II:Alien Bones, Crumbling Stone

Deep-blue, amorphous, inches away from water, the blood of a god-beast clung to stone in dried clumps. Out of small cracks in the clot, the same liquid streamed down the surface in droplets, all converging at the bottom until they would drip into long-undisturbed waters. Glimpses of another place shimmered through the dilutions: a realm of storms and coniferous trees towering high above. Even if more could be seen through the shimmers, not one soul had enough explored the labyrinth of rock, stalagmites, and crystal where these reflections hid. Not that of a witch or a demon, anyway.

Water dripped off Valentina's chin and fingertips. Washington state may have been her home for several years now, but she was still not a fan of getting wet. Or of falling into ponds, for that matter. She shook the water off her hands, wiped it off her face, and ruffled it out of her hair as best she could. Careful not to damage her soggy crop-top leather jacket, she eased it off of her, then held it ahead of herself.

"This better not be ruined…" she mumbled as she inspected it. If it really was ruined, that would be the wages of so many shifts at the warehouse done and gone, and her mom was probably gonna scold her ear off.

Val draped the wet stone ground with her jacket then took off her shirt and twisted its polyester in fistfuls, water pouring out of the cloth. This, she didn't have to worry much about. It was U.S. Army standard-issue; heavy-duty material made for constant wear and tear. If she'd decided to enlist, her own would've lasted her through boot-camp. Hell, it would even last her through the post-apocalypse.

Her shirt an improvised towel, Val dabbed herself dry with it some more then wringed it for whatever it may have sucked up. Nothing much, so she pulled it back on. Still on the ground laid her jacket. As careful as she would be with a prince's cloak, she picked it up and slid her arms through the sleeves until her hands popped out ahead of the cuffs. $149, man…

Her shirt clinging a little less to her now was nice for sure, but that didn't change the fact Val was still in a cave. This part was lit up by the rainbow lights those crystals were making, but the tunnels that led wherever else hadn't been blessed the same. There were four of them: one a few steps away to her left where she stood, one a bit farther to her right, one behind her with a slight upward incline leading up to it, and one on the other far end of the ledge she stood on, several yards away to the right. They all would've been the same to Val if it weren't for slight differences in the shapes of the entrances and crystals around some of them. Leaving the system or delving deeper into it might as well have been up to pulling straws. Just so any ways to tell could work–if there even were any–she'd have to be able to tell the tunnels apart.

Incline is 1, the one ahead is 2, one a bit off to the right is 3, and farthest away is 4. Venturing into either still meant stumbling around in the dark, and she wouldn't wanna come across bats, snakes, coyotes, or a bear, God forbid, so she was gonna need a source of light.

Val's hand scrambled to quickdraw her phone a-la-John Marston, but the moisture inside her pocket killed the reflex. She pulled it out with apprehension and doubt, her fingers hugging the plastic case as she cupped her hands around the device.

The droplet-sprinkled black mirror reflected what she expected: a messy-looking Hispanic punk. Resting her forehead against its upper edge, she closed her eyes. To pray, if need be. Her plea: that her phone come alive with at least the 31% battery she remembered it had remaining.

"please work please work please work please work", she begged. The case left a pressure mark on her forehead after she pulled away to stare at the screen in her shot in the dark for a solution against it.

Biting her lips and holding in a deep breath in suspense, she pressed down on the power button. Zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven– It wasn't turning on. It should've turned on by now. The absence of the manufacturer's logo burned a pit in Val's stomach.

"Fuck…" she growled under her breath, bowing her head and shutting her eyes tight in frustration. Amid deep breaths, "Tranquila… tranquila… No pasa nada," she whispered to reassure herself.

A cluster of crystal shone in its spiky scarlet geometry, rooted at the top of the stone arch of the entrance to the closest tunnel – and Val snapped to look at it, above her to the left. It was about the size of a full backpack. Maybe, if she could somehow chip a large-enough chunk off one of the crystals, she could use it to light her way through the tunnels. But, one: she couldn't reach that one. Two: that was assuming they'd glow even after broken off. And three: red wasn't a good color for a makeshift light source.

