***

Calypso jerked awake. All too aware of her status, at in someone’s home. But at least draped in covers.

Tensing at the sound of something scrapping against the table, it took her a moment to understand that a cup and saucer was being pushed to her by a hand. Made of water.

Looking up and across from the oak table, she smiled gratefully at her teacher.

“T-thank you.”

Mrs. Moses nodded, whipping her hand back before putting her actual ones atop each other. “Drink it.”

Calypso grabbed the steaming cup, noticing that her nails have grown longer. Sharper as her hands clasped the sides. With a sigh through her nose, she took a long swig of the contents.

“Witchery Root,” Mrs. Moses explained. “In turn made into Witch’s Brew. Discovered here and grows in bulk in the Northeast, if one knows where to look.”

Calypso set the cup down. Her face turned up in knots as her eyes swam in her welling tears.

She looked down, and only saw a thick, emerald sludge in this nicely sculpted cup. And in the remnants of the liquid, nuggets of grain slowly fell down into the sewage.

“It’s, um…” Calypso nearly coughed that phrase out. “Very strong.”

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Moses nodded. “Like most natural things, it’s bitter and odd to taste, but ultimately good for you. And it burns hotter than your stomach at the moment, hm?”

Calypso grabbed her stomach on instinct.

“…Oh god…” Calypso sniffled in relief. “It’s over… It’s finally over…”

The girl quickly grabbed the cup, throwing her head back to down the rest of the brew. Closing her eyes, letting the excess tears finally fall out of her eyes as she took in the inner peace.

“It won’t last forever, maybe for a few hours depending on the person, but it will give you time to get your affairs in order,” Mrs. Moses looked on at her student. “A substitute, if you will.”

Calypso nodded. She was too focused on fighting the urge to keep the brew down, and battle against her burning throat, and keep from shattering her teacher’s fine china from her strength alone.

“Also. I take it that you don’t have your Illuminator with you?”

Calypso looked from side to side. “I… Have a… ‘Illuminator’?”

“Dear Lord…” Mrs. Moses wiped her forehead with a cloth. “The crystal that is your soul.”

“A-aaah…” Calypso nervously brushed her long, wild hair from her face. “Urm… Is it bad that I’ve locked it in a box out of pure panic, sadness, and regret--?”

Mrs. Moses tented her fingers, before hitting her forehead against them with a sigh.

“Just… Picture it in your mind. Make a fist and imagine it in the palm of your hand…”

Calypso looked at her raised palm. Closing her eyes, she couldn’t make a fist due to the length of her nails, curled her fingers slightly.

Before feeling the stone in her hand second later, her eyes shooting open with surprise.

“B-bu-but--!” Calypso exclaimed in confusion.

“Surprisingly, something called a Illuminator and is your soul has some magical properties to it,” Mrs. Moses snarked behind her hands, putting her chin atop of them unveiling her smirk. “This is so cute. You basically know nothing…”

Calypso felt her face flush with embarrassment. Since school was so easy for her, teachers never paid her any mind. She never had one tease her so thoroughly.

She stared at her stone, watching it. “It sounds like a cheap informercial item anyways--Well that explains why it was so hard to get rid of… But is it really it? For something eternal and immaterial…”

“Well, it is normally. But we unfortunate victims had ours ripped to shreds. What we have left turned into that stone. And despite the horror of having it outside your body, it is still the essence of who you are.”

Mrs. Moses raised her hand and flipped the back of it towards her student. Her ring, custom made and studded with a beautiful gem shined in the darkness. Calypso gathered what she was doing.

“No matter how far you go, it is you. Therefore, can go where you go.”

“Yours is so small…” Calypso looked in awe.

“Mm. It used to be as big as yours. Again, I’m on dwindling time. It also takes form of your current state.”

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Calypso felt sorry for her teacher. She looked around in this dining room. Covered in trinkets, photos, and yet the entirety of the room felt so empty. As if no one lived in this house for years despite having the one person.

“So either fashion something that can seamlessly blend into your everyday clothing or put it in something that you carry everyday,” Mrs. Moses instructed. “Without it near when you transform, the process can be thrown off, eventually causing malformed transformations such as what you were before.”

“I see…” Calypso suddenly held the stone closer to herself. “So, you’re like me, a monster… Person… Thing… Wait. Consumed? Or is it Subsumed...? Can I ask what you are…? Y-y’know, what kind of monster you are…”

“I’m sure through context that you can discern what it is…” Mrs. Moses teased with a slight smirk on her worn face.

Calypso pouted. “You’re technically on off hours. Surely you can tell me the answer to this one, teacher…?”

“I’m teaching you still, aren’t I, Ms. Grimes?”

Calypso made an exasperated noise. Clearly exaggerated, just to not incur any possible wrath. “But… How? How did you… Control yourself? And for so long…?”

Mrs. Moses’ expression turned dark for a moment. Contemplative. It was clear she knew the answer, it was just attached with bad experiences.

“I can’t sugarcoat this, Ms. Grimes. There is no control. Control is mankind trying to place his values onto the mindless wild of nature. When I said before that you must live with it, I meant that. Regardless of how you look and how you act, it is you. Just a self that’s been long dormant and shouldn’t have been awoken.”

