Chapter Text
As usual, a crowd of onlookers was surrounding the stand-off; they cheered as they parted for the car. They got out, hands up in a wave of greeting; the teens got out. Flashbulbs went off.
“Alright, team. You know the drill. Three and I first; Two--”
“Back-up,” sighed Diego.
“Remember, Mindfield can get inside of your head, so once we’re in there, don’t take anything for granted. Anything.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Can we go now?” demanded Diego impatiently.
Luther signaled; they fanned out and edged toward the entrance to the subway tunnel. Luther took one side, followed by Klaus; Allison edged down the other side of the stairs, with Diego following her, a knife at the ready, and Ben behind him, a hand on his stomach, ready to tear open his jumpsuit and unleash The Horrors if necessary.
“Wow,” whispered Klaus as they descended the stairs into the tunnel. The subway station was eerily empty. They tip-toed up to the turnstiles; Allison tried to go through, but it didn’t budge. She gave the stainless steel bar a jiggle.
“Here,” whispered Diego, cupping his hands. Allison put a hand on his shoulder and he helped her hop the turnstiles, then gestured for Ben.
Luther walked over to the turnstile beside them and gave it a yank; it broke off with a loud metal clang that echoed down the hallway. Allison, Ben, and Diego turned to stare at him. Luther gave them an awkward shrug and dropped the broken bars onto the ground with a second clang.
“Hey, look!” whispered Ben as they strolled down the hallway into the station, passing a news stand. One of the covers showed an old photo of Reginald standing on the steps of a bank, the kids behind him. They could tell it was an old picture because Five was in it. The story that accompanied it was about their heroic foiling of the Hexettes’ plan to cut power to the city by sabotaging the hydroelectric dam.
“Stay focused, guys,” whispered Luther.
“We’re focusing, we’re focusing!” hissed Klaus, who had pocketed a pack of Benadryl and some cigarettes from the stand in passing.
They came to the head of a flight of concrete stairs. Below them, they could see two tracks, both empty. A lone man was sitting on a bench down there, as if waiting for the train to arrive. They recognized him immediately: Mindfield. Still wearing an orange Shinyview jumpsuit, his frame seemed too small for his clothes, which billowed around him like an empty circus tent. His hair had gotten long and it touched his shoulders; even from a distance, they could see that the ends were split.
Luther looked to Allison and nodded. She took a cautious step forward and opened her mouth to speak.
Before she could, Mindfield spoke, his voice echoing hollowly through the empty station. “Is the Horror with you?” he asked.
Everyone looked over at Ben.
“...yes,” said Ben, voice cracking. He winced and cleared his throat, embarrassed.
“We don’t want any trouble,” said Mindfield. His elbows were on his knees, his hands clasped under his chin. He didn’t look up. “There’s six of you, and two of us. We’re willing to make a deal.”
“Five,” corrected Klaus.
Luther shot him a glare. “What kind of deal?” he demanded.
“We’re willing to negotiate. We’ll come quietly, if you make it worth our while.”
The kids exchanged looks. Allison mouthed, I don’t trust him, and Luther nodded.
“Okay, what are your demands?” called Luther.
“First, we want to be roommates at Shinyview. ...surely, you can appreciate the cruelness of separating siblings from one another?”
Crouched behind the railing of the stairs, they conferred in hushed voices.
“We can’t promise that,” whispered Ben.
“We can say we can, though,” whispered Allison.
“That’s lying.”
“They’re bad guys.”
“What are your other demands?” called Diego.
Luther shot him an annoyed look.
“You’re hogging all the negotiations!” hissed Diego.
“You could’ve at least asked before butting in.”
Diego shoved Luther. Luther shoved back. Allison heard a rumor that it was Diego’s turn for negotiations, and they stopped squabbling.
“We want time in the exercise yard,” continued the man on the bench.
“Well, that’s not gonna happen,” said Klaus bluntly.
“Number Four! ...it’s Diego’s turn for negotiations!” snapped Luther.
Below them, the man on the bench sighed. “I always forget that you’re children.”
“Hey!” all five of them protested in unison.
“We’re practically adults!” said Luther.
“Guys!” whispered Ben.
“Not now, Six.”
“Guys!”
They turned; on the ceiling above them was a dark figure. They barely had time to yell before it dropped onto Diego.
“Arrgghh! Get him off! Get him off!” he yelled, twisting.
