Tanya walked briskly through the halls of the old high school building. As if she had something important to do, but also, as if she was running away from someone. She walked slightly stooped and dressed in clothes so loose, that no one could figure her true female shape. That is, as usual. Always trying to disguise her height and face. To do this, she put on glasses that she didn't really need, although no one suspected it. Her hair was tousled, covering much of her face. And for the final touch, a horrible makeup that completely set her apart from Emily. The high school pariah. Without all that artifice, everyone would see that they were almost like two peas in a pod. But there was someone she couldn't fool. Emily's former best friend, Ian. Precisely with him, she avoided crossing paths with right now.

The bell announcing the end of classes was the signal to fill the halls with students. A murmur of multiple simultaneous conversations about what they would do in the afternoon. For most, it meant the freedom to finally return to their respective homes. For Tanya, it meant something more than that. It meant running into certain undesirables before she could get home.

Even though her eyes weren't visible, she didn't miss any detail. A female voice out of nowhere that only Tanya could hear warned her. "Detected five potential enemies ahead. Five and seven meters away." Tanya broke out in a cold sweat and as if it was a reflex response, she whispered. "Pause." Now her mind could think and coordinate any action at more than fifty times the normal speed. Something truly exceptional, but not without risk. It exhausted her too much.

Tanya mumbled. "Menu. Local map." In a millisecond, a menu that only she could see and touch appeared. Moving her hands slightly, she navigated though the map that was visible in the "Local Map" menu. Several points close to her were highlighted in yellow. One of them was orange. Only dangerous animals had shown in red so far. Until now.

The voice coming from nowhere, spoke again to save her, suggesting a possible hiding place. "The women's restrooms are nearby. You can hide there for a few minutes." Quick as lightning, Tanya hurried her pace and entered the women's restrooms, before meeting someone.

To Tanya's surprise, there was someone worse inside the restrooms. Rebecca and a friend of hers. A blonde-haired girl she only knew was dumb as hell. Tanya walked straight into one of the unoccupied toilets. Quickly and without looking at anyone. As if she had rehearsed it a million times. It was so fast it elicited laughter from the silly girl. "So you were holding it in, huh? Don't shit your pants! Crazy! Ha ha ha."

As Tanya tried to endure the exhaustion from abusing her "gift", she cursed that stupid girl at least a dozen times. Even more so when she began to hear her whispering something with Rebecca. "Take out your cell phone and record how she shits. Then we'll upload it to...". At that very moment the restroom door was heard opening, interrupting the interesting conversation. Tanya heard a silence of almost two seconds. Then, the door was heard quickly closing.

Tanya understood that someone wanted to get in, but decided it was best to hold back or wet herself in order to avoid the two obnoxious teenagers. It could have been anyone, but it didn't take her a second to find out who had run away from those two vipers. "It's RedCow! Leave the crazy one alone and let's go after her."

The silly girl wanted to convince Rebecca otherwise. "No. It's much more fun to film the crazy!"

Rebecca seemed angry. "I said, let's go after RedCow! Let's go now, before she gets on the bus!" The other girl was not heard wanting to argue. They walked out the restroom without wasting a second.

Tanya didn't feel the expected relief at being rid of them. She felt a growing anguish for Emily. "Damn you! I hope you fall flat on your face down the stairs and knock your teeth out before you reach her. I'm sorry, Emily. There's nothing I can do." Maybe she could, but she didn't have the necessary courage.

Seconds later, she came out of the restroom crestfallen. Thinking about how bad Emily would be having it now. Instinctively she tried to avoid the stares. As she always did. But this time it wasn't going to work and she wouldn't find out in time. Just as she closed the door and took barely two steps. "Detected a potential threat that may turn hostile."

Tanya knew who it was before she turned and looked him square in the eye. It was the insistent Ian, who for some reason hadn't stopped following her for a week. She didn't know why he was following her, but she had no intention of asking him. She was terribly afraid of him.

Their gazes met for barely a split second. That was like the starting gun for Tanya. She immediately quickened her pace so much that she seemed to be running. Ian did the same, beginning to close the gap. He was getting closer and closer to her. "Potential threat less than five meters away, right behind." Tanya walked out of the high school building and ran down the stairs. "I'm almost on the street. There are adults here. I hope he doesn't dare to do anything there."

Just as she reached the sidewalk, she saw the high school buses pull up as students begin to mill around to get on. Ian had to get on one of them unless he intended to walk more than ten kilometres home. "Potential threats within a radius of two meters. In front and behind." Her hair stood on end as she panted from exhaustion and looked back. Tanya was anything but an athlete. Her physical condition was ridiculous, nothing like Ian. "OMG! It's going to catch me!"

