Finding Utopia - Part 2

Commissioned by TRM

My achingly perfect body phased into the reality beyond, though it took a few moments to realize anything had changed. I had gone from space to… more space. This made sense, why would a parallel one be any different? most of my universe was just empty space, anyways.

Empty space where no one could hear me cry.

I needed to keep it together, for the sake of my wife and children’s memories. I had the chance to be something special, to find a world where I could be myself once more. I figured I’d never fully recover from the trauma, but at least I could have a fresh start, even pick up right where I left off if I was lucky.

Admittedly, finding this alternate earth amongst the vast emptiness of the universe was like finding a needle the size of an atom in a haystack the size of Jupiter. I had read about just how vast a diameter of 93 billion light years was, but now that I didn’t need to eat, sleep or even breath in space, I was beginning to realize that my human mind couldn’t conceive just how large such a number was.

Even as my body’s newfound speed zipped past entire galaxies, I knew they were mere droplets in the vast ocean of distance I’d have to cover if I wanted to chart out any sort of map to familiarize myself with this new universe. I tried my best to dodge planets and stars, but as time marched on beyond what I could count, I found myself caring less and less about the destruction I caused. Minutes didn’t matter, time seemed impossible to calculate reliably. There wasn’t a sun’s rotation I was tethered to. If I wanted to find my alternate family before the galaxy they lived in collapsed, I would have to cut some corners.

I started small, using my enhanced vision to ensure that the galaxies I tore through wouldn’t be bustling with life on any of its many planets and moons. Thankfully, just like my universe, the planets I observed didn’t appear to have any life as I knew it, so I could run past them at light speed like it was nothing, disrupting their orbits and reducing them to space debris and stardust.

After a while, I found the simple act of checking for life to be rather repetitive and tedious. Even if there was life on any of these planets, it wasn’t like they were the earth or anything. They didn’t have my Falcha on them, why bother?

So I began to tear through them without even checking. If any of the planets within any of the galaxies fell within the one in sixty billion odds of hosting habitable zones, they sure didn’t now. Hundreds of galaxies turned to a celestial body count in the thousands, my perfectly impervious form tearing through whatever was in my path. I was prepared to destroy more. After all, I still wasn’t sure if I was going in the right direction towards this universe’s earth or not. Every second counted, whatever seconds even meant out here.

And then, after my only chance at finding peace was beginning to prove fruitless—I saw it. My eyes opened wide as the unique blue and green of a world teeming with life visualized itself within the inky blackness of space.

Earth. Home.

Adopting a more delicate flight, I resisted the urge to strike down on the surface out of sheer excitement. Like threading a needle, I had to quell my new overwhelming power to an absurd degree, knowing how easily the world could crumble beneath me. The air around me ignited as I entered the atmosphere, so once again I put a damper on my speed. It was becoming rather inconvenient to do so, but I knew that humans, like myself at one point, were fragile and needed to be respected as such.

I wasn’t Diane, after all. I thought to myself. Not even close.

I landed on a grassy knoll in a field, gaining my bearings. Feeling the effects of gravity for the first time since I had ascended felt strange… I felt… even more powerful than I had in space! It was as if the forces that were, the ones that once tethered me to the ground, now felt frightened to even challenge me. They knew that if I just concentrated, I could generate a gravitational field around myself that challenged the very star this planet orbited!

I was… dangerous. If I had let my morals fall to the wayside and adopted the strange chanced philosophy that Die had, I could lay waste to this world in a heartbeat. But that’s not what Falcha would have wanted. That’s not what I wanted. Even if this world might be different from my own, these alternate humans were still my peers. They were still humanity. I belonged amongst them.

Looking into the foggy horizon, I noticed quite the strange sight. Buildings—far larger than the simple townhouses my world had agreed were the most efficient architectural investments. I found my perfect eyebrow raising in confusion. Why skyscrapers? Those were hazardous if not properly maintained, not to mention a radically ineffective method of housing people. We had figured this out on my planet millennium ago!

Okay, so maybe this place had a perfectly logical reason for designing its architecture the way it did. Perhaps the gaudy billboards that dotted the sides of the major superhighway served an aesthetic purpose outside soulless advertisement. Hypothetically, the thousands of cars I saw cruising about said highway—packed like sardines—all ran on some sort of healthy, safe energy like the trains in my universe, ideally solar energy.

Perhaps I was being too pessimistic. These were humans, after all.

Then again, maybe I was being too optimistic. These were humans, after all.

No! C’mon Reyla, get your mind out of the gutter. Even if these guys aren’t perfect, they can’t be that bad! Besides, after the soul-crushing experience of lonely space travel, I could use the sight of a friendly human face.

I took off from the grassy knoll, my bare feet quickly distancing themselves from the concave cone of pushed-down grass that seemed to follow me like a shadow. This world is still so fickle, I had to remind myself once more. Just taking off from the ground too hard would probably slice through this planet like a kebab skewer through melted butter.

The hills rolled past me as I closed in on the heavily-industrialized city. In mere seconds, I was there, floating above the busy streets, bustling with the chaos and excitement of a strange new world.

I slowly descended upon the nearest four-way intersection. It appeared that the streets had been sequestered into two parts—one for cars and a far smaller one for pedestrians. Great, the car worship even extended into the city, too. How strange and inefficient, everyone trafficked into large boxes of their own instead of collectively using one slightly-larger box to save space.

Despite the less-than-efficient methods of transportation, all of these humans appeared rushed. It was as if they all needed to be somewhere at all times, their schedules tightly-packed and filled to the brim. Was all this progress surrounding them merely a facade? While they were nowhere near as advanced as what I had—they were no slouches to civilized advancements.

