---Em---

     When we were kids, Olivia and I once tried to build a teleportation device. The only materials we had on hand were some twigs, a couple of pinecones, and a whole lot of mud, but we weren't about to let that get in our way. Olivia had that twinkle in her left eye that she gets whenever she's really into something. She told me the first thing she was going to do once the machine was finished was teleport to the moon. I wanted to teleport to the cookie factory.

     We'd been at it for about half an hour when Colby showed up. He wasn't as enthusiastic about our latest project—he took issue with the fact that neither of us would be able to program the device. And if we couldn't program it, there was no telling where we'd wind up each time we used it. We could teleport to the cookie factory, sure. But we could also teleport right into the pit of a volcano.

     Ripping through to new worlds is a lot like using a teleportation device without being able to program it. Question is, is this place a cookie factory or a volcano pit? Well, it's definitely not a cookie factory.

     Of all the worlds we've ripped to so far, this one's hands-down the most foreign. Purple clouds drift far above our heads. Skinny trees with leopard spots sprout upside-down from the clouds, their crooked branches reaching downwards. My shoes sink into gelatin-like puddles of burgundy ooze that are clustered along the rugged terrain. I step into an ankle-deep puddle, the resistance slowing me down. My foot sinks, like in quicksand. When I pull it out, the ooze slithers off neatly and settles back into the puddle without leaving a drop behind—I bet you could swim in a lake of this stuff without getting wet.

     Comma passes through one of the cloud forest's many arches—tendrils of blue and red clay that interlock in a double-helix formation, protruding from the ground and forming arch-shaped pillars. A couple of furry boulders rest on the other side of the pillar; Comma keeps at a distance, doing her best to tread carefully, at least until she steps in a puddle as deep as her knee and falls flat on her face.

     I stifle a chuckle, passing through the arch. Comma glares at me; I help her back to her feet. We both stare ahead of us. Nothing but arches, boulders, and puddles. The clusters of cloud trees get denser the further we tread, their branches interlocking and preventing most of the sun's light from reaching the terrain below.

     Comma sighs. "We should turn back."

     "Tired already?" My stomach grumbles. "We haven't found any food yet."

     "And we're not gonna."

     "The last time we had this argument, you were the one in favour of persevering." I'd wanted to wait out the oncoming storm. I learned an important lesson that day: never tell Comma what to do.

     "The last time we had this argument, you were right to want to turn back. We wouldn't have met Topher and the others if we hadn't." Comma glances back over her shoulder. "Come on. It's getting dark—the others will be worried."

     "And I was hoping to spend some more quality time with you."

     Comma sticks out her tongue at me.

     "Hey, what's that?" I hear a buzzing noise. Shivers run down my spine as I'm reminded of the swarm of flying cockroaches that nearly ate me alive this one time. I pivot around to see where the noise is coming from.

     A flying creature the size of a water bottle flops down onto one of the furry rocks. The creature has the body of a naked rodent with oily scales all over its skin, like a fish. A set of dragonfly wings flutter against its back. With the elongated snout of a seahorse, it nibbles on little fungus flakes growing along a crack in the boulder.

     "What do you think?" I cock my head to the side. "Edible?"

     "Anything's edible if you chew hard enough." Comma cracks her knuckles. "So do you want to do the honours, or should I?"

     "I got this." I take a deep breath and creep over to the boulder. My shoes slide in and out of the puddles noiselessly. The scaly rodent continues to nibble on the fungus flakes, unaware of my presence.

     Slowly and carefully, I position my hands just above the rodent, getting ready to snatch it up. I attack, and just as my fingers close around the rodent's scales, the crack in the boulder opens up wide, revealing a set of rotted teeth. The boulder chomps down on both the rodent and my hands.

     I flinch, unable to process what's just happened. There isn't even any pain, at least until the boulder starts grinding its teeth along my wrists, trying to sever my hands. Then I scream. Next thing I know, Comma's hacking away at the boulder with her chakram.

     The boulder spits out my hands, keeping the rodent for itself, and then rolls away, picking up speed as it goes.

