#got into the reagent colored sticky notes at work again....

[mourningcape]

morphine - a head with wings

[degenerate-perturbation]

Chapters: 26/38 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Pride Demon(s) (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival, Mind Control, Human Experimentation, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Calder was dead.

She hadn't meant to kill him, but it was still her fault. She'd taken away his ability to feel pain or fear. She'd thought it kind. 

Loriel put the body in stasis, so it would not rot, and sat down by it. The floor was sticky. Blood new and old stained her robes. She'd hoped to have years. He'd lasted hardly a month.

Idly she wondered whether he would still be her thrall, if she raised him. Probably not. Blood magic affected the mind through the body; it couldn't touch the spirit. But it didn't matter. She didn't need his spirit. 

(Probably. Maybe.)

She needed to talk to her collaborator. By now the summoning spell came easily.

Veritas stretched catlike through the rip in the Fade. "Hello, little mageling. Have you updates for me? Did you try the experiment I suggested?"

"Yes," she said flatly. "It killed him."

Veritas tilted its head, curiously. "Oh? What did it?"

"I haven't yet ascertained the exact cause.” Her fingers curled into fists and released over and over again. “I didn't think...I didn't realize it would kill him."

Calder hadn't either. He hadn't felt the pain. Her own fault, for failing to appreciate the necessity of pain. How many times would she have to learn the same lesson? She should have known better.

"Shall we discuss the likeliest possibilities?" Veritas offered.

"Oh, you mean you don't know?" Loriel said sarcastically. "You are an utterly useless demon of knowledge."

"As you've so cleverly noted in the past, my dear Loriel Surana, I do not know everything," sniffed Veritas. "If I did, I would have even less use for you than I do now. I have never taken a mortal body and know comparatively little of such things."

It was true that Veritas had shown remarkably little interest in escaping its bindings or trying to possess her. Perhaps that was part of the reason she kept summoning it. The one time she had asked why it showed so little interest in the mortal world, Veritas had said, I prefer to watch.

"Be that as it may," she seethed, "You've killed my only subject. They are not easy to come by."

"Lie. You killed him. As for coming by subjects-they could be easier to come by if you stopped be so precious about where they come from."

"I’m past that. I don't care where they come from," Loriel said. "I care about keeping the loyalty of my Seneschal. If I were some apostate crouched in a filthy cave, I could do as you say, but I am the Arlessa of Amaranthine and Commander of the Grey."

"Hm. You are that. I wonder why?" 

"I have to be. For any of this to matter."

"Lie," Veritas noted.

"Enough. We have work to do,” she snapped. “This situation must be salvaged. I have the body in stasis, but my magic and the taint interact strangely, and it likely will not last."

They talked a while more about what further use Calder’s body might be, before it was too far gone. The next few days went to those experiments. Not useless, but not what she needed.

She did end up raising his shade, out of guilt and grim curiosity. There wasn’t much left of it. Weeks under such crushing mental pressure had left his spirit confused, enraged, and in pain. It didn’t even look human anymore.

It tried to kill her. She dismissed it before it ever got close, but as it was ripped from this world she thought she saw hints of magma in its facsimile of skin. 

For several heart-hammering minutes she believed that she had created a Rage demon.

Veritas confirmed that she might have, or at least, the beginnings of one. But more likely before the seed of psychic nucleation could form a demon, the shade would diminish to a wisp and eventually dissolve into the emerald waters. 

Most likely.

tck

After that she seriously considered stopping. Would she have done that to Calder’s body if she had known what it would do to his soul? She had thought she had accepted the evil in herself, made her peace with it, but in the abyss of her heart there seemed always to be another unseen chasm, and each time she teetered on the edge she could not help but cling to it.

How could she possibly bear to do that again?

But...could she bear to have done that, and known it to have accomplished nothing? Could she bear to find another way, and know that she needn’t have?

Yes. Yes, she could bear it. Veritas would never let her pretend to be too weak for that. But though she could bear a world where she had done needless evil, that did not guarantee it was this world. It did not mean she was free.

She scrubbed her hands until they were red and stinging and almost clean, and went to go receive Brigit’s report.

No new deaths. No new Callings. No sign of the Architect.

“Oh, and Brigit,” Loriel said, almost on impulse, just as the Seneschal prepared to bow and go. “One further question. The sheriff of Amaranthine. What sort of man is he?”

Brigit had taken her Commander’s direction to dress more finely. She wore a high-necked woolen gown beneath a vest dashed through with silverite. Sapphires glittered at her ears. Her back was ramrod straight and she looked every inch a queen. But there remained the trace of hesitation when she answered: “I believe that he believes himself to be a righteous man.”

“And you do not agree with his self-assessment.”

“He is merciful. But he is not just.” Brigit’s lips pressed together. “I have had reports of certain crimes under his jurisdiction going unpunished, or punished far too lightly. Those committed against women, children, elves…I have thought about replacing him, but he is popular in Amaranthine. Mercy, however unearned, often is.”

“No need to replace him. No need to cause an upset.” The barest of pauses. “But perhaps we might consider having more prisoners sent to the Vigil for processing.”

Brigit listened carefully, and spoke slowly: “You wish to offer them the Joining?”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.” Smooth, perfectly reasonable. “Don’t you agree?” 

The Seneschal took her meaning. 

“But of course, I do not insist,” Loriel said quickly. "You know how much I value your opinion.”

Faint color came to the Seneschal’s cheeks. She could have said no. She could have taken the out. Loriel gave her every chance.

“I agree with you completely, ser,” the Seneschal said instead, and she knew what she was doing, she had to have known. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

Loriel did not thank her. Only nodded, and that was her cue to go.

She leaned back and closed her eyes.

If she was going to do this, she could not afford to let her pride keep getting in the way. She needed to talk to the expert. She needed to go see Avernus.

tck

She sent a short, impersonal note to Avernus that she would be arriving that week. She gave no further details. Even if she had been stupid enough to write down anything sensitive, every time she sat down to compose anything, after nearly a full year of silence, her mind went blank.

The ride to Soldier’s Peak was long and full of uneasy dread, but when she arrived, Avernus acted like nothing had happened. He shuffled around his tower, checking on bubbling reagents and pulsating petri dishes of living flesh, asking terse questions without waiting for answers. She couldn’t tell if he genuinely had not noticed the absence of her letters or if this was an act for her benefit—and if it was an act, if it was a kind one or scornful one. 

Even if it were scorn, it wouldn’t matter. There could be no room for pride.

“I’ve begun to use human subjects,” she said bluntly.

She expected him to gloat, but he only snorted, “About time,” and carried on as though it was nothing, about some experiment with artificial flesh.

