There was nht light at the end of a long dark tunnel. No voice telling you good job or bad. The only thing that even told Sapphyra she was dead was–seeing it with her own eyes.

  She groans and gingerly attempts to stand up. She moves away from the age in front of her. A tan Nissan sedan had front ended her, sending her body trailing high over the car and down with a siing ch.

  She stood, hands over her knees, as if to bance herself for what she knew was ing: nausea. But the feeling never came. It was like she was numb to everything. That pani the back of her throat that urged her to scream? It stays quiet, soft, not even a nudge, let alone an impulse.

  Shock. Was that the right word?

  Seeing your mangled body in front of you? Yeah, shock is a pretty good word.

  “What…what happened?” Sapphyra reaches a hand out to touch her corpse, frustrated that her hand goes through it.

  It. That was a she not too long ago.

  “Such a shame, really. Shame that it took this long for you to e out of that human skin suit you were wearing.” A familiar feminine voice spoke. When Sapphyra looks around, she sees no one else.

  “Is…is someohere?” She frantically looks around. Moving towards the car, she sees the driver of the sedan slowly ing to. He's an older man, probably in his te 40s early 50s judging by the crow's feet and tinge of gray hair.

  “The hell are you looking at him for? You've got things to do girly.”

  There was that voice again.

  “Who are you?!” Sapphyra responded, voice trembling ever so slightly.

  “Oh brother. They really didn't teach you anything, did they? Your so-called parents. They should have given you the rundown on what happens once you have a first death.”

  Sapphyra blinks slowly, the cogs in her brain try to process what's happening. First death? She has to gh this more than ohat makes absolutely no sense.

  “Wishing on a star makes no sense. Luckily for you, no star o attain your first price of power. Though I'll be ho, with this mist rolling in as aggressive as it is, you may not have enough time to get your bearings the proper way. Which means only ohing: trial by fire.”

  Ohing? None of that meant anything to Sapphyra.

  “Listen, kid, you have two choices: step bato your body and be bain or truly die…although you never got to say goodbye to your little friends, did you? Such a shame.”

  That snapped Sapphyra out of her trance. If it meant seeing her friends again…well, what more did she have to lose at this point?

  Surveying the se, somethi off, yet that earlier voice was silent. She hesitates, taking a step forward, legs suddenly feeling as stable as jello.

  “Have you fotten how to walk? God, you’re hopeless. Here, allow me.”

  “Allow what-?!” Sapphyra felt something strong and sturdy push against her backside, sendiraight into her old body.

  A siear drop escaped her as all the pain from the crash collided with her at o wasn’t just the broken and twisted bones or the ans no longer i–no–she wished it had stopped there. That was just the beginning. Sapphyra felt it all flow in reverse as if her body was walking through the events of the crash that only happened a few moments ago but felt like a lifetime ago.

  In some ways, if that voice was to be believed, it was a lifetime ago.

  Her bones corrected themselves and snapped bato pe after another like a biooy. She struggled to watch her skin and blood vessels–o open by shards of gss–repair themselves with an odd pink-ish glow. The same went for the rest of her body until finally, everything was reset…with some fresh additions.

  A splitting headache made her hand fly towards the edge of her forehead, where she felt two protruding nubs grow fast. Soon enough they were no longer nubs but full on horns. Three sharp pains hit her in the back, twht below her shoulder bdes and o the base of her spi felt like someone was ripping her open and pulling out body parts that did not belong.

  Yet when her gruesome transformation finished, she sighed with relief. Flexing her shoulders let her know that the weights on her back were far from etic. Two giant pink wings covered in bck scales ahers protruded from her back.

  She took a deep breath and trated, exhaling her fear out as best as she could and inhaling something special, something a and quiet that has always been with her. One more deep breath in. And the hing that she exhaled? Fire. An intense bze that spread out over the chaos of the car crash, igniting both vehicles.

  Sapphyra's eyes widened. A slew of curses flew from her mouth as she took off her coat and tried to put out the fire by battering it as much as she could to choke out the fire. The fire wasn't her only problem, as a whimper caught her attention.

