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The problem with the Beholding is that Jon can know things. The ignorance he had before is gone, and now that the veil is lifted, he has to deal with knowledge that he can't handle. Jon knows he's a monster. He doesn't want to be. Does he? Does he truly want to stop being a monster, or is that only what he's telling himself to keep himself sane? That's the one thing he doesn't know. He's standing on the edge of that knife, wavering and indecisive and terrified.
So he ignores it. He knows what he is, knows what happened when he came back from the dead, but he ignores it. It's easier that way. He ignores what he is and instead focuses on what he's not.
Jon is not Elias. He can't be Elias, because Elias always understands what's going on and remains unbearably insufferable about it. Jon is groping in the dark, blind even with the shadow of the Eye hanging over him.
Jon is not Nikola, not Jude Perry, not Mike Crew, not Michael, not Hopworth or Lukas or Raynor. Jon hasn't killed anyone. Not yet. He's not that kind of monster.
He's not Daisy. He's not so blind as to not see what he's become. At least, he thinks that's the case.
And Jon is not Helen. Helen is an it. Helen has to be an it, because if Helen is a she or a he or a them, then Helen is the same as Jon. Helen is just as human and Jon is just as monstrous. They're different. They have to be different. So Helen is it and Jon is he, if only so Jon can hold onto that tiny bit of hope he has.
Not that there's much of that left.
---
Daisy doesn't know what she is. She's Daisy. She's Alice Tonner. She's the Hunter. Where did one end and the other begin? She knows what happened in the coffin, knows that the blood stopped pounding in her ears, but she still doesn't truly understand.
Is she Alice, a small child, innocent and unmarked by the powers that feed on terror?
Is she Daisy, defined by the scar on her back, a name she chose for herself because there's so little she could control? A name that is the only piece of herself that she held onto for so long, just for her to realize that maybe it wasn't hers at all?
Is she the Hunter, Basira's partner one day and raving beast the next, ready to hunt and kill and protect and destroy? Is she the rapid pounding of terrified hearts in her ears and the sweet tang of blood in the air and the warm wetness of what she tears out of those she hunts?
Which one is her? Which one came out of that coffin?
She can't be Alice, who has been dead and gone for so long because of what chose her, wiping away all chances of happiness and normalcy and innocence and ignorance.
She can't be the Hunter. She knows she's not the Hunter because Basira doesn't look at her the same, doesn't acknowledge her with the same camaraderie, the same partnership. She can't be what Basira needs anymore, no matter how much both of them want it.
She could be Daisy. But who is Daisy? Is Daisy the detective, the killer, the partner? Is Daisy the woman stumbling through unknown territory, trying her hardest to help and be helped? Is Daisy the monster that went into the coffin or the person that came out?
It's neither and both, she supposes. She is Daisy, but she isn't Daisy. It doesn't matter. All that matters is the one thing that has stayed through Alice and Daisy and the Hunter and whatever she is now: the need to keep going forward.
---
Melanie is human. Has she always been? Jon and Basira didn't think so. Melanie isn't sure.
It would make sense. It would be so easy for her to have been different from the moment that bullet entered her leg. It would be so easy for her to say that it changed her, made her the way she was.
But did it? Did the Slaughter truly claim her or was she just using it as a crutch? Was she not human then, or has she never been human at all?
The anger is still there. The rage, the violence, the sharpness. It hasn't gone away. If she is human now, then why hasn't it left?
Either she was never human or she has always been human, and she doesn't know which one is worse. Were her actions always hers, every attack and fight and kill, were they never hers to begin with? Are they hers now?
Maybe she's human. Maybe she's not. But if there's anything she knows, it's that either way, she is in control. Ancient fear god be fucking damned, she is going to take control. Monster or human, she is her. She's always been her.
---
Martin is human. He knows he's human.
He doesn't have powers, he doesn't have allies, he doesn't have anything. All he has is himself. No god, no boss, no mother, no master. Just Martin.
That should make him feel weak. He is a mere human in the presence of things that are anything but.
He isn't weak. He's human. And if there's anything he's learned, it's that humans aren't weak.
As much as the Entities provide power, they also provide chains. Rules, restrictions, necessities, petty conflicts. The Avatars and their gods are leashed more than they are free.
Martin stands small underneath the fears. Next to them, he is insignificant.
But to all of them, he is important. He is necessary. He is needed. He can accomplish what none of them can no matter how insignificant they think he is.
Martin is human.
Martin knows how much of a mistake it is to underestimate him.
---
Basira is human. Basira has to be human. There is no alternative.
Basira hasn't died. Jon did. Basira can't be Jon.
Every single part of Basira is hers, part of her from birth. She has not been changed.
Basira hasn't been controlled. She wasn't part of the Hunt, not even when she was working beside one of their number. She wasn't part of any of the things she encountered when she was in the force. And she isn't part of the Beholding. She can't be.
She isn't.
Basira is human. For her not to be human is utterly impossible.
