Mary was laying down on the ground, staring at the camp’s wall. She couldn’t look at the exit, because it made her worry. She couldn’t look at the fire, because it scared her. She had been staring at the sky, but now it was starting to turn that unpleasant orange color. Her doll was trying to distract itself too, but it kept looking out to the forest, or trying to get her attention.

She wouldn’t go out though, no matter how often it gave her that pleading look. Ib hated her. Mary wasn’t human, no matter how much she wished she was. She couldn’t ever be friends with Ib, they were just too different. No matter what she did, she would always be a selfish painting who had to steal everything. She couldn’t help wondering what would happen if she hadn’t hurt Ib’s friend, the man with the purple hair. Garry, that was his name... She took his rose, plucked all the petals, all so she could leave the gallery at last.

She wondered if he was still there somewhere, in pain. Or maybe he fell asleep for the last time like humans do. Either way, it was all her fault. She stole Ib’s friend, and she couldn’t take his place. She couldn’t and didn’t deserve to.

The doll jumped as it heard Mary sniffle, and ran over to dry her eyes with it’s little cloth paws. It tried to comfort her with a hug, but it didn’t seem to be helping. It wasn’t sure what to do, so it simply held her, hugging her neck in hope that it would magically make things better.

Mary eventually gave it a pat on the head. “This feels awful. I wish I could go back. I shouldn’t have left. Then Ib could be happy, and safe, and with people like her. Not monsters like me...”

Monster? The doll shook its head. Mary couldn’t be a monster. She made it, after all. Mary showed it all of this pretty world and interesting things. She couldn’t be like those spiders and creepy shadows. Sadly it knew it couldn’t say all of that, it could only squeak and make some other noises. But…

The doll let her go and ran off to the exit. It jumped and squeaked until Mary finally looked up, then it pointed out. Seeing as Mary didn’t want to budge, the doll ran off. As expected, that got her moving.

“Come back!” Mary got up, hesitating for only a moment. Even if she knew she was horrible, she wouldn’t let anything happen to her own creation. If nothing else, she would keep her doll safe.

Even with Madotsuki holding off the shadows hounding her, Ib was still being followed by new ones that seem to have sprung up in her wake. They weren’t quite as dark and large, but she wasn’t going to sit around and wait to find out if they could hurt her or not. As she ran, sometimes one would appear at her side and try to snap at her from a tree’s shadow, making her run all the faster.

She eventually ended up in a clearing- where it seemed the beasts stopped following. Before she could so much as catch her breath, however, she discovered why they had stopped; her legs were getting caught, and the clearing was almost entirely covered in a giant web, with a large nest of some sort in the middle. She recognized it immediately as a spider den, and sure enough, two spiders were quickly coming out to attack her. For a moment, she was frozen on the spot, with shadows behind and monsters ahead.

She quickly regained her senses and started running left. The webs slowed her down, but her panic saw her clearing the area before they could strike. The shadows she knew would renew their chase, while the spiders thankfully left her be now that she escaped their territory. For a moment, she hoped that perhaps the two kinds of monsters would fight, but it seemed the spiders didn’t notice them at all.

However, the idea of monsters fighting, and remembering what happened last time she ran into spiders, she started running towards what she hoped would be Mary’s camp.

They were still following Ib, as best Madotsuki could tell. She saw quite a few of those shadows following something back to the forest, and it had to be her. What she couldn’t figure out was how. They all vanished after she killed some of them, so why were these persisting? Whatever the reason, it was obvious Ib was still in danger. She would work out the semantics of the situation later.

The area was starting to look familiar, and she had an inkling where the shadows were chasing her to- ah. Yes, there’s that spider den. Perhaps they were hoping she would run right into it and be trapped, but the lack of gore showed she managed to dodge the trap. Smart girl. But here is where the trail seemed to run cold. The dreamer couldn’t see any sign of the shadows or Ib in any direction. She thought back, wondering where Ib might go.

She knew Ib would be scared to return to her camp, but would she really be more scared of Mary compared to what was behind her? Madotsuki doubted it. In any case, it was the only lead she could think of, so off she went.

The doll proved surprisingly quick, and Mary was having trouble finding it. The only reason she hadn’t lost it yet was that it seemed to be leading her, occasionally called to get her going in the right direction. “This isn’t funny you know!” She was starting to get angry, so the next time she heard it call, she ran in its direction, trying to catch it before it could go any further.

She was in such a hurry that she didn’t hear the sound of someone else coming, and she was bowled over as Ib slammed into her, sending them both tumbling. They both lay there dazed for a moment, but Ib scrambled away quickly, realizing both who she ran into and what was still after her.

Mary shook her head, shrieking and barely dodging the bite of a shadow monster, quickly pulling out her knife and getting up. She slashed it, but the creature backed up to rejoin its kin. It looked as though they were all about to charge at once.

“Doll! Get her out of here!” The doll peeked out of its hiding spot, a worried frown on its face. “Do it now!” The doll squeaked in fright at the anger in her voice and quickly ran over to Ib, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet with surprising strength, before leading her away, back the way Mary had came.