The hole in the wall was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The monster had come at us with such force that I was sure it had torn the whole building asunder. But I flicked the lights on and studied the wall, perfectly intact. No signs of impact, no damage marks. The cat was curled up on the couch. It hadn't taken the elevator with me. I took my eyes off it and it was elsewhere, that damned thing.
My feet echoed slightly as I moved to the window, tracing fingers over cool glass. The moon hung overhead, the corrupting light of the city fighting a winning battle against the stars. I missed the stars. It was as though only yesterday I'd been amongst them, dancing through space as a great queen. Something more than human. I could almost taste it, a power beyond the flesh.
The apartment was slightly too clean, like how it got when I'd been gone for a few days. Maggie cleaned too much, bless her. She was always telling me not to leave glasses on the coffee table, beer cans on the floor. But the recycling was overflowing. Well, that was my chore. I almost laughed at it. Look at the apartment. Really take it in. There was the pictures Maggie put up when she moved in, framed snapshots of a life I never lived. She was smiling and laughing in them, surrounded by people I'd never met. My contributions to the decor were more sophisticated, posters from local punk shows. They were loud and angry. Maybe they were like me.
The cat stared at me, curled into a ball, almost ready to sleep. It had twisted its little face into as annoyed an expression as I had ever seen a cat muster.
I sighed. "What?"
It said nothing. It thought this was a waste of time. I rolled my eyes and strode back into the room, a little too quickly. Clumsily, I smacked my foot into the coffee table and yelped in pain a little. The cat said nothing.
I opened the window in my room, letting the night air push out the stale scent of dust. What does one wear to war? I picked out jeans and a tank top, a belt with a large buckle, and leather gloves. Good to look the part, right?
Time for a shower. I had my hand on the doorknob when I heard Maggie's tiny voice. "Hello?"
I turned to face her. She hovered in the doorway, her room dark behind her. "Maggie! How've you been?"
She hovered there like a ghost, old t-shirt and pyjama pants hanging loose. Mouth slightly too open, she whispered, "What are you?"
I hesitated. "What?"
She looked so scared. "Please don't eat me."
"What?"
She stepped backwards, trembling. Out of instinct, I did too, pressing myself up against the bathroom door. I glanced down at my hands. What did she see in me?
The cat stalked down the corridor. "Go back to bed," it said.
"Oh," said Maggie. "Okay." So she did.
I stared at the cat, wide eyed and scared. "What was that?"
"What do you mean?" it asked.
"Do I look that bad?"
The cat scoffed and sauntered back to the living room.
I let the hot water take away my sorrows. I let it run through sore muscles. I let it tease my brain, sinking into my mind. I let it take my dreams from my skull. I let it whisper of peace and calm. The mud pooled in the bottom of the shower, a dark brown monument to dirt. It was tinged with red where the cuts bled. I studied my torn fingernails, the black paint having receded to just a few small patches. Everything hurt.
The mirror showed me as I was. Small, as always. I looked like I had been run over, which I supposed I had. I looked bad. But I was human, I thought. I had the right number of limbs and eyes. There was an edge to my face, a hardness I didn't recognize. I studied it, turning my face over and over and considering all the angles. A hand ran along my forehead, squeezing the blood of the cracks. Bruises blossomed over pale skin, bite-marks patterning my limbs. The ache was deep in my bones, deep in my soul. It resounded throughout my brain telling me that I didn't fit in. I don't belong here.
Naked, I stumbled out of the bathroom, the world suddenly a little unsteady. "How did I get in?"
"What now?" asked the cat.
"How did I get into the apartment? My keys were-" I pushed into my room and stared at them sitting on the desk where I'd thrown them that night. "How did I get in?"
"What does it matter?" asked the cat.
I frowned. "I don't remember." Something else was wrong here. "How did we get here?"
The cat stretched. "You didn't."
"I didn't- I..." I hesitated for a moment, considering. "Am I dreaming again?"
"What makes you think you ever stopped?"
