“you want to play the sixth entry in Sid Meier’s Civilization 4X strategy game series?”

“no i want to play with 6 copies of Civ the otter” 🦦🦦🦦🦦🦦🦦

Listen, magic is a path to power 'civilized' people should not have....and games that shan't be played....and brother, there's a lotta otta to play with....

Civ, you know these are only illusionary copies, correct? We'd need a lot more magic to make actual physical copies of you.

Hey, leave my and my civilization of civs alone.

-----

But I went into the woods.

Another me came out.

We seem to be equally suspicious that the other is the imposter. I keep checking him for roots and he keeps doing the same to me. Is it a double bluff? Is he gaslighting me into thinking I'm the neverwas thing and he's the human being with organs and anxiety? Is he truly unaware he's a mockery given shape? If he can be unaware of it, I can be too.

That's kind of a lonely thought, really.

-

It's been several days and the tests are all inconclusive. We both bleed normal blood that doesn't turn into a spider and jump to the ceiling when you touch it with a hot wire. We know the same trivia. We pretended to know the same stuff we forgot that we were embarrassed not to remember. We both got uncomfortable at the exact same time when we walked into the cathedral.

We arm wrestled and didn't tie somehow, but we weren't sure if winning meant he was more likely to be fake or less likely.

I worry that we don't really know anything about accursed other selves from the woods.

Wikipedia has been less than helpful.

-

Mom claims she knows which one of us is her 'first boy' but refuses to tell us on the basis that she loves us both and thinks we should get along.

He thinks she can't tell and is too embarrassed to tell us. I think its because she wants to double her chance at grandkids. The difference in opinion is interesting, but is it a sign of an imposter, or the divergence of our experiences?

-

We've decided to flip for the job. I won, so I don't have to find new work. I don't know if that's a win.

I think the curse is that neither one of us is an unnatural imposter out to kill the other. Or else whichever one of us is the monster has realized they don't think my life is worth killing to steal.

I know I think about smashing that copy of my own face open with a rusty fire axe, a gush of sea water and blasphemous screams roiling from the empty hole that should contain bone and brains, and it just seems like a lot of trouble and effort.

I think I'm going to start going by my middle name.

-

Another me just showed up on our doorstep.

He's caked in mud, sticks and twigs in his hair, babbling about harrowing experiences. I'm fixing him some tea while the other-other me hands him the pamphlet we made just in case.

Now he's telling us about the Night King. Like we don't know.

Danny some time beforehand manages to successfully figure out how to duplicate himself. Each one is just as strong as the others and the last duplicate remaining becomes the real Danny. Any duplicate the disappears will have all its memories return to the other copies.

The plan is simple: the Dannys all split up and set themselves up in different parts of the world, far away from one another. Should one get caught, it will simply vanish before the GIW can do any serious and traumatizing damage. Plus, Danny won't have to try and build another life for himself should he need to abandon one.

However, what Danny didn't consider is the fact that the copies don't have any kind of mental connection aside from when their memories are redistributed. They also don't keep in contact, as that would defeat the purpose of having them split up.

When the various superheroes around the globe find a child with incredible power who is all alone, they tend to try to help them. And since Danny doesn't want the GIW to find him, he tends to pick a different hero name than Phantom.

These little darlings are actually treasures on our island, fun fact.

One person has to be bigger than everything, and everything includes the other person... but that other person ALSO has to be bigger than everything.

So they're always simultaneously bigger than each other, creating a reality in flux. A superposition of reality where either person is simultaneously bigger than the other person - and they are now and always have been bigger than what they just were.

If person A is bigger than the universe and everything within it, then they are bigger than person B. If person B is bigger than the universe and everything within it, that means person A is bigger than the universe and person B who is also bigger than the universe. But then person B must also be bigger than the universe and person A, who was already at least twice the size of the universe by virtue of being bigger than them.

And reality must bend to accomate size. If there is no room within reality to accomodate them, than room will be forcibly created.

The universe gets bigger to accomate Person A and Person B. Who both then become larger than the universe.

Soon even time is not safe, as they both grow beyond the definition of time itself. They grow into the future and into the past. Each person has always been bigger than they currently are - which means they've been growing from that size since the beginning of time. Which means they've both been growing larger and faster than the other person, simultaneously.

Reality breaks apart as each person grows into their own fractal of existance. Of course, growing into a separate fractal is still growth. So each person must grow into their own fractal AND the other's. Recursively, they continue to grow into ever splintering realities. Within each reality the universe expands to accomate them as they grow into the past of that sliver of being.

The two competitors are now competing not just against each other, but their own mirror selves. Trillions of infinities of realities of growth which MUST be bigger than all others combined. Forcibly accelerating the never to be resolved paradox between each of them. Forever expanding and multiplying.