(TAYLOR’S DEMONIC ADVENTURE) CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The crimson sky still churned overhead, but the violence inside it had dulled slightly.

Taylor stood several feet away from Red now, breathing hard. Beneath her feet, the black glass had fractured into pale veins of light where power had struck earlier.

The others lingered farther back across the endless expanse of her mind, watching cautiously without interrupting. Hoodie Taylor sat curled into herself with her knees drawn to her chest. Judgment Taylor remained stiff and silent, arms crossed tightly. And even Glasses Taylor had stopped trying to control the conversation, content for once to let it unfold naturally.

Red floated above the surface of the mirror-dark world, shadows winding lazily around her body.

The rage was still there, immense and terrible and old enough that Taylor suspected it had existed long before the locker, before Emma, before any of it. But it no longer felt like an open wound spraying blindly in every direction.

She no longer looked quite as furious.

“You’re hesitating,” Taylor observed.

Red frowned slightly. “About what?”

“About them.”

The Wards.

Red shook her head, crimson eyes narrowing. “They didn’t do anything to me.”

Taylor opened her mouth, then stopped.

A part of her hadn't expected an embodiment of anger to be so painfully reasonable, especially while in the midst of an outburst, but she was glad to be wrong. 

The black expanse beneath them rippled, responding to the shift in her thoughts, and far above, violet lightning arced through the clouds.

“You think I’m wrong,” Red said.

“I think you’re angry.”

“I am angry.”

“You want to hurt people.”

“They hurt us first.”

The words echoed across the endless void, and Taylor looked away instinctively.

Red descended slightly, feet still not touching the reflective surface below.

“They knew,” she said. “Maybe not everything. Maybe not every detail. But they knew enough.”

Taylor flinched as images surfaced unbidden, teachers looking away, and students laughing nervously instead of intervening.

Nobody stopped the trio.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody cared enough.

“She was one of them,” Red continued. “A hero. Someone trusted to protect people.”

Each word seemed to thicken the air around them.

“And she still came to school every day and did whatever she wanted to us.”

Taylor’s chest tightened painfully.

“She hated us,” Hoodie Taylor whispered somewhere behind her.

Red nodded once. “Yes.”

Taylor squeezed her eyes shut.

The memories felt more vivid here, as if they were dragged fresh from somewhere deep inside her: Emma’s laughter, Madison’s whispering, and Sophia’s stare. Always that stare, cold yet certain, as though Taylor’s existence itself was offensive.

“They thought we deserved it,” Red said softly.

Taylor’s throat tightened. “I know.”

“No,” Red replied. “You know they hurt us. That is different.”

Taylor looked up again.

For the first time since arriving here, Red’s expression had changed into something almost human. Pure hurt buried underneath everything else.

“They made us afraid to exist,” Red whispered. “Do you understand how wrong that is?”

Taylor did not answer immediately because she did understand. Maybe she always had.

She remembered walking through Winslow and feeling her stomach knot every time she heard footsteps behind her. She remembered calculating routes through hallways to minimize encounters, and remembered learning which bathrooms were safest and which stairwells to avoid.

She remembered thinking that was normal after long enough.

“They broke something in us,” Red continued. “And nobody stopped them.”

Far away, thunder rolled across the crimson sky.

Taylor frowned slightly then.

Something felt… different.

A strange warmth moved through the realm for only a second before fading again, like distant sunlight filtering through heavy clouds.

Red paused too.

The shadows around her eased slightly.

“What was that?” Taylor asked.

No one answered, but the warmth came again a few moments later, gentle enough that it barely disturbed the air. And somehow, impossibly, Red’s expression softened further. Enough for Taylor to notice.

“You didn't actually want to kill them,” Taylor said slowly.

Red laughed once, though there was no humor in it. “I wanted them to understand.”

“You wanted them to hurt.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted them to be afraid.”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“And you wanted someone to finally admit this wasn’t okay.”

For the first time since this began, Red said nothing.

Taylor stared at her.

Then, carefully, she stepped closer.

The mirror-black surface cracked softly beneath her shoes.

“You’re me,” she said.

Red’s eyes narrowed warily. “Yes.”

“That means you felt everything I felt.”

“Yes.”

“The locker.”

Red’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

“The hospital.”

A flash of pain crossed Red’s face. “Yes.”

Taylor swallowed hard.

“And after all of that… after everything…” Her voice weakened slightly. “Nobody even cared about the why.”

It wasn't just that Sophia had hurt her, or even that Emma had betrayed her. It was that the world had kept moving afterward like none of it mattered. Teachers had still handed out homework, students had still laughed in the halls, and the PRT had quickly thrown away the memories of Sophia Hess in favor of Taylor.  

Red descended lower until she stood directly in front of her. For once, there was no anger in her expression, only exhaustion. Then she asked:

“Why didn’t anyone stop her? Why didn't they ask how we were?”

Taylor opened her mouth, and realized she had no answer at all.