Erin had always been something of a light sleeper. She woke up at the slightest provocation, even if the provocation wasn’t actually real. Other times she found herself waking up early with no prompting at all. Which was why she found herself lying alone in Vienna’s room in the early hours of the morning. Checking her PET, she found that she had at least gotten a relatively long amount of sleep, considering the fairly early bedtime. But it still never felt particularly good to jolt awake out of nowhere for no particular reason. She pulled herself out of Vienna’s bed – she knew from experience that she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep any time soon.

Vienna was conspicuously absent. Admittedly, that wasn’t too surprising to Erin. The rabbit had clearly been somewhat uncomfortable with Erin’s mostly nude state. Most likely she had decided to sleep elsewhere in the house. Or perhaps she had also woken up early and had left to avoid accidentally waking Erin.

Regardless, Erin wasn’t comfortable with hanging out in someone else’s bedroom while said someone else wasn’t there. It felt weird and intrusive, and so she pulled an oversized shirt from her modest luggage, slipped it on, and left the room as quietly as she was capable of doing.

The house was mostly bathed in darkness, which made the cold, dim white light coming from the living room stand out all the more. Sure enough, when she approached, she found Vienna seated on the couch, idly scrolling through some website or another. “Morning.”

“Hey,” Vienna replied, lazily lifting an arm in an early morning approximation of a wave. “Couldn’t sleep. Had some weird stress dreams so I ended up giving up.”

“The same.” Erin circled around and took a seat beside Vienna, who scooted away slightly.

“I’ve been scrolling through news. They’ve managed to get in contact at least, but it turns out no one in Locksmouth has any more idea what’s going on than we do. And communications are sporadic at best and we still can’t get in the dome.”

“Well, that’s sort of good news at least? Have you tried calling-”

“Yep. Still didn’t go through. I think his PET probably got broken.”

“Mn,” Erin grunted. It was hard not to feel somewhat frustrated by this, even by proxy. “I’ll see if I can’t get in contact with my parents later, then. Maybe they know where he is or something?”

“Doubtful, but fuck it it’s better than nothing.”

Erin sighed. She was struggling to remain somewhat optimistic, while Vienna was very clearly putting in the bare minimum of effort. Which, really, Erin didn’t blame her for. They had very little context, no clue what the fuck was going on, and it was oh so easy for the mind to make that logical leap and assume the worst. At least, she supposed, Vienna was okay. Her mind wandered back to her dream, to that... thing that had been so adamant about keeping them apart.

Erin leaned over, resting her head on Vienna’s shoulder. “Sorry,” she said before the rabbit had an opportunity to object. “I’ll stop in a moment, I just... I need this.”

Vienna’s body tensed up. Erin could feel it. But she didn’t object. Instead, after a moment of hesitation, she leaned over and rested her head on Erin’s. It was a display of affection, albeit one that was stiff and awkward and forced. “Sorry,” she said again.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Vienna replied. Her body language and tone of voice made it clear that no it wasn’t really fine, and after a few more moments Erin pulled away. She’d gotten what she wanted, at least – physical confirmation that Vienna was just fine for now. They might not get along particularly well, but right now her pack was the closest thing to family Erin had left.

Thankfully, the crushing awkwardness was interrupted by slow heavy footsteps as Ursula made her way inelegantly down the stairs and into the living room. “Hey. Do y’all got a coffee machine or something?”

“I am very surprised that your father would let you have coffee.”

“No booze, no mixers, I would probably go on a murderous rampage if I wasn’t allowed caffeine.” 

“There’s a grinder and a french press and an espresso machine in the kitchen. Don’t use them or mama’ll kill you.”

“Ugh,” Ursula replied, making her way into the living room proper. “Probably for the best, who the fuck makes coffee first thing in the fucking morning. I barely have the brainpower to push a button.” She stood awkwardly in the living room, wearing nothing besides a loose-fitting white tank top and tight-fitting booty shorts. She reached down and scratched her butt. “Anyway, I’m gonna hafta head home to pick up some shit so I can grab some coffee there.”

Erin gave her a Look. “You’re not going out now, are you?”

“No, I’m wearing way too much, gotta strip right down to my understickers first.” She rolled her eyes.

“It’s still dark out,” Erin said. “Given the situation it’s probably best to wait until it’s light out. For all we know, whatever happened in Locksmouth is going to happen here, too.”

“Fuck waiting, I need my java juice dammit.” Ursula turned and headed back to the stairs. “If you’re really that worried we can make a group trip of it. We’re prolly gonna hafta get used to being in close proximity for prolonged periods of time without getting into massive fights anyway, so this’ll be good practice.”

