Oppressive silence radiated from Zoe as she gazed out at the hollow cave. Rainwater trickled from multiple skylights, a ticking reminder of the doom above their heads. Over in the distance, the town survivors huddled around the flaming child. The orange flames lit their weary faces with harsh shadows, and Zoe couldn’t help but feel contempt for the comfort they found there. That toddler had levels higher than it should have, and the adults clung to it like a lifeline. Things shouldn’t be that way.

Zoe’s rage coiled around her spine like a python. She might break herself if she didn’t break something. This was a moment of crisis — a deadline, a missing friend, surrounded by enemies — and she needed to shine as a leader, as a boss, but all she wanted to do was inflict as much damage as possible.

Skidmark was talking, and it took every ounce of Zoe’s Willpower to rip herself off the train tracks of her self-recrimination and focus on her friend.

“...Anton said something about a spaceship. The polyp was helping two of the town council to build it as an escape craft, right? So we can use that to escape.”

“I didn’t call it a spaceship,” Anton said.

“Whatever. Do we go find it since we can’t open a long-distance portal without —”

Zoe slammed a fist into the wall. Cracks spread through the rocks as she took several long breaths. Her friends remained silent.

“You’re right, Skidmark, we need a backup plan,” Zoe said apologetically. “Those damned survivors won’t save themselves, but Anton, Bella is our priority. I refuse to leave this island without her, even if it means I crash into the abyss when Not-Cassy melts it down.”

Anton nodded and his eyes closed as he focused on his technique.

“I’ll find her boss.”

“So, what do we do now?” Skidmark asked with a nod toward the survivors. “Think any of them can help us?”

Zoe sighed as she straightened up.

“It’s doubtful, maybe the kid, but I don’t want to force a toddler into a situation I don’t want to be in.”

But that was a lie. The pressure compressed her intent like a diamond. She thrived here in the cauldron of the apocalypse. Vitality itched through her wounds as she rolled her shoulders.

“We find this spaceship, and we kill any bugs we meet. We’ll bring the survivors with us; no point in doubling back. The flame child can help us burn through the rock and create a shortcut. Right now, I need to punch something, and if Oriz won’t oblige, I need a consolation prize.”

“What prize?”

Zoe snarled as she let the rage take control of her mind.

“The damned Winter Queen’s head on a platter.”

If she was to be a beast, then she would hunt. She would kill the mantis ruler and she would kill Oriz. Whichever order she found them didn’t matter, for there would be no mercy.

Zoe started toward the survivors when an idea struck her, and she grinned. She stopped walking.

“Boss,” Skidmark said slowly. “You look downright diabolical right now.”

“Infernal Map Projection,” she said.

A trickle passed down her spine like a bead of condensation down the side of a cold bottle of beer. She resolved to have a long drink with her friends when they got out of this situation.

The shivering sensation passed and a map floated in front of her. Numerous points swirled surrounded by runes. The details were so zoomed out as to be meaningless, Zoe wasn’t sure if it was a map of a shattered Earth or if it was the universe in total — she didn’t care, and she didn’t try to make sense of it.

“Show me Bella,” she said.

The map zoomed in on the island and showed a network of tunnels. Dotted lines overlapped as the two-dimensional display rendered the three-dimensional reality of the subterranean world.

“X marks the spot,” Zoe whispered.

“That’s the map?” Skidmark asked over her shoulder. “Looks like blood and human skin.”

“Could be, could be,” Zoe said as she committed the directions to memory. “Ok, new plan. You and Anton lead the survivors to the spaceship. He knows where it is, so I won’t use the map again.”

“Gotta save your soul somehow, right?”

“Don’t remind me,” Zoe said with a grimace.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to rip her head from her shoulders and throw it off the edge of the island.”

“Are you sure you want to go after Oriz alone? She shrugged off all our attacks.”

Zoe met Skidmark’s gaze, and her friend ducked her head.

“Right, right, she didn’t shrug off your attacks, just my attacks, but all I’m saying is… you’re right. I get it. Just, be careful, yeah?”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Zoe gripped Skidmark’s hand.

“I’m lucky I met you, Skidmark, now you corral those survivors and tell Anton the new plan.”

“Already heard, boss,” Anton’s silver eye floated past.

“You see the directions?”

His eye bounced.

“I’ll guide the way.”

Zoe grinned as she dismissed the map.

“Alright,” she said. “Time for some revenge.”

###

Oriz couldn’t believe she still lived. Her Skein skipped within her, unstable, faltering, but still she pushed her technique. Fueled by her New Flesh, she broke herself apart, and reformed, becoming grass, becoming Oriz, moving through that liminal space as she became grass and became herself, over and over, her thoughts looping as she skipped through a winding tunnel with no destination in mind only the fear of what came behind her.

“Stop!” Bella cried out, struggling as they appeared in a bend in the tunnel.

Oriz ignored her and burst apart again. Carrying two people through space was harder, but she needed to create distance.

For she knew Zoe would come, and her heart trembled in fear, just as the grass trembled before the hot winds of the wildfire. She could almost feel it breathing down her neck, panting like a hound from hell.

In a wide cavern, even lower than the one they found themselves in before. The floor opened up onto a sinkhole extending down toward a lurid sky. Rocks floated across the chasm, little islands above clouds of red and purple, caught within whatever field suspended the larger island itself. A distant wind howled, softer than the excess of the runeblade. Soon, the parasite rain would melt these rocks, but for now, Oriz alighted on the largest platform.

It was the size of one of the homeflowers from her planet, and she thought back to those memories.

