Cadoc sprung into action. He was at the window in a flash, and hacked away both vines with one swing, the axe cleaving straight through them.

Red blood sprayed out in an arc, then pooled at Cadoc’s feet. He looked at the axe in admiration.

“Well well well,” he said. “Not a bad weapon, eh?”

There was no time to celebrate. The room reverberated with the sound of creaking wood as another vine wormed its way in - this time through a gap in the wooden wall. I wasn’t sure if that gap had been there before, or not. Another vine came through the window, and a third snaked down from the ceiling.

“Do you have a plan?” Cadoc asked, already moving. He didn’t wait for me to answer, already starting his life-or-death game of whack-a-mole. A violent overhead swing brought another vine to its bloody end, the severed part writhing for a moment on the wooden floor. Cadoc made for the next vine before the previous one had even stopped dying.

“No,” I yelled. We were both yelling over the sound of vines wrenching at wood. And another sound. Like massive footsteps, growing louder.

“Do you think he’ll run out of vines, eventually?” Cadoc asked. And he actually laughed, the maniac.

I was out of ideas. The torch was gone. What an idiot you are, Miles. A complete and utter buffoon. You left behind your one and only weapon, why? Because you were scared? You’re pathetic. Now you’re going to die here - which is no tragedy - but you went and dragged this innocent bystander into your mess, too. How do you feel, huh? Do you feel any shame? Any guilt? You should.

I tried to block out the voices. You get a sense, after awhile, of which voices are helpful, and which ones weren’t. This one wasn’t.

To be clear, I’m not crazy. The voices are just my conscience. And most people don’t know this, but you can adjust your conscience, which is why my conscience usually sounded like Tom. Sometimes the old conscience broke through - well, one of the many iterations. Of course, I’d never actually heard them before, not that clearly. It was more like a thought, usually. Not like Tom was earlier, like he was sitting right beside me, having a conversation. But I’d also never been in an environment that was as stressful as this dimension, before. So it only made sense that the voices might be louder.

So I’m not crazy.

I ran around the room, looking through bits of junk, as if there would be a solution sitting there on the shelf. A gun - or even better, a flamethrower. Instead, junk. An old cup. A jar of pickled something or other. A key - to what, I didn’t know. There wasn’t a lock on the door, or the cellar. Maybe it didn’t go to anything. A key to nothing. It was all worthless.

What would Tom do? I couldn’t shake that thought no matter what I did, not that I wanted to. But I couldn’t think of anything. I just knew Tom would do something obvious, something genius and yet simple, and it would seem like a child could have come up with it.

Instead, I was running in circles like one of those knock-off robot vacuums, stuck between impending doom and-

And a cellar. What if it wasn’t a cellar? What if it was a tunnel?

“I’m going to check out the cellar!” I yelled to Cadoc. He waved at me to show he heard. He was grinning from ear to ear, patches of that strange plant-blood staining his clothes. He seemed to love the battle more than he loved his life.

The cellar door opened easily enough. The faint light of the lantern reached only a few feet inside, from where it still lay on the fireplace.

I went back and grabbed the lantern, stepping over the remains of dead vines.

There were some wooden steps leading down, and then dirt floor. Besides that, I still couldn’t see anything but rough dirt walls. It was impossible to know what was down there. And if I took the light with me, Cadoc wouldn’t be able to see.

Fuck. Do we go down into the cellar and hope it’s a tunnel? But if it’s not, we’re screwed. And why would it be? Who digs tunnels under their house?

Then came the crashing. I turned, horrified, and caught a glimpse of the door shaking in its frame. I ran to it without thinking - as did Cadoc.

I reached it just in time for another crash. The latch broke, and I was thrown backwards, catching a glimpse of the monster before Cadoc slammed the door shut again. I scrambled to the door to help him hold it fast.

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We were barely able to keep it closed, and every crash threatened to splinter the door entirely.

“It was a damn good try,” Cadoc said. “Damn good try.”

“Do you want to die?” I yelled at him. “You seem so fucking content every time something bad happens.”

“I’m not giving up,” he said. “Never. But unless you have a plan, I’m prepared to die fighting this thing. Nothing more, nothing less.” He paused. “Do you have a plan?”

Do I have a plan. No. No I don’t.

“RENA!” I yelled. I put my hand to my ear, even though I knew that was unnecessary. I knew Cadoc would be confused, but I didn’t have time to care.

The voice came from inside my head, as always. “Hello, Miles. How are you doing?”

I felt my face grow warm for a moment as my blood boiled. RENA knew exactly how I was doing, so why ask? Just to rub it it?

Actually, people usually ask how you’re doing because they want to tell you how they’re doing. But an AI shouldn’t be looking for pleasant conversation, right? An AI wouldn’t be bragging, or looking for sympathy, or whatever.

Another crash. I shook the thought away. Who cares?

“I’m in trouble, RENA. I’m going to die. You can see that, can’t you? So can’t you send me something? Or…” I almost said ‘get me out of here,’ but realized that I would be abandoning Cadoc. Then I realized that was his fucking problem, and said it anyway. Except I said ‘us.’ Get ‘us’ out of here. Not that they would ever take him, but it sounded better.

“I am afraid that is not possible, Miles. Would you like me to repeat what I told you before?”

