Five days had passed since Billy left the city behind him, making his way towards the promised village. The road lay preternaturally still, as though Time itself had conspired to grant him this fleeting armistice. Everything moved with a singular rhythm; the steady percussion of hooves striking parched earth, the wooden wheels' occasional lament as they traversed stones larger than most.
The wind would rise at intervals - capricious yet freighted with the road's dust - lashing his face and leaving a patina of grime upon his sweat-slicked skin. The sun, though not cruel, bore sufficient malice to bequeath him a lingering vertigo as the day wore on.
His meals were spartan affairs; whatever fruit lay stored beneath the seat, consumed one-handed while gripping the reins, never pausing the cart's progress. To stop would be an indulgence ill-afforded in this interminable emptiness. Come evening, the air would gradually relinquish its warmth, the sky staining itself a consumptive grey before succumbing to blackness.
When he halted, his tent sprang forth with the practiced ease of one who'd performed this ritual a thousand times over. A meagre fire, upon which he'd roast some ill-gotten cut of indifferent meat. As it contemplated readiness, he'd trace warding circles about his camp, muttering eldritch syllables - not from any true faith in their power, but because prudence had long since etched itself into his bones.
Her condition improved by degrees, her features regaining definition with each passing day. Yet what drew his notice more than her healing flesh... was her silence.
The girl never slept. Or at least, he'd never witnessed her succumb to slumber. Throughout their journey she sat perched at the cart's rear upon the unforgiving wood, her posture peculiar: small legs slightly splayed, hands resting between them, fingertips barely touching the surface as if uncertain where to place them. A child's artless pose, yet at odds with the sable-stitched crimson robe that cloaked her - its chaotic embroidery suggesting calculated anarchy.
Her hair hung in artful pigtails, yet no childish innocence dwelled in her gaze. Her eyes remained unblinking sentinels, fixed upon the road - or perhaps nothing at all.
At intervals, she'd chew some insubstantial morsel - an apple's skin, a crust of stale bread - though he knew full well her digestive organs scarcely deigned to function. As though eating represented not hunger, but an atavistic ritual her body maintained despite its pointless extravagance.
But that night was different.
Billy slept as he always did... the same exhaustion, the same lethargic surrender to unconsciousness.
Until—
His eyes flew open.
The world around him was not his tent. Not any world he knew.
Silence.
No music. Only the sub-aural hum of faulty electricity, like the death rattle of some ancient machine.
Billy stood in a chamber without walls, encircled by ebon pillars spaced at intervals, their summits connected by gossamer strands that glimmered like fractured glass. Beneath his feet: a sea of pallid ash, swallowing his ankles whole. Each step stirred luminous eddies of dust. Above, a bruised sky heaved with copper-tinged clouds—sunless, yet glowing with some sickly radiance.
In the corner, a grotesquely elongated figure in grey frock coat stood with its back turned, fingers moving as if plucking at the strings of some unseen instrument.
Then a woman's voice, neither whisper nor echo:
"You've forgotten. You know you've forgotten."
Billy looked down. In his hand: a rust-eaten key, its surface inscribed with backwards letters: "The Other Inside."
A child's laugh-soft, yet wrong somehow.
He turned. The girl stood there.
Her face a smeared portrait, as if reality couldn't quite render her fully. Only that small, sorrowing smile.
When she spoke, her voice crackled like a poorly tuned wireless:
"You were meant to be here. But the book hasn't been opened yet."
Then—
The air between the pillars splintered. Behind him yawned a living blackness—not emptiness, but a dark that pulsed with something like breath.
From it emerged a stunted figure in a paper-white mask. It raised one hand with exquisite slowness.
Its words came in reverse:
".taw fo mialc"
Billy tried to move—couldn't. The ash held him fast as the dark crawled up his limbs, erasing him stroke by stroke.
The tall figure turned at last—
Revealing Billy's own face... but with eyes like pooled ink.
A grin too wide.
One pillar shattered. The rest collapsed like ancient bones.
The electric hum swelled... swelled... into a scream of static.
Darkness.
Billy awoke gasping, his chest sheened with sweat as though he'd dragged himself from some lightless deep. The dream was already unspooling from his mind, leaving only an aftertaste of cinders on his tongue.
He shoved the thin blanket aside and lurched from the tent. The water jug called to him—
He needed only to scour the nightmare from his skin, to trade fever-dream heat for the clean chill of reality.
But before his fingers found the water—
A sound split the silence.
That sound—faint, fractured—was neither wholly human nor entirely bestial, but something else entirely: the creaking lament of shattered things, as if the remnants of a splintered soul were trying to reassemble itself from the cold corners of the cart.
