Fifth. The Valiant Few.

Vincent sat at the foot of the basement staircase, having an idle conversation with himself about how great shallow relationships were. He wasn't quite sure how his train of thought had arrived there given the circumstances, but he was content in mulling it over while Lila messed around upstairs, gathering – well, stealing really – fantasy ingredients from Topper's cupboard. ("I'm not entirely sure, but just look at them," Lila responded when Vincent asked her why she wanted the stuff. "These 'Benevolent Husks' are glowing in my hands! I would kill for a proper laboratory right now!")

Across from Vincent sat a man that seemed his identical twin. Vincent wasn't sure how long he'd been doing this, but his other self didn't seem to care. They stared at one another as they talked. It was a little weird, but nothing he wasn't used to at this point. "Why do you like your women so shallow? What's wrong with love?" Other Vincent asked.

Vincent didn't have a penchant for shallow girls per say, and he had no trouble with falling in love every now and then. He'd done that depressing dance twice in his life now, once in grade school (seriously) and again when he'd been utterly alone, desperate and living out of his car six or seven years ago. In both cases, his dearest love had been his best friend, and the only person on the entire planet that he could genuinely trust. Faithful, complex affairs with these girls had helped him overcome the harshest times of his life. But he never had sex with either one of them.

It wasn't that he found sex repulsive – far from it – but the thought of pleasuring a girl that he thought was truly amazing didn't click for him. He fuckedwomen with successful careers, clean morals and beautiful bodies. He fucked an adorable skirt, lily-yellow heels and hair that smelled like sweet shampoo. He fucked girls that had their lives together, that knew what they were doing, where they were going and what they would do when they got there. Remarkably average chicks by today's standards, in other words. He tongued them, fingered them, bent them over and made them scream with pleasure – but he never seriously dated women like that. He found them pathetic, and he never had conversations with any of them that went any deeper than 'breakfast was good', or 'who played that guy in that movie again?'

"What? You're terrible – you're scum! You use good people like they're Bic pens," said Other Vincent. "That's no way to treat a lady."

"Let me finish."

Perfection, on the other hand, was all about damage. He could easily love someone that had sustained just the perfect amount of emotional destruction, as long as it wasn't too far past the tipping point. Other Vincent came up with a bad metaphor to explain it – something about a brand new book being readable, but nowhere near as special as a ripe copy with scrawled footnotes and a few missing pages. "You prefer books with coffee stains," he said, and Vincent agreed with him despite the lameness of the metaphor. Oh, wait! What was that one famous statue with the cracks in it? Minerva? Probably Minerva. Vincent wasn't sure, but it made for a slightly better metaphor. Other Vincent didn't think so, but asked his counterpart to continue anyway.

"Well the thing is, I hate being in love."

He hated it. Love meant that sooner or later he'd be alone and bored and longing for someone just as special to come and fill the emotional gap left behind, because long-term love didn't really exist for him. Vincent knew that the fastest way to spoil something great was to make it routine – and he didn't have it in him to spoil something as amazing as being in love. So he sprung for random sexual encounters with charming, unremarkable women and called it a day. Love wasn't a physical thing at all for him. "That's probably a sign of good ethics and kind spiritedness on your part," Vincent said. Or perhaps it was Other Vincent. He wasn't sure which was which anymore.

Vincent couldn't help but think about his two damaged angels. He suddenly felt the warmth of their clammy flesh against his fingers, and sniffed the chlorine-y scent of their unwashed hair. The girls he'd loved had been very similar as far as looks were concerned, now that he compared them side-by-side in his head. They were pretty little things that hid underneath a charming layer of filth, with dark hair and bright eyes. As he reminisced, ancient conversations resurfaced and became violently clear.

"I like it when the sun sets," little Sophie Denton whispered to him, nuzzling her chin against his shoulder. She felt so real. She smelled like peanut butter from lunch. "My daddy says there's a special kind of warmness that the sunset has. He says it's the 'intenstery of a dying day', whatever that means. It's a little scary, if you think about it. Right, Vin?"

That had been the first time he ever seriously talked about death. After a few hours of conversation in the warm darkness with Sophie, he'd come to the conclusion that there were far worse things he could experience in life than in death. Far worse, like breaking legs or losing friends or even having your house burn down, and many other terrible things that were even worse than that. Compared to all the bad things that could potentially happen to you, dying didn't seem so bad. Fourth grade was funny that way.

