[Warning: you are dying]
Ty couldn't move his left arm anymore.
The goblin's claw had gone deeper than he'd thought, somewhere between the left elbow and the shoulder where his sleeve tore open.
His blood had pooled into the holes in the dirt from the fight, and the holes were still filling.
The twin moons sat above the canopy. The red one had moved since he'd last looked at it, or maybe he'd stopped paying attention to things that weren't the ground beneath him.
[Warning: contact with abnormal entity imminent]
Somewhere between the trees, a branch broke in two.
Ty turned his head, and that was all he could manage. Two shadows blended into one, then back into two. They converged again and took shape under the moonlight.
A woman walked out from between the purple-barked trees.
She had dark hair that hung past her shoulders, her steps awkward in a way that suggested she was walking up to an injured animal more so than a dying man. She wore a cloak adorned with the sigil of a half-moon.
Even from this far away, her blue eyes were bright against the purple trees.
Eyes as blue as his.
The woman crouched low and put a warm hand against his chin. Her eyes were teary and her mouth was quaking.
She looked the same as she did before she joined the Vanguard, before it became a death expedition and was still a resistance of humanity.
She even cried the same.
In other words, it really was his sister.
"Little tiger?" she whispered, tears falling down her bare cheeks.
Ty's right hand found the goblin sword on the ground beside him. His fingers closed around the grip, still sticky with goblin blood from the fight, and more blood seeped from his wounds.
"Tyger? Oh my god. Tyger, it is you."
Ty met her arm with his other hand, feeling the heartbeat in her wrist. His sleeve was drenched in red but even that didn't stop him.
"Yoko?"
She nodded feverishly.
"How?" He mustered one half-lidded eye. "Yoko, you're really here?"
Yoko nodded again. "It's me, it's your sister." Her eyes went to the dead goblins and she gasped. "You did... that?"
Ty squeezed her wrist harder.
"Anyway, why is my tiger in a place like this? And look at this mess." She traced her fingers around his gaping wound. "You're bleeding half to death."
She turned around and brought a satchel out, rummaging through vials and bottles. "I'll give you a potion. It will stop the bleeding, knit the wound and—"
Ty put the blade through her back before she finished facing him. The vial slipped from her fingers and hit the dirt, followed by drops of red.
The sword went in just beside the spine and came out through her collarbone.
She stumbled forward with the sword still in her, hands reaching for the blade, and blood spilled from her lips.
"Little... tiger." She was gasping, drowning on it. Her knees hit the ground. "Why?"
Ty watched her choke, and his arm dropped back to the grass.
"Why would you... stab your sister?"
"My sister has a birthmark under her eye," he said. "Your imitation is terrible."
Yoko stopped choking, the gags replaced by slow giggles. She got up to her feet and patted the dirt from her knees, the sword still lodged through her body.
She pulled the blade out and tossed it aside. Raising a hand, the wound closed up and the gaping hole in her chest was no more. The blood stayed on her cloak.
Ty blinked and a birthmark etched itself right under her left eye.
It was nothing more than a mole.
"Is that better?" it said.
All of the stars were blinking now.
"Wrong fucking cheek," Ty said between breaths.
His breathing had gone shallow.
His pulse had slowed enough that he could count the beats in his throat, and the gaps between them were getting longer.
"Not yet." It crouched down and tilted his chin with one finger. "Look here. No, up. Up here. There we go." It poured the vial that had fallen in the dirt onto his tongue. "Swallow."
He swallowed, only because not doing so would result in him drowning.
"Good boy."
It let go of his chin and stood back up.
The moons were fully out now. They were closer to the surface than they had any right to be. He could count the holes on their surfaces and never miss a beat.
"It's a pity," it said, its voice still female. "Even stepping into this world you're weak, and unawakened." It started giggling again. "Fu-uck. You can't catch a break, can you?"
Ty spat blood to the side. His body worked again, but the injuries were still there. The gashes from the goblins still bled, and flesh still hung freely from his cut sleeve.
"What the fuck do you want?" Ty said.
It held up a finger. "Err! Wrong question." It pointed the finger at him. "What do you want?"
Ty wiped his lips and pulled himself behind a trunk. The sword goblin's corpse was still where it lay, its neck torn across twenty-three different cuts.
"Do your fucking job, fairy. What is it?"
The sphere whirred from above the leaves and circled the thing wearing Yoko's face.
[Processing...]
[Processing...]
[Error: unknown abnormal entity]
"That won't do." It was leaning against a tree now, arms crossed, watching the fairy hover back to Ty's bloodied shoulder. "Your tech is still god awful. Mimics the System well, but it's more like a child's toy."
It walked over and kicked his boot.
"You haven't answered. What do you want?"
"I want to find my sister."
"The real one, I take it." It smiled with Yoko's mouth. "Sure. But you're going to die in this forest again before you make it halfway across the valley. I mean, you barely killed three goblins. Fucking fodder at that."
Ty let out another breath. "Don't think I know that?"
It clapped its hands. "I can fix that."
"What's the cost?"
"Hmm... your eyes."
Ty looked at the thing's face.
"Both of them," it added, like he might have been confused about the quantity.
"And I get what?"
"New ones." It tapped the spot under its own eye where the wrong birthmark sat. "Better ones. Eyes that see what yours can't. However..."
It pointed at the sphere.
"The fairy," it said. "Kill it first."
Ty reached up and grabbed the fairy out of the air. It buzzed in his fist, the wings beating against his fingers. He squeezed, and the fairy cracked. Light sputtered between his knuckles, fluid leaking out and mixing with the blood already drying on his palm.
[Warning: this action is a capital violation, any further actions result in consequences]
"You do want something though."
It nodded.
"Which is?"
"Anarchy. A little explosion here and there." It spread its arms wide. "Or a big one."
Of course it knows.
Ty squeezed and the wings went still.
"I already planned on it anyway," Ty said.
He opened his hand and let the pieces fall into the grass.
The jumpsuit's circulation went dead, and his vision went with it. Two emerald eyes replaced Yoko's blue, bleeding into the dark.
"Good," it said. "Now close your eyes."
Ty closed them, and it said, "This part hurts."
Its cold fingers traced the socket of his skull, then paused.
"Actually, look at me." It crawled onto his lap and settled. "I want to see the light fade from your eyes as I pry them out."