EPISODE XXVIII

  Lashing Out

  Emma placed her hands on the ground and extended one leg behind herself. She took in a deep breath and fixed her gaze forward, right down the white lines on the school’s running track. Gone was her usual frilly dress and oversized backpack—though she wasn’t in proper running gear either, having opted for a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt.

  She took off in a full sprint.

  There was no one else on the track at the moment, so there was no competition. There wasn’t even anything to measure her speed against besides her watch, which she had forgotten to glance at so this run wasn’t getting timed. But she ran. Ran as fast as she could manage.

  She’d been working on this for about two weeks at this point. She’d been a fast runner before, but now that she was actually studying what a running technique was, she’d improved markedly. She couldn’t keep up with Amaris yet, but Amaris wasn’t actively training her body, it would only be a matter of time.

  It had been the most reasonable thing Emma could come up with to train herself for things that were going to happen—just sign up for the track team and try her hardest. She’d been more than willing to suffer through the headache of being involved in physical sports if it meant she could stop being so much of a liability. She had been expecting it to be a slog.

  To her absolute shock, she actually really enjoyed running. The feel of the wind wicking sweat off her face, the exhilaration of moving at unreasonable speeds without her life being in danger, the feeling of accomplishment when she made it all the way around the track without crumpling at the end. She was surprised she could do that! Granted, not at full speed, but perhaps one day…

  When she finished her lap, she found Judit sitting next to her backpack.

  This is a bad sign.

  “Hello, Emma.”

  Emma blinked. “Have you ever actually used my name before? Huh.”

  Judit bristled.

  Emma opened her backpack. It was filled with some kind of green slime, no doubt bought from a toy store. “Oh no, it appears you’ve slimed my backpack,” Emma deadpanned. Guess I won’t be wiping the sweat off today. She zipped the backpack up and threw it onto her back.

  “You’re weak, you know. All this running isn’t going to change that.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “You don’t understand how exercise works, do you?”

  Judit twitched. “Everything you’re trying is in vain.”

  Emma looked at Judit. “Hang on… you’re acting weird, you usually don’t bully like this unless…” Emma clapped her hands. “Oh! You’re feeling powerless!”

  “I am not feeling powerless!”

  Emma shrugged. “Sure. Whatever you say.” She turned her back to Judit, stealing a glance behind her just to make sure she wasn’t about to get jumped by a cat.

  Judit growled. “Seen Ralph lately?”

  “No,” Emma said. “He hasn’t been to school in two weeks.”

  “I bet he’s avoiding you, creep.”

  Emma sighed. “You don’t have any context…”

  “Me? No context? Pfft, I was talking to him the other day and… hey! Hey, stop walking away from me!”

  What exactly are you going to do if I do, slime my backpack again?

  Ignoring the cries of the desperate bully, she walked into the school, heading right for the library. She had been about to stop practice and head there anyway, Judit hadn’t really gotten in the way of anything. Though getting the slime out of the backpack was probably going to be a little annoying, though the stuff likely washed off easily enough.

  Judit had managed to get her to think about Ralph.

  None of us has seen him since that day at Camp. I wonder… maybe his parents are doing something terrible to him. She frowned. Or… or maybe I’m just paranoid. I want to talk to him, after all. Maybe… maybe I can help him. Just gotta be honest about my feelings.

  That thought gave her easily a hundred times more stress than the encounter with Judit.

  Still, when she walked into the library to meet her friends, she did so with a smile. “Guess who just messed with Judit? That’s right, this girl!”

  Amaris and Rin gave her slow claps.

  “Hey, that’s worth celebrating!”

  “Honestly, she’s getting a bit old at this point,” Amaris muttered. “I used to be afraid she’d try to beat me up or something, but ever since your birthday, she’s been too terrified to try something like that. Won’t even be around me without her posse, and even then that’s only to keep up appearances.”

  “I threw a knife at her once,” Rin said.

  Emma gasped. “Rin! That could get you in trouble!”

  “Not with my parents.”

  “With the school!”

  “Oh, it wasn’t on school grounds.” Rin grinned mischievously. “She thought she could get away with her posse roughing me up. The fools.”

  “I do wonder why she keeps trying,” Amaris said. “There are better targets.”

  “She believes herself to be hot stuff,” Rin explained. “Everything around her that suggests she isn’t is like getting stabbed to her. She has to be on top or she’s not comfortable in her own skin.”

  “How sad…” Emma said.

  “Hey, you were the one just celebrating that you messed with her.”

  “Well now I feel kinda bad.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I need to clean slime out of my backpack, shopping will be delayed by a bit.”

  “Just slime?” Amaris blinked. “She’s given me dead rats.”

  “Same,” Rin added. “Though not lately…”

  “True.”

  “Honestly, a dead rat would be easier to take care of…” Emma put her hand to her chin. “I wonder if that’s why she did it?”

  Rin shrugged. “Who has any idea?”

  At this point, a teacher walked into the library. This in and of itself wasn’t anything unusual, so it took Amaris a moment to recognize that he was walking to her.

  She closed the book she was reading—Legends of the North—and gave him a warm smile. “Hello Mr. Binkerson, what can I do for you?”

  “The Principal would like to see you.”

  Amaris froze. What did I do…? There hasn’t been anything crazy going on around the school this last week…

  “This is not a disciplinary measure, he simply wishes to meet with you.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I’ll get going then.” Amaris stood up. “You girls might have to go shopping without me.”

  “And nothing of value was lost,” Rin said.

  “Rin!” Emma chided.

  “What? She’s the worst at shopping out of all of us.”

  “I… well… uh… okay, I can’t deny that.”

