{A gathering of hatchlings in a nesting colony, tended to by different adult birds.}
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Outside was a hallway with a single lightbulb flicking on my right, far into the distance. A cool breeze brushed against my face as well. The floor was bare, stained concrete, black and rusty red, and had an oily sheen. Mercifully, we left behind the needles and glass in the padded room, where they glinted in the corners.
After stepping out of the rusted hole, I stopped and took a proper grip on Labyrinth's wrist. I had a firm respect for what her power did now, and I didn't want either of us to get lost.
Despite my conviction and resolve, the gloom made me pause, one hand trailing over the wall, Labyrinth still holding my other sleeve. A trickle of moisture ran down the middle of the hallway, splashing sullenly as I took a hesitant step towards the light. A chain brushed my head and I jumped. Looking up didn't help the ceiling overhead was indistinct shadow, filled with rattling pipes and chains gently swaying in the breeze; the breeze that still brushed my face, still carried that distant smell of smoke.
Occasionally there were gaps, dark wire-toothed openings in the concrete framed with rusted metal and sharp mesh with holes pushed through them, or metal grills covering openings. Windows or doorways, or sometimes places concrete had crumbled away, and under it was rusted wire, which was twisted into jagged ends that hooked and cut open the palm of my hand.
"Ah."
That hurt.
Labyrinth didn't seem aware I'd been hurt, at first. Hell, I could barely see my hand in that light. Then I felt a pulse of her power, washing over the walls. I stopped and waited for it to subside before tentatively probing with my hand, I found the wall smooth where it had been sharp.
So, she was in there somewhere. It was easy to forget, "Huh, thanks."
I wondered if that took effort. How much control did she actually have? She was smoothing back the barbs here, but, I didn't think she had consciously put them there to begin with. I had to wonder if making it less dangerous here meant that her power would make it more dangerous elsewhere.
We reached the flickering light to find it was a four-way intersection in the hall, with crumbled concrete on the flickering light. There were no other lights to be seen. I turned in a circle but each direction was the same and I was lost, I was lost in this place and it was pathless, aimless, and murky.
Deep breath, take stock. I still had the breeze on my face. I could navigate with that and tell where I was in relation to the padded room. I thought some more, and touched on that sense of elsewhere.
Basilisk- I spoken to her, touched her, but Labyrinth's power had reset my perceptions. To my surprise, I could still sense her, vaguely. I looked for more- senses of direction and familiarity. I'd talked to Heather, walked around with her, had a group meeting with her- and a vague sense of direction lingered. No exactly a sense of her, or Nick. They were… more like… a 'that way' with a wave of a hand. That's what it felt like.
Doctor Yamada, Doctor Selmy, I was more familiar with them but they might have been further away… it was hard to tell? Mimi I could sense a little, and I'd only talked to her once and never actually touched her, so that was a little strange.
Maybe it was because I was touching Labyrinth? Could that impact my ability to sense through her interference? Sense people caught inside her range? I glanced at Labyrinth, standing mutely by my side, hand still fisted in my sleeve and my own hand a firm grip on her wrist as well.
-Fear, despair, resentment, sentiment. Conceptual shaping. Nature of creation formed by underlying ideas and emotions. Determines form, function. Created dimensional impression altered by mental state-
"Okay." I breathed, "Okay, just need to find a way out of here… we got this." I gave her a smile, and I could feel how it helped a bit.
I decided to head straight. Keep the wind at my face, use that as a reference. I started moving, tugging Labyrinth along behind me, and after a few false, stumbling steps, she followed.
"So… Uh, I never really got to be a hero or make a costume or anything. Getting powers was kind of messy for me."
Labyrinth didn't say anything.
"… What was it like for you? I mean… I've been talking through it, and I think parahumans getting powers isn't fun in general? I've never been clear on that, it varies. I know it wasn't fun for me." We came to another intersection, I turned right, following the wind. I glanced at Labyrinth. She was still completely silent, but she was looking at me and blinked back slowly. I took it as a good sign.
I kept talking, filling up the silence. "I read a lot, because I don't sleep anymore. A lot about powers and stuff online. It's called a trigger event, when we get our powers. There's all kinds of theories about how it works. Some of them are really crazy."
"You know, there's a theory that parahumans with worse trigger events are stronger?" I glanced up at the barbed wire and chains, "Because I'm wondering what yours was."
Was this how she saw Alchemilla? Her power... What I read off- it shaped her worlds; she imagined them, and it based them around her emotions, it filled in the blanks. She hated it here, so it made her world an ugly, hateful place, which made her hate it more, which made it uglier. And so on.
