The girls ran across the ground that was giving way to the flat void below them. It really wasn’t their night.

Jackie’s sneakers, made for traction, ripped up the loose dirt from the ground, as it loses consistency, then form, then disappears. But she didn’t care about her exhausted muscles possibly locking up in strain or letting the fear trip up her steadily tempo she’s practiced, something she figured out and tailored it to suit her.

But she was clearly worried about the normal girls behind her lagging behind, clearly not used to it. Everyone can run, the brilliance of the human evolution is the fact that we can run away from danger, allowing the adrenaline flow and rush just as much.

The method, however, was how we pace said running. In a burst of speed, a human cannot overtake a cheetah. But a cheetah only can have that burst, whereas a human can jog or evade as soon as it gets ready to sprint, then dash themselves as the cheetah’s inner workings take the brunt of its tax. The human will be laid up in bed for possibly a week, but they survive.

Aiko was doing the best out of everyone, but it was precious little between sprinting like a cheetah and not being aware of that she’s already taxed herself way too many times already. River already seemed to be at the end of her rope and merely is holding out for time, Maddie cursing and shouting in a effort to express her pain but it’s still slowing her down, hammering her down despite that, and poor Tracy is stumbling more than running, at the back and the closest to the advancing edge.

What was the Pell Forest—or was it the Pell Forest? Is it a copy? Casted away section of the location? Either way, it was a fragment, not enough for a field. There’s only the hill, with the wooden forest path that you normally have to walk down, as it crumbles away because it can’t be that, mimic that successfully. Thankfully Jackie in her panicked state constantly look back and forth, to figure out something—anything—in this fresh hell.

Like the area it tries to copy, down the stairs lead to a street into the city. Never mind the obvious falsehood of the depth, the problem was the horrible logistics… It wasn’t even the same part of the city where the forest and it met. It was ripped from another section near the harbor Jackie could only guess, warehouses darted about and the…Smashed up, beached docks. Her mind was racing, to be fair.

She had to figure out how to guide the girls out of their funks and fast, or they’ll go into an even greater existential trap. She saw Aiko’s knee buckle during the sprinting, and she had to act now.

“STEADY,” Jackie roared, craning her head as she herself start to stumble, “STEADY YOURSELVES—FOCUS—LET THE HEARTRATE GO DOWN INSTEAD OF IT EXPLODING!”

She corrected herself again, following her pace as the rest dramatically slowed down themselves, “DON’T BE AFRAID—JUST FOCUS ON KEEP GOING AND YOU’LL FIND TRACTION! BUT GET TRACY JUST IN CASE!”

Tracy was basically running on a treadmill leading into a hole, screaming, crying, turning into an absolute wreck as she pleads not to fall in. River was right in front of her yet behind, on the same pace, extending her hand and saving the redheaded girl and flinging her forward. Now all of them are so close to the edge, meekly buying their time. Time, cruelly, isn’t a factor in this run. Like the Shift before it, there could be a case that they could’ve been running for hours or minutes, or it’s seconds: running down a hill, just a hill, yet they haven’t made any headway.

It wasn’t until Maddie gasped out was there any notable change.

The ground broke at a different pace. In segments, clumps, then it quickly tumbles down and away. What was controlled sprints quickly turned into desperate lounging. Each of the girls in their own ways nearly got caught up in it all, and the worst part of it all is the fact that their collective screams are running dry as well. Maddie nearly fell in twice, clutching her leg as she tries to keep going. Aiko twitches as she tries to keep after Jackie. Tracy is running on her animal instructs because any and all energy have been drained. And River staggers along, nearly falling over versus falling in.

Jackie tried to call out, but another curveball hit her square in the jaw. Then her throat and forearm, before getting pelted at the point of rising a bit from the very ground that’s attacking them.

The hill broke apart upwards as well as downwards now, debris rising and falling, disintegrating both in a reverse shower and intense downpour.

They tried to keep their pace, they really did. There was only so much to do against something that was above pace, above logic.

Maddie was the first to get swept up in the updrift, then Tracy, then Aiko, River and before she knew it herself as she tried to shield her face, Jackie was carried away as well. The soft rock juggled the girls up into the sky void, but the motions had no pattern, so the swarm only hit upward and irregular. Faces, elbows, guts, collarbone and lips. Then cheeks, throats, faces, guts, hands, shins, and ears. Over and over, relentless, aimless, and undaunting.

It was only when Jackie was swept up into this mess, that she understood that they were trapped further within a trap. They’ve been running so long that their physiology acted as their clock, and it was pointless. They were trying to move, trying to regain ground, when they were stuck in a place where time didn’t matter, yet did only for the removal of the ground, removal of them.

Each of them tried to fall, to reach the ground again, but was uppercutted multiple times with the broken earth, in multiple spots and areas. More and more, they were floating away from the shrinking ground, both in their clouding view and it’s dwindling structure.

This wasn’t a plan, this wasn’t premeditated, what came next. It was primal.

“JUMP!” Jackie coughed out, as she used her aching legs to do so, falling face first into the grassy side of the hill, hoping that she’s leading by example.

She did; the other managed to jump out of harm’s way and joined her in rolling harshly down the hill.

Jackie covered her nape and back of the head with her hands, feeling the false ground take, cutting and digging into her as the dirt compounded itself onto her as well. She hit her stomach flat onto the sidewalk’s pavement, struggling to get up, glad in part for it because she needed to wait for the rest barreling down.

…Only to witness not only hers, but the rest of the girls left trails, empty streaks, due to them tumbling down. Jackie can only stare, in object terror, as she hoped that they try to evade each other’s holes, for them to even notice.

A scream indicated, validated, that hope; each one steered themselves in their downward spirals. River corrected her trajectory towards the further left of the hill, Aiko kept herself steady—but aware—as she was closest to Jackie’s streak, with Maddie and Tracy doing the same thing as River, but had the same problem as Aiko.

As she got up, they came down, just in time for her to help them out. They were riddled with wounds, bruises and cuts spotted about, blood starting to cover them all the same. Panting, hurting, Jackie helped them along as she drags herself ahead, running down the empty, colorless street, straight into the warehouse she eyed.

Jackie hunched over, bloody hands on her skinned knees, as she starts to heave out of exhaustion. The rest had their reactions, but all where united in pained sorrow, fear.

She panted and looked outside the warehouse, “LOOK AT HOW MUCH THE HILL’S CRUMBLED! IT’S GONE! IT’S FUCKING GONE!”

And that it was, the remnants caved into itself, swallowed whole. Giving a clear view to the skies that they haven’t paid attention to… How flat it is. How dull it is. Colorless as well, but in a different sense. Blue, but without any hues, texture, or volume.

“ALRIGHT,” Maddie attempted to snap everyone out of it, only coughing out the rest as she struggles to move to a crate to lean on, “A-alright…”

It was just a warehouse with crates and boxes laid out and about. Detail-less, colorless, breadth-less. A cover over the crate Maddie leans against being completely pointless, the hangar stapled against the paper walls overhead. Even the grime texture was clean, even square, in its looks.

