Diary of a Teenaged Mimic Volume One: Diary of a Teenaged Mimic, #1

By Robert C Roman

Tabitha just wanted to ditch school for the day and forget about being a poor kid from a poor neighborhood.

Fate had other ideas.

Now she finds herself in another world entirely, one where everything is different, yet hauntingly familiar. One where Magic and Gods are real, but everything that could be worse? Is. A world where a poor kid with sharp instincts might just be able to scramble to the top of the heap...

Just as long as nobody finds out her secrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert C Roman
• Release date: Nov 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223710776

Book preview

Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

by Robert C Roman

Day One

Dear Diary,

Getting shot in the head hurts like a bitch.

I mean, I think it does. I'm pretty sure it did. Today's been kind of a mess. Lemme start at the beginning.

So, today was gonna be kind of a shit day at school, so I decided to cut out after lunch; with me having the first lunch period, that gave me most of the day to myself. What with a third of the school coming into the cafeteria and another third heading out, it wasn't too tough to slip out of the building. Okay, I don't know what the other kids do that gets them caught, but I just put my head down, act like I'm supposed to be going where I'm going, and nobody gives me a second glance. It's a knack; I blend. I don't even think about doing it, really. Hell, I don't even realize I'm doing it most of the time. I only notice when I'm pulling some unlikely bullshit. Which today was kinda full of, but I'll get there when I get there.

Once I got out of the school I had to find someplace to be. The house was empty and depressing; Mom died a few years back when I was a freshman, Dad kicked the bucket way before that. At least Mom told me he did; he hadn't been in our life for a while before that. I kinda remember him as a deep voice, rough hands, and a moustache, but for all I know that's just from Mom talking about him. If I met him on the street I wouldn't recognize him. For all I know Mom lied and he's still out there somewhere.

Anyway, technically I lived with my older sister. In reality, she had an apartment across the river in Philly, and only 'lived with me' so I could finish out High School in the same school district where I started. I dunno why that seemed so important back when Mom died, but at the time I threw a goddamned fit when my sister talked about me moving in with her, so she 'moved back' to 'take care of me'. Really, she just put her name on stuff and I paid for it out of the insurance money from when Mom died. You'd think that wouldn't last very long, but when the insurance policy is covered by work, and you live in the shittiest part of a shitty town, 'cost of living' can be stupidly low if you don't fuck around and waste money.

So I didn't want to head home. Instead, I stopped at the corner store, picked up a pack of gum and a couple pastelillos, and started walking toward the waterfront. Not sure why I headed that way in particular, other than the fact that a couple schools and banks had rebuilt a couple big chunks of it, which meant it wasn't as beat up and decrepit as the rest of the town. I wasn't into military stuff, but the battleship they'd parked in the river was a not-completely-boring way to waste a few hours. If the old vets had the unenviable job of taking donations and playing tour guide today, I might even flirt with a couple of them. I'm nobody's idea of pretty, let alone hot, but when a sixteen-year-old flirts with a sixty something guy, the sixty something guy reacts. It's like a law of nature or something.

My sister would throw a hissy fit if she knew I'd done that once or twice before with dudes old enough to be her grandfather. I mean, flirted with them. Thinking about doing more than playing around makes the little kid part of me go all squick, but the adult part figures they're at least likely to know what they're doing, y'know?

Of course, that's part of what would make my sister go ballistic. 'You're not an adult, and I'm responsible for you!' I can't count how many times I'd heard that line. Until I turn eighteen, I might as well be a little kid. Hell, even once I turn eighteen, it's still another three years before I can buy booze, and nobody who isn't looking to exploit someone is going to hire someone under twenty-one at any rate. I mean, if you're eighteen you've got the choice of 'do you want fries with that?', enlisting, or looking for that overstuffed black leather couch. Kinda sad that I'm pretty sure I could make more money from that last one than either of the other two. Two years and a bit before I was even a junior-adult, legally, and another three before I was a real, bona-fide adult. God that sucks.

I'm getting off track. Like I said, it's been a hell of a day. Where was I?

Oh, right. Heading to the waterfront to find some way to kill a few hours.

Anyhow, I meandered my ass down to the waterfront and hit the jackpot. A bunch of big yellow busses parked in front of the aquarium, with two herds of kids moving more or less toward the front gate. I walked over and attached myself to the back of the first group, letting the confusion work for me. A few minutes standing in what passed for a line, and I was inside. I lingered near the gate until the second group started coming in, then split off to go look at the sharks.

