Tanya's first breath back was a jagged, ripping thing. Her body arched off the stone, then slammed back down. She was wet—soaked in blood or monster sludge or both. Cold pavement under her, the grey sky above her split by the closed space of the gate still rippling through the air, trying to weave the last of reality back together.

Voices clamoured.

"—She's breathing—" came the strained voice of Ishita.

"—get her up—" was Olena.

Mrs Eceer cut her off. "No, don't lift her yet—"

Chains rattled as Boris said, "Fifi, move—let her breathe—"

She couldn't focus on the conversation it devolved into. Only on the sudden, blinding weight of life as it crashed down over her. Her lungs heaved like they were relearning air.

Her neck was so stiff she couldn't move it, but she slowly built a picture of where they were. Hands steadied her. She saw Boris leaning over her side. Olena must be crouched behind. Tanya could hear her muttering something in another language between frantic breaths. Ishita—no, Tanya couldn't see her, but she felt her—something about the space next to her pulsed wrong.

"Tanya," Olena whispered, leaning over so that Tanya could see her smile and the tears running down her face. "That was so cool, but never ever do it again."

Tanya tried to answer. Couldn't.

They half-carried her through the street's ruins and into the shop. The bell above the door jangled, like everything was still normal.

They heaved Tanya onto the tattoo chair.

Tanya blinked over and over to make out the dim shop. She tried to look over to the door, but her neck was still so stiff, so she rolled her entire body, wheezing. The others were walking back outside to get the gear they'd left behind.

Ishita came in last, with Boris having gone back outside to help her move faster. Tanya's breath caught just seeing her.

She didn't walk in so much as fold in behind them, hunched and trembling like someone decades older. Her skin was waxen. Hollow-eyed. Her lips had gone grey-blue. She was still wearing the bloodstained remains of her sari, but now the bright red just made her look even more dead. Her hands twitched at her sides like they didn't know what to do without more agony to siphon.

Fahad stood just inside. The moment he saw them, his eyes lit up. He barrelled into Ishita, holding her close.

"Mum, they made me come inside—I didn't want to but I—"

Then he pulled away, saw her, and froze. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Ishita had leaned into the doorframe, half-collapsed under her own weight. She wrestled her fingers through her hair. It was stuck to her temples in damp, matted strands.

Fahad backed away a step. Then another. "Mum?"

She tried to smile. "I'm here, babu."

He bolted up the stairs without a word, footsteps slamming into the floor above.

"I'll go," said Mrs Eceer, her voice unusually quiet. She followed him up without another glance.

The shop felt too silent.

Tanya coughed, forcing her voice out in a way it didn't want to go. "Just… give us a minute?"

Olena and Boris both nodded.

"We should get discarded gear anyway," Olena declared, standing.

"Oh, uh, right," Boris said, following her into the street.

Ishita moved to sit, slowly, like every part of her resisted. She didn't speak.

"Is it that bad?" she whispered.

Tanya watched the bones move under her skin, taking in every detail. The way her hands trembled. The deep shadows were carved beneath her cheekbones.

Tanya didn't know what to say. She tried to take a bigger breath to talk louder, but it just made her cough harder. "He'll get used to it. You both will."

They both sat in silence until Tanya stammered. "Well, you did it —you brought me back." A nervous laugh escaped her lips.

Ishita gave a breath of pained laughter. "Barely."

Tanya leant her head back fully against the tattoo chair and the monster filled her mind's eye, that last sight before she was dead.

Tanya couldn't find the right words to communicate what was going on in her head. She settled on, "Crazy shit, innit."

"Remember back when we were upset we didn't have anything to fight," Ishita added.

Tanya noticed the way her m's sounded slightly off, like her lips couldn't touch properly anymore from how chapped they were. "Yeah, that fence post really was worse than bringing a knife to a gunfight."

Ishita sighed. "I really thought I could just swing my way through whatever we faced."

Tanya remembered them in the garden together. It felt like so long ago. "First time I heard you swear, ya know." Tanya couldn't ignore the niggle in the back of her head. She was sure they both knew this needed to go somewhere else, but weren't ready yet.

