An unexpected curb appeared under their feet. Houjin jumped it, just barely and just in time. Rector caught it with his shin and went flying. Momentum snapped him free of Huey’s grip and he rolled off to the side, up against a wall that had held up a roof a long time ago, and now served entirely to make Rector’s head spin. Stars flashed and flickered before him, and he couldn’t see anything.

Even his own hand, when he wobbled it forward in an effort to right himself, looked misshapen and alien. It was coated in stars and Blight like everything else, and the prospect of getting onto all fours felt insurmountable.

Houjin was feeling around with his hands and feet, whispering, “Rector!”

“Um…”

A moment later, a very firm hand seized Rector’s ankle, pulling it out from under him. Rector’s heart nearly stopped.

“Sorry; I’m sorry,” Huey said. “Get up, Rector. Get up! We have to…” And then he stopped talking.

The thing was very close; they could feel it more than they could hear it—the nearness of something unfamiliar and large, its existence pressing against their fear like a tangible force. It shoved against their chests, and stuffed up the filters in their masks. Neither one of them could breathe anymore except in short, horrified bursts that fogged their visors and gave them scarcely enough oxygen to keep from passing out.

The inexplicable—for what else could it be?—circled them and sniffed, always that disgusting sniffing as he tried to smell something other than the Blight. He homed in on them awkwardly, uncertainly. When he was within a few feet (ten feet? twenty?), someone shouted.

“Over here!”

The call was loud—almost as loud as the inexplicable’s roar. The call was accompanied by footsteps. Big, solid, certain ones.

“Captain!” Houjin barked, though where he’d found the energy or breath to holler even that one word, Rector would never know.

“Huey? And Rector, I expect,” Andan Cly added. “You two—run.”

The inexplicable turned. They heard him pivot on his feet, seeking this new speaker.

“Captain, no—”

“Make for the Sizemore House!” he commanded.

Easier said than done, Rector said, or that’s what he would’ve said if he could’ve said anything at all. So it was just as well that he was too stunned to do much more than stagger to his feet, which scarcely held him up.

A moment of silence.

Another scraping scuff of some large foot, someplace in the foggy air.

Rector looked down at his hands and saw that his borrowed gloves were pocked with holes and his knuckles were oozing red. Everything smarted, including his knees, now that he had a moment to notice it.