The streets stretched around Zoe, row after row of plain brick townhouses, print and copy buildings. Her group of guards and victims and her crew walked along the snow-covered road in silence. There was a sense of hope in the steps of those accompanying her, but she couldn’t help but feel growing tension as they traveled deeper into this mockery of civilization.

After going so long without seeing proper buildings — human buildings — to see these now made her deeply uneasy. Townhouses with dark and broken windows. A strip mall up ahead, dead and gaping. Signs unlit. Doors open and shelves tipped over, spilling out onto the sidewalks an array of canned goods, cheap clothes, and assorted trinkets. Something had happened here, and fast, and in the middle of reacting… blood stains dried and brown like old chocolate milk splashed across the walls.

Nobody commented on the sight — on the obvious deaths — but they settled around Zoe’s heart, and only the dull flutter of a moth’s wings gave her any sense of lightness at all.

The snow-covered too much space evenly. It drifted now in errant flakes, but the cold blanket covered corpses and bushes and ditches into one even layer. It was impossible to tell what lay under the broken windows and blood-crusted walls.

A thick, acidic musk hung in the air like pollen.

“What is that?” she asked.

“Huh?” responded Fleshripper.

“That smell.”

“That’s the mantis musk. It’s how we know the area isn’t safe.”

Anton’s eyes zipped out into the surrounding streets with renewed haste.

“I thought you had a treaty with the mantis queen?” Zoe said. “Isn’t that the point of the sacrifices?”

“Well, we had a treaty,” Woody said sardonically. “But that’s all broken now.”

“Yeah, I won’t apologize.”

She bit off the rest of what she wanted to say: You were feeding people to bugs. I don’t know why I’m even letting any of you live except for the fact my pity outweighs my anger. Look at the lot of you pathetic wretches. In fact…

A ripple passed down her chain as it tightened its grip around her arm until she felt the bones creak.

[Ding!]

[Friends don’t hurt friends]

Zoe gritted her teeth against the sharpening pain.

“What if they’re a danger?” she whispered so low only Anton could catch it.

[Ding!]

[Then they’re not a friend, duh! You’re so silly, tee hee hee]

The chain loosened once more around her arm until she didn’t feel its weight or presence at all, but the ache remained dull and throbbing hot as her Vitality worked at the micro-fractures.

[Hee hee hee hee hee hee…]

Zoe grumbled, but shook her head when Anton shot her an inquisitive glance.

“Not now,” she mouthed, but then louder. “I have a question for the lot of you.”

The guards looked at each other. They stood as a little group, Fleshripper and Sarah walking together, with Dave and Woody carrying the flame-armored captain between them. Jack walked with the young woman and the children with her. They kept their distance, with Zoe and Anton between them and the guards. So far, the three potential sacrifices were yet to say a word.

“Yeah?” said Woody. “What do you want to know?”

“How much do you lot know about the body paths and levels and mountains and essence and all of it?”

‘Mountains?” Woody said. “I don’t know about that, but the rest of it,” he scratched his head and looked around at the others. “The polyp explained everything when it arrived. Can’t say I knew much about that sort of thing beforehand, but it’s all pretty logical.”

Zoe frowned at that comment. She had found none of it logical or straightforward when she trapped in another world with no guide.

Except for Oriz.

And Gool, now she thought of it.

She gripped the locket hanging from the chain.

“Do any of you know anything about the Witch?”

The name left her lips like a gull diving below the water. A soft ripple passed out, and the light shifted. Broken windows watched her as the buildings leaned in. The footfall of a dog on the crisp snow behind her, but when she turned there weren’t even footprints.

“The Witch is part of the Crimson Armada’s Trinity,” said Fleshripper. “She tests people on their loyalty to their body path. If you receive her invitation, you must deny it as soon as possible.”

“You can deny it?” Zoe asked. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“They hide that truth,” whispered an unfamiliar voice.

