I didn’t even get a chance to look at our new destination when we arrived before the Red Cap grabbed me and practically shouted, “How did you do that?”

“… What?” Yeah, not exactly my most aware at the time. My mind was still reeling.

“That thing where you broke spacetime! With your hand!” It let go of me, and took a few cautious steps back. “Grendel needed the entropy sword before he could use that kind of power! And you just… with only your hand….” Its eyes widened, and it started to speak almost with awe. “You really are Nyarlathotep.”

Out of habit, I started to deny that claim. But the words didn’t come out. I didn’t understand how I’d been able to kill the Plague Doctor. Not on an intellectual level, at least. I’d just acted, and somehow….

“This is good. This is very good.” The Red Cap stroked its chin. “If we just stay alive long enough for you to get back your full power….”

“Wait, this isn’t already full power?”

“Oh no. Nyarlathotep was a god, milady. Breaking apart spacetime would have been a party trick for him. When you start juggling planets, then you’ll be getting an idea of what you’re capable of doing.”

That sounded… impressive. And highly impractical. Why would anyone need to juggle planets?

Can’t say I was entirely comfortable with this line of conversation, so I let it drop there. Time to start looking around at wherever I was.

At first glance, it looked like a vaguely Greco-Roman temple. It was constructed of white marble, with evenly spaced pillars reaching up to an arched ceiling. Scattered without any pattern I could see were marble statues of people. Those statues were… interesting. I wasn’t even aware some of those positions were anatomically possible. And it was really hard to tell if their expressions were of pleasure or pain. At the center was a fountain made of intertwined marble bodies. Their hands held up the figure of a pregnant woman, her belly slit open and blood spilling out into the pool below.

The Red Cap noticed me staring at the fountain and smirked. “You like the décor?” It said. “It took me a while to find enough people for it, but the result is just so… stimulating.”

“People? These are actual people?”

“Of course. A collection of my favorite victims. I wanted to preserve them for immortality.”

Sometimes, the Red Cap does a really great job of reminding me what a bastard it is. “So then, this place is….”

“Me. Me as manifested in a pocket universe, like what the Library was to the Blind Man.” The Red Cap suddenly appeared next to me, and whispered, “I always knew you’d be inside me someday, milady.”

I quickly pushed it away and tried to ignore the tingling feeling its breath had left on me. “Wasn’t the whole reason we were in the Library because no one would think to look there? Isn’t coming here a bit obvious?”

“Probably. Not like we really had much of a choice, since you did wipe our hiding place from existence.”

“Well then, what are you planning to do now?”

“That’s a good question. What would you like us to do, milady?”

“What?”

The Red Cap fell onto a knee, and bowed its head. Behidn it, the Convocation and the Brute and Bride appeared. “We are yours to command, Nyarlathotep.” The Red Cap said. “Just give us the order.”

What. But… Shit, I was still trying to deal with the fact that the entire human race had gone extinct because I’d fucked up, I wasn’t ready for this.

The Red Cap continued. “Shall we destroy them? Shall we crush all those who defied you? Make them pay for their insolence?”

… But it wasn’t my fault they had all died. The image of the Plague Doctor swinging its cane at the prone humans returned to my head. There’d been no need for that. There had been no need for any of the wanton cruelty the Fears had done. This wasn’t my fault. This was theirs.

“We can do it. With you at our lead, we can frind all your foes into nothingness. We can be the instruments of your revenge.”

Familiar whispers started to echo through my head, and I felt my skin scrawling. Them bowing to me was… right, somehow. They should obey me. They should all obey me. The Fears have taken too much from me. And I will make them suffer for it. “We’re going to kill them.” I said to the Red Cap. “Kill them all.”

Hopping universes with the Red Cap was considerably less exciting the second time around, now that I knew to expect the shift. The trips were brief, anyways. Not really much time for tourism in post-apocalyptia.

First stop was a rainforest; I’m guessing the Amazon. Looked Amazon-y. The Red Cap directed us to our first survivor pretty quickly; the man was hiding in a makeshift tree fort above where we appeared. He tried throwing some kind of spear at us, but it passed through the Brute without causing harm. Then he started shouting at us in a language I didn’t understand.

Right, maybe showing up accompanied by several Fears wasn’t the best way to make a first impression on someone here. I ducked behind a tree and tried to think of some way to communicate to him that we were friendly.

While I was mentally working out a series of elaborate hand gestures in my head, the Red Cap flew up to him on a trail of blood. Before he could do anything, it grabbed him by the head, and fiercely kissed him. His eyes widened for a moment, then he collapsed, unconscious. The Red Cap picked him up, tossed him over its shoulder, and came back to the ground.

