Period Piece

In the beginning, there was Nothing...

...and for the cold, uncaring emptiness of the void, Nothing sure was a bright screaming white, as opposed to the inky black canvas of space we'd all come to expect by this point.

In fact, it was so searing bright that even with her eyes closed, it still hurt.

...wait...?

A single incoming breath confirmed that it was not outer space she was floating in, and that fresh gulp of oxygen pumped through her lungs and into her bloodstream, sending an electric wake-up pulse through all of the nerves in all of the individual parts that collectively formed the body inhabited by a consciousness calling itself Jacqui Bourdelon. Brain processes stuttered their way back into a running state, each recovering one by one from their unexpected shutdown. Her eyes blinked. Fingers convulsed. And she took in another, deeper breath, one that allowed her body to start feeling pain again.

God, why is everything so bright? Why is everything on fire? Why does it hurt to SEE?

She felt her hand, dead and lifeless from lack of circulation, raise up and fall back down onto her face, smacking uncomfortably against her glasses as she tried to rub life back into her skin. The light was overwhelming.

...but wait...she could FEEL this searing brightness...she was AWARE of it...

...so am I...ALIVE?

Her eyes snapped open, then immediately shut again in pain.

...so I made it?...or maybe I'm dead?...where is this?

...and why the everloving FUCK is everything so bright?!

Straining, heaving, her pinprick-numb hands still asleep and ineffectual as body parts, Jacqui did the only thing she was able to. She struggled. She fought against the brilliant white light of the Void. She refused the call of sleep, resisted the mounting pain, pushed, persevered, and otherwise flailed her body hilariously until she brought herself into a hard-earned upright and sitting position.

...and immediately felt her boob fell off and into her lap.

...except boobs don't croak? Oh. Never mind, it was just Heqet...phew...

For several minutes - maybe even several hours - she did nothing but sit in that one place, staring at the comforting color of her own not-blinding-white pants. All of her energy was focused on simply breathing in and out, remembering occasionally to blink as the preceding events of the dream that had led up to this point realigned themselves in her brain.

...no, not a "dream". This whole place is its own little unique thing. It's like...a separate timeline, maybe. An alternate reality. Like if I died and went to a place that wasn't the Afterlife, but it also wasn't the Afterdeath, it was just like a...a free-floating, sort of in-between place where wayward souls are forced to wander around like morons until the Universe decides what to do with 'em. Perfect place for The Great Will of The Macrocosmic Universe to set up all that metaphorical Quest baloney. Just pick a wayward soul, match it up with a wayward spirit guide, and blam. It's like a holy temp agency or something.

Recollection slowly coalesced back into conscious lumps of memory, reforming into pictures and sounds and feelings she could remember. Everything that had led up to this moment in - ...time? Space? - sharpened back into focus like the sound of a reversed cymbal.

"...Jacqui?" Heqet's voice drifted through the void, free of weight and echo and tone, clearer than any voice she'd ever heard in her entire life. "You still with me over there?"

"...yeah," she mumbled, digging a finger in her ear. Even the clarity of her own voice was shocking to hear at first.

Unsurprisingly, Heqet seemed entirely unfazed by their new surroundings - even ignoring her broken back legs - and quickly chimed in, "Well then let me be the first to give you a hearty and well-deserved congratulations! You were right yet again!"

"'course I was," Jacqui agreed smoothly as she shook the dirt and the grass from her hair. "...but refresh me on how, exactly."

"Do the words 'pocket dimension' ring any church bells for you?" she prompted, lips puckered playfully.

"...pocket…?" A memory of her remembering those words just a few minutes ago reminded her of what she remembered thinking earlier. "...holy shit, pocket dimension! Did we...are we actually INSIDE whatever pocket of subspace Specter was using to teleport through?"

"I'm no scientist, but yep, that guess is my best!" Heqet replied with an enthusiastic nod.

Jacqui rotated her head left, then right, taking in a good clean panoramic view of the immutable white nothingness extending indefinitely in every direction. Although her bottom did seem to be flush against some kind of flat surface, there was no visible horizon or shadow-casting light source or frame of reference with which to measure length, width, depth, or any other concept of three-dimensional space. In every possible way lay nothing but blank, eternal starkness.

"...well, it's definitely not the color I would have painted the inside of the universe with," she sniffed disapprovingly. She might have actually been worried about this new predicament if her award-winning sense of sarcasm hadn't survived the trip.

Gathering up her companion and pushing up from her knees, Jacqui testily brought herself to full standing height, staggering a few counter-steps this way and that as she struggled for balance in a world without depth perception. Gravity was apparently still a thing, but with the ground looking exactly like the sky and no anchor point to differentiate them, her stomach wished it wasn't.

Swallowing back the urge to puke, Jacqui took in another deep breath and nodded as resolutely as she could. "Alright, then...now what?"

"Now we should most definitely consult the ever-convenient Position Arrow to point us to our next objective!" Heqet suggested, wiggling excitedly. "Gosh, it feels like it's been AGES since we've used it!"

"Hey yeah, good...idea…" Jacqui's voice trailed off as she laid eyes on her companion's sliced-up legs. "...are you gonna be okay?"

"Hm?" Heqet stretched what any biologist would staunchly deny as a neck, trying to crane her head back around to get a look. "...oh, the legs? Hmm...well, I won't lie, this whole physical pain thing is still obscenely irritating. It's like this body won't stop alerting me to the fact that it's experiencing pain, even though I've acknowledged it...how wacky is that?! But yeah, I think I'll manage! Not like I have to manage for all that much longer anyway, am I right?"

"What???" Jacqui's voice sharpened. "Wh--are you dying or something?!"

"No, I don't think it's THAT...but then again I'm no expert on corporeality, am I? Ha ha!" Heqet chuckled without so much as a care. "What I mean is, we're in the Pocket Dimension now! If ever there was a place that had Quest Endgame written all over it, this would be it!"

"Yeah, so?" Jacqui demanded, watching the arrow on Heqet's back emerge in a spin as it slowly balanced itself out. "A-are you saying that after we finish the Quest, you're just gonna...disappear?"

"Unfortunately, I have no precognitive perception magic handy, Jacqui!" Heqet replied, patiently. "I can't say with crystal ball clarity what our final moments here will encapsulate! I'm just offering a realistic outlook on the situation in hopes that you won't let whatever physical pain is slowing ME down affect YOU as well!"

Jacqui frowned and huffed. "...yeah, well...your self-sacrifice is makin' the rest of us look bad. Just...take it easy, okay?"

"Roger that!"

Grazed by the weird notion to stroke her back caringly - as if she'd been infected with a case of The Emotions - Jacqui held the frog close to her and watched the arrow center on a direction vaguely to her right. What magnetic pole the Arrow could possibly be aligned to in this blinding seamless space, that it could somehow differentiate one direction from another, was entirely beyond her. But hey, no reason to look a gift magic in the mouth, right?

