Once upon a time, there was a girl who did a stupid thing for love. To atone for her crime, the gods demanded that she avenge her people by ridding the oneness of those that had destroyed them: the humans. Together with the only other survivor of the alpen race, Selina, she travelled from world to world seeking vengeance. Most of the time, all they needed to do was assassinate a key figure or two and the self-destructive humans would wipe themselves out. But at other times, things were a little more hands-on. At first, the girl kept track of how many lives she'd taken, for it weighed heavily on her conscience. But after a while, she lost count. All she knew was that there was enough blood on her hands to fill an ocean, and yet the gods were not sated.

     For ten years, in alpen time, she'd carried out her mission. She thought she'd seen enough filth and depravity to make her insides rot once and for all; she was naïve. Eventually, her mission led her to a world dominated by humans. They'd multiplied like ants until they'd infested the entire planet. There was no saving this world; it was already lost.

     "The gods must have been mistaken," said the girl, drawing up her hood. She couldn't risk anyone spotting her pointed ears. Especially in the middle of the afternoon, when she couldn't play it off as a trick of the light. "There's nothing we can do here."

     "Oh, but there is," said Selina, licking her lips.

     They walked slowly through the neighbourhood—quaint little houses all in a row, each with a neatly trimmed lawn in front. A family of humans housed in every one. Blissfully unaware of how their very existence was a blight on their universe.

     "There's a girl," said Selina, waving her gauntleted hand about to emphasize her words. "She is destined to play a pivotal role in the ruin of all that is good. But her powers are weak. Underdeveloped. If we stop her now, none of the horrors she is to be responsible for will come to pass."

     "If we stop her now, we'll be killing an innocent child."

     "Innocent?" Selina frowned. The sun hung low in the sky, illuminating her from behind. Her golden hair sparkled. Her green eyes bore into the nameless girl's soul, melting her from the inside.

     "Forgive me," said the girl. "It isn't my place to question the will of the gods."

     Selina nodded. "Besides, I'm not asking you to kill her. The gods appointed me with the right to pass judgment on the cursed child, not you." The girl winced—she too had been a cursed child once, a maqpi. Only her curse had turned out far worse than she'd ever imagined. To put this child out of its misery would be doing it a favour; if only someone had done as much for her. "You just need to help me find her."

     They split up when they reached a fork in the road. The nameless girl crept along the sidewalk, every now and then catching sight of a child at play, or a stray cat, or a beaten down car. Her wandering brought her to a ravine. She opted to take a stroll through the ravine, secluding herself within what little sliver of nature the humans had yet to destroy.

     A path ran through the ravine, over a small creek. The trees thinned to her right as the ground sloped down towards the creek. A girl sat crouched on a bed of stone by the flowing water. The nameless girl still had difficulty calculating ages in human years, but she estimated that the girl would have to be about six or seven.

     The nameless girl watched the young girl study the rippling of the stream and then, in the blink of an eye, scoop up a handful of water. A fish, about the size of the girl's fists, flopped in her hands. The young girl held the fish up to her face, nudging it with her nose. The nameless girl continued to observe, unblinking. Seconds passed. Minutes. And yet the fish did not die.

     "How do you do that?"

     The young girl started and dropped the fish back into the pond. She spun around, loose ringlets of auburn hair spilling over her face. She stared at the nameless girl without saying a word. The nameless girl inched down towards the riverbank, taking care not to frighten the young girl.

     "It's all right," said the nameless girl. "I won't hurt you."

     "That's a lie," said the young girl immediately. "You're here to kill me."

     The nameless girl blinked. "What?"

     "It's okay; I saw it. I did. Really."

     The nameless girl continued to inch forward, stretching her fingers. "What makes you think...?" She narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean you saw it?"

     The young girl grinned. "I can see things. Yup. Because of I'm special."

     The nameless girl was close enough now to snap the young girl's neck if she so desired. She crouched down so that they were looking eye to eye. "What's your name?"

     "I'm not a'sposed to tell that to strangers," said the young girl. "Mum says there's power in a name."

     "Does she now?"

     "Mhmm." The young girl nodded eagerly. "But if you promise not to tell, then I guess it's okay. Pinkie swear?" The young girl offered her pinkie up to the nameless girl.

     The nameless girl hesitated. She was definitely picking up on something; the young girl had an aura. Usually, a human's soul remained bottled up inside its body, rather than manifesting in the physical realm. But there was nothing sinister about the young girl's aura. Could she really be the one Selina was looking for?

     Their pinkies wrapped around each other. The young girl wore a gap-toothed grin. She brushed her muddied palms on the legs of her overalls afterwards.

     "So?" The nameless girl waited.

     "A promise is a promise," said the young girl. "I'm Olivia. What about you?"

     "Me?" The nameless girl flinched. "I... don't have a name."

