Hey! I just got back from asking Caspian to write down his life story for this lil project. It’s going well. He says he hasn't written before but from what I've already read, he's either an undiscovered prodigy or a fucking liar. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get to the bigger names on the list like Fernando Ortiz (dude’s a major league baseball star, somehow got the Mariners to the world series), but I’ve covered a lot of the other bases, so to speak. Anyway, I hope you’ve been enjoying these stories I’ve been collecting. I like to think of it as a relaxing reprieve from crime fighting all day. A nice, long story to round out an eventful afternoon of fighting Supervillains and their bumbling henchpeople. Casp and I have even stopped some assassins from stealing a priceless artifact from a museum, though that’s a spy thriller for another time.
Today’s story is coming from yours truly. It’s got a lot of twist and turns, multiple anxiety spikes, and a healthy sprinkle of inane chaos.
Y'know, while I'm thinking about it, a good story is like the perfect ice cream sundae. You gotta sprinkle in the details, choose the perfect two flavor genres for your specific taste buds, and make sure that there’s a lot of heart put into the scoops. You can even give your ice cream super unique names like The Cherry Munster Mash, The Soured Helm of Cranberry, or Nightly Peachy Dreams. Then throw them in a bowl, throw on some toppings, and voila! A story sundae to enjoy on a sunday!
Now, If the story I was about to tell you was an ice cream flavor, I suppose I’d call it ‘Everlasting Multidimensionally Shifting Strawberry’, and it'd taste like if you had millions of strawberries in your mouth at the same time, which is similar to how much my life has changed.
You see, after everything that happened with Jared Lang and I got fired from my minimum wage movie theater job, I got a new job with an indie film studio over in renton. I haven’t done a whole lot for the company yet as I just started working there, but we’re currently working on a story about an elf in a high tech high fantasy dystopia who is a spy but just found out that the person who keeps sending him on missions is actually a serial killer shapeshifter who’s pretty racist and wants to either kill or enslave the elves. I didn’t write it. I’m just editing it. The script isn’t exactly great, it just kinda reads like someone watched a single Sean Connery James Bond movie and forgot to include humor. I think the writer also used AI in some parts of the script, but that’s not the story I wanna talk about.
No, this story isn't about The Quiz Bitch either. I'll get to that in another chapter. Long story short, she tried to set off the apocalypse. Well, one apocalypse. I hope more aren't coming. Anyway... the following story is about how I accidentally had a panic attack and discovered parallel dimensions, which are different from parallel realities.
The day started off great. I had the day off and I was about to spend the whole day relaxing to the smooth tunes of Season Three, Episode Ten of Community, Regional Holiday Music, but before that, I had to go make an emergency trip to the grocery store. It was a Saturday, and I wasn’t feeling great. But I had to go do my groceries or else I’ll die of starvation. Figuratively speaking. Maybe literally. The economy's been in shambles since 2022.
By the time when I actually got myself out of bed, it was about 7pm, late November of 2023. I spent the better half of the day replaying Persona 4 for the umpteenth time. It was closer to 7:30 by the time I got to the grocery store. When I walked inside, I noticed that Brendan was working at the register with the number 6 above it. I waved at him, he waved back.
The store was near 1am in the basement of a hospital levels of dead, with only a few old people wandering around the aisles, not understanding where they are or how they got there in the first place.
I didn’t come to the grocery store with any idea what I wanted, I was just hungry and needed something. Before I could enter any of the aisles to make a decision, however, a random guy who was decked out in neon overalls and fishnets as if he was about to go to a rave came running into the store and started flashing us.
And by that, I don't mean his genitals. He just emitted an insanely bright flash of light at the exact same intervals as a strobe light that covered his entire body. I covered my eyes instantly, ducking myself into an aisle far enough away from him as I tried to regain my composure. I wonder if this is actually the D-Level supervillain of Tacoma Ophelia mentioned in her chapter, I wondered at the time. She told me recently it was. Over burgers and a milkshake.
“Okay, think, Serenity, what reality do I need to go to in order to stop this seizure-inducing supervillain?” I thought to myself.
Suddenly, I heard some squawking noises coming from the other side of the aisle I was in, meaning that Brendan managed to summon his infamous pet Dodo Bird, Gerald. I was glad he was there tonight cause I cannot fight right now. I leaned into the shelves to better hear their banter.
“Turn off the lights!” The raveman shrieked.
“Dude, I can't do that, the lights go off on their own!” Brendan yelled back.
“I CAN’T TURN OFF THE LIIIIIIIIIIGHTS!” Raveman yelled so loudly that the entire store shook itself from the vibrations.
At that point, I remember feeling a huge spark in anxiety, which was also how I knew I had absolutely no idea where I was going to be next. If you need a reminder, the higher my anxiety is, the less control I have over my reality shifting abilities. Sometimes I can manifest it as a ladder if I have enough control, but if I have a panic attack, my anxiety gets so high that I can’t control it or whatever location I find myself in. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could as I felt my entire body get ejected from our base reality.
When I opened my eyes after I couldn't feel the rush of realities flying through me anymore, I didn’t recognize anything about my location. It didn’t feel like an actual reality. Everything was blue, clear, and looked like the outlines of a random office room. As I stand in this room pondering where I am, a blue, translucent spirit walked through a blue outline of a door with a clipboard and spoke.
“Name?” It asked.
“Serenity Eden.” I replied out of habit.
“Soul name?” It asked after a brief pause, in a more stern tone.
“I don’t know, blue... blob? I’m human and feeling really out of place already. I’m having a really bad panic attack, and my friend... well, not friend, more like coworker, he's fighting a guy who-” I said awkwardly and quickly before the blue blob cut me off.
“One moment.” It stopped me, flipping through the seemingly infinite pages of it’s clipboard.
It seemed like forever before it eventually stopped, looking at a name slightly down on the list, tapping his finger repetitively at the name he was looking at.
“Alright, come with me.” It said, not explaining anything.
It felt like it was gesturing to me to walk down a hallway behind a red door with gold rims that suddenly appeared in front of it, which looked very out of place for how blue everything else was. It wasn’t even an outline of a door, it looked like it was made from mahogany. When the blob opened the door, I saw a massive red carpet sprawling down thousands of doorways into different movie theaters between red and gold walls, with each door exhibiting a poster of the person whose life was being viewed, alongside an ineligible name.
“What is this place? Where are we going? Why are there movie posters everywhere? Is this another layer of reality? Hey, I know you can speak, please tell me what’s going on!” I spoke into the silence only embodied by the fresh smell of popcorn wafting its way through the endless hallway.
“You’ll understand soon enough, Phasewalker.” It responded.
“Understand what? What is this? Why do you know what I am? How do you know that word?”
“This is The Betwixt.”
