The clocks are ticking again.
Loud in the quiet way expensive clocks are. Perfect, even ticks that never change.
I sit on the floor in front of my vanity—knees tucked in, posture perfect, because posture is a requirement, not a suggestion. My back is straight, shoulders down, chin level. My dress does not wrinkle. I check that much without moving.
The windows are covered now.
Thick curtains pulled tight, corners sealed, rods nailed in place.
That happened after I told them the stars were talking to me.
Rooms without windows are easier.
Less to think about.
The brush rests in my hand. Pale wood. Polished. Heavy for its size. It shakes once. I make it stop.
I hear them downstairs.
Their voices carry through the floor—measured, controlled, careful. Words chosen the way their clothes are chosen: tailored, efficient, nothing out of place.
“She needs improvement.”
“Her posture was unacceptable today.”
“People noticed.”
“She has to adapt faster than this.”
“We can’t keep making excuses.”
“Increase her lessons. She’ll adjust.”
None of it is new.
Just expected.
Perfect family. Perfect daughter.
Not perfect enough.
Stillness only lasts so long.
Lessons continue, even here.
My hair slips over my shoulder—dark, smooth, perfectly maintained. I brush it the way I have been taught.
One hundred strokes.
Always one hundred.
“One… two…”
The brush slides through without resistance. I conditioned it well. No tangles. No snags. No excuses.
“Eleven… twelve…”
I keep my back straight. The numbers settle into the ticking of the clocks until I can’t tell them apart.
“Twenty-four… twenty-five….”
I count under my breath—steady, obedient, correct.
“Forty-three… forty-four…”
My throat burns. I ignore it. Eyes dry. Breathing level. There is no acceptable alternative.
“Fifty-six… fifty-seven…”
The numbers are quiet, but precise. The brush moves the way it is supposed to, bristles parting hair into neat, even paths.
“Seventy-two… seventy-three…”
My hand trembles. Tears press hot and unwelcome behind my eyes. I swallow them down.
Crying is failure.
Crying is weakness.
Crying means being taken away—locked rooms, retraining.
More lessons.
More rules.
I tighten my grip. The trembling stops.
“Ninety-eight… ninety-nine…”
For a moment, the brush is heavy. Too heavy.
Then I finish.
“One hundred.”
The room doesn’t move, but it feels smaller. As if the walls have leaned closer to listen.
I lift my gaze to the mirror.
A small girl looks back—dress neat, hair smooth, back straight. Her knees are tucked in perfectly, hands arranged neatly in her lap. Her expression is pleasant in a way that has nothing to do with feelings.
The smile is correct—exactly the right height, exactly the right curl, exactly the right stillness in the eyes.
A smile that meets every standard.
A smile they approve of in public.
A smile they ridicule in private.
My eyes drop to the brush.
A single strand of hair catches the light.
The root isn’t black.
It is white.
Pale. Gleaming. Unnatural against the darker strands—the way frost stands out on a summer leaf.
And I don’t react.
There is no reaction left to give.
I look back up.
My reflection hasn’t changed, but something behind it has—something in the eyes or the stillness in the shoulders.
I look older.
Colder.
Hollow.
The clock ticks.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
My hand curls tight around the strand until it shakes. I don’t let go, as if releasing it would make it real.
I get it now.
My expression is wrong.
I was doing it wrong the whole time.
It shifts slightly.
A fraction wider. A few degrees lower. Eyes more still. Mouth more exact.
There.
A perfect smile.
One that even they will approve of.
A doll’s smile.
I look myself in the eyes.
And this time—
I don’t blink.
Outside, the mansion continued its cold, aristocratic hum.
Inside my quiet room, something broke.
Not loudly.
Not visibly.
But completely.
…And my hair kept turning white.
✦⋆✦⋆✦
I open my eyes.
Stone ceiling. Dim light. Dungeon air—cold and still.
I sit up and smooth out my clothes. Dust clings to the fabric; I brush it away with the back of my hand until the surface lies flat again. My posture corrects itself without thought—shoulders down, spine straight, chin level.
My hands are cold. That hasn't happened in a while.
I flex my fingers once, twice. The warmth returns slowly, as if considering whether it’s welcome.
There is no trembling. No tightness in my chest.
No scream. No cold sweat. No tears.
My mouth settles into a small, pleasant smile that has nothing to do with anything.
I stand, adjust the strap of my sword, and start walking.
By the time I reach the next corridor, the dream has already been filed away somewhere I don’t need to look.
There’s work to do.
So I do it.
The corridor bends left.
Another intersection.
I tap the stone with my sword and listen.
Two dead ends. One continuation.
I turn right.
A skeleton rounds the corner.
I step forward. My blade flicks once—clean, efficient, minimal. Bone bursts apart against the wall, the clatter echoing longer than it should.
I don’t wait for the sound to finish before moving on.
My steps are steady.
Not rushed.
Not slow.
Measured. Even. Controlled.
Further down the passage, a small cluster waits—three skeletons. One missing an arm. One dragging a leg. One intact.
That’s new.
I close the distance.
One step. A shift of weight. A sequence of motion so precise it barely registers as effort. Bone meets stone. A skull rolls. An arm strikes the floor and spins once before stopping.
Silence settles.
My breathing hasn’t changed.
That feels notable.
I keep walking.
The maze continues its attempts to delay me—dead ends, loops, intersections that mirror each other—but it no longer matters. The map in my head is stable now, layered and reinforced. Each cleared corridor becomes inert.
Safe.
Known.
Predictable.
Another intersection.
Another skeleton.
Another corpse.
Time passes.
I check the Tutorial clock without conscious intent.
Five hours asleep.
Two hours moving.
The skeletons’ levels ticked up again at the thirty-minute mark.
I note it and move on.
