Dusk had fallen just as it had every single day since she'd woken up here. That hadn't changed, at least, though so many things were different, now.

The wind had caught a scent, dangled it tantalizingly at the end of her nose. Though she hadn't been particularly hungry at the time, they'd found themselves following it anyway. She crept, slow and cautious, the source just visible through the autumn-leaved trees. It was in the vague shape of a deer, but the skin hung gaunt and loose off its near skeletal form. Large swatches of its fur were missing, the skin beneath ugly and inflamed, and it's mouth hung open, the lower jaw dangling loose like it was only held by a few strings of tendon. When it turned to look at her, the eyes were dead and glassy and it was the single most delicious thing Gladiator had ever seen.

It fled when she pounced for it, surprisingly nimble despite its horrifying, jerking movements. She chased it as the light grew dim and died and a heavy, sickly green fog rolled in. She chased it like her life depended on it, and was swallowed by the mouth of a cave.

Zora

Dia was going on a nice walk with her, and then...

Dia was gone.

Zora halted. She'd only ben distracted by a plant for a second, and they had already wandered off? Was the quiet of her presence that damn boring? She supposed waiting around for Zora to recover from the fires had probably been a drag...Still, maybe something more dangerous had caught their eye.

She trotted after their scent, although after a few moments she could spot a flash of crimson fur ahead, dusted with sand. Hey, she knew that ass!

Zora huffed, her slightly sour mood quickly growing exhilarated at the chase, even if she didn't know they were chasing a fucked up demon-deer and not...anything else, really.

Slowly, Dia's waving tail up ahead grew more and more obscured by faintly green, almost glowing mist...until the world seemed to dial back the lights and Zora was...alone, and meandering into a cave, of all things. But she'd seen Dia go this way...hadn't she?

Dia?

The stone was cold beneath her pawpads.

She heard nothing, smelled nothing, the eerie green enveloping her from all sides.

Gladiator?

The darkness was immediate and all-consuming. Gladiator skidded to a halt, their eyes almost luminescent and wild in the pitch as they roved, fervently, for a flash of the deer. But there was nothing, not even the barest whiff of a scent to track through the rocky interior. It had just disappeared, like it had never even existed in the first place.

The adrenaline that pumped through their veins, hot and volatile, slowly dissipated. They continued to cast their gaze about the looming void, the intensity leeching from their stare along with it. Confusion replaced it in waves, their expression rippling as they realized they didn't know where they were, or even how they got here. They were breathing hard, like they had just been running, but that wasn't right. She'd just been with Zora, who she wasn't even sure could run yet.

Zora... Where was Zora?

She turned to look over her shoulder, back in the direction she should've come, but there was only darkness. That... also wasn't right. They turned to the side, finding more of the same. Not a single light penetrated the endless gloom, so thick that she couldn't even see the end of her nose. She could feel her heart thump, once, painfully against her chest but dismissed it as just being out of breath as they turned around and began to slink somewhat cautiously through the dark. They didn't want to trip and fall, after all.

Zora? She called, ears straining past the surprisingly loud click of her nails against the hard floor. Zo— Her paw caught on something, and Gladiator immediately tripped and fell.

Their chin slammed hard against the rocky ground, stars erupting behind their eyes. Cursing, they scrambled to pick themselves up, the ground beneath their paws oddly squishy. They glanced back more on instinct toward whatever had tripped them, not that they'd be able to see anything in this fucking cave, but see something they did.

They felt their heart thump, once, painfully against their chest. Then they felt it again. And again, and again, and again.

Lying directly in their path was a body. The fur was dark, but the sandy undersides and ginger points were unmistakable. They'd recognize her even in death.

---

TW AHEAD; INCLUDING: vague mentions of sexual assault, character death, gore, violence. Suicidal thoughts and actions to a degree; not very explicit, but present.

Silence remained - deafening in the fog-carpeted cavern. A distant dripping sound, discordant in its timing, was the only thing beside Zora's breathing to fill her ears.

Gladiator. Zora barked, imperious, giving her chin a snooty tilt upward to try to avoid the creeping sense of unease coiling in her gut.

She didn't want to be here. She didn't know how the hell green mists and a faint moonlight glow were both present in this cave, when she couldn't even find the entrance again.