My hands found its little furry throat. "The fuck do you mean?"
With human eyes it stared back unblinking, unafraid. "I said coming here was a waste of time. I said it would help nothing."
"I needed a shower. I needed to feel human again."
"Why?"
I let it go and sighed. "You want me to go break into a house, fine. But we do it my way, clear?"
It watched me as I struggled my legs into cargo pants, slipping arms into the tank top. My two knives found their way into pockets, along with keys, flashlight, 60 bucks cash, earplugs, matches, gloves, a facemask, and other useful bits and bobs. I grabbed my transit card but left the rest of my wallet next to my phone. Merely a liability. The cat studied me lazily throughout. Finally, it said, "why do you think you're human?"
"What?"
"You're not."
"So I am still dreaming."
"Is that what you thought that was?"
I laughed. "Look, whatever you are, if you want me to do this, I gotta keep it together. Whatever I was like when you found me, I can't fall back into that. And for that, I gotta keep myself together. So if you could keep your cryptic remarks to a fucking minimum, that would be great."
It laughed, nasty and nasally. "You think you have a choice?"
Fury flowed through my body, cold and dark. It was adrenaline moving me to do dark things. I could almost feel it rising into the room as a physical presence. I slipped the knife out, too comfortable in my knuckle and approached the cat. "You know what," I hissed. "I'm done with your attitude. You're gonna explain right the fuck now or else."
It slipped out of reality, danced through me, and remanifested the other side of the room, reclining on the kitchen counter. "Why should I? You're more useful to me if you're, what was that word?" It hesitated thoughtfully. "Dreaming. You're far more likely to succeed the less in touch with reality you are."
"I disagree."
"Whatever you say, little fragment."
I frowned. "I'm human."
"You can't feel it? The wrongness that permeates you even now? This is far more unnatural than how I found you."
The cat was wrong and I could feel it deeply. My voice burst from somewhere deep in my chest, full of fire. "Shut up!"
It just laughed.
"I could kick you out. Stay here. Let your so called "whole" rot. "
"You'd do it anyway." It was smug as anything.
"Fuck you."
It laughed as it faded from reality, or maybe it was me who faded from reality. The room felt that little bit more real, the shadows a little longer. I considered it. I'd come of age here. This was where I became me, right?
Who was I?
I sighed as I pulled my jacket on, hood up, bag over my shoulder. Fuck that stupid cat. Fuck it for being right. The door clicked shut behind me.
The wrongness simmered just below the surface, a physical force I could touch. And as I stood on the street, moon glowing overhead as a friend, the streetlight pooling around me, it spoke to me as a friend. I closed my eyes and touched it.
And I was falling, falling down, studying my shifting reflection in the waterfall. I reached out a hand to part the water, watching how it shattered me into pieces.
And the pieces fell onto a map of the city, piercing it in all the important places, shredding the map into little paper fragments, little paper fragments that caught fire. The fire cackled as it burned because I was the fire and I was in so much pain. There's a voice in my ear whispering things in a language I didn't understand and why won't the pain stop? Why can't it stop? Why can't I move? Why do I only burn?
And then the falling water landed and doused me and I screamed.
And I was awake and aware and back to myself. It hurt all over again. I stumbled a little sideways and hit something solid, eyes still locked into darkness. Moaning, I felt myself. I felt intact. I felt back. "Violet," I whispered. "I'm Violet. I can hold onto that."
The pain faded slowly and my vision returned. I counted my fingers, thumb, one, two, three, four, five, shit. Go back, do it again. thumb, one, two, three, four. That's better. I shook my hands as though that would seal the right number in, as though that would make me whole again.
The street was bright. All the streetlights here worked, casting the scene in bright light. It was night. Shouldn't it become day at some point? The fucking cat was sitting in the tree above me, amused as anything. I didn't say anything to it.
