“Kill me and I shall return even stronger.”

- Blue Mistress, before the trick was revealed.

“Told you so.”

- Blue Mistress, after the trick was revealed.

_____________________________________________________________

Ever since becoming a hero, I’d found myself doing an awful lot of waiting. When Metafore’s prediction came through, when Waterlad gave me the tip something was happening but didn’t say exactly when, and earlier today before that disaster with the Beastmasters had seen me waiting for hours.

Now I was looking at anywhere between another thirty hours or thirty seconds before things kicked into action. It wasn’t that I was unfamiliar with waiting. When mom took me to set, there had been long periods where I hadn’t been allowed to speak or move. After getting reprimanded in front of twenty professionals, some of whom you liked, one tended to learn the lesson quickly. Still, those had been periods of time ranging from minutes, to tens of minutes, and one time even a half hour long take when the director demanded rolling resets.

I’d never understood that, myself.

The point was that this was similar, but not the same, and it was starting to get to me. There was a base where people could get tea, coffee, and biscuits a short distance behind the circular shooting stadium Eden had made in the middle of the city. I had yet to visit it, but I was leaning towards going as time went on. Tea never really felt like it did anything beyond going down my throat and tasting however that particular tea tasted. Coffee messed with my comparatively small body and left my knees shaking and hands shivering.

My eyes were getting heavy again, but that wouldn’t be much of an improvement.

A biscuit would be nice, I hadn’t eaten in a while. Apparently there would be a standing lunch for the Control troopers, but I wasn’t sure if the Sentry was catered for. They should be, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

I looked up. Slingshot was pacing, or doing the flying equivalent. It had taken me a little bit to pin down the pattern, but it was like a figure eight with an extra loop. She was flying in and out of the floodlights up above, so it was hard to keep track of her at times. Occasionally she would add an extra loop and stop, figure out what happened, then start again from a new point.

I looked down and to the side, nearly having to turn my body to see what I was looking for. Zephyr had her eyes towards the sky, watching Slingshot like I had just been. She had wanted to be up there as well, but when she’d started turning herself into a hurricane Common Sense had stopped her. We already had eyes in the sky, and the constant noise of Zephyr’s power would have made the tense wait even worse.

Now she was at the back and out of the way. When things started happening, Zephyr would take to the air. It was easy to see she couldn’t wait for that.

I turned my eyes forward again. Meandering in and out of the coffee shop where the monster was appearing were two of the Gray Apostles and Unshaken. They’d struck up a conversation that had been going on for a long while now. I couldn’t tell how it was going, none of them really had any tells, but it had been going on for well over an hour.

I lingered there, watching the three of them. Unshaken really looked like she fit in, the colours of their costumes kind of matched. All she needed were some horns. That image ran away from me and I mentally redesigned Unshaken’s entire ensemble, then dashed the mental image. I didn’t know anything about how Unshaken looked under the mask, and, well, I embarrassed myself with the design.

Too much skin, and I didn’t even know her skin colour.

Even still, I didn’t move on. The Gray Apostles were what kept my attention this time. I was wondering what their connection to Orcus was, what had constituted the restraining order when someone sat next to me and interrupted my thoughts.

I looked over and saw the neon DUH. “Hello Common Sense.” I greeted, turning my eyes forward again.

“Hey Lock.” His tone was much more conversational now, compared to the hard edge he had during the meeting. He followed my line of sight. “Watching out for your teammates?”

I blinked. “Watching, sure. Unshaken can handle herself.”

“That she can. I’ve never seen anyone so safe.” That wasn’t the first time he’d used the specific term ‘safe’. When Common Sense told me to take a mid field position in the barrier stadium, he said that was where I went from endangered to safe. He moved on before offering an explanation.

“Is that because of your power?” I asked, probing.

“It’s the interaction between my power and her’s. I’ve encountered one unstoppable force before, but that one has conditions that muddy the water. Haven’t heard anything about them in a while.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“A ghost.” Common Sense said cryptically. “I see in shapes and colours.” I rolled my eyes. Both at the way he avoided the question and at the non-sequitur. Everyone saw in shapes and colours. “Unshaken is a safe shape with a colour that promises no danger.”

“Hm.” I ran through the implications. “That informs the name then? You see danger and just avoid it?”

He tapped his visor instead of answering.

