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    She was alone. She wasn’t supposed to be alone. Not for this long. At seven years old, Felicity Chambers wasn’t supposed to be left in the house by herself for the whole afternoon. She should have been with her mother, but her mom wasn’t here. She had left with suitcases, had gone out with some man she wouldn’t let come inside, leaving Felicity sitting by herself, coloring.


    It didn’t take long for Felicity to realize something was very wrong with this. Even at her age, the inquisitive little girl knew people didn’t leave kids alone like this. Or they weren’t supposed to, it was against the rules. And her mother definitely followed the rules. She had to, as a sheriff.


    And yes, even now, she couldn’t help the swell of pride that came when she thought of her mother as the sheriff. Like Woody! Only not a toy. She was a real sheriff, who stopped bad guys and helped people. She was a hero. So… why was she crying when she left? Why did she go with that man, and who was he? Why wasn’t she back yet? Why did she leave Felicity all alone?


    Frowning as she stood at the window and looked out at the empty driveway, the seven-year-old blonde girl debated about what to do. She was hungry, so maybe she should eat a Pop-Tart. But it would be dinner time soon. Was Mom bringing back dinner? Maybe she went to the store and there was a long line. That didn’t explain who the man was, or why she was crying though.


    No, this wasn’t the time to eat. She had to call her dad. She had to tell him something was wrong, that Mom left and hadn’t come back yet. She had to tell him about the man in the car.


    She was too young for a cell phone (according to her mom and dad anyway), so Felicity hopped down from the couch she had been kneeling on to see out the window and trotted over to the wall with the landline phone. Plucking it off the receiver, she started to dial her father’s cell number, carefully reciting it out loud as she did so. But midway through, a noise caught her attention: the distinctive sound of footsteps coming from just above her head, in her bedroom. Someone, a stranger, was in their house!


    With a soft gasp as she stared upward with the phone in one hand, Felicity listened again to be certain she wasn’t imagining it. Sure enough, those footsteps continued out of her room and down the hall. Only it was weird, it sounded like there was more than one person. Or maybe a big dog? Could there be a big dog in their house? No, how could it get inside?


    Confused and afraid, she very slowly hit the disconnect button, then started pressing the buttons for nine-one-one. Before she could hit the second ‘one,’ however, the sound of footsteps had reached the stairwell, and whoever it was began to descend. They were coming downstairs! And it still sounded like there were too many feet!


    Turning, Felicity started to run out of the living room. In her rush, she didn’t realize until afterward that she had dropped the phone, and now it was too far away to go back for. Wait, Dad’s office! She could run in there and lock the door before using that phone to call the police! Heading that way as quickly as possible, she listened to the sound of the figure coming down the stairs. They were getting closer and closer, any second now they’d be able to see her! They could probably already hear her panicked breathing and footsteps as she ran across the room toward her father’s office. They’d chase her any second now! Was it the same man her mom left with? Was he a bad guy? Was he here?! Why would he come back? Where was her mom now?! Why wasn’t Mommy here?!


    With that rush of panic filling her young mind, Felicity ran into her father’s office. But just as she made it through the doorway, someone appeared right there on the other side and plucked her off the floor. A hand covered her mouth, silencing the squeal that had started to escape. Immediately, Felicity did the only thing she could. She bit down on that hand as hard as she could. It hurt her teeth and jaw. The person’s hand was so hard! Hands weren’t supposed to be that hard, were they?


    If nothing else, she had the satisfaction of tasting blood. No matter how hard the man''s hand was, she had at least managed to do a little damage.


    A hasty, muffled curse escaped the man who had picked her, and Felicity immediately felt herself being shoved away. But her mouth wasn''t uncovered. Instead, she was suddenly being held off the ground by some sort of invisible figure. Really, really, truly invisible! Someone was holding her, but she couldn''t see them. This invisible person stepped back while still holding Felicity and keeping her mouth covered while the man whose hand she had bitten stepped past. Felicity caught a glimpse of a dark coat and dark hair before he vanished through the doorway. Was that the man who had been with her mother? She hadn''t gotten a good enough look at that time, but she didn''t think so.


