The world is white. Everything is just white. I can’t tell where is up, or down.

Where is my body? Is this death? What is and isn’t anymore? How much time has passed?

Nothing is moving. There is just white. No pain, no pleasure.

And then, my body appears. A haze of black appears on one side. I then start spinning. My stomach starts to sear in agonizing cramps. Something then chokes me. My eyelids spasm as I try to keep them open, only to quickly fail and surrender. I spin so quickly, my skin starts to peel off of my fingers, toes, legs, the muscle, the bone, and then–

“Damn it, Lori!” Adel screams after what I think was me slapping her. We both flinch rising up from our sleeping mats. “Augh, shit, I’m sorry.”

I take a few breaths. “No… I’m sorry.”

We stare at each other for a few seconds.

“Are you hungry again? What’s the matter this time?”

“Weird fucking dream.”

“You always have those. What’s different this time?”

“I was spinning… in a white void.”

“What?” She squints at me. “Okay, whatever, you’re not dead, I’m happy..”

I stare at my feet.

“I guess… I’m happy you’re still around too,” I mutter.

After a few seconds of sitting still in the gloom, Adel cracks a smile, hugging me.

Last time she hugged me like that, I wasn’t so mentally blank as I am now. Back then I had a direction, even if I was miserable. But now I don't know what hurts or feels good anymore.

Beyond that, there's just nothing. No time. No place. Stuck in purgatory. Where are we going? Was I even asleep?

I guess it’s a good thing to have friends. Not that I had too many in the past. Still trying to figure out how that all works.

Maybe I don’t deserve Adel.

~~

I open my eyes to find myself in Adel's arms again, this time in the grainfield, a few hundred meters behind our truck. "Jeez, again? You've been eating more, how does this keep happening?"

Pushing myself back up, I don't know where to look. "I don't know why I'm fainting either. I don't feel hungry. Everything hurts right now."

Adel sighs.

"Did you eat before you came out today?"

"I think so..."

"Well, you're a bit sweaty like always, but you aren't pale or anything."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Did you drink any water?" Adel looks around, a bit frantic. "Oh, duh, I could do a MIRCS analysis."

She runs back to the truck a few hundred meters away, heavy in step. With the harness and analyzer in hand, she seats me at a bench on the shack's front porch and attaches the nodes on the sides of my neck.

"Apparently... everything is normal," she mutters.

The prompts flash across my vision.

blood values within range of last 90 days:

blood sugar

HbA1c

blood lipids

cortisol

epinephrines

HGH

proteins

red cell to plasma ratio

The list quickly keeps scrolling but I lose track, intermittently blacking out.

"Your numbers all look normal, what the hell is wrong with you?" she pops the nodes out and wraps them around the analyzer.

"You... tell me," I mutter, with barely enough might to sit straight.

I look at Adel's eyes, she has faint dark circles and heavy bags underneath.

~~

"I keep making bread, but it's just... disappearing," Malithe looks at the racks of loaves, half empty.

"Who's eating them?" Saana stands next to her.

"Philip, probably, but he spends most of his time in the back side. I've never seen him come in to eat in a while."

"Either him, or... one of the guests."

The two turn to me with direct sight from the kitchen, to the dinner table. My heart skips a beat.

Wait, what? Did I?

"Well, we do need to feed our hardest workers, it could be anyone," Malithe dismisses her intrigue, stepping away. "Thanks to the three newcomers and their methods, we have plenty of grain, so we should be fine for a while."

"Okay, if you say so," Saana says, turning back around to continue sweeping, humming some tune. The floorboards creak with every step she takes.

~~

“Lori, your hair, oh my,” one of the maids removes my bonnet and examines my locks. “Come, let us investigate.”

“After a long day of toil in the soil, you’ve been neglecting something a woman takes pride in,” another says.

They brush the tangled strands, amazed. “What volume, my my. You have treasure streaming from your head.” Small trickles of sand drop as they ruffle through and brush the bushels.

“What a shame we didn’t speak up to do this sooner, we were so afraid to speak after your tangle with Philip.”

“How did you style your hair back in the city?” another asks.

I grab a handful of hair and tied them into one, two, three ponytails, mostly muscle memory at this point. Just like back in Cauldron.

“Oh, wow, so… exotic,” Saana mutters.

“It almost feels …sinful, how novel it is! But I must try! Hair can’t be that big of an offense to the heavens above, no?”

The eight giggle. I quietly braid the red from one of the other maids’ heads as another sits behind me to do mine in a caravan of sorts.

I guess this is “fun”. Haven’t had that in a while either…

The room became humid and somewhat uncomfortably warm with the excitement. I suppose this is all new to the villagers, whose heads are under bonnets for nearly all of their waking hours. Before long the sun was down and each of the eight had their own hairstyles– buns, pompadours, pigtails, ponytails in all directions.

All of a sudden, all my old ideas come back. I walk over the squeaking floorboards to the kitchen where I see a hot iron in the stove. “If we have some kind of heat, we can bend hair and mold it to our liking.”

“Oh! I know!” A brunette maid grabs mittens from a drawer next to the boiler and tosses a cast-iron pan into the flame.

“No need for that much heat, just enough to not burn,” I tell them. “Just heat the handle, so we can wrap hair around it.”

She tilts her head, then figures out what I mean. “Oh, okay.” She takes it out, and holds the handle to the fire.

“A few seconds should be fine,” I tell her.

Nearly flinching in excitement, she removes the pan, and holds it up.

“Okay, and then you wrap it around like so,” I undo the three ponytails and grab a strand of my own, “...like so,” curl it around the hot pan handle, “and ta-da,” I slowly peel it away, showing how the curl retains itself.

The door creaks open to reveal Corvus and Adel’s heads peeking through. “What’s all the ruckus here?” Corvus asks, looking around the room.

“Just… having fun,” I mutter, looking blankly at him.

“Oh, now?” Adel grumbles. “About time you lightened up!” she shouts, now smiling, taking a seat to watch us.

“How charming, you,” Corvus contently mutters, stepping slowly to approach, sitting down and watching me. I continue twirling another maids’ hair.

I glance at him as he smirks. “Glad you’re finally integrating,” he carefully brushes one of the bangs from my face, sending a distracting tingle on my cheek that pulls me completely out of the braiding operation as his fingers glide past.

My face and hands freeze. Holy shit, what was that?

“It… happens,” I smile feebly.

Time swept by and strands of cut hair litter the floor, causing heels to skid and slip. A couple giggle as they wobble about.

“What a blessing you and your friends came by,” one of the maids embrace me by my shoulders, gratefully sighing.