“Can't it be both? These things are real, all around you, day to day, but because your brain is hardwired not to see them, you don’t. Then one day, you see a creature so far beyond the capacity of the human mind, it destroys the safeguard. Or you open a stupid book, and the world becomes so much bigger. The world is what it is, beautiful, horrible, scary, and magnificent, exactly as it had been before, but now you see it differently.”

The girl nodded like she understood. She looked tiny to Titus in that instant, almost fragile, as if she could break at any moment. For a moment she looked like everyone else did to Titus—weak, frail; human.

But that moment didn’t last, the smallest bit of defiance kindled in her eyes.

“I'm scared,&...

Please subscribe to keep reading.