Young Writers Society

For the first moment after, well, everything, all that he did was stare. Stare at the conductor, who was still frustratingly wearing Lila's appearance like she was some cheap coat. The actual screams had gone away, but he could still hear Lilah's scream ringing in his ears.

The memory never did go away on its own.

And he stared at his own hands for a moment, too, trying to push away what it had been like to be Jack again and focus on being Tim instead. That was who he was now, anyways.

Earlier, Tim might have panicked. He had given away so many personal details about himself - details that revealed just how fragile his facade was. But dealing with Lilah's death for what felt like the first time again gave a startling amount of clarity to the situation. If anything, Tim just felt tired.

"Nice one," Tim said drily. "I already knew you were biased, but this takes the cake. I don't know about the others, but I didn't even remember my girlfriend died until I heard her scream. Why would I run towards someone I know is dead?"

...Lila hadn't been the only one screaming, he reminded himself. James had been, too. But it wasn't like he hadn't worried about James, even when he couldn't remember who James was. He had called out his name, hadn't he? And the only reason he hadn't tried finding him was because he had gotten the memory of Lilah.

He gave a small, tired smile. "You don't know how trauma works, do you?"

He wished James was here. James had been doing this part of everything longer than he had; he was good at sneaking around. And while a fourteen year old was easy to push around, an acrobat in his twenties certainly wasn't.

Before he could get an answer to that question - if there even was going to be one - Kirux suddenly shifted from near him. His hands were held loosely at his side, and the giant key was gone from his grasp.

Now he just looked...confused.

And sad.

His lips were shaking like he wanted to cry, but he hadn't yet. Tim moved ever so slightly to comfort him - understanding that losing memories again must have been mental torture - but stopped when he realized that Kirux seemed relatively okay.

He signed something.

When he caught Tim giving him a questioning look out of the corner of his eye, Kirux pulled out a notebook and wrote down what he had just signed.

"You're not a good guy," the notebook read. "You're just mean."

Kirux thought for a moment, signed something else, and went back to writing.

"You have to be careful," Kirux said, with the knowing sort of look a little kid gets on their face when they're imparting important pieces of wisdom. "If you keep being a bad guy, your heart is going to fall into darkness!"

...Tim didn't exactly get the meaning of that, but the support was appreciated.

Somehow, in the midst of darkness, everything went dark again. First, there was the absence of light. Then, the absence of consciousness, until someone flipped the switch back on, and with sight, his memories returned to him like a flood.

Never, ever in his life had he wanted to relive the past nine years again in an overwhelming recollection of it all.

His father's incarceration. The running away, the motorcycle accident. He'd almost died, and he'd walked out those first months of recovery alone. Then there was the crawl back home, back into society. The readjusting back to regular life, reconnecting with Davy, finding a job, working up the courage to see his father again.

And all of that before Kartiel. And all of that before this.

He hadn't even processed what he was seeing. His eyes were glazed over, like staring into a thick fog until his mind finally caught up to the present, where the creature, the person, the being - whatever it was, it looked like his father again, even though Bo knew it wasn't his dad.

He was starting to miss the days when the point of being captured was just to cause chaos and have fun and "entertain." That was probably part of all of this, but this thing was apparently trying to teach them a lesson. Like it was playing god. That said, anyone who kidnapped people and brought them into a different world or realm or anything like that was already playing god. This was just worse because this person was treating it like some moral wakeup call or intervention but doing it in the worst way - under great pressure and with no amount of kindness. If he really wanted them to change he could've, hell, he didn't know, played the long game? Switched into the form of a friend and had a real conversation with them somewhere in their own worlds, in their own time? Did this person really think all of their issues could be fixed in one day with a few extra traumatic events, of all things?

What kind of logic was that?

And now, Bo had a headache. But, he was on his feet again, finally feeling lucid.

Sarah would get to go home because she ran to the people she heard crying. He was happy for her, but at the same time, the test was hardly fair, and Bo was pretty sure everyone, including the "captain" or "conductor" was fully aware of that.

Jack and Kirux were busy being angry and upset, and rightfully so, but Bo just really, really wanted to go home.

Or at least, he thought he did.

"So what now, then?" Bo asked. "Are you going to whisk us off to a cabin? A blimp? A spaceship? Will you just keep taking us places until we do what makes you happy, or you feel like we've become good people? Will you keep erasing our memories further and further back until we're not even the same person anymore?"

Sarah barely had time to process what the Conductor, the Captain, whatever the heck he was, had said. Sarah gets to go home.

The others were understandably upset, but she wasn't quite sure what to say or what to do. She hadn't thought about hearing her screaming children as a test. She hadn't thought about the fact that Susan was long gone.

Just that her kids were screaming for her. She couldn't help it if she'd followed her mother's instinct.

Just then, everything went black.

She woke up to the overwhelming sunlight in a place she remembered. Her home in Seattle, in the room she had shared with Ed.

Everything that she'd dreamt about came flooding back. The ship, the train, meeting Alex... It had to be the most vivid dream she'd ever had. But it was just that, a dream.

Sarah thought she heard I'm Into Something Good playing in the kitchen and the sound of a sizzling pan. Ed's favorite band was Herman's Hermit's, which was one of the odd little things she loved about him.

