I don’t remember being carried into Aemilia’s clinic, those months ago when I arrived in the Lamia Islands. I had been drifting in and out of a morphine haze, arguing with myself whether I was dead or alive. I wasn’t too worried about being dead because there was already an angel leaning over me, with golden eyes and rainbows in her hair. Wherever I had ended up couldn’t be that terrible.

Then the painkillers wore off and it really was terrible. When breathing hurts, everything hurts. Each cough felt like a ribeye was being carved out of my chest. For a while, being alive seemed like a consolation prize that I’d’ve readily traded for a good cup of coffee and a long, breathless sleep.

But the angel was still there with me, with soothing hands and a siren’s voice that I couldn’t help but follow out of the darkness. The rainbows were real, too, teases of blue and pink and green that reflected from the mahogany scales of her tail and plekti. I’d focused on the colors while Aemilia wired the jagged ends of my rib back together. I’d followed them with blurry eyes during the painful weeks of therapy afterwards.

Now my knock brought a puzzled angel to the door…
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An original tale set in Okayado’s Monster Musume world.

Mark and Yurilee hunt for Julian. To Mark’s delight, their search leads them to the lovely lamia doctor who stitched him back together when he first arrived.

Mark and Madiyan return in the sequel to “In From the Cold”.