I was aware of the young man from the moment he entered the ally, but my mind filtered him out. He was just another zombie to kill before I could find out what Flock was up to. When I had first become trapped in Peninsula, fighting the undead had terrified me. Then I became good at it, and had spent weeks finding new and inventive ways to kill the things. But now… Now it was just a chore.

When the corpse fell between us, I took a look at him for the first time, and everything I had been thinking at the moment stopped.

“Have I finally gone insane, or is that a person?”

He was tall, and his dark skin reminded me of rich chocolate and black coffee. Underneath his metal breastplate, he had on a thick rust orange jacket that fell to his knees, and a bullet shaped helmet covered his head. In his hand he held a spear with a wide crossbar, much like the one I had made for myself, but of obviously better quality.

“What is a person doing here? Is he lost too? How did he even get here?”

I stumbled as I stepped over the dead zombie, and fell to the ground a few steps later. He was staring at me wide eyed, probably a mirror of my own expression.

“It can’t be. It is, but it can’t be.”

I started to laugh. I started to cry. Not since the day I first woke up had anything left me so completely overwhelmed.

Two years. For two horrible, terrifying, boring, lonely, depressing years, I had had been trapped in this hellscape of a city. I hadn’t given up on trying to escape, but I had given up any hope of actually succeeding. Everything I had tried had failed, and nothing I found had been of any use in that regard. I hadn’t even dreamed of the possibility of meeting another person here.

Another young man, dressed like the first, came into view at the front of the alley and said something.

“Go! Bring her and Paladin Corlo now!” the first one shouted.

I had always disliked the headache I got when I encountered a new language, but this time I reveled in it. It meant that they weren’t from this place. It meant that they were from somewhere else.

“There’s two of them! Two! Two is better than one because two of them means… It means… And there are more?”

I didn’t know what multiple people meant. I just knew that it was good. It had to be good. My mind was still too busy processing the mere sight of a single person to start trying to figure out anything beyond that.

I hardly noticed the second one leave. At that moment, all I could see was the young man in front of me. He was my hero. He was my knight in shining armor. He was everything I had been wanting since the beginning, simply because he was there.

He took a few cautious steps forward and knelt down in front of me.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

“Yes! I can understand you!”

His voice was like music to my ears. I wanted to say the words, but I my throat was tight, and my breath to ragged. All I could do was nod.

“Can you tell me your name?” he asked.

“Indigo! My name is Indigo!”

I tried to speak, but my voice stuck. Only a weird noise came out, and I immediately covered my mouth again.

Even in my confused state, years of learned instinct refused to let me make too much sound, lest it draw the zombies attention. I was no longer afraid of them. Not truly. The terrified girl who had run head first into this trap had died. And from her remains, the city had made me into a person who feared nothing.

But I was afraid now. I didn’t want to lose this moment. I didn’t want to lose this feeling of joy, and I couldn’t let anything happen to it.

The young man held out his hand to me like he was trying to coax a puppy out of hiding.

“It’s alright. Everything’s going to be fine. Come with me and everything will be fine.”

I jumped into his arms and embraced him, still crying.

“Of course it is you idiot! Things became fine the moment you walked into the alley!”

He said some more words that he probably thought were comforting.

“Did you not just see me kill that zombie? Do you really think I’m scared of you?”

He picked me up and carried me out to the main street. A crowd of people- no. Soldiers. A crowd of soldiers had gathered to see what was going on. They all wore the same outfit, but the variety of people was noticeable. Humans and orcs. Men and women. They stared at me in confusion, and I stared at them in wonder.

I could remember humans from my past life. I had been one after all. But the orcs were new. One of the few good things about Peninsula was that books were plentiful. I had spent entire days reading the literature I found, trying to escape reality for as long as possible. I had read about orcs. I had seen pictures of orcs. But I had never met an orc.

The stories in my memories told me that orcs were often monsters, but they could also be people too. This world most definitely had the “people” kind of orcs. They commonly showed up in adventure stories, and were frequently the main characters. It had taken me a while to realize that a large number of my favorite series had actually been written for an orc audience.

I was about to get my first up close view of one too, because a large orc in even larger armor pushed his way through the crowd, making way for a woman on horseback.

“Kearse! Bring her to that fountain over there. First squad, watch the left side. Second squad, right. Third, main road. This area may be cleared, but we’re at the edge of it and I don’t want any packs sneaking up on us.”

