Caruncle thought about it over and over again, he was a worthless human being, but he felt that he didn’t deserve that pain. Death would have been preferable, he tried to end it all, but he couldn’t. He thought about his worthlessness, he said that despite how empty of a shell he had been, he hadn’t done anything to deserve that pain. No human could ever deserve such pain. He looked at his hand, the fingers were missing. The fingers were still missing. There was an itchy sensation all over his body, he wanted to scratch himself, but he had no fingers. He had no fingers, and he could only feel the blood.

Caruncle woke up again in a panic. She looked around at the whole white room, it was still dark, but the silhouette of the room was now visible. She wasn’t in the basement anymore, but she didn’t feel safe. It still didn’t feel real, it didn’t feel real at all, she must have gone insane, that was for sure, she was insane and she couldn’t discern reality from fantasy. A week had gone by, but it still didn’t feel any more real, everything she had experienced was wrapped in a haze that she couldn’t easily discern things from.

She tried to stand up and run away, but the pain in her leg made her fall. The bell had fallen into the floor so started shaking it as she crawled towards the door.

Mortimer and Custodio arrived at the room and raised her back to the bed. Caruncle felt his heart was going at full speed and that she could lose consciousness any time.

“What is going on?”

“It seems like another panic attack, sir. We will have to give her a tranquilizer again.”

“That thing is not designed to be used that often!”

“Sir, her pulse is skyrocketing right now, is there anything else you would suggest?”

“Just give her the damn tranquilizer by now.”

The world felt fuzzy and then everything turned black.

After a few hours she woke up back again, she got startled when she woke up and her head was hurting a lot. She felt uneasy, but it seemed like things seemed to be somewhat normal, there was no feeling of imminent danger.

“Miss, you are awake.” Mortimer said, Caruncle turned around and saw sitting at the side of the bed on his dusty old chair, Custodio was sitting at his side with his arms crossed and his head against the wall, he seemed to be sleeping.

“How are you feeling?” He gave her a small chalk board along with the chalk.

“Uneasy.” She wrote.

“Miss, I feel that we need to talk, seriously, I mean.” Mortimer looked at her with a sad smile. “We feel that with the panic attacks you keep having, there must be something bothering you and perhaps we should address it, so that at least you can sleep properly.”

She looked at him all serious, like she was all mad, like very mad, then she looked at Custodio and she looked at him all mad too, all serious, yeah, she was very serious, probably, or at least that's what she wanted to convey.

She thought back to the dream she had, the memories that kept coming back, there were many things that she was feeling right now, but there was one of them that stayed the loudest.

“I keep dreaming about being back in the basement.” She wrote on the board.

“Oh, I see…” Mortimer gave her a pained expression and looked away, Custodio seemed to be finally waking up. “But, Miss Elena, there is nothing to worry about anymore, you aren’t there anymore, you aren’t even the same person, if anybody comes looking for you, they won’t find you, it is going to be okay.”

Caruncle sighed and wrote back on the board.

“I feel angry.”

“Angry? Why angry? Did we… Did we do anything wrong? If so, please, tell us.”

She shook her head.

“Then, what is it? What is wrong?”

It was frustrating, she wanted to write everything she had gone through, the chalkboard was so small and also so frustrating to use. She wanted to speak, but she couldn’t, it made her want to cry, to scream, but even if she wanted, she couldn’t, no word would ever come out of her mouth.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and decided to write something short and simple.

“I hate the man who kept me chained in all these years.”

Mortimer looked at the chalkboard, thoughtful.

“I see..”

“What is it?” Custodio looked at both of them after cleaning his eyes.”

“Well, sir…” He showed him the chalkboard.

“Who? Mr. Lopez?”

She nodded.

“Why? He was just doing his job.”

The rage in Caruncle went all over her head, she started to shake angrily, for a moment it looked like she was about to explode.

“Okay, calm down, I take that back,” he waved his hands at her. “But even if you are angry, and I can imagine well that you are, there is nothing we can do about it.”

Caruncle quickly took the chalk board from Mortimer hands and wrote on it.

“Why?”

“Because it happens that Mr. Lopez is a very well known person around this area, even if you wanted to say anything to him, do anything to him, people would find out, and then we would all get in a lot more trouble than what it is worth. Seriously.”

“I cannot believe you.” She wrote on the chalkboard which was now a bit damp from her falling tears.

“Most people can’t leave their captors and start a new life, you should be happy with what you already have, which is thanks to me, not thanks to him.”

Caruncle clenched her fists and started to hit her legs with them, due to the muscle injury in her right leg, the punches hurted her a lot more, she wasn’t making any sort of noise, but it was clear it was becoming more difficult to breathe for her.

“You are the worst,” she wrote again.

“Oh, I’m the worst? How am I the worst?” Custodio crossed his arms and gave her a mocking smile.

“Wanting to marry your daughter, that is gross, disgusting.”

“Ha, I knew it was going to be about that!” Custodio stood up. “I don’t have time to deal with these tantrums of yours.” He left the room, leaving her with the troubled Mortimer at her side.

“You just let all these things happen,” she wrote him.

