SinB winced as Umji finished working on her wound, applying a cold gel to seal it and prevent any further bleeding after the initial cleaning. The gunslinger had stripped down to a sports bra to allow her easier access, and the hacker had a grim look on her face the entire time. Unsurprising, considering how SinB had received that injury. 

The mood in the house was tense, from the moment the returning team found Yuju collapsed at the stairs with a panicked Umji trying to tend to her. It took Sowon to carry the unconscious shaman back to her own room, while Eunha helped Umji to remove the knife in SinB’s shoulder. 

“I’ve done what I can, but we probably need to get you a real doctor.” Umji wiped off her hands with a cloth, hesitating before adding.

“At least she avoided anything crucial. Missed your lung and arteries. You would have bled out in minutes otherwise.”

“She could have gone straight for the heart too, don’t forget that.” SinB grumbled, wanting to pull her shirt back on, but Umji immediately stopped her from moving.

“Don’t move that arm! I only did some emergency patching, we’ll need a surgeon to look at it...or get Yuju-unnie to repair it for you.” 

SinB looked around, noting that Eunha had left shortly after extracting the knife, most likely to go check on the shaman. Just as she was thinking about that, the door to Umji’s emergency medical room opened, revealing a weary Sowon who had a certain tension around her shoulders. The ex-soldier went straight to the point.

“How bad is it?”

Umji repeated her earlier words, then added thoughtfully.

“We need a surgeon, but she’ll scar for sure, and it’ll still take a couple of weeks to heal if nothing goes wrong. Of course, if Yuju-unnie can help, it won’t be a problem at all…”

Sowon closed her eyes in resignation. “Eunha is checking on Yuju now, but I don’t know if we can count on her to fix anyone right now. We need to move anyway, this place may not be safe anymore.”

Umji bit her lip as she looked between the other two. 

“Did Yerin-unnie really…?”

“In case the stab wound wasn’t obvious enough, yes. ” SinB looked pissed as all hell, and Sowon laid a hand on her uninjured shoulder to keep her from moving around too much. 

“We don’t know what’s really going on, but we have to move. I know someone who can take a look at your shoulder, and get us a place to crash for the time being.” 

Sowon moved on decisively as always, knowing the dangers of having a potentially compromised hideout. She couldn’t be sure how much Yerin would reveal to her employers, and even the least of their secrets would make them too tempting a target. Eunha alone would be a prize, after what happened with the dragon orb. Yuju had said that there were no known cases of something like that happening before, and Umji had also backed that up with her research. Too many people would be interested in studying the fire mage if word got out, and they needed to lay low again in case it did.

“Damn, just as I was starting to like this place.” SinB groused, but moved obediently at Sowon’s command, grumbling under her breath as Sowon went with her to assist in the packing. Sowon looked back at Umji from the door.

“Take what you can, leave the rest. We leave in an hour, regardless of whether Yuju’s awake or not by then.”

None of them mentioned how they were going to break the news to Yuju, or whether it would even be possible to keep the shaman stable after that. All of them, save Umji, had seen how Yuju had lost control entirely when she had thought Yerin to be dead. This was a whole lot worse, especially now that those two were already dating before this happened. Sowon wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. If Yuju went berserk again, she would have to put the girl down, comrade or not. The potential for disaster would be too high otherwise.

“Okay…” Umji still looked troubled, trying to process the situation. She had a thousand questions, but knew that this wasn’t the time to bring it up. They needed to relocate first, and she had so many loose ends to tie up right now. Nothing made sense about this whole situation, knowing what she did, and she needed time to figure out the implications. The hacker sighed.

She only hoped Yerin knew what she was doing. There could be no coming back from a betrayal like this, no matter how well-intentioned or under pressure she had been. Trust was difficult enough to earn, and almost impossible to regain once shattered. Everyone was already on edge after this, and as for Yuju…

Umji shook her head. It would be the worst for her. Getting her back on the path to recovery had been hard enough, but this would break the shaman’s heart. Umji had seen the hard flash in Sowon’s eyes earlier, and knew that if Yuju went out of control this time, there would be no second chances given. 

It hurt to see everything falling apart, but what else could she do to change things? Umji turned and started backing up her data. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she would just do the things she could right now. Things would work out somehow. They just had to.

Life, as always, had to go on, no matter the cost.

