Theora jumped out of the goo on the other side, back into reality, having once again gone through being dematerialised and then reshaping herself based on pure power of will. She waited for Dema to follow suit, sitting down on a snow covered stone a few steps away from the altar. Her garments stood still in the air, as the snow that had melted into her clothes during her stay in the sealed-off dimension was slowly freezing.

Dema was taking her time. A minute. Three minutes. Theora’s head felt empty. She didn’t know whether she was consciously counting or if she could simply tell time passed on instinct. Every second she lived through felt like a drag, so it could very well have been either.

Her throbbing anxiety had changed in its nature. It was still there, but different now. Until a short while ago, she’d only known that she would have to kill some Ancient Evil outlined in myths and legends, and even that thought had made her nauseous.

Now, she knew she had to kill Dema.

A person with a soft laugh and wishes and a curious gaze.

Suddenly, a bloodied hand jerked from the puddle of goo, fingers tensed like claws. It slammed down, touching the stone around, until it finally found some ledge to grip on. The attached arm slowly emerged, muscles contracting to pull itself up. Like a chicklet from an egg with too hard of a shell, Dema slowly dragged her way out. At some point, her asymmetric demon horn from the side of her head poked through the black liquid. Then, the gooey hair, her pointed ears, her face.

She opened her eyes as the blood and black ooze dripped down on her skin, her amber eyes shining through with pure determination. Slowly, she managed to wrangle her second arm free, and slammed it on the altar, splatting blood around. Countless, steaming wounds closed up almost as soon as her skin appeared from the ooze, as if she had been remade from a pure blend of flesh.

Within a few minutes, Dema, dripping, panting, drenched in red, finally fully emerged. When she saw Theora, she grinned. “Leaving that place ain’t fun, huh?” she wheezed.

Theora nodded. “Unpleasant.”

“Being undying is one hell of a perk, if you ask me.”

She hopped down from the altar, looking down at the gory mess, took a few steps, and crouched to fill her hands with snow. Then, she proceeded to use it to clean herself up.

Dema was quite a scrawny figure. Her coat was thin and torn, and it looked like she only wore a basic garment beneath it that left both her legs and arms exposed. She was barefoot.

The summit sported a temperature far beneath the freezing point, but Dema seemed unconcerned, rubbing snow all over herself in an attempt to dissolve the blood and goo. There was no helping the bloodsoaked coat, so she mostly ignored it, letting it drip into the snow.

Her body appeared to have fully healed already. After leaving almost the entire snow on the summit with a pink hue, she finally rubbed some of it between her toes, then looked down at herself proudly.

“There, there! Sorry for holding you up, little rabbit.”

Why was she still calling her ‘rabbit’? Theora dismissed the thought, shrugged, and stood up. “I wasn’t waiting for you. Just lost in thought. Taking a break.”

“No, I think you were waiting,” Dema said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t move on at the moment I’m done!”

“Coincidence,” Theora asserted. “You are just following me, after all. No reason to wait for you.”

Dema chuckled, and made her way after Theora as they slowly descended from the stairs. It was getting dark now, the sun must have been close to setting behind the thick wall of clouds.

Theora felt despondent, empty. Overall, this day had very much not gone as anticipated. Of course, there had never been a chance that Dema would willingly let herself get killed after having a measly wish fulfilled. But Dema also hadn’t tried to fight her. Hadn’t given her a reason at all to do anything.

Was that good or bad? If Dema had agreed or given a strong reason to be killed, Theora would have likely completed her Main Quest by now, and finally gotten to rest.

But now, it felt like her issues had only become bigger. She still needed to kill Dema. But there was no way to do so in good conscience. If such a thing existed for the act of killing anything at all.

At least, Dema was having fun. That was probably the one thing that kept Theora from… Well. She wasn’t sure what would happen otherwise. She was already empty. She had nothing left to give. That said, Theora still didn’t feel completely untouched by seeing a being that had been trapped in confinement for aeons be so happy upon its release.

It didn’t take too long until Dema pulled ahead. She hurried in such a way that it almost seemed like she’d fall down the mountain as she moved past Theora on the narrow stair path. She was completely amazed by her surroundings, pirouetting around herself slowly as she took in the vast landscape. The other summits barely visible through the snowflakes, the stinging whiteness around them. She even stopped to inspect the stairs that looked like ice but were made of something different, much harder, but unrecognisable.

“Why, what a nice place they dumped me at. Where is this?”

“The Zenith of the End. You were moved here a long time ago.”

“What, that place? I don’t remember it looking like this. Like, not that white. Not even in winter.”

“The world has gotten colder,” Theora responded, and stopped walking as Dema was now blocking her path.

“Huh. I see. And why’d they put me here?”

Theora pointed to a trail in the snow on an adjacent mountainside. It was barely visible through the storm, which at this distance betrayed how impossibly large the creature that left it must have been. “It’s become quite a dangerous place. A safe location to store something you wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally walk into.”

Dema stared at the prints on the other mountain. “Damn. Seems like whatever left these ran away from something hella scary. Big, terrifying thing. I wonder what that was.”

“Who knows,” mumbled Theora, still standing a step away from Dema, waiting for her to continue on. And finally, she did.

“By the way, uh. Where we headed?” Dema asked a while later.

“No idea,” Theora replied. She hadn’t thought about that at all. It made sense to move down the mountain, since there was no other path for now… but after? Theora had never imagined a destination past the Zenith of the End.

Dema chuckled, picking up on that detail immediately. “No idea? That’s ominous. You know, very dangerous thing to say, actually. Don’t wanna hint that this was all a one-way-trip for you. I might come to think I could beat you, after all.”

Theora did not respond. Did not even look at Dema, just stared at the path winding down in front of them, endlessly. It was becoming wider, and they were now walking next to each other. Rock to one side, an abyss on the other.

After thinking for a moment, Dema said, “Anyway, batting around is nice and all, but you’re human. You gotta eat at some point. Let’s aim for the next settlement? A village or something? If you’re looking for feedback, I mean. I’m just following, after all. Not gonna lie, though. I’d love to actually talk to some people. Sounds exciting.”

Again, no answer. Theora simply took one step after the other.

“I mean, I can talk to you. Not to say that you’re a bore, or anything,” Dema continued, voice seeping with sarcasm. “No, big pleasure, since you’re a great listener and all. Just what I needed after… y’know!”

“Village it is,” Theora muttered.