“Alright. Got one. Let’s get the next.”

Space distorted again, and we appeared amongst a mountain range. Definitely the Himalayas. We had appeared in a small valley, next to a camp someone had set up. A woman looked out of a tent, and when she saw us, she screamed and started to run. Dammit, this is why you don’t travel with someone who is on fire.

“Wait! We’re here to help!” I shouted, hoping talking would work better than the last time.

The woman paused, and looked back at us, still clearly ready to flee. “You… speak… English?” She said. There was a strong accent, but it was still understandable.

“Yes! Yes. Don’t worry; we’re not here to hurt you. We’re trying to get you someplace safe. Now just-”

The Red Cap pushed past me, and with surprising speed caught up with the woman. It grabbed her and kissed her, causing her to go unconscious as well.

“Hey!” I shouted. “I was trying to explain this to her!”

“My way was faster.” It said. Before I could respond to that, space shifted again, and we were back in the Library.

The Red Cap dumped the two survivors on the floor. “Alright, there’s no way the other Fears didn’t notice that. They’ll be here any moment. Get ready.”

The Convocation took to the air, the fires on the Bride roared around it and the Brute, and waves of blood appeared at the Red Cap’s feet. While they all had their impressive power up displays, I stayed by the survivors to make sure they were safe.

And sure enough, they came. A howl echoed through the Library, shaking the dust off the shelves. Then the buzz of a thousand insect’s wings shrieked toward us. The black mass of the Intrusion came with tremendous speed, as one body made of innumerable insects. The Brute and Bride waved a hand, and a wall of fire appeared before the Intrusion, burning any insect who came close to ash. Strings came from another direction, slicing through the bookshelves. Another wall of fire appeared in front of them, burning away the strings. Soon the fire had formed a ring around us. I could see more Fears gathering on the other side. The Wooden Girl glared at me through the fire, while the Intrusion kept sending more of its creatures on suicide charges against it. The Black Dog soon joined them, and stalked along the perimeter, looking for an opening.

Then the Cold Boy appeared. It seemed to smirk at the fire, and walked straight into it. The flames died down around it, and it began to walk through the opening it was creating. It looked like it would make it through, when lightning shot from the Convocation and blew its head off. Before it could heal, more lightning struck it, launching it away.

Okay. Things were looking good so far. We were holding them off. We just had to keep this up until… um… they… get tired and decide to go away? Crap, Fears don’t get tired….

The Fears outside the fire stepped aside, revealing the Archangel, in its long black coat and bone gas mask. It reached a hand into the fire, then quickly pulled it back out. It stared at us from across the fire for a while. And then….

I saw six wings burst from the Archangel’s back, and then was blinded by a burst of light. When it faded and I could open my eyes, the fire was gone. Four of the Archangel’s wings were covering its body, though light could be seen coming through the gaps. With the fire no longer protecting us, the Fears rushed forward. The Wooden Girl went straight for me, strings flying out of its hands. I jumped under and rolled past the strings, and came up with a left hook to its face, tearing off part of the wood. Drew my sword and slashed across its chest; cut through the dress, but only scratched the wooden body underneath. Least it drove it back a little. I would have pressed the attack further, but the wave of insects rushing at me made me realize that running would be a better idea. Even sprinting as fast as I could, the swarm managed to get right at my heels, and I could feel some of the faster ones landing and crawling on me.

Another flash of light, and a shockwave that sent me flying onto the ground. Then another, and another…. The Convocation was shooting off lightning into the Intrusion, like a thunder storm gone mad. Even as the Wooden Girl’s strings cut through the flock, killing dozens of birds at a time, their storm continued.

With that immediate threat to me out of the way, I looked back at the two humans. Still unconscious, but still fine. Back to the fight, the Cold Boy was skating across ice appearing at its feet, going around the Convocation’s storm. I ran at it, slashed my sword across one of its arms and punched at its chest. The sword, again, didn’t really accomplish much. The punch, however, cracked its icy body and knocked it over. Unfortunately, this had the side effect of making me the focus of the Cold Boy’s attention. The temperature around me plummeted. In seconds, ice was forming around my legs, trapping me where I was. The ice kept spreading, no matter how much I tried hacking at it. Then I felt something warm press up behind me, and a voice whisper in my ear, “I’ll handle this, my lady.”

The Red Cap flowed around me, and grabbed the Cold Boy’s hands. Steam rose from where they touched, and the Boy’s arms started to melt. The Cold Boy giggled, and a stronger wave of cold came from it. Ice began growing along the Red Cap’s arms, trapping it to the Boy.

“Okay, bad idea, bad idea!” The Red Cap said. “Hey! Fire people! Little help here?”

