She couldn't move.
Her leg had given out minutes ago — maybe more, maybe less, she couldn't tell. Time felt stretched and twisted inside the haze of smoke and screams.
Her rapier was still in hand, bloodied and cracked.
Her stance was broken, and her body refused to rise.
A deep gash was carved across her calf, bleeding steadily.
Every breath hurt. Her ribs stung. Her vision danced between sharp and blurred.
The monster in front of her — a grotesque thing with mantis claws and a scorpion's stinger — loomed overhead.
It clicked its sharp limbs together like it was enjoying the sight of its fallen prey. Lava dripped from its spiky tail. Its obsidian shell steamed in the air, covered in cracks that pulsed like veins of molten light.
Juliana stared up at it with her dull, unblinking blue eyes.
She wasn't afraid.
Not because she was brave.
But because emotions like anxiety or fear — or much of any other emotion in general — were rare for her.