Besides, if she squinted really, REALLY hard against the glare, she could have sworn she really did see a tiny black speck in the distance the arrow was pointing. Swiveling her head a bit left and a bit right, the dot remained fixed in place, proving it wasn't just a spot on her glasses or a floater in her eyeball. There was definitely a dot far out on the not-horizon, a single dead pixel in a monitor made of infinity.

...welp, not like we got anything better to do, right?

With a shrug, she took a step toward it.

And instantly, she was standing in front of it.

It was a door.

A simple rectangle of commercial steel, painted some vague shade of taupe or pewter, with a very straight and precise black trim around its edges, and a polished-silver corporate office-style lever for the handle.

And that was it.

All around, in all directions, just more white.

Giving the door an asynchronous blink, followed by a shared glance with Heqet, Jacqui did the only sensible thing anybody on a religious quest fueled by the pain and desire for vengeance against the creation of their own body would do.

She grabbed the handle, cool to the touch and fully unlocked, and pushed the door open like she owned the place.

Where on the outside it looked like a door from nowhere TO nowhere, tucked away on the inside could be seen a room of pure black in perfect contrast against the Void outside, separated neatly by a perfectly straight line at the threshold of the door.

A pocket within a pocket.

Poking her head across the threshold revealed that this new pocket was definitely not another Void. The black room actually contained other things inside it. A dozen meters from the door, a chorus of tiny lights in green, red, blue and orange flickered and flashed. There seemed to be an office chair on wheels sitting silently before a wall of glowing monitors.

And unlike the White Void, this room was a cacophony of noise.

Loud whirring fans hummed and sang over the drone of an industrial air conditioner. The click and crank of a hundred hard drives writing ones and zeroes to disk. An occasional, unidentifiable, hopefully-meaningless beep. And, Jacqui noticed, inside this Black Room they sounded a lot more like familiar earth sounds, not at all like the clean pristine sounds of the White Void.

If she had to guess, she would assume she was standing in some kind of...server room?

"Oooh, spooky..." Heqet offered, glancing around in abundant curiosity. "I've never seen so much inorganic busy-ness in one place! Do you recognize any of this, Jacqui?"

Jacqui shook her head as she stepped inside, half-expecting a voice to start alerting the presence of intruders. "Not really, but I've seen enough movies to know what's going on here."

"Indulge me!" she responded as Jacqui examined an abandoned headset on the arm of the chair.

Before she could indulge, the sound of a squeaky door closing further inside cut her off. Jacqui pulled Heqet close and automatically dropped into a defensive stance, even though she was in no condition to lay down another smack to a potential enemy.

Couldn't just give me one goddamn moment's worth of victory, could you? she thought with the mental equivalent of a sneer. Always gotta have one more trick up your sleeve, don'tcha...well, I'm not about to be caught with my pants down this time. Let's have it, Specter!

...no, wait...

...those were definitely not the footsteps of a sharp-dressed dickbag in a teal suit.

Meekly plodding down one of the countless rows of servers before her, dressed in a white bathrobe - no, an OFF-white robe, nothing would ever look white again after the whiteness of the Void outside - strode a young-ish man with a drowsy demeanor. He paused at the sight of Jacqui, disheveled and carrying an injured frog, sporting a sparring stance and shifting weight from one foot to the other like an idle character in a fighting game.

A moment of tension passed into confusion.

"Oh...um, hi?" he said, waving sheepishly and scratching behind his tousled head of hair.

"...yeah, 'sup..." she replied warily, slowly reverting back into a more normal standing position.

The man nervously checked to make sure his robe was closed up nice and tight. "...I, uh...wasn't expecting you to be here...yet. Hence the robe...eh, guess I'll just wing it."

Jacqui blinked a few times before replying with some uttered noise that sounded like "...huah..?" Something about him seemed important, but after a quick up-and-down, she wasn't entirely sure WHAT. From where she stood, he looked like any other dime-a-dozen college white guy she'd ever known. Thick unkempt hair, patchy face stubble, skinny lips, and an expression that suggested he was either low-key stoned or just woke up from a two-day sleep marathon.

...but what the hell's a guy like this doing in a sub-subspace server room in the middle of the Void outside time and space?

"You said you were expecting us?" Heqet jumped in, helpfully. "How did you know we'd end up here?"

"I've, uh...kinda been watching you..." he confessed, skinny lips growing a guilty smile.

"Oh!" Heqet nodded, then turned to her companion expectantly. "Well, better than trying to kill us like everyone else we've met tonight, eh Jacqui?"

"...watching us?" she repeated, her mind still working on other calculations related to the giant humming server farm behind the dude.

"Yeeaahh, I know it's a little weird, but..." he wiped the back of his neck, then shrugged dismissively. "...sometimes I just like to watch people from up here."

"Up?" Heqet poked the question, hoping to spark up a word or two that might kickstart Jacqui into the conversation. "Are we 'up' right now? In a directional sense, I mean...or is that just a weird human colloquialism that I'm pitifully unaware of?"

"...who...exactly are YOU again?" he asked, as if he hadn't yet noticed Heqet this entire time.

"She's my spirit guide," Jacqui finally took over, still holding on to a wild thread of thought upstairs. Something seemed deviously suspicious about him...

The guy seemed to struggle with her words for a moment. "...spirit guide...? That's...weird, I didn't see you on the...eh, y'know what, probably no big deal, right? The important thing is, YOU'RE here now, and I've been waiting for you."

Hmm...

Heqet gave him a quizzical look. "...you've been waiting for ME? Or did you mean Jacqui?"

"...huh?" The sound of her voice shook him back awake, as if he hadn't expected Heqet to still be there after he'd stopped talking to her. "...oh...yeah, her, not you."

HMM...

He cocked his head to one side and again addressed Jacqui and only Jacqui. "...you seem upset about something."

It took a minute, but one light finally did flicker on inside her head. A bright red warning light...

"...ARE you upset about something?"

Jacqui's eyes finally came back into focus, all the wiser now. "...yeah, something started botherin' me the minute I stepped through your door over there."

"Oh...?" he stood to attention, hands folded as he conceded to her, doing his best to look completely interested in what she had to say.

Jacqui gave Heqet a quick glance, exchanged a nod with her, then looked the scruffy white-robed man sitting in a pocket dimension spying on her from above directly in the eye and said, "What, you don't already KNOW? If you've been watchin' me this whole time, you oughtta be able to tell ME what's bothering me."

The man did his best to offer a genuine reaction, but was betrayed by his almost natural guilty smile. "...okay, you got me, Jacqui. I do know why you're here...".

Her arms crossed, cradling Heqet in the crook of her elbow.

"Looks like you finally made it..." he finished, hands apart in a vaguely congratulatory manner. "At long last, you've reached the end of your Quest...congratulations, Jacqui! You've found me!"

And in a voice that all but silenced the hum of the server farm behind him, he said, "...I am God."

...right.

Jacqui sniffed, giving him another once-over from top to bottom, decidedly unimpressed. "...never really thought of God as the lazy Sunday pajamas type."

God shrugged. "I figured this might make me more...'approachable' than the whole flowing robes, shining halo, staff of thunder schtick."

"...approachable?"

