#takebackswynlake

[kida-oftheworld-blog]

Chapter 5: A Party That Never Ends With a Host That Never Dies

[in which Kida makes a stand and things come to an end]

Get up to date: Chapter 1: News Cycle (Hellscape) Chapter 1.5: A Weird-Form Interlude Chapter 2: The Master of My Own Domain (Dreamscape) Chapter 3: Whats in the booox? (Lifescape) Chapter 4: Help From Another World Chapter 4.5: Interlude: The Other World Reaction

[tw: violent imagery but nothing gory? its a showdown guys, use your judgement here. know your limit, play within it || Word count: 5170]

@thedipster

KIDA

Kida knew better than to jump through a box-portal and not bend her knees to brace herself for impact. After all, she hadn’t been born yesterday, but that didn’t mean the landing still didn’t hurt. She didn’t get how a sphere so close to the ground could still seemingly spit her out from so high-up, but that was beyond the point. Cause she was back in Swynlake. Beautiful, partially-2D, torn-sky Swynlake. It wasn’t exactly the home sweet home she had been hoping for upon her return. But that was fine. She still had a plan. More like the outline of a plan, really.

See, there wasn’t a sphere in the sky that she hadn’t ventured into yet. They were all accounted for. Over the buildings she could make out the two first spheres she had come from amongst the bobbing heads of too-tall-to-be-fair demons. One of those heads happened to be heading in her direction, actually, which meant it was time to go. Where, exactly? Kida wasn’t 100% sure. But if she had learned anything from what had happened so far, her best bet was probably the pyramid in the sky. That, of all things, looked like the climax scenario she had been anticipating.

The little side street she had been spat out onto spilled directly onto the road running towards the pyramid in the sky. She turned the corner, figuring that once she got closer she’d be able to figure out a way to climb onto it but--that didn’t seem to be necessary. Where the main road met the avenue that ran perpendicular to it, a doorway had seemingly opened up out of thin air.

Every ounce of Kida’s rational instincts screamed TRAP! TRAP! TRAP! TRAP! and it was probably right.

But what did she have to lose? Three triangle runes in her possession and she was gonna get scared away by an ominous looking staircase? No. Definitely not. The sound of footsteps drew nearer to her and without a single doubt, Kida barrelled down the street at full speed. She crossed the threshold onto the first step, and immediately her body was her own again. Just as immediately, though, the doorway closed behind her, and the only way left to go--was up. With less of the bravado that she had bared just moments ago, Kida climbed all the way up until the stairs levelled out into a singular playing field. Not blank, but not completely full, either. Just seemingly formed by the great tear some ways off in the distance. And for a moment, Kida was seemingly--alone. Alone-ish.

BILL CIPHER

Someone had been chosen.

Bill was aware of this the moment it happened and he knew that she would be coming. He knew that she would collect the runes, knew that she would do it successfully. Knew that in the Other World, someone would be pulling the strings. Knew that, ultimately, he would be defeated, everyone would clap, and he would be but a memory.

But dammit, if he wasn’t going to make this a helluva time.

And dammit, if he wasn’t gonna try to stick around.

He sat atop a great throne, in the Mindscape he’d formed from the collective consciousness of all those involved in this process--the ones in this world, and the ones controlling them in the Other World.

The throne hovered and below it was Dipper’s still body.

Bill sat, spindly legs crossed, spindly fingers tapping on the arms of his throne.

And towards the edge of the Mindscape, he felt a tug. Someone had entered. It was Her--the Chosen One. Like, literally, they chose her.

He narrowed his eye--well, as well as he could narrow his eye--and with a snap of his fingers, he and Dipper’s body shimmered in their current plane, reappearing in front of the girl.

“Well, well, well,” said Bill, growing larger in size and hovering over the girl. He wriggled his fingers, studying his opponent. He wondered why she’d been chosen, of all of them, but he didn’t question the forces behind the Other World; they had more power than him, ultimately.

“I thought you’d come with a trident or a sword or somethin’” cackled Bill. “That’d be a way to do it--stab me in the eye, eh?” The chuckled turned into a low growl. “But no. Just you, Kiddo. Get it--’cuz that’s almost your name? Hahaha, I crack myself up.”

Now truth be told, Bill didn’t know as much about this one as he knew about Dipper or as much as he knew about some of the other citizens of this world. And as he tried to scan for more information, tried to read the old posts, he found he was drawing a blank.

It was those tasks.

They were serving as a blocker. He couldn’t read all her information. He couldn’t find a weakness. He couldn’t hack her.

But he wasn’t gonna let her know that.

“Soooo,” he said, shrinking down a little smaller and bobbing right in front of her. “What’s it gonna be, Princess? You got a secret blaster or somethin’? Gonna spin some magic on me? I’m excited for this.”

KIDA

The more she looked, the more Kida thought she could make something out in the distance. But before she could figure out what exactly it was: it was gone. Disappeared in a shimmering light--and then reappeared. Right in front of her.

