Whenever Zoe received a reward from the System, it came to her neat and prepackaged. Cold, as though pulled from some sub-zero storage facility in the universe's backroom. Painful, as though gains could not happen any other way. It felt mechanical like she was slot A in which to insert rod B. It felt like someone had the screws and pieces of a big box store superpower and she was just one part of many.

Inhuman.

Impersonal, and when it was personal, it felt vindictive.

Inhuman.

Cold.

The starkness of the System’s approach to her body and the tapestry of her Skein was made clear by the way this Epiphany came to her.

Zoe’s mind opened like a flower after desert rain. She ached as she embraced the rewards: a softness, a delicacy, a sense of being treasured as much as being rewarded.

[Your Skein is a pattern woven by your steps. By changing your steps, you change your Skein. By changing your Skein, you change yourself]

[Please select a New Flesh:]

[Flesh of the Rabid Hound]

[Flesh of the Haunted Whisper]

[Flesh of the Chain Breaker]

The options buzzed around her mind as she sat there in the camp's stillness. Steam swirled around in the bubble created by Bella’s softly moaning sword. The newly leafed tree dripped condensation onto the grass-covered rocks. Her friends lay around her in states of stupor. Every one of them was unconscious, their eyelids flickering, lips murmuring as they endured whatever shape the Epiphany took inside their minds.

For a fleeting moment, Zoe felt the urge to wake them. To save them from their nightmares.

But it was not her place: you cannot have an Epiphany for someone else.

Moth sat beside her, slightly rocking, and smiled.

“Did you get your reward?” she whispered.

“It’s a choice,” Zoe said, and then a thought struck her. “Did you get a reward, Moth?”

Moth shook her head.

It saddened Zoe, despite her reflection’s smile.

“Why is that?” she asked. “I mean… do you know?”

Laughter tinkled from Moth’s silvery lips like the pealing of intricate heavenly bells.

“I’m not real.”

ding!

I could have told you that, silly!

An icy feeling spread out from Zoe’s heart. Cool mirror racing through her veins. Sudden dislocation — as though she viewed — felt — the world through a pane of glass.

“What do you mean you aren’t real?”

Moth cocked her head.

“Let’s go for a walk.”

She unfolded and stood with a grace that Zoe envied. Even with her strengthened body, with her Dexterity higher than any pre-system human, she still felt like a sledgehammer. Moth moved as though she were born to have such strength and finesse — Zoe supposed she was.

They stepped beyond the clear bubble of air and into the steaming mists. Humidity swept over Zoe. It coated her skin, filled her nostrils, pressed against her eyes. The warmth like a hug lasted too long, but she followed her shining Doppelgänger as they stepped away from her friends and the circle of grass-covered rock and out toward the cliff that housed the Angel and the Black Star’s imprisoned chain.

“Tell me about your rewards?” Moth asked.

“It’s called a New Flesh,” Zoe said. “I’m not sure what it means.”

“Focus on the reward. It will tell you.”

Zoe frowned slightly at having Moth tell her how the system worked. She knew this — but maybe it was just an extension of that feeling of slipping away, of the world no longer making sense — how did Moth just smile at everything as though it made sense? No… she smiled as though it didn’t matter if it made sense or not.

Should Zoe try to be more like that? Maybe her New Flesh would help…

She snorted. What was the point of New Flesh if she had all the same old insecurities?

She focused on the rewards.

[New Flesh: with new thoughts comes a new pattern. With a new pattern comes new flesh. The complexity and the truth of the pattern will advance with use and understanding]

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Slightly more helpful, Zoe supposed, and so she expanded on the first reward.

[Flesh of the Rabid Hound: When food or foes present themselves, you snap and you devour. The pack is stronger than the alpha. The lone wolf dies alone, but you never shall]

[This composite flesh allows you to produce hounds from your body]

The words entered her mind with the same cool tone as the Crimson Armada system usually used, but there were images — flashes — of her body peeling apart and running through the tall dark pines. No longer an awkward child, she could now keep pace with her found family as they hunted in the forest.

After a moment, she realized she was standing still. Those memories — scattered, dark, painful — dwelled in the depths of her mind but when they resurfaced, she found it overwhelming. Nobody would ever guess that she lived as an animal once upon a time. Even though she forgot most of the time, it had changed her. This reward would be a way to embrace that aspect of her past.

That aspect of herself.

It would feel so good to run once more…

And she could see the arc of that New Flesh. At first, she might produce one hound, but eventually, she could split herself until she was nothing but a pack.

She explained the ability to Moth.

“It sounds like me,” Moth said as she gestured to her separate form. “I wonder if I would become one of your dogs?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to take that option?”

It was so tempting.

“Maybe…”

But it was not called Hound, it was the Rabid Hound. The description drew on how she fought first and sought peace… rarely. Could she embrace a reward that was so inherently violent?

ding!

Silly question, silly!

Zoe sighed.

She knew she could embrace it, but should she?

Moth slipped her arm around Zoe’s elbow and led her along the cliff edge.

