I pondered whether I should tell the old chimera shaman aka "Sei-Sen-Dai" whether I had memories from another world. I decided against it, since I wasn't sure how such a declaration would be perceived by her.

The bug bracelet on the high-cendai's wrist scintillated from within, leaving a ghostly, unnerving afterimage in my eyes.

"Can I tell my mom that I'm... a broken chain?" I asked her, trying not to stare at her sorcerous implement.

"Best not," Eunice said. "She might throw you into the Chasm if she learns that her soul-shard is not in you. Although... some of the memories must have remained in you because you're not a complete blank slate. It took me a long time to learn the language of our tribe. My mother beat it into me with a very heavy stick over the years. If you wish to avoid such a fate you best learn quickly my monci-cendai."

I shuddered.

"What's monci?" I asked.

"Moiin-Chiiiii," the old Chimera sang. "She, who is young and promised to me."

I wondered momentarily if "monci-cendai" translated into the shaman's apprentice.

"I belong to you?" I inquired, quavering ever so slightly.

"You have belonged to me since your rebirth, broken chain." The high-cendai nodded. "Your mother and I struck a pact. We had agreed that I would attempt to bring you back to life with my song-spell for the cost of you becoming my monci."

"Does this mean you'll take me away from my parents?" I looked at the grinning shaman.

"No, little one. I have no patience nor the time for raising children. You will help your mother until you are of marrying age and then you will belong entirely to me as my monwai."

“Monwai?”

“She, who is of age and belongs to me,” the shaman explained. “Until then we shall meet every seventh day for your education. I’ll have your mother bring you to my dwelling. Good tomorrow for now, we shall see each other in five days' time.”

I watched Eunice as she departed, walking on the tree branch far too gracefully for someone her age. On one hand I was very excited. I would finally learn magic. Magic! If I could define what magic was then maybe I could improve upon it with the scientific method.

On the other hand Eunice didn’t seem like a very nice person… err… chimera. She basically purchased me from mom for the price of saving my life. At the very least her motivations made sense - it seemed that the tribe was too conservative due to what I now understood as “Genetic memory”.

I recalled a lecture that I had at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. In it, my biology professor Dr. Shukhevych talked about a theory of Richard Wolfgang Semon, a German zoologist and evolutionary biologist. Semon was a memory researcher who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Inspired by the Greek goddess Mneme, the muse of memory, Semon called the memory passage theory the "mnemic trace" or “the Engram.” Semon also referenced the Phonograph, the first machine created by people to record sound to explain the uneven distribution and revival of engrams.

Semon’s Engram theory had been confirmed with recent neuroscientific research. Mice trained to fear a specific smell passed on their trained aversion to their descendants, which were then extremely sensitive and fearful of the same smell, even though they had never encountered it, nor been trained to fear it.

Engrams were also related to Samskara, a fascinating Indian belief in mental impressions, recollections, or psychological imprints aka soul rebirth. As I sat upon the branch I pondered whether I myself was just an Engram of a girl named Yulia Ishenko, a total mnemic imprint of what I was that had somehow been preserved, captured by the incredibly unique crystalline structure of Chernobylite.

Did I really perish in Chernobyl or was I just a copy of myself? What was definitely clear to me was that my full Engram had somehow found its way to another world and ended up in the body of a newborn chimera thanks to the machinations of the local shaman who wanted an apprentice.

Were local Engrams passed from parents to children part of natural chimera biology or were they a specific type of magic known by the tribe? Could I perhaps define the value of an Engram with the System?

I needed to know more!

After a short while, mom returned to my side.

"Hey mom... The high-cendai explained everything," I said.

"What did she say? Does she approve of you?" Mom asked curiously.

"She will teach me to become a cendai." I nodded.

"Thank the All-mother, my daughter isn't a complete deadroot."

"Hey I'm perfectly capable..." I muttered.

"No, you are not, Juni," mom chided me. "You are still afraid of the Chasm. This fear will do you no good. Even a momentary hesitation is dangerous when a Hexabeak dives towards you from the skyriver! Do not think of yourself as privileged or special just because the high-cendai has chosen you. The wild beasts will not care for your tutelage. They feast on gatherers, hunters and cendai alike!"

"I understand, mom." I nodded.

"You must learn to purge the fear of the deep from your heart. The tribe will not tolerate a cendai that is too scared to look down," she hammered in her point.

I sighed. "Alright, I'll try," I promised.

"Good." Mom nodded. "Now let us return home before the sun sets."

She turned around and I climbed into her pack.

I awoke from a dreamless sleep. Something was crawling atop our home making a tapping noise on the bony roof as if a hundred blades were rapidly moving across the skull. I glanced at the beetle carapace shutters. They were closed. I tried to return to sleep but the skittering persisted. I felt too spooked to fall asleep. I sat up and peered into the darkness. Since my eyes were more akin to a cat than a human, I observed a grayscale view of my little bedroom alcove which was connected to the living room.

