Zhao Xuan

Surrounded on all sides by snow capped mountains lay a forest containing the hidden village Eight. Generations upon generations of humans have lived within this poor, forgotten dwelling and strived to carve themselves a haven in The Forest of Silence.

Zhao Xuan, son of the late Zhao Xuan, had once again broken a sacred law, by climbing partway up a mountain to the east. His goal: a crystallized pheasant paw that is rumored to grant eternal sleep. This ancient herb is a once in a generation treasure that blooms only thrice every three generations. This particular herb would only know two blooms, as Zhao Xuan reached towards it with his soft, small hands.

As his fingers slowly brushed against the velvety petals, his vision was overcome with visions!

"Aaaah!" he screamed. Blood sprayed across the grass before him and was eagerly lapped up by the herb-turned-beast.

"Ho. Ho. Ho," it chortled. The cyan of the flower had deepened into a wicked magenta. Petals curled into teeth and the bud blackened to reveal an unending void.

"You? A mere boy dares to pluck me from the ground?! Insolent!" The stalk had by now expanded to a hundred times the thickness of Zhao Xuan's index finger and a branch whipped out towards him once more.

Only a practiced dodge could evade this lightning fast attack. Before the hit connected, Zhao Xuan lamented slacking during his dodge practice with his late father, Zhao Xuan. Or he might have, were the petal-induced visions not obscuring his view of the monster.

"Spare me!" he might've cried, with hypothetical tears staining the visions of the past.

The moment took less time than a bubble takes to burst in a furnace, and Zhao Xuan was now late like his father.

"Tch. What a waste," the beast thought, as it retracted its bloodied limb.

It was in this unexpected moment that something happened that the plant did not expect.

"Hmm." Zhao Xuan's hand stretched in front of him, visually grabbing the sun - a metaphor for overcoming limitations. "I suppose this body will have to do."

To an outsider, a corpse moving would be an odd sight. The plant had long since turned its head away to gaze at the sun, so it could continue to photosynthesize for a further few thousand years.

And yet… the late Zhao Xuan, son of the late Zhao Xuan, stood up.

"Your tyranny over this small hill has ended!" he roared.

The crystallized pheasant paw swivelled with an expression that can only be described as floral. It reflexively moved to strike, but… "Oh no! My stalk is small again! I must quickly grow bi-"

"Dao Plucking Technique: Thousand Hands Grasping Stars!!!"

"!!!"

The boy's figure flickered into a thousand boys, and, in the space of time between two seperate seconds, he appeared a step past the herb. His hands were filled with dirt, grass and crystallized pheasant paw.

"Operator, can I get an ID on a flower?"

…

"Operator? Do you copy?"

—

Beneath the stars of the outer realm of Xantiek lay the demonic fiend of death. Since the beginning of time, he had bided his time, plotting against the angelic god of death, whom he has always held a grudge against.

You see, for every god there is a fiend. All gods eventually die and have their jobs usurped by their respective fiends, who in turn die and have their jobs usurped by their respective god.

All gods save one.

The god of death has never died. It is his job to determine who lives, and who has done enough living and should move onto a new experience.

This makes Doltew a very sad fiend. "How unfair!"

Normally a fiend- or god-in-waiting isn't all too clever in their embryonic phase. However, Doltew has existed for as long as life has existed. It would not be donkey-brained to say that he is the oldest being to exist. For all these years, he has been plotting. Many schemes have been created, executed and failed, but Doltew had one last Hail Mary. Random chance!

The only plot that the god of death wouldn't see coming is one that Doltew couldn't conceive All he had to do was wiggle his claws into the fabric of time, and pluck a string in the right time and place, until suddenly-!

—

Bob Bryan, expert radiographer, impressive cook and mediocre husband, was sitting at his cluttered desk with his finger on the transmit button.

"This is BiggyBlue to MudCat, I've patched you through. Do you copy MudCat?"

…

"MudCat, do you copy?"

Something was wrong, Bob was sure of it. He leaned back in his chair and glanced around the room. The bulb looked like it was on its last legs. Then this dump would be as dark as it felt. The family of squirrels had abandoned their nook for better lands. Even they had more self respect than to spend every waking moment in the basement of Bob's home.

He had tried to quit. Promised Pansy that he would give it up. Bob would never… COULD never go back to being an operator. And yet, three days into sobriety, he found himself once more in a cheap headset and with a brain full of dusty radiowaves.

They call them 'radiojunkies'. They trawl the radiowaves for transmigrators hoping to get lucky. Most realities are bogus and boring. Exactly the same as the original. In fact, it's estimated that 99.9% of realities share every detail with your home reality, with a microscopic level of difference. That could be that a car parks a meter further forward, or a dog barks twice instead of once.

That doesn't stop transmigrators from trying to hit the jackpot, something different from their mundane life.

An operator has two functions. The first is like a signpost, showing transmigrators where the next stop is on their journey. Bob has seen a hundred come and go, (sometimes people come back to try a different route), but recently, he's only had eyes for one man. MudCat.

Their partnership relies on an operator's second function: the ability to maintain communication beyond the current reality. It's not often used, as a transmigrator can only establish one connection at a time, and most reserve it for their home reality.

However, MudCat was a runaway - a misleading term which refers to a transmigrator who forgot how they got here, never to find their way back home. MudCat was certain that he met Bob really early in his life, and that Bob was the key to finding his home.

Bob rifled through a book resembling a phone directory, filled to the brim with scrawling notes. He traced his finger down a coffee-stained section with a frown.

"Four… seven… Sierra… Oh NO!" He gasped.

He grabbed frantically for the microphone and slammed the transmit button.

"BIGGYBLUE TO MUDCAT! DO YOU READ ME MUDCAT?! ANSWER ME MCKENZIE! MCKENZIE!!!"

…

For a full minute, there was only the sound of Bob's heartbeat thunderously pounding in his ears.

Operator, can I get an ID on a flower?

Bob sighed, almost dizzy with exhaustion. "Damn it, MudCat, you scared the shit out of me."

Operator? Do you copy?