Katalepsis

Cygnet Prison was a dungeon for the soul.

A labyrinth unfolded beneath my feet, peeling back endless necrotic layers of rot and rust and ruin, spiralling and spider-webbing outward with every step I took, as if teasing the meat of my heart open with a hundred filthy needles, to play clashing notes of fear and pain upon my naked nerves, dangling Raine’s cell as bait impaled upon a poisoned hook.

Steel doors stood at regular intervals along every wall, rimed with reddish rust. Each door was marked with big black stencilled figures, some fresh, some faded, some ancient and barely readable — BU-47, 98-89-99, J4J, OP7 — but never a number which might stand in sequence with the room I was seeking, HS-1312. Bare light bulbs guttered and fizzled, hanging from twisted cords along the corridor ceilings, fed by thin wires stapled to the walls with metal brackets. Dark grey concrete was stained with water damage, cracked with age and cold, spotted with pale fungus and bloodless lichen; here and there the concrete gave way to rough red brick, as the illusion of some other age peeked through the dream. Patches of hewn stone appeared as well, as if I was descending into an underground jail from some melodramatic nineteenth century novel. My flimsy institutional slippers dragged narrow tracks through a carpet of grime and dirt, skirted puddles of black-stained stagnant water, and tip-toed across seas of crumbling stone.

Concrete passages terminated in collapsed ceilings and landslides of broken brick; rusty walkways crossed pits of stinking refuse, full of black slime punctuated by sharp edges of corroded metal; steel stairways led up into unlit darkness, or descended into flooded depths, stinking of urea and sewage. Corridors disgorged me into tiered common areas, ringed by yet more steel doors, like the main halls of real-life modern prisons — but filled with only sagging benches and rusted railings, haunted by the howling echoes of faraway screams.

There were no windows, no skylights, not even frosted and barred. No hint of sun, no touch of warmth, no promise of dawn.

In prison it was always night.

The cells were occupied. Things were trapped inside. I could hear them weeping and wailing down distant corridors — but always just beyond earshot, their cries always dying off when I approached, so it seemed the nearest cells always lay silent and empty. But whenever I stood still for a few moments I began to hear laboured breathing, little scratching noises, or the unmistakable sound of somebody smothering a sob behind desperate hands.

Were these real people, or figments of this Eye-wrought nightmare?

The thought of Raine being trapped here was unbearable. If these were real people, I couldn’t help them all — at least not alone, not yet, not without allies and arms. I needed Raine.

But there seemed to be no end to the place — infinite petals of carceral entrapment, enclosing me deeper and deeper within shadowed halls of forgotten torment.

And why not? Made perfect sense to me. This was the truth beneath the hospital’s clean white mask.

I’d visited far worse places than this, of course; I’d been Outside, I had spent time in the most far-flung of hell-dimensions imaginable. I had seen the underside of reality in all its glory. Even as a young teenager, I had been cast Out in dreams again and again, to wander through places I could not comprehend, all of them far more threatening than an anachronistic and offensive stereotype of a mental asylum.

But even back then — at ten years old, before I’d realised and accepted what I was — we’d always had each other, me and six other Heathers. Even before we had been expressed and embodied in six beautiful tentacles, we had all existed. We had never faced Outside alone, though we had not known it at the time.

But here? Trapped in body and soul?

I was completely alone.

I gripped my makeshift weapon in one sweaty little fist, holding hard to the bar of the padlock I’d stolen off the gate. I pulled Sevens’ yellow blanket tight around my shoulders, trusting to what protection she could still offer from the wings of this cruel production.

“It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real,” I whispered to myself. “None of this is real. And it’s silly. And offensive. And silly. Did I say silly? Yes. It’s not real, it’s not real.”

No nurses patrolled those halls, no patients walked free beyond their steel cells — but I was not the only thing abroad in the artificial night.

Ghoulish figures lurked in the darker corridors, the places where light bulbs had failed or burst. They scurried away beyond my sight whenever I caught the merest glimpse — a loping, all-fours, simian shuffle. Flashes of mushroom-pale skin vanished into the deeper shadows. White, empty, blind eyes stared out from rusty nooks and concrete crannies. They did not seem to be the same creatures which had peered through my cell door when I’d first awoken in this dream. Neither did they seem aggressive or dangerous, choosing only to flee and hide.

No, the pitiful inhabitants were not the cause of my mounting fear.

I became aware of my pursuer after perhaps fifteen minutes — or maybe half an hour, or even a full hour, or the whole afternoon. I felt as if I had stumbled and staggered through those prison corridors all day long. Perhaps true night had already fallen and Evelyn had been released from her mother’s surprise visit, much the worse for wear. Perhaps I was too late. Perhaps I was lost.

I happened to pause in a corridor, just beyond several dead end junctions and lightless side passages. A whisper of feet brushed across the concrete some meters behind me, so I turned to look back, expecting to see one of the strange locals.

A flicker of blue-and-pink poncho vanished around a distant corner, slipping out of sight a second too late.

Lozzie was following me.

