These days, I saw David most often in my dreams.

  He said I didn't dream of him, not really, that he made his own way there, which I'm not sure I like, because what if someone I don't like walks into my dreams too?

  He told me that can't happen because the prison I'm in has shields on people's minds, but then how can David come in? So I asked him one day. Night. Dream.

  Ugh.

  So I asked him and he said, 'Because I know the ways around and between, and could force my way through if I didn't.'

  And then I asked, 'But isn't it again the law that you can come see prisoners without an ap...appo...without talking about coming first?"

  And he smiled 'n said (his fangs shine when he's happy but he doesn't need light from outside they just shine themselves), 'Sofia, I have an agreement with Russia - and the Global Gathering as a whole - to allow me to do this, because everyone's interested in you growing up well.'

  And I snorted (cuz that's a big fat lie) and I said, 'That's not true, they just wanna make sure I don't take over more people, but that's dumb and they're bein' dumb about it, an' this is all stupid.' And I kicked my feet (in the dreams I'm never restrained or in a cell 'cause dreams are what we want and I don't wanna be caged like my dog used to be when Daddy got mad and took out the small cage it hurts to be put in. I know because I tried once too cuz Daddy said the dog liked it so the howling was fake but I didn't like it and we liked the same stuff so I know that was a big lie too) and spat.

  David frowned and told me that's a bad thing to do for a little girl and I smiled at him and asked, 'What, are they gonna put me in prison for it?' Because I was already in prison, see.

  David talked more but it was dumb so I heard but didn't listen and I said, 'David, why do girls gotta worry about manners more than boys?' And he said he'd have told me the same if I was a boy but I don't believe that. 'David, it's dumb to treat people differently cuz they don't have the same stuff in their pants.'

  See, my idea (one of 'em) was that girls and women (which can be like girls but bigger or moms or grandmas) are expected to act nice and talk nice and look pretty because (I read a lot 'cause what else could I do there?) for a long while a lot of countries treated them like they were ornaments (like those creepy ugly prcelain dolls that look alive but usually aren't). And that happened because women get stronger slower than men and don't get as strong and they're messed up for, like, years when they have babies, so men said they were bosses because they went to work and to war the most and they could beat up women easier than women could beat 'em up so it was like that for a long time.

  (David has me in his book and he says I talk like those people who write conscious flows or whatever 'cause I say what I think when I think and I don't pause that much.)

  Anyway, and women were wanted if they were quiet and did what their husbands and men in their family said and this stayed in people's minds and it's stupid, because gender has crap to do with power nowadays and there are people who are strong and smart and are not men or women or are both.

  Another thing that's dumb but it's still going on is the thing with resources, you know how the average mage can create thousands of tons of anything with a thought but not everyone gets that? That's because all the countries agreed to give everyone food and drinks and houses because supernaturals saved their butts so many times but we could also beat their butts if they didn't do like we said, but there are still a lot of powerless people who act like they're important and some paras are playing along. So they only give everyone "room and board" (but not just one room unless that's what they want and I don't get the board thing, so it's a lying name) but they still wanna act like it's before the Shattering happened so they want people to work like bees because that's what they're used to (and people are used to working too because it's tradition, which is like bullying from dead people), and mages and other can make luxury stuff and entertainment easy too but they don't, because that's seen as a privilege, which is like a right you get if you're good but some people are born with it because their parents were good (so it's tradition again).

  I heard in Scandinavia (which is where the Vikings came from but there aren't Vikings around anymore, not really), which is a nice place, you could get whatever you wanted unless you wanna enslave others or stuff, it's just the country wanted you to be willing to help if there's trouble and (surprise) people did wanna help when there's problems if you're nice to them without aaking for stuff for stupid reasons.

  The rest of the world was kind of dumber for stuff like this because the other countries were like beehives and they wanted to pretend powerless humans were still an important thing, but I heard there'll be more paras than them next century and already people were voting for supernaturals to be countries' bosses (usually if they looked human) because they were more useful so they did more and got popular and people wanted them in charge.

  So the world's full of dumb crap because dead people are bullying us, and I didn't even get to the dead ones who literally bully us cuz they stay up so they're undead and bad.

  Anyway.

  Then David looked at me and saw I was annoyed so he asked, 'Sofia, how do you feel about what happened.'

  He's asked it before and I'm getting used to itso I told him.

  I'm sad I tried to make Mommy and Daddy stop fighting by grabbing their minds but they wouldn't have listened and I'm small and I couldn't have stopped them and I'd have been beaten up if I tried with my hands.

