"Be with you in a minute, Dad," the other Kevin said.
Kevin opened another portal and leapt through, but the other Kevin leapt after. He seized Kevin's bleeding arm and pulled him close, grappling with him. They fell through world after world. For a time, there was still a house, though it became larger or smaller, with similar or different families living inside. As they struggled the landscape shifted around them, growing farther and farther from the reality they'd known. The fought on worlds where the house had been burned down or destroyed in an earthquake, or never built at all. Their struggle took them through worlds where rainforests grew or icy glaciers covered the land. In all of them, the two Kevins fought over the knife, swinging punches into each other's faces, blood covering them.
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"God didn't heal you," Zachary said. "I never got to ask him, his love never went into you. You just got up all on your own."
Kevin stood, looking defiantly back at Zachary.
"Okay, I guess you got me, Corky. Life goes on!" He spat in Zachary's face.
"I don't know what that means," Zachary said as he wiped the spittle off his cheek. "But God sent me to stop people like you."
"Oh WAKE the FUCK UP, you FUCKING TARDMONSTER!" Kevin threw his arms wide. "You ARE people like us! You always WERE, she SHOWED ME! Dude, you hit the jackpot and you don't even know it! All this time you go around with all this hokey Bible crap your dad shoved down your throat, and it turns out the most powerful goddess in the universe is your MOM!"
Zachary paled, his thoughts turning to the vision the red woman had shown him before his fall from the rooftop. "No..."
"Oh yeah, and she's about to fuck this place UP. You better get on the right side, like now!"
"Your mom?" Becca put a hand to her head. "Your...wait, what? What the hell is he talking about?"
Simon released Carl from the grip of his invisible hands. "That's why I saw him kneeling to her, in my vision."
Brandon activated his power, whizzing across the room to stand in front of Kevin.
"Everyone stop. Just stop. This isn't Kevin, this is someone else and whoever or whatever he is, he's trying to tear us apart." Brandon said. "Who are you?"
"I'm the only Kevin left, Nerdboy."
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A woman approached him, stepping down as if walking down an invisible flight of stairs to the rooftop. She had flowing red hair and blood red eyes.
Except...this was no human woman.
Kevin's eyes revealed the truth. She also had something different inside her. She also was out of synch with Kevin and the rest of this world. Looking down, Kevin saw the same something inside him. He was as different from the others on the rooftop as he was from her.
She's not from this world, he realized. Neither are these other kids, and neither am I.
The red woman stood before him now. She was more than any of them, Kevin knew that. She was timeless, ancient, and powerful. Energy coursed through her the likes of which he had never seen and could never understand.
She peered at him as if examining an insect under a microscope.
"I HAVE COME TO BRING THE END AS PROMISED."
Kevin didn't understand. "Promised? Promised to who? Who are you?"
She looked around at the others. "YOU ARE A FAILED EXPERIMENT. THESE OTHERS BRING MY PLAN TO ITS CLOSE. YOU CANNOT INTERVENE."
Failed experiment? Kevin shook it off and stepped up, standing in her face. "Whatever you are, you can't hurt me. I'm closing this rift before you do any more damage."
Her red eyes flared impossibly bright. "NO, INSECT. YOU WILL NOT."
She brought a hand up and placed it against his chest. Energy poured from her, but it broke around Kevin like a waterfall against the rocks, pouring around and past him to fizzle uselessly in space.
Kevin realized he had closed his eyes and held his breath without even knowing it. He opened his eyes and breathed in, letting it out through pursed lips. "Yeah. That doesn't work on me, sorry."
"THE INSECT ROARS, YET TO THE TITAN ITS ROARS ARE LESS THAN WHISPERS."
"Um, yeah. So I'm closing this rift now." Kevin raised his arms again and concentrated.
The rift began to contract.
"THE RIFT CANNOT BE FULLY CLOSED WHILE MY EMISSARIES REMAIN IN THIS WORLD. THE TIME OF THE TYRANT IS AT AN END."
