The Mandela Effect: Part 15
Aubrey Adkins | Kyra Muller (Earth-201)
Pacific Point, CA
Well, I think I can officially mark this down as one of my worst days. That’s saying a lot because I have had quite some doozies. First I woke up in some strange factory without an idea how I got there or what had happened in the past two days to make me look like an exaggerated version of myself. Then, Firefox showed up and looked nothing like herself, nor did she seem to recognize me. And now, the building spontaneously exploded! I am starting to debate whether the splitting headache from my caffeine-induced hangover or the ringing in my ears from the explosion.
I found myself inside a pocket of the debris of the now defunct factory: bricks, metal, pipes, and whatever else was in the building. Although the water levels in the pocket were not rising at any significant rate, the dampness of the floor indicated that the explosion caused the building to cave into its basement. I noticed my webs were intertwined with the patchwork of debris that surrounded me. I guess it probably was the only thing keeping the bubble from collapsing on itself.
I then heard some moans across from me. I had been so occupied with the peculiar situation I had found myself in that I had forgotten that Firefox had entered the building right before the explosion went off. She was just now shaking off the fall, but what I was more worried about was the rebar that pierced through her thigh and the blood gushing out of the wound.
“Kyra, you’re leg!” “I’ll be alright,” Firefox shrugged her wound off as she propped herself up on her feathered elbows. “I normally could just melt it, but I would exhaust our oxygen supply in the process. But a hand would be appreciated.”
I approached my friend, gripped the base of the rebar, and applied my spider-strength on it until it snapped. I tossed the piece of metal to the side and returned my attention to Kyra, who was already pulling out what remained of the rebar. But I was surprised when I saw Kyra’s dripping wound nearly instantly heal itself.
“See, good as new,” Kyra pointed towards her leg.
First Kyra had my physique and now she has a healing factor she never had before. If she had been a drider instead of a bird lady, I would have guessed she had become a near copy of me! Was that what happened? But who did I become until my healing factor started to fix me up? And if Kyra did become a near replica of me, why didn’t she become a drider? Whenever we get out of this pickle, I really need to get some answers.
“So now what? Should we start digging our way out?” “We probably would cause a cave-in before we could get anywhere near the surface. Our best bet is to wait and hope Will brings some help soon,” Kyra replied as she sat up against the wall of the debris pocket we were trapped in.
“Wait, you saw Will?” “He seemed to have been calling someone when I picked him up. But what’s peculiar is he wasn’t supposed to be here for another two weeks.”
Well, this just further confirms that we’re both being affected by the same thing. Sure, her memory loss was longer than mine, but it definitely was a symptom.
Wait, what the hell did she mean that Will wasn’t supposed to come to Pacific Point for another two weeks? Does that mean they’re—but that’s impossible. Unless that futuristic phone was lying to me, we’re still an item. Yet it sounds like she has become me in all but name, face, and theme animal. This is so messed up.
“Since all we can do is wait, I have a question of my own,” Kyra spoke up again.
“Sure. What is it?” “How are you here?”
A suburb of Columbus, OH, Earth-201
October, 25th, 2008
Will struggled to break the surface of the green liquid he had found himself submerged in. Yet, calling it a ‘liquid’ was generous at best, as it was rather a sludge or a goo, extremely viscous in nature. Worst still was the substance’s near sentience. Whenever Will would come close to the surface, he would sink into the liquid. He was pulled. This made Will’s situation ever more problematic, as he had not been able to catch his breath.
Yet, despite the clear risk of drowning, the green goo presented another, more present danger. Once, when Will managed to break the surface with his hand, he tried to use a webline to pull himself out. However, once Will was again dragged down, the spider silk almost instantaneously disintegrated after it made contact with the liquid. Will did not want to admit it, but the green liquid was trying to dissolve everything it has engulfed, including Will.
Will was beginning to feel lightheaded from holding his breath so long. Small patches of his skin, where the green goo had already eaten through his superhero costume, had also started to burn. He needed to get out of here. He did not even want to imagine the alternative.
With what little remaining strength he had left, Will tried to swim through the viscous liquid towards the surface. The desire to inhale became harder and harder to resist after each passing second. Nonetheless, he persevered. He felt his hand break through; he was almost there.
But the green goo yanked Will back. Was this it? Will had used his last bit of energy, his last breath, and his last piece of willpower to escape.
However, at the same time, something had taken hold of Will’s arm and pulled him out, just like a person would do when drawing a string out of a hot pot of wax. When Will realized what was happening, he yanked up his mask until it uncovered his mouth and nose. He desperate gasped for breath.
