Kimmy goes to Silent Hill - Part 5 Finale
Kimmy descended the icy stairs in Tom's house, noticing gouge marks in the walls where the monster with the club had hit or scraped them, trying to get to Kimmy and Tom. Could it really have hurt them like that if it had gotten through? Surely Mzyra liked Tom and wouldn't have let that happen to him? But how much of this was even real? Was she really at a serious risk of dying again? But even if she was, she'd survived all the previous challenge things, she only had to get through one more and she'd be home free. And then she could slap Mzyra upside the head for putting her through all this in the first place.
As Kimmy got outside, through the smashed doors, she noticed the house morph back to normal in front of her eyes, before freezing over so she couldn't re-enter. At least that was definitely over with then. Now what?
Squinting through the snow that was falling again, she saw the familiar old guiding light off to her right, away from her old house. It looked like it might be a whole new location this time, so she set off down what she could follow of the pavement, trudging through the snow.
It was only about a half hour walk before Kimmy was stood in front of the newest location - a little bungalow. What was going on? She'd never lived there, she didn't even rec- Wait. No, this was- This was the house she'd left the baby at.
Hang the f--- on, she thought angrily, this wasn't fair! She'd just suffered for what happened when she was involved in one of her children's lives, surely giving up a child was an act of kindness for her? She walked forwards slightly to where the light was specifically shining - there was a recreation of the child itself, lying on the porch. So what, she should have given it a blanket or something before leaving it? She got that she wasn't a good mother, what more did Mzyra want? Unless... was it really possible that whoever she'd left the child to was worse than she was? Had ditching the kid done more harm than good somehow?
She edged forward still further and the baby started crying. Should she stop getting nearer? But she wasn't at the light yet... She finally stepped into the light, right in front of the baby, and the crying turned into the blood-curdling scream and the baby disappeared as the blue ice reappeared. What was going to happen now?
Then Kimmy heard a rumbling from inside the house and she backed away, off the porch and down the front path. Suddenly something broke through the roof - a zombie mutant thing - but it's like fifteen f---ing feet tall! she gaped up at the monster as it screamed to the sky. Then it pulled out a weapon. A ten foot long sword?! It could stab me right through lengthwise! Then the monster looked down at her and stepped out of the bungalow. Ohgodohgodohgod - run away!
Kimmy ran in the opposite direction as fast as she could - the monster had to have a stride fast enough to get her if she stopped for even a second, even if it was just walking, which, from the crashes of its footsteps, it seemed content in doing. Oh god, how was she ever going to get away?
The light. The light always showed her where to go. But where was it? She couldn't just slow down to look around! But if she didn't, she could be running forever and it was bound to get annoyed and catch her eventually - it wasn't even running and she knew those things could! So she put on an extra burst of speed to get a bit further ahead, before quickly turning around to see where the light was.
What the f---? There was a light. A huge light. And she saw, as it stepped forward, that the zombie thing was all that was lit up. What did she have to do, kill it? How do you kill a fifteen foot zombie with a ten foot sword when you're only like 5'5''?!
The monster approached her slowly, drawing the very sharp sword out. No, she had no ideas, so she backed away as fast as she could, not wanting to turn her back to it, lest she be stabbed through it. For a number of minutes that was all that happened, with the monster following where she stumbled backwards, but, unless she had a plan or somewhere to go, stabbing seemed inevitable. Something would come through for her though. Something always did.
Then her foot caught on something and she tripped backwards- before cracking her head against a wall. She'd managed to walk backwards all the way to downtown, tripped on the pavement and hit her head against the wall of one of the businesses. And the monster was still there, staring down at her with glowing red eyes. She couldn't stand up; her legs were shaking too much. The zombie stood right in front of her, raised its sword-
"N-no, please!"
And stabbed her right through the stomach.
Kimmy gasped awake. Then she realised she was laid on a table in- in Mzyra's office. And Mzyra was just sat there, tapping away on her laptop, with a smile on her face.
"You complete bitch! It was just a dream?" Kimmy demanded, still slightly shaky at her apparent death.
