"Uma!"
Serosa sprinted toward her and knelt, pulling her close.
"Are you hurt?" She pulled back, hands on Uma's shoulders, searching her face. Uma was in full shock — breathing hard, trembling visibly in Serosa's grip.
Hamaron stood over the fallen Hollowmen. He looked almost sorrowful staring down at their limp forms, which was somehow more unsettling than if he'd looked satisfied. He said something quietly toward Serosa — too low for Uma to hear, and too fast for her to follow even if she had. All she caught was Serosa's response.
An agreement.
There are more of those things?
The question kept ringing through her head on a loop, crowding out everything else.
She felt herself being helped up. A gentle shake pulled her back to the surface. She let out a long breath she hadn't known she was holding, and her eyes found Serosa's face.
"Breathe."
Uma's gaze moved — Serosa, then Hamaron, then the bodies on the ground, then back again.
Right. I'm here. The forge — we came from the forge.
She could feel the deep ache in her muscles again. The burning in her arms, the weight in her legs — all of it pulling her back into her body, back into the present moment. Grounding her before the panic could resurface.
She looked around, naming everything she could see. The road. The library door. Serosa's red hair. Her own hands. All while her grip on Serosa tightened like a vice — like she might disappear if she let go.
Then Hamaron came over, lifted Uma up, and brought her toward the dead Hollowmen.
Uma immediately tried to pull back.
What the fuck are you doing?!
Get me away from them.
She kept squirming. She didn't know why — she knew they were dead, she'd watched it happen — but her mind kept playing the same image on a loop. Them lunging. Tearing. The barn floor. Over and over.
Then the familiar double-handed back slap from Hamaron snapped her eyes open.
And suddenly she was very aware.
The smell hit first — rotting flesh, sharp and wrong. Then the sounds crept in around it. Crickets somewhere in the trees. The soft smell of dew on grass. The creak of the library door in the breeze.
What am I doing. They're dead.
Grow up, Uma.
She steadied herself and looked around properly for the first time.
These two gave me a home and here I am kicking and screaming like a little bitch.
Uma let out a long breath and slapped both her cheeks.
Then — in a motion that made both Serosa and Hamaron go wide eyed — she reared back and kicked the Hollowman at her feet.
Its head flew clean off, sailing through the air in a wide arc. If Uma had been a soccer player she would have scored an absolute banger.
No use in sulking.
She turned and started kicking the headless corpse with what little energy her destroyed legs had left.
If I want to be grateful I have to woman up.
Uma went to kick again — and that's when the fight or flight wore off completely.
Her legs gave out. She slipped and hit the dirt hard, flat on her back, staring up at Hamaron's now openly grinning face.
They both laughed. Hamaron's booming voice swallowed whatever sound Uma's body managed to produce. He reached down, picked her up, patted the dust off her, and pointed her gently toward Serosa.
Read my mind.
Uma walked up to Serosa and bowed.
It wasn't much. She had no words, no language, nothing to offer but the gesture itself. So she did the only meaningful thing she could think of.
She signed.
Thank.
...
You.
Serosa's eyes immediately filled with tears.
Uma jumped slightly.
Holy shit — please don't tell me I just said fuck you or something.
But Serosa just laughed, and spoke, and even though Uma couldn't understand a single word she heard it anyway — the way you sometimes hear things not with your ears but somewhere deeper.
I'm so proud of you, dear.
Uma held the warmth of that for a moment longer than she meant to. Then she turned, walked over to Hamaron, and held up a thumbs up. He returned it immediately. She followed it with a hammering motion and signed:
Again?
Hamaron looked like a man who had just been told every problem in his life had resolved itself simultaneously. He nodded so hard Uma worried for his neck. And when he spoke in that big warm voice she was starting to want so badly to understand, she heard that too.
I'll always be here, Uma.
Then everything hit her at once.
The complete, total exhaustion of the forge. The panic attack. The Hollowmen. The kicking. The laughing. The signing. All of it arriving at the same time which resulted in Uma falling face first into the dirt.