Chapter 1: Petals
“What’s it like, being a hunter?”
The words had come from a different Taylor, leaning forward in eagerness. Her legs were crossed, hands on her knees on Emma’s bed.
Even now the innocent question rang in her memory, her voice echoing.
The redhead laughed, brushing her hair.
“Me? I’m not one, really. Being awakened doesn’t make you a hunter. Ask Sophia.”
The girl in question had scoffed at the original question, only to preen as Emma flawlessly redirected the attention to her.
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short.” Sophia brought a rough thumb to her chest. “B-ranks are on a different level, but D isn’t the worst you could do.”
“Pshaw. You say that, but what good is a D-rank except to mine crystals and carry equipment? I see that life and, no, thank you.” Emma rolled her eyes companionable. “I think I’ll leave the dungeon crawling to you, hero.”
Taylor had watched them with wide eyes. There was an intimacy here, in the unguarded sleep-over. Taylor had been to Emma’s house, her room, her bed, so often over the years that it felt as safe as her own room.
Even Madison, who walked in with an armful of snacks and a smile, was a familiar sight. Sophia had joined them only recently, starting Winslow just that past semester.
“What do dungeons even look like?” Madison asked, voicing a question that Taylor wanted to know, too. “Are the movies accurate? I mean, they’re supposed to be like video games, right?”
(Like death.)
Sophia groaned.
“Oh my god, that’s such a civilian-ass answer.”
But with Emma leaning forward in fierce curiosity, the girl’s shoulders squared with barely-supressed pride.
“Alright, I’ll tell you.” Sophia said smugly. “All dungeons are different. Supposedly, people with mana sensitivity– like Emma– can tell right away how strong a dungeon is, and feel the difference when they step in. For me, it’s always been subtle. A bit of pressure, the weather and temperature difference– that’s how I know I’m in a dungeon.”
“And the fact that you just walked through an interdimensional gate.” Taylor pointed out, grinning.
Sophia threw a pillow at her.
“Shut it, Hebert. Obviously, you don’t just wind up in a dungeon. Most of the ones I’ve seen are like. The actual dungeon, of a castle. Stone walls and stuff. Or a cave.”
“Wow.” Emma was suitably impressed. “How many dungeons have you been in now, Sophia?”
“I’ve done three D-rank raids.” Sophia threw her hair over her shoulder proudly. “It would have been more, but they’re still evaluating me. You have a probationary period before you can enter gates on your own.”
“I thought they checked your power when you awakened at a magic machine?” Madison threw herself over the edge of the bed, brown hair falling with gravity to dangle down.
“Mana reading machine.” Sophia corrected with a sniff. “And my mana is B-rank, never doubt that. But one of my skills might be… well, nevermind.”
She looked away evasively.
“You got a skill?” Emma demanded, sounding a little jealous. “I never got anything like that!”
“What, being stronger, faster and more durable than a puny regular human isn’t enough?” Sophia’s eyebrow shot up. “Look at these two, they’re not complaining.”
“Oh, yes, I am!” Madison laughed, letting out an oof as her own incoming pillow projectile– one from Emma, one from Sophia– crashed into her. It was more the laughter than the impact that had her hanging position flipping legs over torso, until she landed on the floor properly.
“Ack! Hunter-on-civilian violence!” She cried, which made Taylor’s giggles erupt into full laughter. “Gah.”
Madison sat up, running hands through her hair to straighten it, hands behind her on the floor.
“I’m complaining.” She repeated boldly, a hint of a whine in her voice. “I can’t wait to awaken and get tested and turn out to be a super-rare S-rank hunter. No, a National Level hunter, easily. Right Taylor!?”
“Of course.” Taylor said solemnly, before her lips twitched too badly and she had to disguise laughter into a stuffed animal.
“Traitor.” Madison grumbled, as the other two girls started laughing at her.
“S-class? Dream on.” Sophia said, not unkindly yet likewise totally unimpressed. “It’s rare to awaken in the first place– me and Emma both doing it is statistically improbable. What is it, one percent?”
“Ha. Point zero zero one.” Emma said glumly, shoulders all the way slumped. Then she brightened. “But I don’t have to worry about it anymore! Ahhh! I can’t believe it finally happened!”
She hugged her squishy dragon, that she’d been sleeping with since they were five, to her chest and rocked back and forth.
“I wish I would awaken.” Taylor said, biting her lip. “Even as an E-rank, the PRT would…”
Emma patted her shoulder, ignoring the curious looks of the other two girls.
Even as an E-rank, the benefits of being a hunter were myriad. The financial impact of working for the PRT would change everything.
“Did it impact your modeling career at all?” Madison asked, looking worried.
Sophia snorted again. Emma elbowed her.
“No, if anything, they were so excited. They can use it for marketing, or whatever. And this way I’m an even safer bet. With even a little bit of exercise, I’ll keep my figure forever.”
“That’s the perk of being a hunter.” Sophia looked eager, almost hungry. “You should join me on a raid, killer.”
“Pfft, daddy would never let me. Even if I wasn’t so lowly-ranked, I’m too young. Which, you know, you are too– After you’re done being evaluated, are they even going to let you raid dungeons?”
“They will!” Sophia said fiercely. “I checked. Minors can raid dungeons with parental position, and joining the PRT means I can get a certain amount a month. They’ll be lower-ranked gates. It’s really rare that they let underaged hunters do anything more serious than a D-rank dungeon.”
“That makes sense.” Madison made grabby hands until Taylor dropped a pillow down to her, which she then propped up behind her head, reclining back. “I mean, think about it– even Victoria Dallon only gets to go in, what, barely C-rank dungeons? And she’s S-rank.”
Sophia scowled.
“Her whole family is her raid team, that barely counts. They’re a whole guild.” She frowned thoughtfully. “And how do you know what gates Victoria Dallon goes into?”
Emma smiled like a shark.
“Madison! You’ve been holding out on us!” She leaned forward over the edge of the bed. “You’re secretly a Hunter nerd!”
“I am not!” Madison protested at once.
“You are too! How many hours do you spend on PHO, huh? I thought you were on instagram, but all that time on your phone– it’s paranormal stuff!”
“It’s not! It’s not!” Madison laughed, waving her hands. “I just started researching gates lately because–”
Her laughter cut off and her eyes got big. She looked afraid.
Sophia smelled blood in the water.
“No way! You saw a gate? When?!”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it!” Madison said desperately, throwing both hands up.
“Puh-lease, like that’s ever stopped you!” Emma laughed, long and loud like bells. “Come on, spill!”
Her eyes were bright with joy and interest. Taylor would have folded, too. After a few minutes, Madison caved.
“Okay, fine, but be quiet!” Madison’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “So, my dad runs a shipping company, right? Well in one of our warehouses…”
–
So that was how four idiot teenage girls ended up making one of the worst mistakes of their lives.
Ahem.
So that was how they ended up with jackets thrown on over their pyjamas, sneaking into a warehouse. Public gates were cordoned off and guarded by the PRT, but ones like this that were suitably enclosed relied on more traditional methods.
Unfortunately, such methods had human vulnerabilities– such as Madison stealing her dad’s key.
“What if the dungeon breaks?” Emma asked uneasily, sending a sliver of fear down Taylor’s spine.
All her hair stood up on its end. She pulled her hoodie– Emma’s hoodie, really– closer in on herself.
A dungeon break. Even Taylor knew what that was. It was the entire reason hunters existed in society, why the world didn’t just ignore the massive gates that popped into existence.
After seven days, if hunters hadn’t gone in and killed the boss, the gate would stop being a one-way portal.
The dungeon would break open, spilling out monsters into the streets; monsters who only wanted one thing.
To kill.
To eat.
Taylor shivered hard, misery a heavy weight in her gut. Her dad would be furious if he knew where she was right now, and so disappointed in her and Emma both.
This was so dangerous. Her second thoughts were having fourth and fifth thoughts, but she was too curious to turn around. Sophia, specifically, would make her miserable for it if she convinced Emma to give in to that cowardice.
And Emma, newly awakened, likely wouldn’t listen to reason anyway.
That it would be her first time seeing a gate was an irresistible draw.
Taylor, too, wanted to see.
But the idea of a dungeon break almost had her dropping everything to turn around. She couldn’t leave Emma– wouldn’t– but she could drag her out by her hair, probably.
Well. She could have before the other girl had awakened paranormal abilities. Dread pooled low in her belly at the idea that she might not be able to force Emma to do anything, if–
“Don’t worry.” Madison’s hushed voice cut through the panic. “We have cameras in this warehouse. It’s on day two.”
Taylor relaxed, taking a ragged breath.
“And it’s not swimming with PRT agents?” Sophia looked around curiously. She tried to pretend to be the most experienced, the most ‘in charge’, but even she had only seen a few portals, and never alone.
