20. Cliché (Patreon)

Bone marrow is one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted.

The smooth, buttery texture, creamy and savory and sweet, will live in my memories forever. Not because I've never had it before; I've crunched on quite a few bones since being human first became a past-tense situation, but these are special. These are a lot sweeter than any other bones I've tasted. They're honestly the best I've ever had the pleasure to eat.

They come from a person.

I bite down again anyway. Sweet. They're so sweet! Though they're technically omnivores, dentron mainly seem to eat fruit and sap more than anything else, only having occasional, small portions of the meat that Sindri and I subsist almost exclusively off of. I guess all that concentrated sugar leaks its way into the muscle and fat somehow, marinating the meat while it's still alive. Or something like that, anyway. I don't know why different animals taste differently. Different meats. Different people. I'm eating a person. I'm eating a person and I don't want to stop.

Part of me is desperately trying to hyperventilate, but of course I can't do that because I don't have lungs. Instead, the only movements of my body are the greedy dips into torn and bleeding flesh, my knees bending so I can smash the underside of my circular form into skin or wound or protruding limb and close my teeth around a chunk, ripping it off and swallowing with a precise speed that doesn't slow, doesn't have any desire to savor even in the face of such a heavenly meal. If anything, thinking about the flavor only makes me want to eat faster. To get this over with. To finish this corpse and finally have nothing left that was once a person to engorge myself on.

I'm very small, though, and dentron are very large. The drying blood on my body is quickly replaced with fresh, oozing globules of red. I'm only vaguely aware of a desire to clean myself. My actions and my thoughts are… disconnected. They have been since the fight started. With my spatial sense, I'm watching myself devour these bodies—bodies that I killed, people that I killed—from a somewhat detached perspective. Sure, I'm still moving my legs, biting with my teeth, feeling the meat of my kills slide up my esophagus, watching it shrink as it travels up into my body before eventually disappearing… but there's a distance to it that there normally isn't. I guess I'm disassociating. That's a stress response. A pretty major one, I think. Like panic attacks. I also have panic attacks. I might currently be having a panic attack. Why am I still eating? Can't someone stop me? Shouldn't they?

Another bone breaks in my jaws, and I suck out more of the creamy nectar within. I wonder where it all goes. I don't seem to have a stomach, and I don't defecate. Just another thing that makes me a freak, I guess. Adrenaline, or whatever my alien equivalent of it is, thrums through each and every muscle in my body, urging my fight-or-flight instinct to continue fighting, continue feeding, as if my life depends on it. Kagiso and Sindri both approach me, and I hiss furiously at them, overcome with anger and possessiveness and a burning need for them to leave me alone and let me eat. I don't want them to leave me alone. Please, don't go. Help me.

They don't hear my silent pleas, and they leave me be. My new eyes, unfortunately, cannot cry. Perhaps they would have stayed if I was capable of showing any expression, any sort of hint that my conscious and subconscious minds are at war and I can't do this alone, I can't let myself keep digging into the blood and death and delicious, delicious taste of my mistakes. Yet they have no way to know, so here I remain. I am full of horror, full of joy, and full of a person's flesh.

Except I'm not really full at all.

No matter how much I eat, I'm not satisfied. I do not feel hungry anymore, far from it. I have been eating plenty and I know that, to sustain myself, I do not need to eat any more. But I can, so I do, because I love it as much as I hate it. God, I love it as much as I hate it. Why? Why is it so good? What about this situation makes this meal so special? Do I just like eating people? Do I just like killing people? Or do I want to eat it all because it's something that I, personally, killed?

…I mean someone. But still, there might be something to that thought. This man—oh god, he was a living, breathing person with hopes and dreams and a life and I took it all away—is the biggest thing I've killed on my own, barring of course the other people I killed all on my own. All three of them. I killed three people this fight, plus the one cultist. I've killed four people. Four kills, incidentally, is just enough to count as mass murder. Anyway, I like to eat the things I kill. I swallow the smaller things whole, but when I hunt bigger things I act in a similar way to how I'm acting now, just… without the guilt. Because hunting animals for food is okay, but killing people for food is absolutely not, why am I still doing this, stop please stop!

I manage, for a moment, to pause. To take a bit more stock of my situation. I'm safe, the enemies are dead. My kill, and my right to it, are being respected. There's plenty more food, and plenty more need for it. My hunger goes beyond just self-sustenance, it is a burning desire for fuel, materials, and strength. These people before me are already dead. They attacked us, we didn't attack them. Arguably, their deaths are justified, but even if they aren't… does it do them any good for me to leave their bodies alone? To ignore my needs for the sake of a morality that, logically speaking, is not something that should apply to me? The culture of this world, of the very people I just killed, believes getting eaten to be an acceptable equivalent to burial. The only thing to fear beyond that is my personal health, and my biology is so vastly different from that of my prey the idea of getting diseases from them seems rather silly. I know, in my chitin, that I am built for this. For the consumption of flesh. I want it. I need it. I take another bite, not feeling the slightest bit better about the act but no longer having the will to deny it.