     "That's silly," said Olivia. "Your name's Comma. That's a funny name. I learnt about commas in English class because you're a'sposed to use them to take a breath when you're reading a sentence that's all real long like so that you don't run out of breath a'fore you get finished saying the whole thing."

     The nameless girl's eyebrows twitched. She could feel her aura beginning to rush to her fingers, assuming the shape of her chakram. But then...

     She stopped. Let her aura dissipate.

     Olivia sniffled, tears running down her cheeks. She sobbed silently, her shoulders shaking. She wiped her eyes with her still muddied hands, smearing dirt all over her face.

     "What's wrong?" asked the nameless girl, glancing back over her shoulder. Thankfully, no one else seemed to be around.

     "The pieces... don't... fit right," said Olivia in between sobs.

     "The pieces don't... what does that even mean?"

     "Everything's all in pieces, like a jiggle saw, and they..." Olivia paused to wipe her runny nose. "They make a noise that's like birdies singing when they fit together. But they won't fit together right, no matter how hard I try, and they're always crying, and why won't they stop crying, huh?"

     The nameless girl furrowed her brow. "Kid, I have no idea what you're talking about."

     But Olivia continued. "And it's sad, because you didn't mean to, but you made the pieces all twisted into the wrong shape, so now they won't fit no matter how you push 'em. And you're gonna kill me, but you don't want to, but you do it because of your friend was lying to you, and the clouds whisper nasty things behind my back when I'm not looking, and—"

     "What did you say?" The nameless girl clenched her fists, her heart slowing.

     Olivia sucked in a mouthful of air. She stopped crying just as suddenly as she'd started. "You heard me," she whispered. "Your friend lied to you. She made you do a bad thing. She's always making you do bad things."

     The nameless girl summoned her chakram and pressed the blade against Olivia's neck. "You're a stupid little girl, aren't you?" she said through barred teeth.

     "You gonna do me like you did your other friend?" said Olivia. "Cut up my neck up?"

     "You don't... you have no idea what you're saying."

     "Do too," Olivia replied. "Here. Got somethin' for ya."

     She shoved something into the nameless girl's hands. The nameless girl collapsed, feeling her insides shatter into a million pieces. The world seemed to crumble away beneath her, but instead of swallowing her up, it spat her back out. Her hands dripped with blood. And her fingers were clenched around a dirty toque.

     Apostrophe's toque.

     "Where did you...?" Comma's voice caught in her throat. Comma. She found herself unable to avoid the name as Apostrophe's scent flooded her nostrils.

     "Not telling," said Olivia. "But she didn't do those things your friend with the golden hair said she did. I don't know what she wants. The trees won't tell me because they're mean and ugly and have bad breath." Olivia paused to stick out her tongue at a nearby oak. "But I have something she wants."

     Could it... could it possibly be true? Had Selina lied about Apostrophe having killed all those alpen? Had she been manipulating her all these years? But the gods...

     "The gods wouldn't lie," Comma insisted, though even now she could herself waver. What had seemed so clear a minute ago had become... cloudy.

     "Gods?" Olivia placed a finger to her lip. She giggled. "The guy who's in boss of your friend, that's not what he is." Then her smile vanished. "He's bad. Very bad. The baddest." She crept over to the river and brushed her fingers against the surface. "Look."

     An image began to take shape in the pool. Selina knelt in the shadows, her eyes completely black and yet shimmering at the same time, like a glowdark. Black veins throbbed beneath her skin. At her feet lay the strangled corpses of three young children. Selina clawed through their chests, soaking her fingers in their blood. Then she began to trace her blood-soaked fingers along the ground.

     Though much of Comma's memory remained murky from her imprisonment, she recognized that symbol at once. She remembered because she and Selina had drawn it once as a joke and had been severely chastised and beaten for having made such an affront to the gods.

     It was a symbol for communing with dark spirits.

     Comma felt herself choking. If this was true, if Selina's orders hadn't come from the gods at all, but from something much worse, then what had she...? She'd murdered her one and only friend in this world, all because of a lie. But the girl, Olivia—surely this was some sort of trick. But somehow she knew that wasn't the case. She'd always suspected it, hadn't she? She'd even once spotted Selina sucking the soul from an infant. But she hadn't been willing to doubt Selina, so she'd deceived herself into believing that it had been no more than a dream.

     She buried her face in the toque, basking in Apostrophe's smell, images flashing through her mind of Apostrophe lying crumpled on the floor, blood pumping out of the slit in her neck.

     Comma felt Olivia wrap her tiny little hands around her and squeeze her tight.

     "It's sad," she said, shivering. "But you can't cry now. You have to help me."

     Comma looked up, wiping the corners of her eyes.

     "You have to stop her."