One of Ben’s tentacles flung itself into the fray, coiling around the man on top of Diego and trying to yank him off. Luther dove in and grabbed one of Diego’s legs; Allison grabbed one of his arms.
Klaus turned and ran for the stairs; Mindfield had risen and turned, hands up, face screwed up in fury.
“Rumor, help!” yelled Klaus.
Allison had half-climbed onto the Diego-Arachnid tangle and was currently clawing at the Arachnid’s face. “Kind of busy!” she shouted.
Luther managed to shove between Diego and the Arachnid; they were easily distinguishable, one in black and the other in orange. Like his brother, the Arachnid had grown his hair out; the second Luther yanked him off, Allison grabbed a fistful and slammed him to the ground.
“I had ‘im,” said Diego, staggering to his feet.
“...sure.”
“No, really, I was faking.”
“Uh-huh.”
Ben withdrew his tentacle and hurried down the stairs after Luther; Klaus had engaged Mindfield in hand-to-hand, and the two were tussling dangerously close to the tracks.
The moment he espied Ben and Luther, Mindfield kicked Klaus away, scuttled back, and held up his hands. “It wasn’t my idea. It was all James’s,” he exclaimed quickly, eyes wide.
“We’ll let the DA be the judge of that,” said Luther, striding forward to grab his elbow.
With his other hand, he high-fived Klaus on a bad-ass comeback.
Luther and Klaus marched Mindfield up the steps, with Ben following, tentacles poised threateningly over them. Diego and Allison escorted the Arachnid. Together, they paraded themselves back through the subway station and up the stairs to the street, where police and reporters were waiting.
When the kids emerged, a cheer went up from the crowd.
The two perps, Mindfield and Arachnid, scowled darkly.
Reginald stood beside the chief of police with both hands over the top of his cane, a faint half-smile on his face.
“The subway station is secure, sir,” Luther reported to the chief as he pushed Mindfield forward.
“Thanks, Spaceboy. I don’t know what we’d do without the Umbrella Academy!” said the chief as two officers came forward to handcuff him.
“It’s our duty to the city, sir,” said Diego.
“You must be very proud,” said the chief to Reginald.
“I am,” he conceded. “Clearly you have all been giving your training and studies the utmost attention, and now you see how your hard work has paid off: with success. Very good. ...shall we get ice cream?”
“Yay!” all the kids exclaimed.
They piled into the car with wide grins; the cops waved to them as the car pulled away. Diego waved back happily.
At the local ice cream shop, they considered their options; Regniald and Luther both got Warm Hug, while Diego got Fireflies, Allison got Bubblegum, Klaus got Ham and Eggs with rainbow sprinkles, and Ben got Acceptance drizzled in Normal.
After ice cream, they returned home. Reginald informed them that they had done such a good job that their studies for the day were canceled and they could use their free time to pursue whatever extracurriculars they wanted to.
“I’m particularly proud of you, Number One,” he said to Diego.
“Thanks, Dad,” said Diego, beaming. His smile faded as he stepped into the main hall with the others, stopping in his tracks. Allison nearly bumped into him.
“Welcome home, children! Cookies?” offered Grace, smiling and extending a tray to them, her hands hidden in a pair of pale-blue oven mitts.
“You’re not our mom,” said Diego, pointing.
Everyone gasped.
“Diego!” exclaimed Luther and Ben in unison.
“How could you say that?” asked Allison.
“Mom, are you okay?” asked Klaus worriedly; Grace’s face had fallen from its usual red-lipped smile to one of clear hurt.
“No, I mean she is literally not Mom. Mom isn’t a brunette. Mom has blonde hair,” said Diego. “That’s not Mom.”
“Number One, I expect you to respect your maternal figure even if she is not your biological birth-giver!” snapped Reginald.
Diego edged back, shaking his head. “Wait a second. Wait a second. None of this makes any sense. ...guys, look at our uniforms!”
Everyone looked around. Luther was wearing their mission jumpsuit. So was Diego, though his had a badge on it that said #1, and he’d grown a goatee. Allison was in a college letterman’s jacket; Klaus was in Allison’s plaid school skirt; Ben was a writhing mass of slimy salmon-colored tentacles with compound eyes and gaping, fanged mouths.
“Ben’s jacket is missing,” observed Klaus after a few moments of looking around critically at everyone’s outfits.
