Miss T. whipped her head around to face the noise, hoping in her heart that what she heard wasn't true.

  “No, not the empty,” she muttered in a quiet voice. “Please don’t let it be.” She turned to see that the Winter Warden was already grabbing his gear. Strapping on his helmet, while his wolf's hackles began to rise.

  The others around the bar also strapped on their weaponry. Mister D. drew his blade from his cane. The Summer Warden took a defensive stance, holding his blade in front of him, while his water buffalo, Hector, looked distressed. Benjamin drew his gun, confusion riddled his face, while the Night Beetle placed her hand on his shoulder, standing, and waving protective gestures. The clockwork boy hid behind the bar, gesturing to the boy with the violin. Lady Bliss stood from her chair, feet planted firmly as Miss T. drew in her breath and waited patiently.

  Miss T. knew that no immortal ever knocked on the ashen black door. No creature of eternity would do that. Miss T. took one single step backward, and the front door rattled again—more violently this time.

  The banging didn’t stop. Every strike against the door shook more and more of the space. The drapes rippled, the beams rattled, and the colors of life they built began to be stripped away.

  In a firm tone, Mister D. spoke to his son Bastion. “Go with the other mortals to the back hall.”

  The clockwork boy nodded once and rumbled to life. Moving swiftly, his arms swung back and forth, heading toward the back rooms behind the bar.

  The Boy with the Red Violin simply trailed behind. Still, no emotions traced his face.

  As they curved around the counter, further into the coffee shop, the Night Beetle spoke without her lips moving to her mortal companion.

  “Go with them.” She pointed with her chin toward the door. His gun still trained on the door, he glanced back at her and sniffed.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m gonna stay here. Anything that got you guys spooked is gonna need the extra firepower. I'm not leaving you, since you’re also the only person I know who’s capable of getting me out of here. So, I plan to stay right here, hot stuff, until I get my happy butt back home.” The Night Beetle cocked her head before smiling a toothless smile, then faced the door. She hovered her hand over Benjamin's gun. She muttered in ancient Egyptian, and Benjamin's eyes widened slightly as he watched his gun swirl with glowing blue hieroglyphics.

  “This will help a lot more.” Night Beetle moved her hand away.

  The color from the ashen black door began to fade, and the Summer Warden stepped in front of Miss T.

  “My lady,” he said, speaking to her, slightly turning his head toward her, not taking his eyes off the door. “If we don’t do something now, there won’t be much space left to protect.”

  Miss T. knew this. She scanned the room. All that they had poured into the space was being unmade. The ashen black door was nearly just shadowy, vacant wisps. She knew if they moved quickly, they could dispatch it, assuming only one found them.

  Yes, she thought, from the pounding there should be only one. Otherwise, we all wouldn’t be here.

  She looked back at the Winter Warden and directed her thoughts and will to him and, in doing so, formed a plan. The Winter Warden came up to stand behind the Summer Warden, and a single nod was exchanged between the two of them. They braced their feet, ready to lunge.

  Miss T. reached into her chest for the familiar fire. The hope of the space was ready and waiting to be fulfilled.

  She spoke to the space between herself and the ashen black door. The banging stopped, and the door opened slowly. A gray hand slowly wrapped its bony fingers around the edge of the door and swung it gently aside.

  What they saw appeared to be a normal man from the neck down. Wearing just the monochromatic color of gray, he stepped into the room with his equally gray feet. From the neck up, he was a hollow black spiral. It drank in all light and even the space around it, unraveling the ideas and stories told in the coffee shop.

  Miss T.'s eyes grew wide as she stared at the spinning void where that man’s head should have been. She felt her consciousness falling into him, as if looking over the edge, and being tossed into a great chasm.

  Before the feeling could overtake her, she screamed a singular word of command.

  “ATTACK!”

  The tension that held its place between the door and the rest of them broke away. The surge of action commanded attention in their bodies. They plunged their will forward, like cornered animals, lashing out.

  In between Miss T.’s breaths, the immortals moved like a blur as the sound of gunshots rang out.

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  The first two reacted in unison, and the polar opposites of each other descended upon the creature. A torrent of swings came from the Summer Warden, heat trails left behind every swing. With each blow, his blade seemed to glow hotter and brighter. Touching the tip of the blade gently to the trails, they ignited all at once and bound the creature in fiery ribbons.

  Like an avalanche, the Winter Warden came upon him in one deliberate swing. Before his behemoth of a blade could even touch the ground, he opened his mouth and a torrent of Winter flew out like a screaming, howling demon. Black ice, frigid cold temperatures, and a sound sharper than the weapon he carried followed suit.

  As the instant finished between the two, both fire and ice had their claim. The resounding sound of the firearm was heard as the bullet traveled across the bar. The bullets began to slow down with a dark blue haze around them. The Night Beetle stood behind her companion with her arms outstretched around the gun; she was focused intently, slowing down the matter through which the bullet traveled to increase its mass, folding the spaces between the creature and them.

