Oops, I'm a senior. *panics* Oh well, here's more story.

THEN

*badass classic rock music plays (probably "Wheel In The Sky" by Journey)*

"What are we even doing, Egon?" Jennifer said in desperation.

"We're busting ghosts," Egon answered.

"Yeah! And you know who does that? Crazy people!" Jennifer yelled. "We…are insane!"

"I went back in time and prevented my daughter from being born," said Jennifer, distressed. "I killed her and I set Armageddon free."

*depictions of Jennifer killing Skinheads, Egon kissing Oracle, Jennifer shooting a gun, and Egon disappearing*

"I think the Jennifer Spengler story sucks," Jennifer said angrily. "It is not fun. It is not entertaining. It is a river of crap that would send most people howling to the nut house! So you listen to me. Her pain is not for your amusement. I mean, do you think she enjoys being treated like...like a circus freak?!" She stomped away.

"Er…she takes the fan fiction really seriously," said Egon awkwardly.

"Tomorrow, we hunt Armageddon," said Oracle. "This is our last night on Earth."

*all the cast slowly turns to the audience*

Jennifer coughed. "Supernatural parody…okay. Let's get on with this."

NOW

My world is spiraling out of control. My heart is pounding at a thousand miles an hour, and I can't feel my own body. Is any of this real? I don't know.

The first thing that came out of my mouth was, "But why didn't his glasses disappear?"

Oracle was giving me a dubious look from underneath her hood. "You really need to readjust your priorities."

I slowly looked up at her. "Don't you dare speak to me," I growled. "You knew this would happen. Didn't you?!"

"Yes."

"And you never said anything?!" My voice was getting all squeaky and ridiculous, but I didn't care.

"What good would it have done?" Oracle said, infuriatingly calm.

I seethed at her. "My friends. My daughter. And now my husband. They're all dead! Or worse. But I suppose that's irrelevant, huh?" I got all up in her shrouded face. "I'm done here. Without Alice or Egon, there's nothing left for me."

"You said you hated him," Oracle pointed out.

The words felt like a rusty knife, being shoved into my midsection and twisted. "I…I didn't mean it," I choked.

"Then why would you say it?"

"Because I'm angry!" I shouted, blinking back tears. "Don't you ever say things you don't mean when you're angry?"

"No."

I laughed, even though at the moment, I found nothing funny. "Oh no, of course not. You know why that is? Because you're a lifeless, cold hearted, psychotic bitch! All you do is sit in your little room and read while these children you're supposed to taking care of are out there fighting for their lives! You've never had children! You wouldn't understand."

"And how," she hissed, "could you possibly know that?"

"Because if you lost a child like I have, then you would understand," I said. "You would know the incapacitating heartache. It's like the sun is extinguished. Everything is cold and dark and dead. And now the only thing that was keeping me from coming completely unglued-!" I held up Egon's glasses for emphasis. "-is gone!"

I turned away. "I need him," I said, choking on tears. "I love him."

There was a moment of silence, and then, I heard her say, "You don't think I loved him either?"

I turned around.

She was staring at me, teardrops pooling in her blue eyes like lakes. Her short, ash blonde bob was mussed after being underneath that hoodie. She had dark rings under her eyes, and her skin was deathly pale from being in the dark all the time.

My mouth fell open. "But…how?"

She stared at me, jaw set. "I knew what you were. From the moment you stepped out of that neuron splitter, I knew exactly what you were. You were the woman I met all those years ago. The one who told me to marry Egon. The woman who unknowingly caused all this." She waved her hand around at the cell. "She was me."

I was looking at myself.

Oracle was me.

"If anything," she said, taking off that wretched hoodie and throwing it on the ground to reveal just a plain white tee shirt. "I loved him more. Because I loved him longer than you did. You…I'm assuming…married that cheating jackass, and had a daughter with him. You didn't fall in love with Egon until, what, two years ago? That's just about when I lost him. Kind of poetic, don't you think?"

"But…they said I…you…died," I said, slowly.

The other Jennifer looked at me with old, sad eyes. Eyes I was only starting to empathize with. "Jennifer Spengler did die," she said. "The person I was was destroyed on Black Wednesday by grief. Peter, Ray, Winston, even the love of her life…they were all killed before her very eyes. The only reason I stand before you today is because my son bargained with that monster."

"You had a son?"

"Yes," whispered Oracle. "And I loved him. As much as you love your Alice."

"And he's…dead?"

Oracle shook her head. "Oh no. He's very much alive. His fate was so much worse."

I made the connection. "Armageddon. He called you 'Mommy'. That man…he's-?"

"Armageddon needed a living vessel," said Oracle, her face so broken I felt like rushing over to be ready to pick up the pieces. "A willing vessel. He wanted my son. My Patrick. He was so brave. He said he'd consent if Armageddon let his parents live. But Armageddon said no. He'd spare one of us." A tear streaked down her face as she looked at me. "Who do you think he chose?"

"That's…terrible-"

"So don't you ever," she said, her eyes flaring up as she looked me, "EVER insinuate that I don't understand. You've been alone for twenty minutes. I've been alone for twenty years."

And it's all your fault, she was thinking. She didn't have to say it. I knew. Because I'd blame me, too. I did blame me.

"So you're me," I said. "You're me without my Egon."

"You've always been so dependent on those you love," said Oracle. "Of course you'd go crazy without them. But you can fix it, Jennifer. Don't you see? It was always you. Not Egon, not even me. You."

A part of me, the one I always ignore, wanted to just lay down, curl up into a ball, and cry until I could pretend my problems didn't exist. Which I suspected Oracle had done the first week after she'd lost Egon and Patrick. But my brother Theo taught me, when I was eight and was dealing with a bully at school, that crying got you nowhere in life. When the world is unfair to you, you don't get sad. You get angry.

Which is exactly what I did.

I closed my eyes. My jaw was set; my fists, clenched. "Why...why is it always me?"

Oracle said nothing.

"Gozer the Destroyer," I muttered, breaths coming out in fuming puffs from my nostrils, like a raging bull. "Vigo the Carpathian. And now, Armageddon. Again. Every apocalyptic monster...every malicious god...they all come here with their plans of world domination and destruction, and somehow, inevitably, they always hinge on me!"

I slammed my fist against the wall. Angry couldn't even begin to describe the way I was feeling right now. Wouldn't Theo be so proud?

"It wasn't supposed to be like this! I could've stayed in Texas, married the son of some rich oil baron, had 2.5 little blonde babies, and raised purebred Pomeranians. But no! I just had to get away from there, get away from my overbearing parents. I just had to have the life of adventure, in the great big, wonderful city of New York! I was cursed from the moment I stepped foot in Peter Venkman's classroom, the instant I entered Hook And Ladder #8, the first time I kissed Egon Spengler. I was doomed from the very start. Oh, Oracle, if only I had known. I would have used that damn time machine to go back and knock some sense into an eighteen year-old me's head! They took my family, they took my child, they've taken my husband, and now they're taking my future! Why! Is it! Always! ME!"

Wham! A brick flew out of the stone wall of the cell. With my angry pounding, with strength I didn't know I possessed, I had somehow knocked it out.

"I..." I turned, shaking slightly, to the other woman. "I didn't mean to-"

"I think," she cut me off, staring at the hole in the wall, "that we have just found our way out."

She began smacking at the surrounding bricks, attempting to widen the hole.

I watched as she did so. "You knew that would happen, didn't you?"

"Naturally."