According to my mother, I was born in the back seat of a speeding Honda because I couldn't wait ten more minutes to reach the hospital.
She liked to say that I'd been in a hurry ever since I was born. And she was right. I was the kid who showed up for sleepovers half an hour early. I was the person who arrived at the movies before the staff had finished mopping. I set my clocks five minutes ahead on purpose.
I hated being late.
Being late means you don't care enough to be on time, and I care about everything too much. That's its own problem, but at least I'm punctual.
I had never given much thought to how I would die. I never thought it'd be because I was running 50 minutes late for Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house, in a Subaru Outback next to my lying and cheating, soon-to-be ex-girlfriend driving us off a mountain.
For 24 years, I'd been early for everything, and the one time I was late, it literally killed me.
Morrígan
<Demon Queen of the Hundredth Floor>
(Final Guardian)
Level ??? Archfiend [Sovereign of Ruin]
STR: 489,102
AGI: 312,887
CON: 2,506,441
MAG: ∞
WIS: 204
LUK: 3
"— And on this day, I, Hargrave the Undying, Wielder of the Crimson Flame, Vanquisher of the Beasts of Torrath, shall strike down the darkness that festers in this cursed tower and liberate the realm from your unholy reign! Your tyranny ends here, Demon Queen! I will carve your name from the stones of history and —"
He was still going. I sat on my throne: a horrible, oversized thing made of black stone and what I really hoped wasn't bone, and watched this man's monologue at me. He'd been at it for a solid three minutes.
His haircut was the worst I've ever seen in any life. It was choppy and uneven and looked like he cut it in the dark. He was also sporting an aggressive unibrow that would've made Frida Kahlo jealous.
"— the blood of the fallen cries out for vengeance and I shall be the instrument of their —"
I should be scared. I guess a part of me was, since he had a very large sword. The last guy who'd come through that door almost took my head off before I accidentally set him on fire. But mostly I was just tired. And upset. And confused in a way that had become so constant it didn't even feel like confusion anymore.
Here's the thing: people kept trying to murder me. They would consistently, as if it were a pastime, burst into my floor. They would deliver a speech about honor, glory, and protecting the realm, and then they would try to kill me. And I didn't know why. I didn't know what I'd done. I had no idea where I was, how I got there, or why I had a throne room the size of a cathedral and zero memory of decorating it.
Wasn't dying once enough? Hadn't the mountain, the deer, the guardrail, and my exploding car been enough? What had I done to deserve such cosmic retribution? Was this purgatory? Was this hell? Sister Wendy at St. Catherine's had been very clear about the consequences of homosexuality and I'd sort of tuned her out because she also thought yoga was a gateway to Satan, but what if she was right? Could this be the gay hell she had warned me about? What if I'm here because I kissed a girl at Ashley Moreno's eighth-grade birthday party?
I went through the list. The things I did. The actual sins.
Okay. There was the Jenna Ortiz thing. I had, technically, sent Jenna Ortiz's nudes to like four people. But Jenna had told the entire cheerleading squad that I stuffed my bra, which I did not, and she deserved what she got.
But maybe I could have been nicer to service workers. I was a bad tipper. Not a no-tipper; I wasn't a monster, but a solid 10 percenter, which I'd been told by multiple people was basically the same thing. And I once returned a latte three times. I might have made the barista cry.
And my makeup. Every product in my bathroom: the foundation, the concealer, the setting spray... all of it tested on animals. Little rabbits with mascara in their eyes because I wanted my lashes to look good at brunch.
Oh God, this truly was hell.
"— AND NOW, DEMON QUEEN, YOU FACE YOUR —"
I blinked. The man—Hargrave, Harold, whatever—was running towards me. Springing with his sword raised. Unibrow furrowed in determination. He was too close for comfort.
"Eek!" I flinched. I threw my hands up in front of my face, my body cringing fully. I closed my eyes... and he exploded.
Not metaphorically. He exploded. One moment he was a man with a sword and a dream, the next... he was gone. Well, he wasn't completely gone. He was on the walls. He was on the floor. He was on my throne. Something wet was on my cheek.
"Oh my god," I whispered. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god."
