Crying when she was happy was strange. Feeling furious when she was calm was even stranger, but that was what Fae had learned to live with.

Without warning, her brother Jaden's emotions would well up inside of her, usually to the point that they overrode her own. Beating him in something always meant a spoiled victory. It meant feeling his failure, and with such intensity that it terrified her.

If the both of them were happy, she felt euphoric. If both were sad, it meant she had to stop herself from jumping off of their apartment roof. Regardless, it meant that emotions, both good and bad, were almost never purely her own. Being sympathetic was one thing, but actually feeling how someone else did was another entirely.

Her brother's emotions screamed at her like a siren, but hers were a whisper to him. Even if she were sitting crying in the other room, he would probably only feel a slight discomfort, like a prick of a needle on his finger. She could never ruin his mood, and she secretly resented him for it.

To make matters worse, she had no one but him to talk to. There was no way she could tell anyone else. If she did, and people didn’t believe her, she would probably end up sitting in a clean white room with no windows. If they did, she imagined herself being tested on like an animal, hooked up to a machine and pumped full of brightly colored experimental drugs through tubes.

When she was in elementary school, her parents thought her mood swings might be from bipolar disorder. After numerous doctor visits, they were told that there were no signs of anything being wrong with her.

“Stop it, Fae,” her father said. “I’ve had enough of you acting out like a spoiled brat.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself and your family when you act like this,” her mother sobbed.

After that, she stopped talking to her parents beyond what was required to function in everyday life. It was in middle school that she and Jaden figured out about the link they shared, and promised to keep it a secret.

Since then, she had learned to manage it. When an emotional attack came, she had trained herself to focus on creating an appropriate response to what was going on around her.

Of course, there were times when she couldn’t hide it. Once during her freshman year, she had tried to cheer up a friend that had been dumped by her boyfriend. When she went to comfort her, she was assaulted by a fit of rage and ended up screaming at her to get over it. The two of them hadn’t talked since.

She worked hard to make sure situations like that wouldn’t happen. She perfected her laugh to sound genuine, and she was working on teaching herself to cry at will. She did what was necessary to live a ‘normal’ life.

So why was today different? She had always known which emotions were hers, and which were her brothers. Why couldn’t she do that now? Standing in the school bathroom stall, she felt something completely foreign. The sensation was something indescribable, unlike anything she had felt before.

Her stomach lurched, and she vomited. She thought she would feel relieved but somehow, she felt even worse.

She couldn’t hold back and did it again. This time, it felt like her insides were on fire. Her stomach had to be completely empty by now, but it was like someone was hammering nails into her intensities. She sat down on the stall floor and buried her head into her legs. She wanted to scream, but her voice came out like a whimper. Burning. Stabbing. She wanted it all to be over. Suddenly, she felt something surge through her body like electricity. She went limp, and her vision went black.

She woke up to the sound of a bell. Her head was light. There was a dull pain in her stomach.

She must have passed out. School was already over.

She managed to pull herself to her feet. The feeling from earlier was gone, but it was still fresh in her mind. “The nurse,” she mumbled. “I need to go to the nurse.”

She left the bathroom and walked down the hallway. She had been out for hours. She had passed out near the end of lunch, so everyone must have just assumed that she had left. Looking at her phone, she realized that it was almost thirty minutes since school had ended. Had it taken thirty minutes for her to get up and leave the bathroom?

“Hi Fae.”

The sudden voice in front of her made her jump. The boy in front of her was tall with lifeless looking eyes. She was pretty sure his name was Ocean, but decided to avoid saying it just in case. “Oh, hello.”

Ocean stood there for a few seconds with a blank stare. He was known for being sarcastic and for being friends with two of the richest girls in the school. To be honest, he was kind of creepy. Besides feeling sick, Fae wanted to avoid talking with him if possible.

“Are you leaving?” he suddenly started talking again. “You heard about what happened right? It’s probably a good idea not to walk home alone.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but decided to just ignore it for now. “I’m actually not feeling very well,” Fae put her hand on her stomach. “I’m on my way to see the school nurse.”

“Oh, okay,” Ocean said. “Hope you feel better.”

“Thanks,” Fae said. She managed to get away from him, continuing down the hallway to the nurse’s office.

