The End

We came to an agreement. We convinced ourselves that it's unlikely that the price for Jack's wish would be the destruction of the multiverse and short of that we couldn't think of anything worse than the current situation. So we took the deal. We made the wish.

Jack snapped his fingers and took another sip of his drink. Nothing had happened. We waited a couple of seconds and nothing continued to happen. We eventually worked up the nerve to ask him why nothing seemed to be happening.

Jack: Oh it did happen. I saved the universe. Well more accurately you did.

Me: But... But we're still stuck here.

Jack: Yes you are but somewhere else you have just saved the universe.

Nathan: I don't follow...

Jack: Well I couldn't just set everything right here. It doesn't work like that. Instead I created a universe split. In the other universe things were different you guys succeeded.

Portnoy: *His eyes were glassy* You mean we're...

Jack: Stuck in a doomed alternate timeline? Yes very much so.

Me: But somewhere else The Universe is saved. We're all going to live?

Jack: Yes. Actually there are technically two split universes but I didn't create one of them. In one of them The Fears didn't lose their powers at all but that's not mine. As an added bonus the best way to keep you from screwing everything up was too make it so Muffy's sister wasn't all brain addled. So the other universe consists of happy living people and Muffy has a completely sane sister. In one of them Mr. Specter is even still alive.

Harold: But not here... Here we still failed. The End is still coming we're all going to die?

Jack: Exactly. *He looked thoughtful* Want a drink? *He offered his drink out to us*

None of us accepted. Somewhere we saved the world... Somewhere people are happy and things are going on like normal... Somewhere everything is perfect. But, here everything is wrong. Here we sit and wait for

The End.