A long walk later, and we managed to confirm that the library was actually looping in on itself like a torus.

It shouldn’t have surprised either of us, given how similar it was to the first floor, but I suppose that was the inane genius of this setup, no one would have expected the dungeon to have the gall to pull the same trick twice.

In our defense, this floor didn’t have any of the same cues as the first. There were no twists or turns, just a slightly uneven and endless grid of bookshelves. Also, the whole breadcrumb strategy didn’t work as well. You could still sharpie the shelves, superglue shit to the floor, or what have you, but after much walking we discovered that those things would disappear in time.

The only reason we managed to conclude that we were in a loop at all, was because Amy managed to throw a ball hard enough that it went all the way around and rolled into the back of her ankle. Granted, that particular stunt took a couple tries. There were a lot of bookshelves in the way after all, but I had nearly fifty tennis balls in a mesh bag that I’d gotten from the college tennis team.

Turns out, tennis balls wear out pretty quickly in the realm of even amateur sport. And they don’t like just throwing them out so I’d somehow ended up collecting them instead.

It took only fifteen tries before Amy got it down consistently, and we made a game of dodging the balls that looped back around to our rear. It was an absolutely inappropriate amount of fun.

We spent more time goofing off like that than was probably safe, given the location and the monsters that roamed it. But could you blame us? Being all wound up like that for too long isn’t healthy, and Missus Amy in particular had been having a pretty shit week from what I could tell. She deserved a break.

We were eventually interrupted, of course, but what exactly did the interrupting was a pleasant surprise.

***

In the strangely lit darkness, Madeline watched Micheal slowly open the yellowed-grass green book with bated breath.

And then Micheal got clocked in the side of the head with a tennis ball.

“Fuckmewhatwasthat!?” Micheal yelped. Madeline wheeled smoothly over to his left, picking up the offending sphere that had so rudely whacked him.

“A tennis ball.” Madeline said, holding it before him.

“What the hell is that doing here?”

“Don’t look at me man-” Madeline was cut off mid sentence by another tennis ball bouncing off of her left flank.

Then, yet another neon yellow orb bounced towards them, impacting harmlessly off of Micheal’s stomach.

And then another hit Madeline in the nose, causing her to sneeze.

And then there was another hit Michael in the ass. And then rolled past them. And then another got jammed under Madeline’s chair. And then another got Michael in the eye. And then another hit Madeline right in the funny bone as she tried to block with her arm. And. . . Well you get the point.

Eventually they figured out which direction they were coming from, and Madeline started hurling them back, more than a little ticked off.

Micheal joined in, and the barrage of tennis balls that had been assaulting them was thoroughly halted by their returning fire.

Having achieved victory, Madeline raised an arm in the air and pumped her fist with vigor.

Micheal was less enthused.

“Hey, so, what actually was that?” He said.

“I dunno. Probably an undead tennis team practicing their serves.” She replied.

“You know, I’m not sure whether to find that Idea funny or terrifying.”

“Why not both?” Madeline shrugged.

“Because I’m not equipped to feel those two diametrically opposed feelings at once.” He spat.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say being scared and laughing are exact opposites. I mean, they are both just variants of being surprised.” she replied lightly.

Micheal looked down, and kicked another tennis ball with the tip of his shoe.

“I’m not prepared to say you’re wrong, but I still don’t like it.” He admitted, oddly petulant.

“Yeah, well.”

“Yeah, well what?”

“Just. . . Yeah, well. I got nothing man. It’s been a hell of a week.” Madeline sighed.

Micheal nodded, mostly agreeing. It really had been a hell of a week.

When shit went sideways he found himself doing what he usually did in an emergency; try to keep people from dying.

But that hadn’t been enough. He’d watched multiple people die violently, all in the space of a few hours. And he hadn’t really had time to process that.

He’d barely made it home safe after the worst 48-hour shift he’d ever worked in his life. A shift that had ended with an emergency evacuation of the hospital carried out only by the members of the staff on duty.

The military and police forces had just never shown up.

Even as monsters broke down the doors. Micheal specifically avoided thinking about the details of that particular incident.

It hadn’t gone well, to put it mildly.

He’d then spent three days locked in his apartment, basically in a fugue state. There was a lot of trauma to work through there, and none of the help he needed for it.

