Dennim Divided

***Note: This is an alternate ending***

*This ending corresponds with the Universe of Replacement, the Universe of Blood, and the Universe of Motivation.*

Written by Pensplatter13

Unlike other endings that are determined by whether Mind accepts the key, in this particular story she did… and then she didn’t.

In this story, Mind's mother happened to have been out antique shopping when she came across a full-length, Victorian mirror. When she inquires about purchasing the mirror, the shopkeeper tells her a fanciful tale of the mirror having supernatural properties. He then laughs and claims that such lore is usually attached to antiques to raise their price, to which Mind's mother chuckles and claims that she does not believe in such superstitious silliness.

Mind's mother has the mirror delivered to her home and decides to have it placed in Mind's room in order for Mind to learn how to dress and carry herself like "a proper young lady".

These events take place before Dennim offers Mind the key.

When the fateful offering of the key occurs, Mind takes the key within her hand, seemingly about to act out the events of the canon ending. However, her eyes rise and glance upon her reflection in the mirror her mother purchased. To her horror, while she sees a key within her own hand, her reflection reveals that she is in fact holding her father’s dagger. Seeing that accepting the key would lead to her demise, Mind turns towards Dennim and angrily asks how he could possibly deceive her like that. Dennim is also confused by Mind’s ability to recognize the dagger for what it really is, but he plainly states that she wished for a way to escape her miserable life, which is exactly what he had provided to her. Mind shouts that that was not what she meant, and she throws the key away from herself.

Suddenly, a cracking noise is heard and Mind turns to see she has accidentally thrown the key/dagger directly at the mirror that had just revealed its true nature. Strangely enough, the mirror does not shatter, but instead a crack forms that travels directly down its center. Mind’s own reflection disappears from the mirror’s plane, instead, Dennim himself appears behind the glass. Both Dennim and Mind] seem equally surprised by this development, but then the crack finishes travelling the length of the mirror. As the mirror is halved, so is Dennim within. The room is filled with a bright flash of light and Mind shields her eyes from the glare.

The light vanishes just as quickly as it appears, and Mind tentatively opens her eyes. On either side of the mirror now stand two figures; one white with a black outline, curled hair, and a crack-like scar over his left eye, the other figure black with a white outline, with his hair being very pointy, and a crack-like scar over his right eye. The two figures appear identical in every other way, especially in the familiar red eye they each have.

Mind questioningly calls Dennim’s name, hoping for some kind of explanation. Both figures move at once in response, with the black figure letting out an inhuman cry and changing it’s shape into a shadowy, cat-like figure before charging towards Mind. Conversely, the white figure begins emitting a bright light from its entire body, and as the light hits the black figure's skin, it seems to have a vacuum effect and pulls the black figure towards the white one. It immediately changes direction and no longer runs towards Mind, but instead leaps out her bedroom window.
 Mind turns towards the white figure and sees that his glow is diminishing. However, the
whole room also appears to be getting darker before she realizes that she is actually falling towards the floor, whereafter she blacks out for an unknown period of time.

Mind then feels herself being shaken, and she awakens. Standing above her is her mother, asking what she is doing lying on the floor. Mind stirs and claims she had a very unusual dream. Her mother then asks her in a very crossed tone what happened to the beautiful antique mirror she had recently purchased. Mind’s eyes widen as she turns to see that the mirror is still cracked. From behind her, a bright light begins to glow, and Mind turns to see that the white Dennim is in a corner of her bedroom ceiling, seemingly having wrapped himself inside of some type of silken cocoon. His eyes are closed, but he begins to glow once more. His glow enraptures Mind, causing her to rise and walk away from her mother, who is still chastising her.
Minerva then realizes she is no longer listening to her, but when she turns to the direction Mind is walking towards, she doesn’t see anything. This demonstrates that White Dennim is invisible to everyone, except Mind.

Minerva is initially quite cross that Mind seems to be ignoring her and reaches her arm to pull her back towards her, however, White Dennim increases the intensity of his glow and Mind's mother pauses. She is
filled with a euphoric feeling that leaves her in a daze. While the feeling is quite pleasant, she is able to pull away from corner and regain herself, but sees that Mind has not moved. She tentatively calls Mind’s name, but gets no response. Minerva grows frustrated and tries to shout at her, but unbeknownst to her, the effects of White Dennim’s glow are much stronger upon Mind than it was upon her, rendering her daughter incapable of responding to any type of external stimulus.

Minerva decides to leave the room and seek her husband’s assistance, not seeing Mind’s half-closed, yet unblinking eyes and growing, dazed smile on her face.