Eunha withdrew her astral senses from Yuju with some difficulty, brows knitted together in a worried frown. The shaman had gone dark again, as if the light had gone out from her soul. If not for the dim glow still present under the surface, it was as if the girl had gone magically dead somehow. 

Gripping Yuju’s limp hand, Eunha tried feeding some of her own energy into the unconscious girl, but it was not unlike pouring water into a bottomless well. If not for the minor signs of her breathing, Yuju almost looked like she was dead. Eunha tightened her grip on the shaman’s hand to hide the trembling of her own. God only knows how shaken she had been to come back to see Yuju collapsed by the stairs. She couldn’t lose the girl again.

As if in response to Eunha’s distress, Yuju’s fingers twitched, and Eunha looked up just as the shaman’s eyes snapped open, taking in a deep breath as she sprang upright suddenly, chest heaving. The fire mage tugged at the suddenly rigid Yuju, trying to get her attention, and the shaman turned slowly to face her, eyes burning.

Their eyes locked for a brief second, but Yuju’s gaze was quickly drawn to the knife still laid across Eunha’s lap. It was now clean of the blood that had stained its edge earlier, and Eunha had unconsciously brought it along with her after leaving SinB to Umji’s care. Someone had to tell Yuju about Yerin, and while Sowon did volunteer when they ran into each other in the hallway earlier, Eunha had declined. Despite it being awkward for her to be the one to say it, Eunha knew that if Yuju lost control on hearing the news, she was the only one on the team who stood a better chance at actually doing something about it. 

A tiny quiver ran along Yuju’s shoulders, almost unnoticeable to the eye, but Eunha was watching her very carefully. The shaman’s breathing grew heavy, and the grip on their linked hands had reversed, with the younger girl tightening her hold almost painfully, as if trying desperately to control herself. Eunha placed her other hand over their joined hands, trying to soothe her.

“Yuju, I…” Eunha began, but then Yuju raised her head, eyes flickering with an unknown light.

“She left.” There was an absolute, almost painful certainty in her tone. Yuju’s lips were pressed tightly together, and she was making a clear effort to keep her face impassive, but the telltale twitching in her cheek and the trembling of her lower lip gave away her struggle. Eunha’s chest tightened, and the knife clattered from her lap as she rose to embrace her puppy.

“It’s okay, you still have us. I’m here, I won’t leave. I will never leave you.” 

Eunha spoke reassuringly, pulling Yuju close. It was slightly awkward with one of her hands still trapped in Yuju’s grip, but her free arm looped around the taller girl’s neck, letting the shaman rest her chin on her shoulder. She felt Yuju shudder, the tension in the younger’s shoulders releasing upon close contact, and it didn’t take long to feel something wet drip down the side of her neck, her puppy not making a sound even as the tears came.

Eunha patted her on the back comfortingly, whispering soothingly into Yuju’s ear. Her own chest was painfully tight, quietly furious that Yerin had done such a thing. Didn’t the woman know how badly it would hurt Yuju if she left? For that crime alone, Eunha would never forgive her. She had stepped back once before, but she wouldn’t retreat a second time.

Yuju needed her, and if Yerin was so quick to give up on the pup, Eunha wasn’t going to let this chance pass her by. It might feel a little selfishly opportunistic, but Eunha was done being the nice one in the equation. She didn’t know if it would even work out, but with Yerin gone, the only other person Yuju would let close to her was Eunha herself, and she knew it.

You gave her up first, Eunha thought to herself, tightening her hug around Yuju as the shaman balled herself up in her embrace.

I’m not letting her go this time.

“So there was a hidden passageway after all.”

Heechul looked over at Yerin, who had been keeping pace beside him without comment ever since they pulled back from her old team. He hadbeen a little cautious about using the command protocol on her, not knowing if it would still have the same effect on her after all these years, and for a moment there it even looked like she was fighting the programming embedded in her subconscious.

Fortunately, she had fallen back in line eventually, but the command protocol couldn’t be abused too often. It could be used to override the Delta series’ conscious actions for a limited period of time, and made them more suggestible for a short window afterwards as well. It was one way to retain the individuality and initiative of their operatives while still retaining a means to control them in case they tried to rebel. Manipulating them into thinking that the actions performed under the command protocol were of their own initiative was something Heechul had done frequently in the past. Subliminal suggestions were very powerful when used correctly, and reinforcing loyalty that way was more effective than the blind obedience of the Epsilon recruits.

