"What?" I yelp, startled. "I thought you and I… who's Alma!?"

Autumn lets out a frustrated growl, clutching her face with both hands.

"Oh, of course!" she snaps. "Of course! That's why she's not fucking writing anything about you! She's going behind my back and getting us into commitments like I don't even exist! Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"A-autumn?" I stutter. "Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?"

She inhales through grit teeth, then lets the breath out slowly, looking up at me.

"No," she answers firmly. "If you don't know what's going on, then none of this is your fault. Probably. You kind of just completely destroyed my concept of reality so I'm second-guessing most things, but I'm pretty sure this isn't your fault. It would be stupid if it was."

"Okay?" I hedge, not sure if it's appropriate to ask what the heck she's talking about. She doesn't seem to be paying me much mind, though.

"Fuck it!" she laughs, a worryingly maddened cackle given the circumstances. "Fuck this, fuck all of it! I've tried so goddamn hard to do right by her and she goes and tries to start a relationship behind my back? Without even talking to me? Something this big? Fuck it! I don't care anymore!"

"A-autumn, you're scaring me a little," I admit quietly.

She laughs even louder at that.

"Of course I am," she chuckles. "God, that's fucking rich considering that you're a literal magic monster. But hey, it's funny, right? Scaring you is what she's scared of!"

"What who is scared of?" I ask, flinching away a little.

"Right, right, sorry, sorry," Autumn laughs some more, waving me off. "I shouldn't take this shit out on you, if anything you're a victim in all this. You deserve to know. Basically, uh, do you know what plurality is? I assume you don't because you're still looking really confused."

"Um… plurality as in like… grammar?" I hedge.

"Okay, that's a no. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, Hannah. There's two of me, and we don't share memories. We're supposed to communicate, yet I was certainly never told that we'd be going on a goddamn date with anybody."

"Oh," I say, blinking slowly as I think back at the thousand little weird things I didn't really understand about Autumn. The notebook, the forgetfulness, everything. "Oh gosh. I'm sorry, I feel really dumb. I think I sort of get what's happening, but also not really."

"It's fine. Most people have never even heard of it being a thing outside of Sybil, so I don't really expect you to be educated about it."

"...What's Sybil?" I ask.

"It's this book-slash-movie that… actually, you know what? Keep being ignorant about Sybil, that's totally fine. My situation isn't really like that anyway. Most people's aren't. There is so much controversial media bullshit about DID and I don't really wanna get into it!"

"Okay?" I gulp, swapping my focus over from magical recovery to devouring chicken fingers, since I don't have the energy or attention span to do the former right now. "So, um, if I was at the mall with 'Alma,' does that make you 'Autumn,' or…?"

"We're both Autumn," Autumn (?) explains. "Autumn is our legal name and our 'system name,' so it refers to both of us collectively and is the name we use for people that don't know we're a plural system. My personal name is Jet."

"Okay," I nod slowly, doing everything I can to absorb and categorize all the new terminology flying at me at the speed of light. I can only guess as to what the schnitzer any of that means, so I fall back on standard politeness tactics. She gave me a name for the first time, there's an easy response here. "It's nice to officially meet you, Jet."

She flashes me a lopsided grin at that, so I guess I said something right.

"Hey, nice to officially meet you too, ya weird bug girl. You're taking this awfully well."

I flinch and quickly stuff my face with more chicken. Not having anything to chew makes it a rather short distraction, though.

"...Recent events have made me pretty receptive to stuff I don't understand," I mumble, wiggling my new limbs for emphasis. "You having a split personality is hardly outside the realm of believability."

"Okay," Jet nods, her smile fading. "For the record, though, we don't like being called 'personalities.' Everyone has multiple personalities, that's part and parcel to how people present themselves. Alma and I are individuals. Two whole, entire people."

"Alright," I nod, a blush rising to my face because apparently I'm being really rude, but how was I supposed to ever know that, but it makes sense when she explains it so maybe I should have figured it out? I'm so stupid! "I'm sorry, I don't really know anything about this. Just correct me when I say something dumb?"