    Kicking and flailing as much as she could while the invisible figure held her off the ground, Felicity abruptly stopped at the sound of an animal-like screech coming from the living room. It sent a terrified shiver through her, before she heard a man''s voice reply, “Yeah, I know you didn''t expect to run into any problems. Especially not one this bad. This was supposed to be an easy job, wasn''t it? Get in, shove that little trigger in my head while I’m still vulnerable so your boss can kill me with a word the second he needs to, then get out again. The timeline stays the same right up until your boss decides it''s time for me to die.”


    There was a nasty-sounding hiss, like an angry cat, before the man replied just as casually as before. “Oh I know, I’m the last person you expected to find right here, right now. Turns out, having your body completely rebuilt by nigh-omnipotent beings tends to throw out a few of the rules on that sort of thing.”


    The response to those confusing words was another horrible screech, followed by a loud crash, then a boom that shook the whole house, followed by another screech. This one sounded sick, and faded out into a gurgling noise quickly.


    Things were silent for a few seconds then, before the man appeared back in the doorway. Now Felicity should have been able to see him, but the one holding her up turned her away from that view. She heard the man tell the magic invisible figure to set her down, and just like that, her feet were on the floor. She tried to turn, but the man was there, putting a hand on her shoulder and the other on the back of her head. “Felicity, listen, it''s okay.” There was something strange in the man''s voice. He sounded somewhat strained, or maybe confused. Which was weird, because she was supposed to be the confused one. She was also supposed to be terrified, and part of her was. But another part had recognized how out-of-the-ordinary this all was and wanted to know what was going on. She wanted to understand all of this. It wasn’t a normal robbery. She was only seven and she still knew that much. What was this? Where was her mom? What was that--that animal scream? Who--or what had come into her room and down the stairs? What was going on?! And why did she feel so much calmer now with this stranger touching her?


    She saw the phone on her dad’s desk, but stayed motionless as the man quietly assured her in a voice that actually somehow convinced her he was telling the truth. “It''s okay. I mean, it''ll be okay. No one''s going to hurt you, I promise. That thing’s boss thought he could use a spell to send something to attack you while you were most vulnerable. That’s what the spell was supposed to do, go through the timeline and target you when you were at your most vulnerable moment. But it’s something he could only do one time. A single shot, and he missed. He’s done.”


    There was a brief pause before the man''s voice lowered to a soft whisper. “I know you don''t understand, but don''t worry, you won''t even remember this pretty soon. I need you to take a breath, then it''s all going to go away. You’ll sleep for a little bit and when you wake up, you won’t remember any of this.” Under his breath, the man muttered, “Please let this keep the timeline intact. We really don’t need this to get any more complicated than it already is.”


    Yeah, this definitely wasn''t doing anything to help Felicity understand what was going on. But the man had been telling the truth about one thing, as soon as she took a breath, she smelled something sweet and her consciousness started to drift away. She felt her eyes flutter, her weight shifting as she started to fall. But the man caught her. This was wrong. Who was he? Why couldn''t she see him? What was going on? Who… What… Why… her mind was drifting, she was drifting. She was fading, falling, flying, floating. She was drifting through the sky, her mind, her memories spinning. She was slumped in the man’s arms, eyes closing as sleep overtook her. And just like that, everything was gone, and she was cast off to the land of dreams.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    *******


    “What the fuck?”


    Although the man had been right about Felicity falling asleep and forgetting, she didn’t forget forever. Nine years passed, nearly a decade, with the events of that day firmly locked away behind an impenetrable vault within her mind. She forgot everything that had happened, aside from her mother’s disappearance and all that came as a result of that. She even forgot about her mother crying.


