Jaded: Servant (Book 1) Cover [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczNQFc5octyRHuAprcXP3qnnnrToLYx6kJGdGwwDG5KF1vxGKqd6YCoeNbFgXTi1W9cl6RuwvpJHrkkm1yhwSInGiGpKBqIvI07ryFGVvTPSEOYmpIEmj4e7hJ5M1as3ZumS8KgGnbOsfxoOMWMN4sIH=w661-h992-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
Content Warning for Book 1:
Violence and death (of people and monsters, including major supporting characters), profanity, verbal sexual harassment and off-page, non-detailed assault of a minor side character, and dealing with grief and other past trauma.
The Night Witch [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczM3RWVOu380TCvokmJ4hUi7WD02VvPC-_1NYbz-nznjOutPdcA3ilC9KjKodgWgk61Q7HcZocwmDPRzTtg6r0DDmz0esR_CTYwy5c86jLWozMoKi9pNAVXIm8nSPqs2utV8-xBhFprEINYunrjjnMQ8=w661-h992-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
Absurd.
That was the only word that came to Chae-Yeong Jin’s mind as she saw the grinning girl at the foot of her bed with a vibrant green turtle plushie sitting atop a pile of chaotic red curls. How the teenager could behave like that—day after day, treatment after painfully failing treatment—was a testament to the absolute absurdity of the younger girl’s very existence.
“Jin! You’re back!” the girl said happily before awkwardly climbing up onto the bed beside her.
The younger teen tried her best not to knock anything over with the crutches she used to move around with on one of her good days. Lately, her best friend could barely get out of bed without help as her disease ate away at her muscles.
Jin groaned as she tried to readjust her position in the hospital bed to glare at the teen. “Phoenix,” she greeted with a flat look. “You seem way too happy to see me, considering where we are.”
The redhead at least had the decency to blush and look away in mild embarrassment. “I mean, I’m always happy to see you.”
Jin promptly pushed aside the pang in her heart and softened her glare, muttering, “I’m happy to see you too, but not like this.”
“Well, you did promise to visit me again.”
She snorted a laugh. “Yeah, me visit your hospital bed, not the other way around.”
The smaller girl tugged at a curl and said softly, “I’m sorry they shaved your hair again.”
Jin shrugged a single shoulder, rubbing a hand over the smooth scalp that used to have silky black hair. “I asked them to. Less creepy when the chemo makes it fall out.”
“You’re starting that up again? I thought you said—”
“My dad insisted,” she cut off the other teen, crossing her once-muscular arms over her fairly flat chest. “Doesn’t want other people to think he just sat by and let his daughter die without doing everything possible, despite whatever I want.”
“I’m glad he did.”
The whisper was almost too quiet for her to pick up, but she did and leveled another glare in response. “Five times, Phoenix. I’m seventeen now, and this will be five freaking times that they’ve made me go through this hell. It just keeps coming back faster each time, too.”
“But it does go away, and you still get to live,” the redhead argued a bit louder.
“Come on, we talked about this last time,” Jin said with a roll of her green eyes that almost matched the other girl’s except for the shape. Hers were almond-shaped and very much showed off her Korean heritage, which she knew little about but inherited nonetheless.
“And I still think living is better than just… giving up!” Phoenix retorted, crossing her own arms against the chest that would never grow no matter how much the redhead might wish.
“There’s no point in living like this!” she practically shouted, then winced as she noticed the tears welling in the younger girl’s eyes. The girl who basically lived in this children’s hospital her whole life and had barely seen anything outside its walls.
Phoenix wasn’t like her. The redhead still had hope for seeing the world someday—of a cure being found—despite the doctors not even knowing what all was wrong and causing the pain and weakness that Phoenix struggled with but also kept the girl alive somehow.
They knew exactly what was wrong with Jin—even had a list of treatments to try—but none of it seemed to be an actual cure for her. The cancer just kept returning and stealing more of her life. Refusing to let her live normally.
It was all simply absurd.
But she didn’t like making Phoenix cry. Didn’t like being the one to try to smother that little flame of hope behind the girl’s eyes. So, she spread her arms in a welcoming gesture. “Come here, sunshine. I don’t want to argue with you, and I need a hug.”
The redhead rubbed her eyes but nodded and wiggled her way up onto her lap to wrap frail arms around her as Jin squeezed her in a hug that probably meant much more to her than it did for the other girl.
Despite being a couple of years older, Jin had fallen hard years ago—around the time of her third round of chemotherapy—for the insanely optimistic ball of cheerful light that always made her feel better. Made her feel special and seen.
There wasn’t any point in admitting those feelings, though, if she was gonna die soon anyway. It would be complete selfishness on her part to burden Phoenix like that.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Sorry,” the smaller girl muttered into Jin’s hospital gown.
“It’s fine, I’m not mad. I just don’t want to waste my time with you to argue about things like that,” she tried explaining.
“Do you have new videos of your meets?”
Jin smiled at the change of topic and then glanced over to the small nightstand to reach for her phone. “Yeah. I had a pretty good day before it resurged and wrecked my stamina again. It’s so hard to put muscle back on, but I did okay.”
She navigated the touchscreen with a single hand, keeping the other one hugging the girl beside her until she found the recordings and tilted the screen to show her companion. “Here’s from two months ago. Not my personal best, but it was enough to get second place.”
They both watched as the recording showed Jin doing a few stretches before lifting a metal javelin over her shoulder, then jogging up to the white curved line, arm extended behind her, and throwing the javelin in an impressive arc through the air before sticking into the marked field.
“How far was that?”
