[Ashland, Oregon. Wednesday,
November 22, 2015.]

Outside, Y/n (after retrieving her hefty bag from inside the Pink Palace) walks through the gates belonging to the Other Garden. The bright magic of the garden is darker now, with areas of black against areas of glowing flowers. She passes the pitcher plants, and the one with the frog suddenly swallows the animal.

She goes up the steps past the bleeding hearts, which now leak sticky red juice that runs down the wall. At the top, a few snapdragons, feeble now, snap at her. Y/n kicks them down. Behind her, a brick tree ring opens as a monster's mouth and five huge, pale snapdragons sneak towards her. They attack, and knock her to the ground, spilling her bag.

"No!" Y/n tries to get up but to no avail — the plants grab at her ankles, knees, hips, waist, and shoulder, and start to roll her up toward the stone mouth. Luckily, the teenager is just able to grab her garden shears which she uses to cut off one mutant snapdragon's head, then another, until she is free.

The now headless stems retreat into the rock mouth.

Y/n, winded, goes to gather her spilt things when a trio of hummingbird/wasp hybrids swoop in. They don't attack her; instead, they poke their long beaks into the triangle candy and lift off. She don't know why but she instinctively yelled, "Stop!"

She scrambled to her feet and chases after them but they were getting away.

As she crosses the little bridge, she takes off her cap and flings it like a frisbee at them. Bullseye — they fall to the ground, near the eyebrow shrubs, sawdust spilling out. She picks up the Adder Stone and lets out a sigh of relief. Not a scratch.

"I wonder..." Y/e holds it up to her eye and gasps. "Wow..."

Everything is a blurry grey like a pencil drawing, all colour gone. She scans the garden, turning slowly. As she turns back to where she started, she sees something, right in front of her: a burning red ember — it must be an eye belonging to one of the ghost children. She lowers the stone from her eye and heads in the general direction of the presumed eye.

Upon reaching her destination, Y/n sees that the ghost's eye is the faded stick shift knob from the praying mantis tractor, which stands in front of her with the Other Father, a squat pumpkin man, at its controls, his own hands imprisoned in the mechanical piano hands.

Headlights glare and the tractor roars to life. The mechanical hands force the Other David to shift gears, and the tractor lurches at Y/n, its arms slashing. She yells and backs away. The Other Father calls in a garbled voice: "Sorry, so sorry! Mother is... making me..."

Y/n backs onto the little bridge that spans the fountains as the tractor moves in.

"Don't want to hurt you—"

The Other Father tries to steer the tractor away, but the mechanical hands are stronger. It moves onto the bridge — stupidly smashing through the planks in front of it. Halfway over, it lurches, and then starts to fall through the hole it has created. The tractor hangs precariously for a moment.

Y/n partially feels sorry for the creature as she watches the Other David kicks away one mechanical hand, and with one hand free, manage to pull off the shift knob. "Take it!" He pleaded.

Y/n dives forward and just gets the knob before the tractor and the Other David fall away and sink under the water.

Rippling out from Y/n like a grey wave, the entire garden becomes ashen and dead. The teenager catches her breath, shaken. The ghost eye/gear knob glows red, no magic candy is necessary. "Bless you, miss, you found me! But there are three eyes still lost." The little boy reminded the h/c-haired girl. 

"Okay," she managed to give the object a weak smile. "Thank you." Y/n looks past the greyed garden towards the Other House. A Lunar Eclipse has begun, the full moon a pale acid green.

Y/n looks concerned, then resolved, and then she heads towards the house. All she had to do now was confront The Other Spink & Forcible, Mr. Bobinsky, the Other Michael, and then — hopefully — the horrid Beldam.

With a sick feeling nuzzling its way into her stomach, Y/n slowly peels back the curtain of the movie theatre in the basement flat. The theatre is quiet and dark save for light coming through the entry curtains. She spots the usher's flashlight on the ground.

Y/n doesn't bother to pick it up and instead brings out her own, clicks it on, and steps forward. She sweeps the light beam around, apprehensive, and then hears something overhead. She aims the flashlight up and startles a nest of bat-dogs — half Scotties/half bats. One bares his teeth and growls. She clicks off the light and shivers.

On stage, one spotlight and footlights fade up on a huge, wrapped saltwater taffy. It hangs from ropes and sandbags.

