I slowly drift back into consciousness. A soft ring still sounds in my ears, and a dull pain throbs in the back of my head.

  I’m bound, arms and legs, to a chair. Not by rope, but by the warm golden chains that surrounded me earlier.

  I open one eye… to find a face staring at mine.

  Two eyes, the right of shining gold and the left of shimmering silver, framing stark white pupils. Thin red lines drawn with purpose surround the silver eye; be they tattoos or scars, I don’t know, but they look strangely familiar. Dark, thick eyelashes frame then, beneath a neatly-cut fringe of black hair. Upon seeing my eye open, their glare intensifies. I lean back in my chair with both eyes open now, but she only leans closer, intent on winning this staring contest.

  The person before me is the hooded woman from earlier, with her dark grey woolly hood resting on her shoulders. A mole marks her otherwise unblemished face just below her right eye. Her ears are pointed, the same as all the others and as my own. Long, well-kept black hair that turns dark red near their tips rests on her shoulders. A gold pendant with a star-shaped but unrecognisable marking hangs around her neck, held by a black leather loop.

  Her white buttoned shirt and brown linen pants under her cloak are a lot more form-fitting and show her to be quite well-endowed, but as my eyes wander down her form… they get stuck on her chest.

  She’s uh, big.

  Telling where I’m looking, the woman growls softly, and my gaze flicks back to meet her eyes, now scowling at me. She leans closer, as if trying to read my very soul just by staring intensely. She smells faintly… sweet. Not the sweetness of the maple syrup-tasting “sweet-tree sap”, but, sweet like some unknowable perfume. Her hands are hidden within her black gloves, which have a white, very clean panel of fabric on their backs.

  I avert my gaze downwards as she continues to scan over me. My clothes look… slightly cleaner? Like I’ve been patted down with a washcloth or something. My face doesn’t feel dirty, and I don’t smell quite so bad. Did they clean me up while I was passed out…?

  “What do you think, Chief?” A male voice asks. I look up at the source of it - it’s the same man that was standing beside the “Chief” earlier. He looks remarkably like a younger Rann, with his face showing fewer marks and scars that come with age. They’re probably related in some way. Father and son, maybe? I’m good enough at recognising faces to guess that with some confidence. They sound similar, though this man’s voice isn’t as… gravelly as Rann’s.

  The Chief sighs, standing upright. The chains binding me start to rattle even though I’m not moving; but as I look to my side, I see my wings, fully splayed out and wrapped several times over in chains, struggling against their bindings, trying to lash out at the woman before me.

  “What I know, Vann, is that this one isn’t a part of any clan or group down here. She’s new.” The Chief answers.

  “New? What kind of “new”? She’s clearly an adult.” Vann questions, sounding surprised at the answer.

  The Chief sighs softly, then leans down right into my face.

  “How old are you?” She… demands, rather than asking. I answer honestly, as thankfully I have been left ungagged.

  “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen?!” Vann spits out, “How could you- where the hell are you from to look that old at Fifteen?!”

  “Does it matter where I’m from? I died. I’m in hell, as far as I know. I didn’t choose to look like this.”

  The Chief furrows her brow, glancing back at Vann. The look she gives him seems to answer his question, before she turns back to me and asks another question, a little more politely this time.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Three days. Or four. I’m not sure. I’ve spent a good part of it unconscious.”

  The Chief looks back at Vann. Vann’s eyes widen, and he turns away, pacing about the room as the Chief looks back at me.

  “Did you always have those wings?” She questions.

  “Did you know anyone with wings when we were… alive?” I ask back, but that answer doesn’t satisfy her as her glare tells me. I’ll be honest. “I only got them when I got here. They don’t know how to fly. I don’t even know how to fly. They’re less wings and more a fancy cape with an attitude.”

  A wing tries to poke me in my side, straining against the chains. It didn’t like being called that.

  Vann turns to face the Chief again, raising an eyebrow.

  “Chief, if you’re certain, does this mean…”

  “I am certain, and it doesn’t mean anything yet, Vann. This girl has no idea where she is, or even what she is.”