After that, I just shut up. I realized this being wasn't going to answer any of my questions, so I took a look at the rest of the theater. We passed by a lot of high profile names, like Jordan Peele, Serena Williams, Neil Gaiman, etc. I never saw any names that weren't celebrities that I recognized, though. Only commonality was that none of these people were dead. It felt like hours before we actually got anywhere, before we finally reached a door with my name on it, and a poster. When I looked closer at it, I saw the title: ‘Serenity Eden’s Trouble With Existence’. When I walked inside, I saw something that nearly broke me mentally. I didn’t see anything that I was looking at, no thousands of little theater screens getting incrementally smaller, but instead I saw a computer screen through long brown hair, with words that I'm currently experiencing being typed onto a document.
As I stood there flabbergasted, I noticed another blue, translucent being sitting near the front of the theater’s auditorium. I felt it’s energy drag me closer to it, so I went over and sat down next to it.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“The Betwixt, lass. Didn’t %&#@$ hand you a pamphlet? No matter, I have a spare.” It spoke to me, handing me a thin blue piece of paper, or what counts as paper in this reality.
The pamphlet was just as see through as everything else was in the transparent blue lobby. There were electrical squiggle drawings of a single blue blob passing through an office, and entering the same red door that I went through, leading to what looks like a row of auditoriums in a movie theater, passing through similar theatrical doors. All of the text was impossible to understand for me.
“I can't read your language, sorry.” I responded, shoving the pamphlet into my bra.
“Ah, yeah. Well, I was expecting you anyway, so allow me to explain. You know that brief period of time between death and rebirth where souls decide where they wanna go next? That’s what this is. Souls deciding who’s life they wanna watch next. There’s a limited number due to the ongoing stupidity of your kind, so not everyone’s going to get a soul, and you’re... well, you’re actually a fictional character created by the person who’s typing on the other side of that screen.” It explained.
“So, like, a collective consciousness of humanity?”
“More or less.”
“Wait, I’m fictional? That's impossible. What do you mean?”
“You’re the main character in a collective series of stories that all come from the mad mind of this one person, based on the horrifying stuff she sees on a day to day basis. The poster changed itself to protect you from that so you could just have a minute to process things. The Betwixt does it’s own thing, we’re all just visitors in the grand scheme of life, y’know. Most phasewalkers are fictional, too. We never get anyone exciting wandering around here.”
“Okay not gonna process that right now. Would that make you part of the sea of souls, then?”
“Yeah, exactly. My name is incomprehensible to the human tongue, it sounds similar to the word ‘horse’ but with a slight lisp so it sounds more like ‘&!^#%@%$’, but that's not relevant. I’ve been viewing many different lives in these theaters since the renaissance. Got a few hundred years wandering these halls. We get unlimited tickets to view anyone’s lives we want to see, though a lot of doors still remain empty. Personally, I’ve seen Shakespeare, Andrew Lloyd Weber, A golden age actor who tragically died in a submarine accident after joining the marines, and now, I kinda wanna watch this girl. She’s got spunk, and I think she’s gonna go on to do great things.”
“Where are all the other souls, then? This theater could seat about a hundred.”
“Not a lot of souls have faith in writers anymore. It's unfortunate. You'll find a lot more souls in the theaters of more famous people like Tony Hawk or Carly Rae Jepson. Average folk don't get a lot of attention.”
“So there are people who exist, but no one wants to view their lives, so they don’t have souls? Please correct me if not, I am slowly going crazy right now.”
“Yep. Sometimes, people do heinous things for fun. No soul thinks watching a serial killer commit crime in real time is a fun saturday evening hangout sesh. People got bored by JK Rowling after 2018, which personally, I think is good. More souls to watch good people do good things. Or maybe, I just really enjoy watching storytellers. The girl behind this screen is one of the best storytellers of your lifetime, but right now, she’s known by very few. That’s about to change, and it’s all because of the art of storytelling. You see, kid, life is full of stories. You just gotta know which book to borrow. That’s just my personal opinion, though. I think a lot of souls believe Neil Gaiman and Chuck Tingle are the best writers of the current lifetime.”
“Cool, that’s a uh.. a lot to process, thanks. I think my anxiety is starting to- oh, shit.”
Without a second's notice, I was suddenly falling down an infinite series of realms at an overwhelming speed, as I have done numerous times already. After a decent bit, I somehow landed on the ground with enough force to break what I originally thought was at the base of the reality ladder, and landed firmly on a different floor underneath by about 10 feet. When I stood up, I was walking on what looked like an invisible floor with swirling dark hole-like spheres but without any of the actual properties of a black hole. When I walked over and touched one of the spheres, I saw what looked like a TV channel guide, but not like the one Omnigirl describes seeing, this one had one name at the top. My name. Not a different name like whoever the Soul Blob was watching, but my personal government name.
Underneath that, there were an infinite amount of channels, all showing what was happening to me specifically in every other... version of reality? But... it didn’t feel like it worked like the reality ladder, it was an entirely new system. It was more like... different dimensions. Versions of myself from timelines not of my current reality. At the very top of the list, was what I was witnessing. Channel one. Me staring directly at this screen.
Which doesn’t make any sense. How am I seeing out of my own eyes, now? I thought I was the creation of someone else. Wouldn’t I be seeing different versions of whoever was writing that book? I had far too many questions, and I don’t think I’ll ever have any actual answers. I may never find myself in the Betwixt again, so maybe it wasn’t worth contemplating until after I figured out what the sphere in front of me does.
I scrolled down the rest of the list and accidentally pressed Channel 63 with my finger, at which point, TV static covered my eyes for a millisecond before I regained sight on the sidewalk of a random neighborhood. Sort of like a sitcom transition.
Standing next to me was a slim guy with orangish-brown hair who looked like me prior to transitioning.
“Who the fuck are you?” He asked, stumbling backwards onto the sidewalk out of surprise.
“Serenity Eden. I’d explain where I came from, but it’s a bit complicated.” I replied, hastily, still processing what just happened.
“You fell out of the sky.”
“Yeah. I do that sometimes.”
“You... also have something blue on your cheek. It looks like it’s digital and sentient.” He spoke, pointing to my cheek after retaining his balance.
I wiped the blue spot off my cheek and it disappeared the second it hit the sidewalk.
“Yeah, sorry, that was probably just some form of Soul Resin. Bit sticky.” I said, smiling awkwardly.
“Okay, I’m going to ask one more time, who the fuck are you and why did you suddenly appear next to me, specifically?” He asked, getting a bit more frustrated.
“Okay, I'll tell you. Calm down. Truth is, I’m a superhero, and I don’t know what happened. Over the past hour I had a panic attack in the grocery store, got sent to an interdimensional movie theater, and now I’m in... Seattle, again, but there’s something off about it. Now, please tell me who you are and where I am so I can understand what the fuck is happening!” I replied back, getting slightly defensive because I was unfamiliar with everything that just happened.
“Okay, okay, fuck. My name is Sam. Samuel Eden. Your name is my deadname. I’m sorry you went through... all of that. Must be a lot to process.” He replied, toning down his aggression.
“Your deadname is... wait, I did touch the 63rd option in the holographic channel guide, didn’t I? Sam, are you familiar with the rules of the internet?”
“Okay, random, but yes, I am. Rule 63 is the gender-swapping rule of the internet, right? Every character will have a drawing of them as male and female if any character exists, right?”