  But I told him I was sad about the forcing, not about the mind stuff, and I explained people are icky about that because they listen to the powerless and those can't keep stuff out of their thoughts. And really it's not that different from grabbing people and moving them with your body, people just get scared of it 'cause they're not used to it.

  And David said, 'You're not wrong, about some things,' but he looked sad and frowned because Chernobog got in his mind a few times and he still hates that.

  Right, then I said I'm no longer scared of the fat monster strigoi but I still hate him because of what he made me do (and I'd have hated him if he'd moved my mind instead of my body because there's no real difference). David said he'd talk to the fat one and make him visit me and we'd get things over with and he'd be there and make sure it went well.

  I told him I was sorry about what I made the other people in my village do but now how I did it, because it woulda still been bad if I moved their limbs not their thoughts, and that I was sad about those who got hurt like Ivan but I couldn't help them because I was in prison.

  But I didn't worry because staying healthy is free and countries take care of you everywhere in the world and doctors got given good stuff by the countries because they do good things, and they got given money too.

  Money's another lie that people pass along. See, a zillion years ago, people used to give stuff for stuff, but then there was so much stuff and so many people they made symbols for stuff and those symbols were made of shiny metal because people are like magpies and because shiny metals were hard to find the work was seen as showing they were important, or I dunno.

  Then there was so much bronze and silver and gold (and people) that they made symbols for the symbols (crazy!) on papers and the papers were based on gold so people knew what number to write on which to show how much gold it meant and this went on for a long while.

  See, humans like lying to themselves because they have no confidence so they wanna feel like they did something all the time so they made up this stuff about money but in reality it's like the money for monopoly and only good for showing you gave something for something.

  If people were smart we'd have just made and given stuff around and written down who had what, simple, without metals not good for work or papers only good for wiping your butt unless you thought they were important, which some people still did.

  I've read about communism and it sounds nice, like a story, but people are too selfish and dumb to make it work so it's always bad in reality (but not really communist). Like the USSR that Russia used to be boss of, where hired mages made and kept stuff fresh and ready to use but you had to work to get money to get just a little food to survive because the bosses like being bossy.

  The countries who weren't commies were better because they kept everyone fed and housed and had cool stuff you could buy more easily (but in commie countries it was capitalist pig junk and the secret police that everyone knew about came and dragged you away so they could beat you up and make you work if you had stuff they didn't like because their bosses were nasty).

  The Soviets were crazy because a lot of their early bosses were crazy, like the steel guy some said was killed by the Martians, while others say he wasn' or his ghist kept leading them in secrets until the Soviets finished each other when people got sick of working to get money for slop and tiny rooms to live in because work didn't really make them happy.

  Now at this point in the dream David saw I wasn't really listening to him so he tapped my shoulder and that's what he said.

  I told him I get distracted more often and for longer than most kids my age but that's no problem cuz I'm not dumb and when I focus I focus for longer too, I don't mind if I'm sleepy or tired or hungry or thirsty 'cause that all goes in the back of the mind.

  But I got held back for a couple years cuz school is mostly about focusing like I do sometimes but all the time and they mostly tell you stuff to say back to them but not things that're gonna help in life so I got bored and started thinking about whatever in school.

  (Also I don't like focusin' on one thing too much since my magic went bad 'cause I remember the parts at the end and I hate those).

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  David told me some people would say I have a screwy brain but I laughed and told him if my mind's sick I don't wanna be healthy, so those people should go get stuffed, with concrete.

  Oh right, the Soviets!

  So the Soviets fell apart from the inside like a house that was built by a lazy bum, bamf bamf, because people got jealous that those from other countries were given more for less or for nothing, but also because this baldy with weird birth marks wanted to give people free stuff and tell other countries more about the USSR which had lots of secrets and get friendly with them and make them forget about when the older bosses wanted to destroy everyone who wasn't a commie then got nicer but still bullied them. And the baldy with spots wanted to be friends for real (but not really cuz politicians lie like all grown ups do, only they know enough stuff to make up the big lies, but you know what I mean).

  David shook his head and sighed but let me stare at nothing because he's nice like a dad is supposed to be and that was why he was my dad now.

  I told him and he smiled weirdly because he's a dork and he said, 'Sofia, you might be saying that because you miss your parents deep down, and I'm the person you thonk of when you remember them.'

  Because he killed them.

  But I don't mind that! I know Mommy and Daddy got bad when they started praying to the Black God, so I remember them less because it reminds me of that so even the good stuff makes me sad.

