“Legends say Billy’s ghost will fuck you up if you show disrespect.”

“Not me.”

“You dare challenge Billy like that?”

“Yeah, because I can beat a ghost any day.”

***

“Gah!”

Cora twists her back so she faces Liam, or at least the top of his head. He jumps and stumbles back. A bloodied strip of cloth dangles from his hand.

“That hurt,” she says, narrowing her eyes.

“It’s all part of the process. No pain, no gain,” Liam grumbles.

“Easy for you to say. I’m doing a lot worse than you are right now.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize or anything.”

He pushes back his sleeve. Several bloodied bandages go up his forearm. Cora winces, even as she’s the one with cuts, bruises, scrapes, and a swollen wrist which she’s nearly a hundred percent certain is broken.

“Are you okay?” She mentally slaps herself, remembering he asked her the same thing. “I mean, do you need help with anything? Two hands are better than one.” She gestures to him, then wiggles her fingers.

“Not anymore, but later, yes.” He runs a fingernail over the edge of the bandages, testing their grip to his bloodied skin. “First, we need to take care of you.”

She eyes the rubbing alcohol wearily. He hasn’t made a move to reach it yet, but memories race of paramedics treating her cuts and scrapes after the incident.

“That’s a nightmare in a bottle. Even you know that.”

“The lesser of two evils.” Liam unscrews the cap and presses a clean strip of cloth over the bottle opening. Quickly, he flips the bottle and rights it again, the cloth damp with rubbing alcohol. “Are you going to let me clean your wounds? Or will you do it yourself?”

She shakes her head. With one functioning hand, doing anything beyond picking the bottle up is impossible. “Can you please be more careful, though?”

“If I hurt you too much, pinch me so I can fuck off.”

“Okay.” Cora sucks in a deep breath and holds it. Liam approaches, cautiously, as if he were approaching a wounded snake, which isn’t too far off the mark.

She lifts her shirt up to her mouth and bites down. Exposing herself like this to him makes her heart race. Nothing romantic about it. He’s doing an important job. But Cora can’t help but wonder what Liam thinks about her. If he’ll wonder about the jagged scars running along her waist, or the moles near her ribcage resembling a crude smiling face.

Between the cold and Liam’s fingers grazing the skin above and below the bite mark, she shivers. Her eyes widen and she struggles to keep her breathing level.

The wet cloth sticks to her side wound. Fire incarnate races across the injury and deep into her organs. It burns as badly as the purple trees, only the pain coats her entire side. She screams into her shirt, which sounds more like a muffled scream than the shrill noise she’s sure would’ve deafened him.

Cora moves to pinch him, then backs off. It’s not fair to him. His eyebrows are knitted and his eyes focus solely on cleaning and bandaging the bite wound. Nothing more.

Her shoulders sag. She focuses on one of the few brownish-gray trees left while Liam sticks a bandage over her side wound. When he’s finished, she lets her shirt drop and shudders.

You deserved that.

Cora twists her face into a grimace. The thought is not her own. It’s like Mari is watching everything through Cora’s eyes, criticizing her. But she isn’t real. She’s a hallucination born from trauma.

It still doesn’t stop Cora from listening to her. Considering that maybe the pain she feels is a small price to pay for the pain she put Mari through.

No! I’m gonna be a better person.

Liam stares at her. Embarrassed, Cora realizes she’s raised a fist, ready to fight off any apparitions of Mari. “Did I do something wrong? Is the bandage messed up?”

“No, it’s fine,” Cora says, putting on the best display of a smile she can. Always a liar, Mari whispers. She suppresses a shudder and focuses on the new strip of cloth he’s holding, plus the rubbing alcohol beside him. “Just sucks. I can’t catch a break.”

“There’s still a lot more to do,” Liam says.

Cora grimaces. “I know…”

“I’ll finish as fast as possible. By the way, that bite wound’s pretty shallow. I think you’ll heal fast with no problems.”

