Source: deviantart.com

The Wishing Map is a full-length fantasy that is being posted episodically at this site. To read the previous episode click here. To read it from the start, click here.

Entangled in the tentacles of a monstrous Questing Beast, Gina has cried out for help to Rhema, the one who sent her to face this shapeshifting creature.

The needles and suction retracted. Gina fell backward, and there before her was the Beast in its native form. But its medusa-like head was turned to the side. Someone was attacking it!

It was her brother! Zack was dancing in and out of range, kicking the monster as hard as he could, hurling rocks and sticks at it, but without a real weapon he was in constant peril. Just as he ran forward to bash it with a branch, one of its tentacles snaked itself around his wrist. The barbs cut like fish hooks as it reeled him in toward multiple rows of whirling teeth.

“Hey, you!” screamed Gina. “Smelly boy!”

The creature spun around, releasing Zack, and flung all of its “arms” at Gina. She limboed backward just as half-a-dozen eelish appendages whizzed past her. Then she cocked her right arm and swung her broadsword at the Beast’s head, lopping off two of its tentacles! Its wheeze turned into a shriek as pus gushed from the stumps.

But then she made the mistake of looking between the creature’s eyes again. All of my dreams, she suddenly thought, they’re right here. My destiny is right here! “No!” she shouted, smacking her face with her free hand. She raised her sword.

But the Beast had already begun changing again. Its armored platelets were melting together, turning soft and pliable. It was human now, only thinner, lighter, and taller than Gina, and impossibly beautiful. It was Gina!

Only more. More perfect. More everything. And Gina suddenly knew she was less than she should be, infinitely less. Could Beautiful Gina even see the shorter, inferior version of herself? No, but then she was here to be seen, not to see, because she was more than merely Beautiful Gina–she was Divine Gina! Gina stepped forward and offered Divine Gina the sword.

“Gina! No!” shouted Zack. At the same time, she felt a painful pricking. The sword was thrashing wildly in her hand, straining to pull her arm into strike position. It seemed even more bent on killing Divine Gina than it had the Beast! Gina heard punching and flailing sounds, and something like whips beating the air.

“Gina!” Zack shouted again.

And then Divine Gina smiled at her!

“Gina! No!”

“But she’s smiling at me!”

“Use the sword!”

Needles…sucking…pain growing worse by the second.

“Gina! It’s not real! Kill it!”

“I can’t kill myself, Zack!” It was her future self. But not if she killed it. If she killed it, she’d become non-tall, non-beautiful, non-Divine Gina. She’d become “Frumpy Office Worker Gina” or “Lonely Middle-Aged Teacher Gina” like in her dream!

“Gina, you have to kill it now!”

The stinging and tugging felt like it was about to tear her skin off. But that was good, right? Then Divine-Gina-skin would grow in its place! “I can’t, Zack. It’s my future!”

“No! It’s a lie!”

φ

Thoughts: Our greatest enemy lives in the mirror.

To read the next episode, click here.