Chapter 19

The Boiling Isles had been unwound and spread apart, like the middle of an explosion, caught in the exact second where the shock-wave has propagated, but the pieces haven’t quite managed to splatter against the walls. The chunks of the landmass were not aligned – instead, they angled off into different directions, some were even entirely upside down, buildings and trees facing towards the burbling, hissing seas. The shape of the Titan’s skeleton was still visible and even arranged in almost the correct pose for a standing person – save that all the parts were floating away from one another and disconnected. The skull was cocked to the side, and blazed with a purple light.

Adora gulped as she put her clawed hand up onto her hat, tilting it backwards to look up and up along this expanse of chaos.

“I think Luz may be having problems with her powers,” Bow said, his voice soft.

“No, she’s not,” Catra said, and Adora saw it too. She looked down at Adora, while Amity frowned, then sighed.

“Yeah,” Amity said. “This is just like Land God Amok, book 12.”

“Oh my god, you’re right,” Manny said, startling each of them. “When the Land God goes mad.”

“You’ve ... read ... the Good Witch Azuara series?” Amity asked, while Adora looked back up and towards the swirling landmasses.

How do we even get there? She thought. The skull. It felt like the right place to her – not just because she had also read the Land God Amok too, but because she could feel the pulsing of her heart, drawing her towards it. Luz was there. Doing what? Trying to fix it, she thought, while a swirling pulse of magic emerged from the side of the skull, sweeping along a profusion of the caught landmasses. Where it went, it left the stones and tumbling bones ... changed subtly. The colors had shifted and the slow motion movement of the lands had altered, turning their trajectories to new and chaotic directions.

But not back together.

“Heh, uh, well,” Manny said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I picked it up on a lark – I needed something to read and it was easy, cheap, and colorful. Then it turned out, I really liked it.”

Adora pointed with her finger. “There!”

Everyone looked and Glimmer nodded. “Yeah, I think we can get there...”

The tiny landmass Adora had spotted was between the foot – where they stood – and the shin bone – which was currently canted at a forty five degree angle, so, it could possibly be standable upon. But as she turned to the rest of the group to lay out her plan, Glimmer slapped her hand onto Adora and Bow’s back, then focused. The pink flash of light and magic crackled around Adora, and when it faded, they were standing on the boulder that hung in the air ... and despite the fact that they were facing up towards the sky, gravity tried to pull them, hard, to the left. Adora yelped, grabbed onto the side of the boulder, and snagged onto Glimmer with one arm, while Bow snatched onto her hips and dangled from their legs.

The disorientation lasted for a flash, then Adora’s instincts guided her. She scrambled one handed, then pushed herself up and found herself standing on the boulder. Except she was perpendicular to the group that was gaping up at them from the foot. The boulder’s gravity was not directed alongside the axis that Adora had expected, and she groaned.

“Great, every landmass has its own facing.”

“No, that’s good!” Bow said, standing and brushing dust off his shirt, which he subtly started to roll upwards, to show off his tummy muscles. “It means we’ll not have to cling to the roof of Hexside, see?”

He pointed and Adora saw that Hexside was, in fact, upside down. It was also several miles overhead, rendered toylike by the distance. Glimmer grabbed onto them both, focused, and they appeared with a flash on the forested chunk that they had been aiming for. The land here, despite being canted at a forty five degree angle, felt like they were standing on perfectly level ground. Adora grinned at Glimmer. “Go get the rest of them,” she said. “Will you be able to handle it?”

“Sure can!” Glimmer said, though her skin looked lightly dusted with sweat. “It’s gonna be tiring by the end, but...”

She shrugged, then vanished with a spray of sparkles.

“Okay,” Bow said, then tested his bow, twirling his finger and conjuring an illusory arrow. “We’re still not sure what we’re going to run into here...”

“Well, well, well!”

The voice that broke into their conversation was subtly wrong. It was too high, too scratchy. It was not exactly the voice of the sane. Adora turned and saw someone stepping around the corner of the woods. She reevaluated her opinions rapidly.

It was not the voice of the exactly real.

The figure was like a blurry sketch of a human or witch. All angular planes and buzzing, crackling edges. The lines and vertices of their oddly geometric body were completely wrong, turning into jagged angles and intersecting planes with every movement of their body – creating the flickering on/off look of a bugged video game character. The only thing that remained constant was the eyes: two glowing, jagged rents in the angular geometries of their head.

