When I first opened my eye in the aftermath of that battle, I did not expect to find myself in such a sense of... peace. I'd been placed atop the Cora human to rest, willingly given access to another vessel of life to recuperate after the savage ordeal. I gladly soaked in the knowledge and strength provided and rebuilt my rudimentary organs to take stock of my new situation.

None of the humans moved with urgency, all focused on mending themselves or resting. And I had to wonder if this was something more akin to the normal experience of life than what I'd been through so far. I silently watched my Scarlet from my perch, eagerly bending toward it... no, her. Pronouns. That was something important, according to what I'd gleaned from the Cora human. I bent toward my Scarlet for contact with my favorite human whenever she came near to check on me. I could tell while I was dormant that it was her life holding onto me while I recuperated, giving me attention and affection. Her presence gave me great comfort when I couldn't tell what was happening around me. I felt like as long as I was in contact with her, everything would be okay.

But being introduced to the Cora human was a soothing balm. A new experience that expanded my mind and renewed my energy. I hadn't realized it when I was given life by Thomas and my Scarlet, but the first contact I had with them was far more invigorating and informative than passively absorbing from contact with them was. Touching Cora was what helped me recover enough to rebuild myself back to basic function. I wondered how many humans there were. Would I be able to learn from them all?

We rested, and time passed. Time was a strange construct. It kept moving despite what I did. It didn't wait for me. Once or twice, I found myself wondering if I could go back through it to relive a comforting moment, but it always passed, and it never returned. I could recall a moment, but it wasn't the same as living it. Disappointing, but there always seemed to be more comforting moments coming. I wondered if there would also be more moments of pain in my future. Pain was terrible.

Eventually, the Cora human regained herself as well, and she tried to attack me! I quickly learned that she had only been startled, so I forgave her since she hadn't done me any harm, but she frightened me in that moment as well! Human behavior is strange to understand. The other humans told her of what had already happened. The Cora human must have been dormant like I was while the other black thing held her. So we were alike in that regard. Both humans and I could be incapacitated if we came to harm. It likely took far less to do so to a human, though. They're such fragile creatures.

I went back to my Scarlet after that, and we bonded further throughout the night. That's what I learned was the dark time that came, when the light in the outside room abandoned the material world, and humans rested. My Scarlet kept me company throughout the night, telling me things about what she was doing, teaching me human concepts that I honestly wasn't able to grasp yet, and giving me ideas on how to use my malleable form, talking of our future. That my Scarlet wanted me in her future made me happy. It meant that she wanted more comfortable moments by my side, as I did with her.

And eventually, the night ended, and the outside room was bathed in golden light once more. My Scarlet had another brief conversation with the other humans, language still too muddy to follow when it wasn't directed clearly at me, but I got the impression that Thomas didn't like me. That was okay, I did not like the taint of my former host that he exuded. But I wished that my Scarlet did not seem so attached.

I practiced hiding within my Scarlet's thin carapace as she'd instructed, and we left the abode we'd hidden from the night in together, alone. Perhaps we didn't need the other humans after all. But my Scarlet insisted that I remain unseen, unheard, and unknown to any other human we might find. I had to wonder why. Was my kind unwelcome? Or did my Scarlet simply not wish to share me? Either way, I gladly held myself against her, happy that I got to stay with my favorite human.

She whispered things to me as we moved. She was bringing me to more humans. I needed to touch them while remaining unseen. She was giving me more life! I made happy sounds to express my gratitude, but she reminded me to stay silent, so I obeyed.

I peeked an eye out through the openings in her armor now and then to take in more of the strange and varied material world. More rough gray, but now also brilliant reds and fractal greens and browns. Colors. Colors were beautiful. There was even a large path running alongside us that was almost as black as I was, and I wondered if it was something like me. But it was unmoving, and didn't seem to respond when I tried to make a quiet call to it. Not life. Not even close to it like me. There were many things in this world that were not life and were just still objects made for humans. By humans? Could I make something so grand? I became giddy thinking once more on the future.

We came to a stop for a time, and I could sense new life nearby. I carefully looked out to see what I had to assume was another human, but it looked different. It was smaller. Frailer. Its surface was not as smooth as the humans I knew. But my instincts told me that it was human, and I needed to respect that. A monolithic creature drew close, and I shivered as it stopped right in front of us. Though my Scarlet seemed unperturbed. She approached the creature, and suddenly I felt it. The life was within reach. Feeling anxious in the presence of the larger creature, I launched myself to the other side of my Scarlet's body and pushed myself against the life to have my fill quickly.

