System Lost: My Own Best Friend

I wake up without remembering ever going to sleep. Again. That's probably not healthy, but nothing about my life is healthy. I'm just glad I woke up at all.

Going to check my wounds, I find that my hand is stuck to my side by congealed blood. I carefully pry it loose, wincing as the scabbing comes apart, but aside from a little bit of weeping, the wound doesn't reopen. I still gag at the grisly sight.

My hands and clothes are caked with dried blood, and my already hopelessly tangled hair is now fully matted. Everything hurts, but I'm not bleeding anymore and for once I didn't wake up cold. Whatever that laser gecko did to that rock, it really holds its heat.

Wait—the lizard!

Raw meat and warm places make a bad combination. After all the work we did, it would suck miserably for it to be wasted by letting the corpse rot.

I clamber to my feet and rush over to the thing. It's still right where we left it, sitting dead in a dried pool of its own blood—and possibly a bit of ours.

It...doesn't really smell or anything. I guess it's fine? While I'm up, I look around for the knife. Violet threw it aside while she was panicking, and it wouldn't do to lose that. I'm surprised we managed to keep our glasses on in that scuffle but I suppose I'll take the win without complaint.

The knife is just as much of a bloody mess as I am. I grimace as I bend down to pick it up—that's how you get rust. This thing is our only weapon, and without it we're as good as dead. I try to wipe it off on my jeans as best I can, but it's way too late for that.

"Vi, are you up?" I inquire to the empty cave.

There's no response, so I guess she's still out for now. While I wait, I sit back down to go over my status.

[Allison: Tier 1 Human]

[Class Slot 1: Tier 1 [Unified Wanderers]** - Level 2/10

[Class Slot 2: Tier 0 [Candle Enthusiast]* - Level 6/10

[Attributes]

Power: 2

Resilience: 16

Awareness: 8

Ego: 16

Will: 2

[Skills]

Parallel Wills (2)

The Beaten Path (Retraced Steps)

Candle Seeker

The [Unified Wanderers] class seems to progress much more slowly, perhaps because it was a tier 1 class, or maybe Violet and I just aren't doing a great job of "finding what we seek." Whatever that means.

I'm honestly a little burnt out on the candles—heh. I don't know what else I can do at this point to progress the class. I'm sure Violet will happily lecture me about the sunk cost fallacy, but after getting it over halfway, I'd really like to complete it. If nothing else, it will give us more fusion fodder down the road.

The last thing that catches my eye is [Parallel Wills]. I bring up the description again.

Skill - Parallel Wills (2): Allows the simultaneous consciousness of up to two (2) additional thoughtforms.

When I first saw this skill, I thought it would mean more company. Not that I don't like Vi, but she's not much of a conversationalist.

I'm still a little weirded out at the idea of sharing my body. Violet is sort of like another version of me, but at the same time she's her own completely different person. I don't know how I feel about the idea of a third personality bumping around in my head, but it would definitely be an advantage.

Besides, I could really use another friend right now.

Rather than wallow in my loneliness, I get back to my feet and start making myself useful. Vi's still napping, and I know better than to try to mess with the carcass without her, so instead I go retrieve my cloak from where she left it next to the cave entrance.

It's still way too hot in here to wear it, but it's got all my stuff in it—which amounts to a few slimy bits of raw lizard and a bunch of magical candles.

I drag them over to the rock in the middle of the room and hold my hand over it tentatively to test the temperature. I feel a vague warmth, but it's not quite as hot as I was expecting. I glance down at my left hand—it's still a tiny bit red from Violet resting it on the rock, but surprisingly it doesn't hurt.

Did the burn already heal?

With my other hand, I carefully poke the rock. Gently at first, then a bit firmer once I've confirmed that it's not going to burn me. It's still pleasantly warm, but no longer burning hot. A shame—I was hoping I might be able to cook with it.

"If only I could somehow harness the laser gecko's magic," I muse to myself.

On a random impulse I plop myself down in front of the dead lizard and peer into one of its lifeless eyes. I feel a little bad for the thing. Only a little—it did almost kill us, and while that was in perfectly justified self-defense, there's only so much sympathy I can drum up for something that caused me such grief.

The dull, reddish brown eye stares back lifelessly. For some reason I thought its pupils would be dilated or something. I had this image of a blank, glassy-eyed stare, but they just look normal to me. Maybe I'm just not good enough at recognizing the state of lizard eyes.

When staring at the thing doesn't reveal any secrets, I instead try poking it tentatively, then immediately wish I hadn't.

"Blech, gross!"

It feels so weird. Slick and squishy, but drier than I expected. I guess that makes sense—it's been dead a while and I don't think lizards even have tear ducts in the first place. I remember seeing one lick its own eye before.

