They squeezed through the darkness for what felt like a small eternity to Colin, and about fifteen minutes to Isa and Levi. At last, they stepped out into a distant part of the forest. Isa led them on through the forest for another hour, before she finally led them over a hill and into a small gorge beneath it. There was a large tree in the gorge with a hollow at its base where it had long ago rotted away. The three of them cleared the leaves and wet rot out of the tree, then curled up in the hollow together to rest and, in Levi’s case, sleep. The cannibals roamed the forest. Occasionally, the glow of a torch appeared in the distance, only to fade away again.

  Colin rested the tip of his staff on Levi’s shoulder and quietly healed him, washing away all the remaining damage from their battles and their stint in the oven. When he was done, he sighed and took his burned gloves off, replacing them with a new pair.

  “What do you think about all this?” Isa asked.

  “Huh?” Colin asked, startled. In all their sleepless nights, she had never spoken with him. It was a kind of unspoken pact. They didn’t need to sleep, but they both benefited from some time in silence to rest and sort their thoughts. Sometimes Isa would doze off, sleeping for pleasure, perhaps, or for the benefits, even if she didn’t technically need sleep. Colin, completely unable to sleep, would just rest his body and allow its low-level undead regeneration to take over.

  “All this. This world. Being undead. Your friend over there being the Champion of the Death Goddess. What do you think?”

  “Uh…” Colin paused. He leaned back, curling up against the back of the hollow. Spreading his hands, he looked at the gloves that protected him from his own magic, and the worn wooden staff he’d taken all this way. Mud caked its bottom. Here and there, a few dark, suspicious stains marred the wood. Bright marks showed where he’d blocked blows with it. Every chip and scratch was a strike that could have maimed him, if it weren’t for Levi and Isa, and everyone else who’d helped him out along the way.

  His mind went back to his old life. The grind of a software developer. Working ten hour days, drinking energy drinks, slowly ruining his body in the hopes of an early retirement. He’d had no time for friends, and no energy to make them, anyways. Besides, friends came slowly, and human interaction was scary. Better to keep his mouth shut rather than open it and risk everyone hating him. He’d come home to an empty, undecorated apartment. Decorations didn’t matter. All he needed was a place to microwave food and play video games, on the rare hours he had enough time to. His life wasn’t under threat by anything but his poor lifestyle choices, and, well, he’d been alive.

  And yet, how was it that he felt so alive now? Now that he was dead, and spent his days hiking across the world, over hill and dale, chased by the authorities and monsters alike, why did he feel as if he was finally experiencing the world, for the very first time?

  He laughed quietly. “I don’t know. I’m happier here than on the front lines of Ician’s war, that’s for sure.”

  Isa chuckled. “I’d be surprised if you felt otherwise.”

  Colin sighed. He rocked back, hugging his knees. “It feels more real here. I don’t know how to explain it, but… it just feels more real.”

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  “More real? All this magic and these fantasy creatures, and it’s more real?” Isa asked.

  He shook his head. “You came over centuries ago. Things have changed. My life… I felt more like a robot than a person. Living the same sad, empty life every day, hoping to survive long enough to enjoy a long retirement. I went to a big office building, sat next to people I didn’t know, and did nothing but work in silence until it was time to go home. But here…” He looked up at the sky, then waved a hand. “Well, there’s no stars, here, but you can see the stars. The nights are cool, and the morning dew is fresh and delicate. You can drink water from the springs and eat fruit from the vine without worrying about dangerous chemicals polluting all of it. It’s so clean and beautiful. It’s not that things are exclusively better here—I got killed, here, and where I came from, I had a very low chance of getting stabbed to death—but it’s different, and different in a way I think I like.” He sighed. “I never thought I would say this, but I haven’t even thought about my games.”

  “That’s very different from the world I came from,” Isa murmured.

  “Yeah, it would be, wouldn’t it?”

  She glanced at him. “Is the world truly poisoned to that extent, in your world? Where you can’t see the stars or drink the water from the springs?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Isa leaned back, putting her shoulders against the wood. “I suppose this world would feel more real, in a world like that.”

  “How about you? Compared to your world…” Colin looked at her, curious.

  She gazed off into space for a moment. Her eyes grew vacant. At last, she shook her head. “I’ve been here for over twice as long as I lived in my world. No… dozens more times. Compared to my fifteen years in my homeland, I’ve spent over two hundred years here. My memories of home are dim. I can barely recall the faces of my family.”

  “You were fifteen when you came over?” Colin asked, shocked. He looked her up and down.

  Isa raised her brows. Colin quickly looked away, blushing. “It’s, er, you look, in your twenties. In a good way!”

  “I am. Or… I was. It took years for me to grow strong enough to be considered a true Champion candidate. They didn’t deign me worthy of the kind of special attention that getting vampirized required until I was in my early twenties.” She laughed. “I was such a child back then. So foolish. Desperately searching for a place to belong.”

  Colin looked at her. “Did you find one?”

  She shook her finger at him. “The trick is that you can’t find a place to belong. If you want to belong somewhere, you have to make that place yourself. No one’s going to do that hard work, but you.”

  Colin’s eyes widened. He nodded, slowly. The image of himself, sitting at his desk with his head down, appeared in his mind’s eye. He didn’t belong there. He hadn’t had any friends, hadn’t known anyone but his immediate, inescapable coworkers. But had he tried to make a place to belong? Or had he simply failed to fit in, and given up without ever trying to put in the effort?

  “Well, there’s always people like Levi,” she muttered.

  “How do you mean?”

  She gestured at the sleeping man. “People who come along and whisk you up, who don’t care who you are or what you want. You don’t need to carve out a place to belong, because he knows you don’t belong, and he knows he doesn’t belong, and he doesn’t care. You’re with him. As long as you’re with him, you’re his people, and that’s all that matters.”

  Colin chuckled. “I think I know what you mean.”

  Isa sighed and settled back. Her eyes shut, and her breathing evened.

  Left alone, Colin watched the horizon, waiting for a sun that he knew could not rise. I’m Levi’s people. The thought scared him, and yet, somehow, it was deeply comforting. No matter what he did, no matter who he was, as long as he was on Levi’s side, he was Levi’s people. And that was all that mattered.

  The night dragged on, but this time, Colin didn’t mind the solitude. He smiled, just a little, and waited for the others to wake.