It was the end of the world, and all Rinley Valemont could think about was how itchy her back was.
That and how she was definitely going to die in mismatched socks.
Outside the hospital window, the sky had turned a deep, molten red, bleeding into violet clouds that churned like ink in water. Somewhere beyond the horizon, the city screamed. Buildings collapsed into fire, sirens wailed, because the apocalypse was apparently written by someone with a flair.
As the dramatic portals tore through the sky like rips in old jeans. From them came things. Not demons, they were not even aliens, some would say otherworldly, but they were not even monsters she could name. Just *things* with too many limbs and teeth in places that made her stomach roll.
She sat up slowly, joints creaking, staring out from her bed like someone watching a fire from inside a snow globe. Her hospital gown stuck to her back, drenched in sweat. The dim lights flickered overhead and the only sound in the room, besides distant explosions, was the heart monitor beeping with the steady rhythm of a body still alive out of spite.
Rinley sighed. "Figures, no one would waste time coming for me," she muttered.
Her room shuddered as something enormous crashed into the street below. Plaster crumbled from the ceiling. The IV stand next to her tipped and fell with a sad little clunk.
She stared at it, then looked down at her leg, her *other* leg. The real one had been taken out of commission during what she liked to call a science incident, back when she was young, idealistic, and dumb enough to let military-funded doctors poke her brain, when they said they would make her stronger.
They made her beep instead.
Her prosthetic, sleek, functional, and uncomfortably shiny, sat against the wall where someone had left it last night. It glinted under the emergency lights.
"Well," Rinley said to the empty room, "no use dying horizontal."
She forced herself upright, her body aching. Every movement came with the stiffness of too many surgeries and too little hope. Her hands shook as she pulled the leg toward her and began to strap it on. The clips clicked into place with a satisfying snap.
From the hallway, a scream tore through the silence. Not a monster's scream, a human. Someone running, maybe. Maybe not fast enough.
Rinley paused, then stood on both feet for the first time in days, despite the ache coursing through her body.
"Let it be known," she said to no one, "that Rinley Valemont, college dropout and coffee loyalty card hoarder, chose to stand up at the end of the world."
She grabbed the nearest coat, hospital-issued, two sizes too big and limped her way toward the door.
Was she in pain? Yes. Could she fight? Absolutely not. But something in her stirred, something reckless, probably stupid, and maybe just a little heroic, even if she did not believe in those things.
"If I die doing something noble," she grunted, limping faster, "maybe I will cancel out all the sins I accidentally created along my life."
She opened the door and stepped into hell.
The hallway was chaos. The walls were cracked; papers scattered like confetti at a very depressing party. A gurney had crashed into the far end, broken glass everywhere. The air smelled of smoke and fear, sharp and metallic.
She heard crying not far from where she stood and her eyes narrowed.
She turned the corner and saw a boy, six or seven maybe, curled under a bench, his eyes wide and hands over his ears. Alone.
"Hey," she called gently, "kid."
His head snapped toward her as he flinched in fear.
"I'm not a monster," she said, holding up her hands. "I'm just built like one."
He didn't laugh. Fair enough.
She knelt beside him, grimacing as her knee clicked. "We've got to go, alright? This place isn't safe."
He nodded but didn't move as she reached for him and something roared from the stairwell.
Hearing that, Rinley's head whipped around.
From the smoke came a hulking figure, at least eight feet tall, gray and armored like a beetle wearing medieval cosplay. Its mouth opened sideways, revealing rows of jagged, twitching teeth.
It locked eyes on her.
"Oh come on," Rinley snapped. "He's seven. I am the adult here. Eat me!"
The boy stared at her in horror.
Rinley blinked. "Okay, that… might have come out wrong."
The creature charged towards them and the child screamed.
Rinley did what any half-dead, cybernetic woman with bad knees would do, she grabbed the kid and ran.
Or at least, she tried to.
Running with a metal leg was not graceful. It clicked and hissed and occasionally got stuck on floor tiles. But she hauled herself down the hallway with the kind of adrenaline that only comes from knowing you are absolutely, without a doubt, going to die in the dumbest possible way.
Behind them, the creature barreled after her, crushing benches and plaster underfoot.
"Why are hospital hallways so long!?" she shrieked.
The elevator dinged ahead and opened, but before she could reach, she tripped over the only intact mop bucket on the floor.
She went flying, arms flailing, the kid slipping from her grasp as she crashed face-first into the elevator door frame.
The kid rolled inside, unharmed, but Rinley did not.
Her last thought as the world exploded around her was not noble or poetic.
It was, "I swear to god, if this is how I die, I am haunting whoever left that mop bucket there."
And then, everything stopped around her.
The roar faded.
The heat evaporated.
Time itself seemed to pause, like the universe held its breath.
The pain in her back vanished and in the sudden stillness, floating in darkness, came a voice.
Low. Powerful. Almost annoyed.
"You tried to act with selflessness. Unfamiliar. Unusual. Noted."
"Wait," Rinley muttered, barely conscious. "Is this judgment? Am I being… graded?"
"You asked for a second chance. You shall receive it. With conditions."
She tried to focus, but her vision was full of swirling stars, she could see her hands, her legs even the prosthetic one, floating in weightless dark.
"A new world awaits. A path yet untaken. Rise, Rinley Valemont... and try not to trip over any buckets this time."
Her eyebrows lifted. "...That's fair."
But, before she could say another word or ask any question, light surged around her and Rinley, for the second time in a day, blacked out.
Only this time, she wasn't falling toward death.
She was falling toward something much worse.
**A second chance.**