Despite the fact that the journey to the portal took a week and a half, including all their stops, the walk back felt like it took ten times as long. It was torture, every footstep felt like lead, and each time Kipo set her foot down, she felt like she'd never be able to lift it again.

She did, though. She had to, just like the rest of her companions: Luz, Kris, Mabel and Coraline. Forward, and away from that place.

A couple times, Kipo had paused, and stopped, and opened her mouth. The rest paused, too, all looking over to her, and while Luz looked hopeful, Kipo couldn't follow through. She knew... she knew that they should go back, and do everything in their power to help Alice and Dib, but... technically... they'd already tried.

When the roller coaster spat them out of the portal, it literally flew off the rails that took them there like a rocket, but it didn't go very far. Kipo wasn't even aware that they came back until they had crashed into a tree, completely totalling it before rolling across the ground, eventually coming to a stop just before the cliff.

For a second, none of them had moved, too stunned to even form coherent thought. Kipo's head pounded painfully, and when she blinked, it got even worse. Everything was... bright. The sun shined down on them like it was trying to fry their eyes off, and eventually, Kipo had to clothes her eyes until the pain subsided.

Suddenly, Coraline shot up from her seat, throwing her hands up in the air and cheering.

"We did it!" she cried, and her voice sounded thick as if she was about to cry from joy. "We're home."

Coraline reached over and shook Kipo's shoulder. "Hey, I did it! We're home again!"

Kipo turned to stare at her, and whatever expression was on her face, it stopped Coraline in her tracks.

"Wh-What...?" Coraline asked, her voice suddenly quieter, and a lot shakier. "We're home, right? Why wouldn't we... where are we?"

For the first time, Coraline looked around, her brown eyes running over their surroundings. Her face was pinched, and she squinted around.

"Where... Where are we?!"

"I'm sorry," Kipo told her. "But I don't think this is home. It's just..."

Kipo fumbled, unsure of how to finish that sentence, while Coraline stared at her incredulously.

"It's just what?" she demanded. "What is this?"

Before Kipo could formulate a coherent response, something came crashing out of the trees. Despite herself, Kipo jumped.

"Kipo! Kipo! Get out of there!" A familiar voice shouted at them, and Kipo looked over.

"Huh? Mabel?" Kipo asked, surprised. That wasn't who she was expecting to see. Kipo's eyes scanned the trees, but there was no sign of him. Where was Dib?

Meanwhile, Mabel had reached the roller coaster cart, and she had grabbed Coraline's arm, pulling on it insistently.

"Hurry, you all have to get out!" Mabel cried, but Coraline ripped her arm away.

"What are you doing?" Coraline demanded, glaring down at Mabel. "This thing isn't going to explode, you know! Who even are you?"

Kipo started to move, reaching across and preparing to try and mediate the situation, but before she could, Mabel was yelling again.

"You have to!" Mabel cried, and she latched onto Coraline's arm again. "This was where Dib died! He fell of the edge of the cliff in his own trap!"

Kipo froze, and even Coraline seemed to pause for a minute, even though she didn't even know who Dib was. However, that didn't really matter. The anguish in Mabel's voice was enough for Coraline to let Mabel pull her from the roller coaster.

"Oh dear," a voice said behind Mabel, and Kipo could see Six there, watching them. "This might be the worst way for you to find out about that, I'm afraid. Ah, well, too late now, I suppose. You can cut that out, Miss Mabel, the car is three feet from the edge. I think they'll be fine."

Suddenly, Six perked up, peering out at them. "Hm... it seems you all picked up a new friend... was it worth it?"

Luz brightened. "Six! I'm back! It's me!"

Six tilted her head, and there was a small warmth there that Luz could just barely feel through her own pain. Was there a slight smile there? "Ah. Miss Luz. I'm glad."

Luz giggled, but it wasn't as lighthearted as it usually was. "I told you not to call me that, Six!"

"Ah, well. Force of habit."

Suddenly, Six frowned, moving her gaze from her student to Kipo, who was leaning over the edge of the car and over the cliff, watching the raging river below. She stared at it closely, frowning deeply. What Mabel had said before... there was no way it could be true, right?

