[X] There’s no reason you have to leave the coolness.

---

Well, it’s worked out alright for you so far! You’re just doing more of it now, that’s all.

Right, how to do this… Movement is still strange and you haven’t done a whole lot of it until now. Just focus on your “self”, try to wiggle a bit, and then go from “a bit” to “a lot”. Yeah, there you go! Just like- oh wow that’s that good shit.

This was definitely the right call. How the hell are you taking in so much energy right now?! All you did was move away a little! At most you expected to get the same amount as-

Huh.

That’s…

Right, so, you miiiight have miscalculated due to misunderstanding this one a fundamental level.

So! Movement! Not quite the “point A to point B” that you thought it was!

It’s more like “point A to point A and B” in fact. You’re still in the same place you were, but you’re also somewhere else now.

Shit, you’re doing a terrible job of explaining this…

Anyways! Rather than movement, it’s more like you stretched your “self” out to get where you wanted to go. This raises yet more questions on what the fuck even are you, but that’s not what’s important right now.

Since you never left point A, you’re still taking in the same energy you always have… but now you’re also taking in energy from point B as well. And you’re kiiiiinda taking in energy from your connection between points A and B, but it’s not nearly as much.

Naturally, you had the thought of “Does that mean that if I explore around, I’ll end up taking in way more energy than I’ve ever even thought possible?”

This is where things got a little out of hand. Long story short, the answer is yes, that’s exactly what ended up happening. That’s great, right? The more energy you get, the more you can explore. The more you explore, the more energy you get. Seems like a closed loop.

It would be if it was just you here in the coolness.

Now that you’re in so many places at once, you’ve also drastically increased the number of encounters with the familiar unfamiliar things. This has posed quite a problem for you, but not at all the kind of problem you were anticipating.

Right, more explanations (AKA rambling). It used to be that when you bumped into the other things, there would be an exchange of energy while physical contact was maintained. If you focused, their energy went to you. If you didn’t focus, your energy went to them. After you take enough energy, the thing would slowly retreat and leave you alone. You never found out what happens if they take enough energy from you for something to happen, because you don’t ever want to find out what happens if you run out of energy completely.

That was how things worked when you had about the same amount of energy as the other things, give or take. After you gained a substantial amount of energy, you stopped really even needing to focus for the energy exchange to go in your favor. It just happened automatically, and you could concentrate on exploring and the ever-present question of “seriously what am I though?” You kind of went nuts with that, and now your energy supply makes what you started with seem like a drop in the ocean.

That brings you up to the present. You weren’t sure for how long it had been going on for, but you started to notice that the other things weren’t retreating anymore after the energy exchange. Instead they just… bumped into you, stopped moving, and then vanished from your senses completely.

You kinda maybe sort of might be a mass murderer.

It’s not your fault! Really! Sure, whatever these things are, they clearly aren’t that smart, but… They’re definitely alive in some sense of the word. You were curious about them at first, but you mainly just want them to leave you alone at this point and stop dying en masse. They don’t even really give you much energy at this point, compared to what you get just by exploring.

You’re not really sure what to do about it though. Their fates are sealed the second they so much as brush against you, and you can’t exactly tell them to stay the fuck off your front lawn, so what does that even leave you?

Hm… OK. You feel one approaching you now. Try focusing on not taking anything at all from them. Just try to- Nope, OK, they died.

Alright, let’s try again. Really focus hard this time! You don’t need anything from them. You’re simply existing right now. You have no ill intentions, so no ill shall befall- They died faster that time. Why did they die faster??? Maybe... Maybe that one was just weaker than the usual fare. It's not like you can tell; they all feel so tiny compared to you now. Yeah, that's gotta be it!

Right, try that again. There’s three more nearby, so you can just move a little bit and then test it again there. Focus! 100% focus! 200% focus! You are immovable in your absolute focus, and this is going to work- OK yep they all died even faster than the second one that time.

This isn’t working and you don’t even understand why. You don’t understand a lot of things about your life actually, and that’s almost certainly the problem.

Maybe… try pushing some energy back to them? You’ve never really tried to use it for anything other than exploring up to this point. Your stores are large enough now that you can definitely spare a bit for the sake of experimentation. That’s what this is all about anyways, right? Expanding your world and your understanding of it, right?

Right.

Well, you’re certainly not lacking for options to test your half-baked theories on. You immediately pick out a nearby hopefully-not-victim, get within range of it, and wait for it to begin moving towards you. Focus… Take a drop of that energy and gently (gently!) push it towards them. Come on, little guy… No need to be shy! I won’t take any energy from you! Just come along and get some-

…

…

Did…

Did they just explode?

…

…

Well, let’s not focus on the small stuff right now. Perhaps a (far) more violent end than the usual fare, but this was a necessary step! You will honor their tragic death as a worthy contribution to your understanding of science and not killing everything you come across!

Still though, you can’t help but feel like a jerk. Even if they’re not the same as you at all, it’d be like animal cruelty or frying ants with a magnifying glass… AKA young serial killer shit. You wouldn’t call yourself a pacifist or anything like that, but you’d at least like to keep the bar from going that low. Maybe you can try-

PAIN

PAIN

PAIN

Your world begins and ends with your sense of touch, and the only thing you feel now is pain sparking through every last bit of your existence. It’s all consuming, and you can feel your body and mind both try and fail to curl up into a ball from the brand-new sensation. Even as it begins to fade, you can feel the phantom of it all hanging over you.

You are not alone.

Whatever that was, you could feel the intent to cause harm behind it. You don’t know where it came from, but you just know this was not an accident. Even if you can’t see them, they can see you… and they mean you harm.

---

What will you do?

[ ] Go on the attack! You can't see them, but they can clearly see you. They can't be too far from you, so you should be able to find them if you stay on the move and keep your metaphorical eyes open. A lot of the other things in the coolness will die in the process, but you can't miss your window on taking care of this threat to your life.

[ ] Get the hell out of here immediately. You've already got more energy than you even know what to do with, so why risk your life for more? As much as you like it here, the plan was always to explore elsewhere. You're just... going a little sooner than expected. Besides, leaving the area seems like a good way to stop killing everything. Two birds with one stone!

[ ] Wait and see. Doing nothing seems like a huge risk right now, but it's entirely possible they mean you no harm. You didn't mean all those other things any harm, but that didn't stop you from brutally killing them! Hm, that doesn't make you feel any better... Still, you're very curious about what you're dealing with here. Maybe you can at least get some information out of this fiasco.

---

Hello again! I'm still not sure how long to wait before "calling" the vote, but this seems like a good point for it since we're still just getting started. I'm really having fun with this, so I hope you are too. However things develop now, you shouldn't be in the dark on things for too much longer.

[X] Get the hell out of here immediately.

---

Right, fleeing is the best course of action here. There’s simply too little information available to truly weigh your options, so the only winning move is not to play. It’s also something you’re confident in your abilities to pull off. All your time spent exploring and moving around has made for excellent practice in how to move yourself, but more importantly you have gained an innate understanding of where the “boundaries” of this territory lie.

