"Are you alright?"
Rosalyn glanced over to her wife as they hiked through this particularly devastated patch of city. A chunk of skyscraper must've crashed through here or something, because the layer of debris was so thick they couldn't even see the ground anymore. Maddie was looking at her with a worried expression.
Rosalyn sighed. "I'm fine. Just... thinking again."
Maddie hiked up close, taking her hand. "Wanna talk about it?"
Rosalyn chuckled humourlessly. "It's nothing you haven't heard before. I'm still just... Getting used to this."
Maddie hummed. "It must be a lot to adjust to."
"It's like... I just fell asleep, and five years have passed. Some things are the same, but everything else is... The world really did just move on without me. Mom and Dad are getting all grey. You've been through all this stuff. Vivienne's dating a copy of me. And now the literal apocalypse is happening. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it all. The time we spent together was the only time I've felt normal since I first woke up in my grave."
Maddie leaned over, kissing her hair. "Well, once this is all sorted out, we can go back to that, okay?"
Rosalyn smiled, warmth filling her belly. "Optimistic, aren't we?"
Maddie grinned. "How could I not be? You came back to us. If that happened, anything can. I'm not gonna lose hope."
"If anyone can kick the Godling's ass, it would be you."
Maddie laughed, and the two settled into a comfortable silence, climbing their way over the destruction.
"Look! A person."
Sure enough, a couple hundred metres down the way, a man stood alone amongst the rubble, looking away from them. He was dressed in a suit, seemingly untouched by the devastation around him. A shiver travelled down Rosalyn's spine. She instinctively sucked in her gut, as if preparing to run.
"Something's wrong," Maddie muttered.
Rosalyn looked closer, and noticed the man's feet weren't touching the ground.
"Oh fuck," Maddie continued, her voice tight. "That's... That's him. It."
Hands shaking, Rosalyn reached down to her radio. She grabbed it and pulled it up to her mouth.
"Guys," she whispered, afraid It would hear her if she spoke too loud. "Th-the Godling's on our route."
Static rumbled through the radio. No one replied. She tried again.
"Guys! Do you copy?"
Nothing.
The Godling's head twitched. It turned around, looking right at her.
It grinned.
All of a sudden, Rosalyn's body was moving on its own, flying towards the Godling at breakneck speed. Maddie called out for her, but her words were lost in the wind rushing by Rosalyn's ears. Her heart flew up into her throat. It had barely been a week since she woke up. Was she really gonna die again this soon?!
She stopped just as quickly as she started, slamming to a halt in front of the Godling's human form; a man she recognised all too well.
Sebastian Beaumond, the asshole who ran for president way back before she died the first time. If not for the fact that he was floating half a metre off the ground, and for the fact that his eyes had been replaced with endless white voids, he would've looked shockingly normal.
"Hello, Rosalyn. We've missed you," he said, his already slimy voice layering with... something else. Something that made Rosalyn's head ache like nothing she'd ever felt before.
She struggled against the invisible grip around her body, but it was futile. She raised the heat until her clothes burst into flames, but Sebastian, or the Godling, or whatever they were now, didn't care. They just reached out, placing a single hand on her cheek, and the fire went out. A coldness settled into her core, like the heat had been ripped from her very soul.
"Now, now, is that any way to greet an old friend?" Their thumb stroked along her cheek with careful gentleness. The way a human petted a bird; a soft touch, but heavily loaded with the knowledge that they could crush it with a simple thought, should they so desire.
She grunted, still uselessly trying to escape. "Wh-what the fuck are you talking about?! Don't touch me!"
"Oh, little phoenix. Don't you remember? The time we spent together in the dark?"
Something flashed through her mind, hazy like a dream. A dim cell with no entrance or exit.
"Do you remember the fun we had together?" They pinched her cheek, squeezing hard enough to hurt. Tears pricked in her eyes. "Do you remember the way you screamed when We peeled all of your skin off, piece by piece?"
Once again, another fleeting memory, just as They described it. Rosalyn whimpered. She could hear Maddie calling her name, still running after her through the rough terrain.
Rosalyn's mouth opened all on its own, and the Godling slipped Their fingers inside, grabbing her tongue. "Do you remember how you begged when We ripped this little thing out, and made you feast upon it? We still relish the sound of you trying to force it down your throat, gagging and crying."
Maddie, please. Help.
"Hmm. You do remember. We can see it in your face. Only, the memories lack solidity. They exist only as fleeting, phantom fears. Don't worry, little phoenix. We shall remind you."
Suddenly, all at once. The memories returned.