“So what does this situation look like to your eyes?” I gestured towards the coffee shop.

Common Sense looked out and took it in. “I see a lot of red, then where you see that guy?” He pointed at the person closest to the shop that wasn’t in a costume. They were talking to Overlord, who noticed the point and waved back. “There’s a sea of red danger going out until his piece of cover. Then it abruptly changes to a much nicer orange. Then, as it comes up and away,” He swept with an arm towards the back of everything. “It slowly turns blue as you go back.”

“Do those colours mean something?”

“They do. Orange usually comes with being shot from behind, which is why it fades. Red is the danger zone.” He held his visor as he said the next word. “Obviously. Blue is a general stub-your-toe kind of danger, because all this is on Eden’s power and people might fall on their butts if it disappears. It’s not a likely thing, so the shape is pretty safe and it’s overridden by more present dangers. The curious thing is, there’s another red spot up there.” He pointed at the side of a tall building, about four floors up.

“Any idea why?”

“When these creatures appear, it’s unstable. You’ve heard of volatile manifestations before right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. When powers manifested, the person manifesting experienced a variety of seemingly random supernatural effects. For me, right and left swapped and a corpse started talking to me. For Fail, his colours acted strange. Lucidity, who had been excused from A-13 duty apparently, had started being pulled in every direction. Volatile manifestations turned those effects outward, and they affected the world at large, normally in easily noticeable ways.

“This will be worse.” Common Sense continued. “My first suspicion is a Lance effect, in which case that’s going to be ground zero for a hostile effect. My second suspicion is that the monster is going to have a Displacer power.” He huffed. “Which would be very bad. So I asked Unloaded to set up a mortar and point it at the wall. The red is deeper now.”

“As good a countermeasure as any, I suppose.” I commented.

“Exploding things is a good countermeasure.” Common Sense agreed. “Doesn’t always work, but it’s a good one.” I got the feeling there was a story there.

“So why are you talking to me?” I asked, pulling off something of a non-sequitur.

“Checking in. You’ve changed from a blue to a yellow. Almost a gold.”

My mouth tightened, not that he saw it. “What does yellow mean?”

“Yellow starts from here.” Common Sense tapped a finger to his visor. No, his head. “And then it spreads.”

I had to stop myself from sighing. That would make him the second person to hound me on this in as many days. Or almost as many days. It was the middle of the night, things were blending.

“And then, once there’s a lot of yellow, it turns gold. People make mistakes when they’re gold.”

“What does gold mean?” I asked, having to focus on my voice to keep it even.

“I see I’ve stepped on a landmine, that wasn’t my intention. This is me letting you know that you’re first in line to get relieved.” That’s not what gold means. “Control has a few trucks for occasions like this. They’re filled with bunks and alarms. People will be rotating in and out as time wears on since these things can never seem to apparate at a reasonable hour. Heroes have their own truck if they care about their identity.”

He had backpedalled, but I wasn’t relaxing yet. “I do.”

“Then it works out, doesn’t it?” Common Sense stood and stretched. “I’m doing regular rounds on the local heroes, touching base and making sure everyone’s at least a little bit steadfast. Best case scenario, it appears while everyone is still awake and sharp, so in the next ten seconds, and it has weak powers that it doesn’t use effectively, so we can kill it quickly and we can all go home for cookies.”

Common Sense looked at the coffee store for ten seconds, then shrugged. “I guess it was a bit too much to hope for. I’ll be checking in with you again later.”

“Wait.” I leaned forward and shifted my grip on Sedimentary so I was holding the middle. “You didn’t say. What does gold mean?”

It was Common Sense’s mouth that tightened this time. He hadn’t answered on purpose. “I see it in very tired people. Anyone who’s been awake for more than a day and it’s starting to mess with their judgement. I’ve also seen it in people with mental disabilities, anyone whose lost a grip on the world…”

I had to remind myself to ignore it. “I have a grip on the world.” I told him.

Common Sense laughed nervously. “Those were some strange colours coming out of your mouth just now.” He glanced over to where Voidling was situated, farther back than me. “The next time I swing by will be to tell you to get rest. If you’re still here the round I make after that, I go to your superiors.”

“Copy,” I told him.

“Radio etiquette.” He commented. “You should save that for the comms, but it’s good to see a Sentry with it.”

