Chapter 2: Branded

Running. Feet sliding off wet blades of grass and sinking into heaps of mud, disturbing the body's balance and forcing her to spare precious seconds to overcorrect herself. The air was cold, moist, blowing with great fury and lashing out at every living thing in its path. Shadows of bark trees ominously passed by in an all-encompassing blur, dark branches looming above creeping on her in a cage of roots and groves, overgrown leaves blocking away the faint light of the night skyline. Until nothing in the world beyond this small patch of the woods held substance anymore.

Taylor forced her body to go even faster; it refused her at every turn. Her atrophied muscles screamed in agony under the strain of constant, not perfectly rhythmic movements, performed in a manner lacking both coordination and experience. Her breathing came out rapid, uneven, a hoarse unpleasant croaking as her lungs desperately cried of starvation. She could feel bile rising up from her stomach, nudged in her throat. Her heart was thumping wildly, a deafening arrangement of drums that drowned out every other sound in her ears. Her vision narrowed, things blending around at the edges until all that she could make out through the cracked lenses of her glasses was the narrow path ahead of her.

Her clothes were little better than a heap of torn rags at this point, drenched in sweat and clinging uncomfortably to her body like they were two sizes too small. She was battered, muddied, at the edge of physical and mental exhaustion. She could tell that the second she even slightly loosened the metaphorical chains keeping her body even remotely in place, she would collapse to the ground, unable to pick herself back up again. So she kept running, fueled by something much more primal than rational thought or willpower. Fear. Pure, undistilled fear, a cold and sharp icicle stabbing in her back, nudging her forward, one step at a time. A fear that would not fade from her mind, that could not. Not as long as the symbol etched above her chest continued to bleed, a continual reminder that those things were still after her.

She had known something bad was about to happen, had been expecting it. Ever since that weird portal opened in thin air showing Emma and some strange cape(?). More than the terrifying costume of the man, she had panicked seeing the state Emma had been in. She was so bloody and bruised that Taylor would have had trouble recognizing her if not for her distinct hair. It had been horrifying, and what's more none of her attempts at getting her attention seemed to work. Her friend had just stood there, in a daze, with the most odd expression she had ever seen on...anybody, really. Then, Emma finally said something.

"I sacrifice."

The next thing she knew, Taylor was on the floor, a sensation akin to hot iron blossoming beneath her left shoulder. She must have blacked out at some point, for she couldn't remember anything after that until she next opened her eyes and found herself staring at the ceiling of the log cabin, head lying down on one of the camp counselor's lap as the girl, at most a couple years older than she was, was manically splashing water on her face, hoping to wake her up. Unsurprisingly, no one had believed what she had seen, attributing it to a dream or a hallucination as a result of her fainting (Taylor had told them that she had been feeling under the weather for the last couple of days). It was a plausible explanation, the most likely one even, but the sheer vividness of the memory still hung in her mind, gnawing at her with a growing sense of unease. She had asked for one of the counselor's phones so she could call home and make sure everything was alright. When neither the numbers from her nor Emma's household picked up, that unease slowly began shifting into dread.

Perhaps hoping to take Taylor's mind off of some of her worries, the leader of their group at camp, the same girl who fretted over her when she fell unconscious, had talked with the others to arrange a campfire in the middle of the cabin area, an event that she later heard was usually reserved for the final day of camp. It had made her feel a bit better, if slightly embarrassed that so many people were bending over for her sake, but that unsettling feeling remained. She had spent the rest of the day jumping at shadows, always glancing towards the slowly settling sun as if to confirm it hadn't gone up and vanished, leaving her behind.

When the time came for the long-awaited campfire, the sky had taken on a similar vibrant and bright reddish-orange hue as the freshly lit pyre beneath them. All around her the kids her age were laughing and joking among themselves, roasting marshmallows under the watchful eye of the older counselors, who had already saved a couple of sugary goods from being burnt to a crisp. All of that rowdiness and bustling had felt distant to her, however. She stood right next to everybody, yet they seemed so far away she could barely make out a couple of words they were saying. Even when other people were talking to her directly, it was like someone shouting from the distance, or underwater: muffled and echoey. So she had simply stood there, her heart in her throat as she curled up next to the fireplace as close as physically possible without burning herself, her gaze fixated on the growing darkness around her as a gleaming full moon started peeking from between the tall shapes of faraway trees.

