Simma's eyes were a haze of blurred gold and black, his vision spinning as if the whole forest had been tipped upside down.

He could feel his soul dragging itself from his mouth like a thread of mist, unravelling and slipping, inch by inch, into the Soulnexer's waiting maw.

He fought...oh, he fought with everything he had. He clawed at memories of warmth, at tiny shards of laughter with Sonja, at the smell of baked bread from a home he barely remembered.

But his happy thoughts were like feathers against a storm. His sorrows were heavier: the training pits of the Haydes, Sonja's scream in the cave, the sight of her blood. These memories weighed him down and the Soulnexer fed on them greedily. It was winning.

His body was turning pale, veins showing like ink under paper. Skin shrank to bone as though he were being roasted on a spit and yet chilled to the core. He could feel himself drying out, his breath scraping his throat.

His eyes narrowed to a slit. So this is how I die… again, he thought dimly. Until my next reincarnation into some other host.

And then it happened. His soul shot forward, ripped from him like a banner torn from its pole, hurtling toward the Soulnexer's mouth.

The maw was no mere mouth; it was a cosmic wound, a black hole shaped like jaws. Its edges flickered with sickly dark, teeth and as sharp like needles of frozen glass.

He thought he saw whole worlds spinning inside its throat, falling and vanishing with no sound. Yet as his soul was dragged closer, the void glimmered not black but purple; an eerie ring of violet light swirling like liquid lightning around its lips.

What…? Simma thought with a dying breath. The ring grew, a halo bending toward his own mouth. For a heartbeat, it was as if the Soulnexer were kissing his soul instead of devouring it.

Then warmth surged through him. His lungs filled with air. Blood rushed back to his fingers. The monster hanging above him faltered mid-air and, with a lazy, almost annoyed motion, drifted off to his left as though pushed by invisible hands.

Simma rolled his dizzy head that way. His last sight before darkness was a blur of the Soulnexer retreating, and two figures stepping out of the shadows.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

...

"Simma… come on. Wake up."

The voice floated into his dreams like a rope thrown to a drowning man.

"Simma."

The third time, a tap on his shoulder tugged him out of the void. He opened his eyes.

He was not dead.

Darkness greeted him again, but not total darkness. A small fire crackled beside him, its flames snapping like impatient fingers. He lay on the sheet he had spread earlier on the forest floor. The trees were still around them, tall and still like sentries.

A hand tugged gently at his arm. He turned his head.

"Lucy…" His voice came out rasped, raw, and coarse, like gravel poured over metal.

Lucy smiled faintly at him.

"Hi."

Simma pushed himself up with a grunt. The golden firelight reflected in his eyes like twin coins.

"H-how… w-what are..."

"Hey." Lucy stopped him with a raised hand.

"Just get some rest."

Her voice landed on him like a warm blanket. He felt an unexpected bloom of comfort, as if the forest itself had taken a softer breath.

"B-but how did you get here? H-how did you know I was here? How… how d-did you save me?" His words tumbled out. He had been sure he was dead, sure he had lost the fight for his soul.

"Calm down." Lucy pressed her palm to his shoulder.

"Sarah was the one who told me."

"Sarah…" Simma echoed. He turned his head and saw her sitting on a log across the fire, a still silhouette. That must have been the second figure he'd glimpsed before blacking out.

Lucy's touch was firm but gentle.

"Just relax, Simma. We've got your back." She stood, crossed over to her own sheet, and lay down.

"Let's just get some sleep," she murmured.

Simma looked at Sarah. His feelings knotted, guilt and anger tangled together. He had told her not to come, and yet here she was. And if she hadn't come, he would be dead. The mix churned in his stomach.

He rose slowly, his head still ringing with the echo of the Soulnexer's memories. With a few staggering steps, he crossed the fire and slumped onto the log beside Sarah. She didn't even glance at him, her face a mask of stone.

Silence stretched between them until Simma cleared his throat. He stole a glance at her.

"Lucy told me what you did for me," he managed.

Sarah closed her eyes. When she opened them, she said, "I didn't do anything. I only killed the Nexer with her help after she portalled your soul back into you." Her voice was heavy, tinged with anger.

Realization stung Simma. The purple ring he had seen before fainting, that had been the portal. He owed them his life.

"I warned you not to do this, Simma," she added, still not looking at him.

Simma raised a brow.

