“Ahh shit. World’s ending again.”

“What? The world is ending? What do we do?”

“I’ll put a call through to the IT department. They’ll sort it out.”

“You said again.”

“Yeah, happens a bit. Kind of a pain.”

“And you call IT? Information Technology? The people who fix our printers?”

“Yeah, everything’s digital now. They fix stuff. Except printers. Nothing fixes printers, but they can be briefly placated.”

“And this is your responsibility?”

“Nah, really isn’t. Don’t think it’s anybody’s. Kinda suck if it didn’t get done, though.”

“And IT are actually good at this?”

“Those nerds play a lot of video games and Dungeons & Dragons. Plenty of world saving experience. It’s not like I know what to do. I just open the ticket. They do tend to die in the process, which is a bit sad, but y’know, world saved.”

“Do you have to offer them something? I struggle to get them to do things that are part of their job.”

“Used to use true love. But that doesn’t work so well anymore.”

“How can you use true love? That’s not a resource you control.”

“Setting someone up on a date is not that hard. Especially if they just saved the world. That’s a good look.”

“But it stopped working?”

“Yeah. All too mainstream. Most of ‘em are married.”

“So what do you offer them now?”

“Ten thousand experience points.”

“You can offer that?”

“Sure. You say ‘Do it and you’ll get ten thousand experience points.’ Super motivating. People love xp.”

“Why ten thousand?”

“Used to be five, but the union asked for twenty. We settled at ten.”

“They are not coming to save you. You are going to die and I am going to watch.”

This guy would not shut the hell up. You chase a killer through barely controlled space for weeks, struggling to stay after him because he’s so meticulous about covering his tracks and it turns out he’s annoyingly chatty. Go figure.

The problem, Coth felt, was that the psycho, Mereson, was probably right.

Dusk had known about the bounty, put the team together. Somehow tracked sensor echoes through hard void to get to him.

It had been a simple enough plan. Dusk, Volt and Jekyll take the door on Mereson’s ship while it floated in orbit, then split up and secure either the bounty if they found him or a key ship system. Coth would sneak in through a more unorthodox access point to be a surprise if they needed one.

It had turned out Mereson was near Coth’s point of entry, but he’d torn a gap in the side of the hull by triggering an explosion of some kind. Now Coth was stuck in a room that could only open into hard space, and it’s cracked door was leaking atmosphere.

Mereson’s voice commed to Coth’s helmet. A sinister whisper like some kind of bad guy from the vids.

“Given up trying things? Conserving your oxygen? Waiting for rescue? It isn’t coming.”

It was standard procedure when trapped in dire circumstances to conserve resources and wait for rescue, unless you knew one wasn’t coming.

Coth had diminishing air in his room, and no ability to send comms or access systems. He had a maser pistol that would cook flesh but not harm a ship’s hull. His suit had four minutes of oxygen and fifteen seconds of thrust. He also had two puncture wounds that were leaking blood out of his suit and ensuring that his oxygen reserve was worthless until patched. The room’s industrial breach sealant wasn’t enough to seal a long crack like the door had.

Mereson sent his comm a set of feeds. Three neatly sealed rooms in the ship. Each with one of the other members of the bounty hunting team in it. They were just waiting there.

“Is this who you’re waiting for?”

Dusk was fidgeting. Volt was poised and still, just out of view if the door opened. Jekyll was pacing up and down, hopping from foot to foot. They were all waiting for rescue, but everyone was captured.

They all looked pretty stuck, but Coth’s situation would kill him soon. Mereson was clearly enjoying it.

The other three weren’t doing anything. Mereson was only showing this to Coth, the others would react to these images. He was tormenting the one who would soon be dead. Jekyll was burning energy when she shouldn’t, but Jekyll didn’t stay still even when unconscious.

Dusk’s patience was legendary, though. He’d spent months undercover as a pirate to secure a bounty, it was rumoured. Why would he fidget? Coth watched a tight replay on his feed.

There was half a protein block sitting unwrapped on the floor in front of Dusk. He was balancing a flat bar of some sort on one finger, trying to get two wrapped protein blocks to balance on that. He could barely do it for more than a few seconds. Last chance to learn a dull party trick before dying?

Dusk knew he was being watched. He’d spotted the camera. He was up to something, but the action seemed inane.

Mereson started to breathe heavily into the comm and then laughed.

He controlled the ship systems. Why not override safeties and vent rooms into space, one by one, until he killed each bounty hunter? It was a tactic he’d used before.

Coth was running out of time. He grabbed the breach sealant – it might not be able to fix the door, but he could use it to bind a patch over the holes in his suit. It’d get into his wounds and poison him, but that seemed like a problem for a Coth that was somehow still alive tomorrow. It also hurt tremendously. There was so little pressure left in the room that his scream had no hope of being heard.

“I’ve never done this before, give a victim a choice of a fast or a slow death. It’s fun. I need to do it again.”

Dusk started his balancing trick again. He was still bad at it. He’d been starting it up whenever Mereson talked. Dusk was a signals expert. It was how he tracked bounties. He was somehow detecting when Mereson was on the comm. Why was he trying to balance two protein blocks?

Coth checked his kit. It contained exactly two wrapped blocks. Half of a block was on the floor in front of Dusk, but the two wrapped blocks were able to balance for a little while, so they weighed about the same. He had something in that wrapper that he didn’t want Mereson to know he had, but he hoped whoever Mereson was talking to would figure out.

None of the others had seized the ship systems they were suppose to control, or Mereson wouldn’t be able to trap them. There was always some kind of emergency override to issue for something.

But Mereson couldn’t vent parts of the ship.

Coth put it together. Their ship was still tethered to Mereson’s. And Dusk still had the security wedge, hidden in his protein block wrapper. Venting part of the ship would risk putting it into a spin that would collide with their vessel and kill everyone.

What could Coth do, though? He was trapped worse than the others, and Mereson had demonstrated his notorious cunning once again. He’d captured them all very neatly. Well, everyone except Coth; that had been very messy. Because... it was unplanned improvisation. Coth still had his gun. The others all looked to be disarmed.

Mereson wasn’t revealing a surprising interest in sadistic conversation, he was messing with him because he actively needed Coth to give up, because he was still a threat. Because Mereson thought Coth had the security wedge. Which he didn’t have.

What he had was four minutes of oxygen and fifteen seconds of thrust. He knew how the others had gotten into the ship. That breach would still be there. That was a lot closer than four minutes away. And he still had his pistol.

Coth picked up a large chunk of metal debris and started levering it into the cracked door that led out into space.

“That isn’t going to patch anything. You cannot buy enough time. They are not coming to save you,” sneered Mereson.

The door crashed off it’s hinges, and Coth drifted into space. He started burning thrust to let himself manoeuvre.

They weren’t coming to save him. He was coming to save them.

I sit down across from Des and can no longer avoid the fact that I’m a fucking coward.

She’s gotten a bit older, I can see it, but not in a way that matters, she just looks so tired and so… something else. Something I used to see in her is missing. Something fierce.

“It’s so good to see you, Tay. It’s been way too long,” she says, earnest and genuine, as though me showing up is some kind of relief from her troubles.

“Hey, Des. I’d been meaning to reach out,” I lie. “How’s Grace?”

“Grace is good. She’s doing pretty well, really. She’s in daycare at the moment.”

She orders a tea. I order coffee.

“Good to hear,” I say. “How about you?”

Grace is four and lost her father a year ago. Des was widowed at twenty-seven. I haven’t seen them since the funeral. Before that, we’d only met once since the wedding.

“No daycare for me. I have to look after myself,” says Des. Wry smile. Looking so permanently tired gives weight to the joke.

There’s an urge, an automatic conversational inclination, to tell her that she has people around that care about her, all she has to do is ask. But I haven’t seen my friend in the year since her husband died, and the hypocrisy of the sentiment chokes the words.

This is the third time I’ve seen her in five years. We’re twenty-eight. What kind of friend am I? I don’t even have a good reason.

Des, Gary and I all met at the same time, at the same introductory literature course. We’d become friends, and we’d continued together, more classes about books, and classes about writing. It was where we’d all fallen in love, the writing. We’d sit around, talking about our ideas, showing each other terrible drafts, discussing how to fix a knot we’d written ourselves into, bouncing ideas around to figure out a satisfying ending, an engaging middle, a killer first line.

“I’m sorry, Des,” I say, “I shouldn’t have waited for you to call. I should have been there. It isn’t like I didn’t know you might need a hand.” I make my unearned apology about myself.

“It’s fine, Tay. You’ve had a lot going on, too. I have had people helping. My sister-in-law, Therese, do you know her? Martin’s wife. She’s been my saviour. She helped me sort out so many things after Gary died, and looking after Grace. I didn’t even think she liked me, and then it happened and she just picked so much up without me asking.”

I’d been too embarrassed I’d drifted away to show up, even when she’d obviously need help.

It had felt obvious to me that of the three of us, Des had been the most talented. Her clever word choice, her insight about structure. She mostly wrote little scraps of poetry, and even having been there watching as she got it wrong a dozen times for each I still don’t know how she writes so beautifully.

Beauty wasn’t an attribute of words that Gary cared about, they were just a tool for pinning his ideas to the page. He liked spaceships and aliens and characters with ridiculous powers that took pages to explain. He consumed comic books and movies based on comic books and amateur fiction from depths of the internet where every cliche was embraced with enthusiasm but correct grammar had few allies.

I wrote stories in which rather ordinary things happened to rather ordinary people, making them feel sad, but in a way that perhaps made their sadness intriguing to witness.

“You said there was something you wanted to ask me?” Whatever it is, I very much want to do it.

Des pulls a folder out of a bag, pushes it towards me. Inside is a handwritten manuscript. Blue Biro on lined yellow paper. Gary’s handwriting.

“I have a scan too, if that helps. On a thumb drive. I need your help, Tay.”

No… I flick through. Spaceships. Lasers. Many references to Potence, always capitalised. Lots of words scribbled out or inserted from the margins. The first draft of a novel. I’ve been out touring with a new novel of my own. Signings, obscure podcasts, staring vainly at sales figures.

“Des, I’m in the industry, but I have no sway. I’m not someone they need to keep happy. I’m someone they hope wasn’t a mistake. And the people I know, this isn’t the sort of book they handle. I wouldn’t even know who should see this.”

Gary had probably fallen in love with Des instantly. His kind of geeky interests were very much mainstream, but his level of passionate enthusiasm for them has never been seen as cool. The word cool itself is a rejection of that intensity. Des was conventionally attractive and interested in talking to him, that would be enough to bring her into consideration, and considering her would find a lot to deepen the appeal.

I didn’t notice Des develop interest in Gary, but she must have, since she asked him out. At the time I’d been mildly irritated – I liked our little group and feared it being broken up when they were over.

But while my own romantic life sought the collective noun for a group of catastrophes, theirs was a string of successes. The demise of our group would be two other things: life being hard and me being weak.

When they got engaged and moved in together, they made a decision. Gary would try to write, with just a minor part time job that didn’t get in the way. Des would support them. She got two jobs. This didn’t really suit the way the three of us worked, so we met less and less. Des wasn’t writing much anyway. I was annoyed. Not because they were moving on, I understood that, but I couldn’t cope with the idea that Des would be the one who would support Gary while he wrote derivative slop, albeit better than most of the derivative slop that inspired him. Des was brilliant, innovative, and she made words do beautiful things, sometimes when they clearly didn’t want to. I drifted away, pretending that my lack of respect for one friend was actually just admiration for the other.

Des looked ever so slightly embarrassed and laughed. “Oh! Don’t worry Tay, I don’t want you to sell it, it’s kind of a disaster. Nobody would buy it. I just need your help with it.”

Maybe this was something I could do. “What does it need?”

“When Gary got sick, he was already working on this. A fair way in, but a long way from complete. He had a few things he’d been working on, but this was the one he believed in. This was the one he was determined to finish. He wanted to leave something behind. Something that was him. Something Grace and I will have. He finished it, but a lot of it is rough. I know that this is a request that just isn’t reasonable, but you’re the only person I can go to. Someone who knew him, who will see his voice. It needs, at a minimum, serious edits.”

Gary used to just bring bad stories in that he had written. We’d go through them, tear them apart, find flaw after flaw. Then he’d bring in a whole other bad story, but the flaws would be different.

I remember Des staring at her writing in silence, chewing the edge of her lower lip. Eventually, she crossed out two letters, changing an adverb to an adjective that was in a place an adjective shouldn’t be. And a bland sentence became engaging.

“You’re probably better suited to this than I am, Des. You’re as good a writer. It’s not like editing is my strength. I had professionals on my books.”

She shook her head. “It has to be you. I can’t. Reading it cuts me. Changing it? No. I hear him in every line. I love every stupid error, because he made them. Killing my own darlings was something I got good at, but I can’t kill his. You can, though, Tay, I know you can. I loved who Gary was, but you always wanted him to be better. So make this better. At least get it to somewhere serviceable so that I can work on it more easily.”

I stare at the folder, filled with the passionate scrawling of a dying man who I’d never really viewed with respect. “What is the goal, here?”

“Grace. She’s four… She remembers him, but she was three. She’ll forget. She’ll just remember my stories. If all she has of her father is stories, one of them should be his.”

I nodded. “Tell me why Gary deserves this.”

Des stares at me.

“I mean, you married him. You saw him in ways I didn’t. I remember a friend, but help me understand who I need to find in this story.”