Eventually, the corridors widen. The ceiling lifts by a small but noticeable margin. The stone shifts in color—darker, older, worn smooth by age rather than traffic.
That draws my attention.
Not excitement.
Just recognition.
Progress.
Eventually, the corridor widens.
Stone walls pull back, the ceiling lifting until the oppressive closeness of the maze finally releases its grip. The air changes—less stagnant, colder, carrying the faint mineral scent of exposed rock rather than dust and rot.
A cavern opens before me.
Wide. Tall. Empty, save for a single figure standing at its center.
A skeleton knight.
It does not shamble like the others. It stands upright, balanced, posture rigid but deliberate. Pale armor plates cover its frame, shaped to resemble bone layered over bone, smooth and unblemished by decay. The pieces interlock seamlessly, more construct than corpse.
A sword rests at its hip.
Sheathed.
Waiting.
The knight’s skull tilts slightly as I enter, empty eye sockets fixing on me with something that almost resembles intent. Its hand rises, fingers closing around the hilt.
That is as far as it gets.
I Dash.
The distance collapses instantly. One moment I am at the cavern’s edge—then I am in front of it, close enough to see the faint runic grooves carved into its armor.
My blade ignites with sapphire light.
“Horizon Slash.”
The strike is clean. Precise. Overwhelming.
The knight’s sword never leaves its sheath. Its neck splits apart in a single, decisive line, fragments scattering across the cavern floor as the skeleton dies mid-motion. Bone and plating hit the stone in dull, hollow impacts.
Silence follows.
Notifications bloom across my vision.
I ignore them.
A chest rests where the knight stood, already unlocked. I open it without ceremony, sweeping the contents into my spatial storage with practiced efficiency.
Later.
I turn away.
At the far end of the cavern, a rocky archway stands embedded in the stone, its interior filled with slow-rolling fog. The exit. The end.
I step into it without hesitation.
A prompt overlays my vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Would you like to exit the dungeon?
Options: Yes / No
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I select Yes.
The fog surges forward.
My vision disappears.
Smell returns first.
Not dust. Not the stale, closed breath of stone.
Living air—cool, damp, layered with soil, crushed leaves, and sap. The kind of air that belongs outside.
Sound follows—soft, natural. Grass shifting. Something small moving through brush. The distant, indistinct creak of wood settling under its own weight.
Then texture.
Uneven ground beneath my boots. Roots just below the surface. Moss yielding slightly when I shift my weight.
The fog thins completely.
The world around me comes back into view.
The pitch-black hole. The ever present greenery surrounding it.
I am back in the forest.
Voices arrive soon after.
“Welcome back darling, how was your dungeon trip?”
“Were there moles? I bet there were moles again.”
“No, no—ultra-rare ground squirrels. You can tell what they are by the way they judge you.”
“Did you burn anything down again?
“What are you talking about? Of course she did!”
The voices crash into me all at once—a tangled, overlapping mess of questions, commentary, sound effects, and deeply unearned assumptions about my moral character.
Ah.
Right.
I was gone long enough for night to roll back in.
I tilt my head, staring up at the canopy I still can’t see through, expression blank in the way that suggests my soul briefly left my body to get a drink of water.
Then—naturally—I throw my hands into the air.
“Two out of ten at best,” I declare, with feeling. My tail lashes in a sharp, offended arc. “It was a maze. A maze.”
There is a collective intake of breath.
“Filled with skeletons!” I continue, pacing a half-step in place like this somehow makes it more dramatic. “Nothing but skeletons. No gimmicks. No atmosphere. No narrative payoff. Just corridors, dead ends, and calcium-based disappointment.”
I jab a finger vaguely at the hole behind me.
“A state-sized maze. Underground. With copy-paste hallways.”
I pause, then add, with the gravity this revelation deserves, “I killed so many skeletons I’m pretty sure I committed an archaeological crime.”
The stars erupt.
Sympathy. Laughter. Outrage on my behalf. At least one voice offers to personally haunt whoever designed it.
I nod, satisfied.
“Yes. Exactly. Thank you. Someone understands.”
My shoulders loosen. The tension bleeds off as quickly as it arrived, replaced by the familiar hum of irritation, pride, and righteous critique.
Then I tilt my head.
Huh.
That is a… deeply concerning realization.
“Wait,” I say slowly. “You guys couldn’t see me underground?”
There’s a brief pause—just long enough to be suspicious.
Older Sister, who has apparently been elected Exposition Star by a near-unanimous cosmic vote, clears her throat.
“No,” she says. “We cannot see you anywhere our light does not shine.”
I nod once.
Then—very deliberately—I lift my hand and point straight up at the canopy.
“This canopy is thick enough that I can’t see you at all.”
“…It is more,” she hedges, “conceptual than that.”
I narrow my eyes.
“So you can see me during the day, right?”
She answers far too quickly, like someone sprinting away from an incoming argument.
“Yes! Yes, we can!”
“So,” I continue, sweetly, “why can’t I talk to you during the day?”
“…You can only talk to us when—”
There’s a pause.
A long one.
“...when you can see our light.”
I point upward again.
Silently.
Relentlessly.
The pause stretches.
Then—defeat.
A long, exhausted sigh echoes through my skull.
“Fine,” Older Sister groans. “I admit it. We actually have no idea.”
My ears perk.
“Starborn are incredibly rare,” she continues, voice edged with frustration. “Even on a universal scale, it can be millions of years between their births. And the few that do exist usually don’t waste their time poking at S-tier cosmic nonsense just to see what breaks.”
I can practically feel her pouting now.
“We don’t know everything,” she mutters.
My tail flicks.
Sharp. Triumphant.
Unrestrained satisfaction achieved.
Intellectually undefeated.
As I should be.