"Go!" Calvin opened the back door for us.

  A gale blew from out of the doorway. It wasn't cold as one would expect. It felt wrong.

  "Ugh," the husky-girl shuddered. "That's going to blow all sorts of questionable dust into my fur again."

  She grabbed the "Welcome To Lake Winnipesaukee" shirt off the shelf, pulling it atop of the tank top.

  We quickly emerged out of the building.

  The back of the Mini-Mart featured what must have once been an employee smoking area—a wide concrete patio surrounded by a chain-link fence. But whatever mundane purpose it had served was now lost beneath Calvin's "garden"—though calling it a garden was like calling a hurricane a light breeze.

  Plants—if they could even be called that—grew in chaotic profusion throughout the space. Vegetables that resembled office supplies sprouted from the cracked concrete, their leaves formed from what looked like shredded tax documents or computer keys. A cluster of ‘tomatoes’ hung heavy from a vine, each fruit made from rust-red clockwork containing a wristwatch or compass spinning in its center.

  In one corner, a tree had grown from what appeared to be an old microwave, its branches formed from copper wiring that flowered into tiny light bulbs. Each time the wind blew, the bulbs clinked against each other, producing a sound like distant wind chimes.

  Calvin gestured to an empty patch of earth near the center of the garden, where the concrete had been broken away to reveal dark, brown, rich soil beneath. "There," he said simply. "That's where Sandwichu will bloom.”

  Above us, the Celestorm gathered strength, the sky transformed into a churning maelstrom of black and violet spirals. Lightning flashed, not in mere jagged bolts but also in alien, fractal patterns that seemed to write themselves across the clouds.

  Each flash lasted just long enough to burn an afterimage on my retinas, leaving me with fragments of unnervingly deep meaning that dissolved before I could grasp it.

  "The storm that re-writes existence," Calvin explained, noting my upward gaze. "It takes dreams and nightmares and wishes and fears, and inks them onto reality's canvas as brief echoes, the lightning striking areas of high Syntropy.”

  A particularly bright flash illuminated the garden, casting everything in a sickly purple glow. In that instant, I saw things moving at the edges of the fence—formless, transparent things that seemed to shift between states of being, never quite settling on a definite shape.

  "What the fuck are those?" I yelped, my voice sounding reedy against the raging sky.

  "Echoes," Calvin replied from the doorway, his tone casual, as if discussing the weather. "The storm renders them visible sometimes. Best not to look directly at them."

  Nessy had already begun digging at the spot Calvin indicated, her clawed hands moving with inhuman efficiency, rapidly displacing soil around a deepening hole.

  “If you’re gonna stand there uselessly, at least be a good digging supervisor,” she growled at me, ears tilting back as the sky thundered.

  “How?” I asked, trying not to stare at the slowly solidifying echoes.

  “By providing verbal encouragement and occasional head pats,” she fired back.

  “Good doggo,” I patted her head.

  She plowed harder into the earth.

  Keeling beside her, I glanced at the orange bucket. The concrete inside had grown thicker, more sluggish, its surface dimming from the vibrant iridescence it had displayed earlier to a dull, leaden gray.

  I blinked at it.

  [HP: 4%]

  "I think it's dying," I said quietly.

  “Yea, no shit,” Nessy growled, unwrapping the now tinfoil wrapped sandwich with her teeth and claws.

  Freakish blue and green mold was practically engulfing the expired sandwich now, expanding from the bite area like a tiny forest, blossoming mycelium swaying left and right.

  The bite mark itself seemed larger, more wrong, deeper somehow, as if something extradimensional had been nibbling at it while we weren't looking.

  “Holy crap,” Nessy dropped the sandwich into the hole with a yelp of shock. “Slayer Nazareth! I almost ate you yesterday!”

  She kicked the orange bucket over the hole with her digitrade foot, the life-crete pouring out to engulf the eldritch sandwich in its embrace.

  “Add the drawing!” Calvin advised.

  I ripped the sketch of Nessy from the book and placed it into the concrete-life-fluid, watching it sinking in.

  The husky-girl grabbed the earth pile with both of her hands and covered the hole.

  I quickly placed the jar of bulbees sideways at the base of the mound. Inside, the tiny creatures had arranged themselves in a loose circle, their lights pulsing in a synchronized rhythm that matched the distant thunder of the Celestorm. Nessy's phone continued to display our selfies from the side, creating a layered illumination that painted the fresh soil with overlapping patterns of light and shadow.