“You probably have food poisoning,” the nurse said. “I think the worst of it has passed.”

Fae had heard of food poisoning before, but she had no idea that it could be such a painful experience.

“You just need to get some rest,” the nurse moved a curtain, exposing a bed. “Do you want to lie down?”

“No thank you,” Fae said. “I’ll just go home.”

The nurse frowned. “I’m concerned that you passed out for so long.”

“I think I’m okay now.”

“Can we call one of your parents to come and get you?” The nurse asked.

“I’ll just see if my brother is still here,” Fae said.

“Please do,” the nurse said. “It’s not a good idea to walk alone if you’re still not feeling well. Besides, it might not be safe with everything that’s going on.”

Fae remembered that Ocean had said the same thing. “Did something happen?” She asked.

“Something happened downtown,” the nurse said. “Not all the facts are certain yet, but it sounds like there was a student that was injured.”

“Someone from this school?” Fae asked.

The nurse shook her head. “We don’t know yet.”

This must have been why so many students were still at the school, Fae thought. There was no student parking on the school grounds, so most students walked, biked, or took the bus or train. If there were an issue of safety, a lot of them must have been waiting to be picked up by their parents.

“Well thank you for seeing me,” Fae said. “I’ll give my brother a call and get home.”

She left the nurse’s office and took out her cell phone. Whether or not something had actually happened downtown, people were probably posting about it on Clock Link. She decided she would see what all of the fuss was about later.

First, she tried calling Jaden, but he didn’t answer. She could feel a mild happiness coming from him. Maybe he was out with friends. Actually, it was more likely that he was out looking to get a picture of Sadie Quasar. Creep. Fae remembered him going on how she would be in town for a while to do some concerts. Either way, he probably had no idea how much pain she had been in.

Her mother always seemed to be on her cell phone, so she tried to give her a call but it was dead. She must have gone out without charging it or had fallen asleep.

Fae’s stomach still ached, but her head was much clearer. She would be fine making the walk home, she thought. She left the school alone and started walking toward her apartment complex.

The sky had clouded over, and it was starting to smell like it was going to rain. Maybe that was why there were so few people outside. Away from any main streets, it was quiet. Under normal circumstances, she might have been able to relax and enjoy the walk.

Reminded by the ache still in her stomach, she thought back to earlier that day. Before she had felt nauseous, she had been eating lunch with her friends. She had eaten a turkey sandwich with lettuce and tomato, but with how sudden the food poisoning had come, it was unlikely that this had been the cause. It must have been something she ate that morning.

Speaking of breakfast, what had she eaten exactly? She remembered being at school, but what had she done before that? It was normal for people to forget things like what they ate, but was it normal to not remember anything about their day at all?

A sharp pain erupted in her temple. She stumbled, landing on her side. She scraped her elbow, but any pain she should be feeling from it was drowned out by the return of whatever she had felt in the bathroom stall at school.

“Someone,” her voice was quiet and raspy. “Please help me.”

She managed to move her eyes around the street, but no one was there. She would have to call an ambulance. As she reached for her cell phone, a loud crack came from her hand, followed by excruciating pain.

It felt like someone was slowly ripping her fingernails off. She tried to let out a scream but her windpipe was blocked. It wasn’t that she just felt it; her fingernails were actually falling off.

This wasn’t food poisoning.

She tried desperately to get up but her body only flailed in response. She caught sight of her hand, which had been dyed bright red. Blood. So much blood. She felt warm. Everything was so warm.

Fae awoke in an intense sweat. She was wrapped in a blanket, and sprawled out on a couch. All of the pain had vanished.

She pulled the blanket off of herself and sat up. Judging by the temperature in the room, the thermostat had to have been turned up considerably. Her glasses had been left on the glass table to the right of the couch, and she reached out to grab them.

Her fingernails. Had they really fallen off? Her hand was wrapped in a bandage. As much as she might have wanted to, there was no way she would be able to convince herself that it had all been a dream.

The furniture in the room was black leather, and the floors were hardwood. Behind her, she could see a kitchen that sparkled like it had never been used. This clearly wasn’t her apartment.

