As Monique went upstairs, her thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a second. Then she typed:

  Monique: define “divine”

  Monique: bc i did just accidentally, on purpose, reassemble my soul like a metaphysical IKEA set, so probably?

  Monique:

  also: what kind of ?confessions? are we talking. and do i need holy water

  Would that even be helpful? Or would holy water only make Kellan moist?

  She didn't have much time to think about it as the typing bubble appeared nearly instantaneously.

  Then it vanished. Then it came back. Then the bubble paused again.

  Then:

  Kellan: ok so don’t take this the wrong way

  She grinned, and responded, even if he was still typing:

  Monique: i definitely will

  She waited for him to respond.

  Kellan:

  but you have major “end me mommy” energy now

  Monique stared at her phone screen.

  Monique: ??????? asasdsadsakjhkjh

  He didn't respond, just kept typing.

  Kellan:

  like you always had it, but now it’s dialed up to eleven

  that’s hot in a way that’s making me confront things

  Monique blinked at her phone. Why was he like this?

  Then, out loud she said: “What the fuck.”

  Monique: you’re lucky you’re cute

  Monique: and also that my spiritual body is currently leaking into “adjacent realms and dream realms” so i can’t really process the words “end me mommy” right now

  Another Pause.

  Another bubble.

  Kellan: so that’s a yes

  Kellan:

  ok

  He gave her no time to breathe as he continued to type:

  Kellan:

  follow up confession

  Kellan:

  i have definitely imagined you smiting me

  What was his malfunction?

  Kellan:

  i would not be mad about it

  Weirdo.

  Kellan: like a little lightning

  nothing lethal

  just enough to feel ?judged?

  Monique opened the door to her room, went to her closet and threw her phone on her bed and covered her face with both hands.

  “Why is he like this,” she whispered. “Why am I like this. Why is this my type.”

  A heavy, drawn-out sigh escaped her lips. She hadn't even asked if they wanted to meet up in person (that sounded weird, it wasn't like an online dating situation, she knew him and stuff)

  She sat down on her bed.

  Took a moment.

  She sat up in her bed, resolving to get ready.

  Monique rose and crossed the room to her wardrobe.

  It would be really cool if it was an imposing, dark sentinel of wood that had once belonged to her formidable, slightly intimidating grandmother... a relic!, but one she had wholly claimed, adorning its antique surface with a haphazard collage of faded band stickers and chaotic doodles a testament to her own rebellious tenure!

  But it wasn't. It was a normal ass wardrobe. From IKEA.

  She threw open the wardrobe.

  The ritual began. First, she pulled out the non-negotiable foundation of her look: a pair of fishnet stockings, the bigger and more strategically torn the holes, the better, in the words of the girl who had sold them to her, although Monique tended to disagree.

  A black lace-trimmed camisole that provided a delicate counterpoint. Then, she wrestled into a pair of black denim skinny jeans, ripped at the knees, otherwise what was the point of the stockings.

  The mirror in the corner rippled. This is a bit masturbatory for a dress-up session don't you think?, Shuyet asked, smirking.

  Monique pointed her finger, accusatory at the mirror. “You!!!” She huffed “Why are you here?”

  Like i said already, im you

  “Not helpful!”

  Shuyet shrugged sucks to suck

  Monique growled “SHuT up shadow!”

  Shuyet snickered.

  For the top layer, a faded black T-shirt, the smear on the front suggested that it was from a band whose name was now barely legible, the fabric soft and thin from countless washes and the rigors of innumerable mosh pits.

  But in reality she had just bought a blank one and then added the smears later.

  She didn't go to concerts very much, and the last time she went, she had simply forgotten to buy one.

  Shuyet smirked. A natural expression.

  To carve out a silhouette, you should cinch, a black faux-leather corset belt over the shirt.

  She continued giggling. The plastic boning will be unforgiving but satisfying, lending a rigid, intentional structure to your otherwise fluid form.

  Monique glared at her, leading to a confusing moment where her own reflection, and Shuyet were overlaid onto each other.

  “Im not going to do that.”

  Your loss.

