Ori’s breath was loud and haggard as she ran for her life down the halls of the Rohan estate. She could not scream, she did not have the lungs for it. As she ran, the whip-like snapping of her skirts covered up the sound of her terrified mewling. She had lost her shoes, and the slip of her tights slapped onto the hard flooring.

It was a different day today, not like the other moments when Ori could have died. In those moments of near-death, she sat stock still, like a child’s stuffed doll. It was normal for dolls to go limp and quiet, no matter how you played with them. Even better, a doll held no grudges, and was not hurt by memories or cuts to its fabric. In this way, Ori could be normal no matter what happened, only talking when the puppeteer gave her voice to speak.

So how could it be that Ori could run? She herself didn’t understand. She’d never known a doll that propelled itself. Tears streamed from her large kind eyes. Her panic was now pressing into her throat, but the few footsteps behind her were slow. Ori’s conscious sense of self began to float, as if her spirit were a small kite. Into the body and out. In and out of the body. Feelings of horror and the certainty of death, and then, the hazy confusion of a gentle ghost.

Ori’s plight had absolutely nothing to do with Julie.

The two could not have been more different from each other. It was a clear fact that Julie lived in a different realm, even a different timeline, from Ori. Julie had cold eyes focused in a perpetual glare, and pin-straight black hair that lay down the length of her back. Her skin glowed white from a life of long nights, and her dangerous aura she wore like a pair of sharp Louboutons. She had never run from anything in the entirety of her life, that she was certain of. No matter the cut of her skirt or the height of her heels, or even the position of her body, Julie was the one who controlled.

When she swayed her hips near the doors of the nightclub, the bouncer greeted her kindly and swung the door open. Inside, women undressed, and changed into clean lingerie. They applied velvety lipstick with casual precision, and chatted in small groups. Julie sauntered through uninterested. She greeted another woman with a quick kiss, bumped a line, then left through the side door. The music boomed its familiar welcome.

Soon a man came to her, drawn in like a hummingbird to the delicate throat of a flower. She evaluated him with a sharp gaze and put her arms around his neck. He leaned in, the hunger showing clearly on his face. It was a good kiss, and so after some time and some drinking, she put him in her car and drove him to her apartment. He watched the white of her thighs flash with color as they drove under the city lights.

They lay in bed together. The pulsing music and neon lights bore witness to the web Julie was so meticulously spinning. She leaned into and over him, her half lidded eyes blazing with power. The sight of Julie’s body above him made the man catch his breath. Julie smirked softly in the glowing half-darkness. Yes. The buildup was important. It had to be slow.

Julie never went by anyone else’s pace. Then, as she prepared to let the man kiss her lips and lick her tongue, her bedroom door clicked open. An electrical pain shot through her chest and radiated up her neck, into her skull. It slammed down through her stomach, her hips, her legs, her toes.

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The man below Julie screamed in fear.

Ori thought of Julie as she struggled to lock the heavy door behind her. Her hands shook with adrenaline. In the past, she had learned to melt away when she felt the first jittery shock of cortisol. In this moment, she fought against her instinct to fall asleep, to become a doll, to stop moving. She was not like Julie. Julie could sink her claws into the very flesh of adrenaline, knead it to her will, and sharpen it like a knife. No, Ori knew, Julie would never have struggled with locking a door.

Ori’s hands failed her. They went limp against her fervent will. When the door crashed open like a thunderous wave, it sent her flying to the floor. The fluffy mass of her hair stuck to the sweat of her face. Her breathing was rough and choked, and she became aware that her mouth had opened and she could scream. She screamed and wailed like a newborn. Terror and terror and terror. A large knight looked down at her, his mouth set in a hard line under his mess of dull blonde hair.

Ori shifted her eyes to the side. Contessa de Rohan walked through the door to join the knight. Her face and body were hideous and grotesque. Right in front of Ori’s eyes, it twisted and undulated in anger. Ori’s mouth closed, and the screaming ended in her throat. It would all be alright, because Ori was a stuffed doll. The doll looked into the eyes of her mother and waited. Contessa de Rohan was a demon, though she was human. When she spoke, a demon spoke through her, though she was not possessed. When she raised her fists, or kicked her legs, they exuded the strength of the devil. Even so, a god had never stepped in to stop it.

Julie blinked. Her chest pumped thick blood onto her breasts. She scoffed, unable to suppress the urge to laugh. Blood splatter rained down on the face and chest of the poor man bellow her. He could not move. In these precious few seconds of life, Julie was curious. She began to turn her head to look at the person who shot her. Instead, her body lurched out of her control, and she fell sideways onto the hard floor. It stung in a thousand ways. Even so, Julie narrowed her eyes, gurgling and wheezing through gritted teeth. The shooters face was blurry, but it was the voice and build of a man. He was bellowing at the top of his lungs, and waving his arms around like an unsettled rooster. He crowed and bitched until the very end. The ambient sound of peacocking male drama cut through the sacred space of her bedroom. This is how Julie died, her face twisted in annoyance and disgust. What a dumb fucking way to die.

Ori, too, bled out onto wooden floors. If she had been able to crawl a few feet more, she could have spent her last moments on the rug. It would have been a warmer death. The rugs in the Rohan estate were soft and plush Lenisian works of art. Her mother was so fond of them that they came up often in her conversations. Expensive, imported, and sought after by collectors. Such a precious thing would not have survived such a deep blood stain. Ori was robbed of even this tiny revenge. Her little body stared upwards at nothing, and the rug remained spotless.

Ori’s mother, her lust for revenge over some small issue thus resolved, ordered the rug removed. The blonde knight nodded. He did not meet her eyes. Contessa de Rohan then took one raspy breath, and left out of the door that she came from. When he could no longer hear the clack of her footsteps, the trembling knight rolled the rug away from Ori’s corpse. He leaned it against the wall, then moved to look at her. Her open eyes startled him. They did not blink. It was then that he realized that she was dead. He moved to the far side of the room, but it spun around him. He wrapped himself into a tight ball and shook.

He did not move for a long time.