Humans were social creatures; it was impossible not to rely on others. Mostly impossible. And those were my profound thoughts of the day. Thanks for coming to my speech, folks!

One could try to be independent, but you’d still hope the driver of that car on the end of the road wouldn’t run over you as you walk across. You’d be at the mercy of the chef preparing your food at the restaurant not to poison it, you’d be dependent on construction workers you haven’t met that the building you were in wouldn’t collapse. It was next to impossible not to rely on others not to be assholes while living in a city.

Transferring to a cave in the middle of nowhere, foraging and hunting in the forest, might probably work to isolate oneself. Just that one would still rely on other humans not to be stupid and summon a Purple Bloom that could destroy their entire country like what was happening in Madagascar.

This sort of ‘reliance’ on others I was completely fine with.

I wanted the comforts of life, making compromises necessary. People around me generally delivered on their societal duties so it wasn't a problem. For example, I relied on Mom sending me money for my education and all other needs because my strong, independent, twenty-something ass was broke as hell. But if my intuition was correct, the time might be drawing near for me to disconnect myself from Mom.

Then there was the other reliance like…like relying on Deen for example.

So far, other than my suspicion she threw a grenade at me—a very shaky one—Deen was mostly fine. Sure, I would've preferred to live alone, and she habitually invaded my personal space like an Adumbrae taking over the mind, but I could still get away from her whenever my social energy got drained. I also wouldn’t say no to a free roof over my head and free food, like this strawberry ice cream I was eating.

And perhaps now, more than ever, with a concrete threat looming, I should make sure Deen would stay on my side.

Just figuratively; literally is too much.

I stirred the pink slush back and forth with my spoon while I listened with one ear to Professor Gallagher yap on TV as he pointed at a map of the southern part of the African continent near Madagascar.

Sunday had come and gone without the BID dropping a bomb or the 2Ms sending their Adumbrae or whatever else coming to attack me, and Monday morning seemed to be a bright new day full of possibilities. It was time to be normal again. I should savor this opportunity because it might not last long.

The mayor, our new one, had announced on the 6 a.m. news that the lockdown was lifted, but still advised people to stay at home if possible. Not that I had any plans to go out. The city was also preparing to give preliminary aid packages to everyone affected and, when they received the shipment from the state, would also begin distribution of the pills.

I hadn’t lived in a place that had suffered a massive Adumbrae attack—that was, until now—so I hadn’t been personally offered those pills. Mom had told me about them though and I had seen on TV what they looked like. It was a set of seven colored tablets, kind of like how Grandma arranged her maintenance medicine for the week, that a person should take once a day.

They were special antidepressants to sort of make the population docile for a period, along with some other chemicals supposed to suppress parts of the brain susceptible to Adumbrae attack.

Unsurprisingly, many people were resistant to a forced administration of the drug because of whatever funky shit it would do to the mind. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, something we had discussed in Constitutional Law class back in the first semester, and it was deemed unconstitutional. The result: it was only distributed if an Adumbrae attack had widespread effects, and it was voluntary for the citizens if they wanted to take it or not.

If there was a huge incident, like what happened here in La Esperanza, everyone panicked and did all sorts of things to ‘protect’ themselves from Adumbrae, something right up Reginus’ alley—what did happen to that weirdo?—so the people didn’t need much convincing to take the pills anyway.

In the end, the government somehow got what it wanted.

As for me, I had no intention of taking them. Even if I wasn’t an Adumbrae I still wouldn’t touch those pills, or any pills. I preferred it if no one bothered my mind. I’m perfect and cute, just the way I am.

In any case, it was a good idea to curb rising stress levels that could affect the psychology of people and lead to someone new getting seeded. The police officer who interviewed me for my testing, Hogan or Hardy, had explained that to me. And it kinda came true with Mushroom Buddy popping out in the city. Officer-H Something unknowingly predicted the 2Ms' plans.

Unfortunately, conditions in the city weren’t really conducive to reducing the stress and anxiety of the people.