It was... different. This one was more full of knowledge than of energy, like the three I'd already touched had been. She was aged. She'd been a human for a very long time and had learned much. But she also felt bitter. Sad. Repulsive. I pushed away from her, and suddenly, my Scarlet was stammering out words. I understood them clearly! I also understood the spiteful words of the woman I'd touched. I wanted to growl at her, but then she approached the monster that had stopped in front of us. And she walked inside of it. That gave me pause. And I almost wanted to panic as my Scarlet approached it after her. But it didn't hurt to be swallowed up by the monster. Once we were inside, it felt less like life than I expected. There was life within, several humans, in fact, but as the thing started to move, I realized that this was more like a moving room than it was a creature.

It made sense when I stopped to think about it. Humans were not like me. They could not change themselves to move more quickly, so they must make use of these moving rooms if they needed to move quickly. I wondered why there hadn't been any of these around that place where I was born. "You have to be gentle. Don't push, just touch." My Scarlet told me. The way she said those words made it clear that they were very important. "Did you get what you needed? One click for yes, two clicks for no." Click? Clicking, that's the sound I make? I tried to keep my happy sound quiet and let her know that yes, I had felt it! I felt the bitter woman's life! I didn't feel much stronger or bigger from it, but I did feel like I learned a lot. My Scarlet's words were so easy to follow now!

I held myself tight against her while we waited on the moving room. She occasionally touched me with her hand through her armor, and I gave her quiet happy clicks to let her know I appreciated her. I didn't understand why, but it felt right to express my affection by squeezing her lightly, as well, holding myself tight to her body. A human affectation I'd adopted I guessed.

When the moving room stopped, and my Scarlet once more stepped out into the outside room, I felt a strong desire for the open world surrounding me, and I realized why immediately. There were countless humans surrounding us! So much life! So much knowledge and energy to consume! I wondered if this was what my former grander self was after this whole time. But it was greedy. It wanted to consume more than what was given freely. It wanted to harm the humans. It wanted to take everything they were. I would gladly take my fill from the humans my Scarlet gave me and then let them keep what they needed to continue their own existence. Compass told me that this was right and just, and I silently agreed. Then I prepared to move more gently across my Scarlet's body to make contact with the first of many.

And we contacted many. Young. Energetic. A variety of different stories, personal hardships, identities, ambitions. And I got to feel so many of them so quickly. I felt myself growing, and I had to focus to shape my recuperating mass, moving to mold myself to the shape of my Scarlet's sweater so I could contact more without moving at all. Eventually, I had to start doubling up my mass so I could remain unseen beneath her clothes. I felt so strong. I felt... alive. Each of the people I touched was so different and so interesting. I began to wonder about myself. My own identity. My own ambitions. My own story. Who was I? What was I? I wasn't human, that's for certain. It was dubious if I was life. Was there life that wasn't human? I had to wonder.

I was glad when my Scarlet finally came to a halt. "You feeling better?" She asked me, and I decided to try something new. I tried to use words. I tried to say 'Yes'. But my voice box wasn't made for such sounds. It was too primitive, and it came out as a quiet chirp. She scolded me for making noise, and reminded me again that only the three humans in her pack were allowed to know about me. I'd have to work out how to make human noises later.

For now, I felt like I needed more. I felt like I was so close to... something. A discovery? Some sort of threshold. Perhaps amassing enough energy to assume a more complex form? Or on the verge of learning something new about humans? I'd just have to try and tag more humans to find out. But my Scarlet wasn't moving around the inside rooms anymore, instead settling down to rest again. Had she decided that I'd already had enough new life? Or was she already tired? Humans must not have a lot of stamina.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

A human started talking at the other end of the room, and when I peeked out from the hem of my Scarlet's collar, I saw that all the other humans in the room were fixated upon a single one at the front of the room. A distraction! That's what this was. My Scarlet had led me to a place where everyone would be focused in one direction, but she would have to play along as well. So it was up to me to reach out now. I flowed down out of the bottom of her shirt and flowed discretely down to the ground, reforming myself quickly in the shadow beneath her seat. I heard her whisper something as I left her clothes, but it was too quiet, and I couldn't climb back up again as quickly to check, so I assumed it was another warning to keep myself discrete.