Mzyra spun to face her in her swivel chair, still smiling. "Oh, hai Kimmy. It was a little more than a dream, but why? Would you prefer it had been real and your innards were currently flowing over the side of the Crypt O' Night club? 'Cause I could actually make that happen."
Kimmy glared at her. "I hate you."
"Yup. Before you refuse to ever speak to me again though, I believe you had questions for me?"
"Did I? Oh, right: WHAT IN THE F--- IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" she shouted.
"Hmm, that wasn't on my list, but that's an interesting question coming from somebody who murdered their own brother. I, however, have never killed anyone." Then the blonde looked contemplative, "Well, technically I suppose it's more complicated than that due to the appearance of free will in your world, which isn't all-encompassing and since there's no coding that allows murder, technically every death is my fault-"
Kimmy didn't know or understand what she was musing about, but the blonde was really pissing her off. "Oh would you just shut up?!"
Mzyra refocused. "Sorry, I get philosophical. Basically: there's nothing especially wrong with me in that situation. I know a number of people who would say that you deserved all that. Possibly more, given that it wasn't even permanent and real. Next question!"
Kimmy glared at her again. "I don't remember what I wanted to ask. I'm too angry."
"Okay, shall we go bit by bit? The first thing you had to do related to Sean and when you were kids-"
"Oh yeah - what was with that?!" Kimmy demanded. "In fact, what was with all of it?!"
"Each of the five things related to somebody it was judged you had done wrong. The first one was obviously Sean, whose youth you persistently ruined by undermining his self-esteem with your bullying and teasing."
Kimmy felt herself get defensive. "He was okay in the end, wasn't he? I saw his house with the piano and the portraits and everything - what's he got to complain about?!"
"Well nothing, put like that. But firstly, you can never get your childhood back to live again, so you ruined most of that forever. And secondly, it needed to be put like that. Knowing that your life worked out so much worse than his would bring Sean a lot of satisfaction. Especially with you having to acknowledge it too," Mzyra said with a slightly malevolent smile. "That is the retribution Sean would be satisfied with."
"I knew I hated him for a reason. If I see him again I am going to cause him so much pain for that," she grumbled.
"You will, and you won't. There's an afterlife, but villains are... second-class citizens, let's say." Mzyra smiled brightly as Kimmy frowned. "Anyway, the next thing was in Three Lakes..."
"If what I did for Sean was Sean's retribution, was that Terry's? Or Marina's?" she guessed, annoyance still clear in her voice.
Mzyra hesitated. "Nnnnot reeeeally. Don't get me wrong; I daresay Marina would have been quite satisfied with what happened there," she said with a smile, "but that was more my punishment for you. And maybe that of my friends, who aren't largely that keen on you either. Not that you're off my hook yet, it was just entertaining and making a point."
"'Entertaining'? I was almost torn apart by zombies, and you think I'm evil?!" Mzyra just smiled and said nothing. "And hang on a second - those zombies could have gotten Terry, how could you let that happen if you like him so much?" she demanded.
Mzyra tried to suppress the smile. "That was just a liiiittle bit of a lie, actually. Terry was never in danger, but you needed to believe that he was."
"You bitch!" Kimmy said, and threw a box of chocolates that was on the table at her. "Hang on, was Tom in any danger with the fourth one either?"
"Umm, not exactly," Mzyra said thoughtfully, eating the chocolates she'd happily caught. "That zombie was always going to kill you before turning on him, and, since the whole thing was about you anyway, once you died everything stopped. Had he suddenly gone crazy or something and tried to save you from it, it probably would have gone through him to get to you, but then it was only a representation of Tom anyway... Hmm, philosophy is hard. Basically, no, not really. No more danger than you were in anyway."
Kimmy lost her temper. "Okay, look, all this was to teach me something, right? Just tell me what it was."
"Okay, all of them were for a certain amount of retribution on behalf of different groups. Sean wanted you to suffer for what you did to him and to acknowledge that, in the end, he did a hell of a lot better than you did."
