Page 13 of Run Like the Devil

This is very, very bad.

Yazmor

Somehow, seeing Loch amongst the ruins of my world struck me as more meaningful than I expected. It was a strange juxtaposition between my past and my future, between what came before and what was yet to come.

Around her stood an echo of my world, the place I had come from, the place that had formed me. The jagged rocks, the deep hues—it all spoke to my core. It called to me, whispered for me to release my hold on the current world and let it all drift away.

She stumbled, her foot catching on one of the many cracks in the rocks. I reached out to catch her, but she yanked away as though I were far more frightening than falling.

And when my gaze moved to the side, to sight of another of my kind, I could hardly blame her.

She hit the ground and scooted away, the green of her hair standing out against the other colors. In fact, all of her stood out. The drab colors, the harsh lines, it was nothing like her pale skin, her bright green hair. She was a beacon of light in a place made of darkness.

Her chest rose and fell as she panted, moving away until her back struck a rock, until she had no more room to run.

I had never wanted her to look at me like this, to know the truth, but we had moved past that. I knew better than to fight against the impossible. While so much of the universe was in flux, time wasn’t. What happened could not be undone—people couldn’t go backward, no matter how much we wished it.

The sight of my old world spoke that well.

I lowered myself until I sat on the ground, trying to show I had no plans to harm her. I could have waved my hand and sent away the echo of another of my kind, but why?

She’d seen it. Getting rid of it wouldn’t erase the memory. If anything, terrors like that grew in a person’s mind, becoming more terrifying with time.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her gaze locked on my chest.

It was as if she wanted to keep me in her sight but couldn’t bear to truly look at me, either.

“Why would I? You never told me if you were born vaginally or by C-section. You never told me the hair color you had at birth. What we are when we are born, where we come from, those things don’t really matter after a while.”

The narrowing of her eyes said she didn’t agree. Except, rather than her telling me off as I expected, she remained silent.

The silence hurt. It was born of fear, and it tasted of ash and rot. I didn’t care for it one bit. I missed her sass, her snarky retorts, the way she had looked at me as if I were safe.

Still, pressing too hard would only make her more fearful, so I kept my tone light. “I told you I was old.”

“I thought that meant like, a thousand years or something.” She paused, then let out a hollow laugh. “What’s happened to me when a thousand years isn’t a big deal? So, just so we’re all on the same page, you’re a remnant and this is your world, right?”

I nodded, seeing no reason not to come right out and tell her the truth. “Yep. This was home sweet, fiery home for me.” As I said that, I forced myself to once again look around. “It’s been a long time since I’ve come here.”

“You never wanted to?”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve spent a long time looking in the Forgotten Caves, but I never saw much of a reason to return to my own. It always felt pointless. This is gone—reminding myself of it would be like keeping an amputated limb just to look at.” I shrugged. “Besides, each time a remnant returns the echo of their own world here, it becomes harder to leave it, harder to adjust. I’ve always excelled at letting go of what is lost.”

“You don’t miss it?”

The question surprised me, though I wasn’t sure why. It was a perfectly normal question, wasn’t it? It took me a moment to figure out why.

Because no one had ever asked me that—the reason being that I’d never spoken to anyone else about it. I’d never truly sat down with anyone and explained my past, discussed what had happened.

Others knew, of course, but knowing was difficult from talking about it.

“I miss it,” I admitted, my voice so soft that I worried at first she might not have heard me. Still, I went on. “Missing it is pointless, though. It’s gone.”

“Are there any more of you?”

I shook my head. “No. There were when it was first destroyed, but they were lost with time. Most gave up, the change too extreme, the loss too great. They just…let go. The one who remade the world survived, but only until the next took over.”

“You mean Hubis?”

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