Y/n cautiously climbs up onto the stage. A human-sized taffy thing — striped pale pink and green — can just be seen through the wrapper. She holds her Adder Stone to her eye. There is a blue-white glow coming from inside the wrapper. "Okay... ew..." Y/n grimaced and, after taking a moment to hype herself up, she punches a hole through the paper, steels herself, and then reaches inside.

She touches something sticky and cold and inhuman. She closes her eyes and tries not to think of it. Clenching her teeth, she grabs hold and pulls out two clasped-together freezing, taffy hands — Young Spink's and Forcible's. She scoffed. It was most likely a homage to the real Spink and Forcible's interest in ancient, foreign candy.

Her heart thumps. She pries the taffy hands open like scallop shells until a large pearl ring is revealed. Y/n recognized it from the show. It had to be one of the children's eyes, given its abnormal size of it. As soon as she touched the object, the conjoined hands suddenly grab her.

Y/n screams. Young Spink and Forcible twisted together into one taffy monster and thrust their heads out from the bag. "Thief!" They screeched. "Give it back!" The pair demanded.

Y/n pulls away and falls to the ground, stretching the candy arm out across the stage! The monster crawls out with another paired arm before it starts to drag itself toward the teenager, ropes swaying on pulleys.

"Thief!"

Y/n, desperate, gets an idea. She clicks on her flashlight and aims it at the hybrid canines. They growl with annoyance and open their wings but do not budge. The h/c-haired girl begins to grow worried as the taffy monster is getting closer. With a small groan, Y/n uses all her might to hurl the flashlight and luckily manages to hit one of them.

Angered, they take wing to attack her — just like she planned! Bat-dogs are closing on the left, the taffy monster on the right... Y/n waits until the very last second and then dives out of the way as the two beasts collide with each other.

The young woman's hand is released, leaving her with the gorgeous pearl. A few of the bat-dogs and taffy monster are now together and still-as-stone turn to dead, grey ash, as does the stage and theatre. Y/n takes a moment and lays there on the stage, trying to catch her breath before the pearl begins to speak to her, "Flee! Flee now! You have two of us now," the tall ghost pleaded. "Flee this place while your blood is still flowing!"

Y/n nods her head while sticking the pearl in her bag. She groggily stands up to her feet and wastes no time retrieving her once-lost flashlight. While it wasn't as useful as the Adder Stone, she was not about to wander through the decaying Other World without a source of light.

Making her way up on the exterior leading up to the upper flat, Y/n grimaced when she overheard the haunting circus music in the air. The Other Mr. B's Russian flag, torn in places, waves in the air. The pale green moon is nearly half-eclipsed now with what is clearly the shadow of a huge, dark, button.

As Y/n climbs the last flight of stairs to Bobinsky's, she stops with a shudder at the top. The flag has been replaced with the empty cost of the Other Wybie — gloves, pants and sneakers pinned on — hanging like old laundry. "Oh, Wybie..." she frowns at the sight. He didn't deserve such a cruel fate such as that. She takes a breath, leans out over the railing and shouts, "You ugly ass bitch! I'm not scared." She yelled into the night air.

Just then, the door behind her creaks open. Y/n looks over her shoulder. She is definitely scared.

She then steps into the apartment and carefully shuts the door behind her. The cannons and Ferris Wheel — much like everything now — are dark and silent; the circus tent glows dimly. Pale green moonlight shines in patches through holes in the roof. The corners and edges of the room are very dark.

The Other Bobinsky suddenly crawls by the door behind her. Y/n fumbles around in her bag, turns on her flashlight, and whips around, on guard. He looms up past the cannons on her right, leaning towards her. "Hello!" He greeted, all too cheery and it didn't take long for the h/c-haired girl to notice that there are too many joints in his arms and legs.

His tall, crooked hat is pulled so low, and his collar so high, that his face is completely hidden. The Other Mr. b throws out his arm towards her and the circus ball from the mouse circus rolls from his sleeve to his hand. "Is dis vhat you're looking for?" He inquired in a smug tone.

"Yes." Y/n didn't need to look through the Adder Stone to get confirmation that it was the third ghost eye. Plus, she didn't want this creature to know that she had an assist. The teenager attempts to grab it but he's too quick. He back-bends to all fours and scuttles around her towards the back shadows.

