"I've been stuck in this void."
Saraline's voice cracked as she walked. Step after step — no footprints, no light, no choice. Her legs didn't feel like hers anymore; something forced them forward.
"I can't stop. If I stop… I'll be taken."
Her breathing was ragged, loud in the suffocating silence.
Then — a flash. A white light bloomed ahead, blinding and holy.
Saraline jolted into a sprint. For the first time in eternity, her eyes glowed with something other than exhaustion.
"Saraline Grover. Seventh Saint of Floria." The voice from the light was neither male nor female. Detached, cruel. "Tell me… how does it feel that everyone forgot you?"
Her run faltered.
"The Imp was captured. You failed. Only one mentioned your name — Miles Phillips. Even then, it was a pity. Thidos does not care for you. Why would he? Why should anyone?"
Saraline's lips trembled, but her words came sharp.
"I don't care anymore. You dumped this case on me, told me to fish for the Imp like it was nothing. And Thidos? He's a poser. A fraud in white robes who's never worked a day in his life. If this is death, fine. But I won't die bowing to him."
"Silence."
The light bent. Out of it stepped her. Saraline's own body, her own voice — eyes hollow, smile twisted.
"I don't care for human rambling," Clonealine said, calm and mocking.
Saraline smirked through the fatigue.
"Mimicking me? Then I decapitate you, I go free."
They charged.
Both fists collided at once, bone shuddering. They kicked at the same moment, shin to shin. Pain rippled, mirrored. They grabbed each other's legs, slammed each other into the floor. Neither gave an inch.
"So I get to have fun, eh?" Saraline spat, twisting the clone's arm.
The clone twisted back, smiling.
Saraline gouged for the clone's eyes — and felt her own sockets burn as her opponent did the same. They tore free, both howling. Blood pooled down their faces. With throats bared, they flicked wrists at each other's necks — twin blades slicing. Warm blood sprayed in arcs.
Both staggered, clutching identical wounds. The clone somersaulted, grabbed Saraline mid-stumble, and hurled her into the endless dark.
Saraline skidded to a stop, coughing blood, then laughed.
"You quit copying me? No fun?"
She stomped the void, bouncing off invisible air, and launched back. Hands twisted into a hammer of bone and flesh, she spiked the clone into the abyss floor. The impact cracked the dark like glass.
She mounted the copy's back, hammering her skull down, again and again, until the head caved into pulp.
The body twitched, then reformed. Slowly, calmly, Clonealine stood back up.
"Psylaiso," it whispered. Its broken jaw knit itself together as it spoke. "It means… in slime. Hollowness."
Saraline, bleeding, half-blind, and trembling, smiled through crimson teeth. "Then I'll show you what hollowness does when it refuses to break."
She raised her fist for another round.