Liam’s blood pounds in his ears. They have so little time, shortened by the masked hunters breaking through the bushes, their clothes protecting them from the branches snapping off on them. Cora stops ahead of him and passes him the box. She bends low and picks something up. Jagged, and familiar.

A shiver runs through him. “What are you doing?” he nearly shouts. “We need to go, now!”

Cora throws the branch. It flies in a high, tight arc, suspended above the sinking dual suns. The branch then plummets into the fire, which immediately flares up in response. Two of the hunters stop in their tracks and wheeze. They fall onto their hands and knees, crawling away from the toxic fumes the fire spews out, neurotoxins disguised as smoke.

Holy fuck.

The third hunter sidesteps the smoke, likely holding their breath, and runs after them, their palms glowing with light. Liam doesn’t bother passing the box back, instead taking off. Cora lags behind him, every breath coming in short bursts.

“We need–to hide somewhere–” she gasps, clutching below her ribs. “I–I can’t go on much longer.”

“We’ll figure something out,” he says between breaths, glancing back at the hunter who is fast approaching. The other two are walking towards them, albeit with a limp. “Just hang on.”

“I–I can’t.” Cora slows to a light jog, gritting her teeth, her hand pressed to her side.

“Yes you can.”

He says this sternly, slowing down so he jogs alongside her. The hunter is at most twenty seconds from reaching them. The hunter doesn’t run at a faster speed, sticking close to their two partners. Liam’s fingers itch to grab his knife and do something.

But he can’t, because whatever powers the hunters have absolutely outclass his experiences fighting others.

He glimpses Callista somewhere to their right. Even with the backpack’s torturous weight, she is nimble on her feet, dodging trees and bushes alike. It’s no mystery how she eluded the hunters. She blends into the forest, there one moment, gone the next, then back again.

Something grasps at his blanket. “Liam!” Cora shrieks. Time seems to slow down. He whirls around, box in one hand and knife in the other. Cora sprawls forward, arms catching her fall. The hunter is nearly upon her, their hands glowing bright, throwing shadows across the forest.

It’s the boar–creature all over again. The hunter’s mask melts into the creature’s face, then into a rat-creature, then into its true form, a blank slate on which his mind furiously draws the image of a sick individual, like the people he so often met back home.

Liam reacts instantly. He drops the box and lunges, knife slashing out to the side. The hunter stomps their boot and a pocket knife shoots into their hand hilt–first. Metal clashes on metal as Liam drags his blade down, the hunter raising their own knife in defense.

A second later, their leg shoots out. Liam barely turns aside before the blow knocks him down. He swings his leg out in response, catching the hunter’s ankle and making them stumble, a precious moment that he seizes. He slices at the hunter’s hand, a swift upward movement, severing cloth and flesh. Purple blood wells to the surface, but their fingers are still attached, and the hunter chuckles.

“You’d make a good soldier.”

Pulses of light fire out of their hands, blinding him. He stumbles backward, anticipating the flash of the hunter’s knife between the strobes of green imprinted on his vision. Instead, the hunter rushes Cora, trying to get onto her feet, and drives his knife straight down at her neck.

Years of street fighting take over. Adrenaline rushes through his blood. Between the stunned imprints in his vision, he aims his knife at the hunter's slits for eyes and chooses the left one, plunging his knife with all the force he has.

There is little resistance to his blade. It slides in and out, blocking the hunter's pocket knife swinging at his face. Their arm falls limp and then the hunter screams, the light washing out of their palms in waves, blinding him once more.

Cora yanks on his arm. The other two hunters are fast closing the distance between her and him. Fire runs over the first one's hands. The second looks muscular, but nothing visible materializes on their hands.

Liam wastes no time running. He lets Cora pick up the box and run ahead while he trails her and checks over his shoulder. The second hunter attends the injured one while the first hunter’s fire intensifies in brightness, mimicking their fallen partner’s light.

“Look out!” Liam roars, bodying Cora aside before he dives flat onto his stomach. A steady torrent of flames devour the air they occupied moments ago. The flames catch onto the forest, smoldering in response, leaves becoming curtains of rage that spread to neighbors.

“Follow me!” Cora yells, disappearing into the brush. Left without a choice, he keeps his head low to avoid low–hanging branches, glancing back for signs of more fire. The first hunter backs away from the thriving inferno. Even at the distance Liam puts between himself and the fire, its heat washes over him.