Five years. Every second. Elongated. Stretched out. Crushed. Into her mind. Impossibilities. Things that never happened. Things that couldn't happen. Skin splitting and blood spilling and bones breaking and the loneliness the loneliness the loneliness and screams and screams and screams and screams and-
Rosalyn stared up at a starry sky, her body writhing uncontrollably as her muscles twitched with phantom sensation. Throat ached and ears rang and heart raced and tears ran. Someone was screaming. She ran out of breath, sucked in oxygen, and realised it was herself. She continued screaming. The terror hadn't stopped. It never stopped.
"Rosie! Rosie!"
Maddie appeared in her field of vision, kneeling down next to her. "What's wrong?! What happened?!"
Rosalyn couldn't reply. She was too busy screaming.
"Fuck. Fuck. Okay." Maddie pulled her up, wrapping her arms around Rosalyn's body. "It's okay. You're fine. I'm here. I'm here."
Slowly but surely, the terror resided. The compulsion to scream faded away. But the memories remained. Rosalyn returned the embrace with shaking arms, silently sobbing against her wife's shoulder.
Five years. She spent five years in that hellhole, and now she remembered every second of it. No longer did it feel like she just fell asleep and woke up in the future. Now... Now, there was presence in her mind to make up that lost time. Sitting heavily in the space before Jordyn appeared and saved her. The memories crawled across her skin like millions of sharp-legged bugs.
"What did you do?" Maddie growled, turning her head to look at the thing behind her. The sight of It made Rosalyn's insides freeze up once again.
"We simply reminded her of the time we spent together. Those five years she was gone from your world. We had so much fun with her."
Maddie slowly turned back around. Her eyes were wide, and Rosalyn could hear her teeth grinding together.
"I'll be back soon, my love," she whispered, gently letting go of Rosalyn. Cold air wafted from her hands as they passed by Rosalyn's cheeks. "I've just... gotta do something."
Ice formed around her knuckles. Rosalyn realised what Maddie meant. Her stomach dropped.
"No-!"
Maddie roared, spun around, and socked the Godling right across the jaw.
The ice shattered as she made contact. The Godling actually moved with the hit, Its eyes widening.
"Intriguing," They stated. A single drop of golden blood dripped down Their chin. Maddie swung again.
This hit knocked Them back upright. They stared at Maddie with a deep curiosity. She swung a third time.
The Godling caught her fist, twisting her arm around until it was stuck upside down. "What exactly do you hope to achieve, Madeline?"
She tried to pull herself free, but Rosalyn knew it was already too late. Seeing the futility of escape, Maddie opted for a more violent approach, swinging her other arm forward. The Godling caught her wrist effortlessly.
"You are certainly a fascinating creature. We can see why Our darling Rosalyn enjoys you so."
Madeline kicked Them in the balls. This time, They didn't react. "Don't you talk about her!"
The Godling grinned. "Again, what do you hope to achieve? You are trying to fistfight a God. Surely, you must realise the futility of your struggle?"
"Pretty sure Gods don't bleed, asshole," she growled.
"Gods don't bleed... But people do."
Maddie's wrist broke with a horrible crunch as the Godling did... something to the space around her forearm, compressing it to the point that her bones snapped, ripping out through her skin. She shrieked, thrashing around, trying to pull away, but the Godling's grip was Absolute.
"What's the matter? Power not working? That's a shame. Here, let Us try."
Frost crept up Maddie's left leg to just below her knee, quickly forming into ice that sealed her to the ground. Despite ostensibly being resistant to the cold, she screamed even harder, beginning to sob. The sound ripped straight through Rosalyn's heart.
The Godling finally let go of her and she dropped like a sack of bricks, trying to crawl away but failing on account of the ice. "S-stop!" she yelped. "Get away!"
"It's far too late for that, snowflake."
Rosalyn screamed at herself to get up, to step in front of her, to do anything. But she was totally petrified. She could barely breathe, let alone move right now. Every time she tried, another memory flashed through her head and her muscles tensed up. She might as well have been the one trapped in ice, for all the good she could do.
Maddie's body lifted up again, controlled by the same force that had pulled Rosalyn over here in the first place. The Godling observed her for a long, tense moment. Rosalyn held her breath.
"G-urk!"
The Godling plunged Their hand into Maddie's gut.
Rosalyn watched on with frozen horror as They dragged downwards, ripping Maddie open all the way down to her groin. Intestines spilled from the hole in her abdomen, flopping wetly over the Godling's arm. Maddie's mouth hung open, her eyes wide, like she couldn't believe what was happening. Rosalyn stopped breathing.
The Godling hummed with a pleased lilt. They pulled Their hand out of her abdominal cavity, taking a string of smaller intestine with Them. It still writhed and convulsed in Their grip.