“Miss, please…"

“You are as bad as him.”

“Miss, let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to. I just–”

Caruncle turned her back to him and covered herself in the sheets.

“Miss Elena, I’m so sorry…”

After a while, she went back to sleep.

After what must have been a few hours later, she woke up yet again, feeling groggy. She was alone in the room, but Mortimer quickly entered with an eager attitude. “Miss, please, let’s take you to the bath, there is a new instructor that is waiting to see you.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She slowly sat down, still sleepy.

“Trust me, we brought someone that we thought could cheer you up! You will see!”

***

The woman in front of Caruncle was rather short, she was probably 1.60 or so, she had wavy brown hair and she looked tired. Hmm, what else...She wore a jacket, though still fitted with a slightly looser cut, made from a supple, deep plum wool blend. It featured broad lapels and minimal embroidery, with brass buttons that added a touch of rugged elegance. The high collar was relaxed, allowing a glimpse of a simple, unadorned white shirt beneath, with the top button casually undone. The trousers, rather than a traditional skirt were high-waisted, straight-legged, and made from matching plum fabric. A wide leather belt cinched at her waist.

“So, you are Elena.” Her voice was sultry, and deep, or perhaps it was me just being too horny.

Caruncle nodded.

“How old are you?”

“29.” She wrote.

“Well, you are 3 years older than me. Your father said I would need to teach you ‘lady stuff,’ and try to make friends with you. Can you tell me why I have to teach someone older than me about this kind of thing?”

“I have amnesia.” She wrote on the chalkboard but when she turned it to show it to her, she turned away, unable to face her at all.

“Right, you know that is not true.” The woman crossed her arms, Caruncle looked at her with a skeptical look. What did she know?

“I know that you are lying to me.”

Caruncle lowered her head, she felt scolded.

“If you really want me to help you, you are going to tell me exactly what is going on, or otherwise I can’t really bother to get into something I don’t even know I can deal with.”

Caruncle scratched her head. She looked at her for what felt like a long while. There it was again, that old feeling, the feeling of wanting to say everything she knew, she had felt it constantly back when she lived with her family, now, she felt the very same thing with the stranger in front of her. She decided she would write it part by part on the chalkboard.

“I had a brain transplant.”

“A brain transplant?” She looked like she hadn’t heard her properly.

“I had another brain transplanted into me 3 months and a half ago.”

The woman took the chalkboard for a while with a puzzling expression. She then scratched her head.

“So, he did it, he found out how to use the damn spell,” she looked away for a moment. "I apologize for what I'm going to say, but this whole affair is fucked up. I hope you are aware of that."

Caruncle looked at her with puppy eyes, I sat on the desk of the small study room, looking at both of them. The two stayed silent for a while.

“What is it? You can't surprise me that easily, even if you try," she looked out the window for a moment while in deep thought, after what was almost a minute, she seemed to come back to her senses. "What was your name before this? You know what I’m talking about, right? If you had a brain transplant, then, you must have been someone else before, did we know each other at all?”

She shook her head.

“Then, who were you?”

“My name was Caruncle Periwinkle, and I was a slave for the last 10 years.”

The woman took the chalkboard yet again and stared at it for a couple of minutes, sometimes waving the thing, as if she was trying to test the weight of the words themselves on her own hand.

“I never heard that name before, was it a man’s name?”

She nodded. It insulted me how that was the only thing she decided to fix on. Ridiculous.

“Right, so you were a man.”

She nodded again while looking down at the floor.

“I see, so that’s what we are working on.” She gave her the chalkboard back and looked back into her face, trying to figure her out. “So tell me, what is it like? To be on the other side?” I thought she was going to laugh at her, but then her expression stiffened, I didn’t know if she was actually angry or if she wanted to laugh.

“I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t know? I need you to be honest with me, do you hate it? Do you hate being a woman? Are you irritated? Are you sad? Are you mad? There is surely something going on through that head of yours right now, right? Not everyone goes through that kind of procedure every day.”

“It doesn’t feel real.”

“Right, okay, but tell me, do you hate it? Don’t you think it's a bit… I don’t know, denigrating? Surely you must feel something like that, no?”

“I have wished to be a woman since I have a memory.”

“Oh no, no, that, I don’t believe."

"Why not?"

"Let me ask you something first, don’t you think that perhaps you are deluding yourself so you can deal with this fucked up situation better?”

“No, my memory does not fail me on that, I remember it clearly.”

“So you are some sort of pervert then, that’s just– that’s great.” She rolled her eyes, Caruncle had started to cry at her words.

“What? You are crying now? Did it really hurt you that I called you a pervert? That’s what you are, you know? It’s not normal for a man to want to be a woman.”

She had started to cry yet again to the point it was hard for her to breathe, the woman winced at the scene, even I felt bad looking at her.

“Please, don’t cry, I can’t deal with this right now. I won’t call you a pervert again, is that what you want?”

Caruncle nodded while covering her face with her hands.

“Alright, and you want me to treat you like a broad too? All that?”

She nodded again.

“Well, fine, for the sake of my sanity and yours, let’s just roll with it. Now, please, can you stop crying?”

