"She's obviously slipped into a fucking coma. She won't wake the hell up!"

"A what now?"

Science. This is why you look into modern science. How could these three wizards who could make candles float with the snap of their fingers not know what a coma was.

"Co-ma," I pronounced, the sarcasm strong in my voice. "A state of deep unconsciousness that lasts for a prolonged or indefinite period, caused especially by severe injury or illness."

I Firez smirked at me. His cheek was still a bit swollen from his T.V incident, but other than that he was back to normal. The Wizards were old and wise even though they only looked twenty. They had dealt with stranger.

Still they didn't know what a coma was.

"It's because she had a concussion and fell asleep!" I yelled, answering back to IFirez smirk.

"What do we do then Dr M.D?" IFirez spoke. He still was smiling brightly, like this wasn't some drastic situation. "You seem to be aware of everything even though we're 300,000,000 years older than you."

"Oh are you arrogant bastards still using that card!" Wag spoke louder than I had heard him in awhile. He had just gotten out of the shower because his moss brown hair was wet, he had clean clothing on.

"Wagglington!" Martha scolded. "That is not how we talk to our guests!"

Wag went ghost white, scared horrified by Martha. "Sorry dear," he mumbled out.

And then we all went into shock, at least I did. Martha and Wag had gotten pretty chummy lately and it was starting to get suspicious. Of course that couldn't be a possibility because Martha was with Steve and Steve would beat the shit out of Wag. Or maybe it could be because Steve hadn't been around? Or maybe it wasn't? Maybe my brain just wanted an excuse to distract myself from the situation?

Andor, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed watching Hope, finally moved his gaze from her to his aunt. "What?" He asked in confusion. He had this glassy gaze to him, like he was an overriding computer.

Martha cleared her throat. "Nothing dear."

Brute, the wizard representing water, glared at Wag. He seemed to be the most logical one, except for this case. "What do you mean? The old person card?"

"You know what I mean," Wag sighed. He was to scared to raise his voice again. "Tell the man how we can get Hope awake."

Brute didn't budge. He didn't have an edge of guilt making him move anywhere. He was calm, like still water. I wanted to clutch my hands around his neck and shake him like a rubber chicken.

IFirez groaned out. I could tell he was silently swearing in his mind, and didn't care whatsoever if the people in the room knew that.

He ripped a page of paper out of someone's sketchpad, and started scribbling down on it with a good pencil.

I looked back at Hope thinking that maybe the Wizards messing around with her art supplies would make her wake up so she could smack them. Her hands stood still, limply laying at her sides. One was in a stressed fist and the other was flat on the bed. She was her normal shade of pale pink, except for the red that bursted out around where she had gotten hit.

I had almost got her back, it felt like. She had looped out of her bizarre spell back at the crypt. She became herself again. Her curiosity and stubbornness that overwhelmed her fear during the whole event. The way she went blindly into battle knowing seemingly exactly what she was doing. That was the little girl that saved me from having my neck slit at the Modsteps. That was my Hope.

And as soon as she regained her light, she burned out. I was scared it would be permanent this time.

"I have a list of simple ingredients," IFires held the list out angrily. His posture was oddly aloof. "But since your universe is dying it's going to be nearly impossible to find."

Martha left her sultry gaze at the floor to glare at the Wizards. "Excuse me?!" She boomed out.

Martha is very nit picky. She would win extreme perfectionist war with her eyes closed. She's also very independent and powerful. She's like a grandma with a big China cabinet at Thirty.

The Wizards hadn't witnessed the mix of guilt and fear you get when Martha yells at you. They weren't playing tricks and lies when Martha asked a question.

"I mean it's obvious," Thomas spoke. He was usually the most grounded out of all of the Wizards. Down to earth. "The whole bloody ocean jumped out of the earth. Were rats on a sinking ship."

Martha's skin was pale white out of fear at this point, a fear that I had gone numb too. The idea of a universe dying wasn't that preposterous to me at this point. Usually anything that we meddle with dies anyway.

Andor stood up quickly. He moved his hands anxiously, fidgeting with his pockets. "I'm - uh -," he stammered. He then delicately grabbed for the list that IFirez was unintentionally crackling up with his clenched fist. "I'm going to look for this."

IFirez, noticing Andor, let go of the list. He stepped back a few paces, smoothing out his red vest. "So sorry," He said politely. He motioned to the door. "Carry on."

A clear head space was always something hard for me to find. When a person would tell me to empty my mind, I would just think about something less stressful. For instance, instead of thinking about how Hope could possibly be in a coma forever, I thought about the fact that the universe was dying.

Clear head space.

How do people actually get in clear head spaces?

I had left the farm house because Sonja said I needed some air. That's her signal to stop trying to solve everything because I'm actually not helping. Instead of being oblivious to the fact that every plan I thought of to get us out of this situation wouldn't work, I decided to actually destress.

I found out that being calm was a lot harder than most people think. By most people I mean me.

Sonja once gave me this stupid three step list that she found about ways to be calm. I was positive that angsty teens were given it during health classes to stop anxiety, which is even dumber when you realize their anxiety is stemming from the same school that gave them that list.