I really like maraschino cherries. Or… at least I did, back when I was human. I probably don't anymore. But my point is, whenever we'd go out and get milkshakes or mocktails or what-have-you, I'd always beg the rest of my family for their cherries because those things are delicious. One time, my mother did an at-home mocktail party as one of our little 'family events' that we're required to go to since my brother and I wouldn't otherwise, and she bought a jar of maraschino cherries for it. Of course, a jar of maraschino cherries has vastly more of the little red jewels of sugar than one can reasonably consume in a single party with one's mom, so the jar just kind of sat there in the fridge after that particular event. One day, I decided to eat one. This was, in my young mind, a dastardly act of theft. The consumption of unauthorized sweets was highly illegal in my household, at least back when I was little. I swore I'd only eat one, though, and no one would ever know.

Minutes later, I'd eaten a second. A day later, the jar was empty. And now, years later, I drench my throat in red syrup once again, savory and sharp. My self-control, it seems, has not improved one whit since then. Each bite, I find myself demanding 'this must be the last one,' and knowing in my heart that it won't be. The dread just keeps stacking as the mouthfuls keep coming, with no end in sight. Do I have weird monster instincts urging me to eat this man? Yes. I obviously do. But is it still me, taking each and every bite? Absolutely.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. As always, I am incredible at the first step, and absolutely nothing else. So I keep devouring this trauma, knowing that it will sit inside me forever and never digest.

When the last of this man's body finally gets pushed up my throat (except the area around his bum, since not even weird monster instincts can convince me to eat poop) I immediately start looking for one of the other two people I killed today (other two people I killed today other two people I killed today) which of course is an easy thing to do with my spatial sense. I take a shortcut through a nearby barren zone, which also has the unexpectedly delightful effect of removing the many sticky layers of blood all over my body. The sudden cleanness smacks into my conscious mind like a shovel, the joy of getting into a shower after being covered in sweat shaking me just enough to give me something to hold onto, something to focus on beyond the horrid addiction to blood and muscle and marrow. Stop. Wait. I really, honestly, don't have to do this. I want to, I really, really want to, but… but I…

I'm a seventeen year old high school student that has killed four people. Fuck! I just… I did that. I did all of that. Worse, I'm apparently good at it. Six people attacked us. Sindri killed one, Kagiso killed two, and I killed three, I killed them, they're dead and it's my fault. I dug my claws into their bodies, I made their hearts stop beating, I cut them open and let their life pour onto the forest floor. It was horrible. It was easy. A quick slash to the legs hamstrung them, allowing access to their vital organs at ground level. With enough barren zones around I can strike silently from virtually anywhere, and I took advantage of that, cutting from behind the moment my target tried to focus on anyone else. My target. That's all they were. I collapse to the cool ground, darkness all around me as my body tries and fails to figure out how to heave out stomach acid that does not exist. I can't cry, I can't vomit, I can't even scream. My whole body shakes, horrified and alone, invisible in the dimension only I can access. I can't do anything more than shake. I'm so fucking inhuman I can't even emote my despair.

…No. There's one thing. It's not something a human would do, but I'm a monster and it's all I've ever been. Just a wretched fucking monster. I bring my legs together, all ten of them touching a partner, and rub a mournful, wailing hiss out into the infinite darkness of the higher dimensions. A cry and a scream all in one. Why? Why did I have to do this? Why am I like this? Why, goddess? If you made me, why did you make me so horrible and wrong?

From the way I see my friends stiffen with my spatial sense, the sound I'm making apparently reaches them, on some level. I take some satisfaction in that, in knowing that my eldritch equivalent of sobbing can reach through the barrier between my realm and theirs. But it's a tiny and meaningless satisfaction, utterly incomparable to the weight of the lives I've just taken. So I screech my horrid sounds well into the morning, when the sun finally rises and the time my watch should have ended finally comes to pass. I'm exhausted, I realize, and it doesn't take much time after that for me to finally stop screaming and fall asleep.

Immediately, I wake up. My eyes and cheeks are wet, my nose runs with a fountain snot. The knowledge that I have apparently been crying in my sleep is vaguely comforting, in a horrible, weighty sort of way that replaces pain with dread rather than actually making me feel better. I can cry now, I can vomit, I can scream, but I absolutely shouldn't do any of those things because unlike my friends in the other world, my family will not understand and the absolute last thing I want is to be comforted by them. Not when it will just lead to more questions, more things I have to deal with that I absolutely, positively cannot deal with right now. So I have to hold it in. I have to pretend everything is fine. I have to minimize the amount of questions and attention I get because I can't afford that sort of thing right now, I don't have the mental bandwidth for it.

Small mercies, at least: it's strangely easy to get out of bed today, my limbs feeling more normal and natural than usual. I inhale a shaky breath, trying to force myself calmer and halfway succeeding. I need to clean my face. I almost cast the spell for it, but magic doesn't feel very fun all of a sudden. I use a tissue instead. It doesn't do a very good job, but whatever. I'm about to shower anyway.

