The battlefield was quiet now, the war won, but victory felt like an afterthought. The air was thick with smoke, the ground littered with bodies—some breathing, some not. People clung to each other, bleeding, shaking, breaking under the weight of what they had just survived.

You stood in the middle of it all, motionless. Numb. The ache in your body was nothing compared to the fear gripping your chest. Hands touched you—your friends, their eyes wet with relief, their voices cracking as they reassured themselves that you were still here. Still alive.

But you barely heard them.

Your mind was screaming one name.

Clarisse.

She should have been easy to find—tall, broad-shouldered, built like she could take down an army on her own. But she wasn’t there. The more you searched, the more frantic you became, shoving past dazed survivors, your breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps.

And then—through the blur of smoke and bodies—you saw her.

She stood a few feet away, unmoving, eyes darting across the chaos like she was searching for something. For you.

The second your eyes met, the breath you hadn’t realized you were holding finally escaped your lungs. Her expression softened, and then, despite everything—the blood, the exhaustion, the sheer weight of what you had both just endured—her lips curled into that familiar smirk.

“I told you,” she rasped, voice rough but steady, “you wouldn’t get rid of me that easily.”