I didn’t offer a response beyond ‘hm’ing at him. It had been a roundabout way of ending the conversation without coming off too rude or distracted, and Common Sense struck me as the type to always get the last word. True to form, even my quiet ‘hm’ made him stick around for another few words.

“Get some food in the meantime. There’re biscuits, fruits, and bars right behind Eden’s work.”

I nodded to give him the final words, and then he was gone. Off to talk to another Sentry. Collage, from the direction he was moving.

The revelation stuck with me, that I looked like I was losing my perception of things. I squinted back at Unshaken and the two Gray Apostles. They didn’t look any different. I checked the coffee shop behind them. Nothing special about that either. The ground underneath all that was shifting slightly, but that was because I was holding onto Sedimentary still.

Risk had said there was bleed from Forsaken’s weapons. At the time, he was talking about the flail specifically, but maybe he had been talking about all of his weapons. I couldn’t forget that this spear used to be an actual person who could talk. Right now Sedimentary’s only vector of communication was through the vibrations that didn’t really add up to anything I could comprehend reliably.

“Bleed.” I said out loud.

Sedimentary vibrated in response. Even looking at the vibrations through my power, I couldn’t determine anything unique about that one.

“Is it intentional?”

Sedimentary vibrated like an alarm. Lots of short bursts of vibrations for a few seconds. What that meant, I couldn’t say.

I thought on my next question. “Do you get lonely?” Sedimentary had been kept in Forsaken’s bag. From what I could gather, he spent the bulk of his time in there.

No vibration.

“You used to be a detective.” I said.

That got a vibration.

“You alright there, son?” A Control trooper asked, catching me off guard. I looked over. He was in the cover next to me, situation close enough that his question had barely been above a whisper, but I’d heard it clearly.

“I’m talking to myself.” I said, not quite sure how true that was.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The trooper nodded once, slowly. “I think you should listen to Common Sense and go get some sleep then. Even if that’s… power related. Talking to yourself ain’t right.” He wasn’t just talking about it from a bland ‘you sound crazy’ stance. I realised when I looked around and noticed that some of the other Control trooper not far from me were looking uncomfortable as well.

I stood, leaving Sedimentary there. “Look after the spear for me? I’m going to get food. Don’t touch it.” I blinked after standing. Seeing the concrete around me actually stay still was off putting after spending so much time with the spear. I wondered if I was still almost gold.

The trooper nodded and eyed it warily. It was a touch more ornate than most weapons that showed up pretty much anywhere. That I, a transhuman, had told him not to touch it said that it was probably power related. It was, and hopefully that would convince them to leave it alone. I wanted to have some words somewhere it couldn’t hear.

The food base had the stuff needed to make coffee and tea, which I ignored. There were fruits and bars, as promised, as well as cookies. But Control had committed a cardinal sin. Shortbread cookies in a plastic container mixed with other cookies that looked like chocolate chip, but weren’t. I took a few of both and went into the bookstore from earlier with a Vphone out. The one I wasn’t supposed to have.

‘Oliver’ picked up after four rings. “Salute, friend- no. Person who keeps things closed.”

“Hi Oliver.” I said. No one was in the bookstore with me, but I didn’t want to say anything too suspicious, what with the conspiracy against me and all. That being said, once I got to the point of this call that would go out the window.

“Ah, so we’re going with Oliver, huh?” Fail responded. “That’s fair. I suspect you’re in a place where you need to watch your tongue. Surrounded by heroes. No, not quite right. Control.”

“An A-13 is showing up.” I explained. “It’s a mix.”

“Not bad enough for the heroes to call a truce, but enough to declare a ceasefire.” Fail commented. “It’s not going to last. Also, T-384, not that I’m particularly interested. Well, that’s all this courtesy call gets you, I’m afraid. How have you been?”

“Ups and downs.” I said, holding a bitter note in my voice. His showing up was why I’d stopped sleeping, after all.

“Because of me?” Fail paused. “Because of me.”

“What did you mean by that?” I asked, hoping his power would fill him in on what I was asking about.

“Uh uh uh. Gotta be some kind of trade for things where I’m not interested. But that’s not what this call is about. Or it kind of is. Man, I love being able to talk like this. What’s really up?”

I frowned. “I’m talking to you as myself.” How would his power interpret that?

