SEPTEMBER 2020

life support
Fuck, it’s so cold out there. What was I thinking? I should have come home way earlier.
It’s very late and I don’t feel so good walking back home at this time of the day. I know
we had to study for Friday’s exam, but damn it, is it worth being stabbed by some junkie
in an alleyway? Plus, No one from the study group even proposed to drive me home. It’s
true I didn’t ask, but I don’t really know anyone, it would’ve been awkward.

I walk half a mile on my own, anxious. I don’t trust the people in this city. Since people
knows that monsters are a thing, a lot of them are going out of their way to show how
much they hate them. So far nobody knows about me, as far as they know I’m normal. I
think it’s safer that way, since I’m not something cute like a vampire. Snakes might be the
most disliked animal on Earth, right after sharks. I would know; I hate snakes too. Believe
me, you would if you were me.

I spot somebody in the distance. At first, I’m worried but I think I recognize him. Yeah,
definitely, the limp, the slow pace, I’m positive, that’s Ash. He’s a good friend of mine,
we’ve known each other since our first year in college. We’ve arrived in Seagarden at
the same time, but I wish I knew him even earlier. If I knew I would’ve rented a room with
him, he’s really nice, but instead I’m stuck with two girls with whom I barely talk. At least
we live close, so we can walk home together. Only, he wasn’t with me tonight, so I
wonder what he’s doing out here so late, but then, again, he’s a ghoul, so he’s probably
just enjoying the moonlight. The sun’s hard on him. He’s also the reason why I never
revealed what I really am, not even to him. Nobody knows here. Being the undead, he
has it really hard, I think he can’t walk five minutes before being stopped by some macho
supremacist. At least he’s a tough one, he’s not very strong (ghouls typically aren’t), but
he goes through life with his head up. He didn’t choose to come back as a ghoul, but
he’s glad he’s alive. He’s an icon, to be honest.

I tried walking toward him, so I wouldn’t be alone, but I stopped very quickly. Since I’m
not the only one who noticed him. I see a group of guys approaching him, so I stand
back. I’m covering behind a tree, hoping they don’t notice me, but I keep an eye out to
peek at the scene. Ash clearly acknowledges them, they’re lousy and drunk so it would
be hard not to, but he doesn’t show it; he continues walking straight. The drunk guys are
shouting at him, throwing stuff at him, but he continues on. They shout louder, that clearly
annoys Ash because he stops and turns his head at them. He’s too far away for me to
understand, but he clearly said something they didn’t like because they’re crossing the
street now and

oh fuck oh shit oh fuck.

One of them has a baseball bat. Who the hell carries a baseball bat around town at
midnight?

They were hunting, weren’t they? Why else would they be here?

I retreat completely behind the tree, I can’t breathe, my heart beats so fast I can barely
hear myself think. If they hit Ash he’s not making it. You know how fragile a ghoul’s body
is? About as resistant as a banana.
What the fuck do I do? If I do nothing, he’ll—

But what can I do? I can’t beat these guys.

I mean, There is something I could do but—

No, no fucking way. What if someone sees me?

What if they kill him?

No, no, no! There must be another way!

Like, what?

Fuck that, Sekki, get yourself together. He’s your friend. Do something.

Do something.

Fine. I calm down, no way I’m doing this if I’m not calm. It’s been so long; will it even work
again? Of course it will, I know it. It’s been sitting inside me, waiting. That’s not something
you forget, it’s something you repress. You close it in a box inside of you, afraid every
single day that it’s going to find a way out. It’s not hard letting it out, it’s hard keeping it
in. It’s the easiest thing ever, cathartic. It’s like removing a bra after a long day, it feels
good.

I want to believe that it doesn’t feel like me, that I feel like a monster, that I’m scared,
disgusted, but being like this, slithering my way to my prey, this is me. I don’t want to
believe it but that’s the truth. I’m enjoying this, it’s the best I’ve felt in years. I want to hate
it, because everything that makes me closer to my mother is something I want to hate. I
want nothing to do with this, but there I am… A gigantic snake, coiling around Ash to
guard him, my jaw wide open, ready to devour any of these nazis in one bite.

