"I trace the past like lines on my skin."

  Noor sat on the windowsill, her forehead pressed against the cold glass. Her eyes dilated as she stared at the moon - pale and distant, between the dark clouds that drowned the city in a relentless downpour, just like every night she remembered.

  "Drifting through the echoes of a love we left behind."

  Her lips were chapped, torn from restless chewing. Her pale fingers moved absently over her stomach in slow, circular motions. The oversized clothes draped over her bony frame pooled around her on the windowsill, her hair split and greasy.

  Her phone was discarded, muted, and turned over so as to not see the thousands of messages that bombarded her and the hundreds of calls that she missed.

  "I hold on to pieces, but they slip through."

  The room lay in disarray - clothes and pillows scattered haphazardly across the floor, tiny circular pills crushed into the carpet while a scant few remained whole, their bottles empty and strewn about throughout the living room.

  “Love that once burned now fades into blue.”

  Papers remain scattered atop the living room table, words bolded on their tops: ‘Divorce Agreement’, ‘Medical Billing Invoice’, and in the center of it all, half crumpled: ‘Noor Andersen – Left the stage?’ Alongside, many barely touched dishes, cold and forgotten.

  Tables askew, chairs randomly littered the room, some broken and turned over.

  Her gaze drifted to the streets below. Cars weaved through traffic, tires splashing water on those who walked on the pavement. Friends and couples rushing towards the nearest place to gain shelter from the rain, giggling and smiling.

  Singles sitting in cafés, sipping their coffee, fingers dancing over keyboards, and taking long drags of their cigarettes in between their sips.

  Each one looked far more alive and vibrant than herself.

  “Maybe in another life, all would be right.”

  Her sunken, bruised eyes shifted to the small white one-piece in her lap – embroidered with a hand-stitched orange carrot. A matching white as snow cap cradled in her lap, its puff ball pressed against her other arm. It was perfect for warmth for the city’s year-round rainy weather.

  Tears threatened to spill, but none came. There were none left to shed.

  Slowly, she pushed herself off the windowsill, clutching the tiny onesie and puff-ball cap to her chest. Her feet glided across the room, stepping over the mess, and leaning against the walls for support; most of her energy had left her days prior. With trembling hands, she nudged open the door to the room beside her bedroom.

  Dark forest green walls and the scent of a rainy forest greeted her.

  The floor was covered in plush toys, and the walls were adorned with photographs and stickers. One picture stood out - her former self, vibrant and full of life, leaning against a tall, broad-shouldered man. His arm cradled her belly, which was round and full. Her smile was radiant, and her eyes were alight with mirth as she cradled her belly.

  Weeks later, everything changed.

  Her gaze fell upon the standing crib, its toy chandelier slowly spinning. Stars and oddly shaped planets dangled from it - something Schmit had insisted their baby needed.

  Noor stood in the doorway, unmoving, transfixed by the crib and its swaying toy chandelier.

  A faint flicker of light returned to her eyes.

  She turned away and drifted back into the living room, dragging a kitchen chair behind her. She placed it in the corner of the room beside the windowsill.

  She stared through the windowsill one last time, looking to the moon for answers she did not know how to find.

  Slipping the golden band from her finger - a beautiful diamond set in its crown - she hesitated before placing it beside the tiny onesie and cap.

  Then, with a final breath, she closed the blinds.

  And stepped atop the chair, reaching upwards.

  Noor shot up with a sharp inhale, eyes wide, her palms pressed against the wet stone floor. Panic surged through her as both hands flew to her neck, rubbing the spot where, just minutes ago, she was certain she had died. She'd done it herself.

  She welcomed it.

  That thing - the strange white humanoid - had sent her here. At first, she had thought it was God. She had screamed at it, cursed it for taking her baby away. She had raged against it for giving her a body so weak that it left her barren after the miscarriage. She had shouted at it for what felt like hours, pouring out all her grief and fury.

  But it simply listened.

  And when she was finally spent, it corrected her.

  It wasn’t God.

  It was something called a System Aspect.

  The details of their exchange blurred in her mind. She barely remembered what was said, only that, in her exhaustion, she had dismissed the whole thing as a hallucination - either her pills had been laced at the factory, or she was creating some sort of fucked up scenario in her head before she died.

  So, when it told her to choose, she picked something at random. A Mage, or whatever it was called - something to do with magic. It hadn’t mattered to her then, it was ridiculous.

  Now, moonlight filtered through a crack in the ceiling of the cave she found herself in, casting a glow over the puddles that dotted the stone floor.

  She felt… nothing.

  No cold. No warmth. Everything was muted, distant.

  Glancing down, she recognized the oversized shirt and sweatpants she wore—Schmit’s clothes. Her ex-husband’s. But what she didn’t recognize were the bone-thin, gnarled hands emerging from her sleeves.

