The voices hadn't stopped. They'd stopped for Rikki, he was scott free, but Danny and Roch still had it. Maybe they'd have it forever. Danny was beginning to think maybe ... she would break up with Rikki. After all, he was going to do big and aspiring things (she really believed he would) and a great man couldn't have an insane, useless ghoulfriend. She'd just remain the insane younger sister of Oersted forever, and that would be that. It would be better for everyone.

The first night she'd slept over, but the paranoia had left her sleeping on the couch. She couldn't risk being close to him. Then it had gone to sneaking out halfway through the night to her room, and blaming it on needing to take a bath. Now she was just in her own room, with absolutely no intention of returning to his room. It would be easier to break up with him this way. He was probably plotting to kill her anyways, luring her into the safety of his room like that. Yes, it was better like this.

Danny flopped onto her bed, her kitten and her rabos already asleep on the other side of the bed. Her eyes remained wide open for a while, but eventually even Danny had to sleep.

---

Eventually she woke up, feeling somewhat more refreshed, but no better off in terms of the voices and paranoia. She spent her day as she normally would- eat, get dressed. Repetitions.

Part way through the day, she found Roch in the hall and had a brief conversation with him. Something about the minipets 101 homework- it was trivial to say the least. Danny noticed her had a tinge of grey around his fingers as he talked, but she didn't take note of it. It was probably just some sort of aftereffect from Desiree, or another one of his silly pranks or something.

Later though, she saw Rikki and grew a tad more suspicious. Instead of the familiar blue markings running up his arms, it was replaced by a deep grey that was mimicked on his ears and the very tip of his nose. Danny grew worried and avoided him, taking a separate hallway. Was he following her? She couldn't turn around to check.

As she walked down the hallway, she saw Nahm, standing there looking oddly ... hungry. He was a grue, and that cheshire grin normally painted his face, but there was something off about this one. He wasn't hungry for food. He was hungry for her.

Her brisk walk soon became a mad run through the hallways, as more and more faces turned to stare at her, follow her, whisper about her. What was going on with this school? Why?

She ran into a classroom, and shut the door tightly behind her. Okay, breathing. She could do that. It was probably just a prank on her, right? Making fun of her insanity, right, right. It was a meanspirited prank, but that's all it was. A joke. A prank. Not real.

Danny exited the room, only to find everyone milling about the hallway. They were all grey by now, mere replicas of the people they mimicked in image. They were searching lockers, trashcans, anywhere they could get their hands on. Yin's head snapped up, his eyes replaced with hollow spaces of white, noticing that she was there. One by one they began to notice her, and soon the mob was upon her. Danny tried to bat them off, shout things to get them to see reason, but nothing worked. Nothing.

There was only one solution. She had to take them out. Danny tried to reason with herself as they grabbed at her. They were taken over by the insanity. It wasn't really them anymore. They'd want it this way, right? Roch had talked about something like this before- taking people out before the hunters could get to them. That's what she had to do, didn't she.

Suddenly from under the mob came her bright orange flames, standing out starkly from the bleak grey background the hall provided. Danny's eyes found a grey Edel, and she decided she would start there. It would be easiest after all. She could do this.

Danny staggered back a bit, Edel's body falling in front of her, hardening to rock. No, it was a corpse now, wasn't it. Danny closed her eyes and suppressed a scream. It was the only way. Next was Yin.

So it went until she had a hallway filled of statues. Only two moving figures remained. One was Danny, and she was nearly out of breath. The other ... was Roch. He was swinging Desiree left and right, the whispers louder than they'd ever been. No words came from his mouth- the usual battle taunts were gone. The usual snarky smile was gone. Just endless white eyes, and a guitar swinging at her.

Just one more. She could do this. She could do this. End his suffering, her suffering- she could do it all. It would be easy. Her fists lit up, and she turned to face Roch like a real fighter would. This would be her last tango with him. Their last song. She'd face him with dignity and respect- everything that Roch deserved.

But the moment she turned around, her legs went weak. There was no way she could do this to Roch.

She ran to the right, and narrowly missed Roch's guitar, which instead slammed into Demi's leg. Her eyes caught the Rikki statue and she immediately ran towards it, ducking behind it to catch her breath while Roch pried his guitar out of the statue. Her arms snaked around Rikki's chest from the back, and she put her cheek on his rough backside. "What do I do...." she whispered. Roch had figured it out, and was now walking towards her, his white eyes locked onto her. She let go of the statue and ran towards Roch.

---

And woke up screaming. Danny thrashed in her bed, waking up her minipets who scurried towards the closet. It took a moment for her to realize that she wasn't in the dream anymore. Was she?

Her legs swung over the side of the bed, and she began frantically searching through her desk. It had to be in here somewhere. Her shiny drawer- that's where it must've been. She thumbed through it until she found what she was looking for. A tiny brass key, the size of her thumb, that was well underused.

She shut the drawer and moved towards her door. It took her a moment to figure it out, but eventually she got the door shut and locked.

Locked, for the first time since arriving at Amityville.

With a sigh, she went back to her bed, and buried her head in her pillows. She was never coming out again. No one would notice anyways.