"Ed?" She called.

"Be right in," he said after a minute. She heard her son's voice too, but she couldn't hear what they said. They must have turned up the radio because she could hear the lyrics clearly now.


Sarah couldn't help but sway a little to the music. Just then, Ed and Adam came in. Adam smiled as he held a breakfast tray and handed it to her. Eggs. Toast. Bacon. Coffee. It all looked and smelled great.

"Happy Mother's Day," Adam said quietly.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Sarah said.

Ed smiled. "Why don't you go watch TV? We'll join you in a minute?"

Adam didn't have to hesitate. He darted back into the hallway. Ed sat on the bed beside her and smiled. "Happy Mother's Day, Sarah," Ed said, kissing her. Not "my love", which Jay had always preferred to her actual name. Just Sarah.

"So how much of this did he actually make?" Sarah said with a laugh.

"I think he put the toast in the toaster," Ed replied.

"I love you crazy boys. You know, I even forgot it was Mother's day. I had the craziest dream..." She trailed off.

"Join us when you're ready." He squeezed her hand and left.

She couldn't help but smile. But she also couldn't get the dream out of her mind. And she didn't know if she ever would.

As we say in the movies, that's a wrap on Sarah, everyone.


**

Alex wasn't jealous that Sarah got to leave and she didn't. At least, not entirely. She didn't want to still be here, but the alternative was prison. As she watched Sarah fade away like a character in Star Trek, Alex couldn't help but wonder, but think, maybe she deserved to be in prison.

Maybe she had to play the Conductor's game. Maybe, when she went back to prison, she was going to make the most of it. They had classes for the prisoners. Art. History. Literature. She'd be good at all of that. She could do good. At least some good. It would never make up for Margaret. But she could try.

"I brought you here," said the Conductor, "And I have the power to bring you back."

"Look," Alex. "I accept that I have to spend the rest of my life in prison."

"You are all too much fun," he said. "I thought that... if I wiped your memories, you'd remember how to be good people. But I suppose... you all get one more chance."

When Alex came to, she was in a girl's bedroom. It looked strange... a little off. There was a large poster of a man with dyed red hair and a red lightning bolt painted over one of his eyes. According to the poster, this man was called David Bowie. There were other things too. Cassette tapes that looked weird. Dark. So much black.

Then she saw the calendar. The one that said November 1988. She barely had the time to process this when she saw a young woman enter the room. Dark hair in a short bob... she looked so much like Alex's mother. And somehow, she knew who this was. The timing worked out... Esther would be 18 by 1988. And she was crying. Evidently, she couldn't see Alex, not as she laid in her bed and covered her screams with her pillow. Esther sat up, her eyes red.

"Esther," Alex said. "I'm here." This provoked no reaction. Alex felt her heart pounding.

If she looked behind her, she saw the others. Megara, Winter, Kirux, Tim, Bo -- all looking at their own scenes. What was this all about? What did they have to do now?

Kirux was looking at a classroom.

Which was really weird, because none of the people inside it seemed to realize he was there! He recognized the classroom and students. Winnie had school with them. And if he looked really closely, he could find her sitting in a seat towards the back.

And she was doing something really bad, too - she was reading while the teacher was talking! Kirux crossed his arms as he moved in front of the desk. He didn't get why no one was asking questions about him, but at least he could try to get Winnie to stop reading.

Winnie always got really focused while she was reading, so Kirux didn't try signing something to her. She wouldn't even notice him. Instead, he put his hand down smack dab in the middle of the book.

But Winnie still didn't notice.

Kirux started to get a sinking feeling in his gut.

He frantically waved his hand in front of Winnie's face. She didn't even blink. He tried pushing her desk. She didn't even flinch, and neither did the desk. He tried shaking her like he always did when she fell asleep while reading on the couch, but she didn't even notice or move.

Kirux's lips quivered.

Why couldn't Winnie see him? She was going to get in trouble if he couldn't remind her to put her book down!

"Winnie!" he frantically signed right in front of her face. "If you don't stop reading, the teacher is going to yell at you!"


For the first moment he came to, Tim thought he was home.

He was, to some extent. He was standing on one of Gotham's rooftops, overlooking the city below. The sky was dark above - not even the moon was shining. He wouldn't have been surprised if he had been abruptly returned to a place he hadn't been when he was taken.

Then he saw a figure at the edge of the rooftop.

Tim quickly slipped over to the shadowy figure.

And then immediately stopped when he realized it was James.

James must have been out on patrol - he was wearing the Nightwing suit with the mask still covering his eyes. His feet were dangling over the edge of the building, but weren't being swung back and forth. If it wasn't for the way his fingers were moving.

He was checking his texts. He kept exiting out of the conversation and clicking back into it. It was only on the third time that he did it that Tim realized he was looking at their history.

James had texted him.

He hadn't responded.

Not that he could. He had been kidnapped. But it still made him feel guilty - it wasn't like they had anyone else. If something happened to one of them, the other would be stuck cleaning up the first's mess without any support.

James's phone chimed as he got another text.

It was from Wally.

James just swiped it away.