If your theory is correct, then this territory belongs to the hostile entity you’ve decided to escape from. Therefore, leaving the territory before they can attack again is the plan in a nutshell. Bearing that in mind, the first thing you do is pull all the energy from the various locations you occupy and move it to the point closest to the boundaries that you’ve explored thus far. Just as you expected, the sections of yourself that no longer have any energy in them quickly fade away from your senses. A brief test confirms that those segments are no longer a part of you.

As if sensing your intentions, you feel the hostile entity attempt to hold you in place… luckily for you, the parts they grabbed are no longer “you” anymore. They've mistaken your shed skin as your true self.

...Shit, you meant that as a metaphor, but are you actually a snake? That doesn't really fit, but maybe like a weird kind of snake or- FOCUS!

Right. The first step was an important one, as you only expect to get one shot at this. Your second step is using the highly condensed energy you just pulled in to cover an extremely large distance at an equally large speed. The image this conjures in your mind is some strange combination of a rocket ship and a worm, which would have you laughing uncontrollably if you were capable of it.

Your vague destination is far past the boundaries of this territory, and just as planned you arrive with no hindrance whatsoever. With no time to rest, you immediately enact the final step of your (admittedly simple) escape plan. Copying the process from step one, you withdraw the energy from the last remaining section of your body that still exists in that territory. This time, nothing tries to stop you.

You wait for what feels like ages on high alert, anticipating any signs that were out of the ordinary to see if you were followed. After a while of nothing happening, you make the conscious decision to relax.

Man, that was scary! Facing an unseen, unknowable, and unstoppable enemy is really just too much. Maybe you’re overestimating them just a bit, but you’d really rather not find out for sure. Maybe one day, when you’ve grown strong and wise, you can gain some closure on this early stage of your life.

But enough of thoughts on your past and your future. Right now, the thing that matters most is your present. Even with the energy expended on your daring escape, you still have quite the ridiculous amount to pull from. You hadn’t known it at the time, but it was clear to you now that being in that territory had been interfering with your senses quite a bit.

The area you found yourself in now was similar to where you came from, but in the loosest sense of the word. The coolness existed here as well, but it was absolutely nothing like the invigorating yet soothing coolness of before. You would grow no weaker by staying idle here, but neither would you grow stronger. You would live, but nothing more.

That’s never the kind of life you wanted for yourself, so the option of staying here was discarded as quickly as it came. Lucky for you that you can now “see” so much further than before. The type of coolness you’re in now is by far the majority, but it is also not even close to being all there is. Some of the more interesting places are sadly out of your reach for now, but you happily make note of them for future reference.

After narrowing your criteria down to “places you can reach” and “places that seem interesting”, it’s simply a matter of choosing which one you like best.

---

What will you do? (This choice will have a long-lasting impact on your growth from here on out. There is no wrong choice here, and there's no reason you can't go somewhere else afterwards, so simply decide what sort of existence you would like to become.)

---

[ ] One of the more mysterious areas happens to also be one of the closest. You can feel the energy of that place from here, and it’s by no means lacking compared to where you came from. But above all that, the place just feels old. Like… really old. You can probably learn a lot from a place like that, you just have no idea what those things could possibly be.

[ ] This spot is smaller than your other picks, but you can’t help being interested solely for how orderly it is. Just from a cursory glance, you can feel a sense of everything being in its proper place. Perfection. Maybe there’s room for you in that? A sense of belonging sure sounds nice… You’re not sure what to make of the stuff around that area, but variety is the spice of life as they say.

[ ] Ugh… where to start on that place? To put it bluntly, the whole area is a freaking contradiction. It seems to be happily welcoming you while simultaneously cursing your existence. The energy itself seems deadly, and yet you can also feel life growing strong there. You really want to know how a place like that can survive. Perhaps you could learn a thing or two about that yourself.

[ ] You nearly overlooked this last place completely, seeing as it’s completely removed from everything else. And yet, you instinctively know you could reach it if you tried. It calls to you in a way that nowhere else does; it calls to your previous life. Just as you instinctively know how to get there, you also instinctively know that the energy of this place is ‘death.’ Despite that, it isn’t scary in the slightest. After all, isn’t your current life sufficient proof that death is not the end?

---

Hello again! I’d actually intended for this update to be longer, but then I realized it was much better to put this choice here. As said previously, this is a pretty important choice, but they all have their pros and cons. Some of you can probably even guess what some of these are. Anyways! I’d say that this is the last major choice before things change and you start to get a better idea of what’s happening. Thanks for reading!

[X] Ugh… where to start on that place? To put it bluntly, the whole area is a freaking contradiction. It seems to be happily welcoming you while simultaneously cursing your existence. The energy itself seems deadly, and yet you can also feel life growing strong there. You really want to know how a place like that can survive. Perhaps you could learn a thing or two about that yourself.

---

All of these places interest you, but only one of them excites you. That alone is what elevates it above the rest in your mind, and is ultimately what pushes you towards the enormous mass of chaos and life. After all, wasn’t that search for the new and exciting what started all this? If you were fine living peacefully without risks, you would have just stayed unmoving in the coolness. But no, that simply wasn’t enough. You don’t think it ever will be.

If all you had to look forward to was living for the sake of living, you’d rather return to nothing.

That’s not to say you’re obsessed with the thrill… Well, maybe a little. But you control it, not the other way around. When faced with an enemy you couldn’t overcome no matter what, you didn’t hesitate to quit while you were ahead. Whatever pride you may have accrued up to that point by existing as the superior lifeform in your surroundings was immediately given up when the chips were down. Staying and fighting would have led to your death, simple as that.

Besides… one way or the other, you doubt this is the last you’ll see of your first “enemy.” Whether it’s you seeking them out for closure, or them seeking you out to finish the job, you don’t plan to give such a poor showing twice in a row. The world is open to you now, and you’re going to use it to become strong.

The frog has left its well, and now it’s time to swim up the waterfall and become a dragon.

Or… wait, those two sentences are supposed to be unrelated. Also, wasn’t that last one supposed to be a fish? It might’ve been a carp or something. But why would a carp become a dragon? Because they both have scales? Maybe you were right the first time. Dragons and frogs are both lizards, so it makes more sense, right? Wait, no, frogs aren’t lizards…

Damn it, you’ve completely lost the metaphor. You’ve also apparently lost quite a bit of basic animal knowledge. You’ve been spending too much time as a whatever you are.

Ah well. You’re close to your destination now, and you can tell from the vibes it’s giving off that you’re not going to be doing much thinking for a while.

Yay~ Time to become an idiot~

Jokes aside, you decide to stop a bit outside the boundaries of your destination, seeing as you’ll want to brace yourself before jumping into that. The spot you’re in now is perhaps a tiny bit more “alive” than the majority of the distance you covered getting here, but only a little. Compared to the scattered bits of life you’ve come across on the way here, those weaklings from your birthplace were starting to look pretty damn strong.

The place ahead of you quickly put that to rest. Your senses are limited without being in the thick of it, but even from here the energy is like a fireworks show to your mind. Lives are constantly lost, but just as quickly replaced… but what catches your attention is how brightly those lives shine before they fade. Even in the case of the weakest energies, not a single one goes out quietly. They writhe and lash out and do everything they can to take their pound of “flesh” before finally going still.

