WHY TRY TO ESCAPE?

Because if she gets caught with this much water in this little space she could just drown! And what about Otso? Bears can swim, but can he?

The flood is flowing in faster now; the pressure of the water is pushing the door open.

EVEN FALLING, WE FIGHT

Five figures, fighting even as they fall. A fundamentally hopeless battle, carried on to the bitter end. That's what Sophie welcomed into her heart.

I'm sorry, she tells her Friend, there isn't anyone we can crush to solve this problem.

ARE YOU SURE?

Yes!

Even running away probably won't work, she realizes, watching the water burn to mist around her foot. The nearest lake is like a mile away. Wherever he got this water from -- and she doesn't think he can have called it out of nothing, or he'd have done it right on top of her -- it's come a long way to get her. If she keeps moving, it will too. She has to come up with an answer sooner or later; she might as well do it here, before it wrecks Jill's house and maybe kills her.

EVEN DYING, WE FIGHT

NO!

No, that isn't good enough! Fighting isn't good enough! We have to actually win!

We have to...

Ah. I'm still thinking about this the wrong way.

Duality. Herself, super Sophie. Her Friend, the source of her new powers.

Didn't I already say that that was wrong?

It's so compelling, though. Her Friend's thoughts are so strange. So unlike anything Sophie would ever consciously think. But, still, they're all my thoughts. I was right when I said that before, but I haven't been acting like it. Sophie's new Friend...is Sophie. There was a girl with that name yesterday, but yesterday's girl is gone. Today...

It's all just Me.

Fine. I have to save everyone. The two of Me, together, alone. Whatever.

What does that look like, exactly?

The water is still flooding in. It's soaking Kyle's blankets. Even so, it looks higher outside than before; however quickly it's coming into the garage, it's arriving from the forest even faster. The garage door creaks, as Jill's car rocks gently against it.

Otso will shuffle around a little bit, so he can keep a paw on their friend/enemy and also get Sophie in his line of sight. She has a plan for this, right? Because right now he has no idea what to do.

Sophie looks through the window again, out at the oncoming flood.

He saw how the water got to me before. His idea was to just do the same thing, but bigger and stronger.

Why not? It almost worked the first time. He doesn't know her limits. How could he? How could she? She's barely two hours old.

He thinks he can crush me with sheer volume.

But who's to say what I can do, now, if I truly set my mind to it?

Let's test it.

IF YOU CAN'T DO SOMETHING SMART...

...YOU CAN STILL FIGHT

WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE.

There it is.

The world is full of secret fire.

It's in the people, Jill and Kyle and Otso. It's in the animals, tight in their dens against this impossible storm. It's lurking in the gas can in the back. It's even in the wood of the garage door, in the 2 by 4s and scrap wood on the floor of the garage, just waiting to unfurl itself.

And it's all around you, pouring out of you, in every possible direction. Not quite literal fire -- though you think it could be, if you asked for it -- but everything that fire represents: energy, action, transformation. Purification. The most common, most profound, and most secret thing in the universe. You feel it like your breath, rushing outward to dominate the tide, to shred it into steam and force it away. The water on the floor bursts immediately into steam.

It isn't, exactly, an opposing force. Your fire is merging with the water, not destroying it.

Today that doesn't matter. Sophie wants it to go away.

Well, your fire aura is dominating the garage no problem. The water influence there is screened out completely, overwhelmed by the power flowing through you. But when you look out into the darkness, into that new chill space that you don't need eyes to see, you realize that you won't, quite, be strong enough.

That isn't surprising, now that she's seeing it from the inside. The question is mindset. Sophie knows, let's say, two kinds of thinking. They're good in different ways, at different things. Each of them opens that secret channel in a certain shape, to a certain width. Where do they overlap?

She's so close. What can her whole new Self honestly endorse?

She steps out of the water, back in front of the human door, and looks out at the force that was sent to kill her.

"I wished for the strength to act on my own," she says, "and I don't take that wish back."

"I could run away right now," she says, "but I want to protect these people."

"I am choosing to fight," she shouts, "and I am going to win!"