Bioshifter

I wake up groggy, sticky, and sad. The first leads to me taking a while to understand the second, but once I do it rather exacerbates the third. I'm covered in blood because I killed and ate a bunch of people. Right.

A Refresh takes care of that, at least, helping me forget a little as I take stock of my surroundings. I'm in the room the pirates locked us in initially, Kagiso slumbering on the bed next to me. Sela is actually at the foot of the bed now, relocated from the cargo bay, and Helen… Helen is sitting on the floor next to the bed, slumbering with me held softly in her arms.

Well. I guess I'll stay put then, let her rest. I still feel kind of itchy, though. Did I miss something with Refresh…? Oh, no. I'm just preparing to molt again. All the more reason to stay still for now, I suppose. Sitting here, in the toned arms of a terrifyingly deadly woman, pressed against her admittedly quite flat chest, I once again find myself lamenting my growth. I'll miss being carried around everywhere, I really will. It'll be worth it to have like, arms and stuff, but still. I think I really enjoy being carried. And held.

…

Yeah, this is nice. I snuggle a little deeper into Helen's arms and just enjoy the sensation as I wait for her to wake up. Looking around the ship, it would seem that the sailors have gotten things organized without us, and a lot of them are sharing drinks together in the… engine room? It's not really an engine, per se, but it's the room where motion mages turn the drive shaft that makes the ship go. They seem to be having a pretty good time. The corpses around the ship have apparently been gathered up and thrown overboard, which is kind of a shame but it's not like I would have eaten them after they've been exposed to the open air for eight hours or however long it's been. That's way too long.

…Wait. Uh. Aw, snickerdoodle, what I meant was… um. Crap. What the heck is wrong with me? I don't want to be a cannibal, I don't want to like cannibalism. I don't want there to be a visceral satisfaction inherent to eating my kills. I don't want the flavor of human meat burned into my memory and I certainly don't want it to taste so freaking good!

I start to shake slightly, no longer capable of holding back the memories I've been trying to avoid. No, no, no! I hate this. Why am I like this? Why did you make me this way, Goddess? Did you make me?

I feel Her presence coalesce around me in answer, more gentle than usual. She's so mighty, so incomprehensibly powerful, that Her attention tends to be suffocating. But this time, for whatever reason She's careful. Calm. Almost caring, in Her own messed-up way.

She did make me, I realize. This is Her confirmation. In somewhat the same way that my human mother made my human body, the Goddess herself birthed my magical form, crafting my treeside self from deep within the womb of the Mother Tree. So yes, She confirms, I am built for battle. She had to make it all a little easier for me. A little more bearable, a little more fun.

After all, I will be fighting a lot, and She doesn't want Her baby to die.

I shudder again, getting the distinct impression that 'baby' is being used much more like a pet name than it's being used to refer to me as a literal daughter. But that answers things, doesn't it? These messed up urges… they're not me, not really. They're something She put in my body without my permission.

The Goddess chuckles, stroking my carapace condescendingly. As if I could be anything other than my body. As if anyone gets to consent to how they were born. No, this is me, truly me, in as real a way as any other. If I want to delude myself into considering my mind as separate from my brain, my intelligence as independent from my flesh, that's my business, She supposes. But the truth of the matter is clear-cut: everyone has parts of themselves they don't like and didn't choose. It doesn't make those things any less truly a part of them. If anything, it just makes them more fun.

Of course, the Goddess notes, as much as She enjoys giving me a little nudge here and there, She will not force my hand. A temptation is not an act. An urge is not an ultimatum. That's not the point of the game. Everyone has instincts, and everyone can learn to resist them. The ultimate decision, She promises, is always on me and me alone. Every bite, and every consequence.

She smiles magnanimously. How wonderfully comforting that surely must be.

I take a shaky breath. You know darn well it isn't, Goddess. She hums, resting her cheek against the top of my carapace as She sensually strokes my legs. Poor little spider, She muses. Do you not want your free will after all?

W-wait. No, that's not—

"Y'know, I'm pretty damn sure no one cast a spell nearby," Helen mutters, nearly startling me out of my molt. "But this is still the second time I've woken up and felt the Goddess around."

