Ashley turned her head, and she stared past her longer hair at herself, small and short-haired. She cringed, fearing the next blow, and the other her stood a little taller.

“Come on!” he shouted, gripping them by the arm.

⊙

Kenzie reached out, trying to find a grip. The mass of bodies pressed in, and she was pushed back.

Her foster parents reached out for her. Two black men, one barrel-shaped, hair short, wearing a colorful shirt. Another man, skinnier, with a tidy dress shirt, a worried look on his narrow face.

She fought to hold on, as people pulled them apart, and her fingernails dug in, scratching, scrabbling, skin filling the space under her nails.

Until the desperate fight to maintain the grip made the reaching hand flinch in pain, pulling away.

She reached out, vainly, with every muscle in her body.

And there was hesitation on the other side. A fraction of a second. When they reached out, only fingertips touched. Then they were separated.

⊙

“Byron,” Tristan gasped. He was trapped under the press of bodies, his brother on top of him, Byron’s arm leaning against his throat. He couldn’t breathe, and the view through Tristan’s eyes darkened around the edges. “Listen to me, damn it! Wake up!”

But Byron was unconscious, eyes partially lidded. The pressure on Tristan’s throat was involuntary.

“Wake up! Please!”

Reaching, scrabbling, Tristan found a splinter of wood. He stabbed his brother, perhaps to try to get him to wake up or come to reality. It didn’t work.

So he stabbed again—and again.

⊙

The doors opened, and Rain was there, in the too-bright light, as people spilled forth. Darlene, Aiden, me, Tristan, Byron’s comatose body, Sveta, Candy, Kenzie, Ashley, Tattletale, Colt, Love Lost, and Cradle.

Rain greeted us all with a desperate, mocking laughter.

And then, as though a light switch had been flicked, the scene was gone, and we were in the room, divided into fifteen sections, each haphazardly connected to the last.

I had my costume and my buckler, but not my flight. I hurried over in Sveta’s direction, crawling at first, then staggering, and crossed the boundary.

And in the shadows furthest from me, the watchdog woke. It lumbered forth, reaching out to grab the concrete of Cradle’s area, a table in Rain’s, and to the shattered dais at the center of the room.

Too many limbs, all smooth planes like marble, with cables running in the gaps, each glowing with an intense heat. A twenty foot tall titan made of reaching arms that could have been tentacles, they were so many-jointed.

It was nothing like the beast of lightning we’d seen on the video.

That wasn’t a single watchdog administrating this room. It was one of four dogs.

Cradle’s.