The door slammed behind her with a hollow thud, shaking the tools on the walls. The moment it latched, Callista staggered forward, bracing herself against the nearest workbench as the weight of the last hour crashed down on her all at once.
Her breath hitched—short, uneven gasps that stuck in her throat like she was choking on nothing at all. The room swayed. Her vision blurred. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening.
The workshop was safe.
The workshop was hers.
She squeezed her eyes shut, nails digging into the wood as she focused on the familiar scent of oil and iron. On the comforting tick of gears and the hum of mana-fed lamps overhead. On anything but the memory of snarling bugbears and the hot, searing pain of a mace tearing into her skin.
She had barely hung on by a thread, Had Aether not been out of there, covering her retreat while she ran, sobbing, stumbling over her own feet like a wounded animal.
She should have died.
She should have died!
Her fingers twitched. She needed to work. She needed to fix something to control something, anything because right now her own body wasn’t listening to her. Her hands trembled so badly she could barely untangle the straps on her tool belt, her breath refusing to even out no matter how many times she told herself she was fine.
But then she caught sight of the blood.
It was dried now, caking over her fingers, smeared along the sleeves of her coat, hers, proof that she had been one second away from never making it back to this room again. A violent sob tore out of her throat before she could swallow it down.
The sound startled Aether, who had been dutifully unloading gear from its storage compartment. The little automaton chirped, its optics flashing as it turned toward her.
Callista ignored it. She yanked her gloves off, tearing at the blood-stiffened fabric, flinging them into the corner where they hit the floor with a lifeless slap. Her breath heaved. She wiped at her face, her hands shaking so violently they barely obeyed her.
She tried to will herself still. She had always been able to push past it before—to tuck the fear away, shove it into a dark corner of her mind where she never had to look at it.
But tonight, the walls were too thin.
She clutched at the workbench like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Her knees buckled. And before she could stop herself, she slid all the way down to the floor, curling into herself as silent, shuddering sobs wracked her entire frame.
Aether, after a long moment of observation, quietly rolled over to her side. It didn’t try to beep or reassure her. It didn’t try to fix anything. Instead, it simply sat there metallic limbs tucking in, optics dimming, mirroring her stillness as though recognizing that, for once, there was no blueprint for this.
Callista pressed a hand to her chest, trying to force her breathing back into rhythm, but every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was the battlefield. The chaos. The moment she felt metal tear into her skin, the realization that she couldn’t actually move.
Aether’s quiet chirp broke through the silence.
Callista hiccupped, forcing a weak, broken laugh through the mess of tears streaking down her face. “Not helping.”
Aether beeped neutrally, a sound that, somehow, sounded entirely like I know.
She let her head fall back against the bench, staring at the ceiling with wet, red-rimmed eyes. Her body felt empty, hollow, like all the noise inside her had finally spilled out, leaving nothing but an exhausted husk behind.
Her hands still shook and she still felt sick as though her body began to turn to lead. For a long time, she just sat there, Aether by her side, until her eyes closed...
(( failed for 3 str damage from corruption sickness ))