By 'emissaries', Kevin guessed she meant the others around the rooftop, the kids whom he had not seen before.
"Thanks for the tip," he said. "I'll take them back to their own worlds next then."
Her eyes flared. "YOU CANNOT IMAGINE THE EONS I HAVE LIVED IN THE VOID, HELD OUTSIDE YOUR WORLD ONLY BY THE BARRIER OF TIME. ALREADY THE RIFT HAS SHATTERED THE BARRIER. TIME CANNOT PROTECT YOU. TIME CANNOT SAVE YOU."
"You're some kind of god, I get that." Kevin concentrated. "Now I'm closing this rift."
The rift contracted, growing smaller and smaller. As it closed, she seemed to fade or withdraw, as if she was a projection on a movie screen, and he was closing the window to the booth.
"ITS WORLD BREAKS AROUND IT, YET THE INSECT SEES NOTHING, IT KNOWS NOTHING. THE CRACKS IN TIME ARE ITS UNDOING."
"What the fuck ever." Kevin clapped his hands together and put the last of his energy into the final sealing of the rift.
The red woman vanished.
Once the rift was closed, the red woman gone, and the weather died down, Kevin explained to the others what he had to do.
______________________
"Imagine you were inside a prison," the girl said, her hands describing the shape of walls in the air. "Like your room!" She laughed. "Yeah, that's it! Just like your room, a prison that you could never leave."
Kevin folded his arms and waited for an opportunity to get her to leave.
"Now imagine TIME is the prison wall. You used to get to do whatever you wanted outside for as long as you wanted and no one could tell you to come in, EVER. But this mean old man came and threw you and your friends into this prison made of time, and you were stuck there and couldn't get out. It's not fair!"
He nodded.
"Outside, no one can see the prison, because it just looks like regular old time to them, just running and running in one direction and never giving them a chance to see what's really going on outside. They don't know you're in the prison and you'd do ANYTHING to get out again. So you chisel and chisel at the wall for ever and ever! And ever and ever and ever!" She rubbed her fingers over the textured surface of his wall. "It seems like you'd never get through, it's so thick, but you keep doing it and doing it and FINALLY you make a thin place where you can break through."
"Um, hey, so...I need to..."
"Just wait." She placed her hands on his shoulders. "I'm almost finished." She smiled. "Only time's not like stone walls, it doesn't just make a hole you can crawl through. Time's all connected together, so one hole makes all of it fall apart. So you're still in your prison, and you can see the outside is all messed up, like one part isn't touching another part anymore. The people outside still don't know it's happening, they don't see the same things you do, but you can see them just fine. You can jump from one part of the old wall to another, no problem, but to them it's like you're jumping around back and forth in time like magic! Isn't that funny?"
Kevin frowned, not sure if it was funny or not.
"It is, TRUST me." She chuckled, but then grew serious. "You can't fix it, if you fixed it the prison would be back together and you'd get stuck again. You HAVE to let it all break and fall down so you can make it back like it used to be, where you could be outside all you want. You see that, don't you Kevin?"
"I guess."
"Good." She placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. As she leaned in close, Kevin closed his eyes. "Because the end is closer than you think, Kevin. And you picked the wrong side."
He opened his eyes, ready to expel her from his home by force, if necessary, but the girl was gone.
______________________
Kevin landed in
a grassy meadow. Sun was shining down on him, birdsong in the air. No one was around nearby. There were no structures within sight, just an endless grassy plain, dotted by the occasional tree. There was a sharp pain in his midsection.
Sometime during the fight, the knife had punctured his belly. The wound was deep. Blood welled forth, staining his shirt and jeans so dark red they were almost black. Too exhausted to keep jumping between worlds, Kevin stood there in the grass, looking down on himself.
"This is it, then." The other Kevin stood before him. "Fair credit, though, buddy: I never expected it to last this long."
This can't be happening. Nothing can touch me. No one can hurt me.
Kevin lifted his blood-soaked hands and stared dumbly at them. He felt cold, sick.
"Nothing seems real anymore. Tell me, please. Is this really happening?"
