The Breach, accepted modern shorthand for "The Breaching of the Babylon Threshold," was one of those events every sentient Earthling of conscious age had imprinted like a searing iron brand in their gray matter. It was one of those events like the Fall of the Mall where people loved to say to future generations, "I remember exactly where I was when it happened!"

Sure enough, Skillet Rosalind Ohio would never forget that, when the Breach occurred, she had been lounging atop a beach towel on her purple inflatable "bed" (couch) in her personal sauna (Southus M!n!Partment!) while playing with the selfie camera on her painfully basic, physical-only vintage “smartphone.” This had been a labor of desperation, not vanity--she was applying animated snow filters (added by other poor physical-phone users) in hopes of fooling her mind into thinking the indoor temperature was lower than 89 degrees. She was unclothed, but she did not feel sexy or vulnerable--it was simply the thing the non-Immortals among the Southus population had to endure in the privacy of their homes to survive these bitterly smoldering Winters. She couldn’t remember the last time her tawny brown hair had been long enough to touch her neck, because she couldn’t remember the last day cool enough to tolerate anything touching it.

Skillet did not realize what was going on in the Malled City that day. She didn't hear Magden's speech broadcast across the world, didn't see the death of SSD's beloved Rose at the coronation of the Demon God Kattherine Magnus I on all channels of the world. Skillet had a TV, sure, but despite working 80-hour weeks, she had not even nearly accumulated enough electricity credits for both a TV and for the rickety oscillating ancient "GALAXY" fan perched atop the couch's box in the corner. And, this time of year, the fan got priority: even if all it did was push the molten air around a little bit. Besides, how was she to know everything at once would get hacked at 6:16 PM to broadcast such a reality-breaking spectacle?

Skillet's first indication that something had changed, therefore, was when her eyes transformed before her very themselves: her normally brown eyes spontaneously glowed with a brand new, auburn, electroluminescent brilliance, reminding Skillet of some deep-sea things she had become enamored with in her last visit to the Tidewater Aquarium. She thought it must have been an added effect to a user filter--maybe meant to make her look like some kind of snow monster--but when she turned all filters off, her eyes continued to illuminate in her digital reflection.

There was something whimsical about it, something delightful--until her pupils started changing, too. It was a nauseating, sickening feeling watching the black in her eyes swim around and coalesce and change out of synch from one another. Skillet felt the physical adjustment, as well, in the form of prickling tingles across the center of her eyes. The movement felt insect-like to her. It made her skin crawl. Bile rose in her throat.

Skillet tossed her phone onto her bed and dashed frantically to the closet-sized bathroom around the corner from her bathroom-sized bedroom, making it to the toilet just in time to vomit profusely. She finally wiped the remnants from the corner of her mouth and rose with effort to a standing position, each beat of her heart a frantic explosion as she braced her muscular but trembling arms against the sink. She inhaled sharply and forced herself to look into the mirror and confirm it hadn't all been a trick of the phone.

It hadn't.

Skillet's pupils had settled into something between a cat's and a snake's, the once brown and white parts surrounding it now instead glowing a single united brilliant ochre, fluctuating with her pulse. The shock of seeing herself like this was surpassed only by the shock of what came next:

The seeing.

Skillet had always had something of a psychic affinity she had kept to herself, lest she be ostracized--some dreams of mundane events the night before they would happen, a chill shooting down her spine in old haunted buildings--but she had never opened her third eye. She had never wanted to. She had never even known it was an option! So, when everything an Entity-tier magician sees through the third eye when opened to completion was suddenly thrust into her normal, waking vision:

it was an overload.