The Goddess chuckles, swirling around Helen and me before vanishing and leaving me alone with a very awkward conversation.

"You, um, you can feel the Goddess?" I ask dumbly. I'm just kind of stalling because I don't know what else to say.

"Uh, yeah, a lot of people can," Helen confirms. "Handy sense to have, lets you know when you step into an area spell. Never heard of Her showing up outside of somebody's spell, though, and I doubt I would have slept through you casting something. So what gives?"

I sigh. I don't really know Helen that well, but I'm terrible at lying and she's certainly earned some trust from me.

"Well, you know how I'm from another universe?"

"Yyyes…?" Helen says. "I know how you know a lot of weird shit, anyway."

"Right, well. Uh. Apparently my status as a spooky interdimensional spider means the Goddess pays a lot of attention to me. Sometimes when I ask Her things She, uh. Well, She actually answers."

"No shit," Helen says, raising her eyebrows.

"None at all," I confirm. "It's, uh. Kind of, uh."

I hesitate. I want to say it's utterly terrifying and consistently traumatizing, but I'm kind of terrified of insulting Her.

"...It can be a bit of a mixed bag," I settle on. I almost feel the Goddess chuckle, and I shiver again.

Helen scowls for a moment before the expression wipes itself off her face and gets replaced with a considering glance.

"Is that so. Hmm. I bet you'd get a lot of fanatics excited to do whatever you say if you made that known," Helen says. "Pretty much everybody worships the Goddess in some capacity or another, and those of us that can feel Her… well. It's not like we'd be able to deny what you're saying."

"Yeah," I mutter. "Yeah, I know. I don't really want to spread this around, though. It's not that I'm not grateful, I just… I don't, um. It's not something I want to rely on."

"Divine knowledge is not something you want to rely on," Helen mutters. "Still, if this is true, it sure puts a few things you've said into perspective."

"Yeah," I agree. "Sorry. I don't like talking about it. It's kind of scary."

"Scary, huh? Really? A lot of people would kill to be lounging on your branch."

I hesitate again. I'm not really sure what to say. I don't really want to offend Her. But now that I'm thinking about it, would it offend Her? Would She care? She wouldn't, would She? No. This is exactly the sort of thing that doesn't matter to Her. She cares about respect, perhaps, but fear will do in a pinch.

"Helen, She's… She's evil," I tell my friend, my voice quiet. "She's so, so evil and She’s everywhere and I don't think there's anything I can do about it."

Helen stares at me for a bit, then huffs out a relieved sigh.

"Well, thank fuck you're not a fanatic," she says, relaxing in ways I didn't realize she was tense. "You're such a fucking dork, though. Are you really complaining about not being able to do anything about the literal Goddess? You realize that only makes you exactly as useless as everyone else, right? Yeah, no shit She’s evil. You've seen what my magic can do. Why would a good deity give that to anyone?"

Ah. Right. Helen has some pretty solid reasons to hold strong opinions of the Goddess, huh?

"Well, it seems obvious to you and me, but you said a ton of people worship Her, right?" I ask.

"Sure," Helen shrugs, placing me onto the bed as she stands up to stretch. "Most people think She's great, and it's kind of nice to have my opinion on the matter validated by someone who can apparently talk to the lady, but I'm not going to blame you for not being able to do anything about it. That would be insane."

"Yeah…" I agree. "Thanks, Helen. For everything. Last night was… horrible. But it had to be done, I guess."

"No problem," Helen yawns. "Couldn't have done it without you. Are you doing okay? You seemed to be pretty out of it after the fact."

"I don't know if I would call myself okay, but I'm doing a little better," I say. "I guess I sort of start to dissociate in stressful situations. I didn't mean to hiss at you."

"It's cool, I could tell you were freaking out. You really scared the shit out of the sailors, though! Slaughtering all those people in there."

"Oh, that was Sela, actually. It really came in clutch. I don't think I would've been able to handle them by myself."

"That so?" Helen muses. "Well, sounds like it was a good night for all, then. You happy you got to kill some humans, murderbot?"

"Emphatic affirmation: yes," Sela buzzes immediately. Oh, I guess it's awake.