"You won't find him, Kipo," Six told her, somehow guessing what Kipo was thinking.

Kipo winced, but she didn't turn around, keeping her eyes below. She didn't think she could turn around, even if she wanted to.

"Find who?" Coraline asked, also peering over. Mabel made an alarmed squeak and grabbed onto Coraline's cape. She kept a safe distance from the edge, Kipo noticed.

"Careful!" she warned, and this time, Coraline didn't bother to swat her away.

Coraline seemed to remember something Mabel said before. "Who's down there? Is it Dib? Who's that?"

Mabel sniffed, and when Kipo turned, she saw that through Mabel's panic she was close to sobbing. "He-He was our friend... he was trying to help y-you guys... but he was scared of the monster, and he..."

Coraline looked alarmed. "A monster?! What monster?!"

Six snorted. "It wasn't real, Miss Coraline. The monster was just a fabrication Dib made up in his mind that he made so real that it chased him through the woods before he fell victim to his own trap."

Coraline started, staring in awe at the creature standing a little bit away. Kipo was certain that Coraline had already seen Six, but she couldn't blame her for still being surprised. After all, Coraline had just assumed they had escaped, but Six was just living proof they were still stuck in this place.

"B-But we don't know if he's dead yet!" Mabel cried. "We still could find him! After all, Anne and Fei Fei were on that river a little bit ago... besides, people always surprised falling into rivers in movies! Maybe his big head cushioned him!"

Six sighed. "First of all, Miss Mabel, Miss Fei Fei and Miss Anne had a raft. Second of all, this is real life, not a movie. And last, no one could have survived that hundred-foot fall, no matter who they were. He's dead, I'm afraid."

"We don't know that!" Mabel argued. "We have to try anyway! I didn't get a chance to before because I was putting the portal down..."

"Oh, that was you?" Luz asked. "Mabel, you saved our lives! You're amazing!"

Mabel stared at Luz, her mouth agape, before smiling, her face going red. Kipo was surprised at that, she didn't really give off a 'modest' vibe... but maybe she just wasn't used to getting compliments like that.

Luz grinned back, but it wasn't long before her happiness faded as she seemed to remember something.

"Anyway," she continued, more serious than Kipo had ever seen her. "We... We should probably go back to that place, too."

Coraline stared at Luz, furrowing her eyebrows. "'That place'... you can't mean you're going back through the portal, right? What could you possibly want to do back there?!"

Luz didn't answer at first, so Kipo decided to explain for her.

"We left someone back there in that place," Kipo explained. "When we were going to the castle to find you, we met another person on the way: a girl named Alice, who was living with a... a monster, basically. We thought we'd escaped... but he came back and Alice went with him in exchange for him to get us out of a trap we had wandered into. We left her behind..."

"But we can go get her!" Luz said, her voice urgent. She turned back to the wreckage the car had made through the trees, almost like it had been carving a path from them to the mountain the portal had been on. "We can go back and find her."

Coraline snorted. "You can. I'm good. You do whatever you want."

Mabel jumped at this new opportunity. "So, you can go with me, right?"

Coraline gave her a look. "What? Why would I-?"

"We just have to find him!" Mabel begged. "We can find him and then we can go back to everyone else in the town, and we'll be all together!"

Coraline sighed. "There's really nothing I can do, is there? I'm stuck helping no matter what I want."

Mabel cheered, and jumped up, dragging a reluctant Coraline behind her. Kipo gave her an apologetic smile as she went pass.

"Sorry, Coraline," Kipo said, and she could hear a surprising amount of exhaustion in her own voice. "After what happened with Adam, I just... we're all kind of paranoid now, I guess. We don't want to lose anymore of us."

Coraline's eyes widened, but before she could say anything, Mabel pulled her away. Kipo held her gaze as she went, but she made no attempt to do anything about it.

She was way too tired.

Mabel was pulling Coraline a million miles away per minute, and it wasn't long before Kipo disappeared from view. For a second, Coraline was disheartened, until she realized that, hey, Mabel probably knew what that was all about.

