This is an alternate branch of the storyline continuing from [20A]

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[21A]
For the Primary Branch [21]

Giselle desperately wanted to shrug off the call as a rogue dream unsuccessfully attempting to invade the waking world. She felt so much dry skin on her lips and just managed to free several bits of her blonde hair from getting in tangled in it. Delicately, she brushed around her eyelids to free tear-swaddled chunks of sleepy sand which felt like boulders. Even then, she felt like there was more she could dig out if she was just tenacious enough to find it.

“When can we meet up?” Blessin was still on the line with urgency in her tone. Giselle groaned and drifted her phone in the direction of Rachel. After some breath clearing the sniffles, Rachel received the line and managed a simple, “…Hello?”

Giselle didn’t hear the full conversation, but she managed to catch the phrase, “Dear God” muttered with frustration. The overall sentiment boiled down to the fact it was just a little bit after 6 AM. Blessin apparently didn’t find this particularly early but then she regularly went to sleep far before midnight.

Blessin soon seemed to realize that any effort to rouse the group would be fruitless. She instead passed along her plan to drive to their place. And neither Giselle nor Rachel had any idea what the plan was after that. By the time the call ended, the only thing that saved Giselle‘s phone from slipping out of Rachel‘s hand and ricocheting to the floor was Giselle‘s protective awareness from camera use.

Once the thing was plugged in and plunked in its regular spot, she crawled back into bed and nearly did so headfirst under the covers. She didn’t remember much after that until the vague nuisance of rapid knocks on the front door and urgent chimes began to needle her brain.

Rachel managed to get herself out of bed and step lightly towards the door with her robe on. Giselle quietly whimpered from this and stretched for her. When she couldn’t find her, she rolled back to the other side and her good arm found Olivia curled up in something approaching a fetal position.

“Please don’t tell me you were gaming all night…” Giselle heard that lady from the hospital‘s voice again but right in front of the bed. She stretched her head up to check why that might be. It was because she was right in front of her in a similar gossamer outfit from earlier. Instead of reacting in surprise, Giselle just took a slow yawn and raised her good hand to wiggle.

Under a careful breath, Blessin muttered something that sounded like a foreign language while still having recognizable elements of grumbling. “I could blame a dark spirit sucking your energy, but I don’t think they work with this amount of subtlety. Please try to drink this before you pass out again.”

Holding the cup that Blessin passed to her just wasn’t possible, so Giselle had to turn towards the side until she was barely clinging to the mattress while resting the cup on the dresser on Rachel’s side. The first taste was somewhat like what she expected, a coffee-rich flavor that lingered on her tongue. Far too creamy for her though. She took coffee black, although, within 11-year-old girl sensibilities, she hadn’t ruled out the possibility of some degree of creamer and sweetener.

This assertion slipped out with her still sleepy brain as she took another drink. Slowly, it burned at the edges of her mouth and tangled neurons like kickstarting the fire of Athena.

“Never seen an episode of The Simpsons and drinks coffee black. I’m also going to surmise you enjoy plain mustard, copious amounts of ranch, and delight in vanilla as your main flavor of ice cream. Am I right?"

That read actually did more to wake Giselle up from her stupor than the strange cup of coffee she was trying to drink. Blessin nodded confidently as Olivia scowled and despised her cup. It took some doing but both girls were up and aware in just a few minutes. Barely more lucid than them, Rachel returned to the room with a cup of her own.

Once it was clear that she had their undivided attention, Blessin began her explanation. “I don’t think a dark spirit is responsible for this because I encountered worst via dreamscape. This world is going to end. Cerberus has decided we are too much of a risk to keep existing. We’re just a branch reality, little more of a blip of light in existence to those kinds of entities. I don’t know how he’s going to do it, but I know my prophetic dreams. Our only chance is to find somewhere safe.”

Giselle looked over her shoulder at Blessin standing there. She squeezed the crucifix once again hanging from her neck and took a deep, slow breath. With her still-squinting eyes, Giselle thought she saw a faint eddy in the air, like when Athena or Olivia drew in human emotion. When she tried to check again with her eyes a little wider, she couldn’t see anything.

Rachel reacted first, “That bastard is ending the world?”

“Yes. Inescapably, that’s going to happen. Nothing can be done about that. If you know Doctor Who, then consider it a fixed point in time. As expressed in season or series six.” Rachel raised a finger in the air before gently rubbing her mouth with it. Confused and terrified emotions swelled up through Giselle.

“We can’t let him do that! I’ll blow him to pieces! It’ll turn him into a cat with a missing paw… no. A regular cat. But we can stop him…”

Olivia started to gather the strands of what was going on and wore alarm and shades of emotion just as intense as what was flowing from Giselle‘s features. “This is my home! This is my sister’s home and all my friends. He ripped away the quiet places that we nestled to hide. He took everything from us! Even if I have to burn through every ounce of humanity I have or will ever have, I will destroy the monster in the darkness!” Hot, blazing tears dashed across her cheeks as Giselle abandoned her cup to roll over and comfort Olivia as much as possible. Olivia coughed trying to instill more strength and anger into her words than her faint voice could manage. Begrudgingly, she cleared her mouth with generous sips.

