Where the Dead Things Bloom [41, 42]

41 Pack Warmth

Having been brushed and serenaded, Krysanthea looked more serene than I'd ever seen her.

“So did you like the brushery?” Nessy inquired, batting her eyes at Kristi.

"I... suppose that was… nice," Krysanthea admitted grudgingly, as her hand rose to touch her groomed feathers with something like appreciation. 

“Yay,” Nessy clapped. “Kristikins approval gained!”

“And you’ve just lost it with that comment,” Kristi smiled.

“Boo,” Nessy huffed.

“But seriously,” the raptor eyed the husky. “I think that your music is doing… something to my perception.”

“Something?” Nessy tilted her head.

Kristi fell silent for a moment. "It's making you more..." she trailed off, struggling to find the words, her claws fidgeting with the edge of the blanket nest.

"More what?" Nessy pressed, leaning forward with eager curiosity, her tail swishing behind her.

"More..." Kristi's feathers fluttered. "Appealing? Magnetic? I don't know how to explain it. I've never been the type to squee over boy bands or whatever, but your singing is doing something strange to my brain."

"Eeeeeeee!" Nessy demonstrated the fangirl-squee with exaggerated delight, tail wagging wildly. "Like that?"

"Precisely that, yes," Kristi said dryly with a wince. "It's like your music is awakening parts of my brain that I didn't know existed."

Nessy's eyes widened, a slow grin spreading across her muzzle. "Ohhh! So you're saying my awesome singing is making you feel things? Good things? Tell me more, scale-face!"

Kristi exhaled sharply, amber eyes darting to me and then back to Nessy. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"

"Say what?" Nessy's tail somehow accelerated its rabid wagging.

"I've always found you naturally..." Kristi paused, seeming to physically struggle with the admission, "...attractive. Pretty, even. From the first day I saw you in class. It's probably why I tried so hard to outdo you in school. To push you away. To crush you in every way I could imagine, to knock you off your perch as the social queen of middle and then high school as it were… to take away what belonged to you.” She eyed me.

Nessy's jaw dropped, her ears shooting straight up in surprise.

“Yes, it was stupid and petty,” Kristi let out. “I pretended to be all proper while I couldn’t stop being jealous of you. Sorry.”

“Emerged, you’re actually apologizing… to me?” Nessy breathed out.

“Yes,” Kristi exhaled. “You know, there’s always been… something about you.”

“Something nice?” Nessy leaned toward the raptor.

“Like this magic bullshit sparkly ghost string hanging between us now,” Kristi waved a scaled hand at the pack triangle webwork. “Like it’s always been there. A connection from me to you that I fought against with my entire being since my family would absolutely disown me if I told them that I… liked a dog with no connections to her name.”

“Dang,” Nessy said. “That’s… so wow from so many sides.”

"Umm… yeah. Anyways, this Riffweld skill of yours," Kristi continued quickly, as if trying to move past her confession, "it's amplifying that in an alarming way. Like I'm suddenly a teenage raptor or..." her scales darkened with a flush, "...in season."

"What?!" Nessy squeaked, looking absolutely delighted by this turn of events. "You mean like when…”

“Yes, you don’t need to dig at it,” the raptor hissed. 

“But.”

“Zip.”

“Buuu…”

The raptor-girl grabbed the husky’s snout with her hand and squeezed it shut. “I said zip it. Slayer, if any of this gets out, my social life is done and my family will probably bury me in a ditch or something.”

I stared at the struggling, grinning husky being squished by the raptor with mild amusement.

"The point is, your singing is doing something unnatural to my perception. Making me trust you. It must be the Riffweld System skill,” Kristi said, releasing the husky’s snout.

“I agree on that one,” I said. “Nessy’s music is somehow skewering her appearance in my eyes from merely pretty to absolutely eye-catching.”

“Awww, you guys are such nice,” Nessy smiled.

"Right so we’re both affected then," Kristi muttered, visibly trying to regain her composure. "And I’m not sure if mental effects like that are healthy.”

“It’s probably fine,” Nessy waved her paw at us. “You’re fine. I would never abuse your appreciation. Say, how much do you appreciate me?” She grinned at the raptor.

“I'd appreciate it if we could move on to the next card before this gets any more awkward,” Kristi hissed out.

"No way!" Nessy bounced on the bed, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. "You just admitted nice things! This is groundbreaking pack vibe development!"

