Author's Notes:

Sorry for the late post, but here we are. Closing in on the end game.

The soft, off-kilter lullaby plays in my mind as we’re ripped from the campfire. I try to keep a hold of Aria, and she tries to hold on to me, but it’s pointless. We both know it’s pointless. We try anyway, I guess that’s the whole point of the Entity’s little playground, right?

Trying and eventually failing.

The Entity is a patient fisherman, he knows that he’ll eventually get some hapless trout on his hook. He just needs to wait long enough, and he’s got nothing but time.

In time, he’ll get us all.

Me, Aria, Starlight, Sour…

And Tempest.

I close my eyes as I feel my boots hit the ground. That thought turns my stomach more than anything else, she’s been through even more than me and she’s still standing strong, defiant, and… beautiful. Right up to the black and bloody end, Tempest has been spitting in the Entity’s eye.

It feels wrong, somehow, that that should just… vanish.

“Chica?” Tempest’s voice clicks me out of my inner thoughts and I realise I’d been standing still.

Stupid, stupid, that’s amateur!

“Sorry, Tempest,” I say, snapping my eyes open. The Lullaby is gone but the fog is thick around us. “Where are we?”

“No hay bronco,” Tempest replies softly, “Mother’s Cabin is what Aria calls it, I’ve never asked why.”

I move to an outcropping of rock, which I quickly realise is actually a standing stone, one of several with a generator squatting in the midst of them. Dangerous, that’s a dangerous one. There’s not a lot of cover beyond the stone menhir that are pretty evenly spaced around it. Looking past the stones, I see a cabin not far away, it looks… not abandoned exactly but… unwelcoming.

Like there’s something there that’s dangerous or evil. Maybe not even evil.

Insane.

The madness of isolation.

Boy, can I relate to that.

“If Aria’s right, chica,” Tempest continues, scooting over towards the generator while cautiously swiveling her head. “Then we’ll have to be very careful. Listen for her lullaby; she can’t help but hum and sing it. It gives her away, but… be wary.”

I sidle in next to Tempest, getting my hands on the generator alongside her and get to work. “Why? If we can hear her coming can’t we just get away from her?”

Tempest shakes her head, her shorn, rose-colored hair falling across her eyes. “No, running from the Huntress is a much trickier matter, unlike the rest of them she has no need to close with you.”

I nearly stumble in my repairs but manage to keep going through the hiccup without causing any backlash. “Uh, you’ll have to clarify that one a little for me,” I say a bit uneasily.

Sighing, Tempest nods. “She carries hatchets on her belt, weighted and balanced for throwing.”

Well shit. “So… don’t run in a straight line?” I say sardonically, peeking over the generator at Tempest with a grim smile. She returns it, and nods. We work in silence for a few more moments before I speak up again. “Hey, Tempest?”

“Qué tal?” Tempest responds, not looking up from her work.

“I’m… sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately,” I say finally as I reach into the guts of the generator and wrench a piece back in place.

I hear Tempest’s hands falter slightly as she looks up at me, her eyes fixed on me in a way that makes my heart jump into my throat for a moment. After another moment, she smiles. I get the feeling she’s about to say something when I hear it.

The singing, the lullaby. Gentle and insistent and getting louder with every second.

Carefully, we both extract our hands from the generator and Tempest motions for me to follow as she crouches low and moves around the stones that ring the generator. I follow her, getting behind the stone adjacent to hers and hiding in the lee of it as the lullaby becomes louder. I realise, a moment later, that it’s directional. If I pay very close attention I can get a gist of what part of the Trial grounds she’s approaching from. That tells me it’s not some kind of sorcerous effect coming from all sides and the like just to confuse us. It's physical, she’s really singing it.

It’s like… a fixation.

The lullaby is much louder now, backed by the thundering beat of the Killer’s heart in my ears. I dare to peek around the side of the menhir that’s hiding me and get my first glimpse of her.

Adagio Dazzle; or what’s left of her.