One of the guys tries swinging his bat at me. One sweep of my tail projects him to the
other side of the road. I could eat any one of them in the bat of an eye. They know. That’s
why they all run away.

I want to stay with Ash, make sure he’ll get home soon, but I can’t stay out here anymore.
I don’t want anyone else to see—

Who is this? I see some girl staring back at me, she must have been behind me. How long
was she there? How much did she see? Fuck, I can’t deal with this right now, I need to
go. I’m staring at her as I crawl my way into the forest.

Hope it doesn’t bite me in the ass later.

“… and it scared the shit out of me, but these assholes disappeared in a flash. I wanted
to thank it, but it just mysteriously slithered away in the darkness.”

“That’s unbelievable.”

I’m watching Ash talk about what happened last night and I’m seriously hoping he’s not
going to make it into a big thing. But again, it’s Ash. Clio is looking at him, as if she’s
analyzing every word. She’s way too into this. But then, it’s Clio.

“I believe what you saw was a Serpentine, they’re very rare. You’re very lucky, you
know?”

“I guess, but that would mean there’s one in Seagarden, no?”

“That would be a logical conclusion.”

I try to break into the conversation.

“Hey! Let’s put that snake thing to rest, it’s your first week in college, Clio, aren’t you
excited?”

“Absolutely, this is what I live for, after all. Knowledge.” She said, candidly.

“But since you’re literally the Muse of History, don’t you already know everything?”

“I don’t know everything, I aspire to, which is impossible. That’s why I decided to go to
college, to expand my knowledge.”

“I don’t want to discourage you but, nobody learns anything from college,” retorts Ash.
“That’s the point.”

“You’re an idiot, I’m not. That’s why I can’t expect my experience here to mirror yours.”

See, Clio does that thing where she sounds pretentious but I’m never sure if she’s joking
or not, I’m sure she is, she just has the worst sense of humor. Her thing’s history, not
comedy, after all. Not to forget that she literally is thousands of years old, it’s wild when
you think about it. People tend to forget it, but to be fair, she’s not so open about it.
People tend to treat you differently when they learn you’re from a pantheon, for better
and worse. But here she is, and she feels like one of us. That’s probably because she looks
in her late twenties, somehow.

“I don’t doubt you’re smart, Clio, but I noticed you took a lot of complementary classes.
Like, a lot. Are you sure about it? You still have time to cancel some of them, I mean,
don’t you deities still get tired?”

“We do, but I can handle it. Don’t worry.”

Believe me, I’m not worried at all. She’s like Hermione on steroids, it’s insane.

A few minutes later she leaves us to go to her first class in the morning, leaving me with
Ash. This has always been our little tradition, coming to the café before classes every day.
A lot of students come here too, after all it is right next to the college, but even if anyone
can come in, it’s almost a non-written rule that this café is exclusive to the students of
Seagarden College. Clio is a first year, and we met her a few weeks ago. She was by
herself in the café and we invited her to join us, I’m not too excited about meeting new
people usually, but she looked sweet, so I didn’t mind it when Ash proposed that we
talked to her. I continued discussing with Ash, he’s a very nice guy, for a ghoul. I’m not
trying to be mean, but ghouls are supposed to eat human flesh to survive. After a while,
it seems society decided that they couldn’t stomach letting the undead die and they
found some way to keep them alive. Apparently, by mixing tons of pig blood to animal
meat it’s enough to keep them alive. It keeps them weak, but maybe it’s better that way.
It also looks extremely nasty; we call it gore soup.

I like Ash, and I trust he’s not secretly eating human flesh during night-time, but I wouldn’t
say the same about the others. Ghouls are usually… not very social. Introverts don’t talk
a lot. Slow, cold, the whole package. They’re not so friendly, and they don’t even need
to be mean it’s just… they’re scary. I hate myself for thinking that and even with what’s
sleeping inside of me, I don’t think this is hypocrisy. I’m just being rational: I’d understand
if others felt that way about me if they knew what I was holding back.

