Part I
Nightdark Savings Time
3.13.23 – I guess I picked a good day to start this journal. Group’s only been telling me to do it for, what is it, three weeks now? And I think it’s gonna prove to be productive. Especially today. Today, it’s really hard to control the anger.
I was sitting out on the deck, reading the news, when I realized how unusually dark it was. I felt like the sun was supposed to be up, but it was only just peeking above the horizon. That was when I saw the article: in the last funding appropriations bill, some asshole in Congress slipped in a rider that not only abolished Daylight Savings Time, but replaced it with a reversed procedure that adds an extra hour of darkness to the day. My phone auto-syncs, so when my alarm went off I didn’t even realize what had happened. Now I have to wake up in the dark all spring? What the hell’s up with that?
I hate the dark. Hate hate hate it. Definitely an anger trigger there.
But I need to remember that that’s what the therapy is to help me with. I can’t get mad the same way I used to anymore. That’s what drove Heather away, after all—that’s why I can’t see the kids. I’m still frustrated by the government’s attempts to meddle in our lives, but there are constructive ways that I can deal with those feelings. At the very least, if I can’t keep the feelings from being destructive, there are skills I can use to step away from them.
It is really weird, though. “Nightdark Savings Time?” Who voted for that? There’s a bunch of fresh meat in the Senate now, maybe it was one of them.
Oh well. As long as it doesn’t spike my taxes, I’m sure I’ll survive. What’s a little darkness? “Life goes on,” after all, as we say in group.
I think I can beat this anger thing.
Half the battle is just a few deep breaths…
3.15.23 – This has to be the darkest spring we’ve had in a long time, new time laws notwithstanding. Not only are the clouds blocking out the sun, they’re tinting the sky green somehow. It’s like how it looks right before a tornado. Or is it after? I don’t know; I’ve never seen a tornado in person.
I’ve been thinking about it, and I think that the darkness makes me angry because it’s touching on something raw and vulnerable. I hate to say I’m afraid of the dark, but I am. When I was younger I always associated lights-out with my dad coming in and—well, expressing his opinions on corporal punishment. Of course I’d turn out a tried-and-true nyctophobe with that treatment. In the dark I could never see his punches coming, and it was always right as I was falling asleep when he would burst in on me. It was like he could read my mind, and he struck exactly when I had let go of the idea that he was going to actually do it. He was a real fucking sadist.
But that’s all in the past. Right now I have a successful job, a successful life. A beautiful house, a beautiful backyard. I love sitting out on the deck and watching the squirrels play. They seem so innocent and carefree. I don’t even mind that Heather and the kids aren’t here anymore. I can’t change what I did in the old days. I can only enjoy whatever I have left, before—
Oh, it’s hard to write that. Hard to write that I got a tumor in my neck eating me away.
It’s fine. Everything’s fine. “Life goes on.” Even in death.
I do hope I get used to this Nightdark Savings Time thing soon, though. As much as I love sitting on the porch, these dark green skies are really goddamn annoying.
3.16.23 – Lots of nightmares. Most of em about Dad. Others were just weird and made me feel sick in the head
Somethin’s comin I’m sure of it. Something leanin right around the corner—
3.17.23 – I wish I knew how to describe what just happened. Everything’s—changed. It’s all over the news.
I woke up and the sky was even darker than it has been. It was like the dead of night. Behind the clouds you could only faintly see the shine of the sun.
People on the radio were talking about spikes in electromagnetic activity, sunspots, unusual temperature shifts. I talked to the neighbors and they were scared shitless over how the sky looked. Gary kept saying, “It shouldn’t be that shade of green. It just shouldn’t be.” Gary’s an old man, older than me, and I’ve never seen him afraid like that before. He was so pathetic and helpless.
All of a sudden, it all just—broke.
That sickly green darkness just exploded, and rolled away with an audible roar of wind. Suddenly the sun came into view—and I guess none of us had realized how dark it’s been, because it was so bright we all had to squint. Right away we could see that something was wrong. The sun’s back, it’s shining again, but it’s not shining white, or yellow, not like it normally does. It has a faint greenish color to it, like the clouds had.
And it’s bigger than usual. Much bigger. We all agree on that.
I don’t know what could have done it.
If it has gotten bigger, it hasn’t made things that much hotter. But it does feel a bit more like summer now. I wonder if it will look this way to people on the other side of the world, once day comes for them, or if this is just some local visual anomaly.
People are seeing the green tint and the size increase all over the U.S., at least. That doesn’t mean it can’t be some sort of atmospheric lensing effect.
On the news they’re saying that people are getting sick everywhere from New York to San Francisco. Not a lot of people but enough to scare hospital officials. The illness seems to be some kind of flu, maybe a type of heat stroke brought on the temperature Jump…
I need to slow down. I’m so scared that I’m just writing down everything they’re saying. If I don’t keep my fear in check I could end up getting angry again, and I don’t want that to happen.
It’s fine. This is all out of my control. Out of everyone’s control.
Life goes on.
3.19.23 – It’s confirmed that everyone on Earth is seeing the apparent shift in the sun’s size and color. NASA’s working on it now, but so far everything they’ve seen indicates that the sun’s physical properties have actually changed.
There’s no scientific precedent to explain how something like this could happen. Or...so they say.
Can’t trust those federal fuckers worth shit.
...I can’t go back to that sort of thinking. I have to put my trust in the experts. They may work for the government, but that doesn’t mean they’re lying to us.
3.21.23 – Today is so hard. Those treacherous bastards! I don’t know what to believe anymore.
There was an emergency session of Congress today to discuss with what’s going on with the sun. The President has put the whole country on lockdown—scrambling the military, grounding planes, all that kinda shit—but the news coming out of the Capitol is strange. There’s a group of Senators, those first-termers I blamed for the Nightdark Savings Time thing, who are saying that they’ve made a “Congressional pact” with “the Junpi.” The reporters are as confused as the rest of us. No one knows who or what “the Junpi” is.
I’m starting to feel like my country is going insane. People aren’t taking the solar shift well, and I don’t blame them. The sky is still weird, it’s still got that nasty green tinge to it. And the nights seem to get longer with each passing day. People have started rioting in some of the bigger cities. This country’s had riots before obviously but these ones have been getting really violent. Lots of people have died. People are stabbing and shooting and choking each other.
I’m just upset that no one’s telling us what’s going on. What the hell is wrong with the dumbasses who run this fucking country?!
3.22.23 – Went to the grocery store today. The bagger, some skinny sissy-looking little shit, he kept asking me too many questions. Eyes were too big, little creep. I hate people who don’t mind their own fucking business. When he stared at me for too long with those freaky-looking big eyes of his, I punched him in the face. Made this weird gurgling sound when he went down, like words, but not.
The cashier told me that I should practice “love and acceptance,” but her eyes were too big too. I punched her as well. She jerked back and screamed, and I quote, “Gurble burble furble urble!”
Made me sick. I took my groceries and ran out of the store.
3.24.23 – People keep talking about the Junpi, how we’ve “made it.” That’s all those people in Congress keep saying: “We’ve made the Junpi.” They also keep saying they’ve made a deal with the Junpi. Is the Junpi a person, a concept, a race? A foreign country? All? None?
People are calling the changes to the sun the Junpi. And everything that those changes have wrought.
More riots, more deaths. More big-eyed people spewing nonsense. It’s not just me seeing them. Gary came zooming home yesterday in his truck with his hair on end, claiming a bunch of people with giant eyes mobbed him at the hardware store. They were babbling gibberish and trying to grab onto him. He didn’t stick around to see what they wanted.
The big-eyed people are changing physically. Their faces are getting all messed up.
Gary’s wife, Phyllis, she heard someone come up with a nickname for the big-eyed people. Junpimen.
They estimate that at least 50,000 people nationwide have turned into those things.
3.27.23 – I’m starting to seriously consider boarding up the house. There were Junpimen outside last night—a lot of them. Few dozen or so. They’ve been wandering up and down the streets at night babbling their word salad. They try to tell us to come outside.
There was a lady—does it still count as a lady?—who was right outside the window. I could hear her clearly. She was saying something like, “Come on out, it’s so forbly out here! So delibliously and porbully norbly!”
They just talk nonsense. I hate them. I hate what the Junpi has done to their faces…
The green skies still haven’t gone away. Colors are starting to look weird. Sometimes my eyes get all screwed up and covered with visual noise, pixelated blobs of color. It looks very—oh, I wish I knew the word.
It
looks very tarbibly.
No. Fuck that shit. Fuck that.
3.29.23 – Scientists have been saying that whatever has changed the sun has negatively affected soil conditions in the U.S. Chances are that the nation’s agricultural output for this year is going to be substantially limited. There may be rationing programs—and we’re going to have to rely heavily on imported food to keep everyone fed. But that’s assuming that tests in other countries don’t turn up the same results.
