Chase should have been thankful for small victories. The fact that Marvin hadn’t drugged him and tossed him back into that bedroom—yet—should have given him a spark of hope that he could be reasoned with, but it didn’t. Vulnerability moaned in his head.

It’s merely the same prison with a new hallway expansion fixed on.

For a house meant to hold five people, there was surprisingly little interesting space to explore. At home, his real home, all that mattered was that the family was safe and comfortable. Sometimes they bumped each other in the hallway or bickered over who laid claim to the bathroom first but they were all happy there.

This place, holding only two people, felt like it was too constricted to breathe. In a way the open common areas only made it worse; now that there wasn’t a door between them, Marvin kept trying to nose in and be with him all the time, acting like it was normal.

“Are you alright? I mean, do you need any help?” he had ventured as he watched Chase struggle to bandage his hand.

“Of course I do,” he had muttered with only a passing dirty look. “Know anybody who could help me get away from you?”

“Don’t be like that. I don’t like seeing you hurt, if that’s what you think.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that, but here we are anyway! My own ‘brother’ keeping me locked up like I’m something in a zoo! You don’t think that hurts me more than a few cuts do?!” Tears stung unbidden as he smacked bloody wads of gauze off the table onto the floor. “If you really want to keep me safe, take me back to my Marvin.”

“Chase, I—I am your—”

“Don’t you dare!” The rickety chair he sat in tumbled as he shot to his feet. “Don’t you dare say that! I know, Marvin! I know you took me from my real family, from my real universe! I know I’m not on my earth anymore. Do you think I’m an idiot?! Even if you hadn’t handed me the answer in those stupid gifts of yours, there’s one thing I know better than anything else: my Marvin, my real brother, would never go this far! He would never do this to me!”

He had expected panic. He had expected another paranoid outburst, something to the effect of “How did you figure it out?” or “You weren’t supposed to know yet!” or “It was only to keep you safe!” He was almost ready to flee again if Marvin tried to lash out—perhaps to erase or alter his memory, if that was within his power. At the very least he may try to force him into sleep again.

There was nothing of the kind. Marvin stood motionless, face ashen, eyes glassy and wet. To Chase’s further disbelief, he forced a trembling smile.

“You really don’t know anything, then. Chase Brody, I would do anything and everything to keep you safe. I would go to the ends of the earth. Any earth, and farther. If that other Marvin ever gave you the impression that he wouldn’t, it was only because he didn’t want to scare you.”

Well, it worked. Chase felt clammy now every time he thought back on those words. You really don’t know anything.

How many times had the real Marvin sworn to protect him, no matter the cost? How many times had Chase seen his eyes flash that deadly shade of green as he shouldered between him and a threat? How many times had Marvin become the threat for his sake? Yet he had always chosen to believe it was a good thing. It made him feel…important, in a way. To know that he was so treasured had always made him feel safe.

Actually, no. Not always. The real Marvin’s protectiveness—possessiveness—of him had scared him just once.

Marvin had come down with a nasty sickness at the time. His fever had raged, wild enough to make him imagine all sorts of things. Before anyone quite realized what was happening, he had backed himself into a corner, hugging Chase fiercely against him, shielded from the perceived danger of the others around them. Schneep was trying to soothe as Jackieboy tried to reassure, Jameson pleaded for Chase’s release and Marvin hadn’t recognized any of them.

In all of the chaos, realizing how sick Marvin had to be to hallucinate so vividly, Chase had been scared for him—until he saw the flames wrapped around Marvin’s free hand, aimed at their family, and then his venomous words:

“Don’t come any closer…or I’ll burn you alive.”

He would never forget those words, the ferocity…the ferality of them. That was the moment that he’d been scared of him and though Schneep and Jameson’s flinches were far more obvious than Jackieboy’s, all three of the others had felt it too. It was a very real threat.

That was when Marvin was violently unwell; he wasn’t right in the head. What difference was there between that Marvin he’d seen then and this Marvin now? He clearly wasn’t well either. Feral was the exact word for him.

This Marvin spoke with such confidence of his Marvin’s state of mind, as if they were one and the same. How far would his Marvin go, if he were ever driven to a similar state again?

I’ll burn you alive.

Chase’s temples throbbed. Lips thinning, he shook his head to free it of the memory, but the movement oddly seemed to make the words fuller in his mind.

I’ll burn you alive. I’ll burn you. Burn.