I wondered how she made her beautiful ruin, what it meant to her. What it signified.
We passed another room, brightly lit and padded, with brown stains on the walls... Another, a shower room with all the fixtures torn out, grimy mirrored windows lined a level above the showers, looking down on the stalls.
"Is it like this, for real?" I asked. I glanced at Labyrinth, her head was bowed, shoulders pulled in. "I guess it doesn't matter. It is for you, isn't it?"
It was, wasn't it?
My train of thought trailed off, the hall opened up into a room. Collapsed shelves covered with dust and loose papers, cabinets with almost all their doors missing. The few that remained hung open from a single hinge. There were lights but they were dim, sickly discolored florescent tubes that cast everything in shadows, and another doorway leading into another room loomed on the far side of the room, dark and ominous and empty. It was a dark room. A deep-seated hind brain instinct held that dark rooms held bad things.
I took an experimental step into the mess, poking at the papers. There were folders mixed in with it all. File folders. Loose pages and graphs and diagrams and tables with a lot of jargon I could not make heads or tails of. What a mess.
I maneuvered Labyrinth to a collapsed shelf and sat her down before turning my attention to the contents of the shelf all around us. I squatted down and gingerly tugged a folder out. Case Number, it read. I opened it and skimmed the first page…
Vironic? I picked up another. Hearthstone. Another, Storm Eagle. They were patient records. This was an archive. I sat, cross-legged, and started picking through them.
Were these real, or where they reproductions based on Labyrinth's shaped world? Or maybe there was bleed-through? Were these actual patient records, or some kind of fantastical embellishment from watching too many horror movies? Both? Neither? Would her power fill in with something real if she hadn't thought of it, leave it in as long as it still filled the general theme? Did it matter?
I sighed.
Labyrinth sat on the cabinet, kicking her feet a little in the dust, arms crossed over her stomach.
"Is... Is this your power too?" I asked, "All... this?"
Labyrinth stopped scuffing her feet in the papers, but said nothing, just looked at me. I sighed.
"I always imagined getting powers to be this big moment. When I stopped being boring me, and became something more interesting." I said, a little sullen, "Not being stuck here...I wanted to be a hero. Emma and I, we used to pretend we were heroes, had powers. That we could fly. Mom and... and Dad, took me out to the big Protectorate events, and I got to meets Wards."
"I really wish I could fly..." I sat, silent for a while.
"Last time I saw Emma and Mom was right after the hospital. They were seeing me off because I killed someone, by accident. That's why I'm here."
"But I'm wondering if I had it good. In a way." I glanced at Labyrinth, she was still looking at me, "I guess whatever gave you your powers, that never really ended. Something terrible happened, and it didn't really end, it just... it changed shape. So you're like this, and every day is a reminder of it." I thought about Sveta.
"I actually heard about you from another patient, Mimi. Burnscar?" I said, and smiled, "You're friends, right?"
There was a shiver in her power, and a complicated impression of emotions. I tried to decipher that for a moment, "I've been trying to make friends here, at Alchemilla. There's Heather and Nick, in my wing. I guess Charnel sort of counts too? I had another friend too, but... one of the other patients killed him. I know I'd give a lot to have Emma here, to be able to talk to her. She's my best friend."
Labyrinth stared down at her feet. I could feel a vague knot of resentment, frustration, and sadness all kind of confused together. It was interesting, to try and sense using only my power. My eyes wandered to the walls, where fabric was gradually emerging over the concrete, over the ceiling, over the pipes. The padded room again. The barbed wire and chains were back, snaking through the seams.
"...Your power is a lot like Mimi's. You both have these... spirals. Spirals of negativity. Your emotions feed it, and it just gets worse. And it comes out here, and it becomes ugliness... that's so sad..."
"But... Your other world..." I brightened, "Your other world, with the castle, that was beautiful! It felt wonderful to see the sun again, to be outside!"
I turned towards her and settled my legs facing her, elbows on my knees, "Did Mimi like to see your other world?" I asked.
That was the wrong thing to say, and Labyrinth hunched in, eyes going to the ground, her feet drew in, her knees went to her chest, and her eyes squeezed shut.
"Are- are you okay?"
Labyrinth rocked a little, and I stood, stepping over to her. I could sense...
-anger, frustration, sorrowsaddnesshollow-
-I had no idea what to do about any of it. But I knew someone who would have, so I did what Mom would have done, hugged her.
