Searing pain grew within her chest, uncomfortable heat grew and the metallic taste of blood assaulted her tongue, mouth dry and a feeling of thirst was prevalent. Breathing ragged, shallow and quick. Exsanguinating crimson fluids from her wound. Alicia’s mind was in a confused state, still through it all she knew that she didn’t have much time. She tried to focus, attempting to use the leftover points she had left, but in daze it was foggy and difficult to grasp. Her sight was blurred, heat was now replaced by a numbing cold and lethargy set in. She felt as if she was getting sleepy.

‘Now is… not the time… to lose consciousness…’ The mental image of her soul was distant and it was quite the effort to focus on it, especially with the pain distracting.

First thing that caught her attention was the newly updated state…

‘Blood loss… too much…’ she hacked up blood filled saliva, followed by coughs that further expelled vital liquids. As a silver lining, she had an influx of added points to use. She placed her hopes on acquiring a skill that might help…

‘Consti…tution… … … ’

‘re...gener… … …’ unfortunately before she could use them her consciousness further escaped her… As she was still, clinging on to her last straws of senses…

• ‘It’s okay… I will help…’ hushed and monotonous yet somewhat soothing voice told her so… It was a voice that would ring inside her head from time to time.
• ‘A… … … l…’

Bright light stimulated her blurry vision. A sense of déja vu came over to her… It was almost as though she never left this place at all; disturbing yet intimate…

• “Oh, you’re finally back, excellent. I was getting worried you know.”

A woman greeted her. Regaining her sight it was a place familiar. ‘Didn’t expect to be back here again… Am I bad at staying alive or something…?’ 

• “We’ve been trying to reach you for a while now. Not that you’d know. You just disappeared after we sent you off. It doesn’t help that there aren’t any locals we could work with… nevermind that it's a good thing that you’re here.”

A woman, dressed in what appears to be office attire, sitting behind a large executive desk, kept talking on by herself… Though the voice was different than what she remembered, it had the same tone and feeling as…

• “You look different…”
• “As if you’re the one to talk.”

‘Hasn’t lost the smug attitude though.’

• “And you haven’t stopped having rude thoughts.”
• “I don’t usually converse with a shape-shifting god. What’s with the getup?”
• “Hm, I know not what you see me as, we are by all accounts have no fixed form or shape.”
• “What is that supposed to mean?”
• “In other words, we’re simply incomprehensibly different from anything you know that your mind can’t fathom us, but by nature as a sapient being your cognition instead fills in the unknown with what it does know to make sense of it and by result we appear different to each individual. Their cultural background, life they led, time period they were in all affects their perception. Perhaps you’d be familiar with this form?”

On cue the woman’s figure shifted, appearing to blur out of existence. In her place adorning a black robe, a skeleton, bleached white, old and cracked. The area around where the eyebrows should be on the frontal bone of the skull were thick and exaggerated forming a fierce countenance. The arrival of the avatar of death was accompanied by irrational, primal fear that welled up from within, a fear of death shared by all lifeforms and overwhelmly crushing melancholy that evokes nihilism.

• “Well…? I won’t deny that some of us have… predisposition to a certain look… Especially the Grim Reaper… is quite the classic…”

Although not as staggering as expected, the god’s atmosphere still was unsettling. Clawing at the back of one’s mind… Though for Alicia it didn’t faze her…

• “I appreciate the demonstration but to be frank I prefer your former appearance.”
• “Some nerve you have…

Was it a blink? Do I even have eyelids? Before anything could be thought or said the entity had assumed it’s previous image.

• Those who faced death and were saved by the light share an unusual connection to us… Enough banter, onto the business.”

She had expected this would come. There wasn’t any reason for her to be here again.

• “Not getting a third chance am I?”
• “What’s that? No, I think you’re misunderstanding something, you’re not dead. We were supposed to reach you shortly after we sent you off but unexpectedly we lost your whereabouts.”

The statement came as a shock to Alicia who just had a very real near death experience and believed herself to have died, twice.

