██ Weeks Prior
She plodded through the cold, hard earth, sharp pebbles digging into the soles of her bare feet.
From the valley behind her, she could hear the grunts and groans of millions. The haunting echo of gargantuan boulders being rolled about, clambered up, shoved down. All throughout the valley’s jagged outcroppings, the sounds of bones being snapped and ground into dust made their way to her ears — men and women crying out in first pain, then agony, and finally rage. They would only cry out for brief moments at a time before quickly resuming their single-minded efforts of crushing each other with their boulders. To them, this was more than a just punishment. More than just a job. More than just a duty.
To them, it was purpose.
Nothing, not even pain unlike any they’d ever experienced in life, would stop them.
It was the same with this woman.
Knowing what she did now, she shuddered. The other souls back there had been more like her than she’d originally been expecting. She’d felt this odd, otherworldly compulsion to join in the fray. Like a magnetic pull telling her to drop everything and show them who truly was boss. Or perhaps, like a mosquito bite, tempting and easy to scratch, but she knew full well that if she started, she’d never stop.
Whereas those other souls were essentially mindless beasts focused on killing unkillable foes, this woman maintained a sharp focus on her task at hand. A focus on her journey, on the mission he’d given to her, the mission she was fulfilling not because she was being told, but because she wanted to. And, might she add, joining in might not be so intelligent, because unlike the other souls, whose indestructible bodies and faces had become deformed by centuries of constant fighting, she still believed she was reasonably killable.
But honestly? At this point, it was getting kind of hard to tell.
Thunder boomed overhead — not unusual, given the oppressive, near-constant blanket of black, furious clouds above. It always looked like the sky was falling — she still hadn’t gotten used to it, nor should she. The atmosphere itself was a maelstrom of all the most unpleasant meteorological phenomenons — she’d walk through a bone-chilling draft of hail only to step three feet into a patch of sweltering desert-like heat, causing the needle-sharp shards of ice that had pierced her coat, shirt, and skin to mix with the sweat that began to drench it all.
However, she took it all in stride. She would tug her long brown trench coat — which seemed to float on the wind as she moved — tighter over her shoulders and keep marching on. She was a phenomenon, she was an unstoppable force, and she knew it well.
She would make it inwards. And she didn’t quite pity anyone and anything that was stupid enough to try to stop her.
The woman took another couple of steps, sand like glass piercing her toes, drawing blood — what’s new? — and, despite the constant eddy of sound consisting of cries and crashes and violent winds and dragging sands, she heard the air begin to tingle.
It was deadly silent at first. In the past, she wouldn’t have paid it any mind. But she’d learned her lesson.
Her long, dark hair began to hover around her head, and she dove behind a boulder a split second before a lightning bolt would have fried her then and there.
The ambient electricity dispersed as smoke rose from the spot she’d just been in, leaving spiderweb-like marks of charred earth in its wake. The woman finished her roll with excellent follow-through and got to her feet with inhuman agility. At least, she doubted it was human. Not anymore.
This was good. She needn’t do the math in her head — her reaction speed had increased immensely since the last circle. Her motions were more confident, more certain. The ground beneath her felt firmer, and so did her feet. Every time she’d thought she’d reached her limit, she would somehow surpass it.
The butterflies in her stomach were just that this time — butterflies. Not the constant ache of hunger, not some new form of heartburn, not a demon worm joyously ravaging her insides — but rather, just good old butterflies of excitement. Not to mention, that excitement would only intensify once she finally crossed that damn, overhyped river.
She pulled a silver coin from her coat pocket in an attempt to center herself — at the moment, she couldn’t afford to get giddy of all things. The coin looked similar to the many she’d picked up from the valley. It turned out that some of the souls back there had been gripping moneybags along with their boulders, bags unlike her own, bags that never seemed to run out of cash — meaning infinite weight and theoretically, infinite value.
If she’d had it her way, she would have stayed there forever, loading up on coins until hell froze over. But unfortunately for her, she was on a time crunch.
The coin glinted despite the ambient darkness of the rocky valley, its silver surface sticky with blood and cold to the touch. On its face was an image that looked like a combination of every single face she’d ever seen on a piece of currency. Its tails side’s image resembled an endless series of concentric circles. If she peered too long into the center, her eyes would lose focus, and she’d lose her balance, as if she were about to fall in.
It was a cool effect and all, but didn’t seem to mean anything in particular. Every coin down here seemed to do that. Unlike the other coins, though, this coin had real value.
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Not necessarily monetary value, but two different types. The type that technically mattered was that she could use it in her bag. But she wouldn’t dream of doing so.
This was the first coin she had found down here. Full of sentimental value. She wasn’t going to get rid of it that easily.
Feeling refocused on her true mission and a few notches calmer, the woman looked up. In the distance, she could see the murky river before her, colored pitch black in the dusk-like lighting. It looked like it stretched at least a mile across, but hey, distances down here seemed to change in unpredictable ways before her very eyes. At the very least, she knew how to swim OK.
