I wake in darkness, feeling well-rested, albeit incredibly hungry, downright thirsty, and low on blood. I sit up and rub the back of my neck.

I frown. My hair feels like it is drenched, but it is not wet... This is not the first time I have woken up with hair drenched with blood. And a bit of my brain and skull, but that's besides the point. A werewolf, I think his name was Al, from Luke’s Pizzeria scratched the back of my head open by accident while I was sewing him up after a gang battle and he gave me an expensive healing potion that completely regenerated the back of my head.

See, this is why Luke’s Pizzeria is the best. The rest of the gangs would have just been like “Oh well. What can you do? This kid isn’t worth it.” They actually prevented me from dying of brain and blood loss.

Regardless though, that is not the feeling I’m getting. It is more oiled up.

The sensation coming from my hand is that it is... subservient? What the actual fuck? What does that even mean? I feel around, touching fabric and then the feeling of touching cold bone... or an ivory mask!

A realization hits me. Somehow the locker separation between me and the corpse of the Anathema disappeared, which has... deeply disturbing implications. Could the environment change to benefit the Anathema?

More immediately though, this... subservience personified... is all over this floor.

It’s repulsive.

Oddly enough, even though I can feel it trying to convince me to submit, to what I could not guess, I can tell it is ineffectual in affecting my mind.

The moment I can put that into words, the feeling changes. It almost has a sense of intoxicating power, of regality, which I immediately reject. As deserving of the power that I am...

I chuckle derisively.

… I will have to strongly decline.

It changes again. What is it trying to do? This time, the emotion tingles in my head and I feel a deep connection with it. It is the most complex yet.

It is the je ne sais quoi of a bard in rags wooing the world, of a jester talking amicably with a king about the horrors going on under his dictatorial reign couched in humor and crude jokes, of a many-faced noble presenting a thousand personalities.

You know, odd quirk I have, I quite honestly don’t trust random emotions and nonsense from the goop of a truly evil virulent magic that ravaged the world. Peculiar, I know.

Humanity in general has become jaded to Miasma. It is just something that we must deal with, like car accidents or that random vampire republic that has kept popping up every four years for the U.S. election since the Civil Rights Movement succeeded.

Miasma, and its resulting effects, is still the leading cause of death in every country still around though. It is literally anathema to Magic, which is Essence that forms from every positive meaning. Magic pervades every event with positive emotion, from the righteous anger at an evil that will motive one's courage to a delightful birthday filled with positivity. Miasma naturally forms from every event with negative emotion, from a drug-addled individual seeing terrors to a popped balloon.

Before the first-world countries realized they could no longer exploit or allow death to happen to the level that it did in many countries, the miasma forming from disease, political corruption, war, and other such things formed Titans. These are Torments that required hundreds of nuclear blasts and the help of the Magical Girls that were just getting their feet under them as well as just getting levels from the new System. One, the Titan Diarrhea, even attained enough power and ascended into the Essence, the source of all magic in our dimension, forever strengthening the Miasma on our planet and allowing cults to actually create rifts of their own. As a result, the Elvish cities thumb their collective noses at humanity for being such awful creatures that we managed to let a Titan join with the Essence.

Elves are arrogant bastards the lot of 'em... and yet... I have not met a single one I didn't like... perhaps that says something about me...

Nah!

I am perfectly humble...

Anyway!

Some Titans are still around, resting in miasmic zones that spawn Torments, instead of Anathema. Needless to say, I try my best to fend off the emotions, so I don't get corrupted like those poor animals near the zones of Earth that overlap with demonic dimensions.

Ugh. Those pictures of blue whales after they passed near a demonic rent are something else. They were censored because they kept driving people insane. Naturally, Elisa managed to give a printed photo to me as a birthday present. So many eyeballs. According to her, the squirming, ecstatic, tingling sensation in your body when you look at them is them using a Lust-powered ability to fuck your soul all the way from in the Atlantic Ocean.

I really don't want to become like the blue whales.

Needless to say, I try my best to fend off the emotions that the goop is attacking me with.

Much to my surprise, I actually succeed. I guess dealing with the Managerial Commands over and over actually helps. Although the fact that even though it isn’t classified as a mental attack, it still helps me fend off against a mental attack, well, the irony is not lost on me.

