As they reacclimatised to the dimness of the cave stairway - a light, airy place compared to the blackness of the devoid - they were pleased to find no sign of the sinister Elmo thing.

  "Downwards," Elmo suggested, "quickly, in case ‘I’m’ still around." Gum and Heather were last to follow, as Elmo led the way.

  Before they had covered a dozen steps, Heather hissed, "It's going to come back!" A grim scream wailed behind them. On the stairs, the Elmo-like thing writhed out of the darkness, as if materialising from it. As it moved, the dread figure betrayed no real motion; just growing into the foreground, crossing the space in a fluid motion, rather than physically stepping forward. The party, as one, began to flee, feet floundering in the gloom.

  In their haste, Holi missed a step, causing her to fall against the wall of the tunnel and Heather to trip into her.

  Unable to move momentarily, everyone looked fearfully back up the stairs. The air between them and the stygian spectre agitated violently: the very atmosphere itself seemed to recoil from the terror of its advance.

  The disturbance emanated from a single point, mid-air, focused into a ball of brilliant white light, no bigger than a marble, but brighter than a halogen-lamp. From out of the very centre of this burning star expanded a large figure, a warrior, almost equally radiant, his broad, armoured back occupying the middle ground between the group and the phantom.

  More than half of him was obscured by a huge shield; burnished bronze in colour and wide rimmed. In his other hand he held the long shaft of an ashen spear, and from out of the warrior’s high-helmed head, a deep warning bellowed out: “Stay your ground, Trojan!”

  The spectre stayed its ground. Either due to the appearance of the golden soldier, or, simply out of caution over the stern command.

  “You shall press these no more today!” Whoever the warrior was, the phantom recognised the threat; a snarl creased the darkness of its face, and it launched a sweeping attack on the warrior’s unshielded side; it did not physically approach the warrior in its assault, but instead just extended its reach. With the grace of a ballroom dancer, the soldier leaped toward the shadow’s extension; it had not expected such a move, and was unprepared to receive the counter-attack.

  The fighter swept his shielded left arm up and over to his right, as if it was but a cape, and pivoted beneath the move. The raised shield made contact with the shade’s right hook, blocking the blow: the impact of light against dark created an explosion of atmospheric disturbance. As he spun, his right hand, turning the spear shaft between his fingers like a baton, brought the head fast and hard toward the right, exposed side of the dark menace. With a lunging crouch, he drove the spear deep. There was a mighty sound of high-pitched screeching and a shower of black shards as something shattered from the spectre’s body. It recoiled in agony, arms flailing high.

  The warrior, now perfectly still, as if frozen, knelt motionless in the crouched position of his lunging attack; spear still thrust forward. Ripping his body off of the plunged point, the phantom retreated up the stairs. It panted and screamed at its assailant. Swaying left and right it assessed the next move, ensuring that it would leave, this time, no part of its form unprotected. The bronzed soldier rose to his feet with smooth, precise, fluid movements; the effortless motion suggested that he was being raised on some invisible strings rather than from the power of his own legs. “Follow your prey through time, but you will not prevail here Trojan,” he said, with a deep, flat, matter-of-fact expression.

  The caliginous creature launched again, this time directly at the soldier’s chest. As fast as the lightning strike was, the warrior’s movements were quicker. Again his shield flowed into place, gliding from its position behind him, forward to cover his front; it was as if he was inviting the phage to strike centre-mass. As the phantom’s blow struck hard upon the convex surface of the mighty shield, it slid off, unable to purchase on the highly-polished metal finish until, under the momentum of the surge, the ghost realised, too late, that it had exposed its midriff.

  Light flashed, a blur of brilliance once more struck at the lucifugous being. It recoiled, stumbling as it staggered backward under the heavy press of its assailant. The attack was relentless, every fulgurating thrust and strike part of a precisely purposed procedure. The black peril desperately tried to counter the lightning blows, but as each one landed, it found itself manipulated into a position of greater threat of the next strike; progressively being manoeuvred into becoming increasingly exposed.