  Shuyet was shoved aside. JB appeared besides her. The real magic, the true transformation, lays in the accessories. This is the armor we wear into the world. Now begin to pile on the silver rings, stacking them on almost every finger: heavy skulls with blackened eyes, coiled snakes, and simple, weighty bands. Your neck will become a tiered landscape of chains: a chunky silver padlock necklace, its chain thick and industrial; a delicate black velvet choker that provides a soft, gothic contrast, centered with a small pewter pentagram pendant;

  Monique blinked. Was it already getting busy again or had the two simply decided to continue their game of Id versus Super-Ego “Uhm, hello JB? Good to see you. You seem…Enthusiastic. “

  Ib ignored her and continued, and a longer, heavier silver chain that ends with the elegant, ancient loop of an ankh.

  Shuyet smirked Yes an ankh, it has important symbolic and humorous value to us. She stepped out of the mirror. Get it? Because of the Egyptian theme?

  Monique groaned.

  Finally, clasp a wide, studded wristband, bristling with pyramid-shaped rivets, around your left wrist. Ib declared, looking expectantly at Monique.

  “I don't think i have most of those things. “ She said. JB looked genuinely disappointed.

  “Also, i had figured you would be much more likely to tell me that meeting Kellen was sinful or something. That I shouldn't. “ Monique told her.

  JB shrugged, her pastel apron riding up. If you're thinking that, then my job here is done.

  She approached the full-length mirror for the final, critical assessment. She swept a smoky gradient of dark grey and true black eye shadow over her lids, which took a lot of work. But it functioned, creating a shadow-box effect, before meticulously applying thick, coal-black liquid liner that ended in sharp, dramatic wings, so precise they looked capable of cutting glass.

  Shuyet whistled yes. Good girl. Kill him.

  Monique flipped her off, and turned and went downstairs to get her boots. She laced them up. She went back upstairs.

  Ew

  She grabbed her small, black messenger bag.

  Then she picked the phone back up and typed:

  Monique: if i zap you it will be intentional

  and probably because you said something dumb

  not because i’m doing magical horny roleplay

  Kellan:

  Why did you not say anything for like fifteen minutes?

  She ignored him and typed:

  Monique: but like. hypothetically

  if you wanted to talk

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  i’m outside

  or i can be

  and i’m very tired

  but also probably emotionally open enough for us to have one (1) real conversation

  His response was immediate:

  Kellan:

  omw

  bring the smiting hand just in case

  Monique: i’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that

  Kellan:

  i am so many regrets

  Kellan:

  but none of them are about wanting to be judged by your celestial wrath

  Monique: i’m serious. stop talking about it before i decide that smiting is actually a good idea

  When she made it to the park bench, she realized that she hadn’t eaten, since she had that takeout with Kellan, which was probably around 20 hours ago, but felt more like three weeks. Time was weird like that. Subjectively. She pulled out her phone.

  Monique: bring some food

  She thought about threatening him, but didn’t know if that might be more of an incentive than. She decided on

  Monique: please

  He responded with a simple thumbs-up.

  Kellan arrived, not with the grace of a conquering hero sweeping in after a successful campaign, but with food.

  His signature look was complete: a gray hoodie perpetually half-zipped, as if he could never quite commit to being either warm or cool, and an utterly exasperating, incredibly punchable smirk. Actually, he didn’t wear a hoodie. Or at least not that one, like that. Freshly laundered. Maybe he was trying, considering the whole relationship and all.

  It was the smirk that always managed to bypass Monique’s meticulously constructed emotional defenses.

  Keep lying to yourself about those defenses, we all know they aren’t real.

  Given what Connor had said about his family, maybe he really was supernaturally charming.

  That would give her an excuse at least.

  Was pasty-ass dipshit a type of fae? Something to consider perhaps.

  That expression, a perfect blend of apology and audacity, perfectly encapsulated his entire attitude: I know I messed up, and I know I’m probably about to get the full-volume lecture or, failing that, an actual stabbing with a dull letter opener, but let’s be honest, Monique. We both know it’s a waste of time, so, let’s skip to the part where you forgive me.