     "Good going," says Comma, absorbing her chakram back into her aura.

     My hands throb, and I can barely feel my fingers. "What the hell was that?"

     "The lousiest hunting I've ever seen in my life."

     I kneel down on the ground and slide my hands inside the ooze puddles—that numbs the aching a bit. Above us, the clouds start to drift together, blotting out the sun. A cool breeze starts to blow downwards. We glance up. It's tough to make out from down here, but it looks like little bulbs at the tips of the branches have opened up and they're blowing cold air down onto us. I notice a series of bulges along the trunks, where the hollow trees have filled up with air.

     "This place just gets weirder and weirder," I mutter.

     Comma tugs down on her toque. The wind grows cooler, forming little frost clouds when it collides with the ground.

     I hear a crack.

     The puddle I've been soaking my hands in freezes over. I try to yank my hands free, but they're stuck in the ice. The ice cuts off circulation, and my hands go numb again as a sharp pain shoots up my wrist.

     "A little help?"

     Comma rolls her eyes, summoning her chakram again. Her face tenses up as she does so—even though it's been months since Selina siphoned off a good chunk of her powers, she still hasn't recovered from it. She hesitates.

     "Now would be nice," I say, wincing as another wave of pain courses through me.

     "Bit of a problem," says Comma, looking down. "I'm uh... stuck." Sure enough, her right foot is caught in one of the puddles. "Just a moment." She kneels down and slams her chakram into the ice. The blade chips, and Comma curses.

     The temperature drops even further as more and more trees gather above us, spraying us with their frigid breeze. My teeth start to chatter. There are a lot of things I wanted to be when I grew up. A popsicle wasn't one of them.

     Comma keeps hacking away at the ice. That's just like her—now knowing when to give up. Me, I'm ready to black out; the pain's already more than I can withstan. I close my eyes, losing a little more body heat with every exhale.

     "If we survive this," says Comma, "from now on, we turn back when our gut tells us to."

     "Agreed," I utter, feeling the warmth leave my body.

     Comma's blade whacks against the ice again, and again, and again... and then stops. All I can hear now is the howling of the wind.

     And footsteps.

     I force my eyes open. A figure comes into view after passing through one of the arches. If my heart weren't already frozen stiff from the cold, it would've stopped at the sight of her.

     She stares at me from beneath her light green hoodie. I stare back, mesmerized by her eyes—her left iris is a deep indigo, her right a soothing hazel. I can just barely make out her short, dirty blonde hair beneath the hood. The girl—somewhere in her mid to late teens, if I had to guess—approaches us, her footfalls so light that they seem to hover over the puddles.

     The girl slides something out of her belt. My vision's starting to black out; I have to squint to bring it into focus. It's a guardless hilt. No blade. The girl closes her eyes and a luminescent beam shoots out of the hilt. Is that a freaking laser sword?

     I can feel the heat radiating off of it—it takes the edge off the biting cold.

     "Em!" Comma shouts, but too late; the girl closes the distance between us and brings down the blade. It plunges into the ground, its heat spiraling outward. The ice starts to thin, and I manage to pry my hands loose.

     I back away. At least the rest of the puddles have all frozen over by now, so I can crab-walk without fear of getting trapped again. The girl sets Comma loose as well.

     "Thanks," Comma mutters, albeit reluctantly.

     "We should go," says the girl. The beam of her sword flickers and then dies out like a flame. I miss its warmth already. "The golems will be here soon to eat anything caught in the puddles."

     "Golems?" Comma asks.

     The girl nods. "Whatever you're picturing, they're worse."

     "Maybe this place isn't so strange after all," I say, my knees wobbling as I force myself to stand up. "I'm Em, by the way. And that's—"

     "Save your breath unless you want to be frozen dinner." The girl turns her back on me and starts heading in the opposite direction. Comma and I communicate via a series of glances, not all of them pleasant. We decide to follow the girl.

Author's Note:

"The End" was written on November 27, 2015. So it's been just about a year since I started this. The anniversary has me feeling nostalgic for the early days of the story, as you can probably tell from reading this chapter.

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