Inner Sanctum | 3:40 PM | Third Day

"No offense, old man," Fang said, "but someone's being taken for a ride here."

Linos frowned, and I saw a flicker of irritation cross his brow. It was hard to tell, but he seemed almost hurt by them spoiling what was supposed to be his moment. "...I'm sorry, Fang?"

"Well, I guess it's not your fault..." they said, wincing through their teeth. "At least, probably not. But it kinda seems like you've been left holding the bag with this stuff. Though it's partly my fault-- I've kinda been letting this get drawn out to see if I could piece what's left over together..." They scratched their head. "Honestly, when I put it that way, I feel like I'm being kinda a jerk."

"What in God's name are you talking about, Fang?" Kam asked them, more overtly annoyed by the further derailment than Linos.

At this point, the conversation was dragging on for so long that even I was starting to get a little anxious about our time limit. We had to have, what-- Barely ten minutes left, by now? The sanctuary wasn't exactly huge - if we could run straight for the exit, we could probably arrive in less than two - but it was nerve wracking all the same, with still no clear plan in place of what was to happen next.

On top of that, I was being torn up by indecision about whether to chance watching more of the recording. Linos and Kam were still right there, and even if this was all serving as a pretty good distraction, I had to imagine that what had happened with me wasn't too far from their minds. If it looked like I wasn't engaged, caught up in the moment with everyone else, they could touch the logic engine in an instant.

Maybe my best bet was to just grab the echo maze out from the inside of the machine, and try and watch the recording somewhere else. It seemed like we'd be leaving one way or the other in a few moments, and they were fragile, so if they tried to take it from me I could probably smash it if push came to shove--

There you go again, my self-awareness noted. Caring more about keeping this all a secret than solving the problem.

Fang let a long deep breath that became a whistle as it wound down, then clapped their hands together sharply in front of their face. "Alright. We've gotta move fast, so I'm gonna lay this out fast! You're gonna have a lot of questions, but we'll have to save most of 'em for when we're out of here. Here's what's gonna happen: You're gonna get your guns out, we'll head to the stairs, go down a floor, look for Ema and the others - they'll probably be in the room with the big pool or maybe one of the west-facing bedrooms, I'd guess - shoot anything that looks funny, grab 'em, and then head straight for the front door. Then we'll head for the guest bioenclosure and get outta here."

People were looking at them like they'd just gone insane. I saw Ran's eyes widen a bit, and her mutter the word 'what' under her breath.

"Fang," Kam spoke through gritted teeth, "have you been listening to a damn thing anyone has been saying for the past, I don't know, fifteen minutes?" She gestured downwards angrily. "There's bloody gas! There's a fire! We can't just--"

"There's no gas," Fang interjected quickly, with an almost dismissive tone, like they'd anticipated this part of the conversation and were trying to get it out of the way quickly.

Kam's eyes boggled. "What--"

Fang snapped their fingers, then pointed at Ran. "Ran! You were wondering why the fire below was so small, right? Before all this weird stuff with Theo, I mean."

She blinked. "Yeah, I--"

"Like I said, it's because there's no gas," Fang reiterated. "I tested it when I was with Anna a few minutes ago, back in the armory. Somebody's just pumping sulphur up from the underground to make it seem like there's a leak."

Ran gaped. "No fucking way."

I was surprised too, but it was possible. Obviously, commercial gas - or rather, methane - was odorless, like the majority of lighter-than-air gasses. The only reason that it tended to have the distinctively foul, rotting smell of suphur was because the scent was added deliberately to the compound to lessen the risk of oxygen starvation in the event of a leak; it wasn't easy to sleep through something that smelled like a corpse. So if you just filled the air with said additive...

But why?

"It's true," Fang insisted. "It's a great bluff-- Nobody can even test it without being scared of being blown to all hell, but at the same time, if somebody does goof and light a match or something, people might just think 'oh, it must not be thick enough yet' and just go with it. I mean, we're mostly in medicine and biology here, not chemistry, y'know? 'scluding myself. Anyway, if you've got doubts, you can just ask her." They pointed to Anna.

Kam looked sharply in the direction of the older woman. "Is this so, your ladyship?"

Linos looked at her as well, his expression muddled and thrown off, like he didn't know what to believe any more.