Tim, in response, frowned. He wasn't supposed to do that. Wally was supposed to be his friend, wasn't he? It was his job to uphold that part of canon, so why was he ignoring him - especially when he had been so sure that James had actually befriended Wally, and wasn't just playing the part?

There was movement down below.

James slipped his phone away.

Tim, who hadn't wanted to interrupt him, waited for James to comment on him standing there. But he didn't - it was like James couldn't even see him.

Tim's frown deepened.

Then there was more movement down below, and Tim turned his attention to the figure making his way into a suspiciously dark alleyway. All it took was a quick glimpse for him to realize it was Red Hood - the red helmet wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

...And now James was going to head down and fight Red Hood.

On his own.

Hadn't they talked about this?

"James," he hissed. "I'm right here."

James didn't even look in his direction.

Tim glanced down at himself, then back up at James and the scene before him. This felt real in a way everything else hadn't quite, but something told him this was just another trick. Maybe he really was in Gotham, and maybe James really couldn't see him.

Or maybe he was still in whatever place had just been concocted, undergoing another one of those stupid tests that didn't prove anything.

He raised his voice a little more.

"Nightwing," he said. He knew it was futile, but he also knew exactly why James kept stubbornly running into Red Hood - he wanted to see his little brother again. But that was the problem. Jason Todd wasn't the same anymore. James knew that. Jason wasn't the cute little kid who had followed in his every footstep; he had a kill count now, and a screwed up set of morals.

"Nightwing," he repeated. "You can't keep going after Red Hood. You're going to get hurt - he doesn't care about hurting any of us."

James kept walking.

Tim groaned and ran his fingers through his hair.

"You're going against canon," he added. "We promised not to."

James didn't even hesitated.

Tim let out another groan.

Bo was standing in a prison cell, but he wasn't alone.

The air felt stale and cold, and the concrete walls and floor were just the same. There wasn't much else to it. Though he'd never been in prison himself, he was very, very familiar with what it was like, and he wasn't surprised by the emptiness of the room before him.

Two beds. One empty. And one with his father seated with knees apart, hands clasped together between them, staring at the blank grey wall ahead of him with a look Bo rarely saw on him.

Whenever Bo was in the room, there was always a light in his father's eyes. He had hardly ever seen it extinguished like this. Defeat never seemed to suit his father. His father had always been a wild, passionate man whose energy knew no bounds. Even when he visited his father, either through a wall of glass, or a divided table, there was that same disposition. That kind of rebellious spirit that could never be broken or quenched.

But this... this looked broken.

Bo knew this couldn't be real. Not in the way that he was actually there, and actually with him. He wasn't in the same orange jumpsuit uniform that his father was in, and if he ever found himself in the same prison as his father he didn't even want to imagine what would happen.

Bo took a small step forward. Kazimir didn't look up, and he knew his father would've been aware if someone was there, especially if it was his son, and he would never ignore him like this.

With slow steps, he stopped beside his father before sitting down beside him. He didn't even feel the metal-framed bed move, creak, or give way to his weight. It was as if he was viewing a moment not meant for his eyes. Or like... astral-projecting, pretty much. Not that he wanted to think about it like that.

There was a moment of hesitation. He knew Kazimir wouldn't feel it, and he probably wouldn't respond, but Bo's heart was racing with longing. For years, he and his dad hadn't had a chance to hug. At this point, Bo could probably count it as exactly ten. Ten, long years with limited visitation.

Bo put his arm around his father's shoulders, and just as he thought, there was no response.

His vision got blurry. His throat started to tighten up.

This wasn't even his dad's fault. Of all the crimes he did do that he could've gotten put away for, he got imprisoned for something he had no hand in.

Was that some kind of cruel poetry? Was this justice?

Bo knew Kazimir had many regrets but never elaborated enough to name the ones that went beyond the areas he fell short as a father. He told him, "I know I used to try to make you into a better version of myself... but I want you to be you, without all of my mess. Because that'd lead you right here. And this is the last place I ever want you to be."

Bo rested his head on his father's shoulder.

He knew there was a lesson somewhere in all of this because the guy who set it up made it that way, but all he could think about was that this was the first time he was hugging his father since he'd been 19, and his father didn't even know it.

He closed his eye and cried.

Winter tilted her head at the scene before her. Summer was there, sitting in the sand in the one place no one would question her heat. She was sewing. Methodically pulling thread made of the same leather as her dress with a needle, cherry-red and nearly yellow where she grasped it between her fingers. The project in her hands was a strip of her spare leather. She was always conservative with it. Dragons were rare, and leather from them was even more so. It cost a great deal.

Winter remembered her wearing that always. She remembered the day she started. Summer had sent her away. A man was upset, and Summer said she would calm him. Winter had not seen her without it since.

She saw now that it was there to hide something. A symbol, a circle with a winged four-pointed star within it. The crest of the house of the Sunringer's. It was burned into her neck, a brand.

Winter's brow furrowed. Summer had not said she'd taken on an indenture to the Sunringer House.

This was a trick. An illusion, and not a memory. The witch behind it was a trickster, looking for something they would not get.



Megara stared.

Eddie, little Eddie, was standing in front of a display Megara would never have expected from him.

