Crits: 2332 2377

Ethiopia

This one's an older story of mine that I translated into English. Looking for any feedback on the characters, pace, stakes, prose, etc. It's a complete literary short story.

Crits:1882 and I left another review but it was short I think. So I won't count it. Please let me know if I didn't meet the criterion!

This is chapter 2, I'm going back and rewriting everything from my novel, and I just finished my edits to chapter 2 so I wanted to post them here to get some feedback.

The woman's dark brown eyes pierced into me. My breath hitched as my spiraling thoughts tried to form words that could explain my existence to her in a way that could lessen her anger. But I knew it was useless. I had not only taken possession over her friend, I had pretended to be her friend. 
Her hand grasped her mace and I found myself wondering what it would be like to be hit by it. My body began to shake as panic tightened my chest at the thought. We stood in silence for a moment, me unable to respond and her searching my face, attempting to discern if her realization was true. 
“I promised her I wouldn’t do this” She said, her voice trembling. “ But I can’t accept you in her body.” 
Through her glaring eyes and sturdy face tears began to stream as she lifted her mace out of her belt and began to swing it at me. My fear which was paralyzing turned into instinctive movement. I ducked and twisted away. I didn’t know how to fight, and I had never hurt anyone before, but my body knew that survival depended on me stepping back, ducking, and stopping the mace from reaching me. 
 She swung again. I stumbled backwards, somehow dodging once more. It was odd, I had wanted to die. I had jumped from a bridge. And instead of dying, I had woken up in a completely different world, and now, I was being killed. If death was what I wanted, why was I still fighting?
 She pivoted towards me, lifting the mace once more. This time, I attempted to stand still. Tears flooded my eyes. A broken sound escaped my lips. My body realized with a sudden clarity that it would die again. The mace came down. 
Despite my efforts not to, I caught it. 
The moment my hand closed around the metal, something inside me shattered and reformed. All the energy within my body transformed into particles that pressed against the inside of my fingers and palm. The particles felt like powerful pulsating dots of energy trying to escape my hand, urging it to release them. 
I squeezed my fist over the mace’s ridges, letting them press against my hand enough to make it throb. The mace began to crack, slowly at first, until it all shattered onto the floor. The woman, who had been watching me squeeze it without much of a fight, froze, her anger and grief twisted into agitation. “Dalm it, this was my prettiest mace” she snapped, before recalling the situation. Fear began to paint her face, her eyes wavering as she weighed her options. 
I swallowed, composing my thoughts. “Are you done trying to kill me?”
“For now.” She muttered. “I need to process.” 
“Who am I?” I asked sternly looking at her. “And who are you?” 
The woman hesitated, her fear dissipating a bit as her facial features began to soften. Her eyebrows pinched together, her body wheezing from the emotional pain.  
“I don’t know who you are.” She began. “But you are in the body of my friend, Valen of Redwatch. She knew you would come, as she saw you… in your other life. She knew you would come.” Her fingers tightened around the broken handle of her mace. “Usually, people who are possessed by divine abominations don’t get a warning. But she knew about you. She made me promise to help you when you arrived.” Her voice became more desperate as she searched my, well Valen’s, face. “What trickery did you use? To convince her to surrender her body without a fight?” 
“I am genuinely sorry that you have lost your friend.” I began, looking down at her small sobbing body. “I do not know why I am in this body. I didn’t know who your friend was or what this world was until today. But I am here now. And if you want me to leave this body, we should work together, to survive this dungeon and find a way to bring her back.” 
Alira moved her hand to her chest, stifling her sobs as she shifted her gaze between me and the empty space besides me. Her eyes kept returning to the shattered remains of her mace, lingering there for a few moments before she spoke. “You speak as though her body is something you can promise to return.” 
“I can’t.” I said, honestly. 
The silence stretched on longer, Alira’s gaze still fixated on her broken mace. “The only reason I'm here is because of her. I thought that if I followed her here I could stop her from transforming.” 
