The  core of Trenton landswere arranged in a horseshoe shape around Golden , which stuck up into the eastern half of the continent like a hitchhiker’s thumb. Inlets on the  east side formed the Elpeck Bay and its environs. Southmarch stretched down along the  west flank. Elpeck’s peninsula stuck out into the , and the city itself was built at the point where the  east and west coasts were .  Pekt had grown richferracross the . The riches of Daxon’s north lands funneled through the city, forming the trading network that gave the Trenton people their identity.


    withs, penetrating deeper and deeper into the continent, west to east stored w, in the south, where it was , and nothing less than perfection would do, for the wine represented the Angel’s blood, and was anointed on newborns’s heads as part of the ceremony, when infants were baptized in and pledgedSun’s holy


    People never failed to be surprised by just how big truly was. All the surrounding ancient hallways seemed so small to us moderns—and, indeed, people were shorter back then, on account of poorer nutrition and healthcare—which always made the expansive wine cellar come as something of a shock. The cellarhalf as big as—and the Nave was the single largest contiguous internal space in all of LassedicyThe bulk of the wine supply was stored in massive casks that filled the deep hollows that lined the cellar’s stone walls


    Ancient, ancient wood.


    But most importantly: , along a handful of mushrooming,. At the far end of the cellar, s. The casks were overgrown with fungus, which covered them like streaks of scorched ivy.


    lseemedsomebodyt. A smart plan, though it would have been smarter if they’d done it before they’d become infected with Instead—whoever they were—they’d brought the plague with them into the depths, and spores and mold kibble acrosscellar’and . The fungus had grown heartily, its greedy branches  theT either punctured by the fungus’ branches, or clean acidicThe seemed where they spread out along the pools of spilled wineMore bodies had been brought to the cellar some time later, almost certainly by the wyrms, considering the way they were neatlyleft-most , in rackswall


    And, as for Jessica? She… well, she did not look good—so much so that, for a moment, Jules almost felt bad for the erstwhile bully, but only for a moment.  had piled so much flak and petty bullshit on Jules’ back that it was difficult for my daughter to feel sympathy for her—difficult, but not impossible. And the more she looked and listened, the less impossible it got.


    Jessica looked even worse than she had in the video. Her legs dead-ended in the middle of her thighs jutt out from where her torso melted into her tail reminded Jules of the vestigial claspers that some pythons had on their underbellies. Jessica sat against one of the casks in the wallher head hanging low on her  neck. Her head was half transformed, with a distended lower jaw and a budding snout. Her hair was mostly gone, leaving clumps strands hanging here and there, like a witch’s locks. Jessica  talking in a low voice, but to whom, Jules couldn’t tell.


    It wasn’t like anyone else , at least until now.


    I recognize Jessica’s personality type  I saw her, during open house.  was the early bloomer. She was “pretty popular” in every sense of the term: popular. She was transactional and manipulativea merchant of renownIn the shadow of  presence, girls groupies or wallflowers, and never the twain would meet. er parents  put on a good front,  I could sense dysfunction  off them


    It was sad, yes, but hardly surprising. After all, bk


    and bitchy pics and messages the girl sprayed over my daughter’s Socialife profileseeing Jessica now—seeing what she had become— couldn’t help buteher


    Jules was mature enough of a young woman to be able to feel sympathy with her enemies, even as she sampled the discomforting smugness of seeing her tormentor laid miserable and low.


    It wasn’t like any of Jessica’s groupies were ever her real friends, but now? Gosh, t, and to add insult to injury, h seemed to be


    Jules couldn’t so much as look at Jessica now-head without fingher


    t wasn’t safe here.hatever information Jessica might have had,  was long gone now.


    wanted to cry, but she didn’t dare, not with a mad monster just around the bend.ensonly to slip forward and fall as she put her weight nto her foot the edge of step immediately behind her. to flash before her eyeshe smacked face-first into an invisible wall.butt-first on the stairs


    “Ow!” Jules yelled. “Fuck!”


    Jessica head in response to the noise. “Is someone there?”


    Her voice sounded… off. Stretched.


    Jules froze in terrorhe changeling crawl toward the steps along the wall that led up to the entryway.essica  onto the base of the stairsher tail lolling behind her.


    . She was she bobbed her  pulled her For a moment, she just stared, her changing eyes locked onto Jules’ face.


    What the fuck? H-Howle?”


    Jules was stunned. Though thcreature certainly didn’t look like Jessica, it was acting like her.


    “J-Jessica?” Jules asked. She honestly didn’t know who was more startled here, her or Jessica.


    “Yes?” the changeling replied.


    “Are you still… Jessica?”


    The wyrm-in-progress glanced . she said, “though o


    Jules exhal sharply.


    Fuck


    It seemed Jessica was still Jessica.


