Ashes fell onto the mountain of bodies littering the ground. Some were still burning, others already reduced to charcoal.

Sara sat up. She was covered in a veil of black goo. She pulled it away, feeling her stomach roll with the consistency of it.

At least it didn’t smell as bad.

As soon as she got free, Sara ran as far away as she could. She didn’t manage to get very far before falling down, though.

She felt weak. She was pretty sure she died. The dragon, the sky full of eyes… had to be a near-death hallucination or something. She got back up, moving slower this time to give herself time to adjust. Her clothes were all burned away, though amazingly, she was fine.

The same couldn’t be said about the crater. It was a wasteland. Not a single thing moved. Limbs stuck out from under the debris and the dead were everywhere.

Sara backed away and stepped on something hard.

“Watch it! I’m laying here!” shouted Jack.

Sara whirled, foot raised, and stopped short when she noticed Jack’s state.

The man, or more specifically, his head, was wedged between two shattered crates. He had no hat on, so his chalky skull was visible to the world.

The only thing Sara could think to say at that point was, “Need a hand?”

If a skull could glare, she was pretty sure Jack was doing it. “You wait, kid. You’ll be the same soon enough.”

Sara reached down and pulled Jack’s skull from the pile of debris. She set him neatly on top a flat rock. Then, taking a running start, she punted him as hard as she could.

Jack sailed out of view, his cries trailing after him.

Sara tried to look through some of the bodies. They were too burnt to be identified and she had to give up. If Sapphire or Tom were among them, they were lost.

It was for the better. If they were both dead, then it was from what Sara did. She was fine just knowing that. She didn’t need to see proof.

Her stomach grumbled.

Sara climbed to the top of the crater. It was desolate land in front and behind her. To her right were forests, and her left led to a mountain range that looked to have been leveled by some orbital laser. Columns of smoke still poured from the demolished stone.

Sara had a vague recollection of being responsible for that, but she couldn’t recall how. She also remembered missing home and hearing Yuzuru’s voice, but when she tried to focus on what was said she couldn’t make the words surface.

There were other feelings too. Power. Reach. An insurmountable desire to implode.

Her stomach growled again.

Sara thought about heading to the forests, but she didn’t have any clothes or shoes on and she was still incredibly fatigued. The sun was low in the sky and winds were picking up. If she couldn’t reach the forests by sundown she risked exposure.

She couldn’t deal with another near-death experience, so close to the first.

There was nothing stable enough to sleep under. Fire had touched everything that produced food. Sara spent the entire afternoon combing the entire camp, managing in the end to dig up three potatoes.

On the plus side, they were already cooked. She ate and sheltered close to the infirmary. The building was a skeleton but some of the beds still stood. Sara dragged one out and laid across it, closing her eyes to the purple sky.

Everyone was dead. She knew this because when she opened her table up, she had over two hundred points to use.

Constitution, Finesse and Strength… these she increased to 50, then upped her mana to 60.

She laid back with a sigh. It was over. Two hundred lives lost by her doing. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around it, which was probably why she didn’t feel anything from it.

A gentle sound pulled her from the edges of sleep. It came from somewhere below the hill, like the scratching of nails.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The sun had set, covering the crater in shadow. Sara sat up and looked, and saw the arm dragging itself over the terrain. It was tiny, but any movement was obvious in a place filled with the dead.

Sara got to the arm just as it was pulling Jack’s head from the ground. She picked him up and said, “Don’t you think it’s an insult to be still alive when someone tried so hard to kill you?”

With his arm dangling off his face, Jack replied with a humorless chuckle. “You must be talking about yourself.”

Sara twisted the arm loose and ground it under her heel.

“I was using that,” said Jack.

“You’re like a less cool version of Captain Jack Sparrow,” Sara told him.

Jack said nothing.

“You know, in the first movie? Where he’s cursed to be a…” Sara gestured to Jack’s head and his crushed arm.

Jack sighed. “And you, kid, are a thorn in my side who has turned into a blade.”

Sara turned the skull in her hands. She wanted to ask him who he came to be like this, but thinking he probably wouldn’t answer, she put him down and readied to crush him once and for all.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“B-before you do that,” Jack said, his voice climbing up two octaves. “Isn’t there something else you’d like to ask? I can show you how to get out of here. I can teach you the magic of being undead.”

“Shh. It’ll be over soon.” Sara stomped down.

“The dragon!” Jack cried. “I know how to get to it.”

Sara’s foot stopped an inch from Jack’s head. “How do you know about the dragon?”

