His body doesn’t return to him at first; it’s more of a fuzziness, the general idea of a body that moves and breathes and exists. The second sensation that returns to him is pain— the dryness of his mouth, the ache of his limbs, the pounding in his skull.

Then comes the poking.

He pries his eyes open, immediately squinting in pain against the bright sunlight. His back is on something warm and hard, and bumpy. It’s digging into his shoulders and the small of his back.

Someone above him says, “I think she’s waking up!” In an excited whisper.

He forces his eyes open and forces them to stay open. The world is blurry for a few moments. Someone else says, “Did you hit your head?”

He focuses his eyes. Three figures come into view.

One is a woman with brown, short cropped hair and the reddest eyes he’s ever seen. She’s staring down at him balefully, glaring in obvious distrust. They’re the color of fresh blood, of cherries, and of the worst kind of fire.

There’s a man to her left with skin pale like snow and long, orange hair. His eyes match his hair, except they’re strange— the color seems to swirl around his irises. He’s smiling down at him, wide— too wide, with a few teeth too many.

To their right is another woman, with dark skin and box braids pulled into a ponytail with a blue hair tie, who’s frowning thoughtfully. She looks… normal, though there’s an aura about her— one of quiet confidence. It’s in the set of her shoulders. But her eyes are gentle and her frown is not accusing.

It’s the one with the red eyes who’s holding the stick. She pokes him again, on the shoulder.

“I’m not a woman,” he snaps. His voice comes out garbled and wrecked.

“You’re wearing a dress.” She points out.

“And what are you gonna do about it?”

“Nothing. Listen. You go and tell your friends that if you want to do all this nonsense, do it away from our shop. It’s neutral ground.”

She says the words like they’re important, like they’re supposed to mean something profound. She’s also sort of scolding him, like he knows what those words mean in this context, and he’s been stupid for forgetting something just so obvious.

“What nonsense?”

She rolls her eyes. “Like you don’t know.”

Pyhra groans in frustration, letting his head thump against the asphalt beneath him. It turns out to be a mistake, as pain goes shooting through his skull. “I really don’t,” he groans.

She’s properly pissed now, and jabs him once in the ribs. “I will not have vampires leaving their half-dead friends at my goddamn shop!”

Oh, this day is taking a turn. “Vampires?”

“I don’t think he knows,” Blue on the right says.

The orange one on the left hums. “I dunno, he does look like a vampire, though…”

“What?”

“You’re wearing a costume three weeks before Halloween,” the woman points out, with the exact same tone of voice she’d used to point out that he’s wearing a dress. Like it’s obvious. Because it is. Except he doesn’t know what “Halloween” is, and he doesn’t know where he is, or what’s going on.

“Okay, give me a hand here,” Pyhra abruptly runs out of patience. “What the fuck is a vampire?”

“Oh, goddammit!” Orange smacks a hand against his forehead. “He’s a normie, and you just told him—“

“It’s Larp,” Red interjects. “They’re Larping. I’m annoyed at a bunch of Larpers.”

Listen, Pyhra’s lied enough in his life to know that this woman is feeding him bullshit. But he doesn’t have enough context to know how or why, and anyway, she’s not even trying to hide the lie, her voice is so flat.

“What the fuck is Larp?!”

“Live-action roleplay,” Blue explains.

“Word salad, bro,” Pyhra says, making eye contact with Blue. “Word. Salad.”

“Let’s all calm down,” Orange says, holding up a hand. “First things first, are you alright?”

Pyhra is laying on hot asphalt in a city he doesn’t recognize. His head is pounding like someone’s taking a hammer to the inside of his skull. His mouth tastes like blood and booze. All he has on him are the clothes he was wearing last night, which is a skimpy shift made to look vaguely Hallow’s Eve costume, and a pair of heels. He doesn’t even have the stupid witch’s hat anymore; he’d dropped it in the mad dash to get to Lune before he got himself killed.

“Gonna be honest. I’ve been better.”