I recognized the house as though I had been there before. Perhaps I had, in a previous life. 194 Manderly Street. It was burned into my brain, more solid than my own name. I could almost feel the layout and contents of the house, the laughing master and his suckling lackeys, the twisting corridors and that horrible basement. I almost trembled at the memory of it.
No. I was fading again. I'd never been there. I was Violet and I was just a human. I had to hold on to that.
"You should get ready to eat someone," said the cat. "Come on! Open your jaws."
I pulled the knife from my pocket and gave no reply.
Together, we stalked across the street.
When no one came, Mallory frowned. When a few minutes had passed, she turned to Monet and nodded slightly. With practiced ease, Monet slipped his tools into the door and it clicked.
"Vi?" called Mallory softly into the darkened apartment. The only reply was a muffled sob from the back room.
Maggie was curled into a ball on her bed, hands pressed into her eyes. She moaned softly as the light penetrated her room.
Mallory turned to Monet. "Make some tea, yeah?"
He nodded and she sat by Maggie. "Poor thing." She rubbed her back gently, making comforting noises. "Tell me, love. What did you see?"
The back-garden was nice, obviously. Every house in this neighbourhood was practically a mansion, a rich dream. A pool, a trampoline, a barbecue. All the things I never would earn. I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Rich white guy wizards. Sure, why not?
The back door wasn't even locked. I slid it open slowly. It was greased to perfection. Didn't even squeak. The cat glanced up at me. It was smart enough not to speak. I gestured and it padded forwards into the room, disappearing from view. I studied the open living room, tv the size of my bed, 3 couches, table, and bar. Voices drifted from somewhere deep within, low and dangerous. One was laughing. One was annoyed. I couldn't quite tell what they were saying.
I hesitated on the doorframe, a dark spectre, a facsimile of humanity. I could almost taste the promise of violence in the air. The darkness beckoned me as a friend, as an ally. It promised safety, cover. It promised silence and blood. I splayed my hand out and counted my fingers again. Four a thumb still. I could feel hands on my back dragging me, dragging me down stairs. The door almost glowed. I could practically feel the whole calling to me, every essence in my body eager for it.
"Ram," I whispered to myself. Taking a deep breath, I crossed the threshold.
And the world wrapped me up to keep me safe. My feet made no sound and my body had no presence. Something burned through me, ready to be unleashed. In a way, I almost wished someone would see me. But the world was gray and dark, illuminated to my piercing eyes. I followed pale walls down tight corridors between fancy paintings and wine worth more than my life. I snuck between them, the weight of age and wealth pressing back against me. It almost filled me with dread. But the door was there, the door to the basement, the cat sitting across the hall, as invisible as I was.
That thing was leaning against the door. The one with the sharp teeth, the sharp teeth they now ran through with a toothpick, working out fragments of gristle. They sneered like a shark, row upon row of daggerlike teeth gleaming. Those were real, more real than I. They were the focus point of reality, the centre by which everything else was pulled by gravity. I stood before them and watched. We needed to go through this door. What now?
The other one, the wizard, was reclining in the next room over. She held a glass in her hand, something golden and expensive in it. She was laughing and speaking. The words were not any language I knew or maybe my brain was a little disconnected and I didn't know language anymore. The shadows lengthened as I reached my arm out towards the one with sharpteeth. Pulling the weight of darkness with me, I gently touched their shoulder.
They made no move, gave no sign they noticed.
Agonizingly slowly, I began to pull. Mercifully, they came with. Even more mercifully, they didn't seem to notice, remaining focused on the removal of dinner from within their teeth. With two hands now, I pulled ever harder. It was like moving a large stone through water. The river pulled them back to their position anchored against the doorway. The cat watched with glowing eyes, saying nothing.
After several long minutes, they were beside the door. Their conversation with the woman carried on unabated, the two clearly arguing about something. I place a hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. The door simultaneously opened and didn't open, a ghost imprint hanging in the air where it was. The cat dashed between my legs through the ghost door and after a moment of hesitation, I followed.
