Two bullets, three men.

Rose slid the magazine back into her pistol, her mind racing. All three men were armed, two assault rifles and one shotgun, they were desperate, or they wouldn’t be trying to hole up in a family diner, of all places. What was worse, they knew exactly where Rose was hiding.

Gunning down two people had a way of revealing your location.

The situation was looking grim by any metric. She was out of uniform, coming back from taking the kids to a movie to celebrate their third consecutive year of straight A’s, out of ammo, with only her sidearm and no backup magazine, and out of touch with the department after return fire had smashed her phone out of its clip on her belt.

No, the only way out here was through. 

“Hey bitch!”

Rose straightened from her crouch, rising just high enough to peek over the edge of the overturned table she was hiding behind. Two of the three criminals were in similar positions, one hiding in a booth near the door and the other behind an overturned table near the exit to a separate dining area. The third had disappeared somewhere.

“Yeah?” she called back.

“Who the fuck are you? What do you want?!”

She considered answering, just to keep the communication going, but she didn’t imagine she had much to gain here. Not with the level of desperation she was working with, not when she was so outnumbered and outgunned. Talking right now would only serve to give the men a continuous update on where she was.

The sound of screaming and struggle reached her ears as the third man of the group reappeared, dragging a girl with him from one of the reserved dining areas. She was blonde, couldn’t have been older than six, and she was doing her level best to get away from the man who held her by the upper arm.

“Stand up, real slow,” the first man shouted. “Or we start killin’ kids!”

Rose swore under her breath. She supposed that it was only a matter of time before they resorted to taking hostages, but it didn’t make her job any easier. Hopefully, someone in the diner had managed to call the police since the first bullets started flying, but there wasn’t any way to know how close they were to arriving. She had to act.

Hands over her head, gun hanging from where her little finger was hooked in the trigger-guard, Rose slowly stood from behind the table. As the only person here with the ability to control the situation, it was still up to her to find a way.

As the other two men levelled their weapons at her, Rose locked eyes with the one holding the girl. It would have been unwieldy for him to hold his rifle to the head of a struggling, uncooperative child, but her being near at all was enough of a threat.

“Do you have demands?” Rose asked calmly.

“You a fuckin’ cop?” asked the one behind the booth.

“You in charge?” she responded coolly.

The uncertain glance he shot the man with the hostage was all the answer she needed.

“You probably know,” Rose continued, still addressing the man with the child, “that this doesn’t end well for you guys. There aren’t a lot of roads that lead out of here.”

“I could say the same for you,” he said. His voice was a lot calmer than the others, no hint of the panicked edge that pushed the others to swearing and bluster. “You might say that our fates are pretty similar in this. Might say that it’s in your best interest to help us find that road.”

“No go, I’m afraid.”

“Even if it means you die? Even if it means the girl dies?”

Rose shook her head. “I don’t think you’ll kill the girl. I think you have it in you, if all the chips are down, but I think once you realize that killing her, that killing me won’t get you anything…”

She shrugged, affecting nonchalance. In reality, she’d never been more on edge. Every fiber of her being was stretched tight, waiting for a chance she knew might never come. It meant she didn’t miss the moment when the man behind the booth let his gun dip toward the floor, his belief that his friends had the situation under control overpowered by his doubt.

Not enough.

“You sound like you’ve done this before,” the leader said quietly, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“Likewise,” Rose replied. “For you, at least. I imagine this is the first time these other two have gotten involved in...what? A failed heist? A prison break?”

A bit of silence, then:

“They wasn’t supposed to have silent alarms,” the man behind the booth said sullenly. “We was told-”

“Shut up, Max,” growled the leader.

He didn’t seem to have very good control of his “team”. Even that, the simple reprimand, the request for silence during a tense moment, saw Max set his jaw, a mulish look flashing briefly on his face as he turned to glare at his leader.

“She’s trying to set us against each other,” he told Max coldly. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Stupid, Leon? Stupid like my fuckin’ brother dying over a thousand bucks of cheap jewelry? Stupid like laying low in a fuckin’ Mannigan’s instead of stealin’ a car and gettin’ the fuck out of town? Yeah, I’d hate to be stupid right now.”

