I felt my head lift from the ground. It wasn’t of my doing. A warm hand cradled me, then lowered me down onto a soft lap.

“Mama?” I murmured. I was delusional. I’d never been this tired before. Was that a consequence of the ash rebound? Or was Enzi playing with my head? It’s hard to say.

What I saw was a gorgeous woman lean over me. She lowered her head until I was gazing right into her blue eyes. I could make out all of the flaws in her irises; flecks of gold dotted them like stars in the daylight. Her soft hands stroked my hair.

“Shhh,” said gently breathed. “You need to rest now.”

“Rest?” cried a tall man in a suit. “We’re not staying here!”

I caught the hint of a red naked boy floating up towards the suited man. “We’ll stay wherever the Hell we want to, capeesh?”

“A horde of digressers are lingering about. Who knows if that earth hag changes her mind and decides to erase us all. We. Should. Move.”

Someone with the head of a bird showed up and said, “Then it would be best to be courteous to the human.”

With great effort, I grasped onto the beautiful demon’s hand. “Walk,” I whispered. My throat was parched and I could hardly speak, but I knew they were in danger and I was the reason why.

They all seemed to listen because they all went silent and started moving. The woman slung my arm around her shoulder and dragged me to my feet. I was shorter than her and was practically draped over her. However, it was no issue. She was strong, and that made me really happy.

As everyone walked, and as I was practically dragged across the barren earth, I kept nodding off. Each time that happened my head bobbed against the woman’s and something hard poked my skull, spiking me awake. I had no idea what it was which bothered me greatly.

Mind you, I know who all of these demons are, but back then I was in such a daze that this was how I perceived it.

I should have realised she was a demon, and that I was touching her horn. But the idea that she wasn’t human didn’t quite register. This is what humans did: they cared for their loved ones, honoured their dying wishes, and helped them find peace. All of this was felt as an instinctual tug, as though it was right and the only way things could be.

My breath came in slow and laboured wheezes. Everything ached, but I was so fatigued that the pain was numbed. I remember thinking that if I were to die, at least I got to do so in the arms of a beautiful woman.

Eventually, I was sat down with my back to a rock. The woman, Enzi, knelt beside me and I could see she was worried about me. Then Volce floated up to me and started fiddling with my face. I wanted to swat him away but didn’t have the strength to raise my arms.

“Hey, are humans supposed to look like that?” Volce asked. “You know, all gaunt and with cracked lips and stuff.”

Enzi shook her head.

“Ah, shit. Is he actually dying? I fucking knew this whole thing was a bad idea.”

I opened my mouth and tried to say, Water, but all that came out was a laboured wheeze.

The enepsi seemed to realise what I was trying to say, however, and she turned my head so that I faced her. “Algier, if you don’t drink, you’re going to die.”

“Hey, I have this!” said Volce. He was holding a ceramic bottle in his hand.

Enzi snatched it from him and turned it this way and that. “Algier, how do Patch-me-ups work on humans? Do you still need water? Food?”

Toll was the one who answered. “Without sustenance, he will die.”

Markus was standing off to the side. He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Seriously, if he’s going to die, I’m just going to end him now. I am not letting those points go to waste.”

Scowling, Enzi arced up at him. “He’s dying of dehydration, which was caused by your fires. You may not realise this, Markus, but humans need water to survive and fires can burn it out of them very quickly.”

“Oh, so I get the elimination anyway? Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

From atop a rock, Toll gazed down at me. I thought it was strange that the bird could talk. “Algier, we must learn about Berlin’s location. She has gone missing. You must ask a question of me so that I can find her.”

“Berlin,” I breathed. The name reminded me of home.

“That’s enough from both of you!” Enzi growled. She cupped my face in her hands and stared right into my eyes. I wanted to kiss those lips, or more like, I was hoping she would kiss me because I was too tired to move. “Algier, you need to get water and food from your inventory. I used all of my water so I can’t help you. If you don’t, you’ll be eliminated.”

Markus smirked at me. “And not soon enough, mind you.”

“For tits’ sake, Markus!” Volce howled. “I will smack you if you don’t stop.”

The haures rolled his eyes. “Is that show of yours a habit, or do you really think he’ll see through you in this state?”

“Algier! Focus!”

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My eyes settled back onto Enzi. It took a while for her face to unblur. I didn’t really care much for what was happening to me, but her insistence spurred me on. I raised a weak and shaky hand. It took far too much effort to get it off the ground, but which I did I reached out at… something.

“Higher.”

I listened. My whole arm was shaking. The dirt rubbing against my skin irritated me as the wind scraped it by.

“Now do that thing you do,” Enzi said. “Where you can get something just by thinking it.”

Really, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing. I wanted to sleep and never struggle again. Existence itself was pain; to close my eyes and give in to the blackness of sleep was so intoxicatingly tempting. But that wasn’t the only thing intoxicating me. Being urged on by someone so beautiful, I couldn’t help but listen.

I reached out one more time, thinking of how parched my throat was. My hand closed around something which I knew would help then I yanked the thing out. Or more like, I let it drop out. There was no resistance. It just tumbled onto the floor out of a hole in the sky. Not just one, but at least a dozen of them all came out at once.

Enzi and Volce both dived for them, but Enzi was a little faster. She twisted open her bottle and stabbed the lid straight onto my lips. Water trickled down my cheeks. I tried to turn away, but the moment I realised it was water, it was like I had transformed into a ravenous beast. I opened up wide and let Enzi pour the whole thing in.

