Chapter 65: 3.14

The new face floated between SpookyErind and me.

It was whitish silver in color, very shiny like silver chrome or something. Its cheek reflected my face clearly as if it was a mirror. It had the appearance of the face of a mannequin, the well-crafted ones with beautiful designs in the high-end department stores, not those crap ones you’d find in flea markets.

Curiously, it had no eyeholes, or eyes for that matter. But then again, mannequin heads didn’t have eyeholes either; I was just expecting it to look more like a mask. Deep grooves ran from the sides of its lips straight down to the bottom of its jaw, similar to a ventriloquist dummy whose mouth could move. It would be good if I could talk while transformed.

The last oddity on it was the symbol on the middle of its forehead. It appeared to be a representation of an eye crudely painted on the chrome surface, looking really out of place. The lines were uneven and shaky, the crimson paint was cracked and peeling in places.

A gold line appeared in the middle of the eye symbol, bisecting it. Then it opened, revealing an actual eye with a mesmerizing golden pupil.

“The fuck…” I blurted out. "That's creepy." A third eye? The eye was excitedly darting this way and that, too fast and erratic compared to a normal human eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if it popped out of its socket with its extremely jittery movements.

Don’t get weirded out now, this is going to be your new face. SpookyErind thrust it towards me.

I tried to move back, and that slow-motion-dream-thingy kicked in. “Wait! You’re telling me to wear it now?”

Yeshissiree! Come here and let me put it on you.

“Like when I wake up, I’ll be transformed?”

You should be. You need it.

“Before that!” I said, raising my voice. She stopped trying to put it on me, tilting her head from side to side questioningly like a cute puppy would. I said, “Can you tell me about it first? Its powers, the conditions for using it…its weaknesses and stuff?”

SpookyErind’s smile fell then turned to a frown.

Oops. I recalled she thought I was a total idiot when I couldn’t exactly figure out the power of the Blanchette face. And since we were the same, as she often repeated, that would imply she was an idiot too. “Uh, wait. A clue! Just give me a clue, a hint, whatever.”

A clue?

“Yeah. Like a game. Isn’t a game fun?”

She pouted while looking at the ceiling, considering my proposal. A clue…Hmmm… Honestly, you wouldn’t need one. This is a pretty straightforward face. Just point your finger at the appropriate target.

“Point my finger?”

Or fingers. Now, when I say straightforward, I mean you’ll understand what’s going on immediately because you’re such a bright girl. She poked my cheek with a claw. It hurt a bit. But all the nitty-gritty stuff you could do with it…and can’t do with it…that may be a bit confusing.

“Help me out here then. It wouldn’t be fun if I make a huge dumb mistake.”

You’ll figure it by testing it. It’s going to be enjoyable when you test out stuff so I won’t spoil it for you.

As I expected, she wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Point my finger? That was better than nothing. “Thanks for the clue,” I said. “But don’t get angry if I do something stupid, okay?”

Fine, I’ll give you something more. This one is also going to be pretty obvious, so it wouldn’t really spoil things, but it’s very important. Take care of your body.

“I guess that’s both obvious and important.” I made sure to make a mental note of that advice because it might have some hidden meaning knowing her. “Thanks! I’ll make sure it’s going to be entertaining when I eventually use it.”

Now.

“Now?”

Now.

I stared at SpookyErind’s grinning face while chewing my tongue. She did mention that if I wore it now, I’ll wake up transformed. I thought she was just excited for me to try it out, and maybe make fun of me. However, if that was her intent, why did she say, ‘You need it,' to me? I groaned. “There’s some shit waiting for me when I wake up, isn’t there?”

Maybe? she said playfully, her tone indicating that there weren’t only some, but rather lots of shit in the waking world.

“Ugh, my day still isn’t over…and it’s already the next day!”

Here, I’m going to put it on you now.

I didn’t resist. “How sweet,” I said sarcastically. “Oh! One last thing! You said I’ll be able to use this only for a few hours. How long is that exactly?”

