It was, in an oddly familiar way, cold.

  She could feel fresh, cool water dripping off of her, the steady tap, tap, tap as it beat an unyielding rhythm right next to her ear slowly rousing her back to wakefulness.

  “Ugh… turn the… turn the lights back off…”

  “…oh, there she is.”

  “I-I-Is she awake…?”

  Alice gingerly lifted her incredibly sore arm, palm open and outstretched as she tried to shield her poor eye from the brutal sunlight burning against it.

  “Where the hell…?”

  Her vision cleared just barely enough to see anything at all before there was the sound of a faucet turning, a bst of icy water striking her directly in the sternum, hard enough that it would have knocked her on her ass immediately if she hadn’t already been ying down.

  The noises of panicked gargling and filing were mostly drowned out by the flood of water itself, the impromptu attack on the newly-awakened girl halting after only a moment, her senses significantly more aware afterwards than they had been prior.

  “Fuck’s sake, can’t a girl get some sleep anymore…?”

  “Not if you’re gonna keep getting yourself blown to shit every time I see you, no.”

  She eventually rubbed enough water out of her eye to be able to see anything, squinting up at the fuzzy shape of the person speaking to her.

  “Who the hell…? Oh. Hey Lonnie.”

  “Mornin’ Alice.”

  She punctuated her greeting with another bst from the winding old hose she was holding onto, spraying Alice down like a particurly filthy dog in the same blood-soaked kiddie pool she’d been washed off in before.

  “Gugh, stop!”

  It took the older woman a few long moments of contemption to consider whether or not she she should actually stop, eventually relenting and allowing the flow of water to trickle off, gingerly setting the hose down over the edge of the inftable tub.

  “You got any idea how annoying you are to move around when you’re passed out? I don’t got the kinda energy for dealing with this every day.”

  “Blegh… no one asked you to, you old bat. Besides, I don’t even weigh that much.”

  “You don’t, but the stuff you keep gluing yourself to does, and this time you weren’t even polite enough to snap most of it out of yourself before you conked out.”

  She hooked a thumb over to the side, directing the sprawled out heap of a woman’s attention over to the far end of the backyard they were in.

  A massive tarp was haphazardly stretched out over an entire corner of the wn, uneven patterns of bumps and lumps rising from underneath it as dark, splotchy areas dotted the pstic material, the very tip of an unpleasantly familiar bde poking out from under the edge closest to her.

  “…wait, was I still…?”

  “Still stabbed all the way through that thing when I got to you? You sure were, and as knocked out as you were, your goddamn organs were still nice and knotted up all pretty around it like a little bow. Made it real fun to have to drag back through one of my portals at damn near midnight.”

  “…oh. Yeah, uh… s-sorry about that.”

  “Don’t just apologize to me. Your much more polite friend here did most of the heavy lifting for getting you back here, so thank her.”

  “Friend…?”

  She slowly craned her neck over, remembering the other voice she’d heard as she was waking up, searching for anyone else there with them.

  And after searching the entire yard in front of herself, she let her head fall backwards against the wall of the pool she’d been id in, immediately finding the face of a girl she’d met twice already inches away from hers, an expression of genuinely panicked concern spread over her gentle features.

  “Gah!”

  “I-I’m so gd you’re finally awake again…! I was scared when you passed out earlier and had no idea w-what to even do, until Miss Lonnie--”

  “Just Lonnie.”

  “--r-right, sorry, until Lonnie got there and asked me to just help carry you here… I don’t have any kind of h-healing magic or anything so I wasn’t sure what I could do, s-so I’ve just been trying to do whatever I can while I waited for you to hopefully wake back up…”

  Her voice trembled, a shaky smile forming underneath eyes that had clearly already spent all the tears they had avaible.

  “…I’m just… I-I’m so gd you’re okay…!!”

  Arms wrapped around Alice’s chest from behind, tightening hard enough to make her gag from her sore and battered body being crushed once more as she was pulled into a sudden bear hug, gasping for air as she was squished tightly.

