I started as the sound of pans and bowls jolted me, forcing me to become aware of where I was and what I was doing. I had been a funk, daft memory, and now was inside the door with my shoes dangling by their laces in one hand, and the other pulling on the sandals Otou-san had gotten. It wasn’t like I had been stupidly standing there, though I was now, I just simply wasn’t aware of what I was doing or what I had been doing. Ever since being rescued or even during the incident, this wasn’t common so I wasn’t particularly concerned about what transpired in third and fourth periods, but I must have gone to them, considering the lighting inside. Hopefully the material wasn’t anything too complicated. As per my custom whenever I regained consciousness, whether by literally or metaphorically, I recited the three Ts that I used to find my bearings:

  Threats – None, and there should be none,

  Tenement – Shoe area near front door of the family home,

  Time – Before dinner, mostly likely still the eighth.

  Having assessed my immediate surroundings, the sounds in the kitchen that had startled me back into – self-awareness? consciousness? – finally registered once I listened and looked past the tiny hallway. I had been hoping to get the stuff out from under the bed and sneak it into the trash outside. But that would be impossible with Asahi, my sister, cooking in the kitchen, so I would have to wait. In the same vein of the “trash,” my left shoulder had regained that uncomfortable feeling which I really didn't like to think about. I should have a look at it before dinner, while Otousan was still at work, though he would be home in a soon – probably.

  “Is that you Ingintzel?” My finger twitched at the off pronunciation even though it was enunciated in the rough ballpark, but considering the state of Earth languages that was to be as expected. I was the outlier not her. “Yes, just me,” I responded in a slightly strained voice, really hoping not to be pulled into the kitchen. “I'm cooking onion and potato tonight! Okay?” Asahi replied with a yell, much to my relief as I slinked past the doorway to kitchen and upstairs. I padded as silently as I could, though not to much effect, as every time the plastic touched the varnish, a sharp squeak would resist my best efforts to remain silent. Finally, I reached the top of the stairs and gratefully stepped on the rug down the center of the hall. It was not much, simply a creamy beige and brown floral pattern of what had once been white and red, possibly even vibrant, but now so old. A few years and plastic had completely degraded, the frayed hairs sticking to the soles of the sandals. If I told Asahi should probably would convince Otosan easily to move it to the attic, still I liked the silence, despite the mess. Also, it reminded me of my childhood before the incident, cheap but homely, though I questioned how long it would take for Otou-san to notice the degredation. After all, this was going to be our main residence not childhood vacation spot.

  Asahi wasn’t just about to leave me alone though, and in moments the thrumming from the stove hood relaxing into a faint distant hum, while at the base of the stairs the squeaky boards betrayed my sister’s ascent. Turning, she stood at the end of the hall, her skin flushed red from a chronically under-ventilated kitchen. “Let’s get you cleaned up now, shouldn't we?” She strode forward, her dark brown hair, although straight like mine, stood out against my halv-deqr strands, especially in when hers was in a ponytail against her pale pink shirt. Not to mention my stunted growth and rounded features. “You really don’t need to.” Her face twisted into a grimace as we walked towards the bathroom, probably oblivious to the patches of fiber each step of her green sneakers picked up. Otou-san would definitely a few words to say about proper house rules. “My little sister is going to have to live without me starting to-morr-ow,” she punctuated her pronunciation by tousling my shoulder-length hair, “I'm sure one more night won't kill you.” She smiled, and I relented, knowing full well Asahi was much better at this than me.

  Opening the white painted door was always a sensation. Originally, it was the second bathroom when I was younger, much younger, but sometime after entering college, Asahi had converted it into a cosmetic laboratorium. After one, or maybe three, particularly hot springs while we were in Osaka, the whole place became entrenched with the smell of acetone and some other chemicals I had no idea what were. Otou-san once tried to kick Asahi out of there because of the smell, but that did nothing to help the situation, my father let her return to using it. A loss of one shower, sink, mirror, and toilet for Otou-san and a gain of one shelf, four plastic tubs, and two cabinets of make-up, for my sister, plus a bright electronic lamp Otou-san probably was unawares had been stolen from attic. While Asahi sifted through the cabinets for some “remover,” muttering nonsense and increasingly dark threats as she failed to find it, I peeled my arms off.

