As she flew, the world around her began to fade.

  It was like that space they’d gone between worlds, the white expanse of nothingness. The farther she flew, the less there was to see. Just… nothing.

  She closed her eyes against the pain of Teisel’s latest memory, knowing somehow that there wouldn’t be another one coming. Reiav had to figure out how to get out of here, how to find Teisel, and how to tell her that things would be alright because she was going to help.

  She was going to… help.

  Reiav landed on the strange nothingness. She looked backward, feeling her hands ball into fists as she saw the horizon behind her, it was still the beginnings of that fake world. No, she was leaving; she had to get back to the real world, that had to be the answer. Reiav took to the air again, flying onward.

  It took her a few hours to admit that this was pointless. She looked back again at that same view at the horizon. It was as if she wasn’t even moving.

  Squall.

  Reiav reluctantly turned around.

  -

  Reiav wasn’t sure exactly how space worked, but she was pretty sure that it should have taken her quite a while to get back to that huge tree. However, it was only a few minutes before she was streaking toward it, the blue sky at her back, the strange plants below bobbing in the wind.

  Reiav sighed, alright, so apparently the tree was the center of this place, got it. She shifted into a glide, examining the ground for a good place to stop. Reiav had gotten exactly nothing from that trip. Even the knowledge that there wasn’t a bigger world to explore here wasn’t all that helpful.

  She was—

  There, movement. Reiav grew wary at it, but when her eyes zeroed in on it, she relaxed slightly. It was just those two strangers, Tosono and the other one. But… something was wrong. They were attacking each other.

  Reiav frowned, gliding closer for a better look, there it was. Tosono, his entire person had turned black like the monsters. Reiav hesitated. She didn’t want to just be chased by monsters for hours again; she didn’t want to run until her legs could barely carry her. She didn’t want to feel the pain of lost friends as they all slowly died off except for her…

  But, this demon seemed to be corporeal. He had substance as the suiki punched at him. He had a mass to beat backward. Reiav hesitated a moment longer, but when the shade summoned black spectral wings, she couldn’t stand back any longer. Those would cut the suiki to pieces if she let them.

  Reiav turned into a dive, summoning a second pair of wings as she fell, preparing to defend the innocent. She really hoped that suiki was alright. She should never have wasted all that time wandering around the area, being so stupid. Why had she ever dismissed him as unimportant? That was the very last thing that Reiav would expect herself to do, and yet here she was.

  She landed in a flurry of dust and spectral wings, the edge of one sharpened to a long thin point. Reiav couldn’t make it do that when she was panicked; it took concentration and effort to keep the edge sharp, but right now? It was absolutely perfect for the job.

  The shade paused as the edge slashed toward his neck.

  That was as far as Reiav got.

  She looked at him, the shade, in the face and remembered that he was a person. Or at least… he looked like a person, but to her, in that moment, wasn’t that the same thing? What a time for empathy. Reiav felt her concentration falter and her wings evaporate.

  The shade blinked at her, his face surprised. The suiki stared at her too, probably confused as to where Reiav had come from.

  Reiav hesitated for a moment and finally drew up from her crouch. “You’re one of the monsters! Was there ever even a real Tosono?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The monster grinned, “He died in the last scene, unnoticed by anyone, tears were not shed. But neither of you saw his death, and so he was the perfect one to replace.” The monster shook his head slowly, “Such a shame that my disguise was broken so early, I was hoping to reveal it in the last scene, such a shame indeed… I was so close…” The monster then began to chuckle, and then chortle. There was quite a bit of laughing and then an unhealthy dose of maniacal cackles as well.

  His form evaporated into black smoke as the two of them watched, transfixed. His laughter could be heard still, even moments after all the black smoke was gone.

  “That was-” the suiki began, only to be interrupted as a form coalesced out of white smoke in front of them.

  It was Teisel again, at least, Reiav assumed it was Teisel; she got the feeling that someone had told her that fact last time, but she didn’t know who it would have been. Regardless, Teisel frowned down at them, annoyed, “I can’t do anything more than that, pity. If fate had aligned with greater precision I might have had the privilege of killing you. And yet you move forward, on your path toward betrayal.” She shook her head, still annoyed, her two antennae swishing with the gesture.

  “What’s next then?” The suiki asked, his posture straightening. Was he talking with a bit of a deeper resonance than before? Reiav wasn’t sure.

  Teisel didn’t answer, just like last time. Reiav got the feeling she couldn’t hear them, only see them. “In the end Teisel will fall, and in the end the city will be destroyed. It’s all we deserve, really. I don’t want your poisonous hope. By going farther you might contaminate us with that hope, and then it will hurt that much more when we hit the bottom, because you would force us to believe that anything could have been different. But nothing can be different. If you leave now, it would be a mercy.”

  The suiki gave Teisel an annoyed look, and then a slightly worried one, and then a more pleading look.

  She ignored him, glancing toward Reiav, “You aren’t the descendant of traitors, you don’t have to do this, what do you owe Teisel? I’ll tell you, it’s nothing, you owe her nothing. Teisel is lost, and this entire venture is pointless.”

  She glared at the two of them for a long moment, and then glanced upward at the sky. She faded away into white smoke as the world once again began to melt.

  Teisel felt awareness. The sweet thing that she’d never appreciated before. Teisel’s eyes shot open. She was here. There wasn’t any pain. She was alive. She was going to be alright.

  Her mind glossed over the fact that in order for such pain to fade, she had to have been asleep for weeks if not months. Her mind observed the room around her, taking in the sterile white walls and the flickering electric lights above her.

  She blinked, seeing the terrible nightmares on the undersides of her eyelids. And so Teisel resolved to blink as little as possible.

  She examined the machines around the room and finally noticed the tubes embedded in various parts of herself. Teisel flexed her arms, one by one, frowning at how slow they were to respond.

  Finally, Teisel tried to move her legs.

  She couldn’t even feel them.

  Suddenly, Teisel knew why she’d kept suffering even as she’d slept.

  Teisel sat there for a tense moment. She’d long since lifted the blanket to be sure that she still had legs, but no matter what she tried, she couldn’t… move them. Am I useless now? Teisel wondered. There was no way she could clean vents without legs. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything she could do without her legs. How could she even get anywhere?

  Usually, when an alanerea lost the ability to be useful, they were killed, banished, or given to the royals as a ‘hivemind practice’ toy—though that would be different now without any real royals. Was that going to be Teisel’s fate? If so, she’d rather be killed; there was no way she’d survive through the other two options.

  Why had the medical bay even healed her when they could have just let her die in peace? Did they want her to suffer even more than she had to?

  Teisel stewed like that for several minutes, her mind eventually circling toward a dim possibility, maybe they just numbed my legs because of the pain? She knew that couldn’t be the case; she would have been able to tell. And yet the young alanerea still clung to that faint hope that her legs could work again.

  The nurses came in eventually, talking with calm voices, explaining that she was now… useless. With those words, all hope that Teisel had clung to faded away like mist in the sunlight.

  “What now?” Teisel found herself asking as one of the nurses readied some kind of chair with wheels.

  The nurse paused for a moment, glancing at her. “The council asked to see you once you woke up, it’s… about your gift.”

  Teisel frowned, reaching with her mental senses. They seemed fine, unaffected by the fall. “Alright.” Teisel conceded, “Thank you.” She gave the nurse a weak smile as she was hoisted into the rolling chair.

  It felt humiliating.