Nessy snored softly, a fluffy black and white bundle in Krysanthea's arms, her fluffy chest rising and falling with the relaxed rhythm of sleep. The Strand sisters stood in a loose defensive semicircle, their expressions ranging from cheerful, to relieved, to wary acceptance of the new pecking order I'd just established and enforced.

I glanced at Krysanthea. Her usually composed, serious, bossy demeanor looked like it was fraying at the edges, her claws trembling slightly as she clutched Nessy tightly as if the sleeping husky was a life vest. I guessed that the Supercenter's endless aisles were gnawing at the raptor-girl, amplifying her apeirophobia.

"Hey, um, how's your... Uhhh… Dislike for this place?" I whispered, walking close to her and leaning toward her face to shield the question from her sisters.

They'd already proven they'd weaponize any weakness, and I wasn't about to give them more ammunition to torment her.

"Hate it," she hissed back, her feathers fluttering. "It's worse than the highway here. Everything looks bloody infinite in every direction." Her amber eyes darted nervously to the endless shelves stretching into impossible distances. "I… Honestly, I deserve getting fired by Ness from meat packing. I didn't do any work whatsoever, worrying too much about… stuff. Do you mind if I just look at you? You're the most finite thing in this damn place."

"Yeah, sure," I said, offering her a small, reassuring smile.

Finite? Me? The memory of my liminal self—blooming into a tree of infinite hands, a fractal consciousness that overwhelmed the artifacts—lingered like an odd aftertaste. My finite-ness felt like an illusion, a mask I wore to navigate the linear world. But for Krysanthea's sake, I'd play the part of her anchor, be her fixed point in this sea of shopping-ness.

Kristi's gaze locked onto me with an intensity that might have been uncomfortable if I didn't understand the lifeline I represented. Her breathing, which had been shallow and rapid, gradually steadied as she focused on my face—something with clear boundaries.

The silver threads of our pack bond pulsed faintly between our trio, brightening as Kristi leaned her head against me for a moment.

"Thanks," she whispered. "Bloody walls keep breathing."

"Walls breathing?" I asked.

"You haven't noticed?" Her voice dropped lower. "When you look away, the aisles shift. The shelves breathe. This place... it's alive in ways the highway definitely wasn't. At least there, you could see the road and monsters ahead, even if it never ended. Here, everything is..." She swallowed hard. "Watching. Waiting. Hungry. Alive… like an organism. Too much random shit moving on too many shelves too."

I glanced at the shelves around us, not really seeing what she meant. The shelves seemed perfectly static to me, only a couple of items seemed to move a little. Perhaps her raptor senses were sharper than mine, detecting more movement.

"Focus on me," I reminded her. "I'm right here."

"Real," she repeated with a nod. "Real and finite."

Kaledoniya bounded up, oblivious to her sister's distress. "So, Alpha! What's the plan? How are we escaping this place?"

"Nessy's out for now, so we're missing our navigator, but we probably shouldn't be simply standing around," I said. "The Supercenter's still holding your soul fragments hostage, and we need to find a way to get them back without falling into its traps again. The problem is that something will kill us in the future. At least, it would have killed us if Nessy was allowed to chloroform me."

"Great," Kat commented. "Our new, human 'Alpha' has no idea what to do. Shocking."

I gave her my most stern look. She lowered her eyes and fell silent.

"If you've got a better idea, Kat, I'm all ears." I said.

"I smell and hear a human with a metal arm," she said. "He's… roaming around here. Maybe he knows a way out."

"Ah," I said. "That's probably Jim. Let's go and interrogate him. Just… let me get all this stuff. Might be bad in some way to leave it lying around."

I bent down and scooped up the sliced remnants of the blue vests. The fabric felt mundane in my hands. I stuffed the dead vests into Nessy's backpack, along with the shredded pieces of the employee badges I'd cut from Krysanthea, Nessy and myself. I wasn't sure why I felt compelled to keep them—maybe some instinct born of this bizarre world told me they might still hold power, or maybe I just didn't trust leaving anything tied to the Supercenter lying around where it could potentially regenerate or cause trouble later.

