And so, we ran.

We fled, from ‘treatment options’ and bed frames with leather straps, from the rust-murdered wraiths of lobotomy icepicks and the excrement-stained indignities of filthy mattresses, from greasy unwashed sheets stinking of fear and from the looming spectre of institutional bedtime — and finally, from eight scuttling prison wardens, clicking across the floor and ceiling, grasping for our necks with the elongated fingers and wiry palms of habitual strangler’s hands.

Raine yanked on my arm, spun me away from our pursuers, and pulled me forward; we careened headlong into the darkness of the medical ward.

“Run!” she repeated. “Just run! Eyes forward! Go!”

Behind us, the wardens warbled their wet-moist chorus: “Patients are advised to cease resistance!”

Raine and Lozzie and I plunged between the twin rows of steel bed frames — sprinting and stumbling, heaving and hauling, puffing and pushing. Fluttering curtains and guttering night-lights flashed past, rushing out of the darkness, then swallowed up behind us moments later, joining the ominous clicka-clicka-click of the octet of advancing wardens. We quickly left the monsters behind, scurrying through the thicker shadows to our rear; they seemed to move at a constant pace, neither hurrying nor holding back, embodiments of the inevitable and irresistible force of the dream — or merely representatives of the unstoppable truth of a monopoly on violence. But any delay might give them an opening.

Raine’s bare feet slapped against the floor with confident precision, but my socks provided me precious little purchase on the slippery lino. Less than thirty seconds into our flight my feet hit a patch of slightly cleaner floor amid the sticky residue and dusty remains, as if placed there on purpose to foul my step. I almost went flying, feet sliding out from under me, yelping at the top of my lungs, scrambling for balance; even as my centre of gravity whirled and tumbled, I cringed with horror at the imaginary touch of nightmare fingers clutching for my kicking ankles.

Only the strength of Raine’s arms saved me from a cracked skull or a broken leg, or slamming into the steel foot of a bed frame and shattering half my ribs. Raine caught me with a little ‘oof’, then a ‘hup’ as she hefted me upright and put me back on my unsteady feet. She paused for precious seconds to grab those treacherous toes and pull my socks clean off. Lozzie bounced to a halt on the balls of her feet a few paces ahead, waiting for us to restart, her wild eyes darting into the darkness.

Warden voices gibbered from far too close: “No running in the halls and facilities!”

“T-thank you, thank you, thank you,” I panted to Raine. “Good girl, thank you Raine, g-good girl, let’s— oh God, let’s go, let’s go!”

Raine stuffed the socks into my grip so I could store them inside my yellow blanket. Then she grabbed my hand hard and tight in her own, and yanked me forward once again, into the shadows ahead.

“Just run, Heather!” she shouted.

Lozzie cheered: “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

“Where are we even going!?” I yelped, struggling to pick up my feet and match Raine’s loping stride. “It’s all just darkness! There’s nothing here, Raine, there’s nothing here! We’re lost!”

“Loooooost!” Lozzie cheered again. “Lost in the sauce! Hahaha!”

Raine whooped with laughter, as if I was the one being naive. “Trust your Night Praem, she’s the one who put us here! You trust her, right?”

“I-I—I don’t know!” I wailed.

But still, I ran.

Lozzie fared even worse than clumsy little me; she was wearing socks too, but Lozzie had no big strong Raine to catch her when she fell. The first time her feet slipped out from under her, I gasped with horror. She tumbled forward, pastel poncho fluttering through the shadows, going down face-first into the linoleum. I swear I heard the sound of flesh and bone going thwack against the floor. I almost skidded to a halt myself, pulling on Raine’s grip, shouting a plea for us to stop and help. We couldn’t leave Lozzie behind — we wouldn’t, I wouldn’t! Not ever, not even—

But then Lozzie somehow sprang off her hands, feet and legs whirling through the air in a messy cartwheel.

One moment she was down, about to fracture her skull on the floor — and in the next second she was up, sliding forward on the soles of her socks, giggling at the top of her lungs like a banshee in love. She didn’t even lose momentum.

“Lozzie!” I shrieked. “Be careful! Be—”

Lozzie looked back and squealed with laughter. “Dreams bounce like rubber if you let them!”

She pulled off the same trick another half dozen times, spinning and sliding, slipping and sprawling, never once stopping or slowing. She bounced off bed frames and spiralled through hanging sheets of curtain, like a trapeze artist showing off her skills, or a hawk slicing through cobwebs. She skipped and sprinted and surprised me with a handspring, bouncing like a child on a trampoline, pastel poncho splaying out in a fan of brilliant colour. It was like the physical rules of this place could not truly contain her.

That almost made me laugh. Almost bottled the fear. Almost made me forget the clicking to our rear.

But the rules still applied to Raine and I.

Raine was breathing hard and deep, steady and strong. The dream of Cygnet Prison had not robbed Raine of her physical conditioning. But me? Little Heather? The scrawny weird shut-in who got winded climbing up too many flights of stairs? I didn’t need a nightmare realm to sap my stamina. Within five minutes I was heaving for each breath, struggling to haul one foot in front of the other, propelled by momentum, by fear, by Raine’s hand in mine. I missed my tentacles dearly, along with my trilobe bio-reactor and all my other pneuma-somatic modifications. I felt reduced and weak and vulnerable, aching to simply bunch my non-existent tentacles and hurl myself through the darkness like a Catherine Wheel of bioluminesence.

And the darkness seemed to extend forever, unveiling nothing but more steel bed frames, more empty mattresses, more hanging curtains and cold white night-lights.

“I— can’t— Raine—” I panted, red in the face, sweat matting my hair and sticking my clothes to my skin. “Raine— can’t— run—! I— have to— wah!”