It’s a savage and disgusting display, but the beauty of it all is undeniable.

All those lives that were pointlessly lost to you before were nothing like this. None of them fought for their survival, or even made the smallest attempt to avoid you. Even after trying your best to prevent it, they were just so weak that it couldn’t be helped. You tried to stay optimistic, but truthfully you were close to giving it up as hopeless. In your darkest moments since fleeing, you’re almost thankful for being chased out. If you had stuck around any longer with nothing changing, it would have only been a matter of time before their deaths no longer made you feel anything at all.

But now? This isn’t the same; not even close. If you enter here, you won’t be the monster killing everything it touches. You’ll just be another life fighting for its right to exist, growing as strong as it can so that it might survive the next fight.

It hits you then how a seeming contradiction like this place can exist. You are being welcomed and recognized as a kindred spirit, but it also wants to crush you beneath its heel and grow stronger from your demise. It seemed impossible before that such a strong source of life could be so drenched in death, but it makes perfect sense as you stand before it now. It’s because of that struggle against death that their lives shine so brightly to you.

You want that. You want that so bad that it’s a miracle you hadn’t gone in already.

Fuck… What are you thinking? This place is seriously dangerous. If you had any sense at all, you’d turn back and pick some place safer. You could always come back after slowly growing stronger in comfort and safety, maybe even find some allies that you can trust your back with first.

…Guess that joke about becoming an idiot wasn’t really a joke at all, huh?

You take a brief moment to brace for what’s about to happen, then hurl yourself headlong into the abyss.

---

Everything that comes immediately after that is entirely instinctual. Your approach hadn’t gone unnoticed like you planned, and you were set upon from several fronts almost instantly after entering. They waste no time at all in pressing at you from all sides and stealing the energy you had painstakingly stored until now.

Still trying to catch your bearings, you almost lose yourself in the panic as you realize you can’t hold off this many attackers at once. Trying to focus on one leaves you open to attacks from the rest, and you simply don’t have the necessary control needed to fend this many off at the same time.

It’s only after noticing how long it’s taking them to bring you down that your nerves begin to steady. They’re certainly a threat on your life, but only if you sit there and let them do their thing. Obviously you’re not going to do that, so you turn your efforts towards overwhelming them one at a time. All at once is a bit much for you still, but there’s plenty of time to pick them off at your leisure.

It’s a bit of a losing struggle at first. You have more than enough to survive the onslaught though, and by the time the last bit of life fades from your ambushers, you feel noticeably stronger than before you came here. It feels a bit easier controlling where you draw in energy from too, since you couldn’t exactly be picky in that situation. Mother of invention and all that.

There’s no time to rest yet though. On the heels of the first group comes another wave of enemies, likely hoping to pick off a superior opponent weak from the fight. You’re still so keyed up from the struggle earlier that you aren’t even fazed as they try to latch onto you like leeches and steal everything you have… just like the others. You could just crush them one at a time like you did before, but you suppose there’s no hurry.

For a while, you don’t make any move to stop them. You simply keep an eye on your energy levels to ensure you don’t wait too long to strike back, and carefully observe what they’re doing. How are they taking your energy? How are they moving? Are they doing anything else? Any bit of information you can glean from this, you soak up like the sponge you hope you aren’t.

And when you’ve learned all you can from them, you take the opportunity to put it into practice. It’s difficult to put into words, but… you sort of flex your energy like a muscle as the first step, condensing it and leaving empty space around it. Then, without expanding your energy, you kind of inhale their energy. With nothing impeding it, you absorb it a lot faster than you’re used to It’s even easier than your old method once you get used to it. You don’t need to focus so much on taking the energy in this way.

The best part is that it immediately shores up your weakness from the earlier fight. All the “leeches” fade from your senses at once as you bleed them dry in one fell swoop. You relax your condensed energy and watch in satisfaction as the new energy easily mingles with it, now simply another part of you.

You’re almost disappointed when nothing else immediately attacks you. Everything near you is too caught up in their own fights to notice you. You guess you could jump into one of them and make it a free-for-all… It’s hard to feel ashamed of an ambush after being on this side of it so often already.

But nah, no need to rush. Instead, you decide to observe and analyze how the others fight. More energy is always useful, but knowledge and understanding is a priceless commodity to you; one that had been in very short supply, but now was openly showing itself in almost excessive abundance.

Most of the information you glean is simple stuff: a way of moving you hadn’t considered before, or perhaps a method of using energy that was slightly more efficient than what you had. But mostly you take careful note of the places they try to avoid at all costs. You may not know their reasons, but you’ll at least trust they have good ones for now.

Some of the information you glean is less simple. Personally, you’re a big fan of the one with ridiculously corrosive energy that keeps tricking enemies into stealing from it. The only reason you noticed what they were doing is because you’ve been keeping an eye on them. Dick move, but flawless execution. To show your respect, you’re gonna stay the hell away from them.

A little of the information you glean is just downright incomprehensible. You’re like 90% sure that some of these fights aren’t even happening in reality. It hurts a little trying to make sense of that, so you try not to worry about it too much. To show your respect, you’re gonna stay the hell away from them. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Even the other fighting idiots in this place are smart enough to stay away from those fights.

None of the information you glean is useless. It all certainly adds up in one way or another, but there’s only so much you can learn as a spectator. Before you even realize, your search parameters had changed from “new information” to “new enemy”. It takes no time at all to find something doing the exact same thing as you. Almost as if controlled by a force outside your perception, the two of you are drawn together into a fight with no need for further communication.

Distantly, you think of it like how meeting a Pokémon trainer’s gaze means you have to fight. Strange how you can remember random facts about Pokémon, but not biology.

As soon as you clash with them, you realize this won’t be like your other fights. Things are strictly one-on-one this time, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that you’re the underdog in this fight. Not the first time you’ve been the weaker one, but the difference here is that you aren’t instantly overpowered. They’re stronger than you, have more energy than you, and absorb energy faster than you… but they’re still at a level where you can hold your own.

The only reason you’re able to pin them down is because they have no interest in fleeing. If they wanted, they could just pry you off and flee. What about you, though? Your technique from escaping before would work just as well here. Honestly, you can probably use that to escape from anything so long as you’re not 100% sealed in… and if you’re dumb enough to let yourself get stuck like that, you deserve it. Point is, you’ve got plenty of room to escape right now. You just kinda… don’t want to? Which is pretty dumb, since you can’t really do anything else besides absorb energy and-

Hm.

Would that…?

Holy shit you’re a genius.

That whole time you were watching your opponents was very informative, but you were looking at the wrong things. You only examined what they were doing and attempted to recreate it for yourself if possible. What you should have been looking at was what they’re not doing… and only a few of them did anything involving pushing out their own energy. All of those were the scary ones you admired most. That thought leaves you feeling strangely giddy.

As always, start by breaking it up into steps.

Step one, go from point A to point B. You’re careful to keep the bulk of your energy where you’re pinned down at point A to keep your enemy from catching on before you’re ready.

Step two, separate energy into two masses at both points with a thin thread of energy connecting them. Just enough to keep that “between” bit of yourself alive.

