Chapter 1: Junction Point

Emma's vision swam. Patches of darkness polluted the spinning image in weaving before her eyes, a mess of intersecting lines and colours that she could not hope to make any sense of. The mass of shapes in front of her resembled people, and she could certainly make out human-sounding sounds through her ringing ears (their meaning still eluded them, lost somewhere through the fog that descended upon her mind), but she knew that couldn't be right. Those disgusting limbs that grabbed her body, keeping her in place, the assortment of lime and crimson that decorated various parts of their bodies, those shimmering eyes bursting off lust and cruelty, there was no possible way she was dealing with humans. They must be some sort of wild animals whose names she couldn't place at the moment. No, that wasn't right either: animals wouldn't toy with their prey like that, they wouldn't squirm in excitement watching her whimper about helplessly. 'Monsters', a slight voice in the back of her mind whispered. Savage and vile monsters.

Her whole body felt like an aching bruise. The slightest twitch of her muscles brought about a searing hot sensation that threatened to blank out all thoughts and lulled her towards passing out. Over and over she tried to reach towards it, to take the final step and arrive at the blissful unconsciousness, but always was she pulled back from it, like an unruly dog who forgot about the leash around its throat. So all she could do was try to stay as still as possible, to try to reduce the pain by even the tiniest amount. A folly endeavour, for she would periodically be moved around by those dreadful hands, forcefully grabbing her bare skin as if trying to rip it apart. The throbbing was especially intense around her face, where she felt like hundreds of pins and needles were sticking out of every pore and every patch of flesh. A seemingly distant memory peered through the fog, of a red-haired girl begging her captors to spare her face. Though they no longer had the power to, Emma's lips curved in a pathetic attempt at a laugh. 'Silly girl, why would monsters listen to you? You're so small and weak, they could crush you with a snap, just like that.' she thought with good humour.

She could hear someone shouting in the distance. At first, she thought it was the monsters, but she soon realised that wasn't the case. They were too close for that, and they wouldn't be shouting anyway: they'd be too busy laughing and joking and spouting slurs at her. Then it must be someone else. Next, she imagined it was her father, but why would he just stand over there and shout when his youngest daughter was being assaulted by these green and red monstrosities? She remembered pleading for him to save her, didn't she? No, she had no idea who the mysterious screamer was, all she knew was that she envied him. She wanted to be able to scream like that, to let loose even a fraction of the suffering bottled up inside her, but it was hopeless. Her mouth had stopped obeying her long ago.

"What the fuck is this?" one of them, the one Emma recognised as the balaclava-wearing monster, exclaimed.

"Hell if I know, but it's really freaky. White bitches these days carry around the weirdest shit." another one, the tall and lanky one, said.

Emma didn't know why that particular exchange caught her attention, but she grabbed onto it like a lifeline, a rope to cling to lest she be swallowed up by the darkness around her. One of her eyes was already too swollen to be able to make out anything, but she tried to make sense of the nonsensical blur of images in front of her. There they were, holding onto something... her jacket? They must have taken it from her a while ago. It would explain why the harsh wind was battering around the open wounds on her arms. She hadn't noticed until now since she didn't feel the cold at all. One of them, the one with the balaclava, had taken something from one of the pockets. Squinting hard, the object suddenly came into view.

"Don't!" the word escaped her lips before she knew it as a sudden burst of strength ran through her body. She tried to jerk free from the iron grip holding her, only for another hand to grab her hair and drag her back, knees scraping against the hard pavement all the while. She didn't care about any of that at the moment. All she could focus on was the strange pendant the gangbanger in front of her was holding in his hand.

She couldn't recall when or how exactly she had gotten her hands on it. For as much as Emma knew, it had been by her side for as long as she could remember. It wasn't the kind of thing she would normally hold on to, quite the opposite. It was of a sickly green colour, with an ugly, borderline grotesque face engraved in its stone. Yet there was just something about it that entranced her in a way that she couldn't quite explain, a sense of aesthetic that pleased in its deformity. Or perhaps that's what she convinced herself because she had gotten so used to carrying around it with her all the time; since nobody around it seemed to share that sentiment. Her mother tried on multiple occasions to get rid of the small trinket when she was younger, despite Emma always somehow getting her hands back on it. The kids at her kindergarten had broken out crying when she had proudly showcased it to them for the first time, an instance that convinced her to conceal its existence from that point on. Even Taylor, the only person she had gathered the courage to show the strange figure to since, had seemed put out by its appearance, despite the feeble smile she forced herself to put on.

Maybe due to noticing her renewed vigour in her struggling attempts, the lanky guy -no longer as monstrous as his features became clearer and clearer to her vision; he was a plain, if haggard-looking Asian boy, only a couple years older than her- took the oddly shaped stone in his hand and crouched until he was at the eye level with her.