Everybody else is always looking at the dolphins or the penguins, but not me. I head straight for the sharks, or the octopi if I'm in that kind of mood. Lest I be misconstrued, I mean the kind of mood where I want to fuck around with something more intelligent than the druggies on the street. Once in a while I'll go past the octopi and try to find the little color changing squids, but on a day like today, with two whole groups of not-legally-adults tromping through the place, they'd be hidden but good. Hell, the octopi would probably be hidden too, so no point in going there. Instead I just stared through the thick plexiglass at the sharks, wondering if maybe there was a way to get up to the catwalks they used to feed them. Don't worry, I'm not the sort to go swimming with them, but if you're gonna fuck around teasing someone, it's got a whole different visceral level of thrill if there's not bulletproof plexiglass between you.

Speaking of bulletproof, I'd mentioned being shot, and by now I know you're all 'god, when will this bitch get to the good part?' I'll get there when I get there. If a goddamned shark chomping toward me doesn't grind my gears when there's plexiglass between us, how much do you think I've got to do when there's notional paper and ink and time in the way?

Anyhow, I was there chilling with my shark homies, trying to ignore a few other kids who had, like me, split off to see something cooler than Flipper, when I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. People are always going on about how they think its fireworks, or a car backfiring, but once you've heard actual guns being fired you really don't make that mistake any more. Okay, I don't. I don't know about stupid people. Maybe they do. So anyway, gunfire, and not the one or two shots I'd heard when some asshole decided to dispute the franchise rights to his favorite dealing corner, but the ongoing rattle of someone who didn't give a fuck how much ammunition cost. Screams echoed through the aquarium as well, but screams didn't scare me. Bullets did.

Just my luck. I ditch school, walk all the way down to the waterfront, and get caught up in some white people school shooting bullshit.

I started looking for a way onto the catwalks seriously now. A door off to one side labelled 'employees only' seemed like a good bet; I ran over and tried the handle, but as you might imagine, it was locked. On the other hand, it had the feel of an emergency door; one of those that is only 'locked' from one side. I dug into my purse looking for my school ID. A few seconds searching and I had it in hand, trying to ignore the sounds of gunfire coming from the hall, trying to ignore the two other kids who hadn't left at a run when the shooting started.

In case you're wondering why I was trying to jimmy a lock instead of running, there's like, no cover outside the aquarium, and something told me that whatever today’s incel had decided to take his lack of sexual prowess out on his classmates was counting on that. Also, I'd barely passed Phys Ed. I didn't 'run' so much as 'half-heartedly jog'.

I got my ID in between the door and the frame, and pulled the door open just in time for a single shot to rip it out of my hand and slam it against the plexiglass of the shark tank. My hand was fucked up when the door handle ripped its way free of my grip, and a burning sensation crept across my chest, but I didn't stop to look, I just ran up the steps on the far side of the door. I'd like to say I hit the catwalk at a dead run, but as I just said, me and physical exertion don't get along. Adrenaline forcing my heart to try and pound its way out of my chest, I crested the top of the steps onto the catwalk at a dead stagger. From behind me I heard someone say something like 'Another one for you, over by the shark tank', but I didn't pay too much attention. I kept staggering forward, trying to put some distance between me and the top of the stairs. I came to a juncture with another catwalk, and decided to turn right because I slipped, dropped my purse, and almost fell backward into the shark tank on my left, then overcompensated and fell onto the catwalk to the right.

Shaking my head to clear it where I'd bounced it off the catwalk, I pushed myself to my feet, looking around for the shooter as I did. Bodies covered the bleachers where the kids had been watching the dolphin show. A few bodies floated in the water: one in a wetsuit, a couple in regular clothes, and even a couple dolphins.

Who the fuck shoots dolphins? Like I said, white people bullshit.

Anyway, I spotted the second shooter just as I made it to my feet. Unfortunately, it took me a few precious seconds to recognize him as a shooter, since he lay flat on the roof of a building, a rifle pointed directly at me.

The next little bit I don't remember perfectly. At a guess, I'd say the brain damage caused it, but I'm not a fuckin' doctor, so what do I know? Something hit me square in the forehead, or at least it felt like it hit me square in the forehead. As I've noted previously, getting shot in the head hurts like a bitch. It also flipped me back into the water behind me. I sank, stunned, lungs burning where I breathed in salt water, eyes open and staring. I figured at least I might make a decent meal for the sharks I'd spent the morning tormenting until something wrapped itself around my chest and pulled me deeper into the water. I think my brain misfired, because I tried to say something like 'oh, the Octopus tank', but with my lungs full of water and my brain full of bullet I don't know what it came out sounding like. A moment later the arm wrapped around me twisted, showing me one huge eye on the side of a big bulbous head.

I don't know quite what happened next, but it felt like falling. That made no sense, since I was already in the water, where I'd be sinking if I wasn't being held by a giant octopus, but sense making or not, my brain told me I was falling. Of course, as I've noted, my brain wasn't in the best condition, so god fuckin' knows what actually was happening. I hung there, staring into that giant eye, falling faster and faster while not moving an inch, for I don't know how long. The eye consumed more and more of my fading vision, seeming to get bigger and bigger until I could see nothing else.

