A Familiar Sight (Dr. Gretchen White, #1)

by Brianna Labuskes

“Too easy,” Marconi chided, and Gretchen had to agree. “There are brains that are more prone to illusory pattern perception,” Gretchen said instead of acknowledging it. “More prone to finding connections in unrelated data. They’re simply wired that way.” “All right, so what brains are prone?” “People who have an excess of dopamine pumping through their gray matter,” Gretchen said, popping a slice of decadent duck into her mouth. “It’s the reverse of low dopamine in addicts. That deficit makes them think that nothing matters. For someone with high dopamine levels, they think everything matters.” “So they see conspiracies where it’s just happenstance,” Marconi said. Gretchen nodded, eyeing what was left on the plates.

“Pareidolia,” Gretchen said easily, snagging the last pierogi without shame. “That’s a fancy word for humans’ tendency to find significance in something where there is none. Like kids finding shapes in clouds. We do that a lot. And that technically is a subset of apophenia, which is the tendency to find connections where they don’t exist.” Gretchen paused, looked up, studied Marconi for a moment. “Are you lost yet?”

“I think it’s the people who pretend they’re not as ugly as the rest of us that are worse.” “Humans are terrible creatures held together by the illusion of civility,” Gretchen agreed. “People like to hurt each other,” Viola said. “They just don’t like to think they like it. But you and I, we know different.” “Give them justification,” Gretchen murmured. “And they’ll rip each other to shreds every time.” There was darkness at the edges of even the brightest soul, and empaths just didn’t like to think themselves capable of it. The monsters knew different.