I hadn't actually left.
Standing invisibly over Alex's backpack, I listened to what sounded like a lighter wheel turning. What the shit, was he... smoking in there? After pulling me away from trying to smoke too?
I gritted my teeth and scrolled through the messages flooding my phone.
The Moth was as chill as ever.
MothMayhem🦋: yo ci, u ok after yesterday? that entity was intense af
MothMayhem🦋: alex seems like a cool dude
MothMayhem🦋: he's like weirdly good at talking to ppl. I know I should be sad bout D&D breakup, but man
MothMayhem🦋:...
MothMayhem🦋: More excited than anything bout delving with you and Alex, you kno?
MothMayhem🦋: got some sweet new gate tricks to try thanks to him
SongOfDarkness🎻: what tricks?
MothMayhem🦋: opening a gate to a movie clip. His idea. Like daymn, how did I not think about doing something so simple, you kno?
In the other chat, the dragon was 'prolly melting her own phone with dragonfire sparks raining from her mouth since yesterday evening.
Em-the-rawd🔥: that effin nullie is gonna PAY
Em-the-rawd🔥: he humiliated me! ME!
Em-the-rawd🔥: tell that pathetic little nullie to watch his back
Em-the-rawd🔥: no one dunks ME in the genesis pool and lives!
SongOfDarkness🎻: Em, chill. He literally saved your life.
Em-the-rawd🔥: I didn't ASK to be saved by some weak little nullie!
Em-the-rawd🔥: especially not one who thinks he can just waltz in and take over MY troupe!
SongOfDarkness🎻: YOUR troupe?! The one YOU got destroyed by pressuring Io to open gates to more and more dangerous places? By amplifying Io's gate and my Charmchain power to the Nth degree wth all of those effin mana amps? like Holy Shit, what did you think was going to happen?
SongOfDarkness🎻: u got off easy Em, so shut the f up!
Em-the-rawd🔥: easy?! EASY?! All my artifacts are GONE! Armor effin' gone! My sword is GONE! Do you have ANY idea how much all that shit cost?!
Em-the-rawd🔥: OBS u don kno F-all, that sword was one of a kind dragonforged magisteel blade from Arx!
Em-the-rawd🔥: and the amps were an investment! I bought tem for u both stoopid Fs. You owe me!!! You can't just quit!
Em-the-rawd🔥: Io is legit bein all betabit stakeling and ur being a hodlcuck!
Em-the-rawd🔥: like WTF U let a nullie DUNK ME like I was some kind of joke!
SongOfDarkness🎻: you tried to set him on fire AFTER he saved you
SongOfDarkness🎻: what did you expect him to do? stand there and let you burn him?
Em-the-rawd🔥: YES, OBVS. nullies need to kno their place as lowest meat
SongOfDarkness🎻: wow... just wow
SongOfDarkness🎻: u really haven't learned anything have u?
Em-the-rawd🔥: learned?! I learned that ur a effin null-chasin' TRAITOR!
This morning's messages were even worse.
Em-the-rawd🔥: beerch u awake yet? lemme gib u some shine advice, bestie
Em-the-rawd🔥: he gon fuk u up, don't trust him. he's not even real
SongOfDarkness🎻: shut up Em
SongOfDarkness🎻: ur just mad cus Alex outsmarted u
Em-the-rawd🔥: outsmarted?! he CHEATED
Em-the-rawd🔥: wearing like 20 hexsuits?! who does that?!
Em-the-rawd🔥: Open ur beerchard eyes, he's a simpmite ghoul!!!
Em-the-rawd🔥: my scrutimancer jus checked - there's no record of Dr Slate Glock's children. Ol' T-bird died in avanlache skeein alone!!!!
Em-the-rawd🔥: V gave me his Omnigram page. Scrut says - all pics are AI gened
Em-the-rawd🔥: THERE IS NO ALEX GLOCK!!!
I frowned, glancing at Alex's backpack. The shower was still running.
Em-the-rawd🔥: u dont get it do u? he's a ghostie, a FAKE, a cheet
Em-the-rawd🔥: check his Omnigram timeline - all posts started THIS MONTH
Em-the-rawd🔥: Scrut thinks every photo's fake!!!! EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
Em-the-rawd🔥: he doesn't exist in ANY school records before Skyfall
Em-the-rawd🔥: wake up Ci! ur dumb beerch ass is being played!
