I glanced at my packmates as we walked to our next destination. Kristi and Adelle looked extra bothered and twitchy. The raptor's feathers kept fluffing and settling in waves, while the cheetah kept flexing her claws and shifting her weight. Nessy looked only somewhat concerned, holding tightly on to my hand and sniffing the air. Candace marched ahead with a smile, tail swishing.

"Ads? Kris? You two alright?" I asked.

"No," Adelle snapped back, round ears tilted back.

"Feels like my insides are trying to escape to my outsides," Kristi hissed. "Not just breakfast. Everything. Everything here feels wrong and fucky. Like reality's been put in a blender and poured back out wrong."

"That's because you two have the lowest entropy tolerance," Candace explained. "Between the four of us, there's a variance in how much stuff we can handle. Goes like this: Abyssal Entropic Astral, then me, then Nessy, then Ads, then Kris. You're the most syntropy-aligned, Kristi. This place is basically poison to your orderly raptor sensibilities."

"Great," Kristi groaned. "So I'm allergic to this entire fucking dimension?"

"Yeah, but you do better in extra-Syntropic places like Eureka," Candace patted the raptor. "Is why you were the one to fly us across Eureka. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses n' stuff. Don't be a sadge sparkly loaf."

"I just freaking want to get home," Kristi grumbled, glancing at our spidery companion. "No extra side quests."

"Side quests are important when they loop into the main quest line and reinforce our survival chances," Candace explained.

The raptor blanched. We arrived at the theater entrance. Upside down tree branches with movie-ticket shaped leaves fluttered above through the holes in ceiling tiles. I lifted up my eye-covered hand noting that none of the tickets seemed extradimensional.

"Aight," Candace clapped her paws together. "Is fusion time. All aboard the… Nessy express!"

"Again?" Adelle grumbled.

"No tears, only hugs. Being together helps deal with the entropy," Nessy reassured her, already moving closer to Candace.

The four pradavarians huddled together. Candace placed her paws on Nessy and Adelle, then waited for Kristi who reluctantly joined the circle.

"Bind souls!" Candace declared when everyone grabbed onto each other.

A flash of binding magic and three bodies slumped as their consciousness merged into the husky.

"Much better," she said. "Ready for our movie date, Alec-tato?"

"Date? I see we moved from dungeon sim dates to questionable mall dates?"

"Yep. Also, the theater said humans n' doggos are the only ones allowed in." She struck a pose, tail fluttering. "So we're a couple on a date! Superrrr extra romantic, yes? Yes."

She quickly stuffed the three unconscious bodies into the dimensional bag, then linked her arm through mine.

Murdoch shifted, the spider components shifting. "We cannot enter the theater. They have a strict no-arachnid policy. Due to a previous... incident."

"What kind of incident?" I asked.

"We hunt little things with wings for dinner," the spider-shaped man explained. "They did not appreciate the webbing."

"Aight then." Nessy said. "Just wait here and keep watch for FPHs?"

"Acceptable. I will hunt for snacks for everyone here," Murdoch agreed, breaking up into a swarm of spiders and immediately starting to wave webs across the branches nearby.

The movie theater's rusty marquee displayed movie titles:

NOW SHOWING:

MEMORIES YOU'VE FORGOTTEN

THE FILM THAT WATCHES YOU

UNTITLED VOID DOCUMENTARY

YOUR DEATH (COMING SOON)

"That's… some selection," I muttered.

"Your Death sounds like a good horror flick," Nessy joked. "I've seen you die too many times for reasonability already though."

"Title spoilers," I replied dryly. "Way to ruin the ending."

She giggled. "Come on, let's see what other cinematic nightmares await us."

The theater doors opened with a loud theatrical noise. Inside, the lobby stretched far and wide, the ceiling disappearing into darkness. Where the concession stand should have been, a truly titanic tree had taken root, its trunk easily twenty feet if not more in diameter. Instead of leaves, thousands of movie tickets hung from its branches, fluttering like moths in a non-existent breeze.

I stared at the vast tree.