So that’s what she was up against, huh? That was… You know, arguably not as scary as the other demons that had been roaming around Swynlake since the beginning. Off the bat, Kida wasn’t terrified, or anything. But then she got to thinking about it, and well, really the point wasn’t that this thing was particularly scary, it was about what it could do. If this was the source, then it had torn the sky open and set hell upon the town. The triangle in front of her wasn’t scary, but that--all of that--was. Kida got that. But she didn’t move a muscle.

Standing there, for the first time, the runes were heavy in her pocket. She’d need them eventually. But not yet.

Kida’s eyes flicked around, following the triangle as it talked. As it entertained. Cause that’s what it felt like. Like he was some kind of host, as if Kida was just part of the show.

“Yeah-- uh, no.” She replied, cutting it off before it launched into the second act of its speech. If there was gonna be exposition, it was gonna be on her own terms, thanks.

“I’m not really the…” Kida lifted a hand up, let it fall back down against her thigh. “Fighting type, if I can swing it. I’m here to--to talk, actually.”

BILL CIPHER

Bill blinked. (Or was it winked--really, he only had one eye, so was it winking or blinking?)

He bobbed a bit in the air, then rested his hands on the lower part of his form (his hips, one could say, if he did have hips), eyeing this...girl. Character. Person. Thing. Carbon-based lifeform. Sack of meat. Pixels on a screen. Formless creature made up only of words and thoughts. Animator’s sketch. Cells of paint.

She was a lot of things to Bill, but he while he could see all of those, he couldn’t look closer at the one that actually mattered. Which was, really, NOT FAIR, c’mon.

“Alright,” said Bill, lowering himself a little. “Let’s talk.” He let out a low chuckle. “Do you realize my game yet? That’ll be my one regret if you do defeat me--that no one figured it out. No one saw their true potential.” He bounced a bit, circling around her slightly, but keeping his distance.

“But, maybe I’m having too much fate in you--alright, let’s hear it, what do you wanna say that’s gonna make me tremble?”

KIDA

Kida didn’t know what she was getting herself into. Figuring her way out of those orbs, walking up those stairs, she had imagined that it was at this point that things were gonna start making sense. Things like this were supposed to fit together like puzzle pieces, weren’t they? The rip in the sky and the demons and the spheres, they were all supposed to come together with one grand speech, but it felt like this thing was just speaking in riddles. Riddles, for the record, that didn’t make any sense to her. In a way it felt just like… Chatter.

That being said, that was why she was here to talk. There was always sense to be found in something and if nothing else--if she was gonna die here, as unlikely as that was, she wasn’t going to go out without having at least edged her way towards the truth.

As it circled her, she didn’t hurry to keep it in her sights, instead only lazily moving her head to spot it as it passed. She hoped she wouldn’t need much more than that.

Kida laughed a bit, just lightly enough to convey her amusement. Cause she was amused, mainly by the impression this thing seemingly had of her.

“That’s still not my goal,” She corrected, shaking her head. “But since you’re giving me the chance, I guess we’ll start with… What’s the point?”

Kida paused, raised an eyebrow. “Of this. To be clear. Not what’s the point of life--unless you happen to have answers for that, too.”

BILL CIPHER

“There is no point, that’s the point!” cackled Bill. “All of this--pointless. We’re just wasting our time here, all of us, you and me and this bag o’ meat down here.” He swooped down to Dipper, who stirred feebly.

“None of it has meaning, Kida-Kiddo,” he said, rising back up again. “Not my grand scheme, not the words that are writing out your life right now--everything’s just for the fun of it. Might as well have fun, ya know, if your very existence literally is just for plot purposes, amirite?”

<<That’s right. That’s not just from me to Kida--it’s me to all of you suckers there on your laptops and on your phones--your existence means nothing. Might as well have some fun, eh? (that ‘eh’ was for you, Sam, get it, it’s Canadian)>>

“We’re all gonna die--even me. I’ll fade out from imagination, one day, and be a memory of a memory. Y’all will too. Maybe they’ll think of us from time to time, games they played in their younger days. But we will cease to exist.” He turned away from Kida, now, looking up into the Mindscape--the twisting pathways that led to nowhere (though it could very easily be a foggy cloud of consciousness, though it could very easily be black nothingness, it just depeneded on what was written)--then swiveled back to Kida.

“So the point? To have some fun.”

KIDA

Kida narrowed her eyes at this thing as it spoke. Not maliciously, but more like she was doubtful of what it was saying. Cause, plainly, she was.

That kind of thinking irked her. And not just the whole nothing matters part of it--for which she had literally hundreds of years of teaching telling her otherwise--but just all of it. The bleakness of it up unto the driving force and the actions that came of it just didn’t make sense to her. If there wasn’t a point, wasn’t the joy of life arguing with the very fabric that said so? If there wasn’t a point, why did that seemingly justify terrible actions? If there wasn’t a point, did that mean that you shouldn’t have morals? That because nothing mattered, you were excused for your actions?