"Yeah, alright," she agrees, and the smile returns. It makes my tummy twist into knots. Curses, I am no longer in too much pain to be gay.

…I am still in a lot of pain, though. My transformation-induced regeneration has progressed enough that I'm no longer in danger of dying the moment I stop focusing on magic, which is extremely relieving. I feel like I woke up the day after having twelve different surgeries, though, where it's just healed enough that the morphine wore off and just fresh enough to be agonizing. I'm in bad, bad shape and don't trust myself to walk, but in terms of immediate threats to my life I am hopefully more or less in the clear. So I finish devouring my first box of chicken and move onto the second, because Autumn is wonderful and amazing and didn't need to be told that the mutating monster needs lots and lots and lots of meat. I mean… Jet is wonderful and amazing. For doing that. Alma is also wonderful and amazing but I guess she has no idea that this is going on. Er, I think?

"...Um, is it okay if I ask some questions?"

"Of course, yeah," Jet agrees, taking a big bite out of her sandwich. "You're already knee deep in it."

"You said that you and Alma don't share memories," I start. "So… how much is she going to be aware of… all this, I guess?"

"None of it, and even if I try to tell her by writing it down I doubt she'll believe me. Because like, why would she?" Jet shrugs. "She already thinks I'm more of an embarrassing psychosis than a person, despite our current therapist's insistence to the contrary."

"Right, okay," I nod meekly. "Um… how does that work, exactly?"

She chews for a moment, taking an extra bite and swallowing it before answering.

"...Weirdly," she decides on. "It's not exactly cut-and-dry. She doesn't remember the things that I do, and I can't talk to her when I'm fronting or vice-versa. But we can still sort of… feel each other out, if that makes sense? Like if Alma had a shit day I'll sorta get the impression that we're having a shit day when I start fronting. And there are some moments when we're kind of… I dunno. I describe it as 'Autumn soup.' We're sort of both there and both not there, if that makes any sense. We can both remember those moments, but we still can't really communicate during them, the state kind of falls apart if we focus on it. I'm pretty sure it's brought on by both of us 'being in our element,' so to speak. Like, I tend to come out when Alma gets overwhelmed or shit otherwise needs to get done in an immediate manner. Most of the time, though? I just feel like me, and then there's a weird period when I stop feeling entirely like me, and then things kind of… fade away, until suddenly I'm somewhere else and there's something I need to take care of. Like being mugged, or gym class."

"Oh!" I grin. "So that was you in gym class!"

"Uh, yeah," Jet confirms, pointedly glancing away when she spots my teeth. "Yeah, Alma's really scared of the gym teacher. Plus I like exercise more than she does."

"The gym teacher is super scary, to be fair."

"He's not scary," Jet grunts. "He's just an asshole. You're scary."

I flinch a little, which hurts a lot.

"...I-I'm sorry," I stutter. "I'm not trying to be scary. Thank you so much for helping me."

"Mmm," Jet grunts noncommittally. "Well, I can sort of tell that Alma has grown attached to you, so I couldn't just leave you there to die. And now that I know you're a terrifying magical monster, I very much want to stay on your good side, because I literally have no good options for dealing with the possibility of you being a threat."

"Oh," I say lamely. "Well, um, the degree of pragmatism that went into your decision-making doesn't affect how thankful I am. So… thanks, Jet."

She gives me an odd look, but breaks it off with a shrug.

"You're welcome, I guess. What else do you need from me? I feel like sitting under a bridge all night isn't exactly your idea of a good time."

"I, um… I guess I need to finish healing once I'm done eating," I ponder. "And then… I guess I need to change into the new clothes I just bought for… basically this exact reason?"

I motion at my current torn-to-shreds outfit that's currently revealing all my monster bits. I am incredibly lucky that the goddess was kind enough to spare my undies.

"And then… I dunno," I shrug. "We go home?"

"Just like that, huh?" Au—I mean, Jet smirks. "No reporting me to your magical secret society about a containment breach?"