“Gee, thanks, doc. And on we go,” she sighs. She turns her arm toward him next and watches Liam wet the cloth, the third of many more dips to come.

***

“I have an idea. The mountains,” Cora says. She’s busy pacing a hole into the ground. Sure, walking still hurts, and her cut shin doesn’t make it any easier, but moving helped her think back home, and moving helps her think here. It also helps the air isn’t as chilly with her body warming up from constantly moving, and her wounds nicely bandaged and protected from the scathing cold.

“I saw them before I fell. What about them?”

Her breath puffs out in a white cloud. Liam’s blanket flows behind her while she paces. “I think we have to go there.”

“Why?”

“There might be a river. I’m pretty sure there is one. The stream’s proof of that.” Cora gnaws on the inside of her cheek, watching herself place one foot in front of the other. “I walked here from where I had fallen. I thought there’d be water near the mountains, and I was right. What do you think?”

Liam’s hands are knitted behind his head. He taps his foot repeatedly, sitting on a medicine cabinet. “What else can I say? It’s our best shot.” His fingers unclasp and he spreads his hands over his thighs. “You’re one hundred percent confident that there will be a river there?”

“Yeah, if it’s anything like back home, then there will be a river. This forest had to grow using something.”

He stops tapping his foot. “Magic, maybe?” She levels a glare on him. Nothing in either world seems to worm past his defenses, and he meets her stare with a coolly composed gaze. He could be wearing a pair of sunglasses and the effect would be exactly the same.

“Come on, you know it might be a possibility,” Liam says.

“If it was, and that’s a big if–” Cora paces again. Past lessons resurface at an astonishing pace. The pieces click before she finishes the sentence. “Then that implies those things grew to their sizes using magic. Those monsters? Magic. If the trees didn’t depend on water, if water wasn’t a thing here, the moment we stepped through, we would’ve died. That stream we saw? Probably water. Weird-looking water, but water.”

That was one of her biggest fears, and the situation she deliberated during some of the countless nights spent awake. The box could tear open portals. That violated physics on a fundamental level. She often wondered if the physics on the other side would be equally screwed-up, and her body wouldn’t cope with the drastic change.

In the end, she wrote off the risk level. Stupid. She tightens her jaw. Stop thinking that.

“Wait, you lost me. Why would we have died if water wasn’t a thing here?”

Cora stops pacing. She runs her hand through her hair and turns to face him. “Physics. If the forest is magical, then this world has different physics than the stuff that controls us. And we wouldn’t be here. We’d be dead.” They could’ve died. She had been so close to getting mauled to death. She tears herself from that single terrifying moment, grounding herself in the fact she’s alive, and she has Liam. “Sorry. Therefore, the forest has the same physics as us. Which means it probably grows using water.”

“Damn.” Liam lets out a low whistle, eyebrows raising high. “That makes sense.” He pushes himself to his feet, rubbing his forearm after he rolls back his shoulders and mimics the seasoned soldier he isn’t. “You’re pretty smart, actually.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She doesn’t mean for her voice to come out so accusatory, or for herself to stiffen while she studies his reaction. “I'm lucky I met someone like you. That’s it. I’m not trying to say anything else.” He raises his arms in a placating gesture. “Well, you were being kind of dumb not taking the blanket.” He smiles. “Looks like you like it now.”

Cora unclasps her fake brooch and flings the blanket at him. He yelps, ducking to avoid the incoming projectile, exposing himself for just a moment.

She gets away with punching his shoulder before he grabs the blanket and tosses it back to her.

“Hmph,” she pouts, fixing the hair claw clip back on again. Beneath her stern expression, her heart is racing at a million miles per second, and a warmth that hadn’t been there before envelops her chest.

Liam pulls on the hem of his shirt, breaking off a few flakes of dried blood. “Next time you won’t catch me off-guard.”

“We can bet on that.”

