Only the dim glow of moonlight through the doorway brought any comfort to that eerie place. Brown, worn-out tables stood in every corner of the room, some of them tilted where rot had weakened the joint between leg and frame. The earthy, musty smell of the old wood mingled with a stale trace of alcohol and heavier drink, the kind of smell that clung to the walls long after the last patron had staggered home. Shiniel walked in lightly, confidently, lifting her fingers off her sword's sheath and rolling them tight around it. With her other hand, she picked her way through the chairs that had toppled over in what looked like the aftermath of old brawls. The wood creaked beneath her at every step; some planks gave way entirely, splitting with a dull crack. They stopped before what had once served as the register. A glass lamp, trimmed with tarnished silver, stood in the furthest corner, lit by a single tiny blue flame—still, unmoving. Trapped within its glass frame, the flame was cut off from the rest of the world, and yet it lit both its little cage and, for its intended purpose, the space around it. Here, it was the only light left to them. The moonlight had already retreated from that far corner of the first floor, leaving darkness to take its place and rule. As the flame flickered—once, twice—Shiniel settled onto the tall chair and folded her hands over the counter, then let her sword dissolve into a drift of little particles.
Lorelei mirrored her exactly and moved to sit, but Shiniel stopped her before she could drop onto the seat.
"That one is going to break," she said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
Lorelei saw no rot in the chair, and for a moment she wondered whether Shiniel had gone mad—if she wasn't already—but she changed places anyway.
No harm in switching… I guess.
She sat down on the chair to Shiniel's left and watched the flame shiver inside its glass frame. A short while later, a commotion broke out, and a man stumbled in, reeling drunkenly through the inn's reception. He kicked over the chairs in his path and swung his arms left and right, as though trying to fling off his own temper.
"Fuck this!" he screamed, snatching up a chair and hurling it over the counter where the two of them sat. "You two chicks think you're all that, sitting there looking all fucked up?!"
Lorelei felt the ground creak and give beneath his heavy footsteps, but even then she didn't bother turning around. Neither did Shiniel.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?!" he bellowed, raising his voice until it cracked against the low ceiling.
The counter was only a few steps away. Just as Lorelei lifted her hand to summon her sword, Shiniel pressed it back down and pinned it against the wood.
"Wait," she whispered.
The man stomped into the space between them and stood there, glaring. The smell of alcohol and vomit filled the air, but Lorelei had endured worse. He clearly wasn't one for regular showers; a single whiff of his clothes could turn a stomach. Drool strung between the gaps in his teeth as he eyed them, gawking at their bodies with a lecherous, unfocused stare. Then, in a voice almost unrecognizable as speech, he leaned in gently and whispered near their ears.
"Hey, let's go somewhere? …Whadd'ya say?"
Yellow flecks of spit flew between them, though fortunately none of it landed on Shiniel or Lorelei. His long, brown, matted hair spilled onto the counter, tangled with a yellow crust caught between every strand. He staggered to Shiniel's right—to the empty seat Lorelei had almost taken—and brought his fist down on the counter, making everything on it jump and rattle.
"You think you're a hotshot! Well, fuck you!"
He dropped onto the chair, but in that same instant his body paused, barely scraping the seat. Shiniel was already up, pulling Lorelei by the jacket. She took a few steps back and tugged her cap down low over her eyes. His face was frozen in the same expression. The irritation he'd worn now looked more like a clown's attempt to make children laugh—mouth stretched wide, eyes bulging. A split second later, half of his body began to slide away from the other, a clean, precise cut of a kind Lorelei had never seen. It made his crooked features symmetrical again, so perfectly aligned was the line. His eyes flopped from their sockets and rolled across the floor, nerves still trailing back to the hollow of his face—emptied of sight, collapsing slowly under nature's undeniable law. His body came apart, its contents laid bare, and yet, strangely, nothing spilled from the shell. Where blood and viscera should have poured out, everything held perfectly still, as though it had never been touched. Once the halves separated, each dropped to the floor without a single drop of blood. Then it was the chair's turn to split cleanly in two. It settled slowly beside the corpse, still frozen in the same expression, though its eyes were gone.
"How are you ladies doing?" a voice echoed through the long darkness.
A man, probably in his late fifties, came down the staircase behind the reception. He tied his brown apron steadily and pushed open the little gate. With an almost carefree air—as though he hadn't just seen a body cut in half—he began fiddling with the machines behind him. Under the flickering blue light, the sound of fresh water running and ingredients being tossed reached Lorelei's ears. In only a few minutes he turned back and set two cups of coffee on the counter, one for each of the seats they'd taken.
"Here you go, it's on the house." A small smile touched his face as he wiped his wet hands on a pale blue handkerchief. Shiniel stepped forward and sat down, cradling the warm porcelain in her hands. She leaned close and drew in a shallow breath of it before taking small sips, all the while watching the man clean the counter. Lorelei, still wary, took a hesitant step forward, and the aged wood creaked under her heavy grey boots. Both of them were acting as if nothing had happened, though a body lay cleanly halved right beside them. This wasn't Lorelei's power—the man had been killed, and they both knew it—yet neither of them reacted in the least. Death was a common sight in this world of theirs, a world where the killer could be killed at any moment. It was also the world Lorelei lived in—whether she liked it or not.
"Come on, I won't bite," he said, chuckling.
It was a little ironic, coming from him; he might not bite, but he certainly knew how to cleave. Lorelei took a deep breath and sat down beside Shiniel, who had nearly drained the last drop of her coffee. Half afraid her own body might be severed in two, Lorelei lowered herself slowly until she felt the flat, faintly spiky surface of the wooden chair. She let out a long, deep sigh, then wrapped her fingers through the cup's handle and cupped it in her palms. The man across from her dried the cups gently with his handkerchief, smiling all the while. His face was marked by age; the wrinkles on his cheeks made them sag, almost imperceptible beneath his long white moustache, which curled upward at the corners. It struck Lorelei as odd that Shiniel wasn't reacting at all. Instead, she let herself slump against the counter and sink into the darkness, softened by the blue light of the tiny flame. Her long, cold blue hair seemed almost to blend into that light, taking on its exact shade. Her cap had slipped off onto her back, revealing the silver interior laced with tiny handmade crystal patterns—sapphires, more precisely. The cap itself was surely the work of a professional; its lightness and the imposing air that clung to it were not the marks of an amateur. Beyond that, its blend of a sailor style, evoking something lighter, with the contrast of a squared, military puff gave it a regal look. Only the interior held a childish style, ill-suited to the image of Shiniel—and yet, surprisingly warm to see.
"Drink up, drink up, it's peaberry coffee. I added a little more sugar for the two of you. It should help a bit with the acidity." His warm smile, beneath the weight of his moustache, brought Lorelei a comfort she had long been missing.
Without even realizing it, tears flooded her eyes. She had nothing to cry about, and yet she let them come. She didn't feel the need to fight them; if anything, she was surprised they hadn't arrived sooner—ever since the attack. Her beige cheeks flushed red as her bangs fell across her wet eyes. This power, this sword, this life—none of it was something she had wished for, but it was undeniably something she had to accept and carry forward. Even death wouldn't grant her an easy path. After all, even after returning to life a thousand times, she still felt the vivid fear, the shrill pain, and the reverberating wails of the dead. Both the world of the living and the world of the dead. Worlds that fought over her, tossed her between them, refusing to accept her on either side. If they wouldn't accept her, then…
I will recreate them.