Right as I thought I was about to black out, I got the weirdest sensation; everything got slightly dull except the center of my vision, which had a weird obscured clarity to it, like a pop-up window except in real life. Whatever instinct I have that lets me pull off that blending-with-a-crowd thing screamed at me incoherently, and letters appeared in the middle of the weird pop-up thing.

Mimic? (Y/N)

I didn't say yes. I didn't say no. I didn't say anything; I was struggling with a serious case of 'death by gunshot' complicated by 'death by drowning'. If I did anything, it was more of a mental shrug followed by resignation embodying the idea of 'fuck it, why not?'

That's when shit got really weird.

No, really. Up until that point my last day had been crap, maybe unusual crap, but violent death was something that just happened in my town. It happening due to some white people bullshit was ironic, but the actual death itself wasn't all that unexpected.

Anyhow, weird.

Over the course of a few seconds, the eye in front of me shrank down until it looked barely bigger than my own. At the same time, my head fell apart. Okay, that's what it felt like, the top of my head splitting open and the insides rushing out, and out, and out, until there had to be more of me on the outside of my head than there was me inside me. Finally, my arms and legs and body split, twisted, and shifted until I had eight long, heavy tentacles reaching out from beneath what little remained of my neck.

Before I could really come to terms with the weird stuff going on with my body, the eye in front of me blinked, the octopus detangled itself from me, and it shot toward the shimmering surface far above us both, leaving me floating near the floor of the tank. For the next few moments, I did nothing but admire how the aquarium had managed to recreate the look of a real seabed, despite being nearly fifty miles from the ocean.

Then the echoes of screaming and explosions reached me.

I couldn't really tell you why I crawled up the side of the enclosure. Maybe I didn't want to be huddled on the bottom of the tank when the shooter found me. Maybe curiosity had overcome my fear. Maybe I was in a dream state and just did it because it seemed like the next thing to do.

Maybe I was just pissed off and now had eight limbs to go ham on someone with.

I got to the top of the wall and, after a moment's confusion, managed to push one eye out of the water. After another moment spent blinking and trying to focus, everything snapped into crystal sharp clarity. One thing became immediately clear. I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

Okay, I wasn't in Kansas to begin with, but now I wasn't in Camden, New Jersey either. At least not one that I recognized. The river was wider, not so built up along the shoreline. The Ben Franklin Bridge was just... wrong; too many way too skinny posts reaching down into the water, way too high of an arch, and clean white marble on the underside of the expanse. Closer to me, the aquarium seating was shaped differently and looked to be concrete or maybe stone instead of cheap aluminum.

Also, there was a fuckin' dragon in the water, firing blasts of flaming goo at anything that moved. I didn't really get an appreciation for the size of the thing until my recent rescuer, now twin groped his way out of our mutual enclosure into the big pool with the dragon and all the dead bodies floating around. The dragon must have seen the motion, because he looked our way and spat a hunk of flaming gunk in my direction; the other octopus had already made his way over the jetty and under the surface of the water. I, on the other hand, sat there like a dumbass until the gunk splattered over me and exploded.

The impact wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, maybe due to my current squishiness. The flames and acid, on the other hand, burned, eating into my skin both above and below the waterline. I tried to swear while pulling myself over the jetty into the water, but apparently an octopus beak isn't the best at screaming 'motherfucker' at the top of my lungs. Instead, I shot forward, directly toward the source of my pain. After a moment of screaming agony, I bounced off of the thing's thigh. The burning stopped immediately, and along with the minor euphoria of that surcease of pain, my attention was distracted by another of those weird popups.

Mimic (Size)? (Y/N)

Not knowing what exactly it meant, I went with my standard response of 'fuck it, why not?'

The dragon shrank. At least, I thought that's what was happening at first. Then I realized that everything else except me was shrinking too. Then, because eventually I can catch a clue if it beats on my head like a maraca, I realized that I was growing. Within seconds, the thing spitting fire and death all over the aquarium looked up at me as I laid one long tentacle across its back to keep me from sinking. It breathed in, obviously about to cover me in flaming much again. Without thinking about what I was doing, I grabbed its mouth with one arm and squeezed to hold it shut. Its eyes bulged a little, and some foam leaked through its teeth, but mostly it looked like someone who had just been forced to swallow a load of vomit; simultaneously revolted and furious.

Right about then I realized something. The dragon was buoyant, enough to keep itself and me above the waterline. That meant that a hefty chunk of its size was mostly air, maybe some kind of swim bladder. Another big chunk, currently covered by one of my arms, was wings; not exactly the most durable of structures.

