75. The World On Our Shoulders (Patreon)

A/N: Hey everyone! Bioshifter is back! Thank you all for your patience and your kind words while I was taking a break and recovering. I've seen a lot of support for the idea of planning to take one week off a month, so I'll aim for making that the last week of every month, just to try it out. As for this chapter, we have some content warnings, so stop reading now if you don't want to know what they are! It's really just this one, though: severe suicidal ideation. Genuinely, this chapter is rough. If you think you'll struggle with it, never forget it'll always still be here on a better day. Thank you all for reading, and enjoy the chapter! 

It doesn't take long for the commotion to die down. Alma is currently a levitating, magical construct that's straight-up ontologically resistant to physical impacts. A dozen men with guns don't even stand a chance of scratching her. It almost feels mean, but only almost.

The lot of them end up absolutely brutalized. Though reluctant to kill anyone, Alma isn't some video game secret agent that can reliably knock people unconscious in a punch or two without causing lasting harm. So to avoid any accidental manslaughter, she focuses her attention on breaking arms and legs.

I'm watching the fight from inside the house, using only my spatial sense to see what's going on. Consequently, I can't see Alma; she's an illusion given form with Barrier magic, after all, so there's no matter for me to detect. I only know where she is from the air she displaces and the bones that snap and crack in her wake, leaving crumpled, screaming men writhing on the floor.

It's ridiculously hot. I want to kiss her and bite her and it's a real shame I can't do any of those things because I'm a monster that fucked up her life. But… well, maybe she'll let me, since I'm probably going to have to die soon to save the world? …No, wait, that's stupid. I can't emotionally extort her just because watching her brutalize people makes me horny.

Speaking of being horny, I really hope Ida is okay. But there's nothing I can do for her until I sleep, so I need to focus on the here and now. Alma doesn't need any help against the gunman, that much is clear, and the guys without guns surrender when she stops them from fleeing in their vehicles. Backed by two incanted spells, Alma can stop a truck just as easily as she can stop bullets.

What she might not be able to stop are consequences. Right on time, we hear police sirens approaching now that the actual crisis is over. I sigh, cracking my neck back and forth. I guess I should probably help Alma talk to the cops. I turn my head to say something, but then I remember I'm alone in her house, so I just go ahead and walk outside.

"How does it taste, huh!?" Alma snaps, squatting next to one of the men collapsed on the ground. "Can't just pick up a gun and feel powerful anymore, can you?"

"You, uh, having fun, Alma?" I ask her, stepping over her other victims as I walk to where she is.

"Oh, hey Hannah!" she greets me. "I kinda left most of the guns lying around, would you chop 'em up for me?"

"Sure," I shrug, activating a Spacial Rend on my hip-limbs and making sure that any weapons not attached to a person's body are useless. "You want any help talking to the police?"

"Huh?" she says, glancing up at the approaching red and blue lights. "Oh. Yeah."

"First combat high?" I ask.

"Uh. Huh. I guess so," she says. "Unless the screaming, running from cultists, and complete mental breakdown count as a combat high."

I frown.

"...I'm not sure, actually," I admit. "I was going to say no, but I consider having a panic attack and eating people to be my first combat high, so maybe yes?"

"Haha! Oh right, you're a cannibal! I forgot about that."

"...I mean, I'm not human, so arguably—"

"Nah nah nah nah nah," Alma dismisses firmly. "It's true that cannibal means 'something that eats its own species,' but English doesn't have a word for 'a person who eats sapient flesh that isn't their own species' because nobody knew there were any non-human sapients until like, last week. So given that the cultural connotations would be the same, the word 'cannibal' is the most fitting term. You cannibal."

"I… hey. There's no need to resort to name-calling," I pout. "It's not my fault that people trying to kill me makes me hungry, and it's definitely not my fault that humans taste so good."

"Get down on the ground!"