The doors at the end of the room let out a low, eerie groan as they swung open. Two small creatures trotted in. They were the size of raccoons, but had cat like shapes, tufted ears, and short legs. Their eyes were enormous and lamp-like. One of them was carrying a tiny mop.
They began working straight away. They showed no hesitation. They did not react to the fact that there was a man in several pieces across the marble floor. They just... cleaned.
I watched them for a moment, then slumped back into my throne.
Right on my tail.
"Ow — goddammit!"
I stood up, yanked the thing out from under me, and stared at it. A tail. Long, dark, tapered to a point. My tail. Connected to me.
I carefully sat back down and reached up to touch my horns.
Horns. A tail. Powers that activated when I sneezed, flinched, or jumped in fright. That was constant, because people kept trying to kill me.
One of the cat things looked up at me, and its huge eyes blinked. Then, it went back to mopping.
"You missed a spot," I said, pointing to a chunk near the throne's base. "Over there. By the... yeah. That."
The creature scurried over immediately, the tiny mop working in frantic little circles. The other one followed, dragging a rag. They were thorough; I'd give them that. Extremely attentive to detail. Within a few minutes the floor was spotless, the walls were spotless, and there was no remaining evidence that Hargrave the Undying had ever existed, which was probably for the best because he'd been a lot more pleasant as a concept than as a reality.
They trotted out. The door clicked shut behind them.
Silence.
Unadulterated, breathtaking, silence. No monologues. No swords. No declarations of vengeance. Just me, my horrible throne, and the vaulted ceiling of my horrible room in my horrible tower on my horrible floor where I lived now, apparently, forever.
I tucked my tail to the side, leaned my head back against the stone, and closed my eyes. Maybe if I slept, something would change. Maybe I'd wake up and this ordeal would be over, and I'd be back in my apartment with my crappy Keurig and my bed with sheets that always slipped off the corners and —
The doors flew open.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" I sat up so fast my horns scraped the back of the throne. I just needed a nap. If I didn’t get some sleep I was going to lose my mind. I was going to truly and undoubtedly…
A woman strolled into the room. Her hair was now longer and white-silver instead of dark. She wore a robe and carried a staff with a faint glow at the tip, but it was undoubtedly her face.
Ayla.
"Oh, hell no. You have a lot of nerve showing up here. You bitch."
She didn't respond. Her eyes remained still. She instantly planted her staff in the ground, raised her head, and started speaking.
"Demon Queen Morrígan, Scourge of the Hundred Floors, I have ascended this tower through blood and fire—“
I grabbed the nearest object: a decorative iron candelabra and hurled it at her head. She ducked. It sailed over her and exploded against the far wall, leaving a crater in the stone.
"YOU ASSHOLE!"
"— fire and I stand before you now not as a challenger but as your —"
"You CHEATED on me!" I grabbed a second candelabra. Threw it harder. She sidestepped. It took out a column. "You cheated on me and you killed us and you have the NERVE to show your face here?"
"— end. I have slain your generals. I have broken your —"
"Oh, so we're doing this? We're doing the thing where you pretend you don't recognize me?" I was grabbing anything I could reach now. A stone goblet. A chunk of the throne's armrest that broke off in my hand. A skull that had been sitting on a shelf. Each one launched in her direction. "You DICK! I know you recognize me! You think I'm stupid? You think I didn't watch soap operas with my grandma every Sunday for fifteen years? I know what fake amnesia looks like, Ayla! Marisol did it for three seasons on Pasión y Mentiras and she wasn't convincing either!"
"— your wards. And when I take your head, I will return to the kingdom of Muir and claim what was promised to me —"
She paused.
"The hand of Queen Victoria. My beloved. My reason."
The stone goblet I'd been winding up to throw slipped out of my hand and clattered to the floor.
I stared at her in shock.
I know I wasn't a perfect girlfriend. I was bossy. I was critical. Once I even made her return a Christmas gift because it was the wrong shade of gold. But did I deserve this? To have my own ex-girlfriend show up in my afterlife, in love with somebody else, trying to murder me so she could go marry her? Did I deserve to die at Ayla's hand not once, but twice?
