"Those memories are all I have left of her," I whispered.

  "And they make you weak," she countered. "They make you hesitate. They make you hope. Hope gets you killed."

  "What would I be without them?" I asked.

  "Stronger," she said immediately. "Focused. Unencumbered by sentimentality. Ready to become what you need to be."

  "Which is what?"

  She leaned in close, her worm-filled eye inches from my face.

  "A monster worthy of killing our father."

  I closed my eye, thinking. Was that what I wanted? To become a monster? To lose the memories of Rell's laugh, of her kindness, of the love we had shared?

  But if I refused, would I even survive this Trial? And if I didn't survive, what happened to my vow to avenge her?

  "You can have my body, but not my mind," I said finally, opening my remaining eye. "Leave me my memories of Rell."

  Child-Rell smiled, a terrible expression on her innocent face.

  She clapped her hands with the deranged enthusiasm of a toddler who'd just been handed a new toy. Except in this case, the toy was a miniature version of me made from bone and sinew.

  "I've decided to try something different," she announced, her voice a perversion of my sister's childish lilt. "The old way is boring. Let's skip ahead!"

  Before I could respond, she popped the entire Fischer-doll into her mouth like it was a carnival treat. Her jaw distended unnaturally, reminding me of Mikkel's monstrous mouth. The sound of tiny bones crunching between her teeth echoed through the room.

  I tensed, waiting for new pain, for more pieces of me to dissolve into worms. Nothing happened.

  "Huh." I looked down at my incomplete body. Still missing an eye, arm, and leg, but no new disappearing parts. "That's... unexpected."

  Child-Rell giggled, a sound like a spoon trapped in a garbage disposal. She hopped off the bed with unnatural grace, her bare feet leaving bloody footprints on the floor that writhed and reshaped themselves into tiny tendrils before fading.

  "That's because I'm done taking from you," she said, approaching me. "Now I'm going to give."

  She stood over me, her single eye—my eye, stolen from me—glowing with eldritch hunger. "Your flesh and bones are mine now. That means I can do whatever I want with them."

  "That doesn't sound promising," I muttered.

  "Oh, but it is!" She smiled, revealing rows of needle-like teeth that hadn't been there before. "I'm going to make you better. The old you was weak. Useless. Just like she said."

  She reached toward me with her tiny fingers that suddenly elongated, becoming bone-white talons. Before I could react, she plunged them into my chest.

  There's pain, and then there's pain. This was something beyond both. Every nerve ending in my body fired simultaneously, then seemed to turn inside out. I felt my remaining flesh break down at the molecular level, dissolving into squirming masses of white worms that burrowed back into me, rebuilding as they went.

  Child-Rell wasn't just taking me apart—she was remaking me.

  She whistled a song that sounded awfully similar to "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts “as she was elbow-deep in my disintegrating torso.

  "Most Sacred emerge with their Origins shaped by their fears or desires. But you? You're special. Your Origin was already waiting for you, wasn't it? Daddy made sure of that."

  I wanted to scream, but my throat was currently being unravelled, my vocal cords dissolving into wriggling filaments that squirmed back into place. The agony was beyond comprehension. I was being eaten alive and reconstructed simultaneously.

  She giggled again, the sound distorting as she tore into my abdomen. "Isn't that nice? Daddy was always efficient."

  Child-Rell worked her way down my body, her fingers breaking apart muscle, bone, and sinew, allowing the worms to rebuild them stronger. As she reached my missing limbs, new ones grew in their place—constructed entirely of writhing white worms that gradually solidified into something approximating human flesh.

  "You know why most Sacred are so limited?" she asked, now working on my legs. "They fight the transformation. They cling to humanity. They want the power without the cost. But you understand now, don't you? To truly transcend, you must first be unmade."

  Each word was punctuated by another wave of agony as she systematically disassembled and reassembled my body.

  My mind fractured under the strain, memories bleeding into hallucinations. I saw Rell—the real Rell—standing in the corner, watching with tears in her eyes. I saw Mikkel's rotating teeth. I saw myself as a child, unaware of the monster raising me.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "Almost done," Child-Rell said cheerfully. "Just the face left."

  Her fingers plunged into my cheeks, tearing away skin and muscle, exposing the skull beneath. The worms swarmed over my exposed facial bones, rebuilding, restructuring. My missing eye regenerated, but it felt cold and alien in its socket.

  "There!" she announced, finally stepping back. "All fixed. Well, not fixed. Upgraded!"

  She licked her fingers clean of my blood and flesh, and I noticed something disturbing. She'd grown. The child-sized Rell was now adolescent, standing taller, her limbs longer, her face more mature. She looked like Rell had at fourteen—that awkward stage between child and woman.

  I tried to speak, finding my voice restored but strange, as if the worms were vibrating my vocal cords. "What... are you?"

  "I'm the cocoon that breaks down the caterpillar to make the butterfly."

  She gestured at me. "Stand up. Try out your new body."

  I found I could move again.

  The pain had receded to a dull, all-encompassing throb.

  I rose to my feet, feeling the strange sensation of worms squirming beneath my skin, through my muscles, along my bones. I was whole again—two arms, two legs, two eyes—but fundamentally different.

  "Holy shit," I muttered, flexing my new left arm. It moved smoothly but felt as if there were thousands of tiny individual movements happening simultaneously to create one larger motion. Which, I realized, was exactly what was happening.