We could be looking at a global famine.
I don’t like that we’re going to have to rely on fuckin foreigners but
Junpimen continue to pop up all over the world. There may be a connection to the flu that’s been spreading around but not everyone infected turns into a Junpiman. That hasn’t stopped the militaries of some countries from attacking hospitals and killing all the flu patients.
I’m so pissed and so scared. I don’t know what to do.
4.1.23 – april fools! get the joke so swiddly! laugh the day so squabbly! O slabbo day! O swallo nighty!
4.2.23 –
I swear to God I don’t remember writing that. I am not talking like
them.
My eyes look fine,
thank you very much. I just have an itch in my neck, where the tumor
is.
Congress has locked down, with no one allowed in or out of the Capitol. On TV they’re saying you can hear screams inside. No one has heard from the President in days. Many other national leaders have gone missing, and other assemblies and parliaments all around the world are also sealing their doors.
I think that all of this is because we’ve gotten soft on letting our so-called “allies” trample all over us. This whole country is full of softies and it’s made us the laughingstock of the world. I went to the store again and that Junpiman bagger was still there—the little bitch. He kept going on and on about “love and peace! love and peace!” and it was such bullshit. I hate people like that. Why has this disaster made people so fucking sweet? Don’t they know this could be the end of the world?
All because we just opened our borders and let whoever the fuck wanted to Jump over come here and steal all our jobs
Why am I the only one who’s actually mad about this? Am I the only one who cares?
If people don’t wake up to the danger soon, I feel I gotta do something to make them wake up.
4.4.23 – Fuck!! Westside canceled all my appointments! They canceled everyone’s appointments. All patients were discharged, all services suspended. How can a hospital do that?! And on top of that, we haven’t been able to have group in what feels like forever!
I’m so fucking pissed. The world just keeps getting worse and worse. I’d heard about hospitals shuttering down south, but I didn’t think it’d happen here. There’s just too many flu patients. The infrastructure can’t handle it anymore. That’s why they kicked everyone out! Nearly half of everyone has the flu now. The flu is all we can afford to treat.
I’m sure it’s those leftist bastards in Congress who ordered them to suspend all their other cases. That’s a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, there’s gonna be lawsuits galore. But then, I don’t think too many oaths matter anymore. Or lawsuits, for that matter.
The U.N., God fuck ‘em, is too busy trying to handle the flu and the Junpimen to oversee humanitarian efforts. People in poor countries are starving and dictators have been ramping up their atrocities virtually unchecked. Half of said dictators have turned in Junpimen. I suspect that’s what’s happened to the loonies who’ve holed up in the Capitol. Though there are whispers that what’s happened in there is far worse.
All of this chaos, when there should’ve been order. There was too much softness, too much concession to the left—too much [word scratched out beyond legibility] democracy.
NO. I DID NOT WRITE THAT. I WILL NOT TALK LIKE ONE OF THOSE FREAKS.
4.6.23 – Lord, the squirrels. The squirrels have been changing too.
Had to shoot them. All of them. Poor little guys. But they kept screeching and clawing at the walls and I couldn’t let them get in.
4.7.23 – it itches Dad it itches so bad. itches like all quargleling. i want to be sleeslump and happy again Dad. so fribby and ray.
qwibbly questions dalavance in my mind. can a xiblii himble? ikt a quarrelle tupid again?
wuibt vob wikky, marry conny gleepee. bon wikky vee, abbadi di bov strowy cee!
4.14.23 – Oh god in Heaven.
Men came to my house. Soldiers, I think. Their van said “NOCTURNE” on it, I don’t know what that means but it must be some sort of fuckin government thing. They had guns. Made me open up.
They said they’re trying to contain as many infected people as possible. I told them that I’m not infected. I don’t have the flu and I’m not turning into a Junpiman. They told me there are a lot more infections people can have than those. I think maybe they meant something about my tumor.
They made me get in the van, there was nothing I could do to fight back. They took me to this compound, a former prison maybe, and stuffed me in a cell. Just a few minutes ago they came in with bags full of my stuff. This journal was in there. Thank god.
It’s dark but from what I can see, and hear, this place is full of Junpimen, or people on the verge of becoming such.
I am not one of them. Those fucking idiots made a mistake.
They asked me if I can see colors besides green. They didn’t like it when I said yes. But what the fuck does that mean? Sure, the sun’s been green, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was right before all this started.
Everything still has that sort of pixelly fuzz to it. I don’t know—
I gotta get out of here. Whoever these NOCTURNE fuckers are they can’t keep me locked up like an animal.
4.17.23 – you can see candybright things swimming in there if you squint
4.26.23 – I think the prison’s been abandoned. I haven’t seen anyone in here besides us prisoners for days.
I’ve tried to spy on those NOCTURNE guys as best I could, and from what I can tell, their organization, whatever it did before all this, has been virtually decimated. The people who brought me in were some of the very last of their forces in this area.
So if I haven’t seen them, they’re either dead or they’ve run to the hills.
Now I’m trapped in a cell with a million gibbering Junpimen all around me. With no food, no water.
I’ve only held strong by thinking about Heather and Annie and Nathan Jr. I reread some of this journal and I said earlier that I didn’t mind they were gone but deep down I miss them so damn much.
I’m so sorry guys that I became so freebling angry. I wish I hadn’t xertood you so badly.
Mison scrabby, matooda lon. Bee vee gree vee biv bim bolov [this section is heavily stained with tears]
4?.??.23??? - makon meson maver massy nacky niknak ygrec ygrook ygok nee vob bolon bo bo bo bozox boxxy bee be bok bay by bee ee a peepi peegle pee! Mavay mollolon magaggy mit lex baven typie novavalon neet pot yarayava webla kitty groogro bak keeb vov eeble yee; ababababathabalololonoalanaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerekakakarekamilatherioniona
balalatvaravavevevekoriotakavonozolidosnotagoanauauaiauaeauaieoaaeoaiaeaaieaoaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaa it hurts hurts hurts hurts
so many colors so many pixels so much fuzz and the colors bursting hot inside me
I realize now they were talking about my tumor. bad things always happen to the tumors. not immune to the junpi, just like the damn squirrels
I see a rainbow colored squid inside me squirming and bright. Blue and yellow and red and green with arms digging into my flesh like roots and dripping with sticky plasma. Alive and hungry and candycolored
HEATHER I AM SOSORRYSOSORRYSORRY
OH GOD I CAN FEEL IT COMING OUT
Interlude
Continued from “‘Based on a True Story’ Revisited”
Persephone and Pluto were always together, because they were the same person. But when they were in the same room together, it meant business was about to get taken care of.
Their relationship to one another, besides being the same person, was a fairly simple one. Pluto sought out people in trouble from all over the universe and booked them appointments with Persephone. Persephone would then answer their calls for help, using her strong sense of compassion and her considerable command over various energies to assist in whatever way she could.
What made things complicated was that from their own perspectives, the events Persephone experienced as Pluto happened years, decades, or even centuries in her past. This wasn’t because Pluto was Persephone’s past self, destined to transform into her sometime in his future—they were always one and the same, all the time. It was just that their combined workload built up so much over the millennia that a long turnaround time naturally developed between their ability to gather information as Pluto and their ability to intervene as Persephone. In order to overcome this, Persephone shunted the time-gap between them into 5D time, meta-time, which allowed her to act on Pluto’s information near-instantaneously within normal 4D time. That is to say that from her clients’ point of view, Persephone would show up to help only a few hours after visiting them as Pluto, even though to her it had been far longer since she’d seen them last through his eyes.
The long stretch of time that nearly always separated Persephone from Pluto took the shape of a fifth-dimensional bubble. Most of the time it was adamant law that this bubble kept them separated. But every so often, when trouble got really bad, she could pop the bubble and bring her two forms together, so that she could work with her alterself more tangibly than usual.
Persephone was very strong, but not even she could collapse a 5D bubble without consequence. Sometimes, though, she had no choice. Now, by focusing her mind, she pressed hard against it, feeling it bulge with firm resistance. Then, like bubble-wrap (one of the elemental substances of the cosmos), it burst satisfactorily, and twice over, she felt the rush of motion as time and space bent around her.
There was a flash of light, a twist of nausea, and then—
“Hey, Seph...what is this place?”
Grant Richmond, the Mad Hatter, looked all around. They had faded out of the nondescript cubical room they had just been standing in, and passed into a small octagonal room with a marble checkerboard floor, and crimson tapestries covering the walls. Between each of the tapestries were Grecian columns of the purest alabaster; the whole space was lit by a single electric lamp on the ceiling. In the middle was a great scrying-stone, which Persephone had stolen or would steal from the dark one, Orcus.