"It's okay, shh... It's okay..."
Labyrinth tensed, then leaned into it. I...well, I didn't really know what to do next. I ran a hand in circles on her back, let her stay there. Her shoulders hitched. She was crying? I let her stay like that, until she stopped shuddering, and pulled back. Was it my imagination, or did she look a little more... There? With it? Aware?
"You okay?"
Labyrinth didn't say anything, but that was okay. I let her breathe a bit. Maybe she just needed more contact with people? How many visitors did she get in Special Containment? Speaking of breathing... I coughed. The smell of smoke was almost overpowering. In the terrible lighting, everything looked ashy and grey. The air was growing hazy with smoke. Was it just me, or was it getting worse?
A little flame appeared on the ruin of a desk, appeared and snuffed out. A few papers crumpled and shrivled brown.
I grabbed Labyrinth and pulled her away, up to the wall, ready to run.
There was a sense of other-place. This wasn't Labyrinth's world at work, the real asylum was on fire? Or, trying to be... If the real asylum was on fire, but Labyrinth's world was not, would it burn? Would we even see it before it was too late? My mind raced, possibilities and unknowns. What about the air? Big fires sucked all the oxygen out of the air!
The fires were not spreading, simply appearing in little flares all across the room before they died out, embers drifting in the air. It was mesmerizing, and after I got over the initial shock, beautiful in a way.
"Is this your power too?" I breathed.
"She... See." Labyrinth whispered. It was halting and unsure, and a little rough, rusty like she wasn't used to talking, like her mouth and tongue were treacherous.
I slowly turned my head to her, and stared, "You can talk?" I asked.
Labyrinth opened her mouth and for a moment I thought she'd say something, her throat worked, but she closed her mouth again without speaking.
"You... You don't talk? Can't talk?"
Labyrinth looked at me, "Talk." She said.
I felt a distant sense of-
-hurt, frustrated, sadness, despair-
"Sorry, sorry." I breathed, "Come on. I didn't mean it like that." Looking at Labyrinth, I thought... Maybe she was emerging from the fugue, a little. She seemed a bit more aware now- holding my gaze steadily, her hands moving to fist in front of her chest.
"Hey." I whispered, "You okay?"
"M-Mimi's angry." Labyrinth said, with effort, face red. Huddled into herself, her feet together at the toes so her legs bowed. She was quivering head to foot, and her gaze was on the ground. "...threw her o-out. N-now...'s sad."
She... Mimi? "You threw her out?"
"Out." Labyrinth nodded slightly, mouth twitching, until she reached some threshold and managed to speak again, "Yelled...me. She c-couldn't see." She struggled around the words thickly for while, before blurting out, "Sky."
She...oh, okay. I blinked and leaned back, opening up my power and letting the influx take me for a moment, my inner voice talking, filling in the gaps.
Labyrinth made worlds, could eject people from her worlds. Mimi mentioned visiting her, back in the cafeteria... he power drove her to emotional highs and lows...
Mimi had been in Alchemilla for four years. Labyrinth's power allowed the illusion of being out, of being free. What would that have been like for Mimi? She would have been ecstatic, but that would have it's own dangers. The excitement, with a power like Mimi's... Mimi could have flared up, shouted, had an emotional swing.
And Labyrinth cut her off, threw her back into the asylum. Burnscar could see the outside, the sky, and Labyrinth took that from her. "Sky."
Maybe she was frightened, maybe Mimi... Maybe she had gotten violent... But I remembered how the sky had looked, overhead, after the cave opened up; and I remembered Mimi had been in Alchemilla for four years, four long years.
"That's cruel." I said. I didn't think I'd said it with much heat until I looked at Labyrinth, and she shrank back.
"N- n- n-." she stuttered until she stalled out and fell silent. She was afraid.
"It's... It's okay, I'm not angry," I said, "But, aren't you her friend?"
Labyrinth looked away.
I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose, then pulled Labyrinth into a one-armed hug where we sat against the wall. She stiffened, and gave a little gasp, but didn't pull away and I could feel the grateful swell of emotion that followed.
"This place makes me tired." I said, breathing and meaning every word.
The fires continued to flicker on the edges and fringes. Was that Mimi's handiwork? I wasn't sure how her power interacted with Labyrinth's, how damaging one world would effect the other, or how fire spread across from one world to another or... I was struck with a strange dissonance, an echo of one place in another. My power hinted at energy cascading in, erupting from a bottomless source...
