As the ornamented red box shattered to pieces and collapsed onto the floor of that white void, two figures fell out of it, plopping to the ground with a smack. Gary flinched backwards slightly, and he stared down at the two of them. One of the two pulled herself up to her feet. Calmly, she glanced around the void for a moment before settling her gaze onto Gary: she had on a ceramic rabbit mask, a fuzzy, polka-dotted jacket, and jeans. Gary and the woman stared at each other for a moment. He could feel his consciousness crumbling in their presence. Gary composed himself, and he walked up toward her. He asked,

“What—why were you guys in that box?”

She did not respond. The woman looked him up and down before turning on heel and walking back up toward the other man. She stretched her arm out in front of him, pulling him up to his feet. The man was pale, with messy hair and green lips. His eyes darted about the landscape, quickly locking onto Gary, and he bolted up toward him, stopping inches away from his face as Gary flinched momentarily. The man stuck his hand up between them while staring Gary in the eyes. The man broke the silence.

“Hey! Do you know anything about this?”

“Wh –”

“Do you know who trapped us?”

“Umm–”

“It wasn’t you, was it?”

“No–”

The man broke out into uproarious laughter, and he cocked his head back around toward the woman. She paced up between the two of them, slowly nudging the man away from Gary. After a moment of awkwardness, she stared up toward Gary, and she said,

“I’m Jayden. That’s Khalid. Where’s the cat?”

Gary gestured behind him with his hands.

“Oh, uh—she ran off that way.”

“Thanks.”

At once, the woman sprinted past Gary. As she ran, gusts of wind blew past him. After an instant, he cocked his head back behind him to watch her. She was gone. Gary stared back toward Khalid, who had moved within an inch of Gary’s face, staring into his eyes once again. Gary flinched backwards, nearly falling on his back. He gasped. He asked,

“Are you sure you’re real? Are you Aggie?”

Khalid’s wide grin flattened in an instant. He swiped his hand back behind his back, and he snatched out a long, thin sword, cradling it over his head. His voice echoed as he spoke.

“So?! You know her!”

The man swiped the sword just in front of Gary’s neck, where he held it still for a moment. A green fluid flowed down the blade’s shaft, not yet dripping off of the blade. At once, there was a gust of wind behind the man, which halted just as quickly as it began. Gary peeked his head around to the side where he saw Jayden holding Aggie tight against her chest.

Without warning, from either of them, Jayden threw the cat into the air, just above Gary and Khalid. In an instant, Khalid swung his blade overhead, slicing the cat in two—instead of falling apart, melting into some mess of black goo, Aggie burned and sizzle. In an instant, there was no trace of her having lived. The world quickly fell silent. Seconds passed. Gary spoke up,

“She’s still here.”

Once again, silence filled the void. Jayden and Khalid slowly stared down toward Jack as he laid on the ground. The man’s fierce expression died down, back into that of curiosity as he glanced over toward Jayden. He continued,

“He’s right. I can feel her presence.”

Jayden continued to stare down at the ground. She muttered to herself,

“I found you…”

Gary furrowed his brow while he continued to stare up at the two. The other man stared wide-eyed toward the woman. He gasped,

“Do you really think–?!”

“Yes.”

The three glanced at each other again. The woman paced up toward Gary, and she pulled him up to his feet, still holding onto his forearm as the three of them stood awkwardly. Khalid nodded toward the two of them, and Jayden nodded back at him. In an instant, the man hoisted up his sword, and he stabbed it into the ground. In an instant, veins of green spread across the land, sizzling as they burned. Jayden jumped, still holding on to Gary’s arm. The wind blew ferociously past Gary’s face. He could see nothing but black, and he could feel his shoulder struggling to escape its socket.

Suddenly they stopped. Gary glanced around. An unending sea of black surrounded him. Jayden still clutched his forearm tightly, from which a small stream of blood escaped into the void. Gary turned his head around, facing to where the woman had been gazing. He saw an enormous white ball. He saw a face—He saw Aggie. The world on which he had been living—the white void. It was all for Aggie. It always has been. Gary gasped. The air escaped his lungs, and he grabbed at his throat with his other arm. Gary could not breathe.

From off of the white ball, a speck approached the two of them rapidly. In an instant, Khalid crashed into Jayden, who caught him in the air, finding footing in the nothingness. The man glanced over at Gary. He whispered,

“You can’t breathe, can you?! That’s a shame.”

Gary stared at the man. He tried to vocalize, but he couldn’t. The man continued. He raised one eyebrow. The man gazed closer at Gary. He spoke more.

“You’re right! She fears you, doesn’t she? I can’t imagine why!”

Gary’s eyes rolled back into his head as he held more tightly against his throat.

“Don’t worry about why you can hear me this far out! This is certainly not the weirdest thing you will see today.”

Gary laid against the void, unmoving.

“Alright, Gary. I have an idea here. It’s not gonna be fun, but it’ll probably work. I’m gonna put your soul in this. I promise I’ll give it back later!”

Khalid gestured toward Gary with his sword. In an instant, Khalid spun, and he sliced Gary’s body in half, clean across the middle, separating his torso from his hips. Gary could feel the pain escaping his body. He could feel his soul wafting into the abyss. While Jayden grabbed the two halves of Gary’s body, Khalid swung his sword once more. With that, Gary could feel his soul enter the blade. Gary could see everything, and he could feel the world around him.

Jayden and Khalid stared back toward the great big ceramic ball in the sky. The veins of green spread across its surface, covering much of the sphere. At once, an enormous section of the shell cracked off of Aggie, sending the debris flying toward Jayden and Khalid. Jayden floated backwards a short distance, still holding Gary’s two halves. Khalid stepped forth, and, with a single swipe, he cut the debris in two, and it wafted past the two of them.