  And David wants to make everyone so powerful everyone can do anything and there'll be no wars or arguing or anything bad anymore (he showed me this book written by the sleepy guy who dreamed me and everyone else up) so he's sorta like a dad to everyone 'cause he looks out for us and wants us to get better. I guess that would be kinda like communism for real since there'd be no classes or money anymore and everyone would have what they needed to do what they wanted.

  But I don't say that because David's sort of like God and if you say God's a commie some people get mad because they think 'bout the fake commies with the police who came for you in the night and who forced you to work like slaves.

  I think it's because my magic's about putting my mind in stuff and stuff in my mind but I like learning and talking about it. David doesn't mind because he's a withered old geezer but he's not lame, but he dresses like he is.

  So then I told him that slavery never really went away but people say it did and that's another adult lie, because in prison they make you do or build stuff but you don't get money (which is fake but it's the idea that matters). An' how's that any different from back when they sold you as a slave for being bad and you worked for free? What, 'cause you're arrested, not enslaved and sold?

  Stupid. There are people with private prisons where people are forced to do stuff and sometimes they (the people with the prisons) are even paid for "helping their country." Those aren't slavers?

  David said, 'Yeah, it's kind of bullshit they give inmates busywork when we have so many constructs and reality warpers. But it's more about making them think productively, Sofia.'

  (See, it used to be they wouldn't kill you if you did nad stuff like murder or rape, which is like what people do to make babies but when the other person doesn't wanna, they didn't kill you cuz they didn't know if you really did the bad stuff and anyway you could work for free. Since now we got weres and postcogs and stuff, and necromancers, you can be killed when they know for sure and then your corpse gets put to work or given away for parts, so everyone's happy.)

  David got me back to our talk after a while and I asked about Ivan's injuries and he (David) said he (Ivan) was better because doctors took care of him. And I was happy because we might become friends when we saw each other again because we were both older in the soul so we could get over the dumb stuff that got in our way before like the fact he used to like staying inside.

  Then David said, 'Who knows, when you grow up, you might even want to be more than friends.' And he wiggled his eyebrows.

  'What?!' I shoved him in the chest. 'Ew. Boys are stupid.'

  'Sides, I wasn't sure I liked boys or if I did if I liked them that much, but I was pretty sure I didn't mind girls.

  'Nothing wrong with both,' David grunted (since he's manly like that). 'Anyway, you'll start seeing things differently when you hit your teens, Sofia.'

  I'd hit them more than once if they made me like dumb stuff, and I told him. The dummy laughed.

  (Later, I'd be told lots of people were scared of David and wouldn't have done what I did, but David told me a real man isn't bothered by people talking back to him, especially children.)

  * * *

  Loric Szabo is like a big fat hairy ugly rat with a split head, which is why I think he's crazy. Not the head, looking like that. It'd drive me nuts, but not like the wheel in that joke with the pirate (I don't have any).

  Also his name's weird 'cause I'm fairly sure it should be Lorinc, but with how he grew up he prolly said it wrong and kept it that way since he's too prideful, I mean he talks about himself like he's another person, but I wouldn't wanna admit I'm me if I was him either.

  I could see David from the corner of my mind's eye and knew he'd help me. Szabo sat on nothing while I sat on my bed in the cell fiddlin' with my bracers (the ones you out on your arms not in your mouth, it's gross to fiddle with mouth stuff anyway, at least don't use your hands), cuz I guess they started feeling bad about putting a collar on a little girl (nothin' like slavery, nuh-uh) whatever she did.

  'Child,' Szabo said, 'I am not going to apologise for what I did. I do think my reasoning at the time was not reasonable, however: your parents proved they weren't worth being avenged, and, in any case, I had bern reminded of a similar rebellion on my son's part at the time, so I wasn't thinking like I should have.'

  I blew a raspberry. 'You're just saying this because you got called out, you big rotten chump. Ooh, I wasn't in my right mind 'cause I got reminded I'm a bad dad! Now lemme hurt this kid who's in reach cuz her parents were losers too and I'm sorry for 'em!'

  I got off the bed and folded my arms. 'Y'know, I'd tell you to get lost or worse if you weren't so lame. I mean - yeah, David told me, you know what he'll do to you if you look at me wrong? -, your wife don't wanna see you since she knows you're selfish, your kids are dead, your daughter's wife hates your guts. Her son barely has time for you and her grandkids...do they even know you? I forgot.' I bet they said that about him too.