I’m not sure…Give or take three hours of your time…Good luck…

 

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Tap, tap, tap…

Someone knocking again? I opened my eyes and I immediately knew that I had transformed. I was standing in front of my bedroom window. The curtains were drawn, the lights turned off. It was absolute darkness.

Yet, I could see everything clearly.

The color of my curtain, the minute patterns I hadn’t noticed before, and even its individual threads. It wasn’t that greenish thingy that night vision has—I didn’t know what that actually looked like, I only saw night vision as depicted on TV—but it was similar to how movies simulated total darkness, like there was a ton of stage lights around me.

I could weirdly tell it was absolute darkness but I could see everything…my brain hurt trying to understand this.

Tap…tap…

It wasn’t the door this time.

Something was tapping on my window.

Nothing good came out of scenes like these in horror movies. Even more worrying was the fact that I was on the 22^nd floor. My next enemy? Someone or something with flying powers? Was this the reason SpookyErind wanted me to transform?

The tapping continued, there was scratching and crunching sounds too. My window started to creak like it was getting pushed in. It didn’t sound like someone was outside my window…it was as if something was growing and pressing against it.

Time to test out my new powers!

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With one hand, I pulled the curtain aside and pointed at whatever was out there with all the fingers on my other hand. Nothing came out of my fingers.

Huh?

I slowly lowered my useless hand as I gazed at the spectacle outside my window. It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening.

Charcoal-colored vines as thick, or even thicker than my body, covered my window, blocking any view of the outside. Not even a hint of the bright moonlight could get in. They were growing, slithering, coiling around each other. It brought back a disgusting memory of a something I saw as a kid on the Animal Channel of a massive snake mating ball comprised of tons of snakes bonking each other.

“What the fuck,” I said, for the umpteenth time since I was brought into the world of Corebrings and Adumbrae. And I was able to speak! “Finally, yehey!”

My voice had a metallic clang to it and sounded a bit fake akin to a voice generator. Which was probably apt, seeing as I turned into something robotic. My hands had the same shade of silver as the face SpookyErind gave me. The joints on my fingers, wrists and arms were colored black, and were probably like a ball socket—or ball hinge, whatever the right term was—allowing me movement that wasn’t possible for normal human anatomy.

“Woah, this is neat,” I said as I rotated my arms the wrong way. I could even bend my fingers and touch the back of my hand. A cool trick, but I wasn’t sure if that could help in a fight. “But what do I do with this?” I said to no one in particular, just enjoying my weird voice, referring to the vines outside my window.

This must be the power of an Adumbrae. Was the entire building covered with vines? It wasn’t trying to enter my room, so I guess that wasn’t an immediate concern for now.

I turned around to go out of my bedroom—

“What the fuck,” I said as an unexpected sight greeted me. I rushed to my bed…to the body lying on it.

My body!

“Am I dead?” I knelt at the side of my bed and touched my face. In my vision, there was a gray tinge outlining my body. I hoped it didn’t mean I was deceased. I couldn’t check if my body was cold because I didn’t have human skin to feel temperature with.

My chest wasn’t moving. I put my ear over my nose and mouth but I couldn’t hear any breathing. I couldn’t feel even a hint of air on my cheek. Could I even feel that? I lightly touched my cheek and confirmed the answer was ‘no’. You don’t have skin, remember?

Mirror! Where’s a small mirror? I just took my cellphone on my bedside table and held it under my nose. No fog on the screen.

Next, a flashlight. I was about to open my drawer when I remembered I was already holding my phone. I pressed the screen for the fingerprint recognition. My phone lit up but didn’t unlock. You have no fingerprints, idiot! 

“Huh…still 1:01 a.m?” I said, reading the display on my phone screen. “Oh, it’s 1:02 a.m. now.” I didn’t get any sleep at all. No doubt it was some dream world fuckery courtesy of SpookyErind. Another thing I noticed with my phone was that I had no signal. If it was the city locking the signal once again, there would be advisory messages flooding my phone already, so it wasn’t that. It must be the vines enclosing the building.

I rummaged through my drawer and got a small flashlight. I pried open my eyelids and shone the light on my eyeball. It wasn’t moving.