“Yes, exactly. So, by accidentally tapping the 63rd Channel, I wound up in the 63rd dimension, which means... you’re me. And I’m you.”
We both stayed silent for a moment.
“Like... Persona?” he asked.
“Please don’t ruin this moment.” I replied.
“So you’re not the shadow version of myself from pre-transition, or trying to get me to detransition or something? Like some weird internet theory about Naoto Shirogane?”
“No, what? This isn’t a video game. Stop being cringy, I’m in a different dimension from where I started and I don’t know how to get back. I seriously need help. Do you have any powers? If you’re me, then I think you might be able to help.”
“I can shift through various realities. I... I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that blue stuff on your cheek earlier, though. I mostly use it to chill with Anubis. We smoke a blunt and discuss the deep metaphorical happenings of the universe. She’s pretty cool.”
“Oh, yeah, Anubis. He’s male-leaning in my dimension, but that just means we have the same power. From the torture.”
“Unfortunately, yeah. I was tortured by a former children’s author, Melissa Schnapp. She wrote a massive book about a school attended by witches and wizards but her career was ruined after she spoke out against queer individuals. She wasn’t able to deal with the intense hatred and couldn’t land another book deal, so she hid inside an abandoned laboratory, kidnapped 16 queer people and tortured them. I only managed to stop her when she tried to go on national TV under her more recent pen name, Matthew Shapiro.”
“Matthew Shapiro was the guy who tortured me and 15 others in my dimension. Though, he was a right wing radio host with the power to make anyone live their darkest nightmares if they simply look into his eyes.”
“Melissa had that power too.”
We paused, realizing we're both trauma-dumping information we already knew, but also didn’t. The parallels were uncanny. This dimension is connected to mine, directly.
Bonus points, the universe was so convinced I was trans that even the rule 63 version of myself is also trans, just on the opposite end of the spectrum. Guess the universe is actually pretty progressive.
“How’d you find this holographic channel guide? Maybe we can use that information to get you back.” Sam said after we walked down the sidewalk a bit more.
“I broke the ground at the bottom of the Reality Ladder, and I fell into a space-like area, but I was standing on nothing. There was a weird sphere in front of me, like the center of a black hole, and when I touched it, the Channel Guide came out.” I said, skipping ahead of him and stopping him on the sidewalk.
“Okay, that’s weird, because for me, it’s an elevator, with like, a giant question mark button on the wall so it’s just random where I end up any time I get a panic attack in a grocery store.”
“Yeah. The ladder is seemingly endless but the very top rung is the entrance to the godly realms, and there’s just names of other realities on the other rungs.”
“So... can you still summon the ladder, cause if not and you appear in an elevator, you might be screwed.”
“Guess I could try.” I said, closing my eyes and trying to summon my anxiety to send me to the paranormal reality, but instead of seeing the ladder, I ended up in an elevator.
“Fuck,” I thought to myself.
I exited the elevator which instantly took me back to the dimension I had wound up in.
“No dice. I got sent to your elevator. I guess that in each dimension, the method of traversing realities is different. This complicates everything.” I said, feeling rather defeated.
“You said that this space-esque room was below your ladder, right?” He asked, curiously.
“Yes, do you think that there could be one under your elevator?” I replied.
“Maybe, but the thing is, I can’t take objects from other dimensions into the elevator. I don’t know how. Every time I try, there’s an invisible barrier blocking the items from entering it.”
“That’s... weird. I’m able to do so when I’m on the ladder. It’s why it’s so easy for me to fight. Why are there different rules here?”
I paused for a moment, trying to think about what’s going on. Instead of a ladder, it’s an elevator, and I can’t bring items with me while riding it. This must be a puzzle, which I am not very good at.
“I’m going to use your elevator. I know where your apartment is, so I’ll just break into it later. Toodles!” I said, closing my eyes and getting back into the reality elevator.
Suddenly, Samuel popped inside. When he walked into the elevator, buttons started appearing randomly around the giant question mark on the wall. They each had names of different realities, ones Sam had already visited.
“You don’t know how this elevator works. You’re making a mistake, Serenity. Fuck, it’s weird to hear me say that to an alternate version of myself. Please explain what your plan is.” He said, annoyed.
“I wanna see if I’m able to pull objects into the elevator or if that’s just a you issue. If I can do it in my dimension, I might be able to do it in yours. We just need to find a dimension that has something that can destroy metal.” I replied, looking at the buttons of the places he visited.
“One of those previsited realities is just an eternal Marina and the Diamonds concert. That could destroy metal, and any other genre of music in my opinion.”
“Okay, once we get out of this mess, we’re definitely hanging out. Hopefully I’m not accidentally breaking interdimensional laws and also potentially reality while I’m here. For now, I need an actual weapon. Guess I’m just pressing the question mark.”
So, that’s what I did. I pressed the question mark, and within 30 seconds the elevator doors opened themselves to show a forest with prehistoric plant-life surrounding the doorway. The black screen above the doors read ‘Pandeia’.
“I don’t know if we’d find anything that could break a reality traveling elevator’s floor here. Wherever here... is.” I said, confused.
“Pandeia. Is that the original continent of earth or an alien planet? I don’t keep up with space stuff. Could also be the planet from Avatar. Or just an ancient place on another planet in our universe? This power is so confusing.” He spoke, disappointed, before pressing the button himself.
The doors shut, and the black screen above them cleared itself. Suddenly, I heard a sound I didn’t notice the first time that I could only describe as the type of sound that would play on a casino slot machine as you’re spinning the wheels. After a good 30 seconds, the noise stopped, and the door opened to reveal a massive city at night glowing with neon. The black screen above the doors then read ‘NuTokyo’.
“Ooh, I’m getting cyberpunk vibes. If any reality has a weapon that can break the floor of the reality elevator, it would absolutely be this one.” I said, looking dreamingly into the lights of the city.
“We’d die the second we step out there. I don’t have a gun. Do you?” Sam asked me in a very serious tone.
“Let me at least just try to take an object into the elevator, then.” I responded.
I opened my eyes and found myself on the corner of two signs I cannot read because everything around me is in Japanese, and despite taking it for 3 years in high school I cannot remember any of it. Suddenly, a woman in a cybernetic maid outfit approached me.
When she spoke, I didn’t understand a single word she said, but noticed she was handing out fliers, so after she finished talking, I just nodded and took one of them. When I closed my eyes and went back to the elevator, I was able to take the flier with me.
“Okay, progress.” I said, impressed with myself.
“Is that... a maid cafe ad from the year 2198? The girl in the ad is wearing cybernetic cat ears and looks like a Cyberpunk character.” Sam asked, moving closer and looking at the ad over my shoulder.
“They look really cute on her, though. In bigger news, I’ve retained my ability to bring items into the elevator.”
“Okay. Let me try, then. If you can, maybe I can too.” He said, disappearing from the elevator.
When he returned, he had nothing in his hands.
“Damn it, I really wanted that ice cream.” He cried.