Inhale, exhale. Steady breaths. Barely feeling functional, I stagger into the bathroom and strip, using the mirror to help me check my body for new changes. The claws on my hands are starting to creep up my fingers, gaining territory over my first set of knuckles. The wiry black flesh within is now visible in the joint, and my hands consequently feel a lot stronger than they used to. My right leg has a bit more dead skin (skin, I ate so much skin. It tastes far better when it's still juicy with blood.) and my left foot does as well, signaling that it's starting to change beyond the claws. Wiggling my extra growing limbs, I find them still firmly trapped inside my torso but noticeably larger, long enough to reach up from where they anchor above my hips and touch the bottom rung of my ribcage. Doing so isn't particularly comfortable, but it sure is a thing I can do now.

None of these changes are big, and none of these changes are new, but I can't help but note that there are a lot more changes than I had when I woke up yesterday, or the day before. Is this what excess food does? Or is it just a coincidence? Thinking about it nearly makes me vomit, so I ignore the thought and get into the shower, cutting off the hanging flaps of dead skin so they don't fall off on their own at inopportune times. Despite the revulsion churning throughout my entire body, I still eat them, because I am a messed-up, horrific thing with absolutely no self-control. Would it be stupid for me to go to school today? Will I lose control? Wait. No. There is no school today. It's Saturday. I have my maybe-date today.

Holy gonzoli, I have my maybe-date today. For some reason, that's impossibly funny to me. A laugh bubbles up in my chest and I lean into it, letting it out full-force. I double over with mirth, hot water running down my naked body as the horrible, horrible irony washes over me. The date I've been convincing myself is okay to go on because I might be too monstrous to have one later is today.

Literally one day too late.

Oh, sure, I can probably still pass as human as long as I doll myself up how I usually do. If I'm doing really, really well at suppressing my emotions I can probably even pass as a human who isn't having a complete mental breakdown. Pretending everything is fine has always been one of my best and most practiced skills! But I am still mid-panic about the fight to the death I just had and the people I just killed during it and boy howdy that does not seem like it'll be conducive to romance! I should not be going to the mall, I should be going to a therapist.

…Except there's absolutely no way I'm ever going to a therapist again, so screw it. I guess I'll go to the mall, if for no other reason than to not have to suffer the utter mortal terror of texting Autumn to cancel. And yes, I am saying that as someone literally currently getting over a bout of immediate mortal terror. And yes, I know that's stupid.

Whatever. What's the worst that could happen, she thought to herself with the most agonizingly massive girth of irony conceivable to exist within this pathetic fragment of the presumably infinite multiverse. I will go to the mall, not because it is a good idea, but because it's on my schedule for the day, and it's a good enough reason as any to maybe, hopefully, think about something other than the actual people with rich inner worlds as complex as my own which I just snuffed out of existence and then devoured like cattle. I guess.

Shower, over. Clothes, on. Makeup, perfect. Outfit, cute. Other than the fact that my current heart rate is more comprehensibly measurable in bps than bpm, everything seems to be going swimmingly. I head downstairs and exit the front door without talking to anyone or eating any breakfast, because for some reason I do not feel like doing either of those things.

Autumn and I traded addresses, figured out that we're both in walking distance of the mall, and decided to walk there, presumably because we're stupid and forgot that we would be buying things. Her house is closer than mine, so I'll be walking there to meet her. Consequently, I'll get to see what her house looks like, which is something that has always felt a bit weird to me. I wonder if other people feel weird when they see someone's house for the first time. It's not really the kind of thing I've ever thought to ask someone else, but dang does it always make me feel weird. As I walk towards where my phone says the address is, however, I start feeling significantly weirder.

It starts with the lawns. I mean, it probably doesn't start with the lawns, but they're what I notice first. Overgrown gardens, patches of brown, walkways blocked by untrimmed foliage. Cars are a bit older, a bit rustier, a bit more often parked on the street. The houses have flaking paint, the windows are dirty, and the fences damaged. Disrepair escalates. Poverty becomes obvious. I am now in what my parents refer to as 'the bad part of town,' and my coddled, privileged white girl brain immediately starts to worry about that.

This begins the familiar thought process I've lovingly dubbed the "Am-I-Racist Train." I am uncomfortable in this part of town. I live in Tennessee, and therefore 'this part of town' has a lot of people that are not white. While this is a true demographic fact regardless of whether or not any given person on Earth is racist, acknowledging it certainly feels racist, because it's making the claim that I'm uncomfortable in an area that is, to a significant degree, not full of people of European descent. But I'm not even fully European in descent (though I do kind of look like I am) so does that count? I certainly don't feel like I'd be more comfortable if this neighborhood was all extra-pale neo-confederates, but… no, that doesn't work, I can't equate the people here with the lowest common denominator, that's obviously racist. …And actually, while it's true that we have these 'demographic facts' as my brain just somewhat concerningly put it, I don't actually know what the demographics of this specific neighborhood is, I just made an assumption, and aw dang it that is definitely racist. Agh, no, I didn't mean to! I'm just scared because the crime rate is higher in places like this! Isn't that a good reason? No wait crap how do I stop!? Look Hannah, maybe this place looks scary, but it could just as easily be full of neo-nazis instead of gangs or whatever.

