I'm standing in a field. I look around, but there's no one else here. Where is here? Then there are others around me. Enemies. Their eyes are empty sockets, filled with gleaming black stones. I step back, but their mouths open and spiked black vines tumble out. I turn, but they have me surrounded. The vines lash around my legs. I scream as they tear into my flesh, but it is only a moment before they begin winding their way up my entire body. Everywhere they touch turns to fire. The poison overwhelms my senses. Every part of me is wrapped in the razor vines.

I curl away. I cling to a rock of solid warmth and tell the vines they can't hurt me. They reel back. Then, they grip tighter, I cry out in pain once more, and the ends of the vines dart into my mouth. They wiggle their way inside, spreading, stretching, splitting as the thorns rip through everything inside me.

They're hollowing me out. Tearing away everything I am. I try to shut it all away, fight to focus only on the love and warmth with me, but it won't end. The vines burrow all the way into me, strangling me inside and out. The enemies laugh in shrieking voices as I drown, crawling vines exploding out of my skin in every direction, digging into even the earth at my feet, and the sky over my head. I thrash in agony, screaming silently. Slowly, they all move forward, their thorns transforming into thousands of fanged mouths, every one releasing a grating hissing sound as one, and the vines crawl forward. The lips peel away, winding tongues reforming into dark rocks that come pressing in.

They pierce my eyes, I can feel every tear gouging them away as the rocks are shoved into the sockets. The vines tear into my entire being, the rocks flooding out forever. I writhe and roll, every muscle straining against the unstoppable invasion. My arms and legs are twisting, the spines are punching out through every part of my skin, every last one of them burning like fire. I'm turning into a monster on the outside and the inside. The hissing rises in pitch, getting louder and louder in a deafening screech from the stones buried in my eyes.

I flail, terror overcoming every part of my being. The vines coil tighter, my arms snapping back and forth with freakish motions, and endless poisonous fire.

Then they're gone. I slap at myself, whimpering small, animal shrieks in the back of my throat. I can't breathe, gasping shrieks are all I can manage. The feeling of the vines all across my body, slithering, scratching, shredding... It hasn't gone away at all. Panicked, terrified, I rip off my clothes. I keep slapping at my arms and legs but find no vines. No poison.

Frantically, I tear away all of the bandages I can grab, flinging them away until I'm down to nothing but my bare skin. I hold it, rub it, scratch at it, but find nothing. I just wince when my fingers dig into my numerous injuries. But it's just my skin. I continue breathing raggedly for some time, just rubbing against my own skin to make sure there's nothing else there. I look inside, thrashing my mana around frantically, but again, there's nothing. Only me.

No rocks, no poison, no vines, just me. I tell myself this over and over as I shake. I don't know why I'm so scared. This is even worse than my normal nightmares. Even with a lot of earth mana, even sleeping with Emily, they aren't working. I clutch my arms around myself, but nothing is helping. No matter how much I tell myself I destroyed that thing, I can't shake this horrible feeling.

I keep thinking. Why am I so scared? I've been so scared since yesterday, ever since I felt that thing in my hand. Ever since realizing the monster they killed wasn't the real monster. That black stone was the real monster.

I gasp in a small voice. Rail units are monsters. I'm a monster. Is that why I'm scared? Do I have something like that inside me? Some horrible parasite that is going to turn me into a twisted, horrible thing like that too? My shaking redoubles as I search inside myself more.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Wherever I look, nothing is wrong. Everything inside me looks perfect, no issues anywhere. Then I look hard at my own mana well. It also looks fine. No problems on the outside. I try to look inside, but I still can't see anything. Panicked, I reach down inside, but don't feel anything there either. I keep going further and further, but I can't reach the bottom. The insides all feel fine, but the bottom is nowhere to be found. Is that a problem? I don't know what it means. I could reach the bottom every time before. Even Emily's and she's a person, not just an animal or something. Even the hobin that turned into a monster.

So why can't I find my own? I'm starting to see stars as my shallow, quick breaths continue. I'm not getting enough air. I stare hard at the ceiling. What is wrong with me?

