Worlds Apart

by James Riley

  The light grew brighter and soon blinded Owen as the spell holding him in midair released, dropping him to the floor. That made sense . . . Fowen wouldn’t want to be trapped when he switched into Owen’s body. For a moment Owen considered attacking while he had the chance, but he was far too weak to do much at this point.

  Besides, waiting would lead to something much more satisfying.

  The light became more intense, and suddenly Owen was floating again. He still couldn’t see or feel anything either, but at least he did have a sense of movement this time.

  And then he felt his feet hit the floor, and the light started to fade. As the room grew darker, Owen waited for his eyes to adjust. Finally, he could see enough to watch his own body rubbing its eyes from across the room.

  “You switched us?” he shouted, needing Fowen to do one more thing.

  “I sure did,” his fictional self said, now in Owen’s nonfictional body. “I’ve been a little jealous of these powers, I’ll admit it. Why not? Now that you’ve admitted I’m the best Owen, what do I care what you think anymore?”

  “You’ve outwitted me again,” Owen said sadly, wishing Fowen would hurry up and get on with it.

  “I’d ask you how to use the powers, but I know you’d just lie,” Fowen said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. Why don’t I test them by speeding up my time, then seeing how many times I can punch you before I get tired?”

  “No, please, don’t,” Owen said again in a monotone voice, covering his smile with his hand.

  “Too late!” Fowen said, and laughed joyfully as his body began to vibrate. Faster and faster it moved, and various parts of him started disappearing as his powers kicked in.

  And then Fowen doubled over in pain and gasped loudly.

  “What did you do?” Fowen rasped, collapsing in a heap. His body continued vibrating as Fowen convulsed with pain, then stopped abruptly as he lost consciousness.

  Owen moved quickly to his side and felt for a heartbeat. The robotic heart now in Fowen’s body had stopped, and for a moment, Owen knew he could stand up and walk away, and no one would judge him for it.

  Instead, he fell to his knees and started pounding on his old chest using the CPR lessons he’d been taught in school, just as Charm had done for him.

  A minute passed, and he started to worry. Yes, he hated his fictional self, and Fowen had erased Charm from existence! But he couldn’t just let him die, either. Even someone as terrible as Fowen didn’t deserve that.

  Another minute, and Owen began to panic. “Wake up, you jerk!” he shouted, rhythmically pumping Fowen’s chest over and over. What if this didn’t work? Could he maybe use the last shot in Dr. Verity’s possibility ray gun to make Fowen’s heart work again? But no, the heart was trapped in a nonfictional body, and the possibility weapons didn’t work on nonfictionals.

  Just as he was about to give up, Fowen sat up with a start, sending Owen tumbling backward. Fowen sucked in a huge breath, his eyes flying open. “What . . . what . . . huh?” he said, his voice almost too soft to hear.

  Owen wiped the sweat off of his forehead, exhausted but relieved. “I saved you,” he said simply.

  “You . . . you tricked me,” Fowen said. “You tricked me again!”

  “Sure seems like it,” Owen said, throwing Fowen’s smirk back at him. “Guess that means you’re not the best Owen after all, are you?”

  “What . . . what’s wrong with me?” Fowen asked, still gasping for air.

  “That’d be your fictional robotic heart,” Owen told him. “It’s just barely hanging on. But it should be okay as long as you don’t do anything strenuous, like use your time powers, or probably cast any magic spells. But don’t worry, I know of a place that will take good care of you. And if you do happen to die, you’ll be good as new the very next morning.”

  “What do you mean?” Fowen said as Owen stood up and ripped a page in the air, revealing a small cot in a dark, humid jail cell.

  “Welcome to the Jules Verne Memorial Time Prison,” Owen said. He took Dr. Verity’s possibility ray gun from his fictional self’s pocket, picked Fowen up, and shoved him through to the Time Security Agency’s prison for time offenders in Kara’s story. “Watch out for the dinosaurs. I feel like I remember them biting.”

  “You . . . you can’t leave me here,” Fowen said. “I’m you! You can’t do this to yourself. You have to be better than this. Be better than me!”

