As Lin and Kid ascended to the surface, they felt themselves growing uneasy.

“The elevator’s broken. We’ll have to take the stairs,” Lin said after hitting the button and waiting. They stood outside the elevator, but the doors wouldn’t open, nor would it respond to the buttons.

“Are you sure?” Kid said between coughs.

“Well, yeah. They must have overloaded it when everyone went to the surface. A whole class? This isn’t rated for that sort of weight.”

“Didn’t know you were an elevator expert.”

“They’re lucky the rope didn’t snap.”

Below them, Kid heard the drip of water, the squeals of bats living and dying, and the stomps of the Mushman as he went about his day. Below it she heard a gentle prickling sound, like leaves in rain, and she knew it was the spores growing their fruit in her lungs.

“We have to get going, now,” she said with a gasp.

“Yeah, I’ve heard what those spores can do. Better get a move on.” They left the elevator and took the stairs. They stepped up them on light feet, as if they had springs in their heels. Despite how great her body itself felt, her mind suffered. Every little speck of dirt, each flickering light—she couldn’t tune any of it out.

I’m guessing my mind wasn’t made to handle this much, she thought. And with the fungus taking root, it only got stronger with every passing minute.

Lin took off running with her hands on her head. As she rounded a corner on the stairs, her elbow collided with the metal bannister and made a bonging sound.

“Where…” Kid stopped to catch her breath. “Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Lin muttered. “It’s too much.” Her heart was racing, and Kid sensed it above the machinery to the left and the bats below.

“Same.” Kid ran after her.

Kid heard Lin’s heart skip a beat. They both stopped at a broken section of stairs. If they wanted to advance, they’d need to jump fifteen feet to the next platform. But if they missed the landing, they could fall a good hundred feet. Such a jump could break their legs, and even if they would heal, it was still a risk. After already facing so much pain, no one wanted to do it.

“I can’t, I can’t. I just don’t,” Lin said, and trailed off. “Hoist me up. Throw me.”

“I can’t aim that well.”

“I know. You suck at sports. Not a single goal in basketball all year. I’ll have to jump.”

“Can’t we,” Kid wheezed, “take another flight of stairs?”

“Yeah, I don’t see any. I don’t hear any.”

The stairs did make a particular creaking sound, a subtle thrum of them trembling in response to the surrounding abattoir. Kid could only hear the stairs in front of her. This whole factory was a building code violation, and it should have been abandoned long ago!

Lin eyed Kid with suspicion. “Maybe if I jump off your shoulders it won’t hurt as much.”

“No. You aren’t… doing that.”

“Don’t you want out? I’ll drop you a rope or something that you can climb up when I get there.”

“I haven’t seen any ropes around here.”

“So, hoist me up?”

“No!”

“Hmmph. You ought to treat me with more respect.”

“My princess deserves the best,” Sangre said from above. “You’re almost halfway there. I can hear you.”

“Lin. Be reasonable.”

“You’re the unreasonable one,” she said while crossing her arms. “Throw me?”

“I’ll break my arms.”

“I’d do the same for you.”

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“Right.” She paused, panting. It got harder to breathe and the prickling sound grew louder. It was as if breathing harder made them grow faster. “Maybe there’s a ladder.”

“I don’t hear one.” She smirked.

“We could try… the elevator again?”

She rolled her eyes. “If it didn’t work below, why would it work now?”

“There’s a second set of stairs,” Sangre said. “But where?”

“Sangre?” Kid said. “We’ll give you… some of the antidote, if you help us. Please?”

“Do you even know what that would do to me? I have no body, no future outside of my immortality.”

So if he took the antidote he would die.

At least they knew about another way up, now. Kid began to search. “I’ll go that way, you go the other,” she told Lin.

But what use was it, if Kid couldn’t breathe? The slow sense of suffocation, like the air had turned to water, overwhelmed her. Breathing through her mouth and taking it slow didn’t help.

Lin still stared up at the landing.

“Lin? Cooperate.”

“What’s in it for me?” she mimicked Sangre. “I could go back down if I wanted to. Mushman needs a friend. Who needs sunlight and classes when I have all of this?” She gestured widely to the surrounding slaughterhouse.

We have to get off this floor, Kid said. But how could she get Lin to cooperate? “Listen—”

“I hear the bats. Can’t you tell what they’re saying?”

Kid dared to listen, and it began to make sense. Certain bat-calls were for food, danger, death, or love. The ones that came from the slaughtered bats nearly broke her heart. She understood every chirp coming through the walls and floors.