Another memory, a different smell. Elin Bukovi's lips were chapped beyond belief, but they tasted so good. Fried fish, most likely calamari. She'd adored those rubbery things, mostly because they were always the easiest food to swipe from the seaside market. Stealing apples and fresh bread and other healthy tidbits required a level of finesse that only small children and magicians could muster. But calamari was surprisingly simple for a clumsy and bedraggled twenty-something beauty to brush into a bag and quietly walk away with.

The smell of it overpowered Vincent's senses as he kissed her.

"Try not to think about it too hard," said Elin, her oil-scarred face mere millimeters away from his.

"Think about what?"

"Anything, really. Think too hard or too deep, and bad things are bound to happen."

The first time he'd heard it, Vincent believed the line was awfully profound given the circumstances. So he took it to heart. Thing was, he found it surprisingly hard not to get lost in thought every single day. He couldn't help it – he was addicted to his own mind. He loved that swirling landscape more than anything or anyone else in the world, and for that he was truly sorry.

"It happens to the best of us." Sure thing. And yet…

Everything was black. Vincent found himself alone at the edge of a field of dark, alien flowers. He began to stroll through them, reciting his thoughts aloud and flinging his arms about like a seasoned thespian. He spoke more articulately than he ever had before; his voice boomed, echoed and crackled against a faintly pulsing red-orange sky. Dark smudges screamed across the horizon with arching wings of golden mesh. The strong odor of fried fish hung heavy in the air.

As he walked, his thoughts gradually became more random. He complained about orgasms, creativity and God; plainness and monotony, failure and destruction. He trudged through knee-deep pools of scathing flames, dripping pussy, oily hair, broken ink pens. Filthy newspapers fluttered around him in an impenetrable vortex. Pages upon pages of half-assed articles on local politics, local entertainment, local this and local that. Musings columns – you know what I think about the fucking musings columns? Lemme muse about it, lemme muse my guts out onto the newsprint and you'll ignore it just like always. Rant, rant, rant. I can't really write, I'm such a hack! Trudge, trudge, trudge. You're dull and useless, and nobody loves you anymore. At some point, he yelled for his long-dead uncle's 'world famous' spaghetti, and drowned in it. Hot noodles slithered down into his gut like tapeworms, and burned him from the inside. It was so goddamn delicious he wasn't sure how to thank the chef.

And then, of course, the knives appeared. Vincent felt his eyes roll to the back of his head as countless blades slid their way into his brain, for hours and hours and hours. There was no purpose, no reason, no pattern – just constant and brutal stabbing directly into his pupils. He couldn't describe the pain if you paid him to do it; not for all the cash in the devil's bank vault. Stab. Slice. Poke. Prick. Cut. Slice. Stab. Knives. Knives. Knives. Knives. Knives.

"Vince! Ready to get the heck out of here?"

Vincent jolted up and found himself sitting on Topper's staircase. Lila Friedmont was prodding him in the shoulder, hesitant but in high spirits. A large, heavy-looking knapsack was slung over her shoulder, and a bigger one rested at her feet. She'd put her flowery yellow dress back on under her labcoat, and flashed her silver braces at Vincent with a smile. She looked pretty. Damaged.

Vincent shook his head. Had he been dreaming? Well no, not really… he thought about it and realized that he'd been wide-awake and staring at Topper's basement floor the entire time. Weird didn't even begin to explain it all. He took a quick look around; Other Vincent did not exist. He sniffed the air. It was stale and dank, with no trace of fish or peanut butter.

"I must have been dreaming," he said, rational thoughts taking over. "It all felt so real, but I must have been dreaming. I must have been dreaming." Then why do you remember every last minute of it?

Lila's eyes widened for a split second, and then relaxed. She wondered if Vincent caught it.

"What? It's something about the Pod, isn't it?"

"No! Well… probably," she said, a guilty look in her eyes. "It's just that dreams and deep meditation are typically impossible here, Vince. The serum I administer to my subjects attends to that. But—"

"But we didn't take any of that serum," said Vincent. "We just plopped down into the dirt without a clue. Great. Just great."

"Exactly! You're sharp," said Lila, swaying her bag back and forth. "All I can really say is… try not to focus too hard. You might fall into some hole that you can't climb back out of."

"And then we might never wake up from this nightmare. Good to know."

The girl was silent as she chose her next words. "This world isn't a dream, you know. The Pod has nothing to do with sleep patterns or nightmare integration or anything like that."

Vincent couldn't place why, but something about Lila's tone betrayed her. He tried not to do the same.

"…Lila? I know I might not have any PhDs, and I'm not a trained engineer or anything like that," Vincent said, standing up and touching her shoulder, "But… how exactly does the Pod work?"