"You have such beautiful innards, Madeline. Far too beautiful to keep hidden from the world like they were."
Maddie gasped and heaved, still trapped in the Godling's spectral hold. She could do nothing to stop Them from reaching up and licking along the bloody surface of her intestine. Rosalyn threw up.
"Mm... Delicious. Would you like a taste?"
Maddie didn't reply, clamping her mouth shut. The Godling wasn't discouraged, pressing the organ up against her lips.
"Come now, don't be like that, baby. You know you want it."
They continued to try to force it into her mouth, smearing her face with blood. Maddie held fast, looking away and meeting Rosalyn's horrified gaze. Whether it was meant to be a reassurance, or a cry for help, or just one last look before the end, Rosalyn didn't know. And it didn't seem like she'd ever get the chance to find out.
"Ungrateful BITCH."
The Godling let go of her intestines, reeled back, and punched her across the jaw.
Maddie disappeared. Something crashed behind Rosalyn. She was too distracted to check what it was, too busy staring at Maddie's left leg, still sealed to the ground, encased in ice, with its owner nowhere to be seen.
"You'd best go to her, little phoenix. We doubt she has much time left, and We'd hate to deprive you of a tearful goodbye after what happened last time."
She blinked, looking up at Them. "H-huh?"
The Godling didn't reply, simply grinning and pointing over her shoulder. Rosalyn turned around. Saw where Maddie had landed, at least a hundred metres away, crumpled up against a collapsed building; a horrible splatter of red against the grey.
Finally, Rosalyn's body decided to work. It forced her forward, pushing towards her wife on shaking, sore limbs, stumbling, skinning her palms and knees on the rubble under her feet. She couldn't get there fast enough.
The sight that greeted her when she finally arrived made her want to throw up again.
Maddie's face was totally destroyed. Just a mess of blood and flesh and teeth, her jaw hanging by a single flap of cheek, tongue lying limp down her neck. One of her eyes had popped out. The other eye glanced around listlessly, not looking anywhere in particular. Just as the Godling said, she was still alive. But not by much.
Rosalyn looked down at where her left leg just... ended, avoiding the sight of her ruined abdomen. Blood spurted our of her exposed arteries, spraying against the debris.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck!
Rosalyn reached down, pinching the end of Maddie's arteries and channelling heat through her fingers. The flesh sizzled, but she successfully cauterised them shut, slowing the bleeding down by a large margin.
Through it all, Maddie didn't react. Rosalyn wondered if she was paralysed after landing so hard. She... She probably had brain damage, too. And she'd need so much reconstructive surgery before she looked even remotely like herself again.
None of that mattered. As long as she survived, none of it mattered. Rosalyn would love her all the same. She just needed to survive.
Rosalyn pulled out her radio, switching to Vivienne's frequency.
"Viv! Viv, are you there?! W-we need help!"
Only the sound of static replied.
"No one's coming to save you, sweetheart. You're all alone."
Ice crept up Rosalyn's back. She turned around, facing the Godling.
They looked down at her, that awful grin still spread across that horrible face.
And then a car landed on Them.
—-
Vivienne focused as the wind rushed past her ears, teleporting herself upside-down in place and thus reversing her kinetic energy in relation to gravity. She waited until she had reached her peak height, and then teleported back to the floor, upright again.
Rosie stared at her, wide-eyed, pale and sweating with her hands covered in blood. Past her, Maddie was...
Focus on the objective Don't think about it Focus on the objective Don't think about it
Vivienne took a step towards Rosie right as the car she just dropped started creaking. That was the Godling, wasn't it? She couldn't imagine those zombies could do this much damage, and the fact that whatever-it-was was clearly still alive under there told her everything she needed to know.
Vivienne reached Rosie's position, grabbing her arm. She flinched away like the touch burned, staring up at her.
"Come on, Rosie. We have to go."
Slowly, Rosie shook her head. "N-no. No, M-Maddie. You have to help her. Sh-she's still alive."
Still alive? Vivienne forced herself to look over at her, and sure enough, the eye that was still in place was still moving. But... that didn't mean she was alive. Not in... any way that mattered. And not for long.
Even if Vivienne teleported her straight to an operating table right this second, the odds that the doctors would actually be able to save her were infinitesimal. To have been hit so hard that her eye popped out and her jaw came off, her brain would've been bounced around her skull like a pinball. The bleeding and swelling would just be too much, and in conjunction with all her other injuries... The fact that she was even still twitching was a miracle.
There was nothing anyone could do now. Just like five years ago. The kindest thing they could do for her would be to let her pass on.