The Brute and Bride were fighting the Archangel, who had returned to its more human form. Fire and smoke were so intermingled that it was impossible to tell the two bodies of the dual Fear apart as they swirled through the Library. A quick jet of fire was shot toward the Cold Boy before they resumed their fight with the Archangel. The flame hit the Boy and melted it in an instant, and the Red Cap dissolved into a puddle of blood that mingled with the melted water. The Cold Boy soon reformed its body, but there was now a dark red liquid moving underneath the surface of its ice skin. Steam started rising from its body as it looked down at itself in alarm. Drops of blood broke from within it, melting its body away as they ran down to the floor. The Cold Boy tried wiping the little streams away, but when its hand touched them, that hand began to melt as well.

I saw the Wooden Girl’s strings coming in our direction, so I ducked down. I wasn’t the target, however; the strings hit the Cold Boy, and cut into it. A moment later, they ripped out, trailing the Red Cap’s blood behind. The blood quickly came together in the Red Cap’s human form, still held by the strings. The Black Dog leaped over the Girl, toward the Red Cap. I jumped toward it, swung my sword, and knocked it out of the air mid jump. Soon as I landed I took off running toward the Wooden Girl. Rolled to dodge the strings that came for me, and came up swinging. Hit the Girl hard enough to crack its wooden body, and made it release the strings it was holding. The Red Cap quickly came up to join me once it was free. It didn’t give the Wooden Girl the time to recover before shifting into a bloody spear and striking the crack I had made, breaking through and impaling it.

For a while, I started to let myself get optimistic about the situation. The Convocation had the Intrusion locked down, while the Brute and Bride kept the Archangel busy. Which only left the Cold Boy, the Black Dog, and the Wooden Girl for the Red Cap and me, and we were just managing to handle them. If we could just keep wearing them down, maybe we could drive them away….

The sound of someone coughing broke my focus. I had become so focused on fighting the Fears that keeping an eye on the humans had pretty much slipped my mind. When I looked back at them, I realized what a mistake that had been. While dealing with the other Fears, the Plague Doctor had appeared by the humans. I don’t know how long it had been there; given how fast the Doctor can affect people, it may have only been a few moments. But the condition of the two humans was….

It was like they had been ravaged by years’ worth of diseases in only a few minutes. Massive tumors were visible across their bodies, and each cough brought up more blood. The Plague Doctor raised its cane, and I shouted at it to stop. It swung the cane down, striking each of their heads. Both began to cough viciously, spitting out more blood with each hacking sound. Then they both drew in a ragged breath, and became silent.

Didn’t do anything for a moment. Then, I roared. My vision seemed to turn red, and all I could feel was pure, unrelenting, hatred. It felt like I was losing control of my body, as conscious decisions faded away and instinct took charge. I charged at the Plague Doctor, screaming wordlessly. It waved its gloved hands, and I felt a wave of nausea and dizziness pass over me, but I pushed through it. As I got closer, it started to swing its cane at me, but I ripped it out of its hand, and snapped it in half. Before it could flee, I grabbed its mask. I could feel it breaking under my shadowy fingers as I squeezed, causing cracks that shone with emptiness to spread along its face. The Doctor struggled to escape, abandoning its humanoid shape and becoming a mass of sickly black and green darkness that twisted away desperately. A putrid stench filled my nose, and I the even stronger feelings of nausea hit me. Still, I held on, feeling the Fear break under me.

 With a final burst of strength, I shattered the Plague Doctor’s mask, and the spacetime which it had been inhabiting. In the place of its head was a hole in reality, which quickly consumed the rest of its body. And it spread from there, with cracks rapidly growing across the entire Library.

The rage which had been fueling my actions faded away, and instead I found myself torn between confusion at how I had just done that, and panic at the speed which reality appeared to be collapsing. I felt the Red Cap’s warm hand grab my shoulder, and it shouted at me, “Time to run for it!” Space distorted around us, taking us from the Library just as it was completely consumed by emptiness.

Conviction

I’ll say, the Red Cap suddenly leaving like that didn’t leave me all that happy. Quite rude of it, really. It’s almost as if I was obstinately refusing to work with it out of a sense of self-loathing and continued to insist on suicide by Fear regardless of its opinion on the matter or something.

After the blood was gone, I angrily stomped around the Library for a while, looking for a door out. That’s how I’d gotten out during my previous visits, but during those times I’d also entered through a door, not… Fear… teleportation… universe-hopping… whatever that was. So I had no idea how to get out of there. Wasn’t long before I started to consider just knocking down bookshelves and seeing what happened.

Before I could start doing that, I found the Red Cap again. It was leaning against a shelf, reading a book it had picked off. Occasionally, it would chuckle to itself.