"Want this back?" he asked as he presented her pendant forward. Emma gritted her teeth and tried to push out once more, but was sorely put back in place by an elbow smashing into the crevice of her spine. The pressure forced out all of the air in her lungs as it escaped through her mouth in a hollowed heave, along with a good deal of spit and stomach acid.

"This supposed to be valuable or something? Sure doesn't look like it." He continued, musing to himself without paying any mind to her state, dishevelledly sprawling onto the ground in a terrible coughing fit that showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Her abdomen was burning so much she wouldn't have noticed being set on fire at that moment. "Maybe we can get a good price on it if we can't find someone for you to spread your legs for."

Before all of this started, hearing something like that would have drained all colour from her face, left her a trembling, terrified shell. That was the sort of horror story she grew up hearing about in either hushed whispers or strident worry, a real nightmare bleeding into reality. As she was now, those words didn't even register. All that she could think about was what a pathetic sight she must be at the moment. An image suddenly flashed before her eyes, of a raven-haired girl sitting on a bench with her head resting on her knees, eyes red and puffy behind the thick-rammed glasses. Standing there, curled up onto herself, isolated from the world for hours on end. All Emma could think of was how fragile the girl looked like she might shatter at the slightest touch. Or maybe she had already shattered, missing pieces that were never going to be made whole again.

For a second she imagined the same girl but with ginger hair.

"...F-fuck yo-u..." She willed herself to bark between convulsions. The worst and most idiotic thing she could probably say at that moment, but she couldn't help herself. She refused to allow herself to become those thugs' plaything, to stay meek and obedient and just pray for it all to end. She wasn't going to end up like that, she wasn't a pitiful and worthless little girl that people would look down upon in disdain. She wasn't going to be like Taylor.

In the next moment, she was lifted off the ground, the cold bite of steel kissing her cheek. A small part of her brain, one that continuously insisted on remaining detached from the whole situation, dully noted that since his hands were now busy, the thug must have dropped her pendant onto the ground.

"What was that, bitch?" He growled, hand trembling on the knife's handle. 'Probably more rage than nervousness', she thought even as her breath hitched in her throat. "Think just 'cause you're a bit pretty, you get to talk down to me like that? We'll see how nice you'll look after a small gift from me."

The blade was pressing down on her forehead now, angled diagonally so it could cut the most amount of surface in a single cut. The force applied wasn't enough to penetrate the skin quite yet, but judging by the murderous glare of the man, that was about to change very soon.

Emma tried to stare him down, to gaze upon him defiantly and to deny him the satisfaction of seeing her fall into despair. Her lips opened with a sharp retort on her tongue, yet no sound came out. In that moment, everything she felt, she knew, she valued, her whole existence became overrun by pure fear. It consumed her whole being, leaving behind only one thing. The truth of her weakness.

Something shifted in the air, an oppressive feeling beyond the understanding of men. In this decriped and dying city, a scene that was considered almost mundane by its ignorant inhabitants was about to become the grounds for the beginning of something much more. With a flash of steel and a splurt of blood, for the first time in a thousand years, causality finally converged.

And then the World screamed.


The structure unfolding before her eyes was so far too removed from anything she could comprehend, so much so that Emma could do nothing but stare in silent terror. Gone was the dirty parking lot and concrete skyline, in its place now stood an impossible amalgamation of stone stairs and archways, seemingly without end in number, extending upwards, downwards and in every other direction, twisting and tuning in midair to create something resembling a labyrinth of perspective. A cacophony of sharp parallels and non-euclidian geometry that couldn't be bothered with something as mundane as the laws of physics; the mere sight of it was enough to induce a deep sense of vertigo in the young redhead.

"Welcome! You who have been ordained by the laws of fate, now granted audience to stand before us!" A booming yet eerie voice surrounded her, seeming to come from every direction and from none. Emma froze where she stood, halfway through the process of getting up on her shaking feet.

Five figures now stood in front of her, so utterly still she couldn't believe they hadn't been there a second ago. Had she somehow missed them? Only one of them was currently standing on the same 'floor' as her, the rest were hovering on the ceiling, the walls or even in midair, so casually as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Many of their features were obscured by darkness and shadows, but one thing was clear: they were not human.

"W-what?! Ww-here am I? What is this?"Her mouth had never felt drier than ever before, like the mere act of speaking before these beings was enough to drain her life force away. Had she really thought of those gang members as monsters before? Comparing them to the utter presence exuded by these inhuman things was downright insulting. It was crushing. It was nauseating. It went beyond feeling or instinct, inching closer towards an irrefutable law of nature. It made her feel lower than an ant about to be crushed, dirtier than a smudge on a dusty window.