  Amaris nodded. “I fully admit, I often fail to see how you two can get excited about looking at a dress and not buying it. Anyway, see you later.”

  ~~~

  Amaris made sure Pitch couldn’t slither out of his enclosure during the meeting with the Principal. This annoyed the snake significantly since his large enclosure had been destroyed by the stairs a few weeks ago, he was now in a much smaller one without all the custom parts while Amaris’ Dad worked on a proper replacement.

  But he was just going to have to deal, the Principal was one of those with the power to potentially ban Pitch if he got particularly annoyed. Not that Amaris thought he would ban the snake, for the principal was well known to be a big softy who wore his heart on his sleeve.

  He was also very old and very short. Shorter than Amaris short. The only thing that wasn’t short about him was his beard, which trailed all the way down to his waist. He wasn’t bald, but his hair grew so little that Amaris could see skin through it at every angle she tried.

  “Miss Kelvin…”

  “Yes?”

  “Want a cookie?” He opened up a tin full of hard cookies and offered one to her.

  She gladly took it and started munching. “Thanks. So, what am I here for?”

  The Principal folded his hands together. “This is going to be a very highly unusual request.”

  “As I’m sure you’re aware of by now, I’ve come to expect the unusual requests.”

  The old man chuckled, though there was a hint of sorrow to it. “Yes, yes, I am well aware… Amaris, you are here not as a student, but a member of ORHO.”

  “ORHI.”

  “Right, ORHI.” He shook his head. “The school might have need of your services.”

  Amaris nodded. “What’s the strange thing that’s happening?”

  “An unusual string of related disappearances that the police aren’t being… helpful about.” He picked a clipboard up from his desk and handed it to her. “This is a list of teachers and students who have disappeared.”

  Amaris started scanning the list of names. She recognized a few of the teachers. Then there were some names she recognized because they were involved in sports…

  …and then there was Ralph.

  A pit formed in Amaris’ stomach.

  “The disappearances seem to focus mostly on those related to athletic activities, though there are plenty of others outside that demographic.”

  “And what have the police found?”

  “That’s the highly unusual part… they refuse to tell us.”

  Amaris sighed. “Ralph’s stupid dad…”

  “Eh?”

  “Ralph’s Dad is a police detective. I didn’t know until recently, but I encountered him in one of our recent investigations, the one with the serial killer.”

  “Oh, yes, that was quite a horrid day for all of us here… I am so glad Scarlet was there.”

  The fact that I agree with you still disturbs me. “Regardless, it totally sounds like something he’d do, try to keep information under wraps so he could solve it, especially if something potentially supernatural was involved and if it involved his son.” Amaris frowned. “Guess that means I’ll be investigating without their help, again. Is there anything you found out as the school?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Not a single one of them has been found. We of course call their families to check in, and those families submit a missing person report. Well.” The Principal frowned. “Sometimes they do. Other times we try to call the families and get no response. The police haven’t told us, but I suspect the families vanished as well in those cases.”

  Amaris nodded. “Right… and, one last question. When did the first disappearance occur?”

  “It’s hard to say, but the first call we made relating to this was twelve days ago.”

  And Ralph stormed off two weeks ago.

  Amaris took out her business card. “Our rates are on the back. We’ll take it.”

  “Excellent!”

  “I’m going to call in some help and we’ll get right to it.”

  I sure hope this is just me drawing connections where none exist, Amaris thought as she finalized the job. That Ralph’s not somehow the source of this, whatever it is.

  ~~~

  “Amaris would look amazing in this dress,” Emma said.

  Rin raised an eyebrow. “Eh?”

  “It makes the lack of color coordination seem intentional.”

  Rin snorted. “You know what, I can see it.”

  The two of them were walking around the mall leisurely with no intentions of actually buying anything. Not that they couldn’t—Rin always had money she could blow at any time, and if Emma asked her she could get just about anything. But they weren’t here to get things, they were here to enjoy the act of shopping. Really it was just an excuse to wander around a large area and experience several things thus giving the two of them a reason to talk about whatever was in front of them, be it dresses, absurd overpriced trinkets worthy of being laughed at, or weird people out and about.

  “...Look at this,” Rin said, pointing at a little stand-up advertisement set up in one of the mall’s many expansive halls. “They’re trying to claim Nybrai is a luxury nail polish. Absurd, you can get it at convenience stores.”

  “Every time you’ve had me put on nail polish I always feel weird. Like I’m some kind of neon alien or something.”

  “I should give you some of the fluorescent stuff I have. Of course, the chances of you running into a black light in the wild are rare… but it’s so cool.”

  “Pfft. Cool. Yes, that’s definitely the vibe people who use nail polish are going for.”

  Rin struck a pose as though she were clawing at the air, accentuating her black pointed nails.

  “How much time do you spend filing those?”

  “Not much. Neko nails are naturally pointier than yours. …Though to actually get them this pointy, yeah, you have to work them. But now they double as weapons!”

  Emma chuckled. “It’s really good to see you so… happy.”

  Rin looked like she was about to let out a rude quip of some kind, but she stopped and thought about what had just been said. “You know what… I… I am happy.”

  “I just remember what you were like when we first met.”

  Rin smirked. “Miss jaded, rude, gruff, grumpy, arrogant, proud…”

  “I wouldn’t say you’ve gotten rid of those traits…”

  “The ones I haven’t I know I have.” Rin put her hands on her hips and smiled. “And… honestly it’s all because you and Amaris forced yourself onto me.”

  “Y-yeah…” Emma shuffled her feet. “Rin, I think I need to apologize.”

  “Oh geez, not again, you keep doing this…”

  “I ignored you until Amaris came back because you were a neko. And I didn’t want to sit down with you that day, but she insisted. I… was just as bad as everyone else.”

  Rin nodded. “And you didn’t hide your displeasure at all.”

  “W-what? I… I was trying!”

  “Why did you think I was so rude to you that first week?” Rin laughed.

  “I thought that was just the way you were!”

  “No, no, I was prodding you.” Rin shook her head. “I’m sorry for that, it was cruel.”

  Emma smirked. “Honestly, it didn’t take long for it to stop bothering me. You said your mind, and as I got to know you I realized I was wrong.”

  “And now we’re here, walking out in the mall. Getting strange looks and not even caring!”

  Emma blinked. “Oh yeah, I tend to tune that out now… geez, imagine if my parents heard about this.”

  “That’s why we go to this mall and not the other one closer to your house.”

  “Yeah…” Emma took the opportunity to examine all the people passing them by. A pungent sorrow began to develop within her as she allowed herself to read the expressions of people passing by. Disbelief. Concern. Disgust.

  No proper girl should be hanging out with a neko. No neko should be here. Were the laws different, Rin would likely be chased out.

  “The world shouldn’t be this way,” Emma said, breathlessly.

  “I think it’s unavoidable.”

  “Eh?”