…Which I am assuming as the logical alternative because it looks poor. Why is 'this neighborhood has bad people' my assumption at all? Great, now I'm racist and classist. Why would I even think about neo-nazis in this situation, all sorts of rich and powerful people are neo-nazis! Oh great, now I'm worried about that instead!!! And the best part of all is that absolutely none of these thoughts are making me more comfortable to be walking around alone in this WONDERFUL NEIGHBORHOOD THAT I'M SURE IS FULL OF GREAT PEOPLE DOING THEIR BEST. Oh good, there are cop cars in front of that house over there! I am sure that the cops are being bastards, as cops are purported to be, even though I've never had a cop do anything other than be very nice to me and help me out because I am a petite white woman that does not break laws! Other than homicide! But that's pretty recent and no cops have talked to me about that, I only talk to cops when, say, a man flashes me when I'm in the middle of taking his order at work (which is a real thing that happened that I'm honestly more confused about than traumatized over) and the police were very nice to me when I called them about that! So basically all the bad stuff feels wrong, even though lots of extremely reputable sources insist it is right, which should be more than enough to override my stupid personal biases from my stupid Karen-mom upbringing but it isn't and I hate it and I'm a bad person and aaaaaaaaaaagh!

I've almost managed to work myself into another panic attack when my phone loudly informs me I've arrived at Autumn's place, but at least this panic attack is about a different thing than the one I was having this morning. I like how there are so many interesting and unique ways for me to be a bad person.

I walk up to the front door (cracked walkway, weeds in the garden, porch looks unstable) and ring the doorbell (doesn't work, have to knock). I manage to get the attention of someone inside, hear the requisite shuffling, and do my best not to think about the ridiculous and purely paranoid possibility of the person on the other side of the door pointing a gun at me when they open it. I don't even know why my brain is considering that possibility, I'm just so outside my element and flushed with stress hormones that everything seems possible as long as it would be really bad for me personally, and ideally everyone around me as well. Thankfully, an armed stranger does not open the door. Autumn does, and the gay part of my brain immediately joins the anxious part of my brain in bullying the logical part.

Girl pretty.

Autumn's school clothes are always plain, but it's a very particular kind of plain. The sort of plain designed to be generic, uninteresting, default. Her outfits are generally practical but somewhat baggy, hiding her figure and bouncing attention off of a shield of meh. Her Saturday clothes are a very different sort of plain: the adorable kind. She doesn't look boring, she looks like a librarian. And reading is hot.

She's got the ankle-length skirt. The long-sleeved cardigan. The homey color scheme of woody browns and dull maroons. Really, the only things she's missing are glasses and books in the crook of her arm, and I bet we can fix that second part at the mall today. I, conversely, look exactly the same as I usually do. Sure, I picked out my fanciest outfit that involves long pants, thigh socks, and gloves, but the whole reason we're going to the mall is that I do not have many outfits which satisfy that criteria. It's hot and muggy out at this time of year, and gloves are not exactly a common fashion accessory in weather that makes every confined body part leak sweat like spring rain. Out of the entire town, Autumn is probably the only person other than me wearing something that covers up so much skin.

…Which, uh, actually brings up the question of why she's doing that. But before I can think too much on the matter I realize that I've been staring without saying anything, and that she's blushing slightly, and holy cannoli she is so cute when she's blushing and now I'm blushing and oh my god Hannah say something, you dumb bug.

"I like your shkirt," I say, almost successfully completing a single sentence.

"My… 'shkirt?'" she asks, because of course it would be obvious that I am stupid.

"I like your skirt," I clarify. "And also your shirt."

"Thanks, um, you too," she answers. "Your shirt I mean. Since… you're not wearing a skirt."

There's a pause.

"...But I also like your pants," she manages to finish.

Well. At least we seem to be equally bad at this. I smile at her, and then remember I'm wearing a mask so she can't actually see me do that.

"To the mall, then?" I ask.

"Um, yep!" she confirms. "To the mall!"

And so, another couple minutes of me awkwardly typing in a new address to my phone ensues. But then we start walking to the mall, at first in more awkward silence but eventually in significantly less awkward conversation. All of said conversations pretty much involve us trading book titles until we find one that we've both read, at which point we babble about it in each other's general direction. I get the distinct impression that she's probably not all that good at talking about anything that isn't fiction, but that's okay because that's honestly a pretty big mood. I don't have anywhere near her number of consumed books, but getting her to open up and talk about something I haven't read is weirdly difficult. I know she could, she can really get talkative about books sometimes, but for whatever reason she doesn't seem to want to.

