Silence, lesser to the true phenomenon Kola had experienced earlier, reigned in the apartment. It was over… so quickly. Zair had just dropped dead. Was it the mist?

Lasora clutched Kola to her. Stroking her hair and mentally listing everything that would have to be taken care of now. She would call the police first, deal with any nosy or worried neighbours (there had been a gunshot after all), examine the damage, cook something extra special for the both of them, procrastinate, and finally deal with the guilt eating at her for letting him inside.

'You just let him in you stupid, stupid idiot.'

Kola, meanwhile, began to scream internally. The pain she suddenly felt was far worse than the worst she had ever endured at Zair's hands. It was best compared to a full-body scrub down from particularly rough, industrial sandpaper that intended to sand her to nothing an hour after receiving a lethal sunburn everywhere, including beneath her skin somehow. A part of her wanted to move. To bash her head against the nearest hard surface until it ended. Unfortunately, every muscle was locked in place, unable to so much as tremble. Her only even semi-coherent thoughts were for it to stop.

After ten minutes of being stroked and hugged by a very guilty, and oblivious, friend… it did. That was when the stretching began. While pleasant compared to the pain, it was most certainly not pleasant in general. Still, her body relaxed enough for her to slump in Lasora's embrace. Bloody tears began to dye the latter's pyjama shirt. The stretching was odd in that it seemed to be between her and some part of her that she had never noticed before. It pulled on her so hard that she thought her skin would be ripped off. Yet, she stood there silently. Too exhausted from those unforgettable ten minutes to scream even as the pressure mounted. Tension built and built.

Soon there was a snap. Not the snap of things breaking, but the snap of one tightly held point tearing loose. Tearing loose, and being flung towards the more fixed point.

Kola, still being held by Lasora, shot through space at a speed she had never even imagined. Literally through, that is, as the two sped between the different layers of existence. Nothing could be seen. Nothing could be heard. Nothing could be smelt or tasted. Yet touch was as clear as ever.

Once more there was pain, but to Kola it was insignificant. The feeling of being cut by a handful of glass shards every few seconds nothing to what had already been endured. In fact, she felt relief. The tension lessening was a soothing balm on her earlier experiences.

Lasora had no such tolerance. The cutting pain distracted her, and soon she found her grip weakening. Unable to withstand it she released Kola, and was flung elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Kola could feel the tension almost spent, and tried to mentally prepare herself for what was next. Surely nothing could be as bad as that scouring.

It wasn't. Not physically. Although she had braced for an impact, in that regard, she was disappointed. Her senses were simply restored, and she stumbled as her posture, fit for standing on flat ground, was betrayed by ground that was most certainly not flat. She slipped and fell, rolling for a moment before abruptly being halted by something pudgy.

Kola lay on a wide slope formed with horrifically sharp gravel blades, pieces of which had become embedded in her skin. Its colours were in pale greens, pinks, and blues. The air itself held those same colours in a translucent, swirling cloud of dust that significantly limited vision. Simply breathing caused small, sharp pains as the dust was inhaled. The cloud was joined in the air by a cacophony of noise. What sounded like stone and metal clashed against each other along with a constant roaring, screaming, screeching mess. Everywhere within limited sight monstrous creatures clawed and bit at each other, tearing and ripping, stomping and crunching. All unified in the chaotic melee that was hopefully a very temporary destination.

The majority of the creatures were hexapods the size of house cats with ridiculously muscular forms. Their bone white skin continuously secreted and dripped a viscous slime that splattered upon the ground. Short, bladelike spines sprouted at random from their bodies. The larger ones grew carapace, fur, or a mix of both, all in the colours of the ground and sky. They had two, or four, or nine legs. Many had heads with all the expected features. Others had those features scattered across their bodies; a dozen eyes hiding beneath a quadruped's ground-facing belly, a gnashing mouth on the end of a whiplike tail, rows of porcine ears that sprouted along chitinous limbs. The largest of all these creatures had a reddish-brown coloured arachnid form with long, thin legs that elevate it to tower over the rest. Every one of the creatures had red irises.

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The object Kola laid against began shaking, prompting her to stop staring at the deadly mess, and start working towards surviving the deadly mess.

Surprisingly, despite the pierced skin and laboured breathing, she felt… good. Warring monsters? Extremely hostile terrain? No sign of shelter, food, or water? All this just made it harder for Zair to find her. She giggled as she imagined his uncle ordering the ground to "Cease stabbing us!" while they limped after her. Here she was free from them. Here she did not burden Las. Here she did not have to worry about the mist or the consequences of selling her soul to it. Obviously that whole thing and her current situation had nothing to do with each other and she could safely ignore it. Ignore it. Juat ignore it. Do not think about it. Focus. Ig-

She violently shook her head, intending to clear her mind. That helped somewhat, but was undercut by the stabbing pain that followed. Warm liquid ran down her face from a score of tiny cuts. Severed strands of brown hair floated to the ground.

Kola froze, concentrating on her immediate surroundings, trying to discern what had hurt her. As she took in a breath, a flash of pain was followed by a brief smirk. She slowly waved her arm up and down, then flicked a finger. Tiny cuts opened up on the latter. Feeling very smug, she began removing the gravel blades embedded in her with slow movements.

This smugness was interrupted by yet another source of pain as a monster managed to sneak up on Kola. It did not manage this feat by any natural or learned capacity for stealth, but rather it found the noise of its approach drowned out by the wider chaos. 'Found' gave the creature too much credit, implying that it noticed or took advantage of this audible cloaking. It did not. Rather, the creature simply charged the first being it noticed after being thrown away from its previous fight.

By succeeding in injuring Kola, the monster proved itself a highly lucky example of its species. This is due to the suboptimal placement of its natural weapons. It did not have claws, its face was too flat for it to meaningfully get its teeth around her legs, and it was too small and light to hurt her no matter how long of a run up it got. What it did have was three short, thin blades. Two of them extended from its spine, promising death to any birds that decided to swoop it. The third grew from the knee of one of its forelegs. It wobbled up and down as the creature ran. All this combined with its chosen tactic of 'charge and flail about once you hit something' meant that any human older than a toddler could be reasonably expected to at least escape it. Suffice it to say that actually being injured by one of these creatures (one of the slimy, cat-sized hexapods) would be very embarrassing for anyone who knew what it was.

Since Kola did not know what it was, she was not embarrassed. The knee-mounted blade that pierced her right calf up to the bone? It pissed her off. She picked it up by its hind legs, lifted it up into the air (its knee-blade snapping off), and slammed it into the ground. She did it again. And again. And again.

Kola dropped the creature, pieces of gravel stuck to its slimy skin, and took a few breaths. Ignoring the stupid, sharp dust that she breathed in she raised one foot and stomped down as hard as she could. This brought her even more pain as the blade-gravel sticking out of her foot stabbed into the creature. Black, tar like blood oozed from its wounds, bringing with it the scent of sulfur.

Then it stood up. Kola was slow to react as it charged her once again, having though it dead. Its eyes gleamed fiercely, humanlike except for the red irises. A splat sound was briefly heard as the monster's head impacted her shin. Rising up on its hind legs, four paws swatted ineffectually at her thighs. She blinked.

'Really? This is the creature that decided to kill me?'

One hand grabbed it by the neck as the other picked up a particularly long gravel blade. A moment later she drove the makeshift knife through the side of its head. Surprisingly, it didn't seem to notice, and continued to paw at Kola with a fury reminiscent of an overly aggressive chihuahua. So she kept stabbing it. It's not like the thing was immortal.

'Right?'