The song of the day is "Free" by Switchfoot.

Muahahaha! *lightning flashes and dramatic organ music plays in the background* Welcome to Amniosis! These next few chapters are not for the faint of heart.

Warnings: Feelz, mind games, lots of blood, and a hint of self-loathing

(If there is anything else I should add to the warnings, please let me know. I grew up desensitized to gore between a parent in the medical field and reading Animorphs and Lord of The Rings. Also grew up with lots of NCIS and Criminal Minds... So, yeah...)

*Tucker's POV*

Andor had led us into the Nether. After walking for what felt like ages, we reached a section of caves that had not been explored before—if deposits of ardite within easy reach were anything to go by. Tom was practically twitching beside me as he eyed the ore, no doubt thinking about what weaponry he could forge with it. Waglington strode a few steps ahead of us with Andor and his cat. Every few minutes he would recast a spell on the feline that gave it fire protection. Apparently the netherack was too hot for Memento to be walking on otherwise. Sonja walked on the other side of Wag, as far away from me as possible. I did as I was ordered. Mianite needed Ianite's quintessence for the revival process. She'll see when Ianite is revived. Jordan trailed a ways behind us, staying clear of me as well. I would wager the nasty cold he'd picked up was holding him back too. His voice was worse than Tom's when he had a hangover, and his eyes and nose were red. He shouldn't have come with; he's in no shape to fight if we get into trouble. I knew he wouldn't listen to me though. So I kept my misgivings to myself.

"This is as far as I can go," Andor said, stopping as the ledge we'd been following opened up to a wide shelf attached to the edge of a massive cavern. The heat haze rising off of the floor made it hard to see the space clearly, but there appeared to be some structure ahead. A low wall of netherack surrounded the ledge, and an archway marked the only way down.

Something about this place felt ...wrong. As I scanned the lifeless area for ghasts and other threats, Tom shouted, "Hey, what gives? I can't fly here!" He flapped his wings weakly before they vanished all together. Jordan and Sonja's wings vanished too. I heard Wag curse as he tried using his magic to fly and failed. I gave it a try and discovered my armor and sigils had been affected too. I wasn't terribly surprised; this was one of Mianite's crypts, after all. We hadn't been able to fly in the others either.

"You're sure your dad's in there?" Jordan asked Andor. Crypts generally were not a safe place to be, especially if you were unarmed as Helgrind had been when Wag sent him here. Maybe this was Andor's wishful thinking at work.

Andor nodded, glancing over his shoulder at me as if he'd heard me. "I can sense him in there plain as I can sense all of you, but I can't get any closer than this. I've tried, but I always find myself further from the entry at the end of each attempt, as if waking from a dream." He seemed puzzled as he stared at the archway.

"Weird," Tom said. "Why would Mianite have a crypt in the Nether anyways? This is Dianite's turf." No one had a real answer to that. Finally, Tom shrugged and walked over to where Jordan was examining the carving in the archway—it looked like runes, but of a type I'd never seen before. "Yolo!" Tom shouted, shoving Jordan through the arch. Jordan rolled his eyes as Tom stepped through to join him, still laughing.

Looks safe. I approached the arch next and stepped through like they had. I felt magic crawl over my skin as I passed under it and became suddenly dizzy. I staggered out the other side and grabbed the netherack wall to keep myself upright. I could feel a headache coming on. Instead of it feeling like my head had too much pressure, it felt like there was too much space, if that made any sense. I looked over my shoulder to see Sonja step through next. She was watching me, and she broke into a smile when her eyes locked on mine.

"Hey there; long time, no see," She said gently as she joined me leaning against the wall.

Huh? Long time? What does she mean? She the one who's been avoiding me ever since...A bolt of pain spiked through my head as images of that night with the Ianitas flashed before my eyes. Why the hell did I do that?! Those were Jordan's little girls! My head hurt the more I thought about it; it was a pain akin to stretching out cramped muscles after sitting still too long. Why wasn't I horrified when Mianite asked me to do that? Why did he ask me to do that? The memories felt like I was on autopilot or something. It was weird. Well, wherever my conscience had been then, it was back now, and it was whipping my *ss. I didn't even notice Sonja rubbing my shoulder until I heard Wag's boots crunch on the gritty netherack and looked up.

