Sleep’s departure rakes its claws across my mind, drawing forth a groan of dismay and dumping me, disoriented, into another rough morning. Of course, with curtains drawn, it’s easy enough to ignore the sun’s opinion of what time of day it might actually be—the two of us haven’t been on speaking terms since I got sick.
I sit up, scrubbing at my face with hands still heavy with sleep. But something about it feels off. Wrong. Fingers trace unfamiliar lumps and angles, run through hair just a little too wavy to be right. A groan of complaint escapes me. With joints popping, I heave myself upright.
First the nightstand: ring and amulet atop it, staff leaning against. It would be foolish to leave behind my armaments, even on a trip across a hallway to the bathroom.
The door creaks open with a sound like a sharp-toothed smile, expressing amusement at some joke I’m not supposed to be privy to. Still, I’m not so blind as my enemies would have me believe, and I don’t need to read the omens splattered in water stains around the sink to feel that something nasty is coming. Someone’s attention pours through the window’s unblinking stare, but I brandish the ring on my hand to ward it away so I may inspect myself in the mirror.
Whoever that is across the glass—staring at me with haggard face, eyes blinking and bleary—is a complete stranger to me, recognizable only by the presence of my amulet dangling below the neck. With a sigh, I mentally lower my expectations for the day down a notch.
Alright. Straighten my spine, heft my staff with one hand toward the ceiling. Splay the fingers of the other wide and curl them gently to grip magic’s weave. Right hand above my head, left in front of my chest. A quarter rotation back into alignment: that’s all I need. It’s all I can afford to need.
I strain with the effort, moving my arms by slow increments to haul the great mass of the Real back into synchrony as though turning a ship’s wheel. There, the familiar burn bursts into wakefulness, coursing through my chest and down my arms. Annihilation wracks my nerves, bleeding through quivering fingertips, pinpricks of darkness blooming by degrees, ink the color of my affliction spreading its stain across tissue paper skin.
I bite my tongue to keep from howling in pain. A lens refocuses. A measure of familiarity graces the shape of my eyes and mouth. I sweat with effort, slipping, slipping, eyes watering, vision wavering, muscles trembling. Then my stomach revolts, a dizzy spell overtaking me. I falter and fail before I manage the quarter turn. My staff falls from my hands, and doubling over, it’s all I can do to catch myself against the counter and narrowly avoid a fall. This will suffice. It has to.
Deep breaths, girl. Don’t use your own magic. You can squelch the vomit without.
The voice might be my own thoughts—the other me, the me-that-was, a silhouette I no longer fit—offering advice so easy to think and so hard to do. Nevertheless I manage to keep myself from retching until the nausea passes. One breath. Two breaths. Three. I can’t stifle the sob that breaks through my clenched throat, but at least I don’t make a mess on the floor.
I’ve been doing this too long. I’m supposed to be done. I can barely find my way back to myself. Yet slowly, breath by breath, I regain stability in my legs and lift my head off the counter. Carefully, I bend over to retrieve my staff.
Did I call myself “girl” just then? Is that normal for me? Is it old or new?
Let’s get some food for now. It might help clear your mind.
Right. Still need to feed what’s left of me. My apartment grows increasingly labyrinthine with each passing day, but I’m accustomed to the process of navigating it. I need no spell more complex than keeping my right hand against the wall while I trace a path from room to room.
Floorboards creek. A thump replies from above. A distant siren underscores the message. I’m either too lucid or not lucid enough to translate the collective threat into plain language, but it’s clear someone is trying to communicate ill-intent through a deluge of signs and portents. My fist clenches around my ring, drawing from the protective circle of the talisman in lieu of conjuring my own wards.
This is the place. Count the doors.
So many of them. I lose track before counting even a fraction of the doors looming throughout this room. A dizzying array of possibilities stretches before me. Too many portals by far for any room but my destination. This must be the room that calls itself “kitchen.”
