The unfamiliarity of the long, dark hall tickles her brain. She should know this; the universe told someone she loves long ago; but she doesn't know what it is or why.
She is familiar with silhouettes; with long, dark halls where women stand, imposing, backs turned; with lights on in rooms where she dares not tread, and yet knows she must. What is the choice here, then? There is no door behind her.
Her hand shifts on the weapon she holds. Handle clutched tight in anxious fingers, she looks down. It isn't Aunt Esther's sword. She doesn't know why she expects to see a spiked hilt and a barbed blade instead of a long, silvery one glowing gently with green light.
In front of her, a silhouette at the end of a hall and the top of some stairs. Behind her, only the wall.
This is bad. This is abysmal. She should turn back and retreat to the stardust of dreams she knows. It's a little late for that, though.
The silhouette, tall and thin, rubs the front of its face. It chews on its own cheek. Tiff can hear it from where she stands.
And, well— Tiff Sheridan has never been one to hold back. She steps forward, feeling the weight of the blade in her hand, then steps forward again.
Wonder of all wonders, it speaks. "Hey there, Tiffy. I've been waiting for you."
The voice is all around her; the voice is just in her head. Whatever the case, she doesn't like it. She doesn't like that there's something talking to her and she can't get a grip on what it is. The voice is too similar to her own.
Through snarls of laughter, Tiff snorts, "Who the fuck are you?"
"Cocky, aren't we?"
"I'm just getting Tiffed."
"Back to an earlier incarnation. Erasing development. Nice, nice. I like it."
"It's not 'erasing development' to keep being cocky in the face of things like you."
"Things like me? You don't even know what I am."
"Then what are you? And why have you been watching me?"
"Uh-uh-uh!" It waggles a finger. "Nice try. You have to figure that one out on your own! You can call me... Well, you can call me nothing. You can call me everything. What you call me won't really matter."
"Could I call you Tiff?"
"Why would you call me Tiff? That would muddy the narrative."
"Then maybe I will call you Nothing."
"And I will call you Nothing in turn."
"Wouldn't that muddy the narrative?"
"Oh no, oh no. You know exactly who you are."
"Why don't you stop it with the word games and tell me what you mean by 'the narrative.'" Talking like this to something that might be much older and much more powerful than a teen demigod holding someone else's sword is probably a horrible idea. She adjusts her grip again. Her bones and the muscles beneath her skin scream. How many times has she injured this shoulder?
"Too many to count."
Tiff starts, confused. Shaking her head a little to snap back to herself, she checks to make sure all those pesky mental defenses are still up. They should be, and they are— so what gives?
"Oh, Nothing. Honey, dear. Those won't work with me." It pouts, makes a motion like it pities her. "I'm in your head. I have always been in your head."
"Well. I've had enough of this." There's no need to let on that this is terrifying to her in a thousand ways she can't name (and one she very much can). After Oneiron, after Mark Croft, after Despina, after the shadows— there is nothing worse than letting someone in on what's happening in her head. "I'm going to go. Bye."
"No, you're not."
She sighs, pauses, twirls the tip of the sword against a low point in the grout. "So... Is this a Despina thing? Is this Oneiron-type dream bullshit? What's your deal?"
The silhouette flaps a hand, falls back against the steps to take a seat with its elbows on its knees. "No, no. Sweet Nothing, I was not them. I spoke through them. The route is always the same. A reflection. A transmission of something that's almost true."
"Then why would you call me worthless through him? Pathetic through her?"
"Is it not the truth? Sure, you're more than what you think of yourself— but you're also exactly what you think. You don't seem to get it, though."
"What are you?"
"Good question! A-plus question. Why don't you tell me?"
"I don't know. That's why I asked."
"Maybe you do. Maybe you always have— and that's why you're so scared."
"You're probably some force of destiny, then. Like, someone else's destiny. That's why you're hiding in here— though it doesn't explain why you would be in my dream, watching me while I drown, why you were there last night, why you're talking to me."
"Oh, Nothing. You think you know everything. You're so close to grasping the truth at the heart of the bigger picture, but you don't really know anything."
"Enlighten me."
"Where would you have me start? At the beginning? We already know everything. Why rehash all of it? What's the point— reliving endless melodrama you would do better to forget? We have already seen your relationship with your parents, your neverending compulsory volunteering, how it kills you to know that you'll never—"
"What are you, then?"
"You're capable of coming to your own conclusions. You always do. You know where the story leads. You know who's pulling the strings."
Not quite sure where this is going, she hesitates. "Is it you?"
"You could call me a puppetmaster if you wanted, but we all know the marionettes can dance on their own."
"Stop playing games with me." Tiff keeps the tip of the sword in the ground, but makes her grip firmer. "What's your deal? How are you connected to all of this?"
"Roles and roles. Things you already know."
"What about roles?"
"You know your family plays a bigger role in all of this than you think, right?"
"How the hell am I supposed to know that? We've only just begun."
"'We.' Listen to you. 'We.'" It scoffs. "No, dear Nothing. Nobody here is on your side. This entire town wants you gone."
"You don't know that. They've changed."
"Have they?"
The question hangs in the air for a long moment, a puff of smoke after stepping on a firework. It's a thick second before she sputters, "Stop it. My family— All of this is nothing. All of this is nothing! And I suppose it's only fitting that you are nothing and we're done here. You're playing with me. I solved your riddle. Your hands are fate, and you chose all the important people in my life for their destined roles. Fuck off. Drake. Percy. My aunt. Fuck off."
