Feed me, Seymour.

I didn't want to be here. I worked really hard to not come here. Why am I on the beach again?

I look up, and see that endless blue sky. No sun.

This is bad. I can't have used it up. It must be hidden.

I think about trying to change things, make a shelter or a shield, anything I can, but I get the feeling that doing so would draw attention to me. I have a vague memory of something with salt water and herbs, candles, and determination.

I was hoping that would help, but I feel almost like I've got food poisoning, and maybe a fever. I feel hot and cold at the same time, and there's this watery feeling in my gut.

I need to get out of here, but the beach is kind of endless. Maybe the water...


I hear that low, caustic voice behind me. "Are you sure?"


I'm not. I know what I usually find in deep water. This is why I hate coming here. And as if to punctuate the thought, I can see a dorsal fin sticking out of the water a few yards off shore. An icy chill runs through my chest, and my first impulse is to back away from the water, as if the shark can come out of there and get me on the beach, but I don't move. If I let him see me reacting, I'm sure he'll use that.

I decide that since I'm found, there's no point in hiding my energy. I pull from the sea and the sand, and make a shield around myself, keeping it close. In the split second it takes me to pull and form that, I hear movement in the sand. I charge my shield.

I hear a short, rough chuckle right behind me. His voice is repulsive. It makes my skin crawl, but I force myself to not respond. I close my eyes and picture a huge, no trespassing sign. KEEP OUT.

Something is touching my shield. I can feel it, just behind my right shoulder, something small, sliding along the bubble, moving across the surface. The feeling is bizarre, like having a hair inside my shirt. I want to fidget, scratch, grab at it and pull it off of me, but I also feel like that would be a form of surrender, like giving him a point - he'd be acknowledged. I take a deep breath, let it out slow, and push against the pressure of the touch with that same sense of KEEP OUT.

The touch moves around the side of the shield, past my arm, across the front of the shoulder. That stray hair feeling moves up the side of my neck, and an involuntary shiver threatens to break through. I feel myself gritting my teeth, tensing up every muscle in my body. I refuse to give him the satisfaction. Another deep breath, and I push again. That touch is still there, moving up past my jaw, across my cheek, my temple, my forehead, coming to rest right between my eyes, and then a slow tapping starts.

. . . tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .

Now, I'm ready to crawl out of my skin. I have to see what he's doing. I open my eyes to see a clawed finger tapping on the outside of the "glass."


He's repeatedly touching the outside of my charged, spiked shield, and nothing is happening to him.

He stares at me from behind his hand, and says, "Greetings."

My heart thumps hard, and there is a crushing pain in my chest. It's hard to breathe. I shouldn't have opened my eyes. It's immediately apparent that he can see right through my bravado. I'm not fooling anyone.

I stare back at him. He stops tapping on my shield, and lets his finger hang in the air in front of my face. The urge to get as far away from him as possible is now competing with the urge to reach out and break his finger. He sees me looking, pulls his hand back a bit. His head tilts slightly to the side, his expression thoughtful, then he reaches right through the shield, and pokes that claw at the area between my eyes. The shield melts away like butter, falling to the ground around my feet and soaking into the sand. It feels like a set of clothing falling off, and now I feel totally exposed.

I smack his arm away from my face with one hand, and shove the heel of the other against his chest to push him away. He shakes his head at me and says, "Whatever," sounding petulant.

I wait a moment to see what he's going to do. He seems to be waiting to see what I'm going to do.

I remind him, "When I asked you where "through" would take you, you just dodged my question. Are you going to answer it?"

He dodges again. "Are all of your people laced throughout with that lovely shade of rage and resentment, or is it just you?"

I start to open my mouth to answer that no, I'm not normal, but I have a bad feeling about sharing any information with him about "my" people. Instead, I close my mouth, and cross my arms, and look as stubborn as I can.

He doesn't seem intimidated by it. Instead, he moves right up to me, so quickly my eyes can't keep track, and says, "It's an affliction, isn't it? It touches everything about you. I could taste it, you know? Is it rare, or are there many of you?"