Claws clicked on stone, the odd dripping sound growing louder. Zora fixed her face into a scowl, expecting her Mercer to round the corner and intending to admonish her, or at least play up her annoyance.

It was not Gladiator.

Scarlet, viscous lifeblood dripped from his stained maw, glistening with moisture in the faint, eerie glow of the cave. He blinked at her, and smiled.

No. Zora said. Any facial expression beyond frozen-pond, lake-deep horror was wiped so clean from her face, it was as if a sultry smile or cruel sneer had never even thought about gracing her features. No.

It's been a while. He sighed. What? You thought you were the only ones to end up here?

As if, Zora thought, for no good thing in her life had ever stayed hers.

Zora couldn't feel her limbs or her nose or her soul. She was a hollow shell, the outside of her made of fragile, aching porcelain and nothing left inside but a breath of stale and dead air.

Where... She rasped, the words dying in her throat even as she forced them out, forced life into them to cross the far-too-small space between herself and him.

A pink tongue slid from his jaws, smearing at the gore splashed across his features. Yes, Zora already knew where at least part of Dia was.

She had no tears to cry, not for this man - he'd only enjoy her grief if she dared to wear it. She felt nothing, but it wasn't nothing, just her mind trying desperately to convince itself all that she was feeling wasn't real, was distant and delirious...To face it all head-on would, she was sure, reopen scars on her psyche that ran deep, ran festering when opened, and had only just begun to sew themselves together once again.

If this life she was condemned to live was a never-ending nightmare, then why should she try to wake up? Better to tap out of this round - She would not let this creature sate himself without consequence, and survival was not something she was interested in with the stink of viscera staining the scent of her lover on the air.

Her one regret was dying, this time, without Gladiator by her side. No golden and blue eyes to look into this time, no sweet face to etch into her memory even as she spilled into nothing, slow and cold.

No feathery-soft ears to whisper truths that should have been said long ago into, with her very last shuddering gurgles.

Zora's killer stepped forward, almost laughably tentative with a slight tilt to his head, as though confused by her reaction. Zora's expression contorted into despair, disgust, and visceral terror.

It was such a....it was such a Dia movement, and the idea he would go as far, even incidentally, to taint even her lover's movements within Zora's memory - that finally ignited her latent grief and fear into fury.

Sick bastard. Fuck you.

Zora lunged.

There was a precious few moments when they could do nothing but stare. Their limbs moved as if through water, slow and with significant effort, as they raised themselves up on shaky legs. They'd found her.

Zora? Their voice echoed down dark, endless hallways. Hey... She didn't respond. They stumbled to her, collapsed at her side. Hey, get up. Their voice shook, trembling somewhere several octaves higher than it usually was. They stared at her crumbled, motionless form, watching with an almost predatory intensity for the barest rise and fall of breath moving through her lungs. They stared for a long time. C'mon, they whined, their breath catching in their throat. This isn't funny. This—

Gladiator recoiled. They'd gone to bury their face in the ruff of her neck and drew back as if burned. She was cold. Colder than the dead, as if she were made of ice. Her expression rippled, confusion stopping the wave of grief that had threatened to overwhelm her in its tracks. Their breath hitched and she reached to tentatively brush her nose across Zora's shoulder. It felt... wrong. The texture of her fur was different. Her markings were just a little off. She was too cold.

They pulled back, brow furrowed and their eyes narrowed ever so slightly as their gaze passed over Zora's body a little more critically. When they got to her face, their heart dropped, suddenly and dizzingly, into the pit of their stomach. Her eyes were open. Those weren't Zora's eyes.

The color was the same, but that was where the similarities abruptly ended. There was no warmth in her gaze. No poison, no sugar-coated contempt or carefully masked disdain. They were cold and blank and dead, and this wasn't Zora.

They backpedaled wildly, slipping on unsteady legs and the smooth, stone surface beneath them. The click of their nails on the rock reverberated off the walls like a gunshot and the eyes moved; they turned to stare directly at her. The lips peeled apart, the mouth contorting into a twisted grin as the corpse wearing her girlfriend's skin began to rot.