  Pale. White. Almost corpse-like.

  Noor’s breath hitched as she lifted her arms, turning them over and flexing her fingers. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? It wouldn’t have been the first time it happened, nor the fifth.

  Slowly, she crawled towards the nearest puddle.

  Her reflection stared back at her.

  She recoiled instantly, hands flying to her face. The faint sensation against her fingertips was… leathery. Her hair—gone, and her face was warped and gnarled. Her bone, leathery skin clung to her skull like a glove, devoid of all fat and muscle. Around her neck were thick, deep-red red X-shaped patchwork scars.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Noor was speechless.

  Her throat was hoarse as she whispered, "I’m a monster..."

  Self-loathing slithered into her thoughts, whispering that this was how she was always meant to look—how she deserved to look. It was her fault her baby was gone. This was her punishment.

  She was in hell.

  And she deserved it

  The spiral of guilt that flooded her shattered when, suddenly, the cave was flooded with a blinding red glow that made her wince.

  A massive sigil ignited in the air before her, its symbols shifting and pulsing in an intricate, circular pattern. The moment it appeared, the muddled haze in her mind vanished, as if wiped clean.

  In its place, a singular, undeniable urge gripped her:

  Touch it.

  "The hell?" Noor muttered, shaking off the last of her daze. With unsteady legs, she pushed herself up and stepped forward.

  Barefoot, she crossed the puddles and jagged stones, yet she still felt nothing. No sharp sting, no icy chill. Everything remained dulled, distant.

  Stopping in front of the sigil, she studied its swirling, shifting symbols, moving as though physics had stopped applying to them. It was... .

  "Those pills were definitely laced," Noor thought, pulling her shirt slightly over her shoulder, her distorted face faintly reflecting in the red light.

  Gaining a sliver of courage, she reached out.

  The glow bathed her hand, but… nothing happened.

  Frowning, she lowered her fingers onto the sigil. The instant she touched it, the red light exploded outward, engulfing the entire cavern.

  Noor gasped and tried to yank her hand back—but it wouldn’t budge.

  It was stuck. As if superglued to the sigil itself.

  Seconds passed; there was no pain. No burning. No agony.

  Slowly, Noor cracked her eyes open.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  In front of her stood the largest cathedral she’d ever seen. “I’ve seen quite a few whilst on tour, but this takes the cake,” she muttered under her breath.

  The cathedral in question looked like something out of one of the many Victorian-era Gothic Fantasy novels she had read when she was younger.

  It loomed over her, looking larger than any building she’d ever seen, its towering spires piercing the storm-heavy clouds that looked to be raining, but not a drop of water touched her nor the graveyard she found herself in.

  Its stone walls were pristine and untouched by time, while gargoyles and skeletal statues perched along the parapets, their hollow eyes with tufts of green flame within, watched over the building, waiting for any signs of an attack.

  The cathedral’s towering stained-glass windows glowed a dull golden light, shining murals of various creatures into the clouds above, each one sending chills down her spine.

  As she walked down the cobblestone path, lit by tall garden street lamps, she took in the graveyards on their side of her.

  Tombstones and mausoleums littered the graveyard, some crumbling and skewed, some perfect and pristine, and some covered in talismans and seals. Some even had small skeleton fairies that zipped around cleaning them up.

  As Noor stood in front of the cathedral, her eyes widened as the giant metallic doors, etched with anguished beings on their knees and bowing before a figure on a throne, opened as though beckoning her inside.

  Rubbing her torso absentmindedly, Noor took in a breath before walking through the doors, eyes covered by her hand from the golden glow the inside of the cathedral cast.

  Blinking a few times, she found herself in the middle of a grand hall filled to the brim with undead creatures such as zombies, skeletons, and others that looked just like her.

  Normally, she would freak out, but…nothing. Not even a spark of fear welled up within her.

  This was abnormal.

  Suddenly, the lights in the grand hall darkened, and a balcony above became lit, shining on forty individuals, most of whom were different types of undead, ranging from Vampires, Ghouls, Draugrs, Blightborns, Ossesieges, and many more.

  Noor thought, shocked at how she knew the names of these beings that stared down at her.

  Suddenly, a heavy weight appeared atop everyone’s shoulders, slamming them to the floor. Fear and horror filled the cores of everyone that stood in the grand hall, sending thousands of images of ways they could die within an instant before the oppressive weight vanished, causing all within the hall to collapse onto the floor.

  Noor’s head bounced off the ornate flooring, her head spinning as she tried to remember what had just happened and what had caused the searing pain from her nose.

  Touching her nose, she felt something damp on her pale fingers, she found them stained with a black liquid. In a moment of curiosity, she rubbed her fingers together, trying to feel the texture of the liquid that came from her nose.

