Chief ensign Tanya Kanneth looked down at the small crater and knew she’d probably get fired for this. What ‘this’ was, she had no idea- the facility had been running at optimal levels not even five minutes ago, and then it had just- burnt down. The locus had been forming as expected, spatial deviations had almost reached the third threshold…
It was going well until something happened- the computer readings had showed a quick spike from third to seventh threshold before all their carefully designed sensors failed to comprehend the viscous twisting of space in front of them- and fire. A wisp, an explosive conflagration that erupted from the point of inter-transcendence, because what else could they have achieved with the same results? “So… any idea of what happened?”
Her direct subordinate, the project’s senior engineer, scratched the back of his head in evident confusion as he alternated between glancing down at the sheaf of papers clutched in his hands and the crater in front of them. “We certainly did… something, but the machines didn’t have enough force or precision to pull off… whatever this was. The crown’s going to want a report though.”
“And… it?” Nobody had descended into the crater to pick up the strange, two-tailed fox that had just… appeared there. Even from a distance there was a subtle sense of… wrongness about it- nothing she could place, but its presence was undeniable. That, and it was currently sprawled out atop a pile of metal that was the next best thing to molten.
“Ah… nobody wants to touch it. Some of the security guards want to shoot it-” but that was, obviously, a bad idea. “I can call a security-” her engineers face paled to an almost concerning degree as he looked down where the thing was- had been, its nest of fire empty-
Something pressed against her and she glanced down, meeting the fox’s burning gaze as it pawed against her leg. “...hello?” It wasn’t a squeak. If anyone ever reported she squeaked in fear at a fox, then she could have them reassigned to matrix-cleaning for the next year for their crimes.
The fox nodded- nodded at her before jumping up into her arms and just… falling asleep. Tanya sent a wide-eyed gaze to her subordinate that perfectly and completely captured the essence of help, please.
Unfortunately, he was too busy backing up as fast as possible to appreciate it. “Oh… look at that! You’ve been chosen by… executive democratic vote to take care of the thing! Have… fun?” He looked at the gently sleeping, unnaturally terrifying, cute vulpine abomination, then turned tail and fled.
A wise choice, her mind agreed- if only it hadn’t left her alone! Half-dejected, she turned away and walked the short walk to her rather spartan apartment situated not more than thirty minutes away from the facility, cautiously avoiding meeting too many people on the way back. No need to go out of her way to make people more afraid of their experiments than they already were.
Maybe, for the first time, she felt some of that fear herself.
Sleep came fitfully, and in it she dreamt of darkness, infinite abominations of teeth and hyperdimensional eyes that stared-
She woke to shadow, and the chirp of midnight singing songbirds, and a muted glow from her computer. Her computer, where a fox was carefully browsing the internet with ease. “Good.” It didn’t glance over at her, but she shivered nonetheless. The voice sounded too normal. Vaguely effeminate, touched with a lilting melody of sarcastic inflection that made Tanya unconsciously flinch back, a disappointment and expectation…
“What- what are you?” She should have taken those combat lessons, she realized five years too late. Who knows when you’ll have to fight, they said- and she said she never left the town. Now she was rooming with a fox from beyond reality, she was taking it all back. “Why did you destroy the facility?”
“An unfortunate coincidence, honestly. Even with the effect of the experiments, our manifestation would have been explosive with how much power Eaera tried to bring into the world- so I annihilated most of the bleed off.” A dictionary- that was what the fox was reading through, eyes flicking rapidly across the screen in front of her. “If you feel uneasy around me, you’re likely sensing Eaera’s presence. He’s friendly, but his nature tends to make anything with a soul… upset.”
The shadows boiled off the fox, morphing, twisting, defying the eye of even a researcher who’d spent their entire lives researching the type of spatial anomalies present at the facility. Little spots along its form bloomed, swirling, roses in a thousand dimensions opening-
Like eyes. She clenched her eyes shut, clutching her head to assuage it of the sudden, bone-deep terror she’d in her body. Looking at something that could end. “What was that!” Her voice was a harsh whisper, and for a long moment only silence reigned.