  Rin crossed her arms. “Not like, ‘humans and cats are always going to dominate over nekos,’ no, we’re capable of dominating. It’s just that someone is always going to be dominated. There’s going to be the lowest rung in society no matter what.”

  “Amaris spoke of places…”

  “It doesn’t have to be species-based,” Rin said. “It could be the poor. It could be anyone living in a certain town. It could be people from the neighboring nation. It’s always going to be someone.”

  Emma looked back out at the sea of people, humans and cats, going about their way. “...It still shouldn’t be.”

  “You won’t get any arguments from me. Let me know if you think of a way to fix it.”

  “Dia comes down and wraps up the world?”

  Rin snorted. “Please.”

  Emma sighed. “I know that’s not coming anytime soon… but still. I think I’m starting to see why some of the older people want the end to come.”

  “Geez, dark, much?”

  Emma winked. “Hey, I’ve got to get all this trauma I’ve experienced out somehow!”

  The two of them shared a laugh. Coming out of it, Emma continued looking through the crowd. Now that her mood had improved, she could see that the weird looks they were getting weren’t from most of the people. Most people were just ignoring them, all in their own little world.

  It wasn’t as bad as it looked at times.

  As she was doing this, though, she saw a familiar face.

  A boy ordered a large pretzel from one of the food stands.

  Ralph.

  Emma shakily pointed. “R-rin…”

  “Oh wow…” Rin said. “That’s… that’s him all right.”

  “What…”

  “I’m following your lead on this one.”

  ~~~

  Coleus was manning the phones when Amaris called.

  “Hello, this is Outer Reality Handling Incorporated, how can we help you today?”

  “Hey Coleus, it’s just Amaris.”

  “Oooooh, Amaris!”

  “Is Taylor available?”

  “Heeeey Taylor!” Coleus called. “Amaris has a need fur you and your skills! …I assume.”

  Taylor looked up from the computer. “Let me just save the records… I’m glad we have a new informant but ever since he asked me to provide tips on formatting the website it’s been a hassle.” She took the phone out of Coleus’ hands. “This is your friendly neighborhood zombie speaking.”

  “Say that often enough and you might actually become a zombie,” Amaris said.

  “Then I wouldn’t get to be defiant by insisting I am what I’m not.”

  Amaris rolled her eyes. “Anyway, Taylor… ugh, I’m no good at breaking news easily. Just brace yourself.”

  Taylor put her hand on one of the walls. “Right. What is it?”

  “We’ve been hired to investigate a string of disappearances around the school. Ralph’s on the list of those who have vanished.”

  Taylor let out a breath. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before he got involved.”

  “It gets worse. The timing of these disappearances started shortly after the day at Camp. And the list of people who have vanished are largely connected to him.”

  Taylor’s grip tightened on the phone. “...You can’t be suggesting…”

  “Taylor, that’s why I asked for you specifically. Do you think he has it in him to do… something to people he doesn’t like if some kind of strange supernatural thing started letting him?”

  “Why do you think it’s people he doesn’t like?”

  “The vast majority of people disappearing are from athletics.”

  Taylor let out a swear under her breath.

  “...Taylor, grab someone else and get the Retrograde. I think we need to go investigate your house. And I know that’ll be extremely awkward for you, but… I think you need to be there.”

  “...Right. Amaris?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are… we going to do with him?”

  “I don’t know. If he’s being forced into this by some curse, we find a way to get rid of it.”

  “...I meant what if he’s not?”

  “...We’re going to have to stop him, Taylor.”

  ~~~

  “H-hey Ralph…” Emma said, hands locked behind her back. She tried very hard to meet his gaze but kept inadvertently glancing away.

  Ralph almost dropped his pretzel. “E-emma!?”

  “Y-yep! That’s me!” She laughed nervously.

  “W-what are you doing here?”

  “Sh-shopping? I was with Rin but, uh…” Crap I didn’t think of a reason I left her over there oh no what am I going to say.

  “Th-that makes sense. Right. I guess this is a mall…” He put his hand behind his head and chuckled nervously.

  It was about here that Emma noticed something was up with him. He basically never stuttered or seemed… nervous? Scared? But he certainly was now. To be fair that’s exactly how I feel right now I can hear my heart pounding in my head. That’s not even where my heart is, how does… Emma shook her head. “Yep! Mall! Though we weren’t actually buying anything. Well, probably not, anyway. What’re you doing here?”

  “Food.” Ralph gestured at the pretzel. He took a bite that was a little too large for his mouth out of it, but he forced himself to very slowly chew through it anyway.

  Emma couldn’t help but giggle. Then she coughed and tried to hide it, but it was obvious that she failed. As Ralph wasn’t able to talk for the next little bit, she realized that she was going to have to say something or it was going to get even more awkward than the extreme amounts there already were. “S-so, um… I haven’t seen you in a while, how have you been?” Idiot, he can’t answer yet! “Oh, uh, I’ve been fine myself, just, um… er…”

  Ralph finally managed to swallow the pretzel. “I’ve been… a lot better, actually. Been getting things… put right. I’ve… managed to avoid the sports.”

  “Really? You got through to your parents?”

  “In a… sense.”

  Emma, even in her almost entirely irrational and scatterbrained state, sensed that she shouldn’t ask for details. “W-well, I’m glad to hear that things are looking up. Though, uh, not going to school…”

  “I’m probably going to go… somewhere else, just to get away from it all.”

  Emma’s heart immediately sank. “O… oh…”

  “It’ll get me away from my ‘posse’ and all the… other stuff.”

  “Yeah, I… I get that.” Emma rubbed her arm awkwardly. “I… guess I’ll just miss you, is all.”

  Ralph looked at her. He looked at her. He saw her. Until that moment Emma hadn’t realized that he’d never really looked at her like she was anything before. Every other time, she’d just been the background, there as just another part of the background, or just some random girl who needed saving in the midst of a crisis. But here, she was the focus.

  “...Thanks,” he said, with a very simple and awkward smile.

  Emma felt the blood rush to her face. The urge to look away was very strong, but she forced herself not to back down. “Y-you’re welcome.”

  “I guess not everything was terrible. It just… felt like it. And now not everything’s terrible!” Ralph put his hands on his hips. “I’m getting my life back in my control.”