  “Gugh… g-gentle…!”

  “Eh…? Oh! Sorry, s-sorry!”

  She released Alice quickly, a thin splotch of dried blood sticking to her otherwise spotless clothes, the girl pulling back bashfully, leaving the woman lying in her depressing little kiddie pool to catch her breath as she once more stumbled back from the brink of death.

  “Better… guh. Yeah, thanks for the help back there, uh… sorry, did I catch your name yet? Head’s still a little light here.”

  Idly picking at the new stain in the center of her shirt, she snapped back to attention once more, shooting up to her feet and rushing to the opposite side of the tiny pstic receptacle, bowing needlessly deeply before she spoke.

  “M-M-My name is Gwyn Lapin, rookie magical girl for the Library Magus! It’s a p-pleasure to meet you, um… ma’am!”

  “Oh, uh, Alice. Alice Decaras.”

  “Alice… got it, I won’t forget it again, ma’am!”

  The younger girl was practically glowing as she stared down at her, eyes twinkling brightly with hopeful, childish admiration for the beaten sack sitting in her pool.

  “Well… yeah, thanks for all the help back there Gwyn. And for helping get me back here too I guess.”

  “I-It’s the least I could do after you saved my life twice already, ma’am!”

  “…you can feel free to drop the ‘ma’am’ bit, just Alice is fine.”

  “Oh! O-Okay ma’am!”

  “…”

  The pair stared at one another for an awkwardly long, silent moment, one side practically glowing with energy and relief, the other feeling the few scraps of energy they’d recovered already draining from their broken body once again.

  The sudden silence wasn’t broken until Lonnie coughed politely a few times, still loosely holding the end of her hose as she watched the two of them introduce one another.

  “…well, you kids seem to finally be done chatting, so how about we let Alice here finish her spraying herself down?”

  “Oh, um, s-sure, I can help with--”

  “Gwyn, I know you’re dying to make yourself useful, but maybe let her bathe and change clothes alone?”

  It took another several seconds for her neurons to connect the disparate thoughts in her head together, finally clicking together as her gaze shot down to the floor, her face turning almost as red as the stain melted into her top.

  “…o-o-oh, um, y-yeah, right. Let’s head back in…!”

  Refusing to make eye contact with either of them, she scuttled rapidly back towards the back door of the house, showing herself in and pulling the door shut again behind her, only barely muffling the immediate, anguished, embarrassed scream that came from her after.

  Lonnie chuckled to herself before looking back towards Alice, draping the old hose across the side of the pool before heading back in herself, leaving the one-eyed girl to her own devices in the cold morning air.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  There was a click as the back door opened several minutes ter, heavy, clumsy footsteps following after before the same click signaled the door being slid shut and tched back into pce once again.

  A refolded sweater and pair of sweatpants greeted her as soon as she stepped in again, the girl carefully pulling them back on, every motion making her head spin, threatening to topple over from every little exertion she made.

  Dressing herself felt like a Herculean task, but she somehow eventually managed it, bracing herself against the wall of the hallway for stability as she traced the path to Lonnie’s dining room yet again.

  Despite her own legs almost refusing to move as she instructed, she finally managed to stumble to her destination, finding Lonnie and Gwyn both seated at the table, the news turned on and providing quiet background noise to cover her own noises of falling forwards through the house.

  “Recovery crew staff and several other civilian eyewitnesses reported a second sighting of the strange duo we saw yesterday sometime te st evening. However the timely appearance of a local magical girl to the scene as the attack began managed to minimize the damage dealt by this instance, though the identities of the perpetrators or the magical girl both remain unclear to all involved at this time.”

  “…great, now people have more reason to fucking despise me.”

  The seated pair turned their attention to the smaller girl they’d both failed to notice joining them, Lonnie electing to remain seated as she chewed the end of her stump of a cigarette, and allowing Gwyn the privilege of rocketing up from her seat to serve as a brace for her barely-standing mentor.

