“-dy! Daddy!”

  It was a child’s voice, and he was crying. Hiccuping sobs broke each call for his father, and Pandy wondered vaguely if he was all right. Then she realized he obviously wasn’t, and somehow that was enough to allow the distant sense of curiosity to fade away again, leaving her floating in a dim, emotionless void.

  “What is it, Thaniel?” The much-deeper voice sounded almost as distracted as Pandy. “Where’s Lian?”

  “He’s reading,” the little boy said, in a voice equally full of tears and disdain. “He said I should just bury it. But it’s not really dead, is it, Daddy?”

  At this, Pandy was actually glad she couldn’t see what was going on. She got terribly squeamish at the sight of blood, and somehow she doubted if having no stomach at the moment would save her from nausea.

  That said, she’d really like to get on with the business of being reincarnated, if that was what was going on. Or had that already happened, and she was listening from inside the womb of her new mother? Were the two people she could hear speaking her new father and older brother?

  There was a long pause, and then the man said, “Ah, Thaniel-” in a terribly reluctant tone. In response, the boy dissolved into even louder sobs, interspersed with the occasional wail of misery. The man made several efforts at trying to coax him out of his complete breakdown, each time only managing to evoke more and more pathetic howling.

  At last, when it seemed like the boy would add vomiting to his repertoire of anxiety-inducing sounds, the father said, “Oh! Ah, it seems I was, ah, perhaps mistaken!” in a tone that rang patently false to Pandy’s ears.

  Not to the boy’s, however, because he ceased his howling with suspicious speed. “Really?” he demanded.

  “Yes, yes. I just need to, er, take it into my laboratory for a few moments. I’ll bandage it up, and it’ll be good as new in no time.” The sound of footsteps followed these overly cheerful words, and then a door clicked closed with great finality.

  Pandy felt herself pulled along, which was a very strange sensation. She knew she was moving, but since hearing was her only functional sense at the moment, and she couldn’t hear her nonexistent self being dragged through the ether, she had no idea how she knew she’d moved. She also had no idea how she knew she was no longer alone in that void, but she was very sure she wasn’t. Whatever was out there was very unhappy about the whole business, too.

  “Not exactly what I was looking for,” the man muttered, distracting Pandy from the sense that she was being watched, “but it’ll do, I suppose. I almost had the…” His voice trailed off into indistinguishable mumbling, broken by some rather disturbing rasping and squelching sounds.

  Pandy spent the time trying to be as small as possible. Since she was, as far as she could tell, currently nonexistent – or at least noncorporeal – that should have been easy, but somehow it wasn’t. No matter how she tried to move, hide, or simply vanish into nothing, the sensation of being watched only grew stronger.

  She was just beginning to feel like a particularly puny mouse being stalked by a puma when the man made a satisfied, “Ha!” sound, then began to speak aloud again. The words sounded like gibberish, though Pandy had to admit she wasn’t particularly well-traveled – or poorly-traveled for that matter – so it could have been Swahili or Klingon for all she knew. She’d nearly had a friend in high school who spoke Klingon, but the other girl had had to move away after that unfortunate incident with the pickle.

  The man’s voice rose in volume until he was almost shouting, and Pandy felt her spirit – soul? ghost? – begin to move again. Unfortunately, the other thing also began to move in the same direction, and soon Pandy realized she did indeed still have another sense. Touch. And her sense of touch was telling her that whatever she was brushing up against was spiky, scratchy, slimy, and somehow just very unpleasant in general.

  Something grabbed onto her, and it felt like she’d just stuffed her face into a hat full of wasps. She’d only done that once, but it was an experience to remember, and after she got out of the hospital, she’d always been very careful to check inside any clothing items which were left outside. Pandy began to thrash, desperately trying to shake the thing off, but she only got a sensation of malignant amusement as pain began to mount.

  A very familiar object appeared in the nothingness in front of her. The heart-shaped SPIN! button looked a little the worse for wear, with a bit of smoke trailing up from a blackened edge, but without thinking, Pandy flailed her nonexistent hand toward it.

  In Gacha Love, the player had many choices to make, all of which could affect the game. Sometimes innocuous-seeming decisions, like which color hair ribbon to wear, had massively disproportionate consequences. Each time these choices were offered, the options available to you were limited or controlled by every other decision you’d made before.

  Unless, of course, you used the gacha button. You could only use it once every four hours, unless you wanted to pay real money to reset the timer, but it would unlock one additional option that was reasonable, but would otherwise not be available. Most of them were useless, but of course, if you paid even more money, you could narrow down the possibilities to ones which would actually improve your situation, even if only by a little.

