Emilia bounced on her hold. She huffed. She huffed.

“Just fucking do it,” she muttered to herself, giving the next hold a death glare. It was the last big one before this torture would be over. The top ledge was Right. Fucking. There. It was so close she’d been able to hurl her backpack onto it at the last rest spot. Granted, there had been a very serious moment where she had thought the bag wasn’t going to make it, and she’d be forced to descend several dozen feet to retrieve it—she’d purposefully aimed it so it would land on a relatively close ledge if it didn’t make it, but it still would have sucked.

Luckily, the bag had made it. Now, she just had to follow.

Easier said than done, especially given this section was terrible. Who had designed this? The sadistic system or the platform maintainer? Emilia didn’t like to think humans could be this terrible, specifically designing challenges that were, quite frankly, suicidal, but she knew they were—she knew the maintainers of the biggest platforms got paid the big bucks just to make their gameplay as difficult as they could.

She didn’t really think this particular challenge had been designed by a human, however. Not entirely, anyways. It was just too much of a coincidence, was the thing. She could climb, and she could climb well, despite the years since she’d last climbed anything other than a man. Most people couldn’t climb even the most basic of courses, let alone this disaster waiting to happen. For her to have ended up here, performing something that was as difficult as it was a part of her soul?

Too much of a coincidence by far, and she was almost certain the system had designed this challenge just for her.

It was too bad Cade and his mystery acquaintance were dead—presumed dead, anyways. If they’d been alive, she could have asked them if they could have climbed this monstrosity—after all, they’d been on the path towards this door as well. Perhaps, if one of them had opened the stupidly large door, the rock wall would have been something different? Or maybe they wouldn’t have been able to open the door at all? Perhaps the reason Cade had been unable to form a key wasn’t the fault of the {Blood Vial}, but simply that this wasn’t his door?

Ironic, if that were the case.

Emilia shook herself. She needed to stop mulling over the specifics of this stupid world and its terrible games.

“Stop wasting time and just do it,” she growled at herself, bouncing on her current hold again.

The next holds were a ways off. One big side jump. One big side jump over a gaping hole that would send her plummeting to her death if she missed—if the holds weren’t as stable as they were everywhere else.

“Fuck,” she spit out at herself, willing away images of herself catching the hold only for it to break away from the rock wall. None of the other holds had been loose under her heavy jumps and pulling, why the fuck would this last one be!?

“Do not,” she said sternly to herself, sucking in as grounding a breath as she could under the circumstances, “start thinking about horror movies where people are kidnapped and set up to fail and die horrific deaths.” Not that this place wasn’t a veritable horror movie. She’d already ended up covered in someone’s blood and other bodily fluids, after all.

Another bounce.

One more, and—

Emilia’s cheek cracked into the rock wall. One foot made it. One hand. She scrambled, trying to figure out where the other holds were before her precarious balance failed, and she was falling backwards, the holds slipping out of her grip as gravity called her home…

Her other hand found the hold, but she had no idea where the other foothold was. She tried to look, tried to figure out where the fuck it was under her, but it was almost like it had disappeared, and the foothold she had found was too small for both her feet to—

Wait.

What.

Too small? It certainly hadn’t been too small when she’d been eyeing it up before jumping. Emilia tightened her grip. Rock scrapped over her nose and forehead as she twisted her head, trying to confirm that—

Yup. She’d jumped too far and somehow ended up with her right foot on the left foot’s hold. And here she’d been worried she wouldn’t make the jump at all, and instead she’d overshot it.

“Fuck.”

There was no way to get her right foot onto the proper hold. The holds for her hands were too small to get enough leverage on to risk trying to hop onto it, and as previously noted, the left foothold was too small for both her feet.

She glanced at the holds she’d jumped from, wondering if she could jump back and try again—highly unlikely with only her one foot for power—which left risking a hop onto the proper hold or continuing on. Problem was, the next foothold had been meant for her right foot, which was very seriously occupied with keeping her alive. Emilia could feel the hold, jutting out from the wall under her right thigh. She somehow had to get her left foot onto it without losing her grip or falling backwards...

