"Oh god, we're dead," says Edwards behind her.



Amie freezes, but just for a second. "Keep going", she thinks. "Momentum. Doesn't matter what you do, just keep the momentum."

"Hanging out in the dark are we? I'm a big fan of that particular activity! Very entertaining but, like most activities, more fun with friends," says Amie, forcing legs that desperately want to run the other way down into the two feet of dirty water covering the room's floor.

"Ah, what an entertaining arrangement of limbs and heads you have sir," says Amie to the nearest naught. "And what a colourful use of decaying fabric. I would have gone with something in burgundy myself, if I had your complexion, but you make work."





"I notice that you are standing by another door, yes, you heard me, there are two doors in this room. This one is conveniently open and does not have any steps going up, while bypassing the bulk of our friends of questionable vitality, such as might be useful in the event you have to, for an entirely hypothetical example, pulled from nowhere and not really relevant to the current conversation, run for your life. Might be convenient! Something to think about."



"What?" asks Melissa from the laundry chute, incomprehension thick in her voice. "What are you doing!? You - what?! I -"

"Oh I see," says Amie, waving a finger in discovery as she strides forward into the middle of the circle of naughts towards the laundry bin. "I understand your problem immediately. You seeeeeeeeeem to have a bad case of 'person stuck in laundry chute'. Don't worry! I happen to be the worlds leading expert on this particular issue. I would show you my extensive credentials but I am currently in my pajamas and thus I am bereft of both pockets and dignity."

Parts of Amie's mind gibber and hoot at her, like a pack of unhelpful monkeys, focusing on things like her likelihood of survival and the impossibility of bluffing the walking dead, and yet… so far, it seems to be working.