This turned out to be a mistake.

Oh, not because he'd killed Abby. He hadn't. He'd guessed right, from the way everybody was talking. This place was a dream, after all. A dream where they could die, maybe, but a dream was still a dream. The only thing that was all the way real here, the way Kyle saw it, was the thing they were fighting. So if he really, really focused, just on that, he could probably grab the thing inside her without hurting Abby.

Right? That made sense.

He could already hear Tanya yelling at him.

But it actually worked! His hand passed right through her chest and gripped the eerie swirling thing inside of her. His hand closed on it, ready to pull it from her, free them so they could...

Be back where they started, he supposed, without a way to kill or be killed by the deranged dream creature. But freeing Abby was important and...

The thing felt terrible in his fingers. Like he was grabbing nothing that was covered in slime that hated him. It wiggled impossibly in his grip and then, as it tugged in his hands, he was pulled somewhere else. Like he'd been pulled deeper into another dream, inside another dream, spiraling down.

He was fighting someone. Someone he knew. He could feel the hate from the fight, but he couldn't tell if it was him or his opponent.

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A wedding. His. The bride was Jenny, but the scene kept changing, and the room was filled with love but at the corner of his eyes flickered fire and death.

He stood in an arena, ringed in brass and gold, waiting to see who his opponent would be.

The dragon. The dragon. The dragon. It was huge. No, it was...close? It tore through everything, it tore the world to pieces, and when they fell back together the shape was different...

And then he was in darkness, with the beautiful female form of the Wish God.

"Where are we?" He asked.

"You do not want to answer to that question," the wish God said. "Let's just leave it at someplace else, alright? Just...outside."

"Outside of what?"

"Once again, you do not want..."

"Yeah yeah I don't want to know. I knew you were behind this."

"Well I mean, technically we've never met. I'm a piece of the wish gods power she granted to the wandering grudge and the DKRKKKKKKYYYKKKKK."

"Should...should I be learning to pronounce that, or..."

"No that was just random screeching caused by me attempting to pronounce syllables incompatible with the laws of physics vs experienced by your reality. But yes, I boosted the presences inside this house quite a bit."

"We almost died! We could still almost die!"

"Oh I wouldn't worry about that. The thing you were fighting is EXTREMELY dead. You crashed through here like a lead ball through damp paper. Your realities really are NOT supposed to mix. That goes both ways. No, it all worked out...mostly how I expected. It got kind of improvisational there but mostly we're still on track!"

"With my wish."

"Yes."

"And all that stuff I saw falling in here?"

"The future. Likely futures. But you knew that."

"I wish I had more details."

"Never good to have more details about the future. You'll just drive yourself crazy and everything gets messed up anyway."

"But the dragon is next. The dragon is SOON."

"Oh, yeah, definitely. No question. The chain of events leading to the dragon is already started, you're going to have to deal with that."

"Which means you think I can get out of here." Kyle looked around the endless void. "I was worried."

"Oh, of course you can!" She said. "That's my last job as a fragment of the wish god's power. I'll get to cease to exist before the rest of me. I'm looking forward to it!"

She waves goodbye, crumbling to dust as Kyle felt himself returning to reality.

"I don't get gods."