"I get that I'm dead, and thank Jesus this doesn't look like Hell."

"You're not dead," Louis says, itching at one of the black Xs across his eyes. "Though, I should note that you are dying."

"Great. So this is some kind of mid-surgery fever dream. Just show me the light already so I can go running toward it."

"You're missing the point."

"I am?"

"You are. Think about it. What just happened?"

She really does have to think, because she'd rather not look back. She'd rather just be here, in the now, on this beach. In the bright sun.

It doesn't take too long, though, for her to remember.

"I beat the game," she says.

"You did," Louis answers.

"For once, it didn't happen like it was supposed to. It almost did. But I changed it."

"You sure did. Spectacularly so. Good job."

"Thanks." She smiles then. For real. Not a half-smile, not a bitter smirk, not a snarky grin, but a real, can't-stop-it-fromspreading smile. "I don't know what I did differently. I sure tried real hard. Maybe it's because I love you. Or him. I guess you're not him."

Louis's smile fades. "I'm not him, and you're still not getting it. You know why it happened. You know how you broke the cycle."

"I don't! I really don't."

"Want a hint?"

"I want a hint."

She blinks, and Louis is now her mother. Pinched face, small, puckered body.

"And thine eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

Then, poof – back to Louis with the X-eyes.

"I still don't–"

No, wait. Yes, yes she does.

"I killed somebody."

Louis snaps his fingers. "Ding, ding, ding. Give this girl a panda."

Miriam stops walking. Clouds drift in front of the sun. Somewhere out over the water, a storm brews, and rain clatters against the tides.

"I'm usually just the… the messenger. The vulture picking at the bones. But not this time. This time, I… I changed things. I killed Ingersoll."

"You balanced the scales. The scales always want to be balanced. You want to make a change, a big change, a change so cosmic you're unwriting death and kicking fate square in the face, then you best be prepared to pay for it."

"With blood," Miriam says, her mouth dry, her bones cold. Lightning licks at the ocean way out there under the steel sky. "With blood and bile and voided bowels."

"Who are you?" Her voice is quiet.

"Don't you mean, what am I?"

She doesn't respond.

Louis again becomes her mother. Then he becomes Ben Hodge, the back of his head blooming like a bloody orchid. Then Ashley, hopping in place on one foot.

Then back to Louis.

"Maybe I'm fate," he says. "But maybe, just maybe, I'm the opposite of fate, the way that God has His opposite in the Devil. Maybe I'm just you, just the voices in your head."