Her weapons were spread out in an arc on the floor, hundreds of them, carefully arranged. Her smaller knives, the ones she'd designed to be easily hidden, were on the left, moving on to her larger and larger weapons toward the left. She didn't own anything too large, but she did have a lot of complicated weapons, and those made up the bulk of the largest end.

He had one of her bracelets in his hand, a little gold thing she stole out of spite from her old room. He was fiddling with the little jewels, pressing on them, trying to twist them. Finally, he found the right one, and a compartment popped open. Unfortunately, he was holding it the wrong way, and the poison inside it spilled all over the floor.

"There's another dose, you just have to close the chamber," Megara said gently, approaching him.

He didn't respond. He clicked the chamber closed and crouched down to put the bracelet on the 'small weapons' side of the arc.

"Eddie?"

Still no response.

He turned around, his eyes passing right over her without taking notice, went to go rifle around in another one of her weapons chests, and she stood there, staring. He couldn't see her, nor could he hear her.

She let out a shaky breath. This was just another trick.

By now, Esther had the pillow beside her and she'd stopped crying. She was breathing heavily as she stared at the wall in front of her, at the poster of the man called David Bowie. So she sat on the bed and simply looked at her daughter, to a glimpse of a life she'd never be a part of.

She was so beautiful. Much more beautiful than Alex had been at eighteen. The dark hair suited her. And her eyes. They were brown. She remembered from one of her high school science classes that it was rare for two blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed child, but it was possible. Considering both of her parents had blue eyes, it was probably even more rare.

Jay must have had brown eyed parents. Alex realized she didn't know, because Jay had never, not once, said a word about either of his parents. In the three years they'd known each other, from the day they'd met to the day the cops arrested everyone, they'd never been apart for more than twelve hours. And still she knew nothing about his parents. He'd mentioned his mother a few times, but Alex didn't know her name. How stupid was it that she was only just now realizing this?

Esther got up from the bed, walking right by Alex and put a cassette in the player. What started playing was not what Alex had expected from the way her room was decorated.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby...

She laid back on her bed and started to gently hum the song. Alex found herself softly singing it along with her. She didn't know why Esther was crying, and didn't know how to help her and she felt utterly helpless knowing that she couldn't be heard or seen.

There was so much she wanted to know, but she like poking around Esther's room would be an invasion of her privacy.

Suddenly, a rush of thoughts came flooding to Alex.

Jay loved Sarah.

Jay lied to her about sending Carolyn's letter.

She would never see Jay again.

Margaret died for no reason.

Once she thought the last, she realized what she'd done. She couldn't un-think it now.

Margaret had died for no reason.

And she'd been responsible. There were so many things that she would never do in life, so many dreams she'd never realize. But maybe she deserved it. She'd seen Esther instead of Jay. Maybe, even if the Conductor's methods were unorthodox... he was trying to tell her something.

"I love you, Esther," Alex said. "I'm sorry I can't be a better mother."

Just as she said those words, Esther's scene began to fade. She saw the others, struggling still. She didn't know what she'd done that they hadn't. Still, she looked up at the blank white of their surroundings and screamed. "Conductor! I'm ready to go back."

And just like that, she faded, like a character from Star Trek.

**

It was cold, and her back hurt. The guards were screaming about 8:00am rounds, and Alex barely had the time to sit up and rub her eyes before had to be in position. She was certain that she'd dreamed all of it. The boat, the cabin, losing her memory, seeing her eighteen year old daughter who she was certain was only two. But one thought stayed with her.

Margaret died for no reason.

She swallowed as the guards opened the gates and she got in line.

"Hey Barbie!"

She heard a familiar voice. Linda, of course. "Morning, Linda."

"I saw your man on the news yesterday," Linda continued. "His mom was fifteen, I guess."

"Cool," Alex said dismissively. She wasn't sure she knew that before, but as they walked towards the cafeteria, she realized something. A year ago, Alex would have obsessed over the fact. She'd want to know as much about Jay's mom as she possibly could. See what she looked like.

Now, she didn't even care.

Alex felt like she wanted to cry, not because she was upset or sad, but because the feelings were hitting her faster than she could control. Everything between the day she met Jay until they day they were arrested was making less and less sense. And she realized these feelings were on the surface, but she'd been fighting them for months. And then came one more.

I wonder where I'd be right now if i'd never met Jay.

And that was the hardest thought of all to realize.

That's a wrap on Alex.




The others didn't seem to understand the point of the exercise. The Conductor had had fun with them at first and now it was getting tiring. He supposed he had been, what did the humans say, cruel but he had no regrets. The truth was that this whole exercise was a dare with an another demon. His real name was much too long for humans to understand, but he figured if the humans asked, they could call him Archie. The other demon they could call Kathleen.

They had both long ago been assigned to purgatory, which was even more exhausting because it quickly became evident that was where the vast majority of humans were sent. Another demon had told them it was something like 97% of humans that were sent to purgatory.

It was after many endless days that Archie and Kathleen had struck up an unlikely friendship. "I bet," Kathleen said, "we can't make any of these people go to heaven when they die."

So, after convincing a few other demons to cover for them, they'd picked seven humans that were still alive, but would one day die and be sent to purgatory and put them on a ship. After he and Kathleen read about them and learned about their lives, she'd told him he could take the reins on their little game because he was much more fascinated with humans after all. She'd help him, appearing as celebrities they admired on the ship and people they loved on the train.