“Hello, Grant,” a warm voice said then. “Welcome to the Grand Father’s Gambit.”
“The what? And—who said that?”
The Mad Hatter had been looking up and down and all around, but he hadn’t been looking right next to him. It was then that the Hatter saw the short, balding man wearing brown, monk-like robes. He had a gentle smile on his face, which matched that soft voice that had spoken.
“You—you must be Pluto!” the Hatter said.
“Right the first time! It’s nice to meet you, Grant—again.” He gestured around them. “This is the Grand Father’s Gambit, like I said. It was created by Persephone’s Grand Father as a haven for us for when we team up in person.”
“I see. A pocket dimension, is it?”
“Yes, like the room you just came from.”
Persephone coughed heartily then, and they both turned to look at her. She shook the dust out of her long blonde hair, and the fabric of her white tunic. The transit to the Gambit always covered her with cosmic particles.
“You okay, Seph?” Grant asked.
“I think so, just gotta—not choke to death,” she gasped out.
She looked over at Pluto, and, coughing one last time, she smiled.
“Hello,” she said. “Good to see you, me.”
“Likewise, me,” he replied, cheerily. Despite the levity of his voice, his smile looked a bit thinner than it usually did.
“Thanks for tipping us off about Mormo,” she said. “I know you hate to be a bearer of bad news. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, that’s why I burst the bubble. We have to find a way to stop that witch, and get the Red Rube back. I know that she’s a manifestation of my darker nature, but that’s all I’ve got so far. Fill us in on everything you know.”
“You’ve got me there, dear—I do hate to bear bad news,” Pluto said. “Which is why I’m in especial discomfort right now. There’s a lot of it to dish out.”
Grant Richmond removed his hat and daubed his forehead. Persephone pulled up two seats, yanking them up out of the substance of the floor in the form of checkerboard pillars. She sat down, resting her chin on her hand. Grant sat down as well, slowly and uncomfortably.
“Have you been to Earth in 2023 recently?” Pluto began, despite already knowing the answer.
“No. Which is strange, it’s a bad time in history. You’d think I’d be there all the time,” Persephone replied.
“It’s bad indeed, but I think it just got worse.”
He was standing beside the scrying-stone, and he waved his hands over it. At once Persephone and Grant found themselves looking at a vision of the planet Earth from space. The view was far enough back that they could see the planet in orbit around its native sun. Before their eyes, the star in question seemed to flicker for a solitary half-second. Then, without warning, it expanded outward, swelling by nearly a third of its mass; and it took on a faint greenish tinge that it had lacked before.
The pair frowned.
“That’s what happens to the sun in 2023?” Grant asked.
“Earth’s star has either changed or...it’s been replaced by another one,” Persephone said.
Pluto nodded. “This has triggered a profound reaction in meta-time, and consequently, a lot of natural laws within Earth’s solar system have—broken down. Reality-negating phenomena is blooming up all over the world. The people of Earth have started calling it ‘the Junpi,’ though most of them don’t know where they got that name from.”
“What sort of phenomena are you talking about?” Persephone asked, cautiously.
“A lot of people on Earth are mutating into these murderous uncanny entities called Junpimen—in fact, most multicellular organisms are transforming into aberrant forms. Pandemics and famines are breaking out everywhere due to the rise of hostile creatures—governments are collapsing. The laws of physics and continuity and language are imploding on themselves. Meaning itself is dying. Possibility is turning into a rabid animal.
“We’ve seen these sorts of solar anomalies before. One happened in 1968, when Ben Green, the survivor of a zombie outbreak, experienced a ghost-manifestation of the Beast Wars of ancient cosmic history. This connected his era to the possible future timeline known as the Night Land.”
“We visited the Night Land, remember?” Persephone interjected. “In that course of continuity, far-future Earth has been ruined by solar expansion and become infested with monsters. Just like it has now, in 2023.”
“Exactly.”
“As the 20th Century has gone on, the number of incursions by these ‘Dying Earth’ timelines seems to have spiked,” Persephone muttered.
“The Massachusetts Incident in 1995 opened the First Gate,” Pluto replied.
“In all the other instances, the various anti-paranormal forces on Earth have always managed to arrange things so that these future incursions are shunted back into their alternate timelines,” said Persephone. “But, uh, if I’m seeing this right, this Junpi is irreparably part of what some people call ‘the prime timeline.’”
“Which is odd, given that you and I know very well that Earth wasn’t mangled and ruined by supernatural forces in 2023,” Pluto said. “We’ve been to points in its history from beyond that point, and that’s not how history has played out.”
“It sounds like you already have an explanation,” said Persephone.
“I have: meta-time.”
“Yes...that makes the most sense.”
“Right...sense,” Grant Richmond murmured. “Because we’re all following this.” If Persephone and her alterself heard him, they didn’t acknowledge it.
“Within the events of the Junpi, time and space have collapsed,” Pluto explained. “History and continuity are bleeding into themselves. For example, in the city of Golden Splendoropolis, the Crime-Barons who make up the de facto dictator government are people who have styled themselves after the nostalgic Hollywood camp of 1960s television. In their world of wacky robberies and stylish deathtraps, they speak in alliterative quips and hold a perpetually stupefied and helpless population hostage, only to be undone time and time again by the tightly-costumed heroes who make up the city’s resistance.
“The lifetime of the Junpi spans innumerable eons. Whole empires thrive and die in its arc. But here’s the thing—the entire Junpi only exists within a single hour.”
Persephone blinked. “I assume you mean a meta-hour?”
“Yep. Here’s my summary: on March 17th, 2023, a solar anomaly caused by unknown forces creates an abnormal chronality, a rogue timeline where humanity is devastated by supernatural forces unleashed by the effect of the sun’s corruption on meta-time. It exists for one meta-hour before history reasserts itself and it fades out of history. But that’s not the end of the Junpi. In the hour it existed, its unique properties within meta-time caused it to form its own independent quantum entanglement. Think Kingdom Cryptiqqa.”
“A pocket universe, but part of our universe at the same time,” Persephone mused. “The Junpi is an alternate timeline that is also real within our plane of existence.”
“In that single hour, untold generations of strange adventures are taking place in a reality that is alternate but not parallel to the ‘main timeline.’”
“I think I see where you’re going with all this weird stuff,” Grant said. “At least, uh...well, whatever, I’ll take a stab in the dark. Persephone, you said you hadn’t been to 2023 recently. But you were there at some point, right?”
“Yeah, I was,” Persephone said. “I think I’ve been to every year. Not to brag.”
“Were you there on March 17th?”
“Oh. I see…”
Pluto nodded. “It’s all coming together, isn’t it?”
“I don’t remember it, but I must’ve been caught up in the Junpi,” said Persephone, playing with her hair. “That would have been enough to bring my dark side to the surface...maybe even to grant her independence.”
“That’s where Mormo came from,” Pluto confirmed. “That she was able to interact with events outside of the Junpi shows she’s very powerful.”
“We have to try to undo this Junpi thing. Save that quantum Earth,” Persephone said.
“I don’t know how plausible that is,” said Pluto. “But we can try. At the very least, like you said, we have to get the Red Rube back.”
“I’m going with you guys, if it means saving Reuben,” the Mad Hatter put in. “What can we expect once we cross into the Junpi?”
“It’s constantly in flux, so there’s no telling,” Pluto said. “We’ve met Mormo, but we don’t know about her limits—or lack thereof. So we’ll have to use maximum caution.”
“Whoa, what’s that?!” Persephone cried, pointing to the scrying-stone. They looked down, and saw a man in a dark, dank cell, in what looked to be a half-ruined prison. He looked sickly, and his eyes flared with delirium. A large lump was sprouting out of his neck, and it glowed and flashed with all the colors of the rainbow.
“That guy’s in trouble!” she exclaimed. “We have to Jump in now, and help him out!”
“So much for prep time!” Grant cried. Persephone was already reaching back, and grabbing his hand. Then, she grabbed Pluto’s as well. Because of their various exemptions from the chronal tenets, they could touch each other without things sparking or blowing up or getting chronologically damaged.
Without a further moment wasted, the trio leapt into the scrying-stone—and crossed from the Grand Father’s Gambit into the world of the Junpi.
Part II
The Hour Strikes
“It’s coming out!” Nathan Kerrigan Sr. roared.
“That thing in his tumor...it looks one of the spawn of the Shining One!” Pluto cried. “Persephone, can you kill it without hurting him?”
“I-I don’t know. Something...strange...is happening,” Persephone murmured.
“We have to do something!” the Mad Hatter shouted.
Kerrigan again cried out in pain. Bloody tears rolled down his face, and he fell onto the cold floor of his cell.
