Riding Acromantulas and Understanding Magical Biology

Waking up to a Dream


Waking up / Re-orientation / Some questions answered / The magic Cape and the Letter / No matter where, or how / Incongruous


After everything that I had seen and done these past weeks, I shouldn't have been surprised.

I was tagging everybody in the platform who entered past the barrier with an unobtrusive fly when one of them just died. I sat up straighter in my compartment and sent another fly. Not two seconds after it had touched skin, it died. Just like that. The third I sent to rest on clothes and that one was not killed. It could be just a magical insecticide but I knew of one person who could do that too. Someone who had also been with me when it had happened.

Both hoping and dreading who I might find, I leaned out of the train's window and there, standing awkwardly just to the side of the barrier, was Amy Dallon.


When I first woke up, I didn't really remember what had happened. For a while, I stayed like I was. And I was sitting on a chair, my head resting on my arms. I'd fallen asleep on top of a book. It hadn't happened for a while. Not since getting my powers. Something was wrong with this picture. It didn't match to what I was remembering.

There had been… the Nine. Chasing Siberian, Brian leaning forward and then something… Flying… Sirius under me, Amy against my back…

Something was very wrong with this picture. I opened my eyes, scanning my surroundings, the sense of unease always there. I was in a room, my head on a desk and the sun coming from the window warming me.

Except it had been cloudy, raining yesterday even. And I had been outside, fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine.

I sent my bugs to scout and…

Nothing. There was nothing. I could finally put a name to the sense of wrongness that had been plaguing me.

I was alone in my head.

I took a deep breath, then another. There was no use in panicking. I needed to find out what had happened, what was happening, and fix it. It was harder than it should be. I did not have thousands of small points in the darkness to focus. It was just me alone. Had my powers been helping me keep calm and think rationally?

Bonesaw had blocked my powers before but this was nothing like it. There wasn't even the smallest hint of anything. It was like I was missing a part of my mind, a sixth sense that I had been born with. It was like I had never had powers in the first place.

Carefully, without making noise, I stepped away from the desk and chair. I was in a room, very much like my own yet not. A bed, a night table, a large wardrobe and two large bookshelves complemented the desk and chair. All in all, it was the type of room I would have had when I was smaller if it weren't for a few details. The colours were wrong and the extreme tidiness was something I had only picked up years later. Again, it felt vaguely wrong. It was the uncanny valley effect. Some things were right but there were details that did not fit and made it look off.

And there was no sign that I was in Brockton Bay, the view outside showing a suburban street, nice and flowering. Very much not destroyed by Leviathan's visit.

Something else worried me more, however. Myself. I had been injured and yet now I felt perfectly fine. There was a lingering soreness in my neck, the kind that happened when you fell asleep in an uncomfortable position, but I didn't feel the numbness and aches from my burns and bruises. And now that I was paying attention to my body, it felt uncoordinated and…. Not weak, but not as at ease, as strong as before. I looked down, seeing I was wearing shorts and a blouse. And definitely flatter than ever. I brought my hands up to confirm my misfortune and stopped, examining my palms. Were they… chubbier?

"Ah." I blinked. "This is…. Fuck." My voice was higher too.

Now that I looked carefully around me, the furniture's proportions seemed a bit off. Like they were bigger… or like I was smaller.

I needed a mirror.

Feeling accurately the loss of my powers, I opened the door to the room slowly. I had no idea of what was beyond it, and no way to know besides going and finding out by myself. I scowled. I had become too dependant on my powers. What if I ran into a Trump like Hatchet Face? I couldn't afford to become this useless.

But there was only a normal hallway on the other side, with a couple more doors and a stairway heading down. Now that I was outside, I thought I could hear people talking downstairs. Making no noise, I slipped to one of the other doors, thinking about the layout of my own home and opened it a sliver. The floor underneath was tiled. I entered the bathroom and closed the door behind me. It was bigger and in a much better state than my own. The furniture in the room had been too, without cracks or signs of being second-handed like ours. Like the one at Emma's house...

This was no time to think about that. All it meant was that this house belonged to people with a good income. High middle class. And it only added to the mystery of why I was here and what was going on with me. I approached the mirror and, at the sight of myself, went wide-eyed.

Because the mirror showed Taylor Hebert as she had been five or six years ago.


