The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis Chapter 5: A Chance to Finally Breathe

It took three trips to haul everything back from the battlefield.

Three trips through bloodstained grass and torn bodies. Three trips past crows fat with human flesh as they plucked the eyeballs out of the mangled skulls. The scent clung to my skin, to my hair, like the rot had beco my own personal brand of perfu. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t gag. I didn’t let myself stop to think about what any of the dead had looked like when they were alive; it would have been nothing more than a waste of energy.

The fact of the matter was that these 249 n weren’t alive anymore, and that made them infinitely more useful to .

Shadow trailed behind each ti, never straying too far away. He didn’t like the battlefield. His hackles stayed raised, his ears twitching every ti a breeze stirred the corpses. But still, he never left .

Papa always said the first rule of surviving a war wasn’t to fight harder, it was to scavenge better. The living bleed while the smart ones build upon what was left.

Papa had a lot of words of wisdom.

By the end of the third trip, I had everything I needed. I stripped the armor of all insignias, not like I knew what any of them ant. The arrows I could repurpose after breaking off the point from the shaft. The clothes I could wash and tailor to suit my needs, but the boots in every size... well, I’m sure that I can find a purpose for those, too.

And tal.

So much glorious tal.

I dragged the cart to the stream by my chosen clearing and parked it under the trees. The clearing was mine now. And tomorrow, it would beco sothing else entirely.

Tonight, I would build a temporary shelter in the trees.

Calling on the tal, I created a platform big enough for to sit on. I didn’t need much more, but since I wasn’t willing to go back to the cave, I would need to be off the ground in case a predator ca sniffing around.

Going down to the stream, I washed off all the blood that I could from the scraps of cloth and clothes. I hung them over a small fire I had created, trying to dry them even quicker. Normally, there was no way I would sleep on a tal platform. It would be too cold in cold weather, and too hot in hot weather.

But this wasn’t ordinary tis, and sacrifices needed to be made.

When the crude sleeping platform was made, completely with a tal band that would keep tied to the tree, I looked around the clearing for my next task. Right. I needed an axe to level the ground, and a hoe to work the soil into sothing usable. A knife would be wonderful, sothing to replace the one that I had left back in the Devil’s Playground.

It wouldn’t have the mories, but I could always make new ones.

Walking over to the mixture of tals, I bent down and re-examined all of them. Bronze, iron, primitive weapons, and armor that weren’t able to withstand the test of ti.

But that was before. Now that I was here, I would create it into sothing beautiful.

Closing my eyes, I called on my tal power and let it wash over the pile of scraps. I told it what I needed, the strength, the weight, the precision, and sharpness that would allow to do what I needed to do.

And the mont I opened my eyes, all the tal had been transford into sothing new... sothing that was distinctly mine.

Farming tools, saws, axes, swords, you na it, if it was made of tal, it was in a pile in front of . And floating on top of all that was a single knife.

It was a work of art. Forged from the lted remains of enemy swords, shaped not for beauty, but survival, the knife sang to .

The blade itself was the length of my forearm, just long enough to slice through ribs, but still short enough to hide in a sheath on my forearm.

Its edge was honed to a mirror finish, not to catch the light, but to catch the breath of those foolish enough to co close. The tal wasn’t polished or etched. Instead, it wore the scars of war proudly. Darkened copper, steel, and a hint of sothing else lted together with a single, deliberate groove running the length of it.

The groove wasn’t decorative so much as it was functional. A blood channel to make the withdrawal cleaner.

The handle was blackened wood, wrapped tightly in worn leather, each loop pressed flat with my grip. There were no jewels, no sigils, nothing that made it too flashy... only a single, thumb-sized button near the guard.

Curious, because I had never seen sothing like it before, I pressed the button. A second blade, smaller, razor-thin, sprang from the base of the hilt. Backward-facing, I couldn’t help but grin at just how perfect this weapon was.

It was like it looked deep into my soul when I created it and mirrored everything that I was into this single blade.

This was better than any crown, any throne, anywhere.

Humming happily, I ignored the sound of my stomach growling.

I hadn’t eaten, hadn’t even bothered to sit down since the morning. But I didn’t feel it, my body was too wired, too ready for whatever was going to co next.

"You and , we’re gonna build an empire," I whispered, looking over at the treeline where Shadow lay. "Brick by brick. Blade by blade. And it is going to be only for the two of us."

If he agreed with , he didn’t say.

By the end of day five, my hands were blistered. My arms were streaked with dried blood, wood sap, and black soot. The dress that the body had been wearing when she died had more holes than fabric, but I didn’t care.

The exterior of the house was already set up. I used the bamboo growing all around to create it, saving so of the thicker trees for the front and rear of the cabin. It was a bitch to flatten the bottom, but I eventually got it done. Then I cut notches on the ends of each of the bamboo, piling them up until I had a one and a half story wall created.

Then it was just a matter of doing it over and over again on each side.

Shadow looked at like I was crazy, but the sense of accomplishnt that I got at the end was more than worth the blood and sweat I put into it. There was nothing inside yet, only a single room without even a kitchen... but I was happy.

It was nothing like the buildings I’d known before. There were no bricks, no screws, no synthetic glass. Just , my instincts, and whatever the forest didn’t need that I could steal.

Every wall was set with traps. Sharp stakes hidden in the dirt. Tripwires. Poisoned thorns that I’d soaked overnight in a solution of moss and boiled mushrooms. My house didn’t need to be pretty—it needed to be untouchable.

By the end of the week, I had a roof.

By the second week, I had a door.

By the third, I had shelves, a raised bed made of thick branches, and a stone-lined hearth that was my kitchen.

By the fourth week, I had a ho.

I sat on the floor, my legs stretched out in front of , with Shadow curled at the foot of the bed. The fire crackled. Rain tapped gently on the roof. And for the first ti since waking up in this world, I exhaled.

It wasn’t peace. Not yet.

But it was close.

It took thirty-four days in total. Thirty-four days of pain, blood, fire, and bone.

I used every lesson Papa ever gave . Every sarcastic warning Hattie ever threw at between explosions and near-death experiences.

"If it breaks, fix it. If it bites, kill it. If it shines—steal it."

I did all three.

The house was done, the traps were set. The garden was cleared and ready to be planted. I’d need seeds. Maybe I could trade with the village eventually. Maybe not. But I knew that the forest could also provide those things for .

And since I wasn’t worried about shelter, I finally had ti to go out and explore.

I sat by the fire that night, chewing dried rabbit jerky, scratching behind Shadow’s ear while he pretended not to like it.

"I miss them," I said aloud. "My family. My ho. I miss them more than I thought I would when I made my sacrifice."

Shadow didn’t look at . But I knew he heard.

"I should’ve thanked Papa," I muttered. "For every horrible training exercise. Every lecture. Every trap I had to reset. I hated him sotis, but... he made a survivor."

I looked down at the calluses on my palm, the dirt under my nails.

"He made this."

The fire crackled louder. Outside, the wind picked up. The mountains whispered.

And sowhere far away, on the other side of those trees... n were coming.

Uninvited.

Unaware.

And soon to be unalived.