Anna looked strangely pensive, still gazing into the middle distance, her eyes inclined slightly upward. There was a sense of peculiar despondency to her manner. "...it is true," she confessed. "The child fired their pistol down the the shaft as an experiment, to no result. Afterwards, they conducted a chemical test, which more or less served as confirmation."

"Nice. Thanks, Ann-Ann," Fang said, giving her a thumbs up, before their expression sharply turned more serious. "But you shouldn't really need me to say this. Like I said-- Only the first floor is on fire. It's obviously a controlled blaze designed to draw in the golems and give the impression that everything is fucked."

Theo looked confused. "But I saw--"

"You saw some fire," Fang said, "just like we did a minute ago. Sometimes, when there's no time to stop and take a breath, all it takes to sell this sorta thing is a vibe. That's what this whole thing is. Vibes." They'd started talking incredibly quickly now, to the point I almost missed words at points - like they were trying to cram too many ideas through their throat at the same time. "If we take the other set of stairs when we're heading down the bottom, we should be able to get out fine. It's probably not spread far, if the golems haven't got it already."

"If this is true," Kam said, "why the hell didn't you say something sooner? You told us you smelled the gas!"

"Yeeeaah, sorry about that," they said. "Like I said, I was trying to figure something out. But now we're outta time. Even if I don't have all the answers, it's do or die. Gotta make do with what we have."

Ran was frowning deeply. "Why would someone bother doing something like that? Faking the gas?"

"Like I'm saying, " Fang said. "It's all part of the illusion, of creating an impression. Along with the stuff with the monster."

Ophelia looked overwhelmed, fidgeting with her hands. "But I thought you did see the--"

"I was lying when I said I thought the monster might be real," they stated bluntly. "It's totally fake. 100%. Probably made with the Power and some other sleight of hand."

Several people looked like they had objections to this, Theo most of all, but kept going before they could respond. "The culprit probably knew that they could only make the trick decently convincing underground, where we were all packed together and they had access to arcana, and so set things up so we'd get split up and disoriented and without any proper lighting while we were wandering up here. Then after the ball was rolling, they changed into a costume kinda like what the monster looked like to keep things going and scare everyone to the spot them wanted them in. Namely: Here." They twisted their lip into a dissatisfied expression, like they were unhappy with their own explanation. "Well... Something like that."

"Something like that," Kam repeated, piercing.

"I'm simplifying a bit!" they told her, running a hand through their hair. "They might have other props. Maybe. The point is that they're not real, and more importantly, not dangerous."

"Why would you lie to us, Fang?" Linos asked, his eyes narrowed.

"Like I said: I was trying to figure something out," Fang declared. "And I figured it out! So we're good!"

Even in my distracted state, exhausted from everything which had just happened, the unspoken part of what they were saying seemed pretty obvious. They were insinuating that they suspected someone here of being an accomplice, and had been trying to gauge their reaction. Working backwards from that idea - 'what would have happened if Fang had asserted the monster was fraudulent from the start' - the obvious candidates seemed to be Kam, who'd been reacting to everything with peculiar severity for a while; Theo, who had barged in with his own account of seeing the beast... Or Linos, who had ultimately told the story that seemed to affirm its existence just now.

Or you, my mind reminded me. They might suspect you.

I didn't want to believe Fang suspected me. As much as I felt agitated by the way they always seemed to be on some higher plane of understanding, the idea that even they were completely barking up the wrong tree at a moment like this was even more harrowing.

In any event, I was obviously not the only person who had made this observation. Almost everyone, even Ophelia, was now regarding Fang uneasily.

"B-But I saw it up here!" Theo insisted. "Just a moment ago!"

"You were disoriented, right? You can't, like, put it all together in your head," they stated. "They probably drugged you and the others somehow-- Took you by surprise from around the corner. With the fires surging up, you wouldn't be able to process what was going on properly. I'm no psychologist, but I know it's easy to get the mind to start playing tricks when they're already worked up as hell."

He hesitated, opening his mouth to speak, but stammering a bit.