Elsewhere, a dark figure is darting through the back roads near to Mind’s home. At first glance, it looks like a large, black wildcat or some other feral animal, yet if one were to look more closely, they would be horrified to see that the dark figure was actually that of a young boy.

However, it would seem impossible at first for any person, much less a child, to have such an inhuman expression, with nothing but pure bloodlust emitting from its one glowing red eye. The dark figure ducks behind a garbage can when he hears a bell tingling nearby, as the door to the local ice cream parlor opens. He sees a man in a suit handing a vanilla cone to a little blonde girl accompanying him, but just before she is able to take the treat, the man playfully pulls it back to his mouth and takes a lick, causing the girl to cry out and lightly smack his leg in protest, before they both break out into peals of laughter.

Black Dennim, sensing the man is distracted, then leaps out from behind the garbage can and bites down on the man’s neck, causing blood to spurt out of his wound. He collapses with barely enough time to realize he has even been attacked. Black Dennim stands over the man, ready to continue his attack, until he hears a wet sound before him. He looks up and sees the vanilla cone has fallen from the girl’s hands as she stares on in horror at the monster and her wounded father. Black Dennim takes in her hair and eye color, registering them as familiar.

Suddenly, his mind flashes back to memories right after his creation and he remembers another girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. No, not another girl, *the girl*, his sole reason for existing. When he was still joined with his weaker half, he had been filled with useless emotions and foolish thoughts in regards to her. Now that he has been freed from his other self, he's finally able think about the girl who had created him in a different light. Her life, her essence, *her soul*; if he could devour that, then he would know power. Power that consuming no other mortal could provide him.

He snaps out his ruminations when he hears the man beneath him choking on the blood leaking into his own throat, give out a rattling, dying gasp, “Winona… run….”

The little girl, with hot tears streaming down her face, is only able to shake her head, unable to leave her dying father. Black Dennim’s sole eye locks onto her and his purpose for existence becomes clear. He visualizes himself as a colossus, blocking out the very sun while bringing devastation to the world. To achieve this form, he must hunt down and devour the girl, his creator, and consume her so that he would gain the power to consume the entire world and every despicable creature in his path.

However, he knows his other half will still be guarding her, bound to her by the useless devotion he now found himself free of. In order to bypass his twin’s protection, he would need to consume more, devour as much as he could, until not even he could stand in his way.

Once again his sole red eye meets the blue eyes of the child before him, whose world he has completely destroyed within a matter of seconds. The thought of this brings a twisted smile to his face, and he lunges forward with his fangs bared.

Meanwhile, back at Mind’s mansion, Mark is utterly flummoxed at the situation before him. At first he was dismissive of his wife’s tales of being unable to pull Mind away from a mere corner, but when he tried to approach his daughter, a strange euphoria washed over him every time he attempted to draw near. While at first he tries to maintain his veneer of having a calm demeanor, he quickly grows frustrated due to being unable to explain the situation. Minerva suggests calling the police or a doctor to try to reach their daughter, but the fear of his abuse being exposed cause him to dismiss those recommendations. When Minerva cautiously suggests that supernatural factors may be involved, Mark loses his temper and angrily berates her for believing such nonsense. His outburst immediately silences her, terrified at having seen this previously hidden side of her husband. Unable to decide on what to do, the parents simply decide to leave her there for the time being, hoping that she will come to her senses in time.

As the days go by, however, Mind begins to grow quite thin and her clothes begin to hang off her limp frame. While this occurs, there are multiple reports in the news about a strange beast, randomly attacking people in the area. The beast is described to be a completely black animal that primarily hunts at night and leaves little if any traces of its victims, except the blood splattered by its attacks. Many presume the creature to be a panther escaped from a local zoo, however the rare few who manage to spot the creature and live
to speak about it, claim that it is like no animal ever previously seen.

At Mind’s mansion, her mother frets that if Mind doesn’t eat soon, she may die
of starvation. Mind's father seems nonplussed by the idea, claiming Mind does not have the resolve to let things reach that state. He then adds in a very pointed tone that if she chooses to continue to disobey them in such a manner, then she deserves whatever consequences are the result.

Hearing this, Minerva realizes that Mark is more than willing to let their daughter starve to death, thus in a rare act of defiance against him, she secretly begins delivering food to Mind by approaching her as close as she can before the strange euphoria completely immobilizes her. She then leaves, not realizing that White Dennim temporarily loosens his trance over Mind. Once she is free from the trance, the sensations that her body was previously numb to reemerge, particularly her hunger. Upon seeing the nearby food, she immediately pounces upon it like a ravenous animal, eating as much as she can. After she has finished, White Dennim begins to glow again, causing her to once again fall into his euphoric trance and drawn to him.

