Ghent stiffened as Elayra grabbed his arm, the abruptness sending a jolt of alarm through his body. In a world as precarious as Wonderland, the action could have meant nothing, or everything. 
	”What is it?” Ghent whispered back, his eyes searching hers for an explanation. His brain scrambled for any guesses, but he was too rattled. He couldn’t seem to come up with one coherent thought. 
	The message soon became clear, summed up with a single word. [b][i]Death.[/i][/b] Ghent knew that seeing death was inevitable in a world plagued with the Curse, but he hadn’t expected to see it so soon. He hadn’t even run out of snacks yet.
	”Uh, right…appreciate the heads up.” Ghent shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t bother pretending he had experience like Elayra did; his unease would be obvious if it wasn’t already. He started to reach for the hem of his hood, the whistle nearly causing him to jump out of his skin.
	Gulping, Ghent hurried after the Knight, his mind racing with his feet. He had only attended one funeral in his life – his uncle’s - and the casket had been closed. He tried to reflect on a handful of character deaths he had seen in the movies, a pathetic attempt to prepare himself for the upcoming exposure to a corpse. Or corpses. 
	[i]But I[b] have[/b] seen death. Ghosts are dead, aren’t they? [/i]Ghent took as small of a breath as he could. The air was putrid, more rancid than the dumpsters back in the alleyway with Miles. The smell, coupled with his fear, made his stomach knot. He missed the Safe Zone.
	Sooner than Ghent liked, they came to a stop. He eyed the glass-laden alleyway with the reluctance of a cat facing water. He didn’t want to proceed single file. He didn’t want to proceed at all. 
	As Elayra flanked them from the back, Ghent shuffled toward the middle. For once, he had no complaints. Being in the center of a Drust-and-Elayra sandwich was the probably safest place to be. 
	Remembering his hood at the last minute, Ghent tugged it up and over the top of his head. As he pulled, he was caught off guard by the heft of the fabric. Simultaneously, he felt something attached to the top of the material flop forward.
	Cursing mentally, Ghent reached up. He groped around for the culprit, his fingers closing around something that felt like a droopy rabbit’s ear. A mental image of Henry’s favorite Winnie-the-Pooh onesie – complete with bear ears -- flashed through his mind. Sure enough, a matching ear was on the opposite side, but this one was shorter. The material was jagged, as if it had been gnawed off by a hungry hound rather than cut.
	Ghent bristled, agitated by the thought of looking ridiculous so soon after the boxers incident. He attempted to catch his own reflection in the broken shards of glass, but he saw nothing to reveal the curiosity that was his hood.
	The bones were enough for Ghent to forget his petty troubles. He couldn’t help but stare as they passed, the sight causing his breath to quicken, resulting in an intake of air. 
	Gagging, Ghent smothered the bottom half of his face with his hand, his breaths filtered through his own sweaty palm. The smell had gotten about ten times worse, and he had a feeling that the view wasn’t much better. 
	He continued to shadow Drust, his eyes never straying from the Knight's back. He didn’t acknowledge Elayra when she came up alongside him; he was too petrified to look anywhere else.
	Something hissed nearby. Fearing a Shadowmire had come for revenge, Ghent turned sharply, staff raised. As he did, he made a horrible, irreversible mistake. He looked.
	The first thing Ghent processed was the monstrosity that was the rat. An object he couldn’t identify was sticking out of its mouth, likely a piece of garbage it had scavenged from the pile next to it.
	No. 
	Not garbage.
	Like a pair of binoculars coming into focus, the shapeless mass behind the creature sharpened into view. The rat had been feasting on what appeared to be a pile of bodies. 
	“No, no, no, no way...” Ghent staggered back, the blood draining from his face. The more he looked, the worse it got. Heaps of bodies were scattered as far as the eye could see, limbs of different shapes and sizes jutting out at every which angle. Pools of crimson dotted the road ahead of them, adding color to an otherwise monochrome scene. 
	Gasping, Ghent automatically sidestepped to give the rat a wide berth. As his foot reconnected with the ground, he felt a rubbery sphere roll underneath his sneaker. Against his better judgment, he looked again, and he could have sworn the sphere was looking back. 
	Ghent’s staff clattered to the ground. Overcome by the horror of the carnage, he started to scream, but he ended up retching. His hands moved to the front of his thighs as he leaned forward, vomiting onto the bloodied cobblestone.