Mara whirled around when she heard the door slam. "Door..? I came in through a window," she thought, and frowned. It was true; she remembered jumping in. But there in front of her eyes, was a door, large and made of oak. Its hinges were on the same side as the doorknob, and she felt that somehow, that particular oddity explained everything. A noise came from behind, and she spun around again, knife poised and ready to throw.
Instead of an enemy, there was a child. Privately she thought that it was the strangest-looking child that she had ever seen, but she was nevertheless relieved that it wasn't a Boojum or a card guard. Or looking like it had a reason to kill her. "Who are you?" she asked.
"You wan play wiv me?" it asked.
"Huh?"
"Play wiv me!! Play wiv me!" it shrieked, and Mara found herself backing up.
"I... I can't. I have to get the Queen."
"Queen can't play!" it yelled.
"Cat!!" she shouted, almost in a panic about this strange creature.
"Yes? Whatever can it be this time?" he asked. He was casually curled up on a cupboard.
"What is that thing?" Cat followed her gaze and stretched.
"Ah yes... I knew that one would come up sooner or later."
"Do I kill it?" She asked uncertainly.
"Trying won't do much good," he said leisurely. She arched an eyebrow.
"These children are too far gone for anything to have any effect on them. Why, I say one walking around with a rather large screw sticking out of his ear the other day."
Doubtfully, Mara considered what he said. "I'm not entirely sure that I believe you, Cat... but what am I trying to do now?"
"Kitty plays wiv me! Play!!"
Cat surveyed the child, rather amused. "Kitty can't play at the moment," he drawled, and vanished.
"Hey- Cat!! You didn't answer my question!" she shouted. "Dammit, Cat!"
All she saw after that was that eternal grin, laughing. Laughing at her. She shook her head at his antics, the child far from her mind, until it grabbed her hand.
"Hey! I can't play with you!" she hissed, and wrenched her hand back. "I have to get the Queen!" Her bad choice of words was almost immediately evident.
"Help me!! Queen!! Help!"
At that moment, several guards ran in, trying to see what all of the fuss was about. When they saw her, they charged and she drew out her knife again. The next few moments were a blur of bodies and blood, and when she had finished with them, she cleaned her knife on the front of her sweater. That made her stop and examine her front much more closely- there was a whole lot of blood on her. "Ewww..." she muttered, and shook her head.
After getting some off her, she straightened and almost casually walked through the other door.
Once through, she was met with a flurry of diamond bullets and hit the ground. She threw her knife hard several times, all the while running for the first (and closer) guard. Once there, she killed him and used his corpse as a shield as she fired his weapon at his companion. The diamond screamed and collapsed, and she finished him off with the knife.
Once that bit of work was done with, she explored a little. There were four doors, each with their own particular marking on the doorknob: a flower on top and a card symbol on the bottom. Mara searched for a clue or a hint as to where to go, growing more and more disoriented; everything was beginning to look the same. It was then that she spotted the stairway, almost hidden by a door with heart markings, and as it seemed like the best way to go, went up. It led to a room that was, for the most part, large and empty, besides an object mounted over a huge fireplace. Hesitating, she leapt onto the mantle, trying to get closer, so as to see what it was.
She wasn't entirely sure what it was at first, but upon closer inspection found that it was a croquet mallet, and raised an eyebrow. Then she shrugged, figuring that she may as well pick it up anyway. She lifted it out of the display and examined it. It was longer than the knife and promised to be rather painful in terms of bashing power. It was painted a pale lavender, and its head was that of a flamingo. The whole thing was made of wood.
A brow arched in puzzlement. She had never seen a flamingo or played croquet there, but then she remembered that Alice had, and she smiled in realisation. These were the things that Alice had used when she was here. They were all based on her experiences, and she laughed delightedly as she headed back to the room full of doors.
