Chapter Text
Petals of spilled wine blossoming forevermore under a sky caught between dusk’s teeth. A sea of crimson singing in memoriam just beneath the wind. And there, ahead of me, him.
Silver hair, entwined in moonlit thread, swaying with each step he took. Bare feet brushing through flowers that trembled beneath his touch. The field stretched on. Endless. Unwavering. Yet I knew, somehow, we were going somewhere.
Then, the field of crimson bled onto obsidian. The sky arched into vaulted ceilings where old parchment and floral fragrance drifted through the air.
The library stood as it had always been there, its towering shelves swallowed by black ivy, its crystal floors cracked open by roots. Moonlight fell in shafts through broken stained glass, painting the dust in shades of sapphire and gold. And still he was there, waiting.
Strands catching the light like spider silk, framing features I couldn’t quite catch. My eyes failed to focus, leaving his face a void. Still, he was silent.
But this time, he held something in his marred hands.
A book.
Old leather, soft as skin, its edges gilded with tarnished gold. He pressed it into my palms—no hesitation, no ceremony. It was as unceremonious as it could be, the leather nearly slipping through my fingers before I remembered to tighten my grip.
Beneath my fingertips, something pulsed. A heartbeat. Or maybe it was just my own, clawing at my chest. Pressed into the spine, a single red dahlia. Its petals were perfectly preserved, sealed into skin with a reverence that told me it had meant a great deal to someone. Perhaps it still did.
My own shaking hands peeled away at the edges of the paper, scared to leave a single crease as its pages fell open. Blurred words scribbled among the pages, nothing legible, nothing meant for me to see.
I ran my finger along it, smudging the ink as I realized it was fresh. My eyes fell to the stain on my finger, then, the world unstitched itself.
Shelves slumped inward, their ancient tomes bleeding ink as the words inside them crawled free, pooling black and glossy on the floor. The windows wept color, streaks of crimson sliding down the walls. Even the air grew thick, syrupy, like the air itself was melting.
Rain.
Cold. Sharp. Sudden. It flooded through the collapsing library as the night rushed in. The same starless sky that had cradled me as the ground fell beneath my feet. Petrichor flooded my senses. My knees hit wet gravel.
This night.
The edge. The water below me reflecting the lights of the valley in front of me like drowned stars.
No. I’d already left. I’d already…
The book slipped from my hands, its pages fluttering open like wings before the rain soaked them through, turning them to pulp. The spine peeled and the dahlia freed itself from its cage. Crimson petals scattering in the wind, each one a drop of wine swallowed by the dark.
My hands moved before my brain could. I reached for the last petal against that inky backdrop.
And fell.
The ground fractured like a mirror, the shards slicing past me as I plunged into the abyss. Cold and unforgiving. Constellations unravel into streaks of light that lead nowhere. The rain became static. The static became a song that buried itself in my soul.
Then impact.
Not hard. Not soft. Just…final. A seed carried on the breeze to find new soil.
—
My knees hit the pavement, cold and wet. Not rain nor water. Something thick and crimson clinging to the cracks in the concrete, coating my fingers like warm syrup when I braced myself. Mine? It was a shame I didn’t have the foresight to wear something more protective than shorts. Clearly, I should have accounted for not actually dying.
Energy sparked through the air as the sound of electricity hummed around me. Buildings caved me in on either side, allowing only a jagged slit of neon caressing the sky. A billboard flickered through the gap, Linkon City’s Top Dealership, proudly displaying a car that definitely didn’t exist in 2025. The ad stuttered, glitched, then reset.
My nose twitched as my brows furrowed. A suffocating, hot feeling flooded over my chest.
Beep. A sound so mundane and normal it was…ridiculous in this context.
My eyes narrowed on the alley mouth. Shadows moved across the dimly lit wall as my ears trained in on the heavy thudding of boots hitting hungry pavement.
I tensed, having half the mind to look for an escape. My eyes landed on exactly that, a fire escape. Option one. Option two—
A blur of blonde streaked past me.
The gunshot rang out, sending vibrations through my bones. I flinch hard enough to bite my tongue, spinning around to face her.
Her knee was planted on a twitching Wanderer’s back, pressing her pistol to the back of its exposed weak spot as she delivered the final blow. The Wanderer dissolved like a shadow under light, its remains floating away into the night.