She shouted the words just loud enough for everyone to hear, but not so loud that it would carry beyond the immediate vicinity. She obviously knew the dangers of this place, and the soldiers wasted no time taking up their positions.

The young man, Kearse, carried me to the fountain in front of a bank, and set me down on the edge. It was hard to let go. This was the first warm body, the first human contact I had had in… ever.

A moment later the woman rode up and, after a few seconds of talking with the orc, dismounted. As they approached the fountain, she took her helmet off, revealing greenish blonde hair, and ears that were longer and more angular than my own. While she was nowhere near as pale as myself, her skin was a much lighter shade than any of the other soldiers.

An elf? The knowledge of my past life said that meeting an elf should be normal compared to the weirdness I had already seen. The knowledge of my current life said otherwise. The books I had read spoke of elves as being fae spirits that lived in deep forests and valleys, and that a city like Peninsula was they last place anyone should expect to see one of their kind.

The orc was certainly impressive, but now I was completely fixated on the woman. She looked like she was only a little older then Kearse, but being an elf made it hard to tell for sure.

Kearse gave a fist to heart salute at her arrival, and the orc stood to the side and behind her.

“Commander Haylen, Paladin Corlo, I found this girl in the alley. I’m pretty sure she can understand us, but she hasn’t spoken yet.”

Tears still filled my eyes, but I had gotten my sobbing under control, and my breathing was only a little ragged.

“I can talk! I can talk! I know I can talk!”

She looked me up and down, and I could see that her gaze kept falling back to my horns.

“Do you know what she-”

“Can talk!!”

I finally managed to get some words out, but clapped my hands over my mouth again when I realized the volume I had said them with. Even saying those few syllables had been difficult. In my mind, it was like this language and my old one were overlapping each other, and I had to manually pull them apart before it could actually be formed into speech.

Kearse and Haylen both jumped a bit at the sound of my voice, but the orc, Corlo, merely paused his appraisal of the surroundings to look at me.

“Can talk,” I said again. My voice was quieter this time, as well as muffled by my fingers.

The woman sat down on the bench next to me.

"Can you tell me your name?"

“Indigo,” I said.

* * * * *

“My name Indigo,” the girl said again.

Haylen knew she was in over her head. There were a lot of problems that expedition officers were expected to be able to deal with, but this was certainly not one of them. Even Corlo was at a loss, and had rejected the idea when she suggested that he be the one to take the lead. He had refused, saying that the girl would probably be more open to talking to another woman than with a towering orc in armor.

Chadvid hadn’t been exaggerating when he said she looked strange. Even if you ignored the clothing, Indigo would have stood out in any crowd. Her ears made Haylen think that she might be half-elf, like herself, but she was at a loss to guess what the other half was. It would have to be something particularly exotic to explain the horns.

She needed to know who Indigo was, but where would she even begin? Haylen had never seen anyone like this girl, and they had found her in a necropolis of all places. She needed information and direct questions seemed like the best way to go, but what should she ask first?

Before she could say anything, Indigo asked some questions of her own.

“Who you? Who you people? Why here? How?”

She seemed to struggle with each word, and Haylen could see the girl’s face clenching like she had to wrestle every word into place.

Indigo must have been foreign to the empire, or else she wouldn’t have needed to ask. Everyone across Arlonia knew of the expeditions. That she understood them was surprising, but not impossible. The Arlonian Empire was the largest known state in the world, and Common Imperial was often used as a trade language, even outside its borders.

“My name is Haylen Aldibis,” she began, “and I’m the commander of this platoon. Paladin Corlo is the orc, and Kearse here is the human. We’re part of the Orlisian expedition to this necropolis. Can you tell me who you are? How you got here?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

While she was talking, Haylen got a better look at Indigo. Even if the girl didn’t have any obvious wounds, her time in the city had clearly been difficult. Although she would occasionally meet Haylen’s gaze, her eyes were constantly darting about, looking for any sign of danger.

“Am Indigo,” the girl repeated. Then she looked a bit nervous and paused.

“Am homunculus,” she finally said before continuing quickly. “Was walking. Saw city. Thought it safe. It not safe. Now stuck. Try to leave, but cannot. You know how to leave?”