And she appeared beside him in the field now, taking the form of Beyonce just as Archie took Brad Pitt's form.

"How are the humans?" She asked.

"Sarah and Alex passed," he said. "The others are still struggling. Do you think we should let them go? Or is this a sign that they'll be stuck in purgatory when they die?"

"No. If Alex and Sarah can do it, they all can."

He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it was clear that his dad wouldn't respond, as much as he wanted him to. Bo squeezed his eyes shut to let out the last of his tears before letting out a deep, deep sigh and looking up.

He deserved to be here as much as his father did.

Regardless of whether or not he was caught for his own crimes, he deserved some kind of punishment. Maybe this was that. The universe getting back at him, in a way. Some kind of divine karma, not that he knew if he really believed in that sort of thing. He didn't know what he believed in anymore. Not when it came to that.

"I wish you could hear me," he said softly, pulling his arm away. It wasn't worth the pain of knowing it wasn't real.

Kazimir's head slumped down. Bo wished he knew what his dad was thinking.

Bo was stuck thinking on the pain of being separated from his father - his only living family besides his grandparents who were in Russia, and his mother's side of the family that cut off all contact with them before he was even born. His dad was all he really had, and that was taken away from him.

He knew as a teenager, he looked up to his father for a very long time. But that was before he started to see how others saw him: reckless, unpredictable, and dangerous. Bo never understood why his father would change so much around him and then go off and take lives like it was a game. Like there were no lasting effects. No consequences.

But when his dad had dragged him into the business of killing, he saw first-hand how much violence stole from the families affected, and how it made you calloused to pain when it didn't directly affect you.

Even today, he knew his dad had changed a lot since his incarceration, but Kazimir had always been a killer. Bo didn't think that would ever change.

Was he any different?

He'd done everything he could think of to escape the life he'd once known. He never wanted to take another life again, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he always said he still would, if it absolutely was necessary.

He didn't know if that was better or worse. But he did know even people who told themselves they would kill if absolutely necessary didn't always mean it, and they usually didn't know how to kill anyways. That wasn't Bo.

He used to always think it was because of his dad, and a lot of it was... but he had to take responsibility for it to.

"I have been," he muttered to himself, halfheartedly pretending his dad could hear. "I've really been trying. I just- I don't know. I haven't felt like myself in a while. I felt like I was finally getting back on my feet just before the whole... thing with Kartiel happened. Now I don't know who I am, or who I want to be."

He looked over at his dad. They looked so much alike, even though his dad had two eyes, and Bo had one.

"I just... I want to try the best that I can. To be a good person. Whatever that looks like. I'm still learning," he said softly. He didn't really want anyone to hear.

And maybe that means some of my decisions will disappoint you, but... I'll be okay with that.

Winter looked at the scar again. The brand. Summer hissed in pain every time she moved her neck. The little twitch in her face when she was not trying to hide the pain was familiar to Winter. She did not think that could be faked.

Perhaps this was not an illusion. A memory?

Winter frowned.

Why would Summer hide something like this?

Summer finished sewing the decorative scales onto the leather and brought it to her neck, where she began the process of sewing it in place. She did not intend to bear her binding publically. But she was never away from Winter. That was not publically anymore.

Winter knelt in the sand before her sister. The sand did not give beneath her. It was like she was kneeling upon solid stone.

"Why did you make a contract with the Sunringers?" she asked. Summer did not answer.

"Do you not trust me to know?" she asked. Still, Summer's attention was on stitching the leather into place around her neck.

Summer had been keeping a secret, and Winter realized that it no longer mattered why. Summer had brought this to her grave, and beyond it. Winter could still communicate with her sister through the veil of the deceased, and yet, Summer had said nothing of this.

Winter could not depend so entirely on someone who could not tell the truth, even in death. There was nothing so life-consuming as an indenture to the nobility. To hide it from those near you was to potentially put them in danger.

"I am sorry, Summer," Winter said, though she was not sure she had done wrong, "but you must rest peacefully on the other side. If you cannot trust me with the details of your life, I cannot trust you with my life."

Summer still did not seem to hear her, but Winter stood. She could live her own life, without the guidance of Summer. Her sister had to rest in the afterlife. Summer had not been perfect before, and she was not perfect now.

At the very same time, Winter was not a child. She could not rely on others as much as she had in the past anymore. She had made herself a burden, not worth telling the harder truths. If that did not end, maybe she really was not to be trusted.



Eddie picked up a blade - a thin, lightweight dagger - and mimed a strike.

"You stance needs to be wider," Megara said quietly.

Eddie adjusted on his own and tried again.

The scene was familiar. Gut-twistingly familiar.

"Put the knife down, Eddie," she urged him.

He struck again, imitating one of her combinations. He did is clumsily, and he was holding the blade wrong, but hadn't she the first time?

He tried the combination again, and again, and again. He didn't get much better with each repetition, but she knew with a little guidance, he could get good at it. Really, really good. She knew from experience.

Tears pricked the back of her eyes.

History repeats and repeats and repeats. Eddie was the next victim of her history.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her voice a broken whisper. She should have given him over to someone who knew how to take care of him. Someone who wouldn't mold him into another in a long line of killers.