"Yeah," he admitted with a sigh. "As you said, I knew you were coming to see me, so I wanted to appear more...y'know, normal."

"Shoulda gone for a Morgan Freeman look, then," she countered, challenging God's apparent perception of "normal". "Nobody looks more like God than Morgan Freeman."

God replied with a "fair point nod" - an otherwise nameless head-tilting gesture universally understood as a validation of the other person's claim, usually via an admission of "I never thought of it that way" - then continued looking at her, as if he expected her to say something more.

"...so I assume THIS is what you used to creep on me?" she guessed, waving to the array of monitors. The center one still displayed an image of the battle-scarred waterfall grounds, where the Hoods she'd battled earlier were apparently just now waking up in a faceless daze. The other, smaller screens seemed to be displaying statistics or coordinates or something.

"Yes," God beamed, regarding the monitors with a pleased smile. "This is my pride and joy, the supercomputer I built with my own hands...er, well 'powers'...you know. I call it my Godputer. From here I can watch anything, anyone, anywhere, anytime in the great game of Life itself. Amazing, isn't it?"

"Anyone?" Heqet piped up, suddenly quite interested - but then again, when was she ever NOT suddenly quite interested? "Even me?"

God gave her another pointed and confused look, as if Heqet's continued presence was a grand mystery that he didn't remember writing into existence. Jacqui cut him off before he could actually respond.

"So this is what you use to spy on people masturbating, right?" She jiggled the mouse on the pull-out tray beneath the monitors to make sure the system was awake.

"...uhhh..." God blanked out, his entire thought processes gummed up - with what exactly, Jacqui didn't want to know - until Heqet chimed back in to reset everyone's trains of thought back on their correct routes.

"Don't forget why you're really here, Jacqui!"

"We're not here to spy on people masturbating?" she joked, standing back up.

Heqet nudged her with her snout. "Well, my memory could be fuzzy, but I don't THINK that's what you said!"

"I know, I know...".

When God's attention came back to, he found himself face to hair with Jacqui standing just within the limits of his personal bubble, all puffed up as intimidating as she could make herself.

"Alright then, God," she announced, emboldening her voice over the noise of the air conditioner behind them. "Let's get down to brass tacks. You and me, we got bones to pick."

God did his best to look hurt. "Uh oh...what kind of bones?"

He received a wary side-eye in response. "...again, aren't you supposed to know everything, Mister Omniscient?"

"...ehm, well...I mean, yeah, kinda...that's the simple version of it...". He scratched his head and gave a half-hearted wave toward the servers behind him. "See, I have ACCESS to everything, and I wrote this really great search engine for all of it, so it's, uh...easy to LOOK like I know everything."

Frowning now, Jacqui regarded the farm of servers for a moment, checked back toward the monitors, then finally settled back on God. "...so wait, how does it work, then? Are you...watching everything on the screen, then like, writing it to disk on the servers? Like a Book of Life or something? That's a thing Gods do, right?"

Heqet nodded up at her, trying her best to let Jacqui know she was right without intruding "while the grown-ups were talking", as she'd learned from previous encounters.

God's eyebrow raised knowingly. "I'm not just watching it...the great game of Life RUNS on these servers!"

For a quick moment, the words seemed to freeze time, suspended in the air between them by the noisy hum of infinite computer hardware buzzing behind him. So Heqet hadn't been wrong after all...in fact, she'd been right since the very beginning. Not a dream, not the Afterlife, but a computer simulation. A GAME. The great video game of Life...

...well, shit.

"Wow, so the whole of Existence in this plane of reality is just a reconstructed fabrication of some original natural Life, meticulously recreated by a single deity who then superimposed it over a network of electronic devices to link all of its contained consciousnesses together?" Heqet marveled, eyes glowing with intrigue as she promptly forgot all pretenses of being quiet in the face of nascent existentialism. "Ain't that a mouthful!"

"That it is," God replied, trying to pretend he hadn't seen Heqet say those words. "Wouldn't you say, Jacqui?"

The sound of her name jerked her back to attention. "...yeah...er, wait, no! Don't you go changin' the subject on me like that! I got bones, and we're gonna fuckin' pick 'em! Right now!"

"...oh, yes, of course...sorry, go ahead."

Eyeing him even sharper this time - sharp enough to slit him open, she hoped - Jacqui asked God, point-blank, "...why did you invent periods?"

God's eyebrow raised again, slyly this time. "I'm...pretty sure other humans invented them to denote the end of a spoken sentence."

"DO NOT! JERK ME AROUND!" she shouted back, thrusting herself a step further into his bubble, jabbing a finger into his fuzzy-robed chest. "I want you to explain why you cursed me and every other woman on the planet with a broken, bleeding uterus that gushes blood and anger every month we go without getting pregnant."

The face God made grew more and more puckered and disgusted with each spoken word. "...eugh, that sounds like a horrible medical issue. Have you, uhm...talked to a doctor about it?"

"Three strikes and you're fucked, white boy," she hissed through clenched teeth.

God obediently put his palms in the air. "Alright, alright, sorry...just a...a little confused here, is all. I'm honestly not entirely sure what you're talking about. Maybe the game gave you some bum character stats or something? I mean, I'd be upset too, if that were the case. Let me just, uh, pull up your file here, and I'll--"

"Answer the question!" she insisted, fighting back the rising urge to yank on the curly rats' nest he called hair.

"I will, I will," God reassured her, cautiously side-stepping his way around her to reseat the chair in front of his wall of monitors. "Like I said, I don't just KNOW everything offhand, that's why I installed a really big search engine on Life."

Through narrowed eyes she watched him pull up to the keyboard, judging his every muscle movement. The whole situation still didn't sit right in her stomach, not that it had been easy to swallow in the first place. This wasn't at all the outcome she'd scripted in her head. The plan had been to find God, sack his family jewels, then...

...then what? I still haven't really thought about what's supposed to happen after all this is gone and done. I mean...now that I know this is all a simulation, a VIDEO GAME, maybe it really WILL just roll right into the credits, and I'll get to be subjected to yet another feel-good 80s track, and then I'll just...what? Wake up back in my bed? Back in what I used to think of as "real life"? At this point, a happy ending seems more farfetched than everything else I've been through tonight...

Oh well, I guess foresight isn't as important as eyesight right now, is it?

"Hmph, kinda fucked up that you're only as omniscient as your Googling skills," Jacqui snorted, still hovering just behind him, her untapped wrath the shape of two fingers against his head, pretending they were a gun.

"Well, that's...one way of putting it, yeah...". God cleared his throat and cracked his fingers, ready to begin typing in the box that had popped up on the center screen. "So, uh...what's the best word to describe what we're searching for? Let's see what the Godputer can find."

A hundred curious thoughts sprang up in the back of her brain, each one pondering what sort of arcane mysteries in the video game of Life the Godputer might be able to unravel. Heqet probably had a few burning questions of her own. But Jacqui's mouth had already cut to the front of the line and put too fine a point on it: "Menstruation."

