Cecilia didn’t know how to tell him everything that had happened. She didn’t even know the details of everything that had happened.
The original Cecilia of this world, the woman whose body she now inhabited, whose divorce papers she had signed with a baby grew in her womb, had lived a life that Cecilia was only beginning to piece together.
"I just... forgot." She blinked, pulling away from the warm cocoon of Oathran’s chest and scanned the room for her small handbag. "Where was my phone again...?"
It was on the side table the entire ti, where Eastiel brought it along with her inside when she fell asleep. She could have reached out and grabbed it without even standing up.
Ah.
She froze, her hand hovering over the bag. The ultrasound images were inside. The printed photographs of her womb and the tiny calcified egg.
She still didn’t know enough about this world, for example, its norms and its expectations, to risk exposing that information. At least not yet until she understood what it ant.
So she kept her hand inside the bag, feeling around blindly without exposing anything. Her fingers brushed the glossy edge of the ultrasound prints, sothing smooth that felt like folded leather, and finally, the cool, flat rectangle of the phone.
She pulled it out and turned to Oathran with a smile, trying to project so confidence that she definitely knew how to operate her own device.
Buttons. There were buttons on the sides. She pressed one and nothing happened. She pressed another, still nothing.
"Here." Oathran reached toward the drawer of the side table. "I will lend you my charger."
"Mm. Thanks."
She plugged the cord into her phone with ease. She knew what this was. Well, she knew how to connect it to the socket on the wall, thanks to the fact that Arkai’s and Eastiel’s phones were currently attached to their own respective cords nearby, but she had not been entirely sure what the purpose was.
Was it... to jumpstart the device?
Di-ding!
Oh. It started. The screen flickered to life, and a small rectangle appeared, empty, then slowly beginning to fill with green light. It clicked in her brain.
Whatever battery this little device used to stay alive, it had been drained and needed to be recharged. The electricity flowed through the cord and into the phone, replenishing it the way a mage might manually inject mana into a depleted magic stone.
Huh. So electricity could be stored and transferred like this. The sa principle as magic devices, just with a different source of power. How efficient.
"Is there a problem, after all?"
Oathran asked gently. He had shifted on the couch, sitting behind her now. His misty grey eyes, soft with concern, studied the side of her face.
"You know that you can tell us anything, right?"
Di-di-di-di-di-di-ding—
The phone erupted with notifications.
[44 missed calls from Gregor (Dad’s Scr)]
[5 unread ssages from Thalia (Dad’s Lwy)]
[1 unread ssage and 1 picture from Igor (Arz’s Scr)]
Cecilia stared at the screen.
She had not even opened her mouth to answer Oathran’s question, and her phone had answered for her.
There was a problem.
***
Oathran was always an understanding person. He had never once pushed her to reveal more than she was ready to give. In this alternate universe, it seed, that fundantal trait had survived the transition intact.
After seeing that she couldn’t explain anything to him, he didn’t demand answers. He simply smiled and announced that he needed to get ready for his second part-ti job.
Cecilia wondered what part-ti job required a man to leave his apartnt in the middle of the night, long after the sun had set and the city had dimd to its quietest hours, so she looked at him with open curiosity, her head tilting until usually he would explain.
He did not explain, though. He simply chuckled and ruffled her hair exasperately, before pulling away, realizing what he just did.
The man grabbed his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked out the door in a set of black overalls that made him look less like a chef and more like a shadow.
She watched him go and filed the curiosity away for later.
When the next morning arrived, Cecilia was woken up by a clatter from the kitchen and a wave of nausea that rolled through her stomach. She groaned, pressing her hand to her belly, and lay still for a mont, waiting for the queasiness to subside.
It did not. If anything, it intensified, creeping slowly, started in the pit of her throat and radiated outward. Her mouth was now watering with that sensation that preceded vomiting.
She stretched, her spine popping, and forced herself upright. The guest room was bright with pale morning light, the city skyline glittering beyond the window.
After Oathran had left last night, she had spent the hours before bed sitting cross-legged on the guest bed with her phone in her hands, her fingers clumsy on the screen.
She had sowhat figured it out. thodically. The way she had figured out the faucets and the bidet and the rainfall shower.
Thanks to her experience with the System, the nus and notifications and pop-up screens that had been hovering in her ntal vision for months now, she had a frawork for understanding.
The phone operated on similar principles. Icons you tapped, nus you navigated, information you accessed by pressing the right combination of symbols...
It was not magic, but it was not entirely unlike magic either. A different kind of system.
She checked her phone as she woke, squinting at the screen with bleary eyes. More ssages had accumulated overnight. More missed calls.
She ignored them all, setting the phone aside, deciding that whatever crisis was unfolding could wait until she had dealt with the more imdiate crisis of her rebellious stomach.
She stood, smoothed down her new luxury, skimpy pajamas, and walked out into the living room.
Arkai and Eastiel were already in their work clothes. Arkai wore a dark, practical uniform with reinforced knees and pockets that seed designed to hold tools, while Eastiel had on his familiar overalls. Clean ones, this ti, the grease stains washed away.
He was cradling a mug of coffee with a comforting sll.
"Sorry. I overslept." Cecilia said, voice still rough with sleep. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, feeling vaguely guilty. "I should have made you guys so breakfast."
"It’s okay." Eastiel said. He pulled a yellow container from sowhere behind him, and held it up briefly before putting it back. "We al-prep every week for breakfast. You don’t need to worry about us."
He hesitated for a mont, his golden eyes flicking toward her, a bit shy. "Miss Ar—uh, Cecilia... we are going to work in ten minutes. So even though you are alone here, don’t hesitate to use anything, alright? You can use everything in this apartnt. Don’t be scared of breaking anything, okay? Even the PS5!"
"I can fix stuff. Whatever it is, I can fix it," Eastiel said.
Cecilia chuckled and nodded. "I will be careful, of course. Thank you."
"It’s my turn for the grocery run today." Arkai said. He was leaning against the kitchen counter, his coffee forgotten, his eyes fixed on her warmly. "Do you want to grab sothing on the way ho?"
"Mm..." Cecilia blinked, considering. The nausea was still there, but beneath it was sothing else. A craving. "So nausea relief. But I prefer it’s not dicine."
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly watering for reasons that had nothing to do with illness. "I am also craving... sothing sour. Or spicy."
She gulped, her hand drifting unconsciously to her belly.
Was this pregnancy craving? This strange, insistent hunger that coexisted with the nausea, the desire for flavors so specific she could almost taste them on her tongue?
She was hungry and nauseated at the sa ti, and the only thing she knew for certain was that she wanted, no, needed sothing very particular.
"I know what I want."
She said, growing more animated. "I want that tropical fruit. Pineapple? Ah, and cucumber. And I want vinegar. Soy sauce. Hot pepper with it." She was almost breathless now, her eyes bright.
Arkai pulled out his phone, his thumb moving across the screen as he tapped the list into existence. "I will—I will get it for you. Sure. Anything else?"
"And red at." The words ca out of Cecilia’s mouth before she could stop them. She blinked, dazed, and the hunger intensified. "A fresh red a—"
Wait.
Who was talking there? The baby?!
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