A door slammed.
Liza's eyes flew open. Above her, the acromantula had gone still for the briefest of moments, head turned toward the sound. Her body acted before her mind. Seizing the moment of distraction, she crawled out from beneath its legs and stumbled to her feet. Time seemed to freeze as her eyes darted left, then right. To one side was the smaller back door and the stage where she had fallen through the trapdoor. To the other were the double doors, where a young girl with copper-colored hair and a red dress was pressed against them-but Liza's path there was blocked by the huge, hulking spider.
Liza's heart hammered in her ears. She made a snap decision and ran toward the double doors, her boots slamming against the ground. As she was just about to pass the spider, it spun around-Bloody hell, it's fast-and lunged for her. A scream broke loose from her as she felt its pincers catch on her leg. The girl spun around as Liza stumbled free and sprinted toward her at full speed, shouting, "Open the door!"
The girl's eyes grew wide, and she flattened herself against the door. "N-no way!"
"Don't be an idiot!" Liza snapped. She slammed into the door, pushing the girl out of the way and fumbling with the lock. Liza yanked the door wide open-and was faced with the slavering jaws of a huge fanged monster. She screamed and slammed the door shut.
Liza spun around to see the girl head-on with the acromantula. She raised what looked like an enormous golden clock hand and slashed at the spider's face, stumbling a little from its momentum. The spider reared back, wounded, before the girl swung at it again. This time she slashed through four of its eight eyes.
The acromantula hissed, its two front legs pawing at its face. But the girl just stood there, her back to Liza, shoulders rising and falling as she caught her breath. Liza saw the weariness in her movements and rushed in to help. She raised her camera over her head and brought it down on the spider's face, bludgeoning its fleshy head.
Liquid oozed from the indent she had made, but the spider didn't seem to get weaker. Instead it reared above them, pincers clicking angrily, blood dripping from its ruined eyes. From behind her, she heard the girl exclaim, just before a hairy black leg came crashing into Liza and knocked her to the ground.
There was a flash and the sound of the camera shutter as Liza's finger accidentally hit a button. Liza scrambled to her feet, ready for the next attack, but the ballroom was unexpectedly still. The girl stood gripping her sword with both hands at her side, staring at the monster, which had stopped moving. At first Liza thought it had just paused momentarily, but as the seconds ticked by and the spider remained frozen, it became clear that it could no longer move… In fact, the more Liza looked at it, the more she realized that it wasn't the same as before. Its skin, hair, and eyes were all slate-gray and far too solid; it looked as if it had been…turned to stone?
Liza looked to the spider. She looked to the girl. Their eyes met, and she pointed to the back door. "Let's get out of here."
They ran.
When the door slammed shut behind them, they were in a long hallway. Their footsteps slowed until they came to a stop. Liza leaned against a wall to catch her breath, and the girl sat down on the floor, head bent over her knees.
"Sorry for calling you an idiot," Liza said, when she had caught her breath.
"Hm?" The girl looked up, tilting her head to one side, still breathing heavily.
"When the spider was chasing me and you wouldn't open the door. Sorry about that. Because-because there were all those monsters there, and...you were actually right, so…" She trailed off, realizing she was rambling.
"Um...it's okay…" The girl looked down again, fingering her sword. She coughed twice.
Liza followed her gaze. "Oh, yeah. Where did you get that sword?"
"I made it," she breathed out.
"Really?" Liza stared at it. It was huge, at least three feet long, and ornately made out of some type of metal. "Are you serious?"
The girl kept her head down, turning the sword beneath her fingers. "Well, it wasn't like this before…" She put the backside of her hand on her forehead, like she was taking her own temperature. After a moment, she sighed and let the hand fall to her side again.
"Before…" Liza glanced down at her camera and its strange black spikes. "Did you...wake up in here too?" Before the girl could answer, she leaned forward and asked with a certain intensity in her voice, "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
Without looking up, the girl just shook her head clumsily.
Liza slumped back against the wall, a sigh escaping her. They sat there for a moment, in silence, before Liza realized, "Wait. I don't think I know your name."
The girl murmured something very quietly. Liza leaned forward. "Sorry, didn't catch that?"
"Nina."
"Nina, okay." She smiled.
"Yeah..." Sitting on the floor, Nina gave a bob of her head, still not meeting her eyes.
"I'm Liza. Nice to meet you." To this the girl was unresponsive.
Not very talkative, is she? Liza slid to the floor and crossed her legs, placing her wig and camera to one side. "Have you met anyone else here?" she asked after a moment.