"Alright," I said, slinging the backpack over my shoulder and turning to the raptor sisters. "Let's track down Jim. He's been here long enough to grow a shopping cart arm, so he might indeed know a way out—or at least tell us something useful to work with. Which way, Kat?"

"He's that way," she said, jerking her head toward a section of the endless equipment shed where the shelves twisted into labyrinthine walls of tools and gear. Her nose twitched, and her claws flexed instinctively. "Moving slow, like he's not in a hurry."

Katerina led the way with all of us following.

The equipment grew stranger the deeper we went—tools that seemed to writhe like snakes, gauges with needles that spun in odd or impossible directions, and a wrench that briefly floated off its hook before settling back down as if embarrassed to be caught. I kept my eyes forward, trying not to let the Supercenter's nonsense get under my skin.

Kristi stayed very close to me, pretending that she was my personal bodyguard when in reality she was simply trying not to have a nervous breakdown.

After a few minutes, Katerina stopped abruptly, her feathers flaring. "There," she said, pointing to a clearing where the shelves parted to reveal a lone figure tinkering with a pile of twisted shopping carts.

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It was Jim. He looked up as we approached, his weathered face breaking into a tired but genuine smile.

"Ah," he said, wiping his brow with his human hand. "The new guy and his… entourage. Didn't expect to see you this soon, Alec." His eyes flicked to Nessy, still snoring softly in Krysanthea's arms, and then to the absence of our vests and badges. "And without your uniforms, no less. Rough first shift?"

"You could say that," I replied, keeping my tone neutral. "Permanent employment isn't for everyone, right?"

Jim chuckled dryly. "Ain't that the truth. Most folks burn out early—too many carts, too many shelves, too much… everything." He gestured vaguely at the infinite expanse around us. "Seen plenty come through here, all bright-eyed and ready to 'pay off their debts.' Half of 'em don't last a week before they're running for the exits or… worse." His gaze lingered on Nessy, a flicker of concern crossing his face. "Your manager definitely looks like she's pushed herself too hard. The coffee does that to people—keeps you going 'til you snap."

"Yeah, she totally snapped," Kirra muttered. "And took us down a peg when she did."

Jim didn't press for details. "It happens," he said simply. "This place has a way of finding your breaking point and leaning on it."

"Did you fight the toaster gang?" I wondered.

"Nah," he shook his head with a smile. "Any work that offers a promotion is usually too dangerous to do alone. Anyhow, I'm guessing you didn't find me just to ask where to find garden tools or something, right?"

"You've been here a while, right Jim?" I asked.

"Sure have," he nodded. "Got me a nice place in Bedshire."

"Bedshire?"

"Town in 'Bedrooms and More' department," he said. "If you folks are looking for a place, I can rent ya a room or two."

"Thanks. Any advice on how to navigate this place?" I asked. "Maybe how to locate soul fragments the store's taken?"

Jim's smile faded. "Soul fragments, huh? That's a tall order. The Supercenter doesn't give those up easily—likes to keep her hooks in deep." He scratched his chin, his expression thoughtful.

"Wait, so… you live here?" Kaledonya asked.

"Well, not here," Jim said. "But yes, I live in a town standing inside the Supercenter. My shift's just about done for the day, and I'm heading home. If you folks want, you can come with me."

"Sounds good," I said.

"C'mon then, I'll show you. Ain't far if you know the way."

Jim led us out of the equipment shed, back into the dizzying expanse of the Supercenter's main aisles. The shelves loomed overhead, stocked with products that seemed to whisper faintly as we passed—cans of "Eternal Regret" with expiration dates in negative years, boxes of "Instant Nostalgia" that smelled like childhood memories, and a display of "Self-Assembly Body Assemblers" that made my skin crawl.

After a few hundred turns and inexplicable doors concealed in random aisle corners, Jim guided us into the bedding department—an endless sprawl of mattresses, bed frames, and pillows that stretched into the horizon. But as we moved deeper, the aisles began to change, vanishing and then opening up into a massive cavernous space.

