Calibration Room

Walls of them stood in front of Apeiron as she tapped her foot aggressively. There were small ones and big ones, some hummed and others vibrated. There were planets called Proxima B and others that were only pronounced with a single syllable or sound. She smiled when the one called Earth floated in the air toward her.

“Well, I guess it is you we must tweak today,” Apeiron said. She reached her hand out toward the snow globe and waited for it to land in her hand.

The snow globe, Earth, made a low murmuring sound, like millions of people talking all at once. Apeiron moved at a slow rate to the calibration room. The door was marked with large wooden letters, CR, and pulsed like it was breathing.

Apeiron placed herself squarely in front of the door and said, “E-A-R-T-H.”

She stepped back as the door sighed heavily. CR began to unweave itself like a frayed old wooden basket. Within a minute Apeiron stepped through the door. Seconds later, CR weaved itself back together letting out another heavy sigh.

Apeiron walked to the center of the room, where a large table with four equally large magnifying glasses surrounded it. She placed the Earth snow globe in the middle of the table, careful not to jostle it.

She walked to a chair in front of one of the large magnifying glasses, looking around the room as she did. To her left, a wilted plant sprang to life as she walked past. Her skin literally crawled with life, as her body glowed a vibrant white. On her chest, she bore a pulsing infinity symbol that seemed to be the source of the giving of life to everything she walked past.

Apeiron sat down on the chair. “Up,” she said, and the chair glided up gracefully. It stopped in the center of the large magnifying glass. “READY!” She bellowed.

With that, out came three other beings.

Karios sat down in the second chair. His cloak of ticking watches and clocks made a mind-numbing sound, as its minute and second hands moved. His face looked as though it was a swirl of movement never stopping to get an exact guess of what he looked like.

Olethros sat in the third chair. His cloak smoked, from what looked like tiny explosions all over and whirled behind him as though vast winds were carrying it. His hair, constantly in motion, looked like a watery hurricane engulfed his head.

Verisimilitude sat in the fourth chair. Clouds followed her with visible strings attached to her limbs that helped her move. Large glasses encompassed her large round eyes giving her a very unusual owl like resemblance.

“Okay, now that we are all here, let’s begin,” Apeiron said.

With that, the large magnifying glasses drew closer to the snow globe, Earth, bringing it into better view. The magnification was so strong the four could clearly see the streets and the people walking on them. If tweaked enough, the glasses allowed them to see inside buildings.

“Karios, the floor is all yours,” Apeiron said.

Karios melted into the magnifying glass in front of him making him become one with it and the snow globe Earth. His destination is the South of France, where a train is about to collide with an oncoming train.

He taps his forehead three times and his face stops swirling around and for an instant, the face of the train’s operator appears on his.

The sleeping train operator woke instantly. With seconds to spare, he changes tracks and the impending danger is averted.

“You are too softhearted, Karios. You could have allowed the destruction of the conductor’s negligence to befall him,” Olethros said.

Ignoring him, Karios moves to New York. Again he taps his forehead. This time, his face turned into that of a young male teenager. The teen is holding an AK-47 and is walking out of the school’s doors into a barrage of SWAT and policemen.

Karios brings his arms up and the teenager's arms, still holding the gun, did the same. Within moments the boy is riddled with bullets and he falls to the ground.

“Now, that’s the way you do it!” Olethros said.

Karios melted back through the magnifying glass saying nothing as he pressed back down in his chair.

“Olethros, stop taunting Kairos. The floor is yours,” Apeiron said.

Olethros clapped his hands, the sound made a thunderous BOOM. He leaned forward and melted into the magnifying glass. His destination: Syria. He took off his cloak and blanketed a group of men in a densely populated shopping strip mall. Inside their backpacks, they carried small bombs. Olethros clapped, this time, the loud BOOM came from the strip mall. The massive carnage could be seen through Olethros' cloak.

“Must you always take the lives of the innocent, Olethros?” Karios said.

Olethros smiled sinisterly and continued to his next destination, Oklahoma. In a casino, a woman sits at a Craps table, a drink in one hand and her last five hundred dollars in the other.

Olethros flung his cloak over her as he stood behind her he whispered in her ear, “you know you want to spend all of your rent money at this table.”

The woman apparently conflicted between paying her rent or feeding her addiction, wavered.

“Do it!” Olethros said, and he clapped, BOOM.

The sound went in correlation to the woman placing her money on the table. Within seconds the woman lost every penny she had to her name.

The woman hugged her purse to her chest as she walked away from the Craps table. Her hand reached inside for the gun held within. She brought it to her head, and Olethros clapped, BOOM, she fell to the ground.

Olethros melted back through the magnifying glass. His finger and thumb up, in a gun motion, he shot off a few pretend rounds toward Karios and then he blew on his fingertips as he finished taunting him. In retaliation, Karios tapped his head three times freezing Olethros in place.

“Stop it you two!” Apeiron bellowed.

Karios released Olethros and said, “He started it.”

With a menacing glance from Apeiron both of them fell silent and sat still. “Verisimilitude, dear, the floor is yours.”

Verisimilitude melted through the magnifying glass. Her destination: Great Britain. She sat next to a woman arguing with her husband about many things.

Verisimilitude takes off her glasses and places them on the woman’s face. Within seconds the woman stopped in mid-sentence and began another.

“You will never change, will you? Every time you say you are going to stop cheating and lying, you don’t mean it. I’m leaving you, Brady.” The woman gets up, dropping her wedding ring into his lap, and she leaves him.

Olethros groans. “What, no explos—”

“Shut it, Olethros!” Apeiron said.

Verisimilitude’s next destination took her to Roswell, New Mexico—her favorite part of the job.

She took the strings attached to her and placed them on the spacecraft hidden in Area 51. The aircraft flew up and out of the building and flew over many small cities in the area. She hovered it over a cluster of four people and moved on quickly.

“What, no laser beams of annihilation?” Olethros said.

Apeiron gave him a sideways glance, which shut him up.

Within hours, the video of the spacecraft sighting was all over the internet. Hours after, it was debunked, because someone played the video in slow motion, “clearly showing strings,” they said.

Verisimilitude melted back through the magnifying glass. She pushed her cloud with strings toward Olethros. They automatically attached themselves to him.

She raised her hand up in front of her and moved her fingers like there were strings attached to them. Olethros was lifted out of his chair and was dancing involuntarily.

His face filled with anger.

“ENOUGH!” Apeiron yelled. “Why must all of you act like children? Not one of you is more important than the other.”

Verisimilitude let Olethros go and he glared at her, but he did not retaliate.

“Well then, the floor is all yours, Apeiron,” Olethros said flatly.

With that, all four of the magnifying glasses pulled together making one. Apeiron melted into them, her destination everywhere. Apeiron hugged the planet and the life on her arms released into the animals, plants, and humans living below.

Her only task, to always keep life alive, deprived her of her energy. She melted back through the glasses and sank against Olethros, Karios, and Verisimilitude, who were waiting to receive her.

Verisimilitude held her hand out and the Earth snow globe floated to her. She walked through CR to return the globe to its rightful place.

Olethros and Karios carried Apeiron to a regenerating table and placed her on it. After Verisimilitude’s return, they all stood above Apeiron who raised her arms ready to receive them. One by one they each melted into her, one by one they became one again.