it is feeling like a chocolate chip all glommed together at the center of a giant dough ball that then spreads out as it heats—distributing chips light-years apart as it stretches itself out, creating a giant cookie universe.
But the big-bang-slash-great-chocolate-chip-cookie theory of the ’verse wasn’t the only origin story we experienced. As we passed from our universe through many others, we lived through other beginnings, other ways to understand the birth of the cosmos. We traveled through a solar system that looked like it was revolving around fire, saw the sun rising from an infinite sea, the chaos of the universe morphing into an egg that was then split in balanced two by an ax-wielding god, resulting in earth and sky, murky and clear, yin and yang. Even as we saw all of these possibilities, I knew there were an infinite number of other stories we didn’t see, stories that whirred by us too fast for my brain to comprehend; beginnings and beginnings and beginnings without end.
The last thing we saw floating by us in space-time were some gods and demons churning an ocean of milk. They pulled on a familiar-looking snake wrapped around a mountain that operated as a churn. Out of the ocean rose medicine and poison, light and dark, good and evil, and then a sparkling white stone and a glowing yellow one. Holy smokes! We were watching the birth of the Chintamoni and Poroshmoni Stones! Hadn’t the Rakkhoshi Rani said something about this in that poem? Something about seeking immortality from the milk-white sea? I remembered her next words, “Jewels, stars, eternity. Life and death in balance be.” Those stones must be more powerful than the Raja knew, and that’s why Sesha was after them. That’s why he’d set up this whole game show. He wanted the power of the stones to grant him wealth, and maybe even the ability to cheat death! Maybe this whole thing wasn’t about me at all, but about Sesha’s greed and those two jewels!
But then the black void and distant stars of space became the bright blue sky and the humid air of a hot summer’s day. I felt like I was choking in my winter coat, and struggled to get it off. In the meantime, the rikshaw kind of floated and hopped, like a plane making a rough landing. Naya and I couldn’t really talk anymore because of all the dry wind whipping by our ears, but soon enough, the rikshaw practically crashed down in a field in front of what looked like a high barbed-wire fence. We were finally in the Kingdom Beyond Seven Oceans and Thirteen Rivers, outside of the same bazaar where I had first entered this dimension.
“Oof!” Naya exclaimed as the auto came bouncing down. “Your Princessness, no offense, but you really must work on smoother landings!”
I didn’t bother arguing with the girl, but instead looked around, taking in where we were.
Everything looked really different than when I’d walked through a field of flowers last fall, crossed a bridge over a babbling brook, and strolled into the quirky little market. Sure, the crooked streets and colorful, haphazard houses were still there, but where there had been lush green grass, now the land looked dry and parched. The brook too, just beyond the new twelve-foot-high barbed-wire fence, seemed all dried up and full of trash—empty chip bags, chocolate wrappers, plastic coffee cups, and soda cans. But that wasn’t the strangest thing. The strangest thing was the game show recruitment slogans plastered everywhere we looked. Hanging from every lamppost and tree were banners for Who Wants to Be a Demon Slayer? with the TSK snake-eating-its-tail logo and contest logo of the bow-wielding girl with her braid, green skin, and purple combat boots. Each banner had a slightly different recruitment slogan for potential contestants, obviously written by the government of the Kingdom Beyond:
Get Off Your Rear End and Become a Real Legend!
Make Demons Groan, Win Back Our Thinking Stone!
Embrace your Hero’s Fate (Plus You’ll Get a Lot of Dates!)
“Um … Your Majesticness?” Naya ventured, pointing an unsure finger up at the green-skinned girl.
“I know, it looks just like me—except the skin!”
“Well, you do have the green hair,” said Naya. Then she pointed at my arm, which was exposed now that I’d taken off my coat and sweatshirt. “And there’s the green scar on your arm.”
“Green scar?” I looked down with alarm, and sure enough, the snake sign on my upper arm had taken on a faintly green hue.