[REND] B2. 11.2 - A New Roommate

The wall was coming in fast. I swung my arms forward and down, like they were those ice hook thingies used by mountain climbers. I stabbed my fingers into the concrete upon impact, gaining a firm grip. The side of my face and chest hit the wall. I followed it by kicking my feet into the wall to make my own foothold.

I paused for a moment as my swinging Adumbrae back steadied itself.

Can’t believe that worked. I also couldn’t believe that I tried it without being sure I’d be fine.

A window was just a few feet to my right. Still dark despite the noises I made.

Hopefully, the occupants of the room on the other side were fast asleep. There was really no way around this. I started my ascent, driving my hands and feet into the wall to make my own ladder. Continuous thudding. A unit I passed turned its lights on, but didn’t open its windows to check outside. That person probably thought his neighbor was doing renovations at an ungodly hour.

It didn’t take long for me to reach what I hoped was the twenty-second floor. Next, I moved towards the front of the building because my unit was one of those facing the street.

“That’s a super long way to fall,” I said, instantly regretting my decision to look down. I got that dropping feeling in my stomach. Not sure if I’d survive falling from this height, but I wouldn’t check. “Stop looking down, you idiot,” I scolded myself.

Light winds swayed me as I moved sideways, looking for my room. It should be the window mostly covered by heavy drapes with some light peeking through the gaps.

Before I left my condo earlier, I switched on the lights to make it seem that I was inside. I also didn’t completely draw the heavy curtains to let the light out. There were other units with lit windows, but most were far from my floor. And there was only one window with a sliver of light bisecting the glass.

No confusion about which one was my room. Unfortunately, the windows were locked. I hadn’t planned on entering this way.

“Fuck it,” I grumbled under my breath, destroying the lock with a finger poke. Clinging to the building like a cockroach was getting annoying.

I slid the window aside, jumped in, and finally reached my sanctuary. Hurray!

I unstrapped the chains around my arms and unceremoniously dropped my Kelsey burrito on the floor. I then took off my hoodie, which had been soaked with Kelsey’s blood when she was trying to tear herself off the wall. The blood even ruined my shirt, forming a purplish bark along my left sleeve and flank. No amount of washing could remove this.

It wasn’t just my hoodie and shirt that were complete write-offs. Even my sneakers were ruined by all the climbing. Their fronts had been peeled back because I repeatedly drove my feet into concrete.

“The curse is real…” I muttered with a sigh, closing the windows and closing the curtains. Perhaps I should go completely nude like Kelsey and no longer care about my clothes getting destroyed?

I grabbed the chains holding together the Kelsey burrito and broke them in one yank. The links scattered everywhere, tinkling on the tiles. I rolled Kelsey along the floor, unwrapping the cloth around her. She stopped next to the side of my sofa chair. No movements other than her chest slowly rising and falling as she breathed.

“Wake up!” I half-yelled.

No reaction.

Was Kelsey in hibernation? Did my Core-link stuff put her into a coma? If she ended up brain-dead or something, I could transform into Blanchette and eat her to gain more power. But that might accelerate Spooky Erind’s takeover of my body. Would my Core be affected? Not to mention the massive cleanup I had to do after eating Kelsey.

“Stop pretending that you’re asleep,” I said, not really thinking that. It was a cool line, that’s all. If Kelsey was actually—

“O-okay, okay… You got me.” Kelsey gingerly opened her eyes as she sat up on the floor. She raised her hands in surrender. “Do-don’t eat me.”

Amusing that the very obvious monster was the one afraid of getting eaten. “I’m not going to eat you.”

“But you did eat me.”

She got me there. “Oh, right… Um, I had to do it because—I think we’re starting on the wrong foot here. Let’s redo this.” I removed my mask and gave her the gentlest smile I could. “Uh, hello. I’m Erind Hartwell. Do you remember me? We’re both 1L students at Cresthorne Law, though I don’t recall that we’ve really interacted much.”

“We haven’t.” Kelsey squinted her eyes at me, as if trying to discern if I was an illusion. I supposed that it was suspicious that a batchmate was also an Adumbrae. Too much of a coincidence. Kelsey hadn’t gotten the memo that everyone was required to be a non-human these days.