“What are you doing now?” I said.

“Reminiscing.” It tossed the book to me. “Here, you should give it a read. Especially the ending.”

I looked at the cover, but there wasn’t a title on it. It looked different than the other books I’d gotten from the Library before: it was bound with an oddly moist leather, and it was heavier than it should have been for its size. I opened the book and read the first few pages, finding it to be a biography for a woman named Samantha Reynolds. She was a mostly unremarkable woman, and I started to wonder why I was supposed to be reading about her. Then I skipped to the last few pages.

After some late night shopping, she was kidnapped in the parking lot of a grocery store. For the next several weeks, she was repeatedly raped by her captor, and then finally murdered. The book went into quite a lot of detail describing the entire thing.

When I looked up from the book, the Red Cap was smiling. “That was my work. Well, I hadn’t been planning to kill her, but you know, sometimes you’re just struck by a whim, and then-” And then I punched the Red Cap through the neck, tearing its head off.

Not that it really did anything. The blood quickly came back together again, and the Red Cap was whole. I was about to hit it again, when another book fell between us. Looked up, and saw several birds flying above, some holding books in their talons.

“You may want to read the ending to that one, too.” The Red Cap said.

Grudgingly, I picked it up and skimmed through. This one was a biography of Jonathon Williams. He was lynched by a mob during a wave of religious revivalism that swept through his hometown. “That was the Archangel.” The Red Cap said. “He always did love letting humans do all the work for him.” It pulled another book off the shelf, and threw it to me. “Check this one out as well.”

Read the ending of the new book. Ayako Hoshiko, mauled to death in her sleep (“The Rake.”) Another book was dropped by the Convocation. Slava Gavriila, suicide by jumping off a building (“The Cold Boy.”) Adam Summers, shot by the police after he butchered his family (“The Mother of Snakes.”) Jenny Walker, died without warning in her sleep (“The Grotesque.”) More books were tossed to me, each with a similar ending.

“We can keep going as long as you like.” The Red Cap said. “I’ve got billions to choose from. Seriously. BILLIONS.”

“So? I know you Fears are monsters. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Don’t I? You claim to know that we’re monsters, but do you understand it?” The dim lights illuminating the Library darkened even more, and blood started to rise out of the floor. The Red Cap slowly walked toward me, a red cloak that dripped with blood billowing behind it. “Do you understand what we really are? What we are to humans? Because I don’t think you do. Every time you’ve met us, it’s been on a near equal footing. To you, we were just another kind of monster to be fought. But what about those who don’t have your godly powers? The little humans who went through their days without any knowledge of us, until the moment one of us suddenly decided to enter their life?”

The lights had dimmed so that everything around me except the Red Cap was shrouded in blackness. Its face was inches away from mine, and its lips pulled back to show fangs. The blood in my ears was pounding so loud I could barely hears it as it spoke.

“I am their hunger, their lust, their shame. For as long as humans have looked on each other with desire I have existed, fueling their greed. And when I come to claim them….” It grabbed my jaw, and moved me even closer, until we were nearly touching, as its body became more animalistic. “What do you think happened to Samantha? She died, yes, but then what?” It tapped the side of its head. “She’s in here. Still conscious. Still aware of what’s happening to her. I claimed her as mine, and took possession of her for all eternity. Do you want to know what that feels like for her?”

Blood poured from above, drenching me. I suddenly felt like I was floating in a red haze. All at once, I was hit by extreme sensations. There was intense pleasure flowing through me, better than any sex I’d ever had. But at the same time, there was unimaginable pain across every inch of my body. And then there was hunger, a ravenous desire to take everything….

The moment was gone, and I was in the Library again, with the lights back to normal. The blood was off me, but I could still feel it, like a filth I could never wash off….

The Red Cap had moved away from me, and was in the much less threatening child appearance. “It’s true, if the Slender Man erases you, it would be possible to return the multiverse to its old form.” It picked up one of the books I had read. “This form. An eternal hell for the human race, where not even death can free them from their torment. And there will be no one capable of stopping them.”

It took a few attempts for me to stand back on my feet. “But this is still my fault.” I said. “It’s because of me that everyone is dead….”

“Really? Because from what I remember, it wasn’t you who was burning down cities and massacring their population’s. It’s not as if you forced the Fears to go on a killing spree the moment the multiverse started to fall apart. And besides…”  It appeared in front of me, older again, “they’re not all dead.”

“… What?”

“There’s still three… no, wait, one just died, there’s still two humans left.”

“But… what? How?”

“Mostly luck. The Fears were more interested in putting on a show for you than actual efficiency in their purge, and these two were pretty isolated. They’re not going to survive long, of course, but….”

“We’re saving them.”