"Woah woah woah!" I jolt violently when something touches my shoulder. But my back is against a wall and I can't escape. The voice only registers a moment later. I feel hands close on my face, pulling it down so someone can look me in the eyes. "Calm... calm..." she says soothingly.

It takes some time, but eventually the soft warmth of her hands and whispered words calm me down a little. My warped vision slowly returns to normal with my breathing, and I can start to focus. It looks like it's Eve holding onto me right now. "Nightmares worse than usual?" she asks gently. I just nod a few times. My throat is so dry I'm not sure if I can really speak. "Here are your clothes, get back to bed. Emily looks lonely." she urges me up a bit. I slowly stand, only now looking around and realizing that I'm sitting on the floor, huddled against the wall in the narrow space between Emily and Helen's beds.

I continue working to keep my breathing under control, and soon feel like I'm recovering. Eve goes around, collecting the bandages from the floor and tucking them all under my bed. I vaguely look down at my clothes that she handed back to me. It's incredibly dark in the room, just the faintest trickle of light from the window on the far wall providing the only visibility. My eyes are fully adjusted to the dark, but it's still really hard to see the dark stained robes clearly. But somehow, they look a bit odd to me.

I try to look closer, but there isn't enough light to make out any details. I'll check tomorrow. For now, I put my clothing back on and sit back on the edge of the bed. I think my breathing has gone back to normal. The waves of terror wracking my body have receded as well. I'm not shaking too bad anymore.

I wipe away the tears staining my face and slip under the blanket with Emily, still sleeping somewhat shakily herself. My eyes slowly fall closed. I just try to relax, letting myself drift off once more. Letting myself sleep. But it's no good. Even clinging to Emily, the sheer terror induced by these nightmares won't let up at all. I end up waking up repeatedly, gasping and panicking to the point of passing out each time. Sometime during the night, Emily finally wakes up from her long, uncomfortable sleep.

"Aria?" she asks sleepily while I shake and try to recover from my most recent nightmare. She sits up, looking more concerned and less sleepy, and grabs me. "Aria, are you alright?" I shake my head, tears still leaking from my eyes. I can't take nightmares like this. They're not just waking me up like before. I'm having a hard time even recovering from them after I wake up. I still feel everything from the nightmares even when I'm awake.

I cling to Emily's chest, crying. I don't know why it's like this. I'm scared and confused, and even my confusion is scary! Emily pushes me down so I settle on the bed, rubbing my head gently. "Shh..." she quiets me as she keeps rubbing. "It's alright, I'm here with you. No one is going to hurt you now..." she whispers comforting words into my ear. "Just sleep for now..."

Her cooing whispers and gentle head rubs continue as I sleepily relax and begin to drift off again. The vines arc out once more, but Emily's voice is still there. Comforting, assuring me it's all going to be alright. I'm safe. I close my eyes tightly, shutting out the darkness, and curl up into a ball. I'm safe. There are no vines. The monster is gone. I tell myself this over and over while listening to Emily's voice. I can feel the vines around me, stretching, crackling, twisting all around.

But they don't touch me. They can't. They aren't really there. I cling desperately to Emily's warmth, telling myself they're gone, over and over as I sleep. It seems that finally works. I don't know how long it lasts, but Emily's voice and her gentle hand barely manage to protect me enough to sleep. Until I hear her calling me awake again.

My eyes flutter open at her call. I feel really tired after the atrocious sleep I got, but at least I managed to sleep at all...

"Are you guys alright? What happened to you last night?" Mary asks as we sit groggily in bed.

Emily gulps nervously, then answers, "We got attacked by a monster in the forest." Everyone shrinks back the moment she says it, and Emily looks really pale and scared. I try hugging her to help her through it.

"So... I guess that's what the rumor last night was about," Eve says.

"What rumor?" Emily asks.

"Everyone was saying a guard showed up last night. Normally... that would mean someone was in trouble with the guards..." she explains with a careful expression. "But supposedly he was asking for either me or Andy. That wouldn't make any sense if we were in trouble, you know?"

"Oh, sorry, that was me," I raise my hand awkwardly. "I asked Francis for a favor." Everyone looks at me with questions in their eyes, so I try to explain it simply. "I didn't want to waste all of Emily's hard work yesterday, so I asked him if he could get either of you to deal with the hobins we caught, since they would go bad."