  Finally, the champion had his quarry in the position he intended and delivered the coup-de-grace; an arching stab of his ashen spear directly down into the shadows of the phantom’s clavicle; piercing the fabric of its lightless presence between neck and shoulder; driving the shaft deep into its chest from above. Holding the spear fast in position, his fist tightly clenched around the shank; muscles straining, veins throbbing, he turned the spear in its hold, the area at the point of contact began to gather and spin, like water being sucked down a plug-hole. As he held the spear in place, the velocity of the whirling material around the puncture increased.

  A look of disdain, and contempt, replaced the grimace of pain and anguish at being speared. This phage understood exactly what was happening, and it was not impressed. More and more of its being was sucked into the spear, the shaft turning black as it filled with the phantom’s presence. The vortex around the wound accelerated until it sucked the entire shadow-creature into the length of the spear. As soon as it was completely imprisoned, the golden-soldier spun once more, and with one final sweep of the long spear, he drove it fast into a large boulder at the edge of the staircase. As it was driven deep into the igneous mass, the rock itself turned black as the phantom expanded its being into the very stone.

  The puissant paladin turned its attention to the party, huddled in darkness behind him. “This is not the time for you to be standing like ripe ears of corn, stretching to see the rays of the sun after the heavy storms have beaten them. You must leave this place. The Trojan will not stay imprisoned for long.” He turned and leapt with powerful lunges up the stairs, the group following his lead until they burst into the daylight above ground.

  As the party emerged from the charonic chamber and the shock of sunlight exploded into their eyes, they struggled to take account of the full figure of their liberator. The aureate warrior appeared to be on fire, his body encased in gold or bronze, armour. It caught the sun’s rays and hurled them, with a violent glare, at the light-starved eyes of the group.

  Once the last of them had cleared the door in the tree trunk, he shut it fast behind them. Reaching to his waist, he drew a short blade; the surface of the ensiform moved like thin yellow oil running over brindled water. With both hands clasped about the pommel, he drove the blade into the wooden door; it did not, so much, pierce the wood as dissolve over the surface, flowing across the door spilling over the frame, the swirling, fire-like fluid covering the entire entrance in its oleaginous eddy. He released the handle and turned to face the party: “The Trojan will not remain within its constraints below for long, but it will not be able to break through this fire-wall. It will not be able to pass this way; it will have to find another route out, so that will give you some time. Now, you have wasted too much already, begone!

  “But, Elmo and Roan?” The voice was Holi’s “They’re not here.”

  The figure’s face was stern, “Fools,” he breathed, “this won’t be undone.”

  “Who are you?” asked Gum, “What can we do?”

  “I am the Mykenean: Akilleus, born of the Pelion. We have not the time to remain here and exchange tales like bards at a banquet. We must wish your companions the good sense to make their flight downward and swift.” Then, without warning, he swung his massive golden shield around from its slung position on his back; it scythed through the air with a singing, swishing sound, covering his huge form; the sun burning brilliance off of the highly polished surface; images carved upon its vast, convex, face burned themselves into their retinas. As vision, slowly, returned to their sun-blinded eyes, the mighty warrior, Akilleus the Mykenean, born of the Pelion was gone.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  *****

  The rat’s beady eyes gleamed with annoyance as he watched his guards flounder helplessly at the metal bars, while Number Three vanished into the shadows of the escape tunnel. His clawed paw twitched, eager to seize the nearest object and hurl it at their incompetence. But before he could unleash his fury, a thunderous pounding echoed from the chamber door. Two more Elmos in white lab coats tumbled into the room, their eyes wide, their jittery feet barely keeping them upright. “What is it now?” the rat snarled, his voice dripping with venom. “What could possibly be so urgent that you’d dare interrupt me here? In my sanctum?”

