Disalienation

“I can’t fight scissors,” explains the werewolf. “But if I don’t fight scissors, what am I?”

It’s best not to answer questions like that.

Insteadjust says, “You’re sure?”

“I can’t be sure,” the werewolf says. “I am a werewolf because I never let go. Did they tell you that? That is how you become a werewolf. You start as human. But one day you get an idea in your head. A thing. A thing that you can’t let go of. And so you never let go. And then you are a monster. Then you are a bloody-toothed horror. You heal when you’re injured. You have these animalistic passions. You are connected to the moon. And if you try to meditate and destroy scissors with the pure power of your meditation, and if you are a werewolf, then that does not work.”

“Mm.”

“It means you’re not a person any longer,” says the girl. The werewolf. Rhea. “It means you’re no longer real. And I can’t have that. But if I let go of that, if I let go of things as a werewolf, then am I anything any longer at all?”

It’s another question that it’s best not to answer.

Professor Knapp adds three drops of humanity to the girl’s coffee and passes it over.

“Interestingly,” the Professor notes, “this isn’t extracted from humans. It’s extracted from extradimensional cosmic horrors.”

The girl looks at the coffee.

“The humanity drops,” the Professor clarifies. “Not the coffee.”

“I’ll drink it.”

She does.

After a while she bites her lip with her little fangs. She brushes at her unibrow. She looks at the pentagrams in her palms. She makes a face.

“I’m sorry,” says Professor Knapp.

“Hell of a way,” the girl says. “Hell of a way to find out you’re still human.”

“It happens,” says the Professor. “Some people are.”

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