  'You're so scared of people forgettin' you wanna make sure everyone knows you're special, jeez, it's like you wanna have a birthday forever. If you were a lil' brave maybe you wouldn't need everyone's approval?'

  I stuck out my tongue when he scowled at me. 'Oh, I'm not like the other monsters everyone forgets, I'm memorable! Do you even believe it with how you're badgering anyone about it?'

  I knew ARC wasn't all that, since they had workers like this creep. And there was also that time one of their bosses made David's girlfriend stop being down so she'd be able to fight properly on a mission whout telling her before or after.

  Now, when you worked for people like that, you knew sometimes the people you worked with would need to put stuff in your mind or take things out, sometimes without warning, but not telling you after is bad and I bet Mia got angry.

  ARC and groups like it but which only worked in one country (but not reallly 'cause they sent workers overseas sometimes and didn't always say they did) were weird anyway, because, see, the normal police weren't allowed to go after paranormals who broke the law except in emergencies, though there were para cops. No, they were normally supposed to let ARC and national para law groups handle things. I guess because people were still waking up to the new world and didn't wanna combine them for some reason.

  I knew there were people who said ARC and groups like it did too much already anyway and they didn't wanna let them do normal police work too, what if everyone combined into ARC.

  'What, like a Megazord?' I said out loud when I learned that, and then I scoffed.

  Right, right, Szabo. We didn't have much to talk about, really.

  'There is talk about letting you volunteer for situations in which your magic would be irreplaceable, in light of how you contributed to the moment of unity,' Szabo said. 'In which case you would have to be allowed to cast more often, and train to do so in extreme conditions.' He looked at David, who stared back blankly. 'Loric Szabo would be called in for such drills, in order to create the appropriate conditions. Being challenged by him should make you push yourself more, blah blah blah, yap yap yap.'

  Or something.

  Then he left, thank David.

  * * *

  Ivan couldn't remember everything, all the time.

  This kept him from remembering that time he was a puppet, not that the nightmares didn't cime close. But he was no longer hurting himself by accident, or wanting to do that.

  Other days, his family and home were like colourless, featureless blurs in his mind, like shadows. He wanted to think the lack of worry on those days came with the memory loss, but he didn't worry on other days, either.

  Oh, and his imaginary friends were real.

  They weren't really imaginary (hah had), said reality was imaginary to them, but no one beside him could see or hear them unless they wanted that (they said).

  They called themselves the Quietude.

  Ivan thought that was right proper, cuz they didn't talk much.

  But when they did?

  In the insane asylum (they called it a post-trauma mental recovery centre, nonsense Ivan had memorised just to show how dumb it sounded) he was in, there were lots of crazies. People who couldn't deal with their magic, or their animals (those that lived in their minds), or whatever.

  One day, a werewolf tried to joke with him in the yard. Faked a lunge.

  Got real close to the silver spears suddenly sprouting from all sides.

  The Quietude knew all 'bout opposites, and the separation of things, duality and plurality and multiplicity, whatever those meant. Point was, Ivan, being friends with them, could make the opposites of them, and their banes as well.

  Ivan wasn't sure he was crazy, anymore. He'd started thinkin' everyone else was loopy, maybe 'cause their minds were narrow and closing in so it hurt? He'd seen pain make people do and think screwy stuff.

  Talking 'bout that. He'd need to see Sofia soon like.

  The Quietude called her the Spider cuz the magic she cast was like strings stretching from her mind, and they showed him a book about everything, and said that, like the End ("the Force Entropic") had its faces of utter nothingness, necessary destruction (the Wurm who went by Wyrmwald) and all that, the stuff that had planted the Tree of Knowledge of Ascension and Transcendence ("The Force Dynamic and the Force Static") had faces too, and one of them was both Forces at once and might look like a grey spider speckled with white, to him.

  He'd nodded. Spiders keeping things together and growing? Yeah, Sofia could do that, all right.

  And more besides. She'd just need some help, before then. Soon as they had some words...

  * * *

  A certain witch, the Spider

  Far future of some barren universe

  When things got gar along to the point iron stars began appearing, cosmoses began to wound down without intervention.

  My purple jacket's hood flared around my head as I turned it slightly, because I'd never let anything as paltry as airless space cramp my stile. Reality folded around me as I reached into the pocket I'd created in the trillionth century or so (void, I'd been young, once), withdrawing my cigar holder.

  A flick of my wrist produced one, which I fixed, before holding the thing out to the side. I got a light before I even asked for one, because my man was considerate like that.