Still, it wasn’t something he liked to abuse. As powerful as the command protocol was, it was still only effective for a short period of time, and repeated use could break the psyche of the person being commanded, rendering them unable to function. It was an emergency function in Heechul’s eyes, and he had only used it on Yerin once before this. 

He had arranged it all, of course, down to her former teammates following the signal to this location. He needed to drive a wedge between them, expose Yerin’s former allegiances in a way that would leave her no choice but to come home. No runner worth their salt would accept someone who had corp ties, for all that their jobs came from the corps. It was an unwritten rule, and Yerin had known it as well as he did, which was why she never talked about who she used to work for. He had counted on her keeping it a secret, and turned it on her when the opportunity arose. The look of betrayal in their eyes was the key factor to turning her, and he was no stranger at exploiting that.

Granted, it was by no means the best way to convince her, and he knew that his hold on her was shaky at best at the moment. Three years was a long time to be away, and too many things could have happened in between. He had reviewed the available files they had on her in her absence, but it was difficult with how cleanly she had gotten rid of her tracks. Everything they had on her was extrapolated based on her association with the Immortal’s team, and that had only been good for the last year or so. That left almost two years completely unaccounted for, and who knew what she had been up to then? 

Yerin’s seemingly offhand comment about their whereabouts was a sign of her regaining her bearings. It was faster than he had anticipated, but for some odd reason, it made him proud. She was the best, after all. That she had the presence of mind to survive and stay free for this long alone was a sign of how much she had been able to shake off her programming. His kids were always supposed to report back if they had made it through a mission, so when Yerin had gone missing without them finding her body, they had written her off as most likely dead. Only Seo Hee didn’t believe it, but she didn’t have the authority to reopen the case back then.

“You would have noticed us otherwise.”

Heechul acknowledged Yerin’s comment with a wry nod. He had picked this location precisely because of the underground smuggler’s tunnel connected to the warehouse. He knew Yerin would approach carefully, and he didn’t have much faith in the Epsilon kids’ ability to evade her recon efforts. He was never consulted  with regards to their training, the seeming collapse of the Delta program being his professional downfall in a sense. The Delta kids had been too difficult to handle, though he had been the most successful with the ones he was in direct control of. It wasn’t his fault that the other handlers didn’t know how best to deal with them. Incompetence began at the top, and the Delta operatives were only as good as their handlers. 

It was why the Epsilon program was so well touted. Pretty much idiot-proof in terms of handling, since disobedience wasn’t particularly an issue. They were less operationally flexible, but sometimes all you really need is a giant club to smash things with. Heechul personally preferred a more delicate approach, hence his preference for the Delta program, but he hadn’t been able to sufficiently convey his ideas to his superiors before they canned the project. 

Yerin’s return would be the wild card he needed. He would prove to them that his kids were far more valuable than the toy soldiers of the Epsilon program. 

“Things might be a little different from what you remember,” Heechul warned, glancing over at Yerin, who still seemed docile enough. “You’re the only one left from your batch, and command decided that the kids after you needed a little... different treatment.”

“I noticed.” Yerin turned her head slightly to flick a quick glance over her shoulder, where the young boy she had saved was trailing behind them like an obedient puppy. “So young…”

“So were you, back in the day.” All of them had started young, and Heechul himself had only been in his twenties when he first took control of the freshly combat-ready Delta kids. They couldn’t have been more than thirteen at the time. Yerin’s face fell at the reminder, remembering all the ones who hadn’t survived to the present day.

“I’m the only one left?” Yerin repeated, despite already knowing the answer. Heechul nodded.

“You know how we’re going to do this.”

Yerin’s lips quirked into a half smirk.

“Your jobs made that clear enough, hyung. Long term deep cover, was it?”

He smiled back in response. It was always a pleasure working with someone intelligent enough to understand the subtleties. Whether or not Yerin was truly loyal was besides the point. She understood where she stood currently, and was responding well to his suggestions. Given time, he could mold her back to his ideal, but time was short, and he had to work with what he had.

