Chapter 3: Fascinations Galore

 

“You know,” Sierra said with her hands on her hips, “I’m still trying to find a crack in your story.” Sammaël looked at her in the mirror as it cleaned off its face with the towel, ran a hand over its jaw, and was reasonably satisfied with the results. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t nearly as unpleasant to the touch as it had been. “But you haven’t let up on the weird speech patterns once, I haven’t seen you crack that annoying grin once, and you don’t even stand like he — like you — used to.”

“He slouched,” Sammaël said. “It was causing kyphosis. This would have meant severe distress in five to ten years. With proper posture and exercise, this should be staved off.” It stood upright and moved its neck experimentally, happy with the results. 

“Exercise?” Sierra shook her head and head to her fridge. “God, I need a drink, this can’t be real.” She seemed to change her mind and poured herself another cup of tea instead. “Alright, what else can you do to prove it, ‘Sammaël’?” She sipped her cup as Sammaël retrieved its own cup. “Any proof that you are who you say you are? What you say you are?”

“I can not show you my true form, Sierra,” it said, “as I explained, it would cause you extreme mental harm.” It held up a hand as she rolled her eyes in response. “That does not mean I do not have a large measure of control over this reality, though I am severely limited in this form.” It cocked its head and went over its options. 

Sammaël tried to think the way it always had, running billions of concepts through its head. It wanted to give a good example. Its brain, however, didn’t. Its brain managed two or three options instead. This was frustrating for a number of reasons, but the weaknesses of the flesh had been an expected side-effect of its little project. At the end of the day, Sammaël was here to experience music first-hand, in a body that was good at experiencing music. 

But that meant that it was having trouble conceptualizing the optimal way to convince Sierra that Sammaël was itself. A physical transformation could help, but that would come, again, with the risk of killing Sierra or possibly unraveling reality itself. Reality isn’t very stable to begin with, after all.

“How about something small?” Sierra offered. “If reality is at your whim or whatever, just change your appearance. Or make something float. Should be easy, right?” 

Sammaël observed her for a moment. “I worry about the structure of the universe if I distort it too much,” it said. “A localized disruption of gravity, for example, could cause a disruption on a quantum scale that could cascade into a full collapse of this planet’s gravitational field. But appearance…”

Sierra crossed her arms skeptically and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

It waited for a moment, and then had an idea looking out the window. “Perhaps I can show you without showing.” It turned to face her. “Please look into my eyes, Sierra.” She did as it asked her, with a reluctant sigh, and saw the universe. 

Messing with the nature of reality, Sammaël knew, was a sketchy proposition at best. It knew, because it did so all the time, but only on a scale that was either unimaginably small or unimaginably large. Before the first stars had come into being, Sammaël had already ripped several holes in spacetime. While not strictly speaking the end of the universe, it had been annoying to deal with. On a planet like this, it would probably cause untold destruction, not to mention the end of music. 

But light? Light was easy. Light could be bounced around and bent like a toy. It was a little bit like time, in that way, even though Sammaël found both to be a little bit more difficult to wrap its head around while in this frail little body. A little, however, was not enough. Not enough to stop it from showing Sierra how it saw the universe reflected in eyes as deep and as black as the void between billions and billions of stars. 

Realization dawned on Sierra as she stared into the Abyss and realized it was not only staring back but was wearing her ex-boyfriend’s face. “Oh,” she said as tears ran down her eyes, most of her world-view shattered in a single moment. Sammaël felt strangely… guilty? Guilt wasn’t an experience it had much experience with. Guilt was not an emotion it had even felt before, and it was only tangentially aware of the fact that it even existed. “Oh,” Sierra said again and crumpled to the ground. 

Sammaël only barely managed to snatch her cup of tea out of the air. Some of the hot liquid spilled onto its hand, and its mouth made an involuntary hissing sound as the brain detected nerve damage. That was weird. But not important. It put the tea aside.

Then, instinctively, Sammaël crouched down next to Sierra. It didn’t even know where that instinct had come from. It certainly hadn’t been Abraham Douglas’ first instinct. “I am sorry,” it said. “That may have been a bit much, I am afraid. I hoped that if you saw the universe as I did…” Then what? It reflected on the action. Sierra would not, could not, understand. She was mortal. Finite. Fallible. Small. Fragile. But maybe she could believe?

“I-It’s fine,” Sierra said, wiping the tears from her face. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I’m fine. I—”

“If you keep repeating yourself,” Sammaël said, “I may have to call your statements into question.” Sierra laughed and looked up at it. “I am sorry, I did not mean to be inappropriate. Do you need help standing?” It offered her a hand. She shook her head, then completely failed to stand up. 

“Maybe,” she said, eyeing the hand suspiciously. When it held up to scrutiny, she gingerly let it help her. When she was standing again — unsteadily, and leaning heavily against the couch — she wasn’t facing Sammaël again. “Could you… turn that off?” she asked, waving at its eyes. “It’s… hard.”