Haylen’s understanding of the situation grew as she put together Indigo’s broken sentences.

“You got lost in the mist and ended up here, right?”

“But what is a homunculus? I don’t think there are any of that race in the entire empire. She must be from very far off.”

Indigo smiled and nodded happily at the question. Haylen’s heart broke a little at the sight.

That would explain a lot though. Or at least enough to start with. Even without the dangers that lay inside, the miasma’s ability to get people lost was as infamous as it was powerful. People who went into the depths of the mist or were swallowed by one of its waves rarely came out again, and if they did, they would be considered lucky to even emerge from it in the same kingdom. Every nation in the world likely hosted a few refugees who were stranded too far away to ever hope of getting home again.

“Where are your from, Indigo? I don’t want to raise your hopes, but we’ll try to get you home if we can.”

Indigo’s mouth opened and closed several times before she answered. So far when she had spoken, her words had been halting and half stuttered. This time, they were slow and measured, and her eyes were planted squarely at her feet.

“I not from anywhere. I only awake one week before get stuck. Most of life, I live here. Live in Peninsula. Now just want to leave.”

Haylen rolled the words around in her head trying to reorder or add to them in a way that would make sense, but everything she came up with seemed impossible. Before she could decide which part needed the most clarification, Kearse asked a question of his own.

“How long have you been here?”

“Two years.”

Even Corlo’s mouth dropped open at the answer. Even compared to what Haylen had been imagining, that was simply impossible. The expedition sent over three hundred soldiers just to stay for a week. Nobody could survive a necropolis for two years.

“How did you survive?!”

Haylen frowned at the volume of Kearse’s outburst but didn’t correct him. Indigo shrugged and, for some reason, looked a little embarrassed.

“I run. I hide. I get good at kill zombies. Eat food from stores. Am also well made so… am hard to kill.”

“How did we miss you last time?”

The answer came to Haylen, even as the words left her mouth. Even if the necropolis were only half its size, it still would have been larger than any modern city. The fact that Indigo and Kearse had been in the same alley at the same time was in defiance of odds so great that it bordered on miraculous.

“Last time?”

Indigo looked like she had been stabbed in the gut when Haylen told her. The expedition was from Orlis, a kingdom of the Arlonian Empire, and they came every year to kill undead in the necropolis. They had been here the year before. They had been here, but they hadn’t known.

Haylen remembered the last time she had been here. She remembered leaving the city feeling proud, and knowing that she had done her part in protecting her people. Would she have felt the same way if she knew that they were leaving someone behind? What would they have done if they knew there was still a person, lost and alone, wandering the streets.

Haylen felt guilty, like she had stolen a little bit of joy from the girl, but knew it had to be said. Indigo was silent, and Haylen didn’t have to guess what she was thinking.

Indigo looked up, and her large eyes were filled with tears again.

“I want leave. How leave?”

Her voice was resigned, but filled with determination.

“The exit is at the edge of the city, not far from the building we use as our base. The expedition will be here for another five days, but when we leave, we’ll take you with us. I promise.”

At that point, Haylen made a decision that she realized she should have made the moment they found the girl.

“Alright,” she sighed. “This isn’t the time or place for a conversation. This is obviously bigger than any of us can handle right now, and Father Gregor will need to know about it anyway. We’re expected back at camp and we can’t be late.”

Haylen’s confidence returned now that she was able to start acting like an officer again. She had forgotten that she didn’t have to make all of the decisions herself.

“When in doubt, make someone else do the thinking.”

She knew they weren’t wise words to live by, but it worked well enough for the militia officers.

* * * * *

Kearse went to retrieve his spear while Haylen was issuing orders.

When he had first carried Indigo out of the alley he had been concerned for her, but now he felt a little disturbed by her. He hadn’t understood everyting she had said, but if what he thought was correct, a homunculus was not at all a normal race. She had been made? As opposed to born? And even if she was older than she claimed, anyone who spent more than two years killing undead in a necropolis couldn’t be normal. He felt bad for her, and he was glad that they were able to help, but he was also relieved that his part in it was over.

He picked up his spear, and after thinking about it, picked up hers as well. It was crude, heavy, and looked like it had been made entirely out of hollow metal rods. It looked sharp though, and he had seen it put to good effect. He’d return it to her, and then keep as far away as was politely possible.