Then what I’m certain of by now is solidified Miasma changes again. It, for lack of a better word, deepens in meaning even further than the already head-splitting philosophical nonsense going on in my head.

I try to block it, but while so successful the first three times, I do not even have time to analyze what the emotions of the Miasma is this time. The goop of feelings fits... perfectly. It does not sneak past my mental defense. It brazenly fits into the defense like a puzzle piece and bypasses it completely. It surges up my arms and disappears. That’s just unfair. All of the cuts on my arms sting like a jellyfish lashed my arms over and over.

I suppose most people would be shouting in pain and I understand that it does hurt, but it does not actually impact me like, well, literally everything else these... 24 hours? I don’t know. I just know it’s been too long.

Seriously though. What the actual FUCK!?

Oh crap. Oh crap! Miasma, anti-magic, the cause of the apocalypse, just went and violated me.

Oh dear... that sounds wrong...

Hmmm... it just went inside me!

I don’t think that’s any better...

I purse my lips trying not to laugh. I am going to stop now.

I push against the locker door. I need to get out of this claustrophobic space. I push against the metal – wait, something is very off. This is linen. As an artist, I have certainly made enough paintings to know.

It is so creepy that the world just changes around me.

I poke at it. Yeah. It’s rigid with paint on the other side. I really don’t want to damage it if I can help it. Who knows how gorgeous it is? I want to see what it is like intact. I feel around for the frame.

AHA! Found it!

Dang, this frame is ornate. I may rely more on my eyesight like most humanoids, but I can still tell that it has inset calligraphy so ornate as to practically be art itself. Is there a – yup, here’s a nook that separates it from this place, which I thusly pronounced the royal cupboard. I gently jig it around to unhook it and push it open.

I peek out and the breath caught in my throat. It is a fractal glass world of awe-inspiring proportions. The impossible tall stone obelisks truly shine with purple starry light reflecting against a crystalline floor and glass wall, black emptiness right next to solid purple light. It looks as if an expert jewel delicately crafted a flawless beauty of a house, created an alien galaxy in miniature. Honestly, it makes me feel quite... peaceful to have even imitations of the stars so close.

One single gnashing orb of stretching, contorting gold, shrieking with the unnatural sounds of bending, grinding metal teeth inset with window-sized precious stones and rubbing skin spanning the size of a McMansion hangs from a maddeningly thin thread in this dark fantastical ballroom, not even appearing oversized next to the truly monumental backdrop of the murals. Many eyeless gasping faces corkscrew over its body like whirligigs; tremendously large jaws extend out of the globe like hands through latex and snapping at the air with explosive shark-like bites, cheeks ballooning and glowing a red-white hot light.

The murals are as obvious as they had been in clear light, their Truths evident no matter the darkness or glare...

And I look away blinking furiously as if a fleet of onion-cutting ninjas just Naruto-ran into the room.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Dumbass! Idiot! Fool!”

I really need to stop glancing at them. It is clearly damaging my eyes. Things are looking slightly fuzzier than they used to be and more life-giving liquid sprays from my eyes. Why do I keep staring at them? It is so stupid of me!

I turn my attention to the painting I found in reverse to most typical stories: I was in the secret compartment and then came across the painting that led to it, though it’s not necessarily as applicable since the painting hadn’t been here before.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!

Why did I expect it to be any different!?!?!

This is so much worse!

Wh-what-w-why!??

This is so fucking bad!!!

“HAhAHAhaahahahHAHAHAHHAHHAHA! I just wanted to know what it looked like to fulfil my artistic curiosity!!!” I babble and shout. I fall back and scuttle backwards, shaking my head wildly in pain.

If it was a stabbing pain, it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much. I have never felt anything like it, other than maaaybe frostbite. The best way I could possibly describe it is to tell you to imagine a literally cruel light.

This light causes chemical reactions in your eyes, alright?

Parts of your eye petrify into thin layers of diamond which start piercing just the top layers of your eye and GROWING.

Goddamnit, I can feel perfectly cut facets excruciatingly rubbing against the inside of my eyelids.

I am all for new sensations, but this is, quite frankly, ridiculous. I am starting to truly understand why most people die very quickly in these zones. Lines of my eyesight are gone! Just alternating blankness and vision like the stripes on my ripped uniform.