...shit, she cursed to herself. I could've just asked literally any question about anything in the known universe. I could have learned the meaning behind human existence, whether or not there's intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy, discovered the point at which pi starts repeating itself, or figured out how an orange-skinned fascist with tiny hands and an inability to talk about anything other than himself came to be a potential world leader...fuck, what a wasted opportunity!

"...w-what IS this?" God asked, in the voice that might be used by a son addressing the browser history his helicoptering mother had just stumbled upon. "Oh my me, this...this is HORRIBLE. Where did this come from?"

Her eyebrow flattened. "...you should know, aren't you the one who made it?"

"Well, I-I mean...yes, I did write the entire Life program and create the server farm and the Godputer that runs it all," he stuttered, staring alarmed and repulsed at the short but explicit bit of code on the screen. "...b-but I would REMEMBER writing something as horrible as THIS, don't you think?"

She tried reading it herself. The highlighted phrase didn't seem particularly long, but whatever programming language it was written in far outclassed the Javascript For Dummies books she'd absorbed in high school. "...so...what are you saying, that you DIDN'T write it?"

"I'm not sure WHAT I'm saying," he continued, waving his hand absently at it. "But I'm glad you pointed it out. Wherever it came from, it definitely doesn't belong in there. It's a gross waste of code. It's a function with no purpose, and now that I know about it, it probably makes the most sense to just edit it right out of Life as soon as possible."

In the palm of her hand, Heqet croaked excitedly. "You're gonna alter reality? In real-time? Right in front of us? What a privilege!"

"...wait, you can do that?" Jacqui asked, the sheer notion of it throwing her entirely off her defensive. "Well, I mean, if you're God then obviously you can DO it, but, like...you're just gonna wave your magic wand and zap it all away, just like that?"

God's finger hovered just above the Delete button on his holy keyboard. "...should I NOT do that?"

"Well, I...I mean…" she replied, trying hard to seal up the chaotic flood of thoughts rushing through her head so she could address them one at a time, "...is it really just that simple? You just highlight a few words, smack a button, and the whole thing is just...gone, forever?"

"That's...kinda how game design works, yeah," he answered with an almost careless shrug.

Jacqui stared back at him, suspicions once again ruffled. Something wasn't right about this. The simplest solutions are always the best ones, sure, but since when had anything in this entire Quest been THIS simple? No, she knew fishy when she smelled it, and she may as well have been standing at a goddamn sushi bar.

Might be best not to show my hand just yet, though...

"...no hidden consequences?" she asked.

"Hey, you said it yourself," God replied, half-pointing to a monitor above. "You said, earlier, that this 'menstruation' thing is 'the most unnecessary curse upon humanity', didn't you?"

There was a pause as her eyes shifted right. I definitely remember those words...or at least they SOUND familiar. Did I say them at one point? Yeah...first conversation with Specter, cause that's what got this whole Quest started, right? Yeah...or, well, SOMEONE said them. Those words are exactly why I'm here now...God invented periods, periods are a curse, go find God, kick God in the nuts. That's what we talked about.

Yeah...

...but...?

"Well?" God followed up, fingers lightly tapping on the other keys surrounding Delete.

"...just...hang on a sec, the math still doesn't add up right," she said awkwardly, allowing the rush of thoughts to queue up in the correct order before she released them into being. "So you've got a string of code you don't remember writing, but since it's clearly BAD code, you just decide on a whim to straight-up delete it?"

Again, God shrugged. "I mean...I AM God, after all...".

Jacqui took in a breath, then held up an index finger. "...so if you have that kind of power, and that kind of don't-give-a-shit attitude...then why don't you ever delete all the OTHER bullshit in Life? You know, IMPORTANT shit? Like terrorist wars, or capitalist empires, or cultural genocide, or unskippable ads before the video loads?"

There was a noticeable hesitation before God responded. "...because, uh...n-nobody's ever asked?"

...ah.

"Bullshit," she replied, finger now trained back on him. "What, do you just tune out the sound of all those millions of prayers you must get every day?"

"Look, do you WANT me to delete it or not?" God pushed back, failing at trying not to sound annoyed.

"I wanna know how it GOT there in the first place...". She resumed her stance, again pulling Heqet in close to the crook of her arm. "...and whether or not you still deserve a kick in the balls."

"Oh come on, not this again..." he moaned, again putting his palms up in what he probably thought was a strategic surrender. "I told you, I really have NO IDEA where this 'menstruation' stuff came from! I didn't write it! I would never write something so horrible!"

"Then WHO would?" she demanded.

But before God could even answer, she shushed him up and froze in place. One of her five senses seemed to have been reporting something this whole time, and when her brain finally recognized what it was, it triggered an internal red alert and put the rest of her body on lockdown. It wasn't the first time she'd ever run a shutdown drill on account of a smell, but this time it was serious business.

Something smelled like frozen rubber.

Head snapping up to attention, she peered sharply past God and into the endless blinking server lights that banded the entirety of their own cosmic universe, and saw a suggested silhouette in the misty shadows of one such server rack. The outline focused into view, taking the conceited, genderless shape of exactly the Demon of Chaos Jacqui had come to expect.

"...fucking hell."

Specter took a sultry step forward, regarding both Jacqui and God with two separate, self-superior glances. "Hello, my friends. Oh, I see you've met already...I hope you'll forgive me if I'm interrupting a 'tender moment' between you two...".

"Three!" Heqet called out in polite defiance.

Specter ignored her entirely, sidling casually over toward the monitors. "I just decided to drop by and have a chat with my favorite fellow supernatural."

Jacqui felt Heqet tense up reflexively, then relax again. "...oh! For a moment there I was a little worried that you meant ME, and that Jacqui would move to engage before I had a chance to scramble to a safer position! But then I remembered, I'm not the only other supernatural being present for once! What a weird feeling!"

In turn, she received a sharp glare from God, who apparently couldn't believe she was still HERE, much less still talking. He then turned to face the demon. "Hello, Specter...it's certainly been awhile since I've had the...'pleasure'...of your company...".

"Ah, well," Specter replied, brushing off the sleeve of that sweet, form-fitting teal blazer, "...you know how it is with me. I must have the world's least predictable schedule."

Quickly realizing where this was headed, Jacqui finally reached up to place Heqet in the empty hood dangling between her shoulders for safekeeping, then crossed her arms and maintained a vigilant shifty-eyed watch over both God and the Devil so as not to lose her intimidating presence.

"Well, since you're here..." God continued, swiveling the chair to point back to the screen above him, "...before we do...whatever it is you came here to do, I want you to have a look-see at this little snippet of code we found in some of the core files in the game of Life. Why don't you tell me how you think it got there, Specter."

The decadent grin already preceded the demon's response. "Life...? Why you know as well as I do that Life is YOUR project, God. It's not considered a deadly sin to take credit where credit is due, you know."

God gave a stern, fatherly sigh, somewhere between disappointed and condescending. "No games today, Specter. I don't need a search engine to know it was YOU who did this. It's not considered...uhm...un-chaotic?...to confess before the God of all creation."