After picking one of the doors, she found herself in the auditorium. The stage was dimly lit, and the rest of it had very little light. The curtains hung from bent wires, and were currently open to reveal several of the insane children. Those things inspired her to make an impromptu decision to leave the stage for last- if she explored it at all. The audience seats were all different sizes, some short, some tall, but none of them had legs that were all the same length. The seats that had cushions were hard as a rock, and she found that she could sink into an un-cushioned chair with ease. "Strange..." she muttered, with one last look at the chair she'd sat in.
"Ha! I was wondering when you'd get here!" a familiar voice exclaimed.
"Del!"
"Yup, that's me."
"Okay, what do I need to do?" she asked. He scrunched up his face.
"For what?"
"To make me small."
"Aren't you short enough?"
"...I'm too tall for a rabbit's hole. Where is it?"
"Where is what?"
"The potion!"
"What potion?"
Mara was getting really irritated. "It's completely useless to ask you anything, isn't it?"
"If you ask me the right questions, it ain't." Del said calmly.
She felt as though she were near tears. Finally, she blurted out with, "How am I to get the potion that will make me small?"
He turned to her and grinned, and just as he was about to speak, his mouth opened wide and he pointed. She turned and saw two diamond guards.
At that she took out the mallet and muttered, "Let's see what you can do," and swung. She wasn't quite close enough to a guard, but it suddenly released a ball that connected with his face. Electrical charges swam out and the guard was dead in moments. She pounced on the other one and hit him twice with the mallet, and he was dead too.
Mara turned back to Del and found that he had made his way to a bookcase illuminated by candles, and was beckoning to her. She came and he pulled out a candle. The bookcase spun slowly around, leading to a long, open hallway. There were three doors that they could pick, about five feet apart: a low one that was below floor level by about a foot, one that was at the floor, and one that was a foot above the floor. She turned to Del for help.
He scratched his head a few times. "Now, I remember... one of these doors leads to the library and one leads to certain death by a hundred diamond guards... at least it'll be certain death at your present skill level. Which is which I dunno."
"Well, what does the third do?"
"Broom closet," was the reply. She shook her head and paused. Light backed all of them, which seeped out of the cracks and around the edges of the door: red, yellow, and green, and they all rotated around periodically. The red light moved the fastest; sometimes it wound up booting another light away. Then was the yellow light. It showed up less frequently, but it would appear to bump something out every now and then. The green was slowest- and it seemed that to compensate for its lack of frequency in appearing, it would stay in one place until taken over by another colour. She counted it staying for as long as fifty seconds until one - almost always red - bumped it out. The whole thing reminded her of Christmas lights, what with all the changing around it did.
"When I tell you, run- stay behind me," she said softly. "I'm going to try for the middle door the second the green light hits it." Del was pale and trembling. Nevertheless, he put on a brave face and nodded, following closely behind her.
"Now!" And they ran. Almost at the point of turning back, she found herself pushing open the green door and stepping through into a long hall dominated by books of every size, shape, colour and genre. Turning, she grinned at Del. "We made it," she whispered. She peered at some of the titles as they walked, and found them strangely intriguing. "Beyond Looking-Glass Land," "How to be Invisible," and more interesting titles lay on the circular-shaped shelves, and gave the impression that gravity had no hand in their positions whatsoever. Perhaps there was a book of levitation there..? She shook her head and continued on.
As she neared the end of the hall, a club guard stopped her. She never gave him the chance to call his friends before his head rolled away, coming to a stop just before the bookcase. She stood over it, wondering if it would call its friends anyway, but at Del's insistence, continued on.
She stopped short as she stepped in, knowing that this was by far one of the oddest places that she had come upon. Each story in the huge library opened out into the hall beside it, with no walls or balconies or anything to keep one from falling off, just the end of the floor. On the bookcases, the books were every size and shape- there were round books, even. The bookcases themselves were tilted, bent, and almost completely warped, in every sense of the word.
Insane children were there, in numbers enough that she felt more than a little uncomfortable. There were three card guards there, ignored by the children, keeping a vigilant, though ineffective watch. She hadn't exactly faced three at one time, much less two diamonds and a club, though the fight just before Del disappeared could count. She turned to Del.
