There it was again. That ever-distinct, ever-dreadful sinking feeling in my gut. It didn't take much to trigger those butterflies to flutter their wings around my bowels. In fact, I know of a few things myself that'd consistently get those alarm bells clangoring.

Confrontations, fangs, claws, both in tandem make for a really bad panic attack, and last but not least, really bad ideas.

Irene fell on the latter last part of that list.

There was bravado, there was strength, and then there was just plain being stupid. Now, I never took the detective for being a dunce, that's kinda more my thing, really - but even I could tell that running a wild goose chase after the person that almost effortlessly rendered two out of three of us completely inert was an even worse idea than that one time I decided taking out a loan from the local Mob organization in the area didn't sound too bad.

Pretty sure that's how I ended up here in the first place, actually… if the domino effect is anything to go by that is. So yeah, I'm the freaking spokesperson for bad ideas, and even I wasn't gonna try and advocate for something like that.

But trying to tell her that was simply going to be a mouthful of effort I wasn't feeling up to overcoming - so I looked at her, shaking my head firmly once, and sufficing with an assertive simple, "No."

Irene actually drew her head back at my little show of defiance, as if she was expecting any different.

"Why?" She said, probably already answering that question herself in her head. "It's too dangerous? I'm too injured? He's a lot more than I could possibly handle?"

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one here that's actually deterred by grievous injuries - because, from the way that Irene kept brushing hers aside, glancing at it like some small inconvenience, you'd think that mangled, shredded arm of hers was just a simple paper cut on her fingertip.

"All three," I responded. "Don't go after him, just don't. He's not going to..."

Not going to what? How do I know what he is or isn't going to do? The answer's simple, really - I don't know. But some part of me really was convinced that though this may not be the last we'd see of him, this was the last for now. Jay wasn't going to hurt us anymore.

Yet how was I supposed to say that out loud with a straight face? And regardless… with injuries like these… it was hard to believe that the person that afflicted us with them in the first place was going to leave us be afterward.

"There's no plan," I said, going for a different approach. "No tricks up our sleeves. We don't know where the book is, where he is… and even if you do find him, then what?"

A twinge of pain shot up my leg, offsetting sharp gaps of discomfort from out my lips, which also then proceeded to offset a look of absolute remorse reflecting off from a pair of green eyes.

"I'm inclined to agree," Ash muttered, tying the last knot on my calf with bloodied fingers. "My priority above all else is my Master's safety."

Irene, falling back to old habits, tried to fold her arms together. Needless to say, that didn't really work out too well for her.

"He needs to recoup, to rest…" Ash stood up, maintaining a courteous demeanor in the face of Irene's piercing gaze. "And so do you."

In place of folding her arms, Irene folded her non-injured hand into a fist. "I'm not going to say you're wrong. But tell me this, Elf, if we let him go now, who's going to chase after him then? He's been outed, his cover's blown, we know who he is… if we give him time to run, we give him time to disappear, and by the time we manage to find him again, it wouldn't have even mattered… the Blight would have rotted everything by then."

She wasn't wrong there either. Both raised sound reasons. Not one of us aside from Ash was physically abled enough to go on any further, yet at the same time, if we don't go any further then Jay will be further - maybe far enough ahead as well where reaching becomes infeasible to accomplish.

What's the right choice?

"Destroying the book wasn't the only solution to undoing the Blight," I said, mustering enough strength to sit upright. "There's still the Speaker/Listener route we can take."

"You aren't trained Mr. Speaker," Irene hastily pointed out. "We don't have a Listener in our catalog, we only have a few days till the Blight reaches max potency… need I go on any further, or do you get the picture?"

Got the picture crystal-clear, alright… and I could also see that she was going to stay adamant and firm on her stance in the matter. Guess Ash thought the same too, for even she didn't offer any more words to try and dissuade her from going.

So, hearkening only silence from the both of us, Irene went.

Past scattered papers, shifting loose from tangled wires, she reached for the door handle. Of course, it was a given that I had concerns overflowing, especially in the state that she was in.

I wanted to do so many different things at the same time, with one-half of the wants contradicting the second half.

'Tell her to stop again,' says one end of the spectrum. 'Follow along with her,' boldly proclaimed the other end. Then there, wedged in the middle of it all, a voice was saying to have Ash tag along, while I stay in this destroyed storage room to recoup.

But I knew Ash wasn't going to go anywhere, the guilt in her eyes kept her close to me… and Irene would just flat out refuse the company… apparently, somehow, she sees in me in a worse state than she saw herself. To that, I say someone needs to give her a mirror.

I heard the click of a handle, the squeaking creak of swinging hinges… and like the dimness dissipating from the light shining through the now opened doorway, my concerns all vanished in an instant.

There wasn't a single unraised eyebrow between the three of us. What we thought was light artificial, flickering away from a fluorescent lamp hanging affixed on the ceiling hallway was in fact… just not at all the case.

There was no lamp. There was no hallway.

That light shedding bright the dilapidated of the room, glinting the blood on the ground, highlighting all the cracks and fissures - it was sourcing from the scorching glare of the afternoon sun hanging in a cloudless blue sky.

Narrow halls, none. Office spaces, none. No white walls, no black carpeted floors in sight. Irene took a single cautionary step past the doorframe, and the instant she did, the crunch of gravel could be heard loud and clear.

Seeing was believing. But hearing it definitely sealed the deal. I think Irene managed to boil down all our reactions with just a single sentence, "No, he did not just…"

But he did. Jay really did.

It was the only door leading out, and leading out it definitely did. Too Literally. The scenery beyond it comprised of an open wide space, a paved cobble walkway, a familiar walkway… as it was essentially the very same one we took to get to the building itself.

In the distance, the chippering of birds, the rustling of leaves on swaying branches… a gust of wind blew… breezing a warmth past our unblinking expressions.

Pretty sure we're three stories up the premises… so how could a door located dead-center on the third floor ever lead out to the surface level? Ordinarily, there wouldn't even be an answer to such an impossible question. Ordinarily, these kinds of things shouldn't even be questions being asked in the first place.

Ordinarily…

Oh, how I missed the ordinary.

Irene withdrew her foot back into the inside, her hand still gripping the handle tight. Wordlessly, there rouse the squeak of hinges again, the resounding click of a door closing shut. The light vanished, and once more the room was plunged into darkness.

"Is that going to change anything?" I inquired, when no one had. "Closing the door?"

Irene, eyes permanently tethered to her grip on the handle, sucked in a deep breath.

"Sometimes," She said, sinking the handle once again. "Fingers crossed."

Another squeak, another swing… another warm glow of bright light filtering inwards. Was it the light from the in, or was it light from the out?

"Fuck..." Irene said.

You can put two and two together for yourself from there.

Undismayed, Irene tried again… and again, then again. The same glow of light each time, same gust of wind breezing through.

I think her stubbornness, her denial of what's before her, has to do with the fact that she couldn't accept how little control we truly had over everything. Here we were debating over our next course of action, settling on our next course of action, only for it to be decisively thrown out the exit.

Our next course had already been decided for us.

Jay wanted us out.