The first thing that she heard was a hum of a number, which might have been more comforting if the number were something different. Just a little lower, just slightly higher. What she got instead was as good as putting the wrong foot forward, waking up on the wrong side of the bed.

-{Twenty-two.}-

It felt like wearing all of her clothes inside out, and she hated it.

"What? Who's that?"

-{Us.}-

And she hated it slightly more.

"Whoever you are. You're not making sense. Doesn't add up. Number's wrong. Off."

-{I think that, between the two of us, the one who doesn't make sense is you.}-

"Cute. Really--who is this?"

-{Dreizehn.}-

"That...German, yeah? A number?"

In the pause came a sensation like something was crawling over every inch of her skin. She squirmed. It stopped.

-{Yes. Thirteen.}-

"Nein."

-{You're Nine.}-

She scoffed. Now she got it. That wasn't the worst pickup line she'd ever gotten, but it was close. Not that she'd let that deter her before, if the timing was right and the view was good enough. But there wasn't anyone else here that she could see; just lots of little rocks with things carved into them. Shapes and letters and figures.

-{You put such value in being human.}-

"Where'd that come from?"

-{You.}-

"Yeah, well. Other humans don't much like being around you when you're not one. Kind of fear for their lives. Every culture's afraid of monsters in some way. Somehow."

-{You put such value in being human for someone who is ******** you. I'm as human as they come. Got a human body. Got feelings. Got love. Got a soul--or whatever you want to call it. Core?"

-{Were.}-

"What?" Distracted, she backed against the tablets. They shifted, and it sounded like she might have knocked something down, but nothing fell. Something felt different. Not wrong, necessarily, but different.

-{You were human. Don't worry. I helped.}-

In her mind she felt the smile. It was as acrid as hot tar and as sickeningly thick as molasses, stretching onward and onward, showing more and more rows of teeth. She braced herself against the wall and felt her stomach lurch.

"Get out."

-{I chose you. I can't. You feel it, don't you? You feel me here. A shadow inside, keeping you alive. A monster keeping your heart beating. A creature keeping you breathing. What's so wrong with that? If this is what it took for you to be alive, aren't you glad that you're living?}-

"Bullshit. You're lying." It had to be. She'd heard about the bond, but it couldn't work like this. She surely had some sort of choice in it. Some way to say no. But if there was a way--they'd have told her along with all the other things, wouldn't they. Probably thought it was clever, just telling her to go get her weapon. No one said anything about choosing.

-{You don't really think that I am. You should be grateful. This is better. You're better.}-

The words came with the sight of ink filling every porous part of her, soaking into her bones like a sponge, sinking into her mind like filthy runoff seeping into concrete crevices. Everything felt heavier and lighter at once.

-{See? You were so empty before.}-

"I was fine before."

-{Were you?}-

She wasn't.

-{You're welcome.}-

"So what--what am I supposed to do? Not human anymore, then what am I?"

-{You have known that answer for a while, haven't you?}-

Now it appeared to her like a cancer, made of shadow and pulsing pustules of red, growing somewhere inside her as it stretched its sticky tendrils out over the entire expanse of her mind. It saw what she saw. It thought what she thought.

-{It's all right. You don't have to tell me. I see how long: twenty-seven years, is it?}-

"Not like that. This is not like that."

This was nothing like that. If it were, she would have...died...and returned with...something dark and inhuman living inside her instead...

This was just like that.

s**t. s**t. She felt that awful smile and swore it stretched even farther this time.

"Okay--okay. Just." With a ragged, drawn-out breath, she tried to think past it. She couldn't, of course - they shared the space of her thoughts, and it watched her so patiently that she felt the prickling of goosebumps on the back of her neck, as though it were staring over her shoulder. "Give me a minute."

-{Oh, yes, Nine. Of course. We have the rest of our life.}-

She groaned. The sound turned into a choked sob. A minute turned into several. And when she finally came crawling out of the cove, it was only to avoid raising questions she didn't want to answer.