But then his roommate got antsy and he hadn’t been really in the right state of mind to talk sense into him. He’d only sort of pulled himself together after finding Madeline. Having another person there was a huge help in keeping him grounded. That and the fact that he was busy protecting his own life kept him from thinking about things too much.

But now he’d just spent god knows how long spacing out and staring at the mauve carpeting.

Wait- Carpet?

“Where are we?” Micheal asked, only just then getting a grasp on the change to his surroundings.

“A library, so far as I can tell.” She replied. Her assessment seemed accurate, given a cursory glance around. The fact that the ceiling mirrored the floor was a little odd, but no stranger than the glass corridors had been.

“Alright. . .What happened to the book I was just holding?”

“I hate to sound like a broken record, man, but I don’t know. Did you put it down somewhere?”

“Maybe? Whatever, I’m just gonna hope it wasn’t important.”

“Great, cuz there’s an archer on the ceiling that looks like it just noticed us.”

“Sure enough.” Micheal said, looking up to see a mummified longbowman with arrows the size of short spears drawing a bead on them.

They’d long since come to the agreement that Micheal was in charge of taking out ranged enemies, as Madeline had ended up lending Micheal her colt. He turned out to be about as good a shot as she was, and leaving him unarmed after his bat broke didn’t seem fair.

Micheal opened fire without further delay, not wanting to wait so long to line up his sights that he got a new hole poked in him.

He got the archer in the knee, causing the drawn arrow to fly far off of its intended targets. He then pulled the hammer back, and lined up again for another shot. Tugging the trigger did nothing but produce a light click, though. The revolver had misfired again. It was doing that more and more lately, black powder crud fowling up the mechanisms.

There was a reason that people used smokeless propellants, these days.

“I’ll take care of it.” Madeline said, before launching herself upwards. Micheal watched as she flew through the air, propelled by nothing but the briefest flashes of light. It had been an odd thing to see at first, but he got used to it. Hardly the strangest thing he’d seen.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

In but a moment, the skeletal sniper was disposed of fully, a worn and chipped platinum colored blade smashing its skull into many fragments.

Madeline’s sword had certainly been better. There were no major cracks along the sword’s body, at least, but the edge was so battered at this point that it functioned more as a blunt weapon than anything else.

She waved at him from her spot on the ceiling. Gravity was still a relative thing, her relaxed posture confirmed. The upside down archer had implied as much, but it was good to be sure, Micheal supposed.

“Should I join you up there?” Micheal asked loudly, hands cupped around his mouth to better throw his voice across the not insignificant distance.

“No! I’ll come back to you!” She shouted back. And that she did, with the same magic leap, the wheels of her chair only clattering lightly as they contacted the flooring.

“See anything up there interesting?” He asked.

“Yes, actually!” She replied brightly, in the best mood Micheal had ever seen her in.

“Oh?”

“I think I found my friend!”

***

“Holy shit it's Madeline!” I shouted.

“Holy mother of god, it's Leonardo!” She exclaimed.

We’d found each other at last!

After having our game interrupted, Me and Amy had followed the sounds of gunfire, thinking it was decent odds that it was coming from a person. We had yet to see any evidence that the zombies possessed firearms of any sort, after all.

And Lo, there was a familiar face, dyed white hair with dark roots framing some startlingly-oceanic baby blue eyes opened wide with delight.

It was great to see her. Truly. Better yet was seeing that she was alive and well. I would have hugged her if I wasn’t so weird about touch.

Instead we found ourselves expressing our mutually shared joy through a silly little dance, me hopping from one foot to the other in a circle around her and her twirling around in her chair.

Madeline got herself together before I did, not the sort of person who usually expressed herself as outwardly and with as much enthusiasm as I was prone to.

“Leonardo, This is Micheal.” She said, introducing me to the person that had been bemusedly standing behind her, grinning, but clearly not quite sure what to make of our spirited reunion.

His denim jacket bore the emblems of many a punk band that I so loved, so he was off to a pretty good first impression. It also helped that it was Madeline introducing him.

Though she outwardly presented as an unsociable sort of person, she nonetheless had a pretty good eye for people, I’d found.

“It's great to meet you, Micheal!” I chirped, with a little wave in place of a handshake.

“It’s good to meet you too.” He said evenly, still a little bit of a smile on his lips.

Madeline coughed, gesturing with a tilt of the head and a pointed glance towards Amy, who’d just been stuck there awkwardly next to me.

