"And what happens if we just… leave her as she is?" William finally asked, watching Latecia slice her pancake with lazy precision, twirling her fork as if she were toying with prey. "Does it just mean she's stuck with emptiness… with loneliness?"
Latecia's eyes flicked up. For a moment, she chewed noisily, as though rolling the words around in her mind along with the syrup. Only after she swallowed did she let out a small, raspy chuckle.
"Mmm. At first, yeah. Depression. That heavy kinda ache, the drag o' loneliness. Just like a regular soul—but worse, sugar. And then…" She licked her lips clean, her grin curling into something oddly childlike, fragile, and sinister at once. "…Then your lil' girlfriend starts losin' her mind. Goin' downhill quick. Till she fades. Piece by piece. In the end she's nothin' but a shell. Ain't no spark left o' her. Even the wendigo part slippin' away, scramblin' off. She'll be human again, sure enough. But an empty one."
