Waking up after having lived a different life.

Jessica was the first to wake up in Chris’s bed in a cabin. Where am I? She could hear voices from the other room. Chris and someone else who was that again? Missy? His ex? She snuck up to the door as she had done in her dream. She heard them speak.

“Do you still love me?” Missy asked

“I want to say no. I really want to. I know I wouldn’t have reacted that way if I hadn’t cared about you at all. I wouldn't have tried to protect you from the others and yourself. But love feels like too big a word. I once loved you. You betrayed that love and trust. I don’t think I could love you ever like that again. Part of me wonders if I could do that at all…” He had gotten louder as he spoke these words, but they were stuck in his throat. “I will be in the kitchen if you are done thinking.” He tried to dismiss it before leaving, but he stopped and said. “You can drink as much as you want from the iced tea and go to the toilet here in the building, but you will always end up sitting here.”

Jesse had joined her behind her. They had heard the same thing; they knew. How to interpret it wasn’t clear. Were they trying to make up? Was this Chris trying to help her get over some of her issues? Jesse decided to head to Missy, who was mostly staring blindly into the void. Whilst Jessica went to Chris directly.

He hadn’t spotted her as she walked in. He was holding a knife. In the other timeline, Chris always scolded her for doing unexpected things while he was holding a knife. So instead of the instinctual hug, she knocked on the table and held out her arms. The knife was placed down on the cutting board as he turned around. They hugged again, and a whisper was heard from the woman. “I heard the tail end of the conversation with Missy. Care to explain?” That he did, with the result that Jessica relaxed. Louder, she chose to give her own summary about what had happened in her dream. “I loved the time in that dream in that other world, but now having to reconcile the two is hard. Especially with you having had other girlfriends other than me. It also made us sure that you might be correct that both might indeed be the correct answer.” Jessica drifted back into thoughts about the alternate timeline again.

“Do you mind sharing?” Chris joked.

“In the dream, we have had conversations about becoming a throuple before. Now that would be a quartet, but that is something else… We did say that it might be healthy for both of us… We just never found the right fit for both of us. I, at one point, had suggested Ryan; you suggested Missy, and she wasn’t always that much of a bitch. You were correct about that, must have snuck in. If Ryan is up for it, that is definitely, positively, on the table now from our side.” Chris nodded. “The rest we aren’t as sure about, especially Missy. We had lost Becky at some point, so who knows. Ember, Heather, and William, we barely know them, so we will see where we end up with them.”

[Oooooh, I am already being considered as part of the harem!] The ball of fire shouted with glee, bouncing and rolling.

“We aren’t even a couple yet. Good to see that it helped ease some of your worries, even if it created a new set of them.” Chris added with a chuckle. This conversation, though weird, he needed the levity of it.

“New, more positive ones. Not the crushing, dreadful ones about my place in the world. If I am worth being loved. The new ones are how should I love him, how do we navigate this chaos, how will we see ourselves out of here as much ourselves as we can. That is so much more positive; They are about the future, they are active, and not directed at me. I know where I belong even if we haven’t figured out how yet.” As Jessica said that last bit, Chris kissed her.

Kissed Master: +1 VP, +2 VP first-time bonus (the Jessies)

“Wait, how did I happen to forget all the times you kissed me in the otherworld until now?”

Ember responded, [I can’t be sure, but it might be a balancing thing to correct for the fact that you haven’t done a lot together yet in this world. The transformation gives them the closeness that is associated with doing the things you did together, but not the memories until you actually do them. It is just a hypothesis. I have seen hosts erase memories to solve similar issues in scoring.]

“Ember theorises it is a balancing feature; we haven’t done these things yet, so it is unfair if you compare me to the other version of me. You will get your memories of our relationship in the other world back as we explore ours.”

“Sure, so what is for dinner?”

“Knowing Missy’s diet, a salad, grilled whole chicken, grilled vegetables and mashed potatoes. I will also be making an appetiser of grilled fish with asparagus.”

“Appetisers fancy,” Jesse responded. Jessica rolled her eyes. “You know he does that to have a second course without us having to feel awkward.”

“Either way, thanks for the compliment. It is too late for anything fancy for dessert, so a quick apple crumble it is.”

“You never made that for us before, cool! You also didn’t do your trip to Belgium… more changes.”

“I did pick it up in the BeNeLux, and Missy worked out a lot of unpredictable times and stuff; you learn how to deal with unpredictable timetables. It takes 5 minutes to set up, 10 minutes in the oven and is done. Let’s see if I have stroopwafels. It is best with bits of those, but it works with a bunch of different cookies. Bastogne style also works great.” Looking into his cabinets, he finds a large stack of stroopwafels. “I will look if there is a grill outside or if that is an add-on I need to buy.” Looking outside, he found out it was likely an add-on. Not everything could be complimentary like the food. Luckily, he did have decent pans and a dishwasher.

The chicken would take the longest, so they got started by heating the oven, prepping the vegetables and placing them in the tray underneath the chicken, which was thoroughly spiced. That would be done in an hour and a half.

Heather called Chris. He played along at first, but didn’t see why it was an issue to her. He decided she just needed to complete the quest, but she didn’t want that. She wanted permanent access; he obliged with conditions. She agreed in the first instance but hung up, only to later ring again. She didn’t want that either; she wanted to be the one who ‘owned’ the belt, whatever that might have meant. He decided, sure, as long as you get 20 VP, Ryan was a quarter there already, and he had done hardly anything, easy enough, right? Done with it, Chris hung up the phone after placing his ultimatum.

