Chapter 15: Get Away From Me! You Vile Being!!

“WHAT THE FLAMING HELL JUST HAPPENED?!”

Jessica’s voice echoed in the suddenly cozy room, high and incredulous. She stared blankly at her surroundings, a deep frown etched on her face as she tried, and failed to process the last few minutes.

Her eyes darted around the room again, checking, verifying, confirming.

Where empty darkness had been moments ago, a modest bedroom now stood in firm reality. A bed, comfortable-looking, with soft blankets and plump pillows, rested behind the chair she’d been chained to, the same chair she now sat in like a confused statue. A wardrobe stood against one wall, solid and real. A desk held a brightly lit lamp that pushed back every shadow with cheerful determination.

Everything was neat. Orderly. Arranged with obvious care.

Even the couch where the shadow lady had sat, that ominous throne of darkness, was now a simple cotton piece, unremarkable and harmless.

‘Was everything earlier an illusion?’ Jessica asked herself, grasping for any explanation that made sense. ‘Did I imagine the chains? The pressure? The almost-execution?’

She searched for strangeness, for anything out of place, for any crack in the reality presented to her. And in the end, she found nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She sighed, the sound carrying the weight of confusion and relief in equal measure.

‘I’m alive… at least.’

And with that acceptance, curiosity began to stir. Real and desperate curiosity.

She stood cautiously from the chair, testing her legs, her balance, her body. No chains. No restraints. No glowing bindings sapping her strength. Just her, standing on her own two feet in a stranger’s guest room.

She tip-toed toward the large mirror near the wardrobe, slow and deliberate, almost afraid of what she might see.

When she finally stood before it, her breath caught.

‘Beautiful.’

The word formed unbidden, the only thought her stunned mind could produce.

Jessica’s true body, the body Arafel had promised, the form the egg had given her, was beautiful. More beautiful than anything she’d ever seen. Flawless skin that seemed to glow with inner light. Features so perfectly balanced they could have been carved by a divine sculptor. She was, quite literally, a jade beauty given flesh.

Her blood-red hair flowed past her shoulders in waves that caught the lamplight and threw it back in crimson sparks. Her eyes, molten gold, pure and untouched, stared back at her with an intensity that made her breathless.

But something nagged at her.

Something wrong.

Not wrong-wrong. Not ugly or misplaced. Just… familiar. A deep, instinctive recognition that this face, this face, had been seen before.

‘But where?’

She stared harder. Let her mind work.

‘Wait a minute…’

In her imagination, she changed the red hair to black. Simple. Ordinary. She shifted the molten gold eyes to brown, plain and forgettable brown. She mentally smoothed the flawless skin into something more average, more human.

And then it clicked.

‘FLAMING HELL!!’

The face staring back at her was ‘hers’.

Not the thirty-four-year-old woman who’d died saving a child. Younger. Seventeen, maybe. The age before she had even became the jaded office worker who’d never been loved.

It was her face.

“This is me…” Her voice was barely a whisper, trembling with shock. “This is my face.”

Her body gave out. Her legs folded, and she found herself sitting on the floor, staring at the mirror from a new angle, as if that might change what she’d seen.

Nothing added up. Nothing made sense.

How was her body here? How had her face ended up inside an ancient egg that had been existing for ages? Yes, the details were different, the hair, the eyes, the impossible perfection, but the structure was the same. The bones. The shape. The essence of her.

‘How? How?? How?? Ho—’

<< Jessica! >>

A hand. Warm, real, and trembling slightly, as if the effort of existing, even for an instant, was almost too much, grabbed her shoulder for a split second. A voice, young and urgent, cut through the spiral.

Jessica spun.

For an instant, she saw a flicker of a figure with long light-blue hair and deep tired ocean-blue eyes that held exhaustion and genuine worry. The girl’s face was tight with concern, her gaze locked on Jessica with an intensity that mirrored her own.

Then she was gone.

The lamp on the desk roared, not a sound, but a surge of light so bright it momentarily blinded her. The room blazed with illumination, pushing back every shadow, every darkness, every—

And then settled.

Jessica’s breathing slowed. Her heart, this new, real, beating heart, calmed its frantic rhythm.

She understood.

She’d let her emotions spiral. Had lost control so completely that her system had been forced to intervene, defying fundamental laws again, expending precious energy just to pull her back from the edge.

She directed her thoughts inward, toward the shared space where her consciousness met the system’s.

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‘I’m sorry…’

Silence.

No reply. No snark. No offended scoff.

Hibernation. The system was in hibernation again, exhausted by the effort of saving her from herself.

Jessica clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ground together.

“I’m such a fool.” The whisper was angry, directed entirely inward. She ruffled her own hair with both hands, a frustrated groan escaping her throat.

<< You really are a fool. >>

She froze mid-motion.

Her eyes widened.

Then, slowly, her lips curled into a bright, relieved smile.

‘You’re alright?!’

<< Why would I be alright? When I have to babysit a full-grown adult >>

An offended snort echoed through their shared consciousness, so familiar, so comforting, that Jessica couldn’t help but laugh.

‘My savior! My sweet, darling system! What would I ever do without you?’

<< *Shudder* I am DEFINITELY going on a permanent hibernation after this. Permanent. >>

Jessica’s smile softened. The teasing faded, replaced by something genuine.

‘I’m sorry. For causing another problem.’

Silence stretched between them. Thoughtful. Weighing.

Then:

<< Yeah. Yeah. It’s passed. Let’s leave it at that. >>

Jessica nodded mentally and stood from the floor. She walked to the comfortable-looking bed, the one with soft blankets and plump pillows that practically invited her to collapse, and sat at its edge.

She raised her right hand, palm up, and focused on her inventory.

A single object materialized.

The Nameless Lever.

It was simpler than she’d expected, a plain lever, ancient and worn, with a small red ruby embedded at its base. She hadn’t noticed that detail when she’d first collected it. ‘This ruby.. was it there before?’

She stared at it. Then at the screen that materialized beside it.

[ITEM]

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