I stood paralysed, staring at the crumbly concrete corner, shivering inside the meagre protection of Sevens’ yellow blanket, gripping my makeshift cudgel in one sweaty, faltering hand. The padlock was so heavy I doubted I could swing it with any force, certainly not accurately; I might stand a chance if I could sneak up on a foe and strike from behind. But could I swing it at Lozzie, at all? I didn’t want to. The thought of hitting her, of hurting her, even in a dream, made my stomach curdle. I would rather she stick a dream-knife in my dream-guts than do violence to my beloved Lozzie.

And she was putting herself in danger! We had no idea what lurked in this place.

I gathered all my courage — and what little saliva I had, to wet my lips — and called out.

“I know you’re following me, Lozzie!”

My voice echoed off damp concrete and rusted steel, reflected back in scratching warbles, vanishing into the labyrinth of the prison.

Lozzie did not reply.

I called again: “I saw you, Lozzie. I know you’re there.”

More echoes. I stood in hissing silence, biting my lip, knees weak.

“Please don’t,” I murmured.

Lozzie giggled — high-pitched, deeply amused, and having far too much fun. I’d know that sound anywhere, even in the depths of hell.

Somehow, that giggle helped.

I sighed a big, exasperated, unimpressed sigh, then tutted and shook my head. “At least you’re enjoying yourself,” I whispered, then raised my voice again: “Lozzie, if you’re going to follow me, at least do it out in the open. You can … you can walk beside me. I … I want to trust you. Please.”

No reply came, not even a giggle. Lozzie kept her silence.

I sighed and rubbed my face, praying that Raine would know what to do — and that she’d be able to do it before Lozzie crept up behind me and stuck a knife in my back.

I pushed on, journeying deeper into Cygnet Prison in search of room HS-1312, trying not to feel Lozzie’s eyes drilling a hole between my shoulder blades.

Eventually I came upon a cell door marked with a room number which appeared to be in sequence with Raine’s — room HS-1917. That door led me to a corridor of similar numbers, between walls of slightly lighter concrete, stained by dark patches of glistening black mould. I picked up my pace, counting down the numbers, my heart fluttering inside my chest like a trapped bird; I kept a corner of Sevens’ blanket over my mouth and nose, trying not to inhale too many mold spores from the air.

The numbered doors led to a large stairwell and a set of bare metal steps caked in rust, which climbed upward to reach several additional floors. I sighed and mounted the stairs, then began the laborious process of sticking my head through every stairwell doorway, checking the room numbers.

She was near. My saviour and love, my protector, my one true knight, my Raine.

I almost called out her name, hoping she might hear my voice — but instinct stilled my throat and closed my lips.

When I realised that the next floor up must contain Raine’s cell, I heard a loud rustle from down at the base of the stairwell, six floors below. I tutted and rolled my eyes, though with a glimmer of affection in my heart — Lozzie was baiting my attention. I composed my most unimpressed look, then leaned over the rusty bannister.

A membranous vortex of ebony and charcoal stared back.

Flowing like ink clouding in dark waters, or like lace snapping in shadowy storm-winds, or like an explosion of raven feathers in sudden flight, the thing was all sable velvet membranes and gossamer veils of flesh-like tissue. A living shadow, thickened across countless centuries, now stalking these halls in search of light to smother. It did not walk, but ghosted across the concrete and metal, as if unwilling to sully the perfect layers of lace-like darkness.

Whatever it was, it was mounting the stairs.

I swallowed a scream, almost lost control of my legs, then turned and ran, making for where I knew Raine’s cell must lie.

I burst from the rusty metal stairwell and into another corridor, clutching my yellow blanket, my slippers slapping against the concrete. Room numbers flashed past — HS-1356, HS-1345, HS-1330, counting down toward the inevitable. The corridor turned to the right, past several lightless passageways and empty side-halls; I almost lost my balance, slipping and sliding, then cracking one shoulder into a wall. I hissed with pain as I righted myself and hurled my body onward.

And then, all of a sudden, there it was — room HS-1312. A great big unpainted steel door just like all the others, edges crusted with a film of rust, with the number stencilled across the middle in faded black letters.

Closed and locked, of course.

I skidded to a halt, panting for breath, suddenly at a loss. Stupid, stupid, stupid Heather! Had I become more idiotic, somehow, without my six other selves to correct for my moronic assumptions? Had I just assumed the door would be easy to open? What was I thinking?!

I stared back down the corridor. Was that black-ink-ghost still following me? The padlock was so heavy and my hand was coated in so much sweat. That thing wasn’t remotely human. Even if I could swing my weapon, how could I be sure it would do any good?

But I gripped the lock in both hands and held it ready.

“No no no no no,” I hissed through my teeth. “No! No running now, no! No!”

I might never find Raine’s cell again if I let that thing chase me away; it felt like days had passed just to reach this door.

I bared my teeth and tried to hiss. I flexed my shoulders and pulled a nasty frown. I imagined that I had six tentacles poised and ready, all covered with barbs and spikes and toxins. I imagined my skin flashing with warning colouration, red and orange and purple and pink. I willed myself to feel sharp and scary and squid-like.

