"I haven't seen her in eight days and we're roommates so I'm just really worried… you creepy weirdo?"

Zachary stared at Alyssa Hayashi with a blank expression on his face. "Saitou isn't here, is that really necessary?" He asked, taking a drink of his green tea.

Hayashi looked around the cafeteria, clasping her hands behind her back nervously. "I… guess not?" She said noncommittally, uncertain of herself without the self-appointed Obelisk alpha bitch to give her opinions to her. She jerkily pulled out a chair across from Zachary and sat down, looking everywhere but at him. "I heard that you were one of the last people to see her. In the woods?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Where did you hear that exactly?"

"Um…" she apparently decided to fix her gaze on a spot directly above his left shoulder to avoid looking like a strung out junkie. He appreciated that; she was making him anxious. "I talked to Logan? He wanted to know if I'd seen her since last weekend and I hadn't. She didn't even pack I guess?"

The two of them had never had an actual conversation that wasn't punctuated by Saitou's demands that everyone around her be miserable, including her most loyal follower Hayashi, so Zachary never realized before now how often she raised her voice at the end of sentences like she was asking a question. How was he going to know if she actually expected an answer from him? And rhetorical questions were already difficult enough to distinguish without this added confusion. It made him want to leave. Deciding there was nothing holding him there, he picked up his mug and started to stand.

"You're leaving?"

That was exactly the problem: was she asking or verbal acknowledging a fact? This was too much to deal with. "I'm leaving," he settled on, hoping just repeating her in the affirmative was enough to not look like an idiot.

Fortunately, she was too timid without Saitou around to stop him, so he was able to exit the cafeteria and return to his dorm room without being accosted by any more people with annoying verbal quirks. Sadly, his luck didn't extend to people without annoying verbal quirks because almost as soon as he was comfortably seated in his desk, green tea next to his Attack Names homework assignment (he only had time to glance at the first name: Dark Guardian's attack was seriously called 'Axe Slash Bash?' No way.) a knock came from the door. He opened it to reveal Logan standing in the hallway.

"What do you want?" Zachary asked, tempted to slam the door in his face after how frustrating he had been the day before.

"I need you to show me where the basement is."

"And why would I do that?"

Logan inhaled deeply and met his eyes. "I wanted to ask Kylie but I wasn't allowed in the girl's dorm. So I'm asking you to please show me where it is."

"And I'm asking you why."

"The mannequin is in the basement here isn't it? I want to see it myself."

The temptation to slam the door closed became the action of doing it, but Logan's foot stopped it from shutting all the way. Zachary rolled his eyes and yanked it open to give Logan an angry look. "I told you to drop it. I've seen it; it's just a dumb mannequin — without ghost powers despite whatever Kylie and Suzuki may say," he added defensively, not appreciating being repeatedly accused of creating some kind of spirit/doll hybrid.

Logan looked at him like he was an idiot. "I don't think you gave it… ghost… powers — or anything — but aren't you curious why someone would take it out of storage and go through the trouble of setting it up in the woods just to scare us?"

"Scare you," Zachary mocked, remembering the hilariously terrified expression in the Ra's eyes when it showed up.

"We're getting off topic," Logan crossed his arms. "Can you please take me to the basement? I simply want to look at it, if it's still there. I'll leave this whole matter alone if you do this one thing for me."

Zachary glared at him a moment, torn between trying to get back to his annoying and most likely useless homework (professional duelists so rarely even called out attack names anyway unless they were the more showboat types; usually they kept things more to the point) and making an effort at getting along with Logan again. He'd never admit it, but he enjoyed their rare quiet moment outside the Slifer dorms the week before, it was peaceful and such a nice change of pace from constantly being at each other's throats. Okay, so Zachary was typically the one lunging at Logan, to continue the metaphor, but it wasn't like the Ra was blameless in their bloody, jugular-ripping spats. And now the metaphor has gone too far.

"Fine," Zachary sighed after what felt like far too long to be staring blankly at his on and off again friend. Was all that thinking in real time, he wondered to himself, and then immediately wondered what that even meant. He stepped into the hallway and shut his door behind him, taking a long and questioning look at Logan. Why was he still bothering with all of this anyway? Can't he just accept that the three of them — he still blatantly refused to count Evan Suzuki among their ranks — were the bottom of the heap at Duel Academy? They were the ones that watched everyone else go on to do something with their lives, the leftmost side of the Success Bell Curve, if you will.