Should I open up about a thing I like to talk about but she doesn't know much of to indicate that it's okay? Or would that just be seen as me being selfish in response to her consideration? What would I even talk about? The main thing that comes to mind is Pokémon, but that's a terrible idea, I'll ramble for hours and ruin the whole date if I start talking about Pokémon.

"So, um, what's your favorite fictional universe?" Autumn asks as we finally make it to the mall.

"Pokémon," I answer.

Aw, cracker barrel.

"Pokémon? Like the kid's show?"

Hannah, I swear to Arceus, do not rant angrily about the massive adult following of Pokémon.

"That's the one," I manage to say. "Though it's way more than a show, there are a bunch of different canons across the franchise."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yeah, really!" I confirm. "I mean, none of them are really high-effort on the writing front except Adventures-slash-Special, the canon is always full of contradictions and vagaries and really just… not a whole lot in the way of story at all, really? But something about the world and setting have always captured me anyway. There's both a gorgeous utopic bent and a horrifying underbelly of fridge logic in the world of Pokémon, and I love talking about it."

"But you said the writing wasn't any good," Autumn points out.

"Yeah, the official material is kind of terrible. But like, the potential is there, which makes it really, really fun to think about."

"Have you tried reading any fanfiction?" she asks.

Agh oh no I love her.

"There's some really good Pokémon fanfiction, yeah," I agree happily. "I can recommend some if you've never tried any."

"Um, sure!"

Fanfiction is awesome, with its only glaring weakness being the incomprehensible fact that most people do not think it's awesome. You can't talk to the average person about fanfiction at all without it being really embarrassing because there's this weird cultural stigma surrounding it that assumes all of it is embarrassing garbage written by tweens. And sure, there's a lot of embarrassing garbage fanfiction written by tweens, but first of all how is anyone supposed to become a good writer without starting with embarrassing garbage? And second of all, so much of it is so fudge-in-a-cupcake good. There are some genuinely, unironically brilliant works of fiction that the average person will never even hear the title of for no reason other than it being fanfiction, and that's a horrible state of affairs. Taking stories other people make and using them to inspire your own is one of the most fundamentally natural methods of human storytelling, and it has been going on since the dawn of history. Just think about it for like two seconds, and it becomes pretty obvious: every single vampire novel ever is Dracula fanfiction. The entire extended Cthulhu mythos is Lovecraft fanfiction. The wikipedia page for Divine Comedy claims "it is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature," and it's literally, unambiguously, inarguably a self-insert fanfiction of the gosh dang Bible. It's not even accurate to the Bible.

Then capitalism walked in and was like 'yeah, but what if we prevent humanity from doing this anymore so we can make a bit more money' and suddenly fanfiction is a violation of intellectual property law. Only the copyright holder can make derivative works, and it's phenomenally stupid. Fanfiction still survives and thrives by simply being made by people who do not monetize their labor, creating beautiful stories (or terrible ones) purely for the enjoyment of doing so without receiving compensation for it, which, while arguably still illegal, is at least something that most companies don't care too much about. But that's dumb, and fanfiction writers should be able to monetize their fanfiction. If you've ever actually tried to write one, you'd know it's a ton of work, creatively and otherwise. It's nothing like rote plagiarism.

"So what about you?" I ask. "Favorite fictional universe?"

"Real life," she answers.

"Huh?"

She shrugs, her lips twitching in an almost-laugh.

"I, um, really love urban fantasy," she explains. "Stories that have magic but take place in a modern-day world which could believably be our own."

I am very, very tempted to say 'well then I have some good news for you,' but I don't. It wouldn't actually be good news.

"U-uh, yeah," I stutter out instead. "I used to like that a lot. I don't know if it'd be to my tastes anymore. I don't have a lot of time to read, but lately I want my fantasy worlds to not remind me of real life at all."

Which, among other things, means no world trees. I've killed four people on a world tree. I'm a monster. All of a sudden, the enjoyable conversation melts away and I become hyper-aware of my freakish body, the chitin of my leg, the way my claws dig into my shoes, the constant thrum of magic within myself that's waiting to be unleashed into the world. I don't belong in this normal place, not when I can't stop thinking about what the people around me would taste like. I'm a freak and a fraud, playing at a guise of humanity that's paper-thin, one bad day away from a disaster.

"Hannah?" Autumn asks, sounding a bit worried.

"Wha?" I gulp, blinking my attention back to the now. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"I said that makes sense," she answers nervously. "The world is pretty bad right now, what with the wars and the plague and stuff."

Ah. Yep. That's definitely what I was referring to.

"Uh-huh," I manage to choke out. "By the by, I think we walked past like three clothing stores already, but I don't actually know how to go shopping so I've just continued walking straight."

"Oh!" she answers. "Um, haha, I thought you had a plan so I've just been following you."

"Yeah, nope, I never have a plan," I admit a bit too honestly. "I'm just a total loser whose mom buys her clothes."

"That sounds kind of nice, actually," Autumn answers. "Well, I can take the lead then. I'm sure you've noticed I'm not super fashionable, but I know how to find things, at least. You need, um, gloves you said? And stuff to go with gloves?"