Wag and Memento walked through the archway, but Memento ran nose first into an invisible wall. Memento shook his head and looked up at Wag who didn't seem to have noticed. After staring at him for a few moments, his fur all stood up and he meowed really loud—or maybe that was my headache talking. He stood on his back legs and propped his front paws against the invisible wall keeping him out. Wag whirled around and stared at Memento, confused. Panic soon replaced the look as he rushed back over to the archway, only now he couldn't step through it either. He pounded his fist on the barrier.

"Wag, what's wrong?" Sonja asked, looking away from me.

Wag's eyes were frantically searching the runes carved into the arch as he answered, "I can't hear Memento in my mind anymore. This place broke our connection, and now we're trapped!" Sonja glanced over at me and raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, what?" Jordan asked dumbly. Tom responded a bit differently. He ran at the arch and tackled the barrier, which was pretty funny, since he just slid down it. Sonja and I cracked up at the sight. After rapping on the barrier with his knuckles, Jordan said, "I bet this is how Helgrind got stuck here."

Just great. "C'mon," I said, pretending to be braver than I really felt. I let go of the wall and stood up straight. "We should get moving. There has to be another way out somewhere." I wasn't so sure, but I kept up a calm face. I really missed that confidence I'd had when Mianite sent me on missions now. Wait a second...I recalled how I'd had another episode like this, where I'd suddenly felt guilty after the fact and how it went away when Mianite showed back up. That was the first mission he sent me on with his army. Did Mianite do something to me?

As I mulled that disturbing possibility over, Wag told Memento, "I promise I'll come back. Stay with Andor, okay?" He had one hand pressed against the barrier at the cat's level, and Memento did a pretty good equivalent of a head nod before pressing his nose to the barrier where Wag's hand was. He then turned with his tail low and walked back to Andor who picked him up and waved.

"Good luck!" He yelled.

---Time Skip---

We had finally reached the floor of the cavern. The structure—which looked disturbingly similar to a giant version of one of Andor's human sculptures, but made of netherack—was dead ahead, surrounded by a pool of blood. I wrinkled my nose at the smell as we approached, and I heard Sonja gag beside me. My headache had improved some, though I still got the occasional stab. A whispered conversation with Sonja revealed that I was right about Mianite messing with my mind, not that it made me feel any better. Sonja's theory was that the same thing that happened to Wag and Memento when Wag walked through the arch happened to me and Mianite. As soon as we got out of here, what was to keep him from doing it again? He was a god, for crying out loud! Part of me was tempted to just accept it when it came, the part of me that craved that confidence and approval. I had sworn to serve him, right? I just thought I'd be able to make my own decisions while doing so.

I was pulled from my thoughts by Tom being as loud and obnoxious as ever. "Whoa, what? Guys, get a look at this!" He was standing by the pool of blood, pointing at one of the small islands I could now see. Squinting, I could see what appeared to be a life-sized statue of... Jordan?

"That's a little bit creepy. Yeah, just a bit," Jordan said, tilting his head slightly to look at it. There was a small waterfall of blood pouring into the pool behind his statue. It appeared to be flowing down from higher up on the structure.

Glancing around the pool more closely, we found islands for Tom, Sonja, and I as well. All of them had matching waterfalls. Circling the pool one last time, we couldn't find an island for Wag or a way into the structure. There were no doors or windows. I scratched the back of my neck under my helmet and sighed. "As much as I hate to say it, maybe we have to go to our corresponding islands to trigger something?"

The others—aside from Wag—looked like they were going to be sick at the suggestion. Wag just looked a bit forlorn. "What should I do then?" He asked.

"Look around the structure to see if anything's changed once we're in place?" I said with a shrug.

"At least you don't have to go swimming in blood," Sonja said under her breath.

A few soggy minutes later we all stood next to our statues. "Anything happening, Wag?" Tom yelled. Wag was walking around the edge of the pool with his neck craned back, looking at something higher up the structure. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he stepped backward. Looking up, I saw a fresh stream of blood pour down right in front of Wag, hitting the pool a few feet from shore.

"Um, guys?" Wag said hesitantly. "I think those are our ways in."

"Are you serious?!" Sonja screamed from her island where she had been trying to wring all the blood from her hair. "Sure, why not? I'm already going to have to burn these clothes!"

"Let's just get this over with," Jordan said with a sniffle from his island. He looked like something one of Sonja's cats would drag in.

