The first step of my haphazard plan is freak out.

My breaths shudder in my chest, catching on my swirling thoughts and timing a syncopated beat to my pounding heart. I curl tight over my knees on the couch, gripping my hair so tight both my numbing fingers and hair follicles start to hurt. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and force the rest of the world to not exist by sheer will, wearing myself to exhaustion battling existential terror around the ring of my mind.

The second step is pace around the room with my last dregs of energy, taking stock of what I have. The books on the shelves are all titles I don't recognise, and the trinkets interspersed between them are meaningless shinnies, though they do look nice. The bathroom, situated a short distance from the double bed, is spacious and has a healthy supply of hotel-grade fluffy towels. The soap smells like lavender and morning dew.

On the other side of the bed is the walk-in closet, filled to the brim with expensive-looking sweaters, (I am guessing) stylish hoodies, sleek and crisp suits and shirts, and several copies of Blank Slate's outfit in the far back. I glance down at my oversized sweater, loose dark blue pants, and bare feet. I think I will be in these for a while.

On the bedside table is a holowatch. When I pick it up, it awakens with a chirp and good afternoon, Blank Slate. I nearly throw it across the room and stomp on it, but catch myself just in time. The holowatch is neatly organized like the one I had before going to END, to the point the only differences are its access to the internet (it's severely limited), the nonexistence of maps and location (all settings for it are gone), the contact information (there's only Deception), and everything thinking I am Blank Slate.

I put it back on the bedside table. It stinks of Deception and tampering, and I can't trust it to come off or not track me or something if I put it on.

The third step is to try the door. It's unlocked. (I am not a prisoner?)

The fourth step is to explore,(hopefully) not get caught, and find out possible escape routes. And the fifth step...doesn't exist; my brain is too bent out of shape, and I'll figure out something when I get here. Leaning against the wall by the door, I rub my hands all over my face and through my hair for the fiftieth hundredth somethingith—I don't care—time today, my grip on control as tenuous as my situation.

All I need to do is follow the plan and then think about the data I've gathered and then...make a new plan with that information. And maybe from there I'll figure out a way to get out of here and boom I'll be back to End with Edison and Skittles and David in no time.

This will totally work. There's definitely no flaws in this plan at all. Nope. None. Not even a trace.

Shut up brain, you're losing it.

Forcing myself upright, I push open the door and slip into the hall. Like my room, it's a mix of sleek light gray, black, and red accents, lit by long strips of warm light where the walls and ceiling meet. With a lot of space between them, doors line the hall on either side, each one marked by a rectangle of color where a number would've been if this was a hotel. Occasionally, there's a painting or two between the doors, but besides some moving holograms snaking across the walls, the hall is mostly empty.

It doesn't take long for the hall to steeply curve to the right, making a U shape. At the point of the turn, a stout man with wild hair crouches by the wall. Something flickers between his hands and, with a burst, a piece of garbage jumps into flames. He grins, eyes transfixed on the fire.

I come up short, a bolt of ice snapping at my fingers. Megabytes. What is he doing? Why is he setting things on fire? Whatever the reason is, I do not want to be seen. But just as I lift my foot to take a step back, his head shoots up like a wolf scenting prey nearby, and locks gazes with me.

His eyes are wild with animalistic glee and his grin is too wide and feral teeth. Fire light flickers on his face, giving him the most crazed, insane look I've ever seen.

"Don't worry," he says in a strangely sing-song way that follows a steady beat. "I'm only slightly insane." He cackles like a crackling hearth and turns his attention to the flame, thumbing a quickening rhythm next to the fire. The fire responds by leaping higher, far more so than the bit of garbage should've made.

Only slightly? That looked much more than slightly, and definitely more than I want to deal with. Hiding a grimace, I back up until I am out of sight and trot back the way I came. Maybe that's why there's not many decorations; they get burned by the local arsonist. I shudder and move a little faster, head down and eyes darting around me.

How many villains are in here anyway? If all the doors I am passing are bedrooms like mine, that means there are at least sixteen, likely more. Sixteen villains, all here together, working with Deception... Another shudder runs down my spine as a hand clenches my heart. How am I going to get out of here?

The end of the hall is in sight and I slow, making sure my steps are lined with caution. The hall opens up to the room I arrived in, which seems to be the central place. From the edge of this hall, I can make out two more openings on the other side, each stretching farther than I can see. This place is big, but not as huge as End is. Maybe. I haven't explored everywhere and there's bound to be places where I can't go. I can't have free access to everything down here, right?

Unless, logic mutters, there's nothing down here important. Unless all this is the prison, and you have a lot of inmates. If that's the case, I am doubly screwed. Why do I have to keep finding out ways to get myself even more screwed than I was before?

Inhaling slowly, I force down the storm threatening to paralyze me again. I need to focus on doing what I can do, not what I can't and what ifs and everything else that's going wrong today—

If only Edison was here; he'd know what to do. Or at least, he'd be here and I wouldn't be facing this alone. A hole opens up inside of me, threatening to swallow my lungs along with my heart and spreading a deep, weary ache across my bones. It widens with yearning, a great maw of let this be a bad dream and let me go back and why did this have to happen? and everything in between.

Swallowing and rubbing my chest, I fold each ache into a careful square and stack it in a box for later. When the ache recedes, I slink out of the hall. I haven't gotten two steps towards the Leaper on the farthest wall from me (and away from the consoles with active holograms which probably have cameras), when a shadow detaches itself from a corner and appears right in front of me.

"What are you doing?" the shadow—Wraith, judging by the same gray hoodie—says, voice husky and almost strained.