“I would hope so,” Red says, and Pyhra resists the urge to claw at her stupid, stupid eyes.

“Can one of you just tell me where I am?”

“Johnstown,” the Blue one supplies.

Pyhra gives him a blank look.

“Maryland?”

“The US?”

“None of these words mean anything to me!” Pyhra snaps. “God, just get out of my face so I can get off the fucking road, will you?”

Blue disappears immediately, Orange following a second later. Red sends him one last distrustful look before pulling away. Pyhra sits up, head rushing. He presses a hand to his forehead, attempting to get his vision to clear.

He’s in a neighborhood full of houses, he assumes, though they’re unlike any he’s ever seen before. The Capital is full of sleek, metal buildings, high-rises and glass and crystal, smooth metal and dark concrete. In opposition, more rural areas— Pyhra and co’s secret little commune included— are usually collections of wooden buildings, sometimes made with stucco.

These are all built with wood, painted and faded and old, and have— some sort of rock inset into them. Red and rectangular. It throws him so much that he stares long and hard at it, and doesn’t notice the leaf until it smacks into his nose.

He spits and throws it off, glaring harshly at the offending plant. It’s orange, and so is every other leaf in the vicinity. Autumn seems to be in full swing here, judging by the piles of leaves and air nipping at his shoulders.

“Let’s try this again,” Blue says, holding out her hand. “I’m Lilith, though you can call me Lily.”

He stares blankly at her hand, uncomprehending. After a moment, she awkwardly takes it back, mouth somewhere between a grimace and a smile. He stutters, “Was that some sort of— greeting?” He holds his own hand out limply, confused. Her smile returns, brilliant and wide. She takes his hand in her’s and moves them up and down.

“Do you not have handshakes where you’re from?” Red asks.

“Is that what that’s called? Sun above. No. No, we don’t.”

Orange tilts his head. “How do you greet people?”

Since this has apparently become a culture shock moment for them all, Pyha grips Orange’s forearm, squeezing gently. “Now do it back.” Orange seems a little confused, but returns the gesture. “My name is Pyhra.”

Orange smiles. “That’s a pretty name. Mine is Asseya.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Thanks for telling me.” Pyhra replies, automatically.

Asseya looks rather confused, and says, “Uh, no problem? It’s nice to meet you.”

The phrase is not one Pyhra’s heard, but he gets the general meaning. All three of them look to Red, still holding her stick like it’s a weapon. She huffs, tossing her head back. “Clay.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Pyhra repeats, just to be polite. Then, he undermines it, “Now, does one of you wanna tell me what the hell a vampire is?”

“Dude, do you live under a rock?” Clay says, gesturing with her stick.

“Okay, you know what!” Pyhra feels his patience cracking. “I have just had a very difficult day, I’m fucking hungover, and I get into a weird fight with a monster and wake up here! And you act like I’m inconveniencing you?”

Clay bristles, but Asseya interjects before she can say anything. “What happened directly before you woke up here?” He’s been smiles this whole time, but he’s suddenly serious, swirling eyes boring into him uncomfortably.

“There was a tear in the air. It sucked me in.”

“A tear?”

They’re like, not nearly as surprised as they should be. They should be grilling Pyhra for details, or asking if he’s been off any medications lately. But instead they’re all trading considering glances, flicking their eyes back to him, thoughtfully.

“What was in the tear?” Asseya asks.

“Nothing.” Pyhra tells him. “Nothing, except for— threads.”

“Threads, like roads leading to somewhere else?” He sounds remarkably grim.

“Yeah…” Pyhra takes him in anew. “Exactly like that.”

Asseya turns to Clay. “He hasn’t been living under a rock. He’s just not from here.” He begins twisting his fingers around each other, twisting and twisting. “He’s from another plane.”

The three of them share identical expressions. Hard expressions, like the kind you share before delving into battle. Expressions like stone, like immovable fire, like knowing you’re going to have to spill blood and you don’t have time to feel bad about it.

