The elevator doors opened up to a small room, hardly more than a large closet, and a stark contrast from the rooms above. Also, it wasn't very well, looking glum and grey with only a faint light coming from somewhere unseen. All in all, it was depressing, and with the brick walls on all sides other than the far one, it also looked like a prison.

But Fei Fei was the only one who noticed all that, because the first thing Kipo saw was Kai, sitting up in one of the chairs in the room, looking completely bewildered.

"Kai!" Kipo cried, stepping forward. "You're okay!"

Kai jumped, somehow not noticing the newcomers before. He frowned, patting at himself as if checking he was still real. "Er... yeah... are we all dead?"

Kipo tilted her head, slowing to a stop as she came up beside him. "Dead? Dead from what?"

"I don't know!" Kai cried, looking embarrassed. "All I know is that I fell asleep for a second, and woke up here!"

Before Kipo could answer, the door across from them (Kipo hadn't see it before, she realized) clicked, and opened up. Kai flinched, jumping behind Kipo, and Kipo had to admit she took a nervous step back.

But all that came through the door was Tulip and Coraline, looking surprised as they spotted them.

Tulip's brow furrowed. "Huh? Why are you all here? This is the first floor."

Kipo pointed back. "Elevator."

"I don't know!" Kai wailed at the same time. Tulip crossed her arms, still looking confused.

"But aren't you all supposed to be exploring a different floor?" she asked them. "What are you doing down here?"

"Truthfully?" Kipo said, rubbing the back of her head with her hand. "I don't really know. I think something brought us here."

Tulip and Coraline's eyes flickered to the elevator and their confusion grew.

"Oh" Tulip said, before they all startled, alerted by footsteps coming from behind Coraline and Tulip. The two glanced back, and then relaxed, stepping into the room to let Luz and Mabel run in, that painting still with them, bobbing behind them as they ran.

The two of them stopped in the middle of the room, panting. Mabel looked around, disappointed.

"Oh, so it was one of you?" she asked. The others glanced around.

"What was?" Coraline asked her.

"That crying," Mabel said, as if that was obvious, but as she looked around at everyone's completely dry faces, she seemed to get her own answer.

"None of us were in this room for very long," Kipo pointed out. It seemed like you were led here, just like the rest of us."

Alarm flashed on Luz's face. "So it's a trap?!"

Kipo shook her head. "I don't know, I mean the door is still open-."

As if to prove her point, Kipo stepped forward, but she was cut off as her vision was cut off, and her directional senses suddenly went haywire. Kipo stumbled, but it was like she was no longer walking on solid ground, more like she was swimming in water that she didn't feel. For a second, Kipo was nowhere.

But it was only a second. Before she could even think to panic, Kipo was back on solid ground, her vision restored, but the surrounding scenery that winked into place around her was completely new.

Kipo whirled around, disoriented. The ground was wooden under her feet, and it was dark, but not to dark for Kipo's eyes. She looked around. It looked like she was onstage somewhere, or more accurately, backstage somewhere. There was a big heavy curtain by her side, and a bunch of ropes, pulleys and lights hanging high above her. Scattered about were various set pieces, like tables, doors and doorframes on wheels, cups, fake food, fake swords... Kipo squinted, trying to make sense of it. Where was she?

Her friends suddenly blinked into place around her, looking just as disoriented as Kipo was. However, they looked different, because somehow, between the brick room and this odd place, their clothes had changed. Even her clothes had changed, Kipo realized with some disgust. She was wearing some sort of... costume.

Kipo frowned, pulling at the green vest over the black shirt she was wearing with the big black gloves on her hands, fiddling with the goggles hanging around her neck. What kind of clothes were these? What happened to her other ones?

Luz popped into existence next, a little bit away from Kipo. Kipo studied her, but though Luz looked a little dizzy, but unharmed. She was wearing bright and regal looking clothes, with a big crown in top of her head that looked vaguely ridiculous. In fact, the whole outfit was over the top and ridiculous, and was covered in so much red that it looked like Mabel had through a bucket of paint over her. The makeup on Luz's face was also ridiculous, looking fancy like, but way too much. However, where Kipo thought it looked strange, Luz seemed to love it.

