In front of them, they had lemon juice, a heat gun, and some sunscreen. According to their research, depending on the type of ink used, all were useful for decoding secret messages.

Hazel started with the heat gun because it was the least destructive. When she was finished, the paper was warm to the touch. She had been careful to cover every inch, but it was still blank.

Grim grabbed the lemon juice and spread it on the paper using a brush, like she was basting a steak. The lemon juice soaked through and made a mess on her desk, but not much else. They spread the sunscreen with high hopes and watched as… nothing happened. Both of them looked at each other and shrugged. The soggy burnt paper covered in lemon juice and sunscreen rested on her desk. Mocking them in all its disgusting glory.

"Maybe we did it wrong?" Hazel asked, trying to be nice.

Grim sat on her bed and leaned back. “No, we did everything the way we were supposed to."

Hazel sat beside her, frowning, "Maybe we could hire someone to look at it?"

"Like with a boon?" Grim asked, but the question sent her mind through several different paths. If they needed a boon to find out what it said, then they'd have written it with a boon in the first place.

That didn't seem too wild for her; boons could do nearly anything. Of course, it hadn't always been like that. At some point in the past, the system had been a lot more functional, and instead of boons, people would specialize in an actual class. Her systems teacher had said most scholars believed that's where boons were derived from, just a big list of skills people could choose and level up.

Some people weren't happy with that and wanted to take more power for themselves, so they found the system’s core and blew themselves, the system and half the continent up instead. Gate worlds started popping up shortly afterwards, which did start the Industrial Revolution, so maybe it wasn't all bad.

Besides, of course, the small problem of humanity nearly being wiped out by the monsters inside.

It had been touch and go for a little bit, but they reached an equlibrium once they learned how to kill them. Even better when they discovered the shards they left behind were great sources of energy. Eternity City was supposedly founded on the crater of that explosion as well, although despite all their searching, they still hadn't found the core yet.

"Yeah, if we found someone and you distracted them, I could take their power, and we wouldn't even need to pay them," Hazel said.

It wasn't a bad idea, but trying to touch someone for a minute was a long time. If there was a secret message hidden with a boon, it would have a specific trigger or something to reveal the message, and hiring someone would probably be the only way to find out.

Unless you had the boon yourself.

"Hazel!"

Hazel jumped up and turned on Grim, "Aaaaah, what? Why are we yelling?"

Grim smirked, glad Hazel was back to her usual self. She had healed the rest of her injuries in the past couple of hours. It seemed to be slower than if she wasn’t manifested, but even if she was, it was still much faster than if she was human.

"Sorry, I just had an idea. Can you use [SHADOW VESTIGE] on the paper?"

Hazel thought briefly, "I'm not sure it works that way, but I can try."

Grim's shadow walked up and grabbed the paper, closing her eyes as she did so, "I'm not getting anything- wait. I feel something, the edges of it. I can grab it, but I'd have to replace [SOMETHING IN YOUR EYE] first."

"Do it, we'll get something better."

Hazel traced her hand over the paper, and Grim saw a thin trail of ephemeral smoke and shadow flowing from her fingertips to engulf the page. A minute passed as she watched, and nothing happened, but Hazel continued, never losing concentration. Her eyes traced over the page, and her brow scrunched harder until a smile crossed her face.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She pulled the smoke back, and it receded into her fingertips, "I got it!"

Grim jumped up, "You did? So there was something there. What is it?"

"E-rank [Concealed Color], the system description says it will let me write with ink that is visible only by looking through an object of that same colour," Hazel danced as she explained. Grim inexplicably joined in, the two of them lost in celebration.

Hazel’s eyes opened wide, at the same time as Grim realized what she was doing.

"Sorry," Grim said as she stopped dancing. Hazel’s enthusiasm had been infectious, and she got lost in the moment. She made a mental note to be more careful in the future. "Anyways, what colours can you use? If we go through the list, we can try each."

"Only three: red, blue and yellow,” Hazel said, then, more hesitant as she carefully considered her words. “And you can dance if you want to; I am the last person who will ever judge you, honest."

Grim shook her head, "Just forget it ever happened, okay? I think some of my younger siblings have some coloured binder pages for school. I'll be back in a minute."

Hazel stared innocently at her with an upturned chin, "Forget what happened?"

She groaned and left, heading down the stairs. The house was abnormally quiet today; no doubt everyone was silent after the storm she had brewed up earlier. Still, her younger siblings had been working on their homework at the dinner table, so she was able to find the coloured dividers she needed. Jin and Louis had left earlier to do some errands, taking most of them along for the ride. She’d make sure to return them before they got home so no one came to her asking where they went.

Grim walked back upstairs to Hazel and handed her a yellow sheet while she took the blue one.

"Nothing," Grim said.

"Can't see anything here either. Red?"

Together, they grabbed the red divider and held it up so they could both see through it. It worked, and a whole new set of text appeared on the page.

"If you're reading this, then you're capable enough to have a chance to survive what’s to come. Grim is not your real name, and what happened to you and your family was not an accident. If you want to know more, find me, but there is no turning back once you do. There is almost a certain chance you will be hurt, killed or captured. If this happens, no one will save you, and no one will be brought to justice. This must be your choice: live and forget or fight to remember.

There is a lone Withering tree in Centennial Park. Kill it, and I will find you.

M."

"Holy shit," Hazel said. "That's a lot."

Grim took a moment to think, the weight of those revelations heavy on her chest. It couldn't be true, but if it was? What the fuck was she? She kept being told Grim wasn’t her name, but then, who named her? What had she done to deserve this?

She’d been placed with Jin and Louis when she was five; her only childhood memories were of them. She didn't exist before she was fostered, and they weren’t supposed to exist either, at least on paper. It was almost easier when she thought she’d just been given up for how she looked. Now someone was out there that had killed her family and crippled her. All for what? To leave her alone and confused? Why didn't they just kill her?

Anger welled up in her like water filling a pond; it flowed through her and grew. She'd been angry before, many times, and it had often overflowed, but it had never emptied. She struggled with it for most of her life, just barely treading above a sea of anger that had nowhere to go.

Mr. Cede was the last person who had figured that out.

As she looked at the page and reread it, the more it called to her. She shouldn't; she should sell the shard, get a place and find a job. Forget about everything that had happened. It was the right option, the safe option, and yet? She knew she could never take it; it would kill her just the same as drinking poison a drop at a time would.

It would just take longer.

"We're going to the park; grab your things," Grim said as she grabbed her coat from the door and pulled it on.

"What? Right now?" Hazel asked.

The people who had done this to her were still out there, probably destroying other people's lives, making them forget. They’d fucked with her head. She ached at the thought of waiting any longer. She wanted—needed something to destroy. To make them feel how she felt, she had an entire ocean's worth of anger to direct and no one to aim it at, yet.

But that would change.

"Yes, we're going now. I need one thing," Grim said as she left her room.

"Shouldn't we talk about this? Make a plan. How do you kill a tree?" Hazel asked as she followed her out of the house and to the backyard. The sun was bright and warm, starkly contrasting how she felt.

The lock to their shed was just for show, so she pulled it off and threw it away as she searched the dim interior. Cobwebs layered the inside, speaking to its disuse. She found what she was looking for in the back, hanging on a hook. She grabbed it and turned towards Hazel.

Hazel gawked, "What are you going to do with that?"

Grim lifted and rested the old axe on her shoulder, "We're gonna chop down a fucking tree."