The robin that wakes earliest in the morning, before any other of the diurnal bird-folk, and leaps immediately into action; its enthusiasm grants it the greatest likelihood to find the highest grade earthworms in the dirt. It beats out any potential competition, and becomes the subject of the fable wherein “the early bird gets the worm”. This is a form of the law of nature that all animals understand. But this individual, who finds success—who does he thank? Does he give thanks to his biology that built him to act this way, or to himself who had the will and strength to be first into action? Or perhaps thanks should go to the law that simply says there must be a first, just as there must be a last.

To thank his own will is romantic. It’s a cute thought, but the robin simply reacted in a conditioned way to certain stimulus. In fact, in these ripe lands, even the latest sleeper would find a full belly without any effort… so what meaning was there in being the robin who ate first? Even if he ate nothing, then in a year, either way, that robin would be replaced by another, and whether he was the most fit at finding food, or didn’t bother to eat and died the next day, the meaning of it all would be equally absent.

Drip, drip, drip.

Droplets of frigid water splashed at my neck, and as tempting as it was to remain in the snare of half-awakedness, this was a level of nuisance that would be difficult to put out of mind.

I rose into a sitting position, rousing Cris as I did so. Seeing her in this condition, it entered my mind that she appeared to be very much in a daze, even considering that she was just waking up. I could hear the faint rumble of heavy rain from somewhere, which would explain the dripping ceiling. It was an unsatisfactory feeling, to know that rain could so easily seep into here, yet they could not even find an exit.

Then I asked myself a question. How was it that I could see Cris’s face?

“Ah, one second…” Cris said. She rubbed her eyes before igniting a glow from her hand, which illuminated just the area around them. “Still here, huh,” Cris said with disappointment.

“Sadly I doubt the bugs in here have the inclination to carry us to freedom,” I said.

“Mmm. The red-bulb can carry thousands of times its own body weight, so lets just lose some weight, and it’ll all be alright, fuhu,” she joked. Was Cris this airy yesterday? Or perhaps she’d just become more casual with me. Or—no, she can’t have been serious, even if she did pass over eating those buns. I looked over at where Varus and Karl should be—they were still lying on the harsh stone tiles. But this dreary grey light, barely perceptible, that fell over the room—it was not Cris’s light. It was undoubtedly a light that bled in from the hole in the ceiling.

Cris began doing sit-ups without warning. “This helps me wake up,” she commented. This didn’t last long, however, before she stopped and said “Hmph. Do you think we can get out of here?”

“Why not,” I said. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Quite literally? But I decided not to comment on it quite yet, since it’d just be a cause for confusion. I still felt drowsy, and I couldn’t be sure of anything. “Should we wake up the others?” I suggested.

“The others?” Cris repeated questioningly. “?”

“Varus, and Karl…” I said, but Cris looked perplexed. “But it’s only us here.”

I spun around to look across the room, and the two men were still there.

“Hehe. Kidding,” Cris laughed. “Hahh. Yeah, I’m dreadful, I know.” I shot her a disapproving look, but I was mostly just surprised that she felt comfortable enough to do that. “Shock works wonders to get adrenaline going,” she said, winking and looking innocent.

“Is this Cris the doctor looking out for me?”

“Mmm, Cris the wants-to-make-a-friend-but-sucks-at-it, I think is more likely?”

I was about to make a retort, but something in the corner of my perception stole my attention.

“Was that doorway there before?” I asked. I pointed to the wall opposite the door we had been using previously.

“A door? I don’t see what you mean,” Cris said.

“!” A jolting yellow figure appeared for just an instant in the corridor. I shouted out spontaneously, then ran for the doorway.

“W-What is it? Is this a comeback?” Cris said, flustered. But there was no time—I slammed against the door frame and swung around it to the left, catching another glimpse of the yellow figure in the dim light. It was clear now that it was, as I thought, a girl running past in a summery dress. She was stumbling about amongst the vines—so there had been more right here?! But I could surely catch her. Trusting that Cris would back me up as best she could, I charged after the vivid phantom. However, my rapid footfalls seemed to alarm her, and she wailed and picked up the pace. I could just recognize that she was about to round a corner in the corridor, so I leaped forward to tackle her. My fingers brushed against her dress, but couldn’t find a grip; she slipped out of my range. Still, the shock caused her to trip and fall to the ground too.

