Judith drags Nigel's remains behind her, across the hard dead gray black prickly front lawn toward the dark forest's wooden wall of screech sway rub ruckus limbs. His body is like a sallow crimson burlap sack of broken curl ribs and twists of finger bones and regurgitate biology. Acidic stomach contents coat genitals. Sheets of torn skin and lumps of pulpy muscle and yellow veiny lard leave a trail of human sludge.

Drags him by the tethers of his facial skin. Nigel's flesh strings wrap tightly through Judith's fingers. Squeezes his flesh tight in her right fist.

Judith heads for the portal in the forest. Listens to the timber sway with the sound of the rigid abrade meat mess she's pulling. The dark trees seem violent, like the forest's ready to crash into a mosh pit and slam around with the noise the graveyard girl is playing. Her and Nigel are the song. The dead song of vengeance. Hypnotizes the crucified religion of the dark forest.

Within the gloomy woodland organism of bark bent elbows and scar tissue knees is the scent of the portal or whatever the crease connection between two minds may be categorized as. Smells like the press of rotten flowers within the pages of half read books. Place where Jane's crumpled house and Terra's empty city connect like sisters. Connection at the edge of an upside down frown that's been sliced into the beginning of a cheek. Both sides are cut along the aesthetic of injury.

Judith asks herself questions now. More and more. The unanswerable kind of why's and how's and where's and when's. Doesn't need to ask who. Mind enters a fog of thought which she doesn't want to see the daylight through anyway. Not yet. She needs her thinking time. Her overthinking time. Wishes to figure things out by making things more complex. Her mind is like a paradox watching the concept of a paradox step over the grave of a paradox.

Folds her subconscious arms. Plays with riddles. Can the doorway be called a portal or is it something else? Perhaps it's what it seems to be. For her it's an event horizon. But what if it isn't? What if both places are a part of the same simulation? Are these two places part of the same endless infinity mirror? Are they two rooms in the same haunted house? Does it matter? Must they be? Maybe the two empty simulation ruins are something else entirely. Something that Judith has no language for. Maybe Judith's trying to read the fine print which is illegible without a magnifying glass or a microscope. Maybe she needs a telescope to read this kind of fine print. Doesn't have Jane's extremely heightened sense of sight to truly interpret the depths of where she is in this moment or decipher what the entrance to the empty city might really be.

Knows the hospital door in the morgue level hallway is the way out. Simple enough backtrack. Or at least, thinks she knows. Recognizes she knows nothing. Is it a way out? Maybe it's only a way in.

Smells mint. Spits. Has Judith been walking into a trap this whole time? Has this world been as thin as ice in spring? Has she stepped into a containment simulation with a corridor between the purgatories of Jane and Terra? The crumpled house and the empty city?

What of Terra, her blonde sister of the first reality? Her hair's black now. Why? And is Judith imprisoned with her now? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it doesn't and shouldn't mean anything. Why can't she focus on one question?

Whatever any of it means or doesn't mean, Judith will fight. There's no question about a confrontation. No query at all.

Judith jumps all around her memory. Finds it extremely hard to maintain the idea of a single question mark at the end of her curious sentence structure thoughts. Maybe her twitchy mind taint is a symptom of this particular world like her spilt cup weakness and frozen nose numbness and ghastly translucency was in her custom made mad season graveyard dust bowl snow prison.

And so, back to the start. Perhaps this wilderness foyer really is a wormhole. A ravens dinner. A place where thresholds collide between two simulations that were built to control two minds. Built to imprison. One with no memory and one with...well...Judith isn't sure. A tortuous shadow? A horrible loneliness? No. The raven hair Terra was terrified of reliving memories. The memory of being a revenant and butchering people. A revenant who David called Muerte. Maybe she's being forced to never forget what she's done. Maybe she's reliving the events over and over again like they're brand new so she can never become numb to them. Judith can relate to this and the opposite and can at least understand Muerte's unending pain...Terra's pain. She can, when digging deep into the thoughts of her darkest memories, relate to both versions of her sister. Judith is both of them in many ways. Lost in memory and lost in the loss of memory. Goddamn Coals.

