After an unknown amount of time, feeling like I was drifting on the waves of some impossibly tranquil ocean, I took a turn back to reality. I could hear something beeping steadily, hear footsteps calm in pace and volume. I could feel an overhead vent blowing air on me and a touch of sunlight from an open window behind my eyelids. The scent of antiseptic and disease clouded the air in patches spinning off like sections of galaxy, or motes of stirred dust.

Grimacing, I shifted my weight from the cushy surface of the hospital bed to my arms.

“Fuck,” I swore under my breath as a sharp pain in my abdomen exploded upward like a piping hot geyser. I began to pant, the pain so overwhelming that I collapsed back onto the bed without another thought. Eyes open, I scanned the room. I was alone and I wasn’t sure where I was. Hospitals all look relatively similar.

Disease has a particular smell to it. It’s like when you’re hunting in the forest, treading lightly, and you just know that there is a deer in front of you. It takes both intuition and focus to spot a disease, not to mention a good eye and a sense of smell. I can’t diagnose people by sniffing them; I’m not a cancer dog. But it’s not difficult to sense whether or not something malignant is infesting someone’s body.

“Ciaran!” I hear suddenly, the roar punctuated with a loud clap. “You in there?”

Moaning, I reopened my eyes and froze when I saw who was in front of me.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” He articulated every word, his voice resounding. I was hoping he wouldn’t find out what my “part time job” was. Especially not like this.

“Um,” I began uncertainly. Since the situation couldn’t become more egregious, I figured I had nothing to lose by telling the truth. “It was the only job I could get that actually paid more than minimum wage.”

He just stared at me, jaw set and blue eyes identical to my own. “Are you kidding me? What kind of job involves you getting stabbed, then dropped off here without any information?”

I shrugged, lifting my shoulders delicately. “Does it matter? I just don’t want to layer you guys down with med school bills.”

“Ciaran, I’m a doctor; I can pay for your schooling.”

“That’s not the point, dad; I’m out of the house. I should be able to fully support myself without relying on your money.” Too many centuries of self-reliance have conditioned me to pull my own weight. His eyes pierce through my calm facade like molten daggers.

“God damn it,” my father exhales suddenly. His eyes look tired, his face sallow. “You know how I felt when they brought you in, pronounced nearly dead? Nobody expects that to happen to their son. If I hadn’t known what I know about you, you would certainly be dead. Nobody,” he gave me a pointed glare, “normal lives from a wound like that. Any other hospital and you’d be both dead and found a scientific monstrosity after an autopsy.”

I shrank under his glare. He’s always been exceptional at eating me out. People always say that children would act differently if they had parental experience. For most of the time my memory stretches back to, today’s classic “child” didn’t exist. For the majority of humanity’s existence, I, along with every other child, toiled from birth to death, expected to be an adult in miniature.

Though odd at first, you learn to flow with your variable age after a few cycles. Now, this lifetime is the first time I’ve incarnated into where the modern definition of a child is so carefree, unrestricted. So while I do relate with my parents on a higher level, having been a parent myself, I sure as hell am not above being their child. When you’re a child, it isn’t hard to act like one. It’s instinctual, like a kitten stalking prey before it can properly walk. It’s fantastic to have a family that can cater to your needy whims, to not have to worry about being among the statistical survivors in your family. It’s incredible what leaps and bounds have occurred in the past hundred years.

“I’m sorry,” I said slowly, shifting my head on the pillow. “I screwed up.”

“Yeah, yeah you did.” A moment of silence passed. “You know how I had to lie to keep your x-rays hidden?”

“Sorry.”

“And how I had to make sure I was your operating surgeon? Me, operating on my own son?”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” I repeated with a bit of bite. He was making this into a huge deal.

“And then I had to call your mother?” he said finally, making me wince as though struck by each of his verbal jabs. “She thought you were going to die, despite... you know.”

“Jesus, dad, what am I supposed to say to all of that?”

“And what the fuck are those plants growing from your hand? Had to cover those up with a glove,” my father snorts, hands out as he sorts through the list of ridiculousness. “It really never ends with you, does it?”