“Sorry.” It was a whisper like the shattering of space, the grinding march of death’s inevitability. “You look friendly. Kitsune thought you were our best option to figure things out so we’re friends now!”
Something touched her, and she whimpered softly. “I… I think I can do that?” It sounded weak to her, but eldritch abomination either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Really, he’s a softie.” The fox had moved on from the entire dictionary and was quickly absorbing world-politics. “You’ll probably get along fine. I have to catch up on the local universe’s… everything, so just… keep sleeping. Eaera will keep you company.” The being of shadows on endings flickered over to her, dissolving into her shadow without a sound.
It was going to be a long night.
………
It was, in fact, a long night. Not only did she barely get any rest under the pervasive fear that lanced her entire being whenever she thought- just thought, about anything- by the time she did manage to fall asleep her dreams were disturbing and fantastical in equal measures.
At one point in time, she vividly remembered it stepping into her dreams and killing her nightmares. As if that made any sense… She woke late in the morning- having not set her alarm the night before, apparently even the sunlight wasn’t enough to rouse her from her exhausted slumber. She shifted with a weary groan, rising with the clinging shadows-
Wait.
Cleaning shadows. She glanced down, then decidedly un glanced back up. Just looking at the thing spread out over her like some sort of evil bedsheet made her want to laugh hysterically. Or cry. It just didn’t make sense.
Luckily the fox came to her rescue, dragging the darkness off her with one of her tails and nodding to her before going back to using her computer- no. Nope. She was not going to get in a fight with an eldritch kitsune just to grab her work computer. Not happening.
The rest of the morning was normal- she put cereal in the bowl, then ate the cereal. She showered, then dressed in standard uniform. She did not grab her laptop, everything else went into her backpack. She walked to the facility, and resumed her role as executive control, delegating people to work on… everything, really.
She scowled as a few diagnostics rolled in. Wrecked- that was the best way to describe the facility. Well and truly wrecked. The most damage was around the central machinery- anything there was unsalvageable, and some of it was just missing. As if it had been erased from reality entirely. Something shifted in her shadow, and she shied away from the thought. The entire energy system had exploded- a rush of energy moving backwards into the capacitors had caused them to catch on fire, and the automatic sprinkler systems had truly buried the last hopes of salvaging the electronics.
Only the main computer banks were unaffected, which was a relief- everything else was expensive, but replaceable. The critical information on the computers wouldn’t have been.
“Ensign. If you would…” She sighed, resuming a regal pose she really didn’t feel at the moment and met her chief engineer’s nervous gaze. Honestly? What was it with people walking on eggshells around her? She hadn’t been a bad boss the past few years, and wasn’t going to start now. “...I… the fox?What did you do with it?”
“She’s at my house. Browsing the internet, and probably pursuing politics. Or webnovels, or whatever foxes like.” She scowled at his dubious gaze, which caused him to positively cower. Seriously, the incident had everyone upset but this was excessive. “What? I’m telling the truth. It woke me up at midnight and spoke to me about manifestations or some other inanity.”
“I… yes, I believe you, of course ma’am… just, we were wondering where the thing was. General Cala wants to at least have the thing under constant guard, and… there’s already rumors on the media about it.” The facility’s existence was a bit of an open secret, but results could cause trouble- and if anything could be classified under the mythical banner of ‘results,’ this certainly did.
“I’ll keep your report in mind. Now, what about…” but his engineer had already squeaked an apology and run off. This was already getting frustrating, and… something warned her, some primal instinct and she stood up sharply- not that it mattered.
Her shadow solidified around her shoulders, languidly stretching in the suddenly cold room. “Sorry… this is fascinating! I’m not an expert- Ajinan would know- but dimensional work like this is… some civilizations who’ve advanced for trillions of years never stumble on stuff this advanced. The simplifications here are particularly inspired, even for us.”