As I’m thinking, I see guys approaching Ash, and their intentions couldn’t be clearer.
You’d think it was the same guys as yesterday, but they weren’t. In college there’s not
one group of bullies who just target the same guys, that’s high school. In this town, bullies
are crawling all over the place, fascists waiting for an occasion to run over some vampire
minding his own business. It’s not even worth to learn their name, or what they look like,
because when they’re finished with you, another one is waiting for their turn in line. This is
breakfast for Ash.

Ash understands what’s happening, and he decides he doesn’t want to bring trouble to
me, so he gets up and tries to walk away. The guys follow him outside, and from the
window I can see them ambushing him. He stops. I can’t hear them, but I can see they’re
pushing Ash around as he tries to ignore them to not give them the satisfaction of getting
a reaction out of him. One of them grabs his head and rubs his forearm against his face;
Ash tries to look away. Again, I can’t hear but that looks like the “want a bite?” routine,
where the bully usually rubs his hands or arms against a ghoul’s face, taunting him to bite.
It’s extremely cliché but also, I hate to admit, a smart move since if they do end up getting
bitten, the police will usually end up arresting the ghoul and the bully can play the victim.

I don’t know what to do. In the middle of an empty road I can help him, but not here,
where everyone can see. I can’t reveal who I am, or I’ll be in the same position as Ash.
But this happens every other day, and I always do the same thing: nothing. Ash doesn’t
expect me to do anything, he’s used to it. I really want to help him, though, but I can’t
think about unleashing it once more. Last night it felt so good. Too good, I don’t know if
I’d be able to turn if off if I go there again. I need to put it back in the box and lock it, I
have to stop thinking about it.
As I’m struggling to stay still, I hear one of the guys scream. He drops Ash on the floor and
the circle of boys all take a step backwards. It happened. Can’t really hear him, but I
can guess what he’s screaming. “He bit me! He fucking bit me!”

He is holding his bloody arm in his hand, trying to get some police officer’s attention.
Unfortunately, the boys’ barking is hard to ignore, and an officer who’s only passing by is
obligated to pretend he cares. He looks at the situation, and when he sees Ash, he quickly
understands what happens. He seems understanding, it wouldn’t even be surprising if he
recognized him, seeing how much trouble Ash gets in. The officer grabs Ash by the arm,
pulling him away from the scene.

He doesn’t look like he is in trouble at least, this seems more for his safety than anything
else. He’s still going to miss class, but he’s used to it. As I’m watching Ash being dragged
away and the boys bringing their alpha male away, I feel a hand on my shoulder. A girl’s.

“Didn’t feel hungry today?”

I have no idea who it is, but one glance over my shoulder and I quickly understood who
it was. Her skin is a thick red, and two horns are protruding from the top of her head. Her
eyes are almost two slits, and she wears a few piercings over her eyes, giving the
impression of eyebrows on her hairless skull. She’s also last night’s witness, I can tell.

“What do you want?”

I aggressively shove her hand from my shoulder. I really can’t deal with this, I knew I
shouldn’t have let it out, I knew I’d screw it up somehow.

“I’m sorry, it’s just I thought you were more… fierce.”

She sounds playful, but it doesn’t feel friendly. She’s blaming me.

“Forget what you saw yesterday, that wasn’t me.”

I try to stand up and walk away, she grabs my wrist.

“Let me go.”

“You sure that wasn’t you? The beautiful, slithering creature who saved her friend, that
wasn’t you?”

She’s too loud. I wish she was quieter. I wish she shut up.

“You don’t know what it’s like—”

She lets go of my wrist; she seems insulted.

“I don’t know what it’s like? Are you blind? I know exactly what it’s like, I just stopped lying
to myself.”

How dare she?

“Do you know what I can do? It’s not “beautiful”, or cool. It’s terrifying, it’s eating me
away. Every day, I have to find the strength to shut it down. Again, and again.”

“All I know is that you look like someone who has a lot on her mind.”

Oh, you don’t know the end of it.

She grabs my hand and puts something in it. It’s an address and a date.

