‘Open your eyes.’

。。。

‘...An unfamiliar ceiling.’

Blearily, I blink the gunk out of my eyes, rubbing away the excess and the lingering drowsiness from my face.

‘Where?...’

Wiping my face again with the collar of my shirt, I look up to a white ceiling, patterned with a mix of plaster and tiles. The light from a nearby window illuminated the room. From the color of the sunlight, I assume it’s either dawn or dusk right now.

‘What?...’ I try recalling what happened and how I ended up here, frowning.

I just end up more confused, my memories being a weird blur, the last thing I remember was cold shaking and a woman’s face. And then…

…My face flushes in embarrassment. And then I frown, trying to make sense out of it. Something certainly feels different, like pieces were shifted while I wasn’t looking, and there are missing – or replaced? – parts. Pieces that I don’t know or understand how to feel the loss of, because I never knew about them in the first place.

I try to remember… Try so hard to grasp at the frayed lines that keep slipping out of my hands, words at the tip of my tongue… but nothing.

I hug my legs, massaging my temples in frustration. ‘I feel like I had a dream, an important dream or a nightmare, that left me with this bitter taste in my mouth and lingering feelings… Angry, irritated, indignant, remorseful, and… content?’.

I yawn– “Ouch!”, I feel a sharp sting as my jaw pops.

Massaging it, there’s a weird, tense feeling and I notice that it feels strangely stiff. My mouth aches like I was biting on something too hard, and there’s a faint taste of copper and… ginger?

‘Ow… This is weird, was I clenching my teeth while I slept or something? It feels like my mouth ran a marathon while pulling weights at the same time.’

There’s a dull aching inside my skull, remnants of a headache. I sit up shaking my head, absentmindedly shuffling my numb tail out of the way. ‘I probably slept on top of it’.

Getting upright gives me a sudden sensation of vertigo and nausea, and I flop down into the bed again. Curling around the thin and soft covers.

I give some time for the disorientation to recede.

Stretching my neck and back trying to pop and crack my joints out of habit, but nothing happens and I just end up overreaching to positions I normally wouldn’t be able to reach. ‘I guess this body I’m not quite as rusty and sedentary as I used to be…’ I’m not sure if I should be glad or miffed that I won’t be able to do that anymore.

On one hand, I’m more flexible than I have ever been, and can fit more comfortably in places and move in ways that would otherwise leave me writing in the ground with sore tendons and aching joints. Maybe even do a split.

On the other hand, the satisfaction of popping and cracking my bones is lost… It isn’t exactly a healthy practice and I probably won’t miss it much… But it feels like, once again, another small part of me slipped through my fingers.

I hear soft footsteps coming towards me. Just as I look over to my right, I see a door opening.

Through it, I see that lab coat guy, looking a bit disheveled. He gets surprised seeing me awake.

His name is “Clauren”. He never actually properly introduced himself to me... But I had overheard it multiple times from people that were talking with him or passing by, and sometimes from Samyra too, who shortens it to just “Clau”, so assume that’s his name. Though, Samyra rarely calls him that, instead…

…Instead she uses other words that leave him stuttering and bright red. Thankfully I don’t know those words yet.

…Sometimes I miss my innocence.

Just behind him, an old lady follows through the door… who looks very much like a witch doctor. A casual witch doctor with streetwear.

I mean, she looks fine, just a glance at her and all you’d see is a little charming old lady with a spring on her step. Nothing to give a second glance.

It’s just that she’s holding a huge scepter…

…A staff twice her size with a skull on top of it.

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A. skull.

An alien skull too, because I don’t know any animal that would look like that. Way too many eye holes, what looks like a beak while also having things that look like whale teeth. Weird protrusions that I have no idea what they were for and I don’t know if it’s actually bone or shell, maybe both.

It has glowing phantom eyes while leaking a hazy green smoke, it’s made out of bones and some sort of blue translucent and opaque material, and has all these dangly bits and trinkets wrapping around it.

I feel like I probably should be more alarmed, but the jarring difference between her and the very ominous thing she’s holding like it weighs nothing just has me dumbly staring between her and the alien skull.

The light inside the hollow fissures that I assume to be eye sockets twist and turn as I look into it, the way it’s positioned making an illusion that no matter which direction you look at it it feels like it’s looking back at you. ‘Is that thing looking at me? It can’t be looking at me right?’

I start moving to fully stand up— two hands softly stop me by my shoulders, gently pushing me back into the bed and tucking me in.

A befuddled expression came to my face as the lady patted my head and berated me for something, saying something along the lines of “Stay in bed”. I side-eye the staff that is floating beside her. Even after she let go of it to grab my shoulders. ‘Ok then. I’ll just… stay here.’