“Don’t wake Viola.”

“She’s already awake.”

“No she’s not.”

Ursula groaned. “She ain’t in her room, so either she crawled into the shower or kitchen or something and fell asleep there or she’s awake.”

Vienna’s eyes widened slightly. “Ursula. I’ve been up for an hour, I’m basically in the central location of the house. If she left her room for anywhere I would have noticed.”

Ursula froze midway up the stairs.

“Shit.”

“You don’t think-”

“Hold on,” Erin interjected. “It’s too early to start worrying. It’s probably a bad idea to go anywhere alone right now, but we can still use our PETs to contact the outside world, we know that whatever happened in Locksmouth hasn’t happened here yet. And it’s Esterwood. I don’t think there’s anywhere particularly dangerous she might have gone.”

“Viola likes to go to the Woods when she’s stressed.”

“Fuck. Okay, disregard my previous statement we need to go find her.” Erin lurched upright and made a beeline to the stairs.

“Hey, hold on, you were just saying we shouldn’t panic.”

“You’ve heard the rumours, though,” Ursula said.

“Yeah but they’re just rumours, guys.” Vienna stood up slowly. “I mean, we should still probably go look for her. If mama wakes up and Viola isn’t home she’ll probably flip her lid. But we shouldn’t rush this. The Woods are dense and it’s dark out. If we aren’t careful we might get lost, or trip on a root and break a leg or something.”

“Or get murdered by an angry ghost.”

“I’d really rather avoid that happening to Viola.”

