Alexandria stood by the curb, looking out at the street as the sky poured rain. Meanwhile, a group of other kids was playing hockey. She didn’t ask to join. She knew they’d only laugh.
She stared after them for a moment before making her way along the sidewalk. The clouds above were a roiling sea of gray. The gloom pressed in around her, but it was not an uncomfortable feeling.
She could feel the imagination inside of her, crackling with feral wildborn magic. The storm amplified her power, so often latent and inactive, and she could feel a whole universe of possibilities fanning out before her.
Alexandria snapped her fingers. A world emerged. She snapped her fingers again. It disappeared.
Let the other kids have their game. She had something better.
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Betty could feel it fraying around the edges, the evil beyond pounding against the celestial gates. The cosmos wouldn’t hold for long, and when its defenses fell, it wouldn’t just be this universe that would suffer. Hers was the cornerstone, the center of all existence, the universe in which all other universes derived their being. If she didn’t do something soon, all would be lost.
She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Let her soul slip from her body. The cosmos absorbed her into itself, until she was sailing across space and time. The fabric of existence quaked and shuddered with the force of the Darkness’s attacks, and she felt herself falter, gutter like a flame caught in a strong wind. But she would not let the world she loved die with her.
She pressed on.
She let the Darkness draw her, let it tug her along the macrocosm’s star spangled surface like a lure. It was hungry, eager to consume, and she would use its hunger against it.
One rumbling quake after another, each like a mountain hurled at her from a world-sized sling shot. Soon enough she found herself at the source, a bulge in the cosmic substrate, a festering pustule that was growing like cancer just beneath the surface.
I can’t do this. The thought skittered along the membrane of her mind, but she ignored it. She could, and she would. All of reality depended on it.
She let the Darkness pull her in further, until the g-forces from that supernatural black hole threatened to pull her apart. Then she reached out — it was like sticking the arms that were back with her body in tar — took hold, slowly peeled back the layers of empty space.
The darkness shuddered, reeled.
WHAT IS THIS?
It was aware of what she was doing now. She had to work quickly. She inserted herself into the place between, felt for the roots of this deadly celestial blight and pulled.
Another rumbling shudder.
I WILL CONSUME YOU.
Waves of despair crashed over her, and she faltered once more. She could feel those poor souls who were trapped on the other side, wailing in eternal despair. It was catching, and like a hook those dark emotions began to reel her in.
But Betty wasn’t having any of that. She sent out roots of her own, a blinding sprawl of interconnected fibers. They anchored her to space and time, where she stood fast and let the Darkness’s greedy tugging work against itself.
Sure enough, the more ardently it struggled to pull her in, the more the hold of its own roots weakened, unable to withstand the intense shearing forces.
There was one final shudder, one that nearly did her in, and then Betty felt the first root snap. One by one the others followed.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? the Darkness bellowed, its disbelieving howl rippling across the universe. I AM UNDONE.
The last of its roots disengaged and the Darkness was cast out at last, hurtling into the empty void beyond.
Exhausted, Betty surveyed the damage. It was extensive, she thought, but with time and help it would heal. She considered her body back home, an unfathomable number of miles and eons behind her, and let it go. She was part of the universe now, ageless and eternal.
She extended her roots as far as they would go, hooked into the wounded patch of space and time like a scab. Yes, she thought again, the cosmos would heal. Together they would grow into something stronger, something greater.
The Darkness would return, but with her and the cosmos joined, they would be ready.
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