"Why are you doing this to us?" he asked the faceless darkness.

"Why ask why?" Silver responded. She seemed to shrug uncaringly. "You're here; I'm here. Why not play a game?"

"A game?" he cried out, incredulous. "You're playing with our lives!"

"That's what makes it fun, and makes the prize worth the game. Lighten up a bit, fantasma muchacho."

He clenched his hands into fists; her attitude was completely beyond anything he had experienced. There were those who wanted him dead, or something resembling it, at least. They even took delight in the prospect of halting his existence. But this uncaring sadism…no, it wasn't that. It wasn't that she didn't care; it was that she did. They might as well have been playing Monopoly for all his family mattered, but she was enjoying herself.

He shook with anger so fierce that he saw red. He didn't understand how anyone could be so twisted, so insane, but in that moment, it didn't matter. He fired blast after blast into the darkness, not seeing, not caring what was beyond it until, exhausted, he finally stopped and it dispersed.

"Oh, look what you did," Silver said chidingly. "Humans do tend to get in the way, don't they?"

Danny howled his anguish to the empty building. It was a long time before he realized it hadn't been real, but even then, he couldn't stop shaking. His parents…Jazz…

He didn't want to think about it, but his traitorous mind wouldn't let him forget.

He sat up and looked around. After a nearly being decapitated because he was too tired to pay attention, he had borrowed one of the cells for a nap. Pale grey light filtered through the windows of the cellblock; it was probably getting close to noon. A quiet hiss from somewhere nearby finally got him moving. It sounded like a gas leak, and he wasn't it the mood to deal with Haight.

There were no monsters about when he cautiously stepped out of the cell, which was probably a very good thing for everyone. The dream had put him on edge more effectively than even the colonel had. The simple sound of childish laughter almost made the startled boy start blasting at random, but he got himself under control again and followed.

He didn't pay much attention to where they led him; he was too busy reliving the dream in his head. He had no doubts about where it had come from. It had been far too vivid to have been his own creation. Silver had sent it, but what did it mean? Was she getting worried that he might actually win? The thought made him feel a little better, but not much.

Silver may have sent the dream, but it had been his reaction and his alone. He had let his temper get the better of him, and the people he loved had suffered for it. He was no better than the other monsters on this island.

The sound of source-less shouting brought him out of his reverie. "It's the little freak and her freaky little boyfriend!"

It was an adult voice, taunting and harsh. He took a few steps more and the memory revealed itself in the form of three inmates who had backed the two children against a fence. "Let's play a game, little freak," one of them said.

"Leave us alone!"

Danny yelled and jerked back as a pair of marksmen appeared behind the inmates, but they vanished with the end of the memory. He was glad he didn't have to watch the outcome of that one. Looking around, he realized he was in some kind of yard, a recreation yard based on the signs. Some broken exercise equipment was scattered about and most of the fences had been knocked down. It looked like a huge battle between slayers and marksmen had taken place there during the night. He heard the gunshots, but hadn't thought too much about it. He picked his way across the battlefield and entered the west cellblock.

The ceiling had fallen in places. Despite the fact that it was a two story building, sunlight filtered through some of the holes, a sign that the roof had fallen in as well. Rotten ropes hung from the parts of the ceiling that were still intact. Skeletons littered the floor; some of them still wore part of the noose around their necks. Their moth-eaten clothing identified them as guards, but there were a few inmates scattered about as well.

He gradually became aware of a scrabbling noise that stayed just ahead of him. Something, probably a mainliner, howled somewhere. They didn't seem inclined to attack during the daylight. He saw the upper half of a body still hanging from the ceiling ahead. Impossibly, it was still gooey and dripping. He started to go around, and another one dropped down directly in front of him. He fell backwards with a startled shout, and the thing pulled itself back up its noose to vanish into a bloodstain on the ceiling.

"Nooseman," he said aloud in an attempt to calm his nerves. "Rip themselves out of the ceiling…better keep an eye out, I guess."

He made his way across the cellblock to the laundry room where flickering blue light announced Horace's presence long before Danny actually saw him. He did not greet the old prisoner with his usual cheerfulness. "Why didn't you tell me I was going the wrong way?" he demanded before Horace could speak.

The man looked properly abashed as he glanced away. "I'm sorry, kid. I'm doing what I can for you, but if I help you too much, Silver'll just kill your folks."

Danny stared; that prospect had not occurred to him. He nodded tersely. "Can you at least tell why I'm being dragged through here?" he asked in a slightly more friendly tone.

Horace shook his head. "Not really sure, to be honest. But go with it for a while. There's a lot to learn around here if you pay attention."

"Come play with us!" the girl interrupted. Danny looked over to see her and the little boy giggle and run off. When he looked back, Horace was gone. He shrugged and followed.

"You can't catch me!" the girl yelled. She ducked behind a machine, and the little boy ran out from behind a different one to jump into a large hole. The girl stopped at the edge to wait. When Danny reached her, she said quietly, "I always loved that game." For just a split second, she was the Lady in White again, then she was gone.

There was some kind of small tunnel below the laundry room. Mere moments after the boy dropped into it, a cold metal chain wrapped around his throat and threw him into a wall. He jumped to the left as the burrower swung at him, then ran towards it, blasting. It ducked back into its hole and rushed below Danny, knocking him to the ground. Just as he regained his footing, a second one did the same. He blasted the first as it erupted from the ground again, and succeeded in defeating it, then rolled forward as the second one came up behind him. He dispatched it just in time to dodge the attack of a third, but it managed to grab him anyway. It slammed him into the ceiling, the floor, and both walls before hurling him to the ground and retreating. He lay where he was for a while as the creature burrowed around, trying to find him again.