“Really? I thought you were going to be off dying so that the apocalypse could be reversed.”

“Shut up. We’re saving them. I’m not going to sit here when there are still people out there in danger.”

For a moment, I think I saw the Red Cap smile, then it turned its back to me. “Are you sure? It would be pretty dangerous. Opening another gate out of here will let the Fears realize we’re hiding here. And we’ll probably have to fight them in the process of rescuing these people….”

“What part of ‘We’re saving them’ was so hard for you to understand? Now take me to these two, before they die as well.”

The Red Cap turned back around, a huge smile on its face. It shouted to the air, “Alright, birds, Brute, Bride, get ready! We’re going back on the warpath!” Hundreds of birds flew down around us, and fire roared into the shape of a woman, with smoke billowing behind it. The Red Cap flicked its wrist, and the space behind it began to twist. It gestured to the distortion, and bowed to me.

“After you, my lady.”

Took a deep breath, and then stepped though.

It didn’t take long wandering around a dark empty library before the boredom started to set in. “Alright.” I said to the ceiling. “I’ll bite. I do have questions.”

Blood flowed from underneath the bookshelves, and the Red Cap appeared. It was female this time, and dressed like a schoolteacher from a really bad porno. “Knew curiosity would win out. What would you like to know, my lady?”

“What is this place? I keep encountering it, but I’ve never really understood its nature.”

“It’s the Blind Man. His corpse now, I guess.”

“… No, I’ve seen the Blind Man. It’s an old guy with sunglasses, not a building.”

“Yes, he was an old guy with sunglasses. And he was this Library. Typical human, to look at the personified manifestation and assume it’s the entirety of the being. Some of your organizations made all these complicated classifications about ‘Domains’ and ‘Realms’, as if they were somehow separate from us. The Blind Man was time and memory given form, and this Library is part of that manifested concept. Although now that he’s dead, so this place is falling apart; the whole mini-universe might collapse and disappear at any moment. That’s the reason it’s a good hiding place for us: the Slender Man would never suspect we’d wait in someplace so dangerous.”

“That’s… comforting. Speaking of the Slender Man, why are you fighting it? You already told me why the Convocation would help me, and I get why the Brute and the Bride may have a grudge, but I don’t see why any other Fears would side against it.”

The Red Cap shrugged, causing… a lot of jiggling. “Well, the Smiling Man just wanted to cause chaos and destruction. It didn’t take much for Grendel to convince him to join our team. He always wanted to be on the front lines, slaughtering everything he saw… which is probably why he’s dead and the rest of us are alive.
As for me, well, I guess I just got tired of the Slender Man lording over us. Just because it created the multiverse, it thinks it gets to be in charge? No way I was putting up with that.” It stuck its tongue out playfully at me. “Yes, that does mean that my motivation for joining a plan to destroy your planet was basically the same as a teenager shouting at their parents and then slamming their door shut.”

“That… seems a little immature.”

“Of course it does. I am the physical embodiment of sex. What kind of behavior would you expect from me? Next question.”

“That’s all for now.”

It seemed confused by that. “What really? Not going to ask about the current situation on Earth? What about our plans for you? Anything?”

“No. I’m going back to Earth, and then I’m going to die. And none of this will matter because everything will return normal.”

It stared at me for a few moments, and then let out an exasperated groan. “Fine. Be that way. I’ll just have to find another method to convince you. Maybe the birds will have some ideas.” And once again, it dissolved into a pool of blood which slid under the shelves.

The Library

When we came out of that portal thing, we were in a massive, dark library. Familiar place. I’d been there before, trying to grab books out of it. But it looked… different this time. Somehow. Like there was something missing from it….

Didn’t get much chance to think, though, before the Red Cap was distracting me with its shouting.

“Wooooo! That was badass! The way we just swooped in like some big damn heroes and rescued you….” It leaned toward me. “Speaking of that rescue, any chance your savior might be rewarded with a kiss?”

I pushed it away from me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Well, I was trying to get a kiss after saving your life….”

“Not that. Why did you… things save me?”

“I couldn’t simply stand to the side while there was a damsel in distress-”

“No. Seriously. Why? Last I checked, most of you were my enemies.”

“We’re the enemies of Slender Man’s Fears. While you were working with them, you were our enemy. Now that you’re against them, things have changed. Plus with Grendel dead, you’re basically the new Nyarlathotep. Congratulations!”

“I’m not Nyarlathotep.”

“Whatever you say, mistress.”

“And besides, what about the Convocation? They were against you during Grendel’s revolution.”

“What, the birds? Not really sure what’s up with them. Far as I can tell, they’ve just thrown their lot in with you on account of you being the least omnicidal out of everyone fighting for the multiverse.”