It happened at the same moment the last ray of sunlight vanished from the horizon. Taylor knew that because she had been closely paying attention to it, even if she herself did not know the reason for it. A sudden harsh sting assaulted her chest, startling her enough for the tips of her dark hair to almost be seared by the flames. Looking down, she saw that the same spot on her white shirt -the standard uniform for the campers- was now turning a dark red. She pulled up from its collar to peek underneath and noticed the arrangement of lines making up a strange symbol tattooed on her skin, the thinnest trickle of blood seeping out of it.

That's when the voices appeared.

"A sacrifice!"

"EH!" "EH!"

"Blood" Flesh" "Warmth!"

"Give it to us!"

"Arm!" "Eyes!" Liver"

"Sacrifice!"

"You belong to us!"

"LET US IN!"

It was coming from a hundred different directions, a cacophony of hollow wails and howls, malice dripping out of every sound carried over by the wind. There were harsh whispers and groans as well, their meaning hidden in the echoes of their unearthly chanting. As everyone around her erupted into a panicked frenzy, their terrified shuffling and shouting and crying filling the air yet not covering any of the foreign voices, coming closer to their little island of flame by the second. Try as she might, Taylor could not catch sight of the owners of those abhorrent screams, hidden as they were by the thick veil of darkness. She soon understood the reason for that.

They were the shadows themselves.

Countless eyes were suddenly gleaming from the abyss around them, all of them, without fail, staring directly at her, full of such terrible hunger she thought those horrible yellow orbs alone would be enough to devour her where she stood. They stalked forward, her hunters' bodies forming out of thin air as they became observable. Pale and ghastly caricatures of men deformed beyond recognition, their form was but a fleeting outline drifting about, an oily dripping tar crawling across the earth. Those things exuded an undescribable sense of wrongness, like they should have only been allowed to exist in long-forgotten nightmares, never to step foot in the realm of the living. Staring at them, there was only one thing running through Taylor''s mind, an unescapable fact she could not hope to delude herself into ignoring:

'They are here for me.'

Somebody bumped into her shoulder, the name of the person escaping her for the moment. Taylor broke free of the spell of her own body trapping her still, allowing herself to join in with the people around her in shared terror. Some were running away aimlessly, others took out their phones from their pockets and hurriedly brought them to their ears with trembling hands, others simply broke down where they stood, unable to accept the new reality that had overtaken them. It was a true pandemonium, robbing them of any sense of rational thought or action. And it was upon such a scene that hell descended.

Taylor had not realised she had started running, nor the absence of people around her as they scattered in other directions. Such things as a plan or a destination felt laughably far away, mocking her from a great distance. All she could do was obey her most natural instinct, to flee those foul fiends that desired her, desired her life. One of them managed to grab onto her as she zoomed passed the horde, that twisted and horrid limb passing through her shoulder like freezing cold water. She felt the heat of her body drain away, her movements becoming sluggish until she could barely keep her eyes open. Ahead of her, the cabins in the distance seemed to shrink and morph into granite shapes, resembling gravestones. From the corner of her eyes, she could make out the luscious brown of a closed casket...

Taylor violently shook off her captor, screaming at the top of her lungs as a million different emotions mangled and mixed inside her. Why was this happening to her? Why were these things after her? What's gonna happen to the rest of the people? Was it all her fault?

In a brief moment of clarity, Taylor shunted all of those questions to the back of her mind. She couldn't afford to question it, she couldn't afford to worry. There was no time for complaining or feeling sorry for herself, all she needed to do in that very moment was to run. So she did.