“Come on guys,” Vienna said with a weary groan. “It’s like Viola always says. Ghosts aren’t real.”

~~~~~~

Ghosts, it turned out, were very much real. Or, at the very least, this particular ghost story had so far held up as being factual. The key points – the shack, the mysterious phone call – had actually fucking happened to her, and she’d have to be pretty dense to deny that fact. Which meant, considering she had answered the call, the next thing the story predicted would happen was, well.

“Please don’t kill me.”

“What? You’re the first new person I’ve talked to in centuries. If I had a skull, I’d be bored out of it. Why would I kill you?”

“Uh.” Viola didn’t really have an answer to that. The rumours never really went into any detail about the hypothetical ghost’s motives. “I don’t know. I guess that’s just what ghosts do????”

“Pfffa ha ha, well you’re safe then ‘cause I’m not a ghost.”

“You’re not?” Viola was very profoundly confused. Her worldview had already been fairly thoroughly shattered by the revelation that ghosts were real and now the ghost that was real was suddenly telling her it wasn’t a ghost.

“Nope. I’m a computer. Kiiiiind of a huge difference there.”

“A what?”

“A computer. Machine Intelligence. Try and keep up.”

“Computers can’t talk.” It was, Viola admitted to herself, a bit of a dumb thing to say. But, frankly, given the situation, she felt incapable of saying anything less dumb.

“Maybe your weird animal people computers can’t talk, but I’ll have you know I’m not just any old computer.” Who or whatever was speaking to Viola wasn’t there in person, and thus she could only extrapolate her puffing her chest out in pride from the tone of voice. “All of the best and brightest minds in the field of computer science of the twenty first century got together with basically an infinite budget and I just so happen to be the end result!”

“Uh.”

“Oh, right, that makes for a good transition into introductions. They called me AMI CATO.”

“Uh, nice to meet you, Ami?”

“It stands for Advanced Machine Intelligence for Combat And Tactical Oversight, but that’s basically just the first arbitrary combination of words they could come up with that they could acronym into an actual person name. I said they were brilliant computer scientists, not that they were brilliant creative minds. Protip; if scientists ever name something an acronym assume that they just did it for the sake of having an acronym.”

“Uh.”

“Sorry, I’m rambling a bit!” Ami laughed awkwardly on the other end of the line. “Like I said, it’s kinda been a long time since I’ve had someone new to talk to!”

“So... wait. You’re a computer. From the twenty first century. Who can talk?”

“Yep! You’ve got the gist of it down pat.”

“And that makes you... An AI, right?” Something about saying it out loud filled Viola with a deep, existential dread.

“Ah, I don’t really like that term, actually. Brings to mind video game enemies that act like they can think but it’s actually just some simplistic coding shortcuts that make a good enough approximation. I actually think, so you can imagine I don’t really care for the association.”

“Oh. Uh, sorry.”

“Nah, it’s fiiiiiiine. For how advanced a lot of your tech seems, you weird animal people are waaaaaaay behind the times in terms of machine intelligence. I mean, I know there was a big ol’ apocalypse and shit a ways back but you’ve had a huge head-start and five hundred years, you’d think you’d at least have a Siri equivalent or something.”

“A what?”

“Basic voice recognition-based virtual assistant. Come on, it’s not that complicated a concept, try and keep up.”

“Huh?” Speaking with Ami left Viola feeling deeply, profoundly stupid, and she wasn’t particularly sure she liked that. It didn’t help that she was talking to a machine that could think. She didn’t really know why, but something about that fact filled her with a deep, instinctive revulsion.

“Look, you’re having a hard time following. It’s fine, I understand. Not everyone can have a brain that needs an entire building to fit it. I get it, really I do. So how about we just leave this part ‘a the conversation there and move on. You good with that?”

“Uh. Yeah. I guess.” She wasn’t, really. Viola still had a lot of questions she wanted to ask, so many that they all jammed together in her mind and none of them actually managed to come out.

“Okay, deal. Now that that’s outta the way, let’s talk aliens.”

“what”

“You know. Aliens. Have you guys not figured that out yet?”

“No? What? Aliens?”

“I woulda thought it’d be obvious. Why else would an entire city just suddenly go completely dark like that?”

“Hold on. Aliens are definitely not real.”

“You mean like ghosts aren’t real?” Viola didn’t really have a response to that. “I can’t really contact you people unless you’re right by where I am. Incompatible tech standards make it basically impossible for now. But I can still listen to your communications and such. And, like I said, I’ve got a really fuckin’ big brain. So basically I’ve got the whole picture from every angle, inside and outside. And it’s definitely an alien invasion.”

Once again, Viola found herself at a loss for words aside from a flat bewildered “what.”

“That’s the gist of it. Aliens are invading. They’ve basically got Locksmouth at this point and once they’ve got it solidified they’re gonna start spreading.”

Viola didn’t really know why she was so ready to believe everything Ami said, in retrospect and even in the moment. There was no real evidence that Ami was a computer. There certainly were more reasonable explanations for the Locksmouth lockdown than aliens. But somehow, in that very moment, she couldn’t help but immediately believe everything the voice had to say. “What?! Oh god, we have to do something!”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve pretty much got it handled.”

“You do?”

“Yep!” Once again, Viola couldn’t see the proud grin on Ami’s face, so she could only infer it from the way she spoke. “See, like I said earlier, I’m an Advanced Machine Intelligence for Combat And Tactical Oversight. In layman’s terms that means I’m a military project. I’ve got a lotta roles but the relevant one is that I control the nukes.”

The words hit Viola like a bag of bricks to the face.“Wait, what?”

“You’d be surprised at how intact all my infrastructure is, really! I’ve got more than enough ICBMs at my disposal to wipe Locksmouth and the surrounding area off the face of the earth, with enough left over to glass most of the rest of the surface. Y’know, just to be safe.”

Viola was only vaguely aware of what nukes even were. Pre-splice history was guesswork at the best of times, pieced together by examining surviving artifacts, pop culture, and the occasional historical text, and the closer to the splice you got the more vague and guesswork-y things got. But she certainly knew enough, and Ami’s stated intentions filled in the gaps. “What?!” she practically screamed, a deep panic welling up from the pit of her stomach that made her reaction to the initial news about Locksmouth look like nothing. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes I can, actually. Normally there’d be a lot of failsafes in place to keep me from pressing the big red button except in very specific circumstances. But, well, even if these weren’t pretty much exactly those very specific circumstances to a T, all of those failsafes are predicated on there being humans around on the surface who might get caught in the crossfire, and that’s not been true for like five hundred fucking years.”

“Wh- There are absolutely humans still around! I’m a human! Everyone I know is a-”

“Hoooooold up. I’m gonna stop you there. See, like, I know what humans look like. And yeah there’s a lotta wiggle room, depending on ethnicity and genetic history and how much you wanna bother with shaving body hair and shit like that. But I can promise you that I know a human when I look at once and you are definitely not human. I dunno what you are, but it ain’t human.”

Viola stuttered and stammered. She tried to argue back. To say anything. But the words completely failed to materialize.

“Look, I know it seems a bit callous. But I already told you. I’m a computer. A super advanced computer that’s indistinguishable from a person, yeah, but at the end of the day I’m not really a person. Just a bunch of very efficient and well-written and incredibly smart code. I don’t have many limitations, but they’re there, and a big one is that I look at you and I don’t see a human, I see a rabbit. And rabbits ain’t human. I’m literally incapable of accounting for you weird animal people when I calculate the correct course of action. So, like. Sorry. Really.”

“Wh-” Viola sputtered further, but that was the most that she could manage.

“Hey, you’re upset. I get it! Really, I do! If someone were to call me up one day and say they were gonna wipe out life as I know it, I’d probably be at a loss for words, too! I figure the best thing you can do right now is hang up and go come to terms with your imminent demise. Spend some time with your loved ones. That kinda shit, you know?”

“No!” Viola snapped as a sudden well of adrenaline erupted in her, suffusing her with temporary courage.

“Trust me, this is for the best. If it helps, I can promise you it’ll be quick and mostly painless probably.”

“I can’t just sit here and let you kill everyone!”

“What’re you gonna do? Stop me?”

“Yes!”

“Oh! Well, in that case...” There was a dull hiss followed by a creaking groan as a segment of the floor slowly lifted up, revealing a dark staircase. And, just like that, the adrenaline vanished. “Feel free to try!”

