Lonna

I charged into the forest, running as fast as I possibly could. My lungs were working overtime and my head was pounding rapidly in time with my heart - hell, my entire body was basically screaming for me to slow down, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Honestly, I’d never been the physical type before - in fact, on any other day, I’d have probably kicked anyone who even dared to suggest I go on any sort of long run, myself included. This night was different, though. This night, I had something I needed to accomplish. Thankfully, the scroll of parchment currently clutched against my chest was more than enough motivation for me to push past the pain.

Leaves, twigs and branches were crushed beneath my boots, crackling and crunching loud enough to alert the whole damn forest to my presence. Even worse, each sound felt like a massive wound to my pride. I was a trained thief, after all - someone who actively specialized in stealth - so for me to be causing such a ruckus just by moving… Well, I’m pretty sure my mentor would have cried outright if he knew. After verbally tanning my hide. 

What could I say, though? It wasn’t like I was some sorta woodswoman or hunter or whatever. My training had focused on sneaking through the streets and within houses, not traipsing through the forest without making a damn sound! Which wasn’t to say that I couldn’t have managed some stealth if I’d wanted to, but when you combined that lack of practice with the fact that I honestly didn’t care… Yeah, no. Staying silent wasn’t in the cards.

Though, that said, my lack of experience with thick woods actually presented a second, altogether different problem. One that I couldn’t just push aside, roll my eyes at, or otherwise ignore. Because the deeper into the forest I went, the denser the trees got. It wasn’t like I’d been able to go in a straight line at any point since entering, but now that I was this far in it felt like I couldn’t even go five feet without needing to adjust my course to slip around a tree trunk or duck beneath some branches.

I guess there was also the small fact that the dense foliage above was basically blocking out the moon’s light completely, thereby plunging the world below into darkness to the point where the average human would probably struggle to see their own hands even an inch or two beyond their face, but uh… I wasn’t exactly average - or human, either, for that matter.

For me, the only real issue was that nature in its untamed state was just so damn cluttered. Trees were growing everywhere, without any rhyme or reason so far as I could tell, with branches jutting from their trunks in all directions. It was as if the forest had nothing better to do than force me to waste energy ducking and weaving and just generally maneuvering my way around the various obstacles it presented to me. It was causing me to waste time and energy, when I had little of either to spare. I needed to cast the spell I’d stolen before daybreak, and that wasn’t going to happen if my lungs or legs or heart gave out from all this unnecessary exercise.

I considered just blasting everything out of my way, of course, but as tempting as that prospect was I wasn’t actually dumb enough to follow through. My magic tended to be flashy by default, and considering the trouble I’d be in if anyone found out what I’d done - let alone what I was currently doing, and planning… Yeah, no, it was better not to cause a scene or otherwise invite an investigation. Or - even worse - a lecture from my brother about ‘being reckless’ or whatever. 

So, seeing as how my body was liable to start flagging soon, I decided to give my internal organs what they were begging me for and slow down a little. Unfortunately, my body must have been just a little bit more upset with me than I realized, because the moment I lost my momentum my legs started to wobble and I ended up falling on my ass.

“Rootrot!” I cursed, glaring down at my traitorous legs. Just because I’d accepted slowing down didn’t mean I wanted to stop right here or anything! I’d wanted to keep going until I could find a proper clearing, at the very least.

…Though, now that I was looking around, I was starting to realize that I’d maybe gotten a bit deeper into the forest than I’d realized. Deep enough for beasts to roam, monsters to hide, and people to get lost. For someone like me, who could barely navigate even the smallest of cities without outside help, being this deep in the woods was basically a death sentence. 

…Good thing I’d left a clear trail for my brother to follow! A definitely, completely, and totally purposeful action on my part, that wasn’t at all caused by me just not giving a fuck!

At least, that’s what I’d tell Talith when he inevitably tried to scold me for going off on my own. It would be a bit tricky to get the delivery right, but if I pulled it off and made him think that it was all part of a larger plan then he’d be left with nothing to yell at me about.