I frown, disappointed but not surprised when the police immediately point tasers at us after seeing Alma's yard. At least it's not guns, although now that I think about it the tasers are liable to do more damage to Alma than the guns ever could; Barrier magic naturally opposes Motion, but she has no such resistance to electricity. …That said, I doubt the taser's darts could actually lodge in her, and even if they did, Barrier magic is generally quite sturdy and lacking a resistance to electricity doesn't mean she has a weakness to it. She'll probably be fine.

"Really?" Alma asks them incredulously. I can't help but share the sentiment, but we should at least try to be smart about this.

"Come on, Alma, let's sit down. I don't want them to do anything that they'd regret."

"Fiiine," she groans, and we put our butts in the grass.

"Lie down! Hands behind your head!"

I scowl at him.

"...Don't push your luck, man. Do you not see how many armed men are already on the ground? There's—"

"I said get down on the—"

"SHUT UP!" I snap at him. "The fight's over! This is her house! We were attacked! Put your useless weapon away and do your job!"

I did try. No one can say I didn't try. Turns out I just don't have a lot of patience right now, is all. Side effect of low life expectancy, maybe. I'm fucking tired of ending up in a police station for doing the right thing.

"Ma'am, you need to—"

"Don't fucking ma'am me!" I shout, spreading my many limbs. "You know exactly who I am. Now put your toy away and arrest these armed trespassers, officer."

Shouting my head off feels good, but it's at that point a familiar face from Homeland Security, with a collection of ambulances close behind him. With a flash of a badge and some hushed words, some actual progress starts occurring and the mass of groaning, shattered men on Alma's lawn start getting actually arrested. It helps that one of them started ranting and raving at us for being unnatural hellspawn that need to be killed for the good of everyone. Real good job screaming your whole motive and intent at the entire police department, dude. A-plus critical thinking there.

I flop back onto the grass and sigh. Am I really going to spend the last of my remaining days alive just putting out fires set by idiots? That feels unfair. But I guess it wouldn't be the right thing to do if it gave you a reward at the end of everything. I don't believe in karma and I never have. I'm going to suffer while alive, kill myself to save the world, and then probably suffer while dead because the Goddess sure as Her won't be happy with me when I fuck up the armageddon plans.

Though I guess I'll be seeing for sure when I go to the afterlife to find Ida. What's up with that, anyway? Why can living people go to the afterlife? Is it a place? I guess it has to be a place. So weird. I vaguely remember Valerie talking about how the afterlife cosmology of the D&D universe is similar; as long as you can Plane Shift, you can head to whatever afterlife you want and start doing whatever. There are adventuring parties that teleport to hell and beat up devils for one reason or another. But despite this, reviving a dead person is a completely different thing from teleporting them out of the afterlife. That's just a separate thing you can also do somehow. I don't remember how it works. I should ask her about it.

I should stop being a coward and ask her about a lot of things.

"We are meeting each other quite often, aren't we Ms. Hiiragi?" a familiar voice asks.

"Hey, Don," I sigh. "Sorry for making you work so hard."

He blinks, seeming surprised for a moment before the professional mask slips back over his expression.

"Well, if you're feeling that bad about it, there are certainly a few ways you could make my job less hard," he says.

"Hey come on, this definitely wasn't my fault," I grumble.

"Well, even if it's not your fault, it would still be appreciated if you took responsibility for it."

The words slap me across the face. I glower coldly at him.

"...If you guys have been listening in on my therapy sessions I will personally dismantle your entire organization," I growl.

"What?" he asks, surprised again. "No! Is there some reason we'd need to do that?"

"No dude, not if you don't want your organization dismantled," I groan. "Also that'd be illegal and very immoral!"

He stares at me. I stare back.

"Stop thinking about it!" I accuse.

"No, I'm not… look," Don sighs, "I'm here because the two of you are very clearly being targeted. This degree of coordination and dedication indicates that it would be best if we relocate you for safety."

"Safety? I'm feeling plenty safe on my own, thanks," Alma says, indicating the dozen armed men she just took out by herself.

"It's not just your safety we're worried about," Don presses. "Civilians are in danger here, ma'am. What if these men managed to set the fire they were planning to start? What if they move to harassing your neighbors for associating with you? Or even endangering your school? Not to mention, even if it's your right to defend your property, we don't want you to be enacting your own justice like this. Trained professionals should be handling these incidents, not civilians, and especially not teenagers on probation for their criminal record."