I will admit I am incredibly infuriated that it has been an entire 24 hours and not only have Magical Girls failed to eliminate this rift (most rifts are closed within a few hours nowadays), but I had been hoping against hope that I had proven that I held the will to kill and fend against Anathema to the alien race of Familiars which were the symbionts of Magical Girls. I am literally going blind here. I have successfully dodged multiple Anathema and killed two, on my own, with no freakin’ system to help me, an insane feat that almost always allows people to become Magical Girls.

I guess that floating moss-covered ram of M.G. Herb was right. Literally nothing about me was good enough to be a Magical Girl no matter what I did.

I let loose a low guttural growl of inestimable frustration that echoed oddly off this crystal world suspended in a void of inestimable size like a flawless bubble suspended in light-sucking soap. Apparently, the sole survivor of the many living chandeliers did not like the noise as it swung agitatedly on its string, grasping maws stretching out on long necks and pulling it up and down on the string like a deeply messed up version of a spider’s legs.

My intention to analyze my arms for any damage will have to wait until I have gotten somewhere safer and brighter. I won’t be hindered by dragging the Anathema maid body I still have for useful material though. I will rob her body and then leave.

I jerk back as the fully suppressed memories of Helix’s corpse come to me. Against my will, my thoughts whir back to Helix’s corpse at the hound’s resting place that I have studiously pretended never existed. One of their arms was completely gone, their shoulders complete mush from blunt teeth flattening away their limbs with supreme force. Their torso had been pried open and was just a skin sack at the waist, empty of their intestines and flooded with blood from the rest of the untouched body.

Why? My head twitches in temporary physical pain. Why did they leave me? If they just stayed still, I could have saved them. I mentally grab the emotional pain and ruthlessly shove it away. I am the ruler of my emotions.

First, I grab the mask off of the Anathema, which, to my surprise, completely destabilizes the body, making it evaporate and rush into my arms, causing the expected stinging pain, only worse this time.

I smack my forehead, carefully avoiding the maimed part of my face. It feels like every single decision down to the last has led to a terrible consequence. Well, might as well ignore the sunk cost fallacy and go full ham while I’m at it. There is a wonderfully comfortable and very expensive dress now empty of its owner, right there just waiting to be used. I remove my blood-soaked shirt and switch into the flouncy dress, navigating the many silk folds until I poke out of it.

It is so comfortable. Oh my. This is nice. The excess fabric seriously impedes my movement like expected. It might seem incredibly stupid to wear this costume because of its fluff, but... yeah, no, it’s pretty stupid.

Logically, it probably is not worth the Anti-Magic getting into my skin or the effort to use my costume designing skill to get rid of the excess fabric, but I need this illogical thing just for the sake of my sanity. I can feel my sanity slipping even further away than it already was, and the dress is far cleaner and less disgusting than my shirt and just fulfills me more than my uniform.

I grab the fabric and start working on it with my scalpels, until it shrinks out of my grasp like an eel. The dress writhes around me, and ribbons grow out of it, the fabric tearing and folding like a cloth kaleidoscope. I start wondering whether I just made a fatal mistake as it buffets around me, obscuring my vision of the world and fabric circles around my throat and hair.

Then it settles down and my jaw promptly drops. Hah! I just went through a freakin’ Barbie dress transformation.

It fits perfectly, the excess fabric removing itself and violating the laws of the conservation of mass. It changes from a black-and-white exaggerated maid uniform to the perfect dress for me. It has a sleek bodice, and the dress is checkered with big sections of cyber grape purple and mauvelous pink. It still retains some nice ruffles around the skirt part and creates some around the short sleeves. It accentuated everything I loved about my body and minimized everything I hated about it.

A big, impossibly light, scarlet bow is pinned to my hair. My gloves are replaced with opera gloves that fit like a second skin. My pants have even changed in style and color to match my dress. And I can tell just from how it flows that movement will not be impeded at all.

Soft lace wraps around my neck with a tragedy mask completely mummified in thread right at the center, which I figured out after fiddling around with it. Upon examination of my surroundings, I notice that the comedy mask I had grabbed off the Anathema has disappeared, presumably becoming the tiny mask.

It really is the only part that disconcerts me about the dress. Everything else is great... just...

…

…

...

Why did it change to a tragedy mask?!

It could have stayed the same...

I am offended! Comedy fits me!!!