"Mom?!" I called out.

There was no answer. One of the shutters started to wobble. A long, black claw entered into the tiny space, cutting right through the wing membrane. It slid between the shutter and the bone-window, trying to pry it open.

I jumped out of my bed and rushed over to the window. Just as the shutter began to peel open I pulled on the leather belt tied to the shutter with all of my weight. The sharp edge of the beetle's carapace sliced off the black claw at a joint. Gray fluid splattered across my face. The monster outside of our house screeched noisily, retreating.

I picked up the broken black claw. It was almost akin to a small black sword in my arms. Damn!

[50/50 Experience optimum reached! Initiate level up?]

The System suddenly chimed.

So, attacking monsters was rewarding in terms of experience.

"That was well done, Juni." I heard my mother's voice.

I spun around with a small squeak. I didn't even hear her get up or step towards me. She was standing close to me, her ears twitching in the direction of the now distant skittering.

"That's a nightcrawler," she commented, eyeing the obsidian claw in my hand. "It will be back. I'll let your father know about it. He will track its scent and kill it while it sleeps during the day.

"No," I said.

"No?" She raised an eyebrow at my declaration.

"I... want to kill it," I said.

"You are a girl. Girls do not hunt." She shook her head.

"I'm not going to hunt it or chase it around," I said. "If it will be back... I can set a trap for it."

"A trap?" She tilted her head at me.

“See how the beetle carapace shutter sliced off its claw?” I showed her the black claw dripping with black ichor. “I can set up something like it… but a lot stronger.”

“Stronger?” She blinked. “Your father sleeps deeply during the night so that he can hunt effectively during the day. It is far easier to kill the nightcrawler during the day when it is blind.”

“I won’t be involving dad in this,” I shook my head.

“Then how will you overcome the nightcrawler?” She inquired.

“I will use the power of a… bent tree,” I explained.

"A bent tree? I don’t understand.”

“A tree bent by force will try to spring back into its original shape,” I explained. “I can use a leather belt to hold a tree down and unleash the force of a bent tree against the nightcrawler.”

“I would not have thought of doing such a thing," she said, squinting at me.

"Eunice said that being a cendai requires... original ideas," I muttered.

"Ah." She nodded. "Very well. I won't get in your way then."

She didn't look like she believed that I could set up a trap for the nightcrawler. She, like the rest of the girls in her line, were good housewives and didn't possess the skills necessary for making traps. She believed that I would fail. I would have to prove myself to her, show her that I was worthy of being the tribe’s future shaman. I was sick of being looked down upon.

"Thanks, mom."

"Go back to sleep, Juni. We will have to fetch kimyajzty berries tomorrow morning."

"Okay," I nodded.

I returned to my bed and closed my eyes. I kept twitching at every minute noise coming from the outside, my mind obsessing over the sounds of the night, adrenaline rush refusing to let me fall back asleep.

“System?” I whispered. “Level me up.”

[Level up to LV: 1!]

The system flashed. The words collapsed into sparks in my eyes which turned into a symphony of noise. An ethereal chorus entwined, filled my entire mind. A strange feeling overwhelmed my small body along with the rising and falling tones. The sound stretched on, sounding like it was nearby and distant at the same time. It sounded like the ticks of the giger counter mixed with gregorian chants. The noise was memorable, refreshing, nostalgic, and rewarding at the same time.

It suddenly felt like blinding bliss was emanating from within me, like stabbing all-consuming pain ignited all over. An indeterminate, entirely new sensation that I couldn't quite comprehend came over me and my consciousness folded in on itself.

I was dreaming. I knew that I was dreaming because the world was blurry, dim, indistinct, warped and lacking color in places.

I found myself swim-walking through the control room of the 4th reactor of Chernobyl. The row of control panels in front of me were blurry and kept swimming in and out of focus, levers and switches multiplying, shifting around in my vision. Broken, halogen, white lamps warped, growing elongated, shifting into mushroom-like structures. My steps felt slow and heavy as if I was moving through a thick, yet invisible, imperceptible pressure of deep water.

I had often dreamed of this place because Chernobyl was one of my obsessions. Even though this control room was dead, it was still a symbol of the Soviet legacy in Ukraine, an alluring and terrifying technogenic scar that was permanently left upon my homeland that would not heal for a thousand years.

In my mind, the Elephant's Foot was the heart of Chernobyl forged from its catastrophically changed reactor… while this control room was its brain. The control room of the fourth reactor came into better focus as I approached it. It looked almost correct, almost like Chernobyl, but also not really. Upon inspection everything looked unnerving, wrong, slightly off. Electrical panels were shattered and numerous wires crawled across the tables like myriads of torn spiderwebs.