Val seemed to recall seeing a yellow one by one of the entrances when she was looking around for them to name them. 1 had none, 2 had red, but, sure enough, 3 had light-yellow. Perfect for spelunking, growing up from the ground at the entrance of tunnel 3.

Walking to the cluster, Val was thankful that it wasn't too high-up. Otherwise she would've had to figure out a way of not only reaching it, but breaking it, too. She supposed she could use the serrations on her knife to break one of the many stalagmites around her, but no one has time or patience for that. It would've been an ordeal and a half.

Val drew out her knife crouching next to the cluster. Mindful of how sharp glass can be, she got her hand close to the tip of one of the crystal formations and took a slow hold of it. With the bottom of her knife's grip, she hammered on the crystal until the tip broke off, and Val blew on it to get rid of any residue.

It was smooth and lukewarm to the touch. About the size of a box cutter, or a screwdriver handle. It would do. Gave off a good amount of light, too.

Sheathing her knife, Val stood up as she looked around with her new light source in hand. Along the ledge she stood on were the four chances she could take. At least one of the tunnels she could explore would lead her out, and three max would only take her deeper or nowhere she'd want to be.

Bit of a no-brainer to think that 1 would lead out because of the incline, right? It only made sense. She walked to it and up the slope.

As she stood by the mouth of the tunnel, nothing met her eyes. There was only black. Black and the echo of her heartbeat she could swear she heard coming back at her off of somewhere. Any light seemed to cower at the thought of creeping much farther than the tunnel's mouth.

Something sparkled in the dark. There and over there, like diamonds spread over satin. The faint glint shimmered, nestled at the tip of tall, pointed silhouettes rising from the ground and hanging from the ceiling like Leviathan's fangs, and Val could imagine its offspring probing the air with their pronged tongues, writhing and slithering, concealed by the black, disturbed from their slumber by a nearby cracking sound. She had given away her position. She had committed a capital sin, and something was bound to come punish her for it and make her its prey.

Val snuck backwards away from the lightless tunnel, pale-faced and a knot clogging her throat. She had to choose another tunnel, and she had to choose now. Her head snapped to look at the other three, and seeing 2 was the closest, she scurried to its entrance.

Bats carrying brain-rotting rabies; a cobra's venom necrotizing Val's flesh and blackening her blood; a boa wrapping itself around her neck and snapping it in half, if she didn't suffocate to death first; a pack of coyotes ripping out her throat and rending the flesh off her limbs; bears… huge sharp claws for tearing flesh… a jaw with enough force to break bones… mutilation… dismemberment… evisceration…

The violence. The sheer fucking violence of nature roared and splattered in Val's mind, and she tried to shake and breathe it off. The one little, puny thing Val had to defend herself against it: a 7-inch knife. She drew it out and clutched it as if her life depended on it, the blade pointing down. She whipped it up, but the knife slipped out of her trembling fingers. Hurrying after it as it fell was no use. The knife clattered on the ground, and Val recoiled from the sound, freezing in place, sinking into her shoulders, and shutting her eyes.

From the tunnel, the clatter echoed. Again. And again. And again, weaker. Again, almost not there anymore, until the clatter stopped echoing from the tunnel's depths. Just what Val needed: more noise and another tunnel not worth going into.

There was a squishing, sucking noise. Coming from under Val. With every step she took. She looked down as she took a few steps toward tunnel 3. It was her shoes. The soles must've soaked up a lot of water, and her weight on them was causing the noise. Every damn animal in the system had probably been woken up by the ruckus she made. She didn't need to announce every one of her movements with those squishes coming from her shoes like Squidward. She was taking them off.