"I really appreciate you not taking the opportunity to kill me, too!" I tell Sela, since I think positive reinforcement is important. "I don't know if you wanted to or not. I mean, I assume you did, but still. You really got us out of a tight spot."

"It is not as though my situation would improve by becoming the property of pirates or ending up getting dumped in the Sapsea," Sela dismisses. "Regretfully: your continued survival is optimal to my future plans of remaining operational."

"Neat!"

"That is certainly one way you could describe my capacity for self-control, yes."

"Wow, you two are downright friends now, huh? Helen comments. "Murderbot didn't even insult you or call you meat or anything."

"Clean me, meat."

"Oh okay, there it is."

I chuckle, scurrying over and using Refresh on Sela. Looks like it's about time for me to molt, too, so afterwards I start peeling myself out of my own skin.

"You are all really scary and concerningly murderous, and considering my general hangups with the whole killing thing I'm not quite sure how to feel about that," I admit. "But somehow, I like you all anyway. I'm glad that you decided to stay with us, Helen. And I hope we can make this journey as painless as possible for you, Sela."

"Superior beings do not experience pain."

"Right, right, duh. There are more optimal ways to deal with damage. But I meant like, emotional pain. You know, the suffering of having to be around disgusting organics."

Sela makes a few whirring noises.

"Bewilderment: your attempt at commiseration is noted."

I chuckle.

"Wow, Hannah, no loyalty to team organic?" Helen taunts.

"Nope!" I answer, stuffing some of my own skin into my mouth. "Being made of meat is super messy and gross!"

Helen starts to laugh, too.

"You are really lucky you have me around, Hannah," she says. "I swear, you would manage to kill yourself one way or another if I left you alone for a few hours."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna argue that," I agree.

I would definitely be screwed without Helen, and not just because I don't know if Kagiso knows where to go and I definitely don't think I could trust Sela to navigate for us without any ulterior motives. Helen is a big scary Chaos mage, and that's an upside and a downside in a lot of ways, but I think what I'm starting to figure out about Helen is that while her big destructive spells are certainly terrifying, the real danger about this woman is her mind. She's like… a friggin' velociraptor or something. You can't just be wary of the teeth and claws, or you won't see the dozen other traps she has laid for you. She is a very clever girl.

Despite having a bomb strapped to her neck, Helen walked through this ship like she owned it. Even stripped of any offensive ability, she was the linchpin of our whole operation, just as dangerous when destroying sound and emotion instead of lives. She had a plan, she knew exactly how to carry out that plan, and barely a minute after she started, it was done. She's not just powerful, she's experienced.

And her spells are terrifying. Suspicion-destroying art. That's the painting we saw at the very entrance to her cave, isn't it? And we didn't even think to be afraid. I wonder how many Chaos Hunters she's killed?

I wonder how many other people she's killed. I already know about one whole village. Am I a bad person for being friends with her? Or, wait. Actually…

"We're friends, right Helen?" I ask.

"What?" Helen asks, blinking. "You just had a breakdown about how many people we just killed and now you're asking if we're friends? Fuck if I know. I don't know anything about that shit. I'll say that, if nothing else, you and Kagiso are the only people I know who have found out that I'm a Chaos mage and then asked me that anyway. And… I guess that counts for something."

Oh, gosh. Poor Helen. Would I be a bad person by not being friends with her?

"A novel experience for you, I take it?" I prod. "Have you ever made friends with any other Chaos mages?"

"Well, no. Not really, I guess. I've certainly known other Chaos mages. Most of them are dead now, but most of them were kind of crazy bastards anyway. Not the sort of people you would get along with, even considering that you get along with Sela. Somehow."

"I do not consider this status mutual," Sela protests.

"Whatever, you know you love having a personal meat servant to clean out your insides," Helen smirks.

"…Concession: it is, as the chitinous one put it, a novel experience."

Score! That totally counts! We are on our way to friendship! And if I get the friendship score high enough, maybe Sela will be less genocidal! It's really a win for everybody.

"Well in that case, Helen, I guess it's up to you," I say. "You are definitely really scary, don't get me wrong. But you are smart and I owe you a lot and I don't think you're a bad person. So if you want to be friends, I'm down to be friends. The Chaos stuff doesn't matter much to me."

