"Who are you?" she asked again. The same question she had asked quite a few times before. The same question he had dismissed, deflected, ignored, and answered with half-truths or silence or that infuriating smile that said everything and nothing at once.
"I will show you," he said.
He let go of her hand. He stepped back, creating distance between them. Five feet. Six. Seven. Enough space that the sparkling walls on either side of him framed his body like a portrait.
Then his appearance began to change.
It started in his veins.
Thin black lines appeared along his neck, surfacing beneath the skin like ink rising through paper. They spread downward over his collarbones, across his arms, branching and multiplying, crawling over every inch of exposed flesh as though some ancient poison had awakened inside him and was claiming his body for itself.
