is, I swear." I wrote, feeling a familiar sense of isolation.

"Would you tell me if you did?"

"Of course."

"I wish you'd told me about the others. It'd make believing you easier."

I sighed and clenched my jaw, anger and frustration building. "If every day I helped the people right in front of me, I could save maybe a few hundred or thousand people. Everyone else would be stuck, trapped forever, or destroyed completely. I can't get fixated on helping one person. And I can't do this alone, I need people to help me, and I need those people not to get distracted either. I know it sucks. I hate it. But it's the only thing I've been able to come up with."

"How do I say this... you're a fucking moron," Alice replied with her own sigh. "No offense, but logistics isn't your skill set. Your best idea was a pyramid scheme. You're so caught up thinking yourself wolf-spider man—that 'with great power comes great responsibility'—that you're failing to share either. Look, this isn't—I'm not trying to exile you again or anything. But we're not your followers. I'm not; Luke isn't. We want you around, but not taking charge, and not if you're keeping secrets we should know. With that in mind, there's something you need to know. We made a breakthrough with memories."