I grimace at the sight of the former Siren. Even without Aria’s admittance, I would have recognized Adagio by her hair, even from where she stood with her back to me. Her beautiful orange hair is kept barely in check by a faded black shroud that’s part of what looks like a mask. Curiously, I see two crude rabbit ears peeking over the top of her head and, even from where I’m crouching, I can tell that Adagio is much larger and more imposing than I remember.

She’s wearing a thick, faded and stained linen top, and worn blue trousers. Her feet are bare and stained black with dirt. Lashed across Adagio’s waist and back and looping around to her chest, I presume, is an old infantry belt that holds several well-cared-for hatchets. Her sleeves are rolled up revealing lithe, muscular arms and calloused hands that grip a well-used and bloody wood-ax.

Pulling away, I press my back hard against the stone and listen. The cadence of the lullaby never shifts or changes, but the volume, the distance, and the origin does. It’s not perfect, and it’s not terribly accurate, but I can get a sense of her moving. With as much care as possible, I track her motions by sound, sidling around the menhir as she weaves around the standing stones. I see Tempest doing the same and I smile, her moves are fluid and careful, just like mine.

Finally, the Huntress turns to the generator, gives it two swift kicks with her bare foot causing sparks to cough and sputter from the old machine, and leaves, the heartbeat vanishing as the lullaby recedes into the distance.

After a moment, Tempest and I emerge from our hiding spots and get back on the generator, quickly pushing the damaged parts back into place.

“That was close,” I say, as I get my arm into the guts of the machine. “So, that’s the Huntress?”

“That’s her,” Tempest replies evenly, “be careful you see her before she sees you, chica, or you’ll find an ax in your back mas rapido.”

“About before though… Tempest,” I start, uncertain exactly how to say what I wanted to say. Tempest shoots me a grin as I stutter, and I smile back at her. “I saw… an old acquaintance of mine in my last bloodweb, she managed to breach the fog.”

Tempest’s eyes widen. “No me jodas,” she muttered in shock. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what she said but I got the gist of it. “H-how?”

“She’s… Her name is Twilight,” I say, grappling with how to explain that she’s a pony princess from another dimension. Sure the dimension thing might be easy to swallow considering our current predicament, but the pony part? Probably not. “And the short answer is magic, it’d take a while to explain, but she did it. She said she wasn’t giving up, that she’d find me and free me.”

Tempest looked shellshocked for a moment, then she smiled, wide and brilliant. “That’s fantastico!” she did her best to keep her voice low but the excitement in her tone was real. “You… you can get out! If she can get in then you can get out!”

I scowl and shake my head as I twist the last bit of the generator into place and it explodes into life. “Except I told her not to bother, and not to come back.”

Leaping to move, I grab Tempest by the arm and drag her along with me. My words had shocked her to paralysis, I guess because otherwise she would’ve moved at the same moment I did. We rush away from the completed generator into a copse of trees, her hand in mine. She’s gripping my hand hard, I can practically hear the very pointed questions she wants to ask me, but we both know that now is not exactly the time.

Maybe Ada-no, Huntress-maybe the Huntress comes by the check the generator, maybe she’s chasing one of the others around. Maybe we’re in the clear and maybe we’re not, but you don’t survive a Trial by taking stupid chances. We drop low, and I drag her along with me, Tempest is still moving sluggishly, making mistakes, making a little too much noise. We’re well out of sight of the generator and I don’t hear the lullaby yet, though, so either she only swept by to scan and we were out of her range, or she assumed we’d be gone by the time she got there.

Either way, we’re safe for now.

“Are you loco, mi sol?!” Tempest spins me around and grabs me by my collar, staring at me with terrified, stricken eyes. “Nobody gets out of this hellhole, and you have the chance!”

“Quiet!” I hiss, putting a hand on her shoulder and bring her down low. “We’re not safe, and no, I’m not crazy, and I don’t care about getting out of this hellhole.”

Tempest works her mouth for a moment before shaking her head in disbelief. “How can you not care?” she pleads, her eyes bore into me and grimace. “How?!”

“Because I won’t leave you!” I retort heatedly, backing her up a step. “I’m not going to leave you here while I go back to that… place!” I gesture wildly outwards, even knowing there’s no sense of direction in these insane little marbles of reality. “There’s nothing for me out there! I don’t care if they feel bad about what they did! I can’t trust them, any of them!”