I don't answer him. I'm thinking about what he's asking me. Everything about this feels wrong. I don't like his sudden interest in my psychological make-up. I tell him to back off.

He doesn't.

He says, "You don't hide things very well. You don't have to answer me. I can see it on your face. I'm right about you. It is an affliction. You hate it, don't you? Don't you fear being consumed by it? Wouldn't you like to get rid of it?"

What is he asking me? Everyone gets angry. I have things to be angry about. I have lots of them, and I'm only actually mad about half of those. Of course there are things I resent. People have been abusive to me, lied to me, taken advantage of me, and stolen from me. Wouldn't it be abnormal and unnatural to have to work through some resentment?

I remind myself what I've been told about this guy. He's made of lies, and deception. He feeds on the things we poison ourselves with. If I let him, he'll eat me alive, and he'll probably hurt everyone I love and protect in the process. I remind myself what he tried to do to my Lady. I harden my resolve. It's the only shield I have left. I turn my face away from him.

"No. You can't have it. It's mine."

I feel his chilled breath on my neck, and he very quietly chides, "You're a bad liar." Then, he says my Name. Not the one my parents gave me, not any of the pet names my friends call me, not even the one I use in the circle; my Name name, the one from before, that is mine regardless of what others call me.

I turn my face back to look at him. His eyes are inches away from mine. Seeing him that close makes my stomach lurch. A chill washes down my back, and into my core. I can't keep myself from shaking.

He asks, "Why hold on to such a burden? Let it go. I want it, and you don't. It isn't going to do you any harm to give it up. You'd be better off without it."

My gut hurts. This thing standing before me wants to feed on me like a leech. The sad thing is, this is so tempting... to be able to get rid of something I have to fight tooth and nail to control, to not feel pissed off all of the time - I could happily get rid of my temper. He's right. I don't want it. I do hate it. It is a burden. But I don't trust him. He's a thief, stealing emotions and twisting souls. I'm angry over what he's done. This actually makes me furious. I ask, "Is this how you do it? Is this how you hunt your victims, talking them into making some kind of deal with you? Did you trick my Lady into some kind of bargain?"

He utters a short, barking laugh. "I don't have to bargain with prey. She didn't even know I was there until it was too late. Most never do."

I ask, "Why are you trying to bargain with me?"

Instead of answering, he looks at me like I'm trying to pull one over on him. Inside, I feel like I'm prying at something, or trying to get through a maze. There's something I'm not taking into account. Even that look seems familiar, like I've seen him do it before. I feel horribly confused, and at the same time, I've got that tip-of-the-tongue, memory not found kind of frustration building up. 

He says, "You all ready know the answer to that question. You just don't want to confront it."

I don't want to believe him, but that feels true. That doesn't make me trust him any more than before, or rather mistrust him any less. It just gives me yet another thing to try to figure out.

He continues, "...so close to the surface I can smell it on you." I feel a light pressure on my throat, moving down toward my heart. He's looking down. I look, and see his finger tracing along the center of my armor. I'm overwhelmed with revulsion, disgust, and outrage. Pushed over the edge, and without even thinking about it, I haul off and slug him right in the nose, feeling the bone crack against my knuckles, knocking him back into the water, yelling at him.

"DON'T.  YOU.  TOUCH.  ME."

He sits in the water, nose bleeding, wide-eyed with surprise. He reaches up and touches the blood, licks his fingers, and says, "See, you're even angry when you're frightened."

Still shaking, heart pounding, I turn my back on him and trudge back up the beach. Part of me is terrified to do this - never wanting to turn my back on an enemy - but I need to get away from him, and from this spot. I need this discussion to be over, before he starts to make sense to me. I don't want to be an angry person, but what he's offering usually comes with a terrible price, or at least I expect there to be one.

It felt like I walked for a long time after that. Nothing else happened, but I also never got further from the water, or closer to the fence. I feel kind of stuck, though I think if I tried hard enough, I could change the scene. I'd still be in the dream state, just with a different image. And I guess I'm too old to stay up all night, because that obviously didn't work, either.