She turns to Clauren and they start to discuss something, most likely about me, but the reason eludes me.

‘Um…’ I think worriedly, looking back and forth between the two as the discussion grows into an argument, the scary staff being swung around as she gestures with her hands and– “Whoa!” I sink further into the mattress, avoiding a swing aimed at Clauren. He tries to duck, but she clocks him in the head anyway, a dull and hollow gong sounds within the staff.

Clauren nurses his head in pain, whining.

She turns to me, fixing me with an undescriptive stare as she peers down into my soul with an intensity that makes me instantly uneasy.

I squeak, ‘–squeak?’ and try to hide under the safety of the blanket– Only for her to deftly snatch it out of my hands and swiftly throw it away. ‘W-what the hell?!’ I settled for hugging the pillow instead.

My thoughts simmer with anxiety. I can’t decide if all these elves want to.

At one second, they have this serious hush-hush meeting with what looks like a bunch of ancient dudes who look like they own the place, and then, they throw a party for some reason.

Now, I apparently went unconscious for god knows why, I don’t remember. And now there’s a voodoo woman along with a suspicious pharmacist looking at me like I just killed their favorite pet rock or something.

I refrain from talking – ‘Though it’s not like I could even hold a basic conversation…’ – and from doing anything reckless under their scrutiny. I have no idea who she is or what she is doing but she is being really scary right now.

Her gaze hovered around my eyes for some time before traveling through my body, pausing briefly at my horns, and my tail that was peeking out under the covers. I shift awkwardly behind my defensive pillow. I pause. Then try to keep my skirt down as I shuffle my legs to a more comfortable position.

My head wanders. ‘I’m grateful for these clothes, and I have kind of… acclimatized. To feel the cold breeze on my body after spending months doing questionable things naked and covered in filth in the forest. But now that there’s finally a modicum of normalcy back in my life, I’m starting to very much miss wearing pants… Having a tail that keeps lifting it up doesn’t help either.’

She swings the staff directly at me, the decorated skull suddenly stopping just inches before my face, locked in place in the air as if time stopped. And mumbles something that sends an airy whisper echo across the room despite how quietly she spoke.

Then, I feel like the atmosphere suddenly drops and something wraps around my body like an invisible membrane with a strange numb and tingling sensation with a tinge of dull pain on my skin. It’s kind of similar to when I ate something I was allergic to. Reminding me of some very not-fun times in the past.

The piercing soul-stare she was giving me. Seems to deepen even further, and her eyes start to jump around my body again, and then, after some time, her eyes grow distant and she starts giving off a hundred-mile stare towards the ceiling above me.

And then she stays there for a while…

Just standing…

Menacingly…

I turned to give the other person in the room a worried look. Unfortunately, he seemed as confused as I am. He briefly made eye contact with me, not taking his eyes away from the frozen pose that she was in.

‘On the bright side… at least it feels like body language is a universal way of communicating… so far. I remember reading somewhere that some people, somewhere, use their lips to point instead of their hands.’

Suddenly. The elderly woman jolts, rapidly blinking and shaking a shiver out of her shoulders. Retrieving her evil cane out of my personal space – ’finally’ – and the weird and uncomfortable sensation pulls back.

She pops her neck, loudly. The sound of wet cervical discs and old bones making noises they most definitely shouldn’t make. Made me and Clauren flinch and flinch in apparent disgust. Then she does some stretches and starts massaging her shoulders.

Afterward, she and he had another discussion that I couldn’t hope to understand. And then exited the room, walking and talking all the way, leaving the door open, and leaving me alone.

‘. . .’ I blink.

‘Um. Ok?... What now? Should I just go to sleep again? Hello??’ I wait for a minute or two to see if anything happens, getting anxious, I decide to see for myself after enough waiting.

Silently standing up and getting out of bed. Pausing to fix up the ruffled blanket and pillows. I make my way to the corridor behind the door. I spot Samyra walking up the stairs, the worried look that was on her face easing somewhat after spotting me.

*grumble* my stomach informs me.

She paused, mouth open indicating that she was about to say something, and giggled.

I look away, blushing.

“...I sure am getting hungry fast these days”. I grumble to myself.. “–Oh.” I recognize some familiar things and furniture, and I see the tiny shack that I’m living in outside. It looks like I’m inside that apothecary… on the second floor?

She says something, and I translate one of the words in the middle of it to “food”. We end up going together to the kitchen to prepare something… Or at least, she is, apparently, I’m not allowed to handle knives so I just end up sitting and watching.

At least she isn’t looking that worried anymore.