Iveriani stared at the hunched backs of three men as they shuffled along in the middle of the refuse filled alleyway, wondering how she had let them talk her into this terrible plan. Well, it was one man and two boys really. At least the rest of them assumed Big Jack was an adult by now. Her, Thom, and Quickfoot had all seen around fourteen summers, and Jack was like a giant compared to them.

But not even having their strongest fighter with them made her feel better about any of this. They shouldn’t need a fighter anyway. If it came to blows, they’d probably just end up dead. The huge oaf only increased their chances of getting caught. Which by her guess, felt like a certainty. Why? She couldn’t say. Thom had assured them that the safehouse would be empty, and he was seldom wrong.

There was just something about the air tonight: cold enough to make her shiver despite being only mid fall and doubling up on layers. But it was also more than that. Besides their deliberately hushed footsteps, not a sound reached her ears. That wouldn’t be too strange, it being some time past midnight already, but based on how deep into the dock district slums they were, there should be at least a few other unsavory types lurking about.

They finally reached the end of the alley that opened up to a larger road and Big Jack halted their advance. The freezing, chipped cobbles of dockside's main street reflected what little light the yellow, full moon provided. There was not a torch or lit fire in sight. Iveriani shoved past her friends to get a better view. Her eyes darted from one side of the street to the other. Not a soul in either direction. Not even a shadow. This was wrong. They had to—

“Alright, little rats,” Jack turned to face the others, “we’ll be eatin’ like the governor for months if’n we pull this off!”

“No sweat,” Quick said.

“Course,” Thom added.

Iveriani remained silent, her creeping dread only piling on thicker at the boys’ bravado. Without another word, Jack moved on, crossing the street to a small, seemingly well-maintained, one-story bungalow at the opposite side. As she and the others followed as fast as they could to avoid being in the open for too long, she noticed the street-facing facade was wholly brick and stone. If what was inside matched the fancy exterior, Jack had not been exaggerating earlier. Maybe, just maybe, Thom’s info was good. As long as it was safe.

“You’re up, Ivy,” Thom said.

She knew it without his prompting, but still she didn’t move. The reason they had all insisted she come tonight was because anyone that had anything worth taking usually took measures to protect it. And Iveriani just happened to have the most dexterous hands of the bunch. She had yet to find a lock she could not open given a bit of time.

“Wha’cha waiting for, rat?” Jack asked.

Ugh.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, pulling out her tools and stepping up to the door.

With her tension wrench in and torqued, she gently tapped a hook pick up for the first pin. It locked in place almost immediately, and she moved on. In just fifteen seconds or so, the final, fourth pin clacked into place, and the lock was beaten.

Too easy. Way too easy! Ice crept along the surface of her skin that had nothing to do with the crisp night air. If she were to believe Thom about what lay beyond, it didn’t make sense to leave this place unguarded and so easily burgled.

She inched back from the door, all of her instincts screaming at her to run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

“Guys,” she said, “before we—”

“Breakfast is on me tomorrow!” Jack shouted and swung the door wide. He strolled out of the orange glow of the moon and into the darkness of the home like he owned the place. Her other two friends moved to follow.

Iveriani heard a thud from within, and Jack came falling back out the entrance like a cut tree. His large body slammed against the cobbles, causing her to jump back with a yelp. She paused just for a moment before looking down, afraid to confirm what she already knew. Nevertheless, her eyes drifted street-ward, and found something that no one should ever have to see.

Jack’s face could no longer be called such a thing. Maybe even his whole head. It lie twisted into a misshapen, bulbous blob of broken flesh and blood. The blow had pulped one eye into a ruined gooey mush, while the second stared lifeless into the night sky, dribbling droplets of crimson. Iveriani couldn't move. She couldn't scream. She couldn't even blink.

