“This is really super pretty,” I whispered, admiring the blue domino mask I had summoned.

It had crescent-shaped sides, the right curving down to a point while the left part went up. I ran my finger over the edge and tried pricking myself on the tips. Either they were dull or my superhuman body wouldn’t allow me to get hurt.

I set it on the table and tapped the mosaic comprised of dozens of small sapphires covering the entirety of the mask. I kind of wanted to try plucking one. They’d go well set on a ring or a pair of earrings. I wasn’t an expert on jewelry or anything, so I didn’t know if these were actually gems. Probably not? These did come from SpookyErind, whatever dimension she was supposed to be in.

SpookyErind told me I could use this mask every six hours. Why the limitation? Did it have powerful abilities?

I tilted my head, listening for any weird sounds. Everything was silent. Deen was probably still inside her room. Her older sister stayed at her boyfriend’s house last night, I dunno which one, and hadn’t come back home yet. There was no one to disturb me. I went to the bathroom to try the mask out in front of the vanity mirror.

Holding the mask with both hands, I dramatically put it on, closing my eyes to surprise myself with the result. And the mask becomes a face.

“What the fuck is this?” I muttered, feeling the exact opposite of wearing the Blanchette face. An immediate sensation of weakness. If this was something stupid like Pino—“Woah!” I opened my eyes, and my new appearance derailed my whiny thoughts.

The mirror showed a woman in a blue long-sleeved blouse matching the color of the sapphire mask and a black skirt over similarly dark leggings.

I had gotten taller than my original body, an inch or so shorter than Deen or maybe the same height, but definitely shorter than my Blanchette form. Twisting around, I saw that my slightly wavy hair was so long that it reached the small of my back even though it was tied in a high ponytail. It had a smoky brown color with softy ashy tones. 'Cool brunette' was the term if I wasn't mistaken—sorry, I don't have a degree in fashion.

Leaning forward while pulling my left cheek down, I inspected my eyes through the slits of the sapphire mask. I had alluring whitish-blue irises as if lightning was trapped inside. My upper face was covered by the mask, but judging from my features, I could say I was generically good-looking, maybe just a bit above average. Blue lipstick though? I’m not a fan of that.

The blouse I wore was slim fit, hugging my curvy body—just kidding, my new form was far from a head-turner like Deen’s. But since my cute Erind self had a plank of wood as its shape, I tended to view anything that had any amount of curves as 'curvy', when in fact I now had a pretty normal body.

My attire wasn't as outlandish as Blanchette's. The blouse was quite comfy and felt like some kind of stretchy cotton material, its sleeves were very long, wrapping around my hands and fingers. Not sure if this was trendy, but nothing that strange. I had seen a few celebrities wearing clothes with long sleeves and finger covers. My mini skirt was bell-shaped, sitting tight above my waist, flaring out from my waistline, and falling straight to about a couple of inches above my knee. The black leggings were just black leggings, no hint of any weirdness, and my dark blue ballet shoes were something I’d probably buy myself if it was on sale.

On my hands, however, was the first sign that something wasn't normal.

A black oval crystal the size of an avocado seed sat on each palm, poking through the fabric of my sleeves, embedded into my skin. The left one had the number '0', or maybe it's the letter "O", written in gold. The mysterious number appeared to be floating inside the crystal, like a magic eight ball, and not on it. The crystal on my right hand displayed '60'—wait, it became '59'.

A countdown? To what? It must be related to my power.

Another peculiar thing was around my neck. My dress had a very high neckline, reaching about an inch and a half below my chin. And above that was a choker—a metal collar with a lock. The band around my neck was glossy black, while the lock was gold and carved into a monstrous humanoid face. I fiddled with it, trying to unlock it. It didn't have a keyhole unless the gaping mouth of the golden head was supposed to be it.

“Hmmm, it’s not so bad,” I mused, doing a little twirl. In all, I surprisingly looked quite normal that I could tour downtown La Esperanza and no one would bat an eye at me.

Sure, I had a mask on, but people would simply assume I came from a masquerade party or some event. Better this than the Blanchette one. Chokers weren’t really in style and did look a bit out of place, but it wasn't too thick to be that conspicuous, and I could just lower my chin to hide the weird face on the lock. Lastly, the black crystals with numbers on my palm could easily pass as accessories.

"Maybe I can walk around—Hey! I can talk! Hello, hello. Testing, testing. Wow, this is super useful." I had a mellow and assuring voice, perfect for reading a children's book at the library. A voice and a normal-looking body—finally, something not stupidly restrictive.