Both dirge dread dripping places. Both the beautiful red dress raven and the stunning mire girl feel like a piece of the labyrinth's jigsaw fitting into place. Not final pieces because the vast simulations are a puzzle that will never be complete. This particular piece is like a shard of the broken glass chalice that lays in sharp fragments upon a Lannister war room floor. It will never be put back together. It can't. Though reconstructing the chalice would be an easier task than compromising peacefully with David. Judith wonders if the simulations are like an unending, expanding broken chalice. Seems so. Too many infinitesimal pieces to pick up. Too many feathery shards blowing away with the dust of the present to ever be melted back into what was. Seems like so much of any simulation is beyond anyone's control. Edges of life and death and the gaps in between. Simulations are realities within realities and the border between authenticity and replication is unrecognizable. The labyrinth is Michael's horrific deformation masterpiece. Brilliant in its intention and terrifying in its actuality.

These two particular simulations seem built to dominate two minds and yet one simulation failed and so in the end, both have failed in their complexities and purpose. All because Jane won. Judith will see to it that Terra ends up winning as well. Yes, maybe the two women are a final piece of the puzzle for Judith. Maybe both places and the two versions of her sister are, at last, the last tinkering bits of her part of the puzzle within the labyrinth. Perhaps when she goes through the so called portal she's stomping like a drum toward in her blood stain francy's, the end will begin.

Judith has a pang in her subconscious. A bone on cartilage thought. Thinks before it withers away. As far as she knows, her mind isn't being controlled in this place, since Jane beat this simulation and she beat Nigel. Correlation and causation flicker in her mind like a vanishing sun beam upon the rubbed nubby bleached bone thoughts of her worn wooden skull. Jane seemingly found the end of the labyrinth and didn't mistake it for the centre or the beginning or a dead end. She wasn't dominated by its horrors or lead astray by any hypnotic will to power. It was love that loved her back and kissed her in her butterflies and broke the curse. Her Prince Charming was Rist. Judith believes Terra can have a similar fate. Terra can regain control. Judith has to believe in such a heart string. Keeps thinking about it like an open locket. Terra just needs to be loved. This time it'll be the unconditional love of a sister that breaks the spell. Judith'll give her whole heart and mind to Terra. Every thought and every emotion will be the raven's. Judith will set her free even if it kills her. Has decided that the girl who held a .357 magnum to her forehead deserves to live. Judith loves Terra. Like the sister who Michael saved in the vision, she will save this sister.

Judith has no preconceived notion that saving Terra will be easy. Knows full well because of that fucking shadow. Judith thinks about what that dark reflection might be. Perhaps it's a technology manufactured to control people. The revenant. Maybe it's the same distorted record player crackling voice monster that faded away from Jane for no reason other than it wanted to go. Maybe that particular shadow left Jane to find Terra. Maybe it was Terra's shadow to begin with. It can't control Judith because it was already attached to her. Would've burned a brand into her brain if it could've. Definitely holds a power over Terra.

Judith's certain of who's on the other end of that shadow. Knows full well about the motherfucker pulling strings and wounding Terra. It's going to be a war to get that darkness out of her girl without killing her. Judith isn't entirely sure what to do but she has an idea and it involves a monstrous surprise. A massive display of her power. Going to put events in motion that'll grant her an opportunity to sever the connection between the raven and the shadow. Going to make David tremble when her plan tears its fingernails into his cheeks and flays his smug face off. Layers of subconscious skin will come apart in a leathery crimson meal. She'll be a Bolton to his Northern countenance.

"Fuck you, David Leonard. You cursed carcass piece of shit! I'll break your broken spell. I'll make a voodoo doll and pin every part of you. I hate you. I can't wait to eat you up with my big teeth! I hope you're watching me and listening. I'll eat you like I ate my parents and then I'll shit you out!"

The vision of David talking about how Terra was turned into ash by the Factory chills Judith out of her anger for a moment. Judith's curiosity crawls toward thinking about the events in linear time for a change. Figures all the visions with David happened roughly ten years ago. It's a number that registers in her mind. Feels accurate for some Möbius strip reason. Perhaps that's the truth of it. Was imprisoned for a decade and her dead body felt like a century.

Wonders about how the first reality finally defeated the dark forest and drove Judith into her dusty graveyard world. Can't recollect the event. Trapped in that gloomy dead rabbit prison place, her memory faded away with her emotions. Became an apparition of herself. That place felt like sandpaper rubbing on a witch's old pyre burn scar until the nerves were whittled away.

