“You pulled my fucking eyes out!” he screams.

The punch connects and I hit the floor, but I feel neither the impact of the fist or the fall.

“You told me to pull your eyes out!” I call up from the wooden floorboards, but already the memory of that awful event seems vague.

“I know!” Malachai replies indignantly. “Doesn’t change the fact that you did it.”

“Fair enough,” I say, getting to my feet.

“Damn,” Malachai mutters, “that was the most unsatisfying punch ever. I didn’t feel anything.”

“Yeah, apparently you don’t feel in this place.”

“Probably a good thing,” Malachai replies, “seeing as I just had my eyeballs yanked out of my head!”

“All right, I feel like this whole eyeball thing is turning into a grudge really quickly,” I reply.

“Where are we, anyway?” Malachai asks, looking around. “And why do we look like twenty-first-century video game characters?”

“This place is called Purgatory,” I tell him.

“Jesus, could they pick a more ominous name?”

“Right?” I reply.

“So,” Malachai says, turning to Molly. “Who’s this?”

“This is Molly,” I say, “my sister.”

“No, that’s not Molly,” he says, pointing at my sister. “Molly is a clone. She’s all gaunt and gross. This girl is, like, normal-looking.”

“Thanks?” Molly replies.

“Hey, how can you see?” I ask. “I ripped out your eyes, remember?”

Malachai laughs. “Oh yeah, I remember that.”

“Okay,” Molly says, “you two are clearly adjusting to Purgatory—the high doesn’t last long.”

“High?” Malachai says, and then starts waving. “Hi!”

We both laugh at this for at least a minute.

“What … what … why are we high?” I manage to ask through gasps of laughter.

“I know, it doesn’t make sense!” Malachai roars. “We were just almost killed, Woods is dead, the world is ending, and we’re …” He can barely finish his sentence as he tries to force his laughter away. “We’re in some kind of terrible old video game!”

Molly sighs. “You’re experiencing cerebral hypoxia—oxygen starvation of the brain—it’ll take a little while to get past it.”

I try to get a grip, but the act of trying to sober up seems hilarious to me and I laugh again.

This goes on for ten minutes or so. The rest of the hotel guests seem unperturbed by our fits of explosive laughter, and eventually we calm down and regain our focus.

Molly leans against the bar, an eyebrow raised. “You done?”

“I think so,” I say, wiping the last tears from my eyes.

“Yeah,” Malachai agrees, “I think I’m good.”

“Good,” Molly says. “Follow me, I’ll show you around and explain. You’re going to love this place.” She walks toward the exit of the bar. Malachai and I follow. “The brains behind the whole project is a scientist called Dr. Price.”