It just... wasn't fair. Maddie had suffered for so long. She deserved so much better than this. She deserved more than just a tiny taste of happiness before the end. How cruel was the universe to tease her with Rosie's return, only to smash their joy to pieces once again?
Vivienne bit her lip until she tasted blood, letting the pain sharpen her and pushing through the grief. Now wasn't the time. There were still people to save.
"Rosie, she... I'm sorry. We have to go."
Rosie didn't reply. She was too busy looking over Vivienne's shoulder, pure horror covering her expression.
"You're not going anywhere."
Before Vivienne could react, someone behind her grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back, and then up, off the ground. She screamed, reaching up and trying to alleviate some of the searing pain in her scalp, holding onto her attacker's hand. She tried reaching out to the space around her, focusing on somewhere, anywhere else, but that familiar pop never came. She couldn't teleport.
Somehow, despite the movement making no sense, Vivienne spun in midair. The hand in her hair let go, replaced by two on either side of her head, and she came face-to-face with Sebastian Beaumond. Or, perhaps, the corpse of Sebastian Beaumond, puppeteered by the Godling. His eyes had become endless white voids, impossibly deep and vast. Whether there was any semblance of 'him' left in there, she didn't know. All she knew, was that she was in deep, deep shit.
"You crumpled Our suit, you little ginger bitch. You're gonna pay for that."
Well. That answered one question, at least. Probably... wouldn't change the outcome, though. Maddie's body flashed into Vivienne's mind. If she'd pissed It off enough for It to do... that to her, Vivienne didn't want to know what was in store for her in the face of Its explicit rage. Without her teleportation, she was stuck. This... This was it.
Sorry, Jordyn. Uncle Steve. Brea. Look after each other.
Inexplicably, the Godling fingers seemed to push through the boundaries of her skull, into her brain. She gasped, stiffening, as images began flashing in front of her eyes at lightning pace. She recognised them. All of her memories, playing backwards in reversed sequence. All the happy moments, sad moments, painful moments, and moments she'd forgotten about. Time around her seemed to slow as It dug deeper, going further and further back, until a time that she should've had no memory of at all. Her own birth, and then even further. The darkness and warmth of the womb. The sounds of her parents talking. And then further still, until such a point where she had no developed senses through which to experience the world at all.
And then-
—-
In the beginning, there was an explosion. A burst of light and matter and sound, ripping across the Nothing and giving birth to time and space. And in the middle of it, Vivienne, spinning and whirling and screaming, just a bundle of loose, living energy; a fluke quirk of spacetime folding over itself wrong and creating a primitive form of non-biological 'life' — if such a term even applied — billions of years before even the first stars formed.
Vivienne didn't know what was happening at first. One moment, she'd been amongst the rubble, trapped in the Godling's grip, and the next, she was witnessing the birth of the universe from an atomic viewpoint. Of course, this form had no eyes, but somehow, she could sense the subatomic particles around her. Even reach out to and manipulate them, if she so desired. They were... disturbed, by this course of events.
But... then it just kept going. She expected this illusion, or whatever it was, to end at some point, but it never did. Time was difficult to follow in this state, but once she started counting, Vivienne was horrified to find that... she just never stopped. With nothing else to do, that was what she focused on. Once she hit one million, the fear really started to set in.
Wherever she was, she was trapped. One million seconds was over eleven days. Had she really been here that long? The crushing boredom made it seem highly likely. Her only stimulation was in playing with the particles around her, but as space grew and the particles spread out, she had less and less to work with. her boredom grew. She spent days crying — or, at least, it felt like crying. She had no mouth to scream with, no eyes to shed tears, no hair to pull and no skin to scratch. But the mental sensation, that overwhelming desperation that seemed to wash over itself like waves on a beach; that was still just as present as always. Despite not having a body, at least she had her mind.
Time passed. Vivienne was no longer counting; it was just too depressing. Instead, she thought about her family. Her friends. Her loved ones. Her plans for life. Some alternate plans just in case those ones didn't work out. What she might do once she got out of this. She thought about her favourite shows and books and games, and tried to come up with new stories for the characters, or theories about what might happen next. That entertained her for a while, but it wasn't enough. Nothing could ever be enough in this cold, crushing void.
Time passed. She thought about the mechanics of powers and souls. What was a power, really, but a selective manipulation of spacetime? When Rosie heated up the air, all she was doing was vibrating the atoms around her. Same thing but the opposite for Maddie. Jordyn's shadows were a little more interesting. A shadow was an absence of light; a lack of photons. And yet, Jordyn was able to make that absence into a physical thing. By all accounts, it shouldn't have made any sense. And yet, it worked. Or perhaps the actual mechanics of Jordyn's power weren't quite as they seemed. Vivienne supposed there was just more she didn't yet know about metaphysics. But what better place was there to find out?