That was something to consider after he showed up, though. For now, it was probably for the best for me to get prepared for the actual casting process. I might not have been able to find the most optimal settings or the spell - or anything even close to it, for that matter - but at least I was deep enough into the woods that I could hopefully get away with whatever visual effects happened to accompany my stolen summoning spell. I 

Before getting properly started, though, I decided it was probably for the best that I at least cast a minor healing spell. Nothing too big, mind - I couldn’t afford the Breath, at the moment, seeing as how I had no clue how much magic the summoning would actually take. Even a relatively weak healing spell would probably be enough to get me back on my feet, though, and if I controlled the output right I’d be able to recover any Breath I spent in the time it would take me to prepare for the main event.

Thankfully, while purposefully weak spells weren’t exactly my specialty, I was still more than competent enough to make one up. The biggest problem was figuring out what magical tongue to use. All of them had their own words for healing, after all. Hell, all but one of them had several. I needed a word that specifically referred to healing minor injuries, though, and while I was theoretically able to speak all the tongues fluently… Well, it had been almost a decade since I’d actually received any lessons, and it wasn’t like people actually used these languages in day to day conversation, what with the fact that any and every sentence spoken with one or more of them would inevitably turn into a spell.

In the end, I couldn’t come up with a single word that fit my needs. Instead, I combined a couple of them - a Harpian word that was meant to act as a modifier for anything that came after it, and the Lamian word for ‘heal.’ Put together, and translated into the Trading Tongue, it more or less translated to ‘a small amount of healing.’ Not exactly precise, I know, but spellcraft had never been my specialty. It was good enough, regardless, so long as I was precise with how much energy I released.

Once that was done and over with, I climbed back onto my feet. I wouldn’t exactly go so far as to call myself ‘reinvigorated’ or anything, but I was at least at the point where I could stand without trembling and breathe without pain. Which also meant I could devote my attention to finding a bit of empty space large enough to fit the scroll I was carrying in its unfurled state.

Finding that sort of space was actually a bit harder than I’d thought it would be, this deep in the forest - though maybe that had more to do with how massive the damn thing was, than anything. When laid out, it revealed a spell circle large enough for a person to comfortably stand in. A spell circle that in turn intersected with dozens of other circles, of various sizes, all of which added up to a scroll almost as long as I was tall.

Still, I did eventually manage to find a place to lay the thing down. Though even then it took me a bit of effort to clear enough twigs and rocks and leaves and such that I could actually lay the damn thing flat. Though at least some of the rocks could be repurposed in order to pin the thing down and keep it from rolling up again.

Once I’d finally finished with that task - and also taken another few minutes to recast my earlier healing spell, and grumble a bit about how much easier all this would have been if I could have just burned all the twigs and leaves and branches and such. Then I only would have had to deal with the rocks - and if I’d really been able to let loose, even those would have been reduced to mere molten puddles.

…Though I guess I’d have been left waiting for said puddles to cool, in that case, seeing as how I wouldn’t exactly wanna risk them scorching the scroll… 

Eh, whatever. I didn’t have the magic to spare for all that right now, in any case. Or the time to spare for endless hypotheticals, for that matter. Instead, I decided to focus my attention on familiarizing myself with the spell I’d stolen.

I already knew the basics, of course - it wasn’t like I was dumb enough to snatch the thing up without at least skimming through it a bit to make sure it was the spell I wanted - but I’d been in a bit of a rush at the time, what with the fact that I’d been in the middle of robbing the castle’s library. Not exactly an environment that was conducive to proper study. Not that a nearly pitch dark forest was much better, but… well, beggars can’t be choosers, so it was time for me to get to work! Starting with the spell’s introduction, which was helpfully written in the Trading Tongue.

You who seek to summon a heroine from another realm, read carefully and know well the nature of this spell. 

The call you are about to make is one not of words, but of emotion, and it shall be responded to in kind. There are many types of heroines, but only one will answer your summons - the one who best resonates with your desires. Know your heart well, for the bond you are about to make cannot be shattered, or replaced, for so long as you both live. 