"Yep."
The knife landed in his chest with a hard, horrible crunch, the other Kevin's hand driving it to the hilt. Kevin felt arms around him, lowering him to the ground. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. His vision swam. Lips near his ear then, and a whispered voice: "Welcome home, Kevin."
Kevin tried to speak, but coppery blood filled his mouth and all he managed was a gurgle. He felt hot liquid run from the corners of his mouth to the back of his head.
The other Kevin stood. "I hate to run, but I have an appointment with your little friends."
His shadow loomed over Kevin for a moment before it vanished. There was only the sun in his eyes and the sound of birds overhead, and then there was nothing at all.
______________________
"What does that mean?" Brandon advanced on him. "What did you do to him?"
"It doesn't even matter," Kevin said. "He's gone and he's not coming back. And honestly, you stupid little waste, that's the last thing you should be worried about. You should be worried about HER."
Brandon grinned. "The real Kevin would know she can't come back. He told us what happened on the rooftop wouldn't happen again as long as the people from the other worlds were returned to their reality."
Kevin laughed. "Guess it sucks that I BROUGHT THEM ALL BACK BEFORE WE EVER GOT HERE THEN, HUH?"
An explosion of force ripped the walls around them away, throwing them to the winds. The sky above the base had darkened, and ringing the area in which they stood were eight figures: Tommy, Russell, Amber, Brock, Tiffany, Marcus, Katie, and Aaron. Sparks leapt between them, building into arcs of energy that fired into the sky.
"How is that possible?" Becca looked at them in confusion. "I didn't sense them!"
"We have to do something," shouted Brandon into the wind, "before it's too late."
Carl placed a hand on his shoulder. "Brandon."
Brandon turned. In the center of what used to be a room, in what used to be a military base, she stood. Far above her, the sparks had become a solid arc around an opening in the sky, beyond which could be seen the void.
"IT IS ALREADY, AS YOU SAY, TOO LATE." The red woman walked around the circle of her emissaries, looking at each of them in turn.
"THE HERO. THE UNBRIDLED FURY. THE BLIND BARD. THE PRINCESS. THE MIRROR. THE SAVAGE. THE HOWLING GHOST. THE MESSENGER. THE FORTUNE TELLER."
She smiled a smile that never touched her eyes. They flared like red stars in the night.
"YOU MAY CALL ME GWENDOLYN. LET US TALK A WHILE, ABOUT WHAT IS TO COME IN OUR NEW ORDER."
Brandon swallowed hard.
"THE TIME OF THE LOST IS AT HAND."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Gwendolyn breathed deep, the warm sweet air filling her body and leaving a soothing tingle as she exhaled. The scent was her favorite, a spicy aroma with soft floral undertones. She often burned it in the fire, as she did now, and the scent along with pops and cracks of wood on the hearth never failed to relax her.
She lifted her glass to her lips, sipping the bitter liquid within. It was an acquired taste, and a rarity on her world, but she had grown to love it, partly for the slightly sour aftertaste, partly for the decadence of owning the only bottles known to exist.
She was the Queen, after all.
Gwendolyn placed the glass on the table next to her and leaned back, basking in the glow of the fire and luxuriating in the pleasurable physical sensations she was experiencing: the heat of the fire, the softness of the cushions, the tastes in the corners of her mouth. No matter how long it had been since she took physical form, she never tired of the sensations of which it was capable of bringing her. Never.
A smile lifted the corner of her mouth. She knew just the beast she’d have prepared for her dinner tonight, one of those plump flightless things from the icy north. Only two or three of them remained.
She reached for the bell, ready to ring for her attendant, when the massive wooden doors burst open and the Captain of her private guard strode in, stopping, as etiquette demanded, three paces past the door.
“wIj pIn,” he said, taking a knee in respect.
“nuq ghaH ‘oH?” She delivered the question in a sharp tone, not pleased at having her lovely evening interrupted.
His voice trembled as he said, “pa’ ghaH toy’wI’’a’ Daw’!”
