A thousand things passed through Ness's mind as he freefell through the painting with Ginny. The sensation was strange, like coming apart but somehow staying together, like his body had become transparent, defied all laws of matter, lost its properties. Was his grip on Ginny's hand tight enough, he wondered, and would they both be okay? Was this a trip you could survive, or did was the painting a pipeline to death? Was there a way they could have determined this before they decided to fall through? No, not Paula, it would have been too late for her. Too late.
His eyes were shut tight, like his fist around Ginny's eight year-old hand, and he was sending out silent prayers with his mind. He felt suspended in time, although this was probably all happening very quickly. Ness thought of Jeff, his lonely eyes as he had described the agony of being the only Chosen One left behind on this mission, because the painting didn't want him. He would be safe, or safer at least, but it wouldn't be the same without him. Jeff was part of the team, and he always would be, and he belonged here, wherever here would turn out to be.
Ness gasped and Ginny cried out the moment the freefall stopped. The tingling ceased and the ground hit them hard, even though it was really the other way around. Like hitting a brick wall, the ultimate brake but far from the most pleasant.
"It's Ness!" Poo's voice sounded heavy, and yet it hung in the air, resonating for a moment as he rushed over. "And Ginny too!"
"Oh, Ness!" Paula stood up, dropping Tandy's hand. "Ness, Fourside is in ruins and oh, I've got the most terrible headache you could imagine..."
"Psychic headache?" Ness said, moving towards her. "Whoa, this is a little... whoa." He stopped a second, to keep from stumbling over himself. "Hard to see."
"Disorienting, to say the least..." Paula closed her eyes, shielding them from the red surroundings. "Not a psychic headache, Ness, I mean, not really... it's like it's in the same place, but it feels different, like burning." She sighed deeply. "Hurts..."
"Burning? Are you dizzy?" Ness hurried to her side, nearly tripping over Tandy. "Oh, Tandy, sorry... this air's so hazy, I can't --"
"S'okay," Tandy said, starting to get up. "I hope this is nighttime, I sure don't want it to get any darker."
"Is Paula sick?" Ginny piped up, looking at her curiously.
"Not sick," Paula replied, "just not feeling very well. Maybe I just need rest and a dark place or something, maybe it's the glow of the red through the haze... isn't that strange, how it's so dark out, but yet there's this shining redness everywhere?" She shook her head hard, struggling with the burning sensation.
"I've never seen anything like this," Poo said, surveying the landscape. "Hey, where's Jeff?"
Ness sensed everyone turning towards him, and he sighed. "Jeff... isn't coming."
"What? What do you mean, he isn't coming?" Paula cried.
"He can't," Ness went on. "He can't, because he never saw his face in the painting to begin with. He went along with it at the time, because he didn't know how to tell us, and it hurt that he wasn't included, for whatever reason." He bowed his head as he spoke.
"But he's one of you guys, isn't he?" Tandy said. "You all saved the world, and he was part of it..."
"Why would he be excluded?" Paula mused. "The Chosen Ones, the Chosen Four..."
"Five were chosen this time," Ness stopped her, "and Jeff wasn't one of them, I guess. I don't know why. I don't understand it any more than you do. And poor Jeff, you don't know how awful I felt taking Ginny and leaving him there, watching us go... he wanted to see his face in that painting so bad, I know he did." The memory of Jeff's face haunted him, the feelings he must have been holding back, maybe even tears. "But he didn't, and he can't be here now, so we're going to have to do this without him."
Ginny looked around anxiously, which was to be expected of a child her age. "Where are we?" she asked, squinting to see. "W-what's going to happen to us?"
"It's okay, Ginny," Paula said, trying to sound calm, "we're all together, and we're going to make it through this okay." Paula had a way with children after years of helping her mother at the preschool. "We're just in a scary place right now, but we'll be all right, you'll see."
"Are you gonna use your magic?" Ginny wondered, starting to smile at the thought.
Paula noticed Ness trying not to laugh. "Not just yet, because I'm not feeling well right now," she explained, stroking her forehead. "But maybe when I'm better, I'll get a chance to show you, okay?"
"Okay!" Ginny beamed, but was only momentarily satisfied. "Hey, do you think if it rains, it'll be easier to see out here?"
"Well, it might be," Ness agreed. "If only it could rain..."
"There is that cloud-looking thing on the horizon," Tandy said, pointing across the wide field of rubble to a large puff of black. "Kind of low, but you think it could be a storm or something?"
"Wouldn't we be feeling it by now, if it was? It looks too close, and too large... look, it's started to wrap around the frame of that building over there." He pointed to the remains of what had once been the Grand Monotoli Department Store, now a sad and sagging structure, its tower sliding sideways. A heavy wisp of black cloud covered part of the once tall tower, so dark it shielded that portion of the building from view entirely.