"Victoria," I said. "Victoria? Are you KIDDING me?" My voice cracked on the last word. "First it was Mia. Then it was Sarah. And now it's VICTORIA?"
She tilted her head slightly, eyebrows furrowed.
"You couldn't even commit to me and now you want to MARRY someone? YOU? The woman who said she 'wasn't sure she believed in labels'?" I screamed. "You killed me, Ayla! I am dead because of you! Because you were driving! Because you were cheating! Because you couldn't keep it in your pants for five minutes. I DIED and now you're HERE and you're trying to kill me AGAIN?”
I was breathing hard. The room was destroyed. Candelabras embedded in walls, chunks of stone scattered across the marble, the decorative skull in pieces. My little janitors were going to have a long day.
"What the hell, Ayla!" I fell to my knees.
She faltered, just barely.
"What about all the fun times we had together? Huh? What about those? I was the first woman to give you an orgasm! I was! Me! And you're standing here telling me about Victoria?"
Her lips parted.
"I even tried those weird sex things with you. You know what I'm talking about, and I did that for you because I was in love with you! I was in love with you, Ayla! And this is how you repay me? This? Showing up at my death tower to kill me for another woman?"
She was just staring at me now. Her eyes were wide and her staff was slightly lowered.
"I — Uh —" she said.
I approached her now. Suddenly, I realized just how much had changed. I towered over her, now. In our old lives I'd been five-four and she'd been five-nine and she'd never let me forget it. Now she barely came up to my collarbone. I looked down at her, and she looked up at me. Her throat bobbed.
"Ayla," I said, and my voice cracked. The anger was still there, but something else was climbing over it. "I thought you loved me. How could you do this to me?"
I started to cry.
I didn't mean to. I wasn't planning on it. But it came out of me like a dam breaking: a horrible, ugly cry that didn't match my body, or the horns or the throne, or the title.
"I'm so scared," I sobbed. "I'm so scared all the time. People keep trying to kill me and I don't know why and I have a tail, Ayla. I have a tail! Do you understand how horrible that is? I'm like a fucking lizard or something and I didn't ask for any of this and I just —"
I buried my face into her shoulder. She was so small now. I hunched over to reach her, and I was wailing into her robe. I was probably getting tears and snot all over her, and I didn't care.
Then she hugged me back. Her arms wrapped around me and she made this little shushing sound. For a second, I thought everything would be okay. Then, I felt the blade against my ribs.
She had pulled a dagger from inside her robe while I was crying on her shoulder.
She was actually trying to stab me! She was hugging me and shushing me and sliding a knife between my ribs like a goddamn sociopath.
"WHAT THE HELL!" I pushed her away. She skidded back across the marble, still holding the dagger, without even looking sorry. "ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? I was having a moment! That is so fucked up, Ayla! That is seriously the most fucked up thing you have ever done and you cheated on me twice!"
She straightened up and flipped the dagger in her hand.
"You are a monster," she said. "A creature of darkness and ruin. Only a fool would show you pity. Only a fool would —"
"I gave you your first orgasm!"
"— Believe the lies of a demon queen. You prey on compassion. You mimic humanity. But I see you for what you are."
She charged. Staff blazing, robes whipped behind her like she was in a movie. She was fast and graceful. Her eyes were locked on me, focused in the same way I'd only ever seen when she played a hard-mode raid boss. In hindsight, that's exactly what she was doing.
I didn't flinch this time.
I don't know why, but it was something about the hug. Something about the dagger. Something about watching the person you love use your grief as a window to stab you with. I just looked at her. I felt power rise in me like a wave, and I let it go.
Ayla exploded.
The result was the same: immediate and total. One second she was a woman running at me with purpose, and the next she was nothing. She was everywhere and nowhere.
I was there, my hands still raised. The room was quiet except for a faint ringing in my ears.
"Fucking bitch," I said.
The doors opened with a creak. The cat creatures returned, carrying the same mop and cloth, displaying no sign of emotion whatsoever. One of them raised their eyes to me, blinked, and began tending to Ayla's previous left side.
I reclaimed my seat on the throne.
"Hey," I said to the one with the mop. "Question."
It looked up at me.
"Think you could taxidermy her?"