Bella found herself inside a perfect cube the color of crow feathers. Sourceless light glinted off the hatch door handles on the three walls in front of her, the ceiling, and the floor. Behind her gaped the corridor leading to another cube. Over the past week, she’d stopped looking for light sources, food, water, or directions. She was in hell — a hell, not even The Hell, if that existed — and so there was no point trying to understand how she kept going from room to room without tiring so much she slept, or growing so faint that she collapsed. She treated it like a vivid dream. For what else could she call it? The gambler, and the system, held her mind in their hands. They spoke to her, judged her reactions, and shaped her reality at their whim.

She entered the black room; her bloodied runeblade scraping along the ground. What else could she call it? Her hell was a dream, but it was not hers, and she wondered through a shifting cubic prison with Oriz at her heels. Two lost souls wandering through another’s nightmare.

And ever behind them…

Bella shivered as the faint echoes of pursuing crows grew louder. She stepped further inside the black cube.

Though still lit, the room held an aspect of darkness. The shadowy essence tied into her depths drank it in. She sighed as the knots untangled through her and let the darkness of the room ease her worries. Panic wouldn’t help, be calm and patient in the shadow.

The darkness even helped calm her sword’s growling, though even it had grown quieter over the last week until it no longer spoke at all. Not silence like the deep swallowed history of a well, or the sleeping bed of the ocean as she dove under a wave, no this was the silence of a fuse creeping toward a bomb.

Something was about to break — inside her or out she did not know — and she dreaded the revelation.

As though listening to her thoughts, the pink ribbon scraped elegantly along the floor of the hallway behind her as Oriz followed her into the room. A black door sealed shut bending the grey-skinned alien, completing the cube.

Silence held them in the well-lit darkness.

“You think it’s the same challenge?” Oriz said.

“Yeah,” Bella ground out the word. “Since when are you so timid? It’s been days now of you cringing at every turn. What happened to the wise old master who would snap my neck to save your precious disciple?”

“This is a bad time to —”

“No,” Bella’s voice echoed off the black walls as she turned on Oriz. “This is the perfect time. We are in hell. A literal hell! There is no time, there is no end to this, there is only an endless waiting as that one-eyed buzzard tortures us. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to see our friends again as we partake in the gambler’s horrible excuse for a show.”

Oriz gasped, but Bella rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, whatever, what worse could he do to me?”

[Both members of your party have entered the room. Please make your selection]

“Should we discuss this?” Oriz said.

“Nah,” Bella said as she pointed her sword at the opposite wall. “Straight ahead.”

“I hope we don’t get another red room.”

“Another black would be nice.”

“But what are the odds?”

Bella shrugged.

[Now spinning]

The floor jolted as the cubic rooms surrounding them spun about. It had happened dozens of times now. Once inside the structure, all sense of direction dissolved. There was no way out — not that Bella could imagine. There was no time, no distance, just an endless sequence of these black and red rooms. Though the worst part dragged at her ankle.

Her sword flexed inside her grip, and she heaved it above her head.

“One more time while we wait.”

She brought the blade down hard across the pink ribbon. It struck the metal floor with a clang that echoed up the bones in her arm. Heat rippled out, and the ribbon wavered, but it did not sever, it did not fray, tear, singe, or anything at all.

Bella sighed.

“They say madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

“They sound wise.”

The rooms continued spinning beyond the black walls. Clunking and whirring as metal scraped metal. Bella leaned on her sword, the heated aura withdrew into the slightly green-tinged blade, and she caught Oriz’s eye.

“Say we’re here for another few days, or weeks, or years. You’ve done centuries in purgatory, right? How did you make it last? How does anyone make it last through the years when there’s no escape and everything seems pointless and…”

She trailed off as emotion cringed at her voice. Oriz caught the thread though, her yellow eyes softening, as she thought of her answer.

“Not everyone survives. You can live, but that doesn’t mean you survive, not up here,” she tapped her temple. “The trick, if there’s a trick, is to either live in delusion so completely the outside world cannot touch you or… Or you live in complete honesty with yourself and others and accept what is happening.”

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“The second option sounds healthier.”

“It’s like swallowing broken glass.”

“Healthy.”

The whirring, clanking, reverberations slowed. A ticking like a wave rearing on the horizon and pulling in, growing as it reached the shore, blocking out the sun as it climbed above her.

Whatever.

She would care when she was dead.

“So, Oriz, honestly, woman to woman, why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

Oriz looked down at her hands.

“What’s up? What’s wrong? You’ve been asking for days, and… why do you even need to ask? I’m here! I’m here with you and there’s nothing I can do about it! We’re both here because of the decisions I made. It’s my fault! You act like I'm depressed but I’m just reacting to my situation. How are you so damned chipper and happy about it!”

The last clang of the rotating walls echoed out.

[Spinning resolved]

[You have landed on red]

[Good luck!]

