Last night I created around 10 implosion spells and walked through the forest, I assumed I could track Jackson despite not having any knowledge of what tracking entails.

  ‘There was a broken stick? Oh he must’ve went that way!’ I sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic.

  I eventually found my way back to the cabin, fell asleep, and here I am, the next day. The mattress was sent straight from heaven, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how back home people would still be in the mud. They all probably think I’m dead.

  I do miss how in the mud you could slide your feet through it while you fall asleep and it would be very calming, but a mattress wins just on pure comfiness alone.

  I turn on the kettle, every appliance in this cabin is powered by the blood canister outside, I have to fill it with a vial every week, super easy.

  There’s a few foods I recognise in the pantry, cans of beans, instant noodles and chips of varying flavours. Really trying to make me feel the poverty of the modern world.

  I make a earl grey tea and eat chips, this is my breakfast, at least it’s a step up from food scraps which come from unknown origins.

  Halfway through my cup I hear a knock, “master Fay, I have a delivery.” The female voice is muffled through the door, I make my way towards it and open without much thought.

  Behind the door is a girl in the same black dress, a servant, she has frizzy black hair and green eyes, the faintest of freckles on her face must mean she doesn’t get outside much.

  Her dress, unlike the other servants, has a more rich quality to it, along with a star pin that is shiny and silver.

  She also has a green ring, I’m unsure if it’s decorative.

  “Master Fay-“

  “Just call me Fay.” ‘Master Fay’ is gross.

  “I’ve been directed to call you master Fay, sorry for the inconvenience.” She bows and walks in with a leather bag, “master Lilith could not make it today, she told me to be yours to command from this moment forward.”

  She unzips the bag and takes out paper, blood vials that add to my already heavy amount of vials in a drawer, a book and another heftier book.

  “Today we need to visit experiment site j-23 and deliver one of these books. To start the experiment.” She hands it over.

  I take it and open it up, it’s a 10 page tutorial on the very basics of blood magic, it includes base variables, what they mean, how to activate them, the strengths of different blood types depending on which magic you use.

  A lot of this stuff is unknown to me too, the other book she brought is a hefty 50 pages, it looks to be more in depth.

  “Is experiment site… j or whatever, is that my home?”

  She bows, “your question confuses and baffles me, this is your home, you cannot be from an experiment site, if you were you’d have to be executed. Don’t spread these slanderous lies about yourself.” She lets out in a single breath.

  I nod, already understanding the politics, “okay, what do I call you?”

  “Nothing, I will use social cues to find out what you need or who you are talking to, names are for those who can’t keep track of the conversation yes?”

  “Gotcha, so I call you nothing?” I grab the small book and search for a spell I could use for basic self defence.

  “Yes.”

  My head shakes in agreement, the book describes the symbol I use for the implosion spell as gravity magic, “hey ‘nothing’, do you know a variable I could use to make someone fall asleep?”

  She seems a bit shocked at her new name. “Tell me Fay, what’s a way to forcefully make someone fall asleep without magic?”

  She sounds confident, “knocking them out with brute force or making them lose oxygen to their brain?”

  “Mhm, so do that.” She opens up my 50 page book and looks through, “variables are the most basic form of spells, think of it like learning the alphabet… let me show you how to make a word. Given your low potency I will have to water down a spell for you.”

  She isn’t human is she? Despite her human appearance there is an air of superiority.

  “Are you human?” I ask stupidly.

  “No, I am the one who clones herself, 4th rank.”

  Every piece of the puzzle fits together, that’s exactly why every servant looks similar. But I have another question.

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  “What are ranks?”

  She looks through the pages of the book, “ranks are ways to determine value, there are multiple factors, blood potency, achievements and intelligence.” Her face turns to me, “do you want to learn your rank?”

  There’s a tinge of insanity in her eyes, yet I still nod obediently. The servant master dynamic doesn’t feel as straightforward.

  She grabs my wrist and touches a vein, it bleeds painlessly. She daps her finger in the blood and brings it to her lips, “we don’t have a measurement, but you have the potency of a kindergarten rank D.”

  she moves back to the book, “think of kindergarten ranks as rank zero, you have to go to a testing facility to get your actual rank promoted to 1.” She smiles for a split second then stops.

  “A 6 year old child of our kind is usually kindergarten F to C, so congratulations.”

  “What… about humans?”

  “No potency, one vial of your blood is worth 1.5 vials of normal human blood in terms of the magic to blood ratio.” She wafts her hand to wipe the conversation clean, “now, you want to make someone fall asleep.”

  She writes down a spell, “this is simple, even given your lack of potency to use any real variables.” Her hand swiftly stops, “the brain variable, carry variable, then you need to specify the oxygen, we can’t have two targets at once so how will we specify the oxygen in the brain?”

  Oxygen… there’s not really a way to move it out is there? “Is there a variable to turn oxygen into carbon dioxide?”

  She takes a breath in, then out, “like that? Too much carbon dioxide would kill someone, you don’t have enough control, what we need is to simply make the brain float downwards.”