“People buy gates at auctions, right?” Madison asked, rhetorically. “Well, apparently, they buy them from the PRT. And the PRT has jurisdiction until they sell it, unless they keep it for themselves, but daddy hasn’t told them where it is yet.”
“You can’t hide a gate, though.” Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “He has to give it up to them, right?”
“Right.” Madison said. “I don’t know how it all works, but he’s trying to negotiate for some of the money before he tells them which property has a gate.”
“Mads.” Emma hissed. “Are you telling me this gate hasn’t been evaluated yet? It could be an S-rank!”
Excitement lurched in her voice, directly inverse to Taylor’s panic.
Sophia’s eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.
“It’s not.” The hunter said, although reluctant. “Emma’s more magic-sensitive than me, but there are people in the PRT in the 99th percentile for mana sensitivity. They would know immediately if an S-rank gate spawned.”
Unless they didn’t. Gates put out mana, but unless someone was standing right next to one, even an A or S-rank gate couldn’t be felt from further away than a few miles.
Taylor didn’t know that yet, though.
“We should go.” She said, unease high in her voice. “C’mon, Emma, we’re not supposed to be here.”
“What? No, we haven’t even seen it yet. I think I can sense it, though– it’s over there, right?” She turned vaguely eastward.
“I don’t know.” Madison said. They were all whispering. “Daddy didn’t say where it was, just that it– AHHHH!”
Her short scream echoed shrilly in the wide room.
Everyone else startled badly, Taylor included.
Sophia vanished.
The only reason she knew Sophia vanished was that she reappeared, a knife of all things pressed to the skin of a boy’s throat.
“Casey!” Madison screamed. “What are you doing here!?”
“I could ask you the same question!” A boy a little older than them yelled, hoarse with fear. The light of several cell phones, moving wild in the confusion, glinted off the blade Sophia wielded. “What the fuck? Tell this crazy bitch to let me go!”
“I’m asking the questions here, pal!” Sophia hissed. “Madison, you know this guy?”
“Know him?” She demanded, only to pale as she rapidly realized the situation. “Sophia, chill, it’s my brother!”
“You told your brother we were coming?” Sophia did not sound happy, but she did lower the knife.
“Of course not.” Madison said, huffing with her hands on her hip. “What are you doing here, Casey? And how did you even get in!?”
“Jesus, who even is this psycho?” The boy, who did look a lot like Madison, backed up hurriedly once the knife was removed from his pulse point. “And isn’t it obvious? Same as you, I guess, I made a copy of dad’s key.”
“A copy.” Madison said flatly, before laughing. “Ha. Right.”
“You dumbass.” Casey Clements frowned. “You took the real thing? Fuck, we’re gonna get caught when he notices. We should get out of here.”
“Hey, no way, man! We haven’t even seen it yet!” One of the other boys– for Casey had brought a handful of friends with him, not unlike Madison– jostled to the front.
“Daddy shouldn’t notice it missing until six at the earliest.” Madison put forward, eager to cover the mistake. “I mean, he took his sleep medication, right? He’s not going to wake up before then. We have time.”
She tried to posture to hide her nervousness. Taylor, whose desire to see the forbidden and cool thing had been outweighed by nerves shortly after they walked in the doors, hoped one of the others would get cold feet so she could join them in a hasty retreat.
At this point, she wouldn’t even mind leaving Emma too much– and hearing about the cool adventure later on the phone.
Calling for someone to pick her up was out of the question. For one, the only person she could call would be furious, and she’d have to sell out Emma to do it, who would never forgive her.
No way; she’d be grounded for life.
“Chill, Dylan, we’re gonna see it. I said we would, didn’t I?” Casey rallied, relenting now that his pride was on the line. “I mean, we’ve already come this far.”
Cheers from the male contingent.
Who, Taylor was startled to notice, also included a familiar face.
“Greg?” Someone asked, incredulously, and it took Taylor a moment to realize it was her voice.
“Hi, Taylor!” The boy in question waved, looking delighted to be here. “My cousin Joe brought me, isn’t this cool?”
“He would not shut up when he overheard us talking about it, and threatened to tell my mom if I didn’t bring him.” Joe said, full of a despair that Taylor recognized as someone who’d had to listen to Greg Veder talk for longer than fifteen minutes.
She and Joe shared a mutual look of understanding.
Sophia finally put away the knife, though her fur was still metaphorically bristled.
“Look, let’s just get a look at this gate and then get out of here. Neither of us saw each other; agreed?”
Casey nodded solemnly.
“And you–” The hunter continued, pinning Greg with a glare. “Motormouth. Are you going to be able to keep quiet about this?”
“What? I totally–”
A spike of something strange, tingly and intimidating rose. Sophia’s glare intensified.
Greg gulped.
“I can keep my mouth shut!” At their looks, he grew sullen. “What? I really can! I never told anyone about that time I walked in on Joe and–”
A sharp cuff across the back of the neck, and then Joe was covering Greg’s mouth with a hand.
“Dude.”
Greg slumped.
“Yeah, I know.”
Taylor herself would use similar methods to shut him up, out of desperation, but then Greg Veder’s mouth would have touched her hand, and that was even worse than listening to him talk for forty-five minutes in math class.
“Let’s just go.” Sophia muttered, looking extremely miffed that her cool adventure was ruined by all this testosterone– and Gregness.
She looked like she, too, had spent several long seconds really debating if putting up with Greg Veder was worth it. Taylor had waited with baited breath before slumping once it became clear that the draw of a gate– an unguarded gate, seen up close– was too much to resist.
So it was that the eight of them– the trio of her friends and Taylor; the trio of Casey’s friends and Greg– walked among the crates and some sort of powered-off assembly line system, through the creepy dark warehouse, until finally the air was charged with something alien and other.
It felt like electricity on her skin and Taylor’s breath sped up, heart thundering.
Then they turned into a new room, a small office off the main facility, and there it was.
A gate.
Glowing blue, ethereal and huge, it took up the entire room floor to ceiling.
Lightning and sparks seemed to radiate off of it, putting out some sort of eldritch energy that made Taylor’s stomach hurt with nerves, her hair stand on end, and her muscles lock up.
She wasn’t the only one who froze, though she alone remained pinned in place as the others recovered and approached with yells and exclamations of delight and interest.
Sophia harrumphed and crossed her arms, determined to be the ‘cool’ and experienced hunter, but even she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Glued to the spot, Taylor stared, the blue light reflecting in her eyes, throat tight and trembling.
Run away, every sense seemed to be screaming at her. Turn and run.
But Emma swallowed loudly and walked forward, cutting off Taylor’s vision of the thing, and started asking Sophia hushed questions.
Taylor’s eyes closed, head dipping as she just– fucking coped with that. Emma was here. Emma wasn’t leaving.
The girl stood– wishing she had something more substantial than pyjamas on, with a hoodie thrown over them.
Wind from the gate– not from within, but rather, the air being stirred by whatever electric current was sufficing the room– moved Taylor’s hair, black curls around her face.
Most of it was pulled up in a scrunchy, a bouncy tail brushing her shoulder blades, but the hypnotic light and motion seemed to fill the escaped strands with static.
She couldn’t breathe. Every shallow breath was fought for.
How were they just standing next to this thing?
The boys went up to it tentatively, getting much closer. They seemed to almost dare each other to get further and further ahead of each other, until they were noses pressed to the event horizon.
“Hey!” Sophia called, alarmed, but Casey jerked blonde’s– Dylan’s– arm back before he could touch.
“Dude!” Madison’s brother admonished.
“What? Hey, you’re a hunter, right? Aren’t gates two-way? If you get overwhelmed, you can always leave. Raid parties back out all the time and come back with a stronger team of hunters.” Dylan looked eagerly at Sophia.
“Yeah, and underpowered teams go in and get slaughtered within seconds all the time, too!” The girl hissed, unamused. “Gates aren’t something to play with! You wanted to see it, we saw it. C’mon, Ems, let’s leave.”
“This might be my only chance to see a gate, though!” Emma protested, starry eyes facing the portal. “I’m not going to be a hunter, not really, so… shouldn’t I not waste the opportunity?”
“Damn it, killer, this isn’t the time to get spunky on me…”
“Plus, you’re a B-rank.” Emma went for the throat. “It’s not like we’re in any real danger. Don’t mining teams go in and out of gates all the time? Guilds clear it out except for the boss and all kinds of civilians trek through…”
“She’s right, people do it all the time.” Joe, Greg’s cousin, piped up. “If you’re scared, just say that.”
“I’m not scared.” Sophia said flatly. “You’re all just morons. This gate hasn’t been cleared. I’m a B-rank, but that just means ten of me can clear a B-rank dungeon. Nobody goes raiding alone.”