“They won’t buy it right away, and you’ll still have to go through debriefing of course.” This was not a lie, and Heechul brought it up to reinforce his trustworthy side to Yerin. Not lying unnecessarily was a good image to develop in front of the kids. He saw Yerin grimace at the mention of debriefing, and didn’t blame her. It was going to be an unpleasant process regardless, though he would do his best to shield her from the worst. He couldn’t afford to lose her now that he had brought her back. It would be too much of a waste to let her be ruined by some overzealous idiot who wanted the same level of absolute control they had over the Epsilon kids. Some things just didn’t work that way.

Their somewhat lonely trio was soon joined by the reinforcements Heechul had left hidden underground. Yerin didn’t seem fazed to be surrounded by even more of the younger operatives in black, all of whom had a peculiar sameness with their masked faces and dead eyes. She was half a head taller than most of them in any case, and stood out with her nonstandard dressing despite it being in the same color scheme. 

Surrounded by soldiers of questionable loyalty, Heechul wisely didn’t bring up any potentially sensitive topics. While the Epsilon recruits lacked imagination, they could still be commanded to repeat whatever they had experienced while out with them. Heechul didn’t have the highest authority over them, so Seo Hee could easily override any commands he made to find out about whatever had happened tonight. The show earlier in the warehouse was just as much for his employers as it was for Yerin’s erstwhile team. 

Speaking of Seo Hee… Heechul studied Yerin out of the corner of his eye, pondering whether or not to warn her in advance about the woman’s elevation within the company. As far as he was aware of, Seo Hee had been very obsessed with Yerin at one point, and it had been her who had given out the order to track Yerin down at all costs once a solid lead had been found. Heechul wasn’t sure what had happened between the two of them, but he could make a good guess. 

Yerin had been a horrible flirt even back when she was just a teenager, and had left a trail of broken hearts behind her from a young age. Heechul never interfered in the personal lives of his recruits, allowing them to develop whatever interests or hobbies on the side, so long as it didn’t clash with the work he assigned them. It made them more likely to listen to him for all that they bickered on the surface, and overall contributed to their high efficiency on the field. He had been aware of Yerin’s proclivities, but didn’t think it was going to be a problem at the time.

At least not until Seo Hee had come into the picture, the spoiled daughter of a high-ranking executive and all too used to getting her own way. He couldn’t be sure if anything happened between them, but judging from how the director had stepped over him directly to send Yerin and her team on that final, fatal mission to Seongnam, he had a sinking feeling that something did happen. Nothing was really clean when it came to the kind of backroom dealings the higher-ups were often involved in, and Heechul had seen his fair share of people abusing their authority to get what they wanted, regardless of company interests.

Now that Seo Hee was no longer a gullible young woman and firmly entrenched in a position of power, she was definitely going to be a problem with her near-unhealthy interest in Yerin. Heechul sighed. Yet another factor to consider in his plans. Seo Hee would stop at nothing to get her hands on Yerin again, and it was a small blessing that the young section manager was not aware of the details regarding the Delta program. Heechul did not need someone else who could mess with Yerin’s head right now.

“You’ve done well for yourself out there,” Heechul commented, even as they piled into the vehicles waiting for them at the end of the passage. “Think you could recruit your previous teammates for us? We have excellent benefits for contracted elites, as I’m sure you remember.”

It was just a passing comment, and Heechul didn’t really expect Yerin to respond positively, if at all. Shadowrunners were a notoriously independent bunch, and it wasn’t as if the company hadn’t offered the Immortal a position before, though that was more than a decade ago. Besides, it was convenient to have a non-hostile yet independent force outside of their aegis. Plausible deniability was part of the whole game, even if it was tempting to recruit the dragonslayers for their own benefit.

“They have ties with the Spartans,” Yerin’s voice was low, and she studied her nails almost idly as she continued. “I’m sure you already know that the attack on Mireu was a joint op. The Spartan commander-in-chief appears to be on friendly terms with the Immortal. I don’t advise it.”

Heechul’s eyes sparkled with interest as he processed the information. “Old man Kim huh? Interesting…” He looked over at Yerin, who appeared almost bored as she continued taking in her surroundings.

“So you’ve met your old instructor then? And he said nothing to us about this.”

Yerin shrugged. “Allies are not friends, hyung. You should know that.” 

