Before you read

Hi. If you’re reading this… I’m Echo.

I don’t know who you are (future me? someone else?), but I’m writing this so the day doesn’t dissolve. When I get stressed my thoughts don’t stay in a straight line, and if I don’t pin things down, everything turns into noise.

I’m not great with people I don’t know. Crowds and yelling hit me like a wall. When I’m overloaded I fidget with my hair and I go quiet or I bolt. I stick close to my brother, James, because he’s my safe point.

My hair is cut short with bangs, and I mess with it when I can’t get my thoughts to line up. It’s bright yellow, like lightning, and in the right light it… shines. Like it’s trying to be noticed even when I’m not. My eyes are bright yellow too-the kind that looks intense when I’m actually just buffering.

I wear a black sleeveless dress with a wide belt and little crystal charms that click when I move. I carry a staff with a crystal at the top. Magic works for me, but it has a cost I can feel in my body, so I try not to think about it too hard.

Unknown Date...

I think it’s… day 1? or close to it. I’m not good at tracking days when everything feels like a blur.

Orabar (rain + new people)

We crest into Orabar and it starts raining like the sky is mad at us. The cart bumps over stones and every jolt lands in my teeth. My clothes are damp in that slow, mean way. Wet cuffs. Wet collar. The bag strap is rubbing my shoulder and I keep shifting it because the friction is too loud on my skin.

New ppl. New voices. All layered on top of each other. Too loud. I stay close to James because he’s my safe point. I tuck my chin and twist my hair around my fingers until it feels even.

James cleans up, jumps down, and says, "I am ready, who else is ready?" like it’s easy to be ready.

The shop (keys + a missing husband)

The shop is tight and busy and I bump into James at the door because someone is already yelling about "a person" and my brain trips over the sound. A small person steps up to the counter. James talks to them like volume is how you win.

Then he points me out to the shopkeeper.

Why would he do that.

I feel my face go hot and I start playing with my hair harder, like if I keep my hands busy I can stay inside my body. The shopkeeper goes to get something.

She comes back with a thing for something (I don’t even process what), and then she hands me a pint glass with a cheg robot on it. It’s heavier than I expect. Cold. Smooth. I take James’s item too and shove both into my bag so I can stop thinking about my hands and where to put them.

The shopkeeper tells us her husband is missing. His name is Dugles. He has the key to the place we’re staying at, so we’re going to find him.

James asks if I’m ready.

I nod because it’s the fastest answer and my throat is tight.

Windler estate (dust + footprints)

We get to the Windler estate. James knocks. The door is locked. We circle around, scanning. The others find a tent and a well outside.

Someone picks the lock and we go inside.

The house is dusty-old. Like the dust is a blanket that doesn’t want you here. It sticks to my nose and the inside of my mouth. There are halfling footprints. I stare too long, counting them without meaning to, just to make my brain do something predictable.

The living room is yucky, and I cast Invisibility because it’s easier to breathe when nobody can look at me.

Something in me shifts. Not pain-just… wrongness. Like the seams and straps are landing one notch off from where my skin expects them.

I don’t talk about it. I go still and do the private inventory: fingers, wrists, the way my sleeves sit. Quiet checking, like counting steps in the dark.

One of the others goes into a room with lots of small animal corpses and I hate it immediately. The sight hits my stomach like a drop. There’s a bear in there. Oh no.

The holy friend casts something and the bear blows up. Just… gone. Like that. The sound is too big for the room. I clamp my jaw and taste metal.

Upstairs (doors + traps)

Upstairs there are four doors. End of the hall says workshop. Another door says priveey. Bathroom? maybe. The spelling makes me itchy.

I open the workshop and it’s tools for smithing, and a set of clockwork boots sitting on a table like they’re waiting for someone to come home. They look important in a way I can’t explain. Like a promise you can touch.

Somebody sets off a trap somewhere and then yells, "we are okay."

My body does not believe them.

The sound spikes in my head and my skin goes hot. I press my nails into my palm through my sleeve and breathe like I’m trying not to fall out of myself.

I find some healing potions.

I break invisibility and tell James about the boots, hand him the potions, and do the quiet check-in. He says I look okay. He always says that, even when I can tell he’s scanning the room for danger like he’s scanning for me too.

Then there’s a bang downstairs, and James and I rush back down.

The trap door (Dugles + the spider)

We go down a trap door and there’s a body.

It’s Dugles.

I cast Misty Step to get to him and check. Dead dead. The air down here feels colder, like the basement is holding its breath.

quick body-check-wrists, hem, belt. Okay. Still me. Just… slightly misaligned. I keep my face neutral and swallow it.

Something jumps out. I don’t see it at first. I only hear the others scream and my heart tries to punch through my ribs. Spider. Of course it’s a spider.

I hear James cast something near me. I don’t know what. I just hear it like a crackle in the air.

The holy friend casts Guiding Bolt and the spider lights up. Too bright. Too sudden.

I panic and throw my staff. I miss. My hands feel stupid. I snatch it back up and Misty Step behind James because I don’t want to be in front. I don’t want to be in the open. I want to be where I can see danger before it sees me.