"I already told you the basics back in the lab—"

"No. No, you didn't. I knew something was a little off about what you told me, but I couldn't figure it out until I woke up this morning," said Vincent, tightening his grip on her shoulder. He felt like he was scaring her a little bit, but maybe that was necessary. "You were lying to me, weren't you? I saw it in your face and I heard it in your voice when you explained it to me in front of Doctor Bing. He doesn't know exactly how this thing works either, does he?"

"Alright," she said, sighing. Finally some real answers, thought Vincent. "So perhaps the Pod has some alternate functionality that I can't share with you, but that doesn't mean I flat-out lied. I was just protecting the facility's best interests, okay? Procedures like this aren't exactly legal in this country yet."

"Alternate functionality? You're kidding. What the hell does this thing actually do, Lila?"

"Look, this whole situation is way beyond anything I've tested before. It doesn't matter right now. Can we just get moving and discuss this later?"

"What? No way!" Vincent said, shoving her just hard enough to make her stumble. "Get moving where? I want to know how deep we're buried in this shithole, Lila! It's been days, and we still don't know which way is up! We just keep running into sociopaths everywhere we turn, and I know we can't possibly be screwed up enough to just subconsciously think up shit like that." He paused for a second to catch his breath. "I want to taste delicious food again someday. I want to have sex and drink brew and go out into the real world and live my damn life again. You may not know what that means, but I sure as hell do. So please – fill me in. What kind of crazy shit have you been doing behind closed doors?"

"Are you ready to start walking?" Lila said. She flashed him a look that said, please not now. I'm begging you. He wanted to keep hammering her. He wanted to scream at her for the next twenty years, but something stopped him. Maybe it was her eyes. Some terribly lonely entity flickered in the whites of her eyes, and he decided against unleashing his rage. At least for now. So he bottled it all away and buried it.

He sighed and glanced at the heavy-looking bag on the ground. "Where?"

She was solemn. Vincent couldn't help but feel bad for killing her spirits. "The Reservoir Pit, remember? If we can find Leaann Mantra, maybe she can help us make some sense of this place."

"Uh, Lila… I don't know if you've noticed, but we're out in the middle of nowhere without any sort of guide," Vincent said, a bit calmer now. "And even if we're able to find this Leaann Mantra chick by some ridiculous stroke of cosmic luck, what makes you think she'll help us? What makes you think Gregory Talbot wasn't lying through his teeth? What makes you think everybody in this place won't murder us on sight? We have yet to meet a person that doesn't belong in a nuthouse, y'know."

She put down her bag. "Somebody's got a few hangups."

"I'm just being intelligent here—"

"And I'm being realistic," she said. Vincent wasn't sure she had ever snapped at him before; it surprised him. "We're not stuck at home anymore, Vince. We're in a place where anything can happen, and if we want to make any progress we've got to take chances. That means trusting 'Greg' about Leaann Mantra and the Reservoir Pit, whatever that is. I'm scared too, but… honestly, what else can we do? Are we just going to sit here and die slow, or are we going to get out of this? Where's your sense of adventure?"

Adventure? You're crazier than Topper, kid. Vincent acted stunned for a moment, and then decided that he had no other choice but to stick with Lila. Even if she was a mad scientist, he didn't want to end up alone in a place like this. "I guess so."

"Okay then," she said, picking up her bag and starting up the stairs. "I mean, you're a pretty good journalist right? Can't you read people just as well as any psychologist?"

Now that he thought about it, he could tell what anyone was thinking if he really tried. Thing was, he rarely did. "I guess so," he said again.

"And 'Greg' might have been totally crazy, but he believed every word that came out of his mouth. Right?"

"Right," he said. At least she had a point.

"Okay, then. So let's get walking."

"Wait! How do we even know which direction to go? Are we just blindly walking?"

"Yeah," said Lila, who was already back in the kitchen upstairs. "But I saw something out the window that might point us in the right direction. Come here, let me show you."

So he came. He grabbed the bag – which clanged and shifted awkwardly as he slung it over his shoulder as if it were full of dinner plates and crystal balls – and hopped up the stairs after her. Lila was waiting in the sitting room, crouched near a window. Something felt odd. Well, more odd than usual.

"Be quiet. Look."

Vincent crouched and started to clumsily duck walk towards her. That's what was so wrong. There wasn't any sunlight coming from outside.

He peeked outside the window and immediately held his breath. "Whoa."

Vincent wasn't sure what he was looking at. Right outside stood a massive black wall that blocked the sun.

"Let's go check it out," said Lila. "How do you think it just appeared there?"