But how normal was I?

Grabbing the edge of the sink, I tried my best to destroy it. “Grrr…crushhh this shit,” I grunted. Nothing happened. This is the bad kind of normal. “This suuuucks…I’m weak as fuck!” If I was in my Erind body, I certainly could crack the tiles; Blanchette would be able to remove chunks of the concrete beneath.

No biggie, it was just the same restriction as Pino. Good thing, I wasn’t required to drag my practically dead body around as added liability.

Exiting the bathroom, I heard a car outside pulling into the driveway. That should be Deen’s older sister. We were supposed to tell her that Deen would accompany me to Las Vegas and stay there for a while. I needed fate to be on my side so she’d allow Deen to go. If not, I had to think about some other plan because I wanted my future-seeing best friend to stick with me for protection.

Now…what could my other weaknesses be?

And what were my powers? SpookyErind didn’t tell me anything useful. When I received Pino, she gave me a clue about the pointing thing, but with this new face, she only told me about the time conditions and nothing else.

I punched and kicked the air, hoping for something to trigger. Come on! Anything at all?

Next, I waved my hands around like I was casting magic, trying different poses, saying random stuff like ‘Power!’, ‘Shoot!’, and ‘Fucking shit!’ I hastily covered my mouth, realizing that Deen might come barging in here if she heard a different person’s voice. Whoopsie.

What if this was like Pino’s abilities? This was going to be super shitty if I needed others to activate my powers. It wasn't like I could ask Deen to be my guinea pig. I mean, yeah, she'd agree to it, but I didn't want her to know I had other transformations.

How about testing this on random people out there? I looked like a normal person. It should be easy to walk around late at night in the bad part of town, bait some perverted criminals or something, and experiment—hang on, you dummy, I was as weak as an average human and had no idea what my powers were. How could I hope to fight back against thugs possibly carrying guns?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Back to square one.

I had a hunch SpookyErind wouldn't pull the same trick twice. Forcing me to cooperate with others would get stale fast if this was also this face's gimmick. She had such an impish vibe that it made me certain she had something unexpectedly devious planned to make me suffer for her enjoyment. What stupid thing did she come up with this time?

SpookyErind, if you're listening, forgive me for thinking your plan is stupid!

Pino’s weak strength was a tradeoff for a body that was practically indestructible. Sure, Pino's mannequin-like body could be easily disassembled by an above-average fart, but it also could fix itself. And I hadn't noticed even a tiny scratch on me during the three hours I was Pino, fighting for my survival in my condo that was turned into a hellhole.

I rummaged through the drawers, searching for something sharp. A pen? Too crude. I didn't have a cutter here. Going downstairs to get a knife from the kitchen wasn't an option because I had to return to my Erind body; if I did that, I had to wait six days to be able to use this face again.

Here, a pair of scissors! This should do the job.

I pressed the sharp tip of one of the metal blades against my index finger.

For some reason, I was hesitating, my hand involuntarily trembling. I focused on steadying it. After all the bullshit that I had gone through, stabbing myself shouldn't faze me. I held my breath, closed my eyes for some reason, and jabbed the scissor downwards.

"Ow!" I yelped. The skin on my finger turned red. It throbbed and was sore, but there was no wound.

It wasn’t that my body was tough. On the contrary, the reddish skin told me I had the soft and vulnerable flesh of a human being. I must’ve held back. That was the only explanation—I chickened out.

What was going on? Even before I had experienced several life and death battles, I had no qualms with pain. I didn't think twice about attempting to dig out the crystals on my palm with a knife when I returned to my condo after escaping the Sanders fire. A little kid could stab someone with a pair of scissors—I saw that on the news a few years ago—so, why was I having problems now?

Of course, I generally didn't want to get hurt. That was the default inclination of people—there were some outliers, I know. But I wanted to hurt myself now to check if I had a durable body and super regeneration like an Adumbrae. If not durability, perhaps my healing power was still available.

Pull yourself together, I scolded myself. I took a deep breath, tightly grasping the scissors. My heart pounded in my chest. No closed eyes this time! And STAB!

"Oh, my fucking—!" I started to exclaim before I gathered my wits together and willed my mouth to clamp shut. A stream of red ran down the side of my finger. I dropped the scissors on the floor and held my trembling hand. Droplets of blood were on the table. "Oh my god, oh my god,” I hissed through clenched jaws, my teeth grating each other starting to hurt. “What do I do? What do I do?”

