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.
 

7 years of bad luck probably doesn't matter much when you're current lifespan is measured in minutes.

The Mirror is broken. The world is ending and Nathan came too.

First The mirror shattered and there was a great wave of force and then just a feeling of well it felt like being full... Or more like being bloated. Something had entered the universe and everything in it and was over saturating it... Then there was just this great feeling of ill. You know how some animals and stuff can feel the coming of their own death. It might feel like this... Although there was no feeling of being at peace. It was just abject terror and the queasy feeling of incoming unstoppable doom. Oh and a little despair thrown in there for good measure. This is when Nathan came too. "We're missing the fifth!" He yelled.

Me: "Yeah we know. There's no fifth anymore we're done for."

Nathan: No. No! There is a fifth. Well you're the fifth what I mean is there was a second.

Harold: Yeah Faceless...

Nathan: No he wasn't the second! Time time looks after itself.

Portnoy: What are you talking about?

Nathan: We went back in time and made him not the second.

Me: Yes so then you would be the second and we could get a new fifth.

Nathan: Yes but it already happened. Before we did it. Faceless was never the second because even though we did it later the effect of changing it had already changed it before we did it.

Portnoy: That doesn't change anything. It just means you were always the second.

Nathan: No! Someone met The Herald before I did!

Harold: What who?

Nathan: My sister!

Me: But I thought she was possessed by him that doesn't count otherwise all The Emaciated would be numbers as well.

Nathan: She wasn't possessed. When everything started she was channeling those dying in the affected area. That's what that was. She wasn't possessed she was channeling someone possessed. The Herald had spoken to her... She interacted with him. She's the second!

Harold: How do you know she was just channeling someone possessed.

Nathan: The Herald said so. Well not quite but he said I should be with my sister. That wasn't just idle talk he was taunting us. That we hadn't brought her with us. During the fight he said: 'Your sister follows orders well. I tell her to listen and repeat and she does.' He was telling me what he did. He knew we'd think she was possessed the bastard set us up and we fell for it but there's still time we can go get her!

Harold: No we can't.

Nathan: What why not?!

Harold pointed and we turned. Somehow we had failed to notice that a large dome of earth had risen around us. Eyes stared out of the dome at us. There was a rumbling and in the very center of the dome a pedestal rose out of the ground. There were small handprints on the pedestal each one numbered. 1-5 It was obvious what was supposed to be done. Without the second though we couldn't do anything.

Nathan: Maybe we can use the path or one of the other travel methods?

Harold: *Shook his head* The domains were destroyed when The Fears lost their powers.

Nathan: ... I... I could use The Godsway?

Me: You can what?!

Nathan: Yeah I'm not really supposed to though.

Me: Who cares use it!

Nathan: *Closed his eyes and just stood there for a few minutes* No good I don't think we're in the same universe. I think this might be some sort of pocket universe...

Portnoy: So that's it we're doomed then.

A very calm voice spoke up here.

???: Not necessarily...

We all turned. There was a man leaning against the wall of earth seemingly unbothered by the fact he was leaning on an eye. He had a bottle of Gin in one hand and his other hand was hanging by his side. It was also blood red.

Nathan: Jack?

Jack: *Smiles and waves*

Nathan: How did you get here?

Jack: I can go anywhere someone desires something. I'm not bound to any one universe or time.

Nathan: But The Fears lost their powers how-

Jack: -I'm not a fear. I'm not quite the same thing as Mairun *He saw the blank stares the name elicited and stopped changing tracks quickly.* The creature who saved you from The Envoy. I'm not like him or the one who spoke to Muffy in his dreams but I'm not a fear either. My powers can't be taken by any means. Because they come straight from your desires.

Me: Wait... You can change this can't you?

Jack: *Smile widened* Of course all it takes is a wish. *He took a swig of Gin* There'll be a price of course...

Nathan: What price could be worse than the end of the world?

Jack: Good question. I'd advise you think of an answer before making the wish. You have some time.

Despite Nathan's insistence that nothing could be worse than what's happening at the moment we're going to take a bit to deliberate.

The whole universe holds it's breath in anticipation.

Nathan is still out of it. He's mumbling something.

