I don't want to go in.

I definitely don't want to go in. I'm surer of this than the fact that I like rainbow sherbet and that shadows freak me out. I know FOR SURE that this castle is a place that I do NOT want to go. But…

I do want to know what happened to me, and I don't want to be a wimp in front of Finn and Jake.

So I follow them into the castle, proud that I am able to regain at least some color in my hair. Since Finn and Jake don't have the feeling that I do that Something Bad lives in this castle, we go in through the great wooden doors, studded with metal squares medieval-style. Gritting my teeth, images of myself pushing angrily through the doors a month ago fill my head.

Agh! So angry. Angry angry angry! And cold. And wet. I hate getting wet. I want to go inside. I want to be in my bed, so soft and warm…but I don't want to go home. Not to that prison. I can go here, because I don't know of any sky creatures that are born of darkness, and all the people I have met have always had good intentions, right? So they'll give me food, they always do. I slip inside, wipe my feet in that disgusting habit of politeness that I just can't shake off, and look for the cretin—that's a good word I learned, though I hate to admit that it's from that place—who owns this castle so they can give me something to eat.

"Wow," Finn whistles as we walk inside. "Spacious."

It is indeed spacious inside the castle, which I have officially dubbed Creeper Castle. A large flight of stairs leads around us, reminiscent of the house in that one musical The Sound of Music. It isn't pure-white or filled with singing children and almost-nuns, though. Shadows dance on the walls, creating the mood of horror-movie-slaughter rather than touching-musical-joy. Gargoyles and bats replace the singing children.

"Hellooooooo…" Jake calls.

"Ssh!" I hiss, terrified that he will come out… Huh? "He"? Who is that…

Shaking my head, I begin to move quietly towards one of the walls. This wall in particular is covered with a large painting of a very ugly man with a large, unpleasant moustache. I pull it to the side (the painting, that is—not the moustache), revealing a secret doorway.

"Waoh, secret tunnel~" Finn says. "Coooooool."

I frown as we step through into a courtyard. "No, this isn't…right…"

"What's wrong?" Finn asks.

"This isn't right…did we come through the wrong door?" I whip my head around, trying to figure out what this place is.

"Ah, Miss Iris, you have returned to me, eh?"

A figure leaps down from one of the scraggly cloud-trees. His face is partially hidden by a colorful masquerade mask, complete with feathers. His suit is crisp with sharp shoulders and its bright purple and red stripes.

I kneel on the ground in front of him, clutching my head that feels like it's going to explode. "Aaaahhh!" A horrible feeling cuts through my head.

Finn puts up his fists behind me. "Hey, what gives?"

The man laughs, a laugh that jolts my memory, though producing nothing that I could understand. "I am the Duke. Would you like to rest for a while and feed yourselves?"

He stares at me, a stare that shoots into my head like a pin through a pin cushion. "Iris, you know how nice this place is. Tell your friends."

I nod numbly. "Yes, this place is so nice. Stay a while and feed."

Finn looks at me doubtfully. "But…just now…"

Jake pulls on his sleeve. "Naw, man, it's all good. Let's go."

The Duke smiles. "Yes, Fiiiiiinn, come along," he says, drawing Finn's name out. "Come and rest. Come and feed."

Finn grins a big trusting smile. "Alright. Sounds good."

I screamed as a feeling like hot pins struck my body, making me writhe in pain. Through my tears I could see nothing but darkness. However, as my eyes adjusted I could make out the shapes of other girls, all huddled against walls and covered in filth. Their eyes looked down hopelessly as they stared at the cuffs that chained them to the wall. I howled again in rage and pain and rattled the bars of my cage. "Let me out! LET ME OUT!" I screamed. My hair hung down in messy tangles all over the base of my cage. The dress that The Duke had given me was ripped and torn, exposing my skin in many places. I didn't know how I had gotten there. One minute, falling asleep in the soft bed The Duke had shown me to, the next…howling in a cage. "HELP ME!" I screamed.