She didn’t think so.

“I--alright. To have fun. That’s fair.” Kida stepped forwards, not following it per se, but making her own path towards the nothingness beyond them. There wasn’t anything out there, was there? She--could ask that later. Maybe. Didn’t matter right now, since apparently nothing ever mattered anyway, right? Wrong.

She glanced over at the body on the floor--and then up at the triangle.

“But, of all things--why have fun like this? Why not something less…” She waved a hand vaguely through the air. “End of the world-y?”

BILL CIPHER

“Hey, no one’s dead--or even dying, might I add. Everyone’s having some fun! Got cool powers and new forms. Far as I’m concerned, this is the best apocalypse you guys have had in the past three years.”

If he could narrow his eye, he would’ve. Instead, it sorta just crinkled up slightly, and he drifted higher in the air, like a balloon that slipped out of a small child’s hand. He rose about a full Kida’s height above Kida, a full Kida’s length distance away from Kida, and grew to a full Kida’s size larger than Kida.

“Is this your plan, kiddo? Get me talking about my grand master vision? Not that I don’t mind talking--love it, in fact. I could talk about myself all darn day!” He cackled, rubbing his fingers together. “I’m gonna miss this--she’s gonna miss me, ya know? You all are, when this is done and over.” He sighed, dropping his hands down and hanging in the air for a moment.

He blinked, then shimmered a little, for no other reason than he wanted to shimmer for one last time possibly.

“Please tell me you’re gonna whip out that trident now,” said Bill. “I’d rather this was quick and gloriously gory.”

KIDA

Yeah, Kida thought, I sure was having a lot of fun watching my kingdom be destroyed over and over and over again. That--she was still painfully sour in regards to that. It was the kind of vision that required a letter home and whole bunch of extra money in express postage but that was besides the point. The point had to stay in the present. She couldn’t afford to have it go drifting off into the ether where this thing was likely to find a way to scoop it up and use it in its favour.

She didn’t want to be doing it any favours. Didn’t feel like it deserved that much.

Course, neither did she, which was why this whole thing was such a pain.

It rose into the air, and Kida--sat down. Making herself comfortable. As far as anyone watching could tell, she was unperturbed. Unsure, maybe, but not worried about it. She leaned back onto her hands and stretched out her legs in front of herself, crossing them at the ankles. Kida disregarded its last requests and tilted her head up at it.

“Who’s she?”

BILL CIPHER

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” cackled Bill. He peered at Kida, drifting a little closer. Maybe he’d indulge her.

“There’s forces beyond what you and your tiny one-dimensional brain can understand here,” he said. And if his voice could be kind, it dipped sorta-kinda into it now--not in an actual kind way, but like she was some small child and he was showing her how to do a basic task. “There’s dimensions within your own--then there’s ones that go above and below and all around. You can cross the ones in your own, but not above or below--if you even think about them too much, your tiny little mind will explode.”

He chuckled a little, swerving a bit down for dramatic effect.

“This was my way of pulling those above and below worlds to intermingle with yours, kinda, sorta,” he said, then turned back around. “That answer your question, kiddo?”

KIDA

Kida hummed under her breath. That was better than expected, actually. Two answers for the price of one--and extensive ones at that. This thing spoke of dimensions and higher powers and twisting all of these things to play along with its own sick little game. From where she sat, it seemed like it fancied itself some kind of god.

Was it, though?

Kida doubted an answer that simple.

“Mm, more or less.” She conceded, keeping most of her suspicions veiled inside of herself.

This thing was a--demon, probably. Given the runes and given the, well, the other demons running around Swynlake as she spoke, but it wasn’t anything like those.

(And for a fraction of a second Kida wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew.)

“What about--” She jerked her head back towards the seemingly lifeless body on the ground. “What’s with the kid?”

BILL CIPHER

Bill had actually forgotten about Dipper. He glanced downwards, his body tilting slightly at an angle, his luminous pupil dipping towards Dipper’s still form.

“Oh, him? Yeah, well I needed a way into this world and Dipper here won’t admit it, but he wanted to know all about the aboves and belows and inside-outs and what not.” Bill straightened back up, eye crinkling, and shrugged his little black arms.

“A deal’s a deal, ya know? He gets infinite knowledge, I get to exist. We might be tricksters, but we hold up our ends.”

This was not entirely the truth of the matter; technically this time around, Milo had summoned Bill. Still, he’d gotten what he wanted -- his dead girlfriend. The first time round, Dipper had gotten what he’d wanted -- infinite knowledge. Never mind that it faded away when Bill had been banished. Dipper still had a sense of it though, a craving for something he could never quite know and never would know (which was enough to have kept the remnant of Bill there in the first palce, which was how the summoning this time had been easier; he just needed someone particularly desperate enough).