“So you were the one scaring everyone off?”
“Yes! Um… sorry about that. I didn’t mean to- just, concept of destruction and everything…” Tanya flinched as it slumped dejectedly- even its innocent, cute movements were downright terrifying. “Sorry. Let’s try again! I’m Eaera, nice to meet you.”
“I’m… Tanya.” Hesitantly, she laid a hand on the mass of darkness, trying and failing not to shiver as he touched her hand with a thousand featherlight brushes from impossible vectors. “There was a particular genius a hundred or so years ago- practically invented half the math we know, and theorized about wormhole technology.”
“This isn’t wormhole tech.” The response was immediate and resolute, and only undermined slightly by the hesitant ‘sorry’ tacked on at the end. “It’s… imagine your universe as a sheet of paper. A wormhole is when you fold it like so-” and, to her immense astonishment, a wormhole twisted into appearance in the air in front of her. “What you’ve been working on is more like punching down the wall of the paper storage room! Or, in a worse case scenario- which you’re facility is far too weak to do- launching an interstellar hyperdense neutron warhead at the sheet of paper!”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“So… the facility destroys the universe if it ever works?”
“Probably not! Ajinan, or Kitsune cause’ she’s here would know better what’d exactly happen, but I imagine something along the lines of an apocalyptic scouring of everything in the universe followed by magic! Fun looking magic too, if what I saw on the edges of the membrane are anything to go off.”
At that moment, Tanya decided she’d be making an official recommendation for the project to be shut down. Followed by an unofficial debreif to the internet, and maybe an unscheduled visit to some secret torture room if she was unlucky. ‘Indirectly responsible for the death of the entire universe’ was not something she wanted on her afterlife resume. Assuming the facility didn’t explode that too.
“Of course-” Tanya briefly considered if hearing whatever world shattering facet of reality everyone had ignored for ooh shiny wormhole was worth it, then listened anyways- “Kitsune’s just finished looking at some stuff! Your research is almost definitely being influenced by an evil primordial goddess!” For a moment, she felt the shadow’s true anger, and… that was fear. Even directed away from her… she felt her soul quake.
There was only one appropriate response to that. “Well, fu-”
.........
“Well.” There was no need for an expletive, because she was more confused than she was angry. It hadn’t taken more than a brief internet search to make it obvious that Sija had some sort of role in the facility’s operation. That had been her guess even before they’d blown it up, and it continued to be her guess now. Even if it didn’t really make that much sense. “ISON, send a message to Eaera: ‘this is definitely Sija’s fault.’”
A brief moment passed as she perused the publicly available information on the facility and its research. [Message from Seraph: Eaera - “Got it! Our friend’s all upset now, existential crisis and stuff, so I can’t come. She needs some comfort.”] Kitsune chuckled softly at that- he was a great friend and better brother, but his presence… not comforting was putting it lightly.
“Do you think it could be a distraction? Or, some sort of plan that just needs to potentially happen? Or…” she spent a few minutes trading possibilities with Eaera, but nothing really fit. It was one of the most obvious plans SIja had ever made… and that was concerning.
Sija was not an obvious person. They were missing something here.
Sighing she shut the computer with a flick of her tails, hopping up to the windowsill and staring out at the city below. Eaera and Tanya would be busy trying to rebuild the facility, and while they did that… she had other places she could search. She nosed the window open, then leapt- to a sun soaked street, to a city under invisible siege, to a new journey more ancient than time.
A few people gave her odd looks as she slipped quietly through the crowds, but keeping her tails together and staying out of the busiest thoroughfare was enough to deflect most of the attention. Most of the people didn’t want to pay attention- busy with their lives. Unknowing.