“Can you just give me a break?” I snarled. “I’ve been awake for all of two minutes and I already have a matching set of mental wounds for my physical ones. Can we just talk about this later?”

“Not until you promise to quit whatever job got you nearly killed.”

I close my eyes and inhale deeply, trying to calm myself. “Dad,” I began slowly, maturely. “I can handle this job.”

“Oh my God!” he bellowed in exasperation. “You obviously can’t if you come into a hospital 90% dead! Do you even hear yourself?”

“Do you even hear yourself?” I retorted. “Besides, this only happened because the guy got a lucky jump on me. I shut him down, though.”

“Ciaran, so help me God, what is this job you’ve been working?” I shifted my eyes uneasily. I usually hated getting my family involved in non-human affairs. They knew about non-humans, no doubt about it, but I kept them in the dark as much as possible. That’s how I’ve always tried to keep it.

Though when justice demands to be felt, I’m not above dragging people into the underworld of the supernatural. I convinced myself long ago that as long as I simply tug open the doors of knowledge, the choice of whether to breach them lies with the individual person.

I’m fairly certain the damned Serpent tempted Eve with the same mindset.

“Are you really asking me this and putting me in this position?” I pled. “Please don’t ask this of me.”

“I’m asking.” His voice was firm as a mountain and rumbled like an earthquake.

Eyes turned toward the window, I sighed and adjusted my head on the pillow. “My job is with a security firm. It protects against anticipated threats from non-humans. Particularly esps, since they’re so common.” It doesn’t take much to produce an esp, just an anthropomorphic magical entity and a human sharing a restless bed together. That means I’m not an esp, for the record, though passing for one is easy.

He nodded sullenly, then turned away and looked out the window. “Why are you really doing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ciaran,” his tone warned of impending anger.

“I’m trying to support myself. I already said.”

He turned back towards me now, back slightly hunched and cragged, cronelike. He went on my bed, sat down, his spine elongating and straightening into the characteristic “s” of the human skeletal system. I think about his skull, how it must be laughing under that mask of stern flesh sewn up with a thin mouth and long eyelashes. We’re all laughing underneath; the only difference is the kind of laughter.

“Look at me.” My father grabbed my arm, startling me. “You aren’t doing this job because of the money. You’re doing it because you enjoy it.”

I wanted to refute him but found I couldn’t without lying. I felt my eyes grow slightly heavy, like little wells of water pressed behind them. I turned my face to the side and rested a cheek on my pillow.

“The money is nice,” I added softly. “It’s good to be independent.”

His voice was full of the patience you use to console a child. I know; I’ve used it countless times myself. “Ciaran. You have so many talents, so many gifts. It would be such a waste if you broke them all on something as shortsighted as a security job.”

I glanced at his glasses reflecting the window’s cool natural light. “You sure have something against protecting science,” I said with a mock laugh, which came out as a choke after my ribs mutinied. “Do you really think I’m that stupid, dad?” Even in the body of a teenager, I’m not going to endanger my precious body unless the ends justify the risk.

His eyes narrowed. “I think you’re prone to repeating the same mistakes.”

“Like what?”

“Doing something reckless to feel alive.”

I snorted. “Life is reckless. I could die minding my own business in my own house just as surely as I could walking down the street or being a security guard. Have you ever been pillaged?”

“Fine,” dad snapped. “I’ll let you persist your own denial. Either way, I’m not going to let you continue this job.”

“That is ridiculous.”

“If this is really about supporting yourself, then keep working. Just forget about college.”

“What?”

“I have enough connections that I could stop you from getting into med school if I wanted to,” dad threatened.

“What the hell?” I hissed. “You’re punishing me for making a sound financial decision.”

He shook his head. “I’m punishing you for wasting your potential.” I nearly laughed.

“Most people would argue my potential is better spent taking down esps than in the operating room,” I barked. “If I hadn’t been surprised, which should’ve been impossible, none of this would have happened. So technically you’re punishing me for-”

“Enough, Ciaran. Stop testing me. You’re not going to continue this job, and that is final. I don’t care that you’re a legal adult, or that you think you’re some hotshot from the past, or about anything else. All I care about is that you don’t leave us here behind to grieve behind you.”

I shuddered and turned away.