Not amused by the supernatural pissing contest before her, Jacqui stopped shifting her eyes and began focusing exclusively on Specter, appropriately the wildcard here. Alright, you smug little asswipe, why are YOU here? I know there's a reason for it. You love your little theatrics, and that little entrance you made just now was definitely planned. You're not just chasing us around this time, are you...no, there's some kind of unspoken dialogue going on here...

"Come now, God...you know how much pride I take in my troublemaking. If this were really my handiwork, I'd be flaunting it like a flag."

Yeah, they're right...it can't be THAT simple. After all, if God can just rewrite Life on a whim, then why would the Devil even bother fucking it up in the first place? If he can just rewrite anything with his magic powers, then what the fuck is he waiting for?

"Specter, the sooner you admit to your sins, the sooner we can get Jacqui here onto the next plot point in her Quest, and, if I know anything about her at all, I really think she's the type of person you don't want to keep waiting."

...and if Specter didn't do it, then does that mean God's lying to me? Maybe he wrote the code himself so he could blame Specter for it? But if that's the case, I still don't know the motive...what am I not getting here? What isn't God telling me?

"Then maybe you ought to tell her the truth before her violent tendencies boil over."

Specter's really got nothing to do with this at all, do they? They're just a red herring. A troll...

She came back to her senses.

"Alright, FINE," God said, with less patience and more finality than he'd yet shown he was capable of. "Whether or not you'll ADMIT to writing the code is irrelevant now. I'm going to delete it, and nobody, least of all you, can stop me."

He turned to Jacqui as she turned back to him, attention fully restored. "Jacqui, I know you've been dragged through quite a Hell of your own this evening. I've watched you struggle your way all across the map, plagued by...um, bodily cramps, attacked by crazies, and even lied to...but I hope you'll see what I'm doing for you now as an act of truce. And that you'll find it in your heart to forgive me for letting it go unnoticed for so long. Maybe we could even...still be friends after all this?"

...and there it was.

Just like turning a puzzle piece ninety degrees, the shapes left by the other pieces around it suddenly fit, linking independent possibilities together to form a new whole. A single synaptic discharge of energy leapt between the pieces, forming a new, exciting thought inside Jacqui's brain.

"...one last question," she answered, looking God in the eye, and Specter in the teeth.

God nodded solemnly. "Yes?"

Taking in a sharp breath and channeling the multidimensional vocabulary she'd picked up from her spirit guide this evening, Jacqui mentally rolled the question into shape, then took precision aim and fired: "If everything in this...'world', this 'multiverse', is nothing but a computer simulation written by YOU...then does that mean YOU were the dipshit responsible for creating Specter over here as well?"

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence between deities that followed. Well, if it hadn't been for the obnoxious hum and arhythmic beeps of the server farm, that is. Jacqui could feel Heqet vibrating with excitement behind her, proud to have been such an influence in the question.

"...wh--I...no! No I did not!" God answered her in a sputter, shaking his head and juggling a set of hand motions like it was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked him. "Why in the name of ME would I create someone whose sole existence is to make trouble for myself? Aren't I busy enough running the game of Life up here as it is?"

"Right," Jacqui agreed, tracing an invisible line over to the problem-causer. "...so that would mean Specter isn't PART of Life, correct? They exist OUTSIDE the code, like you."

God shot the demon a glance, receiving a frustratingly blank shrug in response.

"BUT!" Jacqui continued, emphasizing the word mostly because she liked saying "butt" out loud. "If Specter exists outside of the code, and the only way to CHANGE the code is from this Godputer - stupidest name ever by the way, you should really think about changing that..."

She whipped her head back around to flash him a vicious glare. "...then how the fuck would Specter have access to the code?"

Pupils shrinking and lips puckering, the paint had finally started to peel from God's easygoing facade. He glanced furiously back at Specter, whose reply consisted of a simple grin and a slow, disappointed head shake.

"Look, I'm not stupid," Jacqui added, re-crossing her arms as confidence amassed with each word. "I know I'm a physical person first and foremost, but I DO know how to put two and two together. I got a B minus in math. So, for what I hope is the last goddamn time tonight, I'm gonna solve this one final riddle."

She pointed the barrel of a loaded finger at God's nose as she explained. "So, let's start with the basics. Everything I've been living since I woke up with a frog on my tits has been a simulation, right? I'm dreaming in the Matrix, or I died and went to a video game called the Afterlife, or what the fuck ever. It's an illusion. A fabrication. A game, made by YOU, who is supposedly God."

"And then," she continued pacing a few steps this way and that as the clues popped up one by one in her head, "...after you created everything in existence, you took a step back into this tiny-ass room full of monitors so you could finally take Life out of sandbox mode and let it run on its own, right? The big test, to see if all the pieces did what you told them to. To see if you really know your coding shit or not."

She stopped pacing to press her nose up into his. "...but there are some things you can't just fix with coding, aren't there?"

God blinked erratically as he attempted to keep his cool. "...l-like what?"

"You can delete periods. You can delete whole planets. You can delete the entire 1990s for all I care...". Her eyes narrowed evilly. "...but you can't delete your own loneliness."

Shadowy mist or not, Jacqui could just TELL Specter was snickering to themselves over there.

"Yup, sure as fuck would suck, bein' stuck on the inside lookin' out..." she continued, resuming her pacing as she felt Heqet bouncing around, proud as punch in the hoodie behind her. "So what's a God to do when he's spent all his time mapping out an entire world, crafting every teeny tiny particle, math-ing out every rule, pumping in every single ounce of energy in his little God body to make it the best world it can be...and then never being able to interact with it? Never. Not ever. Because even so much as poking around would completely fuck up the delicate balance you'd just spent all that time setting up...".

"W-well...I mean...you're not WRONG…" God stuttered, grasping at the air as if spawning in the words in real-time with his server admin powers. "I...I did create everything in such a way that it could continue to run and sustain itself if should I ever need to, like...get up to pee or something...but that doesn't mean I--"

"I ain't even done with this thread yet, you shut up!" she cut him off, spinning on her heel. "Anyway, it probably didn't take long for you to realize this setup was boring as fuck. I'd get bored too if I poured all my heart and soul into a labor of love and there was nobody around to even pat me on the back for all my hard work."

On cue, Heqet patted her on the back, smile glowing with the intensity of a laser beam.

"So you're super sad and lonely up here in your private subspace bubble," she carried on, preempting another protest from God, who seemed awfully fidgety for someone trying to appear more approachable. "And what can you do about it now anyway? Try making a public appearance? Show 'em you're the omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent guy you are and make everybody say "OOOH"? Yeah, we all know how that'd pan out. 'Mass hallucination', 'college prank', 'ancient aliens', they'd say. Nobody believes that Close Encounters of The Third Kind crap...'cept maybe a few hillbillies and washed-up celebrities desperate for another five minutes of fame. Nope, if you want followers, you can't go public...you gotta bring the followers to YOU."

"Well, that's all FINE and DANDY," God shouted, quickly lowering his volume once he realized he'd been accepted back into the dialogue. "...but just what are you accus--I mean...what's the point you're trying to make here?"