Caruncle took a few more minutes trying to calm down, she took a small handkerchief she had with her at all times along with the hand bell and blew her nose with it several times, the thing looked nasty already, yuck.

“Okay, so, well, I guess we covered that. Anything else you need to tell me?”

She smirked, maybe she could tell her everything, everything.

“I was sent by Jazmin to this world 2 decades ago.”

“Wait, what? You lost me there.”

“I made Jazmin mad somehow, and she sent me here to be Caruncle Periwinkle.”

The woman frowned, it didn’t look like Caruncle was making a joke, but well, exactly, it just sounded incredibly stupid when she read it, she read it again and again, trying to see if she had read it wrong. Not many people knew about Jazmin, let alone believed in her at all. But her eyes showed how she thought that Caruncle was clearly delusional.

“Wait, you are getting ahead of yourself. Let’s leave that on hold by now, I’ll ask you about it later but first I need to understand what happened with the surgery.”

Caruncle frowned. That wasn’t the reaction she was looking for. Sorry hon, but you can’t deny that was pretty stupid.

“I hate Custodio.”

“Okay, I can imagine a few reasons why, I have a few myself, but why do YOU hate him?”

“He says he is going to make me his wife.”

“What? Aren’t you his daughter?

“Yes, but that’s what he said.”

Caruncle had totally regressed into a child-like state and her mopey eyes were making me mad. I didn’t want to look, I turned around, but the woman left the room in a hurry. I turned back and I saw her with a puzzled expression, wondering what the woman who had left was thinking. A few moments later, yells from the floor above where heard, it was the woman, and Custodio. Then, a door was closed and there was nothing left to hear. We heard a vase break, or something like a vase break, it was definitely porcelain, several minutes passed and Caruncle was thinking of going outside to breathe some air. The weather was still foggy and cold, but it would still probably be better than staying inside.

The woman finally came back. She looked exhausted and her hair was now messy.

“So… about marriage, I think you should not worry about that.”

Caruncle frowned again and raised her hands as if trying to ask why.

“You… you just should not worry about that, by now.”

“What do you mean? Did he decide to stop the marriage?”

“No no… I just… look, just don’t think about it by now.”

“I don’t want to be with that man.”

“Yeah, well, I cannot help you with that, I’m sorry, but I can’t,” the woman looked away.

Caruncle was about to write to complain to her, but she stopped, the woman in front of her didn’t owe her anything, she was a complete stranger to her, she had gone and defended her, so she thought that the best she could do is to not judge her for being unable to get her out of the problem she was in.

“Okay.”

“Yeah, well, let’s move on from that, is there anything else aside from what you have told me? Anything else, at all?

Caruncle nodded.

“Well, tell me now, speak up your mind.”

“I’m angry at other people.” Caruncle felt the wrist starting to get tired, her fingers sometimes would feel like they were going to fall asleep, it was a surreal sensation to her to have fingers again. She remembered the time at the basement yet again, but she pushed the thought out of her head.

“What people?”

“The man who kept me as a slave, and my family.”

“Your family, why your family?”

“They sold me.”

“Oh, well, I don’t have any words for that, I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“I want revenge.”

“Revenge?” The woman scratched her head. “Okay, I get, somewhat, how you might be feeling, trust me, I do, but, you cannot look for revenge, you should rather forget about that. I’m sorry.”

“No, I cannot forget, I’m not going to forget.” Caruncle held the chalk with her fist and broke it into two, she was starting to cry again.

The woman in front of her sighed, she scratched her head again, I could see the marks of her nails in her forehead already. “It always comes back to this.” I heard her mumble.

Caruncle used the handkerchief again, but she was running out of sides to clean her snot.

“You know what? What do you say if we focus on what I came here for instead?” She finally said, Caruncle had managed to calm down again and now was just looking at her pensively. She nodded.

“Okay, we kinda skipped the greetings so now, allow me to present myself. My name is Lucia Knox Ashford, can you remind me of your name?”

“My name is Elena Esparza.”

“I know, but didn’t you say you had another name before?”

Caruncle looked confused as if not knowing what to write.

“Know what? Nevermind that, I’ll call you Elena, if that is what you want, sounds good?”

Caruncle nodded.

“Okay so… I know your father since I’m also part of The Supernal Circle of Mountain Mystics, have you heard about the circle before?

She shook her head.

“Basically, we… Well, what we do is not important, some people there are talented in Archaeology but most of us just spend the time screwing around. It is also one of the very few groups I have found where a lady can make herself heard, and a lot of the time, they are not that bad. Now, I owe your father a few favors. He asked me to come here, to teach you, lady stuff, or whatever that is. I was asking you all that stuff just now because I don't want him screwing around with me, but I also don’t like seeing him screwing around with people either, so if there is something that bothers you, talk to me, and I’ll see what I can do. Now, he might think lady stuff is actually a big course you have to study and get a grade on, but no, what you actually need to know is how to deal with men, because from now on, men are going to treat you like shit. I’ll just tell you some hygiene basics and then we can move on to the important part, do you follow me so far?”

She nodded.

“Alright, basically, you are just going to need a couple of rags, and make sure you clean them well.”