I flung my sheets off my bed, sending them crashing into the side of the room. I looked about with a crazed expression, searching for a threat that wasn’t there.

Then, I blinked, realizing I was in a bed, surrounded by stone walls and locked within a prison cell. Outside the cell doors was a hallway seemingly carved out of stone.

Sure, I was inside a prison cell, but I was...alive?

Why would he have captured me?

I couldn’t remember anything after I got thrashed, but from the looks of it, I had been taken prisoner after I was knocked braindead.

What the hell...?

I quickly stood from my bed and casually walked through the steel bars, snapping them off the bottom and curling them up into a spiral, giving me a passageway. I walked past a couple of cells with humans inside, looking at me with expressions of confusion as I passed. They all looked like hardened warriors, with scars of various origins on their faces and arms.

After a couple of seconds of walking, I opened a door on the other side of the hall.

Inside the next room, a man a few years older than me read a book on a bench, nonchalant, while a guard at the other side reflexively turned and pointed his hands at me.

“Bindi-”

“Jackl, please leave the room,” the other man calmly said, closing the book and setting it down as though he’d expected me to walk in.

The guard, who wore a blue garb that reminded me of a mix between a police uniform and wizard robe, looked between the other man and me, then slowly nodded and began walking out. “If you say so, sir.”

The other man smiled and pointed a finger in no particular direction as the other left.

Once the other had evacuated the room, he said, “Private Room.” I could tell it was a spell because of how exactly loud the tone was. Evidently, spells couldn’t be whispered. He nodded to me, then patted the bench beside him, scooting to the very edge.

I just want to say, the bench was very long.

I couldn’t focus enough to summon a psychic barrier, so, seeing no good option, I plopped myself onto the bench.

He took in a big breath, then leaned back on the bench. “So,” he said, glancing over to me, “I’m Zerith. What’s your name?”

“Uhh, Psychi?” I said, too frazzled to think of anything else.

“Well, I welcome you to The Bastion. Seeing as you’re probably a ‘psychic’, it would be fair to say you’re important.”

“W-why do you know that...?” I asked, trying to recover my wits.

“I saw you fight the king. Seems the gods blessed us with a medicine to his madness.”

“I don’t follow...” I said, my eyes flickering with uncertainty.

“Will you help me kill The Monster King?”

“U-uhh...” I squinted, memories returning. “Y-you saved me...” I tilted my head. “I-I think? S-sorry, I don’t...”

“I understand. No need to push yourself.” He chuckled to himself. [She looks like she drank one too many, really.] “Since you just confirmed your powers are the same as the king’s by breaking out of that antimagic cell, I’ll be happy to send you to a nice, comfy bedroom.” [She’s also quite well-tempered. I’d be raising hell if I got locked in a cell for any reason.]

“Uhh, ok...”

“Message.” [Jackl, I need you to come here and escort this girl to the third room from the left in the third floor of the dorms.]

“Huh?” I blinked a few times, confused. “Oh.” He was casting some short-range communication spell, one I’d heard about before.

He stood from the bench, then shoved his book into my arms. “This book should give you some idea about what The Bastion is. Whenever you’re ready, please feel free to do anything you’d like. Nobody is holding you here.” [That gamble could be really dangerous. If she leaves, we’ll be stuck in dire straits...Well, no less dire, at least.]

I rubbed my neck to find the collar I’d had on for the past day gone. Though, my neck still felt a bit sore.

Before I could respond, the same guard I’d seen earlier walked through the door, then grabbed my hand and began leading me through more cavelike halls.

“And don’t be so forceful with her. She’s a guest!” Zerith yelled to the guard as we left.

The man slowed his pace down but still went a bit too fast for me. I probably just wasn’t in good shape. We passed through a crosswalk, then up a flight of stairs, then into a massive curved passageway, where a lot of people were walking about, moving in and out of doors. It reminded me a bit of a city.

