“Peace?” Emika echoed. “What? We aren’t at war or anything, are we?”

Dr. Haur closed her eyes and shook her head gently, in a gesture that didn’t seem dismissive but rather sympathetic. “I would like to make two points to shed a bit of light on this. First off, your curse is incredibly dangerous, and seemingly cannot be contained by any means that we would have access to. The reason why I only offered technical tests earlier and no magical ones is because we have no way to understand how your affliction interacts with foreign magic. It’s possible that it will see any magic cast on you as a threat, and we have no way of verifying that theory without potentially sacrificing a mage or a witch. For obvious reasons, we are hesitant to do that. In other words, any person sharing a room with you, ever, is at your complete mercy to survive, with no way to defend themselves. That is not a common situation, as typically even the strongest magical beings have some weaknesses, or countermeasures that can be taken against them.”

Were they aware that she had killed a Cursebreaker? Or did they just assume that she could, if she wanted to?

After a brief pause, Dr. Haur gestured to some documents lying on the table, and her face darkened. “The second point I would like to make is that, to our knowledge, your past warden decided to put you under a certain amount of… duress.” She swallowed. “Frankly, I was shocked when I read the reports, and how unaware this person seemed of the inhumanity of his actions. Be that as it may, what I want to communicate is that I would understand and empathise with any amount of resentment you might carry with you, and part of our negotiations are to make sure that such feelings are nipped in the bud and that our relations can grow into something positive instead.”

Nipped in the bud? Grow into something positive? Was she doing this on purpose? Either way, there was nothing to ‘nip in the bud’; Emika’s resentment already stood in full bloom, and had for a while. These people were way too late to the party. At this point, Emika wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to communicate that to them, so she just nodded. Maybe it would have been different if they hadn’t started off by trying to use her to kill people. Truth be told, these messages were rather mixed.

“All of this is just the groundwork,” the woman continued. “This is just an introductory little chat, so feel free to think it over before we start negotiating properly. Consider what you might want that we could offer, and whether there are ways through which we can make your stay here more welcoming. To show you that we mean it when we say that we want to help, I hereby offer you to get those medical tests done right away, if you would like. If you’d rather rest, we can instead carry them out whenever you feel ready.”

Emika had just spent several days in solitary confinement being experimented on, and had spent today breaking out of there, throwing herself through the forest like a sapient rock, being set aflame, and then killing a weasel and a Cursebreaker, only to at last be summoned to Heaven. The truth was, she really wanted, and needed, a long shower, and a ton of sleep.

Maybe some food, too, but Maxime hadn’t given her any, and by now Emika wasn’t too sure anymore if she required food at all. She was desperately hungry, but that apparently didn’t impact her ability to maim and kill or move around or stare at medical professionals in silence. On the other hand, there was some chance that her hunger was actually causing her to sap more energy from her surroundings, which was something that felt slightly unpleasant to her, so eating a meal was definitely a priority.

“I want to eat,” she said. “And then do the tests.”

Her wish was essentially treated like a command. Dr. Haur made a quick call on her phone, after which she led her through the buildings into a large canteen that ended up completely empty save for a nervous worker behind the counter with a net over his hair asking what she would like to eat.

That was a very good question. What would she like to eat? For some reason, she couldn’t help but ask for mushrooms, onions, carrots, beetroots, and potatoes and only after stating that preference, she recognised that what she was really craving was soil, though she decided to keep that to herself.

Emika sat down on one of the tables joined by Dr. Haur, but they both didn’t speak during the wait. Eventually, the worker delivered a rich potato stew with all of the ordered ingredients, plus red beans as a protein source.

It was probably the most amazing meal Emika had tasted since that soy-based lasagna on the day she turned her friends into plants.

The moment she realised that, the moment she remembered that, with all the vivid images flooding back into her consciousness — the blood, the limbs, the mixtures of flesh and plant —, she wasn’t hungry anymore. Instead, she felt like vomiting. She took a short break and put her spoon down, closing her eyes and forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply to wait out the retching reflex.

She still needed to eat this. She hadn’t eaten in days, so now, she needed to. There was no way to avoid it. After a few minutes and one last deep breath, she finally went on to finish the plate, and decided to ask for seconds for good measure, just trying her best to empty her head and not think about anything this whole time.

After she was done, she felt like she could probably ask for a third and fourth serving, but for now, she decided she’d suffered enough.

“Thank you,” Emika said after having stored away her plate in the dish cart.

Dr. Haur nodded. If she had any thoughts on Emika’s hesitation towards finishing her meal, or even noticed at all, she didn’t show it. “Ready for the rest?”

“Let’s get it over with.”

They ended up running the tests Dr. Haur had already mentioned, as well an ultrasound and a standard examination of reflexes and the like, although Dr. Haur ended up not trying to hit Emika’s knee with a hammer. She then went on to measure her weight — or, at least trying to, because apparently, Emika’s weight was oscillating between random values of about two hundred kilograms to over a metric ton.

Emika was starting to feel extremely tired rather soon, now that all the stress and pressure of the day was wearing off. At some point, she mostly ceased to be aware of what Dr. Haur was doing, simply following her instructions to lie down there, adjust, hold still, get up, move along, lie down again, and so on.

Dr. Haur didn’t make any unnecessary comments and if something was immediately wrong with Emika, she didn’t say it. On the other hand, everything was already wrong with her, so maybe there really was no reason to expect any peculiar reaction from her to whatever findings the test showed.

Finally, when everything was completed, Dr. Haur said she’d have the results ready within a few hours, and she’d come fetch Emika once she’d caught up on sleep.

She was led back to her room, and the other three weren’t currently inside. Their stuff was still scattered around, though, so it didn’t seem like they had moved out. In any case, Emika entered the bathroom to finish herself up before going to bed, and it was right then that she found out why those three hadn’t pointed her at it before, when she’s been trying to change.

There was a camera in there as well. If anything, hiding behind the open doors of the cupboard had probably given Emika the most privacy that she could have possibly received.

She took a deep breath, trying not to get herself upset and angry again right before sleep, because that might cause her to stay up for another two hours, just brooding. She had already decided that this island wouldn’t survive her, so this didn’t really change anything. That said, the first thing she did was to reach out with her curse and destroy the camera, wrapping it in a juniper branch until it issued a soft crack.

Finally, she was just about to lie down on the lower mattress on the bunk bed below where Alisha had wrapped herself in a cocoon earlier, but then she hesitated.

Would the bed hold her? Or would Emika’s body crush it?

Well, only one way to find out.

Emika rolled herself into the bunk and to her almost-surprise, the frame did hold. Even the mattress was way firmer than she’d expected, and she barely even sank in. There were two blankets, one of which was weighted, both of which were extremely soft.

As the knots of tension released themselves all over inside her body, Emika felt the soft cracking and snapping of wooden branches inside her as they eased into more comfortable positions. Like a weary behemoth settling itself after a long day, she felt her heartbeat slow down, her breathing steady, and her thoughts calm.

Such a beautifully warm bed against the cool temperature of the room.

Amazing. A good meal. Nice roommates. A bed that could hold her weight. Truly, this could only be Heaven.

What a shame for Heaven.