    “This is a lot to take in, you know,” Jules said, quietly.


    Jessica raised a mutated hand and shook it left and right, causing the two broken fingers that weren’t sweeping into gruesome claws to wave like dicks in the wind. ” she said, “me what’s ‘a lot’. I’m the one turning into a freaking snake. Now, c’mon, tell me why you’re here, or, I’ll… I’ll eat you, or something.”The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    She tried to growl, but the sound came out more like me testing out a new clarinet reed.


    Jules chuckled softly.


    Yeah, this s Jessica, alright.


    ,” Jessica continued. “Someone will be coming to csoonIf, they’ll eat you. Like, actually eat you.


    Jules rose to her feet, rubbing her aching tailbone. she.


    t was a bluff, but Jessica didn’t need to know that.


    Jules put her hand on the invisible barrier. It  like the push of two opposite magnet poles, only her body was one of the magnets.


    Jules shook her head.


    Was this the sound wall’s better-looking cousin, or something?


    Jules got onto her knees, pleating her skirt over her legs. She leaned into the force field, plastering her hands over it.


    Tso many things she could have told Jessica at that moment. Figuring out which one to pick was almost overwhelming. In the end, to go the least likely to get the two oftrying to rip each other’s throats out (again). with that


    “y family is stuck here, and we want to escape.”


    “Fat chance of that happening did her best to sit down on the lower steps.


    “What makes you so sure?” Jules asked.


    Jessica pointed at the entryway. Claw tips were beginning to emerge from the remaining three fingers.


    It looked really painful.


    “However much you think you hate these cultists, I hate them even more. So, if there’s anyone who was going to mount an escape from this fucking madhouse, it would be me, and look how well that’s turned out.” She gestured at the barrier with her misshapen hand. “That barrier you’re leaning on, the other Norms made it. How the hell am I supposed to escape if I can’t even get through that? And, girl, if I can’t do it, what chance do you think you have?”


    Jules tried to push into the barrier, but it resisted, responding with equal and opposite force.


    As much as Jules was loath to admit it, Jessica seemed to have a point here.


    “If they made the barrier, can’t you, well… un-make it?”


    Jessica at the corpses piled further down the aisle. “That’s why they sealed me in here with thse bodies. Once I eat them, I’ll change enough hat I undo the barrier.”


    Jules was about to say, “Then why haven’t you?” when she realized that sounded too confrontational o she  tactic.


    “My grandma Margaret is one of ,” she said. “My mom’s mom.”


    “Revenel?” Jessica asked.


    Jules nodded. “Yeah, Margaret Revenel. She had my mother out in the Nave with her, watching as the others… fed. She…” Jules looked Jessica in the eyes. “She was there when you got taken away. Mom even made a video of it, on her console. I… I saw it.”


    Jessica grimaced. “Is that why you’re here, Howle? To gloat? Here to tell me that your shrink ad was right, and that I’m an early bloomer, and this is my comeuppance?”


    “No,” Jules said.


    “No?” Jessica voice curled up at the end like an apostrophe. The sound bounced off the wine cellar’s gently arched ceiling. “Then why are you here?”


    Jules bit her lip to think of a good answer.


    “Because…my Mom’s a mess and… my brother’s a . Like, the biggest .”


    “Is your Mom one of the cultists? Has she  Verune’s shtick? Or…” Jessica’s expression darkened. “Has she—“


    Jules shook her head and sniffled, trying not to cry. “My Mom doesn’t know what to believe anymore. It’s kinda funny, actually. My Dad’s always been like that, but she… she’s los t’s broken her. She  she’s damned my brother and I to hell. And my brother he…” Jules twiddled her fingers e thinks we should get one of the good sneople to help us escape.”


    “Sneople?” Jessica shoulders in confusion.


    On the inside, she died a little as she said the words aloud.


    “Oh fuck,” Jessica repliedhe really is a


    “Yeah.” Jules breathed in deep. Her mask her hot wet against her face. “Jessica… what happened? Why did you act up like that? Why are you here?”


    “What’s it to you?”


    “My Mom doesn’t know what to believeScriptur Verune othing at all


    “Huh…” Jessica said. “But you haven’t ever had a problem believing in nothing, right?”


    “You got that right,” Jules said.


    “Then you should be able to get her out of her funk. Right?”


    I… I’ trying to get her out of it, but…


    “…Oh,” Jessica said.


    t’s not working. But She heard you say that Verune and the Last Church were crazy and deluded, and she’s clinging to that, as if it’s the one thing that could convince her that Verune and Grandma are just that fucking awful.”


    There was a pause.


    “It’s not that they’re nuts,” Jessica said. “It’s…” She let out a spore-wisped sigh. “These changes, they mess with our heads. They let us imagine things into being.