What splitting her vision between the coin’s concentric circles and the river ahead cost her, however, were the warning signs of the immensely dangerous obstacle that had raced into her path.
A gust of air.
A blur of motion.
She avoided the creature’s claws by a hair.
This roll wasn’t nearly as agile as the previous one. The woman crashed into a nearby boulder, smashing her head into it, and colors she hadn’t ever remembered seeing matched with pain she’d never felt before both lanced through her skull like twin bolts of hot plasma.
Her sight returned shortly after the collision, and some part of her mildly wished she’d never regained it. The creature was… horrifying.
But to this woman? It was a typical Tuesday evening sight.
Or was it even Tuesday? She hadn’t really been counting the days.
The beast skidded past her after its initial charge, wasting no time regaining its footing and its bearings. Skin like charcoal, two massive hoofed feet, and two dangerous furry arms ending in claws that glittered like diamonds. A pig’s snout on a monkey’s face, two empty eyes with pink sclerae that somehow conveyed impossible rage. And two giant horns like those of a bighorn sheep, as tall as its body itself — basically framing it — all jagged and pointy and chipped and deadly.
The woman didn’t really bother noting the specifics anymore — every creature in these parts was a blurred collection of demonic traits, unwieldy body parts, and ugly colors, as if fashioned by the hand of a sadistic god, a brutal weaponsmith, or the last great tyrant’s best sculptors. Of course, this woman knew better than to be afraid, to fully occupy herself with disgust, or even to run.
Because she knew that their body parts were simply goods to be cashed in.
Which meant this creature was prey. Not her. It.
She’d make this quick.
The initial charge of the 12-foot beast had taken place in the space of a breath. It would have been too fast for a regular person to even perceive — they would have been impaled by the razor-sharp claws before they’d had time to begin their last prayer. Not like that would do them much good, she thought with a smirk.
Despite it all, here the woman was, hopping over the second charge with the grace of a dancer and the ferocity of an athlete.
Her heart blazed with joy, power, ambition, excitement, all things good and unholy as she vaulted like a seasoned matador, reaching her hands down in midair to grab the demon’s horns with her bare hands. It continued to run ahead without even realizing she had cleared it entirely, and the woman landed on the ground behind it, being dragged forwards by the beast. She held on like a wakeboarder held onto their cable, the skin on her heels being worn down to wet, raw flesh.
It didn’t take long for the beast to realize that its target was simply using it as a ride. All too quickly, all too inevitably, the beast slowed. It faltered.
It was as if she was the only person who knew what happened to you when you couldn’t trust yourself. It was a shame, really.
You attacked me. Now you’re in too deep. You can’t afford to falter.
And then the woman stomped with her heel, flexed her legs and arms, and leaned all her weight backwards.
It went against every law of physics. But she truly didn’t think they applied down here regardless.
The beast was lifted off the ground and moved in the arc the woman traced with her arms as she fell back. She hit the ground flat, snapping the beast’s steel-hard horns like chopsticks and slamming its skull into the rocks below with earth-shattering force. And the earth did shatter.
She heard a sharp, wet crack somewhere underneath all the ruckus of the impact, and when she pulled his hands away, she saw they were lightly sprayed with thick, dark blood.
Some part of her was saddened. No, it wasn’t sympathy for the beast, not even close. Rather, it was displeasure.
This is getting too easy.
The woman got to his feet and surveyed her downed quarry, eyes scanning as if she were browsing a catalog. She promptly settled on going with the beast’s hand, complete with shiny claws that looked like they were made of diamond dust. Perhaps they were — food for thought, and there was plenty of time for thinking while she moved.
She reached down and, with what to her was just a light tug, separated the massive hand from the wrist joint. And gingerly, as always, she stashed the whole thing into the sack tied to the side of her hip.
It sank into the small, hand-sized bag as if there was more than enough room. Frankly, the woman had no idea how much stuff she even had in that sack. As soon as she’d arrived, she couldn’t help but put whatever she could inside it. And it was working so far — he’d given her confirmation.
All she knew was that she could not lose this sack.
The resultant feeling from another item of value claimed was two sides of a coin, compressed into her brain in the space of an instant. Immense, heart-racing vigor at another secured good, like fuel stoking a furnace. And a knee-buckling fear at what would happen should she lose them this furnace, this bag, her very livelihood made a single material item. Her very soul ached from the strain of both sentiments, as if it would be torn in two.
I’m not planning on losing shit. With a lazy stretch, she turned in the direction she’d been headed before she’d been so rudely interrupted by such a weak opponent.
Ah, yes. The river. She heard cries ahead, screaming, suffering, pain, the usual. She saw the impossibly intense crests on the black, swirling surface, which appeared as if they could shred a man to bones. And she could smell the acrid mixture of blood, dust, and scorching sulfur.
Another circle. Like always.
She wasn’t stopping now. She couldn’t turn around if she wanted to.
The shadows around her shifted as she took her next step.