Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

the corridors in this place look the same,” Bastille said.
    “No,” I said. “It’s not just that. That lantern bracket looks like a cantaloupe.”
    “They’re all designed to look like one fruit or another,” Bastille said.
    “And we’ve passed this one before,” I said.
    “You think we’re going in circles?” Bastille asked.
    “No,” I said. “I think we passed it while chasing down Blackburn that first time. That’s the lantern I saw that made me ask you about electric lights. That means – “
    Sing tripped.
    I stood for just a brief moment. Then I dove for the ground. Sing didn’t even try to keep his balance, and he toppled like a felled tree. Bastille also threw herself down with a vengeance, as if determined to get to the floor first. All three of us hit, dropping as fast as a group of pathological martyrs at a grenade testing ground.
    Nothing happened.
    “Well?” I asked, glancing around.
    “I don’t see anything,” Bastille whispered. “Sing?”
    “I think I bruised something,” he muttered, rubbing his side. “One of these pistols jammed me in the tummy!”
    I snorted quietly. “Be glad it didn’t go off. Now, why did you trip?”
    “Because my foot hit something,” Sing said. “That’s usually how it works, Alcatraz.”
    “But there was nothing in this hallway to trip on!” I said. “The floor is perfectly level.”
    Sing nodded. “You have to have a real Talent to trip like I do.”
    “Which returns us to my original question,” I said. “Is there a reason why we all had to hit the deck like that? This floor isn’t very comfortable.”
    “Floors rarely are,” Sing said.
    “Hush!” Bastille said, scanning the corridor. “I thought I heard something.”
    We fell silent for a moment. Finally, Sing shrugged. “Sometimes a trip is just a trip, I guess. Maybe I – “
    The wall exploded.
    It really exploded. Rubble flew across the corridor, bits of shattered rock spraying against the wall just above me. I cried out, covering my head with my arms as chips and pebbles showered down.
    The explosion opened up a large section in the wall to my left. I could see through the opening to where a hulking shadow stood in the clearing dust.
    “An Alivened!” Bastille yelled, scrambling up.
    I stood, bits of broken stone tumbling off my clothing. The creature obviously wasn’t human. It was misshapen – its arms were far too wide and long, and they jutted out of the body in a threatening posture. In a way, the upper half of its body looked like an enormous “M,” though I had rarely seen a letter of the alphabet look quite so dangerous.
    As the dust settled, I could see that the thing was pale white, with patterns of gray and black peppering its wrinkled skin. In fact, it looked like…
    “Paper?” I asked. “That think is made of wadded-up pieces of paper?”
    Bastille cursed, then grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me down the corridor. “Run!” she said.
    The urgency in her voice made me obey, and I took off. Sing ran behind, and Bastille backed away from the broken wall, looking on warily as the lumbering paper monster pulled its way through the hole and into the corridor.
    “Bastille!” I yelled.
    “Come on lad!” Sing said from beside me. “Regular Aliveneds are bad enough – but a Codexian… well, they’re the most power of the lot.”
    “But Bastille!”
    “She’ll follow, lad. She’s just giving us a head start!”
    I let myself get pulled along. However, I watched over my shoulder as I ran, keeping an eye on Bastille. She ducked a few swings from the massive creature. Then finally, she turned and began to run.
    Fast.
    You Hushlanders likely have never seen a Knight of Crystallia use her abilities to her fullest potential. People like Bastille spend years practicing inside of their city kingdom, training their bodies, bonding to their swords, learning to use Warrior’s Lenses, and finally being implanted with a certain magical crystal. (Though, again, the Free Kingdomers consider this to be technology, rather than magic.) Only the best trainees are given the title of knight. To this day, Bastille holds the record for attaining the rank at the youngest age.
    Regardless, all of this training and special preparation means that when Crystins want to run, they can really run . I was shocked as I saw Bastille take off after us, dashing with a speed that would have made any Olympic sprinter give up and become an accountant.
    Sing yelled