  Technically, it was combination of slightly-translucent mesh-fabric and silicone gloves that emulated my lower arm, wrists, and hands, stuffed with deconstructed cotton balls. Underneath was . . . less pretty. Starting at the top of the gloves, thick scars covered my arm, with increasing densities of darker scar tissue the further down my gloves pulled off, dappling my dark suntan skin with navy and purple undertones. Still fighting the elastic nature of them, I surreptitiously glanced at my sister, still kneeling in front of the sink cabinet, trying to find the remover. With a pop, I pulled my hand out of the glove, the sleeve and fingers snapping into an completely inversed form in a quick motion. My hand only filled half the glove, all a dark purple color from a combination of contraction, depression, and swellings that progressively whittled away it away into a skeletal vestige. The only portion still normal being my fingernails, but even that was short, the bed half-the normal length and still sticking into mostly empty air. Turning them over, the palms were surprisingly less scarred at a glance, but that was a lie. The healing just occurred all at the same time, forming a less than appealing depression pulling skin taut along the edges and into darker subtly-irregular scarring. Fortunately, today it wasn’t bleeding, so I simply pulled off the other glove and inspected it too in order to make sure. The other glove. Both my arms were the same, symmetrical in appearance if not in the individual scars, and both equally useful and useless in most regards.

  Asahi finally found the make-up remover, and I took off the sandals, pulling of my socks using my thumbs. The popping of old rubber running over a broken seal signaled Asahi had opened the shower door for me to step into. Inside the rectangular glass prism, like how I pushed off my socks, I pulled up my sleeves which had fallen over my hands. Asahi holding the showerhead in one hand, partially stepped inside for a brief moment to turn on the water, which hissed and spluttered for a few seconds before starting to spray across my bare feet, before becoming stained pink and white as she orientated towards my lower leg. “People would die for a tan like yours, you know.” Despite leaning down so my arms and face would not drip when Asahi reached them, I tilted my head in her direction, but could not see her expression. “Mmmh. . .” I noncommittally answered, unsure what she was getting. For a long moment she didn’t say anything, but then: “Make sure to face towards the tiling, I don’t want it to run into your eyes.” Despite the chemical scent to the air, it was relatively peaceful, if not slightly nerve-racking as I toweled my face and limbs, so Asahi could apply her homemade make-up remover across them. I only really relaxed, standing in the shower, once Asahi left the room to attend to dinner for a few minutes while the remaining make-up dissolved. I still was not use to letting someone else do all the work for me, or anything for me, even though I probably would have soaked myself and stained my clothes if I tried myself. Cross that bridge tomorrow. Plus, although Asahi was always babbling about cosmetics to me, everything flew over my head for the most part. Just when I thought I understood some concept, Asahi would say something which completely confused me, enough that after less than a month I had truly given up. Actually, the only time she wasn’t talking about something was in this cosmetic bathroom, applying my make-up, or removing it, both processes. The latter one I would end with a soapy shower after Asahi returned.