  “That’s great! I… you know, you probably will be happier if you aren’t the big sports star…” He’s going to leave he’s going to leave he’s going to leave.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “You know… maybe you need something similar.” Ralph turned to her. “Amaris’ curse has been really rough on you.”

  Emma put her hands behind her back. “Eheh… yeah, it has. But I’m doing something to remedy that!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah! I’ve started running track, building up my muscles and my speed!” She held up one of her arms and flexed it. She intended it to just be a silly little affectation, but Ralph actually started examining her arm.

  Oh geez, I was not prepared for this…

  “You really are building up muscle there, I can tell,” he said. “You were already fast to begin with, if you train it I bet you can be really good at it.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do! The question is… do you actually want it?”

  “...You know, when I started, it was just to make sure I wasn’t a weakling. But… I really do love the feel of speed.”

  Ralph smiled sadly. “...I actually do like using my strength too. It’s just… everything around it that sucks. The people. The rules. The regulations. The shouting. The anger. The expectation. It’s just… why can’t we just play a game? Why does it have to mean something?”

  Emma had an idea. “W-why don’t we have a game that doesn’t mean anything right now? We race to… the fountain over there!”

  “Heh. Sure, but be warne—”

  “Threetwoone GO!” Emma took off in a dash before Ralph was even ready. Even with this clever ploy of hers, he still easily overtook her about halfway to the fountain. He skidded to a stop and turned around, fixing her with a smirk.

  “Okay, okay, I’m just a novice!” Emma said with a delighted laugh. “Can’t hold a candle to sportsman!”

  “You’ll probably be faster than me one day if you focus on it. And you’re not a novice, you’re not out of breath and look like you could do a few more sprints like that without much issue.”

  “Not a novice…? Well, I guess I did get a lot of unintentional practice…” She chuckled.

  We’re bonding. We’re bonding very well actually! Guess running was actually even more useful than I could have imagined…

  “Hey, want a pretzel?”

  Emma’s eyes lit up. He’s offering to get me a pretzel!? “Yes! Oh yes I would love a pretzel right now!”

  ~~~

  The drive over to Ralph’s house had been silent. Taylor’s grip on the wheel didn’t lighten up even for a moment. Amaris didn’t know what to say during any of it. And their third, Kirishima, quickly discovered that the other two weren’t in the mood for talking.

  The Retrograde pulled up to Ralph’s house. No lights were on.

  Kirishima stepped out of the car. “You two are probably going to have to start talking now.”

  Taylor nodded. “Right. Amaris…”

  “I’ll knock.” Amaris marched up the front steps and knocked on the door.

  The door was not even latched, for it slid right open, revealing the interior. It had, very obviously, been ransacked. Cupboards were open, items were strewn out all over the ground, and the place where a TV was clearly supposed to be was completely barren.

  “Oh no…” Taylor muttered. “Someone…”

  “This isn’t right,” Amaris said, kneeling down to one of the ransacked cupboards. She ran her finger across it. There was a lot of dust. “This place hasn’t been touched in a while.”

  Taylor frowned. “So…”

  “Ralph, and your parents, haven’t been here for a while. No doubt the police came here to investigate as your dad was one of their detectives, so the ransacking had to happen after that, and then there had to be enough time for dust to build up.” Amaris frowned. “I think the ransacking was just regular thieves taking advantage of an abandoned house.”

  “For that much time to have passed…”

  “They had to have disappeared near the start,” Amaris said, nodding. “Kirishima?”

  Kirishima nodded. “That seems about right. We should still check the house to see if we can find anything.”

  They split up and started looking around, but found very little of interest, though it took quite some time to perform the search seeing as the family were hoarders and there were a few rooms filled so densely with things they couldn’t be walked through. Even the looters hadn’t tried to rummage very far into those.

  Taylor was the first one to make it to Ralph’s room. It clearly hadn’t been used in a long time, and almost all the trophies had been stolen. However… there was a single shoebox left on the bed. There was nothing in it, but she did see a strange pattern of dust on the bottom. “Hey, Amaris?”

  Amaris came to the room. “What?”

  “What do you make of this?” She showed her the box.

  Amaris squinted her eyes. “The dust’s fallen weirdly here… part of the box has been depressed, maybe?” She ran her finger across it. “Hmm, no, it was coated with something.”

  “It’s sure a weird shape.”

  “Yeah, it i—” Something clicked in Amaris’ mind and she immediately paled.

  Kirishima came to the doorway. “That’s the look of someone who just found out something very unpleasant.”

  Amaris swallowed hard. “I recognize the shape. It’s… the same as the guns we got from the junk dimension. But… there were only two, I took his back… They’re both in storage, I saw them recently…”

  “And what if there was another one?”

  “The box they were in… did have four slots…” Amaris closed her eyes. “I should have searched him. This is my fault. Should have figured something would follow us back…”

  “...Amaris,” Taylor said.

  Amaris looked up at her. “...Yes?”

  “What do these guns do?”

  “They… disintegrate things. Basically, anything they shoot.”

  Taylor nodded slowly. She turned her back to Amaris. Her hands clenched into fists and began to shake uncontrollably, and a sound like a growl began in the back of Taylor’s throat.

  “Taylor…?”

  Taylor punched a wall, piercing through the plaster with ease. After this, she didn’t move, she just stared at her fist embedded in the wall.

  Amaris looked down at the ground and started wringing her hands. This is all my fault. I did this. I rejected him. And now here we are. This isn’t just the curse. I don’t know how people react. I’m clueless. And now people are dead because I couldn’t tell.

  She clenched her jaw. She could feel her eyes welling up with tears.

  It would have been worth suffering to avoid this. I didn’t like him? Who cares, lives are more important. Emma would have been heartbroken. At least no one would be dead. Ralph would suffer from the curse?

  Amaris’ eyes widened.

  He’d deserve it.

  Amaris took a step back, putting her hand over her mouth. She wasn’t even trying to stop the tears now.

  No, no, no one deserves it, they put up with it, I… I can’t… I can’t use the curse as a way to get revenge… that… I… I could. It would be easy. Just… pretend to be someone’s friend.

  “Must be nice, being able to cry…” Taylor said, her hand still in the wall.

  “I’m…” Amaris wiped her eyes. “I just…” She put her hand on the wall. “I did this… and I want to hurt him for it…? It...”

  “Yeah. You did do this.” Taylor pulled her hand out of the wall and stared at Amaris with a fury enhanced by her empty eyes. “I bet we would have continued being an unhappy family without you. Not a dead one.”

  Amaris choked, finding herself unable to look Taylor in the eyes.

  “And then you go and look like that and make it impossible!” Taylor threw her hands in the air. “What am I supposed to do with a sad helpless little girl!? I just…”

  “...What am I supposed to do…?” Amaris echoed Taylor’s sentiment, her voice hollow. “Any choice I make can end up with people dead…”

  “Idiots!” Kirishima shouted.

  Taylor and Amaris stared at her in shock.

  “Idiots! The both of you!” She grabbed them both by the neck. “You two need to stop feeling sorry about yourselves! There’s no time for this!” She started dragging them out of the house. “While you’re having a big old cry he could be out there killing more people! We need to move!”

  “K-kirishima!” Amaris stammered as she was dragged along, but she made no motions to stop the neko.

  “And you’re both being idiots for other reasons. Amaris, stop feeling sorry for something you had no control over, I thought you were better than this, you sure seemed to have it figured out. Taylor, you signed up for this, you knew the consequences of being around her. I’m the one who didn’t, and you know what?”

  She threw them into the Retrograde.

  “My life is a lot better now than it was before.” She placed herself behind the wheel and gripped it. “Now, Taylor, I need you to get out of your angry stupor and think about where he would be?”

  Taylor looked down at the ground. “...I don’t know.”

  “Gee, then what help are you?”

  “...None…” Taylor wrung her hands. “I’m just making things worse…”

  “Didn’t I tell you to stop feeling sorry about yourselves?”

  “We can’t just turn our emotions off, Kiri!” Amaris blurted.

  “Well, can you at least try? People could be dying! Do I need to remind you?”

  “I… you… you’re right, but I don’t know how to… Orville!” Amaris facepalmed. “Wait, no one’s seen him today, that won’t work…”

  “Would be too easy,” Taylor muttered.

  “Yeah…” Amaris turned to Taylor. “Taylor, he… he’s your brother.”

  “I saw that list. He’s already taken out everyone I know he dislikes. And he’s smart enough not to hide in any place I know about.”

  “We… we need to find him somehow…”

  “Well, I don’t have any ideas!”

  Amaris clenched her hands into fists. “Come on curse… you’ve made us suffer… now wouldn’t it be interesting if we could face the problem head-on? …Why have you left us with nothing this time!?”

