Alex Reynard

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CHAPTER 00000

George touched one hoof to oblivion.

Toby watched with worry, afraid he was about to see his friend go toppling over the edge. Maybe the tile would crumble beneath him, tumbling everyone down into emptiness. But Toby got a hold of himself. For starters they were on the edge of space; George would more likely just float gently away. Secondly, nothing bad actually happened.

The stallion could see nothing supporting him, but he felt it, and heard it, when he stamped his hoof on the void. It sounded like thick glass. A low, wobbling echo accompanied his stomp, despite there being nothing to echo off of. George shook his head in uncertainty, then stepped fully onto the nothing. As Junella had said, it held him. Almost invitingly.

He began a slow march. No need to rush. No need to get their adrenaline up early. Just a steady, relaxed pace.

Toby listened to the hoofbeats. Like heartbeats. Piffle's boots were clompy. The 'ting' of Zinc's thumbtack could be heard in each of his steps. Toby's own were muffled wisps. The invisible glass was a little slippery for his sandals, but felt sturdy beneath him. That was a relief.

Junella had finished with her nails. The open holes in her fingertips throbbed, but she still reached back to begin cracking off the shards from her tail. Otherwise, any sudden stop would leave Toby with a faceful of razor sharp LPs. She heard the vinyl icicles fall and smash against the nothingness, trodden on by other paws.

Toby was trying his hardest to ignore the information received by his eyes. There was nothing below him but billions of miles of blackness and starlight. Up ahead were huge cosmic rocks, bumbling to and fro like herds of buffalo. They moved in real-time slomo. He wondered if any of them might float close enough to touch.

His breathing was a little fast. He tried slowing it down. 'This is only the beginning. Keep in mind, it wants you scared. Don't give it any help.'

As if it heard his mind, Toby blinked and Junella was a mile away.

Space stretched. The chains between them strained like a strand of pulled gum. Junella was a little black dot on the horizon. George was gone entirely. Toby whipped his head around and Zinc was barely visible. His heartrate sped up.

The mouse looked all around. Infinite stars surrounding. A second ago he'd felt safe, latched in between two of the bravest fursons he'd ever known. Now he was alone and exposed. The chain looked thin as a guitar string. Anything could break it. Toby envisioned a biteranodon swooping in to catch him in its claws.

'That's ridiculous!' Toby told himself firmly. He felt a little flame of anger. Good. Anger was better than fear. This place was trying to trick him already. But if he calmed down and listened carefully, he could still hear hooves and boots. Impossible if what his eyes were telling him was true.

He looked straight up towards the dizzying blanket of stars. His mind suddenly clicked on exactly why he thought this place might truly exist beyond Phobiopolis. There were no more frolicking constellations up there. This was the same night sky he'd seen from his own bedroom window back home.

Toby remembered the grooved black bulb bobbing back and forth in front of him after Junella finished picking her tail clean. He kept his eyes high and stretched his arm out, letting his hand seek back and forth. He felt it brush over vinyl.

There was a grunting exhale like, 'Yes? Excuse me?'

He made a sound of 'Just keep walking; situation normal'.

Junella shrugged.

When he looked back, the others still seemed miles distant. Toby was a little disappointed that the illusion hadn't been dispelled. At least it had been disproven. He felt pretty good about that. This was only Dysphoria's first strike, certainly the first of many. But Toby had shown himself that it was possible to outsmart its tricks. 'If I can do it once, I can keep on doing it.'

The sextet continued in silence. The only sound was the marching beat of their paws, echoing like they were crossing a vast Victorian ballroom. At one point Zinc made a sound of mild revulsion. Toby looked in every direction, but couldn't see anything icky. Piffle 'eep'ed. He wondered what sights Dysphoria was showing them.

From below came a high pitched crack.

George stumbled for a second, then stopped to listen. Junella gave him a poke and a growl to keep moving.

But Toby had heard it too. And he'd felt the chains go slack for a moment as George and Junella reacted. That was not good. That meant something real might be happening.

Everyone walked a little more softly, ears up.

The sound again. Now it was unmistakable. The heart-stopping crackle of ice beginning to splinter.

Toby could hear Zinc's breathing get louder. Far ahead, he saw a tiny black speck make a move for everyone to keep calm. Toby tried to, but that was not easy. The invisible glass had held them fine so far. He hadn't even considered it might be temporary.

Boots shuffled gingerly rather than stomping. George moved with the delicacy of a ballerina. Doll clung tighter to Piffle's shoulders. Everyone listened.

Icy mutters. The crystalline crunch of more glass failing.

It was hard to tell where the sounds were coming from. Toby looked all around his feet, still seeing nothing but stars. That wasn't fair. If the road really was breaking, they wouldn't be able to avoid the weak spots. He dared to hope that this was just an illusion too. Maybe Dysphoria could choose at will whether it showed something to one or all of them.

He looked ahead. Here came an asteroid the size of a sofa. For a moment his heart stopped as he realized it was on an intercept course with the swaying chain between himself and Junella. But then he blinked hard and forcibly reminded himself he was only seeing a mirage. A moment later he felt relief when he saw the sofaroid sail closer to the chain and pass right through like a hologram. Naturally. Knowing George's real position, the big rock probably hadn't been closer than a hundred feet.

Toby was startled by another new fracture, this time as loud as a windshield bursting.

It didn't seem to matter how carefully they stepped. There were more guncracks to the right, then the left. They were coming quicker now. Each one was louder than the last.

"RUN!!!" screamed Junella.

And Toby was about to. But then he remembered what the real Junella had said before they started. He froze in pre-panic, then put his foot down and forced himself to continue walking.

From the slack and jerk of the chains behind him, Toby could tell Zinc and Piffle had realized it too. They'd had their first voice impersonation.

Just ahead he heard a murmur of appreciation. Junella was proud they hadn't fallen for it.

And it would have been stupid to run anyway. Pounding footfalls would have made the glass fail even more quickly. Toby noticed the breaking sounds had stopped too. Like they were waiting in anticipation for the travelers to bolt like frightened rodents, and when they didn't, Toby could almost feel the 'aw shucks' of a prankster denied his punchline.

Toby lifted his foot and it came down on something that squished.

Several little wet somethings. He looked down and everything had changed.

In a flash so quick it made him dizzy, he and the others were suddenly inside. The stars and asteroids ceased to be. The travelers were now in a pale, dimly-lit room that was carpeted with eyeballs. Toby stumbled and felt Zinc bump into him. The mouse turned and there was that familiar scruffy muzzle. At least the distance illusion had quit.

Everyone else was looking around the room while the room looked back. Toby wondered if his friends were seeing eyeballs too or something else. It wasn't just a bunch of them scattered on the floor like marbles. No, that would be too simple. Floor, walls, ceiling: everything was eyelid skin. A thousand or more rolling eyes poked out, every color of the rainbow. All of them stared at the six travelers. And where anyone stepped, clusters of them would goosh open and squirt clear fluid.

The sensation was absolutely nauseating. Like stepping on rotten cherries. Toby kept marching because he knew he had to, but he could feel the intraocular fluid accumulating on his buckskin.

'Probably retinas and eyelashes too,' he thought.

'Not helpful, brain,' he replied.

Toby had no idea where the asteroid field had gone to. Maybe they were actually still walking through it? That seemed likely. This room full of sight was probably the first of many fake locations Dysphoria would set up in front of them. Funhouse displays. The cracking sounds had probably been fake too. Toby thought back to their starting point. How far away had Anasarca looked? Four miles? Six? A decent walk, but nothing impossible.

Toby absent-mindedly pushed the door aside and walked out into hazy sunshine. He blinked and glanced back. How the heck had he just opened a door when Junella and George were in front of him? And where was he now? This seemed like the back corner of a dust-shrouded farmer's garage. They were walking past a rusted tractor's skeleton towards the open garage door, out into a muggy spring morning. The grass looked dead. Tree seeds floated in the air like fairy snow.

Outside in the sunlight it was quiet, but not peaceful. It was disconcerting to be exiting a building they'd never actually entered, but there was also a clinging aura of abandonment to this place. The farmhouse they'd emerged from had timber rot and peeling paint. Ahead was the looming black shadow of a dead tree, with a tire swing swaying from its branches like a hanged child.

Toby wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotting apples. They peppered the grass around his feet, looking up like the eyeballs had. Flies swarmed around.

A tall shape. Toby jerked his head around and caught a glimpse of something slender made of seaweed ducking out of sight behind the house. Its antlers had been level with the roof. Toby could still see its deep green fingers.

'Maybe it won't come over here.'

They walked on past the tree and time began to melt. Every step they took made the sun rise and set. The grass decomposed beneath their steps. The empty fields became a bleak grey fog that turned to swirling snow. When Toby squinted to see where they were going, there was a long, wide rectangular building ahead. He couldn't read the sign above, but the place was shaped like a supermarket. Toby could see glass doors shutting and opening automatically, like a mouth with the hiccups.

Snowdrifts butted up against the faded yellow sides of the market. The lines of the parking lot were buried. Toby noticed there was no longer any glass in the automatic doors, but plenty on the ground.

When George approached, the skeletal rectangles tried to close on him. George smacked them aside with a toss of his head, denting them permanently open. No patience for such foolishness.

Toby stepped cautiously past the straining, juddering doorframes and into the building. It was dark in here. Not quite pitch black. Scant light snuck in through the snowed-over windows. There'd obviously been a power failure.

The grocery store was snowbound, internally and entirely. Powder had completely conquered the place. There were ankle-deep drifts on the floor and inch-thick blankets covering everything else. It was like the storm clouds had come inside to pick up a few things for dinner. Icicles hung off grocery carts. Still lifes of snowy food sat on the checkout conveyors, suggesting the building had been abandoned quickly. And recently: the cash registers weren't looted. As the travelers progressed into the store itself, Toby could also see that none of the produce had started to rot yet.

Where they walked, the snow beneath their feet made that squidgy compacting sound. Toby's sandals had straps up his calves, but his feet were exposed on the sides, and furless too. The chill subtly began to hurt. Like red and silver lines crawling up his legs.

A thought occurred. He blurted, "Maybe it wanted us in here. Maybe we should have gone around."

Junella spun around with a finger to her lips. "Shh!"

Oh right. No talking. He made an apologetic face to her. 'Geez, that just slipped out. I'm gonna have to be more careful with that.' He felt doubly embarrassed since he'd remembered the rule a moment ago when he'd heard the phony command to run.

The ceilings were low in here. It made him feel claustrophobic. He could see okay about six feet in front of him, but beyond that everything blurred to shadowy greys. The far shelves were barely distinct. They reminded him of the derelict vehicles surrounding Ectopia Cordis.

George led them forward past the peppers and lettuce until he came to a corner. He tried to walk straight on, but the wall was actually solid. He bucked, confused. He did not like having to turn away from the direction his head-thumper was pointing him in, but he had no choice. He turned down the main aisle. More snow. A display of batteries had toppled over and the scattered black packages made holes in the drifts.

Just as they left the produce section, Toby felt a bolt of curiosity. He reached out to snag an orange, then shook the snow off. He definitely wasn't dumb enough to eat it, but he was curious how deep this illusion went. If he unpeeled it, would it still be an orange? He recognized the buzzy, impatient inquisitiveness he was suddenly feeling: the Adderall had finally shown up. He looked around the racks of frozen foods. They were more interesting than frightening now, even in the dark. Yes, if some big snarling animal came rumbling out from one of the aisles, that would be scary. But for now he thought Dysphoria was just trying to creep them out. Get them unsettled. Toby looked down at his orange. It was gone.

He grunted in frustration. He had felt it in his shivering paws, then it had ceased to exist. He leaned over and snatched a cereal box off the nearest shelf and tore it open. He struggled with the bag and it burst. Bran flakes exploded outward. Zinc shook some out of his fur. Toby was surprised by that. He thought it might be a very good idea to keep tabs on his friends' reactions, as a way to tell if any given mirage was shared or personal.

The darkness of a doorway slipped over him. He swiveled. This didn't make sense. They'd been halfway down the main aisle, so they shouldn't have been entering anything. But it didn't matter, because here they were. It was still dark, but a warmer, flickering darkness. An orange darkness. The cold remained, but Toby sensed heat within it.

