Zoe always thought that nothing would taste like dust. That the void would be the remains of eroded stars and life. Dust in the wild was, ultimately, mountains ground down to nothing. Dust in the home was skin and cells shed in minutia until they built into mountains. Life and matter shredded beyond substance is what nothing should have tasted like, but she found that the grey void she floated in tasted of nothing at all.

Of course that was the case. How could nothing be anything at all?

Her friends floated around her — weariness in all their faces. Beads of sweat flicked off Bella and SKidmark as they turned in the space. Zoe and Anton were cleaner, but no less exhausted. Zoe felt her guts adjusting to the weightlessness. She wasn’t sure how she saw, since there was no light. There was nothing.

“...”

Even speaking failed since there was no air. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and it took an effort to calm it down. Without thinking she activated [Our Hearts Toll as One] and helped her friends relax.

The use of Skein sent a ripple through the void. Zoe’s friends turned to look at her. She smelled blood, but the odor faded as she released the technique.

Anton’s silver eyes raced out in a perfect sphere of directions, but they quickly became pinprick dots in the vast emptiness. After a moment, he shrugged and the lights twinkled out. There was nothing to see.

Words still eluded her, so she tried to swim over toward Bella. There was only a few dozen feet between them, but there was nothing to push against. All she achieved in her movements was a spinning motion.

Frustration boiled up, all she wanted to do was move over and —

Her body drifted in time with her thoughts. She seized on the momentum and concentrated her Willpower so that it pushed her gently toward Bella. It seemed this void reacted strongly to expressions of Skein.

Bella’s exhaustion became all the more apparent as Zoe got closer. Multiple wounds lined the woman’s body. They slowly healed closed, but blood beaded away to float like orbiting rubies. Her runeblade remained locked tight in her white-knuckled grip, but she reached out with her other hand and Zoe grasped those trembling fingers.

The warmth in Bella’s hand shocked Zoe. She hadn’t realized how cold this void was, but Bella’s heat bled into hers. Black energy flickered around Bella and it tugged Zoe closer. The Australian woman’s lips moved, but no sound came forth

There was no air.

Zoe wondered how long they would remain alive. Advanced Vitality could keep them alive without breathing, but not indefinitely. Zoe forced her heart rate to calm as she realized the ticking clock bearing down upon them. She gazed at her friends. Skidmark, Anton, then Bella: that was the order she would watch her friends die if she couldn’t figure out a way for them to breathe. Surreptitiously, she lowered their heart rates again, reducing their oxygen consumption as she struggled to think of how to escape.

A mirrored fist formed and she felt her Body Path crackled between her knuckles as she formed a teardrop portal, but it flickered out before she could punch. Where was she aiming this portal for? Her technique required using two portals to link space, but moving elsewhere in this void would be just as useless as staying here.

She reached for the memory of the Mountain portals but felt that link in her mind shut close instantly. A familiar feeling in her mind told her this was the dragon’s influence, but she didn’t poke or try. It would be like moving a limb that was no longer there.

Bella’s runeblade was the other option.

Through a quick series of mimed gestures, Zoe persuaded Bella to perform her reality-splitting slash upon the featureless space. Bella looked doubtful, but since she couldn’t voice her complaint, she shrugged and tugged herself free of Zoe’s hand. The runes glowed bright, their light hazy and compact as no fire could burn, and Bella lifted the blade in a seemingly lazy diagonal attack.

Zoe crossed her fingers hoping for that familiar black tear to open up. She didn’t know where exactly it would send her — Bella’s portals were far less consistent than hers — but anywhere would be better than here.

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However, the blade swung through the space and the runes fizzled out. Zoe let out a soundless sigh as the runeblade came to a stop, but as the last spark of the runes died, a thunderous gong shook reality. The brassy sound passed through Zoe’s bones and into her ears and her teeth ground together in pain as it rang on and on.

[You find yourself in a void. You try to leave, but there are no directions. What do you do?]

Zoe looked around at her friends. From their expressions, she knew they heard the words as well. This wasn’t the Crimson Armada or any of the gods she knew, it was hard to say exactly what the voice sounded like. Not quite empty, but close. Hollow and dead as dust.

