Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
KAY
My feet hurt.
Which is strange, honestly. Shouldn’t I not feel things if I’m dreaming?
Or dead? Or whatever brand of unreality this is?
Because this cannot be real. I know I sound like a broken record, but my mind circles the thought like a pride of lions circling an injured antelope.
Maybe I’ll wake up in my hotel room, George yowling for breakfast, and laugh at how for even I moment I thought this was anything other than hallucinations caused by a TBI.
It’s the only thing that seems logical, true. This place is not real.
I’ve been walking—staggering, really—across cracked red rock and ankle-twisting gravel for what feels like hours, but the sky hasn’t changed.
No sun, no moon, no stars. Just a constant, hazy bleed of crimson light and black cloud-smeared horizon.
Every once in a while, the wind kicks up and sends tiny flecks of something sharp against my cheeks.
I don’t bleed, but I flinch. So that’s helpful.
I can feel pain, apparently. Awesome. Seems about right for Hell.
No signs of life. No trees other than the twisted, blackened boughs I passed ages back. No water. Just rock, dust, and the occasional dead-looking tumbleweed made of long, stiff needles that would absolutely slice me open if I so much as breathed on them wrong.
If this is the fae realm, someone screwed up the staging. All signs point to Hell.
I always thought if I got magically abducted, there’d be flowers. Singing. Enchanted forests. Maybe a dark prince with a tragic backstory and an alarming number of rings. None of it trustworthy—I’m not an idiot—but still, tempting in it’s beauty, comfort. Instead, I get Mars. With less charm.
I stop to rest on a chunk of black stone that could either be a natural ledge or the shoulder blade of some long-dead beast. Hard to say.
I stretch out one leg and roll my ankle with a wince.
The ache is real enough. The blisters are starting to whisper threats.
My lips are cracked. My head is pounding.
“Maybe a coma,” I mutter. “Those are supposed to be unpleasant, right? Sand hallucinations, time dilation, existential dread.”
My voice sounds weird here. A little too sharp, like it cuts through the air and bounces back, distorted.
Wherever this is, the laws of physics aren’t working quite right.
I pull off my shoe and shake out a rock.
My sock is stiff with dust. Great. One more day of this and I’ll have trench foot and chapped everything.
I press a thumb into the center of my palm.
Hard. Just to see. It stings, but I don’t wake up.
I stretch out my aching neck as I look around.
No obvious shelter in sight. No food. No water.
And no options either. I know enough from watching survival shows that I can go three days without water.
A little longer if I just lie down and give up, but that does not sound appealing. And food? Eh. That’s optional.
I should’ve grabbed that granola bar from the seminar table. But of course, I didn’t. And to be fair, the moment I sat down I was so bored I wanted to melt into the carpet. And if I had taken any kind of snack, I would’ve eaten it immediately just to give my mouth something to do.
Honestly? This might be better than the conference. At least it’s not forgettable.
I adjust the hem of my hoodie and scan the horizon again.
Still red. Still endless. Still not a damn clue where I am.
Will time move differently here? If I were to trip over one of the glowing rock things, would I wake back up on the elevator floor?
Would I find myself in a hospital bed only to learn years had passed? Would I blink out of existence?
George is going to be so pissed.
He’s probably sitting on the back of the couch right now, staring at the door, waiting for me to get home and refill his treat bowl.
My coworker promised to check in on him while I was gone, but if I don’t show up after the weekend, someone’s going to have to break it to him.
He’ll adapt. He’s a cat. I’m sure he’ll grieve mostly for dramatic effect, knock over three picture frames, and move on with his life.
Honestly, I admire the emotional efficiency.
I spot something glittering near my boot and crouch to pick it up. It’s a shard of volcanic glass—obsidian, maybe. I test the edge against my thumb. It’s no scalpel but it could probably do some damage in a pinch. Not much, but it’s better than nothing. I slide it into my back pocket.
Something shimmers on the horizon and I freeze.
If being alone is nerve wracking, the alternative is far scarier.
It’s a figure. Maybe. Too far to be clear.
The air ripples between us, distorting the shape.
It might be a person. Might be a mirage.
