Blood didn't mean much in my old world.

  Here, though? Here I could do all kinds of fucked up shit with the crimson wonder, if I knew what I was doing.

  I didn’t, but that's why I kept it simple.

  Just a simple demon summoning, for a simple girl who very much wanted to keep on living. It was what I was doing there, out in the cold, with nature as my only companion. The trees rustled their warnings and the fauna cried in concern, but I didn't listen to them.

  Something wrong radiated from the ritual circle with each drop from my palm, a deep hum from a mouth that wasn’t quite human. It muddled the ambiance of the forest, something unwelcome to the symphony, but the World tried to sing its tune all the same.

  The sound didn’t originate from my catalyst, it originated from everywhere.

  The strangeness of the sound amplified with each addition, the juxtaposition of the ominous atmosphere and the pathetic excuse of a ritual circle might’ve made a proper witch cry, but I didn’t care for a bastard’s opinion.

  Not like I could’ve gotten powdered bone from the alchemist without raising some suspicion, twigs were the best I had so they’re what I used. Besides, desperate times call for desperate measures, and this definitely counted as desperate times.

  The trees rustled in discontent, a light wind putting their opinion on display for elven ears, they wanted me to start from the beginning. That would never not be weird, but who was I to deny the World?

  Well, once upon a time, I was known as Alina.

  Alina was part of the drama club back in bumfuck nowhere high, a wonderful diversion from the monotony of regular living. Equipped her with the exact set of skills she’d need in her second life, but I’m rushing ahead a bit. Like everyone who’s anyone, she had a family—

  A squirrel chittered, and annoyance mixed with indifference passed through my mind. Fucking rude, but fine. That part didn’t really matter.

  Anyway, drama gave me a wonderful ability to cry on command. Though I didn’t need that for the first few months. Imagine sleeping on a comfy mattress one day, as I did just about every day, only to wake up covered in embryonic fluid and surrounded by giants! I maintain that it’d drive anyone to hysterics for at least a little while.

  The lapping of water not too far away joined the strange humming specifically to communicate how funny it found the torture I delivered onto my new family during my…adjusting period. Poor Yormir and Asna, they were decent people, and certainly didn’t deserve the sleep deprivation my screeching provided.

  But there was a catch with an existential crisis!

  It made you plenty productive, so while that was focused on the production of tears when I couldn’t move, it switched to a bundle of dread that demanded I do anything to stop myself from ruminating. Running and playing and screaming. Which all cemented my childishness.

  Yormir must’ve been plenty proud of me, because the second I could manage swinging a hammer, I’d started applying myself to his trade. That helped with the constant screaming in my mind more than anything, and as a bonus made me quite the blacksmith's apprentice! The screaming got quieter, but the panic attacks never really went away.

  A small rabbit hopped over and avoided the spreading blood seeping across the grooves of the circle, hopping over to my legs. It gave my ankle a gentle rub with its head. “It’s okay Kit,” I said with fondness for the small mammalian. “I’m not having one right now, I’m okay.” The furball gave an actual nod at that and stood as my personal emotional sentry in the midst of the dark ritual.

  How cute.

  Then came the realization of where I was! And wasn’t that just a fun series of continuous bullshit? I crouched down and gave Kit some scritches with my free hand, balancing the bleeding one above the stone still. Kit seemed to agree, though that might’ve just been delight from the attention she was receiving, silly furball.

  Other than the fact that my new home held none of the technological advancements I was used to, which was a crying shame for my sanity, there was also motherfucking magic. Around six years ago, when I was just five, a wandering magician stepped into my humble village and put on something of a show. Except with real magic. Water puppets were fun at the time, my innocent soul not realizing the implications until my favorite half-brother handed me some rolsam.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Fucking rolsam, also known as Little Sam, is something of a city confection. Except made entirely through magic.

  Now, a fun fact about memories after death (which I assumed was what happened), I remembered as much as I would have at the time of my passing, and never less. Like a scar to the soul, it wasn't a perfect memory, but it didn’t change.

  Kit hoped away as the humming grew in intensity, not in a hurry, but distinctly unwilling to stay for the rest of the ritual. That hurt a bit, but it made sense.