George adjusted his path according to the tiny headache he was following.

From out of nowhere Zinc shouted, "Drop dead twice, you fat ugly fucker!!!"

It was top-of-the-lungs loud and right in Toby's ears. They rang with pain and he spun around. Surprisingly, Zinc's expression showed he actually had just said that. The canine looked chagrined. He wouldn't meet Toby's gaze. More frightened by the shout than anything else so far, Toby turned back around and wondered what the heck Dysphoria had shown to Zinc to deserve such a reaction.

They were beneath the supermarket now. Toby didn't know how he knew that, but self-supplying information was a hallmark of dreams. They were inside an industrial laundry. It was partly on fire.

The low ceilings had been replaced by a high one. Melting snow dripped from the pipes and rafters above. The sextet walked past hulking, rusted machinery. The doors of side-loading washers hung open like fat, flapping lips. Toby could feel a chill on his left side, licking heat on his right from where an enormous heap of old clothes was burning. It smelled terrible.

One of the washers gurgled to life. Just one. Soapy froth spilled out of its mouth like slow vomit.

A CAW startled him. There was a flutter of heavy wings above. Toby jerked up his arms to protect his face. Greasy feathers glanced them. The crow disappeared back into the ceiling shadows and screamed hatefully at the intruders. Other screeches echoed from around the room.

Another crow swooped, then two more. Piffle shrieked as a beak tore at her antennae. Junella felt something peck her, then just as quickly vanish. Something bit Toby's shoulder. He covered his mouth to keep from yelling at it.

George picked up the pace. The laundry room was long, but not infinite. Maybe the crows would desist if they vacated. He snapped his blackened teeth at the pests as they zoomed back and forth. The others took up a counterattack. Junella managed to smack a wing, getting an outraged squawk in reply. Toby flailed wildly, then suddenly felt a thud and blood running down his hand. A flapping body fell at his feet, looking up at him with the mouse's own pink eyes. They scorched with outrage.

Toby looked at his hand. A long cut ran down his ring finger. Blood was gushing out hot and wet. In the light of the fire it looked like dirty black gasoline.

Toby remembered the tack in his back. It still stung. He looked away from his hand and concentrated on the sting. There was something else too. Something wet. The blood? No. Drips from the ceiling? The fan! The one Junella put on George's back. Toby had forgotten all about it. That was why he felt cold. It kept spraying drops of water in his face to keep him awake. He looked back at his hand. The blood and cut were still there, but now they looked like tattoos hovering just above the skin. 'HA!' he cheered. 'You got me for a second, but not for long!'

He made the choice to ignore the birds entirely and keep his eyes focused ahead. There was another doorway that George was leading them to. The crows circled around, pissed as hell. Screaming and jeering and dropping feathers. A crownado. They pecked and bit at Toby's hair and ears, but the mouse only flinched and kept moving. He ignored the fire and the increasing number of washing machines that were getting sick all over themselves. 'This is all fake. Every last bit of it.'

He stepped through the doorway behind Junella. Green and black checkered tile.

For no good reason, the laundry room had become a school. It was vaguely familiar to Toby. Irritatingly so. It definitely wasn't the one he'd gone to as a cub. Maybe he'd toured the nearby high school once. Didn't he go to a play or something there? A field trip for a choir performance? Was that it?

The travelers kept walking along a decrepit, throatlike hallway. Same air of abandonment as the other mirages they'd walked through, but unlike the tidy frozen market, this place looked like hooligans had made it their personal carnival. Every door was broken open. Every pane of glass was smashed. Graffiti smeared the walls, unreadable but foreboding. Someone had pulled the fire alarm in here as well. The warped wood and rusted door hinges attested to the sprinklers having gone off long ago.

There was nothing outside but an intense yellow light, seen through the bars over the vandalized windows. Toby looked away, into the classrooms on the other side. Desks had been overturned. A chalkboard showed impacts from a hurled fire extinguisher. Plus, someone had been relieving themselves in here. The scent of piss was strong and getting stronger. Feral cats, maybe? 'No, wait.' Toby saw a teacher's desk with a fat, decomposing turd lying across it like parsley on a plate. He recoiled. He hoped whoever had done that wasn't still here.

'Here does not exist,' he reminded himself. And then he wondered if thinking about someone being here might make them exist. He remembered worrying about Biteranodons not too long before the crows showed up. Could Dysphoria read minds?

He stepped on a loose tile and tripped. The floor shattered like cheap shingles and he fell straight through into nothing.

Wind beat at his face and at his ears. He was plummeting down a dark, metal shaft. An air vent. Toby's flailing hand hit thunder-rumbling metal. He opened his mouth to scream in terror. He was falling and falling and there was nothing at the bottom and he was going to fall forever-

'NO I'M NOT!!!'

Just like that, he was back in the school again. His heart rattled against his ribcage. Toby looked around at the others. None of them had seen what just happened to him.

Toby rubbed his hand across his face. He could feel the moisture from the fan. 'That's real. Everything else isn't.'

He scowled. 'You dirty jerk,' he thought towards Dysphoria. His head pulsed and tingled from the drugs. 'Is that how it's going to be? You keep throwing crap like that at us? It's not going to work. We're not dumb enough to believe it. At most, you can scare us. Boo! Make us jump like a cheap horror picture. But we're going to keep walking. I am going to keep walking!' he thought resolutely.

If Dysphoria heard him, there was no response. Just the sounds of window shards being trod upon.

Toby looked down a side hallway and saw a drinking fountain turn on by itself. It overflowed with orange rustwater, making a floor river.

'Not impressed,' Toby thought.

And then he wondered if this was a bad idea, his defiance. Would Dysphoria take it as a challenge? 'I guess it's not like it wasn't going to do its worst anyway.'

The hallway continued, and so did Toby. It seemed infinite. Whenever they passed an intersection, Toby looked down it and couldn't see where it ended. He imagined this wrecked-out dungeon the size of an entire city. How strange would that be, to grow up in a building so big you'd never leave? 'No stranger than growing up in a bedroom you never left,' his brain snarked. This place stank of mildew. The wet wood was slowly falling apart and being consumed by insects. A cockroach buzzed past Toby's ear. He swatted at the whine. Also, were the hallways starting to narrow? Maybe it was his imagination. But it seemed at the start there'd been more room between the classrooms and the window wall.

The graffiti had been illegible. Until this one. Tiles had been ripped clean off an entire section of wall. On the bare wood beneath, someone had spraypainted in humongous letters: "I CAME FROM SPACE TO RAPE AND RAPE."

The instant Toby read the words, he heard them in his mind.

Or was he hearing it somewhere else? Somewhere in the endless hallways? He listened more carefully. The path ahead was getting darker. The ceiling tiles had been torn down. Wires and ductwork hung from square cavities; the defacers had been swinging from them. The odor of mildew was so thick it was like walking through cobwebs.

"I came from space to rape and rape."

Toby turned around. He looked to Piffle and Zinc. They nodded: 'We heard it too.'

The sentence was far away, and spoken like a simple declaration of fact. But the voice itself was as disturbing as the words. It had come out of something without a brain. Something that could not understand language, only sounds. Toby's mouth was full of saliva.

George butted a tilted door out of his way, so dilapidated it crumbled from the impact. Toby could see mold growing over the graffiti now. Or was the graffiti growing underneath the mold? 'Why am I thinking things like that?'

"I came from space to rape and rape."

Definitely closer now. Maybe that sentence was just the monster's mating cry, and only sounded like language to normal ears.

Toby looked ahead to see if there was any end to this hallway. To his surprise, there was. Past another intersection and a few more ruined classrooms was a set of double doors. Not barred or locked either. He stepped over another shitlog some mischief-maker had left as a present. Roaches were gathered around, eating it.

When they reached the intersection, Toby looked down it by reflex. Far at the end was a large hairy being, obscured by yellow light. It had tusks. Toby saw them move when it spoke.

"I came from space to rape and rape."

The being broke into a frenzied scamper. Its flat feet crushed tiles and its gangly arms dragged along behind it like ship anchors.

Toby started running and shoved Junella when she didn't move fast enough.

"I came from space to rape and rape," it said again, just in case they had forgotten. Same monotone. Like a kid at a spelling bee.

George took the cue and bolted for the doors at the end of the hallway. Fast, but not so fast he'd choke his chained friends. They could all hear the rape-thing crashing along the hallway behind them. The top of its head scraped the ceiling. It bashed water fountains and fire extinguishers out of the way in its eagerness to do what it had come from space to do and do.

As Toby ran past the classrooms, he happened to glance into one. A gang of four teenage punks had an overweight teacher tied up naked, his face a purple balloon of bruises. They were piling up chunks of broken desks to burn him alive. The four looked into the mouse's eyes like, 'Wanna join? It's fun.'

George lowered his head as he ran towards the double doors, making himself a battering ram. No time to bother with handles. Piffle urged him on with intermittent squeals. The hairy thing was getting closer. It was much, much faster than them.

George suddenly realized that Dysphoria might be trying to trick him into destroying his head-thumper. So instead of a headbutt, he changed tactics, reared up, and foreleg-kicked the doors with all his might.

"I came from space to rape and rape."

They all heard it turn the corner. Light from the windows flickered as it passed. Toby screamed.

The door popped open with no resistance, just a creak that sounded like a laugh. Junella nearly shoved George out of the way to get through faster. Toby ran after her. Now they were in a gymnasium. Every noise they made reverberated off the reflective lacquered floor. The bleachers had been smashed to firewood. The lines and circles on the floor corresponded to no game Toby had ever seen. Dead students hung from the ceiling on jumprope nooses. At the far end of the room, an EXIT sign glowed.

Piffle kicked the door closed behind her and seconds later a thick leathery hand tore it open again.

"I came from space to rape and rape."

Junella slapped at George's thigh, telling him to get them the hell out of here even if he wrung all their necks doing it. He took the hint and accelerated towards the exit. He could hear the floorboards splintering under the weight of the their pursuer. Having no flesh, George did not have much need to fear rape, yet he somehow knew this thing would find a way.

Toby's vision started dimming. The room seemed to stretch. The exit seemed to shrink.

"I came from sp

No transition whatsoever: they were somewhere else.

Toby was so startled he tripped on the green felt and fell over onto his palms and knees. Immediate pain from his collar. Grunted gasps from Zinc and Junella as his weight pulled on theirs too.

Zinc gave a hard tug and yanked the mouse back to his feet. His sneer said, 'Don't you dare do that again.'

Toby apologized wordlessly. The canine looked stressed enough to take a bite out of him.

They all looked around. The gym was gone. The thing from space was gone. They were standing on a whopping great pool table.

Scattered around were colored balls ten feet across. The travelers were now bug-sized. Or this was billiards for giants. There was a bright bulb overhead, though the rest of the room was shadow-hid. Toby heard sounds of sloshing liquid, the drone of a TV, and the shuffling of dirty clothes. The smell of cigarettes and alcoholism was thick as a fog.

George looked back to make sure everyone was still attached and undamaged. They looked worn out already, but all accounted for. Junella gave him an apologetic pat for being so rough a moment ago, then bade him continue with a nod. His head knew where to go.

Dysphoria was not done playing games though. The group hadn't taken four steps before there came a roar behind them. It was not from the lungs of the rape-thing, but a gang of gasoline engines.

Toby looked back. Four dented, rusted lawnmowers were there. Red toothy discs on wheels with bushy-browed cartoon eyeballs. Long handles protruding. Revving, revving. Toby wondered if they were the delinquents from before.

They waited to be noticed first, then they charged.

From all around came a hearty cheer from the towering phantom drunks in the darkness. This was tonight’s entertainment. Place your bets.

The travelers picked up their feet and ran again. The lawnmowers popped wheelies in unison, showing off nicked and bloodstained blades spinning at full RPMs. Their engines sounded like cackling laughter as they chased their meat and shredded up the table's felt.

Junella tapped George. "Pocket!" He looked back to make sure she'd actually said that, and she mouthed the word to confirm. He nodded and headed for the closest divot in the table.

