Will we ever be the same as we once were?

Kiyo wasn’t ignorant, she noticed the way the man looked her over when she stood from the warm pool...and a part of her felt a rush for it. It wasn’t uncommon for men to look at her with wanting eyes, and those men she took no heed to, but for a man to look at her with such admiration...it was a look she hadn’t experienced before. Hideki had only ever looked at her with controlling desire, a possessiveness that she had never found appealing. The ghostly woman was not, and never would be, a prized doll to put on a shelf for display. It had been so long since she’d felt anything other than fear at the thought of being with someone, and perhaps it was a sign that she was finally healing after years of domestic abuse.

He spoke, confirming her suspicions that the Armada was infected too, and she opened her mouth to reply when, suddenly, her silvery gaze went out of focus. In her mind’s eye, she had been teleported to what felt like another plane, and when she saw what waited there, terror squeezed her heart. The cloaked figure, with his table of goods, sat in front of her once again, though this time he felt even more menacing somehow. She felt herself beginning to shake, both in her mind and in the real world, her form quaking as her auds pressed back to her head. Her silvery gaze looked down at what was presented to her this time, one of them seeming to be a growth potion, one a grouping of fireflies shaped like a phone, and a shrink potion. As much as she didn’t want to see the being in front of her again, she knew she didn’t want something that was going to affect her body in the way the others promised to. So, with shaking paws, she pushed a mushroom forward. “I-I’ll take the phone...please,” she said quietly.