There was a clearly annoyed tone as Fail spoke. “You playing some kind of game with me? You know that my power sees us as the same person and doesn’t play nice where that’s involved.”

“I’m not really sure what the words I would use to describe this are, but I figured you would be interested in this.”

“In what?” Fail asked. Snappy.

“An inanimate spear.” I said, finally letting loose the bait. The quiet that followed my statement told me he was interested.

“Does this spear have a name?” Fail eventually asked.

“I would’ve thought you knew.” I stated, purposefully drawing it out.

“Power’s not telling me. That means powers are involved. What are you not telling me?”

I smiled. He was interested. “Tell me how it works first.” I let my smile shine through into my words.

There was quiet on the other end of the line. This was an international call, so it wouldn’t be cheap. But with the answers I was going to be getting from this, it would be worth it.

Fail sighed. “You’ve pretty much got it figured out already.”

“I thought it was a lie detector that let you cheat who was lying. This is a lie, but from there it’s the truth. That sort of thing.”

Fail laughed. “Then I need to work on my act, you saw right through it. But that isn’t quite it. No lies, just objective falsehoods. If I already know the truth being obscured then I get to know the truth and where it fits.”

“That’s…” I had to think. “Terrifying.”

“To others, yes. But you don’t need to worry so long as you’re my friend.” Fail paused. “So work on that, for your own sake.”

“Noted.”

“Spear.” Fail changed the subject, sounding like a petulant child. “Tell.”

“Sedimentary.” I said. Shortly after saying that I heard the sound of a rolling chair and the tapping of keys.

Eventually Fail sighed on the other end. “That isn’t right, Sedimentary died in 2015. My power isn’t pinging on that. The man is dead.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t dead. I said that the spear is called Sedimentary.”

“Both true, but that doesn’t make sense. Unless he was revived somehow, which he wasn’t. Bye mom!” A door closed on the other end of the line. “There are powers that can revive the dead. No. There aren’t. There are powers that cheat death through extraneous ways, but I don’t know how. Hold on. Sedimentary was killed. There we go.”

It took me a few moments to gather myself. “Mom?”

“Oh.” Fail stumbled. “Yeah, she works strange hours. I don’t sleep well, so she says goodbye if I’m awake.”

“Oh.” I echoed. It was a strange hour. A glance at my phone screen told me it was past midnight, and the timezones weren’t that different. Then, “Sedimentary was killed by who?” Couldn’t dwell on it. She wasn’t my mom.

Not anymore.

Fail clicked his tongue to communicate annoyance. “Don’t ask questions. It makes me consider all the possible outcomes and I get hits on all of them. Every single one just now was a no, but if one wasn't, then I wouldn't know because it all swept past too quickly. And I get a terrible fucking headache if I get too many negatives too quickly. Just say a statement and I’ll know definitively yes or no, and where any nos are meant to be.”

“Sedimentary was killed by Forsaken.” I stated. It was a shot in the dark, almost.

“Bingo, almost. The killing part was definitely Forsaken, but there’s more to it. Dude’s still dead, but that means this Forsaken has a power that lets him use people’s corpses, something something, weapons. But you already figured that. Macabre, but you already knew. It’s not why you called.”

“You’re still interested?” I checked.

“Fuck yeah. I’ve already done a power analysis on all the big fishes of the world and I ran into more blind spots than I’d have liked. This is underground. This is new. This is interesting. You’ve been exposed to the power most likely. You wouldn’t reach out, otherwise.”

“I’ve been handling Sedimentary for a few hours now.” I admitted. “There’s a whole thing with a villain called Bad Val-” I cut off as I heard the door open behind me. It was one of Control’s heroes. Brainstorm. She gave me a thumbs up with a questioning expression. I returned the thumbs up without getting off the Vphone and she went away, her hair sparking as she went.

“What was that?” Fail asked.

“Unshaken asking me about a romantic subplot.” I responded, knowing his power would correct that. Fail made a prolonged sound of annoyance. “Bad Valentine got his hands on a flail, which I’m pretty sure used to be a mass murderer called Blood Royal. He-”

Fail was muttering something on the other end. I waited for him to say, “Yeah, the flail is Blood Royal. Just had to check since you put that in the context of being sure.”

“Does that invalidate your power? Tacking that on.”

“It can.” Fail clarified. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t do it on purpose.”

