Vil sat, waiting for anything to happen in the only forest that didn’t move. At least, that’s what everyone assumed, including herself. She was one of many desperate for something stable, so fabricating truths for comfort, like a forest that stayed rooted to the ground, was typical.

It came with the aching desire to be safe.

It was a shame, though, that this forest had too many names. Names solidified actuality, true, but too many names toward one thing made it speculation. A chance that the thing being talked about wasn’t real.

Further proof, Vil had nowhere safe to be.

Footsteps crunching on sun-cooked weeds echoed in the clearing Vil was sitting in the middle of in the forest. She shook her head in frustration. She had just been covered by foliage not moments ago, trying to hide. She would have been shocked that the bushes had moved away from her if she wasn’t used to their games.

The crunching weeds continued. She wondered if it was a Norm.

A Norm was what everyone wanted to be. A person who wasn’t touched by this world or this reality. A person who wasn’t affected by any grotesque trauma birthed from this realm. It was as if the ground worshipped where they walked.

People were believed to be born Norms.

Vil always wondered if she attacked a Norm, would she receive the Norm’s capabilities? Maybe this was her chance to try.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t be recoiled in some way since she was already tainted and touched, considered forever marked and undesirable.

The climbing scar on her cheek that extended over her eyelid festered. As it moved, it stung her like a million bee stings. A menacing burn settled over the entire affected area where a cut used to be.

She had only seen the scar once, months after she had escaped the maze of roses with unforgiving thorns. The scar was black and purple then, forever undulating and shifting with a mind of its own.

Who knew a rose’s blade could scald?

Who knew a scar could pick and choose when to blind?

“Villa!”

The Norm hadn’t caught sight of her. For a moment, the Norm, a girl who might have been a little older than Vil, was reflected in gold. Then, the gold faded. Although now the Norm looked like any other person, Vil knew better.

This person was untouchable. One could say blessed by a god or goddess or maybe even touched by luck on the Quaint side.

But how did this random Norm know her name?

Vil moved in closer. A tree limb grabbed her shoulder, holding her back.

No…. These trees didn’t move.

The Norm was her sister. The one that had gone to live with her dad when their parents had separated eight years ago.

But why was her sister seeking her out here? Why now? Why not three years ago when Vil was thirteen and Vil’s town had erupted in vines from the dirt? Vines that were alive and tore people apart. The day the vegetation had taken her mom first and then her mom’s lover when Vil had been trying to tear a vine from around her little brother’s neck. Vil had no choice but to escape that day. No choice but to run. She was alive only because she had climbed on top of the dead whenever a vine had her in its sight.

Why had her sister Jessa not come to her then?

Why not the night the whole town had been infested, and even though Vil had gotten out, she hadn’t run away. She had sat at the edge of the town, waiting for any survivors and her sister or father to come and save her from her afflicted mind.

Word had gotten out the day after, and countless people had traveled to the town to see. Not just spectators but far-off families to find out if their loved ones had survived.

Vil had waited six days.

But her sister and her father had never shown. It was then Val knew that her father had never cared in the first place.

Slitted blue eyes, ready to tear with rage, brought Vil back to the present. The eyes belonged to a creature in the bushes behind her sister. But it wasn’t moving. It was going to leave Jessa alone.

Vil hadn’t known that Jessa was a Norm.

A heated hatred stirred Vil’s scar, moving the majority of it closer to her eye. Her vision on her right side blazed white and then black.

The whole world shifted, becoming a little more centered.

“I came to let you know we’re going to have a baby sister,” Jessa called out, hands to her pretty, perfect face. Her flawless brown hair flowed even though there was no wind. “Daddy found someone to love.”

Vil stepped out from the bushes with jealousy grumbling from the deep depths of her heart.

“Is that why?” Vil asked.

Jessa’s clear blue eyes, which held no sadness, pain, or hardships, didn’t widen in shock at seeing her sister. They also didn’t widen in fear. Instead, they narrowed in disgust and judgment.

Vil knew she was staring at her scar.

If she cared, it would have been an arrow straight to Vil’s heart.

“Why what?” Jessa asked.

“Why you guys never came to get me or to check on us.”

It took Jessa a moment to understand what Vil meant. She must have recalled when she looked down at the dirt because when she looked up, she said, “No. He wasn’t with her then.”

There were no emotions to her words. They had been said casually as if she were only stating a fact.

Vil nodded and held in a laugh that would have broken her soul if it wasn’t already torn in half.

“I thought it was right for you to know,” Jessa said. “About our sister and our dad.”

Vil doubted that. She guessed that Jessa only wanted to rub it in.

“How did you find me?” Vil asked.

Jessa shrugged with a smile. She knew she was untouchable. Vil could see it on her face.

“I wanted to find you, and I knew the realm would take me to you with no issues. It showed me the way,” she said.

How did her sister get so lucky to be a Norm? Why did this world bless her but leave everyone else to the strangling weeds that tore out hearts?

Vil couldn’t look at her anymore. She wanted to leave. To get away.

But a scream tore through the forest from somewhere behind Jessa.

Jessa didn’t flinch. She didn’t move. She didn’t have to worry about anything causing her harm in this place.

