.......

CRACK!

A shot of lightning within her nerves zapped Dren awake, her body jerking forward as if she were a doll yanked by the pull cord on her chest. Her knees retracted to her body, and Dren heaved heavy, painful breaths with her head between her knees. Her lungs felt devoid of any life, and her brain whirled like she had been playing an unending game of Dizzy Bat for years. 

Dren grabbed at her throat, hoarse and violently dry, as she tried to stabilize her senses, trying to ground herself back in reality.

She remembered the warmth she felt spark from her palm in the last moments of her peaceful slumber. How it had flown through her, covering her entire body like rushing blood bringing color back into a corpse. It was such a comfort before the calm suddenly disappeared and Dren felt an indescribable pain wrenching her back to life.

The young girl looked to the side of the bed she slept on—where the warmth that woke her should've originated. Right next to her, was a familiar face resting in blissful serenity, on top of a shabby metal bedframe that held up a moldy, soiled mattress in the middle of a clustered, filthy, and grimy room.

The person looked untroubled with a soothing smile. 

Dren leaned over to lightly slap the round, masculine face in an effort to wake him up.

"Hey! Hey... hey, hey! Get up! Grant..." 

His face felt—no, it was cold. Too cold to be alive. Even though the boy looked so young. Too young to die of natural causes yet it was a happy and content expression on his face long after his last moments. 

Dren couldn't help but wonder what could have possibly had him so happy. It wasn't a pleasant sight. It annoyed Dren that he could die so happily, leaving her on her own in this shit hole of a realm.

After confirming his death, Dren leaned away from Grant's body and sighed. Death wasn't the end. Not in this realm. It simply transported your soul to another. Unfortunately, there were many ways to be dragged back into this hell, so Dren was sure this wasn't the last of the boy next to her. He would be back.

Maybe not... exactly as himself, but he would be back, regardless.

She looked around the room to see clusters upon clusters of metal, leftovers in moldy takeaway boxes, rotting wooden cabinets that were infested with all types of parasites, and an open closet to the side that was filled with bloody clothes and dead animals.

The room smelled bad... to say the least. 

God, it reaks of salt, vinegar, and everything sinister in here. Fucking hell, I don't even know how you could describe this.

Dren looked down at herself to find her flesh left arm was gone. Replaced by a skeletal one; as a matter of fact, the entire left half of her upper body was gone. The girl only wore loose-fitting red pants and a couple of satin fabrics that held it up at her hips. It was easy to see from her exposed top half how malnourished and skinny Dren was and also how inhumane her body looked with its new transmutation.

'How long was I gone?'

Dren couldn't believe it. To be brought back from death's doorsteps was quite a feat. She remembered being attacked in an instantaneous moment of confusion and irresolution. She was jumped. Sneaked up on from within the shadows and blown up with a secret trap that was definitely the work of a traitor in her past syndicate. She got up to go look in the cracked mirror in the room's corner, opposite where the slap of wood masquerading as a door hung, and the closer she got to her reflection, the less Dren recognized herself.

She had golden hair that reached her shoulders and curved in on her face, hiding her jawline except the bottom half. It was longer than she remembered it. Her face structure was skinny and sharp, giving her an extremely androgynous look, but also a sickly one with sunken cheeks and dark eye bags. The left half of her lower face was gone, only the skeletal part of her jaw and teeth remaining. Dren didn't care much for that since she wore a mask to cover her face anyway.

Her chest was now a slap of metal, and so was her left torso. The cracks between the scraps of metal that were nailed to her rib bones crackled with golden electricity from within Dren's body. The exterior of the metal merged with her skin, creating a rigid, bumpy scar where the two met on her lower chest moving diagonally to her left hip. Metal merged with her bone that started at her left shoulder as well.

The silence in the room as Dren examined herself made it easier to notice her heartbeat. It sounded different. Abnormal. She put her right hand up to the metal sheet that covered the left side of her chest and felt the muscle behind it rhythmically tap against her palm. Every time her heart made contact with the metal, it gave off small shocks of electricity to Dren's palm.

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What. The. Fuck. 