Whether you came across this scroll by chance or by design, I wish you luck in this endeavor. May your yearning bring about a better world.

It was a pretty standard dramatic speech, honestly. Professional spell-crafters always took their work way too seriously, so far as I was concerned. Though maybe it was actually just a tiny bit justified in this case? Summoning a Heroine from another world was a pretty big deal after all. So long as the spell actually worked, anyway…

Unfortunately, I wasn’t the best at reading spell-circles. Even though I’d soaked up the spoken versions of each magical tongue like a sponge, the written runic systems had a bad habit of slipping through my brain like water through a sieve. It didn’t help that my tutors had never particularly pushed me to get better at it, either - not that I was sure it would have made a difference if they had. Either way, though, at the end of the day written runes might as well have been gibberish to me.

Besides, this particular spell was a complete and utter beast. Not only was the central circle both absolutely massive and tightly packed with runes, but it felt like every other word was intersected by a subcircle meant to further define what those runes were meant to signify within the context of the spell - and most of those had subcircles of their own, to further narrow down the definitions. It didn’t stop there, either - the whole damn scroll was absolutely filled with subcircles of various sizes, all of which would need to be translated by anyone who wanted to know what the damn spell was actually capable of.

And then there was the actual choice of runes to consider - and wow was there a lot to consider there. Not that I could actually read even a fraction of it, but I did know enough to at least identify the fact that they were using all five runic systems - including Dragonic! What sort of blighted idiot put that in a spell? That wasn’t just flirting with danger, it was practically kissing death on the damn lips! It was like the creator was asking for an angry mob to burn up all their work, or something…

Not that any of that was going to keep from casting the spell, or anything. It wasn’t like I needed to be able to actually read the damn thing just to cast it, and while most people considered anything even vaguely associated with dragons to be the epitome of all evil… Well, it was a bit too late for me to be thinking about that stuff, anyway. Had been from the moment I was born, really.

Though, that said, stating my intentions and actually casting the damn thing were completely different matters. While I could theoretically activate the spell by running magic through the scroll itself, doing so would basically destroy the one and only copy of it I had - maybe even the only one in existence. Because while there were materials out there that could withstand magical energy running through them, this scroll wasn’t made out of any of them. It was just normal vellum and ink - the sort of thing that would get burnt up from even a minor spell, let alone one as magic-hungry as this one was likely to be. In the worst case, the scroll could burst into flames and turn to ash before I was even finished casting it.

So, obviously, I needed to create a copy. Preferably using something a bit more sturdy, and less likely to burn to a crisp. Namely? The forest floor. If I could clear up enough space for it, I could use a bit of highly focused light magic to burn the symbols into the ground and cast the spell from there. Thankfully, in picking a spot for the scroll I’d also made sure there was a secondary space nearby that was big enough for me to imprint the whole schematic on it, but I was not looking forward to clearing another patch of the forest floor. Especially since I’d need it to be completely cleared this time, and also preferably flatten the area a bit as well. There was no way in hell I could actually do all that by hand, though, and trying to use magic for it would use up a lot of Breath.

Lucky for me, I wasn’t the only one working on this little project. In fact, I could already hear a big, strong worker-type person making his way through the forest, no doubt following the trail I’d left for him, and audibly cursing my name with every heavy step he took.

I wondered what sort of curses my big brother would break out when I told him what came next?

***

Talith

***

Cursing my rootrotten sister under my breath, I picked up the latest in a long line of branches and chucked it further into the forest. Apparently it wasn’t enough for her to drag me on this Tree forsaken mission of hers - she also had to make me track her through the damn forest, and do manual labor after I’d finally caught up! By the Majesty’s ashes, she’d even gone so far as to claim that she’d explicitly left a trail for me to follow, when we both knew the truth was that she simply couldn’t be bothered to hide her tracks. Even someone like me, one of the worst hunters Mirra Village had ever seen, had managed to follow her!