“Well, we’re not alone, right?” Greg said eagerly, only to shrink when Sophia glared hard again. “I mean, I mean– we’re also not raiding. Not really. We’re just… maybe looking in?”
He took a long breath and Taylor braced herself, knowing what was coming.
“Oh my gosh it’s so cool, holy shit, we might actually be going into a gate, what an opportunity, and a B-rank can probably just throw us out again, it’s not like– I mean, even if it’s a high-ranked gate, which isn’t likely, research says lower-level mobs spawn near the entrance, and wow we could see a monster up close, ahhhh!!”
Joe brought a hand down over his face in dismay.
Sophia looked to the others with a frankly unimpressed expression.
“This is who you want to go into a gate with?” She asked, flat-out.
“He can stay back here.” Casey shrugged.
“What? No, I’m totally going in!” Greg protested.
“Well, at least he’s brave. We’ll see how long that lasts.” Sophia rolled her eyes.
Wait.
“You can’t be considering this.” Taylor said out of numb lips.
A victorious expression came over Emma, transforming her face into something delighted and real.
No.
“What’s the matter, Hebert? Scared?” Sophia rose an eyebrow.
“Yes! It’s a gate. Of course I’m scared! You all should be!” Taylor looked around, finding only nervous-excitement.
“Maybe we shouldn’t…” Madison bit her lip. “You just wanted to see it, right? Well, we saw it.”
“C’mon, all this risk just to look at the thing?” Casey threw his arm around his sister’s shoulders. “If dad’s gonna kill us, we might as well deserve it.”
“Emma and I will be fine.” Sophia said thoughtfully. “She’s awakened, and low-rank or not, she’s tougher than all of you. If we did find monsters right outside the entrance, she could take a hit.”
The hunter’s voice went flat again.
“The rest of you would die, though.”
“We don’t have to fight.” Dylan, the blonde, said nervously. “Right? If there are monsters right inside the entrance, you’re a hunter– you can at least distract it while we run back through the gate, right? Especially if we’re only a few steps in?”
“Right, right.” Joe said. “I mean– if we only go one step in, we could just fall backwards and be safe. And the monsters can’t follow us out. Right?”
Nerves crept into his voice.
“The monsters can’t follow us out.” Sophia agreed, crossing her arms. “Not without a dungeon break. Everyone knows that.”
“I want to.” Emma said fiercely, almost shaking with eagerness. “I’ll never get another chance– and I trust you.”
Sophia’s spine drew up tighter, chin raised.
“Okay. Fuck. But one at a time, alright? I can’t protect all of you. And only one step in. One.” She rose a finger threateningly.
“Eee!” Emma leaped forward and hugged her, swinging around on the other girl’s shoulders. Taylor’s stomach twisted again.
Was she so much of a coward that taking one step through the gate was beyond her? Maybe.
But it took everything inside her to manage a single step forward, like walking toward the massive thing radiating all that energy and death was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“Relax.” Sophia drawled, catching the– whatever it must have been on Taylor’s face. If it was half as bad as it felt, she would have flinched. “I’ve never been in a dungeon where the monsters were right there. You have to walk a little first.”
You’ve been in three dungeons, Taylor thought but didn’t say. Mostly because her tongue was still glued to the roof of her mouth.
She desperately did not want to go inside that portal. But…
Her eyes caught on the girl beside her, red hair made bright and alive by the sparks from the otherworldly gate.
But it was Emma. And Taylor would follow Emma into hell.
(And as it turns out…
That’s exactly what she did.)
–
“I don’t have to be faster than you,” Joe ribbed Dylan. “I just have to be faster than Greg.”
“Hey.” The nerdy boy complained, nasally. “C’mon, you wouldn’t really trip me to escape so the goblins would eat me first, right?”
“Wow, oddly specific.” Joe ruffled his cousin’s hair. “I would only trip you to get away if I really, really needed to. Promise.”
Greg grimaced.
Likewise, the others were chatting nervously and with excitement about what they were going to do.
Because they were really going to do it: enter an untested, uncleared dungeon through a real-live gate.
“It’s not too late to back out, you know.” Taylor muttered desperately to Madison.
The other girl was practically vibrating with nerves.
“What, this? Pshaw. I’m not scared. I mean, it’s super illegal, and it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but like. We’re already here, right?” Her voice wavered. “I stole dad’s key. If we’ve made it this far…”
Ah. The sunk cost fallacy.
Taylor’s spirits sunk further.
In truth, she was curious, and maybe if someone else had stepped up to play devil’s advocate, she could have been the one arguing for how cool it was.
But no one else seemed to want to take the position of reason, and so she was left to be the ‘stick in the mud’ arguing for the lame option: that they turn around, go home, and pretend this never happened.
It wasn’t even something they could brag about, because Madison was right: aside from the danger, this was quite illegal, and it would be a miracle if they didn’t get caught.
“Alright.” Sophia’s sharp voice cut through the din of excited whispers. “Here’s how this is going to work. If you want to go in, you obey every order I give you. If I say jump, you better be in the air. If I say go back, you go back. Fuck, if I say ‘whip your dick out and piss on a goblin’ because I see they have a piss weakness, you fish your fucking cock out. Is that clear?”
Greg Veder’s hand shot up into the air. Sophia frowned at him.
“No, there’s not really goblins with a weakness to piss, you fucking idiot. It’s just an example. Do what I say, no matter how insane it sounds.” She curved her fingers around her knife’s handle. “If you can’t agree to that, we’re done here.”
Emma put her hands on her hips, wearing confidence she didn’t really feel, like she always did. Her haughty voice rang out.
“Don’t worry, I’m a hunter too. I may not be going on raiding teams, but I’m still stronger and faster and tougher than you.”
Sophia shot her an assessing look, nodding at what she found there.
“That’s right, killer. You’re different. And every hunter should get a chance to go through a gate. I know you can do it.” Sophia’s resolve hardened. “You’ll go first.”
“I will?” Emma asked, in abrupt surprise. “I mean– yeah. Of course I will. This is it, right? This is what I’m for.”
“Yeah.” Sophia said, dangerously soft, something hot passing between them. “This is what you’re made of.”
The charged moment passed.
“And I’ll be right behind you. This is your moment, but let’s not be fucking stupid about it.”
“Too late for that.” Taylor murmured under her breath, earning a hostile look.
Oh, right. Enhanced senses.
Taylor shrugged.
“If you don’t wanna do it, don’t do it.” Sophia said flatly. “But quit it with the passive aggressive shit. Say it with your chest.”
Taylor thought about it.
For a moment, she pictured herself puffing up– saying this is stupid, putting her foot down, causing a scene.
Standing her ground. ‘Showing spine’ as Sophia would put it.
Emma turned to her, expression complicated, like she wanted to stand up for Taylor but agreed with Sophia– and Taylor knew, then, that Emma would be crushed if Taylor ruined this for her.
‘Never forgive her’ was a stretch, an improbability killed by a lifetime of friendship, but that same history had her hold her tongue.
Emma needed this.
That was enough for Taylor.
“I don’t like it.” The brunette said. Before Emma could do more than frown, Taylor continued: “Fine, it’s not my business. I don’t have to like it. If this is a hunter thing, then go ahead. But Sophia?”
Meeting dark eyes, making sure that ‘iron’ the other wanted to see from her was there.
“You had better keep her safe in there.”
“Heh.” The girl narrowed her eyes, a hint of smile playing out. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
But she nodded to herself, as though pleased with the ‘spine’ Taylor showed.
“Promise?” Taylor squinted, chin up. Sophia stared back, nostrils flaring. A small smile took over her lips.
“Yeah, Hebert. I promise. Heh.”
She held out her fist and, eventually, Taylor realized what for. She bumped it with her own.
“Let’s do this.” Emma straightened abruptly, secretly pleased by the exchange.
She stood nose to the gate and paused. Looked back at Taylor. Looked over at Sophia.
Finally, she held out a hand.
“I don’t have to do it alone, right?” Emma bit her lip a little.
Sophia probably would rather Emma have her big damn moment, step through the threshold by herself, prove she’s a hunter, etc, etc, but to Taylor’s surprise the girl melted.
“Never.” Sophia agreed, taking Emma’s hand. They walked into the gate together.
“Gayyy.” Dylan drawled, only to blink nonplussed as people turned to him. “What? We were all thinking it. What in the My Little Pony was that shit.”
“Hey, man, those two are awakened– they only look like little girls, both of them could kick your ass.” Casey shoved his friend.
“Yeah, which is why I waited for them to go in the gate before I said it.” The blonde boy shrugged. “Speaking of, Greg, go put your arm in.”
“What? No.” Greg said, but he was already inching toward it. “I mean, okay! If you insist.”
He eagerly stuck his hand in the gate.
Part of Taylor expected him to scream and pull back a stub. Which was, of course, ridiculous. She was being so paranoid.