She watched the skin discolor and sag, the flesh slop off into putrid ribbons, and the eyes dissolve into dust within a matter of seconds until all that was left was a grinning, meat-stripped skeleton. Breathing was hard, all of a sudden. They'd gone numb with dread and kinda wanted to throw up. Their head hurt, their brain struggling to process what the fuck had just happened — how it had just happened, how it was even real, this couldn't be real, this wasn't—

...This isn't real.

It didn't register that they had spoken aloud until their voice echoed back at them, bouncing off the walls of cave they couldn't even see. The realization was sobering. It shouldn't have made any sense, but somehow it did. None of this was real and Zora was still out there.

Gladiator.

Their ears pricked forward and without even having to think about it they were running, speeding down corners blind and only slamming into the occasional wall. She materialized out of the pitch black nothingness like an angel and they slowed, sagging from relief. Zor— they began to say, before the look on her face ground them to a staggering halt. They'd watched her scowl melt, quickly replaced by a look of abject horror. Her heart twisted, thundering against the walls of her chest like a caged bird. What? What's wrong? Every nerve in her body screamed at her to run, to turn back and face whatever Eldritch abomination must've taken form behind her to have Zora so stricken, so scared.

They didn't. Gladiator stepped forward, slow, shaky. Their jaws parted to speak, to calm, to reassure her as much as themselves. It was okay. It wasn't real. They were going to get— oH SHIT!

She recoiled out of instinct more than anything as Zora lunged, their feet slipping clear out from under them. Zora, wait! It's me! They managed to yelp seconds before their body hit the ground, hard. Pain exploded behind their eyes and they crumpled in on themselves like a dead spider. Their vision swam, their head was pounding, they thought they smelled blood.

Zora descended on them like a revenant. Their chin flicked down to protect their throat, amazed and a little disguised that they were actually worried Zora might kill them, and not in like a hot, sexy way but in an actually kind of terrifying, painful way. It's not real, they groaned, using every little bit of strength they had to roll halfway onto their back and hold their paws out in front of them in a feeble effort to keep her at bay.

---

TW AHEAD; INCLUDING: vague mentions of sexual assault, character death, gore, violence. Suicidal thoughts and actions to a degree; not very explicit, but present.

He crumpled beneath her onslaught of rasping snarls and choked-off sobs, to Zora's sickening satisfaction. She wanted him gone - had not yet conceptualized an ending to this that left her breathing and him not.

After all, Dia was dead, her scent blotting his out to the point it was almost hard to continue her attack. Zora figured as soon as the deed was done, the dragon slayed, the breath of life would simply cease to reside in her; like a marionette with its strings cut.

What was the point? Zora had had a glimpse of life without Gladiator once already and found it to be a unique, personal hell.

But here, and now, she could only think about killing the demon in her dreams. Zora, wait, He pleaded.

She did not wait. She'd been waiting too long already.

He tucked his chin, protecting his throat, and the serpent hissed out an ugly, infuriated snarl. Her tail swayed behind her to keep her balance - why, why, why did he cower from her? Why did he defend against her?

As if he were afraid of her; what was there to be afraid of, when it was only terror and grief driving her forward still? She was only a revenant, possessed by her own vengeful spirit, and it didn't matter what happened to this body as long as her mark was left, not on this world, but on this creature that refused to stop taking everything away from her.

His paws flung out, trying to hold her back - Zora lunged forward again, throwing her chest against his paws and slinging her jaws forward to snap inches away from his muzzle, the final obstacle between her and his inevitable fate. Her forepaws scrabbled at the air, an exhausted whuff exhaling against his face as she tried to catch her breath and push past her limits in the same breath.

It's not real,

Zora rumbled a threat once more, writhing to try to overpower the man beneath her.

Hell was going to be very real for him - she was about to bring it to earth.

Zora crashed into her like a spitting, snarling wave, her jaws snapping for their face. They didn't know what she saw, could only assume it was whatever weird... hallucination that had made them see her, dead on the ground when she very clearly wasn't. But the illusion had fallen apart the second they'd touched her, looked closer and noticed that she was wrong. So why wasn't it doing that now?

Adrenaline pulsed through her veins, slow at first but getting faster as Gladiator saw the look in Zora's eyes and knew it was directed at her. She didn't know how to stop this, how to tell her it wasn't real when the circumstances had changed and it... kinda was.