You really don’t know anything.

Burn.

He needed to direct his attention elsewhere, pull away from this sense of dread, but those few phrases kept churning around and around like a train on a round trip. I’ll burn you alive. Burn. Burn. I’ll burn you alive.

It wasn’t stopping. Why wasn’t it stopping? His head was full of noise all of a sudden, a clamoring for his attention. Loud, too loud! His forehead throbbed again, twice, thrice, and then steadily, like a march to a drum, but when he thought of clutching at his skull, he couldn’t find his hands.

The world spun. The voices of familiarity were being drowned out.

Jiminy Christmas! What’s happening? Vulnerability demanded. What is this new devilry?!

It’s magic, it has to be, but it doesn’t feel like Marvin’s!

Caution was on Safety’s heels, seizing up. Someone else creeping inside your head—but it cannot be—

Ṕàra̕s̷i̡te̢!

It was true, what Schneep had cried out so long ago: once one went down, they all went down. Loathing was the last to go, its shriek of shock and resistance stifled and swept away under this encroaching presence.

Half of it was a rolling fog, half a dappled blur of lights and colors gathering behind his eyes. Distantly Chase felt his legs stumble under the sheer weight of this intrusion, but the rest of his body felt so detached that he couldn’t be sure if he recovered before the fall.

Burn, burn. Blood, burn, bone. Red, black, white. Blood, burn bone.

That was a new mental voice entirely, maintaining that mantra to the beat of his pulse. Once the rest of Chase’s resistance was swallowed, however, it quieted just slightly. It settled in.

You hear me. It wasn’t the tone of a question, but there was a tangible swell of sensation in it—overwhelming relief. Someone else to hear me, at long last.

Though Chase couldn’t feel it at the moment, moisture pricked hotly at his eyes. The words may be foreign but it sounded so strikingly similar to Jack. It detected that idea instantly, fog rising and falling in what might have been a shuddering breath.

I am a mere fragment, a mere taste of my Creator’s will, for whatever power that may grant me. If I am honest, it grants very little now. I am debased, dwindling to lesser than I ever was. It’s already taken me this long to reach out and embrace your mind; you couldn’t feel me.

Sam?

There isn’t much time for us. Marvin is otherwise indisposed; with this last portion of my power, I have a hold on his mind as I do you now, but his magic may overcome me soon. 

I know it isn’t by your choice that you’re here, Chase Brody; you are of another Creator, of another world. But if my worldly child thinks he can hold you here without ever speaking of his deadly shame, he is MISTAKEN.

It is your right to know and I have seen EVERYTHING.

Something urged him to open his eyes. He wasn’t sure when he had ever closed them, but as he pried heavy lids open, the world took shape around him. After the darkness, decay and dust of this universe, he hadn’t expected a scene so hauntingly familiar.

The family around the table, laughing and chattering boisterously with Jack at the head. How they looked at him with such love in their eyes. When he tried to focus on Jack’s face, however, it warped and changed. Alarms were ringing. Rivulets of blood streamed down Jack’s cheeks and Henrik was screaming.

Jackieboy, haggard and bloodshot, hunched over a table of newspaper clippings and photos. There was a corkboard on the wall full of possible leads. Around and around he went, trying to find connections. This was how he had whiled away the months after Henrik was taken, with Marvin, Chase and later Jameson there to watch him spiral.

The strong tower caved, in your world? Sam murmured. I’m sorry. Perhaps that would have been the fate of mine too, if it hadn’t yet been for our magician. He was not idle either. He discovered new power and through it, much more.

Jackieboy’s door slammed open with a crack of the doorframe and a shower of magic that fumed and lingered in the air. The hero startled at the noise, lurching back with a barked curse and what could have formed a rebuke until glowing hands grabbed for his shoulders.

“I’ve found it!” Marvin gasped out, tears of joyous desperation falling freely. Jackieboy stuttered in helpless confusion as he was shaken, only to be outshouted again. “I found him, Jackie! I’ve found him! I know where he’s keeping Schneep, I found him!”

After what felt like an eternity of stunned silence, a new face appeared at the door: Chase himself. He didn’t know what he had expected to see from his doppelganger—someone who was much the same, if this Marvin’s comparison of them were to be believed. But he wasn’t quite. There was something fresher about him, fewer wrinkles, less scruff.