It didn’t work so well. I wanted to wet myself.

“You won’t part us!” I hissed to the empty corridor. “Not me and Raine! Not this time!”

Minutes passed. Shadows brewed. Silence descended.

But nothing came.

Eventually I forced myself to relax — which wasn’t easy, because I was coated in cold sweat, shivering from head to toe with adrenaline, and teetering on the verge of tears. Both my hands were stiff from gripping the padlock so hard. I wiped my runny nose on the back of one hand, then bit my lower lip to keep from sobbing.

“I should have … should have gotten somebody else, first,” I said, then hiccuped so loudly it hurt. “Ow! Ow. S-should have tried to free Twil. Or made peace with Lozzie. Oh, oh Lozzie, I hope that thing didn’t get you. Oh please, please be safe, please. I can’t do this alone. I can’t. I can’t.”

Raine’s cell door waited, offering neither comment nor comfort.

Room HS-1312 looked the same as all the other cells. The steel door was mounted with the hinges on the outside, so it would open into the corridor, presumably to preclude certain kinds of escape. A big black keyhole showed nothing but darkness. The bolt itself was just about visible in the gap between the door and the frame, as thick as my forearm, covered in rust.

A metal slot was cut into the door at head height — designed for somebody a little taller than me — and covered with a steel slat.

I had neither the time nor any resources to make myself presentable. I was a sweat-soaked mess wrapped in an old yellow blanket, eyes bloodshot with adrenaline and stress, reeking of fear, visibly desperate, and very alone.

Just another crazy girl, lost in the bowels of hell.

Raine had helped me once before, when I had been exactly this.

I pulled the steel slat aside, opening the metal slot; the cover squeaked, setting my teeth on edge, echoing down the corridor. I went up on tiptoes and peered into the cell.

Concrete walls, rough and raw, were stained and pitted with water-damage — and covered from floor to ceiling in precise, mathematical, measured graffiti. It was all drawn in neat black pen, with each stroke separated from the others by exact distances: swirling squid and sabre-tooth tigers, anime pin-up girls and band logos, a soaring castle and a plunging chasm, and a dozen different sizes of naked breasts rendered in perfect proportion. I recognised the style instantly — ASCII art, the same kind that Raine had sent me so many times in a hundred different text messages, that style which she seemed to generate from nowhere.

A metal toilet was hunched in one corner, in unspeakable condition. The only other furniture was a slab of wood built into the far wall, to serve as a bed.

A familiar figure was lying on her side, covered by a thin blanket, facing away from me.

“Raine!” I hissed into the slot. “Raine, wake up! Raine! It’s me!”

Raine took a deep breath; I heard it hissing through her nose and saw her ribcage expand beneath the threadbare blanket. She started to sit up, oh so very slowly, unfolding herself with the luxurious muscularity of a panther bestirring at the sound of skittish prey.

Chestnut brown hair was swept back across her scalp, unwashed, greasy, artless. Warm brown eyes found mine, narrowed with curiosity and intrigue. She smiled, beaming with a sunburst of confidence — but also with predatory intent. A shiver shot down my spine, of a kind that I knew all too well, a shiver that drew me in, drew me close, and drew my heart from my chest.

There she was, my lethal lover, my dearest, my knife, my right hand, with my life in her palm. I would recognise that smile anywhere.

But Raine smiled from behind a cage of metal; she was muzzled, like a dog.

She was also locked into a straitjacket. Thick white fabric pinned her arms across her front. Her hands were lost deep in elongated sleeves. The sleeves wrapped around her back, fastened in place with padlocks. She was buckled into the garment with a dozen leather straps, her muscles imprisoned.

“Oh, Raine,” I sighed with relief. “Raine, Raine! It’s me, it’s … it’s … Raine?”

Raine held my gaze with unblinking curiosity.

“Raine?”

Raine extracted herself from the blanket and rose to her feet, careful not to overbalance or topple over, constricted by the straitjacket. She padded over to the door one slow and loping step at a time, swaying from side to side as if trying to see me from additional angles. Long pajama bottom cuffs trailed at her feet. Her eyes never once left mine.

“Raine?” I hissed. “Raine, say something, please.”

Raine reached the door and pressed her face against the slot. Her muzzle clicked against the steel, lips trapped behind the mesh across her jaw and mouth, eyes smouldering like coals. The rest of her body was now concealed behind the thick slab of the door.

She grinned; I shivered again. I longed to reach through the door and crush her against my front, but she was—

“Hey there, you,” Raine purred, looking me up and down. Her voice was low and husky, a dangerous rumble. “You don’t look like no nurse.”

“Raine?” I tried one last time, then sighed and winced, swallowing disappointment. “No, I’m not a nurse, obviously I’m not—”

“You lost, little thing?” she said. “You’re not meant to be back here with the real monsters.”

“Raine, it’s me. Please tell me you know me. Please say you recognise me.”

“Ooooooh,” she purred, long and low. “A pretty please from a face like that will get you anywhere with me, you sweet little thing. But I don’t lie to ladies in need. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“Fuck,” I hissed — and for once I felt no need to apologise for foul language.