“So just let it… Me run rampant…?” Calypso looked crushed. “But—you were going to kill me because I was going to prey on humans! If we’re letting fate fall where it may, then—”

“Acceptance, Ms. Grimes. Acceptance and resonance.”

Calypso looked down at her cup, as if the former word managed to weigh her down. "I... Tried doing that. Acceptance. I've tried doing it all my life..."

"Acceptance by itself is only that. That's why I pair it with resonance, another action, another step. If you allow me..."

Mrs. Moses pulled out a miniature chalkboard from her lap, causing Calypso to blink in disbelief.

“What can I say?” Ms. Moses looked back with a deadpan expression. “I live and breathe my profession.”

She flicked her index finger, causing it to transform, a claw that was scaled in a lavender shade. It left Calypso gob smacked. And more importantly, confirmed that she could have easily killed her without a second thought.

Mrs. Moses drew a blob with eyes with her claw, as it flawlessly acted as makeshift chalk. Then far on the right, she drew a stick person. Finally a circle in the middle.

“We are called the Consumed. Humans turned monsters, hybrids that can have a place in both the day and night. But can just as easily become outcasts in both. To become one is a ritualistic rite of passage that requires you to die, in a sense. Monsters of our world… They’re superstitious, irrational beings—and it’s reflected in their physiology. With their numbers, they could take over the Earth and reign for hundreds of years… But they’re scared of the world we’ve created for ourselves. They can’t leave without preying on humans leading them back.”

She drew an arrow, from blob to the stick figure. “So they hope for humans to find the fringe areas they dwell. Old folklore, fairytales, those bedtime stories to scare kids into behaving? They’ve modeled their methods after them, killing their victims, and invading their bodies. Becoming Subsumed.”

“So… I was a Subsumed… That became Consumed?” Calypso titled her head.

“Yes. And I assume through the context of the meaning of these words, you understand the difference?”

Calypso nodded. “Consume, well, to consume… Which I did to the monster that nearly kille—Well, did kill me? But I came back because I gathered my soul? Was that the rite…?”

Ms. Moses nodded.

“And subsume… To add to its mass…?”

“Yes. That is their nature. The monster inside eats the human’s soul and wears their empty vessel as a suit.”

“The crazy thing is…” Calypso reflected on her memories, shivering. “I still… I still felt like me. My friend told me that—h-her spirit and… I didn’t believe it. My thoughts, my mannerisms—it was me.”

“Remember when I said your stone is still your essence? That’s the insidious deal of it all. The monster subsumes your soul, adds you into itself. So it does know your thoughts, mannerisms—you. It tricks the last ambers of yourself that’s deep within darkness that you’re in control. And then it gives you your darkest dreams, making them reality. Wanting to rip your most hated person to shreds? It will give you the strength to do it. The fact that you could feel what normally would’ve been a seamless takeover is incredible.”

Calypso looked to the side at the praise, once again combing her wild bangs out of the way. But immediately looked back. “What does the end stage look like?”

“A fully Subsumed person is the monster finishing the ‘deal’ with the victim, the last shards of humanity extinguished. Uncanny ‘humans’ that helps let its true brethren into the mortal world. Causing tragedies, crimes, instability so they can exist in more places. A long game that they’re willing to wait for.”

The woman tapped on the arrow, repeatedly to drive the point home. “This, Ms. Grimes, is what we have to feed on.”

The girl pictured Cassie, and her wide grin. And shivered.

“Really?”

“They are our natural opposites. Monsters that finally understands humanity. You see, just feeding on humans—human’s food, or just feeding on monsters… It doesn’t work. You’re ignoring one side of yourself over the other. Consuming the Subsumed appeases both sides. It’s how we came to be, after all.”

Calypso looked shaken. “While I’m glad it’s not humans wholesale that I have to eat… I… It’s such a terrible fate, isn’t it? If I eat them, then that means no chance for those people to achieve what I have—to which—was down to pure luck…”

“It’s mercy. Especially in the cause of the Fully Subsumed. The soul is forfeit, gone, erased. All we can do is to act as the natural order against such an unnatural thing. Otherwise, we don’t have much choice.”

She pointed to the stick man. “The human mind that was forged and rose against innate savagery of the world. But being human and their sensibilities cannot satisfy the monster.” And then tapped at the blob. “A being that represents this innate savagery, becoming incarnations of such. But too big, too strong, and too tragic to make a proper existence for itself. It was what you were, not mere hours ago.”

Mrs. Moses dragged a wavy line within this circle. “That’s what I meant when I said resonance. You can’t control the monster. The monster can’t fully commit to becoming one. Each side opposes the other, despises each other, and it will kill you metaphorically and literally if you continue to let them war within yourself.”

Calypso chewed on her lip. It was so much to take in. She looked down, at her hands. Dainty, small, but long claws growing out of the nails.

Her eyes, looking so tired that they had bags under them, took the sight in.

“So,” Mrs. Moses began again. “We have a few hours to find a Subsumed for you and even less before dawn comes.”

The woman set the board down, grabbing her wheels. “Get ready, we’re going out.”

***