Last time Bina froze while Sam ran, knowing it was the cops.

This time Bina grabs Sam's hand, shouts, "Sam! Run!" and does.

Last time Bina tripped over a chair, and Sam left her to be caught.

This time Bina knows the chair is there, and leaps clear over it.

"Sam, don't stop!" Bina calls, running - all she has to do is - 

They're being followed. Unnaturally quick, and unnaturally gaited.

Ey's unfairly fast.

Bina isn't.

(...The thumps from Lash's living room are getting louder.)

(Ant's staring at the door, in transfixed terror.)

A skeletal hand manges to grasp around Bina's ankle.

She falls and shatters, and from the wreckage of her a door is built.

In the living room, at fifteen: 

"Lash I know this is going to sound really crazy but we need to barricade the door, like, right now."

"Okay."

She does, no questions - helps Bina drag her dresser in front of the door, ignores the sound of time breaking beyond it.

"What's going on, Bina?" she asks as they get it in place.

Bina doesn't respond right away, thinking, and - "Bina I think there's something out there. In the living room. I think it just broke my couch. Do you know what it is?"

"Yeah about that. It's kind of - my friend but not, and it's chasing me, because..."

Actually, she doesn't know why.

Or that it's chasing her.

"Your friend? You mean Ant? How - " Lash starts.

"You guys are crazy, there's nothing out there!" Sam interrupts, backing up all the same. "Monsters aren't real!"

It's funny, Bina supposes. Because this night hadn't been about Lash. That doesn't get resolved for another sixteen months.

It's about Sam, and how she and Bina stopped being friends.

'No such thing as monsters' Bina thinks, except how there are.

She steps in front of Ant, and takes eir hand.

Ant grasps onto her hand, desperate but-

"-It's after me isn't it?"

"I don't know. But I'm not letting it get you."

"You sh-" Ey stops. "Thank you."

That door isn't even solid, and the furniture is particle board - 

Bina's not sure how they're going to escape, this is the sixteenth floor, the stairs are past the not-Ant, and no one's built exterior stairs on skyscrapers since the 1930s...

But this is her dream, and that thought freezes crystal clear in her head - 

The door and furniture definitely don't hold up against it, as large as it is - barely fitting through the door, but it manages, lunging towards Bina and Ant through the wreckage.

She drags Ant to the window - puts the bed between herself and the not-Ant - and yells, "Window, take me to my first kiss!" before slamming it open.

The air outside is warm and rainy and not local.

(Getting through the window without looking stupid or being eaten is another matter entirely.)

The Corpse attempts to go over the bed. Turns out the bed can't really support its weight.

Ant isn't entirely sure where this is going, and ey's not much bigger than Bina, but ey can help them both scramble through the window.

Awkward scramble it is!

And then they're elsewhen.

It's raining. Bina's walking (well, now running, shoes in her hand) back from a party with Lash. They duck under an overhang - once it'd been just big enough for them both but now it holds Ant just fine - to get their phones into plastic bags.

They'd ended up kind of awkwardly accidentally flirting and then kissing last time.

Bina's not certain what'll happen now, with Ant here and not-Ant chasing them.

Ant is quiet, pressing back into the door, trying not to be...too in the way. Too...changing things. It feels. Wrong.

As much as Bina'd love to kiss Lash again, and would hate for this memory to change - 

"Lash," she says. "I know this isn't how this goes. But I think there's a problem coming. A big one."

She nods, serious. "Bina, are you okay? I can call someone - "

"I don't think you can. There's a giant undead time-corpse thing, and - I think it's about to find its way into this memory. It's. Not a call-it-in problem."

Ant looks away, back the way they came, expecting to see the corpse thing any second...