"So, Mimi, Burnscar, she is doing this?" I managed after a beat, pointing to the lights, the flames, "Wait, she's here? Now?"
"Burn." Labyrinth said. Right.
"Okay."
I only met her once, and I didn't know her very well. But, I leaned back, resting the back of my head against the wall and closing my eyes, I could sense her, she was nearby. ...Probably.
"She said you were her only friend." I said, "But... You don't like her?" I opened my eyes.
Labyrinth's eyes didn't rise from a fixed spot on the floor, the set of her shoulders and her lowered gaze, drawn back and in. "She... Yells." She said it slowly, carefully, like each word took some effort, but it was perfectly clear this time, no stuttering or dropping words.
I frowned, an idea was forming. "Can you sense things in your world, where she is? Wait, no, you said you threw her out..." Labyrinth didn't say anything, and I could feel her frustration. "I want to try and find her, I want to talk to her," I said, "I'm going to talk to her." I said it before I'd decided, but in saying it my resolve stiffened.
Labyrinth looked up and stared. Then, she reached up and tapped my chin with her finger. I felt it coming, a shifting in her power, and jerked back, startled. Even so, the world settled in a way I couldn't define, details falling into place, skewed, except this was how they really were.
The light had changed, the walls were not concrete, instead they were covered with scorched wood paneling, the floor was covered in soaked carpet. The smoke thickened and blacked, and became acrid; the storm of burning papers was gone. There were no chains or barbed wire overhead, it was raining down water, dispensed by a network of sprinklers instead. The room was seared and blacked. The lights left in its wake flickered fitfully, weakly, but the light cast through the doorway was brighter, and flickered orange.
I could hear the distant wail of a fire alarm, and the crackle of the fire. I took it all in with darting eyes and turned back to Labyrinth, bewildered with water running down my face. But she just let go of my chin and leaned back, staring mutely back at me.
How did it work? Was she some kind of constant, present in both worlds, and able to move through one or the other at will? Tune a world in or out? "Uh. Thanks?"
Labyrinth stared at me, unblinking as the sprinklers rained down on her.
"Um. Okay. Stay here, I'll go looking for her. I'll be back." I gave her my best reassuring smile, but Labyrinth did not smile back.
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The records room was a burnt out husk, everything was reduced to cinders that left black soot behind at a touch, the skeletons of metal filing cabinets, a fine coating of ash, and it was all still warm. Despite the water pouring down, it was still warm. I followed the line of an aisle between cabinets through a frame with hinges but no door any more. Outside was a hallway, but not concrete, and no dark holes covered with sharp mesh- there was fire-frosted glass and charred wood. It looked like it had been windows looking in on a cubicle farm.
By now I had no idea what route had brought us from the cell to the records room, it was all twisted up in the riddle of Labyrinth's world, and I wasn't even close to deciphering that.
The fire was still smoldering here, and I walked down the hall wondering if I'd stop and look at another pile of charred wood and wire and realize it had been a person. But even as I wondered that, I realized the char was giving way to unburnt wood again. The sprinklers were still running, but I reached out and touched the paneled wood, leaving a sooty handprint behind to be washed away in the spray.
I turned a corner and another line of windows, and neat rows of offices behind them; There was a fire still burning here, behind the glass, the leaping flames drew my eyes immediately; because of this, I was paying attention when the wall exploded. A burst of steam and smoke and fire- I was knocked over on my back and lay stunned until I realized my sleeve was on fire, my hair too, and I rolled frantically away from the conflagration, stifling the flame. Suddenly, everywhere the wood was blackening and smoking.
I didn't really feel any pain, but maybe that was the adrenaline, and I panted as my heart thundered in my ears. The temperature was blistering, a draft of heat and force hitting my face, like shoving my face in an oven, my hair slicked to my forehead with sweat. I could feel my sweat drying and my skin tightening as I fought for space with the unforgiving heat. "Okay. Okayokayokay." I whispered, "We're okay, don't worry. We are. Fine."
A twinge, from my arm, where I'd caught fire. Ah, there it was, the pain. I gasped, huddling around my arm, tears pricking in the corners of my eyes. I sobbed. My arm was a mess; the skin was broken, the sleeve was mostly gone and left the skin angry red and bloody or blistering from my wrist past my elbow, the fabric had actually melted to my skin all across my shoulder. My ribs were burnt too, a little. I'd scar.
The smoke was getting thicker, I coughed and the act of coughing sent pain across my ribs and up my arm.
I was so not okay. So not okay.
