Halloween is here again, and that means it's time for another Raven Halloween-themed story. This tradition started ten long years ago when I posted "
," a story about Nasperge meeting a very strange frog. The next year, I celebrated 2015's Halloween by crafting the poem "
," which featured the tortured Eidemtel. In 2016, I wrote about the harpy planeswalker Hanara in the short story, "
" rang in the day. 2021 saw Gale face her own personal ghosts in "
This year, as you undoubtedly guessed considering the thread I am posting this in, I am setting my Halloween tale in the M:EM High School. So, I hope you all enjoy a really bad day at school!
Alternatives
Daneera yawned.
Her eyes were barely half open as she walked through the school’s double doors. She walked sluggishly down the halls, barely able to focus on her surroundings. She had been up late the previous night, with Kerik, and she was in no mental space to be at school. But she was here, nonetheless, and she shuffled her way toward her locker, occasionally managing to say hello to friends and classmates. Most of them had their backs to her as they searched or arranged their own things.
“Hey, Nithka,” Daneera said to the other girl, who did not answer or look up. She merely tossed her head slightly in Daneera’s direction, her light brown hair shaking at the motion.
“Hey, Illarion,” Daneera said as he disappeared into a classroom.
The young forestmage continued on through the dim hallway, trying to wake herself up fully. It was going to be a long day, she knew, although with her sleep-addled brain working at maybe a fourth of the normal speed, she couldn’t quite remember why.
“’Morning, Denner,” she said, earning a low moan as an answer. He must have been tired, too. Daneera managed a small chuckle to herself, thinking that school should start about three hours later, and end about three hours sooner!
Daneera finally got to her locker and started sorting out everything for her morning classes. It was only a couple of moments later that she sensed a large shape approaching her from her left. She glanced over, then smiled. “Hey, Sharaka.”
“Oi, Daneera,” her friend said. “You look half-dead.”
Daneera closed her eyes and nodded. “Kerik and I were up half the night. I should have just skipped today.”
“It does seem to be a weird day. Do you smell something, by the way?”
Daneera took a sniff in the air. Her sense of smell was not nearly as keen as Sharaka’s, but even she caught a whiff of something rank. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m not sure what, though.”
“Yeah,” Sharaka agreed. “It’s almost like…wait, what’s that?” Sharaka pointed down the hall to Daneera’s right. “Did…did someone bring their dog to school?”
Daneera looked over, and froze at what she saw. Before she could say anything, Sharaka corrected herself.
“Wait, that’s not a dog. Daneera, that’s a wolf! I love wolves! But what would a wolf be doing in school?”
Daneera stared down the hallway, and at the far end, the wolf stared back. Daneera’s breathing started to grow heavy; the wolf did not seem to be breathing at all.
“Daneera? What’s the matter?”
The young forestmage’s bottom lip quivered slightly as she answered, her voice barely a whisper. “It’s Shuru.”
“Shuru?” Sharaka said. “I feel like I know that name.”
“She was…a friend of mine,” Daneera managed.
“Was?” Sharaka asked. “You had a falling out with a wolf?”
“No,” Daneera said. “Shuru died.”
“Died? What do you mean? She’s…” Sharaka’s reptilian face fell. “Oh, gods, Daneera. That’s what that smell is. It’s decay. Daneera…it’s death!”
Before Daneera could respond, the zombified Shuru started moving toward them, slowly at first, then picking up speed. Daneera’s eyes widened, and she turned without truly intending to. “Run!”
Sharaka hesitated a moment, her natural instinct to stand and fight, but with Daneera quickly moving away at a high rate of speed, she seemed to decide that, against the undead, discretion was absolutely the better part of valor. Daneera sprinted back down the hallway she had come through, but she only jogged about a dozen steps before stopping dead in her tracks. Sharaka was forced to skid to a stop behind her.
“What is it?”
Daneera did not answer. She didn’t have to. Shambling down the hallway toward them was Denner Fabellian, his face half-rotted, his skin a sickly green. Behind him a few steps was Illarion Vale in an even greater state of decomposition, and behind him, Nithka, her face barely more than a skeleton. And there were others besides, too many to name, some impossible to recognize. Daneera spun around, but Shuru was there, and behind her, she saw shapes approaching through the mist that was forming in the high school halls. They were surrounded.
“Hey, Daneera,” Sharaka said with an eerie calm. “Have you met the new girl yet?”
Daneera looked up at her friend, frightened and shocked that she could be so cavalier in the circumstance. But Sharaka was just staring at her, waiting for a response.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The new girl,” Sharaka repeated. “I think she wanted to meet you.”
“I…what?” Daneera said, incredulously. “No, I have not met the ‘new girl.’ Don’t you think we have bigger problems right now?”
Sharaka shrugged, then pointed down a third hallway, one that Daneera had not noticed before. There, in the swirling mist, was a young woman wearing a black cloak. She seemed to be radiating a deep purple miasma. Although the girl’s face was hidden beneath the ebony hood, Daneera could just see whisps of a glowing purple smoke curling out from where the girl’s eyes must have been.
“You!” Daneera yelled. “This is your doing, isn’t it?” The girl seemed to chuckle slightly. “What are you, some kind of necromancer?” The girl laughed harder, but did not answer. “Stop this!”
With this last exclamation, Daneera launched herself at the new girl. The necromancer put her hands up to defend herself, but Daneera was quicker, and managed to grab the girl by the left wrist and the cloak at her right shoulder. They scuffled for a few moments until the girl’s hood fell back, revealing her. Daneera froze, her mouth hanging open as she saw the young woman’s face.
It was her own.