  The Chief pulls out a chair and sits across from me, crossing her legs. The way she carries herself has an air of nobility, but her blunt manner of speaking stands in stark contrast to it.

  “Let’s start from the beginning. Do you know how you got here?”

  “I died. My village was attacked, my home burned, my family murdered. Then I woke up here. In what is, presumably, hell. I don’t know what I did wrong to end up here, but here I am. Guess the people that murdered my family didn’t have the courtesy to take care of our murdered bodies respectfully.”

  “Do you know of the Underlands?”

  The Underlands? I’d heard the name before in passing. It’s always been just another name for hell; a more poetic one often only used in old stories.

  “It’s just another name for hell. The name is all I know.”

  My experience in “hell” here has been so unlike what any of the stories and fables talked about I’m not entirely sure that this is “hell.”

  “Just the name?” She continues.

  “... Just the name.”

  She sighs, standing up and walking over to a bookshelf to parse its contents. Now that I have more of a chance to look around the room, it’s surprisingly… homey, is the word I’d use. Several bookshelves line the walls, separated by shuttered windows. The floor is solid wooden planks, and wooden beams span above, holding up a thatched roof. I’m seated next to a large table, with papers and books strewn across it. Candles dotted throughout the room provide light alongside the fireplace. Man, I never would have thought hell could have such respectable accommodations.

  The Chief pulls out the book she was looking for, walking back over and sitting down in front of me as she opens it, flicking through the pages as Vann leans over her shoulder. I can’t get a good enough look at what the title of the book is, but I don’t think it’s in a language I can read.

  “The… History of the Damned: Their Afflictions, Curses, and Gifts, Chief?” Vann comments the book’s name, conveniently.

  “Six of the seven Sumps that the Damned awaken within afflict their Damned with certain unique, consistent traits, but sometimes there are greater changes to a person’s bodily age, height, build, or even gender; it’s not something unheard of. There’s no direct record or mention of wings in particular, but there are accounts of Damned having unspecified new body parts that aren’t consistent with what their Sump afflicts them with. However.”

  The Chief slams the book shut, returning her glare to me as she stands, walks up to me, and lightly traces her finger along the uppermost feathers on my wing. I almost don’t feel her touch, as jarring as it is to “feel” through a limb I’m unaccustomed to having, as the word “Damned” rings in my head. Damned? As in… damned to hell?

  The wing thrashes against its bonds, its sharper metallic feathers grating against the golden chains, as if trying to cut through them… I don’t think that’ll work, wings. Magic metal is harder to cut through than rope.

  She kneels down, taking a closer look at my wing.

  “This is unlike anything I’ve heard or read before… Great wings, with feathers like blades… How do you control these?” She looks up at me as she asks, a slight twinkle in her eye that quickly fades as she focuses back on me.

  The old man said my wings were… unique. If this Chief of Haven conveniently has a whole book about the “Damned” and the things that happen to them, and there’s no mention whatsoever of wings, they must be unique. Though, to answer her question…

  “I… can’t. They have a mind of their own.”

  The Chief looks taken aback, unsatisfied with my answer even though she appears to believe me.

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  “You can’t control them? They’re physically attached to your body and you can’t control them?”

  “They tend to listen to what I tell them to do in my head, but they also seem to do things on their own…”

  The Chief’s eyes narrow, leaning into my face.

  “Did you happen to tell them to slash the face of one of my men?”

  “N-No! That was of their own accord when he grabbed my cloak! I swear I didn’t tell them to cut him!”

  “I understand a negative reaction to someone grabbing your clothes, but did you tell them not to cut that man’s face?”

  “I… didn’t think they’d do that! They moved so quickly, and…”

  The Chief stands back up, crossing her arms.

  “So, you’re a complete stranger with no allegiance who says she’s only fifteen.”

  “Y-yes, as hard as that may be to believe…”

  “I know you’re not lying about that. Nor are you lying about having only been here a day.”

  “Yes, so-”

  “But. You interrupted the expeditionary team as they were on an important mission. For reasons I’m still not yet sure of, Rann decided to bring you back, meaning they brought back less goods with them.”

