Clarissa didn't wake up, but she felt like she had fallen asleep. She was still on the lamp post, but something was different. That cold wind was replaced with a warm breeze, and Clarissa could clearly see that the surrounding grass and trees were getting ready for the warmer months. From her own experience, she deduced that it wasn't yet Spring Break; otherwise, the island would be swamped with people. Such was the life cycle of Edwards Island, total isolation between January to March and September to December. Looking around, Clarissa's eyes quickly fell upon the small dock that held the ferry. It had apparently finished dropping off its passengers, as it was setting off for the mainland.

Clarissa shimmied her way down the lamp post, miraculously avoiding injury. An inner rage boiled up, the likes of which she'd never experienced before. "I will... kill her..." she murmured to herself, setting off for the beach.

As she walked down Main Street, she observed a few things. The street had been repaved, the potholes finally filled. The shops were more vibrant, though closed nonetheless; they had been stocked with more goods for more tourists. The statue honoring the Sunken had been polished and chained off; its plaque had been replaced with one that did not advertise a radio tour guide channel. Clarissa took the tunnel to the beach, the same tunnel she'd woken up in when all of this had started; it had been painted by talented street artists, vibrant pictures of children and families playing on the beach painted all along the walls, like a miniature Sistine Chapel. Despite the terrible time she had been having overall, Clarissa had to admit that the island had received a much needed facelift, one that would have taken plenty of money. And time. She wondered how much time, exactly.

She didn't have too long to ponder it. She emerged on the other side, taking in Beacon Beach. Its sandy nature was still intact, but the mouth to the cave had been sealed off entirely, collapsed by explosives from the looks of it. Of course, all the details of its innately beautiful landscape paled in comparison to the grand prize of the whole campaign. Like the spires of the Kremlin, Alex was right in front of her, just a few precious steps away. That insufferable brat, that murderous beast, she stood there, looking out across the ocean. She didn't move a muscle, as if she was asking for retribution. She wore red, but Clarissa could tell that it wasn't Michael's jacket; it was slender, form-fitting. Alex still wore jeans, but her hair was no longer teal, orange, or red; it was auburn, the hair God gave her.

Alex had kept Clarissa's haircut. It was a firm reminder that Clarissa was here to finally kill Alex. Looking around the mouth of the tunnel, she found a piece of pipe, almost three feet long. It was rusted and jagged on the end, but it was heavy enough. Grip tightened, she walked with confidence. She closed the distance, ready to make the direct assault on Moscow. But when she was just fifteen inches away, she was finally stopped.

"Nona!" Alex pleaded, pain in her voice. With her phone in her left hand, she thrust her right hand into her hair. "Nona- No- Nona! I... yes... yes... no, Nona-" she kept up, only to be shot down again and again. "I love you!"

Clarissa was transfixed. She kept telling herself, over and over again, to kill Alex, to strike her down, to end all of this for good. But if Nona was on the other end, it would just have to wait. She would never, ever put Nona through the pain of listening to a painful death of someone she cared about. Still, the screaming urge to end Alex persisted.

"Please!" Alex begged over the phone. "I still want you in my life, Nona! I'm sorry. You mean so much to me, and I'll always think of you as a friend! You've given me the happiest moments in my life, and I'll always cherish them! But... this is it. I'm not staying"

Clarissa stood so close to Alex, breath held. Nona was clearly giving Alex a piece of her mind, as the girl kept trying to say her own piece; Nona kept interrupting. Alex was reduced to sniffling.

"No. My mind is made up... yes... no... Nona-" Finally, after a few more minutes, Alex nodded. "Okay. Goodbye, Nona. I'll always- ah, God damn it!" she screamed into the ocean.

Clarissa waited for Alex to hang up and let her sulk for a minute, just for good measure. Seeing her start to kick her shoe into the sand, Clarissa scoffed, "That sounded rough, Alex."

Alex wheeled around so quickly that she gave her neck a crick. Her phone fell out of her hand, and she stared at Clarissa, eyes wide and skin suddenly pale. She couldn't even focus on breathing.

Clarissa, in contrast, had all the time in the world to savor the moment. Alex had clearly grown up an inch or two. Facing her almost head-to-head, she could see the girl's upgraded wardrobe. The red jacket was a fancy, red business blazer; going by the way it hugged her body it was custom tailored. The polished, shiny belt that held her jeans looked just as expensive, and the white buttoned shirt was a clean, pricy kind she'd expect to see at a career fair. The shoes were still the same, muddy boots; but Clarissa figured that Alex must have had shoes for not-sandy conditions. She glanced at the phone Alex had dropped. It was big, new, and expensive.