    “Imagine?” Jules asked.


    lowered her head. “When I was little, I wanted a pet tiger. A white tiger. Then, one morning, I wke up feeling dead, and theres a white tiger on the floor, in front of my bed  like I’d always dreamed.


    “Holy shit,” Jules said. “So, if you think it, you can make it real?”


    “Yep—but it took me a while to figure it out.”


    “What happened?”


    “Well,” Jessica explained, “at first, I was pretty excited. I or somethingbut…the tigerFor a while after that, I thought I was just crazy or something, but, eventually, I figured it out: It’s just like you said: if Onc understood thatgave me like so much clarity! It made such a difference!


    “That sounds… pretty wild,” Jules said, softly.


    “Verune,” Jessica said, “he’s doing something. He’s… I think he’s making the others see what he thinks he sees. The songs you hear the Norms sing… they’re messages. The more I change, the more I understand them. It’s like they’re sharing their thoughts. I think Verune is doinge might not even be aware  it. But I was.


    You saw the video, hen he did the thing with the waterfountain?”


    “Yeah”


    “When he did that, I could feel his imaginationtouching me, but on the inside. For I saw myself as what he’s convinced I must look like. t was beautiful. Silver and gold, with radiant hair. Angel… I really did look like a divine beast.” She wept. “But it not real. Verune has gaslit himself, and now he’s gaslighting all the others.” She looked  bodies. “That’s why I don’t want to eat. I’ll change if I do.”


    “Are you scared of changing?” Jules asked.


    “Hell no,” Jessica said. “I’m still me. I’m still fabulous,” she paused, “after a fashion.”


    Jules snorted.


    “Laugh all you want, Howle. I know what real fear is.”


    “Oh yeah?” Jules said.


    “Yeah,” Jessica replied. She nodded,  then lowered her head. “I’m not half as scared of myself as I am of… the others. I don’t want them to put their thoughts into my head. And if holding off the changes will do that, then… that’s what I’m gonna do.”


    “Wait,” Jules asked, “why aren’t you concerned about losing your sense of self? How do you know you’ll still be… you?”


    “I’ve seen shite,” Jessica replied. “I’ve seen fully Norms digging graves for the dead. hey even made the Bond-sign.  would do that if they weren’t themselves” Jessica turned her head away. “art of me wishes I would lose my mind.”


    “Why?” Jules asked.


    “My ad’s dead, Jules. I… I ate him. But, you know what? He’s still here. He’s still here. They all . The dead haven’t gone away; they’ve just moved inside us, now. I Hotel Eigenhat . My dad was  first guest, and I’m pretty sure he’s stuck with me forever. I don’t know whether to laugh or scream.”


    “I’m s—”


    “—You don’t need to apologize for anything. It’s none of your business, anyhow.” Jessica raised her head. “Tell your family the Last Church is full of shit. The plague might kill people, but it doesn’t make them disappear. The Norms aren’t mirrors to the soul or whatever-the-fuck Verune says they are. They want to think they’re holy, but they’re man-eating monsters that gobble up souls to put them inside our heads. Everything else is just bullshit people have come up with to explain the unexplainable.”


    “What the fuck?” Jules muttered.


    “You heard me,” Jessica replied. “You die, then you get uploaded into a Norm. here’s a zoo inside each and every one of us. We can do whatever we want with you guys, and you’ll get no say.”


    “Shit…” Jules muttered.


    “Yeah” Jessica nodd in agreement. “the best thing you can do is to find a nice Norm to die around, someone you’ll be okay spending the rest of the eternity with. Shop around. Make sure it’s some you trust. You have to tell your family, Jules. Your Mom, your Dad, that twerpy little brother of yours. Tell everyone. At this point, it’s a public service.”


    Dad… Jules thought.


    Her expression fell. “My Dad’s—”


    —But at that moment, somewhere deep in Jules’ mind, one of her thought-gears advanced by the turn of a single tooth. A new synapse formed as the last piece of the puzzle in place, and gazed upon the awful truth that Jessica’s words had just detonated inside her soul.


    Jules shuddered.


    “Dad…” she said, croak, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. Scowling, Jules slapped the back of her head. “Stupid! I’m so stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”


    “Was it something I said?” Jessica asked.


    Jules shook her head. “You don’t understand. My Dad… he’s one of you. He’s changing into a wyrm. Angel’s breath e’s still him. He’ll still be his same, dorky, goody-two-shoes self, wyrm or not. We shouldn’t… we shouldn’t have…”


    The only reason  had taken them to her grandmother’s place was because she thought her husband  lost to Hell.


    Jules started to cry. She’d missed me so much, but that pain had been held at bay by her belief that I was lost to her forever. But now she knew the truth, and it refused to let her


    Then, from somewhere behind her—over her weeping—Jules heard the ancient hallways fill with the sound of an approaching wyrm.