"Hey, you alright in there?"

I was. And also I wasn't.

And both those things because two days before I had found The Tree.

It sounds stupid, so fucking stupid just saying it. It was just a tree. A dumb fucking tree in a stupid online multiplayer game.

And I was sitting in a bathroom stall at work with my pants around my ankles and my phone in my hand, staring at a tree. At The Tree.

"Uh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks." Even to my own ears that sounded weird.

"Okay, cool." My coworker, whoever she was, seemed okay with that answer.

I heard the door open and close, just as I had a couple minutes before. I had pins and needles in my lower legs. I'd been there for... I couldn't tell you how long I'd been there. I may have been in trouble with my supervisor.

Saturday, I went on to a game I'd barely played and hadn't been on for almost a month, because there was an update. I got real tired of the other people around and just decided to wander out in the wilderness to see what had changed.

There was The Tree.

It didn't look a lot different from the other trees around, though it was set apart a bit, but there was just something about it. I didn't know what it was. I spent an hour just looking at it, finding the right angle and position to make it work best, and to follow it with the shift in the atmospheric lighting that came with the change in time of day. Even the slight amount of in-game music seemed to contribute to it.

At one point I said to myself, out loud, "Emi, it's just a fucking tree, get ahold of yourself." That was before I spent another twenty minutes watching it.

I then spent most of Sunday doing the same thing. I got up, ate breakfast, watched The Tree, ate lunch, watched The Tree, I'm pretty sure I took a couple bathroom breaks in there, but by suppertime I had logged more in-game hours that day alone than I had in three months and I'd spent it all with The Tree. I barely took enough time to do the necessities of life.

Monday.

I got into work. I cringed, as I always do, at the nameplate on my cubicle that says 'Amy Shimada.' I had anglicized the spelling of my name years before, in high school, so people would stop pronouncing it like 'Emmy,' but it still gnawed at me, and for some reason it felt worse that day. Like 'Amy' Shimada wasn't who I was at all. Even more than that, like data entry clerk Amy Shimada wasn't who I was.

None of it made sense, but it also made too much sense.

I had coffee. It tasted wrong. I added sugar. It tasted worse. I turned on my workstation. I typed in the wrong login name ('Shimada_E' instead of 'Shimada_A') four times before I got it right. I put three entries into a spreadsheet. I got up to take a shit, with a half-finished mug of coffee on my desk.

I brought up the game on my phone, and sat there, and stared at The Tree.

And then, about five minutes after my coworker had brushed by checking on me, I got up unsteadily, winced at the weird feeling in my legs, washed my hands, put my phone in the pocket of my jeans, and just fucking left the building. Didn't even grab my personal effects. Left my purse behind, a couple family photos on my desk, my jacket. Didn't care. Didn't care about shit at that moment.

No one stopped me.

I took a walk. No idea where I was going. Maybe I was looking for that tree, but I sure as shit wasn't going to find it in the middle of downtown. Maybe there was some building or something that would work as a substitute.

I walked into a coffee shop, one I'd never been in before. I needed the taste of the work disaster out of my mouth.

I saw her there. Shoulder-length brown hair, a bit of a lean, dark blue sweat pants, a warm grey coat, not all that tall.

She saw me too, and met my brown eyes with blue.

She was at the counter, waiting for an order. She immediately turned back to the barista and caught his attention.

"Hey." Her voice was... I couldn't tell. I still can't. But that one word... I'll hear it forever.

"Oh, yeah?" The kid behind the counter turned back to her.

"Can I also get a large medium-roast black with a splash of cold water?"

That was my order.

That was my exact fucking order. Word for word.

I'd never seen this woman before in my life, and at ten in the morning in a half-empty coffee shop on a day where I'd just abandoned my job after staring at a digital tree all weekend, she ordered me a coffee.

"Right away."

She paid, and then turned back to me.

I blinked. "You... made..." I knew, then. "You're the one who made The Tree."

