IAstraAstra woke, eyes shot wide in complete darkness, hands cwing at the air as she struggled upright. Her first conscious realization was that she could not breathe. She gaped, chest burning and heavy with strain, her own choking, aborted gasps the only sound.

  Finally, blissfully, short gulping breaths. The sensation of having to vomit. Cognizance returned. Heart-hammering terror abated.

  A pin-prick of light everywhere she looked. It grew as darkness abated. Her eyes hadn’t been working. She found herself in a stone room, dimly lit with light that had no obvious source. It dyed everything sepia. Directly in front of her was a pale wall, intricately carved with the figure of a faceless robed figure crowned with bursts of light.

  Behind Astra a hallway yawned wide, the remainder of the walls and ceiling covered by beautiful carvings depicting what looked like swirling cloud formations above a city sky-line.

  Frowning, she crawled to the edge of the table to get a look at what she’d been lying on. A stone sb?

  She double-taked. Her arms were not at all the color she expected them to be, they were completely white. Paraffin. Her hands were short fingered, small, totally free of the wear and tear of adulthood. Astra swung her legs over the edge of the stone table. She was wearing a long sleeveless tunic or perhaps a dress.

  Sensation tickled the back of her arms. She grabbed at it. It was her own hair, white, nearly the exact same shade. She dropped it, disbelief washed over her when she ran her fingers through her hair. It was long. To the small of her back.

  Astra gasped, it sounded childish. She had no memory of this pce or how she might have arrived here. She could not recall her st conscious moments before now.

  This forgetfulness didn’t feel natural. It teased as if the path to memory simply terminated rather than resolved. Panic rose. Events, people, all of it was vague paths ending in silhouettes of memory.

  None of this was correct. She didn’t know this pce. She didn’t know this voice. She didn’t know this body.

  Her body!

  Unfamiliar hands patted down her form to ensure the realness of it. Everything seemed real. Shoulders, chest, stomach. All pinly that of a child. She stopped at her hips.

  Could she dare to hope?

  Trepidation. She exhaled long and slow, held her breath, fixed her gaze on that dimly lit pale stone wall with her hands on her thighs until her vision went gray from deprivation. What would she do if she found what she didn’t want to find there? What if she simply refused to investigate until bodily needs forced her?

  A shaky breath, before she could reconsider she groped herself.

  Her heart sank.

  Here she was. A child again, scared, alone. In a strange pce with no idea what was going on or how she came to be here. In a state of unself.

  Would it have been too much to ask that this body be one that fit her properly?

  It would seem so.

  Her body was a boy’s body again. With the parts she didn’t want.

  One day it would go through a puberty she didn’t want to go through.

  All over again.

  She’d endured this once already, the thought of enduring again makes her gorge rise.

  Not again, please not again.

  A slow, mournful wail echoed in her ears at the same moment a terrible pain began at her scalp. Her face was wet. Tears. Awareness, through a haze of agony, that she was tearing at her own hair and screaming.

  Gentle, endless oblivion seemed preferable. She imagined a grinning, mad God ughing at her as it held her in vice-like eternity to press her face into burning coals.

  Forever and ever.

  Why?

  Why again?

  What was the purpose?

  She had to calm down. She had to!

  The delicate skin on the inside of her forearms burned. Through blurring tears she saw that she had dug furrows with her fingernails. She hadn’t even realized it. The pain was awful but it did bring her from the howling pit. Personhood returned.

  Blood marred the half-sleeves and the front of her tunic-dress. It ran free and stinging and messy and would do so for a while. Miserable for days.

  Astra felt heavy with shame. Moments in this unfamiliar body and she’d already settled into her terrible habits. Her arms would probably scar from what she’d just done.

  She moved with nguid crity and made a slow circle around the room. The carvings impressed but held no answer.

  So she looked to the looming passage. If she took every left she’d never be lost, right?

  The hallway led Astra to more rooms, more hallways. All of them simir to the one she awoke in. She ascended two flights of stairs only to find more of the same. Astra still had no idea what sort of pce this was. There were empty rooms simir to the one she awakened in, rooms with empty shelves, rooms with long stone tables and basins, and even one room that seemed to be a bath gone dry.

  Whatever purpose this pce served was a mystery and Astra still had no idea how it was all so evenly lit in that dim shadowless light that washed everything sepia.

  There weren’t even any windows.

  Hours passed. Exhaustion and thirst trailed after her. Astra tried not to think about how she might be facing terminal dehydration.