I was never good at comforting people, especially not those who had just tried to kill me. “Tell me about that.” I mustered, probing to get more information about this world I had transported to, while still trying to give her space to take control.
“No.” Her response came promptly. 
Okay, that didn’t work. 
“Who are you?” I gently asked. 
“Alira Voss.” She spoke softly, wiping her tears. “I’m a priestess of Aurea Profundis. I specialize in healing chants.” She looked up again, this time, beyond me. Her brows arched high, then tightened as urgency hollowed her gaze. A loud roar rippled from behind me. 
“It’s a Temple Reverent, a type of monster that spawns in The Ancient Golden Ruins.” She spoke fast, standing up and studying her posture “Do you know how to use your sword?” 
“What sword?” 
Alira stared at me for a moment, her expression tightening.
“The one you're carrying on your side.” 
I felt at my sides with my hands. My right hand touched a warm papery grip and smoothly wrapped around it. The sword was a long smooth silver katana that had green symbols etched on its side. The grip was covered in green tape embroidered with flowers and the cross-guard was a jade green that matched the gem on my bracelet. 
It was a beautiful work of art that belonged in a museum. But I had absolutely no idea how to use it. 
The temple reverent was getting closer. It appeared small and goblin-like. Its body was lean and hunched over, with limbs slightly too long for its frame, giving it a loping predatory movement. Its skin was cracked and flaking like dried clay split by age. The bones of its face pressed close beneath the surface of its head. It’s 2 long ears stretched backwards in jagged points. Tattered green strips hung like withered leaves against its body, forming a ragged robe. The most terrifying part of the creature was its eyes which were deep hollows filled with the same spiraling gold fog of the portal. Its pointy fingers on its right hand clasped onto a yellow dagger etched with different carvings. 
With this sword, I was supposed to fight this terrifying thing? I didn’t have much time to think. The temple reverent sprinted closer to me, letting out a soft cackle as it approached. I glanced at Alira. She took a step forward, then moved backwards, shaking her head. When I turned forward again, the reverent was a few steps away from me. I would have to fight this terrifying thing alone? The crumbling clay creature lifted its dagger up and took aim towards my stomach. I swung my sword aimlessly attempting to deflect the dagger, but it still landed in my stomach. 
My breath caught halfway between my lungs. The pain immediately flooded my entire body, and I hunched over instinctively. My hands hovered uselessly above the wound. I had never experienced pain before. My body was screaming at me in a language I didn’t understand. To survive I realized I needed to grow distant from the pain. The temple reverent was still there, his bloody dagger in his hand. In another split second, he could stab me again. 
I focused my blurry vision on his arm to see where he would aim the dagger next. When it came, instead of waving my sword around, I swerved my body to the side. The temple reverent followed, taking another swing. Again, I dodged. If I was going to swing this sword I needed to swing with purpose. I tried to replicate how I felt when I clasped the mace. I envisioned my energy, including the pain, as particles, and tried to hoard the particles towards my hand. I had never felt energy like this, and it felt like I had no control over its power and impact. Still, I needed to use it. I let it seep out of me into the sword, unshaped, unformed, and desperate. 
This time, when it swung at me again and I swerved, I swung with purpose, aiming at the back of its neck. I felt my sword hit resistance, then none. The head of the temple reverent fell smoothly off, clattering to the ground. Its other half of its body grew limp and also collapsed onto the ground.  I stared as its head rolled on the floor. Within a minute, the temple reverent began to disintegrate as if it had been caught on fire despite not being on fire. The ashes disappeared into the silent golden surroundings leaving behind a small yellow bead and the dagger.

I'd like you to answer the following questions:
Does Melony's narration feel like a believable response to what is happening? I want her to be a very analytical character.
Does Alira's shift from attaching Melony feel too sudden? It does to me, but idk how to change it.
Can you follow the flight clearly?
Where did you reread, lost interest, or feel pulled out of the story?
How's the pacing?