(Working Title) I Know What You Did Last Isekai

Content Warnings: Blood and Gore. (Depictions of death and dying)

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Blood spilled forth between her fingers as she clenched at her shirt where the blade had pierced her.  It was almost comical how little pain there was considering the size of the blade he had stuck her with.  Then again, she had also been drinking most of the evening and even smoked a joint with her girlfriend before hitting the party.  Maybe that was it… 

Sweat dripped down her face, mixing with the tears that flowed freely.  Maybe Heather would come looking for her, save her from this mess.  That hope was diminishing with each second that passed by. 

“Shit, fuck, how could this happen?” 

Despite her wavering vision, it was impossible to miss the man who stood over her, bloody knife still in hand as he gasped for breath.  He began to pace, panic creeping into his voice as he spoke.

“She was asking for it,” he said, staring at the blade in his shaking hand.  “I had no choice, yeah, that’s it.  I had to, she was fighting, she was going to hurt me.  I had to.”

Rory Rodgers; supposedly one of the big shots on the football team.  Not that she knew all that much about the blonde-haired muscle-head.  Prior to that night they hadn’t said a single word to one another, and now there was a good chance his face would be the last she saw.  

“No choice,” she said, straining.  He’d given her no choice when he tried to get in her pants and answered the refusal with a blade.  “Sure.” 

He glared down at her, pointing the blade despite the tremors keeping it anything but steady.  It would have been pathetic if he wasn’t the reason she was currently bleeding out on the floor.  Worse, her phone had been thrown against the dresser and was probably broken.  

Rory took a breath, seeming to calm himself as he looked away.  “Okay.  One step at a time.  I need to get rid of the body, but I can’t have a party full of witnesses when I take her to the truck.”  

Well, if that didn’t confirm what he was going to do to her… 

He looked back at the closed door, beyond which the party would be in full swing and bit his lip.  A quick shake of his head was followed by rapid steps over to the dresser where he picked up her phone and started swiping.  Apparently it wasn’t broken as he kept messing with the lock screen before seemingly powering the device off and shoving it into his pocket.

So much for maybe getting a message to Heather.  Her girlfriend was out there among the masses somewhere, probably looking for her.  She didn’t dare cry out, because she had little doubt that Rory would take it out on her.  He’d already stabbed her and was talking about dumping her body somewhere.  All she would be doing was hastening her death when she still had a chance to prevent it.

Pulling his shirt off, Rory switched it out for a different shirt dearth of blood.  Nodding to himself, Rory strode to the door and made a swift exit, leaving her alone in the dark.  Sitting there trying not to cry, she tried to push herself to her feet but quickly fell over with an aborted screech.  The world spun as she clenched at the agony that was her wound.

She tried crying out, but there was no way to tell if anyone could hear her, or if they would actually investigate given he’d locked the door.  She truly was going to die, and nothing she did would help.  Her vision wavered, darkness encroaching from the edges, and she knew her time was running out. 

Worse, she was pretty sure she lost a few moments there when everything went spinny and fuzzy.  That was probably really bad, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.  She was locked away and abandoned to die in agony, and the fucker that stabbed her probably told Heather that he called her a lift back home or something. 

She was going to die cold and alone with nobody there for her.

Indignation at that fate flooded her, lighting her veins on fire with pure fury.  No, she wasn’t just going to lie down and die.  She was going to get out of this, and get to a fucking hospital and live dammit!  Pushing through the pain, she got an arm under her and pushed.  It was pure agony, but she managed to get back into a sitting position.  She was running on nothing but spite, but that had carried her through the worst moments of her life before, and it would pull her through this one too.

“Rory, what the fuck?” a new voice yelled.  “Is that Kim?”

She looked up in surprise at the now open door, and the two figures standing there.  

“Shut up!” Rory shot back, followed by a meaty impact.  “Just keep your fucking trap shut and help me get this bitch to the truck.  I’m not going down just because she attacked me in my own home.” 