Eve blinks a few times. "Oh, so that's what that was about... I guess Andy did it then, I only heard about it later. Wait, but why me?" she finally asks, clearly confused over the choice.

"I don't know," I shake my head. "I was really tired and don't really remember what I was thinking at the time. Maybe I thought you two would know what to do with them?" All I can do is shrug.

"Well... thanks." She grins a little. I smile back, happy and sleepy. Wait, why am I so happy about her smile? And I finally remember all the earth mana. It's always earth mana... I sigh dejectedly inside.

"What's wrong, Aria?" Emily asks quietly. She must have noticed. "You look like you're sad about something. Don't worry, it'll be fine. Thanks a lot for worrying about our work yesterday. And helping me yesterday. And saving me from that monster." She gives me a big goofy grin. It feels infectious, and I can't help but give her a big smile back.

We both have way too much earth mana! I almost want to bang my head into a wall, if only that would knock out the mana that makes it impossible to think right. Why can't it be more like lightning mana? I have just about as much of that but-

Then it finally hits me. This much lightning mana obviously must be having an effect too. I've been acting differently because of it since yesterday. The most obvious difference is the fear. Even with earth mana to dull it, I'm so much more scared of everything. Sure, that black rock was a whole new level of terrifying, but I might only be feeling that way because my emotions are all out of sorts, like how I can't help but be overly happy, or spiral into endless worry due to the earth mana. How did I not notice until now?!

But I don't have time to think all of this through now. The other girls all start getting up and ready for the day. We're both still really tired after everything yesterday and not getting much good sleep, but we drag ourselves up and out of bed too.

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Emily puts on some new clothes, but I still don't have anything but my robe. We never had the chance to buy clothing yesterday, did we...? I sigh a little when I remember. Then I glance around, surprised to find the small basket sitting on my bed. I don't remember setting it down, I guess I was too sleepy to notice exactly what I did with it last night. I pull the ingots and coins out of the basket, along with the bundles of bandages.

I guess we're moving really slowly, because by the time Emily has changed and I've put my stuff away under my bed, the other girls have already left the room. "Emily, wait," I stop her before she begins to leave.

"What is it?" she asks.

"I wanted to talk a little about last night. I wanted to tell you about what happened. Before we have to talk to Mister Fredricson or anyone else."

She gulps a little and I grab her hand reassuringly. "Ok. So, what happened... after we were attacked?" I can feel her trembling again. I have a feeling she's trying to think about it as little as possible.

I take a deep breath. "After the monster attacked you, I lured it away to the gate so the guards would kill it, then went back to help you. I'm sorry it took me so long..."

She immediately shakes her head. "No, you saved me!" she exclaims.

I bite my lip and shake my head back. "But I think it was my fault that it attacked us. I think it only came after us because of my mana."

She gasps a little. "Why do you think that?"

"I don't really know, it's just a feeling." I try to explain, "The monster had mana, and the way it came right for us just makes me think it was drawn by my mana somehow."

"I can't blame you if it's just a feeling!" she argues. "It's not your fault!"

I smile sadly. Even if she's not convinced, I still am. "Thanks a lot, Emily." I close my eyes and take a breath, moving to the next part. "The monster that attacked us had some sort of poisonous mana." She nods slowly, her eyes wide at the mention of poison. "I cured the poison it got into us, but it took me a while to get to you, so I think it did some damage before I was able to."

"D-damage?" she shakily glances down at herself.

"No no, it's fine," I assure her quickly. "I did my best to heal the damage to your mana. I can't be sure, but you're probably better than before."

"Really?" she has such a look of relief, I can't help but smile. But that reminds me of the next issue.

"I also worked on healing your other injuries, especially the cuts on your shoulders. I want to make sure they look alright, ok?" I ask.

"Yeah, of course," she nods quickly. She slides the shoulders of her top off and we look at the bandages. I carefully peel them away. The way they're sticky tell me they used lele fruit or sap. That should be fine for Emily, since it should help her heal. Though it will stop the extra earth mana from helping... I'm not sure which would be more beneficial for her though.