“Actually,” she interrupted, “that is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh? So this isn’t merely a social visit?” As though they’d ever had social visits. “Well, then, I will say this much—I am certainly glad of it. In truth I did not think you would change your mind so soon, but I am glad you have. Now we might move forward.”

His approval pleased her, and her pleasure in that approval disgusted her. 

Avernus knew in detail answers to questions she hadn’t even thought to ask. How to keep a subject alive, with minimal suffering. How to prevent a subject’s spirit from becoming...that thing she had made. She burned with shame to think that she hadn’t asked him before. So much could have been avoided. Already her pride had wrought so much waste.

The only thing she did not mention  was Veritas. She knew what he would say if he knew, and did not want to hear it. Avernus was still sour about his encounter with the demon possessing Sophia Dryden, and would curse her occasionally, anytime he found another thing wrong with the quality of the Fade.

“By the way,” he said, “that black crystal of yours. I looked through my library. I cannot confirm it, but it may be depleted lyrium. You can copy my notes if you wish.”

“Oh. Thank you. I will.” She’d never even heard of such a thing before. When she had shown the crystal to Veritas, the demon had hissed and flinched and demanded she take it away immediately. It had been so enraged, all thousand of its eyes bent upon the thing in hatred; it was one of the few times Loriel had felt frightened of it.

Somehow, despite it all, they settled into an old rhythm, of stark and easy mutual curiosity and intellectual challenge. The extended period of no contact meant that there was much to discuss; his lab space was no longer even recognizable, and Avernus could talk about his ongoing experiments for hours.

There was only one bench he hadn’t spoken of.

“That is old work,” he said. “I figured out the formula years ago. There are some perfections to be made, of course, but there are greater challenges.”

“But what does it do?”

He raised a nearly nonexistent eyebrow. “Do you not know? This is the same tincture you stole from me, when you first barged into my fortress.”

“My fortress,” Loriel corrected. “My deepest apologies for the intrusion. I hadn’t realized you were so enjoying being trapped in your tower and tormented by demons.”

“I far prefer to be trapped in my tower and tormented by my superior officer.” The man’s grin was truly skull-like. She was thankful he rarely showed it. “So, you mean to tell me you never made use of it?”

“No. I hardly even remember taking it,” she said. Lie, she heard Veritas breathe in her ear. “It was only a passing curiosity. Though I suppose might still have it somewhere.” As though she did not know exactly in which drawer she had stowed it. 

“Hmph. Your passing curiosity cost me four months of work. I had to reconstitute it from scratch. Mind you, the new one was better...so I suppose I should thank you.” Avernus hmphed in amusement and returned to his workbench. “I could tell you hadn’t drunk it yourself, but I thought perhaps you had passed it onto one of your less talented compatriots. That woman of yours, perhaps. Where has that one gotten to, anyway? I have not seen her here of late.”

At first Loriel could only stare in disbelief. By some miracle, in all these years, Avernus had not once, not a single time, ever inquired about her. 

Loriel laughed, a thin dry sound, and couldn’t stop. 

She knew that there was some reason that she liked him. No wonder he hadn’t written over the past year. What was a year to him? He probably had no idea she’d even been angry. That she had spent any time at all worrying about what he thought of her suddenly struck her as the height of absurdity.

“And just what is so funny?” the old blood mage said dryly. Dryly, of course dryly. Anything so old would be so dry. Would she live long enough to dry out like him?

The thought of enduring so many years sobered her instantly. “Nothing. Nothing. My apologies.” She shook her head. “So, what does this tincture do?”

“Yes, yes, don’t be so impatient. It allows a Grey Warden direct access to the taint in his blood, and draw power from it.”

“From the taint? Like blood magic, but with darkspawn blood?”

“Ah, but only a mage might learn blood magic. With my brew, any Grey Warden, even a mundane could have gained this power. Limitedly, of course, limitedly...there is simply no substitute for a lifetime of training, but a strong-willed Grey Warden born without a hint of Fade about him might have eventually bested a mage of mediocre Circle training. A Grey Warden is so intimately connected to the taint in his blood, you know...Many of my subjects mentioned how profoudnly it changed them to truly gain mastery over that part of themselves.” Then he shrugged. “But the side effects could be quite unpleasant. Took me ages to work out a formula that wouldn’t kill the subject sooner or later. Worth it, perhaps, but perhaps not. Certainly  interesting for a Warden mage...there is nothing quite like it. The precision of blood magic, without the cost.” The old mage shrugged. “Mind—the vial you have must have long expired. It is likely poison now. Here is your chance, if you still want it.”

She glanced askance at the bubbling still. “No thank you,” she said primly. “I am not in the habit of experimenting on myself.”

“That is precisely your problem,” Avernus snorted. “But suit yourself.”

Lie, lie, lie, rang Veritas’s sing-song in her head. Of course she had not forgotten the vial. Every once in a while, organizing her cupboards, she would come across it, black and still bubbling, alive, after all these years. She would pick it up, and hold it, and feel its unnatural warmth in her hand. She had done so just last month.

She ended up staying longer at Soldier’s Peak than strictly necessary. There was, as ever, much to do, but for the first time in a long time she was not eager to do it.

tck

“How much powdered deathroot for a draught of neutralization?”

“One of a thousandth of fifteen grams.”

Loriel measured it out, and did not speak again for many long minutes, when she asked: “What is the temperature at which silverite melts?”

“Six-thousand and seventeen degrees.”

She checked the expensive thermometer, ordered for a kingly sum direct from Orzammar, and raised the temperature in the furnace. It would be some time before it would be ready. She would take the opportunity to organize her notes from Avernus. 

Veritas prowled. The summoning spell Loriel had been using lately allowed for it.

“Where was Angletierre?” she asked idly, coming across a name she did not recognize.

“It is an old name for Ferelden, in Old Orlesian.” Loriel hummed vaguely and kept reading, until Veritas lost its patience. 

“Was there a purpose to you summoning me? Or do you intend to sit in silence ignoring me except when you desire answers to your petty questions?”

“The summoning spell takes nearly five minutes,” Loriel said indifferently, turning a page. “It doesn’t make sense to dismiss and recall you each time I have something to ask. You have free movement about this space; use it if you like.”

“You are incredibly rude, to invite a guest into your home and then ignore him all day long.” When she did not respond, it prodded her: “So, how has your pet blood mage been?”

“Same as ever. Naturally.” She set the stack of books and notes that she had brought upon the oaken desk. “I believe I am comfortable moving forward now, with the next set of experiments."

“And when can I expect to meet him? I think he and I would get along.”

