Year 2 – Shift 17 – Raven
“This will be the first time you’ve been inside Hazbruhharassin on fewer than three legs.” Uncle Karl gazed into her eyes with equal parts pride and sorrow. “Let’s make sure you leave on fewer than three as well.”
Raven took a deep breath and cast her gaze toward the giant tenement building in the center of the city. On the sixty-third floor, in apartment 915B, her mother plotted and schemed. If she found out Raven was here, it would be the end.
“Where’s Uncle Stomph? Can we just…” Raven stopped. “Wait. Why are we here again?”
“You’re sick, love.” Karl Axel Foley sighed and reminded her. “Come with me. He’s working at the Foot Locker nowadays.”
Raven followed Uncle Karl through the side streets of Hazbruhharassin, noticing significant decay in the city, its infrastructure, and even the land itself.
“What happened here?”
“This was all your sibling’s doing.” Karl sighed and turned her down a main thoroughfare that had once been bustling but was now dead and shuttered. “She managed to gain significant power within the church somehow, and now she’s warped Llolth’s message into a bastardized mockery of the bastardized mockery it already was.”
“What the fuck did Skapa do now?” Raven snarled. “How did she get into the church like that?”
“Well, before I explain that, I must tell you something you may not be ready to hear.” He didn’t break stride as they crossed the concourse to the next road. “Your brother is your sister now. She…”
“She’s trans?” Raven broke through the discomfort. “Or she? They?”
Karl stopped dead in his tracks. “How did…”
“I live with hundreds of them.” Raven smiled. “They’re really awesome people!”
“Well, this one is not.” Uncle Karl deflated. “Her name is Ginnungagap now.”
Raven cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Ginnungagap Muninn. Mind of the Yawning Abyss? That’s clever. And terrifying. So, she got into the church that way?”
“And so much more.” Karl started across the street again with a quickened pace. “She’s bankrupted the church and the people.”
“And Mom is just letting her?” Raven asked.
“She can’t touch her. The people revere your sister.” Karl scratched his head. “She’s promised them a tourist economy. Promised them jobs and financial freedom if they pack up, head to Chad Nosed, and take jobs to kick-start the economy.”
“And she’s tapped into the church’s money to do it?” Raven asked.
“Worse,” Karl replied. “She took money from the town for that. What she did with the church is too horrific to say.”
“Say it.” Raven was starting to think something was off. “Maybe I can help. Skapa—Ginnungagap—and I were close.”
“She’s leveraging Llolth’s power and influence to move into the political arena,” Karl said. “That’s why I can’t spare any further help. She’s a real threat.”
They stopped in front of the Foot Locker, and Raven looked around.
“This doesn’t look like it did when I was a kid. It used to be a fun place.”
“Hardly anyone’s left.” Karl pushed open the door and made a beeline for the customer service counter. “Come on.”
Raven followed and saw a haggard older drow in the signature black-and-white striped shirt behind the counter, nearly asleep on his feet.
“Uncle Stomph!”
He snapped awake.
“Aisle twelve, Theresa!” He rubbed his eyes. “Oh. Ravenna, my niece. Wow. You look good.”
“It’s just Raven now,” she said. “Thanks. You do too!”
He stroked his majestic, full strawberry-blond beard and beckoned her over.
“I mean, you look like shit. Get over here.”
Raven remembered her uncle’s affliction in the worst way possible.
“They say I’m being…”
“Unwritten.” He reached out and placed a glowing hand against her forehead.
There was a flash of warmth, jarringly split into two waves when it should have been one continuous, familiar scan.
They both froze and stepped back.
“It’s just not there…” Stomph gasped. He turned to Karl. “What in the hell happened to her?”
Karl and Raven exchanged a hopeless look.
“We were hoping you could tell us, brother,” Karl said.
“That was a simple brain scan, and a chunk of her brain is just gone.” Stomph looked frantic. “I work retail, and you expect me to explain this?”
Panic tore through Raven, and she put everything she had into holding it together.
“Do it again. See if it’s bigger.”
“What?” Stomph asked.
“I have to know if time is making it bigger or if it’s something else.” Raven leaned forward.
Stomph reached out uncertainly and touched her forehead again. After another shattering gap, he paused.
“No. It’s…interesting. It’s fragmented into twenty linked pieces, but they aren’t all active yet.”
“What do you mean?” Raven asked. “My mind?”
“No…” Stomph looked at Karl in bewilderment. “Twenty victims. Every time another victim is found, the erasure advances.”
“Of what?” Even Karl Axel was stumped.
“I don’t know,” Stomph said. “There have been fifteen so far, but the source is old.”
“How can I stop it?” Raven pleaded. “I want to live! I have something worth living for now! I love who I’ve become alongside Sara!”
“You can’t,” Stomph said. “Not any way I know of. But…”
“What?” Raven jumped on the but.
“You need to go to the source,” Stomph said. “It’s somewhere you’ve been. Likely somewhere you were never supposed to be.”
Thoughts raced through Raven’s head. All the horrific things she had endured and inflicted in the before times. She followed every remaining thought she could still hold onto until she found it.
When she did, ice ran through her blood.
The one place she never should have been.
A place that had changed her.
“Oh, fuck.” Raven staggered.
Karl caught her as she drifted into him. “Raven? Are you okay?”
She stifled a retch so deep she nearly vomited.
“I need to find Mark. Now.”