It’s been nearly a week since I had that dream. I’ve tried forgetting the voice’s message, but with no such luck with getting rid of it. I’ll forget it entirely for long stretches of time, but as soon as I meet up with Miranda or Karina or Ty, my brain shoots right back to that moment. As I lay adrift through space in my sleep, I receive the message that someone close to me will die. How am I supposed to forget that? If it weren’t a dream, I would’ve taken it as Falya’s words and stress over it to no end.

As I sit at the counter of the antique shop, watching the clock tick closer and closer to six, I wonder what would I do if it turned out to be true. Someone may die trying to save me from myself or whatever. Isn’t this the stuff that Ty always says he hates?

“It’s about closing time.” 

Miranda comes strolling out of the back room with her laptop in hand. Why would she want to take it out of her room? She always keeps it here because she doesn’t trust her important stuff to stay at her home. 

“You’re taking your laptop with you?” I ask.

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to find a good place to get new stuff for the store, but there’s been no auctions as of recently. I tried driving around the residential area hoping for a garage sale, but saw nothing, and one of my clients backed out. Doesn’t the store look empty to you?”

I look around, but to be honest, I didn’t spot much of a difference. Each shelf was still reasonably stocked with strange wares, there were still several paintings hung on the wall, and the cases were still full. She might just be overreacting here.

“Anyway, I’m probably going to spend all of tonight looking for someplace to get more antiques. I won’t open tomorrow, so count it as your unpaid vacation day.”

I nod as she walks out of the store, laptop in hand. Honestly, it’s completely fine with me. I’ve got my own stuff to wonder about. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day indeed. Ty’s going to be out tomorrow doing god knows what, and I finally found a good game on his computer. The sex scenes are still just still images, but I really love the characters. Especially Katrina. She’s a badass that wiped out an entire city with magic water.

I walk out the door and take my keyring out of my pocket. Miranda says that it’s my duty to lock up the place whenever she’s busy with something. Thing about that is she’s been busy for the last few days now. She’s been moving back and forth so often that she’s rarely in the store anymore. She’ll either be in the back room or driving through the city. 

I don’t know what got her in this mood, but I suck it up, anyway. It’s not like it does me any harm to begin with. All it does is have me waste a few more seconds locking the door. 

“Hey, Harmony.” Now that’s new. 

I turn and see Karina running over from the grocery store across the street. She’s waving to greet me, and as I’m about to wave back, I hear a car coming. I turn my head to see a car barreling down the street at max speed. I look back and notice that at the speed she’s running, the car will crash into her.

My mind went into overdrive, and my body acted without a thought. The only thing going through my head was that voice’s warning. I jumped at the opportunity and sped across the street as fast as I could. I grabbed her and I dashed to the other side. She screamed in shock, but that let me know that she’s still alive.

I stop at the store parking lot and let her go. She stands up straight with her arms hugging her sides. She looked like a doll in that position. Her hair was tossed about wildly and fell into her eyes. When her brain caught up to the fact she’s okay, she pushes the hair out of her face and looks at me with bewildered excitement.

“What was that?” Karina asks.

I look around, trying to find the car. I spot it at a red light that was still some ways away from where we were. The driver looked at me with wide eyes, amazed by my inhuman speed. Now that I look carefully, Karina would’ve made it long before the car sped past here. Why did I even think she was in danger in the first place?

“That was insane!” Karina shouted. The red light transitioned to green, and the car sped past us, but it took nearly five entire seconds for him to get close. As he passed us, I could see the driver taking a sideways glance at me as he passed us by. “How are you able to run that fast?”

I rack my brain for an excuse. I look back on all the studies that I’ve done on human culture to prepare me for this moment. An idea came to mind, and without even deliberating on if I should use it or not, I take the excuse. 

“I was in my high school track team. I’ve always loved running, you know.” 

As flimsy an excuse like that is, I know that it shouldn’t be a problem using it on Karina. She isn’t the brightest of people, so it’s enough to get me out of this situation until I can think up of something better. 

As soon as I look at her reaction, I expected to see the look of unwavering belief in her eyes. That’s not what was shown to me. She looked puzzled, almost as if she knew what I had just said was a lie. 

“Well, the fastest man alive ran at twenty miles per hour, and you obviously ran much faster than that, so…” She shook her head and the bright smile that I’ve been so accustomed to seeing appeared on her face. “Nevermind that. I’m not her for speed competitions. I just want to know if you want to hang out today.”

Now it’s my turn to be shocked. “You aren’t going with Miranda?” 

“Well, I asked her before, but she said she was too busy trying to find stuff for her shop to hang with me. I haven’t been able to party since then.” Karina pouted her lips making her look like a child complaining about not getting their toy with the kids’ meal.

“Why not just have a party without her?”

“For reasons.” She didn’t elaborate on it any further. “Can we hang out? I always see you walking to town after work, so why not?” 

She clasped her hands together and pouted even further. If it weren’t for Ty explaining to me what puppy dog eyes were, I’d have thought she was praying to some weird God. Unlike Ty, however, I’m not as affected by the look as he is, but even if I was, the answer’d remain the same.

