Mesmerized by the light coming from within the hare’s navel, Renalia crawled on hand and knees up the bank towards it, the damaged wrist held at her chest. She moved like a supplicant crawling towards a deity, awestruck and apprehensive, in equal measure. Even as her body lost strength with each drop of blood, curiosity for the card–for that’s what it must be–drove her.

Boogie, overjoyed at winning this argument, play-bowed and wagged his tail ferociously. “Stay and guard,” Renalia ordered, forestalling any wrong-headed attempts at play wrestling. A soft whimper escaped the dog as it stood and resumed work mode. The tail wavered softly side to side, letting her know playing was always possible.

Arriving at the corpse, Renalia grabbed at the knife at her belt, but found air instead. With a disheartening glance, she traced the splatters of blood back, almost to the water.

There, half buried in the mud, she glimpsed Shim’s knife.

Belatedly, she realized that the blood loss, besides slowing her movements, affected her mind as well. She should have taken it with her. Now it looked immeasurably far, and she could not hope to get there and back again in her state. She wondered how to ask Boogie to fetch it for her, but decided to forego the risk of him hurting himself.

She wanted to try something else first. When she had received the [Find Herb] card from Granny, it had felt immaterial between her fingers, as if she held on to light itself. And she had encountered no physical resistance when placing the green card into her navel. Maybe it worked the same way in the other direction as well.

Renalia pinched the light in the hole of the hare’s abdomen and pulled. She stared at the materialized card between her fingers, held so tightly that the blood drained from her fingertips. Or perhaps she did not have enough blood in her system to extend to her fingertips anymore. Either way, she did not dwell on it, her attention drawn to the card itself.

It was the same size as her other cards, but instead of the familiar ten-pointed star on the back, this featured a pile of bones. The front side depicted a patch of bogling hide, absent any words or icons. But the image triggered an instinctive understanding that this card would toughen her skin.

A bogling card, a real bogling card!

She’s never heard of boglings, nor any non-human creatures, having cards before. She spared no thought on the wisdom of incorporating an undead horror-hare’s card into her core.

At any moment now, she would bleed out. She hoped that tougher skin, if only for a second, would staunch the wound at her wrist. The discovery of this weird card also rekindled her curiosity, which the disappointment in her own Deck had extinguished.

As Granny had shown her, she assumed a cross-legged position and concentrated on opening her soul to the new card. But when she tried to push it into her navel, her soul rebelled against its foreignness. However, her impending death served as a great motivator, incentivizing her soul to relax its safeguards. She activated it as soon as it settled.

Darkness–a black darker than a moonless night with eyes closed–enveloped her. It passed before she could panic, light hitting her eyes again with sudden brightness. By her side, Boogie stood with hackles raised, producing a peculiar sound as his growl lengthened into a whine.

“It’s okay, Boogie, it’s okay. It’s just me playing around with some cards. I’m still me, not a bogling. Not yet, at least.” She reassured him, thankful that he did not automatically lunge at the bogling that, to him, must have appeared out of nowhere. She shivered at the thought.

After he quieted, she glanced at the claw marks on her chest, which now had a thin covering over them, like a skin of fat forming over fresh milk. She reached to undo the makeshift bandage on her wrist, curious if it had stopped bleeding as well.

But as the thin membrane over her chest wounds started to crack at the twisting of her torso, she froze and reconsidered. Maybe she should wait so she could activate the new card again. Perhaps a second activation would make a thicker skin. “Girl trying. Girl seeing. Girl understanding, yes?” Granny always said.

Seeking to minimize movement, she laid on her back so that she could relax for an hour. And without any conscious task beyond staying still, she quickly lost consciousness.

She dreamt of a world of white, illuminated softly with the constant glow of common cards. As soon as she thought of cards, faint rectangular outlines appeared in the light. Black silhouettes darted to and fro, ripping through the light and replacing it with a dark opaque red. On a primal level, Renalia knew this was a nightmare. But she felt no fear, even as a black shape collided with her and turned orange.

***

I no longer believe in God, but I sometimes wonder at the hands of fate. Without knowledge of first aid, I should have died that day, the day of my first hunt.

Now, of course, I know to tie the bandage tightly, hold my wrist above my head, and apply constant pressure to it. I know how to make a tourniquet with a belt. I know a half-dozen other ways to survive venous bleeding.

But, back then, as a child just turned ten, I could only see my life flowing away, like a stream of sand from a broken hourglass.

I would have died, if not for a stubborn dog. If not for trying to pay my debts with my last ounce of energy. If not for stabbing the bogling, blindly through mud, precisely at the navel. If not for exactly the right sparkling card…

To the ten-year-old me, it was as if God shone His Light on me.

***

She woke and saw the [Bogling Skin]–as she chose to call it–card turn back on. In the past, she had always wondered how her parents would perform various tasks outdoors and meet back at the hut at the same time. She now knew that either Decks inherently, or through repeated use of hourly cards, gave an impeccable sense of timing. It even worked in her unconscious state.

The definitive countdown to her death had morphed into more of a question. It allowed her some time and space to think. So instead of blindly activating her new card, she pictured covering only her wounds with bogling skin. Holding onto that image, she activated [Bogling Skin] and [Disinfect Self Wounds] together.

