"Alright, fill me in, what happened?" Penny put her hands on her hips and looked from face to face. She had situated everyone around her little home, each one negotiating the colorful clutter with meticulous caution. Trav and Ruby took up most of the couch while the others found themselves awkwardly placed on a collection of mismatched chairs.

Matthias looked from face to face. The fog was draining from his mind, but had left him with a glaring gap. What was he doing in Penny's home with these people? He had a vague memory of meeting Ben and Cas downstairs, and of them being upset, but not why. They'd run up the stairs and brought Trav with them but... then what? Something about a fire escape?

"There's..." Ben began, his voice wavered. His dark eyes darted as though he too was asking what they had just witnessed.

"The door was gone." Cas filled in for her husband. She arranged little Amber on a chair, passing her a barbie from a purple, child's backpack. Amber peeled off her puffy coat to reveal her princess dress over a sweater, though she lacked her pointy hat.

"Right!" Ben agreed, thick brows furrowing. "The door and windows were missing."

"Missing?" Penny's tone wasn't disbelieving yet, but she looked concerned. Strangely, Matthias didn't find this information odd. His mind latched on, drip feeding him a few glimpses of a lobby overcome by darkness and stone-grey walls.

"It was like someone came in the night and tore down the original wall to put up a new one without any exits." Ben stared at his hands, a look of deep concentration on his features. Was he forgetting too, Matthias wondered.

"And it was freezing." Cas agreed. Once her daughter was settled she turned to her husband. Matthias noticed for the first time... or maybe he already knew... that Ben's ankle was bleeding.

"The smell was aweful." Ruby chimed in.

Don't forget the black stuff, Matthias wanted to say, but he wasn't sure where that thought had come from.

"And there was this... black stuff. Like mold." Cas filled in as if she had read Matthias thoughts. She knelt and tugged off Ben's heavy work boot before she peeled his pant leg up. He hissed as she pushed his sock away to reveal three slim slices all the way around his ankle. Like someone had taken wire and worn it against his skin for several hours. The blood was already clotting a deep, wine-red against his dark skin and black leg hair.

"Wait... what happened?" Trav asked. He looked as baffled as Matthias.

"I... the door....I was late for work," Ben tilted his head. His eyes grew distant, as though the fog that had wrapped around Matthias' mind was reaching him as well.

"What are you all talking about?" Penny demanded. "Ben, what happened to your leg?"

"I don't... black ropes?" He looked down at his ankle as though it belonged to someone else.

"Wait!" Cas sprang up and fished in her pocket, producing her phone. "Here. I took a video." She hit a few buttons and held the screen up for everyone.

Matthias leaned in and squinted. It only took a few seconds for everything to snap back into clarity. His memories of the lobby had been scooped out of his mind by invisible hands, but now they poured back in, flooding Matthias with a rush of panic. Reaching blackness, missing doors, spreading evil. He had to fight the urge to dart to the window and pitch himself out as images of the black powder creeping across his ceiling overwhelmed his mind. Once again she remembered it all. His encounter in his apartment, and then in Trav's.

"Good lord." Penny watched the whole vide, her gentle face contorted with concentration and concern. "What is that? Where did it come from?"

"We don't know." Ben said. He had pulled his leg up to examine his own ankle, seemingly reminded of what had caused the wound by the video.

"It was everywhere," Ruby breathed, her expression open and vulnerable. She and Trav clasped hands, but the young man remained silent.

Matthias leaned forward to try to get a look at Trav's down-turned face. His skin was still pale and his eyes sunken and dark. He didn't meet Matthias' eyes, though he must have felt his stare.

"Oh god. What do we do now?" Cas shot a careful glance at her daughter. Amber had climbed off her chair and was flying her Barbie around the room making airplane noises. Occasionally Barbie would crash. Satisfied that Amber didn't seem currently traumatized, Cas continued. "We tried the fire escape, but it doesn't function. It's probably been years since anyone checked it. That black gunk is all over the second floor and the first floor is taken over by the stone walls."

Cheese strutted into the middle of the group, tail proudly raised as though everyone had come together to admire him. Matthias wondered if the cat remembered what he had seen. Maybe he was able to retain it better than his human counterparts.