Suddenly, Tanya felt herself bump into someone, knocking her to the ground. In the time it took her to discover the face of the person she had bumped into, she said five prayers in a row. "OMG! Someone other than Beth or any of her nauseating friends." Unfortunately for her. She was someone much worse than Beth. But she didn't know that yet.

Tanya had fallen upon an old woman carrying a huge cane. Dressed like a country bumpkin who looked very old. "OMG! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Did you hurt yourself? Wait, I'll help you get up."

Tanya tried to help her even though the old woman didn't complain once. When she reached out her hand to help her and felt the touch of the old woman's skin, something strange caught her attention. It was like an unpleasant tingle that went up her arm and dissipated as it went up.

Tanya didn't notice that the old woman seemed much stronger than any other. What she did notice was that all the students and bystanders had suddenly disappeared. Even the old woman had disappeared. "OMG!" Tanya called out the distress word. To her, it was as if she was suddenly invincible. Although, she clearly wasn't. "Pause."

To her surprise, an old woman's voice made her feel the ground beneath her feet disappear. "That won't help you here, dear."

Tanya turned around after hearing the voice behind her. There, she found an old woman similar to the one she had just knocked down, but different. She was enveloped by a black aura that whispered things to her, giving her a very sinister appearance. She was wearing a hooded robe, very dark and ragged. "Who are you? How did you make everyone disappear?"

The old woman remained serious, observing her. As if searching her soul. Tanya realized that the old woman was very dangerous and pretended to apologize, as if that would change anything. "I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry I pushed you. I'm glad you didn't get hurt. I was..."

The old woman interrupted her, without paying any attention to what Tanya was saying. "Today is being a very strange day. I keep running into thieves."

Tanya was stunned, thinking she was referring to her. "I didn't steal anything from you. If you're missing something, you must have dropped it when we tripped. It must have been taken by one of the..." But as the seconds passed and the old woman remained silent, Tanya understood that she wasn't referring to anything the old woman had lost.

A shiver ran through her body. She knew immediately that she was referring to what Tanya believed was a "gift" or something similar. When the old woman spoke, she knew she had guessed right. "A skilled thief. Very skilled. How did you manage to modify it to the point that you have changed how you perceive reality? How have you made it mutate and enhance you at will? Though, not without consequences for you, I'm afraid."

Tanya was surprised at what the old woman knew, even more than she could see. "I think you overestimate me a little, madam. I don't…"

The old woman pretended not to hear her. "You've even modified your own mind to work in the background, managing all that information in isolation. As if you had an assistant. Amazing!"

Tanya hadn't even noticed that. "You mean when that voice speaks to me, it's my own mind? That's illogical and impossible." Then, she reconsidered. "How can you know all that?" Tanya hesitated and turned her hand upward. The same hand she had offered the old woman to help her up. "How could you find out all that out just by touching my hand?"

The old woman smiled cheerfully. "I love clever people who catch everything the first time...". But, she soon changed it to a terrifyingly serious one. "... But, I deeply despise selfish and cowardly thieves like you. Regardless of the fact that I'm amazed at how much you control it and the tricks you do with it. I still don't understand how that got to you. Nor do I understand how you are in perfect balance with that essence. Although..." The old woman paused, trying not to reveal something important. "... You’re not exempt from the problems that it entails."

Tanya heard those words as if someone was reading some hidden scrolls with extraordinary knowledge that she always yearned for. "Essence?! Essence of what? What do you mean by problems?".

The old woman turned a deaf ear and narrowed her eyes as if scrutinizing. After a few seconds, she opened them, as if she had found something revealing. "How interesting! Your mother passed it to you!"

Tanya fidgeted. She felt as if her heartbeat was speeding up. "My mother? That's impossible! But I..." Tanya abruptly fell silent at the thought of her ever-absent mother. "… I haven't seen my mother in years. How the hell could she pass me something?"

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The old woman waved her free hand with a quick little gesture. As if she had chased away a tiny mosquito. Suddenly, the whole scene changed. Tanya turned around scared and saw how she was now standing in front of a religious institution. A special one. Tanya tried to make sense of it to no avail. "I've never been here."

It didn't take her a second to turn around and see the old woman. Tanya waggled her eyebrows, as if asking for an explanation. But the old woman only gave her a hint. "You've never been here. But someone in your family visits a sister here. Tanya understood that she was referring to her aunt. "Mom must work as an intern at that religious institution. Did this essence pass through mom and aunt before reaching me?"

