True to her word, Liz woke me up as soon as Dad had left for work. She said she'd help me get to the basement and be my tour guide, but that I might want to dress so that I could easily hide in the place.

I had dressed in all black and had left for the front door, when Terry, who had been sitting in the living room watching TV, saw me.

"Where do you think you're going?" He asked. "It's like, two hundred degrees outside and you don't want to get drenched in that."

"Uh..." What do I say? That I'm literally doing the thing he told me not to do?

"Oh, I get it," Terry laughed before I could say anything. "You were going to try and sneak out into the basement, weren't you?" My face got hot. "Hah! I had a feeling you were going to try, so I decided to chill out here and test my theory. Turns out I was right!" Terry continued to laugh while I just stood there, embarrassed. "Seriously, what are you hoping to accomplish?"

"Euh..." I'm not sure. "I, um... I kind of wanted to... confirm... our, or your, or mine... the idea I'm a robot." Terry laughed again before turning serious.

"You honestly think all of this will be in the basement?" He asked. I nodded. "You think you know how to bypass the security?"

"I do!" Liz exclaimed, I'm sure fully aware Terry couldn't hear her. But the way he glanced at me with a confused expression made me think he could.

"You can hear her too?" I asked. Terry's eyes widened. Yeah, he couldn't.

"Hear who? Oh, wait, you hear voices. I was expecting you to answer the question. No, I did not hear anyone. Who was this 'she' you are referring to?"

"It's fine."

"Liz," I said.

"Wait, Liz is here?" Terry cried, leaping up. I nodded. "Where?"

"Behind me. I think." I responded. Terry looked behind me, squinted, looked at every angle, but sat back down after a minute. He looked like he was going to cry.

"Tell her that I'm sorry," He instructed.

"Why?"

"Because... I was mildly complicit in her death. I didn't make sure she didn't die."

"But you didn't kill her directly?"

"No, that abomination Dad calls Baby did."

"Oh. Is she in the basement?"

"Hah. I wouldn't doubt it. Just... be careful down there. Mom said there's a lot of crap that can really hurt you. Or kill you. If you're a huge idiot. But you're not an idiot. But just be careful. Anyway."

"Thanks," I said, mildly flattered that he called me not an idiot. After calling me an idiot for a while now. "So I can go?"

"Technically, you can do anything," Terry followed up. "But yes, I am allowing you to go to the basement."

"Okay." I tried to gather up some courage, just after all this danger talk.

"Hey, and if you die again, I think I'm gonna just kill myself," Terry said right before I left.

"What?"

"I let our sister die, I killed you, and if you die here and now, that's three deaths I'm responsible for, and you can only take so much of that. And to top it all off, our mom just died, so that's enough death I had to go through in a lifetime. So don't die. Or do. I don't... really care anymore."

I took a deep breath and nodded, feeling a sudden urge to stop what I was doing and stay with my family forever and forget this whole robot thing.

"Oh, come on man, I'm not any less suicidal than you were," Terry said, trying to force a laugh. I just then realized I probably was going to cry. He could probably tell. He came over to hug me, and I had to let out all of the crying I had held in since Mom died.

Terry was quiet while I cried all over him, and I was the first to back off.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his hands holding onto my shoulders. I nodded and tried to wipe the tears off my face.

"I'm still going to the basement," I responded, trying to sound like less of a mess. Terry nodded.

"Be careful." He let go of me and left to his room.

"He'll be okay," Liz assured.

"I forgot you were still here," I mumbled.

"I never left. Now come on. Just go to the basement, and we'll figure it out from there."

"Alright."

I left through the front door and opened the garage door, and Liz guided me around the floor until I found a hatch. A hatch that had been holding down a square of floor. I opened the hatch and saw a ladder dropping into the darkness.

"So? Are you coming?"

"Uh, yeah, hold on." I forced myself to drop down into the hold and climb down the ladder, but regretted closing the trap door because now I couldn't see.

"Hey, why are you stopping?"

"Um... I can't see crap."

"Just keep going down!" Liz instructed, mildly agitated. "You'll be able to see in a minute!" I groaned, took a deep breath and blindly followed the ladder down for another minute. And Liz was right, I was gaining my vision back.

Eventually, thankfully, I hit the floor and turned to face an elevator.

"We have to go down further?" I whined.