It occurred to him that they couldn't find him if he didn't move, so he was probably safe to stay where he was, at least until some of the pain subsided. He felt like so much mush after that beating; sharp pains shot across his body as cracked bones slowly healed. Fortunately, nothing seemed to have broken. He wasn't sure whether he would heal from that without medical help.

At last, the burrower seemed to grow bored and went away. Danny carefully got to his feet, just in case the thing was still close by, and gradually made his way across the tunnel. He was unsurprised to see the children run ahead and climb back out into what he soon discovered was yet another cellblock.

"Well, I can see why inmates hate prison so much," he tried to joke. It looked pretty much like the one he just left. He followed the children around a corner where he was stopped by another memory.

The girl in white leaned against the wall, her head in her hands. Standing over her was a vaguely familiar-looking bald guard. Then the guard spoke, and Danny knew exactly who he was. "Get them back, Meryll. Don't be so weak."

It was the same voice that been tormenting him this whole time. Not the one in his head; the other one. Hermes Haight when he was alive. And now he finally had a name for the lady/girl in white. "Who was she?" he asked without turning to see what was hissing behind him.

"…A guard's daughter," Haight answered. "She grew up in these halls. A lot of people taunted her, so I…took her under my wing, so to speak."

"I'm sure her parents were very grateful," Danny remarked dryly. He started walking forward again.

Haight followed, of course. "Oh, they could have cared less…but I…cared. She had a great deal of…potential." He chuckled a bit at some remembrance. The boy didn't want to know.

A section of broken wall led him to another recreations yard that was surprisingly clear of human remains and monster carcasses. In fact, aside from the torn down fences, it seemed almost normal. It was only natural, then, that he should be treated to a vision of his family about to be hacked apart by slayers. Danny closed his eyes and clenched his fists as memories from his dream rose up in his mind again.

"You know…" Haight began. "I figured something out about you. You're not like other people…The fall into despair when Silver shows them things, but you…You just get angry."

"I'm not like you," Danny said from between clenched teeth, already knowing where that line of thought was headed.

He was surprised when Haight agreed. "No, you're not. At least, not in that. I don't get angry…People aren't worth it…"

The boy opened his eyes and was grateful to see that he was alone again. If Silver was actually reading his mind, she wasn't sharing the information with Haight. It was true that he got angry, but he was plenty depressed. Probably the only reason he got angry was that he couldn't be any more depressed. He could barely remember why he was still trying, except that his family would be killed if he stopped. They were the only thing keeping him going at this point.

He walked past a burned down shack and entered re-entered the prison. There were no cells here, and young Meryll and her friend led him through a large hole in the far wall and back outside. He lifted an eyebrow.

"Captain Hermes T. Haight Cemetery," he read. "They named the graveyard after you?"

He expected his tormentor to respond in some way, and was pleasantly surprised to be answered by silence. A simple metal arch that announced the name of Abbott's most infamous executioner led the way into a cemetery where even the weeds were dead. Headstones were cracked and faded, and a few of them had fallen over. What little grass actually managed to grow was brown and stunted. On the far left side, an area was sectioned off for the guards. Danny wondered if Haight was buried over there, but didn't go look.

One of the graves sat beneath a dead tree. The coffin appeared to have been pushed out of the ground from below, its lid hanging open. He didn't want to get closer, but he had to walk past it to get out. He wasn't surprised that a memory started up when he got near it.

An old reverend stood next to the now-closed casket, intoning the words of a final farewell. Danny didn't pay much attention, preferring to listen to the low noise he heard beneath the words. As he got closer, he realized it was a quiet moaning of, "Let me out…someone…please…I ain't dead…"

Horace appeared suddenly, standing behind the casket. He looked in Danny's direction without focusing on anything, proving that he was just a memory and not the real Horace. "I wasn't really in here," he said. "I never left the chair."

The boy crept forward slowly as the image vanished, drawn by some morbid curiosity. He expected the corpse to open its eyes and reach up to grab him, but the coffin was empty.

"I think they used to say…" Hermes began. Danny managed not to jump. "…'Horace never sleeps'…What a strange thing to say, wouldn't you agree?"

"Leave him alone, Haight," the real Horace interrupted, standing where the mindless memory had been.

"Or what?" the executioner scoffed. "You'll try to burn me up again…?"

Danny slid out from between the two and walked backwards away from them. As eager as he was to get away from Haight, he wanted to see what would happen.

Now, boys, Silver piped up. Play nice or our guest will think we're nothing a pack of rabid dogs.

"He is a rabid dog," Horace said to the sky.

Haight seemed to narrow his eyes. "…I resent that…Rabid dogs are mindless, vicious, and insane…"

The old prisoner grinned. "Two out of three ain't bad."

Oh, this'll be a good one. Maybe you should run, niño. Wouldn't want to be caught in the fireworks, after all.

An image of a small wooden building suddenly being turned into a bonfire flashed across the boy's mind, and he realized that one of their fights had been responsible for the burned shack he passed.

Horace wielding electricity against a combustible Hermes… Silver went on. Flames went higher than the prison roof. Muy hermoso. Very beautiful.

Right.

Well, at least she wasn't throwing in images of his family stuck in that blaze. He left the bickering ghosts behind to follow a small dirt path that ran along a cliff. The image of Meryll appeared to pace alongside for a feet before vanishing as a resounding bang spilt through the air and threw Danny to the ground. Ash and embers fluttered down around him; the cemetery was in flames.

Something vaguely human in form burst out of the blaze, then. He thought it was an Inferna, but when it didn't immediately start trying to kill him, he realized it was Haight. The executioner shook himself in a futile effort to be rid of the flames, and finally succeeded in escaping through the smoke. Danny resumed his journey, hoping Horace was okay.

A/N: Well, bugger. I was thinking of making a sequel to this one, but I guess I won't make you all sit through it after all. Oh, well.