I scooted back, away from the flames, crawling one painful foot at a time.
And in the middle of it suddenly there was a girl. She appeared in a flash of fire, and started throwing fireballs at the shelves, shrouded in flames and steam. I didn't recognize her at first, blinking slowly as I caught up to the dark hair and face and scars, and that nagging prompt of familiarity from my power. And then I did and the sight was worse for it. She was Mimi.
She was on fire. Wreathed in fire. And all around her the office was on fire. The carpet smoked and steamed, and where she stepped it burned and grew in spite of the water, and grew and spread. And when a sodden scrap of paper, caught in the energy of her inferno, slapped across her face and stuck, it instantly flared, crumpled into ash, and blew away.
She threw a fireball, and it crashed into a cabinet, another into a desk, sending tumbling. Papers thrown into the air flared into fire all around her.
Mimi stopped, staring at it, her eyes were glowing now, shining like headlights on a car, expression flat. She lowered her hands, and her eyes flared brighter and brighter still, the futile efforts of the sprinkler system made no headway against her flames- she was bolstering them, fanning them with her power. Where the flame might have guttered on the wet wood, under the pouring water, it flared brighter to match her eyes. Brighter. Hotter. I watched, silent and speechless as she walked through the ruined cabinets, the fire building and growing in her wake unnaturally where she sowed it.
My power's voice cataloged it, told me. As long as she was bolstering her flames, they wouldn't go out. They would burn and burn without fuel until she let them subside.
... She hadn't seen me. I... Didn't want to go out there. I swallowed.
There was something... primal about it, inexorable. A wildfire incarnate. The efforts of the sprinkler system were utterly inadequate, compared to Mimi's power, I wasn't even sure it was meaningfully slowing her flames.
Through the pain, I felt curiously calm. It was strange, because I'd been so nervous, trying to talk to Basilisk. Now, lying here, I was already past that, and it left me serene. Mimi had already hurt me, I accepted it. A dim awareness was taking hold over my pain-numbed mind, I understood now, why Wayland Lars had been so frightened, why the other doctors didn't really talk about her. But in thinking that, the spell was broken and I took a shaking breath, shivering and hitching with the effort.
The fire was still expanding. I needed to move. I could feel the heat through my socks...
I toyed with the idea of standing up before I made the attempt.
It hurt.
It hurt more than I thought it would, more than I imagined anything could hurt, I shrieked when I let go of the wall and took my first limping step, the effort left me gasping with my good hand on my knee, my burned arm hanging limp by my side. The smoke made my eyes water even more. I tried to take a step, and had to catch the wall to keep from toppling. Black was swimming, narrowing my vision every time I breathed in or moved my arm.
"Taylor?"
I looked up. Mimi was standing a few feet away, still standing in the fire, her hair whipping around her face. Other than that, she was pristine, no indication that she was even in the same room as that inferno. Her eyes were still glowing, like two orange coals, but now they were wide with surprise. My curious serenity remained, and I attempted to smile through the pain.
"Hey Mimi." I said.
She gave a little gasp, I was surprised I could hear it.
"Oh... Oh my... My g- Taylor!"
With a gesture, the fire between us parted. A sweeping motion with both hands and it simply went out, leaving charred black, but no flame. Mimi stepped to me, reaching out and hesitating. Maybe worried she'd hurt me more.
Or expecting me to draw back, fear her.
Well, I was afraid, but being afraid seemed pretty pointless now, I thought, and held out my good hand. This proved to be a bad idea, as my hand had been rested on the wall, holding me up. I kind of fell against the wall, which pulled a short scream out of me; Mimi immeadiatly leapt into action. She ducked under my good arm and half carried, half dragged me back the way I'd come.
By now I felt like I was half floating, and the dark was filling th corners of my vision, pressing in cnstantly, eating the world up. I realized I was barely awake and fading fast.
"Tay- oh Taylor, I'm... I'm so-"
"Mimi," I grit through my teeth, "You didn't mean it. It's okay."
I was surprised how much I meant it too... Things were a lot simpler when you were barely awake.
Breathing was difficult, both because of the pain in my ribs and arm, and because of the smoke. I was coughing constantly now. But Mimi didn't seem to have a problem with it as she half carried me, my feet dragging now. Mimi fretted and mumbled the whole way. I didn't bother counting doorways, or any other means of tracking where I was, and I think I passed out for some of it because suddenly I was in a room filled with washing machines and Mimi was fumbling with a first aid kit.