All the revenant visions have a glance and a whisper of old times like the feel of a clock with dead batteries hanging on a wall with a nail that's missed the stud. Could crash to the floor at any moment. Maybe there were no studs to miss. Maybe there's only drywall fastening to nothing. Maybe there's no clock and it's really been a hundred years for Judith. But maybe it's only been a year. Maybe the gravity is slightly different in every simulation and so every simulation's intuition is something else with comparisons. Maybe everything that's happened in her reality and the reality of the visions are of different lifetimes. Maybe time is worthless in this worthless place. Time itself is a simulation upon the simulation of space. And so maybe there's no portal. Maybe there's only the perception there's no portal.

Judith knows she's going too far with this way of thinking. Shakes her head. Gray green copper hair whips her face. Witnesses back at the meat mound of Nigel. Horks. Spits on him.

Can't leave him to revive in this place if this place exists in Jane's mind. Must purge him. Judith'll bring him into the empty city of Jane' suicide. Feels Jane'll truly be free of David Leonard and the labyrinth. There'll be no more eyes in the back of the mire girl's head.

Nothing she's been mulling over changes what she has to do. There's no "maybe." Doesn't matter how old she is or the time it's taken to be where she is or that the concept that time isn't what anyone thinks it is. She has a purpose beyond meandering thoughts.

Save Terra. Hurt David. Kill him if she can. Simply put, the obsession must become the compulsion. But Judith doesn't take her own advice. Still needs to drown within herself for another moment or two.

Sinks like lead weights back into the underwater of her mind. Quick breaths. Recollects the days after ripping Michael's heart out of his chest and chewing on it like a rabid cannibal.

She was like a bat bitten blood gore Saint Bernard. Watched hydrophobic for a cheating woman to exit her car. Wasn't herself. Wasn't someone else. Something else. How could she of done such a thing? Couldn't ponder the thought because such trauma would vitiate her. Needed to save Terra.

Needs to save Terra. Judith lets her interdiction go. Recollects the aftermath of her horrific epilogue upon her lover.

Became a connection to be connected. A duel personality stretched through all reality. The dark forest grew its subliminal roots like an osteal wooden key. Unlocked the prison of her confined lidless panoptic mind. Could control the greenwood horde of tangles and knotty leaners. Wasn't like a dystopian assujettissement. More like a subjugation to acceptance and cooperation. The trees let her have them. Was at an understanding between her and the gnarls. They didn't want to kill innocent people any more than she did. Judith felt that kind of residue drip from their red oak white elm iron wood thoughts. Eventually, she realized who she was actually communicating with. Not merely conifers and deciduous but figures from the past who stood tall. Some mock voices rang the concrete forest floor halls. Her mind shuddered as they kept calling her. Wind whispered wails. Listened to the souls of those thousands who perished when the trees were born.

Those dead souls didn't really blame Judith. They were like an odd timed drum beat bass bounce behind a rouge guitar's ghostly tremor. Terse voice cried itself to death in the corner of a room with no window. Was like they knew she was under a jaw severed horrible spell when she killed them all. When she planted the dark forest. Felt that she was somehow kindred. Like they knew her because she had the same epileptic condition they did. Some of them even forgave her. Others communicated there was nothing to forgive. Some wanted vengeance and were willing to choose one hatred for another. The lesser evil. As far as the trees were concerned, the majority of the moving woodland understood what happened. Knew Judith was a victim like they all were. They'd follow her lead. Take revenge before resting in peace because they knew she was strong and had the angry will to dish up who was responsible directly into their hungry hollow mouths. They smiled like green eyes at the punishment Judith was capable of bringing to the Leonards. No such thing as peace without justice. So they all went to war.

She wore the hollow wood upon her nudity like armour. Destroyed many Leonard factions with her strangle of branches and sticks. Impaled entire platoons. Her cracking osteal bark spider legs and strapped on dragon wings made her seem like a giant lizard insect leading a moving wall over the many Leonard districts in many different simulations. Blue armoured Leonard soldiers with flame throwers tried many times to raise Birnam Wood to the ground. They all failed. The Leonard towers fell. Their scruffy dystopian white wizards died. And after every overgrown victory Judith and the trees won in every simulation, they destroyed every portal. The trees could sniff them out like a vast wall of twenty foot holly hawk hound dogs. Judith made sure every damaged simulation they came across was free of the Leonards filthy pillage. Live and let live was what Judith was thinking at that time. Let those worlds exist without the threat of other simulations attacks. The first reality and the Leonards were weakened by every Judith victory.