I, on the other hand, was one big ball of pissed off muscle. I wrapped another arm around its head, two more around its body, and one around each of its non-wing limbs and squeezed for all I was worth. It tried to claw at me, but without any good leverage the most it managed were superficial cuts. Things started breaking; first the wings crunched and snapped, followed by the thing's jaw. As its struggles grew more frantic, I switched from crushing to pulling; its neck stretched a long way, but long before I reached my limit it caught. I flexed every bit of my muscle, and after a few loud pops like tree trunks and high tension wires snapping, its head tore completely free.

That left it fountaining blood from the end of its neck; from the vague itchiness I felt it probably wasn't any less caustic than the stuff it was puking up before. I tried tying it in a knot, but that worked about as well as you'd imagine; all it did was spray blood in different directions while I worked to tie a knot with unfamiliar limbs. Finally, I just thought 'screw it', bore down on the body of the thing with all eight limbs until something ruptured explosively; after that it sank to the bottom with me pretty quickly. I did my best to cover it up with the sandy soil on the riverbed, figuring it might at least slow the spread of the gunk.

By this point I felt pretty awful; not in the sense of being hurt, per se, but the kind of bone-deep weariness that comes from lots of adrenaline making you do lots of athletic stuff that you have in no way trained for, ever. I wanted to just collapse right then and there, but my little octopus friend chose that moment to poke me with the tip of one of his arms. Blinking, I looked at him, then looked up to the surface where he pointed. Dozens of bodies floated there; some in pieces, others made up of pieces that shouldn't have meshed, like the one with the upper half of a bodybuilder and the lower half of a fish. Vaguely I saw people moving along the edge of the water carrying some kind of long poles. Spears, maybe? My brain needed a break as much as the rest of me. I looked down at my little octopus buddy, unsure of what he wanted me to do; help with search and rescue, fight off the men with spears, or maybe run away with him to the Caribbean. PR is pretty nice this time of year, so that sounded okay, but leaving now was just right out. I had no go left to give.

I turned back to him with a shrug, and another of those popups filled my vision.

Blend? (Y/N)

My poor abused brain chose that moment to remind me of how octopi could change themselves to look like just about anything. If I was gonna take a nap, it sounded like a good idea to do so as a rock, rather than a giant sea beast, so I nodded in the affirmative.

Even faster than I'd grown or changed before, I shrank down to a normal human size, with my normal number of limbs and my eyes back to the front of my head. I think I even had teeth, because they jammed together painfully when several thousand tons of displaced water slammed down into me.

The next few moments were a blur. I remember a long, fleshy arm around me. Things rapidly got brighter until I was more or less tossed onto the lowest row of seats in the aquarium's amphitheater. The last thing I remembered was an older woman bending over me, screaming to someone behind her, 'I've got a live one here!'

Day Two

Dear Diary,

So yesterday I cut half my classes, snuck into the aquarium, got shot in the head, turned into a giant octopus and ripped a dragon in half.

Today I woke up in a nurse's office with a splitting headache.

It wasn't the nurse's office back at my old school, Eastside High. But all nurse's offices have a sort of same-ness to them. This one smelled more of mint than antiseptic, but everything still seemed artificially clean, with cots separated by gauzy curtains. Okay, I wasn't sure about that plural, because after all I'd just woken up, but it seemed like a safe guess. I freed my arms from the light cover over me and pushed myself up.

I tried to push myself up. The moment my head left the pillow, the room spun and my gut clenched. I must have made some kind of noise, because a moment later a woman in a weird white outfit pushed through the curtains at the end of the bed and moved quickly to the side of the bed, one hand gently pushing me back until my head hit the pillow once more.

Don't lift your head; the pillow has some simple charms to ward off pain and discomfort. Just lie still.

I squinted, trying to sort out why the woman's dress seemed so weird. While I did that, she ran a hand over me while muttering something under her breath. Not, like, touching me, but just hovering her hand around four inches above me while moving it from my forehead down to my knees.

Where am I? I slurred, my mouth and throat both too parched to properly pronounce anything. Can I get some water?

The woman shook her head, I got the sense that she did so more because of confusion and annoyance than to deny me a drink. She did answer my questions though.

You're in the infirmary of the Young Ladies' Wing of the Phileo City Heroic Academy, I now had no more idea where I was than before, but I knew the nurse in this nurse's office could drop capital letters on random words and make them sound like capitals. Somehow she did it without raising her voice much above a whisper. You were brought back here after the attack on the aquarium yesterday. She shook her head again, this time as if upset by what she had to say but trying to hide it from someone in a sickbed. More than a few candidates died. Worse, our registrar, who intended to enroll everyone properly after the field trip, is still... she's still unconscious. She pursed her mouth, disliking the taste of what she had to say next, I'm afraid we don't even know your name. Cheryl was carrying most of the registration documentation with her, and when the sea drake doused her in liquid flame, most of the records went up like kindling.

