I looked long and hard at the bane of my recent existence. Did I want to know what he was up to in the meantime? My insistently aching cuts hadn’t allowed me to forget the disposal of the unfortunate by-products. Who could have guessed conscience resided in forearms?


    I didn’t want this fire choked by some convenient half-truths, so I didn’t ask. I heard enough from the other me.


    “Well, right after clambering out of the tottering wreckage, I’ve found myself to be the last man alive, and that you’ve left no woman to shut me down with the classic not even if you are last man on earth. Believe me, I’ve looked.”


    “Then I started tripping and hearing voices. Together, we’ve braved the crumbly depths again for explosives and other useful shit. Y’know, the kind that melts your face off. Well, the latter was mostly a happy accident. We really went there to fuel the other guy’s anarchistic tendencies. Then set off to find Snail’s extra body parts.”


    “Other guy?”


    I shrugged, “Or a girl. I didn’t ask.”


    “You said I didn’t leave anyone alive.”


    “And also I clearly stated I was getting pretty raving mad about then. Pay attention.”


    “Your grey matter harbours no such tendencies,” he said but I felt fingers closest to my head twitch.


    I waved it off, “Details. So anyway, he seared path right through the dense woods! It was a nightmare to traverse. And I really didn’t appreciate the swamps… Or rivers. In any case, he did lead me where promised.” My retelling ceased as I wondered what befell the sister. Dead, in all likelihood. Another one. I was right to be baptised with reek of certain death.


    “You’ve met another of my kind and you spoke. It wasn’t afraid,” monster asked in a roundabout way. I could have been as insufferable as him and ignore issues until they were spelled out, but didn’t feel like sharing too many traits with the bastard.


    “It didn’t have a nose. It was a sparkly monster who would loiter around the city. Got curious where everybody has gone, I guess. He knew who you and your… relative were, once I’d burnt my hands on him.”


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    “I should have taken you with me,” tone dropped to just above a growl again.


    Why didn’t you? I didn’t shout in his face. Not like I wanted to become unappetising brain paste and experience several lifetimes of subservience as my copies did. Also I appreciated the opportunity to throw stones at the giant. Still, that was one superior cold shoulder he executed. I hadn’t felt this abandoned since early childhood.


    “Why have you sought out the other mouth?” monster prompted.


    “To talk to Snail? Duh. Somebody went and killed the conveniently placed phone.” Monster had faint beginnings of a frown. “What?”


    “Why didn’t you communicate inwardly? Didn’t you eat that whole time?”


    “Of course I did. Some.” Not much, but that was the norm. However, it wasn’t what he asked. “I couldn’t talk to it because I wasn’t a mouth.”


    “Yes, you were.”


    “That’s something I would have known.” Right? I was one just hours ago for an entire minute before the connection was severed. Fine, maybe less – but the experience stretched. It’s hard to overlook a behemoth crowding you in your own head.


    “It could have concealed itself at the start, but you would have known once foreign material entered your body. Which means, it cut you off and hoped you’d die somewhere far away from either of us once I gotten to it.”


    “Or! Or. It did as we agreed,” I gesticulated wildly between myself and the dead air.


    “I felt the tether to you as I tore into the appendage. It showed me it’s got you.”


    “Well, apparently you do take a lot of nudging to come and meet the extended family.” Frankly, good for it. I had nothing against diabolical masterplans.


    “You could have died. Should have, by all accounts.”


    “It didn’t need to eat me again, then. But it did. Because I asked.”


    “You’re infused with chemicals which would end you by my hand. Consuming you again also provided it with a template of targetable things. By then it must have noticed my reaction was disproportionate,” monster’s voice was steadfast and austere.


    I nodded along. One didn’t reach ripe age of three hundred million without healthy amount of paranoia. “Except that it was all my idea?”


    “Is it really or has it convinced you so?”


    My brain did go through the meat grinder twice, so I shrugged. “Does it matter? I did go there to beg it to fight back. I picked up the toxic tins. I walked debilitating distances to get to it. I was ready to pay any price I had to. My fate really wasn’t important. Not then, not now. I completed what I set out to do. But you go ahead, underestimate me twice.”


    I know most of it was grandiose coincidence and all the luck I never used on anything else in my life, but I didn’t get to make not-so-empty-sounding threats like those every day. Had to use the chance whilst I could.


    “I never did. It’s why you’re so precious.”


    “Aw, monster, compliments will get you everywhere,” I teased to hide bashfulness that struck like a surprise fart. I’ve received far more astounding flattery, this reaction was extraordinarily ill-placed.


    Exchange of information ceased and I counted the angry crunching underfoot. Splish splosh, he crossed a creek. It wasn’t comfortable or fully warm, but it would have been worse walking on my own. Sleep wasn’t coming, day’s events kept forcing themselves to forefront. Too bad holding another version of me as he was dying – as I was killing him - would take months to digest. Longer still for it to cease showing up as dreams, if all the other experiences were of indication.


    What was I doing hugging the cause of this mess and travelling to yet another fucked up destination?


    “We’re here,” he announced after dozen of creeks and hillocks. I wiggled free before even fully understanding what those words meant. There was a neat row of tall tree trunks. It went out both ways. A defensive picket. Huh, there really was a town out here in the middle of wild nothingness.


    “Don’t kill anybody,” I grumbled immediately, thoughts still coloured with glum aftertaste. And I had to admit my caution was pretty valid. I stood next to a devourer of worlds. Or hefty cities, at very least.


    “Don’t get in trouble and I won’t,” he replied. Also, fair.


    “Where’s the gate?”