"The book of ingredients is on the fourth floor. It's called 'The Book of Bizarre Things," he whispered. "You'll have to take the stairs."
The stairs were at the other end of the room, blocked by the guards. She didn't want to fight at that moment, so she sneaked past, thinking about anything but sneaking by them. Just then, one of them saw Del and started walking towards him, getting his spear ready. She had to kill them then. Shaking her head, she walked up the stairs. Del didn't follow. She didn't blame him.
On the second floor, she saw a long hallway with rows of books on either side and groaned inwardly. That was the perfect setting for an ambush. Cautiously she walked over to the first bookcase and sent a croquet ball flying over it, pummelling a few cases. It became worth the noise when she heard several agonised screams, and she couldn't resist chuckling softly over their cursing and yelling. Upon seeing movement, she sent another ball flying, and this one connected with several more. They groaned and shouted at the others, asking inane questions, like "what was that?" and "did you see anything?"
She shook her head and trotted forwards to the first row. Two guards lay there, not dead, but certainly not alive enough to stand up to her. After a moment, she pulled out her knife. Throwing it once at each killed them, and she went through, until the others were all dead. Going through their pockets, she found a few interesting items. The first was a lighter that felt like it had enough fuel for one more lighting. The second was a letter from the Queen herself.
Captain,
I have been informed of your progress as of late and I must say, I am highly displeased. If you expect to live out the end of the month, you will have your troops evened out and put into proper form when I come by with my inspection, or your head will be OFF! I know that I have made myself quite clear, and that this Faith is not to be underestimated. Kill her while you have any advantage, no matter how small! If you don't kill her, and she doesn't kill you, I can guarantee that I shall!
The Red Queen
For the first time, she felt a true, cold fear growing in the pit of her stomach as she realised, this person really wants me dead.
There was one bookcase that was still entirely intact- it was on the right. She clambered up that and through a hole in the ceiling, startling herself when she bumped into a book (with a tail), which, unlike all the others, was falling up. Upside-Down Tales of Tails, it was called.
She found herself crawling up a hole- that was guarded by a diamond. His back was to her, and she cautiously pulled herself through, taking out the croquet mallet as she went. She knew that it was probably cheap of her to attack someone whose back was turned, but he had more than likely done that to someone else as well, and she felt no remorse as she brought the mallet down with a sickening crack on his skull and a shower of blood. His spear clattered down beside her onto the bookcase.
A diamond bullet whistled over her head, and she ducked. There had been a diamond guard across the hall that she hadn't noticed... and it had just seen her. There was no way that she could play the innocent now, as one of his companions lay dead at her waist. That, and she was holding the still-bloody weapon that had killed him. She had a significant disadvantage, being caught in the hole. As he lumbered towards her, she ducked back into the hole. He stood at the top and started firing those damned bullets, and she was forced to always keep moving - a challenge with her precarious footing.
At that moment, she lost her balance and fell with a loud thud onto the bookcase, landing with the sharp end of the spear digging into her side. Had it punctured her skin? She didn't know, but it hurt like nothing else... and the guard up there had decided to jump down, as well. He grinned at her, and started stabbing at her, as she rolled this way and that to avoid the vicious point of his spear.
She grabbed her knife and threw it, and for the first time, missed. She stared after it in shock for a moment, and jumped up, propelling herself backwards all the while. Concentrate! she told herself, afraid and angry at her inexplicable failure. The guard suddenly tackled her, taking advantage of her sudden immobility, pushing his arm up against her throat, cutting off her air.
Through the muddled haze, she felt as though he was pressing all of his weight down on her. This gave her an idea, and she lifted her feet, allowing both to fall, with him falling on her knife. He screamed and she fought for a handhold on it and dragged it down as far as she could without breaking her arm, and they both gazed at the ragged hole in his abdomen. Then he fell off the bookcase and was still. She pulled herself up through the hole, onto the third floor.
