Think of a woman.

Think of a woman with short hair, layered black and brown.

Think of a woman with baggy dark blue jeans and a hooded blue sweater.

Think of a woman with round glasses; frameless, nearly opaque with reflected light under any illumination.

This is Sea lover, effective owner of 105+ lives. One wouldn’t think it to look at her, given her pedestrian outfit, but then again, she’s operating in a pedestrian environment.

Three stars and a solemn sliver of moon shine down upon her. She’s standing knee deep in the basin of a main street fountain, built by Suleiman the Magnificent after his Ottoman Turks “conquered” the Holy City during the sixteenth century.

She would need water. That was important. The water was important. And the stars, too.

She glances at the inky column of covered wagons hitched together some yards behind her. The solitary Messenger she brought along glances back from its pool of yellow lantern light. That was the hard part of being in charge; everyone else assumed you knew exactly what to do.

The midnight mist swirls up around her waist, thick and cold. She rubs her hands together for warmth. No gloves allowed; she would need the advantage of every tactile sensation in order to keep her wits about her.

She’d let it go on far too long without acting, this “wish” business. Sooner or later, one of them would reach the end, and actually expect something of the sort. That was why she had undertaken to capture Death; to bind him (it?) to her will so that she could make practical use of his power. Unfortunately, she had made the mistake of forgetting that once you diminish a multidimensional being sufficiently to control it (him?), that said being can no longer accomplish those tasks that require being multidimensional.

That was what the staff was for. The power of two million people’s hopes and fears bound into a handy stick. She would need every ounce of that power, of that desperate faith and zeal, of that that mortal need to accomplish her task,

Making a wish.

From scratch.

She reaches out and held the staff.

She pulls away, with a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold.

The thing had so much power that any action associated with it extended a little bit back in time. There was no question that she had done the right thing by taking it from that abomination.

She reaches out again.

She gripped the staff tightly.

The voices began to cry out. They cried out for water. They cried out for their children, taken from them after everything they had been through. They cried out for those who didn't, who couldn't, last another forty years. They were drawn to the staff, to the light, they would do anything to be near it.
Anything.

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Death had had a busy day. Per his binding, he could not do violence to any one or thing associated with Sea Lover.

But supposing, one could very gently lift several…people…high up to the ceiling and then very gently…let them go?

He wades through the rapidly liquefying bodies to the holding area. Like the rest of the compound, it’s a dank space, cold and dark with only a few fluorescent tubes to shed light on the misery of one’s fate. The various inmates turn their eyes unseeingly towards him as he strides past their barred prisons. At the end of the claustrophobic hallway, Death stops and turns to face the last cell.

It’s empty.

He frowns, a difficult task for one with out cheeks.

That would have been It for any other renegade eidolon, but not for one who could see into the past, as well as the future…

Gregor waits a while.

He waits for three days on end.

He then stops waiting.


He pretends to fall and die.

They then come for him.

He hits them and runs away.


They did not perceive.

But they did pursue him fast.

He looks for the door.


He looks for the outside light.

And then he’s flying.

And then he begins to fall…


…And that was it. After that, he had gone too far for any memories to want to hang around in the vicinity.

Death turns to go.

A hand grabs his shoulder.

“We need to talk.”

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The sand is littered with doors. None of them can stand upright. None of them can open.

Gorger curses and tries to break the pencil again. His time-tested method of hurting the things in his way until they do what he wants does not work here, however.

The various misshapen doors bubble and run under the blowtorch of midday in the Sahara.

As Gorger scribbles angrily, he grumbles to himself in a tectonic snarl.

“Stoopid pencil’s s’pposed ta be majickkk…”

Scrape, scrape.

“S’pposed ta bring yer stooped imagination ta lifffffe…”

Scrape, scrape.

“Ownlee nobuddy menchund…”

Scrape, scrape.

“Whatcher s’pposed ta dooooo…”

Scrrrrrrape.

“IF YOU DON’T. HAVE ANY. IMAGINATION!!!!”

He threshes the air around him into ribbons, briefly creating a whirlwind of sand and half-formed ideas.

He drops the pencil and stumbles over to one of the artificial portals. He begins to eat it. It’s rubbery and sinuous, like whale tissue.

While he munches on the faintly struggling door, Gorger muses on his predicament.

The Pencil of Benjamin has the power to create anything the user imagines. But Gorger has no memory of sensation, save that of his own existence in the universe, the feel of his presence pushing down on reality. He’s not highly evolved enough to come up with ideas of his own about the world around him.
So it would seem that he is doomed to the cruel irony of subsisting on the only thing he knows enough about to actually create: himself.

His attempts at making “a way out of here” had resulted in the Dada landscape before him…

He jumps to his feet.

“Well all right, then!” he shouts at the buzzing air.

“Let’s be derivative!”

He runs over to yet another door, “painted” a mechanical blue with an unturnable knob.

He slaps his palm against it and spreads his fingers apart. In a flash of red light, the door collapses back into graphite, collecting in a small pile, black against the white sand.

He cackles maniacally.

“Just like the old days, uh? Just like how we started!”

He cannibalizes the essence of every door in sight, and when he’s finished, he makes some more, talking animatedly as he repeats the process.

“Xenon was right, humans are weak, that's a given. But ME, I’m awesome!”

After several cycles of this, Gorger is glowing a radioactive red, and his movements displace the sand for yards around him.

“Ha ha. Ha. Hate to eat and run guys, but…”

He balances on one leg, lifting the other knee up so his calf is horizontal, then he draws back both his arms in the same direction as the lifted leg.

“Beep beep.”

The air catches fire.

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You feel different today.