This was me. Skinny, too tall for her age, wide-mouthed Taylor Hebert. But, had I really looked like this before? I looked good, healthy. My skin was smooth, there were no bags underneath my eyes. I knew my basic appearance had taken some hits, the stress of just going to school not letting me rest properly. I had never imagined it made this much of a difference. Then again, I'd never had the opportunity to observe my previous looks like this.

I swallowed. How had this… happened? No, what was this? How had I ended up in my younger body, who knew where, with my powers seemingly gone? Were my powers gone because I was in this body, or because of something else? I braced myself against the sink, thinking. I was almost tempted to think of some sort of time-travel, but it didn't fit with the rest of it. Was time-travel even possible? Parahumans or not, it seemed like something impossible. But no, I thought I could leave that one out. An aging power then, working in reverse. That could explain my appearance. It didn't explain where I was and why, but other things could be at work. Too many things. What were the chances that all the powers involved to put me here, younger, would be available? And why? This didn't feel like anything the Nine would do…

The Nine were sadistic monsters. Jack Slash and Cherish, even Siberian and Bonesaw… they also enjoyed other things beyond physical pain. The Siberian liked the thrill of the chase, liked watching her prey slowly give up, for example. Mind games were also something they'd do. Could that be it? Some kind of illusion or Master effect to mess with my head? It sounded right up Jack's alley.

I pinched myself until I drew blood. It was painful and it changed nothing. Well, it was worth a try. A Master that could make me believe in all of this had to be very powerful. A little bit of pain wouldn't change anything.

But what did I do now? I had no idea how to break out of this illusion. I couldn't do anything. There was always the remote chance that it was something else altogether but I didn't think so. Bonesaw could have very well gone around in my head and disabled my powers directly, everything else could be explained with a cape that took over senses. So, what was the purpose of putting me in this place? So far it looked harmless. Jack would want to break me. Maybe make me defend myself and then drop the illusion and reveal the enemies had been my friends all along. Something of the genre.

I grit my teeth. I hated this. I didn't have enough information. I was going to have to play along for now.

Cautiously, I returned to the room. For an illusion it was incredibly real. Textures, smells, tastes and sounds. It would have been perfect if my body didn't still feel awkward like it had during those years I had had my growth spurt.

I was examining the book I had woken up on top of that was, ironically, about butterflies, when I heard somebody climbing up the stairs. With my powers I would have known more or less who or what it was and I would have known they were coming before they even started ascending. I closed the book, remembering the page, and grabbed it. It wasn't much, as a weapon, but it would have to do. I angled myself so that I had space to move, the door and the window in my field of vision. The door opened slowly and in poked a head.

"Taylor?"

I couldn't help it. "Dad?"


No, it wasn't Dad. Like everything, the details were off. This man looked like my father to the point where I could comfortably call him an uncle. Tall and gangly, like me, with receding hair and glasses. His features were also familiar, the shape of his nose and chin, the colour of his eyes. What distinguished him the most from my Dad was his posture. He stood tall, proud. He did not slouch, he didn't have bone deep tiredness engraved in the lines of his face.

With a jolt, I realized I was looking at what my Dad might have looked like if he didn't have to struggle everyday with a dying economy. If he didn't have to watch the Dockworkers slowly turn to the gangs or give up. If Mom hadn't died. I'd forgotten how young he really was, because Dad always looked like he was pushing fifty only being nearing his forties. I never thought that Dad had literally lost hair to the stress.

"You're awake already?" he pondered, then hesitated, "There's a guest downstairs who would like to meet you."

A guest? "Who?"

"A Professor McGonagall." Dad, or his copy, entered the room fully. "Apparently, you've been accepted for a special school and the professor's come to deliver the news."

"Which school?"

"It's called Hogwarts." He fidgeted.

This was not what I was expecting from whatever illusion I was trapped in. It just came out of nowhere. The name McGonagall didn't mean anything to me and Hogwarts…. Really? It didn't make any sense. What was the purpose of this? I was going to have to risk it. "Okay, lead the way."

Dad, because I couldn't think of this person in any other way, smiled and turned away. I tucked the book securely under my arm and followed at a reasonable distance. Down the stairs, we entered a living room and I had to bite my tongue to not say anything. My eyes got wet nonetheless and I blinked furiously to clear them.