Basira is human. Even when Elias insists on calling her Detective, even when he uses her just as fondly as he did his precious Archivist. Even when she looks at Daisy and knows — knows — that this is Daisy, that she cares about Daisy, that whether or not Daisy can help fight doesn't matter, except to Basira, not a single one of those statements seems quite right. Even when she feels her shoulders rise, her eyes darting from person to persons, paranoia and doubt and distrust rising within her.
Even when she feels the gaze of the Ceaseless Watcher upon her.
Those all have reasonable explanations. Basira almost died stopping the Unknowing. She lost her partner. She spent months trying to figure out how to survive against the Entities. She's had to fight to survive from moment to moment. She's been traumatized. That changes a person. That accounts for the differences.
Basira is human. That's why she corrects Elias each time he calls her Detective despite the look on his face that makes it clear he knows. That's why she writes off how she feels about Daisy, since it's only natural they'd drift apart after so long and so many changes to them both. That's why she reminds Jon about what he is, because Basira isn't like him. She couldn't be.
Basira is human. She can't be anything else.
---
Helen is... something. Helen is not Michael. Michael is dead. Helen is the Distortion, and Helen, and whatever lies between that.
Helen wants to be an it. Except Helen doesn't the Distortion does, but Helen is the Distortion, but Helen is also Helen. Helen wants to be a she, and if that's what she wants, that's what the Distortion wants. Helen is the old Helen and the new Helen and the old Helen was she and the new Helen is...
She supposes it's appropriate. The Spiral does like madness and confusion, after all.
Helen likes that. Except Helen doesn't. Except the Distortion does, except the Distortion doesn't because the Distortion is Helen.
The constant tearing and twisting of her (its? their?) mind makes Helen want to break down, to stop existing, to not be Helen or the Distortion or the in-between, but instead nothing at all.
Except that's not what Helen wants either, and Helen and the Distortion and whatever they have made together walks through twisting corridors, just as confused as they are.
---
Elias isn't human. He was, once, but he is one with the Beholding now. The human was pitiful. All humans are pitiful, unless they can be molded by careful, caring hands. Elias is not pitiful.
Elias is powerful. He may not be part of the Spider, might not have all its subtle manipulations, but he knows how to control it all. Everything is a game of chess, and Elias is dozens of moves ahead. He watches, as is his nature, and he sees the humans stumble blindly and revels in the fact that he is not one of them.
Elias is akin to the gods in his power. For what except a god does not fear death? Elias isn't afraid of death. He has mastered death. He is immortal, all-knowing, unkillable. He cannot be afraid of what cannot touch him.
So Elias sits and waits and watches, the all-seeing eye above the domain that lays beneath him.
---
There were others, once. There have been many employees in the Magnus Archives, every single one drowning under the weight of humanity and monstrosity.
Gertrude Robinson bore that weight better than any. She held it in one hand and crushed it, uncaring, erasing any need to dwell on it. She had more important things to worry about.
Michael Shelley was human. And then he wasn't. He shifted around his own madness, avoiding that conflict by becoming it.
Sasha James barely had the time to feel that specific pain. She felt the fear, the helplessness, the confusion that everyone employed in the Archives felt, but she never had the chance to truly experience it. She died, and then what took her remade her. Sasha James was human, and she was dead before she wasn't, but no one else has that comfort. Which Sasha was real? What is true and what is fabricated? Sasha didn't feel that weight, but the monster that killed her made it all her memory was.
Tim Stoker pretended he didn't care. That was general, of course, but he applied it with the same practiced ease to his own humanity. And then he made himself truly not care. So what if he was trapped, so what if he was spiraling, so what if anger and despair became all he knew? He made himself not care. If he had survived, he may have had to cope with his own identity. But he didn't. He died, and he died by his choice, and he never had to worry about what he was.
---
Somewhere else, somewhere different. That is where Gerard Kaey is, in both life and death. He has been it all. Human and monster, hero and villain. He has helped and he has killed, and no matter how much the two intertwine, he has done both. Gerard Kaey was Gerry and Gerard Kaey was his mother's son. He is many things to many different people. A son, a tool, a savior, a monster, a killer, and, he'd like to think, a friend.
Gerard Kaey is gone. Gerry is gone. What he was rests only in memory of those still alive. He is many different people, a different version of himself in every mind.
---
And that is what everyone is. Memory. Experience. Emotion. Bias. Subjectivity.
Jon, Daisy, Melanie, Martin, Basira, Helen, Elias, Gertrude, Michael, Sasha, Tim — they are all both human and not. Humanity cannot be defined by one being, cannot be constrained to one meaning.
Humanity is subjective, but to those that ask the question of what they are, humanity cannot be subjective. They must find a way to define humanity so that it allows them to fall on the side they prefer. They create their own divide, their own torture.
Their own fear.
Somewhere, incomprehensible to what is human and what is not, fourteen fears see this conflict. They see this terror, and, with gleeful malice, they feed.