"N-no..."
"So how long have you been here? Do you know anything about our, er, situation? You know, the monsters and stuff?" Liza pressed.
"I-I don't know..." Nina seemed desperate to end the conversation. Her breaths had not stabilized since they'd left the ballroom, and she barely seemed to follow what Liza was saying. She started to cough violently. When she stopped, she pressed one hand to her forehead, the other to her chest, panting.
"H-hey, are you okay?"
Nina's eyes were barely opened and her head bobbed to the side as if she was nodding off. After a few more raspy breaths, Nina closed her eyes, slid down the wall and laid her head on the carpeted floor. Her body relaxed and her breathing returned to normal.
"Nina?"
No answer.
For a moment Liza sat frozen in panic, her eyes fixed on the girl's limp body. Then, realizing Nina looked better than before, she sat back with a sigh and leaned her head against the wall. She's probably just really tired. Her cosplay was ripped just above the knee, and blood soaked through the dark green fabric where the spider had bitten her. Her hands were covered in small cuts and scratches, too, probably from the flying glass from the falling chandelier.
Liza took advantage of the moment of peace in order to assess the situation. In the past few hours, she had woken up dizzy and disoriented in an empty ballroom, gotten gooped on by an exploding green rubbery creature hanging from the chandelier, tumbled through a trapdoor, bludgeoned a six-foot-long slimy worm thing to death with her mutated spiky camera club, climbed back through the trapdoor only to be assaulted by an enormous hairy spider straight out of Harry Potter, somehow turned said spider to stone alongside a tiny girl dressed like Little Red Riding Hood, and escaped through a back door only to watch this girl faint in the middle of the hallway. She dropped her head into her hands with a weak laugh bordering on hysterical. No wonder I feel like crap! When did the world stop making sense?
She wondered how long she'd been gone and whether her friends were worried about her. Karen was probably freaking out; she was such a worrywart. Liza hoped Janetta hadn't gotten lost looking for her like she had during the eighth grade field trip to the museum. And Hollie was going to be grumpy later on if Liza ended up ruining their first anime convention ever by disappearing…
Glancing around, she wondered for the first time whether she wasn't still in the convention building after all. The ballroom had been so bizarrely different that she'd instantly assumed she was somewhere entirely different, but now that she had left it, she noticed that the hallway did resemble the other ones she'd seen at the con. The building was pretty fancy, not to mention huge, so maybe a ballroom wouldn't be too out of place…
Liza was surprised and a little peeved that she hadn't considered that possibility until now. She'd always thought she would be better at thinking on her feet in a crisis, but when the monsters faced her, her mind had gone completely blank and her body had acted for her. Shuddering a little at the idea, she closed her eyes and tried to think through a plan.
If she was still in the convention building, then there might be a way to get back to her friends and away from this crazy new reality. It was a big building, so it might take a while, but she thought she could do it eventually. After all, there were thousands of cosplayers walking around somewhere, right? They couldn't be too far away. Liza opened her eyes and regarded Nina, passed out on the floor in front of her. She'd have to wake her up and question her closely about what had happened before she ran into Liza, especially about how she had left the convention. Also-Liza perked up a little thinking about it-maybe she could use Nina's cell phone to call her friends. That could solve all their problems right there.
Liza reached over and, hesitating, touched Nina's shoulder gently to wake her up. "Nina?" There was no response. "Nina!" she said more loudly this time, shaking her shoulder a little.
She was met by a begrudging "Unnnnnng…" as Nina's eyes fluttered open and closed. The girl turned slowly over onto her side and tucked her hands beneath her head, grumbling, "Just 4.725 more minutes, Jay…"
What? Liza shook her head at the strange girl and scooped up her wig and camera. "Come on. Time to get up."
Her eyes flickered open, peering up into Liza's face. "Eh?" She blinked a few times. "...You're not my brother."
"I should hope not." Liza stood up, dusting off her knees. She winced as her fingers brushed over the spider bite.
The girl giggled, placing a hand on the carpeted floor to push herself into a sitting position. Her hair was disheveled and freely flowed across her shoulder. She sighed. "Sorry, I just needed a little rest." Noticing Liza's flinch, she asked, "Is something wrong?" She stared up at Liza quizzically.
"What?" Liza glanced down at her leg. "Oh, no. It's nothing." She flashed a smile at the girl, who she had started to like. "Come on. Let's get going before another giant spider from hell comes or something."