I remembering throwing the list in the trash because I wasn't going to use something that fifteen year old boys use to calm down. You know what fifteen year old boys also do - masturbate and swear out thirteen year olds in video games.

I was not going to be in the same ranking as them. At least that's what I thought at the time, but there I was - genuinely thinking the idea over.

I didn't remember the three steps fully because I hadn't given a shit at the time, but I knew it made an acronym so you would remember.

An acronym that obviously didn't work!

I remembered that the first letter was F because when I saw the letter F I said fuck.

F, F, F, ......

Find what's stressing you out.

I could have wrote a whole epic about all the things that were stressing me out, but what were the big ones.

The fact that my best friends have a death wish. The fact that we're standing on a suicidal rock. The fact that nothing I do even matters because eventually everyone I love and me is going to die.

I'm probably supposed to forget about all of those things and suppress them now, aren't I? That's what normal people do.

So I repressed information. I tried my best to empty my mind. I started with details. I rearranged the way they worked together. I placed myself into a fantasy. A place where my team was happy, and they were safe. They had normal jobs. Maybe Tom was a travel agent. Maybe Hope got to be an actual artist instead of having her full time job being fending for her life. Jordan could cure cancer. Wag could become an amazing novelist, or a world class chef.

And Sonja. She could be the happiest person in the world. Maybe I was rich and I could give her whatever she wanted, like a thousand puppies, or an elephant, or a cake, or even a fucking snowman that's alive.

But for that fantasy I would have to block out our reality. Our setting. The place we live stops anything like that. So I blocked it out. I remembered the way that Hope explained the way she would escape into her imagination. She would concentrate on some white noise and separate herself.

I concentrated on the dry wind. That's the only noise that this decaying universe had at that point. The grass sounded extremely light as the bits of it left rustled through the wind.

I concentrated and concentrated and concentrated-

But nothing. I could want these things, but my imagination wasn't vivid enough. I still anxiously pondered over the other problems I had, and my fantasies drowned.

But when I did open my eyes, something happened.

I was no longer standing at the edge of a barren sea. I was in waste high green grass rippling in fresh smelling air. Air that didn't smell like sulfur.

I glanced up. The sky above me was still yellow with smog, but it had a barrier between me and it. A glass dome surrounded me. It surrounded me and a tiny little cottage with still growing flowers around it. I was trapped in an artificial oasis.

The cottage was hand made by logs. You could tell from the craftsmanship in the hinges that held the pine door. Everything had made with a hope for a future and through that future had been warn down. There were water stains on the chimneys bricks, and you could see at the top of the stone shingle roof that smoke ash had never been cleaned.

Someone had recently stayed there. It made sense to me really. I had no idea that anybody important could have been living there. The house was perfectly kept in the only still growing land in the universe. It was two stories, with a garden at the left, and a grey wood shack at the right with smoke coming from its chimney.

I started to walk to the shed. Maybe whoever was there would know how we could get out. As nice as the peace of the dome was, I had other places to be.

I stepped around some weeds as I grew closer to the dilapidated door. Everything was surprisingly unkept for by the shed.

When I opened the door, the only light I could find was the sliver of sunshine that the door let in. As I peered closer I noticed an oven that had half burning ashes in it. There was embers that still let out some warmth, but most had burned out. From the light of the sunshine of the door I could see a heap of something laying by the bit of warmth in the embers. A person. If they couldn't find the strength to move outside in the sun they must have been hurt.

"Sir," I stood right by the door, propping the rickety thing open more and more. "Are you okay."

The only answer I got was shuffling.

I began to feel tense, and I started to sense danger. I grabbed for my swords at my sides and backed away slowly.

The man stood up and I started to recollect bits of him. A white beard, and blue eyes. A limped leg with a brown shall, and a broke face with metal at one side.

Mianite looked in front of me, and I could tell that he was not injured because he stood very strong and tall. He wanted something from me. I could tell by the way his lip quirked up when he saw the hint of fear in my eyes. I had gotten good at telling when people wanted something from me.

"Tucker-"

"Whatever it is no," I answered hastily. The fear pounding through my chest still wasn't going to allow me from getting back to my team.

He arched his eyebrows. "I think you'll have a different opinion when you here my story." He turned back to the crackling coals still hot in the oven. "Not that you have much of a choice anyway."

He wasn't my god. He wasn't my Mianite, so he didn't have any control over me. But he was still a god. He still had power, even over people that didn't trust him. Some unearthly force made me listen.

"You saw this shed and you saw it as sad," Mianite said. "I know you did. I see it as sad too."

Mianite turned back to me. He breathed out energy. His senses were heightened in some way. A way that wasn't natural. He could seriously control me. In ways that fear should only control a person. The ways that our old Dianite would control people. I couldn't move.

"My mother used to create weapons of unbelievable strength in here."

Mother. I thought it over. It never accrued to me that a god could have a mother. They were the beginning. They created everything, including the idea of procreation. How could a god have a mother? If that mother was his - wouldn't it be Dianite and Ianite's mother.

He picked up one of the hot coals in the furnace. It didn't burn his skin. It only sizzled at his touch. "She crafted those crypts for me. Those crypts you thieves stool," he scoffed.