“And Dad didn’t say anything!” said Diego triumphantly.
“I noticed that Number Six’s jacket was missing but I decided not to comment because of what an excellent job you did apprehending the criminals,” explained Reginald.
“Don’t you think Dad’s been acting weird lately?” pressed Diego.
Luther thought for a moment; as they had walked toward the house, Reginald had put an arm around his shoulders and assured him that he was very proud and that Luther was a wonderful son.
“No, Dad seems to be acting normal,” he said with a shrug.
“Number One, I don’t know what fantasies you’ve been entertaining, but--” began Reginald.
“What about the ice cream? Didn’t you notice anything off about the flavors?” asked Diego.
“...there were forty-one!” gasped Allison.
“And Dad always gets mint chocolate-chip, not warm hug!” realized Klaus.
“None of this is real!” concluded Diego.
Everyone gasped.
A slow clap echoed through the hall; they looked up. Standing on the mezzanine were the Chaos Bandit Brothers, wearing matching outfits. They were still the same day-glow orange as their prison jumpsuits, but now, they had been replaced with tailored three-piece suits. Mindfield was wearing a fedora.
“Very good, Umbrella Academy. You figured it out. ...I’m surprised at how quickly you managed,” called the Arachnid. “Unfortunately for you, it’s still too late. Currently, we’re all trapped in this shared hallucination, lying unconscious on the floor of the subway. But, unlike you, Paul and I know how to get out. And by the time you wake up, we’ll be long gone.”
“That’s what you think, Arachnid!” shouted Luther.
“Does it ever get exhausting to constantly be spewing superhero cliches?” asked the Arachnid with a roll of his eyes. “Ta-ta, Spaceboy. Enjoy your cozy little fantasy while it lasts. Don’t bother to come after us, or we’ll make this dream far, far less pleasant.”
He turned.
The kids all ran for the stairs, Reginald yelling after them. They took them two at a time, swinging around the landing on the banister, but by the time they reached the second story mezzanine, the brothers had already disappeared through a door, and when Luther yanked the door open, there was nothing beyond it, simply a brick wall.
“Damn it!” he yelled, slamming the door.
“Language, Master Luther,” hummed Pogo.
“Sorry, Pogo,” said Luther.
“Luther, that’s not Pogo, focus!” Diego reminded him.
Klaus frowned. “So you, like, really want to be Number One, huh?”
Diego looked down at his outfit, then up, scowling. “You’re one to talk. Nice skirt, Klaus.”
“Guys, c’mon, don’t fight,” protested Ben meekly.
“Ben… is that how you see yourself?” asked Allison, brows knitting together in concern.
Ben looked down at the whorled, ropey, moist blob of quivering flesh that was his body. “What?”
“Guys, stop wasting time. We have to catch the Chaos Bandit Brothers while they’re still in this delusion with us,” said Luther, turning and putting his hands on his hips authoritatively. “If they come to in real life before we do, they’ll run off. We have to make sure we all leave this hallucination at the same time.”
“But we don’t know how,” pointed out Allison.
“Which is why we need to find them,” said Luther. “I have a plan.”
“I think we should listen to Number One’s plan,” said Klaus, grinning. Diego hit him. “Ow. You’re a ruthless dictator, Number One-- ow. Luther, Number One keeps hitting me! Ow!”
One of the doors in the hallway opened, and everyone tensed up, ready to fight whatever threat emerged. Vanya stepped out in her school uniform, her brown eyes cast down. Everyone relaxed.
“They went that way,” said Vanya quietly, pointing.
“Everyone ignore her. She’s not one of us,” advised Luther. “Any advice she gives us is probably worthless.”
“Luther! That’s not the real Vanya! Focus!” Diego fumed.
“Yeah, go away, Vanya!” added Klaus, making a shooing motion. “We’re doing important Academy stuff!”
“Not the real Vanya,” repeated Diego.
Vanya nodded with disappointment and disappeared into her room silently.
“The only ones we can trust are ourselves,” said Allison. “We should split into teams and try to figure out how to get out of here. ...if they’re in here with us, they must have some sort of built-in exit from this. It’s a lucid dream that’s a puzzle.”
“And five heads are better than two,” said Ben with a small, wet squelch as he shifted. Allison frowned as a puddle of slime seeped across the floor and under one of her shoes.