A systematic search is best. I start with the closest doors and methodically open each of them, foraging for anything edible. Canned goods, tiny treasures requiring their specialized key, might as well be locked away in a bank vault, but—oh!—this door opens to reveal the inside of the fridge, and one plastic container I find within looks promising. Inside I discover a downright edible brown sludge. Glancing around, there are no utensils in reach. The confounding proliferation of remaining doors feels far too daunting to attack, so I swallow my pride and begin to shovel cold slop into my mouth by hand.
Before long, I’m interrupted by the change in the air and the sound of a door opening. In alarm, my meal slips from my hands to clatter noisily on the tiles, spilling across the floor while I hurriedly scan the area for possible angles of attack.
An intrusion. An enemy, arriving to make good on its threat? This is not an ideal battleground, but then, it so rarely is. Whatever approaches, I can’t let it sneak up behind me.
Heavy footsteps grow louder as they approach, and before I can settle on an appropriately defensible position, a figure appears in one of the countless doorways leading here. Its gaze falls on me like a hammer. It’s blocking the only exit. With nowhere to run, I brace myself for attack.
“Aw, hell, Robin.” The figure speaks with unexpected gentleness, casting an eye across the scene. “Bad day?”
The name has a familiar lilt, and by the touch of its magic I feel another small piece of myself settle into place again. An inkling, only, but a feeling that I should grant this person a measure of honesty.
She’s not a threat. We can trust her. Do not let fear keep you from the support of an ally.
I manage a silent nod. For all the danger looming over today, for all I feel the need to be on guard deep in my bones, I can recognize when I need help. At least this person seems to know who I am.
Good. Remember all the battles you never could have faced down without your friends at your side?
I don’t, actually. I grasp for recollection and pull back handfuls of tar, grazing just enough of the past to imagine a scene of light and shadow, voices shouting indistinctly, faces smudged and faded. Whatever scrap of memory I’m trying to haul from the depths remains stubbornly out of reach.
“Don’t worry, your wife is here now. I’ve got you.”
I’m married? The information slots into place, nestling in a corner of my mind made to fit it. Like my name, this must also be true. I brush the ring—my wedding ring—with my thumb, taking comfort in the promise it represents. I have a wife. I’m not alone in this! Distrust evaporates; a relieved, if embarrassed, smile spreads across my face, my mood buoyed as I’m led to wash my hands at the sink.
As the anxiety recedes, speaking aloud comes a bit more easily. “Thank you, yeah. Hard morning.”
“It’s evening. Have you been in bed all day again?” Worry furrows her brow. “Are you still feeling up for going out? If it’s a bad day, we can cancel.”
No, no, no, don’t worry her. She deserves better.
“It’s fine!” I put on my most reassuring tone of voice. “I was a little confused earlier, I admit. Waking up tends to be disorienting, you know. But I always do so much better with you around, don’t I?”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course! Besides, it’s been a while since we’ve seen everyone,” I guess. In response to her doubtful look, I give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I really think an evening out will help get me out of this funk.”
And maybe our friends can help us stand against the coming threat.
She visibly relaxes. Another small victory. “Okay. If you’re sure. Let me help you pick out something decent to wear.”
Every little task becomes much more tractable, familiar even, with my wife’s help. Before long I’m dressed and in the car, watching a blur of almost-recognized streets and buildings streak by.
The whole city’s haunted.
That’s a truth I can never forget, however moth-eaten my mind becomes. Dread seeps from every lengthening shadow. Streetlights wink on in patterns written just for me to read. I reflexively parse the conspiracy written in secret sequences of illuminated bulbs. I don’t say anything aloud, of course. My wife doesn’t need to know about what lurks beneath the surface. Even if I’m too far gone to protect the world, I can still protect her.
“Hey, Robin. We’re here.”