The thunder of a distant generator goes off in the distance, lighting up the illimitable dark of the Trials as I stare up at her, panting, out of breath and feeling numb as Tempest reaches out with her right hand and strokes my cheek, as it comes away damp I realise I’m crying.

“I… I won’t leave you here,” I say, my voice choked. “You save me so often, as often as I save you, and I'm such an ungrateful bitch about it. You never leave me behind if you can help it. You’ve gotten hooked a couple times because of that, I know, but… even when it’s stupid you always try.”

Tempest shakes her head, tears welling in her own eyes. “I… I don’t want to be the reason you stay in this place, mi sol…”

I smile a little sadly. “You’re not the only reason… I… I have a purpose here. As sick as that sounds I feel like at least here I have a reason to live. Out there? Out there is just the cold pavement I tried to kill myself on. In here it’s bloody, and loud, and dangerous, yeah, but…” I look around, letting my eyes linger on the now-familiar Fog and the dull scent of copper I’d long since stopped noticing. The faint chill on my skin and the taste of pine and salty fear. “Here, I have a reason, and a drive, and…” I reach up with both hands and cup Tempest’s gorgeous, scarred face in them, “...and you.”

I rise up and lean in to press my lips against hers and I feel her freeze in shock. Her lips are thin and hard, salty with sweat and a tang of oil from the generators. But they’re warm… they’re real and as I feel Tempest's arms go around my waist and her mouth open gently to return the kiss, her lips are suddenly so, so soft.

We pull apart and I smile up at her. “Maybe it’s the whole constant fear and terror, and surviving certain death thing we keep doing together, but I feel like this, right here, is worth living in hell for.”

Tempest lets out a sigh but she smiles. What a smile it is, too. I thought I’d seen her smile before but those were just grins. Twists of her lips to show mild amusement. No, this was a real smile.

And it was all for me.

I stand up and scan around, spotting an unlit tower rising from a narrow labyrinth of wood walls. We move, staying low and trying to keep as many trees and rocks between us and the open space around the cabin as possible. Getting onto the generator was easy, but the moment we start working on it we hear a familiar scream echo through the woods.

“Sour Sweet,” Tempest says, standing up and looking around for the faint shimmer of aura that would give her away. “There! She’s hooked on one of the high hills not far from us!”

I glance around and confirm what Tempest had seen. Sure enough, there’s Sour’s silhouette hanging forlornly from the Entity’s feeding hook. “I’ll go, you keep working, I’m better at unhooking anyway.”

Tempest’s hand shoots out and grabs me by the shoulder before I can ask what she’s about, she pulls me in and kisses me hard on the lips. “Be safe, mi sol, and be careful.”

Staring for a moment, stunned but happy, I just nod. “Y-yeah, you too.”

Smiling, I lower myself and move along the wall. Pretty sure I’m a banquet of hope for the Entity now but I don’t particularly give a damn at the moment. Letting out a calming breath, I push away thoughts of Tempest and focus on Sour Sweet. I don’t hear the lullaby so I’m at least reasonably certain it’s safe. Still, I approach the hillock slowly, my ears trained for the sound of the Huntress’s song.

Nothing.

She must’ve headed off to patrol the generators anti-clockwise around the map, otherwise I’d have either seen or heard her head for the generator I’d left Tempest working on. Moving quickly I scramble up the hill and get my arms around Sour’s legs.

“Alright, girl, lift!” I say as I heave up. Just as Sour starts to lift I hear the first, faint strains of the lullaby approach from my left. It’s fine though, the Huntress is far enough off that-

My only warning that I’ve gravely underestimated Adagio’s throwing arm is a faint whistling sound I hear before a hatchet buries itself in the meat of my shoulder just as Sour drops to the ground. I scream, ripping the offending weapon out and tossing it to the ground. Sour is already sprinting away, good girl, she knows the drill.

Scatter to give the Killer too many targets.

Never bunch together, especially when wounded.