  The hallway ahead turned left. The sameness of the pce meant that getting lost here would be extremely easy. Sticking to left turns - assuming there weren’t four in a row - might actually save her life. Astra hoped.

  She’d taken to feeling her way along the wall with one small paraffin hand. At first in hopes of finding some change in texture. For something different. Now she was doing it to keep herself upright.

  When finally Astra encountered something new she had to blink and refocus her eyes. It was a room that had rows upon rows of low stone. Like the stone she’d awakened upon. She’d seen many like them already but these were different in one very important way; each had a cloudy gss encasement that reached up to a fixture in the ceiling. Each of them had remains of people in them.

  Astra allowed herself a moment to take it all in as she leaned against the entryway. She pyed with the ends of her long white tresses.

  The remains were still clothed, in simir garments to what she wore.

  Entertaining the possibility that this was some failed stasis or other sort of long term death-defying preservation gone wrong, she moved closer to gingerly touch the gss. It didn’t feel cold, nor did she see anything that indicated freezing. Not that she was an expert on the subject of bodily preservation.

  Slowly, eyes wide and searching, she walked down the row to find that each column held varying remains. Some taller, adolescents perhaps, some shorter as if they were younger children like herself. All of them were retively well-preserved.

  Each base featured logograms set into the stone. The work was so well done that they looked as if they’d been shaped rather than carved. One in the center of a long side featured four closely pced vertical lines above a rectangle that was missing its top edge.

  She felt something like a magnetic attraction pull at her hand when she passed it over this logogram. She started away.

  That pull had gone all the way from her fingertips to the base of her palm.

  She stared for several breaths, thinking, then shook her head and moved down the row to the next remains. Except there weren’t remains.

  It was a person.

  Specifically, it was a girl. Not a child like herself, an adolescent. Much taller. Long white hair, paraffin skin, surprisingly pointed ears. Exactly the sort that a stereotypical fantasy Elf would have. They were long enough that the tips poked through hair. She was wearing a functional gray tunic or dress, just as she herself wore. Her face was incredibly pretty and featured long white shes, too still for dreaming. All of her was evenly colorless, inhuman in a way she’d never seen before.

  She wasn’t pale in the way European or some Middle-Eastern or Asian people could be, she was colorless. Paraffin. Like Astra. Even her lips were a close shade to the rest of her skin.

  Astra wished she had a mirror.

  Curiously, she lifted a hand to test the shape of her ear.

  Round.

  Shaking her head she looked down the row to the st table to see if there were any other persons instead of remains. A quick loop around the room confirmed this girl was the only exception.

  Astra wanted to find a way to open the gss container, confirm that the girl was indeed alive and wake her from whatever stasis she y. Worry gnawed. Would Astra only be forcing this girl into the same situation needlessly?

  She pyed with the ends of her hair as she looked over the stone base. There was the logogram. Four lines and a three-sided rectangle. Cautiously she pced a hand on it. Again the same magnetic pull, like a long dormant muscle bothered to use again.

  Astra didn’t want to be alone in here anymore.

  Sighing, she gave in to the strange pulling sensation. Silence, then the logogram lit up with brilliant blue. The first vivid color she had seen in hours. The hiss of decompression followed as the gss lifted from the table to ascend into a narrow gap that mirrored the table edge. She stepped back as the light died to rub her wrist, the ghost of a sprain fading.

  Nothing happened for so long that she thought that the girl may have been dead after all. Then she inhaled sharply and sat up, wide-eyed and confused. Astra gasped when she saw the girl’s eyes. They were bright and red as rubies.

  The gasp caught the girl’s attention. Ruby-Eyes stared, then said something in a firm voice in a nguage that she didn’t recognize at all.

  Astra tried to apologize, “Awwaaasii”, she managed. It was as if she’d forgotten how to form words altogether. Her tone was girlish, nasal, and entirely uncontrolled. She tried again fruitlessly. The effort left her mouth strained and oddly sluggish.

  Ruby-Eyes blinked at her

  ? "Soai," Astra said, pointlessly.

  Ruby-eyes looked her over, then cast her gaze around the room only to freeze at the sight of the remains. Astra watched as Ruby-Eyes scrambled to the next gss encasement to press her forehead against it. She drew a shuddering breath, then pushed off and moved two rows down. Astra followed, dreading when the shock passed and grief arrived in force.

  A soft cry of despair escaped Ruby-Eyes as she drew close to another corpse. She raised the gss and threw herself on the corpse to cling desperately. Wracking sobs choked off her cries.

