The axe hit his shoulder before he even saw it coming.

  Hand shot out and grabbed the guy's wrist — desperate, the only thing stopping him from pushing the axe deeper. They stayed like that for a second, locked, neither moving.

  Then the guy pulled back.

  That was even worse. Vision went white, teeth clamped shut, a sound escaped that he'd rather not have made. The axe came out and the pain was unbearable and he had maybe two seconds before the next swing.

  Karma breathed. Once. Twice.

  They were right at the entrance, barely any space, nowhere to go that didn't involve going through someone.

  The second swing came fast. Karma grabbed the wrist again — same hand, same grip, tight enough to feel the bones.

  Then something shifted. A door closing somewhere inside

  "Now" — he said in a flat and cold, empty tone —"Kill yourself."

  The guy froze — not the freeze of someone obeying, but the freeze of something jammed. Face going wrong, eyes flickering, mouth opening and closing while his teeth were clashing. Something was already inside him, something that didn't move.

  That was it. No panic, no frustration. Just that — a flat note of acknowledgment, the way you'd register a wrong turn and immediately look for another route.

  Eyes already moving. Guard to the left, close enough, distracted. Karma grabbed his arm as he passed, fingers closing around his wrist.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  "Buy. Me. Time."

  The guard blinked, turned on the others without another word, and Karma ran.

  The building swallowed him fast. Corridor after corridor, turns taken on instinct, the sound of pursuit loud then fading then gone. Just his own breathing and the blood soaking steadily through his sleeve. He found a room. Threw himself inside and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Then, silence

  He stood there with his back against the door and felt the shift reverse itself — quiet, like a tide going out. Hair back to black. The cold emptiness draining away until there was just him, a bad shoulder, and a room that smelled like dust and old concrete.

  The shoulder hurt a lot.

  "Fuck. But like HOW? How did it not work on that guy? WHY? Ughh, it's okay, it's okay... I'll figure something out."

  He pressed his palm against it and looked around. Dark, debris, shelves half collapsed along one wall. He moved toward them, scanning fast — bandages, alcohol, anything remotely useful.

  "Nothing. Of course there's nothing right?" A small pause. "GODDAMMIT!"

  Sleeve soaked through. He grabbed the cleanest section of his shirt and tore, wound it tight around the shoulder, pulled the knot with his teeth. The pain spiked hard enough to make him stop and breathe through it.

  "Okay. It's okay. Everything's fine" — in fact, nothing was fine.

  He looked at the shelves again, properly. No medicine, no food. Just a crate in the corner, half buried under fallen debris, that he almost walked past entirely. He pulled it open.

  He crouched there, one hand still pressed against his shoulder, staring at the crate. The pain was present and the memory of what he'd said to the axe guy was present too.

  His brain had already moved on and he waited.

  Footsteps in the corridor eventually. Probably because someone heard his loud ass shout. One set, careful and slow — whoever they'd sent to check the rooms alone. Smart or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it.

  The door handle moved.

  Karma was already on his feet, already positioned, back against the wall beside the door. The guard came through and Karma moved fast — hand closing around the weapon arm before the guard could raise it, before the surprise on his face could turn into anything useful, like a scream or shout.

  Hair turning half red again.

  "Grab those," Karma said, nodding toward the crate. Same flat voice. Same empty temperature. "Strap them to yourself." A pause. "Then walk back out there and explode on the other guards"

  Eyes went glassy. A look at the crate. Then a slow, vacant nod, and got to work.

  Footsteps in the corridor. More than one set this time.

  Karma looked at him. "Go."

  The guard walked out without hesitation, past the footsteps, back toward the others.

  Karma was already moving in the opposite direction, slamming the other door and running through the corridor while behind him, somewhere in the building, the explosion happened and it was hella loud. Eardrums ringing, walls shaking, he kept running.

  At the end of the corridor there was a door. He went through and for the first time since waking up in this world, he smiled.