She couldn't tell how much time had passed since it started. Seconds and hours blended in together ruthlessly depriving her of any sense of time. She could not remember how high the moon had risen from the last time she had looked, but now it stood almost frozen in its spot, refusing to move until an eternity and a half had passed. In the beginning, there had been a small part of herself who wanted to believe she could outrun them, that she could escape their grasp. Now she knew better. They weren't fast, but they were endless. As soon as one faded from her view, two more would take its place, emerging from sickly green moss infesting the north side of every tree, from rotten hollows as large as her head, from the thin layer of dried leaves littering the ground, much out of place from the middle of the summer. Not once had they stopped their twisted bellowing, filling her mind with the most awful and horrible things, things they couldn't possibly know about her. They hunted her endlessly, yet there was no pleasure to be taken from their chase. Only anger and envy and pain.

The dark-haired girl was painfully aware that the end was inescapable, that sooner or later her body, long past the point of total exhaustion, would finally give out on her and then the creatures would have their way with her. Yet she pushed ahead regardless. Her mind had reached its limit and went past it, arriving at an unnatural sense of clarity. It was like the fear had emptied everything about herself, leaving behind only grim determination. The conviction to last ten, five more seconds, to defy the providence awaiting her to her last breath.

What brought an end to this insane rhythm she had established was a flickering light, dancing so faintly through the sea of timber she had almost missed it. Without even thinking about it, Taylor hard pivoted, almost knocking her head against a low branch her eyes had glazed over. With a muffled curse, she sprinted towards the source. Having long since adapted to the almost complete darkness around her, navigation through the raised roots and hunched willows came almost naturally to her by this point.

When she arrived at the edge of the clearing, she had not thought about what to expect. The lights of a small shack, the first sign of civilization. A passing car, or maybe a park ranger who had received one of the many distress calls issued by the voters. She certainly hadn't expected to be greeted by a large campfire and a couple of well-maintained cabin logs. She had somehow ended up running in circles, returning to the very place she had run away from in the first place. 'Or maybe I was being herded back here.' her mind whispered

For the first time yet, there was no sign of the undead ghosts haunting her present. Taylor still approached cautiously, unable to actually trust in this small reprieve offered to her. The strange symbol was still silently bleeding, her shirt's colour getting closer to red than anything else at this point. No other camper or councilor was in sight, but she could make out some strange lumps ahead, not even fifty feet away from her. They didn't look anything like her pursuers, so she got closer to get a better look.

That was a mistake.

What awaited her were the remains of what had once been a person. Its limbs had been pulled out from their sockets, twisted in unnatural angles. Flesh and fabrics had been ripped apart, jumbled together until there was no telling one from the other. There were multiple spots where the milky white of the bone was visible, protruding through the scraps of skin and organs. The whole thing exuded a putrid and metallic smell, something that should not belong to a fresh corpse. With shaking hands, Taylor turned it around, looking for a pulse that had long been extinguished.

She looked familiar. Taylor didn't want to know. Those slightly large lips and the freckled nose forced their way through and dragged up a sudden memory against her will. Her bunkmate, Kenzie, sharing with her a box of juice she had smuggled from breakfast.

She threw up.

Once she had made sure there wasn't anything left in her stomach to spit out, Taylor rosed back to her feet. What she needed to do was find a phone. She remembered that some people had tried to call the authorities, she wasn't sure whether they succeeded, however. She had to make sure the PRT was on its way, ready to rescue her and the other survivors. That is if there were any other-

Taylor brought her hands to her cheeks in a loud slap. She didn't need to think about that. Gritting her teeth so hard together she felt them crack, she turned away from the girl's b-body and made her way towards the fire, still crackling in full blaze, ignorant and uncaring of the carnage around it. Illuminated by its strength she eyed one of the supervisor's signature blue and green jackets. If anyone had had a phone, it was most likely one of them. The small girl's hand trembled as she reached into its pockets, one by one, trying her best to not touch anything else. Having found nothing but a pack of half-eaten crackers, she got ready to check the next one as well, when a hand had grabbed her wrist. The coldness of the touch immediately reminded her of the apparitions, but this felt different. Its grip had substance.

