No alarm needed to wake me. Just Amelia's shadow falling across my face in the pre-dawn darkness.
"Get up," she said. "Your education begins now."
Something heavy landed on my chest. I cracked open my eyes to see Amelia standing over me, dressed in a sleek, form-fitting black tactical suit that hugged every curve. Her pink hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her usually playful eyes were hard and focused.
"What time is it?" I groaned, still half-asleep.
"The time shamans work," she replied cryptically. "When the veil is thinnest between worlds."
I pushed myself up, the thing on my chest sliding down to my lap. It was a bundle of black fabric—similar to what Amelia wore.
"Put it on," she ordered. "Meet me downstairs in five minutes."
The door closed behind her with a soft click. I sat there for a moment, staring at the tactical suit and trying to clear the fog from my brain. Freya jumped onto the bed, sniffing at the fabric and looking up at me with what I swore was amusement.
"This isn't funny," I told her. "Some of us need more than three hours of sleep."
Four minutes and thirty seconds later, I stumbled down the stairs, tugging at the collar of the suit. It fit perfectly—suspiciously so, like someone had taken my measurements while I slept. The material was light but sturdy, stretchy in all the right places.
Amelia waited by the front door, arms crossed. She gave me a quick once-over, her expression unreadable.
"It'll do," she decided. "Let's go."
"Wait, don't I get breakfast? Or coffee? Or literally any explanation of where we're going?"
She opened the door, letting in a blast of cold morning air. "You'll eat after. Consider it motivation."
Outside, a sleek black car idled in the driveway. Amelia slid into the driver's seat, leaving me to scramble in beside her.
"So," I began as we pulled away from Shinra House, "are we going to talk about yesterday? About how I can see things attached to people? About how I almost—"
"Almost what?" She glanced at me, those lotus eyes piercing even in profile.
I swallowed hard. "Nothing."
"Mmm." She took a sharp turn, throwing me against the door. "Today isn't about talking. It's about doing. You're going to learn how shamans work."
"By diving straight into the deep end?"
"By starting with the shallow end," she corrected. "A simple exorcism. Even a child could handle it."
"Great," I muttered. "No pressure."
The sky was just beginning to lighten as we drove deeper into the city, away from the upscale neighborhoods surrounding the university and into areas that grew progressively more rundown. Amelia navigated with the confidence of someone who'd traveled these streets a thousand times before.
"What exactly are we hunting?" I finally asked.
"A Hoarder Phantom," she replied. "Low-level spirit that feeds on negative emotions, particularly those related to loss and deprivation. There was an eviction at the building we're heading to. The residual emotional energy created perfect conditions for this type of phantom to manifest."
"And we're going to... kill it?"
"Exorcise it," she corrected. "There's a difference. Phantoms aren't alive in the way we understand life. They're concentrations of demonic energy given form through human emotion."
She pulled into an alley beside a dilapidated apartment building, the brick facade crumbling in places. Garbage overflowed from dumpsters, and graffiti covered nearly every available surface.
"Your job today isn't to fight," Amelia said, turning off the engine. "It's to sense. Feel the phantom's energy. Track its movements. Understand how it stains its environment."
"Stains?"
"You'll see." She exited the car with fluid grace, leaving me to follow in her wake. "If you do well I promise you a sweet reward."
The building's front door hung from a single hinge. Inside, the lobby was dark and smelled of mold and urine. Amelia moved silently, her footsteps making no sound on the debris-strewn floor. I tried to mimic her stealth but succeeded only in kicking an empty beer can across the room.
She shot me a look that could have frozen lava.
"Sorry," I whispered.
We climbed four flights of stairs, the building growing colder with each step. By the time we reached the fifth floor, I could see my breath clouding in front of me.
"The cold is your first clue," Amelia murmured. "Phantoms draw energy from their surroundings, including thermal energy. The stronger the phantom, the colder the environment."
She stopped outside apartment 513, the door marked with an eviction notice dated three months prior. A padlock secured it, but Amelia simply touched it with her fingertip. There was a soft click, and the lock fell open.
"Show-off," I muttered.
Her lips quirked up slightly—the closest thing to a smile I'd seen from her all morning.
The apartment beyond was a disaster zone. Furniture lay overturned, papers and belongings scattered across the floor like someone had left in a hurry. But what caught my attention wasn't the physical disarray—it was the visual distortion in the air, like heat waves rising from hot asphalt.
"Do you see it?" Amelia asked quietly.
I nodded, my throat suddenly dry. "The air... it's wrong."
"That's the phantom's presence distorting local reality. Now close your eyes and tell me what you feel."
I did as instructed, shutting my eyes and opening my other senses. Immediately, a wave of... something... washed over me. It wasn't a physical sensation exactly, more like the feeling you get when someone's watching you from behind.
"It's... hungry," I said slowly. "And afraid. And angry. So angry."
"Good. Now track it. Where is it strongest?"
I turned slowly, my eyes still closed, following the pull of the sensation. It led me deeper into the apartment, toward what must have been the bedroom.