But enough exposition--

“He’ll be fine,” said Bill, dropping a little closer to Dipper, who let out a small murmur, and reached a hand to pat him on the head. “Just overwhelmed with infinite knowledge, ya know?”

He bobbed back up.

“Anyway, you a therapist or something? Tryin’ to psychoanalyze my plans for universal domination?”

KIDA

She shook her head.

“No, I’m just trying make sure I have all my bases covered, you know? The whys and the whats and the immediate courses of action and things like that...” The list of things like that  ran pretty straight forwards in her head as she compiled information.

Use the runes to do whatever the runes were used for-- because there had to be some point to them. Nothing appeared and disappeared out of nowhere to only ever be used at mantel decorations or coasters.

Take out the triangle (this one was still kind of wishy washy, though Kida wasn’t completely without ideas. It just kind of depended on number 1.)

Probably watch the plane disintegrate around her

Tend to the kid if he needed tending to, which, if he did, Kida hoped that that thing had at least been truthful in that he wasn’t that poorly off. Really though, why did she have any reason to trust it?

“So just to make sure I got this straight, you used the kid to get here, and upon arrival you took the world that was yours for the taking because--why not? That’s a uh--hell of a story. It’ll make for great content, you know?” Kida wasn’t actually considering posting any of the nitty gritty of this on her blog. It didn’t feel--quite right. She’d write it down for herself to remembered, but publishing things like this took tact that she didn’t have, and a open-book policy that she couldn’t quite uphold.

Maybe this one was just hers, for once.

She pushed herself off of her hands and crossed her legs in front of herself. She slipped one hand into her pockets, and came right back out easily with the three runes in the palm of her hand.

“You said infinite knowledge, yeah? Any idea how it all ends?”

BILL CIPHER

Bill did, in fact, know how it was going to end. He’d known from the moment he popped into this universe back in August -- no, even before that, when he was just a passing thought being pulled into creation. There was always going to be an end for him.

That’s how it had been in his first universe, how it had been in the ones after that (there were some weird ones out there, though, where that was not the case, but he sorta preferred the ones where it was), how it would be in this one.

Bill knew that everyone was expecting an epic showdown--lasers and lights and loud noises and the like.

Bill knew that it would end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

And that he would be added as a footnote when they explained what happened to someone new. That they would talk about him still and they would say they missed him, but ultimately, he would just be words on a screen.

“It ends,” he said, simply. “I end.” He cackled a little, eye drifting up to the space of the Mindscape, the fixed it right on Kida. “Make it a good one, eh? Worth a read, make ‘em talk about us.”

KIDA

In hindsight, she shouldn’t have expected anything less. It took more than a conversation to get to know someone, but when this thing’s M.O seemed to be anything goes--Kida should’ve expected the same, here. She should’ve expected the solemn words, even as she had been hoping for the opposite. It was much easier to take someone out if you couldn’t find any sympathy. Kida had too much of it for her own good, she figured, but not enough to think twice about her plan. There was a pang, for just a moment, and then there were many more for the people still in town--for the rest of the world.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and this thing had no right to take the world for it’s own just because it could.

Kida could feel it’s bulging eye staring down at her as she laid the runes on the ground all the same. There were three triangles on the ground, and one in the sky. How convenient. She clicked them together like a dream, and from the puzzle came a single triangle, with a perfect space in the middle.

“I can’t make any guarantees.” She said.

The runes began to glow with that same dull light as the spheres, and Kida took that as her sign to back up. She scrambled up onto her feet at the runes expanded and expanded and slowly righted themselves until they stood tall in the void, at which point they began to rise.

BILL CIPHER

There were things he could do to delay her.

He could conjure up a swarm of neon-colored squirrels, swirling in tornado formation and chewing up the very fabric of this reality into a million-trillion-gazillion squirrel-chewed pieces. He could call upon a storm of past-selves and current-selves and future-selves and alter-selves and a-whole-lotta other selves and overwhelm them all with the sheer selve-ness of the whole situation. He could blast them into a total other reality where they’d be suspended in time and space and words and not be able to move or think

or act or anything because they didn’t belong there and would not ever belong there, so they’d be in an eternal state of half-existence, existing in one reality but being in another.

But he couldn’t really do any of those things, because right as he decided on the squirrels, the final piece of it all -- the one that Kida didn’t know about, couldn’t know about -- was completed and in another reality, he felt himself violently shaken and tossed and in this one, he froze --

And Kida completed the triangles.

“Aw shit!” Bill cried, as the triangles locked together and rose into the air. His one eye grew wide as the triangles closed in around him, trapping him in the space between them. He let out a scream, low at first, but growing rough and loud, ripping through the air, through time and space, reverberating in the collective consciousness of the Mindscape.

(Feel that chill? The one you get out of nowhere in the middle of the day, when the air is otherwise warm? That’s Bill Cipher’s scream echoing through time.)