"I am not a part of a magical secret society," I tell her. "I'm the only person I know of in the world that has magic. Which is not to say that there isn't anybody else, I just don't know them. So like, maybe there will be scary magical government spooks coming after us for this? But it hasn't happened to me yet."

"Hmm. So either government incompetence or something really scary is going on. Fun."

"My bet is on something really scary," I nod sagely. "That's been a moneymaker so far."

"Normally I'd bet on government incompetence, but that only happens when the government is supposed to help people, so yeah. Something scary. Fantastic. Alma just had to pick you of all people to get a crush on, didn't she?"

I wince. Gosh, that brings up a lot of worrying things to ask and I don't really have any good way to ask them, so… bad way it is, I guess.

"Sorry. Um. I have another potentially insensitive question: does this mean you don't have a crush on me? Or, I mean, that you never did, even before the freaky monster stuff."

"...Of course not," Jet grumbles. "Why would I? All I know about you is that you're the freaky blood girl who runs way too fast for someone with a limp. Don't get me wrong, you're nice and I can see why you'd be Alma's type, but outside of a bit of feedback I get from her? Fuck no. I don't want you to touch me. She likes you, but I'm not her."

"I… okay, I'm sorry, that's super fair. And I can see why you'd be very angry at, um, Alma? For not telling you? Like, I mean, I don't know what you're going through, but that sounds like a really awful thing to keep someone in the dark about if you share a body with them."

She stares at me for a moment, then nods.

"I appreciate that," she admits. "I wish there was a simple answer to the situation, but unfortunately there isn't. I don't want to date—or otherwise be involved with—your weird buggy ass. You scream danger to me, and I don't like it one bit. But I can't just write this all down and expect Alma to believe me, and I don't particularly want you to come clean to her considering the unknown risks. So here's what's going to happen: I'm going to tell Alma that I told you about us. She's going to be furious because we agreed not to do that, but she started it so fuck her. As a result, she'll probably avoid you. If she doesn't, please leave us alone anyway because you are a walking time bomb. Seriously Hannah, why the fuck are you still going to public school?"

"How exactly am I going to get out of going to public school?" I grumble back. "Hey mom, hey dad, could you call me in sick? I'm growing chitin!"

"I don't know! Like, maybe yeah, maybe you just say that. Just don't drag us into your mess, okay Hannah?" Jet sighs. "It's nothing personal, honestly. You seem like a great person. But I don't want any part of this."

I scrunch down, swallowing the last of the Chick-fil-A in despair. Dang it. I should have known I can't have nice things. I just… can I not even have friends anymore? First Ida, now this! Everyone who finds out about me leaves and they should leave because I'm a dangerous freak and I nearly killed a kid today because I'm also a man-eating monster! And just when I thought that maybe, maybe I could have something fun and happy and normal, whoops! Autumn is two people, actually, and one of them is breaking off the relationship for both of them! I don't get to have anything!

Oh, no. My breath is starting to get shaky. I'm going to start crying, aren't I? On top of everything, I'm about to have a complete breakdown in front of the hot girl-or-maybe-girls that just half-dumped me out of what might have been a half-relationship. Oh, fudge biscuits, here come the tears. Why? Why does my life have to be this bad?

"Oh, shit," Jet says quietly as I start to sob. "Uh…"

I hug myself with my extra legs, despite the pain from my wounds, as I clutch my face in my hands. This is too much. It's just too much! How am I supposed to function like this? I'm just some girl, some seventeen-year-old loser, and I have to handle mutations and alternate universes and a scary Goddess and bandits and cultists and nearly bleeding to death under a bridge! Then I finally get one good thing, one person I think might be a sign that things can get better, and now I'm not even allowed to see her anymore!

"Um, fuck, uh… Hannah, if you cry like that, someone might come looking for us…?" Jet says hesitantly, her cool attitude breaking entirely under the force of my tears.

