Kya awoke, much less rested and much less restored than she would have hoped, yet at least in a somewhat better state of mind than she had been when first going to sleep. The suns rays seemed to be fighting against the clouds in the sky as they tried to illuminate her room, an occasional beam poking in, before being smothered out by the vengeful sky.

She had gone back to Sugg’s and cashed in on her wild overpayment for her first meal there, much to the very vocal amusement of the boisterous man. He had laughed and laughed, all the while serving her one of the absolute best breakfasts she’d ever had in her life. It came close enough to rival some of the home cooked meals her dad had made when she was a kid, making it stand out as truly a masterwork of baking and cooking prowess in her eyes. Afterwards, half dragging herself from sheer exhaustion, Kya had made it back to the dorm building just as clouds began to gather overhead and a light drizzle began to fall. Wave was once again working the counter as she’d walked in. She must have looked absolutely horrid, which wasn’t remotely shocking to her in her torn, bloodied, and mud caked clothes, because the normally passive, stoic face of the man gave out an actual look of, well, disgust really, and he said “Don’t you linger, here. Straight upstairs and to the showers with you. I’ll not be mopping up any more of your gunk than I have to. Go on now, go.”

She had lazily and half heartedly said back “yeah yeah, I’m going.” Before trudging up the spiral stairs with a morose wave back at the frowning man. She wondered idly if anyone else actually worked here, or if he just ran the place twenty-four seven. Deciding that was, without even the most remote of possibilities in her mind, a question for later, she plodded to her room at the end of the third floor. Stripping of her horrid clothes, she wondered where abouts she might go to get them cleaned, before remembering that she had a wardrobe appointment back with Merivan the seamstress. That was a nice thought.

One quick, luxurious, glorious, heart warming, life changing, mind altering shower later, and Kya collapsed back into her bed, uncaring about most anything else in the whole world quite so much at that point. “Worlds” she thought, with a mental chuckle, before the warm embrace of sleep overtook her mere seconds after she’d closed her eyes.

~ ~ ~

Douglass and Arthur stood ahead of her, both looking down with sharp condemnation written all over their faces. While Arthur’s eyes were sunken and glassy, like a stuffed mannequin approximating his visage, Dougles' eyes were nothing but black shadows and smoke.

They turned, and revealed between them the half formed ghoul at the center of the would be resurrection ritual. Clumps of hair sticking to its skull, pieces of gore trying in vain to keep this ill fated creature alive once more.

Both men ran to the side of the mostly skeletal body, and then knelt in utter despair and grief, each one taking a bony hand in theirs, and holding it tightly to their own hearts. Then, with a righteous fury, Douglass left his weeping father, and leapt to his feet, running at Kya. With each step, he seemed to grow more and more, until he finally towered over her like a raging goliath. Turning to run, Kya tried with all her might to get away, but every one step he took was equal to twenty of hers, and just as his massive rocky boot was about to crush her as if she were no more than an ant, shadows overtook everything around, and darkness overwhelmed her senses.

It was all consuming, all encompassing, suffocating, blinding, she couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything. But then she started to feel… feel drops of water on her face. Drops of rain as they fell from the forest canopy overhead. She couldn’t move not from some nebulous unknowable things, but from… from…

She cried out then, thrashing and kicking, it was the spiders. Those horrid spiders were again taking her back to their nest, back to the maw of the spider king.

And then she was there, but not as she had been, in fact she could actually see herself. Wrapped in cloth strips of armor, covered in mud and soaking wet from the rain. She was within the nest, still unable to move, unable to even turn her head. Kya watched from her fixed perspective as this past self brought out her various supplies and ultimately set fire to the entire nest of spiders and webs. The flames moved at the speed of sound, rippling out in angry waves of destruction towards her. She felt them then, raging at her, singing her sides, the heat spiking up and up to quickly become unbearable. She once more tried to struggle, tried to break free, but was completely and utterly helpless to move.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Finally, her past self walked slowly towards her, glowing staff in one hand and long, savagely sharp dagger in the other. The ghost of her past looked down at her with a gaze so cold, she no longer felt the heat of the flames, and then with a swipe of the staff, everything once more went dark as a void.

Dreading what would happen next, she realized once more that she actually could see, could hear and feel. Blinking open her eyes, she heard the rain pattering against the window shutters outside, and a moment later, saw the dim light cast through the window from the evening sun, choked out as it was by the weeping sky.

Joined as it was by the light from the T.V. still playing the show she’d fallen asleep to while laying on the couch, she could actually make out a fair bit of the living room once her eyes adjusted. There was the coffee table she’d used as a stage for her stuffed animals when she was seven. There was the bookshelf she’d tried to climb when she was three, earning her first hospital when she’d fallen and broken her left arm.

She sat up, pushing off the soft blanket and rotating to put her feet on the ground. In the back of her mind, she knew exactly where she was, and she knew exactly when it was, but yet… she just couldn’t quite bring it into focus. Getting up and walking to the kitchen, she saw the note left by her parents under a magnet on the fridge.

“K, Out shopping. Leftovers in the fridge. Be home by seven thirty... ish. Please bring some food to Gill next door, plate already prepared, and be polite! You know how she can be - Dad”

Next to “Be polite” was a little drawing of a face rolling its eyes. Her dad had always left little touches like that, and it made her smile. She opened the fridge to see the leftover thanksgiving feast, now perfectly divided up and stored into an orderly and neat collection of tupperware containers stacked like bricks in a wall. Again letting out a light chuckle, she reflected that he hadn’t been kidding about leftovers.

In front of the great wall of plastic, was a single plate, piled high with every healthy homemade vegetarian dish her father had contrived for them, and all once again neatly contained with a layer of cling wrap. A bright orange sticky note on top read “K, this is the one for Gill. Please deliver!!!”

Taking out the plate, she walked with it to the front door, and threw on her heavy overcoat atop the fuzzy pj’s she had one. Putting on her slippers, she was just about to open the door to head outside when a firm knock sounded three times.

Knock… Knock… Knock…

That small part of her mind was begging her, screaming at her not to open the door, to turn and run. But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why.

Putting down the plate of carefully prepared food, and wrapping the heavy coat around herself more tightly, she pulled open the door.

Standing there, like grim specters, like men who rode upon pale horses, like men who hated the lot they had in life, who wished to be anywhere but there, were two soldiers in their finest uniforms. Medals glistening with rain drops, black berets neatly folded to one side and shoes polished to a mirror shine.

The one on the left, the older one, spoke in a voice of horrid, soul crushing compassion when he said “Ma’am… Can we come inside for a moment?”

Kya remembered then. It was the smell of his breath, of chewing tobacco and peppermint, not really canceling out, but more mixing together to create a more muddled and yet distinct union of the two scents. She remembered what they were about to say, what they were about to tell her, and how her life was about to forever change.

~ ~ ~

Kya awoke, then, much less rested and much less restored than she would have hoped, yet at least in a somewhat better state of mind than she had been when first going to sleep. The suns rays seemed to be fighting against the clouds in the sky as they tried to illuminate her room, an occasional beam poking in, before being smothered out by the vengeful, weeping sky.

She remembered after a moment the dreams she had had, and things she had done all the previous day. All the previous days. Previous Weeks. Months. Years.

Sitting up, and pulling her legs into her chest, she wrapped her warm blanket around herself as tightly as she could, before putting her forehead to her knees and letting out soft, gentle breaths as the tears fell from her face, and quiet tremors wracked her arms. Against her torn and tattered hoodie, she barely noticed the residual heat from her amulet as it began to dissipate.