  “That… well… that wasn’t my fault-”

  “Most perplexingly, you have wings. You say you don’t know how to fly, which is somewhat understandable. However, your wings hide swords within them that have already injured one of my villagers, and you say you can’t control them; evidently so if you failed to stop them from cutting a man’s face up.”

  “Th-that… um…”

  “Finally, you are also in possession of an enchanted cloak that conveniently hides your wings within them, meaning you kept them concealed from the expeditionary team right up until you made it inside my village’s walls. You do understand how this makes you look, yes?”

  “... Well, when you put it like that… I don’t have any good answers or reasons to give, aha…”

  The Chief sits back, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow slightly.

  “You’re doing a poor job of negotiating your way out of those chains, let alone the Cellars.”

  “Wait, I was brought here to negotiate?!”

  The Chief sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You really do know nothing…”

  Vann steps forth, a look of equal parts hope and concern on his face.

  “What do you think, Chief? Does this mean things have changed?” He asks.

  The Chief raises a hand to stop Vann.

  “One outlier doesn’t prove anything, Vann. She hasn’t lied about anything she’s said, but I can’t yet confirm anything else.”

  “Confirm… what?” I ask, nervously interjecting in this conversation.

  The Chief sighs, sitting back down and raising an eyebrow.

  “Do you think you’re in hell?” She asks.

  “W-well… yes, because I clearly remember dying, and, this place hasn’t exactly been a paradise, but… it hasn’t been anything like the stories I was told, either.”

  She sighs, rubbing her temple on her forehead.

  “Where to begin…”

  She sits up straight, staring me straight in the eyes.

  “You are correct, you’ve died, and gone to hell. The Underlands is the name we use, making the world we came from the Overlands. You are, as the priests of the last world would say, “Damned” to hell, just like the rest of us. You died, your body wasn’t properly treated, so your soul ended up down here. Damned wake up all over this world, in places called Sumps, Graveyards, et cetera. You’re in one such sump; the Red Abyss. It’s called that because, as you may have noticed, it’s a giant red hole in the ground and hardly anyone has escaped it in hundreds of years. Just like the rest of us, you have awoken with pointed ears, red-tipped hair, and red eyes-”

  “My eyes are red too?!”

  A glare from her shuts me up fast.

  “Yes. You haven’t seen them yourself, but your eyes are red too. Not everyone gets red eyes or red hair, but everyone gets the pointed ears and white pupils. That’s just what everyone in the Abyss looks like. Damned from other Sumps look different and possess different afflicted traits, but I haven’t seen any in person to confirm that for myself.”

  “How do you-”

  Another glare. I really should just let her finish, but I have so many questions.

  “You’re in Haven. Specifically, Haven’s interrogation room. This place was established about a century ago when some idiot with a heart too big lowered himself down here with a pile of books and materials to “make things better for us”. A few people got out, but the crane went up one day and didn’t come back down again, so for most of the last century it hasn’t given us a way out of here, but we at least have information on the outside world, and better equipment than most other groups down here. And yes, you’re lucky you got picked up by us. The other groups that roam this accursed hole are a lot less welcoming.”

  “... Less welcoming than kidnapping and knocking me out several times?”

  The Chief sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Even when those idiots don't do their jobs properly, yes. Though Rann did report you ran straight into the midst of them out in the woods.”

  “What about the guy who tried to grab my cloak…? Or that I wasn’t really told this was a “rescue”?”

  “Aran, the man whose face you injured, has hopefully learned his lesson about touching things that aren’t his. I do apologise for his behaviour, but an adult being brought to Haven is something that hasn’t happened in quite a while, and I’m afraid the message didn’t get across that this is no different from any other rescue. We’re here to help people, not steal from them.” The Chief continues, sighing in exasperation at the actions of her subordinates.

  Well. I certainly don’t appreciate how roughly I’ve been treated in some ways, but I can’t ignore the fact that I was given clean water and food, and that the Chief has made clear that some of their actions towards me were not how they do things here. Still, they happened.

  “The most important thing, Chief.” Vann says, walking up beside her and looking down at me. The Chief nods at him to continue. “You say you’re fifteen. The Chief says you’re not lying, so I’ll take her word for it. Thing is, for the past twenty years, the only people who’ve been ending up down here in the Abyss are children.”

