The sounds I once thought were illusions come to life, little red birds perching on branches, flowers growing wildly on the grass, colour, so much colour.

  She is just staring at me, I can tell she isn’t in her usual mood because she would normally show me this just to strip it away or reveal it’s all smoke and mirrors.

  “You look pale, have you been feeding your clothes?” She reaches into a bag, taking out a vial and dripping it onto my shirt.

  “Thanks…”

  She looks at Jackson’s sleeping body and kicks it, “he was fairly brave, took me on my bluff.”

  “It’s not really a bluff when you actually do it.”

  “I said every kid, not two.” Her old self returns a bit before hardening again, “you used magic in your town.”

  “I did…”

  “And you didn’t stop to think maybe we had sensors for that?”

  The thought had briefly crossed my mind, but I assumed she wouldn’t care whether or not I used magic over there.

  “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “My boss thinks it matters.” She taps her metal shoe on the floor of the wooden carriage, “so you’ll be meeting her. Tonight.”

  She holds her hand out to the armoured man controlling the carriage, “stop. Make sure this man goes to room 24-o. Fay, let’s walk.”

  She jumps off, I follow, the feeling of grass and stone path on my bare feet was wonderful, I feel free.

  She takes me into the forested area, where there is a dirt path that has twists and turns, “where am I going?”

  “You’re going somewhere safe.”

  For a moment I let myself think that maybe she cares about me, “why does that matter?”

  “If you had a machine gun would you give it to an ape?”

  “That… no that would be stupid.”

  “Well now everyone knows me as the person who gave an ape a machine gun, because you shot it in the air for the world to hear.” Her feet clank as she moves.

  “So I made a case for you, that you had some use beyond being flesh. So people think me giving you that machine gun had a purpose.” She has an awful scowl on her face, I can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad thing for me.

  “And…?”

  We reach a small cabin, “your new home.” She walks in, “better than your hut id assume.” There’s a small liquid canister by the door, she pours a vial in and the cabin lights up.

  “Had it specifically made for you, in haste of course.” She opens the door and lets me inside, it was a mahogany cabin, one bed in the corner with two windows, a fridge, a kitchen with a stove and kettle. And a table with two seats.

  “You don’t need a shower due to your clothes, use the woods for your waste.” She pulls a chair out and sits, I follow and sit in front of her.

  I decide to work up the courage to speak, “so what’s happening here?”

  “Let me run you through it, we, me, aren’t supposed to share any details about magic with you, humans.” She clicks her tongue twice, “it’s a huge no no, like the bestiality equivalent of magic.”

  Her thumb keeps making circles on the table, “you ever hear of Shepard dogs? They control the flow of sheep, for such a dumb creature they can do things we can not, well you can not at least.”

  “Thanks for the confidence.” What’s with all my comparisons to dogs lately?

  “So, after the whole, beacon you set off situation occurred, I convinced my boss that this will be the perfect opportunity to see what humans can do with magic, as an experiment.” She smiles at me creepily.

  “Now, this will be on the down low of course, because I can’t be seen going back there, my boss is going to say we eliminated the town due to disease.” He fingers tap more, “so you’ll be my stand in, you’ll go in, you’ll give them the means to learn magic, you’ll also keep taking one of them a week to build resentment. You can use whatever humans you take for whatever you need.”

  She stands up suddenly, “tea?” She doesn’t wait for an answer “you’re being awfully boring right now.”

  I ignore her, the kettle starts heating up despite the lack of a source of electricity, “what if I refuse?”

  “You die.”

  “That’s it?” I’ll probably take that option, it beats becoming the enemy I’ve known for 5 years.

  “Oh, there he is! My good old fay.” She laughs and pours water into two mugs, “your town will die too of course, alongside me if I can’t prove what I did was a good idea.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Why did she admit that? “You’re going to die if I fail?”

  “Mhm! Fun right? For once we are partners, you own me, I own you, it’ll really spice things up… speaking of spice, chai?” She places a tea bag into a mug, “I’ve never asked this, what country are you from?”

  She holds her mug with both hands, leaning in, this is the longest she has held a nice streak in a long time.

  “Well… my parents moved a lot… America… Australia… Greece… I was born in France but I’ve been everywhere… before here…”

  It’s weird to think how all those places are gone… I wonder what my home town looks like now that it’s deserted.

  “Wanna know how your parents are doing?” These words make my stomach drop, I assumed they were dead.

  “Where are they?”

  “Currently in Japan, having a nice holiday without you…” she studies my face for a moment, “oh my god… you thought everyone was taken didn’t you? That this was an apocalyptic event…?”

  She lets out a hearty chuckle, “you really thought… you thought the world ended! Instead of just us picking up a few stragglers.” Her voice turns serious and sultry, “if you don’t mess this up, I can bring you back to them.”

  I consider the offer for a second, deciding she is lying, trying to get under my skin again,, “fuck you.”

  She picks up the mug and splashes the boiling water in my face, I fall to the floor in agony, “relax relax. Jesus.” She whispers annoyed, my hands grab at my face, trying to get the scolding liquid off, I feel a hand placed on my chest, “morva eris.”

  Suddenly I’m fine, I look at her, really look at her, that wasn’t a planned attack, that wasn’t manipulation, that was anger, she got angry and made a shitty decision. I’m going to put this whole ‘modern world still exists’ situation on the back burner for now.

  “Okay.” I say calmly, I stand up, “so, as far as I can tell, you’re in as much trouble as me, so, I have demands.”