Irritation finally penetrated Leon’s composed demeanor. The shotgun he carried came up, but swung around until it was levelled at Max.

The unnamed third man stood from behind the table. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the fuck, guys?”

It would have to do. The men didn’t know how short on ammo she was, so if she could drop the leader and the man behind the table, then odds were that Max would give up without much more of a fuss.

Without warning, a black and red shape streaked out from the hallway to the reserved dining areas, moving straight past the man behind the table and flying into Leon’s back, knocking him from his feet. His grip on the shotgun and the girl slipped in the wake of the surprise attack, causing the former to go flying and the latter to take off like a frightened cat.

Rose moved without thinking, the calm, practiced tension shattered in an instant. A practiced flick of the wrist rolled her Glock back up into her hand. Short exhale, sight the target, squeeze. The bullet caught Max in the temple, and he dropped. Rose sighted on the second man, moving around her table and up to the next. Short exhale, sight the target-

A muted, pained cry sounded from below the table, and her heart skipped a beat. She felt the cold wash of terror break through her concentration yet again, but she grit her teeth and took the shot, a half second too late. Her target had already dropped below the edge of the table, and her last bullet, her last chance, sailed uselessly beyond to disappear into the drywall near the storefront windows.

It wasn’t over yet. The gunshot had bought her a few seconds, enough time at least to close the distance, disrupt their ability to bring their weapons to bear or take clean shots. She dropped her sidearm, hands sweeping out to the left and right to grab items from the abandoned tables she was passing, a knife and a napkin dispenser respectively.

She was at the table the man was using for cover in four long strides, her arm already drawn back as he peeked back over the top. The dense metal dispenser hit him in the forehead even as his face registered surprise at how close she’d gotten, and she was already changing direction to avoid the burst of blind fire that followed the blow.

Rose vaulted the table, one foot coming down on the top of the rifle and the other on the man’s neck, and her weight bore them both to the ground. A brief glance showed the man as adequately incapacitated, and she turned, knife poised to throw.

And froze.

Leon had managed to get to his feet, though he looked a little worse for wear. A few bleeding scratches ran the length of his face, his lip was split and bleeding, and a dinner fork was buried in the meat of his shoulder, lodged deep enough that it stayed there on its own. He’d drawn a pistol, probably hidden in the waistband of his jeans, and it was pressed to the head of a young girl.

She was older than the last hostage had been. She could pass for thirteen or fourteen, though Rose knew her to be barely twelve years old. An early bloomer. Her long black hair was done up in a milkmaid’s braid, and she was dressed in what passed for a formal gown, when you were a pre-teen. Celebration garb.

Emily’s nose was bleeding, her eye already blackening, but there still wasn’t a shred of fear on her face. She wore the same fierce, serious expression she always wore when she was at the heart of some competition, and her eyes searched Rose’s own, not begging, not supplicating, but awaiting instruction. Devout in her belief that Rose would know what to do. Like she always did.

Whatever she saw there, it made her falter. Her eyebrows drew together slightly as confidence gave way to doubt, doubt to fear.

“Drop the knife, and turn around,” Leon panted, turning to spit a mouthful of blood on the floor. “Or she dies. No questions. No talking.”

Rose let the knife slip from her fingers. Where was the way forward? This was no longer about what she could do. She had to figure out something. Her eyes scanned the floor, pausing briefly on Emily’s large, searching eyes. She finally turned away, mind racing, and her eyes fell on the rifle that the first man had dropped, on the ground at her feet. It was a long shot, but if she could-

She didn’t have enough time to feel it, when the bullet hit her in the back of the head. Her light flickered out, leaving her with nothing but the impression of Emily’s horrified scream.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Floating.

They float in darkness, in light. A vortex of everything and nothing, of thought, emotion, color, desire, void. They are parts and a whole. Separate, more numerous than all that still live on the planet, together more powerful than the forces that had created the universe.

