Chương 160: Family

A few moments after I ended the call with my friends, a woman walked through the front door of the house. She had dull copper-colored hair, a vacant look in her eyes, and a vacuous smile on her lips. She didn't wear very much clothing - her clothes seemed more designed to show off her body than to cover anything up. Her expression looked… strange. She gave me an odd smile, before giggling randomly, and then began making her way towards a part of the house that was occupied by… nothing. Perhaps she was drunk?

As I was thinking that, she flopped over onto the ground and began randomly twitching her arms and legs. Her strange smile and vacant look never quite left her face, even as she spasmed and giggled to herself. I felt as if a cold hand was gripping my heart and squeezing it, and it felt hard to breathe. I felt worried. Part of my body was also giving me the same instinctual response I usually had towards my new mother, but the emotional response I had towards my mother in this life was very… muted.

I normally felt a surge of love and affection for my mother in a given life. Even if my body was largely on autopilot until my brain developed enough to properly house my soul, some instinctive responses towards my parents were usually still present. Why was my response towards my mother so muted? I was also pretty sure that my mother was blissed out on some kind of drug. My mothers reactions were simply far too odd for me to think that she was simply drunk.

The vacant expression and hollow eyes didn't really scream 'drunk' to me. Of course, it was also possible that this world's alcohol was simply different. But either way, I now strongly suspected several things. First, I strongly suspected that my mother worked as a… certain kind of woman. One that probably worked in this world's equivalent of the red light district. I could be wrong - I didn't have all of the information available to me yet. But it seemed plausible right now.

Second, we were seriously struggling with food. My mother's figure wasn't much better than mine: she had slightly bony arms and legs that detracted from her looks and made her look… rather frail, in a strange way. I wasn't the only one suffering from malnutrition - my mother wasn't really in a much better state.

I didn't know whether my mother's possible drug addiction was the reason we were struggling with food, or whether there was a famine going on, or what - but either way, food was going to be much more important in the early parts of this life than it had ever been before. In the first two worlds, food had been plentiful enough that it wasn't really a concern. This was no longer the case, at least until I got a bit more established. Third, my mother was probably struggling with some sort of drug addiction.

This actually explained a lot about the strange state I had been in when I awakened. I had been very hungry, my status screen had stated that I was malnourished, and our house was closer to a mold cultivation field than a proper living environment. Also, the fact that I had been set in the middle of a baby crib despite being about four years old had struck me as very odd. I had originally wondered if I was born in the middle of a famine, and perhaps my family was too busy to clean up.

And the baby crib could have been explained by my current species simply having some odd genetic characteristics. However, after seeing my mother, I suspected that it was just a case of negligence. My mother didn't seem capable of taking care of herself, much less a baby that needed time and attention. She might have simply left me in my baby crib while in a blissed-out daze. I wondered where my father was. Perhaps he had died after I was born, leaving my mother and I in this state? Or perhaps he had simply left?

Since my mother was in the midst of a daze, I took a closer look at our moldy, three room shack, but I didn't see any evidence of a third person living here. There was my baby crib, some other revealing clothing, and a small bed that couldn't fit two people in one room. The other two rooms seemed to be a dusty kitchen and a ratty living room. In other words, my father, whoever he was, wasn't particularly relevant right now. My current situation seemed dire.

I needed food, and my mother seemed unlikely to be a reliable source of anything in her current state. I didn't feel any judgment towards my mother for working in the red light district. Sometimes, things happened, and one was forced into hard situations and needed to make decisions to survive. But a drug addiction was much more problematic, at least in my eyes. Could I heal her drug addiction? I had never tried healing a drug addiction before.

I was able to regrow limbs given enough time and essence, but drug addictions were a lot more complicated. Was my renewal spell able to cope with such a complex type of damage to the body and mind? It was hard to guess. I also needed to make a decision. What was I going to do about my mother? It was clear that she was probably more of a hindrance than a help in this life, but she had still raised me for four years, and she hadn't turned violent towards me at any time.

I also didn't have any sort of instinctive fear of her ingrained into my body, so she probably hadn't been actively hurting me before I regained my consciousness. However, she was actively neglecting me, and I wasn't really sure how to handle that. I was used to loving my family and having them love me, so having a more dysfunctional family wasn't something I had needed to think about or manage before. The question was whether I should try to help her, or just leave and see if I could find a better way to survive.

