Archive of Our Own

At first, you don’t even notice him. Amidst the whirlwind of excitement around you, the cheering crowd, the constellation of flashing bulbs, the line of Darkners onstage all eager to speak to you and get your autograph and shake your hand, he becomes just another face, just another voice lost in the chorus.

“Kris, luv. Let’s catch up in the green room,” he says.

But you barely register that he’s speaking to you or even what he looks like. There’s so much to take in, your eyes and ears feel like they’re going to spill over. And the sight of Rouxls Kaard standing nearby—as well as the accompanying wave of exasperation you feel—is enough to flush him from your headspace entirely.

And then there’s the board. Susie’s laughter. Ralsei’s bleats of frustration. The puzzles. The battles. The incredulity as you find yourself restarting the cooking challenge once, twice, three times. The apprehension you feel as your score is totaled on the board, the numbers ticking upward with suspenseful timing, before your rank finally appears in bright pixels for all to see: S-RANK. It’s all so engrossing, so (Dare you say it?) fun, that in spite of yourself, everything else is driven back into the dustiest corners of your mind.

Including him. By the time you see him again in the green room, you’ve completely forgotten that you saw him once already.

He isn’t the first thing at the concession stand to catch your eye. Instead, your attention is drawn to the wrapped present with the yellow bow standing beside him. It’s the present that brings you to him, the base hope that lures all children to the proximity of adults, that the enticing prize in their possession might just be for them.

In this case, it is.

“Kris! Bang-up job getting S-Rank, luv! For that, a little prize…”

Once you have the gift in your hands, you see that the bright bow on top is just for show. The lid of the box pops off cleanly, no unwrapping required. Inside is a pink ribbon. You hear Susie huff in disgust. Ralsei, on the other hand, has grown very still. You look up to meet his gaze, and he quickly looks away. You don’t know why Ralsei feels like he has to play casual. If he wants the ribbon so badly, he should just say so.

You tie the ribbon onto his ear and, ignoring the blush on his cheeks. Between the pink ribbon on his ear and the Dealmaker perched on his forehead, the top of Ralsei's head is looking very flamboyant. You hand the empty box back to the bartender, who takes it without a word. Your expression, as usual, is blank as you pass him the box, and, while his smile stays in place, you see his brow furrow slightly in response to your stoicism, the lack of recognition in your face.

“Oi, Kris, luv! It’s me, Ramb!” he says, as if that’s a name that means anything to you. “You and your brother took me home from the Library!”

You have no idea what he’s talking about, but he sounds so excited to talk to you that you find yourself wracking your brain, trying to remember. His whiskered face, white like a mask, resembles a power outlet, like those of the Plugboys back in Cyber Field, and that’s what makes you remember the brick-like power strip that you pulled from the metal cabinet in the computer lab. You don’t remember how old you were or why you even wanted it, but you do remember wrapping the thick cord around your wrist like a prehensile tail as you carried it away. You remember snaking it back and forth across the carpet as though it were crawling through the grass, running it over your brother’s shoulder and head as though it were a train climbing a hill, pretending to feed it by sticking straightened paper clips into the holes. You remember how angry your mother had been when she finally caught you doing that, snatching the power strip from your hands and lecturing you for over three hours (you kept track via the clock on the wall) on the dangers of sticking anything into an electrical outlet, especially metal.

You haven’t thought about that in years. Why didn’t your mother ever take it back to the Library? She must not have known it came from there, must have assumed it originally belonged to the household and she had simply forgotten.

You suddenly remember the How to Draw Dragons book upstairs with a pang of regret. Why, oh why, didn’t you bring it downstairs? Then again, if you had, Susie might have seen it. The thought is mortifying. Perhaps it’s for the best that it never made it downstairs after all.

Meanwhile, Ramb is still talking, but your thoughts are too preoccupied with the saucy dragon on the cover of that book to absorb anything he’s saying to you. You give him a cursory wave as you step away from the counter, your head peopled with dragons with plunging necklines, as it so often is. As you turn away, the flashing limbs on the screen of the fighting game Elnina is playing catch your eye, and you wander over in her direction, leaving Ramb behind.

The next time you see him is in the S-Rank dressing room. After hearing the words, “luxury facilities” and learning that you wouldn’t have been allowed in without S-Rank, you expected something really fancy, maybe with free adult beverages or toilets with prewarmed seats. Instead, you find yourself facing a rundown hall of changing rooms with stained curtains and cracked walls. Age and neglect have bleached every surface of color, and you feel your nose burning with some sort of contaminant (Dust, mold, asbestos?) as you step inside. It looks like the seedy underbelly of some shameful operation, the type of place where swear words would be written on the mirrors with lipstick. Except, there are no mirrors, just a pair of corkboards bearing notes with faded letters that look like they were pinned years ago.

After wandering to the right and getting stuck by a cactus, you drift back to the entrance and are surprised to see Ramb lurking in front of a large pair of rickety double doors. He brightens as you approach. Clearly, he’s been waiting for you.

“Ah, Kris,” he says, “Look at you, a dressing room big shot! Cheers, cheers…”

You’re not sure what to make of the game, the one he claims is the “original.” It seems straightforward enough. Find the sword, kill the enemies to get stronger. You suppose the kind of open-world experience it sounded like Ramb was describing would be a little too advanced for this era of gaming, where simply having a large map to explore counted as innovative. But the more you play, the more you find yourself strangely unsettled by the game. The lack of text makes you miss the chattering NPCs of Tenna’s build, and the monsters look a little too familiar for your comfort. The starter enemy with the red eyes bears an uncanny resemblance to your mother, and the flashing flower enemies—the ones who give you the most trouble—look like the golden flower in the back room of your dad’s flower shop. Just the memory of how that room looked the last time you saw it, with the dust and spilled soil crunching under your shoes, is enough to make you squirm. You wish Ramb had at least thought to put a chair in here, and you didn’t have to play the whole thing standing there in your armor, feeling oddly dwarfed by the massive screen. You used to dream about playing Dragon Blazers or Super Smashing Fighters on a giant screen like this, but now that you’re here, you find yourself hoping that the experience will be over quickly.

Still, being able to cut through obstacles like trees and cactuses is pretty cathartic. With your LV maxed out, you cut into the formerly impenetrable wall of palm trees lining the path. Following your character, the game scrolls up onto a screen covered with nothing but palm trees tiled tightly together, and you cleave a path through the mass, forcing your way through screen after screen of nothing but palm trees, wondering how far the game will let you push before something breaks, when a treasure chest suddenly scrolls onto the screen, hemmed in on all sides by palm trees. You cut your way to the box and open it.

Flavor text appears on the screen.

YOU GOT THE ICE KEY.

Suddenly, something soft drops onto your shoulder. You jump and whirl around to face the intruder by your side.

It’s Ramb. You hadn’t heard a footstep, and yet his face is less than a foot from yours. The empty, dark hollows of his eyes don’t lend themselves easily to expression, and yet you can see the anxiety there.

“Kris, get a move on!” he’s saying. “There’s somebody backstage!”

You unplug the controller and follow him. Between the two of you, your legs are much longer, and you find you only have to take one step for every four of his. He leads you from the room as far as his stubby limbs can manage, whispering frantically.

“I’m so sorry, luv,” he says. “I thought we were alone back here, but I heard someone shuffling about. Can’t be too careful, eh?”

You ask if it was Tenna.

“No,” says Ramb. By now, the two of you are back on the stage. “Not him. He did come by earlier, but I was able to drive him off. This is someone else. Someone smaller.”

You wonder aloud if it’s the person who dropped the odd controller you picked up off the stage floor. Ramb turns to face you, frowning. “What controller?” he asks.

You show him the controller still in your hands, the one with the garish pink and yellow buttons. Ramb’s frown deepens as he looks down at it. “That’s not the one that I plugged in,” he says. “Just what are they playing at?”

A ring of metal, up above, and your head whips upward in sync with Ramb’s.

“They must be up on the catwalk!” he exclaims. Sure enough, you can see a metal walkway slowly creaking back and forth over your heads, reverberating with the pressure of a hidden footstep.

Another ring, this one further down, toward the opposite end of the stage. Behind the curtain at the side of the stage, the one that theatre kids like Catty would call a “leg,” you see the silhouette of a spiral staircase winding up into the shadowy space above. Whoever’s up there will have to come down that staircase.

You draw your sword and feel Ramb squeeze your forearm. “Good on yer, Kris,” he says, which you suppose means he approves.

Ramb stays behind as you slowly make your way across the stage with the sword of cactus needles gripped in your hands. As you pass the entrance to the dressing room, you pause and turn your head in the direction of the double doors, musing. Would it be better to grab Susie and Ralsei before going after a potential enemy?

Ramb seems to have guessed what you’re thinking because you hear him hiss impatiently. “Never mind them!” he says. “You’re strong enough to take anyone on your own, aren't you, luv?”

You have your doubts, but even so, Ramb’s vote of confidence keeps you moving across the stage. You figure you don’t have time to run all the way back to the green room and here again anyhow. If you try it, the intruder could get away.

As your eyes adjust to the light, the formerly hazy edges of the spiral staircase surface into sharper clarity. You can see there’s no one on it. Your gaze moves upward to the catwalk, and sure enough, you can make out a blob of…something standing on the latticework of metal above. The shadows clouding the upper level serve to veil the features of the silhouette over your head. You can’t say what shape or even size it is. The only thing you can perceive is that it’s definitely there, above you, causing the catwalk to shiver with the imperceptible inner motion all living things carry, even when holding completely still.

Suddenly, with the speed of a dark liquid sluicing from the spout of a kettle, the shadow above darts to the end of the catwalk and pours itself down the winding stairs. As soon as it steps from the bottom steps to the stage floor, it races past you, too fast for your eye to follow, and your hair lifts from your neck with the speed of its passage. You hear the rush as it parts the air behind you, a scraping sound on the wood below your feet like claws retreating further, further behind, racing in the direction from which you just came...

And then you hear someone yelp.

You whirl on the spot and see Ramb doubled over in pain, the shadow of his body haloed by the light from the game room just beyond.

He’s alone. You sheathe your sword and run back over to him. His shoulders are hunched, and his small, pawlike hands are pressed to his eyes. Between his upraised hands and the floppy ears falling over his downturned brow, you can’t make out his face at all, though you think you can hear him swearing under his breath.

At the sound of your approaching footsteps, one of his ears lifts briefly. “Is that you, luv?” he calls.

You confirm that it is.

“You didn’t happen to see who it was, did you?” His voice is muffled slightly by his arms.

You answer in the negative. You hear him huff in irritation.

“Brilliant,” he mutters sarcastically. “Some watchdog I turned out to be, eh?” He chuckles ruefully, but he still doesn’t move his hands.

You ask him if he’s alright.

“Yeah, yeah! 'Course!” He tries to sound chipper, but that’s not easy to do with his arms blocking his mouth. “Just smashing, luv! Only…I think I’ve got something in my eye. Think you could take a look…?”

He finally lowers his hands and lifts his face toward you. You recoil and take a step back. There’s a huge piece of glass sticking out of Ramb’s left eye socket. Its pointed edge thrusts itself into the air from within the dark slot of Ramb’s eye. You’re not sure how big the whole piece is or what size portion is lodged in the interior of Ramb’s skull. A third? Half? More?

“Is it bad?” Ramb asks worriedly.

