Mr. Himichi and I sat cross-legged on the floor, with our backs to the corridor’s wall. Andalon sat between us, scared and confused. Even so, I was deeply appreciative of her presence. Had I been on my own, I might very well have died of embarrassment.

How long had it been since I’d begun rattling off explanation after explanation? Fifteen minutes? Fifteen years?

Probably somewhere close to the former.

The fact that it was Mr. Himichi made it plenty awkward already, and whatever the fungus had done to make my powers go on the fritz was only making it worse. With my other ghosts, when I’d told them they were now data floating around in my mind, a short demonstration of the god-like powers I had within my mental realms quickly banished most of their doubts. Unfortunately, the fungus’ attack seemed to have disabled my ability to manipulate the Daydream Alley Mr. Himichi and I were in. I couldn’t even sense the dopplegenneth manning my physical body, assuming there even was one.

As far as I knew, I might have been in the middle of a grand mal seizure out in the Thick World.

I really had been sent back to square one. I couldn’t recenter my consciousness, nor create more dopplegangers or decouple or recouple with them, nor make, access, or manipulate mind-worlds.

I lowered my head in dejection. “You must think I’m crazy,” I said.

But Mr. Himichi crossed his arms. “No, Genneth, I don’t think you’re crazy.” He glanced at Andalon. “I’ve had a lifetime of night terrors and vivid dreams; I can assure you, this is not one of them.”

The tiny, tiny part of me that hadn’t yet been torn to pieces by stress and terror screamed with glee that my childhood hero had just called me by name. Unfortunately, that part of me really was tiny, and the stress and terror were very much… not.

“It’s like I’m in the Incursion in Lantor all over again,” I said, suddenly stopping to stare. “Fudge, that’s a scary thought. When Heggy, Suisei, and I entered the Lobby of Darkness, did we step into a real-life incursion?”

He nodded. “That makes sense.”

I stared at him. “Wait, really?”

“Sense is relative, not absolute. Compared to everything you have told me—Andalon, transformations into wyrms, demons, a War in Paradise… hummingbirds—… it,” he nodded again, “it tracks.” He raised a finger. “Now, if you were my publisher once again trying to ‘suggest’ what my next story ought to be… I’d tell you were out of your mind.” Mr. Himichi narrowed his already narrow eyes. “I mean, really, Ampersandalon?”

I swallowed hard.

“I am curious, though,” he continued, “do you really believe Cat’s story is somehow connected to all this?”

“Yeah!” Andalon said, rather cheerily.

My shoulders slumped. “At this point…” I looked up at the ceiling, “I don’t even know anymore.” I shook my head. “The truth is so twisted and convoluted, I doubt I’ll ever be able to understand it all.” I glanced back at him. “Though I’m never going to stop trying.”

Mr. Himichi’s prying eyes must have noticed me clenching my fists, because he then said, “But… that’s not the only thing that’s bothering you, is it?”

I swallowed hard. “This is my fault,” I said. “So much of this is my fault, and not just the current crisis.” I sighed. “A couple days ago, I managed to blackmail my boss to get him to consent to provide treatment to children even if they didn’t have medical insurance. A lot of them were inside the lockdown zone. I imagine they’re dealing with a fate worse than death by now. The darkness will turn them into demons or worse; whatever it is, it won’t be good, which is all the more reason why I’m upset with myself.”

I sighed again.

If Yuta were here, he’d probably be upset with me for having taken a step back.

“Sorry for ranting, it’s just—”

Mr. Himichi waved his pipe at me. “—Stop talking and get back to venting.”

I smiled weakly, only for my effort to collapse in misery as I vented my guilt.

“I should have known better,” I said. “I shouldn’t have assumed the &alon rift was what I thought it was. I screwed up! If I’d been more attentive and analytical, maybe… maybe I could have prevented this from happening.”

And now…

“Mr. Genneth,” Andalon said, “Mr. Oota told you not to be so angry with yourselves.”

I sighed. “You’re right, Andalon, he did.” I shook my head. “Yeah, no—no more backsliding for me. This isn’t my fault. There’s no way I could have known.”

“Have you finished resolving your character arc?” Himichi asked.