From what I know about dehydration, that was a terrible idea. When someone is dehydrated, drinking too much too quickly will cause them to vomit everything up. It’s like the body becomes so accustomed to its approaching death that it rejects any attempt to pour life back into it. You’ll probably be just as horrified as I am to know that I drank three whole bottles of water in the span of a minute, hardly taking a moment to breathe in between.

When I was satisfied, Enzi then uncorked the bottle of Patch-me-up and pressed that to my lips. I drank just as greedily as before, ignoring the foul taste of what I can only describe as rotten flesh. The moment it went down, I slumped over and went catatonic.

If I was lethargic before, now I was a corpse. My body was stitching itself back together—I could practically feel it! My shoulder was pulling itself back into place, the scratches and cuts covering me were sealing themselves up, the burns on my face were bubbling and plastering themselves over with new skin. I was healing, and that meant rest. I was too happy to oblige my body’s urges. However, healing also meant food.

Somehow, I managed to stick my hand out and grab a bunch of rations out of my inventory. Just as with the bottles, they poured out like a waterfall. Enzi fed me one after another until I was sitting slumped against a rock, completely stuffed, and beginning to doze off.

As the light faded and sleep crept up on me, Toll knelt in front of me. They kept asking about Berlin, and I just wasn’t interested. I was thinking, why do I care about her? I have someone more beautiful. Besides, she might be my sister. Honestly, I should have already been asleep, but the corrupting effect from that Patch-me-up was doing its damndest to resist it.

In that delusional state, before sleep finally took me, I remember asking a question.

“How did you know my mother?” I can’t remember what prompted that question. I remember the answer like one remembers a trauma.

----------------------------------------

I woke up staring at my own reflection in the pitch black behind a clear-polished window. I can’t remember falling asleep, but how often do you remember the moment when your mind collapses in on itself? I did know, however, that I’d last been sitting with my back to a rock, which made seeing my reflection all the more startling.

I was clean shaven for the first time in years—my usual experience with razors involved cheap, disposable ones which usually peeled off more skin that hair, leaving a thinner layer of prickly stubble. All the grime I’d accumulating in my pores was gone, my lips were so smooth that I was certain I was wearing makeup, and my eyes lacked the bags that had crawled underneath and made a home there when I’d started working years ago.

The rest of my features I couldn’t make out because I was wearing one of those masquerade masks. However, unlike in those gaudy parties still held by humans growing fat off of untiring demonic labour, this mask was a plain white. I wasn’t sure if it was made from porcelain, ivory, or just cheap plastic, but there was a subtle sheen to it. The only imperfection was one crack over my right eye.

Music broke me from my reverie. I turned to witness the place I was in: a grandiose ballroom where practically everything was gilded to its utmost gaudiest. Marble pillars rose along the walls and were capped in gold. A viewing deck was supported by the pillars whose balustrades were white and, again, trimmed with gold. Gold trimmed empty photo frames, gold trimmed sofas, and gold trimmed chandeliers dotted the length of room which seemed to stretch for miles. The floor itself was the only thing not white or gold. Rather, it was made of patterned hardwoods that had been laid such that they curled and bloomed in floral tessellation so lifelike that if I reached out, I could pluck one of those flowers and smell the sweetness of it.

If it were unsettling enough appearing in such a fancy place, the source of the music was outright disturbing. A grand piano sat nestled between two of the pillars close by to me. Nobody was playing it, but the keys were moving of their own accord. Sure, with modern technology that’s not too strange. The issue was that it was playing backwards.

Each note snuck up slowly and peaked, only to fizzle out in an instant. Even worse, I hadn’t even realised the thing was in reverse. I should have. The sound was incredibly disturbing, but for some reason it felt like it was playing exactly as it was meant to. No, like this was how music ought to be played. Like it was marching towards that exciting moment at the beginning of a song, where the nostalgia first kicks in and you hype yourself up for it. Only, it never quite got there.

So it was a ballroom of sorts, or perhaps something more regal. I fit the part: three-piece suit, black shoes shined as if to spite its colouring, and hair gelled stiff to my scalp. Except, I was the only person here, which made my whole getup redundant.

I didn’t see a point in panicking. I’d already worked out it was a dream and had decided to calmy observe. That thought, of course, was what made me realise it wasn’t a dream.

Lucid dreams don’t last very long, and when they happen you’re acutely aware of the fact that your mind is playing tricks on you. Sometimes you struggle to wake, feeling like you’re a prisoner in your own body. Other times, you just stay for the ride. That only happens when the dream is good.

Unlike a lucid dream, this felt real. Well, almost. It felt similar to that eternity I’d spent inside of Everwant, only without a naked bitch trying to kill me.

Dreams also didn’t have gruff voices calling out to me, “Are you going to stand there all eternity?” At least, not the dreams I had. Actually, naked bitches trying to kill me was far closer to what I usually dreamt.

My head whipped around to the source of the gruff. The room ended abruptly on one side and in the middle of it rose a dais. A throne ought to have been placed atop it, I considered, but rather there were two sofas and a coffee table between them. All upholstered just as fancy as the rest of the place. Seated in one of the sofas was a… man, of sorts.

He wasn’t quite a demon, on account of the missing horns, but he couldn’t have been human either. I’m not sure how I knew that. He watched me with a curious, impatient expression. His salt and pepper hair was held in a wave with pomade. His face was covered in a mask that covered his eyes and nose, similarly to my mask, only it was crimson just like his suit. And his eyes. They were crimson like everything else he wore. Definitely not human.

The crimson man raised a china teacup. “If I were so inhuman, then why would I be impatient about having a cup of tea?”