I rolled my head back and forth on the pillow, lifting it just a tiny bit at the end of one rotation. So long as my head touched linen, I felt fine, but the moment I lifted it even the slightest bit, my head pounded, and my stomach clenched again. Neat bit of tech there; I kinda wanted to know how it worked, but I figured I had more important things to deal with first. You don't even know my name?

She smiled sadly. I'm sorry, no. Between not knowing your name and not having any paperwork, we couldn't contact your parents, or even do much for you medically beyond simple painkillers and sleep aids.

I cracked my neck without lifting my head. That helped a bit; while I wasn't in pain, every bit of me felt like I'd slept on a stone slab. So, uh... why am I here if you don't know who I am?

She blinked, taken aback by my simple question. You're... you're a student. I mean, that much is obvious; what would anyone else your age be doing at the aquarium with all the, she waved her hands around, at a loss for how to describe something. With all Cheryl's very public nonsense about open enrollment at the aquarium this year.

I frowned a little, despite trying to hide it. The pillow did seem to have a bit of a soporific quality; either that or something else had me hovering just on this side of sleep. You didn't approve of the open enrollment?

She shook her head again, smiling this time. Oh, no. I think it's a wonderful idea, especially given how far enrollment has been down over the past few years. Quite a few of the alumni objected, citing the principle of the thing, but when Headmaster Miles gave them the option of 'open enrollment or fewer reinforcements', they all loosened their purse strings.

I hid my reaction to the word 'reinforcements'. Yeah, she'd said it was an Academy, but that was just a fancy word for a College Prep school, right? I tried to ignore the nagging inner voice reminding me about the Military Academies at Annapolis and West Point, a little difficult considering how many kids flew out to Basic within a month of graduating Eastside. So, why nonsense?

She actually smiled at that. Oh, Cheryl had some idea about kids from Camden Yards coming out of the woodwork to sign up. I mean, a lot of them would love to, but how many of them would pass the admissions tests?

I frowned at that. Uh, so if you don't have any of the info, how do you know I passed the admissions tests?

She returned my frown with interest, only I got the idea she wasn't aiming it at me, per se. Well, I'm sure she would have done at least a little preliminary testing right there on the spot; with the open enrollment things wouldn't be quite so rigorous. But that's all beside the point, really. She smiled down at me, sadness crinkling her eyes the tiniest bit. You survived ground zero of a dragon attack that killed half a dozen instructors and at least two dozen students. While nobody likes to say it, that's what Heroes from the Academies do; they wade in where Angels fear to tread, and some even walk back out afterwards.

I needed some time alone to think about that. While Eastside provided more than its fair share of cannon fodder to the military, that had never been my thing. I took the Reserve Officer Training Corps class, otherwise known as ROTC, during my freshman year because a bunch of friends did, but I don't think I'd so much as looked at my uniform in over a year. At the same time, this place just plain smelled nicer than Eastside; if I could get away with putting a few years in, then drop out or something before they sent me into the meat grinder, it might be fun to play at being a rich kid for a while. Uh, can I get a little time to nap? I'm sleepy. It might be the pillow talking though.

She smiled again. Yes, they do that. Rest cures many ills. With Cheryl out of action, I'll need to go over your replacement paperwork, but it will take me a bit to pull it all together. Do you feel well enough to answer a bunch of questions?

My stomach growled loud enough to overwhelm any response I might have made. My face heated when I said Yeah, I can do that. Can I get something to eat though?

She nodded, I'll send for something. I'll wake you when everything is ready.

The moment she was out of sight I tried lifting my head again. Still pounding, stomach still tied in a knot. I collapsed back onto the bed and passed back out.

Day Three

Dear Diary,

Yesterday was more than a little hectic; hopefully I'll be able to get some rest today after I fill you in on what's happened. I've been sleeping a lot lately, though. Apparently being nearly killed more than once in a day will do that to you.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, flat on my back in the nurse's office, hoping to avoid my head exploding when I took it off the pillow.

I woke to the sounds of squeaky wheels rolling through the room beyond my curtained off alcove. I'd learned my lesson about raising my head, so instead I croaked out, Nurse?

The squeaky wheels stopped, and the nurse stuck her head in through the curtain. She smiled at me, You're awake! Excellent timing. She backed into the room, pulling a small rolling desk behind her. She sat on the foot of my bed and pulled the desk up to her.

Water, please? My voice didn't want to do anything but rasp.

She nodded and reached toward the curtain, Marie, bread and broth.