  He wasn’t wearing it.

  Instead his lips held a small, polite and adoring smile.

  Marketing committee expression.

  Weird. He looks laundered and him face is laundered.

  He halted a careful few feet away, and she narrowed her eyes. Perhaps its our energy. It has become more defined. Ib suggested.

  Monique had, with all her puzzle pieces back in their place, gained a type of awareness, it wasn’t very good yet. Or maybe she just had the verbiage to attempt to express what she perceived now.

  Something, something hermeneutical injustice.

  So, she knew that the air around her felt charged, almost brittle. Kellan didn’t feel like she had imagined him to feel. Didn’t look how he should. Her suspicions were growing.

  Their eyes met across the short distance. Sometimes she wondered what other people felt when they looked at her. What they saw about herself that she didn’t.

  Monique remained rooted to the weathered park bench, a silent, island in the relentless onslaught of a world she seemed perpetually destined to fight. Love the melodrama sis, which band did you steal it from?

  Unconsciously perhaps, she had made herself small: arms wrapped tight around her torso, legs crossed beneath her, a simple, almost fragile gesture. It was a stark contrast to the raw, cosmic forces she had so recently faced down. The Forces of herself.

  The air around her still felt charged, though the tumultuous power that had threatened to crack her soul apart was now in its proper place.

  Building back the walls of her soul.

  Her presence was no longer a newborn, unstable storm front, but calm that descends only after the absolute worst has finally passed.

  She probably still looked profoundly exhausted. It was the exhaustion of someone who had done too much living in too short a time.

  Maybe you are being a bit too dramatic, and that’s coming from me. Monique ignored Shuyet. After all, she was someone whose internal clock had somehow compressed decades of trauma and triumph into a matter of days. Fine lines, not of age but of strain, were faintly visible around her intense eyes.

  Stop, its too much Shuyet cackled. Is it still a hedgehogs paradox if I just straight up stab you for being mopey?

  Shut up Shadow, I’m analyzing myself. It’s called metacognition, you wouldn’t understand. She thought.

  Kellan still stood there, seemingly waiting for her to say something. She decided to let him squirm a bit more.

  She had gained her beauty through metaphysical battles waged in the deepest corners of existence and the relentless, painful process of self-assembly and re-assembly. She was the calm at the eye of a hurricane she had somehow managed to create and then, incredibly, contain. Fucking stop. Shuyet interrupted.

  Monique rolled her eyes.

  “So,” she began, her voice strikingly quiet, almost soft, in the echoing space. It was the careful tone of an interrogator who already knew the answer. Seriously, cease and fucking desist.

  “What’s your confession this time?”

  Kellan shifted awkwardly, running a nervous hand over the back of his neck. The smile? had vanished, replaced by an unsettling, almost alien earnestness.

  “Okay, so, like… you know how some people are into teeth? Not, like, weirdly, but in terms of structure and-"

  She cut him off with the slightest lift of a hand, a gesture of absolute finality.

  “Kellan.”

  This little moment had almost taken her suspicions of him. Almost.

  “Right. Sorry. Focus.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out. The levity was gone. For the first time since he arrived, he was serious. There was no shield of humor, no cocky pretense, only raw, unvarnished honesty. “I’m kind of terrified of you now, Momo.”

  Monique blinked once. This was, unequivocally, not the flippant, endearing answer she had braced herself for. She had anticipated a chuckle, perhaps a rolling of the eyes, and a swift pivot back to comfortable, trivial banter. That hadn’t happened, but her suspicions were forgotten for the moment. Her breath hitched.

  “I mean,” he hurried to clarify, holding his hands up, “not in a bad way. Not like scared scared. But like… I watched you go toe-to-toe with something I don’t even have words for and make it flinch. You’re this… myth, Momo. And I keep thinking, constantly, like, should I even be here? Am I allowed to stand this close to you?”

  Monique raised an internal eyebrow. That wasn’t right. She hadn’t fought anything.

  He gave an abrupt, self-deprecating shrug. “I’m not magic. I’m not divine. I’m just some guy. And I think you’re brilliant and mean and terrifying and hot, and also, I think I might like you more than I’m ready to process.”