Raine swept me into her arms, princess-carry style. She didn’t even miss a step.

“Hold on tight, sweet thing!” she said.

I did as my faithful hound suggested, wrapping both arms tight around Raine’s neck and clinging to her front with all my might. The sucking shadows of the ward loomed behind her shoulders, bed frames and curtains and lights swirling down into the advancing gloom, as if draining through a cosmic plughole.

The clicka-clicka-click of the wardens seemed further away now. Snatches of warbled orders were lost to the echoes of the medical ward, too distant to make out. We were leaving our pursuers behind.

“Raine!” I panted. “We’re outpacing— them—”

“Good!” Raine yelled. “Gives us time to jimmy open whatever door we find!”

“No— I— it doesn’t seem— right—”

“We’re just good runners!” Raine shouted. “Nice gams’ on you, Lozzers!”

Lozzie pealed out a giggle, running backward for several paces. She shot a big comedy wink at Raine.

We must have been running for ten minutes — though it felt like hours hurrying through the dark, like a whole night of being lost in lightless woods beyond the fires, like years spent in the worst place that the asylum had to offer — when the back wall finally burst from the shadows.

Dusty plaster over cracked concrete, riven by deep rifts of water damage, lined by streaky stains of rusty red minerals eating away at colourless paint, warping the surface with bubbling flakes of wet rot. A control panel was set into the wall at one side, locked and bolted, a blank expanse of rusted steel. Alarm lights stood along the top in red and orange and yellow, all long dead and dark, their bulbs missing, their wires cut, their glass shattered.

And in the middle gaped a mouth, of stinking stagnant water and dark-red jagged rust, lost deep in stygian shadow.

A lift.

“In there!” Raine shouted. “Lozzers, in first!”

I twisted in Raine’s arms and yelped: “You’re joking!? Raine’s that— that can’t be right!”

Lozzie cackled: “Heathy-Heaths all scared of a little tetanus?! Get up to date on your jabbies!”

We plunged into the lift car together. Lozzie leapt over the threshold first, swallowed by the filthy gloom. Raine and I followed close on her heels. Lozzie skidded to a halt on the damp rust, then did a little twist to face the open doorway. Raine stopped short of Lozzie, tipped me gently onto my feet, and drew the white plastic knife from the waistband of her pajama bottoms.

The lift car belonged to some kind of industrial elevator, wide enough and long enough to carry two small vehicles side by side, with a pair of double doors large enough to admit several people abreast. It was a derelict wreck; every surface was a dense gnarled crust of dark red rust, from the metal floor to the chain-link walls and the dripping ceiling; I doubted any scrap of clean steel was left beneath all that decay. Bare rock showed behind the chain-link walls, like the lift shaft in a mine, stained with rust-coloured run-off. A pair of strip lights were affixed to the ceiling, but the bulbs had been shattered into powder. The only illumination came from back in the ward, from the weak and flickering night-lights adjacent to the nearest beds. With the lift doors shut, the carriage would be plunged into utter darkness.

I staggered sideways, shaking from the sprint and from Raine’s princess carry. Cold water soaked my soles and drew a gasp from my throat. A stagnant puddle dominated the middle of the rusted floor.

Raine’s head whipped left and right, searching for something in the gloom. “You don’t get tetanus from rust, Lozzers,” she muttered. “You get it from deep puncture wounds. Now quick, where’s the— ah!”

Raine darted to one side, next to the door. She pressed her fingers against the wall.

A tiny speaker went: ding!

A small ring of light suddenly blazed from within the rust, beneath the spot Raine had grazed with her fingers. The light framed a little red arrow, pointing upward.

“Butch powers!” Lozzie cheered. “Wake the sleepy-head!”

I was so puffed out, so full of adrenaline, and so in awe of Raine, that for a moment I thought Lozzie was literally correct — my addled brain decided that yes, Raine had somehow exerted butch magic upon the dead body of the lift. Then I realised all she’d done was locate the control panel. Still impressive.

“Oh, it’s the button!” I said. “Oh, right, okay. Good, good girl!”

Raine waited a beat, then hammered the button several more times. “Going up!” she yelled. “First floor, here we come! Come on, don’t tell me you’re sleeping on the job, girl, come on!”

I spluttered as my senses realigned. “Wait, wait! You can’t be serious! Raine, this thing is a death trap! Even if it does move, it’s liable to drop us halfway! Or we’ll go straight through the floor! Or— or—”

Lozzie skipped to the front of the lift and pointed her bloody metal shiv out into the shadows of the ward. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, pastel poncho bobbing like jellyfish skirts in a rising current. “Prison break tiiiiiime!” she crooned, calling to the wardens. “Come get uuuuuuus!”

Raine leapt away from the lift controls and joined Lozzie at the doorway, holding her white plastic knife loose in one hand. She swept her other hand through her greasy hair, making it stand up from her scalp; then she bounced on her toes, shaking her muscles loose, limbering up. I cowered behind the pair of them, wishing I had just one tentacle, one steel-sharp barbed sucker, one claw or elongated tooth, one anything. My empty hands were shaking. I pulled my yellow blanket tighter about my shoulders, hissing through bared teeth.

Beneath our feet, the lift went clunk — followed by grinding, crunching, sheering noises, loud and painful on the ears. Engines were waking from rust-drowned sleep.

But too slow. The doors did not begin to close. The lift car did not start to move.

Clicka-clicka-click went the wardens in the shadows, growing louder and louder, creeping closer through the dark. The wardens were almost upon us once again.

“What did we even run for?” I murmured, my voice quivering. “Why did we even run?”

