Rapidly evaporating pieces of Felix tumbled and bounced off of all six inner surfaces of the small dance hall.

  In the final few moments of his existence, I’d had enough remorse and trol to adapt myself to absorb some of his memories. I was high on my own power and used it for that, slowing down my outward growth enough to do so.

  And that’s how I got a sense of his name and st few thoughts. Though, I’ve had to trahem to words that really weren’t his own.

  But the remorse I’d felt for what I was doing had not been enough to stop myself from what I’d started in my anger. And I killed him.

  And there, before me, was Amber, all curled up against the wall, as far away from me as she could get. Shivering and gulping air.

  My projected physical body no longer looked like the me that usually checked out people’s groceries.

  I was all spikes and armor, covered in red and pussy yellow e that was already busy dissipating in a stless steam. There’s no way that Amber could uand what she was looking at, unless some of her headmates were thoughtful enough to help her with that.

  They were probably having their fill of her terror and gleeful about it as well.

  And now that I thought about them, I realized I still had Felicity inside of me and unless I could expel her, she wouldn’t be able to protect them anymore. I withheld my judgment and any feelings that I might have had as a result of it.

  What I had to deal with now was the siderably more mundane problem ing Amber down from her pani a way that didn’t harm her further. So, after a few moments of assessing the situation, I started by deg how best to transform into my usual, familiar proje, to show her I was OK.

  I chose to make it look like a Hollywood produ. Something a monstrous hero would do faced with the same situation. And I retracted my spikes first, then swiftly but smoothly rexed my armored bulk back down to my typical size and shape.

  Then, as that shape took form, the st vestiges of Felix sliding off of me, I stepped forward into a more human stance, one hand held outward with palm up.

  And I let my textures and colors ge st.

  It was all very fluid looking.

  It was very clear I wasn’t hiding what I was from her through any sort of misdire, such as crag open a shell to reveal my humanoid self within. She should know I trusted her with the horrifiowledge of what I was.

  And then I spoke.

  “Amber,” I said. “Like Felix said, you run. That’s OK. If that’s what you o do, I won’t chase you. But I’d like to talk. Just talk.”

  And I let my hand fall to my side, and then I sat down, carefully crossing my legs.

  Brow twitg and furrowing, lips quivering, she leaned sideways toward the exit to the bar, and started to push herself that way with her left foot. Her right arm unfolded to catch herself from falling over, but she leaned back upright and pulled it back to her chest. And she took a deep breath.

  I felt that she didn’t want to let her limbs extend too far away from herself, and that made moving too difficult for her.

  “Let’s just sit here for a while, then,” I said. “Take your time. I’m just going to scootch away from you a bit, to give you more space. OK?”

  Fortunately, the obvious exit to the room was within her eyesight, not the service door we’d e through, and I wasn’t between her and it. So, I used my hands to push myself backward a bit, swinging my torso on my shoulders to do it.

  I could feel Felicity squirming withi was weird and a little unfortable.

  And I waited.

  After a while, Felicity mao get herself to stop panig.

  It wasn’t much use.

  She was feeding, and she was growing, but she wasn’t getting anywhere, and the sea of Synthia wasn’t getting any notably smaller.

  So, as she fed, she started paying more attention to her seo try to figure out what her situation really was.

  “I –”

  “Yes?” I said softly, in my very human voice, after it became clear that Amber’s words had stopped there.

  “What –”

  “I’m a mohat eats radiaions,” I told her. “Apparently, I’ve beeing way more than my fill tely, so my defenses are really good and effective.”

  I’d tried that expnation on for size, and it holy felt like an uatement. But I remained silent after saying that much, to let her take the initiative again in her own time.

  As far as I could figure it, using my instincts for amounts of energy and how I e and use it, I had to have been st small amounts of excess energy sihe beginning of my existence.

  If I’d made this adaptation myself, it had to have been done far enough back I didn’t really have memories of it anymore.

  Maybe it was something that monsters just did. A part of our existence.

  But, wheore energy, we get both more plex and bigger. And to get more plex beyond a certain point, we just have to get bigger. They’re almost synonymous things, the same thing, like spacetime. It might be due to spacetime.

  However, whenever I had looked at myself in the past, and the parts of myself where I knew I stored energy (my physical projey domain, and my subliminal self), I never saw growth that expined what I had within me. If I had that muergy within such a small space, I should have been ing spacetime notably.

  Was that why my facade had been slipping?

  “How?” Amber asked.

  “Ah,” I said. “Monsters are real. But, you might also think of us as spirits, or, um, just beings. And I like to hang out in grocery stores because it’s retively safe for me, and I get all your excess emotions, and no one is hurt, and we sometimes have fun.” And then I realized that was more of an ao why.