  ~~~

  Emma bit into her giant pretzel. It was amazingly delicious.

  “Found this pretzel place recently,” Ralph said. “Been wandering around a lot more, and man, who knew giant pretzels could be so good.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  Emma could barely taste the pretzel. Her heart was pounding a million miles a minute.

  She was sitting. At a table. With Ralph. Eating pretzels.

  He clearly had no idea what this meant to her considering how disinterested he was acting but that only made Emma a little less nervous. Because she knew full well that now was the perfect opportunity to say something and that if she didn’t she was going to regret it the rest of her life.

  She even knew what to say. It wasn’t difficult. Just ask him out. She even saw him do it before, it wasn’t that hard.

  Come on! Just do it! You’ve faced an alien spaceship of evil before! You can be brave, you have it in you! Stop! Being! So! Stupid!

  “Hi!”

  Ralph looked up at her. “Um… hello?”

  “Yep. Hi. Um.” Emma coughed. “Aaaaaagh why is it so hard to taaaaalk…”

  “You feeling all right?”

  “Not really but that’s my own doing.” Emma laughed nervously. Then she slammed her head into the table.

  “Too much pretzel?”

  “You know what, I have no idea! I’ll probably find that out later.” Emma took in a sharp breath and sat up. “We should do this again sometime.”

  “Do what?”

  “This. Pretzel. Eating. Thing.”

  Ralph stared at her blankly. “...Sure.”

  Emma blinked. “Has anyone ever told you you’re dense?”

  “Um… yes? What’s going on?”

  “I’m asking you out.” Emma’s entire body shivered. “Oh, geez, that just came out, um, but, can’t take it back now, uh…” She gave him an awkward smile. “I, er… I like you and I’ve liked you for a while and yes it was originally because you were just the biggest muscle man around but now that I’ve gotten to know you more I can see that you’re not just strong but you’re clever and you have a love for adventure and I see an adorable little bird in a cage that just wants out and um I’m gonna shut up now.” Emma put on a dumb smile and blinked expectantly.

  Ralph stared at her blankly. Then he slouched. “...Did Amaris know about… you?”

  Emma’s stomach sank like an anvil. “...Yes.” Well, there goes that plan… be cool, don’t break down in tears, you never needed to be accepted, don’t ruin this connection you do have, come on…

  Ralph clenched his hands into fists. “Of course, she couldn’t betray her best friend like that…”

  Emma sighed. “L-look, it… it’s okay, I just…” Emma started wringing her hands. “I thought maybe I could help you, and…”

  “You can, actually,” Ralph said. He reached down into his backpack. “I’d already finished everything on the list and was ready to move on… but you’ve shown me that there should have been one more person on it.”

  “Eh?” Emma said, tilting her head to the side.

  “You were the reason I couldn’t have what I wanted.” His hand closed around something in his backpack.

  Emma sniffed. “I… no, no that’s not my fault. She wasn’t interested in anyone. She told you herself.”

  “And do you think even if she was she would have said yes with you right there!?”

  Ralph pulled out the gun and pointed it right at her.

  Emma knew what it was immediately. Her mind shut off, unable to understand what was going on.

  But her instincts knew full well that she was in mortal peril, and she’d gained a lot of practice relying on those. She kicked up with as much force as she could muster, knocking the table into Ralph’s gun. His arm shifted to the side slightly as he pulled the trigger. The resulting laser merely singed some of Emma’s hair, but the heat boiled off all the nervous sweat that had developed on half of her face. She felt dry.

  Ralph shouted in rage.

  That was all that was in him now.

  Rage.

  All sense had gone out the window. There was no more plan. He slammed his free hand down on the table and pointed the gun at her again. Emma punched at the gun, but he twisted it out of the way, around her arm, pressing it into her lower jaw.

  A knife pierced his hand. He cried out as blood sprayed out of the wound, dropping the gun.