In the desert, people see things that aren’t there. Water, shade, rescue. Angels.
Demons.
I stare. It could be help. It could be something ready to kill me. Or worse. Because there is a worse. The shape stands too still. Too certain. Not like a hallucination. Like something that sees me back.
I swivel my head, taking another quick stock of what’s around me.
No big boulders to hide behind, no trees to climb, nowhere to hunker down and blend in.
Add my blue jeans and my light-colored t-shirt and I’m not built to camouflage in this landscape.
There’s nowhere to hide and my feet are too shredded to run.
Walking is almost more than I can handle.
I have a slight head start with distance, but I know it will not make a difference.
Either way, I guess it doesn’t matter. If I’m going to die, I’d rather it be quick.
Better at the hands of something terrifying than a slow spiral into thirst and sunstroke.
I’ve seen enough wilderness survival documentaries to know that dying of dehydration is not the aesthetic I want to go out on.
And let’s be honest, my feet are in no shape for an escape attempt.
If he is going to kill me, I’d rather face him—it—head on.
I don’t want to spend my last minutes in a panic running for my life.
Especially when the chances I’d make it are non-existent.
So, I start walking toward it. Him, I think.
If he is real. That’s still up for debate.
He doesn’t move. Not at first. Just watches me with that impossible stillness, like he’s weighing the angle of my spine, the thread-count of my jeans, the contents of my soul.
His coat should flutter in the wind—it doesn’t.
The air around him should shift with heat—it doesn’t.
His whole form sits wrong in the landscape, like someone cut him out of another world and pasted him here without bothering to blend the edges.
I stop a few feet away, panting softly. My mouth tastes like heat and iron and too many unasked questions.
“Hey,” I rasp. “If you’re a hallucination, now would be a good time to start acting helpful. Say something comforting. Maybe quote Tolkien.”
Still nothing.
I take a cautious step closer. His face is beautiful, but unreal—like a portrait painted with too many straight lines.
My gaze snags on the space just above his shoulders, where the light bends wrong.
The shimmer’s not heat. It’s an illusion.
Like bad CGI. Or no—something else. Something from all those books I read in bed with George curled against my ribs.
Not a mirage. A glamour. The magical kind.
The kind that hides the truth behind something prettier.
Something easier to look at. Somehow that makes him more real, not less.
There’s something about the way he looks at me, too steamy, too intense.
My skin prickles, and I find myself holding my breath, waiting for something I can’t name.
He speaks before I can test my theory aloud, his voice pouring into me.
It’s like standing too close to a roaring fireplace, feeling the heat like a tangible wave prickling along the edges of my skin.
“How did you arrive in the Wastes?”
His voice is exactly what I expected. Low. Formal. Polished like a blade. But there’s no aggression in it—just a polished, clinical edge. It sounds like he’s taking surgical notes. I shiver.
“I… fell,” I say. “There was an elevator. I think.”
“You think.”
“It was a very dramatic fall. Everything got kind of glowy.”
He takes a half step closer, and I force myself not to back away. The air seems to shift, a subtle warmth curling along my spine.
“You are unmarked. Unarmed. Not Daemari.”
“Cool,” I say. “Not sure what that last word means but thank you for the helpful insult sandwich.”
“We are Daemari. The people of Crimson. Of Infernalis. Others exist in these lands too, but not mortals—humans. You should not be alive,” he says.
“Okay,” I cough, blinking. “That’s not the most reassuring feedback I’ve ever gotten.”
He watches me a moment longer, then asks, “What is your flame origin?”
“My what?”
He tilts his head. “How were you branded?”
“I wasn’t. Unless you count that time I got a matching tattoo with my ex best friend during finals week. Spoiler: not worth it.”
He’s quiet again, but his gaze sharpens. “What Realm are you from?”
“Uh, Ohio?”
A beat. “That is not a realm of Infernalis.”
“It barely qualifies as a state,” I mutter.
He stares. I talk faster. “Look, I don’t know how I got here.
Or why I’m not dead. Or what half of those words mean.
You’re asking me for ID and I’m just trying to figure out if I’m comatose, hallucinating, or really committed to a death-by-dehydration aesthetic. ”
“You believe this is a delusion.”