I am roughly woken up with a terrible crick in my neck from the massive chain around my neck and something curled way too far up my leg.

Is that? Yeah, an insectile tentacle of The King. Lovely.

I may have pants... I am still NOT ok with what feels like an oversized cockroach rubbing around my ankle, leg, and hip, dragging me across the floor and ruining my hair.

Urgh! It is terri... so wrong, feeling contracting and expanding segments of the monster all over my lower body.

Speaking of hair, it appears the Miasma wants to give me aesthetic changes too. If my hair was unnaturally pretty before, it is truly top-tier hair now. From the glimpses I can see of it through the rims of crystal on my eyes, it has corrupted from light brown to a truly gorgeous blue. It looked like the blue of crushed lapis lazuli paint, streaked with imperial blue.

Yes! I am benefiting at least a little from being corrupted by the rift.

My arms, on the other hand, have turned jaundiced and are... oh! That is so gross!

My arms are leaking liquid onto the floor like a bag of rotten vegetables as I am being dragged along.

I give myself at most a couple of days until I get blood poisoning and die. Lovely. Well, I’m already resigned to death. It just doesn’t seem like it is going to be quick and merciful.

Finally, The King finishes dragging me to a rather oversized banquet table absolutely groaning with food, the tentacle uncurling around my leg, though not before unwelcomingly touching me further.

Thousands of servants are running at incredible speeds around the table, ensuring that everything is set up, their overly elaborate dresses and suits like someone’s anime version of the Victorian era. All of them have grinning ivory masks and monochrome colors. It is a pretty cool scene.

Unfortunately, as is expected in this storyline, one of them inevitably messes up. A man rushing by The King trips over the tyrant’s feet, who catches the suited man with supreme ease. A spotlight shines from the ceiling on the two of them and The King grins wider, his skin-covered sockets quivering with lust.

Every servant bows their head lower and ignores the unfortunate Anathema. The King draws the poor man to his chest, tentacles curling all over him like worms over a corpse. The King abandons the banquet for his bedroom chambers with the victim, leaving me all alone and surrounded by incredibly dangerous Anathema.

Shocking the poor servants with my disrespect of The King’s authority, I clamber up The King’s chair at the head of the table and plop myself down on the seat. It is quite plushy and soft with all of the velvet. I start perusing the foods under the aghast stares of the servants.

A butler, I can tell because she is the only one with a serious prim mask, walks up to me and tries to shoo me off. You know, I am just not feeling like moving from this spot. Channeling my inner cat-after all, I have the ears of one-I curl up and ignore her. She huffs silently and shrugs at the rest of the servants, holding her hands out in wide, sweeping motions, as if to say, “Your funeral, you wild animal,” and to say “I am not going to hurt The King’s new plaything trying to get it off the chair. You are welcome to try.”

To my endless amusement, the rest of the servants shook their heads vigorously. I turn my attention back to the food, which looks absolutely delicious. The dish in front of me has sugary, vivid red fruit. I reach out to pick one... and then I pull my hands back as if I had touched a burning hot stove.

These are pomegranates! Gah! They look so delicious! I nearly fell into the stupid trap!

Rule number 1 of eating food offered by Magical beings, be it deities or Fae, Vengeful Spirits or, in this case, Anathema, don’t eat pomegranates. For Fae, just don’t eat anything they offer, but for the others, they will offer food that is tied to human mythology for humans in an attempt to shackle them to the realm. In this case, the myth is that of Persephone and Hades. She ate pomegranate seeds grown in the Underworld and is forced to stay in the Underworld.

It is impossible to overstate the danger of the trap.

I nearly tied my very being to the realm. I could have turned directly into an Anathema, do not pass Go. Perhaps my role would change to that of The Queen, like Persephone became queen of the Underworld, the Torment’s counterpart. If the Magical Girls actually managed to finally take down this Tormented zone, my soul would have dissolved along with it.

Which, duhhhh, would have been bad! Instant death.

And even if it did not turn me into an Anathema, eating fruit still does not fit into my current role of a pet Anathema. I need to go for the meats and savory foods, not dainty sugary food, as much as I adore sweets.

Unfortunately, the roast chicken is all the way in the middle of the table.

Sorry in advance guys. I have to stay in character, it’s you or me.