“Never. Not happening.”

“Why, Loriel Surana. It almost sounds as though you are ashamed of me. Don’t you want to take me home to meet the rest of the family?”

“Shut up,” she said vaguely, without much venom. “Go and find him in the Fade, if you are so curious.”

“That’s the problem with you blood mages. You hardly touch the Fade.”

“Then you will have to live with disappointment.”

Veritas’s lion tail swished back and forth. “It’s mostly the mages with an unusual propensity for my kind that I can find most easily. Spirit mages, you call them.”

“Mhm.” Loriel stayed focused on organizing the notes. 

“She’s doing just fine without you, you know.”

She was at first so puzzled by the non sequitur that she had no idea how to respond. “Pardon?”

The demon’s eyes blinked and shivered all over its body, as its words slowly registered. 

“You should see her from my end,” said Veritas, relishing every word. “Lit up like a beacon. Impossible to miss. Shall I tell you where she is?”

The spell broke. “No, thank you.”

“She’s in Dairsmuid right now. Surrounded by family and friends, free and whole at last.”

“Good. That was quite the point.”

Silence for a time. “You could have been so happy together.”

“We already weren’t.”

She got through several sheafs before the demon spoke again, “Does it bother you, that you are utterly alone?”

“I am no more alone than anybody else.”

“How interesting. You appear to really believe that.”

“Am I wrong?” She snorted. “We’re all alone inside our heads, at the end of the day.”

“And yet you pour your heart out to a demon, one you regard as not-even-a-person, so desperate are you not to be so alone.”

“I am pouring nothing.” She rolled the scroll up with a snap and turned to give the demon her full attention. “Veritas. Precisely what is the point of this little game?”

Veritas smiled broadly. “Simply making conversation.”

“Not one I am interested in having," she snapped. "I do not live in the past. You cannot draw me there with taunts.”

Veritas chuckled, so deep that the stone itself seemed to shake. “Ridiculous mageling. As though you are anything but a mountainous heap of Past, covered by the thinnest crust of Present.”

She rolled her eyes. “Clever. But if you wish to perturb me then I suggest you try a different approach. I do not think of her. I do not think of that time in my life at all.”

It tilted its head. “How interesting! That was the truth. You really don’t think of her.” It settled, and at first Loriel thought it was the end of it. “But she thinks of you.  And such thoughts they are, shouted out into the Fade for anyone to hear. Aren’t you curious what they are?”

“I have no intention in indulging myself,” she said, which was not, strictly speaking, the answer to its question.

Veritas huffed. “You are intolerably boring.”

“I am truly sorry that I cannot be of more amusement. But there is nothing true in this world that I would flinch to know. I am not afraid of you.”

Suddenly the demon sprang up. She felt rather than saw it move.

“You should be afraid. And you should be sorry.” She could feel its hot breath on the back of her neck. “If you did not amuse me, I would not give you so many truths for free.”

Slowly, slowly, she turned around. It knew as well as she did that if it touched her, it would be bound. Loriel had embedded the glyph in her skin. She made a point to smile. “For free? As though I rely on your generosity?”

“You can no more force me to serve you than drink the Fade.”

“Try me," she hissed. "I like you, Veritas, and I like your company. You keep me honest.” She thought—intended—the spell of repulsive force. The demon skidded away from her, into the corner, growling. “But this latest game of yours is tiresome and nothing requires me to tolerate it. I summoned you in the first place because I was not on speaking terms with my collaborator, and that is no longer the case.”

“Indeed? You have no further need of me?” The demon’s thousand eyes gleamed. “Is that why you summoned me hours ago, just to keep you company?”

“I said I liked your company. Not that I needed it.”

“Hmm. That is so. It seems that there is precious little that you need. And even less you want." Again the demon settled. "You fascinate me, Loriel Surana. You are rude, but you are interesting.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

A period of renewed silence, interrupted only by the scratching of her quill.

“Did you know,” said the demon of truth, “that your mother has been waiting in the courtyard to see you for over a fortnight?”

The spilled ink ruined several sheafs of parchment, and the stain never did come out of the woodgrain.

[nikaharper]

Unrelated Happenings in a Big Apartment Building

It was considered a regular Tuesday.

James had a productive evening, catching a quick drink with a coworker who was stuck completing a project he had moved on from a month ago. It was still as fucked as ever, and James grinned inwardly as he got the leftover fried rice out of the fridge. Time for some Hulu.

Alex had a sinus infection, again, and was resigned to laying on the patched couch full of bleary-eyeing cold medicine. He fell asleep while flipping channels and woke with memories of a strange dream about the American Revolutionary War. No more napping to the History channel.

Marielue always felt awkward in the evening, the transition between day and night, and this particular walk home had perturbed her. A discarded brown sweatshirt in the gutter had, at a glance, appeared to be a dead dog, and after a double-take she couldn't shake it from her mind. Everything became an abandoned animal corpse. She saw three more "dead dogs" and one that looked like a slain kitten, but was actually a gnarled tree root poking out of a lawn. She closed her eyes as she closed the door of her apartment, took a few deep breaths. But the rest of the night didn't fare much better. Every bit of discarded laundry was a lifeless form; she saw a skull in a bar of soap.

Naseem was cooking up a stew for dinner, and he checked his phone for texts from his girlfriend. There was a flash of pain on his forearm; he had rested it against the stew pot on the stove. He washed it under cold tap water, but it glowed a livid red. He remembered thinking it would blister, and considered taking a picture for his girl. 'This is what I go through for you!"'

Charles was out of the apartment, watching the basketball game on Ian's couch and talking too loudly about a girl he'd met that weekend. He didn't know it was too loud, though.

Amelia was plucking her eyebrows in the bathroom mirror. One, two stray hairs, grooming to the perfect shape of arched but still natural. The phone rang as she gave one last look in the mirror. Odd, that one had bled, and left a smudge of red on her dark skin. That never happens.

Caleb was doing laundry in the basement, full of coin-op machines and scuffed linoleum. He sorted the wet items into dryer-ready heaps, except one of them... That wasn't his. Maybe it was leftover from another tenant? A cotton pair of too-small boxer briefs, he was about to discard it before he remembered what happened last week. Best to put them in the trash. He bit his lip too hard as the garbage can top swung and creaked.

Jackie just woke up. Her head pounded, and she always swore Monday night drinking was the most abrasive of them all, because you'd be around people who may have no jobs or may have nothing left in life, and keeping up drink-by-drink was a hazard. She remembered some names... Michael or Mike or maybe something unusual like Makivar. One look at her phone said she was right. Skyla was asking how she felt, punctuated by emoji of which she could only see half and the rest were rectangular blocks. Then there was two missed calls from "Makkovar." She must have really liked him. She wondered if he had a job.