A door opened, letting light spill into the room. The Duke stepped into the room, his suit crisp and pristine as it had been when I had first seen him. "Duke! Help me!" I cried desperately. He smiled, and for a moment my heart soared. I was saved! He opened the cage and led me to another room. This room smelled nice and had a large bed in the middle of it. I smiled back at the man. "Duke, where was that place? What were those poor girls doing there?"

He smiled again, and I relax again. Everything will be alright. It was a dream, right?

"I'm afraid it's not a dream, Iris."

My smile stays frozen on my face. "Huh?"

He grinned horribly. "I will SUCK the power from you… All of it…"

I scream.

I follow The Duke as he shows Finn and Jake to a room. "Rest and feed," he says. I echo his words.

I still can't remember what happened here, but I do know that The Duke is mind-controlling me. This, of course, freaks me out, but I am evidently unable to express this.

Closing the door of the boys' room, The Duke leads me to a similar room. He snaps his gloved fingers, and I am released from his control.

"What do you want with my friends and me?" I demand angrily.

The Duke smiles, shoving me onto the bed in a way that pulls at my memory.

"You won't remember, Iris." My name being spoken by this strange man makes me look up.

"W-What?"

"I have your memory of what happened…of what I did to you…" He holds up an orb that shows The Duke giving me a dress and food. I tremble as I watch him enter the dungeon, shove me onto the bed, and attack me…

The memory-me screamed something and shot a rainbow at The Duke. Eh? I can do that? The Duke puts the orb back into his pocket.

"You fought back, of course. And I stole your memory of your unique attack, and now I can perform it. Fool."

My hair flushes into an angry purple. I'm so angry at this Duke character, this guy that totally took advantage of naïve, trusting me. "Why the heck was I here for a month?" I demand.

The Duke pauses, confused, looking for the first time as though he is off-guard. "You escaped after a week. I was careless." He leaned over me again. "That doesn't matter now. You have returned…perhaps you have something of the ground to tell to me. Come…"

"Aaaaahh!"

(Finn's turn)

"I wonder why Iris didn't want to come here," Finn said, turning to Jake. "It seems like such a nice place."

"Man, don't worry about the girl. Girls are totally confusing. Trust me."

"Hey, her name is Iris. She's not 'the girl'."

Jake stared at Finn. "Yo, we're just doing the quest for her! Once she remembers, zip, she'll be outta here. Don't get all sentimental like you did for Susan Strong."

"But Susan Strong came back," Finn pointed out.

"Whatever, man. Just don't get too attached to her." Jake rolled over onto his other side.

"I'm not attached to her! Not like you mean, anyways. I don't like her like that…I like PB, you know that…" Finn trailed off, not very convincingly. "Hey…Jake?"

Jake snored in reply. Finn sighed. "He's asleep," he muttered.

Finn was tired too, and didn't even notice the wires that connected themselves to his head as he drifted off into sleep.

A/N

I really need to stop listening to sad Vocaloid songs when I write. I was just listening to "Pierrot" and IT'S FRICKIN DEPRESSING. If I was a crying person, I would be crying. And then I was listening to…"Rotten Girl", I think, when I was doing the happy flying scene and it screwed me up, and then I was listening to "Happy Synthesizer" when I was writing the creeper-rapist scene and it was like, unfitting music much… I should have listened to "The madness of duke venomaina"…

…oh my god I think I know where I got the idea for that creeper's name…

Wow. And I was drawing him and I thought, "He should look like Gakupo". I am so sorry, Gakupo, I love you but you make the perfect creeper.

Anyways.

YES I KNOW I SWITCHED TENSE AGAIN BUT IT JUST SEEMED BETTER I AM SO SORRY! Please don't kill me. This story is a bit of an experiment for me since I am used to writing third-person. The whole first-person thing, along with the memory thing, just screws up my tense. So please- bear with me here!

BTW, thanks for all the reviews. The few, sad, lonely reviews. Please continue with the helpful comments—I'm always looking to improve! (Though I don't have to look far, huh.)