“Daneera!”
Daneera jerked awake in her seat at the sound of her English teacher’s voice. She looked around at her English class, most of whom were staring at her. From the front of the room, Raleris cleared his throat. “Is everything alright, Daneera?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m just really tired, that’s all.”
“I understand,” Raleris said sympathetically, “but I think it would behoove you to stay awake, and I suspect your classmates would appreciate fewer distractions. You are taking your final exam, after all.”
Daneera looked down at her desk to see the test she had fallen asleep on, including the small wet spot where she had apparently drooled. Embarrassed, she picked up her pencil and started to work the test, only to realize that she couldn’t read it. Although she knew this was an English class, this test was, most assuredly, not in English. She raised her hand.
“Um, Mr. Raleris?”
“Yes, Daneer-AHH!” Raleris shrieked in surprise. “Why in the Multiverse are you naked, young lady?!?”
Daneera looked down to confirm the horrifying reality, before quickly moving to cover herself. “I…I don’t know!”
“Don’t worry,” Raleris said. “I can fix this. I know just the spell.” Raleris started summoning his mana and began casting a spell, but before he could finish it, he screamed out loud, doubling over in apparent pain. He looked up at Daneera, pleading, and she managed to make out a single word from his agony-ridden voice. “Phthisis!”
Daneera started to move to help him, but before she could fully leave her seat, dark mana seemed to surround Raleris. His skin began to gray, and his veins thickened and darkened, pushing outward until they broke through the outer layer. Raleris screamed, and the classroom filled with the horrifying sound of bones cracking, crunching, and rearranging themselves. The thing that was once Raleris looked up at Daneera with new eyes. Hateful eyes. Eyes hungry for blood and flesh. As the Raleris thing lunged at Daneera, she instinctively turned away and closed her eyes.
The pain she expected never hit. After a long moment, she opened her eyes again, finding herself back in English class, although she was the only student there. At his desk in the front of the room, Raiker Venn sat staring at her. It was only then that Daneera remembered that Venn was her English teacher, not Raleris, and she found it strange that she hadn’t remembered that.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Venn,” she ventured. “I must have fallen asleep.”
Venn kept staring at her. “You have no idea, do you?” He asked.
“Huh?”
Venn lowered his eyes, considering something. After a moment, he rose to his feet and grabbed a paper off his desk. He walked over to her desk, keeping perfect time with his cane at each step. When he reached Daneera, he set the paper down on her desk. “Here,” he said.
“What’s this,” Daneera asked.
“It is your final,” Raiker said, and Daneera thought she detected a note of sadness in his voice, which was somehow worse than his usual cruelty.
“My final?” Daneera thought for a second as her sense of reality started to return to her. It was barely the middle of the semester. “But, there’s most of the year left, isn’t there?”
“There should be,” Raiker admitted. “But there is not. Not for you. This is your final.”
“What?” Daneera asked, beginning to grow irritated. “Look, Mr. Venn, what the hell is going on around here?”
Venn seemed to consider the question. Finally, he sighed deeply and answered her. “A waste, young lady. That is what is going on. A waste.”
“What does that mean?” She asked, moving to stand up. “I deserve to know what’s-”
“Perhaps you do,” Raiker interrupted, “but I do not believe I should be the one to explain it to you.” He looked off toward the nearby wall. After a long, dramatic pause, he looked back at her. “I know what the students think of me, and because of that, I know my words mean little to you. For what it is worth, this was not my doing. I would not have wanted this.”
“Wanted what? Come on, just tell me!”
“You will learn soon enough,” Raiker said sadly. “One word of warning. You cannot trust your own senses. Do you hear me? You cannot trust yourself, Daneera.”
She was about to press the issue further when the classroom door burst open. Daneera jumped, and had a momentary panic when she saw the massive white tiger that had shattered it, but that panic quickly turned to wonder as the tiger began to shift from the form of a true tiger to a catfolk.
“Daneera, you have to listen to me!” The cat said.
“Jade?” The forestmage asked. “Is that you?” She had never seen Jade in anything but her stone skin.
“Yes, it’s me. Listen, I don’t have much time. Someone has been keeping me out! You’re dreaming, Daneera, and we can’t wake you up! The teachers are getting really worried. Strange things are happening all over the school, but you’re the only one who seems to be locked in sleep. I don’t know why, but I think it’s the new girl. She’s been watching you all day with this…look…in her eyes.”
“The new girl?” Daneera said, her eyes narrowing. “With the black cloak? I had a run-in with her earlier.”
“Black cloak?” Jade asked, confused. “No, she’s wearing a blue dress. Sharaka is trying to get to the bottom of things, and I’ll do what I can, but if she was able to keep me out for so long, she must be strong.”
“How did you get in, then?”
“Orida is distracting her,” Jade replied. “Once we started to theorize that it was her, she and Sharaka jumped into action. But Daneera, be careful. I’m not joking, there are some strange things happening in the school. I can’t quite explain-”
“Naughty, naughty,” a girl’s voice reverberated through the room, shaking the foundation and startling Jade into silence. Daneera looked around but saw no one. Even Raiker had vanished. “I do not recall inviting any guests to this party.”
Jade started to speak, but before she could, an unfathomably powerful gust of wind tore through the very walls, literally ripping Jade off her feet and right out of Daneera’s dream. Daneera fought to stay standing, and after a few minutes, the wind whipped around and seemed to gather in on itself, taking the form of a young woman standing in the center of the classroom, staring directly at her. Somehow, the young planeswalker was not surprised to find that the other woman’s face was the mirror image of Daneera’s.
