Reoi died. She made a mistake.

“There was a deer,” she wheezed, leaning against the doorway. The rest of our bunkmates stared. The dying sun framed parts of her in crimson and others in shade. She looked twisted, wrong. Another step forward and the effect vanished.

“I chased it. Then I heard the … the crunch.”

I padded over to the corner and dabbed a cloth into the water pail, then held it out to Reoi. She stared at it with a bemused look. I stepped back, holding the rag in front of me with trembling fingers. It was too late. It was just—habit.

“It was so close. If I’d been farther away, just a few feet, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But I did, and—I dropped the spear.” Reoi looked at Senz as she said it, the oldest one in our bunk since Eschen had died, and thus the one in charge. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Go, lie down. Rest,” Senz said, guiding her to her bed.

Reoi babbled the rest of the day. Anything and everything seen under the sun passed her lips, and many things that weren’t. It was as if she were trying to make up for her former tendency toward silence. I found the whole thing awkward and avoided her until the next morning. We found her curled up in her bed, perfectly still.

We harvested tenebrium. It was black, brittle, and perfectly smooth. It absorbed vast amounts of mana and was the only reason a Hellmouth’s corruption didn’t endlessly spread across the world. It was also poisonous. When broken, it left tiny particles almost as light as air that spiraled to the ground. A single touch against bare skin, just one piece sucked in with a breath—any contact was a death sentence.

None of us were supposed to survive. Ten years—the very minimum sentence out here—was enough for even the most cautious to make a mistake. The Federation of Numbers ruled the area, and with their rule came rules. No one spoke of their pasts, so I only knew mine. I stole mana. A single solid pearl of it, just to know what it was like to have some measure of power.

Our jailors gave us long robes and strips of cloth. They fell apart, eventually, and we had to buy more at vastly inflated costs. Reoi had been hunting. Thinking it wouldn’t hurt to leave her protective clothing behind and avoiding wear and tear, she strayed too close to the Hellmouth.

I’d always held out hope. That I’d survive, pay my debt to society, and leave. Reoi was gone, now. We’d talked. Even called each other friends. I took this as the cue it was.

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A low wind blew past my ankles, causing the cloth to flutter back and forth like a small swarm of demented butterflies. I stared at the huge stretch of unbroken blackness ahead of me. I was close, though, close enough to see the red haze of corrupted mana in the air.

A set of heavy footsteps crunched up behind me. It was Senz, covered in an amount of fabric and leather even I considered excessive. She stopped and leaned on a carved stick, another sentinel observing the Hellmouth.

“It hurts,” she said.

I turned toward her just a fraction, an unspoken question.

“The corruption. Righteous fury doesn’t dull it. Not sadness, not emptiness. Every single being with a mine left in them that could be talked to, and not one started with anything else.”

“I don’t plan on living long enough to regret anything. Nothing comes back out of a Hellmouth.”

“Mmm.”

I took a step forward.

“They say the Hellmouths lead to an eternal life of constant torment.”

“They say many things,” I said. I kept going.

“Do you believe it?” Senz said, voice strangely urgent.

“Doesn’t matter. I won’t be here.”

“Then help us escape.”

I turned around at that and waited. The sun was directly overhead, its cold fire eating our shadows to nothing. The moment felt surreal, like a dream.

“A single soulstone and we have a Domain. Give us enough mana to Awaken. To train. When we escape, we can take you with us. Or we can smash your soulstone if you still want death. If you truly don’t care where your soul goes, then let us use it.”

That was unexpected. The topic of soulstone creation was taboo. Their creation was carefully regulated to decrease the chances of their killing everyone who neared the Domain and then requiring the creation of a new Hellmouth just to get rid of it. I knew more about their creation than most just because I had to know to procedures to avoid their accidental creation at all costs. Any dead near the Hellmouth needed to be cleared before sunset or everyone’s wages would be reduced and the scapegoat put to death. There was probably some rare interaction between the dead and the corrupted mana. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

“How will you hide my body? The overseers would find it.”

Senz nodded and began walking back. “They care about human corpses, not animals. With care, we can disguise you inside one. The tenebrium dust kicked up from the chase would, of course, render the corpse inedible.”

In the end, I had to let Senz kill me. I put down my own dagger and nodded to her. She slit my throat without hesitation. The large hunting knife ripped through in one short, brutal moment. The blood came after. Finally, in a delayed rush, there was pain.