The sharp pain made me panic. The sight of my own blood wasn't any help calming me down. My heart's loud beating reached my ears. I frantically turned left and right, looking for something to stop the bleeding.

I grabbed one of the papers on the table—it had some scribbles of my notes from Professor Gallagher's interview—and wrapped my finger with it. The paper turned red. More and more of it became soaked with blood.

Fuck! How do I stop this?

Not knowing what else to do, I removed the paper and stuck my finger inside my mouth. Saliva healed wounds, right?

Salty liquid filled my mouth. I almost gagged from the taste and thought of my own blood. I flicked my tongue over the wound. I saw animals on nature documentaries do it, so I hoped this worked for me too. Each lick caused stinging pain. Water gathered on the side of my eyes.

I hadn't seen the wound because it was covered with too much blood. But with my tongue, I felt it. There was a fucking mini crater on the tip of my finger, with a small chunk of flesh dug out. A couple of flaps of skin remained, making me wince with pain each time my tongue passed over it. Licking wasn't any help at all!

I removed my finger and started coughing. Puke was rising up the back of my throat. Tears rolled down, tracing the eyes slits of my mask. The mask! I realized what I should do. Just remove this stupid face! Duh.

But I wasn’t done testing—

“Erind?” Deen’s worried voice came through the door. Knocking followed. I flinched at the sound. I hated knocking since the tentacle zombie parasite knocked on my condo unit’s door. "Is everything fine there?" she called.

I grabbed the sides of my face and pulled. Then I flexed my muscles the moment it came off. I breathed a sigh of relief as the familiar and comforting sensation of strength had returned. What’s up with that mask? It felt weird when I wore it, like I wasn’t me.

“Hello, Erind?” More knocking.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's okay," I loudly said as I chucked the stupid blue mask in the air. It shattered in a cloud of light that swirled back to my hand.

"I'm coming in."

I crumpled the bloodied piece of paper and put it in my pocket. "Just wait a bit!" I kicked the scissors to the bottom of the cabinet beside the table, then picked up my glasses and put them on before meeting Deen.

She greeted me with a raised brow as I opened the door. "What were you doing?" she demanded.

"You know, just Adumbrae stuff," I said with a shrug.

Deen jerked back. "Don't joke about it like that," she sternly whispered. "My sister is here!"

"I'm sure she won't care."

"Still!" Deen frowned, wrinkles forming on her forehead. "Let me in. It's better to be safe."

I stepped aside for her. As I checked the room to make sure nothing was out of place, I spotted the blood splatters on my desk. I hurried over and covered it with a book. "Actually," I said, to distract Deen from my weird behavior. "Sorry if I was noisy. I was practicing how to fight, punch and kick and stuff."

"Fighting?"

"Yeah. Remember you wanted me to take self-defense lessons with you? And I also recalled that you were practicing with Dario before. I...I just thought I need to learn how to fight without, you know, using my Blanchette face."

"Why? Is anything wrong with it? I like you as Blanchette."

"But that's not really me."

"Don't say that."

"Never mind." I shook my head as if I had conflicting thoughts. Not only have I distracted her from the suspicious raucous I was making earlier, but I also planted the foundation of opening up to her about my meetings with Myra; I was going to tell her in the car later. "Have you talked to your sister that you want to go to Vegas with me?"

"Yeah. Her exact reply was: ‘sure’."

"That's it?"

"That’s it. I told you there was nothing to worry about. She won't kick up a fuss."

"Maybe she thinks it's just a weekend thing? Did you tell her that you'll stay at my condo for some time? Like, I dunno, a week or two?"

Deen nodded. "She was fixing some stuff in her room while I explained about it, but I think she was listening and understood I’ll be away for some time."

“That's great then," I said with genuine relief. I had to thank Mom for inviting Deen over. At first, I wasn’t sure about bringing her along, but after I analyzed my situation last night, I concluded I should keep Deen with me. This was a prime example of big-time 'reliance'. "I thought she'd say no. She doesn't even want you to have your own place so you won't bring guys home."

Deen grinned. "Sis probably thinks you're not the type of girl who'd have boys over."

"Ouch. Doesn't have the capability to, or doesn't want to because I'm prim and proper?"

"The latter," she replied with a laugh. "And you've been living with us for long enough that you're practically family. Sis isn't here most of the time, but I'm sure she trusts you." She held up a finger as we heard Deen's sister's car leave the driveway. "And there she goes, off to work. I think it's time for us to get going too. Are you ready?"

"Yes. Let's go meet Myra."