A blue glow gleamed from Will’s savior. The light illuminated the room that would have otherwise been cloaked in darkness besides the faint green luminescence given off by the goo. Now that Will was not struggling for his survival and he could see his surroundings, he recalled how he got into this mess. He and Kyra were minding their own business at the Halloween party when chaos broke out. Will had been tossed into the basement by some invisible force at the onset of the chaos, so he was not fully aware of the damage that might have been done. But whoever was behind this surely was a serious threat. They must have known about Will’s metahuman abilities. Why else would they have specifically targeted him?
Will then glanced at his savior and saw a familiar sight: Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom. At her giant stature, she was forced to hunch over even with the basement’s high ceiling. She lifted Will until he was able to cling to the ceiling. With one gesture, the goddess magically removed any of the ooze that still clung to the Spider-Man costume Will had worn to the party and repaired any patched that the ooze had eaten away. With her task completed, Athena vanished, leaving Will alone in the darkness.
“Well, I guess it’s time to see what the heck is going on,” Will muttered as he crawled towards the basement exit.
Will’s jaw almost hit the floor when he saw what had happened to the party in his absence. As he walked around the house, he found dozens upon dozens of what looked like mannequins made of unusual materials: glass, wood, fabric. He even thought he saw some composed of stainless steel and red plastic. But what really crept Will out was the furniture and the cups the mannequins held. All the normal furnishings had been replaced with horrible nightmare fuel: these items were created not with regular building materials, but rather with human body parts. It took Will a few moments to connect the dots, but he was horrified when he realized these were his fellow classmates and partygoers!
“Shit! Where’s Kyra?” Will uttered as he desperately searched the house for his girlfriend. Fortunately, if one could even utter that word in such a situation, his classmates were still garbed in their Halloween costumes, despite their bizarre shapes. Will was looking for a Firestar costume, although he prayed he would not find one in the hopes she somehow had escaped this horror show.
“Hey, who taught you to investigate? A blind man?” Will heard a nasally voice call out when he had entered the living room during his search. Will peered around the room for the origin of the voice, but he did not see a single soul. The only thing present in this room, beside the mannequins and the furniture-shaped humans, was a
creepy ventriloquist doll sitting on the ‘couch.’ It was wearing a black dress suit with a red bowtie. Something felt familiar about this doll, but he could not put his finger on it. Will guessed what had happened to his schoolmates had unnerved him. He must have imagined the voice.
“Yes, I’m talking to you, fox humper!” Will turned his head back towards the doll. Was Will imagining this voice? As he approached the doll, an eerie sense of deja vu bothered him. Why was this creepy doll so familiar?
“What? Surprised we’re always watching?” the doll said as he spontaneously animated.
“What the fuck?” Will blurred out when he realized that the doll was alive. He immediately leapt away from the talking doll as soon as it started to move. He already thought the puppet from the TV series was creepy. This thing was ten times worse. Goosebumps broke out all over Will’s skin. Will had no idea why he had this irrational fear, despite what he had already seen in his young superhero career.
“Really?” the doll responded with a spine-chilling laugh, “You’re freaking out about a talking doll when you’re surrounded by misshapen flesh bags? And people call Slappy the crazy one!”
“Wait, shouldn’t you have
red hair?”
The doll began to rattle with anger at what Will had said. His eyes twitched and he grinded his wooden teeth together.
“How
DARE you confuse me for
Mr. Wood, that two-bit hack! He only lasted as the main antagonist for a single book!”
Slappy then revealed a kitchen knife he had hidden behind him. Will was taken by surprise when the dummy leapt at him. He did not think the wooden doll could have the distance between it and him. Yet, before he knew it, Will was fending off Slappy’s knife-jabs.
“Keep your creepy hands off me!” Will shouted. With one swift motion, Will grabbed the hand Slappy was holding the knife in and ripped his arm from his wooden body. Slappy screamed in pain from the loss of that limb. While the demonic doll was momentarily occupied by his pain, Will tossed Slappy against the wall. The doll landed with a heavy thud.
“
The Masked Mutant warned me of people
like you. This is only a setback!”
As the doll uttered these words, Will anchored it to the floor with his web shooters. He would have normally dropped something heavy on it, but he could not in this case because everything he could have used was actually a person and not an unliving inanimate object.
“What did you do to everyone?” Will demanded answers from the living dummy, but he only received laughter in response.
“Oh, I wish this were my master scheme. But you’ll aren’t quite my
target audience.”
Slappy let out yet another creepy laugh after he revealed he was not behind everything. Will simply webbed the damn thing’s mouth shut, as he did not believe he could get any more information out of the living dummy. Plus, he did not want to hear that thing’s voice anymore.
