"Well that's it! We're gonna have to turn around, and find another way out." I stated.
 "Why?" Stephanie asked. "It's dead.  We just have to crawl over it."
 "Oh no, no, no, no!" the boys said, stepping back. "I am not touching that, let alone crawling over it."
 "Count me out too. I'm not going near that!" I said.
 "Fine." Stephanie told us. "You stay here. You die here. I'm going on, with, or without you. And," she said, as she grabbed the lantern from Frederick before he knew what was happening, "I'm takin' this with me!" With that, she jumped onto the creature's back, and hopped over to the other side. She looked back at us with a smug grin.
 "D'oh!" I shouted. "Okay, let's get this over with, it's dead...it's dead." I repeated over and over to myself, and slowly crawled over the thing.
 "Alright!"  said Frederick. "I'm goin' with Andy. Alex, comin'?"
 "Yeahup." said Alex. "I'm not sticking around here."
 With that, the two guys jumped over the beast and joined me on the other side.
 "Yuck." I muttered, and turned my back.
 We were off again. Stephanie was very proud of Frederick for defeating such a huge creature, so the two of them called a truce. Once she realised he wasn't a total baby she was able to find something in common with him. The two of them walked on ahead, merrily chatting about explosives. Alex, on the other hand, was still interested in movies.
 "You mean," he said, after I'd explained it as best I could, "that you watch ‘actors' pretend to be people they aren't in order to tell a story of something that might not even have happened though they're actually not even there on some huge screen?"
 "Pretty much, yeah."
 "That's the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my entire life!"
 "I suppose it would sound a little far fetched to someone who'd never heard of it before."
 "And people like to do this?"
 "They absolutely love it. Our whole lives pretty much revolve around movies--what they're about, who's in them, how well they're written, how well the actors do. . ."
 "Well, I don't think acting sounds very hard at all! I could do that easily. With two hands tied up behind my back."
 "I don't doubt that."
 Alex asked a lot of other questions about my home. He was amazed with our technology. I showed him my watch. He gawked at it like it was dirt from Mars. He just didn't understand how something that wasn't alive could tell time like that, not to mention beep at a preset time, or keep track of how long something lasted. I didn't even bother trying to explain that one to him.
 "Well, you guys obviously have some pretty heavy technology here too. I mean, I threw an apple at the door in the garden, and it exploded into smithereens! And what about the robots? And the machinery!" I told him.
 "Oh, nah, that's nothing. It's just wizardry. She didn't become the leader of this place for her smarts. She just knew how to cast spells and peel the bark off a tree just from looking at it. No one wants to mess with that."
 "Oh, really? Then why did you join me and Fred? And what about Stephanie? She's coming too."
 "I still don't understand why I'm coming with you. It was just the idea of something new. I mean, if you weren't from around here, then maybe there was promise. As for Stephanie, I don't know why she's coming. Probably because no matter what happens to her, it can't very well get any worse. I guess we're just hoping that you guys will be the ones who'll end this nightmare."
 "Well, we'll try our best. We don't exactly know what we're doing though. . ."
 "I could tell that when I first met you. But it was something else. You guys have . . . have this aura around you. I could see it then, and I can still see it now. When Frederick was hurt and you were tending to him, it was beautiful. I wasn't concerned at all,  because you didn't lose hope, you both still had the aura. If you ever lose that glow, then I'll worry."
 We treaded along silently after that, and not long after we reached a split in the hall way. Alex pulled out his map. We'd made it to the hallway that was marked. We weren't sure where to go from there however.
 "This level isn't much better than the first one" remarked Alex.
 "But," added Frederick, "at least the floor isn't covered in that disgusting, sticky substance."
 "Hmm, yeah." I said. "I wonder where that door is that had the stuff running underneath it."
 "I believe it's to our left." said Alex.
 "Right it is!" I declared, and we headed off to our right.
 Walking along, we noticed the floor sloping upward. It got steeper and steeper and eventually turned into a few stairs. Then it levelled out again.
 "Well. Here we are." Alex observed. We'd stopped in front of a long, curving stairway. We couldn't see where it led. I moved to the front and held up my lantern. I put my arm around Frederick and helped him up the first few stairs.
 "Let's go!" I shouted. Alex and Stephanie followed me and Frederick up the rocky steps. We were up about a dozen stairs before we couldn't see where we'd come from. I hurried up more and more stairs. Just then my foot lost its grip when the steps went from being rough and uneven, to a glossy, flat surface. I caught myself before I fell, almost dropping Frederick.
 I lowered the lantern to the floor. "Check it out! They're made of marble!"
 "We must be getting close to the main levels!" cried Alex.
 "Well then, what are we waiting for!" yelled Stephanie. "Let's get going!"