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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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It almost looked like the light bent around him without actually touching him directly.
0
He was slim, almost drawn, but he had a kind of … luster to him, I guess.
1
He wasn’t a person you’d describe with normal adjectives, you know?”
0
You wouldn't believe half of the shit I've seen, even when I was straight.
2
They nodded.
0
“Oh, totally,”
1
“Oh, totally,” said the hunchback.
3
“I get that all the time around here.”
0
“He was wearing a sort of jacket …maybe blue velvet, I couldn’t tell in the dark, but it had ruffles at the throat, things like that.
1
He really stood out.
2
That’s why I couldn’t understand why no-one else remembered him.
2
He had some rings, too.
0
I remember that he hardly ever moved, just stared at Rachel.
3
I don’t know how he could’ve been heard over the music.”
2
“What do you think?”
2
asked the hunchback.
0
“I’ve looked into it a little, and I do think we might be dealing with one of them.
0
Have you seen anyone like that in your club?”
3
“Not that I can remember, man.
3
I can send you to a guy who knows all about them, though.
3
It was a Friday night.
0
If this cat’s for real, I bet my friend can tell you everything you need to know.”
2
“You’re a wonder, Dvorov.
1
It won’t be long before nightfall.”
3
“Oh yeah, man.
1
Rachel and I went out to dinner, and when we finished, she saw that there was a message on her cell phone.
2
Here, let me write down how to find him.”
3
The hunchback pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled something on it with his fingernail, then handed it to Nepthys.
0
“Here you go, man.
3
Good luck!”
1
“Thanks, Dvorov.
1
I owe you one.
1
That last one was to me.
2
I waved goodbye to the hunchback as we left.
0
He gave me a half-hearted wave that made me wonder what exactly we were chasing, and whether I should be wearing body armor.
0
Back on the street, I began to see things that I had never looked for until then.
2
Still in my initial shock, I suddenly noticed qualities of the people that my mind hadn’t registered when we parked.
2
I saw people with skin stretched so tightly across their cheekbones that the corners had broken through – people whose cheekbones had horns growing from them, and people whose skin was gathered back like a ponytail.
0
I saw men three feet tall with dusty black skin and eyes that shed yellow light.
2
A corpulent, batrachian woman walked along with something on a leash that looked like a massive water beetle.
2
She checked it there in the restaurant.
3
Thirty-five thin fingers waved lazily like seaweed.
0
I noticed when my back hit the wall that I was walking backwards.
3
“We, and thousands like us, have been living separately as long as there has been a human society,” said my driver.
1
Her head tilted into the phone as she listened, her pleather purse on her lap, shining jet against the worn black of her snug Dead Can Dance T-shirt.
0
I noticed that the wrinkles on his neck expanded as he breathed and realized that they were gills.
3
“We interact with humans, take advantage of them, grant them boons, sometimes even become their friends, but the majority of both societies have little or no interaction.
3
At this point, we have removed ourselves so fully from quotidian human existence that we are understood to be fictional.
2
“The only place with any significant interaction between our worlds is on the fringes of yours.
0
Love-ins, raves, gatherings where society is put on hold and humans open themselves to emotion: that is where entities from this world tend to go when they cross over, and that is where Rachel met someone from this world.
1
Those of us who live permanently in this world tend to set up in places like this, where the human population is so overwhelming that they won’t be noticed in the right corner, with the right protective spells.”
2
He took out the hunchback’s directions and glanced at an alley behind us.
1
“Okay, Nathan.
0
We should get started right away.
2
There’s no time to waste.”
0
He saw that I wasn’t moving.
2
Setting an arm on my shoulder, he said, “Nathan, what you see here might be frightening, but those things you saw are people just like you.
3
They’ll be as surprised to see a human as you are to see men with seven arms.”
0
“Thanks.
1
It’s very reassuring that I’ll not only be an outsider but a curiosity.”
0
“Nathan, you told me five minutes ago that you would do anything to help Rachel.
2
Well, she’s here and she needs your help.
3
Now, the more we can do before nightfall, the better.”
3
“But why are you even helping me?
2
Until thirty seconds ago, I didn’t believe in magic or any of that kind of …weirdness.”
2
“Nathan, I told you: my family owes yours a debt.
0
In this world, one’s word is a promise.
0
Now, can we get going?”
0
I caught my breath and forced myself to look him in the eye.
0
“He says we should meet him tonight, there’s a good one going on in that church that closed down last month.”
3
“Only if you stop beginning every sentence with my name.”
0
“You’ve got a deal.
1
Let’s go.”
3
As we headed down the sidewalk, I said, “What is your name, anyway?”
0
“What is your name, anyway?”
3
“That’s a question you learn not to ask here.
2
Holding Dvorov’s directions, Nepthys took us around the corner of the building into a skinny alleyway.
1
I started wondering again how reliable my guide’s credentials were.
2
Walking through an alley with rubbish piles that occasionally skittered from one wall to the other, he did not inspire confidence.
2
“Just at this corner,”
0
“we’re going to stop and turn three times widdersh – er, counterclockwise, then face east.
3
East is that way.”
3
He pointed at the wall to our right.
0
“Don’t let the sun fool you.
3
Then I’m going to shed a little blood, but don’t worry, none of yours.”
0
I blinked at him, but he just kept walking until we reached the corner.
0
“Okay, you might feel silly, but just turn three times to your left.
0
Try to keep in time with me.”
3
We spun around three times, and then something flashed across Nepthys’ hand and he shook a spray of blood onto the dust.
2
“I don’t know … it was going to be just us tonight.
2
The blood flashed into flames as soon as it hit the ground, and I jumped back.
2
Nepthys walked towards it and pressed his bloody palm against it, opening the door.
0
“Are you coming?”
0
We slipped through the door and came out, not inside the building, but on a busy street in a completely different part of town.
0
The sky, cupping over squat buildings, was less yellow here, and stands were set up everywhere the way I’d picture a market in the Middle East.
3
I’m not sure I’m up for a night out.”
2
Nepthys took us immediately to the right, where he led us to a cart filled with herbs.
0
Spiced air hanging around the cart carried tarragon, rosemary, and scents I couldn’t place.
1
The thing tending the cart reminded me of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland: it had the same opium-dream wise man quality I’d always given the caterpillar.
1
I was feeling calm and private that night.
0