“Shit!” I cursed. For various reasons, it’d be bad to let this chance go, given that this could be one of the girls we were looking for. I gave chase, despite the fact that beyond the corner, the darkness became complete. Yet even if I caught her, this girl clearly didn’t know how to escape, did she? So what was the point? This was just… illogical. And a mistake that Varus had already made. I just didn’t feel like turning back.

I had run in a straight line, and then sideways into a room, after the frantic sounds I could perceive. I could feel my way back to the corner still, surely… though honestly it was likely already hopeless thanks to the madness of this place.

My steady advance in the dark came to a halt due to a pained squeal from just a few metres ahead of me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked loudly. It sounded like the girl had hurt herself.

“S-Stay away!” It was a voice I hadn’t heard before: the wavering voice of a terrified girl, likely close to Cris’s age.

“Who are you?” I asked, trying to make my voice calm and inviting. The mysterious girl was clearly not convinced. Among her frightened sobs, it sounded like she was calling me a monster and telling me to stay back. I was approaching her slowly, but stopped in my tracks as something hot slid into my clothes, and my skin, and penetrated into the very core of my stomach. Sudden burning pain surged in waves from my gut, and before I could tell that I had moved, I was collapsing against the wall behind me.

Had I been stabbed? This was… kinda bad. Silence fell around me as the girl plodded away through the wet rooms.

I had to get back to Cris and the others. I turned about and stumbled back through the room. It felt strange enough waving my hands in front of me and not being able to see them, but now my legs also felt so numb that they were practically alien. My hands hitting a wall proved that I had advanced forward, but I couldn’t tell what my lower body was actually doing.

I groped for the doorway, but got held up by furniture and debris, which I could vaguely recall seeing around the place earlier. I thought this room with low benches and glass vials had been somewhere quite far away, though. When I got the impression that my knees were about to momentarily give out, I grasped at the air, and pulled something smooth and covered in webs. There was a crash and something solid hit me on the head, making me fall to the floor.

As luck would have it, the white blur in my vision wasn’t because of a concussion, but was actual light. I had fallen through the doorway and could still see the corner I had come from, where some consistent light pooled. Invigorated, I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled towards it.

“Syco!” Cris shouted, rushing up to me as I collapsed to my knees. “I-I couldn’t find where you went—what happened?!” It didn’t take her long to notice my wound. She gasped, then wordlessly lay me down on my side and inspected the damage.

“It looked like she just ran in through the solid wall, but no, there’s a gap here,” Varus said, waving his hand through the break in the stone wall. The other two had been awoken by the commotion.

“I saw a girl… in a yellow dress,” I said. Varus’s eyes widened. “So it was her. That was Rea. I’m sure of it,” he said.

“Or it was this place just showing you both the same illusion,” Karl said.

“I’ve seen Rea in that dress plenty of times,” Varus argued back. “Surely—“

“Then the poppies stole that image from your mind,” Karl cut him off.

“So flowers can read minds now? Come on, there’s a limit to being preposterous,” Varus laughed derisively.

Cris ignored the debate, acting quick to remove the object in my side, which turned out to be a wildly mangled chunk of metal. Its purpose or where it might have come from was nothing I could throw a guess at.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. It didn’t go very deep at all,” Cris said quietly. The feeling of deep penetration I had experienced must have just been my virgin mind over-exaggerating. Cris ripped off the lower part of her shirt and used it as a bandage to staunch the bleeding. I was reminded again of how little we had prepared.

“Sorry about your nice shirt. I’ll buy you a new one,” I said jokingly. However, Cris was staring at the metal shard, covered all over in blood, with a look of deep concentration. She seemed to be in a world of her own thoughts since it was confirmed that I was in no real danger. The pain was still intense, but after the initial intensity, I realized that it could be much worse. I returned to a sitting position, simply ignoring my body’s complaints.

“And here I thought I’d maybe get to see some healing magic,” I whispered to Cris.

Cris looked back to me and smiled faintly. “Mmm. No such thing, I’m afraid. Unless amputation counts as magic?”

I declined to answer.

“As far as I can tell, the flames did their job,” Varus was saying in the meantime, inspecting the hole in the ceiling.

“That’s a relief,” Karl said. His voice then really was laden with relief. It wasn’t the kind of tone I expected to hear until we all escaped this place. Varus patted him on the shoulder, conveying something I couldn’t understand.