"...Fang," Linos said. "It seems like you think you've reached the truth of all this... But I'm telling you, we really did--" He paused, swallowing the air with apparent anxiety. "I really do believe what I just told you. That we created something unearthly... And that it's responsible for what's happening now." He furrowed his brow. "There's more you don't know. The letter and the message, those weren't the only threats leading up to this, and--"

"Whether or not this stuff you're saying right now is true isn't even important," Fang said, their tone continuing to grow more serious, departing increasingly from their usual flippancy. "But like I said-- I think you're being manipulated. Just 'cause you made some corpse really hard to destroy like a century ago doesn't mean it's responsible for what's happening now."

Linos frowned. "I--"

"Probably whoever's running the show here knows about it, though," Fang said, then laughed awkwardly, like they'd said something funny to themselves. They ran a hand through their hair, then rubbed them together. "Phew, shit. This is stressing me out."

"Even if you're right," Linos said, "there's no reason to place everyone at risk. Let me go alone when we make it to the second floor. I'll find the others, and one way or another--"

"Nuh-uh," Fang said, shaking their head firmly. "Like I said. Unless everyone goes together, this isn't gonna work. Them's the breaks."

"What do you mean 'them's the breaks?'" Linos asked, getting agitated. "Fang, I don't know who you think you are, but you can't just dictate--"

"If you want, then if we really do see a monster - a real monster - when we go to find the others, then you can do the whole heroic sacrifice routine. But I'm telling you that's not gonna happen." They flipped out their personal logic engine, furrowing their brow, and closed their eyes for a moment before turning to regard the group at large. "Look, I know I'm asking a lot, but there's not enough time to put this all into context. You're going to have to trust me. I guarantee - guarantee - that if we all walk out together and stay together, right up until we're out the door - we'll all come out of this alive. I've got a sense of everything in play now. Even if they try to ambush us, or even if Su there is leaking every word I'm saying to the culprit, it won't make a difference."

"I-I'm not leaking anything to the culprit," I said, unhappily.

"Don't worry, Su!" Fang said to me cheerfully. "I'm just saying that to calm everybody down. I'm sure you're not doing anything, like, importantly suspicious." They hesitated slightly, running their tongue along the inside of their cheek. "Well, 95% sure. 90%? 93...?"

Great. Thanks. Somehow them trying to put a figure on it just pissed me off even more.

"Now just hold on!" Kam said. "You can't just-- You can't expect us to just go along with this! How do we know you aren't using this pretext of understanding to lure us right to our deaths?"

"Kam, we've run out the clock," Ran said. "We need to leave, one way or the other. And it doesn't seem like we have any other options."

She was kinda right. Ultimately, there wasn't that much difference between Fang and Linos's plan, once you set aside the fluff. In both cases, we were heading back the way we came in a total leap of faith.

Kamrusepa bit her lip sharply. She looked out the window, but judging by her reaction, the golems must still have been swarming the grounds below. She took a sharp breath.

"...fine," she said, clutching her rifle tightly. "Fine! If there's nothing else to be done, we'll make a break for it!" She was breathing sharply. "Have done with this, one way or the other!"

Linos looked incredibly hesitant, clutching his hands together tightly on his lap.

"Alright!" Fang slammed their fist into their hand, before anyone else could protest. "Into the lion's den!" They hesitated. "Well, figuratively speaking, I mean. Like I said, so long as we stick together, we should be fine!"

I realized that people were moving towards the door. It was now or never.

"W-Wait," I interjected, my tone awkward. "I'm sorry... But can I take the maze from the logic engine, here?"

It was bold to the point of stupidity, but I didn't know what else to do. It wasn't as though I could just reach over and sneakily take it out. Logic engine parts, in spite of recent advancements, were still relatively clunky and heavy.

Kam was on me quickly, practically spinning where she stood to face me again, still clutching her rifle tightly. "Su, what the hell are you playing at with all this?"

"I-I really am telling the truth," I said uncomfortably. I always fell apart the minute I was under any serious social scrutiny-- That hadn't changed since I'd met Ran, I'd just got better at avoiding it. "You can have a quick look at the logs if you want... I'm just looking at a recording from this room's security system, not communicating with anybody."

She frowned deeply, glancing between me and the door.

"Please," I said. "This really is just something personal-- About the patient who was staying here. I don't mind if you think it's suspicious, but... Please, just let me take it."

She looked at me probingly for a moment, her eyes flickering between suspicious hostility and sympathetic contemplation. "...fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, on account of our friendship." she said. "But this isn't finished. And you're staying in the front where I can shoot you if you try anything funny until we get back to civilization."