Sitting down along the wet rock of the mouth of tunnel 3, she undid the laces and pulled her sneakers off. At least she was hidden from whatever could come out of tunnel 1. Was she gonna carry them in her hands? Knife or crystal in one and shoes in the other? No, she needed the knife and crystal both at the ready. Holding her shoes in her hands as if she was returning them at the store wasn't optimal.

Val pulled the laces out of both shoes. Fingers wriggling around and holding cloth, one pair she threaded around her belt. Then through the holes closest to the ankle on her shoes, tying each end into large knots so they wouldn't fall through. Textured synthetic leather on her palm, she held them together with one hand before wrapping the other pair of laces over and under them so they wouldn't knock on each other as she moved and make any more noise. This strategy had one minor downside: save for her white socks, Val was barefoot now. She stood up, got a feel for the weight hanging off her belt, and tippy-tapped her toes on the ground.

''This is gonna suck…'' she whispered, already imagining the number the hard stone ground was gonna do on her feet. Before venturing deeper, she used the knife technique. The clatter echoed a fair bit less, and that could only mean good. Onwards she went, holding up the glowing-yellow crystal shard like Lady Liberty, except Val was holding a knife instead of a stone tablet.

Val's heart rate had come down from racing with the deep breaths she'd been taking for a few minutes, until she had to stop walking. Up, a ceiling she couldn't see that well. Down, a fall God knows how deep. Ahead, a ravine that put several yards of distance between both sides, and the path following on the other side rose to many feet – too many feet.

Even if by stepping back and sprinting as fast as she could–which wasn't little, mind you, if her P.E. teachers weren't bluffing–to gather enough speed to clear the ravine, there was no way Val would reach the ledge. Instead she'd just slam against the wall, fall down, and break all her bones once she hit the ground. Then she'd probably just die there. And if she could, by miracle, get to the ledge, her weak nerd arms wouldn't be strong enough to lift herself up. Staying another second in this tunnel was pointless. Turning on her heel and groaning, Val walked back to the dome with the rainbow crystals.

Val slowed down as she walked into the dome, keeping an eye out for anything that might be lurking around. Either whatever came looking for her had already left, or nothing ever came looking for her because there never was anything, but she wasn't staying around to find out. She looked at the last tunnel: 4, on the far end of the ledge.

''You have to get me out of here, right…?'' she whispered as she shambled toward it, wishing against nature that there was a way back up to land on Aurelius Pond. If only she hadn't gone there to let out her emotions. If only she hadn't sat at the cliff. If only she had stood up more quickly. If only, if only, if only…

Sudden cold stung the sides of Val's midsection. A draft wracked her with chills all over as she stood a few feet away from the mouth of tunnel 4. It was quiet and weak, but it was there, and it had to come from somewhere.

By walking closer, Val noticed the tunnel had much more space between wall and wall, and ground and ceiling. Now that she thought about it, the other tunnels weren't much larger than corridors. If they'd been a few feet smaller, they would've been claustrophobic. Val frowned and her eyes darted around as she tried to make sense of the differences. Logic and reason helped keep her expectations realistic, but the differences had to mean something.

''Work, brain. Work…'' Val mumbled, putting her wrist against the side of her head. She stuck the tip of her tongue out as she tried to recall anything useful from science classes at M.G.H.S.

Wind resulted as an interaction between warm air and cool air. That's why it was very windy when a cold front was about to bring changes in temperature. And air came from outside. Outside with the clouds and the birds, and the trees and the people, and the dirt and the bugs; where there was life and not just rocks and crystals and paranoia.

Val held her crystal high and clutched her knife, then marched on into tunnel 4, as eager to find where it led as she was curious.

Trémaux's algorithm, invented by Charles Pierre Trémaux, was known as an effective method to solve mazes. It consisted in exploring every path and marking off those that didn't lead to the end of the maze with whatever symbol (commonly an X) and tool (pencil, pen) the solver desired. It could theoretically be used to find one's way out of a cave, but Valentina didn't have a pen or marker to cross off paths she'd already explored. She did have little rocks she picked up along the way, though. Real nifty stuff she'd held onto from a video of two friends playing Fallout New Vegas. Probably the first time in her life random knowledge turned out to be useful.