Raine was hissing: “Come on, come on, come on. Move, move, move. Come on!”

Lozzie chirped, “Let’s make it a game! How many can you take, Rainey-Raines?”

Raine laughed. “Of eight? More than you, Lozzers. That’s my bet. I’ll leave it at that.”

Ragged breath ripped up my throat; I was panting with panic and adrenaline. “We can’t— we can’t stay here! We can’t stay here! We can’t!”

“Nowhere left to run, sweet thing,” Raine said. She looked over her shoulder and shot me a wink, lips pulling open in a toothy grin. “Just promise me one thing, okay?”

“What?!”

“Stick close to my back,” she purred. “As close as you can, within my guard. I promise I’ll protect you.”

Horror reared up from the depths of my soul, smothering all the hope and determination I’d been riding since the start of the dream. If the wardens caught us, we would be separated once again. They would drag us into the depths of this prison, and there would be no gentle rule breaking like with Night Praem. We would all go to our separate ‘treatment options’. Raine would be isolated and imprisoned. What would happen to Lozzie? I kept thinking about that rusted lobotomy pick.

“Raine … ” I whined.

“I promise,” she repeated. “I love you. Now promise me you’ll stick close.”

“I-I—”

Raine growled: “Promise.”

“I promise! I promise! I promise. G-good girl, Raine. Good girl.”

Raine winked again, then turned back to face the onrushing shadows. Lozzie raised her shiv and chattered, like a cat frustrated by birds she could not reach. Raine blew out a single long, slow, steady breath.

Eight wardens burst from the shadows and crashed into the front of the lift.

“Patients and inmates must refrain from entering staff-only areas!” they warbled.

Raine and Lozzie could not hold the door — the bottleneck would have proven futile against human opponents, let alone these long-limbed scuttling carceral nightmares. Like a gang of uniformed centipedes, they swarmed into the lift, flowing over the surfaces and around the corners; two of them scurried over the rim of the of the door and up onto the rusty ceiling, while another two broke around Raine and Lozzie without attempting to fight. A third pair of wardens pounced directly at my friends, while the final two hung back, reserves ready to exploit an opening.

Lozzie flopped backward as if falling over before her attacker — but her arm snaked out, poking bloody holes in the warden’s grey dress shirt and rubbery pale face.

Raine twisted like a cornered fox, ducking beneath massive multi-elbowed limbs and sliding past huge grasping fingers. She crouched low, then shot to her feet, landing a hammer-blow one-two punch into the sternum of the warden before her.

That was all I saw before two wardens dropped right on top of me.

Grey uniforms filled my vision. Fists like iron manacles closed around my wrists and ankles — and around my skull, locking me in place. I screamed and shrieked, trying to lash out with tentacles I did not possess, desperate to hiss and spit with a throat I did not have. Instinct — so deeply buried that even the dream could not suppress it — tried to flush my skin with toxins and paralytics and turn my chromatophores red and yellow with warning lights.

All I did was stumble and writhe and go down on my back on the floor of the lift; freezing stagnant water soaked through my yellow blanket and my t-shirt in a matter of moments.

I kicked out with both feet. One landed in a shrunken belly. The other glanced off a kneecap. Neither did anything to help me.

Warden paws pinned me to the cold and rusty ground by wrists and ankles, holding my skull and belly in unkind manacles. A pair of shapeless white heads descended toward me, with black pits for eyes and wobbling slits for mouths, flapping up and down as they burbled nonsense to drown out my thoughts.

“—inmates and patients must not mix—”

“—literature privileges revoked for six weeks—”

“—referred to clinical staff for reassessment of pharmacological treatment—”

“—behavioural study suspended pending—”

“—personal improvement program—”

“—oppositional defiant—”

“—borderline personality—”

“—resistance will be noted and tabulated and— skrerk!”

One of the wardens finally stopped babbling at me, because Raine kicked it in the head with her entire body weight. A bone went crack inside the thing’s neck; the warden slithered off me, jerking and flopping.

The other warden swivelled round, keeping me pinned with three hands, swiping for Raine with the fourth. Raine ducked and weaved like an expert boxer, fists lashing out to punish the warden’s clumsy swipe. But two more wardens were advancing on her from behind, with all their hands free. A third lay on the floor in a bruised and bleeding heap, whining and mewling from where Raine had presumably punched its lights out and beaten it to a pulp.

On the other side of the room, another warden lay in a spreading pool of its own blood, throat opened wide by Lozzie’s shiv. Two additional wardens were backing her into a corner, with their massive hands held wide out front to stop her reaching their vital organs, even as she opened cuts on their palms and forearms.

Raine had seconds left. Lozzie would last maybe a few more. I was already out of the fight.

Raine had been right to run; we could not win against eight of these things.

Not without a gun, or big scary knives, or a plausible supernatural win button. Not without more of us to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and fill the doorway in solidarity and sisterhood. Not without tentacles or magic or rule-breaking brain-math.

Because I was powerless, pinned on my back with the hand of control wrapped around my fragile skull. If the system could not keep us bound with rules and regulations, or even steel doors and concrete walls, then it would finally unleash naked violence. And we simply could not match it, not pound for pound. Not even Raine, as she leapt at one of the two wardens sneaking up behind her, as she pummelled it in the face with both her fists, knuckles drawing arcs of blood through the air as she rode the thing to the rusty floor — because then the other warden caught her arms behind her back. Not Lozzie either, as she darted through the guard of one warden and stuck her metal claw into its face, provoking a screech of pain and a scuttling retreat — because then she was inside the reach of the second warden, lashing out to snatch up her poncho and spin her around, slamming her bodily against the rusty wall, drawing a cry of pain from her lips.

