1159 words

The problem with saving the world at sixteen is that you’re doomed to chase that high for the rest of your life. You’ll fall asleep tossing and turning, dreaming of tiaras that cleave through bone, sky-high heels you can land spinning kicks in, and blood splattering across your face—thick, black, and pungent, like decay settling into your skin.

And when you wake each morning to the tinny, lifeless pulse of your alarm, you’ll wish that your limbs actually ached, that the claw marks across your ribs were real. Because at least then you would feel something. “Saving humanity from the netherworld demons” gave your pain purpose. This, on the other hand…

You fumble with the buttons of your unironed shirt. You’re running late. Again. It’s ridiculous you’re paying this much for rent when you live this far out but apparently that’s just how the world works. Every year your landlord bumps up the price of his fifth investment property (It’s not like he enjoys it. Don’t you know someone has to pay for little Howard’s private school fees?), and you can’t even move out because every other place is doing the same.

And it’s on days like this when you can smell the stench of piss in the streets and your phone is blowing up at 8 a.m. about how you used Times New Roman instead of Garamond for that one presentation, that a terrible part of you thinks: really? This is what I saved the world for?

You stumble down the station steps.

It’s sacrilege, you know. If your Celestial Guardian—that strange floating rabbit—could still reach the mortal realm, it would admonish you. Poor, little baby. But you know what’s worse? Being mauled to death by a netherbeast. In my second life, I was still sentient when it crunched through my skull—

You’ve endured the lecture so many times you can recite it from memory. NETHERWORLD OPEN. KILL DEMONS. OTHERWISE HUMANITY DIES. You can still envision the worst-case scenario so clearly: demons descending through the rift, tearing apart innocents, cartilage to cartilage, limb to limb.

You reach your platform just to see the train leave.

Come on. You used to slaughter demons every night. You didn’t even flinch at their gaping eye sockets, their shadowy tendrils. And now, ten years later, you can’t even roll out of bed quick enough to catch one single train?

But, you think, maybe it was always easier for you to be a “Magical Girl” than “Alice Li.”

You slump on the bench. Magical Girls didn’t have to pass Calculus or ace their weekend Chinese school or worry about ruining chill parties with snarky remarks. And most importantly, Magical Girls didn’t deal with this shit alone—

“Is anyone sitting here?”

For a moment, you almost think it’s her. Wouldn’t that be cinematic? 

It’s pathetic that after so long, your heart leaps at the thought. But wasn’t that how it was from the beginning? From the night you passed out in Vera Vuong’s backyard, the night you woke to her trying to staunch your bleeding with her My Melody face towel, you hadn’t been able to look away.

That’s not going to work, you forced out.

She grit her teeth. Shut up, you’re coughing up blood. And then, the towel started glowing, and it had worked—

But of course it’s not Vera. You eye the other woman. Her hair is too coarse, her skin cool instead of warm toned.

“Sorry, seat’s taken,” you say.

You’re being an asshole. There’s way too much space on the bench, but you push your work bag—a hideous, logo-embossed thing you tell yourself you’re using ironically—all the way across. Vera would have hated this. You picture her furrowed brow, her downturned lips.

Don’t you know being a little nicer never killed anyone? she’d say. It’d be the same expression she wore when you told her to stop sobbing and cast the damn healing incantation because couldn’t she see your guts weren’t going to crawl back into your stomach themselves?

And even after all these years, your attitude will remain the same.

Being nicer didn’t kill all those netherbeasts. You’ll lean in like you used to, thumb curving over her cheek like you’re smearing the blood in. Besides, you like me a little mean—

Maybe that’s the trick, being meaner. Maybe if you behave just like you did back then—cocky and callous and insufferable—it’ll transport you back in time, back to the depths of the Netherworld.

And don’t get it wrong. It’s not like you actually miss the place. It was dirty, filthy, and you could never wash that gross grey sludge out of your hair. But compared to the banality of timesheets and unpaid utility bills and highly-recommended-but-not-compulsory work drinks with that one director everyone knows is a total creep it was just—

—easier.

You’re aware of every sensation. The bead of sweat running down your neck. The punched-out cadence of your breath.

Right. Wrong. It was so easy to determine when you almost died every day. Right was the feeling of Vera’s hands in your hair, the little gasp she made when you bit down into her lip. Wrong was the netherbeasts shredding into your skin, the mundanity of mortal concerns. Because who cared what dress you’d wear to the school dance, if your parents’ screaming matches meant they were getting a divorce, if they’d disown you once they found out you liked girls, when you were busy saving the goddamn world?

“Excuse me?”

The woman is staring at you now. You double down.

“I said what I said.”

Heat surges through your body, and for a second, you think you can actually do it. Open a rift in time, summon the past Vera with nothing but your petulance. Magic is merely a matter of volition—that’s what your Celestial Guardian always said—that’s why you were the strongest, the one who sealed the rift.

Normal people act on their desires. But all you ever did was want want want—inter your feelings inside your chest until they collapsed into something uncontrollable—a supernova, a blackhole. And even after all these years, you’re the same, you’ve never outgrown those childish tendencies.

And what you want now is—

You want Vera back. You long to return to graduation, when she flashed her acceptance letter to an overseas university, and say “don’t go” instead of “good riddance.” You want to pick up the phone when she calls, not toss it halfway across the room because you couldn’t bear seeing her happy without you.

Fix this. What you wouldn’t give to say it now. You imagine picking up the sharp end of your tiara and plunging it into your thigh. I’m bleeding. Stop this. Isn’t that what you’re good for?

But there are no more netherbeasts, no more Celestial Guardians, no more magic.

And even Vera in her prime—with her gleaming eyes and steady hands—couldn’t fix a wound you insisted on gouging open.

© 2026 Lia Lao