The crystal shard rested inside the pocket of Val's jacket. It had been a while since she'd noticed the tunnel had gotten more lit up, enough so she could see without it in her hand, but the knife, you never know. As she rounded a bend, she saw even more light than before. Open and with a view of a rosy sky was an exit to this maze she'd been stumbling around for hours.

''Yes! YES!'' she exclaimed as she smiled with renewed hope, running toward the light and ignoring the pain wracking her legs.

Red leaves. They triggered something primal inside Val that made her pace slow at the sight. Unnerved, she stood in place and sheathed her knife. Step by step, eyes locked onto the leaves, she started walking as more and more trees bearing the same leaves came into sight.

Not an auburn-red or a pumpkin-orange – the leaves were a bloody red, on trees that looked a lot like Washington's pines and spruces, yet… there was something to these that set them apart other than the obvious, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Maybe it was some kind of hybrid species? A… sprine tree?

Something poked the soles of Val's feet. The grass, she assumed, and it took her effort to pry her eyes off the trees and look down. That wasa pumpkin-orange, and, that she knew, grass changed color only in autumn. It wasn't even summer.

Dropping on her knees, Val stabbed her fingers into the ground and tore it open. The dirt was normal. Not pink or blue or purple – it was a normal, doesn't-weird-me-out brown. She closed the tear and patted it as an apology to the ground as she stood back up and rubbed her fingers together. Now she had dirt under her fingernails. Should've used the knife. Oh, well.

Val was somewhere strange. Somewhere… different. Unexplored? Hostile? Civilized? How could an entirely new ecosystem exist beyond Aurelius Pond? How had it formed? For how long? No. Light. If this was under the Pond… then there shouldn't be a sky. But there it was anyway, curly, puffy clouds and everything. And Mistview was still too many miles away from Canada for this place to be anywhere close to the U.S.-Canada border, so this couldn't be Canada. But if this wasn't under the Pond… then where?

Only one tried-and-true way of finding out. Call her Columbus, 'cause she was gonna discover whatever this place was. No explorer worth their salt explored without shoes on, though, so she sat down and undid the mess she'd made of the laces.

Sneakers now equipped and inquisitive pioneer's spirit powering her stride, Val tugged her jacket taut and marched on. As she walked down the dirt path that led away from the cave and deeper into the forest, the song of the woods caught her ear. Wind whistled through the trees, caressing the trunks with a fleeting, yet perpetual embrace, and it flicked the leaves about; a shuffling, rustling element of percussion.

Harmonizing were the birds with their tweets and warbles, though unlike any Val had heard before, they still eased her worries and delighted her musical ear, making her tilt her head and smile at their whimsical little melodies. She could see it. A mother chirping in satisfaction as she fed her innocent, still-featherless young, who would one day fly away from the nest to do the same.

Dirt and gravel crackling under Val's shoes followed a more stable time measure, though no longer whipping with determined and headstrong heels, but buzzing and swaying with utter wonder and breathless admiration. The phantom of the smell of moist earth and the pitter-patter of rain haunted Val's senses. It was the missing thing that would make the environment perfect for just lying down, sprawling out her arms and legs, and closing her eyes to mingle with what everything came from, and to which everything would return once it had served its purpose. Then again, maybe it was for the better that it wasn't raining. Val hadn't brought her raincoat. Then again, again… maybe she wouldn't've minded.

On Val's left, dim sunlight lit up the sky in waning rays past the trees, and the dirt path led to an overlook where she could get a better view of the nearby terrain. Emerging past the rosy light and a mist, beyond the overlook, was the silhouette of a tall and triangular formation, like some kind of very angular arch rounded at the top with nubs and bumps. As she walked up the overlook, a strong gust of wind blew about, making Val shield her eyes. Once it had cleared up, she pushed her air-dried hair aside to look again, standing at the edge of the overlook.