Then there were the times Judith had relations with trees. Reminded of a revenant vision that felt like she lived a lifetime in the treetops as a princess. Courted and made love to by royal boys who would come from the ends of the earth to find her branchy bed. She didn't mind the feel of other Queens loins either. She loved them. She loved how they all made her nub and holes feel with their differences and similarities and fleshy experiences. And when they all fought over her, she disappeared into the depths of the woods. They'd never find her again. Her house was the forest and in her vision it was endless. She wouldn't stand for their need to own her. She was not theirs to keep.

And so some of the elms and oaks were extremely fond of Judith and explored her insides in the right places. Sap and dew. Pinched pierced nipple twigs. Smooth wooden sculptures. Tangled bodies of human countenance held her. Rubbed her in ways she had never been held or rubbed. Her own sap and dew leaked and exploded from her time and again. This sort of sexual endeavour didn't last very long though. She had a twinge of guilt. Interdiction crept in. As her mind healed, she felt bad. Felt wrong. Kept remembering Michael until she truly remembered Michael. Missed her man. Anger devoured her sadness until the two became one. When this happened, she stopped the wooden intimacy and focused on warring.

Judith can't help but think of Michael. She ate him alive and now he's eating her alive.

"But what did he say to me before I ate his heart? No way I'd have relations with any others if I knew he was of the living. Would I? No, I thought he was dead and gone and my mind wasn't right. But then I came back to myself. I think I did. What was I in those times? I don't know. All I do know is that my man brought me so much joy. Oh, Michael. You got off that table when everyone thought you were dead. Where did you go? Where are you? I need you."

Judith's lower lip quivers. Emerald eyes water. Vision blurs. The past is a megalodonic eating her screams. The past always chews on her and spits her out. Except she killed that megalodonic.

The sky streams dark navy blue purple crimson clouds that never end or begin. Eternity imprisons the sky. The human sense of sight in all its impotence and puny vision holds the great above captive. Black tree line horizon. Silhouettes like agglomerated limestone bones of Egyptian pyramids. Long lines of cubes are missing. Creates an illusion of triangle ribs held up by Anubis's embalming arms.

Cool shudder of wind hits Judith. Stops walking. Releases Nigel's tethers. Kicks off her francy's. Rolls down her copper stockings. Nylon moves from thigh past knee and calve and ankle and heel until toes. Chucks them away. Sits down on a smooth rock. Feels nice on the exposure of her sitting curve. Rubs her feet. Stretches and spreads her legs. Enjoys the soft chilly wind upon her bare loins and inner thighs and the soles of her feet. Watches a root curl around her right ankle. Move up her leg and onto her nether parts. Doesn't stop the moist heart root when it begins softly rubbing where she really likes to be rubbed. Another root slithers up the rock. Moves its dewy girth slowly inside her. Thick finger in and out. Twists inside. Judith braces herself. Arms behind her. Grips the side of the rock. Places her feet on the smooth surface. Wraps her toes over the edge. Steadies her knees in the air. Moves herself back and forth in time with the perfect nub drilling in and out of her. Rolls her eyes. Moans until her mind calms away from the past and orgasms an unending white froth into the moment. Maybe for the last time.

When the roots are done climbing and curling around her fleshy bits, she knows the hour's come. She knows it's time.

The trees talk to her as they once did. Watches toward the dark forest as it moves toward her. Witnesses one tree looks like firewood holding what's unmistakably her old fireman axe. Another tree heaves its hollow trunk apart. Makes a bending, cracking sound as splinters and bark litter the trample of ground. The tree seems to smile as it pulls Jane's double blade battle axe from its busted belly. Judith curls her mouth into a grin of delightful bone smile fangs. Her eyes begin to glow. Shivers enter her body. Goosebumps rattle her skin as she discards her empire dress. Stands upon the rock. Witnesses the trees surround her and pay homage to her.

Green eyes open from one end of the horizon to the other like an Emerald City world has awoken all at once.