“What the- ... what are you?” Bow asked.

“Of course trespassers wouldn’t recognize Gilana the Tree Sprite!” the figure buzzed at them, lifting their – her – arms and juddering from side to side.

“Right,” Adora said, ransacking her memory – Gilana was a friendly character from the books. She had helped Azura and even shown mercy to Hecatae, when required. She served a greater queen. Was that Queen ... well, it had to be ... she gulped, then spread her arms in a bow. “Uh, forsooth, Gilana, we’re here to see, uh, yonder Queen Luz!”

“Liiiiiiiiiiiar!” The false Gilana buzzed and turned into a warbling cloud of static. “You want to hurt her! You all want to hurt her!”

Her cloud split, then split, then split again – and suddenly Adora and Bow were surrounded by dozens of the jagged figures. Bow knocked an arrow made of raw illusory magic, while Adora gripped her sword.

“We’re not here to hurt Luz!” Adora said.

“Then why did you leave her!?” One of the Gilana’s sprinted at her, fingers twisting into claws. Adora lifted her sword to block the buzzing crackle. She felt a physical impact, not just the haze of static – and when she grabbed onto the Gilana’s chest and prepared to hurt her, she felt something hazy under the static. There was something there, something more than just a construct conjured out of Luz’s imagination and isolation. She hesitated – and this allowed the Gilana to slash at her face with her claws. Adora jerked her head back mere seconds before she lost a good chunk of her skin – and then Catra dropped down between her and the creature, slapping a rune onto their chest and causing an explosion of vines to loop around her and bind her into place.

“Only I get to claw up Adora, and we do it consensually now,” Catra said, smirking.

“No we don’t!” Adora exclaimed.

The vined up creature writhed and tried to drag itself free. But through the hazy, shifting pattern of the corruption...

“It’s the triclops girl!” Adora exclaimed.

“Boscha?” Bow asked, lowering his bow before he shot one of the other snarling creatures, focusing on dodging away. “These are people?”

“I think they are, so, uh, don’t-”

Camila, who had just arrived, thanks to Glimmer teleporting in with her, Manny and Entrapta, screamed and swung her baseball bat at one of the creatures. The clonk sound of the bat impacting with a skull was pretty remarkable. The creature fell over and sparks hissed and bubbled away, revealing a prone, insensate witchling – a man, who Adora didn’t recognize. Bow, though, blinked. “Oh my god, Mrs. Noceda, you just killed Mattholomule!”

Mattholomule groaned on the ground as Camila blinked and held her bat tighter. “H-He’s just unconscious!” she said, then whispered under her breath. “Oh Dios, nunca le voy a mencionar esto a la PTA.”

“Don’t worry, witchlings are pretty tough,” Adora said, using her sword in a two handed grip to block a slashing set of claws. She smashed her pommel into the top of a flickering figure’s head. When they sprawled, it was another girl from Hexside, though Adora couldn’t put a name to her face. The other creatures snarled into the melee – and Glimmer transported Scorpia in. Scorpia, then, immediately rendered most of the fight moot. With the speed of a striking, uh, scorpion, Scorpia slammed her tail into the spine of each of the attacking figures and left them all sprawled on the ground. Hexside students, one and all.

“Collector energy, focused and used to create a metastable personality layer over a consciousnesses bearing witchling!” Entrapta said as she knelt beside the prone and groaning Mattholomule, poking his cheek with a stick she had fetched off the ground. “Fascinating...”

“Uh, don’t poke Matt with a stick,” Bow said.

Entrapta hesitated, then set the stick down, before leaning over and poking his cheek with her finger. “The energies have dissipated – I think they’re related to a certain level of coherency within the host.”

“Bonk em, then they’re not evil anymore, got it,” Catra said, then grinned at Camila. “See, Cammi, they’re fine.”

“Cammi?” Camila asked, while Adora grabbed onto Catra by the scruff of her neck, dragging her away from their hostess. She leaned in, hissing.

“Cammi?”

“What?” Catra asked, shrugging. “It’s a cute nickname.”

“Are you flirting with Mrs. Noceda!?” Adora hissed even softer.

Catra opened her mouth, her tail flicking. Then her ears drooped. “Uh. It’s a reflex.”

“Oh my god, Catra.”