  Rin charged onto the scene, knives flying. She didn’t aim for Ralph, but the gun itself. Most of her knives bounced off the hard exterior, but several of them pierced the object, destroying its delicate mechanisms.

  Emma half expected it to explode, but it did no such thing. It was most assuredly broken at this point, though.

  Ralph made no move to try to pick it up. Instead, he lifted his chair into the air and threw it at Rin. He said nothing, he only screamed.

  Rin dodged the chair.

  She did not dodge the table.

  It smacked her right in the forehead with one of its edges, drawing blood that quickly started running down her face. She reeled for a moment from the hit, which was enough for Ralph to close the distance and punch her in the chest, knocking her onto her back.

  Emma looked around frantically. They were making a scene… but no one was rushing to help them.

  Rin’s a neko. They don’t want to help her.

  Emma’s left eye twitched.

  She didn’t know how she felt about Ralph at the moment, she couldn’t sort through that right now.

  But she did know that she was absolutely furious at everyone standing around and watching.

  And that was enough.

  She let out a shout unlike any shout she had ever cried before. This was no cry of terror, or panic, or anguish. This was a cry of war.

  Ralph punched Rin across the face as she was trying to stand up.

  Emma punched Ralph across the face while he wasn’t looking.

  She had hoped that would distract him. But he didn’t miss a beat. As he was reeling back from Emma’s attack, he kicked out with his feet, sweeping her legs out from under her. Her head hit the ground hard. Everything was spinning, everything was ringing.

  It was nothing compared to being tormented by the stairs.

  She jumped up and caught his incoming fist with her hands. She had acted with precision and excellent timing.

  She failed to account for just how strong Ralph was. Her grip on his fist was paper to him, he forced his way right through, slamming right into her nose. She was sent back, reeling, but this time she didn’t fall over.

  He still suffered for the successful attack, as Rin was up again and threw more knives at him. One hit his arm, one hit his leg. Unusually nonlethal for Rin.

  Ralph pulled the knife out of his leg and charged Rin with it. She ducked under his attack, wrapping her arms around his waist and tackling him to the ground in an attempt to pin him down. Emma saw what she was doing and jumped on as well, using the weight of their bodies to push him down.

  He roared.

  And he threw both of them off like they were twigs.

  He’s just… too strong… Emma thought, struggling back to her feet. “R-rin… you can… take him out…”

  Rin shook her head. “I—” she couldn’t talk any further, she had to focus on Ralph. He was coming at her with one of her knives again. She tried to pretend like she was going for the grapple again, but Ralph must have seen through her because he kicked to the side where she had been intending to claw him. Her hands crumpled as they were pressed into her chest.

  And then he threw a knife into her side as she fell to the ground.

  Just to be sure, he kicked her for good measure, sending her rolling along the ground.

  Someone in the crowd cheered.

  Something in Emma snapped. “He’s the monster here, idiots! She’s trying to protect me!” She flew at Ralph with a wild kick.

  He slashed at her stomach with Rin’s knife.

  Blood sprayed all over his face.

  Emma crumpled to the ground, holding her abdomen. Whimpering.

  Much like she had in the bathroom that day, that day where Ralph had come to save her.

  Ralph stood tall over her, knife in his hand.

  It clattered loudly to the ground.

