rule 7: we stopped playing by this rulebook a long time ago

We stand there until we realize that there are still doors into the basement way across the field basically embedded in the mound itself but very much waiting there for us to find them. The field around us is all grass which is about seven years old like us and flowers who must have blossomed up much later. We have also grown out of ourselves a little and I would like to think we have flowers among us but mainly I have seen a lot of the pricklers that will clasp you around the leg and not let go. One is there right now as if to say "welcome to the nightmare" and I want to talk back but I would also prefer if this way not on my leg.

I sit down in the field and spread out amongst some flowers feeling the stray prickler cut my face and hair.

Trace says "oh silly you're going to get all cut up like that" and she starts picking the flowers around me as she sits with her legs crossed.

I look up at the sun overhead and then down towards the older kids who are arguing again about setting up here tonight and say "oh well it'll heal up just like this place did right so it's not much an issue anyways" and then I start peeling off a prickler which leaves a string of little cuts along one side of my face. I sniff deeply and something in me recognizes the scent of blood more intimately than it should be allowed to. I lick the air and my lips which are chapped.

The wind rolls over the field and flattens everything like rain flattens fur and then the grass begins retaliating by holding its head high as possible. Trace threads the stomachs of flowers through each other, the stems, and she begins weaving a crown of big blues and meek yellows. They look beautiful together excepting the fact that they are dead and were made dead for the sake of creating something beautiful.

I let the sun filter across my face and ask "what do you think is down in the earth".

Trace bites her lip and threads another flower and says "death" and adds kind of jokingly "not really someone I want to meet today so I think I'm going to stay out of it" and meanwhile we both know that Angel is somewhere in the gut of the place.

I get up as Trace presses a flower crown around my head very softly and says "ta-da" with a little flourish of her hands. I giggle and help her up and we hug real tight but I can already feel it tilting off my head.

"Oh come on Addie you can't want to go" Trace says but I keep walking towards the little hole in the side which leads down into the earth and every time I take a step and feel a prickler around my pant leg I feel myself get a little more certain. I step up to the door and run my hand down it closing my eyes tight as they'll go and Trace adds "big kids are down there and they'll be mean to us you know it".

She's right but I want to prove something to myself. I open the door. The internal space is huge and hollow with metal cages on either side. Several layers of smashed glass, melted glass, and multicolored debris are scattered everywhere with metal shards catching the light all the wrong ways. It's almost too dark to see but Kali's fire scatters down the halls holding in little places in midair, so that you can see enough. There are gashes all the way up and down the tomb on every wall and you can smell the brown rust of blood.

I know who lived here. "Bottom floor" I tell the others and almost cut myself on one of the shards as I run my finger across a broken pane. I slip into the form of a mouse and wander through the little home and I can see half a human still in the corner almost ground into dust and I want to hiccup up darkness and I want to say something to stop it and I want to say no Dylan committed the first sin but before any of us ever got out of here it was me and it was me and I was probably the worst thing made in the heart of this place--

"Oh you always knew" Angel says with her hand on my shoulder "at least you know now why I had to try to stop you" and she slips back through the wreckage to the others and I sit there staring up at the ceiling in the dark.

"Come meet us up later" Red says and adds "we'll have food but you should take all the time you want here we don't really have anywhere we need to be" and he sounds sad or maybe I want him to be sad but I don't know if he really is or could be or anything.

Trace stands on the other side of the glass and I can feel her in the dark even though I haven't reached out to her once. We sit there for what might be forever and she gets down on her knees which is a nice gesture but I say "you're going to get cut it's really messy in here" and Trace responds "I don't care and it was super mean of them to just leave you in here like that". The air is real still and I can hear something creaking in the distance which I think was a tire swing they left in the corner for me that I probably destroyed or something I don't even like tire swings what were they thinking but wait no they didn't really make this enclosure for a girl because whatever they expected me to be it probably wasn't human.

I shrug and say "well I'm glad we came down here I think I needed to see this" and the tire swing or whatever's held up against a wall is still whining in its soft little high voice.

Trace shuffles in the dark and then I hear "ow" followed by "Addie can we leave now" and then "Addie" several times.

I bang my head against the wall and say "I guess" and slowly get myself out which is harder when you can't see. I get cut up all over my legs just walking back and getting through what was once the barrier between me and the world leaves my pant leg completely cut through. I can feel hot blood against my face too but I just don't want to transform into something that could do this easier right now and humans can speak and that's all we were made to do really so I say "why did we turn out wrong I should not be able to feel bad about this" and I don't realize how angry it is until its echoing through the room searching out an answer.

"They tried to make you wrong and you fought back" Trace says like she's certain of this which she can not possibly be. She helps me through the room and out into the dusk sun.

My flower crown is still skew on my face and when we get back to the bonfire on the hill which Kali is tending with her purple fires I notice that the number has dropped again. We have a few burnt birds which taste like sound and smoke before I finally ask through a mouthful of feathers "is anyone going to say anything about Angel being missing or no" and everyone looks back at me like uh no.

I stand and whisper "Trace we're leaving" and drop my bird to the ground.

Trace looks up at me full of all her beautiful light and fury and I want to kiss her a thousand times just for getting up but I don't even know if she'll say...

"We're going to go make flower crowns on the hill" Trace says and then she looks at me and mouths "where do you think she is".

