I got home, and locked the door behind me, my mind swirling; what had I done? I sat on the floor, swaying softly, as I processed the day I just had, overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of it all. I knew it would be eventful, my first day in my new form, but I had turned it into something completely warped and twisted with my actions. This was the person who was capable of hurting Joon-hu, and of killing the man in the alley. It wasn’t that I could consume the evils in others; I myself was evil. I began to question whether I was the right one to receive the power I had when my phone began to ring. I picked it up; Silaqui was calling me, probably to follow up. Oh fuck, I had no idea what I was supposed to say… Was I supposed to be honest? Being honest has been good so far, but I think admitting to assault would be crossing the line. I answered the phone, resolving to keep this incident to myself.

  “Hello, Silaqui.” My voice was devoid of emotion, as much as I tried to fake easiness.

  “Hey Avery, just checking in. You were supposed to call me, remember?”

  “Yeah, sorry, I just… It has been a really long day, so I was catching up with movies that my grandfather recommended to me to try to calm down.”

  “Oh yeah? Which ones?”

  Shit. I began to scramble around for the list. Took me a few moments to find it, but before I could compile an accurate list of movies that I hadn’t already seen, Silaqui spoke.

  “Listen, that pause speaks multitudes; something is obviously wrong, and you definitely weren’t watching movies, because it’s only been three or so hours, and you should be able to remember one or two movie titles immediately, so what really happened?”

  I froze. I should’ve known to get my facts straight; she may look and act young, but I always got the sense she was older and wiser than I’d ever know. I began to panic, not knowing what to say, even with my accelerated thought processes. But then a memory flashed through my head, one of my mother, when she was alive and well. I had taken candy from a bodega as a child, not understanding that was stealing and it was wrong. When I began to eat it in front of her, she calmly asked me where I had gotten it. When I told her, she explained to me calmly that there were rules we had to follow, and that those rules existed to protect people. She explained how my father lived to protect those rules, and that taking that candy was breaking them. When I started crying, she hugged me, walked me back to the store, and gave me the money to pay for my candy. She encouraged me to apologize, and when I did, the store owner just smiled and said that it happened all the time. He and my mother chatted for a bit, and then we left, just like that.

  I started crying, an uncontrollable sob, as I remembered the day I had, the month I had, the life I had. And I couldn’t help but bare my soul to Silaqui that night over the phone. I talked about my father, and how he died trying to do the right thing. I talked about my mother, and how she died trying to do the same. I talked about being sent to a foreign country to live with my grandfather, who didn’t understand me. I talked about being bullied and ridiculed and ostracized, and how Aera and I found each other and I felt like someone finally understood me, only to find out that I was being manipulated and abused and lied to the entire time. Silaqui listened patiently as I unloaded years of trauma and pain, a broken faucet spewing filth and caustic waste. She took a moment to pause, before she said something so profound, it carved itself into my soul:

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  “And the entire time, you were in the wrong body, with the wrong parts, and the wrong gender; the pain of these things must’ve felt so much worse knowing you had this part of you that you could never share with others. I’m so sorry Avery… Your heart must’ve been broken from the start.”

  I don’t think anyone had ever understood me like that before, not even Aera. Aera, who I had shared the dark of my heart with, could never have empathized with me like this; the few times I tried to tell her, she called me strange and disgusting. When I would act anything less than the stoic man after that first encounter, she would keep me at arm’s length. She saw me as nothing more than a means to an end, a man to tie herself to that would hold her up, even if he himself were drowning. But I wasn’t even a man, and I could never have shared that with her. But with Silaqui, I could share things, and she would understand. Suddenly, I realized that maybe it was okay to bare the dark parts of me to her as well. Maybe she would understand that I wasn’t the beacon of goodness my father was.

  “I have to confess to you, Silaqui. That night you found me, when I killed the Siphoner, there was a man there too.”

  “Yeah,” she says, “I remember. His throat was cut. I assume you did that?”

  “Yeah, I did. But I didn’t have to. I recognized he had been ensorcelled by the Siphoner, and I had already knocked him down. I could’ve just knocked him out, or disabled him in some way, but I killed him. I didn’t have to, but I did.”

  “That’s okay, Avery,” she responded, a softness to her voice. “He came after you and your then-girlfriend. You responded in kind, in the heat of the moment. I think that things could be handled differently, but you aren’t to blame for it; you were only human against insurmountable odds.”

  “But that isn’t all,” I said, with an exasperated tone. “Tonight, instead of going straight home, I found the man who made me… Whose memories and Vanta I took into me, and I followed him. I pushed him into an alley and… I let my own evil out. I beat him, Silaqui. Savagely. He is still alive, and I called the paramedics on the way home to ensure he would be taken care of, but I destroyed him, not because his evil was still in me, and not solely to deal some divine justice for his little boy, but because I needed to. Because I’m evil, Silaqui. I’m so sorry, but I think you gave this body to the wrong person. I want to be like my father; I want to help people. But I’m twisted and broken deep down, and my wires are all crossed, and I look at myself internally and it’s like a funhouse mirror. I don’t know what you want from me, but I just want to be honest with you, because you’ve been nothing but good to me. I’m so sorry.” I’m sobbing again, my heart in tatters that I don’t feel can ever be mended. This is it, I think to myself. This is where it all ends.

  Silaqui doesn’t speak for a moment; the line is quiet, except for a soft breath. I wonder what is going through her mind, but remember again that this wondering is impossible for me.

  “Avery, you are being so hard on yourself. You’ve been expected to be perfect and obedient your entire life; it’s no wonder you can’t see yourself clearly. Everyone has evils in their hearts; those who say they don’t are lying. Some are just benign evils, while others, like the man you hurt, are severe. When I saw you in that alleyway, desperately clinging to life, having protected what I assumed you cared for from something that should’ve been so clearly beyond you, I knew it had to be you.” There was a long pause before she spoke again. “Next time we meet, I’ll tell you the real reason why I created you. But until then, know this; you were not a mistake, and I don’t regret my choice at all.”

  I took a small comfort in her words, and as we said our goodbyes, I began to look forward to learning more about myself, Silaqui, and our new bond.