I lifted my head, groaning with the effort, and startling Mimi so she dropped the kit. She fiddled with the contents while I looked around.
("Oh no, it's not sterile now! Is there... is there any more-")
It looked like a laundromat, several rows of washing machines and a wall of enourmous industrial size tumble dryers. Cheap linolium tiles and concrete walls. A couple of laundry carts full of sheets. Shelves full of plain brown boxes and detergents in the back, and a mop sink. I'd been laid on a countertop, one hastily cleared by Mimi, if the clutter of boxed soapflakes and linens littering the floor was any clue. My arm and side were packed with towels soaked with cold water.
But, what was most interesting to me was Labyrinth, seated on a chair staring at me, kicking her feet slowly back and forth and blinking.
"Hi." I said, tiredly.
"Hi." Labyrinth parroted back.
"Oh!" Mimi returned, arms full of bandages and tubes of creams, "T-Taylor! I found, Elle, and, um..."
"Where is this?" I asked.
"Its, it's specialized containment's laundry room, I think." Mimi said, "Is it just your arm and feet? Are you burned anywhere else?"
I hadn't realized my feet where burnt, "My ribs."
Mimi glanced at my shoulder, over my arm, "Um, I'm going to need to cut your shirt off, okay?" She held up a pair of really meaty scissors.
"I-" I raised my head and was immediately reminded why I didn't have the strength to run away or fight her off, "Go ahead." I sighed.
Mimi started by pulling me up into a sitting position, then sitting behind me on the counter and propping me up when I almost fell, before running the scissors up my back to my collar. That hurt. The towels had been laid mostly on unbroken skin, but some of the blisters had popped and the damp skin unerneith stuck to the fabric. After she opened my shirt, she trimmed any loose scraps of fabric still attached to the sleeve. I thought the shoulder would stymie her, but she only paused to tug, gently and delicately, at the edges before abandoning it.
"I don't know how to pull out fabric melted to skin yet," She mumbled, "Sorry." I was very grateful she didn't try.
Next I lay back down, on my good side, and put on a pair of gloves from the first aid kit. She started dabbing my arm with cream from a tube from the kit, cleaning it.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry." She whispered as I bit my tongue to keep from screaming.
Her fumbling aside, her actions were practiced, rote. She understood what she was doing, even if she hadn't done it often. "I've had some classes..." she mumbled, when I asked. I imagined with powers like hers she must have a lot of experience treating burns. She bandaged the broken skin, wrapped it loosely; then smeared cream on my whole arm, on my ribs. My power informed me of infection fighting qualities, of pain soothing compounds.
She rubbed down some red marks on my feet that were probably first degree burns but paled in comparison to the ones on my arm, and a couple spots on my back that were probably from landing on live cinders, I hardly even felt that part. After she finished my feet, she pulled a fresh shirt from on of the drying machines for me to slip on over what remained, and a pair of hall slippers.
"Sorry," Mimi mumbled.
"It's all right." I said, sitting up. It... was a bit easier, Mimi was actually pretty good. Or maybe I'd just been in that much pain. I took a deep breath, and it put tears in the corners of my eyes, I coughed, "Thanks for getting me out of there."
"Mmm." She fidgeted, "That's all I can do. You need a real Doctor."
I glanced at Labyrinth, who was still sitting on the chair, still stareing at me, "All right. Labyrinth, do you know how to turn off your power?"
Labyrinth didn't say anything, just sat and stared back. I tried reading off her, but the result was... cloudy. I didn't think she could, exactly. Not all at once.
"Her name's Elle..." Mimi muttered, and fidgited when I looked at her, "She, um, doesn't really like Labyrinth either."
"Oh." I glanced at Elle, there was a faint sensation of gratitude, familiarity, kinship. Elle blinked back at Mimi, then turned to me, fisting her hands in her pant legs. Still that complicated tumble of emotions. I gave her a reassureing smile, "Hello Elle."
I looked at Mimi, remembering my origional mission, "Everyone else is still in her world, right?"
Mimi looked lost, "Everyone else?"
"She's effecting, well, probably all of Alchemilla right now." I said, "I was getting out of group therepy when everything started transforming."
Mimi's eye widened, "Um, yes. Uh. When she has really bad days sometimes the Doctors would give her something to make her slep, that made it shut off."
"Well." I glanced at Elle, "I guess we both need doctors then."
I groaned, then gingerly levered myself onto my feet. Mimi fluttered anxiously. "Let's go find some Doctors." I said, then coughed, "Give me a hand? I can walk... Just, not very fast."