He frowns meaningfully at Alma at that. She looks away, scowling.

"Let me guess," I say flatly. "Your solution is protective custody."

"There is an organized group of violent militants willing to perform armed home invasion and arson targeting the both of you. Yes, my solution is protective custody."

Of course it is. Because what he wants is to trap us. To control us. To get us off the street and into the government's hands.

"I'm not interested," I tell him. I won't speak for Alma, but I probably won't be around long enough for the hassle to be worth it even if I was interested in accepting his help at all.

"Yeah, it's gonna be a no from me, too," Alma frowns.

"You know you have a position of power in this negotiation, being who you are," Don presses. "We're willing to work with that. There's a lot we can offer you. Handling that criminal record, for one. Helping you with your family's financial situation is another."

That gets Alma's attention a little, making her hesitate. I know she and her dad have been hurting for money for a long time, and she has a bit of a complex about the criminal record Jet gave her, but I feel the need to not just let Don take the easy win.

"Autumn, you're one of the first people in the world to obtain magical superpowers," I point out. "If you want to become rich, I promise you can find plenty of ways to do that."

"Oh, right," Alma frowns. "I guess I haven't really thought about it, but you have a point. I dunno how marketable making a house that no one else can enter is, though."

"It's about the novelty value," I shrug. "Even if it wears off eventually, people will toss cash at you just for being interesting."

"Oh yeah. You stream online, right? I saw a news article about that."

"Of course you did," I sigh.

"Are you rich, then?" Alma asks.

"Uh… no, I guess not," I shrug. "I think I could be, if I actually bothered to keep streaming, but… I dunno, it's exhausting and I probably won't live long enough to spend the money anyway."

Alma and Don both stare at me in surprise.

"Wait, what?" Alma asks.

"...I thought you were confident about your ability to survive the current struggles, Hannah," Don frowns.

…Oh, right. Most people don't know about my suicidal intentions. Alma, of all people, definitely deserves to be left out of them, and Don will probably just try to kill me himself if he finds out my survival ends the world. Which would mostly just be annoying, since it wouldn't work.

"Bold of you to assume that anything on Earth even begins to qualify as my 'current struggles,' Donny," I frown at him, deflecting as best I can. "Later tonight I'm going to have to rescue someone from the afterlife, because the Greeks got it right after all: the gods are assholes and hell is a place you can go to while not dead."

And then, once everyone I love is safe, I am going to die so that they stay that way.

"You'll have to excuse me for being a little impatient and snippy right now," I continue. "Things are genuinely very bad right now, and the less stupid human bullshit I have to deal with, the better."

"I… see," Don says evenly. "Well. Is there any way America can be of assistance, Ms. Hiiragi?"

"Yeah, if you could just leave me alone, that would…" I start, but I manage to cut myself, taking a deep breath. He means well. I don't want his help or his cooperation, because I'll only need it if I end up being a coward. If I extend that olive branch now, I might use it as an excuse to fail later. It's already going to be hard enough, so I'm not sure I can afford to give myself more reasons to stay alive.

…But it would be irresponsible not to at least have the option.

"Sorry," I grumble. "Sorry. Like I said, things are bad right now. There's nothing you can do to help me at this moment, but… could I have a quick way to contact you? Like… oh, fuck. I'm sorry, I really shouldn't be coy about this."

I don't want to say this. I shouldn't say this. I need to say this, because it's exactly what Dr. Carson was talking about. If I fuck up and live, I should at least be minimizing the damage.

"If things go really badly, Don, there's a chance you'll need to prepare a mass-scale evacuation. I'm sorry."

It's the responsible thing to do. The responsible thing to say. I'm only barely good enough to say it. Don stares at me for a while, as if trying to ascertain how serious I am. But then, he nods.

"Could I ask you to come with me to somewhere we could talk about this further?" he asks. "I'd prefer to discuss details in private."

