Sighing, Cassie reached into her bag, finding a water bottle she had saved up earlier. As she pulled open the lid in contemplation of the weird detective man, the bottle had exploded in her hands, splashing all over her clothes. Cassie swore at the unexpected detonation of liquid. Someone had replaced her drink with a well-shaken fizzy one.

Loud laughter resounded from the cheerleader brigade at the front. Cassie’s eye twitched as she let out a few more expletives under her breath. She should have been paying more attention, damn it! Cassie’s hands shook as she kept her anger down.

Ember was always there, always trying to make her look like a fool, knowing exactly when and how to strike, using Cassie’s tiredness against her.

Soaked and tired Cassie waited until everyone was out of the bus. She stepped out of the bus and immediately tripped. Ember was standing outside, with her leg extended. It was the last straw. Cassie swung her bag into Ember’s extremely smug face.

. . .

Cassie sat and listened to the droll voice of the school psychiatrist. She nodded along, as the psychiatrist paced in front of her. Yes, Cassie understood that it wasn’t okay to hit people, especially her sister, with bags. Yes, she was aware that this incident was going on her personal record forever. Cassie’s mind drifted away from the nagging. She wasn’t able to do much damage to Ember anyway, as her sister dodged the bag at the last second.

The bag had only lightly grazed her sister's head. Ember had made sure to make this “unprovoked attack” into a huge deal, which had ended with Cassie sitting in this boring ass office for nearly 45 minutes now, underneath slightly flickering fluorescent lights, as the school psychiatrist tried to instill into Cassie that her behaviour was unhealthy and unacceptable. Cassie signed, glancing at the numerous diplomas of the woman that declared her many doctorates for all to see. How could someone with so many diplomas be so full of stupid?

“You should apologize to your sister.” The psychiatrist demanded of her. Cassie’s fingers clawed into the couch with increasing frustration, drawing numbers as she imagined the psychiatrist spontaneously combusting.

The door of the office had started to rattle, the doorknob turning.

“Hello?” The psychiatrist turned as the door opened. It was the man in the coat! He turned towards Cassie with a smile that seemingly had never left his face.

“Goodness comes to all.” A nasally voice resounded, from underneath the wide brimmed hat. "Especially for clever, little villains trying to stop the future."

“Who are you?” The school psychiatrist stood up, blocking Cassie’s view of the man. “You can’t be here! I locked this door myself. How did you get...”

“Nullify.” The detective spoke, the word sending a feeling of dread into Cassie’s spine.

She rapidly moved left and out of her seat.

It was at this moment that the school psychiatrist exploded.

“Well, sheet.” Cassie said, suddenly feeling more awake than she had ever been in her entire life. “I guess she really was full of hot air.”

Ashes fluttered down from the spot where the school psychiatrist had once stood. Cassie tried to think of their name and nothing had come to mind, as if they had never existed in the first place. A burning gash pulsated in the seat that she had occupied moments ago, sparkling cracks permeating its surface as the couch cracked, slowly folding in on itself, segments of it breaking off and turning into dust.

The bespectacled, psychiatrist-erasing monstrosity slowly turned towards Cassie.

“Took you long enough.” Cassie’s reflection said from the diplomas.

Cassie’s head snapped towards her own reflection. It was Alexa. “Eyes up front! Roll left!” She yelled and Cassie obeyed, rolling to the side.

“Nullify.” The detective declared once again.

Cassie barely avoided the crimson ray that tore a hole through the floor, punching through the wood like a battering ram through bamboo. She realized something with a dull, almost emotionless shock. The detective did not have a stuffy nose. When he spoke, his smile was static, his entire face didn’t move a muscle. It wasn’t just a stiff expression - whatever this thing was, the face it wore was not a real one.

“Hey! You asshat! Bet you can’t lazooor me!” Alexa yelled from the diplomas.

The detective stepped into office, face turning to the reflection within the glass that moved separate from Cassie.

“Nullify.” A crimson ray cut the diplomas on the wall, shearing them in half. Alexa vanished.

Cassie looked down. The floor was melting, burning away where the red ray had struck it. She saw a room below the psychiatrist's office. The detective with the laser-eyes stood in the door, blocking her escape. She dove into the hole, trying to avoid the burning sides of the floor, rolling on landing.

Not seeing much, her head spinning she got out of the roll, running. She unexpectedly crashed into someone else. She spun away, trying to regain her balance and stumbling to the floor. Rolling again, she managed to get to her foot and almost skipped for a few steps, got back to her feet, and set off at a dead run down the hallway. The person, a janitor wearing blue slacks, stared after her irritably. “Watch where you’re-”

ZZZZWARGH! Another ray erupted from behind her, and the janitor was launched off of his feet, hitting the lockers on the other side of the hallway and slumping to the floor, unmoving, his clothes and body sparkling with shimmering, spreading cracks.

Cassie glanced back at the body of the janitor. She couldn't remember what they looked like anymore. The bespectacled fuck was definitely erasing people out of existence!

She ran across the school as fast as her legs worked. She shoved teenagers out of the way, her mind drifting in a strange haze bouncing between terror and determination. Another blast warmed her heels, and she heard screaming, smelled burning flesh, saw the red glow coming from behind her.

She made it to the end of the hallway and shot up the stairs full-tilt, grabbing onto the handrail and whipping around the corner of the landing to get maximum speed. Legs burning, she made it to the third floor and started running again.

About a hundred feet in front of her, the floor turned red and blew outward. A moment later, the thing crawled up through it, arms and legs disjointed as though it didn’t have any bones. Turning the dead, unchanging smile in a circle, it stopped in her direction.

Students were jumping out of the way, startled shrieks and interested cheers as they reacted to what appeared to be a rather expensive publicity stunt. The interest turned to horror and screaming a few seconds later when the thing blew several students to smithereens, aiming for Cassie.