"I imagine you might have plenty of questions. Sorry to say, we've got no time for such minute curiosities to be answered." One of them said. Emma staggered backwards with a yelp as the floating head of a fat man suddenly appeared next to her. Seeing her fall back made him start chuckling to himself, clearly amused by her fear.

"Why did you bring me here?" she forced herself to ask.

"We did not such thing," he replied. "It was by your own volition that you found yourself here, guided by the strength of your most ardent desire. Look! The Behelith in your possession is all the proof you could need!"

Slowly, cautiously, she turned her head towards the direction she was pointed to. Waiting for her there was her old pendant, the only thing that seemed to have followed her to this abnormal place. Except something about it has changed. Its mouth and eyes were now wide open, frozen in a harrowing expression of unimaginable pain and agony as what looked like tears of blood poured down from beneath its eyelids. Emma shivered.

"You see? It responded to the cry of despair from deep within your soul, so it cleaved open through the very fabric of space, all so we could appear before you and grant your most fervent wish!"

"My...wish?" She repeated, dumbfounded. A sudden trail of thought struck her. "Are you capes? Is this how parahumans get their powers?"

Her question was met with a bout of rowdy laughter, not only from the talking head but from two of the others as well. An overly obese bald man and-

"To compare us with those pesky parasites from beyond the stars, you are certainly an amusing one." The sole woman of the group giggled. Emma tensed even further, if such a thing was possible. It wasn't even that she was naked, that barely registered. It was those sultry eyes staring at her, the small light burning in them yearning for something, made the back of her neck run cold in sweat while her cheeks flushed hot. "No, we share no allegiance with the heartbroken Warrior. Although," -she pondered, biting her lip in an obscenely vulgar gesture - "I would very much love to meet with him one of these days. Such a sad and lonely being, grieving for his long lost lover, never having known the comfort of a woman's warmth!"

"Enough of such trifles." Another one declared, bringing the conversation to a halt in an instant. She recognised the voice as the one who had spoken in the very beginning. He was by far the most disturbing of the group, with sewn-up eyelids and an exposed gigantic brain and-. "The time has come for us to perform the INVOCATION OF DOOM!" He brought his skeleton-like hand forward, a strange symbol suddenly flaring from his bare palm.

"You lost and cowering child of man, forsaken by the cruelty presiding over the world of mortals, you are offered a choice. You shall be given power beyond your wildest imagination, ascending from your feeble condition to a more extraordinary being. But in exchange for such a priceless gift, a sacrifice must be made."

It took a moment for the words to begin making sense to her. When they did, all that followed in their wake was dread.

"You," the words came out slowly, as her jaw struggled to stop shaking, "You're going to turn me into a monster?!"

"The new form your soul shall inhabit will be but a mirror of the yearning that dwells deep in your heart. Should you value such a transient thing as beauty, I have no doubt your reflection will rival those marble gods humans bowed before oh so long ago." With a wild thumping in her chest, Emma realised she believed those words. The insanity of the statement was not lost to her, but at the same, there was no shred of doubt in her mind that these 'things' had not told her a single falsehood so far.

"So what do you say?" the head eagerly asked, the tentacles that made up his body flailing around as it eagerly circled her. "The sacrifice, will you offer it forward in exchange for our blessings?

"A sacrifice... and what would that be?" her treacherous mouth couldn't help itself.

"Hmm.. let's see." he pondered for a second. "Ah, I got it. There is but one thing that will suffice." With a ripple, the space in front of her twisted violently, before rearranging itself into something resembling a movie screen. The image presented was of a dishevelled mop of dark hair and a pair of green eyes hidden beneath thick-rimmed glasses. Her heart sank.

"Emma?" a very confused Taylor asked, clearly taken about by the sudden development.

"NO! You can't... YOU CAN'T MAKE ME DO THIS!" she yelled between her sobbing. "Not her, not ever! Sshe's like, to me she's like a-"

"You misunderstand. We are not forcing you to do anything." the voice of the brainy skeleton said in its alien monotone cadence. "Destiny has guided you here, to this place beyond space and time, but the decision belongs to you alone. Should you refuse, you shall simply find yourself back from whence you left, without a moment passing in between."

For a moment, she could feel her breath slowing down as her muscles relaxed the tiniest bit. A wave of relief slammed into her with such force she barely managed to remain on her feet. She was free to leave! The thought alone was enough to bring her to tears. She could escape from here, she can forget all about this nightmare, she can return to...