She saw doughy little faceless astral Pliks plodding clay-like and toppling from her furniture around the room. She saw an elemental faeribbon flamedancer, its flowerlike, cold, burning petal body gliding across the room and yet the opposite of across it at the same time, entering and exiting all at once, rotating in both directions and yet in neither, so clearly! Radiant clouds emerged like forcefields from certain beloved objects around the room, each a distinct color which Skillet instantly remembered the taste of from absolutely nowhere. Every psychoemotional event of import which had ever occurred in this apartment, before and after Skillet lived there, played on repeat at different speeds superimposed over each other translucently, playing unchangeably and unignorably like holographic recordings being played back on a dying VHS player: magic, love, betrayal, murder, suicide, parties, seances—even an albino cow giving birth, for some reason! Local demons of every geometric combination imaginable, left behind by a dead magician who inhabited the apartment over a century ago, pranced and cavorted and celebrated about, thrilled to be seen, thankful beyond measure to be consciously comprehended again!

Skillet laughed.

She didn't know what else to do. She laughed. She laughed! What else could she do!? The human mind hadn't been prepared with a reaction to any of this. First a soft chuckle rose, then a belly laugh, then an uproarious cackle which did not and could not stop. Even when tears joined the smile, and even when sobs silently and imperceptibly seasoned the resounding guffaws, Skillet was unable to make it end.

Skillet laughed and wept as she sank back into the inflatable couch. This time she didn't care that half her body was off the towel and sticking to the hot rubber--she couldn't even process it. If somebody had hacked all of her limbs off at that very moment, she would not have realized. She lay staring straight above, catatonic, frozen, cackling, watching.

A crystalline structure floated above her in the ether--well, not above her, but not not above her, either. It was precisely everywhere except for not above her, in a way only Skillet was capable of tasting. It looked vaguely like an origami swan poorly rendered in translucent 3D, but something about it was more enticing than anything Skillet had ever seen in her life. It felt like it shouldn’t exist, it couldn’t, and yet—here it was! Her cackling and weeping continued, but her misery had transitioned into ecstasy--she had always wanted to see this, somewhere deep inside. She realized that her entire life, she had been seeking it, without realizing it. She knew it. She remembered it. It looked more real than anything real could ever be, yet it was on a level above that, and not just aboveabove like astral—a level beyond.

Skillet watched her own etheric double expand like an ocean of shimmering, glistening ochre honey crashing silently and gingerly towards the beautiful thing. Skillet didn't know how or why she knew to do this--she just did , and, as of two seconds ago, she always had. As her vibrational field engulfed the anomaly, submitting to it, merging with it, she felt at peace. She realized that, somehow, in a time before time, this thing had been important to her, a part of her. It felt like her. It felt like home. An understanding flowed through her that she could not express in words.

Skillet didn’t remember falling asleep, or anything else after she had become one with the white light, but she woke up on her couch. It was a comfortable 82 degrees, she reckoned--must be after midnight. A pleasant daze inundated her mind and body as she eased back into consciousness for long enough to stumble to the bathroom, nodding politely to several geometric demons and tripping over a Plik on the way to the restroom without much thinking about either. She was briefly startled when she realized her eyes were dimly lighting up the room, but the remembrance of what had happened prior returned like a rush of crisp icy spring water through her being. She was oddly at peace again. In the dim lighting, and the initial shock and panic subsiding, the menagerie of colorful spirits and beings even in this random apartment made it feel so alive!

And her eyes--she leaned in close to the mirror to admire them, marveling at the way the glow grew momentarily brighter each time her heart would beat. They hung brilliantly in the dark reflection, hanging like harvest moons made of dancing, twinkling gemstones, pulsating hypnotically. Faeribbon flamedancers of a similar hue were drawn to the beautiful sight, flitting by like falling cherry blossom petals in the beautiful, dangerous, mysterious night sky that this new Skillet was becoming. As much terror as she'd felt before, she was now feeling euphoria, bliss! Something deep inside this Skillet, something ancient that was even more Skillet than that Skillet had been, felt at home like this.

Skillet breathed in deeply and exhaled, triumphantly. There was some reason for this, and there would be some advantage. There would have to be.

She would make one.

