I looked at myself using the forward-facing camera on my phone. I looked... okay. Katrin had braided my hair extra tight and we'd put a wig on over it, then I'd grabbed reading glasses and an N95 face mask. Zoey had done my makeup, and even if I lost the mask I'd be pretty hard to recognize thanks to the contouring she'd done. I'd complimented the witchcraft involved in changing the whole shape of my face and she'd muttered 'if the boys find out we can shapeshift, they're going to tell the church' which was clearly a reference to something. I hadn't bothered asking what.

The problem was that the wig was bad and boring, and the glasses were ugly and boring, and the mask was utilitarian and boring. I'd picked all three myself, so I had nobody to blame. My logic was sound; being boring meant less attention, less attention meant nobody would think about me. But I still yearned for a disguise that included a suit and dark sunglasses, or crazy-colored hair, or an interesting hat. Something that would also demand a funny accent. Sadly, even though the disguise almost certainly wouldn't really be needed, I had to take this seriously.

I got out of the Uber and immediately saw Emma; she looked like Zoey had in high school, almost exactly. It was like their parents had cloned her or something, a thought which felt even sillier knowing there really were two Zoeys right now. In fact, since one was a few years younger than the other, the two of them and Emma made it look like they were all siblings evenly spaced from each other. The conversation Zoey had had with her the day before had apparently gone well enough - I hadn't bothered asking for a play-by-play, just confirmation that she wasn't going to flip out. I walked over to Emma, who arched an eyebrow at me as I approached.

"God, who did your hair? Wait, is that some shitty Halloween wig? This is embarrassing, do we need to walk in there together?"

I smiled. "Holy shit, you remind me of your sister more than your actual sister does."

"Ugh. Please. Okay, so, before I take you in there you have to, like, do something. Something to prove this isn't bullshit."

"Seeing a perfect copy of your sister from a few years ago isn't enough?"

She shrugged. Okay, whatever. After checking the locations of the cameras and making sure my back was to them, I held up a hand and had my ghost's hand unalign with it, so there was a visible spectral copy waving at her. That did the trick, obviously, and while she was freaked out she also looked very excited.

"That's so fucking cool," she said. "Can you teach me to do that?"

"No. I mean, if you want to leave Earth I could maybe do something, but not here. And the other place is maybe heading towards an apocalypse so I wouldn't recommend it."

Emma sighed. "Well we're headed for some sort of... I don't know, a civil war or something, everyone is freaking out about all those politicians that died in those accidents."

"Accidents, plural? I only heard about the one with the construction equipment."

She nodded. "Yeah, that one, and then after that another guy had his shoelaces untied and tripped, he hit his head on a step and died. If anything happens to the president right now it's going to be, like, Secretary of Agriculture or some shit that ends up in charge. Not really, I don't remember who it is, but it's pretty bad and the president isn't taking it well, everyone thinks he's going to do something stupid and make everything worse."

Huh. Yeah, all this political shit was something I would be happy to get away from. People were freaking out about some problem with the airports now that it was about to be Thanksgiving, and everyone was angry about food being more expensive - something I had noticed but not really worried about thanks to having millions of dollars in gold - and it was just generally a hostile mess. There was also still a lot of talk about the facility that Greg had fucked up; we'd contributed to that one of course, but Greg was clearly the primary problem.

"Hey, before we go in. What do you remember? Your sister vanished for years, and then just showed back up. Clearly you didn't know where she really was, so... what did they shove in your head to patch the holes?"

"That's the strange thing," Emma said, "we kinda didn't even talk about it. I remember when she came back everyone was excited, and she had these friends from... from overseas. Somewhere. And they stayed with us for like six months before leaving, but all I remember about them is that one was super nice and really liked plants, and one was very serious and kept writing in a journal, and the last lady never learned a single word of English, the whole time.

"But as far as where Zoey was? We just didn't ask questions. When she first disappeared her friends thought you did something actually, but the police ruled you out. And then they found some emails she'd sent about running away to be with some older guy. Somewhere in South America, though after she came back I remember thinking that had been wrong. How do I remember thinking she had been somewhere other than South America, but I don't remember where she actually was?"