Toby crammed his hands over his ears. The mowers' motors were supernaturally loud, not to mention the braying laughter from the unspoken crowd. Drops of beer rained down around him in slow motion, hitting hard as water balloons. The stink was making his throat knot up. Toby looked ahead, seeing the hole George was heading for. It looked like a black oversized toilet. Toby did not want to jump down there, but neither did he want to be digested by psychopathic lawn equipment.

Piffle was not a strong runner. Her legs were short and chubby. She could hear the mowers howling behind her, then a shriek escaped her throat as one of them leaped up and chewed a chunk out of her elbow. Blood cascaded down. Doll swung herself around to Piffle's other arm, trying to get out of attack range.

The lawnmowers seemed to cheer. They bucked and hopped, doing acrobatic, teasing leaps.

Zinc was on a hair-trigger anyway. Piffle's pain was his breaking point. He turned his head and shouted, "Come on, you shitbirds!! COME ON!!!"

One of them took the bait and lunged straight at him, metal teeth whirling.

Zinc lost two fingertips but managed to grab hold and swing the goddamn thing up and over his head. It slammed into the felt with a crunch and a shower of sparks. The unseen crowd booed in disgust. Zinc snarled wildly, spittle flying from his jaws. At least he'd killed the rotten motherfuck.

He looked back at Piffle. He met her eyes, then showed her his gushing hand. 'Not real,' he said silently.

She nodded, holding her elbow. 'I know.'

The other mowers were outraged. Their pal was a bent heap with its wheels still spinning. Down to three, they redoubled their effort to shred their prey, revving as loud as they could. Toby felt a trickle of blood run down his earlobe.

George knew he couldn't outrun them at his current speed. He knew all wounds were illusions here, but he could not stand to hear his friends suffer. The pocket was close. He whinnied in apology and took off at a hot gallop.

Immediately, Toby's feet left the ground and the pressure on his neck quadrupled. Sounds around him slurred and green felt flew beneath him. He gagged, felt himself blacking out, and grabbed frantically for the chain, trying to relieve some pressure so his neck wouldn't snap. Junella's tail smacked him in the face like a blackjack. His nose became a bright red umbrella of pain.

The lawnmowers' engines screamed. They chased harder, surging across the table like a pouncing pack of tigers.

Ahead was the pocket. Not far now. George pounded his hooves against the table, shredding felt.

The mowers' whirling blades laughed harder and harder.

Then there was just a quick swerve around the 7 ball and George was diving into darkness.

Toby felt himself being jerked in a new direction. Straight down. His hands squeezed the chain. He couldn't breathe!

The hole swallowed the sounds of the mowers and the disappointed crowd. The six were weightless for a moment, then came a bonecrack as George landed on hard plastic and everyone else followed. Four cries of pain. They landed on their backs and shoulders, then started sliding down the pitch black cylindrical tunnel. A waterslide with no water.

It was pure chaos. Toby was in pain and screaming and he thought his shoulder was dislocated. He couldn't see anything. They were sliding so fast he had no clue what was up or down.

The tunnel seemed neverending. Everyone bumped into each other. Rushing onwards down the tunnel. Onwards. Tunnel. Darkness.

A flash.

Darkness.

A flash.

Darkness.

A strobe light effect, then a loud clanging and the lights came on.

Confused and terrified, everyone looked around.

They were still moving forward just as fast as before, but now they were enclosed within a rattling tin can. Metal floor. Silver seats. Straps above their heads were shaking like reeds in the wind from the rumbling of the wheels below.

Most of the subway car's lights were smashed in. Only one still worked. Toby looked up. There were grasshoppers crawling around on the ceiling.

With the roar of the tracks surrounding them and the windows spitting flecks of light in their eyes, they all grabbed onto whatever they could and struggled to their feet with many moans. Toby pulled himself up with a pole and his shoulder made him wince. He'd landed hard on it, then kept hitting it over and over again as they fell. He tried to focus on the thumbtack to make the pain go away, but it remained. He really had busted it up.

This was a lesson. Dysphoria could not hurt them directly, but it could maneuver them into hurting themselves.

George was whimpering. Junella held him in a gentle hug. Toby turned and saw that both the horse's forelegs had shattered. Piffle pulled Zinc with her so she could hug George as well.

Junella made sure the stallion was paying attention as she carefully unwrapped the tape from around her tack. It didn't stick as well to vinyl. She flexed her freed hand and, with a flick of the wrist, dumbfounded her revolver.

George understood. He couldn't think of a non-verbal way to voice his concern so he risked asking, "Are you sure my death won't untether me from the chain?"

Junella shook her head and replied, "You're a parasite. The harpies squeal to drink your marrow."

George looked horrified.

Junella stamped her foot in frustration. She gestured wildly, trying to convey, 'See!? This is exactly why I said not to talk!'

Toby was horrified. He'd been looking right at her and the voice had seemingly been hers. He knew better, but couldn't resist an experiment. He opened his mouth to say, 'My name is Toby.' "I'm a filthy baby bedwetter."

Everyone stared at him.

His cheeks turned red. He would not be doing that again.

Junella looked back at George and patted the metal rings encircling his pelvis: 'Don't worry'. She held the gun to his head and asked with her expression if he was ready.

He nodded.

BANG

Toby watched it happen. For a moment, George fell limp against the floor. Then a second skeletal horse tried to come into existence in the same space as his corpse. For a terrifying moment there were eight legs and two heads spasming around. The bones were held together by the collar, but they fought it, trying to separate into two. It looked obscenely painful.

Finally, the dead George seemed to absorb into the live one. Shaken, the construct stood up. He conveyed with his expression that, yes, he had felt every second of that. Toby reached out to pat him comfortingly.

Junella was glad to see him on his feet again. She turned and waved the gun: 'anyone else?'

Piffle looked down at her elbow. The blood had vanished, so she shook her head. Zinc rubbed his ribs but declined the offer too. Toby seriously considered it. He thought his shoulder might be fractured. His nose was bleeding for real too.

Suddenly he was horrified to see Junella duck into a defensive stance and aim her gun with both hands directly at Doll's face. The skunk's eyes were wide with fear. Piffle protectively pulled Doll to her chest.

Junella blinked. She looked past both of them, then growled.

Piffle looked back too. Nothing there. She mouthed, 'Did it make you see something?'

An irritated nod. And an apologetic look to Doll. Junella was just about to throw the revolver far away, lest she accidentally fire at someone for real next time. Then Toby grabbed her wrist.

Looking absolutely miserable about it, he pulled the barrel towards his forehead.

She searched his eyes for any sense he was spellbound, but they looked clear. And in pain. She nodded, acknowledging the guts it took to ask for this.

George cringed in empathy.

BANG

Then Toby was mindlessly screaming as his body was filled with more bones and organs than it had ever been designed to contain. For a moment he had two faces, two hearts, two throats, two everythings. His flailing limbs crashed into each other. His skeleton ate itself.

Then it was over and he was clutching himself to the metal pole, shuddering all over. Drool and blood made red and silver lines down his chin. He looked to Junella and his eyes said clearly, 'Never again. Not for anything.'

Her expression was genuinely sorry. She turned and, with a snarl, threw the gun so hard it shattered a window. It went clattering off into the dark of the subway tunnel. She looked away from the others, furious at herself and this living hell. She put the thumbtack back in her hand, making a fresh hole, and secured it with the tape.

Then she swept her arm towards the front of the train. Her face was hard again. They could stay here, or they could keep moving.

George cleared his throat. He reached up to point at his head-thumper. Then he started towards the opposite door.

She smiled sheepishly, thanked him with a nod, and followed.

The next car was on a different train entirely. The light was so low it took their eyes a moment to adjust, but it was clear they'd moved from a subway car to a sleeping car on a passenger train. The motion of the floor beneath them was a different rhythm. Tiny triangular ceiling lamps were the only illumination. The walls were upholstered in a rich red color and felt like corduroy.

George had barely any room to move. The space between the windows and the sleeping compartments was hardly more than the width of his ribcage. He had to take tiny steps. If anything chased them in here, they would have no choice but to stand and fight.

Despite the seeming calm of their surroundings, Toby couldn't help but notice the air in here felt greasy. So did everything he touched. Like it was all covered in a thin mist of wax.

Wind howled outside. A ghost mouse's eyes looked back into Toby's from the window reflection. He leaned in closer to see outside. It was after midnight, definitely. Raining. He could faintly make out a flat, featureless landscape that stretched on towards mountains. They passed a long line of tilting telephone poles.

Beneath them the train swayed back and forth, back and forth. The rivets in the walls rattled.

George reached the far door and was puzzled for a moment as to how it opened. The mechanism looked like a circle and a triangle at the same time. And there was no room for Junella to squeeze past and give him a hint. He tentatively attempted to spin the dial, and his hoof sank right through the metal. The whole door parted like ripples in a pond. Unsettled, but glad it had been that easy, he moved on.

In the next car, in compartment number 03, someone was yelling at the top of their lungs. "I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!" The same words, over and over.

There was no tenderness in the voice. It was a hoarse screech of livid madness. And there was a pause between each repetition, punctuated by a sound of harm. "I LOVE YOU!!!" thump "I LOVE YOU!!" whack "I LOVE YOU!!!" snap "I LOVE YOU!!!"

Somehow they all knew that whoever was on the receiving end of this love had long since stopped fighting back. Maybe stopped being alive.

They crept by as silently as possible, none of them wanting to disturb the occupant in 03. More declarations of love. More sounds of knuckles scaping bone. Toby jumped every time. Piffle was in tears. The shade was drawn over 03's window, but a shadow was moving inside. Piffle held her mouth shut to guarantee silence as she passed it.

George made it to the far end of the car. This time the door was different: an enormous rusted lever. Gritting his teeth, he pushed his hoof against it. It barely moved. He tried again with his teeth. No better. Back to the hoof. By keeping a steady pressure, he could coax the stubborn thing to just barely crawl towards its cradle. In the meantime, they had to keep listening to, "I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!!!"

Piffle held herself tight to Zinc. All of them were bunched up behind George as much as the tight confines allowed. None of them wanted to be close to that screaming.

George was working as fast as he could. The lever was digging its heels in. It was taking all the stallion's strength to keep it moving.

And then suddenly all resistance vanished. The lever fell towards its latch with a clang like a dropped toolbox.

The shouting from the third door stopped.

Piffle saw the shadow turn around. She shoved Zinc and he passed it down the line.

George did not bother with silence any more. He butted the door open with the side of his face and squeezed himself through. Everyone else squashed themselves into the next car as fast as they could.

Compartment 03 slowly opened.

Piffle had never been more happy to slam a door shut in her entire life.

She watched through the window into the previous car. Nothing stirred in there. 'Good.' She would be very happy to live the rest of her life never knowing what had been in that room.

They continued on through a dozen more identical cars. Same red walls, same dim lights. Thankfully, no more screaming. Though once, one of the compartment doors was open. Toby peeked into the small room, wincing in anticipation of a murder scene. It was totally empty except for some baby clothes left on the floor.

The rumble of the train became a pounding headache. Toby had to keep re-focusing on the droplets or the thumbtack to get any relief. But the throb kept returning. A migraine like a cigarette burn. He looked out the window again. Shapes. He cupped his hands against the glass and saw huge, angled beasts out there. Enough to fill the fields. They were either eating or fucking each other, or both. Toby looked up at the ceiling instead. Nothing up there but more red corduroy. That was fine.

George puzzled through yet another door and they all shuffled through. He began to wonder how many more hours of this they'd have to endure.

Dysphoria overheard his unhappiness and was eager to accede.

They all braced themselves as the train gave a sudden violent shudder. Brakes screeched.

Toby looked outside again. The farming fields were gone. Now they were on a bridge with no guardwalls, high above a river. He could see reflections of the rain on the water below.

Everyone shifted their weight as the train lurched to the left. Then an even sharper lean to the right. One of the sleeping compartments came open and luggage tumbled out to bang against Zinc's face.

The lights went out.

Total darkness. Toby's pupils dilated. The brakescreech rose in volume and pitch until it was tearing their heads apart with both hands.

Toby saw the moon in the sky. He saw it roll out of sight as the train fell sideways off its tracks.

The rumble vanished. Everything was silent as they fell.

Toby's heart seemed to pull itself up into his throat. His claws dug into the carpeted walls as everything turned upside down. He saw the loose suitcases swimming. He was frozen, so scared he couldn't even emote. Like he had gone beyond fear to a place of manic acceptance.