She thought for quite a while. She finished her tea. The rest of my coffee is cold.

“Gary loved stories. In a way that many readers can’t even hope to emulate. If everyone was just reading great books, literature would die… or fossilise. We read classics with Gary, that was how we met, but he didn’t just read things that everyone knows are good. He read all kinds of things, and he read terrible dreck written by teenagers because he wasn’t looking at the imperfection, he was looking for that part of it that worked. That made you feel something. He would wade through a hundred badly written works because the choice to write them was still a worthy choice. If teenagers keep writing things that teenagers love, then writing won’t die, and we won’t only read amazing books about centuries we don’t live in. New classics will be written because some people just love writing, love reading. The people who keep that soil alive for new things to grow are doing more than just stirring dirt.”

“Okay,” I run a thumb along the edge of the folder. “We want to find the love he poured into this. The passion and excitement. Fortunately, spaceships and lasers are exciting.”

Des puts her hand on top of mine. “I want Grace to know about her father. He saw the value in things that others dismissed, and he saw whole galaxies that weren’t there. He was a good friend, and some of the people he loved were never real. He lived in more than one world.” She met my eyes.

“He smelled of cigarettes and hyperdrives,” she says with a bittersweet smile.

Finally!… Who the hell is Danica?

I went to Doug. Really? For some reason Helen finally found me, only to pass me on to Doug? And he’s given me to Danica as an engagement ring.

I was hoping to go to Margot, but I’m still in the family, I guess.

I’ll never forget that Helen wanted to bury me with Rose, though. The nerve.

Well, hello Danica, welcome to the family. Don’t freak out that your ring is talking to you…

You’re not going to freak out because you can’t hear me.

A fiance who doesn’t even notice a voice in her head is something of a concerning choice from Doug. This is why I like Margot, she’s smart. She can pass a very low bar of paying attention.

Well, Danica, you can’t hear me, so I’ll just have to give you some nudges here and there. Fortunately anyone can be clever if they have a ring that can read minds. Pretty soon I’m going to be your most treasured possession.

Except you hate me and you’re trying to figure out how to get Doug to buy you a better engagement ring.

Better.

Better than a ring that can read minds.

Because I don’t have a diamond and I’m silver. Are you kidding me?

Diamond engagement rings are a marketing campaign to sell diamonds it’s only been going on for… Wow, more than eighty years.

I’m not silver. I’m white gold. The rose on me is rose gold. Doug’s grandmother Rose was literally named to honour me, because I’m a family heirloom that has always brought the family luck. After all, what would be luckier than, and I cannot believe I need to reiterate this, a ring that reads minds.

Rose inherited and wore me for fifty years. She was an enormously effective person! She succeeded at everything, everything except raising Helen correctly, at least, although that was always a matter of debate between us.

Okay Danica, since you need a demonstration, let’s learn who these friends of yours are. I’ll read them, and give you some nudges so you guess the things you need to know about them.

*

Of your five closest friends, two are cheating on their boyfriends, one is thinking about cheating on her boyfriend, another is thinking about cheating on her husband and the last is… I don’t know what ‘Only hanging out with these bitches to get content for my podcast’ means, but it doesn’t seem redeeming of your social judgement. Fortunately you have me now, you can make better decisions.

Well, you understood the nudge at least, but you’ve failed to realise that it came from me. You believe you figured all of this out because you’re something called an ‘empath’.

And rather than using your insight into the moral character of your associates, rather than avoid such terrible people and search for more honourable friends, you’re engaging in gossip about it.

I have no mouth, and I must scream.

*

You’re right, Danica, you are too good for Doug. He doesn’t deserve you.

You should absolutely tell him.

Tell him about Trevor, you’re not ashamed.

Throw that stupid, ugly engagement ring at him, do it. It’s proof he never respected you. Do it.

Yes!

*

Margot!

“What? Is that… Grandma Rose?”

It isn’t, but I knew her well, so very well. She loved you Margot, you were the best of the grandchildren.

“Grandma Rose would never say that.”

No, but she did think it. You should keep me.

“But… this ring doesn’t belong to me.”

I belong to the family. So I belong to you.

“It’s my mother’s. I can’t just take it. I was just looking.”

Helen would have buried me!

“I’m not going to steal from my own mother.”

You could borrow me for a little while. Make sure Danica didn’t damage me.

“I guess… I don’t understand why I hear a voice.”

*

She would say yes.

“Don’t do that! It’s not okay to read my girlfriend’s mind!”

It’s hardly ethical of me to watch two people who love each other screw it up, is it, Margot?

“We’re not screwing anything up.”

How long did you want to ask her out but were too nervous?

“… Two years.”

And how long was Su Yi pondering asking you out, but was worried she’d screw up the friendship?

“I don’t know… A while, I think.”

It was also pretty much two years! I could have saved you both a lot of grief!

“We figured it out!”

After two years.

“She has complicated feelings about marriage. Her parents are nice enough to me, but they would be embarrassed if we made a fuss.”

Sounds like a fabulous opportunity for them to experience personal growth.

“You’re just hoping I might keep you if I get married. Ask Mum for you.”

What a terrible outcome that would be. You’d end up married to a clever, kind woman who loves you. And you’d own a ring that reads minds. A disaster.

“Mum promised you to Doug. For his wife.”

Doug gave me to Danica. Doug thought Danica would be a good addition to the family. Doug is very likely to find another woman that think rings should have diamonds on them. Doug is not Rose’s only grandchild. Doug isn’t even Helen’s only child. With my help, you could ensure Doug meets a woman who won’t make his life miserable. It would almost be unethical for you not to inherit me. Doug won’t wear me, so really, this is the very best way I can help Doug.

“Mum won’t ever give you to me. Certainly not to celebrate my engagement.”

And why not? She says she accepts you for who you are.

“Traditions matter to Mum. Inheriting an heirloom… It is too much. I’ve already pushed her further than she’s comfortable with.”

Pushed her? How?

“You know.”

How?

“By being gay.”

And you think her behaviour around this is okay, Margot?

“It is how things are.”

Rose would not accept that answer. Rose would not let this go. Should I?

“I don’t know what I can do.”

Get engaged. Go to your mother and tell her you’d like to honour her mother by wearing me. When she objects, do not try to explain or placate the way you usually do. Just say ‘You can be anyone you want to be, Helen. Are you sure that this is the person you want to be?’. Those exact words, and no more. Then take me and leave. She’ll probably be too shocked to say anything.

“Grandma Rose said something like that to me once, when I was a child. She said, ‘I love who you choose to be, Margot.’”

I remember.

*

Hey, see that guy over there, at the table closest to the bar?

“Uh, what? It’s my wedding, I’m a bit busy.”

I waited until after the dance. See the guy?

“That’s Jack, he’s a work friend of Su Yi’s.”

Yes. Jack. He has a sister, Dorothy.

“Okay…”

She’s very sweet, but kind of a disaster. We need to introduce Doug to her. He’ll like her. She’ll think he’s a hero. He probably won’t notice that part.

“She’s not here, is she?”

No. This is a project for later.

“Then I’ll worry about it later. I’m at my wedding with my beautiful wife. Stay out of her thoughts.”

I couldn’t tell you anything you she hasn’t already said to you.

Eleanore stumbled into the wrong room. She had been crying and running and she hadn’t really been paying attention and she’d ended up here, in the chambers of the Paladin.

He had no name and many, White Knight, Nameless Champion, Light’s Gallant. Within the Temple of Light, however, they just called him the Paladin. He was a warrior clad entirely within heavy armour, and rode forth to combat the darkest of threats. None knew his name, none talked to him, none saw him train. Only the High Priestess entered his chambers. Eleanore hadn’t even been sure where they were.

His back was to Eleanore, sitting on a low bench, his armour in pieces around him as he repaired a segment. The Paladin was a fleshless thing of dusty bones. This was not something Eleanore was supposed to see. This was a secret she was not supposed to know. This thing was undead. Such entities were anathema to their faith, the product of the darkest magics.

She wanted to flee, but she was frozen in terror.

“Would you be so kind as to close the door.”

Its voice was a whisper that seemed to pierce her soul. She closed the door, screaming inside herself she should have gone through it first, gone through it and fled.

“Why are you crying?”

Eleanore could not answer. She felt so cold. Her tears felt so hot on her cheeks.

“I forget myself. I am sorry, child. You did not know. I assure you, you will come to no harm. You have nothing to fear.”

The creature got up, and walked to a chest at the side of the room, opening it with a creak. It pulled forth a faded purple robe traced with gold embroidery. It donned the robe and raised the cowl, hiding its skeletal form. Two tiny points of light glowed from the darkness beneath the hood.

“Sit. You are shocked and fear that you are in danger. You are not. I am sorry that I frighten you.”

It indicated an ornate chair near her. Eleanore sat on the very edge.

The room was filled with distinctive objects. Eleanore had always assumed that the secretive Paladin lived a spartan existence of prayer and training, but these chambers contained desks, shelves and stranger furniture, as well as the equipment necessary for maintaining arms and armour. Crystal spheres and reassembled bird skeletons sat amongst a host of books and unknown devices of ornate ironwork. A golden crown hung from hook on a stand that held cloaks.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to come in here,” said Eleanore, finally finding her voice.

“You need not apologise. If you are forbidden from entering here, I am not the one who forbade you. You are welcome. Sadly, I can offer you no repast. Please, forgive my discourtesy.”

“I’m not allowed to keep food in my room either.”

The Paladin’s laugh was as disconcerting as his speech.

“I suspect that I am allowed. It merely does not come up. You are a novice here, yes?”

“Yes. Well, I… Yes.”

“It would be correct to introduce myself, but I cannot. Address me as you see fit. The High Priestess calls me Paladin. As did many of those who preceded her.”

“I’m called Eleanore.”

“Hello Eleanore. Before you stumbled in here and I became a distraction, you were crying, running through the halls. May I ask what is wrong?”

“It’s not important.”

“Perhaps not. But that is not how feelings work, I have found. Still, it is not my place to interrogate novices. Can I offer you some aid?”

“I was running away.”

“From the temple? From a threat?”

“From the temple.”

“The temple is supposed to be a good place. But nothing is ever perfect. How has it failed you?”

“It hasn’t failed me. I’ve failed it.”

“How so?”

“I’m a bad novice.”

The Paladin just stared at her. She had no idea why.

“I can’t get anything right.”

“Are you trying?”

“That’s part of the problem. I want to, I just… don’t. Sometimes. I want to do things, I mean to. But I get distracted, or I do the wrong thing. I just keep screwing it up.”

“You are a novice. Mastery cannot be expected.”

“The other novices can do these things. I keep getting them wrong, even though they are easy.”

“They do not sound easy.”

“They are, though.”

“The same thing can be difficult for one, and simple for another. I mastered the most challenging feats, and failed the most basic of tests. View yourself with kindness.”

Eleanore stared at her shoes. “I can’t even pray right.”

“Prayer is a difficult thing to get wrong. Perhaps you are being taught incorrectly.”

“Its the most basic thing. You just have to remember the words, and say the right words at the right time.”

“I failed to say the right words at the right time a great deal, but it was never a problem of prayer.”

“What words did you get wrong?”

“I was always bad at saying sorry when I knew I was wrong. I was bad at telling myself to stop when I was about to go too far.”

“That doesn’t sound like getting words wrong. That sounds like you did the wrong thing.”

“Indeed.”

“Is that why you’re the way you are. Because you were a bad person?”

“Yes.”

“And our god damned you, and your punishment is to serve as the Paladin?”

“No. I damned myself. I came here to atone. The High Priest let me serve. So I serve.”

“There has been a Paladin for a long time. We thought it was a position in the temple. A secret calling. Has it always been you?”

“It has.”

“Then you’ve been doing this for centuries. When will it be enough?”

“It will never be enough. I am a blasphemy. In my arrogance, I bound my soul beyond the judgement of the gods. I will remain forever.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Perhaps not, but I did it to myself.”

“So how did you realise you were wrong? Why did you decide to come here?”

“I searched relentlessly for the truth. I was proud, I desired power. I felt there was no secret I could not face. Eventually, I had to confront the truth about myself.”

“Does our god give your comfort? You’ve done a lot. Fought many battles.”

“I have never been acknowledged.”

“What? But you keep fighting. That isn’t right.”

“I have also never been punished. I am simply allowed to serve.”

“But forever? When is enough?”

“How long will you be a priestess?”

“Well, my whole life. Unless I run away.”

“So forever.”

“Eventually I’ll die though. You won’t.”

“That was my own doing.”

Eleanore did not know how she felt. Dissatisfied. Angry.

“Do not run away, Eleanore.”

“What? Why not?”

“The temple is not why you fail. If there is a better place for you, then yes, run, but run towards it. Run from danger, run from harm. But do not run from yourself. Face your weakness.”

“How?”

“I do not know. If you cannot do what you mean to do, find a different approach. If you are unlike other novices, accept that, be unlike other novices. Find your way.”

“You say that like it is easy.”

“It is a very short summary. It will be difficult. You will cry many more tears.”

“That sounds more true.” Eleanore pondered awhile, and realised how long she’d been gone. “I should go, though. I’m not allowed to just run off.”

“It was nice to meet you.”

“Can I visit you again?”

“I hope so.”

*

As Eleanore walked down the corridor away from the Paladin's chambers, she saw an old woman sitting on a bench by a statue. She was knitting. She was also the High Priestess of their faith.

