“Okay, so now we know what, where, and why shit’s weird…” Dyllan started to browse the shop’s shelves again, hoping to find something Andie missed. He was pretty good natured, and jealousy was not one of his vices, so most people assumed he wasn’t very competitive. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Dyllan was willing to make a competition out of just about anything, and - although he’d never let it become someone else’s problem - he hated losing. It was one of the reasons he got along with Andie so well. He was one of the few people that could physically keep up with her, and she was one of the few that could keep up with him. “…what do we do with that information?”

“I… don’t know.” Andie seemed lost in thought, which usually meant she was about to blur the lines between genius, idiot, and lunatic. “But I get the feeling that even though we’re inside Cedric’s mindscape we’re not actually inside his mindscape.”

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Dyllan stopped searching to turn toward Andie with a bewildered smile. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means…” Andie’s gaze drifted toward the shop’s front window - tracking one of the mindscape’s dirigibles. Then, with a dreadful slowness, a madwoman’s grin started to spread out across Andie’s face as she took a few steps back away from the door. “…that I have an idea.”

Uh oh.

Dyllan reached out toward Andie and opened his mouth to speak, his mind racing to think of something - anything - to stop the inevitable chaos that was on the verge of unfurling… but he was too slow. Andie had already burst out through the comic shop’s front door, taken off running for the edge of the asphalt island, and leapt off into the clear blue surf - a warm orange light blowing the squalid air out of her way as she went.