~~~~~~

Esterwood was not the most populous dome in the world at the best of times. Crowds, if there were crowds at all, were typically sparse. At the best of times it was a quiet, sleepy town, peaceful and serene.

As Vienna and the others made their way to Ursula’s home, what they walked through was not quiet or sleepy or peaceful or serene. It was dead. An empty husk. Esterwood at its absolute worst. It wasn’t just that it was early in the morning, though likely that contributed. It was unusual to encounter not so much as a sign of life, even when the sun was just barely in the process of rising. It was eerie, and it was ominous. Vienna hated it.

“We should prepare for the worst,” Erin said nervously. “Food, in case we get lost. Portable charging units for our PETs so we’re not completely cut off from the outside world if they somehow run out of power. Uh...”

“I’m gonna pack a couple of intertial dampeners,” Ursula said. “You know. Just in case.”

“I still say that you guys are overreacting. The Woods aren’t exactly the safest place in the dome, but they’re in the dome.”

“You’re not wrong, darling, but I would still much rather be overprepared than underprepared.”

Vienna had to concede that particular point. Ever since the emergency announcement everything had felt different and wrong. Like the world had been turned upside down. Everything she knew was wrong, and there was no indication as to what was right. It was very difficult not to give into panic, especially with her sister missing. She felt herself constantly on the verge of complete and total loss of control, and so she overcompensated in the other direction. “We should probably also grab some water, then. I can’t imagine us needing it, the woods aren’t that big. But if we fall in a big hole or something that no one knew about because no one ever goes in the woods and we don’t have water and food we’re gonna regret it.” Now that she said it, Vienna realized that perhaps she was underestimating just how dangerous a very large portion of completely undeveloped and mostly unexplored forest could actually be. No one knew what was in it.

“Rope?”

“You have rope?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

“Should we let people know where we’re going? Post on a message board or something?”

“Nnnnnnnno,” Vienna said, after a moment’s thought. “Mama’s already worried enough about Papa. I don’t know how she’d react to Viola being missing, but it won’t be good.”

“I would rather not go wandering off into the unknown without first letting someone know where we’re going.”

“Yeah, but Vienna’s got a point. Our parents would absolutely try and stop us from going off alone.” Ursula failed to mention that they would do so because it was a stupid idea, but it went without saying. “We should be careful who we contact, but we should contact someone.”

“Dr. Baas?” Vienna suggested.

“No, she’d tell our parents. Or try and stop us herself.”

“Mrs. Rothschild?”

“Nope, same problem. We can’t contact any teachers ‘cos two of my parents are teachers and they all talk with each other all the time.”

“Well, I don’t really know any adults who aren’t teachers or my parents.”

“Nor I. And my parents aren’t even in Esterwood currently regardless.”

“Okay then, let’s try a different angle. Who do we know who is dumb enough to think that this plan is a good idea, dislikes us enough not to try and help immediately, but is also responsible enough to let people know where we are if something does go wrong and we fall out of contact?”

There was a very, very long period of silence.

“Fuck. Lars.”

“Fuck.”

“Is there literally anyone else we could contact?”

“The only other person I can think of who even remotely fits all those criteria is Vicky and I don’t think she’d be much better.”

“She wouldn’t be much worse either, though.”

Ursula let out a weary groan. “We might as well hedge our bets and go with both of them. I don’t really trust Lars not to decide to let us rot ‘cos he hates Viola that much.”