“Anyone…” Maddie struggled to ask, “Anyone fucked up? Injured bad?”

It wasn’t until that question was the nature of the injuries were made clear and felt present.

Maddie’s left leg was choked then skinned due to her jeans splitting, the threads doing the work. Tracy got a bloody, bruised nose which made her sniffling more pronounced. Not only were River’s glasses shattered so badly only the frame was left, but the glass scattered some on River’s cheeks, and only small fragments maybe in an attempt by her to get them away from her eyes in the fall. Aiko took the fall brunt of the various falls, caked with dirt contained by her rough skin all around her, stronger in some areas as she’s shaking with dust.

Maddie snapped at Aiko, which made the latter jump, “Tourist, you got First Aid in that bag? If so, move it…”

Aiko was going to comment on her tone, until Maddie motioned her head to a crying Tracy, covering her nose in a vain, pathetic attempt. Without a pause in her step, Aiko opened and dug into her back, pulling out that First Aid kit. Maddie noticed this, limped forward to grab it, and had to hold back a comment on that as she rushed toward Tracy to clean her up.

Even after being done with her sickness, Jackie getting up was laced in pain and nausea. There was something about the process of being sick, that causes one to feel and become sicker. If it wasn’t aching, it was the pain. If not the pain, it was the nausea. But the prevailing mood, which acted as an umbrella to contain each one then connected together, was her being crestfallen. What was this? Where are they? Is this even a place to answer those questions, when logic has left behind in the reality they fell out of?

She wobbled, when she tried to stand. She tried to speak, but the acid was still fresh in her gullet. Who was she kidding, if not herself?

She proceeded to back away a few steps, before planting herself onto the floor. There was nothing left to fight against the headache, so she rested her head into her hands. And in this murkiness of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if the only sense, the only meaning of this world, was to prove to them that…

No. Focus, she tells herself. Finish.

“River,” Jackie croaked out. She had to keep talking, so that she could clear her throat, keep it firm. “Has anything you’ve read… Detailed any of this happening…?”

She only shook her head. Her cheeks were rid of the small glass shards, leaving behind alcohol rubbed, centimeter indents.

“Please. Anything that you can recall, even the stupidest, vague details—”

River cut her off, all without raising her voice a fraction. The monotone that was made light of was laid heavy, and noted here, “I know and read and heard of the craziest, dark, and fucked up the Shift has done. Stuff they don’t tell anyone. Secondhand information sure, but all the same, I’m just as lost as you all are.”

Then she closed her eyes gently. Acceptance, it seemed like? Then Jackie caught her eyelids trying to keep themselves still, shut. Resignation.

“Well we just can’t accept that!” Tracy had her nose cleaned, bandaged, and stopped up. Her eyes by contrast were bulging out of her head almost, and the fact that they were bloodshot twice over did not help in absorbing this image that steam rolled her previous one. “Where are we?! What part of the Shifts that cause this?! You can’t just say—'oh all the crazy shit I’ve heard and nope, this isn’t on it despite it being insanity given form’! It’s pointless to say something like that, so tell us what you know!”

Maddie’s audible whisper of “holy shit” perfectly encapsulated Jackie’s reaction. She was too staggered by it to respond, to deescalate this.

Tracy turned to Maddie, “And make sure not to give her anything else if she doesn’t.”

“Whoa there lady listen, let’s not drag me into all this,” Maddie retorted back, staring her down as she continued to wipe Aiko down with sanitary wipes.

“Let’s answer your questions with another question,” River responded and simply did, “Since we’re at the point of threats. Don’t you think, in the 50 odd years of reality wavering back and forth, crunching and then stretching, that there was ever this sense of stability? And after all this damage, this so-called stability lasts? Let’s face it. There’s nothing that can explain this. This is simply a thing that’s happening because existence itself is being worn down. This is the debris, the leftovers. And now we’re the debris and leftovers.”

The young woman that was fling accusations, that was attempting to perform ultimatums, that planned and parse her words… Could only make a squeak in the aftermath of that.

“FUCK!” Maddie roared out in anger, throwing the kit down. “I don’t even know what the fuck that means and I get it!” She proceeded to kick it away, as it spun out on the floor. “Out of all the ways this fucking place fucked me, it does this. I should’ve fucking known, it was gonna be something like this.”

“Okay, fine,” Jackie interjected, can’t allow for more breakdowns, “Let’s figure this out then.”

“Sure,” Maddie spat at, “Before we lose our minds when we ‘realize’ that we’re stuck or before we all starve? Or kill each other?”

“It won’t get to that because we’ll be together, racking our brains around this, using everything we have left. Then yeah, all is lost.”

“Why isn’t it ‘all is lost’ now Police Cadet; fucking spell out better than she did!”

Jackie just looked at Maddie, then got up, taking her a few, pregnant moments.

She then raised her wounded fist and took a hard swing against the crate, the impact shattering into a wide, gaping hole.

The rest can only just stare at her, then the crate, then her again.

“Right,” Jackie said “calmly”, pulling her splittered hand out of the wreck. “There. We know it’s fragile. Fake. That’s a first head start.”

The rest of the girls are now huddled together, just starting at the girl that has literally proved that she’s strong enough to knock every single one of them out cold. While still being injured.

“…You’re just as fucking crazy as the rest of us…” There was nothing venomous about the comment Maddie made, just awe.

“Actually quite the opposite, I’m sure I’m the only clear-minded person here,” Jackie then grabbed the stray bandages and begun to apply it to her hand, continuing, “So let’s expand on that, use it. This world, this whatever it is, is totally and utterly fake. At the point where it can be easily broken with the slightest action. Maybe it can be broken out of? Broken through?”

And with her “bandaged” hand, she walked about, gesturing to describe her words, “If we can breakthrough, maybe that can get us back to our home? Back to the forest, maybe? Though the area for that’s gone, so maybe we’ll come back to…”

Nothing was said. And there was nearly nothing but fear within the other’s eyes.

“…” Jackie then sighed. “I’m sorry, I’m—… I guess it’s what I said to you all. I hate not being able to do something. Anything. I was sick of it then; I still am now. Sure, I’m crazy, but… Please… Let’s just push through this.”

The silence continued, before Maddie offered her own sigh. “At least lemme see that hand that you literally banged into wood then pushed it all in further…” She gathered the remnants of the kit and undid Jackie’s work, getting ready to pull the splitters out. “Y’know, you can’t start speaking sane, then do something fucking crazy, then back to sane…”

Jackie smiled, which quickly turned into a twisted wincing as Maddie started pulling out the wood.

“Plus hey,” Maddie smirked, “I can get payback doing this. I think you’re on to something with this constructive shit.”

“Fwwwuauafair enough…” Jackie whined out. “Baaack to the musing…”

There was no sound, no echoes or ambience in this ghost trash heap. No sun and its rays really, it was just clear. No rhyme, no reason, but only because this normally happened.