"Bastard," Kimmy muttered.
"But he got pretty much everything he wanted and none of his children killed him, did they?"
Kimmy just repeated herself with her arms crossed.
"Then there was... let's call us 'the audience' - it was my idea and an interesting irony that you'd actually have to protect Terry for once, ensuring somebody else's survival for your own, and having to depend on Marina and Sean to save you in turn," she said, gazing at her contemplatively. "You're not redeemed by it because I know you haven't changed, but at least you know what you did was wrong."
Kimmy just glared at her silently for a while. "So that's why Terry got two things."
"The audience does love Terry. I recall the word 'adorabubble' being used on more than one occasion," she smiled slightly. "It's also why the two things for Terry were very different. I gave you a message in words you'd understand."
"Being torn apart by zombies?"
"Equals bad, yes."
"I didn't understand the third one," she frowned.
"You say that like you understand it now," Mzyra said, raising an eyebrow.
"A hug?" Kimmy asked. "I don't like hugging anybody, especially Terry, but... in comparison to death by zombies... If that was Terry's retribution, he massively overestimated how much that would hurt me. What, does he think I'm like the Wicked Witch of the West and hugs are my equivalent of water?"
"You really don't understand Terry at all, do you?" Mzyra pondered.
"Does he understand me?" Kimmy said defensively.
"Better than you understand him," she said, eyebrows raised. "Retribution is entirely the wrong word for what that hug was. I could explain, except... you will see Terry again one day and I think he'd rather explain to you, face-to-face."
"So does Terry know about all this?" she said frowning.
"Oh no - not at all - but that was what he'd have wanted and, when told about it, he'll know exactly why and be able to explain it." Mzyra went silent and seemed to drift off into her thoughts with a soft expression.
All it did was annoy Kimmy again. "So the fourth one?"
"Hm? Oh right, yeah, Tom." Mzyra frowned, "That did have some of my influence in it because I'm sure Tom wouldn't want to admit how badly you affected him, but it was accurate to how he's felt since he killed you. But equally I'm sure he wouldn't mind you being beaten to death by a zombie for killing Terry. He doesn't much care that you were a crap parent to him, but he'd like you to regret ever laying a single hand or saying a single insult to Terry, nevermind killing him. Knowing that you're unlikely to properly regret your actions for a long time, having to talk Tom 'round in order to save yourself was my influence again."
"Who says I'm ever going to regret what I did?" Kimmy asked stubbornly.
"You acknowledged you might have been wrong in keeping him when you didn't care and Terry did. You know that you misjudged Terry in at least one respect and that, had you made a different decision, everybody might have been happier."
"I didn't say I was sorry," she glared.
"No," Mzyra conceded, "however the revelation and acknowledgment that you're not always right is an important one to somebody as self-assured as you. Thinking twice, especially where other people are concerned, could really help you and everyone else a lot."
"... I'm right most of the time. More than most people are," she insisted.
"If that's what you must tell yourself," Mzyra replied with a pleasant smile.
Kimmy glared before remembering what was really annoying her. "So hang on, if Tom's thing was all about how he'd have been better off if I'd given him up, why was I punished in the fifth one for giving up the other kid?!"
"Okay firstly, you wouldn't have needed to give up Tom if you hadn't been abusive and then murderous to Terry. They could have both lived with you relatively happily until they left when Tom became an adult or went to uni without all of this hassle. And secondly, who do you think was behind the fifth punishment?" she asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
"Well... the kid? Or, oh don't tell me, you again?" Kimmy glared.
"'The kid' as you call him, has no idea who you are, nor the circumstances behind his abandonment; he has nothing against you really. And all I did was translate for somebody else," she said cryptically with a smirk.
"I don't know! His adoptive parents? Is he all 'evil' too?"
"No, he's perfectly lovely," Mzyra said with a smile. "He's been adopted by a nice lesbian couple, is doing well in school and has a massive crush on one of his best friends. He probably is doing a lot better than he ever could have done with you as a mother. At least at the moment."