Gwendolyn stood, her cheeks reddening with fury. A revolt among her slaves? Impossible!
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EXCERPT FROM “IDIOT SYNCRATIC” - THE BLOG OF BRANDON HOLT
COMMENTS SECTION (MODERATOR: BRANIMALMAGNETISM)
KHHHAAANNN: Wait, what language did they speak on Gwendolyn's world?
BranimalMagnetism: Um, well, no one knows, see it's kind of gone from history, or it existed before history, something like that.
KHHHAAANNN: It looks like Klingon.
BranimalMagnetism: It wasn't Klingon.
KHHHAAANNN: Yeah, no, I get that they weren't speaking Klingon on the ancient world that existed before history, but it looks like you USED Klingon.
BranimalMagnetism: ...
KHHHAAANNN: You can't use Klingon. I'm pretty sure it's copyrighted. You're gonna get your ass sued off.
BranimalMagnetism: It's a language, how can it be copyrighted?
KHHHAAANNN: Bad enough your hero is “Brandon", which is like, one of the main characters from Game of Thrones.
BranimalMagnetism: Huh. I never thought of that, cool! Game of Thrones is AWESOME. But hey, Brandon is my name, dude. I can totally use it.
KHHHAAANNN: w/evs don't come crying to me when they take everything you own.
D3@DP00LF@N: Can I just point out that what language they're speaking is the least of your worries? This is supposed to be some world that existed before the universe and yet they have fireplaces, incense, glass, comfy chair cushions, and names like “Gwendolyn". Seems legit.
BranimalMagnetism: We're really getting off track here...
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Gwendolyn threw both doors open. They nearly flew off their hinges, banging against the stone arch with a BOOM that echoed throughout the hall. She never shied from displays of her power. The worms who served her needed constant reminders that no matter what form she had chosen, she was superior to them in every way.
Five slaves had been brought before her. They were on their knees, stripped naked, heads bowed. Their overseer stood beside them, holding a coiled whip with barbs tied into its length. He proffered the whip to her, and she took it with pleasure.
She paced in front of the five slaves, clutching the whip in her right hand.
“You can almost smell it, can’t you?” She asked.
Her Captain, who stood behind her, sniffed. “My Queen?”
“Fear.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “As you say, my Queen.”
“As I say. Always.” She continued pacing in front of them. “Very good. Very…obsequious. I like that about you.” She turned sharply at the end of the row of slaves. “I ask very little of those who serve me, and I allow so much. SO much. You are allowed to speak your minds, within reason. You are allowed to live your own lives, marry whom you wi
ll, fuck whom you will, kill whom you will. So long as your duties are complete. So long as there are no loose ends, no uncompleted tasks, no…failures.”
The slave nearest her burst into tears, shaking. “My Queen, my Goddess, please!!”
Gwendolyn flicked out her left hand. The man exploded, his flesh and blood covering Gwendolyn and the slaves nearest him.
She lifted her hand, now slick and red, and rubbed the front and back of it along her cheeks and up and down her neck, revelation in the sensation of the hot, sticky fluid on her skin. “I said within reason. I did not say to interrupt me when I am speaking. Now where was I? Oh yes, how kind I am to you all. Am I so kind because it is required of me? No, nothing is required of me. Why then am I so good, so gracious? It can only be because of my fondness for you. And I am fond of you, after a fashion. This is why failure to follow instruction is so deeply disappointing to me.”
She stopped, letting her words hang in the air for a moment, then gestured to her guards. “Return these to the slave pens. I grant them a second chance to live.”
“Thank you, my Queen!” One slave bowed all the way to the floor before the guard dragged him to his feet. “Your grace is infinite, your benevolence is-“
“Yes, yes, I know.” She noticed one person, however, who had turned to go without being given leave. “Overseer. Remain.”
“Yes, my Queen.” He hastily stepped back to his former position, standing at attention.
“I believe we were discussing failure.” She uncoiled the whip, giving it a little crack. “You did not think I was speaking to them, did you?”
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