“Hey, look! Oooh!” Greg pulled his arm out, entirely unmolested. He stuck it back in. And out. “See, it’s harmless? And the girls would have run out if there were monsters inside.”
He took a deep breath.
“I’m gonna go for it.”
“What?” Madison looked up, alarmed. “Greg, you idiot, stop playing around.”
“Nah, it’s fine, look– Sophia is a B-rank hunter. Statistically, this is probably a D-rank gate, and she can handle anything in there. Probably not the boss all by herself, but we’re not going to fight the boss. Mining teams and porters go in gates like this all the time and set up.”
So saying, Greg plunged into the gate.
Madison made a high-pitched sound of distress.
“Greg!” Joe, the cousin, lurched forward. “That little hunter girl is gonna kill him. C’mon, D, this is your fault– help me haul him out.”
“Shit, I guess. Do I have to?”
“Yes!” Joe shoved the other boy forward.
They both vanished into the electric blue, Casey quickly rushing forward after them. “Not without me! Mads, c’mon, if they’re all doing it, we might as well.”
“That makes it worse, not better!” Madison screamed, before turning to Taylor. “Do you believe this shit?”
Taylor tried to find the dismay in her chest, but it was– strangely fading, the longer they waited where nothing bad happened. No bodies came flying out, no bloodied or screaming voices.
“Seriously?” Sophia’s face broke the surface of the portal, becoming visible. “Fuck it, it’s all clear over here. You might as well come in. Be prepared to run back in case monsters appear, though. This isn’t a game.”
“Really?” Madison’s tone changed immediately. “I thought we should do it one-at-a-time?”
“You should.” Sophia said flatly. “But I’d rather have you all where I can see you than someone running in at the wrong moment and causing a distraction. Let’s just get this over with. Two minutes, that’s all– then we’re done.”
“A lot can happen in two minutes.” Madison said, nervousness in her voice. “You’re sure?”
“Oh my god, yes, just get in here.” Sophia rolled her eyes. “I don’t like having my eyes off them.”
Her head withdrew into the portal.
“I wasn’t going to go in at all.” Taylor sighed, standing up. Her legs were still shaky. “But I guess it’s fine, and… I really want to know what it looks like, in there.”
Her admission seemed to shake Madison.
“Me, too.” The other girl whispered. “Together?”
She held her hand out.
Taylor ignored the sting in her chest that it was Madison whose hand she was taking, and not Emma’s. That Emma had chosen Sophia for this. She knew it was irrational; best friend or not, her friend had awakened, and it was stupid to be jealous of another hunter showing her the way.
She could have more than one friend.
She was happy to have more than one friend, someone to find comfort with when something scary happened.
Feeling brave, the tall girl approached the portal.
Taylor smiled and took Madison’s hand.
Together, they stepped forward through the event horizon, to where their friends were waiting.
Above their heads, unseen, an arc of lightning crackled a different color. The first of what would be many, in the cruel seconds after their guard was down, as they took in the dungeon with wide, impressed eyes.
A bright spark of bloody red.
–
Chapter 2: Gate
“So, it’s a cave.” Sophia said, to myriad oohs and awws. There was glowing fungi on the wall of some sort, providing light. “That’s one of the more common dungeon types.”
Despite herself, Taylor found looking at the surroundings almost difficult– instead, her eyes kept tracking back to Sophia, who was standing tense and nervous despite her words.
It looked like she wanted to drag them all back through the gate, a sentiment Taylor appreciated. She could feel it, or at least she convinced herself she could; the air was different in here, the otherness coming through loud and strong.
And it felt wrong.
That sensation crept up until it was a fever pitch, and even Emma’s childlike wonder at the environment faded from Taylor’s view.
Something was wrong. Really, really wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, danger, danger, danger.
Just as it became a screaming note inside her veins, as Taylor reached to tear at her wrists to get the feeling like ants on her skin to stop, the sound of lightning hit her.
She whirled to the gate, only to find sparks emanating out from it, only for a quick whooshing suck to pull all that light inward, a rush of wind yanking at them like a black hole.
The blue light shrank to the size of a person. Then, it stopped, a moment of fearful stillness gripping them, before–
An explosion of energy knocked them all staggering.
Red, pulsing energy, crackled around the gate, which had increased in size. The ethereal blue wisps of the gate were replaced with a demonic red and black color. Jagged arcs of red lightning crackled from it, seeming dangerous to approach.
She didn’t know what it was, but her stomach was in her feet. Her mouth was dry.
“No.” Sophia’s voice hit Taylor the hardest. Everyone was screaming, but her whisper somehow cut through it all. The quietest Taylor had ever heard the hunter speak.
Looking over saw Sophia pale, a pallor under her normal skin tone.
Emma stumbled over and scrambled to grab onto her, shaking Sophia’s arm as she demanded to know what was happening.
Standard Emma in a crisis; shouting until someone explains. Not even that familiarity could distract Taylor. Sophia’s eyes were pinpricks.
“No!” She screamed, yanking away from Emma. She ran towards the gate, shoving her hand through the portal. For a moment, Taylor thought it would work; that they could leave this stupid place and everything would be fine.
It was scary, sure, but gates were scary. And you could always leave a gate.
Sophia fought her way past the lightning and wind, which was turbulent so close to the transformed gate. At one point her body almost passed through it, only to go flying back.
Then the gate itself disappeared.
“Oh, god.” A male voice, suffuse with… something like terror, but so faint she could hardly make it out.
Turning her head slowly, Taylor heard Greg start hyperventilating.
“Oh, my god.” He repeated. “A red gate? A fucking red gate? It’s so– so– so cool, but we’re all gonna die.”
Hysterical laughter carried him.
“Explain!” Emma barked out. “Sophia, what– what’s a red gate?”
Her voice broke, but she rallied.
Sophia was staring at where the gate had been, knocked on her ass and not getting up.
Around them, the scenery had changed. Right underneath their feet was no longer the densely packed earth of the cave but, somehow, rough-cut stone.
“It’s like a castle.” Taylor murmured. Except it was bigger than any real-world castle had ever been, built as if to accommodate giants; the ceilings stretched easily fifty feet high, torches ensconced every teen feet or so down what appeared to be an endless hallway stretching to the distance.
“A red gate.” Sophia said through bloodless lips. She shook her head. Stumbled to her feet. Jerked her head to the side once, then twice, looking around like she couldn’t believe it.
“FUCK!” She screamed, at the top of her lungs, which disturbed the torches and echoed far off the bowels of the distant hallway.
“You’re going to attract the monsters!” Casey hissed, scrambling to the hunter with his shoulders hunched up. The others were quick in his wake, everyone– including Taylor– rallying to where the gate used to be.
Dylan in particular seemed unable to process it, staring at the empty space. “But where did it go?” He kept repeating, dumbly, or some variant of it.
Joe shook his shoulders, trying to snap him out of it.
“What does it matter?” Sophia demanded, not bothering to modulate her volume. “Whether they come now or later, we’re all dead anyway!”
The last was shouted again, as loud as she could. Taylor grit her teeth and fought the urge to cover her ears against the shouting, the noise, all the chaos.
A sharp noise rang out.
Emma slapped the shit out of Sophia, the other awakened girl holding her cheek in stark surprise. Emma rang out her hand as though it stung.
It hadn’t left a mark on Sophia, the difference in their “ranks” too great, but it had stopped her hysteria dead.
“We’re not dead yet.” Emma said fiercely. “Stop it, and explain what happened. You’re a B-ranked hunter for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah.” Sophia said. “Fuck, yeah, you’re right.”
She stood up straighter.
“You two– stop it.” She snapped, as Joe increasingly tried to get through to Dylan. “And Madison, get over here.”
Madison was still where she’d fallen as the gate winds had erupted, staring with wide eyes at the empty space.
She shook her head mutely, pupils pinpricks in the torchlight.
“Casey, get your sister.” Sophia snapped, and when he hesitated: “Now!”
“What’s happening?” Emma stressed.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Greg asked, full on twitching. “It’s a red gate. Oh, god.”
“Yes, we’ve established. Shut up.” Sophia’s lips formed a hard line. “Does anyone have any food or water?”
“What, no, why would we?” Joe asked, just as Greg sheepishly took off his backpack.
“Um. I’ve got. Eight bottles of water, four MREs, and some… snacks?”
They all stared at him. He swallowed hard.
“Why?” Sophia boggled. “You know what, no, nevermind– good job, Greg.”
She looked briefly at the ceiling, as though in prayer. “You are somehow the only one actually prepared to go into a gate, however light those previsions may be.”
“Sophia!” Emma snapped, increasingly impatient. “What does the red gate mean? Where did it go?”
“It means,” Sophia stressed, looking to the redhead. “That I have just became, god help me, the team leader for the single most fucked raid team to ever step foot in a gate. If we live, it will be a miracle from the god of every pantheon, and I don’t envy our chances.”