When he turned to leave, she was standing behind him, smiling.

“Thank you,” she said, and held out her hand for the spear.

Kearse hadn’t heard her coming, and jumped back.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that. You’re lucky I didn’t stab you.”

“Sorry for jump scare. Must be quiet. No want zombies hear.”

Kearse shook his head and handed her the spear. His sense of adventure had long since left, and now he was even more eager to return to camp. He started walking back to the platoon and Indigo followed just behind him.

He didn’t particularly want to be around her, but he didn’t want to be rude to the person he felt like he had saved. It could have been anyone that walked down that alley and found her, and he hated to admit it, but he wished it hadn’t been him.

Kearse didn’t dislike Indigo, but he didn’t feel comfortable being alone with her. Her large eyes were always darting around like she could see things that weren’t there. If he had met her on the streets of Orlis, he would have called her cute, beautiful even, but in a necropolis she was distinctly eerie.

He met back up with Chad, and rejoined the formation. Even with the interruption, they still had a patrol to complete, and Haylen wasn’t the type to cut corners just to get them back faster.

“So you can understand us just fine, right?” asked Chad.

Kearse jumped again when he realized that Indigo was still walking behind him, and Chad laughed until Indigo punched him in the shoulder.

“No laugh at Kearse. Jumpy is good. Means you live longer. Also, yes. Can understand. Understand is easy. Speak is hard.”

He looked over his shoulder to the center of the formation where Haylen and Corlo were deep in conversation.

“Shouldn’t you be with the commander where it’s safe?”

Kearse was hoping to subtly shift her out of his immediate proximity, but instead Indigo took back her previous words about laughing at him.

“Ha! Is Peninsula. Is no safe here. Only safer. Also no. I want kill zombies. Haylen say is okay. I help you.”

Kearse and Chad shared a look, and then they both looked back at Haylen. She seemed to notice their stares, but only gave a nod in response.

“What?” Indigo asked. “You think I not good at kill zombies? Two years make anyone good at kill zombies.”

Chad gave Indigo the smile he used whenever he found a girl he liked. It was a smile well known throughout the camp, and while it got him nowhere with the women of the militia, they never seemed willing to reject him hard enough to actually make him stop.

“Compared to when I first saw you, you don’t seem much like a damsel in distress. Aren’t we the ones who are supposed to be saving you? I’m sure you can handle yourself, but a man does need his ego after all.”

“Yes! Good. Flatter her, and then make it sound like not helping would be us doing us a favor. Chadvid, you are a genius!”

Kearse could have kissed Chad at that moment, but his hopes were dashed when Indigo started laughing again.

“No, no,” she said, waving a hand in denial. “You not save me by protect me. You save me by help me leave. Also want to talk. Need to talk. This my first chance to talk. Haylen and Corlo busy. No can talk. We kill zombies. We talk. Will be good. Yes?”

Chad accepted the defeat gracefully, giving Kearse a noncommittal shrug, and Kearse could only shrug back.

So they walked, talked, and killed the undead.

True to her word, Indigo was indeed skilled at killing the cursed. Expedition tactics were simple, and she only needed a single demonstration of how to kill the greater cursed as a pair. The trio were soon at the head of the formation more than anyone else.

Maybe it was due to the female company, but Chad didn’t seem to mind, or even notice, the lost opportunities to grab things from the bodies. He even stopped counting his kills when his score utterly failed to impress her. It was hard to compete with someone who had been in the city for two years.

Kearse was surprised when Indigo insisted on limiting the conversation to small talk and idle banter. She said that being able to finally leave was already more than enough to think about at once, and that chatting about small things would help keep her calm.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that her primary choice of topics was the necropolis. It seemed to be all she really knew, and she was an expert at it. Chad hadn’t believed her when she said she had been living in the necropolis for two years. Indigo then immediately set about proving him wrong by telling him anything and everything he asked about the city, which she said was named Peninsula.

While Indigo was answering Chad’s, “What’s that?” questions one after another, Kearse’s wariness of the girl began to drop. He still thought that she was a little bit off, but her clear joy at simply being around living people was infectious, and he even found himself asking a few questions of his own. This proved to be to his detriment when a store he asked about turned out to be one that sold sex toys and pornographic material. Chad and Indigo, however, found it hilarious.

“You want go inside? Probably has no zombies. We find you something fun.”