That was his excuse?  Like anyone would actually buy that.  Kimberly glared back and the other finally seemed to notice that she wasn’t a cold corpse just yet.

“Wait, she’s still alive!”

Rory scoffed.  “And?  That doesn’t change anything.  Besides, if she dies later it will throw off the investigators.  You’re an accomplice now so you better keep your fucking mouth shut or you’ll join her.” 

“Truth always comes out,” she said, glaring at the man that stabbed her.  “Doesn’t matter what you do to hide it.” 

“Dude,” the other said, not that she could see his face. 

“Don’t pussy out now,” Rory snapped.  “Just grab her fucking legs and help me get her to the truck.” 

“We’re so fucking done,” the other muttered, moving to kneel beside her. 

She might not have had much strength, but Kim still managed to kick his wrist.  She barely had a moment to smirk at the guy’s pained shriek before a heavy impact sent her sprawling.  Kimberly tasted iron as she tried to focus, but everything was twisting around her as darkness kept invading everything.  At one point she thought she saw the night sky, and at another something jolted her hard.

It wasn’t until she fell that she finally came to enough to realize that she was sprawled out in the grass and sand somewhere.  Hands gripped her by the legs and began to pull.

“Dad always said the best place to dump a body was the swamps,” Rory said, dragging her along.  There was someone else with him, but she hadn’t gotten a good look at them.  “Between the gar and gators, they shouldn’t find all that much of her.” 

She wanted to say something about how she wasn’t dead yet, but lacked the strength to so much as open her eyes.  Hot stings lit up her skin where it dragged through the sands.  Probably fire ants, not that she could say for certain.  The pain was a welcome distraction from the burning agony in her stomach.  Splinters bit deep the moment she left the sand, a rough and aged dock gouging her skin as he pulled with jerking motions.

Finally, they stopped and set her down on the rough wood of the dock.  She forced her eyes open, not that she could really see, but if she was going to die she wanted to do so as defiantly as possible.  The second person was still there with him, and the man started to push her before the other grabbed him. 

“Wait,” Rory said.  “We should make sure she’s dead first.” 

Vacant eyes stared up at the dull figure as he leaned down and pulled the same knife from his pocket.  She could tell he was looking down at her, but any nuance of the expression was lost in the haze of her faded vision.

Sharp pressure pierced her neck followed by a warmth spreading as it was removed.  Her head swam and the sound grew distant as Rory continued to speak to the other person.  Where her fingers had already grown numb, that sensation quickly spread up her arms as a wet gurgle escaped her lips, unable to muster the strength to so much as cough up the pooling blood.  Then the world tilted and everything fell away.   

The cool embrace of the water engulfed her.  In the last fleeting moments of her conscious thought, she burned the memory of that man into her mind.  She would never forget that face, no matter what waited for her beyond.  Even with vengeance sworn, her girlfriend’s smiling face lit up, a hand reaching out for her as she sank into the murky depths and the world fell to darkness.

***

A wrenching gasp escaped as she shot upright.  Breaths came swift and shallow as the darkness retreated only to be replaced with the dull glow of flickering candles half-melted into stone surfaces.  Hands moved to her neck, now whole and without any blemish.  Fingers trailed down bare skin, not a speck of clothing to be found on her form.  The wound in her stomach was gone as well, leaving her with so many questions.

She was alive, somehow.  Had that just been a terrible dream?  A hallucination from some drug she tried at the party?  Looking around she couldn’t see much in the depths of the long shadows cast, though her eyes were adjusting quickly.  Far too quickly in her experience.

Something about the dark brought comfort, as though it was a part of her, as if she could just reach out and push just a little…

The darkness retreated abruptly, bathing the room in unnatural light.  Her eyes widened as her eyes jumped from one face to the next.  All were vacant as her eyes had been but moments prior as they stared off into nothing.