We were done.

We had lost before we’d even started.

Even if we had defeated these eight, couldn’t the dream throw more monsters at us? The dream operated on an inhuman scale, like the very system it represented; it called upon resources of vast depth and limitless potential, compared with the paltry muscle power and determined solidarity of three young women. Just like Cygnet, just like the real thing; the only difference was the dream didn’t clothe itself in lies.

I sobbed. Part of me wanted to curl up, give in, stop fighting.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

That’s what I’d done as a child, hadn’t I? Back in the real Cygnet?

That was what the Eye wanted, wasn’t it? Acquiescence to observation. Get in the chair, get on the pills, let us write notes to dissect the inside of your head. Don’t raise a fuss. Why are you complaining? We need to know everything about you, so we can put you back together again with all your parts in the right places, mended by bending and breaking until they fit. We need to see inside all your secret cells, so we can fix your ills. Don’t hold back. Show it all. But only in words we can write down. Don’t run in the hallways. Don’t make unapproved friends. Don’t find your own way out.

Despair gave way to fury.

I twisted sideways, straining against the warden’s inhuman strength; something went pop in my upper back, flaring with red-hot pain. I ignored it, writhed like a fish, opened my jaw wide, and sank my teeth into the grey sleeve around the warden’s arm.

The warden shrieked — a nasty warbling sound of incoherent pain — and then slapped at my face with a free hand.

My ears rang. The world spun with the impact. My cheek burned.

And I bit down harder.

I didn’t care what happened next, I would bite and scratch until the very end. I couldn’t see what was happening to Raine or Lozzie, but we were all still part of the same fight. In reality, I had gone down without a struggle, because I’d been a little girl with no choice. Here, I was still me. Lacking my other selves, but I was still us. No tentacles, but I was still Heather, and I knew the choice I’d already made

“You wanna look inside me!?” I screamed through my clamped teeth — totally incoherent, the words were nothing but garble and spit. “You’re gonna have to cut me open first!”

The warden warbled again, winding back a hand and curling long fingers into a many-knuckled fist. That wrecking-ball would split my skull. I bit even harder, screaming into the rubbery flesh.

Darkness swallowed the warden.

The weight of the monster was whipped off me like cold, wet blankets in a blazing dawn. The warden flew through the air like a rag doll, tossed out of the lift doors and back into the medical ward. It landed in a tangle of breaking limbs and shattering bones, crashing into steel bed frames and ripping down sheets of gauzy curtain.

I was free.

I lurched to my feet, spitting out strands of grey shirt cuff, my back soaked with freezing cold water. Adrenaline was pounding through my veins; I shouted an incoherent, wordless challenge, not yet cognizant of what had happened.

A frilled and lace-webbed sphere of undulating darkness enveloped the warden which had grabbed Raine, swallowing the monster whole inside inky black. Raine fell free, scrambling to her feet. For a split-second the warden was gone, trapped within the source-less shadow — then suddenly it was ejected from the dark, back out through the doors of lift, following its dazed and wounded fellow, slamming into the steel beds and breaking limbs against the concrete walls. The membranous ball of night shot over to Lozzie and engulfed her assailant in turn, sucking the beast deep within the layers of fluttering umber and smoky coal. A split-second later the beast was spat out after the others, smashing through the jumbled wreckage of the ward.

Night Praem darted around the inside of the lift, tidying up our mess.

Raine hurried to my side and put one arm around my waist, as if worried I might be spirited away from her again. Lozzie staggered to join us, eyes bloodshot with panic, panting softly, wiping her face on a corner of her poncho.

Beneath our collective feet, the lift machinery stopped grinding. The floor shuddered.

“Heather,” Raine snapped. “You okay? You wounded?”

“Sore,” I croaked, shaking my head. “P-Praem, she’s—”

“Thankeee, Praemeeeeee!” Lozzie cheered through a bloody mouth. She waved her metal shiv, poncho fluttering like a flag.

Night Praem did not acknowledge the thank you. She swept up the last of the wounded wardens and ejected the monster from the lift, then crossed the threshold herself, back into the impossibly long corridor of the medical ward.

Beyond her undulating darkness, several of the wardens were starting to rise, staggering back to their feet, turning black-bead eyes upon Praem.

Dozens more wardens loomed in the gloom-choked mouth of the infirmary, clinging to the walls and ceiling, blind faces peering at Praem’s lightless core.

“Praem, no!” I shouted, almost lunging forward to yank her back into the lift. But Raine tightened her grip on my waist. “Praem! Raine, we can’t—”

“Come with us, Night Thing!” Raine shouted too. “You’re one of us, right? One of us! Come on! Get in the lift!”

“Praemey!” Lozzie joined in. She slapped her knees, like she was calling to a slightly dozy hound. “Here girl! Here here here!”

Night Praem neither turned to look, nor adjusted her position; she filled the doorway of the lift, blocking the wardens’ passage as the machinery finally coughed and spluttered to life. The double doors of the lift began to close with an awful screeching of rusty metal, grinding against their housing, sealing off our one source of light.

Dozens of wardens closed on Praem, hands reaching, fingers coiling, faces gibbering, mouths spouting nonsense.

“—disciplinary action for rank insubordination—”

“—sued for breach of contract—”

“—pay docked for two years—”

“—demoted! Demoted! Demoted!”

The doors narrowed on Night Praem, bracketing her coiling, writhing, fluttering darkness in a cage of rusted steel.

With only a scant few inches of remaining light, I filled my lungs and shouted: “Praem, I love you! We all love you!”

As the doors slammed shut, a whirlwind of black exploded outward, back in the medical ward.