Tim followed James as he went down to the alleyway. Red Hood wasn't doing anything for once - according to James, he was always running into him when he was in the middle of some kind of anti-hero thing. He wasn't trying to kill anyone or rescue anyone this time around.

It looked like he was just on patrol.

Still, James had a story to maintain.

"What are you doing?" James said, using a voice that was really more James than Nightwing or Dick Grayson - no one but Tim had ever picked up on it.

Jason, who had his back turned to James, stiffened and spun around.

"Dick," he replied. There was a pause where Jason seemed to remember he wasn't supposed to know who Nightwing was underneath the mask. Then he repeated the word with a little more emphasis, like it was the swear and not the name of his older brother. "What are you doing here, Nightwing? I haven't done anything wrong."

"Yet," James pointed out. "I see you're carrying your guns tonight."

"I always carry my guns," Jason pointed out. "I'm not an acrobat like you. And why do you care, anyways? I take care of the criminals and I scare them enough to stop them from coming out again."

Tim glanced between the two of them.

Jason really did have a point. Both about the scaring and the insistence on asking why James was there - there wasn't any reason to confront him. He knew that James just wanted to see Jason again, but still. He couldn't let his emotions get in the way of something like the plot.

And if he wasn't careful, Jason was going to snap and shoot him.

"Nightwing, stop," Tim said. "You're going to get hurt if you keep provoking him - remember what happens later on? He's going to beat me up the first time he meets me. What would he do to someone he knows?"

James and Jason continued to glare each other down. Neither one noticed him.

"You're acting like Bruce right now," Tim pointed out, trying - and failing - to get a grip on James's arms. "He hates how self-righteous and controlling Bruce can be. You hate that about him, too."

He sighed.

"Come on," he hissed, a flurry of swears about to break loose in his frustration. "You need to go, or you'll screw the entire story up-"

...Oh.

He hated how the captain, or conductor, or whoever had really brought him here had actually forced him to realize something. Tim was sure he would have realized it on his own. It wasn't something he could avoid when he so meticulously kept track of everything.

But there was nothing like hypocrisy to make you realize the truth about yourself.

James was acting like Bruce - acting in the sense of a performance. Tim was acting in the other sense of the word. He was acting like he was Bruce and James was the family member who had disappointed him for messing up his perfect little view of his world. Back when he was Jack, he had hated that part of Bruce Wayne. He had hated how he never forgave Jason outright, even when Bruce had done questionable things, too.

Tim sunk to the ground and ran his fingers through his hair.

Who was he kidding? James running into Jason wasn't anywhere close to him sneaking out to karaoke nights because he couldn't resist the urge to sing. At least Nightwing and Red Hood were supposed to interact; Tim didn't even know if his canon counterpart knew how to play a guitar.

Lila would hate him if she could see him now. He was sure of it. But things were so different now. He couldn't turn back the clock and stop the car crash, and he couldn't stop himself from ending up as Tim Drake. He had to keep the plot in check if he wanted to make sure every character ended up in Wayne Manor someday.

But maybe a little variation was okay.

He let out another sigh and glanced up at James. Jason totally looked like he was going to bolt, but Tim knew he had no way of conveying that to James.

"I won't bug you about interacting with Jason," he said - speaking words he knew only he could hear. "But at least be careful when you talk to him. I...I don't want to lose you, too. Like you lost whoever you kept thinking about, and like I...I lost Lila."

He looked back down at the ground.


The bell suddenly rang.

The room fell silent for only the briefest of seconds before erupting into cheers. In the very front of the room, the teacher sighed. But Kirux didn't notice. He was still keeping an eye on Winnie. All of her classmates were leaving the room, but she was still at her desk with her book. Even her teacher was leaving the room.

It was another minute before Winnie moved.

She silently closed her book and grabbed her lunch box from underneath her desk. Kirux followed her out of the room and out into the yard beyond the building. She still didn't notice him, but Kirux was beginning to realize he was like a ghost. Which was really worrying, because he still hadn't found Riku and didn't remember dying, but maybe it was just another weird thing?

They eventually came to a stop underneath a big, beautiful tree. Everyone else was out playing with their friends. But Winnie sat down with her lunchbox and her book, silently eating a sandwich as she kept reading.

Kirux sat down next to her.

"Why are you sitting by yourself?" he signed. Winnie had to have a lot of friends. She was eleven, which made her really cool and really smart. She had never mentioned her friends before, but they never really had a chance to talk about school life. Winnie didn't really want to, most of the time. She liked hearing about his search for Riku instead.

Winnie kept reading.

Kirux frowned.

"You should go play with someone," Kirux signed. "Or else you're going to be really lonely!"

There wasn't a reply.

His frown deepened.

He looked back out at Winnie's classmates. Maybe Winnie didn't have friends? He didn't understand why she wouldn't. Winnie was awesome. But maybe all of her classmates were too blind to see it.

...Which made her only friend him.

His eyes widened in horror.

Hopping to his feet, he rushed over in front of her in a desperate attempt to catch her attention. He had to think of something. No one ever deserved to be alone. And Winnie probably hadn't told him because she didn't want to make him feel sad for her, even though he was her brother and would do anything to make her happy-

An idea struck him.