  He started bawling.

  ~~~

  Everything was a bit of a blur to Ralph after that.

  He was aware that someone eventually came to pick him up. He was placed in a car. Driven away. Led to a room and set on… a bed?

  There were people talking to him. Trying to ask him questions.

  He didn’t respond to any of them.

  It was cold.

  It was silent.

  Did he fall asleep at some point? He wasn’t sure.

  The room seemed to fit him, somehow, even though he still hadn’t really looked around to figure out where it was.

  He was done. He didn’t care anymore.

  Getting what he wanted hadn’t been any better than being denied everything. So what was the point?

  “Ralph.”

  That voice was familiar. It was a voice that reached into him and shook him. Spoke to the one part of him that wasn’t a bundle of noxious thorns.

  “Ralph!”

  He looked up. His eyes focused.

  Taylor.

  He couldn’t read her expression.

  “Is there even anything of you left in there?”

  Ralph said nothing.

  Taylor put her hand to the bridge of her nose. “I… I made it out of that house just fine, why couldn’t you? Why’d you turn into… this?”

  Ralph continued his silence.

  “Say something! For crying out loud!” Taylor slammed her fist into the stone wall. “You can’t just check out like this! You have to face what you’ve done! Mom and Dad are no excuse to go this crazy!”

  Nothing. He was hearing her words, that was for sure; even comprehending them. But they felt so meaningless, so hollow. What was the point?

  Taylor pulled her hands into fists. “Was… was there something I could have done?”

  Something in Ralph moved again. A heaving sensation deep within his chest.

  “Ralph!”

  Ralph closed his eyes and looked away.

  “Ralph, come on, don’t… don’t do this…”

  Finally, at last, he spoke. He words came out with a hollow, emotionless, dry voice. “It’s too late for that.”

  “It…” Taylor’s arms went limp at her sides. “...You’re right. It is.”

  Ralph nodded. His vision was clearer, now. His thoughts more organized.

  He’d liked it better the other way. Why’d she have to come in here and shake him?

  But, he supposed, it did mean he could say something to her.

  “No, there wasn’t anything you could have done.”

  Taylor frowned. “How long…?”

  “I’d been thinking about getting out for years,” Ralph said. “Just couldn’t figure out how to do it. Finding those guns… it was what I’d been waiting for. But I found Amaris at the same time… so I waited.”

  Taylor’s expression darkened. “And what if I’d still been in the house?”

  “...You wouldn’t have been.”

  Taylor visibly sagged. “Ralph, there had to be better wa—”

  “No there wasn’t!” Suddenly Ralph felt as though he was burning. “You were there! You tried to get me out! You tried your hardest to show me there was another way! But they didn’t let it happen!”

  “I got out of there!”

  “That was only because I was their backup plan! They would have started torturing you if you were their only kid! And you know it!”

  “It was already torture!”

  “Oh, really!? Really!?”

  “Do you know how many times I didn’t get dinner!? Of course you do, you were there! But you kept getting fed because you needed to be the strong man!”

  “They sent me to bed hungry too, you know! And it wasn’t because I was being a huge defiant rude upstart like you, it was just because I didn’t win the game!”

  “And then you kept winning! And gave them alllll they wanted!”

  “Yeah, well, screw them! Screw all of them! You’re the only one who ever asked what I wanted and you were made to suffer for it! They deserved far worse than what I gave them!”

  Taylor clenched her hand into a fist. Then she slumped against a wall, looking at the ground. Her arms were trembling slightly.

  “R-Ralph…” she managed. “I… I can’t believe this, but I agree with you. They deserved far worse…”

  “See? See?”

  “That doesn’t make it right for you to be their judge!”

  “Then who was going to do it!? This country is broken, Taylor! I didn’t see it before, but Amaris showed it to me, and it’s everywhere! If we’re not going to take actions into our own hands, who will!?”

  Taylor shook her head. “Stop acting righteous, Ralph. You weren’t doing this for justice. You were doing this for yourself. Your coaches and teammates and classmates didn’t do anything anywhere close to what Mom and Dad did.”

  Ralph looked away from her.

  “You just wanted to hurt everyone because you were hurting.”

  Ralph had no response.

  “And you turned your fury on an innocent girl who was just trying to help you.”

  He said nothing.

  Taylor grimaced. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I came in here. Maybe I wanted some kind of closure. But I can’t have that, and you can’t have that. Everything’s been ruined. And it wasn’t because of me, Mom, or Dad. This is on you.”

  Ralph wished he could fully retreat into his mind.

  “They’re never going to let you see the light of day again, you know. It doesn’t matter that you’re a kid. You’ve killed so, so many people. I’m probably the only one who’ll even visit you.”

  “Don’t,” Ralph said.

  “What…?”

  “I don’t want to see you. Don’t come visit me.”

  Taylor was silent for a long time.

  “Okay,” she whispered. She left the room.

  A short while later, Ralph had another visitor. It was Emma. There was no sign of the wounds he had given her, no doubt Coleus had done some treatments.

  “...I want to blame myself,” she said. “I want to, somehow, find a way that this is my fault. That I should never have noticed you. That I shouldn’t have thought so highly of you. That if maybe I just didn’t have feelings you wouldn’t have turned out like this. But you didn’t even know I existed, and Amaris was never going to say yes to you to begin with! I… I just don’t understand!” Tears were already flowing down her face. “You were so nice and had courage and strength and you knew how to be a hero! How could you be like this on the inside!?”

  He didn’t even look at her.

  “Oh, so I’ve gone back to being invisible, is that it? I’m a nobody? Someone only to be noticed when it’s convenient? Someone to look at and hurt just because she opened her heart to you?” She wiped her eyes. “I spent a lot of time worrying about how you could reject me, you know? I imagined laughter from you and your posse. I imagined torment and jokes and rumors. What you actually did I had never even considered! That’s how far gone you were!”

  Ralph didn’t look at her, but he did say something. “...I’m sorry. I should never have attacked you.”

  Emma’s breath caught. She put her hand to her chest. “...There are a lot of others you should apologize to, but can’t.”

  Ralph didn’t say anything in response to this.

  “...I…” Emma sighed. “Ralph, I… I accept your apology. …Goodbye.” She ran out of the room with a bawling cry.

  Anyone else? Ralph thought. Anyone else here to rake me over the coals? I mean, sure, I deserve it, but…

  Amaris walked in.

  Ralph locked his eyes with hers immediately.

  The fury in her eyes was so intense it made him flinch back.

  She quickly pulled out one of the guns and pointed it right at him.

  He let out a scream.

  Amaris didn’t lower the weapon. “Doesn’t feel good, does it? Even now, at your lowest point, when you feel like a sack of trash and your anger is about as strong as tissue paper, you fear. I bet you remember the faces of all those people you pulled this trigger on right now. Flashing through your mind are expressions of fear, confusion, anger, bafflement, and sorrow. Feel them, Ralph.”

  Ralph’s fear slowly started to abate. “...You’re not here to kill me.”

  “No.” Amaris put the gun away. “That’s not who I am. But it is who you are, apparently.”

  “You could have changed that.”

  Amaris’ scowl deepened. “No, I couldn’t have. I could have stopped you from doing it this one time by making it inconvenient for you. This ugliness was already in you. It festered like a worm. Here I was thinking that I somehow pushed you over the edge when all I did was delay this because you thought you could have me.” Amaris grabbed him by the collar and lifted him. “And when you couldn’t have a person, you decided it was time to end everything and everyone. And then you hurt my friends.” She threw him onto the ground.

  Ralph had never felt so powerless before anyone other than his parents before.

  “So, what now, Ralph? What’s the plan?”

  “...Nothing,” he said.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. There’s no one else I want to kill. The list is complete. I’m done. I could never have what I wanted, and now they can’t either. It’s finished.” He turned away from her to stare at the wall. “I no longer care what happens to me.”

  She pressed the gun into the back of his head. “I’m fairly certain you don’t want to die.”

  “...I don’t know why I’m afraid of that…” Ralph said. “I… I just am. Maybe it’s because you’re the one holding it.”

  Amaris lowered the gun again. “...You’ll get to live, they can’t execute a kid.”

  Ralph said nothing.

  “And you know something?”

  He didn’t even look at her.

  “We offered you so much. You could have been a part of us. It should have been enough to have good friends who would be with you. You wanted too much.”

  You’re right, Ralph thought. I did.

  Amaris left without another word.

  I didn’t want friends though. Why didn’t I want friends?

  …Because friends had never helped me before. Friends were useless and just more demanding of me.

  How stupid.

  His mind slowly became cloudy once more. His awareness of time slipped away. He was moved a few times. At some point, he was in a car.

  “You made several stupid mistakes,” Scarlet said. “You could have had a good thing there.”

  Why did that cut through the noise, when nothing else did? He was in court for some of it, he was sure. He was being examined. A cop punched him in the gut when no one else was looking. But all of that felt like nothing.

  Scarlet’s words… why did that stay lodged in there?

  He did not know.

  And he didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, either. What was the point?

  He just sat in his cell. Eating. Staring off into space. Never doing much of anything else.

  And then, one night, there was a glowing figure in his room.

  “You…”

  A finger traced across his chin and cheek. It was cold. It was narrow.

  “You will make a fine Curiosity.”

  Something stirred within him. Not anger, not sorrow… but fear. He looked up at the face in front of him with wide, terrified eyes.

  There was a malevolent, flashy grin. The face was that of a woman, and the ears that of a neko. And yet, this neko wore a glowing tiara of precious metal, and a robe that shifted colors and patterns in a hypnotic manner.

  She looked like royalty.

  “Perhaps you’re the interesting catalyst we need…”

  ~~~

  Emma started going out on runs across town as her endurance improved. She saw remarkable progress, especially after Ralph’s capture and imprisonment. In some ways, having it all resolved was freeing… but in another sense, she ran so she had something to do besides sit and wallow about it all day.

