Thomas and I spent that night at Coraline's house. We'd always returned to our dorms after we worked on the house throughout the past week, but that night, Thomas and I stayed there. We were both too exhausted to go back out again, I still had no idea how I was going to hide Virtue away in my room without my roommate or the faculty finding out, if that was even possible, and Coraline offered to let us crash at her place. The truth of the matter was clear, though. If our observations were correct, Coraline was the obvious target for the Vice, and she was terrified to be left alone. She wanted to keep us nearby in case something decided to come for her blood again. Despite being given rooms, we all stayed together in the sitting room that night. Coraline was the only one who slept, her fragile constitution winning out over her apprehension.

Thankfully, nothing attacked us. Nothing disturbed our restless night. The house remained secure. Coraline made very little progress. Apparently, whatever linguistic variant the book was written in was particularly difficult for her to sort through. Thomas and I spent the evening helping Coraline take care of her neglected needs while she pored obsessively over the book and taking a look around the previously sorted reading material in the house to see if we could find anything relevant to our situation in our native English. We didn't have much luck.

When morning came around, we all had a conundrum to face. We all had classes at the same time.

"We have more important things to deal with than school right now." Coraline declared dismissively, refusing to look away from the book she'd been buried in since she woke up.

"Much as I can't afford to miss much, I agree. We need to deal with this. We can't just keep going about our normal lives, pretending everything's fine. There's a literal magic alien invasion happening in our backyard."

"Probably." I started. "As far as we know, whatever it is might have just given up after what Virtue did to it yesterday. But we can't make that assumption. Who knows how much is at stake here?"

"So we all lock in until we can figure out what to do next." Thomas nodded. "If this turns out to be a fate of the world thing, I think my mom will forgive me for failing out if I have to."

"I'm going to class." I declared, standing up and stretching my arms.

"Huh?" Coraline finally looked up as I made my motion. "But you just said-"

"I just said that there was a lot at stake. That we need to act in the interest of fighting this invasion. Which is why I'm going to class." I reached to give a pet to Virtue, who had made itself comfortable nestled on my shoulder through the night.

I'd tried everything. I held it all night to ensure it could absorb whatever metaphysical nutrients it needed from me. I tried feeding it a few different kinds of food from our leftover takeout, and while it ate and seemed to consume and enjoy what I fed it, it wasn't having an obvious effect on its growth. There was no way around it. I needed to introduce it to more new humans. My compass told me this was... questionable. But what choice did I have?

"You're going to 'feed' that thing, aren't you?" Thomas accused. "Even overlooking how horrifying that is, how exactly do you plan on hiding it while it's touching people?"

"It doesn't need skin contact. It can be through clothes, right? We proved that with Coraline. I think it might be the act of touching rather than physical bodily contact. I hide it under my clothes and then I make some 'accidental' bumps into people, and Virtue gets its fill."

"Is it on board with that?" Thomas gestured to Virtue, who made a quiet, clicking growl before skittering into the neck-line of my sweater and burrowed down into my clothes.

I didn't flinch. It had gotten into the habit of hiding in my clothes when I walked around the house, so it could hold onto me easier, and I'd decided to foster the behavior so it could hide on my person. "Like it's not even there." I declared, watching the wiggling tube squirm its way down the side of my body. "Virtue, hide," I declared, watching the lump flatten itself and the strange smooth sensation of the creature flattening itself against my skin. That sent a shiver up my spine.

"It really can understand us." Thomas murmured. "Or at least you. I wonder what made it decide to act this friendly."

"Maybe we just understand each other." I shrugged. That wasn't entirely honest, but I didn't think those two were ready to hear the truth. It was my compass. It had to be. Virtue absorbed knowledge from people it touched, and I had a deeply studied, logic-based understanding of humanity, emotions, and morality, and that happened to be the perfect building block for a creature who started with even less than I did to emulate empathy. We were the same. Or at least, we started the same. I wondered if Virtue might do things that I couldn't with its borrowed sense of empathy. It was supremely lucky that it touched us in the order it did. If it had derived from me my instincts instead, then we likely wouldn't be standing there anymore. "But that's the plan. I'm going to classes, and I'm going to be a clumsy asshole who bumps into everyone so I can feed the alien hiding in my clothes."

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Coraline muttered from her place at the coffee table.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Seriously?" Thomas let out a loud yawn, a reflection of our sleepless night, then continued, "You're on board with this, Cora?"

"Would you stop calling me that?" Coraline asked, irritation clear in her tone. "I'm okay with this because we need every edge we can get. We don't even know what we're really up against yet. For all we know, we're literally starting a war with a god. I know I said that the religion angle is just silly if it's there, but we're so far out of our depth, it could be there. If the good monster will help us fight the evil monster, then for fuck's sake, feed the good monster. Not like she's doing much just sitting around here waiting for me, anyway. As long as one of you stays here to help if something shows up, I'm happy with whatever you do."