Her bravado quickly faded into the unmistakable sound of her phone’s vibration through the inflatable couch. Usually, this low warbling murmur was music to her ears, but that was before whatever was happening to her had happened. All calls were monitored by the Corporation, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen to her if they caught wind of whatever she was starting to become. Her optimism evaporated. Skillet panicked, ingeniously tossed on a nearby pair of sunglasses, and flopped onto the towel on the couch, grabbing her phone from its sticky translucent arm. Oh, thank god—it was Hurricane Jumbotron!

“Hayyyy Hurrrrr,” Skillet crooned, picking up the call and sighing with relief to see the sunglasses were mirrored enough, the glow was entirely hidden.

“Oh my god Ski,” the excitable middle-aged bleach-blonde on the other side of the line squeaked in her upper-class Southus drawl, “did you see what happened in the Malled City earlier!?” She was at least twenty years older than Skillet, but she was somehow stuck between acting like a proper church lady and owning the fact she was in good shape still by acting like a rebellious teenager. There was both a warmth and a vain distance behind her freckled dimples.

“No,” Skillet replied, flatlined.

“I missed it live too but they’re about to show clips of it again while they talk about it. You have to turn it on, like, right now!”

Skillet yawned. “It’s midnight, Hurry, and it’s still a sauna in here. I’ll watch it when I get more credits.”

“Turn on your AC, girl!”

Skillet groaned. “Do I look like I can afford one?”

“You look like you could ensnare you a man that could!” Hurricane replied, cackling her chainsmoker cackle. If she had been there in person, Skillet would have smacked her, but she was safe behind the screen and she knew it. Skillet groaned. “I know, I know—you’re ‘independent.’ Sorry.”

“I’m also poor.”

“Aww honey,” Hurry replied, “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting--it's the long name, I reckon, but I know that's an inherited privelege. I didn't upgrade from HJT-3725 until I married Roger, myself, you know; I'm sorry, I didn't--You’re always welcome at our place, hon. Roger’s never home anyway, you can drink all his wine and I’ll tell him it was the poodle.”

“Thanks, Hurry,” Skillet replied with a warm half-smile, her tone rethawing a bit.

“Anyway, the bottom line is that reality ain’t real anymore,” Hurry blurted, as if the knowledge was going to make her explode if held inside even an instant longer.

Skillet nodded, unimpressed. “Uh huh. Wow. That’s quite the headline to lead with, eh?”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “The Pastor man on TV is saying that this is what happens at the End of Times! It was prophecied!”

“ What is?! What was!?” Skillet blurted, her head starting to hurt. “Speak English, Hurricane.”

“The Threshold was broken, the Babylon—it makes more sense if you’d actually watched it all, there was a whole speech, Skillet, from Magden—”

“Who the fuck is Magden!?”

“You remember, from that Magic with Magden show? Well, I reckon nobody remembers it, oh lord this is complicated, Skiski, I really wish you’d just watch it—” it took every teaspoon of self-control in her body to not chuck the phone across the room, but Skillet endured, “—but everyone around the world just watched aliens and demons and that awful evil young girl who fronts that Satanic SDD band and even that hunk Dom from the Aero Fighters—”

“Bottom line, Hurry.”

“—something is possessing people everywhere now! It’s like some kind of, like, veil or seal thing was lifted from the world, Skillet, just like the Pastor man on TV said would happen! And the Reverend said this week that this is proof that the Enemy is returning, that those people are marked and transforming because they done the unforgivable sin, the eternal sin —ah, you don’t believe, I know, so I should stop proselytizing, but—”

“People are getting possessed?” Skillet interrupted.

“—yes, honey, be careful. There’s people out there, people we thought were just like us, who ain’t really… people.”

“Go on,” Skillet said, forcing down the rising knot in her throat.

