“Wait!”

  Katie doesn’t listen, her long legs devouring the ground, flashing white beneath the flying skirt of her costume. She’s a generic witch of some kind, all purple and green faux lace, a hat flapping in the wind behind her. I match her, of course, even though it kills me. It’s just Halloween, but it makes me cringe to be so… basic.

  My lungs burn, my legs like jelly. Still I stumble after her. She knows I can’t keep up; she glances back every now and then, an impish grin on her face. Her eyes are pools of shadow in the night, a mixture of the clouds hiding the stars and the thick makeup she caked on about her eyes.

  “Katie, please!”

  Laughing, she pushes on, leaping cleanly over a chain link fence into the next yard down. I slow as I approach it. How did she manage that jump without her dress catching at all? Gasping, arms trembling, I lever myself up the fence, awkward in the ridiculous pointed shoes Katie insisted we had to wear.

  “Hurry up, Sam!” her voice, beautiful and steady as ever, drifts to my ears from somewhere in the darkness.

  “Trying,” I mutter, lifting a foot over the top of the fence.

  My foot slips. My weight presses into my hip and twists. I start to fall, my dress ripping, pain igniting in my hip. I scream, but I don’t fall all the way. My dress catches on the top, my face slamming into the fence.

  I move, whimpering, but I don’t fall, dangling from the fence like some kind of absurd holiday ornament. I’m not strong enough to climb up, and I’m not heavy enough to tear free. The cheap fabric holds somehow, holds me upside down, blood running down my stomach and chest to drip on my face.

  “Katie!” I shout, as loud as my lungs can manage. I taste blood. Distantly, I hear her laugh. My lungs get tight, my throat constricting. “Katie! Katie, please!”

  I keep screaming until my voice gives out, but all I hear is her laughter, echoing in my ears.

  ***

  My eyes open quietly. The memory fades into the recesses of my mind. It can’t touch me, not with how many times I’ve relived it. Of more concern is the crisp number at the top of my sight that reads 1/198. I must not have had much time to recover, if that is all I have… maybe if I move my legs…

  Air hisses between my teeth as injuries large and small make themselves known. My legs don’t respond to my command. Every part of me hurts, every cell in my body it feels like.

  Stay still, Sam. Don’t move. Totally not worth it. My soul energy blinks up to two and then immediately returns to one, a piece of the pain flaring and fading like a miniscule star in the universe of my body.

  So. Patience.

  “Yes, Competitor. Patience indeed.”

  What happened?

  “You were brave!” Kora sounds strangely happy, like she’s just been given a fabulous gift on her birthday. “And inventive, and creative! And stupid for the right reason for once! I am glad you survived, Competitor.”

  Uh… thanks. How long have we been out?

  “An entire day cycle. Your injuries were quite severe. Your companions found a secluded glade in the maze where they could wait out your recovery.”

  Boost Applied:

  Toughness 7

  Will 12

  Uh, cool, I guess. Recognition of having the balls to jump off a cliff into near-certain death.

  Which begs the question, what woke me up, because I do not feel ready to be conscious. A terrible exhaustion weighs down my every thought. A symptom, no doubt, of barely having more than a shred of my soul. Not lifting my head, I take a moment to let my perception guide me. I’m in a glade, familiar purple light bright enough to see, though dimly. Probably morning or twilight. A noise, a grunt or snort of some kind, sounds from off behind me. A grunt that oozes happiness. What the hell?

  The light grows brighter beneath the canopy, bright enough that details become more distinct. Burl sleeps a few paces away, his snores like a child’s whistle, his long tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, its tip decorated with dirt from his earthen bed.

  Zara, balanced evenly on four of her legs, practices some kind of Tai Chi variant off to the side, her many limbs sliding smoothly from one move to the next. It is graceful, a dance that is an act of creation in and of itself. I watch her for a time, feeling like I know her better even after a few seconds of seeing her dance. It is an expression of grace and love and, somehow, sorrow.

  What is her life story? What were her people like? Why did she close me off so suddenly yesterday? A piece of those questions’ answers are written in her movements, though I lack the ability to understand them.

  Another grunt of joy fills the little glade, and I find the will to force my head to turn, grimacing all the while. Threenut, whole and unharmed, crouches a little ways off, his tiny hands caressing the leaf of a plant that is hard to make out around his body. Is this some kind of… surely this isn’t sexual, though from the sounds he’s making, I can’t entirely rule out the possibility. Curious and terrified both, I lift my head a bit to see what he’s doing.

  His tiny fingers slip along the leaf’s edges, then, glistening with some kind of oil, dart beneath his leafy outfit. He rubs it on his stomach, underneath his arms, even beneath his little skirt, groaning happily all the while. Wait, those leaves look strange. Out of place, almost, in this forest. Out of place, and weirdly familiar…

  “Uh, Three?” I say, a complex swirl of emotion rising in my chest. Hilarity, sympathy, pity…

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  “Twig!” he says happily, glancing briefly over his shoulder. At the look on my face, he gestures proudly to the thin plant. “Yer slumber is finished, then. Come, join in! Been too long without oil to ease me skin. Not sure the bent of this fellow, but his oil be perfect to bring out me best.”

  “Three, I think I do recognize that plant. I think it’s from my world. And…”

  Identification: Ivy, Poison (Common Bioform, Earth)

  A nuisance-level weed of the Twelfth, poison ivy defends itself from its many predators through the secretion of a mildly poisonous oil that causes itching, irritation, and blisters.