"Truly, the ostracization of an entire element of magic is one of the stupidest things that organics do," Sela chimes in. "Even if your complete isolation from other humans is one of the only things that makes you halfway tolerable."

"Wait, there are Crafted Chaos mages?" Helen blinks.

"Of course there are," Sela buzzes. "There are Crafted of every element. Many of my peers in war shared similar gifts to you. The fact that your kind spurns some of its greatest offensive magics is one of the countless reasons you were so effortlessly crushed."

"Well, that's absolutely fucking terrifying, but somehow it weirdly makes me feel better too and I'm not sure how to react to that?"

"Ha! Welcome to like, my whole existence," I tell her, finishing off the last of my molt. I'm considerably larger now, probably approaching twice my original height. Which, well, is two feet instead of one foot. But still! "Anyway, are any of these sailor guys healers? It'd be great if we could get Kagiso feeling better."

"Hrrng," Kagiso agrees.

"Uuuuh, I think there might be," Helen confirms, popping her back. "I didn't see a whole lot of injuries when I came back downstairs, so I assume somebody must have healed them off. Let's go see."

"Sure thing," I agree, hopping up into her arms when she holds them out for me. "All my various traumas from yesterday are nice and compartmentalized so I think I'm good to go!"

Helen snorts, briefly lifting me up as if to put on her head, but then brought back down to remain in her arms. Oh no! Am I already too big to be a hat!? Oh gosh, that's so sad.

"Our plan is basically the same as before," Helen tells me. "I'm an Order and Art mage. My art makes others stronger, and I'm the one with the cleaning spell. Only lies of omission on your end: you're a Transmutation and Space mage, formerly human. Yes, they're gonna know we smuggled you onto the original boat, but nobody is gonna give a shit anymore."

"Got it," I nod, twisting my whole body up and down a little in her arms. "But… wait. Why are we doing this? Shouldn't a bunch of people know you're a Chaos mage now? You killed a ton of pirates."

"Not with witnesses, I didn't," Helen shrugs. "There was that one guy in the torture room, but you did the killing and we don't know if he put two and two together when he saw me blocking that pirate's attacks. Even if he did, he has some decent enough incentive to keep silent. Sometimes people do that for me when I get them out of a tight spot. Not always, but it's nice when it happens."

"And what about sailors with aura sight spells who saw you before you came to, uh, deal with me while I was eating?"

"That I might be boned about, but no one made a fuss at the time so it could go either way. I, uh, had some solid discouragement against having anyone look at me, and I waited long enough after the battle ended to pick you up that most detection spells would hopefully be off by then, but… yeah. We might just get unlucky. No sense in just giving away the game unprompted, though. Until somebody confronts us, this is our story."

"Fair enough," I agree. "I guess there's a solid chance they know and just decided not to mess with us, too."

"Oh yeah, for sure. Don't poke the nychtava and all that. That just means we'll have to be extra careful once we hit port and they get their courage back after we leave, though."

I wiggle in understanding and she heads out, letting me direct her down to where most of the sailors are enjoying their freedom together. The many drunkards don't even bat an eye at us as we enter, but a lot of the seemingly-sober ones are visibly wary. Which… probably isn't a good sign.

"Hey there!" Helen greets, acting totally oblivious to the drop in atmosphere. "Quick question for you. Can anyone here heal? I can't, and my friend Kagiso is still injured pretty badly from when those damn pirates shot her in the back during the fight against the branch serpent."

The sailors that are actually listening to us glance at each other nervously.

"You're with the organ girl, too?" they ask, and it is at that moment I realize these guys aren't afraid of Helen at all.

They're afraid of me.

"Ahaha… sorry, I know her spells are a little off-putting, but she's super duper nice. Oh! This is Hannah, by the way! She's the one that killed that bastard Pneuma mage!"

She lifts me up and I nervously wave a claw, the attention of nearly everyone now focused on me, sober or not.

"U-um, hello everyone!" I sputter. "I, uh, sorry about creeping you out earlier! I'm not gonna… I mean, I don't…"

"She's a Transmutation mage," Helen butts in for me. "It makes her hungry sometimes. We're super lucky she's so small, or I never woulda been able to sneak her past the fucker with the bomb spell!"