“People are changing, Skiski. Their bodies, in little ways; their minds, in big ways… and I think it’s just beginning. There’s no rhyme or reason to who, it’s just, like, whoever the Enemy sees fit to place his infernal blessings upon, I reckon it’s whoever’s done the eternal sin from what the Reverend said. People are, like, growing inhuman physical features, and then they can see things nobody else can because they can use the power of the devil--that’s what some people are saying, at least, according to the news right now, they’re covering it really well right now on Corporate News Network, Skiski, I do wish you would--”

“Fine,” Skillet grumbled, “I’ll hang up and go watch the TV—okay?”

“Okay, you better call me back after this so we can talk about it—I want to keep you safe, Skiski.” She paused for a moment and blinked, trying not to laugh. “Wait, uh… are you wearing sunglasses at midnight?”

“I’m hungover,” Skillet blurted.

“Atta girl,” Hurry cackled, quickly developing into a deep, hacking cough. “Sorry, something went down the wrong way. Naw, sugar: Jesus turned water into wine, honey, I ain’t raining on your parade here… just don’t overdo it. Drink plenty of water and get some rest. And be careful—it’s dangerous right now. It probably will be, until Jesus comes back.”

“I will,” Skillet replied. “Bye bye!”

Skillet quickly hung up the phone as her breathing grew too ragged and frantic to fit full words between them. “Shit,” she mumbled under breath, to nobody in particular. “Shit!” She tried frantically to block out all the astral noise and traffic and be alone with her own thoughts. She realized that if she “ relaxed” her eyes, the glowing became fainter and the sensation of so many ethereal and impossible things around her faded from a visual to an extrasensory, positional awareness.

Her mind raced with a frenzied monologue: Am I possessed? What’s inside of me? If I’m really possessed by something that isn’t me, why does it feel like it was always a part of me!? What the fuck am I? Why me!? If Hurricane knew, would she and Roger support me or turn me in? What is the Corporation even doing to people like me!? Am I even a person!?!

By this point, the entire concern about energy credits felt utterly unconcerning. Skillet yanked her fan’s aging yellowed plastic cord from the wall and plugged in the ancient, half-worn-out CRT television. It had lost its remote long before she had salvaged it, so she manually flipped down to the first of the three channels she received free from the Corporation, Corporate News Network. The monitor slowly brightened as it warmed up, showing famous anchor Corduroy Smith talking with the next incumbent for Vice-CEO in the upcoming re-appointment year, Rod S. Perrington. “That’s what Lord CEO said, so that is of course my policy as well,” he whined, his voice like a kazoo through a sideways nostril. He was a simpering, passably handsome young man, but even Lord’s most vocal supporters had started to sour on quite how pathetic and weaselly Rod was. “We don’t know what’s causing this phenomenon for certain, but we know these, uh, these monster people, or meople, if you will—”

“I like that, Rod,” Corduroy chuckled. His smile was intentionally and absurdly sideways, perfectly angled to show off his expensive, angular, Immortal face and molecularly perfected teeth. “Meople.”

“I’m sure ten seconds after that word came out of my mouth, those mouth breathing mystery-mix commies in NORTHUS already added it to their verboten list,” Rod raged. “They’ll probably jail you there now for saying it, but I’m sorry—if you’ve got glowing green eyes or you’re shooting fire from your tits or whatever, you’re not a person, you’re a monster in the shape of a person. You’re, you know: a meople. And we don’t know that everybody who’s turning into these things is malicious or did something to earn it or make it happen, but we don’t know otherwise either. Tens of thousands of people just died in the lawless wasteland of the Malled City less than 24 hours ago in a clash between alien or demonic or whatever beings like this—I don’t know, Corduroy, I don’t think it’s the time to be letting our guard down and giving benefits of doubts here. We already know NORTHUS is experimenting in occult warfare, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the start of an invasion, Corduroy. Tonight is ground zero for something terrifying, it’s just beginning, and we can’t be cautious enough.”