"I think Cheese knows about it. I think he tried to warn us a few times before things get this bad." Mattias said, watching Cheese strut.

Everyone looked at Matthias as though he had come unscrewed. He shrank back into slim shoulders.

"Cats are supposed to be especially tuned in to the supernatural." Ruby pointed out, watching Cheese with interest as he plopped down and began washing between his toes. "Maybe he can sense something."

"He was always sitting a meowing his head off in front of Trav's door." Cas agreed.

"And we're just deciding that whatever is going on downstairs is supernatural?" Ben asked, holding up his pant-leg so Cas could see to it.

"I've only watched a video, and I already believe it might be." Penny said as she retrieved a first aid kit from under her sink and passed it to Cas and Ben. "Unless everyone has gotten together and planned an elaborate prank, but that doesn't seem like any of your styles. Well, maybe Trav's, but the rest of you-" she paused, looking to Trav as though expecting him to chime in. He remained silent, staring at his reflection in Penny's dark TV screen.

"If this is supernatural, and it's spreading, what exactly are we supposed to do?" Cas asked as she dabbed Ben's leg with disinfectant. He clamped his hands on the seat of his chair and tried not to squirm.

No one answered. They looked at one another as if any moment one of them might burst out with an answer. Matthias wondered how fast the blackness was coming. Would it stretch long tendrils through the crack at the top of Penny's door any moment? He added shooting uneasy glances towards the door to his list of concerns.

"What about you, Penny?" Ben asked, between clenched teeth as Cas continued to work on his ankle. "I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but don't have you have job as a psychic or something?" He grimaced, though Matthias suspected it was less from the pain, and more from the absurdity of his words.

Penny smiled wanly. "I read tarot over the phone. I'm not a medium or anything."

Something sparked in Matthias head like a candle flame flickering to life. Tarot. After a quick scan of the room he began to subtly inch to his left, heading for a deck balanced on the lip of a china cupboard. He didn't need to get everyone's attention for this hunch. He'd let them talk as he tried to formulate what had spurred him to action. He'd seen a tarot card somewhere... but where? Not here in Penny's place when he had come to visit. If he could just see the card again he was certain he could remember.

"What if..." Ruby squinted at Cas's phone, as if to remind herself again what they were up against. "What if we put a note on Cheese and sent him down using the vines outside? He climbs those things all the time. Half the time when I come to visit he shows up to greet me outside the building."

"Cheese kitty!" Amber announced, flying her Barbie over to the cat and landing her on his back. She pulled one of Barbie's arms into place to 'pet' Cheese, who continued to groom himself as though he hadn't noticed.

"Counting on a cat for something crucial probably isn't the best idea." Penny frowned. She settled herself in her big chair looking like a tiny queen on her throne. She picked absently at the fraying upholstery.

"What's causing it?" Cas asked. "If we have a source maybe we can stop it."

"Stop it?" Ben snorted. "It touched my skin and burned me. I don't know how we're expected to stop it." Cas had finished bandaging and he pulled his frayed pant-leg back down, trying to cover the wound.

Matthias looked up from his focus on the pack of cards in time to see the meaningful glare that passed from Cas to Ben. Matthias wasn't married, but he felt something he'd classify as 'wife energy' slamming into Ben. Mathias hid a smile as he remembered how his own mother could take his father to task without saying a word.

"Is it the building itself?" Penny asked, taking up Cas's cause. Matthias inched around a table that housed a collection of crystal horses galloping across a lace doily.

"I've been living here over thirty years." Penny pointed out. "Nothing like this has happened before."

Matthias had inched his way around to the tarot deck and gingerly picked up the worn stack of cards. They were too large to riffle through easily and he tried to keep things subtle, but knew he was growing increasingly more obvious as he lost one card to the floor, then another. The jig was up when Amber came over and starting picking up his fallen cards to hand them back. "Here, Mattisis."

"Thanks, Princess Amber," he said quietly, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room lock on him.

"Matt, what are you up to?" Penny asked.