  “Oh, Fowen,” Owen said, shaking his head. “Didn’t I already explain this? I don’t care if I’m better than you.”

  And then he slammed the page closed, cutting off anything else his fictional self had to say.

  For a moment, Owen just stood there, a shudder running through his body. Then he fell to his knees and dry heaved as the past few moments all crashed in on him at once.

  Charm and Kara were gone (he couldn’t even think it without almost breaking down), he had no idea how Kiel was doing, and now his mind was in Fowen’s body, which meant . . . what? At least his heart was working again, but now he couldn’t speed up time if he needed to, much less anything else.

  He was now completely and utterly normal, just as he was about to face Nobody. And if he lost here, the fictional universe got erased. Everyone he knew here, everyone he’d ever read about, gone completely. Not to mention that he’d get sent back to the nonfictional world to be operated on, and—

  Wait a second. His heart wasn’t robotic anymore. What did that mean? Had he broken the cycle of all the Owens failing to beat Nobody? Did that mean he actually had a chance?

  Or did it mean that this was all going to be over, once and for all, even if Owen lost?

  There was no way to know, so he had to assume it was all down to him. Him, and the one shot he had to take down Nobody, literally.

  Owen shuddered and tried to push back to his feet. He failed at first, as his hands were shaking too hard, but finally he got his feet under him and stood up, though the shaking didn’t stop. He shoved his hands into his pockets and touched Dr. Verity’s ray gun, feeling the tiniest bit of hope.

  “Nobody!” he shouted as he entered the throne room, trying to sound confident. “I’m here! I beat all your challenges. Now give me Bethany back!”

  “You did indeed defeat my challenges,” said a familiar voice, and the wall behind the throne at the end of the room disappeared, revealing the featureless man, Bethany next to her fictional ghostly self in a glass cylinder, and what looked like Doc Twilight hanging motionless in the air. “And now, it appears, we have finally arrived at the end of your story, Owen. Let’s try to at least make it a good one, shall we?”

  CHAPTER 51

  It all came down to this. Owen tightened his fingers around the possibility ray gun in his pocket. He’d only get one shot before Nobody would destroy the weapon. But that was okay, considering it only had one charge left anyway.

  “Owen, he’ll send us back to our world if you just give up,” nonfictional Bethany said. “It’s going to be okay. He’ll even send my dad with us!”

  He looked at her for a moment, at both Bethanys watching him nervously. Had Nobody really agreed to that? Even if he had, there was no reason to believe him, not anymore.

  “Was it worth it?” he asked Nobody softly, waiting for the perfect moment. If he could get Nobody talking, and therefore distracted, he might have a chance. “Everything I went through to get here, everything you put me and my friends through . . . was it just to get revenge? Or did you have fun watching us suffer?”

  “I could ask you the same question anytime you read a book,” Nobody said. “I don’t see a difference.”

  “The difference is you made this happen! This is all on you!”

  “You created this world, Owen,” Nobody said, shaking his head. “Don’t blame me for your mistakes. Speaking of that, in your original story, I seem to recall you rewriting many of the city’s inhabitants while making your way here, and even the King of All Stories at the end. Why didn’t y
ou try that today?”

  Owen ground his teeth together, not liking where this was going. “Because . . . because they’re real. They exist. I didn’t know, I didn’t realize when I was writing—”

  “And yet, your ignorance has resulted in a city filled with real people,” Nobody said. “People you’ve limited with your wordplay and writing metaphors. Did you enjoy meeting your creations?”

  This was a mistake. Debating wasn’t going to distract Nobody. This is what he lived for. “I might have written this place into existence, but Dr. Verity said nonfictionals just create these worlds, and then the fictional people take it from there. Whatever these people choose to do—”

  Nobody cracked a grin in his otherwise featureless face. “The good doctor guesses at things he has no experience with. But that’s neither here nor there. The only question I have now is this: What should I do about you?”

  Owen blinked, a little surprised by this. “Um, are you taking suggestions? How about you reconnect the worlds, join Bethany back together, and then put everyone back where you found us?”