Heavy footfalls announced the arrival of three men from within the home. One—a head and a half again taller than even Jack—exited first. He held a stained, spiked club over one shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. Above dirt caked and worn leather boots, he wore a pair of dark trousers and a sleeveless, open chested, wine colored vest. The attire made no sense for the current weather, but maybe it no longer mattered when you were that large. His torso was all bulging muscle, and it alone probably outweighed her easily not counting the rest of his body. Iveriani barely noticed the others, still frozen and openly staring at the hulk of a man. It seemed her friends fared no better.

“Well,” the man said, “what do we have here?”

“Look,” another said, “they brought us a girl?”

“Think shes worth much? Pretty enough after a bath, maybe?”

“Nah. These street dwellers ain’t able to keep their virtue. She’s used goods.”

“So we just play with her a bit then?”

“Whatever.”

It took Iveriani a few seconds to register what they were talking about. A burning determination took over her body, drowning out anything else. She would kill herself before she let any of them touch her. But how? Her picks were in no way a deadly weapon.

“Ivy, run!” Thom shouted. He had finally recovered as well. He had been the one to find her a year ago, discarded in a gutter like trash from her last group of so-called friends.

He lunged at the three men with a tiny kitchen knife in one hand. No!

“Thom, don’t!” she reached out a hand, nowhere near close enough to grab at him.

One of the non-club men laughed and plunged a foot-long dagger into Thom’s belly.

“Thom!” Iveriani screamed, tears already forming in the corners of her eyes. Why? Why had she let them go through with this?

“R-run,” he got out before the man pulled his blade out, and thrust it back through Thom’s chest. His body sagged against the weapon, and the man wrenched it free, letting Thom fall lifelessly at his feet. No more words came from her friend’s mouth.

Oh god. Thom was dead. Jack was dead. She had seen dead bodies before, even from those of her crew, but had never seen them slain a few feet in front of her. And definitely not corpses of her closest friends. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Quick try and run for it, but it didn’t matter. A flash of steel came from the third man who had yet to kill one of her friends so far, and Quickfoot fell to the ground.

In two pieces. His head dropped first, bounced, and then rolled to the perfect position looking straight up at Iveriani. He even blinked one more time before fixing her with an eternal stare. Blood began to pool beneath the grisly totem. She could do nothing but fall to her hands and knees and cry out, but that only brought her closer to the carnage.

A rough, calloused hand gripped her chin and forced her to look up. The big man with the club hovered over her, twisting her face this way and that, staring down at her.

“You sure we can’t clean her up?” he asked. “Nobles love cute little things like this.”

“Oh come on,” another said.

“You getting soft on her already?”

“You know I don’t like this,” the big man said, “I got a sister, ya know.”

Iveriani wasn’t sure how selling her off to a noble just to meet the same fate by a different person was supposed to be better, but at least it would give her time to do…something. At the moment her limbs felt like useless, dead twigs, and her mind had partway shut off to protect herself from the trauma.

“All that work for a chance at a few coins?” one said. “Ain’t worth it. And I’m bored right now.”

The man who had spoken came into her line of sight, a curved, single edged short sword dripping blood in one hand. He was cleaner than his comrade, and better dressed. Or more appropriately at least. No skin was showing beneath his tailored dark suit, complete with a brimmed top hat. He looked just like a noble, but that was impossible. Right?

Iveriani’s first instinct was to plea to the less rough looking man, but based on their discussion among themselves, that would be the wrong choice. Instead, she gripped with both of her hands at the trunk of an arm that was still holding her face.

“Please,” she said, her voice small enough that she hoped only he could hear.

His eyes drooped the tiniest bit, but shook his head.

“Not much I can do here, girly,” he said.

“Then just kill me. I won’t. I can’t…” She squeezed her eyes shut.

The big thug let out a long breath and let go of her face, pulling his arm from her grip.

“Death isn’t a better alternative,” he said.

“Please just do it.”

She heard more footsteps, but kept her eyes shut tight.

“What are you two whispering about over here?” the other man asked. “I hope you aren’t getting any weird ideas.”