  At the back door, Calvin stood watching, his silver-blue eyes now ringed with concentric circles of violet light that matched the storm above. His hands were raised slightly at his sides, palms facing outward as if conducting an invisible orchestra. The tiny paper eyes adorning his clothing seemed to be turned to face in the same direction—toward our freshly planted sandwich.

  “Now what?” I yelled at him.

  "It's not enough," he called over the rising wind. "The life-crete hardened too much. It… needs to soften to bloom. Connection. Intent. Purpose." He paused. "It needs… passion... Music!”

  “What?” I yelled, glancing at the freakish ghosts gradually advancing towards us.

  They looked like hollowed out people. People I knew. People who betrayed me. My brother. My parents. Kids from Fergus. My ex-girlfriends. The four cartel men who killed me.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  The fear-shapes pressed closer, becoming more solid with each flash of storm-light. I could feel their cold presence against my skin, hear their whispers in my ears—promises, reminders of worthlessness, all the insecurities and traumas of my life given form and voice.

  Without thinking, I stepped forward, placing myself between Nessy and the encroaching nightmares. My stop sign felt heavy in my hands, but I raised it anyway, a barrier between her and the ghosts of my past.

  "Sing to your tree!" Calvin urged, his voice rising with the wind. "Give it something to grow toward, something to become!"

  Before I could process this bizarre instruction, Nessy's head tilted back and drew in a deep breath.

  When she howled at the burning sky and began to sing, the sound that emerged was nothing like I expected—not the playful tune she had hummed earlier, but something deeper, more primal.

  “, from hope and pain,

  I call you forth to life again.

  Born from devotion, shaped by my song,

  Root deep in earth where you belong!

  Through broken worlds and shattered skies,

  From death to life, please now arise!

  Through Systemfall that shatters, merges and blends,

  I found him, my pack, my anchor, my best friend!”

  Her blue eyes flashed at me.

  “I sing for connection, for trust yet to bloom,

  For light after darkness, for life after doom.

  From sandwich and concrete, from memory and grief,

  Grow strong, little seedling, grow hope, grow belief!”

  Thunder detonated above us like a deafening, double gunshot. The eye of the storm was now directly above us, lightning unnaturally dancing across the supermassive cloud spiral.

  “By fang and claw, by hope and fear,

  I bind you to my packmate dear!”

  She sang.

  “Keep the echoes away from her, Sir Alec!” Calvin yelled.

  Her eyes met mine briefly, widening as she finally noticed the shapes surrounding us, but her voice never faltered. Instead, it grew stronger, more defiant. I swatted at the nearest advancing ghost with the stop sign, obliterating it into silver wisps.

  “Protect him, guide him, stand by his side,

  As I will do until my… death!”

  Nessie howled loudly into the storm. I slashed at two more echoes that tried to claw at Nessie.

  “So grow now, our seedling, reach high, reach wide,

  With concrete for strength and my devotion as your guide.

  In this system-born world where nothing stays true,

  Remember this connection—me holding onto you!”

  Her voice rose another octave.

  “So grow now, bloom now, rise to the sky,

  As steady and true as our pack-bond tie.

  In storm, in calm, in night, in day,

  By your side I'll always stay!

  Tears streamed down her fur as she sang, but her voice never wavered. I panted as the echoes increased in number... then twisted, fused into centipede-like humanoid shapes.

  As the final note of her song faded, a flash of violet lightning struck directly above us. For an instant, everything was illuminated in harsh, unnatural light. I saw Calvin's form briefly superimposed with countless other versions of himself–some with two heads, some with none, some with wings, some with roots instead of feet–all existing simultaneously in the same space. His hair rushed through a thousand different colors from black to white, eyes brilliant green, then brown, then blue, then pure violet.

  I saw Nessy's outline shimmer and shift, momentarily revealing her as both the humanoid dog-woman kneeling beside me and as an ordinary husky, standing on four legs with her head thrown back in a howl. Both real, both her, both existing in the same moment. Then she shifted to a dragon girl with rainbow wings, then a girl in a construction vest with pure white hair, then a girl with green-orange eyes and hair made from rubies.

  My own hands shifted and twisted, rushing through a thousand textures.

  The jar with the bulbees cracked and shattered, the insects scattering from within into all directions. Nessy grabbed her phone. She leapt back with it just as blinding lightning struck from overhead into the remnants of the jar, liquefying and melting the glass.