Kevin removed his headset. The raid wasn't going well. Wiped five times on a boss that they considered farm-status. He rubbed his eyes and didn't notice the shadow passing by his fifth-story window.

Thomas and Stephanie lay on sweaty bedsheets, panting in the glaze of newfound love. Three times that night! It wasn't even midnight. "Need anything from the bathroom?" he asked. "A towel." Stephanie turned over and smiled into the pillow, feeling the stickiness between her thighs. But it wasn't all just passion. "Um, maybe I'll... get it myself," she called, carefully rolling on her back and edging out of the bed, trying to hide the blood on her fingers. "Fuck," said Thomas from the bathroom, the lights on, "Are you okay? I mean there's—" "It's fine, I got my period, sorry sorry." Stephanie hadn't had a period in two years.

Ed was home early. It was bullshit. He pulled off his hat and cheap, dark wig, slamming himself down into his favorite lounge chair, the same chair his dad used before he died. The costume party was an annoyance at best, a disaster at worst. "IT'S FROM TRIGUN," he finally yelled out over the keg at a dumbstruck partygoer dressed as Finn. He didn't mean to scream, but Ed had never been good at environments where music was blaring and everyone was drunk by the time you arrived. He really cared about his outfit, it was good shit. A bottle of shochu washed the taste of cheap beer out of his mouth, and the remote flicked through his library to find Trigun, the episodes with Rai-Dei. He pressed 'Play.' Ed looked awesome. Fuck anyone who didn't get it.

Brandon took out the trash and found himself face-to-face with an oppossum. He hadn't recognized before how much their face looked like a skull.

Alejandro let the faucet run for a bit, waiting for hot water to make some rice. His nose was in a book, so he didn't notice that for a moment, the water ran blood red.

Makayla wasn't into that witchy shit, it seemed like stuff for dispossessed white girls. But on the websites, as fucking footnotes, there was a mention of Marie Laveau, and voodoo, and the things that called to her. She had more power here than she thought, without the fuckin' salt lamps and quartz crystals that cost nine dollars each. Nah, there was good shit in here, and it called to her. She held half a dead cigar in one hand and grabbed an oily eel filet, the best she could find at the Asian market, in the other. It jolted through her like a seizure. Something was very wrong, and very near. Makayla gasped and dropped her reagents. Nah, fuck this. She'll fry that damn eel and not fuck around with this shit anymore.

John's business worked at night. So he didn't recognize the flickering lights in the hallways, excited squawks and yelps from other apartments doors as he passed. This was all normal. Eyes followed him from the underside of dark doors, squinted through the keyholes of post boxes as he went to get his mail that evening. He paid no mind. Why should he?

Renee had the worst night. Newly single, full of glass-shard memories that hurt to remember but they were everywhere.... It was easy to exist, to do normal things in a normal life because there was a repetition that was comforting. Coming home was the awful part. Moments to rest were the awful part. She felt unloved. Worse, she knew she wasn't loved anymore. Things had ended that badly. An hour passed sitting on her bed, thinking about a bottle of wine. Any bottle. It didn't matter right now. Then it was an hour and a half. Mentally taking note of all the things in her space which SHE had touched, the candles they had lit on romantic evenings, the way the pillow still smelled like her, the dress and leggings still piled into a corner from the last time they... It was three days ago. That they touched, that they felt each other's heat and Renee felt the heartbeat of her as she lay her head on that chest, that perfect chest that held the most golden heart, the person she loved. It all seemed to be going so well.... Or well enough. Good enough. Enough to go on, to continue, to keep being in love as they were, as they had been for over a year now. Maybe Renee hadn't seen the signs. She must not have, because it all felt so sudden. Two days ago. Three days ago they had been twisting limbs in a galaxy of jersey bedsheets, and one day afterward, nothing. She wanted to wash the sheets. But she didn't dare. There was no wine, so that... couldn't have been the problem. Renee didn't take any pills, she had always been a rather healthy person but admittedly she hadn't eaten much that day and didn't plan on putting together a dinner. Her friends didn't know yet, so they couldn't provide survival comforts. It was just her, on a bed, in a tiny apartment, alone. So it wasn't wine or pills or attributed to anything particularly chemical, but it just so happens that on that night, Renee got a nosebleed. In the midst of her tears, a dark stain spread on her palms and she realized she was bleeding. It felt so dramatic, she walked to the bathroom pinching her nose and looked for the nearest towel to wipe on her face. As she removed the washcloth, a threadbare thing she would probably throw away after this incident of staining, she realized it had changed color. It was a yellow handcloth, she had wiped her hands on it for years, probably too long without replacement, but it was yellow. It was a bit blanched with wear and wash. But it was yellow. Not now. The cloth in her hands was a deep red. Renee's eyes snapped to the mirror, inspecting her face and nose—maybe she had bled a lot more than she thought— but her face was clean. The cloth stayed red. A single tear snuck from the corner of her eye... she followed its path in the bathroom reflection... and it was dark, moody, red. Like wine. She felt wet, like having walked out of a steamy shower, the air was warm and full of vapor and she could barely breathe. A drop of blood splattered the hexagonal tiled floor, but her nose felt dry. Dropping the towel, Renee watched as her fingernails pooled with thick burgundy liquid and spilled to the ground. This time the mirror showed her looking clean, and pale, and scared. The floor was splattered art, white tile and grey grout, artful splashes of deep red. Her sandals stood in pools of crimson, a steady flow easing out of the peep-toe opening. This wasn't just grief, it was worse than that. Renee knew she wasn't losing her mind. The world, like many other things, was here to blindside her, and she had no control over it.

Maybe the other tenants could have seen the sloshing red liquid in the other washing machine. The mysterious stains on the stairs. The pupils of their eyes that looked red and luminous in the mirror's reflection. The metallic tang from a bitten lip.

But it was a regular Tuesday night. Easy enough to forget, anyway.