"I don't have a lot of details right now," I tell him, "but sure. I'll… I'll help how I can."

"Wait, what?" Alma says nervously. "What's going on, Hannah?"

"Hopefully? Nothing," I tell her. "Either way, you don't have to worry about it, okay Autumn? Just stay safe."

"Who… who are you going to the afterlife for?"

"Do you really want to know?" I ask.

She seems startled, and then looks away in shame. Shit. I didn't mean it like that. I'm trying to respect her decision to stay out of my bullshit, not shame her for it. I wasn't mean about it just now, was I?

"I… yes," she presses after a pause. "Yes, I want to know."

"It's Ida," I say. "We got in a fight, and she took the worst of it. Valerie almost died too, but she's okay now."

"The… demigod, you said you needed to prepare for, right?" she says softly. "I remember reading the text."

"Yeah, you said you didn't want to help," I nod. "And I think that was a good decision."

"Right, I… I guess I must have said that?" she agrees, her brows furrowed. "B-but I can fight now! I can help, if you need it."

I smile. I feel like there was some other reason Alma wasn't with us beyond just relative combat prowess, but I can't seem to remember what it was. Still, I should let her down as easily as I can. I don't want her to get hurt.

"I'll let you know if I need your help," I promise, since I don't expect to ever need it. "Just stay safe for now, alright?"

"A-alright," she nods.

"Let's go, Don," I say, nodding in his direction. He nods back, and leads me to his car. I get in and he starts to drive.

It's not the obviously suspicious van that I met him in, parked outside my house to watch me. It's a personal vehicle, relatively new and clearly well-cared for. I'd definitely vibecheck it as 'expensive and fancy, but not a sports car.' It's just… a car. Four doors, five seats, and heavily air-conditioned. A person who actually knows something about cars could maybe gather some information about who Don is as a person from all this, but I can't. I'm just vaguely awkward and uncomfortable from the general 'in a car with a man I barely know' experience, which honestly is a welcome distraction from my recent train of thought.

"So," Don says, "a mass-scale evacuation."

Ah yes, my recent train of thought.

"It's a possibility you should prepare for," I nod. "If it's going to happen at all, it will happen within the next few months, at most."

"From where are we evacuating?" he asks.

"I don't know," I admit. "The disaster, if it occurs, could affect anywhere on Earth, so it's possible it doesn't touch America at all. But it will be widespread, so… I can't guarantee that. Either way, it's too early to give you any details, and I'm currently working on preventing it."

Working up the courage to prevent it, anyway.

"That… is not very helpful, if I'm being honest," Don says. "Can you at least tell me the nature of this disaster?"

I squirm a little in my seat, not sure how much information I should be giving away… but hell, I'm going to die anyway, right?

"The, um, the other universe could collide with this one," I answer. "I'm not totally sure what that would entail, but it'll be mass death and destruction at minimum. That universe is… a giant, planet-sized tree, basically? And wherever it hits would probably not handle it well."

"Like some kind of Ragnarok?" Don prompts.

I blink.

"Um… I don't think that's how the Norse Ragnarok works at all," I hedge, "but I guess we could call it that?"

He frowns, watching the road in silence for a while. I wonder what he thinks of this job. Of having to deal with me. I don't treat him well, because I know he's not really looking out for my best interests, but… well, he is trying to look out for the best interests of his country, however he happens to see that. I don't know him well enough to say whether his view on what that is would be good or evil. It's at the very least complicit to the many, many crimes the American government gets up to, and I wouldn't blame anyone for getting angry at him for that. But if complacency makes someone a bad person, well… I'd argue that a lot more than just the government is guilty of that.

I certainly am.

"If not for your exceptionally extraordinary circumstances, Ms. Hiiragi, I don't think there'd be any chance of anyone taking you seriously, let alone myself."

"You can call me Hannah," I tell him quietly.

"...Hannah, then. It is the sort of thing that's easy to dismiss as a child's fantasy, but more than that it's a preferable thing to dismiss as a fantasy, do you understand? A mass-scale devastation event of unknown timing and location that could kill billions and occur anywhere on the globe? I'm not sure if it's even possible to prepare for something like that."