His tumor bulged and swelled, and the flesh split open. A wormy, pale-white mass squiggled out, and they could see that it had roots burrowing into his neck. It opened a small round maw and squealed. All three of them cried out in horror.
Before they could speak, the slimy mass also split open, and at once, a figure began to emerge from within it. First came the hairy scalp—then the eyes and the nose and the ears and mouth, and the neck—and then the shoulders, and the torso. It was a full-grown man extruding out from the pale flesh of the tumor-thing.
As this figured emerged from the wound, the body of Nathan Kerrigan Sr. withered and crumpled, sagging down into itself like a deflated balloon. The naked man who came out of his rapidly-shrinking remains of his body looked just as he had, with dark hair, sharp eyes, and pale skin, only he was considerably younger.
Once this process was finished, the limp skin that had once been Nathan Kerrigan Sr. lost all color, including the bright rainbow hues that swirled within his neck-wound. His body started to crumble into a dry powder that flaked away, until there was nothing left but an unrecognizable stain.
The young man who had come out of the tumor covered his nudity bashfully. “How the fuck did I get here?!” he demanded.
“Who—who are you?” asked Pluto. He, Persephone, and Grant were all nearly speechless over what had just happened.
“My name is Kerrigan. Nate Kerrigan Jr.”
Persephone shook her head, and looked in disbelief at the stain on the stone floor. “I hate to say it, Mr. Kerrigan, but I think you’re standing on your father.”
“What are you talking about, lady? My father’s been dead for decades. My mother and sister and I had to give him up for dead when we took up living in the Wastes.”
Persephone closed her eyes, and skimmed the circumstances of Nathan Kerrigan Sr.’s final days. “It seems that your father was envisioning you just recently as a little boy. That’s his most recent impression of you—I can you see you and your sister in his mind, as children.”
“Remember that time and continuity have been messed up, dear,” Pluto said. “I think that the tumor-thing turned into a time-portal, and brought a future version of Kerrigan Sr.’s son into the present.”
“You hippie-looking guys are crazy. I didn’t come out of my own father,” Kerrigan said. Then he pointed at Grant. “What about you? You look like someone out of Alice in Wonderland.”
“Funny thing about that—”
“Mr. Kerrigan,” Persephone interrupted. “We saw what we saw. Your father died birthing you out of his neck.”
“I guess maybe that’s just how he died,” Kerrigan said, crossing his arms. “It’s like your friend said, lady. Time is messed up ‘cause of the Junpi. So if he died birthing me out of his neck then that’s how he went out.” He sneered. “Old bastard had it coming. My mom said he used to rage at her and knock her around back in the old days. I hope whatever death he faced, it was a hard-hurtin’ one.”
Persephone looked at her friends, whose eyes conveyed a deep helplessness.
She sighed.
“Very well—I have no choice but to accept the circumstances. Perhaps we’ll discuss it again later. Tell me...have you ever heard of someone or something called Mormo?”
Kerrigan looked around, realizing perhaps for the first time that they were all locked in a tight cell. “Yeah, I have, so?”
“What do you know about her?”
He shot a look at her. “You say that this is the prison where my father died?”
“Yes.”
“If you speak true, and I have no reason to believe you are—” He glanced down again at his nakedness. “—then that means we’re in the city where I used to live. And I know that near here, there’s a place called the Cavern of Mormo. I think it’s one of the neo-locales that started insinuating themselves into the world’s geography in the early days of the Junpi.”
Persephone felt bad that the tumor-portal had taken Kerrigan’s clothes, so she conjured some fresh ones for him. She briefly touched his memory to figure out what he liked. Nate was understandably shocked when the articles appeared on his body, but he accepted the development with a readiness that struck Persephone as rather strange. Grant, though still shocked from witnessing Nathan Sr.’s death, couldn’t help but make a face when Kerrigan was suddenly wearing blue jeans, a white tank top, a leather jacket, and sunglasses.
“What?” Nate said. “It’s after the end, I can wear whatever retro shit I want.”
“To me it’s not retro at all, it’s far-future,” said Grant. “And I can’t believe my grandchildren are gonna dress like that.”
“I hope you’re at least a little warmer now,” Persephone said.
“Yeah...thanks.” Gratitude didn’t seem to come easy to his lips.
“Keep talking,” Persephone urged him. “This Cavern of Mormo is nearby, thank goodness. At least ostensibly. What else do you know?”
“How about a trust-building exercise?” he said then. “If I’m gonna help you at all, I want your help in getting out of this prison.”
“That’ll be easy, Persephone will just melt the bars or something,” Grant said.
“What about the however-many Junpimen who are walking around outside?” Kerrigan pointed out.
They all stepped up close to the bars, and looked out at the prison complex. Many of the cells hung open, and the people who had once been housed inside now wandered aimlessly. Their eyes were wide and bulging out of their heads, and they spoke to each other ceaselessly in a chorus of distorted baby-talk.
“Are—are those guys really that dangerous?” Grant asked.
“They can turn you into one of them. Then you go insane. Or rather, you go sane—whatever passes for sanity in this new form of existence.” Kerrigan hissed angrily through his teeth, and spat on the floor. “People like me are the crazy ones now. The Old Ways no longer make sense. But I have to hang onto what I know—what my mom died trying to uphold.” A shadow came over his face. “I took my brother’s name when the Junpimen killed him. I used the caromantic engines in Skinseller City to transition. Hence the, um, dangly bits.”
Persephone, Pluto, and Grant all blushed.
“The boy you saw in my father’s memories was my brother. And that ‘girl’ was me.”
“I understand,” Persephone said then. She pointed to Pluto. “This one and I are the same person, so gender is a flexible thing for us.”
“That’s one good thing the Junpi’s given us, it broke down all the old boundaries. No one gives a fuck about what’s in your pants anymore,” Nate said. “Anyway, enough gab. Get us out of here, and I’ll see what I can do to help you track down Mormo.”
“Thank you. Now let me see…”
Grant wasn’t wrong, leaving the cell was the easy part. As for the Junpimen, she figured they could just fly over them. Simple, right?
That was when she noticed that a few of the Junpimen weren’t standing on the ground. They were walking on air.
“Can they normally adjust their personal gravity like that?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” Nate said. “They can do all sorts of things. Sometimes they just float up into the air, T-posing. Other times they can walk through walls. And if you’re really unlucky, they’ll just randomly teleport into your bathroom. I don’t think they know they’re doing it...I don’t think they know much of anything anymore.”
“But they attack on sight?”
“Yep.”
She turned back towards Pluto and Grant.
“Consider this,” she said, “all of these people are part of Earth’s history. I assume that if they are harmed or killed—if they don’t survive the meta-hour the Junpi takes place in—they will be dead on the ‘other side,’ as it were. Even though the Junpi is an independent continuum, tampering in its history could impact 2023 on the ‘normal’ Earth.”
“But you, er, Pluto, er, you said that there’s generations worth of time squeezed into this meta-hour,” the Mad Hatter said. “And there’s monsters everywhere, right? People getting killed all the time, I assume, besides dying of old age. So I’m guessing that when the Junpi ‘ends’ and everything snaps back, everyone gets resurrected. Or at least most people.”
“He’s got a good point, Persephone,” said Pluto.
“That still doesn’t mean we can just kill all these Junpimen. It doesn’t feel right.” She looked down at the stain on the floor. “Besides, seeing one person die today was enough for me.”
“They’re not people, not anymore,” Nate Kerrigan said. “I say if you can vaporize the whole lot of them, it’s a lot less horror in the world.”
Persephone shrugged. “Not my thing. Let’s try something more skillful.” Then she smiled, and looked around the cell meaningfully. “Awfully green in here, isn’t it?”
Grant only then noticed that everything he saw was green. He could vaguely make out the hues of other colors, but they were smeared over with a green glow.
Persephone raised her hand towards the cell door, and it gently unlocked and shifted aside. As soon as they stepped out of the cell, a surge of voices echoed in their direction, crying out strange syllables: “NIM NIM MOOMMOOMMOOM!!” The Junpimen turned to face them in unison, staring them down from all over the prison with their enormously swollen eyes.
They were all smiling, but that only made the menace in the air all the more palpable.
Then, maintaining their synchronicity, they started marching towards the quartet of escapees. A sea of child-like babble erupted from their mouths.
“Nimnommoommomscrabblyscribblysquibblysqueegy…”
“Shit!” Nate Kerrigan cried. “I know you said you don’t wanna hurt these things, lady, but I ain’t turning into one of them!” He charged forward, his fists at the ready. It was clear that in the future he came from, he was used to fighting. And sure enough, the first punch he tossed out that struck true knocked his target unconscious.
