Content Warning: This section contains descriptions of gore, violence, anti-trans bias, gender dysphoria, religious trauma, escape from a cult, and death.

“Past Brother Hutch and past the Grace, the river rushes, perfect blue and clear and clean; the mountains of Acresfield County shine with green and gold; the black wings of carrion birds glimmer in the morning sun.”

Descriptions of the dystopian beauty are contrasted with the gore and horror that exist all around Benji in the world after the Flood virus took hold. While most humans are gone, the world continues on creating life. Benji notices the beauty around him despite everything that he is going through, demonstrating a wisdom that few others in this new world seem to have.

“If they want their monster, make them suffer for it.”

Benji learns What Makes a Monster as he transforms into Seraph and yet maintains a stronger moral compass than the people who created him. He hopes to take revenge against the people who killed his father and turned him into Seraph by using their own creation against them.

“Turning away from Seraph isn’t good if it means leaving people to be devoured.”

Benji wrestles internally with the concept of goodness and what he was taught by the cult versus what he knows through his own wisdom. While his father always told him to suppress the monster within, Benji now believes that he can use that monster to do good and defend his found family.