I wanted to believe this was a joke, but I wasn't sure. I bit my lip. I didn't cope well with being treated harshly."

"And just so you know," she added, "this is only because this is the first time I've had reason to doubt you over the course of the night. I can't see a way that you fit into this conspiracy with the other culprits."

I furrowed my brow. "...you think you know who's behind this?"

She hesitated, her eyes betraying an anxiety that she'd said too much. "Perhaps," she said, reticent. "Everything will come to light soon enough--"

"Yo, Kam, Su!" Fang said, ushering us towards the door. "We gotta go!"

Kamrusepa grunted. She gestured with her gun to the logic engine. "...get the maze out."

I didn't hesitate, breaking my connection with the logic bridge and shuffling over to unhook the panel of the maze reader, before lifting the crystalline fixtures connecting it to the machine upward and sliding the cube out. I stuffed it awkwardly into my bag and rose to my feet.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

From so much as I could tell behind our respective masks and in the darkness, it was difficult to imagine a less willing set of looks on our respective faces. Ophelia and Theodoros looked terrified almost to the point of tears, Linos strangely panicked, Anna seeming almost resigned to some unknown fate... Ran alone I couldn't make out the face of, ironically because she was standing so close to me. At the angle we stood, her features were hidden completely behind Neferuaten's blank slate mask.

I tapped my personal logic engine for the first time in a while. It was 3:42. Now almost exactly ten minutes until our transposition window.

A phrase came to mind: Between the devil and the deep blue sea. No one wanted to do this, but neither were there any other options. We had to turn and face the enemy.

"Remember," Fang reminded us. "If we see anything out there? Anything that's not the others?" They made a throat-cutting motion. "I haven't got a gun, so I'm counting on you guys. Set 'em to do as much damage as they can without starting a fire."

"I-It sounds as though you're expecting whoever is disguising themselves as the monster to try something," Theo said warily.

"Hey, good guess!" Fang said, but kept their eyes forward. "Let's just say that even if there's nothing mystical going on here, we're not protected from, y'know, plain 'ole murder."

Kamrusepa suddenly seemed to realize something, her eyes widening. "...do you know who the culprits are, Fang?"

They considered this. "Guess that depends on what you mean by 'culprit'."

Kam quirked her brow in irritation. "I mean the people doing the murders."

There was something about Kam's tone that made me feel like she was trying to insinuate something. Fang just shook their head, smiling pensively to themselves.

"We really need to go," Ran said.

"I want an answer!" Kam demanded.

"And you'll get one," Fang said, and tapped their nose. "But not quite yet! First, we just gotta take a couple more minutes to tear back the curtain, so nobody can squirm away!" They turned. "Everybody ready?"

"I-- This isn't right," Linos protested further, looking agitated. "You're all putting yourself in danger for no reason." He looked around desperately. "The rest of you don't have to go along with this. Theo, Su, Ran... Please just head straight down to the door. I don't know what Fang is thinking, but if at least you can make it to the exit..."

"I'm ready," Ran said. I nodded along. Theo said nothing, but appeared resolved.

"As am I," Kam said, but eyed Fang sharply. "But if this is a trick, what I said to Su stands for you as well, Fang." She pulled some mechanism on her rifle, which made a strange clunking sound.

Linos looked to Ophelia desperately. "Ophelia, talk some sense into them! I can tell you can at least see this is madness!"

All I could personally see in Ophelia was fear, so it seemed like sort of a reach. Still, she did seem in some level of agreement with him. "I... I don't know..." She looked to the rest of us. "Maybe we should just let him--"

"What?" Theo said, strangely sharp for him. "Let my dad die? And Fang, too?"

"Theo," Linos said pleadingly.

"Fang said that we... That we have to stay together if we're going to have a chance." He held his weapon tightly. "I don't know who I should believe any more, but I don't want anyone else to die... So let's just get on with it!"

His father winced.

"Heh, alright!" Fang said. I could hear a hint of something like subdued pride in their tone, like they were a hero closing in on victory. "Let's get this done!"

We advanced, together, out of the room and into the darkness of the hallway, Theo once again pushing his discontented father's chair. As soon as we'd left, the presence of some kind of fire was obvious - I could smell the smoke in the air even past the odor of sulphur, and see it around our lanterns. Hopefully the spray we'd taken from Durvasa's room would be good for something like this, too.

