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The Sword! It's on your hip! You can't tell where Ellery's looking, thanks to his stupid sunglasses, so you make sure to turn your back on him before sneaking The Sword out. It's as handsome as ever, if a little blurrier than usual, and you take some time to turn it over in your hands. Aw, yeah. Its keen edge should slice straight through the cage bars, and the flames can finish the job. Easy as that.
Shockingly, it is easy as that. The cage bars snap like pencil lead, and their edges blister and smoke. Ellery, on his lounge chair, doesn't react. Is he napping? You step through the cage with caution, but there's still nothing. The drink is unattended on the floor.
How lame. (You guess he is tired.) Well, whatever: you don't <span class="mu-i">need</span> to defeat Ellery in single combat, or anything, it's just a nice-to-have. Where even are you? Some sort of interstitial space? The interim or something like it. His proper mind ought to be just beyond it.
You think about it, then cut out a wide circle underneath your feet. It smells of burnt rubber. Ellery shifts, then reaches for an earplug, but you've already fallen through.
-
<span class="mu-i">This</span> is what you expected all along— no you, no cage, no Ellery. Well, all Ellery, everywhere everything Ellery: spent and bitter and obsolete, rust and stains and yellowing. Junk. You wrench yourself into being and are crushed under reams of newspaper and twisted metal.
This is less of a body than usual, though, and you don't have to dig yourself out— you're already dug. The air is thin and still. The sky is sepia. You stand on a jumble of discarded things: lost shoes, torn photographs, crumpled notes, ruined furniture.
Yellow light pours from the gaps between the garbage.
>[1] Wait. Ellery is assuredly coming after you, and you don't want to be surprised.
>[2] Dig. The sun's down there somewhere. You don't know what you're doing with it yet, but you have some ideas.
>>[A] Touch it.
>> Talk to it. (And say what? Write-in.)
>>[C] Swallow it.
>>[D] Write-in.
>[3] Search. There's a lot of stuff just laying around. (What are you looking for? Write-in.)
>[4] Write-in.