For they were all dead.  She was surrounded by dozens of corpses, their blood staining every surface of the room in strange scripts scrawled with bloody hands.  Her breaths came quick and shallow, a reminder of when she had been the one bleeding what felt like only moments earlier.  Eyes so wide that they hurt darted from one atrocity to the next in rapid succession as the room spun.  It was a scene straight out of a slasher film with how many people were strewn about; unmoving.    

The contents of her stomach rushed up and spewed across the floor as she heaved up clear bile.  Just what fresh hell had she landed herself in?  Fuck, was she actually in hell?  Had those preachy assholes actually been right when they said having a girlfriend meant she was going to suffer for eternity?  The way reality was broken around her didn’t help matters.  The lacking shadows cast by the candles were deeply unsettling.  

It was wrong; unnatural. 

Without warning or preamble all the shadows came rushing back, bathing the room in darkness once more.  Despite the panic, Kimberly’s breath caught in her throat as realization sunk in.  She had somehow done that.  She was commanding the light and shadows.  Hesitantly, she reached out for the closest candle.  The heat of the flickering flame brushed against her hand as she held it there and imagined the light being snuffed by darkness. 

Shadows rushed forth and engulfed the light of the flame in an instant.  A squeak escaped her lips as she pulled her hand back.  Swallowing, she reached back out but didn’t touch the darkness.  The heat of the flame was still there despite not giving off any light.  It went against everything she knew, and yet, she couldn’t deny what she was seeing with her own eyes. 

It didn’t feel like she was dreaming, not with how lucid everything was.  The heat was distinct and quite hot, which stood to reason that Kimberly was wide awake and experiencing a reality that differed greatly from her own.  She thought of putting that to a proper test but stopped the thought cold.  She wasn’t about to hurt herself.  Not after experiencing what could only be described as the cold embrace of death itself. 

Her breathing turned shallow again.  She had died.  That bastard had cut her throat open and dumped her into a river or something to get rid of her!  Yet, here she was, alive and…Not well, but whole enough.  There was none of the weakness she experienced while dying, and when she stood, her feet supported her without effort.

The relief was almost a physical pressure as she revelled in the sensation of just standing again.  Unfortunately the bodies that surrounded her weren’t exactly pleasant.  The scent of iron was pervasive and reminded her too much of trying to hold her wound shut.  So many questions were on the tip of her tongue but there was nobody she could ask.  She needed to get out of the room for starters, then figure out where the hell she was and what happened to her. 

Worse, she didn’t have a shred of clothing covering her body. 

Great, just great.  What was she going to do about that?  There was no way she was going to strip the bloodied clothes from the bodies around her like it was some video game.  No, she needed to get out of there and find something to cover herself.  Hopefully she could find a living soul while she was at it and get some answers.

Avoiding the blood on the floor was impossible, the sticky substance clinging to her feet with each step.  Worse, it was seeping between her toes.  As much as she wanted to retch again, she pushed on, making it to the stairs.  The gore was left behind her as she followed them up, the shadows retreating at her will so that she could see in the absence of light.

For a staircase to a basement it took an unusually long time to reach a door, and when she opened it, she emerged into a cellar of some sort.  Large wooden casks lined the wall around her, and the door that she had pushed open was built into the storage shelves where dried herbs and meats hung.

Garlic and onion flooded her nose; a welcome reprieve from the scent of copper and iron.  Her stomach was empty, but the way it roiled at the mere thought of eating something after seeing all…that?  Well, Kim wasn’t about to tempt fate over some jerky.  Goosebumps ran up her limbs from the chill that hung in the air.

More than that, she hadn’t needed to push the shadows away because there was light filtering in from above!  A set of rough wooden steps that had more in common with a ladder led up towards the soft glow.  The moment her feet touched them she remembered the dock and how it had bit into her flesh.  She fell back, staring at the rough surface with wide-eyed terror. 

It was so stupid, but she couldn’t help how she reacted.  The memory was so fresh, like the pain was still there just waiting for her to realize she should be feeling it.  As if she would wake from the fever dream that was this new lease on life and realize she was still dying in the river.