She smiled. She nodded. "Yeah."

I'd never seen this woman before in my life, and at ten in the morning in a half-empty coffee shop on a day where I'd just abandoned my job after staring at a digital tree all weekend, she ordered me a coffee, and she knew what I was talking about.

I didn't fall to my knees right there, but I could have. I don't think the other four people in the coffee shop would have even noticed.

I was still standing in the doorway when the server called her name. Lyric. She picked up two cups, walked to me and pressed one into my hands. It was hot.

I followed her like a lost puppy.

The day was warm, the wind was cool, my jacket was still at my desk at work, and I felt like I was on fire. Not burning, I wasn't in pain, but like I was turning to smoke and ash and flying through the streets. It was amazing, it was glorious.

We didn't speak the whole way home. To her home. To her apartment. We walked in. A woman sat on a couch in her underwear, a guitar in her hands, covered in strange tattoos, her dark hair highlighted with blue streaks like mine was streaked with pink. Beside her, kneeling on the floor, another woman, naked, an ecstatic look on her face. The woman with the guitar looked up at me. The worshipper didn't.

"This is Emi," Lyric said. I'd never told her my name. Suddenly feeling shy, I took a sip of my coffee.

It was perfect, because Lyric had ordered it.

"So now you've got one," Lyric's roommate said, smirking at me.

"Looks like it," Lyric replied. I could hear amusement in her voice.

My eyes fell to the woman on the floor. "Now you've got one." That's... that's me. That's who I am. One. Like that.

I had so many questions. And none of them mattered.

I put my coffee down on the table and just started stripping. No one said anything about it. It was expected.

It was the other woman who got up off the ground when I had finished and wrapped me in a big, naked, worshipper-to-worshipper hug.

"I'm Erynn. I'm Tempest's. Welcome," she said. She was taller than me, my chin landed on her breast. I closed my eyes. She pet my hair. Lyric and her roommate (who had to be Tempest) were talking, but I just stayed there, wrapped in her arms, for what felt like hours.

I'd never held a naked woman before. It was strange, odd, and wonderful. I felt my face, and her chest, getting wet.

I was crying.

I was losing everything. Obviously my job, my family, my old life, my identity, I'd lose my apartment, the few friends I had left after everyone went off in all directions after graduation. And losing everything was everything I ever wanted.

And I was crying because until that moment, I hadn't known that.

As Erynn let me go, the disappointing twenty-one-year-old university dropout third daughter of Japanese immigrants was left behind, and in her place was a naked, newborn, nonbinary servant, servant of servants, a blank slate to be whoever they needed me to be. I didn't understand who or what Lyric and Tempest served, but that didn't matter; I had a Purpose, and that was to make it easier for them to accomplish whatever they needed to.

"Welcome," Erynn said to me, again. She took me by the hand and led me into the living room. Lyric and Tempest had left, no doubt to decide what to do with me, so we were alone. She paused before we sat, turning to face me, looking me up and down analytically. I returned the favour; she was a little chubbier and maybe a little older than the other two, but definitely cute. I found myself surprised that I was thinking that way. It wasn't the first time I'd been attracted to women, to be clear, but in that situation, in that moment, it was a bit of a shock to be considering myself attracted to anyone at all.

"You are beautiful," Erynn said, and it was a matter-of-fact statement, just the reality we were living in. I was beautiful, and that was that.

And I returned the favour. "So are you." The first words of my new life. The first words I'd spoken since the coffee shop.

"That is who we are," Erynn replied. "Beautiful ones."

"They make beautiful things," I said. "They made us."

She nodded. "I was the first."

"And I'm Her first."

"And we'll be no more or less than each other, or any others that join us."

My turn to nod.

"I'll teach you what's needed."

"And together we'll teach others."

Erynn smiled at me. "It's going to be a lot of fun."

A door opened. Lyric and Tempest came back in to the den. "Erynn, Emi," Lyric said. We both turned. I straightened up, military-style, automatically, and felt bits of my back that were usually hunched click and pop. "We need to talk about what our lives are going to look like, moving forward."