The Bulwichu tree behind her flickered with pink and gold bulbee crystal flowers.

"I'm going to regret this for the rest of my life, aren't I?" Kristi groaned, covering her face with her clawed hands. 

“I won’t tell anyone anything, cross my heart and hope to die,” Nessy bobbed on the bed. “I'd never betray a pack mate!”

“Alec,” Kristi said in a tone that begged for the conversation to move on. “Grab a card already.”

I held in my questions and drew another card and read it aloud: "'Truth: Which one person would you most want to be stranded on a desert island with, and why?'"

"Ooooh, desert island scenario!" Nessy's tail thumped excitedly against the bed. "Choose wisely, pack leader!"

I considered the question, looking between the eager husky and the embarrassed-looking raptor. "Honestly? Both of you, for different reasons. Nessy would keep morale up and probably befriend whatever wildlife lived there. Krysanthea, on the other hand, would actually get us set up with a hut for survival with her tactical thinking, planning and hunting skills."

"A diplomatic answer," Krysanthea mused.

"But if you had to pick just one?" Nessy pressed, leaning forward with interest.

"If I absolutely had to choose..." I hesitated, genuinely torn. "Krysanthea. But only because I feel like she'd be more focused on actual survival rather than trying to make friends with sharks or something."

Nessy clutched her chest in mock offense. "Oi! I would never! Unless they were really friendly sharks!"

I laughed as did Nessy.

“Traitor,” she made an overly dramatic pouting face at me.

“See, Kristi would be better at helping me survive on a desert island against other predators with her claws,” I added. “While you could rescue both of us way fast with your magic nose.”

“Fine, fine,” the husky huffed, laughing heartily. “You win this round with your cheeky human logic, Mister. Your turn, Kristi!” 

She thrust the remaining cards at the raptor. “Pick, pick!”

Krysanthea's drew a dare card: "'Dare: Give a packmate a full back massage for ten minutes.'"

"The bonding-powers have spoken!" Nessy crowed delightedly. “Pick who you will knead today!”

"I—" Krysanthea began looking between us.

Nessy wiggled her eyebrows at her.

Kristi flushed with violet and then straightened her shoulders with sudden resolve. "Alec."

I blinked as Krysanthea gestured for me to lie down. "You sure about this?" I asked, not wanting her to feel pressured.

"Yeah, yeah," she said. "I can handle a massage. Besides..." She glanced at Nessy, a competitive gleam in her amber eyes. "If I back down now she'll make fun of me harder.”

"Yepperoni!" Nessy grinned, settling back to watch.

Somewhat awkwardly, I removed my borrowed ranger shirt and positioned myself face down on the bed. Then I sank into the embrace of Nessy-crafted nest as Krysanthea approached.

I glanced back at her talons. 

"Don't worry," she said. "Raptor anatomy isn't exactly designed for gentle touch, but I won’t cut you up.”

The mattress dipped as she positioned herself, straddling my lower back. The weight of her somehow felt familiar, electric.

There was no tentative exploration—Krysanthea applied firm, decisive pressure from the start, her knuckles digging deep into my muscle tissue. She kneaded me with practiced ease, as if she'd done this many times before.

“See?” she said. “Talons are bent inward toward my palm. Only using my knuckles and the sides of my hands… plus elbows for pressure points.”

"Ah that is… nice," I mumbled into the pillow as she worked a particularly tense spot between my shoulder blades with her feathery elbow. "You really know what you're doing."

"Naturally," she replied, a hint of pride in her voice. "Raptors don't do things halfway."

"Someone's enjoying themselves," Nessy commented with an amused voice, relocating to a spot right beside my face.

As Krysanthea's massage continued, something strange began happening. Flashes of memory—not mine, yet somehow familiar—flickered through my mind like old photographs coming into focus:

Krysanthea's hands on my shoulders, guiding me through a slow dance at the formal as I spun her around, whispering encouragingly her amber eyes reflecting fairy lights strung overhead...

The inescapable pull of her gemstone-like eyes. The realization that she would be a far calmer girlfriend then Nessy who constantly hypered around me, over-crowded me, declared me as her properly and today confessed that I owed her myself because she saved me from drowning.

Sitting above the valley on a stone outcropping, pointing out constellations while Kristi corrected my mediocre astronomy knowledge with endearing nerdiness.

