The prison guard’s corpse twitched. Her eyes blinked rapidly, while her arm rose shakily to pull the ceramic shard from her neck. A last trickle of blood came from the gash in her throat before the flow stopped.

    “Did it work? This is- this is seriously messed up,” asked a small bearded man, nervously. He was dirty, with visible cuts and bruises on his body, his hands were bound behind him with manacles, and he wore rags.

The corpse turned her head and looked toward him with unfocused eyes. She murmured something unintelligible before she suddenly choked, coughing out a mouthful of blood onto her already-bloodied uniform top. Her chest expanded as she took a first shallow breath. She felt around her carcass blindly, knocking a tray off the low table her back had been propped up against. A loud racket sounded in the chamber as the tray and its contents clattered over the tile floor.

“Looks like it did, but someone might have heard that,” said the final person in the room, an athletic woman with brown eyes and filthy brown hair. Her hands and rags were covered in blood spatter, and her chains were twisted and snapped. She looked toward the door warily. 

“Check the door and be on the lookout,” she ordered the young man. He quickly did as she said, seeming eager to be further away from the moving corpse.

The guard’s corpse struggled to get up, before collapsing as she clutched at her chest, gasping and breathing heavily as best as she could, but more often she was simply coughing up more blood.  She managed to moan hoarsely, apparently in pain. 

“She acts as though suffering severe internal injuries, even though all I did was cut her throat,” the athletic woman muttered to herself, crouching down for a better look at the guard’s struggling body. Eventually the corpse stopped coughing and bleeding, and her breathing calmed down. She turned to look up at the athletic woman before trying to speak.

“What is- what is happening?”, she asked weakly, “Where is this?”

“Nice to meet you, demon,” smirked the woman, “welcome to Terra, the mortal world.”

--- Earlier, in Abyss ---

“I-accept-the-conditions-of-the-summon-and-will-fulfill-the-summoner’s-contract,” I spoke as quickly as I could manage while rushing to the altar in Seran’s lair. “Get me the hell out of here!” I shouted triumphantly, tearing my fangs into my arm while barely maintaining my balance as I stopped. I watched my blood drip down with excitement. ‘I am going to get away from Seran, and my madam won’t kill me. I don’t know where I’m going but it can’t possibly be as bad as here!’

I suddenly lost all feeling in my body. I briefly felt a warm, soothing sensation before I arrived in what was apparently hell. Everything hurt. I couldn’t see. All I could feel was the most terrible pain. There was something stuck in my neck. I flinched and tried to open my eyes, to pull whatever was in me out; I managed to yank some kind of object from my throat. I heard a voice and looked at it, but all I saw was a dark blur. I tried to ask the voice what was happening, but when I tried to talk my throat twinged painfully and I coughed up a warm fluid. It tasted like blood. It was probably my blood. I was so confused. ‘Did I just kill myself on accident trying to use a summoning circle?’ I wondered, feebly feeling around to get my bearings. I hit something and it made the most awful noise. Well at least I could move, so things could be worse. I tried to get up, and things got worse. 

I could feel my meridians tearing apart for some reason, by far the worst internal injuries I had ever suffered; worse, my meridians felt wrong and unfamiliar somehow; I could barely recognize them; they felt strange to me. I coughed up bad blood uncontrollably, fighting desperately to breathe. I needed to cry but I didn’t know if I even could. ‘Why is there never anyone around to help me out when I was in trouble?’ I tried to circulate my mana, to stabilize myself. When it seemed that my meridians couldn’t break anymore because they were totally destroyed, I caught my breath and looked around. I could see again. There was an adult person crouching above me, so I tried to get my bearings from her, even if she did look scary and covered in blood.

“What is- what is happening? Where is this?” I asked, still totally disoriented. She smiled and showed me her undersized fangs threateningly, “It’s your lucky day, demon. Welcome to Terra, the mortal world.”

‘Awesome! I’m not dead and I got away somewhere good. Everyone knows about Terra, a warm paradise with dense mana and easy prey.’ I could feel my excitement rising back up even amidst my terrible pain. ‘That means this person above me should be human.’ When I looked at her blankly, she showed me a mark on the skin near her collar that matched the circle I used.

“You’re my summoner?” I asked weakly, “why do you show me your fangs? I will help you.”

“Yes I am,” she confirmed, “You’re going to get me out of this prison. I don’t know what you’re on about with fangs though. I’m just being friendly, whatever.”

“Alright, I- think... understand.”

“What’s wrong with you? I only cut your body’s throat. You should be fine, I hope,” the woman asked me.

“I‘m dying; somehow my meridians feel broken. I don’t know. I’m afraid... don’t want to be crippled!” I started to panic and tried to grab at her.

“You’re not dying. I’m not a healer but I have an idea,” she stated, brushing me off, before getting up and dragging a bound man who I hadn’t previously noticed over to me; he must have been the first voice I heard. She continued, “I conveniently brought you this mana source. Do your best to get better.” The man suddenly began to struggle and tried to shout, but the woman wrestled him to the ground and hit his jaw. “Feed on him, quickly, before someone comes to check on us!” she urged.

