I fade in and out of pain. Everything comes to me through a fog. Sometimes I try to understand what’s happening: Where am I? Why does it hurt? Am I waking up from another surgery? But even as I reach for the memories, comprehension slips through my fingers and I’m absorbed back into the nothingness.

#

Once, my eyes crack open. The world is a blurred green. Birds chirp pleasantly overhead. I’m lying in something—blood. My blood. I try to focus beyond that, and eventually the shapes resolve into a scene of gore. The three adventurers I met. Terimus. Rena. Layf. They don’t move from the pool of carnage that was their campsite. Nothing moves, except the pebblebacks grazing quietly in the fields beyond. That contrast, the foreground of death framed by a peaceful, green vibrant valley, pulls emotions from my half-awake mind. My throat feels tight. My eyes sting. I sob out a single breath, but pain spears through me with the small movement, shocking my mind and body back into another haunted, dreamless sleep.

#

Maru’s face surfaces in my subconscious, summoning a fear that brings me to the edge of wakefulness again. I’ve never felt such terror. Such helplessness.

Such hate.

Why? The word spins around in my head, unable to expand into any thoughts more complex than that.

Why? Why? Why?

#

A rumbling sound rouses me next. The sun is low. The valley in shadows, the sky burnt orange.

I’m not dead. I’m alert enough to understand that, now. But night is almost here, and once the cold sets in, it’ll be over for real.

I consider letting that happen. I’m so tired. And not moving like this, the pain is only an intense, cold pressure—not a searing agony. Living is a lot of work.

But a spark of defiance lights in my chest. Maru. She killed them. She tried to kill me—and if I don’t do anything, she’ll still succeed.

I summon all the strength I can muster and drag my arm up by my shoulder. Needles stab through my back with the movement, and I let out a gasp as my arm goes slack. I was going to push myself upright, but the idea seems laughable now. It hurts too much, and I don’t even have enough strength to roll onto my side. I groan from pain and frustration, squeezing my eyes shut against my cruel, indifferent reality.

A low sound rumbles nearby. The same sound that had woken me up, I now realize. The deep murmurs resolve into a voice.

“Did you hear that?”

The voice is so deep and gentle. It makes me think of a mountain lake, quietly tucked away between the remotest peaks. That sounds nice. The pain starts to fade once more as I relax, my mind drifting into oblivion as I think of forests and clouds and snow…

“I think it came from over here.”

There’s a second voice. Higher pitched. Sharper. It pulls me from my blissful rest. I wish it would go away.

“Gods’ grace, Gugora, this one’s alive!”

Something touches my arm, and I scrunch my eyes tight, moaning. Even that brush of sensation is too much, awakening my nerves like razors through my skin.

“Hurry!” the sharp voice says. “Lorata’s Light, I don’t know how she survived.”

I sense the chill of a shadow falling over me, blocking out the last few rays of light from the setting sun.

“Let me,” the deep voice says. Gugora, I think.

There are more touches on my shoulder, arm, and forehead, but this time they’re faint and careful. I relax. This one won’t hurt me.

“We’ll need to address that wound first,” Gugora says. “She won’t make it back if we wait for a healer. Have you got a potion on you?”

“Of course I don’t have a potion on me,” the sharp voice says. “I wasn’t exactly expecting to come upon a murder scene, was I?”

Gugora lets out a rumbling sigh. “Alright. The hard way, then.”

Something presses against my back, so sudden, and fills me with so much pain that my tenuous hold on consciousness is snuffed out.

#

The world rocks back and forth. I’m tipped forward, leaning against something warm, cloth scratching against my cheek. My head is resting on something, and I can feel an arm holding me upright, wrapped beneath my legs, while a second one lightly rests on my arm, keeping me from tipping over. A warm weight surrounds me like a blanket.

I try to pry my eyes open, grit sticking to my lashes. I can make out the profile of a head. Ah. A shoulder—that’s what my head is leaning on. I’m being carried like a drowsy toddler. Despite the lance of stabbing pain that shoots through me with every footfall, the careful embrace fills me with a fond sense of security.

“Dad?” I whisper.

The arms shift at my voice, carefully ensuring their grasp is secure. “We’ll get you home,” the person says, his deep rumble vibrating through my chest.

Not my dad. Gugora.

I feel so small in his grasp.

#

More snippets come and go as we travel. The next time I open my eyes, it’s dark. The time after that, woodsmoke fills my nose and flickering lights stab into my eyes. The sounds of the forest give way to thumping footsteps of boots over wood and the clamor of loud voices, which turn to cries of alarm I can’t find it in myself to care about. The air is humid and warm here. It smells of dust and yeast. The raised voices are eventually shut away as I’m eased into a pile of furs, and a sharp pain lances through my back as I’m tipped to rest on my side. I groan, trying to roll over onto my back, but a hand stops me.

“You’ll have to lay this way until we get that wound treated.” Gugora. The deep voice.

I open my eyes and try to focus on him, but the room is dark. He’s only a giant shadow, half bent over me. He holds my shoulder, keeping me from rolling one way or the other, and my arm is swallowed in his grasp.

“Iski, help me with the pillows,” he says. “Prop them up behind her.”

I feel an impression in the sheets by my feet, like a cat jumping up onto the bed. For a disorienting moment I’m propelled back in time, back to when I still slept in my own bed. We had a cat, Oboe. She was black and white, and liked to sleep curled up around my neck, her hairs tickling my nose. I miss her.

“Alright, hold on,” the sharp voice—Iski—says. The blankets behind me shuffle around, some of them pressing up against my shoulder and lower back, and I hiss in a breath when one tweak of the blankets sends another stab of agony through me.

Gugora says something, and Iski shoots something back, but by then I’m fading once more, sinking into the soft, musty fur that brushes against my face, and reminds me of a distant home.

#

When I wake up next, it’s daylight. Strange, incomprehensible dreams fade from my mind as I rouse, slipping away from me even as I try to recall them. I was drowning in a black ocean full of stars. Consumed by a great hunger. There was a comforting voice, distant and determined. “I don’t plan to die today.”

I try to bring these thoughts into focus, but they dissolve like a sandcastle beneath the tide. The echoing words linger longest, resonating with something inside me.

Death. Why does death sound so familiar? Pain throbs through my whole torso, somewhat distant, and I know from experience that the best way to keep it distant is to not move. I’m lying on my left side, which means I’m facing where Mom always sits, reading one of her magazines by the window.

“Mom?”

But when I open my eyes and find myself in an empty wooden room, it all comes back to me.

My death and rebirth. Terimus, Rena, Layf. The Champion, Maru, who slayed them all. Who tried to slay me. Tears prickle at my eyes, and a hot, angry heat coils in my gut. Why? It was so senseless. There was no reason. Why did she do that?

I start to lift my hand to brush the tears away, but pain stabs through my back and chest when I move, and I drop my arm back into the blankets once more. I was hurt badly. But somehow, by some miracle, I lived. Am I still on the brink of death?

[Check,] Echo pipes up, and stats fill my vision. [HP: 12/90]

It’s gone up then. I must have some passive healing ability. Not enough for me to risk moving, though. With little else to do, I blink away my tears and lick salt off my lips as I try to take in my surroundings.

It’s a simple, small room, entirely made out of wood like a cabin. There’s just my bed, a chest, a rocking chair, and a window. The chair and chest have patterns carved into the wood. From the rough texture, hand-carved, I think. I trace my gaze over the gently looping designs, and the focus soothes me. Eventually the tears stop, and my anger simmers, but the hollow ache of loss and regret remains. I’m not sure if it’s the three adventurers or my parents that I’m mourning more.