"Can't we at least be friends!?" I whine, choking for air as the forceful sobs aggravate my wounds and cause pain to blast through my entire body. "You don't wanna date me, I get that. I'm a weird freak and I don't even know if you're gay and you're right I could be a huge danger to everyone without even knowing how but… but I like you! Yeah, it's in the dumb crush way, but it's also just… you're so nice! Both of you are! You're the one that helped me when I was bleeding in the bathroom, right? And you're super cool and you do martial arts and you stopped me from fucking killing a child which I just, oh Goddess thank you. Thank you so much. A-and I like Alma too! She's cute and she has great taste in books and she lets me sit with her at lunch when Brendan's busy with his gaming group. You guys are the first new friends I've made in years!"

"Um… well, I—"

"A-and do you even get to decide what Alma does?" I ask, the waterworks still flowing. "Like, like I get that for some things it'd be super unhealthy for both of you not to agree on something, but you just got mad at her for going behind your back, right? Shouldn't she get to choose if she gets to be my friend? And—"

"Okay!" Jet snaps. "Okay, okay, okay, Jesus! You can talk to her if you wanna talk to her, fuck! Just be quiet!"

"Sorry," I hiccup, doing my best to calm my tears. "Sorry, sorry."

"It's okay, it's fine," Jet hisses. "You're right, okay? You caught my bullshit. I just… I'm trying to keep us safe. It's what I do."

"Sorry," I say again.

"I said it's fine! God, you are the lamest, most blubbery movie monster ever, you know that? I can see why Alma likes you."

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I have nothing to say to that, so I just keep quietly sobbing, slowly getting myself under control. I don't know how to feel about that breakdown, honestly. On one hand, I got permission to be friends, and that is really important to me. I don't want to lose Autumn after all the wonderful things she's done for me. I need to make it up to her. On the other hand, I feel… dirty. Like I just manipulated her into agreeing by bursting into tears. And like, that's probably stupid, because I certainly am not crying on purpose, it's just… I don't know. Everything I do has to be bad somehow. That's what it feels like. I can't have a clean win.

"...You really don't care about the whole 'two of us' thing, huh?" Jet asks.

"Wha?" I sniff. "Should I? You both seem really nice."

She scoffs, standing up and starting to pace around.

"Well first of all, I'm really not that nice," she insists. "But… I don't know. You're weirdly cool with it? Like, I've gotten so much shit for this when I've had to explain it to people. We both have, that's why we agreed to stop telling people and try to live normally. Our first therapist was all gung-ho about it, he was fucking writing a paper about DID and kept making us try a bunch of stuff for that cuz he knew we couldn't leave. Then our second therapist insisted that our condition was actually just caused by the first therapist, which I personally think is bullshit, and he mainly focused on trying to get me to stop existing, which I didn't really appreciate."

"Therapists are the worst," I growl.

"Fucking tell me about it. I mean, things have gotten better since, we found a pretty okay one finally. But there's still all the normal people that think I'm just delusional or lying and don't put any effort into interacting with us like we're separate people, which is just… really awful, not to mention disorienting. Like bitch, stop trying to have a discussion with me about something I was never a part of! Not to mention just general assholishness and… fuck. Why am I even ranting about this? I need to shut up."

"N-no! No, it's okay!" I assure her. "You can unload on me, I get it. I mean, I don't get it exactly, but I get people being jerks that refuse to listen. My best friend has days where he can't talk to people or touch anyone, and he's really bad with meeting new people, and he gets overwhelmed easily, and all those things can negatively impact how I might want to engage with him on a given day, you know? But it's not about me. I learned how to react to those situations, how to help with those situations, when I shouldn't be helping with those situations, and it takes a lot of work! But it's worth it, because I'm also pretty weird, and… well, I need help sometimes too, now more than ever, and he's there for me. Not like, in a transactional way, just… we both want to help each other as much as possible, so we do. And the best way to learn how to help someone is to just listen to what they ask from you. I can't say I'm not a little surprised that you're two people sharing one body, but if that's what you say you are… okay! I believe you. I'll figure things out as best I can."

Jet stares at me for a while, her expression blank. W-was that too cheesy? Did I sound like an idiot? Agh, I said too much about Brendan, too, that's not really my place to say. What's Jet thinking? What's she going to say!?