Logan gave him a small nod and fell into step slightly behind Zachary. With little conversation outside of Logan asking about the weather and Zachary snappily responding that the only weather phenomenon he cared about was hurricanes, they made their way through the Obelisk Blue student housing section toward the common area and maintenance.

"Here," Zachary pushed open the basement door, which creaked loudly on its hinges, then falling off said hinges he had to reach out and prop it up against the back wall to keep the whole thing from toppling over. "I am so sick of this…" he muttered, moving aside so Logan could lead the way down the stairs.

"Got it?"

Zachary waved his arm vaguely. "Make yourself at home. The rats certainly have."

He didn't trust the railing, which was considerably more rusty than he remembered it, so he ran his hand down the wall as he made his way down the steps to steady himself. Right as he was about to reach the floor where Logan was patiently waiting — couldn't he take initiative on his own and just go? There was one direction left, Zachary practically had no reason to be here at all now — the last stair gave way under his boot and splintered in half.

"Jesus f—" He propped himself against the wall and yanked his foot free, noticing deep new scuff marks in his Obelisk-issued shoes. "I hate this stupid place!"

"You okay?" Logan asked, helping him to the floor. Of course he didn't run into any issues, Zachary thought bitterly.

"Fantastic," Zachary brushed the dirt off his leg and pushed the final door open, hard, to reveal the basement proper. It looked more or less the same as he and Kylie left it, except the gardening equipment in one corner was organized a little differently. Still trying to clean himself off, he gestured in the direction of the storage unit where he left the mannequin. "Over there."

Logan went around the corner slowly and disappeared from view. "What happened to it?"

"What do you mean?" Zachary felt apprehensive… more apprehensive than normal at least. He followed Logan and looked into the storage unit, eyes struggling to adjust to the dim fluorescent lighting. At first glance, everything looked the same through the chain link units lining the wall. On closer inspection, he saw that the blanket he used to cover the mannequin, which had once been dusty but white and in decent condition, was now rotted through in several patches and yellowed. Parts of the mannequin's cloth face and pink dress peeked out through disintegrated holes in the fabric. The boxes and projectors he and Kylie had stacked up next to it were similarly in worse condition than they left them: the boxes were moldy and their contents spilled out from rips in the sides, and the projectors were covered in a thick film of grime — one of them had gotten knocked over somehow.

Zachary took another step closer, so that he was within arm's reach of the chain link fencing. Underneath the decayed blanket the mannequin appeared to be in perfect condition. The cloth of its body and clothes were still vibrantly colored, and he couldn't immediately see any signs of deterioration. Apparently Logan noticed the same thing.

"Check on it," he said to Zachary, crossing his arms across his chest protectively.

Hell no.

"Oh what, so you're selectively the brave one now?" Zachary demanded, whirling around to face the other boy. "Why don't you go do it? I don't even want to be here."

Logan pursed his lips and hugged himself tighter. "There could be spiders. I've been working on a lot of my fears lately but I—that's one I'm having trouble with. They just have too many legs, Zachary. Besides, you've always been the brave one. It's something I've… wanted to be more like you."

Zachary closed his eyes. Perfect. He managed to accidentally give someone the impression that he had a positive character trait and now that was coming back to bite him in the ass because of expectations. He should have known this would happen when he disguised pride as courage at the chicken coops. "Okay, I'll be everybody's white knight again," he heard himself spit out before he even decided consciously that he intended to go in the storage unit. "But eventually I'm going to start expecting gratitude, or at least the occasional handy."

"That isn't funny."

"Everyone's terrified of an overgrown Barbie, of course it's funny."

But as Zachary turned and placed his hand on the latch to open the storage unit containing the mannequin, he felt anything but amused. He took what he hoped was a discrete deep breath and pulled the gate open, only for it to catch and cause him to almost stumble backwards. He turned back to Logan, gave a little nod like he meant to do that, then tried again. This time, it swung open easily, allowing him to step up onto the wooden planks consisting the unit's floor and face the mannequin without the chain link barrier between them.

He moved towards it slowly, the smell of wet cardboard and something rotten filling his nostrils. Reluctantly, he raised a hand to tear off the sheet, questioning every single life choice that led him to the single moment. Why did he even want to be a duelist again? Couldn't he have just not told Toma he ever loved him? What if he got a puppy instead of a kitten when his parents took him to the pet store when he was twelve?