  Nobody laughed. “Ah, no, I’m afraid that won’t happen. Besides, I have been quite merciful with you so far, and you haven’t seemed to appreciate it.”

  “Mercy?” Owen said, his eyes widening. “When exactly was that? You trapped me in a time prison with dinosaurs. I think one might have eaten me at least once! Not to mention—”

  “And yet, you still didn’t learn anything.”

  “What was I supposed to learn? How much of a crazy, evil villain you’ve turned out to—”

  “You were supposed to learn how wrong you are!” Nobody roared, his body growing larger in his rage. “I have shown you many times over that your people are a pestilence upon mine, that your control over our possibilities imprisons us, holds us back. But you refuse to see!” He clenched his fists for a moment, then abruptly released them and slowly began to shrink again. “I have been merciful until now because I hoped that you would come around, that you would learn. But that’s clearly not going to happen. So if reason won’t reach you, then you leave me with no other choice.”

  Owen took a step backward nervously, throwing a look at both Bethanys. Only the fictional version would look at him, though. Nonfictional Bethany just stared at the floor instead.

  If his stupidly ridiculous long-shot chance at beating Nobody was going to work, he’d need Nobody to get closer to him. But doing that meant he’d be in range of Nobody’s horrible, stretchable arms. Granted, it wasn’t like he was really out of Nobody’s reach even now, so what was he going to lose? Might as well jump in with both feet.

  “So, what, you’re just going to kill me?” Owen said, trying to sound tough. “You don’t have the guts.”

  Nobody stepped closer, and he brought his hands together in front of him like he was asking for forgiveness. “Of course not, Owen. I’m no monster, no matter what you might think of me. I would never hurt you, not if it can be avoided. But I can’t allow you your freedom, either.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to control me like you think nonfictionals control you? That makes sense,” he said, taking another step closer to Nobody.

  “If you had learned your lessons, you’d have lived free for the rest of your days,” Nobody said, stretching out his arms. “This is on you, not me.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself of that,” Owen said, taking one more step closer. If Nobody did the same . . .

  He did. The featureless man took another step, shaking his head. “No, I know I am in the right here. Now, I’m afraid I have no choice but to—”

  Owen grabbed the possibility gun from his pocket and quickly aimed it at Nobody. “No choice?” he said quietly. “Don’t worry, I’ve got one more possibility for you.”

  Nobody cracked another smile. “You think you’ll have more luck than Dr. Verity did? I can absorb any possibility you could inflict upon me, Owen. Not to mention that ray gun only has one charge left.”

  “That’s all I need,” Owen said. He took a deep breath, steadied his hands, and pictured the possibility he wanted Nobody to experience. Then he pulled the ray gun’s trigger.

  A beam shot out, striking Nobody right in the chest. He stumbled forward, an awkward expression on his featureless face.

  “What did you . . . do?” he said, then grabbed for his chest as a hole began to open within him.

  Mason Black, writer of the Doc Twilight comics and sort-of grandfather to Bethany, slowly pushed out of Nobody, then fell to the ground in front of him.

  “No!” Nobody shouted.

  “Oh, yes!” Owen said. “Go ahead, Nobody! Rewrite yourself now. You’ve lost your nonfictional anchor, so you’ll disappear if you try!”

  As the hole closed in his chest, Nobody stood up straight, then launched his hands out toward Mr. Black. Owen just stared in shock. How was he still rewriting himself without fading away like Bethany?

  “No, please!” Mr. Black shouted. “You can’t put me back in there. Haven’t I suffered enough?”

  Nobody picked the writer up and brought him back toward his chest, where the hole reopened. “No amount of suffering will ever be enough,” he said quietly, then reabsorbed the old man back into himself.

  Owen fell to his knees, unable to believe he’d failed again. Just like a thousand other Owens, just like the last two times he’d faced Nobody, Owen had been completely useless. The one plan he’d had, to inflict the possibility that Mr. Black would escape from Nobody, hadn’t even worked. Which meant that everything he’d gone through to get here, the friends he’d lost, was all for nothing.