Something sparkles near the back and I realize it’s a phase spider. Like the room has a hole in it and the spider lives in the hole.

I cast Magic Missile. It hits.

The spell lands and I get that same internal lurch, like gravity is re-measuring me. I don’t check. Not with the spider still in the room.

It swings at me twice and misses. I can feel the air move where it should have hit. People start running and my brain goes: run. Run now.

I run.

The spider shows up in front of me anyway and takes me out. I hit the floor and everything goes dark and the last thing I think is: I messed up. I messed up. I messed up.

When I come back, the holy friend is healing me with a prayer. The warmth hits and I cry without deciding to. My body is shaking like it has its own opinion.

After, when I can finally breathe, I check under my sleeves and at my belt. It’s not dramatic. It’s tiny: the belt edge bites a different spot, the fabric pulls weird over my shoulder, the hem brushes my legs differently when I move. I don’t say anything. I just grip my staff harder until my hands stop shaking.

After (rats + outside air)

I wake up and see James, the holy friend, and rats.

Rats.

I yell. Full volume. It tears out of me, and then I’m crying on the floor because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with any of it. I pull at my sleeves like they’re trying to crawl off my arms. I twist my hair until my scalp hurts because pain is easier than noise.

I go outside and sit by myself on the retaining wall until my brain stops buzzing. The air is cold and clean in a way that makes my lungs unclench. I stare at the tent and the well and try to feel like a person again.

Snakes run out the door. I watch them like I’m watching a different world that doesn’t care about us at all.

The others get Dugles ready to take back to the shopkeeper.

I go with them, because that’s what you do when you don’t know what else to do: you stay with your people.

The inn is loud when this starts and then it gets louder.

I wake up in James's inn room with that gross disoriented jolt where I do not know where the walls are for half a second. We all crashed in here after the woods because nobody trusted anything, so there are blankets and bags and too many bodies in one space and I hate waking up inside other people's noise.

James is up too. We both do that fast awful scramble to be dressed enough and ready enough. Me dragging my dress straight, fixing my belt, finding the right buttons by touch because my hands are clumsy when I first wake up. Him getting himself sorted and already sounding more awake than I feel. I slide into my sensory-safe flip-flops, the soft ones that go on fast and come off fast and do not set my skin off, grab my staff, try to get my hair out of my eyes, and that is exactly when everything gets worse.

There is the thief. There is Joss in the room. There is a knife and too many voices all at once and James talking and the man starting up the stairs and oh shit oh shit oh shit because everybody has decided to move at the same time.

I do not stay to sort it out.

We run outside. Cold air. Dark street. My heart is hitting wrong. I yank myself up onto the roof with magic because I need away, I need height, I need one second where nobody is right next to me. The magic goes through me like a fast yank under the ribs and suddenly my clothes sit wrong again. Looser in a way I hate. I fumble at my buttons with numb fingers and crouch low while the man runs out looking for us.

We go back. Bad idea. Obviously a bad idea. We go back to the room anyway and then he comes back and breaks the whole moment open again and I do not even think, I just move. Out the window. Away. Back into the night.

We follow the small footprints north through town and into the woods. We loop around for what feels like forever and find nothing. Every twig sounds like somebody stepping behind us. By the time we get back to the inn I am wrung out and twitchy and done, so we all pile into one room and take watches because nobody trusts anything anymore and I do not think I would sleep alone anyway.

Morning is softer. Not good. Just softer.

Getting ready takes me a minute. More than a minute, probably. My body feels lagged out. I have to wash my face, push my hair back, smooth my dress down, retie the belt, do the buttons over once because I do not trust the first try, then check the hem and sleeves again anyway. If I skip steps when I am already wrung out, every seam feels wrong all day.

James wants breakfast immediately, which helps because wanting a normal thing that hard makes the world feel normal for a minute. I ask about orange juice. Somebody is eating blueberries so loudly I want to crawl out of my skin. I tell them they are loud because they are. James tries the boots I gave him and snaps back to where he was a second ago and that almost makes me laugh. Almost.

Before we head out I need help with my clothes because they are still sitting wrong from the night before. Not a lot. Just enough. Fabric pulling weird across my chest, one button not lining up where my hands expect it. James fixes it and I think about it too hard anyway, because of course I do. It is one button. I should be able to do one stupid button. The more I think about why I needed help, the worse I feel. Embarrassed. Wrong. Bad in that quiet crawling way that sticks under the skin.

Then the temple.

Brother Adam. Sister Ruth. Another break-in. The candlestick is actually gone this time, so we stop guessing and use the finding magic. The answer comes back simple and awful: underground. North-ish. Not far. The kind of not far that means we are definitely going.

The well smells wrong before we even start down. Wet stone. Rope fibers. That sharp metal smell sitting on the air like a coin on the tongue. We go one at a time and I hate every part of it. The drop. The dark. The waiting while somebody else is below me and somebody else is above me and I cannot be next to James for all of it.

At the bottom it opens into shallow water and dim cavern and that same metallic stink, stronger now, stuck in the back of my throat. Then things move.