She explored that for a little while, until she found a lift that took her to the fourth floor. The first thing she met there was a diamond guard. He gasped in surprise then whipped out his spear. But he was too late, and he sunk to the floor, a wide slash in his chest and one arm gone.
Then Mara was able to take a look around the room. Like the others, the room itself was rectangular, with a large gap in the centre. A thin, rickety bridge led to a large display, where The Book of Bizarre Things was prominently displayed. Taking a closer look, Mara realised that the bridge was made out of sheets of paper... pages that had been torn out of book, more specifically. She stared at it, and put a foot on, trying to see if it was solid.
The bridge dipped where her foot pressed in, and when she took it off, sprung back up as though it were made of elastic. Perhaps they came from a book on elasticity, she mused, and carefully stepped onto it all the way. At that moment, there was a curious flapping sound, and she turned, looking for the source. There was nothing behind her, and she took a step. The second she did, something dived at her from the air, and she ducked. The sudden change in her weight caused the bridge to sink, and then release, sending her several feet into the air.
Something else dived at her, even after she landed back on solid ground. Then she realised: her attackers were the books. Now afraid, she stepped back onto the bridge, and started across. She moved a little quicker than was wise, and several times she fell, wrapping her arms and legs around the bridge to keep herself from plummeting four stories down. No matter how lucky she had been in surviving so far, she doubted any measure of luck would be able to save her from that.
The books seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in her difficulties, and only made them worse. The second she would manage to get steady again, another (usually a very heavy and thick one) would dive at her. In the interest of keeping her neck and head connected to her body, she would drop down, and spend the next several steps in a crawl, which was then hampered by the books floating above the bridge and dropping themselves onto it. The ripple effect made the journey almost intolerable, but she didn't want to provoke them into doing worse.
Finally she reached the platform where the Book of Bizarre Things was located. The book was large and heavy, and she absolutely refused to take her chances on the bridge again. Especially since the books were all hovering around, flapping their pages in what looked like laughter.
"Cat!"
"Fly in the direction gravity takes you."
She scowled up at the air, as it was only his voice that appeared. "Thaaanks," she said sarcastically, and got an idea. Opening the book, she pushed it off the pedestal.
Instead of an enemy, there was a child. Privately she thought that it was the strangest-looking child that she had ever seen, but she was nevertheless relieved that it wasn't a Boojum or a card guard. Or looking like it had a reason to kill her. "Who are you?" she asked.
"You wan play wiv me?" it asked.
"Huh?"
"Play wiv me!! Play wiv me!" it shrieked, and Mara found herself backing up.
"I... I can't. I have to get the Queen."
"Queen can't play!" it yelled.
"Cat!!" she shouted, almost in a panic about this strange creature.
"Yes? Whatever can it be this time?" he asked. He was casually curled up on a cupboard.
"What is that thing?" Cat followed her gaze and stretched.
"Ah yes... I knew that one would come up sooner or later."
"Do I kill it?" She asked uncertainly.
"Trying won't do much good," he said leisurely. She arched an eyebrow.
"These children are too far gone for anything to have any effect on them. Why, I say one walking around with a rather large screw sticking out of his ear the other day."
Doubtfully, Mara considered what he said. "I'm not entirely sure that I believe you, Cat... but what am I trying to do now?"
"Kitty plays wiv me! Play!!"
Cat surveyed the child, rather amused. "Kitty can't play at the moment," he drawled, and vanished.
"Hey- Cat!! You didn't answer my question!" she shouted. "Dammit, Cat!"
All she saw after that was that eternal grin, laughing. Laughing at her. She shook her head at his antics, the child far from her mind, until it grabbed her hand.
"Hey! I can't play with you!" she hissed, and wrenched her hand back. "I have to get the Queen!" Her bad choice of words was almost immediately evident.
"Help me!! Queen!! Help!"