Jacqui finally came to a stop as all her mental ducks lined up in a row. She turned once again to face God. "What I'm getting at is...this whole 'Quest to find God' I was supposedly tasked with? It was all just a setup, wasn't it? The whole damn thing was nothing more than a convoluted ploy to bring me up here, to come find God cause God got a little lonely."

She glanced back at Specter. "That's right, isn't it?"

She glared back at God. "Tell me I'm wrong."

God pleaded back at Specter. "...?!"

Specter smiled back God. "If I were you, I wouldn't tell her she's wrong."

Jacqui took a menacing step forward, daring him to tell her ANYTHING.

After several stalls and sputters, trying hard to form coherent dialogue, God finally managed to spit out the worst possible response for the sake of his case: "...y-you weren't supposed to find out any of this."

Jacqui snorted, hands on her hips. "Oh is that right? Well I got news for you, God...in case you weren't paying attention, I have done nothing but bust my fucking ASS tonight solving every bullshit riddle and puzzle you two have thrown at me! When I set my mind on something, I fucking CRUSH it until it's dead! I should think that you, in your infinite wisdom, might've seen this coming!"

"Woo, that's my girl!" Heqet cheered from behind. Jacqui held up a hand facing backward so that Heqet could high five her.

"Alright, so, here's my final tally..." she continued, using fingers for gestural clarifications as she glared victoriously at the very anxious face of God. "God makes universe. God gets lonely. God can't go down to the universe in person, so God needs a way to lure someone back to his place. Something that will give them motivation to seek him out on their own. In this case, God decides to go with a curse. A horrible monthly pain inflicted upon all people with uteruses...uteri? Whatever. Menstruation, he calls it."

"But I TOLD YOU, I didn't write that!" God wailed, falsely assuming he might still be able to turn the situation around if he pleaded hard enough.

"...no, you didn't, did you?" Jacqui nodded, thoughts processing at maximum efficiency now. "You still needed a catalyst to get this whole shitshow started. Someone who could come and go into the universe as they pleased. Someone who could charm the pants off a celibate monk if they wanted to. Someone...good at stirrin' up trouble."

Light from some unknown source beamed off Specter's pearly grin, making each tooth sparkle with pride and other deadly sins.

"So you outsource the task to the very Demon of Chaos theirself," Jacqui continued, rounding up the thoughts with a few more fancy wrist rolls. "And later that night I wake up to realize I'm living in a simulation, and this shady business character tells me I'm suffering from a curse, and the only way to undo it is to go find God and kick his ass."

"Kick my...?" God interrupted, firing a demanding stare at Specter. "Hold on a minute! You said you'd tell her I could CURE her affliction, not paint a target on my back!"

Specter shrugged. "Maybe you ought to put yourself in MY shoes, God. What's a troublemaker to do when there's trouble that can be made?"

God's teeth ground together even harder, but Jacqui cut him off again, continuing to unravel the whole conspiracy.

"You LET Specter write that code," she reiterated, now that she believed it herself. "You gave Chaos Incarnate admin powers on the server of Life, just so they could piss me off. You figured I'd get mad enough to track you down, all across 'dreamland' until I found my way up here in the pocket of Everywhere, right up to your front door."

"And then we'd have a little chat where you play all dumb and innocent," she reeled it in, each sentence hotter and angrier than the last, "...until finally, you 'find' this horrible, inexplicable bug in your perfect game of Life that 'shouldn't be there'. And then you offer to delete it for me. To cure me of my curse. To solve all my problems. And then you figured I'd just be SO enamored with you, so thrilled that you'd go and do that for me, that I'd instantly turn face and shower you with my eternal praise and devotion, and maybe even a little frisky business on the side, am I right?"

God's head was shaking back and forth so fast it stood in very real danger of lifting off his neck and into the air like a helicopter. "...no...no way, there's just NO WAY...! How could you have figured all this out? It's not possible, we MADE SURE this wouldn't be possible! How could you betray me like this, Specter?!"

Hurt -- SHOCKED, even -- Specter tucked the sexy black phone they'd been thumbing through this whole time back into the front pocket of their blazer. "Betray...? My dear God, I'm certain I have no idea what in your own creation you're talking about right now. You're quite mistaken if you think I gave Jacqui any of the answers she's just spouted off."

"That's RIGHT," she whirled around with a snap to point the finger in the demon's face this time. "YOU didn't tell me shit. You tried to make it EVEN HARDER for me!"

"Chaos is as chaos does," came the reply on the arms of a shrug.

"But, now that you mention it..." she added, glancing from one face to the other, then up to the ceiling, "...I'm not entirely sure it was ALL me. I might have had just a little help. Someone else out there had my back, and taught me how to believe in myself when faced with a bunch of asinine riddles and spiritual dickery like yours...".

God's eyes flashed as he shot forward and grabbed Jacqui by the shoulders - a move he'd be sure to regret in two ticks of a server clock. "Who?! Who leaked my secrets to you?! I'll DELETE them from my game!"

"Let's just say..." she replied, dipping each syllable in a homemade arsenic made of sarcasm and decadent victory, "...a little frog told me."

"That's me!" Heqet squealed with delight, poking her head up into view from behind. "She's talking about me! I'm relevant and helpful!!!"

God stared back at her, head cocked and eyebrows imploded like she was some kind of last-minute plot twist.

"Now then," said Jacqui, removing all manner of pretense and politeness from her voice, stripping her words down into the tombstone tones of someone about to write in blood an eighth deadly sin on the list, "...don't you ever. Fucking. TOUCH ME. Again."

And, just like that, Jacqui proceeded to kick God himself square in the dick.

"IN YOUR FUCKING DICK, GOD!" she shouted down at his miserable, anguished face. She'd been sitting on that line as far back as Purgatory Café, and now nothing else she could ever do in life would match the level of catharsis she felt right now, in that moment.

"Jacqui!!! You did it!!!" Heqet whooped beside her, scrambling to crawl up to her special shoulder perch. "Wow! I never doubted for a moment that you COULD, but seeing you here, now, is both a fantastic surprise and an amazing honor! How do you feel?"

"Well Heqet, I gotta say, I feel pretty fuckin' important right now," she beamed, still hovering smugly over God's defeated face. "On paper, all I did was kick some nerd in the balls, but...and I hate to admit this, BUT...finishing out my Quest? ...it feels pretty damn good."

"Ooh! Speech! Speech!" Heqet prompted, leaning in close with a smile running from one shiny golden eye to the other. "Please regale me with the details of the experience you've gained! Oh...and I guess you can regale this toxic waste barrel of a guest as well!"

Jacqui shot her an eyebrow, but shook it off with a resigned smile. Much to the surprise of no one, Specter seemed entirely unfazed by the comment, and listened intently with hands folded and fingers suspiciously steepled.

"Alright, alright, I suck at speeches, but I'll at least summarize, for your sake...". Jacqui took a deep breath and summoned up every juicy tidbit of wisdom she'd amassed throughout the Quest. "What have I learned from all this bullshit? Well...before tonight, I never did believe in God. Not as a person, anyway. As I've pointed out god-knows-how-many times tonight, heh, I think 'god' is more of an idea than a person. Religion is just a list of things you wouldn't do in front of your grandma, and personifying that makes it easier for some people to follow it. So...if there IS supposed to be a God in my life, then that God is whoever I make them to be, not what someone TELLS me they are."