'We are falling. If we don't die in the crash, we will drown. There is absolutely nothing I can do to stop this.'

Gravity pulled him into Junella as the train car tilted and dove facefirst for the river.

The shock of impact traveled through Toby's body, clacking his bones together. The lights flickered. He felt the air pressure in his ears change. Someone was screaming. The windows bulged. Through them, Toby could see water rising. They were sinking. Down to the bottom. The first trickles appeared at the edges of the windows. Soon the glass would burst, showering everyone with tiny clear blades and ice cold water.

The train car was at a fifty degree downward angle. Piffle crawled frantically back towards the last closed door. She unfurled her wings and buzzed them. Her chain tugged Zinc's. His hand clamped her ankle. She looked back, antennae thrashing directionlessly. He fixed his eyes on hers and slowly shook his head. He waited for her to calm and understand.

'No backtracking,' he carefully enunciated. He pointed below them, towards the water.

She was a trembling statue for a moment, not wanting to believe it. But there was no choice. She eased her claws out of the floor and took his hand.

Zinc turned and offered his palm to Toby. The mouse was staring out the window, almost paralyzed. Zinc whapped his shoulder. Toby looked around, saw the open hand, and accepted it. Zinc pointed with his muzzle towards Junella and George. Toby swallowed hard, but turned to the skunk and relayed the message.

She had already made George understand what he had to do, but took Toby's hand in hers nonetheless. Anything that helped ground her was good. She caressed George's ribs. He nodded gratitude, then took on the last puzzle.

This one was simple. There was a wheel in the door with an impression exactly sized to his hoofprint. He fit two and two together. Then he looked back at the others.

Everyone gulped the deepest breath they could before George turned the wheel.

The river ripped the door open and swallowed them all.

Their ears filled with the roar. The chill stabbed through their bodies. 'Up' and 'down' lost meaning. Toby saw bubbles dancing all around his eyes.

George pushed himself through the doorway and dragged the others behind him. The train car was still sinking, and fast. He did not like the idea of having it crush him against the river bottom, so he swam for all he was worth. He started heading upwards until the thump in his skull told him the right path was to swim further down. That seemed insane, but he obeyed.

Toby's neck and skull throbbed from being dragged along by a bone torpedo. His lungs burned. He had never felt so cold. The water tore the warmth from his blood. He felt like he was buried miles beneath snow. He clamped his mouth and nose shut, squeezing till capillaries burst. He tried to tell himself that none of this was really happening, he was in no true danger. But his senses refused to believe. Right now they were convinced beyond reason that they were cold and drowning and within oblivion's clutch.

George could see a mossy, drunk light somewhere ahead. Impossible. But he swam towards it even harder.

When Toby realized George was pulling them down deeper, he lost it. He screamed, releasing his remaining air in a chandelier of bubbles. He tore at his collar and his nails left ruts in his skin.

Above them, train cars fell slowly. Massive, tumbling dominoes. They would crush the tiny souls and trap them forever, entombed beneath tons of steel and glass and red corduroy.

The light was the moon, George realized.

His nose broke the surface. He splashed into the light and kicked to find anything solid. To his amazement, his hooves dug into sand. He anchored himself as well as he could and pulled. Grunting with strain, he dragged five chained bodies up onto the shore beside him. Three were still moving.

Junella collapsed in the wet sand and vomited water. Toby was prone, twitching. Zinc had managed to hold both his breath and Piffle the whole way through. She was cold in his arms though. He kissed her forehead, then held her tight as she convulsed into her new living body. No stranger to transformations, it disturbed her less than George or Toby, but the pain was still godawful. Thankfully, seeing Zinc's caring gaze at the end made it recede. She threw her arms around him and nuzzled into his shoulder. He was glad to reciprocate.

Junella helped Toby up. Once she'd gotten through to him that he was out of the water, he looked alright. Queasy, but alright. She was worried for a second he'd gone catatonic. That could happen in here. Sure it could. The mouse swirled back to sentience, then hugged George in thanks for getting everyone out of there. Junella did too.

After Zinc helped her to her feet, Piffle noticed something. She couldn't feel little hands gripping her shoulders anymore. She turned around and found Doll hanging stiffly from the end of the chain, arms splayed. Motionless without her bag. For a moment Piffle's heart broke. But then she remembered how this place played tricks. The chain had been fastened around the burlap, so it couldn't have gotten lost no matter what her eyes were telling her. She took her small friend in her arms and, on the side of her head, spelled out I-T-S-S-T-I-L-L-T-H-E-R-E. Doll was not able to respond.

George looked up at the sky. Rain poured down. They were already soaked, so what did it matter? The moon was so full he could see its oozing craters. They had come ashore out of a pond no more than twelve feet across. Dysphoria was surely having a chuckle at that.

Ahead and all around was nothing but grass and weeds. Emptiness for miles. But the pulse in George's head told them where to go. He looked back to check on his companions. They looked miserable and wet, but stable. George began again to walk.

Toby felt the tug on his chain and followed. A large part of him wanted to just sit down and rest. Take a time-out to mentally deal with everything that had happened so far. But he couldn't. So he followed.

The wind around them moaned like someone lost and searching for home. The rain was picking up. Each fat droplet stung Toby's fur. It flicked his ears and nose. He looked up into the rain, baring his teeth, wanting to scream for it to stop. Instead he dropped his muzzle to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself. He kept walking. The grass tickled his ankles unpleasantly, like bugs' legs.

Piffle tried everything she could to get the burlap bag back. She tried holding Doll outside her field of vision, then having Zinc startle her to make the illusion break. No dice. Then she reckoned that her sense of touch might be unaffected. She felt Doll all over. Nothing but smooth plastic. But then when she felt along the chain, jackpot. The bag had slid up and over somehow. And Dysphoria was nasty enough to exploit that and turn it invisible.

Doll felt the familiar scratchy fabric being pulled into place. She looked up into Piffle's ruby globes, still inanimate since the bag remained invisible, but at least she had the peace of mind it wasn't lost. All she could move was one hand, as the river had claimed half of her new emerald gloves. She pulled Piffle's paw closer and squeezed it. The hamsterfly smiled brightly. Then, with a determined smirk, she reached in her dress pocket and dumbfounded something green. Doll was overjoyed. Zinc looked like he'd truly needed a bright spot in the depths of this ordeal.

Nothing much happened for a very long time. At one point Junella clapped four times, then shook her head angrily, but that was it. They kept walking. It felt like miles had passed.

Then something landed on Toby's shoulder. He saw it in his peripheral vision. A long-legged beetle. He slapped at it angrily.

The sound of the wind changed.

The rain changed.

Every drop became a beetle, and they blotted out the moon.

Within seconds the air was thick with tiny black bodies. The sound of a million buzzing wings. Those who shrieked soon found their mouths full. The air had turned into bugs. A rain of bugs. A snowstorm of bugs.

Toby curled up as tight as he could while still walking. He shoved his nose into the edge of his vest. The insects pelted him like plastic bullets. Their awful legs scrambled through his fur. He felt them trying to crawl into his ears. Their pincers were digging in all over. Slick little bodies were mummifying him through sheer numbers.

Soon enough everyone was wading through inches of twitching insects. Exoskeletons crunched beneath their feet like peanut shells. The buzzing was ceaseless and deafening. Zinc slipped on the carpet of vermin and would have smashed skulls with Toby if Piffle hadn't caught him. Doll was holding herself close to Piffle's jacket, trying not to fall off, keeping her head down so the bugs wouldn't fill up her hollow face.

George knew what Junella had said about weapons, but there were beetles crawling inside every part of his body. They were in his eye sockets. He raised his head and exhaled an orange blossom of flame. Pests were baked to ashes. It gave himself and his companions a few seconds' respite, but he could blow from now until eternity and the beetles would never stop falling. He wanted to hunker down and shield his friends with his body, but that was what this realm wanted. Even if the rain never stopped, he couldn't either. He had to make sure nothing was ever stronger than the steady thump at the front of his skull.

There was a lightning flash and the beetles ceased to exist.

The six of them were left shuddering, covered in bites, all by themselves in a moonlit field without even a breeze of wind.

They should have been happy. The damned bugs were gone. Instead they all felt used. Dysphoria was playing with them. Letting them know it could flick its cruelty on or off whenever it felt like.

Zinc sucked in breath, then screamed for as long and as loud as his lungs would let him. A volcanic eruption of sound. It accomplished absolutely nothing.

Still sopping wet, the six continued walking.

They slogged through the field for another half hour.

At first they were all on edge. They waited for the next dirty prank. They waited for more rain, more bugs, more rapemonsters, or more of that horrible voice screaming "I LOVE YOU". They tried to make themselves ready for anything. Little clenched fists, all in a row.

Zinc kicked at weeds. It was all he could do to vent his increasing rage. There was a limit to what he could take, and beyond what the others could see, there were whispers. Reminders of his first visit to this carnival hell. No one else seemed to hear them and he didn't know why. Wouldn't Dysphoria want to humiliate him even more? He had snapped at the voice earlier, but it did no good. The voice followed everywhere. Buzzing in his ear like an immortal mosquito.

Toby felt his waterlogged shoes squish with every step. He knew all this cold water had been Dysphoria's attempt to make them forget about the spraying fan, but Toby kept it in mind nonetheless. He knew he had to keep his mind active. As fatigued as he was already, he kept on reminding himself that his mind was his only weapon in here. He could not let himself be fooled. There would be time enough to relax once he was out. If they made it to Anasarca, Toby thought he might just lie down and sleep for a weeks.

No one can keep up alertness forever. For a while the sextet watched the horizon and the grass, senses piqued to any new threat. But the unending sameness of the landscape lulled them.

Fear became boredom. Pain became numbness.

And a wall slammed down behind them.

The field was gone. They blinked at the harsh light. They were inside, in dry air.

It was a perfectly square room. Blank walls the color of a fish's belly. Empty except for the six chained companions. They weren't even wet anymore. And Doll's bag had regained visibility so she could move again. This good fortune was surprising.

"Welcome!"

The cheerful voice came from the middle of the room. Now there was a square pedestal all of a sudden. And on it was a perch with a colorful parrot.

'What now?' Toby thought.

The bird's voice had the crackle of an old wax recording. "Riddles for you! Riddles for you! In this room there are two doors, but only one leads to truth! The other leads back here, I fear! Choose true, please do!" It was full of shit though, as all four walls were all completely blank.

Or at least, that had been the case a moment ago. In the instant when everyone was distracted, the room had changed again. To their right was now an intricate wooden door, gleaming with varnish, covered in carvings of scampering squirrels and other forest animals. To their left was a simple aluminum screen door. Dented, and with a few dead flies stuck to it.

The parrot extended its rainbow-hued wings. "I'm high as a kite when my mood is bright, but turn me on my head and I'll dance till I'm dead. What am I? Give it a try!"

None of them were in the mood for this, but it seemed like the only way on to the next irritation. Toby rolled the riddle over in his mind. He tried to remember all the words correctly, as puzzles like these often employed double meanings. At first he thought of an hourglass. That didn't fit the first part though. Maybe an airplane? Falling out of the sky after a tailspin?

The parrot's black pebble eyes focused on Junella as she walked towards it. "Ah, sweet miss! Come to give me a kiss? Whisper in my ear, my dear. Have you solved this?"

She motioned for George to step out of the way and let her get closer. To the parrot she nodded with a satisfied smile.

Then she dug both hands into its feathery neck and clenched. With a savage yank, she pulled apart bone and sinew and ripped its head clean off. Blood sprayed across her face and she didn't even flinch.

Toby jumped back but his chains kept him from getting too far away. Junella's pumpkin-colored eyes smoldered with unfathomable hate. Her fists trembled around the two chunks of dead bird they clutched. Toby realized the skunk had been mostly quiet all this time, but it was just a valiant mask. Her composure was fraying, held together by thinning threads.

Junella threw the head and body against the wall, leaving two red paintbrush smears. She rubbed her face and hands on her scarf, then took a deep breath. 'That felt good,' she mouthed.

Zinc wished he'd been the one close enough to the pedestal to do that. But how were they going to choose a door now?