Maybe this place was one, given how much variety there was and how massive the tunnel eventually got. People waved to each other, and curious noises came from all around. There was the ring of steel on steel behind one steel door, a conversation that sounded like coaching behind another, and the happy or irritated squeal of a child behind another, among the other noises, sights, and sounds. I could sense hundreds- no, thousands of people in the nearby vicinity.

It was all lit by glowing rocks that hung from ropes attached to the ceiling, which reminded me a lot of the rod light fixtures I’d see in basements back on Earth. I could hear a few spells being cast, as anytime someone incanted one nearby, it rang in my ears like I wore headphones. I wondered if they had a magic curfew to stop spells from annoying everyone in their sleep.

The tunnel itself was almost thirty feet tall and wide and evidently curved in a donut shape, given that it seemed to circle back to the stairwell I had started in. Given how little it curved, though, it could have been five or more kilometers long, making it relatively massive for an underground excavation.

After a couple of minutes, I was led through another stairwell, which spiraled down for at least three floors. We passed by one or two people on the way down, who the guard waved a finger at in greeting, and once we got to the third one, he led me to a specific room.

He began counting the rooms. “One, two, three...Well, I guess that’s your room. Not sure who you are, but I’ll be taking my leave. The Hero really shouldn’t be taking a guard post, y’know?”

I nodded. “Oh, yea...h...”

Wait, ‘Hero’?

I didn’t care enough to ask about it since the topic didn’t seem imperative, so I ran into the room, finding it well furnished with purple and blue sheets and furniture covered in purple and blue table covers, and threw myself onto the bed. I liked the colors, though I found green to be more soothing. It reminded me of my plants at home. I hoped Jeremy would take care of them while I was gone...though I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

Still, the covers were so soft to my tired self that I didn’t bother putting the sheets over my body, too lazy to do so the instant I felt the cushion.

And, so, I fell asleep.

Groggily, I next woke up in my bed not much more refreshed but much more cognitively available. With a crick in my back, I slid off, then looked about the room. I had fallen asleep so fast that I didn’t even feel like time had passed.

Blue and purple were usually the colors associated with psychics, which made me curious if the color scheme was a coincidence. I shrugged, then began shuffling through the drawers. conveniently, there were a whole bunch of clothes for me to pick from in my dresser. Most were robes, but not all. I continued looking about. There was a chair beside my bed, a hanging, glowing rock illuminating the room, and what looked to be a shower, which probably used gravity to transport water from above the dorms. Maybe it was all under a lake? That’d be cool!

I quickly undressed and then got to showering. They even accommodated me with soap, which I used as body wash, assuming that was the same thing. Admittedly, the water was pretty cold, but I didn’t care after everything I had gone through. It was just...so relaxing to take a shower after everything.

I sat on the stone beneath the showerhead and closed my eyes, sleepy but smiling under the pouring water, which fell through a drain below.

I was alive. I’d fought my damnedest, and I had survived. That was what mattered.

It was saddening to remind myself that The Marionettes may have died, but...for some reason, it didn’t scare me as much as I thought it would when I thought about it. After nearly dying, I felt different. What, was this what they call a ‘rebirth’?

After a good thirty minutes of letting the cold water wash away my aches while emptying my head like I’d taught Jeremy to do all those years back, I finally turned off the faucet, finished.

After shuffling through the dresser more, I found a blue towel, then got to drying myself off. Sure, it wasn’t a soft towel, but at least I had one.

I smiled at how silly I felt, and how carefree my thoughts were. People could have died, yet here I was, acting happy. How did I deserve this?

I shrugged, then dressed in a nice skirt, one of the only few in the dresser, and paired it with a long-sleeved, thin shirt.

Because I felt extra riskay’, I went commando.

Sue me. OH WAIT, YOU CAN’T, BECAUSE I’M IN ANOTHER WORLD!

Ha, gotem!

I chuckled to myself as I thought the stupidest thoughts, then stretched as far as I could.

“Wow!” I said to myself. “I’m so excited for another day in another world!” I let the short punchline sink in, then laughed to myself and fell back onto my bed. Maybe I wasn’t excited, but I felt...at peace. I didn’t even understand why.

Nearly dying did a really weird thing to me, huh?