A lightning bolt slammed down into the center of the clearing. Blazing purple light flashed over everything and Adora and Catra sprang away from one another to face it. The entire group watched as the purple fires crackled, buzzed, then faded away. And there was Luz Noceda. Her body had been somewhat healed from the last time that Adora had seen her – the cracks and winding lines of fire that had been trying to escape from her skin had been sealed away, refined down to just a single purple circle of fire that surrounded one eye, which had turned a brilliant gold. It was as if she had compacted her Collector powers down into one tiny spot, and left the rest of her untouched. She was dressed in a hoodie and shorts and those sleek leggings under the shorts, with pale white tennis shoes.

“ ... Luz?” Camila asked, her voice nervous. “A-Are you my Luz?”

“M ... M ... Mom?” Luz blinked, looking at her, her eyes widening. “W-What are you doing here? No, no, no, you’re mad at me!” She drew her legs up, shaking her head. She closed her eyes. “It was okay, she said she was okay, she’s okay.”

Adora felt as if the entire moment was hanging on the thinnest of threads. She shifted, subtly, moving to stand between Catra and Luz. The last thing she wanted was for Luz to see Catra and...

And what?

Freak out?

She wasn’t sure if Luz’s anger at Catra was because of guilt over what Luz had done, when she had been trapped in the other world ... or anger over what Catra had done, when Catra had met Amity in the new timeline. Or ... well ... maybe it was both. Whatever the option, she wanted to limit it as much as possible.

“Y-You’re my daughter,” Camilia said, softly. “I know you’ve been alone for a long time. But we’re here for you now.”

“W-We...” Luz blinked.

Then she saw Manny, stepping forward. He was holding the binder full of photos. Adora had watched him pack them – family photos, pictures of him and Camila, and of their hopes and dreams. None of them had Luz, but each of them had the hope for her, hidden inside them, even if she had never come to pass in their world. Adora looked from them to Luz ... and saw that Luz was shaking her head, her eyes closing tightly.

“No. No! No! No! No! Not again! Not again!” She screamed. “Go away!”

“Luz, wait-”

“I said go away!”

Purple fire streamed from her and Adora yelped as she was caught up in the tidal wave. The energies buzzed against her, overwhelming and burning. She tumbled, fell, skidded ... and then pushed herself to her feet. She was alone in the clearing – alone, save for Luz. She had her hands over her face, sobbing. She curled in on herself, while shadows grew around her. They projected up around her – shapes of beds and bleeping machines and wires, running into a skeletally thin body, the face obscured by shadows. Adora gaped at the view ... and whispered.

“Oh no.”

Luz lowered her hands, then glared at her. “Y-You. Why are you still here?”

“Luz, wait!” Adora said. “That wasn’t your imagination! Luz, your father, he’s-”

“Shut up!” Luz shot off into the sky, leaving behind a rumbling boom of displaced air.

Adora lowered her hand, then slammed her sword into the ground and shoved herself to her feet. She was completely alone. Even the shades had been banished by Luz’s sweep of power. She looked around herself, slowly, then started to jog towards the edge of this floating landmass.

If everyone else had been banished, she’d just need to find them.

Amity slammed, hard, into a remarkably soft wall, rebounded, and hit an even softer bed, face first. She groaned, then pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. She lifted her head, looking around – and then yelped as a figure dropped onto her head. “Weehhhh!” Tiny paws and claws slapped at her, while she tried to process that she was in a ... room that looked an awful lot like her room, if it had been sculpted entirely out of psychadelic colors. She grabbed onto the thing battering at her, yanked it off, and held it at arms length.

“ ... the Clawthorne’s dog?” Amity asked, blinking in surprise at the small, furred creature.

“I am not their dog!” The figure shouted. “I’m King!”

“Oh,” Amity said, then set him down on the bed beside her. “What are you doing here? Why did you attack me?”

“I ... thought you might be the weird insane god that has captured us all,” King said, sounding a little huffy at how little his attack had done.

“She’s not a god,” Amity said, frowning as she stood up. She brushed her hands through her electric blue hair – a reminder of how easily her body could be twisted, changed, and altered by Luz. The memory was disconcerting. But Amity was used to people with power over her that she’d need to work around. She sighed, then walked to the door of her room. She tried opening it – only to find that the knob wasn’t a knob. It was as if the whole door was one piece, and the knob was just a molded chunk that extruded from the wall. “ ... for one thing, she can’t really make a door.”

