She stopped abruptly and turned. This time she didn’t aim at Mummy, but at the jungle floor in front of Mummy. Michelle blew up a chunk of earth, making a huge hole. Mummy didn’t have time to stop, and she tumbled into it. Then Michelle let another round of bubbles go as dense and heavy as she could make them, and they piled into the pit on top of Mummy.

Michelle was significantly lighter now. “Get out of that, you bitch,” she panted. Then she ran.

She ran blindly until her sides ached and her legs burned. A mindless terror possessed her. The jungle wasn’t just a jungle anymore. It was changing, turning to some nightmarish landscape. Sometimes she slipped in bloody pools, landing hard on her hands and knees.

She saw a small boy hanging from a tree, pinned there by an enormous knife through his chest. A few yards later, she came across a woman in a filthy and torn flowered dress, systematically cutting off pieces of herself. She’d taken most of her left thigh and was working her way through her bicep.

“Want to help?” she asked, holding the knife out to Michelle. It dripped crimson blood. Michelle stopped and reached for the blade. Sounds like fun, she thought. Knives aren’t my thing, but I could help.

Then Michelle heard something behind her. She made an impulsive choice. She let a bubble go, and it caught the cutting woman in the chest. A scarlet flower of blood bloomed there. Then, despite her fear of Mummy, Michelle laughed hysterically. She’d solved the whole help-me-with-the-knife problem.

She began running again. Grotesque scenes of self-mutilation went past as she ran. A man was peeling the skin off his body. The bluish muscles gleamed in the low light. He looked up at her quizzically, but immediately went back to his work. She heard him letting out little shrieks. Pain or hysteria—she couldn’t tell.

She came upon two women holding a third down. They were scalping her. They bared their yellow teeth at Michelle, but she let three bubbles fly and neatly ripped all their heads off. No point in saving someone who might as well be dead. Nor two who deserve to be.

Now her lungs were nothing but pain and fire. Each breath was like breathing in a hot poker. And then, abruptly, the jungle vanished altogether.

Michelle found herself once again on the devastated streets of Talas. The miasma blurred her surroundings until she couldn’t see beyond a few feet. Unspeakable things moved just far enough ahead that she couldn’t quite make out what they were, and she hoped never to see them clearly.

A thudding invaded her mind again. It was like a section of timpani had taken up residence in her head and was playing the entire catalog of Joker Plague turned up to eleven.