Okay me, assemble!
\\I am here.
//I'm also here.
\\And the counting me is there, as usual.
So only three times me, that is good.
Usually a person should just be one, but I am three. Nothing to do about that.
All three of me, cramped together in my one body, sit in my new bed for the daily status report.
It's the lower part of a bunkbed, that fills one corner of the room Nema and me are sharing. She instantly claimed the upper bed for herself and now lies quietly there. About half an hour ago she started to snore softly. I instantly [looked] at her, to see if this is from some kind of infection or something, but it seems this is just her sleeping pattern, so I probably should get used to this.
I [look] once more, to make sure, that she is fast asleep. She is.
Well then, time for the daily report.
First of all, there are no changes in my disability of using magic. I can't really think of anything else to change that, but at the same time I don't want to give up trying. Conclusion; I will continue to procrastinate in this matter.
I silently nod to confirm this.
For the next one, my healing is doing well. It barely takes any concentration to [see] on a cellular level, even if I concentrate on multiple points. Conclusion; this should be getting more useless, the safer the city gets, but it is the only thing I can be proud of about myself, so I will continue working on this part of me.
Onto the most important part. I ate three small loaves of bread today. Usually I eat one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but today I got to eat another one while having dinner with Nema's family. What's more important; I now live together with the awesome creator of said bread, so the chances are high, that this will be the norm now.
Haa~~~ I can't wait for breakfast in a few hours.
Also I can watch TV! We have a TV in our room. That is sooo cool!
Granted, it creates a weird tickle in my field of perception, when it's turned on, but it is still super cool.
I open my eyes and look over to the wall, where the screen gets projected, the moment the TV turns on.
My eyelids close again and I sigh. The silly me has taken over the status report and now there is a monologue in my mind, rambling over every single cool and awesome thing in the apartment.
Well, that is good, too. By now I am just slightly anxious over what's about to happen in the near future.
Overall my Situation has improved quite a lot since this morning – and that's not just regarding the bread.
Now I shouldn't be limited to one house anymore and more freedom means less stress, what equals less anxiety. That is good.
Also I have a chance to get closer to more people, before I show the real me eventually.
Hmm… eventually...
I already accepted, that I will show it at some point, but I am still way too nervous just thinking about it. Even in the near impossible, best case scenario, in which my normal looks would be tolerated, there is one unknown part, that gives me stomachaches. Not that I have a stomach though.
I ignore the silly me and listen to the coordinates, that the counting me throws out at an incredible speed to create a humans appearance.
What will happen to them? Well, me.
When there is no need to calculate the coordinates, then the counting me would go back and calculate random numbers to keep my mind occupied at all times, right?
Well, of course… in the beginning.
A few weeks ago, I noticed something, that I actually should have realized way sooner. It is a bit embarrassing, that I didn't notice, but the experience had shown me, that I need to be a bit more attentive and thus the daily status report was created.
What didn't I notice? Oh, just something very simple and actually obvious.
The basic fact, that there shouldn't be three mes.
As should be the norm, there was only one me before. Considering stuff, that is sealed away behind heroic numbers, there may have even be less than one me before.
Not sure if the rational me or the silly me was there first, but at the point where I needed to keep myself from falling apart, both were there to keep each other in check. That should never have changed.
For definitely and absolutely unknown reasons, the rational me started counting and calculating, so that part of my mind is always occupied and I wont have the spare time to think about needles stuff.
And this changed without me noticing.
I'm not sure when, but at some point the rational my split apart from the counting, because the numbers became too natural for my mind, to keep a full part of it occupied. This was the birth of the counting and calculating me, so that another part of me is always occupied and my beloved numbers wont get degraded into some kind of static noise, that wouldn't stand a chance against whatever it is keeping in check…
And here lies the unknown problem. What happens if the counting me gets too used to the numbers? Will it split again? If this is the case, than the next counting me will eventually need to split itself too.
Fact is, I need my calculations, but if this goes on, that at some point there will be an endless number of me, sharing one mind. And then? What will happen to me? There is a high chance of ending up as a bundle of moodswings in a weird body and with no real me at all. I don't want to think about that…
Again my line of thoughts focuses on the endless stream of numbers that keep me calm and suppress my growing panic.
I [look] around the apartment, but everyone is fast asleep already. Even if someone was still awake, there is no way I could talk about this.
Come to think of it… can I even talk? I should be able to and there is actually a faint memory of me talking with this body, but it just feels wrong… Why should I talk, if communication can be done in a more direct way?
I sigh again.
Talking feels wrong and so does thinking about it, so it wont keep me busy until the morning.
My [gaze] wanders around and I inspect everything, that I haven't seen before. There are a few things or tools, that I don't know. They all have magic circles on and in them, so I wont be able to figure out what they are for, until I see them in action.
Also there is a study room with loads of books, that I have never seen before. I have to ask later if I can borrow them. Who cares what they are about? Every book is a wonder of information and I need to know what secrets they want to tell the reader. But how can I ask, when I shouldn't know what is in the study room? I shouldn't even know, what kind of room is behind that door… This will be tricky…
Or maybe not?
I concentrate my field of perception on a randomly chosen book in the shelf behind the door. Adjusting the scale of what I [look] at, it's quite easy to see the separate pages. And of course the ink on each page.
…!
I may have stumbled over the greatest discovery ever!
It is possible to read a closed book from the distance!
With this, all the information of every book will be mine! Every nice story, every scientific study and every fairytale, all the books have to tell me their cool secrets.
A big smile sneaks on my face, as I start diving into the research-diary of a scholar, who studied certain beasts in the wild.
…
"So what do we wanna do today?", Nema asks me with a serious look on her face, while pointing a fork loaded with fried egg at me. The two of us are the only ones having breakfast, but her mother is with us in the kitchen, too. Everyone else has left already. I assume they are gone to work.
