Biohuman

The white coat cosmic Fox's ruby and sapphire eyes lit up. A silver halo covering the edges of the irises as Liz felt a pulling sensation. She couldn't do anything but look at him as he stared at her. It felt like an eternity staring into those eyes, but just as Liz was starting to get used to it, it faded. Keng turned his head away and watched as another lightning bolt coursed on the clouds around him and underneath him.

"You've never been here before?" Keng asked. "It's quite… Stormy."

"I don't even know what this place is. What is this place?" Liz asked.

"Your Soul world. A place that reflects who you are as a person. Your memories free to drift here, good and bad, while also reflecting into the world… Yours is much different from Lee Seng's."

"Y-you've been in Lee Seng's?" Liz asked with a slight stutter. She felt uncomfortable talking to a Fox. Keng could sense this but ignored it. His identity was mixed and even though he had gotten accustomed to being a humanoid Fox Spirit, he still preferred moving about as an actual Fox. Keng nodded at Liz's question.

"I was born there. It was… Bleaker than this, honestly. Some color eventually came, but it's still bleaker than yours. Your memories are all free and wandering around like TV screens while Lee Seng's is kept in one place, tucked away."

"W-what're you trying to find? And why am I here? Why am I not in my body?" Liz asked, standing. The closed scrapbook shimmered slightly, calling to Keng. Keng looked at the book and then looked up to Liz. "Y-you can't be real. Yo-you have to be some sort of… Of…"

"Monster?" Keng finished. Hearing himself say it alienated him. He always expected he might actually be a monster in the eyes of Humans, but he never thought he'd hear it after all this time. "Rest assured, I'm not a monster. Yes, I collect souls, but I don't collect just human souls."

"You collect human souls, too? Why would you do that? Isn't that…" Liz trailed off. It was a lot to take in and it seemed like this version of Liz was actually listening now that she was face to face with Keng. "Can Lee Seng do all the things you can do?"

"The cosmos powers you see are his. It blended with our forms and made this form mimic his a bit. As for the water, no. He can't do that. We don't have water abilities. I can only use it because of the weapon." Keng explained.

"I've seen Lee Seng look… Like you?" Liz pointed. Keng shook his head and stood up. She watched as the Fox's body shifted into his Fox humanoid form. The pointy fox ears sat on top of his head and his tails merged into one. It was the exact form Liz would've seen.

"This is what you would've seen." Keng turned a bit to show her. "But you don't remember it, so I need to find the spell and break it." His tails split into five and casually moved up and down as Keng explained to Liz what his intentions were. "I'm not here to eat your soul, figure out your problems, or make you do something you don't want me to do – Well, I guess that last one's a lie. I'm here to actually break the spell so I had to jump into your body to break the spell…"

"You jumped into my body? How?" Liz asked, taking a step back. She slipped on the book, falling backwards as Keng appeared beside her, grabbing her. The scrapbook slid across the cloudy landscape, coming to a stop four or five feet away from them as Keng helped Liz up. She gulped as she turned to look at him. From this close, he didn't really look like Lee Seng. Keng lifted his left arm and pointed at the book.

"Open that." Keng told her. "I think there's something special about this book." Liz glanced over at the scrapbook. It was the exact one she had made when she was eight. She remembered all of the times she had spent crafting and journaling in that book and all of the embarrassing and dark things popped up.

"N-no, you can't look in there!" Liz turned away from Keng and went for the book, snatching it and clutching it against her chest. Her cheeks were red as she couldn't bring herself to look at Keng. "I-it's private! I-I don't want you to… You don't have any reason to look in there. Do you even know where the spell is?"

"No." Keng answered.

"Exactly!" Liz motioned at him. "How do you know it's in here? You're just gonna look through every little thing until you find it?" She was vehemently against him looking in the book. The DM energy that radiated off this was intense. Keng's eyes focused on Liz, who turned her torso away from him as she hugged the book.

'The energies are slightly different, but it does match hers.' Keng thought. He bit his lip and nodded.

"Fine. We can walk around and find the spell." Keng gave in. Liz was still hesitant even after he gave in. It took her sometime, but she eventually turned her torso back to him, still clutching the book.

"What are we looking for?" Liz asked as they walked down a random path. Lightning snaked around them, following Liz wherever she went. "Does this spell have a physical form or something? What do we have to do to get to it? Will it give me my memories back?"

"I only heard about it. I think looking at the memories with Lee Seng in it would probably give us some clues into figuring out what's different." Keng answered. "If we can locate those memories, I think we'll figure out how to break the spell."

"What if something happens to me?" She looked at Keng, still clutching the book. Keng paid no attention to what she was doing. He was only here to break the spell and prove a point. He just needed a memory of Lee Seng to show up.

"Nothing happened to Ritsuka." Keng commented. "But I'm not sure what will happen. We should still be careful, still. They wandered for a while, unsure of where they were going but memories popped up. Just like Keng had told Liz, they came up as TV screens, peering into a specific memory.

"Woah." Liz stopped turning right to look at one of the many memories she had passed. "I can't believe this one's still here. I thought your brain would dump memories to keep yourself from getting full." Keng stopped and moved to stand beside her. They watched a memory of a little Liz running around a park. She was playing tag with two little boys.

"He was really nice to me." Liz pointed at the paler kid. "He saw I didn't have any friends, so he made his friend come play with me since they were playing together. I'm not sure where my mom was at this point, but I found her with that kid's mom." She pointed at the Asian kid. Keng moved closer to the screen, watching the Asian kid as he and the pale kid played with young Liz.

"Why does he look familiar?" Keng asked.

"Hm? The kids?" Liz glanced at him before returning to watch the memory playout. She beamed at this and wondered where those kids were now. "I always wondered where these kids went. I never saw them again. Never got their names either. I just know Mom said something about the other Mother was a sweet woman."

"You remember her name?"  Keng pulled back from the screen. Liz thought about it for a while.

"I felt like my Mom said her name a couple of times because we played so often at the park…" Liz tapped her chin. She moved the scrapbook to her side as she continued to think about it. A light bulb went off and she snapped her fingers, turning to Keng. "I think her name was Miss Chee. That's what Mom told me to call her."

"Chee? Do you remember her last name?" Keng asked, surprised.

"N-no." Liz shook her head. "Why? You know someone named Chee, too? How would you?"

"You remember her last name?" Keng asked, again.

"No. I don't remember much..."

"Do you remember what she did?"

"Mmm…" Liz looked down as she tapped her chin. Her eyes lit up, again, and she nodded, looking at Keng. "I think she was a nurse."

"Bingo." Keng smiled.

"What? Bingo for what? Does that give anything away?"

Keng tapped the TV screen and tapped the Asian kid. The screen froze in place as Liz turned her attention onto the screen.

"That's Lee Seng. The pale kid is probably Manny." Keng told her. "I'm pretty sure."

"Wo—wait!" Liz stepped back. "You mean I played with Manny and Lee Seng when I was a child! No wonder why I never saw them again! They didn't go to the same school as me until now!"

"Right." Keng turned and nodded. "So, if I'm correct… This should work similarly here too…"

"What?" Liz looked at the screen.

"Focus on Lee Seng. The memories should come to you." Keng instructed.

"What? Does it work like that?"

"When you think about someone, you may think about things associated with them like smell, their favorite thing, their smile, their personality, etc. Sometimes memories even pop up when you're thinking about them so we should be able to conjure recent memories of Lee Seng. You should be able to change the screen to reflect more recent memories."