    Then came that dream. The dream of the truth. It was the morning of her last day of work at the theater (both because school would be starting the next day and because she had… plans that would absolutely result in the owner of that theater terminating her employment). Sixteen-year-old Flick found herself jerking upright on her living room couch, looking around wildly to get her bearings while those words escaped her. The same couch she had woken up on all those years ago, the day her mother had disappeared. The day something had broken in through her bedroom window, driving the young Felicity to run to her father’s office and get picked off the floor by a stranger before being handed to an invisible figure while the stranger went out and… and did something to the creature who had broken in.


    No, wait, that wasn’t real. That was just a dream, just a dream she’d… had just now? A dream about that day when her mom had abandoned Flick and her dad. Why would she be thinking about that day? And why would her brain invent some random stranger, an invisible person, a monster or whatever had made that noise… what was that all about?


    “What the hell kind of dream was that?” she murmured under her breath, barely audibly while still trying to orient herself properly.


    “A really weird one, lemme tell you,” Felicity said out loud. Only she said it without moving her lips, or meaning to say it, and somehow did so from all the way across the room, near the television. And there was something else very wrong with it.


    Jumping in surprise, Felicity spun that way, to the sound of her own (sort of) voice, and saw… herself. She saw herself standing by the television. But it wasn’t really her. Not only because she was sitting on this couch, but because the one by the television looked like she had when she was about nine years old, a couple years older than she’d been in that dream. Or maybe just earlier in this dream?


    Both Felicities, child and teenager, stared at each other for a moment, before the one by the TV waved. “Hiya.”


    Part of the older Flick thought she should scream or something. This was weird. So weird. That wasn’t just some other girl who happened to look like she had back then. This wasn’t some long-lost relative with an abnormally similar appearance. This was her. This was Flick at nine years old. This was… this was…


    “What… is this?” she found herself whispering while taking a step closer, then another. She stared at the familiar figure, opening and shutting her mouth while tilting her head one way, then the other.


    The figure didn’t copy her. Instead, she lifted her chin and retorted, “I’m not a mirror reflection. I mean, you’re old, duh.”


    Blushing, Felicity took another step closer. “Okay, I’m definitely not old. And I know you’re not a mirror, but who are you then? I mean, what are you? I mean--okay, I’m just dreaming still.”


    “Nope, not dreaming. And she’s the same thing as me.” That came from yet another Felicity, who spoke up from where she was sitting at the bottom of the steps. This one looked like Flick had at around ten years old, and was even wearing a scouting uniform from the short time she had been part of that.


    Spinning that way, Flick made a noise in the back of her throat. “I--I--what? Okay, this isn’t real. This is not real. It’s not happening. I’m having some weird dream and--”


    “Like they said, you’re not dreaming.” That came from yet another younger version of herself, this one an eleven-year-old wearing the shirt she’d had from an elementary school track and field day. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen, shrugging that way. “This is real. I mean, what’s happening is, not this place exactly.”


    Before Flick could respond to that, several more versions of herself at various ages came into view. Soon, there was a Flick at every age from eight up to fifteen. They quickly filled up the room around her. Eight of them in total. All of them started babbling at once, talking over one another, trying to explain everything, asking her questions, asking if she wanted to play games, or read books, or see a movie, asking anything and everything under the sun and just generally making plenty of noise that filled up the house.


    Finally, just as their rapid talking reached a nearly deafening din, an even louder whistle cut through all of it. The regular Flick and all the others turned to find yet another version of herself. This was the youngest so far, a seven-year-old Felicity. The same apparent age Flick had been on that day back then, that day nine years earlier. Only this seven-year-old wore a pristine tuxedo, perfectly fitted for her small, seven-year-old form.


    “Hey, boss!” one of the other, older versions of Flick called out, a greeting that was echoed by the rest with various levels of sheepishness. “I guess you should probably be the one to explain, huh?”