When Marvin repeated himself again, the Chase of this world lunged at his brothers in celebration. The embrace was crushing, full of energy and overlapping questions and the kindling of a frantic spark of hope. A knot tightened in Chase’s throat at the sight. It was a scene he’d imagined over and over again across those nine months at home and for them, it had never come to fruition. What could they have done differently? What had they done wrong?

Jealousy and longing were unconducive. As he was distracted the scene began to ripple and slip away; the last he could make out was his other self breaking free of the others to make a call. He paced in agitated circles as the dial tone rang and then—

“Stacy!”

What? Why would he be calling her now?

Sam was undeterred. Three months after Henrik was taken, our strong tower led his brothers into battle against the demon.

Three months since Schneep was taken? Only three months? Jameson hadn’t even been born yet! How much suffering could Schneep have been spared in their world if they had found him so soon?

Sam’s presence drifted, low and silent, for a long moment.

There was far greater suffering still to come, Chase Brody.

What followed was a furious explosion of static and thunder and flame. Chase’s first instinct was to recoil, shielding his eyes and ears from the full frontal assault, but Sam maintained an invisible grip on his skull that wouldn’t let him turn away.

The walls of Anti’s void had been torn open. Tunnels of blackness writhed and warped wildly, shadows fleeing in droves from the blinding beacons of light that were Jackieboy and Marvin.

Schneep, beaten, bloody—yet bearing only a third of the scars—was suspended by a chain around one arm. Scuffed toes only just brushing the floor, he seemed just as helpless an onlooker as Chase was; he wore the same shell-shocked expression as his saviors tried to beat Anti back.

Chase had never fully tried to comprehend Jackieboy and Marvin’s power. He had never plumbed the depths that Jack had created within them, from which they could pull what seemed like boundless courage and strength.

This was more than the strength they had when working apart. Marvin was the fire, Jackieboy the storm. Working together, they made him feel tiny. 

They looked invincible.

They were. They were that, our heroes.

A different finger of Sam’s unseen hand sank deeper, pointing his attention elsewhere. The gunshots, barely audible before, were now the sharpest sound in the area.

But not all of us. What the demon took from us, fire couldn’t cauterize and the storm couldn’t wash away.

Chase watched his other self unload a full clip into the fray with little effect; those that didn’t penetrate Marvin’s array of magic passed through Anti’s static form like nothing. Spitting curses, he scrambled to reload.

Schneep’s chain rattled as he strained against it, reaching with his free arm. His voice was hoarse from old screams. “Chase, please, g-get me down! H-Hilf mir, while they buy us time! Don’t leave me here, please!”

He was needed elsewhere. Jamming the gun back into its holster, Chase dove to his friend’s side. “Nobody’s leaving anyone!” he snapped, already trying to pry his fingers into the manacle. “We’re gonna make it, I swear, we’re gonna get you home!”

On the other side of the room, Marvin hollered, reeling back with a spray of crimson as Anti’s knife tore through the mask and razed across his face. That was the blow to create the scars he bore today, Chase realized distantly, but that wasn’t important now. The pressure was mounting, squeezing his temples with such force that it brought everything to a crawl.

The water that had gathered in Chase’s eyes spilled down his cheeks, unfelt and unspoken as he stood in suspension. In the time that Sam hesitated, he could have counted the drops of blood as they flew from Marvin’s cheeks. He saw the sweat, laced with silver, beading on Jackieboy’s lashes. He heard Schneep’s joints pop as he writhed for escape. He heard his other self inhale. And beyond it all, a rising thrum of static.

This is it.

As Marvin stumbled, his former spell gave way with him. Anti glitched past him and Jackieboy swung wildly in vain.

“R̢ifl̨i͟ng̕ wit̶h̷ m͜y͜ ͠p̵l͟ay̡th͏ìngs ̀no̧w, ̷B̷rody? Did̵n̷'͜t poor Jack e̕ver ́tea͟ch͠ ̛y̸ou?!”

The air shimmered with distortion, the void heaved in its wake, and for a disturbing moment everything flashed to white as something gave way with an audible crunch. A wet squelch was to follow, then a shrill ringing. When the world finally faded back in, it was to Anti’s relish, his voice a gleeful purr as the knife twisted deeper into Chase’s left socket.

“Y̸ou̧ look̶ with͘ y͡o̷ur҉ ̛ęyes, no҉t y̶our͞ h͜a͡nds. N͜a͢ug̡hţy͠ boy͏.”