Grant Richmond was never one to turn away from a good donnybrook, and he had already taken a liking to Nate, in his own way. Muscle memory took over, and he threw himself into the fray. The Mad Hatter was like a hurricane against the onrushing horde—his fists proved just as efficient as Nate’s against the Junpimen.
“They don’t stand a chance,” Pluto said. “There must be thousands of them.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve thought it all out,” Persephone replied. She raised her hand and pointed.
And suddenly a rainbow light began to form on the tip of her finger. It was like the rainbow glow that had been inside Nathan Sr.’s body.
What was unique about the colors of this rainbow was that they pierced through the green light that was all around them. Persephone and Pluto could choose to see normal colors here if they wanted to, but they understood that Grant and Nate’s eyes were more limited. As were those of the Junpimen. But they could see these other colors now.
The dot of light expanded into a vast, rainbow-colored sphere. At once, all eyes turned towards it—for a single moment, the Junpimen stopped babbling. They were captivated by the non-green hues, which some of them, thanks to the weird time within the Junpi, hadn’t seen in decades. And their two men who fought the Junpimen found it beautiful as well.
Then the chorus of voices broke out again, and Grant and Nate regretted being blindsided by the glow. The Junpimen fell upon them, and for a moment it seemed like it was over. Huge mounts of the gibbering mutants piled onto them, pinning them to the floor.
But then the floating rainbow sphere broke apart into eight pieces, and flew out to equidistant points around the expanse of the prison. A few of the Junpimen at the back of the crowd were still hypnotized by the now-exotic colors, and they sniffed anxiously at the air through noses that had shrunk to accommodate their giant eyes. As the broken-off spheres neared these individuals they began to spew their childish tongue anew, and they clawed at the air in vain efforts to grab at the floating light. This craving spread throughout the whole crowd, and just as they felt as though they were inches from the Junpiman venom, Grant and Nate felt the weight shift off of them. Their attackers were departing, to desperately claw at the rare colors in hopes of claiming them for their own.
“So you basically just jingle your car keys at them?” Pluto said.
“In essence, yeah,” laughed Persephone. “I’m glad it worked. Once I saw how deep that green sunlight was penetrating, it all made sense.”
“I guess one might even say the sun is leaking,” Pluto said.
“Yes, well—let’s not go there.”
“Agreed.”
Soon, the swarming prisoners had left Nate and the Mad Hatter, and they slowly climbed to their feet.
“You could’ve done that before they mobbed us,” Grant said.
“You were the only who went off half-cocked,” Persephone teased.
“Yeah, I guess I had it coming. I just couldn’t let this guy fight alone.”
“You should’ve moved faster, witch,” Nate said then. “The crazy-dressed idiot is right. We could’ve died back there, or worse.”
“I would suggest we leave immediately,” Pluto put in. He pointed up, and they saw now that a thin strip of glass skylights were built into the high-vaulted prison ceiling. At his gesture, one of the panes of glass cracked and shattered, raining down onto the floor below in a stream of emerald twinkles. At once, Persephone wrapped her arms around both Pluto and Grant, and gestured for Nate to grab likewise onto Grant. They started floating under her power, and as they took to the air they saw that some of the Junpimen had begun rising as well—but only so they could get better grabs at the rainbow-spheres. Persephone considered that she could leave the spheres behind, to give the Junpimen a taste of hope. But the greed in their eyes implied that maybe hope was beyond them. She took solace in knowing that within meta-time, this was only a temporary moment within their lives.
Soon they were past the skyline, and out into the world beyond.
“Hey, Seph, if you and Pluto are both here, surely you could have just teleported us out of there,” Grant said. “Pluto teleports you and Reuben and I all around the universe all the time.”
“The rules are different in here, it seems,” Persephone said. “Not even I can predict how my powers will be affected.”
“How awfully convenient,” he grumbled.
She sympathized with him, but there was nothing she could do. They had to stick to the mission. Reuben was counting on them.
* * *
Nate Kerrigan didn’t remember the name of the city his family had once lived in. He, like the rest of the world, had lost the name when the city was destroyed. After the Junpi a symbolic link had formed between the city and its name, and vice versa. This happened to maybe one out of every hundred cities on Earth after the sun changed, and these cities naturally became zones of instability. For instance, it wasn’t just that their names would be forgotten if their physical structures were destroyed. If the last person to know a city’s name perished, then the city would crumble to dust, like it had never been there. However, like everything under the green sun, things weren’t always consistent, and lost cities would sometimes return again, seemingly at random. Indeed, Nate mused quietly that he sometimes remembered coming back to his home city once before, leaving the shadowed oases of the Wastes to see if any of his old haunts survived. Few did, sadly, but the city still stirred with life—mostly Junpimen, but also friendbeasts who smiled upon him, and even a hint of real non-green now and again. All the same, he often considered that that part of his history was probably just a dream, and the city had likely always been ruined. A green-gray sea of charred ash-piles were all that remained of the once-thriving metropolis; flakes of burnt coal flittered through the air like a billion dying moths. The prison had been on the outskirts of town, and had survived whatever nameless holocaust had seared the rest of the area. Barren sands surrounded the four travelers in all directions. Somewhere off in the distance was Mormo’s Cavern, and they would travel the Wastes for as long as they had to to reach it.
Persephone set them down on the fractured remnants of a small hill, and they all took a moment to collect themselves. Pluto conjured small wooden cups of cool spring water from inside his robe, and they drank thirstily.
After a time, Persephone said, “You know...I am sorry about not acting sooner back there. I should have taken things more seriously. I just...feel weird in this place, if I can be honest.” She sighed. “I don’t want to sound like a crappy person, but there was something in me that wanted to laugh at you guys getting dogpiled by those people.”
“Wow, thanks,” Nate said. “Statements like that really help with that trust-building I mentioned earlier.” She saw he was being sarcastic. “You really are a hippie, aren’t you? You’re, like, wracked with guilt over hesitating for a few seconds. I mean, like, yeah, it wasn’t cool, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen someone let a bad second pass.”
“And it was a little funny, threat of forced assimilation aside,” Grant added.
Just then, Persephone did something very unexpected: she puked.
Thick, golden-glowing liquid erupted from her mouth, as she doubled over in pain. Everyone cried out at the sight of it.
“Jesus Christ!” Nate cried. “What the fuck—?”
“Sorry,” she groaned, wiping the shining fluid off her chin. “Ohh, something’s wrong. I can’t describe it, but I feel something disrupting my nature. This place is harming my very essence.”
“Could it be Mormo?” Grant asked, raising an eyebrow. “Her proximity to you?”
“Probably is,” Pluto said. “Consider too that Mormo was born under the green sun of the Junpi. Maybe you’re starting to turn into Mormo. That’s something we didn’t think about before we Jumped in here.”
“Oh, lovely,” said Persephone, rolling her eyes. “For all we know, I’ll be as nasty and mean as her by the end of the trip. If my attitude turns as bad as my stomach, we’re in for a hell of a day.”
Grant couldn’t help but roll his own eyes in turn. He didn’t relish the prospect of Persephone turning into someone like Mormo.
Pluto said, “I can feel her. Can you?”
“No. I still don’t remember my time as her. Something about the Junpi is blocking my connection to her.”
“The Mentallon Omniwraiths of the Northern Deserts, who used to be the United States Congress, are the only ones capable of using psionics these days,” Nate said. “Only they have the mutations necessary to break through the Junpi’s energy-rhythms. Everyone else with psychic potential on Earth is shorted out.”
Pluto didn’t look convinced. “You were Mormo during the Junpi, Persephone—but remember that not all of your missions come from me,” he said. “You act on your own sometimes, just as I do. I happen to know that I wasn’t on Earth on March 17th, 2023. So perhaps Mormo, like Hecate and Eris, doesn’t have an alterself equivalent to me. That’s why I can sense her and you can’t.”
“So if Eris is still out there somewhere, and Zanthia Honkledonk comes back, does that mean you’re my secret weapon against her?”
“I guess that would make sense. Right now let’s focus on me being your secret weapon against Mormo.”
“Agreed.”
She turned to look at Nate. “Do you know which direction the Cavern is supposed to be in?”
“Uh, yeah. When you were floating us up over the prison, I saw the peak of what the locals call Haunted Accursed Evil Blood-Drinking-Boulder Mountain. That is where we’ll find the cave.”
“I’m sorry—” She raised a hand and grimaced. “What is the name of the mountain?!”
“It’s a misnomer, I’m sure,” he replied. “Probably just meant to scare away superstitious trashmongers and other scoundrels of the Wastes.”
“Aren’t you a scoundrel of the wastes?”
For the first time, he laughed—a sharp, harsh laugh, one of those masculine laughs that’s deeply irritating. “You got me there.”