"So why am I being punished for it?!" she yelled.
"Because you didn't know that!" Mzyra laughed.
"What do you- Oh, you are not saying that-"
"It was you behind that one," Mzyra affirmed.
"Why would I want to kill myself with a ten foot sword for some kid I don't know or care about?!" Kimmy demanded. "I love myself - I'm better than everyone else!"
Mzyra smiled at her deviously. "You know that you don't have proper morals like other people do though. You don't naturally police yourself, but over the years you've gotten used to other people interfering - stopping you when they can, or punishing you when they're too late to prevent it. You're not stupid; you observe the patterns and you know when something you do is likely to get you in trouble because other people wouldn't do them. This knowledge doesn't stop you from doing what you want, it just makes you more cautious.
Remember when you've been surprised throughout the course of this - you were surprised by the hug because you knew to expect worse than that for what you did, and you were surprised by Tom's punishment because you thought you'd already been punished enough. You didn't know enough about the people and the circumstances in order to guess what would happen.
Now, coming back to the child abandonment - you realise that you don't know anything about any of the people involved, nor the circumstances any of them are in now, but you do know that most mothers don't give up their children on random people's doorsteps - or at least not without significant emotional trauma - and you can only imagine what might have happened since. And you have a very dark imagination based on the principle of 'What would I do in that situation?'. You expect that something is bad there and that somebody wants to punish you for it because abandoning a child isn't normally good. You don't know who, and you don't know what, but until you do know, you fill in that gap and you've filled it a lot worse than it should be. And you can't escape your own judgement unless someone or something changes your mind, so that one managed to kill you."
"So that was all me?" Kimmy frowned at the floor in puzzlement. "...But you said that the kid's fine, right? I was right to leave him?"
Mzyra looked pained. "Prrrrobably, yes. It tends to be complicated, but, for the sake of argument, yes."
"Nobody would punish me for that?"
"Nah, they'd probably let you off on that, given the other things you've done especially," Mzyra shrugged.
"So... what was I supposed to learn from this then? I guess I'm going back to the apocalypse still, but if all I've learnt is that I shouldn't have kids, I don't see how I'm supposed to do that challenge."
"The lesson isn't that you shouldn't have kids, Kimmy," Mzyra said, rolling her eyes. "Lesson 1: the things you do affect people, especially your children, a lot. Think before you act. Lesson 2: don't assume that everything you do or think is right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong - you might be right and they might be wrong, but it's not a given. Lesson 3: you might need people later, don't go around bullying everyone and destroying their lives on purpose. Lesson 4-"
"How many of these are there?" she groaned.
"As many as I can think of. Lesson 4 - and I know this is a hard one for you: given lessons 1 and 3, try empathising with people and then, using your ability to affect people, make their lives better. That is actually what we call being good."
"I'm not interested," she said, deadpan.
Mzyra sighed. "No, I didn't think you would be. But, at the least, be aware of lesson 5: we will see the bad things you do and you will suffer for them. There is no escape. You don't have to be good, but you don't want to be bad."
"...I'll think about it," she said, inspecting her fingernails nonchalantly. Then she frowned, "You said I was going to see Terry again?"
"Yes, when you die."
"One: who says I'm ever going to die again?"
"Everybody dies, Kimmy." Mzyra said, rolling her eyes.
"And two: where is he now then?"
"He's starting a wonderful happy family in a land of rainbows and unicorns and where dreams come true," she said with a smile.
"Unicorns?" Kimmy asked sceptically.
"Well, maybe not quite that magical and everything, but where you're being punished, he's being rewarded."
"Typical," she muttered. "So can I go now, or are you not done torturing me yet?"
"Yup, but there are two more things you should know. Lesson 6: you already said that the apocalypse is easy and not scary; you should know that you probably deserve a whole lot worse than you're getting. And 7: as you may have noticed, I am fully capable of giving you a whole lot worse. Be thankful for what you have and try to make amends."
Kimmy rolled her eyes, but gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. "Can I go now?"