"I understand," I nod. "And if things don't… go well, I might be able to figure out more details for you as the event gets closer. But with luck, I won't be worrying you for much longer, Don. I'll… take care of it."

He's silent again, frowning a little as he accelerates aggressively onto an onramp, the roar of the car's engine startling me and making me twist in my seat. I almost activate a Spacial Rend and cut his fancy car to bits, but I hold back the urge, catching my quickened breathing. I thought I was under attack for a second there. He glances my way a few times, balancing watching me with watching the road.

"Apologies," he says softly. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's… it's alright," I assure him, taking a deep breath. Don't freak out around the government guy, Hannah, geez.

"Hannah," he says, after a moment of thought, "you wouldn't happen to have any information about an eight-limbed dog that we've come into custody of recently, would you?"

I look at him in surprise.

"Wait, do you mean Fartbuns?" I gape. "You guys have Fartbuns!? Oh spilled gravy I totally forgot about him! Is he okay? Is he happy? He's not giving you trouble, is he?"

Don smiles, though very slightly.

"He is fine," Don assures me. "We had a veterinarian check him out, and while they don't understand what's happening to him, he seems happy and healthy. I realize you're busy, but if you have time to visit him at the base, you're more than welcome to."

"Oh gosh, uh, really? I'd love to see him, the flow of time is disconnected between universes so I'm not really in a hurry on this side of things. Um, how did you end up with him?"

"The police were contacted a while back by the parents of… your friend Brendan, I believe. They were frightened of the animal and wanted it… gone."

"Her name is Valerie," I insist, scowling at him.

Don seems confused for a moment, but he quickly rallies.

"Ah, I see, I wasn't aware. Your friend Valerie, then. The one that's… missing. You said she got hurt recently?"

"We got in a fight trying to figure out how to stop… uh, the Ragnarok thing. She's okay, but probably a bit shaken up. I'll be checking on her further tonight."

"If possible, we'd love to be able to speak with her and corroborate your claim on that front."

"Uh… okay, I'll ask her, but I'm honestly not sure how you'd even confirm her identity," I admit. "She's kind of a six-armed blonde snake girl now."

He blinks. I am vaguely interested in learning whatever it is his mind just imagined, but I don't ask.

"That would make things difficult, but not impossible. Does magic commonly change a person's body like that? We know of at least two mages that seem to have no physical modifications, but every other…"

"...Is a friend of mine," I finish shortly. "Yeah, not a coincidence. I'm the one causing their bodies to change. It's entirely possible that someone who gains magic could also change themselves, but it's not the usual situation, it's my fault."

"Your 'fault?'" he asks, clearly wanting more information.

"My fault," I confirm, not wanting to give him any. "Where are you taking me, anyway?"

"Mmm. I'm surprised you've waited this long to ask," he admits. "We're going out of town, to a nearby staging area. I hope that's not an issue?"

"Nope, I don't really care," I confirm. "What do you mean by 'staging area,' though?"

"The Executive Office deemed it prudent to establish a forward base of operations near the epicenter of these potentially world-changing events," Don answers. "A centralized location for research, security, response teams, and so forth."

"This had better not be a black site," I grumble.

"It's not," he answers with a hint of amusement. "I appreciate you coming with me, Hannah. A lot of people are still skeptical about you and what you're capable of, and I hope that talking with them about yourself and this disaster will allow us to take the necessary action required to have a serious response to something of the scale you're talking about."

"...Sure," I shrug, glancing out the window with my human eyes. …Not that I wasn't already looking out there with the eyes on that side of my head, but my human eyes see just a bit better. "I hope I can help. I think I'm going to be dropping out of school, so feel free to keep me as long as you need me."

"Should you speak with your parents about a decision like that?" he asks.

"I'm eighteen, they don't get a say," I answer. "But I guess I should let them know where I am."

I pull out my phone, put on my gloves, and type a quick text to my family. I don't bother to look at their response before putting the phone away again.