She took a deep breath.
“That said, by god, we will fucking try.”
“I mean, realistically, we’re fucked anyway. It’s just a choice of how we die.” Greg was surprisingly cheerful about it, in a bleak way. “It was on day two, you said?”
He flicked a glance at Madison before nodding. “Yeah, the PRT is probably going to come clear it in two or three days. Except, they can’t, because it’s red. So we’ll be in here. And I’d rather die to the monsters, thanks.”
“What?” Emma asked, shocked. “Days?”
“Days? Oh, no, it’s much worse than that.” Greg laughed without humor. “Tell her, hunter. They teach it in all those lessons they give you before letting you near a gate, right? Tell your friend how utterly fucked we are.”
“Fuck off, Veder.” Sophia said, but the fangs were gone. That’s when Taylor knew they were in trouble. Well, aside from the everything else. “He’s right.” She said grudgingly. “The time dilation. One day inside, one hour outside.”
The words echoed against the stone walls, lit by harsh torchlight.
One day inside. One hour outside.
Taylor’s mind refused to comprehend it at first.
Then the math of it all slammed into her and she couldn’t breathe.
“But they can send in a team, right? Before it comes to that?” Emma’s voice was quick, struggling to maintain a sense of control as her heart rate skyrocketed.
“Nope.” Greg said. “Only three ways out of a red gate, right, Sophia? And I don’t like our chances for the first two.”
“Shut up.” Sophia repeated, firmer this time. “We’ll survive. It’s what we do. But if you wanted to go ahead and awaken as an S-class hunter, that’d be real great right now.”
It was a testament to the seriousness of the situation that nobody laughed at the idea, not even Greg.
“H-how does it open?” Madison asked, finally lead over on shaky legs by her brother.
Sophia started counting on her fingers.
“The normal way; that is, clearing the dungeon. If we kill the boss, the gate opens.”
Greg snorted, earning himself an elbow to the gut from the girl speaking.
“The problem with that,” Sophia said grimly, “is, as Mr. PHO here apparently knows, is that red gates… are, at minimum, a B-rank difficulty.”
“But we have a chance, right? You’re a B-rank hunter, right?” Madison asked, an almost desperate quality to her voice.
Sophia shook her head grimly.
“That’s not how the ranking system works. An A-rank hunter can’t even solo a B-rank dungeon; a raid party of B-ranks can, on a good day. More likely with a mix of A and B-rank hunters.”
“So, no clearing the dungeon. Probably. Fuck, what are the other two options?”
Greg Veder and Sophia Hess shared a look of bleak, mutual understanding. If ever there was a sign of the apocalypse, that was it.
“Option two is we all die.” Sophia declared, like ripping a bandaid off. “If a raid party is entirely killed, the gate opens up.”
“Like a blue gate again?” Casey asked.
“Like a dungeon break.” Sophia’s harsh words hit them all hard. “A dungeon break from a B-rank or higher dungeon.”
“Can… can we wait here?” Madison asked. “There aren’t any monsters here. We can wait, right?”
“The third way.” Sophia continued. “Same as normal, the dungeon breaks after seven days.”
“Except, the time dilation.” Taylor realized out loud, the reality sinking in. “Five days, twenty-four hours…”
“Give the girl a prize.” Greg said, in a pale imitation of his usual annoying joviality. “120 days. That’s how long we’d have to wait for it to break on its own.”
“No.” Emma said. “That’s… that’s just… No, come on, there has to be another option.”
“But we don’t have enough food for 120 days. That’s– that’s almost four months.” Joe said slowly. “We don’t have enough water for a week.”
“So.” Sophia pushed herself to her full height, dusting off her pants. “It’s like Greg said. We can die the easy way. Or we can die the hard way.”
“Maybe.” The nerdy boy started hopefully, “It’ll be a really weak boss that just has high defense you can chip away at, and you’ll be able to kill it.”
“In a red gate?” Sophia rose an eyebrow incredulously.
“Yeah, yeah.” Greg slumped. “Well it’s either that or the other thing. Listen, if it comes to it, I don’t want to be eaten– by monsters or by you guys.”
By… by ‘you guys’!?
Four months with no food.
“Don’t be stupid.” Sophia said, gruff but oddly gentle, for her. “We’re not going to resort to that.”
Taylor got chills.
“We couldn’t, actually.” Madison said, with an airy, almost light-headed sway. She swallowed. “It wouldn’t be worth it, anyway. It’s, what, sixty-five degrees in here? We don’t have access to any refrigeration. Even if we could get a carcass hanging and drain all the blood out, at this temperature, the meat would spoil before we could eat it.”
Several people took drastic steps back from the cute, short-haired girl. She blinked at them.
Casey pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Our uncle is an avid hunter. She’s butchered deer and wild hog with him.” He explained. “Mads, I love you, but you’re making the nice people think you’re on a list somewhere for the stuff you search online.”
“That, too.” Madison shrugged, shaking her head to focus a little. “I mean, google is a rabbit hole we’ve all been down. Anyway, we don’t even have a fire. We’re not cooking anyone.”
“Although…” She continued, thoughtful now. “The MREs have chemical heaters, right? And salt packets? That changes things, a little. We totally could make it last at least a few days, if we rubbed all our salt on the parts we cut off, and left the skin on the rest–”
Joe gagged, looking like he was going to hurl.
“Don’t throw up!” Sophia snapped. “We don’t have enough water as it is. Madison, shut the hell up.”
“Shutting up, boss.” She squeaked faintly.
“Nobody is eating anyone.” Sophia continued fiercely.
“Besides,” Madison said, in a tone of voice that made everyone flinch preemptively. “It’s the water we have to worry about, right? No way we even start thinking about starving, when we’ve got three days max without water.”
“I vote we eat her first.” Emma said dryly.
“Hey!” Casey swung an arm around his sister’s shoulders, faux cheerful. “C’mon, we all know we’d eat Greg.”
Greg nodded glumly.
Even Greg knew they’d all eat Greg.
“Do you think we could eat any monsters?” He asked hopefully, perking up a touch. “I mean, we don’t see any now, but they surely exist, right?”
Sophia paused.
“I think we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. If you asked me yesterday whether this group could survive ten minutes in a B-ranked gate, I’d have said no.” She took a breath. “The odds we survive to see hunger or thirst take us out… are not good.”
She smiled, and it was not a nice smile.
“Me? I’m almost certainly going to die against the boss. I’d like to say I’m a certified badass, and can definitely take him; I’ll certainly do my fucking best.”
“I’ll help.” Emma’s voice was shaky as she drew herself up, too. “I’m a hunter, aren’t I? I’m strong. Not as strong as you, but maybe I’ll get some skill or…”
“You can help.” Sophia said, cutting her off. “You’ll have to. I’m not sitting around waiting to die.”
“Maybe rescue will come?” Joe offered. “You never know, right? Hunters are incredible.”
Dylan whimpered.
Sophia was already shaking her head.
“S-rank hunters have tried before. Nothing can open a red gate once it’s closed.”
There was a weighty silence for a beat.
“That’s fucking cheerful.” Casey said, before blowing air out explosively. “Okay. Hunter’s in charge. That much is obvious. So, hunter. What are we doing?”
“The only thing we can do.” Sophia rolled on her feet, stretching. “We clear this dungeon or die trying.”
–
“We’ve been walking for hours.” Greg complained loudly.
They would have shushed him for the volume, lest he attract monsters, but… Well, at this point that would be a welcome reprieve.
“It’s been thirty-seven minutes.” Casey said.
“How can you even tell?” Madison asked, bumping her shoulder into his. “The wall has been literally the same. This entire time. Even the torches are evenly spaced.”
“I checked my watch.” He flicked her on the forehead, which she lurched away from with a whine.
Greg grumbled words Taylor knew individually, that somehow didn’t make sense in the order he used them. “Low render poly budget…”
Madison and her brother snorted, making the boy perk up. At least someone got his humor.
Taylor was happy for them, really.
She was just also at a level of stress and fear that was not meant to be sustained this long, and slowly growing numb to her surroundings.
And she was hungry, which just made her panic more, because the people she was trapped with had immediately jumped to stomach-turning descriptions of cannibalism as soon as the gate vanished.
“Is this normal?” Dylan asked quietly. His previously laid-back personality had not recovered from the shock. Far from the boy who had goaded Greg into poking his hand into the gate, he had spent most of the time quiet and trembling.
“No.” Sophia said. “Nothing about this is normal. There’s usually monster spawns that get more difficult as you approach the boss room. This… emptiness? It’s weird. Wrong.”
Everything about this was wrong, if you asked Taylor.
She’d felt it just standing outside the gate, a feeling of alien-otherness, of creepy things dripping down her spine, and it had only gotten worse. It felt like death in here.
