I washed up on the shore of this land, plucked from the wreckage and welcomed by strangers. Now, I live among these people, working with and loving them, though their language, their place of origin and even their names are unknown to me. They know little of the world outside their tight-knit community, expecting it to come to them. And it never does.

Emmaculata Xenomid 2.0 was 100% organic but she was raised by faceless robots from birth which meant she lacked the ability to make friendly facial expressions when in polite societal conversation so her human adoptive parents fitted her with subdermal holographic implants to give her a virtual smile to make her more approachable.

Élise said, “Ne me quitte pas,” and I only understood the words “leave” and “me” so that was what I did, little realizing I was walking away from my one true soulmate all because of a language barrier and my preteen refusal to pay attention in French Class.

Her features were extraordinary but she thought she was too pale. Her skin looked washed out against her strawberry hair, making her wish it was her Mama’s brilliant fiery red or her sister’s burning sunset gold but Anne’s lacked luster. It was as dull as dirty pennies.

I’m a pessimistic saver and she’s an optimistic spender, we vibe on different humor wavelengths, and she’s a throw-things-explosive-screaming arguer while I tend to shut down and walk away, so there was absitively posolutely no way in hell Demi and I were ever going to hook up but that crafty little bish caught my ass off guard by whispering “I love you” in my ear and nibbling on my neck and suddenly the fundamental laws of physics and the profound theorems of mathematics no longer made sense.

They say you don’t know what you don’t know which caused me to question, What did I know of love or its origins?

I called her love, this astonishing enchantress who slipped out of the void and through my vanity, her beauty masking the faceless monster beneath, and publicly stoning me with a slander so brutal it left me no option but to seek refuge within her oblivion.

The beast could have ripped the young girl’s throat clean away without raising a sweat, and wanted to, but it was forced into servitude because Aisling possessed a precious strand of the púca’s hair that had—intricately woven into its genetic pattern—a sliver of the creature’s soul.