Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

The room was oddly familiar.

White walls. White bed. Everything white. Even the ceiling was white, which seemed excessive. Did they run out of colours? Was there a sale on white paint? Did someone decide that variety was overrated and commit to a monochromatic nightmare?

Oh wait, I thought, blinking up at the fluorescent lights that buzzed like angry bees. This place is really small. Where am I?

"I am thinking it is a panic attack," a voice said.

I turned my head.

A woman in a white coat stood beside the bed, holding a clipboard and looking at me with the kind of expression that said, "I have seen many strange children in this office, and you are definitely in the top five."

A nurse. I was in the nurse's office.

I, a celestial being, do not have panic attacks, I thought. And I did not panic an attack. I plan an attack. There is a difference. A very important difference. One involves screaming and flailing. The other involves strategy and dignity.

"I guess school and stress from the exams may have caused this?" the nurse said gently, her pen tapping against her clipboard. "Or was there something else earlier on that triggered it?"

"I think it was the camping trip," a familiar voice said. "Sera forgot all about it."

I turned my head the other way.

Minjae sat beside me, his hand resting on the edge of the bed—very close to mine, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his fingers. He was looking at me with those annoyingly attentive eyes, his brow furrowed, his lips pressed together in concern.

Why is he here? I thought. Why is he always here? Does he not have a life? Does he not have exams? Does he not have anywhere else to be besides hovering over me like a very tall, very handsome guardian angel?

Wait. Did I just think he was handsome?

"Camping trip, huh?" The nurse raised an eyebrow, scribbling something on her yellow rectangle board that does not give off light like Mina’s ipad.

What is that? I thought

"That can be stressful. New experiences. Unfamiliar environments. The fear of being eaten by bears."

"There are no bears on Crescent Moon Island," Minjae said.

"There are always bears, young man. Bears are everywhere. They are silent. They are patient. They are waiting."

"That's... that's not true."

"The bears want you to think that."

Minjae blinked. He looked at me. I looked at him. We both looked at the nurse, who was now writing something with a very serious expression on her yellow rectangle board.

I like her, I thought. She understands the nature of hidden predators.

"Yes," Minjae said slowly, turning back to me. "It is very stressful for Sera. She has... a lot of things she does not understand."

He reached over and took my hand.

I stared at our hands.

Why is he holding my hand? I thought. Is this a mortal custom I am unaware of? Is this how they comfort the fallen? Do they just... grab hands and hope for the best?

His hand was warm. And large. And very, very distracting.

"Hmm..." The nurse was now examining the collection of written records about my physical form. Her eyes travelled across the symbols with the intensity of someone who had seen too many young creatures and their flesh failures "It says here she hurt her head eight months ago. Explosion, was it?"

"That's right," Minjae said.

"I'm guessing anything can still trigger a fainting spell. Brains are complicated things. They hold grudges."

The nurse closed the file and looked at me with what I assumed was supposed to be a comforting smile. It was not comforting. It was the smile of someone who had seen things and wanted to forget them.

"How are you feeling, Sera?"

I could not say anything.

I blinked.

The silence was awkward. The kind of awkward that fills up a room like smoke, making it hard to breathe and impossible to think.

I stared at the nurse.

She stared at me.

She was about Mum's age, maybe a little older. Her hair was white—not grey, not silver, but white. Like snow. Like starlight. Like the feathers of a celestial messenger. Her skin was soft, with wrinkles around her eyes that looked like they had been earned through centuries of wisdom.

She looked like a Uhsuliah.

For those who do not know—and most mortals do not—the Uhsuliah are the white spirits of the High Court of the Heavens. They are the messengers of the messengers, the translators of the translators who had thousands of languages they have mastered over millennia, these beings who take the chaotic languages of all realms and turn them into words the Tribunal can understand. Their hair is white as snow. Their skin is soft as silk—or tofu, depending on the realm.

They are wise. They are ancient. They are terrifying in their patience.

Oh my, I thought, my heart beginning to race. Is she... is she one of them?

---

"She does this sometimes," Minjae said quickly, clearly trying to fill the silence. "She stares into space and cannot speak. It's... a thing. She has a lot of things."

"Hmm," the nurse said.

"Are you a Uhsuliah?" I whispered.

The nurse blinked. "A what?"

"A Uhsuliah," I said, my voice rising with hope. "The white spirit of the High Court of Language? The translator of realms? The messenger of the Tribunal?"

The nurse stared at me.

Minjae stared at me.

I stared at the nurse.

"What if I am?" she said slowly, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.

WHAT IF I AM.

Those four words.

Those beautiful, hopeful, world-changing words.

I did not think.

I did not plan.

I acted.