[yespoetry]

Watch

By Cameron DeOrdio

               As Nat chopped peppers, the thing on the counter watched, unseen. As she lifted the peppers up and over its knees – which it had bent carefully to avoid contact – the thing watched, its black, glassy, perfectly round eyes fixed on her as they always were. She moved across the tiny kitchen to the fridge, and the thing unfolded itself, all dark gray and black and hard and sharp angles, but still humanoid, and stood beside the stove, the long, thin black filaments extending from its fingertips waving lazily over the handle of the frying pan.                Nat turned.                She looked directly at the stove, and the thing’s filaments stopped, sticking out straight, stiff and thin and diamond-sharp, ready.                Nat brought the meat over to the counter and began chopping, humming to herself now.                The filaments went back to their lazy wave for a moment before folding down to rest on the back of its hand. It circled around behind Nat, always maintaining a couple-inch cushion between them. A small puff of breath hissed out between its sharp gray interlocking teeth and rustled the hairs on the back of Nat’s neck. Her hand shot up to rub the spot, and the thing dodged smoothly, quickly, expertly, as in tune with Nat’s movements as her shadow.                The thing continued to circle to the other side of the kitchen, moving noiselessly on the white-tiled floor. Nat continued to cook.                Its long, thin forked tongue flitted out between where the top and bottom of its gray mouth met – there were no lips – and tasted the air, detecting each of the food’s chemicals and how they were changing as they cooked.                “Stella!” Nat bellowed, doing her best Marlon Brando, as she always did when she summoned her roommate for meals.                “You quit that howling down there!” Stella shrieked back from her room, which was, to her chagrin, on the same floor as Nat’s. The bit had worked better at their last place. She bounded from her room and down the hall to the kitchen, barreling for the doorway. The thing, which had felt the vibrations of Stella’s approach, planted a foot on the opposite wall and leapt up, curling into itself. It hung from the side of the refrigerator, anchored by its filaments, barely taking up any space. “Wow,” Stella said as she entered the kitchen, tilting her head back and sticking her nose as far up into the air is it would go. “Smells great. What is it?”                Nat continued to poke at the frying pan’s contents with a wooden spoon. “Dinner,” she said, as she always had when Stella asked. “Now grab the tortillas from the microwave, and let’s eat.” Stella complied, the women assembled their burritos, and the three made their way down the hall to the living room.                Nat and Stella sat in their trash-picked – but thoroughly disinfected, Nat had made sure – wooden kitchen chairs, sitting in relative silence as they ate, letting the TV fill the gaps. The thing crouched, perched like a bird on the back of Nat’s chair, its long, sharp toes wrapped tightly around the wood, its knees carefully placed to either side of her head, spaced far apart so as not to disturb her.                Once she’d finished eating, Nat stood abruptly, and the thing rolled down the back of the chair to its seat, deftly keeping the piece of furniture from tipping.                “I’m going to Della,” Nat declared, eliciting an immediate groan from her roommate.                “Why?” Stella asked, drawing out the vowel in a whine. “It’s mid-term break. The word ‘break’ is right in there. You’re familiar with the word, I take it?”                “‘Break’?” Nat replied in her best robotic voice. “Does not compute. What is this hu-man word ‘break’?”                “First off, it’s English, not a language for all humans, you uncultured swine. Second – ”                “Second,” Nat interrupted, “if I’m out of the apartment tonight, you and Alicia will have the place to yourselves.”                “Have I ever told you how much I admire your strong work ethic?”                “Not nearly enough.” Both girls grinned. Nat worked her way around the low unvarnished wooden table to pick up their dishes and continued: “Now you have a good time tonight. Make sure you’re in bed by ten.”                “Nine, if I can help it.”                “Anyway,” Nat continued through her laugh, “I’ll be back around midnight. Please remember that.”                “Sure, sure,” Stella said, following Nat to the kitchen. The thing, which had long since left the chair, pressed itself to the hall wall to let them pass, its finger-filaments extended and its teeth locked shut. “Now, you have a good time, too. Try not to end up on any watch lists.”                “I think it’s too late for that,” Nat said, her shrug reflected in the thing’s black eyes.

#

               About twenty minutes later, Nat swiped her ID card and entered De La Ville Hall. The door swung shut and locked behind her. She fumbled with her keys for a moment, struggling to untangle them from the cord connecting her earbuds to her phone, before unlocking the grad lab door. She’d been doing this for three years now, and she still refused to tape or otherwise mark her keys, confident (based on no discernible evidence) that she could pick out the right key for the right lock from the crowded ring she took with her everywhere.                She went to her workstation, unlocked the desk drawer, and pulled it out. She carefully removed a pair of notebooks and a copy of Thermodynamics with Chemical Engineering Applications from the drawer and reached into her bag, then stopped. High up on a wall, where a set of cabinets adjoined the lumpy white plaster of the wall, the thing crouched, watching.                Nat walked to the large windows and carefully closed each set of thick beige blinds, having performed the procedure often enough to navigate the room even in the deepening dark. Not until all the blinds were closed did she feel safe using the glow of her phone’s screen to find her way to the light switch by the door, flipping the lights on and flooding the room with harsh fluorescence. The thing in the corner blinked once, its translucent gray eyelids closing and opening slowly.                Nat returned to her workstation and removed a butter knife from her bag. She slipped the knife in between the back of the drawer and its false bottom, tripping the latch and gently flipping the light wood up and into her waiting hand.                She used the knife to pry a long, wide, shallow box that nearly exactly filled the drawer up and out. She again tried several keys before getting the right one and drawing out a small black volume, dozens of pages marked by brightly colored sticky notes. The front cover bore simple white lettering: “The Anarchist Cookbook,” the infamous book that was so volatile it could get you arrested for just having it in some countries, the infamous book she’d set out to verify the claims of as her master’s thesis, which her academic adviser had reluctantly approved on the condition she not tell anyone until her oral defense, scheduled weeks before his planned retirement. Maybe she was being paranoid with all this secrecy. But maybe not.                Nat selected a bright pink sticky note poking out from the top of the book and flipped to the marked page. She read the list of chemicals and other materials she’d need twice, the second time mouthing the words to herself to help her remember. Once she’d finished, she donned her rubber gloves and safety glasses and circled the lab, carefully selecting the chemicals from her list.                She lined up the various reagent bottles on the desk in front of her, double checking the labels against the book, and then unstoppered the first and lifted it to the edge of her station’s Erlenmeyer flask.                Nat stopped without pouring. She frowned and bit the inside of the corner of her lip, thinking. After a moment of chewing the soft tissue – a habit her mother abhorred – Nat’s face brightened. She removed her gloves and went to the back of the room, to the fridge whose front bore a pair of strips of masking tape marked in pencil:

FOOD FRIDGE

DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID

Below the tape was a photoshopped safety poster, a black-and-white depiction of a woman with short hair, her eyes covered by cartoonish X’s and her mouth area a surprisingly graphic mess of blood, gore and shattered teeth. Large white lettering on the black background declared, “Carol never washed up thoroughly before eating. Now she doesn’t have to.”                 Nat opened the fridge and took out one of the glass Classic Coke bottles she’d been saving for a few weeks. She levered it open on the counter edge and rubbed her thumb over the spot she’d used, hoping to smooth over the scrape. Nat took a swig of the Coke as she walked to the wide, deep sink and eye-rinse station in the corner. The thing pushed itself higher, its back bent low, pressed to the ceiling, well out of Nat’s way. She poured the rest of the Coke down the drain and rinsed it out thoroughly, humming along to the Taylor Swift chorus in her ears. Still humming, she returned to her workstation, put her gloves back on, and plucked a funnel from another drawer. She placed the funnel in the mouth of the Coke bottle and began to mix.