A yelp escapes me before I can bite it back and I jump, winter wind tightening around my hands and pushing frost deep under my nail beds. "UH—" Shoot, shoot, shoot! I'm caught! "I'm, uh, exploring."

It takes nearly all my leftover control to not slap my forehead. Way to not be so obviously suspicious, Elias. Great adlib. Insane laughter bubbles up my throat and I let it sit in my mouth until I can gulp it down with my racing heart. I am so not okay right now, and it's showing.

Wraith plucks an old-style cigarette out of her mouth, sharp, eyes (so dark brown they're almost black) scan me like if she looks hard enough, she can read all my biometrics. "There's not much to see down here."

Her hood is down, revealing short black hair, and her hands are wrapped in a street fighter's style. She points to the hall opposite from the one I just left. "Training hall," she swings her finger to the hall nearest to the Leaper, "Don't Go There," with a final jerk, she indicates the hall behind me, "and storage and sleeping quarters. That's all."

"Oh." Why is she telling me this? I glance at the hall dubbed off limits. What's down there that's not for me to see? Experiments? Weapons? Secret planning room? More...illegal Teleporters? Should I try to sneak into it or would that be digging my grave even deeper? Mentally marking it for later, I run a hand through my hair, pulling my curls straight before letting them drop.

"Okay..." What should I say now? Is there things I shouldn't say? Is she a captor or a prisoner? Or a co-conspirator? Or—whatever the appropriate word is? Terabytes, my brain can't handle this right now. "Do you live down here?"

She shrugs, blowing out a puff of acrid-smelling smoke. "It's better than the streets." Through the smoke, she peers at me, gaze calculating, almost challenging. "Do you live here?"

What kind of question is that? She knows I just got here. Furrowing my brow, I hedge. "Uhm. No. I don't."

Expression turning skeptical with an arc of her eyebrows, she takes a puff on her cigarette. "Sure." The word falls flat and hard, like the bread I once tried to bake with Edison: as hard as a brick and hardly editable.

I shift my weight from foot to foot as fizzles and snow pellets sloshes in my stomach like a tidal pool. She doesn't believe me. Why? I don't live here. I just came here, and not by my own volition, so why would— A mallet hits my middle and my insides ring a hollow sound. "Did I...live here before?"

"Live here?" She shrugs again, another ploom of smoke shrouding her face. "Depends on who you're calling yourself. Blank Slate visited down here every now and again, but he stopped a while ago."

So I was here before. My spine turns to a pillar of ice and my insides turn to slush. I was here and it's not familiar at all. Something fights to twist my face, but I turn it towards the floor and push it back. "Oh. It's...it's been a while since then."

Wraith makes a gruff, non-committal hum and for a few awkward beats, neither of us saying anything. Questions build behind my teeth, but I run my tongue around them, sweeping them back to my molars. She doesn't seem the type to answer many questions, especially kinds that may seem silly. But what else can I ask? Small talk? I glance around the room and all its sleek features. "Do you...like it here?"

Her eyes are on me again, sharp as daggers. She flicks the cigarette out of her mouth, spinning it through her fingers in a blur of embers and a wisp of smoke. "Scoping out your prison, eh? Smart."

With two steps, she's close, hovering over me by a few inches. "Let me tell you this: Gold isn't the only thing that glitters here. Sometimes it's the barrel of a gun, sometimes it's iron bars, and sometimes it's the gleam of blood on purple carpets."

Snuffing out the cigarette on my shoulder, she spins on her heels and brushes past me into the darker hall. "Feel free to wander. There's nothing here worth keeping a secret," she calls over her shoulder.

Nothing worth keeping a secret? What about the "Don't Go There" hall? Scrunching my face and brushing at my sleeve, I spin, just catching her slipping back into the shadows, hands in her pockets and back straight as a rod. What was all that about?

Old, empty static buzzes in answer, as useful as always. I sigh, letting my hands tear through my hair, movements sharp with agitation. "Gold isn't the only thing that glitters here." My gaze drifts to the shimmer of the holograms, the shine of the ambient lighting on the smooth black sides of the Teleporter, the sparkle of something metal flashing somewhere down the "Don't Go There" hall. Everything could be dangerous, even if it doesn't look like it. Even if it doesn't glitter.

My throat tightens and I swallow, straightening my shoulders. I have to keep my guard up about everything, even innocuous things. Why would Wraith tell me that? Did I know her as Blank Slate? By the way she talked about him, it didn't seem so, but... There's something off about her. A sharpness hidden by a front of indifference, a gleam of something behind the smoke, and I can't place a finger on what it is.

She's dangerous too. Maybe she warned me for an alternative motive to Deception's, one that my survival benefited her. Or maybe she just wants me to be paranoid about everything. That'd be a villain thing to do. A cruel, cunning, twisted thing to do, but exactly what a Villain would try. Or I am reading into this and she's honestly trying to help me. A dull pulse starts at the back of my head, steadily growing with intensity.

I am so over my head.

My grip on control shakes and fractures, buckling under the tide of everything going wrong rising to my throat. Rubbing my forehead and taking deep breaths until my insides stop melting, piling resolve one piece at a time on my hold. I can do this, I tell the shimmering static and fluttering worries in the back of my mind. I can survive this and come out the same person. I can resist Deception's mind control.

I can do this because I have to. Because I promised Edison—and myself—that I would try a different way than the villain way, and I am going to stick to it no matter what. And sticking to it means not hiding in my room waiting for things to happen, jumping at shadows. It means going out and trying to find ways to escape, places to reach the outside, even talking to villains for any hints.

For me, for Edison, for David and Skittles, for the world who still thinks I am a Villain—megabytes, even Dr. Egret—somehow, I'll find a way to do it. Somehow.