Curious, I touched down onto the nearest length of stone. The skyscrapers were so intimidating from where I stood now. There was no green in sight, this city was a concrete jungle from top to bottom.

“Jesus Christ, put some fuckin’ clothes on, lady!” a man suddenly shouted at me from the street. “Fuckin’ hippie street performers,” came another man’s voice. I broke from my industrialization-induced trance and looked around, only to find all eyes on me, some confused, some sympathetic, most disgusted.

I was stunned in silence. Was… nudity seen as illegal here? Sure, in my world it was preferable to wear clothes to prevent sunburn and windchill, but if someone wanted to walk around in the nude, they were perfectly allowed to do so. Why were these people so… squeamish? It didn’t make any sense. Were people in this world not born naked? Did they not engage in sexual pleasures in the nude?

They seemed to be more concerned that my skin was showing instead of the massive piece of metal that was jutting out of it, potentially requiring medical assistance. They didn’t even care that I literally came from the sky.

To them, I could have been the messiah. I’m glad I wasn’t seen as that either, but the fact that they weren’t in shock and awe at a woman coming from the sky and instead were just angry brought sorrow to my heart.

What had happened here to make these people so tired, angry and jaded?

I took to the sky once more. So, I wasn’t going to get any directions from those people? Fine. I didn’t need them. I could fly! If I really wanted to find my Falcha, I’d just fly into the sky and be my own GPS. Sure, the human city layouts may have been different, but if this was really an alternate earth from an alternate universe, then surely the continent patterns would match mine.

Sure enough, it was the same. My heart was pounding in anticipation, only for it to pitter out once I deduced Falcha’s potential location. It was where I had just come from. That hideous, bloated, dingy city full of assholes.

It… it didn’t make any sense. The land was far more suited for a simple village town. How could these humans not respect Mother Nature’s wishes? My enhanced eyes could detect the energy signatures. Everything they did was so wasteful! Producing more than they could ever need just… for what exactly? Just because they said they could? I remembered historians from my world, how they spoke of what the world would’ve been like if humans were selfish. If they had used their unmatched wit and potential only to maximize profits and domineer pointlessly. This wasn’t it exactly, yet it was haunting how close their predictions were to this reality.

But my Falcha had to be down there. Surely, amidst the trite and sewage, the woman I knew and loved was still as bright of a Diamond as ever.

My superior vision checked for any sign of her amongst the clutter, but even the vast power of a billion universes put together could not sort the inherent chaos of such a dense man-made labyrinth. I didn’t want to go back down to street level at first, I knew they would continue to deride me for my all-natural body.

Yet, the thought of finding my love was a far more motivating factor.

My feet touched the earth once more, picking a less densely-populated area to walk about within to get a better view.

It wasn’t long before I noticed a group of men observing me not-so-secretly. I pretended not to notice them, but all my focus was now spent on observing them. They didn’t view me like the other people in this city, that was for sure. The three members of their group had split off, making sure to cover each flank route within the desolate street. They were closing in on me. Perhaps they merely wanted to converse? Then why were they acting so strange?

“Something I can help you three with?” I spoke suddenly, catching them all off-guard. Needless to say, the apparently leader of the three quickly attempted to regain control of the situation.

“Oh yes, princess, there’s definitely something you can help us with.”

He spoke with sarcastic insinuation, my eyes narrowed as I tried to process what he could mean by that. This appeared to be a currency-based world, so I could understand if he wanted money, but I was still stark naked, I clearly had nothing of value on me.

“So then, what is it?” I asked, curiously. My primal instincts told me to be afraid of these guys, but I knew that they had nothing on me. I could just fly away if I really didn’t want to deal with them.

He withdrew a knife from his person. “Why don’t you put those lips to better use and suck my cock?”

I instinctively flinched once he revealed the knife, which put a wicked grin on his face. Of course, I was more insulted by what he said.

“Suck your cock? Absolutely not! If you must know, I’m a proud lesbian!” I fired back at him.

“Yeah, and you’re gonna be a good girl and go straight as an arrow for me and the boys, kay?” He held the knife closer to my face, as if such a threat would even matter. Once again, it was as if the massive chunk of shrapnel that jutted from my chest was all but invisible to them. They only saw what they wanted to see—my supple body.

Fine, if they wanted it so badly, they’d get it.

“Very well then, tell me, what part would each of you like to use first?” I asked, feigning arousal.

That got the boys excited.

“Well, I’d like to bury my face in that fine rack of yours!” The man on the left giddily spoke.

“Yeah! And I’d love it if you sat on my face with that bubble butt of yours!”

The other two men quickly shot glances of confusion at their rightward companion as if he had a screw loose. He shrugged his shoulders. “What? We were throwing out what we wanted her to do and I felt like bein’ honest!”

When their somewhat disgusted faces didn’t falter, he flipped both of them the bird. “Whatever, screw you guys, you don’t get to take the moral high ground with what we’re doing here!”

My controlling attention locked itself on the leader, demanding his attention. He met my demands attentively.

“And you.” I spoke with a commanding tone, getting them back on track. “You wanted me to use my mouth?”

Unsurprisingly, the leader seemed to be the most excited out of the three, probably because he knew he was first. He nodded like an eager schoolboy.

“Very well then, I’ll use my mouth.”

Without warning, I yanked the knife he was still pointing at me right out of his hand. Given how he immediately gripped his hand in pain, I probably overdid it a bit, but I didn’t care—these guys were assholes. They didn’t care about my consent, so why should I care about their pain?

In an admittedly cheeky move and without much thought put towards it, I shoved his knife into my mouth. I knew the exterior of my body was impervious to the devastation of dimensional travel, but the interior of my mouth? That was still a gamble. Regardless, I wished to express my superiority over my foes, and so I did so without hesitation.