You’re not sure how to answer. This glass shard… You’ve seen its kind before. The glass is so fine, so clear and clean, you can’t really see its solid surface. You can only detect its edges by the reflection winking off its points in the low light, by the translucent shadow cast over Ramb’s face. The jagged fragment in his eye looks just like the ones that clinked to the floor of the carousel in the dungeon and the rusted tile of Queen’s basement.

It is, undoubtedly, a Shadow Crystal.

“Well, don’t leave me twistin’ in the wind!” Ramb protests. “What is it?”

Not wanting to alarm him, you tell Ramb it’s a piece of glass. Ramb’s mouth drops open.

“A wot?” he asks bewildered. He reaches up a paw and gingerly touches the crystal. Just the smallest twitch of the shard in his socket is enough to make him wince. “Blimey, that stings! Kris, do you think you could get it out?”

You step closer to Ramb, and he squeezes his uninjured eye shut as you reach for the Shadow Crystal. You tilt Ramb’s chin toward the relatively bright light coming from the game room. He sucks in a pained breath but doesn’t move away from your hand. You wish you had a pair of tweezers or something. The play of light and shadow around the crystal’s invisible form makes it difficult to tell where precisely its edges begin or end. You find yourself groping for it with your fingers, carefully trying to feel for it without pricking yourself or hurting Ramb any further.

However, each time you manage to touch the crystal, it seems to slide backwards, slipping further into Ramb’s eye. With mounting urgency, you grope for the crystal, your fingers pinching frantically at the air just above Ramb’s face in their attempt to finally take hold of it, but it’s like trying to pinch a stream of water. Again and again, with absurd persistence, the Shadow Crystal eludes your grasp, and the shadow it casts shrinks before your eyes as it burrows deeper and deeper inside. It’s ridiculous that you can’t get it, it shouldn’t be this difficult just to grab it, and yet it slips away from your every touch, as though determined to burrow into Ramb’s head.

Only the tip barely crests the top layer of the slot now, the rest of the crystal thrust deep into Ramb’s head like the load of an iceberg below the surface of an arctic ocean. You desperately scratch at the tip, trying to push it down and thus force it to act as a lever, dragging the rest of the crystal out of the hole. Instead, your clumsy finger provides the final push, and the Shadow Crystal disappears into Ramb’s skull.

You stare, horrified, as Ramb rubs at his afflicted left eye with one of his paws.

“I think you got it,” he murmurs. Both of his eyes are closed as he rubs at them, so he can’t see your mortified expression. “I can’t feel it now. Thanks, luv. Knew I could count on you.”

He opens his eyes and looks at you reassuringly. “What’s the matter, Kris? You still worried about whoever’s prowlin’ around? Well, don’t you fret, luv. They’re bound to show their face sooner or later. Meantime, we’d best get back to the green room, eh?”

And then he’s off through the double doors, and you’re left standing there with this creeping feeling, like you’ve just signed a death warrant. But whose?

Not knowing what else to do, you follow where Ramb led and leave the darkened stage behind.

Susie and Ralsei are both waiting for you as you step back into the green room.

“Welcome back!” Ralsei begins to say, but then he stops when he sees the look on your face. “Kris? What’s wrong?”

You’re not sure how to tell them. Giving the full story of what you found back there and what happened might take a while. You hesitantly tell them that there was an accident backstage. This does not reassure them.

“Whadya mean?” asks Susie. “What kind of accident?”

“Is anyone hurt?” asks Ralsei.

You nod and tell them to keep an eye on Ramb. Susie frowns.

“Who’s Ramb?” she asks, puzzled.

“Um, he’s the bartender, Susie. We met him,” Ralsei explains patiently.

Susie looks annoyed. Or maybe she’s just embarrassed. “Well, how was I supposed to remember that?” she fumes.

”It’s written above the counter. See?” Ralsei nods in the direction of the bar. You and Susie look. Sure enough, the letters R-A-M-B are written on the awning above the bar, flanked on each side by stars.

Susie’s cheeks flush red. “I knew that!” she lies. You snicker to hide the fact that you didn’t notice either.

You take a moment to cast an appraising glance at Ramb himself. He looks exactly as he did before, calmly polishing a glass with downturned eyes, the sockets clear of any debris. You could almost believe he never stepped away from that spot.

“He looks fine!” says Susie, and you feel just a touch of relief that she can’t detect anything amiss. “Let’s just go!”

And so you lead them through the door to the right of the S-Rank room, allowing yourself to hope that Ramb will stay fine long enough for you to retrieve the crystal later. Once you’re back in the Light World, perhaps you could find a screwdriver and open him up, pull out the crystal, and close him again. No harm done.

There are plenty of amusements to be found behind this new door. There are games to play, a ball machine to blow your Points on, a water cooler to fight. You take a minute to calm a sobbing Lanino, who douses the floor in an impressive cascade of tears. Once again, in all the excitement, you allow yourself to forget poor Ramb and his predicament. That is, until you return to the green room and cast a glance in his direction. You are dismayed to see him with his head bent over the counter and his paws rubbing at his temples.

With a sinking feeling, you lead Susie and Ralsei back toward the bar. Just as before, Ramb’s ear lifts at the sound of your approaching footsteps, and he practically throws himself into an upright posture with the speed of a soldier awaiting a commanding officer. You half-expect him to throw up a salute as you draw near.

“Kris, luv!” he calls out cheerfully. Perhaps too cheerfully. “What can ol’ Ramb do for you? You lookin’ to spend your Points?”

You actually already spent all your Points on the ball machine. You regret it a little. You have no idea where you’re supposed to put that gold statue. You instead ask Ramb how he’s doing. He looks taken aback for just a moment before quickly recovering. “Me? Why, I’m right as rain, Kris! Right as rain!”

“You sure?” Susie asks. “You were looking kind of rough before we walked over.”

“Ah. You saw that, did you?” Ramb’s face falls just a little. “So, maybe I’ve got a bit of a headache. But we all have our off days, eh?” Ramb winks at you. “Don’t you worry. No one will ever say ol’ Ramb fell down on the job.”

Susie looks decidedly unimpressed. “Uh, what job?” she asks. “You’re not really doing anything back here. We can’t even buy anything from you.”

“Susie! That’s not very polite!” Ralsei protests, but for some reason, Ramb’s expression becomes infuriatingly smug.

“Oh, ho! Is that what you think? Well, you’re not the first to say so, poppet, but that’s only because you don’t understand how things really work around here.” (“Poppet?” Susie repeats, confused.) “Fact is, this place would fall apart without me.”

“Really.” The note of extreme skepticism in Susie’s voice is not lost on you.

“Really,” Ramb parrots back. You can’t help but notice he has to make his voice deeper to try and mimic Susie. “Honestly, you could say I’m the central cog in this whole blasted operation!”

“Oh, yeah?” Susie retorts. “Well, what about that Mike guy? He seems pretty important.”

You didn’t think it was possible, but Ramb manages to look even more smug than he did before. The adjective "punchable" seems appropriate. “Oh, yes. Mike,” he says. “Good ol’ Mike. Quite a reliable sort, isn’t he, that Mike. However would poor Tenna get on without him?”

Ramb chuckles to himself, and Susie groans.

“Ugh! Kris, forget this guy!”

Now hold on. You ask Ramb what he knows about Mike. Ramb flashes that smug grin in your direction. You’re reminded strongly of Berdly. It is not a flattering comparison.

“Oh, why spoil the surprise?” says Ramb coyly. “I’m sure you’ll find out for yourself soon enough. Everyone else has.”

He’s still chuckling as you lead your friends away from the counter. Seems like Ramb is doing just fine. No sense in waiting around here for something to change. You’d better get back to the show.

You know Tenna is trying, but despite his best efforts, you just can’t shake the thought of Ramb. You already had a lot on your mind, but back on the first board, the puzzles, the fights, the egg cartoons and tubes of yogurt flying through the air, were enough to pull you into the present moment and allow you to lose yourself in a simple game night with friends. But now, no matter what the game throws at you, you can feel Ramb niggling at the back of your mind, like the reminder of a chore that you know you’re prolonging. Is he still okay? Has he realized yet what’s inside him, ticking away like a bomb? No, stop thinking like that. There’s no reason to think he isn’t fine. After all, you’ve never really seen a Shadow Crystal actually do anything. It’s possible they don’t do anything, that insane, powerful people just have them, like a badge or something. No reason to think Ramb will go insane as well.

Except, there was that one time, just before you went up the stairs that led out of Queen’s basement. You hadn’t really gotten the chance to get a good look at the first Shadow Crystal before Seam had taken it from you, so, once you’d had the chance to calm down a little, you’d pulled the crystal from your pocket and held it before your eye, trying to get a good look at it. For a moment, the reflection off its invisible surface flashed between your thumb and forefinger, like a thread of lightning strung between your digits, and then you saw it. It was as though a jagged hole had abruptly opened in the air before your gaze, like a sudden tear in old fabric. Through the hole in space, tipped at each end by your fingers, you saw the blue flickering of a monitor and, just beyond, bright pinpricks in many colors against a backdrop of velvet blackness. It wasn’t the night sky studded with stars you were seeing, it was the open doorway into the server room. You were looking at the computer lab.

As soon as the realization had hit you, the impossibly clear surface of the gemstone in your hand had winked again in the low light, and the computer lab was gone. Once again, there was nothing in your hand but glass.

But you had seen it.

You can feel Tenna’s gaze on you as you play. He doesn’t turn his head; his screen is still oriented toward the much larger one in front of you. But you can feel his sight burrowing into you all the same. He’s so large that you can feel him shifting on the couch, crossing and recrossing his legs, fidgeting with his tie. He’s unsettled. Is it you that’s unsettling him? Can he tell that you’re distracted, that your thoughts are elsewhere? Does he see that as a failure?

It’s almost a relief whenever he gets up to take a call, and even more of a relief when he sits back down, apologizing briefly for his absence in the same upbeat tone he’s been using throughout the show. If something were going on with Ramb, Tenna would surely notice. Surely, if something catastrophic were happening in the green room, Tenna would give some sign that all was not well, would perhaps pull you and your friends away to deal with the issue. It isn’t possible that everything would keep rolling along obliviously if Ramb were in crisis.

Right?

By the time you return to the green room, your friends are already impatient to move on. But while they’re anxious to get to the Dark Fountain, you’re anxious for a different reason. You hastily make your way past the vending machine, so you can get a good look at where Ramb stands behind the counter.

It seems that Ramb has finally finished drying that drinking glass. Instead, there’s a steel shaker in his hands. You can hear the liquid sloshing as he pumps it vigorously in the air. There are other implements on the counter. A small bowl of lime slices. A row of thoroughly dried drink glasses. A white dish of salt. As you watch, Ramb slides one of the glasses closer, takes a slice of lime, and runs it all around the rim of a glass in a single, clean motion. He then tilts the glass upside down onto the plate of salt and flips it back up, leaving a glittering ring of salt crystals around the edge of the glass. His movements are quick and practiced; his usual sheepish smile has been replaced with a serious look of pure concentration. It’s mesmerizing to watch.

Ramb pours the contents of the shaker into the salted glass and sticks the lime onto the edge of the glass. He stands looking down at the finished drink for just a moment before he picks it up, tilts his head back, and empties the entire thing into his own mouth. You can hear him gulping deeply. You once saw Dess do the same thing with a shot glass while you were spying on one of your brother’s dates. It had looked cool when she did it (Your brother’s attempt to imitate her was less successful and involved a lot of agonized snorting), but the sight of Ramb finishing a drink by himself doesn’t fill you with the same sense of awe. In fact, you feel a little disgusted.