I was practically dead.

Or perhaps it was more accurate to say my body was an empty shell. I couldn’t be dead because I was still here in my metal body. This must be one of the conditions for using the new face SpookyErind gave me.

Rule #7: Don’t do anything that would break the character of the face I have on. I didn’t expect it to be this blatant. And how could I break the character of my face when I was in a different body?

Was my body still alright? I could still return to it, right? I had to check.

I placed my fingers beneath my jawline, visualizing where the end of the face would be. This was how I took off the Blanchette face, and I assumed it would work this way for this face too.

I was about to remove my current face when SpookyErind’s words came back to me. She said I had to pay the 'fee’ each time this power was lent to me. It likely meant that if I removed the face now, I couldn’t summon it again without consuming the brains of Adumbrae and mutants. I just had to trust SpookyErind that my body was fine.

So, this was what she meant that I should take care of my body. She was right, this was pretty obvious...and important.

And I could already see this was going to be a hassle.

At least I could see my body now, compared to when I was transforming into Blanchette where my body just poofs to another freaking dimension.

Let’s reorient myself first. Okay…

I was up against someone powerful enough to wrap the whole condominium with these vines that had the color of cheese that dripped to the bottom of the oven while baking pizza and got burnt. I was only assuming it was the entire building—I had to check other floors to confirm this. But even if it was just my floor covered with these vines, it was still a wide area. And it wouldn’t make sense to just cover my floor if the purpose was to isolate and trap me because I could just go down to the next floor.

I had powers I had yet to discover, plus I also had to take care of my body. This wasn’t looking good.

With my work cut out for me, I should start with my first task: bringing my body with me.

I obviously couldn’t stay here. At first, I considered leaving my body in my room, maybe hiding it under my bed or in the closet, and returning for it after I’ve killed the enemy. But my goal was only to survive and escape safely. No need to fight whoever was this Adumbrae with vine powers. Plus, anyone targeting me would search my room; it was the stupidest place to hide my most important…possession—what a weird way to refer to my body—which was also my weakness. I also didn’t know how long these vines would stay out the window.

I rolled my body on the bed, wrapping it with my blanket like a sushi. Then I grabbed my body by the waist and threw it over my shoulder.

“Oh my god,” I blurted, as I staggered under the weight, nearly dropping to my knees. I gently lowered my human body to the floor, straining not to fall over. “Wow, do I need to diet?”

I raised my human legs and dropped them as a test. The sound they made as they hit the floor didn’t seem like they were heavier than usual. This led me to the conclusion that my new metal body was weak as fuck. I was about as weak as when I was a normal human.

While contemplating this added challenge, I dragged my body out of the bedroom and into the living room, holding it under the armpits, taking care of my neck and head. I then left the body on the floor and went to check what was outside my living room window.

Yep, tons of fucking vines here too.

Remembering something, I went back to my human body and dragged it into the kitchen part of my unit and arranged it next to the fridge. I had one last test to do.

I took my sharpest knife from the rack and unwrapped the blanket to find my human body’s hand. Holding the knife against the skin, I gently tried to slice my palm. It didn’t bleed. Good to know I was still tougher than a normal human. I slowly increased the force I used until my skin turned red. Then I sliced as hard as I could to make a wound. It was like slicing a tough old meat with a blunt paring knife.

Bright red blood flowed from the cut and dribbled down to my white blanket, making red polka dot patterns on it. I anxiously observed the wound and sighed in relief—metaphorically, as I couldn’t actually breathe—when it quickly healed. It was a good safety net that my human body still retained its durability and regenerative abilities. I could bung it up a bit. Funny that I was referring to it as my human body when I wasn’t human anymore.

Should I begin my daunting task of carrying my body to the elevator? I didn’t get tired at all. However, I sensed that I couldn’t push my metal body too much or it would fall apart. It wasn’t painful, but I could inexplicably feel the strain on my joints in a bizarre way when I dragged my human body out of my bedroom.

Knock, knock, knock.

Seriously? There was that fucker who kept on knocking my door.

Knock, knock, knock.

Should I answer it now?

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