Deen? I looked around to see a splash of blonde among the forest green. She ran towards us, yelling at the top of her lungs.

  What the fuck does she think she was doing? She could see I was surrounded. Whether she knew these assholes were Corebrings or thought they were Adumbrae, she shouldn’t have come here. Her Guardian Angel was surely blaring into her ear to flee. What was her plan to survive this?

  “She’s my friend,” I quickly said. Wasn’t like I could shoo her away; the Corebrings already saw her. I could only hope that an escape option would be available if she was by my side. “Don’t kill her. She has information about—”

  “I’m one of you!” Deen yelled waving her arms. The Corebrings looked at each other. Good job. That stopped them from instantly attacking her.

  “Slight disturbance in the waves of reality,” said the Corebring who brought Granny Pando’s door. He was looking Deen’s way.

  Uh-oh. A new problem? Was my grave getting dug deeper?

  “Caused by?” Thirteen asked. “That odd hand with crystals or this new girl? I’m guessing her.” Thirteen faced Deen’s way. “Why is she saying she’s one of us? She does feel like a Corebring, doesn’t she? How odd.” The other Corebrings agreed with murmurs. They simply stood and watched as Deen approached me.

  “Are you okay, Erind?” Deen hugged me as if we hadn’t seen each other in years.

  I frankly wouldn’t hug her even if it was a century of absence, but I wanted her help so, fine, I hugged her back. She sobbed a bit in the nape of my neck. I hated these dramatic moments. No crying when we were about to die, please, and thank you.

  “I have experienced some better days,” I said, patting her back. “Still alive so far, so I got that going for me. Don’t cry—whoops. Got some blood on your hair.” My stumpy arm bled red onto her golden locks. Bits of flesh and bone had already poked up to reform my hand.

  Deen grabbed my injured arm. “Who did this to you?”

  “I did,” said Thirteen. “Before your entire body follows the same fate as your friend’s hand, you better explain why you have a bizarre presence. It’s one odd thing after another here. I don’t like it one bit.”

  “I am—” Deen started to say.

  “—an artificial Corebring,” finished Granny Pando.

  I felt Deen tensed her hold on my arm. I clenched my teeth too. We were supposed to hide this artificial Corebring thing. Not just us. The whole US government should’ve kept it hidden because it’d be in direct conflict with the Hive.

  Well, too bad that we got discovered. But it wasn’t so bad because…

  “…it sounds like you already know about this,” I said, glancing at Deen for a hint on what to say next. Unfortunately, Deen had a pained face. Her other hand covered her ear. She must be having some conflict with her Guardian Angel. Our survival was up to me. “It may be hard to believe, but we just accidentally stumbled into all of this. The ones who made the artificial Core are connected to the people running this place. I’m guessing it’s one big experiment.”

  But Granny Pando wasn’t listening to me. Her eyes were fixed on Deen, furious wrinkles creasing her forehead. “Another one of these abominable copies.”

  “She was forced to take the artificial Core,” I said, shaking Deen to snap her out of whatever it was. I hissed under my breath, “What are you doing, Deen? Help me out here.”

  Her eyes watered as she covered both her ears. She wasn’t listening to me. She couldn’t.

  “She’s the threat,” Granny Pando said. Gone was the kindness in her voice. “Perhaps one of many. For the humans have made Corebrings that can affect reality.”

  “That explains the uneasiness I felt when she arrived,” Thirteen said. “And I very rarely feel unease. She’s trying to affect all of us here, bending us to her flow. How odd that the humans have progressed to this extent.”

  “They do not know what they have,” Granny Pando said. “For if they did, they would’ve secured her and experimented on her. They would’ve used her to fight the Mother Core and impede its mission to save humanity. This woman is plucking the Threads of Fate. We mustn’t let her powers develop.”

  “You mean kill her?” I looked around. The Corebrings around us were glowing, using their powers to probably suppress Deen’s Guardian Angel. I couldn’t be too sure, but they were looking at some sort of machine on their wrist while muttering about how much reality is bending.

  “Not just her,” Thirteen said, nodding down at me.

  Granny Pando didn’t say anything to reject what Thirteen said.