“What are the other choices?” Moth gently asked.

Zoe focused on the next reward.

[Flesh of the Haunted Whisper: power comes when you secure the link around someone’s heart. Control comes when they question themselves before you can. A whisper is not a touch, and it can pass through any keyhole, through any closed window, through any space and time so long as someone is listening]

[This phantasmal flesh allows you to dissolve into sound]

Zoe relayed the words to Moth, and then they walked in silence, their footsteps crunching along the slate-black gravel. Whispers held a poisonous place in their memories, after all.

“That sounds useful,” Moth said at last. “You could travel at ease and overcome obstacles in your environment. Do you remember the swamp?”

Zoe would never forget the swamp, but she forced a lightness into her voice.

“Jumping from pillar to pillar would have been easier if I could melt into sound.”

“I’m sure a lot of things would be easier.”

“Yes.”

But the description of this New Flesh was rooted in her first technique, her dark technique: [Our Hearts Toll as One].

There was something peaceful about turning into a whisper to get past an obstruction — a collapsed hallway, or a tangled grove, even climbing a height — becoming one with the harmonies of her body path. [The Bell at the Center of the World] would toll, and she would surf the waves.

But to become a whisper to control…

Her heart technique had mutated recently. Where before it required trust, now she could compel it. Would Skidmark have joined their little party if she had her earlier version of the technique? Zoe couldn’t know. What would it mean to turn into a whisper and wrap around someone’s heart? What kind of person would that make her?

ding!

The kind of person with heaps and heaps of friends! I like this one. You should pick this one. The others are dumb.

There was an urgency in the Black Star’s voice. It wanted this conversation over.

Zoe expressed her concerns to Moth who nodded along.

“It just says whisper, though? Not what kind of whisper?”

“It’s implied.”

Moth shrugged.

“You’ll always be who you choose to be.”

Zoe couldn’t help but smile. It was so… simple.

“I guess you’re right.”

Moth beamed a smile through the fog. She stopped and faced Zoe. From the rushing steam rising behind her, Zoe knew they stood by the Angel.

“Tell me about your third option.”

[Flesh of the Chain Breaker: the gods lay down rules and you break them. The system lays constraints and you shatter them. Dimensions, destiny, doom — nothing can hold you]

[This inexorable flesh allows you to break physical and mental constraints]

Zoe frowned. She could feel the Black Star recoiling in her mind.

What did this mean? She focused further on the description, and dug down into the system prompt, searching for any expansion upon what it meant.

[Your touch alone will become something that breaks locks and chains. Your presence will remove fetters of faith, will, and Skein. This ability will grow with use and understanding]

Zoe looked at her fingers.

What would it mean if her touch destroyed chains? Would she lose her hands again? She reached out to the Black Star, but it hid from her.

“What is wrong?” Moth asked.

Zoe explained the final reward.

“It sounds like you,” Moth said. “Always breaking things.”

“I don’t know how accurate that is. I don’t know how accurate any of this is… it feels like someone picked out roles for me and they’re waiting for me to step inside one.”

Moth nodded.

“The system gives you options, but you’re forced to choose one.”

“What do you think I should do?”

“Whatever makes you happy.”

Zoe sighed.

“I thought you would say that.”

“I am what I am.”

“I always thought you were me, but that was never true, was it? You’re not even my opposite, you’re just… Moth.”

Moth placed a hand on Zoe’s chest. Cool skin reflecting a warm heartbeat.

“You give me life. You give me the strength to stand here, and you give me the spark to think and smile. We are one, and we share, but why does that mean that we need half ourselves to be separate? You are you and I am I, but together…”

Their fingers interlocked.

“I am tired,” Zoe said. “No matter how much I sleep, this always feels too much.”

“It’s not too much for you,” Moth said. “You’re too much for them. They want to control you, but you cannot be controlled. You don’t need a reward to tell you that.”

Moth’s mirrored skin melted away. Drop by drop the woman became hollow, but her smile remained, her fingers laced around Zoe’s.

“Why didn’t you get a choice, Moth?”

“I didn’t have an Epiphany,” Moth smiled. “Tell me, what will you choose?”

“After all that discussion you don’t have any suggestions?”

Moth smiled and melted away into strands of liquid mirror. Each tendril mirror sank into Zoe’s pores until she stood alone on the cliff’s edge.

Not alone.

ding!

Hey, um, sorry for hiding.

It’s alright.

What are you going to pick? I wanted to say, um, it’s alright whatever you pick. It’s your body and your choice and I know that so…

I won’t pick chain breaker.

She wouldn’t, she realized, and a sense of relief came over her. Her palms still itched from where they lost their skin in the dream. Even in a System-induced fever dream, she had defied the role placed upon her. All it caused was pain.

Did defiance have to be everything she was?

No.

So… the choice came down to two: whisper or dogs?

ding!

Good choices! Become friends, or make friends. What is it going to be?

Zoe smiled and chose, and her body shivered as she stepped inside her New Flesh.