Mom smiled at me from where she was sitting on the couch. "Hello dear. Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah." I was still sleeping, I supposed.

I felt a pang of shame, looking at Mom. If this really was what she had looked like years ago, I'd forgotten things. The exact way she smiled, the planes of her face and the sound of her voice. Time had blurred my memory but here she was, vibrant and alive, just like four years ago. And all I could think of was that this was a trap. There was no point in giving me my mother back unless they were planning to take her away again or were using her likeness to lower my guard.

"Taylor?" My father's voice brought me down to earth. He stood by Mom, one hand on the back of the couch, fiddling with some loose threads there.

I blinked. "Sorry."

"It's rather alright. It is an unusual sight for the first time." A different person said. My alertness had evaporated at seeing my Mom alive and well, so I had barely paid any attention to the third individual in the room. And what a sight she was indeed.

She wore no mask, but everything else just screamed cape. The green and blue robes she wore were reminiscent of Myrddin's with his wizard look. Between the hair pulled into a tight bun and the glasses perched on a severe face, she reminded me of the archetypal unforgiving teacher. Why an unmasked cape would be here, I did not know. Maybe this was more of a dream, because things were starting to not make a lick of sense.

"Professor McGonagall, I assume?" I managed.

"Indeed. Please have a seat, Miss Granger."

Granger? But nobody showed any signs of surprise, so I just nodded and sat on the couch. "What is going on?"

"First of all," said McGonagall, pulling an envelope from the folds of her robes, "you should have this. It's your acceptance letter."

The envelope was old-fashioned. Made out of parchment, it was sealed with actual wax. It came addressed as such, in green ink:

Ms. T. Granger

11 New Court Road

London

I looked up from the letter. My parents were eyeing me apprehensively and McGonagall continued sitting patiently. I broke the purple seal, noting the coat of arms, and took two pages from inside, both made from the same old paper as the envelope.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Ms. Granger,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

I searched for words. Words questioning why I was in London of all places, why my last name was different and why one of the crazy 'magician' capes was here. But the only thing that came up was: "Mugwump?"


"Mugwump?" repeated Dad.

"Yes. Right here. Albus Dumbledore, etcetera, Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump," did that word even exist? "International Confederation of Wizards."

Mom looked pensive. "I think I've heard that word somewhere, actually…"

McGonagall supplied the information, one eyebrow raised in undeniable amusement. And perhaps some astonishment. "The Supreme Mugwump is a political position of quite some importance and prestige in our world. It is effectively the spokesperson for and impartial mediator over the discussions of the International Confederation." I had a feeling the Mugwump had quite a bit more power, unofficially. "Which is, itself, something like your United Nations. But prospective students don't usually focus on that part of the letter."

I shrugged at her amusement. "I was curious." but she was right, so I tapped the paper and asked, "So, wizards, witches, magic…?"

"All quite real, I assure you," McGonagall said with a smile. "Would you like to see proof?"

I'd never met any magic cape in person. Those that waved their arms around, shouting nonsense and wore robes like... well, like the one in front of me. I also didn't believe that powers were magical, even if they gave the middle finger to the laws of nature most of the time. It didn't matter, but powers being magic implied a lack of control and explanations. Bonesaw had spoken about brain structures, of messing with them and subsequently our powers. She hadn't, fortunately, but her talk of passengers was anything but magical. But that wasn't what really bothered me about this situation. McGonagall had mentioned politics, spoken of a different 'world'. And this Hogwarts school. A school for powers? You couldn't teach parahumans methodically, because every single one was different and not fully understood.

The parahuman community had unspoken rules, underground arrangements and alliances. Nothing like this, with confederations and the like. Was this also intertwined with the normal government? I didn't know enough about anything to reach conclusions. Of course, it wasn't like it had to make sense. I was still unsure of exactly what was going on.

Still, I answered the self-proclaimed witch, "Yes." I barely remembered to add, "Please."

The professor reached into her robes and pulled out a wand, an honest-to-God wand of all things. She was really playing this up. Maybe it was a sort of tinker device, somehow? Beside me, my parents leaned in, transparently curious. McGonagall then waved it over one of the teacups on the table, transforming it into a mouse. A very real and animated mouse, that looked up at us humans curiously.

That... was something.