Once I've removed the bandages, I take a close look at the wounds. Three deep gashes, starting around her collarbone, extending over her shoulders, and ending near the bottom of her shoulder blades. They don't look red, so no infections at least. The way her skin looks, they are just beginning to heal. I'm not sure how long it will take for her though, since I can't base it on myself. Since they look fine, I put the bandages back on.

I move onto her other injuries, looking over each of the wrapped up puncture wounds one at a time. I'd say these look worse. Since those spikes punched into her skin, they are actually pretty deep. I don't know if I'd trust these wounds to heal properly on their own... I express this worry to Emily, then ask her if she'd wrap them in bandages without any lele fruit so I can help heal them.

"Of course," she answers immediately. Then we rewrap them in fresh bandages. There are five puncture wounds in total. I have to keep a close eye on them. As soon as we're done with her, Emily asks, "What about you, Aria?"

"What about me?"

"How are your injuries?" she looks a little annoyed, like that was supposed to be obvious.

"Oh, I asked Francis not to use lele fruit on the bandages, so I'm fine," I explain. Emily just narrows her eyes as she looks at me, like she doesn't believe me. "Ok, fine..." I sigh, and pull off my robe. Since I tore off all the bandages in terror last night, my injuries are easily visible. I didn't have the time to count exactly, but it stabbed me somewhere between thirty and forty times with that spine attack, then there was the bite on my arm, and the two claw slashes at my back. Though I suppose the second didn't quite hit me.

Looking down at myself, the spine punctures that barely broke the skin have already healed. That just leaves the bite and claw slash. I really didn't get injured that badly, all things considered. I show her my arm. She looks at the clear row of teeth marks going up most of my right forearm, and winces. "It was trying to bite your neck. I'm sorry, I barely managed to stop it." I frown. It doesn't really help that it overlaps with the knife wound that was only mostly healed, but it's not too big of a deal.

Emily just shakes her head, fear in her eyes. "No no no, you really saved me. Look at your arm..." she mutters, looking back down at the wound again.

"It should be fine after a few days. It was pretty deep and it really dug in, but it'll heal," I assure her. Then I turn around so she can see the claw marks on my back. That one might actually be a bit worse than the bite since I wasn't really focusing my mana there to block the attack. I guess I wasn't able to reach that bandage last night, because she pulls it off now. I can't actually see the marks myself, I can only feel the ache and stinging of the injury. It feels like they go across my shoulder blades, stretching over most of my back. Without seeing it, it's sort of hard to gauge it. Emily just looks at it for a bit before saying she's seen enough.

"Well, that's about it, I didn't get hurt that badly this time. The guards really saved us," I say while throwing my robe back over myself.

"Wait... what?" Emily says suddenly. I turn back around, and she looks utterly confused.

"What is it?" I ask.

"It's your clothing. Didn't that monster claw right across your back?"

"Yeah," she just looked at the marks herself.

"Then why aren't your clothes damaged?"

"They aren't?" I pull my robe off and throw it across the bed in front of us. Sure enough, there are no cuts or tears across the back.

"I... have no idea." I answer flatly.

"Seriously, Aria. Do you really not know anything about those weird clothes? You aren't hiding anything? You know you can just tell me if it's one of your secrets, right? I won't pry or anything."

"Yeah, of course," I assure her. "I guess... the place I got it is secret, but I really don't know anything about it. It was just given to me, no one ever told me anything about it, and I never really questioned it before. I just wore it."

"How long ago did you get it exactly?"

"Umm, it would be four years ago now."

"And you've been wearing it ever since?"

"Yeah."

"And it's never worn out?" I stop dead when she asks that question.

"No... it hasn't..." I mutter. I've seen everyone else's clothing. I've seen how it gets worn out and damaged through extended wear and washing. I watched Marrianne patching clothing myself. I just... never thought about my clothes like that. I finally take a really close look at my robes and examine them.

