We have a brief discussion about what exactly to do about the rest of our classmates who are still in their dream states in our dorm rooms. There are only four of us and six of them and none of us are especially strong (Yukiya and Ririka are extremely small in size for our age), so it's not like we can simply walk into the dorms and carry them all over here to our mindhacking secret base in one go.

But we can't just leave them there, unconscious, immobile. It's nearing noon already, judging from how short the shadows have gotten. And as far as we know Mr. Kojima, one of the supposed "baddies", is still out there somewhere, so there's no guarantee that he wouldn't do anything to our poor friends. In the end, Shun and Yukiya decide to just get it over with and carry them over one by one, making as many trips as needed.

I'm worried, of course. I'm not sure if Yukiya is in the right state to be carrying people, especially considering he's my height and just as skinny as I am, but he flexes his (non-existent) muscles and tells me not to fuss. So I don't fuss, at least not in front of Ririka, because hey it might damage Yukiya's ego. I watch them leave from the windows, though, to make sure that they don't run into trouble. If they do run into trouble there isn't much I can do, yes, but knowing is always so much better than not knowing.

Meanwhile, Ririka sits there and eats cookies. It occurs to me that it must be a crazy huge packet of cookies. It also occurs to me that I should ask Ririka what exactly it was that she did inside Yukiya's mind. For science.

Okay, actually it's to satisfy my curiosity.

"I don't know, really," Ririka says thoughtfully as she munches. Cookie crumbs are all over the floor because that's the type of person she is. "I just felt... really strongly that I had to make it through the wind and rain and get to Yukiya, or else his mind would shut down. Like, something in me kept telling me that no matter how difficult and scary it was, I must not die, I must get to him, or bad things would happen, not sure what but..." She cocks her head to one side like a floppy-eared puppy. "I wanted to protect him, you know?"

"I know," I whisper softly. "And you were brave, you did protect him, even though everything in his mind was trying to kill you. I'm proud of you."

It's really easy to say things like this to Ririka, though I would never be able to say the same words to anyone else. Ririka has that effect on people; she makes everyone feel like they're talking to a toddler and you don't usually worry about your words being sappy or embarrassing when talking to a toddler. You just kind of say what you think.

"It's nothing worth being proud of," Ririka says solemnly, "I care about him, so it's the natural thing to do."

"But-" I begin, remembering the sheer force of the wind, the impossibility to even move forward an inch, "but it's still worth being proud of. If it were me, I wouldn't be able to get past that kind of wind. It was so strong."

"But you'll be stronger. You'll be strong because you care about the person behind the wind. I know you don't care about Yukiya the way I do, but if it were Shun I bet you'd-"

"Ririka!" I scream. "How do you know? How do you know I... like him?"

"I have, uh, eyes?" Ririka says with confusion.

I groan. "I've never told even Izumi."

"She doesn't know, and neither does Natsumi," Ririka assures me with her happy-go-lucky sweet voice. "They don't see like I do."

I stare, wondering why my little friend can be so adorable and yet also so much of an enigma.

"Are you going to tell him? Ask him if he likes you back?" my enigmatic little friend asks innocently, between bites.

"Of course he doesn't like me back! And I can't just ask, I, I'm-"

"Too scared to? It's okay, I don't think you'd need to," Ririka concludes. "By the time this whole thing ends, you'll know."

I'm not sure if I should ask her to explain the comment, so I don't. Instead, I concentrate on readying myself.

Readying myself for what's going to come next. Readying myself for the snakes that are going to come next.

-

Hiroki is a huge animal lover. He's always picking up strays and stashing them secretly in his dorm room, and spending all his pocket money to buy food for abandoned kittens. He is often spotted watching birds, talking to squirrels, or staring longingly at the picture of his favorite golden retriever (he has three at home) which stands on his desk. There's no way he could have brought his pets with him to live at the school; the teachers would never allow that. Besides, the tiny dorm rooms are no place fit for boisterous golden retrievers that run around in circles knocking over things, like robot bunnies with fully-charged batteries.

I guess it makes sense, then, that Hiroki's mind is rather... fluffy. All pink and purple clouds and strange poofy structures that weave through the air in physics-defying twists and turns. We land on one of those structures, smack in the middle of the clouds and mists, and it horrifies me because I can't see any sort of ground. Like if I were to fall off the poofy structure I am on, I would probably just free-fall to the end of eternity. Which isn't very nice.

Shun already has his gun out, looking around for potential snakes, but with all the mist floating around it's hard to see far. I do what I do best instead; I listen. I've never truly thought about what snakes are supposed to sound like-they're usually silent. Perhaps they'd sound slimy? Slithering-ly? I don't know. But then I hear it-the pitter-pattering of feet. Many feet.

Snakes aren't supposed to have many feet. In fact, they aren't supposed to have any feet.

"This doesn't sound good," I think, and before I can investigate any further, the largest spider I've ever seen jumps out from the mist. It's at least three times my size, and it scrutinizes us with its multiple eyes. I stare at the beady eyes, at the twitching legs, at the fur on the twitching legs.

And then I turn around and run. I can't help it, it's pretty much an instinctive reaction. My legs move by themselves, finding the way faster than my brain can, navigating through the strange poofy floating structures, under a dome-shaped blue poof, past some easter-egg shaped green poofs, over a slope-shaped purple poof, and I can't make myself stop. I can't bring myself to look back, because I know if I do I'll come face to face with those eyes, with those legs, and the sheer thought of it brings goosebumps all over my arms and I begin to scream, and scream, and scream.

I may be really afraid of clowns and of cockroaches, but spiders-they're entirely different. My brain thinks they're fine. They're actually helpful animals that eat pests and stuff. But my body refuses to think so; one single look at a spider, no, at even a part of a spider, and my instinct is to run.

I can't do this, I tell myself. I can't. I hope Ririka and Yukiya unhook me right away. I'm not cut for mindhacking, after all. I'm just plain old Tomomi, the most useless mindhacker in our school's history.

The structures come to a dead end. There are more structures floating about somewhere in the distance, but I'll never reach them unless I can jump some twenty meters, which obviously I can't. I fall to my knees and begin to cry. The pitter-pattering comes closer, closer, the pitter-pattering of so many legs, of too many legs, and I feel myself shaking so hard I'm almost cramping all over. My fingers have gone stiff, like chicken feet. The kind of chicken feet you can find in Cantonese dim sum restaurants.

The pitter-pattering stop, somewhere behind me. I don't turn around, and instead pray that the spider would kill me quickly. Instead of, you know, spin a web around me and slowly devour me or something.

Just kill me. Just kill me now. At least this way I won't have to come face to face with the giant spider. At least this way it's somewhat peaceful, at least the soundtrack doesn't sound that bad-

I wonder for a brief second why there's even a soundtrack. It sounds cute, like the kind of synthesizer BGM in 8-bit video games. Cute and high-pitched and... pitter-pattering. A lot of pitter-pattering. I hear it from all sides, surrounding me. I shut my eyes tightly, not daring to open them. I'm surrounded by spiders-no way I'm going to open my eyes.

I just wish I knew why the spiders make such cute sounds.

"Bro," one of them says, from directly behind me. "Are you done crying or are you gon' help us save our good friend Hiroki?"

I sigh. I should have seen this coming. Hiroki, goddamn animal lover, is friends with freaking spiders.