***

     Comma knelt down on the bed of foliage, hiding behind a tree at the edge of the woods. Beyond them, the land sloped upwards into a grassy field above a hill. A gentle autumn breeze caused the grass to ripple, like waves in a lake.

     "You sure you can do this?" she asked, placing a hand on Olivia's shoulder.

     The young girl nodded. "Go for the gauntlet, right?"

     "Right." Unlike Apostrophe, Selina wasn't a ripper. She relied on a mystical relic—an alpen gauntlet—to feel out the rips and open them up. Without it, she would be stranded. Comma closed her eyes. Even as Olivia skipped up the hill, her aura lingered.

     After that, it all came down to waiting. Comma's heart beat steadily, keeping track of the time as the sun continued its descent. Twilight was upon them. And no sooner had the first star begun to shine in the evening sky than did Selina come strolling across the field.

     She spoke to Olivia from afar, though Comma could not make out their conversation from her hiding place. Gradually, Selina drew nearer and nearer to the girl, without seeming to move at all. She was almost close enough to...

     Now. Comma stepped out of her hiding place and began making her way up the hill. Selina's silhouetted figure spun around to look at her, her eyes glowing in the dusk. "I was wondering where you were," she said.

     "This the girl you've been looking for?"

     Selina stuck out her hand and scratched Olivia under the chin. "She's a cute one, isn't she?"

     Steady. She had to focus. If she let her aura waver even for a moment, Selina would notice. Comma just kept on walking, closing the distance between them, taking care not to falter in her step.

     "Your parents must be worried sick," said Selina.

     Olivia shook her head. "They don't worry."

     Only a few more steps. Comma suppressed her breathing, finding it uneven. Selina smirked. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to kill me," she uttered under her breath.

     Comma hesitated. She'd lost the element of surprise, and against a foe like Selina, that was the only weapon worth any salt. But it didn't matter; she willed herself to strike. She didn't care whether or not she succeeded. She would stop Selina or she would be killed: what Apostrophe would have called a win-win scenario.

     Apparently it was going to be the latter. Selina intercepted her, grabbing Comma by the neck with her right hand—the one wearing the cracked leather gauntlet—and dangling her above the ground. "You're some kind of stupid, you know that?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "Did you really think you could get the jump on me?"

     "No," Comma said with a grin. "I knew I couldn't."

     A blade flashed in front of her eyes. Olivia hadn't hesitated to sever Selina's hand with Comma's chakram. Selina howled as her blood spewed from the wound. Comma pried the stiff disembodied fingers from her neck.

     Selina hissed through her teeth. "And just what do you think you're going to do with that? You're no mystic! By the time you figure out how to—"

     "I wasn't counting on it." Comma tossed the gauntlet, which still contained Selina's severed hand, over her shoulder. Behind the golden-haired alpen, Olivia had opened up a rip with her bare hands. Comma waste no time; she kicked Selina square in the gut.

     Selina stumbled backwards, tripping over Olivia, who had gotten down on all fours behind her, and fell into the rip, screaming. The sky stitched itself up immediately afterwards, the seams of the rip dissolving back into the atmosphere, as if it had been nothing more than an optical illusion.

***

     Comma swayed gently back and forth on the swing set, dragging her heels in the sand beneath her feet. The chimes signalling the end of the school day had just rung, and the park was crowded with human children. Comma tugged down Apostrophe's toque over her ears.

     "Hey." Olivia hopped onto the swing next to her and began kicking with her feet.

     "You doing all right?"

     "Yep." Olivia beamed as she kicked higher and higher. "Are you?"

     Comma didn't answer. Of course she wasn't all right. She doubted that she ever would be. She was alone. And she had only herself to blame for that.

     "I think I've figured out how to work the gauntlet," she said.

     Olivia stopped kicking and waited for the swing to settle into place. "Does that mean you'll be leaving soon?"

     "Yes."

     The young girl frowned, scratching her head. "Won't it be dangerous?"

     Comma felt a hint of a smile coming on. "I'm counting on it."

     "Olivia!" A slightly chubby boy with a shock of black hair called out to her from across the playground. "Aren't you coming?"

     Comma raised an eyebrow. "Friend of yours?"

     Olivia nodded. "That's Colby."

     Colby waved at her. Next to him, a scrawny-looking boy squinted at them, his fingers looped through the straps of his backpack. He had a perpetually nervous look about him. Probably the type who got picked on a lot.

     "And him?"

     "Him?" Olivia smiled. "That's Bryan. He's special. Like me." She hopped off the swing. "I gotta go now. Bye!" Then she took off, joining her friends by the monkey bars.

     It was about time for Comma to get going too. She stood up and stuffed her hands into her pockets, heading off in the opposite direction. To whatever the future might hold for a maqpi like her.

Author's Note:

It turns out Comma met Em, Olivia, and Colby all those years ago. Who would've thought? So, what do you think of Comma now that you know about her past?

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