Iveriani opened her eyes, tears flowing freely and looked up at the huge man. The disk of yellow-orange radiance hung low beneath the stars beyond him. She didn’t say a word, but her gaze needed no explanation. She watched him raise his club, and then suddenly everything hurt. Everything.

A rending poison spread out from her heart, snaking its way through each and every pathway of her body, boiling her blood as it went. Her skin squirmed and writhed against an invisible flame that encompassed her entirely. Her bones crumpled to dust and reformed over and over again.

She could do nothing but curl in on herself and wail until her voice went hoarse, for no matter how bad it got, the sweet release of darkness would not take her. She hadn’t expected death to be so painful. Or last so long. Maybe the thug had the right of things.

When it reached the point when her mind had nearly lost itself, forgetting anything else but the memory and presence of the pain, it all just stopped. For a moment, she thought that maybe finally she would find a peace that she had never had during life.

But then she opened her eyes. Stretched out before her existed some kind of dead version of the world she knew. All color drained from her sight, and nothing looked quite as it should. No, it was worse than that. She could recognize nothing. Lines were blurred, hazy, and twisted into impossible curves that went on forever. Shapes that should be familiar took on an alien appearance. And worse than all that, everything seemed to be…moving. Shifting and vibrating under some unseen power.

She tried to back away from the scene, but when she spun her head around, the terrifying vision persisted in all directions. Truthfully, it almost scared her more than the fear of death’s pain returning. Had demons dragged her down to hell already? She hadn’t been so bad in life, right? She had been a thief, sure, but out of necessity more than malice. How else had she been expected to survive? Was it her punishment to live in this bleak, distorted world just because she had tried her best to live? It didn’t seem fair.

Her thoughts curled in on themselves, and then she saw movement in front of her. Not the omnipresent gyrations of the afterlife, but actual fluid, persistent motion. Two elongated shapes shuffled around before her. Legs? Maybe. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Yes. She could pick out the vague shapes of the three men who had exited the house just moments before. They didn't look anything like men, but what else could they be? They were all moving about, circling her.

And then one spoke, “What the hell happened?”

“I-I have no idea. One moment she was just sittin’ there. And then gone. But those screams…You heard them too, right?”

Oh. So that was it, then. She couldn’t even die properly. Her spirit had stuck around in this world, and this must be what it was like to view the world of the living as a specter of her former self. She wondered where the man had hit her, and if the wound would persist on her new form.

Looking around again through the lens of death, she searched for her physical body. With the shapes of the men identified, she should be able to locate herself within the strange world of undeath. But there was nothing. How could that be? If she had left her body to become the thing that she was now, then there must be some evidence of her death. Yeah? Yeah.

Her hands traveled along her face, searching for the wound that must be there. The memory of Jack’s ruined face returned to her, and bile rose in her throat. She didn’t know if she could handle looking like that for the rest of her non-life. But again, she found nothing, only the smooth skin of her cheeks and forehead.

Wait. Why had her stomach churned at the thought of her friend’s death. Spirits didn’t still have to vomit, did they? Nothing was making sense. She had died, that much was obvious, but why did everything else feel off?

“Where do ya think she went?” one of the men asked.

Huh?

“I didn’t do anything, I swear!”

She recognized the big man’s voice. Didn’t do anything? He had killed her! At her request, but why was he acting like she had just vanished?

“I was right here ya idiot. I know that much.”

“Then what?” the big man’s voice came. “Ya don’t think…”

“Don’t be stupid. If that were—”

Her own pounding heart drummed out the men’s voices. Some things were starting to add up in ways that were not possible. Couldn’t be. Obviously. There was no chance. And why was her heart beating?

Wait a minute. She willed herself to take a step back. What did she really know about the afterlife and spirits? Not much. One’s death was supposed to be a transition into punishment or paradise based on one's life, judged by the one God. A spirit fell into the category of one not yet eligible for judgment, and must finish something left for them in the living world.