“I think we’re going to need to clean up a bit more,” Lonna said - as if she was actually helping in the first place, and not simply leaning against a Tree forsaken trunk! “I need as big an area as possible if I’m going to get all this inscribed on the ground properly. I don’t suppose you could uproot a tree or two, could you?”

I didn’t even dignify the little brat with a reply to that. I just narrowed my eyes at her and silently stared at her for a moment or two until she finally broke eye contact.

“Alright, alright, I’ll make it smaller,” she muttered at last. “Not like the size of the characters matters all that much, really - just makes it that much more likely that I’ll make a mistake and we’ll have to start this all over again!”

I grunted back at her, before moving onto what looked to be the last of the loose rocks and sticks littered on the ground. No matter how much my little sis complained, I knew full well that she wouldn’t make any such mistakes. The girl could burn a fly’s wings off from ten paces, with the level of control she had over her light magic - I knew, because I’d seen her do it. And that was back when we were thirteen! She’d also singed the walls in the process, and gotten an earful from our mother about avoiding both cruelty and potentially burning our damn house down, but that was besides the point.

Thankfully, by the time I’d run out of creative ways to insult my sister under my breath, I’d managed to clear the last of the heavy debris. The lighter stuff, like the leaves and twigs, had been picked up by the both of us at this point - though for Lonna’s part, she’d mostly just relied on magic to make a gust strong enough to blast everything away. After I reminded her that she could do that, mind. Seeing as how her first thoughts had all involved fire.

“I still think this is a terrible idea,” I grumbled, even as I moved onto stomping and pounding the ground flat. 

“Don’t you ever get bored repeating yourself?” Lonna asked. “Or have you forgotten the fact that you said that about my last two plans, too?”

“No. I said coming back to Ife was a bad idea - something I still stand by, even if you’ve somehow managed to avoid getting found out by now. Stealing from the Queen was a stupid idea, and remains the dumbest damn plan you’ve ever come up with, even if you did somehow manage to pull it off.”

“Nuh-uh!” Lonna protested. “What about that time I wanted to see if wings made out of light could lift me, and tried to jump off the roof? That was way dumber.”

“At least then you were smart enough to put some damn hay down to break your fall! This time, though? All your last two decisions led to was this Tree forsaken plan, which is in and of itself what a terrible idea. You don’t even know how this damn spell works!”

“I know it’ll summon the Heroine,” Lonna replied, rolling her eyes. “That’s pretty much all I need to know. Besides, if you didn’t want me to cast the spell you should have stopped me from stealing it in the first place.”

“I tried! I repeatedly told you what a stupid idea it was! I pleaded with you not to do it! You even promised me you’d think about it a bit more before you acted - but then you went and snuck out to do it anyway! Next thing I knew, I was being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to summon your damn Heroine!”

“Well, maybe if you’d chained me down like you’d threatened to, we wouldn’t be here!”

“You… that’s… Are you seriously saying you want me to chain you down the next time you come up with a dumbass idea!?”

“No,” Lonna said, shaking her head. “I’m saying you’re too much of a baby to even consider fighting me head on - not that you could even beat me if you tried - so you should just give up on trying to stop me from saving the world and get onboard with the damn plan already! Just think of it as the Queen giving me a birthday gift, alright?”

I didn’t say anything. Not because I was actually convinced by her blabbering, but because I had no clue what the fuck to say to that sort of nonsense. Lonna was obsessed with this Heroine of hers - the supposed woman of prophecy who she claimed could kill the immortal queen who held our lands in her iron grip. So damn obsessed, in fact, that she’d even gone so far as to break into the castle and steal what must have been one of Queen Sorissa’s most closely guarded possessions.

“What sort of person do you think the Heroine will be, anyways?” Lonna asked, after a moment of silence.

I didn’t reply, preferring to focus on my current work of flattening and compacting the ground enough for Lonna to burn runes into it. Unfortunately for me, though, Lonna didn’t take the hint and just continued to natter on.

“She’s probably super strong, and really kind - someone who really cares, you know? Someone who doesn’t just want to help, but actually has the power and courage to back it up! I bet she takes on tyrants for fun!”