The lift was plunged into total darkness.

The floor jolted once beneath our feet, then began to rise, beginning a slow climb toward what I hoped and prayed would be the surface. Three sets of panting lungs rasped and heaved in the unbroken black. Hallucinatory colours weaved and bobbed before my eyes, filling the emptiness with the ghosts of my mind. A weight settled on my chest, the terrible pressure of a sightless tomb.

“We’re coming back for her,” I hissed into the nothingness. “We’re coming back for her!”

Raine whispered my name. “Heather—”

“We’re coming back for her!”

“Heathy’s right,” Lozzie said. Then she sniffed, as if holding back unexpected tears. She was somewhere to my right, lost in the dark. “Praem … Praem remembered. Like me. Love her too. Love her lots!”

“We are coming back down here with— with a gun!” I spat. “Lots of guns! With all my tentacles and a f-fucking— dammit!”

“Heather,” Raine purred. “Hey. Hey, sweet thing.” I felt another hand against my side and almost flinched; there was no way to see who was touching me in the darkness. But then Raine squeezed my arm and tightened her grip on my waist. “You know what that looked like to me, at the last second there?”

“What?” I hissed. “What do you mean?”

“I think Night Praem was kicking some serious arse.” Raine laughed softly. “I think she’ll be just fine without us. But, but, but … yes, we’ll come back for her. Maybe she can’t go out in the daylight. Maybe that’s why she didn’t join us.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I hope you’re right, Raine. I hope she’s safe. All those things down there.”

“She haaaaas to be,” Lozzie mewled. “She’s our Praemy.”

I asked the darkness: “You remember her too, Lozzie? You truly remember?”

Lozzie didn’t answer for a moment, then giggled suddenly. “Forgetty spaghetti, you can’t see me shrug! Of course! Praem’s Praem, right? Praem and her big ol’ Praemies.”

“Um, right,” I said. “I … I suppose that’ll do, for now. Are both of you okay? Lozzie, you got pushed against the wall. And Raine, you were—”

“Doin’ just fine, sweet thing,” Raine said.

“Mmhmm!” Lozzie chirped. “Bruises fade!”

The three of us lapsed into a long moment of uncomfortable silence, filled by the grinding of the elevator mechanisms; rusty flywheels squeaked and rasped, punctuated by the high-pitched vibration of strained steel cables. A steady drip-drip-drip of water kept time behind the machines, flowing down the shaft of naked rock beyond the chain-link walls.

Darkness claimed total dominion over the inside of the elevator car. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, nor Raine at my side. Only the tell-tale sense of my inner ear told me we were going up, and that could have been mistaken. A tremor of fresh panic quivered inside my chest. I’d never been somewhere this dark before, not in reality, at least. Shouldn’t I be able to make out the vaguest impression of the far wall, even in the lowest possible light? My throat bobbed with gut-deep discomfort; I longed to spread my tentacles and light up the darkness with strobing chromatophores, and the fact I could not do so made me feel small and wretched and ugly. Raine must have felt me quivering, because she quietly stroked the back of my head with her free hand.

Somewhere away to my right, Lozzie’s feet scuffed against the rusty metal, disturbing the standing water in the middle of the floor.

Raine’s arm tightened around my waist. “Lozzers,” she purred, deep and dangerous all of a sudden. “I suggest you stay right where you are, little friend.”

Lozzie giggled, lost in the black. “I’m not not not doing aaaaaanything!”

Raine shifted her feet, placing herself between me and the source of Lozzie’s voice. Raine said: “Just to avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings.”

“What’s to misunderstand?” Lozzie chirped, her voice lilting with manic amusement. “I’m just creeping up on you from behind, you big show-off butch teddy bear.”

“Come on now,” Raine purred, rasping low in her throat. “Don’t make me play rough again. Or did you like getting pinned earlier? Given you a taste for it, have I?”

Lozzie giggled — several paces away from where she’d last stood. “Maybe I’m gonna be the one pinning you, rubbing your washboard abs with—”

“That’s enough!” I snapped.

Lozzie stopped. Raine adjusted her feet, as if preparing to repel an attack.

“Both of you,” I went on. “Stop it. Stop it right now. We’re alone together in a pitch dark box and I cannot deal with you two if you descend into a fight. Lozzie, don’t rise to the bait. Raine, I don’t need protecting from Lozzie. We’re all friends here. I love you both. And please, please, please stop flirting.”

Raine took a deep breath; I heard her exhale, slowly and steadily. “Heather—”

“Don’t argue. Raine, you’re the one who suggested I should trust everyone. And you’re right. And Lozzie’s more than proven herself. And don’t … don’t yap at her, please. Be a good girl.”

Raine let out a soft chuckle. “Next time just say ‘heel’. Or ‘down girl’. I’ll answer to either.”

“D-down girl, then. Down, girl. T-thank you, Raine.”

Quick little feet suddenly darted across the elevator, splashing through the stagnant puddle. Raine tensed — I felt displaced air against my face. Had she just raised a fist? But then five sweaty little fingers slid into my free hand and squeezed hard.

Lozzie giggled, inches from my ear.

My heart was racing, my skin was covered in sudden flash-sweat, and my bowels were trying to punch their way out through my abdominal muscles. But I squeezed back.

Lozzie whispered: “Still scare-red-diiii?”

“Well, yes!” I squeaked. “But I trust you, Lozzie. Just … just behave.”

Lozzie giggled one more time, then lapsed into comfortable silence. The elevator ground on upward. Raine tightened her grip on my waist. Three sets of lungs drew stinking, foetid air from the dark box of the lift. Somebody swallowed. I sighed. Lozzie made a soft little mewling noise. I could smell the sweaty tang of Raine’s unwashed body, the spice of her skin, and the blood on her knuckles.