"...This is the weirdest fucking day of my entire life," she decides.

Oh.

"Well yeah, I mean, that's fair," I agree.

"If we're doing this—and this is still an if—we're doing this my way," she insists. "We are going to keep this under wraps, between us and Alma. We are going to learn everything we can about this fucking 'magic' bullshit, and how to defend against it. You're going to come clean to Alma about whatever the fuck you are, assuming she even wants to talk to you after learning you know about me. And then you are going to use that magic bullshit to help me with some things, no questions asked. Alright, 'friend?'"

This is gonna be illegal stuff, isn't it? On one hand, that's terrifying. I barely even jaywalk. On the other hand… be gay do crime? And I'm definitely gay for Autumn.

"I'm gonna be really bad at the 'no questions' part," I say. "I reserve final veto rights, but… okay. I'm all for helping a friend."

Those were some of the most terrifying words I've ever said in my life. I just agreed to do crime things. I mean, maybe. It'd be great if Jet just wants help with her laundry, but I'm not exactly getting those vibes here. I'm intellectually aware that not all crime is 'evil,' per se, it's just… well. I'm an upper-middle-class young woman in the rich part of town, why would I fight the system when I'm the person the system benefits? Not that I like the capitalist hellscape I live in, I just… y'know. Do not have a lot of solid motivations to put myself at risk within it. But if it's for Autumn? I can… try. I suppose. And if it turns out to be really nasty stuff, maybe I can help her claw her way out of whatever pit she's fallen into. Metaphorically. …Hopefully metaphorically. Oh Goddess we're so boned.

"This is a terrible plan and I'm going to hate myself later," Jet grunts.

"Heh, that's pretty funny," I grin. "I was just thinking the same thing!"

That seems to surprise her for a moment, but then she grins, barking out a laugh as she stands up.

"Alright you fucking psycho," Jet chuckles, "let's get you dressed, healed, and home."

Oh yeah. Self-care. I forgot about that. Nodding, I close my eyes and pull at my link again, shuddering as the itch of healing races across my body. As my scabbed-over wounds repair themselves, so too does the chitin crawl up my hands and legs, growing and solidifying under skin that I know I'll have to cut loose soon. My right leg has chitin all the way to my upper thigh now, and soon it'll start encroaching on my pelvis. Hrm.

I, uh, am just gonna come out and say it: I'm pretty concerned as to what's going to happen to my vagina. Like… I don't know anything about bug sex and I don't want to know anything about bug sex, I am perfectly happy with my genitals as-is. So. Y'know. If you're taking requests, body, maybe kindly leave my gonads alone? Thanks.

Thankfully, I don't have to figure out the fate of my loins today. With my wounds mostly healed over, Jet keeps watch while I change into less-shredded clothing and stuff the ruined outfit underneath some other clothes in our shopping bags. My new limbs are a bit more difficult to hide than my other changes, unfortunately, because they pop out of my body right around waist height, where my pants meet my shirt. Twisting them up so they rest against my body and hug my ribcage hides them well enough as long as my shirt isn't too small, and while that's not the least bit comfortable and something I'll have to worry about people bumping into, it's the best we can do for now. I'll probably end up having to bind the new legs up in cloth to hold them in place, although that idea is really depressing for some reason. I mean… I guess I know the reason, I like my new legs, but I can't exactly show them off to people. With one last mournful wiggle, I hide them in my shirt.

Now armed with a slightly newer version of what is basically my old outfit, we start heading home. Walking is terrible and it hurts. Jet also wasn't lying to the mugger when she said we didn't buy new shoes, which was kind of a stupid oversight on my part, so my thickest socks and the tattered remains of my actively-disintegrating current pair have to do for now. Every movement of my battered body screams in agony, a constant reminder not to fuck around with the Goddess lest I find out again. And boy did I find out.

"...Wait, is this the right way to your house?" I mumble.

