Previously in the "What" chapter of Side Quests (Dogboy Reborn)...

Basically, I found a journal about a young woman who loved a young man, but they never could be together. I then found the young woman only to have her call me by his name, Matthew.

Here's the link if interested: https://www.wattpad.com/566601910-side-quests-dogboy-reborn-what

Now...

"I'm sorry," said Ren for the fifth time. "You look a lot like Matthew." 

I took Ren to the Red Rover Restaurant, where she told the Pack and me her story. According to her, she was from another reality...another universe. In that universe, her family moved to Newton when she was ten. It'd been a tough adjustment until she met Matthew. He was nice to her and their friendship formed.

"You must be a Reflection of him," Ren said to me, her eyes looking like she was about to cry again. I'd learned that a Reflection is the name for your alternate reality double. 

Ren continued to tell us that in her realm/universe, Matthew got his powers when he was about ten not sixteen like I had. As their friendship grew, Matthew told Ren about his powers. He told her because he sensed that she had powers too. Indeed she did. She had flight, durability, enhanced strength and speed, and could produce dragger-like feathers. The two teamed up to become Dogboy and Ducky. 

Unlike me, Matthew's powers were more physical. He had super strength, speed, durability, and senses whereas I have teleportation, telekinesis, and telepathy/empathy. His costume was also more...traditional. He wore a black mask, blue cape, and orange spandex suit. He didn't look anything like a dog really. Ducky wore a brown raincoat and deerstalker hat, making her look more like an old fashioned detective than a superhero. But can you blame them? They were ten. Also, in their realm, superheroes existed but it was just a bit rarer than here.

After their friendship dissolved, Matthew threw himself even deeper into crime fighting. Before it'd been a childhood game or a hobby but now it'd almost become an obsession. 

Sally gave a small cough and shot me a look.

Not long after Matthew went "full-time," it seemed to Ren that the world grew darker. Apathy and violence grew. "Matthew did what he could," said Ren, "but it was an uphill battle. I didn't know it at the time, but the Void was coming for our world."

The Void, Chaos, Entropy, Nothingness, all names for the black emptiness that swallows up dying and dead universes. If a universe doesn't have enough phantasmic energy, it falls into the Void and is destroyed. The reason behind so many names for the Void is because it is Nothing, and once you name Nothing, it becomes Something so it can't have a true name.

Since all movies, games, and so on are reports of events in other realms, this Void is the reason behind writer's block and series cancellations. If the world is no more, there are no more events to tell. Normally to cure the writer's block, the writer is given reports from a parallel/similar realm. This is the reason why continuity in works of "fiction" can be messy and why there are so many reboots and remakes.

Finally, her world entered the final stages of life. The sun went dark and became as black as sackcloth as it became a Dark Star. Light was devoured from the reality. Oddly enough, red being the slowest was last to be eaten and so the moon became red. People panicked and Ren could hear...something moving in the growing darkness. She managed to see flashes of shadowy figures. Then the stars began to wink out like a burned out light bulb. The law of gravity was broken as large sections of land began to break and float away. 

During all of this Ren tried to find Matthew. Finally, she spotted him and ran towards him. But then the sound of trumpets hit the air. It was followed by flashes of light. 

"Don't be afraid. Come with me," said a young man with white hair and goggles.

Ren turned to where she'd last seen Matthew, but he was gone. Stunned, the young man was able take her away.

"I don't remember much after that; I was...in shock," said Ren. "I just remember them saying something about being processed. Then...I was here." All we could do was stare at her with our mouths wide open.

"I remember them saying the reason I could exist here is because the Ren of this reality...died back when she was ten. She and her family were about to arrive at their new home when a shadowy figure stepped in front of the vehicle. Her father went left...I remember something similar, but my father went right." Her eyes met mine. "If he'd gone right...you might have been Matthew."

That sent some shivers down my spine.

Sally placed her hand on top of Ren's. "You've been through—"

BOOM!!

The restaurant door blew open; wood, glass, and metal went everywhere. The lights flickered as a tall, slender, faceless person wearing a business suit entered; he kind of looked like he'd taken a ride through a black hole. He took a few steps and the door reassembled behind him. His faceless head then glitched and faded like a hologram; it'd been some kind of helmet. Underneath was a face similar to mine. 

"Matthew?" said Ren.

The person spoke in a distorted, static voice. Each time he spoke, the lights seemed to flicker. "Matthew is gone. He paid for his obsession for heroics." He pointed towards Ren. "Just as you must pay."

Sally stepped in front of Ren as Brain and Danny came to my side. "Who are you?" asked Sally.

"Once Matthew," spoke the being, "but now..." A horrible sound filled the air. It sounded like an old dial-up modem but filled with static. We had to cover our ears as we groaned in pain. Finally, the noise stopped. "But I am also known as a collector, piper, or tall man." He turned back to Ren. "I have come to collect on your debt."

