Opening the door was far less dramatic than Judy had thought it would be. The monster—which was a part of her if Nick was right—was gone, and the only thing she could see when she at last peered beyond the door frame was a very familiar corridor. It looked exactly as it had when she had been younger, all smoothly carved stone warmly lit by simple fixtures.

Or rather, it looked almost exactly as it had.

The little chip of stone missing from the block almost opposite her bedroom door was the same as it had ever been, and further down the hall Judy could see the lighter colored patch where one of her older brothers had carved his name into the wall and then had to buff it out. But there were cracks she didn't remember there being, cracks that weren't quite the same as the one that had been in her bedroom. That one had been narrower, and looked to be nothing more than the stonework splitting. But in the hallway the cracks seemed went straight through the stone and she could see what was behind the walls.

Nothing.

Through the cracks was only an inky blackness more absolute than anything Judy had ever seen before, a darkness that seemed to swallow all light. She couldn't help but shiver at the sight, wondering what it meant. If her familial home really was nothing more than a representation of her mind, what could possibly exist outside the walls? Possibilities, each more dire than the last, seemed to present themselves as Judy stared into oblivion.

"It's probably best not to think about that," Nick said, making Judy jump.

"How—" Judy began, turning to look up at him, but he cut her off.

"You're thinking about what's outside these walls, right?" he said, and she nodded, her heart in her throat.

Judy didn't want to know—not really—but a horrible curiosity had overcome her; the cracks seemed almost to want to draw her eyes back. "It's... like a lake," Nick said at last, "And we're in a boat. We're fine in here. But out there..."

He didn't seem to quite dare to gesture at the nearest crack and the yawning void at its center, but Judy thought she knew what he meant. "Best not to think about it," Judy said, and her words sounded feeble to her ears.

"Right," Nick said, but the smile he gave her seemed more than a little forced, "So why don't I take care of this one?"

He strode out of the bedroom, moving so carefully he didn't make a sound, and placed his paws on either side of the nearest crack, still not looking directly at it. Judy sucked in an anxious breath as the same thing that had happened before repeated itself. Nick's very solidity drifted away, his entire body seeming to become untethered and disparate. For a heart-stopping moment he didn't appear to be a fox at all, just a hazy orange cloud of shapes that didn't seem possible to reassemble into something living.

And then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and Nick was standing there again, leaning heavily against a wall unblemished by a crack. In the same moment, another memory clicked into place and Judy gasped. Visiting the War Gate for the first time had sprung into her head with such vividness that for a moment she could have sworn she was there. The familiar hallway of the Totchli Barony holding with its gentle lighting and cool air gave way in an instant to a blazingly hot spring day, the sun burning overhead and throwing a shimmering haze off the Middle Wall. The carvings of the very first members of the Zootopia City Guard loomed above her, impossibly large, and although their uniforms were centuries out of date their faces still showed everything Judy had wished to be. There was a nobility of purpose captured in their expressions, an unwavering devotion to duty and service of their city, and Judy felt awe once again.

But then the moment was gone and she was standing once more in what looked like her family home but wasn't, her awe giving way to an uneasy fear. "Nick?" Judy asked, and timidly reached out for him, "Are you alright?"

"Never better," he said, but he was still leaning heavily against the wall, "What about you? That was quite the memory."

"You could see that?" Judy blurted before she could stop herself, and then shook her head.

"Never mind what I remembered," she said, "Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying," Nick protested, and with what seemed like considerable effort he straightened himself until he was standing fully upright again, "I promised you I'll be by your side when you wake up. And I will."

"But—"

"But this does take quite a bit of effort, yes," Nick admitted, and Judy noticed that he was breathing heavily.

Not that he was actually breathing, she supposed; it was all just a matter of how she was interpreting things. "Come on," he urged, gesturing for her, "You know this place. I don't."

"Is your sense of direction failing you?" Judy asked.

She was still afraid. Afraid of what might happen if the other part of her stalking its way through her mind caught up to them. Afraid of Nick pushing himself too hard, no matter what he might say about the effort involved. Afraid, even, that she would always be as she currently was, feeling oddly diminished and incomplete. But teasing Nick almost made her feel normal.

Almost.

Nick grinned at her, seeming delighted by the words. "You wound me, Carrots," he said, placing one paw dramatically on his chest, "But this is your head. Not mine."

"But I don't know where we're supposed to go," she said.

"That's fine," he said, "Just lead."

Judy could feel her doubts creeping up on her again, and swallowing hard she tried to push them down. She could remember being brave; she could feel that once she would have had no trouble at all continuing. Now, though, it was almost more than she could bear to put one foot in front of the other and shakily walk down the hall. Once she was at Nick's side, he started following her, and they walked in silence for a moment before he spoke. "When was that, by the way?" he asked casually, "When you were looking at the Middle Wall."