Alex looked at Clarissa like she had known her for an eternity; and yet, she also looked at her as if she were a complete stranger, unsure of who she really was.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Clarissa wondered, glaring at Alex, who was still in such a state of shock that she could not convince her body to move. "Losing someone you love? Sure does hurt. Alot. You want to go to the end with them, but you never will."

"You're... actually you?" Alex shook her head, first slowly but quickly accelerated her pace. Brown hair swishing back and forth, she stammered, "No. No, no, no, you're not you, and you're not real. I'm imagining you. I deserve this, so I'm imagining it's you who's beating me down."

Laughing, Clarissa raised her pipe, batting in against the palm of her left hand. "Well, you're only half wrong!"

Alex finally saw the weapon. "Shit." Even if she hadn't been armed, only the real Clarissa could fire back with pun-oriented sass like that.

Nodding, Clarissa smiled wide, showing off her pearly whites. Nodding her head like an eager dog, she happily agreed, "Shit!"

Shaking her head, Alex persisted, "You're not real." Raising a finger, she backed away and dramatically pointed at Clarissa. "Stay away from me!" ordered as her shoes began to slosh into the mud.

Laughing, Clarissa looked around. Sure of her chances, she demanded, "You think you can control me?!"

Eyes wide, Alex fired back, "I've done worse, Clarissa. I killed you. I wiped you out of reality."

That triggered the memories on Main Street. Clarissa kept her ground. "You must have done a fantastic job. Nona sure didn't seem to mind."

A lot of painful expressions flashed across Alex's face. Clarissa knew those bags under her eyes hadn't been there before. Taking a much needed breath, Alex explained, "It wasn't- no, not literally. I- I... the ghosts-"

It was Clarissa's turn to hold her breath.

"They needed you," Alex explained. "They needed a body to inhabit, to save themselves!"

And then it was Clarissa's turn to go pale. The terror she felt was suddenly overcome with a calm rage, like a warm blanket wrapping around her.

"But I tried to save you!" Alex told her, standing fast. Exhaustion suddenly overcame her. "I-! I fought! I fought for so long, Clarissa! So many times. In so many ways." As she recalled the countless loops, she recalled the pain when she finally accepted defeat. Grimacing, she assured Clarissa, "I tried to save everyone! Everything I did, it was to get us out alive, but I couldn't beat them, Clarissa! I had to surrender you to them," she revealed, slumping as the pain came back to her face as she desperately clutched her own sides. "But I always wanted to help you!"

"Help me?" Clarissa wondered incredulously. "'Help me'! How did that help me?!" she demanded, stretching her arms outwards. "You sold me out to them! That's the opposite of-!"

"I had no other choice!" Alex screamed back. "You weren't there! You didn't see-!"

"Oh, believe me, child!" Clarissa assured her as she brandished the pipe at her. "I saw more than I ever wanted to see."

Alex persisted, "It wasn't about just you! Nona, Jonas, Ren! We've gone through-!"

"Gone through what?" Clarissa shot back. "They're children! They've gone through nothing!"

"We went through Hell!" Alex loudly corrected her.

"I've been living in Hell with a woman from the fifties for an eternity!" Clarissa one-upped her. To that, Alex fell into a silent shock. "And I've seen you in action, child! I've seen you steal away my Nona across a shit-tonne of dimensions! You think you've gone through Hell? You run the joint! You deserve this just for the way you treat her!"

"I love her," Alex strained, moving her hands to lock with each other, wriggling nervously. "I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't- I can't lose my job."

To that, Clarissa had to laugh. "You steal my last friend away from me?! And break up with her over a job?! No, please, tell me more. I need to hear this," she instructed, motioning with the pipe like it were an instructor's pointing stick. A headache spiked in the back of her brain, her rage demanding that she kill Alex.

"I... I'm moving. To Dallas," Alex revealed. "Lockheed Martin wants me... working full time."

Whistling, Clarissa nodded along. "Of course! The biggest defense contractor, slash aerospace supergiant in the world wants you, the almost-highschool-dropout."

Frowning, Alex showed actual offense to that. "I finished my master's in mechanical engineering last December!"

And just like that, Clarissa was on the defensive again. "Bullshit!"

"Far from it!" Alex shot back. "I passed my F.E. and my P.E. exams, and I interned for them last year!"

Clarissa had to take it all in. Assuming Alex hadn't suffered any setbacks in her degree plan, that was two more years of high school, followed by six in college. And she couldn't fully accept that Alex had meant what she'd said on Main Street, that giving up Clarissa had made her try so much harder at life. This child had gone from a rebellious and edgy teen to a functioning adult, one who had apparently developed an eight year relationship and a prosperous career in the works. If it had been anyone else, anyone other than Alex, Clarissa would have been moved by the thought that her death could inspire someone to leap to a level of greatness she herself would probably never attain.