  She shook her head.

  “You came here with me, but you weren’t in trol of yourself,” I expined quietly aly. My words weren’t great for her to hear, and I could feel it, but I was able to modute my voiatch the emotions she yearned for. Like her mother. “You have a m- a spirit ally, whose name is Felicity. She has been proteg you. And she needed my help, so we came here to do that.”

  “Fe - Felicity?”

  “Yeah. It means ‘happiness’.” I paused and moved my wrists to rest on my knees. “She’s not with yht now, though. So you don’t o worry about her taking over your body without you knowing. But I think she still wants to protect you if she .”

  I wondered if I could maybe not myself to feed on both life and, well, emanaions. That shouldn’t be possible, but I felt I was experieng the impossible, and I definitely had the power to push my old boundaries. That way I could really feel what Felicity was feeling.

  I narrowed my eyes as ahought occurred to me.

  “Really?” Amber asked.

  I shrugged and nodded and said, “As best I tell, yeah.”

  “What’s ?”

  “Well, you are currently in the on ventioer in Portnd, on Sunday. You might want to just go home,” I said. “But, you will probably need help talking to your friend. Was it Josephine?”

  She nodded.

  “She’s going to remember things you might not be able to,” I said. “Though, you’ve still got some spirits with you who should help you, too. They might be less cooperative. But they should help you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  As we’d been sitting there talking, all evidence of what just happened had pletely evaporated. No more Felix in sight, and nothing physical was damaged. And I was being friendly and harmless looking. And Amber robably feeling a bit like this was a dream and that dream logic prevailed, so she was being more lucid and bold. Which was good.

  “I’m trying to tell your spirit panions that they should help you remember what’s happened,” I breathed quietly. “I’m hoping they pay attention to the outworld and hear me. I’m also w something else. I’m going to talk a little lht now, not to arm you,” I said. Then I lifted my head up in the air as if to talk to the ceiling, but it was more of a queue to project my thoughts inward with my voice, “Felicity, wriggle harder if you hear me.”

  Amber frowned, but I did feel Felicity wriggle harder for a moment.

  “Ooh, that worked!” I said, cheerfully.

  “What worked?” Amber asked.

  “Felicity heard me, and I felt her wriggle a little harder,” I told her. “That means we verse, kind of.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Inside of me. I’m keeping her well fed.”

  “W-what does she feed on?”

  I smiled, “Me.”

  Amber looked horrified.

  “It’s OK,” I tried to reassure her. “It’s more like I’m feeding her milk. And I have a lot of milk. I’ll try to get her back to you, if you want.”

  Felicity’s old host grimaced with a gently worried expression, like she was afraid to offend me or Felicity with being too expressive. But she was also much more rexed now, propping herself up with both hands.

  “I don’t want to arm you with this, but you o be informed. The hardest thing you’ll have to deal with are the police,” I said, and Amber flinched. I tinued, “Josephine should be your backup there, really.” I thought about how Josephine appeared to be Bd Latina and what I’d learhat meant over the st couple of turies. “You really should pletely follow her lead, in fact. But again, both of you might want more help than that. If you’re willing, I be that help. I want to be.”

  Amber took a hissing breath in, ched her eyes and shook her head. But then she said, eyes still shut, “What’s the cost?”

  “Nothing at all. I owe you a great deal, actually,” I told her.

  “Why? How?”

  “Have you ever had an ant regurly walk up to you and feed you a whole french fry, and then one day it introduced you to someone who teaches you something profound about yourself you never uood before?” I asked.

  “What? No!”

  “What if that happeo you? What would you do for that ant?”

  “I don’t know! I ’t talk to ants, and I don’t know any ant that do that.”

  I leaned forward, raising my eyebrows, “Well, I talk to ants, and I do know one like that. And you’re that ant. To me.”

  “I didn’t know I was doing any of this for you. I don’t know how.”

  “You fed me your excess emotions every time you came to my ter at the store, and you iently introduced me to Felicity,” I expined. “And while I don’t think they’ll harass you too much, I’d like to at least keep the cops off your backs, both you and Josephine, as a matter of my own persohical pass. But not without your permission. Otherwise, I’ll just leave your life entirely, if you want.”

  Felicity started squirming a lot.

  Amber took some time to sider this, screwing her face up this way and that, then looked sideways at me and muttered, afraid to hear her own voice say the words, “But there are other m-monsters in the world? For real? Like that… that ohat… Was that real? Did that happen?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Felicity mao yank herself a full oy in a swift jerk, as if she was trying to tear something inside me that just wasn’t there.

  theInmara