I began to chew, and it was as if there was merely a piece of chewy taffy in my mouth. I could hear the metal whine with little resistance as my perfect teeth effortlessly crushed and contorted it beyond recognition. All the while, the three men watched in horror, their eyes practically glued to my surreal feat of strength as I reduced their leverage of power over me into particularly salty chewing gum.

The leader of the three slowly began to retreat, keeping his gaze locked on mine yet backpedaling all the same. I could tell he was ready to book it at any moment, and we just couldn’t have that, now could we?

I rolled the malleable metal along my tongue and teeth, caught in-between my canines. I repeated the motion several times, thinning it out and creating a sharp point at the end, far sharper than the original blade I had shoved in my mouth.

Then, just as he was about to run for his life, I spat out the unrecognizable knife at his feet. It struck the dead middle of his left foot, passing clean through the bone and cracking the pavement underneath it. He cried out in pain, falling to one knee as I had trapped him on the spot, in too much agony to even attempt to remove his injured limb from my makeshift mouth weapon.

I should have been mortified by what I saw—what I had just done. I had never actively brought harm to anyone in my entire life, yet here I was, ruining some guy’s foot beyond repair and… reveling in his suffering. Why was I like this? Perhaps I had witnessed so much senseless violence that the mere sight of rather senseful violence filled me with a comforting haze.

Yes, this makes sense, the thick puddle of blood pooling out of him makes sense. He wanted to sexually assault you. He held you at knife point. He’s probably done this to several other women in his time. He deserves this.

After all, I wanted him to watch as I fulfilled the other two requests of his lackies.

“Hmm, let me see…” I spoke in mock thought, rubbing my chin with my thumb. “If I remember correctly, one of you wanted to smother themselves with my breasts?”

I felt a smile growing on my face as I heard the frantic clomping of their feet running in either direction, abandoning their leader without a second thought. Without even looking, my advanced mind and ears calculated exactly how fast the leftward lackie was running, and where he would be when I decided it was time to catch up with him.

His panicked eyes briefly glanced behind him, only to see that I was no longer there. He didn’t have enough time to check in front of him before ramming his entire body into the brick wall that was my own.

His head was cushioned by my breasts—just like he had desired—but his torso… my enhanced shrapnel wasn’t too kind to it. It pierced his soft skin like a knife heated by a millions suns through butter. He tried to pull away, to instinctively save himself from his fate, but I cradled him just like a mother would, letting him rest his tired eyes within my pillowy breasts. He was a younger man, even before my body had been enhanced I was likely a head taller than him. It was a shame to see such a misguided twenty-something fall down this path, he likely didn’t have a strong parental figure to lead him well in life. At least in death, he’d get to feel what it was like.

Death.

Death…

I had just killed a man.

It was so… easy. Like stepping on an ant, I could do it without even realizing. My superior body had gutted him like a fish, coating my body in viscera. If I was still the same wide-eyed optimist back when I had a family and a life, I would’ve been horrified by what I had just done. But I wasn’t. The man was like an insect to me, and I was merely setting a cockroach trap to ensure that he would cause no more harm to my way of life.

I wasn’t like her… Not at all… She did what she did for nothing, motivated only by the sheer random number generation of her own uncaring body. She did it because she could. Me… I did what I did for a reason. I wasn’t like her… I-I wasn’t…

I found my mind wandering, reminding me that there was still one loose end that I needed to take care of. I shook off the feeling of self-doubt—now was not the time to be mucking about.

The final guy wanted to be sat on? I’d give him the best facesitting of his life.

I flew high into the sky, generating a sonic boom which shattered the glass of all nearby buildings. I soared beyond the atmosphere. If this was going to be the last sexual request of his short life, then I’d be sure to make it as grand as possible. I did a full loop around the alternate earth, letting its gravitational pull influence my movement ever so slightly like the jetstream in a lazy river.

Once more, my superior mind calculated exactly where he would be, re-entering the atmosphere only to cease all movements and let gravity accomplish the rest. I entered a modified cannonball pose, using my flawless flexibility to lift my legs above my head. If any part of my body was about to connect with the surface of the earth, it was going to be my perfect ass.

I zeroed in on the panicked man like a homing missile. He didn’t even know what was about to hit him until it did.

The top half of the man was obliterated as my “bubble butt” collided with his head—per his wish.

While I struck him with full force, I managed to significantly lessen the impact I would have subsequently had with the ground. After all, there were still innocent people in this city who didn’t deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth. That being said, my strike could only be lessened so much in mere milliseconds, leading to my rear cratering the ground, sending splintering cracks outward from the impact sight that toppled mailboxes and street lamps.

Then, the most annoying sound I had ever heard sounded off. It struck my powerful ears like waves of searing magma, my teeth gritting with every pulse of sudden noise.

My head immediately cocked towards the direction of the sound. One of the parked cars was blinking wildly, clearly I had triggered some sort of alarm. But damn, did it have to be so fucking annoying?

I could feel furious rage building up behind my eyes. I was ready to rip this piece of shit metal death machine to shreds. Yet… my mind beat me to it.

As my eyelids narrowed, so did the width of the car. My superior brain was literally crushing the piece of shit to a tiny little ball before my very eyes.

The smell of burning rubber and rusted metal permeated the air as the car alarm noise was distorted into unrecognizability. I stopped to catch my breath, clearly still a relative novice at the possibilities of what telekinesis could offer me.

Then, the second most annoying sound I had ever heard rang through the air, coincidentally also belonging to a feature on a car.

Police sirens.

A whole bunch of them.