“Alright.” I answer. She smiles and grabs my wrist and begins dragging me to a nice-looking car. “Is that your car?”

“It’s my dad’s, but he doesn’t care if I take it out.”

“You still live with your parents?”

Cubbi leave their parents’ side as soon as they turn sixteen, and when I studied about human customs, I found out that humans normally leave their parents at eighteen. However, Karina was in her mid-twenties and still living with her parents? Am I the only person that thinks that’s strange?

“Yep.” Once again, she didn’t elaborate further. For someone who talks nonstop, she sure knows when to keep her mouth shut. “Anyway, we’re heading to Zeehoo’s for a drink.”

“You know, his name is Zihao.” Someone has to be the one to tell her that.

“Yeah. Zeehoo. That’s what I said.” Now I realize why no one tried to correct her.

Karina let go of my wrist and walked to the driver side door. She grabbed the car handle and opened the door and I stood there, mind blown by what happened next. She opened the door, but instead of opening outward like a normal car, it opened upward. I followed my gaze up as she raised it higher and higher. Once it was at its peak, she climbed in and waved me to get in before shutting the door. 

I walk slowly to the other side and grab the car door handle. I pull it up and it opens for me to climb into. What is with humans and their need to have multiple types of things instead of one unified object? Is there a purpose to having a door opening up instead of out like normal? If there is, then why are outward opening doors still the norm?

“You getting in?” Karina asks.

I climb inside and reach up to the door and shut it back down. It slammed with a nice thud and a ringing sounded through the car. On the dash was a GPS that gave perfect visual clarity of not only where we were but also the surrounding area. I look around, but I don’t see any type of computer setup anywhere nearby. Humans have come this far ahead of us? If they got this far, then what else have they managed to accomplish over the years?

Karina started the car and began talking about her day from the very beginning, and she didn’t miss out on a single detail. I toned her out while I thought about how out of touch cubbi are compared to these people. 

***

“Zeehoo, guess who!” 

Karina barged into the bar while shouting that phrase, and I couldn’t help but let out a slight chuckle. I know it’s wrong, but that doesn’t make it less funny. Then I looked at Zihao’s face and stifled the next laugh cause the man looks pissed as hell. Karina seemed to notice it as well, since she ran right up to him and asked him what happened.

“Well, a few things did.” Zihao says. “My neighbor got shot from a break in last night. I had to comfort Lai the entire night, so I’m tired as all hell. Then I got her report card in the mail and saw she was failing three classes, and now you’re here. You tell me what’s wrong.”

Is it just me or did the further he go into describing his day get more and more tame? Then again, nothing can top having someone near you getting shot. The only thing I can think of that can top it is if they came over to his house next.

I look around the bar and notice that it’s way more empty than last time. There are only three people here, each of them sitting at their own tables, not mingling in the slightest. They weren’t even here during the night last time. Is this place an actual business and not just some weird hangout place for buff men in leather jackets? I can’t even stomach the possibility that that’s the case.

“What are you two doing here, anyway?” He pointed at Karina. “You don’t come here till night, and you,” he pointed to me next. “You’ve only come here once. What are you both here for?”

Karina sighed while she grabbed a menu from Zihao’s side of the bar. “Miranda’s been busy lately. I told her she needs to loosen up and have fun, but she won’t listen to me. She has her panties in the tightest twist I’ve seen yet.”

I sat next to Karina, and Zihao handed me a menu. I searched through it, looking to try something different, but as soon as I heard the little pitter patter of footsteps coming from the kitchen, I raised my head to see the guest of honor come into the main room. 

Lai came through the kitchen door with a coloring book in hand and a box of crayons in another. She walked to the seat next to me and sat down in the seat beside my own. She opened the coloring book and turned to a page with a drawing of a person carrying a huge shield with a star in the center. 

Lai sat coloring for a while, and I took small glances at her progress. At first, it was nothing but some lines that vaguely resembled a person, but the more she colored, the more it came to life. The coloring was messy and haphazard, but she’s just a kid. What else would it look like? 

I ordered my meal and glanced at her one more time and saw that she was staring at me now. She still had a frown on her face, almost as if she can’t experience any other emotion.

“What do you need?” Lai asks.

I laugh nervously and chuckle. “Nothing sweety. I just enjoy seeing you coloring.” I let out another nervous laugh and she went back to her coloring. “You don’t like it?” I ask. With her frowning like that, it looked like she just didn’t enjoy coloring despite doing it all the time.

“I like it.” Yet she still frowns. 

I leave it alone, but it still lingers on my mind. I turn to my left where Karina is sitting and see the stool she was sitting on was currently empty. I look around the bar and find chatting with some people at another booth. The guy looked uncomfortable but kept her going despite his obvious want for her to leave him alone. 

After a few minutes, our food comes out and Karina leaves the poor man alone and comes back to her stool. As I’m about to eat, I hear the door open and two sets of footsteps walking in. I turn around and see two people, one I know and one I don’t, walk into the bar.

Jessica walked into the bar, and another man, in a trench coat much like hers, follows alongside her.