An Uncomfortable Question

After showering to clean the remnants of the cocoon off of herself, Alesha threw her hair up in a towel turban, wrapped herself in a larger towel, and left the bathroom. In the hallway, she came across Layla, who waved good morning. 

"How are you feeling today?" She asked, a concerned look on her face. Clearly Layla wasn't going to gloss over Alesha's seizure last night.

"Much better now, thank you!" Alesha replied cheerfully, turning away from her and moving to enter the office.

Layla put a hand on her shoulder. "Wait, hold up," she interjected, sounding surprised. Layla's hand moved to the base of Alesha's neck and then down between her shoulder blades, pulling the towel down a little to expose more of her back.

Alesha yelped in surprise, clutching her towel so it wouldn't come off entirely. "Hey! What was that for?"

"When did you get a tattoo?" 

A… tattoo? Shoot, she'd forgotten to look at her back at all.

"Ehh I got it a couple months ago, with my friends," she fibbed. "We, uh, thought it would be fun. But I was too embarrassed to say anything to you guys. Sorry."

Layla released the towel and Alesha could see her shrug out of the corner of her eye. "Ah, well you shouldn't be. That's a really cool one. I won't tell Mom and Dad though, they probably wouldn't like that you got it."

"Thanks," Alesha said with a wry smile. Her sister could always be relied upon to be discreet. Layla was the best.

Alesha went into the office, closing the door behind her and sighing with relief. So She had a tattoo on her back as well? What was that about? Heck, she didn't even really know if it was related to her evolution or if it was from getting the System initially. It's not like she looked at her back all that often.

[I'll be nice and tell you it was from your evolution. Luckily, Layla bought your lie. You're not all that great at lying so it's a miracle she believed you.]

"Yeah, yeah, I know I suck at lying, but that's usually a good thing," Alesha muttered. 

[Sure. We'll go with that.]

Alesha quickly got dressed and cleaned the office as best she could, then went to get a vacuum and wet wipes to finish it up. 

As she cleaned, she wondered what the white stuff even was. It was clearly some kind of cocoon, but she didn't remember weaving it herself; all she could recall was a burst of icy hotness to the base of her neck, blacking out from the intensity of it, and then waking up inside the crumbly cocoon. What kind of cocoon was so damn fragile anyways?! It couldn't have been able to protect anyone inside at all. Seriously, this stuff was like eggshell, sand, and chalk all in one. It was absolutely everywhere despite her best efforts to keep it on the bed, having puffed out in powder form all over everything nearby, worked itself into every cranny in her sheets, and spread out all over the nearby floor as well.

Thank goodness for vacuum cleaners and wet wipes.

After cleaning up, she started her sheets in the washer (hopefully the material wouldn't clog the machine) and threw out the used wet wipes. Everything was restored to normal as far as she could tell.

That finished, she could finally eat breakfast! She found most of her family out in the kitchen area. Dennis was eating cereal while playing on his phone, Mom was reading a book on the couch, and Layla was making herself some eggs. Apparently she'd only just gotten up when they ran into each other earlier.

----

About fifteen minutes later, Dennis pounced on Alesha in the office. "Boo!" He shouted as he started clinging to her like a koala.

"Eep!" Alesha yelped, then laughed. "Sheesh, buddy, you never get tired of doing that, do you?"

"Nope!" He said happily. 

After a little bit of back-and-forth sibling banter, Dennis let go and adopted a serious face. He looked at the door, making sure it was closed (it was), then gave Alesha a mirthless look. "Alesha, I have a question. It's important."

This was so unlike him that Alesha was feeling genuinely scared. What was going on? "Um, sure, Dennis. What's up?"

"What was that strange energy coming off you last night?"