Jack grinned. It was an upsetting sight. “I’ve seen it too. Big creature. Wings the color of bone. Voice thick with lightning.”

Sara lowered her foot. She had heard of people sharing dreams before, but a near-death hallucination was supposed to be tailored to one's own psyche.

Unless it wasn’t fake.

Remembering something, Sara pulled up her table once more. At the very bottom, almost hidden from sight, was one attribute she never understood until now.

“Chaos control,” she whispered.

“Once upon a time,” said Jack. “I stood where you did. I was saved. I was worthy. I could have saved this world. I could have gone home.”

The dragon had given Sara the point, and that was how her transformation was stopped.

“You became… like me?” Sara asked. “Like…”

“A monster,” said Jack. “But not as crazy. There are many who were not worthy, roaming the land as berserkers. You were the first I’ve ever seen to harbor such power. Perhaps the Kitsune was right. Perhaps you are the last.”

Sara couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. “So I’m supposed to be some sort of fated hero?”

"Perhaps," Jack said. Sara waited, then when he didn’t have anything more, she picked up him and carried him up the hill, to her bed under the starlight.

She woke the next morning to a skeleton swinging a plank of wood at her head. She rolled out of bed a second before the plank came crashing down. Sara swiped at the skeleton’s legs. Jack yelled as he went down. His neck caught the side of the bed and snapped, his head bouncing as it hit the ground.

Sara yanked the plank from the skeleton’s stiff fingers and began whacking at it, reducing bone and cartilage to pieces.

“Ah, fiddlesticks,” Jack said.

Sara brought the plank down in one final blow, splitting the ground apart and scattering skeletal dust everywhere. Then, she stood and picked Jack’s head up.

“Start talking or I’m going to shove you up the butt of one of those burned corpses over there.”

Jack sputtered out a weak laugh. “Do what you will, girl. There is nothing left for me. My work is finished so my boss will have no use for me now. You shall be her new champion.”

"Then I guess you wouldn't mind spilling the beans before you die," Sara said.

Jack seemed to think about that. Then, he said, "I suppose you're right."

Sara had to go back down the hill to get out of the crater. Even though the infirmary was higher, the walls around it had crumbled into landslides. The only way out was, ironically enough, still the trail she and Tom had tried to escape using.

“First question. Who is your boss?”

“I only know her as the Kitsune,” answered Jack. “She wears a mask all the time, so I’ve never even seen her real face.”

“Typical.” Sara looked at the destruction below her, the hundreds of blackened forms frozen in the final moments of their demise. “Second question. Where do I find the big white dragon?”

Jack chortled. “The Calamity Dragon is not found. Its door must be summoned.”

“How do I summon it? Some Cthulhu bullshit, no doubt.”

“I am just a driver,” said Jack. “Was, I suppose. I delivered travelers here and watched them either die or ascend.” His jaws clicked like he was savoring the memory of his own ascension. “I suggest you move south, find Bronzehaven. You’ve gazed into the eyes of death and lived. Take a break. Settle down. Make a living doing something girls your age should be doing.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Well, I do. And you’ll probably find my boss there too.”

Sara climbed the rest of the hill, stepping onto the open like she did yesterday. She was feeling much better, though there was always that feeling of tipping over the edge. It made her want to check her chaos levels.

With a pang, she saw it was 99/100. When she asked Jack about it, he laughed.

“You can’t expect the dragon to do everything for you.”

The surface was flat but pockmarked with debris. It was like a meteor storm had hit, only instead of space rocks, it was crates and broken carriages.

Sara checked as many crates as she could be bothered to. She found some rugs in one and cut a hole through it and stuck her head through. Her feet had to stay bare, but so many days of fleeing and fighting had caused them to grow calluses, and it didn’t hurt to walk anymore.

The last crate she looked into held paintings. Sara couldn’t tell what was drawn on them, though, because they were soaked through with blood.

“If you’re scared of turning again,” Jack said. “I can teach you to become like me.”

“No, thank you.”

Finding a bit of rope, Sara unwound a section and threaded it through Jack’s eyes.

“I’m not going to walk around with a skull in my hand like some Shakespearean character,” she told him when he started to complain. She tied him to her waist. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but at least she didn’t feel him as much.

“It is better than staring at the ground,” Jack admitted as he bounced against Sara hip as she picked her way out of the valley. “Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer our fortune or take arms against troubles, that is indeed the question.”

“You’re not even saying it right,” Sara pointed out.

“I was not much of a fan,” Jack answered.

“Neither. I was a science girl.”

“Was that how you blew us all up?”

A small ray of pride lit inside Sara’s chest. “That’s a secret,” she said.