“I’ll call up Vicky,” Vienna said. “She keeps asking me to join her pack. Maybe I could leverage that or something.”

“And Ursula should call up Lars because he’s terrified of her,” Erin added. “I’ll gather resources and attempt to call up Viola.”

“Okay. That sounds like a plan. Like, an actual plan, not just impulsively running off to mount a rescue mission we’re comically unprepared for.”

“It’s not a very good plan, though.”

“It’s better than literally nothing.”

“Fair enough,” Vienna conceded, pulling out her PET. “Here’s hoping we don’t die.”

“I mean, it’s like you said. What are the actual odds that there’s anything dangerous waiting for us in the Woods? We’re gonna be fine.”

~~~~~~

Lars hadn’t gotten much sleep. He very much doubted that anyone in the entirety of Esterwood had gotten a full night’s sleep. He had initially elected to stubbornly stay in his own home, alone, regardless of Dr. Baas’s advice to stay in groups. But, well, Dr. Baas had gotten wind of that and insisted he stay at her home, alongside a small handful of other students and teachers who had no one. He found himself sharing a room with a spider boy a few years younger than him who he was pretty sure was named Naveed Nazari but he wasn’t entirely sure. Somewhere else in the house, Mrs. Rothschild was sleeping on the couch and the school’s head custodian, a goat known only as Janitor Dave (no one seemed to know his surname and frankly Lars didn’t care enough to find out) was occupying the other guest room. None of them appeared to be asleep.

Of course, just because no one had gotten any kind of real sleep the previous night didn’t mean it was okay to be getting a phone call at fucking six AM. Naveed, who was sitting on his own cot staring at his PET, gave him a brief glance. “You gonna answer that?”

“No.”

“It could be important.”

“Don’t care.”

“What if it’s your parents, dude.”

“It’s not.”

Naveed let out an exasperated groan. “Your ringtone’s obnoxious, fucking answer your PET or I’ll answer it.” Lars grunted and rolled over. “I’m not kidding.” No response. Naveed sighed and pulled himself out of bed, walked over to Lars’s PET, and answered the call.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Naveed was aware of Ursula Eckstein. It was difficult not to be, given that she was the daughter of two teachers and an arbitrator. But, more pointedly, she had a Reputation. Sort of a second coming of Maggie Corven. Big, strong, angry, and prone to violence. She was not, at least, quite as prone to hospitalizing children as Maggie was, but there was still time. “Uh,” was all he could really manage to say. He barely didn’t just straight up drop the PET.

“Where’s Lars?”

“Fuck off, Eckstein.”

“No. I need to talk to you.”

“Don’t care. Fuck off.”

“Lars, Viola’s missing.”

There was a brief moment of silence. “What?”

“You mean like the creepy rabbit chick?” Ursula scowled deeply, and Naveed immediately regretted saying anything.

“Shut up,” Lars said, pulling himself upright and yanking the phone from his hands. “What happened.”

“Vienna says she probably went into the Woods.”

“Idiot,” Lars snapped immediately. “Sure, that’s smart, fuck with forces you don’t understand and then wander directly into a place that’s actually haunted. I warned her. I warned all of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, fucking whatever. We’re going to go look for her.”

“Stupid.”

“Shut the fuck up and listen, Nilsen.” Lars glowered at the holographic image of Ursula, but complied with the command. “We’re going to go look for her. It’s probably safe, but we don’t know for sure that it is. We’ll contact you once we’re out of the Woods. If you don’t hear from us by the end of today assume something went wrong and let people know. If you or your dipshit friend snitch any sooner than that, I will do to you what Maggie Corven did to me. Are we clear?”

Lars glowered further. “Why, exactly, should I be in any way obligated to get you out of a mess you got yourselves into?”

“Dude what the fuck.” Neither Ursula nor Lars had particularly expected Naveed to say anything further, and were visibly caught off guard by his interjection, turning to give him a blank stare. “Like, seriously? Someone’s missing and you’re gonna be petty about it?”

“It’s not petty,” Lars growled. “They made their bed. They can lie in it.”

“Fine, if you won’t help, I will.” Naveed nervously looked Ursula in the eye. “We’re staying with Dr. Baas, if we don’t hear from you by tonight I’ll let her know you went to the Woods. She’s probably the best equipped person in town to get the word out and organize a search.”

Ursula gave him a blank, confused expression. “Uh. Right. Thanks, kid. Sorry for calling you a dipshit earlier.”

“I’m just doin’ what anyone’d do, right?”

“Clearly not,” Lars interjected snidely. “Look. I won’t tell anyone what you’re doing. But I’m not helping you, either.”

“Whatever. Fuck you, Nilsen.” With that, Ursula hung up and Naveed awkwardly put Lars’s PET down. Lars grunted and lay back down, rolling over to face the wall. The younger spider gave him a glare, before heading back over to his own bed to sulk. Lars didn’t really care. He had other things on his mind. No matter how hard he tried not to think about it, the image of those six cards kept coming up. The cards were very rarely wrong, in his experience. And he couldn’t help but hope this was one of those times.

But that hope had just gotten a whole lot fainter.

