Minnie's eyes creaked open, painfully and slow, crusted over and heavy as if her body had been rusting for decades under the Ocean, growing stiff, meant never to move again.

But here she was, moving, by some miracle able to once again return to life.

Her head swam, the lights were too bright - at least if there had been much light where she was in the first place. She heard the clanging of engines; where was she? A cage of some sort - she could feel the metal bars digging painfully into her side - but where?

She pulled herself up, flinching at the movement, and looked down at herself, her wound where The Mickey had stabbed her had been stoppered off with a dirty bathtub plug, scabbed over with clear signs of the beginning of an infection. She was too afraid too touch it, too afraid to feel its sting in her side. A bathplug had been all that had been there between her and death. She began to shiver, uncontrollably, remembering all that had happened; remembering how The Mickey had driven his knife straight through her. Her breath came out in panicked gasps, she fell to her hands and knees, barely noticing the aching pain in her side. She could've been dead right now, she should've been dead. She tried not to cry, she couldn't; although her body felt like it had long belonged to death, she was alive, and that was what mattered. She tried to get her breathing back under control, to get her thoughts back in order, she had to, because her wits were all she had left.

The clanging began to make more sense, the background came into focus around her, in the darkness she could make out other cages beside her own, each containing dark lonely shapes. Faint flickering lights illuminated pipes and boilers, moving pieces of engines, or whatever else were the makings of a steamship; it hadn't been just her head that was swimming, she knew this place, she was aboard-

"The S.S. Willie," Minnie breathed.

Minnie began to feel the panic rising within her once again, she couldn't be here, she couldn't...

Then came the sound of clanking, slow, rhythmically; the clatter of a bolt knocked through the metal stairwell...

And then that voice, high-pitched and and hoarse, and unmistakable.

"I'm the guy they call little Mickey Mouse,"

Clank-clank, stop.

"Got a sweetie down in the chicken hold,"

Keys rattling in a lock.

"Neither fat nor skinny, she's the horse's whinny..."

Screeching as a cage door slowly opened.

...

"When it's feeding time for the animals,"

Hands stretching out, a chicken's neck within reach.

SNATCH!

"And they howl and growl like they're cannibals."

SCAWWWW! The sound of a chicken's head ripped clean off by sharpened teeth.

Minnie's heart stopped, she felt herself cowering in the corner of her cage.

The voice continued.

"I just turn my heel to the henhold steel."

The discarded body of a chicken, clattering on the floor.

"And you'll hear me sing this song."

The sound of footsteps moving closer...

"The cows and the chickens, they all sound like the dickens."

Metal mallets clanging on the bones of victims...

"When I hear my little Minnie..."

"Yoo hoo..." Minnie finished in just the faintest of a breath.

"Yoo hoo!" came the answer back.

And then, out of the shadows stepped the Mickey, his lips dripping with fresh blood, his eyes gleaming, staring straight into her soul.

"My little Minnie Mouse," The Mickey crooned, "Welcome aboard Screamboat Willie."

And at that very moment, a boiler exploded, illuminating the room around her with light. She could see inside the cages clearly the first time, all of them containing the bones and mutilated corpses of various farm animals. All the pigs, the ducks, the reoccurring cow, even the parrot who'd been so annoying yet so full of life, each and every one of the many side-characters who had appeared besides Mickey and herself across their many adventures that now existed in the Public Domain, all of them torn apart with chunks missing, all containing signs of a brutal death.

The Mickey's head rotated, making a full 360, cracking each joint as he took in every last one of those cages with his bloodthirsty vision. Then his eyes fell back directly on Minnie Mouse.

"Soon will come next, the time for my Minnie Moursel."

And all the lights went out. Fleshy eyes flashed mere inches from Minnie's cage.

Minnie screamed, scrambling as far back into her cage as she could, her voice coming out in gasps as she fell back to her hands and knees. She felt tears of terror rolling from her eyes. She wanted out, she wanted to get out of here. She didn't want to be a horror victim.

But as the darkness settled back in, and her eyes again settled to the dim light, nothing more happened. The sounds of mallets upon bone receded back into the depths of the screamboat, The Mickey chanting the remaining verses of his song. Then, with a last echoing rasp of "Patience, patience, patience..." all fell silent. Mostly.

Minnie realized then, she hadn't been the only voice screaming, she heard the voice of another chicken squawking, one who's head was still intact. There was somebody else alive in here. Her heart was still hammering inside her, she felt the ache where her wound felt raw, but she had to find out who was here, perhaps they could be of some help.

"Hello?" Minnie called, her voice cracking.

The squawking continued and Minnie tried again.

"Hello?" Minnie tried again, "Is anyone else there?"

This broke through the panicked squawking, and the voice fell silent.

Finally: "Hello, are you the authorities? Have you finally come to rescue me?" Called back a female voice, cracking with anxiety.

Minnie didn't answer immediately. "No," she admitted at last, "I don't think I am. I'm in the same boat as you."