…Or is it…?

Jackie looked out the window, the vehicle that gave her the sight that nearly broke her… The tear, the soft light, ripped across the fake sky, now giving her a shred of hope. All the debris begun hurling heavenward, and systematically spiraling into the void.

“See girls,” Jackie using her own hand to point at it, can’t help to brim with something she taught that she wasn’t capable anymore. “There’s always a way. You just have to believe it. You just have to fucking believe…”

Maddie was done picking out the visible wood, and proceed to rub the hand down in alcohol, “Well… Still, that can be anything, really. Some shit to a parallel world or even somewhere in space… And if it is a way out, we can’t fly there.”

The fact that Maddie’s response came with the stinging of her wounds as not lost to Jackie, as she grunts in thought and pain, gritting her teeth slightly. She grabbed a piece of the crate, starting to throw it up in the air. Up-fall-catch, up-fall-catch…

And when the idea occurred to her; up-fall-catch and throw right out of the window, as hard as she could.

The rift, the bright hope that was so much so, seemed to irradiate an aura that completely undid what the wooden piece was as it soared closer that it could get. Not turn it into ash or dust per say but breaking it down until it couldn’t anymore. Like the forest. Like the hill. And maybe like the rest of this world.

The reason why Jackie chose to grit her teeth completely was out of anger versus the brief pain. Of course. It had to be just as complicated…, she thought.

She had to keep thinking, keep going, so doubt didn’t set it’s claws back in again, “Okay, two options. We’re destroyed into non-existence… Or it’s like… Star Trek? Where things are broken down and then transported. PATH-OS turns its passengers into a different state to ignore physics, but it doesn’t break them down…”

The term “break down” was mumbled about, as the rest watch Jackie. Maddie finished her patchwork and limped to her spot and sat back down, groaning. River is now looking down, listening but not engaging. Tracy was practically on tenterhooks, wanting any form of solution and Aiko still looked distant, still taking this all in, stuck on something.

“Because if it were just outright warping, destruction… It would’ve been over before it even begun. We would’ve been a pile of warped, hammered down flesh and then we get processed into the hole again and then died. Or not,” Jackie shivered at that thought. “This is weird. This is different. This is all maybes and what-ifs, I know that… But this whole thing here is just based on replicas it seems like... It seems like…”

Jackie snapped then pointed at River, “Stack overflow? What if this is just a very weird version of stack overflow?”

“…I mean—I guess—It’s really a stretch,” River exasperated. “I get what you mean, but the process that we’re guessing on, a lot of it breaks down in the face of that or we really jam that in…”

“I know,” Jackie groaned, “But it’s the closest thing that came to mind… Or maybe a glitch, something along those lines. You said that the thing that trapped us is the universe trying to right itself again. So why not expand the thought? Maybe this is the universe suffering stack overflow and it’s correcting slowly it’s memory issue?”

“Can you please translate this shit that doesn’t require some Computing degree?!” Maddie shouted.

“Hey, you figured out that it dealt with computers…” Jackie pointed out.

“It was a mental coin flip, that or Engineering,” Maddie commented. “Either way, don’t give me credit like I actually paid attention to class.”

“To sum it up,” River proceeded to do, “Stack flows were a common problem with computers back in the day. A program takes way too much memory that it can’t use, and this happens, to put it in everyman’s terms. You needed a programmer to fix the code or maybe the computer itself to correct it. The problem is… Are we treating our whole entire universe as a program instead of the computer itself…?”

“Trust me, River,” Jackie sounded exhausted, “I would honestly buy that we’re just some app in a vast home screen to a very, very virus filled computer. Maybe that’s the twist, something so beyond us as a thought and that’s why we couldn’t wrap our heads around this whole thing… Still, yeah, it’s fine for this to have holes it in and I’m glad you’re on them. But until we’re faced with the tangible problems before us, we gotta work with this and go. There could be a timetable and we need to move along.”

“Fair enough…” River replied. “So, running theory is that we’re in an overflow box?”

“I love that name ‘running theory’,” Jackie grinned. “I really love that. But yes, we’re in the overflow inventory as the universe picks and choose recreating the areas hit by the Shift? Maybe just focusing on the structure instead of actually putting these locations back, hence the fakeness, this being a shell.”

“S-so, we can wait and let… M-meta-nature take its course…?” Tracy asked, innocently, which niggled at Jackie. It’s genuine, so it’s not a façade, but where did that flash of anger come from…?

Jackie shook her head, “No, can’t do that either… Otherwise, we get battered more by the debris or the process can do something that we can’t handle… As we are…”

“…What are you getting at…?” Maddie tilted her head.

“siVis. We have enough push for the pull that we need, from witnessing the Shift as little as we did, to the disappointing, and this scenario now. We all collectively went through the same thing, and as we just came down from… It’s clear that we’re at our lowest…”

The room looked at each other, Maddie solemnly nodding her head with a “you got me” look, Aiko nodding as well, with Tracy meekly looking at the girl that she was going to deny medical attention from.

“So let’s use that, instead of wallow in it,” Jackie tightened her fists, both of them, as she extends her arms out, “Instead of giving into it, giving up, we’re going to use it as a spring board to get us out of the darkness, out of this fakeness. It’s our shield, our protection. It’s the miracle we need to turn this fate worse than death into something that in no feasible way that we could’ve survived from. And the best part? It’ll come from us, that miracle.”

She slammed her bandaged fist into her palm, and the girls flinched for her, “We run, we keep ourselves active, and when this place twists and turns, we get closer and closer to one of the rifts and go for it. And during those parameters, surely one of us achieve siVis during what kind of insanity this place spawns from. We’ll be in a constant state of exhaustion, haze, and it’ll be the perfect ignition. Otherwise, uh…”

She rubbed her chin, “We’ll just find something that can take the brunt of the correction and basically universe-bob-sled back.”

Maddie just blinked at her, “I’ve never met someone so responsible but such a kid about it.”

“…I mean…I like to think that I’m very mature for my age…” Jackie mumbled as she puckered her lips into a pout, sounding like Maddie’s overall point. She shook her head and reset into her standard face, “Buuut that’s beside the point. Questions? Concerns? Final thoughts?”

“So this resistant…sleigh…” River began to query.

“Hopefully our shared ‘Rosebud’, after all this is over…” Tracy added.

“Ha,” River chuckled a bit, “Nice. But to continue—How can we tell?”

“Other than the worse-case scenario where we’re clinging onto stuff to not fall into the void and we so happen to find it?” Jackie tapped the crate with her foot, “I figure that mostly everything is fragile, like the ground was, like this crate was. I shouldn’t at all been able to do that, so I’m applying the theory to the rest...And hey, to add to our running theory, if we got sucked up in here by being within a Shift-affected area, items and junk are no different! But in short…If it can not only handle us touching it, carrying it and ultimately hold our collective weight? It’s our ‘Rosebud’.”