I let out a low hiss of pain as I scramble off the hill, down the escarpment, even though I know it’ll let me off closer to where the Huntress is approaching from. Off the edge is still in her line of sight and she could nail me with another hatchet while I’m getting my feet under me.

Gasping at the pain of the wound, I sprint around the edge of the hill away from her and towards the cabin. It’s got blind corners, windows, and everything else I need to break line of sight from-

“SHIT!” I swear as a hatch arches over the hill and lands with a harsh thud in a tree only a few feet from me. “Damnit the Battle of the Band’s would’ve gone way differently if you’d used that skill instead singing!” I yell out as I hobble as quickly as I can to the cabin.

Leaping roughly through a window, I land hard on the crude wood planks of the floor. A glance to the side shows me a staircase leading down. Oh yeah, not going anywhere near there, thank you very much. One trip to the basement is enough for me. That’s a nightmare to get anyone out of, much less yourself. I quickly take a look around, it’s a small, two-story cabin that might be cozy if it weren’t so goddamn creepy. I hear a generator chugging away raggedly somewhere above me. It lacks the steady cadence of a finished one meaning it’s one that was being worked on…

Or still is.

I grimace, it’s probably Aria, I can’t risk going upstairs and bringing Adagio straight to her. I sprint across the living room of the cabin and hurl myself out another window, landing face-first in the wet grass as a hatchet whistles overhead and thuds into the firewood pile across from me.

“Damn, she’s really good with those,” I mutter as I scramble back to my feet and start running clockwise around the building.

The lullaby gets louder as she enters the building and follows me through the window, I glance back and confirm that, yes, Adagio is, in fact, wearing a bunny mask. It should be comical, or at least a little disarming, but the cracked and faded paint, the splatters of old, rust-colored blood, and the dull, empty eyes staring out of the hollow sockets make it deeply unnerving.

I turn a corner and loop back towards the front door of the cabin, sliding in just as another hatchet goes flying past me. I swear I actually feel it brush my jacket as it passes. I make a dead sprint to the other end of the room, spotting the window and leaping through it. I drop, expecting another hatchet to follow me through, like before, but there’s nothing. The heartbeat is still there, and so is the lullaby, but neither is getting louder. Maybe she lost me?

Taking a risk, I rise slightly and peek through the window. The Huntress stopped in front of a cabinet, she violently wrenches it open and grabs at something. For a heart-stopping second, I think maybe one of the others took refuge inside.

Then she pulls out a new set of hatchets, fresh and polished they go onto her belt with practiced ease.

“So that’s where she gets them,” I mutter, dropping low again and sidling away.

Seems like Huntress gave up on me for now but that hatchet wound still hurts like a bitch. In fact, I notice that I’m bleeding, badly. I needed to find a medkit or someone with a few odds and ends to help patch me up. If for no other reason than it’ll make it a hell of a lot easier to track me if I’m hemorrhaging all over the grass.

“Aria… I wonder if she’s still…” I haven’t heard the generator upstairs go live yet, there’s a chance someone is still up there.

Letting out a calming breath, I trudge back to the cabin window I vaulted out of and peek inside. All clear, or so it seems. Well, I’m not getting any younger sitting here, and if I keep bleeding like this I won’t get much older either, I slowly, carefully, and most importantly, quietly, vault the window. The stairs are close, fortunately, and I move up them, scanning around for any signs of the Huntress. I know she’s close, I can hear the lullaby, but it’s distant and muffled and what I can’t hear is the heartbeat. That at least means she’s a good distance from me.

I get to the top floor and make my way towards the sound of machinery. It’s coming from a mossy upper deck at the far end of the cabin from the stairwell. I move towards it, hearing the engine chug more steadily with each footstep, for once I really hope she doesn’t finish it right away.

Fortunately, I come around the corner and spot Aria’s purple bob and ponytail, as she’s bent over the generator. As quietly as possible, I hiss a non-verbal warning at her to get her attention. She starts, and glances up, grimacing at my condition. Yeah, I probably don’t look so hot right now.

“Hey, uh, little help?” I ask, gesturing at the bloody ruin of my shoulder.

