I know they're out there, watching me, waiting for me to let my guard down. Then they'll disappear me in the dead of night. The faceless demons are out there, I know it. How long has it been since I last slept? Days, or was it weeks ago? Using two fingers, I carefully create a tiny hole in the blinds to see the street below my apartment. The streetlights flicker, communicating in Morse code to my enemies. I need to break those again.

Across the dark street, pretending to wait for a bus that will never come, is him—the ringleader of the Watchers. Every night like clockwork, he sits down on the bench directly across from my apartment and spies on me. Too bad for him, I've taken measures against his schemes. Every surface of my apartment is covered in aluminum; none of their light or sonic ray weapons will reach me here. I'm safe. My stomach gurgles at me, and I drop to the ground at the sound. Whatever they're putting in the water is somehow getting around my precautions. If it continues much longer, I'll have to consider operating on myself. Again.

I rub at the scars on my arms, counting them to make sure I haven't been replaced. I'm still me. Right? I go through the motions of counting down from one hundred in my head repeatedly to throw off any mind readers trying to access my thoughts. That should be enough for now. Pushing off the ground, I get back on my feet and navigate through the maze of traps I've laid all over my apartment for any would-be intruders. Snap traps with spikes attached, hooked up to car batteries that would electrocute an adult male to death in a few minutes. Trip wires are ready to trigger modified nail guns that will burst fire eight-gauge nails. The world wouldn't listen to my warnings, but they'll see. They'll all see. A knock at my door startles me, and I freeze mid-step. I have no deliveries planned today or this week. They've come for me, finally.

"Hello, Mr. Motta, are you home? These nice officers just want to ask you a few questions. Please open the door, Ethan," Marybeth Morrow, my landlord, said.

That isn't Marybeth. The face stealers have gotten her. She knows that the police are in the pocket of the Watchers; I've told her hundreds of times. Damn it, another casualty of the war against truth. Tiptoeing over a few boxes, I reach my kitchen counter, where a fully loaded double-barreled shotgun awaits me. When darkness comes, I will not go quietly into the night. No, I will die fighting as a human rather than live comfortably as a beast. Another knock at my door, and I pull the trigger twice, blasting a hole through the wood. I hear screams as the demons are wounded by the salt buckshot I crafted.

"Gun! Get Mrs. Morrow out of her and secure the hallway," one of the demons shouted.

"FLEE FROM HERE, HELLSPAWN! You are not welcome on this plane or in my abode, and you will not silence me like those that came before," I screamed, reaching for more of my custom ammunition.

I can see one of them bleeding out against the wall through the hole in my door. My mouth is sandy, my head throbs, and my heart is hammering in my chest. This is what I planned for, prepped for. Only the foolish and the unwaking think the end times are nigh. They're already here; the war was started years ago. The remains of my door are scattered as two of the demons rush inside. I only get one shell loaded as they enter. Pulling the trigger, the demon's knee is destroyed, and it falls to the ground in pain. The second one activates a trip wire and ten nails buried into each leg. The cries of the damned don't make me feel better; I know better than to celebrate false victories. The demons' faces are blurred and featureless, which should be enough for people to believe in the faceless ones, but somehow, the masses don't believe.

More of them charge into my apartment, activating my traps, but their numbers are too many. The horde continues to pour in as the thrumming in my head is so strong I feel it in my teeth. The taste of blood in my mouth is potent, a sickly metal tang from biting my tongue too hard. The walls of my home are too small, and it feels like they're starting to shrink rapidly. My fingers feel numb, my vision blurs, and something wet is trickling out of my nose. Whatever magic or weapon they're wielding against me is too powerful to resist. I can't go out like this. Something sharp pierces my flesh, sending shockwaves through my frame. I try to move, but my limbs aren't my own. The leader of the Watchers must be controlling them. I will not go quietly into the night.

Ethan's body violently shakes as thick, sticky, black tar pours out of his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes in vast quantities. More bursts out of his scars, ripping the old stitches and reopening the wounds. His fading consciousness is what allows me to awaken; his weak body cannot contain both of us simultaneously. One must always slumber. The bubbling, noxious sludge even escapes through his fingernails until his apartment is flooded, and his body sinks below the surface. Once submerged, the weak, scrawny, and emaciated form is dissolved. I'm free.

"HE'S A NEUVOHUMAN!" One of the men yelled.

"Ethan Motta, you are under arrest for assaulting three officers of the Cincinnati police department. Stand down or we will be forced to use lethal force," the man in charge announced.

Ethan's traps and attacks have reduced the number of officers to six. Those six now crowd around the entrance with their guns drawn and aimed at the still black ocean that is me. They haven't called for backup yet. They haven't involved the BNA or the local Heroes' Union charter. They have no idea what they're dealing with. Ripples spread across the tar as I finish shaking off the fatigue from my long slumber. I pull myself together, revealing my true form. A hulking mass of black sludge, pulsing with purple energy, and with differently-sized blood red orbs sporadically dotting the body. A line splits open in the middle of me as my mouth forms—a U-shaped maw with perfectly aligned, shiny, white human teeth.

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"Sorry, officers, Ethan isn't here right now. But I am, and I will gladly keep you company. You may call me Mister Black," I said.