Seagarden Theater,
Sunday 8PM…

“Life support? Are you insane?”

“You need to talk about it, to others like you.”

“There’s nobody like me—I’m not like you, understand?”

I gave back her paper and looked around me. Everybody’s looking at us. Fuck, I had to
make a scene about it, that’s the last thing I need. No, actually, the last thing I need is
going to meet with a bunch of depressed monsters, I might have problems but I’m
already dealing with it, I’m not some poor victim, and I don’t need people to pity me.
I’m on it.

I walk away while she stares at me, annoyed. It seems she really hoped I’d take the
invitation, but I don’t know who she is, and she doesn’t know me.

“See, it’s not so bad, is it?”

I can barely hear him over the music. Am I only one who’s uncomfortable or is everyone
here too drunk to even think?

“Whatever, tell me when you’re ready to go.”

He frowns. He really wants me to like it, I’m sure, but that’s just not my scene. I’d rather be
at my dorm, studying. I don’t think he cares about failing classes. I have no idea why he
even is in college.

“Oh, don’t be like that! Just have a drink, you’ll feel better.”

He shoves a beer in my face, I nudge it away.

“You know I don’t drink.”

“Just like Clio, and now look at her, she’s having fun, isn’t she?”

We look over at the Muse, she’s laughing hysterically while two boys from our class are
trying to hit on her. I don’t think they realize she’s old enough to be their ancestors’
ancestor.

“Please, Ash, go have fun, I’ll be on my phone.”

I sit down next to a couple making out. Ash looks disappointed.

“Pshh, fine. Your loss!”

And he leaves me be. I couldn’t care less about parties, my objective isn’t to hang out
with the cool kids, try weed and get shitfaced. I just want to go through college without
getting killed by nazis, and I can’t let my guard down now. Since I let it out weeks ago,
it’s like I can’t get it back into my box. It had a taste of fresh air and it doesn’t want to go
back, it wants out, and I can’t let it. I’m having a terrible headache, and I’m stealing my
roommate medication, which might or might not be legal. I just can’t concentrate, I can
feel it slithering inside me, inside my head, like it’s crushing my brain, and my stomach.
Every time I get slightly mad, I can feel it, ready to come out. I was so stupid, I thought I
could control it, but I can’t. I spent so much time hiding it in there, and I thought I could
get it back in again. Think again, dumbass.

What’s this? Oh fuck, again?

“Brad, let him go, okay? He’s just having fun.” Said one of the two girls who were talking
to Ash.

They’re trying to calm their macho friend down, but he’s clearly wasted. This one isn’t
even surrounded by his clique, he’s all alone. Usually they come in packs. I approach the
scene. I see Ash has taken more than a few drinks himself. If he sees me maybe he won’t
make things worse.

“Yeah, I’m just having fun dude, chill.”

Ash playfully pushes the other guy back, almost tripping in the process. He thinks he’s
being funny. He’s making things worst. Thinking he defused the situation, he turns back to
the girls, but Brad isn’t finished with him.

“These girls don’t like you, zombie. Go fuck a corpse or something.”

Brad pushes him stronger; Ash falls to the floor. Somehow, he’s still laughing.

“Fuck you, I heard you can’t even hold an erection.”

That’s enough to get him kicked him in the jaw. Luckily, Brad’s drunk or Ash’s head could
have flown off if the blow was strong enough. I’m frozen as I’m a witness to my friend
getting his ass kicked, again, but that’s all I can do for now. I thought that Brad would
have had enough, but that’s the thing with these guys, at first you think they’re ridiculous
but as soon as you make fun of their dick, they put a knife to your throat.
Ash isn’t laughing anymore, hard to when some drunk asshole slams your head on the
floor and threatens to slice open your neck. I don’t know what to do anymore, so far, I
could always reassure myself that everything will turn out fine, but there’s that slithering
voice in my head right now telling me that I’m just a coward, and that Ash won’t make
it right now. If I don’t do anything, he’s getting killed. I couldn’t even make a decision
before I’m saved by the bell.

