Darkness, fury, and the smell of meat. These were the things that greeted Janet Lubelle upon a cruel awakening, her ribs throbbing and head spinning, breath coming in short and stifled gasps. Her mouth was full of blood and no one came to save her.

Darkness, fury, and the smell of rotting flesh. She faded in and out of consciousness, stars exploding between her eyes, and still no one came. For the first time in over thirty years, she was entirely alone.

Darkness, fury, and a vision swimming before her eyes. Janet blinked against the phantom silhouette of Carlos Robles over her. "You're still here?" he asked. "I thought one of your team would have come to check on you by now." Janet glared up at him, realizing that she could only see him out of one eye. "Fuck you, Carlos, for taking everything from me. I may not have explained you away, but one day I will return, and if necessary, I will channel the bastardized logic of your town to come back from the dead and haunt you til the ends of the earth. So watch out, because I'm coming for you," she tried to say. All that came out was a rasp of "Caarrrrrlossssssss." She tried to scream but nothing came out. When the mirage faded she was alone again.

This time she didn't fall unconscious, and with a jolt she realized that this was because she was dying. Janet flailed her limbs. Her left knee met resistance, but from the thigh down her right one felt free, and a few fingers in her right hand flexed with the effort. She could no longer breathe, whether because the carcass on top of hers had shifted, or because she'd exhausted what little oxygen remained in this fleshy prison. She tried to move her head and gagged at the smell.

I will move it, she thought. I will move it because if I don't, I will die, and I cannot die like this. She pushed upward with the strength of hips that could bench press three times her body weight and tried to grasp at the sagging flesh of the dead cow with her wriggling fingers. After a moment she gave up and let her body fall slack again.

This is it, this is how I die, she thought. Can I make peace with that? There was still so much she hadn't done, things she hadn't explained and revenge that hadn't been exacted. There were still test tubes somewhere, bubbling with liquid she'd exacted from the body of Dana Cardinal's double. There were still stars to be observed and dimmed. Every single traitor to the University of What It Is would stand against her, and Carlos Robles - fucking Carlos Robles with his brown eyes full of stupid pity and his bitch husband full of stupid ideas, would stand in front of them. I will NOT make peace with that! I will make war with that because I! WILL! NOT! DIE!

Janet tried to scream again, and this time felt the sound tearing through her throat. With all the strength left in her broken body, she ground her heels into the corpse and shoved. She felt her left knee strain as she forced it up at an unnatural angle, felt the pressure intense, and felt the dull CRACK as her bone shattered. She bit back a cry and kept shoving, until her arm came free and she could lift with that as well.

And, after an hour that was probably only a minute or so, the cow moved and Janet rolled over to the side. A cloud of sand puffed up around them as it settled back into the dust, and she coughed. Coughed again. Inhaled fresh air of a world she was still alive to breathe in. Perhaps she began to laugh.

"Carlos," she rasped out as the stars dimmed above her. They had never looked so beautiful.