#

               More than forty minutes later, Nat pulled into the wide, barren paved lot that had, until recently, housed the long-abandoned and burnt-out textile factory that Stella had dragged her to last Halloween, certain it was haunted and willing to give up one of the biggest party nights of the year to prove it.

#[CD1] 

               As they had drawn closer to the factory that night, their soft features had come into sharper relief. Their flesh had a blue tinge now, which was more disconcerting than the simple shadows they’d seemed from afar. One – Stella, it would come to know – dragged a pair of bolt cutters lazily behind her, letting one of the handles dangle free, levering up and down with each of her steps. They were almost at the door when Stella turned on her heel to look at the other, called Nat.                “You’ve got the booze, right?”                Nat nodded.                “OK, good. Because you’re nervous as shit, and it’s freaking me out. Take a shot before we go any farther.”                “OK, Mom.”                “Your mom was never this cool,” Stella replied, but the other was already slipping the bag off her shoulder and unzipping it. She took a swig and hid a wince. She held the bottle out to Stella, who shook her head. “Got a head start, and you need all the help you can get.”                As Nat slid the bottle back into her bag, Stella stepped forward and eyed the huge padlock that held the factory’s double doors together, holding the bolt cutters in both hands now.                “I don’t know what you’re so worried about,” she said, her tongue sticking slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she tried to decide where to apply the cutters.                “Breaking and entering, mostly.”                “Naw,” Stella said, lining up the bolt cutter’s jaw on a section of the lock, scraping the sharp edge carelessly along its length as she did so. “You were all antsy before this, too.”                Nat looked annoyed at this analysis. “It’s my thesis.”                “What about it?” Stella asked, opening the tool a bit, reconsidering. The lock was not going to make this easy for her, nor should it have.                “Exactly that. I don’t know anything about it. I’m supposed to do some sort of groundbreaking research, but everything’s been done. Twice.”                As Stella slid the jaw down the bar some, closer to the lock mechanism, rust flaked away and the metal hissed. “Well, what’s something a nerd like you wouldn’t normally do?”                “What?” Nat sounded confused.                “What’s something you wouldn’t normally do?” Stella repeated slowly, pressing down lightly on the top handle, testing the lock’s resistance, biting into the rust and leaving a mark in the metal. Stella lifted one knee and propped the bottom handle on it, gripping the top handle in both fists, ready to use her whole body to lever it downward and slice through the stout stretch of steel.                Nat clapped her hands, looking surprised and pleased. “Wait, I know! I never break the rules.”                “Now that’s an idea,” Stella grunted. “Do that.” She yanked down on the bolt cutters, and the lock’s bar snapped loudly, allowing the heavy mechanism to slam to the pavement, unbinding the factory doors.                Now it was open to them.                A once-hallowed temple of purpose-driven efficiency, a continued testament to unified effort under relentless direction, a physical manifestation of staunch service, finally coming to the end of its years of painful disuse, only to have its function ignored, forgotten, mocked by these trespassers.                Their disrespect was palpable, and their intentions were unclear, which only made them more abhorrent, more dangerous.                Its decades of efficiency, direction, and service under a watchful eye coalesced and seethed in the shadows, unheeded by those that would deny or destroy them. And thus, the thing’s watch began.

#

               They hadn’t found anything, just as Nat had suspected they wouldn’t, but Nat had come up with the idea for her thesis, and they did get drunk enough that having broken into a condemned building full of outdated, rusty, sharp equipment had the potential to be an even worse decision than usual. They’d called Henry, Nat’s boyfriend at the time, a straight-edge visual arts MFA who was certain he did his best work after midnight – that is, someone who was bound to be awake and sober enough to drive – and got home safe. But Henry was long gone from her life now, even more long gone than the factory building.                She slowed, ensuring a smooth stop before parking, one eye on the lot and the other flitting between the Coke bottle pressed between her thighs and the large stoppered Erlenmeyer flask wrapped in newspaper and buckled into the passenger seat. Once the car was parked, she slipped the rubber gloves, also on the passenger seat, back on. She got out of the car, taking the Coke bottle with her, and went over to the other side to unbuckle and remove the flask.                Standing next to the car, she guided the Coke bottle slowly, gently into the flask – the narrow neck was a tight fit – and restoppered it. She took a deep breath, exhaled.                Nat threw the bottle as high and far as she could. It sailed through the night air – the stars so much clearer here than by her apartment, she noticed – for what seemed like forever. Eventually, finally, it met the pavement. The first sound was that of shattering glass, as the flask and the Coke bottle both became hundreds, if not thousands, of sharp shards. In that instant, Nat wondered if she should have stood behind her car. Before the thought was fully formed, the second sound came to erase it: BOOM!                Flames erupted skyward from where the containers had smashed, and shards of glass of varying sizes shot outward and upward from the site. A few tiny ones caught Nat in the face, irritating her, but not breaking skin. Others bounced harmlessly off her fall jacket, while still more added what Stella would call “character” to Nat’s car’s paint job.                Almost as impressive as the explosion were the flames, a foot high, flickering a bright yellow-orange. They contained themselves to the immediate area of the explosion, never straying farther than a couple of feet, and Nat figured it’d stay that way until it burned itself out for lack of anything to feed it.                The thing clung to the car’s undercarriage, as it had for the entire drive from campus. The flames danced in its dead, black eyes. She had crossed a threshold. It could end this now, before she became more of a Problem. It had a duty, but it also had a code. Many were to be watched, but so few were to be taken. What did she respect? What did she fear? Were they enough?                Should the thing decide this girl was not merely a threat but an actual Problem with means and intent, all it had to do was reach out, extend a filament, and slice the girl’s hamstring. She would fall. No one knew she was here, far from everything. No one would look here for her. She’d either bleed out or die of thirst.                Its hand reached out, one filament unfurling, extending, stiffening. Impossibly thin and sharp, it swung forward, slicing through the air, through denim –                And that’s when it noticed the phone.                When the fire had started, Nat had taken her phone out to record it.                “Ow!” she exclaimed, pulling her leg up to rub at it. It felt like something had stung her, and when she put her hand to her calf, she felt a slash through her jeans. She wrote it off as a late glass-shard ejection from the fire and didn’t worry about it, ignoring the physics that largely ruled that out.                She got in the car; cast one last proud, giddy look back at the flames; whispered, “Coolest thesis ever;” and drove off, smiling.                The thing, rocking gently with the car’s movements as it continued to cling to the undercarriage, mulled its next course of action.