“Okay, let’s split up,” suggested Luther. “Me and Allison will take the upstairs, and Two, Four, and Six can go downstairs.”
“By Two, do you mean One? Ow, God, Diego, I’m kidding--”
“Stupid hallucination,” grumbled Diego, struggling to pry the badge off his chest, clearly embarrassed.
“Remember, don’t trust anyone or anything--” began Luther, but he was interrupted by a thumping noise from the stairs.
Everyone tensed.
A torso dragged itself into view, the jagged jaw gaping wetly, moaning as it stretched a hand toward them.
Diego let out a high-pitched scream and jumped into Luther’s arms.
Klaus relaxed. “That’s just Ryan,” he informed everyone.
“Who the hell is Ryan?” asked Allison in disgust.
“One of the ghosts who hangs out in the east wing,” explained Klaus. He found Ryan less upsetting during the day. “...you guys can see him?”
“Get off me!” said Diego, climbing down from Luther’s arms and shoving him away.
Ryan let out a painful, wet gurgling noise, spraying foamy pink blood all over the wood floor. It vanished within seconds. Ryan pointed.
“They went that way?” said Klaus. “Guys… I think we should follow Ryan.”
“What? We literally just agreed not to trust anyone!” protested Allison.
“But Ryan is a ghost, not a person in the hallucination! My powers are mental, not physical, so they’d still work in here, wouldn’t they? I’m almost positive we can trust ghosts,” argued Klaus.
Vanya cracked open her door. “I pointed in the same direction,” she said quietly.
“Oh my God, Vanya, not now!” snapped Luther.
“How ‘bout me and Ben go after Ryan and you three go check upstairs?” suggested Klaus.
“If Klaus’s powers work in here, we could figure everything out immediately. We’d have eyes all over the house,” agreed Ben, his compound eyes blinking.
“Okay, fine. You two go that way, and we’ll go this way,” said Luther. “Meet back in the main hall in two minutes!”
Everyone turned and jogged off (except Ben, who crawled / oozed). Ryan had already begun a slow drag down the hall; Klaus and Ben passed him, turning the corner and stopping short.
Before them, the hallway extended seemingly endlessly.
“Well, shit,” summarized Klaus.
“...the pictures on the walls repeat. Maybe the rooms do, too. I doubt Mindfield thought up hundreds of individual rooms. There’s probably duplicates,” suggested Ben.
“Good thinking, Ben. ...hey, can I ask you a question?”
Ben let out a weary sigh. Where it came from was unclear; his body did not have an obvious primary mouth. “What?”
“...are you and Allison really going to Argyle City College?”
The compound eyes blinked wetly. “Of course we are. Why?”
“Allison’s jacket was UCLA. ...that’s in California.”
“We’re not going all the way to California. I don’t wanna be that far away from home,” said Ben firmly.
“Okay, great.” Klaus opened another door. Inside was outside, a sheer drop down the side of a cliff. The wind was cold. Klaus closed the door. “Hey, did you see Diego’s beard?”
“Yeah. Pretty cool,” said Ben as they tried the next door.
“You could put that on your bucket list. Grow a beard. We’d look cool with beards,” said Klaus as they opened the door into a dark, dripping cave.
The boys had begun shaving. Razors were kept under strict lock and key ever since Klaus had been caught shaving his legs; they now had to shave under the supervision of Mom. Allison had rumored Reginald to be allowed access to the razors more frequently; she said she didn’t want to end up gross and hairy like the rest of them, which had prompted a friendly fight that had ended with Diego getting kicked down the stairs and breaking a priceless bust that Pogo had only just removed from storage.
“You know we don’t all have to match all the time, right?” said Ben. “I mean…” One of his tentacles gestured to himself.
“Yeah, about that…”
“Klaus, people literally call me The Horror. Not the monsters. Me. I’m the monster.”
“You’re not as much of a monster as Luther is. Ew,” said Klaus, opening a room that appeared to be nothing but the inside of a septic tank and was brimming with sewage.
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, well, so am I,” said Klaus, rounding on Ben. “You’re not a monster. Look, me and you got the shittiest powers, but it’s not like it’s the end of the world. You’re a good-looking guy when you don’t have murder tentacles erupting from your torso! And they’ve been pretty well-behaved lately.”
“They hurt. Do any of you guys realize my powers aren’t fun?”