Aria nods, giving the generator a good twist of something inside before carefully extracting herself. “Yeah, gimme a sec, Sunny.”

Bless her, Aria has a medkit. I know she didn’t take one in so she must’ve grabbed it from a chest. Talk about lucky finds.

“Sit down, away from the edge,” Aria instructs softly, moving me away from the generator. “We’ve gotta do this fast.”

Poppin open the clasp on the kit, I let out a low whistle. That’s one well-equipped kit, good clean bandages, antiseptic, even suture needles, which Aria pulls out. It’s the work of a moment, Aria lathers on some antiseptic cream before ripping open the suture needle package and pulling the sterile tine of metal out, looping a thread and going to work. Keeping my grunts of pain to a minimum, I watch her quickly and carefully knit up the wound.

I can’t deny, I’m thoroughly impressed. If Adagio should’ve been a professional hatchet-tosser, Aria would’ve made a halfway decent ER doctor. She’s just tying off the last suture when I hear it, though.

A scream of pain.

A very specific scream.

“Tempest!” I pull my jacket sleeve down over the sutures and scan around. “Get back on that genny, Aria, I’ll go see what’s what!” I point at the machine and don’t wait for her to answer. I barely see her nod as I leap down off the porch. “And thanks!” I yell as I drop.

I barely hit the ground before I hear another truncated scream of pain from Tempest, not far from me if the sound of the lullaby is any indication.

“Shit!” swear under my breath as I drop to a crouch near a tree and look around. “Don’t be there, don’t be there, don’t-”

Sun-dammit. Sure enough, there’s Tempest crawling away on the ground. Huntress stalks up behind her, humming and singing her lullaby as she kneels and wraps an arm around Tempest’s middle. She heaves Tempest to her shoulder and swivels her head for a moment before fixating on a point not far away.

“How the fuck do they always know,” I mutter angrily, as I follow the Huntress. They always know where the hooks are, no matter where you are when you fall. I keep a solid distance but always keep them in sight. “Yeah, there it fuckin’ is.”

The Huntress stops in front of a hook that’s protruding from a section of a wood labyrinth, her lullaby never hitching or slowing as she re-adjusts her grip on Tempest and throws her onto the rusty spike. I look away, I don’t want to see that part. I can’t help but hear it, but I don’t want to see it, at least. Maybe that’s selfish but I can’t just… watch Tempest get hurt like that. Especially not after we… Ugh, I hate that scream, I grit my teeth as Tempest’s voice tapers out to dry heaves.

I let out a slow, calming breath. Breathing exercises, just like at the Academy, control your breath, control your magic, control your fire. That’s the ticket. Control your emotions. I focus on my ears and listen, I hear the loud, rusty creak of a cabinet being thrown open and the dull, wooden sounds of Huntress retrieving yet more ammunition. The Entity is very generous with his tools, it seems.

Wait for it… Wait for it…

The generator Aria was working on booms to life, and moments later, the lullaby starts drifting away from the labyrinth towards the cabin. Hopefully, Aria can keep her attention long enough for me to get Tempest to safety.

Not yet though… she’s got range, I can’t forget that again. Wait for it… Until the lullaby is gone. Just… wait. I clench my eyes, I can hear Tempest struggling, her pained groans. It hurts, I can hardly bear listening but…

It’s gone. My eyes snap open and I tear out of cover towards Tempest. My arms go around her legs. “C’mon babe, move!” I yell as I lift, feeling the new sutures straining and warm blood trickle down my arm.

Tempest lets out a grunt of exertion and pain as she drops from the hook, she hits the ground and a moment later we’re running. The lullaby is coming back and the Huntress swiftly behind, but thankfully there’s a lot of cover between us so long as we keep to the edges of the Trial grounds. Trees, wood walls, hills and stones keep us hidden from sight. We sidle through a copse of trees, circling around to keep her eyes off of us. Even if she finds us, that’s less important than her getting a bead on us.

If she can track us that’s, well, not good but it’s fine, but if she sees us…

“Thanks, mi sol,” Tempest’s breath is ragged, but strong. The lullaby is close, still loud and the heartbeat is thudding away in my ears. I don’t want to risk giving ourselves away so I lift a finger to my lips, even as I smile in response.

