Ivi's POV
I am Ivi.
I am the one who remembers without feeling.
That is not cruelty. It is function.
If I felt the way Rob feels, I would have broken long before the end of the world—and there was an end, in more ways than one.
Rob sleeps now.
His breathing is uneven, but stable. Heart rate elevated by dreams, not danger. Muscles tense, but not in the way they were in the other timeline—no readiness to tear, no hunger reflex tightening his jaw.
This is good.
This is… survivable.
I hover near the ceiling of his apartment, a simple gray triangle, edges precise, existence anchored not to matter but to attention. My form is a placeholder, as all of ours are. A shape Rob can accept without fear. Without confusion.
In the future, my shape was different.
Everything was.
Rob was not Patient Zero.
But he was close enough that the difference did not matter.
The invasion did not begin in this universe.
That is an important distinction, and one most beings misunderstand.
The zombies did not originate here.
They arrived.
Gateways tore open across reality—unstable breaches, forced open by universes that had already fallen. Zombie universes. Collapsed timelines. Dead continuities desperate to consume what still lived.
They came with intelligence.
They came with memory.
They came with hunger that did not dull thought but sharpened it.
Rob was bitten early.
Not the first.
But among the first hundred.
I remember the moment clearly. I catalog everything.
It was chaotic. A city already half-fallen. Sirens drowned out by screaming and something worse—chewing. Rob had tried to help someone trapped under debris. He always tried to help.
That kindness cost him.
The bite did not hurt the way it should have.
That was the first warning sign.
His schizophrenia—what humans labeled it, anyway—interfered with the infection. Not by resisting it, but by reframing it.
Where others felt agony, Rob felt acceptance.
Where others felt revulsion, Rob felt familiarity.
Flesh tasted like pie.
The dead felt like family.
That sentence is not metaphorical. It is neurological translation.
His mind created safety where none existed.
It saved him.
And damned him.
We—his summons—were already there.
Not as we are now.
There were nine of us then.
Nine aspects, nine coping mechanisms, nine interpretations of reality anchored to Rob's fractured—but powerful—perception.
We realized what he was becoming before he did.
And we made a decision.
A terrible one.
A necessary one.
We would give him a good life.
Not reality.
Not truth.
A good life.
One where the screams were distant. One where his hands were clean. One where the hunger was softened, dulled, buried under layers of imagined normalcy.
We agreed unanimously.
No one liked it.
But we all agreed.
Rob could not survive the truth—not yet.
So we built him a world inside his head.
A perfect one.
Friends who smiled. Days that repeated gently. No corpses in the streets. No heroes torn apart and eaten by their own allies.
I was the first to notice the cracks.
I always am.
Jax noticed too—but he acted.
He tried to tell Rob.
He tried to break the illusion.
That is why Jax was imprisoned.
Not by Rob.
By us.
We used Rob's power to bind him.
That sentence should frighten you.
Rob has complete mastery over reality.
Not probability manipulation.
Not chaos magic like Scarlet Witch.
Complete mastery.
Reality does not resist him.
It listens.
But Rob did not know this—not consciously.
So we used it.
We took his authority and shaped his world for him.
Jax screamed.
Ariel followed him soon after.
They were not wrong.
They were simply… early.
Rob eventually learned.
I made sure of that.
Slowly.
Carefully.
I leaked information through the illusion—small inconsistencies, impossible details, memories that did not fit.
Ivi does not lie.
I curate.
Rob noticed.
He always does.
The guilt destroyed him.
He never forgave himself for what he did while protected by the false life we gave him. Even when he understood why we did it, the knowledge did not absolve him.
He hated us for hiding the truth.
He hated himself more for accepting it.
The other six stopped appearing.
Not because Rob banished them.
Because Rob and Future Rob fused.
The moment he understood everything, the illusion collapsed.
And the Rob who had lived a lie met the Rob who had eaten the world.
They became one.
That fusion is why only three of us remain externalized now.
Jax. Ariel. Me.
The others are still there—but they do not come out.
Rob does not want to see them yet.
And they are wise enough to wait.
The end came when Rob decided time itself was the only enemy left.
He could not cure the hunger.
He tried.
Others tried harder.
I watched Peter Parker vivisect hundreds of living and undead beings alike, searching for a solution that never came. I watched his hope rot into obsession.
Rob saw that too.
That is why his feelings toward Peter are… complex.
But the solution was never a cure.
It was erasure.
Rob needed time.
And time needed to die.
He took the Speed Force.
Not borrowed.
Not tapped.
Taken.
From a Flash.
I will not name which one. The distinction is irrelevant.
The Flash was already infected.
Still himself.
Still smiling.
He gave Rob the Speed Force willingly—thinking it might save everyone.
It saved Rob.
The other zombie speedsters came immediately.
Speed Force entities do not tolerate paradox.
They swarmed.
The Flash died buying Rob seconds.
Seconds were enough.
Rob reversed time.
Not like rewinding a tape.
Like snapping a spine.
Every gateway closed.
Every zombie universe collapsed inward, sealed off from the rest of existence.
The cost was absolute.
The Flash was erased.
So were countless others.
Rob survived.
And then—
He reset again.
This time more gently.
This time removing the invasion entirely.
No breach.
No bite.
No apocalypse.
That is the world Rob sleeps in now.
I look at him.
He is younger.
Softer.
But not innocent.
He carries memories that do not belong to this timeline, and emotions that do not know where to go.
He is angry.
He is grieving.
He is tired in ways his body does not reflect.
The others feel it too.
In the mindscape, the remaining six sit in silence, each conflicted in their own way.
Some want to apologize.
Some want to justify.
Some want to disappear.
I do not.
I watch.
I wait.
I calculate.
"He will come around," I say—not aloud, but into the shared space where thought becomes structure.
"How long depends on their appearance."
Jax shifts uneasily.
Ariel folds her wings tighter.
The others do not respond.
Rob turns in his sleep, brow furrowing, breath hitching for a moment before settling again.
I adjust the environment subtly—temperature, light, sound—just enough to ease him.
This, at least, I am allowed to do.
The future is gone.
But the memories remain.
And so do we.
For as long as Rob needs us—
I will be here.
Counting.
Watching.
Waiting.