Eventually I murmured: “How long do you suppose this thing takes to reach the top?”

Raine shrugged; I felt her shoulders move. “Some mining lifts take hours. But if you’re right, and this is all a dream, or an illusion, or something else, then isn’t this lift just a metaphor? Maybe it won’t end until one of us says the right thing.”

“Liiiiike what?” said Lozzie.

“Good question,” Raine purred, sounding vaguely amused. “Perhaps we should all pledge our undying solidarity to each other.”

“Tch,” I tutted. “I think you and I have already done that, Raine.”

“What about meeee?” Lozzie chirped.

“Huh,” Raine laughed. “It would take a few more steps for me to pledge much to you, Lozzers. But, any friend of Heather’s is a friend of mine. As long as you keep that shiv point for our enemies, I’m on your side.”

Lozzie giggled in a slightly different way to before — far too flirtatiously. I could almost hear the way she bit her lip, twisting one foot back and forth against the rusty floor, preening for Raine.

“Ahem,” I said out loud. “No flirting, please. Don’t make me keep reminding you.”

Raine said: “You the jealous type, sweet thing? Got me on a leash already, you know? All you have to do is yank.”

“Heathy’s jealous!” Lozzie chirped.

“I am not!” I declared. “We’re practically in a polycule. But you two — you are at far, far, far opposite ends of that polycule! In fact, I’m not even sure if there’s a line connecting you both … ” I trailed off and frowned for a moment, staring into the dark, seeing shapes that were not present in the lightless elevator car. “A-anyway! I’m a little shocked that both of you can joke like this, after we just left Praem behind.”

“Praemy will be finey!” said Lozzie.

Raine murmured: “Good thing I didn’t design this lift, then. If it was up to me, we’d have to fuck before it reached the top. Wouldn’t that be a dash of spice, huh?”

Lozzie pealed with laughter. I tutted and prepared another retort — then felt a soft hand against my cheek, gently turning me to face Raine. I let out a murmur of confusion before Raine’s lips met mine, sudden and rough and hard. She kissed me quickly and quietly, filling my mouth with her tongue, smothering my surprised whimper with her lips.

Raine broke the kiss before Lozzie had even finished giggling. I panted, flustered and flushed.

“Say it,” Raine growled through clenched teeth.

“G-good girl. Good girl,” I whispered back.

Lozzie chirped: “Hm-hm-hmmmm? What’s that? Are you two doing a sneaky while I’m right here? Lewd!”

“N-no!” I stammered. “Lozzie, no! I wouldn’t, I—”

Raine laughed. “Afraid you’re being left out, Lozzers? Sorry, girl. Like I said before, there’s only one woman in the world allowed to bite me.”

“Awwwwww,” went Lozzie. Then, suddenly excited: “Heatheries, do I have a girlfriend, back in the waking world? Or a boyfriend? Or something else?”

“Ummmmmm.” I hesitated, then cleared my throat. “You have … several … ongoing … situations. With girls.”

Lozzie let out a breathy little gasp. “Am I a messy bitch?”

“What!?” I spluttered. “N-no, Lozzie, not like that! Nothing like that!” I sighed and gestured vaguely with my free hand. “You’re just, uh … huh.”

“Heather?” Raine hissed my name. She must have picked up on the change of tone in my voice.

I waved my hand back and forth again. The outline of my palm and fingers blurred against the pitch dark background.

“I can see my hand,” I said. “There’s light.”

Weak grey illumination graced the rusty chain-link and brushed naked rock of the lift shaft, leaving the three of us still sunk deep in shadows. Raine’s face was picked out in profile as she turned to look, but her eyes and mouth were still obscured. Lozzie’s pastel poncho showed the darkest possible hint of blue and pink, still desaturated, robbed of true vibrancy down in there dark.

“Do you think we’re near the top?” I whispered. “I have no idea where this might come out, we should—”

Thunk!

The elevator car stopped with a sudden jolt.

Ding!

The big steel doors began to grind open, screaming their rusty torture into the sudden silence.

“Spread out!” Raine hissed. “Be ready!”

Lozzie let go of my hand and bounced away to one side, across the standing water. She crouched by the far side of the doors. Raine dragged me in the opposite direction, spinning me behind her and pressing me against the wall. She braced herself next to the door frame, so she and Lozzie were ready to ambush whatever or whoever stepped through.

The doors squeaked and squealed as they slid back into their rusty housings. Grim grey light filtered through a cloud of rust particles and filthy dust, as if shining through dirty windows, spreading across the puddle of stagnant water in the middle of the lift.

Lozzie’s naughty little grin caught my eyes on the far side of the widening doors. Raine made a signal with one hand — I had no idea what it meant, but Lozzie nodded, making her greasy blonde hair bounce, prompting her to swipe it back and out of her face. Raine wet her lips and tensed her muscles, holding that little white plastic knife at the ready.

The doors finished opening with a clunk-click of unoiled machinery.

Torchlight stabbed through the gloom and into the lift, scanning quickly across the walls and floor, missing Raine and Lozzie and I tucked into the corners. Three distinct torch beams flicked up and down, left and right. I covered my mouth to stifle a horrified gasp; somebody or something had been waiting for us. We’d escaped one institutional defeat only to be faced by another.

Raine held up three fingers to Lozzie, then counted down — three, two —

A trio of towering figures swept into the lift, moving fast, boots ringing on the rusty metal. They strode right past Raine and Lozzie, splashing into the standing water.

Raine lowered another finger — one.