Marie handed over a small, covered bowl and a small loaf of unsliced bread, the kind of thing you'd see at a steakhouse. Something bugged me about Marie's hands, but I couldn't quite tell what before the Sister handed them to me, and I pushed myself up to take them. My head pounded, my stomach tied itself in knots, but I grabbed at the food like a lifeline. Sliding the lid back on the soup released a powerful savory smell into the room, and I straight up drank it from the side of the bowl in one long pull. Dropping the bowl in my lap, I ripped the bread apart and wolfed it down, only stopping when I held the one remaining heel.

Uh... sorry?

The nurse laughed. Quite all right. Good appetite, that's an excellent sign. Now, we've got some paperwork for your registration. Are you feeling well enough to answer some questions?

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Good, good. She pulled what looked like sheets of parchment into a neat stack, then pulled a feather from the top drawer of the rolling desk. At my look, she explained, I know it's a little old fashioned, but it's sort of an heirloom of the office. An alumni enchanted it for my predecessor, and she handed it down to me when I took over. It'll likely last longer than I will. Strange, the little things that outlast us.

I nodded and shrugged, not knowing how to respond to that. I mean, I'm not going to be cliché and say 'I don't believe in magic' when I'd turned into a goddamned giant octopus yesterday.

Okay, then. Let's get started. What's your name?

I cleared my throat before speaking, and while my voice came out clear and free of croaking, it still sounded weird. Like when you hear a recording of your own voice. Tabitha. Tabitha Diaz. What's your name?

She blinked at that before speaking. I'm sorry, I suppose most people who come in see my name on the sign. I'm Sister Siobhan, Head Nurse of the Ladies' Wing Infirmary. Your parents?

Dead. I deadpanned.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Strangely, she sounded like she meant it. At the aquarium?

No. Mom died three years ago. Dad... he died when I was little. I'm not exactly sure when. I hated the fake sympathy most people oozed when I told them, but Sister Siobhan seemed to take my announcement in stride, no more or less sympathetic than before.

Well then. She'd been shuffling through some papers, pulling another from the stack and setting them to the side after writing something near the top of each.

I'll still need your parents' names. She waited, pen hovering over the paper.

Mom is... was... Marie Diaz. My dad's name, I paused, cudgeling my brain for his first name. When you're as young as I was when he left, you just called him 'dad', not by his first name. Gomez Rodriguez.

She pursed her lips at that as she wrote, penciling more in on the second paper than the first.

Right. She pulled another paper from the stack before continuing. Interspecies relationships are always difficult. Even if society didn't frown on them, the age differences involved sometimes are difficult to deal with. I assume your father was human?

My brain had jumped the rails and come to a screeching halt when she started talking about 'interspecies', and tumbled a bit when she just casually implied my mom wasn't human. My words came out far more sharply than I intended. No. My mom was as human as I am.

She stifled her smirk, but not enough I couldn't hear it in her voice. As far as those things go, it's pretty obvious you're not entirely human, dear. She stopped herself, a look of shock overcoming her. Your father was a Bag then? Something about the way she said the word reminded me of the way some people would say 'Black', as if it was some kind of horrible idea that the person in front of them wasn't another mayonnaise-American.

Years of ingrained practice at letting things go to blend in came to my rescue. Uh... maybe? I was like, really, really small when he died.

She nodded, filling in a few more blanks on each form. She spoke as she did. Please, I intend no offense. Love is love, and even if it wasn't a love match, only a true villain would blame a child for the actions of their parents. I'm going to note your father's species as 'unknown, presumed Dan'. Just between you and I, some of the faculty and plenty of the alumni can be a little set in their ways, and the best bursary dispensations are for orphaned children of Dan. Do you think you can keep that in mind if anyone asks?

My brain scrambled to process all the information she'd dropped right there. Not just the names and my new secret identity, but the subtler information about which races were and weren't Phileo City's privileged class, because it really felt like the Dan filled that slot, and no human of any color was likely to fit in with them. At the same time, I responded with, Sure. How could you tell I'm not just, y'know, completely human? I felt like I'd failed somehow; most people outside Camden took me for white at first glance, and the best this woman had was 'half Dan', which seemed like it wasn't 'blending'.

Sister Siobhan actually giggled a little at that. I'm sorry, but it's pretty obvious, at least with your hair pulled back. We wouldn't want the infirmary stinking of dead fish, so some of the novitiates bathed everyone brought in unable to do for themselves. With your hair back... Just a moment, she turned to the curtain again, Marie, bring me a hand mirror.

Listening to Marie walk off, I got the impression that she was more than a little bit tall. Her steps came from noticeably further away with each footstep and returned just as quickly. When she handed in the mirror, I examined her hand. Pale, almost translucent skin the color of cream, long fingers, and I couldn't quite tell if they had the right number of joints or not. Her nails stretched out beyond her fingertips by half the length of her last finger joint, and each had been carved down to a blunt point, like a natural shiv or claw.