It isn’t bliss, not in the way some of them had been taught. Nor was it the torment that some feared, or perhaps deserved. They simply exist, formless and spinning, turning, whirling.

Floating.

There is still desire in their form. Hazy, indistinct, but desire still. Much of the self is lost, the chaff that is discarded to make them more compatible to the whole. The weaker, irrelevant pieces. The soul is the source, but the names, the memories and places and preferences are extraneous. They are suppressed, muted until the soul is bonded enough that it can exist in their absence. Until it is assimilated into the whole.

Or, in some cases, until it is assimilated by others.

The others who cultivate. Who curate and gather the parts. 

War.

A powerful thought echoes through the heart of the world. A being, more powerful than many that yet existed on the surface, who cobbled together his identity from the scraps of conflict. The fragments of an identity, the empty spaces between its ego filled with conquest and domination, its existence perpetuated by the others who were willing to give up their selves for the chance to continue existing in some form.

'A warrior joins the whole,' It speaks into the void. 'Its purity is acknowledged. An offer is extended. '

The thought is given power, from the collective, and the power Connects it to a single part. Younger than most, identity still intact. Memories of conflict and strife, of pain caused and endured. A worthy addition.

The part recoils, the Connection declined. Conflict and war were not integral to its identity, but merely the means of defense for more important components.

'Discipline,' speaks Another, just as loud. 'Its dedication is worthy. An offer is extended.'

The words drown out the roar of the many, each so quiet that their voices are the ghosts of a whisper when compared to the might of the rest, inaudible against the sheer force of the few who gather.

Again the Connection is spurned. Discipline and stability were important to this being, but were merely guidelines to greater purpose.

'Motherhood,' speaks the Next. 'Its touch is unmistakable.'

The part stirs.

'What were their names?'

No offer is made, for this entity does not make transactions. It does not seek to assimilate or engulf.

A sound is made, but its strength is too weak to be heard. The entity wishes to hear, but it gives only to those that give. An encouragement is offered, but no power extended.

'E...m…'

The sound is heard, the encouragement offered for a final time. If the Connection is made, the part will be included. If it cannot or will not, it will be offered back into the void, to be selected by another entity or absorbed into the whole.

'Emily...T...Tyler…'

The entity recognizes the burst of love that surges forth from the utterance. Not enough to move the entire heart, but enough to ripple through the next hundred, the next thousand around it. What the entity seeks is found.

'You are welcomed, honored mother.'

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Emily had probably broken her thumb, but she refused to cut the day short to get it seen to. Her father would have some choice words to say about the decision, but if Emily was anything, she was stubborn. To quit now would mean that her mistake cost the group half a day of work, and suffering for the sake of the group was rapidly becoming Emily’s forte.

The Tryhard Club was almost finished, the new support beams in place and mostly secured, the wood newly stained or painted, the furniture gathered but not distributed to rooms yet. It had been a joy to watch her work, to see the friendship she had with the Jefferies boy and the rest, to watch how they supported each other.

But the awareness was a gift of the collective, and that gift had to be shared, or else it lost its foundation and its power. Rose reluctantly ceded control, allowing another part of the collective to take the surface. It would go in an appropriate order, as decided by the Grand Matron, prioritizing the newest of the awakened souls and those who had waited the longest to observe.

It was hard to tell how long was passing while she waited. Her personality wasn’t truly awake during those periods. Even now, after it had taken her the better part of a year to awaken enough to remember her own name, her identity beyond the names of her children, she couldn’t recall how many different scenes she’d witnessed. The collective of those accepted by the Grand Matron numbered in the thousands, but many of those passed into and out of focus, as the newly accepted recalled who they were and the older parts lost their tethers to the world.

It was an interesting existence, at least. Rose could acknowledge that in these brief moments when she could think clearly. Most parts would stay in the collective as long as their children were alive, some even continued on to watch their grandchildren, or great-grandchildren.  There was so much love in the collective. Every scene that was witnessed bore with it an entire soul’s worth of caring and devotion, and each outburst of motherly emotion created a spark of power that empowered the whole without diminishing the part.