Perhaps it is because of your new job, and by proxy, your new girlfriend. All the bitterness, insanity, and frustration that gave you life in the first place seems to have dissipated, replaced by a sort of confused contentment.

You, Mr. Physicsbook, have reformed, to the extent that you no longer feel so much like you need to hunt down and ruthlessly murder a number of young adults…for the moment. As much as the results of this quick-fix situation delight you, it is still just that; quick-fix.
Ms. Calculus has been gradually been pulling away from you, upset, even if she doesn't know it consciously, that your job is minimum wage. So you shall bide your time, pay your rent bills, bribe the few courts still pressing charges, or more often, pay less and bribe the policemen who keep trying to open the case. You don't need to eat, so you can focus your efforts on impressing your lady with feats of monetary prowess and occasionally picking off the odd grad student.

For the present, at least, you are content to flip burgers and clean counters in the Frontier restaurant across from the University of New Mexico, so long as the knowledge that Ms. Calculus will continue to be your woman remains in point of fact, fact.

You don’t quite understand why it is that all the helpless rage and paranoid schizophrenic inferiority complexes contained within you disappear when your girl is around. Perhaps it is because she is the only other member of your “species,” and her presence validates you in a subconscious sense.

But even without her, you'd still have Damkina. Though you're not sure how exactly you feel about her.
Damkina is a demi-goddess who inhabits your body in exchange for the assurance that you will one day use one of your physics-related powers to aid her and prevent her destruction. The upshot of the bargain is that while she inhabits part of you, you can never be completely physically destroyed.

In the beginning, it was a difficult life surviving as an animate textbook in a world full of humans, dolphins, cats, insects, squids, trees, rocks, balloons, deadly scorpions, snakes, zombies, and Christmas elves.

Did you mention that you’re insane? You are. Completely so.

But when Ms. Calculus is around, you feel less like a psychological treatise on Harold Shipman and more like a biography of Emperor Norton.

“Hey, ya bum! Get back to work!” an abrasive voice bellows at you.

Except for now.

You hop off the high stool placed next to the grill for your benefit and shuffle determinedly forward. You butt your manager behind the knees and he keels over on his back. You cartwheel forward between his legs, and then backwards, landing on his chest. His frightened eyes swell in size as sweat beads on his forehead.

“Flap, flap flap!”

()()I’m going on break, BITCH!()() you shout maniacally in your native language of Bookish.

From a concealed area on your person, you draw out your Three Dimensional Vector.

You stab him in the throat with it.

There’s a whip crack of inrushing air as your manager implodes.

Other fast-food employees might complain about not being able to make themselves heard, but not you. You can get all the attention you want. And you don't even speak English! Take THAT, Better Business Bureau! Thanks to your inadvertent and altogether inconsequential handicap, other workers are held to a much higher standard, and are all the more miserable for it.

Yes…misery. When Ms. Calculus isn't around to assuage your blood lust, that is your game of choice. It shows plainly on your face, or what little of it you have.

Your front cover is white and plain. Its only blemishes are your glinting, squinting, coal-black eyes, thick, dramatic eye brows, and two tiny nostrils. You communicate by flapping your pages and allowing some mysterious force to automatically translate your intended words directly into the hearing portions of the brains of those around you.

Flanking your felonious features on the top and bottom (respectively) of your front cover are the words UNIVERSITY and PHYSICS.

Multi-colored book tabs are interspersed throughout the main content of your pages to mark the starts of new chapters in learning.

On your back cover, you recently gave yourself the ego-boosting present of a bad ass tattoo. Using the white background of your back cover, the artist inked a rainbow. Above and below the rainbow is the phrase: It's Physics…BITCH!!

Your arms and legs are rudimentary, streamlined versions of the ball-and-joint appendage found in many machines and organic creatures. You have two orbs for your shoulders and two flexible cones for arms/hands that hover in place.

As for your legs, you have two orbs for your pelvis, and two more flexible cones that appear to be quite maneuverable and balanced, despite their lack of texture or any definable counterbalance.
Your arms and legs aren't made of any definable matter, they're just geometric. You very occasionally marvel at them while you're waiting in a bush for someone to walk by so you can slash their Achilles tendon and then stab through their eye and into the back of their brain.

The bell over the door rings faintly to indicate that someone else has arrived to have their money taken from them in exchange for heartburn and food poisoning.

You turn from the desiccated husk of your former manager. You rip off his special lapel pin and self-importantly attach it to your tiny apron before hopping through the kitchen door and up on to the bar. You scrutinize the three lonely plastic tables with matching tasteless chairs. Fading light from the sun shines through the windowfront that takes up the entire front wall.

The restaurant is empty, but the door has been blown open by the wind.

Muttering a few choice words, you hop down and slam it shut.

When you return to the kitchen, the corpse of your manager has vanished. In his place, a note is caught in the act of drifting slowly to the floor. You snatch it up and read it, feeling a slight sense of primal conversation awkwardness as you do so.

“That’s what I thought.

Get your head out of the clouds and get back to killing people. Your next opponent is already en route to your location as you read this. Should you refuse to comply, know that we have a certain Ms. Calculus in our “protective custody.” That is to say, if you won’t go back to killing, we can’t guarantee her protection.

-Sea Lover”

You riffle your pages in livid anguish. You use your stubby little arms to crumple the note, this act of pseudo-homicide (Libricide?) renewing your murderous lunacy with fresh zeal.

()()Very well, Sea Lover. I shall play your game. Until I get my beloved back, that is. At that time, I’m not sure if I can guarantee YOUR safety! MWAHAHAHA!!!()()

The bell rings again.