“Who the hell are you?” Daneera snarled. “What do you want?”
The other Daneera curled her lips into something between a smirk and a sneer. “Not particularly strong in matters of the mind, are you? I wish I could say I was surprised. Still, I would be lying if I didn’t say a part of me was a bit insulted.”
“I’ll hurt more than your damn feelings,” Daneera challenged. She had had quite enough of whatever was happening, and she was determined to put an end to it. Moving as fast as she could, Daneera sprinted toward her doppelganger, but the instant she reached her, the other woman vanished.
“The sound of laughter echoed through the room for a long moment before the disembodied voice started to speak. “I am so disappointed. Not surprised, mind you, but disappointed. However, considering I have places to go and things to do, I suppose I should simply end this little experiment. Say good-huh?” Something seemed to distract the voice, and then Daneera had to cover her ears as a mind-shattering scream rent through the room. She thought she heard the other her scream the word “no,” but she couldn’t be sure. She closed her eyes and plugged her ears, trying to shut out all external stimuli.
Daneera had no idea how long it was until she realized nothing further was happening. Eventually, she risked opening her eyes, and she found herself…nowhere. Everything was white all around her, but somehow, it was not a bright white that hurt her eyes. It was a soft white, a dull white, the kind of white that made her wonder if she were dead. Then, behind her, she sensed more than heard someone else. She whipped around and found herself face to face with Denner Fabellian, who was wearing a long, black trench coat that hung down to his feet and looking at her with an expression she could not quite place. It was partially concern, she thought, but there were other emotions mixed in, as well.
“Denner?” She asked.
His expression softened slightly, and yet, from his reaction, it seemed as though her voice had hurt him. “It’s good to see you again, Daneera.”
Daneera thought back. It had been quite a while since Denner was unexpectedly expelled from the school, and she had not seen him since. “It’s funny to see you,” she said, although ‘funny’ seemed like the wrong word. “I just had a dream about you a little bit ago.” She thought about Denner’s zombified features and shuddered. “Maybe you don’t want to know about that.”
Denner lowered his head. “That wasn’t a dream, Daneera.”
She gave him a hard stare. “You were a zombie, Denner. Of course it was a dream.” She looked around the featureless white space in which they were standing. “For that matter, so is this.”
“Pinch yourself and check,” Denner said sadly. Reluctantly, Daneera did, and she winced at the pain. She did not wake up. “See?”
“What the hell? What is this, Denner? What is going on?”
Denner took a very deep breath. “I’m afraid that will take some explaining.”
Daneera gestured around them. “I’ve got time.”
“Less than you think,” the Delver said ominously. Then he sighed again. “I’m sorry, Daneera. I know this is difficult for you. Please just understand that this is just as difficult for me.”
“What are you saying? You’re talking as though I were dead.”
Denner’s lips trembled. If Daneera didn’t know any better, she would think his heart was breaking. “No, Daneera. You’re not dead. At least…” he paused, thinking. “At least, you’re not dead in the same sense that I’m not a zombie.”
Daneera looked Denner over. He looked just like the old Denner, her friend, and not the putrefied version that had been shambling through the halls earlier. His hair was a bit less unkempt than it used to be, and he wore a small golden locket around his neck, which she had never seen him wear before, and was leaning slightly to his right, but otherwise, this was just Denner. She shook her head. “And you’re saying that earlier, when I saw you as a zombie, that wasn’t a dream?”
Denner shook it head. “It was not.”
“So you were a zombie, but what, you got better?”
“That wasn’t me.”
Daneera scoffed. “It certainly looked like you.”
“That’s because it was.”
“What? You’re talking in circles, Denner.”
He nodded in agreement. “I have to be careful what I say. There are…rules. And I’ve already broken them.”
“Then there’s no harm in breaking more,” Daneera goaded.
“Not to me, no,” Denner agreed. “But to you, there is. Too much harm…” He trailed off a bit as he spoke, and even though there seemed to be no ground in this place, she could swear that she felt a slight rumble through her feet anyway. Denner seemed to feel it too, and he looked around in concern. “I don’t have much time, Daneera. I’m sorry. I’m…so sorry.”
“Just tell me what is happening, alright?”
Denner nodded. “I will. I…am allowed to tell you that. But it is against the rules to tell you how to get out of it.”
“Get out of what?”
Denner sighed deeply, and looked around, everywhere but at her. Finally, he focused his eyes on hers, and the intensity Daneera saw there was unlike anything she had seen in Denner Fabellian before.
“The Realities are imploding, Daneera. They are crashing together. More accurately, they are intruding into yours.” Denner must have seen the confused expression on her face. “There are countless Realities, each with different versions of us. Some are minor differences, like somebody choosing to go left instead of right, or a coin flip coming up differently. Others are significantly different, like wars being won by different sides. And some, even our very identities are almost totally different.”
“Wait, do you mean…” Daneera paused, thinking. “The two ‘new girls’ I’ve heard about, the one in the black cloak, and the one in the blue dress, those are…other Daneeras?”
Denner nodded. “Different versions of you. Radically different. From different Spokes.”
“Spokes? Like, on a wheel?”
“Yes, except that a wheel moves in two dimensions. These Spokes move in, well, at least four.” There was another rumble, this one more prominent. Denner winced. “Listen, we don’t have much time. At the center of all Realities is the Nexus, the Womb of Possibilities. The closer you are to the Nexus, the more things converge. The Spokes are the six major Alternatives, the six Prime Differences. At the far ends of the Spokes, there are thousands, maybe millions of alternate Realities. Those are where the differences can be minor. But the differences between the Spokes are massive, and they dictate all that is possible.