  Children.

  That word rings in my mind.

  … Only children have been found down here, for the past twenty years.

  Anyone fifteen and under is considered a child back home, so I’m technically at the uppermost limits of childhood. But I, for some reason, woke up with an older, more mature body, which doesn’t seem to be the norm here.

  So what Johnny was talking about… he meant kids. Children. Fifteen and under.

  I blocked it out at the time, but now it’s all I can think of.

  That pile of skulls and bones I woke up on.

  A lot of those skulls were small.

  “Some are in their early teens, but most are ten years and under. Many… don’t make it far.” Vann’s voice wavers slightly as he finishes speaking.

  “I was eleven when I ended up here, and that was eleven years ago. I was taken in by the previous Chief, and raised as his successor.” The Chief says.

  She waves her gloved hand, and the golden chains binding my body disintegrate and fade away, letting me slump back in my chair, my wings slumping to the floor. Yet the weight on my shoulders hasn’t left me.

  For twenty years, it’s been children, many younger than ten, ending up down here.

  My little brother wasn’t even ten years of age when our home was attacked.

  So…

  If I’m here, then…

  “My little brother!!”

  I nearly jump out of my chair, but Vann puts a firm hand on my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks as he looks me in the eye.

  “You won’t find him, lass. People can die side-by-side and wake up here not only hundreds of miles, but hundreds of years apart. People normally end up here on their own, and you’re the first one we’ve found in two years. He may have lived and died a century before you made it here, or he may have never been dragged down to this hellhole at all. Trust me. You won’t find anything but a swift second death out there.”

  I don’t want to listen to him, but he speaks as if he knows. Besides the old man, I never even saw anyone else until I ran into that group from Haven. I woke up on my own.

  My family. My little brother, my elder sisters, my parents. Have they all ended up down here, like I have? Have they already lived and died here? Have they not even made it here at all yet? I…

  I fall back in the chair, holding my face in my hands. Fuck. Everything is hitting me. My leg’s twitching. My wing… is rubbing against my side, like it’s trying to console me.

  Vann looks at the Chief, and then turns to walk towards the door. The Chief stays seated across from me, giving me a moment before speaking.

  “What’s your name?” She asks.

  Now that it’s just her and I in the room, her voice has softened, losing that harshness that one might need to run a settlement in a hole in the ground like this. I look up at her. Even her natural glare under her dark, sharp eyelashes has softened.

  My name…? I rub my eyes, wiping away the tears as best I can.

  “Why’d you release the chains… I thought I was a prisoner…”

  “It’s evidently clear that you pose no threat to me the way you are now. What’s your name?”

  “Marina. Marina Retali.”

  “You’ve been brought to Haven, Marina. This settlement’s location is kept secret for all our safety, so we can’t exactly let you leave. For now, I’ll find a spare room with a bed for you. Tomorrow, we’ll find a way to put you to use, given you’ll be staying here.”

  “But… why? Why do all this for a stranger who’s only caused trouble and even hurt one of your people?” I don’t know why I’m asking this. Am I turning down the offer of a roof over my head, an actual bed, and food?

  The Chief doesn’t answer at first, as if finding her words. She comes across as a well-educated, if… blunt and haughty noblewoman, a type I have encountered before though none as blunt to her degree, but… there’s almost a hint of kindness in her eyes.

  “With your unique attributes, you may just prove invaluable to Haven, Marina Retali.” She answers in a proud manner, before her demeanour softens. “And I know what you’ve been through. We all do. None of us wished to be here, and the only way we’ll make it out is together.”

  “Out? Out of where?”

  “The Abyss.” She glances towards the window. I can clearly make out the black looming cliffs outside the window that surround this place—only much closer, as if we’re right underneath them. “There’s no way home for us, but there’s a better world beyond those cliffs. A safer world. I have no intention of spending the rest of my new life stuck down here.”

  “Come.” She stands, heading for the door. “I’ll show you to your room for the night.”

  I don’t remember what room I ended up in, but I do remember passing out the moment I fell into a bed.