The man and his boy didn’t take long on their errand, and it didn’t take long to find out why; concern for Athan was practically dripping from the old man’s mind. He’d lied to his little boy of course, white lies, telling him that everything was and would be okay. I don’t know why humans always bothered. Lies were so fundamental to their being, it sickened me.

Part of me wanted to tell the boy just to see him cry about it, but then I’d have to deal with an inconsolable wreck wailing at me mentally all hours of the day and night until he got over it. Death happens, and judging by the age of the old man, this would be a lesson he’d learn sooner than later. Perhaps better for him to learn now than when he also had to deal with his father not being around.

But in the end, I did what I usually do. Watched and waited. Human lives were so pointless to get involved in. Brief, drama-filled, and always obsessed with the latest crisis.

But Athan missing, that was troubling. I’d begun to suspect after he failed to appear for a number of weeks, but hoped he was just penned-in for the winter. When the old man had stumbled on the idea of taking a visit, I gave him a gentle nudge of encouragement, and off they went. Now they were back with bad news, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

For one…I actually genuinely liked the idiot, troublesome and naive though he may be. He was easy to manipulate but had a good heart, and despite his troubling lack of immortality, I could see the two of us becoming quite close as he realized his dreams of building a better world, and I kept him from dying to his own idiocy. It was a genuinely fun sounding project, though one invariably doomed to failure, I still had to find some way to fill the endless years.

But more troubling, without him all my short-term plans for escape may as well be doused in kerosene and thrown into a volcano. I’d have to completely mentally erase one, or maybe even both of the humans before I could trust them to follow my orders exactly, and even after that, they made sure to keep anyone who knew how to use or disarm my coffin well out of my range. Whatever line of defenses it offered, whatever final cruel last-ditch effort the ghosts of the XPCA held, I was powerless to prepare against.

And even worse, if it did something even simple yet unexpected, those two acting as psy-zombies wouldn’t be able to deal with it without explicit programming. If the coffin hurt me enough to incapacitate me, and then added an extra lock? They’d stand there useless.

It was frustrating but I needed a better plan. Even though every fiber of my cynicism told me he was already gone, I still found myself hoping against experience that somehow he’d find his way back to me.

I needed Athan. For my plans, I knew this. But strangely, I also found myself missing him.