The Pippins standing by the counter chuckles. “Hitting the sauce again, eh, Ramb?” he taunts.

“Leave me alone. I feel bloody awful,” you hear Ramb mutter back. His black eyes are narrow as he pulls a bottle from beneath the counter and begins to refill the shaker.

“No kidding! You’d probably feel a lot better if you tried a solid lunch once in a while, nyuk nyuk!” The Pippins curls down his middle finger, sticks out his thumb and pinky, and pantomimes tilting a glass into his face. Then he laughs.

“Bugger off,” Ramb grumbles. As you begin to approach the counter, you see Ramb lift the bottle away from the now refilled shaker and pop the lip into his own mouth.

Ramb’s eyes flutter closed as he guzzles directly from the bottle. They don’t open again until you’re right at the counter. As soon as he sees you standing there with a frown of concern, you have only a moment to take in the sight of his eyes widening in shock before he sprays a mouthful of booze directly into your face. You’re doused from your chin to your hairline in the lukewarm contents of Ramb’s mouth.

Your eyes are burning. “Nice going, Ramb,” you hear the Pippins say flatly. Meanwhile, Susie is laughing uproariously. “Whoa, gross!” she exclaims. “He really got you!”

“Kris!” Ramb’s voice is caught between coughing and crying out your name. “I’m so sorry, luv!” Your vision is blurry, but you can barely make out a Ramb-colored blur holding something out to your face. You feel a scratchy terry cloth being rubbed vigorously across your brow and eyelids. You snatch the rag from Ramb’s hand and dry your face yourself as your ears fill with the frantic sound of Ramb’s apologies.

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know you were there. I'm so sorry you had to see that! Oh, Kris, luv, why did you have to sneak up on me like that!? I’ll make it up to you! I promise!”

You irritably tell Ramb that it’s fine. You wish he would shut up already. Thankfully, you soon feel Ralsei’s furry paws on your elbow. There’s a green flash, and the stinging pain in your eyeballs vanishes.

You breathe a sigh of relief and hold the wet rag back out to Ramb. He takes it, grinning meekly. Now that your vision is clear, you can see his cheeks burning with embarrassment. He drops the rag into the sink just below the counter, twists one of the knobs beside the faucet, and runs water over his hands. He gathers a small pool in his paws before splashing the liquid over his face. You feel flecks of cool water on your cheek. He turns to cough one last time into his sleeve.

You ask him if he’s okay. Not because you’re worried but as an automatic response to the sound of the cough.

You’re not fully prepared to see him sigh. “I’ll be honest, luv, I’ve felt better. My poor head’s been poundin’ ever since that little mishap backstage.”

“Oh, that’s right. Kris said something about that,” muses Ralsei. (Susie has yet to fully recover from her earlier hysterics.) “What exactly happened back there?”

“Oh, nothin’ to concern yourself with, guv,” says Ramb, trying to sound cheerful. (“Guv?” Susie repeats, bewildered.) “Just took a little spill is all.” Ramb winks and then winces. “It wouldn’t be so bad except…the lights in here are so bright, and every time I close my eyes, I see all these bloomin’ colours, like the inside of my head’s all lit up.”

That sounds familiar. You remember the days when Mr. Holiday explained that you and Noelle would have to play outside without Dess because Dess was sick with a terrible headache. The first time it had happened, you had been startled to see Dess, who normally loved noise music and the neon glare of the stage lights on TV, lying silently in her room with all the lights off. It usually only took a day before Dess was back to her old self, strumming her guitar and laughing at the top of her lungs without a care in the world, but she’d said that on the days when her head pounded, every slight noise or glint of light was like a knife being thrust behind her eyes. She said that sometimes, she could tell a “bad day” was coming on by the aura she saw when she closed her eyes, a streak of flashing psychedelic colors cutting across her vision.

You suggest something to Ramb. His ears perk with interest.

“A migraine?” he echoes back, frowning. “Is that what it is? Funny, I’ve never had one of those. Though, now that you mention it, I suppose I would call it an ‘aura.’” He rubs at his eyes. “I wish there was a way to shut it off. All that pink and yellow burning into my eyes like a neon sign…”

You feel something in your stomach twist. Why did it have to be those colors?

Ralsei steps forward. “Mr. Ramb, I don’t know if it would help, but I could try to heal you, if you want.”

Ramb holds up a paw in a gesture of refusal. “No, that’s quite alright, guv. I can manage.”

“Really, it’s no trouble at all!” says Ralsei reassuringly. “It would only take a second.”

“I already told you, I’m fine.” Are you imagining it, or has an edge crept into Ramb’s voice? “Go on, enjoy yourselves! I’m alright!”

“Well…” Ralsei says hesitatingly, “if you don’t want to be healed, maybe you should at least take a break?”

Suddenly, Ramb’s fist slams down onto the counter. The glasses lined along the counter rattle. “I said I’m fine, dammit!” Ramb snaps.

As if in response to Ramb’s outburst, the yellow lights in the ceiling suddenly surge in brightness and begin to flicker erratically. The illumination in the room seems to shudder in time with the rapid interplay between brightness and shade within each bulb. You’re forced to squint as the fluttering glare threatens to brand itself onto the inside of your eyeballs. Meanwhile, the pixel mosaics of colorful racecars and outlandishly dressed street brawlers displayed on each of the room’s televisions begin to scroll across their screens like the revolving wheel of a zoetrope, the car tires and the feet of the karate masters cascading from the tops of the screens down to the bottom and back to the top again.

It only lasts for a second, and then it’s over. The lights resume their steady brightness. The pixelated shapes stop scrolling.

Ramb takes a shaky step back from the counter. “Oh, no…” he gasps.

Meanwhile, a chorus of groans has risen throughout the room. You see Elnina poke her head over the top of the couch where she sits next to Rouxls Kaard. “Hey, Ramb, what’s the deal!?” she asks sharply, her glare mirrored by Lanino. (Rouxls, his blue head poking up between them, mostly just looks confused.)

Before Ramb can answer, the Pippins standing by the counter sighs and shakes his head. “What a disaster,” he mutters under his breath.

Ramb wrings his hands together fretfully. “I… I…” he stammers.

A phone rings. The sound makes you jump. Ramb’s long, floppy ears jerk as though yanked up by a string, and he winces in pain. The ringing saws through the air. All eyes are on Ramb.

There’s no phone in sight. You’re still wondering where the sound is coming from when Ramb snatches at the receiver underneath the counter, cutting off its second ring. The tightly spiraled cord warbles in the air as he clasps the receiver to the side of his head. His smile is very, very nervous. “Hullo!” he says loudly. “No, there’s nothing wrong! We’re all tickety-boo in here!”

“Tickety-boo?” Susie sounds dumbfounded. Meanwhile, you can faintly hear a voice hollering from within the receiver. You can’t be sure, but it sounds an awful lot like…

“Yes, Mr. Tenna, I know,” Ramb is saying. “There's nothing wrong with the power, sir! Just a flicker! Nothing to worry about! Yes, I’m very sorry, sir! It won’t happen again! Right, cheerio!”

As soon as he’s hung up the phone, Ramb collapses onto the counter with a groan, his ears flopping over his arms as they enfold his head. He doesn’t raise his head again as the three of you awkwardly step away from the counter.

As soon as you’ve put some distance between you and the concession stand, Susie pulls you aside. “Okay, seriously, what happened to that guy backstage? He’s kind of freaking me out.”

You decide it’s best if you come clean. Well, clean enough. You lightly skip over the game Ramb set up for you backstage before telling Susie and Ralsei about the Shadow Crystal. Both of their jaws drop.

“You mean it’s still in his head!?” Susie exclaims incredulously. “Why the hell didn’t you say something sooner!?”

You fiercely shush Susie. The three of you cast a nervous glance over your shoulders at Ramb, who still hasn’t lifted his head from the counter, before huddling together again.

“Well, what do we do now?” Susie whispers. Her whispering strikes you as needlessly loud, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What’s going to happen to him?”

Susie looks pointedly at Ralsei, but he only casts his eyes down.

“I don’t know…” Ralsei admits. “I don’t really know anything about Shadow Crystals. It would be better if Seam were here…”

“Should we try to get it out of him, at least?” Susie casts a brief glance at Ramb before turning back to you. “We got the last two after a fight, right? His guard’s down, I bet we could take him now.”

“Now, hold on, Susie!” whispers Ralsei anxiously. “Spamton and Jevil didn’t attack us because of the Shadow Crystals! They had…other…motives.”

Susie gives Ralsei a funny look. “You sure?” she says. “‘Cause I’m pretty sure Jevil just attacked us for fun.”

“Okay, well, even so…” Ralsei begins, “my point was that Mr. Ramb hasn’t threatened us at all yet. If we all just attack him now, how would that look?”

Susie deflates a little. “Nah, you’re right,” she admits. “He’ll think we’re just beating him up for no reason.” She turns to you. “Maybe if we explain why we’re beating him up…?”

You tell Ralsei that if he’s got a better idea, he’d better say something fast.

“Um, me?” Ralsei blinks in surprise. A slight movement at the concession stand attracts your attention. The three of you turn to see Ramb finally lift his head from the counter. You watch as he presses a hand to his brow, the corners of his mouth pulled into a tight frown.

“Kris…” Ralsei begins, still looking at Ramb, “you think he’ll still set up that game for you?”

Will he? Honestly, in his current condition, you’re not sure. Suddenly, Ramb lowers his hand and locks eyes with you. You can’t explain exactly why, but seeing the look in his eyes instantly clears all doubt.

You turn back to Ralsei and nod.

“Okay,” says Ralsei. “In that case, I think it’s best if you go backstage with him again. That way, if he’s dangerous, you can keep an eye on him somewhere where he’s away from everyone else. We should probably try to avoid alarming him if we can.

“And, Kris?” Ralsei looks at you with a determined expression. “If things do get dangerous, just call us, and we’ll be there.”

You look over at Susie. She doesn’t seem convinced. But when she sees you looking, she flashes a fanged grin.

“Twenty minutes,” she says. “I’m giving you twenty minutes. If you’re not back by then, I’m tearing the door down.”

You thank Susie and head for the door marked with the giant “S.” You make sure Ramb is watching before you step through.

Sure enough, by the time you reach the dressing room, Ramb is back there waiting for you. His smile is sheepish as you approach.

“Oi, Kris. You alright?” he says. “Sorry about that, er, little outburst back there. Somehow, I’ve come over all peculiar.” He sighs. “What a pig’s ear this has turned out to be, eh? Here I was, hopin’ to show you a nice time, and instead all I’ve done is make trouble for you. Sorry, luv. It wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

You feel a twinge of guilt. You tell Ramb that you know he’s trying his best, and you appreciate the effort. Ramb is startled by your words.

“Kris? Why, that’s…lovely of you to say, but…” Ramb fretfully wrings his hands together. “If you don’t mind me sayin’, luv, I didn’t expect to hear that sort of thing from you.”

Ramb takes a moment to peer quizzically into your face, as though puzzled by something there. “Kris,” he finally sighs, “I’ll be honest, I never…really looked forward to seeing you get older. Growing up, it changes people.”

Ramb slides out of the way of the double doors leading backstage and winks at you. “Try not to grow up too much, alright, luv?” he says.