Raine bit her lower lip and let out a grunt. “Uunnh. You’re jumping ahead pretty fast, ain’t you? Not that I’m complaining, but I don’t pump and dump. I don’t even kiss and tell. If you’re in, you’re in for good and proper and I’ll make you squeal for me, you—”

“Raine!” I snapped.

She blinked — not quite a flinch, but almost. Then she frowned with curious amusement, as if she wasn’t certain why that had worked on her. “How do you know my name, little thing?” she said. “Did you seriously come all the way back here, looking for me, personally, all special, just for me? ‘Cos that’s real cute, real flattering, real sweet. I don’t think any girl has ever done that for me before, let alone a girl as pretty as you. But you should know, sweet thing, I eat girls like you for breakfast. Get too close and I’ll gobble you up—”

“Raine,” I snapped again — then reached forward, hooked a finger through the mesh of her muzzle, and held on tight. “Shut up and listen.”

Raine blinked in surprise a second time. Then, quicker than I could react, her tongue darted out from between her lips and licked the back of the finger I’d looped inside her muzzle.

When I neither recoiled nor squealed, she narrowed her eyes at me in curiosity. I gently unhooked my finger from the muzzle and stuck the cold taste of her saliva into my own mouth.

“Alright,” Raine purred. “Any girl who dives this deep just to steal my spit has to be worth listening to. You have my full attention. Go ahead.”

She wasn’t lying. I recognised that look, that absolute, instant, no-questions shift. Raine was listening to me — really listening.

I took a deep breath.

“None of this is real,” I said. “The hospital, the asylum, the prison — whatever this place is pretending to be, it’s not real. We’re trapped inside a dream, or an illusion, or some kind of trick. My name is Heather Morell. You know me, more intimately than probably anybody else in the world. And I know your full name — Raine Philomena Haynes — because you are my lover, partner, and protector. We don’t belong here. We live in Sharrowford, together, with a bunch of other friends and lovers. We attend university together. You’re a philosophy student, sort of. We’re … sort of a … magical coven, I guess? I’m an extra-dimensional squid girl. Usually I have more limbs than this, and more selves, but I’ve been reduced. Our mutual best friend, Evelyn, is a mage. You’re … well, you’re just a human being, but that’s not important right now. We were attempting to … to … oh, how do I explain this? We were trying to hoodwink a sort of alien god, called the Eye. We were Outside of reality, along with all our other friends. Our purpose was to rescue my twin sister, Maisie, who was … inside that god, sort of. I think this — this dream or illusion — this is inside the Eye, in some metaphysical or spiritual sense. Its robbed everyone’s memories somehow, and dumped us into this parody of the mental hospital I used to visit when I was younger. None of this is real.”

Raine waited, frowning with gentle concentration, until she was certain I’d finished. “Is that all of it?”

“Yes.”

Raine raised her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly, as if giving ground to a convincing but novel argument. Her muzzle scraped against the rim of the steel slot. She purred my name, her voice dropping lower with every repetition: “Heather? Heather. Heatherrrr. Why do I find myself liking that name so much? Feels good on my tongue.”

“Raine,” I said. “You have to believe me. I know I’m asking a lot, but please—”

“So,” she purred. “You and I fuck? You let me at your cunt, day in and day out?”

I blinked several times, then almost laughed. “Yes. Yes, Raine, we’re extremely intimate. Often. All the damn time, in fact. I’m sort of … insatiable, sometimes, I suppose. And I’m not apologetic about it.”

Raine burst into a grin — a grade-A, Raine-style, shit-eating grin of blazing confidence, caged behind metal mesh.

“I love your sort of crazy, Heather,” she said, her voice honeyed with glowing passion. “I really do.”

My cheeks blossomed with a blush and my heart swelled in my chest, aching with love for Raine — because her tone left nothing to the imagination. She was not mocking me. She was not teasing the crazy girl with the promise of acknowledgement, only to snatch it away with a backhand compliment. She was being the same Raine had always been, even like this, locked in a filthy cell in a dungeon of the soul. She meant nothing more than the exact plain import of her words. She loved my sort of crazy.

Scrambling for a handhold, I said: “What does that mean? What is ‘my sort of crazy’? Everyone keeps saying that this morning!”

Raine’s grin softened and gentled, touched with distant melancholy. “You’re so vulnerable, Heather. A babe in the woods. A rabbit on an open moor. A mouse—”

“I’m a squid. Or an octopus. A cephalopod, in any case.”

Raine paused, then nodded, grinning with approval. “Yeah. Yeeeeeah, I can see it, I can. Soft-bodied and beaked. Sharp in your own way, certainly, with strong limbs and a special knot of brain in you, but still vulnerable and furtive. Hunted by sharks.” Raine bit her lip and looked me up and down, like she was staring at the most glamorous pin-up model she could imagine. “Oh, damn, you really are my type. Either you’re telling the truth, or you’re a spook sent to seduce me.”

I tutted. “Raine.”