From out of the hole left behind by the absence of her shell, an enormous, black, viscous tendril sprung out of Aggie, blending in seamlessly with the void behind them. At the speed of light, the growth swung around toward the two of them, while they leapt about, avoiding the many swipes. A bright, colorful growth made its way up the tendril, carrying with it the unmatched power of the new universe, that which Aggie had consumed.

At once, the swipes ceased. The new universe made its way fully up the tendril, gathering itself as a bulb at the end of the line. Jayden and Khalid stood, staring at the growth. At once, it exploded, sending various black balls into space. At once, as if trapped in a ball of mirrors, Jayden and Khalid could see themselves, repeatedly. Jayden leapt toward the side of the enclosure, striking at it, but it was no use. She could feel the strike against herself as she beat into her reflection. In an instant, the reflection turned around to face her, swiftly striking her, launching her back against the other side of the enclosure.

Khalid leapt at the woman—the duplicate of Jayden — and he struck her with his blade. She caught the sword, and she reached over toward his head, clasping it into her palm, and crushing it instantly, as a tide of green blood swept out of his body. His body floated still within the container for a moment — the sword drifted out of his arm. In an instant, the woman’s veins glowed green. They burst out of her, and the reflection shattered as if it were a pane of glass. Khalid’s head grew back into his body.

All around them, the universe seemed to shatter, as panes of glass flew out of the reflection, flying past the two at blinding speeds. One struck Khalid, tearing off his left arm. There was no blood—tried as he might, the arm would not return. At once, the two of them could feel their souls resetting. In an instant, they fell back through time, back on top of Aggie’s surface, on the blinding white void. Gary’s soul remained within Khalid’s blade, Jayden still had both pieces of Gary in hand, and Khalid was still missing his arm. Devils surrounded them: a stubby Aggie holding a computer, an Aggie-headed Gary, and an amorphous black blob.

Khalid swung his sword about the two of them in a circle, decapitating the Aggie-headed Gary. The stubby-limbed cat jumped in front of Jayden—she momentarily glimpsed the screen. Khalid could feel her soul fading. Before his eyes, she and the two halves of Gary ceased to be. He jolted forth, slicing through the stubby cat, and she ceased to be instantly. As Khalid landed back in the void, he could feel something sticking his feet to the floor. Beneath him, a black ooze grounded him to reality. His consciousness had nowhere to go.

Much of the ceramic shell collapsed off of the enormous Aggie’s surface, and the black goo from the amorphous blob became a part of the endless, viscous soul within the true Aggie. Khalid could feel himself sinking — he was sinking into Aggie’s soul. The sludge overtook his legs, and his body, and his arms. Before him, the decapitated Gary walked toward him. From inside of his body, Aggie’s viscous soul rose, squished about for a moment overtop his head, before forming itself into the head of Godfrey. The Godfrey-headed Gary laughed heartily at Khalid as he sunk into the ground. He stepped forth, and he reached his hand through Aggie’s soul, and he clutched Khalid’s chest. A pain shot up Khalid’s body—he stared at Godfrey, wide eyed.

Khalid’s neck collapsed into dust. In an instant, Khalid swung the surrounding sword last time, severing his hand at the wrist, before launching the sword against the horizon. In a moment, Khalid’s head collapsed into dust, never to recover. The sludge receded back into the ground as the sword flew.

In an instant, a hole broke open through reality. Jayden flew through a pane of the void, holding the two subsections of Gary beneath her shoulders, and she grabbed the sword as she fell to the ground. In an instant, she swung the blade across Aggie’s surface before standing still. A great slit made its way across the entirety of her being. The two halves drifted away from each other, as her viscous soul melded together with the universe trapped inside, and exploded throughout the void. Jayden could feel something pressing against her soul, sending her soul forward through time.

Gary jolted upright in his bed. He could feel his mind crashing back into its proper place. His heart pounded. He felt a burning sensation crawling across his gut. He squirmed his hand beneath the blanket, and he felt along with the stitches at his side. Gary gazed around his room. In the far left corner, there was his familiar television. On the nightstand beside him laid the leather-bound book, El Infierno Godfrey. Leaning up against his window was the thin, long sword. Gary blinked quickly for a moment, before sliding out of bed, treading across his room barefoot, and throwing open the door, and stepping into the hall. The bathroom door cracked open. Gary peered inside for a moment. The typewriter rested on the bathroom counter, right next to the sink.

He continued further down the hall, into the kitchen. Through the kitchen window, there was no sign of a car in the driveway. There was no sign of a driveway, either. There was no sign of a great white void, and there was no sign of a great black void. He saw the rest of the universe partitioned into clumps of vibrant souls. He snatched open the refrigerator door, wherein the revolver remained at the back of the fridge, blocked by jars of foodstuffs. Gently easing the door shut, he turned back toward the living room. On the coat rack in the corner of his view, his pizza delivery uniform remained spotless.

There was a knock on the door. Jayden stood calmly at his doorstep. Past his doorstep, the house did not connect to any sort of land—just a sheer drop into infinity. Without speaking, she stepped into the house, pulled a note out of her pocket, stuck it to the wall, and leapt behind her, out into the new void. Gary stepped up toward the note, and he read.

Thanks for letting us use you. It helped a lot in dealing with Aggie. I put you back together like Khalid told you we would. Aggie isn’t dead, by the way. She’s still in your house, but that’s nothing to worry about. Aggie seems different. She lingers as a harmless spirit. Oh, yeah. By the way, I saw your sister when the universe was born. She had better fortune than Khalid. She reincarnated, and she has taken your place as the first one born into this reality. I hope you get to meet her again