"All of your friends are dead," she had repeated before closing the door. "Only witches here, now."

That can't be true.

It simply wasn't possible that an entire hall's worth of Hunters could have been taken out by these people, no matter how weird they were. They were people for crying out loud. That was categorically nonsense.

You lost, didn't you?

That was true, but only because of Impossible Dog and those stupid elephants. Sheridan or Blaspheme could have taken out that thing from a distance. Easy.

You left Blaspheme unconscious in a tiny car. Anything could have happened to her. And you haven't seen anyone else since the Very Scary Laboratory. Except for Sheridan, and she was running for her life.

"You're not helping," Rafferty said out loud to herself.

Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and Rafferty noticed dozens of pairs of eyes staring back at her. Thinking she was surrounded, she gave a violent start, but the ropes held tight. There was no reaction by the crowd, and Rafferty began to realize that they weren't real and they weren't people.

The eyes belonged to animals, like the ones on those stupid signs. Some of them were on masks, or big, furry disembodied heads. Others looked like life-sized plastic replicas, many of which were missing limbs. Some of them were lined up neatly, others had tumbled into several big piles.

She let out deep breaths, trying to calm down. At the very least, her animal audience wasn't real, which meant she had this time alone to figure things out.

At least I'm pretty sure they're not real. I'm going with not real.

"Rafferty, it's cold and dark in here. I can't see anything,"" she heard Cody's voice say.

Rafferty spun her head around, and saw that one of the figures was talking. It looked a like a turtle.

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"Why can't I see anything? And I can't feel my legs. Do I not have legs?" Cody's voice asked, rising with fear.

"It's because we're worm food, DeCarlo," another figure answered, this time in Blaspheme's voice. This one looked like a big cat.

This isn't real either.

Rafferty closed her eyes, hoping it might reset the world, or something, but the figures continued talking.

"What? We're dead? Rafferty, Blaspheme says we're dead!" Cody's voice yelled.

"Shut up, Cat Blaspheme, you're freaking out Turtle Cody," Rafferty said.

"Oh, Rafferty's not dead, DeCarlo. Just you and me and probably everybody else. Rafferty's fine. They'll probably give her a medal or something once she struggles out of here as the sole survivor. That'll make Katrin really jealous. She'll have to get the rest of B Hall butchered just to keep up," said Cat Blaspheme.

"None of this is real," spat Rafferty.

"Oh, thank goodness. Wait, what's not real? Me being dead, or me in general?" asked Turtle Cody.

"Both," said Rafferty, about seventy five percent sure of her answer.

"I'm not real?!" shouted Turtle Cody.

"You're real, but not right now," Rafferty said.

"That'll straighten her out," said Cat Blaspheme.

"So what about that time that I didn't see the red flag at the waterfall shower and I walked in on Oscar, and he was, you know, and I stayed and watched for a minute and never told him, does that still count as bad if I'm not real?" Turtle Cody, talking really fast now.

"Wait you did what?!" asked Cat Blaspheme.

"Rafferty said not to tell you. She said you'd make it weird," said Turtle Cody.

The discussion got louder, nearly impossible to follow over the rising, overlapping voices. Rafferty slammed her foot down in frustration, she needed to figure out a plan here, not appease imaginary animal versions of her friends.

The sole of her boot glowed blue, just a little.

Now there was an idea.

The ropes were too secure for her to slam her feet together, and get a really massive push. However, when she ran across open distances, the boots charged up in a way that got her going really fast, faster than any normal person could run. If she could sort of run in place, maybe she could get enough Blue going to snap this bed in half.

Rafferty pumped her feet as hard as she could, trying to maintain an even heel-toe motion that would simulate running. When she built up a nice blue glow, she kicked out, striking the frame of the bed. The metal cracked, and slid away. Rafferty shook her leg, and worked the rope away from the metal. With one leg free, she was able to smack her feet together, and then push them down into the bed. The force from this move was typically enough to launch her high in the air, and when that force hit the bed, the bed gave up. After that, it took only a few minutes of yanking and twisting to get herself free.

She grabbed her bracelets off the table, and slipped them on. When she did, she noticed something sticking out of her upper arm, something long and thin. Rafferty plucked it out of her arm, and held it close to face in the low light. It was long and thin and made of metal. A quill, she supposed.

How long has that been there?

There was a noise. A low whistling sound. A low whistling sound that she recognized. It was the sound made by one of Sheridan's combustion arrows.

Sheridan's alive! She has to charge that kind of arrow by sliding her thumb down it. Even if they took her bow, they'd never be able to fire that arrow and get that sound!

If Sheridan was alive, then the witch had lied. If she lied, then maybe the the others were alive too.

"I'm gonna save you whether you like it or not," she said, pointing her finger at Cat Blaspheme, but the figure was apparently no longer in a talking mood.

Rafferty was looking around for her sword when she heard something else.

There were footsteps outside the door.