Oh good, just what I needed. A bunch of cowboys who shot first and asked questions later. Obviously, my society had no need for such pointless authoritarianism, but I recalled a time when they were such a presence, and they were far from perfect.

A whole squad pulled up on my location, surrounding me with their cars like a pack of wolves. Their blaring sirens and seizure-inducing light shows were clearly intended to be a scare tactic—but I, with my reserved quietness, didn’t need spectacle to be threatening. My posture, unwavering in the face of overwhelming adversity, hinted that I was not a typical threat they were responding to. My sun-kissed skin drenched in blood that was not mine, they were ignoring all the red flags—emphasis on red. As soon as they responded to my appearance by stepping out of their cars with weapons drawn, I knew they had signed their death warrants.

They wanted to see an unnecessary use of force? I’d give it to them.

“Get on your knees with your hands behind your head!” one of the overly aggressive men shouted.

I whimsically whisked my body around to face him, flaunting my knowingly sexy body. Even with a large spike jutting from my stomach and every other square inch of my body being drenched in blood, I knew I had caught him lusting over me.

Based on the extra silver adorning his suit, the man shouting at me must have been the leader. It was simply natural for inferior humans to follow purely aesthetic-based hierarchies.

Yes… inferior humans. That’s what they were. That’s why I didn’t feel sorry for them. Every day they wake up and choose to live like this. I kept comparing them to ants, but at least ants understood a very logical, evolutionary hierarchy that made the queen vastly superior to all of the workers.

I had no pity for failed worlds like this one. The people living like this, they’d be better off dead.

My eyes lit up, igniting with the flames of the millions of suns I had absorbed within me. Twin beams of pure ferrous fired out from them, striking the police chief’s feet. Instantly, his shoes melted into molten rubber, alongside his flesh and the concrete beneath him. The heat was so intense that he began to melt into his own puddle of lava, until the six foot tall man had become a three foot wide flaming semi-solid.

The other officers panicked, out of the two options of fight or flight, all of them recognized the infinitely superior latter option.

Once they all returned to their coffins on wheels in an attempt to flee, I gave them the burials befitting officers of unjust laws. My telekinesis ventured deep within the engines of these cars. Such complex machinery! Such volatile composition! With a little spark here and a crossed wire there, all of them erupted into glorious explosions of reds and oranges.

I had to admit, seeing an explosion caused by me was quite satisfying, quenching some deep thirst within my soul. In my world, explosions could only be viewed using special effects in movies, and the ones generated by the missile defense systems were horrific. But these… they came from me. Such effortless beauty. I wanted to see more of them.

With every pig set to fry, I floated above my many blazes of glory to get a better view of my surroundings. I set out to destroy only the most garish architecture, yet all my eyes could bear witness to was horrid concrete creations.

Every skyscraper. Every apartment complex. Every so-called convenient method of transportation. It was all an eyesore. I didn’t want to look at it. I didn’t want to smell the rotten sewers and smog-rich air. I didn’t want to hear the constant noise of horns, sirens and people arguing over nothing at all.

I flew down to the sidewalk next to the ugliest, tallest skyscraper I could find. Yes, this one here is perfect, I thought to myself. The domino effect is named the way it is for a reason, after all.

I drew my hand outwards and began to walk forward. My painfully sexy body strutted like the women I saw on street corner TVs, my hips swaying back and forth as my outstretched arm tore through the concrete and rebar of the drab, gray building beside me. If one of the myriad of terrified, fleeing humans somehow caught a glimpse of me through the endless debris being spat out beside me like a wood chipper, they would be rewarded with only the sexiest woman they’d ever see in their pitiful lives. Perhaps, in the known afterlife, they’d be pleasantly rewarded with the vistage of my beautiful, bathykolpian body burned into their retinas.

Beauty… Why did my thoughts return to that? Beauty was such an outdated concept in my world. There were attributes people found attractive in others, but everyone agreed that beauty wasn’t a worthwhile determining factor for anything. Everyone loved each other, no matter how they looked when they were born.

All that being said, I was fucking gorgeous. Even when soaked in blood and rubble, I looked far superior to any magazine model that composed far more real estate of a newspaper stand than she should’ve. To them, there was a female form to perfect,

I reached the end of my train just as I reached the end of my building demolition gig. Rescinding my hand from the concrete—picking away the last bit of foundation with the casual action—and watched with glee as the careless forces of gravity and inertia completed the rest of my job. A chain reaction of destruction activated as one toppelling building struck another, domino-ing them with a little added telekinetic assistance from me.

I flew up into the sky to better observe my handiwork. It was like a Rube-Goldberg machine of devastation, the safety measures put in place to stop such a potential event were woefully unprepared for the simple tomfoolery I had enacted upon the helpless populace. The massive, sprawling city quickly collapsed in upon itself and I could only think about how different this scenario would have played out if they were even a little bit more prepared.

Sure, my world may have been no match for someone like… her. But I was nowhere near as powerful and I made these guys look like chumps! My mind’s eye could already see it now: they’d take the exact wrong lesson from any of this. They’d blame anyone but themselves for allowing an attack to devastate so much infrastructure and so many human lives in such a short timeframe.

And then I heard Falcha’s voice calling from deep within my mind.

“Reyla… What are you doing?”

From thousands of meters in the sky, I looked around my perimeter for anyone. But it didn’t matter if I never saw her. Even if she was just some figment of my imagination, I wasn’t about to throw away a chance to talk with my Falcha.

“H-honey? Is that you?” I called out, turning every which way to ensure my voice carried as far as it possibly could.

“Reyla… What are you doing?” Falcha repeated. “Why are you doing this to such helpless people?”