“I swear you people might as well talk in another language…” Maddie grumble. “Like, how can people just talk in references? But don’t worry, I got it, unless ‘Rosebud’ is some metaphysics concept or some shit.”

“Nah,” River said, “Turned out just to be some sleigh.”

Tracy couldn’t help to chuckle at that, her face crumpling again. Yes, this is what Jackie wanted. Focusing, getting together, pressing differences—the hazardous aspects of differences—and moving along with what makes differences work, that’s beneficial. Teamwork, friendships are delightful end-results that could be reaped, but Jackie wanted to hit the overall goal, the overall concept that she’s learned: humanity’s ability to gather, to work as a collective. It was always interesting to see selfish, angry people swear up and down to others that humans fuck over other humans, hurt one another, destroy each other. But when it counts? They got together when something beyond them, something they shouldn’t theoretically care about and gives them an out to perform their beliefs, and they band together all the same. Despite reality coming undone seemingly, that’s something that those Shifts can’t warp or change: truth.

The struggle to stand tall didn’t feel like one for Jackie in this moment, “We should get a head start, but we can rest if anyone elects to. Just know that we need to book it as soon as possible and the idea is to add to as much as our low point as possible. Objections?”

“No,” Aiko spoke up for the first time in forever, “We should get moving and we should do this now. The faster we do this, the better.”

“Whoa,” Maddie retorted. “Who knew—I honestly thought you were gonna live it up in this mess.”

“I’ll ‘live it all up’ when I survive this,” Aiko pointed out, like this is obvious logic who was oblivious to it and other things from before. “Like I said. I’m not a masochist or whatever, I’m not interested all that stupid stuff. I’m only interested in what I’m interested in. My way is nothing but trying to ‘live it up’ as much as possible…”

“Well shit,” Maddie said. “Just… You should’ve made sure to make that come across well, hun.”

“You mean that I’ll remember to make it come across,” Aiko replied. “We’re gonna get outta here.”

Jackie smiled and nodded towards the girl, “That’s the spirit, Aiko. Love it.”

“But to pretty much answer that question,” Maddie stood up shaking. “Might as well go.”

“Anything to get out of this situation…” Tracy stood up herself.

River tapped her heel against the crate, before sighing and walking towards the group. “There’s nothing we can truly do other than this.”

Jackie clapped her hands together, the pain only being a nuisance to ignore, “Alright girls, here’s how we’re going with this… We run, pace ourselves like I told you. Run in a formation where we’re together, yet able to break off. We’re going to search as we go, splitting off maybe into patterns of three and those three can find something and run back to us. Hand it off to those who’re willing to do it and play catch-up. And when things get hairy…Stay close, move fast.”

Maddie huffed amusingly, “Heh. I like that.”

Jackie moved toward her. The height difference was staggering, even when at a distance, she looked down upon her. Jackie nonetheless extended her bandaged hand and clasped her at the wrist. Surprised, then weirded out was illustrated on the small girl’s face…Before she returned the favor, herself.

The tall girl wanted to give Maddie stability, due to her limp making her hunched a bit, something that Jackie thinks she didn’t notice. But she needed the morale… No, all of them do.

And with a gentle extension of her other arm, she motioned to Tracy who was nearby. She couldn’t help to finch, that Tracy. And she couldn’t have to pause, survey what Jackie meant and then analyze if she needed to return the favor. But she closed her eyes, sucked on her bottom lip. Despite herself, she came into Jackie’s eventual hold, a side hug that she enjoyed a bit too much, before Jackie wrapped her arm around her shoulders.

Aiko rushed in, looking for any entry into all of them. Had she known what Jackie was going for or was she just wanting in a possible group hug she never experienced before? Jackie didn’t know. But she ended up just grabbing Maddie’s other hand tight, Maddie shaking her head and withholding a curse or a flurry when she just nodded towards the constricted hand and Aiko took the hint, smiling goofily at her.

Jackie expected to convince River, but was surprised when she turned her head. Sulking, hands in her pockets, looking everywhere but Tracy, standing near her side. In a move telegraphed by guilt, Tracy then slowly put her hand on River’s back, patting it, then resting her hand on her shoulder.

As Jackie recalibrated the bond between her and Maddie, but still grabbing her wrist but both facing forward, she couldn’t help but reconnect to an old memory, something else she thought she lost.

Semi-Finals, 4th quarter, Basketball season. Or rather, the last Basketball season. Before the shutdown, and that was affecting her team’s play, and they were losing. Bad. They huddled together during the break, a team when they approached her time and time again and she said no, but in this moment, during this overwhelming emotion, she was finally with them. They pulled themselves together, and of course they didn’t pull a victory, but they pulled out all the stops. She and her former friends achieved something in their darkest hours. She remembers the feeling and taste the tears all over her face and they didn’t all belong to her.

“Maddie, Aiko, Tracy and River…” Jackie felt a bit cliché. “I’m going to get you all out of here.”

The girls responded in their own way.

Jackie then gained confidence, “We’re going to get out of here!”

Then they were shocked at first, but a resounding “yeah” came about when they got wind of what she was doing.

“We came in here lost; we’ve been lost for so long even in our universe changing before us. We’re normal, nobodies, strangers to one another. But now we’re gonna prove that we got this.”

All murmurs of agreement.

“We’ve got this! We’ve figured it all out! We’re gonna finally prove to the universe that we matter!”

“Yeah!” the rest chanted, in their own ways.

“This is our life!” Jackie roared. “Now let’s go, girls!”

They all walked together, despite the size, the rhythm, the differences and creeds.

They all scanned the environment, the harbor-warehouse-business district was just a long road, stretching on and on. Plenty of buildings of different forms, plenty of chances.

Lining up in the middle of the street, they all uncoupled from one another and started to prepare. Maddie rolled her shoulders, Aiko moved side to side lightly to rekindle her energy, Tracy tightened her fists, and River breathed and out. Jackie just looked at the road ahead.

And with that, they stood together as they ran.

Jackie formed the sharp tip of the arrow that formed, as the rest formed the ridges. In this formation, they ran past the warehouses as each one was a repeat of the one they stayed in, just in different orders and patterns, something clear by passing glances. No uses here.

So they jogged towards the so-called business district of the harbor-warehouse-district; lines up different skyscrapers made of the same material, even if it didn’t suit the design. Blue window planes that couldn’t be seen though, lined on the sides of thick, gray structures. The same door that the girls need to open.

Three darted off to the side, breaking formation, followed by the remaining two that went to the left. Jackie kicked down the paperthin door and Aiko scouted about the makeshift lobby, Jackie following their lead. Their eyes were trained at the contents of the room versus the layout, they’ll hear about that when they get out, they were sure. Aiko tugged at the leather chairs and they tore like tender meat from the bone, Jackie instantly tore down the wall. Both grabbed for the front desk and it separated into pieces in their hands with the slightest lift. They moved on and raced out the door, meeting the other three as they reformed.

“Desks, chairs and stuff in yours?” Jackie breathed out.