#

               Nat rapped four times in quick succession on the apartment door, her and Stella’s agreed-upon signal for when they had company, before counting slowly to ten and opening it. Stella and Alicia were snuggled up under a blanket on the living room couch, watching some Schwarzenegger flick.                “Well look who’s back,” Stella said, smiling and awkwardly propping herself up on her elbows, trying not to disturb Alicia, who was mostly asleep.                Nat whirled, theatrically turning her head every which way, her gaze sliding past the thing in the corner twice. “Who?” she demanded.                “Laaaaame,” Stella said. “Anyway, you wanna join us, or are you going to bed?”                Nat dropped her bag on the living room floor. “Define ‘join us.’ Doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for group activities at the moment.” She nodded, pointing with her chin at Alicia, who was burrowing her shoulders deeper into Stella’s chest and letting out a small groan as she made herself comfortable.                “Well,” Stella said, stroking Alicia’s hair while training her eyes and a slight smirk on Nat, “you know we were hoping to turn you to our sinful ways.”                “Yeah, sure, don’t tell my mom.”                “Of course not. She’s my Tuesday night.”                “Burn.” Nat continued across the living room and to her bedroom door. “But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’m gonna get some rest.”                “You suck.”                “That’s exactly what your dad said.” Nat shut her bedroom door behind her.                “Well played!” Stella called from the other side.                “Right?” Nat shouted back, briefly forgetting to control her volume in case Alicia was trying to stay mostly asleep. She shrugged at, she thought, no one.                Nat got into her pajamas and lay down, curled up to one side of her bed, leaving most of her queen-size mattress open. Her mother had scolded her for “wasting” money on a large bed when she slept like she was trying to fit in a carry-on suitcase. Her boyfriends usually liked that about her, though. Nat’s sleeping small gave them room to stretch out. And it gave the thing that watched her a spot to lie, its back pressed against the wall, also curled up small, their silhouettes almost identical in the dark room.

