I groaned, realizing she was repeating her lines. It wasn’t her. It was just an NPC with the same name.
“Wow, you guys are really bad at this, aren’t you?” Starr groaned. “Come on, little game character. We got your back.” She dropped down into the building.
I glanced at Lilli. “That’s weird, right?” I asked in a low voice so Ikumi couldn’t hear. “That she has the same name?”
“Yeah.” My sister frowned. “Maybe just a coincidence. But I don’t know. Do you think Admiral Appleby named a character after our Ikumi?”
“Well, not our Ikumi. ’Cause, remember, her real name is Mirai. The real Ikumi was Hiro’s wife, remember? Our Ikumi’s mom.”
Lilli’s eyes widened. “That’s right. I wonder if Admiral Appleby knew her somehow.”
“I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter. But it is definitely weird.”
“Definitely. This whole thing is bizarre beyond belief.”
“Also…” I started, biting my lower lip. “There’s something else I need to tell you. Before I jumped off the trash mountain? I saw—”
“Hey!” Starr suddenly interrupted from below. “Y’all gonna sit up there all day, or you want to escape this tower?”
Oh, right. “We’re coming!” I assured her. I’d have to tell Lilli about Atreus later. Right now, we had more pressing priorities.
I slipped down through the trapdoor into the hallway below. It was narrow and dark, with faded, ripped wallpaper and stained carpet. It smelled rank, too. It was hard to believe this had just been rendered a few moments before. It appeared to have been decaying for decades.
Lilli called down to me. “I’m going to lower Ikumi. Go ahead and grab her when you see her.”
I looked up to see little NPC Ikumi’s legs dangling from the trapdoor above. I grabbed her and helped her to the floor. Once she was settled, Lilli dropped down behind her.
“Are you okay?” she asked the little girl.
Ikumi nodded. She looked around the hall. “We need to be careful,” she warned. “They could be anywhere.”
A shiver tripped down my spine. They. As in zombies.
“Do you know which way to go?” Starr asked. “Which way leads down?”
But NPC Ikumi only shook her head. “I thought you would!” she proclaimed, looking even more nervous.
I groaned. “So much for it being a follow quest,” I muttered. I knew we should have just left her up on the roof. She was going to be more of a hinderance than a help. And we didn’t need to be taking on random quests to distract us from our mission.
Lilli shot me an annoyed look. She put a protective hand on Ikumi’s shoulder. “Come on,” she said to the little girl. “We’ll figure it out together.”
We headed down the corridor, trying to ignore the way the floor vibrated under our feet, as if it were ready to collapse at any moment. Thankfully, we located a staircase at the far end of the hall and ran down it. Unfortunately, it ended one floor down, dropping us into another long, bleak hallway.
“Who designed this place, anyway?” Starr muttered as we started down the new hallway. What else could we do? But we didn’t get far before we heard another low moan. This one sounding much closer.
“Um…” I said, stopping in my tracks. Two shadowy figures lumbered out from behind an old rotted-out door. My heart sank.
Zombies. Guess there was no avoiding them.
The two creatures shambled toward us, moaning and groaning. They were dressed in rags. Their feet bare and filthy. Their fingernails ragged and torn. But it was their eyes that were the worst. Or rather the blackened, empty sockets where eyes had once been.
“Brains!” one moaned. “BRAINS!”
At least they were slow zombies. Not like those ones who ran and could climb walls in the newer horror movies. I raised my sword.
“Actually, I’d rather keep my brain, thank you very much,” I replied. “You, on the other hand…”
I dashed toward the zombies. When I reached them, I slashed out with my laser sword, somehow managing to cut both of them in half with one blow. Their tops slid from their bottoms as they fell, bloodless, to the floor. Lilli let out a cheer. Ikumi clapped her little hands in delight.
“Great job!” she cried. And I felt a tinge of pride at her words. Even if she was just a computer program.
I headed back to the group, a grin on my face. “Too easy,” I declared. “Piece of—”
“BRAINS!”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “There are more of them, aren’t there?” I asked, my heart sinking. Starr, Lilli, and Ikumi nodded their heads in unison, looking horrified. Reluctantly, I turned back around to see more zombies lumbering down the hall.
A lot more zombies.
“Run!” Starr cried.
We raced back through the hall. Back toward the staircase we’d come down. But when we finally reached the place it had been, it was no longer there. Instead the hallway continued on, seemingly endless.
“Um,” Lilli said. “That’s weird.”
“They must still be changing stuff,” I said. “Come on!”
We continued down the hall, searching for another staircase. The place was like a maze, room connecting to room, then dead-ending for no reason. A kitchen became an office became a workout room—sometimes when we were still inside it. As if the designer was changing things in real time.
“Make up your mind!” Lilli shouted into the void. “And put in some darn stairs!”
Her words sent a chill down my spine. Up until that moment, I’d assumed there were stairs—and we just hadn’t found them yet. But it was very possible that no stairs existed. That they hadn’t been built yet. Like when I used to mess with Lilli’s Sims game, taking away the ladder from the pool, leaving the poor Sims with no way out. I used to think it was funny to watch them drown. If I ever got out of this alive, I would never laugh at them again.
“Hang on a second. Let me check down here,” Starr said, disappearing into an adjoining hallway. With her wings, she was faster than we