  “It’s her... it’s Mist... She’s back from the UnKnown... in the Green Room,” one of the Elmos stuttered, his words stumbling over themselves. Without waiting for a reply, the pair scurried off like terrified ants, assuming their master would follow. He did.

  The woman at the green room observation window stared at the rat with open disgust.

  “Lift me up! Lift me up you imbeciles!” Two snapped as 352 struggled to get a respectful hold on his leader, whilst 679 nervously helped hoist the rat until his pink snout confronted the woman inside.

  “What did you do to me?” she hissed.

  “Do? To you?” Two replied, uncertainly.

  “Yes, do! To me... To us!” Her eyes burned with accusation. “I know you violated us somehow. I followed you back here.”

  “Violated?” His eyes darkened, narrowing to slits. “I made you. You wouldn’t exist without me, you ungrateful...”

  “Made me?” she growled. “Is this part of some cloning-gone-mad experiment?”

  A tense silence stretched between them. Finally, Two commanded his lackeys. “Take me inside,” he said, his voice low and icy. They set him down inside the lab and he barked, “Out! Now! And shut the door!” Alone with her, the rat scurried across the sterile lab, mind racing, calculating. He gestured to a table at the room’s edge, his body casting a long shadow in the dim green and lilac lights.

  This needed finesse. The truth about Mist from timeline one was dark, a desperate act -one he had never expected to face again. But here she was, the living, breathing consequence of his reckless tampering with forces beyond his control. She dragged a nearby planter, sitting on it like a queen perched on her throne, her eyes locked on him, daring him to give her an explanation that made sense of the madness. He clambered with less than finesse onto the cold glass of the tabletop and drew a long breath. “Is it the same for you as it is for me?” he asked, his voice suddenly soft, as if trying to coax her. “How far back can you really remember?”

  Her eyes remained fixed on him, unwavering. “You didn’t create me,” she said, her voice steady. “I remember.”

  “Go on,” he urged, his tone sharpening, like a blade being drawn from its sheath. “You remember... what?”

  For a moment, her defiance faltered. She looked away, reaching for fragments of memory that danced just out of reach.

  “You... did something,” she whispered, her voice tight with frustration. “While I slept... you invaded my mind, made me sleepwalk through the city, unleashed something... some beast into my world.”

  “One thing at a time,” the rat said, his voice chillingly calm, like the eye of a storm. “I created your world. I created you. You should be thanking me.”

  Her eyes flared with anger. “Why should I believe the words of a rat in a cloak? How could you possibly create an entire world?”

  “Time travel,” he sneered, the two words spilling out with cold disdain. “Do you think I wasn’t created, too? My entire timeline was a botched creation, made by some half-wit. Every time someone goes back in time, a new timeline is born, each one a flawed copy of the last. Some fragments improve. Others - like your memories - degrade.”

  The woman’s face tightened, frustration simmering beneath her skin as she struggled to pull at the fraying threads of her memory. “You’re lying,” she spat, her voice shaking, but her tone betrayed a sense of doubt.

  “Oh, am I?” Number Two’s lips curled into a sinister smile. “Keep telling yourself that… if you can still remember how.”

  The rat’s grin widened, eyes gleaming with malicious delight. “Then why can’t you remember?” He paced closer, claws clicking on the glass tabletop, sharp and foreboding. “Your world is a copy - stitched from stock imagery and hollow clichés, held up by DLOD.” He knew she wouldn’t understand the term, and that pleased him even more. “Dynamic level of detail. Only what’s needed is rendered. Everything else? Smoke and mirrors, stolen from the depths of the Internet.” His voice dropped. “Now, tell me, how did you get here?”

  The woman’s confidence wavered. She stepped off the planter, her movements stiff and uncertain. Her eyes flickered toward a large hydroponic cube, seeking refuge. “I followed you,” she said, her voice unsteady. “When you left my dream, I followed.”

