Cici hangs up her phone. "I'm goin' to see the mayor!"

"What."

"Cici," Kate begins, "I... fucking guarantee that's not gonna help. For all we know she could be in on it."

"Somebody somewhere has to know what they're doing," Cici responds. "This whole thing is--" She pauses, like she has to brace herself for it, "this whole thing is BULLSHIT!, and if they're not figuring it out at the station then we need to take this higher up."

"They DO know what they're doing," replies Kate. "They know EXACTLY what they're doing. This isn't a series of accidents, Cici, the system's corrupt."

"It can't be the whole system."

"It is totally the whole system."

You take a deep breath. "We should sit down and get on the same page," you begin. "A lot happened last night--none of us is working with all the available information. This shit might make more sense once we figure out what each of us missed, or at least, we'll be better prepared to handle the situation if we all know as much as we can."

. . .

"Alright," Cici says. "Yeah, we missed what happened with Harv, and Kate doesn't know about the tradesman. I'll hold off on storming the mayor's office."

"The backyard, too," you add. "And we found out a shit ton about how the dream dungeon works--"

"Wait," Cici interrupts. "Backyard...?"

"Y... yeah?" You squint at Cici. "We had trouble seeing the back door, remember? Before we ran the dungeon last night."

Cici stares blankly at you for several seconds before shaking her head.

Kate looks at you, then Cici, then back to you like you've both lost your minds.

What the fuck.

"The weird door. The foundation that doesn't make sense. That was last night, Cici, you were there. I showed you right after you brought the couch over. ...You helped boost me over the fence."

"Yeah, the couch thing definitely happened!," Cici remarks. "We had a big ol' conversation about stealing from libraries."

"...But you don't remember the back door."

"Nope!"

. . .

What the fuck.

"Plaire..." Kate begins, sounding a little concerned, "what were your plans tonight, dream-wise?"

You give a small shrug. "I was thinking of taking the night off, actually--I need to know if it affects the heart counter, among other things."

Kate gives a surprisingly solemn nod, and takes a long drag of her cigarette. "We should, uh, fucking leave then. Maybe have our group story share time somewhere else."

"Why...?"

Kate proceeds to march right past you,

and Cici,

walking straight up to the back door.

She walks through it with zero issue.

She steps into the backyard, turning to face you and Cici from the doorframe.

"Because we found this motherfucker TWO days ago, motherfuckers."

What.

No.

akldjf;aj;fasf

NO.

"No."

Cici looks at you, then at the back door, then does a double take, then refocuses on the door. You realize that you're watching her realize there's a back door for the third time.

The third time at minimum.

"No fucking way."

"We need to go," Kate insists. "The house. Is fucking. With us."

k;ldjfa BULLSHIT.

"There's no way," you blurt out. "There's no fucking way."

"I found it when we were looking for hidden panels and shit--"

Cici cuts her off, "--And you didn't tell us?"

"I DID!," Kate shouts. "Dude. YOU WERE THERE! You were BOTH there!" She points at the stalks of level growing in your backyard. "Plaire! You had a whole fucking story about Lora trying to grow level in the creek behind her house. Cici, you were like full-blown offended about the porch light."

Nooo. No.

"We've done this already," Kate says. "After the blood and the crowbar thing, all three of us knew about this door."

Cici is already (somewhat hesitantly) poking her head through the back door to take a look around. "...Huh. Why IS there a porch light in the back but not the front? That's not just irresponsible, that... it's pretty much anarchy. I don't like this at all."