“In your Reality, you are aligned with 
mana, and your personality has developed to match. When you arrived at school today, the Reality of the 
aligned Daneera was bleeding into your Spoke. That Daneera is a necromancer, and a powerful one, apparently.”
“What did she want?”
“The Realities are crashing into one another, and only one of each of us can exist in…whatever’s left. I don’t know if that Daneera knows that or not, but I suspect she wanted to kill you.”
“Great. What about the classrooms I was in, with Raleris and Raiker? Are you telling me those were real, too?”
“Yes and no,” Denner said. “The girl in the blue dress is the 
aligned Daneera. She is a Dream-mage. When the Realities shifted and tore you away from your scuffle with the necromancer you, she took advantage of your disorientation and cast you into a deep sleep, where she could manipulate your dreams. So the experiences you had were dreams in that sense, but the Reality Jade described, where you were asleep and could not be woken, was real.”
“So how did I wind up here?” Daneera asked. “And how do you know all of this, anyway? Where exactly have you been since you were expelled.”
“I was never expelled, Daneera. I…I am not the Denner of your world. I am the Denner of the Reality in which you…or rather that Daneera, was aligned with 
mana. And you wound up here because, well, because I brought you here.”
“Why? Is that within these ‘rules’ you keep talking about?”
Denner closed his eyes, and Daneera was shocked to see a couple of tears squeezed out of them. The Delver tried to speak, but seemed unable. He simply shook his head no, just before an even larger rumble shook the space. His eyes shot open, and Daneera could see the desperation in his face. “Listen, Daneera, they are almost here. I am so sorry, Daneera. This is all my fault. I caused this. I didn’t mean to, but I did! And now it might destroy everything!”
“You?” The huntress asked. “How? Why?”
“I just…I just wanted you back. Her back, I mean. I just…”
Denner stopped talking and started sobbing, seemingly unable to speak. Daneera, on a sudden whim, walked up to him and put her hand out, slipping it underneath the golden chain of his locket. She slid her hand down and pulled it from his coat. It was in the shape of a heart. Denner reached up to prevent her from continuing, but one hard-eyed stare from Daneera stopped him. She opened the locket, and inside were two halves of a tiny picture. One was Denner, kissing someone on the cheek. The other was her – or more likely, the aligned Daneera – being kissed on the cheek. She looked up at Denner, her jaw set.
“What happened?”
Denner hesitated, but eventually managed to answer her. “In almost every Spoke, you wind up with Kerik. But in my Spoke, you never met him. You never met him because…we…wound up together. And we were happy. But then…you…she…” He paused for a long, long time. “She died. She…was killed.”
“Killed?” Daneera exhaled. “In high school?”
Denner nodded. “The Rulus Twins were a real terror in my school. One day, they went too far and put Sharaka in the hospital. It was…bad. And my Daneera decided something had to be done. She gathered us together, and we tried to stop them. We forced them to flee, with the law hot on their trail. But, when we confronted them, they had one last trick up their sleeves. One of us had to make the sacrifice. And Daneera…my Daneera…” he looked into her eyes, his own overflowing with his sorrow, “was faster than I was.”
“I…” Daneera started, then stopped. It was strange, talking to this Denner. In many ways, he was much like the Denner she had known for years, but the differences were there. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. Her instinct was to comfort her friend, but part of her realized that this wasn’t her friend. This was a stranger, just as those other Daneeras were completely different people than she herself was. Finally, she resolved to say, “I’m sorry for your loss. And I don’t mean to be insensitive, but like you said, we have little time. You said you caused this. How?”
Denner seemed to set his jaw as he forced himself to answer. “I stole something. Something that was never meant for me to have. At the time, I didn’t know anything about the Realities, or the Nexus, or the Spokes, or any of that. I just wanted a way to be reunited with you-sorry. Not you. With the Daneera of my Reality. It’s…hard to remember the difference, looking at your face.”
“What did you take?”
Denner shifted his stance and opened his trench coat. The first thing Daneera noticed was his mangled right leg. It looked as though it had been used as a chew toy for packs of hellhounds. But then, next to that, she saw the cane. It was a deep black color, except for the handle, which was silver and carved in an ornate hand grip. It was a cane she had seen before, several times, most recently in her dream.
“Is that Raiker’s cane?”
Denner nodded. “Getting it wasn’t easy.” He managed a half-choked chuckle. “Mr. Venn would probably see the poetic irony of the fact that, in the effort of obtaining the cane, I created the necessity for one.” He indicated his leg.
“I’m surprised he parted with it. I feel like the Raiker of my world would give up his life before he gave up that cane.”
Denner looked away. “The same is true of my Reality’s Raiker.” The silence hung between them for a long time before Denner hung his head. “I’m not proud of anything I’ve done since I lost her. I know I must seem like a monster, and maybe I’ve become one. But please, Daneera, please know that when you…when she and I were together, I was a…better man.”
Daneera considered the implications of his words, but an even stronger rumble distracted her from any judgments she may have wanted to pass. “I need you to get to the point, Denner. What happened?”
The Delver’s face took on a mask of determination. “I just wanted her back. But there was no way, in my Reality, to do that, except necromancy, and I didn’t want that. Even if I did, she never would have forgiven me for it. So, I started delving and, using the cane, I discovered the other Realities. I still didn’t really know about the Spokes, and how important they were…or how delicate. So I opened them up, trying to get to one of you, thinking one of you must be close to the Daneera I’d lost.