  As the bullet moved at a snail's pace, Lady Bliss pulled out a needle and began stabbing the hem of her dress, pulling vigorously. Each time she stabbed, a shadow threaded out. The shadows in the room also ribboned, stripped, and stabbed into the creature, wrapping and binding it in darkness, sealing both ice and fire within.

  Mister D., moving at the speed of death, caught Miss T. before she continued plummeting toward the creature. He gripped her face and stared into her eyes, locking her in place.

  “The power of truth is what they unravel,” he said intently. “To tear down and destroy beautiful, right things. We have to run and try again later.”

  The ribbons of darkness that wrapped around the creature began to warp, shift, and spin in a whirlpool toward its head, unmaking the truth of the binding darkness, the cold and fire.

  Miss T. stood firmly supported by Mister D. She faced the creature, her eyes darkening.

  “No. They will just find us again and unravel the truth from the fullness we place in that space.”

  The Winter and Summer Wardens backtracked to stand behind Mister D. Both were looking at each other, exchanging silent conversations. Miss T. could only guess, but she felt the subtle tones of selfless sacrifice in the air between them. No, Miss T. thought, no more sacrifices.

  “It craves to unravel truth and the identity of things,” she said. “To break and shatter and devour that which is real. We cut them off from the truth then. We break their hold on the molds of creation.”

  With all the attacks fading and failing, the spinning bullet, which still moved at a snail's pace, finally collided with the creature. The bullet’s slowed kinetic energy was released, sending the creature flying out of the space, back through the ashen black door.

  Miss T. trailed after the creature with a growl in her throat. If there was going to be a chance for the truth to survive, then she had to feed it something it could not digest.

  The fifth whisper. One must never lie about truth.

  Miss T. walked to the edge of the ashen black door. She crossed over the threshold and took a deep breath. With the remaining space, she exhaled something she thought she’d never have to say. The scrambling creature regained its footing and faced her, its void-like face hungry, devouring all. It was gripped by the words she spoke. Miss T. only ever speaks the truth. The way her father taught her. But now, green fog spilled from her lips as gold light flashed behind her throat.

  This is no truth she spoke. No, this was the start of a dangerous, poisonous road she was warned to never walk. The power between her and the monster reached hungrily into the space between both of them. The crackling green fog surrounded the creature, and it numbly strode forward. Miss T. felt the wispy choking fumes threatening to overtake and consume her. But a good lie is always founded in a bit of truth, and she anchored herself there in that truth as she let the toxin of the lie build.

  She built a lie so foul, so damaging, that it could poison all that breathed it in. She lied about the truth of things and the molds they share. She lied about stories holding places in people's hearts, making them more real than ever. She lied about her hopes and days of a better tomorrow. She lied, and the Myth Eater cannot unravel that which was never real.

  It staggered in the now fuming green haze.

  The choking fog faded, and the world grew black around Miss T.’s eyes. The gray torn sky spun.

  The Winter Warden rushed to her. His face was a mix of abject horror and amazement. The outstretched hand of her enemy was stone; his whole body had turned to stone. She couldn’t hold consciousness any longer, and the blackness took her.

  Blackness.

  Do immortals dream? Are there dreams for such eternal creatures? The making of dreams is sometimes explained away by the power of immortals, but in all honesty, the making of dreams is just as foreign, confusing, and unknown to the immortals as it is to the mortals. In one regard, dreaming is the ultimate equalizer. This is a fact that the immortals do not share openly, but know intimately.

  The dream Miss T. experienced felt all too real to her, but also distant. It was like looking into a crowd and noticing a face, but not being able to put the name to a person. Or trying and failing to find that one friend who invited you to the house party, but you’re sure you heard their voice.

  Relinquishing the instinctual reaction to take control of the dream, Miss T. tried to ease her mind, allowing her subconscious to lead the way. She knew not to resist the tide of instinct and memory. Her feet were swept from beneath her into the dream as she tumbled and swirled through.

  Flashes of images played across her mind. A sky of blood, the eyes of innocence being taken, the truth about the world, the end of her home. She felt a strong twinge of pain on that last one. Lingering on the sensation, she thought something about home. Which home? Which end was she feeling?

  Was it when her father, Adam, told her she’d be safe and that he would return, only to watch him be torn apart by the gods? Or was it when she and her siblings committed genocide in the mortal realm, to enact revenge against the gods, only for it to backfire? Or was it the most recent thing?

  She found out the truth about the world beyond and how they all gradually slid, crossing, colliding, and destroying each other.

  There would be nothing left. Existence would slip and pummel itself into dust. Will it all end empty and hollow?

  The others came too, rooting for hope in this bleak outcome. There used to be more of them. But these immortals, unfortunately, were the only ones left.

  Memories of the past flickered in and out of view. The past pulled at her senses. The image was fully formed. The world was less of a spinning, black, torrent of random images, and now it slid into focus. She slid back into the days when she was a little girl and the world was new.