There was no mistaking them. White as ivory, a femur and tibia rose out of water and met at the kneecap. It looked like a giant leg, smeared with something like lichen, about as red as the trees' leaves that used to weird her out so much. And if that was that, then… if she looked to her right, there should be…

And there was. An array of giant rib bones, curved and pointed. It didn't look like they came together at a sternum. Instead, none of them really seemed to touch at all from Val's point of view. Some were bigger, others smaller, and at some spots, two seemed to be rising together, one behind the other.

Val's mouth had gone dry from both awe and breathing through her mouth, her hands went a few degrees colder, and her heart clung onto her own ribcage, resisting to slip into the pit of her stomach. That she knew, in no online article or book on mythology had she ever read of a giant skeleton lying in the middle of any of Earth's seas or oceans, so the ''still on Earth'' idea had been pretty much shot out the windows of the house of reality by now.

Yet, she could see the unreal sights, feel her clothing–dried in some places, still wet in others–hear the wind and the birds, and smell… the faint stench of something like gamey meat that had gone bad. Ugh, and she could kinda feel it fouling her taste buds, too. After she was done shuddering at it, she spit on the ground and stomped it.

Along the distant coast, Val saw geometrical shapes. Squares and cylinders. What looked like wattle walls, cobblestone towers and thatched gables. Houses with wooden frames, huts with little entrances, and farms with fenced corrals. Architecture wasn't a part of nature; it was man-made. And that she knew for a fact. People built those things. People that she could talk to and ask for help, who lived in those buildings where she could maybe humbly ask if she could take shelter for one night, if they wouldn't mind, in exchange for work.

Or… she could just skip that part and sneak into a barn or something. And hope the settlers wouldn't find her and chase her out with pitchforks, or tie her to a post and lash her with whips and then lock her in a pillory in the town square where children could throw rotten vegetables at her and point and laugh and skip in circles as they held hands and sang songs about how she'd been dumb enough to think she wouldn't be found and now she was gonna be burned at the stake or something.

On second thought, yeah, no. Too big of a gamble. Maybe she'd be better off asking first.

Light coming from behind Val startled her. Raising her arm, she could see it shining on her leather-clad shoulder and past her elbow, and it warmed her somewhat. Turning around, she saw the bottom half of the sun peeking under yet another big 0l' bone.

This one was an arm, looked like the shoulder bone, raised upward and ending in a hand, half-open. As if… calling out for something, or against something; whatever must have ignored it. A giant weapon for the giant monster, maybe? A giant monster-hunter with a giant spear or a sword, or something. Or… a monster more giant than this gi– Wait, bottom half of the sun? It was setting, not rising. Val had to go.

Now knowing that the sun worked kinda in the same way here as it did back home–meaning that the left arm was possibly west in this place–Val dashed back down the dirt path of the overlook and in the opposite direction of the rainbow crystal cave: east. Soon enough the temperature would drop and the wind would pick up. Val had survived falling into the Pond, she had escaped the cave, and now she faced the risk of freezing to death in the middle of an alien forest. If she had cheated death twice, she sure as hell was gonna try to do it thrice. Maybe her luck had saved up since the beginning of her life and started spending just today. She just hoped she wouldn't run out of it until she was somewhere safe.

Isabel Carranza. If anyone asked, that was Val's name. Whatever big city was nearby, she'd gotten sick of its fast lifestyle and just couldn't keep up with it, so she came to one of the neighboring villages hoping she could find a simpler, more slow-paced life. She'd overhear the city's name eventually by eavesdropping on the settlers chatting. Her military T-shirt, Hollister jeans, and leather ''waist ornament'' were in vogue in the city. Linen blouses and hemp skirts–or whatever the settlers would be wearing when she saw them–not so much, so that's why she was dressed funny. But she wouldn't point that out. Last thing she'd want is come across as snooty city-folk not willing to get her hands dirty. If there was any work that needed to be done, she'd volunteer to do what she could in exchange for goods, and in hopes of being received into their lovely rural society… if she even fucking got there in the first place.