"So, this is magic?" I phrased it as a question. Was it a power based on changing things? What were its limits? Could she literally pull a witch and turn people into frogs?

"Transfiguration is but one of the many disciplines of magic. I teach Transfiguration at Hogwarts myself." She made a few more wand flourishes, turning the mouse blue, then shrinking it and then back into a teacup.

I couldn't really help myself, and interrupted. "Could you do an insect? Like, a spider or a butterfly?"

For a moment, the grey-haired woman seemed surprised, but then she smiled and the teacup turned into a beautiful red and gold butterfly. I still couldn't feel it. I'd hoped that, perhaps, something created from this power would be the solution, that it would interact correctly with my powers wherever I was. No such luck, but it had been a long shot anyway.

"There are also Charms, Potions, Runes… even things like Divination and Alchemy," continued the professor. With a wand flick, the butterfly was a teacup again. "Magic is a powerful and versatile tool. In the hands of a skilled wizard, it can do almost anything."

I nodded. "And Hogwarts could teach me that?"

"The transfiguration or using magic?" McGonagall questioned, guessing my intent. "As for the first, no student of mine would be allowed to take their OWLs without being able to do this much. As for the second, Ms. Granger, you wouldn't be the first muggleborn student that doubted their capabilities, but the Book of Admittance wouldn't have your name in it if you didn't have magic. Do you remember any time when feeling scared, angry or sad, strange things just... happened? Objects moving, disappearing, animals doing what you want?"

No. "Vaguely."

"Taylor," Dad spoke up, "remember... remember when we went to the beach and you climbed that huge rock and fell down?"

I'd gone to the beach every summer, back when Mom was still alive. But the beaches of Brockton Bay were nearly all sand. The few rocks there were wouldn't reach much higher than my waist. I played along. "Yes?"

"And then you slipped and fell and gave your mother and I the greatest scare of our lives." Dad chuckled weakly. "But you weren't hurt at all. You... floated down. We thought it had been a trick of the light, or that you'd bounced on the sand."

"Or that time you got your books all wet," interrupted Mom, "and the next day they were as good as new? Not a smudge or wrinkled page!"

"Now that you're telling me, I remember." I didn't, but denying it would only create more problems when I still wasn't sure of anything. However, it would have been incredibly useful to be able to dry books with my mind after I entered highschool. Maybe then we wouldn't have had to spend so much money on schoolbooks. "That was my... magic?" I asked McGonagall, who confirmed. "Right. So, now what?"


Laying down on the bed, I stared at the ceiling. I could barely see the constellations made with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the plaster. They looked accurate. The Ursa Major, Orion, the North Star marked with an extra large star. My dad knew about the stars. My grandfather would take him with him on his boat, a long time before the crisis, before parahumans even. Dad taught me some things about reading the night sky when I was little. It had stopped after Mom died.

An old pain flared in my chest. It was even sharper than usual, and I felt like crying again.

I thought back to that afternoon. After demonstrating magic, Professor McGonagall had answered whatever questions I'd had. She'd already gone it over with my parents, and she explained to me what was going to happen.

Hogwarts was a boarding school in Scotland, considered one of Europe's best institutes of magical education. As a muggleborn, somebody from a muggle or non-magical family, I had been enrolled there by default. All that was left for me to do was to get the required school supplies and be at King's Cross Station the first of September. Assuming that I wanted to go. The professor had impressed to us that it was highly recommended. My parents... They had asked me if this was really what I wanted.

I'd accepted. It was an obvious cue. If this... dream, illusion or whatever, wasn't so realistic, I might have tried to go against the flow from the beginning. As it was, I didn't think it would work. Besides, if Hogwarts could really teach me magic, as they called it, it might be worth it. McGonagall had left then, and it was agreed that we would go to a place called Diagon Alley the day after tomorrow. And I'd been left alone with my parents. Their copies. I couldn't. Just looking at Mom, at her likeness, made my breath hitch. I'd excused myself as fast as I could, saying I needed some time alone to think.

I did need to think. I had to go back, but I didn't even know how I had ended up here in the first place. We had been chasing the Siberian and her projector, the real Siberian. I knew that much. But between being riding Sirius and waking up here things were too disjointed. I thought I had felt my bugs dying, but without my powers I suddenly wasn't sure of how that felt. It reminded me of being caught in Bakuda's explosions. There were missing moments, disconnects. Had the Siberian managed to knock me out somehow? Was I in a coma somewhere? Was this all inside my own head?