    “Boss?” Flick looked back and forth between the assembled group of other hers, and the one in the suit. “Okay, seriously, what is going on? Because this--wait, drugs. I was drugged, wasn’t I? Calvin found out about--”


    The crowd of other Flicks all started to talk at once again, before the one in the suit, the seven-year-old, cut them off with another sharp whistle. Then she focused on the regular Flick. “Okie-dokie, first of all, you are definitely not dreaming. Well, not exactly. I mean this is real, but still-ahem, Nine, could you show her?”


    The nine-year-old Flick gave a thumbs up. She was the one standing nearest the front door, turning to open it. Which revealed the empty white void that lay beyond.


    “Banzai!” that one called out before flinging herself right into that void, leaving the actual Flick blurting a surprised curse. And yet, even as the nine-year-old Flick vanished, she immediately reappeared at the top of the stairs in that same diving motion and went tumbling down them, grunting and yelping the whole way before finally landing in a heap at the bottom. Immediately, she was swarmed by several other Felicities trying to see if she was okay, and was scolded for doing something like that.


    Flick, the regular Flick, walked to the white void beyond that front door and stared, open-mouthed. A weak noise of confusion escaped her, and she would have fallen if the fifteen and fourteen-year-old duplicates hadn’t quickly caught her arms.


    “Okay, guys, no one do anything else drastic like that while I''m trying to explain,” the Felicity in the suit complained. “Come on, some of you are really new and some aren’t. But we’ve all been waiting for this day for a long time. Let’s not screw it up.”


    Together, the other Flicks helped their very confused, ‘normal’ self over to the couch. Then they stood back, while the well-dressed seven-year-old version stood in front of her. “Ahem, right.” Suddenly, she looked nervous. “I umm, I practiced this for a long time, but this is real.”


    “Hey.” Reaching out, Flick took her younger self’s hand. “It’s okay. I’m just confused. Please, what’s actually going on?”


    So, the seven-year-old told her what she knew. That dream she''d had about the strange man and the invisible person, all of that actually happened on that day when her mother had disappeared. When she bit the figure''s hand and got blood in her mouth, it had changed her. The blood made her like that person, someone with magic and powers. Powers which, amongst other things, created this facsimile of Flick’s home.


    This seven-year-old copy of herself had found herself alone in the fake house, able to view what was happening in the real world through the television, but unable to interact with the real Flick. She had been alone for a long time. Several months, actually. Then, on the real Flick’s eighth birthday, another version of herself had shown up, the eight-year-old version. Those two were together for another year until the nine-year-old Flick had arrived. And so on and so forth. Every year a different Flick appeared. Another copy of herself. All of them watching everything the real Flick did, and waiting for the time when she would actually remember what had happened back on that day.


    “But why now?” a thoroughly dazed Flick asked, slumping back on the couch to stare at all of them. “Why am I here now? Why do I remember now?”


    “We’re not sure exactly,” her youngest (and yet oldest) self replied hesitantly. “You’re a Natural Heretic of something. We just don’t know what, exactly. She doesn’t know what sort of creature could’ve made you into something like this. Maybe something like a Reaper since this is kinda Archive-like, but she doesn’t think they make copies of themselves like this, so… uhh, we’re hoping now that you’ve woken up, you might be able to use some powers to figure out what we are, exactly.”


    “Hold on, what? I mean, who?” Flick blinked that way. “What’s a ‘Natural Heretic?’ And who is this ‘she’ you’re talking about?”


    “Ummm, she’s t-talking about m-me.” Yet again, Flick found herself hearing another voice speak up. But this one was different from the others. This one wasn’t her. She found herself staring at a different girl, maybe eight or nine years old. She had blonde hair that was lighter than Flick’s own, in a short, somewhat shaggy cut. She also wore a blue dress with stars on it, squirming self-consciously there on her feet while several of the other Flicks stood around her murmuring encouragement and reassurances.


    “Hi, Flick,” this stranger in her mind-space greeted.


    “I’m Tabbris. An’ this isn’t at all what my momma expected.”