Martial law was still in effect with most people staying indoors, a number fleeing the city, the National Guard manning multiple checkpoints, several roads blocked, reconstruction efforts, hasty funerals and cremations for the hundreds of dead, and the BID scouring the city for Adumbrae.

Our whole university was expectedly closed once again. Physical classes were suspended for an indefinite period and the online classrooms were opened. I saw some posts on Snippet—yep, social media girl, that’s me—claiming that one of Mushroom Buddy’s almond pods hit a university building. I doubted it was true because EFU campus was too far away from the city center.

A piece of real news though was that several EFU students had been killed or injured, either by the parasite monsters or by Mushroom Buddy and his mushroom folk army. Deen, ever-present in Snippet chat groups, told me that Carlos from our International Law class got his legs squished by falling debris when an almond pod hit his apartment building. More tragic, as Deen put it, was a couple of fellow first-years—Meryl from my Criminal Law class and her boyfriend, Deen’s classmate in a different subject—were turned into mushroom people and killed by the BID.

Of course, I had to pretend to be devastated about this while we ate breakfast. Super annoying.

More annoying was International Law class not getting canceled—to be fair, no one expected otherwise from Professor Gallagher. Yeah, classes were online, but most professors didn’t continue with their schedules out of consideration for the students, a lot of whom were currently stuck in the hours-long heavy traffic going out of the city.

Many of us at Eloyce university were from out of town, and when the news hit about another Adumbrae Titan in La Esperanza, Stella being mistaken for the first one, most families wanted their precious babies out of the city. The students had the same mind.

Mushroom Buddy was more of the final straw than the trigger for the exodus. We already had the BID-versus-2Ms raid that ended in a massive underground explosion, snake mutant buddy killing a bunch of people the following day, and who couldn’t forget the crowd-favorite, my condo getting destroyed.

Deen and I were also leaving the city. Thinking of the drive to Vegas in a couple of days made me anxious. Stuck in a car with Deen for several hours? It might be the time I’d finally snap, break my Rules, and break her neck. Just kidding. She was my precious ally and I'd feel safer if I was out of the city. If she got too touchy-feely though, I might still break her neck.

Speaking about breaking somebody’s neck, Professor Gallagher might be a better candidate. He sent an email to the class this morning to confirm our schedule, including a pretentious like that, “now, more than ever, you need to focus on your studies.”

Sure…only that he wasn’t actually lecturing us. He was getting interviewed on TV about Madagascar—or, by now, it was the African Adumbrae crisis.

Given the professor’s past as a member of the Free Will Initiative, XYTV invited him over yesterday to explain the BID footage of exterminating Mushroom Buddy. They probably liked him so much that they invited him over again today for some international news analysis. Our “class” then became watching his live interview bullshit.

And to make sure we did tune in, we were tasked to submit a paper before the end of the class—pick any topic about International Law that was discussed during the interview, including concepts we hadn’t touched upon, and give our reflections on it.

Overall, this was quite easy and way better than if we had an actual class. I still thought he should’ve just canceled our class today because I wasn’t in the mood to use my brain after spending the whole night thinking, probably overthinking, a lot of stuff.

Deen wanted to watch the show together in the living room, but I deflected her clinginess and told her I wanted to focus so I was going to stay in my room instead. I also did some emotional speech about wanting to take my studies seriously even though I was no longer human, which seemed to be the wrong move. She became teary-eyed and I hastily retreated to my room along with the strawberry ice cream from yesterday before she could think about hugging me.

“Let’s write this stupid paper,” I said, putting the tub of ice cream aside and completely focusing on the TV. The topic was a bit interesting, and it was probably the last big talking point before the program ended so I better listen carefully otherwise I'd have nothing to write. After this, I had an hour left to finish my paper and email the paper to the professor.

Contrary to my speech to Deen, I was tempted not to do this assignment because I was starting not to care about law school. But here goes.

I hadn’t paid attention to the happenings in Africa these past few days.