Step three, inject all the energy from point A into the target. This is the part you were most unsure of. You still don’t have a good feel on things when it comes to how much or how little energy something has. And if you use too little energy here, all you would accomplish is losing that energy with nothing to show for it. So just to be safe, you maaaay have overdone it a bit here.

Step four, safely enjoy the fireworks from point B. Considering how the part of you that you left behind instantly disappeared, you’re very happy you moved away first.

Step five, return to point A and collect your reward. You lost a good chunk of energy with that maneuver, but you instantly gain it back plus more after taking what your enemy had. Damn, they really did have more than you. Bastard.

Step six (optional), wonder how the fuck you just got away with that working so well. It’s only after you’re done taking in the rest of that energy that you’re aware of the lack of fighting around you. Thanks to your spot of overkill here, you actually managed to take out quite a few others in the process. The end result is a pretty large area around you with nobody else in it.

You’d expect that would quickly change as they realize nothing else is happening and move back in, but none of them do. You wait a bit to see if something happens, but eventually choose to slowly move towards one of the unexpected casualties of your gambit. It hits you then how strange it is that none of them decided to claim your kills as their own, but the strangest part by far is how the survivors all move with you, managing to keep the same distance as before.

The way they’re moving reminds you of something, and it takes a bit to think of what that is, but it does eventually sink in: It’s the exact same as those “strange feeling” spots they avoided during your observations. The ones with the strongest enemies in them.

Well, well, well… It would seem that you’ve just been classified as a threat. You want to try and seem stoic with that realization, or maybe even go for smug, but really all you feel is pure giddy joy. “If you want to be respected, just blow some stuff up” probably isn’t the lesson you’re supposed to learn from this, but you internalize it nonetheless. It feels amazing and you instantly want more.

Lucky for you there’s still plenty of things dumb enough to pick a fight with you. You just need to wait for them.

---

Things continue on in that vein for… Well, alright, so you don’t know how long actually. Turns out it’s difficult to tell how much time has passed when there’s no way to mark its passage. It was a while though! Probably!

You’re rambling again. Point is, you’ve been here long enough that you’re in need of something to shake things up again. The average enemy here is still decently entertaining and a good source of energy, but they’re just so predictable now. There’s nothing to learn from fighting them. The above average enemies are still fun, but if they’re above average then that means they’re also smart enough to avoid you. As fantastic as it feels to be feared to the point where only the idiots pick a fight with you anymore, it seems that comes with some downsides.

Then there’s the strong enemies, which… even if you could beat them in a fight (which is a BIG ‘if’ for some of them), you’re not really sure how to get to them. They’ve all got some weird “trick” to them that you can’t quite figure out. Last time you tried to go for one of those guys, they did this thing where you got further away the closer you tried to get. They don’t all do that, but it’s always something around that level of weird. You’re pretty much a three-trick pony of “absorb, flee, explode” so not much you can do about stuff like that.

Ah well… At least you’ve become very good at those three things. Still, you’ve definitely hit a wall on your personal growth. And there’s only one way to get past a wall: go around it!

Or… go over it.

Going under would probably work, depending on where the wall is.

Guess you could break through it too?

You’re not very good with metaphors.

Anyways, this is all a really dumb way of saying you noticed something weird after observing the strong things to try and find their weakness. The one thing they all have in common is that part of them exists in a place that your senses have trouble looking at. Well, less of a “place”, and more of a direction really. You can’t get close to them to see where exactly those parts of them are going, but you can go the same direction and see what’s over there.

Still, maybe you should… You know what? Screw it. You don’t have anything better to do, so might as well just go.

Without stopping to think it through very much, you make your move. Strangely enough, you can feel the act drawing attention to you. A lot of it. Nearby fights seem to have stopped completely, regardless of who is winning or losing. You had prepared to fight off a few enemies along the way, but every single one of them is clearing a path for you.

As always, a shock of pride goes through you upon seeing the caution they show towards your every move, but… This time, you kind of hate it. This seems different from all the other times, and you don’t have a clue why. Yes, obviously it has to do with you moving wherever the fuck you’re going, but why is that such a big deal? You are just so sick of things happening around you and feeling like you’re only seeing bits and pieces of the full situation.

Ugh. Whatever. Hopefully you’ll find out soon.

Through the haze of annoyance, you notice the ever-present coolness around you is becoming easier to move through. Less cool too, but not to the same degree as the strange direction from your birthplace. Huh… Could the two be related? You put that away for now though, seeing as the last thing you need is more questions.

The coolness and pressure fade away bit by bit, until all at once you’re assaulted by a barrage of new sensations. The pressure you had become so accustomed to for the entirety of this life is just gone now. You try to push past it and keep moving, but it’s simply too much for you. You flail around a bit trying to find something to hold onto, but there’s just nothing there. If it wasn’t for the fact that most of you is still in the coolness, you’d be unable to move at all.

As is, it’s still an arduous task to explore this weird place. However much you move though, there’s simply nothing here. The parts of you that aren’t in the coolness have to be constantly “flexed” just to stay where they are and not fall back into it. You suppose you could just let it happen and explore from the outside layer of the coolness, but that doesn’t seem much different to just staying in the coolness completely.

It’s only after some several failed attempts that you’re able to get into a position that’s still in the “not coolness” and not collapsing. Once you achieve that, you can’t help thinking “OK now what” since it still seems like a whole lot of nothing. There has to be more to this place. Maybe there is, but you can’t sense it? Your senses are completely blind in this place, and it’s only your connection to the coolness that can feel anything at all.

Back to trial and error, then? Well, suppose you’ll just do the same thing you always do when you’re stumped. You push a bit of your energy into the “not coolness” to see what happens.

Thankfully, nothing explodes when you do it this time. It seems to just be hanging around you a little right now without doing anything. Neat? Doesn’t seem to be hurting anything though, so you decide to push a bit more this time. There’s no explosion this time either, and the energy just… sits there. Same as ever, then. You can easily take it back into you and call this whole thing a wash, but you decide against it. Feeling emboldened, you keep up a trickle of energy this time and begin pushing a small flow of it out of you.

That’s when things immediately go wrong. Something takes hold of your energy by that connection and forcibly increases the flow. Rather than the small amount you could keep going forever if you wanted, this feels like you’re going to lose it all in one go. Panic takes hold of you, but you’re paralyzed. You don’t want to die. Not again. You can’t- You won’t-!

Something takes hold of [/i]You[/i] this time. The calm that goes through you is sudden, but not unnatural. The energy that was removed from you earlier is now moving completely beyond your control. Some of it continues to hover around, but the rest is quickly and forcibly put back into you. None of it seems to be going in the same place it came from, and you would have sworn that those places didn’t even exist before.

Whatever is doing this to you is changing you, twisting your body beyond recognition… not that you could recognize it anyways. But as horrified as you want to feel, the calmness persists. And beneath all that, the only thing you could feel from whatever is doing this to you is complete acceptance and open welcoming.

Finally, blessedly, your awareness fades as it all becomes too much to process. Any worry that you feel as you slip under is chased away with the soft reassurance that everything will be fine.

