Spilled Milk

After hurrying back home, Alesha quietly showered, changed into pajamas and crawled in bed. The last quest reward was nagging at the edge of her consciousness but it had to wait. She had to make sure she was fast asleep by the time her family woke up, and of course, she really wanted to get some sleep for its own sake. That quest penalty had been exhausting--weathering that gnawing hunger while rationing the meat she'd bought was no easy task. She had a feeling that whatever that last quest reward, the racial trait, was, she'd be too distracted by it to sleep if she looked at it now. 

Alesha was only allowed to sleep for a few hours after that before being dragged back to wakefulness by an energetic Dennis, who pounced on her mattress and began bouncing on it to rouse her. "Wake! up! Wake! up!" He chanted, a big grin dominating his face. "I want to play with you today!" 

"Alright, alright, I'm awake," she mumbled, feeling groggy. "What time is it?" Her voice cracked on the last word, clearly affected by the morning. 

"It's 10:15!" Dennis said, jumping back off the mattress. "Come on, you slept for 2 whole months, I can't believe you're such a sleepy head today!"

"Hngg," she moaned. Three and a half hours of sleep was definitely not enough. But it couldn't be helped; she had to pretend like she hadn't stayed awake for most of the night gorging herself on raw meat. She swung her legs off the mattress, gripped her knees and pushed off of them with her arms as she stood up, swaying slightly when she came to her full height. She had gone from lying prone to standing a little too quickly, making her a little dizzy.

Dennis grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the kitchen. Alesha let herself be dragged, smiling a little at the familiar scene. Layla and Dad were on their phones in the living room, Mom was making herself breakfast at the stovetop, and Dennis had set out an empty bowl and spoon for her, complete with boxed cereal sitting by it. He let go of her hand and pushed her from behind. "I already ate, so you pour yourself some cereal and eat it alright? When you're ready to play with me, come get me, I'll be in my room."

With that, he dashed off in a hurry.

Jessica had paused making her own breakfast to watch the exchange, and was now smiling at Alesha, who noticed the expression on her face. "What, Mom, he's adorable! I can't say no to his puppy face."

Jessica shook her head, "Well I suppose he is quite cute. But it does him no good if you always say yes, either. Anyways, how did you sleep? You look pretty tired."

Alesha poured herself some cereal, then walked over to the fridge. "Ah, yeah I didn't sleep too well. My circadian rhythm is probably all out of whack since I slept for 2 months straight." She opened the fridge door, retrieved a gallon of milk, and poured it before returning the milk to the fridge. She had not closed the fridge door in between removing and returning the milk.

Jessica turned back to preparing her own food as she replied, "Mmm, I suppose that could be true. More likely, your body needs to get some movement in so that it doesn't have too much energy to sleep! Make sure to exercise today. And in the future, please close the fridge after grabbing something from it, even if you're going to return it shortly afterwards."

Alesha rolled her eyes, setting her spoon in the bowl of cereal before carrying it over to the table. "Okay, okay, I'm not five, Mom. I'll go on a walk today or something."

Jessica nodded. "Good."

Alesha sat down, deciding this was a good time to look over the final reward. After breakfast, she'd go spend time with Dennis in his game world, and she didn't want to be distracted while she did so. She shoved a bite of cereal into her face. Giving the mental command to open her Status Screen, she "clicked" on the "racial trait" part to expand it. 

And promptly spewed milk all over the table.

[Racial Traits: (1)]

[Carnivorous Constitution -- Host thoroughly enjoyed a variety of meat while under the quest penalty! Host is clearly quite the meat lover. As a reward, the Host permanently retains the benefit of being able to eat raw meat as a carnivore would! Raw meat, unless it has spoiled, will not make the Host sick. There might be some side effects but surely the delights of meat are worth it!]

Choking, Alesha read over the racial trait description again. No way! This wasn't a reward; the System had freaking made the quest penalty PERMANENT!

"You alright, dear?" Jessica asked from the kitchen, almost done making her breakfast.

"Y- Yeah," Alesha lied, "Wrong pipe, tried to inhale my cereal a little too literally I guess, haha…" She set down her spoon and went to grab a napkin. This couldn't be happening. No way, this, this wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

The purple screen told a different story. As she wiped down the table, carefully making sure no little chunks of cereal escaped the napkin, the purple screen stubbornly refused to change. She threw away the sodden napkin and retrieved a sanitizer wipe, glancing at the screen again. 

It still said the same thing. 

She wiped the table with the sanitizer wipe, the do-over ensuring that there wouldn't be any sticky residue left over when it dried. 

And still the purple screen remained unaltered.

Carnivorous Constitution. A so-called "Racial Trait," a so-called "Reward" from a System that had explicitly written on her Status Screen that her species, "human," wouldn't remain so forever. In games with multiple sentient species, "race" was the shorthand used to refer to "species" of sentient beings, rather than ethnicities of humans. That meant that she was already being forced away from her humanity. Humans couldn't stomach raw meat--it would make them sick. Yet here she was, with a newly acquired "Racial Trait" that enabled her to do so.

The System had told her, multiple times, that its entire purpose was to make her into a Servant or Agent of Chaos. It had shown that it had the power to physically enforce its ban on telling anyone about its existence. Not only that, the System was bossy, forceful, and overtly manipulative with the quest rewards and penalties. It could force her to crave, then empower her to be able to stomach, raw meat. It could motivate her to do things she would never do otherwise using a clever combination of the carrot and the stick. It hadn't even been 36 hours since she woke up, and she had already stolen important objects from her family, eaten who knows how many pounds of raw meat, and lied to more than one of her family members, to varying degrees. That kind of control over her life choices was scary.

What did it really mean for her System to be a "Seed of Chaos" System? What sorts of lengths would the self-named "Rogork" go to in order to turn her into exactly what it wanted her to become? 

Maybe the most important question of all, what did the System want to make of her in the first place?