  Astra lingered like she'd witnessed a terrible accident and was waiting for someone that could actually help to arrive. She crouched with her back to the adjacent column, knees drawn up to make a pillow of her own crossed arms. The sound of Ruby-Eyes grief brought out her own dismay. Tears wetted the long-dried blood on her sleeves. The smell of iron filled her nostrils. Eventually Ruby-Eyes stopped wailing.

  There was a hand on her shoulder, Astra really didn't want to lift her head and suffer the embarrassment of teary eyes and a snotty nose, particurly when the moment wasn't hers to grieve, but she did it anyway.

  Ruby-Eyes namesake brimmed redder with grief. Her hair made a wild frame about her face as she brushed a lock behind one of her long ears. She was kneeling next to Astra, a hand on her shoulder. Astra missed that she’d lowered the gss on the remains.

  Astra opened her mouth to offer condolences, but said nothing because she wouldn't understand anyway. Ruby-Eyes didn't have the same hesitation as an entire lilting sentence broke the silence, it had a consoling tone. Astra hoped her face was clear about her complete ck of understanding.

  Another sentence, this one spoken more slowly as if that would help.

  "Weaaa dooo sataaaaa…." Astra started, then gave up, there was no way she would understand the sentence ‘we don’t speak the same nguage’ anyway.

  Ruby-Eyes looked at her as if she had grown an additional head, then her hand was on Astra’s forehead. Checking for fever perhaps? She jabbed a finger beneath each Astra’s eyes to pull down the bottom lids. Astra’s mouth was inspected next with all the bedside manor of a field medic until she pulled away with a squeak.

  The older girl went for her wrist next, her eyes hard-set on the crust of blood that lined Astra’s fingernails. Ruby-Eyes ignored her yelp as she pulled her arm up and her sleeve fell away to reveal the oozing furrows she’d carved into her arms hours ago.

  Another moment confirmed the same story written on her other arm. Ruby-Eyes’ hard-set gaze found hers, a storm of questions in her eyes. Astra wanted to sob again. She’d finally found another living soul in this liminal purgatory and already that person was aware that she was a little off.

  Ruby-Eyes spoke. Her tone soothed, not at all accusatory as Astra expected. Gently she lowered Astra’s arm, outstretched. She gasped as Ruby-Eyes namesake glowed. The older girl passed her free hand over the oozing furrows, all the while she spoke. Astra could only stare, entranced.

  The wounds were gone, the blood too, not even the ruddy-brown that dripped to stain her wrists remained.

  “Woaw,” Astra croaked.

  Ruby-Eyes fell silent as she repeated the miracle on the other arm before releasing her to stand. Even Astra’s fingernails were clean. She gnced up as the glow of the other girl’s eyes faded.

  A smile, then the older girl hauled Astra to her feet, but the weight of exhaustion spun Astra’s world. Vision tunneled, she heaved. If her stomach hadn’t been empty she would have sicked all over Ruby-Eyes feet as the older girl held her steady by the arms so she wouldn’t fall.

  Ruby-Eyes, for her part, did not seem particurly armed by Astra’s state. Instead she showed Astra her back and kneeled.

  Words again, Astra felt sure it was an urging to climb onto Ruby-Eyes' back. She thought of refusing even as her vision spun behind her eye-lids.

  Ruby-Eyes did know better than Astra. Maybe the miracle drew from Astra’s own strength to do its work. Maybe this child's body had slipped beyond exhaustion. Regardless it was less embarrassing to climb onto Ruby-Eyes' back than she expected. Comfortable even as she leaned her forehead against the older girl’s shoulder. Ruby-Eyes secured Astra’s legs with her arms and rose easily, speaking briefly in a good-natured reassuring tone even though understanding was completely beyond her.

  Ruby-Eyes fell into silence as she carried Astra from the room. Her gait held a certainty that suggested she knew exactly where she was going. Astra tried to commit to memory the path, but exhaustion and the lulling motion made keeping her eyes open impossible. The idea that she could actually fall asleep seemed ridiculous though, even as fighting the urge became uncomfortable. Astra resolved not to miss anything.

  She fell asleep.

  ? Someone was whispering into Astra’s ear. She couldn't understand the words, but the voice was nice. It was warm, comfortable. The voice persisted, yanking the metaphorical covers from comfort, exposing her to awful chill.

  Astra opened her eyes.

  Sleepy confusion gave way to rousing recall. Ruby-Eyes was kneeling, urging her to get off of her back, which she did sheepishly.

