We started after lunch. I was led to Dr. Blake’s office, where they had everything set up for the video call. None of us expected a miracle, but if I could somehow calm, or at least distract, Connor enough for him to listen, it would greatly help Lucy with her task. I was nervous, yet not afraid. He was like me, someone who had changed enough to be considered a monster. In a sense, I was somewhat eager to talk with him.

The call initiated, but Connor wasn’t on. The screen announced that there was only one participant in it. It didn’t take long for us to receive the news that Lucy’s words had become reality. The werewolf was so furious after being sedated for the third time, that he had thrown his nightstand at the equipment the moment he woke up, ruining our plan completely. Ironically, this behaviour ended up with them knocking him out and restraining him again. That couldn’t be healthy.

We were back to square one. Alex had taken the chance to take a nap while they thought of something else. He hadn’t been able to sleep properly due to waking up so early. I hoped he would make it to our night session. Fortunately, Lucy was so busy with this matter that she had completely forgotten about the magic demonstration we were supposed to hold.

Sylvia’s morning sickness wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but it was still enough that she stayed in her room. Although she tried hiding it when I visited her, it was clearly ruining her mood. It made me wonder if demons simply had it worse with pregnancies. Hopefully not. With some luck, it was simply a side effect from the virus being at work. It didn’t solve Sylvia’s situation, though.

After my visit ended, I spent some time reading in my room. There were no new threads of importance. The Culling had taken over the minds of many. Narration of old legends and conspiracy theories regarding fantastic beings were completely replaced by homemade armour tutorials to survive infected animal attacks, quarantine life hacks and, funny enough, conspiracy theories about the virus being created by the government or a tactic to control the population. I would’ve considered it nonsense if it weren’t for the fact that the virus was really man made. If Alex and Anna were right, it was also being used for their benefits.

Night fell, and I was done getting ready for my magic lesson. I still had a few minutes before I needed to go down. Sitting at my table, my eyes drifted to the window.

I didn’t get to practise today.

The urge to jump and fly out of my room made its presence again. This time, it was harder to resist, probably due to the lack of exercise. Whatever the reason was, I suddenly found myself opening the window and staring into the forest. I looked down and backed away. It was high enough for my acrophobia to trigger. Despite it being just slightly higher than what Allison normally lifted me, the lack of her grip on my body or a lake below me made it scarier. It didn’t feel safe.

I walked back to the window with the intention of closing it. The next moment, I was outside, flying. Despite the immediate panic, my wings kept me stable. The fear soon became excitement. I loved the feeling of soaring above the trees, watching the stars above me and the wildlife below. The night made it so much better than the last time. It was a completely different experience.

The euphoria lasted for a few minutes, fading as my wings began to tire. I could think clearly then. As much as I enjoyed the flight session, it was concerning that I lost control of myself with such ease. It was something I needed to consult with Lucy. Hopefully, she would know how to help.

Flying back to the building, I saw that everyone was already waiting for me at the terrace. Though Lucy was absent, as expected. Anna was the first one to notice me. She heard the flapping of my wings as I got closer, so she turned to look my way. I could tell that she hadn’t located me yet. Her lack of nocturnal vision and the lighting of the terrace were responsible for that. Alex, on the other hand, reacted to her movement and took no time in spotting me, waving at me after he did. By the time I reached them, everyone was aware of my presence.

“Hi, guys,” I said as I clumsily landed. Allison managed to stop me from toppling to the floor at the last moment.

Anna shook her head slowly as she asked, “Had fun out there, Nora?”

I struggled to hide a smile, “A bit.”

“How long have you been out here, anyway? None of us saw you go out.”

“I may have jumped out of my window a few minutes ago,” I replied, looking that way.

She gave me a concerned look. “Please tell me that’s not going to become an everyday thing. Don’t take me wrong. It’s amazing that you keep on practising, but it would give me some peace of mind if you avoided unnecessary risks.”

I nodded. “No more jumping from windows. Got it!”

I think.

“For now. Feel free to do it once you have it under control. You can go now. I’ll close that window for you.”

“Thanks!”

---<>----------<>----------<>---

Belaury was waiting for us at the usual spot. Viken stood next to her this time. They also had a wooden bucket with water placed between them. After greeting us, Viken handed us a short list of ingredients we needed to gather for him to work on Sylvia’s medicine. Most were stuff anyone could get at the local supermarket, like ginger and fennel seeds. With some luck, everything would already be waiting for us somewhere in the kitchen storage. All we needed to do was sneak our way in once everyone else went to bed. We had done the same with the salt my teacher asked for a few days prior.

“Today we’ll work on your control,” Belaury said as Viken walked to a tree and sat down on the grass to watch the lesson. Alex took the chance to go and chat with him. Due to the difference in our schedules, we never got to interact with the old man.