The sun was well-behind the horizon, and Val hadn't seen one sign of civilization, but it had gotten darker and colder, because that's just how nature works. Val shoved both hands into her pockets and held the crystal shard inside. It would only get even darker, and that's when the crystal would come in handy, even if it wouldn't help warm her up much. Going around with a light in her hand might as well just be painting a shiny target on her back for whatever predators might be on the prowl, though. If giant monster skeletons were a thing here, then giant spiders probably were, too. Along with insects she couldn't even imagine because the likes of them didn't exist on Earth.

Val rubbed the sheer surface of the crystal with her thumb as she recalled the cluster she'd broken it off of. To think that just a few hours ago she was drying herself with her shirt, begging her phone to work, banging on crystals with her knife, and sneaking around dim tunnels. You know, that cave, even though it was dark and didn't have any kind of furniture, still would've made for a decent shelter. Val would've just had to walk a bit deeper to hide from the cold, and she knew the way back up anyway. Now, why she hadn't done exactly that, she didn't know. Sleeping anywhere but solid rock ground did sound more appealing than freezing to death in the forest at night. Hindsight sure was about as much of a bitch as karma.

Speaking of karma, what the hell had Val done to deserve ending up in this mess? Maybe there were consequences for skipping more than fifty-two Sundays of church. And that was… getting chucked into what didn't look quite like the lake of fire and brimstone she'd been threatened so much with. Sure stank like it, though.

As she winded down the beaten path, Val came to a fork on the road. One path kept going ahead to the east and disappeared into the forest's shroud, while the other headed to the right, northwards. A post, and just the post, separated them. On the ground next to it was a wooden board, and Val crouched over it and picked it up as she took out the crystal to see if there was anything on it. Nothing on that side. On the other, etched into the rotten wood, she counted fifteen characters of some kind of runic alphabet she had never seen before. Didn't resemble any language on Earth that she'd read about, either. Not Sumerian cuneiform, or Egyptian hieroglyphs, or Norse runes – nothing. Judging by the spaces between them, it looked like four words. A sentence, possibly.

The first word started with something like a T with the top slanted back and an angled tail at the bottom, and next to it were two circles on top of each other. The second, a rune similar to the first ''T'', except it was slightly shorter and had something like a comma on top of it. Next to it was a square without the line on the top.

The third word was the longest. It began with a rune like a triangle, but as if the writer started at the bottom right then left, up, and stopped halfway when going back down then drew left and connected to the line on the left, making a smaller triangle that had its tip at the unfinished triangle's tip. The second was something like a square capital C. Third one was just a vertical line. Fourth was a capital B but with a bow on top, like, a curve. Square capital C again, then topless square–or square capital U–but with a diagonal line going left to right starting near the bottom and ending in the middle of the rune's line on the right. Between this rune and the next was a comma on the top. If apostrophes were a thing in this language, that could mean this word was a possessive noun, and that, in turn, meant this board denoted someone's… something. Or some place. Still, she could just be making things up.

Finishing the word was a hook-shaped rune with a slant like the T's on top of it. The last word was three runes, one of them repeating. First was something like an X, or the Greek chi. Second was another vertical line, and the last two were the same runes. Something like a pair of high-heel shoes one in front of the other. What the hell any of it meant, though, Val had no idea.

The ''someone's place'' theory sounded like the best to go on for now. Going east for about an hour hadn't taken Val anywhere. It was about time for a change in direction.

Val set the sign on its back against the post, making sure the text was readable, before fetching two rocks and propping them on opposite ends of the sign so it wouldn't move and no one would miss it. Equal parts skeptical and hopeful, she started northbound.