"Yeah, this is my only pair," I confirm.

"Why the sudden need for them, anyway?" Autumn asks curiously.

"Um… it's better than walking around with my hands visibly covered in bandages," I answer honestly. Well, as honest as a sentence I've specifically constructed to mislead can be, I guess.

"Oh, right. Gosh, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

No. Not at all. I'm so far from okay that I'm pretty sure my only chance of feeling okay again is to literally go insane.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say out loud. "You of all people don't have to apologize, Autumn. You were a big help."

She doesn't respond, awkwardly turning away and walking into the nearest clothing store instead. From that point on, conversation is mostly about outfits and bargains and checking between stores for options before deciding on a purchase. Hours pass before I even buy one thing, which probably isn't conducive to a proper date. Though I guess Autumn doesn't really seem to mind. She checks the time a fair bit, but when I ask her if she has anywhere to be she insists that she doesn't.

"Although, um, are you not hungry?" Autumn squeaks. "It's nearly three-thirty."

Oh gosh, really? I mean, I'm not hungry, but only because I've been doing everything in my power to disassociate my mind with the very concept of food. No longer able to hide, the hunger and the trauma both crash into me at once and I almost physically stagger.

"...Food would probably be a smart idea," I admit, horrible and delicious flavors singing through my memories.

"Cool," she nods. "Food court?"

That sounds like a good place for food. There are plenty of people in the food court.

"Sure," I answer quietly.

Are my hands shaking? Oh geez I probably look completely insane. Change the subject, Hannah, change the subject!

"Is it really three-thirty?" I ask.

"Yep, just about," Autumn answers. "Sorry, I should have asked to eat sooner, but we were finally getting some progress…"

"Ugh. Yeah. Maybe the only reason I hate shopping is just because my methodology is unbearable. I feel so pushy and annoying dragging you around all over the mall."

"It's fine," Autumn insists. "It's nice to pass the time with someone else."

"It's nice seeing you be kind of talkative for once, too," I joke. "I'm glad I haven't frightened you off, yet. Sometimes you seem so tough, but usually you're like a nervous little mouse."

Her brown curls spring adorably as she nervously tugs on a lock of hair.

"...Do you like me better tough?" she asks.

Oh gosh is that… is she…? Aaaaah, abort, abort! Except… wait. You know what? I don't have the mental bandwidth to be embarrassed about this. So belay that, full speed ahead.

"Um… I, uh, wouldn't say that," I admit. "I just… like you. I've been having a lot of fun talking to you. And you've been really helpful today, I don't think I could have bought any of this stuff without your help. You're cool when you're tough, but… you're cute when you're nervous."

Holy beans on toast I actually said that. I blush. She blushes.

"I see," is all she says, though I manage to catch her doing the smallest little wiggle. My heart. Oh gosh.

I ride the high of this interpersonal victory all the way to the food court, where I promptly realize that even if I did have the emotional wherewithal to eat right now, I can't actually take my mask off in public and am therefore screwed. At school I just eat somewhere private, but I can't exactly buy food and rush off into the bathroom to scarf it down here, now can I? That'd be disgusting and super weird. Oh, I don't necessarily have to, though! I could get something food-adjacent that I can slurp down with a straw. That should do the trick. A milkshake isn't exactly a meal, but it's better than nothing and my rapidly-carnivorizing digestive system can hopefully-probably still handle milk without much issue. I'll have to check how tasty it smells.

I will say that, on a whole, the food court is absolutely full of tasty smells, and it's really reassuring to know that those tasty smells are not people.

"Well, um, what were you thinking?" Autumn asks. "Looks like there's a Chinese place, a Mexican place, an 'Italian' place that's really just a pizza place, and something called 'Nathan's World-Famous Hot Dogs,' even though I've never actually heard of them."

"Well, I feel like the advantage of a food court is that we don't necessarily have to agree on a place," I point out.

"Yeah, but then we have to wait in two different lines," she counters expertly.

"Oh, right. True. Um… I'm fine with anywhere that has a milkshake, that's probably all I'm going to be getting."

"Oh, gosh. Not hungry?" Autumn asks. "You must have had a big breakfast."

I mean, does an entire human-sized person count? I flex my claws and talons, extra limbs in my torso shifting uncomfortably.

"Something like that," I answer.

Autumn frowns.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "You've seemed pretty distracted all day."

"I'm… well, okay, no. I'm not fine," I admit. "But I will be fine. Hopefully. I just… some stuff happened yesterday."

"More medical stuff?" Autumn asks.

I glance over to her. That is the logical assumption, isn't it? Based on what she knows, she probably thinks I'm dying. She might be right. Considering how violent the other world is, I'll be lucky to survive a month. Forget the whole turning-into-a-monster problem, will my body over here even still be alive if my body over there gets chopped up in its sleep? No wonder I'm so desperate to go on a date, I'm basically trying to fill out my bucket list. And Autumn doesn't even know. If she thinks this is a serious date that might actually end up as a relationship, I'm just leading her on.