“More puzzles,” I replied, “Maybe not every version of myself was supposed to have access to that place right away. I had to land on the floor several times before it gave way and this elevator doesn't seem like it would allow its user to fall from a similar height. If the area is below the floor... then we need something to break it.”
I pressed the question mark button again and the elevator started shuffling the choices one more time. After 30 seconds, the doors popped open to reveal the surface of a moon. The black screen above the doors read ‘Eindyr’.
“Nope.” I said, hitting the randomizer button again.
After 30 seconds of rumbling, the doors opened to what looked like a dark version of the north pole. The black screen above the doors read ‘Cottage of the Crampus’.
“Do not trust that.” I said, hitting the button again.
After 30 more seconds, the doors opened to a high school baseball field with a single dude in a red and white jersey standing in the middle of it.
It seemed endless after that. We had to try several times, and couldn’t find a single place. Nothing in Camelot, A Factory filled with Wet, Sentient Spaghetti Noodles, The British Parliament during a Zombie outbreak, A reality that’s just millions of cockroaches sitting on a sofa, A hotel ran by Cat People, A theater showing a musical theater parody about a bunch of politicians who are also sharks getting pissed off at a local school of fish for being more open-minded called “Twelve Angry Sharks'', A house that only contained 3 jars of jif peanut butter, 3 raccoons in a swimming pool, the office of a mouse detective in the 1930s getting exaggeratedly heated over a cheese corporation-related conspiracy, a normal waffle house, Atlantica, hollow earth, the inside of a dog's intestinal tract, and many, many, many more. After several hours of looking, hitting the button got tiresome, and we ended up going back to his apartment in his dimension.
He sat down on his queen-sized bed and I threw myself back-first onto it as well.
“What am I going to do? We can’t find anything to break the elevator floor because the random button is too random, and I’m running out of time.” I said, starting to freak out.
“When there’s moments like this, I think the best thing to do is call The Unreliables.” Sam replied, grabbing his phone off a table near his side of the bed.
“So the Unreliables exist here too. So does that-” I tried to ask, but Sam just ignored me and dialed a number on his phone.
It rang a few times before a feminine voice came through the other end of the phone.
“What’s up, Sam?” The voice said.
“I need your team to come to my apartment immediately. There is a version of myself from a different reality in my room.” He replied, speaking with urgency.
The voice at the other end of the line immediately hung up, and Sam sat back down on the bed.
“Was that femme Alphonso?” I asked.
“Alberta Ramirez, The Quantum Brain. Brenda Frakes, otherwise known as Buzzkill, Jacqueline Smith, a pacifist lawyer, and Anastasia Taylor, a trans femme assassin with a seriously transphobic dad, otherwise known as the vigilante Starling. That’s who’s coming. Alberta will likely be the only one that’ll actually help. Brenda is incredibly dumb and Anastasia overthinks everything. Jacqueline is just... not entirely there. Alberta is the brain of the whole shindig.” He explained.
“Yeah, that lines up with everything else. Even down to the backstories.”
We sat around for a hot minute as I told him everything about who I was and what was happening before I popped into this dimension, just so he knew the full story.
“How many areas does the afterlife have?” He asked after I finished explaining everything.
“Infinite, I assume.” I replied, before there was a knock on the door.
“That must be them.” He said, getting off the bed and opening the door.
The group behind that door was an entirely female version of the group in my dimension, with their clothes mirroring the styles of their gender flipped versions.
Alberta was wearing a white tank top with a green hue surrounding a test tube on it, and short jeans that showed off her mocha-colored legs really well. Brenda was dressed similar to Brendan, with a tank top that had the Jurassic Park Logo on it and the Oscar award for “Best Documentary” below it, as well as a black and pink skirt. She was also wearing a hat backwards for some reason, with black thigh highs. Jacqueline just wore a typical Day-at-the-Office Lawyer outfit, and Anastasia wore a glittery black dress.
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“Alright, which one of you broke through to our dimension?” Alberta asked.
“That’d be me. Serenity Eden, I am the gender flipped version of Sam.” I replied.
“Okay. Explain everything.” She continued.
Without hesitation, I explained everything that’s happened to me since I had an anxiety attack in a grocery store. It took some time, an hour or so, I wasn’t really paying attention to the clock. I also explained that because my powers are different in that universe, so I couldn’t get back home. After I was finished, the lady version of my friends looked flabbergasted.
“Okay, that’s... clearly a lot for anyone to process. Is your past also similar to that of Sams?” Alberta asked after taking a moment to contemplate everything.
“Yeah, but right-wing radio host instead of children’s author.” I replied.
“Okay, so you just need to get home, right? And those black hole things will help, so you need a device that can breach the bottom of the reality elevator? Am I understanding this correctly?” Alberta asked.
“It sounds insane, we know,” Sam began, “But if she was lying, she wouldn’t be standing in this dimension, would she?”
“I have an idea!” Brenda said, with everyone turning around immediately to look at her with prepared disappointment.
“Spill.” Jacqueline asked.
“If this elevator is like, time-resistant steel, then maybe the only one with the device to destroy it is the Kinderdrawer.” She continued.
“Glad that mouthful of a name didn’t change.” I replied.
“You want us to talk to Gavin Knight?” Alberta asked, incredulous.
“He’s in prison, remember?” Sam added.
“No, let’s, like, steal something from his house. It’s like, totally empty.” Brenda finished.
“I’m out.” Jacqueline said, headed for the door.
“You’re always out. You didn’t even help us when two giant ass mechs were murderizing the city!” Brenda continued, getting upset.
“I’m a pacifist, and I was working.” Jacqueline replied.
“Just because you’re a pacifist doesn’t mean you can’t help. Besides, helping charities where Billionaires just funnel their money into for tax write-offs is not helpful.” Alberta replied sternly.
“I’m not going to fight, and I’m not putting on that fucking wedding dress.” Jacqueline spoke angrily.
“Wedding Dress?” I whispered to myself, remembering something I had read in a previous chapter.
“You were the one who saw it, thought it reminded you of uma thurman, wore it once for training purposes, then never touched it again. We aren’t going to force you to fight with us to defend the city, but we are judging you.” Alberta said in the most serious voice I’ve ever heard.
“What I do with my life is my own concern. I'm not helping you regardless of how much you badger me about the fate of the world. You still work for Jared Lang. You don’t get to judge me on who I'm helping.” Jacqueline replied, before slamming the apartment door behind her as she exited the room.
“Fuck, and I thought the Unreliables in my universe were toxic.” I replied after a moment of silence.
“She has never really been a member of our team. Just happened to be there when we discovered the Shack.” Brenda said, shoving her hands in the pockets of her skirt.
“We only need the five of us anyway. Gavin’s house is under constant surveillance so we’ll need to be stealthy if we wanna steal something that can break time-resistant metal. Brenda, do you know exactly what we could use?” Alberta asked, directing her attention at Brenda.
“No clue. Never been inside his house.” Brenda replied.
“Of course not. Sam?” Alberta said, directing her attention at Sam now.
“No, sorry.” Sam replied.
“Anastasia, you’ve been pretty silent this whole time. You know anything?” Alberta asked, turning her attention to the silent woman still standing near the doorway, listening to everything.