He turns his face away. You suppose there’s nothing left to do but head backstage.

The second part of the game is even worse than the first, and you feel rattled as you step back into the dressing room. The thought of whatever sinister change may have come over Ramb in your absence does nothing to settle your nerves, but as you glance over to spot where you left him waiting, the sight that greets you isn’t exactly bone-chilling. Ramb’s face is turned away from you, his slight frown contrasting oddly with the self-satisfied smirk of the Rabbick currently crawling all over him. Actually, “crawling” is probably the wrong word, since crawling requires limbs. It’s more like “sliding.” The Rabbick is sliding all over Ramb, across his brow, around his torso, in and out of his apron pocket, with an audible squeaking sound. It reminds you of those old soap commercials you used to see on T.V., how the sponge would slide across the bathtub or the shower tile without a hand to propel it.

You ask the Rabbick what she’s doing.

“Dusting!” she announces proudly. She comes to a stop on his shoulder and beams at you. “Ramb’s dusty, so I’m helping!”

“Everything in here’s bloody dusty,” Ramb mutters irritably. “Whatchu botherin’ me for?”

In response, the Rabbick slides up Ramb’s cheek and starts to slip into his ear. Only then does he shake her out, grimacing. “Oi! Leave it out!” he snaps.

The Rabbick lands on the floor with a harmless bounce and swivels around your ankles. She looks up at Ramb and pouts. “But I’m not done!” she protests. “Your insides are still dirty!”

That gives you an idea. You ask the Rabbick if she can fit inside Ramb’s eye socket. Her face lights up. “Of course I can!” she says.

You tell her to go ahead and clean the inside of Ramb’s head. You hear the Pippins standing on the other side of the vending machine snort.

“Good luck,” he says sarcastically. “Heaven only knows what you’ll find in there.”

Meanwhile, Ramb looks confused. “Kris?”

You tell Ramb you think the Rabbick might be able to help with his headache. Ramb looks skeptical, but he manages a weak smile.

“Well…if you think so, Kris,” he says.

You pick up the Rabbick and stick her on his forehead. She quickly slides toward the upper corner of his left eye socket. Her round, fluffy body is only stuck in the slot for a moment before she disappears inside. Ramb’s face twitches, and he sneezes into his sleeve. You’re not sure how he accomplishes this with no nose.

You loudly tell the Rabbick to go ahead and dump out whatever she finds in there. “Ew, no!” you hear the Pippins laugh. “We don’t want all that mess out here!”

You turn and shoot the Pippins a glare. His face falls, and he takes a nervous step back.

You return your attention to Ramb and ask him how he’s doing. His face is still twitching.

“It… It feels peculiar,” he says. “I’m not sure this is… Ah!”

His exclamation is accompanied by a plume of dust erupting from his left eye. You hear a noise of disgust from the Pippins. Ramb smiles apologetically.

“Well,” he begins, “I suppose I am overdo for a… AUGH!”

Ramb’s entire body jolts violently as his face twists in pain. He doubles over, clutching his head between his hands. At the same moment, you hear a high-pitched cry echo from inside his head. There’s a moment of awful suspense, where the only motion comes from Ramb’s trembling shoulders, before the Rabbick plops out onto the floor with her ears folded down and tears in her eyes.

“Something cut me!” she wails. Sure enough, as she swivels away from Ramb, you see a visible tear in her side.

Feeling guilty, you lay a Lancer cookie on the floor in front of her. She nibbles at it tearfully. “Thanks, Kris,” she sniffs.

You tell Ramb to talk to you. What’s going on with him?

“I… I dunno,” says Ramb, his voice muffled. “For just a moment, it felt like…something sharp was lodged in my brain.” Ramb starts to raise his head. “Kris, what-?”

But you never find out what Ramb was about to say because he suddenly cuts himself off with a piercing scream. He throws himself back against the wall, his eyes wide with terror. Even though he’s already wedged into the corner, his feet continue to kick and scrape desperately across the floor, as though determined to gain every spare centimeter of distance between himself and whatever caused him to recoil in horror.

Your hand flies to your sword, and you look wildly around the room for the threat.

But you see nothing.

“Ramb…?” The Pippins looks just as confused as you. “What the hell are you doing!?”

Ramb doesn’t respond. His chest is heaving in and out with alarming rapidity. He looks like a cornered animal.

You timidly approach him and call his name. He still doesn’t respond. He doesn’t appear to see you. His wide, fearful eyes are locked onto the space just over your shoulder.

You bend down and hesitatingly lay a hand on his shoulder. He starts violently, then settles. He blinks, and his eyes refocus on you.

“Kris!” he cries. “Oh, Kris! W-Where did it go!?"

“Where did...what go?” asks the Rabbick. “There’s nothing here, Ramb!”

“But…there was!” Now it’s Ramb’s turn to look confused. “It was just there!” he points over your shoulder. You turn and look behind you. You see nothing but the back wall.

“Ramb, we didn’t see anything,” says the Pippins. “And we’d appreciate you not screaming like a lunatic!”

Ramb’s face hardens, and he scrambles to his feet. “You wot!?” he yells. “You havin’ a laugh!? You’re telling me none of you saw that!? Any of you!?”

The Rabbick and Pippins nervously shake their heads. Their eyes are wide as they stare at him. Even the Shadowguy has poked his head out from behind the polka-dotted curtain to stare at Ramb.

You ask Ramb what he saw.

“There…” He swallows. “There was a face! Just behind you! Those dreadful eyes…”

You feel a sudden chill. You’re almost tempted to turn around and look again, but you know there’d be no point.

The Pippins sighs. “Geez, Ramb, don’t tell me you’re progressing to full-blown hallucinations! Are we gonna have to stage an intervention for you?”

Ramb flushes an angry red. He brushes past you and throws his shoulder into the wall behind you. To your surprise, a hidden panel in the wall revolves, revealing a passageway, down which Ramb disappears without a word.

The panel slowly spins itself closed again. You suppose this is the passage Ramb has been using to get into this room from the bar. You wonder if you should follow him. But when you push on the panel yourself, it doesn’t move.

You turn away and head for the door back to the green room. The Pippins grabs your arm as you pass.

“Hey, I don’t know what’s going on with Ramb,” he says, “but, Kris, you should stay out of it. There’s no way this will end well.”

You irritably shake off the Pippins’s hand and storm out.

Susie and Ralsei are both there waiting for you when you reenter the green room. You hear a rush of water, and look over to see Ramb running the dirty, salt-encrusted glass under the sink.

“Well?” asks Susie. “How did it go?”

Uh, not great. You quickly explain what happened. Both of their expressions turn grim.

“That does it,” Susie growls. “No more messing around. We need to seal that Fountain now. We’ll just have to tell Tenna we can’t play the third board after all.”

Ralsei nods. “Yes, I think that would be best,” he says.

Seems they’re both in agreement. Looks like you have no choice. You reluctantly lead your friends back toward the stage to speak with Tenna.

You knew Tenna would not be pleased with your friends’ intention to skip the third board entirely, and you had been quietly bracing yourself for the ugly scene that would inevitably follow once Susie broke the news. Mercifully, however, she never got the chance. As luck would have it, she happened to approach him in the middle of a very suspicious phone call, and she was so thrown off by the realization that Tenna had been deceiving her that she neglected to tell Tenna about your change of plans.

“Man,” she’s saying now that you’re out of earshot, “there’s nothing that pisses me off more…than people who don’t tell you the whole deal.”

You feel sweat on the back of your neck. “You mean, Tenna…?” you hear Ralsei say, and maybe you’re projecting, but he sounds nervous, too.

“Yeah,” she says, and you feel just the tiniest twinge of relief. “I dunno what, but…he’s hiding something… Let’s go take a look around, Kris.”

Though you’re glad to have been spared the histrionics from Tenna, you’re not any more thrilled by the prospect of “looking around” than you were by the thought of skipping the third board. Still, you lead your friends back toward the green room, knowing that they’re now expecting you to investigate.

However, you barely step back into the green roam when you’re suddenly accosted by a Zapper. “Hey!” he shouts, bouncing irritably on the spot. “Youse is buddies with Ramb, aintcha?”

Well, you don’t know if you’d say “buddies,” exactly. “Buddies” is kind of strong.

“Don’t gimme dat!” For some reason, the Zapper sounds like he doesn’t believe you. “Ramb’s always goin’ on about youse two is best pals!”

He is? What’s he saying a thing like that for? It’s not true.

“Whatevah! Just talk to ‘im, wouldja? He’s givin’ us da creeps!” With that, the Zapper jumps back to his station in front of the double doors at the opposite end of the room.

You step further into the room and cast an anxious glance toward the concession stand. Ramb is standing there with his arms at his sides and mouth agape as he stares vaguely up toward the ceiling. The Pippins standing next to the counter does indeed look creeped out, but Ramb seems completely oblivious to his obvious discomfort.

You cautiously approach the counter and say Ramb’s name. He doesn’t react. A dark fluid bubbles out of the corner of Ramb’s mouth and slowly trickles down his chin. You can’t tell what the fluid is, but it flows quickly like water, leaving an ugly, rust-colored stain in its wake.

You shout Ramb’s name. You can feel everyone’s eyes on you, but you don’t care. Ramb slowly blinks but otherwise doesn’t move.

“Lovely, isn’t it, Kris?” he says slowly. “The sun…”

His mouth stops moving. His gaze hasn’t moved from the ceiling. You glance over your shoulder in the direction of his gaze to make sure you haven’t missed anything. You see nothing but ceiling panels and yellow electric lights.

You remind Ramb that he’s currently indoors.

“Don’t be daft. I know that, luv,” he murmurs. “I can see it through the window.”

You inform Ramb that there is no window, and even if there was, it’s the middle of the night. He doesn’t seem to have heard you.

“See all the little dust motes, Kris? I never noticed the way they whirl about in the sunbeams, just like falling snow.” He smiles emptily. “It’s beautiful…”

Officially freaked out, you grab Ramb by the shoulders and shake him. The rattling sound that accompanies this motion is not comforting, but he responds right away, blinking and looking around wildly, as though newly aware of his surroundings. The rapid motion of his head stops when his eyes meet yours. “Kris?” he says, startled. He frowns and wipes at the corner of his mouth. “When did you get…?” he stops when he sees the dark stain on his hand. He stares at it, suddenly fearful. “Kris, what is this?” he asks as he lifts his worried eyes to yours.

You tell Ramb that you’re worried about him. It seems like his hallucinations are getting worse.

“Hallucinations…?” he repeats. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong! They’re just dreams! Normal, harmless little dreams.” He laughs pathetically. “I’m so knackered, I’ve been falling asleep at the counter! Dozin’ away on my own two feet! That’s all.”

You tell Ramb you don’t think he was asleep. His eyes were open the whole time. The weak smile falls.

“No… That can’t be. I’ve been dreaming! How can I dream like this if I’m still awake? The dreams…they feel so real! It’s not just colours anymore, luv. There are sounds, smells! They feel so vivid, so bright. Brighter than this counter. Brighter than your face. Even when what I’m seeing doesn’t make any sense, it all feels so…so…”

Ramb trails off. His eyes unfocus. The empty sockets seem to grow, drinking in the world around you without letting his consciousness process an inch of it. As you watch, the head bearing that slack-jawed expression begins to nod jerkily, up and down, up and down, as though following the rise and fall of some object you can’t see.

“Kris…” Ramb breathes. “Duck…”

Uh, duck?