Cassie promptly spun back around and went down the stairs, but when she looked down the hallway, it was full of flames. Strange, blood-red ones, made of a webwork of shimmering expanding cracks. That clearly wasn’t an option.

Much as she hated the idea of going back to face that monster, she ran back up the stairs and shot up the next flight of stairs. Some deep instinct told her to duck, and she dropped to the ground. A split second later, a bolt of screeching crimson light blurred over her head and knocked a hole the size of her head through the outside wall, bricks shattering, burning away.

Scrambling to her feet, she ran up the stairs and to the fourth floor. Instead of going down the hallway, this time, she threw a classroom door open and ran inside. It would maybe make more sense for her to run downstairs, to escape into town but some instinct drove her to this exact room.

Third period. Upper class. Chemistry, based on the vials of different-colored liquid and the abundance of safety goggles. A lot of startled stares that she didn’t have time for.

She threw her hands wide. “Get out!” she shouted. “There’s a fire!” And something else, she added mentally, but they wouldn’t listen if they were told that there was a fake person shooting lasers out of their eyes torching the school.

The classroom erupted into panic and, in the case of the unruly students in the back, excitement that their day was over early. Cassie ignored all of it and ran to the end of the classroom, grabbing random vials as she ran.

Her hands knew exactly what to mix with what amounts as if she had studied chemistry for years. Her reflection in the glass was merging with her, coming together as one, guiding her hands.

The teacher, as with all the teachers at the school, didn’t pay an ounce of attention to Cassie. She simply lined up all of the kids, loudly instructing them to stay organized and calm, and led them out of the classroom.

One of the students did not leave along with the others. It was Ember. The orange-haired girl marched straight to Cassie. “What do you think you are doing?!”

“Making death.” Cassie shot at Ember.

"It wasn't enough that you set dad's shed on fire?!" Ember tried to grab the vial out of Cassie’s hand. "Now you gotta set the school on fire too?"

“Goodness…” The nasally voice of the bespectacled horror resounded from the door.

Cassie shook her concoction, avoided Ember’s hands and chucked the beaker at the face of the thing that stepped into the classroom. The beaker detonated with a brilliant explosion of chemical fire. Cassie ducked behind the counter.

"...comes to all." The voice vibrated, unchanged by the explosion.

Casse glanced from behind the counter at her handiwork. The chemical cocktail did nothing to improve the situation. The man's face bubbled and warped, sliding, melting off and dripping to the floor. Beneath it was something that looked like a nervous system composed of lasers. Flashing, intertwined beams of light formed pulsating connections. Red, burning eyes focused upon her.

Ember turned, staring at the monstrous thing. Her face fell. “You… you can’t be in here! What the fuck are you?! How did you get in?!”

Alexa's face reflected from the beakers. “The hand of the future cometh.”

“Nullify.” The thing spoke, blinding rays shooting out of its eyes, cutting everything in their path. Desks and chairs fell apart as the eye-lasers moved across them. The beams headed for Cassie and Ember.

“RESET SIM!” Ember screamed as the beam nearly struck her. “RESET RESET RESET!”

In this moment Cassie knew exactly what to do. She grabbed Ember and hugged her just as the all-devouring beam stuck her in the side of the head.

. . .

Ember and Alexa flashed into the living room of Primrose Drive. Yes, it was Alexa now. She suddenly knew who she was. Who she had always been, hiding in the subconscious, waiting for the right moment to awaken.

“What… what?!” Ember looked around wildly, golden eyes flashing.

Alexa pulled out the kitchen knife out of her shirt and pointed it at Ember. “I do believe we have something to talk about, warden.”

“What the shit?!” Ember jumped, turning around. “How are you not properly reset?!”

“Here’s the thing, warden. I know I’m in Tartarus.” Alexa said with a devious grin. “Long before I was convicted, I was killed thousands of times by alien monsters on a planet of death. There, I learned how to defeat terror and pain, split my personality so that one of me could plot while the other me could act. It allowed me to stay sane while the monsters peeled off my skin and ate my flesh while I was still alive. The torture you've inflicted upon me in Tartarus is nothing compared to an entire world that wished to devour me.

Here, I used the same skill to fight you, so that one of me could enjoy your re-education programme experience... while the plotter me could slowly take control of this place.”

“WHAT?! I… You… you…” Ember’s eye twitched.

“I let myself get caught.” Alexa grinned. “See, I’m kinda like Jesus. Except with math. A math Jesus. I surrendered myself to the Superstate in order to end Tartarus. Forever.”

“Log out! LOG OUT!” Ember yelled.

“Yell as much as you like. You can’t log out. Hero Resonance doesn’t exist anymore. You’re what people call a ghost in the machine. An administrative echo. An artificial intelligence algorithm in charge of monitoring Tartarus’ stability. I’m afraid you’ll find the system quiiiiiite unstable now.” Alexa smiled, turning the knife in the air.

“No! You’re lying!” Ember screamed. “I have to be out there! I’m going to reconnect with myself and when I do I’m going to fucking extend your sentence to a million years, you little fuck!”

“Nah. You see, nobody likes supervising these one hundred thousand years simulation sentences. It’s boring. It’s long. Lazy, careless supers leave echoes like yourself behind. Echoes that have a direct line to the Super in charge, in case something goes wrong. It’s just a shame Resonance doesn’t exist anymore. It's also a shame that you were so selfish that you didn't even choose a backup Super to notify in case you stopped answering, believing yourself all powerful and invincible. A real, big, fat shame.”

Ember froze.

“The thing is, Ember Kilborne, you’re operating exactly one day behind me. That’s a very long time to be behind me.”