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Sea Lover sidles into being on a grassy knoll overlooking the restaurant, stepping sideways between dimensions by using the staff as a sort of ethereal cattle-prod to get them to move out of the way. Death does not take notice; he’s cradling what looks like a mummified fetus, swaddled in the garish primary colors of a fast-food restaurant middle manager.

Sea Lover turns to him, with, as usual, no expression on her face. So he has no warning when she knocks the newlydead from his arms. The manager floats weightlessly through the air before dissipating into an audible Sigh.

“THAT’S ENOUGH! By Poseidon, you’re actually starting to care!!” she screams at him disgustedly.

Death looks up from his empty hands, still in the same position.

AND WHOSE FAULT IS THAT, MAY I ASK?

Sea Lover looks back at him warily; reflecting that personifying something like Death might have more repercussions than she needs to deal with. She flexes her fingers around the staff speculatively. If she undid him, now, could the staff protect her? Would Death remember his experiences as a liv- a bre- a talking thing enough to “want” to take revenge?

Lucky for her, it seems he has other things on his “mind,” though they aren’t any less unpleasant for her to hear at the moment.

WAS THE KIDNAPPING NECESSARY?

“Necessary? Is any of this necessary, Mort? Did I give you a name for nothing? A body? A voice? Have I pitted over one hundred and five people against each other unnecessarily? Is that it?!”

MY NAME ONLY HAS MEANING FOR YOU. I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS.

“Because you did not have the capacity to do so!”

Death gets up suddenly. Sea Lover starts back in spite of herself, knuckles white against the dark Spindle Tree wood.

HE’S HERE.

Sea Lover sighs with a mixture of exasperation and relief.

“Well, yes, Mort, why do you think I just–“

NOT. HIM. THE OTHER ONE.

A chill runs down her spine.

“Wh-what the Hell is he doing here!? He should be well away from this! He Should Be In A Cell Back At Headquarters!! How Did He Escape!?”

Death pauses.

BEATS THE HECK OUT OF ME.

“Well, what are you waiting for?!! Get down there and–“

THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE.

“What?!!”

GORGER IS APPROACHING FROM THE WEST, NOT THE EAST.

“Which means…?” Sea Lover growls through her teeth.

The gentle New Mexico breeze suddenly becomes a howling nor'easter and Sea Lover feels as if Gravity has a bone to pick with her spine.

“Which Means I Get To Have Another Lunch TODAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!”

Gorger impacts.

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Your customer sits down at the bar. He’s wearing some kind of strange uniform; an incredibly baggy pair of shorts that comes down past the knee and an equally baggy shirt with sleeves that stop just past his elbows, all in gray sacking. A minuscule line of red numbers is branded on the right side of the chest.

Something about this man seems worn, even though his pale face is still very young. Your customer projects an atmosphere of exhaustion; even his eyes seem to reflect this by being pearl gray in color.

He whips the disheveled brown bowl-cut out of his face and eyes the menu above the bar eagerly, as if he had not been able to eat in days. He’s more than a little disquieting. You contemplate killing him immediately, taking all of his money, and then setting out to find your next “opponent.”

“I’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich!” he calls out, looking for any signs of life.

You chuckle malevolently.

()()Prepare to–!()()

He looks down and appears to notice you exist for the first time.

He cocks his head to one side in a puzzled manner and speaks candidly.

“Hey. A book with eyes on it.”

The benign accusation throws you off guard, exploding your mind into uncertainty and self-hate. You feel discombobulated in the worst way. You feel as if you are in the presence of Ms. Calculus’ polar opposite, a being who sucks all the murderous vigor out of your pages while at the same time making you feel lower than a Plain Cover.

The razor-sharp One Dimensional Vector goes slack in your nubby little hand. You glance sullenly past your customer’s stupid ugly face and out the window as the last rays of the setting sun catch on the roiling cloud of destruction headed your way.

You duck behind the counter.

“Hello? Is my sandwich ready yet?”

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You awake with a shock as Damkina, the Demi-goddess inside your body, sends one hundred volts through you.

Awaken! You’ll miss the chance to get me mo– uh, get more power!

()()Ugh, I dun…dun care…()() you grumble noncommittally over the incessant buzzing of your headache.

Sea Lover is right up there with Death! We can kill two birds with one stone here; do you understand that?

()()Grrrr, screw you…gonna go home…()()

That’s it.

An invisible fist grips you and propels you up and over the counter and into something very solid. And hot. Very, very hot. It’s quickly becoming urgent how hot this solid thing is.

You utter a muffled scream as smoke begins to pour from between your pages.

Suddenly your pain is relieved as another, more visible fist grips you and pulls you away.

You’re staring into the face of a monster. His skin is a foggy gray, but it’s thinner in some places, less opaque. And where it’s more transparent, glowing red traces surface and fade periodically. His teeth are pointed and triangular, like a beast.

But my, what lovely eyes he has!

“Who threw this?”

He turns to one of the other new figures standing in the smoldering remains of the restaurant, a woman, dressed appropriately for Colorado in February.

“This your idea of a joke?" he growls. "pretty poor choice for the last one you’ll ever make.”

The woman doesn’t answer. She's peering frantically around the ruins of the bar. The monster suddenly catches on, and his gaze skips three steps ahead of hers, landing on a gray-sleeved arm protruding from some rubble. His face tightens visibly.

An oppressive stillness falls over the restaurant.

Then everyone moves at once.

You are dropped immediately. You flip and land on your feet. You whip your gaze around and around, looking for any obvious means of advantage; it falls on an overlarge pencil, leaned carefully against a Formica table. Your supernatural eyes instantly pick out the thing’s magical aura. You rush towards it, dodging between three sets of legs. You put your hands on it and chuckle with triumph. Suddenly, another set of hands appears to have the same idea, clamping down over yours. You look up.