The three figures stopped and turned in unison, to face the front of the lift. All three lowered a matching trio of bulky black firearms, pointing their flash light beams at the floor.

Black, blank, bland body armour; faces concealed behind helmets and mirror-finish visors. Not a scrap of skin shown at throat or hands, just more black, kevlar and rubber and leather and metal.

Raine lowered her last finger and drew a breath—

“No!” I snapped. “No, Raine! Stop, stop!” I threw out both my hands and stepped between my companions and the three black-clad security guards. “It’s the Knights, the Knights! They’re on our side! My side. S-sort of. Just don’t … don’t … um … hello. Hi.”

All three Knights turned their mirrored visors and stared at me. Raine shifted to one side, as if trying to get an angle around me to attack the Knights. Lozzie hung back, thankfully.

One of the Knights spoke; I couldn’t tell which one, because I couldn’t see a mouth or jaw moving beneath their clothes.

“You’re probably not meant to be back here, love,” they said, in that same muffled, androgynous voice as before. “You lost?”

“Should we report this?” said a different Knight. One visor swivelled to look at another.

“Nah,” answered the third. “This isn’t mission critical. It’ll only mean more paperwork.”

“But the Director said—”

“The Director’s orders were very specific. We bring the situation back under control. Patients are the nursing staff’s responsibility.”

“They look like they’ve been down there,” said another Knight. “That one’s got blood on her knuckles. You alright there, miss? Do you need medical attention?”

Raine answered with a chuckle: “Just fine, thanks. Too much shadow boxing.”

“These three are none of our business,” said a Knight. “This is outside of standard operating procedure, but it’s also outside of the designated zone of operation. We’re in transit. No paperwork for that, we’d have to send it up the chain of command. And command is clear, we’re in transit, not ops. These three obviously know where they’re going.” All three Knights turned to look at me again. “Isn’t that right, love?”

I stared, mouth slightly agape, then swallowed and nodded. “That’s … correct, yes. We’ll just … just be going.”

Raine gently took my hand and eased me away from the trio of heavily-armed Knights, as if we were backing away from a pride of wild lions.

Lozzie chirped: “Are you three going to help Praem?!”

One Knight snapped: “Yes mum— I mean Ma’am. I mean no, Ma’am. I mean we cannot answer that question, Ma’am. Please be on your way.”

Lozzie pattered out of the lift, giggling all the way. Raine led me after her, out into a dim and shadowy room on the far side of the doors. The walls were plain concrete, dusty and cold but less dilapidated than down in the prison. Long, narrow, high windows punctuated the top half of the walls, admitting dim sunlight through a grimy film of dirt and lichen. Grey metal boxes stood in rows on either side of the room, bolted to the floor, locked shut — some kind of electrical equipment. All of it was silent and dark.

One door stood shut on the far side of the room, a nondescript metal portal with a simple handle. Boot tracks led from the door, down the middle of the room, and into the lift. Our trio of Knights appeared to be the only recent visitors.

As soon as Raine and Lozzie and I were clear of the lift, the door began to grind shut again, filling the concrete box with the screeching squeal of dry rust. I winced and hissed.

Raine shouted through the narrowing gap of the doors: “Any chance of borrowing one of those guns?”

“Sorry, miss!” A Knight shouted back. “But we are not authorised to pass equipment to patients!”

Raine yelled: “Where’s your armoury?”

“Inside the primary security cordon! Please do not attempt to pass it without proper credentials! You three girls hurry along now. Stay safe.”

The rusty doors clanged shut. Behind the wall of orange-and-red, the lift went clunk, and began to descend.

Raine blew out a long sigh. “Oh well. Worth a shot. Maybe I can sneak into their cop-shop and nick a gun or two.”

“They were lovely!” Lozzie said. “Oh, darlings! Darlings!”

I sighed too. “Technically they’re your children, Lozzie. I mean, sort of. It’s complicated.”

“I love them!” she chirped, then did a little jig on the concrete floor, wet socks slapping. “Eeeee!”

Raine tapped her own chest. “I didn’t much like the insignia they were wearing.”

“Ah?” I said.

She tapped her chest again, over her heart. “Impaled tentacles. Three of them, on a metal spike. Like a unit insignia, on a patch. Didn’t you see? You’re meant to have tentacles, aren’t you? My little squid-wife.”

“Ahhh,” I said. “That. Yes. I saw that earlier, when I ran into them for the first time. I’m not quite sure what that means, I haven’t exactly had time to think about it.”

“Hmmm.” Raine grunted. She was frowning at the elevator doors, chewing gently on her tongue. “Internal conflict.”

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“Internal conflict, within the institution.” Raine shot me a shrewd look. “The Knights working for the Director, whoever that is — but working against the prison guards, down there in the guts? Seems odd. There’s internal conflict here. Keep that in mind, sweet thing, it might be useful for us. You’re the brains here.”

I sighed. “You’re too kind, Raine. I’m just muddling through.”

Raine grinned. “Too kind, eh? Uh uh. What do you call me, if I’m kind?”

“Good girl,” I said, and rubbed her back through her filthy tank top.

Raine purred with satisfaction, then gestured at the steel door. “Let’s get out of here. Both of you stick behind me. Move slow and quiet.”

The three of us crept up to the door, Raine taking the lead. She eased the handle downward and cracked the portal; blazing sunlight flooded through the gap, making all of us blink and wince. Raine widened the door, peering through with one eye, then both, then her whole head.

“It’s clear,” she said. “Come on out. Water’s fine.”

We all stepped outside.