  After a few minutes, the sound of the stove hood flared up once more, and the minutes began to tick by, standing there. My sense of general time and date were terrible with the “memory lapses,” which I strongly suspected for very personal reasons were not sleeping per se or forgetting just . . . autopilot. Regardless, I still could pretty accurately tell time for short durations, at least when I was calm, which I was, and not in a funk. By my estimate it had been at least tweleve minutes, slightly less than thirteen: plenty of time. So, I grabbed the cloth Asahi had gotten out of the cupboard for this purpose and gently rubbed off the gel-like liquid. Then, I closed the door, regretting there was nowhere to put a set clothes. Luckily, opening the upper cupboard, there was still a half-used bar of soap, and towel, probably from before this bathroom had become cosmetic-ified. But there were no shower caps or hair towels. Damn. Grabbing the soap, I stripped off my shirt, dress, and underwear before entering the shower, this time leaving the showerhead above me as I twisted the handle anticlockwise. Standing up, I could hear the water traveling through the pipes before explosively hitting my back, though not with any real significant force. Still it hurt, it really hurt. I almost cried out, pain tearing through my left shoulder, but simply rotated my upper body away from the water source as my legs instinctively locked into place.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I had forgotten about my back, and for the billionth time I regretted not devoting my entire memory to remembering my inhumanity. Yet, I was already shuffling the pain and experience to back of my mind, some box that would be left unopened, ignoring the flood of adrenaline through my body. The Flower wanted me to remember, and then it would take my attention and devote it to protecting it. Standing pressed up against the glass, or probably glass-like plastic, I debated turning off the shower but had no idea whether Asahi could hear it in the kitchen, and I really did not want her coming upstairs thinking I was finished. Deciding against it, I very carefully washed my body, avoiding my left shoulder blade, until my skin was a uniform bronzed copper, paler than if I was born to such a family but still fairly dark, littered with many tiny darker freckles, speckling my non-scarred portions of my arms and legs. Looking closer, there were even white freckles, which I guess were something else, IGH I think the doctor called them? Opening the shower door after I finished, I reached across the small room, grabbing the towel to dry myself off, failing to ignore the small thin black fragments of tissue dotting the white fluffy surface as I dried my back. There really was no avoiding it now was there?

  Staring in the mirror, I saw my face, no longer slightly tanned but heavily sunkissed, the makeup gone to reveal the thin scars and blemishes over the now significantly more briar-colored features. Shades darker than my relatives, yet arrested in its pigmentation only a smidge lighter their skin color, enough to stand out both there and here. Traveling down my body, a semicircle of paler skin existed, still tanned, but significantly pinker and paler than my arms, neck, and lower torso. It started as a demarcated line at the bottom of my neck, cutting off less abruptly in an elliptical gradient halfway down my upper arms and chest, separating my breasts from my stomach. A more rectangular but similarly less tanned portion existed across my thighs, ending just below where my gym shorts, which I had yet to use, stretched to. However, the scars got worse on these portions, and although my stomach was less affected, my chest was covered in raised ridges. On my right upper arm, a thin metal band encircled the limb, a recent addition to the various collars I had worn; however, I found my eyes drawn back to my scars. I tried to not to remember each one, but ultimately, I was stalling. Always stalling. I could not remember each one, and never would. I wanted to blame the Flower for my thoughts, but my stalling was probably entirely of my own making. For right now at least. Slowly without looking away from the mirror, I turned around and stared to the right, watching as the left-side of my back came into view.

  From the shoulder blade, tendrils of black roots, fading from a translucent grey at their tips, converging in the center from which a plateau of rough black flesh, burnt far too many times to ever recover was visible. Two mushrooms grew out of the region, peeling out of ridges. Mushrooms. Not the bright red and white kind people imagine in fairy-rings, or the small light brown ones eaten in soups or stir-fries. Definetly, not the bracket fungi colored in a radial gradient of honey-orange and white which might have complemented my skin. No, the protrusions were delicate, black feathery things, the larger one half-destroyed and fragmented. They stood on spindly slatey black stalks piercing through two cracks in my skin, parting visibly red flesh on either side, like vines growing out of a split boulder. Most of all, the color made them appear in a perpetual state of decomposition, the tissue even semi-translucent, shot with webs of pure black veins, yet still clearly growing. My punishment and lifeline; the cause of the unnaturally purple scar tissue, yet the reason why I could still move my hands despite the contractures; the mental inhibitor that took over when I broke down, but the same parasite which fragmented my life, forcing me to rely on it. The Flower wouldn’t let its host die, but woah-be any person who attempts to remove it from their own body, the thought steeped in bitterness, and not the manipulative magical kind.

  I knew fundamentally I needed to cut the stalks, before they fully matured, but hesitated. I found myself stuck staring, wondering how I could destroy something so beautiful and delicate. Until the normal realization forcibly crushed the obviously biased thought, as no reasonable person would find these mushrooms even remotely pretty, unless their brains had been messed with by a certain PARASITE WHO HAD A VESTED INTREST IN KEEPING ME FROM DESTROYING THEM.