I was so terrified at this point that I could barely think straight. I felt like a spectator in my own body. My mind wandered paradoxically back and forth between the assumption that I'd be dead in a matter of moments, and vague and ill-thought plans of how I was going to convince the others to let me keep the echo maze to myself. Both felt equally real and unreal, like my mind was on the edge of a knife.

"Theo," Fang said. "When you were attacked, what set of stairs were you on?"

He didn't reply, his gaze set dead ahead.

"Hey," Fang said insistently. "Teddy." They nudged his shoulder.

Theo jerked slightly, then blinked, thrown off. "W-What is it?"

"Which set of stairs did you come up?"

"Oh," he said. and bit his lip. "It was the ramp... We thought it'd be easier, since we were carrying Ezekiel."

"Gotcha," they said. In the corner of my eye, I could see their gaze jerking around rapidly as they scanned the surrounding environment. "Let's go that way too, then."

"W-Won't that be more dangerous...?" Ophelia asked hesitantly.

"Nah," Fang said, with a slight shake of the head. "We'll be closer to where they've probably ended up that way. 'sides, it'll be an easier trip for the old man."

Linos looked too anxious to respond, his head craned downwards as he fidgeted with the barrel of his pistol.

"What about the fire?" Kam asked, her eyes narrow.

Fang shrugged. "This place is all stone. It's probably not spread up much." They smiled. "And hey, maybe we'll see some clues!"

Kam seemed to process this for a moment, then nodded.

Eh? Why was that enough to satisfy her? This is nuts!

No one had the willpower left to object. We approached the door, which was still open a crack. The smoke was notably thicker even on the approach, and I could see an orange light emanating from beyond. Upon stepping through, it was almost exactly as Theodoros had described. Fire was... Well, not exactly raging, but present down below, the light dancing around the overly-expansive stairwell chamber, growing dimmer as it approached the ceiling. The smog was dense enough to sting my eyes. I squinted covered my mouth instinctively.

It didn't look like the fire had spread far-- It seemed confined to the floor at the bottom level and a few adjacent pieces of furniture, and I could make out several oblong golems spraying fluid on it, causing it to intermittently retract. They were doing a pretty good job of it, and it looked as though the blaze might sputter out without need for human intervention.

As for signs of the reported creature... Well, I saw nothing.

"When we get down there," Fang said, before we descended, "try and stay quiet."

"Don't we need to call out for Seth and the others?" I asked.

"We will if we gotta," they said, "but we'll try to keep the element of surprise." They smirked to themselves. "Plus, I got a feeling it's not gonna come to that."

I frowned, really starting to wonder what Fang had planned. Ran and I shared a look.

We descended quickly. There were some small signs of a struggle - a part of the floor that was scuffed with a trivial amount of blood, what looked like some paper that had fallen from someone's pockets down to the stair below us - but nothing beyond what was to be expected from Theo's account, or maybe even less. We passed through the door to the second floor, where we were once again greeted by the blue reflection of the fish tanks--

Then it came. The chittering cry of the monster again, this time incredibly close - just a bit to the south of where we currently stood. Ophelia jumped, and almost cried out, but managed to stop herself at the last moment, putting her hands on her mouth. Kam jerked her rifle upwards, while Linos pursed his lips tightly.

"Ah," Fang muttered quietly, "there we go." They took a breath, and gestured us forward. "C'mon. Let's go. Time for the grand finale."

I almost cut and ran right there and then. Every sense I had was screaming at me that this was an absurdly bad idea. I doubted anyone else was feeling altogether much different.

Smoke and mirrors. It was all well and good to say that, but getting this close... After everything Linos had said...

Very slowly and with great trepidation, we advanced towards the source of the noise, a bedroom at the far end. Soon, we heard another sound; though muffled and pained, it was distinctly Ptolema's voice, trying to cry something out.

Perhaps this should have made us even more afraid - it certainly made my heart race, if nothing else - but instead it seemed to inspire almost a degree of valor, with some of the others picking up the pace slightly.

It made sense to me, too. Here, pushed to our limit and surrounded by things we didn't understand, there was finally a concrete objective before us. Save them, unite the group, and leave. Save them, unite the group, and leave.