Good to know. “So Bad Valentine has Blood Royal, and together they’ve gone off the deep end. Forsaken mentioned something about bleed.”

“He did.” Fail confirmed. “What kind of bleed? Was the flail literally bleeding, or was he talking about something else?”

“Yes.” I responded. I didn’t feel the need to say ‘both’.

“Personality bleed.” The question was a statement. It was followed up, “Blood Royal is impressing herself on Bad Valentine. Just looking at the first search results for Blood Royal right now. I haven’t even clicked any links and none of this is looking pretty. Thirteen kills, huh. Hold on, let me look at my chart. It’s actually forty seven, wow. Yike. You’re worried that Bad Valentine is going to go serial on Graceland.”

“He seems to be leaning down that path.” I agreed.

“And you’ve got T-384 to deal with.” Fail laughed. “I do not envy you.”

“Question.” I said abruptly. “Your power can ping off the statement: Bad Valentine is going to kill people.” Keeping the inflection to that of a statement was difficult, but I managed it.

“Fail,” Fail said after a while. “Wish my power could... but it doesn’t.”

I thought for a moment, a little disappointed. “Probably for the better. How about this? Bad Valentine intends to kill.”

“No ping. You have a problem.”

My stomach dropped. “Shit.”

“And still, we aren’t talking about why you called in the first place.” Fail said. “Come on, Michael, stop stringing me along. You know why you called. I know why you called. Just say it so I can give you an answer that will satisfy you.”

There was a beat where neither of us said anything.

“Yeah, no. It’s not going to be satisfying.” Fail added.

“Tell me.” My voice was tired. I belatedly realised I should have framed that as a request.

Fail didn’t seem to mind. “The personality bleed you got from Sedimentary, it’s still there. I’ve been running statements through my head this entire conversation, I know you aren’t holding it. I know how long you’ve been holding it, thanks to the unfair advantage my power gives me over you, and I know that it doesn’t go backwards over time.”

“Tell me there’s a way it gets fixed.”

“There is. Trying to figure out what.”

“Forsaken.” I asked.

“Yes, and more. Not sure what else is needed.”

“Forsaken and the spear.”

“Yeah, that seems to be it. Now that I think about it, this is why you opened with that line, ‘I’m talking to you as myself’. You didn’t think you were entirely yourself and you were right.”

“It’s benign right now.” I took a breath. “Tell me that’s true.”

“It’s not.”

“Fuck.”

That about summed it up.

“How have I not noticed anything until now?” I asked, more to myself than to my temporal clone.

“Theory.” Fail said. “Anything new to your personality will be something you’re already used to, since it’s coming from another… person who is already used to it. You wouldn’t have noticed until someone brought something up, and it would’ve been something minor, like a preference between tea and coffee. From what I gathered on Sedimentary, he was a hero that focused on cracking tough cases, finding villains that knew how to disappear. That he did it as a disrupter is impressive. You have some similar qualities. You were probably similar people and that’s why it was difficult for the bleed to be noticed with you.”

I held my breath.

“It is.” Fail confirmed.

“And it’s different with Bad Valentine and Blood Royal because they are such different characters.” I checked, having to make sure I didn’t make it a question.

“I see the willingness to kill for sport as something that would divide someone apart from the majority of the human race, so yes. But hey, I just helped you out by running another statement through my head. Sedimentary loves his tea. Green tea, specifically. And he never had much of a taste for coffee, but he takes his black.”

“Not helping.”

“I am, just not very much. Oh, I know. It’s two way bleed.”

I waited.

“It’s not.”

I sighed. “Thanks for checking.”

There was rustling through the line. I presumed that was Fail shrugging. “You’ve found yourself in an interesting situation, and you’ve already received your payment for my services. There’s more to unravel here is all.”

“When did I become such a dick?” I wondered out loud.

“When did I become such a detective, you mean. Oh wait!” Fail guffawed mercilessly through the line. I didn’t find it funny. “Here, I’ll lay out your truths. You have a mass murderer running rampant through your city. It doesn’t matter that they are a supposedly inanimate object, they’re running rampant. To make matters worse, they’ve teamed up with Bad Valentine, who has a terrifying power in his own regard if this classified Regulation report is anything to go by.”

I wasn’t about to let that one slip by. “How do you have access to classified reports?”

