Basil found himself walking between two worlds, the flickering red and the cold gloom of the woods. When he paused to look down at his feet, to make sure that he really was walking, he would sometimes see thick piles of twigs and leaves that snapped under his steps. Other times, he would be wading through a pool of blood, still warm and even flowing, as if he were inside of an artery.

His right hand was shoved firmly inside of his pants pocket, fingers dancing over the smooth surface of the glass shard, feeling its rubber slipperiness and allowing himself to take comfort in its cool, solid feel. Occasionally, he could catch glances of Something, darting behind trees and spying on him with its unblinking eye, always judging but never speaking. How much had it grown over these past few days? If it wished, Basil imagined that it could stretch itself to encompass the entire forest, trapping both him and Aubrey inside forever.

Aubrey.

Hesitantly, he took out the piece of glass from his pocket and looked at it. It was covered in red flecks of dried blood; even so, he could just make out the distinct silhouette of Sunny trailing behind him, his reflected silhouette warped and disfigured and tainted with dark, swirling colors. In his hand, of course, was a large steak knife, stained with Basil’s own blood. Unconsciously, Basil unwrapped the gauze on his arm, peeling off the medical tape without so much as a single thought behind his actions.

“Sunny. You came back for me after all.”

Sunny didn’t respond. Basil quickened his pace, and Sunny did the same in turn.

“You’re probably sick of hearing this from me by now, but… I’m sorry. And I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Soon.”

Sunny didn’t respond. Distantly, somewhere behind him, shouting could be heard, panicked and somewhat desperate in its tones. It only took a few more steps for the shouting to be drowned out, to be replaced with an eerie air of silence that was only tainted by his own footsteps. He wondered if Aubrey was okay, if she would ever forgive him for leaving her. He wasn’t so sure if he could forgive himself, but what did his own opinion matter at this point?

“They don’t. Sunny, are you bored? Do you want to do something else? It’s okay if you do, I don’t mind. After all we’ve been through together, I’ll go along with whatever you want, really.”

Sunny raised his knife. His reflection was shaking terribly, form barely more than a shifting puddle of putty. Basil turned the glass slightly and looked at himself, finding a pale and gaunt face, aged with years of exhaustion that clung to his skin stubbornly. A single damp strand of hair hung over his face; it was gray. The sight of his reflection sent a sudden wave of sickness over him, filling his lungs with a thickly acidic air that brought stinging tears to his eyes and scalded his throat. Doubling over, Basil held his hands to his chest as he vomited, a sickly thin spew of clear liquid, little more than bile and the repugnant stench it brought.

Basil spat at the ground to clear his mouth of the awful sourness before straightening himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn’t notice how within his clenched fist, a small torrent of blood began flowing, squeezing through the crevices between his fingers. Lengthy lacerations marred his palm, deep cuts brought upon by the shard that he held.

Somewhere ahead of him, uncertainty beckoned. Basil and Sunny followed, trudging through the pool of red without paying heed. Their palms bled.

Aubrey cried out and swung her bat at nothing. It collided with nothing, and nothing fell to the ground in an unmoving heap. She shouted again, and swung her bat down again at the nothing. Her bat made a solid thunk as it bounced off the nothing and nearly rebounded to her face. She could hear them, the whispering gossip of the trees around her. That unwelcoming, harsh noise that grated her ears with sad, almost pitiful intonations.

“Get me out, get me out! Where the fuck is he, tell me! Give him back, give him back right now or I swear to fucking god none of you will live to say another word!”

In the thick cloud of laughter, Something.

“Basil!” She screamed. “Where are you?! Let me find you!”

A footstep sounded out from behind her and the voices died. She froze, taken aback by the sudden silence that the footstep brought with it. Gripping her bat tightly with both hands, she turned around, expecting to find exactly what she saw. Mari, with a noose (wasn’t it a jump rope before?) hanging loosely around her neck. The length of it trailed behind her, the tip splintered into hundreds of thin, frayed hairs, as if the rope had snapped. Her eyes were open and completely white, yet Aubrey knew that she was staring right into her eyes. Aubrey held the gaze for a few seconds before breaking eye contact and turning around.

“Just a hallucination. You’re stressed, you haven’t gotten much sleep, you’re traumatized… All perfectly natural, just ignore it.”

