They searched until nightfall and found nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing in the parking lot, nothing lurking in the toilets, nothing hiding in the streets… As far as all spells and Keys could tell, Temple Alley’s Major Chicken restaurant was utterly spotless and unblemished. Visitors passed through the doors heedless of the danger lurking there, paying no mind to the three students watching them from a nearby bench.

  “I’m fine, Matthew,” Kari complained as he finished applying antiseptic spray to her wounded cheek. The cut Tarantulas left was shallow, but still deep enough to draw blood. “I’ve faced worse.”

  “I’m not taking any risk with a Green/Blue hybrid,” Matthew replied with a tone that broke no opposition. “They like to mess with both the flesh and the mind. A scratch could be infected even without Flux.”

  Kari gave him a pointed look. “That’s… surprisingly thoughtful of you, Matt.”

  John touched his navigator with a scowl on his face. They had been waiting for a sign that had yet to come. “Still no trace of the monster on our side.”

  “Nothing to report on ours either,” Julia said, who led the standby team securing the Old Town entrance. “Mr. O’Connor?”

  “Liv found traces of Blue Flux near a sewer gate,” the Doc said. Crypto had immediately dispatched the new Little Brussels team to secure their Major Chicken restaurant’s entrance. “How the creature managed to reach it undetected remains a mystery.”

  “It used a Blue spell,” Crypto replied. “I’m analyzing the street cameras’ footage in your area. I’ve got a visual of the monster walking up to the sewer gate in front of a dozen eyewitnesses without arousing any reaction.”

  “There were eyewitnesses?” John asked, his eyes widening in surprise. “And it survived?”

  “Yes, as astonishing as it sounds,” Crypto confirmed. “The sheer weight of Disbelief should have annihilated the creature, or forced it into another shape which mundane onlookers could rationalize; yet not only did it keep its monstrous appearance, but none of the civilians acknowledged its presence. The Blue Flux would suggest the use of a mind-altering spell.”

  Matthew immediately guessed what happened. “That monster messed with our brains so we wouldn’t notice it even when it was right in front of us.”

  “Disbelief can’t cancel out something that nobody can perceive,” Kari muttered under her breath. “This is… this is bad. This is very bad.”

  “It is,” Crypto confirmed on her side, her tone grim and heavy. “A monster capable of surviving outside a Dungeon without triggering Disbelief might start snatching people off the streets and drag them back into its nest.”

  A short and tense silence followed, which the Doc quickly broke. “We will try to pursue it in the sewer. I suspect that this creature cannot survive long on its own on the outside without a Dungeon to take shelter in.”

  “I will keep an eye on all recorded Dungeon entrances across town, including condemned ones,” Crypto replied. “Keep me informed at all times, and do not engage without my say-so.”

  “Of course,” the Doc agreed. “We’ll find it sooner or later.”

  “We must,” Crypto warned before directly addressing Matthew’s team next. “Wormhole, Crit, Trigger, it’s getting late. You should return to your dorm before your absence earns you a blame or detention.”

  “What about the hostages?” John pushed. “We can’t just leave them inside.”

  “The standby team will evacuate the Dungeon’s victims, and we’ll ensure a temporary closure for all restaurants through anonymous bomb threats and false police alerts. This should give you plenty of time to clear the place tomorrow without incurring additional casualties. You’ve earned a moment’s rest.”

  Neither Matthew nor his teammates were happy with the order, though they could see Crypto’s logic. They could only violate the dorm’s curfew a few times before they earned special attention that would interfere with their patrol schedule.

  John removed his navigator, a deep scowl of fury on his face. “It tricked us.”

  “We couldn't afford to split up, and we had one chance out of three to pick the right exit,” Matthew replied. He regretted not thinking of spending some Lucky Star fortune in their haste to catch the thing. “We just chose wrong.”

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  “No, it picked right,” John argued with his arms crossed. “The monster chose the one entrance which neither our team nor Bomberman’s used. That’s not a coincidence. It assessed that the Old Town and Temple Alley portals brought Crawlers to its doorstep, and thus rationally inferred that the Little Brussels one was the safest exit.”

  Kari mulled over his point. “This spider monster is worse than sentient: it’s smart.”

  “Yes.” John nodded sharply. “And with Bomberman’s team decimated, we’ve nobody left to oversee Old Town.”

  Matthew didn’t say a word. He could already guess that Crypto would approach Sasha’s group and try to convince them to patrol Old Town on the Association’s behalf. It didn’t matter that they were wholly underprepared for the task, because they simply had no one left to take up the responsibility.

  Almost.

  Matthew rose from the bench. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “You’re going to meet with Maggie?” Kari guessed.

  “Yes.” Matthew wasn’t looking forward to it, but he had to inform her. “I’ll catch up to you at the dorm.”

  While John simply nodded in agreement, Kari bit her lower lip and swallowed her concern. She was smart enough to read between the lines. He wanted to meet with his old teammate on his own.