His thoughts were interrupted by an abrupt loud clang behind him and one of the girliest screams he ever heard. He spun around to see the storage unit door closed and Logan pressed up against the chain link units against the opposite wall, his hands over his mouth.

"Logan?" Zachary placed his palms on the gate in front of him and pushed. "What just happened?"

"I don't—"

Zachary stepped toward the gate — he refused to use the word lunged — and pushed. The gate didn't budge. He tried again, harder, but the latch remained firmly in place. Panic swelled up in his chest but he beat it down with anger. "Logan, get over here and open the gate. Now."

Logan looked at him before reluctantly moving over with small, deliberate steps.

Zachary pushed the gate again, putting more shoulder into it. He wasn't very large, but surely that should have been enough to open it if the latch was stuck again, right? "Move!"

"Yeah—" Logan rushed forward, finally coming to his senses apparently, and laced his fingers into the chain link and started pulling. When it became evident the gate wasn't going to budge, he inspected the latch itself for any signs of damage.

"Well?" Zachary asked, feeling claustrophobic inside the cramped space. The storage unit was maybe five feet deep and four feet across, and the boxes and mannequin made the small space much more crowded.

"I can't see any reason why it's not opening, just hold on," Logan knelt down on the dirty concrete floor and started fiddling with something that Zachary couldn't make out very well. Zachary stood back impatiently, tempted to just rattle the stupid gate door off the hinges if he had to, but knew Logan would probably just complain if he tried anything proactive like that because god forbid anyone take real initiative—

A soft sound from behind him interrupted his thoughts. He looked over at Logan, whose eyes widened at something immediately behind him. Grimacing, Zachary slowly turned to see that the sheet that had been covering the mannequin appeared to have fallen—no, the cloth was surrounding it like a grimy yellow pond, as though it had simply rotted all the way through—to the dusty floorboards at its base. The featureless flesh-toned fabric of its face stared back at him the same way it had when Kylie first discovered it. He looked back to Logan, hoping the Ra student didn't notice the small step back away from the mannequin he took. "Alright, it's just a sheet can we—"

A loud crack filled the air, like lightning had somehow gotten into the basement with them. Zachary watched as Logan stumbled backwards away from the storage unit, managing to stay on his feet as he came close to fleeing the room entirely.

Zachary spun around once again, taking in the long spidery cracks that appeared in the concrete wall in the back of the unit. They radiated out from some point directly behind the mannequin, circling it like a reinforced window broken by a rock. The cracks didn't look very deep, but he could see shadows forming inside the missing pieces of wall. Shadows that seemed to be elongating, as though the light sources in the room were shifting. Only that wasn't right, the fluorescent lights were fixed into the ceiling, unmovable. But the darkness still seeped out of the wall, spilling into the storage unit with him.

"Okay Logan get me out."

"Um—" Logan's eyes went wild as he took in the scene in front of him.

Zachary hooked his fingers through the chain link gate and rattled it. "Now!"

He watched Logan lurch forward, absolute terror in his eyes, towards the storage unit door, trying the latch once again.

Zachary cast a quick glance over his shoulder and was not encouraged by the sight. The concrete behind him was falling away in small chunks now, hitting the floor with a tinkling similar to hail, exposing nothing but more darkness that seemed to be getting closer.

"Logan!"

"I'm trying!"

Zachary pressed himself against the gate, tried to put as much space between him and the barrier of blackness that was to the mannequin now, shadowing parts of its long blonde hair. He kicked at the gate, not feeling it give at all.

"I can't get it!"

Zachary's eyes fearfully scanned the room, falling on the heap of groundskeeper's tools in the corner. "Over there," he indicated to Logan.

Logan dashed over to the tools, pushing a broken hose and a stack of something Zachary couldn't make out aside. He picked up some wire cutters and spun back around, giving the storage unit an uncertain look.

"What are you waiting for?" Zachary demanded as a particularly large chunk of wall fell behind him, making the boards under his feet vibrate with the impact.

"I can't use these."

"Why the hell not?"

"That's school property, what if—"

"School property?" Zachary repeated, giving the gate a heavy push. "Logan let me out of the cage!"