#

               “Are we going to die?” Stella asked, eyeing the paper tabs Nat had lain out on their living room table.                “Well, eventually, yeah,” Nat said. It was one of her favorite stupid jokes.                Stella sighed loudly, directly into Nat’s face. “I mean, could this stuff kill us?”                “Doubtful. But I guess it could, like, make you trip balls randomly a ton of years from now. That’s also pretty unlikely, though.”                Stella shifted nervously in the big, peach-colored chair she’d had for five years and three apartments. “And you’re sure you made it right? Followed all the instructions?”                “Well, I’m kicking the shit out of chemistry grad school, so, yeah, I’m pretty sure.” She pushed her hair out of her face with her hand and fixed her gaze on Stella. “You don’t have to do this, though. If you’re not cool with it, it’s fine. No pressure.”                Stella shrugged. “Naw.” She snatched up one of the tabs. “Let’s get weird.” She placed the tab gently on her tongue. “’Ow wha’?” she said thickly, trying not to touch her tongue to the inside of her mouth.                “Keep it under your tongue, out of the way,” Nat said, slipping her own paper tab in under her tongue. “An’ we leh ih ‘oo i's ‘ing.”                They put on some Netflix sitcom and waited.                The first episode was just wrapping up when Stella’s eyes went wide. “What the hell?” she shouted, her voice cracking, her eyes glued to a far corner of the room.                “Hm?” Nat looked at Stella, then where she was looking, and saw nothing out of the ordinary.                Stella curled up in her chair, taking her feet off the ground, leaning back into the soft fabric. “Nat,” she said, her voice quavering. Then she jerked out of the chair and grabbed her half-full mug of tea, throwing it at the corner, where it smashed against the wall. “Nat!” she howled.                “What? What is it?”                “Shit!” Stella grabbed one end of the low wooden table and flipped it up, launching it across the room.                The table, a light, flimsy thing, pitched forward, then, Nat saw, slowed down considerably, slicing clean down the center and parting, still traveling so, so slowly, before tumbling gracefully through the air, toward the picture window, their movements perfectly in time with the show’s closing credits’ soundtrack. Nat followed the table halves’ movements for a long moment before Stella’s choked cries caused Nat to whip her head around.                Stella’s back was pressed to the bottom half of the chair as she sat on the ground, one hand gripping the chair behind her, the other swatting frantically at the air in front of her face. Her mouth was wide open, and she was gagging.                Nat didn’t understand. She stared at Stella. She heard the noises from Stella getting quieter. Suddenly, it clicked. Stella was choking, and Nat had to help her, had to move, but she couldn’t.                Nat’s mind filled with a swelling chorus of curses, drowning out thought. “No,” she said out loud, because there was no room for other words in her head, and this one was important. “No, no!” She needed control, she realized. Nat closed her eyes tight, mentally clawing through the wall of obscenities and confusion. She opened her eyes, and Stella’s once-flailing arm was now at her side, not moving. None of Stella was moving, she realized.                Nat felt cold, colder than she’d ever felt before.                And that’s when she saw it.                Tall, thin, seemingly made of black and gray bone, but not skeletal. A large, powerful hand clasped Stella’s jaw. A filament withdrew from her still-open mouth, long and thin and dripping. The thing’s head was tilted down, its round, shiny black eyes still fixed on Stella, waiting to see if she had survived.                Nat looked down at her hands, which had done nothing to save her friend. Her brain, no longer full of curses but of possibilities, explanations. The last few minutes – had it been minutes? – played back, and the world before her eyes grew fuzzy. Stella had been staring at the corner, had tried to do something. Had tried to stop the thing that was killing – had killed? – Stella. What had she been doing right before the attack? She’d been looking at the corner. Nat’s fingers clutched tightly at the fabric of the chair beneath her, frustrated. What is that thing? What happened? Why? She bit her lip, hard, closing her eyes, trying to focus all of her mental resources. Stella had been looking at the corner. Looking at the corner. Looking. At … that thing? What was it? Was it real? Was she tripping? It had to be real. Stella was dead. She’d been looking at it, and it had killed her, stolen her breath. She’d tried to attack it first. Nat bit the inside of her cheek. No. Stella had thrown her mug, and it had smashed in the corner, so it had no longer been in the corner. Why wasn’t it on her, on Nat, now? The mug smashed in the corner. It had been in the corner. But it wasn’t when Stella threw the mug. Where was it now that it was done with Stella? Was it coming for her? It had run for Stella before she threw the mug. It must have charged because of something before. What was before? Nat put her arms over her head, hugging her skull tight, trying to protect herself and trying to get herself to think. What had been happening before? Her brain usually worked better than this. Before the mug. Before the crash. Before the gagging and gurgling and the end of both. Before the table. Stella had been looking. At the corner. At the thing. It was looking, that was what set it off. That was it!                And that’s when Nat started hyperventilating. The curses were back, pushing thoughts out. Bile was rising in her throat, and she just couldn’t get breath in. Was it choking her now, too? She breathed faster, deeper. Something in her brain, something louder than the curses, which were growing in volume and variety, screamed, Stop!                Nat pulled in one large, deep breath, then held it high in her chest. She exhaled slowly. She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth, which tasted of stomach acid and Easy Mac. She kept breathing, slowly, establishing a nice, regular pace, focusing on that. She forgot her arms were over her head, and they fell naturally to her sides. She forgot her eyes were closed so tight, and eventually her muscles loosened, still not opening the lids. She kept breathing. Soon, she knew what she had to do.                Nat opened her eyes, slowly. She stared straight ahead and just saw her living room, not her roommate’s corpse and not her roommate’s killer. Good. She stood, carefully unfolding her legs, which felt strange, either from her having sat on them for too long or from the drug, she couldn’t be sure. She wobbled slightly to her bedroom, and she knew she couldn’t drive. That was OK. She’d figured she couldn’t. Nat picked up her bag, keeping her gaze level, and put it on her back. She turned, slowly, back to her door. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a gray-black shape on her dresser, and she turned her head sharply the other way. She breathed, in through her nose, out through her mouth. She walked out of her bedroom and out of her apartment and down the stairs and out of her building, and she didn’t see the thing once, though she thought it had to be staying close.                Nat got on her bike and began pedaling toward Della. The way riding a bike made her vision sway slightly side to side with each turn of the pedals became nearly overwhelming for her, and she couldn’t believe she’d never noticed how strange it was before. Focusing on breathing slowly was harder now as she exerted herself, anxious to get to the grad lab. Cars’ side-view mirrors seemed to jut out feet farther than they ever had before, some of them actively reaching out to pull her off her bike and to the asphalt. She thought she heard jogging footsteps behind her, but she didn’t dare to look. She saw there were other things, just like the one following her – things peering out of the branches of trees, things clasped to the undercarriages of cars, things wrapped around lampposts, their round, black eyes fixed on their targets. She stared straight ahead as she pedaled, hoping none of them noticed her awareness of them.                It was later than she’d expected, and the sun was almost gone, setting at her back. The way the light played along the bottom of the clouds, though, smelled off, like bad eggs. She felt her stomach souring again and pedaled harder. The sound of footsteps sped up.                By the time she reached De La Ville Hall, Nat was standing, stomping on the pedals to propel herself forward, forcing people off the sidewalks. When she could see the hall’s front door, she leaped off the bike, letting it fall to the ground and skid on its side on the concrete walkway.                She sprinted for the door, swiped her badge, and waited for what felt like minutes for the red light next to the card reader to turn green. When it did, she yanked the door open, skirted around it, and pulled it shut directly behind her. Without looking back through the mostly glass door, she ran down the dark hall to the grad lab. She took her keys out of her pocket and saw that all of them were long, black, thin filaments waving at wicked speeds, slicing at the air around them. Nat’s jaw clenched, and she stared intently at the filaments.                “You’re not real,” she hissed at them. When they continued to be filaments, she slammed them against the heavy door, and they made metal-on-metal scraping sounds. She threw them at the door, over and over, hearing the scraping and seeing the filaments that had killed Stella. “You’re keys. You’re keys!” She stopped and looked at them. They were keys. She stared at them blankly, trying to remember which one worked the grad lab door. Her attention narrowed, only taking in the keys and the lock. Five tries later, she was in. She slipped inside, noticing the black-gray appendage sliding into the opening behind her and turning her head quickly away from the door before she could see the rest. She could feel the panic rising in her chest again, and she shook her head, denying its power over her. She dug her nails into her palms, letting the pain help bring her back down.                She was in control.                She went to the fridge and grabbed a Coke in a glass bottle, poured it down the drain, rinsed it out. She began mixing, no longer needing the cookbook, and the strain of working from memory kept her from thinking about anything else. When she was done, she scooped up the Erlenmeyer flask and the Coke bottle, stoppering the former and capping the latter, and she sprinted out of the grad lab and out the back door of Della, to the parking lot the small university’s entire faculty shared.                Nat kept sprinting until she was a good distance from the building, directly in front of the grassy median that divided the faculty lot from the student lot. That’s when she turned back. She stopped in the long shadow of the median’s sole tree, and she looked behind her. The thing had been running, too, a few dozen feet back. When she looked at it, it stopped.                “I see you!” she shouted, almost laughing now. The thing’s back straightened. “I saw what you did.” She unstoppered the Erlenmeyer flask and slid the Coke bottle inside. “And I bet you’ve seen a lot of what I’ve done.” She smiled as she restoppered the flask. “Or maybe this will come as a surprise.” Her voice echoed across the asphalt, bouncing off the distant brick of the science building.                The thing charged her, its gait fluid, its strides long. The distance between them closed fast.                “Come on,” Nat grunted. “Get closer, you shit.”                It was almost on her now, maybe ten feet away. Too close to miss.                Nat threw the flask, with the bottle inside, and dove onto the grassy median, rolling as she hit the ground and landing hard on the asphalt on the other side. She heard the explosion and pressed her body flat against the ground, hoping the curb, median and tree would prove enough to protect her from the percussive force. She felt an intense heat wash over her back and then disappear. She heard a crackling, like a bonfire at its peak.                She lifted her head, but she couldn’t see anything, so she propped herself up on her elbows and peered over the median.                The thing, rolling on the ground, was engulfed in bright, yellow-orange flames, flailing, screeching. Its extended filaments curled and crumbled in the intense heat, already becoming ash. One of its legs had been blown clean off in the explosion and was blackening a few feet away.                The flames danced, reflected in Nat’s huge pupils as she stood, staring.

Cameron DeOrdio lives in Astoria, Queens. He writes comic books and short prose stories, along with copy for business-to-business technology clients. His work has appeared in The Rampallian and V23 Magazine, among others. His comics credits include Archie Comics' Josie and the Pussycats. He received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied comic scripting alongside fiction writing.