He breaks off a few more flakes. “The mountains, then. Got it. I can’t think of anything better, and plus, I trust you.” He continues breaking off flakes as if the words didn’t just knock the warmth out of her chest. “Congrats. Usually I don’t trust people. Lots of bad ones. But you’re a good person.”

I trust you. Anything but those words, so she doesn’t feel like complete trash, sunken to the lowest level of morality.

Especially with him being infuriatingly calm when he should be thrashing her back and forth for what she’s done. Her short-sightedness, her selfishness.

Mari would’ve done it, Cora’s sure. She doesn’t think Liam is the type to flip out, but he has a knife, scarily experienced with it. One thing bothers her, though. Who carries a knife with them into the bathroom?

Unless… no. Liam doesn’t show any signs. He stands tall and proud and is just as determined to survive as she is. More than that, though he’s turned away from her while he sorts prescription bottles, she can still see the smile on his face.

Then why did he throw himself so recklessly into the creatures? Those memories play out in crystalline detail. Those swings and pivots and slashes and fluid movements, they didn’t scream out as reckless to her.

It’s the opposite, in fact. Confident, calm, collected, calculated. Or at least, while he puts on his mask. She’ll never forget the fear in his eyes, or him admitting he’s just as scared as she is.

They’re an accident away from ruin, but neither voices the reality. Anything can happen in the forest and nobody will come save them.

Maybe he is right, after all. He’s lucky he met her, and she’s lucky she met him. Cora set the cards in place, but fate shuffled and dealt them in ways she’s only beginning to understand.

“I’m glad I met you,” she finally says. He lifts his head, squinting as if he’s seeing her clearly for the first time. What she hides beneath the mask.

Tell him! Tell him about the box! Mari shouts. Cora tunes her out, humming a soft melody, hoping Liam can’t hear her.

“Same here.” But he doesn’t resume sorting the bottles.

“Is there anything useful there?” Cora gestures with her foot at the neat row of orange bottles Liam lined up. He nods, then plucks a bottle off the ground. “Tylenol,” he reads, glancing at her. “Do you have space in your backpack for some of these?”

Cora nods. “A lot.” Too little things are her own. When she lifts the backpack with her good hand and brings it to him, she’s painfully reminded of the weight that should’ve dragged her down with it.

Instead, Liam unzips it and stuffs the bottle of Tylenol deep into the front pocket. If he shows any interest in the box, he hides it well.

“The mountains it is.”

***

Cora leans over a bush. The bloodied rat-like tail sticking out the leaves is enough to tell her what happened to the actual rat, or whatever the small, furry mound is.

“Did you do this?”

The sharp whiff of cleaning alcohol reaches her first. She gags, sick of the stuff, but Liam is unfazed. His nose cells probably got burned off. “Yeah, it attacked me when I came here. Why?”

“Isn’t it weird that we’ve seen no animals?”

Before he opens his mouth, she presses on. “Not those things. And not this thing. I mean in general. Why aren’t there more?”

“I never thought about it. Not much time with everything going on.”

Cora’s treated wounds and fresh bandages are proof of that. The only thing that cost them both trouble was her wrist. Of course it did. She hadn’t wanted to bandage it after they finished packing the medicines.

Liam, though, fashioned a sling out of some gauze and medical tape. It’s not much, and it bothers the back of her neck, but she’s infinitely grateful.

“Just saying, we haven’t heard any of those things since you killed all of them.”

“I think that answers for itself.”

She resists the urge to punch his shoulder again. “But what if something’s really wrong and we don’t realize it?”

“Cora.” She jerks her chin up. He tests the backpack’s weight with one hand. “You’re overthinking it too much. The forest is fucked up. No surprise there’s almost nothing out here when the trees burn you and it’s cold as fuck.”

“Liam. You’re overthinking it too much.” She relishes the surprise on his face. “I mean, yeah, the forest is fucked up, but that’s exactly proving my point. Being out here sucks. But where would it be a better place to live, though?”

He glares at her. “Not the mountains.”