There's a short pause before someone finally calls out. One of the drunks speaks up, lifting a full mug of… something.

"Well fuck yeah!" he declares loudly, a huge grin on his face. "Three motherfucking cheers for Hannah, then, for giving those bastards what they deserve!"

"Well shit, yeah, I'll drink to that!" another says, clanging his mug against the first guy's.

"Yeah, what are all you pussies being all nervous for? We fucking won!"

A roar of approval shakes the room and the tension shatters, men crowding around Helen and I and slapping her on the back, the party returning in full force. People thank me, congratulate me, pester me with questions about my spells, and it's all kind of overwhelming. But also… nice. These are the people I helped. The people I saved. This is what the killing was for. Was it worth the cost? Maybe. I don't know. But it was definitely worth something, and that matters a lot.

Eventually, we figure out who the healer is and manage to pull him away from the party, taking him upstairs to look at Kagiso. By this point he's more than happy to help, barely even staring at the playing-dead Sela before he starts healing the serious burns all over Kagiso's back. She purrs softly as the magic dances over her skin, the burnt tissue unraveling and settling back into pale skin before white fur sprouts over it like fresh grass. It's kind of mesmerizing to watch, really.

The whole thing takes nearly half an hour, but the man never speaks his spell out loud for whatever reason. I guess there's no need for urgency, and soon enough Kagiso is no longer rendered insensate by pain. So she happily stretches, letting out a massive yawn before turning towards Helen and me and holding out two of her arms.

"...Took my cuddles," she accuses.

Helen chuckles and hands me over after the Order mage leaves, consigning me to a day mostly filled with snuggling. Not that I'm complaining. We do a bit of cleaning later in the day, but mostly we just take it easy as everyone else actually runs the ship. Helen verifies our landing spot and is apparently satisfied with it, and the sailors know how to do the rest. They were already mostly running the ship in the first place.

Thus, the day passes and I wake up unexpectedly relaxed. I quickly stop being relaxed when I realize I'm home and I see my new, unopened laptop on the floor, the shame of how I acted at last night's birthday party flooding into me. Crapbaskets. I really screwed up. Mom's gonna be grumpy for ages.

Groaning, I manage to get myself up out of bed and start my routine anyway, although I once again find my shower time cut short by a lack of pleasure and lack of necessity. I swallow some eggs, meet Brendan—dog poop, I mean Valerie—at the bus stop, and the school day begins.

Whenever I successfully fail to think about the murders, I manage to act pretty normal. I try to focus on the cheering sailors whenever the thought comes up, and it helps a little. But only a little. Overall, the day isn't too bad. Autumn and I do a science project together in Bio and then we have a nice lunch, Ida yeeting another bag of fried chicken at me and skedaddling so as to 'not bother the lovebirds.' It was cute and thoughtful and I just… I'm really grateful for my friends.

Valerie and I talk very quietly about her name and her identity on the bus ride home. She likes the name, she thinks. She's out to more friends online as well, though the topic of her telling Ida or Autumn is firmly shut down. Which… I guess makes sense. Ida and Autumn aren't really Valerie's friends; they're my friends. I should try hanging out with her friends more often, maybe. And maybe have a talk with Ida about how to be nicer to her.

After school is work, and work is blessedly boring. It's an oddly slow day for a Thursday, but I'm certainly not complaining. I don't have a breakdown and I manage to only steal two cuts of raw chicken, which is a pretty darn good day for me.

I go to sleep, and wake up back on the boat. It's more of the same: cleaning, mostly, with the sailors much more comfortable around Helen and I than they were yesterday. Nothing brings people together like freedom from oppression, I suppose.

The day passes, and Friday comes and goes much the same as Thursday did. It's a gosh dang miracle that neither Autumn nor I have been ousted yet, but Autumn is worried her time is fast approaching. She can't hide her bulky tail and wings in another dimension like I can with my buy-one-get-one-free limbs, and it won't be long before they're way too big to obscure. The only thing I can think of that might work is getting Jet to name her obfuscation spell and figuring out a way to teach it to Alma. I talk to Jet about it and she says she'll see what she can do.