“Oh right. This is Amy.”

“Nice meeting you Amy.” Micheal said.

“I like your outfit!” Madeline said. A compliment like that was rare, coming from her, but clearly appreciated given the slight upturn of Amy’s previously downcast eyes.

“Thanks. It's literally my last clean pair of clothes.” Amy said.

“Blood ruin the rest?” Madeline asked with a wince.

“Just. . . so much blood.” Amy sighed.

“I hear ya. There’s a laundromat in our building that still works if you'd like to use it.” Madeline offered.

I felt my brows raise with surprise. Madeline was being unusually forthcoming and wholesome around a complete stranger, for once. I wasn’t sure what to make of this sudden change in her demeanor. Unfortunately my thoughts showed upon my face, though, as Madeline gave me a sour look upon turning back towards me.

“I can be nice too, you know!” She spat.

The mock-venom in her voice was a comforting return to the norm. For a second I’d worried she’d been replaced with some sort of imposter in the time we’d been separated.

“Can you not look so relieved when I’m being mean to you?”

***

Introductions out of the way, we engaged in a little bit of chatter, Me and Madeline catching each other up on the things that had happened in the time we’d been apart.

I thanked Micheal profusely for saving Madeline’s life, adding in that I was sure that it couldn’t have been easy getting her to cooperate.

“You have no Idea. I had to spend, like, fifteen minutes just talking her into accepting help.” He said.

“That sounds like her.” I agreed.

“Hey now.” Madeline said, warning in her tone. I backed off immediately from my teasing, knowing that I would get nothing from pushing it too far.

I then brought the Idea forward that perhaps we should continue our conversation enclosed within a barrier, accompanied by some food and drink.

My suggestion was agreed upon unanimously.

I used my last barrier in a spot some distance away from where we had been; closer to the wall and surrounded by shelves in order to give us some more privacy from would-be undead intruders.

Madeline broke out a variety of snacks from her convenience store haul, the last of anything that didn’t need to be heated or cooked to be edible, really. I contributed what little I had to the spread as well, and we all partook as we talked.

Amy was pretty quiet throughout it all, though whether that was due to a reluctance to socialize or because she was too busy stuffing her face was hard to discern. She was eating far more than the rest of us, actually, though none of us had the heart to tell her to slow down.

After cumulatively demolishing several bags of chips, a litany of granola bars, and a myriad of candies, we were all still a little hungry.

Though an Idea occurred to me, looking at Amy’s Fire sprites.

I still had my gas powered camping stove in my inventory, as well as some other gear meant for cooking simple meals out in the woods. None of them had seen use in a long time, given that I’d eventually found out I didn’t actually ever like camping. I had just liked the excuse to stay out of the house and away from my Evil aunt.

I still thought the outdoors were fine, and I liked a little walk in the woods when I could manage it, it just wasn’t the best place to sleep if you had a safe alternative. I hadn’t, but that was a long time ago and I was a different person in a different place, even if my trauma remained.

Now it was time to cook.

***

I was making ramen noodle stir fry. I started off by roughly slicing an onion and some leftover ham before throwing them in the pan with some oil.

I cooked the onions and ham until they had all gotten to roughly the right level of doneness, sizzling lightly in toasted sesame oil. They smelled good enough to eat on their own, but that would hardly feed us all.

Next I poured in some frozen mixed vegetables and cranked the heat a little more on the flame. I just wanted to get them defrosted and produce a little more brown fond on the bottom of the pan before I moved on to the next step.

After sufficient browning was reached, I poured in some sake, some aji-mirin, and some soy sauce to deglaze. Giving that a stir, I diluted the resulting sauce with some water and threw in every brick of ramen that I had.

I let the water come to a boil, adding some more seasoning while I waited. Salt, monosodium-glutamate (or Karen’s bane, as I liked to call it) black pepper, red pepper flakes, sesame seeds, garlic powder, onion powder, ground dried ginger, celery salt, brown sugar, and a few of the beef-flavored ramen seasoning packets to finish.

The noodles soon started to break apart, and I reduced the heat a little, as the water was boiling off just a little too fast. I wanted the majority of the water to evaporate just as the noodles were finished cooking, the starch from the ramen thickening the remaining liquid to create a thick sauce.

