DIVINATIONS 
MAGAZINE

I catch a glimpse of her across the club. Sharp-eyed, hungry, a mask obscuring her mouth like a mayfly. Strobe lights throw shimmering technicolor across the ground between us, while on stage the performer wails into their microphone with a shifting face. A snout while in portrait, but human while in profile. Girls fresh from the school blocks chant rhythmic lyrics as they flock around the stage. A woman with filed teeth howls, three sharp notes of ow ow ow!

     I dance. I drink cheap beer. I feel people press behind me, their bloated bodies swelling. The singer wails, ethereal amidst smoke and electricity, an icon of our city. Thump thump thump goes a heartbeat behind me. Then I find myself the counterpart to a cutting woman with fish gills. She takes my waist in her hands and leans in.

     Do I let her kiss me? Yes / No (Circle one)

     When urine collects in my bladder, I push my way through the thick crowd towards the bathrooms. But a voice to my right speaks.

     “Hey.”

     It’s the stranger I made eye contact with earlier, the owner of those two sharp eyes, features still wreathed behind a veil of black.

     I smile back, wordless. Then off comes the mask to reveal her face—a shimmering thing, almost luminous in the shifting dark.

     Does my gut tell me to trust her? Yes/ No (Circle one)

     “Pretty good show, yeah?” The stranger asks as I give her a quick scan. Nice boots, an expensive silver necklace. Her gaze burns me back as I stare.

     “My name is Alistere,” she introduces.

     The line moves upwards one body. Deeper in, I hear girls laughing.

     “Drinks are so expensive. Let me order you something after this. Anything you want. Money’s no issue.”

     The look on her face insists that I should be impressed.

“Oh?” I raise my voice. This makes her smile, her lips like two lizard tails molting.

     “I’m a defense contractor up in the high ward. Big money.”

     A beat goes by.

     “Mostly shipment processing and validation—making sure packages are sent to the right place. I’m not designing anything myself. Boring, I guess.”

     “Boring.”

     “But I’m getting my bones just like anyone else. A lot of circles don’t really have room for me when they hear what I do. You could say I’m a lone wolf.”

     “Sure.”

     “Here’s the thing. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. I mean, it’s not like I’m the one firing the weapons. It’s not like I’m the one who started the war.” The stranger explains, eyes gleaming as they size me. “I like you,” she insists, “You don’t judge—you roll with the punches.”

     Something in my gut tightens. Her crystal eyes become two drills boring into me.

     “Thanks,” I say, awkward. By now the line has moved up further, and we are in the bathroom. Down the way, I spot an empty stall. I give the stranger a terse smile and then abscond.

     Does her face stay with me as I leave? Yes / No (Circle on)

     Inside the stall, I pee. Zipping open my purse, I rifle through its contents like a surgeon searching for something to extract: dark green lipstick, a wallet of rolled ones, a silver butterfly knife. I find my prize–a small vial of summer spice, which I tap onto the back of my hand and inhale.

     Crackling clarity finds me—pries my skull plates apart and saturates the wet mess underneath.

     I wipe myself, flush the toilet, and push out.

     At the sink, Alistere is waiting.  She lathers her soapy hands repeatedly until she sees me, then turns on the faucet to rinse.

     “You again.” She teases. My head reels from the spice, and the image of her face kaleidoscopes in glowing tessellations.

     I greet her back. The music from outside grows louder, angelic croons rising like a swell before a wave.

     “I’d like you to meet someone,” Alistere says suddenly.

     “What?”

     “If you don’t mind leaving the club for a minute.”

     I shake my head. “There’s no reentry.”

     “They’ll never know we left. I know a secret way.”

     Does her voice pull at something deep inside of me? Does it override all my base instincts? Yes / No (Circle one)

     I follow her from the bathroom to a side hallway, suddenly spellbound. I watch as she feels around the carpet until she finds a hidden latch. She tugs it and the floor swings up to reveal a steel manhole cover. She wastes no time sliding down the rungs, inviting me after with a gesture.

     Do I follow her? Do I even have a choice? Yes / No (Circle one)

     The tunnels stretch like wheel spokes around me, seemingly infinite, filled to the brim with busyness. There are people all around. Alistere leads me through it all, navigating this loose maze of masked figures and whispered deals. At one intersection, a man with blades strapped to every inch of his body staggers past, leaving a snail trail of blood behind him.

     “Where are we?” I ask.

     Does her lack of response unnerve me? Yes / No (Circle one)

     Further in, pig carcasses split at the belly furnish long tables. Six shirtless men stand hunched over them, eating with their faces. Along the far wall, naked dancers gyrate in locked cages, as businessmen dip dollar bills into bowls of barbeque sauce and stick them onto their skin through the bars.

     “What is this place?” I ask Alistere again.