She didn’t introduce herself to me. I already knew who she was, but it wouldn’t have been the polite move after I had introduced myself. She was obviously wary. Could be proof that the Adumbrae wasn’t in control and scheming to fool me.

“Kelsey, right?” I gently asked. “Kelsey Fletcher, the human?”

“Ye-yes. I know what you mean, but that human label might not apply to me.” Kelsey looked down at her body and turned away from me, covering her breasts with one arm and her groin area with the other.

“How long were you pretending to be out?” I asked. “Like, when did you wake up?”

“I was already awake when you were wrapping me. I thought it was better not to move and get eaten until I can find the chance to escape.”

“I told you that I’m not going to eat you,” I said, shaking my head. “That was my other form fighting your Adumbrae side. And you’re free to leave if you want. I’m not holding you prisoner.”

Kelsey jolted in surprise. “You’re not?”

“Does this look like a prison to you?” I asked, gesturing at the living room. “I told you that my goal was to save you. Uh, this is going to be a long story. Where do I start?”

“Before that, is it alright for me to borrow some clothes? I… I’ll feel more comfortable if I’m not naked while we talked.”

“Oh… I’m not so sure if I have anything that can fit you,” I said, eyeing her size and height. “But I’ll try to find something.” I was resigned that more of mine would get ruined.

I walked to my room while taking off my crusty and smelly shirt. Part of me expected to hear the sound of breaking glass. This was a test. Of course, I didn’t accept hook, line, and sinker that Kelsey’s human side was in charge. If she fled, I’d switch to Blanchette and hunt her down. It also meant that I was lying—I considered her my prisoner.

If I linked with Kelsey, would it be possible to check who was in control? Like, could the Adumbrae fool me by sending false thoughts? I had more experimentation to do.

That said, both sides of Kelsey had reason to escape for me. Putting myself in Kelsey’s shoes—oh, wait; she was barefoot—I wouldn’t want to be in the same room as the monster who had eaten my limbs. Twice. And also skewered me.

After I had chosen my clothes and those that I’d give to Kelsey, I went to the bathroom to wash off the dried blood on me. I wasn’t in a rush to go back out. Plenty of time for Kelsey to decide if she’d bail.

“I really need a shower,” I said, still feeling sticky under my fresh clothes. “Ah… Later. Time to entertain my guest, as Mom often pushed me to do.”

When I returned to the small living room of my unit, my windows were still intact, and Kelsey was sitting on the sofa. She covered herself with throw pillows while trying to look small, as if a shy friend who had been invited over for dinner for the first time. Such a stark contrast with her demonic appearance.

This bitch is dirtying the room, I complained in my head, noticing that some of her dried blood had rubbed on the floor where she had lain.

Those stains were easy enough to clean. A few spritzes of an all-purpose cleaner, and I could wipe it right off the floor tiles. But those on the sofa might present a problem. I also noticed that there were dozens of white scratches on the leather. Did the scales on her butt cause that?

An urge to strangle the life out of Kelsey boiled within me. I now understand why Mom got angry whenever I tracked mud into the house as a kid.

Kelsey stared blankly at the TV’s black screen, not noticing that I was back because my bare feet didn’t make any sound. When I was near enough to be in her peripheral vision, she looked at me with her stark purple eyes. She sharply breathed and hugged the pillows tighter.

“Don’t be scared,” I said. “You’re safe here.”

I recognized that sounded hollow coming from the person who cannibalized her. Since both of us were Adumbrae, that term did technically apply to us.

“Tha-thank you…” Kelsey averted her gaze.  

“Try this on.” I tossed the widest skirt in my closet to Kelsey. “It’s impossible for any of my shorts or pants to fit you. Just don’t close the waist. Maybe I can find a pin to secure it or something.”

“I think it’s fine.” Kelsey pulled the skirt up. “It can sit on my hips.”

“And this,” I said, giving her a blazer. “Shirts are just a no-go for you. Even if we could find the right size, there’s no way that your horns will fit through the neck hole.”

Kelsey was having difficulties fitting my blazer because her arms were too damn long and her shoulders were wider than mine. She gave up after tearing the sleeves with her scales. I gave her a jacket and then a cardigan to try, but neither worked. We eventually settled for just wrapping her chest with a towel.

“This is much better than letting my tits hang out in the open.” Kelsey tucked the end of the towel into the bindings to secure it. She sat on the sofa, next to me, tucking the skirt she wore demurely under her.

