Sellas woke up screaming.

Fire licked the planks around where she lay, flaring higher even as she became aware of its presence. It grew, reaching upwards. It reached towards her. The temperature rose, scorching her lungs with the air she breathed. Her skin cracked, burned, and began to flake away. The tongues of flame blocked her vision — flickering colors of red, yellow, and orange — yearning to connect.

And then the fire died. The heat was sucked away. Her body was repaired, and Sellas was whole.

Pulling herself up by the shelves on the counter's side, she stumbled her way to her feet. Slowly, she turned her head, taking in the bar. Her thoroughly wrecked, single-room bar.

Tables were overturned, with chairs smashed where they lay tossed on the floor. The floorboards were shredded— long furrows that dug inches deep into the wood, leading up to the door. Her sign, so carefully realigned above the entrance, was cracked near in half. And finally, the door itself hung half-broken on its hinges, the bottom loose in its frame.

Edging around the bar's side, Sellas's eyes flitted from wall to wall— from gouge to gouge. A series of scenes flashed in her mind: The knights coming in from the forest; the start of a friendly conversation; the stab and subsequent beheading; and then nothing before waking up on the floor behind the counter again.

She rubbed a hand against her neck and shivered, a chill traveling down her spine.

What had happened?

The thought tumbled through her head as she moved towards a dresser near the side of the room. The clothing she'd been wearing lay inside, immaculately cleaned and repaired— the same as before. She dressed herself with shaky hands.

Dying, it seemed, wasn't something you got used to.

Sellas's head turned to the floor behind the bar again, where she'd 'woken' from, following her death. Three circles of charred, blackened planks met her eyes. One was half-scrubbed away, the efforts of a quarter-day's labor indenting the planks where the burns had laid.

The resulting half-circle didn't look much better. It didn't make the memory fade.

Sellas looked around the room a second time, her thoughts circling darkly above her head.

The first person she'd talked to. The first people she'd seen. She'd been surprised, shocked when they'd walked in; someone had found her. Maybe, she'd thought, they could help get her out.

And then they'd killed her. They'd wrecked her bar. Her prison. Her home.

Help her? They hadn't even tried.

The realization burned, and Sellas swiped a hand across her eyes.

"What the fuck?"

The words slipped out, spiked with the emotions that bubbled inside: fear, indignation, sadness, and rage.

Eight words— that's all they'd given her the time to say. Eight words to another person before they'd written off her life. And why? What for?

Sellas slammed a fist against the counter of the bar. Holding back tears, she stormed her way across the room and yanked open the door to the forest. Then she stepped through its frame. The transition hit her like a punch to the gut, and she doubled over, her eyes clenching shut.

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She retched but didn't stop, refusing to go back inside.

Slowly, Sellas shuffled her way forwards. The world pressed down on her shoulders, but she continued— moving to the edge of the clearing and a bit beyond. She stopped at the trunk of one of the smaller oaks— at the nock she'd made in it some days prior.

Then she reached out a hand.

It moved forwards, past the nock in the tree, past a branch that extended off to the side, and then — half a meter away from where she stood — it disappeared. Not in that she couldn't see her hand anymore, but that it was gone. She tried to flex it and felt nothing. There was no puff of dust as the appendage was lost, no pain nor grinding of flesh and bone; it simply ceased to exist.

When she pulled her arm back, her hand reappeared with it.

She grunted, and the tears started to flow. "Why? What did I do? Why am I trapped here?"

Sellas slammed a fist into the tree. The bark crunched beneath her fingers, splintering off and hitting the ground. She hissed and backed away. Her hand throbbed as she flexed it.

Then she slumped to the side, her shoulder dragging its way down the wood. Curling in on herself, Sellas pressed the side of her head and shoulder against the tree's bark. A few moments' stability— it was uncomfortable, but oh so necessary.

She stayed there for a while, not wanting to leave. No thinking, no problems, just a moment to collect herself. She stayed pressed against the bark until the pressure in her head grew too large to ignore.

Finally, though, she dragged her way to her feet. A hand came up and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, and Sellas straightened.

Then she turned back to the clearing, her other hand moving to wipe at the streaks across her face. She sniffed but started walking. It wasn't fair. Nothing about this was fair, but she'd known that already. Sellas emerged from the treeline at a trudge and then stopped at the scene in front of her.

Around the door and across the intervening space, arrows poked outward from the trees and earth. She'd missed them all as she first left. Bright red fletchings flapped in the breeze, marked at the ends by golden trim. That the knights had shot the arrows, she had little doubt.

But what had been the purpose?

Had they been shot to mark the place? To ward off one of the creatures that prowled the woods? Or perhaps as a sick joke— creating an imitation of conflict after cutting her down? Sellas kicked at an arrow, snapping it and sending its shaft spinning into the deeper treeline. Her teeth ground together as she looked around without an answer.

She wanted to know. Why had they shot the arrows here? Why had the knights come here at all? Why had they killed—

Sellas hissed and grabbed at her head, a spike of pain rocking her skull. She stopped her prowling and turned dutifully back around, moving to the opposite side of the tree that held the door. She'd think about it later, but not now. She'd spent too long outside already, and Sellas could feel her eyesight blurring with the pain. After this would come nausea and disorientation, then the loss of balance, and finally the lapses in consciousness. Each of those would leave her suffering for the rest of the day; an answer now wasn't worth the trouble it'd cause.

Stopping in front of a bush, Sellas leaned down and plucked two of its bulbs. They were pale red, almost orange-ish looking berries— edible, as far as she'd been able to tell. Moving quickly, Sellas dropped them into the pockets of her breeches before returning to the door.

Her head pounded, and its open frame beckoned. The bar's call echoed in her head, demanding that she return. Sellas took a step forwards...

And she closed it.

Her nausea flared as the door swung shut. Sellas staggered, then dropped to one knee. Still, she kept her head up and glared, fists pressed tightly to the ground.

She could keep it closed— she didn't have to go back inside.

She could stay out here for a little longer. For a minute more. Two, even.

Sellas's arms shook as she struggled to remain upright, stalling out the time. The ground spun beneath her feet, and the canopy wavered above her head.

Finally, though, the remaining dregs of energy drained out of her, and she sagged.

She could try to stay longer, but she still couldn't leave.

It wasn't fair...

Sellas dragged herself from the ground and opened the door again, her hands flapping loosely at her sides. She picked up the silver bowl as she entered. It'd been knocked away— her efforts at collecting water from the morning's rain, wasted.

It didn't matter — it'd just been a whim — a small attempt at improving what she had.

The entry back into the bar felt like a warm hug. It was a calming feeling that washed over her as she passed through the threshold, telling her this was where she belonged. That this was where she was safe. The pressure she'd been feeling dropped away. The nausea disappeared. Her shoulders straightened, and color returned to her paling face.

And oh how she despised it all.