“You have already seen the Daneeras aligned to and . Neither has any of my Daneera’s goodness. I thought the 
aligned Daneera would fit, but she was with Kerik. And, in fact, had burned down his school to get him out of there.” Daneera gasped at the thought. “But I didn’t know or understand how to use the cane like Raiker does. By the time I opened the way into your world, I had weakened the boundaries too much. The Spokes are being drawn into each other, or rather they are all converging on yours.”
“Why mine?”
“Because it was the last one I checked. Your Spoke is the most intact. The others are seeking stability. Equilibrium. It will tear them all apart, and cast adrift all of the Possibilities beyond. It will destroy everything. Unless you can stop it.”
“But how?”
The rumble that came this time nearly knocked both of them down. Whatever was coming was almost there.
“I can’t tell you. My life is already forfeit for the role I’ve played in this calamity. But you, so far, are a bystander. A victim. You have not broken the rules. If I tell you, you will have. All I can say without endangering you is that one of the Daneeras knows the answer, and came to it fairly. Within the rules. I know how frustrating it must be, to know that the answer lies in what I have not talked about, but of all the six prime Daneeras, you are the only one who can save the Realities now.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who wouldn’t burn down a school to be with your lover. You wouldn’t mess with anyone’s dreams or raise an army of the dead. You-”
Denner was interrupted by a sudden explosion of force from behind him. The endless white space surrounding them buckled, and then shattered, revealing something like a starfield behind it, although no view of space contained stars in such numbers. An ugly, purple tentacle burst through the breach and reached for Denner, who swiftly pushed the button on the cane and drew a thin, silver sword from within. With one slash, he cut through the tentacle. There was a painful screech from the other side, and the stub of the tentacle withdrew hurriedly.
Denner looked back at Daneera. “I only have a few seconds. I know the Denner of your world annoyed you. I know you never had the love for him that my Daneera had for me. But I need you to understand that the Daneera of my world loved me. She loved me for many things, but most of all, and please don’t forget, she loved me for how I would cheat at every game I played. I always broke the rules.”
Daneera furrowed her brow, confused by this statement. She had no time to say anything more, though, as the breach abrupted widened, and several more tentacles shot toward the Delver. This time, they were too fast for him. One wrapped around his wrist, another around his good leg, and a third around his waist. Denner didn’t even struggle. In one swift motion, the tentacles retracted, pulling Denner through the aperture without another sound.
The endless white that had surrounded her and Denner during their conversation slowly faded, and Daneera found herself standing in a boiler room, presumably back in the high school. She heard some distant screams echoing through the halls beyond, and the shuffling of what she presumed to be undead feet, but for the time being, she seemed quite alone.
Daneera knew that she needed to think fast. Denner had not been allowed to tell her what to do, but he must have dropped hints. Why else would he have made such a big deal out of his cheating at games? He said he had broken the rules; she just needed to figure out how. For one thing, the mere fact that she was the one who could stop what was happening indicated that what was happening could, in fact, be stopped. That was something.
But there had to be something else. That Denner seemed to know a lot about her, and about the other Daneeras, as well. He must have known that she would be determined to stop this catastrophe, even if she didn’t know there was any hope. So that was not likely the message he had sent her. She could try to find the necromancer and dream-mage version of herself, but that wasn’t likely to do any good. If they were trying to take her place in this Reality, that meant that they did not know that everything was going to be destroyed. What did that leave? The firebrand version of her? What would she know that could save Reality?
As Daneera asked herself that question, Denner’s words came back to her mind. He had said, I know how frustrating it must be, to know that the answer lies in what I have not talked about, but of all the six prime Daneeras, you are the only one who can save the Realities now.. There was something there. She just needed to see it. She felt like it was on the tip of her tongue, but a sudden impact on the metal door of the boiler room distracted her. From the other side, she heard the grunting and moaning of the undead, and not just one, either.
Daneera looked toward the door, fighting off the panic she was beginning to feel. It had to be there, somewhere. She knew that she didn’t know how to fix things. The and the aligned Daneeras likely didn’t, either, and the aligned Daneera was dead. Maybe if she could trick the necromancer into bringing the aligned one back? But Denner had specifically said no necromancy.
The answer hit Daneera like a ton of bricks, at almost the precise moment that something nearly as heavy seemed to hit the boiler room door. Six. Denner had said that there was six Prime Daneeras, but he had only mentioned five of them, one for each color of magic. But he had also said that the answer lies in what he had not talked about. That was it. She needed to find the one Daneera Denner had not mentioned. But where was she? Who was she? And if she was not aligned with any of the colors of magic, what did that mean? Was she all of them? Or perhaps she was none of them. Perhaps she was colorless like…
Daneera’s eyes widened. “Like Aerik,” she said to herself. “Snow mana. But where…”
Her thoughts were cut off by the door to the boiler room folding in on itself and flying ten or twelve feet into the room, landing just short of Daneera’s feet. On the other end was the massive, hulking form of Dorn, but his usually anger eyes were dull and lifeless, apart from the eerie purple glow she had seem emanating from the necromancer. The other Daneera must have killed the rhox and then raised him. This, Daneera decided emphatically, was bad.
The zombified rhino-man charged directly for Daneera, and she could see a host of other undead behind him beginning to move to close the gap. If Daneera were going to survive, she would need to be fast. She activated her speed auras and made a run for it, weaving around the sluggish Dorn and through the open doorway seconds before the zombie horde got there. Unfortunately that left Daneera with a new problem. There was no connecting hallway on the other side. Daneera was now stuck, a zombie horde in front and an undead Dorn behind.