Em-the-rawd🔥: I SAVED U!! I HELPED U TWO YEARS AGO! DIS HOW U REPAY ME???!
I sighed as I thought back to just three days ago, when Alex first appeared at Skyfall. He'd seemed so... ordinary then. Just another nervous new student, completely flustered, no more like… struck dumb by my wings.
Now here he was, in my family home, somehow charming my parents, reorganizing my entire life, and apparently smoking in our guest bathroom after lecturing me about bad habits. How did so much happen in such a short time?
Em-the-rawd🔥: he's prob poorslime using u to get to ur fam moneh, tryin' to get undr ur tail
Em-the-rawd🔥: think about it - who shows up outta nowhere with perfect answers for everything? u see him switc voices during class intro?
Em-the-rawd🔥:This is classic sociopath behavior - charm everyone around them!
Read up about it! NOW!!! DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!!!!
https://www.webmd.om/mental-health/signs-sociopath
Em-the-rawd🔥: who just HAPPENS to be there when shit goes down?
Em-the-rawd🔥: bet if u look in his locker or backpack at school, you'll find proof
I glanced at Alex's backpack sitting out in the open, taunting me.
Em-the-rawd🔥:
read the dum link u beerch!
Superficial charm ✓
Manipulative ✓
Good at mimicking emotions ✓
Em-the-rawd🔥: You don't know what kind of blitz he could be on! Prolly smoks Topaz in the bathroom while u ain't lookin. his name is fake!!! I kno u readin dis beerch
I dug into his backpack. This action felt wrong on so many levels, but Em's texts kept and my own fears kept echoing in my head, pushing me into action.
What if she was right? What if the stuff Alex said about himself being Kaska Dena, stuff about his mom was just another elaborate con, another lie?
What if he had a way to bamboozle soul magic? What if I was wrong?
The way our kinship developed in–what?–two-three days felt far too fast, like being struck by lightning and then trying to understand WTF happened.
Inside the backpack, I found several changes of generic Omnimart clothes, much of it suspiciously new. A few textbooks, also pristine. Several cameras. A new laptop. Fireworks of all types. Several sets of sus tools.
Digging deeper in a hidden compartment that my claws easily sliced apart, I found what was possibly lockpicks or really weird screwdrivers, blank ID cards, various official-looking stamps and seals. Over 50 random phones. Dozens of gift cards and prepaid or stolen credit cards with random names on them. USB drives labeled with cryptic codes.
A folder full of what I now knew were forged documents - birth certificates, transcripts, letters of recommendation, newspaper articles - trickery and forgery that made Alexander Glock real.
I dug deeper, pulling out more stuff onto the bed.
Sketchbooks filled with drawings of people and incomprehensible coded detailed observations.
School security and student hexamesh suits. An entire jar of tiny beast cores.
Skyfall Security badge and uniform with picture of Alex as Nunkish Throg, Security Guard LV 8. He somehow looked like an orange-eyed, gray-skinned, bald, older Dover Demon on the laminated badge, but it was unmistakably him.
Another ID and uniform as LV 12 Skyfall Janitor Kgok Mitrim, a green skinned basilisk.
A collection of glasses, contact lenses, glue on moustaches, beards, wigs, scales, latex makeup and cotton balls. Cash in various currencies, some I didn't even recognize.
I kept digging.
An old, worn leather pouch was at the bottom, cleverly concealed in an old Nazarite bible. The leather was soft with age, cracked in places, held together with careful stitching. This wasn't some prop - this was something treasured, maintained.
Inside, I found an Acadian passport, its deep blue cover faded around the edges. My heart pounded as I opened it, half-expecting to find blank pages or obvious forgeries.
The photo was unmistakably Alex, though younger and more... raw somehow. No carefully crafted expressions or practiced smiles - just a serious-faced boy staring straight at the camera. But the name... Martin Kilborne. Place of birth: Znetc, North Acadia.
Behind the passport was a faded birth certificate. It listed the same name—Martin Kilborne. My eyes caught on the mother's name: Mirriam Kilborne (née Dennis), and under "Father" there was just a blank space.
My claws shook as I explored the pouch. There was a small, worn photo album, its pages carefully preserved in plastic sleeves. The first polaroid photo showed a woman with long dark hair and kind eyes, wearing human First Nations tunic regalia.
