But in front of a full-length mirror, it’s impossible to think about anything else. I never liked looking at myself, and that was before the Flood started showing up on my body. Aisha doesn’t see it, but I do. The way the skin on my nails has shrunken back, making them just a little too long; the dull dryness to my eyes; the fact that, when I bare my teeth while she isn’t looking, my gums have pulled away, giving me a mouthful of half fangs.

I settle my mask back over my nose when Aisha returns with a handful of black clothes. “These should be your size,” she says, pressing close to me in the cramped laundry closet. She’s in a better mood today, like she’s managed to pack away Trevor’s death and Calvin’s shit, but she’s coming unraveled around the edges. There are bags under her eyes and a tremor to her hands. “It’s all super masc, promise. Give it a shot. I’ll be right outside.”

I don’t have physical dysphoria the way the workbooks in the ALC office describe it, narrowing in on obvious sex characteristics like that’s all being trans is. I don’t care about my chest, and I’ve never once, in my life, wanted to have a dick. My period sucks, but it never made me feel like less of a guy. Still, as I’m taking off my shirt in front of the mirror, I have to turn away. My dysphoria comes from the way other people see me, and I can’t help but look at myself from the outside. Why do my wrists have to be so small? Why does every shirt have to sit on my ass like that? Why do hips and chest and thighs have to read female?

I won’t have to deal with it for much longer. My skin is only a temporary thing. I wonder if I would feel the same way if I ever had the chance to start testosterone, knowing everything about my body would change but being unable to grasp exactly how. I’ve caught glimpses of the previous Seraph martyrs, bodies of children shattered under the weight of the Flood, but only glimpses. A twist of rotten flesh here, a fang or feather there. I thread a belt through the loops on the black jeans and zip the hoodie up to my throat. This self won’t last me long.

I knock on the door to tell Aisha I’m done. She comes in and rocks back on her heels to inspect me.

“Roll up the sleeves,” she says, and I do. “Try these gloves,” she says, and I do. “There.”

Combined with the mask, I must look like the people in the ALC office photographs, like I’m about to throw Molotov cocktails through Wall Street windows. She turns me around to the mirror.