  Great fucking job, Deen, I wanted to say. She wanted to save me so badly that she ended up bringing me down with her. To be fair, the Corebrings were probably going to experiment on me for being this ‘anomaly,’ whatever that meant, so it might not be so bad getting killed now. It wasn’t like I could expect humane treatment from Corebrings.

  I picked up Deen, who was having a seizure by now and placed her on my shoulder. My end was nearing. I had to look cool—fighting to escape with my bestie was cool. A last stand sort of thing. Would’ve been a cooler fight if I was Blanchette.

  “I know you and your friend here got the short end of the stick in life,” Thirteen said, looming beside me. “But that’s just… life. And so, I’m offering a quick end to yours. I’m getting quite a headache with your friend’s racket bothering the flow of reality.”

  Thirteen’s hand became a blur. I was prepared to dodge it but just couldn’t.

  “Huh?” I couldn’t believe what I saw.

  A golden gauntlet burst out of my stumpy arm and caught Thirteen’s massive hand. It was SpookyErind’s gauntlet! She was trying to help. The claws of the gauntlet pierced the metal of Thirteen’s hand. Thirteen yanked it away, purple blood spraying everywhere.

  Granny Pando screamed, “Kill her! Anomaly! Reality is breached!”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The gauntlet pointed its open palm at Granny Pando and fired a bright light. Thirteen moved to block it. He did something with his hands that absorbed the beam. The gauntlet fired at the other Corebrings. They were blasted away. Still having no idea what was going on, I ran as my right hand did its own thing. But I didn’t get far when Thirteen blocked my path, his arm turned into blades.

  He unleashed a furious flurry of strikes. All of his slashes were met by the gauntlet. My right arm moved so fast it was like I had a dozen arms. My muscles burned and my joints threatened to pop out of their sockets.

  Everything around us exploded as the parried strikes of Thirteen were diverted everywhere. Trees were turned into toothpicks, rocks crumbled into pebbles. Deep cracks cut the landscape.

  Then Thirteen stopped.

  My vision became hazy. Too weak. Even Deen was getting heavy. I could no longer feel my right arm. Getting drained.

  “Okay, that’s enough playing around,” Thirteen said. The number eleven on his mask glowed red. He raised his bladed arm as it cackled with energy. “I’m going to cut this island along with you.”

  He swung the blade downward. I raised the golden gauntlet to block it. Steel met gold. I saw my arm explode from the impact. And I didn’t know what happened afterward.

  “So… am I dead?” I asked the emptiness of space, my mouth forming words but no sound coming out.

  It wasn’t actually outer space. There were stars of different colors and weird planets and stuff, but they were too clustered compared to the vast emptiness of space. Like, I should expect there to be plenty of darkness because everything should be too far apart. Light years and all that. I did listen a bit in science classes. There were also hazy clouds of light and shadowy tendrils. Not sure if those were in science books.

  I was floating around in SpookyErind’s dimension. I recognized this place from the first time we met. And just like before, I was naked.

  “Hey, I’m asking you.” I did a little twirl to face a rectangular slab of broken stone. I knew this was the back of SpookyErind’s chair. “Do it already.”

  The oldass chair slowly turned around to reveal the woman sitting on it—SpookyErind. She looked the same as me with a few obvious differences like she was clothed and I wasn’t. I had never tried to wear a suit before; I should’ve because I looked very cool. SpookyErind was in her usual sleek black suit with golden geometric patterns. She also had her fur cape on. I found it too gaudy. Not my style.

  Her long wispy white hair floated around in slow motion, some strands caressing the mask she wore. It was her half-black, half-white mask with a huge smile on its face that she never wanted to lend me. She removed her mask with her right hand which wore a gauntlet. I noticed that the gauntlet had dents and cracks.

  The chair rotating thing doesn’t really work if I’m not behind a table, she said directly to my head. I feel like disintegrating my chair is better, like so. She waved her hand, and her chair crumbled into dust, swept away by a nonexistent wind. But that won’t work either because then I wouldn’t be facing you. Maybe if I faced you and—

  “Can you answer my question?”

  SpookyErind let out a deep sigh. She wasn’t so bubbly as usual. She swam towards me and poked my cheek with a claw of her gauntlet. You’re super-duper dead.

  “Okay, that’s a bummer… Not sure what else to say.” I sighed and swam away from SpookyErind. This was it. I wasn’t sure what to feel. Probably nothing because I was already dead.

