Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

The song ended.

The moon hung low and fat in the sky, silver and smug, like it knew something I didn't. I sat at the edge of the lagoon, my feet still in the water, my hands still raised to the heavens. The air hummed with residual energy—the kind of energy that said, "I have heard your prayer, child. Now don't mess it up."

I thought I saw the moon shine a little brighter.

Or maybe that was just my imagination.

Or maybe it was a trick of the light.

Or maybe the Moon of Light was real and had just accepted my offering of terrible singing and emotional vulnerability.

Probably the last one, I thought. I am very powerful. My singing is probably cosmic-grade.

I decided to hang around for a while. Absorb the surroundings. Enjoy the moment. Let the moonlight wash over me like a blessing from a mother I had never known.

The water rippled. The crickets chirped. Somewhere in the distance, a fish jumped and splashed back down, probably judging me.

After what felt like a perfect amount of time—not too long, not too short, the kind of time that exists only in moments like this—I put on my shoes and decided to walk back.

---

The path was dark. The trees loomed overhead like ancient sentinels. The moon guided my way, casting silver light on the dirt road that led back to the campsite.

I was halfway there when I heard it.

A rustle.

In the bushes.

Finally, I thought. Gate-Rammer has decided to stop hiding like a creep and reveal himself.

I sighed—the kind of sigh that said, "I am a celestial being and I do not have time for mortal games, but I will play them anyway because apparently that is what friendship is."

"Gate-Rammer," I called out, not bothering to turn around. "You can come out. I know you are there."

The rustling continued.

No response.

"I said, you can come out. Stop being stupid."

The rustling continued.

Harder.

"Minjae. I know it's you. Stop hiding in the bushes like a—"

The shadow figure that emerged from the bushes was not Minjae.

It was Yuna.

Like, what the hell?

"I am here to bathe you in blood," Yuna said. Her voice was flat. Hollow. The kind of hollow that echoed in empty spaces and made your skin crawl. "I told you. You would pay."

She looked... filthy. Her clothes were the same ones she had been wearing the day she left the Director's office—weeks ago, maybe months. Her hair was matted. Her skin was pale. Her eyes were sunken, like she hadn't slept in a very long time.

But it wasn't her appearance that made my celestial blood run cold.

It was her voice.

There was a second voice underneath it—a growl, a hiss, a whisper that did not belong to any mortal throat. It spoke at the same time as Yuna, layering over her words like oil on water.

"Who are you?" I said, my voice steady despite the ice spreading through my veins. "You are not Yuna."

Yuna-not-Yuna giggled.

It was not a pleasant sound. It was the sound of nails on a chalkboard, of bones cracking, of something that had forgotten how to be human trying very hard to pretend.

"Oops," she—it—said, tilting its head at an angle that should not have been possible. "So, the rumours are true. The most feared Seraphyne in all realms is really a mortal now. How sad." It took a step toward me. "And here I thought I could play with you again just like old times. Would that be fun?"

Behind me, I heard two voices shouting my name.

"SERA!"

I whipped around.

Human Sera was floating toward me, her translucent form glowing in the moonlight like a very panicked firefly. And beside her—running beside her, his long legs eating up the distance—was Minjae.

What the hell is he doing here? I thought.

He reached me first. He stepped in front of me, his body blocking mine, his arms spread wide like a shield.

What the hell is he DOING?

"What do you want, The Unmaker's creature?" Minjae hissed, his voice low and dangerous. His eyes were locked on the thing wearing Yuna's skin, his jaw tight, his entire body coiled like a spring ready to snap.

I blinked.

The Unmaker's Creature? I thought. How did he know to say that? How did he know this wasn't Yuna? How did he—

"Sera," Human Sera begged, floating beside me, her ghostly hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles would have been white if she had any. "This is a good time for you to do your celestial thing. You know, the thing. The thing where you save the day and we all go home and pretend this never happened."

"What celestial thing?" I asked, my eyes still fixed on the creature.

"The thing where you use your powers and don't let us die!"

"You are already dead," I said flatly. "And I don't have my powers. Remember? I am a mortal. With a toothbrush. And mismatched socks."

"THEN USE YOUR TOOTHBRUSH!" Human Sera shrieked, her voice rising to a pitch that could shatter glass. She was bouncing up and down in the air like a deranged ping-pong ball.