"Well, I told you not to come after me."

That did it. Sarah turned and shot him a stare that could cut steel.

"You being serious right now? You would have been dead if we..." She stopped, her breath breaking.

"I'm sorry," Simma said quickly.

"'You're sorry.'" Her voice sharpened. "Do you even know the risk it took for us to be here? The sacrifice Lucy made to be..." She cut herself off again, her anger boiling.

"You know what? Do whatever you want." She stood.

"I'm sorry, come on, Sarah. I said I'm sorry, I know I..."

"Just stop it, Simma." She blinked hard, exhaling through her nose.

"Now I know who you really are. You sure don't give a damn about people. You think about yourself."

She stomped off and lay down beside Lucy, her breath a little battlefield of its own.

Simma sat still on the log, hands clasped between his knees. Anger flickered in him too, but not at Sarah.

It all curled toward the Singrith who had killed Sonja—Lynx, one of his trainers back in the Haydes. This was all his fault. Yet Sarah was right; his revenge could drag them all into danger. He decided he would tell them to portal back to the city at dawn.

...

Lucy yawned awake. It was still dark, impossible to tell the time without her phone. Not that phones mattered anymore. They were little more than voice-boxes now. Just to make call and text messages.

People used to say that before the Bloodbath a phone could do everything; maps, games, endless videos. Lucy had never seen that world herself. Sometimes she wondered if it was just another story.

She rolled uncomfortably on the ground.

"Oh God, I already miss my bed," she muttered.

"WHAT THE F" She jerked upright, startled.

"Sorry," Simma said from the shadows. "Didn't mean to startle you."

Lucy rubbed her eyes.

"Simma? W-wa—wha...you're still awake?" she stammered, propping herself up on one hand.

Simma smacked his lips.

"Well, someone had to keep guard."

Lucy exhaled and stood, glancing at Sarah still asleep. She padded over to Simma and plopped onto the log beside him, bumping his shoulder playfully, with hers.

Simma chuckled.

"Hey."

"Hey," Lucy echoed, her bright smile warming his chest.

Silence sat with them for a moment, companionable and strange. Then Simma spoke, rubbing his palms together.

"Sarah said you sacrificed a lot to be here."

Lucy's smile returned, but softer. She shrugged.

"Well, it's nothing, you know." She blinked, the smile fading.

"It's just that I was having a good time when Sarah came, already packed up saying you were in trouble. After much persuasion, I followed her. Then, as we hurried, Delilah caught us… well, overheard us. She said she wasn't going to let us leave. She stood in our way. We begged her, explained you were out here, in danger, alone. But she kept nagging, said we should go back to bed and that she'd tell Zolomon to handle it. But..."

She paused. The way she told it was almost like singing, the words rolling fast from her mouth like a poem. It amazed Simma more than it scared him.

"But what?" he asked curiously.

Lucy looked at him, biting her lip as if the next words might bite back.

"We-we… knocked her out."

"What?" Simma bellowed.

"I mean, what did you expect us to do?" Lucy threw up her hands.

Simma shook his head and pressed his fingers to his temples.

"I told Sarah not to come. Look...she's gotten herself in trouble. They might expel her or worse, all because of me."

"Hey." Lucy crossed her arm over his shoulders.

"Look, I know how you feel, but Sarah cares. She's a good person... the best I've ever known." She paused, her heart thickening, and her mood dropping.

"You know I lost my parents to Soulnexers.... and ... Whenever I try to picture their faces, it's only Sarah's face I see."

Simma looked up at her. Her eyes glistened, wet with tears.

Her head was now bent low, eyes wet and staring at the forest ground.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

Lucy nodded, wiping away the tear that escaped.

"All I'm saying is, she's been there for me. And now, knowing you, she wants to be there for you too. So let her."

Her words sank into him, turning his emotions like a key. He nodded slowly.

"Yeah, she might be a little stubborn too," Lucy added, and they both chuckled.

The tension between lightening a bit.

Simma turned to her.

"Come here." He said. As Lucy leaned on him, resting her head on his shoulder. He cradled her gently.

"You're right. I couldn't have gotten this far without her. She's like my rock, my star. When I saw her here with you, my heart… it became happier...." a weak smile lit his face.

"I just don't want to see her hurt."

Lucy sniffled and smiled. "Nothing will happen."

Meanwhile, Sarah wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

She had been awake all along.

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