As was, we were just a little too dry, the noodles didn’t have enough water to fully cook. Not a problem, I just added a splash more and let it simmer, stirring frequently.

In just a minute's worth of time, the sauce had thickened enough and the noodles softened.

Now I needed to figure out what plates we were going to eat off of. Normally with camp cooking, I’d just eat straight out of the pan, but that didn’t seem appropriate here.

Luckily, Madeline had some looted tupperware in her inventory, so that would do us just fine. On the silverware front, Micheal had a box of plastic forks kicking around in his inventory for some reason, so that was good.

The blessing and curse of the inventories was their capacity to store just about anything and everything for any amount of time. So we all just kind of stuffed them with everything.

For garnish, I topped the yakisoba-style ramen noodles with scissor sliced seaweed, bonito flakes, and light stripes of kewpie mayo.

It was pretty good, considering the circumstances. Some katsu or okonomiyaki sauce in the mix would have really brought it to the next level, and my inability to precisely control the heat on my cheap burner had led to the noodles getting tad overdone, but everybody seemed to really like it nonetheless.

Micheal in particular was inhaling his portion with gusto. I always liked it when I saw someone else enjoying my cooking, so that won him some extra points in my book.

It should be noted that Madeline and Amy weren’t far behind in terms of enthusiasm, though. Amy was still eating like a starved wolf, smearing her makeup as she slurped noodles and wiped sauce from her chin.

Madeline was just enjoying her food with her usual combination of vigor and barely restrained glee, hidden just behind her loosening sense of etiquette, table manners, and waistline.

I was eating quite heartilly myself, this being the first real food I’d had since that morning. It had felt much longer, and I was just as hungry as everyone else.

Our abilities really did necessitate that we consume a large quantity of calories. That was a problem I only saw getting worse with time, not better, but there was little I could do on that front but worry, so I put it aside and focussed on the food.

It was savory, spicy, and just sweet enough to balance out the heat and salt. The onions were in larger chunks than I would’ve preferred, having chopped them with a paring knife, but were still decent. The ham was lovely.

It was gone all too fast, but at least now we were all a little closer to being full. Madeline was kind enough to distribute drinks to us all that we were sipping on as we digested.

I had a bottle of mildly bland and oversweet iced tea, Madeline a diet cola, Amy a lemon lime soda, and Micheal a toxic green energy drink.

Amy ended up passing right the fuck out after finishing her drink. That was how I learned that Micheal was a nurse by trade, having sufficient expertise to diagnose that Amy wasn’t in a coma and that her pulse was stable.

She likely just needed rest. Which was fair. We all needed rest. So that’s what we did. We collectively decided that someone should probably be in charge of keeping watch, just in case. I took the first shift with Madeline, giving us a bit more time to catch up while Amy and Micheal both caught some sleep.

Amy had been lifted into a small tent that I owned and then covered with a blanket, while Micheal had gotten a nice sleeping bag from Madeline that he crawled into and subsequently fell immediately unconscious.

I sat on a little folding camping stool, and leaned back against a nearby shelf while drinking a fresh cup of tea that I’d brewed from a pot on my stove. Madeline had some as well, and we just enjoyed each other’s company for a while.

It was a much needed moment of peace, and I felt myself truly relax for what felt like the first time in forever.

I’d finally started to unwind from the state of perpetual tension I’d been in since I moved in with Jacob over the last week, but I’d still carried that hurt and tension, and that wasn’t even getting into the toxic shit with my Aunt.

A year’s worth of therapy and change hadn’t even been enough to scratch the surface, it felt like. Though it certainly wasn’t that I hadn’t made any progress at all, I reflected.

Going on medication had been pretty huge, for one. Getting the dosage and specific variety of meds dialed in had taken months, but once I found something that worked, it was literally and un-exaggeratedly life changing.

Without my beloved fluoxetine I would be in a very different place. Probably locked in a small ass hut in the middle of the woods with nothing but a combustion toilet, bottled water, and granola bars to my name.

I was in a much worse place, then. Even if things hadn't been perfect, I was still better than I was and I needed to remember that.

Just like how I needed to not let anyone like my Evil-ass Aunt or Fucking Jacob treat me that way again.

I was still pissed that I’d let him do what he did to me. It’s like he’d known just what buttons to push to make me feel powerless.

I decided then, that the next time I saw him I was gonna deck him a good one, if not just straight up shoot his ass.