Time passed. She experimented with the meagre amount of atoms around her, attempting to give herself a new physical form to encase her energy. Her experiments yielded minimal results. Living energy was not designed to be held within a non-living shell. A living shell was not something she had learned to create. Perhaps creating a living shell was impossible. She only existed due to a misplaced wrinkle of reality. Perhaps that was the case with all life. Perhaps... if she wanted a physical form, she would just have to wait.
Time passed. She figured out how to propel herself through space. But, the universe was still young, so there wasn't much to see. She missed home, even if what 'home' was was becoming quite fuzzy. When she tried to recall it, all that she could picture was a woman's face. She had tan skin, and short dark hair, and a scar across her cheek and nose. Yes, she missed home.
Time passed. Nothing happened. For a very. Long. Time. She forgot her own name.
Time passed. The Being learned to stop thinking. There were only so many thoughts one could have, and it seemed as though she had thought through them all.
...
Time passed.
...
Time passed. The Being woke up. She sensed... a change. An alteration in the spacetime currents that gave her form. Not just one, but many trillions of millions of tiny folds and overlaps, dotting the universe that had grown around her. Curious, the Being set out in pilgrimage, to investigate. How could she resist the allure of something to do, after so many billions of years alone?
On her several-million year journey, travelling at the speed of light through a much brighter and more vibrant cosmos, the Being witnessed so many wonderful things. Stars of all different atomic makeups churning and burning. Planets spinning around them. Black holes, sucking in anything that came too close. Yes, in her time asleep, the universe had become a truly beautiful place.
But she couldn't enjoy any of it.
She had no eyes with which to see the sparkling majesty. No ears with which to hear the wind on barren planetoids. No skin with which to feel the heat of the stars. All she had was the sense of the atoms around her, and the vague, distant memories of a life long past; a simpler, shorter, but much richer existence.
The Being desired a body.
Eventually, she reached a planet covered in spacial anomalies. Tiny knots in the fibres of the universe, like her, only weaker, fleeting, bound to physical forms. Their lives were short, and they all unravelled eventually, their knots flattening out into regular spacetime. But through their living bodies, they could reproduce. Create another shell, inside of which a new knot would form. It was fascinating. How could a simple vessel of flesh and blood create a bend in the very fabric of reality? Perhaps, even now, there were things she didn't understand. She watched them for a few centuries, as they toddled about their tiny existences. Saw their civilisation develop. Saw them live and love and die. And she began to wonder.
She hadn't done any experiments in so, so long.
The Being descended down to the planet and began playing with the inhabitants. Despite their energy being made up of the same stuff as her, they were so very easy to manipulate. Apparently, a physical body wasn't very sturdy. Something she would have to keep in mind when she acquired her own. She moved through their population, pulling them apart or pushing them together or transmutating them. She tried removing the knot from the living shell, but found that the knot quickly unravelled, and the shell's vital functions ceased. Interestingly, it seemed that the inhabitants couldn't see the knots of their own kind, but they could see the Being. Or, at least, they could sense her. Direct sight seemed to break them. They stopped working right.
Finally, she found the perfect vessel. A young member of their species, inexplicably born without a knot. The living shell persisted in spite of a lack of energy. Without wasting a moment, she leapt into the empty space left behind.
The Being had acquired a physical form.
She could confirm it now. This world was beautiful. Vibrant, red skies. Floral-scented wind. And the sound of musical screams.
She wasn't alone inside this being. The one who had previously inhabited it shared the space with her. The vessel's own unique will. It provided context with which to view and react to the world through. Interesting, that it did not require a knot in order to have higher thought. Perhaps a quirk of this reproduction ability that physical entities seemed to have. Regardless, it was nice to have a friend after so long in the dark. The Being missed her friends, long forgotten though they were. Perhaps that was why she still found the smell of smoke, the coolness of the breeze, and the cover of shadow so comforting.
Immediately, she altered the vessel's biological functions to increase efficiency and fix the flaws shared by other members of its species. And through it, she continued experimenting. She enjoyed the baser pleasures of a physical body. Food, drink, music, sex. Idle, pointless entertainment, but so dearly craved after an eternity of nothing.