“Maybe,” I said, but then I slapped my head with a cupped hand. “You know what it is? I’m frustrated that I need to be out there, but I’m stuck here!” I ran my fingers through my hair, scratching my scalp. “There has to be something I can do.”

As if on cue, a wave of lightheadedness rushed through me. I blinked, and suddenly, where there had once been Daydream Alley’s hallway lights, now, there was only darkness.

“You might want to consider turning on the headlights,” Heggy said.

She pointed to the touchscreen built into the forearm of her suit before tapping the Light icon.

I looked around in shock.

I was back in Thick World. There was no mistaking the feeling of my barely inhuman body.

Heggy stared at me while Dr. Horosha turned on his headlights. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

I gulped and then turned on my own headlight. Andalon flinched as the bright light passed through her.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Honestly, Heggy,” I sighed, “no, I’m not. I’m barely human on the inside anymore. It’s… it’s a lot.” I surveyed my surroundings. “Whatever is going on here, it’s interfering with some of my… mental abilities.”

Suisei shot me a wide-eyed stare as he realized my words implied Dr. Marteneiss already knew about my condition. For a second, I thought Suisei would admit to having known about it, but he kept mum.

The lights streaming out from the tops of our visors eased my anxiety somewhat, but not nearly as much as I would have liked, and they hardly did anything to dispel the shadows in the hall’s depths. It was like the darkness had a thickness to it.

“That’s not the only thing that’s being interfered with,” Heggy said, as she walked up to one of the consoles mounted on the wall. “Look.”

We stepped closer. The console’s screen was beset with static and glitchy twitches, though most of the apps and options were still clearly visible on the home screen.

“Try sending a message,” I suggested.

Nodding, Dr. Marteneiss did just that. She started by sending a text message:

Ian, do you read me?

A red alert appeared a second later,:

Message failed to send. No signal. Please check with your service provider.

“Wait,” Heggy said, “look,” she pointed at the signal indicator on the screen, “it’s not registering the Wi-Fi.”

There was a rustling sound to my side. Turning, I saw that Dr. Horosha had taken out his PortaCon. He showed its screen to the both of us.

The same glitches were present, as was the lack of signal.

I pulled out my own console, only to find the same. Even our hazmat suit’s wireless connections weren’t registering, and they used DAISHU’s network.

Andalon spent this whole time looking around nervously.

“Well, that’s certainly creepy,” I said, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

We stowed away our consoles.

As I stuck my console back into my hazmat suit’s stomach pocket, I turned to see Suisei’s headlamp pointed upward as he examined the growths that had burst through the seam where the wall met the ceiling.

“It appears to be the fungus.”

“But that’s impossible…” I said. “How could something like this happen—and how could it happen so quickly?”

Dr. Horosha glanced at me. “Take a closer look at the touchscreen on your forearm, Dr. Howle.”

I did so; Andalon stepped aside, and stared at it, too.

“What in the world…?” I turned to Heggy. “Look at the clock!”

She did. “Holy crap. You’re right.”

The list of new things I was learning today was starting to get pretty long.

Apparently, digital clocks could have grand mal seizures. A green LED display in the upper left-hand corner of the touchscreen on my hazmat suit’s arm showed the time in hours, minutes, and seconds. All of those numbers were currently rapidly cycling through different digits, zooming back and forth, as if time was riding a see-saw.

“These suits keep time by wireless connections to atomic clocks,” Dr. Horosha said.

I gazed into Andalon’s eyes and shook my head. Both our eyes were filled with worry.

“I think we should go back,” I said. “We need to tell someone about this.” I turned around to face the door, but then gasped.

“No…”

What should have been the double doors closed behind us were now open of their own accord, and instead of the quarantine tunnel, beyond them lay the same foreboding hallway as the one in front of us. It was like looking into a mirror.

I felt myself begin to run, or scream, or… something—but then Heggy grabbed me by the arm and pulled me close. Age showed its grip on her in the crows’ feet that encroached on her eyes. There was fear in her, but she didn’t let it stop her.

“Just keep talkin’ and keep walkin’,” she said, nodding slowly and solemnly—meeting me eye to eye. “Whatever’s happening…” She inhaled, short of breath. “Panic won’t help.”

