Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

by Kylie Lee Baker

She is an echo, quieter and quieter until she’s nothing at all.

Cora wonders at what point a person stops being one singular person and becomes a collection of parts.

Cora was never real, she was only an echo of Delilah, and with her gone, she is no one at all.

Because if you kill someone, you should want it more than anything you’ve ever wanted before. It shouldn’t be easy.

she doesn’t think she can survive another medical professional telling her that her mind is a web they cannot untangle.

nothing I did before in my life will matter at all, just the death that I didn’t choose. I am not going to let anyone take away what makes me a human.

Yifei turns her pain into a plan, while Cora scrubs her pain away with Blood Buster.

That’s all Cora ever does—sits around and waits to die.

And Cora knows all too well that you can’t fear someone who has no power over you.