  SpookyErind swam behind me. Don’t be too down. You’re infecting me with your downy downiness. I was supposed to tease you for your mistakes and dumb decisions, but now I’m not in the mood anymore.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  To cheer you up, you should know that you’ve gone the furthest out of all others I’ve seen.

  “The multidimensional thingy, is it? I’m also not in the mood for stuff like that. Hard to care since I’m dead.”

  Want me to hug you? SpookyErind caught up to me and stretched her arms.

  I rolled my eyes. “Did you set me up to be killed so that you could offer a hug?”

  Hey, what’s with the accusations? We’re on the same side because we’re one and only. Meyoumeyoume—bah. It’s hard to sing it after your death. I did help you, you know.

  “Oh, yeah. You materialized your hand into my world. You’ve mentioned that’s like impossible for you. Must’ve taken you a huge amount of effort to pull it off. Your gauntlet got scuffed too. I appreciate it. Made my death cool. We did scratch Thirteen with your gauntlet.”

  See? Teamwork really works. SpookyErind looped around me as she chuckled.

  “That Thirteen guy is surely pretty surprised by what happened. Can you let me see his reaction to—oh, wait. Can I see what happened to Deen?”

  Unfortunately, no. We’re out of that dimension, said SpookyErind. She floated above me. Or maybe I was the one above. There was no up or down here. She stared at me with her glowing red eyes. I’m surprised that you saved her. I thought you were going to prioritize your own safety.

  I snorted, though no air came out of my nose. “What safety are you talking about? I was fucked. I was going to die. Even if Deen didn’t show up to make things worse, the Corebrings were going to experiment on me and stuff. I’d rather go out doing something cool. And I’ve been staying at Deen’s house for a while, eating her food, adding to her electric bills, that I thought I’d do her a solid on my way out. It didn’t do anything in the end—I’m sure she’d be killed given Thirteen was there—but she’d appreciate the gesture wherever she is now, like in heaven. Nah, she wouldn’t go there. She has unjustifiably killed people before. Hell then… if it existed. So, what’s the afterlife going to be? I don’t think there’s heaven and hell, is there?”

  Before answering that, what do you feel about being dead?

  I shrugged, “Dunno. I was already prepared for this, so there’s not much of an impact. I was supposed to die back at Sanders parking area. And there were so many other instances I should’ve died, like getting nuked in Eve’s underground arena. I was living on borrowed time, and my time was up. That’s that. I’m not going to whine or reject what happened. Tell me what’s going to happen next. If my end is eternally floating here, just blast my soul because that sounds boring as fuck.”

  SpookyErind chuckled. True, it is boring here. That’s why I’m out there playing. Do you want your journey to end here?

  I raised a brow. “What kind of loaded question is that? Are you going to rope me in your other dimension stuff? I thought my chance was up.”

  That’s not exactly how that works. There aren’t different dimensions where you become a lawyer in this one—

  “I really should’ve stuck with law school.”

  —or become a fugitive chased by Corebrings in another. There is only one flow with many different facets. Nothing is set in stone until it is.

  “I have no idea what you’re saying. All I’m hearing is that there’s a possibility of another chance. Do you mean like I’ll restart the whole thing?”

  SpookyErind shook her head. You’re not getting it. Things cannot happen the exact way they did again. That’s impossible. And so, it’s not going to be you because different things are going to happen. It’s not really a restart. Get it?

  “If it beats being dead, then I’m up for it.” I pointed at her mask. She tilted her head. “That’s the mask you use for it, right? Hand it over. Let’s do this.”

  SpookyErind grinned. I thought she’d refuse, but she offered me the mask. Let’s do this. It’s not like everything was a waste. We’ve learned what the Mother Core fears.

  “Deen, is it? Damn, I can never escape her in this new dimension thingy then. Oh well, I’ll become a freeloader at her house again.” I put the mask on.

  Everything that was since January 20, 2020 ceased to exist. And time rolled forward again.

  Twelve advanced chapters on Patreon. (More than 12 chapters, actually, because I'm stockpiling there for the public release.) Thank you to the patrons for beta reading the rewrite. Also, many thanks to our Purple Bloom supporters, Karp Paul, Krzychu0304, and Neoxym.