On a whim, I wave a candle around in front of the eyeball, peering into it as closely as I can. I don't know what I'm looking for, exactly—some hint about how their laser eyes work, I guess, though I can't imagine what. All I see is the candle light's reflection.

"What are you doing?" Violet asks.

Her voice startles me so badly that I nearly drop the candle. Jumping like that also sends a twinge of pain shooting up my side from my fresh wound.

"Ow! Jeez! A little warning?" I complain.

"Sorry."

"It's fine," I say, rubbing at my side. "Anyway, I don't know. I was just waiting for you to wake up, trying to see if I could figure anything out about the laser gecko's magic."

"Any luck?"

"Nada," I sigh. "It's just a big gross eyeball. So is it time to butcher our new friend here?"

"No, not yet," Vi says. "By now rigor mortis will have either set in or started to. It will be too hard to carve up until that wears off."

"Oh," I offer lamely. "Is there anything we can do in the meantime?"

"Let's try draining it," she suggests. "That will make my job much easier later. I didn't do it properly before."

"Okay, shall we switch, then?"

Violet hesitates for a moment. "No. Our injuries seem to have mostly healed, so my resilience won't be necessary. I'll walk you through it—it shouldn't be too hard."

Okay, that's a little odd, but I refrain from comment. I'm certainly not going to complain about remaining in control of my own body.

After confirming that the rock in the center isn't burning hot anymore, Violet has me drape the lizard over it. It's so heavy that I work up a sweat just trying to wrestle it into place with its head on the ground and the rest of it awkwardly balanced on the rock.

It's also pretty stiff, so I guess she was right about rigor mortis. Once it's in place, she has me make a deep cut in its throat to drain the blood. I fight back my disgust and get the job done as clinically as I can, stepping back as what remains of the lizard's blood starts to slowly pool in the center of the cave.

"Now what?" I ask.

"We wait," Violet says. "This will take at least twelve hours."

"Wh—twelve hours?!" I cry. "Are you serious?"

"How long did you think it was going to take?"

"I dunno—not twelve frickin' hours!" I groan. "What am I supposed to do while we wait?"

"Do you want to try dissecting the laser gecko's eyes?"

I freeze, my mind completely blank as I try to comprehend what the heck she just said.

"Vi, from the bottom of my heart with love, what the actual frick?"

"You were trying to study it before, weren't you?" she explains. "Maybe you can learn something by cutting it open."

"Okay first off, there's nothing I'd like less than to carve up an eyeball," I say, shuddering at the very thought of it. "And second, I thought you were only reluctantly entertaining my attempts to figure out magic, why the sudden interest?"

"Well, you've made surprising progress," Violet says. "And after yesterday's failures, I don't think I have any right to be dismissive."

I sigh. I guess she's still feeling down about getting us hurt.

"What failure?" I ask. "You set out to track and kill the gecko, and you did it. We're still alive, so I'd call that a win."

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"It's not sustainable," Violet huffs. "If every inch of progress we make costs us a pound of flesh, we'll never make it out of here."

"Yeah," I drawl. "I don't exactly have a lot of pounds to spare. The nightmare cave diet is doing real wonders for my figure."

"The point I'm trying to make, Allison, is that if my ideas are nearly getting us killed, then I should be more open-minded about trying yours instead."

"Well that's very reasonable of you, but I think you're focusing on the wrong parts," I say. "Your ideas are what's keeping us alive. I'm not going to pretend that mine are anything other than a frail attempt to maintain my sanity."

"There's value in that, too," Violet mutters. "If my breakdown yesterday is any indication, I've been neglecting my own mental health too much. I can't afford to be panicking like that."

I purse my lips. I'm glad she's considering her mental health, but I wish she had a better reason than not wanting to lose her cool in a traumatic fight for her life.

"Well if you ask me, what our mental health really needs is a gosh darn bath," I groan. "I look, feel, and smell like a dumpster."

"I don't disagree, but until we can find a reliable way to move, store, and heat water, we can't," Vi sighs. "All the more reason to figure out how magic really works."

Wow, she's really turned around on that, huh? Not that I'm complaining, but the sudden one-eighty is a little worrisome.

"Do you really think that dissecting the eye will help?" I ask.

"I don't know, but it's the only source of magic we've seen aside from the candles."

"Uuugh," I groan. "It's so gross, though..."

I reluctantly trudge my way over to the lizard, avoiding the growing pool of blood beneath it as I approach.

"Okay, what do I do?" I ask.

"Um...I don't really know," Vi admits. "I've never done something like this."

"What about butchering them?"

"That's different," she says. "Butchering an animal for meat and scientific dissection are totally different processes."

"Great," I mutter. "Maybe I can just..."

I try working my fingers beneath the lids, only to recoil and gag at the feeling of the eyeball.

"Ew, ew, ew! Why is it so squishy?!"

"What were you expecting?" Vi asks.