I can't get much of it but it's mostly: "How could we forget?" Followed by stuff about "The last one was right there." and "Time is capable of defending itself even in advance." Who knows what it means.

Meanwhile the sky. The mirror that once showed a hideous monster now shows us. Well it is now literally a mirror reflecting our universe. Except in the mirror our universe is a desolate world covered in bodies and rot. Oh and the earth seems to be cracking up. This is quite worrisome. This is especially worrisome because the mirror is splintering. I'm pretty sure when it breaks The End will arrive. We still have no clue what we're supposed to do to stop it. Nathan's mumbling is probably important but he's too out of it to explain and none of us can comprehend his meaning.

Wait... I think I just got it... Well part of it... We're still missing someone. We had gone to get Vadim because we needed one more to replace The Faceless Bastard. He died and then with everything else we forgot why we had gone to find him in the first place. We're still missing someone. We could go find someone but we finished off all The End Pieces and I doubt The End itself counts. There's no way to create the 5th.


We're totally screwed...

The Herald

We arrived and were immediately met by a horde of the emaciated creatures Nathan encountered in his earlier interaction with The Herald. Shortly after we met The Herald himself. He greeted us with a smile. Looking at him I couldn't help but think he looks like a lawyer or used car salesmen. Of course that was before he began melting. He came out of a house to greet us. As we watched his skin began to melt and drip off of his face becoming tear drops as they fell. This went on for a few moments. He spoke as this was happening. "You've come to stop The End? You have made a major mistake. It is impossible for you to succeed." He turned his attention directly on Nathan. His face was halfway gone by this point. "You should give up this doomed attempt and go spend your last moments with your sister." He said and his face melted away completely revealing an entirely skeletal face that flickered and wavered every few seconds like a bad video distortion. Nathan made a sound like a growl and charged towards The Herald at the same moment The Emaciated attacked. Me and Portnoy quickly moved to defend Harold. We both had swords. You know it only occurred to me now that I have no clue where Portnoy was getting all these swords. Anyways we defended Harold as he shot down enemies. The swarm of Emaciated closed in around us and I couldn't see Nathan through the crowd. They went down easily but there were a lot of them and soon we were becoming overwhelmed. I decapitated one and another one grabbed my wrist pulling me into a crowd of them. I heard Portnoy crying out in alarm and Harold swearing and then everything was drowned out by laughter.

It was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard. All The Emaciated had just stopped and began laughing as one. A few seconds later they began slowly crumbling into dust revealing the cause. Nathan was kneeling over The Herald. His hand was around The Herald's neck and he was punching The Herald in the face and The Herald was laughing at him. Nathan was screaming something. We couldn't understand it but it was easy to decipher the emotion. Rage and Fear. We watched quietly as he continued wailing on him. None of us knew what to do and The Herald just kept laughing. It was Harold who finally did something. He moved forward in his strange way and tossed Nathan off. Nathan hit the ground and curled up beginning to cry as Harold aimed and shot The Herald in the face. The laughter died instantly. The Herald's body began to deteriorate and in a few minutes all that was left was a small patch of black flowers in the vague shape of a human where he had been lying.

Nathan is still recovering and none of us are willing to try talking to him.

So I guess now we just wait?

Musings

So we're traveling. It's been a while. No food or water. Yet we don't seem affected. I was affected last time. That's for sure. So what changed? Why am I suddenly no longer starving or dehydrated. I feel perfectly fine. I should be feeling weak. My mouth should be dry. I should be dying. Why aren't I? I have a theory. Not a very good one but a theory none the less. What if we're not human anymore. The Fears are gone. What if their servants have taken on their role. What if we're now essentially The Fears? Well first of all that means horrible things. I mean every servant is now a fear like being. I don't know how many servants there are out there but I'm sure that's a lot of suddenly unstoppable monsters and quite a few of them are psychopaths. Also there's those other things popping up. Like the water guy and The dream thing... Maybe it's a good thing the world ends here... Although I guess we do have to still try to stop it...

S'not far to go. Gonna stop The End then we'll deal with all these other problems... Assuming we succeed.