…

…

…

Yup… she was going to die. There was no getting around it. This was how it ended for her. The only thing she could hope for was that she’d return to her body and not be stuck wandering through the cavern below along with Cade’s spectre. Sure, she’d be able to ask him a few important questions, but she didn’t think those questions were worth spending 20 some days with—

Emilia’s thoughts halted.

“Shush,” she mentally scolded her brain when it tried to start useless wondering about how death in this world would work. She needed to concentrate—to hear—and those meandering thoughts weren’t—

Step. Step. Step.

A rock tumbled off the edge, just a few feet above her. It clattered over the jutting rocks of the wall’s upper section before reaching the vertical section and disappearing from sight. The sound of it hitting the ground never came.

Instead, the voice of someone she didn’t know came.

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“Need a hand?”

Emilia swallowed. Slowly, she tilted her head up as much as she dared.

Whoever was above her moved slightly to the right so she could get a slightly better look at them—as in, instead of not seeing them, she could make out that they were wearing dirty, loose grey pants. Not quite sweats, but almost. They could have moved further to the right so she could see their face. They didn’t.

“Yes, please,” she said after a moment. Chances were, if she tried the next hold, she was going to die. Whoever was above her could drop her, or push her overboard once she was up there, but they could also be a total sweetheart, and she was willing to risk it.

Plus, if they really wanted to kill her, they could just wait for her to attempt the hold and push her over if she didn’t die the moment she tried to get her foot on it.

Above her, something scrapped. Fingers brushed one of her hands.

“Can you reach any higher?” the stranger asked. His voice wasn’t very deep, not quite the young adult voice Cade had possessed, but there was something musical and teasing about it, despite the circumstances.

“Not unless I jump and, uh… if I jump, I’m not getting my hold back.”

“I’ll catch you.”

He sounded so sure. Emilia wasn’t so sure.

She contemplated sending him to grab her cloak out of her bag to use as a rope—stars, even the bag could potentially be used to extend his reach—but stopped herself. She had no idea how the material of this world would fare under so much pressure. It could tear in half the moment her weight was on it, and even if she used it to just get the extra support to reach the next hold…

“If you drop me, I’m gonna haunt your ass, just so you know,” she said, making sure to throw it out in a teasing tone.

The man laughed, and she smiled into the wall, despite herself. If she were going to die, at least she’d die having enjoyed the moment. She hoped her potential saviour was okay with her general state of brattiness. Even if she were under better control of her mouth—which she certainly wasn’t, what with the stress and whatever Payton was currently doing inside her—she had always leaned into teasing and taunting, especially in the midst of danger. Some of her division had loved that, many had not, and she had eventually been forced to remove the ability to mute coms for a few because they kept disappearing during fights.

“I don’t know if you’d like my ass much. It’s not nearly as nice as yours, and I’m shit at showering regularly, so double whammy there.”

“I like showers,” Emilia replied, ignoring both the crudeness of the man’s implication and the fact that even through the tension of the moment the man above had taken a look at her ass. It was hard to miss, although usually people didn’t comment on it before she gave them permission to. She bounced slightly, testing the range of her ankle as much as she dared.

“I like showers with pretty girls.”

Emilia snorted. “Shower sex is overrated.”

“I wouldn’t know. Most girls don’t want to fuck someone as filthy as me,” he retorted, something in his tone implying that he didn’t just mean filthy in the cleanliness sense.

“In my experience,” Emilia said, grunting slightly as a rock dug into her sternum, “as long as you’re physically clean, you can always find someone down for the filthy sex.” Actually, chances were there were people out there down for physically dirty sex too, not that she would know. To each their own, though, as long as everything was consensual.

The man’s laugh was lower than his voice, all chest and amusement and the feeling that he was smiling. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

His fingers brushed across her knuckles again, and Emilia dropped as far as she dared, willing energy to furl through her calves and thighs and give her the smallest bit of extra strength so she could jump high enough and—

His hands caught her wrists, hers around his, although the difference in their sizes meant her grasp was comparatively weak. His hands were strong and firm around her, though, and he easily held her as she found the next foothold with her right foot, the next with her left.