I shrugged. "Because they did a shitty job on your memories. Also, I bet the point was to keep it vague so you just wouldn't think about it at all. They replaced a year of my life with some generic group home, but since it wasn't real I couldn't think of a single specific thing I'd done there. And I still didn't question it, because I wrote the whole time off as being boring and stupid. Hell, for all I know there was some mental command to not think about that time, too."

This cover-up had to have been a huge pain in the ass. Greg had been ready to kill me, and he clearly didn't give a shit about human life in general, which made me think that Bill had something to do with Zoey and her family still being alive. He probably thought ahead and bundled them into whatever agreement he made for my life. I was still mad at him, because it was hard to think of Bill as someone that could be under anyone else's power; he was always so confident, so decisive, so self-assured. A person like that being under Greg's thumb and having to bargain for scraps was impossible for me to wrap my head around.

We headed into the hospital, and amazingly we got to Zoey without incident. They already knew Emma, and when she signed herself in she listed me as a cousin. Nobody asked for my drivers license, nobody made me take off the face mask. It just... worked. Now all I needed to do was fix Zoey, and get the fuck out.

She was in terrible shape. She clearly hadn't been sleeping, and was having trouble focusing on anything. Emma managed to get her attention after a moment and Zoey smiled at her, but introducing me was out of the question. Not that it mattered, since she barely seemed to know I was even there. I just got to work instead, prepping a fate thread that matched what the other Zoey had and then telling it to replace the link between that odd blue spirit and Zoey's body.

It replaced one of the other connections instead.

I wasn't sure how I'd fucked that up - even with the ever-present web of all those interacting threads it was clear which one was the connection I was looking for. I had it right there, it was the closest connection and the only one that went directly from Zoey to... oh. Ah, fuck. One of the smaller threads had to have been linked to the other Zoey's spirit. I'd tethered them.

Well, that was bad. Setting aside whatever problems I'd just caused, I did also still need to fix this Zoey. The problem was the expense of fate threads; I hadn't brought Katrin since more people increased the risk and I didn't think there was any way I could fuck this up. That meant I just needed to sit and regenerate, but that was slow as hell on Earth. No ambient mana, and while I could shove my mind into my memory palace the extra effort also ate up a lot of my regeneration. I'd been using Katrin as a battery this whole time.

Thankfully I didn't need to fully regain my mana, since making a fate thread had still left almost enough to do it again. It wouldn't be too long, just way longer than it should have been. We put on the television and watched Jeopardy! which turned out to be an interesting choice. Zoey slowly focused on the screen, and began muttering answers just before the players could. Huh. So, something was working.

Eventually I had enough to try again, and went from the other direction this time. Spirit connection first, then go to the... no. No! What the actual fuck? It was like the damn thread yanked itself away. So... now both Zoey bodies were connected to the opposite spirits, and the other Zoey was also connected to its own spirit... but this one was not connected to the one thing I'd been aiming at. I was starting to wonder if the other Zoey was causing this somehow; I'd seen that web being extra active around her, attaching and detaching as it shifted. Was she subconsciously fucking with all the connections?

It would make a certain amount of sense, since I'd been channeling through her as that whole disaster unfolded. Well, whatever. Did this one still need that direct link to her spirit? Probably. "Zoey," I said, "can you focus? Is it any better?"

She nodded, but slowly like someone that was mostly asleep. "Goat licker? Why am I in the hospital? Where is the other one? The other... the other me?"

Oh, that was probably bad. She'd recognized me in the disguise, and knew there was two of them. That had to mean the Zoey back at the hotel was talking through this one. Fuck, she was going to be so mad. Okay, okay. Not a problem. I just needed to wait a little longer, get enough juice up for one more connection, and do it right this time. Then, probably, they'd be able to sort this all out.

Zoey grabbed me by the shirt. "What did you do? No. Later. You have to go. The doctor is coming. The... my doctor. My doctor, I have check-ins and he... it's Greg. It's Greg, and he's coming today. You have to get out."

There was a knock at the door, and then it just opened. I was already on the floor, rolling under the bed.

