From The Other World

Party On

  "I think we escaped," River panted, gripping her knees as she caught her breath. She and her father stood in an alleyway, the sound of a boisterous and energetic party booming out from a nightclub ten blocks away. Normally, ordinary people wouldn't even be able to hear the muffled noise with the distance they had put. But the Howlett family was hardly ordinary, so they could catch the smallest of noises with their enhanced senses.

  "You think?" Logan inquired, somehow making the honest question sound sarcastic. "River, Raven's a top-class government spy. She's smart."

  River contorted her face into a wistful look at Logan's endorsement of his wife. She knew he had gotten back most of his key memories of this world a day or so after he had changed the timeline's events, creating the world in which every mutant lived in relative peace, but she didn't realize just how much Logan still loved Raven until he had wed her in this life as well. If only they had managed to live the same way in her original world...

  River knew she wasn't supposed to exist in this world, that appearing here had been a mistake made by the universe. Otherwise, why would her body sometimes flicker in and out of existence?

  The young mutant remembered the first time she had consciously seen it happen. She had been lying awake at night on a bed in her own private room-imagine that!-, watching the beautiful, twinkling stars forming constellations in the sky, when she had reached for a glass of water on her bedside. She touched nothing. Confused, she had looked back. This had never happened to her. River had spot-on memories of everything she arranged, whether it was a book, booby trap, or simply a plate of apples.

  What she saw was her hand phased into the cup. Letting out a startled yodel in response, the redheaded mutant leaped backwards. She paused for a few moments, listening to make sure she hadn't woken up anyone, and cautiously held up her hands. Both appendages were ghostly, faded. She could see through them to the bedsheets below. Leaning forwards, biting onto a pen with her mouth, she passed the pen through her hands. On the second time, though, her hands solidified. River dropped the object in her mouth before picking it up with her now more distinct fingers and placing it back onto the table.

  River pondered the mystery of her phasing limbs, a frown creasing her forehead. What could possibly make her disappear like that? Then the truth hit her hard, and she laid down, starlight being cast through her open windows as she hugged a pillow and stared forward blankly.

  She wasn't meant to exist in this world. Already what strange magic that had brought her here was unraveling, tugging her back to where she belonged. River vowed to savor what time she had left, before-

  -it was all gone again.