Part 1: Nyxie's POV

  This has got to be the weirdest few minutes of my new life, and it was only getting more confusing from here. I don’t even know where to begin. Honestly, I'm barely holding it together as is.

  The first thing I noticed was just how fast I was forced out of the driver's seat. One moment, I was trying to reach out to the woman in front of me, to understand what was happening, then all of a sudden from out of nowhere BAM, I was shoved aside. Someone else was in control. I don’t even know how to expin it. It was like they didn’t even need to ask permission. It wasn’t a gentle push either, it felt like someone had charged into me, so I charged back and that repeated for quite a while. The feeling of being knocked out of myself and thrown back in again was unnerving. I don’t even know how long it sted; it felt like minutes, but time had stopped making sense. That was probably, in part, due to us being a baby.

  The second thing was the feeling of calmness we all got when the woman (mother) took us into her arms for an embrace. The man (father) who had left the room had just returned with what looked like a woolen brown bnket, which wasn’t as snug as mother’s arms, but it still carried a certain warmth. The texture of it felt softer than I expected, like it was designed to wrap around us. I'm also pretty sure it was self heating because it was a lot warmer than any of my bnkets back home. It seems to me everyone's calmed down now. At least for a moment.

  That calmness actually sted longer than I expected. It wasn’t like everything was perfect, but for the first time since all this began, it was silent. I could feel everyone else, all of us, breathing together in the same space, sharing the same body. It seemed like everyone took a step back, with only one of us in control it was a lot more comfortable anyway, as for whoever was in control still no clue. A brief respite.

  That brings me to now. back to the present.

  The light was still blindingly bright, our eyes struggling to adjust to the swirl of colors filling the room. Everything was too soft, too warm, too overwhelming. The woman (mother) was speaking to us now, her voice soothing but still incomprehensible, her golden eyes gazing into ours with tender love.

  Her fingers brushed gently against our cheek, warmth radiating from her skin.

  “Too bad she's taken, I like her” Someone says

  Silence.

  Absolute, deafening silence.

  I don’t even know how to begin processing that, and judging by the stunned quiet, neither does anyone else.

  "Alrighty!" The blunt one finally broke the tension. "Since we’re all stuck in here together, we should at least know who’s who."

  Clearly distracting from the comment earlier, but its relief she brought it up, kinda like finally getting the first few lines of dialogue after a long ass cutscene... And at least there was a bit of normalcy in a name. A starting point, maybe.

  A sigh, drawn out and distinctly unimpressed. "Very well," she began, her tone had an air of superiority to it. "I must admit, I find myself quite befuddled right now, though I imagine I'm not the only one who feels this way. I am Rose Kandemara, daughter of house Kandemara. I trust that means something to at least one of you?"

  "Nope," The response came almost instantly. "Never heard of you."

  A monotone voice joins in. "Analysis: I cannot find any data regarding "Rose Kandemara" within my stored memory banks. Hypothesis: This name is not recognized or relevant to current parameters."

  Rose clearly offended by that, "How.. quaint," her tone is condascending now. "It seems you are as uneducated as you are dull." She pauses "You should consider yourself lucky, Not many are granted the opportunity to have an audience with me."

  For some reason, I couldn't help but roll my eyes, which I'm just realizing now are our eyes and that everyone just saw that.

  The blunt one speaks up "You seem like a pleasure to talk to," She says sarcastically. "Anyway, I’m Ashley. Ash, if thats easier." She pauses for a moment. "Not much else to say, really. I’ve lived most of my life on my own. I’m a survivalist, good with a sword, beginner in Ashen Style, and intermediate in Sun God Style.

  Sword styles... Yeah that sounded like some fantasy novel, maybe its like ashes of war?

  "What about the one who was crying earlier?"

  The quiet one perked up, and I barely cought her voice from how quiet she was whispering. "I... I’m sorry," her voice is trembling. "U-um Ogma, that’s my name."

  I hear the soft sound of sniffles, and then something wet follows. A sniff, a sob, aaannd she’s crying.

  Seeing someone break down like that, then realizing you have no idea how to comfort them sucks. I may not be good the whole comforting thing. But I still want to say something, anything. But before I can say anything about it, the monotone voice speaks over her.

  "Introduction: I am Celia. Designation: 411C3 Analysis: Dissengaged from the main collective, additional discomfort registering in internal system. Further inquiry required."

  Ashley snorts. "You always talk like that?"

  "Yes."

  "Figures," Ashley mutters.

  Celia huh, How is she even here? She’s a robot, right? I mean, get the rest of us being here, but like, she's not human. I guess i'll ask ter; it seems kinda rude right now.

  “So, the st one, then…” Ashley begins, her tone casual but with an edge of impatience, “What about you?”

  Nyxie shifts nervously, and it's nerve-wracking talking to them now, like standing in front of an audience. "I’m Nyxie," she says, voice firm. "I’ve... uh, had a bad day today." Clearly nervous from the audible shaking of her voice.

  "Oh gods, trust me, you have NOT had a worse day than me" Ashley replied

  Celia’s response wasn't any better; her voice still cking in emotion. "Query: Would you like to initiate a 'feel better' protocol? Multiple individuals have been designated as distressed."

  feel better protocol? "Uh, okay." I say, mostly out of curiosity to see where this leads.