Her scales shimmering like a disco-ball in the sunlight as she pulled me into a secluded alcove behind the school, her lips meeting mine for the first time. Her kiss like an electrical fire, an explosion detonating across my nerves. 

The memories were foreign and intimate, like pieces of a shattered mirror, fragments of a relationship I'd never actually experienced. They weren't just images but full sensory experiences—her scent, the texture of her scales, the sound of her laugh when I surprised her with flowers after her ranger certification.

"You're tensing up again," Krysanthea murmured, her knuckles pressing into a particularly stubborn knot. "Relax."

"Sorry," I managed. "I'm just…”

"What?" she prompted, leaning down so her tank-top covered chest pressed against my back.

"Remembering things again. Things that didn't happen to me. Moments with you."

Her hands paused momentarily before resuming their work as she straightened out. "What kind of moments?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"Dancing at the formal. Stargazing. Our first kiss."

Nessy made a choking noise beside us.

This time her hands stopped completely. "You remember that? How?!”

"Not sure," I clarified. "It's like watching a VR movie of someone else's life, except... I can feel everything. Smell everything. It's strange."

"It's ‘cus you are a tree,” Nessy said.

“Why is he a tree?” Krysanthea asked, resuming the massage with more direct kneading of her feathered elbow.

“Trees are nice to sit under,” Nessy clarified with a reverent tone. “They provide shade and oxygen. Alec provides himself.”

“Are you being Alec-obsessed, or is this… some kind of Scrutiosmia insight?” Kristi asked.

“I'm not obsessed!”

“Yea right. I've seen the Alec wall-shrine at your apartment.”

"It's just a cute memory wall!" Nessy huffed. “This is magic insight, yes. He’s a tree of Alec-ness!”

“Is he going to turn into a flesh tree with faces if he dies too often or something?”

“He already did.”

“What?”

“I think that I killed an Alec that failed to reconstitute,” Nessy confessed. “The conceptoid. He was an Alec that didn't make it, one who didn't have the will or the focus to be himself.”

“Oh,” I said. “Why didn’t he have the will?”

“Probably because he thought of too many things or worried too much about others,” Nessy shrugged. “You, on the other hand, didn't have anyone to think about, only had yourself to focus on. You did the impossible, pulled yourself from death by your own bootstraps. It's why you are the most Alec full of Alec-ness. That's why I found you. Hard times build character, see?”

She reached out and ruffled my hair. “My little tree of lost Alec souls.”

“Is that what he is?” Kristi asked from above me.

“I think so,” Nessy said softly. “Souls are very hard to smell, but I'm getting better at it.”

“How many souls are in him?”

“I dunno. Lots?”

The idea should have disturbed me—the notion that I might be a tree of souls. Instead, there was something weirdly comforting about it. I suspected that the feeling was there mostly due to Nessy and Kristi being at my side. My protectors. My pack. It was strange how predators had…

"Hrm. It makes me wonder," I voiced after a quiet moment, "about the differences between worlds. Like, why are humans and pradavarians considered different categories here? In my world, humans were the only fully sapient species. But here, it seems like the division is almost... arbitrary."

"Arbitrary?" Krysanthea repeated, sliding her fist along my spine. "How so?"

"You're all essentially human in build and intelligence," I explained. "Just with animal features mixed in. Hell, you have breasts like a mammal, which is exceptionally strange for a dinosaur from my point of view. From what I understood so far—humans and pradavarians are treated as distinct categories rather than variations of the same base type. So, why aren't humans defined as “pradavarians” too? Why is the Prad flag hanging at the ranger station next to the USA flag?”

"That's because we are totally different!" Nessy said, inhaling deep. "Humans… evolved from apes who evolved from earlier primates who evolved from small tree-dwelling mammals who evolved from synapsids who evolved from amphibians who evolved from lobe-finned fish who evolved from jawless fish who evolved from early chordates who evolved from simple multicellular organisms that evolved from single-celled life in the primordial oceans!” She somehow outputted the entire run-on-sentence without taking a single extra breath.

“And Pradavarians?” I asked.

“Pradavarians were created when the Slayer defeated the Leviathan born from the Wormwood Star crater,” Nessy declared. “He struck down the monster dragon and made a wish upon her crystalline heart—a wish for companionship and love. The Slayer created us specifically to love and protect humans, to be their perfect pack companions. That's why I'm your dedicated packmate and protector, Alec!"

