Ty stepped out of the car, careful to not bang his cast against the side of the door. I stepped out after him, only my knee slammed against the side of the door as I was too much in a hurry. The bang was loud enough that if I were any normal person, then I’d surely have shouted into the ether. 

“You okay?” Miranda asked in the driver’s seat. 

“Yeah, I’m good.” I reassured her. “It takes a lot more than that to hurt me.”

Because of Ty’s several injuries, the doctors told him he should rest for the next couple of days and to move as little as possible. But, thanks to him not having a car, I had to ask Miranda to drive us back home. Zihao stayed at the hospital to watch over Karina while Miranda was away, saying that he’ll keep her updated just in case anything happened. 

“Make sure you staple Ty to the ground, okay?” Miranda said.

“I’m right here you know.” Ty yelled. “Besides, I’m going to my room as soon as I step through that door.”

“Well, better do it instead of shouting about it.” 

Ty laughed while waving his cast around. “Bitch, I’d slap you with this thing if I wasn’t scared it was going to hurt.” He continued to chuckle to himself as he climbed onto the porch. 

“So, I guess we’ll see you soon.” I told Miranda.

“Yeah, we will. By the way, the stores closed for the next two days. Spend your time off doing whatever.” 

I waved bye and backed away as Miranda placed her foot on the pedal. She took off, leaving me standing on the side of the road. I wanted Karina to get better, since with Miranda as she is right now, it’ll make working with her a chore with her constant worrying. Is it so hard to ask for a simple place to work without shit like this going down?

I turned to the house and saw Ty leaning against the porch railing, waiting for me. It’s only been a few days, but seeing him back home gave me a feeling of comfort. My shoulders finally relaxed themselves as the weight of my insanity temporarily drifted away. It will return, however. That’s just the nature behind the curse of being born as a cubbi.

He waved at me with the hand not bound by a cast, and the powerfully infectious joy shined on me, forcing me to smile along with him. Does it really matter if he’s acting unusual as long as he’s enjoying himself? That smile doesn’t show any signs of trauma or affliction of this rotten world. Why should I wish to take it away from him because it’s weird that he’s not suffering from having gone through torture?

I followed him up the porch and leaned on the railing like he was. We both stared at each other for a few seconds, and the wind picked up, tossing our hair around. It came so out of nowhere and with such force that I had to raise my hand to keep hair from getting in my eyes. Ty didn’t have to do anything since he didn’t have any long hair of his own, so he just enjoyed the cool breeze busting its way through the void but one car street. 

I looked up at the sky, and there wasn’t a single cloud in sight. The sun shined its cancer causing rays on the streets and buildings below, heating them while the wind canceled the ray’s effects. The combination of the heat from the sun and strong wind sent my body into a spiral of tranquility, as if I had found the gateway to a gentle garden populated by nothing but butterflies and moths with a single apple tree growing in the center of it all. 

“Fall really is coming soon.” Ty said.

“Yeah. It is.”

Ty turned to me. “Did it ever snow where you were born?”

I nodded without meeting his eyes. “When I was, maybe, like, three years old? It snowed a few inches. I scooped a lot of it up and ate a heaping ball of the stuff.” I chuckled at the memory. It was my first experience of having a brain freeze too. Sadly, it would be my only time, since it never snowed since then.

“Have you ever made a snowman?” Ty asked.

“I’ve read about snowmen in one or two of the books I read about humans. I’ve never seen what one looks like, though.”

Ty, upon hearing my declaration of not having ever seen a snowman before, smiled like a hyena sniffing out its prey. He even cackled like one too, and I uncomfortably joined in the laughing as well. 

“Well, it doesn’t snow down here, but a bit more north of the state, it does snow at least once a year. Whatever you do, don’t look up snowmen, and you’ll be in for a surprise once winter comes.”

“So you’re going to surprise me with a snowman?” 

“Once winter comes, yeah.” Ty stretched his back. 

Not much of a surprise when not only do I already know their basic idea but also he just straight up told me he would help me build a snowman. Even still, what if it just doesn’t snow this year? Maybe it does snow and there’s just not enough on the ground to make a snowman. So many things could happen to ruin his plan. But it didn’t seem to bother him. He continued to smile, most likely thinking about the future snowman building.

The wind calmed down and my hair settled back to normal, though more messy than it was before. I wondered why the wind picked up in the first place, if it was just going to settle like that. It’s almost like someone turned on a giant fan once they were cued to, then immediately turned it off when there was no more use for it.

Ty walked away from the railing and turned to his door. He twisted the knob, and when it didn’t budge, he dug in his pocket and pulled out his house keys. I stood behind him and waited for him to open the door. Once the lock unlatched itself, Ty turned the knob, and the door opened. 