“I may.” She spoke, walking towards the bed everyone was standing around.
Suddenly, she flicked her watch forward and popped out a holographic image of a large sword with a clock in the middle of the hilt and a red hue shimmering off the blade itself, with various numbers emerging from it.
“What’s this?” Alberta asked.
“The Timeslicer,” Anastasia started, “A sword so powerful that legend claims it can cut through time itself, or time-adjacent objects.”
“Hold on a second,” I started, getting confused, “This is a reality bending elevator. Emphasis on ‘Reality’. Why do we need a weapon that can cut time and not cut through realities? Also, wouldn’t the metal of the elevator need to be resistant to several things, like also Space and Reality itself? How do we know this Timeslicer would even work? None of you have even been in the elevator, right? Shouldn’t we be trying to find a dimension-resistant weapon, if any even exist?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” Alberta responded.
“I want to get home, and my anxiety is consistently bad. If I have a panic attack in this reality, then I have no idea what will happen. Help me.” I replied, shaken.
“Yeah. She’s right. Anastasia is the only other person in this room who’s been in the Elevator but in order for her to get home to her dimension, we can’t just pick the first pretty weapon we see.” Sam added, giving me a look that let me know he has my back.
Y’know, because we’re the same person.
Anastasia pulled down the Timeslicer hologram and began shuffling through the watch on her wrist, which is what I would assume was a Spy Kids-esque device. She didn’t really talk much about it.
“Your questions have been noted, and I have found something.” Anastasia spoke, throwing out another hologram.
I threw up my arms in response.
This time, it resembled a concrete saw, with a red metallic body. It didn’t really look too out of the ordinary, which made me skeptical immediately.
“A Concrete Saw. Reality Anchor Battery not included. If powered correctly, it can cut through anything.” Anastasia said calmly.
“A normal concrete saw? So I just walk into a home depot, take one, then break the floor?” I asked.
“No. You need the Reality Anchor Battery Pack in order for it to do any damage to the elevator.” She continued.
“So we just need a Reality Anchor...” Sam started.
“No. You need the Reality Anchor Battery Pack. They only sell them at one very specific place, and it’s not even on Earth. I only know about it because of my mom. She runs the highest profile assassin clan on the planet, and unfortunately works with a lot of extraterrestrial beings. Namely...” She said, dragging her finger across her watch to change the hologram to a very humanoid alien, “Agorbor. The Tourist Planet. Their black market contains the highest quality goods in the known universe because their natives leave their planet once they turn 18 to visit the rest of the universe, which means whenever they come back to Agorbor, they bring back whatever they find. If anywhere has a RABP, it’d be there.”
“Great, how do we get to another planet?” I asked.
“Lang,” Alberta chimed in, “Jessica Lang recently finished building a rocket ship meant to withstand the harshness of space before she was arrested for destroying the city in a Tanuki mech. She got help from NASA and her son, Jared, is continuing the project. We can’t get there another way right now.”
“We’re going to steal a rocket?” Brenda asked excitedly.
“Maybe not a rocket. That's just what the newspapers claim.”
“Agorbor isn’t a separate reality so we can’t just take the elevator over there. I guess stealing a rocket is the only way to go.” Sam replied, brushing his finger past his nose in a way that makes him think he’s cool.
“Alright, today started with a flashbang from a supervillain and is going to end with me travelling to another planet. When I get back to my dimension, I am going to cry and pass out immediately.” I replied.
“We have no time to lose. Let’s devise the heist in the car on our way to Lang Corp.” Alberta said, immediately exiting the room.
The next hour went by slowly. The car was filled with chatter, but I couldn’t really say anything. I always felt out of place my entire life, like I never really had anywhere to belong, even in movie theaters. Now, I felt even more out of place, and it was worse because I was. Literally. Plus, I had enough time to process everything that happened. Not even just about the Raveman or this gender-bent universe, but also the Betwixt. A Reality in which I’m a fictional character. Which means everyone in that car was also a fictional character.
I didn’t want to think about it. But the thoughts themselves infested my mind. I couldn’t comprehend anything, I wasn’t willing to acknowledge that everything I saw out of my own eyes I now knew wasn’t even real to begin with. These other people who are on the opposite end of the gender spectrum from my friends weren’t real. My friends in my dimension weren’t real. Who created me? Why do I exist? If I’m fake, then wouldn’t all the trauma I’ve been through be fake too?
It felt so real. My life, my experiences, all of them feel like they’ve happened. To me. I can use my senses. I’ve hugged these people tightly, with love. Then there’s a blue soul blob telling me that everything I know is fake? That doesn’t make sense. Who do I trust? Old Theater Souls or my own eyes?
Eventually, we got to Lang Corp, which looked exactly like the building from my universe. We all hopped out of the car.
“Alright, Brenda, distract the guards. Sam, Serenity, you’re with me. We’ll sneak in through the side door. Stasia, do some reconnaissance.” Alberta said, pointing at the guards standing in front of the building.
Anastasia immediately clicked a button on her watch and turned completely invisible.
At the same time, Brenda smiled, then immediately pulled out a box with a button on it that looked exactly like Brendan’s box, and ran towards the guards as we moved off to the side into some bushes. Brenda then immediately slammed the button on the box, emitting a flash of bright light, and summoning... a dodo bird.
“Gerald! Use Distract!” Brenda yelled, attracting the guards attention.
“Is that a dodo bird?” One of the guardsmen asked.
“Seriously? Buzzkill and Gerald are here? I want an autograph! F-for my kid. She loves Dodo birds.” The other guardsman said as he pulled out a notebook and a pen from... somewhere.
Alberta motioned us to move through the side door while the guards were distracted. After that, it was actually simple to get to the place we needed to go. There weren’t any other guards and the front entrance had a massive map akin to a shopping mall explaining where each room was.
“There’s no rocket bay on here, Alberta.” Sam said quietly.
“Then we take the next best option.” Alberta replied, running in the direction towards a room marked ‘Ship Bay’ on the map.
Both of us followed her, and when we reached the ship bay, we learned that Lang Corp wasn’t just working on Rockets. They were working on Star Trek spaceships. There were quite a few, and each of them had their own name.
“Lang Corp was working on this in a different section of the building?” Alberta said, flabbergasted.
“I wonder if they got these in my dimension as well.” I replied.
We walked around the area a bit, looking at the different ships, before spotting what seemed to be perfect for our situation. The S.S. Valkyrie. We all turned to look at each other and nodded.
“Okay, we found the ship. How do we go inside?” I asked, when suddenly the hull opened up and a short, bug-like man in a red shirt left the ship.
“You must be our new Captain,” He started, holding his hand out in front of Alberta, “Pleasure to meet you, I’m the security lead, Valal Ha’zack.”
“Alberta Ramirez. This is Commander Samuel Eden, my first officer, and Lieutenant Commander Serenity Eden, Sam’s sister and world class radar technician. Jared has assigned us this vessel to make an urgent supply run to Agorbor. I trust the crew will be able to handle a trip like that.” Alberta replied, suddenly speaking in a very stern tone.