  “So that’s it?” he whispered to Nobody. “You’re just going to erase the entire fictional universe, and that’s that?”

  “Owen, I’m not erasing anything,” Nobody told him, almost gently. “I’m starting it over from the beginning, the way it should have happened. Everyone who exists today will have every possibility of returning, and if they do, they’ll be free to become whatever they wish. And this time, whoever they become will be entirely their own choice, not that of some author in a distant universe.”

  “Who decides who comes back, Nobody? You? So now you’re the author of everything?”

  “I will be nothing like an author,” he said, staring down at Owen sadly. “I do it for their sake, not for anyone’s entertainment. I am saving this reality from a terrible burden that’s been inflicted upon it since its beginning: the imagination of nonfictionals.”

  “You’re saving it all by destroying it! Do you even hear yourself?”

  “I’m done arguing, Owen,” Nobody said. “I made a promise to Bethany that I would send you and her home, with her father. But that was before you . . . changed.” He reached out a hand and set it on Owen’s shoulder. “You are fictional now. Traded bodies with your fictional self, I take it? Unfortunately, I can’t send you back to the nonfictional world, then. You wouldn’t belong there anymore. You, along with all of my people, must once again become possibility.”

  “That’s not what you promised!” nonfictional Bethany shouted, but Nobody ignored her. He slowly reached a hand to his chest, and Owen went cold all the way down to his toes as the man pulled open another hole in his body.

  “No!” Owen shouted, scrambling backward, but Nobody grabbed him with newly formed third and fourth arms, holding him tightly.

  “You have forced me to do this,” Nobody said, opening the hole within himself wider, now big enough to fit Owen in. As Owen stared into the darkness within the monster, he could make out a tiny Mason Black, somehow shrunken within Nobody’s body. There had to be magic involved.

  But he wasn’t alone, either.

  Owen looked closer, then gasped, pulling away.

  “Say hello to James Riley,” Nobody said as a second tiny person—a red-haired man Owen didn’t recognize—peered around from behind Mr. Black. “Once upon a time, when Mr. Black refused to teach me to write, I sought out another nonfictional author instead. Mr. Riley
wasn’t much, but I gleaned enough information from absorbing him that I was able to follow your story, and Bethany’s, too.”

  “His name was on that Story Thieves book,” Owen said, things starting to fall into place.

  “Seemed only fair to give him the credit,” Nobody said. “Since I absorbed him, he and Mr. Black have helped anchor me whenever I’ve rewritten myself, enabling me to reach heights I’d previously never even dreamed of, even after the worlds split.” He smiled. “If you had anything to offer, I would absorb that, too. But I can’t imagine what that could be. I’ve already absorbed everything I could from your fictional self, and Kiel Gnomenfoot.” His featureless face seemed to frown. “I once thought I might learn magic that way, but apparently knowledge can’t be absorbed like talent and ability. Shame. But the Magister provided what I needed in that department anyway.”

  “You had Fowen in here?” Owen asked, swallowing to keep from throwing up.

  Nobody nodded. “When I absorbed him, I thought at first that he didn’t have much to offer either. But soon I realized I was being far too lenient on my fellow fictionals, and began to conceive of the plan to erase everything to restart it all. Perhaps some of that was your fictional self’s influence. Or perhaps I’ve had that side of me somewhere all along.”

  “This wasn’t the deal!” Bethany shouted from behind them. “You said you’d return me, Owen, and my father to the nonfictional world.”

  “Circumstances have changed,” Nobody told her as his two extra arms pulled Owen toward the hole in his chest. “If you defy me on this, Bethany, our deal will be off. Would you give up your life with your parents for one friend?”

  “No!” Owen shouted, kicking at Nobody’s arms, but every blow just disappeared into his flesh without a mark. “You can’t do this! Please! ”

  “Good-bye, Owen,” Nobody said, as his body enveloped Owen, closing around him. “You’ve always been a disappointment.”

  “Bethany, it’s not too late!” Owen shouted as the light began to fade. “You have the power to—”