“Mine aren’t exactly a cake-walk either,” said Klaus, opening another door. Inside was a mausoleum, a silent tomb of damp grey rock. Klaus shut it hurriedly. “Welp, that’s enough of that!” he said, dusting off his hands. “We checked four doors out of infinity, and if you round up, that’s all of them. I don’t think he came this way. Let’s go back.”
He turned. Ben followed, deferring to Klaus’s lower number.
“So that’s really how you see yourself? As a monster?”
“What’s with the skirt?” retorted Ben.
“You’re changing the subject.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I just feel… jealous, I guess? How come Ali gets to wear special clothes?” said Klaus.
“I thought you were all about us matching. You flipped out when I said I might get my tattoo changed.” Ben’s tone was accusing.
“I didn’t flip out. I was just surprised. And Allison still matches. It’s just… she also gets to be different. It seems fun. I know half of it is rumoring Dad, but even if I could do that, I don’t think he’d let me paint my nails.”
“But she’s a girl. You don’t want to be a girl,” said Ben. “...do you?”
Klaus considered the question, and finally decided, “...I wish I were a girl if I could be the only girl. I don’t really want to be a girl. I just want to be different.”
“Safely different,” said Ben. “Not too different. God forbid we have different tattoos.”
“Lay off the tattoo thing, Ben. If you want to get your stupid tattoo changed, be my guest. Hell, maybe I’ll get my own tattoo some day,” said Klaus grouchily.
They passed Ryan and emerged back into the main hall. Luther, Diego, and Allison were in a small knot, heads bowed together, arguing quietly, apparently over Allison’s letterman jacket. Diego looked up when they approached.
“Did you find anything?” he asked.
“Bunch of dead ends,” reported Klaus. “Emphasis on dead. You guys?”
“Nada.”
“We need a new strategy,” declared Luther.
“HEY, KLAUS!”
Klaus’s head snapped up. Leaning over the mezzanine’s carved wooden railing, Luther’s concerned face stared down.
Slowly, horror dawned on Klaus. He looked up. The Luther across from him was also looking up; he made eye contact with Klaus. “What the f--”
“Klaus, don’t talk to him, he’s an imposter!” yelled the Luther above them. “Don’t move! Stay right there! We’re coming down!”
Klaus edged back, one arm out to protect Ben. Luther, Diego, and Allison stampeded down the stairs. Luther, Diego, and Allison tensed up at the new arrivals, glaring.
“We shouldn’t have split up,” said the Diego closer to Klaus, casting an annoyed glare at his Luther.
“How would I have known--” began both Luthers, then stopped when they realized they were saying the same thing.
A door slammed across the hall, echoing, and a moment later, Klaus’s voice was calling, “Hey guys! Did you find anything? All we found was a bunch of dead ends. Emphasis on dead. You--” Klaus stopped as he walked into the hallway, trailed by Ben. “...uh-ohhhh,” he sang.
“Yeah, big uh-oh,” agreed the first Klaus, narrowing his eyes.
“How do we figure out which of them are the real ones?” asked Ben.
“Hey, hold on, how do we know which one of you are the real ones?” retorted Diego, eyes narrowing.
“Listen. Listen, this should be easy. We all know each other--” began Luther.
“But this whole hallucination is a combination of our our brains so wouldn’t they know everything we know?” interrupted Allison.
“She’s a fake,” accused Diego, pointing. “Real Allison is a total kiss-ass.”
“Shut up, Diego. You’re the fake; you’re trying to make us believe you’re real by casting doubt on the rest of us!” she retorted, crossing her arms.
“I agree with her,” said the other Allison.
“Guys.” Everyone looked at one Luther, then the other, unsure of which one was their true leader. “Obviously,” said one Luther, in an even voice, “we need to figure out which of us are real, but we need to remember that we have to figure out how to wake ourselves up, too. We can’t compromise the mission.”
“The duplicates will try to lead us astray so it’s important that we take this seriously,” added the other Luther.
“Um, question. What are we supposed to do with the duplicates once we figure out they’re fakes?” asked Allison, raising her hand.
Everyone exchanged an uneasy glance.
“...kill them?” suggested one of the Diegos, finally.
“Wow. He’s a duplicate,” said the other Diego immediately.
“You want us to kill ourselves?”
“No! Just the fakes!” he protested. “So that they don’t distract us!”