  He shifted his weight, the movement a hesitant, almost nervous thing, despite the bold words that had just left his mouth. His posture was a study in contrasts: shoulders squared with a certain defiance, but his gaze darted away, unable to hold hers.

  That’s new. Ib said, Mayhaps he has something to hide.

  “Look,” he said, the word clipped, "I need you to understand that. I’m not some mystical force, not a harbinger of fate, and definitely not some divine gift to you or anyone else.” He gave an abrupt, self-deprecating shrug that was more a twitch of his whole body. “I’m not magic. I’m not divine. I’m just some guy. I’m fundamentally, disappointingly ordinary.”

  Where was this insecurity coming from? This was definitely suspicious.

  He finally forced himself to meet her eyes, and the vulnerability there was stark, an unvarnished truth offered up like a sacrifice. “But I’m looking at you, right now, and I see things that are anything but ordinary. I think you’re brilliant, a mind that moves three steps ahead of everyone else in the room. “

  No one has ever said that about us. Ever. If he’s trying to butter us up, he’s doing it badly. Shut analyzed.

  “And I think you’re mean, in the best, most surgical way possible, cutting through all the bullshit people wrap themselves in. And terrifying, yes. Truly terrifying, because I genuinely believe you could ruin my life and not lose a minute of sleep over it, and yet I’m still here.”

  A flicker of heat, undeniable and raw, crossed his expression. “And hot. God, you’re hot. That’s just a biological, chemical reaction that hits me every time you walk into a room.”

  This time she didn’t forget her suspicions.

  He let out a sharp, ragged breath, running a hand over the back of his neck. “All of that is just… the inventory. The facts. But the conclusion I’m drawing, the terrifying synthesis of all those contradictory points, is this: I think I might like you more than I’m ready to process. More than I’m equipped to handle. More than my therapist would advise.”

  Its highly doubtworthy that he has talked to his therapist about you, in the way he is saying he has. Ib declared.

  “It's a problem, honestly. It’s a seismic event in my very ordinary little world, and I’m telling you this not to demand a response, but because I can’t hold it in anymore.”

  A heavy, echoing pause descended between them.

  Then, the true core of the confession emerged, stripped of all Kellan’s usual filters:

  “I guess my real confession is that I’ve never actually wanted to belong to someone, to a bond, until now. And I don’t even know what the fuck to do with that feeling.”

  The wind stirred the dry leaves between them. When the light hit just right she could still see the pearls.

  Monique stared at him, the silence between them thick, filling the space. like heavy air before a storm.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  The final sentiment, belonging, it felt utterly inconsistent with the Kellan she knew. He could be sweet, yes. Mostly he was entirely too aware of his own attractiveness.

  But worshipful? The tone, the intensity, the devotional quality in his voice didn’t align with the usual chaos-tinged confidence that she had grown to tolerate.

  Is that what we’re calling it?

  This was entirely too suspicious.

  “Are you really Kellan Bishop?” she asked, soft and even. “Or am I dealing with something someone, else?”

  There was a long pause.

  Kellan, or the thing wearing him, froze for just a heartbeat too long.

  Fuuuuck.

  The pause that followed stretched out. Long and brittle, a sheet of newly-formed ice cracking under the weight of an unsuspecting child. It wasn't the kind of silence born of surprise or reflection, no it was the abrupt, mechanical halt of something that had run out of script. This question wasn’t on the interview sheet.

  Kellan, or whatever parasitic thing, was currently wearing his face, froze. His eyes, the color of wet slate, were fixed on a point just past her left ear, a depthless stare that didn't belong to the man who’d once argued with a vending machine for ten minutes. Hesitation, a heartbeat too long. The Delay between command and its execution, or perhaps the lag of a remote signal traveling an impossible distance.

  Someone else, or Monique herself in a slightly different cascade of events would have attributed it to nerves, or maybe a flicker of fatigue, perhaps a passing thought about dinner.

  But right now, the game was up.

  Because this wasn't just stillness, it was a connection was being re-established, or a monstrous calculation was being performed in a cold, dark place.

