Page 42 of Florescentia

I twisted the cap of the tincture, flicking the cap into the sand before taking it all in a gulp. You had to drink these things fast, or else you might catch a bite of the taste. A bitterness stuck in my throat, only a single cough before I caught myself covering my mouth. I did not trust doctors to know what would heal, but I knew that they were best at making us numb. Numb was where I needed to be, so I could figure out how to get out of this mess I’d created.

“Is the human condition limited to torturing yourselves for fun?” asked a wisp of a voice in my ear.

I glanced over my shoulder, a growing darkness in my wake, a mimicry of my own shadow, then three white dots peering back at me.

“Some may say so.” I shrugged, tossing the glass to the ground.

The shadow lifted the small bottle gently, rotating it as if inspecting a specimen. Then it was swallowed into the black. The shadow rippled. “There is no other explanation for that taste.”

For the first time in a while, a laugh.

“Is something amusing?” it asked, the outline shifting as if the sun were moving. Except it was heavily overcast.

“You seem all too curious, much too sentient,” I answered. “You’re not like the other Peculiars, are you?”

“Maybe you haven’t taken the time to know them,” it answered, the outline rippling over the textured sand. The blackness extended before me in the shape of my own silhouette. “You people are enigmas. Why are you wallowing in a place like this?”

“Prescribed,” I said. “If not, they may think me a madwoman if I refuse.”

“For what ailment?”

“Supposedly, everything.”

“Even I?” it asked, a teasing to its tone.

“That depends. How many questions do you plan on asking me?”

“As many as you’re going to ask me.”

A slow nod eased those words in my mind, nestling them back. “Will you help me, then?”

“I have no reason to help you.”

“You don’t seem to have a reason to stay either. What keeps you here, Beast?”

“I have nothing but time, now that I’m here,” it said. There was a pause, filled by the sounds of the shore. “I prefer to watch awhile before I partake with humanly activities.”

“So you’re practicing on me?”

“I don’t need practice,” it hissed. “Why would I need to practice for simple things like you?”

“Being alone up there must have you jaded,” I laughed. “Being part of a herd, a society, is much harder than you think. Every small inconsistency is noticed. They’ll know you’re not one of us the minute you walk into a room, if you can manage to do that without looking alien.”

“Harsh critic for a lonely thing like you.” Its voice echoed in my head, bouncing around enough where it was starting to give me a headache.

“I can help you, you know,” I offered.

It was silent.

“My Peculiars won’t let me open another door to the Otherside. But if you can do that for me, I could show you how to blend in.”

“I cannot make doors, your rituals cannot call on me,” it objected.

“Guide me, then,” I demanded, “be my mentor. I will find my way to the Otherside, whether you help me or not. You and I can both be on our desired paths faster if we help each other.”

“You wish to go to my world?” it asked.

I nodded.