In the middle of it stood a fortress surrounded by a moat of cracked tiles dropping into darkness. Behind the moat, bed posts were sharpened into wicked points, their tips glinting like spears, and mattresses were stacked high, creating a towering wall that loomed in front us like a castle.

"What is this place?" Kaledoniya asked.

"Bedshire," Jim said simply as we reached the moat and walked over a drawbridge made from wobbly mattresses and bed posts tied together with what looked like bedsheets.

At the entrance, two tall and bulky figures stood guard, their silhouettes humanoid but somewhat off. They wore capes fashioned from bed sheets, the fabric billowing dramatically despite the still air. Each held a spear crafted from a bed post, the wood carved with intricate patterns that glowed faintly under the fluorescent lights. Their faces were obscured by pillowcases with eye holes cut out, giving them an amusing, albeit almost ceremonial appearance.

"Who goes there?" one of the guards called, leveling his spear at us.

"Jim, Cart Collection," Jim replied, raising his cart-handle arm in a casual wave. "Got some newcomers with me. They're good folk, just looking for a place to rest and figure things out."

The guards exchanged a glance, then lowered their spears. "Welcome to Bedshire," the second guard said, stepping aside. "Mind the rules: no stealing, no fighting, no messing with the perimeter."

We passed through the gate, and the town of Bedshire unfolded before us.

It was a makeshift-looking settlement built entirely from the Supercenter's bedding department. Mattress frames had been repurposed into skeletal structures, their metal slats bent and welded into walls and roofs. Pillows and blankets were draped over them, forming patchwork canopies that fluttered faintly in a breeze that shouldn't have existed. Bed posts, sharpened and polished, were driven into the ground like stakes, creating a bristling perimeter that encircled the town like a palisade.

Houses—if you could call them that—were cobbled together from mattress springs, headboards, and stacks of pillows, each structure unique yet somehow cohesive. Lanterns made from bedside lamps hung from poles, casting a warm, flickering glow over the streets. Residents moved about, some human, some pradavarian-like fusion of a person and animal, others a surreal blend of a person and some kind of object—probably affected by supercenter-ness like Jim.

"Welcome to the resistance!" Jim declared, his voice tinged with pride. "Or as close to one as we've got. Bedshire's a safe haven for employees who don't want to end up as part of the store's inventory. We've been here a while, carving out a little piece of finite from the infinite."

Krysanthea's grip on Nessy remained firm, but her amber eyes softened slightly. The sight of something structured, something with boundaries, was easing her apeirophobia, the town walls blocking the endless aisles. "How many people live here?" she asked.

"Couple hundred, give or take," Jim replied, leading us down a street lined with pillow-fort houses. "Folks come and go—some burn out and leave never to return, some get… liquidated. But we hold our own. Got a council, a market, even a bar made from bed frames and duvet covers. Ain't much, but it's ours."

"And the store just… lets you live here? Doesn't try to shut you down?" Kat asked.

Jim's smile turned grim. "Oh, she tries. Sends her paper goons now and then, or tries to mess with our perimeter. But we've got ways of keeping 'em at bay—tricks we've learned over time. Ain't perfect, but it's enough to keep Bedshire standing."

"What kinda tricks?" Kira asked.

"The papercraft men are confused by entropy," Jim said. "So we locate the most entropic stuff and duct tape them to the floor around our citadel. Over time, the stuff melts through the floor. It's what made the moat. The water in there is extra-fucky. I suggest not falling in. Would melt your face right off."

We reached a central square, where a makeshift stage had been built from stacked mattresses. A small crowd was gathered, listening to a blue woman with fox-like ears and a tail recite what sounded like poetry. Around the square, stalls offered goods—food wrapped in pillowcases, tools crafted from bed springs, even small trinkets that looked suspiciously like Supercenter products repurposed into art.

"This is… incredible," Kirra said. "You built a whole town inside a store?"

"Had to," Jim said. "You stay out there too long—" he gestured vaguely toward the stuff beyond the mattress walls, "—and the store starts to get inside you. Bedshire's our way of staying linear and human. Or… whatever most of us are now."

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