I knew that this view, this idea of a place, was woven together from my memories of various abandoned Soviet megastructures filled with decay and ruin. Motes of emerald dust lazily floated through the air. The panels themselves and the lights overhead flickered with a pale green light, casting eerie, fluctuating shadows. This control room was dead... but it was also alive, necromanced into being by my unconsciousness. The broken panels and dials hummed, as if they were waiting for something... waiting for me.

I took another step forward and the green panels suddenly reshaped themselves into suspiciously distinctive, very specific tables with light-bound numbers blinking beside them. The glowing numbers reminded me of the Nixie Tube Clock that I had built with the aid of one of my engineer buddies.

As I looked at the lines of text next to the nixie tube numbers I suddenly recognized the System.

Name:

Juni Tokimorimïtuti

Age:

7 months

Species & Subtype:

Chimera spawn

Level:

1

Experience:

0/200

Health:

1/1

Stamina:

1/1

Mana:

1/1

Mana regen:

1 m/hr

Strength:

0

Agility:

0

Dexterity:

0

Vitality:

0

Charisma:

0

Magic:

0

Luck:

0

Intelligence:

0

Wisdom:

0

Investiture points

5

The Investiture dial with number [5] on it dimmed and flashed rapidly, the pulse intensifying. On some subconscious level I suddenly realized what I had to do. The System wanted me to choose, to direct my evolution while I slept!

Of course. I was in the process of leveling up and because I had unlocked the System with math… I could now select which parts of myself could be improved first. Interesting!

I thought about what I needed… what I needed to defeat monsters without having to hunt for them. Traps. I needed to build traps, like my grandfather had taught me! To build traps I needed strong, capable fingers. Dexterity. I needed more power in my hands.

I reached out and spun the dial next to Dexterity.

The chart changed immediately, now showing that:

Dexterity: 1 Investiture points: 4

Sweet!

I cranked the dial all the way up.

Dexterity: 5

The Investiture points line suddenly dimmed.

Whoops. Guess that’s it. Well, that was fun.

I heard the ethereal music once again. I felt my arms thrumming. I lifted them to my face and noticed that they were woven from tiny, transparent silver threads. I felt, saw five shimmering, gold lines of power, akin to miniature aurora borealis that flowed from the center of my chest. I felt that I could guide them to a place I needed them most.

Based on some sort of a sixth sense of knowing approximately how the gold threads functioned, I mentally directed the five slowly growing gold threads into my hands. I led two threads into my left hand and three into my right.

I guided them into the shape of a mechanism that would reinforce my joints, muscles and ligaments. I based parts of its structure on the joints of my exoskeleton suit that I had built for exploring Chernobyl.

As I finished shaping the threads, I noticed that my [Stamina] value dropped to [0.15/1].

Hrrm.

The five threads settled into place. The gold mechanism inside my right hand was a little bit brighter and stronger than the one in my left. I decided to call it a [Pneumasomatic Actuator], since it was sort of similar to the pneumatic actuators in my exoskeleton armor. Also, the word “Pneumasomatic” sounded cool in my head. I was relatively sure that I had encountered it once in an obscure book. It was made up from the Greek word “Pneuma” [Soul] and the concept of the “Somatic disorder” [focus on the physical body].

My hand joints lit up, ignited with power and potential. I opened and closed them, feeling more in control of them than I had ever been, feeling that they were faster, more responsive. It wasn’t just my fingers that were improved. I felt my ruby fingernails as I had never felt them before, new muscles, connections had formed where none had been, giving me the ability to retract my claws.

“Excellent,” I muttered slowly in a low, sinister voice as I steepled my fingertips, akin to Mr. Burns' trademark expression from the Simpsons tv series.

The view of the control room of the fourth reactor dimmed as I giggled, pushing my little claws in and out of my fingers.

I opened my eyes with a yawn. It took a few seconds for them to adjust to the bright light. I blinked hard several times before my vision became normal. I was strapped to mom's back hanging above the infinite abyss.

I shrieked.

"Someone's up," mom commented as she climbed a vertical wall covered in shrubbery.

"Mom! Why didn't you wake me?!" I whimpered, feeling hungry, thirsty and also wanting to use the bathroom.

"I tried to, but you wouldn't wake up," mom commented.

"I c-couldn't fall asleep," I explained my comatose state. Damn it. Leveling up made me completely defenseless for a while. Well, that's nice to know. Why didn't the System have any kind of a manual with it? Hello? System? Why don't you ever explain anything ahead?

No explanation came. I sighed. Then I remembered my dream. I lifted my little hands up to my face and attempted to retract my ruby claws. It worked! Yessssss. Dexterity for the win!