"Sacrifice!"

The corpse had raised its head to look at her, the same maddening yellow in its eyes that had been peering at her from the shadows for the entire night. Its movements were unnatural, like a puppet whose strings had been tangled. That didn't stop its other mangled arm however from inching ever closer to her face.

Taylor desperately tried to yank herself free, but unlike the ghosts, this thing's strength easily overpowered hers. All she managed to do was to scramble backwards on the ground as she repeatedly kicked the moving deceased in the face, to no particular avail. Her other hand was blindly searching for something, anything she could grab and use as a weapon, frantically moving through the grass and dirt until it finally stumbled onto something. Without even thinking, she brought it barreling towards her assailants.

The corpse jerked back, letting go of her with a pained groan. Only when it was right in front of her eyes did Taylor register what she had managed to grab. It seemed like, in their panic to get away, one of the kids had dropped near the fire the stick they used for roasting marshmallows, because in her hands rested a long twig, its upper part emulated by flames. Eyes widening, she jabbed forward with her new weapon, watching as her foe retreated by half a step, its face contorted with overwhelming rage and... uncertainty?

The thought barely registered as sounds of sloppy movement and hoarse moans erupted all around her. One by one, each of the bodies littering the field was awakening once more, rising from death to prey on the living. Yet it seemed like they abhorred fire. Knowing it wouldn't do much against the sheer number of corpses she was facing, Taylor let go of the stick and hurriedly took out a large piece of lumber sticking out from the pyre, one of the ones that had largely escaped the flames' embrace. The piece of wood in question was bulkier than both her arms put together, making holding it an awkward and exhausting ordeal. Swinging it was out of the question entirely. But that suited her just fine; she didn't plan on fighting them, only warding them off.

"Surrender yourself!" "You belong to us!"

"Sacrifice!"

"Meat!" "Legs!" "Heart!"

"Let us rip you apart!"

"It is our right!"

The inhuman aberrations inhabiting the corpses swarmed her, or at least tried to. With her back hugging the fire so tightly it was surprising she herself hadn't been set ablaze, her makeshift torch managed to keep them at bay for the most part. Sometimes one of them got pushed forward by the mass of bodies crowding together, resulting in her having to make use of her meager strength to force it back. There was scarcely any left space between the monsters; she was surrounded by a moving wall of clambering faces and limbs. More than once one of them unexpectedly lashed at her from the side, hanging the mouth of its broken jaw aimed for her throat, forcing her to dodge and repel at the last possible second. Her hands had been drenched in sweat so thoroughly it made holding on to the log all the more difficult. Every instance when it felt like it slipped through her fingers, even by one millimeter, was enough to send a jolt of panic through her entire body. Wherever she looked, only maddened expressions and decaying features greeted her. All kept at bay by the feeble light in her hands, a small drop of warmth into a world of tombs.

She was managing to stay afloat, if only by the skin of her teeth. It seemed like, as long as the piece of wood in her hands didn't fall from her grasp, as long as the pyre behind her continued to burn, she was going to make it until sunrise. Why had that thought filled her with such a profound and unshakable sense of relief, she didn't know. It was the same gut feeling that made her tremble in nervous anticipation of the nightfall, telling her that if she survived by then, she would be safe. That the sun would wash away all the terrors that haunted the obscurity of the sleeping world and her nightmare would fade away come morning.

So focused she was on the monsters ahead of her, that she had no time to spare looking at her feet. So it was too late when she noticed the ethereal pale wisps rising from below her until it was too late. She froze in place. The fire didn't work against the ghosts. The realization came just a moment before they rushed at her, submerging into her as she screamed, louder than she had in her entire life. All sensation in her body left her as they washed over her and everything around her faded into darkness.

She was on a bench. A hand gently caressed her hair, moving in practiced and familiar patterns. There had been only one person who would play with her hair like that. She caught the hand in her own. Their shape, their softness, she knew them all too well.

"Mom?"

