"Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will" - Suzy Kassem

The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind her, the latch falling into place with an ominous finality. The locks turned with sharp, metallic clicks until there was nothing left to bolt. The workshop stood in silence, save for the quiet hum of the Indomitus Core, suspended midair in its cradle, casting flickering violet shadows along the walls. Aether twitched slightly where it perched near the workbench, its glowing optic whirring as it tracked her erratic movements.

But Callista didn’t stop.

She moved in a mechanical daze, her breath hitching as she stumbled toward the back. Her boots felt like lead, every step dragging her down until she reached her quarters. The moment she entered, she ripped the linens from her bed, her fingers clenching the fabric as if it were the only thing anchoring her. The pillows, the blanket, the sheets—all of it—torn away in frantic, hollow movements. And then without utterance, she crawled under the frame, her miniscule form squeezing into the tight, suffocating darkness.

There, wrapped in the tangled mess of fabric, she curled in on herself, pulling the linens around her like armor against the world beyond the walls of her shop. The cold air of the room whispered against her skin, but she couldn’t feel it. She could only hear her own breath quivering in her lungs and the aching throb in her hands where they had clenched too hard.

She would be safe here.

Safe, where the world couldn’t reach her.

Safe, where the screams wouldn’t touch her.

But the silence was worse.

The first tear fell before she realized she was crying. And then another. And another. Until, finally, her body gave in, wracked with shuddering sobs that she buried into the twisted fabric around her.

And in that miserable cocoon, Callista cried herself into a fitful sleep.

The Decaying Dream

The air was thick, suffocating, pressing down on her chest... She tried to move but her limbs refused to obey. Her fingers twitched uselessly as she lay trapped in her own body, frozen, caught between sleep and waking.

Then, the darkness shifted.

A wet, gurgling sound slithered through the void, followed by a deep, inhuman snarl. She tried to scream but no sound came. The shadows pulled apart, revealing the battlefield, but it was wrong—warped—twisted into something unrecognizable. The sky bled with unnatural hues, the ground a sickly black sludge, swallowing everything in its path under the relentless torrent of crimson rain.

Jaeson stood at the front, his hand raised, the light catching in his silver eyes—then the troll was there, faster than she could react. Clawed fingers closed around his torso, lifting him from the ground. Jaeson screamed, a blood-curdling sound that ripped through her, his ribs snapping like brittle twigs. Callista tried to run, to move, to do anything—but her body refused.

Helpless. Helpless. Helpless.

The troll’s jagged teeth sank into his stomach, ripping , and tearing. His organs spilling in sickening splatter against the warped snow like ink on parchment. His lifeless eyes locked onto hers. Accusing. Empty.

She turned—Skaggi, axe raised, charging—his head crushed in a single blow. Snowdrop, screaming as she twisted in ways a body should never be until nothing remained but a twitching ball of meat.

One by one. They fell. And she couldn’t stop it.

Aether skittered toward her, its optic flickering—pleading—but the troll’s massive foot came down, and the automaton shattered, gears and cogs scattering like broken bones. Gone. Then it turned to her.

She couldn’t breathe.

The troll’s massive hand wrapped around her, lifting her effortlessly into the air. The pressure was unbearable—, ribs bending, cracking, breaking. Her vision swam, black spots swallowing the edges of her sight as it brought her to its mouth, hot breath washing over her, thick with the stench of decay. She thrashed, she clawed, and she screamed—but there was nothing she could do as she was lowered into its gaping maw, staring down the endless abyss of teeth.

And then—she fell.

Callista woke screaming.

Her body jerked violently, tangled in the suffocating cocoon of her own linens. She clawed at them, gasping, coughing—her limbs frantic as if she were still buried alive inside that monster. The sheets twisted around her like living things, binding her arms, squeezing her ribs, pulling at her throat as she gagged and thrashed beneath the bed.

"No—NO! LET ME OUT!"

She barely heard her own voice. It was drowned in the deafening roar of memories—the crack of the bugbear’s mace against her ribs, the wet snap of bone, the chilling realization of her own helplessness as she had been dragged across the battlefield. The troll’s roar still echoed in her skull, the weight of its crushing grasp still squeezing the air from her lungs. Her mind shrieked, disjointed, fractured—every horrific moment crashing over her in an unstoppable flood.

"Failure."