My nervous face fell to a somber one. If my wife did somehow survive being obliterated, those last moments of hers were ones of torment as she was tricked into believing that the woman she loved somehow hated her. If she saw me now, the things I was doing to try and get her back, she probably wouldn’t approve.

Needless to say, I fought back. “B-but honey, these people—they make a mockery of our perfect world. They’re a shell of our society. They’re slowly killing themselves and their planet for no good reason at all!”

“And is that their fault? Is that all of their faults?” her ghostly voice came once more. “Most if not all of them are born into this world and must try to survive, can we really blame them for what they’ve done?”

My beautiful eyes drifted downwards in disappointment. Disappointment in myself. How had I allowed myself to justify what I had just done?

“But… if they did not choose this life and are too tired and overworked to fix it, then would it not be a mercy to dispose of them?”

“How did you become this, Reyla? What happened to you?” was her only response

I answered as honestly as I could. “I just… I need you again, my love. Without you, I have nothing. I’m incomplete. Nothing matters. Once I find you again, everything will matter once more.”

Falcha attempted to respond again, but my mind had already quieted her out. I flew beyond the limits of the earth, back into space. With my new perspective, I noticed just how many cities that looked identical to the one I had just eviscerated. These people wouldn’t change, their fate had been sealed. I would ensure that these people never suffered again, or whatever justification I needed to tell myself at the time.

I didn’t return to that planet. In fact, it was time to leave for good. This universe had nothing to offer me any more. Well, I suppose that’s not exactly true.

Before I left, I thrust my hand backwards. Tensing my fingers, I drew all the power in the universe towards me, pulling it into my body. It was as effortless as wading my hand through water.

They didn’t need that energy. They wasted it on cruelty. The portal I had opened closed just as the universe behind me imploded upon itself, reduced to an absent space within the multiverse.

I cooed softly as the feeling of warm, exuberant power washed over my wonderful form.

I just need to find Falcha. My Falcha. Then everything can go back to normal. No more killing. No more devastation. I justified to myself. This power will help me achieve it faster and more efficiently.

Even though I could now definitively say I had traveled between dimensions, it certainly didn’t feel all that special. Once more, a large chunk of my time was spent dutifully searching the vast emptiness of space for any sign of life. Even though I was in a mad dash to find Falcha and restore my sanity before time itself collapsed on me, I quickly found myself becoming… bored.

I mentioned earlier that space was vast and empty… and yet the true experience of exploring it was only now sinking in. gone was the wonder and the beauty. I no longer had the optimism of finding Falcha on my first encounter. This was likely going to be a long, arduous process of me hunting down earth every single time only to be disappointed until I wasn’t. At least, for every failed earth, I’d be able to absorb another universe’s worth of power into my body making the next trip a little easier. A silver lining, I suppose.

The next five or so universes were more of the same. By the fifth, as soon as my gaze saw the hint of bloated buildings, that earth was reduced to ashes by my laser vision so that I wouldn’t have to look upon its hideousness for another millisecond. To the humans that were there one moment and gone the next, they must’ve thought their world was perfect. A blessing to exist where so many other planets failed. But suffering did not exist in the random calculus of the universe. It was invented by humans. And they seemed to really enjoy inventing it over and over and over and over again.

Time was but a construct that no longer held any meaning as I approached my 150th earth, though to say I only visited that number would be selling it short. I simply stopped counting after that point, knowing that it would only further drive the hopelessness of finding Falcha deeper and deeper into my already mutilated psyche.

It was a well-tread formula at this point. Show up, spend god-knows-how-long searching for an earth that wasn’t an exact carbon copy of the last fifty, blow it up and absorb all the energy of the universe into my impossibly beautiful body to increase my already exponentially overpowered capabilities. I began to get creative with my earth assassinations. Microwaving it from orbit with my laservision was becoming just as routine when it didn’t need to be. Every other step of the formula was important and/or very pleasurable, the least I could do was spice up some aspect of it.

Instead of a massive spotlight of apocalyptic heat, I tried my telekinesis. Thrusting my hands forward with a commanding presence, I manifested the feeling of the earth in front of me. It helped to craft an optical illusion around it, as if all of its many massive bumps and ridges were actually softly cradled within my loving, motherly embrace. And then, I betrayed my child, caressing it too hard—watching as it effortlessly crackled under the extension of force from just my thumb, then my other thumb, until gradually my entire hand had reduced the massive, life-teeming planet to atoms.

Pretty soon, the optical illusion would become no illusion at all, as my burgeoning reality-manipulation powers were slowly added into the mix. Visualizing the planet as merely a sphere the size of a grapefruit within my hand, reality was forced to accept my request.

Now, instead of an invisible force replicating the sheer force of my palm, I could show the tiny people in the tiny earth just how destructive a tiny push from my very large hand could execute. It felt like crushing a ball made of cake in my hand—the gooey magma core oozing out all over my hands as I watched with interest. I felt like a mad scientist, or, more accurately, a kid in a sandbox having the time of her life.

Once I figured I could physically hold the world in the palm of my hand, I started having a lot more fun with each future earth interaction. Not to mention, said reality manipulation allowed me to reach each new earth faster and more efficiently. Now, I was getting more excited to play with these identical earths than anything related to my original purpose.

I burned the world with an evil eye, froze the world into a snow cone with frost breath and bit down on it (though, admittedly, I did not quite care for the aftertaste and spat it out after only one bite. Not sure what exactly I was thinking would happen with that one.) I was no longer counting, yet my superior memory knew that the amount of times I had creatively demolished the earth surpassed the normal destructions ten to one. I was enjoying it. Reveling in it.

But then, it happened.