Ram lay resplendent upon the altar, surrounded by runes and glyphs. Flickering torchlight over white drywall gave the scene a deathly pallor, magnified by the vaguely phased out state we were in. The knife emerged from their chest, glowing malevolently. It was all I could see, all I could fixate on. The cat said something I think, but I wasn't listening. Reality faded back as I approached, my feet obscuring the chalk circles intricately carved on the floor.
My hand found its way onto the knife's handle. It felt familiar. It was like the ones in my pocket, no different really. It was just a tool. Just an object. No more real than I was.
Gripping it tightly, I pulled.
"Hey babe?"
Sharptooth grunted.
"How's the door?"
Sharptooth turned to look. "Shit."
Ram's eyes blinked open. I smiled at them.
"Get your ass down here!" yelled Seleshina up the stairs.
"Hey," I said, lacking anything witty.
They smiled wide. "You came!"
I laughed once. "Yeah."
Sharptooth took the stairs two at a time.
We embraced, pulling together, the tangy scent of earth and blood spreading from them onto me. Their frail arms clutched at my body, the deep chill of their bones feeling familiar to my touch. I cupped their cheek gently.
"Excuse me," came a cold voice from behind us.
I turned without breaking the embrace. Sharptooth hovered at the base of the stairs. They were holding a very large gun and it was pointed right at me. The cat hissed, fur rising.
"You can't touch us underground," I said.
It laughed humourlessly. "You're dabbling in things beyond you."
"Ram?" I asked.
"I can't."
My eyes met those of Sharptooth and in that moment, I knew that they weren't human. They were something far more dangerous.
"Please?" I tried, anyway.
"Thing is," said Sharptooth, "I'm kinda hungry."
They squeezed the trigger the room was full of bullets and death.
Time held still. I watched the bullets in the air, each drifting in the current of winds unknown.
The cat turned to face me. "Fight back," it said.
"How?"
"Stop pretending to be something you're not."
I considered this. I considered Ram. I considered madness as a concept, as a weapon. I felt the wrongness bubbling within me, crystal clear. I felt my identity. It was a sphere, a glowing space in my mind. It was so delicate, so fragile. I wanted to cradle it tightly to my chest, hold it next to my heart. I wanted to protect myself.
Sharptooth grinned wide, far wider than was possible. Their face seemed to expand at the seems for that massive jaw, steadily growing. They would kill me. They would kill me and eat me given half a chance.
Ram smiled. "You'll be okay. You can do this"
Panic flared to life. "How do you know? I don't even know you!"
"Yes, you do. You know me, Violet. Embrace it."
And then they were a drawing clutched in my hands and then the drawing was flying away on the wind.
Fuck it.
I grabbed a bullet and ate it. It tasted like blood, crunching down into a fine powder against my teeth. I spat it onto the floor, and it sat there, molten and glowing. The cat was gone. Ram was gone. It was just me and Sharptooth. It was just me and the enemy.
I shook my hand for a second, looking down at it. Count em, thumb, one, two, three, a thousand. How many was right? I wasn't sure. But that's okay. I could live with that. We're embracing the chaos.
Roaring loudly, I charged.
Davis Pendragon, dressed in a fluffy dressing gown over a ratty t-shirt, growled. "I hired you," he spat, "to keep the beast locked up until we were ready. What good are you?"
Seleshina kept her face level. "I thought you had wards."
"I do! You must've disabled them somehow, you doddering bitch." He hefted a fist angrily. "Letting your dumb fucking fairy in, what was I thinking?"
Seleshina's eyes narrowed. "I didn't touch your wards."
"Then how did it get through?"
"I dunno. What wards did you use?"
"The best! Only the beast itself could-"
Their eyes met, wide and panicked. "Sharptooth!" yelled Seleshina.
In response, the scream of rapid gunfire burst out of the basement.
"Shit," they both said at the same time.
