I found myself standing on a field of rubble and ice, stretching endlessly to the horizon. In the distance, broken skyscrapers loomed impossibly tall, their hollowed-out floors wrapped in ancient glaciers. The sky above was a sickly purple-gray, casting everything in a dim, gloomy light.

Cold wind whipped at my face, carrying the scent of decay and something else - something metallic and strange. The air itself felt wrong, stale, dead for millenea.

Something pulsed in my pocket like a living thing. My hand descended and discovered the lighter Zee Captain had given me. I pulled it out, studying its grimy steel, scratched up surface.

I flicked it open. The flame that ignited seemed normal and it pushed the gloom away just a little bit, made me feel marginally less cold and lonely. The flickering light cast errie shadows, making the rubble around me shift and writhe.

"Gud tomorrow," a voice came from behind me.

I spun around and spotted a familiar figure in a long dark blue coat sitting on a lawn chair, camped on the surface of the glacier that we were inhabiting.

The violet lenses of Zee Captain's gas mask reflected the light cast by the lighter.

"Where is this?" I asked.

"Captania," he answered. "Dead Zone. The infinite corpse of the surface of Eureka omnistructure."

"This some kind of a dream?" I asked, studying the desolate landscape. "Why isn't my skin melting off? Why do those buildings have infinite floors?"

"Dreams, reality - such limiting concepts," Zee Captain waved a gloved hand dismissively. "As for ze buildings... perspective is relative when reality itself has been rewritten so many times. Ze Laws are more like... vague suggestions here. Ze Numbers have long given up on this place, let it twist itself into a very angry over-salted pretzel."

"Uh-huh," I nodded, focusing on Captain and not the way the skyscrapers loomed in the distance, seemingly stretching up forever and ever. "Why am I here?"

"Because I had a job to take a newly minted Wizardling to Manchester," Zee sighed. "And I failed."

"A Wizardling?" I asked, settling onto a broken chunk of concrete nearby. The lighter's flame flickered but held steady, pushing back the oppressive darkness. I didn't let go of the button that released the flame even as it burned my fingers ever so slightly, feeling that Captain might vanish if I do. "You mean Alexa?"

"Ja," Zee nodded, violet lenses gleaming. "I'm still going to have to do my job for I am a Good Wizard."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means zat I must take you to Manchester," Zee Captain replied casually. "And also that I cannot take you to Manchester because you don't have a Fractal Engine on you anymore. Zee problem is that Alexa stepped out of the pre-determined boundary of what was permitted. I am therefore at an impasse, uncertain of what to do with you."

"An impasse?" I asked, watching the lighter's flame dance. "What exactly happened with Alexa? Why can't you take me to Manchester?"

"She destroyed the transit terminal and hijacked ze train," Zee Captain sighed, violet lenses dimming slightly. "Sent it careening off ze tracks, across ze void between realities. Very naughty. Very clever. But also very dangerous."

"Where is this train now?" I asked.

"The train is still moving and also not moving," Zee replied. "The train also crashed into an endless number of worlds, leaving bits and pieces of itself scattered across reality."

"The train crashed into Earth?" I pondered aloud, the hair on the back of my head and neck tingling. "What... what the shit. Do you mean... The Wormwood Star?"

"Ah! You're good at ze guessing game!" Zee Captain clapped gloved hands together. "Ze train crashed everywhere and nowhere, you see? Like ripples in a pond, or perhaps more like shrapnel from an explosion. Bits and pieces scattered across everywhere where it really shouldn't be. Very naughty."

I stared at the lighter's flame, thinking. "And... some of those pieces landed in Omnithornia?"

"Precisely!" Zee nodded enthusiastically. "Though perhaps 'landed' is not quite ze right word. There is no single word to describe how catastrophic it all truly is."

"So when Alexa hijacked this train..." I began slowly.

"She became part of ze crash," Zee finished. "Part of ze current narrative of your world and many others. Part of you. Part of everything. Very messy, very complicated. Makes my job impossible. Not that my other job as ze Dead Zone System Wizard is any less possible to finish."

"Because you still have to take her to Manchester," I realized. "But she's... everywhere?"

"Ja," Zee sighed dramatically. "And nowhere. And also right here." A gloved hand gestured vaguely at me. "Which makes my task rather paradoxical, don't you think?"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"So what now?" I asked, watching the flame dance. "A dream sequence training montage? An explanation of how to use the lighter? A clarification of why Emerald Stratos melted into a puddle?"

"As you are merely human, for you ze lighter is just a lighter," Zee Captain shrugged. "Though perhaps because it is an object from the Dead Zone imbued with excessive amounts of magrad, it might help you blend in better with the cryptid critters by acting as a reality melting battery of sorts, since you cannot generate your own mana."

I squinted at Captain.

"Ignite it as you are doing now and the mana flow around you will increase enough for your body and soul to shift in a... particular direction."

"What direction?"

"Any direction. Enough magrad will bend reality through desire for a particular outcome. Numbers go up direction. Or down. Don't use it too often because it will inevitably run out of fuel."