The Being created a base of power on the planet, through which she could continue to investigate the extent of her abilities. She found ways to influence the actions of the inhabitants, manipulating the chemical secretions in their brains to produce any desired result. She discovered the secret to creating primitive life from unliving material. Nothing suitable for a vessel, of course, and incapable of holding a knot, but good for keeping down rebellion. And, when her current vessel was inevitably destroyed, she figured out how to force her way into a new one, knot or not. The knot gave the original inhabitant a far greater degree of control, however, which undermined many of her efforts. Definitely a last resort, and nothing else. Besides, the art of pre-preparing vessels via preventing the formation of a knot during physical creation was quickly becoming second-nature. The only downside was having to wait for them to reach a suitable age before taking control. But, after her billions of years of isolation, a decade and a half was barely even the blink of a vessel's eye to her.
Eventually, though, as with all things, her fun came to an end. She made a mistake. Underestimated her own power. While attempting to simultaneously quell an uprising and test her own limits, she unleashed a burst of energy that cracked the planet in two.
One by one, every little spacetime knot nearby fizzled out and disappeared. Her vessel, despite her adjustments, couldn't handle the vacuum of space, and she was forced to abandon it, as well. The worst part was just how much of her own energy she'd mistakenly used up in the blast. Despite her self-refolding nature, her own knot had reduced in size significantly, and was now in danger of unravelling if she wasn't careful. She had resoundingly learnt her lesson in regards to that particular ability.
Weakened, and once again limited to only atomic sight, the Being departed on another journey through the stars, in search of the next planet that had cracked the secret of the knots. She would need their energy if she was going to regain her strength.
Millions more lonely years passed as she travelled, but she paid them no mind, knowing that things would be back to normal soon. Something about her destination tickled the back of her mind. Somehow, she knew. Very soon, the long wait would be over.
The Being arrived on the new planet; the third ball of rock out from their local star, home to a vibrant ecosystem of knots of all varying sizes and sapience levels. There was something... nostalgic about it. It brought to mind memories long forgotten.
Was this place... home? Perhaps. But that would not stop her curiosity. She would not make the same mistakes she made last time.
As such, when the first settlement of these 'humans' rose up against her, she shut them down with brutal efficiency, deleting their entire city from existence with a simple thought, and absorbing the energy that made up all of their knots to restock her own dwindling supplies. Interestingly, in doing this, they continued to exist as individual knots within her own tangle, retaining their egos. They would serve as effective playthings to experiment with should she ever need to depart this planet. For now, they could sit and wait, just as she did.
This single act of authority cemented her base of power on the planet for the next millennia to come. No one dared defy her will, leaving her free to take all the vessels she desired, and perform her experiments as she wished. Once again, in joining with her first human vessel, she was struck with a sense of nostalgia. How strange. She remembered existing in a form like this once before, for a brief, fleeting moment before the beginning of the universe. The human shape was familiar and comfortable. She was glad that she found this planet.
During her reign, she discovered ways in which she could manipulate the humans' knots, giving them access to fragments of her own abilities, as rewards for cooperation. It was effective in keeping them in line, but could prove troublesome should her subjects betray her trust. As a contingency, she also researched ways to physically manipulate spacetime to cut humans off from the energy of their knots via special runes carved into their bodies. They had to be precise down to the millimetre in order to have the right effect, but that was no quarrel for one such as her, with her atomic sight.
With all of these tools at her disposal, it seemed as though her reign on this planet might last forever. She grew complacent, letting her vessel's ego take the larger measure of influence on their actions, and just sat back and watched, enjoying the simple pleasures of life on this wonderful, familiar planet.
Of course, once again, her complacency preceded her downfall. She allowed the humans too much leeway in their activities, and another uprising began, led by a single family. They raided outposts run by her loyalists, destroying her network of human support and stealing the bodies of her former vessels.
Before she knew it, the de Vygons had amassed an army, and were leading it straight to her doorstep. If she so desired, she could've destroyed them all in one fell swoop. But, after what happened last time, she didn't want to risk it. She didn't want to lose this precious planet she had become so comfortable on.
So, she met them on the field.
And... Against all odds. The Being lost. The humans were a determined people. Even with her entire family killed in front of her, and her body bruised and broken, the last de Vygon still pushed forward. The Being could only watch on in amazement as Franziska de Vygon impaled her with a strange sword, covered with those same knot-separation runes she'd used against the humans in the past.
And... That was it. With her metaphysical energy trapped inside this inert vessel, the Being could do nothing to stop herself from being imprisoned deep below the ground. And that was exactly where she stayed, with only the dirt walls and ceiling to keep her company. At least, until her vessel's eyes decayed away. Then, she busied herself testing the limits of the knot egos she had acquired throughout her twelve-hundred years of conquest.
Unfortunately, it seemed whatever the humans had bound her with sapped her energy, slowly unravelling her core. If left alone, she would eventually succumb to the Nothing and cease to be. Her grip on the knots she'd acquired began weakening as well, ripping away her only source of entertainment in this prison. She needed more.