She was standing right next to her, looking into the distance as she continued to affectionately rub her hand. She couldn't make out her face, but the hair obscuring it was unmistakable. After all, it was the same hair she so dearly treasured, her only redeeming feature in her otherwise subpar appearance. Taylor could feel tears welling up, but she refused to let them fall. She would not let them obscure her vision for even a second, for she feared that the moment she looked away, her mother's profile would disappear.

"It's time, little owl." Her voice, which hadn't faded from her memory even after all this time, was full of affection. Yet it also sounded sad, distant.

"Time for what? Mom? How are you here?" She had a hard time putting her finger on where exactly 'here' was, but it didn't seem important at the moment.

"Time to let go, Taylor. Come along with me, now."

"What are you saying? You need to come home. I miss you. We miss you. Dad, h-he needs you. He's not been himself ever since you..." Ever since she what? Taylor's brows furrowed. Something wasn't right.

"It's too late for that." Her mother said with a sad chuckle. "You know that, right?"

It was only then that she noticed the car crashed into a truck in front of her, a small trail of blood trailing from the passenger seat right to her mother's shoes.

"Come on, Taylor!" she called out again, subtracting her hand and beckoning her to follow as she stood up. "We need to be on our way."

Something clicked in her mind. "N-no. I can't. Not yet, I can't..."

"There there!" her mother cooed, passing her a tissue for her to wipe her tears. Sometimes during the conversation, the wall had broken. "It's not as scary as it seems, I promise. Besides, you weren't happy anyway, were you? You certainly couldn't call that pathetic display you've been doing in my absence living, can you?"

The girl recoiled as if she'd been struck. "I know. But I-I tried my best, I really did! It was just so hard!"

"You shouldn't have bothered" the voice now took on a different cadence. A mocking and strident tone, much too girthy to be coming out of her mother's throat. "So weak and pitiful. A complete disappointment, that's all you are and always have been." The figure finally turned towards her. Her mother's face was nowhere in sight, all she could see was an amalgamation of bulbous eyes and elongated mouths, haphazardly stitched together by claws and teeth.

"JUST GET OVER HERE ALREADY!" It roared as she lunged at her. Taylor screamed.

Two vast beings floated through the vast emptiness of space, folding and unfolding into each other in manners beyond description, constantly shifting and reforming into themselves, existing simultaneously in every nearby dimension. Countless motes of light were left in their wake, dancing like sand flowing across the gale of the headwind. A light in particular, brighter than its peers, drifted away from the collective, a shooting star covering the endless sky.

[DESTINATION]

[AGREEMENT]

[TRAJECTORY]

[להיות מעבר לגורל האדם]

[ERROR]

[UNKNOWN AGENT DETECTED]

[HOST POSES RISK OF CONTAMINATION FOR THE CYCLE]

[ABANDONING PROCESS]

When the world returned to focus, she found herself on her knees, her back arched forward and her head raised to the sky. Her lungs delighted in utter ecstasy as she took in fast breaths, her nostrils inhaling the smoke and blood-tainted air as if it were the purest mountain breeze. Her head pounded fiercely as jumbled memories flashed before her, jostling her back to the present. Her bloodshot eyes darted all around, frantically searching for the monsters that should have torn her apart by now.

The reason she had not been was quickly made apparent. Somebody was currently in the process of slaughtering them.

The man moved like a hurricane of blood and steel. He jumped and rolled around, never in the same place for more than a mere second, his body twisting and shifting as he cut his way through the horde of ghosts and undead like butter. Whenever his muscles tensed and his sword was swung at inhuman speeds, limbs and body parts followed in its wake, all to the background of muffled and angered curses. Wherever he stepped, the blood and guts littered the ground beneath them, soaking into the grass and painting the land around him in different shades of red. She could see the horde of creatures rushing him, but all they did was add more targets for the meat grinder to sink its steel fangs in. Occasionally, one of the spirits would ignore him and try to make its way towards her, but none of them even managed to get close. Even with his back turned to her, it was like he had eyes at the back of his skull, for he always knew when something strayed away from his reach. And he easily slain said thing without fail.

