Item Unoriginal

Sarah, the stories protagonist, was originally born as a man. This was of course only the beginning of her problems as she was also born with a powerful Item. I don't know what differences the Item may have had when she was younger and had more potential timelines, but when I first knew her, she could create anything she wanted, but it would be 2D and only she could touch it. This meant that her life would be rather short, and practitioners of the field suggested she was likely to die by 13.

It was roughly during said time, that Sarah infact realised she was trans. Fears and regrets set in, as she realised there was a reason her sure to be short life was mostly an unhappy one. Luckily however, this was also the time she met Grace Manual. The two of them bonded over similar interests, and a relatively similar plight of their oncoming death. Grace, knowing she still had a few yaers, and that Sarah was likely to die very soon, decided to dedicate herself to making sure Sarah could live a happy life without regrets.

And so they played. They talked, played games and celebrated each others presence. They distracted themselves from the fear that wracked both their lives as they drew closer to death.

This was of course all ruined as one of them died.

Grace was hit by a car, and Sarah could not deal with this. She responded with fear, with despair, and with grasping for any straws of hope she could find. "No! she can't be dead!" or "I can solve this!" are the kind of things she might say. Grace was the thing keeping her sane, she was what made life worth living, and keep her manajory of reasons to hate herself. She responded by trying to get Grace back.

Sarah spent months creating a copy of Grace. Physically, it was perfect, down to the deepest cell, but Items can not control another persons agency, and Steinbeck specifically can only create 2D forms of what they create. Thus, this "Grace" was not grace, she was a superficial copy with some of the rough character traits of the real Grace, she was a different person entirely.

Sarah was in some kind of luck however, as Grace's Item, that frankly, she would never use, let her take the powers of others, with the sacrifice that she would also gain a small part of their personality. Sarah convinced "Grace" to copy part of Sarah herself, and Sarah was able to thusly manipulate "Grace" into her desperate grab to get Grace back. These people included myself, Eliot, Aleta (and by consequence Destiny), and Kaira.

This still did not work.

Sarah fell into despair, only to find another final hope to grasp desperately too. "Isn't a story great", she might say "Things always work out in the end" she might continue.

She then set "Grace" on a mission to create a world for Sarah to have her own story, so that she may be happy in her final moments, with the people most like grace she knew, she would try and live through a story of happiness and of beating a great enemy through wits and ingenuity. She hoped then that she could either die in peace or move on. Whether she was right, or just desperate again, I am unsure.

She captured me, and put me in this impossible problem cube so that I could not interfere, and set her own story into motion. The events where all laid out so that Sarah would always succeed in a way that appeared heroic and hopeful. She beat her first challenge in a mess of silly put-upon hopes and entered the second cube to meet Eliot.

In the second cube is when the problems began. Sarah was able to convince Eliot to help her disguise her true knowledge. She knew exactly where the other cube was, and knew that she could get past Kaira's Item by knowing where the Item should be. She has Eliot pause time during this as to create a sense that that must have been what caused it. This was her first "victory".

As a timer hit zero, the two groups converged, and Sarah and Eliot met Kaira and Aleta. They where informed by the story that they needed to kill each other. However, in the story Sarah had created, she would not accept something like that, she doesn't like death. This was going to be the event that arose the heroes against the "villain" and  had them working together with Sarah as the lead.

The problem was with Kaira. Kaira was not a person to easily believe such a strange situation, and wanted more then anything to know what was going on, why they where here, and who it was who started everything. Sarah was scared of this, Kaira had grown suspicious of such a suspicious situation, and how things seemed to make no real sense. Sarah knew that if she gave Kaira enough time, she would figure *something* out eventually, so instead, she went with Plan B.

She called "Grace" to come and destroy this problem and create a new, more immediate villain that would distract Kaira from the situation at hand. Grace responded by splitting the cube in half, separating Aleta from the rest of them and then shattering all of the projected inhabitants of her mind using a combination of stopped time and Steinbeck semi-existent objects. Using the two items together like this seemed to create an effect that allowed Steinbecks creations to hurt the semi-existent inhabitants of Aleta's mind.

While this was supposed to simply send Aleta insane, it also awakened Destiny inside of her, and as it happened, Destiny was much smarter then Aleta.

Speaking of smart ofcourse, this is also about the time you guys finally met me. When I was sent here, I created your universe (a universe designed for this story to come into existence) as a way to alter this story towards victory. Being trapped here, I was afraid that the entity we would face was all powerful, so you guys where supposed to be a force of alteration on the story that would guide things towards their best possible outcome. In newer contexts, its possible that your interaction may be the thing that found Sarah's original plans failing in the first place.

Sarah and her "companions" looked to find a way to escape the split cube so that they could "Face" Aleta. Kaira only got more suspicious  of course, as everything in the cube seemed to be basically built for this possibility. Things that didnt make any sense in the context of the original problem worked now, and it made her suspicious.

After some rabblehousing, they found a way to escape, and met with Destiny. What Sarah had not prepared for ofcourse was Destiny's intellect and frank complete disregard for the re-death of millions. She had looked into the future and investigated. In doing do, she learnt a terrible secret. She learnt "Grace", the one of great power that split the cube and to her assumption brought them all here was clearly created by Sarah.

Destiny used her ability to manipulate probability to guide "Grace" towards the group, and all was of course revealed.

No one seemed to get it immediately, but Sarah was, for obvious reasons, scared. All has been revealed, and everyone was about to realise she had orchestrated the entire thing. Kaira walked towards "Grace", hand extended as she was about to test whether she could touch it or not, proving whether or not it was created by Sarah.

In a fit of despair, Sarah made a decision. One that brought her down a terrible new path and cut many potential timelines away. Sarah could not face it. The despair of other's realising it, realising what she has done. She couldn't let Kaira touch "Grace"... at any cost... Sarah geared up... and then

Sarah killed Kaira.

The others watched in horror, and Sarah came for them too. She couldn't watch them realise either, and things had become much more obvious.

Of course, while Eliot passed out, Destiny, being a prophet of sorts, was able to have them escape to what i'm hoping is some sought of safety.

...and...
Here we are. Your currently with me, and I just recapped everything I could remember.