I start clambering over the table, stepping on and knocking over fancy dishes. This immediately throws them into a tizzy, frantically grabbing falling food and preventing the expensive cloth from getting soiled. My hands are unfortunately not free, so I chomp down on the meat and drag it back right the way I came, much to the servants’ chagrin.

I sit back onto the throne and gnaw on the chicken. It is delicious. Impossibly flavorful. The spices add just the right balance of spice and oil, while the texture is perfect no matter the bite I take, the muscle breaking apart perfectly. The aromas of whatever fruit was used in this dish complement the meat flawlessly. It is the best dish I have ever had, period.

It’s almost enough to make me break down and cry. I have been so hungry, shivering with gnawing pain always at the edge of my thoughts. I may still be all by myself, but having a full stomach definitely eases the pain.

I cannot even be frustrated at the changes in my body now that I have consumed such Miasma-rich food. I just feel relief at easing the gnawing pains. My ears grow taller, and my hair lengthens all the way to my hips, turning ever more vivid to the point that it unnaturally pulls on my attention to admire it.

More cuts on my arms start leaking the clear fluid all over the chair, which bothers one of the servants incredibly. He takes off my opera gloves and wraps high-quality bandages all around my arms and hands.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Look, I have the limbs of a mummy now! Fear me!

Unfortunately, my diminutive size does not a scary mummy make, to draw from Yoda’s speaking style.

I chuckle my thanks to the servant, having realized that the intent of thanking is far more important than actually expressing thanks in this world.

I leap off the chair, stumbling a bit, but I am rapidly getting used to this inhuman gait.

I need to figure out something that ensures that I am still entertaining to him for the foreseeable future.

I cock my ears, feeling the extremely peculiar sensation of previously immobile body parts swiveling to focus on sounds. I hear screams of pain combined with cackles of pleasure, and even more disturbingly, someone’s bone crunching coming from The King’s bedroom.

I gulp. I amend my statement with an addendum. I really need to figure out how to survive this monster’s whims without being a living sex toy or food... or both at the same time.

I travel across the fiery crystal, scuttling around the servants rushing around. I find a tiny chair to ensure I am at a low enough height for when he finally ends his... activities. I drag the chair screeching across the crystal in front of the throne.

I then crawl around looking for that band, walking along the many hallways that extend from his throne room.

Ugh! This place is a maze. Where are they?

Wait... that would be absurd. This would be completely illogical.

I stand up straight and strum my guitar with simple arpeggios, walking like how I would imagine a rock star would. In other words, arrogantly and ready to write a signature at all points in time, though I maintain a joyous grin and holding my limbs at slightly awkward angles to still give the impression of an Anathema. Like magic, or miasma in this case I guess, after just a few more minutes of walking, I come across the veritable hundreds of creatures that played the music and songs that heralded The King’s arrival.

Their forms are indistinguishable from the background and yet, they stand out and draw all the attention. I walk up to one of them and shake the many lines reaching out to me, as if I was meeting an old friend.

We are best of buddies, and I pat them on the back genially. I very nearly commiserate with them about our boss, the big man himself, as a natural progression of our relationship in this play I have created between myself and these magical constructs that barely seem to even be Anathema. They just don’t have much substance.

The curiosity of this observation certainly piques my interest, but unfortunately the show stops for no one. Instead, I call their attention to me with a laugh. I strum multiple different tunes and vocalize the many different parts to show them the extremely ambitious opera. I familiarize myself with the different sounds of various instruments.

There are piccolos of teething silver and triumphant trumpets with self-mutilated wings that I have to figure out how to adapt to this opera. The violins and cellos were pretty tame. Just needed to avoid getting the leaking blood on the pages. The worst ones to deal with were bass clarinets. They looked completely normal, but their sound is ruining my body.

One of the musicians started playing one of them and I could feel my sanity leaving me. I could pinpoint my bones with exact precision because they were vibrating like a fucking tuning fork. Threads of thin layers of skin started peeling off my body.

As a result, I changed the play. We would rely more on vocals, so I promptly switched to the only other opera I knew by rote, Persée.

I finish plucking off my skin and get started on the set up for the opera.