That was all she had picked up from the teachings of the paladins and priests, but realistically, she had never once heard of a confirmed story of a spirit ever interacting with the living world to finish any type of leftover task. Many, herself included didn’t believe it to be possible. Also, she was pretty sure they didn't have heartbeats. So was she actually a spirit? If so, then what was she supposed to do? Observe and accept her fate?

“Uhm, hello?” she asked in a small, shaky voice.

The three not-at-all-man-like shapes jumped.

“Girly?” the big man said.

“Y-you can h-hear me?” They started to circle in on her voice, getting closer and closer. “Am I…dead?”

“I don’t like this,” the big man said. His colorless shape in the dead world actually shuffled back instead of growing closer like the others.

“Be quiet you idiot!”

“I’m not—”

A third voice joined in. “She’s a runt! You know how much this could be worth.”

“You a hunter now, Royce?”

“Shut up and help me grab her."

“Grab what?”

One of shapes grew closer to her, its wiggling limbs groping around through empty space. She was trembling at the words of the men reinforcing her own growing beliefs about what was happening to her, but she had no time to think about it. Her fist clenched around the only thing she had: her tension rod from the lockpick set. With all of her meager strength, she jammed it into what she assumed was the leg of the closest man to her. A colorless fluid splattered her face and chest, warmth spreading across her closed fist. The man’s guttural cry filled the air, and Iveriani squirmed away on hands and feet.

The shapes of the other men leapt to action. One went to check on her victim, while the larger started to retreat.

“She’s really a witch,” the big man’s voice said, his tone wavering.

“No!” she yelled. “I’m not! I swear I’m not!”

It couldn’t be. Of all the things that could have happened this night, that conclusion was the worst of them all. She would rather have died. Rather these men have taken her. Witches were the most ill-fated of all.

She didn’t even want to think of what lie in store for her if it was true. If the paladins didn’t take her and torture her worse than these men could even dream of, then what did she have to look forward to? On the anniversary of her awakening—today she supposed—the one God would force her to endure the pain all over again. Or would she simply give in and become an agent of the true darkness? Would the demons of the borderlands come for her then? Take her to become part of their wicked schemes to annihilate humanity?

The big man’s shape crumpled down, and when it straightened back up, something remained on the ground at his feet. The club, she realized. He was…surrendering to her?

“I’m not gonna fight a witch, Farson,” he said.

One of the men closer to her straightened up, leaving the third unmoving on the ground.

“Y-yeah,” the other said, “best to leave her to the paladins, eh?”

“No!” Iveriani said. “You have to believe me. I’m not a witch!”

“Miss witch,” the big man said, “we don’t want anything to do with ya. Just go.”

Just go? Just go? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? These men had killed all of her friends. And now what, she was just supposed to walk away? And go where? She stood, almost stepping towards the big man before realizing it.

Moments before she had only thought of running or dying. Now, a desire for revenge filled every facet of her being. A revenge that she could actually realize. Because she was…

“I’m not a witch,” she said.

“Look, girly. You’re young. And I know you’re scared. But take a moment and look at what just happened. You just murdered a man.”

“What?”

He couldn’t be dead from getting poked with a tension rod. Though when she looked back to the downed man, a splotch of dark grayness was growing around him in the broken vision of her new world.

“You ever kill someone before becoming a witch?”

“N-no.”

He wasn’t actually dead, right? There was no way. It was just her tension rod!

“I’m sorry,” the big thug said, “and if I could, I’d probably do tonight over. But I’m no witch myself and I’ve got no such power. So please, just get the hell out of here.”

Iveriani continued to stare down at the unmoving form of the man she had stabbed with her tool. He hadn’t moved in some time, but the pool of what she assumed to be blood continued to grow. Oh god. She had murdered someone. He had probably deserved it, but still. She was a murderer. And a witch. She would be hunted for the rest of her life.