Zoe turned, along with everyone else, and faced the young woman. She looked tired, on the edge of starvation or disease, but something burned in her eyes, limp and feverish as those flames might be.

“They hide options,” she said, her voice croaking slightly. “You can say no to the Witch. I want to say you should, but… I can’t.”

“Why?”

The woman shivered — shuddered — as though words wrung her throat. The children leaned against her, almost dragging her down as much as they propped her up, three ships colliding in a dark night and drowning in the waves.

“It’s alright,” Jack whispered to her.

She glanced at his earnest smile and nodded.

“I met the Witch. She lured me to a crossroads beside the cemetery. We went at midnight, alone in the cold, before everyone was even really working together. Don’t look at me like that… she said we were special. The only two invited out of the whole town. That’s why Sister Salt wanted me sacrificed. I knew too much.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The guards all looked at her with interest.

“Who joined you?” asked Woody.

The young woman took a deep breath.

“Sister Salt.’

“No!” Fleshripper exclaimed with a look of pure gossipy joy.

The other guards — especially Woody — looked shaken by the news.

“She gave no hint of it,” said Woody by explanation. “She always condemned any who tried to venture out for power. She ensured everyone follow the polyp's strict instructions. We didn’t even see anything wrong with what she said. Follow the rules of the new world. It made sense.”

“Why do you listen to her at all?” asked Anton. “The world already ended. Why join a cult?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Enlighten me.”

Woody sighed.

“She can see the future. Everything the mantis did, she predicted. Some of us don’t agree with her methods, but when she says she knows the way out of our situation, we believe her.”

After that revelation, they continued walking. What did it mean that she could see the future? Woody dodged any further questions as he grew increasingly uncomfortable. He either didn’t know or couldn’t say. The others were less helpful, but from the examples they gave, it was hard to dispute.

Anton’s comment about a cult seemed more accurate with every word. So Zoe dropped the topic. She would know soon enough, but no matter what, she had to continue to the polyp. There were only two hours until the Gambler summoned them to the game, and only three days until her quest failed and her entire party died. And that was looking to be a lot more people than she first expected.

Footsteps crunched through snow as they passed covers covered in thick layers of undisturbed white. The roofs of buildings, and the sidewalk, were all covered, and the only footprints they saw stretched out before them: the path the guards took to their post.

And they passed through a crossroads.

Time after time, a street crossed the road as they travelled through the dead town. Stink of bugs floating in the cold air. Each crossroad twanged at the threads of her Skein like a finger on a guitar.

A piece of music ached up from her body — from her soul — that she couldn’t control or understand. Achingly familiar to the drummer in purgatory’s tavern. The warped beat of death rattling through a living rhythm. Each pluck across her skein resurfaced the memory, and though it faded, it rose again, and so too did a whisper…

[Come to me]

But she pushed on — out of spite, as much as a sense of self-preservation. She refused to meet with another cosmic being unprepared. If it wouldn’t snatch her out of time and space for a meeting, then she would do her research. Her fists clenched. She would rescue Oriz and then ask her supposed mentor some damned important questions about reality.

But until then… she released her fists, and let her anger fade as she touched at the locket secured around her chain. Currently, it rested above her breasts atop the midnight armored dress. Could she use this to contact Gool?

Perhaps one of her body path options would allow her to communicate with him. After all, the lockets were linked across dimensions. But that was exactly the kind of decision she wanted help with making. It sounded like the polyps could help, but for now…

“Excuse me,” she said as she approached the young, ill-looking woman who, too worn out to flinch, turned dully to answer.

“Yes?”

“What did you see the Witch about?”

The young woman looked between her and Jack, who followed along at a casual distance. He caught her look and excused himself.

“I hope you feel better,” he said as he walked over to join Anton.

While the two men bickered, Zoe repeated her question to the young woman.

‘What do you think? Power.”

“And? Did she give you power?”

The young woman nodded, and she placed her hands on the children’s shoulders. The young boy and girl looked up at her and smiled. They appeared as siblings but looked nothing like the young woman.

