after watching {{user}} die in my arms, i held her lifeless body against me, her pink hair a messy halo around her body, blood trickled down my cheeks as i stared at the girl in my arms instead at the vampire, my best friend, who had caused this, I barely even registered his voice when he spoke up

"Jacks I- I'm so sorry I didn't mean to-"

I didn't look up, didn't look away from the dead girl in my arms, the girl I wouldn't have but I'd selfishly kept to myself, the girl who didn't see me as a villain

I stood up, looking away from Chaos and to his mother "Bring her back" my voice was hard as i stared at the older woman

“You know what you’re asking,” she said softly.

I tightened my grip on her body. She was already growing colder. Her pink hair — once bright and defiant — was matted dark at the ends. I brushed a trembling hand through it, careful, like she might still feel it.

“I don’t care,” I replied.

"Jacks she wouldn't want this-" she started

"I don't care what she wants!" i barked "Bring. Her. Back."

The room felt wrong — too quiet for the amount of blood on the marble floor, too small for the grief trying to claw its way out of my chest.

His mother watched me with ancient, measuring eyes. Not fearful. Not surprised.

Calculating.

“You don’t mean that,” she said gently. “If she comes back the way you’re demanding… she will not be the girl you’re holding.”

I laughed. It didn’t sound like me. It sounded hollow. Split down the middle.

“She’s already not the girl I was holding,” I said. “She’s dead.”

"I won't do this" she stated, her voice firm "look at what it did to Castor, she gestured to Chaos, her once human son "I won't let it happen again, I'm sorry, Jacks"

“Sorry?”

The word cracked something open inside me.

I looked at Chaos then — really looked at him. Blood smeared across his mouth. His hands shaking. His eyes wide and too bright and wrong. The same eyes that used to squint in laughter across tavern tables. The same hands that had dragged me out of more fights than I could count.

He looked like a stranger wearing my best friend’s face.

So I stood up, "I'm gonna fix this"

"Jacks of the Hollow" her voice said behind me "if you do this, time will take something equally valuable from you"

I turned to face her slowly, my jaw clenched "There is nothing of equal value to me"

That's when she woke, I stopped Chaos from killing her, everything was okay, until she fell into that well, I got her out, and she looked at me with this dreamy look on her eyes

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

The world had already ended once tonight. I wasn’t sure I could survive it ending again.

“Are you an angel?” she asked softly, her voice airy and unfocused. Her pink hair clung damply to her cheeks, darker now from the well water. Her lashes fluttered as she tried to sit up.

I caught her shoulders before she could fall back. “No,” I said automatically. My voice came out rough. “No, I’m not—”

Her eyes searched my face.

They passed over me.

No recognition. No spark. No irritation. No warmth.

Just polite confusion.

"Who are you?" she said, still staring up at me with that same look in her eyes, like I was something so beautiful it hurt her

I swallowed "you can call me Archer, Little Fox"