Nix stared at the single budding feather sprouting from the side of her midriff.

The inch long tube was like an oversized hair and hard to the touch. Splitting from the tip, small red tendrils already showed themselves, ready to blossom into the first of her plumage. It stood out on her sickly pale skin.

It wasn’t clear how long she’d been staring. Her return could have been a minute ago; it could have been an hour. She didn’t know if she was looking at the first feather, or the unblemished skin around it.

She was supposed to be dead. Eaten by the Eidolon Gods that slept down in the Darkness beneath Coral. But she wasn’t. Nix was back to staring at the very first mutation that grew from her body. Back to the time when her body was still normal… mostly normal.

Eyes widening, she jolted. In her hurry to dive out of bed and reach the mirror, she tripped and fell over the thin carpet. Nix had sprung forward with far more energy then she ever remembered having. After feeling so endlessly drained for such a long time, having a body that listened to her was wonderful.

She shook off the dull throbbing in her head and scrambled to the mirror. Nix almost wept at her reflection. Her hair was back to that dull brown straw; not the glacial white mould it had become. No sign of spinning eyes, or extra limbs, or predatory teeth. Even her tongue was back.

Her body — her face — was back to the way it looked before her life was ruined. Even the sight of her bloodshot orbs and unhealthily pale skin were a welcome change. She stuck out her tongue and tilted her head as her hands glided over her form, relishing in the tactile euphoria of skin not blemished with chitin, filthy feathers, and whatever that rubbery-like skin had been.

Even beneath all the reversions of her changes, Nix was younger; fifteen, maybe sixteen. As her eyes finally fell away from obsessing over her own, now unmutilated, body, she found herself back in that two-bed dormitory room she’d grown up alone. Considering she was here, and not in the hands of The Fleshsmiths, she had returned to the time she’d been fifteen.

Nix had fallen back in time.

Unless this was an elaborate dream inflicted by a god in order to torture her — and she was doomed to repeat her horrid past — Nix had somehow returned to the day of her first mutation. The turning point of her life.

How had this happened? How had time reversed? Nix didn’t believe for a second it was all some nightmare; sure some trips into the dreamscape could become adjacent to reality when monsters and gods were involved, but that single feather sprouting from the side of her ribs was proof that her horrible future had already happened.

Did it matter how she came back?

She was here now. Whether it was some horrible nightmare to raise her hopes before crushing them, a hallucination in the face of death, or she had actually returned, this was an opportunity she had never even hoped for.

The certainty of Nix’s death had been drilled into her through every year of her captivity as the cultists prepared her for the Great Ritual. Now that she was back, there was so many regrets she could undo. Now, she actually had a life before her.

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If nobody ever found out about the mutations, then the past wouldn’t repeat. Nix would make sure nobody could. K’tan had already long proven that she couldn’t trust anyone. If they never knew, she would not be discovered as the perfect sacrifice.

Nix refused to question how this happened. She had her body back. She had her life back. Her body was already riddled with curses; she didn’t want to see what kind of horrid retribution would find her if she tempted fate now that it had finally been kind to her.

Freedom; Nix would enjoy it.

A bang on the door to her room startled her. She spun and raised her hands in a gesture half to defend herself and strike at the noise.

“Nix. Don’t forget the naming ceremony,” a voice yelled from outside her room. “You wouldn’t want to miss your opportunity to free yourself a curse.”

That voice. Nix felt her body stiffen in response. Of course, if she was back in the Rearing Ward, then K’tan was her carer again. She suddenly felt sick. If he walked in and found her budding feather out in the open, then everything would occur as it had. No; it would happen sooner.

Her shirt was across the room. She needed to dash for it. She needed to hide herself. It was a necessity, not an option, and yet her legs wouldn’t move. Panic flooded her veins at the idea of reenacting everything that had happened, but it did nothing to push her to action.

Thankfully, she heard the man’s boots stomp down the hall, leaving her to slump beneath her mirror in relief.

Of course, Nix had returned to the past, but those who had harmed her remained. She knew now not to trust them, but they were still far too powerful for her to even glance at the wrong way. She had been careless; even in the privacy of her own room, she was not safe. There were no locks, and she remembered times through her youth where other children had breached her space. It was not common, but it did happen.

Nix picked herself up and trudged out of the small bathroom to her bed. There, lay the gown she must have set out for herself six or seven years ago. She remembered it only barely. A ritual gown with a stylistic twist on the cultist’s classical robe. Back then, Nix had been so excited to wear it. It cost her three entire months of her allowance.

And now, Nix felt nothing as she looked at it.

She threw on a cami before curling the outfit around her shoulders. A dozen strings weaved themselves together, leaving the hooded cloak without a seam. It fit perfectly.

Today was the day of her naming ceremony. An unveiling of one’s true character, an opportunity to attract the attention of the greater cults, and most importantly, the day everyone could gain their first ability. Unlike every other teenager in the rearing wards, it wasn’t some nebulous ability Nix had wanted — though receiving one certainly wouldn’t have been unwelcome — it was the far more common curse relief she sorely needed.

Back then — now — Nix had been given years of hope that her immense number of blood curses would be reduced when her full name was revealed. Nix had entered the ritual with so much riding on the outcome, so much hope and expectation that she’d finally be lessened of the weights she carried, only for the Eidolon Gods to bestow her another curse.

Nix-ine. That was her name. The onomastician overseeing the ritual had told her in no uncertain terms that it meant cursed.

So, knowing that, along with the fact that K’tan would be there with her, Nix was not exactly excited to repeat this day.

Only… she was.

This day might have been the first of many horrible days that had led to her ultimate end, but she got to do it all over. She would do it all better. That alone had Nix thrilled to be back.

With her single, not-fully-grown feather hidden beneath the soft cloth of her cloak, she strode out into the hallway with confidence and a smile she’d been unable to raise upon her sickly features for as long as she could remember.

First, Nix would prove to herself she was no longer the same timid girl she used to be. There would be no running away this time.

She would be gifted a horrible name, but that didn’t matter to Nix. She had so much more to look forward to than a stupid name.