I nearly threw myself into the apartment after managing to get my stuff from the Theater. Apparently they didn't bother cleaning out my locker until I came back, and everything was in there.

Mylo, Brendan, Alphonso, and Jacob were in the apartment prior to my arrival.

“Where’s Caspian?” I asked.

“On his way, but that’s not important. You spoke to Anubis?” Alphonso replied, seemingly as confused as everyone else was.

“Yeah. I didn’t see anyone else,” I replied back, “more pressing matter, there’s a shack in a national forest that is connected to this apartment?”

“Yeah, it’s how the three of us got our powers. Through external means.” Jacob replied calmly.

“It’s got a bunch of random junk in it. All of that junk has special properties.” Brendan elaborated.

“So... the box, the goggles, and the suit? All from a shack?” I asked.

“Yeah, basically.” Brendan finished.

“It was pretty cool. Everything looked like stuff you could normally find around an apartment.” Mylo said excitedly.

“It also has a door that connects back to this apartment so we can get to it easily,” Alphonso quickly added, “but can we not focus on the shack? Serenity can traverse dimensions.”

“Realities, actually, and how does the door connect to this apartment exactly?” I rebutted.

“No idea,” Alphonso replied, “Can we change the topic? Please tell us exactly what happened.”

“Okay, well, I figured that my anxiety turned me invisible so when I left here this morning, I went to a rite aid to get some hydroxyzine in order to turn off my anxiety and when I went into that realm I couldn’t touch or pick up anything. Even tried to shift my hand back to our reality to grab it, but when I went back to the other realm, it fell through my hand, so I curled up into a ball on the floor, shut my eyes and cried. When I came to, my anxiety was so high that it literally sent me to the top rung of the reality ladder.”

“and that’s how you met Anubis.” Alphonso said, pulling out a notebook and writing everything down.

“You can’t steal medications if you’re in our superhero group, just future information.” Brendan quickly stated.

“Then kick me out? Doesn't matter anyway, Anubis said that if I skip the paranormal realm I can take basically whatever I want from the other realms and bring it back here. As long as I skip the paranormal realm.” I replied.

“Fascinating, please continue.” Alphonso spoke, trying to steer the conversation back on topic.

“So Anubis told me that all realms are connected by a metaphorical ladder, stacked on top of each other... well, I’m guessing, I don’t think he actually explained anything, he just called it a ladder once and it stuck in my head... Anyway, he then called me a phasewalker, said I wasn’t the first and I’m not even going to begin to process what that’s supposed to mean. He also told me I was in the realm of the gods, which is the highest plane of existence. So with all that information gathered, I walked out, forgot I wasn’t anxious anymore, and tripped through an infinite number of realities before landing back in ours, stole some hydroxyzine, ran out of the rite aid, took a pill, went to the park, then texted the chat, managed to grab my wallet from the theater I no longer work at, and came here.” I finished, the story now being fully explained.

“I’ve heard that word... Phasewalker. From some really old Egyptian texts.” Caspian said calmly, right before everyone suddenly realized Caspian was there.

“Dude you can’t sneak into our apartment like that, we have a door for a reason.” Brendan shouted.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Doors are overrated, windows are faster.” Caspian replied quickly.

“Ignore him and continue, please.” Alphonso asked, attempting to steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Certainly,” he started, pulling an old egyptian book from underneath the chair he was sitting on, “In early egyptian text, phasewalkers were considered to be high royalty, being sought after by pharaohs. Each pharaoh had a phasewalker in their courts to talk to the Gods if need be, and each one had to speak to Anubis to determine who would be pharaoh.”

I pondered on this for a brief moment before realizing something very important. I’m not Egyptian, I just got tortured and somehow landed the same powers as a bunch of kingmakers. Wonderful, if this was a movie I’d call it lazy writing.

“I’m not Egyptian, and I don’t want to be called a phasewalker the whole time. I was tortured by scientists, not pharaohs. Maybe I’m using the same ladder or something but I don’t see what any of that has to do with my bullshit.” I told Caspian, before he closed the book and sat back down.

