She nods, and considers for a few moments. "I can stay."

// stay // you can stay // stay with me // with my friends //

become one of us // yesyesyes // yes?

The enthusiasm gets a little grin.

"Meet one?"

// ...one? // one of my friends? //

yes. // yes you could meet one. // then you'll see. // you'll BE. //

be right back. // bye!

The form dissolves/walks into the shadows, into what's surely a door except there's no door there.

She grabs a piece of fruit to eat and sits back down on her bed and waits.

...she can hear it long before she can see it.

"It." If there's a gender there, she can't tell. It's like Bedlam, but somehow more // less organized, chaotic, with only the barest hint of a purpose. That hint is going towards her but it's twisting and turning and wronging everything along its path.

And it's screaming. Horrible, blood-curling screams of pain and terror and despair, sobbed pleas in superposition with the screams. What she can make out of the thing's body is being lacerated again and again by knives, razors, scissors, wire, all manner of sharp things cutting and flaying and destroying but somehow never killing, never ending.

...uh.

She seriously considers fleeing - works out the start of a route, just in case - but that seems... not quite correct, as a response to this situation. And only partly because the other girl seems entirely capable of finding her again wherever she goes.

She does get up again and get as far as she can from the door the ...person, they went over this, that's definitely a person... will be coming in through; that warping effect doesn't sound very voluntary from here.

The screams get closer and closer. She can, sometimes, also hear the girl, when she appears to talk to the ...person... and remind them that, yes, that's where they should be going, yes, going there will help, yes, she's sure of this.

She's decided to stay, she's staying.

Actually, after another moment she decides to head out along the path they're coming in on, to meet them halfway.

They get within her visual range.

They are... a mess.

There is blood everywhere, shifting and mutating and changing, and more than sharp objects there is the idea of sharpness cutting the person over and over, in their unstable number of arms and undecided area of exposed skin. Their face is in a superposition of agony and fear and anger and despair, in a dizzying multitude of expressions that make no sense and make her head hurt.

// Anthony // hello! // this is Anthony, Bedlam says, appearing somewhere. // Anthony // this is—//

I don't know // who are you? // what's your name? // Denice.

The man screams.

Yeah. Well.

"Hey," she says gently. And then to Bedlam, "why the... knives?"

// so lost. // little Anthony. // very brave. // so very lost. //

wanted to end it. // end it all. // never find himself again. // fell here. // I made him into a friend. // saved him. //

now he will be here // forever! // and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and—//

you can be my friend, too.

Yeah, no.

"Not, good, for him."

// why not? // he's past caring. // past feeling. // future feeling. // present feeling. // all feeling. // he's beautiful and terrifying // terrified // happy // sad // ...

The person—Anthony—takes a step forward. Or rather, he's suddenly a step closer without crossing the intervening space.

She's not fleeing yet.

"Sounds like hurting."

// it's not. // not hurting. // you'll see. // i'll show you. // you'll be one of my friends. // join the nightmare. //

powerful. // you'll be so powerful. // yesyesyesyes. // they'll never get you again. // never ever ever. // you'll stop them. // you'll get them.

"Help // hurts," says Anthony. "Can't // oh god I'm becoming Picasso aren't I // I'm sure this building's safe // End it, I need to end it—"

Yeah, fleeing now.

// nononono. // NO. // don't run! // you'll be my friend! // EVERYONE will be my friend!

Anthony screams and runs after her // from Bedlam. "These are knives // I can stop // end it, before I turn cubist // AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

There's a sense in which Anthony is the less scary of the two but it's certainly not a sense that's going to make her stop. She focuses on not trapping herself in a dead end, and tries to find some way of losing him.

It's hard to lose him. Sometimes he stops, as if forgetting about her, and then he's ten feet closer to her, then another five, then he takes a detour, returns, and goes after her. It's not a very continuous or linear chase, and it's hard to say whether he's gaining on her.

And at the edge of her perception, right in the middle of the path she'd planned, she can hear another anomaly just like him. This one isn't screaming, but it's talking to itself.

The last thing she needs is to be chased by two of these; too easy for them to pin her, if they can cooperate at all or even just by accident. She looks for another path.

There's a door she can't hear through, there, and a fractal set of corridors that might leave her trapped literally forever, and this one room that sounds like its floor is made of lava but surely she'd be feeling the heat if that were the case?

No, none of those.

The new 'friend' is still a couple miles off, surely there'll be something between here and there?

Distance is a funny thing. Now the new friend is only one mile off.

"Come with me!" says a girl who literally appeared out of literal nowhere a few yards in front of her, gesturing at a door that definitely wasn't there before. "Hurry, before they catch you!"

Yeah, she'll do that, she can hardly be more fucked right now.