The old woman smiled again. Do you know what your aunt talks about with her sister? They talk about the beautiful daughter she knows practically nothing about. That daughter she doesn't want to see. That daughter who reminds her of a mistake she made in the past." Tanya didn't listen that willingly. The old woman noticed, but she didn't shut up. "You know what else they talk about? She tells her how you've changed in the last five years. She tells her that you don't look like any of their relatives. I bet if she showed her a picture of you, without those damn glasses and without that makeup you pour on your face, she would recognize your face. He would recognize you as a former student of the institution."

Tanya heard this dumbfounded. Her mind worked quickly to connect the clues, and finally she whispered. "Emily went to that institution? So... that's where she stayed for the two years she left town?”

The old woman smiled in satisfaction as she gently stroked the shaft of the cane. "I love quick minds."

To Tanya, the flattery only seemed like the caress that preceded the slap. More and more nervous, she realized that she was not going to like what was to come. "Why have you come here? What do you want from me?"

The old woman made an unpleasant face again. "Let's see what you're made of, thief." At that instant she began to mutate and grow rapidly. The cane transformed into a terrifyingly sharp scythe and the old woman looked like a being composed of thousands of bones sticking out of the ground, joining her. It was grotesque and disgusting.

The scenery also changed rapidly. First it got completely dark and then it started to light up again little by little. But it was different. It looked like a huge crypt, bathed in very dark green tones. A crypt that reeked of death.

The voice she always heard to, warned her. "Extreme threat right in front of you. Boss Level." Tanya cried out in astonishment. "Boss Level?! What do you mean Boss Level?"

Suddenly the ground cracked under her feet and engulfed her. Although she tried to grab onto of the ends of the hole that was swallowing her, it was in vain. it also collapsed and she fell to a lower floor. A huge corridor that gave that horrible place more of a dungeon appearance than a crypt.

Luckily, the fall was cushioned by his backpack and the thousands of bones underneath. Bones and something else. Hundreds of crackling sounds drew her attention, making her hair stand on end. Tanya hopelessly wished that they were eggshells or something similar. But she knew she wasn't going to be so lucky. She knew it would be something gross. So she tried to get up without touching the ground with her hands.

Completely disgusted and shuddering, Tanya screamed as she noticed how thousands of very small things crawled up her body. "OMG, OMG, OMG!" There were thousands of bugs all over the floor. "My God, how gross!". Desperate and terribly disgusted, she twitched and flailed, shaking them off. Frantically, she moved her legs stomping and shaking them, so the bugs wouldn't crawl up her clothes and legs.

Bugs of all sizes and shapes. From small and squishy like worms, to big and hard like cockroaches. Some of them were huge enough to remind her of the radroaches from a video game she had played years ago.

Suddenly, the hitherto calm bugs began to stir hysterically. They fled, trying to sneak through the cracks in the stones or through any nearby hole. They even tried to climb through her, as if it would lead them to safety. Tanya didn't understand why the bugs had suddenly become more hysterical than she was. She could only try to shake them off, moving frantically, but she couldn't keep up. Screaming and trying to run through the rising tide of bones and bugs, she saw something that made her understand.

The huge being, which had once been the old woman, was now raising its scythe in the distance as the blade reddened and vibrated. Then, a strange and large whirlpool began to generate. It looked like she was about to make a huge area attack or something similar.

This made Tanya even more desperate. She felt her heart pounding in her chest as if it wanted to burst out. She sensed that it was going to burst out of her at any moment. No doubt the terror was coupled with the fact that she had never exerted herself so much. In those moments, she cursed herself for always sitting down and doing the bare minimum in gym class. Physical exercise had never been her thing. But now, she understood that it would have helped her a lot. With a fit body, she would surely have jumped when she felt the ground crumbling at her feet. Surely, now she wouldn't be trying to shake off that tide of bugs and about to die from the imminent attack of that thing.

At that instant, Tanya had an idea. "Menu. Local map." But, to add to her distress, nothing happened. Desperate, she thought of something else while the bugs were already on her face. "The bugs are not going to devour me. Their mouths are too small. They are not soldier army ants. I just have to put up with the disgust they give me and the scratches. "Come on! Come on! Focus on what's important! The problem is the old woman!"

Tanya turned and watched as the scythe grew redder and redder. But it wasn't an incandescent red, but blood red. Thousands of bugs near to that kind of monstrous reaper were dying every second in a tornado of blood. The very blood of those disgusting creatures welled up and evaporated to feed the tornado of death.

Tanya watched in astonishment as the blood turned the scythe redder and redder. It even seemed to make it grow bigger by the second. The bugs that were dying, were getting closer and closer to her. "OMG! The area of effect of the attack is getting bigger and bigger. It will end up absorbing me and taking my life. Anxiety was about to make her cry in despair."