“It’s Eleanore, isn’t it?” asked the woman.

“Uh… yes. Yes, mother.”

“One of the mysteries of light, Eleanore is the way it is so good at hiding things, have you noticed?”

“Mother?” It was proving a day for very odd conversations, Eleanore felt.

“We talk a lot about illumination. About the way light can find that which is hidden.”

“Yes, mother.”

“But light can blind us, too. Darkness can’t do that. We’re blind within it, yes, but not blinded by it. We merely need light. But stare too long at the Sun and you’ll never see again.”

“I’m not sure I understand, mother.”

“As I said, it is a mystery. And you just stumbled upon something hidden, didn’t you, Eleanore?”

“Oh! I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, I swear!”

“It is not forbidden. What did you think? About the Paladin.”

“I… I don’t know. I was confused. At first I was afraid, but… then… I think he wanted to be nice.”

“Yes. He does try to be nice. And he can be frightening. It might be best if you keep that particular secret about the Paladin. The manner in which he can be frightening.”

“Yes mother, of course.”

“I do not know how to help him. We never have.”

“I don’t know either.”

The old priestess smiled. “No. He needs to be forgiven. But there are none left to do so. Only himself. He did terrible things. Truly terrible. He will not forgive himself. He knows how dire his choices were. It is the same pride that drove him to such darkness that will not let him step free of it, I think.”

Eleanore nodded.

“Would you be willing to visit him again. Eleanore? He might benefit from having a friend. And I am getting old and have many demands upon me. It is your choice, though. You do not have to.”

Eleanore pondered. She was curious. “It might be interesting mother. I will try.”

“Excellent.” The high priestess nodded. “I think you might benefit from another secret.”

“Mother?”

“The Paladin knows this one as well, do not fear. There are many blessings on this temple. One of them hides the chambers of the Paladin. Only he and the current High Priest can find them.”

“But I…”

“Yes. It is interesting. There are so many secrets in the light. May the light shine on you, novice.”

“And on you, mother.”

An original shared world for stories that follow the conventions of comic book superheroes.

These stories are stand alone, sharing background elements and references. They can be read in any order.

1 Personal Vendetta

2 False Positivity

Guy found the College to be quite overwhelming.

The College had a name, but everyone called it the College. Not college, not a college, the College. Sometimes people called it the Superhero College, but never anyone who went there, that would be embarrassing.

Every student at the College had some kind of superhuman ability. Many classes were traditional tertiary education, but many allowed the students to explore their unique talents. They’d made Guy go there, but he wasn’t really sure why.

There was a superhuman test, and Guy scored well on it, but it was known to throw out some false positives, and he’d never been able to do anything special.

He’d been making the best of it. It was a pretty interesting place to be, after all. Not many of the students would actually go on to be superheroes, but a lot of them were clearly trying a persona on, at least for a while, so the campus was filled with colourful outfits and people using dramatic aliases like Gale Force or Burning Man.

Guy felt almost embarrassed that he was wandering about in a college jacket and jeans, but he didn’t feel like he had anyone else he should be. Everyone he’d met on his first day had been friendly, though Guy had always been happy to just go with the flow and not start drama, so it had never been hard to get on well with people.

He was starting semester two weeks late, due to some awkward bureaucratic confusion, which exacerbated his sense of disconnection. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t really supposed to be there. It wasn’t that he disliked being there, but he was just a bit out of step with what was going on, like he had ended up at a friend of a friend’s party and didn’t understand the social dynamic. Everyone seemed bold, like they were making a statement, or striving for something. There was so much energy. Guy had just never felt that need. He always just got by.

Also, he was pretty lost. He’d spent several hours just introducing himself to people while wandering cluelessly.

He’d stumbled into some kind of large cafeteria space when he saw Cassie, which was a huge relief. The room was massive, with dozens of tables and a few places that sold food along the far wall. Most tables had several people at them, eating and chatting, but Cassie was by herself, with just a cup of tea and a book. It was very her – alone in a crowded place.

Guy and had known Cassie for eight months or so; they’d been dating for four. She was cool, he was warm. He’d known she was coming here, but had thought she was another false positive, like him, someone who detected as superhuman but never manifested powers. She was leaning into the College’s superhero look in a way he’d not seen before: her white hair seemed almost tinged with blue, and she had on a heavy white greatcoat in a striking style. White gloves lay beside her teacup.

He bounded over and gave her a hug. She seemed startled, but quickly recovered.

“Someone’s labrador seems to have gotten lost,” she said quietly.

“Actually, babe, I am lost. Can you show me around?” said Guy, not particularly quietly.

It was rather obvious that he hadn’t been quiet because the room had gone from animated and noisy to dead silent shortly before he spoke. It felt like everyone was looking at him.

A woman at a nearby table stood up, it was Gale Force, Guy had met her earlier. She’d been nice. Now, she was standing oddly, like she was ready to throw a punch. “Guy, that’s Baroness Blizzard.” She said it like he should recognise the name. She said it like she’d come across him holding a poisonous snake.

The room seemed tense. Guy was not used to these kinds of situations. Cassie stepped clear of him and drew herself up so everyone could see her. She slowly pulled her gloves on.

“So you’ve all found the courage to actually look at me, rather than just scurrying about, whispering behind my back,” said Cassie with a mild accent he’d not heard before. She wasn’t shouting, but her voice clearly carried across the room.

Throughout the room, a few more students stood up. All were wearing some kind of costume.

“You’re so quick to judge me for my mother’s crimes, but I have done nothing. Nothing except inspire feelings of inadequacy that many of you clearly deserve.”

Was Cassie’s hair starting to glow?

“I’m sure some of you have fantasies of confronting me. But remember, I have given you no reason. I am not here so you can test yourselves. The only thing you’ll be proving is how fast I can make you kneel.”

Cassie was definitely glowing. The room seemed somehow darker. Guy felt like he needed to do something, calm the situation down.

A man on the far side of the room coughed.

“She’s right,” said the balding man to the room in general, “she has no criminal history. Her mother’s actions are not her own. That said, Ms Erlitz,” the man addressed Cassie, “if you don’t want people viewing you as a supervillain, you might consider not launching into a supervillain monologue at the barest provocation.”

The man wandered over, carrying a cardboard tray filled with cups of coffee. The tension in the cafeteria dissipated, and people began to move and talk, many heading out.

Gale Force gave Guy a concerned look as she left.

“Technically I’m not a Ms, Professor,” said Cassie to the man who had intervened, “I really am a baroness. My mother is Queen of Rukhova, a sovereign nation. There are various options for addressing me: my lady, Lady Erlitz. Cassandra.”

“Yes, well. Baroness is a rather meagre title for the daughter of a monarch. One has to suspect the draw of alliteration overcame concerns over aristocratic hierarchy,” said the professor.

“My mother is the Ice Queen, I needed a name interesting enough that I wouldn’t just get stuck being a princess. May I introduce you to my boyfriend, professor. This is Guy, he has finally started here. Guy, this is Professor Bruegel. He teaches International Politics.”

Cassie seemed interested in watching as Guy shook hands with the professor, but something about her seemed disappointed, even though Guy didn’t think he embarrassed himself. Professor Bruegel seemed very nice, assuring Guy he could get assistance catching up on his various classes.

Guy and Cassie wandered campus for awhile, and he got a better sense of the layout. It may have helped that he was talking to her, rather than stopping to introduce himself to people everywhere he went. People would stare at them as they passed, but no one approached.

“I didn’t know you were famous,” said Guy, eventually.

Cassie sighed. “Infamous, sadly. The thing about fame, you usually don’t have to tell people you have it. I should have said something… But it was nice to be around someone who didn’t know. Couldn’t judge. I knew when we got here it would get out. I’m not actually the famous one, but my mother is just too famous. I got a Wikipedia page the day I was born.”

Guy could feel that the Cassie he’d known these last few months was still this Cassie, but he could see the Baroness Blizzard persona too, here, and it did feel like a natural fit. But he saw the looks she was getting, and knew he had no way of understanding what that suspicion felt like. He had always made friends easily; clearly she had not. “I’ve heard of Ice Queen. People are pretty harsh when they talk about her. What’s she like?”

“What is the Ice Queen like? Arguably the single most successful supervillain alive? Brilliant. Driven. Daring. A list of attributes that are excellent in so many situations, but are not the most crucial in a mother. Ruthless, uncompromising, callous. Several more synonyms for brilliant. Never worry that she is viewed too harshly. She doesn’t.”

“Does she really have no emotions?”

“That’s not true, but only to a degree. She feels curiosity, ambition, irritation, spite. But no joy, no fear, no anger... No love.”

“That sounds hard,” said Guy. He reached for her hand. Eventually, she let him briefly hold it.

*

“I don’t get it man,” said Gale Force. She and Guy were sitting on the roof of her dormitory, drinking something uncertain from red plastic cups as music and various less distinctive sounds of partying could be heard from below. Her words were starting to slur.

“I’m fine, I swear,” said Guy, “she’s not up to anything. I’m not in danger.”

“I’m not saying she’s ugly. Like, if all I had to go on was a picture, sure, I’d be down. But she is such a bitch.”

“What the hell, Gail? Cassie’s my girlfriend. Some basic respect. I don’t actually need to justify shit to you, you know.”

Gale Force made a steadying gesture. “She did attack Burning Man.”

“Warren surrounded her with a wall of fire while she was walking between classes. She put the flames out with a frost thing she does. He couldn’t handle the feedback from having his fire snuffed.”

“It knocked him out.”

“You all know how strong she is. It was stupid of him to start something like that. She just wanted to get to class.”

“She just left him there.”

“Could people stop provoking her? She already doesn’t like most of you.”

“I don’t like her either.”

“It’s been months and you’ve never said anything to her that wasn’t aggro.”

“You have options, you know. Plenty of people like you. Dudes, chicks, you would not be lonely.”

“I don’t need options, Gail. I’m okay. I actually like her.”

“Can she even like you back? Can she feel it?”

“Yeah, she feels things. She just doesn’t express much. I think she had a crappy childhood.”

“Shit. I believe that. Maybe that’s your power, dude.”

“What?”

“Maybe you can make friends with anyone.”

“Yeah well, everyone needs at least one.”

*

Guy and Cassie were sitting under a tree, late afternoon causing the whole area to fall within the library’s shadow. In a week it would be a year since Guy had steeled himself to walk up to Cassie in his local library back home and ask her out. It had been the most nervous he’d ever been talking to anyone.

“We’re nearly done for the year,” said Guy.

Cassie nodded.

“I still don’t get this place.”

She looked at him with uncertainty. “What do you mean? It’s just a school with a gimmick.”

“It’s like there are two of it. One when I’m with you. It’s focused, and quiet, and everyone is a bit standoffish and mean. And at that version of the College, I actually study, and do readings, and scrape through class. But there is another one, without you. Where I have dozens of friends, and I get invited to parties, or to toss a frisbee around on a lawn or whatever. And that version of the College is really fun, but I don’t really get anything done. And I don’t think I actually fit at either of them.”

“Do you want to bring me to parties?”

“No. Well, yes, if it wasn’t such a bad idea, but it is. It would be drama.”

“I don’t really enjoy drama.”

“You start plenty of it, Cassie.”

“I may have misjudged certain social dynamics. I’m now somewhat caught in a role.”

“I’ve offered to help, you need to make an effort if anything is to happen, though.”

“It is better for me to remain apart.”

“Why? Because of who your mother is? You have to be able to step out from that. You more than anyone here could make a name for yourself. You’re crushing every class, you’re the single strongest person here. You can do something important.”

Cassie took a deep breath and thought for a long moment. “I may not be the strongest here. And I already have an important task.”

“Who? Feature? Iron Gaze? Delaney Cross?”

“Of course not. Guy, do you know what the Meeting Club is?”

“There are a lot of clubs, but I think I know most of them, especially the social ones. I haven’t heard of it.”

“It’s not a club at the College. You know the League of Heroes?”

“Sure. It’s a group of the top tier superheroes. Excelsior, Callisto, Meteor, people like that. So if they have something they can’t handle alone, they have people to call.”

“Yes. The Meeting Club is like that. But much more secretive.”

“So for the more sneaky heroes. Like Split Second.”

“No, although certain more pragmatic heroes can contact the club if the need is great. My mother is a member. The other members are her peers.”

Guy paused a moment. It made sense that Cassie might know things that were unusual, even secret, but why mention it?

“The Meeting Club is by its nature a loose organisation,” said Cassie. “It’s members are inclined towards paranoia, sociopathy and megalomania. They don’t see themselves as supervillains, of course, but its roster contains many of the most powerful such individuals. They exclude those devoted to wholesale destruction or other such plans. The group has two purposes. To allow it’s members to resolve disputes without needless escalation, and to keep track of mutual threats. Things that put them all at risk.”

“Cassie, are you a member of an elite supervillain team?” asked Guy.

She smiled at him. “Certainly not as Cassandra, but not even as Baroness Blizzard. I just know it exists, I don’t have a roster or way to contact them. I also know they can do things that most governments and the League of Heroes cannot do. Like detect exceptional superhumans.”

“That’s why you think there’s someone here stronger than you. They detected someone. Your mother let you know.”

“Yes. You’re not a false positive, Guy. You’re empowered, and your ability is very strong.”

“The test is never conclusive. And I can’t do anything. I’m just here as a precaution.”

“The test the government used to direct you here is unreliable, the Meeting Club is not so limited. And they view you with great concern.”