Pyhra goes numb all over, from the tips of his feet to the top of his head. Numb, except for a tingling in the tips of his fingers and the sudden racing of his heart. He can see, now, that he’s far from anything he’s ever known. It’s in the reddish stone of this place, in the way they talk and greet new people and look at each other. He’s far from home, far from anyone that can help him, and all he has are the clothes on his back.

Pyhra has faced much, but never like this. Never… alone. Never without Crow and Remy at his back, or Lune waiting for him to come home. Except maybe Lune is at home, waiting for him to come back, and so are Crow and Remy, and Pyhra’s heart is racing in his ears.

He tries to shift. Tries to tell himself, to tell the air around him that he’s disappearing. Tries to tell the expressions on these people’s faces that they can’t see him anymore, that he’s nothing at all; no one except a specter for them to remember. But it’s not working. It’s not working.

Pyhra faints.

…

When Remy finally fights their way to the clearing, they find Lune collapsed in the dirt, bleeding and sobbing uncontrollably. Sky is kneeled over him, staunching the bleeding with their sweatshirt, trying and failing to contain his own tears.

The wind has stopped. There’s a beast corpse to one side and a set of feet prints dragged through the dirt. Remy shakes off the obvious question of where’s Pyhra and whirls around to go get Stella; they have good timing, because Stella is approaching quickly. Remy points to where Lune is, and she sets to work, pressing her hands to the wound on his chest. They glow green from her Ability, and the wound begins knitting itself back together.

Crow catches up a second later, as does Sol. Sol goes tearing past them, straight to Sky and Lune, and hugs them ferociously. Crow, by contrast, slows to a stop beside Remy. She overlooks the scene, and then turns to them and voices both of their thoughts: “Where’s Pyhra?”

The question sends Lune into even more hysterics. Sky and Stella rush to calm him. Dread pools in Remy’s gut.

Remy crouches in front of the boy. His face is red and blotchy, from a distress different from the wound that’s slowly closing itself. It’s mostly surface level, and though Lune had probably never been hurt that badly before, Remy can tell this is from something else; something to do with Pyhra.

“Hey, kid.” Remy says, as soothingly as they can. “You get a little banged up there?”

Lune inhales deeply, trying to stop the tears and failing. He nods wordlessly.

“I’m sorry, bud. It was that beast over there, yeah?” They tilt their head toward said beast. Lune nods. “And who killed it?” Silence.

“It was Pyhra,” Sky warbles out, sitting back on his haunches and wiping his face. “He was—” a deep inhale, then an exhale. “Amazing. I’d never seen him fight like that.”

Trust that kid to gush about a good fight in these circumstances. Ah, well. Not like Remy’s any better, and definitely wasn’t at his age. “Okay. What happened after Pyhra killed the beast?”

“The sky opened up,” Lune whispers, so quiet Remy barely hears it. He raises his eyes to meet Remy’s. “It opened up, and swallowed him whole.”

Remy’s stomach bottoms out, dropping not just through their feet but into the dirt and down, down, into the center of the world. Remy’s a gentle guy, gentler than they used to be, but they’re barely restraining the urge to do something very, very stupid. “Swallowed him whole?”

“It’s the truth,” Sky says, as if anyone thought Lune was lying. “It sucked him in. Dragged him away.”

Remy’s eyes land on the trenches dug into the soil. They press the back of their hand to their mouth to fight off the sudden oncoming nausea, squeezing their eyes shut to make the world less sharp. “Oh, sun.”

Raggedly, Lune starts crying again. Crow sets a hand on the kid’s shoulder, but addresses Stella. “Can you—”

“Already on it,” Stella interjects, raising her hands. Stella’s Ability is one he’s so, so glad for. Life.

Light springs from her hands, swirling around them. In the light, there’s a million tiny threads, twirling and knotting around each other. Stella delves a hand into the fray, searching. Usually this process doesn’t take long; when Stella knows someone well, it’s easy for her to pick out the thread of their life from the crowd. Sometimes she has difficulty in really densely populated areas, or if there’s a lot of chaos, but it shouldn’t take long to find Pyhra’s. They’re good friends. She knows him.