It's okay, it's me! It's Gladiator! She tried, turning her face away from her teeth, too close, and inadvertently exposing her throat. It shot a healthy dose of panic into her veins but she didn't know what else to do. Maybe she'd see the scars and remember? ...Remember.

We were gonna start a gang together, remember? We were gonna take over the world! Her legs buckled under the onslaught, Zora's snapping fangs getting closer, closer— fuck. Zora had always been smaller, weaker. She hated to use it against her, but if the only alternative was staying here and playing keep-away forever, then.

Gladiator pushed against her to create space and scrambled to roll onto her feet. The ground pitched dizzyingly beneath her. She might've hit her head on the way down. She still smelled blood. She didn't stop to check if it was hers, she was too busy reeling, backpedaling wildly not knowing which direction to go just that they needed to get out. It's me!

---

TW AHEAD; INCLUDING: vague mentions of sexual assault, character death, gore, violence. Suicidal thoughts and actions to a degree; not very explicit, but present.

It's me, it's Gladiator!

The sick bastard had already stolen her life, her scent, and now he tried to convince Zora it was all some awful dream?

Maybe it was a nightmare. They weren't uncommon for her. Zora rumbled again, but confusion did cross her mind beneath the panicked wave of vengeful fear. It was enough hesitation for Dia to push her off, the serpent queen stumbling to the cold floor of the cave with a bitten-off yelp.

He was talking, but she couldn't hear through her heartbeat pounding through her ears. She huffed, scrambling to her paws with her head hung low.

The wolf cried it's me, and Zora was all too aware of who it was - her worst nightmare. She bared her fangs at him, her breaths stuttering through an overworked single lung as she stumbled after him. She couldn't seem to catch up, but she couldn't let him get away. Not with...Not after...

There was a split second of hesitation right before Gladiator managed to shove Zora off that filled her with the closest thing she was going to get to hope in this godforsaken place. Was it working? Was Zora coming back to her senses? Their eyebrows flicked up in anticipation as she watched Zora pick herself up — and bare her teeth. Her breath puffed out in sigh of dismay, taking a second to look around for anything even vaguely resembling an exit. Zora was still stumbling after her, but she was slow and wheezing and if Gladiator took off at full tilt now, they'd probably lose her.

They took a few more tentative steps backward, keeping space between them, seeing the look on Zora's face without the threat of her jaws clamping around their throat and bleeding the life from them a second time, and wondering with a pang just what she was seeing. What could possibly contort her face with so much hatred that she was willing to kill— oh.

Yeah, that would do it.

A part of Gladiator almost wanted to let her catch up, get a few good hits in, just for how cathartic she knew it would be. But no, they had to get the fuck out of here, because if they thought about it too much she'd absolutely let Zora just straight up kill her and then this stupid fucking cave would probably drop the illusion and she'd see— yeah, no. Worse possible outcome. Must avoid at all costs.

Dia's paws pranced in place, anxious, impatient, feeling her skin crawl. Is that the best you can do? They blurted out, forcing their lip to curl in a wavering sneer. C'mon, they quietly pleaded. Chase me. Your Gladiator put up more of a fight than that.

The wolf stumbled forward, slower than she expected. Perhaps she'd gotten a good hit in, hobbled him. Perhaps she could catch up, now, despite the rattling of her overworked lung in her chest and the grey spots oozing in at the edges of her vision.

Is that the best you can do?

Zora's second wind was weak, but she trotted forward in a flurry of steps, claws clicking on the stone floor. The rage in her soul didn't temper despite her waning body.

Light glimmered in the far distance behind him; light that Gladiator would never feel the warmth of, because she was laying abandoned somewhere in the caverns, hurt beyond repair. The though was agony, a kind of death itself that withered and rotted everything inside of Zora until she was simply pain, torn between a visceral need not to leave Dia and a desire to enact some small vengeance, regardless of its ultimately pointless nature.

It wouldn't bring them back and it wouldn't bring Zora peace, but it would bring hell to this creature's every waking moment. Zora would know - she'd outlived her own death, and knew how it stuck with you.

Your Gladiator put up more of a fight than this.

Which time? She almost snarked, and swayed on her paws as nausea overcame her. Still, Zora followed.

What else was she to do?

I am going...to erase...everything you are, She hissed.

They were so close.

To what?