LILY POV
Before I could stop, the scream tore through my throat.
Sothing worse was on fire in my hands than real fire. I could feel pure energy flowing through , linking two worlds that were falling apart and wanting to tear apart. I was the only thing that kept them together, and it hurt so much.
"Lily, let go!" Marcus yelled behind from sowhere. "You’re going to die!"
But I couldn’t let go. I could see Earth through the hole in space that was in front of . My Earth. The place where my sister Emma was sleeping in her bed, possibly daydreaming about her birthday party that was coming up. She was only seven. She didn’t deserve to die because reality was coming apart.
"I can’t!" I scread back. "If I let go, both worlds will collapse!"
The pain was terrible. It felt like my soul was being stretched between two giant magnets. But I held on. I had to.
"There has to be another way," Marcus said, moving closer. "You don’t have to sacrifice yourself."
"Yes, I do." The words ca out as a whisper because talking hurt too much. "Soone has to be the bridge. Soone has to hold the worlds together."
"But why you? Why does it have to be you?"
That was the question I’d been asking myself ever since my skills first showed up. Why ? Why did I have to be the one who could see between dinsions? Why did I have to be the one who could move between worlds?
"Because I’m the only one who can," I said.
Through the dinsional tear, I saw sothing that made my heart stop. Emma was awake. She was standing at her bedroom window, looking up at the sky. But the sky was wrong. It was cracking, just like the dinsions were cracking.
"Emma," I whispered.
She couldn’t hear , but sohow she looked right at . Right through the physical tear. Her eyes went wide.
"Lily?" she said. "Lily, is that you?"
"Oh no," I said. "She can see ."
"That’s impossible," Marcus said. "Normal humans can’t see through dinsional tears."
"Emma’s not normal," I said. "She’s my sister. She has the sa blood I do."
Emma pressed her hand against the window. On her side, it probably looked like empty air. But I could see her fine.
"Lily, where are you?" she called out. "Mom and Dad are looking for you. They’re really scared."
My heart broke. I’d been missing from ho for three days, trying to stop the dinsional fall. My parents probably thought I was dead.
"I’m here, Emma," I said, even though I knew she couldn’t really hear . "I’m trying to save you."
"Save from what?"
That’s when I realized she could hear . Sohow, my sister was talking to across dinsions.
"Emma, you need to go wake up Mom and Dad," I said. "Tell them to get everyone out of the house. Tell them to go to Grandma’s farm. It’s safer there."
"Why? What’s happening?"
I looked around at the chaos surrounding . The dinsional tear was getting bigger. Other worlds were becoming visible through it. I could see a world where everything was made of ice. A world where giant trees grew upside down. A world where the sky was purple and rain fell upward.
"The worlds are breaking apart," I said. "And I’m the only one who can hold them together."
"But you’re just my sister," Emma said. "You’re not a superhero."
"I know," I said. "But sotis regular people have to do superhero things."
The energy running through got stronger. I scread again as pain shot through every part of my body. But I held on.
"Lily!" Marcus grabbed my arm. "Your body is going to fade. You’re becoming pure energy."
I looked down at my hands. He was right. I could see through them now. I was becoming sothing else. Sothing that wasn’t quite human anymore.
"Is that bad?" I asked.
"I don’t know," Marcus said. "No one has ever tried to beco a permanent bridge between dinsions before."
"Well, I guess I’m about to find out."
The pain was getting worse, but sothing else was happening too. I could feel the worlds begin to stabilize. The cracks in reality were healing. The dinsional tear was shrinking.
"It’s working," I said. "I’m actually doing it."
"But at what cost?" Marcus asked. "Lily, you’re disappearing."
He was right. I was fading away, becoming sothing that lived between worlds instead of in them. But the worlds were safe. Earth was safe. Emma was safe.
"It’s okay," I said. "This is what I’m supposed to do."
"No," a voice said from behind us. "This is what I’m supposed to do."
I turned around and saw sothing impossible. Another version of was standing there. But this version looked older, sadder, and totally made of silver light.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I’m you," she said. "From a tiline where you failed. Where you let the worlds fall because you were too scared to make the sacrifice."
"That’s impossible."
"Is it? You’re holding dinsional tears together. You’re talking to your sister across worlds. You’re becoming a bridge between places. Is another version of yourself really that hard to believe?"
I looked at her. She looked exactly like , but her eyes held years of pain and sorrow.
"I’ve been traveling through the dinsions," she said. "Trying to find a period where I could fix my mistake. Where I could save everyone I failed to save."
"What mistake?"
"I let go," she said. "When the pain got too bad, I let go. And billions of people died across dozens of worlds."
"But you’re here now. You can help hold the bridge."
"No," she said. "I can do better than that. I can take your place."
"What?"
"I’ve been doing this for years. I know how to live between dinsions. I know how to be a bridge. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself. I can sacrifice myself instead."
I felt a spark of hope. "You’d do that?"
"I’ve been trying to do it for a long ti," she said. "This is my chance to finally fix things."
She started walking toward the dinsional tear, but I stopped her.
"Wait," I said. "What happens to you if you do this?"
"I beco the bridge permanently," she said. "I exist between all places but belong to none of them. I’ll be alone forever, but everyone else will be safe."
"That’s not fair."
"Life isn’t fair," she said. "But love is. And I love Emma just as much as you do."
She reached out to touch the dinsional tear. The mont her fingers made contact, the energy flowing through stopped. The pain disappeared. I was solid again.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don’t thank yet," she said. "We have a problem."
"What?"
"Look at the tear."
I looked. The spatial tear was closing, but sothing else was happening. Through it, I could see Emma’s world. But it wasn’t Earth anymore. It was sothing else. Sothing darker.
"That’s not my world," I said.
"No," the other said. "It’s not. When I tried to take over the bridge, I accidentally connected you to the wrong world. Emma’s world is gone. And the world you’re connected to now is about to attack ours."
Through the tear, I could see monsters made of shadow and teeth. They were looking at us with hungry eyes.
"They’re coming through," Marcus said.
"How do we stop them?" I asked.
"We don’t," the other said. "We run."
But as we turned to run, the shadow creatures poured through the dinsional tear. And leading them was sothing that made my blood freeze.
It was another version of Emma. But this Emma had dark eyes and a smile full of sharp teeth.
"Hello, sister," she said. "I’ve been waiting so long to et you."
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