Everything was rushing into Dren's mind, shattering her thoughts and all the composure she was trying to keep together. Her memories, at least the core and important ones, were restructuring themselves quickly with every heartbeat. The realm she lived in. The rules set by the angels and devils. The order of the church. The extent of her wound was slowly coming back to her. There was no way Grant had the ability to heal her of a wound that deep. He didn't have the will. Dren should've died.

She wasn't healed. She was resurrected.

He brought me back to life. He resurrected me against the occults will. Grant brought me back to life. Fuck dude I died. I died. I was dead.

Dren grabbed the edge of the mirror, its metal border barely protecting her pale skin from cutting on the edge of the glass. 

How long has it been? Where is Farah? Was it Reversal?... of course it was. What else could've possibly brought me back from the fucking dead without undergoing the incarnation probation? 

Dren turned around to look at Grant's corpse on the old grey mattress. 

Does this mean he sold his soul? Not only that, but to a human? Seriously? After all those years of fighting for our free will...? He would not... Dren grabbed her head in frustration and helplessness. All those years of stabilizing the Order for what!? Me to die and force Grant's hand into Soul Selling!?

The girl looked back up at her friend's corpse. She should've felt some type of regret, sadness, or even gratefulness towards him for this second chance at life. But all she felt was disgust. She couldn't believe Grant had crossed that line. Not only did he fuck up both their Fate Threads, but only Dren was left behind to deal with the guilt and karma.

Did Grant not think about the consequences this would have? On both of them? Or did his grand exit from life matter more?

I should've stayed dead. I don't deserve this. I haven't earned this life.

Dren stood and looked melancholically at her bone arm while her heartbeat filled the room.

BANG!

Suddenly, the door fell off its hinges, slamming into the floor with a loud sound and a big cloud of dust. Dren was instantly on alert, but the figure that stood at the door stopped her in her tracks 

It was a cockroach. A tall one at that. A 7-foot-tall cockroach stood at the door with a prothoracic leg raised to open the door. It appeared he hadn't even touched the doorknob before it just crumbled on its own.

.......

"Oh, you're awake!" The cockroach spoke with an excited tone.

He stood on his lower, longer legs while the other four were used as hands of sorts in this situation. He held up a metal tray holding some dry food with his middle... legs (?) and reached for his back with his upper right... limb.

The roach pulled out a timer and clicked it off.

"Oh, my god!" He spoke, his voice extremely high-pitched and way too girly to match his grotesque appearance.

"15 days, 6 hours and 39 minutes! Just as he said! Truly, Grant was a magnificent scientist!"

He then turned to Dren, who was standing there puzzled and bewildered.

"Hi there hi! Oh, this is awkward..." The huge roach turned sideways and ducked to enter the door.

"My name is Christopher Micheal! You can call me by either, but never call me Chris! Ha ha ha ha!" Christopher chuckled as he put the tray atop the rundown dresser beside the mirror where Dren stood.

"I was an apprentice under Grant while he worked on your resurrection! Even though it's been half a month since he started his preparation to bring you back, he has been working on a formula for much longer! Almost 4 years now."

Christopher walked over to Dren and grabbed her right hand to shake it. The frozen girl couldn't fight her bewilderment fast enough to move away, and the roach's slimy hairs on its long limbs squished against her flesh, leaving a weird, sweaty feeling. Dren felt an indescribable emptiness as she watched her handshake up and down with the roach's limb firmly holding it in place.

I should have stayed dead indeed...

After the feeling of disgust and wanting to projectile vomit all over the place passed Drens throat, she could finally speak to the roach. She was no stranger to mutations like Christopher since there were many in her past, even some she befriended, but there were levels of odium to this stuff. Christopher had to at least be a B+ on the unfortunateness scale.

Believe it or not, there are worse.

"Nice to meet you. Im Dren." 

With a sigh, Dren walked over to stand where Grant's body lay. She looked down at him with multiple emotions whirling in her pitch-black eyes.

"Since you spent so much time together, you must know his reasons for resurrecting me."

"Ah yes! He actually talked about you a lot! From what he said, it makes complete sense he made it his life's purpose to resurrect you! You were quite the personality."

"Yeah, yeah. Save the flattery. That doesn't answer my question."

Some silence passed between the two before Christopher remembered something, and he reached behind his shell once again to pull something out. It was a letter.

"Here." He handed it to Dren. "He left this for you."