Mary woke up from a nice, comfortable dream. She did not remember much of it, but she knew she was a catgirl; this made her happy. After breakfast, she heard a doorbell. She opened the door, and the delivery guy gave her the package.
The package contained a bunch of booklets and an opaque white glass sphere, about 5 centimeters in diameter. She was very confused; it was not something she was expecting.
Carefully, she read the booklets. One of them detailed Chocola, her character profile, and a bunch of cute pictures. Mary knew a lot about Chocola, more than the information this booklet provided, but nevertheless, the pictures made her excited.
The other booklet contained instructions on how to use the glass ball. It told her how to charge it and how to activate it once it had been charged.
Mary heard about advanced quantum computing chips, but she expected them to be huge, nothing like this thing she now held in her hands. The surface was smooth; there were no ports of any kind. Was this even a computer? Mary did not know. The touch activated the device; that's what the booklet said. So maybe it was a computer, but it simply did not need a keyboard? It was all so massively intriguing.
Charging the device was strange and peculiar, but rather straightforward. Mary placed the device in a pot, filled it up with water, and placed it on a hot stove. That's exactly what the instructions told her to do!
She left for more than eight hours, occasionally putting in more boiling water. While Mary waited, she felt silly and tricked. Maybe it really was all a prank. What kind of weirdo boils a glass ball for eight hours? Mary lived alone, so at least there was no one to see her silliness.
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The wait was long, but Mary was working from home, and work made this wait bearable.
As she refilled the water for the nth time, Mary saw something. The ball was becoming transparent, no longer opaque. And once any trace of white cloudiness disappeared, a slight purple glow appeared inside the sphere. She knew the ball was charged.
The instructions warned her: once she touches the charged-up ball, she will leave this world. So she turned off the stove and carefully checked everything else in the house. On the slight off chance that this was not a very elaborate prank, she wished to risk nothing.
Finally, she drained the ball and placed it on a towel. Then she moved the towel and placed it on her coffee table. She sat on the sofa and pondered the orb.
Mary was not sure what would happen when she touched it. Maybe she would burn her finger. That was the most likely outcome. Work hours were over, so she could afford to burn her finger.
She remembered the instructions too, so she quickly ran through her flat and checked the stove. It was off. The house was safe even if she disappeared for a month. She returned to the orb. It was beautiful and alluring, inviting her to touch it.
Carefully, she pushed her finger into the sphere, ready to retract it at any moment. Finally, the tip of her index finger touched the device, and she felt it was cold. It made no sense, but she had no time to think. In less than a second, the purple glow began to grow and escape the sphere. Within the same second, the purple glow swallowed up the entire room Mary was in.
Mary experienced a rather unique and unusual sensation in her body, all while the purple glow blinded her and forced her to close her eyelids. It was neither pain nor pleasure, but something else. Everything moved and changed—her surroundings and her body too. But it was brief, and just a second later, everything stopped. Mary felt she could open her eyes now.