Darkness pressed against Eliza's consciousness. Not the comforting shadows she'd learned to accept, but something deeper—ancient and hungry. It pulled at her, dragging her down into depths where thought dissolved and identity scattered like ash.
No. Not like this.
She fought against the current, clawing her way back toward consciousness one painful inch at a time. Sensations returned in disjointed fragments: antiseptic scents, the soft hum of medical equipment, starched sheets against her skin. Her body felt impossibly heavy, as though her bones had been replaced with lead.
Eliza opened her eyes to blinding fluorescent light and immediately closed them again, a soft hiss escaping through clenched teeth. The sudden brightness sent daggers of pain through her skull. She tried again, more carefully this time, letting the world filter in gradually through narrowed lids.
A hospital room materialized around her—stark white walls, monitoring equipment, privacy curtains pulled halfway across a window that revealed a slice of Neo-Atlanta's skyline. Foundation level, judging by the angle.
How did I get here?
Memory returned in broken shards. The Cathedral. The crystalline entities with their impossible geometries. The altar rising from the floor, trailing luminous tendrils that had reached for her—into her.
Then nothing. A void where her consciousness should have been.
No—not nothing. Dreams. Fragments of vision and sound that made no sense. Whispers in languages she'd never heard but somehow understood. Glimpses of vast, impossible architectures that folded in on themselves in ways that defied physics.
And through it all, a presence. Watching. Evaluating. Waiting.
Eliza pushed herself upright, wincing as pain lanced through her shoulder. Looking down, she saw white bandages peeking from beneath her hospital gown. The wound from the Monster's crystal threads. She flexed her fingers experimentally. Everything seemed to work, though her muscles protested with dull aches.
More memories surfaced. The song that had stolen her will. Walking toward the edge, unable to stop herself. And then—
Pierre.
His arms around her waist, yanking her back from oblivion. His voice as he carried her through the cathedral tunnels. Unconscious, she'd still been aware on some level—trapped in her own body, unable to speak or move, but sensing his presence. His stubborn refusal to leave her behind.
"Mierda," she muttered, letting her head fall back against the pillow. "Saved again."
It was becoming a pattern she didn't care for. First Maria after her parents died, then her classmates during training incidents, now a D-rank hunter with a smart mouth. Always someone else stepping between her and death, while she—what? Lay helpless? Failed to protect herself?
Her gaze drifted to the window again, to the slice of crimson sunset visible beyond. The same color as the Cathedral's alien sky. How many hadn't made it back? The expedition leader with his scarred face. The quiet woman with the precision rifle. The nervous technician who'd kept checking his equipment.
Eliza had barely exchanged ten words with any of them, keeping her customary distance. Now they were gone, their bodies left behind in that crystalline nightmare—or worse, transformed into something no longer human.
Death wasn't new to her. She'd lost her parents at fourteen, had seen highs ranking hunters die on the news. But there was something especially senseless about these deaths. They'd gone in blind, unprepared for what waited in that gate. A completely avoidable tragedy.
"Que Dios los reciba en su gloria y les conceda la paz que no encontraron en esta vida," she murmured. "Y que sus almas encuentren el camino a casa."
May God receive them in His glory and grant them the peace they did not find in this life. And may their souls find their way home.
The familiar ritual brought no comfort, but it felt necessary. A small acknowledgment of lives cut short, of families who would receive official notifications and sanitized accounts of heroic sacrifices.
Her thoughts returned to Pierre. Where was he now? Had he made it out with only minor injuries, or was he in a room like this one, perhaps even in this same hospital? The last clear memory she had was of his arms around her, carrying her toward what he hoped was safety.
A soft knock interrupted her thoughts. The door swung open to reveal a doctor—middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair and tired eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. He consulted a tablet as he approached her bed.
"Ms. Demara. Good to see you awake." His voice had the practiced neutrality of someone who delivered both life-changing news and mundane updates with the same professional detachment. "How are you feeling?"
"Terrible," Eliza replied. "Where's Pierre?"
The doctor looked up from his tablet, blinking in momentary confusion. "Pierre?"
"The hunter who brought me out. Strawberry hair, tall as hell." She held a hand above the bed. "Probably made some inappropriate joke while bleeding all over your floor."
Recognition dawned in the doctor's eyes, followed by something that looked uncomfortably like pity.