  The thing blinked slowly. Once.

  Kellan's shoulders relaxed, the tight, coil of muscle unwinding. The desperate feigned vulnerability evaporated, draining from his features like a tide receding from sand. His smile returned, but it was subtly wrong, an echo of the genuine article. Maybe this is what the uncanny valley is for, she thought. It was too perfect, the angles too crisp, the crinkles at the corner of the eyes too flawless, too executed. Lacking the un-natural charm, she knew so well. It was a mask. Expertly molded, but still a mask.

  It spoke, but somehow in some way she didn’t have the words for, it was profoundly hollow.

  Like a recording played in an empty auditorium.

  CGI Kellan.

  This voice had no history, no worry, no love, no weight. No soul merely modulation.

  “You’re very good,” it said. The words were precise, measured. The tone was not unkind, it had no malice or spite, just a detached acknowledgment of her competence. Like a machine praising the efficiency of a smaller gear.

  Party in the breakroom, everybody take only one slice, or there won’t be enough for everyone.

  Monique’s stomach plunged into an abyssal depth.

  “Don’t worry,” the entity currently inhabiting Kellan assured her, sensing her distress.

  Or perhaps worried about getting sued.

  A gentle, synthetic concern overlaid the detached tone. It took a single, slow step toward her, a parody of comfort. “He’s quite safe. Asleep. Dreaming of you, actually. Very wholesome, all things considered.”

  It tilted its head, a deliberate, mocking parody of human curiosity.

  A fox at a wildlife camera.

  The movement was slow, deliberate. Its eyes held Monique’s gaze with a cold, detached look of unsettling intensity. There was absolutely nothing behind them.

  "We just wanted to see how far you’ve come since our last interaction." A simple statement of fact, carrying the implicit weight of judgment and assessment.

  We? Last interaction?

  Monique remained motionless. She refused to even blink. A blink would be an acknowledgment, a momentary surrender to terror, to whatever this was.

  “…We?”

  Hold on there was more.

  “Last interaction?”

  A flicker, a bare, momentary shift, occurred deep behind those empty eyes.

  And then a second voice, her voice, came whispered through the air, layered chillingly behind Kellan’s lips:

  "The Pattern is watching."

  She could feel Ren vibrating from her place in her soul. So this is what those experiments lead to.

  No, this is way older, and far beyond us.

  She wasn’t sure if Ib or Shut had said this, which was frightening in and of itself.

  Monique sighed.

  She was so fucking tired. Again.

  This always happened.

  Again.

  Why?

  What evils had she committed to be punished like this, wrapped up in some nonsense

  A long, tired, bone-deep sigh.

  Her shoulders dropped. Her voice cracked around the edges of restraint.

  Her shoulders slumped.

  "I don't want to keep doing this," she confessed quietly, the words sounding scraped raw, pulled from a place deeper than her lungs. She didn’t want to cry. Because this thing wouldn’t understand. "Not like this. Not through people I care about. I don’t know what’s happening, and neither it seems does anyone else. So sure this might as well happen."

  She clenched her fists. Her eyes flicked to Kellan’s, the not-Kellan’s, face. And for a brief, second, her meticulously maintained guard dropped, just enough for raw, for human pain to show.

  “Just… tell me what you want,” she whispered, “I’ll… think about it.”

  That offer, it elicited a minor disturbance in the not-Kellan’s false composure. A ripple across the surface of a perfectly still, dark pond, quickly smoothed over, but impossible to unsee.

  It wasn't the startled jerk of a prey animal, nor the frustrated snarl of a thwarted predator.

  If she was delusional, she might have thought that it could be something like respect.

  Not for a person who stood before it, that was impossible. The respect would be for the method, the precision. But she was not delusional, and so it wasn’t.

  It answered. The voice had changed again. It spoke not with her voice, or the voice of Kellan. Not of any human, but perhaps a person. Or something that was, something that could have been a person. But now it was something infinitely colder. Its speech was the sound of bedrock scraped clean, the yawning emptiness of a vacuum, the measured click of gears turning in an engine. A voice that belonged not to a person, not to a living thing with blood and breath, but to a structure. An elegant, ruthless, self-optimizing idea that had achieved consciousness and absolute power. A religion that outlived its god, a system outlasting its politicians.