I grunted, but didn’t otherwise reply, deciding to just tune out my crazy sister and the insane plans that might get her killed, seeing as how there was no way of knowing how much Breath this Tree forsaken spell would take from her. She probably wasn’t even concerning herself with that, though - or if she was, she sure as hell hadn’t brought it up to me. Probably didn’t think I even knew enough about magic to realize that might be a problem… Not that I was in a rush to correct here, there - if she thought there was even a chance of me trying to break her connection to the spell due to worrying over her, she’d be the one chaining me up and making absolutely sure I couldn’t interfere. 

Luckily for her, I actually did know enough to realize breaking a caster free from their spell was almost as dangerous as letting it drain them dry, and I had no intention of making her waste any Breath on keeping me out of things. Though, that said, I wasn’t honestly sure if I even wanted the damn spell to succeed. Because if it did, then what came next? Would she join the Heroine for her fight? Stand by the Heroine’s side as she struck our wicked ruler down? Watch the light fade from Queen Sorissa’s eyes?

“You know, you don’t have to be the one to actually do this, you know.” I didn’t mean to say it. The words just spilled out before I could stop myself. They’d still been said in the end, though, and now there was no taking them back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lonna demanded, glaring at me. It was a reaction I could have seen coming a mile away - not to mention it being the whole damn reason I hadn’t wanted to open my mouth on the subject to begin with. But now that I had…

“I mean that you already stole the Tree forsaken scroll from the Queen herself. Stole something nobody else could’ve, in your own words. So why not leave it at that? Let someone else cast the damn thing, while we go home and live the rest of our lives. I know you still care about-”

“I cared about Mom,” Lonna interrupted. “So go ahead and say what you were about to say. I dare you.”

“…Mom would have wanted us to stay safe,” I replied. Not that I could even look Lonna in the eyes as I said it.

“We’ll be safe once Sorissa’s dead,” she replied, her voice cold. “Now hurry up and finish up with your work so that I can do my own. Just writing the damn thing down is going to take forever, and I for one intend to finish this before dawn.”

I sighed, but didn’t argue, deciding to just focus on the work and ge things over with.

“I wonder what she’ll look like,” Lonna murmured to herself. “I bet she’ll be hot…”

***

David

***

I arched my back, stretching my arms up and towards as the ceiling in an attempt to shake off the stiffness that came with being hunched over a desk for far too long. The drawing I’d been working on, a sketch of a dragon fruit, had honestly taken a lot longer than I’d expected it to. Probably because I’d gone a bit overboard, to be honest - I mean, the teacher had only asked us to sketch a fruit, but seeing as how he’d gone on to assign me a dragon fruit… Well, maybe it was just me being a bit too much of a perfectionist, but there was honestly just no way I was going to even attempt to draw something so exotic without at least gathering a few different reference materials. Which would ideally mean buying one from the store, but seeing as how I lacked both proper transportation and any meaningful amounts of cash… Well, the only reasonable thing to do was to look them up!

Except that once I started looking them up, I hadn’t exactly been content to just look at the pictures. Maybe it was the plant nerd in me, but I just hadn’t been able to keep myself from doing a deep dive and learning everything I possibly could about them. From their taste to their growth cycle to the way they spread their seeds, I’d absorbed everything I could about not just the fruits themselves but also the climbing vine like cactus they grew on.

All of which had turned what was meant to be the easiest assignment on my list into three hours of research plus another half hour or so of actual drawing. The downside of loving plants so much, I guess? I mean, I did enjoy the drawing aspect, too, at least a little bit, but it didn’t call to me nearly  as strongly as the the botanical bits. There was a reason I’d majored in the subject, after all.

I uh… probably should have been a bit more careful about resource management, though, seeing as how this was - again - meant to be a relatively quick and low effort task. I still had a few hundred pages of reading to do for my other classes, after all, and while I doubted the majority of it would be anywhere near as interesting as learning about dragon fruits the fact remained that it all still had to be done in a somewhat timely manner.

