My Normal Life Now Has A Gnawing Sense of Dread

Tama dropped and rolled. The Nacht slammed the ground a second later, normal human fist ballooned to the size of a massive boulder. Sarine grabbed Tama and yanked her away, face red hot with fear. “Wait,” Sarine said, “How’s there a Nacht out here!? I thought we cured all the victims! Who else even lives around here!?”

“…It looks like me…” Tama muttered. “Shit—Lavi said she hated humanity, right?”

“You think Pleasa is using Lavi to grow a Nacht!?”

“Who else is gonna be up here with her?!”

“…Yeah, okay, then we’ll tear it to pieces too!”

Tama fumbled for her blade, cold biting at exposed skin while Sarine readied a fireball. The cold snuffed the flame; she grumbled and conjured up a breeze instead, throwing the monster to its feet.

It snarled, growing its leg and sweeping—it knocked Tama down, while Sarine flew upward to escape. The Nacht lunged for Tama next.

“Watch out!”

Sarine couldn’t do much on her own—but Tama struggled to get up, so she summoned the power she could only achieve with Tama and seized the cold, harvesting the wind into her hands and swinging it down on the Nacht’s head.

But it jumped away at the last second. Her attack connected with the snow, and the ground cracked. Cracked, shook, and crumbled away, revealing a hollow interior Tama fell screaming into, her faerie flying after her and catching her before she hit the ground.

Cold ground crumbled and revealed cold, dark flooring, hard obsidian lining the floors and walls of the pocket the two found themselves in. The hole itself didn’t seem so big after the fact. The space, though, expanded endlessly in two directions, narrow passageways maze-like. Tama glanced ahead, and behind—as the Nacht lunged, bearing small scratches, she grabbed Sarine and took off down the opposite path.

A hard right led down another path, and a left—

“Woah!” Tama screeched to a halt, feet scraping against the edge of an open pit on the path. The Nacht careened behind them on four legs; it slobbered and screamed as its arm extended and reached for them both.

Sarine flew ahead and held a hand out. “Jump!”

“You think I’m stupid!?”

“Just trust me asshole!”

Tama took a deep breath, closed her eyes and leapt. A breeze caught her, boosting and dumping her on the other side. As the Nacht jumped after them, they took off again.

“Okay, okay,” Tama said, shaking her head. “Go left—I’ll go right.”

“Pincer attack?”

“We can’t keep running forever! Either we do something to it now or we walk into some kinda flamethrower next!”

Sarine nodded and took off. Tama ducked around the corner, blade readied as the Nacht charged, a thick inky liquid drooling from between its sharp teeth like a rabid animal’s.

And of course it still bore Tama’s face. She grimaced, but refused to look away—though it did make her wonder. If Pleasa used Lavi’s nightmares as a basis for this creature, then it must’ve come from a real, dominating fear of the faerie’s. Enough to drive her to work with someone who would indiscriminately killed people for the sake of her goals.

Maybe that was just it.

The murder. The mayhem. Culling the fat and making a better world no matter the means.

Tama raised her blade. The Nacht darted left, and a flash of light pushed it back. Tama jumped, cleaving the head off the monster. The body seized and grabbed Tama’s wrist, but Sarine threw a hand out and an inferno burst to life, consuming the monster as it screamed and Tama began to sway. She felt each drop of energy Sarine wrung out of her; only now she failed to stop it from showing.

Regardless, Tama did what she had to do. She aimed her sword and chanted, each word recited perfectly, pulled from a time where everything seemed to make sense before they were dumped into a future of cold uncertainty—the monster evaporated, and Tama collapsed. Sarine flew to her side.

“Don’t—heal me,” Tama grumbled, swatting her away. “I’ll be fine. Use whatever you need to and save your energy for the fight.”

“…Can you just—why are you saying it like that?” Sarine said. “Do you think I like seeing you—”

“I never said you do! But we’re not gonna stop Pleasa if you keep getting caught up in your feelings!”

“Well, at least someone’s thinking! You’re just—”

“Just what?” Tama jabbed a finger. “Are you gonna say it was a mistake to come here?”

Sarine looked down. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

“I—I know. I know. I’m sorry. C’mon, let’s just…hurry. Before Pleasa throws something else at us.”

Tama helped herself to her feet, ignoring Sarine’s hand. She put on a smile and patted her own shoulder, and after a heavy silence, Sarine took her place and the pair continued.

The area they fell into seemed to be a meaningless labyrinth built to ward off intruders. Sarine disabled as many magical traps as she could catch, and the rest which stood in their path ended up cut down by Tama.

What unnerved the two the most, though, were the traps that didn’t go off. Deadly ones—poison-tipped arrows forever embedded in the wall, heat traps that never sprang open. Only the clumsy predictable ones got in their way.

And not a single one ever reached Sarine.

“She knows we’re coming,” Tama said. “No—she knows we’re already here.”

Sarine looked down at her hands and said nothing.

The maze opened up, a passageway connecting to a suspended metal bridge. Darkness filled every corner below, all the light streaming from an opening above as if they stood in a volcano. Though it was hard to see, Tama leaned over and held a hand out to the distant surface below, where the clicks of machines and pops of something bubbling leaked from the nothingness. Vats flitted into view next to massive, incomprehensible devices.

The path forward let to darkness.

“You know, I could push you right now and end this farce, but I know your little stupid faerie friend will only kill herself out of grief. We can’t have that.”

She jolted, stumbled—Sarine threw herself in front of Tama. There, Pleasa stood, a faint half-smile on her face as the room exploded in light.