It started with a bad dream.

Liz was used to those, but this one was worse than usual. She was back in high school again. Class started in three minutes, and the throng of people thinned by the second, sorting themselves into appropriate classrooms.

It was the first day of the schoolyear. She’d shown up early, to ensure nothing went wrong. But Liz scrambled over her printed-out schedule for the hundredth time, confirming, A-214. She knew where she was supposed to be. And she’d been in these hallways for three years already; the layout of Liberty Heart Highschool might as well have been engraved into her brain.

So where was A-214?

Liz clutched her binder to her chest and, panic mounting, shuffled across linoleum floors, shoes squeaking. Her head pivoted left and right as she half-jogged, pace picking up by the second—the clock’s minute-hand ticking inexorably toward 8:00—as she scanned room numbers. B-439. A-122. A-431. They changed without rhyme or reason. Halls branched in dozens of directions, shifting like a mythological labyrinth. In the dream, this made perfect sense.

The bell rang, and Liz was left alone. Everyone had found their way. She jogged between rows of lockers with peeling red paint, backpack bouncing, as she frantically sought out A-214. If she were only a few seconds, or a minute late, then that wouldn’t be so bad. But her fruitless endeavor continued. One, two, five minutes passed.

This couldn’t be happening. Why her?

Stern-faced Vice-Principal Clarke appeared from nowhere, his steely-gray eyes, wrinkles, and military buzz-cut intensely intimidating, even more than normal. Liz skidded to a stop, almost slamming into him.

“M-Mr Clarke,” she stuttered out, quailing under his disapproving stare, his crossed arms, corded like steel.

“Why aren’t you in class, Miss Forsythe?”

Liz held up her printed-out schedule, as if it could absolve her of this ignominious sin. “I—I—“

He snatched the paper out of her hands. “A-214,” he said, eyes flicking back up. “What’s so complicated?”

Liz swallowed, again, feeling like she was about to cry from frustration. “I couldn’t—“

“Follow me.”

Liz was led, stomach twisting, to room A-214. It took barely two turns. Liz could’ve sworn she’d passed it twelve times. He opened the door, gesturing her in.

Twenty-six pairs of eyes pivoted to her as Liz slouched forward, alone, to a cram-packed classroom that had already begun introductions. Liz thought she might vomit. She shuffled forward, muttering an apology that barely came out as a whisper, and slumped into the nearest empty desk, eyes locked firmly to the sickly green plastic.

“Liz,” Miss Dayton said. “How nice of you to join us.”

This was Liz’s first time being in this classroom, or seeing Miss Dayton, but dream logic held sway.

“Why don’t you stand up and introduce yourself?”

Liz froze. Her eyes went up. The entire classroom stared at her. There was a mixture of perplexed, disdainful, and amused expressions. Grace, Liz’s crush since grade four, watched her with vague, poorly-masked pity. That was the worst, by far. Why did she have to be here?

Liz shakily forced herself to her feet. Introductions. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done this a hundred times before. And sure, they were always disasters, but maybe this time would be different. She’d planned it out beforehand—she knew exactly what to say.

Her mouth opened, and no words came out.

Her classmates stared.

It dragged on for a while.

“Liz?” Miss Dayton asked, concerned. “Are you alright?”

Liz swallowed. She tried again.

“Hello. M-My name is Liz. I like to … I …”

What did she like again?

Who was she?

The silence stretched, heavier now that Liz had started, then trailed off.

It must’ve lasted an eternity.

“Wow,” somebody finally said. “This is a disaster, isn’t it?”

It was hard to describe how piercing the words were—how unfitting to the dreadful, sweat-inducing situation Liz had found herself in. They cut through her, almost startling her awake.

“Ease up on the anxiety, why don’t you? It’s getting to even me.”

Liz’s eyes found the speaker. Nobody else’s head pivoted; they all continued to stare at Liz, as if nobody had spoken. As if they’d frozen in time.

There, sitting in the second-front row and third from the left, was a red-skinned girl with pink eyes. Two black horns curled from her head, between tresses of white hair that cascaded onto her shoulders, glossy from the bright overhead lights. She wore an amused expression, with a bit of sympathy—but not pity.

“What?” Liz said. The strangeness of the girl’s appearance had broken the dream’s induced anxiety. Confusion replaced it. This wasn’t how her bad dreams were supposed to go. She would know—she’d had this exact one about fifty times, at a guess.

“Why you?” the girl asked. She put her chin on her fist and studied Liz. “Can’t even force a sentence out, and somehow you summoned me?”

“What?” she repeated.

What the hell was going on? Why was this girl’s skin red? And why did she have horns?

Why did it all seem so real? And not in the way a dream normally did—Liz felt practically lucid, all of a sudden, and could feel herself sleeping a thousand miles away, cozied up under thick sheets and her face buried in a pillow. She was both there and here.

“But I guess beggars can’t be choosers,” the girl said. “It’s not every day a contract opens up, and I’ll take what I can get.”

A grin split her lips that somehow had Liz’s heart instantly slamming in her chest. And she wasn’t even sure from what—intimidation, excitement, unease?

“So,” the girl said. “You wanna make a deal?”