Will then noticed a silver light shinning down the nearby flight of stairs. On the upper floor, Will found a glowing, silver door that he swore was not there at the beginning of the party. Whoever, or whatever, was behind this fucked up madness had to be behind those doors.
When Will pushed open the silver doors, he found a giant room that could not have possibly fit inside the house. He guessed the domed ceiling rose up to about 40 feet. However, considering what Will had seen so far, this did not faze him at all. In the center of the room stood a brunette woman clad in a silver dress.
“It is about time you arrived,” the woman declared in a condescending tone, “I thought you would have come sooner, but I guess you are still a teenager during the Aughts.”
“Who are you?” Will asked, “And what have you done to everyone?”
“You will know me as the Silver Sorceress in the future,” she responded, “You heroes have become quite the nuisance in my time, so I have traveled here to squash you before you can become a problem for us.”
Time traveling villains. This can’t be good. Will thought. Although he kept his head directed at her, his mask hid where his eyes were looking, allowing him to take better stock of the situation. The Silver Sorceress had several ethereal tendrils wrapped around her hands, as if she were holding a leash. Following the magical cords with his eyes, Will found an unconscious Matt, with the tendrils driven deep into his chest. The Silver Sorceress must have been tapping into Matt’s reality bending powers to cause all the horrors Will had seen downstairs.
“I had originally planned quite a poetic death for you, but I ran into an unforeseeable roadblock,” the Silver Sorceress began to explain. She snapped her fingers on her other hand and a billow of ethereal clouds arose from the floor and began to twirl about. Once the smoke had dispersed, another teenager had miraculously appeared out of thin air, a girl Will instantly recognized: Aubrey Adkins.
“Let her go!” Will begged, “she has nothing to do with this.”
“Au contraire, she’s as involved as you are. How sweet it would have been to kill to birds with one stone, to imprison her in some monstrosity and to watch her tear you apart, limb by limb,” the Silver Sorceress began to gloat, as some villains are want to do. As the witch spoke, she gestured with her free hand and caused Aubrey to levitate. The hapless blonde tumbled in midair, as if she had found herself unaffected by gravity, but still tethered to the same spot.
“I should have foreseen someone had taken precautions to protect both of you, no doubt the work of that Greek goddess. I thought I had been robbed of my revenge even before I broke the barriers of time and space,” the Silver Sorceress continued, “Yet, once my fit of rage had subsided, I realized this past was not identical to the one I had intended to travel to. The most minute details had been changed.”
“For instance, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that everyone’s favorite blonde was bereft of any metahuman powers. Or how romantic relationship between the two of you never materialized. Since I knew I had cast my magic flawlessly, I reveled in my consolation prize, the thought that my mere presence in the past had caused a butterfly effect that robbed her of these life experiences. I would almost admit that would have made my trip worthwhile.”
“If you can’t do anything to her, then let her go!” Will demanded again, “It sounds like this is between you and me.”
“Sure,
I might not be able to do anything, but
she can,” the Silver Sorceress gloated as she gestured to something behind Will. As he turned to see what the witch was pointing at, something swooped down and nearly grabbed him. Yet, he was able to roll out of the way at the last second. But when he got back on his feet, he was shocked at what he saw.
On an ledge that ran around the perimeter of the room, about a third way up the room’s height, a harpy stood perched, who resembled a creature Will recognized from a card game anime he used to watch back in elementary school. Even her outfit looked familiar. But on further inspection, Will recognized the woman’s face, her dyed red hair, and the yellow, red, and orange color scheme on her clothes.
“What have you done!” Will cried out when he realized that Kyra had been transformed into a winged beast.
“I found it amusing you and that supposed goddess of wisdom failed to extend her precautions to this fine feathered lady,” the Silver Sorceress mocked as she gestured to Kyra. “If I cannot fulfill my original plan, having your new squeeze do my dirty work is a fine compromise.”
While the Silver Sorceress had continued her gloating, her levitation spell ended, dropping Aubrey to the ground with a thud. Now free, Aubrey tried to crawl away while the witch was preoccupied with her self-congratulations. But the harpified Kyra leap off the ledge and swooped up Aubrey with her feet talons. She then darted towards the ceiling high above.
“My job here is now over,” the Silver Sorceress declared, “but I would recommend you hurry. My last instructions to our little friend over there was to start reverting things back to normal. It would be such a shame if your girlfriend would turn back to normal in midair.”
