The worst night of Mia’s life flashed by in a single condensed second.

  In that one moment, all the horrors she had so desperately wanted to forget resurfaced as goosebumps. Invisible scars reopened in her mind. Trauma sucked out by the lips of gravity as she found herself falling into The Wishing Well. Falling into the exact same situation six years ago.

  But she was not the same young girl who fell into the abyss that night. The fire that once engulfed her body was gone, replaced by a primal blaze in her heart. One that no longer ran away from death, but lived side by side with it.

  Mia shapeshifted, her body expanded a hundredfold into the form of an Abyssal Fangcrawler. She had no idea how to move its myriad teeth-legs, but she didn’t need to. Its massive spines turned into pitons, driving deep into the cliff face and into its craggy formation. Catching herself just under the ledge where she fell, she spat in the face of gravity, refusing to descend into The Depths like the helpless girl all those years ago.

  Reverting to her human self once more, she pulled her knife out, jamming it in between two rocks as her feet dangled dangerously, searching for footholds. The moment she found her footing, oxygen replaced the fear in her lungs. Tragedy had been averted. She could now begin her ascent upwards.

  Mia stored the knife in her mouth, teeth clenching the handle. Better to keep it nearer to her hands than the holster around her thigh. And with that out of the way, she analyzed the challenge at hand.

  About 10 feet separated her current position from the top of the cliff, give or take. But the real problem lay not in the distance; it was the angle of the rock face. If it were a vertical climb, it wouldn’t pose too much trouble. But the ledge protruded outwards. The closer it was to the top, the steeper the overhang became. This acute angle, coupled with the loose, chossy nature of the rocks, made it a fearsome opponent. It didn’t matter how strong or agile she was if she had nothing solid to hold on to.

  Mia’s gaze shifted away from the top, looking around her to estimate the least hazardous route. As she scanned the surroundings, she realized she was smack dab in the middle of The Wishing Well. Essentially, the ledge she fell out of was a cave mouth halfway between The Surface and The Depths.

  The geography of the Spire was beyond her human understanding. Was geography even the right term? Or should it be architecture? Like its fellow Qanthorah, Pris, the locations inside of it weren’t fixed, as evidenced by how each zone was connected without rhyme or reason. Unseen boundaries separated the Holographic Sea floor, the dark woods after that, and Mount Harlow from one another.

  But The Wishing Well, this entire chasm, seemed to operate on a different logic altogether. From a tiny well-sized hole on The Surface, to a colossal hollow tower leading to a garbage pit down at the bottom. What purpose did this empty chamber in the Spire hold? It was as if the creator of this Aberrant world forgot to sculpt this specific section of the megastructure. Whether it was willfully done or an oversight, Mia could only assume.

  Regardless, there was nothing around her she could use to aid in her ascent. The “safest” way up was a zigzag route via tiny crimps and pockets for her fingers. There was almost nothing for her to put her feet on, given the treacherous gradient of the climb. Almost.

  Mia kicked both her shoes off. Using her toes like tiny clamps, she removed her socks and dropped them into the void below. As part of her appearance, they could always be shapeshifted back. But for now, she needed any additional grip and friction she could get.

  Taking a deep breath, Mia began her ascent by reaching for a small outcrop above her. With barely enough space for a few fingers, she turned the hold she had into a fulcrum. Her entire body swayed side to side, suspended by three fingers as she intensified the motion on purpose. With this momentum, she launched herself onto the next hold, the sides of her feet hugging the cliff face as her hands slotted into tiny crevices.

  That was just the easy part.

  Her climbing was less like that of a human or a monkey and more like an insect’s. She crawled her way up from surface to surface, at one point going completely horizontal, perpendicular to the cliff. The limitations of her human biology were made up for with physics; Mia weaponized momentum, friction, and weight distribution to forge the path of least resistance.

  She might not know these concepts on a theoretical level, but years of Shapeshifting gave her a unique grasp of the human body that went beyond instinctual understanding. Bodies were just tools to her, ones that she could swap out of at any given time like her firearms. This detached view of the physical self made her far more sensitive to the limits of the body than any normal human.

  The grip strength of her toes. The exact pressure it took to scrape her skin. The best positions to utilize upper and lower body strength. Beyond her ability to Shapeshift, it was her ability to optimize the human body in ways others didn’t that allowed her to keep up with superhumans like Lynn.

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  And in order to narrow the gap between them, Mia had a new trick under her sleeve. Acritae. It was still at a novice level, but she could fight off fatigue to a certain extent by managing her heart rate and emotions, the fundamentals of magic control. Hatred is for hardening. Lynn’s words resonated in her soul each time a loose rock fell, reminding her of that night six years ago. The hatred she felt for those on The Surface was converted into fuel for her magic, coursing through her veins and letting her muscles take more abuse than they normally would.

