A blessing, and a curse.

  I wouldn’t need to black out for a part of my life again.

  I hoped.

  I still looked the same. I rubbed my unsettled, flat stomach.

  Great. Can you let me use them?

  …

  Thanks.

  Was it me, or was the game system getting more and more chatty, now that I couldn’t talk?

  The pale woman had not returned. I had managed to find out who she was – the queen mother. I wondered how Calvin felt about her; I had met his real mother only once, but she had appeared to be a very friendly person.

  Calvin also hadn’t returned, and neither had the ravens. I was glad for the solitude. It meant that I was less likely to speak accidently, and there wouldn’t be anyone awkwardly tiptoeing around me, uncertain of how to speak to me.

  I certainly didn’t know how to speak with me.

  As the weeks passed, my body began to change. I would wake and find my ankles had swollen, or I had nausea, or cravings for strange and unattainable foods.

  I woke one evening to find blood on the sheets and ran wildly from the room, desperately seeking someone, anyone. I didn’t know what I needed, other than I was seized by a sudden and inescapable need for another person.

  One of the healers saw me; I brought her to the room.

  “These things can happen, my lady,” she said soothingly. “It does not mean the baby is in danger. But running around will not help you. You must eat nourishing food and rest.”

  The baby.

  Oh god, there was a baby inside me.

  I woke in bed and I could see it now, the changed curve of my stomach. Inside there was another lifeform.

  I woke in bed and the curve was bigger.

  And I woke in bed and the curve was even bigger.

  Breathe breathe breathe

  Stay quiet.

  God, help me.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Apparently, it meant that the nausea and the swelling and the bleeding cleared up, which was nice.

  My abdomen continued to swell.

  Every day, I measured the growth with my hands. Thumbtip to thumbtip, I stretched my hands across my midsection. I prodded.

  One day the thing inside prodded back.

  The movement sent my heart into overdrive.

  Oh god, it’s real. It’s alive and it’s real.

  Something was growing inside me, and every day I was being reminded of it.

  Stay quiet.

  I slept and ate and stared at the wall and slept and ate.

  Spin. Spin!

  Thanks. I’m so happy, I want to die.

  God, I’m not even hiding the fact I’m talking to myself anymore.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Oh? You’re listening? That’s funny, given the number of times you’ve ignored me or deliberately misunderstood me.

  I thought so.

  The baby kicked again.

  Maybe you’ll be a better conversationalist. I suppose I should give you a name… A name bubbled to the forefront of my mind and I had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from giggling insanely and ruining everything.

  Sukju. Hahahaha Sukju, why not? You’re creeping me out but ultimately, you’ll be helping me. It’s the same as that little guy… I wonder what happened to it…

  The skin over my stomach stretched until marks began to appear.

  Sleepless, I lay in bed in the middle of the night and wondered how the fuck I had ended up here. The thing inside me kicked and I felt every nerve in my body thrum with horror.

  Sukju, could you please just stay still? Wait, no, then you might be dead. I don’t know anymore!

  Would I have had the same reaction to pregnancy if I had been with someone I loved deeply, if together with them I had experienced the act of creating a child, rather than whatever the hell had happened here?

  There was no way of knowing.

  Would I ever want to have a child in the real world?

  As of this moment… no. Absolutely not.

  Can you blame me, Sukju?

  I looked at my abdomen. It seemed larger.

  I looked out through the window. The sun was tracking across the western half of the sky.

  How much time had passed? What the hell was happening to night and day?

  Everything strained and twisted and my vision went dark at the edges.

  Already?

  My entire body strained.

  It didn’t really hurt, not compared to the slice of a sword or the stab of an arrow. This was a rolling ache, an uncontrollable squeezing that seemed to involve my bones.

  The perks of a Level 8 Endurance Stat, right, Sukju?

  But then the movement started, the feeling of something slowly being forced out of me, and it was no longer about pain but the unknown, unwanted sensation, liquid and straining –

  Oh fuck. This… Sukju, you’re really coming out. This is really happening.

  No

  Stay quiet.

  No

  Skip skip skip Lee Wai Meng where the hell are you Jesse Peach Calvin help –

  What I had perceived as a deafening, rushing sound in my head was suddenly resolved as the room filled with black birds. Seven ravens forced their way into the room through a narrow window in the stone, their large wings filling the room with the sound of flapping.

  They settled all around the bed, and I deliriously opened my mouth to call out to them, only to feel slick feathers shoved over my tongue.

  Stay quiet.

  God, help me.

  My entire lower body spasmed rapidly and I tried to scream, dizzy with fear, but there was a bird’s wing in my throat so I bit down instead. The raven I was biting cawed in agony but did not withdraw.

  My body pushed without pause. Everything was a whirl of stone and black feathers and stars, sparkling and exploding in my vision, my world narrowed down to the crushing sensation in my hips and stomach.

  I couldn’t even remember to stay quiet. I could barely breathe with the raven feathers clogging my throat and I tried to bat the bird away, but the others flapped at my hands, and in the confusion I could only flail and strike wildly.