  “…ah, you’re back! Here, l-lemme help you, ma’am!”

  Alice managed to, somehow, keep upright as she was all but tackled by the taller woman, feeling the wind knocked from her no-longer-punctured lungs as she was pulled up close against her, face squished into her side as she was effectively just carried over to the kitchen table.

  She colpsed into the seat as she was finally delivered, Gwyn immediately turning around again and stepping out of the room to work on something as she was left to sit in peace for a moment.

  “Well, doesn’t seem like everyone hates you, at least.”

  “Eh…?”

  Lonnie didn’t bother eborating, instead moving right along and taking a long swig of her still-steaming tea before speaking up again.

  “So, kid, how you feeling right now?”

  “Like shit, seeing as I can’t even walk home without someone trying to kill me.”

  “I meant more on the physical side of things, actually.”

  “Oh, okay. Even fucking worse, then. Even just turning my head a little makes me wanna pass out…”

  “That so? Just the pain not going away, or…?”

  “I… guess? It doesn’t feel like it’s hurting though, more like… I dunno. I can feel everything too much.”

  She let her eye close, steadying her breathing as best as she could, resting one hand against her chest.

  “Like… I can feel my heart beating, every single thump. Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump. I know you can always feel it if you focus, but it’s deafening right now, I can’t stop hearing it. And I can feel all my blood moving under my skin, winding back and forth constantly, like something burrowing under my skin.”

  “Hmm… hypersensitivity to your own bodily functions, huh? Guess that tracks with what I’ve seen you do already.”

  “Eh?”

  “Well, the kind of magic you’re doing seems to all be focused internally, so it makes sense you’d feel your body better with it, because all those circuits inside of you got rewired to let you fiddle with all of them.”

  “That would be correct, yes. I haven’t been able to fully complete the magical circuitry rerouting yet however, given how little rest time I’ve been given to work with.”

  The voice echoing through her skull finally spoke up again, feeling the skin around her eye pulling and twisting as the fanged maw roused itself.

  “Oh, someone finally decided to wake up.”

  “Hmph, I believe I informed you that I would refrain from making my presence overbearing if at all possible. Furthermore, I simply dislike speaking needlessly.”

  “Huh, you really gave me the impression of someone who loves hearing themselves talk.”

  “As polite as eve, aren’t we?”

  “The hell is all this about rewiring my circuits or whatever, huh?”

  “That would be me working to fulfill my end of our pact. The human body is wonderful at conducting magical energy innately, but it needs still be refined somewhat to lessen the wasted energy exerted.”

  “So it’s your fault I can’t hear anything over my own organs writhing, got it.”

  “You do seem to make a point of not listening to things said to you, don’t you? I only just said I am still in the process of completing my adjustments to your circuitry. Your specific case is quite a bit more… involved than others I have studied in the past, so the process is significantly slower than I would have expected it to be.”

  “What do you mean, ‘ more involved’?”

  “Well, your circumstances are, to my knowledge, one-of-a-kind amongst all magical girls whose pacts I have been made aware of.”

  “My circumstances…?”

  “What your friend here is trying to get across somewhat diplomatically is that magical girls don’t typically die before making their pacts.”

  “…that is correct, thank you.”

  “Wait wait wait, I thought the whole shtick here was that I couldn’t die?”

  “And that too is a correct and factual statement.”

  Sclera sighed, Alice feeling the rush of wind over the skin around the occupied socket as they prepared to speak again.

  “You cannot die… because for all biological intents and purposes, you have already died. Hence the complicated state of our arrangement.”

  Her mouth opened slightly, trying to utter something, but finding words abandoning her entirely.

  “I…”

  Lonnie looked off to the side, her normally unchanging facade faltering ever so slightly now, unsure of how she would’ve broken this news she already knew, falling back on Sclera to bring up the topic they’d already expined to her hours prior.

  “…no no no, if I’m supposed to already be dead, why am I still up and walking and talking and… my blood is still warm, see!”