  I looked down at my hands.

  The skin appeared normal at first glance, but when I focused, I could see the faint movement beneath the surface—thousands of worms working in perfect unison to maintain the illusion of humanity.

  "Why?" I asked. "Why am I different?"

  "Because Daddy made you that way," she said with a shrug. "He didn't just feed on Sacred—he studied them. Modified them. The Origin that's awakening in you isn't natural. It's engineered."

  She smiled, and for a moment, she looked so much like the real Rell that my heart ached. "He always planned for both of you to be consumed. Rell was the appetizer. You're the main course. But things didn't go according to plan, did they?"

  She spun in a circle, her bloody dress flaring out. "Anyway! You've passed this stage of the Trial. A new area of the house has opened up for you to explore. I'd hurry if I were you. The longer you take, the harder it gets."

  With that, she vanished in a puff of bloody mist, leaving me alone in what had once been Rell's bedroom.

  I took a moment to examine myself more thoroughly.

  My prison jumpsuit had been restored along with my body, though it now felt uncomfortably restrictive against my worm-infused skin.

  I could feel power thrumming through me.

  Engineered, she'd said.

  "Sick bastard," I muttered, clenching my fists. The worms beneath my skin responded to my anger, writhing more vigorously. I could feel them wanting to burst free, to take shapes dictated by my rage.

  I forced myself to calm down.

  Control would be essential if I was going to survive this Trial and whatever came after. I needed to understand what I was becoming.

  I left Rell's room, stepping into the hallway.

  The architecture of our nightmare home had changed. What had once been a simple corridor now stretched impossibly far in both directions, doors lining both walls at irregular intervals. The walls themselves moved like living tissue, veins of fluid running through them.

  The door to my own bedroom was gone. In its place was a massive double door made of compacted bone and chitin, like the shells of countless dimensional beasts fused together. Carved into its surface was a scene depicting a man being torn apart and rebuilt by worms.

  Subtle.

  "I guess I'm supposed to go this way," I said to no one in particular. The hallway seemed to vibrate in response, the veins pumping blood faster in that moment.

  As I approached the bone doors, I could see the carving that was at eye level—small text that hadn't been visible from a distance. I leaned closer to read it.

  "The Devourer devours. The Consumed consumes. The cycle repeats until nothing remains but the hunger."

  The doors swung open at my touch, revealing a vast chamber that couldn't possibly fit within the dimensions of our apartment.

  The floor was a writhing carpet of white worms. The ceiling disappeared into darkness high above. And at the center of the room, suspended by chains made of fused human bones, hung a massive cocoon pulsing with internal light.

  The doors slammed shut behind me.

  "Welcome to the Nursery," said a voice that was neither Child-Rell's nor Teen-Rell's. This voice was adult, mature—and it came from the cocoon.

  I stepped carefully onto the worm-carpeted floor. The creatures parted before my feet, creating a solid path toward the cocoon.

  The cocoon pulsed brighter with each step.

  "Did you think you and Rell were his first? He's been growing Sacred for consumption for centuries."

  I approached the cocoon, drawn by morbid curiosity and the inexorable pull of the Trial. "And you are...?"

  "I'm what remains of the last family he consumed before yours. Well, part of me, anyway. The rest is inside him."

  The cocoon's surface rippled, and I could see a humanoid shape moving within it. Not trying to get out—moving as if swimming in amniotic fluid.

  "Each consumption makes him more than just stronger—it makes him more complete."

  "Why are you telling me this?" I asked, now standing directly before the massive cocoon.

  "Because you're different. You were able to break the bond. You survived. And now your Trial is revealing truths he never intended you to know." The shape inside pressed against the translucent surface, and I saw a woman's face—beautiful, terrified, and familiar somehow. "You can end him. If you embrace what he made you to be."

  "And what exactly did he make me to be?"

  The woman smiled sadly. "A perfect parasite. One that can consume without destroying. Take without diminishing. His ultimate evolution."

  The cocoon began to crack, thin fissures spreading across its surface. Light spilled from the breaks, illuminating the chamber.

  "You've been remade. You must feed." She said.

  The cocoon split open, spilling a torrent of viscous fluid teeming with white worms. They surged toward me, climbing my legs, burrowing into my flesh without breaking the skin. I felt them joining with the worms already inside me, strengthening them, teaching them.

  Knowledge flooded my mind—not just information, but muscle memory, instinct, power. I understood suddenly how to control the worms, how to shape them.

  I raised my hand, focusing on the sensation of worms moving beneath my skin.

  They responded instantly, extending from my fingertips like white tendrils, reaching toward a nearby chunk of the shattered cocoon. When they made contact, they didn't just grab it—they began to break it down, converting it to more worms that joined my growing colony.

  "Holy shit," I whispered.

  "Now you understand," said the woman's voice, though her physical form was gone, consumed like the cocoon. "This is your Origin—the ability to consume, convert, and control. Mikkel designed you to be his perfect vessel, able to absorb Sacred essence directly from living hosts."

  I stared at the split cocoon, my body humming with newfound power as the last of the white worms slithered beneath my skin. The knowledge they brought felt ancient—like instructions written in a language I'd always known but never read until now.

  "What happens when this is over?" I asked the empty air where the woman's voice had been. "When I leave the trial?"

  No answer. Of course not. That would be too fucking helpful.