Few more polaroid photos followed: Martin and his mother at various ages, always just the two of them. Ordinary moments frozen in time. In each one, his mother looked a little thinner, a little more tired, but her smile never wavered.
My claws froze as I pulled out the final document - a death certificate from North Acadia General Hospital. Cause of death: Stage 4 lung cancer. The date was one year ago, last spring.
A postcard of North Acadia General with rainbow-streaked mountains on the front. Faded, blotchy, shaking handwriting on the inside.
"My dearest Martin,
Never forget who you are or where you come from. Our people endure. Our stories live on through you. I love you more than all the stars in the sky. Never give up, never stop, my little fox.
Keep singing our songs. Keep telling our stories. The world tried to erase us, to forget us, but we are still here. You are still here. Your voice carries the echoes of a thousand ancestors. Use it wisely.
I'm sorry that we fought. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you about my condition, pushed you onto Uncle George. I'm sorry that I won't be there to see you grow into the amazing man I know you'll become. But remember - even when I'm gone, I'll always be with you. In every song, every story, every sunrise.
Be brave, but be smart. Your uncle undoubtedly taught you how to survive, but don't let survival be all there is. Don't obsess over what happened to me. Find something worth living for. Find a girl and friends worth fighting for. And when you do, hold onto them with everything you have.
The world is changing. Our people are fading, our language dying. Remember the old stories - about how Raven stole the sun, about how Coyote tricked the stars. How the brave Kaska Dena hunter struck down a God Beast and prayed for change, birthing the Stormwoods.
Share them with your children, pass the stories onward. Don't let our language die.
I'll see you on the other side of the river of stars.
Mom"
I stared at the card. It didn't look like an elaborate prop or forgery. This was real grief, real loss, real pain here that made the spot between my eyebrows throb, my eyes suddenly stinging.
The words blurred through my tears. My claws trembled as I quickly slipped everything back into the leather pouch alongside the other memories of Alex's - no, Martin's - real life.
Everything made horrible, perfect sense. The mad obsession, the drive, the personality switches. The AI that spoke in his mother's voice...
"Oh Slayer," I whispered, my wings drooping as guilt crushed me. "What have I done?"
Not only did I inject a piece of my soul into his in a misguided attempt to figure out the truth of his words yesterday, but now I had also gone through his bag like a feathery knob.
The shower was still running. I carefully repacked everything, pathetically trying to erase any evidence of my intrusion.
Alexander Glock wasn't real, but Martin... Martin was painfully, breathtakingly real.
I zipped up the camping backpack and fled towards my room, invisible and silent, my heart doing backflips.
A leap from balcony to balcony, wings outstretched and I was inside.
The moment my window clicked shut, I slumped against a wall, sliding down to sit on the floor and sobbing.
The tears wouldn't stop. My wings curled around me, shifting through guilty blacks and mournful grays as I hugged my knees to my chest.
What kind of monster was I? Not only had I violated his privacy, but I'd done it because Em - the same Em who tried to kill him after he saved her life - planted doubts in my head.
Em was my best friend, but... when was the last time she'd actually acted like one? All she did lately was push and control and demand. Things always had to be done her way just because she was paying for everything, funding D&D with her family's treasure trove.
Em was the one who helped me pick my Kaleid name - Cinder. "Because you're not just some pretty songbird or a dum constellation," she'd said. "You're fire and destruction and power. You're gonna rise from the ashes like a Phoenix and show them all."
Em had been there when I was at my lowest, when I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror without seeing... No. Don't think about that. Don't remember the blood, the screams, the flash-frozen lake, the way everything went wrong that day...
Em saved me, gave me purpose. Em had uplifted me. Em had let me beat her to a pulp when I needed to lash out, stood there and took every hit until I collapsed sobbing into her arms.
I was coming apart at the seams, no idea what to do now.
My phone buzzed again. Em was still ranting, sending link after link about sociopaths and con artists, obsessed with getting revenge, focused on destroying Alexander Glock.
She wasn't going to give up until Martin was deported from Omnithornia or imprisoned for life.
With trembling claws, I opened my contacts and blocked Em's number. Then I blocked her on Omnigram, Snappit, and every other platform we shared.
It felt like cutting off a limb, but... I just didn't have the strength to fight with her anymore. Not when she was threatening someone who'd saved her life. Not when she was trying to destroy someone who'd already lost everything.
She didn't understand. She never would and it was breaking my heart.
I threw the phone at a wall and limped into the shower.