"No, we're going to your house first," Jet grunts. "I can get home safe on my own. If you go alone you'll somehow manage to get mugged twice in one night."

"I hate that you're right."

There isn't much conversation from there on, which I guess is pretty fair. Jet has plenty to process, and I do too. I'm not sure how I feel about kinda-sorta-unfairly pressuring her into staying-slash-becoming my friend. She kind of has a point. I'm dangerous. It's probably best for everyone if I run off and become a hermit in the woods or something. It's all just too much for me, though. I'm too selfish to push her away like I should.

"Alright, this is my house," I announce once we arrive. "I'd invite you in or something but I don't want you to have to deal with my mom. She'll interrogate you about what we did today, and… yeah."

"Mmm. Nice neighborhood," Jet comments, glancing around with a critical eye.

"Oh, um… yep. My parents are, uh, pretty loaded. Anyway though, thanks again for all your help. It really means more to me than I can express."

"Mmm-hmm. It's what I do. Take care of yourself, Hannah, and try not to get in any more messes."

"I will," I promise. "But I'm probably going to fail miserably."

"Yeah, that checks out. G'night, bug girl."

I wince when she calls me that, glancing around for witnesses even though there's no way anyone else could get the context or find it suspicious without that context. She smirks at me, shakes her head, and walks off before I awkwardly remember to wave goodbye.

"See you, Jet!"

She gives me a singular wave without turning to face me, which is kind of unnecessarily cool of her and it makes me smile. Untrigintuple-checking myself for any out-of-place clothing, I take a deep breath and walk up to the front door of my own house, something that probably shouldn't be as terrifying as it actually is. Sure enough, when I open the door I'm swiftly greeted by the happy voice of my father.

"Hannahgator! Hey, you! Where have you been all day?"

And thus, I am trapped against my will. I hesitantly clutch all my shopping bags close, trying to decide whether or not to leave them here, run to my room to drop them off, or bring them with me as I face the conversation in front of me. I ultimately bring them with; it's not likely that anyone would rummage through the bags while I'm not around, but I'm certainly paranoid that they would. I do quickly slip off my ruined shoes and hide them underneath some clothes before walking down the main hallway and into our huge living room/dining room/kitchen, though. The moment I peek my head in I find my father and mother sitting on the couch together, watching one of the ten quintillion different television shows with Gordon Ramsay in it.

"Um, hey mom, hey dad," I say, waving. "I went to the mall with a friend."

"Did they drive you?" my mom asks. "I didn't hear a car."

"Oh, um, no. We walked."

"Mmm. You shouldn't walk around that area late at night, Hannah. Call me next time, your father or I can pick you up."

If not for the fact that I was literally just mugged, I wouldn't even consider ever doing that. Now that I've nearly died, I give it serious consideration and then decide to reject it.

"I'll do that," I lie anyway, because that is the only way to escape this conversation.

"Who did you go with?" my dad asks.

"A new friend, you don't know her. Her name is—" oh god she has three names which name do I give my parents "—Altum."

"All-tum?" my dad clarifies.

I mean hoo boy she has a great tum, but holy geez I cannot say that out loud ever.

"U-um, Autumn. Her name is Autumn. Sorry."

"Did you have fun?" my mom asks. "It's good to see you spending time with some other friends. That Ida girl is always so polite."

Ida just knows how to turn the charm on when she needs to, and also you'd hate her if you knew that she wants to bone me. But sure.

"I hope Ida and I can hang out together again soon," I say honestly. "I haven't seen her for a while, though."

"Oh, you young people are always so busy. You'll see her again," my mom promises, despite knowing absolutely nothing about the situation. "So, what did you buy?"

"Oh, um, just clothes," I say. "A lot of my old clothes are getting kind of worn-out."

"Mmm. I hope you didn't spend too much?"

"I never do," I answer honestly.

My mom nods approvingly, and I'm kind of annoyed how happy and proud I am to see that. If there's one virtue my mother likes to espouse that I'm genuinely good at, it's saving money. The secret is to have a mom that's really insistent on money management and therefore be pathologically terrified of spending anything in the first place. I've been reliable enough with my good spending habits that my mom even believes me when I claim to have them, which is an extremely rare smidgen of respect and always a nice feeling.