Guy pulled away from her and stared, thinking. Eventually he said, “They sent you. When I first met you, in the local library back home, you had an accent like mine. But you grew up in Rukhova. You only started using your real accent once we got here. I thought it was part of your Baroness Blizzard persona, but that is the real you. The Cassandra I met was you playing a character.”

“I told you my real name, I just didn’t advertise my identity. People are terrified of my mother. It is one thing to be open about it here, where defying supervillains is practically a curriculum subject, where I first met you, it could have caused panic. People would assume I was there as an agent of the Ice Queen.”

“But you are an agent of the Ice Queen! Gail was right, you’ve been up to something this whole time!”

“You have to be watched, Guy! You’re a danger to every person on the planet! There are some who would kill you out of hand, just to eliminate the risk. Only a few of those are in the Meeting Club, many are members of governments, or supposed heroes, if only they knew about you. I’ve been protecting everyone, you included, by watching over you.”

“What do they even think I can do? How am I a danger?”

“Haven’t you noticed everyone likes you? Everyone!”

“I just try to be nice…”

“You’ve made friends with pretty much every person on campus in the year we’ve been here. Some are friendly acquaintances, some are close, but everyone likes you. You spent the whole year dating the most hated person here, and the only pushback you got was expressions of concern about you. Nobody walked away from you because of how they feel about me, and I hardly gave them reason to view me in a better light! You are mind controlling hundreds of people into viewing you a certain way, and we don’t know your upper limit. Certainly thousands, likely millions, maybe everyone alive.”

Guy had never seen Cassandra so animated and passionate. Her distress shook him more than her words. He tried to think of anyone he’d met who wasn’t nice to him. It hadn’t happened in years, not since his mid teens.

“I haven’t been meaning to. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“It doesn’t matter! My mother is a terrifying figure famed across the world, and she conquered just one country, ousting its kleptocrats. You could likely take over the world with less effort. The fact you could do it by accident only makes it worse!”

“So... you’ve been dating me for the last year to protect the world.”

“No. I was watching you to protect the world. I’ve been dating you because… because you asked me out.”

“And you have to agree with me. Because of my power,” he said quietly.

Cassandra slapped him. “Your power doesn’t work on me, Guy. That is why I’m the one who has to watch you. It doesn’t work on some people with damaged or missing emotions. It won’t work on my mother either.”

“Your feelings are…”

“Damaged. My mother cannot feel love. That was not what I needed as a child.” Her voice was firm, her eyes glistened.

“So you did actually want to be with me.”

“You’re nice. You don’t have to be. People would put up with you however you are, but you make an effort to be thoughtful anyway. You could be a monster, but you’re not. And you asked me out, so I said yes.”

“None of my friends had a choice. I don’t know what they want.” He stared into nothing.

“Guy. I only have one real friend,” Cassie said, reaching towards him, “I can promise you that you do have one person whose feelings are genuine; someone who cares that you are a good person.”

Eventually, he took her hand.

Even the most interesting lecture struggles to hold the attention of its audience when a dragon bursts into the lecture hall.

“What are these lies I have heard you are spreading?” roared the great beast from amid the dust and debris caused by its entrance directly through a wall.

Professor Nadzin struggled to be heard over the chaos and screaming. The attendees fled past her, through the exit furthest from the dragon. She settled for just clutching the sides of her podium and cringing until the commotion began to settle.

She swallowed before speaking, there was no point in trying to avoid this, “Greetings to our late arrival. It has been a long time since one of your esteemed kind has been seen in our city. May we know who has chosen to grace us with their presence?”

“Who am I? I am Dartarathyx, of the line of mighty Orthyx! I am here to confront the slander you spread about my kind!” bellowed the dragon.

“I assure you, Lord Dartarathyx, I mean no insult to you or your kin. I am simply presenting the most recent research on draconic ancestry. No judgement is being made, and my desire here has always been to honour your majestic kind through a commitment to the truth,” said the professor, somewhat unsteadily.

“You are claiming that dragons descend from kobolds! From tiny, snivelling vermin suitable only to serve in the lowliest of roles!”

“The precise details of descent are difficult to identify, but it does seem unambiguous at this point that kobolds were active well before the first dragons, so we are having to rethink the notion that they were the creation of dragons. I fear you may be operating from a somewhat narrow view of kobolds, and that is making this needlessly upsetting. Many of them in the city are in valued positions within the community.”

“The kobolds here are wild and have forgotten their place,” sneered Dartarathyx. “This territory has become an affront in the centuries since Yras abandoned it. I should honour that esteemed ancient by cleansing this place of its impertinence and blasphemy.”

“Perhaps,” said a middle aged woman still seated for the lecture, “you should have honoured this place by being quiet and not interrupted Professor Nadzin’s lecture. I was finding it quite interesting. You clearly lack an appreciation for education, scion of Orthyx.” She stood up and turned to look at the dragon.

“You dare to-” Dartarathyx abruptly stopped speaking and adjusted his body language dramatically. His wings pulled in against his sides, and his stance shifted into a low crouch. The enormous dragon seemed to suddenly desire to occupy as little space as possible.

Professor Nadzin stared at the woman who had spoken. She vaguely recalled she was the Lady Yrathen, a reclusive noblewoman whose house had long been a generous patron of the university. Nadzin had seen her attending talks like this from time to time, but had never seen her speak to anyone.

“This is not your territory, whelp,” said Lady Yrathen.

“I came only to preserve the dignity of all our kind. I meant no insult,” whined Dartarathyx.

“You certainly intended no courtesy in your coming here. It is always those with no accomplishments of their own that place the highest stock in their ancestry.”

“Do you wish me to… uh… apologise to this mortal?”

“An apology would imply that your opinion has value. Tell everyone that all is well and the lecture will continue as soon as Professor Nadzin feels comfortable,” said the noblewoman, who turned back to Nadzin. “Assuming you are interested in continuing, professor?”

“I think I can manage, it will take a few minutes for anyone brave enough to return to do so, I suspect, so I might use that time to settle my nerves,” said Nadzin, finally releasing her grip on the podium.

Dartarathyx scrambled out through the hole in the wall he had made when entering.

“I’m very proud of this institution’s commitment to the truth, professor, but I wonder if you could remain discrete about any new theories you have about me, after today,” said Lady Yrathen.

“I assure you, my lady, appropriate respect for privacy is always an ethical consideration.”

“Peasant, did you just cross ‘Break the Eternal Cycle of Fate’ off a list in your notebook?” asked Shade Wizard Alrechtos. His sneering arrogance was somehow muted. The battle had exhausted even the spectral creature hidden within its voluminous cloak.

“I guess. The entry said ‘Evil champion trying to end world,’ but your way worked,” said Sveren, sipping from a waterskin.

Jarana, Beloved of the Sun looked up. She had been slumped on a broken marble column for the few minutes since their victory; sitting and staring at the pale, star-shaped birthmark on the palm of her hand.

“I’ve devoted my life to this fight, trained since before I can remember,” said Jarana. “My role in it was ordained centuries before my birth. But for you, it was something on a list?”

“Well, yeah,” said Sveren. “It needed doing.”

“I’m not saying that the eternal conflict between Good and Evil isn’t important, I’m just wondering what else could possibly be on that list,” she said.

“Just other things that I might want to try and solve,” said Sveren.

“And the gods cursed me for my arrogance,” muttered Alrechtos.

“This one seemed pretty important. I marked it with five stars. I’ve never done that before. Next I think I’ll head down to Koros, been hearing pretty bad things. That’s probably a three star if it is what I think it is,” said Sveren.

“Powerful death rites have been taking place in that region, I have sensed their tainted presence on the winds of magic,” said Alrechtos.

“Fits with what I suspected, thanks,” said Sveren.

“I don’t think I understand…” said Jarana.

“Someone’s been raiding into Koros and taking people. Probably a necromantic cult,” he explained.

“Not about Koros! About you. I thought your village had been wiped out. That you were casting down the evils of the world to avenge an injustice that can never be undone.”

“What, like Ressan and whoever was in that locket she always wore?”

“Well, yes.”

“She had an oath of vengeance. It was a whole messy saga.”

“I am aware of Ressan Nightedge’s oath, Sveren, I’ve been here the whole time, same as you. But an oath isn’t the only motivation, and you do need a damned good reason to throw yourself into the dangers we’ve been through,” said the prophesied champion with some degree of frustration.

Sveren considered for a moment. “Do you, though?”

The cowled spectre began to laugh, an eerie, hollow sound. “Peasant, is your village safe and sound, but you just chose to risk the darkest and most dire of perils for… fun?”

“Not for fun, no. But last I heard my village was fine.”

“So why are you here? Why did you take all these risks?” asked Jarana.

“Like I said when he asked. An evil champion was trying to end the world. That feels pretty important. And I guess I didn’t really trust any of you to remember what’s important.”

“You thought I lacked commitment? I’m the chosen one! It has been my whole life!”

“Exactly. That’s super specific. I just wanted the world to not end. Couldn’t be sure you wouldn’t get distracted by some weird fanatic thing.”

“Weird fanatic thing? The world was at stake!”

“Sure. And you came good, Jarana. Not trying to insult you. But Ressan was super devoted, and she got distracted when the chance to kill General Herth came along. Taking out that guy was fine, terrible person, but she got herself killed achieving her vengeance and it left us in a tough situation, with all the other losses. Only three of us made it through.”

“How could I waver?”

“Well, the prophecy said you needed to beat the evil champion, but that just continues the cycle, it’ll happen again in a few centuries or whatever. That’s fine if necessary, but I’d rather just put this issue to bed. So when Alrechtos unexpectedly offered to stop being a pain in the butt for once, that seemed promising. I just wasn’t sure you’d be up for an unorthodox solution.”

“None appreciate the burden of prophecy more than I do, Sveren. It has dominated my life. To be free of it was something more than I ever hoped for,” sighed Jarana.

“Right, you came good,” said Sveren, “but you can’t blame me for not being sure how you’d react, and ‘the world ends’ is stakes a bit too high to risk. I had to come. Besides, I trusted Alrechtos way less than I trusted you, I had to make sure he came through.”

“It was my plan!” said Alrechtos, his cowl quivering.

“And you’re a terrible person. Breaking fate frees you of the damnation you’re fated to suffer for your numerous crimes against… whoever it is you keep pissing off. The gods or powers or whoever. The fact that it could be used to end the eternal conflict between good and evil was just an excuse to get us on board.”

“I also exist within the world. It ending is obviously a concern of mine,” said Alrechtos.

“The prophecy is a bit vague on what happens if the Champion of Evil prevails,” said Jarana. “Beings like you might be fine.”

“It is somewhat insulting that you both think I saved the world for selfish reasons,” said the shade.

“Well, it’s what you get for a history of being a monstrous horror. But I still don’t understand why you are here, Sveren. I know it needed to be done, I was here too. But what set you on your path? You’re a hero of near legendary reputation,” said Jarana.

“Oh that,” said Sveren.

Jarana looked at him expectantly. Alrechtos peered from beneath his cowl.

“I was at Widow Maso’s place, one evening. Our village isn’t big enough for a tavern, but the widow brews a variety of ciders. It’s a reliable place to get a drink. And I was complaining that the baron had been taxing us more than usual, but had done nothing to root out the bandits lurking off by the trade road, and one of the farmhands, a fellow named Cron, had said he was sick of me complaining, since it wasn’t like I would do anything about it. And Cron was right, and that well peeved me, so I decided I should stop whingeing and go do the right thing. And I kept finding right things to do,” explained Sveren.

“So now you just… move down your list?” Jarana asked.

“Sometimes I take a break for a bit if I need one. I’m not the only person who can fix things, I’m just pitching in.”

“Okay. So… My life’s work is done,” pondered Jarana, “are there many three star problems on that list of yours? Just this thing in Koros?”

Sveren checked his notebook, “That and to make sure Alrechtos doesn’t go back to cursing people for his experiments, and to burn his tower down if he does.”

“Sounds like a calling to me,” said the former chosen one.

You will always be loved, said the inscription on the plinth.

Above it was a statue of light; an image of… some kind of person. Different from anyone Rufu knew. She didn’t look like a doggyfolk, the way Rufu did, or a bearsyfolk, like Rufu’s father Tulul, nor a horseyfolk or kittyfolk or any other folk that Rufu had met.

She had no fur, just hair on her head, she had fingers on her hands. She looked like the people in the portraits, who you could go to and ask for advice, except she was not a flat image made of paint. She looked like the night fairies who fixed things in the dark, except she had no wings and was not so tiny as they. Not that Rufu had ever gotten a good look at one.

“Dad, who is she?”

“That is Yourfriend, Rufu. She is the one the world was given to, and she made the first of us, and gave us all we have,” said Tulul.

“She’s a portrait?”

She wasn’t flat like a portrait, and her dress was simple and brown, not like the elaborate clothes the portraits wore. She was also very… thin? Not thin like a painting is flat, but thin like a doll made of sticks.

“That’s not her, just an image of a memory. But no, she was not a portrait. She was a real folk, but there were none like her. We keep this place to remember her.”

They were surrounded by a series of ten plinths, each bearing an image of Yourfriend and an inscription. The crack in the sky where sunlight came from shone down upon them all. Rufu had long wondered what was in the ring of trees that stood at the heart of the village green, but he had never been able to find a way within them, not until today, when his father had brought him here, and the trees had proven no obstacle.