Junella had known the answer all along. Pure intuition. The minds of devious, cheating bastards think alike. She motioned for George to keep walking towards the far wall, ignoring the two doors completely. When he got there, he gave her a puzzled look.

She rammed her fist right through.

It had never been anything but wallpaper.

Toby felt a moment of insane rage overcome him. He had no good outlet for it, so he gave the middle finger to the parrot's lifeless head as he passed by.

Then the six of them walked through the hole, into coal blackness.

Unsurprisingly, the wallpaper repaired itself the instant they stepped through. Now there was no light at all. It was an enclosed space. The stuffy air told Toby that much. Their feet clanked where they stepped. Maybe an old boxcar? He'd definitely had enough of trains for a while.

Junella trusted George to know the way. And he did. Toby followed the sound of hooves scraping metal.

He stumbled on something. A plastic tube. Then his foot encountered another. And another. The floor was littered with these things.

Toby had a sudden awareness of what they might be. Even as his feet kicked away dozens of the things, he tried to shove the answer away. Maybe if he could keep the image out of his mind, these things wouldn't be what he knew they were.

But George just had to be helpful. He boosted his inner glow so the others could see. In the candlelight, they realized they had been walking over huge piles of used syringes.

The walls were covered in them too. Meticulously glued in place, stingers out.

Toby swore he could hear a long, crackling laugh somewhere off in the distance.

The six clustered closer and took tiny steps. They shuffled along, kicking away the snowdrifts of needles. Piffle, with her heavy boots, did not worry much. Toby was scared shitless. Needles. He'd taken them like a champ plenty of times. But those were sterilized, brand new, administered by a doctor. These ones were encrusted with all kinds of residue. He flashed back to being younger, staring at that little red garbage can in the doctor's office. The one with the biohazard sign. Where the medical waste was supposed to go. He'd had nightmares sometimes, of the doctor coming back into the room and lifting him up, and dropping him into that little red can.

The walls shook. Toby heard Piffle yelp and clutch herself to Zinc. Beneath his sandals, he felt the floor tilt.

'You rotten cheating jerk. You monster. Don't do this.'

And then the metal box was shaking like some gleeful toddler had picked it up for a plaything.

Toby had a fraction of an instant to cover his face. Then he landed with all his weight in a garden of thorns. The pain was enough to shatter his mind. Needles hit bone. Tubes shattered and fragments drove deep. He had no air to scream with.

Gravity grabbed hold of the chain and yanked everyone straight down. They tumbled end over end, living pincushions, and George slammed hard into the doors, which were covered in needles too. He got a nice faceful of quills before everyone fell out onto concrete.

Screams.

The needles were in their arms, their legs, the soles of their feet, their hands, their hair, their cheeks. Toby was blind with panic, flailing his arms in every direction, trying to scrape away all the pain. Some of the shattered bits had gouged deep into his flesh, stuck beneath the skin. He'd need surgery to get them all out. The cuts were starting to burn from all the terrible chemicals that had been injected into his body.

Somewhere, miles away, someone was screaming, "Attack! Attack!"

What now? What was attacking them now!?

'NO!' Toby's brain screamed, and he wrestled control of his panic. The voice had screamed, 'the tack'.

It took a monumental effort, but he forced himself to shut his eyes and lie still. Only one of these pains was real. Only one. He had to find it. Oh what a dirty, rotten trick. He mentally felt all up and down his back, searching for that one single...

All the other pains faded to static when he found the thumbtack. The needles had never been real. He had only made them real by letting himself be fooled.

And then Junella was hauling him up to his feet. Toby expected her expression to be disgust at his humiliating flopping around.

Instead, her face was an empty room. She looked at him blankly, assessed his condition, and turned to the others.

He looked behind. Everyone else seemed to be in varying states of shock, but had also figured out how to vanish the syringes. Zinc was stomping his foot and Piffle was rubbing her palm. Toby ran a paw across his own face just to make sure it was really unpunctured. It hardly felt like his own skin.

A tug on his chain. They had to keep moving.

Now they were in some kind of colossal concrete aqueduct. Or maybe the guts beneath a stadium. The walls were forty feet of solid grey. Toby felt like an ant. High above were water pipes and swatches of old posters. There were no more syringes, but plenty of garbage and birdshit and sagging cardboard boxes. The sextet's footsteps echoed.

This place was circular. If they stayed here they'd keep going round and round. Could Dysphoria just box them in like that? Trap them with no exit and leave them to starve? 'No, if it could it would've done that already, right?' This place had to be playing by some kind of rules. Toby had to remind himself that they were-

In a flash, he was walking across the asteroid field again. Stars all around, invisible glass beneath. Another flash. He was walking alone through Phlegmasia. He quickly shoved his hands over his eyes. Another flash. He was in Ectopia Cordis' holding cell. Another flash. He was in the Jennie-Mae. He rubbed his eyes till blue sparkles danced, and when he looked again the elephantine concrete colosseum was back.

Toby's muscles tensed. He rubbed his muzzle and directed hateful thoughts towards Dysphoria. Oh, so it could pull THAT at any time, could it? The disorientation had almost been bad enough to make him puke.

Actually, he hadn't been sick in here once so far. Toby latched onto that bit of pride. Something positive to hold.

'It's throwing everything it can think of at you, but you're still moving forward. Remember that. It can't stop you. It can only trick you into choosing to stop.'

From behind him he heard Piffle speak up, sounding broken and tired. "Toby?"

He looked over his shoulder.

"I know the real reason you won't fuck me. Too much medicine made your dick limp. But give it a try anyway. I'm real horny. Zinc can watch you plug it in. He's too much of a puss to stop you."

The words were obviously not hers, and she clapped both hands over her mouth, shaking her head in obvious mortification.

Toby let her know he didn't believe the ugly words, and sneered in contempt all around at Dysphoria's pettiness. 'That was just sick!'

Zinc kept his head down, pretending he hadn't heard a thing. But he reached back his paw, and when Piffle took it, his fingers caressed hers softly.

Junella turned her head and spat at the wall. George nodded his agreement with the gesture.

They continued on. The tunnel seemed to have no end and there were no landmarks to tell if they'd made any progress. Toby could hear PA announcements, rendered almost incomprehensible by distance and echo. After a while, he was sure they weren't language.

Up ahead the way was blocked. At the edge of the curve, some huge mound of garbage was barricading the immense tunnel. As they drew closer, details emerged. It was a mountain of old, discarded phone books. Water pipes had leaked onto them from above, producing the odor of rot. The smell was almost enough to make Toby lose his bit of pride.

There were so many books, going around was not an option. 'Up and over it is then.'

Toby watched George place a hesitant hoof down to test for stability. The water-warped book slid out from beneath him. He snarled and tried again. And again.

It was not easy going for any of them. Every step had to be taken with extreme care lest it set off a yellow avalanche. The books were slippery and apt to crumble apart with little pressure. And sometimes the travelers' feet would sink deep in the pile, feeling the wiggly things that lived down there. Toby kept his gaze focused ahead. This, like everything else, would be over soon. Once they got to the top they could slide down and see what new, fresh outrage lurked for them on the other side.

crunch

Toby looked down at the dry, papery sound. His foot was not stuck in another rotted phone book.
It was stuck in a tan, papery wasp's nest.

The entire pile had turned to wasps' nests beneath their feet. Hundreds. Just like that.

They all froze. Balancing like dancers. Little yellow bodies emerged from beige domes and began scurrying around their feet.

Everyone held their breath. They felt like they were held up by nothing more than their motionlessness. Another step would bring the swarm's rage. And these nests were not known for durability. Any motion might send the group crashing down deep into the pile. All the way to the bottom, buried in paper and insects.

Toby felt the wasps begin to inspect his ankles. They were trooping in straight lines up the insides of his legs. He was suddenly certain they'd sting his cock first. Crawl right up into his shorts around his balls. He'd feel their tickling wings and prickling legs. And then they'd all start digging in.

But he had to keep moving forward. That was the joke. They had to, and they had to choose to. Dysphoria knew it. Toby could feel its laughter like faraway thunderclaps.

Everyone looked into one another's eyes and the horrible truth was confirmed. Finally they looked to George. He was the leader. He'd have to take that first step.

He raised his trembling hoof.

Then came a minor eternity of blinding pain and running. It was exactly as bad as they all knew it would be. They sank into the hives like quicksand and the occupants mercilessly defended their territory. Trillions of little yellow spears. Toby held onto the thumbtack with his mind's eye. It was his only anchor. As he ran, his pumping arms made the tack scrape against his meat and nerves, and he was so grateful for it he wept. It was real pain, and while he could feel every sting amid the hurricane of stings, they were kept behind a forcefield so long as he could hold onto the thumbtack.

Then scorching pain in his feet broke that forcefield. They were in a bubbling cavern miles below the surface of the world. They were running over fresh mounds of lava. The air in here was thick as jam and hot enough to boil their sweat. The sounds of churning earth deafened them. Fire sprouted from their footwear. The charred corpses of sharks swam through the air, looking at them with high-beam eyes.

Toby ran as much from pain as panic. There was little of his mind still functioning. Everything in front of him was just a redorange blur. He went in whatever direction the chain told him to. His feet were being eaten by the lava. Consumed down to the bone. In another few seconds he'd look just like George. He could feel the air cooking the insides of his lungs with every breath.

Then they were running across a ladder a thousand feet long, balanced over an unfathomable canyon, nearly eye-level with the clouds. Toby almost went into shock when the cold, thin atmosphere hit him. His skin crackled and peeled. The ladder jang-jang-jangled with their steps, wobbling back and forth. If he fell, he knew he'd have a very long time to scream before he hit bottom. Any stumble would send them over! They were chained together! If anyone fell, he'd fall too! Toby reached up and yanked on his collar. He had to get it off! These people were going to get him killed!!

'NO! SHUT UP!!'

He was still running, but now it was somewhere else. Because it was always somewhere else.

There were no walls, there was no sky, only floor. And the floor was a million, billion meat grinders all arranged in tidy rows. Their funnels were just big enough to allow a foot to fall in. The handles all rotated in industrious unison. Toby heard a snap and a shriek behind him. Piffle had broken her ankle and one of the grinders was gobbling her up. Toby could do nothing, only hope Zinc would pull her free. The mouse was too busy looking down and watching his own steps. Watching the grinding screws inside each funnel churn and churn and churn. Hungry. What if one got ahold of him and pulled him all the way inside?

Before Toby knew it he was elsewhere. It was dark, but he could see green plastic walls and the smell was unmistakable. Dysphoria knew they had to keep walking forward, so it had tipped an amphitheater-sized porta-potty in their path. How sweet. Unnaturally blue water leaked out of the gaping tunnel ahead. The stench held Toby's nostrils open with clawed hands and screwed itself inside. A stew of strangers' shit and urine, with sickly-sweet cleaning chemicals on top like a sauce.

'The germs...' Toby hyperventilated and bit his lips shut. He was trudging through used toilet paper and it was sticking to his ankles.

He entered the darkness. Something wet dripped into his hair. Then it became a constant rain. A brown blue rain. His muscles were rigid as bone. Both hands covered his nose and mouth. Waste dripped down like clammy candle wax, covering him head to toe. Not to mention the river of sludge he was slogging his shoes through. The smell was obscenity beyond imagination. Toby's eyes watered and stung. Chemical water dribbled into his ears like they were urinals.

For a long time, there was no light. That somehow made it more bearable, as the remaining scraps of Toby's consciousness were hard at work pretending this was only mud he was tromping through. Only mud. It clung to his shins and weighed down his clothes, but it was only mud.

Then fluorescent light stung his eyes. The first thing he saw was his own face, reflected in a mirror on a crumbling tile wall. He was in a bathroom shaped like a boa constrictor. Like a hundred of the dingiest, most dilapidated public restrooms of all time had mated and fused in a giant chain. The toilet beside him was covered in fungus. The floor was made mostly of cobwebs and TP. The sound of scraping tile fragments accompanied their every step.