I can’t let her out of my sight again, I can’t let her go down again. Sonata didn’t need to hook Aria to kill her last time, there’s no telling whether or not Adagio can’t do the same. I’m not willing to risk it.

Not when I finally managed to…

“Hold still,” I whisper as another generator goes live, spilling more light into the hostile and imposing wilderness. I get to work patching Tempest up as best I can, it’s makeshift bandages and little more, I wish I had Aria’s medkit with me. “How ya feelin’?”

The lullaby starts to fade into the distance and I let out a sigh of relief. She’s going to check out that last gen. We’re only on one more and hopefully either Sour or Aria is already either there or working on it.

“Bien, chica,” Tempest mutters, grimacing as I tie the worst of the wounds. It’s little better than triage, though. “You?”

“I ran across the karaoke rabbit, yeah,” I say with a sardonic grin. “She got me once but I managed to lose her around the cabin. Aria patched me up after.”

Tempest just nods. “Good, let’s go, there’s another generator in the Shack.”

“The basement is in the cabin,” I remark, remembering what I’d seen in my brief sprint through that creepy-ass house. “So it’s safer than usual.”

We start the walk to the shack, we’d passed it while we were between generators but neither of us wanted to risk running up an unsafe gen in this kind of place. Knowing the basement wasn’t there made it a lot more viable though.

I keep my eyes low. The cabin rises from the center of the Trial grounds like a sickness, like a pustule, something about it naturally makes me sick, but at the same time, I can’t help but… scratch at it. I can’t help but want to stare.

THUNK~

Tempest screams as a hatchet flies out of nowhere to nail her in the back and she staggers, slamming into a tree. I move around her and pull the notched hatchet free and stare around, scanning for the Huntress. I can’t hear her. I can’t hear the lullaby or the heartbeat! How is that even fucking possi-

THUNK~

I stagger backward as a hatchet slams into my shoulder and puts me on my ass. STUPID! I knew she had a lie of sight somehow and I still stood there like a fucking LEMMING! I haul myself to my feet and grab Tempest, pulling her up to drag her to the other side of the tree, maybe-

That’s when I see her. The cabin. She’s standing, massive and threatening, backlit by the glowing generator, her arm hiked backward gripping one of her deadly projectiles. Desperately, I pull Tempest to the side, trying to get to cover, but…

The Huntress, Adagio, whatever she is, lets the hatchet fly with that same unearthly precision and Tempest screams again as the hatchet finds its mark in her back, right next to the latest wound. The impact tears her out of my hands and throws her to the ground.

“Tempest!” I scream, turning to pull the hatchet out. I can hear the lullaby now. She’s coming for her prey. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay!” I mutter over and over as I try to tend to her wound and get her back on her feet.

“Get out of here, mi sol!” Tempest roars, coughing up a wash of blood as she swats at me weakly. “She’s just going to get you too!”

“Then I’ll let her!” I cry, tears running hot down my cheeks. “I told you before, I will not leave without you! I promised! I’m not going anywhere!”

La-la la-la la-la-la~

The heartbeat is deafening. Her lullaby is practically in my ear. I drop the crude bandages I’d grabbed and turn my head slowly. The Huntress’s breath is hot and feverish as she towers over me. She hasn’t swung. Why should she? I can see four fresh hatchets on her belt and even without them she could bring me to the ground with one swing of that brutal ax in her hands.

“G-go…” I say, for some reason, I can’t think of anything else but that. “Go away, she’s mine, I won’t let you take her away.”

Huntress’s masked head cocks to the side as if she’s confused. Or amused. Her full lips, once lush and soft-looking, are cracked and chapped as she smiles. I can almost make out the dim glow of insanity in the hollow sockets of her mask.

She moves around me. She ignores me and steps towards Tempest. I can’t do anything, I can’t hurt the Huntress any more than I could hurt the Wraith or the Hag. I can get away, sure, but… can I? Is she just toying with me? Waiting for me to run so she can turn and send an ax into my spine?