"I kind of like school, honestly," I say quietly. "I mean, maybe 'like' is a strong word, but… I don't have the hatred for it that people seem like they're supposed to have. It's just part of my routine. I do pretty well at it, ya know?"

"We know," Don says.

"Dude, don't be creepy," I say, wrinkling my nose at him. "I know you know, you don't have to say it, ya spook."

He chuckles, and I glower halfheartedly at him for a bit before I continue.

"Anyway, I'm pretty good with academics. I always assumed I'd just continue gliding through that, hopefully figuring out what I want in life halfway through college and picking up some degrees before settling into whatever job comes my way for the rest of my existence. Ideally I'd end up with a wife somewhere along the way. It was all just… the vaguest possible future imaginable. I had no real dreams outside of the ones I felt like I was supposed to have."

"And now?" Don prompts agreeably.

"Now I don't need dreams," I say softly. "My future is decided. So in a lot of ways, the fact that I didn't really have a life to look forward to is pretty good, right?"

Don taps his finger on the steering wheel for a while, thinking about his response. I don't really know why I'm dumping this on him. If I was going to vomit my heart out, I shouldn't have left Dr. Carson's office earlier. But… I don't know. I had to leave. Dr. Carson, after all, wants to help me. She wants me to survive. She wants… what's best for me. And that's not fair to the world.

Don isn't stupid. He's probably picking up on the fatalism. But I bet it just makes his job easier if I die. He's not going to be upset, he's going to be relieved. And that makes him a lot less stressful of a person to talk to about all this.

"Have you killed people, Hannah?" Don eventually asks.

"Not on American soil," I frown. "Don't you dare try to arrest me."

"Wasn't planning on it," he says easily. "But in this other world you talk about. Have you killed people?"

"...Yeah."

"How many?"

"Somewhere around twenty, I think?" I mutter, my upper pair of hands squeezing my lower pair to help resist the urge to fidget. Somewhere around twenty. What an awful thing to have to say. I'm so ashamed of having lost count.

"Mmm," he nods. "Why'd you do it?"

"Self-defense," I shrug. "The world isn't so bad. There's a lot of good people there. But… there's a lot of people who don't like me, specifically."

"I see," he says. "Do they know about this disaster you're worried about?"

"Yeah," I confirm. "It… happened to them once before already. It was really bad."

"And you're a gate between worlds," Don picks up immediately. "You're blamed for it."

"...Yeah," I agree quietly. "But I can stop it from happening. If… if I'm good enough."

"It's not fair, is it?" Don asks.

"Huh?" I blink.

"I chose my responsibilities," he continues. "My service is also a job. I could quit, if I wanted to. And there are days when things feel impossible, when the bad guys win, in which I am very, very tempted to do so. I haven't, yet. But I could. It's not fair that an old man like me has that option, but a kid like you doesn't. We're supposed to be the ones with the world on our shoulders, keeping you safe."

I huff.

"Yeah, thanks for all the warrantless surveillance," I snipe. "Really makes me feel super safe."

He shrugs unapologetically.

"I think you, of all people, understand that sometimes there isn't a clean solution. It's nice when things work out, and it's wonderful when we can make incremental progress towards a better world without stepping over any lines. But sometimes, evil comes at you swinging. Or worse, it seeps itself so deep into the cracks that no one even thinks to try to clean it up in the first place. In times like that, you have to swing back. It'll hurt you. It'll make you vulnerable. It might even ruin your life. But if you aren't willing to put in that extra effort, to take those hits and get yourself hurt, are you any better than any other person who's only looking out for themselves?"

I dig my toes into the floor mat, nervously rubbing my hip-limbs together in extradimensional space.

"Are you really saying that choosing not to get hurt is evil?" I ask.

"I wouldn't say evil," Don says. "You can do a lot of small kindnesses without ever putting yourself at risk—bodily, financially, socially, or however else. And maybe that's enough. Maybe if everyone did that, it'd be all we need. But they don't, do they? So we need bigger things on the side of good, harder swings on the hammer of justice. People like me step up to do that so that everyone else can be content with the small things. So that other people don't have to get hurt. I think you're like that, too… or at the very least, you know you should be."

