Waking up with a mouthful of dirt was never an awakening Cooper thought she’d be having. Sure, she had woken up with a pillow pressed firmly over her face, or with a bucket of freezing well water tossed over her, but never dirt. First time for everything, she supposed.

Nothing about this scenario felt right, she almost missed the thing wearing Mycah’s face. Almost. Waking up in such a way was still far better than dealing with Mycah in any capacity.

A whimper escaped her lips without her consent, a pitiful noise muffled around the earth, only comparable to a sad accordion as her ribs collapsed. Thankfully the weight subsided, but it was a cruel realisation that she was truly alive.

Reanimation. That’s a funny trick to play on God.

An odd smell hung in the air. The grossly sweet, almost edible smell of decay that could only mean one thing. Maggots. She was infested with the little white buggers. Not that she could feel them, small mercies she supposed, but then again — she couldn’t feel much at all.

Her ribs collapsed again, faster this time. A rhythmic pulsating that rattled her insides until the sad accordion could once again rise on its own accord. Breathing, not something Cooper ever thought she would miss. Hungry lungs filled with biting cold air, exhaling slowly as if savouring. Better than any drug that passed her lips.

“We almost lost her again,” said a voice somewhere above her, presumably the same person who places shaking fingers under her jaw. “This isn’t worth it, the stress will kill her if the operation itself doesn’t.”

Another voice hummed in response. Cooper could hear the shrill sound of metal being sharpened, slowly as if without a care in the world. Her eyes stayed firmly shut, or perhaps they were open and she stayed in the realm of nothing with Mycah. She couldn’t tell which was worse.

To say her leg stung was an understatement. It was lightning under her skin, bones cracking and splintering. A warm wetness pooled beneath her, flowing from where she lay and cascading onto wooden flooring. She could only hope that it was blood, that was something she could live with. Or die with. Whichever came first. Something dropped to the ground with a thud, splattering the liquid. She was aware of someone hissing, yelling, though the words refused to link.

She wasn’t real, of that she was certain.

The world spun, or maybe it was her, who’s to say. Her head was a fairground ride, one of those she never had the guts to enter. Spinning and twirling through the air, the loud screaming and music. It was too much for her then. Too much for her now. The air was warm and heavy, pressing down on her body like a suffocating blanket.

She was awake now. Fingers pressed into her forearm, gently. Wanting. Iarden stood beside her, body draped in an old jacket that Cooper had stolen from her roommate back in Stykes. It was hers now, unarguably so, despite the size being closer to a circus tent than the clothing on the short woman.

“Alek? You with me?” she asked, eyebrow raised and lip lifted in a smirk.

Cooper shook her head. “Yes. Yeah, I’m with you. Always.”

“I said the guys are going on the big one—” she pointed a thumb at the tower before them, a horrifically tall mass of metal that was lit up with barely harnessed witchlight, “—do you want to go with them?”

“All my friends want to die. I like my head firmly attached to my shoulders, thank you.”

Iarden could have laughed. Should have, probably. Cooper was a Templar of the death goddess for crying out loud. But she didn’t. She didn’t laugh, not even a smile. Instead, she wrapped her hands around Cooper’s larger one.

“You’ll be fine. I promise.”

And with that she pulled Cooper down to her level, leaving a frozen kiss on Cooper’s cheek despite the summer heat. They parted with a whisper that could have been ‘I love you’ or ‘I loathe you’, and Cooper would have been fine either way.

Iarden danced away, waving her dead withered fingers behind her in farewell. Cooper smelled like fried foods and decay, her own hands crystallized bone. She could live here forever. She was not real. She was not alive.

Iarden looked over her shoulder, grinning her too-wide smile, eyes a gold that was not her own. This was fine because somehow Cooper knew that they matched her own. The lack of white sclera was no problem here, no matter where here was.

She’d get her happy ending.