42 Season’s Call

"Myths aside," Krysanthea interjected, "genetic studies confirm we evolved from different branches. All prads have way faster heartbeats than humans and can punch, accelerate and run much faster due and have better balance because of our tails. Humans lack the instinctive traits that define pradavarians—digitigrade legs, tails, enhanced senses, species-specific abilities, and most significantly, our metabolic requirements and reproductive cycles."

"What kind of requirements?" I asked.

"Dietary, for one," Krysanthea explained, working her knuckles in small circles between my shoulder blades. "Humans can survive as vegetarians, even vegans. Pradavarians cannot—we are predators and our bodies require specific proteins and compounds found only in animal tissue. Without them, we experience severe physical and neurological deterioration."

"My cousin tried going vegetarian once when she was young," Nessy added. "Ended up hospitalized within three weeks. Nervous system started shutting down."

“I see,” I said.

"And then there's the Cycle," Krysanthea continued, her tone becoming more clinical. "Every 77 to 99 days, depending on species and age, pradavarians experience… Estrus."

The word seemed to cause some distant part of me pure, undistilled fear.

"Basically a week of heightened emotions, intense territorial instincts, and..." Nessy trailed off, her ears flattening slightly. "Ummmm, increased mating drive."

"Unlike the comparatively mild human hormonal fluctuations, the Prad Cycle cannot be medically suppressed," Krysanthea added. "It's hardwired into our neurochemistry. During peak Cycle, pradavarians take leave from critical positions—law enforcement, medical services, education—to prevent... incidents."

"What sort of… incidents?" I echoed.

"Territorial disputes. Challenge fights. Emotional outbursts. Inappropriate advances," the raptor clarified, her elbow digging into my back and making me shudder. "There's a reason many pradavarian dwellings have reinforced 'Cycle rooms' and Cycle timed locks for isolation during the more intense phases."

Nessy nodded enthusiastically. "The worst part is the smell perception distortion. When we're in estrus, our sense of smell goes crazy. If your mate smells even slightly like another prad, it can trigger completely irrational behavior. Full-on jealous rage, territorial marking, crying fits that last for hours, etc.”

"It's deeply embarrassing and annoying," Krysanthea admitted grudgingly. "I once missed an important certification exam because of estrus and spent the week obsessively cleaning my apartment."

"Yep, humans don't have to deal with any of that nonsense," Nessy continued. "So, you're often wanted more for jobs like air traffic controllers or airline pilots, because you're so stable, so free from these primal drives. It's why the Slayer dubbed you the anchors of our world. In the ancient texts, it says time itself would stop if all humans vanished—you're that essential to reality's structure!”

“What?” I chortled.

“Just more Nazarite mythology," Krysanthea corrected with a sigh. "But there is something undeniably... grounding, trustworthy about male humans. Your perspective is linear, stable, constantly logical in ways that pradavarians struggle to achieve during the cycle."

“Oh? Is that why you picked to date a human?”

“Actually, yes,” Kristi confessed. “You might be weaker in a fight but you are hella reliable. No crazy drama.” This statement seemed to be directed at Nessy as if the husky was the source of all drama in existence.

"There are physical differences too," Nessy added sticking her tongue at the raptor. "Prad females are typically larger and stronger than males—the reverse of human dimorphism. Female raptors like Kristi are way more aggressive than the males. There are way more female prads than male prads too."

"We're simply more territorial,'" Krysanthea objected, though her increased pressure on my back somewhat contradicted her statement. "You just get messier and clingier."

I momentarily struggled to imagine a clingier Nessy who was already at maximum cling levels around me.

"Yeah, my apartment is like a total mess when I'm in Cycle," Nessy admitted with a sheepish grin. "It's why I rent from a human landlord—aka my boss Will as he can't smell any of it."

"Our senses also operate on entirely different spectrums," Krysanthea continued. "Raptors like myself can detect thermal signatures and movement patterns imperceptible to humans. Canids like Nessy perceive scent layers that most other species can't begin to comprehend."

“So many interesting prad facts,” I murmured, feeling extremely relaxed from the raptor-massage. 

Has it not been way more than ten minutes? We're the girls even bothering to time my massage? I chose not to question it, enjoying their closeness.

"Then there's the Seasonal Voice," Krysanthea said, her hands pausing momentarily. 

“The what?” I yawned.