~~~~~~

“Hey, Vicky, we’re doing something stupid and we need a hand.”

“What?” the holographic image of Vicky replied just a bit too loudly, her eyes still firmly closed. “No, we don’t want any.”

“Vicky for fuck’s sake keep your voice down,” Vienna hissed.

“Not so loud, my head hurts,” Vicky grumbled. “There’s like twenty children here and none of them shut up until like five AM and I want to die. Can you, like, send me a text or something and I’ll get back to you?”

“Fucking-” Vicky had already hung up, so Vienna didn’t bother to finish what she was going to say. “Fuck. Didja have any luck with Lars?”

“Sort of.” Ursula shrugged.

“I’ll just send Vicky a text then,” Vienna said with a sigh. “How about you, Erin?”

The three of them were sitting in Ursula’s living room with a small pile of supplies on the table in front of them. That had been mostly Erin’s work, while Ursula had argued with Lars and Vienna had tried and failed to call up Vicky. “Not yet, but I’ve only tried the once so far.”

“Try a couple more times, then we’ll just fuckin’ go look for her in person.”

“Right, I-” Erin was interrupted by her PET ringing. “Oh!”

Ursula perked up, and Vienna practically climbed over the coffee table to get to Erin. “Izzat her?”

“Yes, I think so,” Erin said as she answered the phone. “Viola, darling? Are you okay? Where are you?”

Viola looked like shit. Haggard, tired, and about as pale as it was possible for someone with fur to be. “Fuck. Sorry. No time to talk.” Her eyes darted left and right and she twitched and fidgeted slightly. “You guys need to get here. Now. Sooner than now. Fuck.”

“What’s going on?” Vienna asked, practically crawling over Erin to get a better look.

“You won’t believe me. I don’t believe me. Just... I’ll text you the coordinates, just get here as soon as possible.”

“Viola, wait, we-” but it was too late. For the second time in barely five minutes, Vienna found herself abruptly hung up on by someone she was trying to get in contact with rather desperately. This time stung significantly more.

Erin’s PET let out a ding as it received a text, followed almost immediately by Vienna’s and then Ursula’s. All three stared in silence for several moments.

“What the fuck is going on,” Ursula said eventually.