Against the darkening violet of the starry night sky, Val saw the black silhouette of walls spanning between towers rising in the middle of the clearing she'd come to. Tales fictional and historical of all kinds of violent incidents inside castles flooded her mind and stayed her feet, but the cold's sting numbing her skin compelled her far more than fear. With one hand under her arm, she pushed on against the speeding wind, shining the crystal on the ground she walked.

Research of horror-related things, Val was a little too curious about and did more often than she was proud of. But of course she wouldn't admit that to anyone. She'd read online articles about castles built with dungeons and torture chambers that had machines used to contort and maim a person's body as punishment for a crime, so they'd tell who they served if they were a prisoner of war or a traitor, or just because the torturer was very, very sick in the head. There were also the stories of a particular Romanian voivod that was fascinated with impalement, but she'd read those were as much fiction as they were fact.

In any case, Val had little to worry about in that regard. She wasn't a soldier or a spy from an enemy kingdom. Just Isabel Carranza, a weary traveler from the city that… had gotten lost in the woods. Yes.

Val's heart skipped a beat when the tip of her shoe bumped on something all of a sudden, and she looked down, lighting up the ground ahead. She'd kicked into the first of a staircase of stone steps. One after the other, they went up and in the direction of the castle's silhouette, but the crystal didn't light up enough to tell if they led directly to it. Val didn't have a lot of options.

By looking at her hand under the crystal's light, Val saw it wasn't its usual rosy red, but was instead turning a bluish purple. Her jaw shivering and her breath shuddering, she walked up the steps.

The crystal's yellow light revealed a large metal grate-looking door, rusted and going down from an arch built out of stone bricks.

''Cool…'' Val whispered once she walked up to it. With a trembling hand, she pulled out her knife and knocked on the door with it. The sound of metal on metal rang back from the castle's inner walls Val couldn't see and out into the glade. She cleared her throat.

''Hello?'' she called out, trying to avoid a crack in her voice. That rang back, too. She strained her ear for any signs of life: candlelight wandering past a windowsill; the sound of opening doors; of footsteps; of chatter wondering whose voice that was outside; but she got nothing. Either because of distance, because the howling wind drowned it out, or because there was nothing alive inside.

Val wanted to wait. She wanted to stay by the door and wait for one of the inhabitants to take her in, but the arch didn't shelter her all that much from the cold wind, and it was wearing her down mind-wise as much as it was patience-wise. Peeking across the wall, she walked away hoping to find an ''alternative entrance''.

Crystal shining on the ground, Val walked along the castle's walls. She couldn't see or hear anyone, but she wouldn't want to look like any more of a trespasser if someone spotted her, so she sheathed her knife. Better harmless-looking and safe than armed and sorry.

A mound of something bunched up on the ground caught Val's attention. Filthy old cloth, it looked like, once she got closer. Her picking it up by one of the corners and unraveling it disturbed insects that had taken up shelter inside it, sending them scurrying away into the dark or up the castle's walls.

As she held the dusty fabric up, Val saw it was a torn, tattered banner with a symbol of some kind. A golden sword pointed downwards with a crown over the grip, the weapon placed over a triangle shape with markings on the bottom tips. A pair of wings spread out behind the sword's crossguard, and a smaller pair showed itself from behind the middle of the blade.

Looked like the coat of arms of some kind of order or faction. Warriors, if the sword was anything to go by. Not the kind of people Val would want to be messing with, but it was either getting inside the walls or freezing to death out here.

As she walked further along it, Val got to a crack in the wall a few feet wide. It only got larger the farther up she looked, and she could see the night sky above the opposite wall through it, nebulae and stars shining beyond the violet expanse. Whether the wall had been split open by an earthquake or by a boulder shot from a catapult, it didn't really matter to her. It was large enough for a slender scout to squeeze through. Or a scrawny girl like herself.

