The body disintegrated into dust before I could react.

There was an unearthly shriek as a metal paneled floor pockmarked with dirt and rust replaced the black and white diner tile. The booths and tables aged hundreds of years over the span of seconds, the cushioned seats growing a yellow patina of discoloration before eventually turning brown.

A familiar off-white wallpaper speckled with silhouetted flowers spanned the entire wall around a two storied hall. There was at least double the vertical space than in the diner, maybe triple.

This wasn’t good. I kept my crossbow and saber at the ready and forced myself to focus.

If the diner and preparation memories were false, that meant I was missing time. Everything from escorting Sae out of the adaptive dungeon onward was suspect. Meaning, whatever preparations and plans I’d made before entering were practically useless if I couldn’t buy time to piece them together retroactively.

“Your own sister. And you didn’t even hesitate.” The voice was harsh and throaty, yet simultaneously quiet. Like it was being inhaled rather than exhaled.

“It was a sloppy imitation. You made more than a few simple mistakes that anyone who spent time with Iris would have easily picked up on.” While I ran my mouth, I checked everywhere for broken legacy, finding it hanging on my hip. I could sense that Talia was within the blade, but she didn’t seem to be responding to suggestion.

There was no grappling hook, meaning I’d opted to leave Audrey behind—probably because I was worried the lithid could easily tamper with her simple mind.

“A performer… saves their best material… for the finale.” The lithid chortled. This time it came from above and behind me. I whirled, seeing only a dilapidated expanse of stoves and appliances that were arranged as if this was once an oversized kitchen.

“Talia,” I hissed, trying to wake my summon.

Her barely conscious voice rang in my head. “Barely… any meat on the bones. Let them be.”

“What the fuck did you do to her?” I said, slowly rotating in place, looking for any sign of the lithid.

The eerie red glow that permeated the room pulsated as the lithid replied. “The summon bitch? Nothing more than what I did to you. She’s even weaker now than she was in the cage. Helpless, even as I feasted upon her tasteless suffering.” It cackled madly in a mix of pleasure and raw joy, and I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “Impotent and mired in a past that never happened. She can’t bring herself to move forward. It’s so trite, so one-note, so stale.”

There. I spotted a round, visual distortion on the stretch of wallpaper. I continued my slow pan of the room, waiting until my crossbow was pointed towards it and activated firing a bolt into the distortion.

A scream of agony morphed, modulating slowly into elation.

I swapped weapons quickly as I reloaded, so the crossbow was in my dominant hand, as I closed on the distortion. The bolts hit the target but elicited no reaction.

Unsure what else to do, I plunged my saber into the distortion. It passed through easily up to the halfway point of the blade, where it caught.

“She’s nothing like you.” A wreathing dark snake with dark, oily skin corkscrewed up my blade where it split, lashing around my gauntlet. “An existence willing to cut away pieces of himself, rather than allow the past to have a hold. You are… delectable.”

A series of images flashed through my mind. Ride alongs with dad, asking him questions about his job with obvious interest. Begging him for stories when I sat on his oversized recliner at night, and listening wide-eyed as he grudgingly regaled me with what I asked for.

An audible hissing reached my ears. I glanced down, and realized the lithid was burning. The reaction wasn’t as definitive or extreme as with the remains of region 6, but judging from the bubbling black surface, it was reacting.

I waited until the boiling reached a fever pitch and I felt its grip weakening to act.

Releasing the sword and yanking my arm clear, I loaded another bolt and in one smooth motion, pressed the crossbow to the lithid’s flesh.

It squealed and unraveled, winding itself back into the wall. Then the wall exploded, as a length of darkness the size of a tree-truck emerged from the distortion, slamming into my chest.

I flew backward, my body screaming in pain as I tumbled heels-over-head, springing backward with my fingertips and eventually landing on my feet. A metal clang resounded next to me, and I spotted my saber.

The lithid continued forcing its way into the room in a manner that resembled ground beef from a meat-grinder. It groaned loudly. “No… no…. no! The sword is so boring. Give me the knife, Matthias. Give me the knife…”

A needle of fear shot through me. Give me the knife, Matthias.

Something about those words resonated.

More than that, for every pound of matter the lithid pushed into the room, the less confident I was that I could handle whatever it would become when it reformed. I looked around, searching desperately for an exit.

There.

Behind the square line-up of dilapidated appliances, in the darkness, I spotted what looked like an opening. A corridor hidden by shadows.

It didn’t matter whether this was a complete hallucination or not. If I was able to distance myself from the lithid—regardless of if that was literal or metaphorical—it would buy time to mentally regroup.

I reloaded my crossbow and raced into the corridor.

At first, everything was dark.

Then a single pinprick of light illuminated the hall. It grew larger as I kept up a steady jog until its form became clear. It was a single lightbulb, hanging by the cord from the ceiling. Maybe fifty feet down the corridor was another bulb.

I followed the line of lights, the only sound my own echoing footprints and heavy breathing.

My steps slowed as the final bulb in the row expanded, radiated a large, spotlight-like circle of illumination beneath it.

There was a picnic table seated on a bed of grass. And on the picnic table, I spotted a younger version of myself. He was wearing a long-sleeve shirt with a hood. Round glasses that did little to compliment his face. He was sweating as he leafed through a hardback. It was absolutely massive in his small hands.

Curious, I stepped around to the side.

Crime and Punishment.

I was never committed enough to literature to lug a Dostoevsky around in the wild. Which meant, if this was the day I thought it was, I’d picked it out of an immature flare for the dramatic.

Like clockwork, someone in flip-flops with an ankle bracelet appeared across from me.

Her features were cast in darkness, but seeing as how the ankle bracelet was decked out with gold, there was only so many people it could be.

“I’m glad you called. Figured with everything going on, you might not want to see me.” Daphne said.