Ishita stared up at the ceiling light. "I used to swear a lot before Omar."

"Your husband?"

Ishita pulled her legs up to her chest and held them there. "Yes. He was the perfect little muslim boy in high school, and I was always getting suspended for my piercings and the way I customised my uniform. It's how I found sewing. Anyway…I grew on him slowly, but his parents hated me. Not only was I a buddhist but I was infamous—"

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A genuine chuckle escaped Tanya. "You? Infamous?"

"I know, I know. I arranged this whole dinner between our parents, and for the week leading up to it, my best friend hit me with a book anytime I swore by accident. It got me out of the habit."

Tanya smiled. "I had a friend like that in high school too. Maria."

Ishita looked over at her. "The one you were giving a tattoo to when it started?"

"Yeah," Tanya said. "Never thought I'd be so glad I didn't finish a tattoo before. It was a little boy. Still got no idea how human tattoos would work."

"Bet she's tearing her hair out wondering how you are."

"She'll turn up the second we have signal." Tanya paused. "She doesn't let go easy."

There was something soft in the way Ishita smiled at that, almost wistful. Then she leaned her head back against the cool wall, eyes fluttering shut. Her eyelashes were gone. "I miss that. That kind of loved one. The ones who know where to find you even if you don't say a word."

"You had that once," Tanya said carefully. "With Omar?"

Ishita didn't open her eyes. Her face didn't shift.

"I did," she said.

Tanya didn't fill the silence, didn't rush to console her. She just waited.

After a moment, Ishita continued. "He had this thing he used to say. When Fahad was a baby and I was losing my mind with the colic and the bills and the world falling apart. He'd put his hand on my back and go, 'we're already in the fire, but it's not all smoke yet.' Like if we could still see each other, it was worth pushing through."

"That's… poetic, for a man who hated your piercings."

That got a real laugh—thin and cracked, but real.

"Yeah. He changed. We both did. But he was good."

A silence opened again, heavier this time. Tanya still didn't know what had happened that day. She couldn't even fathom what Ishita must have gone through. Whatever the System had given him had changed him so much that it threatened Fahad's life.

"You know, I don't think we would've lasted this long without you," she said.

That was too much. Tanya couldn't hold it in any more.

"I found out somethin'," she said gently.

Ishita didn't look at her. "That sounds ominous."

"It is. It's about the pact you made with me… back then."

The silence grew heavier.

"Go on."

Tanya tried to keep her voice soft. "Back when we first met. You said you'd do anythin' I asked. I didn't think it meant anythin' real. I thought I could just never hold you to it. But The System… It's doin' it anyway."

Ishita frowned, but didn't speak.

Tanya glanced at her hands. "It says you pledged 'anythin' 10056 wants.' I said for you to help me… I didn't mean for… I didn't…" Her stomach twisted, the words not coming out. "But you did anyway."

Ishita shook her head, looking bewildered. "No. I brought you back because I wanted to. That's all."

"Ishita—"

"I didn't need a pact to care." Her voice was quiet, but firm. "I chose to help you."

Tanya pressed her lips together. "I know you wanted to help. But I don't think it would've gone this far without the pact. I don't think anyone would willingly die again and again unless something in them couldn't stop."

Ishita shook her head more vigorously. "I'm not some puppet. I did this because I care about you."

"I know that," Tanya said, still trying to stay calm. "But that doesn't mean the magic isn't pushing you further than you should go."

"I made the choice," Ishita insisted.

"You didn't know what you were choosin'!" Tanya snapped, frustration breaking through. "You didn't know how pacts worked! You were just desperate to save him. You tied yourself to me, and now it's tearin' you apart!"

"I'm not torn apart. I'm still here."

"Barely!"

Ishita looked away, jaw clenched.

Tanya leaned in, voice low and shaking. "Would you have done it if it meant leavin' your son without a mother?"

Ishita flinched like she'd been slapped.

