It turned out Eugene was right.

Two lights trained on it was more than the shadow could handle and it disappeared, slinking off into the darkness. Eugene stared after it for a few moments, breathing heavily. "...Light. Huh. I'm really glad that worked," he remarked at length. Fear had pitched his voice ever-so-slightly higher than was strictly appropriate for the maintenance of the sarcastic bad boy image he normally took such pains to portray. "Would've been pretty terrible if it hadn't. I mean, more terrible than it already was."

It had only gone after the Once-ler, though. Why? They were both pretty badly beaten up and didn't stand much of a chance against something with sharp, pointy claws. It stood to reason that both of them would have been a target. So how come it had ignored Eugene so entirely?

And...it had been vaguely person-shaped. Kid-shaped. Had that even been a monster, or was it a transformed patient? Guilt twisted painfully in Eugene's stomach. There was no way of knowing, and beating himself up about it could wait. The Once-ler was hurt.

Eugene moved closer to his roommate, ready to act as a human crutch if he needed to. "How bad is it? Can you get to Rapunzel's room?"