The Standoff

Joey followed the strange woman as she led him down the sidewalk, leaving Donna alone with the middle-aged man. The woman—tall, wide-eyed, intense—walked with a kind of twitchy urgency, her gaze darting around like she was afraid the world might split open again at any second.

When they were a good twenty feet from the apartment, she stopped abruptly and turned to face him.

"I'm Elorae," she said. "And you're...?"

"Joey."

A beat passed. They just looked at each other.

Then Joey tilted his head. "So, uh… you wanted to tell me something?"

The words came tumbling from her mouth in a rush.

"I'm from another reality," she began, as if that statement were the most natural thing in the world to say. "And I have a power. I always have—it is a thing in my world, to have creative power. Not everyone has it, but the few can be quite powerful. I can take ideas and make them into many things. Alter thoughts, create new concepts, it's mostly used for reinforcing social order. But I am a creator, and sometimes my ideas get the best of me. I thought I had it under control, but I didn't. I got careless. I was in the middle of something complicated—dangerous—and I spilled it."

"Spilled it?"

She nodded, wild-eyed. "The magic, the power. It got away from me, and it slipped through, into… here. Your world."

Joey blinked.

"Into you," she continued. "It fused with you, reshaped around your language, your ideas. You have something that was once mine, but it's different now. Changed. Rooted in your reality. In you."

Joey swallowed. His heart thudded unevenly in his chest. This was it. It was insane, but it explained everything.

"And now," Elorae said, the words still spilling out of her like water, "everything is unraveling back where I'm from. There's a man—Vaelith—he and I were... he **** me to... he got hold of another strand of power that I created. A seed of doubt. And he's using it to tear things apart. Social order, personal identity, families, truth. All of it is unraveling. And it's my fault."

She reached for him—not to touch, but as if her hands could carry the weight of her words.

"I need your help. Please, Joey. You're the only one who can help me put it back together."

Joey felt like he was watching a dam crack.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "You said I have your power. That it changed people. Can you fix it? Can you change them back? Undo what I did?"

The question caught in his throat. Because part of him didn't want her to say yes.

Elorae's face softened with something like pity.

"No," she said gently. "I tried. I reached into her—" she pointed back toward Donna,"—and what I found was... irreversible. She's not under a spell or being deceived in any way. It's... woven through her. She's not altered, Joey. She's rebuilt. You completely and utterly remade her with your words."

Joey's breath left him in a quiet exhale. A part of him sank, and another part... lifted.

He didn't want to lose them. Not Donna. Not Eliza. Not Indira or Aynsley or Madison. Not any of them. He loved them. Even the ones who he had just met. Even if it had started from something twisted and wrong.

But it would've been easier—cleaner—if he could've undone it. If love hadn't come from power, if there had been a way for their relationships to start of with consent.

"I wish…" he trailed off. "I wish I'd known this sooner. Maybe I could have stopped myself, or done it all differently."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Travelling between our worlds is difficult. It took me time to work up the courage and discover a way. But I'm here now, and we still have a chance to do something right."

Joey looked at her. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Come with me," she said. "To my world. We can stop Vaelith together. You understand conviction in a way no one else does now. You could make the difference."

He stared at her.

"Is it safe?"

"I don't know."

"Will I be able to come back?"

"I don't know that either."

Joey looked down. His hands were shaking slightly. He clenched them into fists.

"I need to think about it."

Elorae's eyes widened. "Joey—"

"I need to think," he said again.

"You don't understand. My whole world—"

"I said I need to think." His voice was firmer this time.

Elorae hesitated. Her gaze flickered toward the ground. "I could just make you," she said softly.

He didn't flinch. "I could change you just as easily."

Silence.

They stared at one another, the space between them suddenly humming with something dense and dangerous. Not quite a threat. Not quite trust. Just tension.

After a moment, Joey turned and walked back toward the apartment. Donna stood at the edge of the sidewalk, watching with wary eyes. Steve stood beside her, phone in hand.

Joey approached. "Could I get your number?" he asked Steve.

Steve hesitated, saw Elorae give a nod, then rattled it off.

Joey typed it into his phone, then turned back to Elorae.

"I'll be in touch," he said.

Then he reached for Donna's hand and walked off into the late spring sunshine, leaving Elorae staring after them.