All I could hear was my heart beating inside my head. The pounding of Lock, Shock and Barrel's feet behind me was distant. The sun had long set, and whispers of a new sunrise were visible behind the tall black mountains. "Are we still in Halloween Town?" Shock asked. "I dunno," Barrel said quietly, "It doesn't look like it. The sun isn't shaped like that in Halloween Town." Lock and I sat down on a couple of rocks along the newly created river of melting flames. I looked to the sky. The sun had risen fully now, but rain clouds were sneaking through. I wondered where Annabelle, Darletta and the others were. I closed my eyes. The warm spray of the flame water grazed my cheeks, like an ocean. "Lenore!" Shock suddenly shouted, "I never noticed! You have a TAIL too!" "Huh? I swiveled around. Sure enough, there it was; a thin demon tail, not unlike my brother's. "Drat." I said, "I don't want a tail!" "And I do?" Lock exclaimed. Despite all that had happened to us, we laughed. "We have to find the others!" Barrel said. Suddenly, we heard a high pitched scream. "Annabelle!" I shouted, dashing forward, my brothers in tow and Shock following them. I rounded a hedge corner and saw Annabelle draped over something, crying her blue eyeballs out. "Annabelle! What's wrong?" She looked up at me, "W-who are you?" "It's me! Lenore!" I shrieked. "Lenore?" Annabelle leaped off of the thing, and I saw what it was. Darletta, lying in a pool of blood. As Annabelle flung her arms around me, I asked, "What happened?" "'Member? She said she couldn't stay out of the hinterlands for more than a day. It's been-" she exploded into more sobs. "Three days." I finished. "She must have been in pain the whole time we were in there" Annabelle nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. "But, Lenore? Why do you look like this? And is that-" her eyes widened, "Is that Lock Shock and Barrel?" "Uh huh," Lock said. "It's us," Barrel added. "In the flesh," Shock finished. "Wow. What happened?" Aw, rats. I had a lot of explaining to do...