"I'd seen Mikhail a handful of times before when Ling or Artemis brought him in to work, but it was always at a distance," said Choco quietly. "Everyone, even the researchers always kept a distance with me, and for good reason. Our resonance frequency is highly unstable, which is what allows them to graft whatever they like onto us, but it of course also means that even unwanted things may also be assimilated."
"You assimilated Mikhail," I said.
"By accident," replied Choco. "He was wandering around and came too close and it happened that that's the moment the seal on me was activated."
"And that…?"
"When a human is about to drown, they will grab onto anything around them, even the person trying to save them. When I was sealed, it was the same. Of course, it was not fatal, but it felt like it and it elicited a similar response in us."
"Making you lash out at anything."
"Yes."
We were standing by the tree stump where Mikhail was playing, now with a full herd of horses.