“But if we kill the wrong ones, what if we die in real life?” asked one Klaus.
“Yeah, we’ll probably die in real life, right?” asked the other Klaus.
“No one’s killing anyone!” said Allison.
“But he has a point. If all of us try to track down Mindfield and the Arachnid, half of us will be sabotaging the other half,” said Luther.
“Unless we agree to pick teams and just split up,” said the other Luther.
“Can I be on my own team?” asked Klaus eagerly.
“I think he’s a duplicate!” said Diego eagerly.
“Stop calling people duplicates!” demanded Luther. “Just shut up, and let me think!”
“That’s probably the real Luther,” whispered one of the Bens to one of the Allisons.
Both Luthers thought for a moment. The silence in the grand entryway was enormous. A couple of pale-faced ghosts in heavy dresses and bustles strolled past on the mezzanine; one waved a handkerchief at Klaus, who waved back. The other Klaus was in the middle of a yawn.
“What if I’m a doppelganger?” blurted one of the Bens.
“What?” asked Klaus, rounding on him. “I was with you the whole time!”
“But would we know if we were copies? What if we were convinced we were the real us but we weren’t?” asked Ben fretfully, tentacles waving, compound eyes blinking.
“Other Ben? What do you think?” asked Klaus.
“I mean, I think I’m the real one, but-- now that he mentions it, I don’t know if we’d know,” admitted Ben.
“So I think it’s me,” concluded the first Ben.
“I think it’s you but I don’t want to--” began the other Ben.
Luther lunged at Ben and put him into a headlock. (An especially difficult task, since he had no easily discernible neck.) The two immediately slid to the ground as a result of Ben’s sliminess, and slipped around crazily, upsetting a carved table and several of the taxidermied specimens on it, as well as a large crystal bowl, which shattered.
“Boys!” cried Pogo from the mezzanine. “Stop that rough-housing at once!”
“Sorry, Fake Pogo!” called up the other Luther.
There was a terribly, bird-like screeching and the Ben that Luther had been pummeling was suddenly still; the slime oozing from it turned dark, then opaque, like ink, and spread around the limp form.
Luther rose, still slipping. “Okay, so that was obviously the fake Ben, since Ben wouldn’t volunteer to sacrifi--” he began.
Diego pulled out a knife and flung it. It landed squarely in Luther’s throat; he let out a wet gurgle, reaching up to grab at his neck, eyes wide in shock, and collapsed.
“What the hell, Diego?” yelled the other Luther.
“The real Luther would never kill Ben!” exclaimed Diego triumphantly.
The remaining Luther lunged at the Diego that had thrown the knife, while both Allisons flung themselves at the other Diego.
“Hey, what are you attacking me for? Don’t be petty! Ow!” cried Diego as Luther punched him.
“Luther, stop! The real Diego would totally kill you!” called Allison.
Luther paused, considering. “You’re right,” he concluded, and dropped a wheezing Diego to help the other two Allisons beat the second Diego into submission.
The two Klauses exchanged a glance.
“Hey, listen, I think you’re the clone,” said one.
“How come?”
“Well, all the ghosts are responding to me, and I trust them to know which one of us is real,” said the first.
“...oh. Good point. Yeah, I’m probably the copy then.”
With Diego down, the two Allisons had gotten into a vicious fist-fight that included an undignified amount of hair-pulling.
“Um… I think I’m just gonna go,” said the fake Klaus.
“Probably for the best,” agreed the real one. “How fast can you run in heels?”
“Super fast.”
“Nice.”
They gave each other a pat on the shoulders, and then the fake one turned and scurried off.
“I heard a rumor that I was the real Allison!” yelled Allison.
“I heard a rumor that you fell asleep!” shrieked the second. Nothing happened. Luther jumped in to grab the fake one, smashing her head against the wall. She crumpled to the floor.
Everyone paused, breathing heavily, surveying the gruesome scene before them. Ben’s body had turned a dark, putrescent purple. Luther’s was wide-eyed in death. Diego’s and Allison’s head were both bloodied.
“Klaus, where’s yours?” asked Luther.
“I, um, fought him off,” said Klaus, miming fisticuffs.
“Okay. Okay, so now that we’re--”
“I can’t believe you thought I was fake, you jerk!” said Diego, holding a large bruise on the side of his face.
