Tom woke up dizzy and coughing. He saw a firelight blur and felt wrapped in warm blankets. He groaned, reaching for an alarm clock, but his hand found only a wooden dresser and his fingers stuck slightly in its surface. He groaned and tried to focus on his hand. Like a white glove; where had he seen gloves and fire lately?

He sat upright and shouted in alarm.

Another blur rushed into the room. A girl's voice said, "Vonn?!" The spinning shapes around him started to converge. A rust-red figure was staring at him with an animal's face, triangular ears high, muzzle slightly open and exposing sharp teeth.

Tom recoiled, but before he could escape, the newcomer rushed him and crushed him in a hug, sniffling. "I thought you were dead!"

Overwhelmed by the warm fluff of the embrace, Tom sat there confused and afraid. He'd begun to remember his encounter with System, and the terror before that. "Where am I?"

"At home, fuzzbutt. Finally. Mom and Dad were talking about calling the Bonefire people and I... I was going to fight them rather than take you to the pits! I would have!"

Tom stared into the tearful eyes of the fox girl. Golden, slit-pupiled, and --

[Tazo, Vulin Female, Craftsman 2. Sister.]

The words hovered next to her in a golden rectangle matching her eyes. "Sister?" he said. He hadn't known what to expect other than that this new persona had a family.

One whose son was dead, and possessed by a creature from another world who was stealing a relationship he hadn't earned.

"I feel like garbage," Tom said.

"You've been out for days." The fox girl took his hand in both of hers. He felt little claws pricking against leathery skin on his palm. She said, "Vonn, no fooling. You do remember me, don't you?"

Tom's heart sank. "I don't remember much of anything. Not from around here, anyway. You're Tazo, right?" He averted his eyes. "This is going to sound insane."

Tazo tilted her head, a little like a dog.

He took a breath and paused. There was no good way to play this. He finally said, "I... know things. Different things. There's something you probably wouldn't even believe if I told you, and maybe you'd hate me."

"Is it about the accident? You built something that sent up those blue fumes."

"Discovered carbon monoxide," he mumbled. His ears flicked backward and thumped against a scratchy straw pillow behind him. He reached back to feel one, then looked at his hands. Claws, white fur, black finger-pads, but he wiggled his fingers and discovered that his thumbs were still there and all four -- four! -- digits on each hand moved like his old human ones. "No piano playing for me."

"Talking nonsense," Tazo said. "That I can understand after all that smoke."

He was still dizzy, but he was to blame if he lied to her. "Look. Do you know someone named System?"

"The System? Oh! It's your birthday, Vonn. We were supposed to get you to the temple, but I thought you'd never go."

"My birthday? Which?"

"Sixteen. Which makes you forever the younger one." She stepped back and folded her arms across her chest. Tom tried not to stare at it; this was supposedly his sister.

System was, he suspected, some kind of avatar of this world's laws of reality. And System itself had put him here, with someone who would be miserable if her real brother -- Vonn by name -- weren't there. There was an uncertain smile on her muzzle now and her ears kept flicking forward and back. He couldn't do right by his real family anymore, but he could least treat this one well.

He said, "Someday, I think I have to tell you everything. Until then, can I try to be your brother as well as I can?"

"Of course," she said, leaning back. "Mom and Dad are away. They're... making arrangements. I ought to tell them you're alive. Can I go do that? Will you promise not to blow yourself up for a bit?"

"I'll try."

She was out the door and gone. Tom threw off the covers. He was clad only in fur, white around the hands, feet and chest with some yellow accents here and there. He had claws on his feet too. Was nudity normal here? No, Tazo had been wearing a leather apron and a tan dress. Good.

He stood up unsteadily and got his first good look at "home". The boards of a cramped two-story cabin creaked under his rough-soled feet. The furniture was crudely hand-made in a style that people back home would covet more than the slick industrial finish of a Swedish import. Countless tiny indentations on the dresser confused him until he tried matching his clawtips against them. He took a deep breath and gagged; the black nose that perched way in front of him brought the scent of thick vegetation, maybe deep-fried fat. A little square of polished metal sat next to an array of brushes.

It was a mirror, and seeing his new face for the first time made annotation appear.

Tom Franklin, Vulin Male

Congratulations on living through your sixteenth year! Based on your aptitudes, your attributes have been assigned.

Favored Type: Mental

Agility 1, Learning 1, Wits 1, Sanity 1

It is recommended that you commit to a Class and Geas to begin making full use of the System.

He looked at the array of numbers, seeing what wasn't there. No high numbers meant that any number at all was significant. No score for Strength or the like implied there were more stats than he saw right now. The Sanity one worried him, since it suggested there were threats to that. And...

"My name is Vonn, now," he said.

The surreal window beside his reflection updated itself to accept the name.