He leaps over oversized roots and avoids touching any of the trees. Cora’s a blur ahead of him, even with the box under one arm and her other pumping to match her stride. To their right, Callista joins them, her breaths staggered.

“The entire forest will burn. Once fire spreads from its origin, it doesn’t belong to anybody anymore,” she says. He’s not sure if his overexerted brain is hallucinating, but her eyes seem to glow from within, the purple becoming pronounced.

“The river will help us,” he responds.

“I believe that’s where Cora’s leading us back to. We’re going in a wide arc. It looks like it’s to make the hunters waste their time thinking we fled deeper into the forest.”

Cora slows down. When Liam reaches her, he finds her free hand clutching at the same spot beneath her ribs. Her face is scrunched, but still she continues walking, every step making her exhale.

“I’m really out of shape,” she murmurs, looking away when he makes eye contact. “Are you okay, Liam?”

“That hunter blinded me for a second, but I’m good now. What about you? That was a bad fall you took.”

Cora rotates her forearm. Her skin was scraped off in the fall, leaving a bright pink, dirt caking her wounds. He glances at her other arm. It looks the same. He frowns. “It’s nothing. I’ve fallen off bikes before and I’ve gotten injured like this. I’ll be fine.” Her arm drops back by her side, hand below her ribs.

“None of us will be fine until we leave out of their sight,” Callista says. Her eyes flash briefly and she groans, buckling under the backpack’s weight. Liam rushes to lessen the load, but her eyes resume their familiar glow and her posture straightens, shoulders pulled back. “I can’t use my gift much longer. We need to find somewhere far near the river and rest.”

“I need a quick break too,” Cora says, face contorting in pain.

“I’ll take the box,” Liam offers, palm up. She reluctantly passes him the box. He presses it to his hip like she had, his other hand holding the two bottles. “Callista?”

“Yes?”

“Where was the portal you mentioned?”

“The what?” Right. She didn’t call it that.

“The node.”

“Somewhere downstream. I don’t remember where exactly, but I do remember passing a giant tree when I was fleeing. It hadn’t been much further downstream than that.”

Cora lets out a small laugh. “We got lucky picking to go upstream.”

“I don’t even want to think about what might’ve happened,” Liam says.

They walk towards the edge of the forest, where elikander plants dominate the land. Beyond that, the tell-tale river’s churning washes over them, a constant reassurance in the background that if the fire comes to claim them, they can find refuge by the water. Cora slows even further into a creeping sort of walk. She hunches over, breathing heavily. Callista takes the lead, although her confident stride lessens into walking.

“Cora,” Liam says. Her head perks up. “Want me to help you out?”

She nods once. “It’ll only be for a few minutes. I can take the box.”

“You don’t need to. Just take these bottles so I can support you.” She holds both of them in one hand. Her other arm drapes over his shoulder, and in turn he wraps an arm around her torso.

Callista glances back at them, then gives a quick smile, turning around. He’s unsure whether she’s encouraging his friendship with Cora or suggesting something more. Either way, he pushes his thoughts to the back of his mind, focused on one thing: making sure Cora’s side stitch disappears.

Surprisingly, his body doesn’t hurt and ache like he expects it to. His muscles support some of Cora’s weight, who in turn begins to walk faster, her hand no longer pressed to her side. He glances back every few seconds, checking for signs of the hunters or the fire.

They cross the forest boundary and walk past the first of many elikander bushes. Far above the canopy, light gray smoke paints dirty streaks over the soft lilac palette. It’s spread thin and wide, the source somewhere deep inside the forest. Where the hunters are scouring the land with their supernatural powers for the three of them.

“Here,” Callista says, shrugging off the backpack. Several elikander plants form a half-circle of protection, the other half exposed to both the forest path they took and the river, water glimmering through the branches and leaves of other plants.

“This isn’t good,” Liam says, furrowing his brow. “We don’t have much cover if the hunters spot us from the forest.”

“They can’t spot us without coming out into the open. The elikander bushes are too dense for them to see us at a distance. Not only that, but through the smoke we can tell where the fire’s going.” Callista’s eyes dull into their familiar amethyst. She sits and slumps against the backpack, groaning, tossing her head back. “I wasn’t going to make it further than a few dyrons. This is the best spot we have. It’s temporary, anyways.”

He doesn’t bother wondering what a dyron is. “Fine. Then we’ll rest. But we need to leave as soon as possible. I’ll keep watch, then.”

She closes her eyes, arms going slack by her sides. “That’s fine by me.”