She lets her shoulders drop. “The mountains.”

“Shit. This is perfect, right? The one place we might have a chance in, we’ll have to share with a bunch of friendly animals.”

“Friendly?”

“I’m being sarcastic.” Liam runs a hand through his hair. He plasters his bangs back. “Besides, there’s probably a lot more of those things we’ll run into…”

She blanches. “You think?”

“Those couldn’t have been the only ones. Impossible.”

They tore literal pieces out of her body. And they would’ve done so much worse if he wasn’t there. She shivers. Whatever progress she’s made since Liam took her to his “camp” crumbles.

Cora’s cowering on the ground before she registers what’s going on. Liam drops beside her and hugs her shivering frame.

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry,” he says softly.

His heavy breathing draws her back from a world of terror. She blinks, surprised that there are tears in her eyes. Why? She’s supposed to stay strong and move on from whatever happens.

Why is she crying?

Why does it have to be now that she can’t control herself, after they’ve mentioned the creatures several times already?

Or the mask is slipping. She’s let herself get too complacent. There are real monsters out there, and she’d tried to forget that by messing around with Liam.

“Hey, Cora, are you listening to me? I’m keeping you safe for as long as I can. I won’t let a single one of those fucking monsters get to you, okay?”

She sniffles. “It’s so dumb. I thought I was doing fine.”

He rubs her back in small circular motions. It soothes her in a way talking can never hope to accomplish. Liam’s touch reminds her she’s here. Alive, with somebody who can protect her, and they have a goal to follow.

“But you are. Even after what happened, you’ve got grit. I admire that. I respect that. But you don’t have to push yourself that hard. Let me handle them.”

Should’ve told me that when I found the box. It feels like someone carved out the insides of her chest, leaving a vast cavity that floods with a torrent of regrets.

So much for thinking herself above her limits. That brief period of hopefulness and elation was just that. A mask she put up to protect herself from what happened. Just like Liam is, probably. Or was. It’s hard to tell.

She almost died. Her fingers tremble. She reaches and brings Liam closer. “We need to get to the mountains. We don’t have enough time,” she says. She gulps down the snot dribbling down the back of her throat.

The creatures aren't the only threat.

And she has to be strong. Better, smarter, kinder than the girl that punched Mari. If it means Cora pushes through her pain, grief, and terror, so be it. She needs to get back home. Fix her mistakes, and maybe, help Mari.

“We have time. Let it out.”

She giggles weakly. “Already did. Thanks.” She is lucky, indeed, that she met him. Blessed in more ways than one. He reminds her so much of Mari, back before the incident. Cora hasn’t known Liam for long, and already she’s sure she trusts him, one hundred percent.

And he probably does the same. You haven’t told him about the box, Mari says. Cora sniffles, wiping at her runny nose.

Soon.

The ache in her chest reduces to a dull throbbing. She closes her eyes and imagines everything they’ll find as they near the mountains. She erases the ghastly things and produces images of flowering fields, water clearer than glass, and downy grass rather than the rust-colored dirt and carpets of needles crunching too loudly wherever they step.

For a moment, her mask drops, and she smiles.

***

Liam shoulders her backpack. He releases a steady stream of cloudy white breath and frowns. “Ready?”

“One sec.”

Cora traces a finger over her splint. Layers of gauze and medical tape can’t replace the real deal. She wiggles her fingers and bends her wrist slightly. Pain spears through the bone and she stifles a gasp.

If she’s careful, it’ll hold.

She stands among the ruins of Liam’s bathroom, testing several porcelain shards in her good hand. She runs her thumb over the most vicious-looking shards, pricking the tip, frowning and tossing them aside when they don’t feel right.

Then she finds the perfect shard, thick around the base and tapering to a point sharp enough to actually hurt.

There. Another weapon apart from her scissors.

A heavy weight settles on her shoulders. She takes one last look at the clearing before squaring her shoulders, wielding the shard like Liam wields his knife.

“Now I’m ready.”