"Weak."

"You ran."

"You begged."

"You left them to die."

Her own voice mingled with the specters in her mind, twisting and contorting into cruel mockeries of her own thoughts.

Callista curled in on herself, pressing her hands to her ears as she trembled violently beneath the bed. Her breath came in ragged gasps, too shallow, too fast—her chest tightening like a vice as the walls of reality began to blur. "Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP." But the voices didn’t stop. They never stopped.

Her hands clenched in her hair, nails digging into her scalp. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. The battle was over. The troll was dead. The bugbears were gone. But her mind—her wretched, broken mind—would not let her go. “Get out… GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

The force of her own voice sent a shudder through her body, her entire frame shaking violently as the suffocating weight of panic threatened to consume her whole. She needed to breathe. She needed to stop thinking. But how? How could she stop when every time she closed her eyes, she was there again—crushed, broken, dying?

Aether’s quiet, mechanical whirring broke through the madness. A soft click. A gentle, familiar sound.

For the first time since waking, Callista forced her eyes open. The dim glow of her workshop seeped through the darkness under her bed, casting strange, wavering shadows. Aether had moved, its small frame watching her from the floor, lens flickering with an anxious, uncertain light. "Real... This is real."

She took a shaky breath, forcing her trembling fingers to unwind from her hair. Slowly, so slowly, she reached out from the tangle of sheets and let her hand brush against the cold, reassuring metal of Aether’s frame. It was solid. It was here. Callista sucked in another breath, forcing it past the jagged tightness in her lungs. She was still shaking, her pulse still a frantic drumbeat in her ears, but she was here. She was alive.

The voices still whispered at the edges of her thoughts, lingering, waiting. But she was too exhausted to fight them anymore. For now, she clung to the cold comfort of her creation, her breathing slowing as the weight of fatigue began to press in.

Tomorrow… tomorrow, she would have to face the world again. But for now, she just needed to exist.

It was the following evening, after Snowdrops first visit. This time she came bearing food - chicken soup.

"Callista. I'm back with dinner. Are you coming out or am I gonna have to crawl in there again?"

She waited to see what would happen while heating the soup up.

Callista didn’t respond right away. The sound of Snowdrop’s voice barely registered, muffled beneath the layers of exhaustion and the ever-present static buzzing in her skull. She had come out from under the bed—if only because her body had protested the cramped space—but that didn’t mean she had left it behind. She lay curled atop the mattress, wrapped in the linens like a child hiding from nightmares, though these weren’t the kind that could be kept at bay by a blanket’s edge.

Her limbs ached with the ghost of pain that wasn’t there, yet still felt real. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the troll’s club crashing down, felt the wet snap of ribs giving way, heard the sickening thunk of bodies hitting the ground. Jaeson, the others, dying in ways that had never happened—but that her mind insisted had. Over and over, the dream replayed itself, warping, twisting, until it was impossible to tell what was real and what wasn’t.

And every time, she woke up screaming.

She knew she was unraveling. She could feel it. Like gears slipping their teeth, grinding and scraping until the whole mechanism jammed, threatening to tear itself apart. But she didn’t know how to stop it.

The scent of chicken soup curled through the workshop, its warmth cutting through the stale air. Her stomach twisted at the realization that she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten. Still, she hesitated, unwilling to move, unwilling to be seen in this state.

Callista felt a warm body crawling in next to her and at least one arm draped over her. Snowdrop didn't say anything, she just shared her warmth, and her tranquility ... and her love. Not romantic love, but the love of a sister trying to help.

And Snowdrop was determined not to leave until Callista felt a bit better.

Callista didn’t react at first. The weight beside her, the warmth of another body so close, it should have startled her—but she was too hollow to flinch, too drained to care. The air smelled of broth and herbs, a sharp contrast to the stale scent of metal, oil, and ozone that clung to the shop. It wasn’t enough to stir her from her cocoon, but it made her aware, at least, of how long it had been since she’d eaten.

Her fingers twitched against the fabric of the linens, her grip tightening unconsciously as she stared at nothing. She wanted to say something, but the words tangled in her throat.

She wasn’t okay. She wasn’t going to be okay.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again. The blood. The bodies. The way Jaeson had been torn open, for a moment, she had felt his pain as if it were her own. The troll’s roar, the crushing weight of its club sending her flying—she swore she could still taste iron in her mouth.