"During seasonal changes pradavarians experience collective instinctual impulses—migration urges, nesting behaviors, communal hunts," she explained.

"The Winter Calling for example," Nessy nodded solemnly. "Last year's was fun. Half of Ferguson's canids ended up gathering at Midnight Hill to howl at the moon for four hours straight! Or the Spring Hunt...”

"Humans observe these phenomena but don't experience them," Krysanthea added. "Another key distinction is our adaptive capacity. Pradavarians can physiologically adjust to environmental changes within a single generation—humans constantly invent better technology for such.”

I felt myself drifting away and discovered that Nessy had gradually nuzzled into my left side. 

“Ah, is someone falling asleep?” Kristi teased.

“Been a long day,” Nessy yawned. “Plus we gotta get up sooper early tomorrow for Superstore-slaying, yeah?”

“Yeah,” the raptor-girl sighed. She slowly slid off me and vanished into the bathroom to change. Upon her return she settled on my right side in another pair of dog-themed, pink, soft pajama top and shorts.

“Looks like someone likes wearing my clothes,” Nessy teased.

“I, um, don't want to to go home,” Kristi said, settling on my left side. “My parents and sisters will ask too many questions and cause drama which I really don't want to deal with now.”

“You all live together?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Kristi let out. “I've a pretty nice loft apartment at the Strand estate.”

“How many sisters do you have?”

“Seven."

“Bulwichu, sweetie, can you turn off the lights?” Nessy yawned again. 

“Lazy dog. You should get up and…” Kristi began and then the lights dimmed across the entire RV bathing it in darkness. 

“What the fuck?” The raptor hissed. “That tree is controlling the electrical system in here now?”

“She's just being a helpful RV-tree,” Nessy commented. “Be nice!”

“Whatever,” Kristi grumbled into my side. “We will definitely discuss this… tomorrow.”

“Ness?” I turned my head to the left.

“Mmmm?” The Husky tightened her full-body wrap around me.

“Are your parents in Ferguson or…?”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I can take you to meet my fam if you are ready for such a step.”

I decided that I wasn't. Interactions with local prads seemed to only make my situation worse since I had to constantly pretend to be another person with only random, fractional knowledge of their life to go on.

“S’fine,” Nessy let out, seemingly guessing or sniffing out my thoughts. “No rush. Just remember, you mine now.”

Raptor claws seemed to tighten against me from the other side and I winced, becoming concerned about getting sliced up to shreds.

“Ours,” Nessy corrected herself, swatting at the raptor with a fuzzy paw. “No claw our precious Alec-tree.”

The talons relaxed, letting go of me somewhat.

“Sorry,” Kristi let out. “I… don't know how I'm going to deal with… all of this, especially when Dad finds out that I'm in a… pack with a… dog. Also... Both of us together during estrus seems like a terrible combo.”

I swallowed nervously and suddenly understood exactly why the local Alec ran away to university, left the little town he loved with his entire heart. 

It's always been about estrus. The two prads who cared about me were going to literally murder each other if I didn't put myself out of the picture, didn't pull myself from their paws and claws. 

The threat of estrus was real and was only getting worse, escalating with each year. Nessy's overly clingy, possessive nature and Kristi and her family were a truly awful combination to deal with, lashing out in unexpected ways at me and each other every 77 days, resulting in threats, violence, bullying and unending drama.

“Now I'm starting to get concerned about the near future,” I said.

“It's fine,” Nessy said. “Rrrrelax. The pack bond will help.”

“I don't know if it will,” Kristi sighed. “I'm probably going to chew your head off, dog.”

“You won't,” Nessy replied. “It's going to be tough, sure, but not unbeatable. I've got Riffweld now. The Slayer spoke of the distant future to his prad children, knew in his divine human wisdom that his children's children would someday attain reality-bending powers that he welded himself. For everything awful that Systemfall made like the magnetic lynx… it also allowed us to be together. Silver lining, yay!”

“What magnetic lynx?” Kristi demanded with an annoyed groan.

“Ummmm… the one chasing after me,” Nessy let out.

“. . .”

“Probably shoulda told you about her earlier,” the canine girl added.

"Why is there an 'effing magnetic lynx chasing after you?" Kristi asked, her voice sharp with sudden alertness.

"Well..." Nessy began, shifting nervously against me in the darkness. "I might have accidentally destroyed her junkyard nest."