She had to kill her, obviously, but she couldn't help but wonder why she'd gone so far into the future. Only, she didn't go here on her own; she had been pushed, by forces that were clearly not on her side. "You sold me out to them. But they taught me how to move, to-"

Eyes going wide, Alex pushed past the terror behind that last sentence and realized, "You're not working on your own. They took you. Now they've come back." Breath growing faint, she realized, "I thought it finally- you don't know how many times I fought! But the loop never stopped! You were soaking this whole time! To you, this is all just a few hours after that night!"

Growing concerned, Clarissa asked, "How did you know it was them? The ghosts?"

"I've done this a few times. But now I don't have a radio to end this again." Alex launched herself forward, forcing Clarissa back. "Please, drop the stick," she begged. "If they sent you to kill me, they now know you don't have the heart. You'll-"

Raising her pipe, Clarissa felt the world go murky and red. She sunk into the warm blanket and started to doze off. Alex was like a noisy alarm that needed to be smashed into pieces; luckily for her, she had a heavy pipe to do the job. "No more... heart... than... you!" she sleepily murmured.

Alex jumped back as Clarissa swung at her. The murderous beast tried to evade, but Clarissa was faster and beamed her on the head. "Shit! Snap out of it!" Alex screamed, her voice slowly being drowned out by the gentle, rocking waves. "Clarissa! Fight it!" she begged as she made a mad dash for the tunnel, clutching her head as blood trickled down onto the sand behind her.

Clarissa gave chase. With her superior physical prowess, she closed the distance Alex had put between them. As Alex reached the Kanaloa Statue at the top of the stairs, Clarissa caught her, violently swinging at the girl's legs and tripping her. Eating concrete, Alex could do little more than wildly kick in Clarissa's direction as the pipe came down upon her again and again, drawing more blood as its jagged edge sliced into her skull, face, and neck. Landing a hit in Clarissa's crotch, Alex bought enough time to get to her feet. As Clarissa staggered back, Alex went for the stick, to which Clarissa fought back ferociously, toppling them both. As Alex fell atop her, the two scraped and rolled on their sides, hands and arms locking up as they fought for control. They rolled about and pushed each other down the road a few meters, coming to the lamp post where Clarissa had started.

Content to stay in the warmth forever, Clarissa overpowered Alex. Rolling on top of her, she brought the bar down to the smaller girl's neck and put all of her weight on it. Alex kicked and screamed, desperately trying to push back. As Clarissa bore down on her, the scream died down to a gasp, and from that it faded to a heavy moan. She stared up at Clarissa, never once blinking; the terror in her eyes faded to glazed apathy as blood flowed freely from her skull, face, and mouth.

"I was looking forward to seeing you," Clarissa murmured as she felt the warmth enveloping her soul. Her senses numbed as she nodded off, content to sleep forever. "Yes... I used to dream about something like this."

Then, the warmth was gone, yanked away like blankets off her bed on a frigid winter morning. Doused in snow, Clarissa was sharply awoken by Nona of all people shouting, "Clarissa! Can you-! Can you hear me?!"

Clarissa looked around, her mind tearing itself apart as the headache returned. She couldn't see Nona, but she could feel her. She was close. And she was calling for her, begging for her. It had been an eternity since Clarissa had even heard Nona's voice; but this time she was wanting her, not Alex. She looked down at the girl, who had lost most of her strength to fight. Clarissa knew she had to finish the job that they had told her-

The pain in her head roared to life. She pushed through it, in the heat of the moment, realizing that they had misled her, used her, and were clearly overriding her own thoughts. As much as she wanted to finish the job-

The pain redoubled, and she felt herself thrust back down on Alex's throat. This time, Alex let go of the pipe all together, mouth ajar as she gasped one last time, gargling and spitting up her own blood.

"Kill... her..." Clarissa mumbled, the warmth quickly enveloping her again.

Nona called out, "Clarissa! Can you come down?!"

The warm blankets were frozen over. "I... am not... your machine!" Clarissa screamed through grit teeth, eyes twitching and head craning as she jumped off Alex entirely, tossing the pipe over the cliffside. As a sharp clanging sound echoed from the parking lot, Clarissa clawed at her eyes. "Who's... pulling?!" she demanded, wondering why the ghosts were pulling her in one burning direction, while someone else was pulling at her in another, freezing direction. She didn't have long to think on it.

Alex stared at her with some essence of a smile. Laying on the ground, she focused on getting her breath back and barely had the strength to sit up. "At least you... don't have... red eyes... anymore," she coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

A killer headache drilled into her brain, but Clarissa's resolve was unbreakable. Flinching, staggering, she held her ground and refused to bend. Glaring at Alex, she shook her head and told her, "This is not mercy."

Alex didn't get a chance to reply. Clarissa was gone.