“Neither will rushing,” Dr. Horosha added. “We should be prudent.”

And so we were. We walked down the hallway slowly and methodically, keeping a close eye on our surroundings. I noticed that the walls seemed mismatched in places, as if they’d been thrown together from a motley assortment of different pieces that had no business being together.

As we walked, I could still feel Mr. Himichi’s spirit rattling around inside me. Something within him was dying to bubble up to the surface. But, try as I might, my mental abilities refused to function.

It was very disconcerting, to say the least.

“Do you guys mind if I share a story?” Heggy said, staring at our surroundings. “I… I need to do something to get my mind off all this.”

We told her we didn’t mind.

“Genneth… I’ve told you about my combat tour in the Costranaks, right?” Heggy seemed unsure of herself.

I nodded. “Yes. You helped suss out the drug cartels’ jungle compounds.”

“But,” she added, “did I ever tell you how I nearly became an academic?” She smiled.

I shook my head. “No, you haven’t.”

“I’ve always loved history,” Heggy said. “I was a history major in college, you know—for a time. I switched over to biology and the pre-med track, but came away with a minor in history, regardless. I’m proud to say my senior thesis on Privateer naval tactics durin’ Second Empire won first prize.” She sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder what my life woulda been like if I’d spent more time in the service, or—God forbid—academia.”

“What?” I replied. “I think you’d make a great academic.”

“On the outside, perhaps,” she replied, “but… not in my heart. Not in my gut. I chose medical school and then became a combat medic ‘cause I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to find that sweet spot in the big machine of life where I could be the most useful.”

I glanced at Andalon. She was still looking around warily, but less so. Something about our camaraderie seemed to have calmed her.

“Why did you return to civilian life?” Dr. Horosha asked.

“Because I get to see my patients go home. And because I don’t need to think about all the people I didn’t treat, or all the people I had to kill.”

Heggy stopped walking, and we stopped with her. She glanced down at the floor for a moment. “I need to get this off my chest now,” she said, with a cough, “or, I’m afraid I’ll take it with me to the grave.”

She locked eyes with me.

“I served a combat tour in Trans-Dalusia,” she said.

“Trans-Da…” I stammered. “You were part of the fight against Lal-Baham?”

“The one and the same,” Heggy said, with a nod. “Along with all the rest of the damn Biyadi insurgency.” She sighed, briefly fogging up the inner surface of the plastic window in her hazmat suit’s helmet.

The air here was terribly cold.

“People often say that war is hell, Genneth, but they don’t nearly as often go into the reasons why. Especially the hard ones. Yeah, fear burns through worldviews like acid. If you take to battle long enough, soon, every inch of dusty road will feel like it’s littered with landmines. Every mountain cave might as well be teeming with insurgents, waiting to pump you full of lead and worse.”

“But you seem to have surmounted that fear, Dr. Marteneiss,” Suisei said. “You are stronger for it.”

But Heggy shook her head. “Dr. Horosha, in the grand scheme of things, fear’s just another emotion. There’s far worse things to fear than fear itself.”

She looked around the shadowy hall. As we got deeper and deeper into this seeming endless place, the darkness encroached us. Our lights seemed to grow weaker and weaker.

“Right now, for example,” Heggy said, “I’m fuckin’ scared out of my mind right, but… if I go to choose, I’d pick this moment over any of my tours as a combat medic, even the nice ones; the laughs in the mess; the smiles from people who knew we were there to help. I’d pick this over them without a second thought.”

“Why?” I asked.

Gently, she placed her free hand on my shoulder, and then on Dr. Horosha’s.

“Because, as dark as all this might be, at least here, we know where we stand. It’s no trouble for us to say what’s right and what’s not.” Heggy patted the mycophage ampule case. “Boys,” Heggy said, “war is hell because it robs us of any place worth standin’ in. War saps the moral order out of things. There ain’t no such thing as winning when everyone’s fighting to survive. That sort of world isn’t one I want to live in. That’s… that’s why we gotta persevere, here. We can’t let things fall apart. We just can’t.”

Heggy and I locked eyes once more.

Dr. Horosha, however, had gone a bit ahead, his attention focused elsewhere. He turned around to face us. “There has been a development,” he said.