Every surface existed in multiple contexts. As I slid down, not hurtling, but moving fast enough my braid was picked up by the air, I could see glimmers and flickers of other things, painted in reds and blacks on the black crystal with red highlights. A forest. Campfires. A boat in water. The Fallen Camp.

“Damsel!” I called out. I ducked low to reduce my profile and reduce air resistance, even though I wasn’t sure this place even had any. I did what I could to catch up to her. “Can we—”

She glanced at me, then did much the same as I was doing, and her shoes were better for it. Pulling ahead.

Turning my body more, ducking lower, I tried to close the gap.

And… she seemed insistent on maintaining the lead. Fine, whatever.

“Any tips?” I called to her back. “To avoid any accidents?”

“It’s as Tattletale says,” Damsel said. She bent her knees more, then hopped up to a flatter plane of crystal, running a few steps until the momentum had been eaten up. She turned, not even glancing at me, just looking at the rest of the group. “We’re just bundles of code encapsulating our selves, written in a language we’ll never understand. When this ends our brains will be translated back, we’ll wake up, and all will be normal. The ‘trick’—”

I hopped up to the platform she was on, leaning my upper body back as she made giant air-quotes with her claws.

“—is that there is no trick. All of these versions of ourselves, hurt, crying, laughing, young, present-day, costumed… they exist simultaneously. You choose the face you want to present.”

I felt simultaneously frustrated at that, and at the same time, I was pretty sure I had a good idea as to why she was so good at managing this side of things.

The kids were next to arrive, Chicken Little putting his feet out to stop himself, kicking at the side of the platform, catching Candy. Darlene and Kenzie reached the platform and flopped over it, feet still on the slope, upper bodies on the slope itself. I bent down to pick both of them up, then again to help Chicken Little and Candy up.

“The storm is chasing you more,” Kenzie remarked, pointing down.

I looked, and I could see the flashes of light, some brighter than others. Ashley was the brightest, producing more flares of light that traced their way along neurons on the other side or surface of the crystal plain, traveling their zig-zag, forking lines as they raced to places unknown.

Darlene was second-most, but it took me a moment to notice, because her flares of light were less intense. Each time she flared, there would be a brief, stuttering light between her feet and Candy’s.