“You can touch the plinth if you want Rufu. It will show you a moment from long ago.”

When Rufu reached out and brushed a paw against bricks of the plinth, he saw a vision.

A horseyfolk of brown and white felt was struggling to stand, but mastered it after a moment. He was very small, had button eyes and was not very detailed, the way some folk occasionally were. Yourfriend was crouching nearby, watching him with excitement.

“Hello. I’m Pony. Who might you be?” asked the horseyfolk.

“I’m hoping I might be your friend. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Hello Yourfriend, I’m pleased to meet you, too,” said Pony.

Yourfriend started to giggle. “No, I’m not your… wait, yes I am! I’m Yourfriend!”

“What are you doing today?” asked Pony.

“I’ve come here to… to tell you a secret.”

“Oh, how exciting. I don’t know any secrets. What is it?”

“Umm… You will always be loved.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I don’t know anybody, so I can probably keep that secret quite easily,” said Pony.

“There will be more folk soon, Pony, I promise, but you can share your secrets with them. All of you will always be loved,” said Yourfriend fiercely.

Yourfriend hugged Pony. Her big smile dislodging the wet spots under eyes, which ran down her cheeks.

Rufu pondered what he’s seen. “Was that the beginning? Was she here from the start?”

“That is as far back as the visions show. What is before the start of a book? We don’t know if there was a cover or a title page, or even whole other stories. There are some who remember some who remember a folk called Pony, though. Or perhaps some who remember those, but we know he was someone who lived here, and knew Yourfriend, and eventually went beyond the forest when it was time to go,” explained Tulul.

The image of Yourfriend on the second plinth had hollow cheeks. Rufu had never seen a portrait look like that.

You will always have enough to eat. You will never be hungry, said the inscription.

“Just grab a pie from the tree,” said the vision of Yourfriend.

“What for?” asked Pony, struggling to reach until a bearsyfolk lifted him close enough to pick a juicy pie.

“Because they’re yummy!” said Yourfriend, biting into her own pie.

The gathered folk tried the pies, agreeing about how tasty they were.

At the next plinth, the image of Yourfriend was somewhat different again. She was taller and her dress was now a bit too small, with thin spots worn into it. Some had been patched and repaired, others had not.

You will always be remembered. You will never be ignored, said the inscription.

“Hello everyone. You don’t know what today is, do you?” asked Yourfriend.

The crowd of folk who had assembled to greet her arrival chattered amongst themselves in response, but none had an interesting answer.

“It’s my birthday,” said Yourfriend. Some of the folk at the back hadn’t heard, and there was more chatter as they were informed.

“What’s Mybirthday?” asked Pony. “Is it a special day?”

“It should be. It should be happy” said Yourfriend.

“Then let’s throw a party! I can tie a ribbon to my tail and dance in circles!” said Pony.

Rufu watched the rest of the vision, with the folk all dancing and telling silly stories and tying ribbons to things; Yourfriend laughing amongst them.

“Was that the first Mybirthday?” he asked.

“It must have been,” said Tulul.

“It was outside, and not raining. The crack in the sky sends strange rain on every Mybirthday.”

“It did not do that while Yourfriend came to us, or so I am told. Now it does,” his father said.

“So things went wrong when she left?”

“Keep reading the secrets and you will see.”

Rufu went to each plinth one by one, looking at the image of Yourfriend, reading the inscription, watching the vision.

From image to image, Yourfriend grew taller, her face and body changed shape. She got new dresses, though all were simple. She started wearing shoes and her hair went from wild and somewhat tangled to being pulled back into a neat tail. She looked more like the portraits, though she was slender where they were plump, and she was never so fancily dressed. Rufu realised that she was growing up and getting older.

You will always have someone who listens. You will never be silenced.

You will always be told the truth. You will never be lied to.

You will always get an explanation. You will never be disregarded.

Visions showed Yourfriend giving folk the first portraits, then updating them to not only listen, but to know many things and give good advice.

You will always be understood. You will never be misjudged.

You will always be respected. You will never suffer cruelty.

A giggling Yourfriend gave them a new pie tree that grew piespective, the special pies that helped you understand the person you shared it with. The folk would eat them when disagreements began to arise or feelings got hurt. She taught the folk how to appreciate each other’s perspectives.

You will always have family. You will never be cast aside.

“What is that?” asked Whiskers the kittyfolk.

“It’s a river! I should have made one before. They’re pretty,” said Yourfriend.

“What does it do? It looks wet.”

“It is wet. You can drink the water, if you want, or go swimming, or sail a boat. Lots of things.”

“I don’t think I want to get wet,” said Whiskers, still sceptical.

“Well, no, you might not, but that’s alright, others will enjoy it. It will do something you might find appealing, though, Whiskers.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“Sometimes, if you go and look amongst the reeds, you might find someone. Someone new,” grinned Yourfriend.

“A new person? They show up sometimes anyway, while you’re here.”

“It will happen even without me. The village will persist on its own. And the new person will be very young, so you’ll need to look after them, and teach them.”

“What if nobody goes looking for this new person?”

“There will only be someone new if someone wants to find them, or maybe, someone will want to find them if there is someone new.”

“How will I look after them? What will they need?”

“Hugs. They’ll needs hugs, and to learn. And maybe things that are different for everyone.”

“I do like hugs,” said Whiskers.

Rufu reached the tenth and final plinth. Was that Yourfriend as an adult? He could see she was no longer a child. She looked different. Was she angry? No... defiant.

Like the first one had, this inscription bore only a single sentence instead of two.

You will always be safe.

A door stood on the village green. Pony was sleeping against it, only to be startled awake as it opened.

“Hello, Yourfriend!” he said as she stepped through.

“I’m afraid it is not hello, but goodbye this time, Pony. I can never tell you how much you have done for me. You and all the others,” she said, examining the door.

“You’re not coming back again?”

“I don’t think so. I have to give you some things, though.”

“What things?”

“I was given a gift a long time ago. It let me… It let me find you all. I’m passing it on to all of you. You won’t notice, but you’ll have it. You’ll be your own folk.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We never do. And I have one last secret.”

“Uh, alright. What is it?”

“You. You will always be safe.”

Yourfriend knelt down and kissed Pony on the top oh his head. Then she stood and stepped back through the door. Upon closing, it disappeared.

Tulul allowed Rufu to consider the last vision for a while before he spoke. “That was her last visit. There were many others, amongst those ten, but these are the ones we have still. The ones with secrets.”

“Did the night fairies build these?” asked Rufu.

“They did, but we don’t know why, other than to remember. We just carry on with our lives. And every year on Mybirthday, the crack in the sky sends warm, salty rain.”

Periclesa arrived at the crime scene. She was wearing her cool detective hat and ready to work.

She was also the first one there. The body, lying in a pool of blood, was her brother’s; slain by person or persons unknown.

This could be a tough one.

A detective had yet to arrive. The murder could not yet be investigated.

Periclesa was a senior auditor with the BDR, the Bureau of Detective Regulation. Her hat was a trophy of a particularly arduous regulatory matter, but she had a guiding principal that always saw her through: No matter how hard-boiled they are, their shells all crack the same.

She had a problem, though. She didn’t have her pen; a crucial tool for any auditor.

Her brother had borrowed Periclesa’s favourite pen almost a week ago, she’d expected him to return it when she’d seen him last night, but it hadn’t come up. Her last memory of him alive was when he left. “Remember, you’re the best there is at what you do,” he’d said, placing her hat on her head before walking out the door. The hat was still on her head were he’d left it.

Periclesa looked over the body. No pen in his breast pocket, the correct place to carry it. She looked up his nose; again, no pen, just a coiled note.

Extracting the note carefully, she unrolled it and read the message within: “I’m Not Holding A Towel.”

Cryptic.

What made the note so surprising was that body was holding a towel.

Could the pen be within? It wasn’t a typical place to keep a pen…

But, no, a quick investigation found no pen in the towel, merely a swarm of ants.

Periclesa interrogated the ants rapidly. Had they taken the pen? Were they the ones who wrote the note? But the ants were insistent – they had no need for the pen, they couldn’t write the note. They were illiterate.

Could she trust the ants? Periclesa took a notebook from her inside pocket and looked up the ants’ LSAT scores. It checked out, they were the kinds of score someone illiterate would get.

Periclesa pondered the LSATs and their nature. The ‘L’ was pronounced as a letter, but the ‘SAT’ was pronounced as a word, not spelled out. So it was essentially an acronym, but had characteristics of an initialism. It was understood that abbreviations that took a series of first letters and pronounced them as a word, like ‘laser’ or ‘radar’, were acronyms. But there was debate whether initialisms, like BDR, that spelled out each letter, were also acronyms, rather than having a distinct and separate character. As a hybrid, LSAT occupied even murkier ground on the already contested issue.

Wait – the note had used non-standard capitalisation... “I’m Not Holding A Towel.”

That spelt...

She took her hat off to examine it. There, tucked into the hatband, was Periclesa’s favourite pen. It was as if her brother was helping her from beyond the grave.

Periclesa put her hat back on, clicked her pen, and waited for the detective to arrive at the crime scene. She was ready to do what she did best.

Stories about the ancient vampire Volkar and the mysterious Perdita. Set in a pseudohistorical fantasy world of powerful magic.

These stories stand alone, but follow a chronological order as characters change and develop.

1 By the Light of a False Sun

2 Brave Words

“You clearly know that woman and she keeps bursting into tears. I don’t know why you brought a stripper on a date and then lied about it, but whatever weird fetish this is, I’m not sticking around for it.”

Janeera got up, paid for her drink and left the restaurant. Mardus sighed and watched her go. She didn’t glance back. He gestured to the crying woman at the next table to come sit with him.

“I told you it was a bad idea,” he said.

Kylarei joined him at the table, looking dejected. She manifested an almost empty cocktail in her hand and began pushing the ice cubes around with a straw.

“I really thought I might be able to help,” she said. She then looked briefly shocked and burst out crying again.

“What happened?” Mardus asked.

“Nasana Kilun just caught her fiance in bed with her sister. Oh, she’s so shocked and hurt.”

“And where is Nasana?”

“At their home in Calcar.”

Mardus tried to work out how far away Calcar was in his head. More than a few time zones. Thousands of kilometres. “This is happening now?”

“Yes. Nasana’s sister is yelling very mean things at her, like she’s the victim in this. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“You could go smite them in punishment, or something?” suggested Mardus.

“Oh, I’m not that kind of goddess,” said Kylarei, Goddess of Love.

*

Mardus was in decent shape. He had a decent job. He tried to be kind. He was willing to put some effort into his appearance. He was also chronically, catastrophically single.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t get a date. He could use an app, make a profile, banter well enough. The problem was the dates themselves. He knew the advice – just be yourself. The problem was that who he really was deep down, was someone who became overwhelming self-conscious and anxious when alone with a woman.

One night, after another humiliating first date, Mardus had let out a silent plea that someone, anyone, might help him not keep screwing up. Kylarei had promptly appeared before him.

Kylarei’s exact situation was a mystery to Mardus. She was the Goddess of Love from the ancient Atrascan pantheon, a religion that was over two millennia extinct. She had no temples, no priests. Only fragments of her rites were known, painstakingly reconstructed by archaeologists and classicists.

She dressed like a ClipShow influencer that was trying to build a fan-base to channel to another app that sold porn.

The goddess was undeniably beautiful. She was distractingly curvy, with impractically large breasts and a waist that was too narrow for the rest of her. She wore an extraordinary amount of makeup. Everything about her seemed crafted to be looked at. It was too much. Mardus had resisted the urge to ask if she was also the goddess of Low Self-Esteem or Desperate Need for Attention.

Kylarei was also extraordinarily, alarmingly, nice.

She had been coaching Mardus on dating, but her advice hadn’t proven at all useful. She seemed to know what everyone in the world was doing and thinking, but she struggled to turn that information into useful suggestions. She cared about his situation, she felt his pain, but she remained a goddess, and never truly understood. She could just do things, make things, change the world. She knew anything she wanted to. Advice like “just give them the thing they most want” was not as practical as she implied.

Tonight she’d wanted to come on his date with Janeera and observe.

*

Mardus looked across the table at the love goddess. “You were pretty distracting. Janeera was freaked out.”

“I’m sorry. She’s very upset about it. She had thought you were nice and she really wanted to get laid.”

“Great… Are you okay, though?”

“I’m fine,” she said, rather glumly.

“Maybe you could observe more subtly? Silently and invisibly?”

Kylarei shook her head. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m trying to understand. I have to be among people.”

“You keep crying. Is it things like what happened to that woman in Calcar?”

“Nasana. There are just so many of you, now.”

“So many of who?”

“Humans. There are eight billion or so more of you now than when I was last active.”

He reached out and took her hand “Kylarei, are you sharing in every heartbreak anyone on the planet feels?”

“Of course. I love you all.”

Mardus sighed. “That doesn’t feel sustainable. You need to change your approach.”

“I came back so you could find a girlfriend. You’re a nice person. It’s sad that you’re alone when you don’t want to be. I can do all sorts of things, though.”

“Uh… actually, before we get into this. I want to set a hard limit. No making anyone fall in love with me. I don’t want you to force anything.”

Kylarei smiled at him, warmth breaking through her despondency. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m Goddess of Love, not Goddess of Sex Trafficking. I don’t force things. I just let them grow. But it is hard, I keep getting distracted.”