After an endless stream of doomed earths that required liberation, there it was. It looked… exactly like home. Not a shallow facsimile whose ultimate fate was to be crushed beneath my thumb, this was the real deal.

Like seeing a photo of an old friend, a sense of nostalgia washed over me. It was identical down to every little detail. The flourishing landscapes with minimal human interference, the quaint little towns where everyone knew each other, the high-tech solar railways that ensured everyone could go wherever they wanted on the vast playground that was earth.

Falcha.

Silver.

Cassette.

They all had to be down there.

Flying as fast as I reasonably could without literally tearing the fabric of the universe apart from sheer excitement, I descended upon the alternative earth.

I couldn’t lie, seeing everything exactly as it was before filled me with a sense of optimism stronger than anything I had felt before. My mind was racing with possibilities, the knowledge that for the first time in forever, I’d be able to see my beloved Falcha again, and that I would ensure that what happened to our world would not happen twice.

I now had the power to prevent… her from arriving and fucking ruining everything. If I could just stop her, hold her off for long enough to prevent anything from happening to my Falcha before we could live a long life together and go out on our own terms, then everything would be beautiful. I wouldn’t even need to use my overwhelming powers otherwise, I could just be known as that cool supermom who was like a god amongst these humans, yet preferred to live amongst them in unison.

Nearly losing my balance as my bare feet touched the ground of a perfect world, my heart practically guided me as I took a tour through all the familiar vistas, building up anticipation for the inevitable conclusion at Falcha’s doorstep.

Immediately, I saw the utopic nature of my fellow humans at work. As soon as they saw me covered from head to toe in dried blood, they instantly offered to help. I accepted. Too long had it been where human interaction resulted in anything other than petty misunderstandings and bloodshed.

I lay in the bathtub of a woman I barely knew, and yet, I had never felt more security ever since my powers were added. I shivered—not because the water was cold, but because I was finally given a chance to relax knowing everything would be okay. I knew word would spread fast about me, neighbors were already telling neighbors “hey, Reyla just descended from the sky and she’s bloodied and has a huge piece of shrapnel jutting out of her chest.” My superior hearing could literally detect those exact words.

I ran the bar of sudsy soap over the perfect contours of my face, each peak and valley of my delectable form accounted for by the cleaning process. The frothy water slid down my perfect, hairless skin like a car windshield as a single endless leg exposed itself from the murky depths, teasing reality with just a hint of my flawless body. Maybe this wouldn’t just be the same as before—it would be better.

I had initially wanted to keep my return a secret to Falcha and if I was lucky and this was the day she slept in, then maybe I’d still be able to see the look of shock on her face as I paid her a surprise visit.

I donned a modified sundress that resembled more of a skirt and crop-top combo, since I was forced to design around the irregular geometry protruding from my stomach. Strutting up to the door of Falcha and I’s house, my knuckles paused millimeters away from knocking on the door.

There was a thought I hadn’t considered yet—what about this alternate Reyla? If this truly was an identical world, as it had seemed, then Falcha would have already hooked up with Reyla. Compounding this was the observation that the town recognized me as “Reyla,” meaning I definitely existed in this dimension.

Oh well, a potentially awkward conversation explaining my origins wasn’t worth stonewalling my entire purpose. Besides, polyamory was widely accepted here, I was sure my children would be excited by the prospect of two Reylas, especially if one of them was a straight-up superhero.

Swallowing my irrational fear, I gave the door before me a hearty knock.

The seconds of silence that followed felt like hours. Every bodily function froze as my anticipation climbed to unhealthy heights.

Then the door opened, and all was right with the world again.

Falcha didn’t look a day older than when I last saw her. She was perfect, like looking into a time capsule once thought to be forgotten.

“Falcha…” was all I could bring myself to say, my breath halting within my throat.

“Wow! Reyla! You look…” she proceeded to get a vertical eyeful of me, both up and down. “…stunning.”

Of course I did. Though, I was surprised she was so… unsurprised. I was her wife, suddenly showing up with a huge spike in my torso and sexy enough to put every supermodel out of business (admittedly, supermodels weren’t really around anymore because no one needed to sell their body for money. Well, businesses weren’t around either—Look, you get the point). Falcha was treating this as if she hadn’t seen me every single day of her life from waking up to going to bed. As if this visual upgrade could be logically explained with a simple lapse in us encountering each other.

Something was… off. It was as if everything was exactly the same except…

“Honey? Who’s that at the door?”

That voice was like a lightning strike directly to my heart. It sounded exactly like… no… It couldn’t be. Could it?

“Oh, it’s just Reyla, you remember her, right? She’s one of the neighbors that lives across town.”

No… no, no, no, no, no…

“Yeah! I remember her! I don’t think I’ve ever properly introduced myself to her, plus I don’t recall her ever visiting before. What’s the occasion?”

It was like seeing a sleep paralysis demon in the corner of your eye. As Falcha’s “wife” walked around the corner into the hallway where I could see her, I froze. My eyes became hazy and unfocused. I nearly fell backwards, stumbling to catch myself with a receding step. There was only one word my mouth could utter.

“Die…”

“Yep, that’s me! Well, most people call me Diane. It’s nice to meet you.”

‘A perfect world’... what a sick fucking joke. My mouth was left slightly parted, my entire body shaking as my PTSD had a field day within my brain. It was her. She was in my house. She was with my wife.

“Y-you fuck. You sick, twisted fuck!” I spat from clenched teeth. Immediately, both of the opposing women reacted with confusion and fear. “You already took everything away from me once, and now you think you can just do it again?”

“Wh-um, a-are you talking to me?” Die responded tensely, backing away from me.

“Reyla!? What’s gotten into you? A-are you in need of therapy or medical attention?” Falcha asked, stepping in front of my line of sight to block my view of Die.