Thankfully, she could still reach her influence just about anywhere with the right amount of focus. And as such, if she just charged her energy for long enough, she could create artificial life anywhere on the planet to harvest more knots for her. It didn't help her escape this cell, but it would keep her alive.
Centuries passed in empty darkness. Finally, the Being began to sense that the day of her return was near. In preparation, she focused her energy and extracted the knot from a newborn human. By the time of her escape, he would have grown to become a perfect vessel for her vengeance.
Ironically, the one to facilitate her inevitable escape was a descendant of the de Vygons himself. He wished for all of her power to become his. How naive, to assume one so powerless as he would even be allowed to come close to her. She saw into his mind, saw his plan to create artificial life, just like her. She was eager to see if he could succeed.
And succeed he did. Through advancements of human science, a fully-fledged living shell was formed; one with her own artificially created knot, to boot. She would be the one to release the Being back into the world. She would be the one whose wish was granted. And the de Vygon descendant would be left in the dirt where he belonged.
Finally, on one brutal and bloody night, the Being was freed. She paid back the artificial shell with all she desired, even giving up one of her own acquired knots to fulfil the wish. A risk, given the Being's already weakened state, but an agreement was an agreement, and something about this shell was familiar to her. Perhaps in a previous universe, their energies had been intertwined. Regardless, she felt compelled to act with honesty.
Her escape finally fulfilled, she bee-lined for her prepared vessel before her energy could completely unravel, and took over his body, just as they'd planned forty years ago.
For the next week, they simply observed. Got to know the new world that had risen up over her lengthy imprisonment. She scanned her vessel's memories, and discovered many amusing ideas. 'Zombies;' a ubiquitous piece of human popular-culture. Perhaps it would be fun to experiment with such a concept.
And so, once she had subtly collected enough knots from the passive deaths around the world and regained some of her strength, she returned to the city that imprisoned her, and unleashed her energy. Not enough to destroy the city outright, but enough to leave a mark and a message of her return. Destroying them completely would be too quick, and she wanted to have fun with them first.
A few dumb, brave humans attempted to stand in her way. Coincidentally — or, perhaps by design — one was a human whose knot had once belonged to the Being. It was easy to remind her of the things she experienced in the Collective, and break her mind. The other was sequentially taken apart, piece by piece.
And then someone new arrived, and the Being decided to experiment once again.
—-
The Being opened her eyes, staring up at a starry sky from a new body. A familiar one. She was filled with a deep sense of nostalgia. Memories long forgotten flooded her mind, and she remembered being a human. Not just piloting the body of one, but actually being one. One born from a human womb, with a naturally formed knot. She remembered those that this body called 'friends.' The same ones that she had just been tormenting moments ago.
A strange feeling flooded through her. She recalled it as... guilt?
"Wh... What did you do to her?" A familiar, shaking voice asked. Yes... the one called 'Rosalyn.'
"We showed her Our memories. All 14.3 billion years' worth. Her brain will not be able to handle the strain. Her body may live, but the one you knew as 'Vivienne' no longer exists. Just... an empty shell."
How strange. It seemed that all this time, the one she thought was 'her' was actually just the memories of another. But she was far from an empty shell. She still remembered everything that the True Being showed her. She remembered the knots and the atoms. She remembered how to manipulate them.
It was true that her human brain struggled under the strain of the sheer amount of information. Blood seeped from her nose and ears, and her head ached like it was about to explode, but that was an easy fix. Simply by increasing the density of her neurons, she was able to overcome it. It was foolish of the True Being to assume she wouldn't retain her control through her return to her original body. What a poorly planned experiment. It seemed that, despite it all, They never truly grew past that old complacence.
"Well, it's been fun catching up, Rosalyn. Enjoy the broken remains of your loved ones. We have work to do."
And with that, the True Being left them alone, disappearing into the night sky. Perfect.
The being once known as Vivienne sat up. Took a deep breath, expanding her lungs, and turned around.
Rosalyn and Madeline. Two friends from an eternity ago. One, with her mind so broken that she could no longer fight. The other, her body utterly destroyed. The being known as Vivienne recognised that it wasn't technically her fault, despite the memory of causing this. But she would still make it right.
Rosalyn watched her with wide eyes as she climbed to her feet and walked over to Madeline's body. Her knot was beginning to unravel, so the being known as Vivienne gave it some energy; just enough to keep it together for as long as it would take to fix her physical form.
She kneeled down, reaching out, feeling the atoms that made up the cells that made up Madeline's body. She felt the outline of her knot; her soul, and used it as a blueprint to facilitate what she was about to do.