“Nah,” River gasped out, and regained her breath to respond further, “Not even a different pattern thing, different layouts and stuff hopefully—”

Jackie nodded, and she returned to spearhead the operation.

It was both crushing and hopeful. Different rooms caused different facets of hope to alight then extinguish. Coffee tables, windows, racks; they would’ve resorted to rugs had they not undone themselves as soon as they rushed literally over and on them. The exhaustion and pain started to settle in, where it became a part of their consciousness versus being at the edge trying to worm in. Not only their bodies ached, but their minds as well.

It wasn’t good, but it was more or less perfect. It was getting as complicated as the conditions to achieve siVis permitted. Few more rounds of this and no doubt something would happen. And if something never came; they will make it come due to one of their breakdowns. Jackie hoped that she fully absorbed how utterly torturous this is, to even think about this choice and how it’s the only one, she hopes that such information would be the thing that sets her off.

But of course, even this false world had different plans.

Traction didn’t become difficult until they noticed the street getting steeper.

The whole street was beginning to slowly rise upward. Not peel backwards, not become a hill. But erect.

“…You have to be fucking kidding me,” Maddie, too exhausted to even react, much less try to right herself as she started to slide down.

“Crap!” Jackie grunted. She quickly grabbed Tracy which spooked her, but River quickly grabbed Aiko on her side, which made the rest catch on, forming a human chain. They took off, staying close, moving fast.

Their legwork was slowly becoming feeble, every run turning into uneven slipping as the street didn’t stop. Their target, the next building was right there, but the incline and it’s troubles came into reality, once again plunging them into a trap that they can’t make any headway, any choice to move forward. They peeled out, the time for pacing was done, like a car on a frozen lake, only making movements to the swaying, the side to side, and backwards.

Desperate, they moved to the sidewalk, in hopes for something. The change of pace gave them the momentum they needed, Jackie quickly grappling the door frame, so that they can finally have the anchor to climb. With the power of the human chain scaled the vertical plane successfully, going into the room as the building is at its side.

This tenth or eleventh near-death experience ended up something good at least; it gave them time for all the furniture in the lobby to smash against the walls, as they slowly walked into the shattered remains. Heavy breathing filled the air and their echoes carried throughout the buildings.

“So,” Maddie coughed out, “Anyone able to move shit with their minds or create doors or some shit yet?!”

Tired, solemn headshakes followed.

“How does it work anyway,” Aiko brought up. “How does it look like? What does it even feel like?”

“No,” River flatly said and her stare that looked around the tilted room. “You’re not all saying you didn’t look up the signs?”

“Well I didn’t,” Aiko instantly said. “I was hoping you all did—”

River flopped her arms to her side, “Well shit, people—"

“I did, I did… But even then, they’re more broad guidelines—discoveries th-than symptoms…” Tracy answered.

“Hell yeah, that’s what I meant,” Maddie rubbed her face with her hands. “All the videos and shit I saw, the only thing that was common was that there was light, the camera fucked up, and there was tons of screaming. But there was videos were the powers came first and then it cuts to the poor fuck doing what I just said. It’s random as fuck, trying to get it and how it happens…”

“The leading theories are basically… It’s very complicated. Complicated as the person who achieve it,” River looked at Jackie. “It’s not just the weirdness that shatters open the person, it helps the mood, but it’s a mood setter all the same… Apparently, we haven’t suffered yet because maybe we’re too normal to be complicated.”

“Buuut, wouldn’t being too normal thus becomes complicated in of itself?” Jackie asked.

River paused, her head went down, heavy with thoughts. “It really says how desperate we are that I honestly buy that.”

“Still,” Maddie pressed on, “What if we just can’t do it? What does it exactly take for it to happen?”

Jackie was hit with another revelation, and the realization that it wasn’t the answer followed right after.

“…The feeling of witnessing reality warping before your very eyes,” Jackie answered.

“…I mean,” Maddie stated the obvious that was obvious to her, “Duh. That’s why we did what we did—”

“No, no,” River interjected, “Expand on that.”

“Maybe it’s not just seeing all that before your eyes, it’s not something that just… Because I had a breakthrough moment before we all got plunged into this, yeah? If that was me, witnessing the might of the Shifts, and my eyes, my mind reconciled that this is truly something that I shouldn’t be able to… Well, even if we were the ones that can’t obtain it, there would’ve been a flicker, there would’ve been something if it was just… Realization.”

“…You’re right,” Tracy said softly, wide-eyed. “O-otherwise, we would’ve been achieved siVis even before this night. There is something more to it than just that.”

“So what’s the last piece of the puzzle, people?!” Maddie asked fervently. “What’s the thing that we teenage girls managed to crack when 50 or 60 whatever years of Brainiacs lost their damn minds trying to figure out on their own?”

“That’s the thing,” River began to point out to her, “Maybe they did figure it out. And maybe on some level since siVis is such a big open secret sort of thing; they tell people what they need to know and that in of itself has levels to it, but… What if it’s a thing they figured this out and… It’s too new of a concept to even think about as they are…”

Jackie nodded solemnly, “Living like this, trying to accept that everything you once knew was a mere microcosm to pure insanity, watching it happen before your eyes, experiencing it for yourself; all these things aren’t the source after all. It’s the ignition. The keys, elements, that need to swirl around. All that combines to create a new feeling that thus changes the rest of you. Both and beyond an evolution and an epiphany. I think that’s siVis.”

And then they all fell silent, trying to process that alone.

“Well shit,” Maddie let her arms flap to her sides.

“Yeah, I don’t think I can have any of that,” Aiko said. “I still don’t even get what you even said—”

“And that’s the trick,” Jackie tried to knead back the hair strains that were undone, leaving River to step up to explain further.

“It is totally and utter bullshit, yes. But it’s total and utter bullshit because we’re us. This is the kind of realm that we were trying to tap into here. Where our definitions and meaning of things, the human element, needs an update at an incredible, accelerated scale, and it’s so foreign, so confusing, and so counterintuitive it’s like chucking a smartphone to a caveman and saying, ‘Hey, order some takeout for me, yeah? I need to finish my job resume in Docs. Card’ll autopay for it, don’t worry’.”

“…Ooooh,” it dawned on Aiko. “Because the caveman is human… But we can do that stuff now… And that’s asking him to do something he could do in theory… But it’s too new… Too much… Even if he theoretically can…”

“…So, it’s all flighty bullshit we can’t make sense of, even if we tried?” Tracy said, scared.

“I’m afraid it’s all flighty bullshit we can’t make sense of, even if we tried,” River said, defeated.

“A-and we’ve just wasted our goddamn time,” Tracy said in abject horror.

“We’ve might’ve just wasted our goddamn time,” River just simply said.

“So, that’s an all in favor of Plan B if I ever heard one,” Maddie said dejectedly, if not trying to inject humor. The rest murmured as they slowly went to go look outside.