There was no other way to go. So we buckled down and swam up the bloodfalls. Sure enough, my flow was coming out of a small "cave" in the structure. I lost sight of the others as I entered. Following a low tunnel that required me to duck occasionally, I came into a wider space. Here, everything was made of a strange, silvery-green wood except for a glass tube in one corner with lava in the bottom and a trapdoor above it. I looked around the room more closely and found an array of levers and a button on one wall, but no door or tunnel out.

"Tucker? Sonja? Guys? Is anyone there?" That sounded like Wag. He must have been right on the other side of the wall.

"Yo, Wag! I'm here buddy. What do you have in your room?" I asked. He had the same things I did. After the others had shown up in their own rooms, we decided to give the levers and button a try.

After messing with mine for a few minutes, I heard something trigger behind me. I turned around and about had a heart attack. Sonja was tied up, gagged, and blindfolded in the glass tube. The trapdoor was the only thing separating her from the lava. "Sonj!!!!" I ran over to the tube, pulling my pickaxe from its strap on my belt. "Don't worry! I'll get you out!" I swung the pickaxe at the glass, trying to angle it so I wouldn't hit her when it broke through. My bound pick bounced off the glass without even scratching it. I swung a few more times with the same result.

"Tucker?" Wag called from his room. "That's not her. She's safe. I have Kevin in mine, and Sonja has Boris. This place puts something we love on the line. We have to solve the lever puzzle to get out. Jordan and Tom already got theirs."

"What?" Sonja's in the other room; this isn't real, I told myself as I backed away from the tube. She sure looked real. Her freckles and the shade of her hair were spot on. I forced myself to look away from her and focus on the levers again. After a few more minutes of fiddling with them, I heard another sound behind me. I turned just in time to see "Sonja" drop into the lava. "Nooooo!!!!" I screamed before remembering it wasn't really her. That didn't stop my heart from pounding though. Several nerve-wracking attempts and failures later, part of the wall swung outward into a tunnel. "Thank Mianite," I muttered as I ran into the darkness, trying to get away from the fake Sonja still awaiting rescue.

The tunnel started getting steeper the further I went until it became vertical. I studied the ledges on the walls and growled. I hate parkour. I started climbing. Partway up the shaft, I saw the wall above me and to the left open, and Sonja stumbled out, looking around frantically. She jumped for a ledge across from me as an arrow flew past her. She was being chased. I stood frozen, wondering if this was the real Sonja or not. She made it to the ledge, but slipped, barely catching it with her hands. "No!" Real or not, I wasn't going to watch my girlfriend die in front of me one more time, not if I could help it. I got a running start and jumped over her and onto her ledge. I turned and grabbed her hands to pull her up.

"Thanks," She said breathlessly. I paused when I had her at my eye level, trying to see if there was some way to tell whether or not she was really real. Her voice sounded right.

As I searched her face, I heard a solid thump, and Sonja jerked forward. I caught her before she fell and pulled her the rest of the way onto the platform. Then I saw the arrow in her back. "Oh, come on! S-Sonja?" I gently lay her on her side to allow me to check her pulse; there wasn't one. Why isn't she respawning? I was about to fall apart completely when she and the arrow turned to sand that ran through my fingers. She wasn't real. That wasn't her. She's alive and safe. I couldn't quite convince myself. I wished I had been quicker. If I hadn't hesitated, I wouldn't have had to see that.

"If that's what you want..." A familiar, strong voice said beside me. I yelped and turned to see Mianite standing next to me. He had a sympathetic look on his face, and his right eye was a darker grey than normal. "I can make you the champion you need to be to protect her. That's what you want, right? To protect and serve? You won't save anyone if you're unable to make up your mind."

I backed away a few steps and gulped. Here was the decision. "Y-you said it yourself," I stuttered. "I can't protect anyone if I'm not making my own choices." He frowned when I turned the statement on him.

Then he grinned again and shook his head. "You're wrong in thinking you had a choice to begin with." He snapped his fingers, and a stack of papers appeared in the air beside him. It was my contract. I stared at it, beginning to realize the magnitude of what I'd done in signing it. I didn't notice when Mianite floated closer. Then he clasped my right shoulder with his mechanical hand in a grip I couldn't escape. His right eye started glowing—dark grey instead of white—as I struggled, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. It felt like I was being pushed back into a corner of my mind where I couldn't reach my body. I tried to struggle as invisible chains kept pulling tighter until they locked into place. Then I could only watch as Mianite handed me my drawn kikoku, and the real nightmare began.

Bonus song: "Shattered Life" by Seventh Day Slumber

https://youtu.be/IassRRdzbtI