"We don't have enough room for both of you, and us, to stay here," Tempest continued. "I mean, you two could sleep out here on the couches—"

"But there's only one bathroom, there's nowhere to put your clothes—"

We, naked, both interrupted Lyric by giggling.

She graciously waited for us to collect ourselves, smiling brightly (I loved her smile! It was so warm) before going on. "—or anything else you might want to bring in here. The place is built for two, not four."

"I don't need anything," I said.

Erynn shook her head. "You might think that right now, but I've been serving for three weeks, you'd be surprised what you need that's not here. We do have to leave from time to time, too. What if Lyric wants take-out but doesn't want to get up from the computer?"

"Or someone comes to the door to take a survey and you're the only one here?" Tempest asked.

"The point is, we all have a need to leave from time to time, and a need to just... do things." Lyric shrugged. "So we have to figure out what we all need, how often you need to leave, what you need here and out there..."

I nodded. Of course. If Lyric wanted me to go out from time to time, then I would. "If you wanted me to stay in here and—"

"I don't, though," Lyric said. "You have a life outside that door, and you should probably keep as much of it as you can."

"Well I just walked away from my job, I just... I couldn't..." I swallowed. "I couldn't take it any more. But if you need me to get another one, I totally can, that's not a problem."

"That's why we need to discuss it," Tempest said. "Maybe you don't need another job." She waved a hand at Lyric. "We've been roommates a while, sometimes I was making money with music while the design work was rough, and more often I was mooching while Lyric did the heavy lifting."

"It's a matter of figuring out what an equal division of things looks like," Lyric said.

I looked at them, a bit incredulous. I turned to Erynn. "They... they know, right? That we'd do anything they asked, any time, for any reason?"

Erynn smiled at me. "They know, believe me."

I did believe her. "Fuck, it gives me the creeps when I think of all the people in my life that might have this sort of power over me."

"Right?" Erynn seemed to glow. "These two—"

"It's not us," Tempest protested. "Or at least not only us."

Lyric nodded. "I don't think that we would have been given all this, if we were the sort of people to abuse the power."

"We just don't know." The guitarist shrugged. "And I don't even know what questions to ask to find out."

"We just sort of go with it."

The next statement just welled up and came out of me. "I can cook!"

"Oh?" Lyric asked.

"Yeah! I don't need anything else, I'll just stay here, clean, cook, make sure everything at home is taken care of. Simple, right?"

"Well, that's a start, but I don't think that you'll be happy with that in the long run."

I felt myself pouting a bit, but I kind of understood what she was telling me. "Then... I dunno, do you need a personal secretary? I'm gonna need a job, you're gonna need some organization, especially to keep track of all us worshippers and things. Like you pointed out, this apartment isn't big enough for four people, and there's gonna be more of us, right?"

"Oh definitely," Erynn said, and somehow her hand slipped into mine. "Two of us aren't enough."

"For what?" Tempest asked, and I could hear the laughter in her voice.

"For anything!" I answered. "The... the Tree needs a bigger reach. Or maybe the Tree was just for me, just right for me, so you need to find something that reaches out to other people, and that's going to be able to bring more—"

"What if we don't want more than you two?" Lyric interrupted.

"I don't think it matters all that much what we want," Tempest said, "Do you?"

"I like to think we at least get a say in—"

"Of course you do!" Erynn said, jumping in. "You find special people like us, who need you, and who you need."

Tempest smirked. "I didn't exactly pick you out of a lineup."

"But have I been anything less than a perfect servant?" Erynn asked, a wicked grin on her face. "Your work finds us. Are you going to stop working?"

It was my turn to pipe up. "I don't think you could, even if you wanted to. There's art all over this place. You make your living at it, right? I don't have a job anymore, and..." I realized that I didn't really know what Tempest or Erynn did. I realized, then, that I was in the middle of this situation without understanding any of it.