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"I AM PANICKING!" Human Sera yelled, her voice cracking. "PANICKING PEOPLE DON'T MAKE SENSE!"

Yuna-not-Yuna tilted its head again, its eyes—Yuna's eyes, but wrong, so terribly wrong—fixing on Minjae.

The transformation was subtle at first. The dark brown of her irises began to bleed outward, spreading like ink dropped into water, until the entire eyeball was swallowed by a void of absolute black. No white. No colour. Just darkness—the kind of darkness that seemed to pull light into itself, devouring it.

And then the pupils changed.

What had once been round and human stretched into thin, vertical slits—yellow lines cutting through the black like cracks in a frozen lake. They pulsed faintly, glowing with an eerie luminescence that had no business existing in a mortal face.

It was not Yuna anymore.

Whatever was looking through her eyes had never been human.

"Oh," the creature said, its dual-voice cooing like a grandmother who had just spotted a particularly tasty piece of candy. "Fat boy. Want to dance again? Or should I say... continue with the ritual where those idiots failed? Pity. You would have made the Unmaker happy."

Minjae's jaw tightened. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. I could see the muscles in his neck straining, the effort it was taking him not to lunge at the creature.

"Go fuck yourself," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "I am not that little boy on the rooftop ten years ago, you filthy thing."

Ritual? I thought. What ritual? What rooftop? What fat boy?

And then it hit me.

The little boy.

The rooftop.

The one I had saved.

The one I had protected from the creature when I descended from the sky and landed in front of him and his abusers.

Minjae, I thought, looking at him with new eyes. The little boy was Minjae. He was the one. The fat boy. The crybaby. The one I first saw on the rooftop.

How did I miss that?

How did I not see it?

He has the same eyes.

I am a celestial being. I am supposed to notice things.

I am the WORST celestial being.

"Sera," Human Sera whispered, her voice trembling. She had stopped bouncing and was now hovering behind me, peeking over my shoulder like a terrified child. "That thing is coming nearer. And Yuna is... melting? EW. OH MY GAWD. SERA, SHE IS MELTING. She is turning into an old, old ugly grandmother. My grandmother looks better than her. She... she has WARTS. EW. And TENTACLES. TENTACLES, SERA. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR TENTACLES."

The creature—the thing wearing Yuna's skin—began to change. Yuna's body convulsed. Her skin rippled. Her face contorted, aging decades in seconds, until she was no longer a young woman but an ancient crone with yellow eyes and cracked skin and a smile that held too many teeth.

I knew this face.

I had fought this creature before, and she had nearly ended me. The old hag.

"Seraphyne," the old hag croaked, its voice like grinding stones, "Daughter of the high heavens. You are going to die. As for what this girl desired. And finish what I should have done long ago to kill you—which I nearly did."

"The Unmaker," I said, my voice steady even as my heart pounded. "He has started moving onto children again."

"The Unmaker sends his regards. Whoever makes a deal... body and soul are ours." The hag took another step toward me, her yellow eyes gleaming. "And now, it is time to kill and devour you. For you are the one The Unmaker has been waiting for. He trusted me to end you since I have almost done it before. Once you are gone, he can move his next step."

"No," Minjae said.

He stepped forward, placing himself directly between me and the hag. His arms were spread wide, his body a barrier against the creature's advance.

"Take me instead."

I stared at him.

He turned to look at me, his eyes bright in the moonlight. There was no fear in them. No hesitation. Just... determination.

"You saved me ten years ago," he said. "It's my turn to return the favour."

"By dying?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

"By doing what I should have done." He held my gaze. "By protecting you."

Before I could respond—before I could tell him how stupid he was being, how noble and idiotic and infuriating—the old hag struck.

Its arm stretched out, changing mid-reach into a long, slimy tentacle that shot through the air faster than I could track. It wrapped around Human Sera—who had been floating too close, who had been trying to be helpful, who was now shrieking at the top of her ghostly lungs—and yanked her toward the creature.

"SERA!" Minjae shouted.

But he wasn't looking at me.

He was looking at Human Sera.

He could see her.

He could see her being dragged by a tentacle.

He could see her?

Wait. What?!