“Me too,” Cora says, pulling away from him and sitting cross-legged. It's from his standing position that he notices the thin long scab down her forearm and the crescent-shaped one from when she'd pinched herself. He remembers her wrist, too. That was yesterday morning, yet it feels so distant in time.

"How's your wrist doing?" he asks, sitting down at the edge of the enclosed half-circle, sights trained on the forest.

“Better. I barely notice the pain anymore. Look.” She bends her left wrist backwards without grimacing. “At least I have that going for me.”

“Who would’ve thought we’d be here, huh?” He flexes his fingers. “Just a week ago I was worrying about how I could thaw my pipes. And now… all of that feels meaningless.” There are a few clouds drifting gently. The smoke occupies so much space, darkening larger and larger portions of the sky, that it starts to devour one of the last clouds. In a lower voice so only Cora can hear, he says, “Sometimes I wonder if anybody would believe us.”

“I wouldn’t believe myself, I can say that. Yeah, I remember kind of saying the same thing when I took a picture of the mountains and you joked about it. And yeah, I might have all the pictures in the world, but you know how everybody would be.”

“It’s all Photoshopped,” he says, cracking a smile. Then it falls. “But what if they do believe us?”

Cora twirls her hair around a finger. “I don’t even want to think about it. Every country in the world would go insane.”

“Not if these Transients can help it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s all possibilities I’d rather not think about. I miss home.” She hunches her shoulders. Her fingers trace outlines of an object yet made on the dirt.

“Do you think we’d ever get back to living normal lives? After all that's happened?” The smoke spreads. He wonders what inferno currently rages through the same forest both of them traversed through.

“I wouldn’t. Maybe we would, though. Who knows. Right now it’s hard even thinking of a way out of this mess. It feels impossible.” The outline grows clearer. It is a crude image of a car parked next to a house.

“It kind of reminds me of a quote.”

“Which quote?”

“‘It always feels impossible until it’s done.’ Nelson Mandela said that one. You know, the former South African president. That one’s stuck out with me over the years. It helped me get through tough times.”

With one foot, she rubs away the outline she traced, leaving her footprint in place. “Yeah, that’s a good one. I like it.”

He nods, keeping his gaze on the horizon, ever-weary of the encroaching fire. Bright light flashes as an orb somewhere deep inside the forest. It is there one moment and gone the next. “Did you see that?” he says.

Cora gets up onto her feet. “If that’s them, I find it stupid why they’d expose their location like that.”

“I did stab him through the eye…he’s probably dying or at least not in his senses. Still.” He turns toward Callista. “Callista. They’re coming.”

Her eyes open. “We’re going to have to talk about where you two are really from.” Liam’s blood goes cold, skin prickling at the back of his neck, but she doesn’t press the issue further. “The forest it’ll be, then. We can only hope the fire doesn’t reach us.”

In a single fluid motion, Callista slings the backpack on. Liam and Cora reach for the box at the same time–he pulls back first and she takes the box in both hands. Instead, he grabs both water bottles.

They take off, sticking close to the forest edge. He glances back often, straining to see outlines through the trees. They don’t appear, but the three of them don’t slow down. The terrain gradually grows steeper. Their toes struggle to dig into the underlying bedrock for purchase, covered only with a thin layer of soil.

New plants spring to life around them, muted lavenders and reds wrapping around tree trunks, sprawling over the forest floor like carpet. He’s careful to step around these plants while Cora and Callista plow through them, their boots protecting them from the crushed weeds.

He’s clearing a steep slope and stabilizes his footing on a more level part of the forest when several lizards drop from the canopy, striking his head. He stumbles and manages to catch himself, jumping away from the pack of rat-creatures surging forward. More come out of the carpet of weeds. They rush towards Cora and Callista, who have their backs to the frenzy taking place.

“Run!” he yells. In the span of a breath he angles his knife and slashes. Furry bodies drop dead and still more come to replace their fallen members. It’s the first day all over again when he was rushed from all sides, having nobody except himself to count on.

This time, he has allies. Friends. Callista takes off the backpack and swings. It catches several rat-creatures which Cora kicks aside, her face tightening in what he can only describe as scalding anger. It's the first time he’s seen her snap, and the look on her face reminds him of his own, reflected countless times in his bathroom mirror when he woke up.

Deep red blood splatters on the dirt. His arms are tireless, machines of their own delivering death and destruction. He’s seen so much of it. The cycle never ends, apparently–both on Earth and on this damn world.

