Honna stumbled through the creaky hotel-room door with Axel’s arm draped over her shoulder, so she could support his weight. They’d go back to her mom’s house in the morning, which wasn’t far away, just in the suburbs right outside the city, but she didn’t think she could handle being around so many memories the night of the funeral.

Half-dressed and drunk, the rank scent of Axel’s alcoholic breath suffocated the entire room. She dropped him onto the old spring mattress and gagged at the smell. The person who he’d become lately was repulsive, but at the same time couldn’t help but envy how little he cared about anything.

She quickly pulled on her navy-blue jogging suit and stuck a taser-patch to the back of her hand, hoping a jog around the track would relieve some of the night’s stress. The cool October air prickled the back of her neck, urging her to start running to create heat. Everything felt normal, aside from that ugly little goblin tugging at the memory of every eye in the restaurant turning on her with pure pity. The tree’s leaves still blew happily in the breeze and the moon shone down, coating everything in it’s soft-blue glow. She hated the world for acting so normal when a giant piece of her soul was missing.

Honna shoved her earbuds in. They slowly expanded to fit her ears to give the best sound quality and to keep themselves firmly in place. She stuffed her phone into the mesh pocket of her stretchy leggings. Fame on Fire blasted her ear drums, drowning out the goblin’s many attempts at getting her attention.

The track felt like a dream under her running shoes as they padded against the newly laid rubber-cement. She never took much interest in Sorren’s success but had to appreciate how much he deserved every cent he got for this fabulous invention.

The earbud beeped twice, alerting her that someone had entered her twenty-foot proximity. Honna flipped her head to the right and left by instinct. There was nothing around, no motions, even from an animal running by. Sometimes the brightness of the street lamps could confuse the censors, so she didn’t switch the taser on just yet.

The earbud beeped twice again, signaling the ten-foot radius breech. Honna spun around, holding her other hand above the taser-patch, preparing to switch it on. She looked around cautiously. A gust of cold wind blew dry leaves scratching across the bare path.

She huffed and started jogging again. I guess it’s time to order new ones. I guess they are getting pretty old.

A muffled sound from behind made her spin around, just in time for an invisible force to slam into the front of her. Her mind grew fuzzy and it felt like she had just been spinning in circles, like she used to do when she was little. It seemed like it took a few seconds too long for her back to hit the ground.

When the falling sensation passed, Honna pressed her hands into the damp grass beneath her. She tried to sit up but a heavy weight on top of her kept her held down. A black, cotton cloak hood hid the face of a small-framed person that was now straddling on top of her. Something warm and wet dripped onto her cheek. She focused her eyes, squinting them against the sunlight. A crimson drop of blood dripped away from somewhere within the hood. The person made a strange noise, almost like they were trying to speak.

So many questions were running through her head. It took a long confused moment before she realized that her earbuds were simply muffling their speech. She reached up to turn it off. A hand, wrapped in finger-less, black, leather gloves snatched her wrist away and slammed it to the soft ground above her head. They had Honna’s other hand uncomfortably pinned under their leg. She winced at the slight pain and waited for a further attack, but the hand did nothing more than hold her still.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. Speaking too quickly might scare the person more than they obviously were, but they kept trying to talk to her through her ongoing music. “I just need to take my earbud out. I can’t hear you,” she said softly.

The cloaked-form released her wrist, but kept their hand hovering over it, ready to restrain her again if needed. Honna pressed a button on the outside of the small device to shut them off and let her hand drop back to the ground to show that was all she intended to do.

“Och!” A woman’s voice scowled. “No wonder you couldn’t hear me tellin’ ya to move out of the way.” There was a strong, under-lying, Irish accent to her words. The gloved hand pulled away the cowl of the cloak. Black hair with bright-blue highlights fell like silk over her slim shoulders. The sun bounced off her ivory, freckled skin, making her look like she’d been kept away from its rays for quite some time.

Honna’s brain scrambled for the right question to ask first. “I—“ She looked past the girl into the brightness of the sky. It had just been night a moment ago, so they clearly weren’t on the same side of the planet as they just were. The terrain around them seemed to hold nothing more than grass, flowers, and a few trees from what she could see. No skyscrapers or roads, not for miles. So they weren’t anywhere near a city. Only a few countries still maintained so much unused land. And, all that with the girl’s accent... “Are we in Ireland?”

“Yer a smart one.” Her small red lips twitched at the corners. A thin, black, metal ring, pierced through the right side of her bottom lip, glinted in the light. “I’m gonna like you.” She sighed dramatically. “Too bad you’ll be running in terror as soon as I let you up.”

Honna noticed a gash on the girl’s forehead where the blood must’ve been dripping from, but it seemed to have already clotted. She reached up to the girl’s face to inspect the wound. “Are you alright?” The girl looked shocked, like a deer caught in headlights, waiting for any wrong sudden movement. Her skin felt cold and soft on her fingertips. “Do you have any skin-sealant? I left mine in my bag, and that seems to be pretty far away right now.”

The girl slowly shook her head, as though she did it by muscle memory instead of by choice. The small movement made Honna’s fingers rub against her forehead. She pulled her hand away, feeling a warmth rise in her cheeks.

People don’t usually like being touched like that in public, mostly afraid of getting an indecency ticket, but if the girl was angry about it, she didn’t let it show.

Blue eyes, almost the same shade as the highlights in her hair, stared down at her filled with something akin to fear or curiosity, maybe both.

“You should get that taken care of soon,” Honna said, clearing her throat. “I’m a nurse at the children’s ward. Will you let me help you?”

The girl pursed her lips and she squinted her eyes. “Well, I’m not a child. There’s no need for fuss over a small cut.”

Honna pushed herself up on her elbows, bringing their faces uncomfortably close. “Well if I’m not coddling a child, why don’t you climb off my lap and tell me what’s going on here?”