Erynn turned to me. "Just hit you, huh."

I nodded. I think I went a bit pale.

"I've had a few moments like that the past couple weeks," she continued. "They pass. Or they do for me." She sat me down. Lyric and Tempest stayed where they were, just watching us. "I had a moment at work the other day."

Okay, so she did have a job. That was good to know. We weren't all going to starve, at least not right away.

"I just sat there at my desk and shook, a bit. Took a few deep breaths. I can get away, easy, I just don't... I just don't come back here, right?" She was holding my hand again. "But I just thought of Tempest's beautiful music. Not just the song that ... that caught me, but everything I've heard over the past few days. Just being here, being in this place, being around these two... it's good. They're good. This place, the One that they serve, the things they create, it's all good." She squeezed my hand. "I grew up religious, so maybe that gives me some kind of context for this, but this is as close as I've ever felt to God, whatever that means. And that's why I keep coming back, because kneeling here, naked, listening to Tempest write her songs, is as close to a real religious experience as I've ever had."

And, weirdly, that was something I could understand.

Erynn kept talking. "It's not all smiles and happiness. I'm not a cheerful, mindless drone. If anything, this is harder than life out there. It's something no one, not one person who hasn't been touched by them will ever understand. Can ever understand. Not really. When I first heard Tempest play, I was driven. It was a kind of... I don't know, a kind of madness, I guess. I couldn't get it out of my head. It was transformative, and transformation is never, ever easy. But..." She looked at me. "Here. Stand up."

I did. I turned to face her.

"Even this, right now. This isn't the same person I saw walking into the room. You're dealing with the first shocks of it, and that's rough. And maybe the first shocks are too much for you, I dunno. I'll bet that as this whole thing gets bigger we're going to see some people come through that door, or another door, who have those first shocks and then leave and we never see them again. Maybe you're even thinking about going to the cops or something."

I shook my head. I hadn't been, but I guess I could see how someone might want to do that.

"And those first shocks... they're not the last shocks. There's gonna be more. We don't lie around here. This is weird, it's difficult, but if you ride it out, it might be the most wonderful, the most life-affirming thing you could imagine finding."

At some point, Tempest and Lyric had walked over. They were nearby, behind me. Erynn stood up and held my hands again.

"Emi," Lyric said, and I turned my head to look at her. "What do you want?"

I swallowed. "Honestly? Right now, I want a big hug, and to bake some cookies, and for you all to tell me that it's all right. I just... I walked away from my fucking dead-ass job like an hour ago. I'm gonna lose my apartment."

"Erynn's right," Lyric said, as she wrapped me in the warmest hug I'd ever had. My eyes were wet again. "This isn't easy. It's been hard on all of us."

"But we pull together," Tempest added, embracing me as well. "And I'd love a cookie."

When they let go, it was Erynn's turn again. "I'm so happy that I'm not alone in this," she said softly to me.

We held each other a while. I cried on her breasts again. I heard Lyric and Tempest moving around while we stood there.

When I finally left Erynn's arms, I was ready for action. I looked over at the kitchen. Our hosts had already got out all the baking supplies.

Erynn put a hand on my shoulder. "If there's anything more you need, just ask, I'll go get it."

I nodded. I turned back to her. "Hey, don't you have a job?"

She grinned. "Something told me that I should call in sick today."

I laughed, then. "I bet." I moved into the other room and looked at the array of supplies and tools. "Okay, if I'm making chocolate chip, I'm going to need some chocolate chips."

"Be back in fifteen, then. Maybe twenty, gotta get dressed first."

"After that, we can figure out what we're going to do next," Lyric said. "It's not just tough on you, we've been living here a while and really made this place our own."

"But we'll do the same for the next one," Tempest added. "Whatever it is."

I nodded and started measuring flour. I didn't know what came next, but at least I knew I could bake, and that my baking, well... it could impress before, and with the inspiration I was experiencing in that moment, I was going to blow them away.