With that realization, Coraline forced Mabel to a stop, wrenching her arm out of her hands.

"Wait, wait!" Coraline told her, and to her relief, Mabel slowed down, at least a little bit. She didn't stop, but that was fine. Coraline followed her stride. "Who was Kipo talking about back there? Who was Adam?"

Mabel blinked, and her face twisted into a concerned grimace. Coraline watched her closely, watching as waves of emotion marched across her face like a parade.

"He was... another one of us," Mabel told her. "Kipo, Wirt, Kai and Mira knew him before, but I just met him when he arrived at the town. We didn't have a lot of conversations, maybe two at most... but he only stayed a week before he tried to go and find the little bone dragon. Bipo arrived, but Adam didn't make it."

Coraline blinked at her. Sure, Mabel gave her an answer... but what kind of answer was that? Coraline didn't anything more than 'Adam was alive, he had some friends, then he went and died'. Everything else... well, none of that were things that Coraline couldn't even begin to untangle.

Coraline had thought that her end goal would be to 'get out of the night world', but it seems things had gotten a lot more complicated. She had no clue this was what rescuing those weird looking people what lead to, but if she did, would she still help them?

Well... probably. Realistically speaking.

Suddenly, Coraline realized that Mabel had stopped at the edge of the river, and was looking down stream. Coraline stopped behind her, following her gaze. Whatever Mabel was looking for, this 'Dib' or whatever, Coraline couldn't see it.

"Alright," Mabel said, and Coraline was surprised at the amount of determination in her voice. The river looked straight up murderous; did she really think-. "Let's find Dib, he has to be here somewhere, right?"

Coraline hesitated, and then decided not to answer truthfully. She shrugged.

"We'll go along the river," Mabel told her. She pointed down stream. "That way. I don't think he could have gone the other way."

"Uh... yeah," Coraline would have thought that was obvious.

"Let's go," Mabel decided, sounding upbeat. "We'll definitely find him. It'll be fine!"

Coraline raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but in the end, she didn't say anything, again.

For most of the rest of the day, the two groups worked on getting their respective friends back. While Mabel and Coraline carefully searched up and down the river, Kipo, Kris, Six and Luz were at the rock, but for some reason, they weren't making any progress.

The portal, somehow, had disappeared, and nothing Luz did brought it back.

Six watched them sadly, shaking her head. According to her, sometimes if a portal was tampered with too much, it disappeared, and if it wasn't there, there wasn't anything to manipulate with magic.

Still, Luz hadn't given up. Ignoring Six, she pushed on, manipulating the shadows and grass and even the rock face the portal had been embedded in until the surrounding area was unrecognizable from what it had been before. At first, Six looked surprised, but over time, that expression morphed into one of boredom. After all, she was right: the portal was just... gone.

As Luz worked, Kipo stared at the rock. There was a horrible feeling in her stomach, one that she hated. She hadn't realized that she wouldn't be able to go back... would she have been able to rescue Alice if she could? Would Alice want to be rescued?

Did it even matter now?

Eventually, they had to leave. Whatever magic Luz had done had thoroughly destroyed the rock face (which left Six impressed), there was nothing more they could do. Coraline and Mabel had come back, also failures, and they had to admit to themselves that there was nothing more they could do here, and they started on the long journey home.

Once or twice, Kipo thought she was surprised that they hadn't met Fei Fei and Anne on the way back. She had been hearing from Six that they usually came to check up on them, but they hadn't appeared this time.

Yeah, Kipo had to admit that was weird. But she was too tired to do anything else. Walking back, she felt like a horrible soup walking around in a person's shape. She wanted to collapse, burry herself in something, and to never come up again. She was so tired, she just wanted to go to sleep, but she continued on.

In fact, Kipo only stopped when her foot splashed in a large puddle that went up to her ankle. Her confusion made her pause, and when she looked up, she was surprised to find herself in front of the town, that looked like it had drowned in a lake.

That was strange. The trip here, that took a thousand years, took twelve seconds.