“Where do you think YOU’RE going?” Ms. Patel shrieks as she watches Kevin and Charlotte run away. “Yatagarasu, take care of lightning boy, now!”

So she thinks she's too good for me? What a bitch. Fuck her, I'll wipe the floor with the raven instead.

She runs after Kevin and Charlotte, quickly disappearing from sight. Then, from the shadows of the room, comes the bird.

"You want a piece of me, bitch?" I taunt.

It lands and perches on one of the chairs. It tilts its head back and forth at me. Is it... gonna do something? Or do I have to make the first move?

Fuck it. I'm gonna zap it! By the power of Mjölnir, I charge a thunderbolt and-

The raven opens its mouth and says, "Nevermore."

And I'm back in my old house in New Braunfels. Awwh shee-it, here we go again.

I'm playing Star Fox Assault. That one level where you go to the snow planet and have to find Pigma. My parents are arguing in the other room. I try to ignore them. I scoot closer to the TV, trying to let the game's music drown it out.

Damn it, I can still hear them. I try turning up the TV.

I hear footsteps. Very loud and angry ones.

"YOU TURN THAT TV DOWN RIGHT NOW!" Mom yells at me.

I quickly turn it down, terrified. I fucked up so bad... I hope she doesn’t…

She's overreacting , a weird voice in my head says.

"I don't give a damn WHAT that doctor said!" she lectures me. "YOU are not using that as an excuse to goof off. All you do is play your damn video games."

Well, can’t argue with that. It really is all I do. Pretty useless, huh?

But it was the only escape I had from her abuse, that one voice says.

Huh. True…

"At the rate you're going, you're going to drop out of school and become a vagabond!" she continues. "Ever see men like that? Crazy men? Usually they're black, I guess that was my first mistake!"

Now that’s just straight-up racist , the voice says.

Yeah, it is. But she is right about one thing. I am useless. My life is going nowhere. I can't make any career out of this, and I'm bad at everything else.

I started doing better at school after moving out with Dad , the voice reasons. I was never the problem. It was always her.

…Huh. You know, with the benefit of hindsight… that’s absolutely right. Things are better now.

"That’s a new low, even for you!" Dad chimes in from the other room. "You're right about one thing, though. This marriage WAS a mistake!"

My mom kinda... snaps. Her eyes bug out and she yells, "YOU'D BE NOTHING WITHOUT ME!" she shouts. "I AM THE BREADWINNER HERE, YOU PATHETIC MAN!" She then loses her shit completely, and slugs me in the head, knocking me over.

I start crying miserably on the floor...

Bruh, I didn’t even say anything! the voice says. Also, that’s child abuse.

Yeah! That's right! What the fuck was wrong with her? I didn't do anything, and my dad was right! She just didn't want us to leave, because I guess she liked having people to bully and torture! Fuck this. Can we, like, change the channel?

My dad charges into the room and shouts, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?" He grabs Mom's upper arms, stopping her from swinging them at me again.

"LET ME GO!" she shrieks, trying to wriggle free.

"I've fucking had it! We're done!" he says emphatically.

I keep lying on the floor, too afraid to move. Someone gently strokes my hair, making me feel at ease. Wait, that wasn't part of the memory...

...Because I'm actually laying in the back seat of a car. It's night time, and everything is quiet and peaceful.

And Anja is stroking my hair, so gently, so lovingly. I look up at her. She's smiling at me.

Wait a sec... Anja. She’s not here. Because she’s off saving Zoe. And now the others need my help too.

The car seems to fade, and instead I see through to that blue-hued ballroom... to that damn raven staring at me from the back of the chair... to the charged up thunderbolt I'm carrying in the palms of my hands...

Uh... fuck. What was I doing with this? Let me think... oh yeah. Cooking roasted bird for dinner tonight!

And I fire the lightning straight at it.

All the memories fade away completely, and I'm back in the moment. The moment where a crash of thunder hits the bird and knocks it clean off its perch.

"You think... I've never seen that one before?" I say.

Time to finish this. I run and find the raven on the ground, paralyzed. This will be as easy as taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me.

I smash Mjölnir into the bird. A tar-like substance spews out of it like blood as it gives one final defeated screech, and then it shatters into nothingness.

Well, so much for trying to help people. The room goes quiet after Charlotte disappears through the floor. Unsure of what else to do, I take a walk of shame back through the oddly colored chambers we briefly passed through. Inexplicably, the guests who were here before are all gone, leaving only a sense of dread and isolation.

Back in the blue-hued room, several tables and chairs are knocked over from the fight. Ruth seems to have thankfully come to, Nova is helping her back to her feet. Both of them turn to me expectantly, looking around me as if expecting to see Charlotte too, which fills me with guilt.

“She got away. With Charlotte,” I tell them.

“Got away to where?” Nova asks.

“To nowhere. She got dragged straight into the ground,” I explain.

“She must have used her shadowy powers to phase into another room,” Nova says, totally unphased. “We just need to find the passageway there.”

“I don't detect anything below us,” Ruth says bluntly.

“Well... they didn't go nowhere!” Nova replies stubbornly. “C'mon, let’s find the way down!”

Ruth sighs a tired, world-weary sigh, and then sits in one of the chairs that’s still standing.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I failed to protect Charlotte.”

“I’m sorry too,” she says. “I had no idea what strategy to use against her.”