Fuck, she had left her girlfriend all alone in that hellscape of a world.  

Never again would that smile light up her life.  They had met in grade school and been inseparable ever since.  She couldn’t even put a date on when they went from best friends to girlfriends.  It just happened.  One day someone kissed the other and it just became normal for them.  Ten years of being a core part of one another’s lives, and it was all gone.

Tears fell hot and heavy as Kimberly sobbed.  She had failed Heather; broken her promise that they would be together forever.  No matter what came their way.  Yet, it seemed death had parted them before they could even take that vow.

Was it even worth it to keep going when the light that made life worth it was no longer there to keep her company?  Even with what appeared to be magical control over light and dark it wouldn’t make up for her absence.

Just…  Figure out what the full situation is first.  One foot in front of the other.  Small goals to keep working towards, even if it is only a flimsy excuse to see tomorrow.  That had been what her mom said when the dark thoughts got too loud.  Even if the only reason she had was spite, it would be good enough. 

Until now, she hadn’t really understood.  Heather was her reason for everything, but with her gone?  She needed something new to take her place, even if it was something completely hollow.  Right, one foot.  Skin touched the stair again and she winced, but kept it firmly in place.  Another step, and then again, and so she climbed up and out of the cellar. 

And into another store room filled with fresher foods that was somehow even colder than the basement.  Meats, cheeses, and assorted vegetables filled the space.  That wasn’t what caught her attention however.  No, she was eyeing the coat hanging by yet another door. 

She pulled the heavy woolen thing over her as quickly as she could, pulling it tight so that she was covered.  It was a small thing, but just having cloth over her skin again brought a wave of relief with it. 

Clutching the fabric, Kimberly moved on with renewed determination.  She passed through a kitchen that bore little resemblance to what she was familiar with and then through a dining space filled with long tables and chairs pushed up against the walls to make room on the central flooring. 

Did they host a fucking ball before pulling a blood sacrifice in the basement?  Just what was wrong with these people?  Thoughts for later, but she knew they would flit in and out of her mind until she got some sort of answers.

Her steps faltered as she passed a painting on the wall and could only stare up at it with wide eyes.  She recognized the two adults standing proudly in the painting among the corpses down below, but what had given her pause was the child set between them.  It looked so much like her, yet different all the same.  Their skin was a bit paler, but aside from superficial differences like hairstyle, she was almost the splitting image of Kimberly herself. 

She wore an amazingly ornate dress that belonged in a period piece, and it was giving Kimberly a haunting suspicion that she desperately hoped was wrong.  A rising din of commotion beyond the building drew her gaze away from the portrait and towards the double doors at the other end of the massive room.  Gripping the cloth tight, she made for what she hoped were people that could help. 

The double doors were heavy, but not as much as she thought when she pushed through and found herself bathed in the light of the full moon.  Torches cut through the dark with an orange glow.  Holding them were over a dozen men in fantasy armor that had all turned when she emerged from the building.

An older man in white robes pushed past them, a glowing orb held tight in his hand.  When he spoke, the words were in a language she did not understand.  The man gestured and the armored soldiers moved, taking rough hold of her as he waved the glowing orb and chanted in that unknown tongue.  All she could do was stand there as realization set in. 

She had died and somehow reincarnated into a world so unlike her own.

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So, this is a new story I'm kicking around to see where it goes and I figured I'd share the rough draft of chapter one to see what people thought of it.

The basic premise is that a woman is isekai'd into a fantasy world where she was meant to be the villainess of the story. Unfortunately for her, someone summons heroes to stop the evil that never showed itself. When she finally meets the heroes she is shocked to learn that the man who murdered her is the very hero summoned to stop her.

That's all it takes for her to decide that maybe becoming the villainess isn't such a bad idea.

Thoughts, feedback, and ideas for characters, setting, and a better title are all welcome!