After the call, Chris started cooking, cutting the ends of the green asparagus, and he baked it with some butter in the pan. Taking it out, he proceeded by baking his salmon in the same butter. Using some cream, mustard, dill, garlic, lemon juice, and a roux made of that same butter, he made a dill mustard sauce for over it. He put it in a gravy boat.

Chris went into the living room with the plates only to see Missy still staring out in front of herself. She hadn’t moved, according to him, but the iced tea was gone. Chris decided to grab the leash. “If you can be civil during dinner, you can speak. Otherwise, just sit and eat whilst you continue what you are doing.” The Jessies had followed with the fish, asparagus, cutlery, and sauce. “Let me plate some up for everyone, as the man of the cabin, I suppose.” Chris had a piece that you would normally get as a main with a decent amount of asparagus. The rest had less. Then again, they shouldn’t overeat on this course. This was the appetiser, not the main.

Missy sat with them and ate the first bites of her dinner, calm, nothing wrong. Chris and Jessies were talking about the past when she suddenly spoke up. “Why are they here for dinner? Couldn’t we have it alone?”

“That was never a possibility with us being on a reality TV show, for starters. Us having the idea that it might have been a possibility, but they were knocked out because I bought them a transformation and woke up as I started cooking. I am not one to turn away guests for dinner without a reason. You are not a reason to do so. Why are you jealous?”

“Me jealous? Hmpf.” Missy replied, knowing full well he had hit the nail on the head. Why was I jealous of them? “Never.”

“Good to see that, nonetheless, you decided you could be civil. Are you done thinking about what I asked you?”

“Yeah… I still hate that Becky gave them, but she was correct that I needed to chill. She just didn’t go about it correctly. I was digging my own grave… Especially if what you said is correct.” Missy was hardly fully truthful. She didn’t speak her full thoughts, but only those that were convenient. The girl left out, I just need to pretend to be better, and I won’t have to suffer the consequences. The loser is such a sucker for me.

“We haven’t figured out everything, but Jesse found out what we could about eliminations in the rulebook Syl gave us on our phone,” Jessica said. “Some examples it gives are being turned into a livestock cow woman to be milked by your Master until you die, unaware, but could have just as well been aware. Turned into the fox familiar of your master, also luckily unaware. Another was a forever living sex doll for the master's pleasure, with the inability to die and fully aware of your surroundings, and in the same vein, a table/sextoy, a bimbo, whilst being born as a man, and always told you are too feminine by a dad who kicked you out at 18 and the last one being turned into a copy of your own sister as a tsundere for the master. Those last two are also aware of what is happening, but hey… fun right?” Missy had heard from Chris something, but this confirmed it. Eliminations were not to be messed with. The woman buried her head in her lap. Chris and the Jessies didn’t react to it. She needed this shock to know what was on the other side if she fucked up.

“On a different note, Ember's hypothesis on not being able to earn off of hugging you each day was confirmed. It is given as a concrete example of a one-time action. Kissing you can get repeated rewards for, though. It also explained the first-time bonus vaguely. The first check is whether you have done this on the show with that person before. No, then this is at most a doubler. Second, it checks if you have done it with this person. No, at most it adds the original value at most again. Third, is it the first time with a person of that gender? Yes, adds at most another original value. The first time bonus sum has a minimum value of 1. This explains why our kiss was worth less than Ryan’s; You had kissed Missy before Jessica, but hadn’t kissed us before. This would mean Missy would score 2 VP as a result.”

“Cool, that would get me out of the negative.” Easy points!!! Let me gobble them up now that I can. That loser is vulnerable now. Missy stood up and approached Chris. In response, he moved away.

“No, Missy, I do not want a kiss from you right now. I don’t want to deal with you. I don’t love you, nor am I even close to romantically interested in you right now. Seeing you as sexually attractive right now is hard.” He told her in no uncertain terms. She should have known to back off… Any reasonable person would have done so. Missy wasn’t reasonable; she approached him even though he protested her doing so. As she leaned in, he grabbed the leash. “Missy, you will respect consent. If someone says no, I do not want you to take this action with me; don’t do it. I did not want to add permanent commands, but it seems you need this to function. I WANTED to trust you, to think you were reasonable, but you can't be. If this is necessary… So be it, so be it. You will not harm anyone… I will need to make my excuses to her, it seems. Having you sit there thinking like a little child did not help you. Sit down and eat your food. You can continue to talk as you wish, but don’t make a move on me.” This incident had shone a light on a major issue: Missy was missing something, multiple somethings… Was this always the dynamic? Her forcing her way through, Chris considered. “Excuse me, I want to get a second opinion on something from Ryan.”

“You don’t need one if it is just going to be a text, or is it going to be a call?” One of the Jessies had asked, but he didn’t recall who. Chris didn’t answer; he simply texted Ryan.

Chris didn’t get a response. He didn’t expect one, not immediately. He made the dessert and found he had some vanilla ice cream in the freezer compartment of the fridge. He put some in three bowls and handed them to himself and the Jessies. Missy didn’t deserve it. There was a silence no one wanted to break, a tension everyone could feel.