She had no better way to explain it.
Taylor hoped her imagination was running away with her.
Actually, she hoped this entire experience was a bad dream. A nightmare she’d lurch awake from, screaming, in Emma’s bedroom, and nevermind the embarrassment from Madison and Sophia seeing her like that.
She’d tremble, sobbing, into Emma’s safe arms, or Aunt Zoe or even Uncle Alan would come in panicked and worried, and an adult would take care of her.
(And if wishes were fishes, she’d have an ocean-full. Maybe they’d even call her dad, whose arms she would sprint into.
Her dad. Oh, god.
How could she have done this to him? If he woke up and she was gone, when she was all he had left…)
Taylor shook her head fiercely to get over it. It was hard, though. There was nothing else to do in this endless hallway. The edges of the fear had worn threadbare, too much panic for too long. Now she was numb to it.
Even their scattered bursts of conversation died down as soon as they started, all of them caught up in the atmosphere. The walls seemed to almost press in on them, claustrophobic; the ceilings high, the lightning medieval.
The entire group, just waiting for a horrifying monster– that normal people empirically could not kill– to jump out and try to eat them.
You could give Taylor a man-portable air defense system, and a direct hit wouldn’t phase even the weakest of dungeon monsters. A nuclear warhead wouldn’t damage them without mana behind it, much less her fists.
Only awakened humans could fight them.
That was the reality of the world they lived in. Raw chance determined who awakened– as Sophia did, as Emma did– to hunt the monsters that growled out of their gates, and who was left at home to wait, watch and hope.
Oh, life moved on– of course it did. Taylor certainly didn’t pay any mind to gates, except to worry in a vague sort of way about a dungeon break. She knew where the nearest shelters were, but hardly thought of them outside of drills. How likely was it for a dungeon break to happen?
It was 2010, for fuck’s sake. The PRT had things well in hand. There were only a few dungeon breaks a year, and almost all of them in rural areas nobody checked for gates, or could reasonably check.
In forests, deserts,
In a post-apocalypse world, a post gate world, the seas were practically untraverseable, save for vessels guarded by strong hunters. Gates spawned in underwater without care for who could beat them, or not. Entire guilds specialized in closing the strongest of those gates.
Living in a coastal city was dangerous, because of those gates, and the monsters that crawled out of them. It was why S-rank hunters congregated on the east and west coasts; why half the news was about the Department of Defense and their cutting edge research into the yet-nascent ability to track gates.
She asked a question about it, just to pass the time, and to stop her teeth from chattering.
Greg Veder was happy to answer her, and for the life of her, Taylor couldn’t even find it funny that she was thanking her lucky stars Greg was there, and uncowed by the situation to such an extent that he could ramble about anything.
The circumstances were horrible, the world had ended ten years ago, but by god Greg Veder rambling on was a universal constant.
She learned the most reliable method of sensing high-level gates was with ‘mana sensitives’, like Emma was. They apparently flew such hunters over the rural areas and the parts of the sea closest to land– within 100 or so miles– in a grid like pattern.
It wasn’t perfect, but it contained the most of it, and S-rank gates– the ones people were really worried about– were easier to spot. Supposedly.
There had been so few S-rank gates to test it on.
“Your watch only works in here because it’s analog.” Sophia said, once Casey had announced that two hours had passed. “Check your phone if you don’t believe me– nothing electrical works in a gate. Frankly, I’m surprised the watch works.”
“It’s mechanical.” Madison’s brother offered. “It’s a fancy one, my grandfather gives them to all the boys in our family. You have to keep it wound, since it’s powered by the tension on a spring– or something.”
“I asked for one of the kinetic ones for Christmas.” Joe said, as they stopped to eat– and drink some of their precious water.
Sophia had put her food down on catastrophizing. They were in a fucking red gate. If they died, it was going to be from B-rank+ monsters. No need to die hungry or thirsty.
“Kinetic?” Emma asked, in her ‘just asking to be polite’ tone. Taylor recognized it, and leaned into her oldest friend.
In a perverse way, she was grateful Emma was here.
Did she wish to god that the redhead was far away, that they had managed to throw her through the blue gate before it mutated? Yes. Of course.
But since she was here, Taylor took some comfort in her presence.
“Yeah.” Joe said, tone a little whimsical. “They’re powered passively by the motion of your wrist.”
Dylan snorted, making some sort of joke. Taylor didn’t quite get it. Something about the specific motion of his wrist, maybe?
A dig on how often he played video games? Except the gesture felt ruder than that. Joe shoved his friend with a laugh, and they started play-wrestling.
Emma leaned in.
“He made the jerking off gesture.” She explained, with the cool patience of someone who always explained that kind of thing to Taylor– who, also like always, blushed about it. “That’s stroking his penis, how boys masturbate.”
“I know what jerking off is.” Taylor coughed out. “Thanks, though.”
She bumped their shoulders together.
Emma always explained without rancour, not making Taylor feel stupid for the slang she didn’t know, the jokes that went over her head. Her best friend smiled at her.
“So…” Taylor started. “This is the worst sleepover I’ve ever had with you.”
Emma snorted, hard.
“That’s not true.” She said. “Remember that time we slept over at Charlotte and Emily’s house for their birthday, and stayed up til 2am giggling, and her dad was so mad he–”
Taylor immediately swatted at her arm, cringing hard.
“I thought your dad was going to kill him.” Emma continued, wheezing.
“I thought my dad was going to kill him. But only after my mom was through with him.” Taylor smiled despite herself.
The twins’ dad had spanked them for being up late, but then he’d turned around and spanked Emma and Taylor, too, who had been horrified, humiliated, and sobbing.
Alan Barnes had pressed charges for assault, or something like it, and the resulting shit storm had been so bad that the Banner family moved out of the bay entirely.
Or maybe that was to escape Annette Hebert, who had frankly wanted to toss the man into a dungeon gate.
Taylor raced for another memory, something to keep the bubble of normalcy going.
“Or the time Jessica Mcfarlan got super sick and projectile vomited all over me, you, and Anne.”
“Oh, my god!” Emma’s nose wrinkled. “I forgot about that. I told Anne for months that she had the worst friends ever, and shouldn’t be allowed to have sleepovers. It got in my hair.”
“You’re right, that was worse than this.” Taylor found a smile, edging her hand closer to where Emma’s rested between their legs. “At least nobody has thrown up on me. That was the worst way to find out that when Anne smells vomit, she immediately throws up, too.”
“That was pretty bad. We’ve had some pretty wild times, huh?” Emma took a deep breath, her smile going wobbly. “And… you were at my house when… when we found out about Aunt Annette.”
Emma’s pinkie finger tangled with Taylor’s, curling it around until their hands were touching.
“Yeah.” Taylor trailed off, voice choked up. “This isn’t as bad as that.
She was aware of the eyes on her curiously; and she had no intent to indulge them. She squeezed their hands together.
Looking around showed the rest of the party in other couples and trios finishing their water and snacks– mostly polishing off the entire box of granola bars Greg had dumped into his backpack.
Madison with her head half on Casey’s shoulder; Greg engaged with his cousin; Sophia, walking them and through how to swing their one, completely mundane, bowie knife.
Without magic, it would do nothing for them.
“Hey.” Emma said, squeezing her fingers tight. Her breath was coming out faster, whites of her eyes wide. “We’ll get through this, okay? Me and you. Always.”
“Always.” Taylor echoed, mustering a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
–
Chapter 3: Hopital
Always.
Always.
Always.
Emma’s red hair around her head, gray eyes lit up with tentative hope. The image glitching, fragments running across her vision, like static across a TV screen.
“We’ll get through this, okay? Me and you. Always.”
Always.
A̶l̴w̵a̴y̷s̸.
A̸̢̹̔̍l̶̮̯̿̓́͝w̷̧̻̭͍̓̎a̵̰̤̾͐̉ẙ̴̛̲̪̰͗́s̶͕̫̆.
Blood, running down Emma’s chin, the frozen smile never wavering. Premonitions whispering behind the photograph, the clash of metal, of screaming.
Dripping.
Taylor’s back on the stone of the altar.
Fire torn through the cobblestones, more like lava. A hand without a body, fingers twitching.
Screaming. Her or them?
But she was alone.
The sword swinging down. A boy, cut in half, the pieces slowly falling. Greg’s scream.
Please.
Madison curled up on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, hand at her ears, screaming. Screaming. Screaming. A boy crushed underfoot.
A flame going out.
Sophia, desperate hit and run attacks that did nothing, barely distracting a smiling god. Emma, near catatonic with fear,
The lesser god, the stone knight, stabbing through Taylor like a bale of hay, jerking her fragile mortal body onto the altar. Hitting it like a ragdoll, parts of her missing, the wounds screaming out.