“Can you two save it? Come on. We have to go up. I saw a door that’s not there in real life. That must be where they went!” said Allison. She grabbed Luther’s wrist and tugged. Reluctantly, Diego, Klaus, and Ben ran after them, up the curving wooden staircase to the second floor, and then up one of the narrow, straight staircases that cut through the dorms.
The Hargreeves mansion was, even in reality, somewhat labyrinthine. It occupied its own city block and had been made by several individual buildings being merged together, their walls knocked down to fuse together into a single entity. As a result, different parts of the house had different layouts; not all the rooms or stairwells were equal in their size or design. None of the Hargreeves children had ever been in a normal, residential home before, so they did not think their house was strange. The fact that the grand, double-tall entrance featured polished wood balustrades and tiled floors, while their rooms had brick walls and opened onto metal fire escapes, had never struck them as incongruent. The only thing they thought was strange, in fact, was the kitchen, which had once been an old butcher shop. They had correctly identified that it had a lot of the old facets of a demi-basement shop, such as display counters that Reginald had simply never bothered to remove. Eminently practical, Reginald only cared about the designs of the rooms he frequented, such as the dining room. The kitchen was not his domain, and aside from making sure it was covered in educational posters, he rarely ventured down there.
Allison and Luther led the others to a hallway on the third floor, which was filled with unused rooms for siblings that might have been but never were. At the end was a plain wooden door.
“There was a big warthog head on this wall, before,” said Allison.
“Hey, she’s right! This must be the exit!” said Diego, shouldering past Luther and yanking it open.
He stumbled back immediately.
Everyone poked their heads inside. It was a stairwell, not unlike one of the other stairwells where Reginald drilled them, but the walls, the railings, and most of the floor was covered in needles.
“Oh. ...so… probably the right way,” said Luther uncomfortably.
“Should we just-- do it?” asked Klaus. “Is it even really pain if we’re in a dream?”
“No way. Nope. Not doing it,” said Diego, shaking his head vigorously. “We can find another way upstairs. I’m not wading through a bunch of needles.”
“I vote we go,” said Allison. “Show him he can’t scare us!”
“Go ahead, sis, but I am not doing it,” said Diego. “No way. Not in a million years. Not for all the--”
“Oh, shut up,” said Luther, grabbing Diego and slinging him over his shoulder.
Diego squawked indignantly and beat on Luther’s back. “Let me down, you dick! Let me down! Let me go!”
“We can’t split up again,” said Luther, ignoring Diego.
“I don’t like it,” said Ben.
“None of us likes it, Ben, but it’s the way up,” said Allison.
“No, I mean forcing Diego. ...that would be like if we made Klaus go through the mausoleum room.”
“What mausoleum room?” asked Luther.
“Who said anything about a mausoleum room?” asked Klaus quickly. “Come on, guys, chop-chop--”
He stepped forward; Allison grabbed the back of his blouse. “Ben’s right. If Diego’s scared, we should go a different way.”
“I’m not scared!” yelled Diego.
“So you want to go through the needle stairs?”
“... no!”
“Let’s just try another room,” said Klaus cheerfully, turning to yank open a door.
All of them were hit with an intense, rolling wave of heat. Beyond the door, a rolling, rocky, desolate landscape stretched out for miles and miles, until it met the horizon of a blood-red sky swirling with grey storm clouds, flashing with lightning, a violent electrical storm. Pools of lava and thick, brown sludge bubbled; flies swarmed, and impossibly long-legged, slender creatures that looked like they should have been in a Dali painting picked their way achingly across the hellscape while smaller, scaley-skinned raptors ran in flocks, whip-like tongue protruding from their squid-like beaks.
Klaus slammed the door. “What the hell was that?”
“Oh, that’s just where the Horrors come from. I see it in my dreams all the time,” said Ben casually.
“Can we please pick a room that isn’t someone’s nightmare?” asked Luther in exasperation. (He still hadn’t put Diego down, even though Diego was kicking him repeatedly in the stomach.)
Allison opened a door. “This one looks fine,” she reported, stepping aside to reveal her own room, even though, in reality, her room was in a different wing of the house. But this room was not occupied. The mirror above her dresser, usually covered in photos, was bare. All of her personal effects were gone. Instead, moving boxes were stacked everywhere, each labeled neatly with her number. The only item on the dresser was a delicate, thin-chained gold necklace.