Mabel was next, wearing significantly more normal clothes. She had a green sweater with a yellow stripe across the body and arms of it, and brown shorts.

Then came Tulip, stumbling around as she appeared as if she had been walking when she was taken, like Kipo was. She was wearing a scarf around her neck, with a big black trench coat and a smaller red shirt underneath. She had a satchel on her shoulder, too, which Tulip started looking through as soon as she was aware of what was happening. Apparently, the search turned up nothing.

Coraline came after her, wearing something that Kipo thought could be a short green dress, or a long green shirt. She had white fluffy fingerless mittens on each hand that looked... strange, to say the least, and similar big fluffy white boots on each foot. Her pants were mishmashed, with pink with lighter pink pokadots on one side, and then blue with a lighter blue stripe of the other. On her head, she had a small crown with half a blue heart on it.

And then there was Fei Fei. Kipo almost didn't notice her new look, but when she forced herself to actually look and see what it was, it almost wasn't worth talking about. A black jacket over a white shirt. Black pants. Acceptable formal clothes, but not worth looking at other than that. Compared to everyone else, they were boring and unnoticeable. Why was that?

And Kai... Kipo waited, her panic growing with every second, but he never showed up. She turned around, searching, but he wasn't hiding behind her or near the walls.

"Hey!" Kipo called out, effectively silencing everyone else's chatter. Her voice shook, her panic clear inside of it. "Where's Kai?"

The small group looked around, and Kipo could see them trying to find him as well. But they would fail, because Kai wasn't here.

Kipo finally turned, running past the curtain beside her as it curved, and then finally stopped at the wall. She grasped it, trying to pull... but the curtain felt hard under her fingertips, and no matter how hard she pulled or push at it, it wouldn't budge. Kipo frowned, backing away. What was-?

"Good evening ladies, gentlelads and everything in between!" a booming voice suddenly called out, making Kipo jump and look around wildly. But the sound didn't come from anywhere backstage, and it certainly wasn't addressing her. It came from behind the curtain, and it sounded like an announcer addressing an audience. "Are you all ready for a show tonight?"

A loud cheer rose up to meet those words, and the announcer laughed.

"I know you can do better than that," they laughed. Kipo frowned, concentrating on the unseen voice. The effect was slight, but it almost seemed, static-like, they were talking from an old-timey radio. "I'll ask you again: Are you all ready for a show?!"

The cheer was even louder than before, making Kipo wince. A show... Kipo glanced down at the strange clothes she was wearing. Who were the actors for this show? Them?

"That's more like it," the announcer said. "Well, I've got a good one for you all now, one I've been writing for months, making it absolutely PERFECT, and just for you! This is a very special story, a story from our history... or technically two stories from our history, though they may be..."

The announcer hesitated, trying to find the right words. 'Slight fabricated and exaggerated. But it's only because I give you all the best."

The audience cheered again. The announcer waited for them to calm down before speaking again. It took a little while.

"Well, without further ado, why don't we meet our actors?" the announcer suggested. "Though remember, they're new at this, so be kind, if you please?"

The crowd cried out a positive, or at least, that's what Kipo assumed they did. It was hard to tell.

"First of all," the announcer started when the applause had died down. "Please put your hands up for Kipo, the Hero of our story!"

Kipo blinked, stepping back, but before she could go anywhere, the world suddenly blinked out from around her, just like it had before. The darkness consumed her for a mere second... and then the world was back, and Kipo was on an actual brightly lit stage in front of a darkened crowd. Kipo stumbled, feeling sick as the world came into focus again, and a smattering of applause greeted her entrance.

Putting a hand over her eyes, Kipo squinted out into the crowd. A crowd did fill the seats, it was a full house, but though they were vaguely humanoid, they weren't people. Kipo stared out at them, frowning. They looked like... cardboard cut-outs? With glowing white eyes and mouths curved up into a smile? And they were moving, too... what was this?