“No…” I responded to my rightful future wife. “I am simply going to fix what should have been corrected last time. Never again will we know suffering, Falcha.”

In a millisecond to everyone else, I shifted reality backwards so I was beyond Falcha and standing directly in front of Die. Before the horrid bitch could even react, I plunged my fist directly through her chest—all the way to my bicep—reducing her torso to a Jackson Pollock painting of viscera.

“Is that a big enough hole for that dice block of yours, bitch?” I whispered furiously at Die, who responded by instinctively coughing up a waterfall of blood onto my face.

Oh well, so much for staying clean.

Falcha screamed, alerting me to her needs. Memories of her being afraid of insects and needing me to come comfort her and solve the problem came flooding back. In another millisecond, I was pulling Falcha into a hug, my gore-covered arm still fresh with Die’s blood staining the back of her shirt. Her body felt amazing, just as I had remembered it—soft, warm, chubby in all the right places. The familiar fragrance of her cedarwood perfume tickled my nose. For the first time in forever, everything was normal again.

The moment faded as soon as it had arrived.

“P-please, d-don’t hurt me!” Falcha begged from within my grasp, I broke the hug and looked at my new wife with a matching sadness.

“I would never, ever hurt you, my beloved. The threat is gone. Now, we can return everything to the way it always was, a peaceful life. We can finally watch the Odyssey explore the multiverse!”

The fear in Falcha’s eyes was replaced with rage. “The threat is gone? A peaceful life? Y-you just killed my wife, you heartless monster!”

“Y-your wife!?” I responded with equal incredulity. But our discussion was put on halt by two more familiar screams, that of my two children.

They had just run down the stairs to witness the lifeless body of who they thought was their mother. I released my hold from Falcha and attempted to comfort my children in the face of a gruesome sight.

“Silver! Cassette! It’s me, don’t you remember? I’m your other mommy, you used to call me Rey-Rey? I-I would always buy you guys ice cream, e-even when Falcha told you no. You loved to play the swing game and we’d always go down to the park to play in that favorite jungle gym of yours!”

As I pleaded with them, tears in my eyes, they only backed away further and further from me. My lip trembled as the possibility of this also backfiring for me became very real in my mind. This wasn’t going to last. They were terrified of me.

No. I had come this far. I had watched my entire world fall before me. I would not let a single inconsistency within a perfect world be the downfall of my existence.

“We’re a family, damn it!” I shouted aloud, my perfect voice cracking. “We’re supposed to be together! I’m not going to let Die take that away from me again!”

“Hello?” I heard Falcha’s terrified voice calling on an emergency phone from behind my back. “Reyla just killed my wife and she’s threatening my family, please, send someone over to deal with her!”

A back and forth frantically ensued, the man on the other line assuring that “Reyla”—likely this universe’s version of me—was there at the public health center doing volunteer work. Yep, that certainly sounded like who I used to be. However, after screen-sharing my carnage, even to alternate-Reyla herself, there was no denying that immediate action was needed.

Oh well, just a few hundred more people who stood in my way. No big deal, I’d add them to the pile of trillions.

My hands shook in concentration as I formed a mental map of the house I had spent all too many years living within. My telekinesis fortified the house, preventing Falcha and the kids from leaving. I was going to keep them safe, no matter what the cost to their freedom such action may ensue.

“Keep the kids safe, Falcha, I’ll be right back,” I spoke, shutting the only non-barricaded door behind me and ensuring it was as sealed tight as the others. I could hear Falcha screaming at me. She just didn’t yet understand that I was doing all of this for the family.

With a confident stride, I walked towards the great many social workers that had begun to propagate on my lawn. Among them, was alternate Reyla. She looked particularly terrified.

“What are you, some sort of wrathful version of me from another dimension?” the human Reyla demanded, only to be told to shush from several other people.

“We do not antagonize! She clearly needs help!” spoke one of the workers.

“Yes, there must be some sort of traumatic event of mental illness that is causing this!” spoke another.

After a beat, The two others dropped dead from just a flick of my finger. It was spontaneous and without fanfare, as disconnecting one’s brain stem tended to be.

“Actually, I like where alternate me was going with her little theory,” I teased sultrily. If these people were going to uselessly stand in my way, better to extract whatever enjoyment I possibly could out of the situation. “You people can’t help me. What I need is simple, yet beyond your scope of comprehension. The most valuable action any of you could take would be to drop fucking dead so I don’t have to do it for you.”

With a flick of my finger, alternate-Reyla was flung several meters away from the pack of terrified social workers. I had future plans for her. Before the rest of them had a chance to scatter, a quick flash of laser vision—a blink and you’ll miss it moment—evaporated the rest of them beyond human resemblance.

I took to the skies, efficiently demolishing buildings that would be able to summon more and more reinforcements. I could have just nuked the whole planet and called it a day, but I had very precious cargo in the form of Falcha, Cassette and Silver. Once I was about halfway through my onslaught, I realized that I was unconsciously mimicking the exact strategy she had unleashed upon my world.

I stopped in my tracks. For the briefest moment I had what could be considered some semblance of self-awareness. Was I no different from her? No, what I was doing was noble. I just wanted my own life back. What she did was cruel, all for the sake of randomly-generate entertainment. I… I took no pleasure in my actions, they were merely for the greater good. To redeem the life that had been wrongfully taken from me. This universe was

As if to accentuate my point, my contemplation was interrupted by a missile striking me directly on the side of the head. Prior to my ascension, I would have been dead, or at the very least pumped full of shrapnel until I slowly bled out. Now, all it did was make me angrier.