Sister Siobhan handed me the mirror, and I lifted it front of me, half muttering, Could I get some more food and some water, please? accompanied by my stomach letting out an echoing growl.

I held the heavy mirror out a distance in front of me, trying to take in as much of my face and head as I could while still being able to see details. Two strands of black, wavy hair framed my face, the rest pulled back into a ponytail. My skin, never my best feature, lay smooth and unblemished as a baby's ass. Just about the same color as well, weird for someone who had spent most of her life avoiding the sun to avoid browning too much to pass. A quick tilt of the mirror to one side then the other showed me the most damning feature, or so I thought. My ears had always been kinda cute, normal, small, round human ears. These... I could always cover them with my hair, I guessed, but short of that nobody would mistake me for human. Vulcan, maybe, or Elf, or any other pointy-eared not-human, but not human. I blinked, trying to take in the details; as my eyes focused my own pupils caught my attention; long, thin vertical slits like a cat.

I think that's about when I fainted.

Day Four

Dear Diary,

I've been holed up in my room for a couple days now. Classes haven't restarted after the attack at the aquarium.

On the other hand, I've got a place to sleep, and Marie brings meals around, so I can't complain too much.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, fainting when I looked in the mirror.

I mean, I'm not sure I fainted, exactly. I know I thumped back onto the pillow, mirror still clutched in my hand. I guess it seems a little extreme, but thing is, it wasn't really the shock at my eyes or ears being inhuman. It was the rest of everything. My hair isn't black, it's more of a medium brown. My nose is a little too big, kind of a lump in the middle of my face rather than the aquiline blade in the mirror. My skin is dark enough to look like a white person with a tan, it's not 'the beacons are lit' white. My face, overall, is a forgettable oval, not the faintly foxlike one staring back at me.

Still, I wasn't going to complain about an upgrade, especially if I could work it to get free money for going to school. Also, my brain was still my brain, and staring at my face like this wasn't going to help me blend. Fortunately, my stomach came charging to my rescue and let out a growl that would mortify me in any other circumstance. I pushed myself back up, handing the mirror back to the Sister. I'm sorry, I think I'm hungrier than I thought.

She took the mirror, already speaking to Marie, water and anything more substantial that you've got in the cart, Marie.

Again, Marie's weird hands forked over a loaf of unsliced bread. Sister Siobhan set the mirror down before taking the bread and passing it to me. While I tore my way through it, someone poured something outside the curtain, and Marie handed in a weird glass stein. Weird or not, I took it from the Sister and washed down the first half of the loaf. As I did, the Sister looked at Marie and said, Needs must, that's fine. Marie handed in a small platter with an honest to God domed lid. I took it, setting it on my lap while I polished off the heel of the loaf. When I lifted away the lid, the aroma of freshly cooked chicken hit me. I think the lid fell to the floor, but I'm really not sure. Something metallic dropped away, but my full attention was on tearing the chicken apart and cramming it into my mouth as fast as I could chew and swallow.

Frankly, I'm not sure I chewed all that much. I'm also pretty sure I ate a couple of the smaller bones. I know I picked up all the bigger ones and sucked any remaining meat or meat adjacent bits off of them. I didn't stop until nothing remained on the plate except clean bones. The compulsion to eat dying down, I looked around for more, spotting the glass stein lying on its side next to my leg. The top had sealed itself when I dropped it, clever design for an infirmary, where the folks might not be able to hold it reliably. I picked it up and looked back to Sister Siobhan kind of sheepishly. For her part, she just stared, eyes a little wide, her mouth twisted in a bit of a smirk.

Very, very, healthy appetite, I see. Whatever you did to survive the attack must have really taken it out of you. She looked back at the stack of papers. Only one or two more things to fill out. Place of Birth?

Camden. Uh, Camden Yards.

She paused a moment before shaking her head and writing a few words on each of the pages in front of her. Cheryl will be insufferable, she muttered. Still and all, it looks like she was right. Now, not to be indelicate, dear, but do you have any bequests from your parents, or any property they've left you?

I sighed. It always came back around to money. Nope. I had a purse with most of my belongings in it, but I think I dropped it at the aquarium. It's probably at the bottom of the river now. Also, probably at the bottom of the Delaware River, not at the bottom of whatever river ran between Camden Yards and Phileo City, but I wasn't about to go into that at this point.

Oh. Oh, my. Where have you been staying since your mother passed?

I really doubted my sister wound up here too, so I just shrugged, Here and there. Wherever I could find a roof.

You poor dear. She wrote a few things on the papers in front of her, then pulled a small bowl out of the rolling desk and sprinkled sand across the three of them. Well, until I'm told otherwise, I'll assume you're going to receive a bursary dispensation not just for your tuition, but for room and board as well. If they don't like it, they can tell me so later. She nodded and squared her shoulders, as if preparing to fight anyone who told her I wasn't a full-ride scholarship student. Now, there are some additional rules and restrictions that dispensation students must follow, but most of those are just about keeping your nose clean, not slacking, and not embarrassing the school. I'm sure those won't be a problem for you, right dear?

