My eyes tear up as I storm out of... I just realised I have no idea what I should call the dy with the rainbow hair. I suppose Mother would work, considering she made this body of mine.

  That kind of feels insulting to my mother from my past life, though. Even if that life is obviously fake, I still come from there. My feelings are very confused on the subject of that jerk.

  I continue to retreat back to really the only pce that feels comfy for me, the cave that Eth hurt herself in. I know it is dangerous, but I can't help going there.

  I approach the massive stone doors, which were still cracked open from earlier, when we left in a rush. I push them, and in defiance to natural ws, the doors smoothly slide open. I enter, and they shut behind me.

  The room is dark, but that is okay, because I can sense what is around me as if I have always known where it was. This is bit concerning at the very least. I think I can chalk it up to being in a new body, but I still worry about things messing with my mind.

  I can feel the tunnel to my left, the one where Eth fell, but then again, there are many tunnels to choose from. I choose one at random and walk into it. I wonder what could be...

  I step out onto a desert of epic proportions.

  The sand is smooth on my dry bare feet, and I say to myself, "Oh, my, god." This pce was so beautiful, awe-inspiring, even!

  In my former life, I grew up in a fishing vilge, so I had seen sand in beaches before, and heard of deserts. I had always loved to py in the sand, however dry it was, and this was just oh so much of it!

  I start to get this feeling of warmth creeping up my legs. A soft warmth, like slipping into a warm bath, but dry. It feels nice.

  I step over to the edge of a dune, and sit down on its ridge, the pleasurable sensation spreading to wherever the sand touches, and adjacent areas. I pick up some of the sand and let it run through my fingers, just staring at it.

  On a whim, I give the ridge a hug. Somehow, it feels like I am giving myself a hug. Not like I can feel the ground like I can feel my body, but more like even though it has the warmth of another person, I feel no presence other than myself.

  I begin to cry into the dry sand, making it turn brown as it soaks up my tears. I think of my family, my mother, my father, and my sister. Not my brothers, they were dicks. I remember, with perfect vividness, my hometown. The docks, the market, the waterways, everything was there in my mind.

  But I knew, with the utmost certainty, that those memories were fake.

  How was I to deal with the world when I have a mind full of fabricated memories? Who even made them? Did... Mother... Make them when she made the body? I can ask her the next time I see her.

  For now, I just want to enjoy my sand.

  I snuggle up against it, and I sink in as if it were giving me a hug. I panic for a moment, before realizing that I was comforting myself using the sand, and sink in further.

  It would seem that I have powers, much like Mother... I am curious as to what else I can do with them.

  By this time I've buried most of my body, but I pull my arm out and raise my head. "C'mon dune, make me a ball," I ask the sand a favor, and it complies, forming a ball about a hand's width of sand resting on the side of the dune. I have no idea how it stays together.

  Well, then it starts to roll down the slope. I make a little halfhearted grunt-groan and cry "noooooo," an expression which would have been cute on a girl, but I'm a... Girl. Damn, I need to get used to that. I give a little chuckle and watch my ball roll off into the great beyond.

  After a minute or two of cuddling with the sand, I figure that I should check up on Eth. I get on my hands and knees, cascades of sand running off of me. The hole I had just inhabited seemed solemn, lonely, as if pleading me to stay. I assured it that I would be back, and looked around for the cave I came out of.

  Almost immediately I find it. It IS kind of obvious, after all. A massive skull of some unknown creature with eight eyes and huge, colpsed horns is in front of me. I came out of the gap in between the teeth of the thing earlier, and I saw no way that the hallway could fit behind it.

  Spatial shenanigans.

  I enter the dipidated skull, to find myself back in the cave where I started. I stride with purpose out of the stone doors, pushing them out of my way, and marching down the hall to Eth's room.

  As I stand in front of Eth's room's banded wooden doors, I have to admit that her doors are of a bit nicer quality. I can, however, appreciate my doors' stonework. I'm not going to tell Eth that she has nicer doors. No way.

  Whatever, I push them open, somehow requiring the same amount of force that mine did, even though mine must be ten times more heavy. I find the room as I left it.

  I climb up the stairs, walk over to Eth's bed, and look at her. It doesn't seem like she has gotten any worse, which is somewhat reassuring. I sit down on the edge of her bed, and after getting a not insubstantial amount of sand on her bedsheets, I decide that I'm doing more harm then good, and look around for something else to do.

  There is an orb in an alcove at the end of a catwalk that spans the entire room. I cannot believe I didn't notice that earlier.

  I walk down the catwalk. It is in the rafters of the room, but it's still remarkably bright somehow. The orb at the end looks to have something in it, and as I approach, I get this trepidation, as if I am doing something wrong.

  I reach out to touch the ball, seeing inside a-

  A panicked scream comes from behind me, jolting me out of the trance I was sinking into. I spin around, flinging sand around me, to find Eth struggling in her bed.

  Aethernal