"But what if it ends up giving everyone... I don't know, alien cancer?" Thomas whined. "I've already got something growing in me, I don't wanna find out we doomed the world some other way."

"Does it still hurt?" I asked. "Let's see it again."

Thomas shrugged and knelt down, pulling his sock down and his pant leg up to reveal, again, nothing on his skin. "It's worse than before. Feels like it's spreading. But yeah, still nothing visible."

I exhaled through my nose and closed my eyes to think. Thomas's supernatural malady was concerning. "And you're sure it's not something as simple as a sprained muscle?"

"I've sprained a few things in my life, it's never felt anything like this," Thomas insisted. "And it started right after that thing touched me. There's no doubt about that."

"I've been thinking about that, too." I started, deciding it was time to put forth a hypothesis I'd been waffling on for a while. "It touched you while the portal was open, and it shut while you were still in contact with it. I don't think that touching it was the catalyst at all. I think something more complex happened. So many things happened at the same exact time that it's hard to say what started this process in you. But I do know that it touched Coraline and I, and we're both fine. Coraline was even in contact with a vice, and it hasn't had this effect you're describing on her. It would make more sense if it was the circumstances of your contact with it rather than the contact itself."

Thomas pursed his lips, then let out a defeated huff. "I still don't like it. It's including more people who weren't a part of this."

"Whether they know about it or not, everyone in the surrounding area is involved in this." I offered, leaning down to pick up the backpack I'd discarded yesterday. I didn't have my books on me, but I may as well look the part. "My mind's made up, anyway. I'm going out to feed Virtue."

As I turned to leave, feeling Virtue squirm around and reassert its form again, I gave it a pat and whispered. "Gonna have to stay like that for a while. Promise I'll make it worth it." And the creature settled back flat against my sternum. I heard Thomas give one last exasperated sigh before I closed the door behind me, squinting at the morning sun glaring against my tired eyes.

The first trial was the bus. I came to the stop nearest to the house, just a few blocks down the street, and found myself standing next to an old woman at the sign. And I began planning. Virtue wriggled slightly against me, making me shiver. It was like it was reaching for her. It knew what our purpose was. It was smart enough to work with me on this. But I think it was also impatient. The woman looked irritable. She was probably the type who would assume I'd let her get on the bus first. Arrogant. I could use that.

When the bus came up, I moved to the door at the same time as her, accidentally brushing my sweater across her. Virtue took the cue and pushed itself up my sleeve and against the woman. What I didn't see coming was the amount of force that it used. When I bounced off her, we both had to stumble back from each other a few feet. She almost fell over. "S-Sorry." I stammered out my prepared line, but it came off insincere after I appeared to just body check this woman as hard as I could.

She glared at me with mortified irritation after she composed herself, and she croaked out the words, "Stay away from me. I'm watching you." Before she obviously checked to make sure she still had her belongings on her while she boarded the bus. I followed shortly and took a seat at the opposite end of the vehicle from her.

I leaned down and whispered into my shirt. "You have to be gentle. Don't push, just touch." I scolded. It made a quiet clicking noise that I couldn't possibly interpret the meaning of. "Did you get what you needed? One click for yes, two clicks for no." A single quiet trill followed, which I took to mean yes. Okay, this was working. We needed to iron out the process, but it was possible. I'd try to get as many incidental contacts as I could while I was on campus. Maybe if we hit enough people, Virtue could bring itself back up to size, and maybe even figure out how to communicate more clearly. I hoped it could learn to talk after this.

—

Things got easier when I got to campus. I searched out crowded areas, and I didn't even need to make excuses. Our next couple targets were still pushed harder than necessary, but they couldn't even tell who had done it, and it wasn't hard to pretend I'd been pushed myself, anyway. After that, Virtue mastered the gentle touch. It was clearly growing in mass again, too, since it gradually spread out across my skin. I would need to remember to wear layers if I ever had to do this again, because the smooth movement of its transformation across every inch of my torso made me shiver and squirm. I was glad it was at least respecting my underwear, but it was still a bizarre sensation I'd rather have between my clothes rather than entirely beneath them.

By the time class actually started, Virtue didn't need to move at all anymore for it to make contact with people I brushed shoulders with. If this was actually how it ate, then the narrow halls of the university buildings were a feast.

I hummed quietly to myself as I finally came to rest at one of the auditorium seats. I definitely wouldn't be able to concentrate on lectures today, but I may as well play my part. I again whispered down into my shirt, "You feeling better?" I asked. It let out a small yap, a little louder than it probably meant to. She glanced my way, and I pulled out my phone, pretending I'd gotten an alert.

"Quiet." I whispered again. "Like I told you last night, nobody else can know you're here yet. It's too dangerous." I patted my shoulder in the guise of fidgeting while I browsed my phone, trying to reassure it. "We'll figure something out for the future. For now, only Thomas, Coraline, and I get to know you're here."

The professor arrived, and the room quickly settled. I hoped that Virtue could wait patiently through the lecture, because we wouldn't get a good opportunity to touch anyone else until then. This was going to be a long day.