Carabas

There's a human boy who grew up with something not human and eventually fell in love, and now the nonhuman one is gradually becoming human. This is something he always wanted, but he's surprised because he expected it to be like flipping a switch, all or nothing; instead, human traits will appear for a while and gradually fade away again. Right now, the two of them are having a conversation about a friend of the human, named Michael, who the human's considering approaching - they have an open relationship, since they both believe it's important for the human to be close with other humans.

Two men, at least one a detective, are on the rooftop of a building in a city, talking about that Michael. They have some kind of personal grudge against that couple, and they have some plan to use Michael against them. One of them is assuring the other that the plan will work, they can trust Michael and he'll come through for them; they mention something about 11 o'clock. The human boy appears on top of the wall at the edge of the rooftop, looking a few years older than in the previous scene, and he tells them that he's "already taken the precaution of" killing Michael, in order to prevent Michael from killing him. Someone (I can't remember whether it was the boy or the detective; both sides agree on this point) makes a comment about how "before all of this," before Michael got involved with them, Michael would have been peacefully studying at this time of night.

As a disembodied observer, I get lost in a train of thought starting with that comment about studying and ending up thinking about disappearing cultural institutions, and then thinking about divination by lottery. With that last thought, I find myself at a shrine in the POV of the human boy from the previous scene. I intend to take a long trip, alone, but I needed to stop here first. There's a woman who works at the shrine performing divination by lottery, where there are small white balls containing messages from the deity of the shrine. The message she produces for me is "please do not go." I'm not surprised by this, and intend to leave anyway, regretfully; I only came here to say goodbye, though I intend to return someday. As the part of me in the mindset of the character is thinking all this, the observer side of me realizes that the deity of the shrine is the same nonhuman character from the earlier scenes.