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Like my brother I hurled myself across the room. I wasn’t fast enough to save the student who Professor Medea knocked out of the window, but I was fast enough to tumble into the professor herself.

I heard a tight gasp as I knocked the wind out of her. I swept the revolver out of her hand, then fumbled my fingers on the knives hooked to her belt, trying to unfasten and toss them away.

“What do you think you’re doing!” Professor Medea screamed. “Get off me!”

I held on, even as the black mold squirmed beneath my palms. As the professor struggled, her body tossed charcoal pollen towards my face. I held my breath, blinked back the particles and focused on ripping the serrated edge knife off her belt.

“I’m doing this all for him!” Professor Medea shrieked. “It’s for your brother! For all the people who dragged his reputation through the mud!”

“Stop lying!” I yelled, clenching my teeth as she clawed at my cheeks and pressed a palm to my throat. “You don’t care about that at all!”

Professor Medea stopped moving. It was so sudden and unexpected that I also paused my hands scavenging around the knot holding her knives together.

In place of a struggle, Professor Andrea Medea started to laugh. She doubled over, jabbed my ribs hard with her flailing knees. She clenched her stomach and through her salivating mouth she exhaled sooty fumes like the exhaust of a tailpipe.

“That’s right,” she cackled. “What do you think happened when they found out my boyfriend was a mass murderer? How much do you think I suffered? Did anyone think about me at all? Who else could take me in but the cult that he himself founded? Ironic isn’t it, that now I do everything again in his name?”

Before I could respond, the blunt wooden edge of heels slammed into my right cheek. I collapsed backwards and tasted heavy copper. The ceiling spun counter clockwise. The great eye outside shivered then blinked. Valerie leaned forward and picked me up by my collar.

“Thank you for volunteering,” the president of the film club smiled. “You can be the next one to go.”

“She can’t be the next one,” the girl with the bruised eye spoke. “I won’t let you.”

“The only order that matters is ours, Natasha,” Valerie said. “The unworthy prove themselves, and then the rest of us all go together. That was the plan.”

“No, she goes with us,” the girl said, more firmly this time.

“What’s gotten into you Natasha?” Valerie scoffed. “This is the fate of the world we’re talking about here. You’re going to jeopardize all of it over one person?”

“The fate of the world,” the girl with the bruised eye murmured and repeated. “Tell me, Valerie. Were you really going to go with me?”

“What?” Valerie snorted. “That’s the whole point of the Cult of the Electromagnetic Man. Of course I’m going. How else are we supposed to reach the world beyond deskny?”

“I’m starting to think, or maybe I always knew, that this was just another one of your cruel pranks,” Natasha shook her head. “How have we proved that we’re worthy, Valerie?”

“We’ve watched Apocalypse Anew, of course,” Valerie replied.

“But none of us have had to pass the trial of deskny. Why is that?”

“Because we all heard the electromagnetic waves, of course.”

“And what did they sound like?”

“They sounded…”

“Before you answer,” the girl with the black eye turned to the girl with the denim shorts. “Candace. Do you know what the electromagnetic waves sounded like? How about we all answer at the same time? Right now. If we all watched Apocalypse Anew, surely we would have the same answer, wouldn’t we?”

“You haven’t been following the percepts of the Electromagnetic Man,” Valerie snarled. “It’s possible that our parallel experiences across our own worlds causes us to hear different registers of electromagnetic waves.”

“Y-yeah!” stammered the girl with the blue denim shorts. “What Val said!”

“If no objective sound of electromagnetic waves exists,” the girl with the bruised eye said, “then surely you’ve had no right to judge the responses of the other candidates by forcing them to take the trial, wouldn’t you agree, Professor Medea?”

Professor Medea crawled on all fours to grab one of the cleavers that I had flung aside. The mold on her face bulged then rested. Though all that was there physically was the presence of fungus spread like a splash of paint, I could sense a restless daze beyond the splotches covering her eyes.

“Yes,” Professor Medea drawled as she stood up. “I suppose that’s true, now that you mention it. Per the actual creed of the Cult of the Electromagnetic Man, you lot should be jumping as well? Unless you can tell me what you really heard, exactly?”

“We heard the waves,” Valerie said.

“If you heard the waves, then you’ll pass deskny’s trial,” Professor Medea grinned. “Go on. Valerie. Why don’t you lead the film club by example?”

“You can’t force me,” Valerie gasped. “You know what secrets I’ll tell the others, Andrea.”

“Who the fuck cares anymore!” Professor Medea shrieked. “Look around you. Unless they’re stupid, everyone here knows it was me now, don’t they? Yes. All of you. Listen up! It was me! I pushed them. I pushed all of them off the roofs! And I’ll push you too Valerie!”

Professor Medea charged at Valerie with her cleaver raised high over her head. The girl in the sundress screamed and skidded backwards only to find herself stuck at the edge of the open window.

The film club members turned their faceless faces toward each other then made a mad dash to stop their advisor, leaving the exits undefended. The crowded students burst in a panic and made for the door, trampling and shoving to squeeze through both doors.

“I’ll push you, Valerie!” Professor Medea screamed. “I’ll push all of you off!”

A sea of hands wrenched the cleaver out of the professor’s hands. Professor Medea responded by sliding her fungal fingers around Valerie’s throat and clenched. Gurgled gasps left Valerie’s lips. The professor then threw the full weight of her stalk against the wall.

The great eye of black mold beyond the window watched and blinked. I saw a visible vibration echo forth from the flap of its eyelids. Deskny crossed the length of the sky and the length of campus and resonated with the foundations of the dilapidated Bergerac Building.

An assortment of nuts, bolts, and supports came loose all at once. The foundations could not hold. Aluminum sheets crackled. The televisions and radios whined then snapped off.

The window of the film club room dislodged from the walls. From the sky came a wondrous wail, and Valerie, Professor Medea, and the rest of the film club tumbled over the edge.