“I’ll see if I can buy you better clothes since you’ll be staying here for some time,” I said, checking her reaction. She didn’t protest.

“I’m really, really grateful for your help. I may be a monster and all that, but I can still get embarrassed. It’ll feel weird for me to walk around your place in the nude.”

“Uh, I don’t know how to phrase this well, but… do I need to buy you underwear?” I didn’t know what the correct etiquette here was.

Kelsey laughed. “I don’t need that.  A couple of changes of outfits is enough. And I’ll wash them myself! I can do some cleaning here, too.” 

I got myself a monster maid. Still, I preferred living alone. But things needed to be sacrificed for drama. “I’ll do some quick shopping later.”

“Sorry for your blazer, by the way. I’ll pay for… Oh, wait. I don’t have any money.”

Sensing an opportunity to start our connection, I said, “I’ll ask Myra to pay—”

“No!” Kelsey held my arms and leaned down so that our eyes were level. “Promise me that you won’t tell her about me.”

Yes! One of the rare instances in which things went my way. I wasn’t going to give up my potential minion to Myra after all my hard work. If Kelsey had instead wanted to meet Myra, I would’ve made up reasons and scenarios why she shouldn’t. I had some planned, but it’d all be such a hassle. This was the favorable outcome.

“Why not?” I asked, scooching away from her, to the opposite end of the sofa. I had to pretend to try to change her mind. “Myra had been looking everywhere for you. She’s sick with worry and—”

“I know! I know that, okay? We’ll meet again. I didn’t think we’ll be able to—”

“You can meet her.”

“Someday! Someday… Not today. Not soon. Not when I look like this.” Kelsey gestured at her body. She grabbed her horns and tugged at them. “I even have these. Can’t remove. Ugh. You can help me, right? You can turn me back into a human?”

“I don’t think I can do that,” I honestly said. I had to sprinkle in truths to make my lies believable. Claiming something that far-fetched was sketchy, anyway. “All I can do is… I don’t actually know what happened when we connected. I just tried my best to find your mind somewhere in there, and the artificial Core—”

“So, you did have a Core, like Keke said.”

I tilted my head. “Keke?”

“That’s what I call the Adumbrae inside me. Uh, to be accurate, she asked me to call her that.”

“You’re talking with your Adumbrae? Like, all the time?” I didn’t have actual knowledge of what happened to other seeded people. Even scientists conducting experiments couldn’t be sure if they were interviewing the human or the Adumbrae pretending to be a terrified human.

“Not now. But I used to,” Kelsey said. “What about you? Didn’t you mention also talking with your Adumbrae?”

Oh? Kelsey was already awake while I was talking to this Keke bitch? Or was this the Adumbrae speaking? All these mind games were exciting but also somewhat irritating. “We’ve talked a few times. But she’s not, like, always present in my head. I can’t talk to her if I want to.”

“Hmmm. Different from my experience. Is it because you have the artificial Core?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. The topic was heading where I wanted it to be. “I was already an Adumbrae before I got this artificial Core.” I touched my chest, feeling its rough outline under my shirt.

“How did you get it? Is it alright to ask about that? I don’t understand why Dario would give one to an Adumbrae. Or did you already have the Core when you got seeded? Is that even possible?”

“I was an Adumbrae when I melded with the artificial Core. And, no. Dario doesn’t know that I’m an Adumbrae. This is going to be a crazy story.”

“I’m sure it will be.” Kelsey grinned, displaying rows of sharp teeth.

“And you have a part in it.” It took monumental effort to keep my facial expression somber. A smile was threatening to break out.  

Kelsey furrowed her brows. “Me? How?”

“The 2Ms kidnapped me, thinking I knew how to find you. When they were about to kill me, I cried out for help. An Adumbrae answered.”

(Author's Notes: I initially planned to focus the chapter on the serious conversation parts, Adumbrae, and stuff. Perhaps the manipulation and mind games. But I thought it'd be interesting to start with the 'mundane' parts first, like wearing clothes and being awkward with each other. It was amusing in my head. I hope that you found it funny, too. It's interesting that Kelsey, not Deen, so far has the most potential to become close with Erind. I honestly don't know where this will lead us. Thank you for your support!)