Move! Now!" Kael shouted.
His voice was hard to hear over the loud noise of the Archive.
The floor didn't just tilt. It broke and turned into stairs.
The stairs went down into deep black.
Behind us, the Council came.
They didn't use doors.
They appeared as tall, bright white lights.
The lights were perfect cubes.
They made a sound that hurt my head.
When the light touched the floor, things vanished.
The glass spikes, the oil, the blood were gone.
They weren't fighting.
They were erasing.
"If that light hits you, Ethan, you'll be gone," Mara said.
She pushed me toward the dark stairs.
I tripped.
My legs felt heavy and strange.
Every time my heart beat, the white part of my hair felt cold and hot.
I looked back.
I saw a white cube touch a metal cabinet.
The cabinet didn't melt.
It turned into green numbers and flew up into the ceiling.
We ran into the dark.
The stairs didn't feel like stone.
They felt like cold cloth.
As we went down, the big factory was gone.
Now we were in the Deep Gaps.
This was a place that was never finished.
Think of a house where the builder stopped halfway.
We ran past doors that opened to grey fog.
We crossed bridges made of wood that looked like drawings.
The wood turned to ink under our feet.
"Don't look down," Mara said.
She was out of breath.
"Here, falling is only real if you think it is."
"Where are we going?" I yelled.
My voice sounded thin.
"To the Anchor Point," Kael shouted back.
His strange guns were out.
"It's a place too real for the Council to erase. Like a file you can't change."
Then the grey fog in front of us moved.
A figure stepped out.
It wasn't the Hunter.
It wasn't a fake me.
It was a girl, maybe ten years old.
She wore a yellow raincoat.
But her eyes weren't eyes.
They were black spinning pools of ink.
"Ethan," she said.
The sound came from the walls, the floor, the air.
"Why did you leave the Room? It was warm inside."
I stopped.
My palm felt cold.
"Who are you?"
"She's a Memory-Leach," Mara cursed.
She raised her flare gun.
"Ethan, don't listen! The Room already ate her. She wants to steal your memories!"
The girl smiled, and her face ripped open like paper.
Behind the girl's face was dark space full of teeth.
"Give me your Sunday mornings, Ethan," the thing said.
"Give me the smell of your mother. You won't need them soon."
The thing jumped at me.
It didn't run.
It skipped through the air, five feet at a time.
Kael shot.
His bullets made blue fire.
They hit the thing, but it didn't stop.
The bullets went through the ink in its eyes and were gone.
"She's too empty for bullets!" Kael yelled.
"Ethan! Use the Key! Change the path!"
I looked at the bridge under us.
It was just a drawing of stone.
I looked at the thing—the Leach—right in front of me.
I didn't think.
I felt the Key in my hand and touched the bridge.
Make it heavy.
I slammed my hand down.
The drawing of the bridge became real stone.
It also became super heavy.
Right away, the Leach was pulled down.
It was light, so it crashed into the floor.
Its teeth broke on the stone.
The girl in the yellow raincoat screamed.
It sounded like glass breaking.
Then it was crushed into a small black ball.
But the bridge was breaking too.
I made it too heavy for this place.
"Go! Jump!" Kael yelled.
He grabbed me and threw me at a glowing door.
We flew through the air.
The bridge fell into the grey below us.
We landed hard in the Anchor Point.
Quiet.
I rolled over, breathing hard.
The white part of my hair was bigger now.
It went down to my ear.
My left hand—the one I used—was see-through now.
It stayed that way.
"You learn fast," Mara said.
She wiped black blood off her face.
She looked at me like she felt bad and amazed.
"But you're using yourself up too fast."
I looked around.
We were in a small library.
A fire was burning.
The windows showed a quiet London street.
But the cars and people outside weren't moving.
They were frozen.
"This is safe?" I asked.
"This is a Save-State," Kael said.
He put his guns away.
"A moment stuck in time. The Council can't find us here. But we can't stay."
He walked to a desk and picked up a phone that was ringing.
A phone shouldn't work here.
Kael listened, then gave the phone to me.
"It's for you," Kael said.
His face was pale.
"It's the fake you. He's calling from your apartment."
I took the phone.
My hand shook.
"Hello, Ethan," my own voice said.
It sounded happy.
"Your sister just called. She's coming for dinner. I said I'd cook her favorite food. I hope I remember what it is... or maybe I'll erase her if she sees I'm different."