• “You’re here because we had to essentially pull you out forcibly before something worse happened before calibrating your soul scrying.”
• “You guys have some seriously bad timing, that I can’t even laugh at it…”

‘Still how could I be alive when I don’t have a heart…?’

• “You think of strange things don’t you? Besides, time doesn’t work the same way as you know over here, so I can’t pick a proper ‘time’ you know.”
• “So I can go back then…?”
• “Shortly, you’ve made some progress with your soul it seems, I just need to tie up some loose ends and we’ll send you back. Once calibration is done it should be more interactive. Plus you can reach us through your soul sometimes and of course the other way around. Another thing to add, we got your would have been daughters all sorted out. Someone else is getting triplets that's all.

‘For some reason it sounded particularly malicious…’

• That’s just your imagination. We’re still working on tweaking some ends with your would have been future wife.

It would’ve been easier to have her croak up and make a replacement…”

Catching the ominous mutterings Alicia couldn’t help but to comment against it.

• “Can you stop with the sinister remarks? When it’s coming from God of death it sounds like a real threat.”
• “Done, now to send you back. Since you’ve figured out how to use soul scrying on your own, I’m sure you can guess how the interactive functions work as well.”
• “You are spiteful.”
• “I. am. not.”

That being the god’s last fading sentence, brightness filled her vision.

Returning to her body she was welcomed back by pain. ‘Right… I’m still gored by this thing… before anything else goes south…’

‘Isn’t that… bad? Gotta hurry then… The bulldozer boar did give me tons of points… though I can’t say I enjoyed the shishkebab experience…’

‘Regeneration please, I’ll go with 5 if that isn’t enough, go all the way… Before I get distracted by the pain again…

Even her thoughts were disturbed due to pulsating ache, plainly shown on her grimacing face.

I’ll pick up Dynamic Nociception too since I have some surplus… before I dislodge myself from this thing… It’s going to hurt like hell without it…’

Effective immediately, Alicia was finally free from the torment thanks to the latter skill. Finally able to draw breath again, metaphorically of course.

‘That’s much better… But isn’t regrowing whole limbs and organs kind of freaky…? Well maybe not that much I know liver can regrow to an extent… Limbs err… lizards maybe I’m not a lizard am I?

As for Dynamic nociception it’s now more like having a nagging ache than being miserable with a tusk driven into you. Though I can’t say I appreciate having to feel phantom pain… but it’s probably better to feel them than to completely shut it off…’

Before anything she inspected the damage to herself. Where she was pierced some  clear viscous fluid with a tint of blue was gently oozing out. Touching it with her hands she knew what it was not from any informed opinion but through instinct.

‘Blood…? Not human but… still mine… Ah… of course… I’m not alone…’ Her gaze followed downwards and rested on her other half briefly…
‘I can live without a heart or a lung and maybe few other organs so long as my other self is ‘fine’ and it probably probably works the other way around as well. To what extent of damage I can receive and still live… I hope I won't need to find out.

• Hey, Alice?
• …?
• I owe you one.
• No problem?

She is getting better at communicating…’

With some effort Alicia removed herself off the corpse's remarkable canine protrusion. Once free, blood that was pressed in was let loose, freely flowing out of the entry, the crimson liquid pooling underneath her before being cut short by blue fluid coagulating the flow, forming into cloudy semi-transparent clot.

‘It’s like a dried up hot glue mixed with blue paint… Even without taking a breath I don’t feel like I need to… How in the hell spiders breathe anyway? Well I don’t think I can explain how humans breathe to a spider…’

Now at last knowing that she won’t die yet, a sigh of relief left her lips. The putrid smell of partially liquefied remains of the swine's head tickled the nostrils. ‘My venom is kind of scary huh… Ah I need to change from this shirt, bloody and torn, not gonna do me well. Good thing I made some spares back at the tree, they’re going to be useful now.’

With the dangerous encounter settled, Alicia goes to the one place she’s familiar with. Great oak tree that she made home of. Though not before being lost in the woods for a good amount of time…