"You didn't think about that, did you?" Tanya whispered. "You just did it. Because the pact made you. Even if it felt like your choice. But what if next time, you don't come back?" All of the emotion was bubbling through now; her not being able to help her mother, not knowing how any of her loved ones were, and here her new friend was a ghost of her former self.

"I'd do it again," Ishita said. "I don't regret it."

"I do!" Tanya choked. "I regret every moment of it! I didn't ask for this—I didn't even know! And you're payin' the price for somethin' I didn't mean to take." She covered her face with one hand. "I want to be alive. But not like this. Not if it costs you."

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Then Ishita said, softly, "Prove it."

Tanya looked up.

"Prove the pact's making me do things. Show me."

Tanya baulked. "What?"

Ishita leaned further into the sofa with an exhale, her fingers grazing the threadbare fabric on the arm of the sofa. The shop was quiet except for the faint sounds of Fahad moving around upstairs—his voice muffled as he talked to Mrs. Eceer. Tanya could pinpoint the moment Ishita heard and the way her face crumbled, then hardened.

"Tell me to do something."

Tanya's stomach turned. "Ishita—"

"No. I need to know." Her voice cracked, but she didn't stop. "I need to feel it. If what you said is true, if it's in me—making me help you—I need to see it happen."

Tanya shook her head. " You've just—died for me. You're exhausted. You're not thinkin' straight."

"Then give me proof I'm wrong," Ishita snapped.

"Fine," she whispered. She hated this. "I want you to… pick up that cushion and move it to the armchair."

Her voice felt thin. She didn't even know why she chose that. It was nothing. It didn't matter. Just a stupid request to test something awful. She half-hoped Ishita would laugh and say, See? Nothing. It's in your head.

But Ishita went still.

Too still.

Her eyes flicked to the cushion and stayed there.

Tanya didn't move. Didn't breathe.

Ishita's body shifted, almost imperceptibly. A soft tightening of the shoulder. She looked like someone fighting against a magnet pulling her spine forward.

Her hand rose.

Tanya felt her mouth go dry. "Stop. You don't have to—"

But Ishita had already shuffled sideways and lifted the cushion in both hands.

She stared at it.

Then her fingers clenched hard, and she dropped it like it had burned her.

She turned, her face unreadable. "I didn't want to pick it up," Ishita said slowly, like the words were pieces she didn't know how to fit together. "I wasn't planning to. But something in my head told me it would help—that it would be nice. That it would… make you happy."

She looked up and the grief in her gaze was crippling.

"And the thought felt like mine. Tanya, it felt like mine."

Tanya didn't know where to put her hands. Her skin crawled. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't mean for it to be like this."

Ishita let out a low, breathy laugh. There was no humour in it. "I've been with you for days. All the times I said yes, all the times I helped or stayed or risked myself and my son. I won't ever know if it was me that chose."

Tanya stared at her. Her words felt hollow. "I'm so sorry. I never asked for that. I never wanted—"

"It doesn't matter what you wanted," Ishita said, more gently now, and that was somehow worse. "It's not about you controlling me. That would be easier. But this is worse. This thing makes me want to serve you. It makes me feel like the best version of me."

Ishita looked at her hands as if she didn't trust them.

Tanya's vision blurred. She felt sick.

"Ishita, I don't want to own your choices. I don't even want you here if it's not real. If it's not you."

"I know," Ishita said. Then she staggered back a step. Like the realisation had just hit her too.

Ishita blinked, eyes wide. "God, that could have been the compulsion again. That soft voice in the back of my mind—telling me it's noble to forgive you—that it's my job to make this easier for you—that I'm a better person if I don't blame you." She clutched her arms. "I don't know—I just. It feels like normal friendship."

Tanya didn't have a response to that. Her chest was tight and cold and hollow.

Ishita took another step back. Her expression cracked—not with anger, but grief. "I don't think I can trust myself around you right now."

Tanya nodded, though the motion made her ache. "Okay."

"It's not your fault," Ishita said softly.

"I know," Tanya lied.

Ishita turned and walked out, her movements slow, like the air was heavy.

Tanya stared at the door long after she'd gone.

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