To be honest, I would like to pretend to sleep and read more books. I only read six of them last night, but there are at least twohundred more in the study.
\\There are 216, to be precise.
Even more reason for getting back to read, but I assume that's not what Nema wants to hear.
I shrugged once and then shifted my view towards the kitchen window.
Apart from reading, I would like to explore the outside a bit. I didn't even need to present that information for Nema to catch on.
"That's right, I promised to show you my favourite playground!"
"I'm afraid that has to wait until tomorrow." Her mother came over to pick up our now empty plates and placed them into a weird cupboard below the sink. A short [look] into it let me know, that the weird cupboard started to fill itself up with water due to some magic circles. What a weird thing.
Nema's mother continued without any concern about the flooded cupboard. "There are still some open questions about security, so Papa is trying to get a bodyguard for the two of you, so that you can play outside." She gave us a big smile. "I also would bet, that you haven't even shown half of your toys and games to Pura, so why not use the day and give a little tour?"
"Great Idea!" Nema's eyes glitter with honest excitement, but the [feeling] of her words made clear, that this was a lie and a tour of the apartment would be the last thing, that we will do today.
Shortly after, Nema's mother had to leave for work, too. She again told us, that we should stay indoors wished a fun day and then left. After the door got closed behind her, a metallic clicking occurred and I [looked] at the door, just to see some bars out off heavy metal connecting the door and the wall. Maybe we wont have another choice, than to stay indoors.
Nema seemingly didn't notice, that we got locked in, or she doesn't care about it.
Instead she left the kitchen and entered our room to search something in the big wardrobe. I followed her to see what she plans.
After a few minutes she turned around to hand me a few clothes. She then left again to inspect the apartment door.
Should I put these on? I guess.
To be honest I am glad to have normal clothes. The white robes I usually have to wear are annoying and look stupid. Nema's clothes are slightly too big for me, but with the white shirt, dark shorts and black sandals, I at least look somewhat normal. She also had given me a pink cap, that would hide my eyes from everyone who is taller than me – so basically everyone. I would have preferred something like sunglasses for that but [looking] at Nema's own pink cap lets me assume, that she wants us to have some kind of patnerlook.
I [look] at her again, while leaving the room myself. I didn't notice how, but she had opened the door.
In the girls hands is a pictureframe, with one corner in the form of a key, that slowly gets pressed back into its original form by Nema's Aether.
She grins at me, while I get closer. "All done, lets go."
~
The city is great and awful at the same time!
There is so much to see, so much to observe and so much to do. But there is also so much going on, that I feel nauseous from using my field of perception.
I already let it shrink down, so that I only [feel] about a dozen meters around me, but there is still way to much happening at the same time.
Aether is channelled nearly everywhere and there is barely any spot without a hidden magic circle or two. It's like listening to a room full of people and concentrate at all of their words and gestures at the same time without even intending to. I feel somewhat dizzy.
But there is so much cool stuff too!
We took some bread with us, but I wasn't allowed to eat it and I mostly followed that rule.
Our first stop was a park with a big, artificial pond, not far from the apartmentbuilding, where we could feed the bread some colourful ducks and some frogs that look like stones. I [asked] those guys if they are fine with getting petted and they came closer, so we spend all morning there.
We also visited a very busy shopping street and I hated it. There was just too much going on.
People just enjoying their day. Vendors, selling stuff that no one really needs. Small animals, trying to steal some food and survive between the humans. Little golems doing the work, no one wants to do and keeping the city clean.
No one should know, that I am way stronger than a human and don't need some kind of bodyguard, so even if there is a second time going out, it would be with some stranger following us around. That's why I want to enjoy this day without anyone else than Nema.
They all should go away!
This is my first and maybe only day out and you guys are ruining it.
I annoyed Nema by sending the information of wanting to leave all the time until she finally gave in and lead me away from the people.
We left the higher area with the floor made out of colourful glass and walked around the street layer for a while until we finally reached the promised best playground ever.
Well, it is a playground.
It has a sandbox, some swings, slides and a very colourful climbing frame in the form of a medieval castle. There are some other things, that I neither know the name, nor the function of.
It is awesome!
Being on the swings feels like flying. The slides are a bit scary and I had to regrow a tooth, after I fell down from one of them, but the climbing frame with some childsized crawling-tubes made me forget that fast.
Nema explained to me how to play catch and it is nearly as fun as reading.
"I don't want to, but we should probably go home." Nema announced with a somewhat melancholic smile. "We will get in trouble for sneaking out anyway, so we shouldn't make it worse by being late."
As much as I want to stay on the playground, I have to agree. The sun started to vanish behind the tall buildings of the city and if we go now, we should be at the apartment just before its gone completely.
I nod to her proposal and we made our way to the playgrounds exit. There is no one else beside us here, so I let my field of perception spread out again. Because of that I [see] the very fast car, that would come around a streetcorner soon. Of course Nema couldn't see it yet and stepped on the street to cross it.
I don't want her to be a victim of reckless driving and grab the back of her shirt to pull her back a bit. There may have been slightly too much force, as the girl stumbles backwards while letting out a small shriek of surprise and falls over the little fence surrounding the playground. This looked funny and I wanted to laugh but instead I send some apologetic information toward her and try not to smile while turning around to help her up.
Just before I could take her hand, there was a weird sound right behind me coming from the car that rapidly slowed down. Again I wanted to turn around but my body froze up in terror mid movement.
Someone touches me!
Two pairs of hands grab onto my shoulders and my legs, I get lifted up way too easy and immediately thrown against a dark car seat. A third pair of hands covers my eyes before I can even comprehend what happened and I already feel the way too fast acceleration of the car.
What?!