The Battery

The first thing Chloe felt was the cold. It wasn't the air-conditioned chill of the hospital breakroom or the drafty wind of a Chicago winter. It was a cold that bit through the marrow, a spiritual freeze that made her soul shiver inside her ribs.

She gasped, inhaling water.

Panic, sharp and immediate, seized her. She thrashed, her limbs heavy, breaking the surface of the water with a desperate splash. She coughed, hacking up fluid that tasted like jasmine and glacial melt.

"Cease your struggling. You are disturbing the sediment."

The voice was a baritone rumble, smooth as polished stone and twice as hard.

Chloe wiped the wet hair from her eyes. She was in a pool. No, a spring. Steam curled off the surface, but the water was freezing. The edges of the pool were lined with white stone that glowed with a faint, inner luminescence.

And standing at the edge, looking down at her like she was a stain on a silk sheet, was a man.

He was impossibly tall, draped in robes of white and silver that seemed to defy gravity. His hair was a waterfall of ink, capped with a jade crown. His face was a masterpiece of geometry—sharp cheekbones, a jawline that could cut glass, and eyes that were the color of frozen lakes.

He was beautiful. He was terrifying. And he looked at her with absolute, unadulterated arrogance.

"Who..." Chloe wheezed, her throat raw. "Who are you? Where is the ER?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "ER? You speak nonsense. I am High Immortal Han, the Sword Saint of the Northern Sky. And you are my vessel."

Chloe blinked. "Vessel?"

"You are a Pure Yin spirit," Han explained, his tone bored. "I summoned your soul from the chaotic void to inhabit this construct. Your purpose is to stabilize my Yang energy. I am on the verge of the Ninth Tribulation. I require a coolant."

He turned his back on her, his robes swirling. "Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not leave the Spirit-Binding Spring until your essence has solidified. And do not touch me. My Vow of Severed Dust forbids contact with the unclean."

Chloe stared at his retreating back. The memories of her last shift—the double overtime, the beeping monitors, the crushing chest pain that had sent her collapsing to the linoleum floor—rushed back.

She had died. She had worked herself to death for a hospital administration that didn't care, only to be reincarnated as a... a coolant?

"A coolant?" Chloe screamed, her voice echoing off the jade walls. "I'm a human being, you pretension jerk! You can't just keep me in a pond!"

Han stopped. He turned his head slightly, just enough to show his profile.

"I can," he said simply. "I am a god in waiting. You are a tool. Adjust your expectations, spirit."

He walked away, vanishing through a moon-shaped archway.

Chloe stood alone in the freezing water. She looked at her hands. They were pale, glowing faintly in the dim light. She wasn't Chloe the nurse anymore. She was Luo, the Cultivation Vessel.

She slapped the water, sending a spray of icy droplets into the air.

"Adjust my expectations," she muttered, gritting her teeth. "Fine. If I'm a battery, I'm going to be the glitchiest, most annoying battery you've ever installed."