As he screamed, his lines bled to his main coloring, the yellow turning black, the black lines of his curves turning red--his eye inverted, the white turning black, the black turning white and expanding and flashing red as he struggled between the bonds.

“You don’t know what this world is,” he sneered and his eye flashed white-red-black-white-red-black-white-red-black. “You’re all just pathetic puppets used by them and they’re gonna leave you one day and you will cease to exist and this was your chance -- all of your chances -- to wake up to your bleak reality--”

His voice was cut off, as the runes closed in tigther and he was shook again in the other world (seriously? twice?)

KIDA

Kida shielded her eyes from the rapidly blinking light above her. Could whole planes shake, or was it just her? Was that the universe trying to burst at the seams or was it her heart breaking free from her chest? Either way, it felt like a lot. Kida was feeling a lot and that made it hard to focus on the task at hand.

The demon--and Kida was sure it was a demon now, she could feel it in the waves of energy rippling through her crystal. It was trying to protect her. She appreciated it--screamed and it’s voice rang out louder than anything she had ever heard before. It was inside her head and all around and in the air and running through the ground and nothing would ever be quiet again, she figured. So long as this thing screamed and struggled and cursed her out, there would not be quiet. The world would not be safe. If she stood there and did nothing, the world would not be safe. Not for herself, not for the kid lying half-dead on the ground, not for anyone.

She had to remember that and--try to do something.

Her crystal rumbled around her neck. There was strong magic in the air, and it could feel it, which meant that Kida could feel it too. It hummed through the Heart all the way back to her and from it there was a lingering sense of peace. One that told her, you know what to do.

Kida stepped forwards, and brought her hand down from where it shielded her eyes to wrap it around her crystal. She tugged and the chain broke loose.

“Why should I care?” She yelled out, holding the crystal tighter and tighter until the ruff edges dug into the palm of her hand.  “You said it yourself! There’s no point! Nothing matters! Not even you! So it’s about time you go back to where you came from!”

Kida opened her fist, and just like the day her mother had--gone, the light that spilled out of her crystal was blinding. She turned her head away and closed her eyes, but kept it pointed at the demon.

“Go HOME!”

DIPPER

Bill’s grip on Dipper loosened and the blackness that he’d slipped into for the past week or so started to melt away. He felt the ache in his body first, creeping from his sides, to the very center of being, then up to his face -- have you ever felt your face ache? Like not just your head, but your face --

There was a light. It was so strong that Dipper had to blink to see and then he heard that scream.

He’d heard that scream before--

The last time, when Uncle Ford and Stan and Mabel had blasted into the cave and wrangled Bill out of this plane.

(They hadn’t done it properly, but that had been the plan the whole time)

He scrambled to his feet.

There was a girl there and he didn’t know who she was but the light was coming from her.

y̤͞ ̙͠o̼̹̬̩ ̡͓u̗͈͠ ̜̩c̣͈̮̠̦͜a͙̘͚n̫̹̰̬ ̹͚̳̖͕͙s̨͓̻̞T̡͕̳̤͍ͅo̭͇̼P͓̩̘̭͝ ̮h̻̖̮̟E͏͇̦R̢

The voice echoed through Dipper’s head and he pressed his hands against his ears--he wanted it out, wanted it out.

He had sudden images of horrible memories--of Merida’s face, her eyes wide in fear; of Maui’s eyes wide in confusion; of writhing and spitting and holy water splashed in his face; of Professor Thatch’s desperate voice; of blood--blood from him, blood from Terence, blood from Maui--

s̡̟̻̹t̶̼̹o͖̣͍̠̙̤P̺̥̯̜̝̯̠ ̞H̤͙͎͍͍e̺̟͍͡R ҉̤̣̣͍̪o͕̠̙̬͜R̠ ̴͍̜͓̗Y͏̜͔̰̩̼̜͉O̵͉͉̼̣̟U̵̹̮̮͉̫̱ ̳̰͎̘̱͙W̮̫͕̖̼̺ͅI̞̜̟̫̙̣̗LL̤̙͚͎̝͖̰ ̥̪̖̹͔̝BE̞̺̜͈̥̰ ͢I͏̳̯̹̞N͍̲̖̰̹ ̼̩̯̳̫͙̀T̹͉̫̳̣͞H̰̩̼E̺̕ ̩̪͝D̗̱̖A̲̻͓͎̥̗R҉͇̩k̵̳̥

There were things he also saw--he saw three girls, a bit older than him, they were on a train. He saw laptop screens. He saw himself, too, and Mabel, too, in Gravity Falls, except everything was different, everything was the same, not really. He saw a man drawing. He saw business meetings (why did he see business meetings?)--

He could see all that and--

What was the point? Why did he need that? He had this reality and that was what mattered and he could discover all there was about this one and he had all his life to do that and there was no point in doing that now, not this way, not in this way--

He stood next to the girl and he looked up at Bill--the runes around him closing in smaller and smaller.

