Words fail her swollen lips and dried throat. The dry rasp of a plea for help is born at the tip of her tongue and dies as her breath fails her.

Shackles bind her to the ground. No, merely the crushing exhaustion that haunts her day and night, torturing her limbs and digits as she runs from the hunters sent out to retrieve her.

She cannot rest. She cannot flee. Her fate is obvious, but there is a difference between knowing and believing.

Muffled words creep into her ears. Language of what sort she cannot say. The sounds are crisp, one speaker male, the other female. A binary species, perhaps, or a pair of travelers, though with what permissions she cannot begin to guess.

A flicker of alarm carves its way through her. Has she forgotten so soon? They are dangerous. They will not stop until she has been returned to Fort Larsky. But she needs another minute of sleep. Perhaps she is hearing things.

The reasoning satisfies her. She sinks back into the abyss, relishing another moment of false security and peace…

A disturbance. She opens her eyes and screams. Muscle memory is hard to erase, and her body finishes what her mind has yet to comprehend. Deliver a quick slash to the throat, and she may rest again, but she cannot move now.

Her lips are moving and words stumble forth, which the girl before her reciprocates. Magaraman. Memory, too, guides her. The familiar and yet distant part of herself speaks, begging for aid, before the familiar sheen of light on a clear material stabs into the unfamiliar and nearby part of her consciousness.

There is danger which petrifies the familiar part of herself. Her unfamiliar half seizes control. Circumstances are temporary, and death is permanent. The world is cruel, after all, and she must do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means giving up her identity for the sake of seeing the light of another day.

She lunges, suspended in an eternal moment of blind rage. Iron-tipped claws shoot out of her hands, inhibited by the gloves.

Too late. The Magaraman lies pinned beneath her. Something hard knocks her off balance, driven into her face. She cannot keep her grip. There is a sharp blur of motion, and then sharp pain blooms across her temple.

The abyss draws her into its complacency once more.

***

“Callie. The Transients are headed our way. My father said they are requesting identification from each member in a house. He said they are searching each house for fugitives and brought several receivers to help.”

“This soon? I didn’t want us to run this soon.”

“We trained for the day this would happen. You knew we would never get to live a normal life, not here. Today is the day. Now is our chance to escape.”

“I hate them. I hate their world. I want to see it burn into ashes.”

“We will never get a chance to do something here. Please. Take my hand. Together, we will destroy them like we dreamed of.”

“I’m going to miss home.”

“We will come back. After everything is over, we will come back. I promise.”

***

She reaches for him. The feeling of grasping nothing but air sends a quick current of fear into her heart. Something is wrong. When she opens her eyes, the blinding light of two bright spheres above her makes her recoil.

Her second pair of eyelids comes down, muting the harsh light. The first feeling she registers is the raw, thumping pain above her right ear, every pulse hammering fiery nails of pain into her skull. The second is the blind panic generated when she realizes that Rhodes isn’t next to her like he’s always been.

They've been fleeing. They promised they would stick together, for better or for worse. He's missing, and she cannot control herself.

A ragged cry escapes her throat. “Rhodes!” She scrambles to her feet, collapsing when her beaten body refuses to get up. “Rhodes!” She struggles to stand. The fresh onset of tears blinds her. The world, distorted beyond recognition, becomes irrelevant because her closest friend is missing. “Rhodes!”

Her throat hurts with each scream, and yet she cannot stop until he hears her. “Rhodes!”

Her ears pick up the subtle vibrations of somebody approaching her. “Rhodes!” Her footing steadies. The panic subsides. She turns her head, her arms raising to hug him, when a single deep voice cuts through her.

“Whoever Rhodes is… I’m not them.”

A single instant is all it takes for memories of the past few days to hurtle into her. She cannot run anymore. The stress has caught her, and she surrenders to the emotions she has kept at bay since traveling through the last node.

Her eyes sting. Even with her second pair of eyelids preventing any tears from forming, the unfamiliar face of another boy cripples her. He’s not any of the hunters she’s seen, but she wishes he was one. Just so she won’t have to bear another second of the crippling pain.

She drops to her hands and knees, arching her back as a guttural wail escapes her. She punches the ground, and when the pain isn’t enough to distract her, she protracts her claws and digs them into her palms.

“Listen to me. I am not Rhodes, but I can help you.”

“It’s too late. It’s too late,” she whispers, clenching her teeth. “I left him back there and I ran like the coward I am. I-I never expected to be here.” She curls up into a shuddering ball. Her claws retract and the pressure builds up behind her eyes. She retracts her second pair of eyelids, too, and screams, savoring the blistering pain spreading through her throat.

