The fall was endless. The air was cold, rushing past my ears with a sound like a thousand whispers screaming at once. I was tangled in the silver wires of the Other Esther, her skeletal fingers digging into my shoulders, her hollow eyes burning with a desperate, dying light. We were a mess of limbs and silver, two versions of the same tragedy plummeting into the mouth of a world that didn't care which one survived.
"We... are... the same!" the Skeleton Esther shrieked, her voice vibrating through my very teeth. "You can't kill me without killing the heart of the story!"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just reached out, my fingers clawing at the darkness, until I felt the rough, leather cover of the manuscript that I had thrown into the void. It was falling with us, its pages flapping like