Beyond the trees from where he’d come from, he spots the slim figure of the second hunter directing with one hand, and he notices the waves of rat-creatures that follow the hunter’s motions. The first hunter has to be out there somewhere.

Liam strikes down several rat-creatures, swiveling around on the heels of his feet, checking every direction for the most dangerous hunter. He feels the bite of teeth on his leg. Quickly, he skewers the rat-creature, swinging his knife. The rat’s body flies off, tumbling and coming to a stop.

The ground rumbles. Opposite the second hunter, several trees lean dangerously to the side. Orange fur pummels through elikander bushes. The fruits burst under the boar-creature’s mighty hooves. An ivory tusk impales the last tree separating Cora and Callista from the beast. The tree is splintered and jerked aside, the creature’s underlying muscles rippling as its head jerks back to its original position. Wood groans before the tree topples under its own weight.

If the nose is cut off–No. The boar-creature isn’t being directed by its natural senses. The second hunter is behind the creature’s motion. He has to take them down. But the first hunter is still at large and the injured hunter might still be alive.

Go for the boar or the hunter. He has to go for the head. “Cora, Callista! Boar! Run!”

Cora freezes, turning and seeing the boar-creature. She runs away, Callista close behind. More rats leap onto them. Callista’s eyes pulse before claws protract from her hands, slicing through the rats on her and Cora.

The boar-creature is stunned, waiting for a command. Liam’s already halfway to the second hunter when scorching heat presses to his side. Pain sears down his back and he collapses, biting back a scream.

Another blast hits the dirt where he was a moment ago. He rolls into an unsteady crouch, wincing when he feels along the burn on his side and back. He throws himself aside when he spots a flash of movement in his eye. Beams of light radiate the area around him, making it difficult to see anything.

The overwhelming sensation of heat forces him to press to his stomach a fraction of a second before flames shoot overhead. He rolls away and calculates roughly where the blast came from, pulling his arm back and throwing the knife.

Somebody screams in response. Deep and guttural, it sounds human, but he knows the hunters aren't. Liam snaps off a branch and immediately feels his hand go numb. He surges forward and drives the sharp end into the first hunter's mask.

Wood splits off with the force of the blow. The first hunter’s head snaps back, prime for his fist to connect with their neck. The first hunter lets out a choked gasp, flames spurting out of their mouth. A hand grabs onto his thigh and stabbing agony makes him gasp in return.

Liam rips out the knife from the hunter’s leg and cuts away at the clamped hand on his leg. “Fuck!” he seethes. He grits his teeth, using the last of his strength to pry the hunter’s hand away, before he drives his knife down onto their neck, silencing the flames about to devour him.

He collapses, breathing heavily. His leg is screaming in pain and his side and back ache when the remnants of his shirt rustle against his burns. The world warps around him; faintly, he notices the waxy red handprint on his leg, the skin completely seared away.

Through his wavering vision, he sees the boar-creature ram into a tree. Cora leaps from one side to another, with the boar-creature’s large size making it difficult to maneuver. Callista is nowhere to be seen–he groans and struggles to stand. His burned leg throbs, stealing his breath away.

But Liam manages to stand and hold his knife, slick with blood. Callista appears out of nowhere and slams into the hunter with light, who’s pocket knife is about to stab him. He stumbles backward, holding his breath when the tatters of his shirt brush against his burned skin.

Callista’s hands grip the hunter’s throat. They flail, random bursts of light splitting off from all parts of their body. Callista’s eyes pulse and suddenly he hears a faint crack. The hunter’s beams of light sputter out. When they don’t move again, she drops their body and eyes Liam up and down, her eyes widening.

“Liam–” she says, before looking away, towards Cora and the boar-creature. “I found another node. Go to it and wait for us two. There’s one more hunter–I’ll take care of them.”

“Where… is it?” he says, the words feeling strange on his tongue.

“Where we were headed in the first place. Just walk down. You can’t miss it.” Callista places a hand on his shoulder. “You’re an amazing fighter and a hero for taking out the hunter with the gift of fire. Thank you. You’ve done enough. Rest.” She squeezes his shoulder and disappears into the woods.

Liam limps forward, scanning ahead for signs of the node. But it’s difficult when Cora’s fighting for her life. Her movements grow sluggish. He recognizes the weary look on her face. It’s the same look he found on her when he saved her the first day.

“Cora!” he shouts, drawing her attention. The boar-creature stops as well, its nose’s wriggling appendages aimed at his direction. “Don’t give up! There’s a node ahead of us!”