"And this piece of shit down here," she gestured to the incapacitated testicular impact victim at her feet, "...ain't no God of mine. This fucker's just a lonely little dickshit with a stupid-ass convoluted plan for gettin' a girl back to his place. Seriously dude, that was the worst plan I've ever heard in my life. It's like...negging, but on Super Expert Mode. No wonder you fucked it up so royally."

She drew herself back up to full height for the conclusion. "Anyway, that's all. That was the whole point of the Quest. To prove that God's an opinion, not a fact. And sure, he's real if you want him to be. Right?"

She took an aside glance to see whether or not Heqet approved. Naturally, she did. With gusto, even.

"Marvelous speech, Jacqui," Specter put in with a polite golf clap, almost eerily sincere.

"Not sure exactly what that means, coming from you," she replied, arms crossed.

"...however, all of this now begs a certain question I know I've asked you more than once before," they continued, thin wisps of black smoke trailing off their face in the cool blast of the air conditioners. "...what about YOU, Jacqui?"

"What ABOUT me?" she begged the question.

Specter smiled and reaffixed the derby atop their head. "Have you finally outgrown your agnostic phase, and decided on a God for yourself?"

"Oh fuck right off with that bullshit," she responded without even a microprocessor's hesitation. "Just because I KNOW who and what God is now doesn't mean I need to have one myself."

"Of course, of course," Specter agreed with a knowing nod. "In your own time, perhaps. I suppose I'm only asking because you're standing in a very unique position right now."

Jacqui glanced down at her feet, which seemed no more unique than usual.

"With a single, well-aimed kick, you've just put God himself out of commission," Specter explained, gesturing smugly below, "...and there's presently nothing at all stopping you from taking command of that chair yourself, and rewriting any bit of code you might so desire...".

For the first time in what felt like hours, Jacqui blinked. Such a notion hadn't even crossed her mind...but Specter wasn't wrong, were they? Glancing up at the code still displayed on the monitor, several tempting possibilities crept their way out of the corners of dormant thought and into the light, including the thought of eradicating some of the 'important things' in Real Life she'd accosted God about earlier.

"What do you say, Jacqui?" Specter offered, turning the chair and gesturing for her butt to occupy its cushioned seat. "You could be your OWN God. Take charge of your own life. YOU could be the one to delete the curse of menstruation...or do whatever you like with it, for that matter. Maybe re-assign it to men instead of women for a change? As God, the possibilities would be endless…".

Allowing the thought to turn over and bake in her mind, Jacqui gave the demon a penetrating stare, trying her damnedest to see something, ANYTHING under that veil of darkness around their face. Some kind of sign or tell. Any simple twitch of body language she might read to verify whether this was a trick or a treat.

But, same as ever, light just didn't seem to reflect correctly off the surface of their skin. If she DID see anything, it was probably only what she imagined Specter's face to look like. There was simply nothing there to read. If this really was a genuine offer, then why did it still feel so shady...?

...and if I'm really honest with myself, and with my newfound feelings about God...is this something I can really, truly say I want? Do I really WANT to be God? Do I really WANT all the power...no, the RESPONSIBILITY in the known universe to rewrite everything to my own standards, to make the world 'perfect', as deemed by my own definition of perfection?

Or, more succinctly...would I follow a God like myself?

She held out her left hand.

She held out her right.

She juggled them for a moment, letting the possibilities weigh against one another in a gesture that, out of context, might have suspiciously resembled playing with an invisible pair of particularly prominent body parts.

Then Jacqui took one last glance back up at Specter with a new, very important question.

"...could I use my God powers to stop everyone else from plaguing my life with 80s music all the damn time?"

Specter paused, taken aback. "...what, you don't like the classics?"

"Not every waking fucking minute of my life, I don't. There ARE other genres of music, ya know."

They shrugged. "Even if you DO delete them from the game of Life, I've already downloaded most of the classics to my phone."

"Then fuck it," she said, kicking the chair out from under Specter's gloved hands.

Incredibly, the so-called demon of chaos itself seemed at a loss for words.

"Weren't you listenin' to a damn thing I said earlier?" she growled, returning to a cross-armed stance. "About how lonely it is bein' God, trapped in your little bubble of a server room, making teeny tiny little adjustments on your game for all eternity? Think about how much fuckin' QA that is for a game that nobody will ever stop complaining about, and for no reward whatsoever! Ya gotta admit, that'd be one shitty life to have to live."

"Not to mention," she added hotly, finger speared up against Specter's lack of nose, "...if I were God, I'd still have to put up with YOUR shady ass creepin' around all the time in your continuing mission to piss me off. I think I've already made it abundantly clear how much more of YOU I want in my life."

"I don't wanna BE God," she said, prodding the down-for-the-count wannabe God with a foot.

"I don't wanna PLAY God," she said, waving a backhand at the monitor full of code.

"I don't even wanna THINK about God," she said, putting her fingers to her temples to feign her head exploding.

"Real talk?" she concluded, with a deep, concrete breath. "...I kinda just wanna wake up and go home now."

And with her mind spoken, Jacqui left the words out to dry, an open letter encouraging a reply but not waiting around to see what it might be. Her eyes flicked over at the teal-suited demon, expecting some kind of sassy, arrogant remark. But neither they nor God spoke a single word in response, though God did try to subtly slip a hand in between his legs to nurse his throbbing weak spot.

"...so uhh," Jacqui tacked on, awkwardly, "...I'm gonna go...hypothetically do that now. Soon as I...y'know, figure out how."

"Mmmmmm!" Heqet buzzed to life atop her shoulder. "I know someone who might be able to assist!"

Jacqui gave her a warm smile, inviting her into the palm of her hand. "'course you do, ya little sweetie. What's up?"

It still pained her to watch Heqet crawl forward on those fractured legs, to keep moving forward despite the obvious physical pain she must have been in...but there was something powerful to it as well. Something inspiring. Not the same 'inspiring' you get from say, a movie about a disabled kid who grows up to be a quarterback, but something more...familiar. Something personal. Trudging forward despite immense hardship, powering through undeserved strife inflicted by people who wanted you to fail, carrying on as your same old self in spite of it all...even in just that single moment, Jacqui felt it. She felt the bond she and Heqet had made together on this journey.

...a journey that had now reached its end.

"Feast your eyes on THIS, Jacqui!"

Her eyes feasted on Heqet's vaguely Egyptian tramp stamp tattoo as the Arrow bounced back and forth, honing in on the next objective. And as it settled on a direction, Jacqui began to realize what else would be left behind when the journey DID end.

"...it's pointing to the keyboard," she noted warily, trying to stay on task. "So...wait, what does that mean? Do I HAVE to take God's place?"

"Hmm, possibly!" Heqet half-mused, half-hinted. "...but remember, magic isn't an EXACT science! The Arrow only points to WHERE your next objective is, not what you have to do once you get there!"