They started walking off in a direction Persephone knew to be northwest, towards the place he called Haunted Accursed Evil Blood-Drinking-Boulder Mountain. That name, she hoped, was little more than a red herring, and she thought about asking Pluto if it was, since his senses were less clouded than hers. But something in her told her that would be a stupid idea. Peeking at the metafictional data of her adventures, peeling back the tropes, that was a super cringe thing to do. Best to just let events play out with any of that overly-clever crap intruding.
They’d walked for nearly a mile before she realized that was Mormo talking.
They lived up to their name, the Wastes—they did not merit a creative name, so dry and desolate were they. A gray fog floated over the whole of the expanse, blocking their view of the distance. Pluto and Persephone found that neither of them could part the fog, and so they were forced to accept its visual burden.
As they walked, Nate elaborated on the “insinuated locales” he mentioned earlier. Mormo’s Cavern was one of them; the mountain it appeared upon had once been a normal mountain, but ever since the Cavern opened up in its side it had become home to monsters. The Cavern had appeared, so far as everyone knew, back at the dawn of the Junpi. But places still changed decades on. The Wastes were what he called a “template zone.” Their gray emptiness proved to be sufficient bone upon which the Junpi hung the meat of dozens of different weird environs. Jungles made of storm, canyons made of flesh, tundras where it snowed souls—all these and more Nate had seen, in the future he had come back from.
“Maybe now you begin to understand why I’m not broken up about my father’s death,” he said then. “To me, he was just another monster, another tiger in the dark. He’s dead now, and there are still other tigers out there. That’s all that matters as far as my tomorrow’s concerned.”
“So you don’t think it’s weird that he died because you time-traveled back through the head of a creature that was crawling out of his tumor?” Persephone asked.
He shrugged. “The Old Ways no longer make sense. And life goes on.”
“Life goes on?” She scoffed. “For you, maybe, but not for the man who sired you.”
“Like I said, he was an abusive bastard. I feel you’re the type of lady who wants everyone to see the shades of gray in everyone else. But I won’t. My father was all bad, with no good in him, based on what my mother said, and it’s just quicker for me to believe her than to blindly speculate in the hopes of pushing up some kind of grief that ain’t even really there.”
Persephone knew her feelings were misfiring, but she couldn’t stop herself. Anger built inside her with every step she took. She tried to remain mindful but it was a rough spiral; something about Nate Kerrigan deeply angered her. Slowly, surely, everything around her began to anger her.
Fortunately for her, something came their way to distract them. A low, booming voice, borne of an invisible source, shouted a single strange syllable across the Wastes: “YOPPPPP—!”
Suddenly, there were trees all around them, a whole forest, and those trees were shaking in a cold wind. The tall, alien-looking arbors had appeared out of nowhere, out of sight one second and there the next. Their dead, black leaves twisted off their branches in the gale, and stormed around the travelers. And above their heads, there came the squall of birds. Each of them squawked an echo of the syllable that had surged out before: “Yop! Yop! Yop! Yop!”
From one side came black birds, and from the other came white. Their bodies were twisted and weird, with long, uneven legs and necks, and vulture beaks that seemed caked with snot. They crashed into each other at the speed of lightning, and howled and tore at each with their talons until the falling leaves were joined by a flurry of shredded feathers.
The fight raged on until the last of the birds was dead—an ocean of fallen carcasses surrounded the travelers. The four were left staring in silence, until the distant voice from before roared out again: “YEEEEEPP—!”
Again came the swarming birds, black and white, swarming each other and ripping each other apart. Persephone clenched her fist upon witnessing the violence.
“What are these things? Why are they killing each other?”
“The white ones are the Djhibbi-Ashal, and the black ones are Djhibbi-Bwoaghan,” Nate said. “They’ve been fighting ever since the Junpi teleported them from Saturn to Earth. They used to be one species, but the journey split them in half along dualistic lines, and it drove them insane. ‘Course, these birds aren’t really what they look like. Their real forms are also birds, but they’re wingless, and they spend their days sitting lazily on their stone dolomites. These birds are just their soul-casts, their psychic weapons, representing their divided factions of good and evil.”
“Stupid Manichaeism,” Persephone growled. “I hate black-and-white duality. Rainbows are better!” She lifted her hands, and summoned another of her multicolored spheres.
“They’re not hurting us, dear, just leave them alone,” Pluto urged.
“Yeah, I’d avoid pissing them off if I were you,” Nate agreed. “The Djhibbi-Bwoaghan are right on the brink of evolution. Legend says they’ll someday become the dreaded Ravera’an, the psychedelic cosmic conquerors spoken of by the old prophets. The Djhibbi-Ashal have already become tricephalic, foreshadowing their own mutation, and—”
“All the more reason for me to cancel out their good-versus-evil bullshit!”
Grant glowered below the brim of his top hat. Persephone was succumbing quickly to the effect the Junpi was having on her. She was becoming needlessly aggressive, when they couldn’t afford to toy around with Reuben’s life. He felt he had to do something, but what?
Without warning, Persephone launched her rainbow straight at the dueling birds. It split them up from their fighting, and at once they started flocking away from the flaring light.
“It’s always rainbows! Always the answer!” Persephone was raving. “Why don’t you idiots understand that…?”
And then the birds vanished. They were replaced by another reverberating syllable:
“YOOOOOOOPPPPP—!”
And this time, the voice filled them all with dread.
The birds appeared a third time, but now they were no longer concerned with their dialectical counterparts. Instead the Djhibbi, Ashal and Bwoaghan alike, aimed their sharp beaks and talons against the four adventurers.
And that was when something happened that Grant had never seen before. Persephone’s eyes suddenly flashed with a white light, and a silver coating seemed to cover the whole of her skin and clothes. Fairy-sparkles danced around her, and she started floating into the air.
“Oh, no,” Pluto said quietly.
“What’s happening?” Grant demanded. “What is she doing?”
“This is her heightened form: Silver Persephone. She’s only supposed to use it in moments of extreme crisis...because the energies she releases are destructive to everything around her!”
“Including us?”
“Well, you and Nate, certainly. I’m immune. But I don’t think Seph knows what she’s doing—if she doesn’t rein in that power, she could blow up the whole Earth!”
“That will destroy everything after March 17th, 2023!” Grant exclaimed.
“Precisely. She’s me, I’m her—I’m the only one who can stop it from happening. But Grant…” Pluto’s eyes were serious, but pleading. “It will take everything I’ve got. That means it’s up to you and Nate to save Reuben!”
“Whoa, hold on. He and I are two tough guys, but I don’t think we can take on Mormo. Not if she’s as strong as you!”
“I’m afraid there’s no other choice. And once I start pinning her down, I can’t hold back the Djhibbi either. You’ll have to fight through them to make it out of these woods.”
“Only a few more miles to HAEBDB Mountain,” Nate said. “You and I can make it, Wonderland Man.”
Grant reached out and shook Pluto’s hand. “You’re the same as her. So I trust you.”
“I’m sorry I’m being like this,” he replied. “I promise I’ll make it up to when it’s all over. In the meantime—take this.”
He reached into his robe and produced a small brass flute. Grant took it, not knowing what to say.
“Come on, you feathered freaks!” Silver Persephone was shouting. “Come and face a master of spectra!!”
“Go!” Pluto said.
Grant nodded. And he and Nate took off running.
Pluto looked up at the hovering Persephone, and at once raised his hands towards her. He pulled back towards himself and hugged her tightly, bringing down close to the ground as he did so. She struggled to escape his grip, but then a dome of blue light formed over them, anchoring them in place. It sparked and strained as Persephone clawed at it, but Pluto’s power kept it in place.
Without Pluto to hold them back, the Djhibbi fell upon the two men. They sprinted through the woods, with storming claws and ripping beaks scratching and tearing at them.
They thought the Junpimen had been bad, but the Djhibbi were worse. They were sages twisted by madness, and so they attacked with a fanatical fervor. Grant didn’t know how many times they cut his skin and clothes—all he knew was he had to keep running. They left him battered and bleeding, but he thought of Reuben, and forced himself on.
The black and white wings pummeled him like a dozen fists, and he felt as though they were feeling the wrath of Mormo. She was an evil Persephone, but she was more than that. She was like these birds, black and white. She was binary in a way Persephone always tried to avoid being. So strong was Mormo’s dualism that even Persephone’s rainbow outlook was flattened and distorted under her influence.
He knew that Mormo could probably fry him and Nate both with a death-ray from her hands, or something equally simple. But it was her character he feared more. The idea of someone being as devoted to cruelty as Persephone was to compassion was almost beyond his comprehension.
Maybe keeping Persephone’s ideals in his heart helped drive away the Djhibbi, for soon they were out of the woods and back out into the Wastes. The flocks left them to continue their eternal two-sided war, which was as boring as it was terrible.