For the most part, putting Madeline back together was easy. Most of her tissue was already present, just in the wrong place. The being known as Vivienne pushed her intestines back into her abdominal cavity, and repaired the ripped-open flesh of her belly, groin, and genitals, purging any outside bacteria in the process. She fitted her arm bone back into place and sealed over the torn skin. She slotted her eye back into its socket, and held her jaw up as the ligaments, muscles, and teeth rebuilt themselves. Soon, the only thing left to deal with was her leg.
That was slightly more complicated. Without the missing limb on hand, she would need to remake it from scratch, reconstituting the atoms around her for the purpose. A much slower process, for sure, but not all that difficult.
"V-Viv...?" Rosalyn whispered as she worked. "Is... that you?"
The being known as Vivienne hummed. "Perhaps. I am... unsure of what I am, now. But... You may call me what you like. And know that I am a friend."
For some reason, that made Rosalyn sob. "Oh, Viv... I'm so sorry."
The being known as Vivienne ignored it, focusing on repairing Madeline's leg. She'd made it about ten centimetres below the knee when her work was interrupted.
"Hmm. That wasn't supposed to happen."
Ah. She'd been expecting this. The True Being would obviously be able to detect what she was doing. It was just unfortunate that it happened so soon, before she could finish up with Madeline and get to work on repairing Rosalyn's mind.
She refocused her efforts as an unseen force lifted her off the ground, telling Madeline's leg wound to simply close itself, instead of rebuilding the entire limb. Not an ideal outcome, but better than letting her newly reopened arteries cause her to bleed out.
As she was spun around to face the True Being, she attempted to exert her will on the space around her and overpower Them. But, of course, it was a futile effort. While her reality manipulation was leagues better than what any normal human could achieve, it still paled in comparison to the True Being's raw power.
They glared at her. She looked back impassively.
"We'll be taking those memories back now."
They could certainly try.
The True Being reached forward with two fingers outstretched, and pushed them straight through her left eye.
Ah. Taking the direct route, then. How typical of this particular vessel.
Alas, the shock of her eyeball popping and her optic nerve being pushed out of the way prevented her from resisting when the True Being's fingers sunk into her brain, literally sucking the memories from her neurons.
The sensation of her hard-earned knowledge leaving her was... in a word, horrifying. 14.3 billion years worth of experience, all seeping away like water through her fingers. Sapping away her very being until she was just...
Vivienne. Twenty-four year old human woman. Nurse-in-training and head support hero of the Tombguard Union. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Just as quickly as They'd returned, the Godling pulled Their fingers out of her head and dropped her onto the ground, before zooming off into the sky. She gasped, blinded by the splitting pain in her skull. She had to remember. She had to remember. Fix it. Fix it before it was too late.
Vivienne reached up, covering her destroyed eye with a palm, and tried to fix it. She could still feel the buzz of the atoms. She knew their shape, and that meant she knew how to control them. She just... had to... remember...
Brain matter reformed, returning to its original, correct form. The back of her eye socket mended itself. But that was all she could manage. The strength left her body, and Vivienne passed out.
—-
Rosalyn blinked, staring at Vivienne's limp form. Everything had happened so fast. She arrived, and then the Godling grabbed her, and dropped her, and left. And then, she was... different. Vivienne, but... Not. Then Vivienne somehow fixed Maddie. She was still splattered with blood, and her left leg ended below the knee with a cleanly rounded stump, but she was alive, and she'd be okay. Rosalyn felt like she might've fainted from sheer relief alone.
As for Vivienne, it was hard to tell, what with the bloody hole in her face, but Rosalyn could see her chest rising and falling. That had to be a good sign.
...What the fuck was she doing?! Just sitting there like an asshole?! She needed to do something!
Rosalyn forced herself to move, despite the lingering terror in her system still almost paralysing her limbs. It had become incredibly clear that her own radio was fucked, so she crawled over to Vivienne and pulled hers out of her belt. Coincidentally, it crackled to life. Rosalyn recognised one of the clones' voices.
"Hey, Vivi, are you available? There are civilians here in need of transport."
Oh. Right. That was what they were supposed to be doing right now. Rosalyn stared at the device, still too shaken to formulate a response.
A few seconds passed. "Viv? Are you alright?"
Once again, Rosalyn tried to think of something to say. Nothing came to mind.
A few more seconds passed. Rosalyn wanted to beat the ever-loving shit out of herself right now. Too cowardly to even say a few words. Too much of a little bitch to try and stop her wife from being brutally murdered. Too busy pissing herself to help a friend having her mind broken and eye poked out. She grit her teeth, digging her fingernails into her thigh until she broke skin, and forced herself to say something.
"Help."