Or is it just cruelty. She wants me to watch her kill my…

No…

Red washes over my vision as I turn to watch the Huntress advance on Tempest who’s crawling away, screaming at her incoherently. She’s trying to keep the Killers attention so I can get away.

She’s so sweet.

My hands clench into fists, and a sharp pain blossoms in my palm. It’s a good pain, it focuses me as I stride towards the Huntress.

The Huntress kicks out and knocks Tempest onto her back. In a single sharp motion, she takes a step forward, wood-ax raised like she’s getting ready to shear through an uncut log for firewood. It’s a practised, almost mechanical action so fluid in its perfection I barely get there in time.

The blade of the ax stops inches from Tempest’s face, caught in a cage of silver-stained claws tinged red with blood. Or maybe they’re not. Everything looks red right now. The Huntress is a wash of red, so is Tempest. She looks good in it.

Focus, Shimmer, ogle later.

Flexing, I grip the ax and push against the usually inexorable might of the Killer, and the ax rises, slowly, inch by inch against the Huntress’s will. She doesn’t look angry, enraged, or even furious; she’s gripping the handle hard with both hands, pushing down and I’m pushing her back with one. She just looks… confused.

“Mine,” I hiss, my voice distorted by… something. I don’t really care, I just need to get my point across. “She,” I point one long, sharp claw at Tempest, “is mine!” I point back at myself.

For a moment, we stare each other down. Like two apex predators fighting over a wounded hart. Her breath is ragged and mists in the air around us. I realise, for the first time, that she’s stopped singing.

Then she stands, releasing the tension on her ax as the final generator, wherever it is, thunders to life along with the exit doors. She doesn’t react, she just stares down at Tempest, then up at me, then back down at Tempest. Her head cocks to the side again. Suddenly seeming to come to a decision, the Huntress starts singing her lullaby again, turns on her heel, and moves away towards the exit that just lit up.

A smile stretches over my face and I look down at my hand. My claws. Good, metal claws that… wait…

What?

“M-mi sol?”

I stare down at my hand. Why does it look wrong? Why does it look like… like that? It’s… that’s not right is it? I’m not supposed to have claws… right?

Or am I?

I don’t… remember…

“Chica?”

Someone is talking to me. Oh right, mine. She’s mine and I’ve been ignoring her and that’s rude. I turn around to face her and Tempest flinches. I frown, why is she doing that? I reach out and she stares at my hand. I look at it too, it’s… an ugly, rubbery shade of red shot with veins of icy blue. The fingers taper into cold steel, or silver, blades. From my wrist up is a tattered black coat, similar to my favorite leather jacket but bigger and longer, it trails down to my knees, fluttering around my legs, and is buttoned all the way up from my waist to my neck.

That’s odd, I don’t remember having this coat.

Or putting it on.

Or…

Pain.

I clench my eyes shut, gripping my skull as the pain thunders through it. It’s like Billy caught his chainsaw on my head, set it to max revs and left it there. I scream I think, my mouth is open, I feel like… I’m making a sound. But I can’t hear anything. I can’t see anything.

I can’t feel-

I do feel.

I feel two warm, strong arms wrap around me and pull me tight against the warm, welcoming body they’re attached to. I hear… a voice.

“Come back to me, mi sol,” the voice whispers, I’m moving, I’m being guided. “Come back to me.”

The pressure in my head starts to fade, and the cold… Written's Quill, the cold. Why was I so cold? How did I not notice that? I feel frostbitten and sick to my stomach as I stagger into Tempest who catches me easily. My breath comes in harsh gulps as I open my eyes. It feels like I had the worst three straight days of hungover sleep in my entire life as I’m pulled towards what looks like an open exit. It’s hard to tell, everything is so bright.

I’m dragged out of the Trial, and as I glance back I see her. Adagio. The Huntress. Whoever she is… staring at me from the threshold of the exit. Her hollow eyes boring into me. I can… hear her. Not her singing. Her voice. Familiar and alien at the same time. Distorted by the Fog.

See you soon, sister.

I have a deeply unsettling feeling she’s not talking to Aria as the Entity’s thunder tears us away from the Cabin.