The logic of the dream had disgorged us deep within the leafy green grounds of Cygnet Asylum, upon a narrow rim of weathered tarmac which surrounded a low, blocky concrete building, the sort which usually housed electrical equipment or transformers or other material interfaces with the world which good girls should firmly ignore. The building and the tarmac were contained within a metal chain-link fence; a door in the fence stood wide open. We all crept out onto the dry, warm, welcoming grass.

Ahead of us, the asylum grounds unrolled in little red brick pathways winding between the gentle giants of spreading oak trees. This deep in the gardens there were few benches, even fewer organised flower beds, and no other girls close by. I spotted a few wandering figures off in the distance, but nobody was close enough to examine us or take an interest.

To our right stood a section of Cygnet’s outer wall — incongruous blackened brick and cold iron, topped with razor-wire and fragments of desiccated meat.

To the left, hundreds of feet away over the tops of the oak trees, the wide windows and faux-gothic pale brick cheekbones of Cygnet Hospital loomed over the landscape, like a giant peering out from beneath sea-green waves. Tiny figures moved behind the windows, patients and residents and nurses. Additional wings angled off from the main building, lost behind each other and the profusion of trees.

“Ahhhhhhhh,” Raine sighed as soon as we were clear of the chain-link fence. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky — to the wrinkled underside of the Eye. “Feel that sunlight. Daaaaaamn. It’s been months. Years? This is better than sex.” She grinned without opening her eyes. “No offense, Heather.”

“Um,” I said. “None taken. But, Raine, there’s no sun. Really, there’s not.”

Raine laughed. “What are you talking about, sweet thing? Ahh, sorry, I gotta soak in this for a sec.” Before I could stop her, Raine sat down on the grass, lay back, and spread her legs and arms out wide. She took a deep breath, soaking in the ‘sunlight’ that came from nowhere.

Lozzie did the opposite — she ducked and bobbed and peered about, as if expecting to find a sneaky little face peering at us from the trees.

“I’ll be up in a sec,” Raine said. “Promise. Scream if a nurse sees us. Just … just gimme this, sweet thing. Gimme a minute.”

“Of course,” I muttered. “Good girl. You’re a good girl, Raine. You … deserve some … some sun … ”

Lozzie peered at me. “No sun? No sunny sun?”

I cleared my throat, tugged my yellow blanket tighter, and gestured at the sky — at the black Eye-wrinkles, the empty expanse of cosmic flesh. “Can you point at the sun, Lozzie? Point at where it is in the sky right now?”

Lozzie glanced up, around, and then back to me. Her eyes twinkled with dead dark mischief and a promise of violence. I shivered.

“Noooope,” she crooned. “Don’t care! We going? Going going? Goooooing?”

“Um, yes,” I said. “We need to go rescue Evee, that’s the first order of business. I … I think … ”

I trailed off as I glanced between Raine and Lozzie; neither of them were in any state to go waltzing back through the front entrance of Cygnet Hospital, or even skulking in through a back door. One glance from a nurse would have us rumbled, even without Raine’s filthy prison clothes. Lozzie was clutching her metal shiv, greasy hair raked back over her skull and streaked with blood — not her own blood, of course. Additional bloody splatters marked the sides of her poncho, from where she’d killed a warden in the fight down below. Her socks were also both sopping wet. Raine was even worse. Her fists were bloodied and bruised, knuckles looking like she’d joined a no-gloves boxing match against a brick wall — and the wall had lost. She was splattered with more than a little blood as well, plus the filthy, ragged state of her tank top and pajama bottoms.

I wasn’t looking too coherent either. I’d lost my socks, soaked the cuffs of my pajamas, and I had a huge wet patch all over the back of my yellow blanket and my top.

“Need to find new duds first,” Raine murmured from down on the ground, without opening her eyes.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” I said. “And I’m not sure how.”

“Mm,” Raine grunted. “Can’t go running into a dozen nurses and expect another bailing out like that. Rules are different up top, right? No Night Praem to save us. Gotta be sneaky. Ain’t that right?”

Lozzie chirped: “Sneaky! Sneaky!”

Suddenly, far behind Lozzie, a flash of russet fur darted out from the cover of an oak tree — and then vanished behind another trunk before I could get a good look.

A fox?

“I’m off!” Lozzie announced, raising one hand high in the air. She slipped her shiv inside her poncho, then bounced away on feet like springs.

“What?!” I spluttered. “Lozzie, no, Lozzie! We just found you!”

Raine sat up quickly, eyebrows raised.

Lozzie turned around and walked backward for a few moments, still heading away from us. “Mm-mm!” she squeaked. “You need a distraction, yeah yeah? So you can get clothes! Let me! Trust me!”

“Lozz—” I said — but she was off, darting between the trees, heading in the direction of the main hospital building, poncho fluttering out behind her. “Oh,” I sighed. “Oh, great. Raine? Raine, we have to go after her.”

“Hmmm, I wonder about that,” Raine said.

“What? What do you mean?”

Raine shrugged. “I say we let her go. Let her help in her own way. Do you trust her, Heather?”

“Well, yes. I … I think. I mean, I trust Lozzie, yes. I may not entirely trust her judgement right now, in this dream. But that’s different.”

Raine cracked a smile, framed by the soft green grass. “Then let her go. Maybe she’s got her own plan. I don’t think I can contain her anyway, so what else can we do? If we follow her, we’ll be throwing a spanner into whatever she’s trying to achieve, for us.” Raine raised a hand toward me. “Help me up, will you? We gotta go find a way back in, gotta go save our Evee. Ain’t that right?”

Determined clarity filled my heart, catalysed by Raine’s confidence — her special secret alchemy, her blazing spark, with which I had rekindled my own burned-out life.

I reached down and grabbed her hand. “Yes, Raine. Yes, you are so very right. Let’s go get everyone else.”