  At the very least this was something she could actually talk to her family about. She didn’t even have to hide the fact that Rin was involved, for once, just not mention why Rin was there to help out. Honestly, her brother was having it far worse, he didn’t know how to comfort or be there for Taylor in a way that mattered. He was so… normal.

  She hoped they worked it out.

  But then again, her dreams hadn’t worked out last time…

  She shook her head and kept running. Not that this really stopped her thoughts, it just pushed them back a bit.

  This sure is a really ineffective way to not think about things, she thought to herself. This amused her enough to bring a smile to her face.

  That’s right, I’m the happy one. I see the beauty in the world, even when everything sucks. She did a little twirl as she ran, taking in the various trees around her. The birdsong… even the cars driving nearby, those were pieces of art in a sense. Someone had to design the way the curves moved from headlights to taillights, there was intent in the sparkling of the paint… and there was a family out and about, playing some kind of game where the kids ran around the legs of the parents in a weird pattern.

  Emma chuckled to herself. Beauty is everywhere if you just know where to look.

  She passed by a bench with a couple kissing passionately. They didn’t even notice her.

  Emma’s smile did not falter. Such a sight was still beautiful, and she could see it.

  But she still looked away.

  She could not see herself there anymore.

  But, perhaps, that was a good thing? At least partially. She had been rather silly and childishly obsessed with an idea.

  But I am a child, Emma thought to herself as she ran up the road, approaching her destination. Probably didn’t need to learn that lesson this early…

  She slowed her pace and wiped her brow as she arrived at the front door of ORHI headquarters.

  Amaris sure matured a lot on her journey… I guess it’s just my turn.

  She pulled the doors open, happy to see that both Amaris and Rin were currently there in the lobby, while Irene was behind the main desk talking to Orville, presumably, not that Emma could see him.

  “My parents are being weird about it,” Rin was telling Amaris.

  “Weird how?”

  “Weird as in… they refuse to approve or disapprove? Which is really bizarre for them, if I ask them directly I can basically always get an answer about what’s proper and what isn’t.”

  Amaris put a hand to her chin. “Maybe they just don’t know what to make of it?”

  “I dunno. They always seemed very sure of what was ‘proper’ for me. Even though there aren’t any other neko families with a need to be ‘proper.’ “ She shrugged. “So I guess they’re just letting me choose.”

  “Well…?”

  Rin put her hands in her pockets and looked at the ceiling. “I… honestly Amaris, I don’t think I have much of a choice considering your curse, but… I don’t really know what else I’d even do? I haven’t really had… aspirations to be much of anything. Never had dreams of being a dancer, a doctor, a scientist… just… I was always just Rin, the great Kugimiya heir or whatever.”

  “Hmm.” Amaris scratched her chin. “Well, if you join ORHI officially there’s nothing stopping you from leaving if you think of something else.”

  “Yeah… you’re right. Sure, sign me up. At least now I can get paid!”

  “Like you need money,” Emma said, butting in.

  Rin rolled her eyes.

  “But, Rin, I’d encourage you to think about what you actually want to do!” Emma gestured at her. “You’re amazing, you deserve to do what you want.”

  “Yeah, if I figure out something I want I’ll let you know.” Rin tilted her head. “How are you holding up?”

  “Alright, I suppose?” Emma frowned. “Even though I’d been crushing on him for a long time, I didn’t really know him that well…” She shook her head. “And I’ve already been in life-threatening danger a lot.” Emma turned to Amaris. “As usual, you’re right.”

  “About what?” Amaris asked.

  “About interesting things making you grow.”

  Amaris nodded solemnly. “Don’t I know it…”

  “I do wish I could sign up for ORHI, but that’ll have to wait until I’m out of school.”

  “Your parents…” Rin shook her head.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, but they do love me very much, and even if you weren’t involved they’d be concerned for my safety. It’s hard enough for them to swallow Amaris’ whole deal.”

  “Yeah… what’s it say about mine that they seem more concerned about appearances than my actual safety?” Rin sighed.

  “Rin…?”

  “Just been slowly realizing that Mom and Dad aren’t really the best people. Which, like, I knew, there’s no way we got all this money legitimately, but… I dunno. I guess I used to be proud to be a Kugimiya.”

  “You’re still very proud of being Rin.”

  Rin broke out into a grin. “And don’t you forget it!”

  At this moment, Taylor entered ORHI.

  Unlike Emma, she was not smiling. She wasn’t frowning, either, and her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses.

  Amaris quickly walked over to her. “Taylor, are you sure you should be here?”

  “I’d rather be here doing things than doing nothing but playing video games in Nina’s spare room for hours and hours.”

  “I mean, you don’t have to work, we could go out and do something with everyone, or just me, or…”

  “No… no, I want to do something useful. And… I’m not feeling competitive enough to go to one of the gaming competitions. So…” She sat down in front of the computer. “I’m going to work at this if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t,” Amaris said. “I’m just worried about you.”

  “...Thank you. I’ll… I’ll live. Or. Well. I’m undead so uh…” She scratched her head. “I’ll keep on keeping on, how’s that?”

  “I’m going to have people keep an eye on you anyway.”

  “Probably smart. Who knows when I might have a random mental breakdown.” Taylor sighed. “...Thanks, Amaris. You’re a good friend to… everyone here, you know that?”

  “Well… yes. But… I also bring a lot of other things with me.”

  “We must be willing to put up with that for some reason.” Taylor stretched out her arms and started sifting through the various updates on the computer. No one had checked the email inbox yet today, and at the top…

  Taylor leaned in very closely to the screen. “Uh… Amaris?”

  “What?”

  “Our mysterious internet source has found some leads on Wingdings Curiosities…”