"I didn't choose anything. Fate— it's what you make of it, even when you don't have one. Even when your role is... undesirable."
"Was my role to be disposable, then? Like I told my father in my head? Was I meant to just be the guy with the camera?"
"Do you truly think that?"
"I mean... yeah."
The silhouette sighs, long and deep. It leans forward, between its own knees, like it's trying to get closer to her. "No, Nothing. You were never disposable. The others made sure of that. You never could have been chosen, not in the way that they were. A god, sure. Beloved, absolutely. Disposable? That one is up for debate. And they made sure you weren't, no matter how hard you tried. You know that, don't you?"
"Know what? That I was trying? Or that they were?"
"No matter how hard you tried to go out in a blaze of glory... Hands on your neck, a body through a portal... No matter what, you made it through by the grace and compassion of those who care for you."
"I haven't earned grace. I haven't earned compassion."
"You don't have to earn them. And, even so, you have. You were never disposable."
"No, I— I know that's what my role was. As much as fate is bullshit, I was meant to die in the woods without meaning and I have been living on borrowed time ever since. We both know that."
"Not quite."
"Not quite? What do you mean, 'not quite?' That's how it happened."
"Not quite. Not quite, Nothing." The silhouette shakes its head. Tiff catches a glimpse of hair somewhere between brown and green. "You're not seeing the whole picture."
"What, and you are?"
"I just have a different perspective. I have no control. I'm just willing to admit things you aren't."
"If you don't have control," Tiff tests, "then who does?"
Nothing shrugs. "I don't pull the strings. I don't hold them. Or maybe I do and I'm lying to you. Why don't you tell me?"
"You're not lying." But it's not not lying.
"Exactly. Agency is yours to fiddle with in the same way you pull your own hair. It's a bad habit, by the way."
"Says the weird unknown being chewing its own cheek."
"You do the same thing."
"I guess I do." She stops chewing on her lip for a moment. It's a dream. She'll be fine. She'll just wake up with blood on the pillowcase again.
"Somebody has to push the plot forward. Somebody has to do the dirty work. The blood things deemed necessary by delight and wonder— somebody has to. Otherwise, the story ends. I don't think you're ready for that."
"This isn't a story. And maybe I am. Maybe I'm ready to be done with all of—" Tiff gestures around her head. "All of this."
"Are you?"
Barely, just barely, she hesitates. She knows the truth, though. Groaning, she admits, "No. Dammit, no."
"I thought so. I know you. I know you better than anyone. Your path is one of wonder, not one of duty."
"Everyone has a duty."
"You only have the one you imposed on yourself."
"I don't know—"
"You weren't given a duty. Like most of the people on this earth, you were not given a destiny. You know that. And you know that your 'for the greater good' mentality has only harmed and hindered you. Aren't you tired? You're the one who took on morality. You're the one who beat yourself into the ground for doing the right thing. You always have."
"When have I ever done the right thing?" Tiff's voice wavers as much as her grip on the sword. Why is she still holding this thing? She lets it fall, but it doesn't leave her hand. "We're done here. I'm going back to my own space."
And she does. Through the exit, through the grass, through the fairy tale forests of Dreaming, she goes back to where she was supposed to be in the first place. A thousand moments of wrongdoing flash across her mind as she pushes through to metal and stardust. Guilt settles in her stomach. She can't take this. She can't keep living with this. She looks down at the lilypad sword of what she assumes is destiny. When has she done the right thing?
"All the time."
"Shit!" She fumbles the sword. It clatters against cosmic cement. She leaves it there, more concerned with the fact that Nothing followed her than with the noise. "What the hell, man."
"It's the answer to your question: all the time. Would you rather have laid down and died? Would you rather martyr yourself when the world needs you? That would be selfish. Laying down to die for the destiny you think you have when the world still needs you in it will never be the right choice. You're so caught up in morality, dear Nothing. You forget to see the sky for the stars."
"It wouldn't be wrong for me to die." They're in her head. This entire thing has taken place in her form of Dreaming. She can tell the truth. It has already seen how she feels when looking up at the world from the basement, when looking down on it from the roof.
"It wouldn't be right."
"What's the right thing to do, then? Will you tell me?"
Nothing chuckles. It leans in closer. She can smell apples. "You already know."
"I don't think I do."
"And you'll do it anyway. Now, tell me: do you like the sword?"
"The sword?" She looks down at it, still on the cement, letting out that sickly green light. "The sword doesn't matter."
"That's where you're wrong. It's a weapon to which we ascribe meaning. I'm a fan of symbolism. That's the heart of the narrative. Your aunt has her sword when she meets her destiny, all barbs and control, something to end the fight quickly and in a puddle of viscera. Your meaning is your own to find, though."
"So there is meaning, then?" And there is the desperation in her ribcage. "Like I told Eliza? Like I told myself for years?"
"There's always meaning. There is never meaning. There is only the meaning we give to things, like blue curtains, like suffering, like Kolob."
Frown still disgracing her chapped lips, Tiff reaches down to pick up the sword. She holds it in front of her, in the space between herself and the silhouette. "And what if I kill you? What if that's the choice I make? What if that's the meaning I find?"
"I don't think you will. Don't you understand, Tiff? You are of me."
"I'm nothing to you."
The shadow laughs in time with the pulsing of the universe. "What a cruel joke. At least you were here to make it."
"It wasn't a joke at all."
Laugh like sand in an hourglass, it says, "Darling, darling Nothing. I think it's time for you to wake up."