Heechul smiled wryly. “Indeed.” He paused, studying the roof of the car as he leaned back. Yerin was responding properly in every way, but yet he couldn’t stop himself from testing her subtly at every turn. Old habits die hard, and there was a good reason why Yerin had a streak of paranoia that wide. It had to have come from somewhere.

It didn’t take them long to arrive at their destination, a nondescript residential area often used as temporary dorms for employees not based in the city. It was one of many such places, useful for disguising the flow of people entering and exiting at various times of the day. More than one of these places served as safehouses and gathering points for their organization, which officially did not exist, though key personnel like Heechul were registered under different positions in the company to provide cover for their other duties.

“Welcome home.” Heechul said simply as they got out of the car in the underground garage. Yerin’s lips twitched, eyes flitting around the utilitarian furnishings and halogen lights, remembering the times she used to come back to similar surroundings with her old team, her firstteam, before attrition wore their numbers down. A certain gloom came over her face. She was alone now, and things were never going to be the same.

“Well now, look who’s back.” A cutting voice rang out by the elevator, and both Yerin and Heechul turned to see Han Seo Hee arrive, the rest of the Epsilon operatives falling to the sides and rearranging themselves in neat lines automatically in her presence. Heechul frowned, stepping up to block Seo Hee’s fiery gaze from the still deathly calm Yerin, who didn’t show any reaction to the woman in red.

“I see you’re a man of your word, Heechul. You’ve brought our little traitor home.” Seo Hee seemed stung by Yerin’s non-reaction to her, turning her attention to the older man instead.

“Watch your words, Ms. Han. Is this any way to speak of a loyal operative who has been working for us even in her prolonged absence?” 

Seo Hee’s eyes narrowed, her painted fingernails shimmering in the harsh lights of the basement as she clenched her fists behind her back. 

“What are you up to, old man?”

Heechul smiled genially, motioning Yerin to come forward to stand by him, which she did. In sharp contrast to the military-style rigidity of her Epsilon juniors, Yerin was almost casually slouching, though Heechul knew that she was well poised to move and strike should the situation require it. They were utterly outnumbered here however, though the man himself was certain things would not escalate to violence.

“Bringing her back to the fold, as promised. Now if you’ll excuse us, we do have to report to the commission. You may wish to join us to add your voice at the trial if you truly insist her to be a traitor. The hearing has to be fair, after all.” 

Heechul made a gentlemanly gesture, as if inviting the lady to proceed. Seo Hee’s jaw tightened, eyes narrowing. Clearly, the man had been prepared for all eventualities. She couldn’t seize Yerin right now if the board was waiting for them. Her father might be influential on the committee, but he was not the only powerful voice at the table. She couldn’t be too wilful at this stage.

Plastering on a fake smile, Seo Hee acquiesced with as much grace as she could muster, turning on her heel and marching back into the elevator, even holding it for the other two to join her and her . She shot a stealthy glance at the completely unperturbed Yerin, biting back a scowl when she realized that the young woman didn’t even deign to give her a single look.

I can’t believe you’ve forgotten me, Jung Yerin. Seo Hee gritted her teeth silently, though on the surface she carefully maintained her air of controlled poise. She couldn’t afford to show weakness in front of the commission later. Not if she wanted to wrest control of a former asset like Yerin. She didn’t trust Heechul one bit, and more than that, she had a score to settle with the slippery assassin, with whom she had first met at an event five years ago. Even at 18, Yerin had been a charmer, and despite being a few years older than her, Seo Hee had been irresistibly drawn in by the devil-may-care attitude and smooth talking ways of the debonair agent. 

She had definitely been in too deep, only to find that she had been just one more notch on the assassin’s bedpost, no more than a casual fling to be tossed away and forgotten after a single night. It had been devastating to her back then, and Seo Hee had sworn to take her vengeance when the time came. 

Long eyelashes fluttered as she raised her chin arrogantly. She wasn’t the same little girl to be toyed with like before. Now that Yerin was back within reach, she had all the time to work on a way to get her hands back on that aggravating girl.

You’re mine , Jung Yerin. I’ll make you remember that.

A crimson shadow bled into the night, lost amidst the hiccups of a wandering drunk and the crunch of feet on frost-touched asphalt. There might have been a sigh, but it too melted into the encroaching dark, swallowed whole by the bitter wind.