She looked back at Mari again. She grinned, revealing a mouthful of blackened teeth and buzzing blowflies, wriggling and walking on her gray lips, flying in and out of her throat, feasting on the sweet taste of decaying meat. “It’s a long way back, Aubrey. But don’t be scared! We’ve been through so much together. We can take on anything!”

Aubrey didn’t know whether she should cry or bash the reanimated corpse in the head as hard as she could. In the end, she chose neither, instead turning back around and continuing walking, speeding up a bit in the hopes that she could leave it behind. The soft echo of Mari’s footfalls behind her told her all that she needed to know. Face flushed, she called out for Basil once more. No response came.

Behind her, Mari began to hum.

“... know, and that’s why… That’s what I told them. They were so loud, I tried to ignore them but they kept pushing. They said that I could go to juvie. They said that I might have to see a therapist. What if they found out, Sunny? What if they found out what happened to Mari? That’s why… I had to form a truce. With S-Something. I hate it. It’s evil, it killed Mari… It got us all into this mess. But it knew how to hide things. It knew, it knew Sunny. It put me in some room called RED SPACE. A lot of weird stuff happened in there. It was almost like a dream, though it wasn’t a very nice one. I saw someone there who looked a lot like you, Sunny. He even had the same eye wound that… Oh. I’m really sorry about that, Sunny. I’ll never forgive myself for doing that to you. Maybe, one day, you could take one of mine? An eye for an eye right? What’s with that look you’re giving me? D-Did I say something wrong? Of course I did. Sorry. And, I tried to help Sunny, I really did. If we were both gone, then no one would ever know. Not now, not ever. Our friends could go on with their lives and we would be forgotten… Wouldn’t that have been nice? Almost like heaven, I think. No one to remember you, no one to disappoint, no one to ask questions, no one to accidentally hurt. I don’t know about you, but I’d really like that. T-Though if you would prefer to be remembered, I totally understand! I’m not saying that you should be forgotten, I was just… Oh, what’s wrong with me? Everything’s going to be okay, isn’t it? I can’t ruin this for you. Sunny, I love you. She said I was just obsessed, but I really do love you. You’re my best friend… Well, maybe not anymore. You must not think of me as a friend, right? Not after all of this. That’s okay though. I deserve it. I mean, even after everything that’s happened, I left Aubrey. Can you believe that? How stupid am I? She’s done nothing but try to help me and I abandoned her. Maybe that’s why everything hurts. Maybe that’s why I have a headache and my hands hurt and I’m bleeding everywhere and… I-I’m not sleepy. I don’t feel tired, Sunny. I’m not hungry either. What does that mean? Why can’t I see straight anymore? Sunny? What’s wrong with me?”

Basil stopped walking and looked at the piece of glass. There was nothing but red. Frowning, he wiped it on the sleeve of his shirt before holding it up again. Though somewhat smudged, he could once again make him out in the reflection. A faint smile danced on Sunny’s lips as he met Basil’s stare.

“I hear Mari.” Sunny said.

“It’s not real. I’m just stressed out. Or having a nightmare. Or both.” Aubrey said to herself as she ran through the woods, weaving in and out to avoid tripping on the various sorts of decrepit debris scattered in her path. Behind her, Mari followed her pace, panting with tired exertion all the while. Aubrey didn’t want to look, afraid of what she might find. A shambling, crooked corpse sprinting at her with clouds of flies and a crown of worms? The thought of that thing chasing behind her was enough to make her speed up.

“Nightmare, it’s a nightmare. Everything’s a nightmare.”

“Aubrey, slow down! My knee…”

She tripped over something and gave out a small yelp as she tumbled to the ground, arms outstretched to catch herself. Her bat slipped out of her grip as harsh, stinging pains streaked her exposed skin, which was now stained with an ugly combination of dried red and scattered brown. Groaning, she pulled herself up and tried to ignore the screams of protest coming from her injured hand, which was now coated in a thin layer of blood. She grabbed her bat.

Behind her, the footfalls came to a halt. She didn’t look.

Something was in front of her. A single bulging eye stuck out, bloodshot and furious. Despite this, it grinned at her. Grinned at her with its horrible mouth of immaculate, white teeth, sharpened to points and taunting. Behind her, Mari said something, though she couldn’t make out exactly what. It didn’t matter. She was dead. She wasn’t real.