“On the roundabout…” he says dreamily. “You’d better duck…your head…or else they’ll hit you…as they’re coming ‘round. The ducks.”

Hang on. Isn’t “roundabout” another word for a carousel?

Oh. Oh, no.

You quickly grab Ramb and shake him again. He again seems to return to life under your touch, but now you see him squinting and shaking his head, as though determined to throw off the trance before it takes him again. “No…” he groans. He clasps his hands to his eyes. “No, no, no…”

“Mr. Ramb, snap out of it!” exclaims Ralsei.

“I can’t… I can’t!” Ramb reaches across the counter, toward you. His eyes are pleading. “Kris, what’s happening to me?” he cries.

You can’t avoid it anymore. You reluctantly tell Ramb the truth. Ramb’s hands fly to his ears. He claps them down against his forehead, as though to block out excess noise.

“Whatcha say, luv!?” he calls. He’s raising his voice as if to speak over someone, but there’s no one else talking.

You raise your voice and tell him again. His jaw again goes slack, but this time his eyes remain lucid.

“You wot!? You mean that thing’s been rattlin’ around in my head this whole time!?” he shouts incredulously. His expression hardens, and he thrusts his face toward you. “Here, reach in and get it out!” he yells.

You’re reluctant to stick your hands into a power outlet. Ramb’s expression turns outright hostile.

“Kris, don’t be a git!” he snaps. “How many times did we play together when you were a tyke? Just reach in there and get it out!”

“Don’t talk to Kris like that!” Ralsei snaps back with uncharacteristic anger in his voice. “They’re right; it’s not safe!”

“Oh, move over!” snarls Susie. She elbows you aside and sticks her fingers into Ramb’s eye sockets as far as they will go.

Unfortunately, that isn’t very far.

“Ugh, my hands don’t fit!” she growls as she yanks her hands free.

Ramb again winces and cries out as another pang shoots through his head. With a snarl of frustration he seizes a drawer beside the sink and yanks it open, revealing rows of rattling cutlery. Without hesitating, he grabs a fork and plunges it into his left eye socket, working the handle this way and that with violent speed.

“Whoa, hey!” exclaims Susie. “You probably shouldn’t do that!”

“Shut it!” Ramb snaps. A spark flies out of Ramb’s left socket.

You’re not sure what’s about to happen, but you know it can’t be good. In a moment of pure instinct, you reach to grab Ramb’s arm with the intention of wresting the fork away from him. However, the instant your hand makes contact with his sleeve, you feel a sharp jolt lance across your fingers. You yelp and withdraw your hand, clutching at the stung fingers.

“Kris!” Ralsei cries out in alarm. “Don’t touch him! You’ll get shocked!”

Meanwhile, Ramb is still twisting the fork within his eye socket, his face screwed tight with the effort. You yell at him to stop, but he's either ignoring you or he can’t hear you. There’s another spark. A third. A fourth.

Suddenly, there’s a loud pop, and Ramb is flung backward as a series of sparks erupt from his eye socket. The fork clatters to the floor, its tines smoldering. The lights embedded in the ceiling swell to a blinding brightness until with a crack and rattle of unseen metal, they all wink out. The screens of the televisions in the room likewise go dark. You think you detect the scent of burning plastic.

Somebody screamed when the lights blew out. It was so high-pitched, you can’t tell if it was Elnina, Lancer, or Rouxls Kaard. For a moment, no one moves. There’s a hush as all of you are left waiting in the dark. Then, one by one, a few of the most steadfast bulbs wearily flicker back on. Ultimately, only about half the lights return to any level of illumination. The rest remain gray.

Ramb’s hands appear above the counter, and he slowly pulls himself up until his face rises back into view. In addition to the rusty stain on his chin, he now sports a black scorch mark around his left eye socket. It looks like he's sporting a black eye.

He’s breathing hard. All eyes are on him. “So…” begins Susie awkwardly, “did you get it out?”

He shoots her a dirty look.

Suddenly, the phone under the counter begins to ring. Ramb gasps and backs from the phone as if from a live cobra.

“No!” he cries. His face crumples. “No, no, no! Not again! Not again!”

And he turns and pushes through a hidden panel on the back wall of the concession stand. This panel does not swivel closed like the one before but remains partially open as Ramb slips from view.

Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing. The Pippins backs away from it nervously. “No way in hell am I answering that,” he says.

You try and reach for it, but your arms aren’t quite long enough to reach the underside of the counter. Eventually, the ringing stops.

There’s a definite chill permeating the room. No one is speaking. No one dares move a muscle. Susie’s eyes dart around nervously.

“Hey, is it just me, or are the vibes, uh, bad?” she says. “Maybe we should…”

Suddenly, she’s interrupted by a commotion from the direction of the stage. It sounds like something is barreling down the walkway toward the green room. Something large. The Pippins yelps and throws himself over the counter, making sure to duck his head down under the countertop.

Meanwhile, the noise outside rises in a steep crescendo. As the racket grows clearer, what at first sounded like a chaotic series of crashes and clatters now organizes itself into a series of rapid footsteps, growing closer, closer…

Then, in one violent motion, the double doors leading to the stage are thrown aside, and Tenna appears in the doorway. Despite his previous affability, the sight of him crouching in the doorway like a gargoyle, his breath sawing in and out and his teeth set with rage, is intimidating. Before, when he first showed you the green room, he had somehow managed to shrink himself down until he was only a head taller than you. Now, he stands so tall he can only clear the doorway by bending his knees and hunching his shoulders.

“WHERE IS HE!?” Tenna roars. This is the first time you’ve heard him raise his voice like that. The booming sound reverberates through your bones, mashing them into jelly. You’re left completely unable to move.

With a growl of disgust, Tenna turns his screen in the direction of the concession stand. The Pippins, after daring to lift his eyes above the countertop, now ducks his head back down with a squeak. But the Pippins is not Tenna’s intended target. From where you watch, paralyzed, you see Tenna’s screen tilt slightly from where the Pippins is crouched into a shaking ball up to where the panel to the dressing room has been left ajar.

Tenna’s mouth twists into a wicked grin. Is it your imagination, or is that a fang you see glinting in his mouth?

You and your friends hastily clear the way as Tenna thunders right past you and up to the door marked with the giant “S.” As he throws the door open, he manages to shrink himself just enough so that he can barely fit his head under the doorframe. His change in size, however, does nothing to diminish the thunderous quality of his voice. “RAMB!” he roars. “GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK HERE!”

The S-marked door slams shut. After a moment, the door flies open again, and the Zapper that until now had been guarding the entrance to the star dressing room comes scrambling out on his hands and knees, so desperate is he to escape the warpath he doesn't even stop long enough to pull himself to his feet after stumbling and falling in sheer panic but continues his mad dash for the door on his hands and knees. Only when his feet are through the doorway does the Zapper stand and throw his shoulders against the door, slamming it shut again behind him. You hear him panting with adrenaline, and then you hear him start to sob. Even though he has no eyes, two spots of moisture that you suppose to be tears well up from some hidden ducts on the upper portion of his head. Still leaning against the door, he slides down into a sitting position, crying brokenly.

The other Zapper in the room hops over to where his compatriot is curled up on the floor. He crouches slightly and pats his fellow Zapper reassuringly on the shoulder as he continues to sob.

“I can’t do dis!” the dressing room Zapper wails. “I can’t work unda dese conditions!”

“Kris…” You hear Ralsei’s voice by your ear. “I hate to say it, but…it looks like Tenna will be distracted for a while. Maybe now’s a good time to look around?”

You turn, finally regaining your ability to move, and see Ralsei looking meaningfully toward the set of double doors which, until now, had been guarded by the Zapper. You hate to leave Ramb to his fate, but Ralsei is right. This might be your best chance to get through those doors without causing a scene. Your friends would think you were crazy if you didn’t take it.

You quietly lead your friends past the S-Rank door and the pair of Zappers huddled in front of it. As you pass the door, you can hear muffled shouting coming down the hallway on the other side. The bottom of your stomach drops. Is this your fault? It must be, and yet you can’t think of anything you could have done to avoid it.

Maybe if you’d never gone backstage at all. Maybe if you’d never gotten S-Rank, maybe then Ramb would still be alright.

You lead your friends out of the green room, taking care to shut the door softly behind you.

When you finally return to the green room hours later, you find it empty. Dust rains from the filthy ceiling. The remaining lights in the ceiling are clouded. The Pippins is gone. The Zappers are gone. Lancer is gone.

Ramb is gone.

You only heard his name once in the time since you last left this room. Once again screamed in rage by Tenna, during a one-sided phone call.

“...What!? You QUIT!? You can’t QUIT!!! RAMB!!!”

That was all. None of the Darkners you spared mentioned him. Not one of them asked about him. You kept your eyes peeled for him, expecting to see him around every corner.

But he didn’t come.

And now you’re back here, and the concession stand is unmanned. The back panel behind the counter is still ajar, exactly like he left it.

You don’t even hesitate. You run straight for the S-marked door.

Neither Susie nor Ralsei are surprised.

“Shout for us if you need us,” says Susie grimly. “At least now we know we’ll be able to hear you.”

Your heart is pounding, your limbs are warm, and you're gasping for breath by the time you throw open the door to the dressing room. You cast your eyes around impatiently. There’s no one here but the Rabbick, sitting on the floor between the curtains.

“If you’re looking for Ramb, he’s backstage,” she says. “Poor guy. Tenna really let him have it!”

You sprint for the double doors. She’s the first person to say those words: “Poor guy.” Or even express the sentiment. Nobody else has said a sympathetic word about Ramb.

You remember your mother scolding you for sticking paper clips into the power strip. You remember how scared you had been that she would throw it away and how relieved you felt a few days later when you saw it plugged into the wall, with the TV now plugged into one of its many outlets. You didn’t know at that age what a “surge protector” was, and you were too afraid of your mother’s anger to yank the power strip free from the wall and the TV cord to play with it again, but all the same, you were glad to see it still there. You talked to it, when she wasn’t around. Patted the rounded plastic like the head of a friendly dog, taking care not to touch any of the sockets.

You run backstage. You see Ramb, half of his face illuminated by the light from the game room.

It’s a pitiful sight. Two ugly stains run like a river of rust from each of his eye sockets to his chin. There’s another trickle of the strange muddy fluid running from the corner of his mouth. The three stains glisten in the half-light; they’re still wet, and the liquid drip, drip, drips from the hairs on his chin to the floor. You can hear each drop hit the wood with a heavy plop like that of rain. There’s a puddle forming at his feet, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are wide and ovular, and even in the low light you can see him shuddering with ecstasy as he raises his arms toward the ceiling.

“Look at you…” he breathes. “Just look at you. I always knew you’d soar. Your mother will be so proud.”

You call his name, but he doesn’t hear.

“Don’t be scared, luv.” He writhes in delight. “Go on. Spread those tattered wings. Encircle the world. Take us to the clouds…and we’ll meet you in the air…!”

You really don’t want to touch him. The filthy fluid on his face has also stained his apron. Looking at him brings up thoughts of disease and decay. But shaking him is the only way you’ve been able to snap him out of it. So, you suck it up and tentatively lay a hand on his shoulder.

But before you get the chance to shake him, Ramb shudders violently, and his eyes resume their normal shape. “Ah!” he gasps. “Where am I…? Where did she go?”

He looks down at the shoulder where your hand is perched, then up at your face. He smiles. “Oh, Kris! It’s you! Thank heavens!”