I didn’t really understand who was coming or why we were in a hurry, but I would not mistake that there was a helpless human in front of me, and I was hurt and starving. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had live prey. I dragged myself over to him and bit open his neck, before thrusting my face into the wound and drinking greedily. I wondered why my fangs were so small now, but I managed anyway. His blood was the sweetest I could remember tasting, and it was so rich in mana. He was unbelievable. As soon as I started absorbing my meal, I tried to circulate my newly-strengthened mana and repair my wrecked meridians, as well as healing the wounds on my body. I was so damaged that I was unable to feel satisfied no matter how much I drank, until he stopped bleeding, leaving me wanting more. I still had severe internal injuries, but I wasn’t getting any worse, my throat healed, and more importantly my meridians began to feel right and familiar again.

Loud footsteps approached us from outside the chamber we were in. The woman leaned close to me and spoke quietly with urgency, “Listen, you are a guard named Katrina, and you’re a total psycho. You were torturing us in this room and got carried away. Get up immediately.” She started dragging me to my feet and clumsily wiped the blood off my face. She then rushed to the corner, put her hands behind her back, looked away from me, and started trembling there.

While I looked at her and wondered what she was doing, the footsteps stopped and a male voice spoke, “What the hell, Kat! You really did a number on these guys, you sadistic freak. There’s blood everywhere.” I turned to face him and stared blankly. ‘What should I say? Were we friends? I don’t know enough!’ He stepped inside, baring his tiny fangs and teeth, while laughing, “Did you cut that fucker’s throat open? Warden said not to kill them, Kat. I hope you got something out of him first.”

I had gotten a lot of blood out of the small man, and I didn’t know who Warden was, but I felt like I shouldn’t say anything about that. This new man confused and frightened me, but I assumed I should tell him what the woman told me about my body. “I am Katrina,” I responded, so he would know me.

“Wow, okay you really hate when I call you Kat, huh? What a total bitch.” He muttered the last part but I heard it anyway. I realized Kat could mean Katrina, and I felt foolish, but didn’t want to admit to anything of the sort.

“I am a total psycho. I was torturing them, and I got carried away.” I said, revealing the rest of my story hopefully.
    “Hey, no need to be sarcastic. Damn. I just came down to check on you, but I can tell I’m not wanted. You can handle explaining yourself to the warden on your own, then.” The man said this loudly before walking out quickly from the chamber and shut a heavy door behind himself.

I turned back to the woman, who waited until his footsteps faded before laughing. “That was the worst- the most awkward. Where have you been all my life?”

“I came from Abyss.” I told the woman who I understood had brought me here.

“I didn’t mean that literally.” she raised and lowered her shoulders quickly, “Why aren’t you more, I don’t know, charismatic? Knowledgeable? Every demon I’ve heard of is a skilled actor.”

“I’m not an actor. And, I don’t know what acting has to do with anything right now,” I responded, before continuing helpfully, “I did hear that demons who go to Terra usually finish infiltration college first. Are you upset because I didn’t go? I dropped out of school when my mom left, so I never went to acting school or infiltration college.”

“There’s college in Abyss? That’s… not what I expected. And somehow I ended up summoning a dropout too.” She looked down and slumped her shoulders before sighing. “Bad luck, Tanya, bad luck.”
    “Who’s Tanya?” I asked, looking around the room curiously. There were no windows; the floor was covered in broken tiles, a tray, and small metal tools; the room had dark stains everywhere; and the man I fed upon still lay on the ground near the table. “This place is boring and disgusting,” I added, sharing my opinion of our surroundings, while picking up one of the tools and examining its sharp edges. It looked dangerous. I decided to keep it. When I bent down to pick up the sharp tool, I realized that I had not only lost my horns and proper fangs, but my hair was longer now and became black, or maybe it was just wet. Shocked, I thought, ‘I’m a human? Maybe this body is rejecting me! But I’ve never heard of that happening, urgh why do I still hurt then?’

The woman glanced at me and answered, “I’m Tanya, and of course it’s disgusting here. It’s an interrogation chamber in a military prison.”

“Okay, Tanya. Then you can also know me, Ali. Before I became Katrina now, anyway. But what does that stuff you said about inter-gate and military prison mean?”

“What?” Tanya snapped, “It means we are stuck in here and can’t get out. The guards, people wearing the same clothes as you, will try to stop us from leaving. You can’t leave either without well, authorized leave. And I can’t leave because I’m a prisoner.”

“Oh,” I sighed then remembered something, “Why did you summon a demon anyway? I haven’t been summoned before.”

“You didn’t even read the contract you accepted? No wonder you got here so fast. I provided you with a body sacrifice, and now you’ll help me escape from the military prison. It’s simple. Also,” she continued, “It is painfully obvious that you’ve never been to Terra.”

I ignored that last comment and looked down at my blood-drenched guard clothes that Tanya mentioned earlier and noticed something about myself. “Wow! I’ve got an adult body like the cool and pretty big sisters at the brothel! Yay!”

Tanya looked at me silently for a moment and put her hands over her face before speaking quietly, “How the hell did I end up with a foolish, school dropout, child demon on my only chance for summoning. This is exactly why no one uses emergency summonings. I’m so unlucky. So unlucky!”

I reached over and stroked her brown hair where her horns should have been, like mom used to do when I was sad, “I’m unlucky too, so we are unlucky together Tanya. But let’s work together, okay? I’ll get you out of this prison. Trust me!” I tried to encourage her, “after all, demons with any pride always fulfill our contracts, and that includes this girl right here.” I stopped petting her and pointed at myself for emphasis.