Jacqui sighed, almost making another gripe about riddles and puzzles before deciding she was too tired to bother stretching it out any further. The sooner she just got it done, the sooner she could go home...

...on some deeper, more personal level that she wouldn't admit to, she may have even felt compelled to ACCEPT the challenge...

...for Heqet's sake, of course.

"...alright, then. Let's get this over with."

She dutifully retrieved the chair she'd knocked over earlier, set it back up in front of the keyboard, and took her seat. She risked a shoulder glance over toward Specter, expecting that infamous shit-eating grin and some witty one-liner about how right they'd been after all. But the demon was surprisingly nowhere to be seen, and might have slipped back into the shadows and teleported away while she'd been distracted by Heqet's ass.

Well, good. Fuck 'em.

Jacqui placed Heqet on the desk, facing toward her, and refocused her attention on the monitor above.

...okay Jacqui, time to use your big, powerful brain. What might be an answer to this final, Life-altering riddle? Maybe there's another line of code that needs to be changed? A one that's supposed to be a zero? Why would the arrow point to the keyboard after she had specifically declared that she would NOT become "the new God"?

Her eyes sifted through the incomprehensible lines of code from the left to the right to the top to the bottom, then eventually fell scrolled down even further, into the eyes of Heqet, bright with smile and aflame with hope and belief. The realization again washed over her that whenever she DID find the solution she was looking for here, she'd have to say goodbye to her frog friend...

...in theory, anyway. There were still unanswered questions burning on the proverbial stove, like the mystery of HOW it would all go down after this riddle. The strongest theory - based on evidence Jacqui had amassed from the media she prided herself on consuming over the years - was that she'd suddenly jolt awake, back in her own familiar bed.

But if that's the case, what if God just restarts the dream again the next night...?

Well, she mused, either God's not gonna be so stupid as to try the same shit twice with me, or I won't remember any of this and I'll get to live it all over again, including the part where I KICK GOD HIMSELF IN THE DICK. If I know myself, that sounds like a dream I'd be okay with living over and over...

...wait...

...restart...?

Her fingers brushed across the keyboard from one end to the other, away from the familiar QWERTY at the top and off into the wild lands full of shortcut keys and multi-colored symbol buttons along the edges, until at last she found a red one bearing an icon that was either a one penetrating a zero, or some kind of caramel apple. Such buttons that might, more colloquially, be known as "power buttons".

That's it. That's gotta be it! That's why the arrow was pointing toward the keyboard! No easier way to fix a problem than to try turning it off and back on again, right? All I gotta do is press the button and shut down the game of Life!

...so what about Heqet, then?

Her faithful companion had been quiet this whole time - presumably to let Jacqui think - offering nothing but a supportive smile and an involuntary burp-croak every so often. It almost felt cruel to think about rebooting the game of Life, leaving Heqet to whatever fate might befall her after the button was pressed. But something in that naive, carefree expression of hers seemed to reassure Jacqui that she'd be fine. As if the whole spiel she'd given before about reincarnating back into the spirit winds of the universe or whatever was just inevitable, inexorable truth. Reincarnation, rebooting...same difference, right?

...still, it felt wrong to just throw the switch without at least saying something first.

Jacqui smacked her lips and took a deep breath. "...so, Heqet...".

"What's up, buttercup?"

Jacqui pursed her lips and exhaled. "...it's...time for me to go."

Heqet's eyes flashed with their default emotion, pure excitement. "You figured it out? Jacqui, I'm so proud of you! You are positively on fire tonight!...in a vernacular sense, not a literal one, ha ha!"

"Yeah, but..." Jacqui paused, tinkering with her words to find an effective combination that didn't feel cobbled or superficial, "...it's...this is the end. The end of everything we've done together. After I press the button, my Quest is finally gonna be over. Like, OVER over. Donesies. And, well...we might not see each other again after that."

"...oh," Heqet responded, pulling her eyes away for a moment to consider this. "Hmm...that's definitely a possible outcome. I'm not sure what's in store next for YOU, but since I've fulfilled my purpose in this existence, I'll probably poof right back into the cosmic ether I came from!"

"Mm...", Jacqui mumbled, unsure where exactly to take this goodbye.

Fortunately, Heqet knew that nothing breaks the ice of discomfort quite like casual politeness, and nudged Jacqui's hand with her nose, an amphibious smile upon her wide, rubbery lips. "Well, if nothing else, I just want to say, it has been an absolute pleasure working with you, Jacqui! You're a true delight! I can't remember the last time I had this much fun in a corporeal body, if I ever have at all!"

Such joy was inescapably infectious, and an outbreak of smiles had already spread to Jacqui's lips as well. "I'm...I'm really glad I got to meet you, Heqet. I still don't know where the fuck you came from, whether you're some kinda manifestation from deep inside my mind, or like you said, just some random spirit on the winds of the cosmic whatever...you really helped me out tonight. And I don't just mean in my Quest to punt God in the cojones."

"The honor was all mine, milady!" Heqet replied with a bow.

Taking a moment to stroke the frog's head affectionately, Jacqui added, "...I'm really gonna miss you. Feels like I'm sayin' goodbye to a friend I've known all my life...even though I swear I only met you a few hours ago."

"Aww, Jacqui, you flatterer!" she giggled, playfully waving it off. "I love you too, ya big sweetheart!"

Jacqui sighed and rolled her eyes, giving an awkward laugh in hopes of preventing unwanted leaks from the eyes. "You're too much, you know that?"

"YOU'RE too much!"

Taking a moment to re-stabilize her breathing and rub the eye that was definitely not watering, shut up, Jacqui finally acknowledged the inevitable. "...alright then, that's the last goodbye. Time to get going for real now."

"Last chance to find out if I turn into a human princess when you kiss me," Heqet added with a wink.

Jacqui gave her a funny look that turned into another funny look that ended up turning into a shrug. "...you know what, fuck it, sure, why not."

And without a moment's warning, she scooped up Heqet's amphibious body and planted a big, wet kiss on her smooth slippery lips, not even bothering to consider whether or not her skin might actually be poisonous. All she got was an odd cucumber-esque aftertaste.

And after Jacqui pulled away, Heqet remained noticeably unchanged, both in physiology and royal status. Then again, a goddess outranked a princess anyway...

"Oh my goodness, you actually did it, ha ha ha!" Heqet bubbled, cheeks rosy with delight. "I was joking, but wow! What a fantastic high note to end on! Ha ha ha!"

Jacqui wiped her lips and flashed her a thumbs up. "That's gotta be at least the second or third weirdest end to a not-a-dream that I've ever had."

And with one final sigh, and one final smile, she looked Heqet square in the eye and placed her finger on the button. "...welp, here goes. Maybe next time I'll see you in YOUR dream."

"Here's hoping! Bye, Jacqui!"

Click.

As soon as she released the button, Jacqui's entire Life, and all its code, and the Servers it ran on, and all of Existence itself abruptly imploded and flattened down into a simple blip, like an old CRT television powering off, as Jacqui rebooted her own body, mind, and soul back into Reality.