"I erm... I saw a tarot card online and I was going to ask you what it was except I can't remember so I thought I'd look and..." Their glares were burning accusations.

How is this helping?

You are aware that we are trapped in a freakish life and death situation, right?

Matthias shrank back against the bookcase, as much as someone his height could shrink.

"Which card, honey?" Penny asked, clearly taking pity on him.

Matthias tried to ignore the annoyed sound Ben made. He frantically shuffled the cards and finally caught sight of one he recognized, though he still wasn't sure from where. He flipped it around to face the room, feeling silly. Everyone was silent for a long moment, the only sounds the faint swearing from the video still playing on Cas's phone.

Penny flicked a pair of little, round rimmed glasses from her robe pocket and held them to her face, squinting at the card. "That's the tower."

Matthias turned it to himself again, taking in the grey stone structure being struck by a lightning bolt. The image was detailed and intricate. He might have counted every blade of darkened, wind tossed, grass or the points of each flame that ravaged the tower. He squinted at one of the little, slit windows. Was there a person inside? He though he could just make out a tiny silhouette. "W-what does it mean?" Matthias asked, aware that everyone's eyes were still boring into him. Even the cat had settled Matthias with an unblinking gaze.

Penny glanced at the others and hen at the phone, as though verifying what she was seeing before she spoke. "It usually means change. Upheaval. Sometimes big, sometimes small. It often means that the change is inevitable, no matter how you try to avoid it."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Snapped Ben.

"Daddy, no yelling!" Amber scolded, fluffing her poofy skirt.

Penny didn't seem to have noticed the interruption, still studying the card. "In some cases it can also mean betrayal."

Matthias saw Trav flinch. Only his friend was looking down instead of staring at Matthias as though he had started singing and dancing in the middle of the apocalypse. Matthias withdrew even further under all the stares, wishing desperately he hadn't had the urge to pick up the cards. He jabbed the tower card back into the deck, uncertain where the urge had come from in the first place. Just another vague memory pricking at the back of his mind. Like a dream.

"Maybe it's him." Ben said.

"What?" Ruby asked. At least she wasn't staring at Matthias any more.

"Everything started happening right after he moved in."

"What?" Matthias couldn't stop the word as it exploded from his lips. "I didn't do this. I have no idea what's going on I... How would I do this?!"

"I don't know." Ben rubbed the back of his neck, his dark eyes dipping away from Matthias'. "I don't want to blame you, kid. You wouldn't do it intentionally. Maybe you just brought something with you? In the movies demons are always-"

"Oh now it's a demon we're dealing with? I thought you didn't think it was supernatural." Ruby flicked her hair away from her eyes. It seemed to be growing steadily messier the more agitated she became.

"I don't know! I don't know what this is!" Ben tossed his hands in the air, then folded his arms, closing himself off behind another glare.

"Where would I have picked up a demon?" Matthias asked, wishing his voice was more forceful. He sounded like a kid who'd been caught out in school with contraband. "I-I'm just a normal guy."

Everyone fell silent again, but Matthias could feel the fear and intensity aimed at him. Even Penny and Ruby seemed to waiver. He wished he could just march out the door, but who knew how much stairwell there was left, or how fast that black stuff was spreading.

"Alright fine!" Trav exploded up from his seat and everyone startled. Amber's bottom lip trembled and she clutched her Barbie to her chest.

"Babe, what-?" Ruby gasped. She's been displaced by his sudden motion and nearly fallen from the couch. "Sit down, your leg!"

"No." Trav ran a hand back through his hair, his face a mask of anguish. "This... this is my fault."

"This is what? What did you do?!" Ben got to his feet as well, and he was an impressive figure beside the other man. Trav flinched away like a cowering dog.

Matthias slipped the card back into the pack and set it down before withdrawing from the deck as though it were dangerous. Whatever had enticed him to pick it up, it was a mistake. Something about dark corridors and chanting voices.

Trav swayed, but didn't fall back onto the couch. "I... after I broke my leg things weren't going well."

Ben made an annoyed 'tch' sound. Cas's elegant brows came together and she gave her husband a firm look. At least she seemed steady Matthias thought gratefully.

