I thought, as we traveled back to Gresham, that in the past, if anything like this had happened before, we either didn’t learn about it because we hadn’t socialized with the types to whom it happehey just didn’t speak about it, or one monster just ate the other monster.

  If I wao, since I’d already thoughtlessly adapted myself to be a teratovore, I’m pretty sure I could have ed Felicity as she was inside of me. It might have required more adaptations to actually do it, but it should have been possible.

  But I didn’t want to.

  And if I hadn’t figured out what to do in time, she could have eaten my autonomy before ever reag my energy reserves or the rest of me, and I could have been a goner.

  In any case, it was obvious our massive differences in age meant that I had the power over Felicity, and now she was fully in my charge. And I’d decided that we could find a way to make the best of this.

  I still wasn’t fully accepting the magnitude of my own being. I’d been blissfully unaware of what I’d bee for so long, it was hard to ge that old way of thinking. And, again, I didn’t want to. Even though I kind of o.

  I didn’t want to be something that couldn’t sort with humans.

  And I didn’t want to be something that, if I wasn’t alone in this, had to worry about other things like me who had known about themselves for longer.

  I had liked the world I’d been living in, and I wao keep it that way.

  In any case, with Felicity still inside of me, we’d agreed not to do my quick transport to my Gresham domain, and instead risk taking the MAX.

  The word “risk” did sound like it should be ughable to me now, but it still carried weight.

  I just didn’t know what to expect.

  You’re probably screaming at past me right now, to at least adapt myself to sehe things that Felicity could sense, and more if possible. But, you have to uand, I was still doing my old calculus for adaptations. In order to gaihing, I would have to lose another.

  And, for all I khat was still the case.

  I’d get to it in time. Just at my usual paaybe a touch faster.

  You know, to be careful.

  But as I sat there irain car and pohat, and made pns, I saw something I didn’t expect.

  There, amongst the graffiti ad nearly every building and every acoustic wall and surface surrounding the MAX line, was, as big as a billboard itself, a gigantic spray painted glyph of Felicity’s eye.

  I must not have been looking out the window when we’d passed this the other dire.

  I focused on Felicity and tried to feed her a vision of that sight, and asked, “When did you make this?”

  “I didn’t,” she responded.

  “Does that matter? Does it still make es for you?”

  “It shouldn’t matter,” she answered. “I think I feel the es being made irain right now.”

  This made me feel excited and hopeful for her. And for the both of us. If she could, at least, extend her senses outside of me, we’d have some major advantages. And maybe, just maybe, doing that would be her key to esg from my system.

  “ you extend a part of yourself into one of the new hosts?” I asked.

  She was silent for a moment, and then replied, “Yes.”

  “ you escape that way?”

  She was silent for a lot longer, and I could feel her wriggling and struggling, but then she rexed and had to report, “No.”

  “Damn.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Still, you get a breath of fresh air, and have your own agency,” I said. “Even if you’re stealing it from a human, like you always have.”

  “Yeah,” she replied, not soundied.

  “You could also che on Amber and your old headmates.”

  “True.”

  “You should do that.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Let’s i and develop some erms.

  Up until this point, I had been aware of two broad categories of monsters, besides the different ways of eating that I’ve already described.

  There were the mohat oed in the monster realm, the subliminal dimension of reality where such things exist, the universe’s subscious psyche, if you will.

  I particurly like the term ‘subliminal’, in part because it fits well with the inal meaning of that word, but also because these monsters exist in that one substrate, pletely invisible to most of the rest of the universe. While the rest of us exist in two or more substrates, or dimensions, or branes, or whatever they are.

  The rest of us are liminal. We are in a stant state of transit between two or more states.

  So, you have subliminal and liminal monsters. And most of the monsters I was familiar with were liminal. But most subliminal monsters were so simple and so passive, I never really o pay them much attention, eveeratovores who were subliminal. They were like mites to me, ing my ass.

  Or so I thought.

  And I had also thought that was it, those who lived only in the monster realm, and those that bridged the gap between the monster realm and the realm of life.

  But then, my self-discovery that day led me to believe there was another category worth naming, if my actal or amnesiac adaptation wasn’t ubiquitous. There were monsters, like myself, who were more than liminal.

  Supraliminal.

  I mean, we could just say superliminal. But I don’t like that. I didn’t like it. It didn’t sound weird enough. And it still doesn’t.

  Supraliminal, however, felt like it fit just right.

  Just how many different kinds of supraliminal monsters might there be? I had no clue, and I didn’t know how to go about disc that.

  How plex could this all get?

  What were my actual peers like?

  It was te and dark by the time we got back to Gresham. Still, we decided to check out what was going on with Hayward Grocery anyway.