"Yeah," I agree. "I know I should be."

"Then we're in this together," Don insists. "We don't have to see eye-to-eye on everything to agree that we both want to avert disaster."

"Yeah," I nod. "I guess not."

"So… if there's anything you need us to do in order to help you, Hannah, I don't want you to be hesitant to tell us," he finishes.

I need you to shoot me in the head if I wake up tomorrow.

"I'll think about it," I tell him, mentally exhausted in a way I haven't felt since escaping from soul torture. "Thank you."

He nods, and the conversation drifts away. His attention now solely on the road, I fall asleep to the rumble of the highway.

"Hannah! Hannah!"

Someone shakes me awake and I flinch, limbs twitching as I blink myself awake. The dull, hopeless exhaustion of my sleep stifles the pulse of terror I feel as I look around. Helen is holding me, a look of terror on her face that quickly morphs into relief as I come to. Aimilios is still pinned to the ground next to me, splattered by Sela's massive leg and ever-increasingly trussed up by his own rapidly regenerating entrails. It's almost silly, the way he's starting to look like a tasty ball of meat yarn. But of course, I don't have it in me to laugh.

"Are you alright, Hannah?" Helen asks. "What was that?"

"I'm… I'm fine. Are you guys okay? Is Valerie okay?"

Hardly any time seems to have passed since I fell unconscious. It must have only been a few seconds between passing out, getting healed by my spell, and waking up again. Valerie is in one piece at least, and Goddess she's fucking beautiful, but it looks like she might also be going into shock.

She did her best to listen to me after I told her to run away from what was left of the fight, but she wasn't very successful overall. Her legs didn't fuse or vanish when she grew her naga-like tail, they just reshaped themselves, and the instinct to try and walk on the stubby, dragon-claw paws that now make up her lowest set of limbs is almost completely ineffective. Her body is several times longer—and therefore several times heavier—than it was before, and while her tail clearly has the muscle to match, none of her limbs are designed to hold that weight. She can barely drag herself forward, and the more she tries, the more she seems to panic.

"Valerie," I call out to her again. "Valerie, hey. Look at me."

I struggle to my feet and crawl over to her, Helen helping me out with one arm. I feel so fucking exhausted.

"H-h-how do you slither?" Valerie stammers, turning her head towards me. "I don't… I'm not sure how. I don't know how to move. I can't walk anymore. I got… I got cut in half."

"It's okay," I promise her. "You're gonna be okay."

"Yeah," she breathes quickly. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna be okay. I am. I almost wasn't, though. And… now I don't have legs."

"To be fair, I don't think that was because you were cut in half," I say, giving her a halfhearted smile. "I think you were always gonna turn into a pretty snake lady."

She tenses up when I call her that, looking away as a blush rises up her cheeks. Damn it. Damn it, she's so wonderful and I love her so much. But I can't say anything. I don't have enough time left. It wouldn't be fair to her.

"I, um. Could I have some pants? Or I guess a skirt or something," she mumbles.

Oh? Oh! Right, yeah. I guess she lost her pants after getting bisected, and I guess they wouldn't fit anymore anyway. People who don't have a spatial sense wouldn't be able to see anything under all that fur, but I don't blame her for wanting modesty. I only have a complete mess of a shirt, though.

"Here, tie the sleeves around your waist for now," Helen offers, taking off her own shirt. She has her chest bound up pretty tightly underneath it.

"...Thanks," Valerie squeaks.

"No problem," Helen nods. "But Hannah, seriously, what happened with the Goddess just now? Everything those cult bastards said was bullshit, right?"

"Can it not wait?" Sela calls out. "Though Kagiso is running the energy out of Aimilios' regeneration by stuffing his lungs with his entrails—officially making her my favorite organic, by the way—we still have the flying purple idiot to rescue. Hannah and I will need to coordinate in order to find a viable path to the deadlands."

"How much of a timer are we on?" I ask.

"...Incalculable," Sela answers, a hint of irritation in its voice. "At maximum, our limit is the point at which our target dies from dehydration. At minimum, she may find herself at risk already… though that is, admittedly, unlikely. Aimilios has already expended all the dead souls in quite a large radius."

