As Kipo climbed the spiral stairs, the constant turning reminded her of the own turmoil in her thoughts. An endless circle, but unlike this staircase, they weren't going anywhere.

They came here for answers, and answers is what they got, though in return, now they had a lot more questions. The story, the history of this world, was so simple, and yet Kipo was having a difficult time wrapping her head around it. She assumed that act one was the 'before' everyone here kept mentioning, and that made sense, but the fact that someone would completely destroy their own world to create a new one... why? And who could even think of killing so many people to do so?

...Ok, Kipo could think of at least one person she knew that would so that. But it was still such a hard concept to wrap her mind around, and Kipo was certain she was missing some things. A lot of things, actually.

At the moment, though, it didn't really matter. Kipo had reached her destination, the top of the staircase, after a solid fifteen minutes of climbing. Everyone else was still downstairs, talking to the director, but not about the play, because the director's lips were still sealed on that. Instead, they were discussing much more important topic of the various things Luz had gotten in trouble for in her drama club.

At least the mood wasn't completely somber, Kipo reminded herself, trying to force herself to be positive, but with everything they had just learned, Kipo wasn't exactly in the mood to force herself to talk, so she came up here to find something.

And find it she did.

Kipo paused at the entrance to the staircase, staring out into the time warped, but still recognizable, throne room from the play.

Kipo was almost impressed. Other than the fact that it was a real thing a not a bunch of props on a stage set, they looked close enough to clearly be the same thing. There was the throne, knocked over and falling apart at the seems, but still stubbornly dignified despite it all.

There were the pillars, still holding up the ceiling, or maybe the ceiling was holding them up instead. It didn't really look like it needed support, after all. But now, instead of one row of pillars, there were two, on either side of the dirty and ripped up carpet that led to the throne.

There was also, surprisingly, the golden cage that had held Coraline, or technically the person she was playing: the princess Vanellope. Of course, it was broken down, unable to hold onto anyone anymore, and it was empty. Where had the mad king gone, Kipo wondered. Had he left? The director had called the story 'slightly fabricated', so Kipo had to say she had no clue.

Well... maybe she had a guess. She assumed the people keeping the kidnapped kids here wouldn't be happy about the nearly escaping, and the mad king had power that could be better used elsewhere.

Kipo frowned, sitting next to the cage. Thinking back to what Arlen had told them... was this the escape he had been referring to? No... he didn't say it was in the castle, he said it was a little bit away from the castle. Of course, Kipo did not believe him even a little bit... but she was curious about what he meant.

Slowly, Kipo got up from the floor, moving towards the only prop that was missing from the throne room: the window. It's not like it couldn't have been there once upon a time, but now, that entire section of wall had been torn away, leaving a much bigger window, a slight breeze blowing in and making Kipo's hair whip around. It was cold all the way up here, almost as cold as the village they had just left, but somehow, the throne room had been protected from any snow.

Kipo shivered in the cold, having abandoned her coat, like the rest of the them, back at the door, but she wasn't about to leave just yet. Instead, she edged closer to the hole in the wall, and sat down, staring off into the distance. Despite the cold, it was peaceful here, and Kipo took a deep breath of the first fresh air she'd had since... well, she wasn't sure if it had been long or anything, but she was long overdue for it any way. Since leaving the burrow, Kipo had found she was sick of stale air.

It hurt. Everything that had happened. Everything that she'd heard. Kipo hadn't been looking for meaning in their deaths, because she couldn't really say there was one. They just... happened. They were tragedies because perhaps there was some way to prevent them, but without some form of foresight, the end result would always be the same.

But... well, that wasn't the case anymore, was it? Now, they're deaths did had meaning, but only because they were meant to die to build this world up to be even more fake and fantastical than it was right now. Could they're deaths have been prevented? No... not unless Kipo and the others actually get out. If they all die, Kipo would feel less guilty, because in a way, there would be no way to win, but if they escape... then Kipo would be alive only to wonder who she could have possibly saved.

Kipo sighed, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, hugging herself. Unfortunately, it provided her little comfort.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, and Kipo dropped her legs, tensing. She stared out at the sky, which had turned a depressing bluish-grey.

The sun had started to go down under the horizon, illuminating everything in it's colours. Kipo put up a hand, her heart beating wildly.

"Hurricane...?"

Something swooped out of the clouds above, and Kipo jumped. But instantly, she relaxed. Even from a distance, she would be able to spot the red plumage easily, but whatever was coming was white-grey, hard to spot in the clouds if not for Kipo's good eyes. In fact, it was familiar white-grey.

Kipo stood up. "Bipo!"

The bone dragon, now a good bit deal bigger than they had been before, swooped up beside her, landing on the floor next to Kipo. They were growing up, she realized with a swell of pride. However, the sight was bittersweet, because... Kipo shook the thought of her head. Oh god. She had so many regrets.

Of course, Bipo was cool and calm as usually, their face bone and unable to make expressions, but Kipo thought they were happy. Not because of the constant upturned grin of the skull, but because of the body expression Bipo wasn't even trying to hide.

"I saw you here," Bipo told her. "I wanted to say hi."

"It has been a while, hasn't it?" Kipo laughed. Bipo shrugged, their joints clinking.

"Not really."

Kipo opened her mouth, then closed it. Bipo was right, it hadn't been that long. Maybe it hadn't even been a month; it certainly hadn't been a year. Yet it felt like a lifetime.

"I guess you're right," Kipo eventually agreed, settling down again. "So much has changed for me since that time... what about for you?"

Bipo shook themselves, bones rattling. "No. The bone dragon herd just fly around all the time, basically. They don't interact with people down here much."

Kipo chuckled. "Their home is in the sky? That must be interesting."