“Amen. We can only watch, wait, hope, and pray,” Corduroy replied. He shook his head slowly and solemnly, but the wide, TV-perfect-psychopath Botox smile remained undwindled. “Scary times, Rod. Scary times. Okay, for the sake of the folks at home, let’s say I’m just, you know, a viewer out there in the streets, I’m walking home from my third shift, and I see somebody that just, isn’t quite right out there, you know, they have horns or their eyes are purple and green or something--it could be almost anything, from what we’re hearing out there—what should I do, Rod, what does the Corporation want me to do here?”

“Well, first and foremost, Corduroy, you’ll want to pull up your Public Safety app and file a quick report—that’s always proper protocol for any dangerous situation, and it will automatically alert Safety Drubbies to investigate. We’ve added a drop-down option specifically for occult being of interest sightings. Keep an eye on them until the drones arrive, which will be shown in-app with an estimated arrival time. Be aware that, especially now this press report has gone out, you’re going to see more of these meople trying to hide themselves to fit in, wearing hats and sunglasses and such to cover up their demonic adaptations, so be vigilant and very observant. Even people you’ve known forever could be a demonic shell of their former selves or could have always been a monster all along. And above all else, citizens—pray that God protect you, and the Corporation.”

“And worst-case scenario, Corduroy? Let’s say my app says there’s no drones nearby, or the wait time is ridiculous, or the ‘meople’ blast them out of the sky with evil alien magic or something—"

“Worst case, folks, if you feel unsafe, and the estimated arrival time feels uncomfortably high: at your own discretion, you are authorized by the CEO to shoot to kill.”

“And if it wasn’t a meople, Rod?”

“Well, the Corporation will understand, in times like these. Mistakes happen. I recommend to all you normal, God-fearing, patriotic Southies out there—it’s hot as hell out here already, folks, drop the hats and sunglasses and such. If you don’t have anything to hide, why not? Otherwise—well, that’s on you.”

“Makes sense! Thanks Rod! God Bless Southus, and God Bless the Corporation!”

“God Bless,” Rod replied. “Thank you for having me! Watch out for meople, haha!”

Skillet’s blood went cold. The men on TV kept talking as a similar looking charlatan to Rod took the proverbial stage, but their spoken phenomes no longer processed as words to her. Skillet’s phone finally vibrated again, breaking her trance—another video call from Hurricane.

Fuck, Skillet thought. Fuck fuck fuck. She had been wearing sunglasses in the last call. After Rod’s warning, there’s no way Hurry wouldn’t ask about the sunglasses. If she took them off, it was game over. If she didn’t take them off, it would be clear why, and it would also be game over. If she didn’t answer, it was still easy enough to piece the story together. Another game over scenario. Skillet realized she had no agency in this situation, no way out—it was up to Hurricane Jumbotron now. Skillet chose to at least get an answer head on. She answered the phone without hesitation.

Hurricane’s face was serious, heavy: gravity seemed to pull on it in a way Skillet had never seen before. For the first time ever, at least to Skillet, she looked her age, and not like the fellow mid-20s chickadee inside she loved to project. Her eyes looked ancient… sad. She was silent. Skillet did not speak either, instead removing the sunglasses and revealing her new eyes for the first time. They’d changed even more since she’d looked at them last herself, settling into a size much larger than a human’s. Her oversized sunglasses could now barely conceal them.

“I knew,” Hurricane swallowed, sweat beading across her fake-tanned, freckled, pleasant face. “I didn’t want to think it, but I reckon I always knew. You don’t drink, not like that.”

“Yeah,” Skillet replied, softly, trying not to break down into sobs.

“You really, truly, have no idea what’s going on, do you, honey?”

Skillet shook her head, tears leaking from the corners of her brilliant, oversized orange eyes.