She leads me into a restaurant, pausing to scan the crowd once we’re inside. Looks like a popular place on a… well, whatever day it is. A corkboard near the entrance shows an events calendar for the month of March. Tuesday’s trivia night. Someone in the neighborhood is offering piano lessons. The soup of the day is clam chowder. It’s all so mundane and normal, and perusing all the thumbtacked notices makes me feel a little more grounded in Reality.
“Oh look, Sam and Faye did get here first! Right over there, you see? They grabbed a booth in the corner.” My wife points, and I catch sight of someone waving us over from across the room. “Hey, Sam!” She waves back, then leads me by the hand.
Leaning on my staff, I make a show of not needing my wife’s support as we work our way through the crowd. Once we’re seated, I direct a warm smile at the both of them. “Hey, you two! It’s so good to see you again! Wow, how long has it been?”
“March, wasn’t it?” The reply comes from the one my wife hadn’t addressed—Faye, by process of elimination—and I don’t miss the scowl my wife directs to her.
I respond before my wife can scold her for testing me. “That’s this month, Faye. Come on, even I know that.”
“Sorry! Sorry!” A sheepish shrug accompanies a pleased grin. “I’m just glad to see you’re doing alright today.”
“Some days are better than others,” my wife says, but the relief in her voice suggests that she’s also comforted by me passing the pop quiz. “And today I think we’re both happy to be out and about like normal.”
Normal. No, what’s “normal” slips further away with each passing day. From palm to fingertips, my hand still tingles, nerves buzzing as though made of ants—the lingering aftereffects of this morning’s half-finished spellcasting—and each time I allow myself to touch magic I drift a little more from the world my loved ones occupy. It barely resembles itself. I barely resemble me.
Annihilation will take it all, one day.
It’s funny how I still remember the term for my affliction, even if I’ve lost both the name and face of the person who warned me about overdosing on Unreality. The Real possesses no treatment for severe magic poisoning, and the Unreal’s touch can only exacerbate the condition. My mind has gone wrong, and with every spell, every cherished technique, the undertow carries me deeper under the waves.
A knock startles me from my rumination. I glance over Sam’s shoulder to a painting hanging on the wall. No, not a painting, a portal. A malicious grin hides in the curve of some pastoral hillside, and the thing behind the picture whispers to me in a voice only I can hear.
“You’re dead,” it tells me, its words congealing within the murmur of the restaurant crowd in patterns for my ears alone. “Tonight. My sweet revenge. I saved you for last.”
Don’t. No more magic, remember?
I hesitate before completing the banishing gesture under the table, and fortunately the presence withdraws itself on its own anyway.
“…yeah, Ana Heafton. You remember? Robin’s friend?” A snippet of conversation from Sam catches my attention. “Supposedly she was more or less fine the day before.”
Faye glances at me, as if to assess whether I react appropriately. Another little test.
My wife puts her hand on my leg, giving me a small squeeze of comfort as she comes to my rescue. “You always told me that you, Bun, and Ana were inseparable in high school, didn’t you, love?”
“Right,” I reply mechanically. The implicit lie tastes like ash in my mouth. These names spark no specific recollection, but the feeling of dread crawling up my spine intensifies. “Has Bun heard the news yet?”
The looks of concern, disappointment, and pity I get in response to that question tell me I failed the social interaction. Somehow, that was the wrong thing to ask.
Sam speaks first. “She, ah…” Hesitation, groping for words gentle enough to coddle my apparent fragility. “Back in November—”
“She’s fine,” Faye interrupts. My wife shoots her a nasty look, but she blusters onward. “C’mon, if Robin’s going to keep forgetting, you don’t want to make her relive the same loss over and over again, do you? Just let her believe her fucking high school friends are still alive!”
“Don’t infantilize her! She has a hard enough time without you pushing her deeper into a fantasy world!”
Even without memories of any specific instance, their argument has the texture of a familiar path, well trod.
They’re doing it again. Talking about you like you’re not even here.