From the sliding glass doors, she could see a balcony high over downtown Portland. How had she ended up this far from her home? She must have been out for a few hours. Although she couldn’t say she felt relieved, she was glad she was still on Earth.

“This is no good,” a voice said. “Bad, bad, bad.”

Fae felt a jolt down her spine as a woman entered the room.

“So cold in here,” The woman put her arms around herself like she was shivering. She was probably in her early twenties, and wore a strange black dress with white frills. It reminded Fae of something out of the Victorian era. Her pale skin contrasted sharply with her long black hair, and it seemed to almost glow in the florescent lighting.

As unusual as the woman’s appearance was, Fae couldn’t deny that she was beautiful. “Hello,” she stammered. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Yune probably turned the heat down,” the woman wasn’t even looking in her direction. “I’m going to freeze because of her. I’ll have to build an igloo for warmth.”

Fae was a little dizzy, but she managed to get on her feet. “Excuse me,” she raised her voice, which she was pleased to hear coming out normally. “I appreciate everything you’ve done but I think I need to go to the hospital.”

“The two of them better not just bring home instant noodles and think that it counts as dinner,” the woman turned in Fae’s direction. “Well you’re not hungry anyway.”

“Huh?” After being ignored the first time, it took Fae a moment to realize she was being talked to. “Oh, no, I’m not hungry. I think I’m sick, so I really need to go.”

“Probably buying instant noodles,” the woman pouted. “I just know it.”

Fae figured the woman wouldn’t even notice if she left. Her school bag had been set next to the couch. She bent down and pulled out her phone. Just as she feared, the battery had died. Wiping sweat from her brow, she turned back to the woman in black.

“Ma’am, do you have a phone I can use?” she asked. “I need to call my parents.”

Before she could receive an answer, a loud click rang throughout the apartment, and the front door swung open.

“I got so much beer,” a girl with long crimson hair came in with heavy looking plastic bags draped over her arms. “Cigarettes too.”

A blue haired girl followed closely behind her, carrying only a bottle of water. “My goodness it’s too hot in here,” she sighed. “I’m boiling.”

“Is it really?” the woman in black seemed surprised.

The red haired girl slammed the door shut with a kick. “Feels fine to me.”

“You don’t get to decide, Vi. Shouldn’t we be asking our guest?” The blue one frowned. “Look, she’s covered in sweat, poor thing.”

“Turn it down then, Yune,” Vi’s red hair whipped around as she turned to set the bags she was holding on kitchen counter.

“Miss Minerva doesn’t understand what others need to survive,” Yune twirled her blue hair around one of her fingers. “This is why we can’t have any pets. They’d burn up. Or freeze. Or starve.”

“We talked,” Minerva said. “She’s not hungry.”

“Well of course she’s not,” Yune cheerfully moved across the room to the thermostat, turning it off. “Let’s get some windows open too. It’s starting to rain outside,” she looked over to Fae and smiled. “I’m Yune. The one in the kitchen is Vi. What’s your name?”

It seemed that unlike the one in the black dress, this girl would actually listen to what she had to say. “I’m Fae,” she said as she picked up her bag. “I’m not exactly sure about everything that happened, but I think it’s best if I go to the hospital.”

“You didn’t tell her what’s happening,” Vi pointed at Minerva.

“I did,” Minerva said, crossing her arms and turning her head away with a frown. “I said that it was no good.”

Yune sighed, her smile fading and her eyes focusing on Fae. “Let’s sit down,” she said. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

“Uh, okay,” Fae said.

“I’ll start from the hard part,” Yune said. “Something is happening to your body.”

Fae knew that much. She wanted to reply that she was sick, but looking down at her bandaged hand, she wasn’t sure about what had happened anymore.

“You’re becoming a demon,” she said.

Great. This was some kind of religious pitch. Were they in some kind of weird cult? Was this a speech to recruit her?

“To put it another way, someone is turning you into a magical familiar,” Yune was still smiling, but her eyes seemed to be filled with sorrow. “Your body is in the process of getting rid of unnecessary nutrients.”

With the room still feeling like an oven, Fae’s clothing was wet and plastered to her body. A bead of sweat ran from her forehead and down to her chin. “Excuse me?”

These people were crazy.