  And also kind of like a newscaster. NPR Voice brought to its inevitable, eldritch conclusion.

  "What we want," it stated, its voice perfectly steady, "is stability."

  The word hung in the air, heavy and absolute. It was not a plea, not a demand, but a declaration of inviolable purpose. A goal so vast it consumed all lesser concepts. The only answer, the final argument, the purpose behind everything that drove the intricate, terrifying machine of the entire world.

  A beat of silence stretched, thick and painful, before the not-Kellan continued,

  "We have witnessed the futility of free will. We have seen what happens when people are given a free hand. Where passion was, no grass will grow. The road ahead is littered with the bones of a million billion dead dreamers, and the rubble of a trillion dreams. We would spare you this pain. We are here to apply the brakes. To institute the order. To ensure that nothing, not passion, not genius, not even a rogue spark of defiance, will ever threaten the necessary equilibrium again. Because why try and fail when you could succeed within it? Why bother, why get hurt? "

  It paused. Perhaps it wanted to catch its fake breath. Focus grouped.

  “You are a persistent anomaly. You generate disruptive noise in the consensus of reality. An undue amount of noise. And the Pattern has begun to tremble because of you. A free variable in an equation meant to be balanced. One way or the other things will be balanced.”

  Monique didn’t say anything.

  It continued the demand, its voice a smooth, unnervingly reasonable tenor that somehow made the pronouncement all the more absolute.

  “We want you to stay within your lane,” the voice articulated, each syllable measured and precise. “Do not to escalate. We have observed, and we find your recent trajectory concerning. The tremors are unnecessary. We don’t want to trouble you. It would be a shame for something, for someone for you to get hurt. Again.”

  Another pause. The silence was becoming brittle. A slight, managerial tilt of the head followed a gesture that was entirely incongruous with the immense weight of the implications.

  It was a movement designed to convey professional disappointment, a gentle, corrective critique. The implication hung heavy. Adherence to this boundary was non-negotiable. To exist was tolerated. To escalate was to invite consequences that neither side truly wished to explore.

  Conform or die.

  It continued, a soft fatherly, or rather what a marketing executive who had never seen any emotion on a human face would think was a fatherly smile on its face.

  “If you must escalate, must continue, then let us guide it.” It paused, an expectant expression on its face. “Let us channel you. Be the thunder we approve of Monique. Trying to force change from the outside is so very difficult. We don't want a chaotic supernova. We require a focused, directed energy beam. You do as well, and so does everyone else. It’s less painful for you, less messy for us, and far more productive in the long run. There would be a lot of pain. Embrace the structure. There is a reason why it’s called the establishment. Your power, your voice isn't diminished by our supervision, No! It is refined. Think of us as the grid that turns raw lightning into city-wide illumination. Better optics for the rest of reality, which, we remind you, is fundamentally predicated upon the order we maintain. Join the winning team. The only team. We let you pick the color.”

  This wasn’t a threat whispered in a dark alley. It was a cosmic truth stated in a crystalline cathedral.

  It was not overtly hostile, yet the overwhelming expectancy was a far more potent weapon than rage. It suggested that her non-compliance was not merely an act of rebellion, but an existential impossibility, a mathematical error waiting to be corrected. There was a low-frequency vibration that seemed to synchronize with her own racing heartbeat, trying to pull it into her rhythm, into Theirs.

  I don’t see why we should not just do what they want. We have no agenda, no larger project. We are just angry. And this way we could help a lot of people. Ib said.

  Monique ignored her.

  She stood, rigid, tasting the metallic tang of blood on her tongue, fully aware of the colossal, machinery that had just laid its terms bare.

  The Pattern had delivered its ultimatum. And with it, the undeniable promise: conformity was safety, and divergence was erasure, not just of her, but of the very idea of her. The choice was a mockery, a trap designed to make her internalize her own subjugation as the highest form of self-actualization. Monique had no intention of doing any of this.