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"For your own sake. Be grateful I'm warning you at all," the figure snidely replied.

She may have spoken too much already, with Nariana already poking into details, but a little applied pressure never hurt. A pair of disembodied hands appeared, latched onto the tips of Nari's ears (one hand on each), and threatened to give a crushing pinch. A few strands of hair passed through one of them harmlessly.

"No more questions!" she snarled, ramping up to a booming voice. The abyss ate whatever echo there was meant to be.

In the background she spotted Luciano out of the corner of her eye. She did not know how long he was there, but she had no reaction aside from brief acknowledgement.

"You really don't have much time left to choose. I'm almost done with these," she said as she whisked away another pile of artifacts. She had returned to the whispy low voice from before.

"Wonderful," she said. "Not that you had a choice anyway." The left floating hand disappeared. The right let up its grip and instead tickled the side of Nariana's face with its pointer finger.

"But...you only speak for yourself. What about the rest of you?"

( Note: Feel free to ask me to skip this part, although this is an opportunity for characters to speak, come to conclusions, etc as a wrap up.)

Twi gulped, and nodded, his jaw set. he was afraid, but intense. his eyes boring into the simulacrum of Waffle.

"aye, I'll do it." he said softly.

he looked off into the distance over Waffle's shoulder, and then he turned to look behind himself into that distance. he wasn't sure which way to go. he wondered if it even mattered at all. but he had what he hoped constituted a plan.

"if you guys don't mind, I think we'd better head off." he suddenly said, and began walking away to his left. he focused his mind on the abstract idea of a fabric store as he marched steadily onwards, looking ahead but not quite really at the environment. almost as if he was looking into another dimension, or staring off into space. he could only hope that the others would follow his queue and keep up.

Having found some 'volunteers' to do her dirty work, the ghost dismissed the crew and faded into the dark. Twi was already walking away. The others stood where they were or wandered elsewhere. Nobody knew where they were going, and nobody trusted any other.




Twi saw the darkness become a field of colors, shifting at a dizzying speed. As his doubt was fading and his focus intensifying, the colors settled and became blurry shapes. It was as if he were entering a dream with his consciousness intact. As he marched onward, the blurs sharpened and the shapes became objects. His discipline served him well; he could now hear the cobblestone path below him, and smell the salty air. It was nighttime, and he was walking in a port city. He looked down at his hands. There were the usual five fingers, and no abnormalities. He wasn't dreaming.

Luciano walked in the exact opposite direction of Twi. He had no idea where he was going, but he did not care either. He could spend the rest of his life traveling through this abyss, and it would not matter one bit...but soon the 'tough man' act faded. His mind wandered to those he knew: his family, his fellow former gang members, his lover - unfairly taken away. Luciano was truly alone, and alone was scary. Soon enough he started to hear chatter. He couldn't make out any words, but no voices were unfamiliar. He looked around him to find the source, but saw nothing. Trying to ignore it all, he turned back onto his path. Guilt started to seep in anyway. He had a lot of unfinished business, some apologies he had yet to make, and plans he never got to see realized.

The chatter was soon drowned out by the fluttering of massive wings right behind him. He turned around once more and saw nothing, but felt himself lifted into the air. He blinked and the void was no longer darkness, but open sky. The fluttering stopped at this moment, and he plummeted toward the ground. There was no air resistance, and he could not see much for the few seconds he could. His harrowing experience was cut short with a flash of light; he was now laying on a bed in what looked like a plain bedroom, but not one that he knew of.

Nariana ran off directly away from the figure, but not toward Luciano or Twi. There were just too many weird happenings today, and this was the last straw. All she wanted to do was pretend everything was some ridiculous dream from which she would wake up. She tried closing her eyes. As soon as she did, she heard her shoes clacking against tiles and opened her eyes in hope; maybe she found home again... Alas, she found herself in a long hallway, and stopped. There were many doors in this well-lit and quiet hall, each numbered door fitted with some kind of card reader.

Koji wasn't sure where to go, and stayed put. When he turned to look at the others, they were no longer there. He looked down at himself, and there was nothing there.