* * *
It wasn’t long at all before the fog broke before them, and they found themselves standing at the foot of Haunted Accursed Evil Blood-Drinking-Boulder Mountain. Despite its craggy, ominous appearance—a nest of stalagmite spikes unevenly crowned with dead, splintered trees—they didn’t notice any blood-drinking-boulders on their approach. They did notice, however, the maw of a great cave, which they knew at once had to be the Cavern of Mormo.
“So what’s the plan, man?” Nate Kerrigan asked.
“I was thinking about that on the way up,” Grant said. “I think we should try to free Reuben as quick as possible. He has this thing he says—‘Hey Rube!’—that turns him into this superpowered guy, the Red Rube. He can fly and he has superstrength and things. So the quicker we help him, the faster we have his power on our side.”
“Other than that, we’re just gonna beat this Mormo chick up?”
“Well, I—I don’t want to. Maybe things are different here but in my time it’s not gentlemanly to hit a woman.”
“What if she’s trying to kill you?”
“That’s my point, I don’t see an alternative to trying to beat her up. Emphasis on ‘trying.’ I have never gotten in a fistfight with Persephone, but I don’t want to. She could blow us off the face of existence if she wanted to. We have to assume Mormo can do the same…”
“Then we don’t stand much of a chance, do we?”
Grant looked at the flute Pluto had given him. He imagined his friend’s monkish alterself perched atop a rock in the middle of a grassy pasture, whistling a shrill tune, and for some reason that brought a smile to his face.
“Maybe this is the key—”
But before they could speak any further, a loud roar sounded, and flames flew out from the mouth of the cave. A phosphorous flash burst in the middle of those flames, and within it a woman appeared. She looked just like Persephone, only inverted. The collar and sleeves of her black tunic were red instead of blue, and instead of a golden blonde she was a jet-black brunette. Black lipstick highlighted the icy paleness of her skin. She wore dark maroon leggings, and she wore black boots instead of sandals.
“There were kids in 2006 looking like this,” Grant said quietly. “Seph took Reuben and I there once and we ran into some, at a place called a ‘shopping mall.’ ‘Goths,’ I think they were called.”
Mormo scowled at them as she raised her hand. At once, Nate’s sunglasses began to vibrate on his face.
“Hey—!” he cried. “My shades!”
The glasses flew off his head into the witch’s hand. She put them on slowly and dramatically.
“They look better on me, don’t you think?” she asked. Grant stifled a gasp—her voice was the same as Persephone’s.
“Um...no? They don’t?” Nate snarled. “Give me my fucking shades back! You sun-starved bitch!”
She ignored him. Behind her new glasses, her eyes were fixed on Grant.
“The Mad Hatter,” she said, tilting her head. “Let’s see, I’m trying to remember...did I start traveling with you before or after Nick Tredor and Grorton-Luenga? Maybe you were sandwiched in between Abholhai and Grenton the Strong? Or was it even earlier?” Then she laughed. “Jay-kay, I already know. You haven’t happened yet. You and the caped boy are in my future. Or at least, in this timeline, you are.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘this timeline,’ Mormo,” Grant said, “but let Reuben go.”
“Who says I haven’t already killed him?” Grant’s body turned cold, but she went on: “I think that I’m definitely going to have to kill my ‘good’ self. That’s what I mean by ‘this timeline.’ It’s obvious what I’m after, isn’t it? My plan’s the same as every evil double’s—kill my good self, take her place in the normal universe, corrupt her name and spread a reign of terror. But the Persephone you came here with—I’m in her past. I’m the Persephone who was caught up in the Junpi. If I become the ‘real’ Persephone, which I totally will, by the way, then I will never meet you and the Reuben kid. In fact, I’ll probably kill you as babies, just to punish you for intruding upon my future!”
“And I thought the Persephone back there was getting nasty,” Nate said. “You’re a real basket case and a half, aren’t you?”
“Little baby man, you have no idea. I am the Half-Empty Glass. I am the Moonless Night. I cut the Jeunesse off Jeunes-Vieillards—I am Bad Vibes, bitch.”
“So am I. I killed the Tangled Dragon. I blew up the Nameless Hamlet. I even toast a pretty fucking good Cuban sandwich,” Nate Kerrigan replied. “You’re just another monster to me. Another tiger in the dark.”
“You think you still have what it takes to kill tigers, human?”
“I’ve been doing it twenty years...why stop now?”
“You fool!” And she threw herself up high into the air. Flames surrounded her, and billowed up into a shape—the shape of a great winged dragon. Suddenly HAEBDB Mountain seemed like a small hill next to her. “Come and take me, then!!”
“Nate—you don’t have to—”
“No,” Nate interrupted. “Get your friend. Now!”
He smirked—and the two men threw themselves towards the Cavern.
She swept down on them like a hawk, cutting across their path with nightmarish speed. She burnt the dust where her flames struck, and as she passed them it was like getting in the way of a red-hot knife.
But Nate swung his fists out, and they collided against her star-hot body. She laughed wildly, and threw blows back at him.
And then the battle was on.
Grant knew Mormo was keeping Reuben in the Cavern. She had to be. He didn’t want to waste a single second of Nate’s life, and so he bolted for the mouth. He stopped briefly to make sure there were no traps rigged up at the entrance, and then he plunged inside, into the dark.
The front of the Cavern was a small tunnel that wormed its way back and forth through the mountain, slithering this way and that like a serpent. The walls were lined unevenly with Grecian columns, which Grant realized he recognized from the Grand Father’s Gambit. Every so often the stone floor below him bore the faint signs of a chessboard. This Cavern was Mormo’s own version of the Gambit.
In time the tunnel opened up into a much larger chamber, one mercifully lit by torchlight. As thankful as he was for the light, however, Grant’s gratitude wasn’t complete—for the glow of those torches revealed the central inhabitant of the chamber. It was a dog, a gigantic one. It looked to be a Great Dane, but it wasn’t any ordinary pooch: it had three heads. And to Grant’s great horror, each of those three heads bore Pluto’s face.
“So there is a Pluto equivalent for Mormo!” he said. “I’m going to assume you’re called Cerberus.”
The creature didn’t reply, and deep down Grant sensed that he couldn’t. Though he had a man’s face, three of them, he was a dog at heart. He panted heavily, and sniffed at the small costumed man urgently.
Then, all three heads started to growl. And a hungry saliva began to ooze from the three mouths.
“No sir, I ain’t your lunch!” Grant cried—and he bounded away with all his speed. The three-headed hound fell upon him, seeking to snatch him up and devour him whole.
As he bolted around the great dog’s flank, Grant spotted something at the far back of the Cavern. Hanging from the ceiling from a rope and pulley was a large reddish crystal, in which was entombed the body of Reuben Reuben. Grant couldn’t see if he was alive or dead, but he was going to get him out of there no matter what. If he was going to do that, he’d have to get past Cerberus.
He thought of Nate outside, throwing his life away trying to take down that flaming goddess. He had taken her on with just his fists. For all Grant knew she had already incinerated him, and was heading back inside to watch her guard-dog make a snack out of him.
He knew he couldn’t defeat Cerberus with the same tactics Nate was using. His own punches would mean as much to the three-headed dog as they would against Mormo.
But that was when he realized he was still gripping the flute Pluto had given him. And though he was a self-confessed novice of Greek mythology, he knew a little more about the story of Cerberus than just the dog’s name.
He was also a novice of music, and so when he put the flute to his lips, the notes that came out were unpleasant. Yet the instant he started blowing, he saw Cerberus perk up. The dog was a part of Pluto, and this was Pluto’s music coming through the flute.
Grant shoved down his fears of playing poorly, and trying to do his best rendition of “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep.” It was hideous, but Cerberus was reacting to it. His faces relaxed, as if something in him was being soothed.
Grant kept on playing, being forced to improvise when he ran out of “Black Sheep” notes. Slowly, the dog padded down to a sitting position, and laid his heads on the ground. Then, just as Grant’s lungs started to give out, the six eyes closed, and the man-faced dog fell asleep.
The Mad Hatter breathed a sigh of relief when he parted the flute from his lips. He couldn’t have stood the sound of his own playing that much longer. He strained to listen to the outside of the Cavern, to find out if Nate was still fighting out there. But he could hear nothing.
No matter what, there was no time to waste. Grant looked up at the suspended crystal that held Reuben’s body. The pulley that held the suspension ropes was locked down with a complex-looking metal apparatus, but he could climb up those ropes to the crystal itself and cut it down. Maybe the fall would be sufficient to shatter the crystal and get Reuben out.