"Ah, the young man who came through the gate with you. He was treated for exhaustion and injuries, but..." He hesitated, adjusting his glasses. "He was taken into custody about twenty minutes ago."
Eliza's golden eyes narrowed dangerously. "Custody? Why?"
"From what I understand, he was operating with falsified hunter credentials." The doctor's tone suggested this was merely an interesting footnote rather than a serious concern. "The FBH agents were quite insistent about speaking with him once he regained consciousness."
"He wasn't registered?"
Pierre had been working a Tier 3 gate with a fake license. No wonder he'd been so desperate to get those crystals—unregistered hunters couldn't sell them through official channels. The recklessness of it was staggering. One mistake, one moment of bad luck, and he'd have been just another statistic.
And yet he'd saved her life. Twice.
"Why would they arrest someone who just saved my life?" Eliza demanded.
The doctor shrugged, already turning his attention back to her vital signs on the monitor. "Gates are volatile. The mortality rate for low-ranked hunters is high. Someone like him makes for an easy scapegoat when things go wrong."
The casual dismissal in his tone made something dark flare behind Eliza's eyes. She'd seen it before—the way the system discarded those it deemed expendable. The Foundation dwellers. The late-Awakened. The unconnected. People like Pierre, who fought twice as hard for half the recognition.
"We'll see about that," she muttered.
Her gaze swept the room, landing on her belongings neatly folded on a chair in the corner. Her jacket was missing—probably ruined beyond repair—but her pants and the small bag containing her personal effects were there.
"If you don't mind, I need to make a call."
The doctor nodded absently, making a final note on his tablet. "Your vitals look good. The wound on your shoulder was mostly superficial—the crystalline fragments were removed successfully. You're suffering from Essentia depletion, but nothing a few days' rest won't cure." He moved toward the door. "A nurse will be in shortly to check on you."
Eliza waited until he left before swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The movement sent a wave of dizziness through her, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through it. Her bare feet touched the cold floor, sending a shock up her legs that helped clear her head.
She retrieved her bag from the chair, fingers quickly finding her communication device. Three missed calls from Maria. Of course. The hospital would have notified her as next of kin.
Eliza hesitated, her thumb hovering over the screen. Maria would be frantic. She'd also be furious once she learned the full story—not just about the unauthorized gate expedition, but about Pierre. About Eliza needing to be saved. Again.
Fuck it.
She pressed the call button. Maria answered before the first ring finished.
"¡Eliza! ¡Gracias a Dios! Are you alright? I'm already on my way—the hospital called an hour ago. What happened? They said something about an unregistered gate—"
"I'm fine," Eliza cut in. "Just a bit of exhaustion and a minor shoulder wound."
"Minor? They said you were unconscious when they brought you in!" Maria's voice rose an octave, worry making her accent more pronounced. "What were you even doing at a gate site? You know you're not cleared for field work without—"
"Maria." Eliza's tone hardened just enough to stop her cousin's spiral. "I said I'm fine. And I need your help."
A pause. Then, with resignation: "What kind of help?"
Eliza glanced at the door, lowering her voice. "The hunter who brought me out—he's been arrested for using a fake license."
"And this concerns you because...?"
"He saved my life. Twice." Eliza closed her eyes, seeing again the determination on Pierre's face as he positioned himself between her and the Monster. "He could have left me behind, but he didn't."
Another pause, longer this time. Eliza could almost see Maria's expression—torn between relief that her cousin was safe and exasperation at yet another complication.
"What do you want me to do, Eliza?"
Eliza switched to Spanish, the words flowing more naturally as she outlined exactly what she needed. By the time she finished, Maria's silence had taken on a different quality—thoughtful rather than worried.
"Estás segura de esto?" Maria finally asked. Are you sure about this?
Eliza's fingers tightened around the communication device. "Sí. Es lo correcto." Yes. It's the right thing to do.
"De acuerdo," Maria sighed. "I'll be there in twenty minutes. Don't do anything... impulsive... until I arrive."
"Of course not," Eliza replied, the ghost of a smile touching her lips for the first time since waking.
She ended the call and turned toward the window, watching as the last crimson light faded from Neo-Atlanta's skyline. Night was falling, and somewhere in this city, Pierre was facing the consequences of choices made out of desperation.
Not for long, she thought. Not if I have anything to say about it.