At that moment, several guards ran in, trying to see what all of the fuss was about. When they saw her, they charged and she drew out her knife again. The next few moments were a blur of bodies and blood, and when she had finished with them, she cleaned her knife on the front of her sweater. That made her stop and examine her front much more closely- there was a whole lot of blood on her. "Ewww..." she muttered, and shook her head.
After getting some off her, she straightened and almost casually walked through the other door.
Once through, she was met with a flurry of diamond bullets and hit the ground. She threw her knife hard several times, all the while running for the first (and closer) guard. Once there, she killed him and used his corpse as a shield as she fired his weapon at his companion. The diamond screamed and collapsed, and she finished him off with the knife.
Once that bit of work was done with, she explored a little. There were four doors, each with their own particular marking on the doorknob: a flower on top and a card symbol on the bottom. Mara searched for a clue or a hint as to where to go, growing more and more disoriented; everything was beginning to look the same. It was then that she spotted the stairway, almost hidden by a door with heart markings, and as it seemed like the best way to go, went up. It led to a room that was, for the most part, large and empty, besides an object mounted over a huge fireplace. Hesitating, she leapt onto the mantle, trying to get closer, so as to see what it was.
She wasn't entirely sure what it was at first, but upon closer inspection found that it was a croquet mallet, and raised an eyebrow. Then she shrugged, figuring that she may as well pick it up anyway. She lifted it out of the display and examined it. It was longer than the knife and promised to be rather painful in terms of bashing power. It was painted a pale lavender, and its head was that of a flamingo. The whole thing was made of wood.
A brow arched in puzzlement. She had never seen a flamingo or played croquet there, but then she remembered that Alice had, and she smiled in realisation. These were the things that Alice had used when she was here. They were all based on her experiences, and she laughed delightedly as she headed back to the room full of doors.
After picking one of the doors, she found herself in the auditorium. The stage was dimly lit, and the rest of it had very little light. The curtains hung from bent wires, and were currently open to reveal several of the insane children. Those things inspired her to make an impromptu decision to leave the stage for last- if she explored it at all. The audience seats were all different sizes, some short, some tall, but none of them had legs that were all the same length. The seats that had cushions were hard as a rock, and she found that she could sink into an un-cushioned chair with ease. "Strange..." she muttered, with one last look at the chair she'd sat in.
"Ha! I was wondering when you'd get here!" a familiar voice exclaimed.
"Del!"
"Yup, that's me."
"Okay, what do I need to do?" she asked. He scrunched up his face.
"For what?"
"To make me small."
"Aren't you short enough?"
"...I'm too tall for a rabbit's hole. Where is it?"
"Where is what?"
"The potion!"
"What potion?"
Mara was getting really irritated. "It's completely useless to ask you anything, isn't it?"
"If you ask me the right questions, it ain't." Del said calmly.
She felt as though she were near tears. Finally, she blurted out with, "How am I to get the potion that will make me small?"
He turned to her and grinned, and just as he was about to speak, his mouth opened wide and he pointed. She turned and saw two diamond guards.
At that she took out the mallet and muttered, "Let's see what you can do," and swung. She wasn't quite close enough to a guard, but it suddenly released a ball that connected with his face. Electrical charges swam out and the guard was dead in moments. She pounced on the other one and hit him twice with the mallet, and he was dead too.
Mara turned back to Del and found that he had made his way to a bookcase illuminated by candles, and was beckoning to her. She came and he pulled out a candle. The bookcase spun slowly around, leading to a long, open hallway. There were three doors that they could pick, about five feet apart: a low one that was below floor level by about a foot, one that was at the floor, and one that was a foot above the floor. She turned to Del for help.
He scratched his head a few times. "Now, I remember... one of these doors leads to the library and one leads to certain death by a hundred diamond guards... at least it'll be certain death at your present skill level. Which is which I dunno."
"Well, what does the third do?"
