I woke up screaming, writhing like a spider set on fire. Like someone had plunged knives into my brain. Unimaginable agony, a terrible sense of wrongness permeating my entire being.

My mind shattered, bent, and adapted. So many traumas and the mind was plastic. I couldn’t say if it was the whole of me that endured or the sum of my parts. If my strange abilities could even be considered extra to my self.

I gasped, sitting up straight. I didn’t even have to turn my head to see what was happening. Because the new Third and Fourth already were.

The skyscraper was on fire. A writhing abomination, trapped with nowhere to go but upwards. Futile tendrils of roots, grasped at the swamp tree, trying to climb, or search for some escape. The thing was half the size of the building, a central core entangled in tentacles of organic mass, a gaping maw hidden between. Hideous—

Help me. Save me. SAVE ME.

I jerked forward. Ready to throw myself to the fire without a moment’s thought. Only my mind was stronger. And inside the palace that was my mindscape, I turned, terrified, to stare at the thing inside of my castle.

A collection of infectious tentacles. A mockery of the [Rootmother Hivemind] scratching at my mental walls. No, it was already inside, piercing my walls, embedding itself into—

SAVE ME. SAVE ME. SAVE ME.

I staggered, staring around wildly. Third checked my neck, then I checked his and Fourth’s. It had infected me somehow. One of my clones—

SAVE ME. SAVE ME. DYING. DEATH.

“Ahhh!” I screamed, clutching my head. Then I screamed louder as the incessant tide of thought ran over my own thinking. My mind was being torn apart with increasing desperation.

My eyes opened and, for a split second, I was staring at Second. Second. My clone that been down there ripping saplings from the survivors. Trying to save whoever I could. And he’d been infected in the process.

I growled, sick of the pain and torture. I hated this thing. I hated all this pain. I grabbed the cursed thoughts with an effort of mental willpower and squeezed. Emotion sharpened my focus, the staggering thoughts of the twisted intruder dented my own. I didn’t care. It was my damn head.

I was a man who had died three times? Four? I couldn’t even remember. The thought was hysterical. I had been beheaded, impaled, crushed to death, burned alive, and more. And now? Now? Now I was supposed to give in to some unholy abomination that was begging for help?

Yeah. Fucking. Right.

I didn’t even think of how any of this was possible. I just traced the thoughts invading my own, strangled them, and killed them.

The rootmother screamed, the high-pitched keening lost amongst its other cries.

Below, Second blinked and I immediately felt at my neck. The sapling had withered and I tried not to pay attention to the burning sensation up my neck and back, the trail the roots had taken through my system.

Instead, I began ripping saplings again, throwing survivors anywhere there wasn’t a pool. There was a whole crowd of people making their way to the skyscraper.

Up above, I was exhausted, breathing hard. Sweat dripped down by brow, my wide-eyes staring at the rootmother. Then my expression slipped to something like anger.

“Don’t let it get a single fucking one,” I growled.

And then my clones rushed down there, gracefully jumping across the roots. Anyone I came into contact with, I took their sapling, reveling in the knowledge that some minor backlash found its way to the bastard rootmother above.

There was a group closer than anyone else and I ran for them. All three of me did. They were heading straight for one of those prehensile tendrils, as if the rootmother was beckoning them to its hands. Like mindless drones.

The root whipped outward and I tackled the first man down, tearing out his sapling before pushing him away and scrambling to my feet. Third shoved another woman out of range and into Second’s hands. I ripped another sapling.

Fourth yanked a little girl away by the arm hard enough to sprain it. Better that than being eaten. I took care to remove her sapling. Third handled another stranger with Second.

There were too many people at risk, the rest of the crowd catching up.

“Just fucking die already!” The original me screamed from above, a smoldering glare as if it would burn it faster. The thing was already dead and it was still trying to claim lives.

[Solo’s Instinct] acted up and one of my clones whirled around. There was a girl around my age, wandering forward, somehow getting past me. Third rushed towards her.

At the same time, a voice. “Get them down! Pull them away damn it. Help him!”

And Second found a pair of hands forcing another mindless thrall down. A pair of hands that weren’t mine. A man stared up at me, clearly drained in some way, but eyes alive.

“How do we help them?” He asked me. His face was stony determination, searching.

In response, I rolled the unconscious woman over and ripped out the sapling. I looked at him. “Stay away from the pools.”

He stood up and I realized there were more people rushing into the crowds. “The little plants on their neck! Rip them out! And stay away from the water!”

“Got it!” Someone called back. “Rip the saplings, keep away from the water!” He yelled.

And suddenly, the previously silent clearing was full of voices. Survivors. Extra hands to help, people who were workers before, passerby, or other staff in the skyscraper. Names were thrown out and I realized these people knew each other personally. Why wouldn’t they?

I couldn’t think too long on it.

I grabbed the wandering girl’s leg just as a tendril wrapped around her torso. It was a smaller one, and along with her weight, I was just able to keep her from being dragged upwards. If I’d been my original self, I could’ve dragged her down, but my physicality was halved and I was already exhausted.

“Not on my watch,” I said through gritted teeth, muscles straining. I shifted my hold, pulling down on her shoulders from under her armpits. Then I reached around her neck and removed the sapling, watching her senses come back to her.

She blinked, fog leaving her gaze, and started spluttering. “W-what’s happening?” She struggled.

“Stop!” I yelled at her. “Stay still, damn it.” And I reached down for my knife and began to saw at the tendril. The root flinched and up above, another set of my eyes saw another tendril coming down to help.

I cursed. “Help! I need help over here!” And someone answered.

My clones were handling other stragglers, unable to come to my own aid. Instead, a stranger. The man that had first helped Second.

Strong hands found the woman and his voice was hard as rock, helping me drag her down. “Stay calm, miss. We’ll get you down.” His eyes glanced to my grip, the knife nearly halfway through the damn tentacle.

Then the other tendril came like a whip, slapping around my waist and reinforcing the grip on the woman. All three of us shifted, sliding on the ground. The woman screamed and the man grunted.

“Fuck.” I whispered, glancing upward. The knife was almost through.

“You almost done?” The man yelled, straining harder.

I saw the third tendril coming down the same time the man did. He pulled desperate, and I cut furiously. And suddenly the tension disappeared, time slowed, and we flew apart like a rubber band. The man yelled as his arm missed mine and the third tendril wrapped me up, the woman stared in horror as I rose into hell.

And when my clone rose into that accursed thing’s mouth, I tried not to flinch, I tried to calm my fear.

“You’ve done it before, right Evahn?” I whimpered, terrified.

I did better than I thought I would.