You ask him what Tenna did to him.

“Tenna? Oh, right. That was today, wasn’t it?” He chuckles to himself. “Sorry, luv. I was asleep for so long, I’m all out of sorts.

“Yes, well. Ol’ Tenna wasn’t too pleased about the power surge. In fact, he was downright livid! Completely barking! I thought for sure he would fire me this time, but of course, he couldn’t. No matter how much…he might want to.”

You ask him if that’s why he was crying.

“Crying? Me?” He raises an eyebrow, as though reacting to a joke he doesn’t quite get. “Kris, I’m a grown plug! What do you take me for?”

You point out the tears on his face.

“Tears?” He raises a hand to his cheek. The smile falls. He looks down at his hand, at the rusty stain marring his white fur.

You start to lift your hand away, but Ramb suddenly whirls and seizes your arm. You can feel the wetness seeping through your sleeve, and you shudder. It’s ice cold.

“No, Kris, please!” he cries. “Don’t let go! I don’t want to fall asleep again! Please…”

His head is bowed, as if in supplication. You are deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t bring yourself to tear your arm out of his clutch. He presses his forehead to your knuckles. His brow feels soft through your gauntlet, like a worn blanket.

“Please, Kris…” he murmurs. He raises his face to meet yours, and you see that same sheepish smile you’ve seen so many times tonight. “Humour me for just a little longer, please, luv?”

You let him hold onto your arm. You don’t know what else to do. He lowers his face again. The silence lingers for so long you fear he has indeed drifted off again, but the next word out of his mouth is your name.

“Kris…you were asking about Tenna. You shouldn’t be afraid of him, Kris. Truth be told, Tenna is a right bleedin’ coward, he is. That’s why he lashes out the way he does. He’s pathetic, jumpin’ at his own shadow. But…I can’t blame him for that. Because it’s my fault.”

He raises his eyes to meet yours again. “Kris, do you remember,” he says, “that night when you were small, and the girls came over for a sleepover? A dreadful thunderstorm rolled in, so quick even Elnina didn’t see it coming. Do you remember, Kris?”

You do remember. The night came early, even though it was summer, the sky shackled down with iron gray. Then it was black, the pounding deluge that ran down the windowpanes shining white from the TV’s glow. White on black. You remember the excitement you’d felt at each crash of thunder, sounding off like cannon fire. Your father had taught you and Noelle a trick. (The others already knew it). After the lightning flashed, you would count slowly, as though counting the seconds. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three… The number you landed on when the thunder sounded equaled the number of miles away the lightning strike had been because light traveled faster than sound. You had been thrilled as the thunder boomed at increasingly lower numbers until it went off almost immediately after the lightning flash. You had felt electric, like the sky’s power was in your own veins.

Dess had shared your enthusiasm. Noelle and your brother, you remember, were less thrilled.

“The youngest girl was so scared,” Ramb is saying now. “Poor little angel. Your mother decided to put on a movie, help keep her mind off it.”

You remember that, too. Dess and your brother sat on the floor. Your father had you perched on his knee, which made you pout because you had been planning on grabbing Noelle’s ankle the next time lightning struck. Which, you suppose, looking back, was probably the reason he wanted to keep hold of you. The movie had been from a VHS you’d never watched before, though you had often seen it as you rifled through the drawer on the TV stand. It looked like a movie for grown-ups, so you had passed it up in favor of your favorite card game cartoon, but now you found yourself getting surprisingly invested, especially when your father covered your eyes and your mother fast-forwarded past a certain scene. (Much later, you had found the chance to fast-forward the tape and seek out that scene while your parents were outside, and it did not disappoint.) The six of you had just gotten to the scene near the end when the jilted fiancé chases after the young lovers with a gun, when a crash of thunder seared through the night, too close to even begin counting. The light that flooded the windows was blinding, and when it left, it took all the light in the house with it. The lights went out. The screen went dark. The entire house was plunged into blackness.

You, Noelle, and your brother had all screamed. You had been so busy screaming you didn’t even notice the ominous popping sound that had burst from the TV.

After soothing you and Noelle, your mother had gone to the kitchen to find some candles. Then, the six of you had played card games until the power came back.

When the lights switched back on, so did the TV. The movie, however, did not reappear. Instead, a storm of pink and yellow static erupted across the screen with a loud roar. Your father jumped to his feet and ejected the tape. The little eject icon appeared in the corner, but the neon static continued behind it. Your father switched back to cable. Then he switched rapidly through the channels. He pressed the power button, and the static went away. He pressed again, you heard a hidden, metallic thunk from somewhere inside the box, and the static came roaring back.

“Oh, no!” you heard your mother say, “Has the poor TV finally given up the ghost?”

You had no idea what “given up the ghost” meant, but you were horrified at the thought that the TV might be broken. Could it be fixed, or would you have to throw it away, just like your mother had thrown away the little toy car whose plastic shell had cracked after you accidentally dropped it from the windowsill onto the driveway below? You had cried then, and you found yourself tearing up now. Throwing away the TV was like throwing away a friend.

That was when you were little. Just a little while ago, you would have dismissed those thoughts as stupid. But now…

Now, Ramb is kneeling at your feet, recalling all of this to you in a low, defeated voice.

“I felt it, Kris,” he’s saying. “When that bolt of lightning struck near the house, I felt it rip through me. Never had I felt such raw power. I tried to hold it back, but it was too much. I couldn’t. I wasn’t up to the job. Surge protector. That’s what they called me. I was supposed to protect him. And I failed.

“Luckily, your dad found a Lightner in town who was able to fix him up proper. But he was this close to endin’ up in a landfill, Kris. And he’s never forgiven me for it."

Ramb’s gaze goes to the side. “I suppose that’s when it started, innit. His obsession. Somehow, he’s got it in his head that if he were just big enough, if he were just important enough, he could become so precious to your family that your parents would never even think of throwin’ him out.”

He chuckles ruefully. “Load of old tosh,” he mutters. "You can’t outgrow the dark, can ya, luv? No matter how tall you grow, the night is taller still.”

He’s silent for a moment. Another drop falls from his chin onto the floor.

“Kris, luv…” He smiles sadly at you. “You’re the only one who was ever happy with me. The only one who made me feel like I was enough. And I’ve got nothing to offer you in return. Nothing, not even myself. Nothing except this game.”

For just a moment, you see the gleam of the Shadow Crystal in his left socket. Or, at least, you assume it’s the crystal. What other explanation could there be for the sudden glint in Ramb’s eye?

“Please,” he’s saying now, “finish the game. It’s all I’ve got for you. You’ll see it through, eh? Do it for ol’ Ramb, luv. Do it for me.”

That stupid game. Part of you wants to yank the console out of the wall, run outside, and chuck it over the purple cliffs. But there’s another part of you…a very insistent part…that won’t be satisfied until you see the end.

You nod, and only then does Ramb release you.

“Thank you, Kris,” he says. His voice is so soft you can barely hear it. “Thank you.”

You step toward the game room, then turn back. Ramb is slumped over. His eyes are pointed toward the floor, but somehow, you know he can’t see it.

You leave him and enter the game room.

After the boss battle where every hitbox that collided with your avatar made pain lance through your own chest, you’re left gasping for breath as you stare at the screen. Behind the glass hovers your defeated foe, a strange black horned thing that laughs with glee. You don’t hear the laughter with your ears. With all the other dialogue in this game, you can hear the NPC’s voice coming through the speakers as the words appear onscreen. But not with this enemy. There’s no sound when its dialogue appears. You only read it silently, and the words ring in your head in your own inner voice, as though they were your own thoughts. But, even though there’s no text on screen now, you still hear the laughter in your mind.

You wonder if you’re going crazy. It wouldn’t be the first time.

There! That’s what I wanted to see! You read its dialogue as it scrolls onscreen. Flickering red, like pretty little flames… Your eyes can’t hide it, Kris. Without play, the knife grows dull. That’s why I’m always searching, Kris. Searching for new games, new delights to show you.

I could tell that something was missing. The experience wasn’t complete. You would have walked away unsatisfied. And that would not do. Because I’m here for you, Kris. I live to serve. That's why I had my little gift sent to your friend out there. That was for you, too.

A surge of rage crashes through your brain. The voice inside laughs.

Tut, tut, always with those nasty looks! Don’t be upset with me, Kris! This is what he wanted, isn’t it? To play with you one last time? By now, he should be almost ripe. Don’t keep him waiting, Kris.

Ah, but of course you should get the MANTLE first. Go ahead and grab it, Kris. That is, if you can reach it.

The Shadow Mantle is in your hands, spreading from limb to limb like the wings of a gargoyle, when Susie charges into the room. “Kris!” she shouts. “You were taking too long, so I got worried! What’s that?”

She stops and stares down at the mantle. It’s so dark, so utterly devoid of any reflection, that you can’t make out any of its pleats and folds as it ripples between your hands.

You try to keep your voice steady as you tell her what it is.

“Shadow Mantle? Wasn’t someone telling us to get that?” says Susie. She steps closer for a better look. “Looks awesome…

“But, wait!” She steps back and tosses her mane impatiently. “We don’t have time for that! I thought you came back here to check on Ramb, so where is he?”

You stare at her. He wasn’t standing by the doorway?

She blinks. “No.”

Suddenly, the spotlight that had until now been shining on the screen dims. The light grows so low that the glowing graphics on the game screen sharpen to a painful brightness. You hear a deep, droning tone as the light drains, and the massive screen before you flickers crazily. You’re forced to squint against the visual assault, and Susie throws her arms up over her eyes.

“Damn. That’s gotta be him! C’mon, Kris!” She runs out of the room. You throw the mantle over your shoulders (it’s surprisingly light and easy to move) and run after her.

Susie’s boots splash into a filthy puddle lying just outside the doorway to the game room. Your greaves follow. The two of you don’t get very far before you nearly barrel into Ralsei, who’s just coming out of the exit to the dressing room.

“There you are!” he calls. “I saw the lights changing, and I got worried.”

The double doors are still open behind him. In your moment of hesitation, you see the lighting pouring from the dressing room strobe as though in time with a racing heartbeat.

The three of you don’t get far before the lights die completely.

You freeze. You can hear your friends breathing beside you.

Then you hear a voice.

It’s Ramb’s.

“I see you, Kris.”

It’s coming from the opposite end of the stage, where the spiral staircase and that weird manhole stand hiding behind the curtain. You grope for Susie’s hand in the darkness. She takes it. You hear rustling somewhere behind her, and you assume Ralsei took her other hand.

Step by step, the three of you inch your way across the stage, closer to him. His voice is dull. You follow its sound.

“I see so many things,” he’s saying. His voice is echoing strangely.

“I see a broken puppet covered in ice.

“I see knife blades whirling through the air.

“I see a cracked screen on a red cloth.

“I see a bluebird with a broken wing.”

He’s gotta be close now. His voice sounds like it’s less than a yard away.

“I see it all. Every path. I can even see…”

Suddenly, the widescreen above the line of locked controllers jumps to life, flooding the stage in a flurry of gray static. Ramb is right in front of you. He’s kneeling with his back to you, his head bowed. You can’t see his face.

“...the truth,” he finishes.

He lifts his head slightly. “Kris, I’m not…important, am I?” he says.

The question catches you off guard. He sighs before you can pull together an answer.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he murmurs. He sounds so…resigned. “I know I don’t really matter. Not to the others. Not to this world. Not to you.”