Emma was suddenly aware of the state of her body. Her left arm surged with pain as she willed it to move, her legs were little more than an abstracted canvas of cuts and bruises. Her sides ached so harshly she couldn't help but bend over and every breath she took was pure agony. Raising the small hand mirror that was somehow in her hand she was greeted with an ugly reddish wound that had conquered the entirety of her face, the blood slowly dripping from it soaking in her every feature.

The mirror fell down and shattered. At the same time, the image of the projection changed, vanishing Taylor in favour of depicting a foreign yet familiar scene. A bunch of men and women in gang colours, all hovering over what looked like a beaten and bruised sack of meat. She watched with abject horror as the pathetic little creature was kicked over and over again, as its clothes were slowly stripped from it and as its aggressors laughed and basked in its weakness. Emma averted her gaze from the display, she covered her ears from the sound, but the scene replayed in her mind. Once. Twice. A hundred times. Each time with disturbing quality, with such vividness for a second she thought she was once again in that horrid parking lot.

"Please!" her eyes turned beggingly towards each of the figures, desperately searching for any trace of sympathy.

"I can't go back there!"

"Anything else, ask for anything else!

"Please I beg you!'

"I can give you anything but that."

All she received was the same detached coldness, the same distant words: "It is because you'll be willing to give up on everything else that those things become meaningless." The floating man cheerfully spoke to her. "What you must give up to us is something truly irreplaceable, something so close and dear to you it will feel like losing a part of yourself.

" 'I sacrifice.' Chant those words, speak them with absolute belief, and it will be done!" The bald and stout one said, hands brought together as if in prayer.

It was as if all sensation left her lower body. She fell to her knees, hands clutching her head like they were meaning to crush it. All words failed her as all she could muster was an incoherent wailing, only interrupted by painful sobs as tears poured out unbidden. She was losing her breath. It was like being buried alive as countless nonexistent hands grabbed her and pulled her into the ground, intending to suffocate her. She could almost feel the taste of dirt in her mouth. The dirt tasted of ash and death. She tried to struggle against those phantom limbs, to dig out of that coffin sand, but it was no use. Her struggling was as pointless as it had been against those men, the mere bawling of a newborn, but she could do nothing else. She was too weak to do anything else.

. WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. . WEAK. .

The words rang in her mind without pause, taunting her, making the blood in her veins brun with inequivalent rage. She hated it, hated it so much she didn't know she was even capable of feeling anything with such intensity. It made her want to scream and to dig her fingers in her palms until blood gave out and then do it some more.

If only she could... no, no, she couldn't.

But she had to. Or else she'd have to go back there.

Not to Taylor.

Would she understand

She shouldn't have to! She didn't have the right to offer up her best friend like that!

But...

A hand settled on her shoulders. Emma jerked in surprise, but not from the sudden touch. Rather, it was due to how it felt. The touch was gentle, comforting even. For the briefest of moments, nothing but her and that hand exited. She slowly turned her head.

He was the only one who had yet to speak as much as a word so far. Clad all in black and a strange, avian-like helmet rested atop its head, the man should have looked intimating, but he was anything but. Those eyes, as clear as the brightest sky on a sunny day, narrowed onto her like a hawk, they were intense. Not unkind though. Despite everything that was happening, the redhead couldn't help but wonder what the man looked like behind that helmet.

"Do you dare to dream?" he softly asked and it was like the world suddenly came into focus around him. "To wish for something so ardently, you would do anything to grab it in your two hands? To soar so highly into the sky, in a world that those around you would not even dare to imagine?"

He smoothly guided her back towards the projection, once more depicting the image of a scared and confused Taylor Hebert.

"Emma! What is happening?" She desperately asked, but the voice almost seemed to fade into the background as the man next to her continued speaking:

"Don't expect those around you to understand. They might despise you, they might hate you, but wasn't it because they only wanted what's best for you in the first place that they stood by your side?"

Emma stared at her closest friend. The person she had known for almost all of her life. Someone she wouldn't be ashamed to call her 'sister' despite lacking any sort of blood relation between them.

"Or are you gonna be satisfied to have them drag you down with them into the ground; where all you can do is gaze longingly towards the distant sky? Are you willing to accept such a life?"

The same girl who hadn't managed to get over her mother's death. Someone who had been kicked down by life and didn't have the strength to get back up again. Who clung to her like glue because there was nothing left for her any longer.

"Only a very select few can see it, and even fewer can extend their hand and grasp it, never to let it go again. That is both our privilege and responsibility, to pursue it no matter how many corpses we pile up along the way. Don't you agree?"

"Emma? Emma, please, I don't understand!"

She took a deep breath. The pain in her heart, far deeper than anything her body might feel, was overwhelming. It threatened to close her mouth and keep it shut for the rest of eternity. She forced it open. Two words were spoken.

"I sacrifice."


Taylor PoV next chapter