Ronnie nodded along with him listening to details of this crazy man’s life, droning on, until he could take no more. Ronnie had pried his hands loose while the imposter continued his diatribe of things Ronnie knew were complete fabrications, and cut him off once he started to talk about Hayri once again.

“Ace has no children. You are crazy! ”

Grinding his teeth together, this imposter tried to prove his identity.

“I am! I have told him who I am, hundreds of times he has come to see me, but he never remembers. I assume, this time, he will.”

“Let me go!”

“Not until you believe me! ”

“Keep waiting.”

Ronnie was again, calling someone’s bluff, but this was no bluff. He crossed his arms, put on a brave face, and pretended that he wasn’t afraid, while his captor’s eyes turned stark white, and told him;

“I’ll turn back the past two hours, over and over again, if that's what it takes to get what I want.”

Ronnie continued to ignore him.

“I can keep you here, and maybe he’ll come here while he’s looking for you.”

“Or, or, you could let me go? We could just call it a day, man, okay?”

“How can I trust you will send my message? How else can I get this watch? I’m not leaving here to start another paradox...I’ve worked too hard!”

Ronnie was a smart man, and went over the facts he knew, quickly in his head.

The watch was under the tree.

The two goons had burst into Ace’s house, looking for the watch, only told the information by this insane man. Ronnie finally turned to look back again once he realized the truth.

“You were going to steal the watch from them! Why? ”

“So I can eat it.”

That was not the answer Ronnie expected.

Ronnie also did not expect the man sitting across from him to suddenly turn feral as he spoke.

His brows furrowed once he stated that he only “liked the finer things in life” and his nails grew right through his white gloves.

“When I came here, so many eons ago, I wondered, why would anyone want to eat those monsters, ” he said.

His ears elongated, then turned upwards and now were sharper than ever before.

“I thought he was crazy when he told me they’re food. Absolutely silly!”

His lips widened, as far as they could stretch while his teeth were sharpening and drool spilling onto the floor. His tongue was heavy, elongating, unable to control himself at the thought of his next meal. Ronnie continued to drink his hot-chocolate, now cold, not knowing what else to do, and silently nodded along.

“Well, you know the old adage! You can’t knock something until you try it!”

Aelius started laughing, and then Ronnie nervously laughed along, willing to do anything to leave. The longer they both laughed, the faster he returned to his normal state, and grinning, positively radiant , in fact he was emitting a soft bright glow from the idea of his first real meal in centuries.

The same smile Ronnie had seen on Ace, now on this man’s face, made him start to believe his long-winded tale, but then another uncomfortable truth was now obvious.

He had a striking similarity to Tyreceus. He had been dead for so long that Ronnie didn’t recognize the similarities until just then, and the reality of his preposterous predicament had finally settled into the bottom of his stomach.

“I’ll bring you the watch,” Ronnie said.

“ Really?”

“Yes. Really. ”

Aelius was overjoyed. No longer would he have to be stuck inside, stuck on a loop, hoping to fix a mess that he had inadvertently created, and that maybe he could have a life outside The Place That Never Was.

Ronnie smiled faintly when Aelius got up from the chair, expecting a hug, but instead, he pushed him to the side.

He fell off the chair, appearing right onto Ace’s wooden kitchen table, next to a crying, sentient blanket.

Ronnie slept as best as a man could knowing that there were edible gods inside Ace’s attic and backyard.

Which wasn’t much.

He slept for a total of four hours, waking up at eight AM, somehow feeling worse than he did before he went to sleep. While in bed, underneath his brown comforter set, curled up in a ball, he knew what he must do.

Nothing.

He was going to do absolutely nothing about the situation. No one knew except for him and a deranged lunatic living inside a garden existing between the ass-crack of time and space.

Therefore it was no longer his problem.

Absolving all responsibility, he was finally ready to face the world.

Ronnie got up, went downstairs with his friendly new sidekick, The Leech, and made himself coffee with extra cream and sugar.

The entirety of the bottom floor of Ace’s home was still damaged from Liane and Chad’s rampage and Ronnie was considering hiring a maid service when a ring came from the front door.

Still in his shorts and shirt he slept in, Ronnie greeted the police at the door.