You finally manage a shout of protest. He shakes his head. You hear droplets hit the floor.

“You don’t have to lie to me, luv. I told you, I see it all. Even the things I wouldn’t let myself see before. All these years, I’ve been tellin’ myself that you and I were joined by somethin’ special. Somethin’ precious. But that’s just a lie, innit. Just a nice little story I told myself. I’m just rubbish…you forgot to throw away.”

Susie pulls her hand free of yours and steps forward. “Dude, don’t say that shit,” she says. “It’s too depressing! We… We have a town! With its own Dark Fountain! We can take you there! Everybody else is going, you can come too! Right, Ralsei?”

Ralsei smiles weakly. You wonder if Ramb can see that, too. “O-Of course!” he says. “We’d be delighted to have you!”

Ramb's head jerks erratically from side to side. “No… No…” he moans. “I can’t. It’s not possible.”

“What do you mean? Why not?” cries Ralsei.

Ramb finally grows still. “I’m not there!” His voice breaks. “No matter where I look, I don’t see myself anywhere! All the paths, they lead away from me!”

You hear him sob and see him wipe at his face. “No…” he continues. “That’s not it. It’s too…deliberate. They’re not avoiding me. They just…go past me. Like I’m not even there.”

You see Ralsei's face turn strangely pale. You desperately tell Ramb that he’s only saying these things because of the Shadow Crystal. It’s twisting his mind. Once you get it out, his mind will recover. You’ve seen it before.

“You did not see!” Ramb is shouting now. “I do! You can’t save him, and you can’t save me!”

He seizes his head between his hands and hunches his shoulders. “Don’t look at me! I don’t want you to see! Don’t look… Don’t look…”

You remember how Ramb was able to stay lucid with your touch. All of your earlier attempts failed, but you are determined to get the Shadow Crystal out of him somehow. You seize his shoulder and whirl him around.

And what you see makes you gasp in horror.

Ramb’s apron hangs from his shoulder by a single strap, and his purple work shirt has burst open to reveal a second face erupting from his torso, a twisted mockery of his first, with misshapen empty eyes and a twisted, hollow mouth. Foul water is gushing from all six holes. The smell makes you retch.

The holes jerk and warble, squeezed and stretched by seizing muscles. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO LOOK!” he wails, and the hellish sound erupts from all six holes, as though there were no longer any difference between mouth and eye. “WHY DID YOU LOOK!? WHY DID YOU LOOK!?”

You hear the ripping of fabric. The remaining seams on Ramb's clothes pop and tear as the flesh underneath bloats and bubbles like the surface of a boiling stew.

You feel Susie seize the collar of the Shadow Mantle and yank you backward. You’re pulled clear of his rapidly swelling body just in the nick of time before he erupts. A thick, grotesque column of faces shoots upward, toward the ceiling, bearing Ramb’s original head, still ringing with his final lament of “WHY DID YOU LOOK…? WHY WHY DID YOU LOOK…?” like a funereal bell up above the catwalk. Ramb’s legs are still here on the floor, twitching and thudding against the wood paneling with the spastic motions of a dying insect. His arms and shoulders are now somewhere swaying up above. What used to be Ramb is now a twisted pillar of agony, pocketed on all sides by orifices that groan and gaze into unseen nightmares.

The orifices contort, and a font of the same foul liquid suddenly bursts from each one, as if unleashed by a hidden spigot. The color, illuminated by the dancing snow on the widescreen, is that of already dried blood, and yet, impossibly, the substance is still very liquid as it gradually spreads from the feet of the pillar.

“Kris…!” yells Susie warningly. Trickles of visible electricity, crawling like little white maggots, pour from each gushing font. They snake across the growing puddle. You hear the liquid snap and hiss with deadly power.

The three of you nervously back up as the puddle spreads.

“Kris!” Susie yells again. “What do we do!?”

You think quickly. Your first priority, you realize, should be to get to higher ground. You remember the catwalk. You yell at Susie and Ralsei to follow you as you sprint around Ramb for the stairs. You quickly reach the foot of the staircase and race up the spiraling steps, Susie and Ralsei hot on your heels. You don’t have long. The stairway is made of metal.

As you make your way upward, the catwalk emerges into clearer view. The metal walkway hangs suspended from the ceiling by two rows of wires. The ceiling from which they hang is crisscrossed by a vast, tightly woven net of thick electrical cables. You can see glints of light reflected off the metal prongs of the plugs nestled in the mass of cables over your head. The source of the light is a second widescreen that you couldn’t see from the stage floor, lighting the catwalk vividly with the glow from its static.

As soon as you’ve touched the top step, you throw yourself onto the catwalk. It sways slightly as you scramble to your feet. Susie and Ralsei jump the gap one after the other and run to your side. The instant Ralsei’s feet leave the stairs, you hear a loud buzz like that of a bug zapper as the staircase flashes and strobes with an electric blue glow.

Susie whistles. You look around wildly to get your bearings. Lining the left side of the catwalk are a number of heavy stage lights, six in total. To your right sways the head and torso of Ramb, held aloft by the nightmarish chain of white faces below. His arms and fingers are grotesquely elongated much like those of the Werewires you encountered back in the Cyber Field. His original face is pointed vaguely upward, the eyes wide. Liquid trickles from his mouth and his empty eyes. He seems unaware of your presence.

Even so, his left arm flails out against the catwalk with a strong, decisive motion, as though he means to swat it aside. His strength is enough to throw the three of you off-balance as the catwalk swings violently under you.

As Susie catches herself on the handrail her head is thrown forward, and she gets an eyeful of the crackling liquid racing across the stage.

“Kris, the water’s still rising!” she shouts. She turns back to you. “Now what!?"

You think quickly. The adrenaline pumping through your head clears your mind of any panic that may have overtaken you. Ramb compared his earlier trances to being asleep, didn’t he? You whirl on Ralsei and tell him to cast Pacify.

Ralsei nods and thrusts out an arm. A swirling ball of light gathers just above his outstretched paw. He throws it into the air. A glowing white spiral of magic swirls around Ramb’s head.

Nothing changes. The water is still rushing. Ramb’s hands clench in the air, gathering power, before he throws handfuls of magic bullets in your direction. You throw up your shield to block them. The spheres pop and spark as they crash against your shield. Each impact sends a wave of force through your arm and chest that nearly throws you off your feet.

Beside you, Susie has her arms crossed over her face. “Why didn’t it work!?” she yells.

“I don’t know!” Ralsei cries. “He doesn’t appear to be conscious. Maybe… Maybe he already doesn’t want to fight?”

Ramb’s arms extend into two rigid polearms thrust out from his chest. Laser blasts emerge from the tip of his second finger, each one white hot as it sizzles into your armor and singes your hair.

“Coulda fooled me!” Susie shouts.

You look down through the grid of little holes cut into the floor of the catwalk. The floor of the stage is completely flooded. The filthy water is still rising.

The air crackles like a thunderstorm.

You think. You have to stop the water before it reaches the catwalk, or you’ll all be fried. You look over at Ramb. The foul water gushing from his many orifices has made him into a living fountain. There must be something you can use to plug them up.

Then it hits you. You look up at the plugs nested in the ceiling. Bingo.

You turn to Susie and tell her to throw you at the ceiling. She wastes no time questioning you but grabs you by the front of your mantle and hoists you over her shoulder. With a grunt, she launches you as hard as she can toward the ceiling. Your arms are outstretched as you sail through the air. At top of your arc, you manage to catch a hold of one of the cables. It’s roughly the thickness of a baseball bat. Your fingers slip from the cable as you fall, but you can definitely feel it loosen, pulled down into a loop from the nest above by the weight of your body.

More lasers burst against the floor of the catwalk as you land. One of them catches you in the chest as you fall, throwing you down onto your back. You're breathless with pain until you feel a shower of green sparks rain down onto your body. You rise to your feet and nod gratefully at Ralsei. You then turn to Susie and tell her to aim for the loose cable the next time she throws you.

Ramb’s mouths are babbling. They don’t say anything important.

Susie seizes the front of your mantle and launches you straight at the cable. You grab onto it, and this time you manage to pull it free of the ceiling. You feel yourself sliding down along its length as it swings downward. You land on the catwalk with the giant plug gripped in your hands. It’s about the same width as your head. The perfect size.

Ramb shudders. Showers of sparks suddenly burst up from the bubbling lake below, like spouts of fireworks. The flecks of light burn where they catch in your skin and clothes. You squint as you keep your gaze on the churning, flashing water. As soon as the fireworks stop, you climb up onto the handrail with the plug tucked under one arm and throw yourself over the side.

Ralsei’s scream flies up into the distance, as though at the far end of a long tunnel through which you're flying with the wind whipping through your hair. The plug stops in the air about a foot from the surface of the water.

It smells like blood.

The stench is so heavy you can taste it. A metallic film clings to the roof of your mouth. Thankfully, your feet caught on the top of the plug. You shudder as the impact sends a violent shockwave up through your bones, but at least you didn't fall in.

You pull on the cable, swinging your body back and forth over the pendulum below, just as you used to do on the tire swing that used to hang in the front yard before your mother finally forced your father to take it down. Just like back then, the weight of your body pulls the cable into swinging motion, the plug sailing in an increasingly wide arc in the air above the rising water. The twisted pillar of Ramb’s body swings closer…closer…

A cacophony of different prayers erupts from Ramb's mouths.

There! You grab onto Ramb’s flesh and direct the prongs of the plug at your feet into the nearest face. The three prongs stick into the three holes closest to the water. You jump off the plug onto Ramb’s side and force the plug in with your free hand. There’s a shower of sparks when the plug goes in—the heat flares against your face—but when your vision clears, you see that the plug fits seamlessly into the face just above Ramb's right leg. The water that until now had been pouring from the holes is completely blocked up.

There’s a heavy thunk, and the far end of the stage grows brighter. One of the six stagelights above has switched on, casting a spotlight onto the filthy water.

But the water is still rising, and it’s a long way up. You look around anxiously. You can’t climb up the cable. You’re not strong enough, and you don’t want to risk pulling it back out. Should you try to climb Ramb's body? Is it possible for you to make it back up without electrocuting yourself?

Suddenly, you hear Ralsei’s voice shout, “Here!” and you feel something tickle your shoulder. It’s the end of Ralsei’s scarf. You look up and see Ralsei and Susie’s faces peaking over the handrail at you. Their hands are clenched around the other end of the scarf.

“Grab on!” Ralsei shouts.

The scarf drops to the level of your calf. You seize it with both hands while also clenching it between your knees. Your entire body is taut as your friends lift you back up to the catwalk.

You pull yourself over the rail and plant your feet back on the walkway. As you do, you notice the screen on this upper level has changed. Before, the static had flashed in bright tones of gray and white. But now, you see trickles of color. Thin, blue streaks run down the screen like drops of rain, streaming down a window. The pattern looks familiar. You’ve seen it before. Recently, too. But where?

Then you realize: the lenses of Spamton’s glasses.

Ramb laughs unintelligibly. Then he stops.

Your body already aches, but you've only just begun. Working in tandem, you and your friends free each cable from the ceiling, pull it down, plug it in, and repeat. After the third plug, when your arms and back are so sore you can barely move, Ralsei volunteers to take your place. And so, on the fourth plug, it’s Ralsei who Susie throws toward the ceiling, and Ralsei who you and Susie have to pull up from the rising water. Your arms still throb painfully as you pull, despite the relief you felt from Ralsei’s healing spell, but Susie is confident that Ralsei is lighter than you, so you see no point in complaining.