  “Followed?” The rat leaped down from the table, tail swaying with anticipation. “Like a fish swimming against the tide?” He gestured to the Elmos watching from behind the glass. “Bring a Baldy!” he snapped, voice laced with venom. She retreated into the maze of glass cubes, heart pounding. “You left the door open,” she whispered, as if speaking the words might conjure an escape. “I followed you.”

  The rat’s laughter echoed in the cold room, dark and mocking. “You followed?” His eyes gleamed with triumph. “You don’t even realize what you’ve done. From a mere dream, you shattered barriers between realities. You broke the fourth wall, peeling back layer after layer. Timeline after timeline - until you stumbled here. You think this is the ultimate reality?” He raised his claws with theatrical flair. “This is virtual reality. I made this world from nothing, built it from scratch.”

  Her back hit a glass container, stopping her retreat. The rat’s advanced. His voice dripped with twisted glee. “Ultimate reality though... I only know of Timeline One because of the rat who crawled from there. The Rat-Elmo, the one responsible for my timeline’s birth. And you? You’re just a poor, glitch-riddled copy. But I have someone from TL1.” His gaze darted toward the 352 and 679 still watching at the window. “Once those idiots stop drugging her into a coma, she’ll be useful.”

  The woman’s breath hitched. “And what do you want with me?”

  The rat’s smile was all teeth. “You came here, didn’t you?” A figure then, in a tight, gleaming black suit entered, Elmos 352 and 679 behind. The newcomer knelt, placed a sleek, metallic ovoid device with jointed legs into the rat’s awaiting claws. Two purred, “This... this device allows me to do everything. To manipulate worlds, rewrite timelines. Its power is nearly infinite. And I have many like it.”

  The woman’s breath caught. She took another step back, her expression hardening. “I have one too.”

  The rat’s laughter was low, menacing. “You don’t. You almost had one - you sent your lackeys to steal it from TL1, from First-Elmo himself. But you didn’t take it yourself, did you?” His eyes glittered with contempt. “Why send halflings to do your dirty work?”

  “I don’t want that power,” she said, her voice steady but strained. “No one should!” Her form began to shimmer, her sleek black suit transforming into a flowing turquoise dress, an antlered headdress crowning her head. “In place of a rat-lord, you would have a queen!” Her body erupted in a brilliant blue light, towering over him as her voice thundered through the lab. “Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Stronger than the foundations of the earth!”

  The rat didn’t flinch, lips curled into a sinister smile as her radiance dimmed. “Impressive.” He stepped closer, “But tell me this: the day you chose to send your thieves for the Baldy... why didn’t you steal it earlier?” She retreated, putting a terrarium between them. Her eyes narrowed, the light about her fading. “I tried,” she admitted. “Something stopped me. I couldn’t get any earlier.”

  The rat’s smile widened, tail flicking with satisfaction. “The same thing stopped me. A time loop - a paradox, a wrinkle in reality. And you, trying to break it, triggered Elmo to expect visitations, portals, strangeness - things he only dreamed of before.”

  Her anger flared. “You’re the one who caused all this! You’ve been in Elmo’s head, manipulating memories, erasing details, running your cursed programs! You had Grimmbros here too!”

  The rat chuckled darkly. “Ah, the ‘Chicken Scratcher,’ I kept open a door, didn’t I? You know a Baldy fell on his head from the sky? In your own world, where you think you know everything!”

  Her eyes widened. “Grimm...” caught off guard. She hadn’t known.

  “When Grimm activated it he disappeared and then he returned, but without his shiny new Baldy.” He leaned closer, eyes gleaming. “I’m keeping an eye on things you see. But, look, you act like I’m an enemy, talking to me from behind a glass box.” The woman’s breath quickened, her mind racing. The rat’s tone shifted, his voice cold and deadly. “You thought you could alter destiny. The prophecy you fear so much? It’s begun, thanks to you!”

  But when he peered more closely, the woman had vanished.