"Hey, don't you dare move from that spot." he shouted at her. Her feet, which were in the process of doing just that, were reigned in by an effort of will. "Don't make my job harder than it already is. It's been a while since I could get my hands on so many of these bastards in one go, I really don't feel like going back to running around all over the place 'cause you went ahead and got yourself killed like an idiot."

Taylor gulped but nodded in agreement, not that the man bothered to look. Trusting an unknown and frankly sketchy cape to guarantee her safety might not have been the smartest idea, but at this point, there was not really another choice on the table. Plus, it was all too clear to her that if he had wanted her dead, there wasn't anything she could do about it. So she decided to stay put and watched in morbid fascination as the man effortlessly took on what amounted to a small army all by himself.

It was a surreal experience, watching a clashing between forces beyond normal humans, without the barrier of a screen in between. However, even compared to those cape videos she and Emma watched and fanned over on her friend's computer, this was totally different. There was none of the mystique and flair with which heroes and villains presented themselves, making the fights feel closer to a grand performance than an actual life-and-death battle. This was bloody, ugly, more real than she could have ever prepared for. She could hear the snapping of bones, see the rivers of gore bursting forward, taste the impending feeling of death looming over every movement and every breath. It was horrible, terrifying, yet at the same more awe-inspiring than any hero smiling brilliantly to a camera and waving at the crowd. Because it felt genuine.

By far the most striking feature of the man was his weapon. Coated in dull black, it was almost as wide as she was, and about as tall. The strange thing about it was the way it seemed to abruptly end at where its tip should have been, displaying instead a jagged and irregular pattern. Almost as if the blade was broken in half, but the idea alone was absurd. The thing was already gigantic in her eyes, at twice the size it would have been closer to a heap of raw iron than an actual sword. Regardless, it was clearly of high quality. It should have been able to bludgeon its opponents to death with its size alone, but its edge was so sharp even a casual flick was enough to cleanly split a body in two. When the man actually put his whole body in his attack, it was like the strike of a massive guillotine.

By the time the small grove was cleared of fiends, the sky had taken on a brighter pallor, from an inky black to a dark blue, lighting up by the minute. The stars had faded away and even the moon paled considerably, an ethereal apparition that might vanish at any moment. The sun hadn't yet appeared on the horizon, but it was clear that it wasn't far away.

"Well," the main exclaimed as he sheathed his sword and lightly stretched as if he had just finished a light workout. He seemed barely winded. "That should be all of them in this area. Oh, right, you were still here. You can go back inside and bake your cookies or whatever, there aren't any more of them coming tonight."

With a half-hearted wave, the man casually turned around to leave.

"Wait!" she called out to him, rushing ahead and grabbing his tethered cloak. Only when he turned around, did she finally manage to get a good look at him.

He was wide, bulging with muscle, but surprisingly not that tall. He barely would have come up to his father's forehead. His auburn hair, overgrown and spiky, stood at odds with the rest of his color scheme, an ensemble of black and greys. Even if mostly covered in heavy, medieval-style armour, there were plenty of scars visible across his body. Especially on his face, where an empty socket stared back at her in place of his left eye. Yet that didn't stop his remaining one from looking at her with boredom.

"You're a cape, right? Are you with the PRT? Are they on their way here?" To her dismay, her questions were only met by a confused stare.

"Cape? PRT? I have no idea what you're talking about. They some sort of demons or something?"

"Demons?"

"Spirits, ghosts, whatever ya wanna call them. The things that wanted a piece of you tonight."

'Is he one of those parahumans who thought their power came from magic? No that still doesn't explain why he doesn't know what the PRT is.' she thought. The crazy conspiracy theorists that babbled on the supernatural had always been the laughingstock of the internet ever since she could remember. Yet, as she stood there, atop a hill of corpses, her mind replaying the night's events over and over again, she had a hard time believing anything human, or even parahuman, could have possibly had a hand in the making of those things.