The two of them came back to where I was, talking about going back up through the hole, and Cris helped me to my feet. Curiously, I seemed to have unconsciously carried back with me whatever had hit me on the head. I held it up in my hands to see what it was.

It was… a human skull.

“W-Why are you holding a skull?” Cris asked. I was dumbfounded myself. “Wait, show me the frontal bone—the forehead I mean.”

I followed her instruction. What she had keenly noticed right away was a small but definite hole directly in the centre of the skull’s front. It was an extremely clean cut, like a circular piece of the bone had simply been spirited away. Cris frowned deeply as she inspected it.

“Wait,” Karl spluttered out as he saw the skull. I was still holding it, and he swiftly and forcefully grabbed my forearm. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“I—“ I began to explain, but something about Karl’s glare stopped me in my tracks. His fingers dug into my arm, grinding the thin muscle and fat against the bone. As I glanced at him, about to make a complaint, I saw something in his eyes… transform. It was probably my imagination. But I was certain that, in front of my own eyes, his perception of me was being overwritten…

“Drop them! Drop the poppies quickly!” Varus urged. Before Karl broke my arm, I did so; the poor skull thudded against the floor, without breaking. Now I just had to hope my arm wouldn’t.

“Karl,” Varus said. Karl turned his hand to the skull—it was clear that he was about to unleash a stream of his liquid flames at it. He hesitated however, and turned back to look at me. I was certain… he no longer saw me as I was. I was an entirely different beast in his eyes.

It all happened in less than a second. I tried to dodge out of the way, but my wound caused my body to hesitate, and I barely moved. My vision filled with white-hot fire as Karl blasted a glob of liquid death into my face. If it weren’t for Varus pulling on Karl’s coat at the last second, and Cris tackling me in the opposite direction, I would have melted down right to my brain in that one moment.

“Karl, stop, wait!” Varus shouted, but Karl paid no heed to him. Varus was quick to restrain Karl’s arms, which should have meant the end of the battle, considering how bulky Varus was. However, Karl was not in his right mind. Even I could tell. He shouted at Varus to let him go, and let loose flashes of gaseous flames that singed Varus without seriously harming him.

“Get up!” Cris urged me, and she helped me to my feet. I pulled her to the doorway that was nearby; Cris yelped as I pulled her through it.

“This is ridiculous. I still see only a wall here,” she said.

“I don’t get it either. I don’t get anything,” I complained. I hobbled down the corridor a bit with Cris’s help as we listened to what was going on inside the room. Varus was urging Karl to calm down with a commanding voice, but Karl fought back insistently.

“She has to die! She’s a monster! She’s a demon! Can’t you tell, Varus?! If we don’t do anything, if we sit back, everything will end!” He was making less and less sense. “It will… It’ll be angry… It will be furious! We must be rid of that monster!”

Beside me, her arm wrapped around mine, Cris began to shake.

“This… it’s just… like…”

I understood what she was getting at; she had told me about a similar experience of her own. There was no doubt about what feelings her mind had reeled in, judging by how her body was shaking. She wasn’t targeted right now, but even this tough girl found this so deeply unpleasant.

“Karl, wait! Crap!” we heard Varus shout.

“We should move,” I said to Cris. She nodded, and began to help me back down the path I had taken just minutes earlier.

“Wait, let’s go the other way,” I said. Things had gotten out of hand, but the light was stronger this way. If, for whatever reason, this indicated the way to the exit and only I could realize it, then it was best to give it a try.

It was too late though—a wave of liquid flame flew into our path, and in an instant, there was a veritable wall of fire blocking our way. With this, Karl had blocked the path for himself too, but this just meant that both groups were going to be forced deeper into the cellar.

“What the heck, Karl!” Cris grumbled. “Okay, other way,” she commanded, dragging me hurriedly back in the other direction. “If I don’t get some answers after all this, I’m gonna… I’m gonna do some very un-doctor-ly things, grr!”

A fifth entity within the dungeon strode after Cris and Syco casually. Its left arm had melted to the floor and become fuel for the flames, which was unfortunate, but this was no great matter.

The entity considered Karl to be quite dangerous now. It would become rather inconvenient if fire was haphazardly spread all over the place.

Karl’s target seemed to be the person named Syco. The entity considered the implications of erasing Syco as he followed the two girls deeper into the labyrinth.