“Maybe I should've stayed here, instead of splitting us up,” I reason. “Then maybe she’d still be here.”

“On the other hand, Nova did just fine defeating the bird on his own, and being forced to relive your sexual assault would’ve broken you,” Ruth says. “It’s not clear to me if she would still be here or not.”

Her assumption makes me angry. “I wouldn’t let it break me,” I say defiantly. “If I went back to that day, I would…”

I would what? I unclench my fists and breathe deeply.

“You’re not even close to being ready to process such a recent trauma,” Ruth chides me. “I mean, look at me, when my own trauma happened years ago.”

“You saw... the day your cousin died, didn’t you?” I ask.

She nods.

I grab an ornate wood chair from the ground, stand it back up, and sit down.

“When I look back on that moment now... I feel angry. More than I probably ever have in my life. At first, I wanted to be angry at her . But, she 's dead. There's no point. So I just stewed, angry at the world that it happened at all. I couldn’t stand being at home every day with nothing to do but dwell on my feelings. My anger would turn to shame, then turn back to anger. I have to admit, my reasons for coming here are more selfish than I let on. I felt so relieved that I'd finally get to do something, and that I'd get to direct my anger at someone else, someone real. Well, that turned out well.”

I lean my head into the back of the chair and close my eyes. “I was relieved, until I saw that vampire witch get away. That’s when I lost it. It all crashed back down on me. All I wanted was to feel good about myself again.”

“That’s not how it works,” Ruth interrupts. “You don't feel better about yourself for doing something good. You get temporary relief, and then the futility of it all sets in again. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people just like her out there. Punishing them all takes collective action, which our society is unwilling to take.”

I put my head forward, into my hands. “I don't even care about punishment. I just want it to end. I want it all to end!”

“Someday, God will end the world. Until then, we are left to suffer,” Ruth states ominously.

This sets me off again. “No. I can't take it. I can't just give up. I... I can't let myself think that way. Come on... there has to be something we can do now. I can't be a coward. I feel stupid for running away from that bird now. I even felt scared of Charlotte’s mom. Because I thought of her . I wish I could just be normal again, and trust people, and... forget this ever happened. I never wanted any of this. I never wanted someone to steal our car, I never wanted her to happen, I never wanted THIS!”

“What the fuck are you yelling about?” Nova says.

I bring my head up and see that he’s re-entered the room. I realize that I was sorta… spiraling out of control, and feel embarrassed.

“I... don't worry. I just... got worked up,” I say.

“Did you find your secret passageway?” Ruth asks sarcastically.

“Nope. There's nothing,” Nova says, frustrated.

“Funny how that works, huh?” Ruth snarks at him. “Maybe you'll listen to me the first time now, unlike everyone else in my life.”

“The fuck's gotten into you ?” Nova snaps back at her. “Are you two just, like, sitting around here being all mad, like a couple of bitches? Have you forgotten about Charlotte? She's still... somewhere! We just need to find her!”

“True... you're right!” I agree. “But... we have no idea where.”

“Well, let's put our big brains to work, and figure it out!” Nova urges.

“Sorry, I don't think I have one of those,” I say jokingly.

“Since we've gotten here, I've thought it was odd that this didn't resemble the place that Ashley described,” Ruth chimes in. “Maybe that is a clue.”

“Why would it change?” Nova wonders aloud. “That's never happened before.”

“It kinda did... remember last time when it got all snowy?” I say, thinking about the one other palace I know.

“Yeah but... that was…” Nova trails off, deep in thought.

“And I couldn't sense Ashley anymore while she was in the other realm,” Ruth says, realization sparking on her face.

“Oh, true!” Nova says, getting excited and starting to pace around. “So if Charlotte went to an alternate version... maybe that was where Ashley went when she came here!”

“The law of conservation of detail dictates that is likely,” Ruth states.

“But... how do we get there, then?” I wonder.

“Perhaps the first question should be, why did it change? What caused it?” Ruth asks.

There’s a moment of silence as we all ponder this.

“Lemme think... so,” Nova says aloud. “What makes a palace change... well, what makes it take any form? The first one was a weird, clean courtroom... and then it became that weird football field, but I think that was something different... the second one was that warzone…”

“A warzone? Why?” I ask, trying to picture it.

“Well, we were at this church, and I guess the people there thought that the town was kinda like a warzone, because of culture wars, like how some people don't like the gays and abortion and marijuana and other bullshit. And then, the third one was that weird jungle.”

Ruth gasps. “Wait! You just said the answer!”

“I did?” Nova says, confused.

“You asked, what gives a palace its form? And then you answered: the cognition of the owner or owners.” Ruth states.

“Oh yeah. Right!” Nova says, nodding and looking impressed.

“And so, logically, if a palace changes, the owner's cognition must have changed too." Ruth continues.

“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” I say. “But what caused the change?”

“Ashley came in before she knew that we were here,” Ruth reasons. “Perhaps it was the knowledge that we were coming to infiltrate which caused her to adopt this Prince Prospero visage.”

“So... it'll go back if she thinks we left?” Nova guesses.

“It’s worth a shot,” I say.

“The question then becomes, how to make her believe we left without really leaving?” Ruth states.

This causes us to pause again.

And now it’s time to come up with a plan once again. This time, without Ashley and Anja, as they’re… preoccupied. How are we gonna do this…?