Meanwhile, bullets, lasers, and bolts of white lightning are flying through the air toward you. The narrow width of the catwalk doesn't allow for much side to side motion, so you can only dodge vertically, jumping and ducking through the stinging swarm of projectiles buzzing and screaming through the space before you. More than once, a bullet catches a limb as Susie tosses you through the air, sending you tumbling back onto the catwalk. One particularly nasty bolt struck you right on your chest, and the last thing you felt before you blacked out were your arms and legs thudding on the walkway, the limbs bucking and thrashing heedless of your will. You woke with Susie's face filling your vision and the taste of mint in your mouth.

Each time you or Ralsei plugs up another one of Ramb’s faces, another stage light comes on. You figure something will happen once all six lights are on. Hopefully, something beneficial. But, more importantly, with each new plug, the image on the screen changes.

With the second plug, iridescent lights ripple like an aurora over a black background. You recognize those colors; it’s the flow of a Dark Fountain. Ramb sighs.

With the third plug, a familiar pink and yellow neon cat sign appears. Ramb’s body stiffens, like that of a dog that’s spotted its prey.

With the fourth plug, the scrolling, smiling cats are replaced with a wall of green and purple eyes, their pupils sliding back and forth between twitching lids. Ramb shudders.

With the fifth plug, you see snow. Not TV static, actual snow, whirling across the screen like a blizzard. And yet, through the flurry, you feel like you can see something else. A trio of shapes lurking behind the snowstorm, their arrangement reminiscent of a face with hidden features.

Ramb shivers. By now, many of his mouths have been muzzled, but the ones that remain repeat a single word: “No.”

Now, there’s only one stage light left, and all of the discernible outlets on Ramb’s body have been plugged. The holes that remain are still spewing water, but with so many plugged up, the water’s rise has definitely slowed. Most of the remaining holes are scattered randomly across Ramb’s monstrous body in such a way that cannot accommodate a plug. In fact, there’s only one place left where a plug will fit cleanly.

Ramb’s head.

Another forest of spewing fireworks sprouts up from the water below. You throw your shield over your head. Sparks rain pour from its edge as you raise your eyes to the ceiling. You can only make out a single plug still buried in the coils above.

As soon as the sparks die down, you point out the last plug to Susie. With a shout of, “Got it!” she grabs Ralsei and launches him toward it. The end of his scarf grabs around the cable at the base of the plug like a grappling hook, and he pulls it down.

Ralsei lands heavily on the floor of the catwalk and gathers the plug in his arms. But when he looks down at the prongs, he gasps in dismay.

“Kris!” he cries. “This one only has two!”

You rush to his side and look. He’s right. This is the only two-pronged plug you’ve seen since you ran up here. Will it be enough?

Still gazing blankly upward, Ramb slams a fist onto the catwalk. Only by throwing yourselves onto the handrails and hanging on for dear life are you and your friends able to resist being flung into the lake of electricity below.

You decide it will have to be enough.

You take the plug from Ralsei and charge Ramb, holding the plug out before you like the handle of a spear. Ramb grabs onto the handrail with his long fingers and squeezes. Flashing serpents of lighting race along the rail and catwalk.

You manage to dodge the first bolt as it races toward your feet, but you take a wrong step that brings your left foot right on top of a second one. Your feet stop, and your body goes rigid as you’re impaled by the pain. You drop to your knees. You hear your friends calling your name.

Ramb breathes your name and smiles.

You grit your teeth, pull yourself back to your feet, and run. You feel the weight of the cable dragging behind you, but you push yourself to keep running, even as Ramb scatters more bullets through the air. You duck without stopping as one flies right toward your face.

Finally, you’re there. Ramb is just to your right. Unfortunately, his face is too far up for you to reach. If only you were a few feet higher...

You suppose you have no choice. You’ll have to get up on the handrail.

Tucking the cable beneath your arm, you plant your hands on the safety rail and hoist yourself up until the rail presses painfully into your stomach. You’re hanging over the rail in this fashion when Ramb’s arm swings out blindly, sending the catwalk swinging. Your stomach flips as your head and chest are pitched over the side of the rail. The plug slips down as you begin your descent into the boiling waters of the lake below.

Your downward momentum is halted almost as soon as it begins by a pair of muscular arms encircling your knees. You freeze. Clawed hands dig into your chest and thigh, pulling you back. You hear Susie’s voice in your ear: “Watch your step, dumbass!”

Your feet settle on the catwalk. You look back to see her flash a fanged smile.

You return her grin and pull up the plug by its cable; it had only slipped down about a half a foot before stopping. Susie holds your waist and then your legs steady as you climb back onto the handrail with the cable tucked once again under your arm. You could reach Ramb now…if only his face were turned to his left.

You sharply call his name, but of course he doesn’t react, so you jab the twin prongs of the plug into the side of his head. With his head pinched between the prongs, you use the plug as a lever to turn his face toward you. It turns easily, without resistance. His blank, unseeing eyes are now facing you. Twin tracks of mud mar his cheeks.

Ramb breathes a single word:

“Love.”

You pull back the plug and stab it into Ramb’s eyes.

A shower of sparks erupts from Ramb’s eye sockets, singeing your cheeks. Then they stop. Ramb gasps and shudders. The last stage light blinks and shines brightly. The reflection shining in the tracks on Ramb’s cheeks grows dull as the liquid stops flowing. You look down and see the flow of liquid from the remaining holes on Ramb’s elongated body slow to a trickle and then stop. As you drop down into Susie’s waiting arms, you see the snow on the screen clear.

Sure enough, it was indeed a face lurking behind the blizzard. A face bearing a wide, toothy grin below a pair of manic, mismatched eyes. The left eye is yellow, and the right one is pink.

The eyes swivel toward you. The face on the screen is looking right at you.

Then the pupils roll up, and the face laughs. It grows as it laughs, until the gap in-between its white, laughing teeth engulfs the screen.

And then you see nothing. The screen is black.

Ralsei starts to walk down the catwalk toward you and Susie, but a loud hissing sound makes him stop. A wave of steam is rolling up from the water below. Despite the ugly color of the water, the steam is clean and white. It smells pleasant, like trees after rain. It’s warm on your skin but not painfully hot.

As the steam rises, the water level below starts to drop. The water lowers faster and faster, as though whirling down an unseen drain, until nothing remains but a puddle lying darkly on the stage floor. Then that, too, shrinks—like a timelapse of a pond evaporating in a drought—until the stage is dry.

Ralsei finally reaches you. “Are you two okay?” he asks.

Susie grins. “Peachy,” she says.

Ralsei looks toward you, and his mouth drops open in concern. “Oh, Kris! Your cheek is burned! Here.” You feel fuzzy paws against your face. There’s a green flash, and a wash of cool relief floods your body, dissolving the lingering pain from your sore muscles and electrical burns.

“Cool. Now let me do you!” Susie confidently gathers a glowing ball of green light in her hands and thrusts it toward Ralsei. It hits Ralsei’s shoulder, sputters, and dies.

Ralsei doesn’t look any different, but he smiles kindly at her. “Thank you, Susie,” he says. “That was, um, very nice.”

“Kris?”

You whirl around. There’s still a trickle of liquid coming from Ramb’s mouth as it moves beneath the plug. “Kris, are you there?” he asks fearfully. “W-Where did you go? I can’t see!”

Ramb’s long, spindly fingers grope blindly at the plug on his face. He makes no attempt to remove it; he merely feels out its shape with his clawed fingertips.

You and your friends watch him nervously. Despite the monstrous changes that overtook the rest of his body, his head and shoulders are mostly unchanged. The tatters of his apron still hang from one shoulder, pinned against his chest by one of the plugs.

His hands drop from his face and begin groping at the air before him blindly. His right arm finds the handrail and his fingers dart back and forth across its length anxiously.

“Kris!” he’s calling. “Kris, please! It’s so dark! Help me!”

His hand is within reach. Will you take it?

Yes.

You reach over and wrap your own hand around one of his fingers as he squeezes the rail. He freezes.

"Ah!" he cries. His fist loosens.

He hesitates, and then his hand flips over so that his palm is turned up on the rail. You firmly lay your hand in the middle of his palm. Before, his hand was small enough to fit neatly in your own palm, but now his fingers are so long that when he wraps them around your hand, they engulf your entire forearm.

Susie and Ralsei watch in respectful silence. Ramb’s mouth smiles weakly beneath the plug.

“Kris…” he breathes. “It’s so cold. But I don’t mind, luv. Your hands were always cold.”

You hear a cracking sound. You look down and see a gray surface slowly creep up Ramb’s misshapen legs, encasing them within a hard shell. Bit by bit, the shell inches its way up his twisted form.

You snap your eyes back up to his face, but the smile is still there.

“Don’t worry, luv,” he says softly. “It’s alright. I never really fit in here. I could blame you and your brother, but that wouldn’t be fair. After all, I never fit in at the Library either. The only place I ever felt I belonged was in your hands.”

The shell of stone is still coming. You can hear it drawing ever closer, a clicking and cracking like pebbles cascading down a mountain trail.

“It’ll be a relief, I think,” Ramb is saying, “not to see anything. After seeing so much, to see only blackness will be like...like a sweet, dreamless sleep."

His smile twitches and then falls. “Kris… Oh, Kris! It will be dreamless, won't it?" he cries. "I don't want to see anymore!”

He writhes anxiously atop the slowly petrifying stalagmite to which he is now inescapably fused. “I saw so many things that can hurt you, Kris. Frightful things, lurking in the dark with fangs bared. And I can’t protect you from any of them. I can’t set you free.”

A single tear beads along the bottom edge of the plug over his eyes and rolls down his left cheek, leaving a clear trail down the middle of the muddy track.

The stone shell has reached his chest. He takes a halting breath. You see the gray rock reach his shoulders and start to crawl down his arms. He squeezes your arm tighter.

“Kris.” His voice is growing faint. “Your friends are precious. Hold onto them, won’t you?”

Ramb’s hand hardens and turns cold against your arm. The warm squeeze of his hand is replaced by an icy vise of marble. Meanwhile, his stiffening body leans forward with a series of painful cracks, like the popping discs of a rolling spine. By the time the stone encases his head, his face is pointed down over the floor.

You see something flash as it drops out of his mouth. You hear something clink against the floor.

You pull your arm free of the stone encircling it and run for the stairs. Your friends follow you.

You reach the bottom of the staircase and run to the spot where you saw the object fall. You start to sweat under the hot glare of the stage lights. There’s something flashing on the floor, something that reflects the lights above with a much sharper brilliance than that of a dirty stage floor.

Your feet stop before the object. You reach down and pick it up. This time, your fingers take hold of it easily. You’re struck by the odd notion that this time, the crystal is ready for you to pick it up, that it had wanted to wait until this moment.

You squeeze the Shadow Crystal in your fist. Its sharp edges dig into your palm.

Your friends join you as you look back up at Ramb. His twisted form now seems to be bent over you. His mouth is frozen in the shape of an O. He could be exclaiming in surprise, as though delighted to see you, but you know he isn’t.

You feel Ralsei’s paw on your arm. “I’m sorry, Kris,” he says.

You feel a lump in your throat. You swallow it down and quietly lead your friends back toward the dressing room.

You leave the door slightly ajar before you walk away.