"You can," Mzyra said with a knowledge and started up the teleportation back.
"You're still a bitch!" Kimmy shouted at her gleefully before she disappeared.
Mzyra laughed and shook her head before turning back to the legacy and picking up another chocolate. You're going to be very useful one day, Kimmy Ryman, just you wait and see...
As Kimmy got outside, through the smashed doors, she noticed the house morph back to normal in front of her eyes, before freezing over so she couldn't re-enter. At least that was definitely over with then. Now what?
Squinting through the snow that was falling again, she saw the familiar old guiding light off to her right, away from her old house. It looked like it might be a whole new location this time, so she set off down what she could follow of the pavement, trudging through the snow.
It was only about a half hour walk before Kimmy was stood in front of the newest location - a little bungalow. What was going on? She'd never lived there, she didn't even rec- Wait. No, this was- This was the house she'd left the baby at.
Hang the f--- on, she thought angrily, this wasn't fair! She'd just suffered for what happened when she was involved in one of her children's lives, surely giving up a child was an act of kindness for her? She walked forwards slightly to where the light was specifically shining - there was a recreation of the child itself, lying on the porch. So what, she should have given it a blanket or something before leaving it? She got that she wasn't a good mother, what more did Mzyra want? Unless... was it really possible that whoever she'd left the child to was worse than she was? Had ditching the kid done more harm than good somehow?
She edged forward still further and the baby started crying. Should she stop getting nearer? But she wasn't at the light yet... She finally stepped into the light, right in front of the baby, and the crying turned into the blood-curdling scream and the baby disappeared as the blue ice reappeared. What was going to happen now?
Then Kimmy heard a rumbling from inside the house and she backed away, off the porch and down the front path. Suddenly something broke through the roof - a zombie mutant thing - but it's like fifteen f---ing feet tall! she gaped up at the monster as it screamed to the sky. Then it pulled out a weapon. A ten foot long sword?! It could stab me right through lengthwise! Then the monster looked down at her and stepped out of the bungalow. Ohgodohgodohgod - run away!
Kimmy ran in the opposite direction as fast as she could - the monster had to have a stride fast enough to get her if she stopped for even a second, even if it was just walking, which, from the crashes of its footsteps, it seemed content in doing. Oh god, how was she ever going to get away?
The light. The light always showed her where to go. But where was it? She couldn't just slow down to look around! But if she didn't, she could be running forever and it was bound to get annoyed and catch her eventually - it wasn't even running and she knew those things could! So she put on an extra burst of speed to get a bit further ahead, before quickly turning around to see where the light was.
What the f---? There was a light. A huge light. And she saw, as it stepped forward, that the zombie thing was all that was lit up. What did she have to do, kill it? How do you kill a fifteen foot zombie with a ten foot sword when you're only like 5'5''?!
The monster approached her slowly, drawing the very sharp sword out. No, she had no ideas, so she backed away as fast as she could, not wanting to turn her back to it, lest she be stabbed through it. For a number of minutes that was all that happened, with the monster following where she stumbled backwards, but, unless she had a plan or somewhere to go, stabbing seemed inevitable. Something would come through for her though. Something always did.
Then her foot caught on something and she tripped backwards- before cracking her head against a wall. She'd managed to walk backwards all the way to downtown, tripped on the pavement and hit her head against the wall of one of the businesses. And the monster was still there, staring down at her with glowing red eyes. She couldn't stand up; her legs were shaking too much. The zombie stood right in front of her, raised its sword-
"N-no, please!"
And stabbed her right through the stomach.
Kimmy gasped awake. Then she realised she was laid on a table in- in Mzyra's office. And Mzyra was just sat there, tapping away on her laptop, with a smile on her face.
"You complete bitch! It was just a dream?" Kimmy demanded, still slightly shaky at her apparent death.
Mzyra spun to face her in her swivel chair, still smiling. "Oh, hai Kimmy. It was a little more than a dream, but why? Would you prefer it had been real and your innards were currently flowing over the side of the Crypt O' Night club? 'Cause I could actually make that happen."