“Passwords are a non-issue.” Fail explained. I wanted him to go on and address the morals of that action, but he didn’t. “So that’s truth one. Truth number two is that you are not yourself thanks to a powered weapon that was ‘gifted’ to you by a man you do not presently have access to. Why is that, by the way?”

“He’s in hospital.” I said.

“Critical? Critical.”

“Didn’t you say not to ask questions?”

“It’s fine if they’re binary.” Fail answered dismissively. “What that means is you’re going to have to deal with not quite being yourself for the next little while. Looking at this medical report, he’s going to be out of commission for the next day or so. Terrible timing, if you ask me.”

“Medical report.” I said.

“Yeah. Medical report.” Fail repeated. His tone said ‘what of it?’ “You hold on to yourself now. I haven’t had a conversation with this kind of dynamic ever, and I want to have more. Three.” He paused for effect.

“The A-13.” I cut him off before he could get the satisfaction.

“T-384.” His tone was snappy. He liked being dramatic. “It’s the three hundred and eighty fourth Theta class case documented by the Regulation. It’s also going to appear somewhere between now and thirty hours from now, so you have to be on your toes for whenever that finally swings around. The A-13 case file is outdated. They have a different documenting system for these things.”

“There have been three hundred and eighty four monsters so far?” I checked.

“Three hundred and eighty three, is what you’re asking. Three eight four isn’t here yet.” Fail explained, making me roll my eyes. “And no. There have actually been three hundred and fifty nine so far. Three sixty Theta cases once you’re done with whatever is appearing over there. Some dinguses classified some unfortunate altered as Theta class threats back in the day, or misclassified the Alpha class. Twenty four total missed labels in total. Terrible.”

“I get the feeling that that’s not really relevant.”

“It isn’t. It’s fluff as far as you’re concerned, but if you were a little bit more grateful about this then I would be more willing to lend you my services in the future. You never know, that fluff might be critical to something else you’re working on. But it doesn’t matter how interesting your offers might be. If you’re a dick, I’m cutting you off.”

I wasn’t really sure how to respond to that.

“Look, Oliver.” It felt weird calling him that. I probably wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing, or maybe that was Sedimentary’s traits butting in. Hadn’t I been somewhat decent at social maneuvers? “I’m… sorry if I’m snappy. As you so eloquently put, I’ve got a mass murderer, a fleeting identity, and a big fucking monster to deal with. This is my plate, and I’ve got to deal with it. So I should probably get off this call now before I embarrass myself.”

“Too late.” Fail said flippantly. “You gotta work on your apologies, man. I’m ashamed that you’re Canadian and took so much just to say sorry. And then you justified it. That’s breaking culture.”

I breathed before answering. “Like I said, I have shit to deal with. You know what that shit was.”

Fail failed to think up a flippant response.

“Anyways, I’m gonna get off now. Common Sense wants me at my post, which is something I never thought I’d say, or asleep. I have a face to show.”

A chuckle came through the line. “You hide your face, though. Nice. That shit show is likely going to hold off until T-384 shows up and throws spanners in everyone’s plans. I’ll say au reviuor, and leave you with one little tidbit of information which I hope for you to plant and make blossom.”

“Does it have anything to do with what we just discussed?” I asked.

“No.” Fail immediately negated. I had to beat down a sarcastic response. Fail was right, after all. He was much better as a friend than an enemy. “Just thought I’d let you know that Slingshot is into you.”

My brain crashed as my finger was on the way to the hangup button. I ended up hitting speaker instead.

“Now take it and go, Lock!” Fail was enjoying himself far too much. I jerked my hand away from my ear. “Make it blossom into something great. I wanna hear about it all the way up here, so get busy. I want scandal. I want drama. And I know you have it in you. Don’t disappoint me. Aren’t I just the best wingman ever?”

Several of my smaller gears suddenly bit and started moving again. “I’m gonna go.” I told Fail and I hung up. As the call disconnected I heaved a heavy sigh and pocketed my phone. It took me a moment to gather myself. I didn’t really want to let on that something was wrong with me, and Fail’s last nugget of information was making it hard for me to establish a baseline.

When I turned around I came face to face with a smiling grey helmet with imp horns that was uncomfortably close.

“Fuck!” I flinched away.

“Most interesting.” Instinct commented, her voice resonating like a rattlesnake’s tail.