It was times like this when Daneera was glad she never listened to Aloise about not bringing knives to school. Daneera felt uncomfortable as she started slashing at the zombies, particularly as she recognized some of them as former classmates, but this was about survival, and not just hers, but the survival of all Realities. And so, she dove head-first into her gruesome task.
She fought hard and pushed herself through, barely noticing as the bodies fell in piles beside her. She kept moving, kept funneling mana into her strength and speed auras, and just kept moving. She was nearly through the horde when she faltered, then fell. The remaining zombies moved in on her, and she ducked low and curled into a ball, trying to cover both her face and her vital organs. Fearing a painful sting and an excruciating death, Daneera was surprised instead to feel a blast of intense heat above her.
“Oi, Daneera! You’re alive!”
Sharaka’s voice felt almost like a warm blanket after everything Daneera had been through. She rolled up to her feet and, despite herself, wrapped Sharaka up in a big hug. “Sharaka! I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Same,” Sharaka said. “Daneera, what is going on? Everything’s gone to hell. Everybody scattered, but when nobody saw you come out of the school, I had to come back in for you. When I lost your scent, I thought…well, I thought the worst.”
“Sharaka, did we talk this morning?”
“Huh?” Sharaka asked. “I mean, we spoke briefly at your locker, then went our separate ways.”
“Did you see the wolf? The necromancer?”
“Necromancer?” Sharaka asked, then looked around at the destroyed zombies. “Okay, well, I guess that explains things, but no, I didn’t see anyone, and I certainly didn’t see a wolf.”
Daneera nodded. “Okay, so it must have been the other one.”
“What other one?”
“Never mind. Look, I think there might be a way to stop all this, but I need to get to the cafeteria.”
“Are you sure about that? I mean, the school’s been evacuated. We should meet up with the others.” She looked at Daneera, seeming to see the determination in her friend’s expression. “Alright, fine. You know I’ve got your back. Let’s just hur-”
Before Sharaka could finish, the massive form of Dorn crashed into her full-speed. Sharaka, ever prepared, rolled through the impact and came up on her feet, snarling at Dorn. “Get where you’re going, Daneera,” she growled. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Are you sure?”
Sharaka’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time.”
Daneera nodded and took off toward the cafeteria, leaving Sharaka and zombie Dorn circling each other. Daneera ran as fast as she could, but the battle with the zombies had depleted her mana, and she had several wounds and scratches that slowed her down.
When she burst into the cafeteria, it was filled to brimming with all manner of horrors, things that Daneera had only ever seen in her nightmares. One of them slashed her across her right shoulder, cutting deeply. The next barely missed her head with what appeared to be a scorpion stinger. When the third, a massive ape-like creature with bat wings, reached for her, she threw her entire weight into a dive at its mid-section, knife first. She passed right through with no resistance.
“Illusions,” Daneera said distastefully.
“You’re not as dumb as you act,” she heard her own voice say, although it had not come from her own throat. “Still no match for me, of course.”
The crowd of illusionary horrors split, and the other Daneera, wearing a blue dress and a self-satisfied smirk, appeared, walking toward the huntress.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Daneera warned the intruder. “I need to stop this before it’s too late.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing, you insufferable twit,” the other Daneera spat back. “Gods, it is so painful to see someone so dumb wearing my face. Obviously, our worlds are colliding. Only one of us is going to survive, and it’s going to be me. Just think, an entirely new world to experiment on! Tell me, do you have a Kerik, too? I saw the zombified one a while ago. Our necromancer self must have raised him. I wonder if she killed him herself. You know, like I did.” She held up her hands, but the smirk on her face sort of ruined the effect. “Accident. Technically…” Daneera felt the grip on her knife tighten. “Did you kill your Kerik, too? To prove you were stronger?”
“No. My Kerik is alive and well, and safe from this hell-hole.”
The other Daneera’s smile broadened. “How nice. I’ll have another chance to break his mind without killing him. I’ll probably fail again, with a mind as weak as his, but-”
Daneera was moving before her doppelganger finished speaking, but her knife passed right through the blue-clad woman’s visage. There was a sound of cruel laughter as the illusionary horrors faded, leaving only a darkened cafeteria behind. Daneera forced herself to control her breathing, and then ran into the kitchen. This was a longshot, she knew, but if she were going to find a snow-aligned Daneera, the only place she could think of to start looking was the school’s deep freezer.
As Daneera pulled open the door of the freezer, she instantly knew that she had guessed correctly. The mist and frost that emanated from the now-open door was unnatural, and the space beyond was far too large to be contained within a school’s walk-in freezer. Daneera took a few tentative steps inside, and then a few more, and then several more. Everything here was white snow and ice, and yet for some reason, Daneera did not feel overly cold. There was a certain lack of heat, to be sure, but Daneera expected to be shivering, and she wasn’t. Choosing to focus instead on the task at hand, Daneera pressed onward, eventually coming to some sort of stone table, surrounded by a variety of strange apparatuses that she could not begin to identify.
“Which one are you, then?” The voice that sounded out in that cold and sterile place was equally cold and sterile, and sounded almost robotic, but it did have a certain recognizable quality to it. Had Daneera been able to squint her ears, she could just about identify it as her own.
“I am the forestmage. The huntress,” Daneera said.
“Ah,” the robotic voice answered. “Green.” A moment later, a shape stepped forward through the icy mist. “Very well, then. What do you want?”
The sight that met Daneera’s eyes was, somehow, more disconcerting than anything she had seen yet today. The being standing in front of Daneera was Daneera, but unlike the other iterations of herself she had seen, this one was more like an uncanny replica. Her skin was not flesh, but something made to, more or less, look like it. Her hair was shock white and artificial, though in approximately the same style as Daneera usually wore it. The only thing that looked real was her eyes, which were the identical shade of brown as those Daneera saw in the mirror.