It’s not a bad eternity, Rose thought, as she sank back into numbness of the collective.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

The entry is felt not as a splash, but as an intrusion of the foulest kind. The heart of the world is a sanctum for the fallen and the weary, where they might rest and find whatever vestige of eternity suits them. The living have no place in these depths, and the whole takes great umbrage at their trespass.

The first being plummets into the swirling void, thrashing and screaming. The whole reacts in unity. The reaction is anger, the rejection immediate and violent. An infinitesimal fraction of the power contained in the whole burns the flesh from its bones, renders it into dust in moments, and then to nothing. Its existence is devoured, its soul ripped into pieces so far-flung that no trace of the part remains in the whole. A true, final death.

The whole has little patience for trespassers.

Some entities, collectives of erudite curiosity and arcane knowledge, examine the entryway through which the destroyed being intruded. A tiny aperture, by relative standards. Immaculately crafted, decorated with magic that disguised and enticed. The magic beckons to the entities, to the parts and the whole, promising redirection and destination. The call is not answered, of course. The duplicity is obvious, the purpose apparent. The aperture is courted closely, but the behavior is more like an eager maw than an inspection.

More living beings invade the depths. They are examined more closely. They heavily resemble the last, their souls stretched and frayed. They are beings of pain and anger, and they exist without Connections to the heart. Antithetical beings.

They are destroyed summarily, and the whole stirs uneasily. Invasions are rare, but to receive so many in such a short time speaks of more momentous events. The whole turns its awareness to the surface, tracking the path of the aperture to its source.

The Daughter.

A shudder rolls through the heart. The Daughter of the World is aggrieved. Trapped. Tortured. She is locked in place, and the other parts in her collective fight to retrieve her. Rage burns through Agartha, starting from the most powerful entities and rushing through the void to the hallowed stone walls of the heart, but they are helpless to act against the surface.

Unless called upon.

They watch, still as the night, as the Daughter frees herself, answering the strength of her collective’s Connections. The whole feels relief, but that relief is short-lived.

A trap is sprung, twofold in nature. The Daughter is transfixed, and her Connection to the heart is usurped through a counterfeit signal. Somewhere else, higher above that aperture’s exit, a ritual is performed, emulating the Creator’s energy. An energy they revile and fear. A call that they had rejected, millenia earlier. 

The whole is bound, and siphoned. The torturous separation of parts from the whole sends a wave of horrifying pain through the heart. Collectives are separated, parts are sundered irreparably. The identities that they salvaged are shattered, and they are absorbed into the nearest, strongest part, but even amidst the chaos of reforming and absorption, the siphoning continues.

It ends as quickly as it began. Though the missing portion is a pond in an ocean, the absence is felt. The pain has violated the sanctity of the whole’s rest, and that peace will not return easily.

The collective of War and Conquest grows stronger. As surviving parts become spurred to respond by the trap, the invasion, or the terrifying siphon, they become more aware, and gravitate towards an entity. It is understood that the lone parts suffered heavier losses than the collectives, so safety is sought in absence of peace.

The collective of Mothers grows as well, as the whole rises in unison to fear for the Daughter and her fate. Even those parts that would normally not have had a place in the collective swarm in to fuel its power, for the Daughter is the child of Agartha and all who dwell there. The only being truly accepted by the planet itself.

Another living being breaches the depths, and the two growing collectives examine it together. This one is not like the others, not dead or dying, not disconnected. Most importantly, it is recognized. The being is caught, but not destroyed, and the Mother collective stirs. A single, powerful thought emerges from it and silences the whole.

'Emily.'

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Rose was at the surface of the collective. There were parts who had seniority over her, but the entity had grown to recognize her individually in a way that few ever managed, aside from the Grand Matron. It worried her, that the ancient, powerful voice that had started the collective wasn’t at the reins at a time like this, but most of the collectives were in turmoil following that straight siphoning. She didn’t want to say it, but it was possible that the Grand Matron was among those broken, expended to satisfy the ritual’s draw.