"That's one thicc tree," Nessy whistled. "Bet it's got wood for days."

"Did you just—"

"Lighten the mood with a juicy innuendo?" She grinned, elbowing me. "Yes. Das' how I roll. Blame Candace."

The ticket tree's branches rustled, and a voice boomed from somewhere within its canopy: "WELCOME TO THE NAMELESS CINEMA! PLEASE PRESENT YOUR CREDENTIALS FOR VERIFICATION!"

"What credentials?" I called back. "We're just here to watch a movie."

"NO ONE WATCHES MOVIES ANYMORE! MOVIES WATCH YOU! PRESENT YOUR EXISTENCE CREDENTIALS! I DON'T WANT NON-EXISTING MOVIE-OBSERVERS. THEY'RE DIFFICULT TO OBSERVE."

"Does the movie pay us for observing us then?" I contemplated.

"No. That's not how a business works, don't be ridiculous." The tree huffed.

Nessy stepped closer to the ticket tree, tail wagging. "We're on a date! My bae's taking me to see..." she glanced at the marquee, "...'Memories You've Forgotten.' Is a romantic comedy, ye? We both forgot many lovely things."

The tree rustled more violently. "A DATE? HOW QUAINT! HOW NOSTALGIC! WE HAVEN'T HAD A PROPER DATE NIGHT COUPLE IN HERE IN… Hrmmm," The branches shook, whispering numbers to each other. "Uhhh… hmmm… the damned time loops make it really hard to grasp specificity."

"Can we get tickets from you?" I asked, feeling impatient.

"You're certain that you're real?"

"Pretty certain, yes," I said.

"Yep, yep," Nessy licked my face. "Deffo, extra' real. I'm like four times more real than your average girl. I'll need four tickets."

"And one ticket for me," I said.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"CERTAINLY! PLEASE APPROACH THE TRUNK AND MAKE YOUR SELECTION! BEWARE: SOME TICKETS BITE!"

We approached cautiously. Up close, I noted that some tickets were standard paper, others appeared to be made of metal, glass, or what looked suspiciously like human skin. My arm-eyes swiveled independently, searching the giant tree for the dimensionally-sheared ones Calvin had mentioned with five flickering movies.

As I stared, one of the tickets about thirty feet above us flickered with:

MEMORIES YOU'VE FORGOTTEN:

ADMIT ONE - IMMEDIATELY ADMIT ONE - 42:15 AM ADMIT ONE - YESTERDAY ADMIT ONE - THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE ADMIT ONE - ETERNITY

"That one," I pointed.

"Which one? You'll have to be more specific."

I described the ticket and its approximate location to the tree.

"AH! A most excellent choice!" the tree boomed. "THE TEMPORAL PARADOX EXPERIENCE OF FORGOTTEN MEMORIES! THAT WILL BE ONE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS, PLEASE!"

"An existential crisis?" Nessy asked. "Like, a specific one, or...?"

"ANY WILL DO! We're not picky!"

I thought for a moment. "I had one earlier when I turned into a flesh tree and questioned the nature of reality. You can have it."

"THAT'S A GOOD ONE! VERY FRESH! STILL WARM! Yum!"

The existential crisis memory of realizing that local reality, the Earth afflicted by Systemfall, the place I grew up in… was just an incredibly fucked dungeon seemed to lessen and then vanish almost entirely. I was aware of its existence as something that happened, but it was like the stress of it wasn't there anymore.

I allowed myself to relax, smiling.

"Someone looks smug," Nessy bumped me with her hip.

"Just got lucky that this ticket tree eats existential crisis memories," I commented.

"I can unburden you from more of your memories if you wish to purchase more tickets," the tree fluttered.

"Ye," Nessy said, "we need five of those five-times dimensionally-sheared tickets for the Forgotten Things movie. Four for me, one for my lovely human."

"Got it. Five tickets coming up." The tree said and then fell silent.

We waited, staring up at the ticket. Nothing happened. The ticket fluttered overhead amidst thousands of others.