I looked at some of the birds that had settled on the shelves around us. Now that they weren’t acting like an enormous storm cloud of death, you could almost see them as a regular flock of birds. An extremely diverse regular flock of birds. An extremely diverse regular flock of birds which intently watched your every motion. Alright, they were still freaky, but at least none of them were shooting lightning.

The Brute and the Bride didn’t seem to be around us at the moment, or at least weren’t manifesting physically near us. I could hear the crackle of fire and smell smoke around the library, but there was no signs of their bodies nearby.

“Now I’m sure you have a lot of questions….” The Red Cap started to say, but I wasn’t in the mood for talking.

“Not really. I was just wondering when you could return me to Earth so I could get back to being killed.”

It lost its friendly grin when I said that. “Why would you want that?”

“Because EAT was right. This is all my fault. If by giving myself up I can reverse it….”

The Red Cap’s lips pulled back into a snarl, and it looked like it was starting to shift back into the wolf like form I’d seen on Earth. A voice came out of the shifting blood, deep and angry. “When did you become such a whiny bitch? I’m not going to let myself be killed because you suddenly forgot to fight! Man the fuck up, or I’ll… I’ll….” The transformation changed partway through, and instead it became a young girl with a red hood. It smiled again, and said, “Alright. Fine. I’ll let you think on things for a while. We’ll talk again when you’re more willing to see reason.” The Red Cap dissolved into a pool of blood, which flowed under the bookshelves. I glanced at the Convocation, but they quickly flew away, leaving me alone in the library.

Fort Worth

Even after meeting back with the rest of our group and meeting more soldiers, I still couldn’t help but feel a little suspicious about the stories that Fort Worth was the safe haven we’d been told about, until we got close enough to see the refugee camps. Even with the visible proof, it was still hard to believe. For whatever reason, Fort Worth seemed to have been mostly untouched by both the Fears and the Quiet. With the rest of the world collapsing, the military stationed in the area had taken it upon themselves to maintain order and ensure the safety of those living there.

The city of Fort Worth was mostly intact, although with significantly fewer people around. Even without the mass destruction seen elsewhere, seems the place still had taken a lot of casualties. I was told that most of the survivors were living in and around the air force base, and as we approached I began to see what looked like hastily constructed defensive housing. Any standing building around the base had been fortified with any scrap or materials that could be carried over, and the walls of broken cars and other debris around the base itself made it seem like some kind of nuclear wasteland fortress.

Another Humvee drove alongside us, and an officer stepped out of it. “Agent Flint of the Eldritch Department?” He said. Flint nodded, a little cautiously, and the officer continued. “I’m Lieutenant Freeman, US Air Force. General Morgan wanted to speak with you and your two companions.”

“How does the general know about the Eldritch Department?” Flint asked.

“We managed to pick up a few survivors from it. They’ve been advising us on the situation. When they heard about your survival, they requested we bring you in to assist. I’ll have some of my men get the rest of your people housing while I take you over.”

Well that seemed nice of them. Only one question on my mind….

“Hey Lieutenant guy, I’m curious.” I said, waving my arm in the air. “Any reason in particular no one’s freaking out about the lady with the black demon arm?”

He chuckled at that. “We had to deal with a little kid made of ice killing people while singing rhymes a few weeks back. I think we’re all used to weird by now. So long as you’re not trying to kill us, I don’t think many people are going to bat an eye.”

Well… I suppose that was fair enough. Followed him onto the base as he explained the current situation further, mostly lack of supplies, occasional skirmishes with the Fears, etc. Miles stayed silent the entire time.

We were led inside one of the base’s buildings, and two guards came up to walk alongside us. Our destination was a pair of double doors. “The General’s in there.” Lieutenant Freeman said.

My hand was almost on the door handle when Miles said, “Wait.” He looked at Freeman, eyes narrowed in thought. “Why does everything look so orderly?”

Freeman seemed confused. “What do you mean?”

“The uniforms, the equipment, everything. It looks like it’s brand new, not equipment that’s gone through the apocalypse.”

“General Morgan believes in maintaining proper military appearance….”

“You told us about the supply situation. Everything’s on ration. If that’s the case, why would you waste resources and time on appearance?”

The Lieutenant and the guards suddenly stiffened, and in an instant I recognized the dead expression that came over their faces. The guards pushed us through the doors, into the conference room with three more men in it. One was dressed in a general’s uniform, and the other two might once have been members of the Eldritch Department. But now, all of them were possessed by EAT.

“What’s going o-” I started, only to be cut off by gunfire. Bits of brain and blood flew across my face as Flint and Miles fell to the ground. The possessed guards then turned their guns on me, but didn’t fire.