“Leave ME ALONE!” he yelled, voice hoarse, but loud and strong and echoing through the Mindscape. “I’VE HAD ENOUGH.”

Bill’s eye flashed back to white, his body flashed to yellow and the eye widened and--

If it could have looked sad, right now, it did.

But it was only a moment, could have been a trick of Dipper’s eye, something that the light altered, something that the hammering of his chest made him feel, something that the ties between him and the demon made him think, something that Bill was doing to make Dipper feel bad.

It was only a moment and Bill let out a wail as he was sucked into the space between the runes, which swirled a deep, bottomless, black.

And then, for a moment, it was quiet. It was still. Dipper took a shaking breath and for the first time in nearly ten years, his head felt silent.

And then, there was a loud sucking noise--the black portal between the runes swirling as all the weirdness, all the disasters and demons and chaos flew to the portal, getting pulled within, vanishing into the nothingness.

The place they were shimmered around them, as if it were fighting between being here and not being here.

And then--as if nothing had happened at all, Dipper and the strange girl were standing in the middle of Professor Thatch’s flat, sunlight streaming through the window, birds chirping outside, a clock ticking from somewhere he couldn’t place. There were noises--noises of life: the radiator in the corner, those birds, that clock, the pipes somewhere, the floorboards.

But his head, it was quiet.

He took a deep breath, his arm reaching for the back of neck, and turned to the girl.

“So, uh, that was weird.”

[thedipster]

Interlude: The Other World Reaction

[kida-oftheworld-blog]

Chapter 3: What’s in the booox?

[In which Kida finds herself in a strange a mysterious land, where she is not who she thinks she is]

Get up to date: Chapter 1: News Cycle (Hellscape) Chapter 1.5: A Weird-Form Interlude Chapter 2: The Master of My Own Domain (Dreamscape)

[no tws, just sam. so much sam that it hurts. also lots of dialogue lol, we are making all our words count today || Word count: 666]

At a glance, the world was as it was meant to appear. The only problem was that Kida had no idea where she was. It wasn’t Atlantis—it was too snowy—but she wasn’t in Swnylake either. She didn’t recognize the people around her, though they recognized her.

“Nadia? Nadia—hello? Are you paying attention to me?”

Kida looked over her shoulder—oh, the man was talking to her.

“Sorry, I think you have the wrong person, my name’s not Nadia.”

He snorted and rolled his eyes. “You’re cute—but seriously, we’ve gotta go, we’re already running behind and I cant afford to draw this shoot out another day. Lindsay’s already up my ass about the weather.”

“I—have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, turning it into a frown and narrowing his eyes.

“Are you okay?” He asked, both confused and concerned.

Kida saw her chance.

“I—yeah,” she shook her head a little, shaking off the look on her face. “Sorry, I’m just… I need a walk, I think. Can I?”

“Brent!” Someone called out from afar.

The man—Brent—sighed. “Five minutes.”

The moment he left, Kida took off down the street. There wasn’t anything that lead her to understand what she needed to do here. There was nothing for her to accept, to turn away from, she was just… Kind of desperate. She called out to someone.

“Excuse me—have you ever heard of a town named Swynlake?”

No, no comment, no—and then someone stopped.

“Like swan lake with a y?”

“Yeah—yeah, exactly like that.”

He blinked.

“Do you know how I could get back to it?” Kida asked.

“Well, if it were real, you’d fly to London but—this is so weird, but I’ve only ever heard of it cause of this… Thing that I write in. It’s all about this town called Swynlake, with like, magic and stuff. I actually uh… Modelled one of the characters I write after you. Her name’s Kida.”

“But I am Kida.” She said, brow furrowing. “If I’m not Kida then who am I?”

He snorted. “You’re Nadia Aboulhosn, you know, just made it onto the cover of women’s running, and stuff—which, congrats, by the way.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Kida admitted, more and more distraught by the situation.

“I can show you… If you want?” He said, jerking his head back towards the storefront behind him. “They’ve probably got a copy in Shoppers, actually.”

It didn’t take much more convincing than that. Kida followed along closely behind him as he lead her through the aisles of the pharmacy all the way to the magazine racks. There, he flipped through the first few magazines at the front before pulling one out. He held it up for Kida to see and her eyes went wide.

“What do you see when you look at that?” She asked.

“Uh—you? Running in some building? Why?”

“I see Swynlake.” She replied. That was how she was gonna get back. She just needed—more of them. “Bet they’ve still got some copies in the back?”

“Probably—I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

“I need you to cause a distraction so I can sneak into the back and get home.”

“This is fucking crazy— fine. Fine, alright, yeah, but it’s not gonna be long.”

Kida grinned, she was already backstepping towards the door. “Thank you, uh—what’s your name anyway?”