The gravity of the situation outweighed Daneera’s natural curiosity about what had happened to this version of herself. “Do you know what is going on? With the Nexus and Spokes and everything?”
The other Daneera cocked her had to the side in a manner that was just a bit too unnatural for the huntress’s tastes. The pause before she answered was just a little too long. Even the tone of her voice was just a little too indifferent. “Well enough. Why?”
“Because we need to stop it,” Daneera said.
Another long pause. “Do we?”
“All of reality might be destroyed if we don’t!”
Silence. “Things are destroyed every day. Why should Reality be any different? Why should we care if it is?”
“Well, I guess, mostly because we live in Reality.”
The artificial Daneera seemed to consider this. “Perhaps we do. Although I have seen little evidence to conclusively prove so.”
“Well, I would rather save Reality, just the same. You know, on the off-chance.”
The other Daneera blinked twice, and after another long pause, she said, “Very well. I will not stop you.”
Daneera scratched her head. “It’s not about you stopping me or not. I need your help to stop the Spokes from destroying each other.”
…
“Look, I was told you know how to stop it. I think you’re the only one who does.”
“Doubtful,” the robotic girl said. “Most of what is known is not known by merely one. But I am…curious, I suppose. Who was it that told you that I possess such knowledge?”
Daneera hesitated, but Denner had said his life was forfeit, and considering how he had been ripped out of this Reality – or whichever Reality he had drawn her into, at least – it seemed like no further harm could come to him, even if this colorless Daneera could not be trusted. “I was told by a Denner Fabellian. He claims to have caused all this, accidentally, of course.”
“There is no ‘of course’ about it,” the other Daneera chided. “The Denner Fabellian I once knew might well have done something like this on purpose. Still, perhaps I should speak to this Denner.”
Daneera hung her head. “He’s dead.”
The other Daneera blinked…eventually. “I see. Did you kill him, then?”
“What? No!”
The artificial Daneera considered the huntress for another long span of time, and then, without any word, turned toward the stone table and picked up a small object and began to tinker with it. Daneera waited for a minute or so, but the other one made no attempt to continue the conversation.
“Umm, what is that? Is that how to stop the collapse?”
“No,” the other woman said. “This is a device that, when properly configured, should bounce from one wall to another repeatedly.”
“What? That sounds like a toy or something.”
The artificial Daneera continued working for nearly a minute before she responded. “Yes. That is as good a term for it as any.”
“But, what about the collapse! Reality itself could fall apart at any moment, and you have a way to stop it! There’s no time to lose on toys!”
The other woman set down the small apparatus and turned back to Daneera, approaching uncomfortably close and looking around Daneera’s head like she was examining something. “I wonder where this comes from,” the light-haired one said, speaking in a tone that suggested she were talking to herself.
“This what?” Daneera asked.
“This disproportionate concern. Are you defective? Are you, perhaps, unaware of simple scientific principles, such as ‘equal and opposite reactions? Surely, you must realize that Reality could not possibly care whether or not you persist. The equal and opposite reaction to this knowledge must be for you to not care whether or not Reality does.”
“But what about everyone who exists within Reality? What about my friends, my loved ones? What about the innocent people who are just trying to live their lives?”
“Presumably, they will die when Reality does,” the other said without the slightest hint of emotion.
Daneera felt her face flush upon hearing this. “What is wrong with you? Where is your heart?”
“My heart?” The artificial Daneera asked. “I have three of those.” Before Daneera could react, the other one peeled off her shirt to reveal a featureless simulacrum of her own body. Then the bizarre version reached up and dug her fingers into her own chest, at the sternum. She pulled, and the robotic woman’s chest opened up to reveal a cavity. Daneera was horrified to see in that cavity were, indeed, three hearts, two organic and one artificial. Even the organic ones, though, were being kept alive by some sort of machinery.
“Who did this to you?” Daneera asked, aghast.
The other woman cocked her head to the opposite side. “I did this, of course. How else was I to reach my pinnacle?”
Daneera wanted to turn away, but the unnatural scene was gruesomely fascinating, the way she had heard a trainwreck described. She resisted the urge to reach out and touch one of the hearts. “One of these is yours, I assume.”
“They are all mine.”
“I mean, one was your original heart?”
“Yes,” the other Daneera confirmed. “The other organic heart once belonged to Kerik.”
“What?!?” Daneera reeled back at the thought.
“He told me his heart belonged to me. I decided one day to collect.”
Daneera’s mouth dropped open. “You…you killed him! You’re…you’re evil!”
“Hardly,” the other said. “There was no malice in it. But my experiment needed another heart, and his was readily available. He did not suffer.”
“That’s monstrous! How…how could you do this?”
“It was difficult,” the other said without any hint of offence at Daneera’s words. “The technology to accomplish something like this did not exist in my Reality, at least not at the time I lived. Fortunately, the technology did exist a few thousand years later.”
“A few thousand? But how…”
The other Daneera, apparently anticipating the question, pulled out a drawer that had been carved, practically seamlessly, into the stone table. Inside was a pocket watch, made from what looked like gold and carved with an incredibly intricate design of interlocking vines. “This artifact was discovered in my Reality. It allows for more-than-ordinary travel through the streams of time.”
“So you went into the future, where this sort of body modification was possible.”
“Possible and fairly commonplace. These changes rendered my body, essentially, immortal. Once I had learned all I could from that time, I returned to my own, and began my experiments. I have learned much.”