With steely hands, Grant set to scaling the rope. He slowly crawled up the wall of Mormo’s Cavern, until he reached the roof, where he continued working his way along the rope. Once he reached the point where the crystal was suspended, he took a hidden razor out from under his top hat and started cutting away at the cord. The blade passed through with ease, and after a few slices the heavy crimson crystal thudded loudly on the cave floor.
Even before he scuttled back down the rope, Grant could see that his hopes had come to pass—the crystal had fractured. But once he was back down, and inspecting it up close, he could see it wasn’t a clean breakthrough. He’d have to smash Reuben the rest of the way out of there, however he could.
Now he could use his fists. And he swung them down like twin hammers into the cracked surface of his friend’s prison.
It was only in that moment that Grant Richmond realized how much he had missed Reuben’s company on this adventure. He was so used to fighting alongside the Red Rube that he had had to catch himself a hundred different times on his journey to remember that he wasn’t there.
He’d saved his life, once. No—twice. Once against the Oroc plants, in that jungle on Worsicon. And again in the torture chamber under Castile d’Arhrragannan, when they had accidentally stumbled onto the War Council of Nihilfinim. He would have been digested by a giant pitcher-plant, or bisected by a swinging pendulum, if not for the Rube’s strength and swiftness.
Though he was scared of Mormo, and even of the sleeping Cerberus, Grant knew Reuben wouldn’t leave him behind. And so even though the shattered crystal cut his hands, he kept on pounding, trying to get him out.
At last—with a final burst of pain—he punched through. Reuben opened his eyes, and sucked in a deep breath. He sat up from his crystalline prison with a start.
He looked at Grant with terror in his eyes. Grant laughed, and felt a tear of relief drip down his face. They grabbed each other’s shoulders with shaking hands.
“Where—?” Reuben spat out. “Where are—ohh—we’re not still in Mormo’s Cavern, are we?”
His voice was harrowed like Grant had never heard it. He seemed scared out of his mind.
“Yes, Reub, we’re still in the Cavern…”
“No. No, no, no! Hey, Rube!”
There was a rush of wind, and at once Reuben transformed into his superpowered alter ego. He jumped to his feet, and looped a muscled arm around Grant’s body. “Wha—hey!” Grant cried. “Put me down!”
“No!! We’re getting out of here!”
And before Grant could do anything, he took off flying at terrific speed. They zoomed through the winding Cavern, leaving Cerberus behind, and soon they were back outside, on the low slope of HAEBDB Mountain.
Grant could see that Nate was still nearby, and still sparring against Mormo. Nate was bruised and bloodied from the stiff punches Mormo was throwing at him.
“Reuben—wait! We can’t leave that guy behind—!”
But the Red Rube was too frightened to listen. Soon he picked up even more speed, bolting with purpose towards where Persephone and Pluto were still battling off the Djhibbi.
“Reuben!” Grant cried again. “We can’t leave Nate behind! He’s our friend, he helped me save you—!” It was no use.
Once they came within sight of the woods, they dropped to the ground, and Reuben let Grant down.
“I’m sorry, Grant,” Reuben said, panting, “but I’m not staying in the Junpi one more damn minute.” He looked over at the crackling blue dome that housed Persephone and her alter-self.
“Who’s—who’s the hooded guy? And what’s he doing to Persephone?”
“That is Persephone. He’s her alterself, Pluto. We brought him forward in meta-time to help us.”
“But what’s he doing to her?”
“Persephone is going crazy. The Junpi, and Mormo, are affecting her mind. Turning her evil.”
“Then we have to get her out of here. Pluto—he’s the guy who teleports us around, right? Which means he can get us somewhere else?”
“I guess—”
Reuben didn’t wait to hear more. He sprinted towards the blue dome, and Grant had no choice but to follow him.
Pluto saw them coming, and relaxed his grip on Persephone a bit.
“Perfect timing! I just shut down the Silver in her!” Pluto said.
“Get us out of here!” Reuben cried.
“Where’s Nate?”
“He—Reuben—left him behind,” Grant choked out. “We have to go back for him. Mormo will kill him.”
“She’ll kill us if we stay!” Reuben shouted. “Now let’s go!”
Pluto looked at Grant, almost helplessly. He saw instantly how badly Reuben wanted to run. He was Persephone, and Persephone was Reuben’s friend. He had to do something to help him.
“Huddle in close!” he said. And they did so.
“You fools!” Persephone roared. “You will never escape me.”
Though she and Mormo spoke in the same voice—they all knew it was Mormo speaking through her mouth in that moment.
“I am Persephone’s future. I am her destiny. You saw how quickly she started to turn into me, under the right light. I will always be inside her—and one day—I will reemerge!”
But Pluto smiled at her. “That day will be long in the coming, I’m afraid.”
Once everyone was snuggled in tight, the hooded man snapped his fingers. And they were away.
* * *
Back in the Grand Father’s Gambit, Persephone, Pluto, the Mad Hatter, and the Red Rube were watching the scrying-stone. Just as they had departed, Pluto had teleported the critically injured Nate Kerrigan Jr. to a part of the Wastes about a mile away from Haunted Accursed Evil Blood-Drinking-Boulder Mountain. He was burned and bruised from coming in contact with Mormo, and he’d have to find a new pair of shades, but he was alive, and he could walk. And so once he healed, he was free to roam his far-stretching world, and all the nightmares that lurked within. His life would be full of adventure, whether it took him to the haunts of wily Charles Thaumagorgos in the clubs of Golden Splendoropolis, or to the City of Yara, where mysteries and mystics are born, or to the fated day when NECRO’s Deathkomputer signals 8-8-Gemini and brings in the end of the world. Grant breathed a sigh of relief when he saw their friend had lived.
“I’m...sorry for my cowardice, back there,” the Red Rube said. “It was completely inexcusable, and I’ll never do it again.”
Persephone set her hand on his shoulder, and Grant observed at once that this deepened his anxiety. “I know my own dark side, Reuben. And so I know exactly the kinds of horrible things she must’ve done to you,” she said. “And...I am so sorry.”
“I…” He reached up, and removed her hand. “I would rather try to forget it all, if I can be honest.”
“I understand,” she said. She seemed to be wondering what he thought of her.
For his part, he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“I want to apologize to all of you,” Persephone said then. “I didn’t realize I’d slip under Mormo’s influence like that. I hope I didn’t hurt any of you.”
“You hurt yourself,” Pluto said, “but you already know that.”
“I still owe myself an apology,” she told him. “I’m sorry, me.”
He did not need to forgive her, because he understood her. But through her, he knew her fear of her friends not forgiving her.
The Red Rube stood up awkwardly. “Is there...somewhere to lie down...in this place?”
“Yes, uh…” Pluto pointed. “Push on that wall, and it’ll slide up. There’s a whole dormitory back there.”
“Thanks.” He looked briefly at Persephone. “I’m just going to rest a little bit. Maybe...a day or two, if that’s okay? And then, we can go on to the next place.”
“Oh, Reuben,” she said then, stepping towards him. “Take as long as you need. There’s no rush, really.”
“Thanks. It may take...a little while.”
Then their eyes met, for the first time since they’d fled the Junpi.
And Persephone knew then that Reuben understood all too well the concept of alterselves. They were not different individuals. They were all one person. Persephone, Pluto, Hecate, Eris...and Mormo. All the same. All the time.
It was just a matter of perspective.
Persephone’s face dropped when the Rube left the room. Her shoulders slumped, and she held back tears.
“He’ll come around,” Grant said.
It was clear she wasn’t too sure.
Pluto pulled Grant aside, to the outer edges of the room, and spoke to him in a low voice. “We can’t burst the 5D bubble that separates us without consequence. It may well be that the consequence is losing Reuben.”
“But—if I’m understanding you right—you couldn’t have saved him without ‘bursting the bubble.’”
“The universe enjoys its ironies, sometimes,” Persephone said then. Grant turned back to her in surprise, wondering how she’d heard him—but then he remembered he had been talking to her. “The important thing is that everyone lived.”
“Everyone lived,” he nodded. “You, me, Reuben, Nate, the Junpimen—heck, you didn’t even kill any of those birds.”
“I guess life goes on.”
“Yes,” he said. And he paused for a moment, resisting the all-too-human urge to spit the words. “Life goes on.”
Pluto turned away from the two of them, and smiled weakly. And then he went to the dorm to see if he could do anything for Reuben.
THE END
The Mad Hatter was created by Bill Woolfolk and Jack Oxton Sr. for O.W. Comics in 1946, and is in the public domain. The Red Rube was created by Ed Robbins for MLJ in 1943, and is in the public domain. Elements from Night of the Living Dead (1968) are in the public domain. The Night Land (1912) by William Hope Hodgson is in the public domain. The Djhibbi are from Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Door to Saturn” (1932), which is in the public domain.
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