The floor shuddered as Alf pushed into Blix’s dorm room.

“Put me on the bed.” Her voice cut through the roar. “There’s a backpack in the closet and water bottle in the kitchenette. Bottom-right cabinet.”

Alf dumped her on the bed, but was too exhausted to get back up. He fell back onto the mattress, turning onto his side to watch as she flipped like an acrobat across the mattress.

“Get moving!” she shouted. “It’ll take me a minute to put these on.” She grabbed two elastic-looking sleeves and started pulling them over her… What was he supposed to call them? Was stumps offensive? Upper legs?

“Hurry! We need to be gone before the dust reaches the second floor.”

“It won’t bother us.” Alf groaned into a sitting position. “All those bodies... Why would it bother to change them if it was just going to bury them in rubble?” He limped across the room and started rummaging in the closet for supplies: a backpack, a waterproof-looking coat, a girlie little kid’s sleeping bag. “Beauty and the Beast?”

“Shut up!” She was struggling with one of those bladed leg thingies. “It was a birthday present.”

“When you were how old? Five?” He hurried over to the kitchen and started stuffing the pack full of supplies: bottled water, kitchen knives, a frying pan, two plastic food-storage containers, a jar of peanut butter, and every prepackaged snack he could find.

A drawer slammed shut behind him. Blix was rummaging through a dresser, balancing on her blade-like prostheses like stilts. “Want to borrow some clothes?” She held up a tiny pink thingy that might have been a shirt.

“Um… Maybe some matches or a lighter?”

She shook her head and headed for the bathroom, a bundle of clothes tucked under her arm.

“What about a tarp or plastic trash bags?” Alf hurried across the room, grabbed a blanket off the bed, and stuffed it into a pillowcase. “What else do we need? We could be gone a long time.”

“I got medical supplies.” She appeared in the doorway, dressed in a sparkly blue shorts and a black sweatshirt. Tossing him a black nylon bag, she headed for the door. “We don’t have time for anything else.”

Still trying to stuff everything into the pack, he followed her out into the hallway. She navigated the monster morgue with surprising ease. He had to jog just to keep up.

As soon as they reached the lawn, they turned to look back at the groaning building. The dust had eaten it all the way down to the second floor. Three entire floors, not to mention all their furnishings and contents—all gone in the space of a few minutes.

“Unbelievable.” He stood transfixed as the dust ate its way through the second floor. “What’s it doing with all that material?”

“No idea,” Blix leaned into him, for balance, maybe? “And why did it change everyone else, but not us?” she asked. “It gave those people tusks and fur and claws. Why couldn’t it…”

“Just be glad it didn’t mutate you into a monster.” He turned to take in their surroundings. “No way could I have carried that werewolf thing.”

“What if I’d ended up like that sexy elf-with-the-shelf chick?”

“I hope you don’t,” he said, maybe a little too quickly. “I mean… What if it changed your brain as well as your… Anyway, I like you the way you are.”

“That’s sweet.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “Even if you are twisting reality.”

“I’m serious. You need to stop—” Then he took in her expression.

Had she been crying?