“I don’t think it’s true,” Hurricane spat under her breath. “I don’t care if the CEO did say it. I refuse to say Lord CEO because he ain’t the damn Lord. There’s one Lord and he ain’t it, goddammit! The Lord picked him for some reason, but I can remember a lot of times through history that He’s chosen rulers as punishment and not guidance. I ain’t about to get those two confused.”

“You’re not going to turn me in!?” As if in response, Skillet heard the thrumming of a Sky Yacht landing outside her M!n!Partment! complex. She closed her eyes and breathed a deep, shaky breath. “…you turned me in,” she barely managed to continue, trying not to break down.

“It’s not what you think,” Hurricane said.

“If I open that door, I’m not coming back here, am I?”

“No,” Hurricane replied. “But for a good reason, honey--”

“Yeah,” Skillet replied. “A real good reason: you know they’re recording this call and that they’d fill you with holes if you helped a ‘meople’ get away, so you’re covering your ass.”

“No,” Hurricane softly replied. Behind her chair in the video feed, Skillet watched a black portal suddenly unzip in reality, a humanoid figure in an all-black suit, hat and sunglasses stepping through. Hurricane didn’t react as the man placed the barrel of a gun to her head and began mechanically uttering the required traitor pre-execution speech. Skillet opened her mouth to scream, but Hurricane continued, “It’s all right, child. I know he’s there. Maybe I did the wrong thing, as far as the Corporation is concerned, and I’m sure Roger will think I was wrong, too. But I had to ask myself, in this situation, what would Jesus do? Because it’s not Roger or the CEO I’ll be answering to here in a minute or so now in Heaven. And you know what?”

“What?” Skillet asked between sobs, her shaking fingers barely able to grip her phone.

“I have no doubts He’ll agree with me when I ask him shortly. Drop the phone, throw on a towel and get your ass out that door, honey—or this was for nothing. God bless you, love. I’m sure there is indeed a place in Heaven for you—God has a plan for you, Skiski—one that doesn’t end here. He loves you, and—and I do too, no matter what you are or become. You didn’t do anything to do this, so it can’t be a curse, it must—it must be a blessing, a gift from Him. You have to protect that precious gift, now. Run, love.” Her face was pleasant, radiant, glowing brighter than Skillet’s golden iris and corneas. She had no hint of fear or regret on her face, only love and righteousness.

Skillet nodded, whispered “thank you” and “I love you” between sobs, and quickly wrapped herself in the towel from the couch as the agent reached the end of his speech. Skillet dashed through the outside door, trying to ignore the speaker-blowing gunshots now echoing from her abandoned phone inside, and frantically flung open the passenger door of the black Sky Yacht land-to-sky luxury limousine parked just outside. She slid into its leviathan passenger seat and swung the door closed behind her, sinking into the cool leather with mortal relief as she heard the doors lock automatically and realized she was, at least momentarily, safe.

Skillet’s mind went blissfully blank in self-defense, and her heartbeat, breathing, and temperature quickly returned to a healthy normal, largely thanks to the AC keeping the interior of the vehicle at a pleasant 73 degrees. She watched with childlike wonder as the mountains which entombed her became hills and then bumps and then specks and then vanished entirely beneath the blanket of rolling puffy white.

Her trance turned to panic as a shrill alarm blared through the cabin. Before she could look for the reason, it revealed itself—they were surrounded by dozens of Safety Drubbies keeping pace, their rounded baby-Eagle-chick design and adorable faces betraying their unparalleled lethality. “I AM YOUR SAFETY DRONE BUDDY, OR DRUBBY. IT IS NOT SAFE. PLEASE LAND IMMEDIATELY. I AM YOUR SAFETY DRONE BUDDY, OR DRUBBY. IT IS NOT SAFE. PLEASE LAND IMMEDIATELY,” a bored, pre-recorded voice with a deep Southus accent repeatedly blared from their hi-def Beakers.

“Oh god, we’re dead!” Skillet shrieked. The thought of Hurricane’s sacrifice being in vain haunted her more than the impending death itself.