"Wait, wait! Something fucked-up probably conjured that thing out of thin air! It's gotta be a warning or a portal or something like that," said Vincent, trying to remember anything he could about demonic summoning. Tall, smooth black walls couldn't symbolize anything good – he knew that. "Lila! Don't go! It's a gate that leads right into hell!"

"What, are you a wizard or something? Do you study Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Lila said, scoffing. What the hell had gotten into her? Earlier, she'd been anxious about snooping around a coffin. Now she was entirely comfortable walking up to a massive inanimate object that just happened to materialize out of thin air. For some reason, they'd effectively switched roles after the whole 'Greg' situation.

"Shut up Lila – this is not Harry fucking Potter! This thing could be dangerous! Get back down!"

"I don't think so," she said, starting out the front door. She seemed in a bit of a trance, like she'd been hypnotized. "There's something about it that feels… safe. I don't know. It's worth a shot, right?"

Vincent started to call after her – 'wrong Lila, it's not worth a shot at all' – but she was already gone. He grumbled a string of curses and watched from the relative safety of Topper's sitting room as Lila stepped out into the shadow. No, no, no – I'm going to end up alone!

She took a few steps outside, looked around and gasped. What? What was she looking at? She turned to Vincent and beckoned him out, but he shook his head. So she shrugged and kept walking. Eventually she reached the wall and placed her hands against it. Her head rocked to and fro, like a metronome set to andante. (Where had he learned that term? Middle school orchestra? It came to him easily anyway.)

After a few moments of watching Lila bob her head, Vincent's conscience got the better of him. You can't just leave that girl out there.

So he left the knapsack on the floor, cracked his knuckles and started creeping towards the front door. Briefly, he could feel Elin Bukovi kissing his cheek. Try not to think so hard.

When Vincent finally made his way outside to the front porch, he was momentarily stunned to see that the wall was thicker than he'd first envisioned it. The more he sidestepped it, the deeper it became, until he saw a massive black cube sitting in the dirt. It was roughly the same height and depth as Topper's house, and its slick surface reflected daylight like some finely polished mystic jewel. Faintly visible humanlike veins faintly glowed bright blue beneath its surface; they twisted and splintered and pulsed all over, ending at the cube's razor-sharp edges. Vincent cringed at the sight of it.

Lila stopped bobbing her head when she heard Vincent's footsteps. Or… she felt them, rather. Sensed them. She stared up the cube, into its seemingly infinite darkness. She felt a little less homesick looking at it, for some reason she could only speculate about. The minimalism? The smoothness? It certainly wasn't the color.

The cube spoke to them without making a sound. Only Lila was able to hear.

"Hello," Lila said to Vincent's horror. "I'm doing well, thank you. Who are you?"

It told her. We have no true name, but only true feelings.

Lila understood immediately, the repressed emotion flowing from her chest like cool water. Her pallid eyes pulsed with a sudden surge of spectral energy. Angelic light dripped from her mouth and made the earth around them glow. Vincent's jaw hung near his knees.

"They have no true name, but only true feelings," Lila told Vincent without looking at him. "They represent logic in emotion. Organized and precise, yet imperfect and faith-based. They present themselves as a sliver of a much more powerful whole."

"They? Who the hell are 'they'?" Vincent thought that maybe the cube was filled with captured souls. It made enough sense – the blue light, the telepathy, the… otherworldly strangeness of it all. And that only meant one thing – Topper was probably behind this.

The cube told Lila that her companion was Incessant in his point of view. She didn't understand that part.

He must Look. Look into us, rather than beyond us, and see the world as our minds have seen it for centuries. If he does not Look, then he may not see, and then fear will overcome him forever. As long as he possesses these Incessant qualities, your companion shall be a threat to us.

"Oh! It's okay. He won't cause you any harm – he's on our side! We're only trying to find a woman named Leeann Mantra," said Lila, as if she were talking to a harmless kid.

"It probably knows that already," said Vincent, glaring up at the imposing cube that stood like a sharp black pockmark against the sky. "It probably knows everything there is to know. Looks like one of those omni -things."

"An omnipotent being? In the StReTCH Pod? I don't think so," she said, finally turning to look at Vincent. Her eyes glowed like pale blue crystal, and Vincent couldn't see her pupils; her braces glowed the same way. It was unsettling.

"What, is that impossible or something?"

"It's extremely improbable, but… hey, how long have you been glowing orange like that, Vince?"

"What?" Vincent yelped and looked himself over, but he didn't see any glow. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh… nevermind then. It's nothing. Excuse me," she said to the cube. She was unnervingly polite to it. "What is your primary function?"