"There," I said, pointing. "It's thickest there, but it's... moving? Pulsing?"
"Open your eyes."
I did, and immediately wished I hadn't. The bedroom wasn't empty. A man lay in the corner, covered in filth, his clothes ragged and his body painfully thin. And wrapped around him, sinking into him, was a writhing mass of shadowy tendrils.
The Hoarder Phantom looked like a cross between an octopus and a shadow—all grasping limbs and indistinct edges. It had no eyes that I could see, but somehow I knew it was aware of us. The tendrils tightened around the man, whose breathing was shallow and labored.
"This isn't right," Amelia said, her voice tight. "It shouldn't be directly feeding on a living host. Hoarders typically stick to ambient energy."
"What's it doing to him?"
"Draining his life force. He probably came here seeking shelter, and it found a stronger food source than just leftover emotions." She moved forward, her hands raised. "I'll have to remove it quickly."
The moment she stepped closer, the phantom reacted. The shadowy tendrils burrowed deeper into the man's body, causing him to convulse and gasp.
Amelia froze, cursing under her breath. "It's panicking, trying to consume him entirely for protection."
"Can't you just... blast it or something?"
"If I use my ability, I might kill him too." Her eyes locked onto mine, suddenly intense. "There's no time for finesse. You need to drain it."
"What?"
"Your ability," she said sharply. "You can pull the phantom's energy out without harming the man, but you have to be precise. Touch only the phantom, not the human."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "I don't know how to control it! What if I hurt him?"
"You won't," she said with absolute certainty. "The hunger you've been fighting? Now's the time to use it. Direct it at the phantom only."
The man on the floor made a gurgling sound, his back arching in pain.
"Do it now, Isaiah," Amelia commanded. "Or he dies."
I moved forward on instinct, dropping to my knees beside the dying man. The hunger I'd been suppressing surged forward eagerly, no longer a shameful secret but a necessary tool.
The phantom's energy called to me—a buffet laid out for a starving man. I could almost taste it, acrid and electric on my tongue. But the human's life force was there too, warm and rich and infinitely more appealing.
I reached out, my hand trembling as it hovered over the mass of writhing shadows. This close, I could see that the phantom wasn't a single entity but thousands of tiny thread-like appendages, each one sinking into the man's skin like a parasite.
"Focus," Amelia said from behind me. "Feel the difference between them."
I closed my eyes again, concentrating. There it was—the distinction between the two energy signatures. The man's life force flowed like warm honey, golden and natural. The phantom's energy crackled like static electricity, chaotic and alien.
"I can feel it," I whispered.
"Then take it," Amelia urged. "Only it."
I placed my palm directly over the largest concentration of shadow tendrils and opened myself up to the hunger.
The effect was immediate. Blue light flared behind my eyelids as my ability activated. The phantom's energy flowed into me like water down a drain, bitter and cold and strangely exhilarating.
The creature began to thrash, its tendrils whipping frantically as I drained its substance. I felt it trying to escape, to pull away, but my hunger held it fast, inexorable as gravity.
"Keep going," Amelia encouraged. "You're doing well."
The phantom's energy was almost gone now, the once-massive shadow reduced to wisps. With a final surge of effort, I pulled the last of it into myself, leaving nothing behind.
I opened my eyes to see the man on the floor, no longer convulsing. His breathing had steadied, though he remained unconscious.
"Perfect," Amelia said, coming to kneel beside me. She placed two fingers against the man's neck, checking his pulse. "He'll live."
Relief washed over me, quickly followed by a wave of dizziness. The phantom's energy swirled inside me, foreign and uncomfortable.
"What do I do with it now?" I asked, my voice strained. "It feels... wrong."
"Process it," she instructed. "Your body can convert demonic energy into your own. Just give it time."
She stood and pulled out her phone, tapping at the screen. "I'm calling for medical assistance. They'll take him somewhere safe."
I remained on my knees, watching the rise and fall of the man's chest, feeling the phantom's energy slowly dissipate within me. Each breath I took seemed to dilute it, transforming the alien energy into something I could use.
"So this is what shamans do," I said finally. "Save people from monsters they can't even see."
Amelia looked down at me, her expression softening slightly. "Among other things."
"And I just... ate a monster." I let out a shaky laugh. "That's a sentence I never thought I'd say."
"You didn't eat it," she corrected. "You converted its energy. There's a difference."
"Doesn't feel different," I muttered, wiping cold sweat from my forehead.
"Stand up," she ordered, extending her hand. "We need to clear out before the medical team arrives."
I took her hand, letting her pull me to my feet. Her skin was warm against mine, almost hot, and I felt a momentary tug of a different kind of hunger—one I quickly suppressed.
"So," I said as we made our way back to the stairwell, "that was the shallow end?"
"The very edge of the kiddie pool," she confirmed.
"And the deep end?"
"Pray you never find out."
Maybe Amelia was right. Maybe the hunger wasn't something to be feared and contained. Maybe it was a tool, like any other power.
Or maybe that's just what monsters tell themselves to sleep at night.