“I thought it was just a prison,” King said. “She crammed me in here, while apologizing and saying she’d be back to give me treats. Then she came back and gave me a bowl full of bugs, then ran away crying. Well, flew. Which is silly, the bugs were delicious.” He licked his lips. “They tasted just like ice cream!”

“Huh,” Amity said, then frowned. “Well. That’s Luz Noceda. In another timeline, she and you were best friends.”

“Weh!?” King sat back on his haunches.

“And we just need to get her to calm down and accept our help,” Amity said, then frowned, intently. “The first step is talking to her. How often does she visit this room?”

“It’s hard to tell,” King said. “Because, well-”

The light outside the window shifted, suddenly and jarringly, to complete night. The sun and moon had shifted around and the stars came out with a sickening lurch. Distant, melancholy music started to play – echoing throughout the village of Bonesburrough, which Amity could just barely see out the window. She stepped up onto the bed, standing on her toes to peek out – the window was situated far higher than it should have been. Bonesburrough looked as if it had been partially merged with a place of iron and steel and hissing technology ... Belosian machinery, almost, save it had a harder edge. The centerpiece was a large, curved tower that jutted from where Hexside should have been. Sitting on it was a distant figure, her palms cupped over her face. She seemed to be surrounded by shimmering shadows – phantasms that Amity couldn’t quite make out. She felt King scrabble up her back, peering out the window with her.

“Yeah,” King said. “When she’s sad, the skies get dark, and sometimes, sappy music plays. But I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Amity let herself drop from her tip toes to her heels. She frowned, rubbing her chin.

“Her powers aren’t entirely under her control,” she said, softly. “Have you ever had a thought you can’t get rid of? Imagine that, but it becomes real.”

King looked unsure. “What do we do?”

“Well, first, we get that door down,” Amity said. “Do you know where Edalynn or Lilith are?”

“No,” King said. “I’ve been stuck in here!”

“Okay. We get that door down, we try and find Edalynn and Lilith, or the rest of my friends. Adora and Catra are here.”

“Catra, the Golden Guard?” King asked.

“Well, she’s not that anymore,” Amity said, then flushed. “W-We, uh, we’re actually gonna go on a date if we survive this. Not that you needed to know that. I should stop talking. I’m talking too much. Door! We’re gonna ... door! Now!” She said, her entire face going redder with every inch she dug herself. She twirled her finger, and focused. Conjuring abomination goop from nowhere was hard – but she had time enough to focus on it. And so, she made her first thimble full, which splattered to the ground.

“ ... and?” King asked.

“Just give me a bit!” Amity said, a bit irritated as she lifted her finger and twirled it again.

Another thimbleful splattered onto the ground, making a rather pathetic purple pile.

“It’s gonna take a while,” Amity admitted.

Catra hissed as she skidded to a stop – the transportation had been so similar to Glimmer sending her sparkling around that she almost wanted to slash out with her claws out of pure reflex. Instead, she forced herself to yank her claws back and regard where she was. She was in a metal corridor – an intestinal spread of pipes covered the walls and the ceiling was grated. The floor was gunmetal gray, and the whole place smelled faintly antiseptic. She scowled as she turned back – and then yelped. Luz Noceda was standing behind her.

Her purple eye mark was gone. And she wasn’t in the same hoodie and spanks combo – she was dressed in a red jacket that reminded Catra achingly of Adora’s, and she had a badge on her chest that ... was also faintly familiar. She gave Catra a curious look.

“Uh ... Catra ... what are you wearing?”

“What am I-” Catra looked down at her rune magic get up, then at Luz. “What are you wearing?”

“My ... uniform?” Luz arched an eyebrow, cocking her head. “Uh. Catra. Did you bonk your head?” She stepped close, peering in, narrowing her eyes as she took hold of Catra’s head, peering at her as if she was checking over a machine. “Catra, did you get brain damage?”

“No!” Catra exclaimed, shoving Luz back against the nearby wall. Luz giggled, shaking her head.

“Then, come on! Lets get you into your uniform, we’re late for the ceremony,” she said, shrugging.

“What ceremony!?”