"Broom closet," was the reply. She shook her head and paused. Light backed all of them, which seeped out of the cracks and around the edges of the door: red, yellow, and green, and they all rotated around periodically. The red light moved the fastest; sometimes it wound up booting another light away. Then was the yellow light. It showed up less frequently, but it would appear to bump something out every now and then. The green was slowest- and it seemed that to compensate for its lack of frequency in appearing, it would stay in one place until taken over by another colour. She counted it staying for as long as fifty seconds until one - almost always red - bumped it out. The whole thing reminded her of Christmas lights, what with all the changing around it did.
"When I tell you, run- stay behind me," she said softly. "I'm going to try for the middle door the second the green light hits it." Del was pale and trembling. Nevertheless, he put on a brave face and nodded, following closely behind her.
"Now!" And they ran. Almost at the point of turning back, she found herself pushing open the green door and stepping through into a long hall dominated by books of every size, shape, colour and genre. Turning, she grinned at Del. "We made it," she whispered. She peered at some of the titles as they walked, and found them strangely intriguing. "Beyond Looking-Glass Land," "How to be Invisible," and more interesting titles lay on the circular-shaped shelves, and gave the impression that gravity had no hand in their positions whatsoever. Perhaps there was a book of levitation there..? She shook her head and continued on.
As she neared the end of the hall, a club guard stopped her. She never gave him the chance to call his friends before his head rolled away, coming to a stop just before the bookcase. She stood over it, wondering if it would call its friends anyway, but at Del's insistence, continued on.
She stopped short as she stepped in, knowing that this was by far one of the oddest places that she had come upon. Each story in the huge library opened out into the hall beside it, with no walls or balconies or anything to keep one from falling off, just the end of the floor. On the bookcases, the books were every size and shape- there were round books, even. The bookcases themselves were tilted, bent, and almost completely warped, in every sense of the word.
Insane children were there, in numbers enough that she felt more than a little uncomfortable. There were three card guards there, ignored by the children, keeping a vigilant, though ineffective watch. She hadn't exactly faced three at one time, much less two diamonds and a club, though the fight just before Del disappeared could count. She turned to Del.
"The book of ingredients is on the fourth floor. It's called 'The Book of Bizarre Things," he whispered. "You'll have to take the stairs."
The stairs were at the other end of the room, blocked by the guards. She didn't want to fight at that moment, so she sneaked past, thinking about anything but sneaking by them. Just then, one of them saw Del and started walking towards him, getting his spear ready. She had to kill them then. Shaking her head, she walked up the stairs. Del didn't follow. She didn't blame him.
On the second floor, she saw a long hallway with rows of books on either side and groaned inwardly. That was the perfect setting for an ambush. Cautiously she walked over to the first bookcase and sent a croquet ball flying over it, pummelling a few cases. It became worth the noise when she heard several agonised screams, and she couldn't resist chuckling softly over their cursing and yelling. Upon seeing movement, she sent another ball flying, and this one connected with several more. They groaned and shouted at the others, asking inane questions, like "what was that?" and "did you see anything?"
She shook her head and trotted forwards to the first row. Two guards lay there, not dead, but certainly not alive enough to stand up to her. After a moment, she pulled out her knife. Throwing it once at each killed them, and she went through, until the others were all dead. Going through their pockets, she found a few interesting items. The first was a lighter that felt like it had enough fuel for one more lighting. The second was a letter from the Queen herself.
Captain,
I have been informed of your progress as of late and I must say, I am highly displeased. If you expect to live out the end of the month, you will have your troops evened out and put into proper form when I come by with my inspection, or your head will be OFF! I know that I have made myself quite clear, and that this Faith is not to be underestimated. Kill her while you have any advantage, no matter how small! If you don't kill her, and she doesn't kill you, I can guarantee that I shall!
The Red Queen
For the first time, she felt a true, cold fear growing in the pit of her stomach as she realised, this person really wants me dead.
There was one bookcase that was still entirely intact- it was on the right. She clambered up that and through a hole in the ceiling, startling herself when she bumped into a book (with a tail), which, unlike all the others, was falling up. Upside-Down Tales of Tails, it was called.