“Lin! Stop. Follow. Remember we need out…”

“Not unless you know the way.” She whistled, just like Sangre did, and Kid began to believe that they really were related.

It was time for a bluff, but that came with a risk. If she angered Lin, she might lose her chance, though if she could find the way out while pretending she knew, it would be alright and Lin would calm down.

“This way,” her heart throbbed and she pressed a fist to her chest.

“Fine. I’ll go. But first, I have something for you.” Lin shuffled her feet and put a hand in her pocket. Then, without warning, and while Kid was distracted, she spun around and landed a punch on Kid’s nose. “That’s for refusing to help me.”

Light came from Kid’s mouth, and she spat out brilliant yellow blood. Oh no. How fast did the spores grow? Her limbs felt swollen and fatter than usual—was that the jelly-juice her body was making?

Lin laughed at the sight of blood. She dipped her finger in a drop of it. Sangre’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

“Lin. I smell blood.”

“Yeah, I punched Elisa.”

“Don’t lick it.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Gross!” She smeared it on her grease-stained leggings. It looked like dead lightning bug juice.

Sangre sighed in relief.

“Sangre?” Kid said. She couldn’t believe Lin would punch her out of the blue like that. She blamed it on the influence of the lard, though she knew better. “What does the blood do?”

“It flows through our veins. What else?”

He knew something they didn’t know. Kid continued walking with Lin in tow. “This way.”

Lin giggled, and then scowled. “You’re a bad liar. You don’t know the way, do you?”

“I do. This way.”

In the far-off distance, Kid could hear Snaggletooth and the children’s worried pacing and chattering. Sangre groaned.

“See? Even he can tell.” Lin stopped as they came up to a wall.

“Right here,” Kid said. She heard a door, a silent pocket of air beyond the wall, but she couldn’t see it. Scanning the rusted metal of the wall, she found a seam and a set of handprints. She pressed. All the while blood dripped from her nose.

“Riiight.”

To even Kid’s surprise, a door opened.

“Here.” Kid held it open. “After you.”

“More stairs? Simply wonderful. But I think I’ll just stay here. I’m getting a headache from all this smell.”

“Idiot,” Kid said. “It won’t… get better if you stay.”

Lin’s mouth dropped open. “You’re so rude! Don’t you trust me?” Under the influence of the lard’s madness, she couldn’t control herself and she began wringing her hands.

They stood face to face next to the door. In the dark, the glow of their skin was all the light they needed.

Kid opened her mouth to speak but coughed, and some of the blood splattered into Lin’s mouth. Suddenly, it got a lot darker.

Lin’s expression changed. “What did you just do?” she whispered. “It’s quiet.”

“Lin? Can you hear me?”

Lin said nothing, but Kid could hear Sangre clearly. “What’s going on?”

“I never thought this would happen.”

“Tell us!”

“The antidote… it’s the blood of another immortal.”

Lin whimpered. “You won’t hurt me again… will you?” She looked at Kid ranting with horror. With the loss of her power, she couldn’t hold her own.

Seeing the bully run from her for once was kind of satisfying. Kid chased after.

“Why did you punch me?” Kid said. She gathered her breath and continued to run. She caught up to Lin and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“This is all your fault!” Lin shouted.

“No, it’s your fault for punching me!” Kid pulled back a fist. One mega punch and it’d be lights out.

“I’m sorry! Don’t hurt me!”

Kid hacked up a cloud of spores. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re a good person! You’re good and I’m, I’m just a bully!” She began to cry.

Kid released her and broke into a fit of coughing. “What’s gotten into me?”

“It’s the lard. You have to get to the surface and save yourself.”

“But the antidote…”

“Sangre’s an immortal too. He can heal you.”

Kid listened all around her. She felt like a god. How could she give up this sort of power now? She shook her head. No!

“Do you know what it is to—”

“—lose your mind. I think I know now.” Kid would have never hurt a fly. How much was the lard and how much was her own desire? When Lin cowered before her, she felt strong. But what kind of strength was it to hurt someone so much weaker than herself?

She slumped down and pressed a fist into the metal floor. The floor dented, and the bones in her hand snapped and then healed. The pain cleared her mind, but only for a moment.

She forced herself to simmer down and unclench her hands. With the noise all around, and her bloodlust rising, she could barely keep a grip on herself. She spoke mechanically, forcing each word to come out, though she didn’t really mean it.

“Lin. I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here. Before I lose myself.”

Lin bolted and Kid followed.