When Alesha went inside, she found her family all on the couch watching another stream. This one conveniently had its title across the bottom: "Sudden Attack on Everton! Live Now!" The shaky camera showed swarms of tiny winged snakes flying around behind the Streamer as he ran through the strangely intact city. Apparently, this city's threat did not involve destroying its buildings.
Feeling an instinctual urge to revel in the chaos of the scene, Alesha turned away from the TV and moved to the kitchen, determined to win against the System. It wanted to turn her into a being of Chaos, did it? It would go so far as to make her feel a desire to go rampaging alongside alien beasts?
Well, screw that! She was human, and would not devolve into some mindless creature of Chaos.
[I am doing nothing to you,] the System stated matter-of-factly. [And I have done nothing to you beyond what you explicitly know. Your quest rewards and your eyes are the only changes I have caused to occur within you.]
[Everything you are experiencing right now is a result of who YOU are. Not a result of me somehow puppeteering your emotions, as you are so afraid is the case.]
Internally, Alesha fumed. Of course the System would deny everything. But she knew better; the System might be saying it had not changed her, but she knew damn well how it was probably dancing around the core of the matter, using its wordcraft to lead her to incorrect conclusions. Did she know if it had ever outright lied? No. She didn't. But over the past two days since waking, the System had displayed a tendency to mask important truths behind smaller ones.
The System was privately impressed. Its host was indeed quick to catch onto its intentions and tendencies. However, it considered privately, being aware of a thing and being able to counter it were two entirely different matters. And the Chaos Moon had only made its job easier.
If the System had a mouth, it would have smiled broadly in victory.
Alesha started pulling out various ingredients from the pantry and fridge.
From the living room, her mom inquired, "What are you doing honey? I thought you were going to join us?"
"I… I don't want to watch that," she replied, uncertain of what watching more would do to her tonight, and unwilling to find out. "I'm going to make dinner."
A look of understanding crossed her mother's face as it occurred to her that, unlike the rest of them, Alesha had already lived through one such event. "Do you need us to watch something else?" She asked.
"Nah, you're fine," Alesha assured, "I'll just go grab some earbuds."
----
While Alesha cooked, the rest of the family watched several different live streams of the disasters happening around the world. These were getting taken down much quicker than two months ago. Apparently, the fact that it was happening a second time had gotten the Alliance on high alert, and they wanted to keep the streams to a minimum.
Layla crossed her arms in dissatisfaction, glaring at the screen. Something was up. If the Alliance had truly wanted those streams to stop, they could have brought out far more robust methods to do so. Taking each one down a few minutes after it began would do next to nothing in practical terms. Not only that, but the streamers kept dying, so the streams usually didn't last long regardless. So why were they bothering at all? What was with these half-hearted measures?
It stumped her.
Her parents both trusted the Alliance without a second thought. As for Alesha, she was, quite frankly, far too oblivious to the realities of the political world to be of any help in identifying their motives. Layla didn't even consider the game-filled-brain of her brother Dennis as an option.
That left only her friends. Of course, she couldn't discuss such a sensitive topic over the Net, as you never knew when the Alliance would be monitoring your communications. Their obsessive monitoring of the citizenry was well-known. Since it didn't affect anyone specific all that often and made the catching of criminals so much easier, most people were fine with it, and didn't think about it at all in their day-to-day lives.
But not Layla. She hated living with someone potentially looking over her shoulder all the time. This was a sentiment she rarely vocalized, however, since sharing such thoughts in the Alliance was a sure-fire way to get into big trouble.
Layla rose up a little from the couch and looked over into the kitchen at her sister.
This is when she noticed something strange.
On the counter were a bunch of chopped vegetables piled in bowls, a rice cooker and the empty container of some raw chicken. Alesha stood by the sink with a raw chicken breast in her hand.
The weird part was that, as Layla watched, Alesha closed her eyes and brought the chicken to her nose -- breathing deeply as if smelling the most delicious chocolate, complete with a subconsciously spreading smile.
Layla's brain short-circuited when the sniffing progressed to a lick!! Alesha had just LICKED a raw piece of chicken!! What in Elantris's third hell was she thinking?!
Thinking quickly, Layla excused herself to go to the restroom.
Here's what she knew: Alesha, the most germophobic of any of them, had just licked a freaking raw piece of chicken. Alesha had always been overly cautious of food poisoning, and salmonella from chicken was one of the worst. Sure, she had changed somewhat since waking up, but had she become a different person entirely? Had some demon possessed her? Yesterday, she had seemed to want to say more, and had been about to do so, when she had suddenly stopped. Layla had assumed at the time that it simply meant she wasn't ready to open up to her yet.
This had been after Layla asked Alesha if anything else had changed in her after getting "burned" by the multi-colored fire.
What if… what if it wasn't that she hadn't wanted to tell her, but that she couldn't have?
Having decided upon her hypothesis, Layla left the restroom and walked briskly to the kitchen.
----
Curiosity overwhelming her, Alesha took one of the chicken breasts to the sink, and started to sniff it. The smell was distinct from the red meats she had eaten the night before, and somehow smelled different from how she expected.
It was a far more mouthwatering scent than she could have predicted.
Hesitating a bit, Alesha drew one last deep whiff of the chicken in before caving to temptation and giving it a lick. She could just rinse it off afterwards, and besides, she was going to cook all the germs off anyways.
She did not expect what happened next.
Instead of it being easier to ignore the incredibly desirable scent of the chicken after getting a taste of it, she found herself salivating even more as soon as the chicken met her tongue. This wasn't good… it was too good.
As she subconsciously licked it several more times, she wondered if cooked meat had ever tasted this fantastic.
It hadn't.
Never before had she savored the taste of meat this much.
Before she realized what she had done, she was licking the remnants of the meat off of her fingers, having eaten the entire chicken breast.
That was when Layla walked into the kitchen with a determined expression on her face.