He’s not exactly a bundle of joy, either.

He holds her hand. He leads.

She closes her eyes.

The hallway doesn't seem to do anything weird or eldritch or dreamlike.

Except it is very, very long, and they don't seem to be getting any closer to the end. The doors along it are firmly shut and locked, and seem almost flat, like images rather than objects.

He’ll continue on for about fifteen minutes without doing anything but walk forward, if nothing else happens.

Nothing else happens in that time.

Fuck.

”Would you object to me knocking on one of those doors.”

"No. That might do something?"

“I don’t know, but it’d be a change of pace.”

He knocks on one of the doors.

It creaks open. There's a dimly lit room beyond - old furniture and sharp angles and dust.

He hadn’t expected that to work.

”... the door opened,” he reports. “No obvious horrors from beyond the void.”

She cracks one eye open. "...Still don't recognize it, though."

"I'm tempted to knock on other doors but I'm afraid that one of them actually will have an eldritch horror from beyond the void. In we go?"

"Yeah. Hopefully none of the armchairs eat us."

“I’ll warn them that I taste like burned pork and bananas, with a teaspoon of cumin. They’ll tremble in fear.”

Still holding her hand, he enters the room.

There's stuff on the floor, so Bina just keeps her gaze down. "Yuck. I wouldn't eat you with a flavor profile like that..."

The room doesn't really react to them. Small clouds of dust poof up when they move. As they enter, it becomes apparent there's two doors on the right-hand wall, dusty windows behind curtains across from them, and who knows, given dream logic the fireplace to the left could also be an exit.

He opens one of the doors. 

More dusty, abandoned house, though from the size of it it should intersect the hallway.

It's increasingly quiet. The floorboards make no noise when stepped on. The only thing audible is them. Their breath, their heartbeats, ba-dum-ba-dum-pa-ba-dum-tum. Three pulses, layered over each other.

Don’t panic. Act. He starts walking firmly towards the door to the hallway, 

“We need to leave, now,” he murmurs, quietly, “there’s someone else here -“

What door to the hallway.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

He holds his breath, and places a force pearl in front of the open door, and in the fireplace, and in front of the window and the closed door - 

It's already here. Under them. Closer and louder.

Fuck.

Think, think, analyze your resources and follow them where they lead you -  

He doesn’t have a brick, in his pocket dimension.

He does have a polished geode, of some sentimental value.

Hello, window. Would you be so kind as to shatter and let Jamie fly through you, after hissing ‘turnintoabirdfollowme’ to Bina? You’re probably going to kill them horribly, instead, but maybe you’re feeling unusually benevolent. 

It's the void beyond, glass shattering and turning green around them, a dizzying fall - 

(Bina is flitting behind him).

He would be flying, but one of the shards of glass clipped a wing and he turned humanoid on instinct and now he’s falling, falling, falling, eyes closed, flailing on instinct - he hates this place so much -

"This might sound crazy but I think we can change what we're seeing - " Bina shouts, having also reverted. "Just - keep your eyes closed - "

Shaitiren starts absently pretending that he’s falling through a blue sky full of fluffy, fall-preventing clouds. 

“My standards for insanity have changed substantially! They’re closed.”