The thing about existence was that I didn't really need it, I don't think. I stepped between the bullets, not literally, but by occupying the spaces where they weren't. It's hard to explain. My flesh rippled as I went and maybe I felt them tickle against it, sliding through smoothly. Little holes in me. Wasn't that funny? I think it's very funny. Look, I can look right on through myself. Gazing through my arm as it splits in two and then four and then one hundred, all ending with claws grasping for blood.
Yes, this was right. I collided with Sharptooth and we fought. They were tougher than they looked and faster two. I moved, swiping brutally, full of fangs and claws and they just laughed, dodging past me, back up the stairs.
I let myself inflate. I was fire. I was flesh. The walls of the basement fell away and we stood over an abyss, an infinite void. There was screaming in the air and it might have been me. Where was the moon? The moon should be here to witness. Surely the moon should be here to witness. But the sky was black tonight, just like my eyes, just like me. It was black like the sky, like the void surrounding us, like the shadows lengthening at my touch.
We burst out to the landing together, a tangle of flesh and anger. I matched their teeth with some of my own, the length of swords, bursting from my hands, my feet, the walls themselves. But the walls weren't big enough for me, so I folded them back, expanding the room as I could. I surrounded Sharptooth, enveloping them. They were so small. So cute. I licked them, running my mouth along their arms. They screamed and fired, the bullets dissolving into little acid pockets against me. I felt the hunger almost grabbing me, the world collapsing in twain as my focus came onto this one thing.
But this wasn't my domain. It was the wizard's and he stood there, thousands of feet tall, all muscle and bone. His fingers click and the house snapped shut, tight as trap, wrapping me up in folds of drywall and brick. The texture against my flesh was rough, scraping along, leaving bloody gouges along my tangled limbs. I burst from within myself, the essence of the self without the flesh and danced out of view.
But I'm not flesh. I'm a forest fire and I'm a tropical storm. I'm thunder clouds and raw chaos. I'm drowning the streets in blood and salt, letting the tides wash the city from the face of the earth. I'm lapping at their necks, pushing down their throats. I'm vast as the ocean, as impossible as the sky. I'm unknowable and unstoppable.
And the little boat tossed and turned, the waves battering the sides.
And I laughed from atop my tower.
And I fled the scene, fled from the light.
And the woman bled from time itself, the world colliding. She was a child. She was a wizard. She was an outcast. Her hands wrapped the cat's neck and squeezed.
And the wizard stood in his circle, his boat, his plane, his narrowly defined slice of reality. He held it with both hands, pressing himself to the walls. He held it steady by force and my crushing weight did nothing, for this was his place of power. This was his home and he got to shape it as he saw fit.
And there was a mirror and I watched myself in it. I didn't recognize myself, because my ears were pointed and my teeth were sharp and my eyes dripped blood. Pointed fingers, my reflected scraped a hand down my cheek, leaving bloody scrapes. I flinched away, turning back. But there was just another mirror, and another, and another. I'm surrounded. And the reflections fed back into each other, all of them the same, all of them straining to hurt me.
But I am my blood and I'm falling kilometres, cascading down the walls as a tidal wave of blood. Because the pictures fell from the fall leaving gaping wounds in the frame of the house, that viscous crimson pouring form somewhere within. We staggered up the corridor, locking in combat, trading jabs and blows. It was ethereal. It was theoretical.
The mirror in the bathroom exploded, unable to contain my visage and that damned fairy laughed from all the pieces, split into ten million selves. Each one held but a single tooth, arranged in a nasty smile, a mouth that could rip my brains out. I cradled a shard in flaking hands, watching the skin fall away to the stone beneath.
We embrace the madness. Something was wrong and I was revelling in it. I pressed it outwards, wrapping the little things in it. The teeth wavered and vanished, my fist punching that smile in. It broke on the impact, bone crunching. I pulled my hand back and punched again, thrusting against a face too small to resist. It was maybe screaming in pain. It was maybe unable to scream. It was maybe my own face. It was theirs and I was going to destroy them and I was going to devour them and they were going to be delicious. And my fists hammered down, on their face, on their back, on their bones, my tongue hanging out, my teeth bared as I leaned it closer. It was inevitable. It was unstoppable.