  She writes the symbols, it looks like a math equation, I recognise the implosion symbol with another one, combining into something new. “This causes the arteries at the base of the brain to become useless due to the downwards pressure, this needs to be active long enough for them to fall asleep.”

  She writes parentheses over it all and adds a spiral symbol outside of it, “this’ll keep this active for 30 seconds, that should knock them out.”

  That makes no sense considering what I saw Lilith do, “how come Lilith could knock people out instantly?”

  “I’d assume she just swings the brain around a bit in their skull, you could do that.”

  I shake my head “no, this is fine.” I grab the piece of paper as she replicates it, making around 5. I want them to not be hurt, I’m not hurting anyone other than the 1 I need to take.

  “There’s a carriage on the main path, I will be taking you there.” She rips the paper and puts the spells in my pocket.

  “You give them this book, explain what has changed. Then you take one of them to kill.”

  I feel sick, “okay.”

  She walks outside and I follow, I still have the same clothes as before, it’s going to be a drastic contrast that’ll make them have a more ‘us vs them’ revolution.

  We make it to the carriage, it’s the wooden one, she gets into the rider seat and begins to guide the horses as I sit in the back.

  “Nothing?”

  She responds to the name quickly, “yes?”

  “Don’t hurt anyone.” I order “no matter what.”

  She nods.

  I just stay silent, my knees together, this trip will probably take 4 minutes, 4 minutes until I’m back there, 4 minutes until I have to kill one of them, 4 minutes until people realise I am what they assumed I was.

  “Hey nothing? Are you… the original you?” I remember the fact about her cloning herself.

  “I am, the other me’s have no blood potency, they are basically human puppets. I use human bodies and through a long and tedious process where I give them my brain, not my memories just my personality.” She sounds like she is reading a script.

  “Cool.” Is all I can say, fog shows up, I need to find a way to figure out a way in and out. Then I can have them all escape.

  The fog dissipates and I’m back in the grey world I’m used to, I can see people gathered around the food clinic.

  We stop by it, I step off with the book in my hand, and walk towards it.

  Everyone is just talking, they aren’t even paying attention.

  “Guys listen.” I say at my normal volume, every one is still focused on each other, they’re definitely doing this on purpose.

  “Listen.” I say louder, yet again nobody turns their heads, I do get a few people looking at me with their eye and then looking away.

  “Oh! Look they’re here.” Noah walks out of the hole in the wall where the door is supposed to be, “nice clothes.” He jumps down the steps and walks up to me with a swagger in his movements.

  “I have a book for you.” I hold it out, it’s clear after Jackson left he was put in charge, nightmare.

  “Are you sure I can read? Or is that too complicated for me? Can’t be trusted right?” He says emotionally. Looking back at the crowd who are nodding to his words like sheep.

  He reaches into his pocket and I step back, he seems to notice “you thought I was going to use a spell on you? Does that mean it worked? Jackson escaped?” He says proudly, taking food scraps from his pocket and eating them.

  So he knew, they probably all knew, even Anne…

  Nothing is sitting on the carriage still, hand in her face looking bored, I hold out the book.

  “Okay.” He takes it while his mouth is full of food, “oh this is more magic? I can’t believe you’re on my side!” His words are laced with resentment.

  Apparently turning up with nice clothes made his suspicions correct, “okay… now I just need one of you to come with me…”

  Noah’s face which was previously just reserved anger is now full on rage, “so you fully took her spot hey? Take me then.” He throws the book onto the mud.

  “I’ll… take the oldest…” I look into the crowd, and find someone who has greying hair, “you please… sorry.”

  Noah reaches into his pocket again like he is reaching for a gun, I grab a piece of paper from my pocket and slam it onto his chest, “morva eris!” I scream.

  His hand is holding an implosion spell, he drops it and begins to sway, “m… ma… ja… jule… kin…” he falls onto the ground, I check his pulse and he is fine, his breathing is fine.

  I grab the spells from his pocket and look at the old man, “come on.” I point at him, I feel like I just shot him.

  “Please… don’t do this…” someone says in the crowd.

  “WE DON’T DESERVE THIS.”

  “YOU KILLED HIM.”

  “DEMON FUCKER.”

  I didn’t kill him I didn’t do anything I’m not doing anything I haven’t done anything I’m just like them I’m just a victim I’m a victim they don’t understand.

  Nothing jumps down and strokes my hair, “you did good… just finish this and I’ll make you some toast.” She whispers in my ear, there are countless people screaming at me.

  I fall onto the ground unable to move, nothing keeps shaking me, trying to get me to activate again, I don’t. I put my face in the mud trying to drown everything out, even myself.

  After what had to be two minutes I’m dragged back onto the carriage, an even older man who must have been hiding was taken, nothing must’ve done my job for me.

  As I look up I see Anne by her hut, I see the faint green of her plant beside her through the door, her face is incomprehensible to me, something I can’t decode.

  The fog appears and we go home.