Hel woke with a violent jolt as something heavy slammed into her.
Warmth spread across her torso—thick, wet, metallic.
Blood. Fresh.
Her eyes snapped open.
A girl lay collapsed across her, trembling so violently Hel felt every shake through her own ribs. Hot blood seeped across Hel’s chest in a sudden, sickening rush—far too much, far too fast. Dark curls clung to the girl’s face, matted with sweat and red. Her breaths came in sharp, panicked bursts more like sobs than air.
Hel’s hand twitched—instinct, reflex, the immediate threat-assessment of a being who had survived far too much.
Then the girl’s voice cracked open against her collarbone.
“Please—please don’t let them take me back.”
Hel went still.
Not an attacker.
A victim.
A dying one.
She shifted just enough to cradle the girl more securely, feeling the faint hitch in the girl’s chest, the uneven flutter of a failing heartbeat.
With a flick of her wrist and no spoken word, Hel summoned her bottomless bag into her free hand. The familiar weight slapped into her palm as she kept the girl pinned gently against her with her other arm.
Hel plunged her fingers inside, searching by feel alone.
Wiggenweld… yes.
She pulled the potion free, uncorked it with her thumb, and tilted it to the girl’s lips before the blood loss stole her consciousness entirely.
“Easy,” Hel murmured, voice low, steady. “Drink. I’ve got you.”
The girl tried—weakly, desperately.
Hel supported her head, forcing steady swallows as the healing magic began to knit the worst of the torn flesh shut, slowing the flood of red soaking into Hel’s shirt.
When enough had gone down, Hel pressed the girl’s face into her shoulder, holding her tight as the trembling shifted from violent spasms to weak shakes.
“You’re safe,” Hel whispered—not knowing who they were, or why the girl was running, only that she meant every word. “No one is taking you anywhere.”
The girl let out a thin, broken sob as the potion eased her pain, her eyelids fluttering once… twice… and then sinking shut. Sleep claimed her like a drowning body pulled under.
Hel stayed perfectly still for several seconds, unsure whether to breathe, speak, or brace for another collapse of blood and trauma.
The girl didn’t move.
She just sagged against Hel’s chest—small, shivering, and horrifyingly light.
Hel exhaled slowly.
Wonderful. She had rescued someone who was clearly dying, clearly traumatized, clearly missing an arm—and she had absolutely no idea who she was.
A dilemma, then. One she hadn’t prepared for.
“Most people show up from something,” Hel muttered under her breath. “Books, movies, games, legends… at least then I know what I’m dealing with.”
She glanced down at the unconscious girl.
Unruly black curls matted with blood. Glasses cracked nearly in half, one lens missing entirely. A stump where her right arm should have been—wrapped in torn cloth that had long since stopped helping. Her clothes were shredded, burned in places, and she carried no weapon. No armor. Nothing that gave Hel even a hint of who or what she might be.
No symbol.
No crest.
No convenient narrative clue.
“Great,” Hel sighed. “A mystery girl. That’s new.”
She adjusted her grip, lifting the girl a little closer, and felt the faintest tremor run through her—fear even in unconsciousness.
Hel looked down at the stump again and swallowed her questions.
Whatever happened to this girl… it hadn’t been good.
===
Taylor’s breath caught in her throat.
That was the first thing she noticed—not the world, not the trees whose leaves shimmered like polished emerald, not the distant mountain crowned in drifting silver mist.
It was the simple fact that she could breathe without pain.
Her ribs didn’t feel cracked. Her skin didn’t burn. Her arm—
Her arm itched.
Slowly, disbelieving, Taylor lifted her right hand into view.
Five fingers.
Whole. Scarless. Alive.
She sucked in a sharp breath and nearly dropped it back onto the grass.
This isn’t possible. Arms don’t just… grow back.
Her vision swam, everything smeared and unfocused. Instinctively she reached for the bridge of her nose—only to find the mangled remains of her glasses weren’t there.
Right. They’d been crushed. Melted. Stomped. Something.
Annoyance flickered through her confusion, but it was a familiar annoyance—grounding. She took a slow breath and let her mind unfurl the way it had a thousand times before.
The world dissolved into motion.
She saw.
Bugs—hundreds—fanned out in a radius around her, carrying her awareness with them. A shifting 300-meter sphere of shapes, textures, life.
Stone towers arched upward like the ribs of some ancient beast, banners of unfamiliar crests fluttered between marketplace stalls, and armored guards patrolled with halberds tipped in silver. The streets were paved in clean-cut marble and crowded with people dressed in flowing robes, leather armor, and clothing straight out of a fantasy RPG.
No cars.
No streetlamps.
No Protectorate insignia.
No Empire graffiti.
Not Brockton Bay.
Not anywhere she recognized.
“What in the hell…” Taylor whispered, “Where in the actual hell am I?”
Her bugs crawled over polished elven-looking braziers, along archways carved with runes, and across a marketplace full of people who treated giant lizards as casually as dogs.
A woman passed—ears pointed, staff glowing faintly.
A pair of dwarves argued loudly over the price of steel.
An a woman who felt powerful walking towards her room.
A ripple went through Taylor’s swarm—an instinctive warning, the way insects reacted to a forest fire drawing near.
Footsteps.
Measured.
Confident.
Powerful.
Taylor focused, letting the moths and flies outline the woman approaching her room.
Tall.
A cascade of deep, living red, like embers stirred in a forge.
Taylor stiffened.
Whoever this was… she dominated every sense her insects had.
The door eased open with a soft click.
The red-haired woman stepped inside—and Taylor didn’t know if she should flee, fight, or drop dead on the spot.
“It seems you are awake,” the red-haired stranger said, voice calm and warm as a hearth. “Good. I was beginning to worry.”
Taylor swallowed hard.
“…Who are you?” she rasped.
The woman stepped closer, letting the magic around her soften.
“My name is Hel, Goddess of Death.”