Chad had actually been tempted by the offer, but a passing sergeant’s glare dissuaded him. Kearse still had to pull him to the next road though, and Indigo was practically cackling as she followed.

Despite the fact that they were killing the cursed, something that Indigo treated as more of a hobby than a serious endeavor, their general levity continued until they reached an alley that had a number of the necropolis’ local birds.

“I suppose I don’t have to warn you not to bother the crows,” he said.

He was sure that he didn’t, but his dislike of the birds meant that he wasn’t going to take any chances. The only cursed in the alley were the ones currently being eaten, so Kearse and Chad were about to move to the next, but Indigo went down it anyway.

“You know Flock?” she asked, without looking back at them.

“Indigo, let’s go. Don’t bother the birds.” Kearse and Chad were both whispering as loudly as they could. The crows didn’t seem to mind noise, but nobody took chances with the little beasts, and some of the soldiers would actively avoid even looking at them.

“I know flock,” she said, as if that explained anything, and the calmness in her voice told Kearse that she was anything but. She walked right up, put down her spear, and knelt in front of the crows with a complete lack of concern. There was always a bird that was watching, but for the briefest moment, Kearse thought he saw them all stop eating to look at her.

Kearse didn’t move. Chad didn’t move. Indigo moved, and smoothly reached out her hand to start stroking the head of the bird that was watching. It ruffled its feathers and almost looked to be enjoying it. She turned her head back to them with a serene smile on her face, and Kearse felt a chill go down his spine.

“You know Flock?” she asked again.

“They eat the bodies of the cursed. I think they’ve learned that we’re an easy source of food.” Chad answered quickly. “They don’t bother us if we don’t bother them, so please... Don’t. Bother. The birds.”

Indigo’s peaceful face immediately turned to one of rage. In a single motion, the hand that had been petting the bird grabbed it by the neck, pulled it from the corpse it had been perched on, and she practically tackled it to the ground.

“You bitch! You fucking knew! You knew and you didn’t tell me!”

All of the birds stopped eating, and every one turned to look directly at the screaming girl.

“Do you want to keep me trapped here? Is that it?! You knew people came here but you didn’t tell me!”

Indigo’s yelling had drawn the attention of some of the nearby soldiers, but they froze when they saw what was happening and none were willing to enter the alley and try to pull her out. She was insane. She had to be.

“You fucking bitch! I could have left this place a year ago if you had just fucking told me! Why?!”

The bird opened its beak, let out a half strangled kaw, and Indigo stopped. She stood up and lifted the crow to face level. The birds around her were still as statues, and they never took their eyes off her. The one in Indigo’s grip cawed again.

“Fuck you, Flock.”

Almost casually she twisted its head until there was an audible snap when the neck broke. Then, as if one horrible mistake weren’t enough, she tossed its body to the others. The birds around her arched their wings and all cawed in unison. Though not large in number, they were loud enough to make several of the soldiers cover their ears.

"Oh shut up!” Indigo yelled back at them. “You knew but you didn’t tell me! An entire year! One dead bird is nothing compared to that, and you’ll be getting it back soon enough. So don’t give me any of that shit! You can’t beat me in a fight anyway. Fuck you. I’m leaving.”

By that point, the entire patrol had gathered around the front of the alley, and they all knew what would happen next. If you angered one of the birds, you angered all of the birds in the necropolis. They would swarm you, and by the time they dispersed, there would be nothing left but a bloodstain on the ground. Indigo had not only provoked one of them, she had killed it and thrown its body at the feet of the others. Even an animal could understand a challenge that direct.

But the birds didn’t attack her.

The noise stopped, and they flew away.

They just flew away.

Indigo turned and walked out of the alley. Her pale face was still red from her anger, and her cheeks were wet from fresh tears.

The solders parted before her, none daring to get close until they were sure the birds wouldn’t come back.

She moved past them as if they weren’t even there, and sat down on the steps of the nearest building, hands wrapped around her legs and her face buried in her knees.

Kearse didn’t stop to think about the fact that Indigo had just done something even worse than what he had originally been afraid of. He ran over to her, and got there at the same time as the commander.

“Indigo! What was…? How…? Why would you…?”

All Haylen was able to ask were half formed questions, and Kearse didn’t think he could do any better.

Indigo ignored them. She was too busy crying.