"Alright, well, let us know where you're going next time, okay?" she asks. "Us parents get worried, you know."

"Of course, yeah," I lie. "I'm gonna, um, put this stuff away, if that's okay?"

"Alright. We'll be going to bed soon, so try to keep it down."

"Okay," I nod, and then finally get to retreat to my room, shutting the door behind me. I hide my destroyed clothing and put my new outfits away before exiting my room and locking myself in the bathroom instead, stripping down to check my recent wounds. There's scarring all over my body now, even on my face, though thankfully the face scars are so light that they weren't noticeable from where my parents were sitting. Other places on my body have it much worse, places where cuts went deep and my bootlegged healing couldn't quite get the job done. Goddess, gym on Monday is going to be absolute hell. Just walking home was bad enough.

As for my actual mutation, I manage to make myself giggle by waving at my reflection in the mirror with my new limbs. As I feel around my body, I start to suspect that limbs seven and eight might be coming in soon as well; there's some severe tension under my shoulderblades that feels like more than just bad posture cramps. I hope it's more arms. Seems like it'd be a weird spot for dinky little spider legs. I mean, I guess any spot on my mostly-humanoid body is a weird spot for dinky little spider legs, but whatever. A girl can dream. Unless that girl is me because I guess I don't dream anymore and I arguably never have.

It is what it is, I guess. I successfully hide from my parents for the rest of the night, doing my best to calm myself down before the inevitable breakdown that will be waking up back on the world tree. I'm absolutely exhausted, though, which I suppose nearly dying probably tends to do to a person. I crawl into bed, pass out, and wake up. I am a lot smaller, and the world is a lot bigger. The barren zone I went to sleep in is still cold and dark and lifeless, but what little of the world outside that I can perceive with my spatial sense is at least somewhat different. Notably, camp is almost entirely packed up and someone had the good sense to move the bodies outside my line of sight. I'll have to thank them. Though I don't really get the ability to rest thanks to the odd way sleeping works for me, and my day hasn't exactly been a pleasant one back on Earth, I'm still doing better than I was when I first passed out here. I take a deep breath and stand up on ten shaky legs, as ready to face the day as can be expected.

…Wait. I take a deep breath?

Holy cannoli I'm breathing. I have lungs! What!? The moment I move to stand, I get that horrid, itchy feeling of my outer chitin layer molting off, so I have to cut myself free of that while I peek at my own internal organs, marveling at how my collection of book lungs have twisted and evolved to support diaphragm muscles, letting me inhale and exhale manually. Wow! Will I be able to talk now?

I try to say a word and it comes out of my body as a horrible eldritch hiss, because of course it does. Well darn, I'm still stuck writing and going through Sindri to communicate. But hopefully things will be better soon!

My horrible noises seem to have caught the attention of my friends while I munch idly on my discarded skin, causing them all to look not-quite-correctly in my direction. It's kind of funny how wrong they are, but I guess it's not their fault that their necks can't rotate along the w-axis.

Hannah? I think to myself. No, wait, that's obviously Sindri.

Sindri, hi! I greet him. Sorry for, um… sorry. I'm okay now.

I'm pretty sure at least one of us would be dead if not for you, Sindri answers. You have absolutely nothing to apologize for. Thank you, Hannah. Truly.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. Both disgusted and proud, I suppose? I step out of the barren zone back into normal space, flinching at the light. The sun's almost straight overhead already? Did I sleep through the whole morning?

Oh gosh, did I make you guys wait? I yelp. Sorry, everyone! Sorry!

Don't worry about it, Hannah, Sindri reassures me. We all needed rest after that. I took the time to collect some animal companions as well, to help take the load off of any future fights. It tends to be difficult to convince most creatures to leave their natural habitats or enter settlements, but, ah… well, with the right incentives they can be convinced to protect us for a time.