  He couldn’t afford to put this off any longer.

  It had been nearly four years since Matthew last visited Julian Street, but he remembered the way by heart.

  It hadn’t changed much either since; just a line of cookie-cutter houses with the occasional garage or in-ground pool to break up the monotony. Its monotone quietness contrasted neatly with the distant city noises. The place always gave Matthew the feeling of an isle of calm in a stormy urban sea.

  He would rather have preferred chaos and colors. It would have distracted him and lessened the biting sting of nostalgia.

  Matthew couldn’t help but stop in front of the Werners’ house on his way to Maggie’s home. Still the same old white fa?ade and red-painted door. Perse always opened the door whenever he knocked, since her brother Ulysses was usually too lazy to get off the sofa. He knew their mother Viviane would open if he tried again. She would smile, ask him what he was doing, maybe give him a cookie or something; but she wouldn’t invite him inside.

  It would cause Ulysses distress.

  Matthew saw light coming from his room on the upper floor. He couldn’t see anything behind the yellow curtains, and he didn’t recall them sliding away since the Mall incident. Ulysses hadn’t taken a look outside in years. Matthew had tried so many times to contact him again, only to be met with either silence or excuses each time. Eventually, he simply stopped trying to reach out.

  Matthew forced himself to walk past the house before he could feel even more morose. Ignoring his old yellow home was easier. He had no idea which family now occupied it since his parents’ divorce, but old stones didn’t carry the same weight as people and memories.

  Only Maggie’s house had changed, and not for the better.

  Her home had always been a broken one, but Matthew remembered a time when it at least looked liveable. Those days were long gone; wild grass had overtaken the front lawn like a jungle growing among gardens, and alcohol spots marred the walls. The nauseating stench and flies dancing over empty bottles piled up near the door nearly caused Matthew to vomit on the threshold. Only the light filtering through the windows showed that someone still lived there.

  Here I am. Matthew gathered his breath and faced the black door. He raised his fist, only for all of his strength to desert him. Come on, it won’t be that bad.

  He could blast holes through concrete and swallow entire Dungeons, so why did knocking on a door feel so hard?

  Matthew grit his teeth and pushed himself. He knocked once, twice, thrice… and then the door opened.

  Maggie stood on the other side of the threshold.

  Time seemed to come to a standstill as the two of them faced each other. A brief moment of realization followed, with Maggie’s shocked expression swiftly turning into a glare. Matthew opened his mouth. A thousand words and greetings crossed his mind, none satisfactory.

  Eventually, he simply said the first thing on his mind.

  “You got weed?” he asked.

  Maggie stared at him for a moment, then closed the door on his face.

  Matthew cursed himself for opening up with something so stupid. Why did he always mess it up whenever he tried to reach out? Why was it so hard to talk to people? All those self-help courses didn’t change a thing!

  I can’t abandon hope just yet, he told himself. Come on, you can do it. She has to know.

  Matthew raised his hand to knock on the door again, only for Maggie to open it first. Her glare was gone, replaced with a deep scowl.

  “What happened, Matthew?” she asked with what could pass for a hint of concern.

  “That’s not a no,” Matthew noted with a forced smile. It helped hide the unease.

  “You don’t smoke, and your scrawny ass hasn’t visited me in years. You wouldn’t come here without a damn good reason.” Maggie’s jaw clenched further. “You look like shit too. Did somebody die on you or somethin’?”

  “Yes,” Matthew replied bluntly. Maggie flinched in response. “I’ve… I’ve had a shit day, so can you, uh… not close the door again, please?”

  Maggie hesitated. He could tell that she considered leaving him on the threshold, but a flicker of the sweet girl she used to be now and again shone through. She eventually stepped aside and invited him inside. “Let’s climb onto the roof.”

  Matthew almost changed his mind upon smelling the odious odor of alcohol permeating through Maggie’s house, but powered through anyway. He knew he wouldn’t get another chance like this one.

  Maggie guided them up the same stairs they used to climb back in their childhood. He heard voices coming from the living room; some sort of peasant-related reality TV from what he could tell.

  “Is your mom–” Matthew asked, but Maggie silenced him with a glare. “Sorry.”

  “She’s alive,” Maggie replied curtly with a tone that implied: so far. She didn’t elaborate, and Matthew didn’t ask for more details.

  They eventually reached a window leading onto the roof and stepped through it. It looked much smaller than it did four years ago, but Matthew guessed that growth spurts did that to people.

  Nonetheless, there was enough space for him and Maggie to sit down beneath the stars like they did in the past; though the gulf between them remained vast. Maggie brought out a tiny weed cancer stick and set it alight with her lighter. She didn’t offer another to Matthew, instead taking a long deep breath and welcoming the poison into her lungs.

  “Okay.” Maggie let out a small cloud of smoke, cleared her throat, and then gazed at the stars. “What happened?”

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