“Hey.” All it takes is one word from me, and everyone remembers I’m still there, still listening. They go quiet. “You know what would be nice? If you could talk about them. Reminders help. I want to remember.”
This, at least, Faye is happy to oblige. I learn she went to the same school as us, and even if she and I weren’t close back then, she has plenty to say about me and the other two and what we got up to in our school days.
The details slip through my fingers almost as soon as I hear them, but I do my best to follow along. Apparently the three of us were somewhat notorious, as most stories involve us getting in trouble of some kind or another, skipping out on school in the middle of the day, confessing responsibility for inexplicable acts of destruction of school property, even one time going missing for a whole week.
In the Netherian Oubliette, remember?
The name pokes its head above the tar for a moment, accompanied by the sinister laughter of a Countess. We had to—
No. Gone again.
Sam’s laughter at these tales of our audacity draws a smile on my face. “Robin, I swear, if Faye isn’t exaggerating, I’m surprised any of you managed to graduate. You were real troublemakers, huh?”
“It’s the honest truth!” Faye insists. “But you can’t really blame them. They never talked about it, but I’m pretty sure they all had a bad life at home. Always coming to school with, y’know, bruises and scrapes.” She takes a sip of iced tea and another glance at me, her mouth twisting in pity again. “Probably why they were so close. They were always covering for each other.”
Robin’s confusion is evident on her face. This is not a story she’s heard before. She looks to me as if to ask something, then shakes her head to dismiss the impulse and orders another margarita.
Faye continues on, pity slipping toward bitterness. “It’s not right for a kid to need the support of a fucking cane when she comes to school. I kinda can’t believe that old thing is still holding up.” She nods to where I’ve propped my staff next to me. “Maybe her parents got her an especially nice one out of guilt or some shit.”
“Maybe the world outside school is just a dangerous place,” I counter, uncomfortable with these implications.
Sam nods thoughtfully. “Could be urban exploring. Especially if Robin never talked about any kind of, uh, home problems or anything. Who knows what kind of places they got into? Hey, Robin, does that ring any bells?”
“I think so,” I lie. “I’m pretty sure we visited a lot of places that kids probably shouldn’t…”
Unless they had to.
“Alright, I guess.” Faye shrugs. “And maybe you all got exposed to toxic waste or, or… I dunno, nuclear radiation or something while playing hooky together. It might explain how all three—” Faye suddenly stops herself. Then quietly, sadly, she finishes. “I mean, none of this really makes sense, does it?”
She means my condition. My friends dead. Were they also riddled with Annihilation, or is this all part of a larger plot against us? “I saved you for last” is what the monster behind the painting told me. Everything in this conversation. Every omen at home, every hint I read in the streetlights, every clue I parse from the snippets of chatter drifting from the crowd—it’s all connected. If I can just hold enough pieces of this riddle in my mind at once, I might be able to trace the shape of the threat.
Do I even know for sure this restaurant isn’t part of the plot against me? Could be the food here is poisoned. I don’t know how deep their schemes go anymore. Is the waiter in on it? Could Sam and Faye be? How would I even know if they were replaced by impostors? That’s a sobering thought. I should be wary, but I shouldn’t say anything to tip my hand before my enemies make their move.
Don’t say anything. She’ll think you’re paranoid.
I touch my ring under the table, drawing strength from it. Hiding my worries, I smile and nod and play my role as best I can through the rest of the awkward dinner. No attacks yet.
Before long I’m back in the car and driving us home. It strikes me as unwise for me to be the one behind the wheel, but my wife had a few too many drinks, and I find I can mostly get by on muscle memory as long as I have someone by my side to remind me of our route.
Soon we’re back in the apartment, with my wife getting handsy. Instinct covers the gaps in my mind as her mouth devours mine and my knee presses between her legs. Her hot breath on my neck and the cool touch of her fingers gliding over my chest help me forget that there’s anything wrong in my life. For a moment, I even forget the danger we’re in.