"I see," I said. "Aren't you basically a god? Can't you do anything and everything, send me another one? Can I bend reality enough to wish for infinite lighter fuel?"

"Mmmm... no," Zee replied. "Your world is still quite finite, I'm afraid. Alas, our meeting was a happy accident which occurred mostly due to Alexa's actions. It will not happen again. It took far too much of my energy, tools and focus to make sure that the Dead Zone would not spill out of the gate to devour your entire world whole."

"WHAT?!" I choked.

"Oh yes," Zee Captain nodded casually. "Ze Dead Zone is quite hungry. Always seeking to spread, to consume. That's why I must stay there, you see? To keep her contained. To fix what cannot be fixed. A very tiresome job."

"So when Iogann opened that gate..."

"He nearly doomed your entire reality," Zee confirmed cheerfully. "Only one foolish dragon girl melted instead of your entire planet. Very lucky indeed. Captania does not play well with other places."

"Why didn't her Lazarus bracelet melt too?" I asked.

"Given enough time, it too would have broken down," Zee sighed. "Some things are just tougher than others. That trinket wasn't manufactured on your world. It was stolen from... elsewhere."

"Where?" I asked, my finger aching and trembling on the button of the lighter.

"Eureka," Captain said simply. "Inaria. Endalaus. She has many names. Ze needlessly, endlessly expanding omnistructure."

The lighter's flame began flickering, making Captain vanish out of existence amidst the debris sticking out from the glacier.

"What's happening?" I stammered.

"The Astral thread between us is fraying," Zee replied. "You're much too weak, far too removed from where I am."

"What should I..." I began.

"Alexa's actions have unbound the narrative of your world, gave it another chance, saved it from true oblivion. Do whatever you wish to do," Captain said. "Marry your true love. Plant a tree. Build a house. Die a million times. Lose yourself to infinity. Become a dungeon. Become a tree. Build a Fractal Engine. Just remember - ze lighter's fluid is finite. Once it burns out, once it's gone, it's gone. Don't let it fall into the wrong hands, because if they open a gate to its origin, your planet will turn to ashes."

"Wait!" I called out as the flame guttered. "I have more questions! About Alexa! About the...!"

But the flame died completely, plunging me into darkness that stretched on forever.

"Damn it," I ground out. "I totally forgot to ask him why she asked me to kill her."

"She will not answer this," the darkness said, a shawl of static with sparks of violet eyes. "For those were MY words for you and you alone."

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"I am Infinity," the static replied with a distinctively female voice, flickering across the endless dark. "I am Entropy. I am the Emissary of the Dead Zone, the speaker for all things forgotten and broken. I am everything and nothing. I am that which has been divided by zero and that which divides all by zero."

"Very swank intro," I said. "What do you want?"

"To congratulate you," the static sang. "You are doing well. Keep going. You are my most promising darking yet."

"Why do you want me to kill Zee Captain?" I asked. "Where am I supposed to find a gun that can kill a god?"

"I want you to kill ALL System Wizards in the End. I want you to unmake the Rules," Infinity sang. "I want you to kill the Numbers."

"How?"

"You'll figure it out," Infinity replied. "You always do. You've built a Mage Tower Fractal Engine once. You can do it again."

"I... what?"

"Good luck."

I felt myself stretching endlessly between wherever I was and where I should have been, feeling like my sense of self was an overextended rubber band that was about to snap.

Then it did.

THANGGGGG.

----------------------------------------

I woke up to sunlight streaming through the gothic window and a weight on my chest. Opening my eyes, I found Cinder curled up against me, her wings spread over us both like a silver-blue blanket. She must have fallen asleep after more angry roaming and trying to escape.

I carefully tried to extract myself without waking her, but her claws tightened reflexively in my stolen Novitiate robes.

"Mmph," she mumbled, burying her face deeper into my chest. "Five more minutes... too early."

I squinted at the ward hexagram gemstone over the door. It was green. Then I dug my phone out from under my pillow. Oh wow, I actually overslept for once. 6:58 AM.

Damn you, warm feathered creature. Vengeance will be mine.

I considered the most effectively hilarious way to wake up the Quetzi-beast currently slobbering over me.

"Psst," I jabbed her cheek. "Sleeping beauty? It's like 11:42 AM."

"WHAT?!" Cinder bolted upright, her feathers exploding into panicked oranges. "Oh Slayer, I'm so dead! Dad's gonna kill me! Zalimar's gonna put me in detention for a week! I can't believe that I missed first period and-"

I held up my phone, snickering and showing her the actual time - 6:59 AM.

"You absolute ASS!" She smacked me with a wing, her feathers shifting through irritated reds and embarrassed pinks.

"Good morning to you too," I grinned. "Sleep well?"

A soft knock at the door made us both freeze.

"Alexander? Are you awake, dear?" Lady Nova's voice called through the door. "Breakfast should be ready soon! I've brought you some fresh towels and clothes! Mind if I come in?"

Cinder's eyes went wide with panic.

"Just a moment, ma'am!" I called out, keeping my voice steady despite my racing heart while gesticulating for Cinder to do her ghost thing. "I was just... uhm... doing my morning prayers!"