"Winnie!" he signed. "When you get home from school today, we'll go to another world and look for Riku together! We could even go to the clock tower and see if Lea heard anything about him. Or we could visit Namine, or Thear, or maybe even Kairi, or maybe King Mickey, or one of the princesses, or-"

Kirux paused and tried to figure out if he had forgotten anyone.

"We'll go to as many worlds as we can!" he promised. "And then we'll do the same thing the next day, too! Then you won't be lonely, and I'll get to see you more!"

It was almost on cue that the rest came to terms with how they'd been selfish, how they'd put themselves before the other people.

They all showed they were ready to go back to their lives. Maybe they weren't going to heaven yet, but they were closer in the right direction.

Archie sighed, almost out of relief as he brought them all back to their own realities. He turned to Kathleen.

"Well, back to the grind?"

Archie smiled as they both cast the spell that would bring them back to purgatory, saying goodbye to this world they'd created as they did.

It had been fun.

Bo watched as the scene went white, and then he faded away like a ghost. He closed his eyes, trying to prepare himself-

He woke up with a start, in bed, sweating. He could feel his bedsheets sticking to his back, wet, and he knew it wasn’t just because it was summer and he had a weak AC.

He stared up at the ceiling, at the yellow stain in the corner of the room. The spot he’d asked his landlord about months ago, but kept getting told it’d get checked later, whenever that was. His eyes followed the edge, where the wall and the ceiling met, until they dropped to the window at his bedside, with barely-opened blinds sending small slits of light over his sheets.

He threw the sheets off to the side with one sweep of his arm.

His heart was racing. He’d made it out. He didn’t know if he would.

He heard his phone buzz underneath his pillow. It was on vibrate, and he could feel it in the back of his head, but he couldn’t will himself to move and answer. He couldn’t remember what day it was, and he couldn’t tell what time it would be, but he didn’t care.

He was too afraid to pry himself off his bed. His body felt stiff and rigid, like he was made of wood.

What if this was all part of the game too? What if it was never really over?

His phone buzzed again. It made his whole head hum. Maybe it was important.

Using the same arm he used to fling his sheets, he reached under his pillow to see who it was. It was a telemarketer. Go figure.

It was also 5:43am.

He stared at the clock, blinking. Even if he wanted to go back to sleep, he wouldn’t be able to now. But then, a text popped up, from a familiar friend. It was just a meme.

Bo laid his phone on his stomach, and let out a deep, deep sigh.

He wished he could call his dad.

And yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to. Because, well... how could he explain something like this? No one would really believe him, even the people he loved. To anyone sane, they would tell him it was all just a dream. Just like it was with all the others “dreams.”

Bo felt his chest ache.

I guess I’ll be going in this alone. Not entirely, but still very, very alone.

The streets of Gotham faded around him.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up in his bed - still very much in Gotham, but in a Gotham he knew he could really interact with. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was the middle of the night. In the back of his mind, he remembered falling asleep relatively early for once. He still probably needed more sleep, but a little bit of coffee would solve that problem.

A few minutes later, a suited-up Robin slipped out into the streets of Gotham beyond.

It didn't take long for him to find James - or the smoke from the smoke bomb that Jason had dropped before fleeing. He couldn't tell for sure if it was the same scene he had seen earlier, but he wasn't really sure.

Everything with the boat and the train might have been brushed off as a dream, but nothing was ever just a dream with him there days.

"Hi," Tim said.

James didn't give a reply - he was too busy coughing from the smoke.

Tim gave a small smile at that. Everything really was back to normal.

When James finally cleared his lungs, he offered a quiet greeting back. "I thought you wanted to get some rest tonight," he said, waving away the last bits of smoke. "Why are you on patrol?"

"I had an interruption," Tim said. His smile turned strained for a moment. "It might have been a dream, but this is Gotham."

He glanced down the alleyway, then back at the street he had come from.

"...I'm guessing Red Hood ran away again?"

James froze.

"...Yeah," he admitted. "He did."

"He's good at that," Tim agreed. He was starting to get an idea. It was a stupid idea that would ruin the plot, but James had already done some of that tonight - a little more wouldn't hurt. And, besides. They were already up. If both were sacrificing their sleep schedules, the least they could do was have a little fun.

He glanced over at James.

"...Have you ever tried karaoke?"

That's a wrap on Tim.


The moment Kirux woke up, he shot out of bed and nearly tripped on his face.

Winnie had said he was supposed to be more careful when wearing his onesie and running across his wood floor, but he just had to catch Winnie before she went to school. Kirux was pretty sure his dream was real - Roxas had some of Sora's memories as dreams before, and he was a Nobody, too, so dreams could be real - and he couldn't wait a minute longer.

But Kirux hadn't looked at the clock.

It was pitch black outside, and the house was eerily silent. Kirux never liked it when the house was too dark - all he wanted to do was rush back inside his room and hide under his covers with Klein.

But he had a super important mission.

He slipped into Winnie's room. She was sprawled across her bed with a book in her hand. She must have been reading before bed again.

He walked over and shook her awake.

She groggily opened her eyes.

"Did you have another nightmare?" she asked. "Then again, you were asleep when I got home from school - you really should have gone to bed later."