I put one finger on Trace's wrist and point back towards the city and suddenly space folds in on us. We fall out of the darkness onto the exterior of the city and Trace curls everything back up so that the universe is neat and tidy again. She almost falls over into my arms and I almost catch her before she pulls herself back up glaring at me like I've done something wrong and I just say "sorry" at least four times over and over again (not feeling that great either) but when she starts apologizing too we both realize we should stop.

"Are you that worried" Trace says.

I nod and add "for us really" and she bites her lip and nods back at me.

"Where do you think she is" I say but we both know where she is and its only a matter of finding her out. We run through the city so fast that no human could catch us even if they wanted and Trace is falling into my side so that we are two stars colliding as we streak across the sky. The world is a combination of deep purples and sorry oranges yawning into one monstrously beautiful end. We crash into the library but there's no way to even tell where she is until we get a ghost of white hair pressed up against a wall outside and my heart skips a dozen beats.

"Who is she calling" Trace asks and then she moves forwards pressing the door open with a few fingers and Angel drops the phone. "Who are you calling" Trace repeats angrily and Angel backs up still clutching the cold metal like it might be able to save her or stop us.

"Authorities" she says and her eyes angle something in the corner of her vision with a cruel glare "I've been working on this for a while but of course you wouldn't notice because you're all so... independent..."

My heart is fluttering as I ask "is someone going to come for us".

Angel shrugs and says "hopefully because we need someone to take care of us" Angel begs "please just let me do that".

Trace shakes her head "do you want to go back to the way things were" and Angel's eyes are so big with the want we couldn't fill up but even more than that all of us can smell fear it's so rank and so heavy that it event brushes away the soft rain-smell of the area. "Do you think that I'm going to let you go back to the way things were" she staggers forwards but almost trips over herself trying to get to Angel.

I am still thinking of the inky darkness of that room and the way I must have broken things such as that man's body and the way I have broken things and I am thinking of the best way to lock myself inside of my own skin so that I can not hurt anyone and maybe then Angel and Trace would never have to fight again because I know they're just trying to tug each other apart through me and oh I am I ever sick--

Angel puts a hand to our mouths and before Trace and I can fight her we're both back in the library. Trace rips herself away and almost yells but Angel is fixated outside and she is shaking. The three of us hear a click of a gun sound several times and Angel says "Elle" and I say "no Elle would have charmspoken" and Trace says "noise it's noise" and we all know that people are watching and it's too late. A man who looks like a ghost with scruffy hair and Mimsy's scent all wreathed about his body walks forwards.

"Authorities" he says and something about not panicking but it's too late because the world has already exploded and that entails panic.

Trace reaches out to punch Angel but her entire arm is shaking. All of us are almost weeping as we step back and outside Elle's body is stained a deep red and she is lying across damp concrete with her body stretched out and covered in limbs. We can all hear the sound that must have stopped her now and I say "Trace take us back" but Trace's portal is hazy and flickers out and someone has to stop us.

"They're not interested in taking us alive" Angel says her voice strangled in her throat and she looks back at us and says "I was so so so wrong about all of this" and just as something trains on us Angel says "get out any way you can."

Her Veritas stretches out its snake bodies across the room and all the book shelves cave over with a single flick of her wrist.

A different voice speaks out of her "you know wthere's only one way out of it Addie" and there's only way out of it.

I choke oil as we are surrounded on all sides and I watch Angel go down in two hits and I watch and I watch and the whole world caves like a bookshelf and I imagine breaking bookshelves beneath my teeth and I imagine what splinters would taste like on the tongue and I remember bone and I remember bone and I remember everything and--

no

I can not think about that now so instead I spring forwards antlers bleeding out of my eyes and becoming darkness and

no

I do not hesitate as my tail slams apart the place Angel loves as she stops being able to love it and I wish she were just here reading books with us and I feel Trace's hands around my back and as I bare my teeth I can sense them backing down and I could rip everything everything everything all the way to shreds oh yes absolutely and

no no no

All the wires around my teeth break into nothing and the grinning face of teeth shines out.

"You should get out of the way. I don't like to hurt people, but I have no plans to slow down."

I say this out of the beast's mouth. The whitejackets back up and I lean forwards so that they can see the worst of my velvet antlers and the disheveled flower crown that traces between my antlers and I am furious but I know that I am furious and as I look down at Angel I burst through a line of them and the noise is nothing because I am held together with wire and love and flower crowns and I can feel myself rising across the land as I run between buildings, through the street, over cars, and into the woods. I could run forever and when I fall out of form at the edge of the meadow Trace is rigid with shock but she is still gripping my hair and her body is so heavy now that I am so small.

"You were in complete control that whole time" Trace says running her hands through her hair like she can't believe it and I definitely can't believe it so I cry with her and my heart is pulsing the whole time we are doomed we are doomed we are so so so doomed.

"She's a protector" I say "she was the part of me that was scared but now she's going to be the brave part" and we lift each other up towards the group.

"Oh addie" trace says her whole face drenched by blood and water "you've always been brave" which is nice. It's not true but it's nice and I appreciate the sentiment. We look over the group and I feel so old and it is enough to make me want to start bleeding oil again but I have to be brave enough to say

"Angel and Elle are both dead and Angel called the authorities and we are definitely next" and the whole group is silent as death.