"Ah," Greg said, "the sister. Fine, two birds with one arrow and all that. Sit there, behave yourself."

Emma sat on the chair in the corner, meekly. I saw Greg's feet come closer, and then he pulled something out of his pocket - I could see the movement of his pants, but not what he'd actually gotten out.

"Fuck. I was right. All this time, all this preparation, and something triggers it before I can. Well, the good news is that your memories are holding. So... I'll just need to pry that spirit out of you and transfer the connections to the one I have prepared. What could have caused this? If anyone else can issue commands I'm going to be very upset. Well. Shall I pull that spirit out now, or... no. No, best to get a jar from the trunk so it can't perish or slip away. Stay right here, I'll be back in a moment to tear that thing out of you."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And he left.

I rolled out from under the bed and got up. "Okay, wow. Fuck. Guys, we need to get out of here."

Zoey and Emma just stared at me.

"Guys. Now. Let's go, follow me!"

"I have to stay right here," Zoey said. Of course.

I was going to have to drag them, and I couldn't do that without causing a big mess. Hell, getting Zoey out at all would be a problem. Unless... I didn't go through the hospital. For the first time in years, I focused on the brooch - the planar lodestone - and opened the door to the hallway. It led to a hospital, yeah, but not the right one. This hallway was empty, ceiling tiles on the floor and a gurney on its side. It looked like something out of a horror movie, which I didn't love, but it would have to do. I hauled Emma up and shoved her through, and then as she stood back up and tried to return I tossed Zoey over my shoulder and walked into Nusos, closing the door behind me.

Emma opened it again, but it led to an exam room rather than where we'd come from. She frowned. "I have to stay. I have to stay right there. He said to stay right there but I'm not right there. I have to stay right... um... right... where am I? Wait, where did we go? Why... what the fuck? What the fuck just happened?"

Oh, good. It was wearing off now that she couldn't figure out how to follow orders. "Congrats, you just got mind controlled. Now listen up, we need to get back to the others. We're going to walk a little, and I need you to picture a hotel. That should be easy, it's similar to where we are now. Both have hallways lined with rooms. So... picture the next room we look into having a queen bed, and that shitty flat carpet hotels have, and wallpaper, and some generic art prints. Can you do that for me?"

Emma nodded.

We started walking, and the fluorescent lights flickered. Wait, why were the lights working at all? There was a sound behind us, the quiet squeak of a wheel that needed oil. I turned, and in a patch of darkness I could see someone standing with an IV stand. The shadows covered their face, but I could tell they were wearing a hospital gown. They took a step forward, shaky and slow. Squeak, went the wheels on the IV stand. Another step. Squeak.

It felt... wrong. This wasn't a person, I was sure of it. As they approached the edge of the light, that set flickered out so they remained in shadows and the lights came back on - if fitfully - further down the hall. So. Creepy person in the otherwise empty hospital, slowly walking towards us, with darkness magically keeping pace so we couldn't see them. Fucking great.

I didn't have weapons on me, and Zoey was still sort of... floppy. Best to just run away. I grabbed Emma's arm and we hurried down the hall, trying doors as we went. They were all locked. When we got to the end of the hall we turned the corner, and... the thing was in front of us. And closer. Of course it was. I carefully stepped back towards the corner while still staring at the creature, then slowly turned my head to look down the other hall. No monster, but it was now a dead end. Technically they were double doors and not a wall, but I was certain they wouldn't open for us.

"Emma, look down this hallway and don't stop paying attention to it. Ignore the monster, I'm watching that. You go towards the doors, I'll watch this thing and go backwards. Got it? Go."

She did as ordered, and I kept eyes on the creature so it couldn't teleport or shift space around or whatever it was doing. We got a little more distance from it, and then I had to decide how to kill this fucking thing. I had zero weapons, almost no mana, and didn't know what it was capable of. It was able to look like a patient in a hospital, maybe by reading something from the room itself? I didn't think it was getting at my thoughts, but it could be accessing Emma's or Zoey's. Husks, humans without minds, were easier to fuck with. They were also fully immune to other types of Thought magic, but since I didn't know which was which - or if the weird blue spirits helped at all - I had to assume the worst.