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From my limited understand of clothing, it comes down to a few factors. Coloring, patching, and thread count. Bright and unique colors make clothes more high quality and fancy. My robes are dirty now, but their real color is white. Even among the fancy colored clothes I've seen, no one wore white. So while I don't think that would be considered a bright color that pops out a lot, it is completely unique... Then there's patching. I definitely didn't see as many patched up clothes when I walked through the more wealthy areas of the city, while those living around the orphanage have clothes almost entirely patched together, or are too poor to even properly patch their clothes.

My robe of course, is not patched whatsoever. Because apparently, it doesn't wear out at all?! I can't even comprehend how that could be possible, but now that I'm looking at the facts, that's the only possibility. You can't wear the same clothing every day for four years with it showing no signs of wear and tear whatsoever. Not to mention, a monster tore the back open yesterday, but there are no tears in the fabric today. Again, that just shouldn't be possible. Actually, it should have punched tons of holes in the front with that spine attack too, but those are also gone.

And finally, the part I'm not as familiar with is thread count. Apparently more expensive clothing is made with finer, thinner threads. I don't think I'd be able to tell the tiny differences between tiny threads, but even I can tell between the lowest quality fabric I've seen, and others. A few times, I've seen people wearing fabric so low quality that the threads, if they can even be called that, are so thick you can see each one, even at a distance. Even I can tell the quality difference between those and clothes made of normal thin threads. Even if I don't know much beyond that.

With those thoughts in mind, I hold my robe in front of the window to get the best light I can, and peer closely at the fabric.

But... I can't see any threads. I'm not totally sure what I'm looking for, but it still doesn't seem like I can pick out any threads by looking at it closely. So I call Emily over to check since she knows more about this.

She holds it up, stretching it out in her hands. Then she stares closely, pressing her face against the fabric. She looks back and forth repeatedly. Finally, she shakes her head. "I have no idea what this material is. It doesn't even look like it's made out of thread at all."

My heart thumps loudly. What were they making us wear exactly? "E-Emily, I don't think I can wear this..." I say in a low voice. I'd been trying not to think about it since I didn't have anything else to wear, but my robes are way too weird. They have many aspects of high class clothing, but also things that don't match any other clothing at all. The closer you look, the weirder they get. She just nods. "I don't want to ask, but... could I borrow some clothes? I'll go buy some for myself today, but... I definitely don't think I can wear these now..." Not after what I've realized today.

"Sure, no problem..." Emily mutters back, probably just as freaked out by my clothes as I am. She grabs some clothes of hers that look a little small for her. As expected for her clothing, they are threadbare in some spots, and other parts are covered with one patch after another to keep them together. These look much more like clothing I would expect to see in this part of town. With these, I probably I won't draw so many uncomfortable stares like before.

"I wore these last year, so they shouldn't be that big on you." I put on the top and skirt. The shirt is really baggy on me, and the skirt goes down to my ankles, but is far too large at the waist, so it falls off. "Or... not." She mutters when she sees them on me. "You really are so small..." I frown at the comment. "Come on, let's get these fitted right."

She walks up, helping me hike up the skirt by folding it a number of times, then using one of the long strips of cloth I had for bandages, and tying it around my waist to hold the skirt so it will stay. Now instead of going all the way to my ankles, it's closer to my knees. She uses a few more around the shoulders to keep the neck from falling off of me. "That should do it until you get some clothing in your size." It feels like when I was wearing Marrianne's clothes, everything tied up so it wouldn't fall off. The top is short sleeved, so I wrap my visible wounds in bandages so no one can see them.

"Ok, thanks Emily." I still want to tell her about the rest of what happened, but our door suddenly slams open. We both flinch and duck automatically.

"How long are you two going to take?!" It's just Mister Fredricson. Standing at our door, growling at us.

"I-I'm sorry, Mister Fredricson," Emily sputters. "We're really tired today, and we were talking about what happened last night, and checking our injuries, and-" she cuts off when I clamp a hand on her shoulder in a hurry. I can't let her ramble like that, she'll say something she shouldn't. Of course, I'm not in any better state, but at least I'm used to trying to deal with excess earth mana. She doesn't even know about it yet!

But from the way her eyes go wide and she glances at me, she clearly knows something is off.

Mister Fredricson just snorts and turns on a heel. "Come to my office." Then he walks away. He doesn't need to include the 'now.'