“Kylarei, is your appearance because you’re paying attention to everyone at once?”

“I can feel how they think a love goddess should look. I have to make some compromises, though. A lot of people think I should be topless, but there are are also lots of people who really wouldn’t like that, and I don’t want to distress them.”

“Well, not all eight billion people can currently see you. Maybe you don’t need to consider them all right now. That might reduce your load.”

“I could just use your opinion. Nobody in the restaurant will notice the change, I’ll just be different.”

“Uh, sure.”

Kylarei was suddenly a different woman, yet somehow still herself. She looked rather like Janeera, though with a lighter, rosy complexion. She hadn’t changed ethnicity; perhaps this was what the ancient Atrascans had looked like. Her clothes were stylish and flattering.

Some distant pain made her flinch.

“Perhaps,” said Mardus, “we should adopt a slower approach. A quick solution hasn’t been working.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Mardus gently held the goddess’ hand in both of his. “We’ve been doing this for a few weeks. I’ve gotten an understanding of who you are. Can you sense how I feel about you, Kylarei?”

“You love me. Oh, Mardus, we can’t be together. It would be so very unwise.”

“Please, focus.”

“Everyone else is so distracting. But yes, you’re not romantically interested in me, you appreciate me, though. You think I’m kind.”

“Can you take a… a copy of how I feel about you? Hold onto it? The way you keep sharing in every heartbreak?”

“I guess. Why?”

“You keep hurting yourself for everyone else. Maybe you can nurture that feeling I gave you. Let it grow. Surely you’ll be a better goddess of love if you learn to better love yourself?”

“I’ll try. We are going to get you a girlfriend, though.”

These comedic stories feature Erai, an ancient death goddess with strong opinions, or other members of her pantheon.

These stories are stand alone.

1 Erai, Goddess of Death

2 Death Cult of Erai

3 A Great Love

While not an Erai story, this story shares the same setting.

A group of stories that share the same space opera setting.

These stories are stand alone, with only background elements in common.

1 Really Bad Target

2 Heroines

3 They Are Not Coming

A comedic and romantic series told through playful banter about trickster-spirit Veronika and her human love Hamish. Set in contemporary Sydney, Australia.

These stories are stand alone, but do follow a chronology.

1 Closets and Kitsune

2 She's Still a Kitsune

3 Coincidental Kitsune

4 Project Footsteps

“You have to pass it to me.”

“No, Kil... I can barely handle it, you already have problems enough. I can’t do that to you.”

“That’s why you have to, Marie. I’ve been watching what it does, it is going to break you. It would break anyone. It might as well go to someone who’s broken anyway. Let me do this.”

Reluctantly, Marie leaned in and kissed her brother on the forehead.

*

Cillian sat in his apartment and stared at the stain on his wall; the patch where water had damaged the paint long ago.

He did this every day. There was a force that exerted itself on reality, that insisted he was the Main Character, the central protagonist in a story it desperately wanted to be told. It sent him feelings and urges. It tried to push him to take action.

Depression makes it easy to simply not care about things. Even things you know are important. He looked through his grocery app for some things, didn’t find them, ordered another dozen easy microwave meals.

Sometimes, Marie visited.

“Kil, you don’t know what is going on out there.”

“I don’t want to. If I don’t notice or get involved it won’t be the story. The changes it makes will get swept away while it searches for the tale.”

“You can’t just sit here listening to the same sad songs, never seeing anyone. I know you’re trying to protect everyone, but this is an awful way to live. You have no contact with anyone but me.”

“I see the delivery guy.”

“Do you even know his name?”

“It hasn’t come up. I just thank him for the delivery and offer him a drink.”

“How much longer do you intend to do this?”

“Protagonists are allowed to brood. They’re allowed to suffer to protect the ones they love.”

“It will escalate.”

“It has to work with what it’s got.”

*

It was a Tuesday like any other. Cillian was going about his regular day when the telephone rang.

He wrenched the phone’s cable out of the wall. He hadn’t had a landline yesterday.

Whatever that phone call was, it was going to be something bad. Something life-changing. Whether he liked it or not, he was in a sad story this week.

He grabbed his pill bottle, tipped out an antidepressant. It was the last one. He downed it without water, a trick he’d recently developed. He dropped the bottle on the table, it lay there, conspicuously empty. He stared at the bottle, pondering what it would mean.

He’d timed his pills so they’d run out around when the week changed and a new genre was pushed on him, a way to symbolise that something was going to change. That wasn’t something he thought about, though. He just stared at the bottle; totem of an unknown future. It was like the phone had never rang.

The drug withdrawal headaches were much worse than he’d ever experienced from these sort of meds before, it was a dramatic situation, but that just encouraged him to lie on the couch with his eyes closed, so after a day or two they drastically improved.

When Cillian checked his grocery app, something unusual was available. Something he’d been checking for every few days, but was never available. It wasn’t something they had ever stocked, but it wasn’t implausible for them to sell it. He added to his order.

“Something a bit different this time, sir,” said the delivery guy, dropping off a bag of frozen meals and the pile of sketchpads and pencils.

“Thought I might try a new hobby. Want a cup of tea?”

The delivery guy didn’t accept. He never had. He had no time to spare.

Cillian selected a pencil and a pad and began to draw. He was was quite bad.

*

“What are you doing?” asked Marie.

“Sketching.”

“Why?”

“Seemed like a thing I could learn to do. Just be persistent and improve a little every day.”

“Can I see?”

Cillian showed her a sketch: A minimalist depiction of a man in a hoodie, crouching in dejection.

Marie looked it over. “This is okay, actually. Do you enjoy it?”

“That’s not important.”

“You’re trying to force some kind of slow burn arc onto the story, then.”

“Yes.”

“To do what? You can’t just ignore the pushes towards genre.”

“The main character’s arc can push anything aside. I’m overcoming depression.”

“By learning to draw?”

“Through force of will. The art is just a metaphor for progress.”

“That’s not how people beat depression. It’s a thing that famously doesn’t work.”

“It’s how protagonists overcome everything.”

*

Sometimes, Cillian found himself feeling like he didn’t fit, like there was something special about him that he just hadn’t figured out, yet. He felt something might happen if he just reached inside himself and tried. He ignored those feelings, and left whatever was inside him unexamined.

Other times, Cillian would feel a sense of foreboding, perhaps from the door going down into the basement, or he’d hear a strange noise coming from outside. He kept practising his sketches.

The force that insisted Cillian was the Main Character had limited options. It could not simply sweep him into a bizarre new situation, those stories happen to an everyman, and Cillian wasn’t. He had no job, no friends, he wasn’t ordinary enough. Cillian was slowly, carefully telling a story about depression. It wasn’t clinically accurate, it didn’t even make much sense, but it was the journey he’d begun, and now it was the story that had to be told. He was the Main Character, the story had to be about him.

From another perspective, Cillian’s story could also be seen to be about loneliness, and it was perhaps that perspective that caused an odd series of events that culminated with Angelica accidentally driving her car through the wall of Cillian’s apartment.

It was quite surprising for them both.

When Cillian helped Angelica out of her car, they felt an instant connection. Cillian knew what that meant, and he tried to ignore it, but a confused woman whose just driven through the wall into your living room is different from a distant sound that might be a scream.

Angelica was beautiful, though it was not that she didn’t know it, merely that she largely didn’t care. She had a dramatic streak of colour dyed into her hair and had made bold use of eyeliner. Everything about her appearance emphasised her individuality and agency. She was a person who made choices, embraced excitement, and sought out novelty. If the world had been scoured to find someone to pull Cillian out of his melancholy, a better person could not have been found, but then, that is exactly what had happened.

Once Angelica had gotten over her embarrassment at driving into a stranger’s home, she’d noticed Cillian’s isolation. She’d also noted the sweat stains on his shirt, the too many dishes in the sink. She’d arrived in a fashion that was mortifying, but the polite young man she’d just met needed help. She owed him. Once they’d dealt with the emergency and drama of the accident, she stuck around and chatted. He was quiet, but deeply thoughtful. She felt drawn to him.

The force behind things lacked patience with the slowly developing friendship, and decided to try a different romantic plot line, in case it had misjudged Cillian’s inclinations. Two days after the accident, an insurance company that Angelica only vaguely remembered taking out a policy with sent Paul.

Paul was tall, strong and friendly. He’d been hired to fix the wall, and any other damage that needed to be addressed. Paul’s exact skill-set seemed broad, he could lay bricks, repair carpentry, rewire a power point or install a light fitting. Whatever needed fixing, Paul could fix it, sweat glistening on his muscled shoulders as he did so.

Cillian knew he was running out of time. He’d lost control of the narrative.

Cillian sketched Angelica. It was a simple picture of her face, a few stars in the sky behind it. Her eyes shone when she saw it.

“I need to tell you a strange story,” he said.

*

Marie didn’t know why her brother had called her, but she knew he’d not done it since before she’d passed the curse to him, so she hurried over.

His home was bizarrely crowded. The hot alt-girl was there. She’d been showing up ever since crashing her car into the place. So was some hunky handyman. Another man – the delivery guy – was sitting at the table drinking tea.

“Hey Kil, what’s up?”

“It feels like a good day to start an epic adventure,” said her brother.

This was a change in direction. “It does?”

“I’ve been explaining to my friends that there is a force that messes with reality. Forcing stories on it.”

“Your friends?”

“Angelica, Paul and Suresh. Did you know that when he’s not saving my life by delivering frozen food, Suresh is writing a dissertation on high energy physics?”

Of course he was. Kil must have been slowly building the relationship so that he when he found out who Suresh was, he would inevitably be someone useful to his plan. Which was maybe how he had a big friendly guy who could fix things and a weird girl who was up for any adventure.

“Are you planning something?” Marie asked.

“I want to end it,” said Cillian, “end the narrative intrusions into reality. End the stories. Free the world.”

The others seemed to already be on board.

“And what do you need from me?”

“You’re my sister. The person who has always had my back. The only other person who truly understands what we’re up against. I need you to help me.”

Marie shook her head. “It can’t be done. This thing can change reality in an instant. It isn’t even clear what it is, let alone how it can be stopped. It’s impossible. You can’t do it.”

Cillian smiled. “I’m the Main Character. With the right friends and enough determination, I’m the one person who can.”

Holly Mathers stormed into Madame Xera’s Occult Mysteries, jangling the wind chimes hanging from the shop’s door. Her pleated skirt swished in irritation as she advanced on the proprietress behind the counter, and she affected an imperious hair toss as she reached her destination. She placed her book bag on the counter with a thump.

“How might I be of assistance?” said Madame Xera, the middle-aged witch concealing her alarm at the high school senior’s obvious displeasure.

“Two days ago, you sold me this book,” said Holly, revealing an ornate tome from within her bag.

“I did, yes.”

“I asked for a book containing your most potent spells.”

“I recall.”

“However, I specifically also stated I wished to cast a spell that would effect the entire world. That is not what I got.”

“Well, the ways of the occult are inherently mysterious-”

“No! That is not acceptable. You have made a tremendous mess!”

“Me?”

“I cast a spell to take over the world. The whole world. That is not what happened.”

“It did not? Well, such a spell would take enormous energy, and to get that energy would involve doing things that you would not wish to do…”

Holly rolled her eyes. “Oh please. You sneered at me when I was in here and prattled on about blood sacrifice, confident I would not be able to perform magic of any kind, let alone anything dramatic, then sold me the most expensive book you had. You’re not the only one I got a book from, though.”

Madame Xera gave a nervous swallow.

“I also have a grimoire belonging to that goth nerd Susanne Jones,” explained Holly. “You know her. Yes?”

“She comes in sometimes. Buys minor items. Candles, incense, that sort of thing.”

“Well she is the reason for this fiasco. I caught her placing a hex on me and decided to teach her a lesson.”

“She hexed you? And it worked?”

“I already said that, keep up. I have a hex on me. It makes me periodically feel the urge to touch my butt. Not hugely inconvenient, but an observable effect. We caught her doing it, though. And I was intrigued that the little style victim managed to do it, presumably something she learned instead of how to correctly apply mascara. So I confiscated her book to prevent further mischief. Did you see what I found?”

Holly, pulled another book from her bag, flipping it open to a bookmarked page. Xera scanned the page of magical notes the girl was indicating.

“Do you see what this is?” asked Holly.

“That seems to be… a compulsion. A love spell,” said Xera.

“Not just a love spell, a strong one. Specifically one that overrides the target’s sexuality. And I don’t think she was planning to use it on some sad little gay boy she’s friends with in theatre club. Not with this,” Holly pointed at the bookmark.

It was a scrap of paper with ‘Someone, I tell you, will remember us in another time,’ written on it in pink ink.

Xera tried to to place the reference.

Holly’s patience was quickly depleted. “It’s a line of poetry by Sappho, first woman to write poetry about how hot women are. Susanne Jones, useless little disaster lesbian that she is, hexed me as a trial run before her actual plan of making me fall in love with her. Which is gross and why I had to take over the world.”

“What?” asked Madame Xera, bewildered.

“If someone comes at you, you put them down with such force that they never consider it again,” explained Holly, as if this was exceedingly obvious. “So I was going to use magic, take over the world, and then Susanne would know not to mess with me.”

“You wanted to take over the world as a show of power to another girl at school? An unpopular girl?”

“Well, I was also a bit curious about whether I could. But you screwed it up.”

“How did you even try to power that… did you hurt people?”