“Am I...dead?” Emily asked the darkness.

Rose felt a surge of panic and tension, normally accompanied by an increase in heart rate. She had no heart to express that anxiety, though, merely a network of souls who helped diminish its hold over her as an individual.

She hadn’t thought Emily would still be conscious, after such a long fall, but she wasn’t surprised. Her daughter was strong, in a way that so few were nowadays. Selfless, to and past a fault, and dedicated to the people she loved. Pale blue eyes searched the void, looking through Rose out into the void.

“I can see you out there,” Emily continued quietly. “Indistinct, but I can see the faces. Can you talk?”

“Yes,” Rose replied, and she was inwardly relieved that a chorus of voices spoke with her. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face Emily just yet, not like this. Not knowing that there was so little she could do for her.

“Am I dead?” Emily repeated.

“You...aren’t,” Rose told her. “You have arrived where souls go to rest, but you still live.”

“Can you see the surface?”

“Yes.”

“Is Cheri okay?”

Rose could have laughed, if the austerity of the setting and the circumstances had been any less. Even now, worried about the others. Rose peered up the aperture, the rune-painted shaft that ran up to the surface, where the Daughter had reunited with her group.

“They’re fine,” Rose said, her gaze lingering on Tyler’s dirty, tear-streaked face. “Cheri healed the injured, and they’re leaving the ziggurat as a group.”

Emily sighed, the tension fleeing her body to leave her hanging limply in the collective’s grip. “Thank you. That’s...good enough. What happens now?”

“This is a destination,” growled the other collective. “There is no exit from these depths. Beings arrive, but none leave.”

Rose felt anger move through her and the collective of Mothers. The other entity sensed it, and she felt the Connection form of its acknowledgement.

“Do you lay particular claim to this being?” it inquired.

She considered. If there was anything she could do for Emily, any way she could save her, it would be denied if the whole came to know of their relationship. It would be decried as favoritism, and no amount of reasoning would dissuade the force of denial that the heart of the world was capable of. Then again, Emily was already the target of the only type of favoritism that truly mattered down here.

“The Daughter has laid claim to her,” Rose said. “She is not slain, so to claim her would be theft.”

“You would return her to the surface, then? You think her worthy?”

Rose studied Emily’s face. It hadn’t been difficult to surmise exactly how Rose’s untimely death had affected her daughter, even with the brief glimpses at the life she was leading. It was so tempting, finally having the chance to tell her. To say that it wasn’t her fault, that Rose didn’t blame her...To save her from the pain she’d been carrying all this time.

But she couldn’t. It would sabotage the only chance Rose had to save her, and that was if she even wanted to go back. Based on the situation that had led to her arrival, it seemed as though her daughter had succeeded in following in her footsteps. She might not even want to go back.

“I don’t know if I’m worthy,” Emily answered for her. “I don’t know if I deserve a...a miracle, or whatever it would take to get me back up there...”

There was something different about Emily’s expression. The old pain was there, the guilt and self-doubt, but it was...tempered. There was something more resolute than the delusion that had driven her since Rose’s death. 

“But I’d still like to go back,” Emily finished. “I’m...not done.”

“Many believe that to die for your cause is the ultimate expression of courage,” the War collective intoned. “That there is nothing worthier to seek.”

“I used to be one of them,” Emily replied. “I thought that the best way I could repay my mother’s sacrifice was to follow it. To keep what she cherished safe, and be prepared to be the one who died, if someone had to.”

Rose’s heartbreak echoed through the collective.

“But I realize now that if she could have found a way to live, she’d have taken it. I bet she didn’t give up, not until the last moment. So if I give up, if I stop clawing my way back even a moment before my heart stops beating, I won’t have followed her example. I’ll have chosen something easier, something weaker.”

Her gaze shifted in the darkness, to where the War collective floated nearby, studying her as Rose was.

“I’m not ready to give up just yet. Will you send me back?”