“‘Cos there’s much bigger, badder monsters out there than me, Heather. And you need somebody to look after you.”

“I do,” I hissed. “Yes, I do, Raine, yes. That person is you. It’s always been you.”

Raine met my eyes again — and then sighed with a sad smile. “You really think that? You don’t know what you’re asking for, sweet thing.”

My turn to sigh — sharp and irritated. “Raine!” I hissed, pressing my face closer to the slot, going up on tiptoes, blazing at her with irritation. “I am not crazy. I’m not.”

Raine chuckled. “Sure you are, Heather. I’m crazy, too. You’re crazy, I’m crazy. We’re all crazy, down here.”

“We’re not ‘insane’ by definition simply because we’re trapped inside a dream of Cygnet mental hospital!” I hissed. “That’s—”

“No, you’re wrong about that.” Raine’s grin died. She shook her head, scraping her muzzle back and forth across the metal slot. She leaned against the door as if trying to press herself through the walls of her prison. “You wanna know why we’re all crazy, by definition?”

It was not a rhetorical question, as it would be from any other speaker. Raine waited for my response.

I sighed. “Not really, no. But if it’ll help convince you, go ahead.”

Raine nodded, deadly serious. “Because we’re inside a system where only the insane can truly prosper. They get to set the rules, decide the definitions, and classify people like you and me as ‘crazy’. And they’re a much worse kind of insane — cruelty, for the sake of cruelty.”

“Who is ‘they’?” I asked.

“The entire Zeitgeist. No cabal is necessary. No smoky back room full of plots. No secret networks. Just cruelty. It’s very normal. That’s the point. So, if you and I are classified as crazy, because we’re not like that, why not embrace it?”

I sighed another big sigh. “You once told me that I wasn’t crazy. You were the only one who believed it, Raine. Even I didn’t, not until you showed me.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Raine purred, smiling wide again. “I’m betting I said something more like you aren’t delusional, or you weren’t wrong to feel the way you do. But, crazy?” Raine winked and made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Girl, that’s a badge of honour in here. Different rules apply when you’re not playing along. You’re crazy alright. You are so very much my kinda crazy. Love it.”

Raine’s words filled me with hope; she was listening, talking mostly like herself, and neither cowed nor beaten by this prison, even if she sounded a little more unhinged than I was used to.

I glanced left and right, down the rows of steel doors, into the cloying gloom of the prison complex.

“Alright, okay,” I hissed. “Crazy or not, however you think of it, I need you to believe me, I need you to—”

“Did I say I didn’t believe you?” she asked.

“ … do you?”

Raine grinned again. “Does it matter?”

“Raine!” I snapped. “This is not the time for philosophical games. I need your help. I can’t do this alone. I need you! And I need you free.”

Raine drew a breath between clenched teeth, wincing hard, hissing low. She looked me up and down again, suddenly doubtful and reluctant, quivering with an emotion I’d never seen from her before — need and desire, barely caged, eating through the bars.

“You don’t know what you’re asking, sweet thing,” she said.

“You said that once already. And yes, I do—”

“You know why I’m in here?” she asked. She tilted her head and clacked her muzzle against the door again. “You know why I’m wearing this cage on my face? Because I eat up girls like you, Heather. And you’re tempting me real bad.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I haven’t had a taste in longer than I remember. You can’t dangle yourself in front of me like this. You should be running, girl.”

I adopted the most unimpressed expression I could manage, put my hands on my hips, and pursed my lips. “You’re not a cannibal, Raine.”

“No?” she purred. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I know you, in every way it’s possible to know somebody. You’re in that cell because you’re violent, yes. You are staggeringly violent when you want to be. And you were no different in reality. But you’re only ever violent in service of things you believe in, things worth protecting. Your violence, it … well, I’ve always found it attractive, even when it scares me. Especially when it scares me.” I swallowed. “So I’m not afraid of you. And I never will be.”

Raine went quiet. She stared at me, intense and focused. Eventually she said: “Why didn’t you save any of our other friends first? Surely anybody else would be a better option than me?”

“No,” I said. “You are my best option, Raine. Always and forever.”

Raine just stared and stared and stared. I started to sweat. I wet my lips, glanced left and right, praying that Lozzie or that membranous black ghost were not approaching me.

Raine said, “What’s your plan? If you can break me out, what’s the next step?”

“We need to save Evelyn first,” I hissed. “She’s trapped with a memory of her mother. Evelyn is a mage, a magician, like I said, so she might be able to do something about all this. Then there’s Twil — I don’t quite understand what’s happening with her, but she’s a werewolf, she’s strong as hell, she could probably fight off the nurses if we had to. And Lozzie, well, Lozzie’s turned into some kind of … psychopath? I hate that word, but I can’t think of a better shorthand. She’s following me right now, she followed me into the prison, but I think I lost her. Then there’s Zheng, she’s been disabled by this place. Zheng is your other girlfriend, by the way, and mine too. I can’t find Praem, which is either worrying or brilliant, but I can’t decide which. Sevens is … hard to explain. The Knights and the Caterpillars, I don’t know what to do about them. But … Evee first. She’s top priority, because she may be in danger. Even if I can’t snap you out of this dream, I know you can help me save the others.”