"I don't know," I whine. "I thought maybe I could just pull it out in one clean piece or something."

"I don't think it's going to be that simple."

I spend the next hour or so struggling with the fragile organ, trying to find a way to excise it from the carcass without losing my non-existent lunch. Eventually I figure out that it actually holds its shape better than I thought, and also that the eyeball is attached by a whole lot more muscle than I ever imagined.

With some encouragement from Vi, a lot of careful knife work, and a desperate effort not to think about what I'm doing, I am now the proud owner of one fist-sized lizard eyeball.

"I hate this," I complain. "It feels like a fleshy tennis ball."

"I don't know how it manages to be both harder and softer than I expected," Violet comments.

"Right?! And it's so slippery, ugh..."

"That's probably just the blood," she says. "Actually, I don't think it's a good idea to try cutting into it right now."

"What?! After all that?"

"At least until things have dried out a bit. I just don't want you to slip and cut yourself. You can still do a visual inspection."

"Dang it," I sigh. "I could have done that without cutting the stupid thing out."

I try my best to wipe my hands off on my already hopelessly filthy clothes and move away from the corpse to sit down with the horrid fleshy orb in my lap.

"Eww..." I grimace down at the thing, fighting back the nausea. "How did I let you talk me into this? This is the grossest thing we've ever done."

"Worse than the snail meat?" Violet asks.

"...second grossest," I clarify. "What the heck did I do to end up here with a giant friggin' eyeball in my lap?"

"You're the one who wanted to figure out how the laser geckos work."

"Yeah, well I didn't think it would involve a trip back to high school biology class."

I freeze, the hints of a memory tugging at the back of my mind. I try to latch onto it, focusing on as many details as I can. Names, faces, teachers, friends, anything I can use to reconstruct my old life. Like always, it's all frustratingly hard to grasp—as if the memories are within reach, but some invisible barrier stops me from touching them.

Instead of the details I want, I'm left with a vivid recollection of the scalpel in my hand, the sensation of flesh splitting under my knife, my gorge rising and my heart pounding as I struggle to contain my panic, then—

"Allie?"

Violet's voice snaps me out of it, and I realize that I was hyperventilating.

"Oh! S-sorry..." I mutter. "I was trying to remember...something. I've lost it now."

"Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine!" I say, forcing a smile. "Let's peep this peeper already."

Vi doesn't press, and for once I'm grateful for her silence. I take a candle and start to inspect my disgusting prize.

The eyeball is a lot bigger than it looked while it was still in its socket, and there's a lot more flesh on it than I thought. I'm not sure if it's because of my clumsy attempts to cut it out or something else, but the pupil has dilated all the way. I poke around at it for a bit—the outside part is a lot more solid than the front. The cornea actually has that weird water balloon texture I was expecting.

I'm not sure what I'm meant to learn from this, but as gross as it is, the distraction is welcome. I peer into its glassy, dead gaze and inspect the reflection of the candle within. At first, I thought the reflection was on the surface, but on closer inspection it's deeper within the eye.

"That's odd..." I mutter.

"What?" Vi asks.

"Not sure yet, lemme think about it."

Is that how eyes are supposed to work? I don't think the retina is supposed to be reflective—that would sort of defeat the purpose, right? Do the lizards have some sort of extra structures in their eyes to focus their heat beams?

As I stare into the reflection, something bothers me. A familiar feeling in the back of my mind, similar in nature to the ever-present status branded into my mind by the [World Engine].

It's my candle-counting skill, I realize. I've mostly been ignoring it lately. It's pretty useless, except as a novelty, but it's always subtly present. For some reason, both the candle in my hand and the reflection are counted.

I intuitively know that it's not meant to work that way—the skill only counts different candles. Since the candle in my hand and the one in the reflection are the same, it should only be registering as one, but [Candle Seeker] is telling me there are two. I never expected it would actually tell me something useful.

Now that I think about it, how come only the candle flame is being reflected? I don't see my face, my hand, or the actual candle itself—only the fire. Apparently that's enough for [Candle Seeker], but as I wave the candle back and forth trying to see more I make yet another discovery.

Every time I move the candle out of the reflection and bring it back, [Candle Seeker] tells me that it's a brand new candle, seemingly without limit.

That makes no sense. Is the eye somehow capturing the candle flame within it? How does that work? I stare intently into the reflected candle flame, trying to glean some sort of understanding from it. It's a "candle" as far as my skill is concerned, but now I'm really starting to wonder what the heck that even means.

Staring into the softly flickering flame is almost meditative. It draws me in, as though inviting me to see beyond its facade to glimpse at some hidden truth behind it.

There's more within the gecko's eye than just the space it occupies. I'm not sure where that idea comes from, but I try to follow where it leads me. Each flame the eye captures is a new one, but that fire has to come from somewhere, and it has to go somewhere. That's what I need to find.