The Envoy

Well that went much better. Was still difficult though. And of course it chose to attack us in the middle of the god damn ocean. It's The Muffin Man this time btw. We made it to the ocean in record time and the most lucky thing happened.

God damn I love clean energy. We found a speedboat... That would be useless but... THIS SPEEDBOAT IS POWERED WITH SOLAR ENERGY! FUCK YEAH! The Herald can't stop the sun! Although now that I think about it the fact we can't see the sun kind of makes it weird that this boat works anyways but whatever not going to question it! So, we got on board. It was big enough to fit 6 people. Actually thinking about this I'm starting to think this might have been a set up... It's just too convenient...

Whatever important part is it worked... and then about 3 quarters of the way... We went across the ocean in a speedboat is that normally possible? Yeah definitely set-up... Anyways about three quarters of the way across this distortion appears in the air. Like a small dust devil ripping up reality. It was slightly in front of us and Harold who was driving turned us to avoid it. At the same moment the water where we had been exploded upwards ionizing from water to plasma almost immediately. Luckily none of it hit the boat and we tore off at top speed. I took the wheel as Harold was our only ranged fighter. He began firing on The Envoy as the water exploded around us. How funny we thought we could shoot it...

Anyways that did nothing. The bullets passed through it like it wasn't there. Which it wasn't... The Envoy, or at least this version of The Envoy, has no physical form. It's just a hole in reality... That causes ionizing explosions. Don't ask me to explain it. I don't even know if what I'm saying is true but that's what it seems O.K.?

Anyways we couldn't fight this thing. You can't fight a hole. There's nothing to hit. So instead we opted to try and get to shore before it killed us and hopefully we'd figure something out by then. So, I raced us to shore trying to desperately dodge explosions that gave no warning until they'd already exploded. I don't know if we were very lucky or The Envoy just has terrible aim. Somehow we were making it and then a wall of plasma... tized? Plasmatized? Ionized? I don't know exploded water! rose up in front of us blocking the way. I stopped the boat and Harold almost fell overboard. We were trapped. I expected death at any moment. The Envoy was swirling in what I feel was a very triumphant way when suddenly a cyclone of water sprung up beneath it covering it and hiding it from view. The water then began to solidify. Not like ice but actual solid water. A few seconds later there was what appeared to be a statue of a closed fist made of sapphire coming out of the water. The wall of plasma water died down. Without thinking I said "Thanks EAT" Not realizing that EAT doesn't exist in the oceans, as far as I know does not have powers like this and finally should have no powers at all due to being a fear and Slendy being dead. The response reminded me of these things.

"There is worse in this world than Fear."

The voice was deep and rumbling and full of barely contained rage.

I think we were all a little confused and nervous after that so we thanked whatever the hell it was and headed off as fast as possible.

If we survive The End I don't think any of us will be going over the oceans again.

In Dreams

Nathan woke up.

Still Dr. Malice here.

Anyways right Nathan woke up and said: "We need to go back" Well actually he said: "AAAAAAGH Oh god I hurt everywhere what happ- Oh right I had a dream we need to go back" but that's less important. Apparently while he was out he dreamt of some weird creature who... Well I'll just copy how he described it. "It's body is a spiraling void of flesh and darkness and it's arms stretch out on both sides. Hands out. One palm down the other palm up. Blood runs upwards and tears run downwards. It's face is a mouth and it has eyes for teeth. It's body is, well, I can't describe it better than I already did earlier. There's no words for it. It told me the secret to stopping The Amalgam... Well, it said Dust Jammers but I know it meant The Amalgam. The point is it said we need to go back to where the first Amalgam appeared on Earth to stop them. Which I'm assuming means we have to go where The Herald first showed up." So, we're doing that now.

Also this stopped being a low key event. See, the sky is now a transparent screen showing a horrifying creature that is impossible to describe and looking at it for any length of time hurts so I won't even try. The world is in a panic. The entire world is also now under the effect of The Herald and people are dying in droves. This also means all modes of transportation other than walking and bicycles no longer work. So we're walking to the ocean because we couldn't find any bikes. Once there we're either swimming or getting a man powered boat like a kayak or canoe or something to get us accross to North America. Assuming those here capable of starving or dehydrating don't do so before hand.

So long story short things are looking up.