The door opposite them fell open. Beyond the darkness lay a bright red room. Inside, five creatures stood shivering and shuddering like birds in the rain. They were humanoid, but covered in black feathers. Their arms and legs ended in cruel talons of grey scales and shining black claws. Their heads were squat, their beaks sharp, and their eyes rolled in their head like burning dice.

Bella had taken to calling them crowlings, and she hated them.

For a moment, each party stared at the other, and then the crowling shrieked. They charged through the open door with their claws outstretched. Mockeries of bird and human, they hopped and waddled and their arms came up crooked as though they wanted to flap but could only slash.

The sight brought the taste of bile to the back of Bella’s throat, but her blade lit up with heated glee. It swept her forward of its own accord, as though she were dancing, and her partner had the lead. Oriz followed behind, careful not to let the pink ribbon between them get too tight or tangled.

The crowlings fought with blind and stupid rage. They swung their claws, pecked, and pushed forward with aggressive speed. Her blade bounced from pectoral muscles hard as iron, so Bella sidestepped and hacked at them from behind. Spines broke under her blows and when each crowling crawled and shrieked upon the ground, she set about severing necks until five heads rolled.

[Congratulations! You have cleared the room!]

[Your rewards are…]

[Deferred!]

[Please continue to the next room]

Bella felt no levels from them, and she gained no death energy. No new Skein, but she could feel the shadow and water winding through her body. It became more natural, to pull on it like an extension of her body. She wiped the sweat from her brow as the blade quieted in her grip, satisfied for now.

“You barely helped,” she said to Oriz. “Aren’t you strong enough to kill them by blowing your nose?

“It’s better you learn to use that sword yourself. You seem to fight it less. Hating it less.”

Bella felt the little dig in the words, but her curiosity caused her to ignore it. She knew Oriz was a skilled swordswoman…

“How about giving me some actual instruction?”

Oriz looked her up and down.

“I already failed one disciple.”

“You asked why I’m so happy, well, I’m… I’ve decided to grin. I had a job at a pub once, waitress, you know? And the manager pulled me aside on my first shift and told me to smile. So I smiled my entire shift long, and it made it easier. Smiling has made so many things in life easier, just minute to minute, even if terrible things still happen. It’s a good lesson to smile just because you can.”

Oriz studied Bella.

“And that’s you being honest with yourself?”

“I don’t know, sure. I think you’re looking at the world too black and white. Honest, dishonest, friend, foe, useful, useless. Why haven’t you been helping me? Really? You’re more powerful than I am in almost every category.”

[Please select the next room]

With a synchronized thunk, the remaining four doors opened: the two walls to the side, the ceiling, and the floor. Each door opened up into a red or black room, except for the floor, which led into a white chamber.

“Huh,” Oriz leaned over the new hole in the floor. “Haven’t seen that before.”

“It’ll be there in a minute,” Bella said. “Don’t avoid the question.”

“Question? Accusation, more like, and poor form of you. Questions about one's level, and build, their power… how gauche,” Oriz sighed as she realized Bella wouldn’t let it slide. “Fine. Do you have any idea how galling it is to be here? For someone like me, with centuries of experience, to be stuck in a hell like this?” The words spilled as she started pacing around the open hole in the floor. “And it’s my fault that I’m here, that you’re here, and I can’t do anything about it! I have no Skein. I keep reaching for it but it’s like that damned dungeon sucked the marrow from my bones. What was once a raging bonfire is now a mere spark. Do you know how hard it is to level up after 50? No, you don’t, but it’s nearly impossible! Kills mean nothing. It’s all about experience. Know yourself and your place in the system’s plans. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to be stuck at level 62 when Trinch the damned bastard reached level 100 within a year of being stuck in purgatory! What the hell is wrong with me? That bastard killed my friends because he knew some trick I couldn’t even touch upon. I let down Zoe, and then I get us thrown into this maze! There’s nothing I can —”

Bella wrapped her up in a hug. Her sword clanged on the ground, but she ignored the disgruntled thrumming between their mental link and held the alien woman. Her muscles were thin and hard and wrong. As Bella patted through the thin dark dress, she knew that the musculature was different, and her body repulsed, but she continued the embrace. The alien smell, like a spice she couldn’t name, and Oriz trembled, her level making her body like some kind of metal, then she sagged, and Bella held her up.

[Please select the next room]

“Yeah, yeah,” Bella said. “We will. We’ll select any room, and we’ll take them all out. As a team, yeah?”

Oriz nodded into Bella’s shoulder.

“This is embarrassing,” the alien woman said.

“You ready to smile at the world in all its madness?”

“Maybe.”

Bella grinned, and Oriz couldn’t help but smile back — even if it was just a curl of her lip, Bella knew it would grow.

“Come on then,” she said as she picked up her sword and offered her arm. “Two fine ladies against all the fires of hell, they won’t know what hit them.”

Oriz sniffed and took Bella’s arm, and together they leaped down the hole in the floor and entered the white room.

The black room sat open and still and slowly filled with the echos of crows.