I ran a hand through my hair. The hair that was shorter than what I was used to. I exhaled. I wasn't going anywhere. The only thing I was managing was to frustrate myself, and there weren't any other tasks that I could use to distract myself long enough to approach the situation from another angle. Trying to reach out to insects, or any magic power of any kind, didn't yield any results.

There was a knock on the door. "Taylor?" sounded Dad's voice.

I straightened up immediately. "Yes?"

"Dinner's on the table."

I glanced at the window. The sky was darkening. I hadn't even noticed the time fly by, but now I recognized the feeling in my gut as hunger. I could even feel hungry here. "Alright. I'm coming."

I braced myself before opening the door. Dad was going to be on the other side. I hadn't spoken to him since that day on the beach. I hadn't eaten together with him for far longer than that. And this version of him wasn't going to be… awkward around me. Hesitant. Plus, Mom was also going to be there and I wouldn't have anything to buffer. It wasn't like I didn't want to see my mother again, but she couldn't really be my mother. At best, Annette Hebert as I had seen her was made from my memories. Mom… was dead.

I took a deep breath and left the room. Dad watched me with barely concealed worry as we went down the stairs. Mom was waiting for us in the kitchen. And on the table there was beef stew with carrots and other vegetables, something I hadn't smelled for a long time. Mom used to love that dish. It was a Welsh recipe she had read in a book and so we had that sometimes. Dad and I hadn't had it ever since the accident.

I didn't even remember exactly what it was called.

"Taylor!" Mom dropped down to her knees in front of me, holding my shoulders. The blurriness of my sight… I was crying. "Oh Taylor, darling."

"Sorry." She hugged me to her chest, rocking back and forth. Desperately, I clung to her, trying to breathe through the sobs rising up. Mom's scent, just the feel of being in her arms again, even if it was all just simulated, I wanted this. Right now I just wanted this. Dad hugged us both from behind, pressing me more into their arms. I was going to get snot all over Mom's shirt. "Sorry, I'm sorry."

"Taylor…" Mom waited a bit before gently pushing me away. I wiped my eyes and nose with the back of my arm. "Look at me, Taylor, and listen." I did. "We're not sending you away. You don't have to go if you don't want to. We love you. Professor McGonagall spoke with us and if you don't want to leave we can get you tutors to teach you here at home."

"It's not…." How could I tell them? I just… "I just miss you. I'll miss you so much. I don't…" I sobbed. "I don't want to… to come back and you're…" Gone. I broke down again.

"Hey, hey Taylor, shh. Up you go!" Dad picked me up with ease, like I was a kid again. And I was wasn't I? I couldn't help a strangled giggle. "See, Dad makes everything better," he joked, then spoke more seriously, "We love you kid, and it doesn't matter if you go to a magical school with pointy hats and brooms and toads; we'll always love you. You're my little witch."

Mom piped up from my other side, brushing hair away from my wet face. "Always. Even if you get warts and green skin and start turning boys into rats."

I cried more. They didn't know about Skitter, Coil and Dinah. About the deals I had made, about the Undersiders and the people I had hurt and let be hurt. They didn't know I was a supervillain trying to take over the city, a person who had scared and hurt innocent people, a person who had let others die because she needed the practice. They weren't even real!

But I believed them. I wanted to believe them so much.


Night had fallen over the streets of London. Instead of being in bed, I sat near the window, trying to get as much light as I could on the butterfly book. I yawned. It wasn't even midnight, but already I felt tired and sleepy. A side-effect of being ten again, I supposed. But my parents had only gone to bed half an hour ago and I couldn't get caught. I needed to be sure they were sleeping before I went to work. If I still had my powers, it would be trivial.

But I didn't. So I waited.

It reminded me of my first night out, my only night as a superhero. In hindsight, I had made so many rookie mistakes that night that I still didn't know exactly how I'd survived. But back then, I'd waited for Dad to fall asleep too, before leaving to 'patrol'. If I hadn't been so lucky, the next morning Dad would probably be woken by PRT agents knocking on his door. I shivered. Dad… and Mom. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders after I'd had my cry. I had really needed that, more than I would have ever thought. There was this almost urge to just cuddle with them on the couch and watch a movie, without a care. To pretend this was real and forget everything that had gone wrong in the next years.

