5

Ripple

Opening his eyes would have been easier if the pounding in his head and the ringing in his ears would have stopped. As it was, he just had to ignore that, and ignore the sharp cold bursting through new holes in his walls too. Shakily standing up, he saw the ruins of his bedroom. One section of the wall had fallen in, crushing the dresser underneath. Another was missing half of the window frame, with the glass broken all over the floor. The first thought he had was that there had been an earthquake, but the city had never experienced one that he knew of, and certainly not of that size. This made the local Mages' Union more than likely responsible.

Carefully, Quinn walked to one of the holes and squinted at the sky. It was still the milky blue of the morning, but the telltale chromatic ripple spreading through the clouds betrayed that magic was indeed to blame. His head clearing, he staggered to the front room, catching himself on a coat rack as another tremor rumbled through. This room was hit just as hard, he thought. At least the portrait of Theresa and himself still hung on, albeit crookedly. The finely painted versions of them smiled out, oblivious of the destruction. He scanned over the cracked walls and broken windows before returning to the unadorned piece of wood near the door. Her coat was missing; she was outside. In this mess.

He rushed out into the crowded street, quickly wishing he had thought to put on warmer clothes than the faded grey shirt he had slept in as the wind bit into his skin. At least his head had stopped pounding. She hadn't said she was going anywhere… He turned left, weaving between clusters of scared people, cold stone roads beneath him. Where? What would she be out looking for? He turned right, dodging past more disturbed people surveying the damage. Perhaps Thomas saw her. The bakery was a bit further from here, but if he cut through the next side street, it would be right in front of him.

"Hey! Did Theresa come by here?" He stepped over a fallen post, calling out to the bewildered baker.

"Yes, but something seemed wrong. I think she said something about going back home, but…" The stout man swept his arm around, drawing attention to the loaves littering the floor, the disturbed firewood no longer housed in the now-cracked ovens. "Then that wave hit. I've got my hands full. I'll keep an eye out if she comes back 'round, but I'm certain she mentioned going back home."

"Thanks." He half paused, wondering if there was someway to help. "Do you-"

"Go on," the baker told him with his arms full of debris. "I can handle the shop."

I doubt any earthquake has ever done this much damage before. Again, he ran back through the crowded streets, with yet more people leaving their suddenly precarious homes, the cold cutting deep into his feet. They were almost completely numb, and he was pretty sure frostbite was about to set in. Maybe it wasn't the earth they shook.

He turned down his street, the faint light of the fireplace peeking through the window. The door to the house was open, and once inside he could just make out the sound of footsteps downstairs. He crept forward.

"Hello? Theresa?"

The sounds stopped. "U-Uh, yes, but don't come down here," came the reply.

He walked down the steps into the half-lit basement. "Why? What are you do-"

He stopped. He didn't see her downstairs. Rather, what stood before him was a figure composed of shiny black chitin, cloaked in the shadowy glow of a candle, with gleaming golden eyes. It looked nearly human, but the head was hairless, and the limbs were separated by jointed segments. And it was wearing Theresa's jacket.

"Quinn," it said, distorted as if three similar but distinct feminine voices spoke at once. "It's me."

Shaking a little, his face contorted from shock and confusion to curiosity and disbelief. "Did that spell do this?"

Turning away, she nodded. "In a manner of speaking, but… No. I was born like this, and the spell only disrupted the disguise."

"Why do you need to hide like that?"

She gazed softly at him. "To feed. We feed off of positive emotions, and… this form is unsuited for that." Quinn reflexively took a step back. Her piercing eyes shone at him from the darkness. "So… So we look like you, and live like you, and love like you. But we lie." She let the words hang heavy in the air, with an edge in them, and a rigidity in her stance, as if she were giving a speech she had prepared for.

His shoulders fell, and he thought of when he first met her. "I'm so sorry! Gah, here let me help!" He had missed a step and covered her in the meal she had ordered. "We look like you." She just laughed it off. Tears welled up in his eyes. When she stopped by the next day after he got off work. "If you think that was bad, you should've seen his face when the Mages refused to deliver it; I thought it was gonna pop right off!" Streams trickled down his face. "We live like you." When he kissed her the first time. "We love like you." His breaths came in ragged gasps. "But we lie."

Quinn took a swing at her, blinded by tears and rage, and was knocked on his back, driving the air from his lungs. Swift footsteps. The stairs moaning. The door swinging, closing shut. The sounds of people picking themselves up from the destruction filtered in. He simply lay on his back and cried.

You would never know how bad this street looked, Theresa thought to herself. The sun was beginning to set, painting all the houses in the pinks and oranges of evening. A faint breeze pressed the back of her coat to her legs. The poor thing had seen better days, but it still provided some warmth. Down the street, the house stood dark before her.

He definitely doesn't want to see me. She sighed. He probably moved. She took a step forward. Starvation, or at least fasting, was how she expected the first month to go, waiting to reintegrate in a town and find someone new. Probably would've been stuck with them, too. But the emptiness never came. Every day, every week, for three months, she woke up prepared, and it never came.

She knocked on the door once. Twice. Three times. "It's unlocked; go ahead," came a voice from inside. He was sitting in front of the window, looking out.

He had left it dark, letting the light from the mended window sift through the dusty pane and cast an ever fainter glow on the room. It looked nice, back to how it was before, as if the place was undisturbed.

"Why did you come back?" He kept facing outside.

"I don't know. But I-"

Quinn stood up from the chair and looked at her. "Stop hiding. Please." She didn't need to see his face to hear how sadness pervaded his every word.

A little startled at the suggestion, Theresa simply looked at him. Then, a slight shimmer swept over her, and her sleek chitin revealed itself underneath.

Emboldened, she stated "You still love me." Softer, she asked "Why?"

He chuckled a little. "Because it wasn't all a lie. Everything was real to me, and I guess that means more."

"None of it was a lie,"she whispered. The visits, the meals, sitting down and watching the sun set, resurfaced in her mind. "But when you live like I do, it's better safe than sorry."

"Then I guess I'm sorry." The room had lost almost all of its light as the soft trilling of crickets made it's way inside. "Are you here for anything else? You can stay until morning if you need to."

"Can we start again?" For one of the few times in her life, she let her desperation show.

He had started making his way to the bedroom, but stopped. "No. Not if you can't trust me." For a while it seemed as though the world had gone silent, leaving only the beating of her heart to fill a new void, one that had opened up while she was away. She was about to protest, to bargain, to plead, when he turned back around.

"But if you quit hiding, we could continue."