I AM THE ONLY PERSON THE VILLAIN CANNOT KILL
Elara pushed through the crowd, her eyes falling on the fallen figure, and her breath caught sharply in her throat.
It was a young woman, perhaps only a few years older than Elara herself, her eyes open and unseeing, a crossbow bolt buried deep in her chest. Elara had seen death before, in the tavern, in the streets, in the quiet fading of countdowns reaching zero. But something about this felt different, sudden and violent and deeply wrong.
And then she saw it. Above the dead woman's head, faint but still visible, a number continued to glow, ticking downward with the same slow, steady rhythm it always had.