Ronnie wasn’t sure if the officer was an astral with very odd side effects from his ability or an Earthian immigrant because he stood upright, his entire body was covered in fur, but he could speak intelligently.

Yet he was a black panther, with sharp yellow eyes, animal head, and a tail poking out from the back of his pants. He wore the standard blue and black police officer uniform with a bullet-proof vest, fine shoes, and yet something about him still seemed off.

Ronnie tried not to be rude, he wasn't a speciesist, his mother raised him better, but he still felt quite uncomfortable when he saw who it was at the door. The police officer’s badge said Ken. M. and he was there to check up on the disturbance from the night before.

“Good morning young man, are you the owner of the house? We came by last night, and no one was here,” Officer Ken said.

“I’m house sitting. Sorry I...stepped out,” Ronnie replied. “It’s ok. I’m fine now.”

Ronnie moved to close the door, but Officer Ken moved his foot in the way of the door, and smiled, trying wedge his way inside.

“I’d like to talk to you about something important, and—”

Ronnie swung the door wide open, and then slammed it shut with the full force of his weight. He was a big and strong person, so Officer Ken definitely felt it, and hissed when it slammed onto his foot.

Ronnie leaned all of his weight onto the door, locked it shut, and then panicked. He got out his phone to call the police again and then paused.

“Ah, fuck. ”

Officer Ken kept banging on the door, over and over, hissing and scratching, begging to be let inside.

“Ronnie, I know you have that watch,” Officer Ken shouted.

“Leave! You can’t come inside without a warrant! How do you know my name!? ”

The banging stopped and soft laughter could be heard.

“ You still think I’m a cop?”

“I’m calling the police,” Ronnie shouted.

“How do you think I knew where to find you? Jeez.”

The Leech was snickering, Ronnie was panicking, and he remembered.

They were edible.

Ronnie was still gripping the torn blanket and tried not to sound as crazy as he knew it was.

“Can I uh, take just a piece of you, Mr. Blanket? Just a bite,” Ronnie asked.

“ That is not my name. And no.”

“ He’s going to break inside! It’s not like I want to!”

“He can’t do anything once inside. There are seals everywhere for a reason. No one can enter here with bad intent unless they teleport in…”

Befuddled by this revelation, and no longer worried about the cat-man trying to break inside, Ronnie left the foyer and entered the living room. He collapsed onto the couch and sighed.

“I guess that's why the house was broken in but nothing was taken before,” Ronnie asked. “How is it that people can still teleport in?”

“Dad had to fix it because Ace couldn’t teleport home when he was angry,” The Leech snickered.

Ronnie worried that the mean blanket was a bad influence because he found this amusing as well.

Nothing was amusing once Officer Ken broke into the house, pushed down the door, and ran into the living room. He grew in size, clothes bursting to pieces as he ran through the halls and Ronnie felt like time was slowing down as he sat up straight on the couch.

The living room led directly to the backyard, with the sliding glass pane doors. The strange runes, still on the panes, were still there, and they glowed a light purple, activating the home’s security system.

Once Officer Ken entered the living room, the glass doors slid open, and an invisible force pushed him right outside of the house, flinging him so fast, so far, but just far enough he would be at the edge of Ace’s property and no farther.

The doors were polite enough to close themselves.

“Mr. T should have left the option on to kick them out if they teleported in...I wouldn’t have to clean this house, ” Ronnie mumbled.

“Just blame your problems on someone else. That’s what I always do!”

“There’s no one else here! Why am I listening to you?”

Ronnie immediately got out his phone and called Ace.

“Hey, it’s Ace. What’s up?”

“Oh, Ace, its Ro—”

“AH! That’s not me. This is the voicemail! AH! Got ya! ”

A pre-recorded voicemail of Ace with Fenton, giggling like small children, which annoyed Ronnie to no end, drove him to the brink. Tears of frustration welled in his eyes as he sat through the voicemail inbox system, wondering which life actions led him to this very moment.

“Just leave your message at the beep,” Ace’s recorded message said.

“ Beep,” Fenton chuckled.

“No, but seriously, just text me. Who leaves voicemail anymore? I never listen to them anyway.”

The recorded message ended.

THIS INBOX IS FULL.