“What….” I said again, still reeling from what I’d just seen.

“This is it, Nyarlathotep.” All EAT’s bodies said in a cold tone. “Accept your end.”

The walls and roof of the building were lifted into the air, and scattered like twigs, leaving us in the open. I could see the rest of Fort Worth, its buildings crumbling away as the ground opened up beneath it. An immense black tree was coming from the ground, ripping apart anything that blocked its growth. It was the same tree as I’d seen in the Empty City, but somehow even larger than before. Its roots alone dwarfed the city’s towers, and the canopy had soon risen above the clouds.

Before the thought of fleeing could pass through my mind, strings wrapped around me arms and legs, lifting me slightly into the air. All the refugees in the city, including the ones from the caravan I’d traveled with, mechanically marched in front of me, the Wooden Girl at their lead. As they passed by, the Plague Doctor appeared above them. It spread out its cloak, and people started to collapse, vomiting and choking on blood until they were still. Those that didn’t die from the sickness were killed when the Wooden Girl’s strings started tearing them apart limb by limb.

My first reaction was rage. I roared at EAT, “Stop this!”

It stared back without blinking, and said, “No.”

I struggled against the strings, screaming to be let free. All pointless. My rage began to turn into confusion. “Why are you doing this?”

EAT’s reply was quick. “To illustrate the consequences of your actions. It is because of you that they die.”

“You’re the ones killing them!”

“We are the ones who kept them alive until now. The Quiet would have consumed them weeks ago, but we wanted you to see their deaths firsthand. See them where you couldn’t run away from the reality. Change the destruction of the multiverse from an abstract statistic into a hard reality. Your inability to control your impulses has led to countless deaths. This is just a fraction of what you have done to the world.”

When he was done speaking, everyone was dead. Their blood soaked the ground, with rivulets running underneath my feet. One of the Tree’s massive roots grew towards us, stopping above the bloodshed. The root shifted shape, crafting itself into a wooden throne, atop which sat the Slender Man. The Wooden Girl and the Plague Doctor moved to stand at its sides, and were joined by more Fears. The Black Dog. The Archangel. The Rake. The Cold Boy. And in the sky, the Eye appeared.

The Slender Man’s pale head looked toward me, and from that eyeless gaze I could feel such intense focus. All the power I’ve gained, all my strength, all my confidence… it felt like nothing against that gaze. I could feel the Slender Man’s presence like a hammer on my mind: this terrible creature, older than time, who had created the stars themselves…. And it was looking right at me, all that power focused just on me….

I looked down, unable to hold its stare. “Stop. I’m done.” I said.

Too quiet for anyone to hear, apparently. “What did you say?” EAT said.

“I’m done. I… I give up. Just… stop. Please.”

The Slender Man stood up, and took a step form its throne. The ground under its feet cracked, and it felt as if the whole world shook with every step it took. It walked toward me, its arms outstretched as if in preparation for an embrace.

A wall of fire burst forth in front of the Slender Man, and it halted its slow walk. More fire wrapped around EAT’s bodies, consuming them, and I felt the strings holding me disappear. The blood on the ground began to flow together. It rose from the ground, taking form: at first, it was something animalistic, almost wolf-life. Then it became more humanoid, as details and more colors began to emerge. It looked like a young girl with auburn hair, wearing a red cloak. Then the girl started to grow older, until it could no longer be called a girl. It began to shift form again, changing between dozens of different humans’ appearances. Finally, it settled on one: a man in an open red suit, with dark red hair. More blood came together in its hand to create a hat, which it flipped onto its head.

The Red Cap pointed at the Slender Man, and then moved its finger over the rest of the Fears. “The first of you who tries to even lay a finger on her dies.”

Out of the wall of fire stepped the Burning Bride, and from the smoke came the Brute. A roar of thunder came from above as the Convocation filled the sky. Lightning fell from their wings, and the Slender Man’s Fears scattered to avoid being hit. The Slender Man itself didn’t move, and only continued to stare at me through the wall of flame.

The Red Cap flowed over to me, changing appearances between more humans as it did. Before I knew what was happening, it took me by the hand. “Shall we make our exit, Mistress?” And then we were running, although to where I couldn’t tell. All around us were the roots of the Tree, and ruins of Fort Worth. But then, the space in front of us seemed to twist and distort, like a spiral collapsing in on itself. We ran through it, and suddenly we were falling, out of space, out of time, out of the universe itself.

Dallas

The moment Dallas came into view, everyone knew something was wrong. It’s one of the biggest cities in the U.S., but unlike every other major city we’d seen, there was no Tower growing in it, stripping it apart for material. Apart from the skeletons, abandoned cars, and black clouds blocking the sky, it looked the same as it had before the apocalypse happened. That sounds like it would be a good thing, since that’d be one less thing trying to kill us, but paranoia is our best survival strategy. If something looks weird, then stay the fuck away from it.