Ren took a step back and placed her hand to her chest in surprise. "Debt?"

"Everything comes at a cost," said the tall man. "There is no such thing as a free meal. This is especially true of heroes. There is a cost for using your powers...saving lives, stopping plans of destruction or enslavement. This is why heroes have such traumatic lives usually ending in a tragic death; they are paying for their...magic. We set things in motion so that they can pay their debt."

With a creepy turn of his head, he faced me. "It is why you were bullied most of your life."

He faced Ren again. "You could have had a normal and safe life here, but you continued to be a hero, The Brown Bird of Boston." We each gave Ren a confused and disbelieving look. "Now is the time you pay in full."

"Matthew, we were friends."

"Until you broke his heart and drove him into madness. Without you, Matthew was never strong enough to combat the Dark and the realm died. THEY came for him; he agreed to become a collector in order to pay your and his debt." 

He tilted his head. "Did you think THEY rescued people out of the goodness of their heart? No. Once a Reflection dies, their phantasmic energy [or life-energy] is divided among the others causing them to be stronger; this is where superpowers, everything from athletics to singing to heat vision, comes from. There is a finite-infinite number of Multiverses—9 X 10 to 9 with 44,000 zeroes after it; THEY fear that if there is only one version of a person, they will become a god."

"Sounds like the plot to a Jet Li movie," I muttered.

"Ren Rouen...Ducky, it is time to pay the piper." The faceless holographic helmet reappeared.

"Run!" I said.

But we didn't get far as some kind of telekinetic force pinned us to the walls. As Tall Man Matthew approached us, I started glitching between my Dogboy and human forms. I noticed Ren did so too. One second she was human, the next she wore brown armor with a gray undershirt and skirt. Her skirt was overlaid with duck feathers and she had a cape with feathers too. She also had duck legs and feet.

The howling static began to increase as he closed in on us. I fought to concentrate. If I could...maybe I could use my powers. Help us escape. Something. I could see that Ren tried to fight against this strange force too.

The hollow man raised a hand towards us; his long fingernails looked similar to my claws but darker and dirtier--they looked beyond animalistic. I was starting to have trouble breathing. The faceless masked dropped. "Nothing can stop this."

A soft thud from behind made us all stop. A small journal appeared out of nowhere. Still holding us, the debt collector picked up the hardback journal and flipped it open. "Property of Kyle Connors," he read. He began flipping through the pages; finally stopping on one entry. His eyes widened, dropping us. "This is Matthew's first adventure. The day he...I discovered my powers."

The journal recounted how Kyle had a dream one night where he was a dog. In the dream, he thought he'd always been a dog but then slowly remembered being human. After he woke, he wondered what it'd be like if the dream was real. This became the inspiration for the first Dogboy story and Kyle's first unassigned story.

The journal contained many stories of Matthew and Ren's friendship and entries of Kyle's own unrequited crush.

The journal told of how at first Kyle was heartbroken over finding out that his crush could never be anything more than that. Then over time, he could look at it from her side: the pressure from being popular and the pressure from her family; it probably wasn't easy. The entries went on to tell how Kyle had closed his heart off to love, this not being the first time he'd been crushed by it; so when love was finally returned, he was too suspicious and cautious to act upon it.

Matthew's eyes began to tear up as he continued to read.

Kyle threw himself into his work and cut himself off from others, much as Matthew had. Afraid to be hurt again.

At the end of the journal was written, "Learn from my mistakes." It then finished with, "I give this foundation to pay off Matthew and Ren's debt." The journal then crumbled.

"He wanted to give you a chance," a soft voice said.

Matthew turned. "Jay-zin," he gasped.

The man in the white robe and purple cape nodded slightly. "Good to see you again, old friend." He put his hand on Matthew's shoulder for a moment then turned to us. "I was the one to retrieve Ren and Kyle's journals."

"Why?" I asked.

"Before evolving into the being you see now, I was Matthew's friend. Only hours after he'd discovered his powers, we had our own adventure. We had our own struggle against a Shadow Man." Jay-zin motioned towards Ren. "I wanted him to be happy."

Matthew faced Ren, both of their eyes wet. They rushed towards each other and embraced. "I love you," they said. 

But then the windows shattered and the door slammed open as a bolt of lightning flashed in the sky. "Yuck, love," said the stranger with glowing red eyes. "Oh well, it's my turn now. I just couldn't resist coming, what with two Reflections here. Don't worry, your deaths will go directly to my Ascension." Another bolt lit up his face; it was mine. "Hee-hee, hee. There is no stopping this madness. The madness of Joey Wolf, the Red Rover. Ah-hahahahaha!!!" Lightning flashed again.

__________

There were a lot of stories that inspired this entry including the movie The One and The Never-Ending Story along with shows like Once Upon a Time and FullMetal Alchemist and of course, the Slenderman/Tall Men stories.