…Though, that said, it was Friday. I could afford to take some time off before starting my next assignment! Maybe even take a nap? Though that would probably just result in me sleeping through the night, knowing me… unless I napped in my chair, maybe? I’d done that plenty of times before - even if was on accident most of the time - and I always ended up waking up a few hours after the fact. Though it also generally left me feeling all sorts of stiff and sore…

Actually, before I even thought about sleeping, wasn’t there still something I had to take care of? It certainly felt that way - though it took half a minute of concentrated effort to turn that vague feeling into a somewhat concrete memory of putting some clothes in the wash back before I first got started on my art class’s homework. Which meant it had probably finished cycling hours ago at this point. Not exactly ideal… you could even call it downright rude, in fact, seeing as how there were only a limited number of washing machines in the dorm’s basement. I personally had gotten pretty lucky in finding an open machine, but there had been multiple times in the past where I’d been forced to wait for someone else to finish.

In the end, though, there was nothing for it but to get to it and hope for the best. Hopefully the basement would be empty, and I’d be able to stuff my clothes into an empty dryer and get out without ever actually needing to talk to anyone. Then I could come back upstairs, and… I don’t know… play on my laptop a bit? I mean, tired or no, I did need to stay up long enough for the clothes to finish drying, at the very least. Besides, it was the weekend, so… Well, why not stay up late? Maybe I could even keep myself up and going until 11 - no, midnight!

“I don’t get it, man?” a voice said, causing me to freeze in place.

Not because I didn’t recognize it or anything - more like because I did. It was my Anthony, my assigned roommate, talking - and judging by the direction and distance I was pretty sure he was standing in the kitchen. In fact, now that I was actually listening for it, I could even hear the faint sound of bottles clinking against each other as Anthony rummaged through the fridge.

The fridge I stocked and which he treated as communal property. Heaven help me if I tried to take something of his, on the rare opportunity he bothered to buy something with his own money, though.

…Not that I’d ever actually done that. Or even gathered up the courage to ask if I could. I just knew the man well enough to know how it would go. He’d talk about personal space, and respecting each other’s property, and completely ignore the fact that he always acted like we were the best of bros who could share anything on the rare occasions I actually gathered up the courage to even try and broach the subject. 

“Why can’t I get laid?” Anthony continued, not even seeming to notice me as I slipped out of my room and past the kitchen on the way to our dorm’s door. “I thought college was supposed to be a smorgasbord of horny chicks!”

“Maybe because you say stuff like that?” I muttered, under my breath. Except I guess I didn’t mutter it quite low enough, seeing as how Anthony then proceeded to turn around. 

“You say something, man?” he asked, tapping the gray earpiece he was wearing. “I’m on the phone.”

“I…” I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath. I obviously hadn’t meant to be be heard, but now that I had his attention… maybe this was my chance to finally say something? Not about my irritation with him over the fridge, mind - no way I had the courage to speak up about that - but about the way he talked about women. I’d always had an easier time standing up for others than myself, after all, and it wasn’t like there was anyone else present and willing to tell him off for the way he talked about the girls on campus.

Gathering up the small amount of courage I had in me, I opened my mouth, took a deep breath… and turned away from Anthony so that he couldn’t see my scowl. “I said I need to go check on my laundry.”

“Ooookay? You planning to check in with me about your bathroom breaks, too?”

“No… Sorry… I was just being dumb,” I muttered, moving towards the door.

Anthony didn’t reply to that. At least not to me, anyhow. He certainly had something to say to his friend about his ‘idiot roommate’ though, and by the time I’d actually made it out the door he was back on his original topic, sharing disgusting theories on why the ‘girls’ on campus weren’t into ‘real men.’

Not that I actually said anything about it to him, in the end. Because apparently ‘easier’ didn’t mean ‘easy,’ and even though I’d thought myself capable of speaking up for someone else if not myself, it turned out I just plain lacked the courage to talk back to the musclebound jock I was currently being forced to share space with.