I blinked, still taken aback at the idea that someone I'd just met would actually fight for me. I mean, I'd read about people like that, but generally they don't come to Camden much, or if they do they don't survive long. Before she could change her mind, I muttered, No, yeah, I can do all that.

I'd never managed to keep my nose clean, I'd always slacked, and I was pretty much a terminal embarrassment to Eastside, but I wasn't about to tell Sister Siobhan any of that.

One final item, then. Patron?

I didn't have a patron, and I'm pretty sure we'd just discussed why. Something must have shown in my face, because she smiled a conspiratorial little smile and whispered, It's fine, dear. It mostly goes to which day you have off for Devotions.

I'd never been fond of getting up for school on Monday, so I went with that. Monday? I said.

She frowned a little, more confusion than disapproval, then turned back to her papers. Patron; Diana. Just a moment then. The Sister stood, walked around the bed until she stood about where my waist was, then bowed her head and muttered something too low for me to make out the words. It sounded almost like a prayer, and the way she folded her hands as she spoke only reinforced that assumption. As she prayed, a faint light emanated from her hands; by the time she finished it was clear the glow wasn't a trick of the light. She knelt next to the bed and, starting with my head, moved her hands across me, a few inches from touching me. I felt something as her hands passed; not painful, but definitely uncomfortable. In a few moments, she finished, and smiled as she stood.

There's still something odd, but that might be your father's blood coming through. I've never Diagnosed a half Bag, or even Bag before. But you seem healthy other than that. Are you feeling up to walking a bit?

Other than feeling like I'd been sleeping on a board, I felt pretty good. I nodded, then spun my legs out of the far side of the bed and pushed myself to my feet. Good to go whenever, wherever.

That positive attitude will serve you well with most of the instructors. Marie, show Tabitha... show Cadet Diaz to an available Dispensary Student room. See to it she has a full set of uniforms. She'll also want to know where the Dining Hall, the Library, and the Practice Yard are.

She looked back to me, a wry smile on her face. I'm sorry about the uniforms, but they're the only thing the school has in terms of clothing, and you'll be wanting to get out of those sooner than later, I'm guessing. Please follow Marie, she'll show you to your room and get you settled.

Thank you, Sister. I wanted to give her a hug, but the bed stood between us, and I had no idea what the norms for hugging were here. I didn't want to screw up by being too physically affectionate. Instead, I turned and pushed the gauzy curtain aside and got my first good look at Marie.

I'm proud of the fact that I took my first look at her in stride, because she was definitely living in the Uncanny Valley mining Nightmare Fuel. The most normal thing about her, the maid’s uniform she wore, hung oddly on her frame. She had to be at least seven feet tall, and by the width of her arms, her wrists, and her face, I'd guess she weighed less than me. Every bit of skin had that translucent look to it; I could see veins beneath the skin and almost thought I could see bones beneath that. Her hair, mostly pulled back into a bun and hidden by her maid's cap, seemed well cared for, but still somehow looked lank and greasy, despite being the lightest shade of platinum blonde I'd ever personally seen. Her eyes had the slit pupils I'd seen in the mirror, and when she spoke, I saw fangs instead of teeth in her mouth. Not, like, pointed canines, but nothing but canines from edge to edge.

This Way, she whispered, her ragged voice pulling me after her like a magnet when she turned and walked toward the door. I followed, not even turning to say goodbye to Sister Siobhan.

Despite being creepy as fuck, Marie was an efficient, if not talkative, tour guide. First, she led me to a huge, empty room with a vaulted ceiling. Long trestle tables had been pushed back against the walls, with the exception of three at one end of the hall and a pair near the door where we entered. Dining Hall, she rasped, Closed. I Bring.

If it's not too much trouble, I'd like that. Too many chances for me to screw up in a way that stood out with a small group. I'd wait to socialize until there was a crowd I could blend into. Marie just nodded her response and led me back out of the room.

Next, she led me through some halls and up some stairs to a huge room that, what with all the shelving, had been turned into a series of rooms, more than one single one. Books lined the walls, the shelves, and some even stood in stacks on the tables scattered about. Library. Librarian Died. Books Live Here. I nodded my understanding and, despite my urgent desire to read every single book in the room, followed when she led me out.

I wasn't certain, because my direction sense is far from perfect, but I think she led me up to a courtyard directly above the library. Huge stone slabs covered the floor, and a few sheds stood at either end. Practice Yard. I nodded my understanding once more, and she led me on.

This time we stayed on the same level, but I'm pretty sure we wandered back in the direction of the Infirmary. At one point we