The first night she curled up in an overhang beneath the broken steps of an abandoned warehouse, carefully going over ISON data on the branch structure. That was odd too- the infinite alternate timelines were there, but it was a really small infinity. The second night, on Eaera withdrawal, she snuck into some college student's apartment and played plushy while carefully looking at the branch norm. ISON wasn’t good at observing those- bound partially to reality as it was, it had to extrapolate backwards at least a little bit- but the beginning of time was perfectly regular for an uncleansed branch. It still carrying that whisper of SIja that always made her fear. Always made her remember- unity’s collapse.
The third night she slept on the bus. She’d made a note on the particularly blasé attitude of the city’s denizens when it came to that, because most cities she’d been to in the past would have given more than a raised eyebrow and shrug to a blatantly unnatural two-tailed fox paying for a bus ticket. It worked out, though- she managed to make the several day journey from the existing metropolis to the neighboring city in only a few hours.
The fourth night, she faced a varnished wood door and the house of someone who'd almost certainly been corrupted by Sija. The taint of it all clung to her mouth and existence, a twisting of the conceptual underpinning of reality, like a black hole tying it all together until variation was gone and oneness remained.
She wrapped a tail around the handle, burnt out the lock with what little spark of power she could safely use trapped in so weak a manifestation, and pulled open the door to answers.
Empty.
Cold-
She brushed a tail across the floor, scouring runes over runes, rewriting a barrier that preyed on the mind and rendered the entire house unremarkable. It was good, really good for a world that should have had access to this sort of magic, or any magic… but she’d learnt from Ajinan, and there was nobody better than him.
It wasn’t the only runic trap- some had been building power for decades. The entire room felt more real the further she walked in- less ancient and abandoned, more lived in. Halfway she could see space shift and flickers of a demiplane anchored on infinite points around a circle, clearly for storing… something. “ISON, record this. Priority.”
In the center of the room, surrounded by three runic circles of a complexity she couldn’t decipher, an event horizon hung- the world distorted about it, pulling- it demanded her to come closer, hated her, wanted her-
She dragged a tail across the circle-
The building exploded. Had exploded, and reality only caught up to it now as its decrepit walls got blasted out from the inside, space torn to shreds and healed in a moment, years in the scope of seconds. “I need a report now!” Wisps of fire coalesced around her with uncomfortable ease, for she could feel how thin the integrity of the universe was by this point.
[ISON report - timeline anomaly detected. Local demiplane A-1 was lifted out of real-time and suspended parallel to the local universal timeframe for forty three years. Disruption of the stabilizing matrix led to retroactive disintegration of affected time-space.]
That was the sort of thing Ajinan would deal with. “I’m so confused. ISON, tell Eaera to get here now. I have the feeling things are going to go wrong.”
Things, rather quickly, went wrong.
The stones bled, gray tears ripped out from their nature as there in the universe- the air crushed inwards, mountain pressure shifting, forming- the existence of all things. Drop by drop, the universe cried tears of impossibility, and a glimmering figure manifested into existence. It was gaunt, near invisible in its spectral paleness- though whether that was from a lack of energy or basic nature she couldn’t tell.
It had no face, but half its body bled. It had no eyes, but she could feel its tears. It was incomplete.
It was not Sija.
It was Sija.
She immediately lashed out with a net of fire that caught the air, ripping the bonds between oxygen and itself and burning it again, until a wave of fire crashed down atop it. Moments before it slammed the Sija-not-Sija to the ground it raised its hand, and she felt a pull, a tug on- something- and the fire lost cohesion, burning itself out in a wash of heat.
Then gravity slammed down onto her. A syzygy the universe long yet in a single point just beneath her subtly amplified, crushing her bones and tearing at flesh. Fire burst out from a crack in reality, her form consumed in ultimate annihilation- for she was that annihilation, and the gravity touching her burnt. A flex of will stopped the fire from spreading to the planet beneath them, but a thousand celestial bodies through Sija’s spatial convergence caught fire and burnt, their conceptual natures erased from existence.