Of course, I don't know how that goes when I wake up again on the boat. We should make landfall in the next couple days, though the sailors say they aren't sure exactly when since there's a different set of spells working the drive shaft and providing generalized upkeep and speed buffs. The old pirate captain was apparently Motion and Order, and he could get his ship moving a lot faster than they could otherwise go, but the new Motion mages from our ship might even that out, and… yeah. I guess our speed varies a lot depending on who's working and who's resting.

It's nothing I have to worry about, though. I munch away at some tasty jerky (it isn't human jerky, I checked) and largely laze the day away. I could get used to boat rides, I think. Not being able to sleep without instantly waking up somewhere else kind of sucks, so having lazy days like this is the closest I can get to rest. And I really, really need rest. Unfortunately, however, I have to sleep again eventually, and I wake up once more. On Saturday.

I have therapy today. Fffffffizzy pop.

I mean. I guess Dr. Carson wasn't that bad. And we mostly just talked about Pokémon, and I could do that again. Goddess knows I need to actually talk about my problems, though. I don't want to, though. I don't want to I don't want to I don't waaaaant to…

"Hannah! Therapy today!" my mother calls as an unnecessary reminder. Fine. I grit my teeth, get out of bed, and get ready for the day. Naturally, I'm still not allowed to drive myself, so I once again end up trapped with my mother in the car.

"Have you used your new laptop yet?" she asks.

"No," I tell her.

"You should try it out," she continues. "We need to know if it will work or if there's anything wrong with it and if we need to return it. I know you have your other computer, but we still need to test the laptop."

"I've just been busy, is all." It's not even really a lie. "I'll try to get to it this weekend."

A pause.

"Have you been keeping up with classes at school?" mom asks.

"Yeah," I answer. Mostly, anyway. I've been slipping a little, but my grades are good so who cares?

"You need straight A's if you want to get into a good college, Hannah."

"I'm not going to college, mom."

She nearly stops the car. She doesn't, but I see her twitch. Aw, dang it. That one just slipped out, I should have kept silent.

"You most certainly are, young lady," she says. "Hannah, I don't know what's been the problem with you lately, but you need to go to college if you want a good job, and you need a good job if you want to succeed in the world.

"Sorry," I mutter. "That's not what I meant."

I'm not going to be able to go to college. That future has become patently ridiculous. But I can't say that. I can't explain it.

"What is it then, Hannah?" my mother demands. "Are you on drugs? Did you get into debt? Are you suicidal? You can't just keep giving me the cold shoulder, Hannah, I am terrified and you have no idea how difficult it is to watch your own daughter just… just fall apart like this! What happened, Hannah? Please. Just say something."

I don't want to say anything. I just want to curl up and cry. Why do I want to curl up and cry? She's not doing anything wrong.

"I am not on drugs, in debt, or suicidal," I manage to answer. Not usually suicidal, anyway. Out of all the problems I have, that's probably not in the top five.

"Then what is it?" she pleads as she parks the car. "Why won't you tell me?"

"The whole point of coming here is to not tell you, mom," I growl out. "You'll know eventually. I can't hide it forever. Now let's just go? We shouldn't miss the appointment."

We both know that my mom arrived nearly ten minutes early, but she concedes anyway and we get out of the car, check in, and wait for the doctor silently. Soon enough we are greeted by Emily Carson, Ph.D., and I barely manage to not have a panic attack following her into her office. Huh. I guess my therapy trauma is still a problem. Shame that didn't go away after a ninety-minute conversation.

"Are you alright, Hannah?" Dr. Carson asks me as I breathe heavily in the doorway like some kind of absolute freak.

"N-not really," I admit. "Just… give me a minute?"

Oh boy my chest hurts. Am I gonna die? I mean, I didn't die any of those other times I had a panic attack, so logically I'm not going to die this time, but also holy shit, am I going to die? Oh boy oh boy. Deep breaths, Hannah. In, out. In, out. I manage to stagger over to Dr. Carson's couch and sit down on it, taking in shaky breaths. This successfully wastes maybe three minutes of our session.

