Alana forced her eyes open like ripping herself out of a nightmare—but that didn't make the beast before her any less real.

  A sickening grin of rotten teeth had grown at the bottom of its blank face, like it was surprised or impressed at her attempt in defending herself. She'd hit the ground, but she'd at least managed to push the sharp end of her halberd into the ribs of the thing. No blood ran from the thing's open wound, even as she twisted and jostled the weapon.

  It laughed, a sickening laugh of a frightfully high pitch. It grabbed the shaft of the halberd.

  Alana quickly swept it to the right, ripped it through the chest like tearing dough, the dress fell to thin pieces. One arm hit the ground, cut loose by even her weak swipe, but Alana swore she could still see it squirming atop the dirt.

  The creature lunged again. Alana swung the halberd back left again, slammed the sharp spike on the opposite side of the curved blade into the side of its head and sent it careening to the ground. It thudded softly, and paused for enough time that Alana could finally pick herself up. She was panting. Her heart raced.

  "What the hell!?" She didn't know if she'd even spoken. She felt like she was in a dream. "What the hell!?"

  "Hell is right," said the doughy creature upon the ground.

  "...Huh?" She wasn't sure she'd heard right.

  "HELL IS RIGHT," it repeated, beginning to rise from the ground like a spider on its remaining three limbs. "HELL IS RIGHT!"

  She gripped her polearm tighter. "What are you!? What are you doing here!?"

  "NO GOING BACK! HE SENDS US UP! HE SENDS US HERE!"

  She blinked incredulously. "Who!?"

  The thing rushed toward her at an incredible speed. Alana screamed, slammed her eyes shut, and swung as hard as she could, searing her weapon through the mud below...

  Soren and Tykas looked at each other once they'd heard the scream. Tykas muttered, "No way..."

  "Alana's light went out... Do you think?"

  "No. No, she has to be okay. Alana, at least... She's strong." He tightened his grip around his hilt.

  Soren seemed to think it over. "We'll wait for a few minutes more. If she gets lost... At least we should reconvene eventually."

  Then Alana emerged between the trees through their window of foliage. "There!"

  "Alana!" Soren pulled the foliage aside, gripped her bare arm and hoisted her through as soon as she was close enough. "Come, come!"

  She staggered between the two of them, slumped down in Soren's arms. She whispered, "Demon... Demon!"

  A chatter took the crowd.

  Soren looked between the frightened faces of his people... Then again to the girl. "What did you see, Alana?"

  "There was a thing... It was soft, but not like a man! It didn't have a skeleton, or eyes! It killed them!"

  The chatter grew more discordant.

  "He said he was from hell! That thing, he said someone sends them here!" She looked between the crowd just as Soren had. All she saw was suspicion. All she saw were eyes that wanted her gone. She lowered her head.

  A chill ran down Tykas' spine. "This is why... This is what we'll pay for entering dead country...!"

  Then a bark came from the soldiers: "She killed them! Snuck 'em off into the woods to finish the job!"

  Another bark, "The others only whet her appetite! She's a murderer!"

  "Heretic!"

  "Tie her upside down, make her a sacrifice to God himself, and may he forgive the rest of us!"

  "HEY!" Tykas exploded as the crowd began to approach, and jumped to defend her. "Look at her! No weapon, her armor is shattered...! She fought something, tooth and nail! How many of you have ever seen Alana without her halberd? That thing is precious to her! It's like... It's like family!"

  The crowd was quelled only slightly by that. Soren asked, "Is it still there? The demon?"

  Alana stammered, "I hit it pretty hard; I... I threw my weapon so hard, I don't even know where it ended up... I don't know what it was, some kind of cannibal... thing!"

  "Alright, alright, dear." Soren gently sat her down onto the grass. "Tykas, Lorens, Alv. You three, take a glance. See if you can't fetch Alana's weapon, too."

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  "Soren, no." Alana pleaded.

  "They'll be fine, Alana. Turn back at any sign of danger."

  "I should go with them...!"

  He gave her a careful once-over. "I'm not sure that's the wisest idea right now."

  Tykas swallowed his fears and brandished his sword. Lorens and Alv approached in their full suits of armor, ready to join the boy through the thick. "We'll be back in no time, Alana. We'll bring your weapon back... I know it's valuable to you."

  It's the last thing Tir ever gave to me... she thought, and her tears began to run. War was one thing, fighting, killing... But demons? Monsters? That wasn't like anything she'd signed up for, or anything she'd ever imagined. How could she even explain the thing? It was like a flesh puppet, like a fairytale golem, a homunculus... What was it? Was their understanding of Evra really so narrow? Were there more things like that, was Acrypa infested with those things? It said they come from hell. It said they.

  Some of the soldiers had begun to approach her. When she looked up, Soren was gone.