Emma’s voice, bargaining, pleading. Sophia’s harsh tones. Madison whimpering. A blue flame going out. A blue flame going out. A blue flame going out.
Taylor’s back hitting the stone of the altar.
It should have been rough, should have bit into her shoulders right through the thin clothes. She was thrown onto it, after all.
A glaive pierced through her, the harsh sound of metal on stone as it pinned her completely. Blood spurting out of her mouth, as her eyes stared up, unseeing.
A pool of it under her, sticky and warm, and so cold– so fucking cold–
The endless ocean of agony, of despair. Desperation flooding her with adrenaline even as it leaked out with every pulse.
“A̷̹̽r̷͔̕e̶̳̋ ̸̧̋ý̷̖o̴̼̒ǘ̴̟ ̶̲̏r̵̪̈́e̸̲͌a̵̰̽d̴͖͆y̶͎͐ ̸̬̏n̴͎̒ő̴̤w̴̖͠?̶̰̓”
Trying to move despite the impalement, for it not to mean nothing, driving that shaft deeper into her chest.
“A̴̹͝h̵͙̍,̵̥̕ ̵͕̅I̷̬͒ ̴̲̏s̸̨͑e̴̺̚ē̵̩.̴̹͒ ̷̺̆J̷̢̓u̴̱̒s̶̪̎t̵͊͜ ̴̟̍a̸͈̽ ̸̲́l̷̜͂i̶̞͋t̴͙̉t̶̢͒ĺ̴͖e̷̻̅ ̷̥̒m̸̡̕o̷͉͗r̷̙̾e̷̝̕.̴͎̍”
Making it just a few inches up, pain so sharp it was her entire being, all of her one massive wound. Wet fingers clutching at the shaft, jostling it, trying to get free.
Pressure, shoving her down. The static as white noise, as something almost voices, whispering from all around plunged the room into a single tone, a loud echoing refrain.
“T̵̮̫̤̲̳̍h̴̛̝͈̳̳̊̑̚͠ȇ̷̙̲͓͓̾r̶͍̋̅e̸̠̜̺͈̅ ̸̫̲̳̞̈́̓́͂y̷̡͓͇̽͑̅̑o̶̗̩͙͇̽̓̈́ų̴̤̖̤̙̊̊ ̷̧͔̞̄ͅa̵̙̩̿͋͐̐́r̷̗͈̊̍͛͐͆ê̶̠͇͠.̸̲̟̹͖̃̐.”
Taylor’s heartbeat, drowning out everything else as she drowned on a scream. As her eyes widened and tears spilled over, as darkness took her vision–
She could almost hear it, past the tone like a heart monitor giving out, the keening tinnitus as her world narrowed in.
As the black knight rose his sword high overhead and slammed—
it
down.
“Ǎ̶̢̛͚̰͎͉̙̜̦͎̫̭̭̝̟̳̳̒̍̓̄̎̿͛̂͑̆̅͗͐̓͜͠r̵̉́̊́́is̷̢̧͖̩͇̩̙̻͎͈̠̤̼͉̞̽̈ḛ̸̰͖̓̇̄̒͊͒̎͌̀͂́͘͘͘͠.”
–
The body of a young woman jerks up in the hospital bed, sheets flying.
Her chest is heaving, curls a riot down her back and over her arms in disarray. Her vision, blurry without glasses, stuck on the falling swing of a massive sword that might as well have been an axe, ready to finish it.
Taylor gasped, hand groping out for her glasses. She needed her glasses. She couldn’t see without her glasses, wasn’t safe, wasn’t–
Sophia’s tear-stricken, bloody face, screaming at her.
Taylor jerked like she’d been slapped.
Or, as she now had the experience to say, like her leg had been shorn off by impossibly strong monsters.
Tongue heavy in her mouth, sweat coating her temples, she fought and clawed to get the sheet off her lap. It went easily, yanked away to reveal–
Two legs, completely whole.
Amelia Lavere herself could have healed it, if she was right there when it happened. Maybe a handful of other S-rank hunter mages worldwide. No one else.
“Taylor!” Her dad shouted, hands clapping down on her shoulders.
Both shoulders.
Pressure, bearing down on her, the pressure of a dozen smiling gods, fangs pulled up into something macramer. The entire room like a gravity chamber, pulling down on her, bloodlust so strong she couldn’t move, fear so cloying it painted the air with the stench of piss and copper.
“Taylor!” Her dad said, softer this time but further away, and Taylor swam up to meet him.
She fought her way from the hands on her, the hands holding her down, and suddenly they were gone.
“Dad.” She gasped. “Emma– Emma, Sophia!”
Except it wasn’t her dad. It was Uncle Alan, hovering over her like he was scared to touch, expression greatly concerned.
“They’re fine, Emma’s fine.” Alan Barnes approached again, looking badly like he wanted to hug her.
Taylor appreciated his restraint.
Touch her, now? Touch her skin? She already wanted to claw it off, chest heaving.
How high up was she? How high up were they? The high god’s bloody, fanged grin– looking around showed only a hospital room.
A familiar hospital room.
“St. Lavere’s?” She asked, voice hoarse like. Well. Like she’d been screaming.
Had she ever stopped?
Whatever had healed her leg should have healed her throat, but maybe there wasn’t enough mana to spare.
Uncle Alan held out a cup of water, extremely worried by his hovering, and Taylor took it with what she, absently, noted was a completely whole arm.
The leg she lost pushing Emma away.
The arm she lost buying them time.
Funny that she still had them. She’d already said goodbye.
Even the slash across her collar was gone, the lightest of her injuries.
So was the gaping hole in her chest, the thrust that had lifted her, a bloody-gasping body held aloft, painted in ghastly shadows by the light flooding the room from one last blue flame.
The halberd, or spear, or whatever it was that had pinned her down to the altar so firmly, it had embedded deep into the stone beneath her.
She remembered, because she had not given up; had assumed, perhaps rightly, that she was already dying, that it was not possible to hurt herself more, that she only had those last few seconds to either accept it or fight.
The outcome would be the same either way.
And in those few seconds she chose to live, forcing her body up, up, up the shaft of the weapon, the sick sucking noise, the refusal to be pinned down, to be trapped, to lay down and take it.
She’d barely made it a couple inches up, each moment agony, before the blade of judgement swung down.
Uncle Alan said something. Something about a doctor, or a healer.
She didn’t watch him go. Taylor’s fist clenched in the sheet next to her leg. She wished for a piece of paper. This felt like something to write down.
A smile, wan and tired, tipped her lips a little, under the curtain of her hair.
At least I know now, she thought.
It was something everyone wondered, but few ever bothered to put in to words. When it’s my time, how will I go? On my feet? Brave?
Begging?
Taylor hadn’t begged.
She’d screamed. Fingers slick-slipping on the massive intrusion in her chest, trying to pull it out, even as the blade swung down.
She hadn’t begged for a second chance, for mercy, or to live.
Taylor had demanded it.
And if she couldn’t write it down, she’d speak it, no matter how hoarse her voice was.
“You were right. Mom.” She laughed, a dry cackle. Somehow the water cup had been crushed, its contents splashing clean and honest onto her lap. “Do not go gentle into that goodnight.”
The gentle click of a door opening, of footsteps too soft to hear. Hunter-soft.
“Rage, rage, against the dying of light.” A soft voice said, a bored thing with only the barest touch of interest. “Dylan Thomas. I take it you’re a fan?”
“M–” Taylor tried to speak, and found her voice outright refusing, irritated by her stubbornness. The healer pressed another cup of water into her hand, this one made of metal. “My mother was.”
“Ah.” The hunter helped her drink, an unexpected mercy.
Then again, healers were a certain type.
“What brings you to my sick bed, Hunter Lavere?”
“I see my reputation precedes me.” The girl sighed, almost imperceptible underneath the dawning guise of professionalism, as the brief spark of interest– of amusement– died.
Oddly, Taylor thought that was a damn shame.
Then again, she’d been given something of a wake up call, about lost opportunities and second chances.
The rush of drums, of fear, of blood; a pale face looking back, unseeing–
Taylor’s hand clenched tight but the cup didn’t crumple, this time.
“Emma– Emma Barnes. Sophia Hess. Are they– did they–?” Tears welled up, so unexpected she didn’t even try to fight them at first. A flood of stress and fatigue oozing out and over now that the danger had passed.
The healer was a hunter. She understood.
Amelia Lavere’s hand came down on Taylor’s free one.
“They made it out alive. They’re safe.” She said firmly, looking Taylor directly in the eye with no trace of subterfuge.
Something dark and terrified in Taylor’s chest unclenched viciously. She thought for a moment it was the spear, cleaving her from behind; tensed, went to jerk to the side, to dodge.