There's a solid 1/3rd chance that this is a trap and you're about to die, my background paranoia said. At least, I hoped it was paranoia.

As we approached the door, the cry of the beast came forth again. This close, it sounded even more insectile - less a single sound, and more like a rush of sticks loudly clacking against one another. Hollow sticks, less like chitin and more like bone.

I felt what I had out in the yard again. This is it. This is where I die. I clung to my pistol like it was the mast of a sinking ship.

Linos put his hand on Fang's. "Let me go," he mouthed, after stealing a final glance at his son.

Fang snorted, and after checking to see we all had our guns raised, spoke without even bothering to lower their voice. "Nope."

Then, without hesitation, they kicked in the door.

The next fifteen seconds feel, in my memory, like they spanned five minutes. Time dilated. Everything in this moment of final confrontation moved slightly, like I'd flicked some hidden switch in the dark recesses of my lizard brain, and every sense was now running on double capacity. I could feel my own heartbeat, the contraction of my lungs. The room poured into my eyes.

The first thing I realized, and felt stupid for not having noticed sooner, was that this was the room I'd woken up in - I recognized the the bed, the dresser, the painting of the Great Interplanar War on the far wall. The first thing I saw, though, were Ptolema, Ezekiel and Seth against the back window. They were constrained, held in place by this strange, dark colored webbing that seemed stuck to the glass. As soon as they saw us, they struggled, Seth's eyes turning towards the ceiling.

"S-Seth!" Theodoros cried out.

The rest came all at once. The mess that'd been made of the room, the other streaks of the substance that covered the bed and marred the area. The shattered window. The shredded duvet. The streaks of blood on the floor.

There was only thing thing that needed to be pointed out for me.

"Up there," Ran hissed, her voice half a gasp.

My eyes turned upwards instinctively, and... There it was.

My mind almost couldn't process it at first; it tried to make sense of the shapes you'd normally never see together, cast in the strange, dim organic light we carried. But then suddenly, it all snapped into place, like one of those magic eye pictures.

Where had the idea come from? The notion of the shape?

The human mind is very good at making connections, but very bad at organizing those connections. If you go to a lecture hall after lunch and listen to a really profound motivational talk, those words - and the emotions they evoke - can remain with you for a lifetime. But what fades almost instantly is the context. What you did that morning, what was on your mind already. The thousands of little circumstances in your life that made it so profound in the first place.

Grounding things in time, in particular, is difficult. It had struck me all a sudden during the presentation; that memory of the creature on the day that Utsushikome's grandfather had died. That I'd seen out of the corner of my eye, if only for a moment.

...but if you thought for more than a second, wasn't that absurd? The idea that some creature I'd beheld in a traumatic reverie was now literally here, in reality, killing people?

Where had the idea come from? Had I just confused myself with Sacnicte's story kicking around in my head?

In that instant, I found myself entertaining a strange notion: That all of this had somehow been for me.

For me...

My eyes grew wide with terror.

There was no mistaking it for a person in a costume, that was certain. It was large enough to cover a third of the ceiling, centered around the rear-left corner. The wings, if you could call them that, were vibrant and multi-colored, and called to mind less a bird and more some strange sea creature, the bulk of them made up of bristling spines like off a sea urchin. They twirled slightly in place, contracting and retracting in relation to the main body, which was thin - almost skeletally so - and darker colored.

They were right, some part of me absorbed. It's obviously not a physically viable life-form. There's not enough muscle tissue to bear the weight of that wingspan.

Long, spindly limbs that looked like they were made of metal, each with strange and many-fingered hands, protruded from a black, reflective torso, clinging to the surrounding webbing, and its face jutted out like the point of the sword. It stared dead ahead at us, and contrary to what Fang had said, it had eyes! Terrible eyes. They were noticeable at first, because they were beady-small and encircled the 'beak' like a crown. But they were there, and red, and filled with a dreadful rancor!

As we entered, it shifted with an alien sharpness, and its mouth began to unravel strangely from the base as if to scream or inhale us--

"SHOOT IT!" Fang shouted, cutting off my thoughts.