The fragment of Sija hissed, pulling it’s arms back sans the parts which yet burned in the fires of annihilation. “Fragile…. fox, who breaks the base of being. Deft of touch, not enough. Too soon, but this world-”
“Stop being evil! Death to Sija’s monologues!” A black blur of shot through the air, crawled from the space it’d crept across, and the city block around them ended. One moment, another part of a city but for the random battle happening in the street, the next- gone. Reduced to less than nothing, physical nature crashed in an infinite cycle of destruction. Eaera really shone in these low-power universes. “I’m late, but! I came!”
“Thanks. Something’s really odd about this.”
“Yeah! I destroyed it, but it wasn’t destroyed. Can’t- whatever it was, it was purely conceptual. It didn’t latch onto a soul, or even etch its own pattern for one!” Kitsune shot him a concerned glance- it was another anomaly to mark down, but he’d know. He wasn’t an expert like Sara, but when one was the only being who could truly destroy a soul, one tended to know about how they worked.
The swirling destruction from Eaera’s arrival faded, leaving in its place a battered specter, softly shifting itself whole but for the burns from Kitsune’s fire. “Hate- hate hate- no, can’t. I can’t hate you, but you are destroying me, can’t be destroyed. Why are you here! My infinity was greater, promised, it is impossible for you to find me! Never… never…” it reached out with its hand, impossibly far, and Kitsune could see it trying to make a connection- but she had no soul. She had nothing to grab onto other than fire, and it screamed as it burnt, folding into itself and vanishing with a snap of power.
Kitsune just turned to look at an unusually somber Eaera, wincing as she released the hold on her annihilating essense and rebuilt her mortal body. “So… he’s not dead.”
“Yeah! Obviously… kinda hoped she would, but… no soul, sapient-”
“-obviously manifested form…” Kitsune scowled, already seeing how this was going to go down with the others. “It’s a conceptual being.”
“Like us.”
A nod, amidst the destruction and wail of emergency sirens, amidst the taint of- “Sija. A piece of Sija.”
………
Eaera took her back to the facility in the space between seconds, far more quickly with the boundaries of the universe as weak as they were. The darkness draped itself over Tanya’s shoulders like a mantle of shadow, comforting and terrifying, and the fire bloomed into the shape of a two-tailed fox nestled calmly in her lap. “That was… odd.” They spoke in a language foreign to the universe, sharp clicks and grammatical rules that would’ve been worse than cryptography for any local linguist.
“Yep! Uh, ISON’s saying Sija’s presence is pretty uniform across the branch, but way bigger in our specific universe.”
“I think collapsing the demiplane put…”
Eaera perked up near-imperceptibly. “Oh! Ima name this one…. ISON, designate hostile conceptual entity ‘Primordial Fragment Blood.’”
Kitsune nodded slightly, more flustered than she’d been since… meeting the other Seraphim for the second time? Or, back before existence, when they’d been running from the viscous shattering of Sija? “...it put Primordial Fragment Blood into this specific branch, and probably destroyed the demiplane on all the others.”
“Which means that the demiplane’s creation was normed into the entire branch!”
“If she could do that, then she should have been able to transform the entire universe into Sija… well, except for our five concepts, but I don’t see why she left it alone.”
Eaera shrugged softly. “Who understands Sija?”
Two hands grabbed Kitsune firmly, eliciting a yelp as it set her firmly down on the table in front of a rather irate Tanya. “I don’t understand you! Stop speaking in typewriter, and start speaking in comprehensible language!”
Eaera turned a piece of himself to her, bobbing softly in apology or excitement, or nervous fear. Kitsune’s tails were definitely running through the nervous fear types of movement. “Sorry! We were just trying to save you from a few existential crises!”
Tanya shivered. “More existential crises? They’re… not as bad, right?”
“Nope! These ones are so bad we’re having our own existential crises! It’s probably the worst thing that could possibly happen!” Eaera’s cheery delivery didn’t seem to do much to reassure Tanya, who glanced over to Kitsune with a fair bit of trepidation.
Kitsune gave her a shaky nod.
She whimpered.