"I'm not doing so hot in a lot of areas," I tell her. "I'm sorry. I just… I'm kind of using you, aren't I?"

"H-huh?" she stutters, looking startled. "I'm not… I don't feel used? We're just shopping."

"And if I asked if you wanted to see a movie with me once we're done eating, what would you say?"

She gives me a deer-in-the-headlights stare for a moment, but manages to answer.

"I'd… like that a lot," she squeaks.

I stare at her. We're both pretty short people, so it's easy to meet her eyes. Anxious and surrounded by loud, rude humans in line for crappy mall food, I realize that I have become so overwhelmed with horror that my brain has stack overflowed all the way into fearless. I take the plunge.

"Autumn, are you aware that I'm gay?" I ask her.

Her blush deepens.

"I, um, did manage to pick up that impression from somewhere," she admits.

"So is this a date?" I ask.

"...Historians in the future may or may not refer to today as a date," she hedges. "It depends on if it goes well or not. Though we can't let any information about any hypothetical dates get back to my dad."

"Same goes for my family," I sigh. "But that's really not the only problem. I don't know how long I'll be capable of dating, Autumn. It's not fair to you if we start something when I know I'm just going to have to call it off. I'm being selfish."

She doesn't get the chance to answer immediately, since it's our turn to order food. We fumble a bit at doing so considering the mental gear-shift required, but I get myself a plain vanilla milkshake (I figure chocolate might be risky) and settle back into waiting for the inevitable rejection.

"Maybe it's okay if we're selfish, for once," Autumn says instead.

I give her a surprised blink.

"...What do you mean?" I ask.

"Exactly what I said," she answers. "I'm here because I want to be, Hannah. I'm having fun. Can we continue?"

"Oh, um… sure."

I awkwardly collect my milkshake and stick the straw behind my mask, earning an odd look from Autumn that I only shrug to in response.

"We should normalize kinds of food that can be eaten with masks on," I mutter. "There's a dang pandemic going on."

"I guess it makes sense that you have to be pretty health-conscious, huh?" Autumn chuckles. "At least you seem hale."

"Except for when my blood all decides to fall out, yeah," I confirm. "Although speaking of stuff in my body that needs to fall out, I'm gonna head to the bathroom. Watch my shake?"

"I'll protect it with my life," Autumn promises.

"Cool," I nod. "Uh, don't actually do that though, please run if there are any threats to your life. Be right back!"

I jog to the nearest bathroom, my need to use it a lot more urgent than I expected. What did Autumn mean by that? 'Maybe it's okay if we're selfish?' If nothing else, I guess it sounds like she's okay with it if this turns out to be a pretty short-term thing. Which is… nice. Definitely reassuring. Holy crap though, did I really just admit that I'm gay in a public setting!? I mean, it's a public setting with a zero percent chance that anyone was bothering to listen in on me, and even if they were I didn't recognize anyone nearby, but still. What the heck, me? I'm going to give myself a heart attack with something like that.

I sit down on the toilet, moving my right sock down to expose my knee so I can pick the lint out of the joint. Having things inside my joints, it turns out, is extremely uncomfortable, and lint really likes to get stuck between the plates. I could just magic it out, but… I dunno. I guess I have to wait here for my large intestine to cooperate anyway. It's a big one, which is odd since I haven't eaten anything, but I didn't poop this morning so I guess this sort of thing happens. Unless… no. Nope, nuh-uh, I'm not going to think about that. I do my business as quickly as I can, wipe up, and resolve not to look into the toilet itself when I stand. I immediately fail.

I feel like it's weird to look back and check your own turds after pooping, but like… surely everybody does that at least sometimes, right? Gosh I'm on my first date ever and I'm lamenting about my own feces. It's not like there's any way that it… that… um.

Are those shards of bone?

They are. Oh god, they are. Packed in with the brown rot of my own excretions are chunks of hard white, proof positive of what I've done. How is it here? How did it chase me across dimensions? Why would… how did… fuck!

Vomit joins shit in the toilet bowl, a powerful heave upending a waterfall of horrible orange acids from my throat. No. No! Everything was going so well! Why did this have to happen now? Why can't I even have one good day? I'm going to ruin everything, not just for me but for Autumn too! I just… no. No! I can fix this!

No more feeling weird about my spells, I need them. Magic cleans me up well enough, and a flush of the toilet removes the rest of the evidence. Making sure my clothes are all on right, I walk out of the toilet stall and use the mirror to double-check myself, taking deep breaths and forcing my body to at least appear calm. I can do this. It'll be fine. Maybe I can't have a good day, but she can. Poor, cute Autumn. I'm not sure she has any other friends, so I'll be the best friend she's ever had. And if she wants things to go further than that… well, hopefully I'll still be around.

I return to the food court with a spring in my step that I don't really feel. I give Autumn a smile she can't actually see.

"So!" I say. "Movie?"