I moved in the shadows, down the row of seats between low walls, gently placing my legs against each of the humans I passed. Each was another small rush of new knowledge and energy. I came to the end of the row and was surprised when touching the last one gave me only a slow trickle of what I expected. Oh, I recognized this life. I'd already touched this one in the hallway before this. I clung to her leg for a moment before she reached down and scratched at the spot, forcing me back against the bench.

I looked across the space between the benches the humans sat at and saw even more across the way, but crossing it could leave me visible to the talking human and draw attention to me. I briefly considered flattening myself to the ground in the corner, but that might make me visible to the other humans sitting on the benches behind me.

I felt satisfied, though. I had gathered enough life for now. Any more would just be getting greedy. I scuttled my way back to my Scarlet, and she shuddered when I climbed up through her lower clothes and up to where I had been before. Right away, she whispered to me. "Was that necessary? Stay with me, okay?"

Oh. Had I misunderstood the situation? I thought the whole point of us being here was to gather life. She let out a sigh and stood back up, the human at the front of the room not even noting her as she quietly stepped through the benches, excusing herself until she got to the door and left back into the hallway. She seemed in a hurry this time.

There were much fewer humans in this room now, presumably all gathered to listen to the distant human at the other end of that room now. My Scarlet walked quickly into another room, pushing in on multiple smaller doors until they'd all opened, and then letting out a sigh and speaking to me more clearly, "You have to be more careful. If someone spotted you, who knows what they'd do? They could try to hurt you or tell people about you, and those people might want to hurt you. I'm serious when I said that you have to take this hiding thing seriously. It could be life and death!"

Death? The word didn't mean anything to me yet, but if it was as important as life, then this was indeed serious. I shrunk a little against her, trying to hug tight to her side. I'd done something wrong. Not bad wrong, like what Compass warned me against, but something else. A lesser wrong, but still just as important.

She took a deep breath and let out another sigh. "Did you at least get what you needed?" I gave an affirmative click, to which she nodded her head. "Good... Good. Okay. One more stop, then we go back to Coraline's."

My Scarlet turned to a basin built into a low wall and somehow summoned forth cascading liquid. Water, a human need, I'd discovered through the night. She threw a handful of it into her face, wiped it off, and then left the room. We returned to the outside room, but we didn't go right to the moving room again after that. Instead, she kept walking for some time, much longer than before. Perhaps I'd been wrong about human stamina.

Some time passed before she once again went into an inside room. Then another, then another. We passed by several more humans, but she didn't attempt to press me up against them now. That was fine. I'd had my fill. But I wondered if my Scarlet was angry with me for breaking away from her when I thought it was time for me to hunt. I would have to listen to her words much more closely now that I had a better understanding of human speech.

She suddenly stopped walking, and I peeked up to see why. I could hear something strange. A series of delightful vibrating twanging sounds were coming from the other side of a door that we stood before, muffled, but clearly audible. My Scarlet groaned, reached up to push me flat against herself again, and then opened the door.

The pleasant sound stopped for a moment as an unfamiliar voice spoke up. "There you are. Thought you died or something." I peeked out from under the shirt this time, and saw another human. This one was holding onto a large contraption in both her arms that the sound seemed to resonate from as she continued plucking at its strings. "Don't you have class?"

"Professor didn't show up. You know the rules." Scarlet responded in a different tone than I was used to hearing from her. More emotional. Less direct. "Sorry to worry you. I stayed at a friend's place last night."

"Oho? You and that guy you've been hanging out with hook up?" The other woman chuckled.

"I've been hanging out with Coraline too. I thought you were banking on me swinging your way?" Scarlet let out a laugh that almost seemed genuine. She was... acting. She didn't mean her words. "I plead the fifth."

"She doth protest too much." The other woman commented, still more focused on her machine. I felt an urge to taste her life, even if I didn't feel like I needed more of it. Something about the beautiful sounds she was producing made me want to feel what her life tasted like. I hoped that Scarlet would get nearer to her, but she seemed focused on a tiny room filled with more human clothes, gathering up several sets of the garments. "You leaving me alone again?" She taunted.

"We'll see. The cleanup got a lot more complicated, and Coraline's willing to house us for it since she's got all that extra room now. I'm not passing up a real bed over these sticky plastic spring mattresses in the dorms." Scarlet said as she wheeled out a small box and began stuffing the clothes inside.