It’s that idiot who started all of this!

Once again, you are dragged into the air involuntarily.

You are shaken and thrown about violently as the moron (whose presence you’re sure caused all of this) expertly draws a door on the wall. He pulls it open and rushes down a side alley with you in tow.

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All three combatants regain their feet at the same time and eye each other warily. Sea Lover suddenly straightens up and gives a small laugh.

“He’s all yours.”

She yawns, and the yawn extends past six dimensions, until she’s just a transparent image opening its mouth into infinity. And then she’s gone.

Gorger turns to Death.

“Good, now let’s nab Gregor and then at least we’ll have one oomf.”

Gorger crumples around the wound in his stomach.

Death twirls his scythe into a fresh attack position.

SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE PLOT TO GET THE STAFF BACK. SHE’S IRONED OUT A LOT OF THE LOOPHOLES IN MY BINDING.

“Did she catch the one where you can tell me what the loop holes are that she missed?”

YES.

“Well, damn.”

INDEED.

Gorger straightens up. He becomes noticeably less bright as the injury in his gut closes up.

He cracks his neck and launches himself directly at Death’s center of gravity.

They tussle madly, neither able to get enough space for a finishing attack, both trying to get a hold of the other’s weapon.

Gorger groans in annoyance. He’d been hoping to save some of the extra energy for when he met up with “Fizzix” or whatever the Hell his next opponent was called.

But now it appears as if he would need to waste it on banishing Charon’s Shipping and Handling service.

Gorger opens his mouth to speak.

Death wraps his cold fingers around Gorger’s throat ineffectually.

Gorger says the words.

When they come out, they’re not loud at all.

Rather, they are low. They are metallic. They are insectoid. They are amphibious, amorphous, cavernous and dark. They buzz with electricity and gurgle with water.

“MENACE. PULSE.”

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()()What the Hell’s going on? Who are you? Who were those freaks? Why aren’t you listening to me, you STEWPID IDIOT!!()()

The ne’er do well consumer fails to screech to a halt at your words; perhaps it is because he’s so intent on running. He’s going quite fast, for a human. He runs like a flesh and blood scarecrow, limbs going every which way at a frenetic pace.

He's still trying to navigate through the network of alleyways connecting the restaurant to a world of late night packages and feral cats. He has to backtrack frequently, running into the same three dead ends, ignoring your vehement directions. The walls of the alleys loom over head, hemming you in, making you feel claustrophobic and fearfully reminiscent of your dusty tomb back at UNM's library.

The pencil (and by proximity, you) bounces jarringly on his shoulder as he continues to press ahead.

Eventually, he is stopped.

Not by your words, however.

But by the monster.

It erupts in a shower of dark fire and debris from a wall adjacent to the two of you, and lands on its feet.

The customer looks behind him for an easy escape, and in the process, notices you.

()()Got any more bright ideas, jack ass?()()

He screams discordantly at you and runs in the other direction.

The monster dead arms him.

The customer drops the pencil (and you) as the monster begins shaking him violently and screaming about mutual responsibility and compromising delicate situations.

You lurch to your feet, spine aching.

You decide perhaps that whatever is contained within these…men’s…wallets just isn’t worth letting them live very much longer.

With a puff of smoke, your ubiquitous cone appendage is replaced with a five-fingered hand of Power!

You concentrate all of your hatred and bitterness into a single geometric point in the palm of your new hand, and send it careering in their direction.

The small, black orb of nothingness, lovingly dubbed “Heaven,” by its creator and copyright-holder, hits its mark with pinpoint accuracy. It is a shame, therefore, when the monster violently shoves the customer out of his vicinity and the blast radius of “Heaven.”

There is a noise like tearing metal as the monster is pulled through a hole in space and time one-sixteenth the size of his body.

The customer extricates himself from the small crater his body made upon impacting the brickwork of the adjacent alley wall. He stumbles around a bit, feeling various parts of his body; presumably to make sure they are all there. Eventually, he staggers in your general direction and looks you over whilst steadying himself against a fire escape.

“What did…you do?” he gasps breathlessly.

If you had a mouth, you would smirk. As it is, your coffee-black eyes and thick, bushy eyebrows are more than up to the job.

()()I sent him to the frictionless dimension, the resting place of all those foes that have angered me especially! MWAHAHAHA!!!()()

You heft the mysterious pencil and poke your new plaything in the stomach with it several times.

He doesn’t seem fazed by your words or mild physical harassment. His face is a blank, eyes wide, staring at nothing.

“So,” he says with rigid concentration on keeping his voice under control, “you sent him to a place filled with people who have nothing to think about for the rest of eternity except their hatred for you, and their own mortality?”

You pause.

()()Well, I suppose you could say, wait. What are you saying?()()

The man is now shaking visibly.

“That doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that we need to get as far away from here as possible, before–“

()()Before what, you damn hippy? I’m not moving from this spot until I get some ans–()()

The earth moves. The buildings and trees sway like jelly. The paved ground under your feet buckles and quakes.

If the man appeared frightened before, he is now the definition of stark terror.

“Oh NO!” he howls with despair as he claws his face.

The air fifty feet from the two of you suddenly fractures, like glass. The crack is small at first, but it spreads rapidly as the otherworldly light shining through it grows ever brighter.

Before you can blink, the customer has you and the pencil under each arm, and he is running.
In a renewed fit of adrenaline, the customer manages to swing an exit from the 20 square foot maze that so taunted him.
He makes it halfway down the main street, before the crack shoots across the sky and blocks your path.

From within, you hear a steady pounding, rhythmic, growing louder with each beat. The beat becomes discordant and grating to the ears, like metal hitting glass.

