Page 2 of Berries and Greed

With every step up the wide stone staircase to The Order’s compound, my brain tried to convince me to turn back around.

This is weird.

This is a bad idea.

You’ll never live this down if anyone finds out.

You have literally no experience with humans. You barely have experience with other demiurgus. Go back and hide alone in your house like the socially anxious goblin that you are.

My skin prickled with sweat as I kept going, despite my own brain trying to sabotage the plan I’d spent weeks agonising over. Well, not really a plan. More like a loose, half-formed idea that had come to me when I was super stoned.

But I was used to my brain betraying me. It liked to make me feel like a total loser every time I was out in public—which was very, very rarely—second-guessing everything I said, convincing me that everyone around me thought I was a creep or a weirdo.

Well, you’re really cementing your weirdo status now, Greid. Awesome job.

I was used to being made to feel like a weirdo—not just by myself, either. It seemed like most of my life, I’d been made to feel strange or endured some form of humiliation. My shitty dad calling me the runt of the litter. My douchey brother picking on me mercilessly when we were kids. My former girlfriend telling me she couldn’t think of anything worse than spending the rest of her life with someone so miserable and closed off. Our mutual acquaintances avoiding me after Agma had spread vicious rumours among our circles that I was weak and defective somehow. That there was something wrong with me.

Well, fuck all of them. Fuck everyone. It wasn’t even like they’d been my friends. As a rule, I disliked and avoided all people, which was something else Agma had hated about me. Apparently I was “antisocial” and “practically a hermit”, and wanting to stay in and get high and watch shitty TV was “immature”. How was that immature? I was old enough to buy legal drugs, so technically getting high was the most mature thing I could do.

Whatever Agma had told her social circle after our break-up, it had been enough to make me a pariah. Any loose acquaintances I’d made through her suddenly started avoiding me like the plague. I had my suspicions about what she’d shared with her friends. My kind, demiurgus, craved battle and constant power plays in relationships, especially during sex. That I craved something else apparently made me defective.

So yeah, fuck all of them. I didn’t need them. Assholes.

My lip curled as I reached the top of the steps, eyeing the large, pale-stoned building that sprawled across the hill overlooking the city. It looked drab and lifeless. Beige. Too many windows. Too much light seeping in. But even as I eyed it warily, half expecting to hear duelling banjos somewhere close by, a stab of worry tightened my gut. I smoothed down my stifling suit and hesitantly approached the front door.

Would a human hate my home?

My house was dark and cluttered. To me it was soothing. Lots of nooks and crannies to hide in when I wanted to be alone. Only candlelight illuminated the rooms usually, but there was power. The kitchen was always bright, lit with electric lights and constantly filled with the hum of appliances, so I avoided it as much as possible until I got really hungry. And I got hungry a lot.

Before I could bring myself to knock on the tall, pale wooden doors, doubting not just my decision to come here but all of my life choices that had led me up to this moment, one of them opened. Snapping my hand back down, I went still and eyed the human in front of me, starting to sweat even more.

She was tall and slender, with blonde hair cascading over her shoulder and a soft smile on her face. Flowing beige trousers swept over the tops of her bare feet, and her beige shirt was loose, showing only a hint of her figure. Her skin was pale but tanned, like some humans who spent time in the sun. It was almost the exact same shade as her clothing.

I stared at her in silence, wanting to turn and stride right back down the stairs. The only splash of colour on her entire person was her blue eyes, but they were as pale and dull as the rest of her. I’d seen a lot of humans in my life—not that I left my house much—but I obviously hadn’t paid much attention to any of them, because this one looked like any hint of colour, of life, had been drained out of her.

Did all the humans here look like this?

In the seconds I had been staring at her in silence, her smile had grown, her eyes becoming livelier. Excited.

“Oh my word.” She dropped to her knees, making my shoulders want to hunch. “This is… Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. We are blessed. What an honour!”

What in the flying fuck? I could feel myself recoiling in horror, but I forced my face to smooth out into a blank mask.

“Why’s that?” I rarely spoke in this stifling humanoid form, so my voice was gravelly. At least it probably made me sound more intimidating than I actually was.

I thought I saw her shiver. Whaaaaat?

“We never get such esteemed visitors. I can’t… I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s happening.” She stood shakily and bowed, then shuffled back to hold the door open wider. “Please, come in. The high priest will be overjoyed.”

Heaving a silent breath, I stepped into the compound and looked around. I’d heard rumours of this place. Everyone had. The cult that worshipped my kind. The humans who had dedicated their lives to studying us—although I’m not sure what they thought they gave us, or we gave them—likening us to gods.

I hadn’t actually believed it. Not until this strange human woman had begun bowing and gushing over me being here, as if I wasn’t a miserable loner who spent my time getting high in front of the TV.

It made me twitchy. What exactly did they think made us so much better than them, to the point of wanting to worship us? Yes, we were stronger and faster. But so were fucking… bears and dogs. Did humans worship those? Okay, we could shape our forms into something more closely resembling them. I supposed that was probably pretty strange to humans. And I supposed the sharp teeth and claws and tails could make us seem threatening to them, but those things all remained when I took this form.

No humans had seen my true form, but I knew other demiurgus liked to show off. To go on TV or prowl through the city in their real skin, grinning widely at all the humans to make them shriek and laugh with delight and fear.

Fucking show offs, I thought viciously, before realising that the human woman was still gazing at me with open adoration.

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