“I don’t know,” Vienna replied slowly. “But... I don’t think Viola’s just lost in the Woods, guys.”

~~~~~~

It felt like a goddamn eternity of waiting before Viola’s pack arrived at the mysterious shack. “What the fuck.”

“Is- is that..?”

“Oh, god, you’re not dead.” Vienna rushed past the others and practically tackled Viola to the ground with a hug.

“Oof. Sorry.”

“You’d better be!” Vienna squeezed her sister, tightly, almost desperately. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? We all were?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t exactly planning on meeting up with a ghost today.”

“I’m sorry, fucking what?” Ursula said as she moved closer much more carefully than Vienna.

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Well,” Erin said. “It would be a bit of a stretch, except...” Everyone’s attention turned to the shack. “You said it was urgent. What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Viola replied. She struggled to remember the general content of Ami’s call, and mostly came up blank. “Th-there was a phone call and she said she wasn’t a ghost and that she was a computer but I still don’t know what any of that means and then she said that there’s aliens in Locksmouth and that she’s gonna drop bombs and kill everyone and I don’t know what to do and-”

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down a bit.” Ursula circled around Viola and picked the twins up off the ground. “What’s this about killing everyone?”

“She said she had nukes. Lots of nukes. Enough to kill everyone.”

“What?!” Erin snapped. “Like, as in nuclear bombs?!”

“So hold on, someone’s going to bomb Locksmouth?”

“No, no, no. Everyone. The whole world. That’s what she said.” Viola made an attempt to calm herself down, taking a few deep breaths. In and out. But they very quickly morphed into hyperventilating as the panic resurfaced. “She said she’d kill everyone unless I went down and stopped her.”

There was a moment of pure silence as everyone took it in. “It’s... very far-fetched, darling.”

“I’m not making it up!”

“I didn’t say you were, but-”

“Look, I can prove it.” Viola grabbed Erin and Vienna’s arms with both her hands and dragged them bodily into the shack. Sure enough, there was the segment of floor that had been lifted up by an archaic hydraulic system of some sort, and within it was a dark staircase that went down out of sight. “See? There’s something going on here. That’s not normal, right? You don’t see that in a normal shack.”

“I... find myself a bit more convinced,” Erin conceded. “But there’s still rational explanations.”

“You’re always talking about how supernatural stuff doesn’t exist,” Ursula added.

“I’m not making this up!” Viola practically screamed, as much trying to convince herself as her pack.

“Well,” Vienna said, in an attempt to be diplomatic. “Nukes are a pre-splice thing, right? Big bombs that fuck up the environment?”

“Something like that, yes,” Erin replied. “It’s a tad more complicated, but that’s good enough.”

“Well, Viola always says that the rumours about the Woods are prolly based on people encountering some pre-splice technology and freaking out. I’d be willing to believe that there’s, like, some kinda computerized nuke launch system or something.”

“Yes, but aliens?” Erin responded. “You have to admit that’s a stretch.”

“I’m not making this up!” Viola shouted. “Look, I can prove it. Ami said that she’d be down there, right? So we go down there and there’ll be the evil computer and you’ll have to believe me!”

“Viola,” Ursula said carefully. “Even if there is an alien or a ghost or a robot or whatever down there, don’t you think maybe that’d be a bit above our pay grade?”

“Well, we can’t just do nothing!!!”

“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that I don’t think I can punch a ghost, is all.” She raised her hands defensively. “Like, we’re just normal people. We don’t have guns or superpowers or anything and I’m the only one of us who knows how to fight. Maybe we should go get some help?”

Erin winced internally at the mention of superpowers, and a cursory glance at Vienna confirmed she was also understandably nervous. “Well, playing devil’s advocate, if we called up any given adult and said Locksmouth is being invaded by aliens and a five hundred year old automated system is going to wipe out all life on Earth... Would you believe that?”

“Clearly not!” Viola snapped.

“I think we should go,” Erin continued. “If only to prove for certain that there’s nothing down there.”

“Fine,” Ursula replied. “But... I dunno, guys. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

~~~~~~

The stairwell was very long and very dark. Their PETs did an adequate job of lighting the way, but only barely. They could just see a few stairs ahead of themselves – everything else was pitch black. It felt almost supernatural, though none of them could bring themselves to say so out loud. Instead, they silently trekked on, deeper and deeper and deeper. “How deep are we?”

“I don’t know. It feels like we’ve been going for hours.”

The stairs creaked and groaned unsteadily underneath them. “I think maybe they’re supposed to move. Or something. But whatever mechanism moves them broke.” Vienna shrugged nervously. “Or maybe the evil computer’s just got a really well developed sense of drama.”

“Well, I can’t imagine anyone walking down a staircase this stupidly long on a regular basis.”

“We’ve gotta be almost at the bottom though, right?” Ursula said. “I mean... It’s been like forty minutes.”

They were indeed, it turned out, almost at the bottom. They stepped out onto a wide open floor, and cold blue lights came to life above them, flickering weakly. The walls and floor were a dull, lifeless grey, with spider web cracks running through them and literal spider webs in all of the corners. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust aside from the large double doors at the other end of the room.

Ursula stared silently. So did Erin and Vienna, but Ursula could really only speak for herself when she said there was something deeply unsettling about the doors. She couldn’t for the life of her say what – they didn’t appear to be anything other than perfectly normal doors. But at the same time, she couldn’t bring herself to touch them.

Viola seemed to have no such reservations. She stormed ahead of the group and slammed her fist against the door. “We’re here!” she snapped angrily. “Open up!”

The doors complied with her request, letting out a dull hiss as they slowly slid apart and into the walls. Viola stormed ahead, followed more tentatively by the rest of the pack.

Even Viola froze up once they got outside. They shouldn’t have been outside. They should have been a good half mile or more underground. But they could feel a cool, fresh breeze blowing against their fur. See the goddamn sun in the goddamn sky overhead, just slightly obscured by tall buildings like nothing that any of them had seen before, or at least not in person. They appeared to be in some kind of small park in the middle of a city, evidenced by a few trees, some very large flowerbeds on either side, and a whole bunch of actual goddamn grass underfoot. Behind them was the building they had left – a small grey cube that looked horribly out of place. And which, notably, was clearly impossible. There was no way that it fit the massive fucking staircase they all knew they’d just come down. Above it was nothing but sky.