  There’s a brief pause, like she’s processing the command before continuing, “Do not worry. You are not alone in this, you are loved. I am here to assist whenever you require it.”

  I mean, at least she tried? Honestly, I could use some space; although it doesn't seem like that's gonna be possible.

  “Thanks... I guess?” I mumble, holding back a yawn.

  A wave of exhaustion hits all five of us; the woman (mother) had been rocking us to sleep for quite some time. Her embrace was warm, and the motion had started tiring us out. The events of the past hour had taken a lot of energy to process, too much for us to handle clearly. Our eyes are heavy, it's hard to keep focus, and before I knew it, the overwhelming tiredness takes over.

  "Analysis: Indication present that we are tired. Suggestion: It would advisable for us to rest now. Sleep could help alleviate discomfort and decrease overall stress."

  Nobody disagreed. We all felt it, the subtle drift from reality into dream.

  PART 2: Update

  It’s been around 3 months.

  We’ve had a lot of time to explore our environment. We live in a two-story wooden house with about six or seven rooms, and it's surprisingly spacious. We sleep with Mom (yes I got used to calling her that) in her room, where there’s a rge basket filled with pillows and bnkets. It’s comfortable and has heating, but I still don’t know how they do it, the bnkets are always the perfect temperature... Downstairs, there’s a rge open area that dips down a little with some steps; it serves as both our living room and dining area. It has a fairly rge rectangur table that can hold about three people on each side and one at each end. There are some couches scattered about, but overall, the space is kept open. Next to it is a small kitchen with pots hanging from the ceiling, and the kitchen always smells like whatever Mom’s making. Which because we are still a baby, and we can’t eat yet, it's just there to taunt us. There are shelves, but no books, unfortunately. And there are no light bulbs, just candles and mps. Apparently, I was the only one who thought it was weird, especially since our family seemed quite well off. We got a good look out the window the other day; it was mostly extensive hills and wheat fields. Other houses were scattered about, and the roads were dirt. You could occasionally see people walking along them, some kids older than us pying outside, and some older folks traveling with rge backpacks. Unfortunately, with our small bodies, we have to get a lot of sleep, so there’s not much time to look around other than that.

  Side note: Being a baby is incredibly boring; we sleep most of the day and night while Mom has to carry us around everywhere. We keep hurting ourselves too... Sorry, it's just Ashley doing it, she's the most impatient. She also makes it very clear she's uncomfortable around Mom, so that's generally the best time to steal control.

  As for Dad, he's.... trying way to hard.

  For the st week or so he's been really adamant about getting us to ugh. Fake ughing is surprisingly hard, but Ashley seems good at it. Or she actually thinks he's funny... Which he's not, but I guess it's nice that he's trying. Also, he keeps bringing us these little wooden toys; one of them was a tiny wooden sword, which he got immediately scolded for.

  Also, huge news: we have a sister!

  She’s only a little more than a year old and already walking around. She’s got Dad’s bck hair, which is all messy, and Mom’s golden eyes. We see her a lot; she's very hyperactive, always poking around in mom's room looking for things to do. It's cute how excited she gets when Mom lets her py with us. Ogma is super attached to her; its one of the only times she doesn't cry, so we usually let her take control.

  Finally, Back to us.

  We finally got a name! Celia actually told us, she's been picking up words from conversations between Mom and Dad, trying to understand their nguage apparently takes first priority for her. We've been trying our best to learn too, Celia however, is a terrible teacher, and Rose seems to be the only one who is picking things up. After all that, Celia finally told us our name... Mira. I actually really liked it. I’d been worried we’d argue over it like with everything else, but it turns out, everyone was fine.

  I’d like to say we’ve got this whole “sharing a body” thing down, but that would be a lie. We’ve established some kind of system, sure, but it’s still a mess. Some of us are still better at taking control than others. Ash has absolutely no problem joining in whenever one of us was doing something she found remotely fun. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to wrestle control back from her, when we can walk its gonna get worse, I'm not looking forward to it. There is however, a major problem to the whole control thing, turns out its not just one person at a time, and when two of us try to take control, it is incredible painful. I'm speaking from experience here; Ashley needs to tone it down a bit, I don't want Ogma to experience that again.

  Finally, after all these idle conversations over the past month, I still haven't learned much about everyone.

  Ash a pain to deal with. She's always starting arguments, and it feels like she came from some sort of swordsman background, probably one who was still in training. She’s hot-headed, always starting arguments, and constantly itching for something to do.

  Then there’s Ogma. I haven't been able to find much of anything about her really. She barely speaks, spends most of her time crying, and seems terrified of Rose for reasons I can’t figure out. Other than that, I’ve got nothing on her.

  Rose, on the other hand, full on noble woman, She’s also the sharpest of us all, right after Celia. She doesn’t seem to get along with anyone here, always keeps to herself. I would like to be friends with her but she's hard to deal with.

  And then there’s Celia. She’s almost robotic in how she speaks, it freaks Ogma out, all monotone. I have a ton of questions about her, but for now, I’ll keep them to myself. She’s dead set on learning the nguage and teaching it to us, still a terrible teacher.

  That should be everything!