Now naked once more and covered in soot, I returned to the skies. Now focusing on my surroundings, I quickly let them know why firing any sort of explosive at me was a bad idea. Concentrating my mind, I placed my hands together, awaiting for the next missile to be fired. Once I saw its flame trail peeking over the horizon, I honed in on each individual element of the explosive. Its inner shell, outermost shell, each individual wing and pin, so on and so forth. Once everything was comfortably within my grasp, I separated my hands—the missile itself split into each component as if it were a display piece at a museum. I then rotated my hands a full 180 degrees before reconstructing the missile back the way it was, returning it to the sender.

After a few seconds, a massive explosion erupted in the distance and I knew that was the end of that.

Then came this reality’s Goddess’ Tears.

It was a familiar sight, but instead of my enemy being on the receiving end of their suppressive capabilities, it was me. Still, I knew I was too strong for them. It was time to have a bit of fun.

I took a deep breath in, compressing millions of cubic air meters within my lungs. The Goddess’ Tears had their flight paths briefly interrupted as I stole the air they flew around in, only to interrupt their flight paths permanently once I exhaled. The carbon dioxide I unleashed was so cold, it permanently disabled a massive chunk of the tear-shaped machines. Massive, unbreakable metal semi-spheres were now falling out of the sky like a cataclysmic meteor shower.

Needless to say, I was sure the populace wasn’t handling that all too well.

With only a few dozen machines remaining from the frost-based culling, they were almost laughably ineffective at their purpose. I allowed a smile to curl upon my face, feeling their middling soundwaves do absolutely nothing to my perfect ears and skin. The reverberations felt like a pleasant massage, one I was more than happy to bask in as I took the time to strike several sexy midair poses to ensure that they didn’t miss a spot.

After a few minutes, I reopened my eyes from a brief stint of rest and took some time to stretch my sinuous arms and endlessly long legs. I found that the way the Goddess’ Tears vibrated my shrapnel to be quite pleasant, a unique feature exclusive only to me. Hmm, maybe I’d have to let Falcha massage me there after this was all over. I was already the more dominant one out of the two of us in our relationship. After my insane power boost, however, I knew that unspoken preference would quickly become a rule.

I imagined myself basking in my own beauty as my lovely wife tirelessly massaged my luscious, naked body, knowing she’d only subject herself to it only because she loved me so much.

And then, all the color drained from the world as my sightline briefly caught a glimpse of our house—or what it used to be.

With five frozen Goddess’ Tears collapsed on top of it, our house was flattened like a penny on the train tracks.

“Falcha!” I screamed in desperation as I flew down to the debris and rubble that was once a perfect home with a perfect happy family within it. Desperately clawing past all the destroyed wood, brick and even bits of Die, I found them—or more accurately, what was left of them.

The whole universe stopped. I collapsed on my hands and knees. Even with the Goddess’ Tears blasting deafening noise into my ears, I couldn’t hear anything over a sound of constant ringing.

Hours turned into days as I attempted to slowly piece their bodies back together with my telekinesis. It was no use. No matter how powerful or strong or sexy I was, I just couldn’t bring the ones I loved back from the inevitable fate of death. I used to think I lived in a world where anything was possible. Where humans had managed to conquer every ailment and obstacle that had come their way. Now, I knew that the uncaring cruelty of the universe would not allow for such luxuries.

Well, I’ll make the universe care.

I shot off from the ground with so much force that the entire planet beneath me erupted into orange slices. I flew as fast as I could into the great unknown, not caring what it had to show me. I held my hands outwards, letting them scoop up whatever solid object my slim frame might slip past. Instead of the far more convenient wormhole method of inter-universal travel, I brute forced it. I physically flew so fast I left a trail of decimated universes in my wake. I was faster than sound. I was faster than light. I was faster than Tachyons. I was faster than interactions between photons. And then, once I couldn’t reach any faster, I stopped trying. I let my conserved momentum slow me down naturally as I rammed into universe layer after universe layer, inattentively absorbing all the power for myself.

Once I finally slowed to a crawl, I felt energized, but not in any meaningful way. If I wanted, I could just do that all over again, but what would be the point? What was there that could still tether me to humanity?

With an absent-minded breath, the vacuum of space seemed to distort and squeeze to my will. As expected, the universe I inhabited was simply unable to cope with my power. Could I try to search for another Falcha? Would my heart even be in it anymore? Would I even be able to enjoy her company knowing I was a detached goddess from the rest of humanity?

I thought back to the root of all my problems. Where this had all started. Her. It was always fucking her. As soon as her body fell from the sky, my life had never been the same. I had watched as the perfect life that I deserved crumble before me in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Maybe… just maybe… I had what it took. Maybe now, if I really put everything I had into it, I could finally rid the curse that was her from my life.

Yes. It was now or never. Even though time was meaningless to both of us, I needed to do this now or I would go completely insane if I spent even one more second on pointless destruction.

I concentrated my reality-warping abilities, knowing that the recent upgrades would give me exactly what I needed to find her. With a blink of an eye and a brief feeling of complete weightlessness, I was in a location that looked all the same—empty space—yet I knew it was anything but.

“Well, well, well, well, well, well, well… the prodigal MILF returns,” came an all-too-familiar voice. I heard the rouletting sound of that goddamned six-sided piece of plastic as it spun, conjuring up a fresh new piece of PTSD for my ears. This one was the real deal. The representation of all the bullshit randomness that had plagued the universe for far too long. “I was wondering why I couldn’t find you anywhere in the spirit realm. You weren’t even dead!”

Once more, I found myself unable to look at her. Even at my dizzying, unparalleled heights of power, she was the roadblock to end all roadblocks.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, steeling my nerves. This was it.

It was time for Die to fucking die.