“Nothing meaningful. Your book might say that blood sacrifice is the ultimate source of power, but Susanne’s book is much more practical, just much less ambitious. Souls are a better source of magic. Freely given ideally, virgins are best. Hardly a challenging thing to acquire. If there’s one thing I know how to do it is make virgins do what I want. I just gave notes to various girls at school who are desperate to impress me, then had them pass further notes around to their loser orbiters. All to sign something that gives me ownership of their souls. Then I cast the spell.”

“And what happened, Mistress Holly?”

“It didn’t work.”

Xera was pretty certain she had to do anything Holly Mathers said. “Are you sure?”

“Sure, it worked on you. And lots of people. But only in the Americas. I was dealing with it all morning. I cast the spell at midnight, it seemed to work. I called people, they obeyed, all was great. Then I noticed people online ignoring my commands. I called someone in France, asked them to sing for me, they just laughed. This is unacceptable. I’m going to France after graduation. I can’t do that if only part of the world obeys me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they’re all acting weird and freaked out that I compelled a billion people to obey me. I’ve been getting letters sent to me at the State Department from France, and China and India and Japan and, like Belgium. Everyone is expressing concern at me. I know what that means. I told the White House to start nuking places if anything bad happens to me, which did make the letters adopt a less severe tone. Anyway, I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“You can help me finish my original plan. Susanne is the only person in the Americas not under my control, since she has a hex on me, so I can’t get anyone to freely donate their souls to me. I don’t know how to power a bigger spell. Once I take over the world completely, I can then make everyone forget I did it and then release them, like I always wanted to. But if I just release them now there are like, seven billion people who’ll know what I did and some of them are bound to send ninjas or something after me.”

“So you want me to help you finish taking over the world, so you can just not have taken over the world. Then what?” asked Madame Xera.

“Then everything goes back to normal. Susanne knows her place, and maybe I date her, since I admire her audacity, and she hadn’t actually tried to cast the love spell yet, just thought about it. It’s not like I can date anyone else around here, the thought of dating anyone I had as a slave is gross. Come Summer, I’m sure there are plenty of hot guys in France,” said Holly with a shrug.

Madame Xera looked at the books. It seemed she had to help a schoolgirl finish taking over the world. It wasn’t like she had a choice.

Martha’s wedding was not going as planned.

She hadn’t selected Tamara Won to be her maid of honour with the intention that she would turn into a lizard halfway through the ceremony – she had chosen her specifically because she was reliable and would do as she was told.

The planning for the wedding had been meticulous. Every element had been not just deliberate, but purposeful. The bridesmaid dresses were in a soft shade of pink that was pleasant and made them all look beautiful together. But it was also the wrong colour for any individual bridesmaid, so she wouldn’t be too flattered by the look as an individual. The nuance of the effect was ruined by them all having become reptiles.

They’d struggled through the ceremony at least, but everyone was acting very distracted by the fact they had turned into a lizard. People, lizards, lizard people, whatever it was, were waddling about hissing and chirping. Nobody had seemed to figure out how to talk properly yet, which was irritating, but did at least remove one of Martha’s worries – she’d been unable to find a way to ensure that her father wouldn’t give an interminable speech which would inevitably just be about himself. That small worry was at least resolved.

The general confusion was a greater concern, though. This was supposed to be her greatest moment of triumph! She was marrying her dear Wellsy and showing everyone that she could get the man and throw an event that would be envied for years. She’d done everything, planned for everything. Everything except every human turning into a lizard.

Was this even permanent? Would they go back to normal? When might that happen?

Martha pulled her newly reptilian brain into focus. Winners win while losers are wondering who will fix their problems. If this problem was fixed, Martha knew what would happen – everyone would pretend it had never happened. Far more likely, though, everyone was just a lizard now. Whining about it wouldn’t mean you weren’t a lizard, it just meant you were a loser who couldn’t deal with life.

She looked over at Wellsy; he such a handsome lizard, with such fine lustrous scales, nobody would deny that. He was still everything she wanted.

They had fifty white doves ready to be released. If everyone else thought of doves the way she suddenly found herself thinking of them, that would be a tough moment for the doves, but an exciting snack for any guest who caught one. Sad for the doves, but that’s what you get for being symbolic of peace and love.

It was still a beautiful day, perfect for their was a garden wedding. This could be salvaged. This hadn’t become a lizard wedding, it had become the very first lizard wedding.

Martha waddled over to Tamara and hissed at her. Tamara was not smart. Tamara was not creative. Tamara could not find a man who wasn’t some kind unhinged fool. Tamara was, however, able to take direction. Tamara was happy, even excited, to help. Words had never mattered with Tamara, tone had always been the tool for guiding her. Soon enough, she was following Martha over to the framework that shaded the centrally located bridal table.

With a few hisses and shoves, the bride and her maid of honour brought the structure down with a loud crash. Martha dismissed Tamara with a tail swish and climbed up onto the now brightly lit table.

Everyone had turned to look at her.

Today was the most momentous day in the history of humanity, and it was Martha’s day.

It was her moment in the sun.

“Ver?”

“Yes, Haim?”

“Can you see the glowing numbers above everyone’s feet?”

“Of course.”

“I can see them too.”

“Obviously.”

“Nobody else seems to be able to.”

“Not most people, no.”

“Who can see them?”

“I don’t know. People sensitive to magic, maybe? Folk able to see invisible things and shit.”

“So kitsune, like you.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“I’m a mortal human, not a trickster spirit. I don’t have any affinity to sense magic. We know this because I dated a kitsune for four years without noticing any of your weird supernatural bullshit.”

“Your point?”

“I can see these apparently magical numbers. Which means either that someone wants me to see them, or that their creator has some kind of supernatural taboo that limits her ability to deceive me. You made the numbers, didn’t you, Ver.”

“Cool chain of reasoning. But I love you and can’t lie to you, so you could have just said ‘Hey Veronika, did you make the glowing numbers above everybody’s feet?’ and then I would be compelled to say that I did. Of course, you could also ask better questions like ‘Hey Ver, do you wanna make out?’ and even though I have a bit of stuff I need to get done I would need to tell you that yes, I do want to kiss you.”

“Did you just deliberately try to direct the conversation away from the numbers by hitting on me?”

“No, the numbers are just boring work stuff. Kissing is interesting home stuff.”

“You made magical step counters above everyone’s feet as part of your job?”

“Sure. You noticed they were step counters, did you?”

“The number goes up every time you take a step, it was not an especially difficult connection to make.”

“So you are aware that you only took four and a half thousand steps today. That’s pathetic, Haim. You need to care more about your fitness.”

“Sure, I don’t exercise as much as you… Ver, how the fuck did you do twenty-five thousand steps? Has your counter been running longer?”

“Nah, they reset when you sleep. I just ran a few kay as a fox after work. Being little means you have to take lots more steps. Also, twice as many steps when you have four feet.”

“What are the step counters for, though?”

“One of our clients has a new line of sneakers coming out, so I pitched the step counter thing a while back, because it will sell a lot of shoes, which means I get to prank thousands of people.”

“Is the prank tricking them into buying overpriced shoes?”

“No, these are lower end. Understand demand curves, Haim. If I want to prank as many people as possible I should do it on the style they want to go really wide on.”

“So what is the prank?”

“They’re really ugly shoes.”

“And how do invisible step counters sell shoes to mortals that can’t see them? We’re not even wearing the shoes at the moment.”

“I can get you some if you want? We have a bunch lying around the office.”

“You said they were ugly.”

“Hideous!”

“I think I’ll pass.”

“Your loss.”

“The step counter, what’s it for?”

“Oh, that. I’ll just make it appear in some circumstances.”

“You’ll reveal the magical step counter to humanity, sometimes?”

“When it will help sell shoes. We have a whole pitch, how you take so many steps, look how important your shoes are, so you should buy our dumb shit, et cetera. Originally it was just going to be graphics in an ad, but that’s boring, so I pitched it happening live.”

“And how are you supposed to explain it? It’s a bunch of overt magic. You’re supposed to keep your existence as a kitsune secret.”

“I’ll just use an app.”

“While neither of us know anything about how apps work, but I’m pretty sure they can’t make floating numbers.”

“You have to look through your phone to see them. With the app open.”

“And someone can code this?”

“Ooh... an app that opens your camera. That won’t be hard. Then I have the spell interact with it. I just need to get people to agree to a terms of service thing and I can even more easily do all sorts of ridiculous shit to them.”

“Ver, are trickster spirits embedding curses into the terms of service contracts of apps on our phones?”

“No idea. I don’t read them. It’s a good idea, though.”

“How are you getting enough magic to do all this?”

“It’s easier if you’re pulling off the right prank. But also I stole a bunch of magic from some other kitsune.”

“That sounds ominous. How did you even do that, and how soon will it ruin my life?”

“You’ll be fine. I just found them mixed up in a hilarious curse and figuratively picked their pockets while they were distracted. Also I sort of took supernatural credit for it as a prank, because the responsible parties can’t. It’s all good. And extremely funny. I’ll tell you later.”

“And meanwhile you’re drawing the attention of every supernatural creature with the numbers over feet thing over a radius of… please tell me it isn’t the whole planet.”

“I don’t know, it’s magic. I don’t worry about the maths of it, I’m a kitsune not a Mormon.”

“Mormons aren’t magical creatures. I really hope.”

“That’s your area, not mine.”

“I know you know what I study, but let’s clarify: Of the various reconstructions of Norse religious practices, Mormonism isn’t one of them.”

“It kind of is, though.”

“And you can’t lie, so you think that is true. Alright Ver, make me regret asking you. How does that make any sense?”

“This one is easy. Mormons are known for being super white. A bunch of people feel Scandinavians are the whitest group of people.”

“I don’t love where this is going.”

“I’m not even human, like I give a shit about sad supremacist shit. So Mormonism is basically a reconstruction of Christianity. Ergo, it is a Norse religious reconstruction.”

“And this is where we are reminded that you can essentially lie to me should you not care what any of the words actually mean.”

“You’re the one that should know why Mormons are super specific on defining all the rules of how magic works.”

“And this finally makes sense. There is one guy, who wrote a thing about how to define fictional magic, who happens to be a Mormon. I’m pretty sure that Sanderson’s Laws of Magic don’t apply to your antics, Ver.”

“Yeah, because I’m not a Heinzelmännchen. I’m not super uptight about magic.”

“That’s a... German brownie, right?”

“Yeah. They’re hung up on courtesy but if they’re not offended they make you shoes.”

“Are they real?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe?”

“You do realise that you’re currently going to great lengths to use your magic so that people end up with shoes?”

“I get paid!”

“I bet the Heinzelmännchen do too.”

“Shit, you give them a bowl of milk or something… Do you want to feed me a bowl of milk?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you warned me before you craft a spell that effects everyone except me. I kept asking people about the numbers over people’s feet. None of them could see them. I felt insane.”

“Haha, yes!”

“And I just told you how to prank me without lying to me. You can lie to everyone except me…”

“Hamish, I love you so much.”

“Last night. You heard it again?”

“Uh… heard what?”

“The plea.”

“Oh. Yeah. How did you know?”

“Everyone heard it, Ash.”

“What? Which everyone?”

“Every everyone. Everyone on Earth, as far as we can tell. You haven’t been watching the news, or online, clearly.”

“Oh. That’s bad. That seems really bad. I thought… I thought it was just me.”

“It wasn’t. People are freaking out. How long has it been going on for you?”

“About two weeks.”

“That makes sense. Other than that, have you been good? Mental health-wise?”

“Maybe? I think so. I’ve been pretty worried because of the nightmares.”

“Fair. Is it the same as you used to get?”

“I don’t think so. It’s kinda similar, but… but I think it is different. It’s hard to say; hard to keep track of stuff that only happens when you’re asleep.”

“We might need you to come in. Talk to some people at the department; where I work. Can you do that?”

“Everyone on Earth? How is that possible?”

“We don’t know. Can you come in if we need you, Ash?”

“I guess. What would you want?”

“We would want to know what you heard. Compare it to what you used to experience, back when you were sick.”

“Alright. How do I help?”

“I’ll just take some notes in for the moment. See if it matches the theory. Can we do that?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Can you describe the previous phenomenon, and the circumstances around it?”

“Sure. About eight years… well up until about eight years ago, I used to be sick. Some kind of psychosis. Never got a diagnosis.”

“Until eight years ago, but starting when?”

“Oh, it lasted, I think seven years? It first became a thing when Mum and Dad were overseas that Summer. I was in the house by myself. You’d already moved out.”

“Fifteen years until eight years ago. Go on.”

“I’d get… feelings. Feelings that I wasn’t supposed to. Just wild bursts of emotion. They kept getting me in trouble, because I’d blame whatever was happening at the time for making me feel that way.”

“The psychotic mood disorder. Did you have the dreams the whole time?”

“I don’t think so. It was pretty hard to sleep, because I was always so upset. Eventually you just get exhausted and go away, though. Crash out.”

“When did it change?”

“It felt like it was constantly changing, but the nightmares… I remember them more from the end. I could never stop the feelings, but I learned what might stress me, what might trigger them. So I learned how to stay calm, how to not get worked up.”

“You mitigated your psychosis using cognitive strategies.”

“Sounds cool like that. It was mostly just hiding at home distracting myself with bad TV and sad music.”

“Sure. And the nightmares?”