By unanimous decision, we chose to take as circuitous a route as we could in order to reach Fort Worth. That, at least, was the plan. When we tried enacting that plan, we found most of the roads we wanted to take were blocked by debris. At first we assumed it was from the general state of destruction the world was in, but after it kept happening, it started to feel like we were being herded toward downtown Dallas. By the time we were being forced through the Dallas urban sprawl, that feeling became strong enough to warrant action.

When we found the road again blocked by a collapsed skyscraper, Flint said, “When you tried to escape our facility, you nearly punched through several feet of solid steel? Think you could do that to a building as well?”

“Maybe. Never tried. Let’s find out.” How hard could it be, right?

Walked up and examined the debris for a while. How to go about this…. Should I just try to punch a hole through it? Maybe cut a hole in it? What if I caused too much damage, and it collapsed as we went through?

As I stood pondering, I wasn’t paying much mind to my surroundings. Which is why I wasn’t able to react very fast when a pale figure with huge claws pounced from the top of the debris onto me.

I did, however, react fast enough to prevent the Rake from tearing my throat out, so here’s to small miracles. With its opening attack a failure, the Rake sprung off me, landing on someone else in the group. They weren’t as lucky as me, and its claws tore right through their neck.

Everyone with a gun drew their weapon, but the Rake pounced into another building before anyone could fire. I suspect we would have all stood around gawking if Lucas hadn’t started yelling at people to get back into their cars and get the hell out of there.

If we’d been given a chance to calm down after the mad rush back to the cars, things might have remained more rational. But as the engines started up, the Rake pounced out from the debris again, landing on the hood of another car. Its claws tore through the window, shredding the occupants in the front seats. And again, before anyone could react, it had jumped away.

Like that, the escape quickly started devolving into a panic. The Rake continued to pounce out and pick off individuals as we tried driving away as fast as we could. Which really didn’t seem to accomplish much beyond getting people killed. So I decided to fix that problem by doing something crazy reckless: rolled down my window, got halfway out the car, and then when the Rake next jumped out, shot my arm forward in a tentacle at it.
Hit that monster right in the chest, knocking it away from the car. Gave a short cheer, which was cut off when the car hit a bump and I was promptly knocked out onto the street. Flint started to stop the car, but I waved for him to keep going. I’d gotten the Rake’s attention, and if I could keep that attention focused, it would help the others get away.

So, a cracked street in a ruined city with the Rake and I squaring off. It didn’t react as the cars drove away, instead just staring at me with its black eyes while clicking its claws together. Well, if it wanted to just stand there, then it was up to me to get this thing started. I drew my sword, and charged.

Right before I could swing, the Rake vanished. I stumbled a bit as my attack passed through air, but caught myself before falling. Heard a sound behind me, and just barely managed to turn and raise my arm to block the Rake’s attack. Its claws tore through my left arm, ripping it clean off. I didn’t feel any pain, and the shadows started to heal immediately, but while I was still down to one arm the Rake kept attacking. Managed to block a few slashes with the sword, but one got through enough to scrape across my collarbone, barely missing my neck.

Alright. This wasn’t working. Time to start running.

Bolted in the opposite direction of where the cars had gone. I quickly glanced over my shoulder to see if the Rake was following, but I didn’t see any sign of it. A few seconds later, I learned that was because it was above me. Jumped aside as it brought its claws down on where my head had been, and swung my sword at its face. The cut went straight through, but the moment the sword lefts its body, it healed. Back to running, then.

 The Rake continued to pursue me, and I barely kept ahead of its claws. So you might say things were getting a little tense there. Tripped over some debris, but quickly rolled over so I’d be able to face the Rake. It pounced at me, and I raised my sword to defend….

An explosion hit the Rake in the face, knocking it back to the ground. Heavy gunfire started up, tearing through the Rake. It was still healing too fast for those bullets to really do anything, but the sudden resistance seemed to make it reconsider fighting. The Rake vanished, and I looked over to see who had just saved me.

A military Humvee drove up to me, and several men in Army uniforms unloaded. One went over to check on me while the others kept looking around for the Rake.

“Are you I-330?” The one who’d gone to me said.

“Yeah….”

“We met your caravan near downtown. They told us you’d gone in this direction. We’re here to help escort you to Fort Worth.”

And that’s what they’re doing right now. We’ll be coming up to the place in a few minutes. From what these soldiers are saying, the radio broadcast was true: it is a safe zone. Somehow. Now to find out how that even happened....