     She smiles. “A tunnel system. Old service passageways the government built to hold out during the long protests. A sort of underbelly, I guess. It’s more for pleasure than business, now, but its function as a gathering space remains the same. Filled to the brim with the beating blood of our beautiful empire.”

     I look at the businessmen and their barbeque ladies.

     “Mybra-Auros,” she exalts, exhaling. “What a city we live in. Have you ever been to the high ward?”

     “No,” I say.

     Is this a lie? Yes / No (Circle one)

     “Well, that’s a shame. It’s beautiful: golden and green, with the cathedral of law at its center, with all those shimmering spires." A pause finds the conversation as she maneuvers us past a crowded corner. “I was an intern there for two years. Both my parents served in the military wing. Before that, my father was a veteran, and my mother was a nurse. They both fought in farside wars and brought riches back with them. You know the saying: War is good for money, and money’s good for me. I guess you could call it nepotism, how I got the job, but I was really good at it. A year in, nobody even cared who my parents were. I ran the rat race fast. Cut corners, costs. I think that’s how the party boss noticed me.”

     She says the words party boss as if they were a spell.

     “He introduced himself. Stopped me as I was walking to the gardens. I don’t think I could have stopped myself even if I knew.”

     “Knew what?”

     The stranger ignores the question.

     “We became close. He took me to all sorts of places in the high ward. We went to the Kulem Library and got lost in its endless towers. We went to the gardens of Gardesh, and the palace of Uche. He showed me the secret entrances to these old tunnels. Taught me everything I know. I thought he loved me.”

     “Did he not?”

     A sad flicker of a smile, then stoic lips.

     “No. He did not.”

     Do I understand what she means? Yes / No (Circle one)

     “What happened?”

     “Well,” she says tersely. “It doesn’t matter. He got me my new defense job, much higher pay. Technically, I guess, I still work for him. I’m working for him now.”

     More pigs hang from hooks down the hallway. Fresh plates of meat, raw and steaming, pile up one after the next in front of a table of masked men— they devour it, their skinny fingers gripping the flesh. At the table one figure stands out, five feet taller than his peers.

     Does my heart stop? Yes / No (Circle one)

     Alistere’s eyes freeze me from my frenzy. She stands beside the table and gestures to the tall man.

     “Boss,” she says, extending a hand towards me in introduction, her voice a poisonous singsong drawl. “This is Dominia. The one I’ve been telling you about. I believe she will suit your needs well.”

     My stomach recoils instantly.

     Dominia. My name.

     Had I given her my name? Yes / No (Circle one)

     I hear his step before I see him move; a heavy lumber. The party boss rises from the crowd, a ten-foot scarecrow of sinew, all hidden behind a sheet-metal mask.

     Hello, lovely. He booms, his voice a phantom projection.

I take a staggering step backwards, but Alistere is behind me to stop that retreat.

     Do I fall into her arms? Do I try to run, and she grabs me? Don’t bother answering.

     “I’m sorry it had to come to this,” she says, floating towards me like a wraith, two inches off the ground. The smooth curve of her face meets mine, and our lips lock.

     I cannot move.

     And then she pulls back—my gut drops. Everything is falling away from me.

     She leads me by a limp hand down to the meat hooks, where the pigs hang, only now I can see that they are not pigs. Not pigs at all. They hang half-flayed, faces removed, just smooth sheets of red.

     “I knew from the moment I met you,” Alistere says, splaying her palm over her face and gripping down. “I knew that you were special. Beautiful. You’re lucky I found you when I did. Who knows who else could have snatched you?”

     And then Alistere’s hand, still held taught over her face, grips down and lifts. Her skin splits away from the muscle, her lips, a zipper undone.

     I stare at the bleeding tapestry that remains, and simple clarity finds me. My muscles roar back alive.

     I have only seconds to act.

     I kick Alistere in her knee, buckling it. She cries out in pain and stumbles. Then, like a whirlwind, I turn around and run. But the party boss blocks my way. He swells up over me, a psychic tidal wave, every pore of his body a black hole.

     A bite, a claw, a slash with the switchblade in my purse gets me past him. But that horrifying mask—his sheet metal mask, stays with me as a run.

     Is Alistere following me? Yes / No (Circle one)

     I hound back the way I came and launch myself against the ladder, throwing the manhole open from underneath and exploding back into the now-empty club. Daylight streams through the closed doors.

     Somehow, hours have passed. My own momentum trips me, but I keep running, and then blow the double doors down into the low ward of the city.

     Is she letting me go? Is this all part of her plan? Yes / No (Circle one)

     Warm, sharp sunlight burns the scum from my skin. Different skin from the skin I started with. My adrenaline spikes and then it dives.

     I collapse on the street beside a storm drain, from which I hear chatter and the frantic sounds of men searching.

     Is this how it happened? Yes / No (Circle one)