Judy was surprised at the question, but the distraction was more than welcome. "Eighteen years ago," she said, doing the quick math.

"Ah," Nick said, "That explains how tiny you were."

Judy couldn't help but turn her head and look up at him. "Tiny?" she repeated.

"Oh, adorably so," he said, and he placed his palm parallel to the floor at a point not even above his waist, "You couldn't have been more than this tall."

He frowned at her, his expression one of mock concentration. "I think your ears got shorter, though. How'd that happen?"

Judy forced out a laugh she didn't quite feel, rolling her eyes, but there was still a part of her that felt a touch of warmth. "It was when I was a kit. We took a trip to the Middle Wall to look at the War Gate," she explained, and as though a burden had been lifted from her the words started flowing more freely.

She barely even noticed where they were going as she put into words, for the first time in her life, how much it had meant to her to see that representation of the City Guard's founding. How much it had inspired her to prove herself worthy of joining, how devoted she had been to that goal. Nick listened carefully, not interrupting, and it was only when the Judy had finally run out of words to explain herself that she noticed where they had ended up.

The kitchens of the barony holding were absolutely massive, but for a moment they seemed much too large. And then Judy realized why; there was no one else but her and Nick present. There should have been dozens of bakers and cooks working industriously, filling the space and moving past and around each other with the easy grace of long practice at controlling the chaos. But there was no one around, and the kitchens looked oddly pristine. Rows and rows of ovens lined one wall, but for the first time Judy had ever seen not a single one was active. Massive pots stood empty on cold stove tops, and the usual warmth coming off the ovens was completely gone. There were still herbs and spices hanging to dry from the thick wooden supports that ran across the ceiling, their ghostly scents the one thing about the kitchens that still felt right.

Judy started looking around, trying to find a reason for her feet to have led them to the kitchens, but she couldn't spot anything. The kitchens had never had windows, so unlike her bedroom there wasn't an unusually blank wall. There were no unusual cracks in the walls, either, neither the more benign looking one that had crossed her bedroom nor the more ominous one in the corridor immediately outside it.

Aside from being empty, there simply didn't seem to be anything particularly important about the room, and Judy tried desperately searching her memory. Unless it was something she didn't remember she had forgotten, the kitchen didn't seem to hold any sort of special significance. She had never been a particularly good cook or baker, but she hadn't been terrible either. It had certainly been a room always warm in both the literal sense and the familial one, but it just didn't seem significant.

Nick didn't seem to have had any better luck than her; he was still looking about with a slowly deepening frown on his muzzle. "Maybe we have to keep going," he said softly, looking back to the door they had passed through.

There was only one way in or out of the kitchen; it was also the single largest door in the entire building, wider even than the main entrance. Judy's father had been fond of saying it showed what was really important, but her mother had taken a more practical view, saying that when things got busy it still wasn't wide enough. They had never tried modifying the kitchens, though; it seemed to be one of those things her parents had talked about a lot but never got around to actually doing. The door, as it almost always did, hung open, sagging ever so slightly on the side opposite the hinge.

As Judy looked at the door, which despite its great size was modestly made of a several enormous planks of wood joined together with brass given a mellow shine by the touch of countless paws brushing past, she suddenly realized why the kitchen was important and an icy flood of fear ran through her stomach. "Nick," she whispered, but before she could say anything else the door slammed suddenly shut.

Judy ran for the door, but the distance between her and it didn't seem to decrease so much as an inch, the floor nightmarishly stretching out before her. Nick grabbed her paw as he ran for the door too, and as he pulled her along the door actually started getting closer.

Hope flared briefly in her chest and then immediately fizzled when she pulled on the sturdy handle; the door was as immovable as a wall. "It won't open!" Judy said, panic making her voice high and tight.

Nick's paws wrapped around the handle too, just above hers, and he pulled mightily, the tendons of his neck visible even under his fur. "It's your mind!" he said, "Imagine the door opening and—"

"No, no, it's not!" Judy cried, "It's hers! This is all hers!"

A terrible and yet somehow familiar laugh filled the room and then the lights instantly went out. Judy spun around, trembling as she peered into the darkness. In the blink of an eye, all of the ovens flared to life at once, and in their dim red glow Judy could see a figure standing at the center of the room. A rabbit in the uniform of a commandant stood before her, easily taller than Nick and broader by far across the shoulders. Her armor gleamed dully in the light, the fine engravings seeming to shift and twist. The figure rested one paw on a massive sword sheathed at her waist, but it was the face that was by far the most frightening. The eyes staring down at Judy were cold and remorseless, the mouth set in a contemptuous line.

"Found you," the rabbit said.