She deserves it, and more, for abandoning him when he needed her most. They were supposed to come back home together. And now, after so much time…

"Rhodes," she chokes out, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…"

The boy drops beside her, offering steady pats on her back. She stiffens, then lets out another sob. The pain in her throat connects to her stomach, tightening, deepening, and it's still not enough to match her heart's agony.

"Calm down. We can help you find Rhodes," the boy says.

She lifts her head up to look at him. “N-no, none of you can help…” She squeezes her eyes shut and buries her head into her knees. “Just leave me alone. Whoever you are. Please.”

“You tried to kill my friend.”

She sniffles. “I thought she was a h-hunter. But neither of you are. If you are, I give up. Please, take me to him. I-I don’t care what happens to me anymore. I want to be with him one last time.”

“We are not hunters, either.”

She is about to scream again when an arm wraps around her. The warm weight that accompanies it makes her look up again, recoiling when she sees it’s the Magaraman girl. The same face mistaken for a hunter's, whom she almost killed.

“What’s your name?” the girl asks, her voice soft.

“Callista…” The pain grows tight and narrow, fading. What comes next is uncertainty. She is no stranger to it. Post-Fall, her entire life has been uncertain. With Rhodes by her side, life was slightly less uncertain, slightly more optimistic.

He is gone now. Left to die, and she fled. Does it matter whether anybody knows who she is anymore?

She swallows the lump in her throat. “Callista cio rei Tersanova.”

The girl nods. “It’s a beautiful name.” There is no mention of Callista’s titles, no disdain written on the Magaraman’s features. The other, the boy, has kept his critical eye on her, which she understands.

But the girl, a supposed enemy to everything Callista’s species stands for, shows no revulsion nor hesitancy. And for that, Callista nearly breaks down again, managing to reign in the storm temporarily before she cracks open again.

She chokes back a sob and sniffles, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Th-thank you. What is yours?” In the girl’s comforting hug, Callista feels safe. Like she does with Rhodes. Like she had…

“Cora Auclair. Take all the time you need. I don’t know what happened to you or why you’re breaking down, but either way, I want you to know that we’re here for you.”

Callista starts tearing up again. “It’s a long story. But thank you for being here for me.” Her voice rises in pitch at the end, and she starts hyperventilating as unwanted images of the last several days intrude upon her mind.

“Hey, it’s no problem.” Cora hugs Callista tighter and she sinks into Cora’s body in gratefulness. She feels a lot like an Endralovan, although somewhat on the thinner side. “If you want to tell us your story, we’re all ears. Just don’t think we’re forcing you to do so.”

Callista nods, trembling as waves of regret press against her body. “I cannot thank you enough for helping me. Why?”

Cora’s breath hitches, and then slowly releases, her entire body slumping. “Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to life. That’s the way I see it, at least. Maybe there isn’t a reason why I helped you. Maybe it’s because I cared too much for my own good, even if Liam here warned me not to.”

Cora reminds Callista too much of Rhodes. Kind and caring even in the face of great danger. Her eyes prickle, but the sting isn’t so bad anymore. “I’m so sorry I attacked you.” An apology feels lacking. “I was going to kill you. There is no excuse for that.”

“And I’m sorry I elbowed you hard. You were defending yourself. It wasn’t right for us to get so close to you like that.”

"I've been alone for several days watching behind my back." Callista hugs Cora back, a brief yet strong hug. "Thanks for understanding."

The entire time, the Magaraman boy named Liam remains quiet. Callista wants it to be that way. One of the first things she noticed was the knife hidden beneath his pants. The outline is unmistakable, and his wariness of her makes her focus on Cora instead.

Cora, the impossibly kind Magaraman, apologizing for retaliating. Were Callista her, she would’ve been furious at herself. But Cora shows no sign of boiling anger, simply sympathy for Callista despite Cora knowing nothing about her.

Callista’s throat is dry and tight. The tears don’t come anymore, but the knot in her chest remains. She wants to disappear into nothing so she doesn’t have to confront herself anymore about abandoning her closest friend.

She also wants to live. Because despite hating herself for leaving him behind, the more rational part of herself knows she could have never done anything for him inside Fort Larsky. Outside, free from the bars and constant beatings from the guards, she has the slimmest chance of rescuing him, even if she doesn’t believe it herself.

What was she thinking, wanting hunters to take her? She pulls away from Cora, clearing away the last remnants of her tears. “Do you… have any water?" Callista asks, hanging her head low in embarrassment.

Cora and Liam share a look. “Are you going to be… fine when we show you our water?” She wrings her hands, pursing her lips.

Callista frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you freaked out when she put a water bottle in front of you,” Liam says with a bite to his tone that makes Callista shrink away.

“I-I don’t remember. But whatever it is, I can handle it.”