  Her hair was suddenly yanked back with immense force; she thought it was a monster again, but when her head tipped back to see, it was another soldier.

  "Let's see how you like it."

  A hammer fist crushed down from above, sent one of her teeth flying backward into her mouth. Another force landed at her feet, and wallops came from the front. She began to kick her feet wildly, as hard as she could. She thought she nailed someone in the face with at least one of the kicks.

  Then came a sideways fist at her face, knocked her head sideways, snapped her nose like celery and sent it crooked across her face in a mess of blood.

  "That's too many you've killed now, Alana! You'll just keep piling us on if we let you!"

  Alana tried to see through the haze of blood, through the confusion, to know who her attackers were. But every time her eyes began to adjust, another blow struck her in the face or the head, knocking her senses to static. What once was her broken nose was becoming an even bloodier mess of shattered bone and cartilage.

  She swept a headbutt backward as they began to lift her by her underarms, dragging her to her feet. When she missed, she sent another one back—THUNK! It hurt her much more than she’d expected it to, rattled her whole head.

  Then they grabbed her by both of her legs, held her up as they hoisted her away. She let out one desperate scream as they chucked her down to the dirt, into the side of a hillish mound, and she rolled down through roots and sharp rocks to the bottom of a steep pit. Her ribs cracked hard against a stubborn tree when she hit the bottom. She groaned in pain and disorientation.

  "You'll get yours, killer. You just lay there, think about what you've done... Maybe your demon friend will come back for you."

  Her voice—Alana could almost remember her face. A younger girl, with bright curly hair she always wore tied up over her head. They had to be about the same age… What was her name?

  “V—Vendra!”

  Vendra was a Kyrian name, most certainly. She’d likely been following the group since their first departure. She heard the sound of someone spitting, and then just the sounds of people walking away, the crunching of dirt and branches beneath their boots.

  Alana felt the warm blood rushing down her face. She felt something warm running down from her eyes, too, and closed them, pushed her forehead into the dirt as she began to sob...

  She didn't know how long it'd been when she heard a voice.

  "Oy, oy, look at this one here."

  "Another angel, just nearly lost in the Demondark. The comet has wrought more destruction."

  She tried to open her eyes at the mention of the comet. She couldn't.

  "Oh—she’s still breathing!”

  "Hm? Oh, my. Did she fall asleep?"

  "By all the blood, I'd say passed out is more-like. Looks like her nose cauterized at least. So, what do we do with one like this?"

  "We'll be taking her with us, of course. An angel can be retrained on how to fly, just like a baby bird."

  "Right then. Up we go, beautiful..."

  …Alana’s eyes opened again as she was being jostled around left and right. There was a creaking beneath her, an uncomfortable sack behind her head, propping her neck up at an unkind position. But the pain in her face was far worse than that. She groaned as she awoke, reached up to try to help the pain—

  But a hand grabbed her wrist, pulled her away. “Don’t touch. The magics are working their will.”

  Alana winced and cried, but listened. Last she checked, magic wasn’t potent enough for such grand healings. Last she checked, magic was hiding in traditionalist medicine and the prayers of fools undertaking debilitating tasks. Magic may as well not have even been real.

  “It’s real, dear. Not like the magic your kind are so used to.”

  She fought her eyes open, though they began to water more and more as she forced them. Then she could see the blonde woman by her side, her eyes covered by a metal visor with no holes to see through, her smile cool and consoling. Her dress was dark in grays and greens; she was sitting like a maiden beside Alana in a rolling wagon.

  “Where are we…?”

  “We’re going deeper in, of course. This place that you call Acrypa.”

  “They left me…”

  “You looked quite injured indeed. Let the magic work its way, and rest. “

  “Magic isn’t… real.” Her head rolled sideways as that gnawing of sleep returned, and her whole body seemed to comply with the woman’s order.

  “My dear, magic is far grander than any of your humble plane can account for. You’re surrounded by it all, now.”

  But she was asleep before she could hear that. And she was asleep before the woman could reach down over Alana’s nose again and wipe the blood clean with a handkerchief, before whispering a few select phrases over the disfigured organ. Then the spell was set, and by the time the girl would awaken again, the pain would all be gone.

  Alana dreamt that night, and the day following, and into the following night, of monsters, of fiends, of fear. Voices entered her mind and left, spirits came and went, a whole new world unfurled in those dreams brought on by the thrill of dying.

  But at the center of it all, and at the end of every dream... She came across that clearing. She could see Tir's house behind it, but she'd long-since learned that approaching it would cause her to wake up. And blocking her way to the cabin, of course, was that sickly, bright comet...

  In one of the earliest dreams that night, she reached out to it. She asked it, "What are you...?"

  And every nightmare after was so much worse than the last...