Jackie was glad that they did, her hand gripping her forehead as it was coated with fresh sweat. She was glad that the haze, the confusion of the discussion completely hid the clear and damning ramifications. Maybe it did, maybe they’ll come to realize what she has.

This was a complete and utter fool’s errand. Another dig, another blunt hit from the reality that was so absurd yet so absolute. That the so-called salvation that they all wanted, was just as complicated and needless as the forces that they needed it so that they could raise against it, fight against it.

They were stupid, to do this. She was so, so, stupid.

“Just FUCK MY FUCKING ASS,” jogged Jackie back, she raced over to see what Maddie shouted at, over.

“…Oh fuck my fucking ass…” Jackie repeated, somehow making it sound like a tragic cry for help.

The street proceeded to bend itself, blocking out the sky with its monolithic movements. It rained pavement from above, destroying the buildings like hail peppering a hill of salt.

Aiko was already clawing into her backpack, pleading that she didn’t lose it. She even tossed out the plans and ideas she had for weeks as her instincts were driving her. She kept glancing, scared, at her equally afraid victims, but she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t focus.

She found it. Thank goodness that she found it, the very climbing/grappling rope that she pulled out earlier the night. She walked before everyone, one foot planted on the door frame as she poked her head outside to scan the area, finding a streetlight post. She began swing the hook-end, in rotation, even against the rock-sized pieces of street that hit and pinged off it. Her palm was getting seared by the rope but she couldn’t afford to care.

A toss, barely even making headway before falling back down, the rocks aiding the trajectory. She had to do it again, faster, more intense, more ropeburn settling in. She had to ignore the tears welling in her eyes in silence, throwing it again, and again, and again.

Finally, just about it’s base, it looped itself around the pole and became the girl’s anchor. Wasting no more time, Aiko leaped to the sounds of protest from the screams of the others, grappling for her life and the hook to lock itself in place. She swung, tried to plant her feet on the sidewalk as she climbed back to the doorway, to the others.

Her shout of “C’MON!” wasn’t even heard or was made. The horrible sound of a building being crashed into rung in their ears, making Aiko jump upwards on the rope and the rest jump onto the rope; they call climbed and climbed, and eventually clung to the rope as the building was decimated by rockfall along with the others around it. The girls surroundings became nothing but the spray of glass, breaking of concrete and the rain of asphalt, destruction at all sides as they can only hope that it’ll pass over. It’s all that they could do, at this point.

Jackie felt the drop of blood on her cheek, only peeking slightly to notice that River’s left ear was leaking it. Even with the swaying of the rope being caused by the forces of destruction repelling them; this was truly their lowest point. She felt shivering, she heard panicked screaming and the sniffling of tears finally let out. No more exhaustion, it wasn’t about that, now. This was it. This was it.

At least she should try to act as the counter anchor for Aiko, and she found her sense of gravity to put her feet onto the sidewalk. Funny, how it worked out like that.

…Then Jackie realized that it was more than that. The pull of the fall below faded. Changed.

They found themselves upright again, recorrected, back to what they were used to. The perspective of the world also begun to flip, as the girls were standing on the ground again as the rockfall continued.

They flopped to the ground, as if they didn’t matter. And at the point, did they, they all thought at once?

With not a beat missed, they scrambled toward the alley that was in their view, to find something of a makeshift shelter. The shadows of the looming street started to set in, and while the others booked for the alley without a though, Aiko quickly undid the rope, with Jackie struggling to help with her trembling hands and heart hammering her body.

Jackie looked up and frozen where she was. A thick, comet of street was barreling towards Maddie, Tracy and River, none of them knew. But when they do, it’s going to make them freeze in their tracks.

It was time for Jackie to move without thinking.

She charged towards it as if to tackle it, and only ran faster because her fears were confirmed as she pasted her new friends. The comet met, connected to the side, her thrusted arm, side of her head, and it smashed against her before crumbling into nothing, knocking her down into a spiral then skidding a bit as she fell on the same, heavily damaged side.

Aiko was watching the whole time and sprinted leaving the rope. Maddie immediately turned back, screaming in a series of “no’s”, franticly. River was aghasted, and only could help Maddie and Aiko carry Jackie as they quickly got to her. Tracy was still there, frozen, trying to absorb what just happened. It was only until River came back to her, grasping her hand, did she move and yet she really didn’t.

It was awful. Broken, once toned, arm, roadrash covering it, plus her left side of the face, fresh and destroyed her tracksuit. Jackie only could make the noise that Maddie was all too familiar with; the ruddering noise coming from a nose trying, struggling, to breathe. Her eyes; once sharp, fierce, confident and hopeful. Vacant.

The shadows grew darker, as Jackie couldn’t make out anyone’s face but Maddie’s, as she was the only one close.

Maddie found herself, wrestling the tall girl to get her to sit up in her scrambling hold, sputtering “no’s” when she had a mouth that always knew what to say. She had to find those words quick as Jackie fluttered those eyes closed.

“Non-nononono-non-n-no,” what fell out of Maddie’s quivering mouth, “Ja-Jackiejackiejackie, please, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, pleasepleasepleaseplease—FUCK!”

A swift slap was delivered upon herself, startling the others because they were sure it was going to be for Jackie. The crack jolted her awake, if not slightly as she couldn’t hold her eyelids up, still making that horrid ruddering.

“Jackie, Jackie,” Maddie’s sore cheek made the words sound somehow more painful, “You have to—you have to stay with us, c’mon man, just stay awake, think about something, any fucking thing, just keep thinking, keep staying with us, or me or your family or a-anything man, just c’mon!”

She was barely stirring, slurring her words, taking a while for Maddie to piece together what she was saying, “…Wuzza… Conc… Concession…?”

Maddie nodded shakingly along the process, “Yeah—yeah, concussion, and I don’t know if it’s mild or worse yet and I’—I’m leaning toward it being pretty bad, so just keep those mean eyes open, yeah?”

“No…So much…Medical…”

Maddie kept blinking away, she pointed at Aiko, snapped at rapidly even as she motioned toward Jackie’s crooked limb, some of the blood covering her red shirt, standing out clearly, “Yeah man, wh-when you live in a shithole like I do, y-you gotta learn how to do shit like this, a-actually I took it as some stupid elective at my shitty school and-and I actually l-learned a lot a-and yeah, focus on how weird it is; a piece of shit like me knowing anything and shit, yeah, yeah yeah—”

Jackie just stared at her in a daze, head wobbling slightly even as the crass girl is holding the back of it straight, tight. She jumped at the sound of ripping as Aiko tore the bottom of her own shirt completely off, giving it to Maddie and backing away.

“Jesus, you’re all fucking ripped and shit,” Maddie tried to talk, quickly fashioning a sling for the battered girl, grunting out the next run-on sentence, “I mean, I should’ve known but fuck, can people break their teeth on them or what? Have you tried, is it something that happened with some weird dude that wanted you—or-or girl, I don’t discriminate, but holy shit we gotta wrap this up so you can still bench-press cars; you still with me?!”