Dipping her head, as though in solemn apology, Blessin urgently expressed that she wished with all her heart to go down fighting with what they had as well against this horrifying force. She laid out her palms and shook her head. “All we can do is try to survive it as much as possible. It’s a frail hope, but everything I’ve learned about the warehouse to the north says that the owners of the company Flush with Pride built it to protect the entities within the products they created from something greater and to protect themselves from when those greater entities came after them.”

Giselle wanted to throw up. In less than a day, she’d gone from the happy prospects of a silly stupid little date with one of her classmates to barely awake with one hand and the looming prospect of the apocalypse. This felt like the worst sort of video game she wanted to refund immediately, and she actually liked the Fallout series. Jeremy spent four years, with a lot of hiatuses, trying to craft what story the developers gave him into something akin to a D&D campaign with all his own creative flourishes. It wasn’t well viewed, but his soul needed the completion.

Instantly, Giselle had a list of at least a dozen people they needed to contact and get to safety along with everyone here. Her parents or aunt and uncle, or whatever bullshit reality wanted to pull, were top of the list. Dale, Finley, Ethan, and on and on. And their friends and family. Rachel’s dad and stepmom in the Midwest along with her birth mom and her second husband. There were so many cousins too, along with Rachel’s sister, Tiffany. Even a faint recitation of this list earned a quick quiet head shake from Blessin.

“There’s too many and too little time. All that truly matters is the entities, especially Olivia and Athena. The warehouse is likely to have others stored in there for protection. We can all go together, but I fear we don’t have the time to bring anyone else up to speed and convince them how important this is. I was able to pack my little kitty with me and I would not begrudge you saving your furry child as well.”

The weight of all this settling on Giselle‘s shoulders brought out her tears. She desperately beseeched Blessin for an alternative or more time or something they could do. Blessin dug her phone out of her pocket and stared at it with concern.

“You have to believe me. This is a fixed point in time, and we are rapidly approaching it. We may already not have enough time to get to any kind of safety for the sake of preserving reality. It sucks, it really fucking sucks because I have so many beautiful wonderful friends and family who I need to find a way to say goodbye to. We have to get going, so it isn’t all in vain.”

Everyone packed light but grabbed as much water as possible because that was what you were supposed to get in an emergency, whether it was a hurricane or a pandemic. Giselle figured the end of the world also applied. Doubt tickled at her despite all appearances. A frail hope that this was some sort of crazy YouTuber stunt with the most intricate practical joke. Oh, you thought you turned into an 11-year-old girl and then had to go to school and then had your hand taken off, and then a psychic lady or whatever says she’s from another universe and warns you that your world is going to end, but just wait a minute when you walk outside everyone is there and they yell SURPRISE!

No one was out there to yell surprise. It just looked like a normal morning with everyone slowly awakening to it. Giselle tried her best to help. She ran through so many things that they usually tell you to take in an emergency. All the important papers seemed pointless, although she grabbed a hard drive of important files and photos. All of Jeremy‘s work of more than a decade was already wiped out by a change in reality. She grabbed a bag of several handhelds and a bunch of games along with the Switch. Some clothes. A big bag of food and plenty of cans for Herschel and enough for them as well. Rachel packed a few of her favorite plushy creations and several of her notebooks. Other than that, Giselle grabbed a few cameras and light devices, especially phones.

All the rest stayed behind. She had a plan to call and hopefully warn but not terrify as many people she knew as possible. Logically, she knew in her head that it was impossible that this random woman, who she just stumbled upon, knew exactly when the world was going to end from a dream. But, yesterday and all the stuff she knew was enough of a foundation to at least travel and trust with care. Later, they would surely discover it was all wrong. Breathe a sigh of relief, regroup, and plan for how to properly destroy the evil fuck creating these terrible nightmares and even worse realities.

Rather than the terrifying prospect that nagged her or the heavenly hope calling to tomorrow, Giselle settled on the delightful discovery that Blessin’s cat, a silver female brooding in her carrying case at this absolute indignity and who was now the happenstance companion of a mewing and bewildered Herschel, was simply named You.

It was apparently a literary reference of some meaning she didn’t know. But Giselle adored it and made it an insulating bubble around her world. You all right back there? Does You want something to eat? Can You smile for me? Blessin soon wore a wary expression, like she suddenly remembered everything she didn’t enjoy about children. She didn’t kick Olivia or Giselle out of her car though.

Rachel followed behind with the entirety of the crossover filled with their supplies and bags. Giselle desperately wanted to make the final phone calls which would assuage the prickly fear that threatened to tear ulcers into her tiny stomach. But she waited and watched the radiant sunrise against the ocean as they made their way from the coastal side streets to the highway.

It looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

Poll below