  She pressed two fingers to the side of her neck, finding the sensation of pumping blood rushing through her jugur vein, carrying the sound of own crashing heartbeat through her skin as it pumped away.

  “Yes you are, and yes it is. I mentioned the concept of living past death before shortly after you first awoke and… messily removed that piece of loose structural debris from your cerebrum. I believe that to be a much more apt descriptor of our current and decidedly unusual pact.”

  “Unusual…?”

  “Most magical girls don’t get a pact entity taking up rent in their skull, for one.”

  Lonnie finally spoke up again, still looking out the window at idly passing traffic rather than making eye contact with her returning guest.

  “And I had no intentions of doing so either. However in the millisecond it took me to appear to them, they had already fallen, and could barely cling to the scant few moments of life that still remained to them. So I… overextended my proffered service.”

  “Can you two stop fucking talking around me and tell me what you’re both on about here?!”

  Alice had leapt back to her feet, hands smmed against the table, the sudden motion almost instantly knocking the wind out of her as she fell directly back into her seat below, coughing up a tiny sptter of blood against her lips as her head spun.

  “Right… right, sorry kid. I’ll let the eye talk.”

  “I apologize for distressing you, It was not my intent--”

  “It’s… it’s fine. Just… expin.”

  “Of course.”

  They cleared whatever equivalent they possessed to a throat, gathering their thoughts clearly before beginning to speak with a banced, measured cadence.

  “For all intents and purposes, your body died in the instant before we first met. Had I not offered you my pact, and had you not accepted it, your soul would have followed after your body’s death.”

  Her head spun more as she listened, but she refrained from speaking, wanting them to finish.

  “However, as you accepted my pact, your body still accepted my own magic inside of it. And devoid of life as it was, its pull was significantly greater than I could have expected beforehand. Rather than being content with taking my blessing alone, the now-empty vessel pulled all of me into it, forcibly refilling itself with my own abundant life force as your consciousness still clung onto mine.”

  “Most pact entities are content with just finding a candidate, making the pact, stamping them with some kinda magical affinity, and wandering off again. Mine was, anyways. But yours went ahead and stapled themselves onto you.”

  Alice slid down into her seat, her heartbeat growing louder and louder still against her eardrums. She sat there in silent contemption, eye locked once more upon the rough texture of the ceiling above her, every ache in her muscles feeling more prominent than ever the longer she sat there.

  “So… I’m dead.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. Though in a biological sense, you still retain the normal functions and capabilities of any other living human.”

  “And you’re stuck inside me.”

  “…I am, yes. But only through my own choice of actions.”

  She fell silent again, still staring into empty space.

  “If it’s of any consotion, your body is exceptionally receptive to life-aspected magics, more so than most candidates I’ve witnessed in my time, so you may find yourself soon feeling even more alive once—”

  “…gd I make for a good dissection.”

  “…oh, um, that’s not what I… my intent was more to reassure you, or…”

  Sclera stumbled over words for the first time since she’d first encountered them, the well-spoken entity failing miserably at their fumbling attempt at empathy.

  The toothy maw opened once more to speak, the first hint of a statement slipping loose before rushing footsteps drowned it out, a returning Gwyn crashing in from the other room, a smile beaming from ear to ear, carrying several boxes between her arms as she stampeded back into the awkward silence she’d missed.

  “S-Sorry I took so long everyone! I got us food!”

  Her expression melted into confusion as she finally looked at the other occupants of the room, having expected a more joyous reception to the arrival of piles and piles of greasy takeout.

  “…am I interrupting something…?”

  “Maybe we can eat ter, Gwyn, we’re--”

  “Not at all. Thanks for the food, I’m starving.”

  Alice cut Lonnie off, already sitting herself up again, forcing the tiniest of smiles onto her face as she looked at the other girl.

  “Oh! W-Well… eat up then!”

  She rushed forwards, already spreading boxes of food and pstic cutlery across the table, the smell of oily food and cheap paper boxes burning right through the tension that had filled the room.