Oh, that's neat, I say, trying not to think about how the right incentives might be the reason the corpses are missing. The thought of those animals eating the bodies I killed makes me kind of jealous, and that's… well, it's not a good start to the day to realize how messed up my head has become.

Yes, our new [large, four legs, hunter, dangerous] will be joining us soon, though I have him out scouting ahead for now. I'd like to ensure today's travels are as uneventful as possible.

Oh, alright! Sounds neat! I hope he's friendly!

Don't worry, Hannah, I'm very good at making friends, Sindri assures me. And I'm very lucky that my friends are so good at protecting me.

I make a few embarrassed burbling noises and spin around in a circle a little, which makes Sindri chuckle.

I'm not… I don't… I really, really don't like killing people, Sindri, I whine. How often does this kind of thing happen?

Unfortunately, 'this kind of thing' is frighteningly common, Sindri explains as Kagiso notices my distress and walks over to pick me up. I flail my legs a bit when she grabs me by the top of the carapace, but she'd never drop me so I eventually just let her lift me up without resistance. Rather than put me on her head, she cuddles me in two arms and then sits down to sand down some arrow shafts with her other arms.

So people just attack each other randomly? I grumble.

Well, it's hardly random, Sindri explains. Those men were from a dead branch. Normally, dentron communities tap the veins of the world tree and subsist mainly off of the plentiful rivers of sap. But sap is somewhat rapidly becoming less plentiful. It's flowing more slowly, and many leaves or entire branches are starting to die. Consequently, the normally-peaceful dentron are experiencing resource shortages that they've historically never had to deal with. When people from destroyed communities can't find a home because their neighbors don't want to feed them, they often turn to banditry.

Oh. Huh. That's a problem, yeah. I suppose impending apocalypses are rather dangerous. It's funny, really; normally when you think of an apocalypse, you think of some huge, cataclysmic event that ruins everything immediately. What's happening to the tree seems like more of a long, drawn-out death, though. The highest branches burn, and the tree dies, but it sounds like this has been happening for hundreds of years. Everyone is so used to the idea that no one is panicking about it, it's just how things are. Yep, the world sure is on fire. Whatcha gonna do?

Honestly, it sounds concerningly similar to Earth.

Is the dentron city we're visiting going to be okay? I ask.

Should be, Sindri confirms. This branch seems fine for now. Speaking of the city, are you prepared to start traveling again, Hannah? We'll still be able to reach the city tomorrow if we get marching.

Yeah, I'm ready I think, I confirm. What about you, Kagiso?

Silence answers me. Kagiso doesn't seem to hear my question at all.

Oh, haha. Sorry, Hannah, it's just you and me that are connected right now, Sindri explains. I haven't had the time to set up the team link this morning.

You haven't… oh, right! You do need to do that every morning, huh? I remember. Sorry, I'm still a bit out of it. But… wait, hold on. Don't you normally need to touch me to start this link as well?

You poked me when you woke me up, Hannah, Sindri reminds me. I haven't gone back to sleep since the fight.

Right, yeah, I remember, I nod. So… huh. Have you been maintaining the mental link while I sleep?

Just for your little after-battle nap there, he says. Don't worry, I don't pick up anything you're not purposefully attempting to send me.

Oh. Okay, that's good. It would have been really freaky for him to have mentally gleaned information about Earth from my 'dreams.' I don't know how I'd ever explain something like that. Still, now I'm kind of freaking out about it.

…Um, sorry, I don't mean to be rude, I say, but now that I'm thinking about it, how do I know that's true? I don't really have any idea what you can do with your magic.

Sure, but why would I lie to you? Sindri asks. We've been traveling together for a good while now, and we've gotten each other out of some really tight situations. I should hope you know me at least fairly well by now, and I certainly feel like I know you. In fact, I respect you, Hannah. I can't prove my own inability to do something—that's a logical impossibility—but surely I've done enough to earn your trust?

Ah, of course. He's right, I'm being stupid, getting paranoid and thinking about terrible situations for no good reason.

Of course I trust him, I think to myself. He's my friend.