A small, involuntary tremor ran through her limbs. She bit the inside of her cheek to steady herself, to keep from slipping again into that spiraling abyss. For a long moment, Callista just breathed. Slow. Shallow.

Then, with great effort, she unclenched one hand from the blanket and wiped at her face, voice barely audible over the faint hum of the core still idling in the other room. “…You really shouldn’t keep coming back.”

It wasn’t an accusation. Not really. More of a quiet, defeated statement, as if she didn’t quite understand why anyone would bother.

"Cause I care ... cause we care" Snowdrop replied. "I'm your friend, and friends don't let friends wallow in misery."

She left it at that for now, but hoped that Callista would grab the mental lifeline she threw.

The room was quiet—too quiet. Snowdrop’s words hung in the air, gentle yet firm, like a tether stretched between them. But Callista wasn’t sure she had the strength to reach for it. Everything felt distant, like she was floating in a haze where time didn’t move right. She curled in on herself, pulling the linens tighter around her, as if they could shield her from the world outside.

Then, without warning, Aether moved.

It wasn’t the usual whir of servos or the click of articulated limbs adjusting—it was something else entirely. The little automaton jumped onto the bed, its weight light but deliberate, landing just beside Callista’s tangled form.

Then it stopped.

Not the usual standby mode, not an idle hum of waiting. Stopped. Completely.

No blinking lights. No quiet buzz of internal workings. Nothing.

Callista froze.

Aether never did this. Never.

A surge of panic cracked through the numb fog in her brain, her breath hitching as she reached out, pressing her trembling hands against its carapace. “Aether?” Her voice was small, raw. No response. Her fingers scrabbled over its chassis, searching for some sign of life, for something—anything—that would tell her it hadn’t just... stopped existing.

Then, with a soft click, Aether’s chest plate opened.

Inside, nestled in its mechanical heart, lay a single gear. Small, slightly scorched and bent, worn by time and heat, but unmistakably familiar.

Callista’s breath caught in her throat.

This wasn’t just any gear.

It was from the explosion that had nearly killed her. The explosion that had taken everything—her workshop, her confidence, her sense of control—and somehow, impossibly, had given her Aether in return.

Her hands shook as she reached for it, cradling the warped piece of metal in her palm. The grooves were rough, the edges singed, a relic of destruction. But it had survived. And so had she.

Her fingers tightened around the gear, feeling its weight, its significance. Aether remained motionless, waiting.

Snowdrop’s words whispered in the back of her mind.

"Friends don’t let friends wallow in misery." Callista inhaled—a deep, shaky breath—as something within her, something broken, shifted. Maybe—just maybe—she could start rebuilding.

Snowdrop looked over Callista to see what happened.

"Wow!" she said in amazement. "Aether just gave you a piece of her? his? their? heart. Literally. Darn. Wish I could do that."

"Callista. I believe Aether has awoken."

Callista barely heard Snowdrop at first. Her world had narrowed to the weight of the gear in her hand, the roughness of its scorched edges against her fingertips, the silent stillness of Aether beside her. "Awoken?"

Aether had always been awake. Always. Machines had life—she had known that since she first held a wrench in her tiny, soot-streaked hands. They breathed in steam, pulsed with energy, whispered in clicks and whirs that no one else seemed to hear. But this?

This was different. This gear… was the gear. The one that had been at the center of everything. The explosion at the ruins, the wreckage, the desperate rebuilding, the moment she had clawed her way back from the brink and made something new. Aether had chosen to give it back to her. Not just as a keepsake, as a message.

Callista swallowed hard, pressing the gear to her chest. It was warm—warmer than it should be, as if it still held the heat of the forge that had first shaped it. As if it pulsed with something deeper, something more.

She looked at Aether, motionless but present, waiting. Watching. "You always were smarter than me, weren’t you Aetherheart?"

A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips, weak but real. Callista finally lifted her gaze, something steadier settling into her expression. She didn’t wipe away the tear that had slipped down her cheek, didn’t try to hide the way her breath still shuddered through her ribs. “He’s always been awake,” Callista murmured, her voice hoarse but certain. She lifted the gear, rolling it between her fingers, feeling its weight, its promise. “And he just reminded me... it’s time I wake up too. I'm going to need my space for a while,."

/end