Aubrey tightened her grip on her bat, and took a step forward.

Basil heard them clearly, the screams of anguish coming from his right. They were savage, horribly guttural noises that pained him more every second. The voice was unrecognizable. Barely human. Brutal.

Behind him, Sunny nodded. Basil didn’t see this, but he felt the air around him shift and he understood.

He approached the screams.

“Leave me alone. Leave me alone! You think you can take me on, huh? A fight’s what you want?” Aubrey swung her bat and Something crumpled, its body disfiguring further as it sunk to the ground with a deep hiss. It still grinned. It still stared, stared that accusatory look to peer into her soul and judge every sin that weighed upon her. Basil’s torture, her anger, Sunny, her mother, all of it. Aubrey screamed, shamed and violated. Turning her bat to the side with the nails, she swung as hard as she could at the taunting figure in front of her.

“Take that!” She shouted as Something oozed black blood. It stared. She adjusted her aim and struck it directly in its unblinking eye. There was a quiet popping noise, unimportant and nearly unnoticeable. Finally, finally, the eye vanished in a sea of black and red, and all that remained was a hollow socket. But it still smiled. “You fuck! Just die already, die and leave me alone!”

“Something behind you. Something in the woods. Something in the dark.”

Aubrey whirled around to find herself facing Something. It extended a black, jagged appendage and she was wholly unsurprised to see Mari’s decapitated head, cut cleanly from the neck down and bleeding dull, coagulated blood that poured out of her throat in chunks, almost like expired milk.

She swung her bat and it cut cleanly through the tendril. “I hate you! I hate you!”

“Hey Aubrey, what’s the matter? Are you okay? It’s me, Basil. Just calm down, okay? Deep breaths. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She shivered and saw that Something had appeared. It held an arm out to her and she swung her bat down at the open hand. It cleaved it in two.

What was that noise? The rustle of thin branches above her, the clicking of teeth chattering together. She looked above her to find nothing. An empty, moonless sky free from obstruction. Sharp prickles, hot and itching terribly, danced on her scalp and she cried out in frustration. She raked her free hand through her hair, dragging her nails through her head roughly. A few strands of hair came loose and she began to cry. Something stared at her and she bashed it with her bat.

Something smiled, and she killed it.

Was that really Aubrey that he was looking at? That disheveled, crazed monster, screaming and shouting in an incomprehensible jumble of words? Stumbling around like an old drunkard and swinging at empty air with that bat? Strong, reassuring Aubrey, the same who saved his life and took care of him while he wallowed in self-pity and wished for an end? The same Aubrey who he left so selfishly? The same Aubrey who made him suffer for so long, and still made him suffer?

His friend?

He looked out from behind a thin wall of trees in a sort of awe. Sunny took Basil’s hand and squeezed it. It hurt, but in a nice way. A way that made him feel grounded, more alert.

Basil's hands stopped shaking.

“Why is this happening to me? Why can’t I wake up? Where’s Basil? Am I going crazy? Is this what going crazy feels like?”

Aubrey took a single, shuddering breath and glared bitterly at Something standing in front of her. As if her withering glare alone could break down the ghost haunting her, make it leave her alone, make it bring Mari back, make it keep Mari dead and buried six feet under in that birchwood coffin behind the church where she belonged dead as a doornail never to be seen again left to be decomposed by the bacteria living on her cold, lifeless corpse.

It was an open-casket funeral. Aubrey wished that it wasn’t. When the coffin was being lowered into the ground, it was entirely possible that Mari opened her eyes.

“Morticians sew the eyes shut so that stuff like this doesn’t happen.”

She pulled her fist back and punched Something right in its eye. It disintegrated and Aubrey felt no satisfaction. Just a terrible anger at the unfairness of it all, because it appeared again. Unharmed, smiling, staring, and god fucking damn it just die why won’t you die haven’t you done enough you stupid thing what’s your problem what even are you why are you trying to do all of this why can I even see you you’re nothing you’re a ghost this is all a nightmare i want to wake up now please wake me up i can’t stand this anymore i just want to see Basil again see him smile see him act like himself again i just want to wake up and see Sunny again and Mari and Kel and Hero and everyone all together and happy and just leave me alone please just die what do I have to do to just make you die?

