BOBBI

TICK, TICK, TICK...

On any normal day, Bobbi would have had no qualms with the wall clock's rhythmic sound while she sorted through boxes. Likely, she wouldn't have registered it at all. But, after multiple nights with no sleep, the incessant ticking pierced her eardrums until she swore they'd bleed.

It was tiresome waiting for her blue-haired friend turned evil-lightning-rod to show up at her cabin's doorstep, or for a flame-throwing man to "rescue" her and whisk her off to whatever dimension he and Eva had found residence.

Tick, tick, tick...

Cardboard bent under Bobbi's fingers. She stared at the box's haphazardly thrown-in TTRPG supplies, wondering which would be heavy enough to break the clock if thrown with enough force.

A shiny, spherical object caught her eye. She pulled the metal hundred-sided die out with a sly grin and envisioned herself chucking it at the torturous ticking device so hard that the internal gears split. It had been heavy enough to leave a dent in the wooden floorboards when Eva dropped it a few months prior; surely, it would've been enough to relieve her pounding headache. Bobbi chuckled at the thought.

And then paused.

It must have been her imagination that a sudden chill nipped the air when she lifted her eyes. Clutching the metal die to her chest, she squinted to make sure she wasn't seeing things in the dim light.

The clock hands had frozen. She should've been excited. The nails-on-a-chalkboard tick had finally ceased, leaving only the howling wind outside to fill her eardrums, but she shivered at the motionless hands.

12:37 a.m.

A loud bang on the cabin door made Bobbi leap from her spot on the floor. The hundred-sided die flung from her grasp, landing on the hardwood with an equally loud thunk.

The rapping continued in a slow, steady rhythm. Bobbi's eyes lingered on the glimmering Runestone lying discarded on the coffee table. She didn't trust its power, not after her run-in with the spider a few days before. Besides, she hardly knew Emrys even when he hid under Jensen's disguise. Did she really want to risk putting some weird crystal around her neck just because he said so?

After how fast Kali turned into a... whatever she was, Bobbi couldn't imagine trusting anything.

Two more bangs hammered the door, each louder than the last. She needed a plan. Fast.

In a moment of panic, she ripped the tube socks from her feet, leaving her skin bare against the chilly floor. She slid her hundred-sided die into the first sock and another identical die from her box in the other. If they could leave a dent in her floor, maybe a swinging metal sphere would leave a dent in someone's head before they could execute her with magic.

One could hope.

Gripping her sock-weapons tight, she tiptoed closer to the door. The howling wind whistled sharply against her eardrums, blocking out all but the intermittent knocks.

With one sock prepared to swing, she wrapped her fingers around the metal knob. The slightest twist brought the door careening in, driven by a gust of wind that sent it smacking back into the wall with such force that she feared it would fly from its hinges. In its place stood a short figure, silhouetted against the rainy woods beyond.

"There you are!"

A battle cry erupted from Bobbi's lips, and she swung her left sock at the invader. The figure ducked just in time. Her metal die cracked against the doorframe, snapping a chunk off the wood before the splinter was whisked away by the wind.

It was only then that Bobbi caught the invader's wide-eyed stare.

"...Iris?"

Iris stretched back to full height. With strands of crimson and chocolate hair matted against her face from the rain, she almost didn't look like the same woman. Her sunken eyes appeared hollow in the night, as if she hadn't slept in weeks.

"What a way to greet your girlfriend." Iris slicked back her soaked bangs. "Do you mind if I...?"

She gestured to the door, still flapping in the wind. Bobbi nodded, allowing Iris to grab the door and force it shut. With the door finally secured, and the howling storm safely outside once again, Iris turned to flash a smile that should have sent Bobbi's heart aflutter. Instead, she took a step back.

Something wasn't right.

"Why are you here?" she asked, fists curling tighter around her makeshift weapons. "How did you know I'd be here?"

Iris shook her head with a toothy grin—one too wide for a woman so perpetually high-strung. She stepped forward to close the gap between them.

"Oh, Bobbi." Iris' voice lowered to a seductive rumble. "The other employees heard about the fire, but your car was nowhere to be found. Almost like you... ran off."

She took another step, and Bobbi continued to back away from her advance. Iris tilted her head.

"You always told me you come here when you need to get away. Are you running from something, Bobbi?"

Iris batted her lashes. Her emerald eyes, an ethereal shade that usually took Bobbi's breath away, dimmed under the subtle light. Darkness enveloped their dazzling color until nothing remained but inky voids.

Bobbi blinked, hoping—praying—it was only her imagination. But every blink brought the sight of Iris' progressively darkening pupils.

"I should've known that Emrys would warn you."

Every hair on the back of Bobbi's neck stood at attention. As she quickened her backward pace, she stumbled over the cardboard box she had been rifling through moments before and nearly knocked herself to the floor.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You know him as... Jensen." Bright green sparks flashed across the empty voids of Iris' eyes.

Black webs sprouted from her fingertips, curling up her arms in intricate patterns that strangled her pale skin. Her grin widened, stretching her lips beyond human limits. The skin receded from her mouth; the lower half of her face split to reveal an endless black maw.

Iris cackled. The sharp, piercing sound echoed off the walls as if a hundred clones screeched their amusement in unison. Stepping closer, her excited wails grew increasingly boisterous.

As Bobbi backed farther away from the creature that had once been her lover, the faintest shimmer of scarlet caught her eye from the coffee table.

The Runestone.

Bobbi leapt at the demonic woman. Iris' inky eyes widened as a sock-covered metal die cracked between them.

She stumbled away from the impact—away from Bobbi, who took the opportunity to sprint for the precious crystal. The closer she got, and the more she focused on Emrys inside her mind, the brighter its glow became, until the room bled with crimson light.

"Silly girl."

Slimy, black tendrils wrapped around Bobbi's limbs, yanking her backward with a strength the skinny strands shouldn't have possessed. They knocked her to the ground and pulled her across the floorboards toward the split-faced woman.

The Runestone's glow faded at an alarming rate.

"Emrys!" Bobbi cried. "Please!"

She didn't know if he would hear her, but she refused to give up. The tendrils slithered up her chest with suffocating force. Bobbi dug her fingernails into the mucousy constraints, as if subtle piercing would loosen her tightening bonds. They crept up her neck and strangled her airways.

"Emrys!" She tried to scream his name at the top of her lungs, but it came out with such a choked sound that she could hardly hear herself over the sucking and squelching Corruption. "Emrys!"

One wriggly web stretched over her mouth to silence her pleas. Her lungs burned for air that the tendrils refused to allow her. Iris' laugh echoed in her ears, filled with twisted malice. Flashes of lightning lit the cabin, dancing in unison with the vile sound.

It was too much. The sound... the light... no air...

Her lips parted in a silent scream for Emrys. For Eva. For anyone.

But no one came.

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