  The other driver!

  Her coat was doio nothing to quell the fmes, so she diverted her energy to where she could feel useful. The driver-side car door was obstructed though from the way the man mumbled to himself with closed eyes while in a fming car, Sapphyra doubted he could have pulled himself out even if he was all there.

  She looked around for something to pry the car open with, but the damn mist made it impossible to see out farther than a few feet ahead, and she wasn’t familiar with this area of the city.

  Sapphyra grabbed the car by the shattered windowpane and was about to put all of her might into this pull.

  “God, if you’re listening, I could use some help here. Please, for on my life, let me do something worth-”

  The door crumpled in her hands, easily torn from the shoddy hihat held it stu pce. It falls to the ground, rattling around for a sed. Her finger iions were stuck as a remihat she did that.

  “While? Holy shit…” She examined her hands, an intense urge to vomit quickly rising within her, only interrupted by the driver's heavy coughs. The smoke was getting to him.

  “Okay, hold on man, I got ya.” The seat belt became obsolete just like the door as she safely pulled him out of his spot and moved them a few yards away from the se. She examines him for any outward injuries, but other than a bruise on the head, he seemed fine.

  She checked him for a wallet. Driver's lise says Simon Shuut.

  “Simon? Simon Shuut? you hear me?” She tapped his shoulders several times, brows furrowing with frustration. His chest rose and fell, his heart was beating, his blood was flowing to the right pces. Those were things that set her mind at ease. Normal.

  She could tell that knowing those things without being near him was not normal. So on top of being a walking barbecue that stepped out of a Halloween store, she take vital signs with just a gnce?

  No, it was deeper than that. She could expin the chest rising and falling, but the heartbeat, the blood flow…she could se. It was like listening to her favorite song. Each beat and chord were in harmony with one another. If any part ged, she would know.

  Sure, that’s an oversimplification for something she really didn’t uand all that well, but ?she wouldn’t argue with anything that was going to put her mind at ease.

  None of this makes seo her. So she tries to focus on what does. Infmed cars? Wait for the fire department. Man that’s barely scious but seems to be fine? Also, the fire department. Speaking of which…Sapphyra pats down her pockets, looking for her pho’s gone, probably burning along with her very expensive graduatio that she built piece by piece for years ahead of time.

  She would o grieve for her baby ter.

  Sapphyra sighs, watg the fiery glow pete with the heavy mist for which e is more obnoxious in 2025. So far, the mist was winning. A millioions on her mind. She g Simon one more time and starts walking away. Hopefully, someone who lived nearby could see the fmes or heard the crash and called the authorities. She had other things to dht now, like pretending she wasn’t sp wings and horns and god-knows what else on the edge of her spine.

  She felt it drag behind her as she walked, heavy and thick, towards her bad lighter the farther it went.

  Biting back a sob, she flexed the bone a few times just to firm that the serpentine appendage was what she feared: a tail. As she walked, its tip moved in front of her vision rudely, waving bad forth at her.

  “What…you wanna say hi or something? Aren’t you just aension of me–wait don’t ahat? I’m vihat I am fully going insane and a seail is just the straw on the camel’s bae.” She holds up a hand and pushes the tail out of her face.

  It quickly s itself around her aripping her. She falls onto her face, making a small crater in the ground below. She was always heavy, but she hought she was that heavy.

  “Ow…se and sassy. Got it. Today ot get any worse or I swear to all that is holy I’m gonna-”

  As if the stars themselves were taunting her, minor quakes moved the grouh her. Her tail unravels from around her ahen grabs onto a nearby light post to haul her up ass-first.

  “Oh, now you want to be helpful?” She gres at her wayward appendage as it s around her head. With almost military-like precision, it twists her head towards the source of the shakes: a creature that stands nearly twice her size, if ner, with the body of a well-developed man and the head of a bull. Each of its steps feels like someone boung a fully loaded 18 wheeled truck off the ground.

  “Ain’t no way.” She whispers to herself with a sigh. Her shoulders slump aail uns itself from her head, moving up and then down.

