Page 113 of Kiss Slay Replay

“When you went back, what happened? Did it undo everything that had already gone down that day?”

“Willa, what are you talking about?” Ravi asks, stepping between us. “The police are on their way. All we need to do is find somewhere to take shelter.”

“Yeah? And what are the police going to do? Shoot the flowers?” The sprites on the nearest cabin take notice. They go quiet for a moment, staring at us with their bulging, repugnant bug eyes.

“Let’s move,” Ravi says, dropping his voice low. “We need to keep moving.”

The sprites whisper in one another’s pointy little ears. They hiss and go airborne. Fly in our direction. A dozen violent sprites coming for our heads.

“Tanya, is there anything else I need to know? Please. Think!”

“Retrace your steps from the first day,” she says. “Find the wormhole and go back through. Get through.”

“Move. Now,” Ravi says through a clenched jaw.

The sprites are too close. There’s no getting out of this one. Can I accept this fate, this pain, this death, suffering now in hopes of saving my future? Is there any other choice? “You two run. All right? Fucking run. Don’t turn around. Go.”

Ravi looks at me. “Willa, don’t—”

“It’s fine. Let me. Please. Goodbye, Ravi. Goodbye.” I push him. “Go.”

“But—” Tanya starts.

“If today ends with me, then let it end. Go!”

And they do. They go. They run.

I’m far from athletic, but I try my best fast pitch, chuck my bag at the sprites. “Hey, you little shits!”

They’re staggeringly quick, and I realize I didn’t think this through. Sacrificing myself seemed like the right thing a second ago, and death is all but guaranteed in the loop, but not death by these pocket-sized fairy-tale nightmare hooligans.

Taking my shoes off was smart for running, but I can’t run because my shin is fucked, and I tossed my bag, so now I have no weapons, nothing to defend myself with. I cover my face with my arms, and they’re shredding them. Slicing me up with their razor nails, gnawing on me with their thorn teeth. They’ve got my legs, too. Feet. Ankles. They’re digging into my calves.

This might literally be death by a thousand cuts.

At least my other deaths were relatively quick.

They’re all so loud. Hissing and jabbering and fluttering around. They’re gathering on my shoulders, clawing at my neck and my ears, ranting and raving in their brat tones.

“Stop!” I can’t take it. I can’t listen to it anymore. I hate it so much. It’s making me crazy. The noise, and the tiny bursts of warm, wet breath.

I reach back to bat one away, exposing my face for an instant. That’s all they need.

A poke in the eye with nails sharp as a tack.

I scream, and one’s in my mouth, pinching my tongue. Without any other defenses, I do the thing my body tells me to. I bite down.

There’s an awful crunch, and my mouth floods with piping hot rancid goo.

I spit, but it’s too late. Some of it is already down my throat. Now it’s coming back up. There’s half a sprite stuck to my chin, and the other is twitching in a shallow pool of pink vomit at my feet.

The sprites go feral.

They’re ripping out my lashes, stabbing at my eyes. I throw myself to the ground, hunch over, attempt to protect my face. There are too many of them. I’ve fallen into a wasp’s nest. They’re tearing my hair out in clumps. They’re burrowing into my cuts, pulling them wider, peeling off my skin.

“Just fucking kill me already!” My teeth wobble against my tongue, my tattered eyelids won’t shut, and then there’s the weight of them on my back pushing me down into the dirt. My arms give. I taste bile, and blood, and earth.

There must be hundreds of them now, judging by the noise. The outrageous sound of them that in another world might be borderline adorable, if only they were animated instead of real and ferocious. If only they weren’t dragging me by the ankles through the tall grass down the hill. The spots of me missing skin burn as they rub against the terrain. My face hits every divot in the landscape, my nose and teeth colliding with rocks. I’m waiting for something to knock me out. Waiting for everything to go black. For the pain to stop.