Well, whether it was related or not, the woman darts over to grab the gas mask.

There's a human skull attached to an overgrown, pulsing body, staring quietly at her from the top of the stairs.

Bina starts climbing down.

The woman is swearing as she moves - not French now, or not just French - and literally slides over the side of the pit, managing grab onto the edge with one hand to not fall down. Her other hand has the gas mask.

The corpse(?) crashes into the shelving at the bottom of the stairs as it skids after her. It keeps moving, dragging itself through the splinters.

There is probably mud at the bottom of this long fiddly ladder and there is definitely a monster approaching!

Bina jumps down.

And even doesn't die.

The other woman drops after her, landing in a crouch.

Now is a good time for running!

Yes, yes. Running is definitely a good idea!

The corpse makes it to the edge of the hole - 

And the building falls down on it.

And into the tunnel that Bina and the woman are fleeing down.

The woman spins to grab at Bina, clearly aiming to shield her.

It's dark and Bina can't see what's going on.

Gets even darker, though, as something jars her head.

She might be unconscious, now.

The woman is, thankfully, strong enough, and prepared enough, to get them out of the way of most of the debris. And then...

Well. She's going to have to wait until Bina wakes back up.

Bina is a bit scared where she is. She's in Hyberadad, now, missing her test in Geography.

Because there was the bad phone call.

She's all in white, still, white except for the little green flowers on her single glove. There's a thing there. Not a maggot anymore. Things grow up, you see.

Eggs become maggots. Maggots become pupas and then flies.

Like how babies turn into girls then women then old women then...

Then... 

Yeah. She's tired and thirsty now, and hasn't slept well, and the worms in her hand are here even though that hasn't happened yet. 

She has to sit down and rest.

This next part is pretty awful.

And Ant is there. "Hey," ey says quietly, sitting down next to Bina.

"Hey," says Bina, who is eleven and pretty quietly upset. Her head feels like a balloon kind of. Floaty. Not so good. She's about to get real scared and she doesn't want to feel that, but it keeps coming up because it has to happen.

"-Would you like a hug?"

"...Yeah. Yeah I think I would."

This isn't how it goes. She's alone usually. But hugs are nice.

Well. She can have a hug. And Ant isn't going anywhere. So this time she has someone.

Clingy hug. She'd just thought she'd go to Gran's apartment, it was close and she knew the address and how hard could it be, Gran wouldn't have liked all this moping...

And then she notices the street sign, over by the grocers who've already closed to the night. 

Street 72.

She doesn't recognize it. It's not anything like the streets she could recognize.

She's really, really lost, and it's getting dark.

Ant's arms stay around her, tight and present.

"Do you know where we are?" Bina asks. She knows the being lost can't change. That doesn't mean she doesn't want to try.

"No. I'm sorry."

She nods. She kinda knew that would happen.

She looks around, tries to think - "I don't know how to get back. Maybe a map? But this isn't the area with all the shops... And I don't have any money. Well. Local money."

"Maybe we can find somewhere? A school? They sometimes have people around. Or a currency exchange?"