"You were going to use them to harm others." I wasn't sure why I said it. I knew it wouldn't budge Mianite's morals.

"They were mine to use," He snapped, and he threw the hot coal to the dirty ground like it was a popper.

"She made so many weapons I couldn't count. That's all she would do, since my father-" Mianite laughed a little to himself. "Well who knows who that is."

"My mother created weapons of power that you couldn't even try to comprehend," he continued. "There were so many, but each was different in its own way - sort of like mortals," he said wistfully.

"She made a weapon of the greatest power in the world. It could kill gods. It could kill the creators of gods." He looked down at the ground to hide his face. It was almost like I could see a tear start to form in his eye. "She was fair. She made a weapon that could even kill her. She made a weapon that could even kill life in it's self."

His mother was life! So his father was-

"I want you to have the weapon," Mianite said swiftly. I was forced out of my thoughts. "The last of my followers have died," he then quickly side eyed me. "But you are still here."

With a swift movement of his body, both of Mianite's hands were full. In one hand he had a rolled up piece of parchment. With his right index finger he was holding a quill that looked sharp enough to prick my skin.

His other hand balanced a long shining sword. The brightest sword I had ever seen. The metal gleamed so bright I almost had to look away like I was staring at the sun. The blade of it was fine and thin. I felt like I could cut open clouds with it.

Mianite handed the sword to me, and I grabbed it. It was so amazing I had to hold it.

Even though the handle was as bright and metallic as the blade, it felt like I had my hand wrapped around a cushion. The sword was so light as I maneuvered it around, but still firmed. It seemed like it was made out of nothing.

"The Kikoku," Mianite said.

And even though I was sure that was the name of a Japanese porno I didn't care. The sword was too beautiful to care.

"You can have it." The parchment rolled out in front of me. "If you sign this."

He still had the quill in his right hand.

I dropped the sword quickly, and I bounced out of the hypnotic lightness of the blade.

"Hell no!" I shouted out. If I deem myself on one thing, it's self control. "What in your right goddamn mind made you ever think that I would -"

"I wasn't planning on using the sword for bribery." He had a smirk inching on his face, and the all to familiar horrified beat of my heart started to play again.

There was only one more thing I had to my name. Only one more little string that he could pull, if he had possibly got so strong that he could harm others. If he could harm the people that hadn't pledged allegiance to him-.

"If you ever want your friend to wake up from that coma you better sign this contract right now." His eyes were stone cold now. There wasn't a fragment of the mortality he had created in them.

I took the quill from his hand. I knew there wasn't another option. I wouldn't fight it. I had been around gods the longest with everybody on my team. I knew how they worked, especially Mianite. There were no faults to his plan when he finally laid it out.

The quill could have been as sharp as the blade, at least it felt like it when I jabbed my finger. The blood stayed on the end of the quill just like ink.

I picked up the yellow parchment with my other hand - the one that wasn't bleeding. A long black line stretched out to where I signed my name. To where I signed my life to it. A long, long black line - just like our mortal lives on the coil of what the hell ever.

I will sacrifice myself. I told myself. Because they would all do the same.

I scribbled my name on the line with my eyes closed. I couldn't looked back. All I could do was stay standing with an empty heart with my head in my arms.

I could feel his smirk, with all of the unnecessary power rolling off of him. I couldn't feel it in a way where I just knew people. I could literally feel it. He had become that strong.

When Tom went to team Dianite, Dianite didn't make it obvious that Tom was being controlled. Tom was a a frog in a pot of water slowly getting warmer.

I - I was positive that I would be thrown into a rolling boiling pan and be roasted.

"Welcome to the team." He said.

I slouched back over the bed, holding my head up with my arm. I expected myself to be more panicked at a moment at this, but I had warn all of the anxiety out of me when I was trying to stop this from happening. I felt numb. No crying or begging or screaming or hopping. There didn't seem to be a point.

She was my teammate. My best friend. We were there for each other when we didn't have anybody else.

There never was a future in my mind without her. She had the family. She had the picket fence house. She had the silly dog and angry cat that the kids played with. She got the normal life. Sometimes there would even be a future where I had to sacrifice myself for her to have that.

It was always her before me.

That's how she treated everyone else. Some people may have called her an idiot with a death wish, but I knew. She would sacrifice herself for a bug. Every life she saw was more important than hers. She deserved someone to feel that way about her.

And now things were looking grim. She hadn't woken up and the environment outside was getting worse.

The heat had become extreme. It almost felt like their ozone was getting too thick for their earth to hold, and without the humidity from the ocean the air was dry. The grass had gone from yellow to brown, and some was even charred black. The air smelled vapid and groggy - like a rotten compost pile.

We needed to leave now or we would die.

Martha had stared out the window for the good while. I wasn't sure if she was trying to ignore the hazards around her, or if she was plotting how to fix it. Probably a mix of both knowing her.

I glanced at my watch - 11:11. Kids back in the modern world used to use the time to make a wish. Most of the time the wish was a cry for help - I wish for love, I wish to be understood, I wish to have better friends >:(.