Kimmy glared at her. "I hate you."
"Yup. Before you refuse to ever speak to me again though, I believe you had questions for me?"
"Did I? Oh, right: WHAT IN THE F--- IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" she shouted.
"Hmm, that wasn't on my list, but that's an interesting question coming from somebody who murdered their own brother. I, however, have never killed anyone." Then the blonde looked contemplative, "Well, technically I suppose it's more complicated than that due to the appearance of free will in your world, which isn't all-encompassing and since there's no coding that allows murder, technically every death is my fault-"
Kimmy didn't know or understand what she was musing about, but the blonde was really pissing her off. "Oh would you just shut up?!"
Mzyra refocused. "Sorry, I get philosophical. Basically: there's nothing especially wrong with me in that situation. I know a number of people who would say that you deserved all that. Possibly more, given that it wasn't even permanent and real. Next question!"
Kimmy glared at her again. "I don't remember what I wanted to ask. I'm too angry."
"Okay, shall we go bit by bit? The first thing you had to do related to Sean and when you were kids-"
"Oh yeah - what was with that?!" Kimmy demanded. "In fact, what was with all of it?!"
"Each of the five things related to somebody it was judged you had done wrong. The first one was obviously Sean, whose youth you persistently ruined by undermining his self-esteem with your bullying and teasing."
Kimmy felt herself get defensive. "He was okay in the end, wasn't he? I saw his house with the piano and the portraits and everything - what's he got to complain about?!"
"Well nothing, put like that. But firstly, you can never get your childhood back to live again, so you ruined most of that forever. And secondly, it needed to be put like that. Knowing that your life worked out so much worse than his would bring Sean a lot of satisfaction. Especially with you having to acknowledge it too," Mzyra said with a slightly malevolent smile. "That is the retribution Sean would be satisfied with."
"I knew I hated him for a reason. If I see him again I am going to cause him so much pain for that," she grumbled.
"You will, and you won't. There's an afterlife, but villains are... second-class citizens, let's say." Mzyra smiled brightly as Kimmy frowned. "Anyway, the next thing was in Three Lakes..."
"If what I did for Sean was Sean's retribution, was that Terry's? Or Marina's?" she guessed, annoyance still clear in her voice.
Mzyra hesitated. "Nnnnot reeeeally. Don't get me wrong; I daresay Marina would have been quite satisfied with what happened there," she said with a smile, "but that was more my punishment for you. And maybe that of my friends, who aren't largely that keen on you either. Not that you're off my hook yet, it was just entertaining and making a point."
"'Entertaining'? I was almost torn apart by zombies, and you think I'm evil?!" Mzyra just smiled and said nothing. "And hang on a second - those zombies could have gotten Terry, how could you let that happen if you like him so much?" she demanded.
Mzyra tried to suppress the smile. "That was just a liiiittle bit of a lie, actually. Terry was never in danger, but you needed to believe that he was."
"You bitch!" Kimmy said, and threw a box of chocolates that was on the table at her. "Hang on, was Tom in any danger with the fourth one either?"
"Umm, not exactly," Mzyra said thoughtfully, eating the chocolates she'd happily caught. "That zombie was always going to kill you before turning on him, and, since the whole thing was about you anyway, once you died everything stopped. Had he suddenly gone crazy or something and tried to save you from it, it probably would have gone through him to get to you, but then it was only a representation of Tom anyway... Hmm, philosophy is hard. Basically, no, not really. No more danger than you were in anyway."
Kimmy lost her temper. "Okay, look, all this was to teach me something, right? Just tell me what it was."
"Okay, all of them were for a certain amount of retribution on behalf of different groups. Sean wanted you to suffer for what you did to him and to acknowledge that, in the end, he did a hell of a lot better than you did."
"Bastard," Kimmy muttered.
"But he got pretty much everything he wanted and none of his children killed him, did they?"
Kimmy just repeated herself with her arms crossed.