“You’re a monster,” Daneera said. She tried to think of any world, any circumstance, where she could care so little about the lives around her. She wondered what had made this version of her so callous, so cold.
The other Daneera shrugged. “Perhaps. But do not fool yourself into thinking that I am one you could destroy. This body is, essentially, indestructible.” She closed her chest, then glanced down at the pocket watch. “Actually, there is one way. If Reality is destroyed, presumably I will be, as well. Here. I am…curious…what you will choose.”
The mechanical version reached down and took the pocket watch, then tossed it to Daneera. She then went back to tinkering with the toy. Daneera considered saying something else, but this alternate version of her wouldn’t care. This alternate version of her didn’t care about anything at all. And so, without even a thought to courtesy, Daneera turned around and ran back to the freezer door, back to the school, and back to her crumbling Reality.
As she reached for the pocket watch, though, she was suddenly caught with a thought. What could she do? If she went back in time to the start of her day, nothing would change. And if she went back further? Well, what would that do? This was all caused by a Denner Fabellian from another Reality, and she had no way of travelling between them, so even if she returned to a time before the aligned Daneera had died, she still couldn’t prevent it. Daneera slumped against the closed freezer door, almost ready to give up. She thought back on everything that had happened to her today, trying to think of anything she could do other than simply allow the world to end.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. It was crazy; it was something that nobody in their right mind would do. What she was suddenly thinking of doing with this pocket watch, apparently one of the most powerful artifacts in the world, was unthinkable. The person she was thinking of giving it to was someone that nobody would want to give a powerful artifact to, but she had no choice. She had no other idea. It was this, or allow Reality to crumble. As she took off through the halls at a run, she hoped she was making the right choice.
She saw no sign of Sharaka as she went, but there was a smell of smoke and burning bodies. She had to fight her way through another illusionary onslaught, but mercifully, she did not encounter either of the other Daneeras. Finally, she reached her destination and, with heavy breath, she whipped open the door of her English classroom.
It was empty, but that rarely stopped someone like him. “Raiker!” Daneera yelled. “I know you can hear me, Raiker! Mr. Venn! Please, I need to talk to you!”
“About what, precisely?”
Daneera spun around to see Raiker standing as though he had been there the entire time. He looked strangely saddened, and Daneera was banking on her guess as to why. “Here, Mr. Venn. Take this watch. It let’s you time-travel. You can fix this. You can stop all of this.”
Raiker cocked an eyebrow at this. “And why would I want to do that? Is this not the greatest tragedy of them all?”
“Is it?” Daneera challenged immediately. “Didn’t you tell us in class that there is no such thing as inherent tragedy? That the only thing that makes something tragic is the perception of the witnesses to it?”
Raiker considered. “I am surprised. I did not think you were paying that much attention in my class.”
“Yeah, well, your tests are super hard,” she said quickly. “Anyway, if you let Reality fall apart, there will be no more witnesses to the event, and therefore, no tragedy. Not only that, but all of your poems will mean nothing anymore.”
Raiker leaned back a little and stroked his goateed chin. “You do make a point. But I must ask, are you certain you wish to give such a powerful item to someone like me? Think about the tragedies I could construct with it.”
Daneera smiled. “But you couldn’t. Any time you went back, nobody involved would remember, because they would change to accommodate the new timeline. So your poems wouldn’t even make sense!”
The poet pursed his lips. After a long moment, he gave his head a barely perceivable nod. “Well done, Daneera. Your writing may be abysmal, but your critical thinking skills are more than adequate.”
“Thanks! Can I get an A for this term, then?”
“I doubt it,” Raiker said with a thin smile. “After all, you will not even recall this conversation, remember?”
Daneera stared at him, then shook her head. A moment later, Raiker activated the watch and vanished. Nobody, including her, would ever know what she went through, but it was worth it.
* * *
Daneera yawned.
She was dead tired. For some reason, she had not slept well the night before. Her dreams had been strange, although she could not really remember specifics. So she just made her way down the hallway, greeting various friends and classmates on the way.
“Hey, Sundar,” Daneera said to the young half-elf, who did not answer or look up.
“Hey, Lia,” Daneera said to the other girl, who waved at her but, obviously, said nothing.
“’Morning, Kahr,” she said, earning a low moan as an answer. He must have been tired, too. Daneera managed a small chuckle to herself, thinking that school should start about three hours later, and end about three hours sooner! If only she could make time go faster!
Daneera finally got to her locker and started sorting out everything for her morning classes. It was only a couple of moments later that she sensed a large shape approaching her from her left. She glanced over, then smiled. “Hey, Sharaka.”
“Oi, Daneera,” her friend said. “You look half-dead.”
Daneera closed her eyes and nodded. “Kerik and I were up half the night. I should have just skipped today. I-oh!” She looked up and saw her English teacher, Mr. Venn, checking his pocket watch.
“You had best hurry to class,” Raiker said. “There is no time like the present.”
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/:c: one in there) Daneeras to their current paths; the little we hear about 
It's been too long since I re-binged our works 
I can see the ending of that story with a 
neera is callous and inhuman, but self-absorbed and detached in her pursuits - she only takes what she's offered (albeit with a deliberate(?) misunderstanding of metaphors 
Also, I needed some explanation for how Colorless Danee was able to so completely modify her body like that, and the answer of "because the Future" made sense in that context, so her having the solution worked out. And, while Daneera's logic is not completely sound there at the end, it was basically her only option. Sure, she could have gone back in time as far as she wanted, but that wouldn't have helped her get to any of the other Spokes. She needed Raiker, who Denner established understood how to use the cane properly, and so it was basically her only option.