Deagon walks across the finely carpeted living room of the apartment. The interior is almost empty, subject to the occasional article of furniture, there being couches and chairs strewn about. The apartment bears not a single speck of dirt. As Deagon treads across the interior, he stamps his dirty boot prints across the floor. He makes his way toward the kitchen fridge and tosses it open. Inside, upon every shelf, rest bottles upon bottles of whiskey. Deagon chuckles and grins. He pulls the flask from out of his pocket, and he unscrews a top from upon the device, pours in a bit of whiskey, and mixes it around before pacing back into the living room and collapsing onto the couch. He leans forward and takes a swig from the flask. Immediately, his vision goes blurry, and an intense ringing fills his ears. He lays down on the couch, propping up both his legs upon the other side. A few moments pass. Deagon furrows his brow and sits up.

“I don’t remember this shit taking so long.”

Deagon clutches at his chest. A searing pain shoots through his body. He presses his back against the couch, struggling to stand. His grunts turn to shouting.

“Damnit!”

The front door flies open. Flynt and Avery run into the room. Deagon’s vision fades to black. As if he were falling asleep, Deagon’s senses leave him. For a moment, Deagon finds himself in a field of nothingness, a floating body devoid of substance, with no sense of time.

He opens his eyes. A patch of mud soaks the back of his jacket. Deagon shoots up, sitting hunched over on his knees. He slides his torn up, muddied jacket off his back and stands up. A foggy landscape surrounds him, and the ground is a muddy puddle intermingled with thin patches of grass, like that of a marsh. Deagon looks up. Before him is a tall metal gate with an engraving on its top. Deagon squints up at it. It reads: Deagonland.

“Oh, hell no!”

He slaps his hand on his face and stumbles through the gate. Again, through the thick fog, the marshy earth engulfs everything. As he stumbles deeper into the abyss, minutes pass, the moisture clears up from the ground, and the fog becomes thinner. Eventually, the ground becomes a crude and rough array of concrete slabs, spanning his entire field of vision. The fog clears, revealing a field of metallic houses, resembling jagged shipping containers. Surrounding the concrete platform is a wall of chain-link fences, with an opening near Deagon. From those shipping containers, a few men peek their heads around, then some more. They step out into the center of the square, calling out to each other, drawing out a greater crowd, approaching the gate. Deagon walks through, toward the square. As he approaches, it becomes clearer that almost everybody bears a strong resemblance to each other: tall, dark, and muscular. About half of them look identical to Deagon. One of them approaches Deagon, wearing a sash.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Deagon.”

“Another one.”

“What are you on about? What the fuck is up with all of you?!”

“You’re dead. Better get used to it.”

“That was the plan, whoever the fuck you are.”

“Clearly you don’t know shit about the cloud. You’re already coming in here like you own the place, asshole.”

“I know enough about the cloud to get shit done.”

A small crowd of Deagons gather around them. The other Deagon raises his brow.

“You know about the cloud?”

“You brought it up, dumbass.”

The other Deagon grunts, striking Deagon upside the head, sending him reeling backwards.

“You’re the first. You’re finally here.”

Deagon wipes away his bloody nose on his jacket.

“Where is ‘here’?”

“Did you see the damn sign?! This is Deagonland! I’m the mayor.”

“That’s stupid. How do I leave? I’ve got shit to be doing right now.”

“Fuck you! You killed me. It’s just like you to be an entitled bastard up in here.”

“When the hell did that happen?”

“Every time the cloud tries to reset shit, it makes a new Deagon. You use your Jack to force the cloud to reset everything, and you confuse the ever-loving shit out of the cloud. It puts your soul in the new Deagon’s body and fucking murders the new Deagon —”

“Yeah, yeah. I get the gist. By the way, Avery was right. You fucking suck at telling stories.”

“You’re still spending your time with those two assholes? You really are the worst Deagon.”

“How do you know a damn thing about my life? Aren’t you dead? Wait, is the cloud like some kind of afterlife for you? Nevermind, don’t answer that. I don’t have time for this shit. How do I get out of here?”

The other Deagon steps closer to Deagon, placing his hand on Deagon’s shoulder. They remain silent for a moment.

“You’re not dead.”

“How the fuck can you tell?”

“Don’t ask dumbass questions, dumbass. Whoever tried to kill you did a fucking awful job at it.”

“Someone tried to kill me?”

“You used one of your dumbass gizmos to get here, didn’t you?”

“Since we’re ready to begin, she had me make it different this time.”

“Who told you to make it?”

“Muriel.”

“Then, it’s obvious. Muriel tried to take you to death. Instead, she brought death to you because she’s fucking stupid.”

Deagon falls down on his knees.

“What’s happening to me?”

“You’re probably coming down from your high or some shit. You’ve just about passed through our niche of the cloud.”

“Fuck.”

Deagon falls onto his side, convulsing on the floor once more. His senses fade away.

꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂

Deagon awakes in a dark space. Underneath him is a patch of rough carpeting. The lights above him flicker as he pulls himself up to his feet and stares down the hall. In front of him, Eleanor lies on the ground, unconscious. Across the hall, Braellyn, covered in a viscous, black fluid, chases Flynt and Avery down the hall. Deagon steps back for a moment, bracing his leg before sprinting after her; Braellyn jerks around to face him. Her pupils dilate, the space within her beak dumping a numbing static over the room, like a gas. Deagon charges up before her, and he pummels her against the head, launching her down the hallway, where she collapses just behind Flynt and Avery. Deagon kneels down beside Eleanor for a moment. As he looks back up, Braellyn is nowhere to be seen.