But Vil’s heart was racing. If someone was dying, that meant there was someone who was not a Norm here. There was someone like her.

Vil’s eyes scanned the area behind Jessa. The creature behind her, who had been ready to unleash its vengeance on the unfortunate souls in this world, was gone.

Vil ran.

“Where are you going?” Jessa yelled, following after Vil.

Vil didn’t answer her. She didn’t have to. There was no reason to when the bloodcurdling screams were telling enough.

She was going to save someone.

Vil broke into another forest clearing and saw a little boy on the ground wrestling with that creature Vil had seen. A boy that reminded her too much of her little brother. He was about the same age he had been that day when Vil had tried to unwrap a vine from his throat.

The boy had his tiny hands on the creature’s muzzle, holding it close. His brown hair was tangling in the thorns and weeds as he fought to escape from under it. But the creature, although half the boy’s size, was muscular. Its murky green fur rippled its strength.

The creature clawed at the boy’s chest and threw its head back and forth, fighting to get the boy to let go. The boy screamed.

Why was the boy here? What did the Quaint side of this world do to give him this fate and leave him alone? How was he still alive if he wasn’t a Norm and had no guardian anywhere in sight?

Vil dove. It didn’t matter why the boy was here. What mattered was that he was. What mattered was he needed help.

Vil grabbed the creature’s fur, hoping to turn its attention toward her, but it only had a hunger for him.

Vil spotted Jessa standing a few feet away. She was staring. Her eyes widened in shock.

She could save him. She could stop this and not be touched.

“Help him!” Vil yelled at her, still trying to pull the creature off the boy. If Jessa got closer, if she grabbed the creature by the fur or even touched the boy, it would leave them alone.

Jessa just needed to want them to be saved.

“I… I can’t.” Jessa shook her head and backed away. “I…” She stared down at her hands. “What if a god wanted this to happen? What if… we can’t mess with this? If we do, we could be tainted.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Vil yelled. Her scar was festering again.

“No one ever understands! Villa, just let this be. You’re going to make your life worse. I came here to have a conversation with you, not to watch you do this. Don’t think I won’t run back to Dad to tell him I watched you die because you chose some stranger over his news because I’ll have no problem doing that.”

Vil didn’t care. It had always been just her against this world. She was not about to leave behind anyone else whom this realm was out to get.

Vil grabbed one of the boy’s hands and took it off the creature's muzzle to shove her hand into the creature’s mouth. It bit down. She held back a scream. She then snatched up one of its legs. Its claws ripped into her.

Now, it had the taste for her blood.

Without caring, without another thought, Vil stood up and threw the creature Jessa’s way.

Jessa stepped aside and stared at her, stunned.

The creature landed on its back, rolled, and headed toward them again.

“You wanted to taint me!” her sister accused.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Vil said, helping the little boy up and getting in front of him. He was fine. His chest wasn’t bleeding too heavily, and he was covered in more of Vil’s blood than his own.

“You have no idea how it works!” her sister yelled.

The creature passed Jessa and lowered itself to the ground to pounce on them. Its blue eyes were crazed.

“If you don’t want me to throw it at you again, then want for it to not come near me or this boy,” Vil said.

Jessa’s mouth dropped open. “You are willing to taint me?”

How could she be so dense?

“Do you want to try me?” Vil asked. She bent her legs, prepared for the creature to attack them again. She was going to try to catch it once it jumped, but she had to make sure it didn’t get to her throat before she could make her grab.

Its front legs left the ground.

But its jump only took it halfway. It landed midway to them and shook its head, confused.

Then it took off.

“You’re welcome,” Jessa said.

It was insane to her that someone who had always been protected was unwilling to lift a finger to help anyone else. That they were so consumed by fear.

“This is exactly why Father loves me.” Jessa shook her head. Vil could tell she was nervous because of the rise and fall of her chest. This had to be her first time helping anyone in need. It made Vil wonder what may happen to her now, although Vil was sure nothing would.

“Unlike you, I’m pure and clean,” Jessa said.

Vil knew her sister meant not tainted. She also knew that Jessa meant what she had said about their father.

But she was wrong. Their father did not love her more. He was a coward. He kept Jessa close so he wouldn’t get hurt.

“Does Dad even know you came to find me?”

Jessa’s cheeks bloomed as red as fresh blood. The little boy tugged on the bottom of Vil’s shirt.

Vil was betting her dad was a nervous wreck right now.

“I… I had to tell you the news.” Jessa turned up her tiny nose.

“Why? Because you have no one else to tell?”

Jessa winced.

A single laugh escaped Vil. “What a lonely life.”

Vil knew her father wasn’t a Norm. She wondered if her new baby sister wouldn’t be too.

Vil took the boy’s hand, still tugging at her shirt, and pulled him away back into the forest. Back into the danger of this world all the unwanted faced.

“Later, I’ll have to ask what happened to you,” Vil said to him.

Maybe this world chose Norms because it knew they were the people who would always sit back and do nothing. Or perhaps it was because nothing terrible had ever happened to them that they were indifferent and didn’t care. Either way, it seemed like a lonely, pathetic life to live.

Vil looked down at the young boy. Although she was tainted, she would never be alone.

And she would never be pathetic.