Decrepit shanties rose around, providing little cover and channeling the rain into a river that lapped her ankles. A fire roared upon a distant hill. Great tounges of flame licked up into the pouring sky. Fire and smoke billowed into steam and all were dyed crimson.

At the very top of the hill, silhouetted in black and wreathed in red a gnarled burned. It was then she noticed the screams. A hundread voices rose from the congregation and were drowned by the rain and deafened by the inferno till they were whispers, dragged across the edge of her senses. Two stared blank, and stunned. Sheer habit dragged her hood up.

Two tried and failed to reconcile the world around her. But every attempt to span then and now used the fall. That endless impossible transition, that took her to a place farther than far could hope to describe. Where she glimpsed the smiling noth-

She dragged her thoughts to a halt. She stopped trying to put reason where it didn’t belong. She accept she was far, far out of her league.

She’d been so confident when she stepped into the pool, sure that she could best any nightmares she had. But… she looked at the hill, drowned smoke and fresh rot assaulted her senses. Along with it came sensations that could not be yet were. Dreams did not have flavour but she now knew what their ashes tasted like.

She could not fathom the how’s or why’s. Reality showed new facets and made progressively less sense as she its full extent dawned on her.

Perhaps every fanciful tale whispered into a child’s ear hid truth in whimsy. All priests may be bastards, that didn’t stop them from being right. There was so much she didn’t know. It was her mistake to believe in her paltry knowledge.

She promised herself never to repeat it. She breathed, hope cooked like fat into a flavour between hate and burning flesh. Above a lance of nothing cracked like lighting. The yawning absence stared down at her and she swore the thunder laughed.

Quietly she made another promised. She’d never to forget her prayers again.

Droplets stained ruby fell as Two repressed new and exotic nightmares. When the parts of her that wanted to scream or pass out had been beaten into submission she turned her thoughts onto her next steps.

Convince, coerce, remove; those were the words used. She didn’t know where these disagreeable elements were but had a good lead. She took a final breath and walked towards the distant conflagration.

Buildings crowded over like a canopy of patchwork construction. Steams fell from sloped roofs a hundred little waterfalls that battered her cloak as she walked. A cacophony of burbling babels sang with the crashing wind and all it shook.

The slum groaned with every shift of the storm. A howl born of a thousand windows, creaking doors and whistling nooks. The city breathed and muttered. Lightning cracked and thunder reverberated deep into her bone. For a moment every drop was made crystal white and every shadow stark.

Then it was gone and two once more trudged through ankle deep rapids in a filthy alley. She didn’t mind it. Rather it was a balm. She didn’t like the dry season. She preferred how it was now.

Rain followed by impossibly more rain until it seemed that someone had cracked the blue sky and an ocean was leaking in. This was the city of her memory.

A pair of splashes sounded behind her and Two sighed, letting the storm take the sound. Splash, splash, she and let the sound follow her. Her tail was an armature. They rushed hear and there stirring noise when a calm walk was all it took to sneak up on someone in this weather. It didn’t help that two could taste their trepidation.

Normally she’d dart into an alley at this point. It was easy to lose people in the rain, but despite the familiar shanties this was anything but normal. Her tail could be one her disagreeable pecies.

Two turned a corner and pressed herself into a nook in the ramshackle construction that served as the alley’s wall. A curtain of water fell from its roof, further hiding her. She fingered her knife beneath her clock. Her company rounded the corner.

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Two was many things but a good fighter was not one of them. What few fights she’d gotten in had been messy and brief affairs. She had little confidence in subdoing someone. Let alone dealing with whatever mystical horros defined the labyrinth. That’s why she settled for stabbing the raggedy figure she aw in the rain.

Her knife plunged into their stomach. They curled around it with a gasp. Two stepped back but they clutched her hand and the blade lodged in their stomach. Two twisted the knife and bodily wrenched. Her shoulder threatened to come loose but she tore her knife free and her splashed tail into the alley’s centre, clutching their stomach.