  She rubbed her eyes before looking to find they were now in what seemed a modern underground shopping mall, or what was left of one. The sepia light was gone. Here repced by a warm light cast from an orb that was hovering just above their heads. It followed Ruby-Eyes as she stepped away.

  More miracles? Magic? How long had Astra been out?

  This pce didn't seem nearly as well preserved as the sepia halls. Benches dotted the space here and there, stalls in various states of colpse, empty doorways leading to who knows where graced the walls at even intervals. The air was still, stale, thick with dust long undisturbed, now airborne by their presence. Just barely catching the light in the distance was a stairwell, crumbling in pces. It was very cold.

  Before the two there was a stall that had fared better than the others. Ruby-Eyes inspected a blue cloth that had been haphazardly draped across the counter. Shaking off the dust and creases, apparently to her satisfaction, she folded it lengthwise then turned to Astra and wrapped it around her shoulders twice before securing it with a small knot. It wasn't going to be terribly effective but it was much better than nothing.

  Leading them by the hand again Ruby-Eyes went from stall to stall. The light orb followed her dutifully until she found another cloth for herself. It was a darker red than her eyes and a bit more worn than the one she found for Astra. Still, better than nothing.

  Sitting on a mostly intact bench, Ruby-Eyes bowed her head as if in prayer. Palms turned up. Her eyes glowed bright again, then faded, and in her hands was a pin handleless cup of water. She offered it to Astra.

  Astra was stuck gawping, so Ruby-Eyes made an impatient face and patted the spot on the bench next to her. Astra shook off her amazement to sit beside her. She drank it all down. Ruby-Eyes then set her hand over the mouth of the cup, her eyes fshed, the cup filled. It took three cups to satisfy.

  Astra was grinning at Ruby-Eyes as she returned the cup. She took it with a quiet response that Astra assumed to be some form of "you're welcome" then filled the cup for herself twice and drank deeply. When she was done the cup dissolved as she let it tumble from her hand. There was nothing to disturb the dust by the time it would have reached the ground.

  Astra had so many questions.

  Ruby-Eyes led them to the distant stair. They stretched wide, split down the middle by the remains of its baluster. The nding between floors rge enough to accommodate a stall and two benches, with plenty of space aside. Ruby-Eyes clearly meant to lead them up as far as she could but had to stop when they found that this stairwell had colpsed two floors up. An exasperated sigh escaped the older girl, then she turned around and continued on the current floor.

  All the while she kept a firm grasp on Astra’s hand. They passed more stalls, doorways in variable states of functionality, benches whole or so decayed that only the outline of them remained in the floor.

  Ruby-Eyes froze. The sudden stillness caused Astra to bump into her back and gasp aloud. The taller girl turned and cmped a hand over her mouth, eyes looking all around, neck craning to listen. Astra could've sworn her ears were twitching.

  Silence. Whatever she was hearing was beyond Astra. Despite the seconds passing she didn't remove her hand, even cmping tighter when she tried to pull away.

  A firmer protest was brewing in the back of Astra’s mind when Ruby-Eyes suddenly dove onto her. She yelped as a dark shape screamed just above the pair's heads.

  Ruby-Eyes leapt to her feet before Astra even realized what had happened. It was no exaggeration, she literally did not see the older girl rise. The sensation of her whole person being yanked about. Then her mind caught up. Ruby-Eyes had her slung over her shoulder and was running so impossibly fast.

  It was impossible to make any sense of the situation because the speed of her run and the haphazard jostling made it impossible. Watery vomit rose in the back of Astra’s throat.

  Ruby-Eyes jumped at the same moment that another indiscernible shape ricocheted off the ground, just where her feet would have been. She turned, impossibly transferring their momentum into a kick that disintegrated one of the dipidated stalls and sent the debris flying through the air. There was a crash and a reverberating inhuman roar that was so loud Astra’s heart skipped a beat. Ruby-Eyes was already running again.

  They rounded a corner. The light orb that followed the pair so diligently went straight rather than follow them. Ruby-Eyes tore past three empty doorways in the growing dark then stopped at the fourth and slipped into a long room that was so dipidated that its original purpose was lost to time. She conjured another, much dimmer light orb.

  In the room sat half of what was once a great table that still had two of its legs lying on the floor. It was rge enough for the two of them to hide behind and keep out of sight of the doorway. Ruby-Eyes carried Astra behind it, then the light orb winked out.

  Despite her haste she set Astra down gently and pressed a finger to her mouth.

