[Mortals] - This is the Way

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

This is the way the world ends

I am strangely comforted by the chatter of obscene, oversize insect wings. I can't believe that the Batman Industries bug bombs I brought with me will be of much use, but something in the synchronicity of having brought them eases my mind. In some bizarre way, I feel more prepared for what follows.

Did it work? I wonder. Have we marooned ourselves in a hellish version of the world to save our own layer of the multiverse? Or is this a price we pay for struggling to rescue a doomed ship? The pillar is still cold, but the world around me seems constant enough. Perhaps once entropy sets in sufficiently the changes slow to a crawl.

This is the way the world ends

Dave Lexluthor is a bit of a shock, but I focus on the goal - to get home - and when I can't ignore his more appalling traits I distract myself by contemplating the nature of multiversality.

Catherine Benedict is somehow special; somehow present in all worlds, if I recall correctly. So, it seems, is Mike, and yet not Mike. In every world there is a form of Mike Batman, a morphic twin, but different in name although alike in nature, even when they have taken such a dark turn as this one.

I wonder why Jim Spiderman, having stepped into our world for a moment, felt it necessary to say hi to our Emma. What happened in that conjunction? What was all the business with the dolls?

And Andy Beckett, it seems; always an Andy Beckett, so often a Timothy Sexton in one form or another.

This is the way the world ends

I thought that dead London was a kind of Hell, but Cambridge is far worse. I avoid thinking about the dead that surround us; avoid looking at the bodies, any one of which could be a friend or a colleague; any one of which could be my wife. This is my home, and it has become an abode of dragons.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

It's strangely easy to get in, and we tell our tale to Meleagraunce Darke. It's simple enough to make the deal; after all, we have something that he wants. It seems oddly appropriate to be offering Andy Beckett's Kryptonite; that synchronicity again.

In this world, Dave Lexluthor is a hero and Meleagraunce Darke apparently the lesser of two evils; or at least the more useful. I have no sympathy for Sexton, but it still feels wrong to give power to Darke.

Perhaps that's why I do it.

It's the end of the world as we know it

I go through the portal last, watching the strain on Darke's face.

I press the button and I let the 'device' fall. It feels a little like letting off a bug bomb. I wonder how many 'Mites' it will kill; how many wretched survivors of Darke's reign. I wonder what will become of that benighted world.

The door closes.

And I feel fine.