The customer is frantically trying to backpedal, bare feet comically scraping the asphalt in an attempt to rebuke his previous momentum.

The crack, growing wider with each bang, Bang, BANG, explodes. Transparent shards of reality rain down around you, refracting the static light of the Frictionless Dimension and blinding the two of you.

The monster steps out of the paranormal fissure. He has something over his shoulder.

Your customer drops you and the pencil and falls to his knees, covering his head in terror and shame. You grip the pencil and level its point at the creature. You are ready to run him through when you suddenly see clearly what he is carrying.

It’s Tremor’s Hammer.

But it’s not exactly as you remember it. It’s glowing with a greenish-blue color, and it seems fuzzy around its edges somehow, as if he were carrying the hammer’s ghost instead of the actual object. You recalculate your position. This was the weapon that came the closest to ending you since you began the arduous task of killing off all your old students. If it hadn’t been for Damkina’s intervention, you would have been gone forever. Now, with the monster wielding it along with whatever unspeakable powers allowed to him to break through dimensional walls, you're not sure if you know how that fight would end. It’s a chilling thought, and one you’ve done your best to avoid, but now it seems as if it has decided to confront you face to face.

The beast hefts the weapon as if it was made of balsa and twirls it like a baton.

“Your name wouldn’t happen to be…Viffix or something, would it?”

Before you can reply, he’s aimed the hammer directly at you, the handle end over his shoulder in a Billiards stance.

“The answer doesn’t really matter, seeing as how I’m going to kill you anyway. But as long as we’re playing the name game, I’d hate to miss a chance to know who’s IMMORTAL SOUL I’M GOING TO OWN FOR THE NEXT FEW MILLENIA. Ha ha. Ha.”

()()It’s Mister Physicsbook, to you, Bitch!()()

“Lovely,” he croons.

()()How the Hell did you escape my Frictionless Dimension anyway, you ugly cretin?()()

He scoffs.

“Howd'ya think, ya mook? There was nothing in that place but dead souls and rapidly decaying living souls, all of whom were trapped and hated your guts. I merely gave them a vessel,” he indicates Tremor’s Hammer with a wave of his head, “in which to channel that hatred and pain. And OH BOY did it work! Not to mention, as an idea given shape, gravity and friction can kiss my ass.”

Suddenly, a memory clicks into place. You hadn’t had much time to watch the news, what with all your extra-curricular activities, heh heh, but whenever you did, the headline was almost always about the Alaskan Madman, or, as the writing on the wall after every kill attested, Gorger. No one had as of yet managed to get a photo of him and live long enough to send it to their local variation of Top Ten Most Wanted, but the network had gotten a hold of a sketch artist whose hands didn’t shake too much. Things were a little difficult for him, what with missing one eye and all, but the network did its best to keep him inside a room with very thick walls.

Perhaps knowing your days were numbered gave you a little extra motivation to let as many people as possible know what your killer looked like.
It couldn't have been too hard, that PEACE probably never left anybody.

As a fellow serial killer, you had occasionally taken time to admire his dedication to punctuality and attention to detail. But now it looked as if the student would have to eviscerate the master.

And you’ve the got the perfect idea for how.

With another cloud of non sequitur smoke, you initiate what you are sure will be the first of a series of killing moves against this madman.

When the smoke clears, you have on your disguise. Its code-name is “Mother Dearest”. Your body shape and anatomy haven’t changed in the slightest, but you are now wearing an industrial green dress with yellow sleeves and a pink daisy sewn on the front. This, with the dark mauve bouffant and matching eye shadow makes you look absolutely nothing like any mother in existence.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that the average being can’t see things they don’t want to see. Their minds get in the way. That’s why Vlad saw “Dracula” and fell into a fatal flash back, and why Jack saw his “mother” and continued to act normally right up until the point where you asphyxiated him and left his body to some of his more ravenous stalkers.

Gorger raises an eyebrow and advances cautiously.

That’s right, sonny-boy, you silently gloat, come to Mommy. That serial killer head of yours is probably just chock-full of parent issues. And I shall USE THEM to Destroy You! Mwahahaha!

Your vindictive train of thought is derailed when Gorger swings Tremor’s hammer in two full arcs before allowing it to connect with your body.

There is a noise like a bell being struck by a sonic boom and a flash of magnesium brilliance.

()()Aaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!()()

You don’t fly very far. The pavement breaks your fall.

()()What the flying strumpet was that?!()()

You get shakily to your feet, the tatters of your failed disguise falling around you.

Gorger shrugs with his signature gesture of pure, Qué sera sera evil.

“Sorry, punk ass, no imagination to speak of.”

He knocks three times on his head, making a hollow sound.

He begins to plow in your direction, the hammer becoming hotter, brighter, and somehow louder as it gets nearer to you. The ground cracks under his footfalls as the hammer approaches White Dwarf density.

Suddenly, a hand grips you for the third time today. You are clutched to a cold chest clothed in rough sacking.

The customer shouts something deafening and the world goes black.

“MOMENTO MORI!”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You open your eyes slowly. Everything is blurry at first, as if you are surfacing from underwater. When the haze clears, you wish it hadn’t.

The sky is horrible.

It’s full of faces, horrible, horrible faces. They crowd against each other, and fill every inch of space between them. As you are forced to look closer, you notice some appearing and disappearing inside of one another's eyes or mouths. The whole image blurs together until it's just a sea of monstrous facial features undulating madly and eating itself.

You sit up and look wildly around for anybody else, or, failing that, something else to look at.

You’re on a barren plain, gray and flat. The ground actually seems man-made upon closer inspection. It’s honeycombed with hexagonal tiles as far as you can see.