---

I jumped out of the bed—the white bed, the small bed, the bed that had been holding me captive—and threw my arms around the nurse. I hugged her. I hugged her like she was the last hope I had. I hugged her like she could open a portal to the Tribunal right there in the nurse's office and send me home.

"OH THANK THE SEVEN RELEAMS!!" I sobbed into her shoulder. "PLEASE TELL THE CELESTIAL TRIBUNAL THAT I AM SORRY! I NEED TO GO BACK! I NEED TO LEAVE HERE! I NEED TO—"

The nurse was trying to escape.

I could feel her squirming. Her yellow rectangle not glowing board clattered to the floor. Her white coat bunched up in my fists. She was making small, panicked sounds, the kind of sounds a mouse makes when it realizes it is not actually a celestial being and has made a terrible mistake by humouring a crazy student.

"Sera!" Minjae was behind me now, his strong hands on my shoulders, trying to pull me back. "Sera, let go of the nurse!"

"I CANNOT! SHE IS MY ONLY HOPE!"

" Sera, she is not a celestial being! She is the nurse! she brings her cat to the park! I have seen her!!"

"I DO NOT CARE ABOUT HER CAT! I CARE ABOUT THE TRIBUNAL!"

"SERA!" Minaje yelled.

"LET ME GO, MINJAE! I MUST MAKE MY CASE!"

But then—

What about my friends?

The thought hit me like a thunderbolt.

What about Human Sera? What about Mum and Dad? What about Mina?

I stopped struggling.

I turned my head—slowly, like a warrior surveying a battlefield—and looked at Minjae. His face was inches from mine. His eyes were full of concern. His hands were still on my shoulders, warm and steady and real.

What about him?

My heart ached. Not the celestial heart—the cold, distant heart that had beat for millennia without feeling anything. The new heart. The mortal heart. The heart that had learned to laugh at chicken nugget jokes, love every meal Mum and Dad makes and smile at mismatched socks and feel something warm whenever a certain gate-rammer looked at me with those stupid, beautiful eyes.

What about him?

I loosened my grip.

The nurse escaped.

She practically flew to her desk, her hand on her chest, her eyes wide. She grabbed her water bottle and drank like she had just survived a natural disaster.

"I am so sorry," Minjae said, still holding me. "She hurt her head. Explosion. Boom. Like, really boom. Now she is not herself. I am very sorry."

The nurse nodded, still breathing heavily. "I should not have said 'what if I am.' I thought it was a joke. I thought she was joking."

"She does not joke."

"I see that now." coughed the nurse.

"I am very sorry." Minjae apologises again.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Everything is fine." The nurse drank more water. "I'm just going to... sit here. For a moment. While you... handle her."

Minjae turned me around to face him. His hands were still on my shoulders. His eyes were still full of concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I thought she was a Uhsuliah."

"She is a nurse, Sera. Her name is Mrs. Park. She has a cat named Mr. Whiskers. I have seen pictures. Mr. Whiskers is a fat orange cat who eats too much and sleeps on her paperwork."

I stared at him. "How do you know so much about the nurse's cat?"

"I pay attention."

"To what?"

"To everything."

We looked at each other.

The nurse pretended to organize her desk.

The fluorescent lights buzzed.

Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang.

---

After what felt like forever—but was probably only about twenty minutes of me lying on the white bed, staring at the white ceiling, and contemplating my life choices—I saw Minjae leave.

He was talking to Mum and Dad, who had arrived at some point. I had not noticed them come in. I had been too busy having an existential crisis.

"I'll come by tomorrow to check on her," Minjae was saying.

"Oh, that's so sweet of you!" Mum said, patting his arm. "Isn't he such a sweet boy, Daniel?"

I vaguely remembered Dad grunting. I vaguely remembered him saying something about buying nicer knives.

I vaguely remembered hearing a smack.

The next thing I knew, I was in my own bed. At home. With Moo Moo curled on my chest and Human Sera floating near the ceiling, staring at me with an expression that was somewhere between amusement and horror.

"So," Human Sera said, "you tried to hug a nurse because you thought she was a celestial messenger."

"I did." I replied flatly.

"You cried on her shoulder."

"Hmm…."

"You begged her to send you back to the Tribunal."

"Hmm…." Was all I could make out.

"And then you realized you didn't want to leave."

I was quiet for a moment.

"Yes," I said finally. "I did."

Human Sera floated down and sat cross-legged on the pillow beside me. Her ghostly face—my face—was soft. Understanding.

"You're stuck here, Sera," she said. "Not because the Tribunal won't take you back. But because you don't want to go."

"I am a celestial being. I belong in the celestial realms."

"You belong where your heart is." She poked my chest with a translucent finger. "And your heart is here. With Moo Moo. With Mina. With Mum and Dad. With …With..."

She paused.

"With Minjae."

I said nothing.

But I did not argue.

And somehow, that was answer enough.