"I've been keeping my judgment to myself." Ben told Cas, his tone gentler, before turning his death glare back to Trav. "So, you did something stupid and lost your job. Then what?"

"Hey!" Ruby seemed ready to wade into the fray, hands balled into fists, face crimson, though she was almost comically small compared to Ben.

"No. Ruby, it's fine. He's right." Trav held out an arm and stalled his girlfriend. "After I lost my job I was feeling really down and out. I uh... I went to a pawn shop down the street to sell some of my old games and crap and I wandered over to the jewelry to see if I could afford something for Ruby-"

Ben groaned. "Making smart financial choices again."

"I was just looking," Trav still hadn't raised his voice. In every quiet moment the video playing on Cas's phone kept the memory of what was happening downstairs locked in all their minds. Trav took a shaky breath and went on. "I saw this... thing. Like an amulet or maybe a token, but as big as my hand? It looked like it was right out of Uncharted or something." When he received blank stares he clarified; "That's a video game abut treasure hunting. The amulet came in a neat box with velvet backing and everything. There was a little card with it that said it was a 'luck charm' and if you put it in your house you'd have good luck. It was only twenty bucks so..."

"You bought it?" Ben's voice was a low growl.

"I bought it."

"So to be clear, you bought a little trinket at a pawn shop and you think that's the reason the whole house is overcome with evil black stuff?" Ben asked.

Matthias cast his mind back to a memory that felt as fresh as if it had just happened. Finding Trav standing on the second floor landing, staring blankly at his door. And when they had gone inside how they had seen the black stuff spreading from a little box sitting innocently on a table. It sounded bonkers, even in the head of a ficiton writer, but all it took was once glance at Cas's phone, propped against one of Penny's thicker books, to recall everything with perfect clarity. He supposed it was possible they were all having an elaborate hallucination. Maybe there was a gas leak somewhere ann in reality they were all laying on the floor, seizing and drowning in their own bile. No one seemed eager to bring that idea up, so Matthias kept his mouth shut. Instead he fixed his eyes sternly on Trav, who was visibly shaking. Ruby took one of Trav's hands, but he didn't seem to notice.

"I'm pretty sure the talisman is the cause of all this, yeah." Trav said. "I did start having good luck when I got it. Like, I turned out to have a little more savings in my account than I remembered, and I had a lot of food stocked up at my place. My girlfriend didn't break up with me when I became a jobless bum, and then this really cool guy moved in next door to me-" he glanced at Matthias.

Matthias rocked back as though Trav had shoved him. Trav thought meeting Matthias was good luck? He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again to say something, but knew he looked like a landed fish, so snapped his mouth shut again.

"There was bad stuff too, in my apartment." Trav went on, thankfully little noticing Matthias' reaction. "Technology stopped working, like myTV, but I thought that was because it was old and shitty. I didn't know about the black stuff because I didn't remember every time I wasn't looking at it."

"It seems to have taken a while to get a foothold." Penny observed, squinting at the video looping on Cas's phone.

"So we're all on board with the idea that not only is something supernatural happening, but that it was caused by some jewelry Trav bought at a pawn shop?" Ben asked.

"Seems that way." Penny answered.

"Right, okay... this is just... this is just a little insane." Cas sat down and slouched in her chair, arms folded, until Amber trotted over and waved her arms to be picked up. The little girl proceeded to rule from her mother's lap with a haughty look over the lot of them. Ben turned the phone so Amber couldn't easily see it. Matthias wondered if some child instinct kept Amber away from the device. Didn't kids usually love to see footage of themselves or their parents? She seemed utterly disinterested, even when the sound of her own distressed whimpers played through the little speaker.

Trav collapsed back to the couch with a little groan and buried his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, everyone. I really didn't mean for this to happen."

"That I do believe." Ben said, a fraction more gently than before. He too flopped down to sit and everyone fell silent for a long moment.

Cheese was the one to break the silence. He stopped grooming himself and hopped onto the coffee table, bumping a few books aside in the process. He almost seemed to clear his throat before launching into an operatic "MEOW!"

Penny shook her head and blinked free of whatever somber trance held them. "This thing, it's spreading right?"