"Wait!" Linos said desperately. "It might--"

My muscles, for once in my life, outpaced my brain. I pulled the trigger of the refractor rifle, and vibrant yellow light shot forth. I was the first, but this was soon followed by the others. I saw at least four other shots, from Ran, from Kamrusepa (whose rifle's blast was once again so loud it made me jump), from Anna, from Theodoros--

What happened next was possibly the greatest anti-climax of the entire night. Far from witnessing the reported invincibility, our shots hit the creature dead on, and punched cleanly through its body. It didn't let out any kind of cry or even seemingly react, but it did catch fire a bit, especially around the midsection.

There was an extremely awkward moment where we just stared at it, while it continued to hang there, still craning back and forth slightly. The fear in me deflated a bit, and I glanced to Ran, who looked almost offended by this turn of events, staring upwards incredulously.

Finally, Kam wrinkled her nose, took a moment to aim properly, and shot it cleanly through the base of the beak, the closest thing it had to a 'head'. It fell off, bounced off the bed, and hit the floor with a satisfying metallic clunk.

After this, the ice broke, and the rest of us fired repeatedly. I shot at the arms, which partially melted and detached from the body while remaining stuck to the ceiling, hanging limply. Ran hit the wings, which didn't seem to burn, but did start to fall apart after repeated hits, the spines raining down in clumps. The incapacitated group had gone mostly quiet, now, though Ptolema in particular looked baffled about what was going on.

Finally, there was a creaking noise from above, and the entire thing slowly peeled off the ceiling - like it had been being held there by glue - and collapsed downwards, landing mostly behind the mattress. The fire in the midsection softly burned, while the metallic components smoldered on the floor.

"W... What...?" Linos said, staring, wide-eyed at the remains.

"Yep," Fang said, crossing their arms and nodding to themselves. "That went about how I thought it would."

Theo blinked, his face twisting in confusion. "Wait," he said. "Was that-- Was what the monster? Did we kill it?"

Fang chuckled to themselves, while Kam, who seemed to have developed some idea of where this was going, stared intently in the direction of our captive classmates.

Ran looked to them. "What's going on, Fang?"

"Let's get the others free first," they said, stepping forward. "We gotta move fast, remember?"

We followed, approaching the back wall. Getting some decent lighting on it, it became clear that what held them in place wasn't really webbing at all, but probably some kind of inorganic or psudo-organic - though still quite sticky - mesh, under which they were tied up... Well, not exactly conventionally, but in a way that looked a lot more like it was done by a human. Some sort of artificed rope ran along the sides of their legs and arms.

It was surprisingly easy to remove. The first layer, despite its texture, wasn't firmly attached to the wall and could be torn away without much difficulty, and the second Fang and Kam produced knives to cut through.

Seth was the first to be ungagged by her. but seemed disoriented. "Ugh... K-Kam, is that you...? That thing..." He coughed violently, like something was caught in his throat. "I-Is it... Dead...?"

Ptolema, meanwhile, was obviously a bit more alert, as she was struggling even before we'd started cutting her down. As soon as I pulled the webbing from her mouth, she practically cried out. "Oh, thank the gods!" she said. "Get me outta this crap!"

"Ptolema," I said, occasionally glancing at the remains of the 'creature' behind me. "What happened?"

"I dunno!" she said desperately. "We were on the stairs, and-- And somethin' came after us, sprayed something-- Get me down!" She insisted. "My butt's so cramped it feels like my muscles have all turned to mush!"

I relented, peeling away the rest of her bindings and letting her drop not-so-gracefully to the ground. She rubbed her behind painfully.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

"No!" she proclaimed, upset. "I can barely move anything below my guts, and my mouth tastes like cat pee from having that weird stuff stuck in it!" She stuck out her tongue.

"Not speaking from experience, I hope," Kam said, eying her like she was trying to figure something out.

Ptolema just glared at her, then also turned to face the remnants of the supposed avatar of entropy. "...geez, that thing just melted."

Kam raised an eyebrow. "Were you expecting differently?"

She scratched her head. "I dunno. I felt something dragging us down the hallway... And then I was here, with that thing from the basement up there, and..." She frowned, puzzled. "I thought it'd be stronger, I guess?"

There was a strong sense in the air of a shoe that was about to drop. I was pretty sure I'd already figured out roughly what was going on myself. When you looked at the scenario that had just played out, then turned the situation around, imagined yourself in the position of the culprit...