In the depths of the slums, the lowest of the low eked out miserable existences, fighting over scraps to make it through another day. Winter was coming, and it would thin their numbers out even further when the frost hit, even with the wellness centers distributing minimal rations for those who cared to register themselves on the rolls. Only the truly wretched ever did, for those born and raised in the slums had a justifiable distrust of the wealthy. There was a price for all things, especially when the helping hand came from someone so far above that their motives could not be seen and judged. The poor might be desperate, but they were not foolish. They might be helpless under the powerful hand of the megacorps, but when all you have left to your name was your life, one would be less willing to trade it away to forces unknown.

Anyone who had any ability would have since gotten out, put themselves to some use to make their way in the world. Rarely, if ever, did anyone come back. There was nothing worthy left in the slums. Everyone left behind was stuck too deep in their daily misery to pull themselves out. No one ever counted how many people lived and died there. They were the forgotten, beyond notice. No one cared, not even themselves. Pitiful new lives came squalling out of miserable, untended wombs, before being ruthlessly quashed under the iron boot of poverty and deprivation. 

This was where hope came to die. Potential that might have otherwise thrived often starved for lack of grounds to flourish. Despite this, people still lived. Like resilient roaches, they scrabbled and scraped just to make ends meet. Hope for a better life might be nonexistent, but there was meaning in being alive in the moment. Even for the wretched, there were things they had to protect.

Look there, a young girl with her little brother who came into the world with a malformed foot. She was healthy and strong, made tough by circumstance and necessity, and under different conditions, could have easily fought her way out of the slums to build herself a better life. If, of course, she was willing to abandon the burden of her little brother. But she could not, would not, and after tonight, may not even have the luxury of making that choice anymore.

The little street rat was fast and resourceful, with thieving hands nimble and quick. It had served her well in the years since their birth mother had died of an overdose, leaving her to fend for herself and her wailing baby brother. Her brother had grown since, still weak and sickly, but a good boy nevertheless. The boy had a weak heart, and if not for that, she would never have brought him to the center to beg for help when even the quacks that lurked in the depths of the slums had abandoned him to his fate. There was a strange loyalty among the slummers that way. They might have been poor, but they had their pride. One of their own was still one of theirs, and so long as you could offer fair trade, someone would help. It was not much, but there was still honour amongst thieves.

The wellness centers might not have the most advanced medical equipment, but it was still much better than anything the slummers had legitimate access to. Her baby brother had been saved, but still she was wary. They had not extracted payment there and then, but what street rat did not understand that there was never such a thing as a free lunch? Still, she regretted nothing, so long as her kin was well. The price could be paid in time.

Even so, when the blackclads came, her fear had spiked. There had been whispers, of course. Rumours of the quick being taken, the ones who had the best chances of making it out of the slums. There had always been people bringing them out for one reason or another, some to join the gangs in the greater Underground, while others simply vanished, never to return. 

She never thought she would be noticed. As she had thought, the centers were a trap. Abandoning her haul for the day, she ran, but the shadows were bigger and faster. Even with her superior knowledge of the terrain, they kept up like bloodhounds on a trail, showing no less familiarity with the broken grounds of the deep slums. Clearly, it had not been their first raid in this area.

There were more of them, and soon they had her cornered. They were eerie in their silence, moving like shades in the stinging chill of late autumn. They did not seem to wish to harm her, merely to take her alive, but still the girl was resistant. If she went with them, what would happen to her little brother? She could not afford to be caught like this.

When the first hand tried to seize her, she burst forth with an unexpected surge of energy, something she had known she was always able to do when put under sufficient pressure. She slipped out of the grasping hand like a slippery eel, faster than the eye could blink, but was immediately forced further into a dead end with no possible angles of escape. They were closing in, like sharks sensing the kill, and even quick as the little girl was, she despaired in that moment. She could not slip past them all.

While they were busy surrounding her, no one noticed a creeping mist seep into the area. In the flickering lights of the broken alleyway, it seemed to be tinted an eerie red, rippling like a living mirage to the panicked eyes of the cornered little girl.

It appeared to be little more than yet another shadow amongst the blackclads, but the girl clearly saw the very air distorting at what had evidently been empty space behind them, her eyes widening as a single wraith took form out of that nothingness. dropped open, even as the nearest blackclad grabbed her unresisting form, ready to sedate her.