The good news was that the Corebrings and the UN forces are pushing the Adumbrae out of mainland Africa and back to the sea, where they assumed the Purple Bloom was hiding. UN forces had also secured large portions of Madagascar island, protecting millions of people remaining there, while evacuating tens of thousands per day through secured routes across the Mozambique Channel.

The topic for the latter half of the news had been focused on the humanitarian aspect of the war, the refugees, food and water, and reconstruction. Professor Gallagher was now talking about a particular topic I hadn’t considered could be a problem in a situation like this.

“There is a balancing act here,” he said. "All of the countries involved are signatories to the 1955 Convention on Refugees, the countries of the Central African Union, the RSA, Madagascar, and France. However, all of them have reservations when it comes to Adumbrae-related refugees.”

“Reservations, professor?” interrupted Frank, the male news anchor for XYTV’s Good Morning California. “Can you tell the audience in simple terms about what it is?”

“A reservation is essentially a caveat to a treaty, in this case, the UN Convention on Refugees. This UN multilateral treaty sets out the rights of refugees and the responsibilities of nations accepting them. Almost all signatories have a reservation when it comes to REAAs or “refugees escaping Adumbrae attacks.”

“And why is that?” Frank asked.

“The prevailing thought back then,” Professor Gallagher animatedly answered with his hands in gesturing in the air, “that continues up to the present, is people infected by Adumbrae don’t have human rights. If refugees are fleeing from Adumbrae ravaging their country, many of them could likely be Adumbrae as well. And countries don’t want their hands tied in weeding out possible sources of seeding outbreaks. Thusly, each country wants to craft its own rules on how to deal with this issue. And that's where the problem comes in.

"On one hand, we have the Central African Union taking in the majority of the Malagasy refugees. Within the Union, they have their own procedure on how to process refugees, check for Adumbrae, and make sure there's no possibility for a seeding outbreak. The Malagasy refugees implicitly agreed to these rules by crossing the borders into mainland Africa. They didn't have a choice, mind you. On the other hand, we have the French accusing the Union that their procedures are too harsh."

"Videos are circulating of groups of refugees summarily executed," said Lisa, the other news anchor.

"There are those, yes." Professor Gallagher nodded. "Now, the League of European Nations has its own rules for REAAs, and France wants to implement that in processing Malagasy refugees. The French government is arguing that since Madagascar is a French Protectorate, they have control of its foreign interactions. This is a very tenuous argument as the concept of protectorates hasn't been historically extended to policy in relation to refugees, be it from war, political persecution, or Adumbrae attacks."

"Hmm, what do I say here?" I wondered, tapping my fingers on the laptop's keyboard. I understood the basics of what the professor was talking about, but I didn't know enough about the topic to delve into the legalistic side of it.

So why bother then? I had an idea of how Professor Gallagher's mind worked. I was sure he wouldn't care if we gave an opinion based on the law as this was something we hadn't discussed in class. We were just supposed to discuss our impressions anyway. Recalling how he liked my no-nonsense response in class about Corebrings not being bound by the law in practice, I decided to go that route and provide a ‘realistic’ reflection.

Thirty minutes later and I had a big pile of word vomit, hot and fresh from the oven. Bullshitting was a relaxing hobby. The gist of my paper was that the Union was taking in the refugees, so their land, their rules. A childish answer, but that was oftentimes the case in International Law.

I also pointed out that the League would have a very different view if the Purple Bloom cropped up in Europe. It’d probably also implement draconian measures to stop its spread, especially if the Purple Bloom hadn’t been found in nearly a month already.

Proofreading. Some cosmetic touches. And send.

Now what?

I had fifteen minutes to go before the deadline for submitting the paper, and I didn’t want to go out until then. For sure, Deen would come by to bother me when the time was up. I could watch a movie while eating the rest of my ice cream. But getting interrupted watching the first parts of a movie would suck.

I turned over my right palm. I didn’t need to use pimple patches or makeup to hide the crystals anymore. That was a definite advantage to Deen knowing my secret. The crystals were growing bigger and they were becoming more difficult to hide. And they were annoying too, scraping against each other if I closed my hand.

Crystals…what if I try on the new mask?