Raine nodded slowly, but said nothing.

“Does any of this ring a bell?” I asked.

Raine shook her head. “Nope.”

“Dammit!” I hissed. “I—”

“But it could do,” Raine said, “if you sing pretty please for me. Maybe jog my memory with a kiss. Or a hug? I’d love to give you a little squeeze, squid-girl. Maybe that’ll remind me why I fell in love with you.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes, almost laughing despite the situation. “You really are still yourself. You’re barely any different.”

“Says you.”

“Yes! Says me! Raine, I need you to help me. What do I have to do? Do I need to tell you something only you would know? I can—”

Raine shook her head. “Naaaah. You could have read my files, my session logs with the shrinks. You could know everything, doesn’t prove shit. Here, I’ll hand you the pieces, because you’re so damn cute. Tell me why I should believe any of this? Give me a reason — beyond the promise of your cunt, that is.”

I stared Raine dead in the eyes, framed by the metal slot and the muzzle mesh.

“Because I once believed in you,” I said. “Because you saved me, you rescued me, when nobody else could. Without you, I’d probably be dead.”

Raine ran her tongue over her teeth. The gesture made me shudder with strange arousal. My mouth was dry, my hands were shaking, my heart fluttering hard.

“You fell in love with me?” Raine asked. “With this? Can you still love me, like I am now?”

“Yes, of course!” I snapped. “You’re … well, I was going to say that you’re a bit more of an ‘edge lord’ right now — you taught me that word, by the way — but actually you’re basically the same, you’re still you. You’re just acting a tiny bit different. Less … less … um … domesticated.”

Raine laughed, genuinely amused. She pressed her face hard against the slot, as if trying to reach me. Her lips cracked into a grin behind the muzzle.

“Ohhhh,” she purred. “You wanna domesticate me again, huh? Slip a collar around my neck? Tug on my leash when I’m a bad girl? Is that what you and I have going on? Am I your hound, Heather?”

“Tch,” I tutted, blushing beetroot-red. “N-no! No, we’re not like that.”

“Why not?” Raine clacked her teeth together. “I’ve already got the muzzle.”

I slapped a hand against the steel door, losing my temper. “And I would remove that muzzle!”

Raine’s grin died instantly. She stopped laughing. She stared into my eyes, as if only just realising what she was truly looking at.

“You would,” she murmured. “Wouldn’t you? You really would. You’re not kidding.”

“I trust you, Raine.”

She shook her head, breathing harder, almost panting with excitement. “I could hold you down and squeeze the life out of you. I could eat you alive. I’m in a straitjacket and a muzzle for a reason, girl. You sure about this?”

“I trust you completely. I trust you with my life. Even if you don’t remember who I am right now.”

“Why?”

“Because I have faith in you. Are you mine, Raine?”

Raine bit her lip so hard she drew a bead of blood. She took a shuddering breath, rolled her shoulders back, and broke into a smile of smouldering pitch.

“I’m yours, Heather,” she purred. “Hound or otherwise.”

I let out a shaking breath of my own, which I had not know I’d been holding. “I love you so much, Raine. I knew I could—”

“Executive decision time,” she said, suddenly quick and sharp. She pressed her face and muzzle to the open slot as hard as she could, tilting her head, flicking her eyes left and right, trying to see down the darkened hallway either side of me. “You’re gonna have to get me out of this cell, and fast. It’s not safe out there in the corridors.”

I almost laughed. “Yes, I noticed that. But I don’t have a key. Where can I find one?”

“We won’t need a key,” she said. She eased back again and rolled her shoulders inside the confines of the straitjacket. “If I can get one arm out of this monkey suit, I can get the door open with nothing but a stick and some blood. What are you carrying? Anything with a sharp edge? If not then you’re gonna have to go up on tiptoe and use your teeth.”

“Teeth?! To— to bite you?”

Raine snorted. “No, but that might be fun later. Come on, quick. Have you got anything with a sharp edge?”

“Oh! Y-yes, I’ve got, um … ” I waved the heavy padlock in one hand, but Raine shook her head, so I put it down on the floor and rummaged inside my yellow blanket instead. “I’ve got these plastic knives, I stole them from the mess hall.” I held up one of the flimsy white utensils, with its blunt little serrated teeth on one side.

“Oh you are full of perfect little surprises, sweet thing. No wonder I love you,” Raine said. Then she nodded downward at my other hand, which was busy stuffing all my other acquisitions back inside the blanket. “What’s that?”

“What’s what? T-The book? The marker pen?”

“No, the packet of grease.”

I held up the bundle of napkins wrapped around a wad of bacon, intended for Zheng. “Bacon, wrapped in napkins. It’s for Zheng, later, if I can sneak it to her.”

Raine cracked a grin. “Bacon grease will do nicely. Hold onto that, I’ll need it in a sec. We can always get more bacon for Zheng.”