I hesitated for a few moments, thoughts spinning around in my head… before my thoughts turned towards my friendship bracelet. Maybe my friends had a good idea for how to handle the situation. <My mother is a drug addict, I think, > I sent to my friends. <Drug addiction? What are her symptoms? > Asked Sallia. <My family lives in a bad part of town, and my mother has warned me to stay away from people with certain symptoms. I might be able to guess which drug she's addicted to if you describe her to me.

> <She's giggling to herself and twitching randomly in the corner. She has a vacant expression. She's smiling weirdly. I suspect that whatever she's doing, it's hallucinogenic. I also suspect that she works in this world's equivalent of the red light district, if that helps narrow down the details any. > I sent. <Hmm… it could be a few things. That's not specific enough for me to narrow it down. Does she have blue discoloration near her eyes? > Sent Sallia.

I slowly maneuvered my weak and malnourished body back to my mother's side, and then examined her eyes. She didn't seem to really notice my actions, and simply continued convulsing and giggling in the corner. I checked her eyes, before I nodded to myself. <She does> I sent. <It's very faint, but noticeable. > <That's Fizz, I think, > said Sallia. <It creates a sort of… fizzing sound in the ears of whoever takes it, and it also fizzles and sparks and sometimes catches on fire if exposed to river water.

Or at least the river water near my house, which is probably composed mostly of factory waste instead of actual water. My mother said that people with Fizz addictions are unpredictable, but usually not violent. But she said that I should stay away from them. My mother didn't say anything else, or go into further details, but she warned me that the drug was really bad and I couldn't ever touch it. > Sent Sallia.

<I suspect it's lethal if one takes it for long enough, although I could just be misunderstanding something. Can you heal drug addiction with Renewal? > If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. <I don't know>. Sallia sent over the mental equivalent of a grimace, before she sighed. <Well, the way I see it, your mother is probably never going to recover from Fizz naturally.

My mother could have been exaggerating what Fizz does to you, but there are occasional corpses in the street with signs of Fizz overdose. You can either try to heal your mother, or leave. > Sallia paused. <In fact, do you need help? I know we were just talking about rescuing Felix, but if your mother is a Fizz addict… what about your father? > <No clue. He might not be around, or might be dead. > <Either way, he's not helpful… > Sallia trailed off, losing herself in her thoughts.

Then, sounding much more worried, she sent me another message. <Do you need food or shelter? I don't know exactly how to make everything work if you need shelter, since I'm only four years old and can't really influence my family much yet… but I will figure something out if you need help. I'm not just going to let you keep hurting if you can't fix this. And my noodle bowl can help a lot with food>, sent Sallia. <Are you eating enough?

If your mother is blissed out on Fizz all the time, I doubt she's feeding you enough. > <I could probably convince my parents to let you sleep in my room if you need to get away>, sent Anise, rejoining the conversation. <And if they don't give permission, I'll figure out a way to sneak you in anyway. My father is also a factory worker, just like Sallia's, but mine is a bit higher up on the ladder. He's overseer for the factory.

Nothing special, but he's not near any of the dangerous machines, so I have room and supplies. And my mother isn't the most observant person. If you hide in the closet, I doubt she would notice. We can find a way to make it work. > I felt a little warm in my heart. My friends were so ready to immediately offer me help when I needed it. Even though they were only four years old, just like me, and didn't really have much power or influence right now… we were still a team.

Somehow, the cold hand that felt like it was squeezing my heart when I saw my mother blissed out in the corner felt like it lightened its grip around my heart, just a little bit. I thought about both offers. I was really quite hungry - I needed a stable source of food. Otherwise, I might starve to death before I could accomplish anything meaningful this life. I needed to find Sallia if I wanted to take advantage of her noodle bowl.

However, Sallia's family was very poor, and she said that she heard gunshots outside of her door regularly. I suspected that, if anything, I was living in a worse part of town than her. I wanted to at least be able to defend myself if I needed to, before I went anywhere. The biggest question, however, was still what I wanted to do about my mother. No matter what else I thought about, my mind kept circling back to what I was supposed to do about my drug addicted mother. Did I want to help my mother?