He smiled. “Sam.”

“Thank you, Sam.”

“Don’t mention it—and good luck. Whatever this is, you’re gonna do great.

Kida turned away, and an aisle over, she heard the distinct sound of a display tumbling over and then—some excellent yelling. An employee came running out of the back and she took her chance to slip in after them.

The storeroom was dark save for an open box radiating an odd glow.

Kida held her breath—and jumped into it.

[kida-oftheworld-blog]

Chapter 2: The Master of My Own Domain

[in which Kida ventures into the next sphere of destiny and finds a life hard to give up]

Get up to date: Chapter 1: News Cycle (Hellscape) Chapter 1.5: A Weird-Form Interlude

[tw dead moms? kinda? || Word count: 666]

Contrary to the sphere she had exited a mere moment ago, this one came with baggage.

Kida landed in an office, no—the pictures on the desk and the background on the computer told her that it was her office. The window behind her light up the room, all while the shapes of Atlantean buildings cut shadows out of the beautiful morning glow. The city was above water, basking in the sun of the Mediterranean ocean and Kida was the one to thank for it.

A quick search revealed much. Kida had taken the throne and made it her mission to bring her beautiful kingdom back up to the vast world of the surface. The initiative had taken time, and the help of many people, but it was nearly 50 years ago to the day since then. Kida’s first address to the UN had gone viral—it was actually pretty good. Not unlike something she’d say, but not quite perfect, either. That was because it wasn’t real. None of this was. She had to remember that.

This wasn’t some fantasy come true, it was a fantasy projected onto the side of a building, big enough to bask in and bright enough to blind you from reality. Kida couldn’t afford to do that, not when she knew the truth. That was all it took for her to know she had to do the exact opposite of what she was want to do. She deserted her office, skirting past employees and ministers without a second glance. She passed the car at the front of the building, whose doors opened upon her exit, and whose driver stuck his head out the window when she kept going.

She made her way to the train station instead, ditching her blazer in a garbage can along the way and snagging a pair of shades off of a display as she went by. It was a gleaming wonder on the coast of the kingdom, and through the crystal clear waters at the shore she could make out two tunnels of glass that lead away, and then burrowed themselves deep into the ground.

Train tickets were cheap, and the exiting platforms were near empty. It was a national holiday; the flow was in, not out. The train chugged along silently down the tracks, and Kida was grateful for the quiet of the car. She didn’t know how far she’d have to go before she was spat back out, but she hoped it wouldn’t be long.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t.

The train came to a screeching stop, sending a shower of sparks up from the tracks and rocking every last car until it finally halted. Kida heard something fall behind her, and she whipped around to see what it was—when she turned back, the scene outside her window had changed.

Kida scrambled to get out of the train, flipping open the emergency latch and jumping out a full speed onto the pavement of Atlantis’ main square. The underground tunnel was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t even cross Kida’s mind. She knew this scene. She had lived this before—and right on cue, a beam of blue light shot into the air. Across the square someone began to raise into the air, and through the screams, Kida knew that she could make out her mother’s voice.

“KIDA!” She panicked, trying fruitlessly to get back to the ground.

“MOM!” Kida cried, pushing her way through the throng around her. The closer she got, the more the crowd thinned, but even then, by the time she got to where her mother was, she was too far up to be reached.

There were tears in her eyes that obscured the sky even more. She had never felt so young.

“MOM! I love you! I—love you! I promise! I promise this won’t ever happen again—I’m so sorry. I’ll be better—I promise, I promise, no one else will ever have to live this.”

[kida-oftheworld-blog]

Chapter 1.5: A Weird-Form Interlude

[In which Kida escapes and catches a glimpse of the grandeur of the situation]

Get up to date: Chapter 1: News Cycle (Hellscape)

[no tws || Word count: 666]

One moment, Kida was sat in the middle of a ring of screens, the next she was tumbling to the ground in some… Alley, by the looks of it. Slowly, she raised herself back up onto her own two feet. Her own two… Bare… Feet… The ones that connected her her basically bare legs, that connected to her body not her own. Kida frowned, outright and outwardly at the body she happened to be inhabiting. A couple chilly steps back brought her face to face with a shop window in which she could see herself.

Two things. The first: the window looked into what could only be Hatters, which meant that she was still in Swynlake. Which was good. The second: she was not wearing nearly enough clothing for April in England.

Wait, three things—the sky behind her was torn in two.

Her distinctly Atlantean facial tattoos and white hair could wait for a fucking second, because as far as priorities went, the split sky went straight up to the top of that list. From where she stood, it looked like it was spilling out energy. Wave upon wave of magical energy that was strong enough to make her crystal glow fiercely around her neck. (Oh—thank gods, that was still there.) She couldn’t even work out how big it was, the dots that blotted out parts of the sky moved too quickly and varied too much for her to be able to glean anything from it, but that was fine. That could come a bit later. Right now it was just a problem without a single solution and—that was the first order of business. Figure out what in the hell was going on, put a stop to it, save the town.

