Emi jackknifed in her bed, gasping.

She glanced frantically around the room. She wasn’t falling. It was a dream.

God, that was odd. She kind of liked the dreams where she was falling. Because she wasn’t really falling, just floating in a generally downward direction at high speeds. Or that’s what it felt like. She usually didn’t have a ground to go splat on though. That kind of killed the mood.

Her heartbeat fell to normal levels and she sighed, scrubbing her hands down her face. She stood up a little shakily, planning on getting water. As she straightened, she noticed a strange shadow, blocking the streaks of light from the city that always managed to leak in.

She frowned and pulled her curtains all the way back. Maybe there was a bird or—

That was not a bird.

To be clear, it wasn’t like she hadn’t noticed the unusually large number of gargoyles on her building.

However, she did spend a lot of time on her fire escape, and knew for a fact that there was not, in fact, a giant, stone gargoyle on the railing.

She pinched herself. She didn’t appear to be dreaming. Maybe lucid dreaming? She willed herself to levitate. She glanced down. Nothing— she was in her school uniform. A very bloody school uniform.

“Hey.” She glanced up at the sound.

Seth was crouched on her railing, right where the gargoyle was, staring at her.

No. No, that was a dream. She scrambled backwards with a small scream.

Seth rolled his eyes and opened the window from his side, which she didn’t realize was possible. Or legal.

“What— why—?”

“All you do is scream and ask stupid questions.” He muttered, and tossed something into her room, and she ducked with a gasp.

The something bounced on her bed, and she slowly peeked at it as Seth attempted to fold his body through the window; it was an awkward affair, since he was tall and his limbs were bending at strange angles.

It took a minute for Emi to register the thing on her bed. It bent upwards, and two, small, neon blue and slitted eyes glared at Seth.

The little, silvery snake on her bed hissed, as disgruntled as a snake could look. Which was a lot, it seemed to have very human expressions, she thought rather hysterically. She scooted into the space between her dresser and the wall, curling into a ball.

“Shut up, Azzy.” Seth grunted before falling over with a yelp, smacking his face into her bed as his foot, which had been caught on the windowsill, finally popped free. “Ow!”

To Emi’s growing horror, the snake opened its mouth wide and its body contorted, seeming to turn inside out and then, somehow, Azriel was on her bed.

“What the fuck, Seth?” He hissed, sounding quite a bit like a snake. Still.

What was happening?

“Today sucked and it’s halfway your fault.” Seth stood up, brushing himself off, then leaning out the window again to grab a bucket. “And I’m not going to take it out on the girl who I just had to scrape off the pavement and into a bucket until at least a week. I have standards, you know.”

He set the bucket down on her floor, and immediately something dark seemed to leak out of it.

“Why is Azriel a snake?” Her voice cracked.

Seth blinked. “I thought she told you she was the Ouroboros?”

“I didn’t really get much of a chance to explain before you came down like a demon from hell sponsored by McDonald’s.” Azriel pointed a finger at him. “You owe me so much apple juice.”

“This is substance abuse.”

“Generational trauma, asshole.”

“She?” Emi asked faintly.

Seth snorted. “Azzy’s too dramatic for short explanations, apparently. This one,” he gestured at Azriel, “is a reincarnating snake person.”

“It’s way more complicated—“

“It’s really not. So technically, Azzy here’s been around since snakes actually had legs. Was, actually, the snake with legs.”

“The First version of the Ouroboros was the Serpent.” Azriel corrected quickly. “I’m just Azriel. I just have the memories of all of my predecessors. We’ve existed all over the gender spectrum, and at this point I don’t care who calls me what.”

“I just flip a coin every day and go with that.” Seth shrugged. “I’m kind of bad with decisions.”

“Right. Ok. Wait. Legs?” It took a minute to register. “Like, from the Bible story?”

“…yes. I’m not Satan.”

“Debatable.” Seth muttered.

“I’m going to turn you into cement.” Azriel turned back to Emi. “That’s also why I’m in charge of your case. I’m usually the one everyone turns to when there’s Monster stuff we can’t figure out. Every species’ archives are horrible unreliable because they all hate each other and it’s full of propaganda. I have generations of history, and so I’m the best person to figure out what you are.

“I’m human.”

“Yeah, we figured that out real quick.” Seth gestured to the bucket.

“What… is that?” She eyed the dark sludge she could see from her spot in the corner.

“You.”

“What?”

“Do you say anything else other than what?”

“Seth—“

“Nope, we tried good cop, and she jumped off the Tower, and now I’m way too aquainted with her organs. My turn now.” Seth reached into the bucket and pulled out a ball. “Seem familiar?”

Nausea rose in her throat as she stared at an eyeball. The nerve was still connected to something else in the bucket. “What the fuck?” She asked weakly.

“No? Maybe now?” Seth carefully pinched part of the eyeball, peeling off a membrane, revealing a near-colorless iris rather than the dark brown it had been before. He brought it closer to her, and she pushed herself farther into the wall, hyperventilating. The nerve stretched and then snapped.

Tendons fraying/muscles rotting/organs gushing/nerves snapping

“See, this here is your left eye, which popped out when your skull flattened itself so hard it popped out.” His voice was mocking, as if talking to a child. “After you decided to be a human pancake, guess who had to clean up the mess? Me. I had to make three trips to dump all of you here, which is why your bed and uniform looks like a goddamn murder scene. By the way, you officially have the world record for unassisted, full body regeneration. You regrew your eye in about 15 minutes, and the rest of you in four hours.” He glanced at his phone. “And it only took two after that for you to wake up. I’m actually impressed. And kind of jealous.”

She continued to shrink back during his whole tirade, finally screaming “my eyes are brown!” She cried, trying to turn her face away.

“Interesting response. And are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure I just peeled off a contact lense. My sister uses this when she goes undercover with the humans all the time.” Seth walked over to her wall and flipped on the lights, then pulling out his phone. She caught a glimpse of her bed, which did indeed look like a murder scene under the lights. He crouched in front of her, and wrenched her hands away from her face. “Look!” It was a demand, and she shuddered.

She glanced into the phone’s screen, which was open to a camera app. She saw her own teary and shockingly pale eyes. She instantly squeezed them shut and shook her head frantically.

“That’s enough.” She heard Azriel snap.

“I made my point. Do whatever you want.” He dropped the eye back into the bucket and made himself at home on her murder-scene of a bed.

“Emi? Can you look at me?” Azriel asked gently.

She made a small noise of dissent, trying to make herself curl up out of existence.

“Alright, just listen to me, then. You are human, you were right about that. However, you’re… status as a human is unusual.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean.

“Oh for Chrissakes, stop with the cryptic everything.” Seth threw his hands up and out on her bed, like an annoyed starfish. “You’re dead. You’re a zombie, it’s really funny actually. Does mean we’re going to have to hunt down whoever reanimated though—“

“I thought you had standards?” Azriel asked, sounding exhausted.

“My standards include not chucking someone who was dead five hours ago. It does not cover verbal abuse. Can we be done now? I have an alchemy test tomorrow.”

“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met— Emi what are you doing?”

Hm?

She blinked and found herself staring at her mirror. Colorless eyes stared back at her. When had she gotten up?

Well.

Whatever.

She slammed her head into the mirror.

Generational Trauma

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