“You’re right. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. But Anubis is going to continue to call you that and if he ever figures out that you aren’t who he thinks you are, things could get ugly.” Caspian replied, quickly and scarily.

“No, Gods aren’t that petty-” Brendan said, preparing to launch into a full speech before Caspian, quicker than I could possibly see, covered his mouth with duct tape.

“Zeus turned into a swan to seduce leda, then fucked her as a swan. Horus made Set eat his semen. Literally everything Loki has ever done was the result of either chaos or just wanting to be petty. Also, mortals tricking gods have been screwed over so many times I’m not holding my breath for the new girls “finding out” phase of that relationship. Ever heard of King Midas’ Donkey Ears? The Myth of Medusa? Sisyphus? Fuck, Orpheus? Dionysis ran a summer camp because the Gods were so fucking petty, my guy. They will eat you alive without a second thought, just like Kronos did. Aphrodite was born because Oceanus jerked off into the sea. These fuckers fear nothing, and if they’re real, then we don’t want to be on their bad side. Just look at what happened to Hephaestus, tossed off a fucking mountain and all he did was be born ugly.” Caspian sneered, disintegrating anything that could’ve possibly come out of Brendan’s mouth.

We all stared at him after that, I didn’t really know how to respond to it. I’m not fully sure anyone else did either. I’ve definitely not seen him act like that, but that’s probably because I didn’t know him that well. Though looking around the room, I doubt anyone else did either.

Caspian then coughed and pulled the duct tape off of Brendan’s mouth before leaning back into his chair. Brendan didn’t say a fucking word the rest of the meeting. He knew he couldn’t. He was demolished.

“That was truly impressive actually. Both you and Serenity just utterly decimated that man in one sitting. Glad to have y’all on the team.” Alphonso responded after a bit, surprisingly happy about how events unfolded.

“Yeah, no, well done.” Jacob said quietly, slightly shaking in fear.

“In other news, I’ve finished my stakeout of the place we saved you two from,” Caspian started, pointing at both myself and mylo, “I have a name. Phobia Labs.”

“Right, that’s the other thing. I think I know who the scientist was. I passed by a car that was listening to a radio show by someone who sounds a lot like the scientist who kidnapped me, except he wasn't a scientist, just some douchebag of some radio show called the Matt Slapp.” I said, jumping back into the conversation.

“Matthew Shapiro.” Jacob, Alphonso, and Caspian all said at once.

“Yeah, that's the transphobic asshat that’s spreading fear and hatred through his show to get people to attack us, and that’s not... all... I’m remembering something else,” I said, starting to remember more about the scientist, “Right before he kidnapped me, he said something. Open your eyes, look into mine, endure your sin.”

“I remember him saying that too. When I looked into his eyes... the world turned to darkness and before I knew it, I was a girl again.” Mylo spoke, sharing his experience and supporting my story.

“I had a similar experience, but I was a boy again. Wasn’t an experience I cared to relive.” I replied back.

“Endure your sin... isn’t that the tagline of his show?” Caspian stated.

“The bitch uses it as a tagline?” I yelled, not realizing we were still in an apartment.

Instead of replying, Caspian just went wide-eyed and stood up from his seat, walking towards the door and opening it. He waited patiently as he stared at me for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry, you want me to go with you?” I asked.

“Duh,” He replied, motioning his hands for me to join him, “you know how to fight, right?”

“Yeah, kinda, but I don’t want to disappear in the middle of a brawl.”

“You’ll be fine. Best way to train is on the job. Now, I need you to give me a codename so people don’t find out who you are.”

I paused for a second, trying to think of the coolest name I could possibly come up with. Unfortunately, my efforts were fruitless as the only thing that could pop into mind was

“Shift.”

“Starling.”

I followed him out the door and we left for Phobia labs. It’s time to make Matt Slapp himself.