---

Hours later, a single flower blooms.

You open your eyes for the first time.

---

What do you see?

[ ] More green than you’ve ever seen in either life. Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve seen… it all suddenly makes so much sense. You want to find more green now that you can finally understand what you’re looking at, just to figure out what you’ve missed when looking before.

[ ] Scattered glimpses of the night sky through holes in the canopy. It’s been so long since you’ve even thought of the stars, and even the brief glimpses you see now are too beautiful for words. You need to get a better look. There has to be a way to get up higher somewhere around here.

[ ] How are you supposed to focus on what you’re seeing when what you’re hearing is so much more interesting? You can hear singing! As in music! Actual music! It hits all at once how much you’ve missed the sound of music in your life. It shouldn’t be too hard to follow the sound to the source.

---

Hello again! This update definitely went longer than I planned it to, but I just couldn’t stop. Especially since there wasn’t really a good place to throw up a vote until the end there. But whatever! We made it! And now things should start making sense! As far as the vote itself goes, each one will lead to meeting a character, so don't worry about avoiding a "nothing" vote here. Just pick what feels right.

[X] More green than you’ve ever seen in either life.

[X] Scattered glimpses of the night sky through holes in the canopy.

[X] How are you supposed to focus on what you’re seeing when what you’re hearing is so much more interesting?

---

The first thing you do after opening your eyes for the first time and seeing, truly seeing, the world around you… is slam your eyes shut and try to keep from being overwhelmed. There’s just so much. All that green… it’s beautiful. And the night sky behind it! It’s incredible! It’s just too much for you right now, though. You simply can’t handle it, especially on top of everything else.

Your new body (holy shit why do you have two bodies now) is currently being assaulted with the unfamiliar sensations of the grass beneath you tickling your skin, along with the slight breeze rustling your hair. You know they’re just slight sensations at most, but to your current self it feels abrasive like nothing you’ve experienced.

You don’t even know what’s going on with your sense of smell. It feels like you can smell everything, but it all just hits at once into a chaotic blend you can’t separate or distinguish. Breathing through your mouth while you try to adjust helps a little, but not as much as you’d hope. It’s like the entire world is speaking a language you don’t understand, and it never shuts the hell up.

Speaking of your mouth though, sense of taste… Well. Yep. Tastes like dirt. Unpleasant, but not really a big deal. Flipping over to lay on your stomach while breathing through your mouth was perhaps not your finest moment.

Hearing is simultaneously the best and the worst of the lot. Much like smell, the sounds of the forest blend into a hodgepodge of noise that’s simply impossible to categorize. Covering your ears helps a little, but that just makes you aware of the sounds from your own body. Sure, it looks human, but beneath all that it’s pretty much just a human-shaped pile of energy. It’s incredibly distracting to focus on, once you’re aware of how it’s constantly moving around under your skin, sometimes thrumming with a steady pulse.

Hearing is what eventually calms you down in the end. It’s while you’re attempting to focus on something, anything, that you hear some distant singing over it all. The relentless assault on your newfound senses slowly fade into the background as you begin to sway slightly to the tune. You feel a small smile pulling at your lips, and you even hum along a bit. You quickly stop when you realize you’re terrible at it, settling for just listening in peace.

You’re definitely not qualified to say if the music is good or bad, but safe to say that whoever that singing voice belongs to has earned themselves a fan out of you. By the time the music fades away into the silence, you feel relaxed enough that opening your eyes is no longer so overwhelming. You’re at peace, simply staring at the world with the faint memories of the song lingering in your mind.

The moment is short-lived. In no time at all, your normal curiosity is back in the driver’s seat.

There’s so much green! Everywhere you look is just covered in it! Even you’re covered in it! Wait, how does that work? Oh! It’s your energy leaking out. That’s kind of cool that your energy is green. You feel like you should maybe be more focused on having a human(?) body again, but being obsessed with energy is pretty much your thing. It got you this far, right? It doesn’t do much after leaking out of you though, just sort of hangs around. Could be interesting to see what happens if you try making it do something after pushing it out like this, but-

Wait. Isn’t this what happened earlier? So… What, you were just sending your energy out into the air then? That’s kind of anticlimactic. You were really hoping you’d ascended into some freaky eldritch dimension with wonky physics or something, but it was just the same stuff you had in your first life. Booooooring. No clue how this relates to that weird stuff the strong things were doing to keep you away from them though. You can still feel your connection to the coolness with your old body, so safe to say you did the same thing they did… Does that mean those things got a human(?) body too? Or did they get something else?

Hm. What is the coolness anyways? You have a whole new array of senses in this new body, but the part of you that’s still in the coolness didn’t get those. In fact, nothing’s really changed on that side of things. You’re still being avoided, but now even the weaklings with a death wish won’t get close to you. It’s a little bit depressing, seeing as this effectively means nobody will fight with you anymore. Ah well, it’s not like the weaklings had much to offer anyways. The fear feels better than anything you could’ve possibly gained from fighting them.

Your body in the coolness is exactly where you left it before you blacked out. You don’t have a single clue what that Thing was that twisted your form into this split existence, but… Even now, you’re sure that It meant you no harm. On the contrary, It seemed like It wanted to help you. And like? You guess It did? Having this new body is pretty much exactly what you wanted, so you can’t complain. You just wish you knew what It was, or why It wanted to help in the first place.

Bah, enough of the questions. It’s about time you started finding some damn answers for once. You have a whole new perspective on things now! You bet that you can figure out all kinds of stuff with that. Question is, where do you start? Hmm… Hmmmmm… Well, if the goal is to find answers to existing questions, maybe you can start with doing stuff in the coolness and seeing what your new body feels? You’re not sure how helpful that would be, seeing as this new body isn’t in the coolness. So that means you can’t-

Wait a second… It’s so obvious! This new body isn’t in the coolness, but your old body is in the coolness and what is apparently just air. So you just need to test things using the parts of your old body that are out of the coolness and then observe it with the new body! You feel a little silly for taking this long to realize that, but in your defense you’ve kinda got a lot going on right now. You never realized how weird it is to have hair before, but you’re painfully aware of it now.

It’s part of your body, but you can’t control it! And it keeps moving on its own! And it’s so ticklish every time it moves!

Ugh. Anyways.

Let’s start things off simple here. No need to go crazy right from the get-go, just fall back on ol’ reliable and push some energy out with your old body. After that, you just try to get a feel for things with this new body. Super simple! Just like you’ve done a billion times before, you take a small trickle of energy and push it out into-

Oh! You can already see something happening! You might be jumping the gun here a bit, but you think you can safely call this experiment a rousing success. There’s a pretty green light shining not too far away from where your new body is lying on the ground, but the source of it is obscured by a few trees. No big deal, that just means you’ll need to stand up and walk over to it. Simple.

Against expectations, it takes… far, far longer to figure out how to walk on two legs than you’re proud to admit. You still can’t shake the feeling that you’re falling over every time you try to take a step, and you hate how far away the ground feels. Regardless, you manage it in the end. You’ll probably get better at it after some practice. Luckily it’s not that far of a journey, because you kind of don’t want to let go of the tree you’re holding onto for balance right now.