"Do you know what they are or where they came from? I'd rather not run across them ever again in my life."

The man chuckled darkly, a heavy weight settling on her stomach.

"They're always there, lurking in the corners, waiting for a shot to possess and curse the living. Buncha' petty assholes, if ya ask me. It's just that ya don't see 'em 'cause they normally can't cross over to this side. Not unless something lures them here, like that Brand of yers'."

"My what?" Taylor asked, looking down at herself to where the swordsman was looking at. At some point in the night, her clothes had become so shredded they could barely cover anything at this point, yet she was too exhausted to care at her moment. Her hand instead wandered to the carved symbol above her chest. It had finally stopped bleeding.

"That's what it's called. The Brand of Sacrifice. It means that someone has offered you up as demon food in exchange for having a wish granted or whatever. As long as you have it every squirming bug dwelling in the Astral Layer will come running at you, salivating at the mouth."

Taylor blinked in confusion. She remembered what those things had called her. He was saying someone had done this to her? Why would they-

"I sacrifice."

"NO!" she shouted, her fists curling up in utter indignation. "You don't know what you're talking about! She would never do that! Not to me, not to anyone else. You're wrong!"

"Don't care if ya believe me or not, it's not my business" he scoffed, clearly unimpressed by her outburst. "It's not like I'm ever gonna see you after this anyway. I was only able to come and babysit your ass because it was a full moon tonight. " To punctuate his statement, he held out his arm. Almost like the ghosts that had haunted her, it was slowly fading away, turning translucent. "The next time it gets dark it probably won't be as bad as this, the moon affects them too, but I doubt ye scrawny little brat will last even a week on your own."

Just as soon as it came, all of the anger drained from the body, along with any remaining color.

"But there has to be something I can do, right? Have the heroes put her in permanent protection or something. Have them find a way to erase this. Maybe you...maybe y-you could carve it f-from my body?"

"Not gonna work." he flippantly said, shaking his head. "Removing it is out of the question, and I've no idea which heroes ya talking 'bout, but I doubt they can have anything that could hurt these guys. Weapons like that are rare these days. Maybe a couple hundred years back you could have found a witch to stop the Brand from attracting monsters, but there's no longer any left now."

Taylor's mind spun. The monsters, the rest of the campers, the words coming out of the man's mouth, it was all too much. She couldn't take it anymore. All she wanted right now was to bury herself in her bed, to cut herself off from everything until the world could start to make sense again. She would hug her favorite pillow and cry until there were no tears left; and then her dad would come to check up on her, a waiting cup of hot tea in his hand. And she'd hug him until her arms started going numb, and he would gently pat her on the back and whisper to her that everything was going to be alright. At least then she could lie to herself that it would be.

She plopped onto the floor. The ground was wet and disgusting, but she couldn't care less. Hot tears washed over her face as her whole body shook uncontrollably, no sound escaping safe from brief, quiet sobs. It was all just too unfair. This hell that she had been plunged into without warning, this gaping abyss that had consumed everybody else, she had somehow managed to survive it. Against all odds, she endured, she had escaped from the grasp of death, the end that had been all but promised to her. Only to hear that had all been a pipe dream. Out of all of those people, whose only sin had been their proximity to her, she was the only one still breathing, and what did she have to show for it? Nothing. Because she was going to have to go through that again the next day. And the day after. And the day after that. Over and over again, until she finally succumbed to her inevitable fate.

A part of her wished she hadn't tried to run when she had. At least if it had all ended there for her, maybe the creatures would have left the others alone. She had been doomed from the beginning, there was no reason for her to drag everyone else down with her.

"The hell you started moping for?" the man asked. Surprised he was even still there, Taylor looked up. He had fully turned towards her, his hands crossed as he gave her an annoyed stare. Despite that, for the first time since he'd met him he finally seemed to give her his full attention."Instead of sitting around and crying all day, you should start looking for some supplies and a place to sleep while the sun is out. If night catches you in this state, you'll get yer guts spilled out in the first five minutes!"