After the Silver Sorceress had muttered the words of her spell, she blinked out of existence, returning to her own time. Will noticed parts of Matt’s body was starting to flicker in and out of existence. Therefore, knowing the urgency of the situation, he scurried up the wall in the hopes of reaching the two girls before Kyra could return to normal. He found Kyra flying in spot at the apex of the ceiling. He had not noticed it until now because of the initial shock at her changed appearance, but her eyes were clouded and blank, as if she were not in the driver seat. He tried not to think about the possibility that she was helplessly watching everything like a prisoner in her own body. His first priority was to get both of the girls safely to the ground.
Will knew he did not have much time left, as one of Kyra’s fox ears had reappeared and one of her hands had returned to its original size and human shape. It would not be long before she could not keep herself and Aubrey airborne. He first tried to tackle Kyra and use a webline to keep all three of them from falling to the floor, but Kyra dodged out of the way. This was not going to be easy.
Will then descended from another webline until he had reached Aubrey.
“I’m going to need you to hold onto her legs,” Will suggested to the blonde teenager.
“What?” Aubrey asked, but she soon found out way. One of Kyra’s avian talons spontaneously changed back into an ordinary human foot. Aubrey screamed as she thought she was going to be dropped. Had the other foot reverted in turn, Aubrey would have fallen over 40 feet to the floor. She reached out and held onto Kyra’s remaining harpy foot for her dear life.
“I’m hoping this will help you until I figure how to get both of you down,” Will told Aubrey as he wrapped some spider silk tightly around her wrists so she would not have to hold onto Kyra’s ankles forever.
“Hurry!” Aubrey pleaded. As soon as she spoke, Will’s spider-sense began to blaze in his head. When he peered up, he saw that Kyra’s wings had finally given out. Now that Kyra could no longer propel herself in the air, she, along with Aubrey, began to free fall.
Almost as if Will were watching these events unfold in slow motion, he reached out in desperation. He barely managed to wrap his arm around the bottom of Kyra’s ribcage. He could hear Aubrey’s panicked streams as she was tossed about below.
“Come on, Kyra. Wake up,” Will whispered into the fox ear that had just reappeared on Kyra’s head. In fact, she had already almost returned to normal, including the Halloween costume she had originally wore to this party. When he peered down towards Aubrey, he noticed that the blonde teenager was now dangling from Kyra’s foot, as Will had not thought about the anatomical differences between humans and birds.
Will struggled to lift the arm holding Kyra to his webline so that he could free up his other hand. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this situation without Kyra waking up. What was he going to do? Even if he could somehow hold onto both women, how could he safely set down both of them from such a height?
When Will had finally clutched his webline with both hands, he heard Aubrey scream again. The webbing he had used to keep her attached to Kyra’s foot, had slipped off and sent Aubrey plummeting to the floor. Will managed to prevent her fall by hitting her shoe with another webline, but he strained trying to hold Kyra and the webline in one hand and Aubrey in the other.
With much difficulty, Will tried to pull up on the second webline and transfer it over to his other hand. Once his other hand was holding both the weblines, he started to draw Aubrey up, arm length by arm length. However, Will began to feel intense pain in the arm holding Kyra and the two weblines. Although Kyra was still knocked out cold, her body was burning up. Will was puzzled when he realized her kitsune features were slowly disappearing and the harpy appearance started to return.
Will tried to resist the burning pain, but eventually he gave into it. His grip on the two weblines loosened and Kyra slipped through his arms. Because Will was not holding everyone up with these weblines, the three teens started to fall to the floor. Panic began to set in Will’s mind. His heart raced. He needed to regain control of the situation. He reached out and snatched the webline that was attached to Aubrey. He also used his legs to catch Kyra, while he shot another webline to hold all of them up again.
Once this crisis passed, Will sighed in relief. But something felt wrong. The webline dangling below felt way too light. When he looked down, he saw that only a shoe was attached to the spider silk. The webline slipped through his fingers as Will experienced the numbness one experiences before an explosion of emotions slams into one who has experienced a loss.
“Wait, I’m dead?” I gasped after I heard her account of her supposed past. Throughout the entire retelling of this story, Kyra had not looked at me. And even still now she focused her glance at the floor. She didn’t have to say, but here body language told the entire story: she blamed herself for the death of her world’s me.
“Hey, you can’t blame yourself,” I tried to console Kyra,
“If anyone is to blame, it’s that Silver Sorceress bitch. I’ve seen how she can do quite number on people.” “Sometimes, I wish it were that simple to cast aside your guilt. God knows how I have gotten by these past few years without being able to get drunk from my powers.”