"Then there was... let's call us 'the audience' - it was my idea and an interesting irony that you'd actually have to protect Terry for once, ensuring somebody else's survival for your own, and having to depend on Marina and Sean to save you in turn," she said, gazing at her contemplatively. "You're not redeemed by it because I know you haven't changed, but at least you know what you did was wrong."
Kimmy just glared at her silently for a while. "So that's why Terry got two things."
"The audience does love Terry. I recall the word 'adorabubble' being used on more than one occasion," she smiled slightly. "It's also why the two things for Terry were very different. I gave you a message in words you'd understand."
"Being torn apart by zombies?"
"Equals bad, yes."
"I didn't understand the third one," she frowned.
"You say that like you understand it now," Mzyra said, raising an eyebrow.
"A hug?" Kimmy asked. "I don't like hugging anybody, especially Terry, but... in comparison to death by zombies... If that was Terry's retribution, he massively overestimated how much that would hurt me. What, does he think I'm like the Wicked Witch of the West and hugs are my equivalent of water?"
"You really don't understand Terry at all, do you?" Mzyra pondered.
"Does he understand me?" Kimmy said defensively.
"Better than you understand him," she said, eyebrows raised. "Retribution is entirely the wrong word for what that hug was. I could explain, except... you will see Terry again one day and I think he'd rather explain to you, face-to-face."
"So does Terry know about all this?" she said frowning.
"Oh no - not at all - but that was what he'd have wanted and, when told about it, he'll know exactly why and be able to explain it." Mzyra went silent and seemed to drift off into her thoughts with a soft expression.
All it did was annoy Kimmy again. "So the fourth one?"
"Hm? Oh right, yeah, Tom." Mzyra frowned, "That did have some of my influence in it because I'm sure Tom wouldn't want to admit how badly you affected him, but it was accurate to how he's felt since he killed you. But equally I'm sure he wouldn't mind you being beaten to death by a zombie for killing Terry. He doesn't much care that you were a crap parent to him, but he'd like you to regret ever laying a single hand or saying a single insult to Terry, nevermind killing him. Knowing that you're unlikely to properly regret your actions for a long time, having to talk Tom 'round in order to save yourself was my influence again."
"Who says I'm ever going to regret what I did?" Kimmy asked stubbornly.
"You acknowledged you might have been wrong in keeping him when you didn't care and Terry did. You know that you misjudged Terry in at least one respect and that, had you made a different decision, everybody might have been happier."
"I didn't say I was sorry," she glared.
"No," Mzyra conceded, "however the revelation and acknowledgment that you're not always right is an important one to somebody as self-assured as you. Thinking twice, especially where other people are concerned, could really help you and everyone else a lot."
"... I'm right most of the time. More than most people are," she insisted.
"If that's what you must tell yourself," Mzyra replied with a pleasant smile.
Kimmy glared before remembering what was really annoying her. "So hang on, if Tom's thing was all about how he'd have been better off if I'd given him up, why was I punished in the fifth one for giving up the other kid?!"
"Okay firstly, you wouldn't have needed to give up Tom if you hadn't been abusive and then murderous to Terry. They could have both lived with you relatively happily until they left when Tom became an adult or went to uni without all of this hassle. And secondly, who do you think was behind the fifth punishment?" she asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
"Well... the kid? Or, oh don't tell me, you again?" Kimmy glared.
"'The kid' as you call him, has no idea who you are, nor the circumstances behind his abandonment; he has nothing against you really. And all I did was translate for somebody else," she said cryptically with a smirk.
"I don't know! His adoptive parents? Is he all 'evil' too?"
"No, he's perfectly lovely," Mzyra said with a smile. "He's been adopted by a nice lesbian couple, is doing well in school and has a massive crush on one of his best friends. He probably is doing a lot better than he ever could have done with you as a mother. At least at the moment."
"So why am I being punished for it?!" she yelled.
"Because you didn't know that!" Mzyra laughed.
"What do you- Oh, you are not saying that-"
"It was you behind that one," Mzyra affirmed.
"Why would I want to kill myself with a ten foot sword for some kid I don't know or care about?!" Kimmy demanded. "I love myself - I'm better than everyone else!"
