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time! Nobody takes me out like that! Nobody!" Silence then. Each of us looking at him. The last glaze of Vurt falling from him,
    from all of us and the room was suddenly cold, cold and lonely, and full of aftershock.
    Pulling out was bad. Real bad. It was a built in-option with low-level theatres but nobody liked doing it It was like admitting defeat. Like you weren't strong, not up to it. Who dared admit that? Even worse, you pulled all the other players out with you. And that was painful. That was like being skinned.
    "It was me." Brid's lonely voice. "I was scared, Bee." "The fuck you were!"
    "Bee!"
    "That's the point. Tell me. Isn't that the point?" "That's the point, Beetle," answered Mandy. "Scribble?"
    "That's the point, Bee. That's the point of Skull Shit. It gets you scared."
    I was ashamed. . .
    Beetle hit Brid right across the lips.
    She was crying in the corner now and if I could've just got out of that chair, well then, maybe I would have done some good deed for a change. Maybe I would have killed the bastard.
    . . .ashamed at my weakness.
    Maybe everything. End up with nothing.
    The Beetle gathered up every Vurt feather he could find and rammed the whole bunch down the Thing's throat.
    At least one of us would have a good night.
    Beetle left us then, slamming his bedroom door behind him. Me, the shadow, the new girl, the alien. And everything going wrong and the far off call of the owl.
    If they can remix Madonna after she's dead, why can't they remix the night? Who can answer that one?

GAME CAT

    Awake, you know that dreams exist. Inside a dream you think the dream is
    reality. Inside a dream you have no knowledge of the waking world.
    It is the same with Vurt. In the real world we know that Vurt exists. Inside the Vurt we think that Vurt is reality. You have no knowledge of the real world.
    THE HAUNTING. This is the bitch incarnate. Once that ghost has got hold of you, you just gotta go with her. Back to life, back to the boredom. That's how you feel, right? Except that the Haunting isn't a bad thing. What? What's that the Cat's saying?
    Haunting isn't bad? Man, the Cat's losing it! Listen up, kittlings.
    Only a chosen few get the Haunting. They are the edge riders. Those strange people who can't make their minds up; just what am I? This is their question. Vurt or real? The Haunted are of both worlds; they flicker between the two, like fire flies. What are they? Insect or flame? Both! Believe it. The Haunted are special. They just don't know it yet. The Cat's advice to them; resist the temptation; don't jerk out. Jerking out is giving in. Giving up. Giving up on your true vocation.
    The Haunting is calling you; come up, come up! Let me take you higher. The Vurt wants you.
    The Cat wants you.

SLEEPLESS

    I was. I was sleepless. Locked in my room, writing all this up in the ledger of those days. Living up to my name. Scribbling. Trying to make sense of it all, and trying hard to find a way out.
    And now I'm looking back and thinking. And the thinking makes me weary. It's the loss of things that kills us. And of the four humans in that pad that night, only two of us are still living and that's a bad dream come true. That shouldn't happen any more.
    Vurt should have taken all of our bad dreams and turned them into theatre, brilliant theatre.
    I was scribbling late into the ledger, listening with half a mind to the creaking bed through the wall. Beetle making love to Brid, to the sleeping Brid. Despite the arguments, I knew this would happen, knowing the score.
    And then a soft knock on my bedroom door. I opened it a crack and there was Brid, anyway, standing there, and the noises of love still coming from the next room.
    "Scribble?" she said, her eyes heavy lidded, voice clogged by smoke. "I'm working, Brid," was all I could manage, still listening to the noises. "Beetle's with Mandy," she said.
    "Sounds like it." I was trying my best to be uncaring, it's just that the shadows in her eyes made me melt.
    "Can I