“I know, right? Although it’s fantastic I can down all the fruity drinks I want without wearing about a giant hangover the next day, sometimes you need something to take the edge off of our shitty lives.” “Wait, you have a healing factor, too?”
“Well, I did find out the hard way that caffeine acts like alcohol when I consume too much of it. Once when I unknowingly got buzzed from eating some chocolate, I accidentally let slip that my friends and I thought my friend’s roommate was a porn star to her face. So embarrassing.” I then heard Kyra give off a sigh. For a moment there, I saw a flash of a smile on her face. But as soon as I mentioned my slipup with Danielle, it suddenly disappeared.
“What? Was it something I said?” “Well, it just reminded me of something that happened my last year of undergrad that I have tried to block out of mind the last few years.”
Long before Kyra had told me that story, I had already noticed she had kind of become a copy of myself. With the further confirmation of a relationship with a Will from her world, I think I could probably guess what she was referring to here.
“Please tell me a shapeshifter didn’t sign you up for the Viera modelling contest.” “Oh, how I wish I could. What pissed me off the most was I had to turn down a couple offers from graduate programs due to some legal bull crap I didn’t even sign. How did you know?”
“The same thing happened to me,” I told Kyra, although I added a quick disclaimer,
“Well, except for the grad school stuff.” “So, I guess it’s safe to assume you’ve crossed paths with Katherine?”
“Who?” “She was a human trafficker who used her powers to transform the victims she kidnapped according to the tastes of her clientele. It was super messed up.”
“Oh, her. Yeh, I had the misfortune of experiencing her handing work. I try not to think about her.” “Considering you look like you’ve drawn the short straw between us, that’s reasonable.”
“Oh, I don’t normally look like this. I usually have a figure like yours, minus the feathers and claws.” I responded. I paused for a moment before I interjected another comment. “Although I wouldn’t be surprised Katherine was responsible for my current appearance, too.”
“See, we have more in common than you thought.” Kyra sighed again.
“What now?” “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but it just makes me think I’ve robbed everything from you. I’ve stolen your powers, your boyfriend, and your life.”
I tried to figure out what I should say next. However, I never got a chance because a golden, mystic light shown through the gaps of the rubble above our heads. The debris began to shake uncontrollably until everything started to float. Little by little, the remains of the factory slowly cleared out. Hovering just in view was the Son of Osiris, sitting in a meditative posture.
I pulled on my mask before I prepared to climb out of the crater where we had been trapped. But after I had taken a few steps, I turned and offered a hand towards Kyra.
“Hey, I’ve got wings,” Kyra replied. She finally gave another smile before ascending into the air. Seeing that she didn’t need my help, I crawled my way up to the surface.
When I reached the surface, I found the rest of the Immortals waiting. Although both Odysseus and the Son of Osiris seem normal, I immediately recognized that Talus and Gajana were not. Out of the four of us who did not look like our normal selves, Gajana was dealt the best hand. He no longer had his elephant head. Instead, he looked the the Thing if he looked human and not all rocky. Plus, he was wearing a costume so campy that I would have guessed it was pulled right out of an old comic book. He even had an elephant head logo printed on the front of it.
I smiled when I saw what had happened to Talus. Normally he would look like a modern, sleek android. But now, he was a short, boxy robot, something straight out of the Jetsons.
Then I saw Will, dressed in a costume quite reminiscent of my costume. Well, I mean my
normal costume. I shot a webline at him and dragged him into a big embrace. Even though I had faith that someone would have come to our aid, I would be lying if the thought of being trapped under that rubble didn’t cross my mind at least once. But when I wrapped my arms around my boyfriend, I noticed he was holding back.
“What’s wrong?” “Are you back to normal?”
“Do I look like I’m make to normal?” “Then that’s a yes,” Will said as he reciprocated my original embrace.
“Wait, we wasted all night trying to figure out how to restore your mind without your healing factor scrambling your brains!” Talus blurred out. An electric static masked his voice, which normally already had a slight robotic tone to it.
“Well, I’m not the only one with a healing factor here,” I replied while looking towards Kyra.
Meanwhile, the Son of Osiris had finished placing all the rubble into piles. With his work done, he opened a portal to the Immortals’ base.
We’ll make sure Firefox gets the proper treatment for her condition, the Son of Osiris telepathically communicated with the Immortals. He turned his head towards Will and me and specifically talked to us.
Arachne, you have been through enough the last few days. So, go home and rest up. We’ll be in contact once you have recuperated. Will and I watched as the five other Immortals walk through the portal. Soon we stood there alone with the collapsed factory all around us.
“So, ready to go home?” “Am I ever?”
Zombiedude101