  Pandy had never paid money, so she was limited to the once-every-four-hours rule, but when she did spin, she always, always got the best possible option. Her character always had maximum affection with all four of the marriage candidates, and she had the best weapon and armor in the game. Once, she even ‘inherited’ a – haunted – mansion as a result of a spin that otherwise would have yielded nothing better than five hundred gold crowns.

  Now, when she saw that button hanging invitingly in empty space, she didn’t even hesitate. Whatever her options normally would have been in this situation, she didn’t like them at all. So she pushed the button.

  Instantly, it went through the usual series of flashing lights, the letters glittering like diamonds inlaid on its surface. A trill of music – a single bar of the game’s iconic opening song – sounded, and the thing that had latched onto Pandy’s soul like a leech suffering from a deficit of hugs was ripped away. Through her pain, Pandy heard a furious, reluctant shriek, which seemed to take a very long time to dwindle away entirely.

  Pandy herself felt the pulling sensation resurge, as if it hadn’t been certain whether it should grab onto her or her attacker, and its decision had now been made for it. She was dragged through…whatever it was that she’d been floating in, and deposited very abruptly into a body.

  Blinking open her eyes, Pandy tried to raise her head. It felt very odd, almost like she was still hovering just outside of her own skin, but she managed to move enough that the man gave a shout of glee followed by what Pandy might have described as ‘maniacal laughter’ under any other circumstance. In this particular case, however, she was just glad to feel a heart beating within her chest again, so she decided to be generous and simply call it boisterous.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  A dark blob resolved itself into a face as the man leaned down, gripping Pandy’s face in a way that she felt was unnecessarily familiar. “Thou shalt not harm me or my spawn,” he said, and Pandy wondered woozily who called their own children ‘spawn’. “Thou shalt behave as the creature whose body you inhabit,” he went on, “until such day as I release you. Nod thy head if thou understandest.”

  Why was he talking like this when he’d spoken to his son in a perfectly normal way? He was a weirdo, and this was coming from someone who had been the weirdo for almost her entire educational and professional history. The only time she’d managed to avoid that title was the summer she’d broken her jaw and had to have her mouth wired shut, which gave the poorly named Pat Butts the chance to edge her out.

  Pandy nodded. It wasn’t like she wanted to hurt anyone anyway, and she was pretty sure by now that whatever she was, it wasn’t human. Which was just her luck. Even with a god’s help, she couldn’t manage to re-roll as a beautiful and fabulously wealthy human being. She wouldn’t even have cared if she ended up as a boy.

  Tension drained out of the man’s pale, sweating face, and he stood up abruptly, groaning softly as he rubbed his head. “Still too weak,” he muttered. “I can’t believe capturing such a minor spirit took all of my power. Hopefully this will be enough to keep Thaniel happy, though, so it wasn’t entirely wasted.”

  He started to reach for a large, heavy book, then stopped. “Oh,” he mumbled. “I have to give it back to the boy. Yes.” Surprisingly gentle hands picked Pandy up, supporting her floppy head and dangling hindquarters as he carried her back out of the dimly lit room.

  When he opened the door, the boy was there, sticks and leaves tangled in his wild golden curls. Enormous blue eyes caught on Pandy, brightening as he smiled so broadly that his face seemed like it might split from the force of his joy.

  “You fixed her!” he cried, holding out his arms.

  The man deposited Pandy into the child’s embrace, where she was immediately squeezed so tightly that she let out an involuntary grunt.

  -1 LF

  The mysterious red letters floated up into the air as the boy, Thaniel, asked his father where the promised bandages were. In response, the man gave a great sigh, but turned around and re-entered the building behind him. He was back a moment later with a long piece of cloth which was wound around and around Pandy until she doubted if a single part of her new body was still visible.

  “There now,” the father said finally, giving the boy an awkward little pat that momentarily squashed his curls. “I’m glad the little thing was all right after all. Though it may, ah, be just a bit odd after such a traumatic experience. It’s probably best if you watch over it for a few days, and then we can return it to the wild.”

  “No!” Thaniel said instantly, lower lip protruding dangerously far out over his chin. “I’ve been asking for a pet, and you said I could have one!”

  His father looked trapped. “A dog or a cat, Thaniel. This is a wild animal. It won’t be a good-”

  “Mommy would have let me keep it!” Thaniel sobbed, and this seemed to strike a fatal blow.

  “Oh,” the father said weakly. “Would she? Well then, I suppose…”

  “Yay!” Thaniel exclaimed, clutching Pandy so tightly that another red number drifted away, and Pandy could have sworn she felt her bones creak beneath the pressure.

  “You should, er, go…play, then,” the man said.

  Lifting Pandy’s limp body overhead, the boy whirled around. Everything around them spun. By the time it settled back into place, the door had closed behind the father, and the boy was running again.