"You tink vinning game is goot ting?" He slurred. Y/n uses her flashlight to survey the room, carefully searching for the Russian man. His voice sounds distorted now. "You'll just go home and be bored and neglected..." Mr. Bobinsky twines up a post behind Y/n and crawls out on a beam. "No father to care for you, no mother, no brother to listen to you, and no boy to love you," he listed all the cons of her original world. "... same as alvays."

He swings upside-down from his ankles, his head stopping right by Y/n's. She backs away, alarmed.

"Stay here vis us; vee vill listens to you and laughs vis you." He comedically drops to the floor on his head, then slithers into the circus tent. Y/n does not want to follow him but she does anyway.

As Y/n climbs into the tent, her eyebrows knitted together at the sight of the Other Mr. B who is now perched on a pile of mouldy cheeses in the centre of the ring. He moves like all his bones are broken, "If you stay here, you can have vhatever you vant." He tried his best to persuade her.

Y/n doesn't waste a second to get up and pull off the creature's hat but instead of his head, a huge pale rat sits there — holding the circus ball. It barks at her and then jumps down the coat collar. "Ew!" She screamed as other rats leap from coat sleeves and pant legs. Y/n pulls back, horrified, as the clothes collapse, looking around for the circus ball.

There's a rat squeal behind her and she turns. The gigantic rat — balanced on a wheel of cheese, circus ball in paws — taunts her, then runs the cheese out of the door. She gives chase.

The other rats race behind the twin rows of cannons whilst the cheese wheel rat rolls through them, heading towards the door. Y/n charges but is bested by the cannons, manned by rodents, and fire cotton candy at her. She's hit in the side, her leg, her ribs; she weaves and stumbles, the shots landing like punches.

A pet door, perfectly shaped for the rat on the wheel, appears in the front door as the rat approaches. Y/n looks up just in time to see the animal with the third ghost eye heading through it, making a beeline outside. Not about to risk losing her Adder Stone, the h/c-haired girl throws her flashlight as hard as she can at the rat.

Unexpectedly, the flashlight was able to narrowly miss and the cheese-wheel rat escape down the stairs with the ball. Y/n rushed outside but as soon as she did, the balcony tears away from the house with the attached stairway.

The whole rig, with Y/n on top, rotates as it collapses, throwing the teenager toward the front of the house when it hits the ground. She blacks out for a moment.

Finally coming to, Y/n wheezes for breath and pushes up on hands and knees and scans past the topiaries and poplars and white gravel driveway, looking for the cheese-wheel rat and circus ball. No cheese-wheel rat, no circus ball ghost eye. Not even her flashlight was in sight.

Y/n, lit by a narrowing band of pale green light, turns to look at the moon. It's nearly covered now by the dark button shadow but she wasn't completely out of time. Not yet. She still had to find the third and fourth eye but would she even be able to win without finding them all? She felt horrible. Y/n's lower lip quivered at the thought of the sweet ghost girl — Wybie's aunt — not being able to escape this terrible world.

She'd be so disappointed.  

Y/n seethes as her hand stings from a scrape. Blood trickles from her knee. She feels nothing but cold loss. "Oh, God, I've lost..." she cursed at the realization. Now, she's trapped here.

In her distressed state, she is completely unaware of the dropping figure behind her. Y/n simply closes her eyes but just as she was about to break down, there's a familiar meow. She opens her eyes and... that's when she saw the rat.

It lay beside her with a surprised look on its face which was now several inches away from the rest of its body. Its whiskers were still, its button eyes were wide, his teeth visible, yellow, and sharp. A colour of wet blood glistened at its severed neck and dyed the green grass below it.

Y/n lets out a shaky sigh of relief seeing that clutched in between the rat's nasty looking-teeth was the third ghost eye. She grabbed it and put it with the rest of them. However, her e/c optics shift upward and spots the black cat.

He licked his paws, rat's head and circus ball at his feet. "I think I mentioned that I don't like rats at the best of times." The stray uttered.

Y/n walks towards the black cat and crouches down. "Yeah... you did," she nodded her head and scratched the back of one of his ears. "All we need to defeat is the Other Michael, right?" She asks with a sniffle, pulling away from the feline.