A wave of warmth hit me square on, and sweat ran down my forehead. Ty stepped in and I followed after him, shutting the door behind me. The coolness of the outside air cut itself off from the barricade of the door, and the only thing I felt was the weirdly warm living room. The warmth was so irritating that my arm began feeling the need for me to scratch it. 

“Strangely warm in here.” Ty pointed out the obvious. “Did you leave on a heater?” 

I shook my head as I walked into the kitchen. The heat came from in here, so I looked around for the source. The first place I checked was the oven, and surprisingly enough, it was on. I checked the temperature, and I noticed it was set at a warm one-hundred fifty degrees. That’s not even high enough to set paper on fire, but it was enough to heat up the entire home when left on for a long time. I didn’t remember turning it on since I left a few days ago, so I turned it off. Once it turned off, I opened the oven to make sure there was nothing in it that could catch fire.

“I’m going to my room!” 

I jumped, startled by Ty’s out of nowhere shout. 

“Alright!” I called back to him.

Ty’s footsteps slowly became fainter the more he walked away, and they completely vanished once I heard his room door slam shut. It hasn’t even been a week, and he acts as if he’s completely over it. I won’t get in his way if he’s fine, or at least happy, but it still hits home that he’s probably not in the best mental state right now. 

I looked back into the oven, and something caught my eye immediately. On the top rack, sitting all the way in the back of the oven, was a small tin container. Again, I didn’t remember putting anything in the oven, so there was only one person who could do this.

Grabbing a hand towel to keep my hands safe, I grabbed the tin container and pulled it out of the oven. The container itself was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, and it was so hot that I could feel the heat through the hand towel. No matter the degree it rested in, it’s been in there for about half a week, so it’s no surprise it turned out so hot. 

I placed it in the sink and turned on the faucet. The water crashed onto the tin and a small amount of steam wisped off the metal. Once I was completely sure the metal cooled off all the way, I grabbed it and dried it off with the towel. I checked my reflection on the now shiny container’s surface, and I looked into my own eyes. Cubbi aren’t affected by looking at their own eyes, but I always wondered what would happen if that were the case. Would we go into that deep instinctual trance once we saw ourselves in the mirror? 

I edged my fingernail along the edge of the container, attempting to find a crack. Once I found it, I slid my fingernail in between it and lifted the lid. It hesitated at first, but once it went past the point of no return, it slid off like butter. I placed the lid on the counter and checked what was inside the tin. 

Inside of it was a folded up piece of paper. Whoever folded it, did it so much that it looked more like a ball than a flat sheet. I grabbed it and began unfolding it. The spherical shape it took crumbled once I unfolded the first layer, and the more I got rid of the curves, the flatter it got. 

Once it was completely unfolded, I inspected the sheet of paper. Strangely enough, there was nothing written on it. I wondered why someone would fold a piece of paper and hide it like that without actually writing anything. Then the obvious struck me and I turned the paper over. It turned out I had it on the wrong side. 

“What is this?” I whispered to myself. 

On the sheet of paper was a note that was written in the neatest handwriting I’ve ever seen. The writer controlled their hand in such a precise manner that I couldn't believe that they could have written it in anytime shorter than an hour, even when the note only reached half the page. 

Hello, Harmony. If you’re wondering why I hid this while you were out, it’s for a few short reasons. First of all, I want to congratulate you on saving Miss Illia. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know what I would say to her father. It’s also great for you, since if she died, I would have to explain why, and we both don’t want that.

If you don’t know already, I told Miss Vinkle and Mister Yang to keep their mouths shut about you. Despite my animosity towards you, I don’t wish for what is to come if word of your kind gets out to the masses. It’s already enough that the leaders of certain third world countries are trying to convince people of your existence. We can hide them, but we can’t censor the voices of the masses. 

As I said before, you should find the cubbi that stowed away on your boat ride over here, then once you kill them, you should either leave or kill yourself, preferably in a way to not let any evidence remain. For the safety of the cubbi, I hope you take these words and hold them close by.

Harvey.

That’s what I had expected, but why would he leave this note here? He said that he doesn’t wish for the consequences of my existence potentially leaking, but wouldn’t he want that? The more I thought about Harvey’s motives, the more I came at a loss. The most I know is that he’s heavily loyal to Karina, but beyond that, I can’t get a read on the guy. 

However, I am forced to agree with him about the fact I should track down the cubbi who pushed me overboard. Whoever they are, they pose a substantial risk to me. Then again, they aren’t even the greatest risk as of now. 

Right now, Jessica is enemy number one. She’s trying to track down the same cubbi I’m after. I don’t think she’d talk about me being a cubbi to anyone unless she could somehow definitively prove my abnormalities. She’d sound like a crazy woman if she brought me up without proof. But if she and her partner were to find the cubbi first, then there would be nothing stopping the eventual publishing of my species. 

I need to find them first, no matter the cost.