I remember my first day as a proxy. Ahriman sent someone to pick me up from the bridge I’d been sleeping under, and drove me to the apartment. I didn’t say anything the whole drive over. I think I was too scared of what was going to happen to me. The blogs I’d read all seemed to say that proxies were usually insane killers, and Ahriman’s rabid devotion to the Boss hadn’t done a lot to dispel that impression. A part of me was convinced that the moment I stepped inside that apartment I’d be jumped by a man with a knife and a mask, and then eaten alive.

Instead, Lepidus greeted me when I entered. He tried to make everything seem as normal as he could for me, and let me settle in. Like I was just moving into a new apartment with a regular job, instead of becoming the employee of a monster that kills people.


He was the one who kept the whole place together. He was always willing to look at both sides of a conflict, and figure out a solution that we could all agree with. He never raised his voice, no matter how unreasonable we were being. And he would always chat with his patients, after they woke up. For some of them, I think he was the first friendly face they’d seen since becoming a proxy.

Once, he told me about how he’d performed for a community theater when he was younger, before he became overwhelmed by his hospital duties. He always loved the theater, even after he became a proxy. He almost never could attend any performances, but whenever an adaptation got released onto Netflix, he’d get us together and we’d watch it.

I never imagined he’d be gone. He was the only piece of stability we had in our lives. I just assumed that he’d always be there for me. This wasn’t how I pictured things happening. He didn’t deserve this….