“What do I need to do?” I asked, eager to see what kind of activity she had for me.

My teacher looked down, searching for something. She smiled and kneeled to grab a pebble on the ground. It floated over her hand, spinning and quickly reshaping into a sphere. Satisfied, she took the marble between her fingers and extended her arm to me. “Here, take it.”

I did as she requested and inspected the small object in confusion.

“That will be your reference,” she explained. “What I want you to do is to replicate what I did by using your ice magic on this water. You need to make sure each ball is the exact same size as your reference or I’ll reject it. Keep doing it until you reach exhaustion. Your goal is to get me to accept every single sphere you make.”

“What happens if I fail?”

She crossed her arms and smirked. “You’ll have to repeat the same task every day until you get it. Keep in mind that your capacity is still increasing, so it’s in your best interest to get the hang of it before it grows too much. The more of those you can make, the higher is the chance to make a mistake.”

I frowned in response. Her threat didn’t make much sense to me. “Shouldn’t that probability diminish the better I get at it? The way I see it, I’ll reach a point where I won’t make a mistake, regardless of the number.”

My teacher chuckled. “Ideally, yes. That’s the objective of this practice, after all.”

“Then?”

“This is merely the first step, my apprentice. Think of it as an introduction; something to get you accustomed to the task. After you succeed with this one, I’ll increase the difficulty. I’m talking about time restrictions, using dirty water, and performing whilst blindfolded. It gets interesting once those pile up.”

“Oh. I see...”

“But that is a concern for the future. You may start now.”

Despite the scare, I discovered that the task wasn’t too difficult. Sure, I failed, but it was my first time trying. There was no way for me to accomplish it in one go, not with the small detail Belaury decided to omit. Although, it was also my fault for not thinking carefully before I began. Getting the water spheres to the size I wanted was a piece of cake. If that had been my challenge, I had no doubts I would’ve cleared it in one go. The problem was something I didn’t take into account before I started. Water expands when frozen. When I made the first ball, I did so to perfectly match the pebble’s diameter, and this ended up ruining my whole run from the very beginning.

In order to complete my task successfully, I needed to experiment a lot on the size of the spheres so that they would match the reference once they expanded upon freezing. Unfortunately, just as I was starting to get the hang of it, I reached my limit. I sighed in disappointment, hoping that I could remember the feeling tomorrow. If I did, I knew I could clear the first challenge with ease.

---<>----------<>----------<>---

Back at the centre, I entered my room, not caring about turning the lights on, as usual. The curtains moved, getting my attention. The slight breeze made it clear that Anna had forgotten to close the window. I pushed them away to reveal that she actually did as she said. There was no breeze. Letting go of the fabric caused the real culprit to crawl out of it. I fell backwards as I released the shrillest scream I’d ever produced. Hurried steps could be heard from the hallway, and the door opened to reveal...

“Connor!?” I shouted, trying to recover from my fall.

Wasn’t he restrained?

The black furred werewolf was standing outside of my room. He was panting. His mismatched brown and blue eyes scanned the whole place in search of something before they fixed on me. The panting stopped, and everything went silent. His staring quickly became uncomfortable.

I shook my head and ran to him, somehow expecting that he could deal with that thing for me.

“Please help me! There’s a-”

I couldn’t even finish the sentence when he suddenly disappeared from my view, tackled by Alex. I rushed out of the room to see both of them rolling on the ground.

“What are you waiting for!? Get away from here!” Alex yelled as Connor pinned him to the floor. He was too strong for him.

Seeing how the werewolf readied his hand for a strike, I shouted, “No! Stop! Stop it!” Connor obeyed, although he didn’t move from his position. He simply turned around to look at me. Alex took the chance to sucker punch him. Connor growled in response, and so did I when I saw him go back at it. “Both of you, stop now!”

Once they finally let go of each other and got up, I began my scolding, “Why did you do that, Alex?”

The vampire frowned. “Isn’t that obvious? He was trying to hurt you.”

“Hurt me how? All he did was stand there. He wouldn’t even be here if I didn’t... Oh.” I brought my hands to my face in embarrassment.

I heard a large group running upstairs. The others had probably heard me as well.

The door next to me creaked open. “What happened?” Sylvia asked. She was on her feet, trying to push Jackie away. The nurse was adamant in not letting her out.

“Connor rushed to my room when I screamed,” I replied. “Then Alex came and thought he was attacking me.”

“Yeah, well done, idiot.” Connor commented.

“Shut up, Mutt,” Alex replied.

Connor growled in response, but dropped the hostility almost instantly. He then looked at his hands. My guess was that he had forgotten about his appearance until Alex reminded him of it.

“I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from using such nicknames, Alex,” Lucy said as she walked past me. Anna, Dr. Blake, Gary and a few other assistants were already present too.