  I can’t breathe.

  Stay quiet.

  I can’t… Fuck fuck fuck

  God fucking…

  System, Game, God, whatever you are, shut the fuck up!

  I went back to trying to scream.

  Shut up! Do you want to have to do this over again? What if it’s the full seven years this time?

  My hands made bunches in the rough bedsheets as I clenched my teeth into the black feathers and screwed my eyes shut.

  Stay quiet.

  Push.

  In silence, I strained for an impossibly long time.

  Something was crying.

  Suddenly I was limp on the bed, drenched in sweat and trembling. I spat out the mangle remains of a feather. The ravens cawed and flew about the room, now filled with people who waved their arms, trying to herd them out. One person was issuing frantic orders.

  “Chase those birds out! Take the child away. Keep it quiet. Hurry!”

  The healer disappeared from the room immediately, pursued by several of the ravens before she could shut the door behind her. I glimpsed the top of a bald, wrinkled and red head in her arms, and that was all I ever saw of the creature I had carried inside me.

  Where are they taking Sukju?

  It was a pale woman who was speaking, and as I managed to focus on her, she pointed to another healer. “Quickly, take some of the blood and smear it on her mouth.”

  The queen mother.

  Oh no you don’t.

  I scrambled from the bed and was caught instantly by several healers. I was stronger than them, but not strong enough. Something slimy and wet slid around my legs. Even as the remaining ravens dived at their faces, and I managed to shake off one, another healer grabbed onto me, and I felt something warm and wet smudged over my face, metal seeping between my lips. Struggling only made it worse; when I was finally released, the blood was all over my nose too. I grabbed the bedsheets and began to spit and scrub at my lips frantically.

  There seemed to be blood everywhere.

  There was, actually. My thighs weren’t just slick with sweat.

  And then the queen mother screamed.

  The door burst open.

  “What’s happening?” Calvin demanded. His eyes darted over the calling ravens scattered through the room, including the one trailing its broken wing as it hopped off the bed, then found me and widened as he realised what he was looking at. I looked down at myself, at the red and white smears over my legs, and the long tendril that seemed to be growing out of me. My body was still pushing, I realised.

  My knees gave out and I collapsed in a puddle of blood and mucus, the tendril creeping out from below the hem of my dress flopping over my shins.

  Oh god, what is that? Get it out!

  I grabbed at it and pulled, and felt a sudden sharp pain in my pelvis. It was attached to me.

  I stuffed my fingers in my mouth and bit, barely registering the crackle of cartilage between teeth.

  Calvin turned a green face towards one of the healers. “What is going on with this?”

  “It’s… We weren’t able to assist the lady with her afterbirth before she –”

  “Then help her now!”

  “She ate the child!” the queen mother screamed dramatically.

  I ate Sukju?

  “… What?”

  “Look at her mouth! That blood!” the woman wailed as though she had been stabbed. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

  I clapped as I was led back to the bed.

  “Lady… Please lie still. It could take some time for the afterbirth to be delivered.”

  Calvin rubbed his eyes wearily. “M… Mother. Where is the… baby?”

  “I told you! She ate it!”

  “In the space of ten minutes?” he yelped, flinging down his hands. “Bones and everything? With all of you here? Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “She’s a monster! A witch!” the queen mother insisted. “Look at these birds here! Why would a normal person have a flock of ravens with them?”

  I caught a glimpse of her face behind her hands and tears.

  Good. You should be worried. Did you think that would work?

  “Your royal mother could be right, Your Majesty,” piped up one of the healers. “There’s a reason why the lady doesn’t speak. She must be cursed by the devil.”

  Actually, I’m cursed by this damned game, isn’t that right, Sukju?

  Oh no, I’m still talking to Sukju like this.

  “With all of you here?” Calvin repeated. The healers all became very invested in the state of the floor.

  Handing me one of his mechanical pens and a sheet of paper that I realised had to be made from the crushed fibres of some cultivated plant, Calvin said, “What happened?”

  Wiping self-consciously at my face and scrubbing my hands on the bedspread, I shakily wrote a summary of the events, gratified to see the queen mother’s already pale face grow even paler.

  “She can write?” I heard her mutter. “Why did no-one tell me she could write?”

  I smiled at her.

  She recoiled and crossed herself. “My God, did you see that smile? She’s insane! There’s blood on her teeth!”

  “Enough,” Calvin growled. It was impressive to see him properly angry for once. Lee Wai Meng’s antics couldn’t provoke him to respond so forcefully. Turning to the door, he spoke to whoever stood outside, beyond my line of vision. “Put the queen mother and all the healers here into the dungeons. Sound the alarm, and find that healer with the baby.”

  Wow. Dad can actually command people when he’s angry, huh, Sukju?

  When my brain actually comprehended the words I had just thought, the discordance between them and the truth I was burying in the depths of my unconscious made me pass out instantly.