  The two of them knelt in silence. Ruby-Eyes grasped Astra’s hand so tight it was hurting, but she didn’t compin. For long moments the only sound was Ruby-Eyes' breath, stilled as much as she could after her impossible run.

  The urge to pee descended, because of course now it would.

  Suddenly, Astra felt as if her entire person was smmed all at once. A brief, weightless, thoughtless moment in the dark passed where she realized it was the table that had struck her. Then her flight ended in the sudden snapping agony of her back smming into the wall. Something deep gave way in her chest.

  Ribs, she mused distantly. Numb to it all even as her body dropped to the floor. Astra’s wrist cracked beneath her.

  Ruby-Eyes was shouting something, then a bright light filled the room. Dazed, Astra could see her facing what looked to be a giant six-armed man made of shadow. Really, it was made of shadow, light seemed to either be going around it completely or not bouncing off of it at all. It seemed more a visual effect than anything else. A fttened ragged silhouette of a six armed giant holding an array of shadowy weapons. An ax, a sword. More that Astra didn’t recognize.

  Ruby-Eyes somehow escaped injury completely when the table was hit, held light in her hand. The shadow giant shrunk from it as she hefted it aloft, enraged, then threw a shadow spear at her.

  Astra tried to shout a warning.

  Eyes glowing so brightly red that they illuminated the space in front of her, Ruby-Eyes smacked the spear away mid-flight with her free hand. Unbelievably she scooped up the rgest piece of the giant table they'd been hiding behind and flung it at the giant where it tore through its multi-armed shoulder. It screeched an inhuman roar again, staggered, dripped shadows from the wound that evaporated the moment they hit the ground.

  Ruby-Eyes was running then, low and fast. She closed the distance between herself and the shadow-giant to leap at its face, thrusting with the light in her hand. The creature swung at her with its ax at the same moment. Blinding light and the smell of ozone at the connection.

  Astra screwed her eyes shut, but there were several terrified sightless moments where all she could hear were the sounds of the shadow-giant shrieking in something like pain and the sound of it scrabbling blindly as it moved away.

  How did it fit through the door in the first pce?

  Finally vision returned as she cwed into a sitting position, back against the wall. Astra’s chest rattled. Something loose shifted armling. It felt like she was wearing a vise. Ruby-Eyes started at the remnants of smoky shadow that lingered along the ground.

  Astra’s sharp, agonized gasp turned Ruby-Eyes’ attention from the door-way. Both of her eyes were bzing red mps in the dark. She id both hands on Astra’s chest and shoulder. Pleasing warmth and pain. Her scream was interrupted with a rush of bloody vomit. She bcked out.

  When Astra came too Ruby-Eyes was watching the door-way. Her face in profile betrayed trembling lips, her hands balled up tightly.

  Most of Astra’s hurt had fled. She wanted to get up, but she could only manage a twitch of the extremities. SHe managed to groan. Ruby-Eyes’ lip ceased trembling when she looked at her. Astra nodded as obviously as she could manage to the door, eyes fixed, hoping the meaning was clear.

  Leave me behind.

  Ruby-Eyes followed Astra’s gaze and scowled. Astra saw it too. Shadow-smoke was oozing through the open door to coalesce in the shape of the giant. Their gazes met again. Astra wished she had the words to argue. Ruby-Eyes worried her bottom lip with a fang as she lifted Astra and tilted her lolling head with a gentle touch at the chin, to bare her throat.

  She wanted to ask Ruby-Eyes badly when she had grown fangs, but Astra didn’t really feel like she was part of the moment any more. The older girl’s mouth connected with her neck. Pressure. Warmth. Behind Ruby-Eyes the shadow monster finished coalescing, whatever Ruby-Eyes meant to do she had little time to do it.

  Curiously it didn't hurt at all. Astra felt as if she were being necked. That her throat had somehow fallen asleep and was only now tingling awake again. She couldn't resist if she wanted to, or breathe even, she was totally paralyzed.

  Ruby-Eyes pulled back. The corners of her mouth ran dark with Astra’s blood. Her heart sank with a feeling that had a curiously final bend. It felt like dying.

  Ruby-Eyes’ gaze fred again. Brighter than it had so far.

  She turned from Astra and unched away at impossible speed toward the near-complete shadow giant, a light in her hands. Ruby-Eyes severed one of the legs of the shadow-giant before it could react. Its roar shook the stone. Though all of this seemed a lifetime away as Astra’s vision tunneled. Her eyelids fluttered, turning the unfolding battle into a series of confusing disjointed still-shots.

  Astra wondered that she would survive, then she stopped wondering about anything.