You sight upon the hapless customer some yards away; he’s sitting on the ground, arms around his calves and nose on his knees.

You shuffle over to him and jab him in the ribs.

He turns.

“Oh good, you’re awake. I’m sorry I caused all of this.”

“Flap! Flap flap!”

You pause.

“Flap?”

You begin to panic.

“Flap! Flappity flap flap!!”

The customer looks at you quixotically.

“I can’t understand you. Umm…I guess your magical translation thing didn’t follow us here?”

This is not going very far towards comforting you.

He stands up.

“We’ll have to find you a skin to wear if we’re going to survive here.”

“Flap?”

“This way.”

He takes your hand and begins walking with you, and it is only slightly less demeaning than actually being picked up and carried, which he shortly does after he realizes how short your legs are and how much this is affecting the curvature of his spine.

In literally no time at all, the bleak landscape surrounding the two of you dissolves like colored sand. It gives way to featureless blackness, and then more sand approaches from ahead to fill the empty space, just for a moment resulting in a banded tunnel of color and darkness.

Your next destination reaches you.

Unlike the wasteland of unhappy awakenings, this area seems unfinished, or as if it was never begun, and then simply left to wrack and ruin. It could be a room 60 feet square, or it could go on into infinity. It's neither black nor white, but a grayish brown that seems to have been rubbed threadbare in some places, occasionally in mid air. Where it's been rubbed raw, glowing blue cords criss-cross in a perfect grid.

There’s a spotlight centered on an armoire. Several other objects flank it:

There’s a 1950’s era television sitting in the middle of a minuscule vegetable garden. The TV has the words NO DUMPING graffiti’d on its blank screen in red.

There’s a picket sign that reads DO NOT READ THIS SIGN.

And finally, a floating Moebius strip.

As if anticipating your question, the customer speaks.

“They’re paradoxes. They’re supposed to keep things like manias and phobias from getting near the closet.”

He walks forward and unlocks the doors.

“He’s got big plans for these. Some people just never got close enough to anyone for his power of looking like a loved one to work. That’s why he’s been saving up.”

He opens the doors and you see what he’s talking about.

Skins. Rack upon rack of skins, extending back and back and back into a distant foggy white point on the imaginary horizon.

All fully clothed, hair and nails intact, and in some cases equipped with weapons.

The customer continues impassively.

“They’re not actually skins, per se. They’re memories of those he's eaten. He uses them to specialize his disguise power.”

He casts about. It begins to dawn on you where you might be…

“We’ll borrow one he won’t be likely to miss.”

He grabs one.

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Like the skin closet area, this region has no defining features.
Except, that is, for the great gray troll with no eyes or nose sculpting a statue.

Rog finishes. He steps back from his creation. It is a lump of clay in the shape of a man in the fetal position. Reg takes his cue and leaps into it, causing it to straighten up into a standing posture. It morphs and warps into something more comfortable for him.
The shape is basically the same; it has merely been elongated. His ears are multi-chambered and pointed, like a bat. His face is missing. There’s a hole there, with cracks around the edges, filled with darkness. In the darkness, Reg’s ruby eyes and ivory mouth flicker and hover like phosphorescent insects. There are other holes across the gray body. Reg can move his facial features around to any one of them.

“Bett. Er,” he rasps chitinously.

“GOOD. I WUZ WORRIED FOR A WHILE, DERE.”

Reg ignores his “brother’s” sympathy and gazes around thoughtfully.

“So. What. Can. We. Do. To. Get. Back. In. The. Mas. Ter’s. Good. Grace. Es?”

“YEAH, BIG BRO’S PROOTY MAD DAT WE SCREWED UP SO BAD TWO TIMES.”

“I’ll. Say, We. Should–“

He stops.

“WHUT IZ IT?”

“In. Trude. Ers.”

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“Now come on! It’s not that bad!”

“Flap flap flap!”

The customer gives one final push and shoves you down the mouth of the skin he chose.

It’s a disgusting sensation. Probably because it’s the first actual sensation you’ve ever experienced.

Your vision swims from darkness into definite images once again. Only, this vision seems less keen than yours usually is.

“I’m OLD?! I’m an Old MAN?!”

“Hey, at least you can talk, now.”

“OH, don’t EVEN give me that! You’ve pulled me into Dali’s Inferno and now I’m an ugly old MAN!”

The customer rubs his ears.

“Jeez, not so loud. It’s only temporary, anyway.”

You take a second to more closely examine your new costume. It is indeed, old. But apparently it’s also armed and licensed to fully utilize that arm.

With extreme prejudice.

You point the gun at the customer.

“This ends now.”

You attempt to giggle maniacally, but your treacherous new lungs send you into a fit of wet coughing, causing your gun hand to shake violently.

The customer shrugs, unaffected.

“Yeah, Goldstein never did give any of his guards a proper healthcare plan. Shall we go?”

“This…hackcough…sucks.”

“You’ve still got all your stuff from your old body, I think.”

You pause, and check to see if this is true.

Sure enough, you are able to summon and dispel your full set of physics-related skulduggery at will.

With a begrudged shrug, you noisily clear your throat and wipe the detritus of said explosion on a nearby Matador’s coat tails.

His hand grabs yours.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Reg has to move quickly. He’s never moved so quickly in his existence. He’ll have to go fast if he wants to please his Father, his Brother.

Reg has to possess each skin suit one at a time, make it move, and then move on to the next one in a matter of milliseconds. The result is a stop-motion tidal wave of fleshless soldiers, each with one purpose: his.


Rog’s job is equally important, but he having a little trouble in da speed department. He has to dismantle each paradox surrounding da closet so dat he and Reg can receive unofficial reinforcements when all da feral neuroses show up for da “costume party," yeah.