  I wao know what to expect the day. I nning on going back to work if it en, because I didn’t want to disrupt my human life, even if it was fake. And I wanted a ce to talk to Ayden and Cassy iive private at some point, like after work.

  And Felicity had no objes to that.

  She really could have gone back to her old life, for the most part, partially possessing Amber and proteg her and her epialivores. But without the o feed at all, taking her energy from me. But I think she was still really just overwhelmed and at a loss.

  Either way, no objes.

  And if eo run into Croc-face, I could probably explode him or something, like I had doo Felix.

  Though, I really didn’t want to.

  I did. And I didn’t.

  I was seriously wrestling with this ethical dilemma.

  I hadn’t ever let myself face it before. I’d always just run.

  I’d sometimes run in such a way that oovore ended up stumbling into the domain of aeratovore, and then what happened after that wasn’t a thing I let myself think about. It was self defense, after all, and the natural order of things, aovores lived by the teeth, as it were.

  So, I’d run from it emotionally as well as physically. But now I was right in the middle of the dilemma.

  I had to stop Croc-face from doing what it was doing, just to keep my friends and valued acquaintances safe. But also, if it really was after Felicity specifically, now that she otentially perma resident within myself, which still made me feel very weird and unfortable, it would be ing after me.

  The whole situation was very surreal, and I had a hard time accepting that it was happening, despite how flippant I must have souo Felicity.

  But it looked like I was going to have to face Croc-face sooner or ter, regardless, and I was hoping it would be ter, but maybe I ushing myself to physically chey workpce because it might have tracked us there the night before, and that might be why the shop had had to close.

  Maybe it was still there.

  Maybe I’d be forced to re with it ahe ordeal out of the way.

  I did py games with myself sometimes, to get over old, ingrained habits that were getting in the way of things. A little, a adaptation to ence more adaptation.

  Anyway, I found myself peering into the darkness of the building, shielding the clear gss of the front doors with my upraised arm, trying to see with my simuted human eyes what had been going on iore.

  The sign taped to the door hadn’t been any more informative than that text message I’d received.

  Normally, if things had been in disarray withiore, such as after a monster had ransacked it, they would have taped cardboard and Tyvek up over the windows to prevent people from seeing the damage.

  There was nothing unusual that I could see.

  These were normal operating hours, too, so the store was closed at an unusual time. It wasn’t like my coworkers and I had been singled out and suddenly furloughed or let go for talking about unions with the ers during our shifts. A tactic that would not be out of p any U.S. business iire history of business in the U.S.

  Illegal in some pces, maybe, but not out of pce.

  But, there was also no indication of wheore might be reopening. It was an indefinite closure, with reopening date to be announced.

  I checked my phone for any news about it, but couldn’t find anything.

  And, well, I had no shame.

  I broke in.

  I went around to the employee entrance, walking like I’d been instructed to do this by my employers, and picked the lod entered, log it behind me. And then I had a little versation with the security system, to vi that I just wasn’t there.

  heless, Felicity insisted I should find a marker and start putting her eye everywhere I went. I thought this was a good idea, so I made a beeline for the manager’s desk (which I wao do anyway). This did mean I didn’t start with her eyes until after I was doh the desk.

  Everything in the back was lit by security lighting, nht but with no truly dark ers.

  And the manager’s office was across the warehouse from the employee entrance, with a big window so employee traffic could be watched. And in there, I found an exceptionally messy desk with a puter uhe clutter.

  I opehe desk drawer to find a perma marker right there, waiting for me to take it. Then I woke up the puter, and with pen csped to palm with ring and pinky fingers, I had one of my little versations with that mae. Using the keyboard, mostly.

  “You should have been using your psuedomains,” Felicity whispered to me from within.

  “Yeah…” I agreed, not w how she’d learhat name, or that I’d used them. I’d fotteher I’d talked to her about them, and assumed I had.

  Infuriatingly, there was nothing in the puter about the true reasons for the store closure. Not even privately locked emails. Which made no seo me.

  This meant the managers were just as in the dark as any other employee.

  This should have been newsworthy, with an immediate press release and everything. A closure like this endahe business, and if it went lohan a day it could severely impact the whole neighborhood. There were aleople who couldn’t practically make it to the store, and they’d heir food.

  Tomorrow would tell. If the store remained closed, workers would still o be called into manage food that ast date. Especially the produd meats, uhey’d already been cleared upon closure. Which they should have been.

  I put a psuedodomain (we weren’t in Portnd anymore) down in the offid made a little Felicity mark on the door at eye level. She fed me a vision of what it looked like, so I could follow it, and I was delighted our unication was getting so detailed.

  Then I wandered out onto the floor.

  theInmara