Kait ran up a hill as pain surged through her body. She felt exhausted. Each step was laboring work, but she needed to get away from them. That was her dying wish. It seemed like forever before she finally stopped in front of an alcove, hoping to seek shelter. Her eyes were wet with tears. Her life would never be what it once was. They were all dead, and unless she used the spell, she knew she would follow soon...

She stumbled to the stone wall and pressed her cheek on its surface, feeling water that trickled down the stone and onto her cheek. Then, she fell and reclined her back on the wall.

As Kait was dazed, she couldn’t notice three silent, armed soldiers, covered head to toe in armor walked along the wall, shrouded in enough of the shade just enough to sneak up on her. One of them had their sword drawn, and the others stood ready. Kait finally saw them and instinctively tried to run, and for just a moment, she moved her arms, prepared to launch herself up and dash away, but a wave of lethargy crashed upon her, and she quickly fell limply back onto the stone wall. She was as good as dead. There was no running now. The man’s sword touched her neck, and she lowered her hands in defeat and slumped, ready to die. Her friend had told her to use the catalyst, to save herself...but did she really want to? Would it not betray the bonds she’d made her whole life if she were the only one to survive the massacres?

The other two men surrounded her, and the sword was brought further from her neck in preparation to kill her. Was she not destined to die anyway? If she chose to live, how would her life change? Emotions passed upon Kait’s face, changing rapidly and indistinguishably.

“Prepine ta Dennth for ye sin,” the man said before swinging the sword towards her neck.

Did she want to live, even when she’d lost her purpose? Was it worth it to prolong her life and avoid the fate of her friends...did she fear death?

Time seemed to slow, even as death swiftly brought its edge down. As Kait blew one last breath out, her indistinguishable expressions were lost in the ultimatum of one emotion, the most primal of them all. Fear.

Her next breath would come hundreds of years later.

Hailey woke up afterward in a sweat, something nagging at her consciousness. She dressed sloppily and walked out of her room. She’d noticed that she kept sleeping longer and longer hours each day, and as of right now, It was noon. Oh well, more sleep was more healthy. She paced with a determined lack of vigor to the bathroom and picked out her toothbrush when she was inside. She just held it in her hands for a minute, melancholy and bored. Her brother was still at school, unlucky him. She started brushing her teeth with a blank expression. There was a knock on the door.

“Could I come in?”

“Sure, I wash jusht brushinng mu teeth,” Hailey said through the toothpaste. Kait walked in, her red hair a ridiculous mess. Not that her hair was much better than Hailey’s, though. For some reason, Hailey noted, Kait wore an armband, despite not putting in the effort to change out of her pajamas. She kept finding herself waking up at the same time as Kait, but this was the first time she had been with her so early in the morning. Well, as early as noon was for the two of them.

Hailey finished and put away her toothbrush, and when she looked to the side, Kait was about to go to the restroom in front of her.

Hailey didn’t know what exact time period the woman came from, but the sacred practices of the bathroom were not to be disrespected! “Eww, Don’t do that in front of me!” Hailey scurried out of the bathroom and closed the door. “And only lift up one lid! Unless you’re secretly a boy, in which case, I correct myself.”

“Oh, sorry,” Kait said through the door.

Hailey started to take a step away from the door, then hesitated and turned back. She blurted out, “I had a dream...where I was you. You were running from some people, then when they caught up to you I think you casted a spell or something.”

Hailey heard a sigh come from the bathroom.

“I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that was when you lept into the future, right? Why did I see one of your memories?”

“I probably accidentally shared a memory of mine with you with my magic...and you’re right, that was when I put myself into stasis.”

“Stasis?”

“Yeah. My friend...she...” A sad sigh came from behind the door, “She was the one who told me how to do it.”

“Oh...” Hailey knew what it was like to lose a friend, and stared at the ground.

Kait walked out of the restroom, surprising Hailey for some reason. “Don’t feel bad. It’s in the past, long forgotten.

Something was still nagging at the back of Hailey’s mind, besides what had woken her up...why had she been surprised by Kait leaving the restroom? She peeked into the room...She puffed her cheeks and almost let out a giggle, failing to conceal her laughter in the end, “Pfft! Make sure to flush next time!” That was a witch, an ancient spellcaster lost to time, as well as an incompetent toilet flusher.

“Sorry!”