Bipo shrugged, and they fell silent for a second. Slowly, Kipo's smile fell of her face as dangerous thoughts started circling around her head. Doubts. Regrets. Luz had been tricked by Six, someone they hadn't exactly liked, but someone they had trusted, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Kipo gulped, feeling awkward. Finding Bipo's egg in the cave had been a kind of weird coincidence... but how could Bipo had possibly manipulated those events? They weren't even born yet...

But still...

"Bipo?" Kipo asked suddenly. "Do you know about before?"

"Before what?"

"Y'know... the before."

Bipo drew back, tilting their head. "Before... what?"

Kipo shook her head deciding to try and different approach. "Okay, do you know Hurricane?"

"What's with all this questions?" Bipo grumbled, and Kipo winced guiltily. "I do know what hurricanes are, yes."

"No, somebody named Hurricane," Kipo corrected.

"No."

"Okay... Gale?"

Bipo shook, now irritated. "Bone dragons don't exactly have your types of names, and I haven't meant any other humans."

"Just one more," Kipo insisted. "Amenos?"

Finally, recognition seemed to draw across Bipo. "The god of the sky."

Kipo drew up. "You do know him."

"Every bone dragon knows about him," Bipo said. "Yeah, the creature that saved the world from hellfire, and then became the sun, the sky and everything in it, except for the bone dragons and other creatures. But I don't know him personally."

That made Kipo relaxed. She was well aware of the legend of Amenos (that sounded so pretentious in hindsight), and though she knew it wasn't true, the legend still had to be believed from someone.

It was a weird new perspective. There was the people from before, the council members, watchers and otherwise, but there were people who were born in this world and who had grown up here. Citizens of the New Dark World.

It was weird to think about. It was funny, kind of, it seemed each detail of the story the director had given them was made to tell them more about the world. The story was fictional, but also real. This world was fictional, designed to trap and kill, but people lived here, and this was their real world, unlike how it was for Kipo and her friends.

Kipo took a breath. She could trust Bipo.

"We, me and my friends from the town, came to find a way out from this world," Kipo told them. "A way home. There was a guy who told us there was one here."

Bipo shuffled. "You're leaving."

Kipo opened her mouth to explain, and then paused. Bipo didn't need to know all that. "We have to. You understand, right?"

Bipo seemed to sigh. "I guess I do."

"Do you know anything?" Kipo asked after it finally occurred to her to ask. "Out there? That guy said that there was a way off this world out there."

"...Well, he wasn't lying," Bipo said, shifting uncomfortably. Kipo titled her head.

"What do you mean?"

Bipo thought about that silently for a second. "It might be easier to show you."

Kipo's eyes lit up. "Oh?"

"Here," Bipo said, shifting around and raising up their skeletal wings up. By all logic, those things should be impossible to fly on, but when Bipo flapped them, they rose up into the air all the same, flying over to Kipo and hooking them into Kipo's shirt, just over her shoulders. Together, they rose up, and Kipo felt her stomach drop.

She wasn't afraid of heights by any means, but being up in the air was different when she was below the creature flying, not above it.

Still, it was amazing, feeling the wind through her hair and the ground rushing below her. The mountains rose up on either side of the two as Bipo flew through them. The setting sun sent its rays of red, yellow and orange over the mountains, and it looked beautiful. This place was beautiful, really, even though they never got to appreciate it. And especially not from this angle.

Kipo turned her gaze back to the horizon, where they were flying towards. But slowly, Kipo's amazed smile fell, and her awe dropped. There was something... wrong with the horizon, and that became more and more apparent the closer they flew to it.

The horizon wasn't getting farther away the closer they flew to it. Instead, it just seemed to get bigger. Kipo blinked, and rubbed at her eyes, feeling like she was looking at an optical allusion.

But she wasn't. When Bipo swooped down, towards the snow on the ground and set Kipo down, she hit the ground running, towards the horizon.

"Kipo, wait!" Bipo yelled at her, and Kipo startled, sliding to a stop. Just in time, because her boots slipped and slid on the slippery snow, carrying her forwards until she was right at the edge of the horizon. Kipo just got a peek as she came to a stop, but when she did it took her breath away, almost forcibly. The edge yawned next to her, and Kipo got a glimpse of an eternal fall before she stumbled backwards, landing on her butt.

"O-Oh," she said weakly, as Bipo landed next to her gracefully. "I-I."

"You can take another look," Bipo told her. "Just be more careful this time."

Her voice caught in her throat as she nodded, and this time Kipo moved more slowly, crawling to the edge, and peeking over slowly.

It was like looking into the night sky, the one that matched the now starry sky above her. The sun, that had just gone down, seemed to have completely disappeared from the sky, because Kipo couldn't find it in the place it should probably be.

Then again... nothing was natural about this.

Curiosity growing along with her mounting horror, Kipo hooked her fingers around the edge, pulling herself over as she looked underneath the... plate, or whatever she was on.

There was nothing there. It was a flat plain underneath the world they were standing on, and literally nothing on it. H-How? What about the ocean? The tunnels in the mountain? The hole in the desert? Where were they? How... How was this possible?

Kipo pushed herself up, feeling sick.

"Oh no," she said out loud, her voice strain. "Oh no..."

The person who had destroyed the world, whoever that was... had done much worse damage than Kipo had anticipated. 'He had destroyed the world and made a new one'... Kipo hadn't realized the extent of those words until now.

Bipo settled beside her, bones clicking, and Kipo glanced over. Bones. Not human bones, thankfully, but when Kipo looked closer... well, she wasn't an expert, so she couldn't know for sure... but it looked like the bones of dinosaur bones, all different ones, mishmashes together into a dragon.

'He tore the world apart, and then built a new one that had what he wanted. A darker world...'

Kipo looked away. She was starting to see whatthe director was saying.