Pacing back to where she had first landed, Kida finally took a moment to study the only place she could’ve possibly come from. The giant glowing orb that bit into the ground of the alleyway hadn’t seemed like a threat at first, but now that the general state of things was accounted for, it was worth a look.

So what did she know?

It looked like she had come from in there. That in there, there was some sort of hellscape bent on showing her her deepest darkest fears. That in there, she had her own body. That in there, there was a lot more going on that in there was out here. Not that she actually wanted to go in again, though. The glow it emitted radiated out into the alleyway in a way that Kida could only describe as being kind of sickly. It didn’t warm a room in the same way that her crystal did, but it did wonders for shining the pavement in the alleyway. Every crack and cigarette butt stood out like blood in snow—as did the triangle-shaped rock on the ground amongst the debris.

Kida looked at it for a moment and carefully extended a hand out to grab it. The moment her fingertips brushed the surface of it, it disappeared, and just as quickly, Kida felt a weight at her side. It was gone from sight, but it wasn’t gone. It was hers.

The world felt like it was ending, and this was somehow still the most peculiar thing that had happened to her today. She patted the spot where the invisible weight lay, and glanced back at the sphere, imprinting the light into her memory. She padded out onto the main street and just across the way, behind another building, she could make out a glow familiar in tone. The same sickly kind of glow that told her that that’s where the action was.

Her body wasn’t her own, and her town wasn’t her own, and nothing was right—but Kida had a goal in mind. She was a journalist after all, which meant that she had to get to the bottom of this.

So, boldly, Kida set off into the chaos.

[kida-oftheworld-blog]

Chapter 1: News Cycle

[in which Kida finds herself in the hellscape, a place she does not understand, but that is seemingly of her own creation.]

[tw mentions of death and drowning || Word count: 666]

The screens, as Kida had learned, couldn’t be destroyed.

They also couldn’t be cracked, and they certainly couldn’t be escaped. No matter where Kida looked, they played some variant of the same feed as all of the others. Atlantis beyond destroyed, but this time it had been bombed by a neighbouring country, hungry for power. Atlantis  destroyed, but this time upon surfacing all of the buildings had collapsed dues to the change in pressure, killing everyone inside of them. Atlantis destroyed, but this time it hadn’t even made it up to the surface, instead the news channels showed  a whirlpool in the middle of the mediterranean ocean, a pit exactly where Atlantis had once stood, the sudden lack of the former sucking in everything and everyone who tried to get near it. Atlantis destroyed, but this time the crystal had imploded in on itself.

The first loop, Kida couldn’t stand the sight. Just the thought of her home gone—destroyed, no less—made her want to throw up. It was like something had gripped onto her insides and was twisting them in a closed fist, throwing her around like a puppet in the process. She banged against the wall of screens, yelling and wailing until her voice was hoarse, pounded her fists into the glass until her knuckles were raw and bloody. She raised her hand up to her crystal, still around her neck, and that familiar glow slowly closed up the torn skin until it was like new.

That was the only reason she knew that this, whatever this hell was, wasn’t real.

It wasn’t real because the Heart around her neck was still intact. It didn’t sear into her skin, nor did it begin to crack, and so this had to be some kind of… Torture. Plainly, it was torture. With no other purpose than to hit her where it hurt until she collapsed. Until whatever it was that had set this whole thing up got what it wanted.

She didn’t know what it wanted, but she wasn’t planning on giving up anything.

The second loop, Kida watched with quiet horror. She stood in the middle of the ever-tall, never-ending tower of screens, and took in as much as she could. It reminded her of what she did every day. It reminded her of boats full of refugees, crossing vast waters to find safety. It reminded her of children, born onto battlefields, or traded into slavery, locked up in sweatshops so that the rich could profit. It reminded her of coastal cities, torn apart by tsunamis. It reminded her of mountain towns, ripped from their very foundations and dragged along by mudslides.

Standing there, it wasn’t all that different from staring into the vast news cycle that she traversed every day to do her job. From where she stood, she could only write, and when it came to travesties like this, there was only so much that writing could do. Kida didn’t usually think of it like that, but staring at her home as it was torn to shreds (imploded in on itself, destroyed the reefs around it, caused chaos on a global scale) it was hard not to feel powerless. But that’s what she was.

Kida was powerless in the face of chaos, and when it mattered most—there was nothing she could do about it. That was the curse of investigating from afar. It was watching as the world burned, and still needing to get the best story.

The third loop, Kida sat down in the middle of the circle. She picked one screen across from herself, and she watched. It was a livestream from the coast of Lebanon. There were people screaming, and the ground was shaking, and Kida pressed her lips into a thin line.

At least, she thought, the world won’t suffer because of my home. At least no one will be able to use the Heart for evil. At least this puts it all to rest.