Logan looked down at the wire cutters and back up at whatever was happening behind Zachary, visibly perplexed. "I don't know the protocol; I don't have my rules and etiquette book any more…"

"What the hell is a rules and etiquette book?"

Zachary felt something on the back of his neck. He turned to see that, rather than swallowing the mannequin, the shadows appeared to be pushing it forward, so it was only standing a foot behind him. The sounds of rubble and splitting concrete now filled the entire right side of the basement, as the fractures slowly made their way down the wall into other storage units — storage units that were also rapidly flooding with darkness despite the rows of lights hanging from the ceiling undisturbed.

"Logan!"

"Fine!"

Logan ran back over to the storage unit and started awkwardly applying the open mouth of the wire cutters to the gate. Zachary tried to hold his intense need to kick and claw at it in check so that he could work. The first diamond snapped and Logan moved onto the next.

"Hurry up!"

Zachary's eyes watched the fissures make their way up to the ceiling, radiating outward in a place about ten yards away from where they were standing, towards the center of the rows of storage units. A loud creak filled his ears, splitting through the sounds of debris.

"Got it!" Logan pulled back the part of the gate he broke open to let Zachary climb through. Unfortunately, the placement of the hole put him at an odd angle. He had to tuck himself into one corner, putting himself once again face to face with the mannequin. He hesitated a moment, looking into the porous material of its head, feeling a strange sensation overwhelm him that could be described as both terror and amenability. By now the shadows were enveloping the mannequin, taking its shoulders and most of its torso into the void. He stood there looking at it, longer than he wanted to, and then quickly crouched down to escape the storage unit, sooner than he wanted to.

He practically fell out of the hole Logan had cut open, tripping off the wooden boards and onto the cold basement floor. Almost as soon as his shins smashed into the concrete, he heard the sound of splintering wood and screams coming from above them, in the center of the room. The ceiling—the floor of the co-ed common room area upstairs—collapsed, sending a mess of furniture and marble flooring into the basement. Zachary covered his head with his arms, feeling small pieces of the wreckage litter his body. An arm chair hit the floor hard and skidded several feet toward him, stopping just short of making impact.

Logan stood first, reaching down to help Zachary up. Zachary wiped at his eyes, feeling his face caked in powder, and looked at the scene. A ragged-edged hole filled his vision, where he could see the ornate white ceiling of the study room two stories above him. Exposed wires and part of a broken end table teetered dangerously on one side of the opening, and he could hear panicked shouts from somewhere nearby, footsteps across the floor above that had been muted before.

"Are you okay?" Logan asked, steadying Zachary. He hadn't even noticed he was swaying on his feet.

He nodded, finding himself unable to speak. He looked over at the Ra, took in the white layer of grime covering his hair and clothes, an expression on his face that must have looked half as dazed as he felt. Logan let go of his arm and Zachary caught himself stumbling over, grabbing onto the chain link gate of the nearest storage unit and lacing his fingers into it to keep himself standing. The air was thick with some kind of dust, with whatever was in the walls and ceiling of the basement. It took a moment to realize he was clutching a damaged gate, with part of it rolled up to let a person through. The storage unit was filled with split apart boxes with their contents spilling out, broken projectors, one of which was tipped over…

He pushed himself off the gate and staggered toward the basement exit, feeling his head throb heavily with each heart beat. He felt dizzy and nauseous. There was a good chance he had a concussion, that something had fallen on him harder than he realized, but he needed to get out of there first. The basement door was all the way off its hinges now, and at the bottom of the stairs. With difficulty, he was able to force it out of his way and prop it haphazardly against one wall before climbing the stairs, once again putting his foot through the bottom one.

At the top, he braced himself against the wall and turned the corner to enter the common room—what used to be the common room—finding dozens of Slifer and Obelisk students had gathered in the surrounding hallways to take in the damage and find out what had happened. The outer walls were covered in the same spidery fissures of the basement before pieces started coming off in chunks. Doctor Crowler was making a doomed attempt at getting everyone a safe distance away from the room, shouting something about giving detention to anyone who didn't return to their dorm rooms immediately.

"Zachary!" Kylie ran up to him and took his arm. "Are you—"

"Go back to your room. Unless you want double detention…" Zachary interrupted, indicating Crowler before pushing his way past her towards Miss Fontaine, who was trying to coax a group of her students back to the girl's dorm. "And stay the hell away from the basement."