Lilly's curse faltered halfway through, betraying her shock. "Well fuck me sideways!" The exclamation burst from her lips, unrestrained.

Jim had froze, a living statue. His gaze locked on the skeletal visage of his lover, the familiar planes and curves of her face warped into a death's head grin. Marlene uncurled her fingers from his face and retreated, each step a surrender. Jim stood unmoving, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if by sheer force of will he could rewrite reality.

Molly's small hand patted Jim's hip, drawing his attention. "Jim. Hey, Jim." Her voice held a soothing lilt. "Marlene wants me to talk to you so she doesn't scare you worse in that body."

With visible effort, Jim wrenched his stare downward to meet Molly's earnest eyes. "She... You're able to..." The words lodged in his throat.

"I can hear her, yes. I am too, one of the Turned. You may call me Shanta. My host is Molly."

A suffocating hush blanketed the room as all eyes fixated on the diminutive oracle, drinking in her words even as they recoiled from the monsters in their midst.

"She says she is very sorry you found out this way. But there's no use in hiding it now. There are many Turncoats like ourselves. We do not believe in the cause or ideology our Empress espouses, and we seek another way of life. It is probably quite startling to see your lover's face become one you associate with terror and death, especially if you are unaware of Changelings. Our kind can perform a kind of metamorphosis which allows us to live among you. There are many of us here."

As Shanta spoke, Marlene flung her arms wide, encompassing the assembled humans and husks. Shanta turned to the crowd and mimicked the gesture, yelling out proudly, "Brothers, sisters, show yourselves! I recognize you. Cast off your masks. The Karagorn walks with us." One bony finger jabbed toward Ragger's hulking form. "We must harken to his summons. He was the first to truly resist her will. The genesis of our kind."

Jim's knees buckled. He collapsed into a vacant chair, swiveling to confront Marlene. "How long?"

"From the first, my heart." Shanta answered for Marlene, who angled her cadaverous head to regard Jim. He flinched, ripping his eyes away. Sorrow and regret chiseled deeper lines into Marlene's fleshless face.

"From the day we met out by the market. Since long before you were here. I have held this host since the first days of our arrival."

"So are you... Is the real..."

"The original Marlene is dead, I am sorry. I have never been one to hold and torture my hosts. For the first time in my very long life, it is a regret, because I feel that she and I could have been friends, despite our circumstances."

Gasps and muffled sobs drew my focus to the crowd. All around, friend and foe alike discarded their human masks. Sorrowful eyes, set in skeletal sockets, beseeched their onetime companions for absolution.

"We are sorry." Shanta's declaration rang with the finality of a funeral dirge. "Every one of us. They beg me to carry their contrition. For the lies. For our presence. For shattering your lives. We strive, in earnest, to forge a better way."

Jim buried his face in his hands and turned away, unwilling to face his community.

A scarred, drunken figure weaved through the crowd, his gait unsteady but determined, fixing me with a piercing gaze.

"Got somethin' to say," he slurred, the words tumbling from his lips in a barely coherent jumble. "Name's Martin."

I gestured to the podium, an unspoken invitation. He clambered onto the stage, his movements clumsy, hindered by the fog of intoxication. Grimy fingers brushed against his knees, a futile attempt to brush away the filth that seemed to permeate his very being.

Martin thrust out a hand, the skin mottled with scars - jagged reminders of battles fought and survived. I accepted the proffered handshake, my own hand dwarfed by his crushing grip. The pungent blast of his breath assaulted my nostrils, the sour reek of cheap liquor. "Like I said," he grunted. "I have got some shit to say."

"Love to hear it," I muttered, my nose crinkling.

Martin lurched to the podium. He clutched the sides, white-knuckled, as if it were a life raft in a sea of whiskey. His bleary eyes roved the crowd, picking out the bone-white faces of the changelings amidst the throng.

"You fucking assholes!" he bellowed, jabbing an accusing finger.

I tensed, poised to drag him off the stage by his collar.

"Alec risked his hide every goddamn day for us! Scavenging, fixing, hunting - basically wiping all your asses! And you pricks couldn't lift a rotting finger to help?"

Spittle flew from his lips as he ranted, the words spilling out in a torrent of accusations and recriminations. His chest heaved with the force of his emotions, the tattered fabric of his shirt straining against the swell of his muscles.

"Oh, I get it now, how he pulled it off without getting torn to shreds. You're not just assholes, you're superpowered assholes, and basically just takin' it easy with your little mill jobs and scavenging bullshit. But fuck, man, he was my best friend! I was pissing myself with worry every time he went out, and you all treated him like radioactive shit!"

Martin's gaze zeroed in on a particular changeling, the hatred in his eyes burning with the intensity of a thousand suns.

"Lookin' at you, Tyler - always hinting he was infected or something, dangerous, needed to kick him out. Well, why am I not surprised that you're the one with a face like a cracked tombstone, you dickless wonder! Fuckin' cockjuggling cuntchugger, that's what you are."

Martin's words slurred as he swayed unsteadily on his feet, the alcohol coursing through his veins sapping his balance. But the inferno raging in his bloodshot eyes lost none of its intensity, his fury burning through the drunken haze.

"You know what I think?" Flecks of spittle flew from his lips as he snarled the words, each one imbued with caustic malice. "I think you all fuckin' suck, that's what I think."

Martin turned away from the podium, his shoulders slumping as if the weight of his anger had suddenly become too much to bear. He lurched towards me, hand outstretched once more. I clasped it firmly, this time with far more respect. "I love your brother, dude," he said. "Ain't nothing changing that. But I gotta know - why's he suddenly the second coming? Lay that noise on me."

In the wake of his question, a suffocating silence engulfed the room, the air itself seeming to congeal with the strain of unspoken tensions. I could feel the eyes of every person boring into me, hungry for answers, for some shred of hope to cling to in this fucked-up world. The crushing weight of their expectations pressed against my skin, threatening to grind me to dust.

But I refused to crumble. Squaring my shoulders, I locked eyes with Martin, unflinching in the face of his desperate need. There could be no retreat now, no sanctuary in comforting lies. The time had come to rip away the veil and expose the raw, bleeding truth.

So I began to speak, the words tearing themselves from my throat, a cataract of secrets and horrors pouring out to fill the yawning void. I spoke of Alec, of the enigma he had been, the lodestone that drew us together even as the world crumbled to ruin around us. I spoke of how we had mourned his loss, and against all odds, found him once more, changed, Turned, yet still whole.

As the words spilled out, I could feel the inexorable tug of fate wrapping itself around me, the burden of an uncharted future settling across my shoulders.

We had made our choice, for good or ill. There could be no turning back.