Moving around the side of the tree, you’re faced with a small clearing that’s currently housing a familiar bright green glow. You squint your eyes a bit to try and see past it, but eventually decide to just cut off the trickle of energy. That taken care of, you’re now looking at…

…A flower?

Huh. You weren’t entirely sure what to expect, but it wasn’t that. It’s interesting how out of place the flower is though. It’s just growing there alone in this small clearing, like nobody bothered to tell it that it’s not a tree. The bright yellow petals clash slightly with all the surrounding green at first, but after a moment you realize that’s not technically true. The forest isn’t that green, it’s just constantly putting out a lot of green energy. It’s actually pretty colorful around here!

Still… Even with that, it feels out of place somehow. Do sunflowers even grow in forests? So weird. You manage to pry your iron grip off the tree and stumble your way over, but closer inspection doesn’t really show anything new. Not really seeing anything else to try, you push a bit of energy out of your old body again to-

The sunflower puts off a pretty green light. You stare for a long moment, then look at your new body… also putting off a pretty green light. You look around a bit… yep, same green as the rest of the forest. Huh. You try move your old body around a bit and… OK, the sunflower is wriggling a little. Hm. Hm. OK. You lean forward to touch the petals with your fingers… you get a weird feedback loop of sensation going between both bodies. OK. Huh. Hm. Right. Cool, cool, cool. Suppose that settles that mystery, then?

Fuck. How the hell is someone supposed to react to finding out they’re a flower?

You ponder that question for a long time. At some point, you end up lying on your back in the grass again. You distract yourself with looking at the trees with both of your bodies from time to time, mostly still trying to figure out how they’re doing that weird stuff. Because apparently those “strong enemies” were just trees this whole time. Makes no sense to you, but it’s not like they made sense to begin with, so. While you still can’t figure out what they’re doing or how they’re doing it, you do get a nice and easy answer for how the rest of the weird things you fought did that stuff:

This forest is just that insane.

That one enemy with the corrosive energy that you avoided before? There’s a bunch of them up here on the surface. The “corrosive energy” is just vines covered with acid sap. On a side note, those things really hate birds for some reason, and damn are they good at catching them. You once again reaffirm your decision to respect them from afar.

They’re not even close to the craziest thing in this forest. A tree emitting a highly flammable gas, a type of flower made out of gemstones, mushrooms glowing in every shape and color you can imagine, roses with invisible thorns, moss with enough electricity going through it to be visible, a venus flytrap with human teeth, what appears to just be a coral reef on dry land… And that’s just what you can see from there. Who knows what fresh horrors await elsewhere?

Compared to all that, is the sunflower with a human body all that strange? OK, yes, yes it is. At least you’re in good company.

Ugh, you’re still trying to wrap your head around this hellhole of a forest. Is this seriously what you’ve been learning to fight against all this time? As a sunflower??? What the hell kind of sunflower stays underground, spreads its roots around, kills everything it touches, blows something up, gets attacked, runs away, then enters a battle royale in a death forest?

“What the fuck…” You mumble. You’re so caught up in your thoughts that you don’t even notice you just spoke your first words. When you lay it all out like that, you actually feel a little better. Because it’s not even the fact that you’ve been fighting as a sunflower in a place like this that has you surprised, it’s the fact that you were thriving. All these horrors beyond comprehension wherever you look, and you’re the scariest thing here!

Alright, maybe you’re getting too full of yourself. It’s not like you’ve seen everything in this forest, and the trees are still weird, so you can’t make a judgement call like that. And don’t even get started on the stupidly powerful hostile and friendly entities that messed with you before. But still, you’re definitely up there on the list! And damn if that doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Sure, “sunflower” wasn’t even on the list of possibilities when you wondered what you were before… But after thinking on it, it’s not too bad. In fact, it’s been pretty great! Plenty of energy in the soil, lots of other weird strong plants to fight and learn from, and you managed to get a human(?) body out of it in the end anyways. What’s there to complain about? If anything, you should be thankful for how well off you are now.

Yeah! This doesn’t change a dang thing! So what if you’ve apparently been a sunflower this entire time? That’s not even a concern in the present now. Your sunflower body is being avoided so intensely that you’re not worried about any immediate danger on that side of things. Plus, you can still feel and control both bodies at once, so what’s stopping you from exploring in this body a bit? You’ve taken care of yourself just fine so far, so it’s not like your old body needs any help from the new body to take care of it. You came up here to experience new and interesting things, and that’s what you’re gonna do!

Both of your bodies are practically vibrating from the excitement. There’s so much you want to do that you’re feeling overwhelmed again, but in an entirely positive way. You suppose you could start with your immediate surroundings first, but let’s face it: you’re far too drawn to the unknown to stick with that plan. Besides, it’s a forest. Probably not going anywhere any time soon. You can always come back to this later.

First things first, your destination is beyond these trees!

Beyond, huh? You lean up from the ground and look around a bit. Beyond… Beyond… OK, so being a flower doesn’t make you any more immune to being lost in a forest than you are as a human(?). And no matter which direction you look, it’s pretty much just more trees as far as you can see. So just… pick a direction and keep walking, then? That sounds super boring and you kind of suck at walking. You groan and let your head fall back to the grass. What a buzzkill.

The wind blows through the clearing as you lay there, distracting you yet again with the sudden awareness of how weird hair is as you try and fail to ignore it. The wind provides you with all the inspiration you need, as you watch the ceiling of green sway to and fro in the breeze. Beyond these trees… Huh. You suppose going up is an option too. Plus you can get a good look around and figure out the fastest way out of the forest. Besides, climbing sounds like much more fun than walking!

Bad news: it’s somehow worse.

Good news: you do eventually get the hang of it.

Memories as a human in your first life aren’t as helpful as you would have liked, but at least they saved you the trouble of figuring out how hands work. It’s mostly just trial and error from there. You almost fall more times than you can count, but by the end you’re actually enjoying yourself! This new body is light and strong, so it’s almost effortless to pull yourself up and over the thick branches. Your sense of balance needs some work, but that will hopefully come in time.

Honestly, you’re just thankful that the nearby plants try to avoid you even in this body. You really didn’t want to figure out how to fight like this while also balancing on a tree branch… Actually that sounds pretty awesome, so now you’re kind of disappointed. All in all, it’s a much longer climb than you’d anticipated, but also more pleasant than you’d feared. And at the end of your long climb-

There’s simply no words to describe how spectacular the unimpeded view of the night sky is. Were the stars always this beautiful? They couldn’t be. You would have remembered if they were, and you don’t remember anything this incredible from your first life. Even the empty sky between the brilliant stars catches your gaze. The longer you stare into the inky abyss of the night sky, the more you feel like you’re being pulled in. If you let go of this tree right now, would it pull you away, never to return? You tighten your grip as much as you can, even knowing that it’s a silly thought.

“Nice night, ain’t it?” Someone’s voice calls out from behind you, nearly sending you back to the bottom again from the shock. Guess it wasn’t silly after all. You whip your head around trying to find the source of the voice, but it calls out again before you can find it. “Hahaha! Sorry, sorry. Thought ya knew I was here.” The voice laughs and apologizes unconvincingly.