“Nah,” the driver replied. Skillet jumped—she had been so introspective that she hadn’t even noticed the vehicle had a living driver. “Don’t worry, I’m a good guy. I mean, I guess that’s debatable, but I’m—I’m on your side, is my point. And this situation? No fuckin’ sweat for a cool cat like me.” Taking the time to focus on him now, Skillet was surprised to see that his lips were painted black and even more surprised at the feline-like ears which emerged from the top of his head in addition to his human ones. “Also, sorry,” he continued, eyeing her back just as strangely, “who are you? I mean, I know I’m supposed to grab you here and yeet you back with me, but I didn’t really pay attention beyond that to be honest—"

She took a deep breath, and triumphantly stated, “my name is Skillet Rosalind Ohio, and I’m a monster.”

“A monster, huh?” Jet asked, beaming. His green cat-like eyes didn’t glow like hers, but they burned nonetheless with a passionate curiosity. “Well, that’s fine, because I’m an abomination.”

“A what!?”

“ Watch this: SPLEEDIDDLYBORT!”

With this nonsensical catchphrase and a snap of his fingers, the entire swarm of Drubbies tanked to the ground, plummeting as their weight instantaneously became too heavy to keep airborne, by a factor of several thousand.

A breathless “whoah,” was all Skillet could manage. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt truly uncaged, truly liberated, truly safe—truly free.“ Thanks for the save,” Skillet finally said, when her heart settled back inside her chest. “Where are you taking me?”

“To the Threshooooold,” Jet replied coolly and deeply, trying to sound like a DJ.

Skillet frowned. “I thought they breached that, and that’s why I’m like this.”

“Nah,” Jet replied, popping open a glovebox in between their seats and fiddling for something in it. “Different Threshold. That was the theoretical Threshold of Babylon. We’re going to the Threshold, the tower itself above the Threshold of Immortality. Skittle?”

“I feel like it would be less confusing to just not call everything a threshold,” Skillet replied. “And, uh, sure. Get me a green one.”

“I like you,” Jet laughed, finding a green one and tossing it to her. She caught it with her newly evolved depth perception and reflexes no problem, surprising even herself. “We’re gonna’ raise a lot of hell up there.”

“I hope so. I’ve met some Immortals in Southus and they weren’t good people.”

“Don’t worry,” Jet replied, his tone warming and becoming more serious. “We’re not going to that part of the tower. I’m with an organization founded by the King of the Immortals, Gerald Blackmore. We’re building a safe place for ‘monsters’ like us, continuing the work the Institute once did and that Sin Mountain lost its way from. We’re literally just getting started, but we’re here to protect you, to help you learn about yourself, and to try and understand the phenomena occurring worldwide as the result of the Breach.”

“That sounds amazing,” Skillet replied, her eyes glistening. She wasn’t aware, but when she was really excited about something, her new eyes would twinkle in spots like glittering constellations in their honey-gold seas.

“It is,” Jet replied. “You’re our very first rescue mission, but there’s a lot of other freaks like me up there already who will make you feel right at home in Eternal Sin.”

“Eternal Sin,” Skillet said to herself. Her mouth curled into a soft, genuine smile as her mind wandered. She remembered Hurricane Jumbotron mentioning that concept, saying those who had committed it were the ones who were doomed to become these things before succumbing to eternity in hell, but… she was starting to doubt if it was really a curse or not. Skillet was largely agnostic, but something her friend said just before she gave her life stuck with her—about it being a blessing instead of a curse.

“Cool name, huh?”

“The coolest damn name I’ve ever heard in my life,” she replied with a blissful giggle. Under any other circumstances, she’d have thought it was incredibly lame, and yet, somehow, thanks to some strange mechanism of fate and chaos, it was a name that was now bringing her to happy tears. How ironic, she thought, that “Eternal Sin” had become her heaven—and the late Mrs. Hurricane Jumbotron her savior.