The man’s grip loosened on one arm, seamlessly allowing her to slide her grasp of him higher. His fingers tightened further up her arm, the other hand loosened, and she climbed his arms, using him as her tether to life. Overall, it was harder than using the holds would have been, but she was a thousand times more secure, and she wasn’t about to return her hands to the rock wall and demand he let her go.

She was stupid, not suicidal.

Her hands reached his shoulders, and suddenly, his arms were wrapping around her and hauling her the rest of the way up. Mortifyingly, she squeaked. Then, the ground was under her again and she was face to face with her saviour.

Beautiful blue eyes stared up at her from under dirty hair—so dirty that she wasn’t sure if it was light brown or if dirt was turning blonde to brown.

She made a face. He laughed knowingly, smiling wide. His eyes crinkled when he smiled, dimples poking out on either side of his face that somehow looked wrong. She wasn’t sure why, if it was something about the placement of them or if the system just hadn’t rendered them quite right. Something about them was wrong, though.

“Told you I was filthy,” he teased, rotating them so he could set Emilia down beside him. His fingers lingered for a moment at her waist before he pulled away, the burn of his touch lingering.

“Yes, you are,” she agreed, glaring when the man’s smile widened impossibly more. “I know the red water here is strange but—”

“Oh, it’s not a water thing,” the man assured her, shifting onto his butt and dangling his feet over the edge of the cliff. “I’m just as disgusting in real life.” He winked. It would have been charming if not for the grime covering him.

Emilia levelled a flat look at him. He grinned back at her, completely unfazed by her judgment. “Sensory thing?”

“Nope. Just have better things to do.”

“Than shower?”

“Yup—unless there’s a cute girl involved, as I said.” His eyes shifted into the distance, into the cavern far below them and the rubble of the {Blood Needle}’s creation.

His smile fell away, and for a moment, he was someone else—someone Emilia had once known, although she had no idea who that someone was even supposed to be. He wasn’t, though. He wasn’t anyone she knew, in looks and certainly not in personality, and she had no idea where the thought that he looked like some nameless person she had once known had come from.

“Or a boy, maybe?” he continued, legs kicking listlessly into the abyss. “Never tried it with a boy, but I’m not against giving it a shot.”

He gave Emilia an expectant look.

“Boys,” she replied, face scrunching in thought, before she added that she’d never tried it with a girl, but wasn’t exactly against hooking up with one.

“‘Not exactly?’” he asked, laughing and smiling with such carefree happiness that Emilia felt her heart squeeze, when she admitted that she’d had a few offers, but none of the girls had ever sparked her interest.

“There was a girl, during the war, who offered. I might have tried with her, but…” Emilia trailed off, fingers digging sharply into her palms. She looked away from the stranger, taking in the newly revealed landing for the first time. There was another, more reasonably sized door to the side, presumably where the man had come from.

“Sorry,” the stranger said solemnly—knowingly.

Emilia looked back at him. He wasn’t looking at her anymore or smiling, instead staring off into the distance again. “I’m Emilia,” she said, holding out a hand to him. Glimmering black dust covered it, but all the little scrapes she’d gained climbing had vanished into the aether while they chatted.

He blinked, eyes turning towards her, and for the briefest moment, Emilia thought she saw recognition in them. It was gone so fast, though, that she wasn’t convinced it hadn’t just been a trick of the light—a trick of her mind, which was obviously already running funny if it was seeing someone she knew in this messy, dimpled man.

“V.”

“V?”

“V.” He smiled, almost like he knew full well what thoughts were turning through her head.

Emilia stared back at the man—at V—her expression empty. At least if he had given her a realistic name, she could have assured herself that she didn’t know anyone by that name, and she was going crazy. V, however, was almost certainly fake, which meant she couldn’t just assume the mysterious familiarity she felt with him was nerves and stress and a thousand other factors.

Going crazy was significantly better than not knowing!

“Don’t imagine you’ll tell me your real name?” she asked as sweetly as she could, trying not to grind her teeth as she did so.

V smiled back at her, innocent, and Emilia didn’t know whether to believe it or not. “Nah. I’d rather keep my anonymity. Why?”

Emilia sighed, collapsing onto her back. “No reason. Just curious how you get V from your name,” she lied.

The man laughed, the sound of him laying down as well filling the space as the world fell away.