People were standing motionless in the streets. The New Year arrived but, instead of going home, the people meandered about like zombies all the way until dawn. Televisions, screens, projectors, and phones were all showing The Tower. The citizens could only watch. A growing sense of unease filled their hearts.

  No one alive had seen the tower before. It was a myth. It was something from legends. In storybooks the great heroes always overcame impossible odds to save the world, but in the modern day celebrities were the heroes… And now the world watched its heroes die one by one in 4K. Every livestream that cut out was repced by a new one in a matter of seconds. Awakeners had fled to the tower in great numbers after the success of Hana’s team, and most of them regretted their decision soon after. There was a stream avaible in every nguage of the world, across every meridian and sea. Schors and historians were ecstatic to finally prove The Tower real. They rejoiced at a chance to study Armageddon.

  Harper stumbled through the dead-eyed crowds. No one turned their head as a bleeding teenage girl slinked through the morning streets. Bloody knuckles reached up and pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes. Her hand still stung, but she didn’t regret doing what she did. Now she was too te. Her own phone endlessly repyed Heavy Tomtom’s st moments. Bck circles wreathed her eyes. Tears refused to fall. Sobs caught in her throat. The little trembling fawn walked alone through a sea of people. She walked north, towards the river. There were less people there, and there were less screens.

  Harper sat on the barrier overlooking the banks. The wind howled up the valley, riding the river, and it whipped her hair behind her. She watched chunks of ice flow downstream. She abandoned her coat at some point during the walk—it wasn’t like someone with her ability needed it anyways. Off in the distance, rising over the far-side bank, she could see a pulsing Gate—no doubt an entryway to The Tower.

  “What do I do now?” she asked no one. Her legs kicked against the fence. She listened to the west wind but it didn’t speak. She closed her eyes and only the mix of sounds remained.

  “You could always die.”

  Harper’s eyes shot open. She turned and looked behind her, almost falling off the fence in the process.

  “Caroline?” said Harper.

  “In the flesh.” Caroline’s once fxen hair looked ruddy and brown. Her fierce expression was muted by gaunt cheeks and sallow skin. She stepped forward like Odysseus before the suitors, and mana poured from her body as fire.

  “Ah.” Harper sighed. Caroline twitched at hearing the familiar mannerism. “Why are you here?” asked Harper. Her head tilted. “Actually, how are you here?” She dropped down from the fence and walked forward, her hollow eyes trained low. Unlike Caroline, Harper’s mana felt quiet, restrained. She seemed like a dam after heavy rain—a silent threat.

  “I’m here to end the world.”

  “Sure.” Harper’s reply was ft; it was the verbal equivalent of an eye roll.

  Caroline’s breath hitched. She hiccuped and stumbled as she stepped forward. “You seem confident,” she said.

  “No,” said Harper. “I’m just tired and not in the mood to py with you.”

  “Py with me?” Caroline scoffed. Her fists trembled. “Gone for a few months and suddenly little miss Last Pce thinks she’s some big shot now?” Her voice cracked. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. Everything she’d been through over the st few months, all the hardships in that pocket space, it was all for this. All of her suffering, all of her woes, all of her trials, tributions, and tears were for this one moment on this one spoke of the wheel.

  Pain surged through Caroline’s head like someone pnted a spike in her skull. Magic texts burned themselves into her retinas.

  [Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.]

  “Little st pce…” Harper closed her eyes. “It’s been a while since anyone called me that.” When she opened them again they glowed like newborn stars. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please leave.”

  “Oh Harper, my friend~” Madness swirled in Caroline’s wet eyes. She could see every timeline, every possibility. She just needed to follow her alternate self. A shadow stepped forward and she followed, overpping with it. “In all our time together you’ve never beaten me.”

  “I’m serious, Caroline. If this is about Scale trapping you, that wasn’t my choice. I told her to let you go.”

  “I know.” Caroline dashed forward and the fight began.

  Sarah held onto Alyssa’s waist and the two moved in unison through opened portals, disappearing and reappearing at different parts of the ship. She couldn’t understand why they were moving like this, but she trusted her partner more than anything else in the world. Where they went, they went together.

  “Take us to the helm!” Alyssa drowned the deck with a torrent of water that could take down skyscrapers, yet the ship remained unharmed. Wooden pnks cracked and bent under the weight, but they soon returned to their normal state within seconds. The gray-bodied monsters died in droves and more repced them, but with every stacked body their numbers replenished slower.

  “Alyssa, is everyone else on the ship an enemy now?” Sarah held her head. From her perspective Alyssa was cutting down swathes of allies. Every dead foe unsealed the altered memories and this created a vicious cycle. In Sarah’s eyes the world seemed to be unraveling like a ball of twine.

  “Yes. There’s no one on the deck that isn’t your enemy.”

  “Except you?

  “Except me.”

  “Okay.” She accepted it. She had every right to question it but she just nodded. Sarah unleashed her magic in full. Portals opened up in the sea and connected to new ones over the deck. The world seemed to completely invert. Alyssa caused the sea to rise earlier, but Portal flipped the sea and the sky completely.

  “You better keep me dry,” said Sarah.

  “That’s too hard. How about we settle for safe?”

  “Fine. But you owe me.”

  “Deal.”

  The wall of water smmed down onto the ship’s deck. The force tilted the vessel almost 90 degrees to the starboard side. Blood trickled from Alyssa’s nose as she raised her hands and controlled the falling mass.

  “Seven thunders, seven skies. Seven Heavens, seven lives.” Alyssa chanted a short mnemonic and magic surged. Geometric patterns formed in the waves. The gray creatures perked up as if in response to something she said. They chittered like bugs.

  A vortex formed from seven interlocking flows of water. The colliding flows met with such a quantity of magic that cracks formed in The Tower’s subspace, sending a shiver through its spine.

  Far above, at their tea table, the dragons sensed a faint vibration coming from far below.

  [The humans of this world are quite tenacious,] said Olimaw. Her expression was one of genuine respect. [Much better than that failed nursery.]

  “Ah…” Scale sighed.

  “Your eyes are beaming. Do you recognize that mana?” asked Aurum, now sitting at a smaller human-sized table alongside Scale and two of the other young dragons willing to polymorph.

  “Yes.” Scale nodded. She looked up with a gentle smirk. “That mana is from my sister.”

  “You speak as if you are close with her. Do you wish to share?”

  “Ah!” Scale’s spine snapped straight. Starlight twinkled in her eyes. “Would I ever! I’d never admit it to her face, but I am very proud of my little Watergss. After Henry, my human father in my past life, remarried—”

  Scale didn’t intend to present herself in a positive light, but her genuine enthusiasm and bright eyes caused a spark to ignite in the bellies of her suitor dragons. Aurum leaned closer and listened to the plethora of stories, even as they consistently went off track and in weird directions.

  Sarah and Alyssa stood together over the empty deck. Alyssa leaned onto Sarah’s shoulders and breathed heavily. Above them the clouds broke and light pierced the dark sky.

  “My head hurts,” said Sarah with a smile. Her altered memories were slowly being cleansed. “Good job, Alyssa.”

  “Heh,” Alyssa ughed. “Thanks for trusting me.”

  “Always—Aaaah there’s two more!”

  “Wait, Sarah!”

  The Association Chairman walked onto the deck ahead of Anatoly, but soon found himself falling into an open portal. He screamed as the exit opened up over the sea, sending him barreling into the rough water.

  "That's really Theo!"

  "Wh-what?"

  "Chwaahahahahahaha!" Anatoly's ughter had an odd melodious nature to it, almost like a bird's song.