It didn’t take long for Bue to decide what to do about her predicament. Going from a three story down to one wasn’t exactly ideal for a jump. She slammed a stake into the top edge of the roof and grabbed the end of the rope on the reel attached to it. She leaped off the side, dropping steadily, quickly. When she reached the second story window, she put her feet to the side of the building, and pushed off, letting the rope fly free of her hands. The boards creaked where she landed on them, not used to the weight and definitely not made to hold it.

Bue quickly moved on, hopping back down to the ground, seeing a cloud of dust kicked up by those still managing to follow her. She did a double-take at their numbers. It was as if the ones she’d removed from the fight had not only returned, but tripled.

Reinforcements? Already?

Sprinting, leaping over things gracefully, her heart raced in her chest. Her mind whirled, wondering how she was supposed to lose them if they only continued to grow.

As she reached the street that met up with the marketplace, she noticed Slooky headed her way, followed by just as many as her. They turned down a different path together.

“How many…?”

Slooky didn’t reply for a moment. “Probably seventy combined.”

Bue took in a measured breath and let it out even slower.

“We got this.”

Bue couldn’t reply. She, as much as she tried, didn’t like the odds this left them with. It was 35 to 1 now. At the least.

She was just sixteen, having joined the Ghosts just four years prior. Solely because of her talent. And the only other person left in Fallacy to aid her was Slooky. It wasn’t a bad thing, as he’d helped her out more times than she could count over the days and weeks for the entirety of the few years they’d known each other.

Bue didn’t want him to get hurt.

The numbers were bothering her. She hated numbers more than anything, especially at times like this.

They fell into a perfect rhythm together as they took turns attacking as they ran. As they turned a corner, there was someone waiting for them. Bue quickly twirled her blade toward his arm, but it was no longer there. They dodged her attack, swinging a sledgehammer her way. It was too late for her to adjust her weight and move out of its path.

For the briefest second, she wondered why she didn’t just aim to kill like the others had been earlier. If she had, would she be facing this now?

Something tugged on the back of her shirt, sending her back several feet, clear of the sledgehammer. It connected instead with the side of a building, sending little rocks and debris flying through the air around them, landing with a resounding boom. By the time she blinked, the person holding it had a blade sticking out of their chest as they fell over, red blooming on their clothes.

She wasn’t sure what to feel.

Heartbreak at all of this death?

Relief for being alive?

Thankfulness that someone could do what she couldn’t?

Slooky, with an impassive expression on his face as he pulled his dagger free, stepped back over to her, holding out a hand as the dirtied blade vanished from sight, drawn back into his inventory.

“It’s them or us.” He pulled her up, patting hands across her shoulders to clear invisible dust. A comforting gesture, a feeling of being taken care of. His… well, someone used to do it all the time to him. It seemed only right for him to do it as well. Especially when he was about to deliver some not so good words to their youngest member.

“They came here to kills us, so we can’t be hesitant to do the same in order to survive, Bue.”

With a nod, Bue held out her hand again. Knowing, Slooky grabbed her wrist gently as she took his.

“By your hand I live,” she whispered. “And by your hand I…”

“Hey.” He reached up and patted her head.

He’d been there before, in his head, wondering about life and death in these worlds. He’d been a teen when the Ghosts were formed. He’d been reckless a few too many times over the years, having to say those words nearly on repeat.

By your hand I live.

And by your hand I die.

It was their group’s way of saying thank you for saving me, because if you hadn’t, I would be dead.

By the hand that saved me, I live.

If it hadn’t done a thing, I would be gone.

“Let’s stick to living, Bue. Let’s survive. Focus on that, alright?”

She nodded, blinking the tears from her eyes, trying not to see that dead body behind Slooky. Trying not to remember how close it had truly been. How that might've been her.

As they raced off, Bue repeated those words like a mantra in her head, looking better than a few moments earlier. Their lead over the massive group was now halved, so they ran even harder toward the end of town where it had all begun.

At the same time, Magnice was dropping a second gold bar into the vendor’s hand with a smile. He patted their shoulder amicably.

“Well done,” he told them. “And stay safe, friend.”

The woman had searched high and low across the market, but eventually rejoined the massive herd of a crowd chasing Bue and Slooky. Pleased, the vendor smiled back at him, inclining his head.

Red cloak back in his inventory, he jogged off, peering around before hopping into an empty building, the wooden door lightly tapping shut behind him. He gazed around and shoved a barricade in front of the only entrance and exit.

There were places like these. Single empty rooms, used for going out-pod privately. Anyone could enter and move things around, but the second the room was empty for an entire 60 seconds, it reverted back to the original layout. But that didn’t mean others couldn’t just waltz in a few seconds after someone left. It was why Sarah couldn’t choose this as their path of escape. It just wasn’t safe to do with anyone watching.

But nobody was watching Magnice anymore.

He twirled the item in his hand with a grin and hit the button in front of him.

Slooky, having just parted ways with Bue and hopped the tall town border unseen, let out a quiet sigh. Having an all-clear to out-pod safely, he hit the option to leave Fallacy. It was a relief to get out, to make it back to the other world, no matter how broken it was. A relief.