Her locs swayed around her waist as she turned to me, brown eyes meeting mine when recognition flooded over me. Her outfit and gun told me that this…this was the game’s MC. Not the MC I played as, but a version I had drawn recently. Dark brown skin, cat-like eyes…the gap between her front teeth when her lips curled into a smile.
“Sorry if that scared you,” she said, holstering her pistols with a practiced flick. “Wasn’t expecting to be on duty tonight, but… Wanderers have no concept of overtime.”
Her voice was warmer than I’d imagined. Lighter too.
Then her eyes dropped to the mess of crimson soaking my knees, and her face changed. I’d never seen someone cycle through emotions so fast.
A sharp inhale, lips pressed thin as if she was bracing for bad news, then her hands twitched towards me before she decided to move.
She dropped to a crouch in front of me, clean leather boots stepping into the blood without hesitation. “Okay, okay.” Her shaky exhale blew gently across my bangs. “We’re going to be so calm about this and see if you can stand.”
I nodded slightly in response, still racking my mind to figure out what exactly was happening.
She helped me up, her grip firm under my elbows. Up close, I could see the frayed edges of her skirt and the chipped polish on her nails. That was too real. Much too real.
“You’re shaking,” she mumbled, the tone reminding me of someone who just found a small, scared animal.
She shrugged off her jacket before I could protest or insist I was fine, wrapping it around my waist to cover the stains. “There. Good enough until we can get you some medical assistance.” Her eyes trailed up to my face, smiling wider with that toothy grin. “I like your hair. It’s like mine.”
I pause, my head tilting a centimeter to the right as I let out a chuckle. “Yeah,” I deadpanned, holding up my pasty white forearm next to her umber skin. “I bet we could switch clothes and no one would ever know. We’re practically twins.”
She snorted, flicking a loc over her shoulder. “Please. You’d drown in this skirt. But—” Her fingers closed around mine, and the world split open.
The visions came in fragments, words overlaid as if they were torn out of a book. A mix of natures past, hers and mine. Arguing with Caleb when he didn’t do the dishes on time so she could mark it down in her list of grievances. A dark room with a worn, empty dog bed and the faint glow of a phone screen. Then the visions began to blur to the point that the only thing I could make out was a mess of colors melting into each other.
She ripped her hand away like I’d burned her, eyes narrowing in what I assumed was fear and curiosity. “What kind of Evol is that?”
“I…” I blinked up at her blankly before staring down at my palm. My fingers buzzed with residual energy, the same as hers. The same frequency. Resonance. Something that should be impossible. I had no Evol. I shouldn’t even reside in this world.
“Who are you?”
Her voice had changed. The playful lit was gone, replaced by the cold precision of a hunter assessing a threat. I watched her fingers twitch toward her holster. Not drawing yet, only flirting with the idea of it.
“Rain,” I said, my name tasting strange on my tongue. Like an admission of guilt. I shake my head as I speak. “I’ve never had an Evol. I don’t know what that was.”
The sharp intake of breath through her teeth sounded almost like a whistle. When she finally moved, it was to shake her head slowly. Thankfully and unthankfully, not to pull the trigger. “You’re going to be trouble.” A pause. Then softer, with a sense of awe at the realization. “You’re…what I saw. You’re not from here?”
It wasn’t quite a question. Moreso, it seemed like she was piecing together a puzzle, and she was doing it flawlessly. “Yes,” I confirmed. My throat tightened around the next words, struggling to move them onto my tongue. “I’m supposed to be dead.” A beat. I watched something flicker behind her eyes. “Then somehow I woke up here and… I—well, I was supposed to be dead.”
Her slender hand rose between us, not reaching, just telling me to pause. “Okay. We don’t know how we got here.” Her head tilted, eyes lit up with something dangerously close to delight. “Willow.” Her name. She held her thumb and forefinger in a frame position as she studied me. “Yep. Definitely alien freak material.”
Her hand dropped, but the mischief didn’t. “Good thing I collect strays. I’ll put you in a jar.” She mimed shaking something, like a snow globe. “Watch you swirl around all mysterious-like.”
I let out an awkward sigh, a poor attempt at a laugh. “Yeah, you should not be trusted with any living thing.”
“Too late.” She plucked at the sleeve of her jacket, still tied around my waist. “Already put my claim on you.”
My eyes scanned the sleeve, watching it slip between her fingers. “Right. Because we’re in the omegaverse.” I deadpanned.
“The what?”
“The…” I paused, my mouth falling open slightly. “Actually.” I look up at her, smiling nervously. “I can’t explain that one. Too much lore.”