The police freeze. One man recovers before the others, unloading his firearm into me. The bullets pierce into me, slowing as they travel deeper within my body. I absorb them into my other space, feeling them vanish from the material world. Tar is slow, viscous, and lethargic, so surely a creature made of it should be too, right? Wrong. Moving much faster than any of them expect me to, I explode out of the room, engulfing two of them inside me. I form multiple limbs, slamming the four other humans into the walls, floor, and ceiling. The crack of my tentacles sounds like the angry whip of a noble disciplining their serfs. The men splatter against the surfaces they hit, pulping like rotting fruit hitting the sidewalk. I don't see our landlord anywhere. I hope Ms. Morrow is alright, she makes wonderful strawberry tarts.

"Ms. Morrow? Are you alright? I'm sorry about the mess. I'll clean up before I go," I called out.

My body expands like a bullfrog's vocal sac, growing larger until every inch of the walls is covered in tar. The blood, viscera, shell casings, bodies, traps, the pieces of the door, and other trash are absorbed into me, depositing them into my hidden pocket. All traces of Ethan's shootout with the police are gone. Oh, the things I do for you, Ethan. But someone needs to take care of you if you won't. I think it's time we moved out of this place and moved on from this city. I become a stream of black goo that bounces from wall to floor to wall, gathering speed before I head for the emergency exit stairs, dropping straight down the middle of the stairwell. I splat against the cement floor, reforming and condensing my body further and further until I'm a small puddle.

Slipping under the closed exit door, I emerge into the night. And that's where I notice the building is cordoned off and surrounded. There's a group of five people in colorful outfits, clearly waiting for me. I retreat back under the door into the stairwell. While violence is an answer, it is not the only one, and I wouldn't be much of a gentleman if I didn't at least attempt diplomacy. Connecting my mouth to my pocket, I regurgitate people pieces and police parts onto the pavement. My earlier attacks didn't leave many connected areas, so some rough surgery is due. There's a torso and head combo that still has one of the arms attached, which will be the base. I grab another arm, laying it on the floor next to the body, and then get a waist that almost has both legs, only missing below the knee on the left leg. Thinning the end of a tentacle until it is nearly translucent, I then solidify said limb, creating a blade for use. A few cuts here and there allow me to get the legs and arms evened out.

With my rough scarecrow nearly done, all that is left is to tie everything together. I swallow up all the unused parts back into my pocket and then dive into the corpse's mouth and nose. Filling up the stomach, and then soaking into the tissue, creating vein-like tendrils that spread out, connecting the separated limbs. From inside the gut, I produce more tendrils, carving through flesh, bone, and musculature to finish seeding my roots throughout the body. The roots that go up into the head tunnel toward the eyes and pop them out. Moving several of my own eyes into the now-empty space allows me to finally see. The right is three smaller ones crammed into the socket, and the left is one larger one. Piloting a body isn't a new thing for me, but using one that is in such rough shape and stitched together is. Getting a feel for it takes a bit, but I manage to stand and approach the door. Pushing it open, I raise a hand to cover my eyes, hoping to trick them all into hearing me out.

"Stop right there," a floating woman in spandex said.

"Hello, what brings you all here?" I asked. "The disturbance call was a false alarm, no need for Capes."

"I'm not doing this," A male voice said.

I lower my arm as the man who spoke is suddenly right in front of my face. His gloved fist hits my corpse's face, again and again. He's moving too fast for me to react. A Traveller then? His punches aren't doing anything; it isn't like I can feel the hits. He doesn't seem too interested in listening to me. I projectile vomit a stream of tar onto him when he goes for another round of attacks—the Cape stumbles, retching and trying to wipe the tar off of himself. But his hand gets stuck on his other arm. Tar's an adhesive after all. I spew more onto the ground around us so he can't run away. The other Capes don't let me get a chance to breathe.

The floating woman with her fluttering cape and valkyrie-like helmet flies straight into me. She splits my scarecrow at the seam between waist and torso, sending both pieces into the wall. Four arrows come flying at me, pinning the two halves into the building. Extricating myself from the corpse, I spill out of the two parts, coating the brick wall. The Capes gasp as far more tar pours out than could have been contained inside. The speedy Traveller continues struggling, but all he's doing is spreading more of me over him. I see the archer knocking another arrow to fire at me, and I wonder why. One of the other Capes, a gigantic, muscular woman of Amazonian proportions, wearing a blend of furs and bronze armor, touches the arrow, causing it to glow brightly. The archer releases his glowing arrow, sending it whistling through the air until it strikes the center of my mass. It explodes, vaporizing a large portion of my tar.

"I'm trying to play nice with you all. Don't make me act uncivilized, you won't like it," I warned.

"Eat shit," the valkyrie said.

She flies toward the Traveller, offering him her hand. She pulls him off the ground, my tar tearing as it's stretched to the point of snapping. A geyser of tar bursts out of the ground where he was previously standing. The valkyrie flies out of the way, avoiding the shower. I form several oily limbs and reach for the flying Cape. Just as I'm about to grab them, more glowing arrows hit my limbs, destroying them completely. These are some crafty little Capes. My many eyes have been keeping track of all of them, but the fifth one hasn't moved at all, standing still with their arms crossed.

Every part of me bristles as I create tiny spikes all over, hardening them. I send them blasting forward like bullets into the Capes. Several tar spikes embed themselves into the Traveller's legs, the archer's chest, but the other three repel them far too easily. I need to step it up even more. My pocket opens wide, and a wave of tar erupts from every surface I'm on. The veritable ocean of black washes over the street, spreading further down and sticking to everything. I will either outlast them until my fumes consume them, or I will swallow them whole. The Amazon's body glows brightly and she stomps down on the cement, opening a hole to the sewers. But even with the hole, an ever-increasing amount of toxic sludge continues to flow. I am an unquenching oil spill. This is my domain, and I will not suffer unruly houseguests.

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