“Okay, you are not shaking the brain damage allegations, gata,” Luz said, her eyes crinkling as she grinned lopsidedly at her. “The ‘we won the war’ ceremony? The one we’ve ... been ... working for for, like, ever?” She asked, her hands sliding to Catra’s hands. She leaned her head down, kissing one of Catra’s knuckles. The electric touch of lips to skin made Catra’s entire body tingle. It was ... disconcerting, to say the least, to have a girl so obviously and earnestly know her, while Catra felt nothing but a big yawning gap.

Then Luz giggled and peeled Catra’s palm off her shoulder, freeing her wrist so she could kiss her right there.

Catra hadn’t known that she had an erogenous zone there. She hadn’t known that a nibble there could make her entire body feel as if she had been hooked up to a magical rune of lightning. She stood perfectly still as Luz kissed along her arm, to her throat, then to her ear, stepping in close.

“And after, we can celebrate...” She crooned. “Just us, together.”

“Uh...” Catra trembled.

Her brain skipped.

Then it clicked into place.

This isn’t Luz.

Or...

Well.

Maybe it was Luz.

Luz could do anything, as a Collector. Right? So, why not forget? Why not wind things backwards? Catra blushed and then decided that no, it was not her own sapphic lusts guiding her choices, this was solid tactics. “Lets go, then, babe!” she said, grinning and sliding her arm around Luz’s back. Luz giggled.

“That’s Force Captain Babe to you, gata girl.”

Catra and Luz walked along the corridor – and around the first corner, Catra swore she could see a final shifting and settling of walls and floor, as if everything around her was being hastily thrown together by contractors pushing things around on dollies. The chamber was empty, save for Hordak, who was standing on a podium. He looked oddly flat. Catra cocked her head. No, Hordak wasn’t oddly flat, he was literally flat. There was no third dimension to him at all, he was only visibly real if you looked at him dead on. Catra looked from him to Luz – and she saw the strain collecting around her eyes now. She clung tighter to Catra, her body trembling, while the room became hazy with the faint shapes of Horde soldiers, all of them moving silently, their arms waving.

“Luz,” Catra said, her voice soft.

“I ... I...” Luz screwed her eyes shut. The room warbled. Then it blew apart. The only part that remained intact was the tiny scrap of metal Catra was standing on – the walls flew away, the ceiling twisted apart, and Catra saw that they were standing on a palm of the Boiling Isles – Hexide and Bonesburrough were distant objects that she could see over a vertigo inducing drop down miles and miles of empty space, with the only thing between being boulders, tumbling bits of earth, displaced trees, and one griffon who had been frozen mid spider-belch.

Luz’s eyes were still closed. “We’re here. Together again.”

“Luz, it’s okay!” Catra said, feeling like she was drowning in muck. She wanted to say so many things – they were all confused and stuck in her throat. She instead put her hands on Luz’s shoulders – but then Luz started to blaze with that purple fire again. It flared between the cracks in her skin, tingling along Catra’s palms.

“We’re ... I’m ... I can fix it!” Luz hissed. “I can ... I can-”

Her body exploded into a spray of purple sparkles and flames. Catra realized only now that she had been leaning against the other girl – she fell to her knees through the sparkles, trying to grasp for her. But the Luz-figment was gone. Catra felt the confusion come up her throat. The only issue was it came out all too clear.

“Luz!” She gasped out, tears brimming in her eyes.

So, that’s what it feels like, Catra realized, dizzily. She had never known what completely and totally unconditional love had felt like, until that scant brush with Luz. Every other love she had ever had in her life had had ... hooks in it. The messy relationship with Adora, the lies around Amity, the power dynamics with every other girl she had picked up as the Golden Guard. Catra barely knew Luz, but at this moment, if anything had happened to her, Catra was pretty sure that she would have to kill everyone in the world, then herself.

“But it’s not going to come to that,” she whispered, dizzily.

She stood on her tiny platform of stability, tensed, then leaped. She sailed up, down, dropped onto an outcropping of rock, then slapped down a rune. The vine that burst from it gave her something to swing on – clearing a twenty foot gap to land on the next rock.

There was one nice thing about going down.

Gravity was working for her now.

Adora dug her claws into the rocky earth and hauled herself up and over the lip, then swung herself up and onto the latest lip of her climb. She laid on her back, panting softly. Titan-Ra or no, climbing this much and leaping this often was taking its toll. She looked up at the sky, closed her eyes, and muttered. “Almost there.”