“Sure…” Willow said, high-pitched, a bit condescending in her tone. She rocked back on her heels, that usual grin falling back on her face after the confusion went away. “First rule of being an alien freak. You have to be well fed.” She snapped her fingers. “Second rule. You’re buying.”
I blinked, face falling. My hands moved to intertwine in front of my mouth in a hasty prayer position. With feigned dramatics, I cried out. “Is this my punishment for making niche references that don’t exist here? Am I already going into debt? Am I meant to slave my life away?”
“Yes!” Willow winked, already grabbing my arm and dragging me along toward the alley mouth. “I am so generously fronting you some credits. At a reasonable interest.”
“Define reasonable.” I sighed, shaking my head.
Her fingers clamped tightly around my wrist, in what I assumed was out of excitement. “Fifty percent APR,” she chirped, bringing me into the soft glow of the Linkon streets.
“Fif—” I paused, digging my heels in. “Fif—what. Fifty percent?”
“It’s a very reasonable rate.”
“That’s literally— you’re literally a loan shark. Oh my god you’re gonna kill me.” I look away dramatically, putting a quiver on my voice. “You’re gonna kill me and sell me for parts.”
Willow gasped, pressing a hand to her chest with equal dramatics. “Sell you for parts? Rain, baby, please.” She patted my cheek with her free hand. “You’re clearly grade-A interdimensional contraband. I’d auction you.”
“Right, because that makes me feel so much better.” A long sigh fell from my lips, swaying into her shoulder to stumble her. “The world is so dangerous here, even my savior is out to get me.”
“Aw, don’t be like that.” Willow finally released my wrist from her sturdy grip. Her arm slung around my shoulders, steering me toward a dingy storefront with a sign that simply read “Noodles???” in glowing letters. “Tell you what. Since you’re such a whiny little debtor—”
“Why are we going to a place that’s not even aware they make noodles?”
“—I’ll knock it down to forty-five percent if you let me name your firstborn.”
I choked. “What.”
Willow held up three slender fingers. “Current top contenders: Bartholomew. Sparkle, short for Bartholomew. Or…” Her grin turned something feral. “Interest.”
The noodle shop door slid open with a wheeze, releasing a cloud of steam that smelled like soy sauce and garlic.
“Yeah, alright. You’re delusional. Where’d they find you, the asylum?”
She gasped hard. “Excuse you—” A beat. Then, with terrifying sincerity. “The proper term is ‘high-security psychiatric retreat.’ And for your information,” she added, steering me towards a booth in the corner, “they didn’t find me. I escaped.”
The booth’s vinyl seat stuck to my thighs as I slumped into it. Across the table, Willow flopped backward with the grace of a thrown ragdoll. “Yeah, you look the type.” I said blankly.
She waved a hand. “Yeah, details, details. The point is—” She raised her hand to call over a server. “—I have excellent survival instincts.” A young woman came over and I watched as she placed an order of noodles for the both of us. Which was for the best, I didn’t know if I could handle trying to decide from a million options at the moment.
The server walked away with our order and Willow turned her mischievous grin back on me. “Which is why you’re my new retirement plan.”
I sighed and threw my head back against the booth, sliding down the seat. “And how am I going to do that exactly?”
“You’re like a psychic piggy bank.” She grabbed a pair of chopsticks and cracked them open. “Those visions? Premium intel. You showed me three separate disasters that haven’t happened yet.” She pointed the chopsticks at me. “So. Options.”
Willow held up a finger on her free hand for each point.
“One. You crash on my couch, do your ‘mystical oracle’ thing for me, and we find a way to profit off it and split it seventy-thirty.”
I groaned, rolling my eyes pointedly. “Excuse me?”
“Two. I don’t tell the Association about the whole ‘weird alien from another dimension’ thing, and you…” She squinted. “Do my dishes? I’m improvising here.”
The third finger hovered, then, slowly, curled back down. “Mm…no, that’s it. I’m open to negotiation.”
The server silently came back to the table, placing two mismatched bowls of steaming noodles before us. I grabbed my own chopsticks and cracked them open before swirling them in the broth. I took a few moments, silently thinking.
Realistically, it was better to let Willow believe I was some weird seer or something of the sort. That was much easier to explain than attempting to tell someone they were a video game character.
My eyes trailed over Willow’s frame as she stuffed her face with noodles. “I need to know where we are in this timeline first.” I said slowly. “How’s Caleb? Would you say he’s…6 feet above or…you know…under?”