Another pause. Lila closed her eyes, breathed deep and seemed to fall into a standing coma for a few minutes. Anxious, Vincent backed away from the steadily pulsing machine (creature, entity?) and ran his eyes along its precise edges to kill time. The cube was huge, and the notion that it was a living being with organs and a brain made it all the more unsettling.

He thought he was over his fear of knives and sharp objects. He thought that being in this place had stripped down his petty phobias, but as he stared at the crisp and bladelike points of the towering cube, he couldn't help but feel a solid, unwavering fear of being stabbed to death. He patted his front pocket and felt the switchblade that he'd stashed away. Goosebumps sprouted up, and he noticed a sick taste in the back of his mouth. So much for conquering your fears. He blamed Other Vincent.

He glanced at the cube again; it was so big that there wasn't too much else to look at out here, unless he turned around entirely. Oh God, what if it can read my mind? What if it can sense my fear? Will my brain explode if I'm hostile towards it? This whole situation is just fucked up beyond repair.

And why did Lila think he was glowing?

Soon the girl awakened with an incredulous smirk on her face. "No way! You must have me confused with somebody else!"

And as suddenly as she'd woken up, she slipped into another trance. Vincent groaned. For a moment he was reminded of high school, where a couple of his friends spoke fluent Italian. They'd take advantage of it all the time, cheekily sharing damning secrets and juicy gossip to one another right in front of him. It made him feel like he wasn't smart enough to join in on whatever riveting conversation they were having. Sorry, I can only think in English.

Lila opened her eyes again, stunned this time.

"You alright?" Vincent asked, his concern for Lila the only thing calming him down. "What is it doing to you?"

"…It thinks I'm its god."

It took him a moment to realize Lila was talking to him. "Say again?"

"That thing," said Lila, blinking hard. "Thinks I… am its god."

"Well, did you… did you ask it why?"

"Of course! It just kept saying 'the Valiant One' over and over," she said, taking a step towards the cube. "Or maybe it was just the echo… in any case, I suppose I'm the Valiant One. Whatever that means."

"This has gotta be a mistake, right?"

"Well… actually, it makes perfect sense," she said, staring at the cube. "You and I are the only ones here that don't belong. A lot of this world's rules don't apply to us because—"

"The serum?"

"Possibly. If this cube thinks highly of us, perhaps everyone else will too. Excuse me," she said again as she addressed the cube. "Where do we go from here?"

It depends on what you desire to accomplish, Valiant One. If you wish to be devoured, you must simply return to that house and wait.

"My friend and I are looking for Leeann Mantra," said Lila. "Do you know her?"

Violent light suddenly surged through the veins that ran along the cube's sharp edges. Lila nodded.

"I guess that means they know her," said Vincent, his breathing becoming shallower by the second.

"They said they will lead us to the nearest human Valiant," she said. "That person should give us the answers we seek. C'mon Vince! Keep up."

And with that, she bowed to the cube, slung her knapsack over her shoulder and began walking off into the empty plains. In the distance, the land tapered off into nothing more than endless hilly sands. As she walked off, the black cube silently slid down into the earth and vanished without a trace. Vincent was stunned. He couldn't understand why the waking world seemed so absurd while his dreams felt entirely real. But he was sure Lila knew why. Speaking of which…

"Whoa, whoa – Lila, wait! Where are you going?"

"Apparently the Valiants are our friends," she said without stopping. "And they're willing to help us because I'm one of them. I'm a Valiant, Vincent! Isn't that great?"

"What the hell are the Valiants?"

"You've got me, but it's our only shot at reaching Leeann Mantra right now. I mean, with a name like 'Valiants', they must be good. Right?"

"I don't know Lila," said Vincent, picking up his bag and catching up to her. Her eyes still glowed blue, and it was tough to look directly into them. "It's just that… you're so willing to trust anything that you hear. What if we're being led right into a trap? What if everything that's happened so far is just some elaborate scheme that the StReTCH Pod cooked up to get us killed? Have you even considered that?"

"Are you with me or against me, Vincent?"

"It's not that black-and-white, Lila—"

"Fine, then have fun with Topper. I'm getting out of here. I'm going to see the world," she said, hurrying her pace. "And then I'm going home to the lab!"

Vincent just couldn't argue with this girl. She was sweet and endearing, but she had no real-world judgment to speak of, and that made her dangerous. He couldn't stand to be alone, though. Not while insane figments of their imagination – like Topper and 'Greg' – were running around causing trouble. Everything about this godforsaken nightmare land made him anxious, and he wanted out.

So he called after Lila and told her he was tagging along, the contents of his knapsack clanging loudly as he ran into the desert.

He hoped she'd packed food.