Could I help my mother? I had no idea if I could cure something like a drug addiction, and if I couldn't remove the drug addiction from my mother, sticking around might be a bad idea for my own long term health and safety. In my previous two lives, things hadn't been so complicated. My families in both lives had been comprised of people that clearly loved me, and didn't have any major issues.

My father and mother in my first life had been simple fishermen, and in my second life, the biggest problem I'd had with my mother was that she was too controlling - but even that had been rather mild, and we had been able to talk things out. I had been more than happy to return every bit of love that they extended to me. Having a lovely and kind family twice in a row was a blessing that I had never quite realized was a blessing until now.

Now, I needed to figure out what to do about a family member with a drug addiction. My mother… probably cared about me. She had kept me alive for four years, despite her drug addiction and the fact that she barely seemed to be able to take care of herself. But I had no idea if I could even get the food I needed to survive if I stuck around. I was used to just… being able to care about the people around me, without it being complicated. And now, suddenly, it was actually complicated.

I looked at my mother, who was still convulsing in the corner, and then sighed. I didn't know what to do, so for now, I decided to just see what I even could do. I wasn't sure how my powers interacted with the situation, after all, and that might change how I thought about things. First, I would try to help my mother and heal her drug addiction. If it didn't work… I might have to leave and take shelter with Anise or Sallia.

I felt bad leaving my mother here to fend for herself, when she clearly couldn't take care of herself. But right now, my emotional bond with my mother was also at its weakest, since I barely knew her. If I couldn't help her, and she couldn't help herself, I might need to be away from her - for the sake of my own sanity. If it did work… hopefully everything else would work out somehow. I wasn't really sure what I would do in that case, but I would figure it out later.

Of course, to test anything, I needed to get my attunement back. Since my mother seemed… indisposed at the moment, and I still incredibly hungry, I waddled from one corner of the house to another, searching for something to eat. It took me several minutes, but I managed to find a slightly rotten apple and some sort of unidentified brown grain that probably wasn't moldy. My stomach churned a bit, but I was too hungry to care right now.

I quickly stuffed the slightly overripe apple into my mouth, chewing it rapidly as my empty stomach screamed for food. It tasted rotten, but I tried not to think about what I was putting into my stomach. At least I was pretty sure I could heal food poisoning, once I got my attunement back online. Then, I turned my attention to the weird grain. What… was this thing? How was I supposed to prepare it? <Hey… does anyone know how to prepare this food? > I asked, sending a picture of the grain to the others.

<Add water and boil it. It'll make oatmeal. It doesn't taste great, but it's okay, and it's filling, > sent Sallia, a few moments later. <I eat it a lot. Also, if the grains start to turn white, it's not safe to eat anymore. > I examined the grain more carefully, and didn't see any white coloration on the grain. I thanked Sallia for the information and got back to work. I summoned my dress and then borrowed a bit of water from it, before I tossed it into a bowl with some of the strange grains.

It took me a little longer to find a few logs, as well as a little kettle one could set up near the fireplace, and a few matches to go along with it. Apparently, matches were cheap enough in this world that my mother still owned a few, along with the iron cookpot. Which was a small relief. Starting a fire without that would have been difficult. I spent a few minutes boiling the water and the brown grain, before the brown grains started to mix into the water. In minutes, it started to resemble a very bland soup.

I grimace at my food, before I dug in. It wasn't very good. Swallowing it was a bit difficult. As I ate, I thought of my favorite food. Ever since my first world, on the islands, I had become rather fond of eating fish. During the time we had spent on the second world, fish had been rather easy to obtain, but I had no idea whether we were even near the ocean in this world, or whether we had any major rivers nearby.

Sallia had mentioned a river that was filled with factory waste, but I doubted any fish were living in that river. And if they were, they probably weren't edible. I sighed, and shook my head. I tried sending a few questions to my friends, to see if I could get any more information, but something must have come up on their end, because they didn't respond to me. As I finished my bland, slightly bitter porridge, I thought about what I needed to do first, before I sighed.

The first thing I needed to do, no matter what my plans were, was to regain my attunement, and possibly a few runes. Then, I needed to figure out what to do when things were hard for me. With my mind made up, I walked back over to my crib, sat down, and got to work.