There was movement in the shadows, and from a cage across from her Minnie could almost make out the shape of a chicken.

"Well, you had better come up with something," said the hen, forgetting all her worries in an instant, "This boat and this overall environment is doing something awful for my feathers. These are Blue Ribbon winning feathers, if I must add. Not that that's something I'm going to brag about, I am of humble stock now. In fact - if I must be so bold as to say - I have become so humble, if they handed out Blue Ribbons for humility, I'd be sure to win."

"I can see that," Minnie said. Then, "May I ask what your name is?"

"Henrietta Hen," the hen said proudly, "Humble Blue Ribbonist of the Slumber-Town State Fair, 1921."

Despite everything, Minnie burst out laughing. She became such a hysterical fit, Henrietta had to break in.

"Have you lost it?" She asked, "Was it something I said?"

Minnie managed to catch her breath, "No," she said, "It's just I didn't expect their to be an actual Henrietta Hen already in the Public Domain."

"Oh really," said Henrietta Hen, narrowing her eyes skeptically, "I've been here for quite some time. I've been around since 1921 actually, it's a wonder you haven't heard of me." The speckled hen fluffed up her feathers indignantly.

Minnie looked over at the hen through the darkness. "Listen, we are going to get out of here, I promise." She paused. "I'm just not sure yet."

"Well, we'd better," Henrietta Hen huffed, "I'd hate to think of what'd happen if I turned out like that other chicken I'm sure you heard earlier. Poor thing, what a pity."

Minnie sat in her cage thinking as the boat rocked with the movement of the river. The movement of the boat every once on awhile was caused the drain plug wedged into her wound to jar. She felt at it cautiously, wincing as a sharp pain shot threw her at her touch, a tear sting at her eyes as she thought back to the circumstances that had led to this becoming of her. She just hoped it'd hold.

"Yoo hoo," Minnie mumbled to herself as she leaned against the back of the cage, her body sinking heavily against the bars. Such a sweet song Mickey had made for her to celebrate the love she had for him, only to be polluted by this monster as he had polluted everything else.

Yoo hoo...

Minnie stopped, suddenly searching her memory.

No, Mickey had never sung that song for her in 1928. He didn't sing that song until...

"We're in 2025!"

Minnie sat there as all her 1929 Public Domain memories came back to her. It really was true, they were in 2025, but how? The Time Portal had been destroyed. Had she been gone from the land of the living that long? She felt an unsettling sense building up in her, something about all this felt off. There was no reason she should still be alive.

But she couldn't figure it out right now, she had to focus. If she wanted to do anything, first she'd have to deal with this lock. She quickly remembered that one time When the Cat was Away, (an obscure fanservice reference literally nobody probably cares about,) Mickey had used the head shape of one of his fellow mouse-friends to open the lock to the Barnhouse. Could something like that be used for something now? She had to contemplate it for a moment...

The good ol' Mouse Brigade... Whatever had happened to them?

But seeing the shadows of these cages glinting in the dim light, Minnie only had to guess. Had any of their old friends survived? There had to be other survivors on this boat, right? There'd have to be if Mickey wanted to continue to feed, (somehow, that thought wasn't comforting in the least). But upon her continued scan of the room, Minnie felt it safe to summize, at least here in this particular hold, the only other survivor still with her was Henrietta Hen.

Still... if they could find some of her old friends, regardless of state, perhaps they weren't entirely out of luck...

"Yoo hoo, Henrietta?" Minnie called, "Do you know if there are any mice in any of the cages around you?"

Henrietta was quiet for a moment as she rustled around in her cage. "I think there is one in the cage above me, but what a smell, I think it rotted into a corpse long ago. Honestly, the lack of civility with these accommodations!"

Minnie hated to asked, but she had to. "Do you think you can toss it over to me? Please?"

"A rotted corpse?!" Henrietta nearly shrieked. But then a pause.

"What more do I have to lose?"

A moment later, the spindly form of a mouse skull, complete with spinal cord landed before Minnie's cage. She reached out to grab it. Yuckyuckyuck! Oh, she had to do this, didn't she.

Fortunately, the shape of the rodent's snout fit perfectly into the lock.

But, just as Minnie prepared to turn it, the ship gave a violent jolt, and the spinal cord snapped in Minnie's hand, jamming the "key" in the lock. Minnie gave a cry as the drainplug jarred in her wound.

But that wasn't all, a heavy rattling. Minnie regained her bleary vision looked up above her, chains were moving, unfurling as they began to be pulled upward.

"I am not quiet sure I like the sound of this," Henrietta said.

"I don't think I do either" said Minnie, growing nervous at what might be about to happen.

CLANG!

Light spilled inward as the ceiling began to creak open. The chains reached taught, and with a jerk, Minnie's cage began to lift upward. Minnie had to grab at her wound to protect it from the jarring movement.

Henrietta began to squawk as she ran back and forth in fright, "Where are you going, don't leave me down here!" But Minnie just held there at the edge of her bars, one hand still wincing at her wound, frozen as the voice above emanated down into the lower hold.