“What about Tom?”

“Still nothing, Miles. We have talked about this already, as well.”

“Shit!” I wanted to throw the communicator on the ground, smash it, something. But I didn’t, of course. I just shut up.

If we stay, we’ll die. We can’t leave - even the window is covered in vines. Maybe we could hack away at them and try to make a run for it, but then what? That thing can move, and I’m not sure we’ll move faster. It’s better than waiting here to die, but that’s assuming we can even get out the window in the first place.

I looked at it. I couldn’t even see outside. It was all vines.

Vines which were continuing their slow crawl into the room. They were coming from everywhere now. Cadoc did his best to cut at the ones near us, but it wasn’t easy to use an axe while also keeping the door shut. It was only a matter of time before the vines got to us.

We could go into the cellar, but that’s a gamble. An even worse gamble, honestly. And if it’s just a cellar, what’s to stop the monster from coming in there, too?

I imagined Cadoc and I, with bleeding fingers, clawing at the earth, trying to dig our way out before the monster descended on us.

I thought about what we had on us. A knife. An axe. Nails. Water. MREs. Dried meat. Alcohol.

Alcohol. Fuck me.

It wasn’t a good plan, but it seemed obvious in hindsight, which gave it the flavor of the sort of plan Tom would come up with. Of course, I never actually came up with anything as good as Tom did, so that was just an illusion.

I had been thinking of the nails like a flint and steel. Which was accurate in many ways, but I’d forgotten an important detail I had found in my testing.

Range.

The nails, as weak as their flames were, were like little remote detonators.

“Alright,” I said. “I’ve got a plan.”

Cadoc’s face lit up. “Spectacular. What do you need me to do?”

“Hand me the booze again, and then keep this door shut as long as you can. Got it?”

He nodded, and handed me the bottle. “Good luck, my friend. If it doesn’t work, it’s been an honor.”

It wouldn’t take long, but we didn’t have long. I looked him in the eyes, and we waited for the next crash. I didn’t know why, exactly, but there were sizable gaps between the crashes, so we’d have maybe a minute or two to work with.

The crash came, and I was off.

I ran to the table, first. I grabbed a chair, and carried it over to just in front of the open cellar door. I left a little gap, but not much.

Then, another chair. And the third. As I was pushing the table over to the pile, I caught a glimpse of Cadoc, back to the door, chopping at the encroaching vines. They were dangerously close.

Then I started collecting the dead vines, and throwing them on the pile. I had to avoid the live ones as I did, but I couldn’t risk the pile not being big enough, and the vines were flammable.

Then the crash came. I had planned to grab more - the shelves, the blankets - but it was too late.

Cadoc did his best to keep the door shut, but it was hopeless. The door exploded into splinters, and Cadoc was sent flying across the room.

And there was the monster.

“Get in!” I yelled. The plan would have to be expedited. I hoped it would still work.

It was only a few moments - the house wasn’t large - but it felt like time had slowed to a crawl. Cadoc ran, hopping over vines which threatened to grab at his ankles. Meanwhile, I uncorked the bottle, and poured it over the heap of debris. I poured it all out. If we survived, then taking another breath would be celebration enough.

A vine lanced at Cadoc. It was one of the good vines. Cadoc couldn’t dodge while running away. He was helpless.

I didn’t think. I threw the bottle.

It shattered in a spray of glass, right in the “face” of the monster. That was enough to disorient it, and the vine went wide, embedding itself into the floor like an javelin.

Cadoc was smiling. He was crazy.

He patted me on the shoulder as he went by. “Thanks,” he said.

One last touch. I stuffed my hand into my pocket, grabbed as many nails as I could, and threw them onto the pile.

Then I grabbed the cellar door, and swung it closed. I scrambled down the steps in the darkness, praying I didn’t fall.

I forgot to grab the lantern.

It was nearly pitch black inside, after the door was closed. Only one beam of the faintest light came through, from a little hole in the door. Luckily, I made it to the dirt floor without stumbling, where Cadoc was.

“What now?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I was listening. I held up my hand to silence him, but he probably didn’t see it.

The monster seemed to slow down whenever it couldn’t see us. I couldn’t imagine why that was, but it was now the second time it had happened. As if the sight of us effected it the same way a red cape effected a bull. But that didn’t mean it forgot about us. I heard it coming, one earth-shaking step at a time.

I took a step back, but I waited. I kept my eye on that little hole in the cellar door.

The moment I couldn’t see light through it anymore, I sent the mana. I had been holding it, if that makes sense, ready to strike.

With a sense beyond my sense, I felt the nails burn. The hole lit up again, brighter than before, as their sparks ignited the alcohol, and another scream sent a shiver down my spine. But it also put a smile on my face. The fire had lit. As the screaming continued, and the burning monster thrashed against the cellar door to no avail, I was laughing.

“Good plan,” Cadoc said, as the fire burned outside. Soon the cellar door would probably catch, but there was little risk of it coming down here into the dirt.

“Thank you,” I said. It was a good plan.

“But, how did you know that this was a tunnel?”

I stared at him in the new light. “What do you mean?”

“Well, suppose it wasn’t a tunnel, and the fire grew, it would take all the air with it, yes? We would suffocate down here. So how did you know that it was a tunnel?”

I just stared at him.