"Well, it looked like a rain cloud to me." Ginny continued to study the blurred form. "But I guess it can't be... it looks more like vines or something, wrapping around the top of that building, don't you think?"
Ness looked at Ginny, then back at the cloudy mass. "You know," he began, narrowing his eyes, "you just might have something there... c'mon guys, can't you see how that could really be --"
"Oh God, you don't think that whole thing could be some kind of overgrown... oh, what year is this, that something's sprung up over there and is invading what's left of Fourside?" Paula rubbed her eyes and then her head. "And when is this going to stop... oh!"
Ness grabbed her shoulders. "What's wrong?" he exclaimed. "Your headache?"
"Oh, I'm all right," Paula said, lowering his arms with hers, "it's just that this feeling keeps coming over me, this intensity, saying that it's not the redness or the darkness or the haziness that's making my head hurt, but that there's some... activity, something going on around here... I'd forgotten. I told Tandy before..."
"You thought someone was breathing, or moving around," Tandy supplied. "Didn't you?"
"Someone? Someone here?" Ness's mind raced, flashing back to enemies he and the other Chosen Ones had encountered on the road to Giygas. "Someone bad, Paula?"
"I... I don't know," Paula admitted, shaking her head. "I don't know, but I feel so much like something's around here somewhere and we just don't know it yet..."
"You do, maybe," Poo interrupted, "you just can't name it..."
Paula looked up at Poo. "Yes, that's it, or something like it, anyway, like I know and yet I don't know..." Exasperated, she exhaled. "I don't know." A short pause. "And now, the feeling's gone. I don't get it... it comes and goes."
"This is like a nightmare..." Tandy had given up on trying to feel brave and unafraid. His eyes wouldn't let him feel strong. He'd been a kid in Fourside and had lived here nearly all of his life, and even during those three years when his family had moved to Threed, Fourside had always been home. He was a city boy who couldn't imagine life anywhere else, and seeing Fourside like this stung with a pain he'd never known before. It touched him deep below the skin, someplace in the very core of him where he hid the things and feelings and people that mattered. Fourside was one of those things, his favorite place in the world, the only home he'd ever known. Being here now, among its ruins, had left him shaken, though he was doing his best to remain composed.
"I doubt you would be getting these feelings if there wasn't a good reason, Paula," Poo said, breaking a silence when all of them had looked out over the city, agreeing with Tandy that this was indeed a nightmare. "That hasn't happened before, has it?"
"Well, no, not really," Paula answered, "but then again, they've never felt like this before..." She changed her tone from careful to confident. "I want to go check out that cloud thing, it's looking more like the woods by the minute." Starting towards the corner of the city at a brisk pace, she looked back just long enough to see that no one had started to follow her, save Ginny, who was trailing along behind. "C'mon guys, we've got a job to do here, or something, so we might as well get on it! Unless you're all scared?" She took Ginny's hand before any of them could answer. "Fine, let's go, Ginny," she announced as they continued.
"Well, that was rather sudden, wasn't it?" Ness's eyes were wide, his voice only slightly hesitant. Poo and Tandy both gave him a look which strangely resembled sympathy before heading off to join Paula and Ginny, and Ness was quick to catch up with them.
"I think it's a big forest," Ginny explained to Paula as they walked along, "and once you're there, everything's nice and cool and blue and green, and the air is clear and it's not so hard to see anymore. And your headache will go away too, I think."
Paula was smiling, first with glee at having thrown the boys for a loop, and second at Ginny's suggestion of a blue and green forest. A step out of character once in a while never hurt anyone, and Paula rather enjoyed a little deviation from the norm here and there. "I hope my headache goes away," she told Ginny, "but I'm not sure it's going to, unless we find out the real cause behind --"
"Paula, look!" Ginny interrupted, pointing frantically.
"Look at what?" Paula's eyes followed Ginny's hand, out her fingertips in the direction where she was gesturing, and then she caught a glimpse for a minute of the broken down building, the face in the window. Then the pain in her head burned hotter than ever, rising and rising until Paula felt like something was exploding inside her mind, and then it stopped hurting altogether.
"Trust me, I'm just as shocked as you are. I never thought I'd see anyone coming around here, certainly not anyone like you..." the girl was saying. She had been the image, the face in the window, and now Paula and the others had come inside, listening to her, watching her as she paced and talked and peered out the window again. "No one else with you?"
"No, just us," Paula replied. She was sitting on a desk in the lobby of the old apartment building, Ginny beside her. "What do you mean, not anyone like us?"
"Oh... nothing," the girl replied, looking over the group before her. "It's been years since anyone's been by here... why are you here? What happened to you?"
"We came through a picture in the museum," Ginny blurted out before Paula had the chance to answer her. "A special picture."
