She was a very lovely girl, from a reality two over from my own. She wanted to destroy the world, and we were dating.

She had dreams, dreams of someday owning her own yogurt stand, of someday having a new car with a tank full of gas, of someday crushing all the religions and governments of this planet with a series of well-placed thermonuclear explosions. 

She had dreams of great dark clouds full of screaming metal fish that knew only hatred and blind violence. Dreams that turned the walls of our bedroom from off-white to a deep yellowy-black. Dreams from which she’d awaken, screaming, a strange black honey dripping from her body. 

She held me, in bed, with the great mechanical claws she constructed out of broken bulldozers. She stroked my head and my ego, and she told me everything would be okay.

“Just as soon as we kill everybody you’ve ever known or loved,” she purred into the scar tissue that used to be my ear, “everything will be okay.”