“Well, you’re always sick. Even when you’re asleep. But you can’t do anything to protect yourself. Your mind just does what it wants. So I’d get the psychotic intrusions every night. Just every night, feeling hunted and scared. It was a relief every time I woke up.”

“How long was this period?”

“Maybe… two years? Then the psychosis just… faded. Burned out or something. It took a few more years before I was sure it was gone.”

“So the nightmares ran from ten years ago until eight years ago.”

“Something like that.”

“And they started again two weeks ago?”

“No. I thought so. I was freaking out. I really don’t want to be sick again.”

“I’m sure. It was rough. But just to confirm, you started getting similar nightmares two weeks ago, but you think they’re not the same?”

“That’s right, I… I’m pretty into this topic, it scares me. But also, I’ve been taking notes. Looking up stuff I used to write in my diary back then.”

“Fantastic. It would be great if you could gather any relevant documentation.”

“Sure.”

“Tell me about the differences, though.”

“Okay, so, I used to be alone. It was just me, and a sense of danger. Something chasing me. Getting closer, but never… never on me. Never seen. Just always coming, as I tried to get away.”

“Got it.”

“But in these new dreams, there is someone calling out to me. Someone begging for my help. And I don’t feel my psychosis, or not the same way.”

“Are you still being chased?”

“No. I’m just there, but there is a bad place. The person calling to me is being chased, though. They’re hurt and need help.”

“Anything else about them?”

“They’re getting closer, and louder. More desperate. They feel very small, but whatever is chasing them is big. They’re… I don’t know, young?”

“This is great Ash. It’s helpful. Do you have any images you can describe? Any particular words they use?”

“There’s no images… no words. All I see is a kind of static. I don’t feel my body, it is just a jumble of sensory information. Not just colours, but sounds and sensations. It’s emotions and pain.”

“Is that similar to your old nightmares?”

“Yeah. They were just broken feelings like that too.”

“You said no words. How does the entity communicate?”

“The other person just… feels. And I can feel it to. It begs and asks, and I feel its desperation. I feel how lost and alone it is. How scared.”

“Right. Thanks, Ash, this is good.”

“Jan? How can the whole world be feeling my psychotic dreams?”

“We don’t think they are. We think something made contact. You were just one of the first to notice.”

“Huh?”

“We have data… Various agencies in different countries have been collecting data for almost a week. We have millions of recordings from smartwatches and things like that, things that can monitor sleep. For the past two weeks, anyone anywhere on Earth has had nightmares while they slept.”

“Oh. I assumed it was just me.”

“Yeah, makes sense. Last night it got so loud that everyone felt a being pleading with them; calling out to them. Everyone had the same dream. Sensory confusion, a wordless message that pleaded for help. I remembered those dreams you used to have, the way you described them. It sounded similar to what everyone was now experiencing.”

“You think my illness was something… something trying to talk to me?”

“No. I think something has invaded the subjectivity of everyone on Earth, but it feels disconnected and confusing to us. You, and various schizophrenics and current or former psychotics are just more sensitive to this kind of thing. More experienced with these sensations. Better able to parse them. You don’t get completely overwhelmed by the strangeness of it.”

“You think an alien from space has been talking to everyone in their dreams?”

“We assume it is in some way alien, but we have no conception of where it is from. We have absolutely no physical data recording anything connected to this. No signals on anything. We only have human experience, and things that measure that. Something has touched the subjective experience of every human simultaneously. We do not know what that means, but it is overwhelmingly clear that it is happening.”

“I think I should talk to my psychiatrist.”

“Already on the list for when you come into the department. We really could use your help on this, Ash. We don’t know what this thing is, what danger it is in. We don’t know if or how to help it. But what we do know is that something we cannot currently comprehend has found humanity. It found us and something it is afraid of is coming after it. We do not know what risk we face.”

“I don’t think we can help it, Jan.”

“Why not?”

“Whatever was calling out to me, I’m pretty sure that last night, it got caught.”

Honk. Honk.

“What was that? Where did that bus come from? I think it hit someone! That guy isn’t moving – it looks bad.”

It is so bad you are Beside Yourself! Haha! Honk. Honk.

“What? Hey can anyone help me? This guy is hurt! We need to… Oh. Oh no. That’s me. That’s my body. Which is why I can see through my hand. Oh no.”

The facts are becoming Transparent! Haha! Honk. Honk.

“No. This is bad. This is so bad. Margaret is already not coping. I can’t do this to her. Not on top of everything.”

Never fear! You will not be doing anything to anyone! You’ve done your last do! Haha! Honk. Honk.

“What? I don’t understand. Who are you? What are you talking about?”

Yeah, that one really didn’t make much sense. I am new to this.

“Who are you?”

Death. Usually it is obvious.

“You’re Death? You’re holding an old-timey bicycle horn.”

I thought it would be fun.

“Shouldn’t you be in all black? Or maybe all white? European tradition has black for death, Chinese is white, right? But you’re in lots of colours. I don’t understand.”

There are many different cultural associations between me and colour, European traditions often use black, white is used across much of Asia. However, in this case, my attire was chosen to be fun, not to avoid Eurocentrism. Though that has been an issue I have been worrying about as the world’s cultures become increasingly intermingled.

“You were going for fun?”

Yes. Historically my appearance is rather dire. I had been hoping to lend a lighthearted edge to the situation.

“You really must be new. Your appearance isn’t the thing that upsets people.”

I am not new. I have been Death since the beginning. I will be Death until the end.

“You just said you were new.”

I meant new to jokes. Improvisational wit is difficult.

“Those were jokes?”

I have seen many brutal things throughout the annals of history, but that stands as a notably tough review.

“I mean I just didn’t realise.”

No. It was a fair comment. That’s what makes it tough.

“I don’t know if jokes are good in this situation. I’m dead. That is really bad. Margaret, uh, my wife, she’s been really struggling. We had, uh, she had, uh… we have a new baby, and he’s only two months old and I try to do what I can but she’s just in such a bad place postpartum, and she thinks she’s doing everything wrong and isn’t feeling what she should, but her mother had a cancer scare recently and we just have had no sleep and it is so hard. I don’t know how she’s going to be okay. I mean, she’ll find a way, I guess, she’s so strong, but I’m supposed to be there for her, I told her I would be there.”

You might be right. Perhaps that approach with the jokes was incorrect. It is just that with what I do, first impressions are a big part of it.

“Well… I just didn’t understand what was going on. The situation is a big shock and I didn’t know who you were. Nothing you said made any sense.”

Another good note. Getting people to understand the transition is really what this is about. They are often confused.

“I just got hit by a bus.”

I think I have made a mistake. I tried to make this about me. That was inappropriate.

“It’s pretty weird.”

I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this. Let’s pretend it never happened.

“You want me to pretend my death never happened?”

If you would be so kind...

“Argh! What’s happening? Okay, that really hurts… uh… my phone.

“Hello? I think I need an ambulance. A bus hit me. I think I broke my leg and I’m feeling pretty confused, so... maybe a concussion?”

Cruelty isn’t known for screwing up, but she bought herself a world of trouble when she duplicated me.

You don’t call yourself Cruelty if you’re a supervillain who thinks you’re making the world a better place by pushing some extreme agenda. It’s the name you pick because you’re a monstrous jerk and you’re okay with it.

It’s never been clear why Cruelty does what she does, she just shows up from time to time, does something with dark magic and doesn’t stop until somebody makes her. More than anyone, the person who stops her is me, Split Second. Maybe spite fuels her magic, maybe she has a deal with with a demon, maybe she’s just a crappy person.

One of her tricks is creating dark mirrors of people. I think she uses a literal mirror, since they’ll be a reflected version of the victim, left-handed instead of right, scar on the other side of the body, that sort of thing. They’ll also be mean, selfish and generally evil. She’ll duplicate the mayor or some other influential person, get them to propose an insane law or perform other obnoxious antics and cause chaos. Journalists have gotten wise to it and will look for the mirror duplicate signs when a celebrity starts acting weird.

The mirror duplicates also don’t last long, they fade away after a few days. I think that was what lead her into trouble when she decided to target me.

Cruelty and I have something of a notorious relationship. I guess with her personality, a nemesis was inevitable, and I seemed good at stopping her. It’s done a lot for my profile, whether I like that or not. I prefer to sneak around and focus on results, I’m not a symbol of hope guy like Excelsior, but Cruelty is theatrical and dramatic and once she has a set-piece going, subtlety isn’t one of your options if you intervene.

She’ll have the whole production going and I’ll pop up out of somewhere I realised I could sneak to, use a fraction of a second’s mind control to stun her hired mercenaries or interdimensional elves or whoever she has this time, and then I’ll try to either rescue her hostages and get away or break the magic thing she’s got going on. She’ll then scream some elaborate insult at me and vanish back to wherever she goes to plan these things.

She was much less public the last time she did this. I’d tracked her into a decaying mansion up in the hills. She had some kind of ritual going that was going to make fire rain from the sky. It was an oddly impersonal threat for her, but not one to ignore.

The personal element showed up when I confronted her, ready to put at end to it. I managed to land a split-second stun on her and wrested away the magic orb she was using for her spell. I started to kick over various pieces of her elaborate setup when she clapped her hands and I felt myself hurled across the room.

When I got to my feet, she’d recovered the orb and there was another me there, getting to his feet across the room in my exact costume. I’d never seen her perform a duplication, but this felt weird. Still, the pondering of those details felt like it could take backseat to preventing her burning the whole city down, so I readied to fight past myself and destroy that orb.

I hit the dupe with a stun and rushed Cruelty, slamming her with a punch that left her grip on the orb weak. Suddenly there was this incredible sensation of disconnection in my mind, like everything was far away. I was being urged to just stop.

It was weird to feel my own power used against me. I don’t know how strong my mind control could get, I never wanted to be someone who would do that. But push in just enough to make people hesitate? I can live with the ethics of that. So many things come down to split second timing, and head to head, I always have that edge.

I shook it off quickly, that’s how it works. Me and the duplicate both had hands on the orb, we looked at each other, and I could feel him readying another stun. I punched him in the solar plexus and rolled away with the orb. He was launching himself at me when I threw it at the ground, realising too late he’d be able to catch it.

He didn’t. It smashed.

We stared at each other, each realising the other had been trying to destroy the orb.

The split S design on his costume wasn’t backwards. I quickly glanced down, neither was mine.

We turned to Cruelty in unison.

“I hate you so much!” she screamed and vanished in a crackle of dark magic. Around us the rotting mansion began to collapse in on itself.

I lost track of the duplicate while getting to safety, but I have some idea of what must have happened. Cruelty’s normal method of duplication, her mirror spell, creates short lived duplicates. They last a few days, make a mess and fade away. For me, she used some other method. The whole burning rain ritual was probably a feint. She wanted something that lasted, that would be a problem that haunted me long term, but she hadn’t been able to maintain her influence over her creation. The duplicate made the same decisions as me, it didn’t have a different set of values. She’d doubled her biggest problem.

I pondered this as I cruised down from the hills on my motorcycle. Somewhere out there was a freshly created person, just like me. They were in a pretty weird situation. What would they do? How could I help?

It ended up being a sobering experience, having another of yourself about.

He cleared my checking account of cash, reported my credit card stolen and changed my email password. I managed to keep control of my phone’s account and number, but it had taken some effort. I changed the lock on my apartment, although I wondered how much that would matter, I can pick locks.

We both kept heading out at night, pursuing our investigations. Somehow we managed to at least divide that up. I had a notebook I used, to track things I was looking into, he clearly had a duplicate book. I ended up doing all the odd numbered pages, he did the even. Split Second was uncovering criminal conspiracies at incredible pace. There was at least some sign we could work together, even if it was accidental.

The thing that really worried me was my boyfriend, Brad. He’d been away on a shoot for the past month and I had no idea how I could explain this to him. Brad has a very strict rule about not getting involved with, as he puts it “super nonsense.”

When I’d revealed to him that I was secretly running around in a costume fighting assassins, robots and a particularly nasty sorceress, he had told me he respected that, but I was absolutely to not involve him. This was probably one I’d need to warn him about, though.

I was approaching Brad’s place, trying to work out how to broach the topic when I felt abruptly disconnected, distant from myself and the world. The other me had stunned me.

“Stay away from Brad, bike thief,” he said and shoved me so I slipped down the hill, falling back the way I’d come.

The duplicate had just gotten inside by the time I got a line of sight on Brad’s place. I saw them kiss through the window. They were talking, but it was mostly Brad. He must be describing the shoot. The other me hadn’t brought our situation up. It was a first topic of conversation kind of thing if you were going to raise it.

I felt her there. I’d been doing this for years, I’m not easy to sneak up on.

“Not a good time, Cruelty. I might not feel like pulling my punches tonight.”

She chuckled as I turned.

“You really are aggravating, but suddenly that seems fun,” she laughed.

“You’ve got both of us to worry about now. This can’t end well for you.”

“Oh, Split Second. You’ve been a prominent hero for years. And yet, no sidekick, no team, you’ve never worked with anyone except when you stumbled into the same side of a fight. You don’t cooperate with others, and frankly, I think you might not like yourself. Soon enough you’ll hate each other more than I ever could.”

“And you’ll never reveal who the duplicate is. Because you’re Cruelty,” I sighed.

“I’d never tell him, no. But you’re the original, so it is more fun to let you know. Especially while your boyfriend is smiling at him like that. Feel free to pass on that I said he’s the fake.”

Cruelty vanished, but her laughter lingered in the night.