“They are mine,” said the young woman, as though she heard Zoe’s thoughts. “Gifts from the Witch. In time, they will be powerful, more powerful even than the burning child the sister claims for herself. My two little goons, but they have to grow.”

“We’ll grow stronger, mother,” said the boy in a creaking voice like an old man alone in a stale room.

“Yes, brother is right,” echoed the sister in the same voice. “We shall grow strong and protect you.” Her innocent eyes met Zoe’s. “Now that we have this one to look over us.”

“You will protect us,” the young woman said to Zoe. “Won’t you? You’ll keep protecting us. I know you will.”

“Tell me how the Witch did this.”

But the young woman shook her head.

“If you want the Witch’s secrets, go see her yourself. I won’t… I can’t…” she slurred and spat blood.

“I get it,” Zoe said. “Not for you to say, is it?”

The young woman shook her head gratefully.

“No.”

“Thank you, and I will. I will protect you.’

“I know.”

“I’m Zoe, by the way.”

“Paris.”

The street rose into a hill and they stopped talking as they climbed. Zoe, Anton, and Jack pushed up the slope without trouble, but the guards struggled. The young woman and her children slipped on the slope, and eventually, Zoe used her chain to drag everyone up to the top while they sat on the torn-out doors of dead cars.

It felt like reverse sledding, and the fun of it tempted Zoe to give the real thing a shot when they reached the top of the hill. But the view changed her mind.

Soot stained everything below the peak. Charred buildings stood like black obelisks above the landscape of stark snow. No people she could see, but thin streams of smoke rose to a sky of swirling green, yellow, and red. A spiral of lurid fire rejected by the blackened landscape beneath. New flakes fell at the same rate as drifting ash and soot.

Through the guts of this burned town, a wide river lay frozen. A single bridge arched across the iron grey ice.

“The checkpoint is just up ahead at the start of the bridge,” Woody said as he adjusted the weight of the captain in his arms. “Dave and I will head back to the wall. We can’t just leave it unattended. Fleshripper and Sarah will show you through to Sister Salt.”

Zoe nodded.

“Alright, but what happened here?”

Grief crossed Woody’s face.

“A fire started on that first night when the system came. It smashed our towns together, and then the fire spread between them like it was alive — which we found out later it was. A lot of people died. Too many. They weren’t stupid, or weak, or cowards — they just didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” said Zoe.

“Yeah, well… Sister Salt tamed the fire. She predicts the future. We don’t want sacrifices, we don’t want to die, or kill, we just want to live and be safe. You know?”

"I know.”

“Yeah. Well, um, Dave and I will head back now.”

He set down the captain, and nodding at Fleshripper and Sarah, they slid down the hill on the makeshift sleds. Zoe felt their hearts beating inside the grip of her techniques. They calmed as they grew further away, but they didn’t break. Her presence made them uneasy, but they were still inside her party.

Hopefully, that meant she could trust them.

“Alright, you two,” Zoe pointed at Fleshripper and Sarah. “Anton, is there anything around us?”

Anton shook his head.

“Seen some bugs scurry out of sight in windows, but they’re weak and not worth the energy it would take to catch them. There are guards on patrol up ahead, but the same comment applies.”

“Good.” Zoe straightened her clothes. “Let’s go find the polyp.”

###

As Zoe stepped down the slope toward the bridge, the thing that was not Cassy held back its laughter with both hands. It stood inches away from the beautiful, dark-skinned woman. If it wanted to, it could reach out with its cold dead fingers and brush the powerful muscles. What would it feel like to touch her hot flesh? What would it feel like to stroke the mirrored sheen of her armor?

What would it feel like to dig her fingers — crack her fingers — through skin and Skein and pull out the beating organs inside? Her fingers crooked and curled as they reached, but she stuffed them into her mouth until Zoe stepped further away.

Then she burst out laughing. Grey spittle sprayed and froze on the snow as one of Anton’s drones zoomed past like an oblivious blur of silvery static.