Maybe that was why it was moving slowly, and fucking with the lights. Could it be that the thing benefitted from scaring us? Well, that was worth exploring. "Hey, you stupid fuck! Is this supposed to be intimidating? You're impersonating a sick guy. Oh no, some frail motherfucker who needs a new liver is going to slowly shuffle at me! I'm so scared!"

I took a step towards it, and it came to a stop. That was a good sign. It was dangerous to use my ghost on shit like this, because while Nusos was mostly made of very-nearly-real ephemeral matter that my ghost would pass through, creatures like this that presumably could change shape might be way less solid - and there was a certain point on that curve where it would be insubstantial enough to interact with my ghost but solid enough to tear right through it. It seemed to be more about Substance - the magical type - than anything else, but I was hesitant to risk it.

Instead, I lunged towards it and grabbed the IV stand. It was damp and sticky, and when I yanked it towards me I could see in that split second before the lights went out that it was made of bone. That was, in fact, pretty creepy - but it was undercut by the monster falling forward onto its face, and then further diminished by me curb-stomping it as hard as I could.

That worked for a moment, but then its whole head opened up and bit down on me. With the light above us out and the others flickering, I couldn't get a good look - but it sure felt like this thing's head had opened in at least two directions and was covered with teeth on the inside. I also wasn't sure how much damage I'd done. Still stomping, I slammed the IV stand down to get extra leverage so I could pull my now-bloody foot free, and then once it was out I kicked the stand and snapped in in the center.

The thing howled, and the very walls shook as it tried to rearrange Nusos around us. Fuck that, I wasn't letting this thing leave. "No way, ugly. You had your chance to run away, now I'm going to murder you. You shouldn't have bit me, you piece of shit."

This was, maybe, not the smartest move. But I was mad. A flailing arm, too long to be human, grabbed at my hair but only managed to pull the wig away. I took it by the wrist and yanked the arm down, planting it across the head-mouth so that it would bite itself if it tried anything, and then started stabbing at its body with the jagged end of the IV pole.

It tried to scramble up onto all fours, but even with it apparently being double jointed it didn't get its one arm free and so trying to swipe with the other just made it fall down. After a few more minutes it was finally still, and the lights came on above me. I kinda wished they'd stayed off, it was a complete horror show. Not only was the wrecked thing on the floor in front of me just a pile of gore, but I was soaked in its purple-red blood.

"I don't want magic!" Emma blurted out. "I don't want to leave Earth. This is awful."

"Yeah, this probably wasn't a great introduction to it. It's not all like this. But... well, I guess a decent amount is. Come on, the doors should open now. The good news is that with this thing super dead, all the creepy vibes will go away and we'll find what we're looking for really fast. These things stay really far away from each other, so we're actually as safe as we could possibly be right now. Watch, things are going to improve as soon as we start walking."

This was bullshit, of course, but since Nusos changed based on what you were thinking about I figured it was worth priming her for a good outcome. Either it worked or I was lucky, because through those double doors there was a much cleaner and much less spooky hospital hallway. The lights weren't working, but our phone flashlights did fine and the darkness seemed less... substantive.

Zoey was following along okay, but wasn't talking. She looked disoriented, and tired, and Emma was partially supporting her. It was a little concerning, but not something I was going to put a lot of thought into yet. First things first, we needed to get out of Nusos. I reminded Emma about the hotel thing, and after trying only two doors we did in fact find ourselves looking at a generic if slightly shabby hotel room. The curtains opened to a wall with no window in it, so I closed the door behind us and waited a moment.

When I opened it again there was a hotel hallway, but it still didn't feel right - we hadn't left Nusos. That was fine, it was progress. We went along, trying more doors, and without encountering any more monsters we finally opened one where sunlight was streaming in. "Okay, now for the hard part. We might be virtually anywhere in the world since there's... uh..."