"Sorry," he signed, ducking his head down.

Winnie sat up. "It's not something to apologize for," she reassured him. "But what happened?"

"I had a dream," he signed. "And you were all lonely in it. There was also a ship, and a train, and I lost my memories again, and there was this mean man who looked like Sora, and other people too, but you were lonely and that's the most important part."

Winnie blinked.

"...I think the other parts are important too," she slowly said. "Did it feel...real?"

He nodded.

"Very real!" he confirmed. "I saw you at school, too. And I got an idea when I saw you, too! We should look for Riku together - not just me! We can go after school tomorrow."

Winnie straightened a little more. "Like world-hopping looking for Riku?"

He nodded.

"And you can meet my friends, too!" he added. "We can right after you get home!"

Winnie grinned.

"Let's do it," she said. "And tomorrow's the weekend - I don't have school. We'll leave first thing in the morning!"

Kirux eagerly nodded for a third time. Tomorrow was going to be great! He turned to leave the room and head back to bed, but then he remembered how dark it was in the hallway.

He turned back to Winnie and gave her a nervous look.

Winnie scooted over and patted the space on her bed next to her.

It wasn't long before the two of them fell asleep again.

That's a wrap on Kirux.

Winters's forced her eyes open and blinked away her blurry vision. Her eyelashes had frozen overnight again and pasted her eyes shut. With minimal concentration, a bit of heat melted the frost around her eyes away. As she sat up, her blanket stiffly protested, and her skin felt like new leather. Frozen stiff.

She let out a puff of breath and internally checked how much heat she had to spare. A great deal more than she should have had.

A nightmare, she thought as she thawed her skin and bones, It was a nightmare, or just an odd dream. She did not know what the difference was between a dream and a nightmare. Both were often filled with good and bad. Maybe it was dependant on how it felt to wake up.

This was a dream, then. She had woken up peacefully.

xXx

Megara's eyes flew open, and she darted out of bed. It was her bed, but she couldn't feel her blade beneath the covers. Mystery solved when she almost tripped over the damn thing. She stumbled, putting too much weight on her bad leg, and fell, cursing, to the ground.

A moment later she heard shuffling steps, and Eddie appeared in the doorway. "You...wake?" he slurred through a yawn, rubbing his eyes. Peter, that little stuffed giraffe be loved so much, was clutched to his chest. With his unruly bed-head, he could be the lion in his little animal kingdom.

"Go back to bed," she said as soothingly as she could manage. Why did she have one of her sharpest knives in her bed, anyway? It was a damn safety hazard, as evidenced by the long, bloodied cut long the side of her foot. Her bad foot. Of course.

Coulda been shot in my good leg, she reminded herself with a roll of her eyes.

"I want-" he yawned, "-candies."

She shook her head with a chuckle and dragged herself to her feet, wincing as she momentarily put weight on her bad leg and, now, cut foot. "Not for breakfast, Eddie. Now head on off to bed. I'll take you to get candies in the morning."

He nodded slowly, only kind of understanding. "Okay..." he looked at her again, blinking at the blood, "Did the bad guys get you again?"

She shook her head, "No, just tripped and cut myself on some sharp things. Head on back to bed now so I can patch it up."

"Can I help?"

She sighed. She knew that tone. There was no getting him back to bed now. "Go fetch the medkit," she said.

With a grin, he hurried off.

It was a day not unlike any other day. In front of Archie was a crowd of humans as far as the eye could see.

He knew that the crowd went on and on even beyond his eye line. Because this was where most humans went after they died. There were a lot of them. Mostly old, but a few younger ones too.

Archie had the arduous task of sorting through everyone. Learning their names. How they died. It was hard not to get attached. He knew Kathleen was at another table, doing the same thing. They'd been separated because they were told they were too chatty. He'd catch up with her later. No one else knew about their little social experiment.

It was hard not to get attached to the humans, to wonder about the lives they had, and the fact that they were now cursed to an eternity of existence where nothing was good but nothing was bad.

They wouldn't be tortured like in hell, but they would have none of the joys of heaven. So many people were here. The US president Richard Nixon was here. So was John Lennon.

The truth was, he'd been attached for a long time now.

After seeing so many faces, he started to realize they were all the same. More so then he realized. Why did so few people end up in Heaven? What he hadn't realized was that humans were many things. Stubborn, frustrating, impatient and selfish most of all. But he thought about Sarah, reaching out for her kids. Winter wishing she could spend another moment with her sister. He'd had to pick ones that were still alive because they had a chance to change.

And he didn't even know if he and Kathleen had made a difference. But he hoped that he did.

But there was one thing he didn't understand. That first night, they'd all sat listening to the music. If most humans didn't meet the minimum threshold to get into heaven, how is it that they could create something as beautiful as music?

The demons didn't have anything like that.

Whatever. He didn't make the rules.

He'd just finished checking a fifty-two year old man was out of sorts. The man told Archie he''d always neglected his health, and had recently a heart attack. But he couldn't be dead. There was so much he hadn't done. Like tell his wife and teenage daughter that he loved them.

Archie pursed his lips and ushered the man inside the gates.

And then came a word that was automatic at this point.

"Next."