Two stalked around them, steps quick and calm. Ready to strike at the slightest whiff of odd essence. They rolled onto their back and Two froze.

Slick with rain and twisted in pain was her face. Her other wheezed a sob and gaped like a dying fish. Befuddlement quickly fouled into tiredness.

Pieces of herself. Literally

Either Two had missed everything vital or the Labyrinth was playing tricks because from Two’s understanding people either died or shut up when stabbed. Minutes had passed yet her alter did neither.

Two squinted at the figure, they looked like herself reflected by a very unkind mirror. Skinny, wan and wreathed in a cloak better described as an assembly of rags. Two nudged the crumpled figure with a cautious foot. They sniffled.

Two considered finishing them then. The priest had called them parts of herself; things that could be removed. She didn’t like the sounds they made, she loathed seeing herself reduced to a quivering thing. Her finger tightened around the knife’s hilt. She weighed the idea.

In the end it wasn’t empathy that stayed her hand but caution. She had little fear from this bastardization; they stank our sour desperation and utterly lacked conviction’s sharp notes. She doubted whatever sat atop the hill would be so frail. She had to prepare, understand.

She loomed above them, “Why were you following-“ a gust stole her voice and tore the rain sideways. A cold spray raced down the alley and snaked through her long sleeves and deep hood. She didn’t allow herself the exasperated sigh that begged to exist.

Two looked at the quivering mess, rolled her shoulders and slipped her knife into its hidden pocket.

Dragging them was not fun. Two was quick but far from strong. Nonetheless they gave to resistance and once Two got them on their feet they staggered where directed.

The surrounding houses where empty but ramshackle and where liable to blow over at any moment. She needed somewhere safe. Two scanned the tight streets and saw something she knew had not been there before.

A squat two story building sat in the middle of a small clearing. The planks of its walls bulged and strained against each other. Flickers of lightning revealed once bright striped paint and boarded windows. There was something hauntingly familiar about it. Her alter bolted when they saw it. They rushed past the rotted gate and threw themselves against the front door. Then promptly fell inside.

Two followed at a cautious pace. She gave the building a long glance, she didn’t recognize it but she felt she should. She walked in and fought against the wind to drag the door shut. The storm was reduced to distant howl and rattle. Two scanned the room.

It was homely, chairs and couches were scattered about the edges of the wide greeting room. Screens of leather were pressed between the boards covering the windows and let some light in while keeping the storm out. To the side, red hot coals sat in a large fireplace.

Her lesser incarnation had crawled there. Two trailed them with slow steps, snatching the lack of blood in their wet trail. They spun to face her and cringed away from her.

Two was taken by the look in their eye. Fearful, desperate… fragile. She could tolerate that in others. She accepted Abery’s skittishness, Deadra’s fear had spurred pity. But those emotions were things Two wore, tools to be used. Not something so naked and raw.

“Compose yourself.”

They flinched, “Is is that the first the first thing you say to me? You stabbed me!” it irked two to hear her voice so shrill.

She demonstrated that with a flat gaze, and I will stab you again if you scream. Put yourself together, answer my questions and then you may live out the rest of your dubious existence.”

They stared at her and slack-jawed terror contorted into grim amusement. “You hurt me you use me and throw me away again and again. After all, you tell me to mind my manners!” They broke into sob stricken giggles halfway through their words.

Two stabbed them before they could spiral into mad cackles.

It was only in their hand. That didn’t stop their piercing scream. They clutched their hand to their chest and descended into another fit of sobbing. Yet as one minute slipped into two, she noted the bleeding slow and stopped.

Two filed that fact away and cleaned her knife on the outside of her sleeve. She began speaking once their whimpering had lessened. “From what I understand your a pert of me. Am I correct? No or yes.”

“Yes! Yes.” They almost threw themselves into the fireplace in their attempt to escape her.

“So what part are you, my fear, weakness, incompetence.”

“H-Hope,” they whispered, “I’m hope.”

Two gave them a long look and wished she could convince herself they had the spine to lie.