I feel reassured when I see a girl jumping on Brad’s back, wrestling him off Ash before
punching him a couple of times. As Brad is being knocked out, I get a good look at Ash’s
savior: the horns, the bald red head, the piercings: it’s that demon girl. I immediately feel
ashamed. If she wasn’t there, what would’ve happened? I would’ve left my friend die?
And for what? Fear?

The party died immediately. In the following hour, most people went home, and the few
who didn’t were either calling a cab for Brad or trying to nurse Ash. Clio and I had our
arms around him, as he was crying. It’s the first time I ever saw him cry, but I think tonight
might have been the wildest one he had in a while. I think he’ll take a break from parties.

“Hey, are you okay?”

At first, I thought she was just another one checking on Ash, but the question wasn’t
directed at him. It’s her.

“I’m fine, him, on the other hand…”

She looks at him, she sighs.

“Glad I was near; I don’t know what could’ve happened if I wasn’t.”

“Yeah.”

She looks back at me.

“Can we talk?”

I really don’t feel like talking, I just want to go home.

“Sorry, not the time.”

“I understand. Sorry for your friend, people are weird nowadays.”

How can she say that? I mean, look at her. She looks like Satan’s spawn; she must be
getting so much more shit than Ash.

“No—I’m sorry, thank you. That’s what I wanted to say, thank you. I’m glad you were here
in time.”

“No worries, I just hate to see people like us—sorry, like me getting picked on. We’re
monsters, sure, but we’re not monsters, you know? We have feelings too. Hope that sticks
someday.”

“Listen, I really wanted you to know how thankful I am, is there anything I can do for you?
I want to apologize about how rude I was to you.”

“Come over, then. That’s all I want.”

She hands me the same paper she handed me earlier. Same time and place. I’m not
convinced.

“I won’t force you, and I’ll stop bothering you. But you’re asking me what you can do for
me, and this is all I want.”

She smiles. I want to think I’m picking the paper only to be polite, but something in me
doesn’t hate the idea. I’m a coward, and what I’ve been doing so far might work, but I
can’t see my friends suffering again.

“See you soon?”

“Sure.”

I hold the paper. Is this really what I want?

There it is.

I sigh.

All I have to do now is come in. This should be the easiest thing but it’s not: inside there’s
a lot of people, strangers. Some of them might be from my college. If I go in, there’s no
going back. What if they don’t understand? I mean, they’re like me, but they’re not like
me like me, there’s no Sepherd in there. What if they hate me?

I push the door. The hallway’s empty. I see a sign:

Life Support First door on the left.

I can do this; I’ve done much worse. I walk toward the open door and I take a peak. My
heart stops. There are only about 12 people in there, but I can’t find the strength to put
my foot in the doorframe. Nobody’s seen me yet, it’s not too late to turn back, but then
I see her. That demon girl. I don’t even know her name yet. I think about what happened
the other night, and I think about Ash. He barely went out again. I know it’s not my fault,
but I could’ve done something. I didn’t. If someone can help, it’s them.

I walk in the room, and people look at me. It seems they haven’t started the meeting yet.
It’s as if they were waiting for me. The demon lights up when she sees me and shows me
an empty chair next to her. That’s where I sit. I look around me; a lot of them look normal,
you couldn’t tell something was wrong with them, but then there are the others. The
demons, the undead. The ones who can’t hide it.

A woman seems to be in charge. She also looks normal. She starts the meeting. People
take turns talking about their weeks. Some stories are good, like this witch who used to
be addicted to hearing the thoughts of people but she quit and, now, she seems to be
reacting well to her new medication, but some stories are bad, like that werewolf who
woke up in the middle of the woods, naked, after last full moon. I realize that I might have
it bad, but these people do too. I feel comfortable, safe. But I don’t feel ready when they
all look at me.

“It seems we have a newcomer; do you want to share with us?”

The lady seems nice, but I’m not sure I’m ready yet. My head turns naturally to the girl
who brought me here. She puts a hand on my shoulder, and I understand. This is what
I’ve been waiting for. It’s time to come clean. This is who I am.
“My name is Sekki and my mom sucks.”