The girl's music stopped. "You're moving out on me?"

Scarlet stopped suddenly and pondered something for a moment. "Maybe." She mumbled, her mask falling for a moment before she returned to her cheery persona. "Don't go looking to take over my side just yet. I don't know how long this is gonna take, but I doubt it'll be all semester."

The other girl stared across the room for a few minutes before she started strumming at her instrument again, quieter than before. "Everything okay?" She asked.

Scarlet hesitated to answer for a few moments, carrying the box up onto the surface next to the tiny clothes room and then hesitating a moment. She licked her lips and sat down next to the box. "You ever feel like you just accidentally got yourself involved in something... way bigger than you ever expected to?" She asked.

The music stopped again, and the other woman set the instrument aside and sat at the edge of the platform on her side of the room that she'd been laying back on. "Scarlet... is this a crime thing? Did you get involved with a gang or something?"

"What?" Scarlet smirked, trying to deflect from that line of questioning. "No! Fuck no! I'm talking about... you know, opportunities! Future possibilities!"

The other woman nodded slowly. "A cult?"

"Ashley." Scarlet deadpanned. "Shut up."

"That's not a no. Just cause you don't think it's a cult doesn't mean it's not a cult, hun." Ashley said seriously. "Hey, for real, if you're in trouble with something, you can talk to me. You know we both been through some shit, I'm not gonna narc on you or make fun of you if it's embarrassing or nothing. You know I've been around."

Scarlet stared down at the ground for a few moments, contemplating something, then her eyes went wide with realization and she said in her normal flat tone that she used around the people she trusted. "I accidentally set in motion a magic alien invasion on the other side of town. I befriended one of them and I can teach it how to fight for us, so now I'm in a unique position to help stop what I started."

Had she changed her mind? I thought that I was supposed to be a secret. Was she bringing this Ashley human into her pack?

She looked very unimpressed with my Scarlet, though. "Man, fuck you." She deadpanned, flopping back against her bed and grabbing the instrument again. "Can't be that serious if you're gonna just make shit up. Almost had me for a second with the scary voice."

Scarlet smiled and became friendly again. "Don't worry about it. I'll tell you all about it once we finish. It'll make a good story."

"You promising an exclusive on something hot?" She smirked, settling back into place with her instrument again. "Alright, fine. Keep your secrets, but you better spill everything once you're done with your little alien hunter polycule."

Scarlet let out an awkward laugh. "What?! It is not like that, okay? We just met a week ago. This isn't a moving in together and fucking thing."

"I never mentioned sex. I just think you've got a budding three-way relationship going on here." Ashley smiled widely as she started making the beautiful sounds again. It was entrancing. I wanted to sneak across the floor and taste her. But it was too important that I remain hidden and not disappoint my favorite human.

Scarlet rolled her eyes. "Thomas is a clueless meathead and Coraline's a frigid misanthrope. Neither are my types. We just have some complicated work we have to do together, then we go back to how things were before, that's all."

"Sure." Ashley said curtly. "Sure, sure. Go on, Scarlet. Go have your little complicated romance subplot. But don't forget, you promised. I'll be waiting here for all the juicy details when you get back, m'kay?"

Scarlet huffed quietly, zipping the box she'd gathered closed and grabbing a few more articles of clothing for good measure to drape over it. She was hurrying along, embarrassed, and when Ashley chuckled and called one more time as she was heading for the door, "See you when I see you, lover-girl!" Scarlet whined like she was flustered and then closed the door a little harder than she had to after herself.

Then my Scarlet returned to her usual serious expression in a heartbeat, the red shade that had rushed to her face slowly returning to normal as she walked calmly through the hall. All an affectation. Acting. Pretending. My Scarlet was very good at playing a character, but I got to see her genuine side. I felt special that I got to see what she was really like, behind the mask that she wore for others. Coraline, Thomas, and I got to see the real Scarlet, my Scarlet, while everyone else got a character.

"I'm fine." My Scarlet whispered, unprompted. "I'll explain when you can understand it better. Promise."

A promise. I gave a quiet affirmative chirp as she carried her belongings back through the series of rooms we'd entered through. I wondered why she felt like she had to pretend to be someone else around some people, but a promise was something special. I'd figure it out. I just needed to learn to communicate first, then ask her. She promised.