It was Ram's hand on mine, their body pressed to my back. It was our flesh entangling, embracing. It was a tight hug, squeezing and comforting.
"Come on," they said, holding out a hand.
I stood back a little, further into the sky, and studied the chaos. Our thousand fingers intwined.
"Okay," I think I said. It might have come out as the song the stars sing.
And as we walked out, sanity returned to the house as a volcano erupting. The foundations shook and trembled, the walls cracked. One by one, the mirrors exploded outwards, the pressure from that flipped reality crushing them into dust. The windows blew out too, the force of the interior straining against them, showering that perfectly manicured lawn with fragments of sharp glass. The wizard, the owner, staggered against the walls. We saw him as he was, vast and ugly. The fairy, Sharptooth, was nowhere to be seen.
And that just left the mercencary. She stood, knife in hand, teeth bared, the only thing between us and freedom. I growled right back, Ram leaning weakly against me, the cat by my legs, hissing. We held there facing each other, daring the other to strike.
Seleshina moved first. "Fuck it," she said, face relaxing. "I'm not paid enough." Without another word, she turned and strode straight out the front door, into the peaceful night.
"You bitch!" yelled the wizard, unable to stand. He clung to the wall for support, his fingers sinking into the cracks.
Sharptooth stepped out of the shadows behind him and leaned forwards, sharklike mouth grinning widely as they whispered something. The wizard's face grew paler and paler. He said nothing as Sharptooth strode up to us and clapped me on the back. "Good fight, kid. I hope you live." Smiling, they followed their lover into the night.
"Huh," I said. I glanced down at Ram, their weight on my shoulder, my arm around their frail body. The cat relaxed. "Now what?"
"We leave," said Ram.
"Okay," I said.
So we did.
Up in the tower, I shifted and laughed. I could smell it. The prey was back.
The people on the streets had no faces. Everything else was normal. But they had no faces and it was kind of freaking me out. I kept turning to Ram, patting their cheeks, checking they still had a nose. It must have been annoying. But Ram said nothing, merely continued to lean on my shoulder and occasionally point the way, and so I kept supporting them, letting the weight dig into my bones.
My legs ached. Really, my everything did. It was as though I had wrung myself out of this body and now I was too big for it and it was shaped wrong. It was wrong. Everything felt wrong. This existence was too small for us, right? We were supposed to be glorious. We were supposed to be massive.
And they people had no faces and I was terrified to see myself in case I didn't either.
The hotel was an old building, a building with a history. It sat next to high park, carved from bricks and dreams. Graffiti decorated the boarded up windows. The sign out front had been covered in layers of paint and trash so old, I couldn't tell what it said. I basically carried Ram up the stairs, their legs flailing beneath them, struggling to find purchase.
"What is this place?" I asked.
They smiled gently, cheeks crinkling adorably. "Safe."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." They pushed the door open and we entered.
The interior stank of ghosts, if ghosts smelled like dust, cobwebs, and old things. I'd been to this place before almost, in my dreams. The soaring curves of the lobby gave me a sense of deja vu. We stumbled in, looking a right mess in the massive mirror opposite the empty welcome desk.
"Where to?" I asked.
"Ring the bell," said Ram.
We limped over to the counter. There was an old hotel bell there, the kind that I only ever saw in movies and escape rooms. Without hesitating, I pressed it, eliciting an artificial ringing.
The hotel creaked for a moment, swaying in a non-existent wind. The door behind the counter opened and a figure stepped out, vague and spectral. He was dressed neatly in an old suit, bullet-holes decorating the front of it. "Good evening! Welcome to Your Last Rest! How may I help you today?"
I glanced at Ram, who smiled. "Hey," they said. "I'm back."
"Ah! Welcome, Eater. I hope you haven't come for me." He laughed musically.