  The twigs demanded I continue my story as blood congealed and wrapped around them like a snake, warped in its delivery, like two identical voices using different tones.

  One was soothing, almost relaxed.

  The other—

  A rough breeze almost pushed me over, and I let out a huff of laughter. Impatient, aren’t we?

  Well okay, the reason why rolsam was so important was because it was part of a game I recognized. One I played months before my death. ‘A Princess And Her Knights’ it was called. It was okay, pretty basic all things considered. An otome Jrpg with plenty of romance subplots for the player to delight in. That was kind of my thing back then, so it appealed to me enough that I managed to finish it. It was entertaining enough.

  Much less entertaining now that I found myself inside the game.

  But couldn’t the delectable pastry have been coincidental? Just happenstance across dimensions? Denial could only go so far at that point, but it was still doing plenty of heavy lifting.

  Then the Knight came to the village of Okama, I’d prefer not to think about her.

  So that led us to this moment, small drops of blood splashing on a stone that was worth perhaps three copper pennies in the hopes that it’d be enough to complete my dark ritual. The slight tang of pain on my tongue communicated that yes, it was working. That alongside the slow subsiding of nature's presence, retreating from the scene in distinct awareness of what was to follow.

  The hum intensified with each addition of fresh life that splattered onto the stone. It was hard to get, but quite easy to hide. I had to scrounge through a bunch of river stones, but eventually I found a mana stone that was about the size of my thumb!

  Slowly the blood stretched from the centre, wrapping around twigs and resting in grooves until it covered the entire ritual circle. Then it glowed. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before, deep somehow in its vibrance and deeper in meaning. Like a whisper to my soul, a small voice that spoke in a language that was somehow intimate despite my lack of fluency. It spoke of grand horizons and lakes of mercury, wadding through are bodies of flesh that was not flesh, congregating to a point—

  Then there was the sound of tearing, not like the fabric of cloth, but like the definition of the word invading my mind. It was so quiet, yet whatever remained of nature's expression stilled, all of everything collectively held its breath in silence. Even the wind didn’t dare rustle the treetops.

  Small nails of obsidian broke through reality, struggling to tear open a veil between here and there. The nails weren’t really obsidian, weren't really any colour or shade, my brain just hurt looking at the thing and filled it in with an interpretation that it could make sense of. They struggled to open the door that both was and wasn’t, and I wondered if it would be rude to help the literal denizen of…whichever hell this thing was from.

  It was much more awkward than I assumed a demon summoning would be, blood still flowed from my palm onto the mana stone, donating more of my life and making the veil that much weaker.

  Eventually the thing managed to open a hole big enough for its bulbous head to travel through, which was the biggest part of its grey form, the rest of it being no larger than a newborn. Small decorations that could be classified as wings protruded from its back, like those of a furry bat, each about the size of my palm. They weren’t flapping, and yet the demon was floating.

  A spade tipped tail floated beneath it, and I had to hold back a chill from the wrongness the thing exuded. It blinked two large orbs of purple and turned to stare at me.

  “Um, hi there?” I started, holding out a hand. “My name’s Yir, what’s yours?”

  The imp blinked in a languid motion, each revealing different pupils. Orbs and diamonds. Rubies and cones-

  It shook its head at me, and snapped its teeth, making a kind of crackling noise.

  I stared at the literal demon in front of me and…let out a sigh. “You don’t even know telepathy yet?”

  The imp gave me something that I assume was supposed to look like a scowl, but instead was closer in relation to an indignant pout. I waved off said indignation like it was a bad smell, which only made its attempted scowl deepen.

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting an arch demon so that’s…fine. So long as you know how to form a contract.”

  Its eyes-that-were-not-eyes widened like saucers, mouth spreading into a smile to reveal triangular teeth that exuded the concept of sharp hunger, nodding vehemently like a dog given treats.

  “Good, good.” I nodded along. “Then let’s get this done quick hmmm? I don’t exactly have all day, and I don’t know how this breach is affecting the forest, so best not to let it last.”

  The imp nodded again, eager in its anticipation.

  My smile almost exceeded the imp in predatory delight. “Alright little demon, you’re going to help me survive the end of the world.”