  “…You act too harshly, Mourna Draeven,” replied a Ghoul as she raised her arm forward and curled her fingers, the back of her palm facing the floor.

  Initially, the voice of the ghoul sounded like scraping on a chalkboard, but after a second, Noor could understand what she said.

  “Welcome all to the 72nd cycle’s Undead Tutorial,” the ghoul introduced, eyes shining as the undead below her gathered their bearings and shakily stood up. “I am Orric Luthara, your head overseer of Undead Tutorial number 4.”

  “I’m sure many of you are all curious as to what is going on and why you all look like the way you are,” Orric continued. “All will be explained in time, but first, I would like to say we are all here to help you on your Journeys, for all we do is for the sake of the Undead Wake.”

  The blightborn raised their slime-like tendrils into the air, and thousands of varied colored fist-sized orbs zipped from behind them and around the grand hall, stopping just in front of everyone.

  Hers was a light orange sphere that hovered in front of her, producing a soft buzzing sound, reminding her of the bees that buzzed past her when she walked past the flower shop on her way to the studio.

  “In front of you is a Symbiros,” the blightborn explained in between the gurgles that escaped him. “They are symbiotic parasites that, when bonded, dampen your extreme emotions and bolsters two stats of your choice.”

  “And before you start questioning, this is due to the sudden and extreme change in your Race,” the Blightborn explained. “Since all of you died only days or hours before the System’s Integration, it likely feels as if you just died minutes ago.”

  The blightborn paused, letting what he said sink in. “As such, it is quite obvious that many of you would develop and gain a variety of mental afflictions. This is a well-documented, widely discussed, and thoroughly addressed issue throughout the history of the Undead Wake. The Symbiros only dampens the most extreme of emotions and bolsters your growth; it does not brainwash any individual, and when you reach E-Grade, the Symbiros would harmlessly vanish, and its influence over your emotions would vanish.”

  “W-Why does it stay until E-Grade?” a shaky voice asked from the middle of the crowd, causing everyone to turn to face the speaker. Who tried her best to shrink herself and focus on the ground.

  “By then, you would have enough acceptance about what you’ve become and understand that what you’ve become is not a curse, it’s a blessing.” Orric chimed in before a sultry smile took her face. “Not to mention you can change the way you look; a couple inches here, gain more curves there, and so on.”

  “Ca-an we choose not to t-take the Symbis?” a zombie beside Noor asked.

  “You can choose not to take the Symbiros, it is your choice,” Mourna the Ossesiege answered, his voice booming throughout the hall. “However, you will be held under much more scrutiny to ensure you do not harm your peers, and you will not gain the stat bonuses as your peers with their Symbiros’s will.”

  “Both those who take the Symbiros and those who do not will still be held in the same regard, there is no hierarchy among you…yet,” Mourna continued. “Those who do not meet the standard will be dealt with and easily sent to the True Slumber.”

  Seeing how everyone quieted down, Orric waved her hand to activate the lights. “You may now bond with your Symbiros if you so wish, and once you do, you can confirm that you have in your Status Page.”

  Seeing how the people around her reached out to touch the Symbiros in front of them, Noor hesitantly reached out to the one in front of her, when a screen appeared in front of her eyes, jerking her head back slightly.

  Symbiros Bond:

  Would you like to bond with Symbiros? If so, select which version you so wish. However, once you accept, the Symbiros will be attached to your soul until your evolution, and your extreme emotions will be dampened until then.

  Clicking the Mage version of the Symbiros Bond, the light orange Symbiros wiggled in the air for a bit before shooting towards her chest and disappearing.

  Noor stepped back in shock from its sudden actions, but not a moment later, she felt a trill of joy from her gut.

  Noor fell to her knees, mouth covered as tears welled up in her eyes.

  Trills of concern and prodding were felt within her gut as she hunched over, nodding her head with tearful eyes.

  “I’m okay, baby,” Noor whispered as she rubbed her stomach. “Mommy’s here.”

  Noor Andersen

  Race: Withered Husk F-Grade Lv 0

  Class: Mage Lv 0

  Profession: *Empty*

  Health: 50/50

  Mana: 120/120

  Tenacity: 0/50

  Stats:

  Strength: 5

  Tenacity: 5

  Agility: 6

  Intelligence: 8

  Core Integrity: 12

  Perception: 9

  Free Points: 0

  Skills:

  Manabolt (Initiate)

  Mana Shield (Initiate)

  Identify (Initiate)

  Undead Communion (Innate)

  Affinity:Undeath Affinity (Common)

  Bonds:Symbiros – Mage (Uncommon)

  Tutorial Points:0

  Orric and many of the other female assistants noticed the exchange and grimly looked at one another, their looks only turning grimmer as they noticed a few others who had similar reactions.

  Orric sent a Telepathic link to the Vampire on her left,

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