  “You have demands? Oh do you?” She gives a disgusting smirk while drinking from my mug, “shoot.”

  “I’m not taking anyone.”

  “That kind of defeats the point, they need an enemy to focus their magic research on.” She says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Is there any way to do it non lethally?”

  “God you’re such a wuss, no of course not, I have enough trouble convincing my boss to keep you alive.” She sighs, “I’ll teach you a spell to kill without pain, genuinely, does that work?”

  I notice she is legitimately trying to compromise. I assume we would’ve all died eventually anyway, all of us… and I was already helping her choose 1 person a week anyway… how is this different? Am I selfish because I don’t want to be seen as a villain?

  If I don’t do this, they all die, if I do do this, only one dies a week, that is objectively better, that’s a better outcome.

  “Fay?” She snaps her fingers in front of me, “so, you agree?”

  I wait a few seconds, then nod, there’s no other choice, if I try to be clever, I’ll probably get them all killed.

  “Great, this is a really unique situation Fay, I’ll be assigned to a different town working alongside you with your own little experiment.” She pokes my face.

  “How… how do I stop them from killing me? If they all were to charge me at once?”

  She stops poking my face for a moment, before continuing while talking, “you have a week to learn, I’ll teach you.” She accidentally pokes my eye, “first I’ll teach you how to harden your skin because wow you’re soft.”

  She gets up and walks to a small set of drawers, “there are some nicer clothes in here, I want you to act the way you usually do around me with my boss, show how weird you are.” She finds a button up white shirt and brown pants, alongside dress shoes with socks.

  She just pushes the shirt into my shirt, it phases through me like it’s being absorbed, my once brown rag turns into a long sleeved button up shirt.

  “Don’t try to remove it, it’s still connected to your skin.” She does the same with my pants. “You know how to put shoes on?”

  “Are you really asking that?” Her genuine tone irritated me, I put socks and the shoes on. I feel sick to my stomach, “I uh…”

  It all suddenly hits me at once, I run out into the forest and vomit, I just agreed to actively choose people to kill, in person, I am her now, I am her.

  I feel my hair being held back as I vomit once more, “I’m not going to pretend to understand, just do not vomit in front of my boss.”

  I wipe my mouth, she is standing with her arms crossed, not amused at all, “can I get some food?”

  It’s not like she can say no, she lets out a long groan, “fine, follow me.” She begins walking back through the path.

  I don’t know why, but I have the sudden urge to get more information about her, I have never heard her name, “hey… what’s your name?” I say awkwardly.

  “Nice pickup line. We don’t go by names we go by achievements, if someone can’t pick up who you are talking about without a name then you don’t deserve to be talked about.”

  She speeds up a little bit, “for example, you’d be ‘the human who used magic’ or whatever, and nowadays I’m known as ‘the one who taught a human magic’”

  She stops, I almost walk into her, “I used to be ‘the one who reached rank 4 at the age of 6.’ Thanks for that.” She continues, her body shakes in an emotion that feels human.

  I do not feel sorry for her at all, not one bit. If I could kill her right now I would, and I will when I can. I don’t even know what rank 4 means.

  We reach out of the forest and walk down the path, a huge manor in the distance, “okay I’m just gonna… close your eyes.”

  She grabs hold of my neck, firmly but not threatening, “close.” She says into my ear.

  The second I close my eyelids wind bursts into my ears, then stops. I open my eyes and we are by the door of the manor.

  A woman in a black dress walks over and opens it, “welcome.”

  “I can open my own doors.” She grabs the woman’s arm, “what about you?” The arm falls off, onto the ground, the woman just stays still staring at it with a miserable look on her face.

  I walk around her, I mouth a small ‘sorry’ which could only be seen as a taunt.

  I move onto the carpet, she is already in the middle of a huge doorway, this space is super open, there’s a staircase in front of me which splits left and right by the wall, there are countless rooms and hallways.

  “Come on, you wanted food right?” I follow her carefully, I really dislike how accommodating she is being.

  We reach an incredible long table full of chairs, she yells “I WANT HUMAN FOOD FOR THE BOY, NOW.”

  The sound of doors opening and feet tapping fills the space, she pulls out a chair and makes me sit.

  After around 12 minutes they bring out way too much food for one person, she seems to notice, “did you think we were feeding a whale? Throw the bottom 80 percent in the fire.”

  I watch as the perfect looking food all goes into fire, the food that the people in my town would eat in a heart beat, burning, wasted.

  I’m left with a crepe and various other meals I cannot name by heart.

  “Can I have a fork?”

  “No? Hands, eat with your hands fay.”

  She is continuing to play this stupid game when there’s no footing to stand on. The old her is slowly creeping past the stress of being caught.

  “Oh! Too bad.” I stand up with the plate, walking to the fireplace and throwing the plate it, “thanks for trying, ‘the one who taught a human magic.’”

  Her hands squeeze together, her breathing becomes ragged, her eyes glow a little bit more than usual, “wow… you are… just wonderful.” She walks over almost impulsively to me and bites my neck.

  She grabs hold of my shoulder, continuing to bite harder and harder, making annoying noises, eventually I try to push on her chest, which makes her stop.

  Blood drips down her mouth, “I’ll get you a fork.” Her uneven steps reach a table beside the fireplace, she opens up a drawer and gives me a fork and knife, “eat up, big day today.”

  This was the version of her I was used to, the one who was captivated by me fighting back. This is the person I can handle.