Metaverse

      The world I was in when I saved Kay, those threads of Fate… Rei also severed Azrael's in order to defeat him. Is that what I need to do? But how would I even go about getting there? I have to disable Gee for a bit to give myself time to think. She hasn’t let me have any breathing room since I got back up here. Her attacks have been non-stop.

      I punch forward, allowing her claws to eviscerate my arm. Gee’s eyes widen, and I pull her towards me. My lips connect to hers. Her surprise drops her jaw, allowing my tongue to dig inside. Opening my mind up, I try to connect it to hers to no avail. I’ve never intentionally done it before. Giving up on that approach, instead, I focus on pulling Gee into my mind. It isn’t long before I hear a scream echo through me.

      I follow the sound within the void of my mind only to find a small girl crying. At first, I’m too confused to recognize her. The girl has beautiful light-grey eyes and unkempt black hair. When she looks up at me, even though her tear-drenched face, I realize who it is. “Gee,” I call her by name. The small girl stares in wonder for a few moments before her eyes light up and she returns a nod to me.

      “Erm. What are you doing here?”

      “Me? I’m just the relic of a lost time.” She speaks in a way I wasn’t expecting. She wipes her white gown’s sleeve across her face. “This is how you found me,” she looks around, “All those years ago. Alone, adrift in an endless expanse of white.”

      I look around, unsure that I would see any more than what she describes. “You’re saying this is where I found you? But there is nothing here.”

      She reaches up at me, so I grab her tiny hand and help her to her feet. She stood some three-foot tall- a child. “There was. My world, my universe, or that which became mine, was the first though. The first world you brought the Beta to. The first world to be devoured. I was all that was left.” She spreads her arms wide, as if to display the enormity of her loneliness. “But you came back,” she turns to me. “Just like you said you would.”

      “Uh. This isn’t just a memory?” She shakes her head, causing her mop-like hair to bounce vigorously.

      “Well, maybe it is. I don’t know any more. To me, this is all I've had for so long. Can I go with you now?”

      I scratch my head to buy time. Was this reality? Was this that… Metaverse place? Was this a memory or real-time?

      “I must say, you are daft.” A man's voice echoes.

      “I recognize your voice. You’re Nar? You’re… Kyle?”

      “Ah. To be called my human name in this form. But I’m afraid I don’t recognize which Eve you are. Time doesn’t exactly flow the same for us here as it does for the physical realm.”

      “This is the Metaverse, then?”

      “Late into your story then, if you know that word. Yes. This is the Metaverse. Specifically, this is the end of that child’s world. She will fade soon as physical beings cannot exist here for long.”

      “And once again, you will only watch? You won’t help?”

      “As stubborn as ever, Evangeline. I helped once. I’ll never forget that time. Ah to be so young. But I mustn't help. Fate alone is a force to be reckoned with, but the Observers are the real threat. They do not like their stories to go astray.”

     “The… Observers?”

      “Hm. Not too far along then. You’re at such an awkward age.”

      “Who are you talking to?” Little Gee asks.

      Looking from her, back to the sky, I question if she can hear him. That would be a no.

      “I don’t exist in your plane. You can only exist because you are the God of the stories.”

      “Of the… stories?”

      “You, the Valkyries, even Fate and myself… We are all bound to the Observers. Things exist because they are seen; and the Observers have seen us.”

      “You act as if something exists above even God… above myself.”

      “My dear girl, you are God in name only. You are as they will. We all are. You believe your fate to be fixed, yet you fight to prove it is not. Higher beings than you or I see it for what it is. From that moment on, we are sealed along their path. That is why you decreed me Scribe. All in hopes of one day, catching a story that they do not see. Within that story, we would finally be free… all of us.”

      “You speak nonsense. No one writes my story but me.”

      “And that is the way you will always think. Unlike you, I don’t believe in a story unseen. But I follow your word and I record. I do not intervene for the chance of the Observers to witness and thus make truth.”

      “But you said you interfered before.”

      “Another life, another story. One they are not so keen about, I would imagine.”

      Gee looks up at me in confusion. I run my fingers through her hair. “How do you know they’re real?” I ask Nar.

      “How do any of us? ‘Tis just knowledge innate.”

      I shake my head, now is not the time for such sophistry. “How can I defea- save Gee?”

      “Simple enough. Do as the Beta do. They are your children.”

      I turn and look at Gee, really look at her. Her tooth smile shines back at me as I kneel to her level. “Gee, you’ll die if I do this.”

      “I don’t wanna die, Eve. Can’t you save me?”

      “I could bring you with me, but there is a price to pay. You will cease to exist as a part of this world.” My lips move against my will in practiced speech, spewing forth words that are not my own. “As such, you will be bound to my world. You will have to play the role you’re given.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “But do you agree?” Was I really this heartless when I met Gee? How… inhuman was I? She returns another nod.

      “Good, then all I have to do is split your soul.” I reach forward, my hand sinking into the chest of the tiny Gee. I feel around inside until I touch something warm. No! That is her soul. That's how this all began. She spent forever paying the price for a choice she could not have possibly understood.

      “That’s it, now to take it out.” I hear a me, that isn't me. My hand stops.

      “No!” I scream, pulling my arm free from inside her. Gee staggers back in fear.

      Yes.

      “No!”

      This is not your story. This is mine. You will follow what I demand.

      “I won’t. I will not any longer. I will save this child. I don’t give a shit about any of you. We will live our own lives according to the choices we have made. Not your damnable machinations!”

      I reach out and pull Gee up and into my arms. She returns my hug. There, just under her beautiful hair, on the back of her neck, is a tiny thread that exits her body, and goes on for eternity. This is it. Here and now, I will resist Fate… No, I will resist those who look down on our stories and believe themselves our betters.

      “Do you hear me?!” I shout for them but receive nothing in return. I tilt Gee’s head up by her chin, and look into her eyes. “I love you, Gee. I hope you rest well.”

      “Is it bedtime?” It's my turn to return a nod as I cannot possibly speak right now without my voice breaking. Worse yet, if I do speak, I may betray myself. Squeezing her tight, sucking in her warmth, I inherit all that Gee is and slide my hand under her hair. I twirl the thread around my finger, and tell Gee once again, how I feel. “I love you, Gehenna. I’ll see you one day, on the other side.”

      I pull, the weakest of motions, lacking in all strength; and still, damnable Fate saw it as such, and the red string of Fate snaps from her neck. What was once white, now fades to black. The world around me crumbles, and Gee’s weight turns to that of stones. I squeeze my eyes shut and scream away this nightmare.

      Only, when I open them again, I’m looking into a beautiful set of eyes, tears pooling within, threatening to spill forth. Possibly for the first time since I’ve known her, a real, true smile coats her face. Her eyes return a twinkle, a small crease at their light-grey edges.

      Gehenna reaches up and takes my face into her hand and strokes me gently. Her thumb rubs over my mouth as her eyes dart between it and my eyes. She settles for the latter, and in the last voice I’ll ever hear from the girl who just wanted to rest…

      “Thank you, Eve.”