She stood and surveyed the chunk of land she had been heading for for the past half hour: It was what contained most of Bonesburrough. However, it had been merged with what, from what she had seen of the She-Ra show that Camila had mentioned, a good chunk of the Fright Zone. She felt a buzzing tingle in her chest...

Luz was nearby.

She gathered herself and leaped – then landed on the alleyway between two buildings. The air was thick with the smell of magic, and she advanced forward, moving cautiously, sword in her hand.

“Psst! Adora!”

She jerked, spun – and lowered her sword.

Eda grinned at her, peering out from around a corner.

“Eda!?” Adora whispered, then stepped forward and threw her arms around her older witch, squeezing her tightly, then pulled back. She looked Eda over. She looked as if she had been living in the streets for a few days – dirty, tired, but generally herself. She hadn’t been transformed, transfigured, or altered in any way. Of course, that made Adora a little bit suspicious. So, she kept herself somewhat reserved as she whispered. “How did you manage to hide out here?”

“It has been a crazy few days,” Eda whispered back. “But that girl?”

“Luz Noceda,” Adora supplied, helpfully.

“Right. She’s captured a bunch of people and changed them. I managed to hide out with Rayne Whispers.”

“Whose Rayne Whispers?” Adora asked.

“My old enbyfriend,” Eda said, shrugging. “It’s kinda complicated. How do you know who this insane demigod is?”

“It’s kinda complicated,” Adora admitted.

“Well, I’ve been observing her. Her pattern is pretty simple,” Eda said. “First, she’ll go and talk to some new person – the Blights, Kikimora, sometimes Lilith...” She frowned, slightly. “Then something will go wrong – they’ll say something, or she’ll do something, then she runs off and night falls.” She points up at the sky. “And she cries to herself. And I’ve been thinking that’s when we strike. When she’s distracted, we can hit her with one of these...” She reached into her vest and pulled out a small schematic for what appeared to be a ballista that shot flaming demons. Adora took the schematic, then crumpled it up and threw it over her shoulder.

“No,” she said.

“Listen, she’s hurt so many people, we have to stop her!” Eda whispered.

“That girl is your adoptive daughter,” Adora said, her voice flat. “She’s hurting. And she’s in pain. We’re not going to kill her. Or even punch her.” She put her hands on Eda’s shoulders. “We’re going to talk to her.”

Eda blinked at her. “I...” She hesitated. “What are you talking about?”

“In another world, I wouldn’t have been there,” Adora said, her voice tight. “Luz would be. She ... should have been there.” She turned away, her hand tightening and pressing to her chest. She felt the buzzing tingle, as if her own heart was trying to sing out against what she was saying. But it was true. She had to admit it. “When she said I stole everything, she was right. I-”

“Oh that’s giraffe hockey, and you know it,” Eda said, her voice short and sharp. She grabbed onto Adora’s shoulder and spun her around. The fact Adora was currently Titan-Ra meant that Eda had to glare up at her, rather than look forward. “Adora, you deserve to be my daughter. Cause...” She hesitated, then smiled. “Cause while I may have had another weird, messed up, cool daughter in another universe, I would never, ever, give it up for having you, you big dumb brave idiot.” She grinned, reaching up and wiping a tear out of Adora’s eye. “You deserve to be here, just as much as Luz does.”

Adora blushed, looking aside.

“Now...” Eda breathed in, then out. “Since the last time I saw Luz, I was running away after setting the curtains on fire, I think you might do a better job talking to her than me. But tell her...” She hesitated.

“I know,” Adora smiled, reaching down and putting her clawed hand on Eda’s shoulder. She nodded. “It’s going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

She stepped from the alleyway, then headed down the road. Eda watched her go, biting her lip.

“Go get em kid,” she whispered.

Then.

“Rayne, are you still up for building the demon-launcher 2000? Just in case?”

The shadowy figure behind her stepped into the light. “Only if I get to fire it,” Rayne said, their voice wry. “You might jump the gun. Again.”

“You’re no fun...”

The door in the corridor was closed, locked tight. This was, in part, because it wasn’t actually a door, it was more of a slightly decorated part of the wall, built smooth and flush with the rest of the corridor. That was why when the massive abomination fist punched its way through in a haze of splinters and dust, it left a gaping hole that spread to two other rooms to either side, and took a chunk of the ceiling down with it. Amity stepped into the dusty cloud, coughing and waving her face to try and clear the dust away.