For a second, she came to her senses clenching her fists and closing her eyes shut. She turned to what she believed was her inseparable companion, her "gift." "You would never tell me Boss level, would you?". But nothing answered. She kept trying. "I've always been able to say "Pause" and plan a strategy. If I can't do that here, it's because this isn't real. It has to be an illusion. A figment of my mind."

Tanya opened her eyes and tried to keep the bugs, that were now fleeing in terror, from entering her mouth. "I have to fight this the same way. I have to fight it with my mind." But he realized this too late. Her will was too sapped. She was too scared. Again, she closed her eyes at the precise instant that the area of effect of that impossible scythe attack reached her.

The pain that Tanya began to suffer was indescribable. It felt as if the flesh was being ripped from her bones. She felt as if her mind was unraveling. "Fuck! I have to endure it! This isn't real! This is not real!" But the pain reached such heights that she simply passed out and everything went dark.

Within seconds, Tanya again heard the crowd of students leaving class around her. Then, she noticed that someone was grabbing and holding her. Tanya opened her eyes in alarm and saw him. Ian was holding her with one arm to keep her from falling to the ground. But he was also grabbing the old woman's hand, demanding explanations. "How do you expect her to get over that? Who do you think she is?"

The old woman seemed to be very angry. She didn't like interruptions. "Couldn't you, little brat?".

Ian completely ignored her and turned to Tanya. "Why the hell are you always running away from me? I just wanted to ask you a damn question. Why the hell did you think I was following you? Did you think I was coming to kill you or what?"

Tanya felt stupid and pretended to excuse herself by whispering. "I thought you wanted to hurt me."

Ian brought his face very close to Tanya's. So much so that it made her blush. "And what have you done to make you think that? Did you steal something that doesn't belong to you?"

Tanya was stunned. "OMG! Him too?! They're together?"

The old woman interrupted them. "You want to be reported for harassment, idiot? Get out and go catch your damn bus. I'll deal with her." Ian released Tanya after a few seconds of hesitation. When he intended to walk away, the old woman whispered to him. "See you later."

Ian stood still. As if something was blocking him. At the same time he seemed to weigh everything that those words implied. After a few seconds he whispered seriously. "Finally! I was getting tired of waiting!"

The old woman started to walk in the other direction as she spoke to Tanya. "Come on. It's time we had a serious talk."

But Tanya had no intention of being so cooperative. "And if I don't want to?" The old woman continued walking as if nothing had happened. Tanya was confused. "She didn't heard me?"

When the old woman was already a considerable distance away, the voice that always spoke to Tanya surprised her. But it did so using an orthopedic language. As if it had been composed by a machine with single words. "You have... a... new... message. Do you wish to... hear it?"

Tanya was dumbfounded and whispered. "Since when do you talk to me like that. You sound like an answering machine." Then, she saw the old woman in the distance and remembered the horror she had just experienced a few seconds before. After hesitating for a few seconds, she whispered. "Yes, I want to hear it."

As soon as she accepted it, a voice-over of some children sounded. As if they were the protagonists of a horror movie. "If you don't want to come, you will die tomorrow, alone, and without my help. Something horrible will kill you tomorrow afternoon while playing a game your favorite game. You will die in your room and not on the high school bus. I know for a fact that you're not going on that damn field trip. I also know what's coming for you."

Tanya was petrified. She felt so terrified she almost peed herself in the middle of the street. On the verge of tears, she ducked her head so no one would see her when the first tears began to flow. "OMG! Is this all because I have something that doesn't belong to me? I didn't steal it. It came to me."

Tanya freaked out at the thought of her "gift" being taken away from her. Without knowing it, she discovered that she loved that voice more than herself. More than that nun who was biologically his mother. A mother who had gotten drunk with a stranger, just the night before entering the convent. More than the devotion her mother could have had worshipping one of the many invisible Gods that man had worshipped over the millennia. More than a stunningly handsome father who had never been home. A father who indulged her with the most expensive PC on the market, as long as she didn't bother him. More than her aunt who was like a mother and a sister at the same time.

The old woman smiled at her sight and blurted out. "Cheer up, brat! Death is not the end of everything for us. Do you like the Isekai genre?"

Tanya couldn't believe her ears. She hastily wiped away her tears as she spluttered. "What?! Are you serious?" Then, she narrowed her eyes a bit thinking about how sinister the old woman was. "Wait a minute! Are you going to offer me something that amazing, just like that? What's the catch? Is there a condition or something?"

The old woman smiled sinisterly. Because few in her long life had ever asked such an obvious question. "What a clever girl! I like you more every second.