“O-okay,” I said, frowning inside. Was this more video game logic? Had I brought the correct items to free Raine, or was she just making this up as she went? I stuffed the bacon back inside my yellow blanket, then went to poke the plastic knife through the slot. “Here you—”

But Raine stepped away, turned around, and pressed her back against the steel door. The viewing slot was filled with the dirty white collar of her straitjacket, framing the unwashed pale skin of her neck.

Raine raised her voice so I could hear her through the door: “See the broken stitching around the collar? Lift it up.”

I reached up and lifted the loose flap of greasy fabric. Beneath was a ragged mass of frayed cotton, all torn and ripped, damaged beyond repair — but still strong enough to hold the straitjacket together.

“I see it!” I called back through the door.

“Been working on that for months,” Raine said, laughing. “But all I can do is rub it against the walls and the corner of the bed.”

I tutted. “We haven’t been in here for months. Nothing before this morning was real.”

Raine laughed, loud and happy. “I’m plagued by the deus deceptor, eh?”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind! Cut through the collar fabric, Heather, go on. Saw back and forth. Hurt me if you have to!”

My half-blunt plastic breakfast utensil did not make short work of the heavy-woven, reinforced, cotton collar of a straitjacket. I slipped the blade beneath the layers of fabric, sawing at the thick strands, pulling and tugging, yanking and scraping. Raine helped by pressing her back against the slot as hard as she could, bracing her feet to keep herself steady. The knife almost gave up after a few minutes, bending backward on itself; I resorted to fingers and teeth, jamming my nails under the stringy cotton, ripping and tearing, going up on tiptoe and biting each strand apart with my front teeth. If only I’d had my tentacles — or just one of them! — I could have formed the tip into a razor-sharp steel point and slashed Raine’s bonds open in seconds.

In the end I had a bright idea — I sharpened the bent plastic knife against the concrete wall next to Raine’s cell door, rasping the blade back and forth against the rough surface until I had something with a little more edge.

Raine chuckled at that. “A girl who knows how to make a prison shiv! No wonder you captured my heart.”

“Trust— me—” I panted, working at the collar again with a freshly keen blade. “I— had no— idea.”

After what felt like hours of work, the fabric of the straitjacket collar finally parted; the last few layers of interwoven cotton tore under the pressure of Raine flexing her back and hunching her shoulders. The whole garment suddenly sagged, coming loose as that primary anchor snapped. Raine staggered away from the door.

“But!” I panted. “You’re still trapped! You’re still inside the jacket, how are you going to get out?”

Raine started rolling her right shoulder, grunting and hissing with effort, flexing her muscles and straining at the compromised straitjacket. “All I need is one arm free!” she said. “Gimme a minute. I’ve done this before. Just gotta keep going, keep going, keep going. Don’t go anywhere, sweet thing! Stay right there. I’m gonna need that knife and bacon fat in a sec. Unngh!” Raine grunted as she rolled her shoulder so hard it popped. “Come on, come on, come on,” she hissed to herself. “Come on, unnh! Come on, come—”

“Heathy?”

I whirled away from the slot and the door and Raine’s rippling back.

Lozzie was standing about twenty feet down the corridor, framed on either side by yawning passages of shadow-mouthed darkness. Her pentacolour pastel poncho lay flat and limp against her petite and wiry frame. Her long blonde hair was swept back in a greasy mass. She was clutching a shiv in one tight-knuckled fist — not a plastic utensil like mine, but a gleam of steel-bright metal, sharpened to a long and wicked point.

Lozzie stared at me, frowning with some inner horror that I had never seen from her before.

Raine shouted: “Heather! Stay close to the door! I’ll be free, sixty seconds!”

“Lozzie?” I said. “Lozzie, I—” I glanced down at the padlock I’d abandoned on the floor. My sweaty hands went numb with fear and denial. “I— I can’t hurt you, Lozzie. I can’t. Please, please put down that knife. Please, don’t, please. I’d rather let you stick that in my gut than hurt you. I won’t, I—”

“It’s not for you,” she said. Her voice seemed floaty and faraway.

“ … Lozzie?”

“Heard lots of what you said. Lotsa lotsa wordy words. And you’re right, very right, all right, alright. I think?” She frowned harder. “I think too much.”

“What? Pardon, sorry. Lozzie, what do you mean?”

“My memories are all fucky wucky,” she said. I noticed her eyes were bloodshot. She started to pant. “I’ve been here for months, or years? But there was nothing before this morning, you’re right, super right, mega right. Right?”

She lifted the shiv and pointed at me. I flinched, raising my hands in surrender, letting the little plastic knife clatter to the floor.

Raine shouted again: “Heather, hold on! Grab the padlock, fight back!”

“You—” Lozzie stammered, panting harder. “You broke … all this? Me? I don’t know. How did you do it? How did you do it?!” she shouted. “Heathy-heads, break me all the way, you have to finish it, break me all the—”

A bell rang out down the night-gloomed hallway — a black bell, cracked and muffled, a herald of doom.

And the bell was a voice. Clear and precise. Cold as ice crystals.

Intoning:

“Good girls go to bed.”

I froze, eyes wide with sudden comprehension.