"What's it to you?" she sniffed. "I thought you said you didn't care about what happens to me!"

"I really don't. But people like you are an eyesore. They piss me off."

"W-what?"

"Standing around and complaining all day about how unfair the world is, pitying themselves like a loser about not being able to do anything when they've already given up before they even tried. The ones that thing they're the only ones who're having it rough, that's the kind of people I hate the most!"

Taylor's mouth hung open. This guy, who had just, in passing, plainly told her she was going to die no matter what was now standing here and lecturing her about giving up.

"It's easy for you to say, watching me from the sidelines like I'm Saturday morning cartoons!" she said, feeling a trickle of familiar anger seeping into her voice. "Just what the fuck do you expect me to do then?"

The unknown man was suddenly right in front of her, so close her nose was practically touching his armor. He might not have been, Particularly tall but he still easily towered over her with his presence alone. Taylor couldn't suppress the shiver going down her spine at his sudden approach.

"First off" he all but growled, mouth opening just enough for the sound to escape between his teeth. "you'll shut up about things ya got no clue about. Understood?"

Only when she nodded did his one eye stop pinning her in place and she stepped back, allowing her a much-needed intake of air. "As for what you should do? Simple. Struggle."

Taylor eyed him with annoyance. "That's not actual advice, you know."

"Sure it is." he shrugged. "It's all the advice you need in this life."

"And how exactly am I supposed to do that?"

In response, his hand went to his belt, where an assortment of weapons clung in wait. After a brief moment of hesitation, he pulled out a wild dagger and threw it in her direction, causing her to wince as the blade lodged itself in the ground right next to her.

"That thing should be able to hurt whatever's gonna come out after you," he said. "Not as good as Dragonslayer, but it does its job. Of course" he added, a wide grin stretching across his face. "It's also sharp enough for you to slip your throat within one go. Pretty painless, from what I've heard."

"You're saying my only two choices are to either die or spend the rest of my life killing demons? What the hell kinda life would that even be!?" she shouted in indignation, but he was already walking away from her. By this point, his outline was so faint he practically blended in with the background. Far into the distance behind him, red streaks danced across the horizon, bathing it in vibrant and brilliant colors.

"Nobody said it's easy, or that you'll be rewarded. A happy ending is pretty much impossible for you, and it's more likely than not that you'll simply die off in some random ditch without anyone finding out about it. Still, you're alive right now. Even if you have nothing you want to do with the rest of her life, that's a good enough reason to try to keep it that way. Or else you're spitting in the face of everybody who wanted to keep on fighting for one more day, but didn't have that choice." He spared one last glance at her, taking her in from top to bottom. "You do. And if by some miracle you're still alive by the next time I come back to this Layer, I'll have you pay me back for the knife. See ya around, I guess!" And with that, he vanished along with the first rays of sunshine, leaving her all by herself, staring at the weapon's handle.

Something she wanted to do. Out of everything spilling out of that asshole's mouth, that was the thing that stuck with her the most. She thought back to her dad, already so devastated by the loss of the most important person in his life. They hadn't been anything even approaching close for quite a while, not since the accident, and she didn't know if the gulf between them would ever disappear completely. But she knew that if he lost her as well, it would break him beyond what he'd be able to handle.

She thought back to Emma as well. Her closest friend, the only person in her life she knew she could rely on without worry. She still remembered their parting before she left for summer camp; their promise to see each other as soon as she got back, her cheerful smile trying to inject some courage into her as she waved her goodbye from the car's window. There was no doubt in her mind that she wouldn't betray her like that, not in a million years. But at the same time, she knew that something had definitely happened. That portal, the unknown cape (who for all she knew that, could have been something else entirely), those words at the end. Maybe she was in trouble and needed help, or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the case, she needed to see her. She needed to know.

Her fingers tightened their hold around the dagger's handle. The material felt rough, unpleasant to the touch, and not comfortable at all in her hand. Still, she pulled it out, raising it above her head as the blade glistened under the morning sun, not shying away as its blinding luster reflected into her eyes.