  “Lian! Lian! Daddy fixed my bunny!”

  Ah. She’d been afraid of that. Pandy hadn’t been able to see much of herself as she was being manhandled and wrapped, but she was almost completely certain she’d seen a paw covered in white fur speckled with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

  She’d never had a pet herself, but it looked like a lucky rabbit’s foot one of the kids brought to school in the fifth grade. Even then she’d been dubious about how effective it could be. It obviously hadn’t been lucky for the rabbit, had it?

  Still, it could have been worse. She could have been a skunk, or maybe a snake. She knew some people liked snakes, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell them they couldn’t, but there was something about those dead eyes and the knowledge that they were cold-blooded that gave her the squicks. Snakes were better than spiders, though, and spiders were better than centipedes, so all in all, being a rabbit was actually pretty good luck, at least for her.

  Thaniel threw open a door, which shuddered beneath the force of the attack. Racing through the opening, he lifted Pandy, holding her out to the figure hunched over a book and a pile of papers lying on a table.

  The older boy looked up, scowling, and Pandy was startled by his resemblance to the little one. His curls were shorter, colored like warm honey rather than sun-kissed wheat. His eyes were the same shade as his brother’s, though, pale blue amidst dark lashes. More importantly, he looked familiar. Which was ridiculous, because there was no way Pandy had met these two children or their slightly creepy father before.

  “What is it, Thaniel?” he said. He sounded tired but not angry, not exactly. Frustrated, perhaps. “I have midterms next week. I need to study. I can help you dig a grave and have a funeral for that thing later. Maybe after dinner?”

  Thaniel beamed. “No, it’s fine, Lian! Daddy made it all better.” He paused, seeming to realize that perhaps throwing Pandy around like a limp fish might not be good for her. “Well, he gave it bandages and everything, anyway.”

  Lian rubbed at his eyes wearily. He didn’t look like he was more than twelve or thirteen himself, and Pandy thought he was much too young to look so stressed.

  “Thaniel,” he said gently, “The rabbit’s leg was almost chewed off. It was already cold. There’s no way anybody could-”

  Thaniel shoved Pandy into Lian’s face, and she gave a protesting wriggle. It wasn’t much, more instinctive than intentional, but the older boy jerked back, paling before he got his reaction under control. Reaching out, Lian plucked Pandy from his little brother’s hands, ignoring the boy’s protests, and began peeling back the cloth wrapped around her. It was actually a little embarrassing, because while she knew she was a rabbit now, she still felt like a person, and those were her clothes.

  Gentle fingers pulled at Pandy’s legs, focusing on one of the back ones. When he pulled it out to its full extension, she saw that the white fur was absolutely covered in gore, making the fur stand up in dark crimson spikes, but there was no sign of the injury he’d described.

  With a soft growl, Lian pushed Pandy back at his brother, then stood abruptly, scattering papers and causing his chair to scrape over the tile floor with a harsh sound. “He promised he wasn’t going to do this any more,” Lian muttered furiously.

  Thaniel stepped away from his brother, his little face almost frightened. “Don’t be mad at Daddy, Lian,” he whimpered. “I asked him to make her better. I cried a lot.”

  Lian paused, then came back to Thaniel, ruffling his hair much as their father had. “Don’t worry, Thaniel. I’m a little angry, but not at you. It’ll be fine.”

  The little boy’s fingers plucked at Lian’s long sleeve. “Daddy and Mommy argued, and then Mommy died,” he whispered. “Please don’t argue with Daddy. I don’t want you to die, too.”

  The older boy blinked, then crouched down in front of his little brother. “That was a coincidence. Father didn’t hurt Mother. Her death was an accident.”

  Thaniel shook his head, but seemed incapable of further speech. His eyes welled up, and tears coursed down his cheeks. A bubble formed beneath his nose, then popped.

  With a grimace, Lian took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brother’s face. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “Just this once. But please don’t ask Father for things like this again. Next time I’ll have a funeral with you, I promise.”

  The little boy nodded vigorously, and Lian returned to his chair. As he sat, he eyed the Pandy-bundle with suspicion, but didn’t try to tell Thaniel to bury her again. Which Pandy was quite grateful for, all things considered, since she didn’t think she was actually dead. At least, not quite.

  “Well then, I’m going to get back to studying, but Thaniel,” Lian hesitated, “if that rabbit does anything strange, anything at all, you need to come tell me right away. Understand?”

  Thaniel nodded enthusiastically.

  “I suppose you’d better go to the kitchen and see if it’ll eat,” Lian said reluctantly. “But remember. If it does anything unusual-”

  “I’ll come get you,” Thaniel said, and ran off, carrying Pandy away.