“51.6 meters,” she replied but frowned slightly.
“Isn’t that good? You said it was second place. What was your best?”
“My best was 65.2, which could have gotten me to the Olympics, but you need to be healthy and consistent for that,” Jin explained. “My numbers have been all over the place with how sick I’ve been at different times.”
“Maybe you can try again after you get out of here for good,” the redhead said, reaching over to rewind the recording to watch again.
Jin managed to hold back her retort of her being too dead to try again when she left here for good. It wouldn’t make either of them feel better about the truth of it. Instead, she just tried to relax for a bit and take comfort in her favorite person watching her being awesome on the small phone screen.
She must have fallen asleep at some point because she jerked awake suddenly to find Phoenix disentangling them. “Sorry,” the redhead said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to wake you, but I gotta get back before my mom’s shift ends.”
Jin glanced out the window to see the evening twilight and grimaced. “Right. Sorry to fall asleep on you.”
Phoenix snorted. “Pretty sure I was the one sleeping on you.” Then the girl readjusted the plushie in her arms before giving another grin and saying, “I'll see you tomorrow. Same time, same place?”
She chuckled, shaking her head as she said the usual response, “I’m not planning on going anywhere.”
As she watched Phoenix leave, Jin felt the apathy already beginning to settle back over her. Not much to care about when she was alone with her pain and lack of a future. She turned to look back out the window and idly watched the stars come out.
“Oh. There’s the Soul Dysphoria I was sensing. Interesting, but not what I’m looking for,” a stranger’s voice said from the doorway and Jin turned back to see a woman staring in the direction Phoenix should have gone in.
The stranger was wearing a comically large witch’s hat and flowy dress that both had some kind of light-up effect that made it appear like twinkling stars. Probably someone visiting to entertain the younger kids, but the woman must have been in her late twenties and seemed way too interested in watching the fifteen-year-old who would have been carefully stumbling down the hall.
“You shouldn’t volunteer here if you’re just gonna perv after the innocent girls,” she half-scolded the stranger.
“You say that like you’re not an innocent girl yourself,” the woman replied, surprising Jin by entering her room.
She gave a scoff. “Maybe to a perv like you, but I’ve seen enough of the world to know what a crappy place it is. She still has hope for it, though, so she’s definitely more innocent than I am.”
“So young to be so jaded,” the woman said, and Jin noticed at that point that the strange witch-wannabe was carrying a staff as well.
She couldn't help the bitter laugh that escaped, however. “Jaded? That feels like an understatement. I’m more like a bitter old lady trapped in a teenager’s body. The world sucks, and nothing really matters. It’s all pointless.”
“An odd outlook for one of the Wayward to have,” the stranger mused, dragging the end of her staff along the linoleum as she paced in a strange pattern around the room.
“Wayward? Listen, lady, I think you have the wrong room. The toddlers are on another floor.”
“No, I’m quite certain this is where I sensed the soul I was looking for. I can practically see the determination for life dripping off you.”
“Okay, you definitely have the wrong room, crazy lady,” Jin replied, moving to press the nurse call button on her bed.
“Now, now,” the stranger lightly scolded, “none of that. This isn’t my first time doing this, and I’ve learned my lesson about making a scene. Way too many questions to try and cover up in order to not cause a panic.”
“You know, I don’t really care about the nurse’s ‘no profanity’ rule like Phoenix does, so who the fuck are you, and what in the hell are you doing in my room?”
The woman laughed, still dragging her weird staff around the room. She gave Jin the creepiest smile she had ever seen and revealed pitch-black eyes that were completely filled, no whites at all, and she replied, “I’m called the Night Witch.”
Oh great. An actual crazy person pretending to be a demon. Well, she hadn’t expected ritual sacrifice to be the way she died, but at least it would get her out of the chemo.
Then she remembered all the gruesome depictions some shows and games had of said ritual sacrifices, and the fact that if it wasn’t the nurses, then it would likely be Phoenix who discovered her mangled corpse. Her best friend didn’t deserve nightmares like that.
“Listen, now’s not the best time,” she tried to stall for an excuse as she continued to spam the call button to get someone in here. “I need to rest up before treatment in the morning. Maybe next week we can schedule a raincheck or something?”
Another laugh came from under the wide-brim hat that Jin now realized looked far more realistic in imitating a starry night than she had originally thought. “You won’t be here next week. Or really, in a few moments. Now, try not to scream, and also never forget that nothing is inevitable. Gain power, grow stronger, and actually change things.”
Jin scoffed again. “Yeah, not drinking that Kool-Aid. Pretty sure nothing actually changes, and the one true inevitable is what you’re about to try doing to me. Now, get the fu—”
Blinding light shot up from the floor underneath her, startling her mouth shut as she tried to cover her eyes from the painful flash. Then, the real pain started. Ripping through her body as though her muscles were merely paper mache and bones were toothpicks. Her flesh felt like it was being burned off of her.
She definitely screamed, completely failing to keep her mouth shut as the sound of agony tore out of her throat, and it felt as if her very soul went with it. Eventually, she passed out completely and felt absolutely nothing.
Then she was falling.
Not for very far, though, as she felt her body crash into something very moist and sticky, followed quickly by something hard that bent and broke under her before finally stopping against the cold hard floor and hearing strange shouts all around her.
Maybe she just had the weirdest dream ever and fell out of bed, which freaked out the nurses. It definitely hurt too much for her to be dead.
Then she opened her eyes to look up and found a handful of actual swords pointed directly at her face with a harsh-looking man commanding her, “Don’t move until ordered to, Wayfarer.”