"Minnie, yoo hoo! Your time has almost come."

Slowly, the cage rose, The Mickey's voice began to chant, rhythmatic to the turning of a crank.

"Oh, the old tomcat with his meow, meow, meow,

Old houn' dog with his bow, wow, wow,

The crows caw caw and the mule's hee haw,

Gosh, what a racket like an old buzz saw."

As if almost against her will, Minnie felt herself joining in, soullessly, taken in by the hypnotic melody that had for so long been her anthem.

"I have listened to the cuckoo 'kuke' his cuckoo,

And I've heard the rooster cock his doodle doo-oo,

With the cows and the chickens,

They all sound like the dickens,

When I hear my little Minnie's yoo hoo."

As the cage rose, Minnie could see the full scope of The Mickey's reign of terror, not just her fellow farm animals, but hundreds and hundreds of Public Domain characters, cages stacked upon stacks, hanging by chains, all full of the discarded remains of those whose copyrights had expired.

Any signs of life, just one; just a hope that maybe it wasn't too late for her as it had been for all of these. But all she saw was carnage, whatever survivors were left on this screamboat, they were fewer than anything she could ever dare to hope.

But not that it mattered, he would never let them go, all of them were doomed to this mouse one way or another; doomed to this mouse she had known as her Mickey.

Minnie's heart dropped inside her, and deep inside she finally knew it to be true. This was her Mickey, wasn't it? Back in 2024 she had held out hope that the Mickey she had known and loved didn't have to become this thing who's raspy voice now rang wickedly above her, but now, this was the only Mickey she had, and no matter how hard she tried to tell herself differently, she knew this was who her Mickey had become.

Minnie could see through the opening now, light filling the world as she rose up through it.

And there Mickey was, reeling the cage up above the deck. He stood at the crank, grinning at her.

"Minnie Minnie, Mini Little Moursel, so nice of you to join and see the fulfillment of our plan."

Then, Mickey turned back to the ship's wheel and started whistling - a demented version of his favorite Steamboat Bill - as he steered the ship down the river.

From here Minnie could see the world around them, no more merry than the holds below, bones scattered across the deck everywhere. Up here the sky was overcast, and the Steamboat chugged along on an unfriendly river filled with sickly oily water. It was in all essence, a wasteland, created from what Minnie could only guess was the result of Mickey's own demise.

On the river, up ahead, there seemed to be a dock which Mickey was steering them towards. Minnie could hear the sounds of machinery; it was clear something was being constructed there. As they drew closer, Minnie could make out the forms of skeletons and mangled corpses moving large pieces of metallic material, wielding it together to build something big; the workers who had lived and breathed on these docks now the undead slaves of whatever vile schemes this mouse had been planning.

Minnie looked around the Steamboat, trying to form a plan. And then she saw it. The paint had long flaked away, a long crack had shattered across its center, and many of its keys were missing, but it was still unmistakable, and perhaps not completely beyond the hope working order.

Mickey had developed a slight abusive relationship with pianos during his second year of existence (yah, maybe should've been a red flag), and it seemed this piano had suffered a number by his claws, but perhaps it could still play. Minnie scanned the skeletons lining the deck, remembered what Mickey had told her of his visit to a certain haunted house back in his time, if she could play a certain Skeleton Dance for these fallen bones, perhaps maybe, just maybe, she could sway them to her side.

But it was already too late, Minnie felt the ship slowing; they had arrived.

It was from here that Minnie could finally see what they were building, the frame, mangled pieces of ivory and brass and quartz sown painfully into its framework; the glass being melted down and spread thin over an enormous surface area; everything, stretched and refitted well beyond their logical limit to create this monstrosity, a wretched reflection of the original. Minnie felt her heart grow still.

"They're rebuilding the Time Portal," she breathed.

Well, perhaps that wasn't so shocking, Mickey had already done it once, it wasn't like it was rocket science.

The ship came into port just as the crane lifted the final piece into place, the all important Looking Glass. Mickey stepped easily from the boat and stood on the dock, straight before it.

"Magic Mirror made from death," Mickey rasped, "Show me a Mickey who's soul has come to rot.

The mirror began to ripple, slowly at first, then beginning to spread out; an image began to form. It was a river, very much a reflection of the one they were currently on, but the water was clean, the shores green and full of life. It was home.

And then Minnie saw him, on the far shore, knife in hand. His heart was full of fury, ready to face the fiend that stood on the other side of the time portal.

This was the Mickey she remembered, this was the Mickey she had fallen in love with and vowed to save.

This was a Mickey who's soul was about to rot.

For in this Mickey's eyes, she didn't see any love at all, only hatred for the rodent that had taken from him the one he loved.

Mickey twirled his knife at the ready.

"Mickey Mouse of the Public Domain, I have come to take your heart!"

Fury turned to madness, and a wicked grin rose across his face.