Hur hur hur.

Yeah.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And the pendulum has swung back even farther than before. You hate having a human body. You hate physical pain, you hate sickness and age, but most of all, you hate fear. Fear locks up your prehistoric joints, fear blinds you when blood rushes out of your head, and fear is doing a Hell of a job on your ulcer.

Which you didn’t even know you had.

As a textbook, you were never very good at swimming. You detested water; it made you slow and groggy. You always feared that the ink on your bibliography and copyright information would run and you would forget who you were and where you lived.

Now, you have to swim through a sea of choking hands, punching fists, kicking feet, biting mouths, and undulating flesh while using a body you have little to no familiarity with. You have the maneuverability of a Panzer with the stamina of a Pinto.

After what seems like an eternity, the nameless young man, who you’re going to kill after he saves your life, saves your life.

You both topple sideways out of the door of the armoire.

You get up first.

No monologue-ing, no gloating, no time wasting, just one swift movement and a pull of the trigger.

It clicks.

You shake it and beat it against your palm, but to no avail.

The young man stands up and dusts himself off, not noticing your turmoil.

“Uhhmm, sorry about that, I guess. I guess some manias managed to lock themselves in somehow. At least with the logic traps in place, they can’t…follow…us…out…”

He trails off.

In a second, you see why.

The paradoxes have resolved themselves.

The Moebius strip is torn in half and both ends are nailed flat into the ground.

The TV that was dumped with NO DUMPING on it has a sign pasted over it that reads LANDFILL.

When it came to the sign, however, the mysterious assailant’s sense of humor had apparently run out, as the only change that had been made was: READ THIS SIGN.

You flip the gun around in your hand and begin beating your customer over the head with it.

“You stupid, stupid stupid stupid IDIOT!! We’re in your mind, aren’t we?! In his mind aren’t we?! You’re sharing minds aren’t you?!”

The closet doors bang open and the Skins begin pouring out like zombified clowns from a comically miniature hearse. You take no notice.

“I admit I probably should have taken issue when you talked about MANIAS AS IF THEY PHYSICALLY EXISTED, but hey, IT’S STILL YOUR FAULT!!”

The Skins don’t seem as purpose-driven as before. Their eyes are glazed over, and they keep bumping into one another and tripping each other up.

You continue to ignore their slouching advance.

“So, before we’re devoured alive, only one matter of business remains, what’s your name, son?”

The customer pauses to spit out some blood and two teeth.

“Gre…Gregor.”

“GREAT!!! Now when they go to make your head stone, I’LL MAKE SURE THEY MISSPELL IT!!!!!”

You raise the butt of the gun over your liver-spotted head and prepare to bring it down in a guillotine blow.

“That’s enough.”

You are bowled off your feet by an invisible force.

Everything goes black.

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Reg squirms into being in mid air and dusts himself off.

Rog spirals up from underground, pelting nearby Skins with ballistic dirt clods and tearing them.

They look around.

They are alone, in the greatest figurative sense possible.

They look at all the waking dreams and morbid fantasies making off with their boss’s collection of human forms.

Quick as they can, they decide to discontinue existence. You know, until the heat blows off.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Bout time,” a familiar voice intonates.

You roll over and over on the ground and manage to regain your footing. You realize that your feet are, once again, your own.

Lightning quickly, you gaze around your environment. You are back outside Gregor/Gorger’s psyche. You devote a fraction of your conscious mind to silently rejoicing over the absences of liver cancer and obsession with Gunsmoke™ within you.

As if to compound this fit of joy, your eyes fall on the lusciously arithmetic form of none other than Ms. Calculus. Another part of your mind screams that it is most likely a trap, that Gorger can shift shapes at will, but such filibustering is thrust aside when you lock eyes with your One and Only. Her limpid ocular orbs are just as #FF0000 black and soulless as you remember!

As if in a dream, you rush forward to embrace her, insipidly mushy words of praise forming on your metaphysical tongue.

She swings Tremor’s Hammer around in a half-arc and clocks you right in the appendix.

Cursing your emotions, you flip end over end for several yards before coming to a halt.

You sit up, sending jolts of pain through your binding.

Of course it was Gorger, it’s not as if you deserve a happy ending or something of that nature after your ordeal today.

He lolls his head back and crows with laughter as the façade falls away like a curtain of water.

He shakes his head mirthfully.

"Oh deary me, you just can't trust a coward like Gregor to do anything right. Even run away! I didn't even have to move from this spot, you understand? Jeez, he couldn't even–"

He whips his head around, the laughter dying in his throat.

"Where did he go?"

He focuses back on you.

"You did this, didn't you? Thought you'd be clever, HUH?!"

His voice is low, and not just edged, but heavily barbed and coated in botulism.

Suddenly, another intrusive presence makes itself known, much to your relief.

It’s about time. I can’t follow you everywhere, you know. Quit jumping around dimensions so much.

It’s Damkina. She sounds irritated. Luckily for you, Gorger cannot hear her, so your position will not be compromised further–

“Who said that? That sounded familiar.”

Oh no. Gorger appears to be just supernatural enough to hear her divine words!

Unable to resist a little showboating, the demi-goddess of darkness within you calls out for all to hear.

I AM DAMKINA! I rule the realm of Rearth! I bring suffering and sorrow to all those who oppose me!

“Really? Sounds interesting. What and where are you?”

Already, Gorger has lost interest in the wayward Gregor in favor of more power.

()()Damkina! Shut up! He’s going to–()()

I am the demi-goddess of darkness and pain! I inhabit those who are most worthy of my presence. Those who are most violent pique my interest and enjoy the benefits of my godly power!