"A painting," Paula elaborated, "one all red and white and showed each of our reflections in it, one that apparently contains a portal to... your world. This place. It's... Fourside, isn't it?" She cringed as she said it.
"Yes," the girl answered, "oh... you came through a painting? I mean, it didn't hurt or anything?" She seemed unsure, confused maybe.
"It was a weird feeling," Ness spoke up, "but I wouldn't say it hurt. More like tingling. I've never traveled that way before, it wasn't quite the same as teleporting."
"Oh, oh," she clenched her hands suddenly, wringing them anxiously, "then I was right, then it's true that... oh, you're the ones, aren't you? The ones who went to save the world..." Her eyes were intense, and she stared at them hard.
"Well, some of us," Paula said. "Ness and Poo over there, and me. Ginny and Tandy we've only just met recently, see." She paused, going over the girl's words in her head, listening over and over to the echo of her voice. "Right about what, that some of us were Chosen Ones?"
The girl tried to smile. "Well, that too," she said with a nod. "But also, you're... well, you're alive." She hung her head, stepped away slowly.
Tandy did a double take. "Aren't you?" he asked, jumping to his feet.
"Well..." Her voice trailed off as Tandy approached her, coming closer and closer. He was within an arm's length of her and was reaching out to touch her hand when she suddenly pulled away, jumping back. "Please don't touch me, I... I don't know, did you ever think that Giygas had victims during his great war? Did you ever realize the suffering, beyond any of your own? Did you... oh... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." She closed her eyes lightly, not noticing as Tandy backed away, step by step.
"You were a... oh, you're..." Tandy nearly stumbled over a loose floorboard.
"Giygas, he... killed you?" Ness blinked in the dim light provided by two candles on a small table beside the desk. "You're..."
"Ivy," she finished, though this was not the word he'd intended. "My name is Ivy, and I was killed during the struggle against Giygas." Paula started to speak, but she went over her voice. "I'm dead, and there's a marker for me in Greenleaf Cemetary in Threed. That's where I lived," she explained, "and that's where I died. And now I'm here, and it's been so long since I've seen anyone... alive, that you frightened me so..."
Paula was on her feet, standing near Tandy. "Oh, Ivy... oh, I'm... well, sorry isn't strong enough, not in the slightest, but I just feel so..." She sighed. "How did it happen?"
"Zombies," Ivy said, shaking her head. "I'd rather not talk about it..."
Paula shivered, picturing one of the creatures in her mind. "That's all right..."
"Pardon me for asking," Poo said after a long silence, "but what exactly is this place, do you know? And why are you here?"
"Ruins," Ivy whispered, taking a cautious step towards Paula and Tandy, "that's what we call it, not Fourside. It doesn't look much like Fourside anymore, does it? I'm not sure of what time it is, I mean, the future? Fourside... still exists, doesn't it?"
"It does," Tandy replied, "and it's beautiful... so you mean, you think we've traveled into the future through that portal?"
"I don't know much about all that," Ivy responded, looking down, "but I know the people that come here. Prisoners, captives, they are the victims, the numbers. Giygas's victims, killed by his creatures, by violence." She rubbed her eyes, causing herself to appear younger than she really was, which looked to be about seventeen years old, if she weren't dead.
"Wait," Ness said suddenly, "we... the people that come here... you mean there are more that are, well... like you? Here?"
"You look alive to me." Ginny stared at the girl, who looked as though she were about to cry. "Really."
Ivy looked up. "Thank you, I guess. I wish I... but I'll never be again." She blinked a few times. "There are more of us here, the victims, they live upstairs. My room is one floor up from here."
"Can we meet the others?" Ness asked her.
"Tomorrow," Ivy replied. "They're asleep now..." Her voice softened to a whisper. "I can bring you all upstairs if you'd like, there are lots of empty rooms. Of course, some of them have holes in the walls, this building really is falling to pieces, we ought to find ourselves another..." She gestured for them to follow as she headed through a slightly crooked doorway and started up the stairs.
"Thanks for everything, Ivy," Paula whispered as they crept upstairs. "Especially for telling your story back there... that was brave."
"Oh... I guess," Ivy commented without turning around. "It seemed harder than it really was. I think about it all the time, I'm just not used to telling it to people, that's all." She stopped at a landing. "Here, there are three rooms on this floor, however you want to divide them, or if you only want to use two, or whatever. You'll have it to yourselves, there are no... none of us, I guess, on this floor."
"Thank you for your kindness," Poo said as he passed by. "But if I might ask one more thing... why do you think we've been transported here, to this time, this place?"
Ivy hesitated nervously. "I... well, I think I might have... an idea," she explained in a low voice, "but let that wait until tomorrow... there's something I have to tell you."