“Surprisingly soft, right?”

I had no idea what that meant, or who was even talking, or where I was. I shifted around and adjusted myself on my pillow, mumbling something that I hoped would resemble a request to let me sleep for five more minutes.

Then I recognized the voice. I bolted up, pushing myself away from Sera. I flushed when I realized what exactly I was using for leverage and took my hands off her chest as quickly as I could. Sera didn’t seem to mind, but the amused chuckle she gave me made me flush even more.

“What happened?” I asked, looking around the room. We were still in the same meeting room that we had been talking in. The only difference was that the mountain of snacks that sat in the middle of the table was half gone.

“I hugged you for a few seconds and you passed out,” Sera replied, giving me a sad smile. “You must’ve had a tough few days.”

I might’ve appreciated the sympathy that Sera had for me more, if I wasn’t so mortified. I’d somehow fallen asleep in front of a Mediator, while talking about an Otherworlder.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“Not long,” Sera said. “About a minute and a half. Sorry, but that’s as much as I was willing to let you sleep. We’re on a bit of a time limit, especially since we need to discuss a few more things than I thought we would.”

It took me a few seconds to remember what she was talking about.

“Nope. I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, trying to push myself up. Before I could stand up, however, Sera moved in front of me and placed a hand on my shoulder and kept me down. “Please let me go.”

“Lena,” Sera said, the pitying look in her eyes returning. “You need to know what you are. Denying the truth isn’t going to help anyone, especially not yourself.”

I shook my head. “You must be mistaken. I’m just a normal girl from a small town in the middle of nowhere. I’m no one special.”

Sera sighed and leaned down to give me another hug. This one was nowhere near as comforting as the first one she gave me, but when she pulled away, the resolute confidence she held in her eyes did give me a moment of clarity. In the relative silence of the room, I suddenly became very aware of how heavily I was panting.

“I know it’s scary. But I promise I can help. You need to know more about the situation you’re in so you can better understand how to handle it, and possibly how to get away from it.”

I perked up at that. The only sound that filled the room was the frantic pounding of my heartbeat as I stared Sera in the eyes, searching them for any hint of a lie. She held my stare easily, and the ghost of a smirk reappeared on her face.

“Breathe, Lena,” she said. “It won’t do us any good if you pass out again.”

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath, but after Sera mentioned it, I couldn’t help but gasp and greedily suck in the air I hadn’t known I was missing. The sudden intake of air was rough on my dry throat, but I managed not to devolve into a coughing fit. Sera backed away from me and sat back down in her seat across the table.

“You’re a Chosen Follower,” she said.

“Care to explain what that is?” I asked.

“We don’t have too much time,” Sera said. “I’ll explain in more detail later, but for now you’ll have to be satisfied with the short version.”

“Okay,” I said. It didn’t seem like she was asking for my approval, but I gave it anyways, if only to trick myself into believing I had more control over the situation than I did.

“Before I explain what a Follower really is, I need you to understand something, Lena. Being a Follower isn’t as rare as you might think. There at least a few hundred Followers or ex-Followers alive in the world today. Just like you, they started their journey afraid and unconfident, but the Mediators put a lot of resources into making sure they lead as normal lives as possible, just like how we’ll make sure you feel as comfortable as you possibly can throughout your life. Do you understand?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I didn’t. “A few hundred?” I asked. “Didn’t the Pestilence King die over fifty years ago? Wasn’t he the last Otherworlder to come here?”

“He was the last Otherworlder to have more than significant effects on an international scale. It doesn’t mean that he’s the only Otherworlder have arrived since then. Dozens of Otherworlders were alive during the Pestilence King’s rampage, and dozens more are alive today,” Sera smiled and reached over the table to place a comforting hand gently over mine. “Do you understand what that means, Lena?”

I looked down at Sera’s hand, a little confused. Though the idea that there were more than a few potential copies of the Pestilence King alive and running around today should have terrified me out of my wits, the way that Sera was talking and how she was trying to comfort me while talking about such a horrifying concept didn’t seem to match up. I was actually feeling a lot better, which surprised me, and it took me a second to guess why.