"So what, we're moving? Swing and a miss, Mindfield!" Allison snickered, walking into her bedroom.
“Looks good to me,” agreed Klaus, following her. “Hey! We can use your window to take the fire escape to the roof, and cut them off there!” He, Allison, and Ben hurried inside and began tugging at the window.
Luther was frozen for a long moment. Diego exploited Luther's distraction to free himself with a well-aimed kick to Luther's groin. Luther groaned and leaned against the wall to keep on his feet.
“Ladies first,” said Ben, holding open the window with one tentacle.
“Thanks, Ben. ...are you going to be able to climb up without any legs?”
“Maybe he can stick to the side of the building, like a snail!” suggested Klaus.
“I can climb,” said Ben, not bothering to hide his annoyance as he oozed out of the window after Klaus.
Diego hurried after Allison and Luther drew several deep breaths before following. The team stomped up the fire escape with a series of loud clangs; Klaus slowed them with his heels, and Ben with his lack of defined limbs, but they made it to the rooftop without much incident.
The wind blew through their hair.
“...he’s not here,” observed Diego.
“So he must still be in the building,” concluded Allison.
“Um, guys? Does the house seem… taller to you?” asked Klaus, peeking over his shoulder.
Everyone looked. The mansion, four stories high in some places, and six in others, was now the tallest high-rise in the city. Clouds moved below them. The view was dizzying.
Everyone edged away from the drop.
“Do we go back down?” asked Diego awkwardly.
“Down sixty stories of rickety fire escape?” asked Klaus sarcastically. “I’m glad you’re not really Number One, Diego.”
“Hey, screw you, no one asked you to wear heels in this fantasy!”
“Guys, guys,” said Luther.
Ben squelched over to the edge and peeked, the edges of his gelatinous body sliding down almost imperceptibly. “What if we jump?”
There was a beat of silence before everyone protested, loudly and simultaneously.
“Are you crazy, Ben?”
“That would kill us!”
“We can’t just jump!”
“Not without levitation belts!”
“Guys, listen,” said Ben. “If this is like a dream, them-- well, you know how when you have a dream where you’re falling, you always wake up before you hit the ground? What if there’s no way out and Mindfield is just distracting us with all of these crazy rooms, and the solution is for one of us to wake up so they can wake up everyone else?”
“Cool idea, but counter-point. What if we die,” said Klaus.
“If I die, I can come back and warn Klaus,” reasoned Ben.
“Ben, that’s a stupid plan,” said Diego.
“Absolutely not,” agreed Allison. “Luther, tell him no.”
“"Well hold on, this is a kind of dream. I think he might be right,” said Luther.
“Luther!” she protested.
“Okay, okay. Ben, we can’t take that kind of chance,” said Luther. He sat on the ground. “Okay, let’s brainstorm--”
“Why can’t you just trust your gut, Luther? I’m not going to get hurt,” argued Ben. “Come on, you’re Number One. You liked that plan, before Allison said anything!”
“What if he dies? It’s too risky!”
Luther chewed his lip. “The thing is… if he’s right...”
Diego, Allison, and Klaus all protested loudly.
“I trust Luther. He thinks it’s a good idea, and so do I,” said Ben firmly.
“Ben, no!” cried Klaus. He lunged, but he was too late.
With a loud, sucking, popping sound, Ben suddenly let go of the ledge.
Everyone screamed and lunged, but they were too late. They stared over the edge in horror as Ben’s body fell, squirming and twisting, a writhing mass of tentacles, claws, beaks, and antennae, a mashup of unidentifiable and definitely inhuman parts. He made no sound as he tumbled down, disappearing into a cloud.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” said Allison shrilly.
Luther grabbed Klaus by the shoulders. “Klaus! Is he dead? Is he dead?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” cried Klaus, as hysterical as Luther was.
“BEN! BEN!” yelled Diego. His voice echoed through the sterile blue sky.
“I thought there were seven of you,” said a cold voice, behind them.
They turned. On the far side of the rooftop were Mindfield and Arachnid, back-to-back, in their matching, day-glow orange three-piece suits, smirking.
Luther and Allison were running for them before anyone else had a chance to react; Diego unsheathed three knives from his hip holster, flinging them; and Klaus, finally free of Luther’s grip, peered over the edge of the roof, screaming Ben’s name into the endless, empty sky.