I go around searching for other staff people after they understand magically understand me. I rope the tailors into making elaborate costumes that I drew out and left them to fill in the blanks and do the fabric work that is not my strong suit, as much as it pains me to admit I am not good at something in the arts. Unfortunately, in the end, I must... trust the tall gangly beings with blackened suits and charred curly white hair, with fifty bleeding stumps each sprouting out of their backs and sides. They touched my dress jealously, trailing their stumps on my head in circles around my new cat-like ears as if they are my friends. I preen under their attention.

Once I leave, I go up and down, sideways, and diagonally across the steps. My path goes in circles and moves obliquely, until I reach the servant quarters. Apparently, directions do not matter as much as the actual distance crossed does, as well as just picking whatever feels most random and whimsical to myself. I convince the servants there to help me plan out and set up the venue.

In addition, to fulfill my vanity, I ask them to clean and spiff me up from the blood of the tailors and general bits of skin I had missed. Thankfully, they promptly fixed me up.

Due to the servants’ applicable Skills and high stats, they manage to set up the appropriately deferent and ostentatious decorations for the play in just eight hours, the first three being me drawing out exactly how it is supposed to look. In comparison, the last time I set up something of this scale with my theater troupe that are still all alive, none of whom are old enough to be System users, it took over four weeks just to set up everything. This set up would have been even faster if I had not taken three times longer than it normally takes for something of this scale. Aggravatingly, my poor eyesight hampered me heavily.

I do need to draw on my experience to direct them as needed, but once they get started, it once again hammers just how out of my league I would have been if I had if I had somehow escaped that oversized shiny ball and ended fighting them. It certainly lends itself to frustration that 6938 days old (or roughly 19 years old) is how old I need to be a system user. I still have 2 years until I can even start crossing the great divide between and old Anathema.

Unfortunately, I do not have anywhere near that long.

I pull myself out of my resting position in the massive pile of fluffy costumes, at least relative to my size, in the empty, but prepared, venue. I’ll be able to be of worth to someone for the last few days of my life, even if it is an eldritch entity capable of vast destruction.

I walk off, clutching my head from the splitting headache assaulting me, shaking back and forth, giggling to myself in tune with my plans for the opera tomorrow. Suspiciously, I find a closet immediately, but I won’t ignore fortune, or rather, how story impacts this world.

I sit down inside the closet amidst the cleaning supplies with the door closed. I wait in silence for a few minutes, clutching my knees with my rotting arms and burying my head in the folds of my checkered dress. I look up wide-eyed, my joyous smile wiped away, contorted in the pain I have been working with all day, tears flowing down my cheeks. My tall fluffy ears and big eyes tremble.

Me and pain are best buds. Mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, soul. Pick your poison. We aren’t getting along very well today though.

I scream sharply and shrilly, baring my teeth. I abruptly stand up and smash my small hands into a shelf, throwing out a foot through a pile of clothes.

I stomp on everything in sight ruthlessly until I crush, break, and shatter all of it. I claw my chest and face wildly, growling and cackling, drawing blood the best I can.

“WILBUR! HELIX! WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME!?!” I fall to the ground weeping on my knees, slamming my fists into the solid grey stone.

“First the Vengeful Spirits, then my parents, and now you... why?” I whisper hoarsely out into the darkness of the closet.

I twitch and take a deep breath to calm myself down, shaking my head and hands out, my hair going everywhere. My face flushes with shame. I lost control again. For nearly a year I had avoided any incident of unchosen emotion, and yet, I have been forced into extreme emotions over and over. I lied earlier. I am not resigned to death. I want to survive for Dennis. I want to live life to the fullest for him. I promised. I don’t break promises. And I broke as a result...

“Ahhh! Krch.” I spaz.

It is foolish of me to show such inappropriate, immature behavior.

Alexa, I will punish you for these slights I have gone through. Though I may die, I will form a Vengeful Spirit to haunt you for eternity. My mortal coil already resembles one. It will be easy for me to make the leap to phantasm upon my death. The thought delights me, causing pain to those in my life.

I regain control over my previously rebellious emotions with supreme ease, switching trains of thought with the push of a mental lever.

I head back to the throne, this time the Sun is watching me again as I crawl along. Don’t worry abomination, I will entertain you sufficiently tomorrow.