Amelia caught her, two hands on her shoulders. Pulsed her own mana so bright it filled the room, like the sound of bells. Something holy. Something made of light.
It chased the darkness away.
Made of light, but not soft. Searing. Immaculate. Singing of the cleanse of evil, of despair, of death.
It burned on Taylor’s skin, and some of the taint of the dungeon hissed and sizzled as it left her.
Taylor felt like she could breathe again.
Oh, right. S-rank healing magic. Those statues had been S-rank, too. She didn’t think what Amelia had just done would have beaten them, not really. They were in a whole other class.
But Taylor would have chewed off her second arm to have that kind of light down there with her, as she climbed out of hell.
“They found you.” Amelia started, not moving away. The robe of her mage armor pressing against Taylor’s temple where the hood was pulled up. “In that S-rank dungeon. The red gate. Your clothes were torn, and there was so much blood that you should have been dead. Hunter Hess was practically feral to get to you.”
“They’re alive?” Taylor’s numb lips chose to repeat the obvious instead of process that.
“Yes.” Amelia pulled back, a hand– glowing now– settling along Taylor’s forehead as she talked. “Hunter Hess, Awakened Civilian Emma Barnes, Greg Veder and Madison Clements survived the red gate with you. It is nothing short of a miracle.”
Taylor’s hand shot up, clenching tight around the healer’s wrist. For a moment, the mana of an S-rank mage… paused. Not quite threat, but a sharpening of intent, of focus. The weight of that power shifting for half a beat before it resumed its work.
“This is a miracle.” Taylor said, gesturing to it. Her hand fell limply in her lap. “That? That was the opposite.”
Her throat tightened up the moment she tried to speak of it. To put words to the horror. It felt like something her body had done, not her brain– something her mind had balked at, for all that she’d had to figure out– to learn, to watch, to react, faster–
“Nothing is wrong with you.” Amelia pulled back, her hand falling slowly and calmly away from Taylor’s forehead. “Except, of course, that you’ve likely reawakened.”
“Re… awakened.” Taylor said, voice again scratchy. She rose the water to her parched throat and drank deeply this time.
“Yes. Some members of the PRT are here to speak about your status. They wanted my assurance that you were well–or as well as you could be– before getting your statement.”
Right. Her statement.
“They want to know what happened.” Taylor said flatly, looking around and trying to see— see what was here, and not there. Flashes of it when she blinked, when she closed her eyes, when strange light beckoned out of the corner of her eye.
They didn’t ask her to describe it.
The two hunters who came in when Amelia left– one strong, the other barely on the scale.
Taylor didn’t want to talk to them. Her uncle wasn’t back yet. Both fists clenched in the sheets as they ambushed her, trapped her, got between her and the door.
The strong hunter, the blonde, paused midstep. Realized. Put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. Spoke with him quietly, and the other man in the suit left without more than a nod.
“So. Reawakening, huh?”
The casual tone of voice took her off guard.
But he didn’t ask her to describe it.
So she shook her head.
“I don’t know what happened down there.” She admitted, in her hoarse voice that water hadn’t fixed. “But it wasn’t… that.”
“You didn’t feel a rush of power, a surge of mana within you?”
“Honestly?”
The hospital room faded. Taylor was screaming again, her chest tight– leaking– impaled, her arm gone, bleeding out. Pressure screaming down on her, the horror and the rushing wind–
And the box in front of her eyes, her peeled-wide eyes, her pinprick pupils, and all the blood and dirt trying to block them– as all of that ground to a, like a god holding its breath.
Her cracked and broken glasses, her heaving– would-be heaving, if it wasn’t penetrated— chest, the gurgle of blood bubbling in her throat. Bubbling, which she knew was bad, and the vision dimming, the black spots floating, the fact that her arm and leg had been cut off and she’d been stabbed through the chest.
The sword had paused overhead, just past the apex of its swing. Ready to crash down on her.
Notification. Your heart will stop in .02 seconds if you do not accept. Will you accept?
The box that was in front of her now, that she had to look past to see amber eyes.
“No.” Taylor said, after visibly chewing on it. “I’m not magically stronger. I don’t know how I survived. And… I don’t think you can Reawaken if you’re not a hunter in the first place.”
The man’s mouth fell open.
“Forgive me, I don’t think I introduced myself. I’m Ethan Newman, an A-rank hunter with the Oversight Division of the Paranormal Response Teams.”
Taylor stared blankly at him.
“And you’re Taylor Hebert.” He leaned forward. Wearing sunglasses indoors was certainly a choice, one that made him look straight out of a movie– or the Secret Service. His suit was black but he wore no tie, the buttons of his white dress shirt undone at the top.
She nodded.
“And you’re absolutely sure neither yourself, or Mr. Greg Veder, or Miss Madison Clements awakened within the past week, prior to approaching the gate?”
Her confusion must have shown because in a shockingly unprofessional display, he ran a hand through his hair with a groan.
“Pity. It would have been a lot easier on the paperwork side of things if you had been a group of newly awakened hunters entering a gate.” The man slumped. “Sorry, that’s likely not what you want to hear. And a bit inappropriate, all things said.”
Screaming, screaming, screaming, crying, fear, cut in half, the foot steps, the fire. The names he didn’t say.
Joe. Dylan. Casey.
“Here ‘ya go.”
Movement, and Taylor flinched, seeing the limb of a statue coming for her. She threw up her hands on instinct, body trying to fall out of the bed to get away.
The sphere landed in her lap.
She picked it up. Forced her throat to move.
“What’s this?”
“Mana detector. A good one. Short of the massive one at the PRT headquarters, it’s the most accurate kind that exists. As a matter-of-fact, it’s actually a prototype.” Ethan actually winked. “Let’s not tell Armsmaster I nicked it for a good cause.”
“… Is it supposed to do something?” Taylor held it up in both hands, looking down. She still felt drained. Scraped raw. All of her organs pulled out by a red gate and red lightning and blood-strewn stone weapons.
“Jesus. Not even one?” Ethan plucked it out of her grip. “Sorry to say, you’re not registering as magical at all, to our most sensitive device. A pity. It would have made things easier.”
He stood.
“Is that a threat?” Taylor asked.
“No. It’s actually an unfortunate failure on our parts. You kids should have never been able to get close to that gate. While you should refrain from trespassing in the future, the fact is that it’s our job to secure gates, and your job to stay the hell away from them. Capische?”
Taylor was already nodding, perhaps a touch too fervent.
Ethan opened his mouth to say more, but the door opened– and her uncle poked his head in, expression stormy.
“I’m truly sorry for what happened down there. For your friends. The Parahuman Response Team will not be pressing any charges for the unlawful entering of an unsecured gate. Thank you for your cooperation in our investigation, Miss Hebert.”
“Hey!” A male voice sounded, familiar enough to make her heart pound. The hand on the door didn’t pause, pushing out past where Alan Barnes tried to stop it.
“No need to be concerned, Mr. Barnes.” The agent slipped his hands into his pockets far too casually. “There will be no charges and the investigation is dropped. If you’d like to present a complaint to my supervisor for questioning your ward without a guardian present, my name is Ethan Newman, Oversight Division of the Paranormal Response Teams. However, questioning a witness is well within the purview of my office.”
“Interrogating a minor without a parent or guardian present isn’t.” Alan said tightly.
Ethan shrugged, a fluid role of his shoulders.
“Questioning, not interrogating. There’s no prohibition for non-custodial questioning of minors within New Jersey law.” He smiled a little. “Regardless, you’ll find that our federal remit when it comes to Hunters and Gates exceeds state protections. Good day, Mr. Barnes.”
The agent pulled a hand from his pocket just to give a lazy-wristed wave, two fingers higher than the others.
Alan took a deep breath before turning to Taylor. He waited several long beats to ensure the other man was out of earshot and that he had composed himself.
“Did that jackass say anything to you?”
Despite the fear and shame crawling in her belly, Taylor laughed. It was sharp, sudden and she hastily brought a hand up to cover her mouth.
She opened her mouth to tell him, only for her breath to catch in her throat. The tightness in her chest became unbearable.
Taylor found she couldn’t speak, lip trembling. Her voice hitched. Fat tears welled and fell down her face for long moments before she could work her voice up enough, Alan growing more and more concerned.
“I-I’m so-so sorry.” Fists clenched in the sheets, she forcibly uncurled her fingers to wipe at her cheeks.
He reached for her slowly, strong hands coming to her shoulders.
“Oh, Taylor, no. It’s not your fault. It’s not.”
“They– they– all–” Her words didn’t make sense. He pulled her into a hug, where her wet eyes got his shirt damp. Flashes of it hit her again, of horrible things worse than any movie. Someone cut in half. The sounds. The smells. The horror thick in her throat, the fear, the panic.
“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re okay. Emma’s okay. That’s all that matters.”
Taylor buried her face and sobbed.
–