"Okay, I can probably talk without breaking out into sobs now," I announce. "How are you, Dr. Carson?"

"I'm doing quite well," she tells me. "My husband and I watched a delightful movie together last night; I enjoyed it quite a bit. And then he made me dinner. Chicken a la king."

"Aw, that's really sweet."

"I do quite enjoy it, but it's not the best for my old heart. What about you, Hannah? How was your week?"

"Um… the last few days weren't terrible, but oh gosh, uh. Wednesday was. Not the best. Quite possibly the worst, actually."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Emily says, and she really actually does sound sorry. "What happened?"

"Uh. That is. A good question. I have absolutely no idea how to begin answering it, or if I even should."

Dr. Carson pauses, waiting a while as I sit in silence, my brain buzzing with mostly meaningless nothing. I don't know what to do or say. My extra limbs twitch. I clack my teeth. I fidget with my gloves. I say nothing.

"...Last time we talked, you fired a lot of concerns at me in sequence," Dr. Carson prompts, looking at her notes. "You mentioned almost dying. You mentioned concerns with your relationships and sexuality. You mentioned a man who gaslit and traumatized you. You mentioned experiences with cannibalism. You mentioned you suspect you might be autistic. You mentioned that you feel responsible for the current state of the world due to familial relations. And you also mentioned being involved with multiple deaths, and a fear of instinctively hurting others."

I swallow.

"Uh. Gosh," I say. "I really said all that?"

"Is any of it inaccurate?" she asks, pulling up her notepad as if she's ready to cross out anything I don't want on there.

"No, not… no," I mumble. "That's all true. I just… I seriously told you all that, and you didn't have me sent off to an insane asylum?"

"I told you I wouldn't," Dr. Carson smiles. "It seems like a lot has happened to you, Hannah, but I'm not here to make any judgements. You told me you had no intention of hurting anyone, and that's more than enough for me."

"Ah," I say, my heart falling. "Well, sorry to disappoint you. That's… part of what happened Wednesday. I hurt… I killed a lot of people. Thirteen people. Specifically."

Dr. Carson raises her eyebrows.

"Well. That's shocking. You'd think something like that would have made the news. What happened, if that's alright to ask?"

I laugh humorlessly.

"Well that's the problem, right?" I ask. "This is the part where you think I'm crazy. I literally cannot explain this unless I take the plunge and… and show you what I am."

"An extraterrestrial?" Dr. Carson asks. "You mentioned something of the sort last session as well."

I bristle instinctively. Not because she said something wrong, but because she didn't. There's absolutely zero chance she believes I'm an alien, but her tone remained the same. Calm and composed and utterly trusting. Which means she's good at hiding her tells. Can I trust anything she says she believes?

Or… y'know. Maybe she's legit. Maybe when she says she trusts me and isn't going to judge me, she means it.

"...That was just a metaphor," I mutter. "I'm not actually from space. It's just something that unbelievable."

"Alright," she nods. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

I hesitate. I don't know what I should do.

"Ah, haha. Y'know, my friend Je—um. I mean, my friend Autumn said I should. She's going through some of the same stuff I am, except it's entirely my fault."

I bounce my leg. Dr. Carson says nothing, waiting patiently to see if I continue.

"I don't know if I should," I admit. "I don't know what to say."

"Well, the choice to speak or not is yours," Dr. Carson attempts to reassure me. "If you're not comfortable speaking with me about something personal this early, I completely understand."

I shiver slightly, gouging deeper tracts in the bottom of my shoes.

"What if… what if I don't want the choice to be mine?" I ask softly. "What if I want you to decide for me?"

Dr. Carson adjusts her glasses slightly.

"Well, I would say that I remain a firm believer in giving you control of this session," she tells me. "But I would also remind you that I can't help you with things that you don't speak with me about. This is a safe place, Hannah, and no matter what you tell me—no matter what you've done or what you are—I will do my utmost to help you. You have my word."

I take a deep breath and let it out.

"I could just talk about my mom instead," I say. "I have another friend who agrees with you, you know. About the whole 'she can love you and still hurt you' thing."

"Well, I suppose I might be biased," Dr. Carson says with a wry grin, "but your friend sounds like a wise person."

