When I fell unconscious, I felt myself floating again. That same sensation from a year ago—the paralysis—yet this time, the voice was different. It was still mine, but somehow... off. Like I was talking over myself, the words blending together so much that I couldn’t tell where one sentence ended and another began. But before I woke up, one sentence echoed above all the rest: “Hey, gonna go buy some snacks! Be right back!” And then, I woke up. As my senses returned, the first thing I felt was a throbbing pain in my head, like I’d been slammed into the ground—oh wait, I had. The more awake I became, the more I could feel my surroundings. It was completely dark, so much so that I couldn’t see anything. My hands touched a cold, oddly smooth surface beneath me. My first reaction was to stand up, pushing away from the unfamiliar material. “Hello?” I called out, hoping one of the people who hunted me might respond. At the very least, they had spared me. A voice replied, and luckily, it was familiar. “Who are you, and what were you doing in the forest watching us?” I heard a click, and suddenly, the room was illuminated—not by the sun, but by something smaller and colder. The light lacked warmth, and the air felt lifeless, as though something had violently drained it. The woman who spoke was the one with black hair. From what I remembered during the short time I saw them, her name was Izuki. She stared at me, and somehow her gaze was the warmest thing in the room—but it burned. “My—my name is Firis. I saw you in the forest with your pack while I was hunting, and... you interested me,” I answered softly, hoping not to provoke her. She honestly terrified me. Knowing what I could do to prey, I imagined she was ten times worse. She looked me over, then slammed her hand on the table, making me yelp and jump back. “What kind of story is that, kid? Think I’m an idiot?” I stammered, backing up, desperate not to make her any angrier. “I promise! I was just hunting and saw you! I was only trying to get dinner for me and Leaf!” I was truly pleading for her to believe me. I hadn’t lived long, but I still wanted to live. She stared into my eyes, her gaze searing like fire, then sighed, her clenched fist slowly relaxing. “You telling the truth, kid?” she asked, still sounding skeptical. I stayed silent, too scared to say anything that might set her off again. I was just about to speak when she beat me to it. “Say, how old are you anyway? You don’t look like the age most guys start hunting alone.” That question surprised me. People had to be a certain age to hunt? I guessed newborns didn’t usually have the ability. But I did, which only confused me more. “I’m a year old. I have plenty of mobility, so I can hunt fine.” She stared at me in stunned silence, her eyes narrowing slightly, and I started to worry she no longer believed me. “You’re… one year old,” she repeated, more as a fact than a question, which gave me hope. I smiled slightly, finally feeling safe enough to speak. “Yeah, one whole year. I know, pretty impressive for a guy without parents.” I shrugged. Honestly, surviving this long was an accomplishment for someone like me. But she didn’t seem to agree. In fact, she looked… scared. Her voice trembled as she spoke so softly I could barely hear her. “So… me and Dasshutsu… hunted and shot a kid who’s been alone in the woods for who knows how long?” Her eyes welled up with tears—they were a deep black I didn’t even know my kind could have. “Actually, I know the forest pretty well. I haven’t really been lost,” I said, giving her a small, nervous smile. She suddenly burst out laughing, sitting on the strange surface I couldn’t identify, burying her face in her hands and laughing harder. I think I heard something about her getting fired. Not sure what that means. “No! Wait! I can fix this!” She sprang up and walked over to me, eyeing me up and down. “Say, kid, how did you survive the forest? You know… did you have some ability that made it easier?” I didn’t know what she was trying to fix, but I went along with the crazy lady. “Well, I guess our species’ ability to create fire helped? Made getting food easier.” As soon as I said that, she screamed—high-pitched and loud—then suddenly wrapped her arms around me. “Sweet heavens, I won’t be fired!” she cried, grabbing my wrist and dragging me out of the room. When we stepped into the light, I had to squint. More of those fake suns were above us. She led me into another small room, where another woman was waiting. “So, Boss, turns out the kid wasn’t a spy! He’s an orphan with an energy core, and he sensed me and the team’s energy! We assumed he was a spy, but it was all a big misunderstanding—” The second woman, clearly her superior, cut her off. “Izuki, hold it. You still shot a kid, and now we know the kid meant no harm—he was just curious about your group.” The woman leaned back on the same weird surface Izuki sat on earlier—seriously, someone please tell me what those are. “Do you think just because he has powers you’re off the hook?” Izuki sighed, her grip on my wrist weakening. “Kinda… yeah.” Boss shook her head. “Good, because if you’d lied about that, I would’ve known. That interrogation was recorded live.” Izuki looked like she shrank a little. “We know the kid’s clearly an orphan, and honestly a bit stupid. The whole ‘one year old’ thing said that. And since you tried to dodge consequences, you’ll be the one taking care of him.” Izuki shot up. “What?! No! Please! Boss, I live in a one-bedroom—” “Then make better lies,” Boss snapped. “Take him home. We’ll contact you later about training and schooling. Get out.” Izuki groaned and pulled me away. I couldn’t help but blurt, “Wait—I don’t wanna go with her! She hunted me! I wanna go home!” Boss turned her icy gaze on me, and I froze. “That’s right, she hunted you. Take this as an act of mercy. As long as you listen to us, you won’t end up as dinner.” Izuki turned sharply. “Boss, isn’t that a little—” The slam of Boss’s hand on the desk silenced her instantly. Izuki dragged me out again, and honestly, the fear of being eaten kept me obedient. Outside, the real sun warmed my skin, and after that cold room, it felt amazing. She brought me to this strange, shiny thing, opened a door, and sat me inside. Then she walked around it and did the same on the other side. Suddenly, the shiny thing growled, and we started moving. It was like it was dragging me somewhere. Of course, I screamed. “WHAT THE HELL, KID?!” Izuki shouted. I tried to escape the beast, but the door wouldn’t budge. “IT’S GONNA KILL US! IT’S TAKING US TO ITS DEN! YOU DID THIS!” Izuki looked scared at first, but then started laughing. “It’s a car, kid. It’s not gonna eat us.” I really hoped she was telling the truth—otherwise, I was haunting her in the afterlife. After a while, we stopped in front of a tall stone tree, massive and strange, with members of our species walking in and out. Izuki made the beast stop, and we climbed out. She led me up some platforms to her section of the structure. She called it an “apartment.” The place looked like a storm had hit it—messy and chaotic. She pointed to a spot in the middle of the room. “That’s my couch. You can sleep there. I’m going to bed before this gives me a full-on panic attack.” She left me alone, muttering about wanting a raise. Not wanting to be turned into her dinner like Boss warned, I curled up on the couch. It was way better than the leaf pile I’d been sleeping on for the past year. Leaf! I totally forgot about him! Eh, he’ll survive. I closed my eyes, trying to sleep. This life… I didn’t know what was coming next. I was being forced to live as something different, something strange. At least, strange to me. Boss, Izuki, and the others—they all looked and acted the same. Maybe I was the one out of place. A tear rolled down my cheek. I usually only cried when I got hurt. But nothing on me was bleeding, nothing was broken. My body didn’t hurt, but my heart did. I was lost, confused, and I just wanted to go home. Why were they forcing me to stay? What did they want from me? I couldn’t even run—they tracked me down last time. I was scared of my own species… and I couldn’t stop that fear. As those thoughts filled my mind and my tears soaked into the fabric of the couch, I finally drifted to sleep—cursing my own kind.

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