  'Thanks, dear.'

  'No problem,' Ivan gravelled, his jagged void of a mouth twisting into a smirk as he moved to loom behind me. His dark, heavy long coat never stirred, but then, it never did. Unless he wished it. 'The opposite of an unlit cigar-'

  'Is a lit one, yes.' I took a hit, blew the purple smoke so it got shaped into "eureka." It wasn't the first line of that type he'd used today, much less this eon. Soon he'd try something about the opposite of an unsatisfied woman.

  You'd think he was still trying to woo me.

  He didn't pout, but that wasn't exactly possible, with his mouth (not that I'd put it past him). 'You're just being mean now.'

  'Since when do you mind that?' His snort brought a smile to my face. 'That's what I thought.' I puffed once, twice, as physics doubtlessly tried to puzzle out what the hell was even happening. 'Think Petra's gonna haul ass if I give her a call?'

  'What, getting bored of my face?' Ivan leered.

  'Can't really see it from where I'm usually sitting,' I reminded him, not that he missed anything I did, no matter the circumstances. 'But a girl could use another, now and then.'

  He was this close to puffing out his chest, I could tell, with how he said, 'Just admit I'm too much man for you and you need a hand, Sofi.'

  'Unlike you, I don't get pouty using mine.' Puff. Puff. He loved my raspy voice, and Petra didn't mind it either. But then, I'd cherish anything pleasant after growing up like her, too. 'We've been apart for too long, anyway. No need to be biased, eh?'

  'Damn straight.' He was now in front of me without crossing the distance or any time elapsing. 'Say, Spider: why're you wasting your time in this cosmic wasteland?'

  'When I could be spending it with a man like you?' I finished with a drawl, eyes hooded.

  'Hey.' He smirked. 'No need to be biased.'

  And wasn't that true. 'It seems awful to me,' I said, 'for an universe to pass into oblivion with none to bear witness.'

  'Would it not be crueller to be caught inside, counting the seconds 'til entropy?' Ivan countered, for argument's sake. He could get philosophical when big tracts of nothing (or land) were involved.

  'No one said it would have to be witnessed by a prisoner,' I retorted, and poured my mind into the iron stars.

  Space and time followed, so that the newly-wrought thinking beings could observe the history of their reality, before departing for another, younger one.

  There was scarce worth to be found, in an indifferent universe.

  'Come on.' I squeezed Ivan's shoulder. 'Let's head home.'

  'Right behind you, Spider.'

  I wagged a finger at him as I opened a portal. 'Don't think I don't know what you're doing.'

  'That's part of the charm, doll.'

  He was not wrong.

  As I strode through the timestream, a facet of it almost seemed to linger in front of me.

  I smiled at the sleeping form of my younger self, all knees and elbows (the chubby years of my mid-teens would feel just as awkward as thr growth spurt), and placed a hand against it, as if it were glass. 'Hang in there, little me. You don't even know how far you'll go.'

  'Oh, shit.' Ivan swaggered up to my side, peering at the fragment. 'Back when I thought you had cooties, huh.' He flashed me a smirk. 'Imagine anything keeping me off you nowadays.'

  'Please. My womanly mind is too feeble for such a task.'

  We were both playing it up, but honestly, periods of passion like this were to be treasured. Who knew when we'd drift apart for a lifetime or more again?

  As if on cue, my Mental Amplification Device pinged. A pulse of thought made the MAD send the call and the options to accept, refuse or put it on standby.

  "You are being contacted by Corpse, Won't Stay Down (Dad). Accept? Decline? Wait?"

  'Oh, look,' I said. 'David must be calling to talk about that sleaze I keep hanging out with.' I bumped Ivan with my hip.

  'Who's that punk, anyway?' he growled. 'He sounds lamer every time you bring him up.'

  That, by the way, was utter bullshit. I couldn't recall when he'd last had a bad opinion of himself (ehich was far preferable to his brooding episodes). 'Come on.' I elbowed him. 'Let's go.'

  His laugh was directed so as to shake everything, up to the Utter Oneness at the end and beginning of all things. All, including the myriad things he could channel, trembled, unharmed, for he had always known how to be gentle, especially with his power. It was a skill many had grown to appreciate.

  'Say,' Ivan wrapped an arm around my shoulders, 'wanna bring Tra too when we go talk to your old man. It's funny how awkward he gets.'

  He'd ever left that state? And nobody had told me?! 'Hmm...'