  Then the glass formed delicate tendrils reaching out across the imprint of the lightning which somehow hung in the air, gradually fading away. The melted glass formed not quite roots, not quite branches, but something in between. They were the color of moonlight on water, semi-transparent and luminous. They grew rapidly, twisting and turning, reaching up and down, entwining with something deep below.

  Evern smaller branches unfurled from it, each one bearing glowing leaves shaped like tiny, crystalline hands. Flowery petals bloomed then seeds formed within their gemstone-like innards.

  The Sandwichu Tree had bloomed.

  It bore... very small sandwiches.

  Nessy made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, her paws reaching out to gently touch one of the lower branches. The tree responded, the branch curving slightly to meet her touch, as if recognizing her.

  "It's beautiful," she whispered.

  I froze, captivated by the surreal sight of Nessy prying a small triangle of salmon sandwich off a small, transparent branch and stuffing it into her mouth.

  Gunfire rang through the air.

  The bullet cut radial circles through the air, tearing through the echoes and shearing them into silvery mist. Something monstrous howled behind the fence with an impossibly deep hum that vibrated through my bones, rattling my teeth and churning my stomach.

  I turned just as the fence buckled outward, metal links stretching and snapping like they were made of taffy. The creature emerged from the darkness beyond—a gargantuan lynx made of rusted metal rebar and crane parts. Hundreds of holes covered its massive head, giving it the appearance of a feline colander. Bits and pieces of rusted junk covered its body like armored plates, shifting and grinding with each movement in a cacophony of metallic protest.

  Its eyes—hollow sockets filled with whirling magnetic fields—locked onto us.

  "IN! DIG THE TREE OUT AND GET INSIDE!" Calvin yelled, firing again at the massive metal creature. The bullet ricocheted off its armored hide with a high-pitched whine, leaving not even a dent.

  The gun was suddenly ripped from his hand as if yanked by an invisible thread. The fence followed, peeling away in strips. Everything metal in our vicinity flew toward a dark, gargantuan magnet embedded in the hollow beast's chest—a spinning vortex of ferrous hunger that pulled with relentless force.

  My stop sign tore from my fingers, slicing a deep gash across my palm as it went. Pain flared white-hot, blood welling instantly to spill between my fingers and drip onto the concrete.

  A metal nail embedded in the ground flew up, cutting a line across my cheek. A sharp, small, metal something, punctured through the side of my stomach and digging deep in, making me cry out.

  [HP: 67%]

  Nessy dug into the earth with desperate, clawed hands, her movements a blur of panicked efficiency. She exhumed the little Sandwichu Tree, its delicate glass branches tinkling like wind chimes, transparent roots holding onto a small cube of hardened concrete. She quickly shoved the tree into the orange bucket, picking it up by the handle.

  "RUN!" I grabbed her arm with my uninjured left hand, pulling her toward the back door where Calvin stood, waving frantically.

  We sprinted across the broken ground, ducking as a mailbox flew over our heads, sucked toward the magnetic beast. The creature's massive paws—each the size of a small car—began to advance, rebar claws gouging deep furrows in the concrete with each step.

  We tumbled through the door, collapsing onto the linoleum floor as Calvin slammed it shut behind us. The sound of the lock engaging seemed laughably inadequate against what waited outside.

  The junkyard-magnet beast howled, a sound like metal being torn apart by industrial machinery. Through the small window in the door, I could see the Celestorm flashing overhead, illuminating the massive creature in stark, violet relief.

  "Fukfuckfuckkk," Nessy trembled beside me, clutching the bucket containing our fragile tree to her chest. Her ears were flattened against her skull, her pupils dilated with terror. "It... it's followed me here!"

  "What do you mean it followed you?" I demanded, pressing my bleeding hand against my shirt, trying to stem the flow.

  "The magnetic lynx," she uttered, eyes wide and haunted. "The one that stole my guns. It's been hunting me ever since. I thought... I thought I lost it days ago!"

  "M'yes," Calvin said. "A high level dire-magnet-beast. My domain won't hold out against her for very long."

  "What?" I spun towards him, my eyes wide.

  Metal shelves around us groaned. A can flew through the air, nearly decapitating me. It slammed against the wall and then wobbled across the wall, wiggling and wobbling and crawling up along with a hundred other metal things.

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