"Kipo has been having a hard time recently," the announcer continued, tearing Kipo's eyes from the strange sight. "A lot of her friends have died over the time she's been here, isn't that sad? And Kipo here had been feeling responsible, even though it's not her fault!"

Kipo looked around, turning herself on the stage to try and find whoever was talking. But she was completely alone on the stage. Who was talking?

It was only after Kipo turned completely around that she found it, and when she did, she stumbled backwards, falling onto her butt. On the giant curtain around her was the shadow of a person, looking similar to the cardboard cut-outs in the audience other than the fact that this shadow had an elaborate crown on top of their head. And, somehow, the shadow was speaking and moving around erratically as it talked.

"So that's why I, your gracious director, have given Kipo that chance to prove to herself how great she is by having her be the Hero!" the announcer finished, looking down at Kipo. Kipo flinched. "Kipo, take a bow for the audience, please!"

Kipo didn't moved, and eventually the giant shadow person gave up, shrugging their shoulders and continuing to talk, moving on to the other 'actors', who appeared on stage as she introduced them.

"And now to Luz!" the announcer cried. "Luz, you're our Bad Guy, because we both know bad guys are really fun, don't we?"

Luz nodded in agreement, but not before raising her hands uncertainly, looking at Kipo. Kipo shook her head. She had no idea what was going on, and she wanted to figure it out before she did anything reckless. And if they had to be actors in a story to do that... so be it.

"There's also another reason I chose you, Luz, for Bad Guy, but well..." the announcer giggled. "That's my little secret for now.

"Mabel! You're next, and you'll be the second hero, the Ally! I can see you're not feeling confident in yourself, and since we both know how you're already a hero, we're going to see how well you do as a helper!"

Mabel and Kipo glanced at each other, slightly embarrassed.

"And Tulip!" the announcer continued, either not noticing or not caring. "You want to have fun, don't you? I understand that all too well, ha ha! Well, you've taken the role of our Explorer, so you're going to be exploring to your hearts desire. Ok?"

Kipo doubted that was a question was a supposed to be answered, and the announcer only confirmed that when they continued talking without even glancing at Tulip for her answer.

"Now, Coraline, you don't' have to say anything, but you don't really trust your friends here, do you?" the announcer pondered, and Coraline went red, shouting up something at the crowd that Kipo couldn't hear. "Don't try to deny it, we all know it's true. But you can, I promise, and we'll all see that when they go to save YOU, the Damsel!"

If anything, Coraline looked even more enraged at that.

"And finally, our last actor, Fei Fei!" the announcer cried. "Now, Fei Fei, I admit, I had no clue what to do for you. You're kind of a wild card, aren't you? So that's what you are in my play. The Wild Card. Eh, you'll see."

Suddenly, the shadow cut itself off, peering closer at Fei Fei. "Say, you look familiar somehow... oh, whatever. Say, you all look worried about your friend, Kai. Aren't you?"

Kipo's eyes widened, and she quickly nodded. The smile on the shadow seemed to glow.

"Well, worry no more," the shadow told them. A spotlight suddenly came down onto the crowd, and all the actors looked out at it. And there, sitting awkwardly in the middle of the crowd between two cardboard cut-outs, was Kai, who seemed to sink into himself and away from the light. When he saw everyone's eyes on him, he slowly waved.

"Kai had said that he wanted to sit back, and watch everything as if it was a movie, or a play," the announcer explained. "And so I gave him his wish. In my story, Kai had taken the place of the Watcher."

The spotlight disappeared, and by extension, Kai did as well. Even Kipo couldn't' find him again in the crowd, and that made her stomach twist nervously.

"And that's our actors," the announcer cried out, spreading their arms wide. "Now, I hope you all enjoy my production of Wonderer's Wish World Negative, and I hope we all come together to bring all of you good entertainment. Now, without further ado... Welcome! And enjoy!"

And the world winked out around Kipo again.