“…What’s…Even next…?”

“Yeah!” Maddie replied trying to keep up the manic pace, “Yeah, that’s why we need that fearless leader brain of yours man, it’s gonna be some crazy plan that’s totally gonna work this time man, I’m dumb as shit or I didn’t care about all that stuff, so you gotta pick up my slack!”

“…No…”

Maddie slowed to a halt, looking at a girl that was truly broken.

“…What…Is…Even next…?” Jackie struggled to fight back the tears. “No…Point… All of this…”

And like that, the mean and proud girl’s hardy walls came down, and she too cried, grubbling her next, coherent sentence, “I’m ‘bout to fucking cry, yo…”

Jackie nodded slowly, and reached up to her cheek with her hand, lacking total control.

“I knew it-it was over,” Maddie sobbed out, hiccupping as she continued to talk, “I-I don’t want it to be like this…!”

“I…I know,” Jackie mumbled out. “We…We messed up. We should have dealt with… Should’ve been like Edith…Strong…”

Maddie didn’t question who that was and couldn’t, as she tried her hardest to cry silently despite herself.

Everywhere was encased in shadow, but Jackie couldn’t help but to look up to where the sky should’ve been. No one would find them. Not law enforcement, not Shift researchers qualitied to help, not even their families, their parents. Not even the deadliest recorded incident where people wanted siVis was this terrible, this strange.

Funny how something she hated… Feared… She earnestly wanted to go back to in this moment. And she had to make peace with the fact that she and the others can’t.

She saw something come tumbling down, gleaming almost by the judgement of her clouded eyes. She welcomed it.

…But then she realized two things. That the “gleam” looked like lights from far away on a street, and the fact that while it broke the last of the building, it wasn’t breaking itself.

It was a sign. A literal small, street billboard.

Jackie tried to use all the coordination she had left the point, but it made enough noise for the others to notice. Gasps, mixed with surprise and overjoyed confusion, echoed as Aiko, Tracy and River instantly bolted over and tried to align themselves to catch it, raising their arms. Despite the debris it was causing as it hugged the “wall”, the three girls stood their and painfully intercepted the sign brought it out of the world’s perspective and put it down on its side, dropping it with a thud.

“Rosebud,” Tracy said deliriously, the light showing her face shifting from crying to smiling, “Rosebud!”

“Rosebud…” Jackie repeated, softly, completely blown away herself.

“I-I… Can’t fucking believe it…” Maddie choked up. “That’s so stupid… That’s so unbelievably stupid…”

“It’s big enough for us all to huddle together and sliiiide!” Tracy cheered, possibly high on excitement.

Jackie couldn’t fault her, though. She wanted to be so, too.

But of course, this world can’t let her be, even as a possibility. It moved again, turning slowly as one side went one way and the other side countered.

Jackie’s mind raced but it couldn’t make sense of the thoughts. She tried getting up, but she can’t. Even with the head injury, her body locked up on her. Maddie felt this and helped her stand, struggling under her weight.

“Flip it on the metal side, quick—” Maddie grunted out before straining out a noise, “So it slides well, I guess…”

Aiko and Tracy did so studiously, revealing what the sign said. Jackie let out an amused huff, as it pained her.

It was some robot, a cute cartoonish design, giving a warm smile as much as a robot with an comical lightbulb for a head and his steel underbite jawline could, with a thumbs up with Davenport, a tourist shot of the island, in the background:

LIFE’S A CHANGING, AND THAT’S OKAY

“I don’t even know if this is going to work,” confessed River, her hands lifting her clumps of hair she has in each. She was in the light rays the sign produced and in the darkness.

Maddie shot her a glare, “Well alright Einstein, give us a physics lesson real quick.”

River shook her head slowly, and her voice was drenched in stress, “I’m no—I’m not even smart…”

“WE’RE NOT DOING THIS NOW,” Maddie roared at her, and she walked close to, somehow getting into her face without being nowhere near, “You’re fucking something—Worth it, useful—There, you’re fucking useful! So be useful in telling us what we need to do!”

The increased rumbling aided her nodding, River let go of her hair, “M-maybe momentum, a push, and h-hopefully…”

“Got it”, Maddie put Jackie down first onto the sign, “Tracy, you’re a bit thick, let her rest her head on your lap.”

She only sputtered, but it was a response none the less, she climbed on and sat seiza style, carefully raising and putting Jackie on her lap as ordered. Maddie grabbed the “front” of the sleigh, River and Aiko at the “back”.

They rushed out of the alley, the board sliding well enough as they come out on the street, watching the last of the buildings cross onto themselves.

Yes, buildings were flying into other buildings.

But the debris, the junk, was suspended in the “air”, as the plane was still twisting about in ways that ultimately, the girls didn’t care to worry about anymore. The very same was beginning to happen on their side.

Maddie planted herself at the front, “Alright. This shit is about to get crazy. Give us enough juice but hurry on, you got that?”

Both River and Aiko grunted in agreement.

“…Man, I make for a shitty leader, eh Jackson?” Maddie joked but also made sure she was still with her.

Jackie laughed, coughed, indicating that she was.

And with that, River and Aiko dashed along, pushing the sleigh as it headed straight for the twisted maelstrom they had to face. The road was not only ripping but beginning to twist forward again. Using both the motion and their gained speed, the sleigh took off and both Aiko and River jumped on and joined the rest who held on for dear life.

There was no form, no shape in which they’re approaching. The junk twisted into something that’s close to a cluster, a field twirling with trash. From the front and the back, at opposite ends in opposite in directions, as the girls’ Rosebud dived down and instantly impacted the large chunk, jump, sliding, onto the next and the next. Soon, they were sliding and jumping off the various debris, chunks of ground, pieces of wall, even shattered windows. Was it because they stumbled upon a nice rhythm of using the twisting and finding a way to ride it?

There was no time to ask questions, to react, they used their tired arms to hold on, used their tired body to steer as much as they could.

The shadows parted as the street and building remnants broke down into chunks. Even the 2D sky was becoming disturbed, giving way to the core, the center that they were far away from, their first hope.

The tear grew in size, and its glow was illuminating. They all looked at it as they continued to drift. There it was. That is their last chance.

They rode on, through the rough landings, through the constant perspective flipping. Despite going all over the place, they grew closer and closer to their target. Due to the nature of the cluster fields, they twist and twist closer to the rift, as the last “ring” orbited oh so close.

They couldn’t take in the exact detail, the exact reasoning why this is happening, they weren’t focused on that. They clutched at their respective part of Rosebud until their nails were white, what matter was what came up ahead next, and they constantly checked the status of the rift.

Maybe the head injury made her closer to her emotions, but Jackie found herself crying again. Finally. Finally, this nightmare that had no passage of time, that was made of fakeness and fear, and was surreal just for the sake of such, was over. It was all finally over.

Just before the final loop, everything, including Rosebud screeched to a halt.

This catapulted Jackie and made the others twitch to hold their places as they looked on with horror.

