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Chapter 2 by pablosrules pablosrules

What power has the Truth given her?

Two Aspects: Slice of Truth, Alter existing Truth

Rose closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, trying to calm her racing heart.

In her mind there now is perfect knowledge of her new power, as if she'd read it in a book.
She has the power over two aspects of the Truth:

Aspect 1: "Slice of Truth"
When locking eyes with a human for the first time, Rose gains insight into a single slice of Truth within a human.
This slice of Truth reveals itself as a single sentence representing a fact about that person's life or personality.
Rose can only uncover a single slice of Truth for every person. If she locks eyes with them again, the same slice of Truth will be revealed.

Aspect 2: "Alter Existing Truth"
If Rose knows a slice of Truth, she is able to alter it once. The change happens immediately after Rose has willed it so and is irreversible.
She isn't able to replace the slice of Truth entirely, but can alter what is already there into something similar, based on the uncovered slice of Truth.
The new slice of Truth becomes true and therefore part of the Truth.
Once Rose has changed a slice of Truth, she can't alter it again and she can't change the Truth within a single person more than once.

Rose also has a rough idea about what "the Truth" actually is.

It's a concept of cosmic scale and to gain full understanding of it is almost impossible.

Simply said, "the Truth" seems to be "things that are true". It is vastly more complicated than that, but at least related to her new understanding of the Truth and her powers, it's as much as she needs to know.
Whatever is part of "the Truth", must be true. Rose opens her eyes again. Her pupils dart around frantically and her heart is beating faster than it should.
She's still sitting on the bench of the bus stop. It's still Monday morning in the middle of rush hour. Countless people are going about their day, hurrying to their destinations of respective importance. Rose knows that she'll never look at these people the same way again. She realizes that she's different now, but she doesn't quite know how to feel about her new reality yet. Her new life.

The pencil skirt woman is still next to her, though at this point she'd put herself back together as much as she could and is currently trying to act like nothing happened. Her face is still flushed red and a bit of red lipstick is still smeared across her cheek.
As Rose looks over to her, the woman awkwardly and almost apologetically smiles back, locking eyes.

Immediately, a sentence appears in front of Rose's inner eye, as if floating in bold red letters above the woman's head.
"Amanda Rotterdam's biggest secret is that she routinely transfers large amounts of money from her boss's account to her own, without anyone knowing about it."

Rose can't help but do a double take at this new feeling of learning so much so easily. She's impeded on a person's privacy almost immediately after receiving her life altering power.
She must've looked quite surprised or shocked, because the woman flushes red even more and her face starts showing confusion and worry. The woman goes to stand up, presumably to flee her current situation, away from people who witnessed her publicly giving head to a perceived stranger only moments earlier.

Rose, still being her own awkward and introverted self, even with cosmic powers, immediately feels like she had done something wrong and blurts out: "I'm sorry I didn't mean to stare. It's all good, no worries!"

The woman nervously laughs an embarrassed laugh and shakes her head. "Oh no it's fine, really, I, uhm.. was leaving anyways... uhm... I - I need to go..."

Rose feels bad for the woman. She has no idea what had lead up to this woman giving head to an incredibly attractive man, but this current situation she feels partially responsible for.
Without really wanting to or knowing she was doing it, Rose uses her second aspect.
She alters this woman's slice of Truth within the blink of an eye.
"Amanda Rotterdam's biggest secret is that she routinely transfers large amounts of money from her boss's account to her own, without anyone ever being able to find out about it."

The woman excused herself a couple more times than she would need to and briskly walks down the street, clutching her bag to her chest.
Rose feels weird, having altered the life of someone else this easily, but at least that woman will now be compensated for this one uncomfortable situation for the rest of her life without anyone ever finding out about it.

Rose sits back down and looks around.
What now? Should she really go to that damned job interview after everything that's just happened?

What does Rose do next?

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