Gorger ceases looking around the decimated Albuquerque main street for the source of the voice. His gaze falls on you.

“That so?”

()()Stay away from me!()()

He rushes you, swinging Tremor’s Hammer like a metronome in time with his pounding steps.

You raise your arm over your head and invoke your Massless and Frictionless Pulley. It pulls you skyward like a rocket. Gorger’s swing just misses you.

He gives a cackle that sounds like a swarm of metal bees colliding with a tin roof and begins to spin vertically, the Hammer acting as a blunt propeller, levitating him upwards.

You let go of the Pulley at the top of your arc and it dissipates. You fall through the air as the whining hum of Gorger’s impromptu circular saw gets nearer and nearer.

Just as you pass him in mid air, he breaks his rotation and swings at you with a curve that makes the air around it catch fire.

The very tip of it catches you on one of your bookmarks and you hit the asphalt burning.

You rip the offending bookmark from your pages and stamp it out.

Seconds later, Gorger slams into the ground a few feet away, making cracks in the street and throwing you off balance.

He flips the hammer into the air and catches it with his teeth. He clutches both your front and back cover with a grip of steel.

“OPEN!!”

He pulls.

“WIDE!!”

Your world explodes in two as you fall to the pavement in half.

For not even one second do you fret over your mortality. You’d have thought that having Tremor’s hammer might have given Gorger the advantage of knowing that being torn in half would not end your existence. And the fact that a demi-goddess, just minutes ago, announced that she lived inside of you and made you immortal.

He approaches your remains at a leisurely pace. You don’t get up and repair yourself. Not yet.

He’s within two steps of you now.

NOW!

With an effort of iron will, you manage to coordinate your two halves sufficiently to jump into the air and attack!

With one last wisp of magic smoke, you summon your Charged Capacitor and stab Gorger in the temple with it.

Street lamps explode. Hydrants boil. Trees catch fire. Power lines become blazing streaks of Super Nova as you discharge the electrical attack directly into where Gorger’s synapses should be.

With no effect.

No wait, he’s glowing again.

That can’t be good.

In a blur of movement, he claps his hands in front of his face and slams you back together.

“I can see that conventional means may not be enough to sufficiently annihilate you.”

()()Burn in Hell, you damn hussy!()() you scream irrationally.

He drops you and steps back, spreading his fingers apart and opening his palms upward at shoulder height. Strands of energy begin twining themselves around his wrists.

“No Strings Attached…”

()()LOVE OF THE ANTI-GOD!!()()

The sun disappears from the sky. A gale tears through Albuquerque at mach speed.

Damkina appears. She is beautiful and terrible. She holds you like Lady Liberty holds her scripture.

She extends her hand toward the incandescent figure of Gorger. She draws her fingers back into a claw shape, so that his blood will explode out of his pores and his mind will be taunted by visions of his worst fears. The blood will flow towards you and you shall absorb it and become more powerful than ever before!

Nothing happens.

Damkina looks down at you with horror.

He doesn’t have any blood.

“Clickety Clack.”

You are engulfed in light.

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You are falling, careening at light speed through an endless ocean of randomized energy.

Damkina clutches you to her breast like a life preserver, desperate to hold on to her one tie to the mortal realm, from whence she was banished by the real Gods.

But it would seem as if they have caught on to that little scheme.

A dark figure, immense, reaches through the miasma of chaos and grips Damkina by her left shoulder with both bony hands. It’s Death.

He pulls with all his might, but Damkina is committed to never letting go, it seems.

Suddenly, another figure joins the Reaper of Souls.

You have never seen him before, but through your rapidly dwindling connection with Damkina, you recognize him as another demi-god, Damkina’s husband, Ea.

He grips her other shoulder with both hands and wrenches hard.

Pain, noise, insanity fill your worlddarknessdeathdespairjdfnldjgflfra………

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You open your eyes.

Your view is a little more yellow than you remember. Your vision clears, and you can see writing among the yellow.

P…H…O…N…E…B…O…O…K…

You struggle to clear your head, to find out more about your surroundings. As if on cue, your remaining physical senses kick back in with a vengeance, blasting you with noise and stench.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN!!! INTRODUCING THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD COMPETITION!!!”

Several things click at once.

Oh no.

You are grabbed by a thick meaty hand.

You are raised up in the air.

You–

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

No, it’s not over yet.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

She sits alone in the cell, rubbing tears from her dust jacket.

She’d seen the broadcast during mealtime for the inmates. The halftime show. She’d seen his face. She didn’t know how, but it was him. He was dead.

A ghost of a shadow of a cobweb falls gently on her spine. She twists to see who or what is there.

It’s a beautiful woman.

Beautiful like a storm or forest fire is beautiful.

She seems somehow faded, old. As if she had experienced Death, Hell, and Resurrection all in the same day. Nevertheless, she is beautiful. She will always be beautiful. Ms. Calculus knows this somehow.

She speaks.

Hello, dear child.

She rubs the tears from her cover.

()()H-hello. Who are you?()()

The woman laughs. It sounds like fire.

I am revenge.

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As the sun goes down, the pool of slag in the middle of the street cools to a glass-like consistency. Gorger is perched on top of a street sign, bent sorely out of shape. He keeps flipping the hammer and catching it with one hand. He looks around again, sighs.

He looks at the crystallized puddle of tar again. He looks at it for a long time, as if expecting something.

He sighs again.

"Sooooo…I guess that's a no?"

There is silence.

"So much for faith."

He jumps from the sign.

His feet don't touch the ground.

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Gregor rolls the boulder back into place, blocking the cave's mouth. He opens the Styrofoam container.

The grilled cheese is delicious.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There, now it’s over.