Gray blobs. Oozes. Whatever. They are low and wet-looking and the wrong color, like old dishwater made solid, and they do not move like real things. They slide. They shiver. They just keep coming. I throw protection over myself in a panic because I do not want them touching me, I do not want anything down here touching me. The magic settles and the cost hits right after, private and immediate. Younger. My sleeves feel longer. My belt sits off by one annoying little impossible bit. My whole body feels slightly... reduced. I hate it. I hate being scared and feeling it happen at the same time.

Their acid eats at gear with this ugly hiss that cuts straight through me. Metal, water, people shouting, that constant cave drip, all of it piling up until I can barely pick one sound out from the rest. Then there is a gelatinous cube too because of course there is. Clear enough that I do not fully clock it at first, just a wall where the room should be, and then Joss is caught in it and for one awful second it looks like the thing is just going to swallow the room.

I pull that darkness in close around myself again... not sure what to call it, only that it makes the edges of me feel farther away, like I am standing one step to the side of myself... and I send little hard hits of magic into the cube. The force of it leaves me cold all over. Another slip. Another wrongness. I do not do the full check, but I feel my collar shift and I know. I know.

It is not better after that. The cube is still there. The oozes are still there. Acid keeps hissing. Water keeps splashing. Somebody is yelling to move and somebody else is yelling because they cannot. I can smell that sharp chemical rot every time I breathe in. My hands are so wet on my staff I have to keep readjusting my grip. I am so, so scared by then. Not dramatic scared. Animal scared. Wet hands. Bad breathing. The kind where every sound is too big and your body has already decided it wants out.

So when I get the chance, I yank myself sideways through that little fold of magic and land right next to James.

I do not even care if anybody notices why.

I need him close. Need his voice. Need to know where up is.

I get a potion down fast, nearly choke on it, and stay near him while the room keeps being awful around us. When I throw a sharp burst of magic at one of the last things moving, it comes out harsher than I mean it to, more fear than aim. It still hits. Thank goodness.

After that there is another chamber.

Mirrors. Stolen shiny things everywhere. A chest in the middle. And a paladin already turned to stone, standing there in the middle of all that glitter like a warning nobody listened to in time.

I know this is bad before it gets bad.

Then the chest opens and the basilisk comes out.

It is squat and heavy and wrong, all scale and claw and this blunt ugly head that looks too low to the ground until it lifts. Its hide has that dull wet shine things get underground. Its feet scrape stone. Its eyes are the worst part. Even catching them in reflection feels bad, like looking at something that already decided what it wants to do to you.

I hate it immediately.

Everybody starts shouting at once. Do not look at it. Use the mirrors. Watch the angle. Move. I try. I really do. But the room is all reflections and bright edges and panic and I can feel my body locking around the fear of even seeing it wrong. I am scared enough that my hands stop feeling like mine. Somebody says one of us is starting to turn. Maybe more than one of us. I do not have a clean picture. I just know terror, and James, and the slap-scrape of my flip-flops on wet stone while I try not to look straight at the thing that is trying to make us not-people.

It hits me.

Hard.

Hard enough that all the fear in me just snaps.

Then nothing.

Not really nothing. More like the back of my eyelids and a blank space and then a violent jerk back into everything.

I come up on the floor with one breath already tearing out of me, dust in my mouth, pain everywhere, and the awful knowledge that I was gone for a second there. I was down. I was actually down. I am at basically nothing and still here anyway and that scares me almost as much as the basilisk did.

I use the little bit of healing I still have on myself because I cannot not. My hands are shaking so hard I nearly mess it up. I can hear people still fighting. Hear James. Hear somebody else get close. Hear the whole room ringing.

Then James makes the basilisk laugh.

Actually laugh.

It is horrible and stupid and I would maybe laugh too if I was not on the edge of crying.

Somebody finishes it with my dagger. I think. Pretty sure. Everything after I wake up is smeared at the edges from shock, so I am not going to pretend I have every piece in the right order.

I do remember James helping me up.

I remember hiding in the corner because if I do not get small for a minute I am going to come apart. I remember fixing my clothes with shaking fingers because they feel wrong again, hem and buttons and belt all slightly off, my body not sitting inside them the way it did before. I remember being hurt. I remember being embarrassed that I am hurt. I remember being so scared I feel hollow.

There is a locked door. Goblin voices behind it. Something about telling the boss the basilisk is dead. Of course there is. Of course it is not over when it should be over.

We go far enough to find where the tunnel opens into the forest north of town, and the water, and the way it all connects, but that whole stretch feels blurred around the edges. Too bright. Too loud. My memory keeps skipping a little, like it is catching on something sharp. We go back down the tunnel. We go back up the rope. I feel really crappy by then. That part I know.

There are jewels. A pearl. Basilisk parts, I think. A reward back in town. People talking at us. Us talking back. I offer my dagger to one of the others because their weapon got messed up. I give my gold to James. The rest of it feels like trying to read through water.

What stays clear is the fear.

The smell from the well. The mirrors. The sound of everybody yelling at once. The moment I wake up on the floor and know exactly how close that was.

I keep thinking about the mirrors, though. About surviving something by looking at it sideways. Not full-on. Not direct. Just enough to get through without letting it turn you into something that cannot move.