She need not have worried. Glowing red orbs met hers, and there was a sudden explosion of black light before her eyes, throwing up dizzy spots in her vision as she reeled. The hands on her slipped away even as she staggered back, propping herself up against rough concrete as she tried to regain her bearings. Distantly, she heard something dripping, slow and viscous, too thick to be merely water.

Her face was wet, and she was not crying. Somewhere along the way her eyes had been squeezed shut, as she tried to regain her bearings after the explosion of light that was not light. Fingers slipped on the cracks in the wall behind her, and with some difficulty, the young girl forced open her eyes.

Crimson flooded her view, and for a moment she thought it a fault of her still blurry vision. But then the details packed themselves in like eager building blocks, assembling a scene out of a nightmare.

The blackclads laid in shriveled heaps, collapsed haphazardly in boneless lumps of sagging flesh and cloth. The nearest one facing up had sunken in cheeks, desiccated skin molded so close to the bone as to almost be on the verge of flaking off from a stiff breeze. Its mouth was open in the vague impression of a scream, lips cracked as if split from a sudden freeze.

The dripping felt near, yet so distant to her still ringing ears. A shadow was hanging over her, and another fat drop hit the bottom of her eyelid, slicking its way down her cheek in the approximation of a tear. She looked up, and gagged instinctively, placing a hand over to keep herself from screaming.

The blackclad that had been holding her earlier was sneering in an unnaturally wide grin, well, half of him was in any case. The other half was cut at the waist and laid open like an open carcass at a slaughterhouse. Only the grinning head remained relatively untouched, the mask covering its face having fallen off to expose the slashed open grin from ear to ear like a demented Cheshire, embedded into solid concrete.

The girl had fallen on her , terror flooding her trembling limbs. Amidst the macabre charnel she had abruptly found herself in, the wraith she had spotted earlier rose like a ghoul from the feast, dipped in red. The flickering lights threw wild shadows drawn long across the walls, and they seemed almost animated beyond the limits of mortal possibility. 

As if alerted by the terrified gaze on it, the demon in red turned slowly to face the pale, blood-splattered child cowering beyond the main circle of slaughter. Blood red hair wisped across clearly defined features, which were all the more highlighted by the writhing tattoos crawling up one side of a long neck and spreading like an intricate web across half of its face. It would almost be beautiful, but for the fact that the little girl was entirely certain that this demon had murdered over a dozen people in the blink of an eye, and that it was entirely likely that she could be next.

Shifting shadows larger than the mostly human form of the demon hovered over it like a looming predator, cloaking the stick-thin figure in a menacing aura. Piercing crimson eyes bore like a searing flame into the trembling figure of the young girl, who closed her eyes and readied herself to die.

“Run.”

The single syllable was uttered flatly, without emotion, but it seemed to reach in and reverberate like a resonant bell within the little girl’s soul. She tensed, and well honed instincts for survival got her body moving before the rest of her brain caught up, bringing her into a stumbling dash towards the dubious safety of the slums beyond this alleyway. 

Before exiting, the young street rat ce more to look at the form of her...saviour? Only to witness that near-ethereal figure raising its head to look away towards an unknown distance, a deep, almost overwhelming sorrow flooding out like a solid wave she could just taste on the tip of her tongue. It lasted but a brief moment, before the edges of the figure started to shimmer, bleeding into the encroaching shadow all around it like static from a warped recording. 

In seconds the darkness had swallowed the figure whole, and if not for the bodies still strewn across the alley, it was as if nothing had ever been there to begin with.

The young girl shuddered, making a quick sign of piety across her heart. Thank the Spider, she breathed, finally believing in the growing myth that had been circulating in the depths. The blood red terror of the shadows, appearing and disappearing on the wind like a wraith out of legend. The spider’s mark had also been clear enough earlier. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason to the Spider’s actions, and from the stories, it could just as easily choose to harm over helping.

And yet, this was the first time she had heard of the Spider killing. Had seen it happen, right before her eyes. The girl did not understand why she had been spared, but she was thankful nevertheless. 

Faith was cheap among the short, brutish lives of those in the slum, but what was more powerful than a guardian angel that made sense to them? The Spider took its due, and guarded them from outsiders. It was the rule of the slums writ large. 

Word would spread, among their own channels. They would know, even if no one else did.

The Spider Comes.