Lozzie looked around, down one of the shadow-filled side passages.

A spiral of umbral darkness exploded from the shadows.

A whirling maelstrom of membranes like a storm of black lace, like a frilled and fluffed sphere of living darkness, like a phantom made of silken veils.

It slammed into Lozzie as if scooping her up in an embrace of tissue paper and foam — utterly soundless except for Lozzie’s chirp of surprise. It did not slow or stop, but carried straight on to the other passageway mouth, whisking Lozzie away in a flutter of pastel poncho. The last thing I saw of Lozzie was a pair of sleepy eyes flung wide in surprise.

In the split-second before that night-black phantom vanished around the opposite corner, I caught the faintest hint of a humanoid form at the core of the shifting membranes — feminine, with heavy curves, hair pinned up in a bun, and the suggestion of a long dress.

And then Lozzie was gone. Deafening silence fell.

“Lozzie!” I shrieked, and ran to the corner — but the side passage showed only darkness. The phantom had carried her away at great speed.

A whisper of fabric on concrete began to rustle at the edge of my hearing.

Raine banged on the door of her cell. “Heather, no!” she snapped, putting the whipcrack of command into her voice. I flinched as if yanked by the pit of my belly. “Here, now!”

I scurried back to the door, eyes wide, panting with panic.

“Raine! Raine, that was Praem! N-Night Praem!? But that was always just a joke about her making people go to bed on time, I don’t—”

“Heather, concentrate, right now,” Raine snapped. I flinched again. “That was the prison guard. She’ll be back for you any moment. Stay right there. I can’t protect you if you run. Stay.”

“O-okay.”

Raine backed up from the door again. Her right shoulder was almost free. She gave one last heave, one last grunt, one last teeth-gritting pop of her joints — and her right arm tore free from the shoulder of the straitjacket. Naked muscles gleamed in the weak light, coated in filthy sweat; her skin was raw and irritated where she’d been rubbing against the fabric for minutes on end.

She clenched a fist and held it up, then grinned like the beautiful mad woman she was.

“Yes!” I squeaked.

Raine stuck her hand through the slot. “Knife and bacon, now!”

I almost fumbled in my haste to hand over the tools. Raine accepted both, then crouched, vanishing below the door’s viewing slot, beyond my sight. I heard her unwrap the bacon, then rub the grease all over the knife. A moment later the whole door shifted by a fraction of an inch, creaking and grinding against years of rust. She was working the knife between the metal and the frame.

A black bell tolled, far away down the corridor, deep in the shadows.

“Good girls should be sleeping,” intoned Night Praem — a far away voice, echoing off concrete and steel.

“Raine!” I squeaked. “Raine, she’s coming back!”

“I know!” Raine said. “Gimme a sec, I’m almost there. Don’t move, Heather. Don’t run! I can’t protect you if you run. Stay right there.”

“Okay. Okay! Okay! Oh— oh no, um—”

That bell-like voice rang out once again, soft and slow, perfectly broken: “Good girls. Good girls. Why are you awake?”

Darkness began to thicken at the far end of the corridor, taking firm shape among the greasy shadows. The hint of a figure was wrapped in a thousand fluttering membranes.

“Praem?” I called out. “Praem, it’s me! It’s Heather! Praem, you have to stop!”

“Bad girls,” Night Praem intoned.

The shadows began to flow down the corridor, filling the space from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, rushing to engulf me where I stood.

“Raine!” I almost shrieked.

Raine shot upward; her face reappeared behind the steel slot, muzzled tight, sweating with effort. “Heather, focus on me, right now.”

“She’s—”

“Put your hand here — here, now!” Raine slapped the top of the steel viewing slot. “Brace here!”

I did as I was told. My heart was slamming against my ribs. I couldn’t help but stare down the corridor at the onrushing wall of Night-Praem shadow, and the familiar figure within the core.

“Heather!” Raine repeated my name — and got my attention. Those warm brown eyes blazed like a blowtorch flame, focused with such clarity of intent. She was my Raine, there was no question, no doubt.

“Yes! Yes!” I squeaked.

“On the count of three, you push upward on the door with all your strength, all your body weight,” she said quickly. “Do you understand?” I nodded. My hands were sweaty, so I braced both of them, panting hard, shaking all over. “Good!” Raine gripped something down below my sight-line, either the plastic knife or an inner handle. “On three.” She held my gaze as she counted. “One, two, three!”

I heaved upward with all my strength. Raine grunted through clenched teeth. A wisp of night-dark shadow brushed my shoulder.

The lock slammed open with a rusty scream of tortured metal.

Raine cracked the door with a sudden jerk of motion, knocking me off balance — knocking me those crucial few inches away from Night Praem’s shadowy membranes. I yelped, arms wind-milling, about to fall flat on my backside before Night Praem scooped me up and spirited me away.

Raine’s right hand shot through the gap, caught my forearm in an iron-hard grip, and yanked me off my feet.

I tumbled head-first into the dubious safety of Raine’s high security cell.

Into the warmth of her chest. The protection of her arms.

Back together with my Raine, right where I belonged.