But as his escape loaded, in those few short seconds, something popped up before his eyes, a nearly transparent box, embellished around the outer edge with a sort of gold sparkle, yet bolder than an achievement notification.

A system message?

As he read the words, his heart sank.

The feeling of being watched.

Of being noticed.

Seen.

It didn’t fit with how he’d been living his life, as a Ghost and as an expert in thieving, at sneaking around out of sight.

When he opened his eyes, his body lying in the pod, it took but two seconds for him to throw off the helmet and propel himself from the pod, nearly making it to the door in his haste, turning around, his chest heaving.

It was only when nothing happened, the pod didn’t move, the helmet came to a stop, and no sound could be heard, that he swallowed hard and moved his body to get his things together as he grabbed a few essentials and packed them in a backpack.

Even as he propelled himself into a new task, those words on the system message still shook in his mind.

When he finally opened the door, Lott was standing there, in all her glory, arms crossed, face a mask of stone. She looked like she was a literal statue.

Slooky stared up at her, almost baffled as to why she was there, and then he peeked around her, to the two guards who had been at their doors when they'd gone in. They were now lying on the floor, unconscious. He nodded, giving her a thumbs up.

“You alright?”

Lott seemed to have noticed something in his face, or the unusual beads of sweat coloring his skin.

He nodded again, looking away.

“A close call there, at the end,” he replied.

Though it was mostly the truth, Lott didn’t care to interrogate him. Her focus was on the next task. Already looking toward the end of the hallway, she started taking steps forward.

“Head in the game, Slook,” she said firmly, using one of his nicknames in the process. “We’re getting out of here.”

He quickly fell into step with her, matching her pace.

“Which way are we headed?”

“Other side of the hill first.”

Slooky nodded, getting back in the game. The one that determined if this day would be his last. He would have all the time in the worlds to think about those words later.

“Roger that.”

Bue, the last one to exit Fallacy, watched with a smile from a top-story window as they panicked down below. Slooky had said just two words to her before they parted ways again. In the rush of things, she’d forgotten about it.

“Use doubles.”

A very entertaining sight was happening because of it.

[Skill Double: You can create a duplicate hologram of yourself moving for a certain amount of time. The Double will repeat those seconds for the duration of your skill, depending on the mastery of it.

By traversing the same paths twice, taking a different route each time, you achieved the skill Double.

Double Length: Repeats 3 seconds

Duration: Two minutes

Count: Up to five doubles

Note: Everyone can walk through the holograms without injury]

There were five of her, all headed different directions, a short little sprint before starting back where they had begun. Over and over again. They were all shouting and crowded around each other. Some called out new sightings, ones that weren’t actually new. It was just the doubles restarting their three seconds.

None of them had seen her scale the wall up to this room. She tapped the out-pod button, waking up in her room before slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking to the door with a smile. The skill Double, as well as the chaos that ensued, was enough to take her mind off of everything involving death just minutes before.

Exel was there, waiting, when she opened the door.

“Hey, kid.”

Her smile was gone almost instantly.

“Bue. The name is Bue. I don’t want to hear that other word.”

He followed behind her with a laugh.

“What? You’re like… tiny in real life too, you know.”

He ducked, just in time, a knife sinking to the hilt into the wall behind him with a thud. Making a face, he pulled it back out with a grunt, flipped it over, and handed it to her hilt first.

“What if we need that later? No littering.”

With a sigh, Bue reached the first corner. A man, coming to investigate the noise, was just turning their way and reacting. Running forward and leaping up at an angle to come from behind, she hooked her leg around the man’s neck. Flipping herself upside down in the process, changing her leg as she turned, she threw him down hard onto the floor. She stepped away from the man whining on his back, and looked at Exel with her arms crossed, visible annoyance coloring her features.

“Do you want to be next?”

He stepped forward, throwing a quick punch to the side of the man’s head before he could click the button on his radio, knocking him out fully, before turning back to her with his hands raised.

“I’ll pass.” He glanced down the series of hallways spread before them. “Think the back path?”

“Alarms will go off.”

“Well,” Exel nudged her with a playful elbow. “You’re quick, aren’t you?”

“You should be worried about yourself,” she called to him, already racing off to the back exit. “You’d be the first one hit.”

She spun around, backpedaling, and stuck her tongue out at him.

“Hey!”

He sprinted, catching up and keeping pace as they rounded the corners. It was almost suspicious how they failed to run into anyone on the way. It wasn’t long until they reached the door, pausing next to it to catch their breath.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

It had been in the back of their minds all along.

Where was everyone?

When they crashed through the door, alarms blaring immediately, their own caution was thrown to the wind as they ran off into the dying light of daytime, the red lights flashing ominously on their backs as they did so.

The first barrage of sound that reached their ears, with horrific levels of clarity, had Bue glancing back in fear.

Even Exel swore under his breath.

“Get out of range!”

“Zigzag!”

They called to each other, separating in an effort not to be caught up together in it. If one of them fell, the other would have to keep going. Backtracking was like a death flag.

To the sound of bullets being fired and crashing against the dirt around them, they ran.