You crane your head back slightly, still looking up but just past where you were looking before. Not too far away from your perch is a girl sitting on a broomstick, effortlessly hovering several feet in the air above the treetops. Her dress is entirely black and white, and even your haphazard memories take one look at that hat and think “witch”, as if the broomstick didn’t give that way.

Honestly, you’re more focused on her hair. There’s so much of it! It’s so messy! It’s even getting in her face from the wind! Gah, how is she not going crazy from all that? You must know her secrets.

“Ya gonna stare at me all night, or are ya gonna say something? Cause I don’t mind either way, but stargazin’ is always better with company.” She says. You blink, then drag your gaze back down to her face. True enough, she doesn’t look like she cares much. Even as you make the observation, she reclines back onto the broom so that she’s facing the stars again. The pose looks precarious, but she seems completely unbothered. You can still feel her watching you from her peripherals though.

But still, just because she doesn’t care doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. Conversation! With an actual person! And nobody has exploded yet! Completely unprecedented on all fronts! It’s your first time talking to someone in this lifetime, and you can’t mess this up. Just start off with a nice opener and see where things go from there. Nice and easy, right?

You’re so screwed.

---

What will you say?


[ ] Write-in

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Hello again! This vote ended up being funky because of the tie, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Interested with what you guys come up with for the write-in vote this time. You can be as vague or specific as you want, and I'll try to accommodate. Just... try not to make it too weird? I'd hate to veto something because it's too weird. Anyways! Thanks for reading so far!

[X] Greet her asking for her name, a mirror, and where exactly we are.
--[X] Before we do this, we should probably make sure we can actually talk properly. Then, once we've gotten some info on who this is, introduce ourselves as a sunflower. See if we can gauge her reaction.
--[X] Once we've gotten past introductions, ask if we can try out her hat.

---

Right! All conversations hinge on mutual understanding. And what better way to understand each other than by swapping introductions? No better way! Nice, simple, and no need to overthink things. Just gotta go with the flow.

You open your mouth to put your master plan into motion, but a thought comes to you just then. Do you know how to talk? Because you have to admit you haven’t exactly been nailing this whole “human” thing. Hell, even your performance as a sunflower was a pretty slapdash affair. Probably a good idea to check before you make yourself look like an idiot.

So… speech. Obviously it comes out of your mouth, as this girl has so kindly demonstrated. Her lips moved a lot too, to… help shape the words? That sounds about right from what you remember in your first life. You’ve never really put much thought into it before. You move your own lips and jaw around a bit to test it, and that feels pretty right. Nice range of movement and works just like you sort of remember. Should be fine.

What next? You’ve proven your no doubt outstanding ability to shape the sounds, but how do you actually get the sounds? Figuring that out takes a bit more work than you expected, but it’s kind of like humming. You suck at getting the pitch you want, but you suppose it’s good enough. From there it’s a simple matter of playing with your lips and understanding how it forms each sound.

Man… Your memories of a past life are totally worthless. This body doesn’t even breathe, so your brief experiment of pushing air past your lips was a total failure. Still, you manage well enough in the end. Finally putting it all together, you are confident you can now string together enough words to not make an idiot out of yourself. Now is the moment of truth.

“Hello! What’s your name?” You proudly state. Your voice cracked a little on the first syllable, but it was smooth sailing from then on. You even managed to keep the volume consistent! It’s not perfect, but first attempts never are. You’ll have plenty of chances to work on it from here, since this is just a good first step towards-

“Pffffft hahahaha!” The witch doubles over laughing. Ah… right. She was there the whole time you were practicing, huh? Your cheeks quickly grow hot from the embarrassment. Wait a second… How are you blushing? Do you even have blood? Well, the energy certainly imitates blood, same as it imitates skin and hair and stuff. It’s weird being a human-shaped pile of energy, especially when you compare it to the actual human in front of you. You can hear her blood pumping through her body and it’s just freaky. Thmp-thmp. Thmp-thmp. Thmp-thmp. Thmp- “-risa. So, what brings you round these parts? Don’t think I’ve seen you before.” thmp. Huh?

Oh crap, she started talking again and you weren’t paying attention at all. Oh crap, she just introduced herself and you didn’t listen to her name! All these new senses were turning you into a serious scatterbrain. More of one, anyways. Alright, play it cool… Maybe she won’t notice. Just pretend you know her name. Yeah, that works! Plan established, you settle for blurting out the first thing that pops into your head to keep the silence from stretching out any longer.

“I like your hair. Can I borrow your hat?” You blurt out. Where the hell did that even come from? Was that really the first thing you could think to say? I mean, sure, you do like her hair. It’s long and messy and looks like it’d be fun to play with. And her hat being cool needs no further explanation, so of course you want to wear it. You doubt this is doing you any favors on the introduction side of things though.

While wracking your brains for a solution on how to salvage this conversation, something is pushed onto your head and blocks your sight. You nearly flail around a bit from the surprise, but thankfully remember at the last second that you’re currently holding onto a tree. After that brief moment of panic, you’re actually pleased by how warm and snug it is. So comfortable! You carefully take one hand off the tree to push it up a bit so you can see again. You’re greeted to the sight of the now hatless witch practically beaming at you.

“Not bad, kid! I mean, obviously I pull it off better, but it’s a good look on you.” She laughs again, clearly pleased with herself. You want to be mad, but even you have to admit that she rocks the whole witch aesthetic thing. Like hell you’ll admit to her being better at it than you though! Actually, you have no idea how it looks on you… or how anything looks on you, for that matter. Hm.

“Do you have a mirror or something I can use? I wanna see how it looks,” you ask. You mostly just want to see how this body looks, but you actually do want to see how her hat looks on you. It’s so comfy! You bet you’re rocking the witch aesthetic way harder than she does. It really is a shame that you can’t keep it…

“Huh? Oh, uh, one sec. Think I got something for that. Let’s see…” She pats her dress down a bit and fumbles through her pockets. “Aha!” She cheers, shortly before taking out a small blue vial from her skirt pocket. She pulls the cork off with her teeth and spits it out into the forest below, then motions to toss the liquid at your face. You flinch and close your eyes to keep it from getting into them, but the expected impact never comes. You cautiously peek open your eyes.

“Woah…” The blue liquid from the vial was suspended midair just inches from your face. It was churning wildly but growing calmer and smoother as the seconds passed. Understanding passes through you. Sure enough, this would suit your needs as a mirror just fine.

“Cool, right?! I was messing around with trying to bottle some moonlight, but I screwed up and just captured the reflection of it on the lake. It’s kinda useless honestly, but it’s a pretty neat trick!” She embarrassedly rubs the back of her neck while trying to sell you on it, as if you weren’t already super impressed. You have no idea what she’s talking about, but this is easily the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in the short time with this new body. Even cooler than the bird eating acid vines! Hm… Well, close second. Maybe.

Eventually, the last of the ripples stopped and you were able to look at your new face for the first time. The first thing you note is your dark brown eyes. The shade reminds you of the soil you woke up on, and the coolness you’ve lived in until now. You instantly decide you love them a lot. The light sometimes catches them and gives a reddish tint, which you’re less a fan of, but you suppose red eyes are cool too. The brown is definitely better though.