It made me wonder if, in the end, I was just as bad as him. What was even the point of having high ideals if you couldn’t bring yourself to stand up for them? How could I claim to care about how he treated women when I couldn’t even bring myself to say a single word to reprehend him?  Maybe… maybe in the end, I was just another callous, shallow, fool of a man who only liked to think he had actual morals and believed in the value of the women around him, because it made him feel like he was better than the men who didn’t even bother to keep up the pretense…

Thoughts of that nature kept flitting through my head, the entire time I was making my way down to the basement. Not that the trip actually took that long, in the end - if only because I was quite literally doing my best to run away from the thoughts that were plaguing me, darting down the stairs at dangerous speeds. I was lucky it didn’t get me killed, really - especially when I started taking the stairs two at a time, and refused to even slow down as I dodged around the other people using the stairway.  I actually got yelled at a bit for that last part, but honestly that just made me want to run even faster, in hopes that they wouldn’t see my face and remember me later. 

In the end, though, I made it down the stairs and into the basement in one piece. Out of stamina, breathing heavily, and with a stitch in my side that made me want to scream, but still in one piece as I leaned against the wall of dryers and waited for my body to recover.

After a few seconds of that, I finally dared to take a look around the laundry room, to see if anyone else was present and staring at my disheveled form. Once I confirmed there wasn’t anyone else in there - a small, but very real relief - I reached up and wrapped a few strands of hair around my finger, before proceeding to tug my hair hard enough to hurt. It was a bad habit of mine - one Mother was always getting on my case about - but it honestly did a lot to calm me down and help me think, even if I myself wasn’t all that sure why it worked in the first place. If I had to take a stab at it, I’d say that it was a way for me to translate my mental anguish into physical pain, which was easier for me to process. That was honestly just a guess, though - I wasn’t even sure it made sense. I’d only ever taken a single psych class, after all… But in the end, the reason didn’t really matter all that much to me. I just knew that it helped - that it made my problems feel just a bit smaller, and less significant, even when my whole of my life felt like one big complicated mess.

“…I’ll say something,” I muttered to myself, eventually. “Next time Anthony talks about women like that, I’ll definitely say something.” My dad always used to tell me that you had to be the kind of person you wanted to see in the world, after all. Back before he died. Not that I really remembered all that much about him, seeing as how I’d only been six when he’d passed, but… I did remember that.

So, with that decided - or at least dealt with to the point where I could actually force myself to move on and ignore the issue for the time being - I pushed off the nearest dryer and stood upright, twisting about to get a better look at the washing machines behind me. From there, I quickly moved to find the one I’d stuffed my clothes in - third from the right, in the second row. The one with a bit of a ding in the top. I always used that one, when it was available, both because other people tended to avoid the superficially damaged machine whenever there were others available, and because it was the easiest one for me to actually remember.

Except, when I actually opened the machine, I quickly realized that something was off. It took me a moment to figure out what, mind you - I mean, it was kind of hard to tell what was what in there, seeing as how all the clothes were plastered to the curved sides of the washing machine - but I was pretty sure I was seeing a bit too much pink in there for the clothes to be mine.

I reached in, grabbing an article of clothes and pulling it out at random, just to confirm that I was right. It was always possible that some red dye had leached off some bit of clothing or another and changed the looks of things, after all. Except what I pulled out in the end wasn’t some formerly white t-shirt turned pink, but rather a bright pink bra.

“Okay, so definitely not my things,” I muttered, peering down into the washing machine. A bright light flickered at the edge of my vision, as I did so, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Hell, I barely even processed that it was there in the moment, what with me being so focused on the issue of what had happened to literally every outfit I owned, outside the one I was wearing.

“Did someone move them?” I wondered, glancing at the bra in my hand. I hadn’t seen any piles of clothes on the table, but it was vaguely possible that someone had been nice enough to move them into a dryer for me.

With a shrug, I decided to simply toss the bra back into the washing machine and go check the dryers - but before I could let it go, the light I’d only half-noticed up until that point suddenly brightened, engulfing me entirely and forcing me to cover my eyes.

A moment later, the light faded from the basement - but by that point I was already gone.