Cora reaches for her backpack. “If you feel like you’re… uncomfortable, let me know.”

Callista nods. “I promise.”

What comes out is not what she expects. The glistening material, nyros, that plagues her homeworld, the material that the Transients bring with them as conduits for their power, sits right there holding water of all things.

Nyros, used by Magaramans as nothing more than common material to hold their water. Nyros, the material that lined her home and glowed every time a Transient stepped foot inside. Her first home, before it burned away into cinders at a Transient hand’s beckoning.

“That’s it,” Liam says, putting the nyros bottle away.

“No, stop.” Callista forces herself to swallow the dread. His hand freezes inches over the backpack. “Why-how do you have nyros?”

Once more, Cora and Liam share a look. Callista has no idea what’s being communicated between them or how, but they seem to understand each other. Perhaps they both have gifts of telepathy.

“This isn’t nyros. We call this plastic,” Cora says, taking the bottle from Liam and gently squeezing it. The material bends under her fingers, something Callista doesn’t expect. “Back in our world, we use this for everything.”

In Magaram? News scarcely slips out of that world from what she remembers from her childhood. Whatever bits that did her father was always sure to tell her about as part of her education. “Plas-tic.” Callista stumbles over the syllables, uncertain. “Can I… can I touch it?”

“Sure.”

Callista takes the bottle and tests it tentatively, applying pressure at different points. The nyros feels different, somehow, much weaker despite being transparent and smooth. It’s not glass, she’s able to tell instantly. Yet it’s not nyros.

Cora and Liam are strange, but intriguing. Callista eyes the water inside the nyros–plastic–bottle. It is slightly tinged yellow, but otherwise looks safe to drink. Callista notices the other bottles buried into the dirt, a short distance from their campfire. It should be, if they’re offering from those.

“Is this what Magaram uses?”

“Yeah, we use this a lot. As you can see, though, we’re a far way from home. Really far.”

Truly far. The plentiful wild elikander, along with the two suns and lilac sky, narrows the possibilities down to three worlds. Not that it matters which world she’s in, because the only one that matters is the world Rhodes is imprisoned in, awaiting his fate.

Callista resists the urge to protract her claws and punish herself for fleeing. She will come back, one way or another, to rescue him. The node that took her to this world has to still be open, and it isn’t too far uphill.

“I’m far away from home, too. I’m grateful for meeting you.” She shifts her eyes towards Liam, who doesn’t flinch when she addresses him directly. “And you, too, even if you’re wary of me. Not all of us lick Transient boots. I’m one of those people who don’t.”

“Good to know,” he responds, but the tone is softer. Callista relaxes. “Why are you here?”

“I could ask the same myself about you,” she says.

“Liam,” Cora says, glaring at him.

“No, it’s okay. You saved my life with this.” She holds up the bottle, filled to the top with water. “You deserve to know why I’m here.” They also deserve to know about the hunters sent after her, who never seem to be more than a day away. “But–it might take me a minute. It’s difficult.”

“Callista, if it bothers you, don’t tell us, then. We can live without needing to know,” Cora says.

She kneels and grabs several bottles, stuffing them into the backpack’s mesh holders. The frame is streamlined, the material woven together to the degree that Callista cannot see individual fibers, much like the machine-spun textiles from Transia’s most advanced textile factories.

It’s no surprise that Magaram has held out for so long against the Transients. With technology of that caliber, her respect only grows for Cora and Liam. They never made it this far into the wilderness being weak or idiotic.

They are people that, she desperately hopes, might be willing to help her rescue Rhodes.

Not only that, but they accept her, when most will kill her on sight. Even Liam, who is clearly restraining himself from drawing his knife on her. She only just met them, but she’s tempted to call them… friends.

“I’ll tell you my story. Okay.” She draws in a deep breath, turning her gaze to meet each of theirs. "But first I need to drink water." She notices the cap, twisting it to the left on instinct. The ridges bite into her fingertips, the cap refusing to budge. "Uh, how does this work?"

Cora takes the bottle and twists to the right. The cap comes off easily, exposing the water. "Thank you," Callista says sheepishly, placing the bottle's top to her lips.

"It'll taste bad," Cora warns.

"I've tasted worse." Callista tilts her head back and drains the bottle. The immediate assault in her taste buds makes her gag, but the overwhelming urge to drink eclipses the acrid taste.

Once she finishes, she places the bottle down and wipes her lips with the back of her hand, swallowing to get rid of the aftertaste.

Cora and Liam look at her in amazement. Callista tilts her head, wondering what in the grid is going on in their heads. She clears her throat, now nourished and strong enough to speak.

Words no longer fail her as she begins to speak.