I don’t see how this choker fits me at all! I hold my nose up and turn away haughtily, pouting very heavily and folding my arms.

My righteous indignation is all but forgotten though when my head is at an angle that the striations of crystal on my eyes don’t impede my sight and I can see what happened to the crystal broom.

It has transformed into a crystal guitar. My vulpine grin practically splits my face. I pick it up and caress it with my hands, strumming a few perfectly tuned cords. I hold it by its handle and maneuver it up and down like a club. It has the perfect heft for playing music as well as smashing heads in.

I would love to see how Alexa’s skull caves in. More like a watermelon? Or more like a caramel-filled chocolate?

I test out the guitar again. For scientific purposes, of course.

Thwack! Twish! Twish!

The rhythm of snapping jaws behind me stops.

I squint, my mouth a short line.

Fuck.

My head turns slowly, haltingly, around.

Every oversized mouth full of molars is contorted and stretched so that they all face towards me, the tiny dinky person far down below and far away from this monstrous predator, shiny golden skin pulled back in a shitload of snarls.

I’m not waiting to see what it does, like an anime would make the main character do so as to exaggerate the drama of the main character’s horror towards a monster. The sheer terror already is enough for me by far. The dress and changed-up pants do not impede me whatsoever as I sprint for my life. If anything, they are far easier to move in than my stiff uniform.

Maybe ten seconds in...

SMASH!!!

A wave of force from an orb of magic-dense metal the size of a mansion knocks me flat on the ground, blowing my ears out. My head rings like a bell with the impact. Tiny shards of crystal pepper me from the incredible distance between me and the creature. Feels like a cactus I touched, so not too bad.

I use the guitar I somehow still holding onto, to prop me. My hope had been to rely on my hearing to track the monster's rate of progress behind me, but that is shot to heaven. I scramble forward and glance over my shoulder for one brief moment.

With terrifying dexterity, jaws spiral out of the golden mass flattened on the ground like quicksilver and pull it into an ambulatory form. Crushing jaws bite into the gorgeous galactic floor, cheeks ballooning with the light of a forge, shattering the ground into splinters, the view looking akin to a celestial jawbreaker candy being shattered into shards of sugary starlight. It writhes over the ground with ridiculous speed, having already pulled itself out of the crater and traveled half of the multiple kilometers between us.

There is no comparison between the two of us. If I had been anywhere near it during its fall, the explosive force of the side effect of its drop would have been enough to pulverize me into a fine mist of blood and disintegrated cells.

I would become spray paint, an end that more than a few subway officials might find deliciously ironic.

My goal is the towering doors made of impossibly fine filigree silver metal that I somehow never noticed earlier: the only obvious way out. It reeks of something suspicious, not literally.

Unfortunately, I am completely and utterly screwed.

I either get eaten by the monstrosity or cut down by the scarab-beetle headed knights guarding the door.

I will not break down though. I will stay true to my strengths and die with dignity.

If my last role is to die, then, as I have done so with every other role in my life, I will do so with a smile.

I can hear the bass of the creature behind me, its insanity evident. The guards covered in white anime-style metal hold their weapons in a poise ready to cut me down, their emotions unknowable with their inhuman beetle heads.

I look back and forth between the metaphorical fire and frying pan.

I am screwed. It's either I eaten by the monstrosity behind me or I get cut down first and then eaten by the guards.

*sigh*

I am resigned to my death. Welp!

I will pretend that in this moment, I am not alone.

I will refuse to believe in reality as it is for my final moments.

I will pretend to be an Anathema.

Hey look, I’m just like you.

Hey look, I am a monster too.

Hey look, I am putting on my show.

I crouch down in an unnatural position, my joints grinding together and my muscles groaning under the pressure, grinning with true joy.

It is happiness that I have actually made myself feel.

Not happiness directed to happy thoughts, no.

I am now genuinely happy that I will be cut into pieces.

I strum my guitar in a way that just matches everything in this scene. The creaking of the armor is the violin accompaniment of my manic, hilarious tune.

I use my vocal training to laugh melodically, a sparkling, kind thing that should never exist in this nightmare world, as if I am attempting to talk with them.

It matches well with the tinkling of precious stones raining down from every crater formed by the mouths slamming into the ground.

I can see the rapidly closing mass reflected in the guards’ armor.

Goodbye Dennis. Goodbye Elisa.

Hello new friends.