She swung her bat. Something fell to the ground lifelessly and turned into a cloud of black smoke.

Panting heavily, she gripped her bat with both of her hands and propped it against the ground, a sort of walking stick to put some of the weight off of her aching legs.

In, out. In, out. Dirty, frozen air, but air nonetheless.

Aubrey stopped swinging at the air and became still, the only movements being her tired breathing. Slowly, Basil walked out from the small enclosure of trees. He pulled Sunny by the arm, who followed without protest.

“A-Aubrey? Are you… okay?”

Aubrey turned around.

“Aubrey, I’m sorry. I… I was still at the house, I just left because… I don’t know. I just wanted to be alone. I’m really sorry. K-Kel found me and he told me, told me that you were looking for me. So…”

Aubrey straightened up and tightened her grip on her bat. A tired, resigned look descended upon her.

“Aubrey?”

A distinct ear-splitting whistle filled the air, complementing the resounding ringing of tinnitus that had already settled in his ears. Black smoke began to fill the air, only to dissipate as the sheer cleanliness of the atmosphere filtered it out. Still, he could see it through his closed eyelids. The hints of life. The red, the pink, the black. Or was it death? Either one was a much preferred alternative to the muteness of nothing, so it really made no difference.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring at Sunny. Basil’s bleeding palm was held firmly against an expansive white wall, staining its immacualte beauty with red.

Sunny looked at him. An angel. Beautiful.

The pain faded and Basil sighed in relief, the enormous weight finally being taken off of his shoulders.

What was he ever worried about?

When they found her, she was kneeling down next to Basil’s corpse with a faraway look in her eyes. Her bright, harsh hair only served to augment her countenance, which had gone ashen gray. She was muttering something under her breath. She limply held a blood-splattered bat, the side with nails resting against the ground. Basil was nearly unrecognizable; his face was reduced to a brutal mutilation of twisted skin, flesh, and blood. One of his eyes had been punctured, and sat in its socket as a sagged, deformed pouch that oozed some sort of pinkish liquid. Deep, dark red stained his clothes and formed a small puddle around his head and neck, framing his mauled features.

“Why? Why does this keep happening?”

Kel stepped next to her and took the bat from her hand. She didn’t resist or say a word otherwise. A sharp, raking fear had taken hold of his heart and it was all he could do to not break down right then and there. With sweaty hands, he took his brick-phone out of his pocket and dialed Hero. He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but he needed something to do. A distraction, something to, even if just for a little bit, get him away from it all.

But of course, Hero didn’t pick up. It went to voicemail.

He wanted to scream. At Hero, at Aubrey, at Basil, at the people who were now crowding around, talking in hushed whispers and standing around doing nothing with their hands shoved in their pockets. He wanted to break down and start crying, he wanted to shake Aubrey by the shoulders and make her say something, he wanted to run away from it all and hope that all of this was just a bad dream.

Instead, he just dialed 911 and brought his phone up to his ear. He began to talk in a quiet, composed voice that was entirely unlike his own.

She took a deep drag from the cigarette held between her fingers and spared a glance at her reflection in the black screen in front of her. There was a moment of consciousness, of self-pity and disgust, and then it was gone. Around her, the foul stench of garbage and rotting food. Lazily, she lifted her arm up and turned it on with the remote. The remote, thin and caked in grime, coagulated brown slime from cold rotisserie chicken and sticky, melted ice cream eaten straight from the pint. The screen flickered to some sort of documentary. She didn't know or care what it was about.

Upstairs, locked in a barren prison, there was a small bunny that sat curled up in a tight ball, relatively motionless; the gnawing pains of hunger had sapped its energy. In a few days, it would be reduced to a rotting carcass. No one would be around to care or notice until too late.

Sinking into the couch, she settled in and allowed herself to feel comfortable. The next day, she would awaken to her door being broken down. She would be incarcerated and questioned about her daughter before being prosecuted for gross negligence and child abuse. She would be found dead in her cell before the trial even started, having died from severe cardiac arrest. But for now, the drifting away, the background noise pulling her mind to some far away depths, it let her feel sane again. Somewhere behind her, she heard knocking on the door. It continued for a while, the unwelcome rapports that gave her the starting pains of a headache. With a tight-lipped scowl, she increased the volume on the television.

Whoever it was, they could wait.