A mistake. There’s a tremble in the air. A low hum beneath ordinary perception builds in strength until my feet and back feel the tremors reverberating through the floor and the walls. Lights flicker. An unnatural wind blows down the hall.
Get her out of here. Protect her. Without magic.
My wife would surely notice the ominous presence if she were sober. A small mercy that she doesn’t while I coax her into leading me to the bathroom. I close the door behind me and grip my staff with determination.
“Let’s get this over with.”
I issue my challenge to the dark, steeling myself for a confrontation with a new Blightsoul for the first time in longer than I can remember, as laughably short as that duration may be. A touch of forgotten confidence graces my posture, inspiring me to stand up a little straighter. My friends and I were putting monsters like this down long before I learned how to drive, and that muscle memory assures me I’m not quite helpless yet.
“I don’t know who you are, but I hate to keep my wife waiting, so come on already.”
The night laughs, darkness congealing into invisible presence, its throaty cackle a rusty scrape in my ears. “No matter how many years have passed, you know me. Do not pretend otherwise. Did you really think that cage could hold forever?”
Staff to amulet. “Let the light be rejoined!” My weapon, Silver’s Grace, awaits only the touch of my soul through the gateway in my heart. “By the will of—”
The world lurches around me. The walls seethe and warp, corners multiply, paths obscure themselves, and tar floods the channel from soul to staff. Fingers loose their grip, dropping my weapon before it even materializes. As my knees buckle, I barely catch myself on the bathroom counter once again.
“Too soft to fight?” My enemy’s voice taunts me. “Even you? Has a life of peace truly sapped my jailers so thoroughly? Almost a pity to end it like this.”
Shit. The voice projects a terrifying amount of power, and my options are limited. My friends aren’t here to back me up, and I have no doubt this thing will kill my wife when it’s done with me.
I clench my fist around the ring. It is, after all, a symbol of protection. For her. My vow. Whatever the cost, I will not allow her to come to harm.
Don’t do it.
I’m not the person I once was. I can’t play this the way I might once have.
That much magic…
But this thing doesn’t actually know what’s wrong with me, does it?
…will end you.
And if you can’t win a straight fight, you cheat.
Hands to my chest, I dig my fingers in at the sternum and pull. Through magic’s weave, through the skin, through the fibers of muscle and hope and ribs and deeper, deeper, into the oozing tar within the essence of self, the filth that congeals where divinity meets mortality, where soul meets heart.
My enemy lunges, too hasty to care, too ravenous to notice the danger as I rend the barrier between Real and Unreal in time to catch my assailant in a burst of raw, directed magic. Arms open wide, I embrace the Blightsoul with the maelstrom of my own Annihilation-plagued soul.
Soul Vortex: a technique orders of magnitude more demanding than the one I performed this morning. It’s the last spell I’ll ever cast.
Annihilation no longer crawls through me, it floods me, gushing from every pore in my skin, tears of pitch spilling from my eyes, inky bile cascading out my mouth. For once, I don’t fight the affliction; I make a weapon out of it. No matter how my mind instinctively recoils at the intrusion of my enemy, I force myself to swallow it whole in order to drown it in my own doom.
With all the strength of my soul, I cling to my enemy and dive, hauling us both into the abyss of corrosion inside me. It screams—but its terror amounts to no more than a speck next to the howling storm wracking me through and through.
As the monster and I dissolve together, I strain my voice to tell my wife, one last time, that I love her.
Silence. There is nothing but the dark. A hand moves of its own accord. Weak and shaking, it collides with a lever. Numb fingers struggle to push, pull, and twist, until at last the door relents, opening to unleash an agonizing blast of light.
A figure takes advantage of the momentary blindness to spring an ambush. Wrist grabbed, quailing with fear, the witless target of this assault is hauled through dimensionless passageways and then flung onto soft bedding. Clothes are stripped and discarded so that the stranger may take what it wants.
Lips move, but the words make no sound.