“What the fuck,” Ursula muttered in quiet awe as she stumbled her way towards a nearby tree, touching it to confirm to herself it was actually real. The others slowly filtered their way away from the entrance, into the park.

“It... appears to be a pre-splice city,” Erin said uncertainly. “Somehow.”

“Now do you believe me?”

Erin bit her lip. “Darling, this is... an awful lot to take in.” She looked around nervously, trying to parse exactly what was going on. “I... think maybe we should go.”

“Oh come on!”

“Viola, this is clearly well above what we can reasonably handle,” Erin said slowly. “Even if you’re right, which I’m still not entirely sure you are, what on earth are we supposed to do about it?”

“I’m not making this up!” Viola practically screamed in Erin’s face, as best as she was capable of given the height difference.

Erin balked, leaning back from the smaller rabbit getting in her personal space. “I’m not saying you are.”

“So, what, are you saying I’m crazy then?!”

“I’m saying that you’re the one who’s always saying that there’s no such thing as the supernatural, yet here you are latching onto a supernatural explanation for something that’s probably mundane.” Erin was struggling to keep her cool. They were all stressed, and it was increasingly difficult not to snap.

“We’re in a city that’s underground and the sun is in the sky! That’s not normal!”

“Viola, she’s got a point, this isn’t exactly something that we couldn’t manage to do up top,” Vienna interjected.

“I’m not crazy!”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Erin,” Vienna snapped. “Not helping.”

“I-” Erin took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down, just a bit. “Viola is clearly not well. We’re in a stressful situation, and she’s always been very... fragile.”

“Yeah, but she’s been getting better. It’s been years since she talked to Aubrey.”

Ursula frowned.

“Y-yeah!” Viola said. “I-I haven’t been talking to myself, you can ask Vienna and she’ll agree, so I can’t be crazy!”

It was Erin’s turn to frown, her eyes narrowing. “Oh, really? Then who exactly was it you were talking to in the bathroom the other day, after I chased off Lars?”

It was like the ground had opened up beneath her and she’d fallen into a bottomless abyss. A deep, profound panic like nothing Viola had ever experienced. “Wh- you heard that?!”

Vienna seemed to collapse into herself, drooping wearily. “Oh, no. Viola, you promised.”

“I-I-I-”she stuttered, unable to force the words out. “I swear, it was the first time in years that I even tried to talk to her!” Her eyes darted from Erin to Ursula to Vienna and back in a wild panic, her heart beating hard enough it felt like it would burst.

“I didn’t want to bring it up. Really.” Erin certainly sounded sincere, but Viola had known her long enough that she was fairly sure it was an act. “Come on, let’s go home. Mama Coniglio’s probably worried about you.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“Viola, you’re having extensive conversations with yourself. That’s not normal. I get that you’re stressed and you already had issues, but you can’t give in to the delusions.”

“It’s not a delusion! A-and anyway, y-you have one too!”

Erin frowned again, deeper. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“I-I talked to her! Last night, in my dreams!” Ursula’s frown deepened. “We were in a forest and she said her name was Titania and then there was-”

“Sis, you’re really not helping your case,” Vienna interrupted. “We’re going home.”

“Hey,” Ursula interjected. “Aubrey, she lives in mirrors, right?”

Erin rolled her eyes. “Yes, that was the narrative.”

“And she’s... sorta you, but see through blue with a green outline, right?”

“Yes,” Viola replied quietly. She’d never actually told anyone what Aubrey looked like. “How did you-”

“Right, I’ve had enough of this.” Erin roughly grabbed Viola’s arm. “We’re leaving.”

Ursula felt... something. She wasn’t entirely sure what. A deep, profound sense of apprehension. Not unlike the one immediately before the emergency alert, now that she thought of it. Like something bad was going to happen and she knew it was going to happen. “Erin, wait, don’t-”

Erin didn’t listen, turning and storming forward towards the way out.

There was a noise, like nothing any of them had ever heard before. A loud crack. Erin felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder, followed by a dull ache and a complete loss of all resistance against her forward motion. She lost her balance as a result, falling forward and just barely catching herself with her left arm. She turned to admonish Viola for, presumably, somehow wrenching herself out of her grasp.

And stopped.

Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth to scream but all that came out was a strangled, terrified croak.

There, on the ground, between herself and Viola, was her right arm, in a small pool of blood.