Page 13 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

The walls narrow, almost imperceptibly, as if focusing her in one direction, squeezing the flow of humanity towards a single goal, and her pen light casts deeper and deeper shadows against the rough stone, before Chloe almost steps into a trap, disguised by the dust.

The hair on the back of her neck raises, sudden, and Chloe stills, letting only her eyes move. The demon’s footstepsconfidently stride right through, but the barest hints of the runes Chloe can see suggest pain, suffering, and madness.

Bit of an unusual one.

Chloe crouches next to it, thumping the penlight against her leg, spending the little bit of energy to brighten its beam, widening the light it casts, until she can set it on the ground and it illuminates the entire thing, casting it in a sterile white glow.

The trap is written in blood, and Chloe takes a lockpick from her pack and scrapes away at the edge. It crumbles where the metal meets, breaking into flakes like a peeling scab.

Roughly the same age as the rib cage, if she had to guess. Old enough to start decaying, new enough that it could still cause harm.

On the other side of it, something…ripples.

Chloe snaps her eyes up, but it’s just more of the hallway, of the rough-hewn granite and the dust on the ground. There’s not even more alcoves, just the single line of footsteps before another wooden trap door.

With an eye up to the hallway, Chloe scrapes away another edge of the blood, and there’s the same shimmer, a rippling of the air, like something trying to be seen but failing. Like the trap is hiding something besides just the pathway on.

Shifting herself so her feet don’t cramp, Chloe takes a deep breath in, then lays a hand on the top of the trap, flaring it to life.

Immediately, pain sears through her palm, but she anticipated that, most traps do, and she twists her hand in the magic along the blood, unraveling it with a snap.

It flares, bright in the darkness, before snuffing out, rendering the trap into flakes of dried blood, useless and inert.

Shaking her hand, Chloe sits back, her heart pounding. She’s dealt with meaner traps, she’s laid meaner traps, but—

The other side of the hall blooms into brightness, golden runes carved into the very stones, lighting the way, chasing awayany hint of shadows. The floor is clean, no dust, though the footsteps still stretch to the trap door.

It’s been a while since Chloe’s seen an illusion spell quite like that, and it sets all of her internal alarms off the moment she sees them.

Well-lit areas are the quickest way to set someone at ease, to lull them into complacency in risky areas, and she’s fallen for that trap before.

And there’s no reason for it to be so nice down here.

Chloe shifts, getting her feet underneath herself, then stands, as smoothly as she can. There’s no additional clue, nothing showing itself as evidence, just…brightness.

In a sane world, one where she is traveling with people and has backup and others around, this would be less risky.

But the trap in front of her lays dead, the only remnant the dried blood and the stinging in her palm.

Tugging her phone out of her pocket, she takes a quick picture, then flips over to her text messages.

GURLIEN (8:59 AM): Leaving before telling everyone else is a cowardly move.

He’s not wrong, but she huffs anyways.

CHLOE (9:01 AM): Just came across a pain trap written in blood that revealed a brightly lit corridor 2 stories underground.

Such an obvious thing is worth sending an alert for.

GURLIEN (9:01 AM): ???

CHLOE (9:02 AM): It’s maximumly spooky.

The three dots start typing up before something else flickers in the hallway in front of her.

Freezing, Chloe blinks up, her heart jumping in her throat. Sure, her heart had stopped not twenty-four hours before, but now—

On the other side of the blood trap, stands a man.

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