Billy turned toward her with the swiftness of a predator catching the scent of life beneath the ashes. Her vocal cords, dead until now, had begun to tremble—spasms of sound, closer to the desperate plucking of a broken lyre than speech. There was no meaning in it. Just a hollow whimper, as though her pain were not merely physical, but something... other.
He watched her writhe, her eyes half-lidded, her body trembling in silent waves of agony. Then he left her there. No use. The few elixirs he carried were too precious to waste on a creature that hadn't yet decided whether it wanted to live at all. And besides, she was healing on her own... in her own unholy way.
He returned to sleep as if nothing had happened. Not because he was cruel—not necessarily—but because he had long since learned that mercy was a currency best spent sparingly.
By morning, the whimpering had settled into a mournful drone, a dissonant melody seeping from the back of the cart. Billy ignored it, as he had ignored so many things in his life, and pressed on toward the promised village, determined not to let the sound of weakness redraw his path.
Two days later, the village walls rose in the distance. Her cries had by then hardened into a muffled howl, as though something broken were screaming from inside its own bones. Billy halted well before the gate, his mind racing. Too great a risk. Her body had healed enough—he could pass her off as his daughter, perhaps, or a cheaply bought slave. But her voice... that alone could unravel everything.
And worse—she had no papers. Even slaves required documentation. And if they discovered what she truly was? He'd be at the center of the storm.
His heavy hand struck the base of her skull with lethal precision—a silencing blow, bloodless and clean. She swayed, then collapsed into his arms. He swaddled her in tattered cloth, the picture of a feverish child asleep from exhaustion.
Then he approached the gate, his steps measured.
A guard stepped forward—blond, narrow-eyed, as though suspicion had been woven into his bones at birth.
"Who's this?"
Billy adopted the weary tone of a merchant. "My daughter. Fever took her last night. I need to get her inside, find a healer, then tend to my business."
The guard's expression remained unconvinced. He took a step closer.
At the perfect moment, Billy slipped a thin coin into the man's palm with a handshake too quick for any onlooker to catch.
The guard didn't smile. Only muttered, dryly:
"Go on in."
Billy entered the village like a thief slipping through a crowded market. His first stop? A cheap inn near the center. The old lie had worked yet again.
By the next day, he was prowling the alleys and bazaars—buying, selling, lying, and, most importantly, collecting whispers from the shadowed lanes. He was searching for a particular kind of madman: one who might pay a fortune for a girl who could not die.
Two months passed.
Her body had fully regained its human form, but her voice remained a broken instrument. At times, it spilled fragments of song; at others, the wail of an infant. But true speech? Impossible.
Billy didn't care. Silence, after all, could be a blessing. He fed her voraciously, like a farmer fattening a sacred calf for slaughter. And she ate as though making up for centuries of hunger.
Then, one day, as Billy was haggling over some trifle in a neighboring village's market, his body locked mid-motion. Amid the riot of colors and faces, he saw Shal.
Shal, alone. Standing there, his tattered scarf fluttering in the dry wind, his face a portrait of stubborn need.
Billy turned away at once—but too late. Their eyes had met. A glance hooked into a stare, and the chase began without a word.
Billy plunged into the market's chaos, weaving between merchants, pregnant women, and wobbling carts. He shouldered past a small child, sending the boy sprawling into a cascade of rolling grapes as the vendor's curses erupted behind him:
"Watch where you're going, you damn fool!"
Shal stalked after him like a shadow of pure spite.
Billy wasn't one to flee without tricks. He brushed against a tilting vegetable cart, nudging it just enough with his shoulder to send it crashing onto the crowd. Produce erupted into the air—tomatoes, onions, zucchinis—rolling underfoot as shouts and curses bloomed in their wake. Children scattered.
He veered into a narrow alley where the air hung thick with the stench of old refuse. A street magician performed some pitiful sleight of hand for a handful of onlookers. In passing, Billy flicked a small powder pouch from his sleeve and tossed it behind him. A burst of blue smoke swallowed the alley in an instant.
But he knew Shal wouldn't stop. Men like him didn't surrender.
"Stop, you thieving bastard!"
Billy laughed between heaving breaths. Thief? What a joke. No one here was innocent.
He vaulted over stacked crates, shoved an old basket-seller aside, and shouldered into the sweaty press of a tavern's patrons. A burly man stumbled out, ale in hand—Billy snatched the tankard mid-stride and drained it as he ran.
Noise. Stench. The cloying reek of spice and rot.
Then—his palm hit solid wall. A dead end.
He stopped. His breath sawed through his chest like a blade.
Behind him, footsteps faltered, then steadied. Shal emerged from the haze, panting like an old, starved hound.