"You did what?" The raptor's voice rose with incredulity.

"Let me explain!" Nessy insisted. "After Systemfall hit, I went out looking for Alec, right? I had my shotgun and two pistols—all licensed and registered before you pester me about it, thank you very much."

"Continue with the lynx story please," Kristi prompted, the bed shifting as she propped herself up on one elbow, her eyes reflecting the violet night sky behind the RV’s glass windows and flickering with tapetum lucidum retroreflection.

"Right, anyhow… my truck wasn’t getting me anywhere on highway 69 as the road seemed to go on forever. So I sniffed for a way out, abandoned my car and went out on foot. Stumbled on what used to be a recycling center," Nessy explained. "There was this huge mountain of scrap metal—old cars, refrigerators, washing machines, you name it."

"And let me guess," Kristi interjected. "Something was living in it."

"Exactly! But I didn't know that then," Nessy continued. "I was just trying to find the best way through to Alec. It was getting dark, and I smelled something unusual. Like... electricity, metal and oil, but alive somehow."

I felt her shudder against me.

"My nose led me through the center of the junkyard, over the mountain of metal. That's when I saw it—this weird depression beside the mountain of junk, like a nest made of crushed cars, cranes and twisted girders. And at the center was this... thing."

"The lynx," Kristi supplied.

"Yeah, but not like any lynx you've ever seen," Nessy said. "It was huge—the size of a house. Its body was made entirely of metal scraps fused together. I froze, hoping it wouldn't notice me, but then it… she did.”

"And that's when things went south," Kristi guessed.

"Spectacularly so" Nessy confirmed. “She woke up and went after me, freakishly moving on four legs unlike a prad lynx. I ran faster than I've ever run in my life. But as I was scrambling across the junk mountain, I dislodged something—maybe a car bumper or an old washing machine—and it triggered a chain reaction. The whole pile started to collapse.

"You caused an avalanche of junk," Kristi stated flatly. "How very... you."

"A metal-avalanche, yes," Nessy nodded. "Which would have been awesome if I wasn't in the middle of it. Anyway, the lynx's nest got completely destroyed as everything came crashing down. I barely made it out alive, diving into a drainage ditch as refrigerators and car doors rained down around me."

"And now it's following you," Kristi concluded.

"Yeah," Nessy sighed. "She’s mad at me ‘cus I dropped all that junk on her and destroyed her nest. She caught up to me that day and ripped my guns and backpack off me. I barely got away. I think that she’s tracking me through my guns or something. She followed me all the way to the Mini-Mart and will likely get to Ferguson eventually.”

"And you really didn't think to mention this before now?" Kristi's voice had that dangerous calm that suggested she was suppressing significant ire.

"I didn't want to worry you!" Nessy defended. "We already had slimes to deal with, and your sister's Superstore issues, 'n stuff. It seemed like a problem for Future Nessy to handle."

"Future Nessy and Future Us," Kristi corrected sharply. "Since we're apparently a pack now, which means your magnetic predator problem is our magnetic predator problem."

"Aww, you do care," Nessy cooed, reaching across me to pat what I assumed was Kristi's arm. "See? Pack bonding is working already!"

"I'm going to smother you with a pillow," Kristi muttered.

"No you won't," Nessy replied confidently. "You'd miss my singing too much."

“When is it going to get here?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Nessy sighed. “She’ll have to go around highway 69. I’m kinda hoping she’d get stuck there, but then again she’s too smart for that.”

“How do you know how smart she is?” Kristi demanded.

“She… avoided all of the terrible places I tried to lure her into in the city. She, ummm… Sent a picture on Pradstagram to me today… a photo of my shotgun with its barrel chewed off. It's a message.”

“It’s on Pradstagram too?!” Kristi choked. 

“She is, yes.”

“Right… We'll deal with your lynx situation after the Superstore then,” Kristi sighed. “One catastrophe at a time."

"That's the spirit!" Nessy yawned widely. "Catastrophizing in an orderly fashion."

"Go to sleep, both of you," I murmured, feeling the weight of the day pressing down on me.

"Fine, fine. G'night, Alec," Nessy whispered, offering me a quick lick on the cheek. "G'night, Kristiliss."

"Night, dog," Kristi relented, settling against my other side. "Night, Alec."

“G’night you two. Initiate level up,” I said and my eyes ignited with a million alien colors from within, my consciousness spiraling into itself.