The cat jumped up onto the counter and fixed the ghost with a focused gaze. "We'd like a room for one, please."
"One?" I asked
"Right away," said the ghost.
"There's two of us," I said.
"The VIP suite, I think," said the ghost.
Ram winced in pain and said nothing.
"One," said the cat.
"Excuse me," I interrupted. "There's two of us."
The ghost glanced between me and the cat for a moment. "Don't worry," he said. "The VIP suite is plenty big enough for two."
"Okay," I said.
The cat said nothing.
The receptionist selected a key off a hook and passed it to me. It jangled loudly, dangling from an iron ring. "Do you have any bags?" he asked.
"No," I said.
"Well now, that just won't do! I'll arrange for some to be brought up."
"Thanks."
"Now, if you please," he moved out from behind the counter and gestured up the stairs. Two more ghosts in similar uniforms drifted out from somewhere and lifted Ram off my shoulders. One under each arm, they began to carry them after the receptionist. Keys jangling in my pocket, I followed up the stairs.
The building only looked two stories from the outside. But we went up four flights before turning on the landing. The walls were old brick and covered in old movie posters, stained black and white photos, and random hand written notes. The plants in the pots were all dead.
The room was just number 43. Nothing external indicated it as a VIP suite. Inside, there was a massive 4 poster bed, with spiderweb netting for curtains. A chandelier hung from somewhere up above. I couldn't tell exactly where because the ceiling soared, disappearing somewhere into darkness far above my head. The windows, massive, opened onto a balcony overlooking the park. It looked grey and dead from up hear. There was a table and chairs, a pair of armchairs, a fireplace, and a door that presumably led to the bathroom. It was both nicer and bigger than any apartment I'd ever lived in.
The ghosts deposited Ram on the bed and they reclined, rag-dolling across it, limbs splayed out uselessly.
"Will you be taking dinner in tonight?" asked the receptionist.
"Uhh," I said. "I don't think we really have any plans."
"That's quite alright. Would you like me to arrange to have something brought up?"
I hesitated for a moment. They wouldn't bring Ram people food. The cat interrupted before I could voice my doubts. "Yes," it said. "But give us some time to settle in first."
"Very well." He nodded and they began to retreat from the room. "Should you need anything, please ring the bell." He gestured to a velvet rope hanging from the ceiling by the door.
"Hey!" I called after him. "Can I get some pizza with dinner?"
Smiling, he chuckled. "Of course. Anything you wish."
And with that the door was closed and we were alone in the room.
The cat huffed. "Well?"
Ram's eyes were closed. "Give them a minute," I said.
Sighing, it padded over to one of the armchairs, the fire lighting automatically as it approached. It curled up in a tight ball, out of our sight.
I looked down at Ram. They looked even smaller, even weaker. As though the life had left their body. There was a hole in their shirt where the knife had gone through and I could see the edges of the wound through it, black and ugly. They made a small noise, a kind of moan, and my heart melted a little.
I sat on the edge of the bit, anxiety flowing through me. This was still tinged with that slight wrongness, with the sense that this wasn't a normal thing and so therefore I wasn't myself again. I couldn't trust. I couldn't relax. It wasn't okay and really it wasn't ever going to be again. and
I stifled a sob. Ram's hand was on my side, their fingers digging into my flesh a little. It didn't hurt. It felt anchoring. They pulled slightly and I collapsed backwards onto the bed, the two of us slowly drifting closer and closer until our limbs entwined and I could feel every breath they took by the slow shift of their chest against mine and the warm air on my neck. And my arms wrapped them up because they were so small and so delicate and so important. In return, they squeezed back, as tight as they could which wasn't very tight at all.
"No one's gonna hurt us?" I whispered. It was supposed to be an assertion, but came out as more of a question.
"No," said Ram, snuggling closer.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay," they said.
"Am I me?"
"Do you feel like you?"
"I think so," I said, because I really did.
"Then you are," said Ram.
I shut my eyes. Everything was gonna be okay.