What was she supposed to do? She needed to respond to the voice, but…

Create directions, she thought with all her Willpower.

[A wish is not a way. How will you create directions?]

Zoe looked about at her friends. They looked back at her. The lack of sound made communication tricky, and Zoe worried about Skidmark’s pallid skin, but that same woman traced a square with her fingers. She repeated the motion a few times, faster and faster, before her eyes rolled back in her head.

Zoe forced herself not to panic because she knew what Skidmark meant. She needed to summon her map, but how could she do that when she couldn’t speak?

She furrowed her brow and focused her Willpower. Her intent forced her attribute like a lever against reality as she leaned on the demonic command.

IMP.

A cold shiver ran down her spine, but no map unfurled before her. Instead, a speck of bloody light formed in the nether between her friends. It bubbled and grew and splashed open into a sphere of gory mucous that resolved into the wasp-headed demon that gave Zoe the map in the first place. It looked about, as bloated wasps scurried over its body, mandibles clacking in panic.

“This isn’t the spa… what… what have you done? Why did you summon me here? Oh, no, no…”

As the cold sensation in Zoe’s spine faded, she noticed a swelling bulge in the demon’s abdomen. It started at the tailbone and rose, vertebrae by vertebra, growing like a pus-gorged blister. The demon screeched in agony.

“What have you done? This place has no directions! No, stop, take it back, please… I take it back. I’ll revoke our deal. You can have your soul back just please make it —”

The swollen lump reached its head and bubbled out through the soft flesh of its chest. A gurgling sound smothered the demon’s shrieking as its flesh glowed bright pink and exploded. Acetic blood splashed Zoe and she grimaced at the foul odor. Strands of gore and bloodied mucous stretched out and expanded. Glittering shrapnel of chitin. Bone dust. A spectral gathering of gossamer Skein wind ballooned out and expanded into the void like the echo of a thunderclap.

As the mess passed over her, Zoe suddenly became aware of the fact she floated upside down.

She Willed over to Bella in a rush of movement and grabbed her friend’s arm. With her free hand, she made a chopping motion and Bella didn’t hesitate to obey. Her runeblade burned and the flames grew along the length. There was still no howl, but as the blade traced an arc through the air it left behind a black tear in the walls of this blank and horrible void.

Zoe’s Mirrored hands deformed and lashed her friends together. Blasting away from the bloody floating muck that was once a demon, she brought her friends through the portal.

There was no knowing that air lay on the other side, but Zoe felt the Faith rush up through her as she moved, and she believed that this was the way. Bella’s portals always remained blank, and so moving through them was a leap of Faith.

Zoe felt the tingling sensation, the flattening, the burst of color in her eyes, the heavy taste of lavender, and then she burst through into another void. One just as expansive, but darker, grimmer, and far less empty.

The portal rippled closed behind them, and Zoe sucked down a welcome breath of air and found it tasted cold, stale, and dusty. Now that she could breathe, she pulled Skidmark close. The woman’s chest still rose and fell, so she was only unconscious. Zoe remained worried until the woman’s eyelids flickered.

“Five more minutes,” Skidmark said.

Zoe grinned with relief. It seemed she had inhuman Vitality to thank once again. With her most immediate concern out of the way, she looked about her new environment and quickly realized why Bella and Anton were speechless.

Zoe sucked down a welcome breath of air and found it tasted cold, stale, and dusty. She stared at the distant light as it bathed the vast void around her. Where the last space had a greyish tone, this hollow world was black as a Mubilashi. Rather than empty, vast shapes floated around her. It took a moment to realize that what she thought were islands or worlds, were bodies: dragons, giants, aliens, humans, monsters. Some were the size of planets, others smaller than the palm of her hand — though distance made a true mockery of scale. All were dead, and rather than decomposing, they disintegrated into a glittering cascade like starlight diamonds.

[Welcome to the Halls of Dead Fate]

[Welcome to the Void beyond the Void]

[Welcome to Nowhere]

A bright white light slit the horizon and peeled apart. It was thin as a paper’s edge, and brilliant as a supernova, but the distance was incalculable.

[Your way home lies before you, if you can reach it, you are free]

“Well,” Zoe said. “Anyone want to bet that’s not as easy as it looks?”