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“That is not comforting.”

“I stopped knowing what alive meant a long time ago.” She steps backward. Her dress falls away like ash.

And then I see her.

Really fucking see her.

The illusion of Mercy as she once was flickers away.

Below her hips, there is no body anymore.

Her spine disappears into a twisted column of black roots that punches through the floor and spreads beneath the barn, anchoring her to the Earth. Some are thick enough to resemble limbs. Others are thin and pale, tangled together like exposed nerves.

My gaze travels higher.

And I wish it hadn’t.

Her abdomen is partially hollow.

There should be organs behind the tears in her flesh.

There aren’t.

Dark, wet soil fills the cavity instead, packed between the remains of her ribs and threaded with tiny white shoots.

Then something pulses inside her chest.

Once.

Twice.

My eyes lock onto it.

Her heart is gone.

In its place sits a swollen knot the size of an apple, dark red and glistening, contracting in a slow imitation of a heartbeat.

“Oh my God.”

Mercy draws a breath and a faint rustling comes from somewhere inside her.

Not lungs.

Leaves.

I cover my mouth.

The woman standing in front of me isn’t rotting.

That would mean her body is dying.

This is worse.

Her body has been replaced piece by piece with whatever the Harvest needed to keep her here.

And somehow, through all of it, Mercy is still inside.

“Are you…” I have to swallow before I can force the question out. “Are you actually awake in there?”