“Not all Otherworlders are as bad as the Pestilence King,” I suggested.

Sera nodded, pleased at my revelation. “Exactly,” she said, letting go of my hand and tossing another snack into her mouth. “Though the world is filled with these terrifying creatures, most of the world is unaware simply because the situation is under control. The Mediators have the situation under control and we’re right here, ready to help. Does that make you feel any better?”

I wasn’t surprised to realize that it did. I felt a few tears of relief streaming down my cheeks and sniffled before I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“Cookie?” Sera asked. I didn’t look up at her, but she slid one into my view. I nodded in thanks and took it.

It felt a bit childlike to indulge in such a sugary thing, but with Sera already having eaten about half her weight in snacks, I felt a little less bad about it. I expected my shaky emotional state to make it difficult to taste food properly, but if anything, the cookie almost tasted sweeter by being the only good thing to happen in my life for the past week and a bit.

“Told you it was good,” Sera said, with a laugh. Evidently, my expression told a story on its own. I didn’t care. I devoured that cookie and immediately reached for another.

Seeing that I was too busy to reply, Sera continued to talk.

“I’m glad you feel better,” she said. “I do want to clarify something though. The Mediators are here to help, and I promise that we will do our best to get you through this as undamaged as possible, but it’s not going to be easy. The important thing to keep in mind is that it is possible.”

I knew she was repeating the conclusion I’d already come to, but hearing it said out loud did make me feel better. After being stuck without hope for so long, the mere idea that I wasn’t stuck forever was a huge relief.

“I know I said that it was possible that you could get rid of the responsibility of being a Follower, and I wasn’t lying, but the process is very vague and difficult, especially for a Chosen Follower,” she said, holding up a hand to stop me from speaking up before I could even consider it. “And just like I promised, I’ll explain what a Chosen Follower is.

“I can’t explain to you all the methods that the Mediators use to categorize Followers. There’s a literal book on that topic that I could potentially lend to you in the future, but one of the categories that Followers fall into depends on whether they’re connected to their Otherworlder’s power or not. You ever read ‘The Chronicles of a Witness’?”

“Umm,” I said slowly, giving myself some time to think of why it sounded familiar. “Is that the book that the Pestilence King’s Follower wrote?”

“Yup,” Sera said. “You read it then?”

“No, but my dad did. He didn’t talk too much about it.”

“Good. It’s a horrifying book. I only brought it up because I wanted to give you an example of a Follower who wasn’t Chosen. I won’t go into the details, but the entire book was written from the point of view of a helpless observer who was just there as… well, an observer. There was nothing she could really do to change the course of the Pestilence King’s path. Even if she was Chosen, it might not have mattered, but it certainly didn’t help.”

The implication wasn’t lost on me. “So you’re saying that a Follower can influence their Otherworlder more if they’re Chosen? Why?”

“It’s because a Chosen Follower has access to their Otherworlder’s power,” Sera said, pointing at me.

I suddenly felt uncomfortable again. “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about? I’m not nearly as powerful as Ryuji is.”

“I didn’t mean power in that sense,” Sera said, pointing at her eyes. “You can see the panels. It’s the source of your particular Otherworlder’s power. It manifests in every Otherworlder slightly differently, but the fact that you can see it means that you have access to it despite being someone from Materia, and not Earth. For whatever reason, the Guide chose to extend its influence to you.”

The way that Sera paused made it seem like she was setting me up to ask her the obvious question. I almost didn’t want to, with the conversation having taken a bit of an unsettling tone relative to how it started, but my curiosity was too strong to ignore.

“What are you talking about? What’s a Guide?”

Sera locked eyes with me and folded both of her hands in front of her. It was a professional pose that seemed intentional, to convince me what she was about to say was spoken with an utmost seriousness, regardless of the cookie crumbs that littered on the table in front of her.

“A God.”