"Are you going to lower your branches or…?" I asked.

"Ah! Alas, I cannot," the tree declared mournfully. "I have been standing here for so long without movie-goers, my branches have become terribly stiff. It's quite embarrassing."

"Performance issues?" Nessy asked. "Happens to the best of trees."

"This is not a laughing matter," the tree rustled indignantly.

"Sorry, sorry," she said with a smile. "What if I helped loosen you up with a song and some unbinding magic? Music therapy works wonders for stiff... branches."

"A song? I haven't heard music in... well, the soundtracks from the entropy-afflicted scary movies don't count. They're mostly screams."

"Perfect!" Nessy cleared her throat, inhaling deep. She began to sing, starting with a 'tump-parump-pump' beat.

"There once was a boy who was drowned in a tub, The cartel slain him with zip ties and shrugs, But death couldn't hold him, he rose up again, With a skill called Reconstitution, surviving the pain."

The tree's branches began to sway slightly, half-folded tickets rustling like applause.

"He watched as his world fell to Systemfall's bite, Earth crumbled to dungeons all-Blooming blight, Alone at the world's end, that's such a darn bore, He slain a conceptoid and wished for something more."

"Is this a true story?" the tree wondered.

Nessy nodded, her voice growing fiercer, tail wagging madly as she spun-danced around the tree.

That wish brought us together, our friendship reborn, I found him through timelines, dimensions all torn, A husky who ran through the lands of despair, Following breadcrumbs of love through the air.

My arm-eyes all focused on her as she swayed.

"A raptor whose soul Highway Sixty-Nine shredded, Two years trapped in loops where her memories were threaded, We found her in Ferguson, fierce yet incomplete, A Prima still fighting though tired and beat.

We died at the Lynx's magnetic cruel claws, But love doesn't follow mortality's laws, We split and divided, yet always return, A tree and his pack through the cosmos we burn."

The tree's highest branches began to bend lower, captivated by the melody.

"A raptor princess with a soul-chewing curse, Trapped between timelines, for better or worse, A cheetah who fought him, then called him her Alpha, From violence to loyalty, no longer a pariah."

"A fox who binds concepts with silver-bright thread, Who sees how the future will leave us all dead, But chooses to fight it with Topaz and pain, For love is worth more than what madness can gain."

The branch with our ticket was halfway down now, the tree completely entranced.

"And me, I'm a fragment of something divine, A soul split in four, yet combined so fine, We dance with entropy, we flirt with the end, But together we're stronger than fate wants to bend."

"So here stands our Alec, eyes blooming on arms, A tree in a boy's skin, setting off no alarms, Because weird is just Tuesday when Systemfall's here, And love is the only thing left that's sincere."

The ticket branch was almost within reach. Nessy's voice crescendoed:

"We won't give up fighting, we won't fade away, Through infinite dungeons, we'll find our way, " Five souls bound together, one liminal heart, This isn't an ending—it's barely our start!

She reached up and plucked five tickets from the now-lowered branch.

The tree shuddered, all of the branches around the theater rattling with sobbing-like noises.

"That was beautiful!" it wailed, its voice cracking with emotion. "I haven't cried since that documentary about deforestation! Take the tickets! Take them all if you want!"

"Just these five will do," Nessy said. "Maybe you should consider hosting karaoke nights? Might help with the stiffness! You can invite the Optometry spiders over, just tell them to clean up the webs when they're done."

"I'll consider it," the tree sniffled. "Enjoy your movie! Or rather, enjoy being enjoyed by your movie."

"That sounds vaguely threatening," I said.

"Everything here is vaguely threatening," Nessy replied, tucking the tickets into her bag. "It's part of the local charm."

As we turned to leave, the tree called out: "Wait! Your relationship—is it real or just convenient fusion between prey and predator archetypes bound by shared trauma?"

Nessy and I exchanged glances.

"Yes," we said together with wide smiles.

"Not sure if that's deeply romantic or deeply concerning," the tree mused.

"Also yes," Nessy added with a giggle, pulling me toward the exit.

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