Ten seconds pass. Then thirty. Then a minute. Then another.

“Stella,” Crow says, a plea.

“I— just give me a minute,” she hisses, redoubling her efforts.

Another minute. Lune is sobbing into Sol’s shoulder, both her and Sky’s arms around him.

“Can someone call Cid? Or Vincent? Sun above, a real fucking adult?” Crow snaps.

Stella says nothing. Remy says it, because someone has to: “He’s not there, is he.”

Stella searches for a moment more, desperate and terrified. Finally, she lets the ability drop, throwing her arms out helplessly. “I can’t find him.”

Remy’s knees are going weak. Crow, for her part, actually collapses. Onto her ass in the dirt, legs sprawled out in front of her. Remy leans hard on the nearest tree, trying to get their breathing under control. For all that nothing’s wrong with them physically, it feels like the world is whiting out. Like all the intensity in existence kicked back in and is sending them into overdrive, trying to— what? Save Pyhra? Some old-young part of them is yowling, insisting they go save him, rescue him from the deep darkness and whisk him away until he’s safe from everything that might hurt him.

The funniest part, the funniest part, is how the part of Remy that’s shuddering in grief is crying out to go to Pyhra, to bury their face in his neck and cry awhile while they pet their back until it all feels better, as they sometimes do. But Pyhra isn’t here. They can’t go to Pyhra because Pyhra’s dead, and they’re mourning him.

“You didn’t even get to show them the picture,” Crow whispers, numbly.

See, usually this was the part where Pyhra takes a shuddering breath and herds them all home. Sets them up with blankets and warm drinks and they all have a good cry on each other’s shoulders. And then they fall asleep in a heap, as close to each other as they can manage. But Pyhra isn’t here.

Crow looks up at them, eyes shattered. “We won’t get to take anymore pictures,”

“Stop,” Remy breathes, digging their nails into the side of their head.

Stella is consoling an absolutely hysterical Lune, herding him and the other kids home. Out of the clearing they go, leaving Crow and Remy alone, a three-headed being missing a limb. Crow tilts her head. “It’s true, though. Do you think we can take pictures without him?”

“Stop!” Remy shouts, their ability buzzing at the air. “I don’t want to think about it!”

Crow blinks a few times, then looks down at her hands. “I saw him just last night.”

Remy doesn’t even remember most of it. Remember’s crying, maybe, and the smells. Of booze, and the plastic-y fabric of Pyhra’s dress, and the distinct smell of Pyhra. They remember burying their nose closer to him, trying to make their whole world nothing but that smell.

They remember when they first met Pyhra, wearing a face that wasn’t his own and saying, I know what you’re doing, and I want in.

And Crow, twelve and impossibly young, crossing her arms and snapping back, and why should we?

And Pyhra, in a snap, taking Crow’s face and clothes and hair and crossing his own arms. In a near perfect impression of a girl he just met, he replied with, because I have something you need.

And he did. So they let him in.

Crow tilts her head. There’s something in her eyes; a burning flame that Remy hadn’t seen in a long time. It ignites something in Remy, twin flames burning beneath the surface of their skin. A lifetime spent tearing the world apart is coming back up to the surface, like vomit in their throats, and no matter how much they swallow, it still burns.

“Pyhra told me,” Crow begins, pulling herself to her feet. She isn’t shaking anymore. “That if our life here fell apart, he’d burn the Crystal City to the ground.”

Remy knows where she’s going with this. They grin, toothy and wide, anticipation dancing in their chest. The flame is burning brighter, hotter, wilder. It makes their fingers itch, their limbs burn with the urge to unleash every violent impulse they'd squashed.

“Pyhra wouldn’t want a funeral,” Remy continues for her. “He’d want a party. A rager.”

She smiles faintly. “Then let’s bring the party to them, shall we?”