To her pleasant surprise, only part of her chest and her right wrist formed a layer of bogling’s hide, a slimmer version of the hare’s. She held her breath, as the transformation lasted longer than the expected second. Eleven seconds later, she expelled her breath as the black, leathery armor disappeared. It revealed a thicker crust of scabs on her chest wounds.

She sat up and unwrapped the bandage around her wrist with controlled movements. A beautiful dry scab laid over what had been an open wound. She chuckled at how perceptions of ugly and beauty could change so quickly. It turned into a laugh after she saw Boogie’s quizzical expression. 

“I’m okay, I’m really okay,” she said with relief.

“Wait! Not that much okay!” she shouted as Boogie moved toward her with obvious intentions of play. Noticing her distress, he laid down next to her, only giving her a quick lick on the cheek.

She checked the cut on his snout, but he did not seem bothered by it. Renalia hugged the dog, burying her face in his fur. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for not leaving me.” The dog gave no signs of understanding, but he laid his head over her shoulder and back, hugging her in return.

It meant more than she could have imagined.

As if relief had opened the emotional floodgates, other emotions came unbidden: the terror from almost dying, the dread at hunting boglings, the guilt of hurting Shim, the sadness of saying goodbye to Granny, the disappointment at her broken Deck, the anger of life’s injustices, and the shame of her poverty. 

No longer held in check, it all came rushing in. So she cried for the first time in two years. Her facade of strength crumbled, and she sobbed with her whole body. She let it out, letting a non-judgemental dog share in her burdens.

Buffeted by powerful emotions, she clung tightly to Boogie. The solidity of his presence highlighted, in contrast, her adrift life of late. Granny had pulled up anchor from the bog and abandoned her. And Mama and Papa had stood by while Chief Cian gave her away to the Ongocks’. They didn’t want her either. Shim’s dad had sent her away the first chance he had.

Boogie was all she had left. Boogie and her cards.

The [Dull Emotions] card glowed lightly in her mind’s eye. Its availability tempted her. It could calm the storm in a snap, its effectiveness proven several times over in the fight with the hare.

But she thought back to the last life lesson Granny had tried to impart to her. In multiple conversations in the past, she would nod along, pretending to understand what the older woman was saying. Granny had an odd way of speaking, and many times, Renalia could not tell if it was the language or the concept she did not comprehend. And it would only occur sometime later that she would comprehend the wisdom of Granny’s lesson.

Now she considered the warning against suppressing her emotions, which she had done unconsciously for the past two years. Granny had said her emotions were important and she should feel them, not silence them. She repeated Granny’s litany to herself: I feel the emotions; they do not control me. I know the emotions; they do not define me.

As these feelings lost their power over her, she realized how they had warped her thoughts.

Granny did not abandon her. The old woman had waited till she got her Deck and guided her through it. Even when Granny left for her home, she had invited Renalia to go with her.

And if her parents had fought against Chief Cian’s decision, she would have honored it anyway. She knew the Bailiff would view it as one Decked individual taking another out of production. And to prevent it from happening again–and getting called back to the backwater village–he would make an example of her. He probably would sentence her to several years of hard labor in the slave camps.

She sat up and released her grip on Boogie, who took the opportunity to lick the tears off her face in passing. Well, her perception of Boogie hadn’t changed. He was still the most wonderful, best-est, dog there ever was.

As her emotions drained from her, her physical needs started demanding her attention. She realized how parched and ravenous she was. She took the waterskin and food pouch off her belt. Belts–she never knew how useful they were.

With her head tilted back, she squeezed every last drop of water from the skin. But it still did not come close to replenishing the water she had lost as blood. She wondered if her [Disinfect] card worked on bog water also, or if it only affected wounds. Granny would tell her to test it, but it didn’t feel like a safe environment to do so now.

The pouch of dried jerky contained more meat than she had ever seen for a family in one sitting. There were dry ones that tasted salty when she licked one. And there were sticky ones that tasted tangy and sweet.

She was glad Shim was not here to mock her surprised expression. Looking down at her unclothed upper body with streaks of dried blood and ugly/beautiful scabs, plus a lower body caked in mud, she revised her notion. She was glad Shim was not here to see any of this.

“Am I supposed to share this with you?” she asked Boogie. Boogie stuck his head out eagerly. “Alright, we’ll share. Half and half, okay?”

As they ate, Renalia told him about her life as a peat farmer and how she had hoped to help her family. The dog listened with rapt attention, focused on every word that came out of her mouth.

On his last piece, he held it in his mouth and tilted his head, ears pivoting front and back. Renalia was about to ask what was wrong when Boogie dropped the jerky and turned, growling back toward where they fought the hare.

Oh no, Renalia thought, as she realized that the splotches of her blood in the wet dirt served as the perfect lure for boglings.

She dropped her own jerky and jumped to retrieve her weapons. But dizziness caused her to stumble. Without any relevant skills to help, she relied solely on her desperation to propel her to the dropped spear. Sharp pains accompanied her scrambling, as scabs cracked and split. But she ignored them.

This is all my fault, she thought as Boogie circled to find the beast, I won’t let you suffer for it.