text: Nadia has always seen things that others couldn’t. Her parents were on board with her imaginary friends until she started school, where the teachers were concerned about just how vivid and detailed Nadia’s visions were getting. She learned to tamp it down, to conceal the things she saw. When she saw a man in what looked like a toga sailing an ancient-looking sailboat in the harbor, she turned the other way. Once, she opened her fridge and found a shrunken head sitting on the top shelf, perched on a tub of hummus. She simply closed the door and pushed the sight from her mind. The image that proved too difficult to forget, though, was one she’d only started seeing when she moved out and started college. A beautiful woman, wearing a dress of vibrant olive green that flowed like the curves of an ancient statue over her robust hips and full abdomen. Her plump arms were adorned with thick gold wires coiling from wrist to shoulder like a gilded snake. A wreath of green foliage rested upon her head, among wild chocolate curls. Nadia saw this woman every day since leaving home and living alone. Always in a different place, perched in a rocking chair in the living room, standing next to the clerk at the local deli as she ordered lunch, even in the exam room during doctor’s visits. Her visions were ever-changing, with the exception of the woman. Sometimes she would just notice someone out of place from the corner of her eye. This was easier to ignore, and made it less complicated to feign normalcy. Of course she wasn’t seeing people and things that weren’t actually there, Nadia told herself. She expended most of her energy pretending to be perfectly ordinary. But Sasmoae knew that Nadia was anything but ordinary. - Sasmoae was rumored to be older than time. A nasty bit of scuttle-butt undoubtedly spread around by Umuesoci, that hopeless gossip. Sasmoae was a Watcher for only about 500 years, thank you very much. A mere fleeting moment, a simple blip compared to some of the other Watchers who weren't far from celebrating their first millennium. Sasmoae was born from the ashes of a grove of olive trees. The trees had been struck by one of the Ancients: Lovtluota. Lovtluota was tired of witnessing the horror and atrocity that the humans inflicted upon each other. She was so heartbroken by it, in fact, that she gathered the other Ancients to do something to punish the mortals. Together, they burned down the olive trees, and from the ashes they formed the Watchers, including Sasmoae. The Watchers were tasked with protecting the Voshriie, a special group of gifted mortals who would one day save humankind from themselves. Or at least that’s what some lengthy prophecy said. Sasmoae never had gotten around to actually reading the darn thing. But she knew the gist. The Voshriie were the only humans allowed to see the Watchers in their personified forms, though Sasmoae and the others like her were forbidden from initiating any interaction with humans, Voshriie or otherwise. Nadia didn’t know any of this though. If you asked her what a watcher was, she’d scratch her head, maybe pull out a dictionary to recite the exact definition. Sasmoae loved to watch Nadia commuting to work on her bicycle. She loved watching the corners of her mouth twitch upward at the smell of freshly baked bread or a newly opened bottle of good wine. Fear used to flicker in Nadia’s eyes when she caught sight of the Watcher. The fear dwindled as the years went by, until all that was left was a vague sort of recognition. As if to say “Ah yes, there you are. There you always are.” She yearned for conversation, interaction, anything but lurking in corners watching the world, and Nadia, go by. One day, a day like any other, Nadia was commuting home from work on foot. After a break in several days of relentless midwestern rainstorms, Detroit was finally experiencing a beautiful spring day. Nadia had decided to forgo her bike, favoring a nice walk with the sun warming her face. She even took off her cardigan to expose her pale shoulders, hoping to get lucky and capture a little tan. But Nadia didn't see him yet. She didn't see him standing in the shadows of an alley, leaning against a dumpster, and watching her. - Sasmoae saw him before Nadia did. In fact, she wasn't sure if Nadia saw him at all. She would have recognized Drur anywhere. It was uncharacteristic of him to be without at least a few members of his army of Irondemons, but there he was. Sasmoae could sense Drur’s hunger before she saw him, balancing on a cane, wearing dated but nonetheless modern clothes: a plaid button-up, moth-bitten beige sweater vest, and too-big slacks. His telltale sunken eyes and veiny reptilian skin caught Sasmoae’s eye. He craved the soul of a Voshriie, and would do just about anything to lead one down to his hidden corner of the Netherworld. Drur was a diety of trickery and deceit. His ideal night on the town included coming up from the Nether, crafting a disguise, and trancing through mortal towns wreaking havoc, getting all sorts of humans into all sorts of trouble. He and his kind had been the reason Lovtluota and the Ancients created the Watchers in the first place. Drur was everything bad about the universe; he was every awful thing any human had ever done. And he stood a block and a half in front of Nadia. - The man standing next to the dumpster hadn't been there two seconds earlier, Nadia realized. She directed her eyes to the pavement, keeping track of the cracks in the sidewalk instead of the hallucination she wished nothing more than to be free of. She dared to glance around the quiet street again. The sun was going down, and the streetlights had just flickered on. The street was empty except for the man by the dumpster who wasn't really there. He's not really there , she told herself. I'm alone. I'm alone. She wondered how many of her friends muttered those words as a way to make themselves feel better. Who in their right mind would long to be alone? - Nadia was ignoring Drur, so Sasmoae pushed the boundaries of what she was allowed to do with the mortal present. Still not speaking, since such a thing was strictly forbidden, she sped up to match Nadia’s pace and looked over, desperate to meet her gaze. When Nadia finally noticed her would-be guardian angel, someone she'd seen every day for years, the angelic face that she was so accustomed to seeing was contorted, frenzied, and ghost-white. Nadia looked away, and she wore neither fear nor dismissal upon her face. Annoyance. Oh , Sasmoae thought, frantic, that won't do. Drur was moving closer, and Nadia was ignoring him. So Sasmoae had no choice. "You're not alone," she hissed. Nadia's attention darted to the Watcher, who cut her eyes to gesture toward Drur and said once more, maybe because it was necessary and maybe because it just felt nice to speak to someone, "We're not alone." She grabbed Nadia by the arm, and they started running.