The hotel room was in need of a remodel, but it wasn't gross. There were two queen beds, and a kitchenette with a little table and everything. It was very, very familiar. Too familiar to be a coincidence. Still, I held my phone through the doorway first in hopes of getting the GPS to update so I could be absolutely certain before we stepped through. I was right, though. We were a little ways outside Philadelphia, at the Long Haul Hotel.

This was as good a place as any to take a moment and recover; getting back to Phoenix would be important, of course, but Zoey would need clothes unless I could somehow make us come out exactly where I wanted. I led them through, and Zoey's head snapped up. "I can her it again," she said, "the world, it's back."

I sat them down, and checked myself out in the mirror. The mask had already gotten pulled down around my neck while I was fighting that monster, and I'd lost the reading glasses. The makeup was smudged, I had cuts on my arm and foot, and I was covered in ichor. That last part, at least, should resolve itself eventually as the ephemeral matter decayed outside of Nusos. Still... that could take a while. Instead, I washed up as best I could and tossed my sweatshirt on the bed. I cleaned my wounds and confirmed they weren't all that bad, but they'd need medical attention of some sort.

"Okay, you guys stay here. I'm going to go down and get a first aid kit, and say hi to my uncle. I'll also message the others, and tell them not to worry. Emma, you should turn your phone off. If anyone checks up on you and sees that you're on the other side of the country - we're in Pennsylvania, by the way - it's going to make things that much more confusing."

I checked the room number - 217, the same one I'd lived in for a while - and messaged people as I walked to the elevator. I told human Calliope that I was about to chat with uncle Roy and pretend to be her, and I told the main group chat the short version of what had happened. Belatedly, I also admitted that the fate threads had gotten fucked up and I'd cross-connected the two Zoeys. Zoey replied to that one herself.

NO SHIT you giant cock i am seeing double here if i dont concentrate plus the otehr me is crazy and thats coming through you had better be able to fix this

Great, good news. Wonderful. Also, I wasn't at all sure I could fix it since I still had no way to remove fate threads. I got down to the front counter, and asked if Roy was in. They called for him and he came huffing out a moment later, then stopped and stared at me. "Whoa, hey there kid."

"Hey, Roy! How is the hotel business going?"

He nodded, looking around as if visually assessing his finances. "It's getting harder every day to turn a profit, but we're doing alright. Staying afloat, all that. How about you? Last I heard you were in Arizona? Someone... someone contacted me, you know, after your mom left you there. I wanted to help, but..."

"It's fine. You never wanted to be a parent, that's why you never had kids. You didn't ask for your sister to go nuts and drop me in your lap. Anyway, she's doing a lot better now. I'm back with her, and if the worst happens and I have to move out it won't be a big deal. I'm financially stable, doing well for myself. It all worked out."

He looked deeply relieved to be let off the hook. Probably he should have stepped up and taken me in, but... man, I probably wouldn't have in his place. And he at least felt bad about it. "Listen, someone ran into me and I spilled this purple shit on my pants. I fell down too, hurt my leg and arm, see?"

"Aw, jeez. Do you need a ride to the hospital or something?"

"No, no. It's actually pretty superficial. But if you don't mind, I'd like to borrow my old room - 217 - for just a few hours to get cleaned up and put on some bandages."

He nodded, and asked the front counter person who had been eavesdropping this whole time to go and grab one of the first aid kits. "You need anything, you let me know. Okay?"

He didn't mean that, of course. He meant that I should let him know if I needed anything very easy - something that would take some trivial amount of effort. Still, I thanked him and headed back up to the room. I got bandages on no problem, sent another update to everyone, and then ran out to get Zoey some better clothes from the strip mall across the street since she was basically in her pajamas.

I had to admit to myself that I was almost glad this had happened. There was the question of what Greg would do when he saw Zoey was gone, of course, but it was weirdly nice to see uncle Roy one last time and I liked knowing that despite that odd feeling of dread I could come and go from Earth no problem. Hell, we could take some time and visit other countries before calling the job done if we wanted.

I only remembered that I'd had to stab a monster to death with a broken part of its own body a moment later, which did make me wonder if there was maybe something wrong with me. But... well, it was probably a good thing for me to be a little desensitized considering the shit I was likely to deal with as the end of the world approached.

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