With a lot of care so as to not make it shatter in her mouth, Val held the crystal with her teeth. She zipped up her jacket to have some protection from any jagged surfaces on the rock. Denim was fairly sturdy material, so her legs should be alright. Her shoes, though… Looked after them like she would after a cute dog, and scratches or tears on them would hurt her as much as a gash on her shin. But if it couldn't be helped…

As protected as she could be, Val fit her frame into the crack. Inch by inch, she shuffled through the wall, careful not to hit her head or scratch her skin on anything. Mites of dust and mortar in the air made her feel an all-too-familiar sting building up at the back of her nose, but if she sneezed, she'd spit out the crystal and she'd have to finagle more than she'd want to get it back. Not to mention risking the crystal breaking when falling or having it shatter in her mouth from the bite reflex, and getting a mouthful of glass didn't sound fun. Huffing the tickle away, she kept on, dragging herself along the few inches at a time her hands and legs allowed for in this space.

Once she could peek her face through the crack, Val let the crystal fall out of her mouth and onto the grass below before wriggling the rest of herself out, and she picked up the crystal. Other than a short draft or two, the wind didn't blow on her as much as it did outside, but she had no body temperature to lose. Sticking to the wall, she snuck her crystal-lit way along it hoping to get somewhere she could hide from the weather.

Wooden beams. They supported a wooden roof that led to a door, and Val scurried to it, mindful of the sound of her footsteps. As she pulled on the rope handle, the door creaked on its hinges, making Val wince. This was where she'd be hunkering down for the night, hoping that none of the castle's owners–if it even had any owners, 'cause it didn't seem like anyone lived here–would begin suspecting she was around. They wouldn't be any more merciful than the hypothetical village's settlers. If anything, they could be worse. Dungeons and torture chambers…

Val held her breath before, like ripping off a band-aid, she swung the door open with one louder creak just enough so she could squeeze past it. Stepping inside, she swung it back closed.

Silence and still air; precious, blessed silence and still air. It sent a satisfied chill down Val's spine. Still not quite in the clear, though. She turned around only to see it was as dark inside as outside, so she held up the crystal.

Hay straws littered the dirt ground, and wooden half-walls separated the space into stalls. To her left, buckets of different sizes. To her right, a pitchfork, a shovel, a broom, and a wheelbarrow with the bowl in-side against the wall. Didn't even wanna move it if there was something hiding inside.

Val checked everywhere she could think vermin would hide. In the corners, inside the buckets, up on the beams, except the wheelbarrow. That wheelbarrow she left alone. It seemed like she wouldn't wake up to a black widow giving her a playful little peck on the cheek, so she walked to the stalls on the bottom.

Kicking straws aside, Val huddled down on the corner of the farthest stall and placed the crystal next to herself. With her legs stretched out, arms limp by her sides, and back resting on the wall behind her, she took the deepest breath of her life looking out an open window with a view out to the starry night sky. She allowed her breath to escape her lungs as her neck went limp and the back of her head rested on the wall. Had she breathed any deeper, she would've given up the ghost.

Val. Was. Dead. Eyelids heavy, brain in a vacuum, limbs unresponsive, she guessed she had cheated death thrice. Wasn't looking forward to round four, though. Maybe some other time. For now, she had a playdate with sleep.

Sliding sideways down the wall, Val laid down on her shoulder. She took the crystal and placed it near her stomach, then wrapped her arm around herself, rested her other arm in front of her, and let out a satisfied sigh. Relishing in the crystal's glow and faint warmth, she allowed it to take her by the hand into the pure bliss… of the void… of… unconsciousness…

A sudden pain stung on the back of Val's hand, making her eyes shoot open. There was nothing on it when she looked. In front of her, a bird blacker than night itself stood, the crystal's glow a sheen on its long beak. Little bastard probably had a habit of pecking people.

''¿Qué te pasa…?'' Val complained under her breath, wincing and shaking her hand.

''I beg your pardon?'' the bird answered.