Mzyra smiled at her deviously. "You know that you don't have proper morals like other people do though. You don't naturally police yourself, but over the years you've gotten used to other people interfering - stopping you when they can, or punishing you when they're too late to prevent it. You're not stupid; you observe the patterns and you know when something you do is likely to get you in trouble because other people wouldn't do them. This knowledge doesn't stop you from doing what you want, it just makes you more cautious.
Remember when you've been surprised throughout the course of this - you were surprised by the hug because you knew to expect worse than that for what you did, and you were surprised by Tom's punishment because you thought you'd already been punished enough. You didn't know enough about the people and the circumstances in order to guess what would happen.
Now, coming back to the child abandonment - you realise that you don't know anything about any of the people involved, nor the circumstances any of them are in now, but you do know that most mothers don't give up their children on random people's doorsteps - or at least not without significant emotional trauma - and you can only imagine what might have happened since. And you have a very dark imagination based on the principle of 'What would I do in that situation?'. You expect that something is bad there and that somebody wants to punish you for it because abandoning a child isn't normally good. You don't know who, and you don't know what, but until you do know, you fill in that gap and you've filled it a lot worse than it should be. And you can't escape your own judgement unless someone or something changes your mind, so that one managed to kill you."
"So that was all me?" Kimmy frowned at the floor in puzzlement. "...But you said that the kid's fine, right? I was right to leave him?"
Mzyra looked pained. "Prrrrobably, yes. It tends to be complicated, but, for the sake of argument, yes."
"Nobody would punish me for that?"
"Nah, they'd probably let you off on that, given the other things you've done especially," Mzyra shrugged.
"So... what was I supposed to learn from this then? I guess I'm going back to the apocalypse still, but if all I've learnt is that I shouldn't have kids, I don't see how I'm supposed to do that challenge."
"The lesson isn't that you shouldn't have kids, Kimmy," Mzyra said, rolling her eyes. "Lesson 1: the things you do affect people, especially your children, a lot. Think before you act. Lesson 2: don't assume that everything you do or think is right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong - you might be right and they might be wrong, but it's not a given. Lesson 3: you might need people later, don't go around bullying everyone and destroying their lives on purpose. Lesson 4-"
"How many of these are there?" she groaned.
"As many as I can think of. Lesson 4 - and I know this is a hard one for you: given lessons 1 and 3, try empathising with people and then, using your ability to affect people, make their lives better. That is actually what we call being good."
"I'm not interested," she said, deadpan.
Mzyra sighed. "No, I didn't think you would be. But, at the least, be aware of lesson 5: we will see the bad things you do and you will suffer for them. There is no escape. You don't have to be good, but you don't want to be bad."
"...I'll think about it," she said, inspecting her fingernails nonchalantly. Then she frowned, "You said I was going to see Terry again?"
"Yes, when you die."
"One: who says I'm ever going to die again?"
"Everybody dies, Kimmy." Mzyra said, rolling her eyes.
"And two: where is he now then?"
"He's starting a wonderful happy family in a land of rainbows and unicorns and where dreams come true," she said with a smile.
"Unicorns?" Kimmy asked sceptically.
"Well, maybe not quite that magical and everything, but where you're being punished, he's being rewarded."
"Typical," she muttered. "So can I go now, or are you not done torturing me yet?"
"Yup, but there are two more things you should know. Lesson 6: you already said that the apocalypse is easy and not scary; you should know that you probably deserve a whole lot worse than you're getting. And 7: as you may have noticed, I am fully capable of giving you a whole lot worse. Be thankful for what you have and try to make amends."
Kimmy rolled her eyes, but gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. "Can I go now?"
"You can," Mzyra said with a knowledge and started up the teleportation back.
"You're still a bitch!" Kimmy shouted at her gleefully before she disappeared.
Mzyra laughed and shook her head before turning back to the legacy and picking up another chocolate. You're going to be very useful one day, Kimmy Ryman, just you wait and see...