The sextet looked like a pack of drowned sasquatches. Toby grabbed at whatever towels he saw, not caring how flyspecked and stained they were. Still cleaner than he was. He tried to sop off the layers of doughy waste, but it was a futile effort. As he continued to trudge along, left, right, left, right, all he accomplished was smearing it around. His fur stuck up like it was gooped with styling gel. Every mirror seemed to loom and leer at him. The shit had gotten into his eyes, turning his pinks red. The shit had gotten into his mouth. He was becoming too numb to feel any further disgust.

On and on the bathroom wound. Zigzagging. Toby gave up trying to get clean. He felt like the pisswater had drained into his pores by now. It was on his insides. He was filth. He almost wished he was running through the lava again. It could burn him to a nice, clean skeleton and he could rest.

They passed bathtubs. Hideously rust-stained bulbous things with broken legs and water-bleeding cracks. The shower curtains were drawn. Shadows lurked behind. Toby saw, and knew at any moment that things might pull away the curtains and come out. They would be worse than the house-sized seaweed whateveritwas. Worse than the 'I love you' monster. And they'd eat him. They wouldn't care he was covered in excrement. It would be like seasoning to them.

His tongue probed around his mouth. Something was wrong there. A tooth. He reached in to wiggle it with his finger and could taste the burning antiseptic chemicals under his nail. His tooth was loose. He barely cared, and pulled it out. There was a string attached. Toby pulled, wincing, his eyes starting to water. plink Another tooth was coming loose, attached to the first one by a long nerve. Toby had no idea why, but he kept on pulling. It was maddening not to. plink plink plink A long necklace of teeth, each one popping out of its socket with a dribble of red, fresh, salty blood.

Toby could hear deep echoes, like the sounds of tireless machines scraping themselves over bare rock. He felt like he was being pulled tight, stretched farther and farther and farther. There was a limit, wasn't there? A point where he'd break?

His mouth was like an empty swimming pool. He tossed the rope of teeth aside and his tongue reflexively probed the gumholes.

At some unremembered point, he made it beyond the bathrooms. Now there was just a silent darkness and bit of flickering light. As he drew closer, Toby saw it was a projection screen. Like the one above the chalkboard in class. The film hadn't started yet, but he walked towards it anyway because Toby's legs had forgotten how to stop moving.

The screen came to life! Brightly colored animated images. Toby was enthralled. It was a cartoon. An old-timey Technicolor story about a happy little family of mice. Here was Our Hero: brown fur, plump, with a mischievous smile. It was his little brother's birthday and he'd bought him a nice big peppermint candy stick. He was holding it up close, trying to get his brother to lick it. "Go on, just like that!"

Except it wasn't candy. It was the barrel of a shotgun, barber-pole painted to look like candy.

Toby's mind recoiled. No, this wasn't right! This was horrible! Stop it right now!

But it was too late. He'd gotten too close to the screen and was now inside. It was a television show. An early morning kiddie program. The host was a great big smiling chipmunk with lime-green fur and great big eyes and a great big smile that NEVER ENDED. He waved everyone over with a "How do you do!?" And he wasn't a cartoon at all. Those grotesque animated proportions belonged to a living being. Toby could hear the squelch of those giant eyes rolling around in their sockets. He could see the pimples and warts poking through the patchy green fur. He could even smell its rotten-meat breath. "Hi, kids! Hi! Come on in! We can't start the show without you! Don't you want to sing along with our friend Music Maggot?"

No, Toby did not. He wanted to get out of here. He looked all around for an exit but he was trapped in an empty soundstage with the doors all boarded up. The cameras were smashed and broken. There was a drain in the floor with something clogging it. Fur and skin. The seats in the stands were all vacant. He was the only audience.

The chipmunk-thing laboriously waddled towards him on its sloshing, obese legs. Its thighs were like sacks of milk. "Come on! You all know the words! Singing makes everything better!"

Music started echoing out of speakers in the ceiling: a cloyingly happy ditty about the titular Music Maggot and how he was the spirit of music who lives inside all of us. Toby realized, to his bottomless horror, that he did know the words. He had always known them. And his lips were moving. He was singing along just like a good little boy.

He felt something tickle his arm and looked down. Many dozen raw, red holes. Out of each one poked a thick, fat maggot. White and greasy. All of them were swaying in time with the happy, happy music.

A primitive groan of revulsion came out of Toby and he slapped at his arm in a frenzy. But it didn't matter. The spirit of music lived inside of him. More and more holes appeared in his body, drilled from within. His inner thighs, his cheeks, his feet. Puffy white grubs poked their smiling faces through. Fat and happy from eating him.

Toby knocked over a camera in his blind panic. He tried to run and crashed into a bank of monitors. All of them showed the chipmunk's bulging face. "Ah, ah, ah! Naughty boys need to sit still! If they don't, then I guess I'll have to get the Marring Bar!"

Another cartoon came to life on an adjacent TV. A football hero with a chiseled jaw was running down the field for a touchdown. The other team tried to rush him, but from his pocket he pulled something shaped like a gold brick, but twelve inches long and black as night. Then he savagely smashed it over the head of the nearest opponent. It turned his face into a sagging, bloodshot, drooling horror. The football hero smiled brightly as he used the Marring Bar on all the other players, turning their faces into dripping clumps of cysts and polyps.

It was an unspeakable concept. Toby could not force his eyes away from the awful cartoon until the screen fell away and there was the green chipmunk standing behind. He was waving the Marring Bar. That sleek black slice of night that would melt Toby's face into an unrecognizable junkheap. The chipmunk started hopping after Toby. "Come back here! Tee hee hee!"

Toby screamed like a frightened toddler. The green chipmunk chased after him, taking big bunny leaps. His bulk shook the studio whenever he landed. His fat face jiggled like a rubber turd. Toby scrambled up the empty studio bleachers, clambering over chairs, knocking aside the bones of long-dead former audience members. There was a light in the control room at the top of the stairs. If he could just manage to reach it...

He heard the cacophony of something hurling itself up into the stands in pursuit, slamming chairs out of the way with ease. The green chipmunk's flabbiness belied a monster's strength. He was waving the Marring Bar, the magic tool that would make bad little boys ugly forever.

Just behind his shoulder, Toby heard a thunk of a blunt object hitting a skull. Then the chipmunk's wet laughter. Then another impact. And another.

Toby froze. His vision darkened at the edges to a buzzing circle. He could not help but turn.

He had to see.

His chain jangled. He saw Zinc's arm. It seemed normal enough. Toby's eyes traveled upwards. He could hear Zinc's ragged exhales. He could hear the fat chipmunk's breathy giggles. He could hear his own heart's fracturing beat.

His eyes moved slow as a glacier towards Zinc's face. He had to see it. He didn't want to. He'd rather die than see it. But he had to.

A lip hung down to the canine's chest, bloated like a drowning victim's. A tongue lolled out. Bumpy. Hair-covered.

The breathing was louder. Chunks of mucous rattled around.

Toby saw teeth.

He knew without understanding how that when he saw the eyes, he would be torn to shreds. By a thing that was no longer anyone he knew.

And he couldn't stop himself from looking.

***

Toby woke up screaming, clutching his vinyl blankets tight in his sweating fists.

Mid-afternoon sun swam through his bedroom windows. His normal, orderly bedroom. Just the way he'd always woken up in it.

His eyes darted around the room. The bookshelves were tidy and free of dust. His medicine bottles were all lined up like tin soldiers on his dresser. The 'get well' balloons in the corner tried their best to stay afloat. Nothing was wrong. It was all just a bad dream. A horrible, ugly dream.

He sat up holding his head, worried it might crack open. His sheets were a little sticky, but that was also normal. A few of his bedsores had popped. Nothing out of the ordinary. His mouth was gummy and dry. His heart was still racing from those godawful monstrous images.

But they were gone now. They were just dreams and he was here and this was real and he was HERE now.

Everything was alright.

Toby pulled the covers away, wincing when they stuck to him. He had slept naked. Maybe that was it: he didn't normally, so that must have caused the bad dreams. He glanced at the clock. Blank. He made a puzzled sound. Now that his head was clearing a bit, he looked around the room and none of the electronics were lit up.

"Must've been a blackout."

Maybe that was why it felt so late in the day. Toby couldn't tell through the drawn blinds, but the glow from outside was warm enough to suggest it was definitely past breakfast. His chest tightened a little. He'd missed his pills! The blackout must've knocked out Mommy's alarm clock and she'd overslept!

Well, okay, he was a big boy. He could take pills by himself. He brushed his vinyl plushies aside and leaned over his table full of medications. He was having a hard time reading the labels though. His eyes were still fogged and heavy from sleep. The bad dreams kept buzzing around his head like ghosts. Such horrible images. But they were fading now, and that was okay.

He couldn't make out any of the names on the bottles, and taking the wrong pills would be worse than skipping a dose. He looked towards the bedroom door. The shiny gold knob. He was not supposed to, but he didn't have a choice. He'd have to leave the room. He had to go get Mommy. She could give him his morning pills. It wasn't too late, but he had to go get Mommy.

On shaking limbs, he hoisted himself down from the bed. Just that small effort left him feeling lightheaded. He felt like he hadn't been out of his bed in days. Winded and wobbly, he crossed the hardwood floor to the shiny gold knob.

He turned it.

He smelled oranges. No reason why. Why would there be?

The hall carpet looked normal. Red and soft on his bare feet. He held onto the doorknob as he closed it behind him, oddly afraid to let go of it. But, bravely, he did, and toddled down the hallway towards the stairs.

The stairs. Mommy's room was down there. He'd have to climb all the way down the staircase by himself. His legs felt like toothpicks already. He didn't know if he could handle this.

Suddenly the whole house seemed larger. The ceilings more cavernous. Was the railing really taller than he was? Toby's pink eyes shone with fear. He crept closer to the top of the staircase and something was there at the bottom. Something was underneath that fake-orangey smell. He knew the scent. Floor polish. But another smell was underneath.

He crept to the edge of the steps and peeked. Way, way down at the bottom, he saw a foot.

Paws never leaving the railing, he oozed himself down onto the first step. His heart was thudding. First that bad dream and now this. He thought he knew what had happened but he wouldn't let such a terrible idea be true until he was sure.

The staircase curved. As Toby descended, more of the ground floor came into view. And so did the thing at the bottom of the stairs.

It was his mother. Her bucket of floor polish had spilled when she'd fallen. The orange liquid was soaking into the carpeted steps. Mommy was sprawled out across the oak floor, elbows and knees in impossible positions. Her neck had an angled lump sticking out. Her eyes were open. Her mouth was open too, and a pool of saliva had gathered around her unmoving face.

Toby froze in horror. It couldn't be true.

But it was true, you selfish little thing. While you were off having sleepytime adventures, being a lazy, mooching shit in your bed all day long, your mother fell down the stairs and broke her fucking neck. You didn't even hear it you were so dead asleep. Now she's dead. And it's all your fault. If you had just woken up from that stupid dream earlier, you could have helped her or called the paramedics. But no! Lazy little babyshit Toby wants to lounge around all day like a fucking tumor! He can't be bothered to save his mother's life! After all she's done for you!? Worthless little piglet!!

Tears streaming down his face, Toby turned and ran up the stairs as fast as he could. He tripped, and for one languorous instant he was absolutely certain he was going to tumble backwards and end up a broken carcass on the floor right next to his dead mother. How fitting an ending. But his claws dug into the wooden railing and he stopped himself. Then he ran and didn't keep running until he was safely back in his bedroom with the door slammed shut behind him. A trail of yellow had leaked down his leg to the floor, where a puddle was now spreading.

He was gasping for air but none seemed to reach his lungs. He held onto the doorknob for dear life, then all of a sudden his strength left him and he collapsed to the floor, landing hard on his tail. Seated in his own warm piss. Crying his eyes raw.

He sat curled up like that for an indeterminate time. What was he going to do? Call the police? Yes, inevitably, he'd have to. But there was no phone in here. No phone except the one downstairs. He could not conceive of making it all the way down that staircase and past his mother's body. Not possible in any theoretical universe. So what then? Stay up here forever and starve? Wait for the perfume of decomposition to come wafting up under the door!?

Didn't... No.

Didn't he have some friends he could call on for help?

A headache struck him as soon as that idea did.

'No, no. There was something...'

Toby shook his head. His vision blurred. The wood and the wallpaper seemed to run like watercolors.