Due to swift speed in which Mind eats the food her mother leaves her, her mother is able to return rather rapidly to collect the dishes without her husband becoming any wiser. Minerva attempts to deliver the food and stay closeby for a few times, hoping to see her daughter break free from the trance,
but White Dennim does not relinquish his control until he is sure she is a decent distance away from them. Due to Minerva keeping Mind from dying of starvation, Mark is at loss of what to do, as White Dennim’s trance inducing abilities prevent him from reaching her. As days turn to weeks and weeks into years, Mind's father grows slowly more and more unhinged by the strange situation he has found himself in. Because this is occurring in Mind’s mansion, more and more people in the surrounding area are devoured by the creature, which no longer is said to even remotely resemble a panther, but a hunched-over beast within thorn-like spines sprouting from its front and back appendages, and razor sharp fangs emerging from all angles out of its mouth.

Those who are not eaten by the monster have fled the area, and soon Mind and her family are the only ones left in the region by the time she reaches the age of sixteen.

Mark’s lack of control of the situation within his house and his inability to reach the object of his sexual desire causes him to have a breakdown, where he quits his lucrative job and vows to stay at his daughter’s side. While his actions may at first seem like a selfless gesture, he has in fact gone completely insane.

Mark’s desire to stay as close as he can is literally a battle of will at this point, where he is adamant that he will stay by her side until either she dies from starvation or she emerges from whatever barrier is keeping him from so that he may claim her again. With his new resolve not to leave their daughter’s side, Minerva realizes that she will not be able to provide food to Mind anymore, without her husband learning of her defying his wishes. Given the fact that Mark has forsaken their substantial income by quitting his job, and the fact that there are literally no other people left in the area, Minerva reaches her breaking point and begs her husband that they leave their accursed daughter behind and try to build a new life together somewhere else. In his madness, Mark honestly declares that his does not care about Minerva in the slightest and that she is free to do whatever she chooses.

Hearing her husband’s declaration that he does not care about her causes her to angrily storm out of the house, crying out in anguish about the years she has wasted in a loveless marriage. However, when she opens the front door to leave, crouching right in front of her is the black beast that has been ravaging the area. Before she even has the chance to scream, the beast is upon her and tears her apart within seconds. Meanwhile, due to Mark’s presence, Mind has not eaten for the last few days and her strength is fading quickly. As a result, White Dennim’s own power starts to fade as well. Mind begins to stir from her trance, attracting the attention of her father, who begins approaching her in a crazed manner. Mind turns around and her eyes widen in fear for the sight before her. Thinking he has won some kind of game, Mind's father triumphantly asks her if she truly thought that she could have eluded him. However, rather than to answer, she shakily points to something behind him. He turns around and to his horror, he sees the black beast before him with its mouth covered in fresh blood and its one eye fixed on him. Without wasting another second, the beast bites the man in half, swallowing his top half, while his legs fall to the floor. He then proceeds to devour the rest of Mind's father.

Mind hastily tries to make her way towards the door, but in her weakened state she does not get far. Black Dennim then turns and eyes his long awaited prey. His one eye gleams as he rears up and prepares to attack, however, just as he pounces towards her, White Dennim’s eye opens and the cocoon immediately detaches itself from the corner of the ceiling. The cocoon unfurls to reveal many strands of silken cloth connected to his arms and back, fluttering as he descends almost though they were wings. He then lands upon Black Dennim’s back and his silken strands wrap around the beast with lightning speed, binding the dark figure to his light counterpart.

Black Dennim lets out an enraged shriek as his gaping mouth approaches Mind, but suddenly, there's a flash of light as the bounded pair passes through her and enter the cracked mirror behind her, unmoved from its initial position for all those years. Flashes of light and darkness emit from the mirror’s surface until the crack down the middle seals itself, followed by the mirror shattering into pieces. Standing before the pile of broken glass is a teenage Dennim, whole once again. Seeing her old friend, Mind weakly call his name before succumbing to her fatigue, and collapses.

Before she can hit the floor, Dennim lunges forward, catching her in his arms. He rises from the floor, cradling her gently in his arms. Dennim feels that Mind is fading fast, and he must soon make a difficult choice. One option is to try and find some means of saving her, but given the fact that she is emaciated from starvation and unconscious means that Dennim’s own power is very weak and his chances of successfully saving her, and by extension himself, are quite low. The other option he has available is that he can drain Mind of what little life-force she has left, so that even if she dies, at least he can live on. He continues to cradle her, as he stares out of her bedroom window at the setting sun, realizing that despite being whole again, the fight between White and Black Dennim still continues on.