I wasn't alone. The atmosphere of the room was slowly shifting, at least among those of us who had just come in, from confusion to realization of what this meant. Theo was looking at one of the steaming lumps that had previously been the creature's limbs with a transfixed expression. Linos had covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes widened and downturned as he apparently realized his error. Kam, of course, seemed to have pieced it together some time ago.

The only question was: Were all of our reactions sincere?

Anna was the odd one out. She'd been silent since we arrived here, but now she was staring at Linos, her expression somehow expectant.

"Don't stress yourself, Ptolema!" Fang said, as they and Theo cut down Ezekiel. "This'll all make sense in just a second."

"G-Get your hands off of me," Ezekiel hissed groggily, as they lowered him to the ground. "I'm fine."

"I imagine so," Kam said, her eyes narrow. "You'll need to walk in a moment. We only have a few minutes to flee the building."

As the others recovered and tried to get to their feet, Fang stepped back from the far wall. They headed over to the dresser and - somehow knowing what was in there - withdrew a thick blanket from the bottom drawer. Then, they stepped over to the remains of the monster and smothered the flames, before dusting their hands off.

"Fang," Ran said, like she'd also just about worked it out. "Why don't you just get to whatever you're building to? We don't have much time. What's really going on here?"

"Awww, c'mon, Ran! I don't get many heroic moments, y'know?" They laughed a bit to themselves again, but then relaxed somewhat, sighing. "Alright. Let's put this 'divine beast' out of its misery, eh?"

Fang stepped over to where the creature's beak had fallen to the floor. They grasped it in their hand for a moment, then flipped it around, before displaying the underside to the rest of us in a circular motion.

It was mostly hollow, but what little was there spoke for itself. There was some kind of small machine inside that I think I recognized as a phonograph player; a complicated and still-running clockwork mechanism with an elaborate bronze horn at the back. Beyond that, I could see straps, welding lines, and the residue of what looked like glue.

Fang ripped out the mechanical component and inspected it for a moment, looking almost a little disappointed. They fiddled with it, and it unceremoniously produced the alien cry from earlier. Without the beak there to produce an echo, it sounded quite a bit more flat and tinny.

"Huh," Fang said, wrinkling their lip. "Not bad for an amateur, but I've heard better on bridge dramas."

Nobody laughed. They looked disappointed.

"Ehh?" Ptolema said, frowning incredulously. "It's just some cheap prop!"

It's actually a pretty expensive-looking prop, I thought. I might have flaked out on Iwa nine times out of ten, but never let it be said I learned nothing about stagecraft.

Kam's gaze hardened. Seth, who slowly seemed to be coming to his senses, stumbled to his feet, looking confounded. Theodoros stepped to take a closer closer look, his expression incredulous, and Fang leaned over to show it to him in the light.

"Good choice of words, Ema," Fang said as they drew back, pointing to her. "'Prop'! 'cause the truth is, this has been theater from the word go. Hell, we're even dressed for it right now, I guess." They tapped their mask, shaking their head with amusement, before looking back down to the remnants of the apparently-artificial monster. "Sheesh, though, it is a good prop. Somebody must've spent a lotta time on it."

"What do you mean," Kam said, suddenly seeming a little confused by what Fang was saying instead of understanding. "That it's all been theater?"

Fang stepped back, over towards the painting, where the lighting was such that their shadow loomed high behind them. There was a little smugness in their expression, now, and a sense of finality in their words, like a magician who was about to perform their biggest trick. Or maybe a judge about to deliver their sentence.

"Kam, you asked me a minute ago if I knew who the murderers were," they said, "but to tell the truth? I don't think there's an answer to that at all."

I blinked. "What are you saying?"

"Well, y'see, the definition of 'murder' is the unwilling and premeditated killing of another human being, right?" They lowered their gaze. "But frankly, other than maybe what happened to Bardiya, I don't think there's a single thing that's happened tonight that's met that definition." They snorted slightly, shaking their head. "Man, I wish I could have been totally sure before I said this. That would've felt so cool..."

"Say what?" Kam spoke, now getting irritated. "Get to the point!"

They raised their head, their smile growing a little tired. "That from the very start, from the moment we walked into this sanctuary, all of this has been--"

And then, in an instant, it happened.

Sharp, white light.

Fluid on my face.

It was almost like the punchline of a joke. Part of me, even then, genuinely wanted to laugh.

The window shattered, and Fang's head burst into pieces.