The candle flame fills my vision and my temple throbs as I strain my eyes trying to see more. Looking into the flame isn't enough. I need to look past it—through it.

Something gives, and all at once my vision explodes into a painful kaleidoscope of dancing lights. A whole universe of light and color fills my sight, forcing its way well past what my field of view should allow. It's brilliant and dazzling and oh so painful to look at.

When I can't take any more, I shut my eyes, only for my heart to drop as nothing changes.

My ears ring and my head throbs as the blinding light sears itself into my eyes. It hurts so much, but I can't look away. I drop the eye and the candle. I cover my eyes. I try and I try, but nothing is working.

"Allie?!" Violet cries. "What's happening?"

"Help!" I beg. "I can't—can't look away—it hurts!"

"Look away from what?"

"Everything!" I scream, clutching at my head. "Everything. Everything. Everything. Everything."

I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I'm delirious, and the pain just keeps getting worse. I'm going to die. Whatever this is, it's going to kill me. I looked at something I wasn't meant to see. This light is everything. It's too much for me to handle. It's...

It's...

Beautiful.

My breathing stills, and my pounding heart begins to slow as a calm serenity washes over me. What was I even worried about? It still hurts to look at, but a little pain is nothing compared to the utter joy of being able to witness something so grand.

It's everything. And yet, I've only just barely scratched the surface. I need to see more. Deeper.

But I can't. Not yet. I'll die if I try it, I know that. It would be worth it, just for a glimpse, but what if there's even more past that? What a waste it would be to die before I got a chance to really see Everything.

I almost want to just sit here and stare at it forever, but Violet's screeching is ruining it.

"Allie! Allison! Please be okay," she begs. "Talk to me, Allie!"

With a heavy heart, I look away from the universe, turning my mind's eye back to the wall of words upon the surface. The dreary gloom of the cave is so much more disappointing now that I've seen what lies beyond.

[Level up!]

Unified Wanderers is now level 3.

Candle Enthusiast is now level 10.

+2 Resilience.

+2 Ego.

+4 Awareness.

Candle Enthusiast has reached its maximum threshold. [Upgrade] or [Fuse] the class to unlock further progression.

Yessss! That's exactly what I need. The strength to pierce the veil and see behind the world, the sturdiness to survive what I witness. I'm going to need more. So much more.

"Allison?" Violet prods. "Are you okay? What just happened?"

I ignore her for now—I've got something more important to do while I'm thinking about it. I scrabble around for the glasses I stupidly ripped off of my face while I was freaking out. I don't need them to see the Truth, but I do need them to see the normal boring world.

Once I've replaced my glasses, I grab the knife and a "candle" so that I can track down the lost eyeball.

"Allie, what are you doing?" Violet asks nervously. "Why aren't you talking to me?"

Oh, now she gets all clingy? I'm busy, damn it!

The eye didn't roll far, and once I've found it I plop myself down in front of it, hold it steady with one hand, and stab it right in the cornea.

"Allie?!" Vi panics.

I continue ignoring her as I let the aqueous humor drain from the eye, deflating it a bit. Once that's finished, I work the knife into the opening to widen it and pull out the lens. It's pretty thick and sturdy, but not immediately useful so I toss it aside.

Next is the vitreous humor—it's a lot more goopy, so I have to pry the eyeball open and scoop it out. Finally, I'm left with a hollowed out eyeball, only vaguely holding its shape thanks to the cartilaginous sclera surrounding it.

With the candle light, I can finally investigate the unique biology of the laser gecko.

"Aha!" I exclaim. "So it really does have reflective surfaces in here! I guess it must use a combination of magic and biology to focus energy into its targets. That probably explains the big-ass lens, too."

"Allison...?" Violet asks slowly, a tinge of suspicion creeping into her voice. "Is that you?"

"Oh!" I shout, jumping to my feet in surprise and ignoring the pain in my side. "That's actually a good question for once, Vi!"

"What do you mean 'for once'?!" she demands indignantly.

"God, shut up," I sigh. "You're so annoying..."

I focus on my status to see what secrets it has in store for me, and I'm not disappointed.

[Unnamed: Tier 1 Human]

[Class Slot 1: Tier 1 [Unified Wanderers]** - Level 3/10

[Class Slot 2: Tier 0 [Candle Enthusiast]* - Level 10/10

[Attributes]

Power: 2

Resilience: 18

Awareness: 12

Ego: 18

Will: 2

[Skills]

Parallel Wills (2)

The Beaten Path (Retraced Steps)

Candle Seeker

"Nope!" I declare enthusiastically. "Not Allie anymore. How fun! I can't wait for her to wake up again and double how much noise I have to put up with. Actually, knowing her, make that triple."

"Oh..." Violet mutters quietly. "She is going to be so disappointed."