“Of course! I’m Agorborian myself and Jared frequently makes trips to the planet for very specific reasons,” Valal replied, “Come. I’ll give you a tour.”
What followed was a near exact replica of what you’d expect a ship from Star Trek looked like. It had a holodeck, a full cafeteria that could materialize food, several bedrooms, scientific research stations, a nurses office, hangers, etc. The detail of the ship itself was also incredibly detailed, as there were several signed photos hanging around the bridge, all from former Star Trek cast members.
“Is Lang just a big star trek fan? This is the coolest thing I’ve ever walked through.” I whispered to Sam, who was standing next to me as we continued to follow Valal.
“I had no idea that this is where the company's resources went,” Alberta said to herself, “Must be a Jared project.”
“That concludes the tour! Now, please assume the correct chairs as I gather the rest of your crew.” Valal spoke cheerily, exiting the bridge.
“Okay, I’ve watched every season of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and exactly 1 season of Voyager. I might be able to bullshit my way out of a diplomatic radar situation.” I said to both Sam and Alberta.
“Great, now let’s figure out how we’re going to steal this ship.” Sam responded, slightly frustrated, “because there’s an entire fucking crew on board and this is not an empty ship. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out that Lang did not assign us.”
“We just have to play our roles,” Alberta responded, “Oh, by the way, I actually finished Voyager, and watched all of Lower Decks.”
Alberta walked away and immediately sat down in the Captain's chair. I turned over to Sam.
“Easiest way to steal a ship is to pretend we aren’t stealing the ship.” Sam said, then sat down in the Commander’s chair.
“Where the fuck is Anastasia?” I grumbled to myself, before walking over to sit and investigate the radar system.
It was more complicated than I expected, with far too many buttons and absolutely zero labels. The radar screen was like a typical radar screen, with tiny dots surrounding the ship in the middle of the radar. I didn’t want to press any of the buttons, one of them might cause the ship to self-destruct.
We all waited for a couple minutes, before Valal finally came back with 4 other crew members.
“Thank you for waiting! Here’s the remainder of your crew. Firstly, your nurse, Lady Catherine.” Valal spoke up cheerily, introducing the crew one by one.
Lady Catherine was in a really skin tight nurses outfit. I was definitely in trouble. I could feel my dysphoria in my pelvic area growing. Luckily I was wearing pants today, but I assumed that they might need me to wear an actual uniform, and if I have to wear a uniform, I’m choosing to wear the femme one.
She looked directly at me, with her distinct auburn eyes peering deeply into my soul. She was complete with dark brunette hair and a really fucking cute nurses hat. Then, the fact that her skin was the most beautiful shade of mocha I’ve ever seen made me second guess whether or not something out there could just be fucking with me.
“Next up, your security officer, weapons expert and demolitionist, Da’ahn Vlodek. Claims to be the son of Hephaistos himself.” Valal continued, introducing a massive creature in similar weight and size to an Orc that could barely fit through the doorway of the bridge.
I didn’t feel any particular way about him, but he took his seat just above Alberta and Sam.
“Third in line, your scientific lead, Margaret Fizzle!” Valal continued, introducing a small, blue-ish skinned fish woman with golden hair balls stacked on top of each other resembling a kind of castle.
She had 3 legs, 3 eyes, 3 gills, and a tattoo of a Psyduck on her leftmost leg. I don’t need to explain much more. She went to the opposite computer from my side of the bridge.
“Finally, Ginger Snaps, the Bartender.” Valal finished, introducing the final crew member, a drag queen named Ginger Snaps who’s whole thing is that she’s a southern bartender with an air of death and werewolves around her, I guess?
“Well I’ll be!” Ginger started in the gayest voice possible, “I reckon that there’ll be some fine dining round these parts.”
“Why do we need a bartender on the Bridge, it’s the one place we need to be sober? We can literally replicate anything food or drink wise in the cafeteria! We don’t need a bartender!” I asked aloud, to which no one responded.
Ginger walked over to the front of the bridge and just... stood there. She didn’t really move at any point after that, like she was only there for some joke no one on this ship understood.
Someone had to be fucking with me.
“Where do we go, Captain?” Margaret asked in a voice that sounded like it was being filtered through water.
“Set Course for Agorbor.” Alberta replied.
“Rodger Dodger!” Margaret replied cheerily.
Suddenly, the hanger gates opened to hundreds of miles of open ocean near the Puget Sound. When we took off, Margaret turned on the camouflage so the rest of the city didn't see the ship, and within seconds we were out in space, headed for the one place we needed to go.
“Estimated time of arrival, 1 hour!” Valal said in a tour guide-y voice.
Everyone started to stretch and leave the area, except for Myself, Sam, and Alberta.
“Okay, what the shit is going on? This whole experience feels like it was written by someone who watched star trek a whole bunch but had exactly 0 media literacy and called it woke on facebook.” I said, frantic.
“Yeah, this is getting really weird. What’s with the drag queen? She isn't moving or saying anything unless Valal says something. Then there’s the demolitionist, a really buff alien, a hot nurse, and a confusing fish alien? This doesn’t even line up by Star Trek standards.” Sam replied.
There was a brief moment of silence, before I came to a realization.
“How many sexual assault trials has Jared gotten into before he became CEO?” I asked.
“43. He was declared innocent in 20 of them and pleaded guilty in the other 23, but his mom posted his bail every time and the charges were wiped. I was his secretary for a brief time and he asked me to make everything go away.” Alberta replied.
“So he’s a power hungry rapist with unlimited money who doesn’t understand Star Trek or Women or Drag Queens or... anything, really. Is this ship a sex thing? I really hope this doesn’t make me come to any realizations about my dimension’s Jessica. She’s Jared’s daughter.” I responded.
“Geez, I really hope this whole ‘there are multiple dimensions’ thing makes sense after this is over.” Sam replied.
“On a more serious note, where the fuck is Anastasia? There’s something weird going on. Is the writer just absentminded?” I said accidentally out loud.
“The Writer? What are you going on about?” Alberta responded before a voice came in from the speakers.
“Captain, there’s a call coming in from the Kreik’s Leader, Sammustein.” Valal spoke in an oddly serious tone.
“The Kreik? Christ, that name’s bad.” I whispered in response.
“Patch us through.” Alberta said, still sitting in the captain’s chair.
“ALBERTA.” Sammustein said.
He looked like a massive Orc covered in slimy skin that oozed over his entire body with a light grayish tone. He did not look like he wanted to be there.
“How does he know your name?” I asked loudly to Alberta.
“Lang put a BOUNTY on your head, ALBERTA. No one steals from Jared Lang and gets away with it.” Sammustein replied angrily.
“Fuck.” Sam & I both said at the same time.
Alberta then suddenly tried to hit a large red button, but before she could reach it, a tiny red laser shot directly through her forehead, causing her to immediately die in the Captain’s chair.
“You two! Stay there. My people shall use you for nutrients.” Sammustein laughed before shutting off comms.