The black cat nods.

"Do you know where he is?" Y/n tilts her head to the side. "I mean, I'm guessing you know this world better than I do..." she mumbled under her breath.

"There are not many places left in this world but, in a way, he is your brother," the cat turned its attention back to the new tenant. "Think. You know him better." He instructed.

"Well, the Other Michael did mention something about a tennis court earlier..." Y/n trailed off.

"Then he must be there."

Venturing to the back of the Pink Palace, Y/n becomes more on edge as the rather large tennis court comes into few. It was relatively vacant and empty aside from a slouched figure in the centre. She and the stray cat slowly made their way toward the fence. It must be the Other Michael.

It shared his likeness. Short dreads and a dark complexion... but he seemed almost decrepit. "Hey!" Y/n called out in an angry voice but his frozen state didn't budge.

"Look," the black cat jumped on the h/c-haired girl's shoulder which caused her to flinch slightly. She tried to remain calm as the stray reached out one of his paws and pressed it against the fence, gesturing toward the Other Michael's face. While he did have a pair of ears, they seemed to be dripping blood. It reminded Y/n of when David aggressively ripped out her brother's earbuds when he was simply trying to listen to music. "I don't think he can hear us." He speculated.

"That's fitting," Y/n noted.

"What makes you say that?" The black cat asked, genuinely intrigued, as he looked over and allowed his large Opal eyes to bore into her e/c ones.

"With you and Wybie sneaking around, I'd thought maybe one of you would notice," Y/n said. "My brother's ears aren't the best. He plays his music too loudly. He has had a few ear infections because of it and I think he has tinnitus." She explained. "Anyway," she gently grabbed the feline and placed him on the ground before putting her bag beside him as well. "I need you to look after this for me. Protect it."

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Do you have any brighter ideas?" Y/n rested her hands on her hips and stared at the black cat expectantly. He hesitantly shook his head. "That's what I thought," she said, triumphant. "Now, be careful..." she whispered and slowly made her way toward the entrance.

Y/n didn't like the idea of being boxed on the tennis court with a creature that was based on her athletic adoptive brother. It didn't feel right or relatively fair. So, just in case, the h/c-haired girl left the entrance slightly ajar if she'd need a quick escape.

She spared the black cat one last look before finally stepping on the tennis court and pursing her lips together. Y/n squinted her eyes and could just barely see a brightly coloured ball clasped firmly in the Other Michael's right hand. Looking around for some sort of weapon, she spent the next moment mentally reprimanding herself for not taking the axe with her.

"Psst!" The black cat brought the silence which prompted Y/n to glance over at him. "The racket!" He pointed toward the pair of respective equipment. Unfortunately, they were both located directly in front of the Other Michael.

"Thank you..." Y/n muttered and tip-toed her way over to the creature who still didn't move so much as a muscle. It was difficult to tell if he was sleeping or not since no one with button eyes could blink. It was off-putting and weird. "Please don't move, please don't move, please don't move—" she prayed as she retrieved the nearest tennis racket.

Just as she pulled her arm back, the Other Michael seemed to be reanimated as he lifted his head and put one of his hands (the one with Coraline's eye) in his pocket. "Don't you dare think about taking this away from me." He sassed.

Y/n opened her mouth to reply to him but didn't say anything. He wouldn't be able to hear her anyway.

"Play a round with me," the Other Michael tried to convince her with a smile. "It won't take long and I promise to play fair." He continued and finally pulled out his other hand from his pocket to reveal that it was now empty. At least Y/n knew where Coraline's eye is but she didn't like that it had to be so close to his person.

Not knowing if going head to head with Michael in a match would be a part of the challenge, Y/n looked up at the moon to see that the shadow has almost covered the satellite planet and, if she were to play against the Other Michael in a sport, she'd not only run out of time but she'd lose miserably. The teenager then shifts her attention back to the copy of her brother who was still waiting for a reply. She shook her head and instead flipped him off.

"You selfish brat!" Michael screams and lunges at her but Y/n, noting from her previous encounter with the Other Miss Spink & Forcible, moves out of the way and swings the tennis racket wildly in front of her to ensure that he wouldn't come close.

"Hey," Y/n directs her panicked nature to the black cat who is lurking just outside the entrance. "I'm going to need your