  With all these tools at her disposal, even the hazardous overhang near the top was conquered with brutal efficiency. To her, it was no different from cleaning a stubborn stain or taking out a bad guy with extra steps. She grit her teeth, planting her hand onto the final ledge at the top. One last pull, and she would be back on the same ground as her Dad and Lynn.

  Without any footholds, her entire body dangled on the cliff’s edge. Lifting herself up, the muscles in her two arms screamed in agony. Something answered back.

  Seismic activity shook the entire cliff. Whether it was magic flowing underground or something else entirely, Mia didn’t care. The only thing that mattered at that moment was holding on. Stones and debris from above plummeted downwards, almost hitting her head. They might have missed her, but she wished they hadn’t. Because instead of landing on her, one rock struck the ledge she was on, causing it to break apart.

  In the blink of an eye, all of her effort was gone, stolen from her as gravity dragged her down with a vengeance. But Mia refused to go down. Refused to end up in a garbage dump, broken and dying. She cheated death once. She was hellbent on cheating it again.

  Her imperishable desire to be with her Dad made her transform into him; bones, tissue, and skin ready to expand and offer her additional reach to latch on the cliff’s edge. But at the very last moment, her Shapeshifting failed.

  Her body refused to listen to her. She couldn’t transform when she wanted to the most. A repeat of that night six years ago.

  Only this time, she knew why. The answer was right in front of her. Her body failed to increase in size because something grabbed her. Cold steel wrapped around her wrist, pulling her out of the mercy of gravity and onto solid ground.

  It was not a gentle fall. Mia tumbled several feet back, half-grateful for being on firm footing once more, but half-wondering what the hell just happened. She looked up, only to be completely stunned by what she just saw.

  A robot.

  Humanoid in shape, its frame towered over her like an imposing statue. Her gaze was drawn to the glowing blue lens affixed to its head, the lone eye its only facial feature.

  The rest of its mechanical frame was battered and rife with scratches. A tattered, moth-eaten cloak failed to shield its body. Dented armor. Broken tubing. Dangling wires. Dark brown rust replaced skin as its tendons were exposed as pistons. It belonged more in a scrapyard than a sci-fi novel, clearly having seen better days.

  But looking past its wear and tear, what caught Mia’s attention the most was its choice of weapon. Slung around its iron ribcage was a hunting bow, an amalgam of metal and monster. Dried sinew and fibrous alloys merged to form an armament she had never seen before. The luminescent feathers of the arrows in the quiver around its thigh shone with vibrant, ethereal brilliance. But underneath the fascinating colors were cracks, hinting at their considerable use.

  The robot observed Mia with unknown intent, camera-eye lens whirring as the glow behind it grew sharper. Unable to tell if it was friend or foe, she froze. Legs bent, muscles taut like springs, ready to burst with explosive speed at any second. Holstering her knife, her hand shifted to the next item on her thigh belt. Her pistol. She stopped short of taking it out, fingers hovering right above as she doubted its effectiveness against this metallic being.

  But after a tense few seconds of stillness, the robot spoke, hidden speakers in its chest becoming its mouth.

  “Hide-and-seek… no more… please…”

  The first word it spoke made her lungs tremble, the air inside begging to scream. Having just relived the memory of escaping the orphanage, the mere mention of the game triggered her trauma. And like that time, she sealed her lips shut.

  But it was the words after that that loosened her jaw in disbelief. Behind its synthesized speech, she felt the unspoken weight of sorrow. The robot wasn’t talking to her; it begged for its own nightmare to end. And it became all the more apparent as it walked past her, joints sighing with each pneumatic step.

  “Wait!” Mia called out, a hundred questions attacking her mind. But none left her mouth as the robot vocalized once more.

  “You’re… not… her…”

  It bent its knees, mechanical ligaments buzzing as sparks spewed out from its exposed cables. In a single breath, it launched itself high in the air, landing on the alien treeline before it continued leaping from tree to tree.

  The urge to give chase faded within Mia. The red trees did not disappear for the robot as they did for her. It could move freely, unbound in the air. There was no way she could catch up. There was no way for her to transform into it, either. It had neither soul nor core.

  Yet, it felt far more human than most people in Pitstop. The last words it spoke—the feelings laced within them bore an uncanny resemblance to those of her Dad’s. Was it… looking for a daughter of its own?

  As that thought ballooned inside her head, her mind played back her Dad’s words as if to pop it.

  Don’t wander off too far.

  Not wanting to raise his blood pressure any higher, Mia readied herself for a sprint. But just as she was about to start moving, she noticed something on the ground. Something glistened on the spot where the robot charged its leap.

  She thought it was Blackblood at first, but realized it was something else altogether. Like some kind of grease or oil. It leaked from the robot. It was dying.

  What it left behind was more than just oil. That was its blood, sweat, and tears, mixed and stained black.

  It was dying for someone it loved.