Next to catch your attention is the current bane of your existence: your hair. The color… well, putting aside your perfectly rational hatred, you have to admit that the color is nice. Your hair is mostly yellow (blonde?), but there’s juuuust a bit of a green there at the base. Nice of whoever gave you this body to stick with a sunflower color scheme. Lengthwise, the hair goes just past your chin, but right off the bat you can see why it’s been irritating you so much. It’s so dirty and knotted right now that your hands would probably get stuck if you tried to run your fingers through it.

Not that you would. 0/10 would not play with. Blech. The hat is definitely a 10/10 though. You don’t care what she says, it looks WAY better on you.

The rest of your face is… well, it’s certainly a face? It’s got a nose, a mouth, and all those other things your typical face has. Yay? You pull up your lip a bit to look at your teeth, but except for being a bit sharper than expected they are otherwise just as unnoteworthy as the rest of your face.

Well, that last part isn’t entirely true. Examining your face like this has made clear that you are much younger than you thought you were. You’ve never been any good at telling someone’s age by their appearance, but this body was perhaps 10 at most if you were feeling generous. Suppose that explains why she called you “kid” earlier, not that you’d really thought about it much. The too large hat that keeps sliding down on your head really isn’t helping you look any older either.

don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it

“I’m baby.”

DAMN IT.

“Pft-“ You look away from yourself to see the witch hunched over with her shoulders shaking violently, clearly trying to hold back laughter. Somehow this is worse than if she had just openly laughed at you. You glare as hard as you can, but that just makes her laugh harder. You take off her hat and throw it as hard as you can at her face, which finally makes her shut up as she struggles to stay balanced without dropping it. “Hahaha! Alright, alright, I’m sorry, OK?” She grins at you, totally not sorry, but it’s not like you want to stay on this subject anyways.

You already miss her hat. You shut her up, but at what cost?

“Soooo… You never did answer my question. Never seen you around here before, but I guess you just answered why that is.” She smirks, but thankfully leaves it at that. You’re already out of things to throw at her. “I’m guessing you live around here? Not too many new youkai these days, but it makes sense you’d show up here if you were gonna show up anywhere,” She trails off meaningfully, no doubt referring to the many strange things in this forest. No clue what a youkai is, but hey, this is a good topic! You can easily segue into your next question from here.

“I guess? I mean, I haven’t had this body for long, but I woke up here so I… guess I live here?” It’s weird to think about actually living anywhere, but your old body is going to be staying here permanently so you suppose it qualifies. Besides, you like it here. You can definitely see yourself coming back here later… after you’ve explored some more, that is. Almost without thinking, you distractedly continue into your question. “Do you know where we are? I actually came up here looking for the quickest way out.” You leave it at that, not feeling like regaling her with the woes of your walking skills.

“Course I do! After all, I live here too. How d’you do, neighbor? Welcome to the Forest of Magic!” She grins widely, then points at herself with her thumb. “You won’t find a better guide around here than me! At least, you won’t find a better guide that doesn’t try to kill you first. Even a new youkai like you should be fine, but this place is pretty nuts, so who knows?” She shrugs, and you shrug back. You feel a strange sense of camaraderie, but you shake it off. There was one thing she said that you should probably correct.

“I’m not a youkai though? I mean, I don’t even know what that is,” You try to gently correct her to avoid sounding rude about it, but you immediately regret the small act of kindness as she gives you the most unconvinced patronizing smile you could possibly imagine. You should have been ruder.

“Heeeh~, is that so?” She says in near monotone, followed by ruffling your hair a bit. You immediately use both hands to shove her away, before quickly bringing your hands back to the tree. Not sure how you didn’t fall there, but you’re too thankful to think much about it. “Aww, what’s the big deal? It’s not like I can make it any worse…” She folds her arm and pouts. Totally unfair! That should be your reaction! She has no right to be upset at you!

“It’s true, though! I’m not a ‘youkai’, I’m a sunflower!” You shout at her, preparing whatever words you need to defend your argument in the face of what will doubtlessly be disbelief.

“Eh? Seriously?” She asks with genuine surprise, but not the disbelief you expected. Huh. You nod once, and… apparently that’s all she needs. Mission accomplished? “…The heck are you doing out here in the forest then? Ah, right, you said you just ‘woke up’ here, so you wouldn’t know…” She trails off into indistinct mumbling from there, too quiet for even your sensitive hearing to pick up.

After several long moments of this, she pauses to simply stare directly at you. This seems like an extremely important moment that could make or break this conversation. Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of your comprehension skills, so you settle for staring back and tilting your head in confusion. She smiles slightly at that, before groaning and letting out a long and drawn-out sigh.

“Man, I just know this is gonna be a mistake… Better not literally bite me in the ass…” She grumbles halfheartedly, before sharpening her stare on you and ratcheting the tension up several notches. You feel yourself straighten unconsciously in response. “One last question: Do you want to eat me?” She says it so suddenly and so seriously that you nearly believe you misheard her, but you know that you didn’t. What the hell kind of question even is that?! You begin to angrily ask her just that, but she cuts you off before you can get started. “Think about it. Seriously think about it. Take your time.” She stated bluntly, then settled in to wait.

You huff, but do as she asks. Not that you expect it to be difficult. Of course you don’t want to eat her! You’re not a cannibal! You’re-Oh… Right. You’re not human, are you? And… And you guess you probably are a cannibal, considering you’ve been killing plants and eating their energy. But still, you wouldn’t do that to a human! Right?

…Right?

---

What do you think?

[ ] ...Shit, you totally would. Hell, the more you think about it, the more you want it. It's not like you'd actually go through with it though! Especially not her! But... maybe just a little taste?
--[ ] Be honest
--[ ] Lie about it

[ ] Huh. Turns out you're totally fine with eating people. Not something you ever thought you'd say about yourself, but here we are! It doesn't really extend past that, though. Even after that realization, you don't feel any pressing need to eat her or something like that.
--[ ] Be honest
--[ ] Lie about it

[ ] ...You guess? The energy she has looks "appetizing", but so does the energy that basically every other living thing puts off. She just has more than usual. Killing someone you like just because it'd be easier to get energy from them just seems... wasteful. Sounds callous to put it that way, but it's how you feel.
--[ ] Be honest
--[ ] Lie about it

[ ] Nope, not even a little bit. At most, you're able to conjure up boredom while thinking about it. You're pretty sure she still thinks you're a youkai, so maybe that's why she's asking stupid questions?
--[ ] Be honest
--[ ] Lie about it (to mess with her)

[ ] Write-in

---

Hello again! Bit of a longer wait for this one. First draft wasn't coming out like I wanted, and eventually got to the point where I just scrapped it and started over. This one is much more to my liking. As you can likely guess, this is another vote with long term ramifications. The write-in this time is mainly if you want to add some more detail to another vote, but if you just really hate the other choices and want something different then that's also a choice. I'm having fun, so I don't really feel the need to railroad you guys. Anyways, thanks for reading!