Jackie fell and landed on a small, but body-sized chunk. Her motor controls still shot, she tore, she clawed, she practically dug her fingers, of one hand, into the mass. She hit her broken arm in the process, and her vision swam as she arched in pain.

She looked up, and she was practically a block or so away from the girls, but she could here them trying to slide down to meet her again. But it was fine, at least…

Then Jackie looked down. The rift that was expanding in size was shrinking second by second. The light dimming. Both from it and Jackie’s eyes as she took it in.

Of course. It had dawned on her why this world was so terrible. For every, single, action they took, it countered it. And it wasn’t methodical, it wasn’t planned, at least from the surmising of her feeble, human, meek brain and worldview. The fact that it was this aimless, unstable world that acted on not even rhyme nor reason, was enough for her to scream primally.

She was expending the last of her energy and she didn’t care. She wrecked her head around, causing the pain inside it to be worse. She screamed and she screamed, and she screamed, until her throat couldn’t allow her to. Regardless, she had something to say and it needed to be said.

“Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over aND OVER!” the strain on her voice was the only thing holding back her fury. “YOU DENY ME EVERYTHING, YOU TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING, PIECE BY PIECE! AND FOR WHAT?! IS THIS WHAT YOU ALWAYS WANTED?! THAT YOU WANTED A REACTION YOU CAN’T EVEN USE, GET A KICK OUT OF?!”

She heard Maddie, or someone, calling to her as they get closer, but it was all muffled, nearly muted by her rage towards the environment, the universe. She felt her grip getting heavier, and…

Or rather, she felt that.

She looked down and she whimpered. Her legs were systematically broken down, spiraling down into the void down below. Dark. Impenetrable. And she didn’t feel a thing.

This was it.

She felt a hand grab hers, she looked up. The girls, Maddie front and center, formed a chain to pull her up. But she isn’t budging.

“Weeee’re gonna get yooooou ouuuttta thiiis!” Maddie strained, clearly out of energy herself. Soon, her body will lock, along with the others, and they’ll all meet the same, terrible fate.

Jackie moved her nubs idly, and it dawned on her.

“…Let me go,” barely a whisper.

“NO!” Aiko shouted, so far from the back, practically sweating buckets.

“No. Let me go,” Jackie insisted.

“N-never!” Tracy squeaked out yet went up a pitch. “What happened to the bravado?!”

“Jackie, I know you can’t feel anything or some shit, but you’re really--!” Maddie was cut off.

“No, I do feel something. Familiar. Super familiar…” Jackie glanced down, moving her nubs more, to get a confirmation. “Ground. And not just… Not just any ground. I know those loose floorboards from anywhere…”

Maddie eyes got bigger than Jackie was ever expected, as the grip loosened a bit, “Y-you mean…?”

Jackie looked at her, then River, then Tracy, and finally Aiko, “It’s worth a try. One final try.”

Maddie then turned to the struggling girls. They knew that they were kidding themselves when they wanted to save her, to give her the humane illusion that she could’ve been saved. But they were equally tired, equally broken.

She let go and then watched Jackie break into pieces, swirling into the void. She then jumped in herself, same effect. Then River dived in. Then Tracy, closed her eyes shut, leaned forward and sucked in. Aiko took steps back and performed a running start, leaping in. The world promptly was allowed to collapse, everything being devoured by the void until it was the very void’s turn itself.

It was like every psychedelic, mind bending interpretation every artist, everyone, had on the metaphysical, the beyond, but unrestricted. Nothing held back by the human mind, capability, technology and comprehension. And it would’ve been unseen, untouched by said human experience until the girls made their choice. Were there colors? Were there shapes, sounds and structure? Where were they? It was all so much bigger than them, they were mere specs despite unable to sense themselves in such grandness. Then came something, a sequence, that was understandable, recognizable, especially to Jackie.

The countless centuries that were so alien yet was building foundation toward what they knew, the collective birth of civilization, the birth of kingdoms and dynasties, the fall of Rome, the Napoleonic Wars, discovery of the New World, the revolutionary birth of America, the two World Wars, the two bombs, the tangible paranoia that ruled over decades, the man on the Moon, the corpse of the President on the motorcade, the lone man in front of the tank, the tearing down of the wall, the two towers on fire, all there, all along at once with the other moments, stretching across the plane but still seen, maybe the moments were something she and the others picked or what they could make out.

But then there was the shot of the most important woman in the world, getting warped by a freak Shift wave on live television, the tragedy that they lived through and understood since they were roughly five. Thus, came the cavalcade of the series of events and moments they all knew too well, unable to look away, this time. What was called a transition was instead a downward slope that even they figured then was a bad sign. The mood of existential dread that defined them and others. But they didn’t have to watch any longer.

The Shift Noumena, represented by a crawling infection, took over the moments of history, all of it a blur now. Tangles of writhing, eternal veins, twitching, becoming engorged and paving over even itself, a healed over scab that itself had marks that could never fix. Then it became just a flash. It was all a flash, in the end. A flicker in the expansive unknown that simply continued. The unexplainable. They all experienced this, and they can never explain this, even to themselves, for the rest of their lives.

And it was all a moment, as if it all didn’t matter. Jackie stood in the middle of her room, finally safe and sound.

Jack Snr., her father, came rushing in by opening the door, with his wife Dawn behind him, “Jackie?! What was that noise? When did you get in--?”

He didn’t know that his questions would’ve been solved with answer that was so incompatible.

All he saw was his only baby girl with totally blank eyes with a face twisted frozen with pure terror.

What she wanted was finally given to her.

Her skin went translucent, opening in sections under her own power. This extended to her limbs, arms, legs, all expanding outwards into pieces, but always meant to be somehow. Her screams, which were strained by her damaged throat, not only showed no signs of damage earlier, but grew louder, stronger, as if she finally found the hidden well of power.

Said power shined out of the sections that her pieces of herself couldn’t cover, the exposed tissue, and said light was flashing in some certain motion. Then it happened, as she separated into even more of her pieces and they all started to shift and connect endlessly, as she tried to move and continued to scream.

Jack, not only knowing what’s happening but dreaded it, shielded his wife as she cried out for their daughter, and that gutted him, holding her tightly for his benefit versus hers.

Jackie has now become a shifting mass of her individual pieces, every time she moved illustrated with such detail, it lingered after each motion. She grabbed onto her desk for it to spilt under her power, she fell backwards into her poster littered wall only to break it with her might, she finally stumbled unto her loose floor, reaching out to her parents, only for it to cave in.

It wasn’t just Jackie. It was each of the girls, going through the same motions, in their respective homes. Maddie tried to run outside, away from her neighborhood, only to have everyone witness her come undone. Aiko slowly merged onto the bed that she almost never sleeps in and they couldn’t pull her out. Tracy, alone in her apartment, turned it into a multi-loaded trap. And River in hopes of trying to breath, trying to calm down, only became ghastly.

They did it. They achieved their siVis.