She agrees, and we head to the theater. I let her pick something without even really registering what it is. Something live-action fantasy. I've never heard of it before, but glancing at the ticket I'm startled by the nearly three hour run time. Sure, though. Whatever. It's not like I have anything better to do. Multiple hours of loud, in-my-face distraction sounds like exactly what I need right now.

I'm so out of it I don't even cringe when Autumn buys some of the overpriced theater snacks, I just offer to carry all of the bags so that she can hold her sugary spoils. I might be able to get away with a few bites of food when everyone is distracted by the movie, but I don't know if I can even digest popcorn and candy. I don't want to think about digesting things anyway.

Time slides by. I don't remember the movie, but Autumn seems to be pretty into it. That's good. She's good. I think. I guess I barely know anything about her. But she seems like a good person to me, and that's enough for now. When the credits start to roll, Autumn insists we wait and see if there's an after-credits scene. There isn't one. We leave. The sun is starting to set when we make it outside.

"Everything okay?" Autumn asks quietly.

I blink, turning to look at her.

"Yeah," I lie. "Sorry. Just… a bit out of it."

"Was the movie too long…?"

"No," I assure her. "No, it was fine."

"Sorry," she mutters. "I picked a really long one."

"I don't mind," I tell her.

"I was just being selfish."

I know, in my gut, that I should probably challenge that statement. I don't think I have the energy to, though, so we walk together in silence. Since we're walking, it's probably another forty-five minutes to an hour before we finally get home. Autumn seems more and more nervous the closer we get, and I can hardly blame her. I'm not looking forward to going home either.

It's a good thing my phone is giving us directions, because I wouldn't recognize where anything is in the dark like this. Sure, this is my hometown, but I don't actually know it all that well. Outside of a few specific places, I never really go anywhere. It's not all that late at night, but wherever we are is still pretty dead in terms of activity. Besides Autumn and I, there's only one other person on the street. He's approaching us from behind, which is a little concerning on general principles. I don't really want to turn around and actually see what he looks like, though. …Wait, if I haven't seen him, how do I know he's there?

I glance backwards, and sure enough, there's someone approaching us from behind. They've got a hood up and they're staring at the ground, so I can't see their face. Both hands are in their pockets. Their pockets are bulging rather suspiciously.

No way, right? Not… not like this. Not now. Not even the movie we just watched was cliche enough for this.

I put a hand on Autumn's shoulder and subtly nudge her to start walking faster. Unfortunately, we're both short, and the person behind us keeps gaining ground anyway. What should we do? Scream? I don't think there's… no. I know there isn't anyone else around. I don't seem to have access to my actual spatial sense. I try to look at things that way, but it just isn't there. Still, something more instinctive seems to insist on knowledge that I don't know how I could be aware of in any other manner. My heartbeat thumps faster as I feel out the nearby streets and alleyways, trying to find one out of sight we can duck into. Best-case scenario, he's just some dude in a hurry and he walks right past us. Worst-case scenario… well. I'll want witnesses even less than he will.

What's a fifth, in the grand scheme of things? The thought makes tears start to form in my eyes, but I ignore them. He's just gonna walk right past us anyway, right? I'm just being paranoid.

"Be quiet and stay behind me," I whisper to Autumn, and nudge her into an alleyway between two run-down businesses. The man behind us picks up speed. He'll be in view soon. Walk past us, walk past us, please walk past us.

He turns into our alleyway. He draws a knife. Tears start to fall down my cheeks in earnest.

"Y-your money," he demands. He's wearing a COVID facemask. The one damn guy I see actually wearing a mask during the pandemic, and he's using it to commit a crime.

It's funny. I've read a lot of superhero comics. Oftentimes, some of the best parts of superhero stories are the origins, the moment the hero first gets their powers and embraces them as tools of justice. Now obviously, we know that in the real world you can't actually make the world a noticeably better place by beating people up, and the vast majority of superheroes can do more good by using their powers for volunteer work than by using them to punch criminals in the schnoz, but the opening moments of a superhero's career are very, very often exactly like what I'm seeing right now. Bad guy, wearing a mask so the audience can't empathize with him, accosts a woman in an alleyway. Superhero punches him in the schnoz. Superhero is praised by woman, superhero realizes the joy and responsibility of heroism, superhero career begins. It's so stupidly common, so incredibly cliché that even the subversions of the trope are cliché. Even the times you know for a fact that, at the end of the scene, there isn't going to be a hero walking out of the alleyway.

I take a shaky breath, standing up straighter. I don't really know how to fight, certainly not in a straight one-on-one battle like this. I'll probably get stabbed when I attack, but if I kick him with my right leg then my chitin should be plenty tough to shrug such a tiny blade off. In return, my magically-enhanced claws will rend deep into him. He'll probably die. I'm hungry enough to dispose of the evidence, at least.

"I said give me your money!" the boy snaps. God, he sounds so young.

"Please just go," I beg him. "Don't become my cliché."

He seems a bit taken aback by my words, but he doesn't leave. I figured as much. This is just my life now, isn't it?

I take a deep breath, and the goddess reaches out towards my lungs.