"It's not that far," Liz said. "Just get in and it'll take you to where you need to be."

Doing what Liz told me, I pressed a button and the doors opened. I stepped in, pressed another button, and the elevator lurched down.

"I think the hand unit is off."

"The what?"

"Something Dad uses for his employees."

"There's people here right now?"

"Uh... probably not?" The uncertainty in Liz's voice worried me. "Nope, no one's here," She followed up with new confidence. I still wasn't that convinced.

The elevator stopped suddenly, causing me to fall over.

"Get up, get up, get up!" Liz chanted with a newfound excitement. "You need to see everything. Press the red button."

I pressed the glowing red button, and another set of elevator doors opened to a wall with a vent opening and 'danger' tape strung across it.

"Liz? It says 'danger,'" I warned.

"Danger is an opinion," Liz scoffed. "Come on!"

Complying, I dropped back to the floor and entered the vent. It wasn't all that small. I wasn't overcome with any severe claustrophobia.

The vent emptied into another room, pitch black.

"I can't see."

"Oh, this is the best part!" Liz squealed.

"Not being able to see?"

"No, no! Behind you is a huge lever thing, it's up high on the wall..." Liz spoke while my hands crawled up the wall looking for a 'huge lever thing,' when my fingers met a cold metal bar.

"That's it!" Liz cried, confirming what I had thought. "Now pull it down. Dad doesn't use this thing a lot, so-" I leaped up and pulled the lever down with my whole body weight, and the whole room lit up. "Now turn around!" Still not understanding Liz's enthusiasm, I turned, and was overcome with a new feeling of awe.

"Oh my God..." I breathed.

"I know!" Liz squealed again. "It's so cool!"

It... it really was so cool. The room I was in was some kind of control, with three(only two visible) rooms attached to it. To my left, there was some kind of dance studio with a stage and lights and... the ballerina from my dream.

"That's Ballora!" Liz said. "She doesn't do much. She just dances and... sings. Dad talks to her a lot. Well, he's been."

"You know Mom is dead, right?" I asked, after coming up with a possible theory.

"Yeah."

Ballora was spinning slowly on her stage, surrounded by a set of what looked like models used for drawing poses.

To my right was another studio looking area with another stage and a pink and white fox on it.

"That's Funtime Foxy!" Liz said. "Well, that's what Dad calls her."

"It's a her?" I asked. "I thought Foxy was a boy."

"Daddy says this one's a girl." Liz argued. I didn't feel like going on, so I surveyed the rest of the control room. I took note of a couple stands with two buttons on them. A blue button with a mark that looked like a sun, and one with a lightning bolt.

"What're these?" I asked, reaching towards one.

"Touch those if you actually want to die," Liz warned, much more stern than before. I yanked my hand back. "That's for controlled shocks. If the robots are broken, they don't even bother fixing them. We just get shocked. It's horrible."

"Sorry, I won't do that."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes. I promise."

"Thank you."

While Liz went on about the control and the rooms next to it, I pressed my face against the glass of Ballora's gallery. I fixed my eyes on Ballora herself, watching her dancing. At some point, she turned to me. She looked right into my eyes, then winked. And for a split second, Ballora was gone and Mom was in her place.

Even when Mom had vanished, I could only stare wide eyed at Ballora. I was right. Mom's here too. Is that what the glowing was? Your soul leaving to a new place?

"Michael!" Liz called. "Michael! Are you listening to me?"

"Uh, yeah, sorry..." I said, turning my attention away from Mom and Ballora.

"Come see Baby. There's something I want you to see."

"Alright. Is it just the vent in front of me?"

"You're not an idiot at all!" Liz happily exclaimed. "Yep! The vent right in front of you." I laughed at Liz's comment about me not being an idiot, and crawled into the vent.

"MOTION TRIGGER. CIRCUS GALLERY VENT."

I stopped in my tracks.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Security thing. Hurry up!"

I quickened my pace and eventually landed in a more colorful control center than the first one. Looking through the glass, I saw Baby standing on a stage.

"It's me!" Liz cried. "One more thing. Close your eyes really quick."

"Okay?" Odd request, but okay. I closed my eyes for a moment until Liz told me to open them.

"Okay, okay! Open your eyes!"

Doing so, I almost jumped back.

Elizabeth was standing right in front of me.

Translucent, glowing, but very, very real.