“I apologize again. Profusely.” Its eyes resumed their regular shade again, whatever that was (it hadn’t looked in the mirror long enough to take note of the eye color). “I did not mean to upset you, only to provide you with proof.”

“It’s fine. You’re fine. I’m fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine? You’re some kind of space thing, an alien, and you just made me feel like I was floating in space and falling in every direction at the same time, just by looking me in the eyes. It’s fine.” She giggled a little and almost fell to the ground again. Sammaël immediately rushed forward to support her. 

“I feel like you are having trouble navigating the information I have supplied you with, Sierra. Perhaps you wish to sit down?”

“Y-Yeah,” she said, and let herself fall over the back of the couch and into the pillows. “You’re right, this is so much better.” She giggled again. “Holy shit. Holy fuck. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.” Her head poked up over the back of the couch again. “You’re really real?”

“I am,” Sammaël said. “I am afraid that, as far as I am aware, neither of the two of us is currently experiencing a hallucination, awake or otherwise.”

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“So what now? What do you want? You’re an alien with superpowers that can change reality at a whim,” she said, leaning her chin on her hands.”You came all this way to…”

“Listen to music,” Sammaël said, pointing at the radio. “I like music.”

“They don’t have music in space?” Sierra said again with a giggle.

“Not like this,” Sammaël said, cocking its head. “This is better.” 

“Well, guess I’m lucky then!” Her giggles slowly became more hysterical. “Oh my god, I made you apologize to my parents!” 

“I thought it would help, considering the previous owner of this face,” Sammaël said drily. It offered Sierra the tea, hoping it would calm her down, and that she wouldn’t spill any of it on herself. It could attest to the fact that it was still quite hot. 

“Oh fuck, your hand!” she said and jumped over the back of the couch, grabbed the mug of tea and immediately put it down again, dragging Sammaël over to the tap. “This looks pretty badly burned. You didn’t notice?”

“The damage is superficial,” Sammaël said, “and this body will heal over time.”

“Oh Christ, you really are an alien,” Sierra said, and ran its hand under the tap. “It’ll stop hurting faster and heal faster if you run it under cold water.” She shook her head. “Men,” she said. “Human or alien, you’re all useless.”

There was another reflex. And again, it wasn’t Abe’s. When Sammaël yanked its hand back, that was entirely its own instant reaction. “No,” it said, realized what it had done, and sheepishly put its hand back under the tap. Sierra gave it a confused look. “I may currently inhabit the body of Abraham Douglas, but I am not him. My name is Sammaël, and I am not a man. To describe me as such is inaccurate and inefficient.”

“I’m sorry,” Sierra said with a bemused smile. “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything.”

“I am not…” Sammaël said. “I apologize, that was an overreaction.” It let Sierra run water over its hand and it did feel the pain slowly subside. The sensation of pain was strange to Sammaël. On the surface it was a simple signal, but it was distracting.

“Will you be okay for a bit?” she asked. “I think I need to… uh… clear my head. I want to take a shower. There’s a lot I need to think about and… so your name is really Sammaël?”

“It’s a name I believe would make a degree of sense to you. Insofar as I can be said to have a name, that one can be said to be mine, even if it wasn’t given to me,” it said.

“Oh, so your species doesn’t have names? Or do you not have a family.”

“I do not have a species,” Sammaël said matter-of-factly. “I simply am.”

“That’s kinda… sad, if you think about it,” Sierra said, then shook her head. “Anyway, I’m going to take that shower. I need to… I gotta think.” Sammaël observed her for a few seconds. All things considered, she was dealing with the knowledge that there was alien life and that that alien life was near omnipotent (most of the time) very well. 

“That sounds like a good idea, Sierra,” Sammaël said. “Would you mind if I listen to some more music?” It walked over to the radio eagerly. It was looking forward to examining what other music there was out there.

“Not at all. When I get out of the shower I’ll show you my music library,” Sierra said, then headed for the bathroom, stopping to look behind her. “It’s nice to meet you.” Sammaël, who was bent over the radio, paused and tried to return the smile. It was an uncomfortable and unfamiliar sensation.

“Thank you, Sierra,” it said. “I suppose it is nice to meet you as well.” After a few more seconds of the two of them looking at each other, Sierra finally started tearing herself away. 

“I’m gonna… y’know…” She thumbed over her shoulder. Sammaël nodded and saw her take a step onto the towel that had fallen on the ground. It saw her slip, her one leg swinging way up in the air as she tried to find something to grab a hold of. The towel curtains were there, but they shot loose. Sammaël could only watch as the back of Sierra’s head hit the edge of the bathtub with a wet crunch. 

It stood up and walked over to her still body. “This is wrong,” it said, then spooled and unspooled time. “I hate this part.” Sammaël’s head hit the brick wall. Again.