She wanted to show Bella that world, but was such a hope gone forever?

Grass settled on the rocky floor, disintegrating as it burned itself up, and she caught her breath. Bella pulled away from her. She gripped her blade, but without Zoe around she didn’t have the spine to swing it.

When had her thoughts become so cruel?

“Why?” Bella said. “Why did you do this?”

Oriz shook her head.

“I was forced to do this. Zoe has been planning to kill me since we first met. You saw how she tried to stop my heart.”

“You tried to kill Skidmark!”

“Skidmark deserved to die!” Oriz snarled. Her Skein writhed beneath her skin. Why couldn’t Bella understand? They were supposed to be twin shoots, two flowers of the same stem, but it seemed Bella still clung to the twisted morality of humans. “Don’t you see how Zoe has you tangled around her finger? Do you think it’s normal to be dragged through hell? To be thrown at monsters? I’ve seen her throw you at the mercy of gods… you deserve to be treated better than that.”

Bella tugged her jumpsuit down and pointed at her bruised neck.

“You did this,” she said, her voice growing flat as her eyes bleached of color. “You are the one who hurt me, not Zoe. You’re the one who stole my sword.”

Oriz shook her head. Pain still clung to her — her skull wasn’t completely healed, merely held together with stitches of grass. The same temporary technique that held Bella’s body together.

“I’m sorry you were hurt,” she said. “But I merely borrowed your runeblade. To claim complete ownership, I would have to kill you, and that is something I would never do. I don’t… I don’t know how to make you understand that everything I did… was necessary, Bella. I had to get you away from them.”

She implored her lover, poured everything into her voice, her eyes, as though through silence she could communicate what words could not. Bella gazed at her, eyes pale with the runeblade’s influence, and looked away.

The two women stood on the floating rock as the clouds swirled below like ink in water. Gems studded the rocky cave and glinted in the light. It was a beautiful place — as beautiful as any Oriz had seen in her travels through the Crimson Armada worlds and beyond — but it was made ugly by the heaviness of the scene.

They were both burdened with wounds of the flesh and of the soul. She saw only one way forward. With her open palms spread wide, she stepped toward the human who held her heart so tightly.

“Bella,” she said. “I know how I can save us.”

“There is no us,” Bella’s voice rang like hot steel.

“You don’t mean that,” Oriz said as she took another step. “Remember what we went through in Hell. Remember how we fought before we found ourselves. You saved me then, let me save you now.”

Bella shook her head.

“Can you even hear how crazy you sound? You attack my friends and now you’re talking like the argument is about the dishes.”

“I saw in your eyes that you didn’t want to kill me. You stayed your blade. You wanted me to live.”

“Of course, I didn’t want to kill you.”

“You’re not attacking me now.”

Bella raised the runeblade and pointed it straight at Oriz’s chest, but Oriz took another step.

“I spent so long wandering the desert,” she said softly. “I listened to the ramblings of a dying system and the treacherous intent of those trapped like flies in amber. I endured centuries in purgatory, but when I escaped it clung to me like a film.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“It was you, Bella. You were the one who pulled me from the doldrums of my soul.”

Bella’s sword wavered, her eyes brimming with tears. Her heart was so pure and beautiful, beating beneath the surface like spring warmth thawing a lake. Oriz knew that she could crack the facade that pointed the blade. She knew she could make her understand.

As Bella focused on Oriz’s face and words, Oriz twitched her fingers and worked her Skein. She would make things right. Who cared that the island would collapse? She had Bella and the runeblade, and together they could flee. They could go anywhere, and it wouldn’t matter so long as they were together. Zoe needed to know the destination, but Oriz knew that if she had Bella, only the journey mattered — and making it last.

Her thin grey lips stretched into a smile.

“You’re so beautiful when you stand up for what you believe in,” she said softly as she took another step. “But your beliefs have been corrupted by your company. They don’t appreciate you, and they will use you. I’ve seen the way Zoe looks at you. I’ve seen the way the others look at me. We’re expendable to them. Do you think we have any place in her plans? Do you think anyone has a place in Zoe’s plans?”

“Stay where you are.”

She took another step closer and stopped. The blade rested against her sternum. Hot as metal from an oven. The tip sizzled against her skin.

“If you truly wanted me dead you would slay me now.”

Tears ran down Bella’s cheeks.

“Why?” she said. “You haven’t told me why!”

“I’ve told you that and more,” Oriz said. “You didn’t understand, but I can fix that.”

Bella frowned, a shockingly normal expression warping her pale eyes. The influence of the blade flickered as color-saturated her gaze.

“What do you —”

Oriz swept her hand up fast. The blade punched into her skin. She smiled, a gentle gasp against the pain, heat flooded her as the flesh of her breasts cooked. Everybody knew that love hurt. She rubbed Bella’s cheek.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Grass spread from her touch. Strand after strand blossomed into a cocoon. Oriz leaned closer as Bella struggled, the blade sank deeper into her, and the cocoon wrapped around them both. Bella’s eyes grew heavy, and the sword slipped from her grip. The cocoon grew and spread. Shoots of grass extended out in a vast web to fill the cavern of gems.

Oriz poured everything into the technique, pushing it beyond its limits as she built defenses to stop anyone who dared to interrupt. The technique would end when she wanted it to end, and then there would be no need to worry about losing Bella ever again.

The sound of rustling grass rose above the howling wind. The whispering sound filled the space as the technique spiraled and grew, fresh shoots layered over dreams, a wicker frame of the mind, and in the center, wrapped around her lover, Oriz smiled.