"Then she's safe enough for us to have a conversation," I insist. "Because Helen's right. We need to talk about this."

They need to know. They deserve to know.

"We came here to find out how the world ends," I tell everyone, "and we did. Aimilios was right."

"Wait, what?" Valerie stiffens up.

"...No," Helen whispers.

"Yes," I say. "My life is what causes the world to end. My magic. In order to save the world, I have to die."

"Bullshit!" Valerie snaps. "Hannah, that's insane!"

"I know it's insane!" I snap back, louder than I intended to be. "But that's the situation, okay!? The game is rigged. The Goddess tied me to the trolley tracks and gave me the lever. I have to die."

"Oh don't you dare turn this into some trolley problem bullshit!" Valerie shouts, digging her claws into the ground to drag herself closer to me. "Don't you fucking dare! We didn't go through all of this just to give up now!"

"Agree!" Kagiso calls out. "Hannah must live!"

"It's not your time to die, meat," Sela says firmly.

"But there's no choice!" I insist. "There's no way out! It's just like Aimilios said, I can feel it. I'm pulling our worlds closer together. If I ever speak the name of that spell again, our worlds will end. And if I don't speak the spell again, the cataclysm is months away, at most. The only way to stop it is to kill me. It's the only way."

"The Goddess could stop it," Valerie growls.

"She won't," I insist.

"You really think she'd play this game without a loss condition?"

"My death is her loss condition!" I shout. "I'm not her fucking opponent! I'm her game piece! And if any of you want to win, if you want to not have the deaths of billions on our hands, you have to kill me. You… you have to help me kill myself."

I don't know when I started crying, but the water is certainly pouring now. I can barely speak between the gasping breaths and the choking tears.

"I'm not good enough to do it without you," I beg.

They stare at me. My friends. The people who stood by my side and fought a fucking demigod with me because they care about me so much. And to me, they're everything. Ida should be here too, and maybe even Autumn, but the selfish piece of shit that I am couldn't hold it in any longer. They need to know. They deserve to know. I love them all so, so much.

"No," Kagiso says firmly, the first to speak. "Never. Not losing my family again."

Fuck. They are my family, more than my real one ever has been. Fuck!

"You said we still have months, and you're already giving up?" Valerie says. "You're better than this, Hannah. We're better than this!"

"Valerie, I—"

"Shut the fuck up, Hannah!" she roars. "Shut the fuck up and listen to me, you stupid, lazy idiot! You think that after all this, after dragging us all here to battle the bastard who created the cult dedicated to murdering you, I'm going to let you just off yourself!? Don't you even start to think about that shit again until we're on the last fucking second of the last fucking day, because we. Are. Fighting for this. We are fighting the cult, we are fighting the Goddess, we are fighting your soul, we are fighting every last obstacle between you and getting to live the happy life that you deserve, and damn anyone else who says otherwise! I will not give up on you, and if Ida were here don't you even think for a second she wouldn't agree with me! All of us agree on this! You don't get to give up!"

No. No, no, no, no. I can't speak through the tears, but I love and hate every word of Valerie's tirade. It's what I want to hear. It's what I want to hope. But for reasons I can't articulate, it fills me with the utmost dread, with the perfect certainty that it would be a mistake. But I can't do it without them. I can't. And even though I'm not good enough to save the world, I've managed to be just good enough to win the love of my friends.

"Don't speak for me, Valerie," Helen says quietly, but her voice still cuts through the battlefield like a knife. "I agree with Hannah."

Kagiso stares at her in shock. I stare at her in shock. Valerie glares, and Sela… Sela remains as expressionless as always.

"It'll always be just one more day," Helen insists, her clawed fists clenched. "It'll always be just a little more time. But then that time sneaks up on you and before you know it it's already too late. We can't trust ourselves to wait until the last moment to save the world."

She looks at me, then back at the others.

"When Hannah gets back from rescuing Ida, we should kill her. And if the rest of you won't, I will."