I actually manage a quick laugh.

"She would… agree with you on that," I say, smiling faintly. "She's a lot to handle. A really good friend, though. For sure."

The tension seems to ease a bit, and for whatever reason I keep talking about Ida.

"She's the most confident person I know," I tell the therapist. "Arrogant, really. But in a way that makes it so hard not to idolize her. She's almost like a fae folk. A little goblin that revels in joy and dreams and never has to come back down to Earth if she doesn't want to. She's also really hot, though I spent years trying to crush my crush on her so that's a bit of a complicated feeling nowadays."

Agh, why did I say that? Whatever, just keep going.

"Even without that, I think if we started dating she'd just sweep me away. I'd never be able to keep up with her. A great friend, but… probably a little bit of a lousy partner, you know? I don't have the energy for her."

Dr. Carson nods.

"It sounds like you know each other well, at the very least," she says.

"Oh yeah, definitely. We've been good friends since like, sixth grade. I really look up to her in a lot of ways. Oftentimes when I'm confused I ask myself, 'what would Ida do?' And suddenly it becomes a lot more obvious what the answer is."

"That's a good trick, actually," Dr. Carson smiles. "Reframing a problem in a different way to look at it from the outside can really help people clear their thoughts. Though of course, it's always worth remembering that it's still you making the decision. You often know the right answer all along, but looking at it from a position of someone you respect making the call just helps make things clearer."

Yeah. That fits, I suppose. It's still me making the decision. Free will is real, and all the consequences with it.

And I know what I should do. I know deep in my slowly-disintegrating bones that I need help, as much of it as possible. And in a therapist's office, one needs to talk about their problems to get help. I take a deep breath, and look Dr. Carson in the eyes.

"Magic is real and I am not human," I tell her, "and I can definitively prove both of these things."

Dr. Carson makes a few notes, her eyebrows raising slightly.

"Quite a bold claim," she muses, as placid as ever.

"I know," I say. "Do you mind if I take off some of my layers?"

"Make yourself at home!" she invites, gesturing to go ahead.

I nod, my heartbeat racing a mile a minute. What do I start with? I guess my jacket. It's just a backup layer; I already have another long-sleeved shirt underneath it. With how chitinous my arms have been getting, I need to not only cover them up but also pad them, so that people brushing into me can't pick up the strange, inhuman texture. Plus, while my shirt has holes in the back, my jacket doesn't.

I don't move right to the extra limbs, though. Hands shaking, the first inhuman feature I show off is my claws. The gloves come off, and for the first time I see a reaction of genuine surprise from Dr. Carson. It really shouldn’t, but that somehow gives me a sense of victory, and it helps me keep going.

My chitinous hands revealed, I go further. I roll up my sleeves. I remove my shoes. I slip my mask off my face, giving my therapist a cautious smile. All the while, some part of me is watching her heart rate spike and getting just a little bit hungrier.

"Um. Hello again," I greet her awkwardly, seeing her breaths slow down as she consciously, purposefully takes control of them. She can't do the same with her heart. "So, I mean, you're probably thinking this is a costume or something, but it's not. This has just… been happening to me all month. I can prove it's really my body, if you want. But I guess I'll start with magic."

She has a small mug of tea on her desk behind her. It looks like it's cold, but I can still see some liquid in it with my spatial sense. All I need is a valid place to sort it, and I feel like there's an obvious answer.

Slowly, to make sure she sees it, I pull her drink out of her mug and into my mouth. It tastes absolutely terrible, but I can speak with her about wishing I had more human meat once we get past all of this. I swallow it down.

"Ta-da," I say, awkwardly doing some halfhearted jazz hands.

She stares at me. I stare back. I cough into my elbow. The tea really tasted wretched.

"Do you mind," Dr. Carson says, her calm facade ever so slightly cracking, "if I take a few minutes to compose myself?"

"Oh, um, sure," I agree. "Go ahead."

Shakily setting her notepad and pen on the table, she gets up and heads to a nearby bathroom. I watch her with my spatial sense, partly out of paranoia and partly because I don't really control it all that well on Earth yet.

She only seems to have a minor breakdown. It's not too bad, really.