The Seven Walls was a strange, desolate place. The maze was more similar to a warped version of reality. An endless shifting nightmare, with scenes and places Emma had seen within her life changing and churning before her with no real rhyme or reason.
(There was some reason to it-that was how she escaped, after all.)
Her time in the maze blurred together, mixed into a long period of false perceptions and confusion-induced fear.
Then, things were clear. The maze faded away, granting a relief that was far too short-lived when faced with Ȟ̷̹̐i̷͍̰͂š̴̢ blank, emotionless gaze. T̴̨̮̊͠h̷̛̙̻͚e̷̢̟͕̍̾̚ ̵͎̾Ŏ̸͎̳̕n̴̺̗̋͜͝e̷̩͗͒ was a small demon, situated in a large expanse of nothingness for miles on end.
Nowhere to run if things were to turn south. Nowhere to hide.
Emma couldn't see H̵̹̀i̷̟͛s̶̠͋ face, couldn't tell for certain what H̵̹̀i̷̟͛s̶̠͋ expression might've been. She imagines that H̵̫͌ë̵͙́ must've been smirking as she made her request.
I want every cattle child to be sent to the human world.
The air was thick with an uncomfortable, empty silence as she waited for H̵̹̀i̷̟͛s̶̠͋ reply. It was a strange place, the air felt empty and stale. There was no sound, aside from her shaky, sharp breathing.
An empty void between space and time.
I will grant your wish.
H̵̹̀i̷̟͛s̶̠͋ voice was soft and friendly, as though they weren't discussing the lives of countless children. As though this was nothing more than a silly conversation between old friends.
And the Reward that I want is…
Emma's eyes shot open, her body forcing itself awake with a start. A thin sheen of sweat coated her body as adrenaline rushed through her system, sticky and gross as she desperately tried to gather her bearings.
Soft polyester fabric stuck to her skin, wrapping around her legs and bunching uncomfortably at the foot of her bed. A plain white ceiling stared back at her, dozens of small, glow-in-the-dark stars sprinkled across the coats of paint. Stars that had been stuck there haphazardly the week they'd moved into their new homes.
Right.
She was home. In the human world.
She was safe.
Everyone was safe.
And yet the dream still felt too recent, too real .
It took far too long for her to unclench her hands, carefully tearing her nails from her palms and unraveling the stiff, tight knot that her body had pulled itself into. Her heart-rate was too quick, echoing through her head in a sharp, steady beat.
She looked to the clock on her desk.
4 a.m.
Emma sucked in a short, tight breath as she threw off the tangled sheets and pulled herself out of bed. The tiny, dorm-like room was suddenly suffocating. The cheap, faux-wood furniture blocky and cramped in the too-small space. She quietly made her way out into the hall and into the bathroom right across from her room, following the faint glow of the nightlight she had insisted on getting for situations just like this.
Following the glow of a child's sleep aide was better than waking up her roommates with harsh fluorescents every time she had a bad dream.
The scalding water burned against her skin as she stepped into the shower, not even bothering to turn on the overhead light as she desperately began scrubbing away at her skin, trying to scrape off the remnants of sleep as she reminded herself that it was not real time and time again.
Perhaps that was the problem, though. It very much was real.
Not real at this particular moment in time, but real nonetheless.
The Seven Walls weren't located in either world. It was located between time and space. She didn't really know what that meant when it came to time passing in that place.
Emma briefly wondered if H̵̫͌ë̵͙́ ever thought about the Promise they'd reforged, and the terms that came with it.
She turned the valve's notch further into the red zone, increasing the temperature of the water that burned into her skin in an attempt to drown out her thoughts.
The dreams weren't exactly uncommon, as much as she hated to admit it. From what the others had told her, the dreams seemed to be commonplace amongst the cattle children. She couldn't even begin to count the number of times she'd been awoken by frantic knocks on the apartment door, only to be greeted by a small, crying child and to spend the remainder of the night in one of the younger kid's rooms, telling them stories and staying by their side until she knew for certain they wouldn't be waking up any time soon.
This wasn't normal, she knew that.
Most children didn't have to live through bullet wounds, the sight of their friends dying before them, raging demons, and the knowledge that they had existed solely to feed monstrous beings.
By the time she exited the shower, the mirrors were completely fogged up and the air in the bathroom resembled that of a sauna.
Her change of clothes clung uncomfortably to her damp skin as she toweled her hair dry and made her way to the small kitchen she shared with Gilda and Anna. The sun would be rising soon, and it wasn't as if she could see herself getting any more sleep that night.
Not after a dream like that.
They'd been living here for over a year now. You'd think the nightmares would let up at least a little bit.
How funny. She'd managed to mostly avoid nightmares while living in the demon world. Back when she was actively fighting for survival each and every day.
Now, the dreams were just an inconvenient byproduct of being raised as meat .