“Holy shit what the fuck is happening? Did he just shoot the quantum brain IN THE BRAIN?” Sam shouted.
“Jared really does have fuck-off money.” I replied, crazed.
I just say someone die in the most painless way possible, instantly, without a second to process it. One moment Alberta was there, and the next... she wasn’t, and this wouldn’t be happening if I wasn’t here.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Suddenly, Anastasia uncloaked her camouflage and appeared in the corner of the room.
“Shit. I was going to just stay hidden and enjoy the free entertainment but that’s... that’s too much.”
Valal walked back into the room, staring at Alberta's dead body before snapping his fingers, making her body completely disappear.
“Well, it seems you lot are in quite a pickle indeed. Commander’s next in line for Captain, though, so make good on Alberta's last wish and play your role!” Valal called out to the bridge.
“Play our roles? What in the Gabriel from Supernatural fuck do you mean?” I called back.
“Just enjoy the ride, Serenity Eden.” Valal spoke before walking out of the room.
“Something is off about this trip.” I said aloud, looking at the nurse.
“I guess we should just focus on the mission and grieve Alberta's death later. She lost her life trying to get you home,” Sam replied, “we got 40 minutes. Relax.”
I sighed, not sure what to think. Knowing that Sammustein may be back at any moment bothers me, but that's not something I needed to worry about.
I left the bridge with Sam in the Captain's chair to grieve and process things and went to the Cafeteria.
The hallways looked like replicas of the hallways on Deep Space Nine, to almost perfectly matching details. People in red and yellow shirts continuously passed by me, like the Earth-63 Jared Lang really loved the show but paid more attention to the sets instead of the script.
The cafeteria was not as detailed though, and looked more like a fancy dining restaurant than a mess hall. There was a bar area, and somehow Ginger Snaps was serving Alcohol. Well, she was more just giving alcohol to people after a DNA replicator made it. I sighed and went over to the bar area.
“What'cha poison, dearie?” Ginger spoke in a way that sounded passively homophobic.
“I don't really drink. Water, I guess.” I replied, exhausted.
“One whiskey, coming up!” She spoke, mishearing me possibly on purpose, and replicated a glass of whiskey on the rocks.
I took a sip.
It was far sweeter than I expected it to be.
“Is it to your likin’, Young'in?” Ginger asked.
“You're setting queer rights back by a decade, this whiskey is far sweeter than I anticipated, and nothing about this ship feels right.” I replied before a random hand placed itself on my forehead.
I turned. It was the nurse, Lady Catherine.
“Hi.” She spoke in a sultry voice comparable to Jessica Rabbit.
“Hi.” I responded in the most lesbian way possible.
“You have a fever.”
“Probably due to me being in the wrong dimension.”
“Nonsense. You were always meant to be here and but interdimensional travel doesn’t usually cause fevers.”
“What do you mean?”
“About which thing?”
“The idea that I was always meant to be here. That sounds like the kind of bullshit I’d hear in a generic time travel movie written by Robert Zemeckis.”
“This journey will always happen, in the same way, in all dimensions. Alberta/Alphonso will always die. Anastasia/Caspian will always disappear until the last moment. Brenda/Brendan will always be left behind. You and Sam will always be left to clean up the mess. The story will always unfold the way it was meant to be.”
“I never told you any of the names of the people in my dimension. Also, what do you mean Alphonso’s always going to die?”
“I like to take notes. I’ve seen several parallel realities befall the same disastrous fate, many, many, many times. The entire journey of your team, who have done more good than their name would suggest. In every major event, the same pattern occurs. Caspian disappears, Brendan is left behind and makes a fool of himself, Jacob refuses to participate until the situation is dire. He is always battling something, even if there’s no physical violence involved. Alphonso will always know where to take the team, until the moment where he is no longer able. This pattern cannot be altered.” She delivered, waving the Bartender over, “Ginger, please get me a Margarita.”
“Right away!” She said, hanging the nurse the replicated drink.
I took another swig of the Whiskey.
“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” I asked.
“Most of the others are actors, hired to fulfill the fantasies of a psychopathic frat bro millennial who just inherited the biggest company in all of Seattle. As for me, right now, I'm just a secretary cosplaying a nurse.” Catherine sighed.
I took yet another swig of the whiskey. Catherine seemed to be drinking her margarita faster than I was.
“Ginger, are you also just doing this for money?” I asked.
“Yeah. Truth is, I’m not even a drag queen. I’m actually an afab drag king who couldn’t book a gig because I killed the 37th US Congressman Jonathan Smithers in 1985. My actual stage name is Peter Pork Her.” Ginger replied.
“Great name. Don’t know who Jonathan Smithers is, but I don’t care, I cut off the dick of Matthew shapiro. I’m gonna pretend the guy you’re talking about is a republican.”
“He was a right winged libertarian.”
“Then he probably deserved it. I don’t fully understand how you’d get banned from drag just for that, but you also don’t know secrets about my home universe soooooo...” I directed my attention back to Catherine, “are we all stuck on the ship?”
“Yeah, except for Valal. He's an actual tour guide and really likes guiding people around Agorbor.” She responded, finishing off her Margarita, and looking straight at The Drag Artist Formerly Known as Ginger Snaps, “Another, if you would.”
Peter replicated a second Margarita and handed it to Catherine.
I finished off my Whiskey.
“So you said you like to take notes? Maybe there’s something in your notebook that can help me.” I asked a second time.
“I do like taking notes. It's actually pretty fun. I've seen people much like yourself fight unknowable entities, chaos gods of the elder realm, and titans of prehistoric sizes, so I do take a lot of notes.” She replied, throwing a notebook on the bar counter.
I opened it. Inside it was a lot of drawings, words, numbers, etc. There were etchings of beasts I had only seen in D&D games. Tales of people I've never heard before. Portraits of angelic figures covering entire pages. Eventually, I found a set of pages describing my reality and the reality I've currently found myself in, including notes on this exact scenario I'm currently in.
“How long have you been taking notes?” I asked inquisitively.
“A nurse doesn't reveal her secrets.” She replied.
“I thought you were merely a secretary cosplaying a nurse?”
“That too.”
I took a look at the back of the journal, near the bottom, and a group of words stuck out to me: The Queens of Chaos.
“Is this a group?” I asked, pointing at the words.
“You'll understand soon enough. Now if you excuse me, I need to flirt with the Captain. That's what Jared's paying me for.” She replied, finishing off her second Margarita, grabbing her notebook and leaving for the Bridge.
“Rude.”
I tried to take a swig of my whiskey before I remembered that it was as empty as my hopes that this mission will end exactly the way it needs to.
“Attention, uhh... I need the bridge people to come to the bridge.” Sam's voice came through the intercom.
I finished off my whiskey and made my way back to the bridge.
“Prepare for docking.” Sam said as he pressed a button on his seat.
After what felt like the longest docking sequence in known history, we landed at the Port of Laberia, on the planet of Agorbor.
“Welcome to Laberia, the biggest and only city on Agorbor! Filled with gold to be spent on educating our youth, marble columns and the most glamorous black market this side of the Gregarion Galaxy, this city is the hottest spot for any travelers seeking relaxation.” Valal said as we exited the ship, looking onward at the city itself.
