The trees rustled wrong tonight.
It wasn't the wind. Peri knew wind. Wind had rhythm. This was a twitch. A pulse. Something twitching beneath the skin of the forest.
They had barely set up camp an hour ago. Amalia had been practicing a simple summoning ritual by the fire, gentle fingers tracing glyphs on a bleached bone tablet. Her dark eyes—almost too dark—reflected the orange glow of the flames like onyx mirrors. Nihil—Peri—sat across from her, pretending to sharpen his rapier with a whetstone he barely used.
In truth, he was watching. Listening.
Waiting.
Gods, this worldline was already rotting. The fable wasn't broken—it was spoiling.
"Do you hear that?" Amalia's voice was quiet, too quiet. She paused in her etching.
Peri's head tilted slightly, like a dog catching a far-off whistle. "Mm. Yeah. That's the sound of our peaceful dinner being canceled."
Then he stood.
Fast.
Unnaturally fast for a boy with a scholar's frame and nerd-glasses. His eyes glinted an unnatural green behind the lenses, narrowing as he scanned the treeline.
"It's too early for them," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Should've been chapter nine or ten. What is this, a filler fight before a boss cutscene?"
Amalia blinked. "Peri?"
"I meant—" He forced a smile. "Nothing. Just... put the bones down and get ready to do something terrifying and dramatic."
The first beast broke from the tree line, skin sloughing off its frame like a wet coat. Its face was too long, too many teeth. It hissed through a shredded throat.
Peri stepped forward before it could fully screech. His rapier flashed.
One clean slice—then another. Not enough. These weren't E-level beasts anymore. Not even close.
Behind him, bones clattered to the earth. Amalia was already summoning. Her lips moved fast, Latin-sounding syllables wrapped in necrotic magic. Cold wind surged across the campsite as skeletal arms ripped from the earth, dragging half-formed warriors into the world.
"Three? You can only summon three?" Peri called, dodging a clawed swipe from a second monster. "C'mon, Amalia. There's more of them than the ghosts in your trauma!"
"I'm not fully prepared!" she shouted. "I didn't—They shouldn't have—!"
"Yeah, join the club!" He parried a blow with his rapier, feeling the metal tremble against thickened hide. "Nobody told me this was going to be a mid-season twist arc!"
He stabbed again, burying the blade deep into the monster's eye. It shrieked—but didn't fall.
Of course not. That would be merciful.
Behind him, the undead soldiers Amalia raised clashed with another wave of beasts—horrid creatures made of bone and rot, stitched by magic gone wrong. Peri grunted, stepping back, heart thudding.
It wasn't fear.
It was exhaustion.
He had fought in too many of these already. And not just this worldline. There were others. He could feel them like pages in a book he hadn't opened yet, calling. Waiting. Rotting too.
Amalia shouted again, this time more urgent. "Peri! Behind you!"
He spun. Too slow. One of the beasts had circled around, lunging toward his back.
A spectral arm intercepted it.
One of Amalia's soldiers.
It grunted, driving its rusted spear through the beast's jaw, impaling it with a satisfying crunch. The monster twitched, then stilled.
Peri exhaled. "Remind me to upgrade your ghostboys. They just saved my gorgeous spine."
Amalia didn't answer. Her face was pale, and not just because of the necromantic energy. Her hands trembled.
She was scared. Again.
Of course she was. Bandits had triggered her. Now monsters were pouring out of the woods like pus from a wound.
And Jeremy—wonderful, gothic, healer-boy Jeremy—was still off the page.
Peri sighed, stepping back into her range. "Oi."
She didn't meet his eyes.
"I said: Oi, Rose Girl."
"I—I'm trying—" she whispered.
"Try louder. Your skeletons are fighting harder than you are."
Amalia flinched. He hated saying it. But she needed to break through the fear.
"You can be scared later," he said, his voice sharp and sugar-sweet. "Cry, scream, write a diary entry—hell, summon a ghost therapist—I don't care. But right now? I need you to wake the dead like a badass. Because I'm two seconds from passing out and if I die you'll have to cook your own dinner."
Her hands steadied.
Good girl.
Another wave of beasts crashed through the clearing. Peri's body moved again, sword slashing, legs burning.
He laughed.
Softly at first, then louder. It wasn't joy. It was spite. Laughter like oil—unsettling, slippery, too loud in the dark.
"Keep coming, freaks," he hissed.
He slashed, ducked, stabbed. Blood—not his—splattered his glasses. His jade-green eyes gleamed behind the fogged lenses.
One more down. Another took its place.
Amalia stood tall now, the earth around her shuddering as new glyphs bloomed. "They won't stop."
"Nope," Peri said, "but guess what? Neither do I."
He screamed and charged.
And in the silence between sword strikes, his real thoughts drifted, somewhere cold:
Another broken tale. Another world I don't belong in. Let's get this over with.