She didn't bother turning on the kitchen light as she started up the small coffee pot from where it was tucked, discarded and forgotten on the counter. None of the girls who lived in the shared apartment were big coffee drinkers, which wasn't very surprising, considering their age and the fact that none of them had ever really tried any prior to their escape.
Ray liked it, though.
Emma wondered briefly if he'd be up at this hour, glancing into the living room and to the door that conjoined their apartment to the next. He mentioned before that he'd been having trouble sleeping. It was kind of hard to get a good rest in when you knew that a single nightmare could end in their apartment complex burning to the ground.
The door was closed now. It was a strange sight, considering it was almost always open. Norman, Ray, and Don resided there.
She took in another unsteady breath, the aroma of coffee slowly filling the small apartment with its thick scent.
All of the Grace Field kids lived in this apartment complex, the building being owned by the Ratri clan and located in a nice spot of the city.
In all technicality, they were meant to be under the guardianship of the current head of the clan. They never really saw him, though. They could take care of themselves just fine.
The children who'd escaped Grace Field had plenty of practice.
It was strange, living on their own. They'd had Yuugo and Lucas while at the bunker, along with all of the older kids from Goldy Pond. Some of the Goldy Pond kids lived in the building, but most resided within a different complex a few blocks away.
They were well and truly on their own in their day-to-day life. No adults watching over them.
The coffee pot beeped at her, signalling that the beverage was done brewing.
Emma tried to force the nightmare from her mind, pouring the dark liquid into a mug, along with copious amounts of cream and sugar.
She made her way to the living room, coffee in hand as she sat down on the couch, peering out the third-floor window and into the dark city streets. It was different in the early hours of the morning. The apartment complex was located in a place that was filled with the endless bustle of pedestrians and the occasional hero passing through.
That was another thing she wasn't quite able to get used to.
Pro Heroes. People with large and flashy quirks who were paid to save others. It was as if it were a story book brought to life.
Her eyes drifted down to the coffee table, where a thick paper pamphlet sat. The UA insignia was printed neatly on the cover.
Ray's quirk counselor had suggested it, initially. His quirk was more than suited for hero work, flashy and powerful as it was.
Emma wasn't adverse to the idea. There was just a single problem.
Apparently quirkless people weren't a thing in heroics.
Then again, it wasn't as though she was a stranger to fighting. She'd been in far too many life-threatening situations for a girl her age.
Her laptop was sitting on the coffee table, next to the pamphlet from her earlier discussions of heroics with Ray and Norman.
All applications for the next school year were technically due in two weeks, but they'd spent at least an hour the previous afternoon filling out their own applications and discussing what it would be like to attend a hero school.
It was funny, less than two years prior none of them were even sure they'd live to see high school.
Emma still found it difficult to believe that any of this was real.
But it was. She was alive. She was a fourteen-year-old girl applying to a human heroics school, two years past her planned expiration date.
It was a strange thought.
She should be dead.
But she wasn't.
Emma shifted her position on the couch, setting her coffee mug carefully on the low table and opening her laptop. The soft glow was almost blinding in the dim twilight. Her hands moved almost on auto-pilot, dragging up the hero forums she'd been scrolling through the night before.
All Might had taken down a sludge-like villain recently, changing the weather in the process.
What a very All Might thing to do.
The news feed was relatively normal for the area they lived in. There were a few new hero debuts, mentions of an underground drug ring being brought down, a particularly problematic villain was apprehended, etc.
She doesn't know how long she sat there, scrolling through various websites of quirk analysis and reports of villain incidents and overwhelming amounts of information, but by the time she's dragged from her internet-induced trance the sun had risen and the coffee at her side had gone cold.
Gilda is the first one of her roommates that wakes up. It was a Saturday, which meant they could easily sleep in if they wanted to, although waking up at a set time every day for the majority of your life was a really difficult habit to break out of.
"Good morning, Emma!" her friend called, making her way to the pantry and grabbing two of the pre-packaged granola bars from a shelf.
Mornings tended to be strangely quiet nowadays, despite the mindless chatter that went on whenever more than one person was in the room. Two or three voices would always be less than those of several dozen small children running about the kitchen as the older kids hastily cooked massive portions of food.
Gilda handed one of the granola bars to Emma, joining the girl on the couch and peering over her shoulder to the laptop's screen.
"Hero forums again?" she asked, carefully peeling open the plastic wrapper and taking a bite of her breakfast.
Emma simply hummed in agreement, her gaze shifting to look at the time on her laptop screen. She'd been awake for a few hours at this point, the awful, sick feeling that came with too-little sleep stubbornly clinging to her body.
"Ray's counselor is encouraging him to apply for UA, and Norman plans on joining him," she mentions eventually, breaking the mellow silence that'd fallen between them.
"You're applying too, aren't you."
It isn't phrased as a question.
"Yeah," Emma confirms, "no one online seems to think quirkless heroes can be a thing."
It's hard to miss the teasing undertone of her words.