“No, it’s fine,” Connor grumbled. “It’s what I am, anyway.” He began walking back to his room. “I’ll be waiting for the next sedative in bed. Sorry about the restraints, by the way.” He spoke unexpectedly well given the shape of his mouth.

“Connor, wait!” Lucy went after him, followed by all the assistants except for Gary. The werewolf didn’t stop and started running instead.

Anna placed a hand on my shoulder, getting my attention. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Like I said, Connor was only trying to help.”

“He was? Help with what?”

“Right, I forgot about it. Their fight distracted me.” I glanced at the interior of the dark room. “A huge spider hid inside the curtains and took me by surprise.”

“Is it still there?” she asked.

I nodded. “I can’t see it from here, so it must have moved.”

“And that’s my queue to go back inside,” Sylvia commented, rubbing one of her legs with her hand. I didn’t particularly love spiders either, but I didn’t mind having them around as long as they weren’t dangerous or decided to use me as a climbing post. This one was way too big, though.

Jackie gave out a relieved sigh before following her. I waved at Sylvia. “Rest well.”

As I did, Dr. Blake walked into my room and turned the lights on. Shortly after, he came out and talked to Gary. “Would you mind fetching a bug carrier from the lab? The biggest one you can find, please.”

Gary nodded. “Yessir.”

“Anything special about it?” Anna asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Dr. Blake pointed to the room. “See for yourself if you want. It’s on the wall above the bed.”

Anna peeked at it from the safety of the doorframe. “Nope!” She immediately backed+ away from it.

It wasn’t long before Gary returned with a plastic cage. It was like the ones they sell at pet stores. Dr. Blake took it from his hands and walked back into my room to catch the creepy crawly. Moments later he came out with one of the biggest spiders I’d ever seen. Its pale brown body was long and thin. The same went for its legs. A pair of huge black eyes at the front of the head made it look like an alien. According to the doctor, it was an ogre-faced spider. A species that rarely grew more than one’s thumb, legs fully stretched. The monster I was staring at, however, could cover my entire face with its limbs. I shuddered at the thought.

Anna observed the critter in its cramped container, keeping her distance. She looked up at her father and asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

He nodded. “It is a virus, after all. It’s only natural to think that it could mutate and spillover at some point.”

My biology teacher once mentioned something regarding that. They explained it by comparing viruses to keys and our DNA to locks. Only the right keys have access to a specific lock. Without the proper genetic code, a virus has no effect on us. While all viruses mutate, some do faster than others. That is the reason certain vaccines don’t work for long. Occasionally, the ‘key’ changes its shape enough to be able to infect another species. I was certain that was what they were talking about.

“Let’s take our new friend to the lab,” Dr. Blake continued. “I want to see what kind of secrets it’s hiding.”

I didn’t follow them, obviously. Not that I could be of any help down there. Instead, I turned the opposite way to see Lucy and two assistants standing outside of Connor’s room.

Walking closer to them, I asked, “Is everything okay?”

“He won’t let us in. We already told him that we won’t sedate him, but it seems that’s no longer his concern.” She stopped to look at me and placed her thumb against her lips. “Do you want to try?” she whispered.

“What?”

“Just knock on the door and talk to him,” she replied, still in low volume. “He’s seen you already. He even tried to help you earlier. I know I keep repeating myself, but it’s worth the shot. You’re the only one he hasn’t shown hostility to so far.”

I took a deep breath and thought about it. Him hurting me was not a possibility in my mind. Like Lucy said, he meant to help me when I screamed, and I had done nothing to anger him so far. This was different than before, though. He had a reason to interact with me then. Now, there was none.

I guess the worst I’ll get is him refusing to let me in.

“I’ll try,” I finally muttered.

“Great. We’ll give you two some space,” she said, walking a few steps back whilst dragging the assistants with her.

I stared at the door and took a moment to gather the courage. While it was understandable, I didn’t like to get ‘no’ for an answer. It didn’t feel right.

Knocking on the door, I spoke to him. “Connor? It’s Nora. The uh… the demon.” I clicked my tongue in frustration. Moments like this made it uncomfortable to refer to myself as such.

“I know who you are,” he shouted from inside. “What do you want?”

I cleared my throat. “I’d like to thank you for what you did earlier.”

“I didn’t do anything. You don’t have to thank me.”

“That was Alex’s fault. It’s the intention that counts.”

“Whatever. If that’s all you wanted to say, just leave.”

I rolled my eyes. It was clear my attempt at breaking the ice wasn’t working. “Mind if I come in?”

“Why?”

“I just want to talk with you.”

There was silence.

Well, I tried.

I turned to my left to see my audience watching from afar and shrugged at them.

“You know what? Fuck it. Come on in,” He finally said.