Susan P.O.V.

  Susan sat on the damp ground with her hands folded tight in her lap, fingers aching from how hard she was pressing them together. Pine needles poked through her trousers. Cold seeped up through fabric and then her skin until it settled in her bones, but she barely noticed. Compared to everything else, the discomfort barely registered.

  She had tried.

  God knew she had tried.

  The monsters still haunted her, not only in reality but also in her dreams. They hunted her every time she closed her eyes. They gave her a crossbow and told her to kill them. How could she do it when she couldn’t even stand the weight of it? The way her arms locked up when something moved too fast. How her vision tunnelled until all she could see was that terrible bone mask and claws and death, and then nothing at all because her eyes shut on their own. Every time. Her body betrayed her time and time again.

  Porcelain never did this to her.

  Clay had a particular weight, texture, and beauty. You could coax it, turn it slowly, and fix mistakes if your hands were steady enough. Teacups, vases, little figures with soft smiles and ridiculous hats. She had made whole villages of them, tiny people frozen in harmless moments. That had been her life, her job, since she had been a little girl. That and Sunday dinners with her husband, flour on her sleeves, and grandchildren running circles around the table.

  She had never even feared for her life before, not even once. Here, everything wanted to kill her, and the fear never went away.

  Not only for her life, there was plenty of that for sure, but maybe there was something even worse. Not knowing was worse.

  Not knowing if this was all a nightmare and she would wake up one day. Not knowing if this was all real and her family was placed in her same situation. She was at the table with her husband when it happened, when they were all kidnapped by the System.

  Her word froze around her; she wasn’t even looking at Harold, she was just looking at a spoonful of soup, halfway through the motion of coming into her mouth for a full minute before finding herself in that room full of strangers.

  Where was her husband, her anchor? And her children? Oh God… were her nephew and grandchildren alone, stranded in some other forest full of strangers and monsters?

  Her spinning thoughts settled as a particularly grating voice cut through her fears, bringing her back to the present. She was almost grateful for it. Looking around, she could see the small clearing they stopped by buzzed with raised voices now.

  “We’re not ready!” someone shouted. A man with a bandaged arm, his face pale beneath the dirt and grime. “We need time. More levels. More skills. This is too much!”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  A woman nearby nodded fiercely. “My class hasn’t even evolved yet. You want us to march straight into the forest again?”

  Others pushed back just as loudly.

  “We can handle it,” a fighter snapped. “You’ve seen it. The monsters are manageable.”

  “Manageable for you,” came the retort.

  Susan kept her eyes down. She had learned that much, at least.

  The fighters had been holding back; she knew that. Everyone knew it, even if few admitted it out loud. They staggered the kills, let monsters linger just long enough for the rest to take swings, fire bolts, and cast shaky spells. It made everything messier. More dangerous. People still got hurt.

  And yet, without them, none of the shouting voices would still be breathing.

  Marco’s voice cut through the argument like a blade.

  “Instead of raising your big and strong voice now, maybe you should have done something before,” he barked. “Nobody was stopping you. You could have just rolled up your sleeves and done something. Now if you really want to go back, please be my guest, but don’t expect us to escort you. God knows how much easier it will be without the dead weights…” He said the last part while turning away, shaking his head.

  A ripple of outrage followed. Susan flinched despite herself.

  He was cruel in how he said it. Insulting them for their weakness. But she understood the truth buried underneath, even if she hated it. This place did not care if you were frightened, or old, or just a gentle soul. It rewarded strength and punished anything else.

  The law of the jungle, stripped bare.

  If the people in charge had been different, if they had fewer scruples, the rest of them would already be gone. Left behind maybe, or used as bait. Or worse.

  Susan swallowed and forced her breathing to slow.

  She would not cry. Not here… not again.

  The argument rolled on without her, looping and fraying at the edges. No one had an answer. There was no perfect path forward. Apparently every option had some flaws that anyone was more than eager to point out.

  She glanced around the clearing instead.

  Some people rested flat on the ground, eyes closed, chests rising in shallow, exhausted rhythms. Others stood watch with rigid backs and white knuckles on weapons that still felt alien in their hands. A few girls, those in the vanguard group, just talked and laughed among themselves. What did they have to laugh about, though, Shethough? had no idea.

  Then she saw Elias, their intrepid leader, apart from any discussion or anyone else, really.

  He did not voice his opinion; he didn’t even seem to listen. His attention was fixed on his right hand, held up before him as if it were something strange.

  Susan frowned despite herself.

  A pale blue glow flickered into existence above his palm. It stretched and elongated, trying to become something. A sword, maybe. The shape was wrong, though. Crooked. Uneven. It reminded her of a child’s toy, made of foam and then chewed by a dog – totally useless.

  Nothing like Marco’s conjured weapon. Those swords were powerful; she saw them in action.

  Elias tilted his head, studying the thing with unsettling intensity. Then he shook it once, sharply, and the light unravelled into nothing.

  He did it again.

  Susan shivered.

  Nearby, Rhea paced the perimeter of the clearing, tracing symbols into the air with a glowing finger. The lines hung for a moment before fading, replaced by new ones a few steps away. Susan had no idea what they meant. She only hoped, irrationally, that Rhea was not going to drain the life out of them the way she had done to the monsters before.

  She huffed a quiet, humourless breath at the thought.

  This was madness. All of it. Glowing swords, floating symbols, monsters in the woods, people arguing about magic and evolution like it was normal dinner conversation.

  Susan hugged her arms tighter around herself and stared at the ground until the noise blurred into a distant murmur.

  She was not made for this place.

  But it did not matter.

  The forest did not care what she was made for.