She woke up in an instant, her breath drawn from her and her hand already searching for her gun in her coat pocket. There had been nothing. And then a crash sound had shattered the stillness.

A second crash followed. Scully scrambled up. Mulder was already on his feet. Together, they heard someone groan. The sound of a fist banging against the door made her jump. Then: the scream. It spurred the others voices into action, filling the town hall with wailing and banging.

Mulder started to move toward the hall. Scully gripped his arm. "They can't get out," she told him and bit her lip, keeping her eyes trained on the empty doorframe entryway to the hallway.

"What's set them off?" Mulder said.

Scully heard shrieks now. She wanted to raise her hands and plug her ears, but she kept her right hand trained on her gun, and her left on Mulder.

"I – I don't know. I thought they'd fallen asleep," Mulder said.

The sound of fists hammering against the doors grew louder. "Mulder, what if they get out?"

Mulder grabbed his cell phone. "C'mon, Tom," he muttered, punching in the hotel's number.

The phone rang four times. Scully heard a door splinter. "Mulder get your…"

"Hello!" Mulder pressed the phone to his ear. "Tom! Help! Town Hall. Town Hall." He was shouting now. "Help!"

Scully heard another door groan. "We've got to hide!" She scanned the building. The room was completely empty of furniture.

"Now!" Mulder called into the phone before jamming it into his pocket. He took Scully's hand and pulled her across the room and to the right – closer to where the hypnotic was banging against the door.

Scully saw the wood at its bottom frayed. "Mulder…"

He was pulling her arm again and she found herself immersed in darkness. The smell of must filled her nose and she heard Mulder slam the door.

"I saw this broom closet just after we'd trapped Ruth and Terbell," Mulder whispered. She couldn't see him. His voice sounded like it was directly in front of her. "Don't worry. I've got the door handle. Keep your gun close."

She jumped when she heard a bang. One of the doors had given way. Slow heavy footsteps echoed as two bodies moved down the hallway. Another bang followed the first. Scully heard a groan. "Fuck. What about Tom?"

A deep voice rumbled a garbled sounding world. "άϕάνηϛ." Suddenly, the sound was everywhere, spoken slowly and slurred repeatedly. As abruptly as it had begun, it stopped. Scully could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.

Ages passed. She felt like she was breathing through a narrow straw, locked in a fish tank like the one in Mulder's dark apartment.

Like a shot they heard the deadbold turn in the lock at the front door. "H-hallo!" Tom's voice echoed down the hall and set off the bomb. Groans and bangs and feet dragging.

She knew, then, what they had to do. She pushed lightly on his back as Mulder, the same idea already formed in his head, opened the door. They beelined for the exit. Scully gripped her gun as she darted away from Mulder's side. She sidestepped a townswoman and ducked under Ruth's arms, barreling into the merciful light where she saw Tom standing with a hammer. He took off toward a car. Ruth's car, Scully realized. She saw Motsouka in the passenger's seat as she sprinted forward.

Tom opened the passenger door and she dove into the backseat. Looking back, she saw the hypnotics begin to approach, like zombies. They moved more quickly than zombies, though, and Scully realized that they must not have started moving to the car until now. She felt a mass in her throat and her pulse beat hard against her temples. Where was Mulder? She squinted in the fray of uncoordinated bodies, and tried to open the passenger door. Tom leaned his body against it. "

"Mulder!" She shouted and scampered across the backseat, climbing out the other side.

"Don't, Scully!" Motsouka said.

Scully ignored her. She raced around the front side of the car, gun still in hand. She saw the sweep of a large trench coat in the fray. Raising her gun, she fired.

XXX

Everyone froze, as if the sound of the gunpowder exploding in the air above them had sent shock waves through the crowd. Everyone, that is, except Mulder. By the time the hypnotics began to move, he was already sprinting toward the car. Scully scrambled into the backseat. When Mulder threw himself inside, the force of his body slammed against Scully shoulder. She looked up and saw Tom step into the driver's seat. They were speeding away an instant later, backing up with five feet between them and the angry hypnotics to spare.

Scully threw her arms around Mulder and buried her head in his shoulder. She didn't care if she looked needy or weak. She could still feel her pulse in her ears. She'd seen Mulder on the brink of death before, of course. But there were only so many near-death induced panics she could quell into submission. There hadn't been one of these situations yet, either, since they'd started having sex.

His arms were clinging to her too, now. Scully sighed in relief. She pulled back slowly, nestling herself in her seat next to him.

After a moment of silence, Motsouka spoke. "What happened?"

Mulder coughed. "We lost Wang. We came back to the town hall. Doors were open," he said.

"We heard voices," Scully added. She tucked her chin. Here, in this part of the story, they were reckless, she knew. "We entered and were trapped."

"Someone locked us in," Mulder said.

"Who?" Motsouka turned around from the passenger's seat to face them.

Mulder pursed his lips and shrugged.

"Do you think Wang followed us? Doubled back?" Scully said.

"If he did, he's gustier than I thought."

"The door shouldn't have been open in the first place," Motsouka said. "We locked it after we locked them all up. I made sure of it."

"Well someone else had a key," Scully said. "We need to figure out how the break the trance." She looked at Mulder. "Now would be a great time for your uncanny memory about past X-files. Is there one on hypnosis?"

Mulder nodded slowly. "A few. Hypnosis is a recorded phenomenon, so it's not really an X-file. Every time I've dealt with hypnotism, the person is called to wake up."

"Do you think you could convince Wang to wake them up?" Motsouka said. "Some kind of deal?"

"If we could figure out what he wants," Scully said.

Mulder was already shaking his head. "This is what he wants. This kind of control. He wants everyone under his command until he can prove himself to whoever he has captured."

"He has someone captured?" Motsouka unbuckled herself and turned all the way around in the chair. Tom pulled into the motel parking lot. "Are they okay?"

Of course they're not okay, Scully thought. "We think they're alive, whoever they are."

"I…" Motsouka's voice wavered. "I have a guess. I should have told you before."