  A Minotaur. Iy. At night? Somehow, this one is her fault. She just knows it.

  Maybe she’ll get lucky. It could ght past her and on its way out of the city–unless it spots Simon and snorts with i, which is exactly what it did. The beast digs its hooves into the t and drags them back, clearly gearing itself up to ram Simon.

  Is that even how bulls operate? A quick sp ot motivated Sapphyra to move and pte ripping her own tail off.

  “What do you wao do about it? I’m not a superhero!” She growls out between her ched teeth, quickly dug behind a trash .

  It s itself around her biceps and squeezes them three times in quick succession. Then it points at the trash first and the Minotaur sed.

  “If I die–like truly die this time, I'm gonna sever you like a bad hangnail.” She whispers under her breath.

  She picks up the trash just as the beast takes off, running towards Simon. With much more effort than she knew she needed, she chucked it at the beast's head like a softball. She hoped it would just bouhe beast back so she could grab Simon and run away with him.

  What she did not expect was for it to clear the beast's head pletely from its shoulders and smash into the building behind them.

  That part. That's where she leans over and finally throws up her lunch. All of today’s bullshit piling into one moment. No more adrenaline-fueled bravado or self-righteousness. Sapphyra just took off a monster's head and did major property damage. Not to mention arson.

  By the time her stomach has emptied itself aears stop, she drops to the ground. Her tail coils around her as she tries to keep from ing any further undone. Sapphyra’s chest heaves up and doidly, oxygen refuses to fill her lungs. She blindly reaches a hand out, looking for anything to grab, anything to do with her hands. They tremble, opening and closing reflexively.

  The itg starts for her. Her wrists. The scars that had healed, never really felt healed. They always felt fresh, with a ‘to-be-tiattoo over them that only she could see.

  “NO! No…not again. Please.” She covered her ears as if it would block out the demonic voices in her ears, tellihat once again, she was just a pathetic freak.

  “I wanna be your man. I wanna be your savage good boy!” The punch-rock tones of her ringtone broke her out of her spell. Her phone was nearby? Her phone was nearby!

  Sapphyra sits up, giving her enviro a quick s. She sees it not but a few feet away from Simon. Simon, who is still resting peacefully, has rolled over onto his side. Now that she’s baear him, she hear him sn.

  “Must be nice.” She grumbles loudly, pig her phone up to a before she sees who it’s from.

  “Hello?!” she practically yells into the phone.

  The other end held nothing but silence. She checks the caller ID ahat it’s Pearl.

  “Pearl? Pearl, where are you?!” Sapphyra s a hand arouhroat, thinking the worst. She breaks out into a cold sweat as she holds her breath, waiting for Pearl to answer.

  “Was I muted? Holy shit! you hear me nohyra?!” As she heard Pearl's voice, she bit her knuckle to hide the sob that escaped her throat.

  “Yeah. I’m here. I hear you now, Pearl. What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “Well, I was going home when this creepy mist came out of nowhere, right? I didn’t think much of it except that e is a really weird color for mist, but whatever, yeah?”

  Sapphyra smiled. That earl alright. Talking a mile a minute, but going nowhere fast. She only gets like this when she’s afraid.

  “Get to the point, Pearl.”

  “Anyway, I was near our old high school. Old, by like one year. Weird, right?! Anyway, I figure I’ll park there. Only I parked he back, where the pool is and um…I’m not alo here Sapphyra.” She could hear somethial being hit repeatedly near Pearl.

  Sapphyra gnces back at the body of the Minotaur aail tip gently stabs into her chest and then into the sky.

  “You wao fly?” She mouths the words to her tail. It nods aly moves to her backside, extending her wings out.

  “Pearl. I’m ing to get you. Hold on. Just…just give me a sed.”

  She just needed a sed to process everything that has happened. Just a moment to get her bearings, or at least wipe some vomit off of her pants.

  “It’s not like I'm going somewhere with these-ah!” Gss shatters. Pearl screams. A car arm goes off, all in Sapphyra's ear. Then the call abruptly ends.

  So much fetting her bearings.