No. I couldn't let myself fall into that mentality. For all I knew, that was even what this dream was all about. A honey trap. But I could see it at work. I had to get out of here, wake up. The Nine were still out there. Jack Slash couldn't leave Brockton Bay alive.

I closed the book with a little bit more force than strictly necessary. I strained my ears, but the house was quiet. The only sounds were of clocks ticking away and from the streets outside. Carefully, I left my room and went downstairs. Every creak and noise made me cringe a bit. The floorboards of this house were much less noisy than the ones from our old home, but unlike there, I didn't know all the spots and places to avoid. Feeling my way through the dark ground floor, I managed to get into the kitchen and close the door behind me. The lightswitch took a bit more time to find. With a low whining noise, the lights turned on. I held my breath, but it didn't seem to have woken anybody up. Letting the door open just a sliver, I had just enough light to see by in the hallway and living room.

I set to work. There were two car keys on the key hanger by the fridge. Dad's wallet was on the countertop, and Mom had her things inside her purse. I also grabbed a newspaper from the living room. Spreading them over the kitchen table, I started reading.

Daniel Jacobs Granger and Annette Rose Granger were both dentists. They belonged to the British Dental Association and were surgeons at a private practice in London. It was strange imagining my parents, my father even more, as dentists. My father had an Associate's Degree, and Mom had been forced to put her Master's on hold and start to teach to give birth to me. Yet, it explained the big house and London suburbs. And there were things that only showed that, doctors or not, they were my parents. Dad owned a boat and fishing rod license. Mom had tickets for a play at Shaftesbury Theatre.

It gave me pause, but it was the newspaper that made me gasp.

July 23rd, 1991. Twenty years before yesterday, four years before I was born. And the news were all wrong. There were no articles about capes, no mentions of tensions with South America, with the Soviet Union, no CUI conspiracies, not even big, important things like Endbringer rebuilding efforts. Nothing.

It didn't make sense.

It was, apparently, 1991. Had the Protectorate even existed back then? The Triumvirate, known by its old name? I knew both they and the PRT had formed before I was born, but the exact year escaped me. For once, I actually wished I had paid more attention to Mr. Gladly's classes.

I closed my eyes and stopped. I had to be logical about this. I wasn't even in the States, I was in the U.K.. The heroes here were the King's Men. I didn't know anything about them, except they organized themselves by suits, like cards, and that they were an organization in decay ever since the Simurgh had hit London in 2000 something. Dates, what other dates did I know? I knew some of Behemoth's appearances, a morbid joke since I'd been born on one of those days. The first Endbringer battle ever had been in 1992, against him. So no news about capes was possible, right? It could be a slow day in Europe. Scion had appeared in '82, capes started being more than rumours by the middle of the eighties, but it was the Endbringers that had suddenly and firmly brought parahumans to the forefront of everything. The PRT had only formed after that, I remembered that now.

What else did I know? The Slaughterhouse Nine, I had researched some about them. Mannequin had been Sphere but the dates escaped me. The Siberian had killed Hero in 2000. Jack Slash had been leading the group ever since... '88.

"Damn!" I cursed, then bit my lip.

No. There had to be some articles, references, no matter how small or obscure. And some things just plain didn't make sense. The Warsaw Pact had been dissolved? It hadn't, at least not yet! Conflicts in Berlin, but no mention of the Gesellschaft.

I felt like I was reading an old newspaper from… from Aleph. From a world without parahumans.

I almost tore into the living room without a care, restraining myself just enough to keep the noise down. I was looking for photo albums. But when I found them, I couldn't find what made sense to exist, if I had replaced an analogue of me on a parallel Earth. I couldn't find Emma. If I was here, my parents too, changed as they were, then at this age so should she. We were like sisters. I knew she was on our photo albums as much as I was in hers. Both relief and dismay filled me. I didn't even know why, I hated Emma. I hated what she had become, but maybe I still loved what she had been with the same part of my heart that would always want my mother back, no matter how impossible it was.

An illusion, a parallel world, I didn't know anything anymore. A place with magic and witches but without superheroes. No supervillains either.

If I went to sleep, would I leave this twisted dream?