It was big, fancy, and bustling. There were creatures from all walks of life roaming booths of random stuff, most of it looking like priceless, ancient treasure.
“Okay, so, Reality Anchor Battery Packs. Where would they be?” I asked myself.
“Probably at the stand titled ‘Reality Anchor Battery Packs for Sale’.” Sam replied, pointing at a stand that looked like it was being run by an elvish alien.
We walked over to the stand, hoping to figure out a price.
“Hello, what brings you to my illustrious stand?” The elf-like being asked.
“Reality Anchor Battery Packs?” I replied, pointing at the sign.
“Of course.” He spoke, handing me a Reality Anchor Battery Pack.
I took the battery pack away from him with little resistance.
“I don't need to pay or anything?” I asked.
“Pay? Nonsense, we don't use money here. Most Agorborians don't stay here long enough for it to matter.” He laughed in response.
I turned to look at Sam.
“This seems too easy. Just this and a concrete saw?” I asked Sam.
“I don't know. I can respect the anti-capitalist vibes this place is putting out, though.” He replied, shrugging his shoulders.
“Okay. Is there a concrete saw somewhere nearby, then?”
“Yes.” Anastasia said, appearing out of nowhere holding a concrete saw.
“Stop doing that!” Sam shouted in surprise.
“I refuse.” Anastasia replied, handing me the saw.
I did what I felt was necessary in the moment, I shut my eyes and found myself back in the elevator. Within seconds, Sam also appeared there.
I attached the Reality Anchor Battery Pack to the Concrete saw and pulled on the string to get it started. Once it started being loud, I put it near the floor of the elevator and started slowly moving it across the metal bottom.
Nothing happened.
“Okay what the actual fuck?” I asked.
“This should work, why isn't it working?” Sam replied.
I closed my eyes one more time and went back to the dimension I emerged from.
“What the hell, Stasia? The saw isn't working.” I said angrily.
In response, she just started laughing and snapped her fingers. As soon as the snap was over, reality started fading around me, turning into a black void with only myself and Anastasia inside.
“What the fuck is happening? Is this some kind of joke to you?” I yelled.
“It’s so easy to fuck with you, Serenity Eden.” Anastasia spoke, in a deeper voice than she had been using.
“... you're not Anastasia.”
“Correct.”
With another snap of her fingers, Anastasia disappeared and reappeared as a slender, middle aged black woman decked out in a green and black dress with fishnets covering her arms and relatively long legs, with a green crown on her head.
“Odin sends his regards.” She continued.
“Who are you?” I asked, getting incredibly frustrated.
“Guess.”
I thought about it for longer than I should've.
“Loki?” I asked.
“Ding Ding,” She replied, chuckling, “I knew I liked you. I've spent a bit of time in your reality. Maybe after? Well, I’ll always be in your reality, regardless of time. One of your friends delayed my plans a bit, but I don’t mind. The coming cataclysm is inevitable.”
“Are you responsible for everything that just happened to me?”
“I would have liked to be, but it wasn’t until you tried to sneak aboard a starship that I wanted to mess with your reality. There was a minor thorn in my side, but I plucked them out, just like I plucked you out, Phasewalker.”
Loki winked at me.
“Wait, so... Earth 63 was real and the Betwixt wasn't your doing?” I replied, losing my anger.
“Yes, Earth 63 is real. Alberta is also actually dead. Sorry not sorry, she would’ve died eventually. I don’t even know what a Betwixt is, is it a candy bar or something?” She replied slyly.
“No, it’s like a movie theater for souls looking for their next host or something, but hold on. How are you here? Aren’t your powers mostly for gender shenanigans and frost giant strength?”
“A little help from two gods who are no longer among us: Janus and Kronos.” She cackled.
In that moment, I saw something blue and spirally attached to the necklace she was wearing. It had a design similar to a symbol of Kronos painted on it. There was another blue necklace with a stone with a door painted on it attached. I still don’t know what those necklaces are supposed to be, but I knew it wasn’t anything good.
“Send me back to my dimension.” I replied in a very serious tone.
“And miss all the free entertainment? Come on. I'm not that scary. I’d kill you now even though you’re not remotely strong enough to face me, but I’m leaning on letting my cult fight you instead. They’re more your speed.”
“Your cult? Are all the gods your level of being incapable of being clear?”
“Okay, fine, you’ve annoyed me so here's two freebies. The girl who wrote you that letter is one of the seven, and Odin’s request is about to come into play very soon. Or maybe not. Time will tell.”
After a brief chuckle, Loki snapped her fingers one last time and I found myself back in my apartment, like waking up from a bad dream. I pulled my phone out of my purse and started messaging the Unreliables group chat.
Serenity: Bad news everyone
Brendan: holy shit she lives! We've been looking everywhere. You just disappeared for two days.
Alphonso: what happened?
Serenity: to make things short, soul prison movie theater, I can shift through different dimensions, I met the transmasc version of myself, Loki created an entire fake star trek scenario and I think she's about to start Ragnarok. Maybe not just Ragnarok? I dunno. Loki’s not being clear about her plans. She did insinuate that she killed both Janus and Kronos somehow, which means everything we know and everything we don’t know are in danger.
Alphonso: Bad news indeed.
Brendan: Woah, are we finally getting our first world ending team building crossover event?
Alphonso: Let’s hope not.
Ophelia: Loki? Again?
Serenity: There's new people in the group chat?
Ophelia: Ophelia's the name, my band and I just stopped Loki from taking the Shroud of Chaos. Tamicka has it.
Tamicka: I do.
Alphonso: I added both of them. Ophelia was doing her own thing until about two days ago when I approached her in an alleyway after her show. Tamicka was also there.
Tamicka: I’m a forbidden child of Loki and Zeus.
Caspian: That's not how the Mythology goes.
Tamicka: Forbidden Children are rarely talked about and hardly known, but trust me, Zeus had a lot of them. With a lot of different Gods.
Caspian: Name one.
Tamicka: David Copperfield. Zeus and Isis.
Brendan: Name another one.
Alphonso: Shut up, Brendan.
Tamicka: Anne Hathaway. Zeus and Freyja. Sydney Sweeney, Aphrodite and Freyja. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Zeus and Thoth. That guy from that one show about a Pawn Shop? Hephaestus and Hathor.
Caspian: Interesting.
Serenity: So not only do all the gods exist, but they also figured out how to sleep with each other?
Tamicka: Sums it up, yeah.
Serenity: Looking forward to your help, good night.
I put my phone down and laid upon my pillow, trying to understand everything I found out today. About who I am, what I’m meant to do, and how to do it. I was lost then, and I am just as lost now. Learning that my existence is not real, that nothing I do matters except to pave the way for the story? How was I supposed to grapple with that information? I can’t simply forget, and now I have to stop the apocalypse? Maybe several? Maybe none? In an indeterminable amount of time? Holy shit.
I won’t be able to control my anxiety.
Is that what Loki wants?