Too late. The boar-creature groans, deep and rumbling. And then it charges at him.

“Liam!” Cora cries out.

He tries to run, but his leg’s skin burns, the pain driving him to a halt. In seconds the boar-creature’s profile fills up his vision. This is how he is going to die, then. He never expected his life to end like this, on another world to some alien creature bound to some alien’s powers.

He sees a future cut short. He sees Callista wrestling with the second hunter, too focused to notice him. He can’t see Cora, but he imagines her crying in his final moments. To come back together through an impossible event, only to be driven apart by the consequences of that event.

Life is unfair, and he’s tired. But he doesn’t want to die. He wants to be with them, on whatever path they’ll take. He wants to see more, wants to feel safe and secure, but it’s too late.

He throws himself aside, on his non-injured side. The boar-creature barrels past him, but his foot catches on its straw-like fur and he’s violently yanked forward, mere feet from the beast. It turns and aims its horn at him. He sees his life teetering on that precarious tip.

I’m going to miss you.

Cora’s screaming reverberates across the forest. Something shifts beneath him. Like a miniature, localized earthquake, the vibrations crack the dirt. Then suddenly, dirt and stone walls rise by the boar-creature’s sides and slam together.

The boar-creature howls. Stone fragments are embedded into its hide, drawing blood. He crawls away, using his knife to shakily stand up. Another dirt and stone wall rips free from the ground and crashes onto the boar-creature. It bucks its head, turning away from him and running, slamming through trees in its desperate instinct to survive.

“Cora…” he whispers. He limps toward where he last saw her. She’s folded her legs beneath her, looking like a limp puppet. Her head is bowed low, hiding her face. Her hair forms a curtain around her. “Cora.”

When she raises her head, he’s shocked at her glowing amber pupils. Tears wet the corners of her eyes. Blood dribbles from her nose. He can’t sit beside her without horrible rending pain, but he positions his non-injured side beside her, hugging her as best as he can.

“You saved me,” he whispers.

She blinks. When her eyes open again, the glow is gone, replaced by her weary own. She wipes her tears and blood away, half-sobbing, half-laughing. “I-I can’t believe I just did that. I thought y-you weren’t gonna make it.”

“Neither did I,” he says. Callista emerges from the deeper part of the forest, her hands trembling. They’re covered in blood, as they all seem to. The glow in her eyes is gone.

She reaches them and sighs. “Thank old Arcego you two made it out. But Liam, your burns…”

Cora gasps. “You fought that hunter by yourself.”

“Yes, I did.” The weight of what he did and what happened to him crashes into him. His legs feel too heavy to keep carrying him. Even the slightest movement jostles his clothing, bringing pain to his exposed burns.

“I’ll do everything I can to help you,” she says. Her voice trembles.

“As will I,” Callista says. “The fire’s spreading. At this rate it will catch up to us and we can’t afford to keep running. Our only choice is the node.”

“It’s not yours, is it?” he says, sucking in a pained breath between his clenched teeth.

“Mine was downstream. This is a new one.”

The sky’s filled with smoke. The twin suns, sinking low into the horizon, barely do enough to penetrate through the curling black and gray. “Where’s the backpack? The box?”

“I took them near the node.”

That’s all Callista needs to say for him to start forward. Cora and Callista position themselves on either side of him. His arms drape over their shoulders, and together the two of them lessen the burden on his leg.

The node’s a minute’s walk away. Callista picks up the backpack and Cora takes the box. Callista can only drag it behind her, however, but Cora doesn’t put up any complaints. Most of the forest floor is smooth and covered by weeds, anyways.

They stop before the node. It’s bigger than the warping, simmering air that he had found in his bathroom. This node would’ve been the size of a small car. The colorful threads captivate him. Blues and reds and greens and yellows materialize and vanish, so quickly he can’t keep track of them all. The center warps like hot air above a grill.

“We need to stay connected to each other. No matter what,” Callista says, but Cora sets down the box and pulls out her phone. She holds it up to the node, the colors highlighting the dried tear streaks beneath her eyes.

Callista looks confused but doesn’t comment on it. Cora pockets her phone and picks up the box, placing her hand on his waist again.

“I hope the next world is better,” she says.

“We’ll make it work,” Liam says, lightly squeezing her shoulder in response.

“Ready yourselves,” Callista warns. The three of them advance and step into the wavering air.

As the static raises his hairs and the second world he’s ever known fades to nothing, he accepts his new reality and bids Earth farewell.