He could have sworn he had some friends. Close friends. A migraine spike of pain shot through his forehead. But this was important, so he tried to ignore the powerful hurt. He wished he could read the labels on his medicine and give himself some Tramodols. Those things were great. 'No, no, no. Don't get distracted.' He was onto something here. Friends. He could see the hazy silhouettes of people, but they were fading rapidly, like in a bad dream. Had they been a part of his bad dream? Maybe. Then how could they be real? Yet... something deep in his heart told him they were real. And he had to get back to them somehow.

Toby tried to stand up. When he did, all the blood rushed out of his head and he vomited. He started to pass out but the impact of smashing nosefirst into the hardwood woke him right back up again. Lightning bolts of pain screeched through his muzzle. Puke was smeared up the side of his face and down his tummy, staining his white fur the pinkish-yellow of bile. Wasn't like he'd never experienced that before. He tried to push himself up again, failed. Yet he managed to roll away and avoid a second encounter with his sickpuddle. He took a few moments to get his breath back. Then he crawled on his hands and knees over to the bed.

Grabbing onto the post, he hauled himself to his feet again. It took all the effort in his body. He was so exhausted when he finished, he thought he might never move again. He felt like a burnt candle wick.

'I have to get back to them,' he thought.

How, smarty?

Still clutching the post lest he fall over again onto his broken nose (it was definitely broken: he could feel the throb starting already), Toby looked at his bed. The soft mattress. The thick, comforting vinyl blankets. If his friends were a dream, then logically, going back to sleep would bring them back to him. That made sense. He turned to lower himself down onto his soft, warm, inviting bed.

'No. Something is wrong here.'

Something in his memory warned him he did not want to fall asleep. Falling asleep was bad. He didn't know why, but it was. So what other options did he have?

He looked around the room. No other exit but the same door he'd come in through. Well... except for the closet. But that wasn't...

Toby let go of the bedpost and lurched towards the other end of the room. He didn't care how irrational it was. The closet felt right. Something inside it would make everything okay again.

The pain in his head flared bright, trying to drive him back. He nearly stumbled. He held his arms out like wings to stabilize himself. Walking was difficult, but it felt right too. Necessary.

The bedroom seemed as endless as a desert. His bookshelves might as well have been in another country. But Toby blanked his mind, let his eyes unfocus, and concentrated everything on putting one foot in front of the other. The wetness on his leg didn't matter. The upchuck makeover he'd given himself didn't matter either. Getting to that closet door was somehow the single most important thing in his life.

And the farther he walked, the easier it was to take each successive step. He might have been wobbling side to side like a swamp zombie, but he was moving. He was gaining speed.

His migraine drilled into him; a big oppressive jackhammer pounding his skull to pieces. But Toby didn't stop. It was only pain after all. He'd been through plenty of that by now.

He reached out his hand towards the shiny golden knob.

He turned it.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. The bed was still unmade. His puke was still on the floor. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore. So he crossed the room to his closet, towards the shiny gold knob. He turned it.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. The bed was still unmade. His puke was still on the floor. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore. So he crossed the room to his closet, towards the shiny gold knob. He turned it.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. The bed was still unmade. His puke was still on the floor. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore. So he crossed the room to his closet, towards the shiny gold knob. He turned it.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. The bed was still on the floor. His puke was still unmade. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore. So he crossed the room to his closet, towards the shiny gold knob. He turned it.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. His mother was sitting on the bed, naked, fucking herself savagely with a shiny metal hammer. She was hunched over, rocking back and forth and grunting like an animal. Blood drenched the bedsheets. Her eyes were as feral as her uncombed hair. Toby definitely didn't want to be here anymore. So he crossed the room to his closet, towards the shiny gold knob. He turned it.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet. Toby walked through the doorway into Hell. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet.

It became a rhythm. Open the door, walk across the room, open the door, walk across the room, open the door, walk across the room. And despite the fact he was making no visible progress, Toby felt like maybe he was. Maybe the pulsating crash of his migraine was an indication that something was trying to hold him back, and he was pissing it off by not complying. Of course, he had no good reason for thinking these things. Some part of him cautioned that maybe the sight of his mother lying dead at the bottom of the stairs had driven him insane. It was highly likely he was doing nothing now but traveling deeper into layers of hallucinations. 'Oh well. I'm no worse off,' he reasoned. 'Besides, I have to find my friends.'

Another migraine spike. Whatever was causing it did not seem to like that word. 'Friends,' he thought again, and this time the pain scoured through him all the way to his gut. He retched and wet his chin with a surprise encore of puke. But he was grinning. The headache's anger meant he was on the right track.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. His books had all been knocked off the shelves onto the floor. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. This time his books were on fire. The melting plastic pages smelled appalling. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. It was hip-deep in colorful balloons, all inflated with antiseptic spray. Whenever he popped one, the smell made him dizzier. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he pushed through the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room, past the piano stitched together from living skin and tissue.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. The pattern was starting to break down. He kept noticing differences each time he entered. Mutations. Like the time when the windowshade was up and someone had glued a dead squirrel to the outside glass with its own blood. Or this time, when his stuffed animals all had teeth. Or this time, when the shadows on the floor tried to swallow him up whenever he walked over them. Or this time, when every surface was a mirror and his reflections were trying to swallow him up whenever he walked over them. It was always his bedroom, but it had never been his bedroom. Toby had no idea what this place really was, but he knew if he could just keep opening that closet door, eventually it would lead somewhere else.

'This is the literal definition of madness, you realize that, right?"

'Right. Sure. Whatever.'

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. This time he had to step over the corpses of several mutilated children. They were all around his age: a skunk, a hamster, and some kind of dog. There was also a burned dead horse and a melted doll. He definitely didn't want to be here anymore, so he crossed the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. He paused. Something about that last room was important. He filed it away for later and crossed the room to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. Suddenly he remembered everything.

Junella! Zinc! George! Doll! Piffle! He even remembered Luxy and Dorster and the mushroom woman and the parking lot attendant with the funny mouth! He was outraged. "That's what you were trying to hide from me, you bastard!"

"THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE TRYING TO HIDE FROM ME, YOU BASTARD!!!!!"

The words came out of the walls so loud his ears nearly bled. His own voice was reflected back to him at hurricane volume. Toby knelt and took a moment to recover. His heart was ramming against his ribs from the shock.

'Okay then. I keep my mouth shut from now on.'

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. The floor was tilted diagonally and he had to pull his way along the wall to get to his closet.

Toby walked through the doorway into his bedroom. Why the hell would you even want to get back to those malformed dicksniffers anyway?

'Shut up. I care about them.'

WHY!? What brand of stupid are you infected with? Do you think they feel the same? That their big ol' hearts are full of love for a skinny piss-soaked weakling like yourself? You're a means to an end for them, I whispered.

'I'm not listening.'

As Toby crossed to the room to his closet, trying to keep his balance as the helicopters made the whole house shake, he did his best to keep his focus straight ahead and not listen to my voice following behind him.

Zinc was in a gang before he died! He and his buddies murdered six people. Beat them and stabbed them to death! For fun!

'No he did not,' Toby insisted.

Piffle's mother is the mushroom woman, but Piffle ain't got no mushrooms on her. Why is that, Toby? Did she perhaps cause her mother's unfortunate condition? On purpose? To slow the old bitch down so she could get out of the house sometimes?

'I am not listening to you.'

Doll is a demon. She's using you for transportation. Like a lamprey sucking away on a shark's belly. Gosh, just what has she been planning behind that unreadable face?

'Total BS,' Toby said firmly.

Junella Brox is the most selfish thing on the planet. She will abandon anyone to save her own skin. What makes you think you're special?

'Don't talk like that about her.' Toby crossed the room to his closet and opened the door.

And George? Little Georgie? He tries so hard, doesn't he? But he's programmed to be what he is. Hardwired. There's a clock ticking down until he reaches his limits and turns on you like any other dumb animal, and you won't hear it because you're too fucking stupid to learn. He's as soulless as anything else you've killed.

"No he's not!"

"NO HE'S NOT!!!!!"

The sound kicked Toby back against the bedroom door, splintering it. He needed several seconds to get his breath back, but then he snarled in bitter hatred and ran at the closet door.

The ceiling started to melt.

Toby screeched as red hot candle wax dripped down onto his arm. He looked up. The ceiling was bulging inwards. The walls too. The window blinds were turning to mush and dribbling down onto the floor. His bed was sagging. The plushies were puddles already. Everything was melting into burning hot wax. More stinging droplets landed in his hair. One ran all the way down into his ear. The pain was so intense his vision turned to silver icicles. He clawed at his ear, trying to get the wax out, only succeeding in burning his fingers. He squeaked like the frightened rodent he was as the floor began to soften as well. His bare feet sank into the warping wood. He looked ahead. The closet door. He had to get out of here. He pulled one foot up out of the slurping mess and leaned over as far as he possibly could. One step. The dripping ceiling was landing in spatters all over his back. Fine; better than his face. He winced and pulled his other foot out. Each step sunk him deeper into the burning quicksand. The ceiling was drooping inwards, bare inches above his head. The walls were buckling. This room was moments from collapse. Toby stopped trying to pull his feet out and just waded forward, pretending he was fighting a deep snowdrift. He could see the shiny gold knob. A pancake-sized chunk of ceiling fell on his bare back. He heard the sizzle. His bedroom was cooking him to death, piece by piece. The pain was excruciating. Stars were dancing in his vision. He stretched his arm as far as he could. He screamed when the ceiling finally buckled and landed entirely on top of him. Blinding him. Burying him. He forced himself forward. The pain was electricity. He reached out as far as he could, feeling the tendons in his arm start to rip. The quicksand was up to his chest. He screamed and the hot wax plunged down his throat. Cooking his tongue, making his mouth an oven. He could feel the doorknob.

He turned it.

Instantly, he dropped.

Surrounded by clear blue sky, he hung with one hand from the shiny gold doorknob, hundreds of feet in the air above a howling city. The door was on the top floor of a supercolossal skyscraper. It opened onto nothing. The wind sucked the breath from his lungs. Toby looked down at the stripes of tiny black windows all along the building's side. From this height, the city below was nothing but a buzzing blur.

But Toby laughed. With his body still aching, pain not yet faded, he laughed until he gagged on saliva.

Because this wasn't his bedroom.

He sputtered until he could draw a breath. Then he said, "I win," and let go.

Toby plunged into terminal velocity. The wind slashed at his eyes. The building behind him rushed past faster than a bullet train. The sidewalks and cars were leaping up to meet him. And still he laughed. A madman's laugh.

He saw Piffle flying by. She gave him a jaunty wave. Then two giant white-gloved hands plucked her out of the air with dispassionate calm. One of them revealed a corkscrew with a grip like a fisherman's hook. The gloved hand drove the screw into Piffle's squirming belly and began to unravel her.

Toby saw a grinning carnival face in the sky, all shiny and orange and plastic. It smiled lecherously. And it kept getting bigger and bigger and BIGGER.

A hypodermic the size of a mailbox shot towards him like a fighter jet and plunged straight through his midsection. The flesh started to turn brown and rot away.

Toby laughed.

Then Toby and his little friends were trapped in Dysphoria forever. No one ever came to their rescue and they languished in misery for all of fucking eternity. How's that for an ending, you faggot?

'You're an absolute jerk.'

Toby was running through tall grass. Great thunderclaps of pounding feet rumbled behind him. He was being chased by something ungodly huge, something the color of rust. He was in an open field. Completely unprotected. There were trees ahead. If he

'Oh hi, Red!'

Toby was in the bathtub, naked and helpless, squirming to get away as his mother scr

'I know already!'

Toby was boiling cold. Toby was freezing hot. Toby was watching himself sitting on a department store floor, babbling in maniac laughter, unraveling his intestines through a hole in his autopsy scar like a baby playing with a wind-up toy. And the best part was

'I DON'T CARE!'