She found herself crawling up a hole- that was guarded by a diamond. His back was to her, and she cautiously pulled herself through, taking out the croquet mallet as she went. She knew that it was probably cheap of her to attack someone whose back was turned, but he had more than likely done that to someone else as well, and she felt no remorse as she brought the mallet down with a sickening crack on his skull and a shower of blood. His spear clattered down beside her onto the bookcase.
A diamond bullet whistled over her head, and she ducked. There had been a diamond guard across the hall that she hadn't noticed... and it had just seen her. There was no way that she could play the innocent now, as one of his companions lay dead at her waist. That, and she was holding the still-bloody weapon that had killed him. She had a significant disadvantage, being caught in the hole. As he lumbered towards her, she ducked back into the hole. He stood at the top and started firing those damned bullets, and she was forced to always keep moving - a challenge with her precarious footing.
At that moment, she lost her balance and fell with a loud thud onto the bookcase, landing with the sharp end of the spear digging into her side. Had it punctured her skin? She didn't know, but it hurt like nothing else... and the guard up there had decided to jump down, as well. He grinned at her, and started stabbing at her, as she rolled this way and that to avoid the vicious point of his spear.
She grabbed her knife and threw it, and for the first time, missed. She stared after it in shock for a moment, and jumped up, propelling herself backwards all the while. Concentrate! she told herself, afraid and angry at her inexplicable failure. The guard suddenly tackled her, taking advantage of her sudden immobility, pushing his arm up against her throat, cutting off her air.
Through the muddled haze, she felt as though he was pressing all of his weight down on her. This gave her an idea, and she lifted her feet, allowing both to fall, with him falling on her knife. He screamed and she fought for a handhold on it and dragged it down as far as she could without breaking her arm, and they both gazed at the ragged hole in his abdomen. Then he fell off the bookcase and was still. She pulled herself up through the hole, onto the third floor.
She explored that for a little while, until she found a lift that took her to the fourth floor. The first thing she met there was a diamond guard. He gasped in surprise then whipped out his spear. But he was too late, and he sunk to the floor, a wide slash in his chest and one arm gone.
Then Mara was able to take a look around the room. Like the others, the room itself was rectangular, with a large gap in the centre. A thin, rickety bridge led to a large display, where The Book of Bizarre Things was prominently displayed. Taking a closer look, Mara realised that the bridge was made out of sheets of paper... pages that had been torn out of book, more specifically. She stared at it, and put a foot on, trying to see if it was solid.
The bridge dipped where her foot pressed in, and when she took it off, sprung back up as though it were made of elastic. Perhaps they came from a book on elasticity, she mused, and carefully stepped onto it all the way. At that moment, there was a curious flapping sound, and she turned, looking for the source. There was nothing behind her, and she took a step. The second she did, something dived at her from the air, and she ducked. The sudden change in her weight caused the bridge to sink, and then release, sending her several feet into the air.
Something else dived at her, even after she landed back on solid ground. Then she realised: her attackers were the books. Now afraid, she stepped back onto the bridge, and started across. She moved a little quicker than was wise, and several times she fell, wrapping her arms and legs around the bridge to keep herself from plummeting four stories down. No matter how lucky she had been in surviving so far, she doubted any measure of luck would be able to save her from that.
The books seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in her difficulties, and only made them worse. The second she would manage to get steady again, another (usually a very heavy and thick one) would dive at her. In the interest of keeping her neck and head connected to her body, she would drop down, and spend the next several steps in a crawl, which was then hampered by the books floating above the bridge and dropping themselves onto it. The ripple effect made the journey almost intolerable, but she didn't want to provoke them into doing worse.
Finally she reached the platform where the Book of Bizarre Things was located. The book was large and heavy, and she absolutely refused to take her chances on the bridge again. Especially since the books were all hovering around, flapping their pages in what looked like laughter.
"Cat!"
"Fly in the direction gravity takes you."
She scowled up at the air, as it was only his voice that appeared. "Thaaanks," she said sarcastically, and got an idea. Opening the book, she pushed it off the pedestal.