Quirkless had quickly become a sort of inside joke amongst them, mainly due to the fact that the people in this world seemed to think less of those without special abilities. Media stereotypes the quirkless as weak. They portrayed them as in need of protecting, lacking any quirks to defend themselves.
As if being quirkless had ever hindered any of them before.
"Do you think they'd let you apply?" Gilda asked.
"If they don't I'll just become a vigilant or something."
"I'm pretty sure that's illegal."
"Oh well. Their loss."
The rest of their morning passed slowly. Emma took her empty coffee mug back to the kitchen at one point, washing the ceramic and placing it back into the cabinets, careful not to mess up the various doodles that had been taped to the cheap wood by Phil and Sherry a few days prior. Anna emerged from her room eventually, joining in on mindless conversations as signs of life slowly began to fill the apartment complex once again.
Small things that would normally be seen as a hindrance filled the building. The loud laughter that could be heard from several doors down, the pitter-patter of footsteps from the apartment above theirs, the steady start and stop of someone practicing a piano piece.
The walls were thin, and the sounds surrounding them were familiar.
If she closed her eyes and let her mind drift long enough, she could almost imagine she were back at the bunker.
(Not the House. Never the House.)
It wasn't long before there was a knock on the door that conjoined their apartment to the next.
By 9 a.m. Ray, Norman, and Emma left the small apartment complex. They passed by countless doors on their way to the elevator. Some open, some closed.
She supposed it was a strange way of life. Apartments buildings usually weren't filled to the brim with kids who'd grown up sharing a room with eleven of their "siblings", and had shared a room with even more upon escaping. Having your own room took a lot of getting used to.
Sharing a full apartment with only two others took a lot of getting used to.
The human world was… different than they had thought it'd be.
That was to be expected, in all honesty. Their knowledge of this place was stolen in segments. Small pieces of information absorbed through books and the words of demons who had been disconnected from human civilization for centuries.
They'd woken up on a trash-ridden beach in Musutafu, Japan a bit over a year prior. The cattle children had been greeted by pro heroes and the current head of the Ratri clan, carefully collected and brought to their current living chambers shortly after their arrival.
They'd been forbidden from leaving the apartment building for the first week, as they gathered all of the information they could from what little information was sent over along with them. They'd been made official citizens and enrolled in online schooling to catch up on the current curriculum. The younger kids had been enrolled in a nearby elementary school within the first month.
The older kids weren't so lucky. High test scores never could've prepared them for catching up on a lifetime's worth of real history and schoolwork.
(The demon world was mentioned, of course, but only in vague references and political articles and online debates about morals.)
At this current point in time, they'd be able to finally join an actual school by the next year.
For Emma, Ray, and Norman, that meant high school.
If they were lucky, hero school.
The sun was warm against their skin as the three teens exited out onto the street in front of their apartment building, the streets full and bustling despite the early hour.
Out on the streets it was easy to pick out various quirks amongst the crowds. Someone to their left had an arm that resembled rock, another had blue skin, another's hair seemed to defy gravity as they passed by.
They made their way down the street to where a small café sat on the corner, surprisingly desolate for being located on such a busy street. The three of them quickly bought their drinks and found a small table to sit at near the back of the shop. Norman brought out a laptop from his bag, setting up the device with a practiced ease.
"So," he began, opening multiple saved tabs to reveal the UA applications they'd been working on the day prior, "we're really doing this?"
Emma smiled, leaning over the boy's shoulder to look at the screen, "Yep! We're gonna be heroes!"
It was strange to say it out loud, so confidently in a public space.
But Emma honestly couldn't see herself doing anything else. She'd always imagined a life similar to Mama's when she had been younger. Back before Conny's… shipment and the nightmare of escaping the House.
She wanted to help people. It seemed like a waste not to use all of the skills she'd gained during their time in the demon world.
Emma needed to be a hero, and if she never made it that far… Well, that was a problem for future Emma.
"Are you certain, Emma?" Norman asked, "Knowing how the people in this world view quirklessness, it definitely won't be easy for you to-"
" I know, " Emma cut him off, a pout playing on her lips as Mr. I Have a Super High IQ Quirk stalled, "Submit the applications already!"
Norman laughed, pressing the submit button on each application, one-by-one as Ray just sighed from his seat.
"So it's official now," he mused, sipping on his coffee, "We just have to take the entrance exam, and we'll be attending UA."
It was a fun scenario to entertain. A boy with a quirk heightening his IQ to superhuman levels, a boy who entertained the thought of arson on a daily basis, and a quirkless girl.
Emma couldn't help but smile, despite the lingering dread that pooled within her stomach.
Her mind clouded, thoughts shifting back to the dream that had awoken her that morning. The way H̵̹̀i̷̟͛s̶̠͋ laughter seemed to echo through her thoughts, picking and choosing at her worst fears and greatest wishes in search for a proper Reward .
The Reward.
She pushed the thoughts away.
For now, they were happy. For now, they were together.
And in that moment, that was more than enough.