Toby was running in a circle through the rooms of an enormous spinning mansion, all overgrown with poison ivy. The huge house floated on the ocean. It had no walls or ceilings, but was perfectly round like a cake server. He ran through the dining room, the dressing room, the ballroom, the freezer, the lake, the slaughterhouse, the breeding pit. Toby looked down at his hand and saw an impish little stick figure tattooed there. It met his gaze and took off running along his arm, hiding beneath his fur. He felt legions of these prickly gremlins climbing up his feet, all over his body like being covered in ants. The ink was spreading in his skin and remaking him from the inside out. Toby cowered behind his desk at school, listening to the terrified crying of his classmates. Shots echoed down the hallway. Then the door burst open and the gunman walked in with an erection and a smile. The gun was pointed right at Toby's teacher, and soon her face was painting the blackboard. Toby was lying at the bottom of a pile of corpses. His air was running out. One of the bodies started to move. Toby watched a man strapped to a table get tickled with a feather. He laughed and laughed and laughed, until his face tore apart from the inside out. Toby was walking at night through a prison. In every cell was his father. The endless man clutched the bars in his scarred fists and glared down at his son. "You put me here," he all droned on and on. Toby was stranded in an infinite black room, watching vast geometric shapes drift past. Unfathomably huge, bending time itself around them. To look upon them was to feel one's mind break beneath their weight. Toby watched a doctor's hand holding a flathead screwdriver. It started knocking all his teeth out. Blood spurted hot over his face. His teeth slid one by one down his throat, the shattered edges tearing the lining of his esophagus. Toby was trapped in a room four feet by four feet by four feet forever. Toby watched racks of crying infants expelling their lifeblood as brown-helmeted soldiers bayoneted them one by one. Toby watched Junella turn around to look at him. Her eyes slid around her face like a dancer on a skating rink. Her nostrils opened like assholes. Her features distorted into a hideous, swirling pool. Toby watched a grotesquely pregnant rat lying on her side, dropping litters and feces with equal apathy. Toby was using his hammer to drive nails into the soft undermeat of his armpits. Four, five, six nails now.CAN YOU SEE ME? Toby watched himself rape his mother. Then he watched himself suck her eyes right out of her dead skull for nourishment. Toby shat his pants.Only it wasn't shit, it was a big thick log of coiled tapeworms, writhing for freedom as they slid out of his guts where they'd been living all this time.Toby watched angels with tinfoil wings andtinfoil skin standing around him in a circle as he lay upon the altar. One of them lifted his penis like it was something unclean, and with its other hand began to cut.LISTENToby was fathoms deep beneath the sea, the pressure crushing his skull and driving his intestines up out of his mouth. Luminous fishes nibbledhis numb extremities. Toby watched the drill come closer as the operator made a hole to attach the fishing line. He anchored it through bone and gum, then tugged the line tight along the mouse's abdomen, down beneath the genitals. When the string was tight enough, the operator began to pluck a tune. YOU RUIN EVERYTHING Toby saw a hooded man with feathers around his neck, standing on the highway,holding a shotgun. Toby was the last survivor of a genocide that had taken everyone he'd ever loved. Toby tripped over a starved dog's carcassNO ONE HAS EVER LOVED YOU Toby's eye was itching so bad it was driving him insane. He scratched and scratched but it did no good. Then he felt something moving deep inside, and a four-inch millipede crawled out of his tearduct.Toby was being chased by something he couldnot see, but it had been chasing him for along time now and his legs were starting to gYOU WILL DIE ALONEToby was riding in a car when the driver disappeared, and hehad to leap into the driver's seat and take conrol. But he'd neverdriven before and trafffic was oncoming and he was heading for a bridge andRUN FROM EVERYTHING YOU COWARDLY LITTLE RATToby had only a bread knife and the devil was coming for hissoul. He tried to stabthedevil and the devil just laughed and laugheToby was drinking his ownToby was in an airpline. He could see the enjines on fire. A stewardess hadher hand deepinside her skirtand thebloodwasToby was pullingtheflesh off his lips and teeth shreddingthemshreddingthem shred dingthem theblood thefire the intestinesWORTHLESS FOREVERToby was lateforschool andhehadabigtest Toby was in the elctric chair butithad legsandwasrunning away TobywasI CAN SEE YOUToby was inside hismomma clawing togetouTobyhadtheknife and hewas tryingToby

watchedtheskyturn reddd TobycantswimbutTobyhastotakehispills

Tobystood overhis fathersbodywiththe shovelTobbycouldn'trun

fasttenuff toTobyheldthekitten'sbrains Tobyhad germs all

over Toby was Toby was TobywasTobywassstoby

TobyyyyTOBywaswaswas

TOBY WAS

***

He was out. Gliding along the starlight, his head clearer than ever before. He had no more sense of self than a dream ought to. No feeling in his limbs because they were no longer there. Bodiless. But he'd never needed one anyway. His mind could see and think all on its own. Pure. He knew he'd come all the way through to the other side of that hateful realm and whatever this place was now, it was real. He was floating effortlessly through outer space. When he looked as far and deep as he pleased, he could see the stars in all their colors. Nothing was hidden. He was a soul alone among the cosmos and unafraid. Free. Able to move in any direction as fast or slow as his will commanded. Untethered from all reality except that which he chose to become. Unhooked. Space was fathomless and ripe. Anything that could be imagined existed out here. It was all he could do to not be overwhelmed by the enormity, its unsympathetic magnificence. Toby was a microbe out of his dish. This was why, he thought, people stared at the sea. Transfixed. But he had a purpose and he could not let himself be swayed from it. Not for melting rooms or blood-soaked images, not even for the whole of the universe. Amongst all the infinite debris surrounding him, he found the mountain and willed himself towards it. The only mountain that mattered. Anasarca was an upturned ice cream cone dancing in fog. A stalagmite without a cave. But something was in the way. Something large. Something curled up onto itself. Toby thought it was another asteroid at first, until its slow rotation made him realize the truth. It was a corpse. Hanging suspended in space like a grisly Christmas ornament, it was a man, dead for centuries, skin baked brownblack by the sun's unshielded rays. Except... No, all of that was wrong. Toby had no innards but he still felt unease in them. Unease grew to dread as he drifted towards the dead thing. It was not a man. That was merely its shape. A hairless, unfinished, dirt-covered scarecrow with its arms and legs twisted around like a newborn. No, no, still wrong. Toby stared. This unknown object repulsed him yet commanded his attention. He did not realize yet that he was already unable to look away. He could not yet see its face. Just a profile hinting at a dumb, hung-open mouth. The fingers were crooked. The spine bulged. The skin was wrinkled, pockmarked, scabrous. Repellant. Diseased. This thing was not burned. It was not dirt. It was feces. This thing was a man-shaped hunk of excrement, rotating in space. In another time and place that might have been funny. But not here and now, because Toby could smell it. It didn't matter that the vacuum allowed no such possibility, he smelled it. This was the accumulation of all the universe's rancid, lethal waste. What was shit, really? It was food that had been passed through a living organism until everything good was removed. This left only the poison, the indigestible remnants, the toxic muck a body could not use. Every ounce of this behemoth was a vast graveyard of bacteria, some of them still possessed of the most basic desire to eat and eat and eat the filth around them. That was this manshaped thing's true nature. Rotting shit, forever. The smell churned Toby's soul. He wanted to die to get away from it. He wanted his soul to be erased completely to free him from this all-pervading fog of putrid, stinking, virulent decay. This was the zenith of all filth in the cosmos. A black hole core of fecal putrefaction. It existed to soil all things. To ruin all that was alive and had hope. An infinite blight. The dumbest, cruelest, vilest thing that could ever come to being. It had existed since the birth of life itself and it would survive the extinction of everything that had ever been. Toby wished he had hands to gouge his eyes out. He was staring, helpless, at the reason Phobiopolis existed. The magnet that had snared uncountable souls out of the sky on their way to their rightful afterlife. This greedy, omnimalevolent golem had sucked all of the living world's nightmares into itself, and unwittingly wove a web-world to catch the dreamers too. There could be no horror greater than this. The empty expanse of the universe, as infinite and cold as it was, at least held no overt malice. Toby had felt awe as he'd looked across it. But here and now, he felt a revulsion that eclipsed all else he had ever felt in his lifetime. This embodiment of allfilth was much larger than he'd first thought. An optical illusion misled that it was the size of a normal man. But the closer Toby was drawn towards it, the more fully he realized that this was the corpse of a giant. More massive than a hundredstrong army. At full height, it would have been able to reach up and break off the peak of Anasarca like a twig from a tree. If it ever awoke, it could walk across Phobiopolis in an hour, wiping out every screaming soul under its cataclysmic footsteps. Easily. Unthinkingly. In every wrinkle of its hideous, withered skin, massive colonies of microorganisms waited to feed. Yet they would not be microscopic. They would scale to the monster itself. This being was host to the bringers of the end of all life. It was plague incarnate. The omega of omegas. It had never been alive, it had no thought, it had no gender. It only had a name. Toby fought to not know that name. But so close to its dreaming? With its stench ensnaring every fiber of his soul? He had no chance. The word was inside him already, an infection, and he knew the instant he let his mind perceive it, those unholy eyes would open and see him and end him.

LOGDORBHOK

Toby had doomed himself. Eternally. He had called its name. He had drawn its sleeping focus. Made himself its plaything. He could not stop himself moving closer, and the smell tore edges off his sanity. He could never escape. Nothing he could do now could ever change his fate. Already he could see the giant's leathery fecal skin begin to ripple. Microbes squirming free of its wrinkles and pores: the heralds of their master. Toby saw a cloud of gnats swarming through space towards him. He had never known fear like this, and he had no body to grant him release from it. He could not lapse into shock, he could not black out, he could not even wet his pants. They were coming. He could hear their teeth. Rotund blobs of filth, born from filth, embodiments of filth. Piggy eyes. Sunken noses. Limbs like tree branches. Their rattish teeth spun. The mouths moved and whirled like a garbage disposal in the center of their globulent faces. The microbes were joyful at the prospect of fresh meat after so many centuries. Toby realized he had no mouth of his own. But he had a body now. Because these things willed it. How else could they eat? Toby screamed with all his might but no sound made it through his melted-shut lips. The cherubs of malice and rot sped closer. Toby thrashed in the void, trying to swim away. They laughed and the noise was like sandpaper against his neurons. The most mercilessly sadistic sound in all existence. They lived to cause anguish. Misery drew them like sharks to blood. Toby could hear their squeals of glee as they surrounded him and began to feast. His back arched. His lungs drove more and more power into his screams and there was no result but silence. The beings' arms sank into his helpless flesh, burning like branding prods. Dozens of those stabbing claws, all over every inch of his skin. Then came the teeth. Jagged slashes that drilled down into his soft living tissue. Into his arms, into his eyes. Toby had one last hope, and that was the realization that there was no reason for the allfilth to have blocked his screams unless it was his only salvation. Driven by a desperation he had never dreamt in his waking life, Toby rammed his hands towards his muzzle and started digging. The microbes laughed and lapped at his tears and their slimy bellies shook with mirth. Toby cried and clawed, and the pain he caused himself was bliss compared to their merest touch upon his flesh. He scraped layers of meat away, chewing with his teeth as well, until he had made a hole. He sunk a finger in, then two. He pulled with a demon’s strength. His ears were plugged with the scavenging claws of the avatars of loathing, but nevertheless he could hear his cheeks rip open. And finally his scream was free. It shattered the universe's eternal silence. It rippled the cosmic tides. Toby felt the horrible creatures' taunting stop, and for a moment he thought he'd solved their weakness. But then came their laughter again. Higher and richer to see his hope rise and die. Their laughter was a keening pandemonium that boiled the marrow in Toby's bones. And then they began their meal in earnest, now that the food was properly seasoned with despair. Toby shrieked mindlessly as those teeth went to work. All their gnawing before was mere teasing. Now their fangs scraped his skeleton and carried away juicy mouthfuls of Tobyflesh. Each bite regrew in an instant so it could be eaten again, eternally. The wounds festered, hissing, corroding. The sound of chewing obliterated all else. The parasites began to crawl inside the holes they had made, to warm themselves among the boy's intestines. With his last ounce of awareness, the meat that had been called Toby saw the allfilth's head begin to turn. Sinkhole cheeks. Runny skin. A horizontal, quivering gouge of a mouth like a horse's cunt. And there were its eyes. Eyes as round and lifeless as mother-of-pearl beads. The infinite blackness of those dead, dried pupils bore into Toby's elements.

Oh god, there were things worse than death! There WERE!

-***-

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