  “Yeah. I imagine the ship as proverbially sailed, my friend, but that is not an oil you want on your skin.” I press my lips together to prevent a laugh from escaping. Because it would be rude, and it would hurt. “I’d, uh, I’d stop.”

  “Wha?” Three says, his hands freezing an inch from the leaf. “Where be the sunlight to follow?”

  “That oil is poisonous, at least to my people. Not deadly!” I say quickly, seeing the fear growing in his eyes. “I’m not sure what it’ll do to you, being all… planty, but it gives us a rash that itches and hurts and, uh, oozes.”

  “But, twig,” he says, his eyes no less fearful. “I’ve been at it for the better piece of the morning. It coats… everything.”

  “Then we have to… pray… that it won’t affect you the same way.”

  “You’re saying,” Burl cuts in, suddenly awake and sitting. “Old plant boy just covered himself in itch juice?”

  He doesn’t wait for a response before hissing a laugh that fills the glade, rolling around on the ground and kicking little divots in the soil. At the sight of him, I can’t help myself, the laugh finally bursting through. Zara goes still, her many eyes divided between the three of us. Her many judgy eyes.

  “It is not a laughing matter when one of our group may require healing,” she rasps, sounding like a prim British nanny with a smoking problem. “It is… childish, to laugh at someone else’s misfortune.”

  But then Threenut is laughing, too, great booming laughs that echo down the path. My head tells me to be afraid, to tell everyone to quiet down before someone finds us, but something in me recognizes that we need this. I’m not sure how I survived, or what happened at the end of that stupid deadly Challenge, but I can feel something in this moment, tying us together. A connection. A shared… humanity, for lack of a better word.

  Alien or no, we all laugh. We all cry. As distinct as we are, we may not be so different, after all.

  Achievement! “Birds of a feather…”

  You have forged a bond of trust with other individuals in the Tournament, forming a group to tackle the trials together.

  Reward: You can receive updates on the health and status of your trusted group members.

  Addendum! This is one for the ages. And I mean ages. You really think they’re going to remain loyal? When the cards are on the table, you think you will? Good luck.

  Off to the right of my vision, almost unnoticeable unless I focus on it, a little window pops up with the names of my companions and a little outline of their bodies. When I focus in on Threenut, a miniature depiction of his form grows in my vision, highlighted green. I imagine that shows that he’s healthy, for now, and will update if he gets hurt in any way. Super useful. I can’t see mine, though…

  “Hey, did you guys get the ‘Birds of a feather’ achievement?” I ask.

  “Yup,” Burl says, squinting into the air. He flinches, leaning in to look at something even closer. “Man, you aren’t just a soft skin, your whole body is pretty soft, isn’t it?”

  “Uh,” I say, fighting a blush. I don’t think he means that how it sounds, but…

  “Oh, twig…” Threenut says, his eyes similarly moving.

  “Yes, humans have proven quite fragile,” Zara says, half her eyes focused into the same middle distance. “You saw how completely her body broke from the fall. It is only her strange regenerative Skill that is keeping her from permanent paralysis.”

  “Wish I didn’t… have to… feel it,” I grit out, gasping through another cycle of pain as my body knits itself together. “But how do you know all this, Zara? About humans, and other stuff.”

  “I spent time at Haven. There is a wealth of information there, and people of all races willing to trade for it.”

  “Like what, though?” I ask, exchanging a glance with a morose looking Threenut. I’m kind of waiting for the ramifications of his poison ivy bath, but he has to be as curious as I am; he never made it to the interior either since we’ve been traveling together for most of this stage.

  “Much of it is common to anyone with access to Haven,” Zara says, her carapace clicking into a shrug. “Numbers remaining of each species in our arena, estimated strength of the strongest among each species, a map of Challenges still unconquered, expected difficulty of each… that you have managed not to die stumbling blindly through this forest is a sign your god favors you highly. Both of you.”

  “So what about the rest of it? What do people trade information on?”

  “Rumors,” Burl says, snorting. “Most of ‘em bullshit.”

  “The abilities and capabilities of other Competitors,” Zara says, some of her eyes giving Burl a reproving glare. “It is the purpose of this tournament, yes? To destroy your enemies and become the strongest. What better way than to know their strengths and weaknesses?”

  “Is that how you feel?” I ask softly.

  “It is what we are meant to feel,” she answers steadily.

  “Then why save me? I was broken, obviously. I saw Threenut and Burl both wince when they looked at my status. Judging by how I feel, they don’t know the half of it. So why did I get the chance to wake up?”

  She stares at me silently, eyes intense like they were before she cut off our conversation before. The pattern on her thorax shifts, soft clicks rearranging like pieces of a loose mosaic. What it forms, and what it means, is far beyond my understanding.

  “It is only what we are meant to feel,” she repeats, her voice no more than a hiss.

  Abruptly, she stands and moves away, her movements uncharacteristically graceless. She quickly disappears into the violet light, her natural camouflage absurdly effective.

  “Any ideas?” I mutter to the others.

  “The spider is batshit,” Burl says, shrugging and settling against a tree. “Wake me when you can walk, softskin.”

  Threenut stares after her for a moment, his glowing eyes contemplative. When he turns to face me, it is with a smile sad yet hopeful.

  “Strong roots delve deeply, but slowly,” Threenut says. “Especially when the soil is strange.”

  I vaguely get what he means. She got the achievement, right? Trusted us enough to be a part of this little group? So it doesn’t matter what she says.

  I groan as my pain spikes higher, and my hip cracks back into place.