Slowly, Billy raised his hands—as if surrendering to fate—then turned just enough to flash a smirk.
"Well... you caught me." A dry chuckle. "I'll admit, you're more stubborn than I gave you credit for." A pause. Then, with a tilt of his head toward the street: "But why not postpone my execution for a drink? There's a tavern nearby. Bad ale, worse company... perfect for discussing old curses."
Shal stared, unblinking, for a long moment. Then he spat on the ground.
"One stupid move... and I'll snap your neck."
Billy's grin widened. "I dream about it nightly."
They stepped into the tavern. The air hung thick with smoke, sour sweat, and the vinegary tang of cheap liquor. Raucous laughter erupted from adventurers spinning tales of battles never fought, or assassins hawking their services for coppers. In one corner, a man slouched over a table, one leg propped up, while a woman cackled with a voice like gravel. Above the hearth, a rusted sword hung like a forgotten omen.
They sat opposite each other like duelists in some antique tragedy. Shal still panted, his eyes burning with questions and hate. Billy, meanwhile, lounged with exaggerated ease, as if this were his own private parlour. He ordered the most expensive drink, then flashed Shal a smile like a knife's edge.
"Relax… this round's on me."
Shal said nothing. His eyes smoldered—a dormant volcano stirring to life.
Billy broke the silence first. "Two months with her, and nothing's happened. If anything, it's gone better than expected. I'm standing at the threshold of a fortune."
When the drinks arrived, Billy took a slow sip, then added: "You're my friend, Shal. I'd hate to lose you over old wives' tales."
Shal's face darkened. The colour drained from it, replaced by something raw and furious. A hush fell over the tavern, as though even the drunkards sensed the shadow unfurling between them.
When Shal spoke, his voice was a blade.
"You arrogant fool. Just because nothing's happened yet doesn't mean it won't. She's cursed—a stitched-together corpse that shouldn't be breathing! The universe has screamed every warning, but you—as always—are too greedy to hear. This 'trade' will drag you into the abyss. And if I stay near you, I'll follow. I won't be the idiot who shares in your profitable madness."
Billy's reply was glacial. "What madness? And why fear for yourself? I'm the one dealing with her. If there's a curse, it's mine alone. What's it to you?"
Shal's grip tightened around his tankard until the wood groaned. "I was there, Billy. When we found her under that tree. I don't know what evil we woke, or what curse we prodded—but it's in me as much as it's in you. And now you want to sell that… thing for a handful of gold? That's insanity!"
Billy laughed, hollow. "She doesn't die. She doesn't feel pain like she should. She's an inexhaustible resource. Maybe it's kinder than leaving her as food for forest beasts. And she's not human enough to pity. Don't fear the curse, Shal. The only damned thing here is that wretched girl… that excess life."
Shal's laughter burst forth—sharp, hysterical, teetering between disgust and disbelief. "You think yourself a merchant of demons? Who in their right mind would buy such a thing? No one."
Billy leaned in, his voice a velvet threat. "Wrong. There are thousands teetering on madness's edge, hunting absolute knowledge, power, immortality. I know one who'll pay a king's ransom for her secret. And if that fails, she can be sold as an 'everlasting plaything.' The sadists, the lunatics—they exist. A girl who can't die? They'll war over her. Or demon-worshippers. Or scholars who'd carve her open. The possibilities are endless, Shal. All it takes… is a little imagination."
Shal paled. His whisper was the sound of a soul crumbling. "You monster… She isn't the devil. You are. You're the one who needs purging, Billy. The dark's eaten you alive… and soon, it'll—"
Billy cut him off with a sneer. "No. You're the one who needs purging—from your rotting world. But if you change your mind… you know where to find me."
He made to leave, but Shal's voice hooked into him.
"Wait. How did you know she'd heal?"
Billy paused. "When you told me she'd burned, I saw her skin. It wasn't burnt. No one could've healed that. The truth was obvious."
Then, with a tilt of his head: "But I've two questions for you. First—why didn't you tell the others that day?"
Shal's reply was a quiet dirge. "If I'd said Billy brought a demon back… some of them might've died of fright on the spot."
Billy chuckled. "Wise answer. And my second question—how did you know she'd healed? I never told you."
Shal exhaled, exhausted. "I reasoned it out. If she were just meat, you'd have discarded her. You know nothing of medicine, and you'd never risk a real physician—too afraid they'd uncover the truth, or too greedy to share. So she must've healed herself."
Billy's smile was a razor-cut. "How sharp you are, my friend…"
Then they parted.
Billy returned to his hideout to find the girl devouring raw flesh like a starved beast. He wrenched it from her hands, seared it over the fire, and gave it back.