  I was panting, purposely increasing my heartrate, yet strangely, or rather predictably, fatigued. The Keeper, as I called it, had long since become acquainted with making me feel any emotion at random or strategic points, or strategically random moments. What I did have was control, though, even it wasn’t complete. Over the years, first by others and later by myself, I had burnt the flesh on my back a few times each year – just enough to stop the blooming, but not enough the Keeper would start blooming, parting the skin across my entire body, to create new flowers. That kind of mistake you only make once. Once and once only. But currently, there was no fire or heating element as well as no metal to heat. I could attempt to use Otou-san's iron, but that would raise more questions than it answered. Burning burnt scarred flesh wasn't exactly discrete, and if I ws honest was myself, I really didn't want to to do it. Rifling through the cupboards, the top shelf revealed a pair of severely worn nail scissors stuck underneath a tub of manicure files and polishes. The blades were dull and rounded, certain to leave part of stalk above the skin due to the curve cut if I tried to use them normally. However, orientating myself in the mirror, despite the enlarged tips, the scissors were small enough to poke a tiny amount into the wounds, just enough to compensate for the curvature. Snap! A searing pain disproportionate to the tiny stem I cut off poured over me and I jerked back, the mushroom landing on the tiles by my feet. As quickly as the pain came, it vanished, and the fallen organism was soon joined by an equally unpleasent second mushroom.

  Taking my time, I slowly walked towards my room, hiding the two “flowers” in one hand, while using the other to hold my towel around me. Once in my room, I was quick to shut the fake wood door, sliding down the wood. Normally, if nobody was watching I would just simply do nothing, merely listening to the sounds of the occasional car and the frequent footsteps within the house. But right now, I was naked and that would complicate matters when Asahi came to check on me soon or called for dinner, primarily because the parted ridges on my left shoulders looked angry enough she would rush me to the ER. Plus, Otou-san was due to arrive any minute, and I still had to at least put the mushrooms out of sight. Pushing myself up, I walked over to my bright sunshine yellow bed, the blankets oddly childish to me. The whole room was out of place, ripped-down Magical Girl posters having left only tatters of papers held on by tape and nails. Meanwhile the dustless circles on the mostly empty shelves, just right size for various figurine stands, betrayed far more than the small collection of books on shelf ever could – and I hated it. I hated looking at the walls and remembering what I once idolized. That’s why I gathered everything up in a plastic bag and threw it under the bed: posters, hand-drawn pictures, dolls, figurines, shirts, underwear, stationary, or pretty much anything I kept that reminded me of my childhood dreams. The blankets stayed though. Yellow suns and pink unicorns were fine. Very fine. Crouching down and ignoring the plastic bag that took up most of the space, I pulled out a carboard box, filled with dozens of black delicate mushrooms, some large, some small, but collectively taking up more than half the box. The other half was empty as of now, but as I dumped two more, what constituted place-able space was rapidly depleting. Moreover, there was too many now to use to use a date checker in the morning, though I guess my clock could also tell me that so it really wasn't a concern.

  Opening the tiny moveable closet on the other side of room, next to a small desk and chair, I was assaulted by an array of bright clothing from when Asahi was my age. Poking through for the longest, least attention-grabbing one I settled for a black long-sleeve shirt with a ribbed turtle neck, possibly making it a pullover, the label didn't day. Then I matched it alongside a pair of grey jeans, though jeans were normally meant to blue so I had no idea why there was a grey pair lying in my closest. Probably some weird fashion trend Asahi got hooked on, or maybe grey jeans were normal. Pulling on a pair of yellow and green socks patterned to portay many tiny dancing monkeys, I returned to bathroom. After replacing the towel in the cupboard, doubting anyone would use it, I picked up the random cotton balls off the floor and neatly threw them into the trash-bin in the corner. Returning the make-up cleaner to where I saw Asahi take the bottle out from, was easy, and so was congregating the various appliers and cloths she had gotten out this morning. I made sure to retain a clear distinction between the clean and dirty piles and carried out my gloves and clothes. The gloves I placed on a shelf in my room, above my three dictionaries, two Japanese and one English, leaving the uniform beside it and followed the trail of brown and white threads my sister had left behind on her descent.