“Many whelps, left side. Handle it!” Tyler shouts into the screen at the digital versions of the friends seated around him. “FU…!”

“I rooted ‘em. We’re fine.” Kiya interrupts as the expletive explodes from his friend’s mouth. Pressing a few keys on the keyboard and clicking a few times, Kiya saves his friends from an inevitable doom in the online video game boss battle. A few tense minutes later, the red HP bar inches lower and lower causing all the air in the room the be sucked into the party’s chests.

“YEAH!!” They all eventually shout as the boss falls over unceremoniously mid-attack. Ignoring the cut scene, they leap from their chairs to celebrate the grand event.

“Dude that reaction time was insane!” Eric exclaims after releasing Kiya from the weak hug. “I thought you were gonna get one shot when you dropped bear form like that.”

“Well, you had bubble off cooldown, right?” Kiya laughs with a shrug. “I figured it’d be fine.”

“He couldn’t use bubble. These bosses are still bugged so any shield spells make‘em drop aggro. He’d have turned Eric into a pile of meat the second he finished casting.” Jim’s dad says from behind his set of double monitors. “If you weren’t able to swap back into bear form fast enough, we’d have wiped for sure. Great job kid.”

“I told you he was good.” Jim reiterates almost defensively with a hint of pride in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah.” His father murmurs, resetting his glasses and pushing himself back from the desk. Rising with a grunt he sniffs at the air as a familiar smell invades the room. “Smells like your mom’s busy. I’ll be off for some quality assurance.”

“Wait up!” Jim shouts knowing his chances for cookie dough would diminish with each second of head-start his dad had.

Kiya, as the only one not fully in the loop, glanced around as the other two follow after them. “What’s going… Oh.”

Noticing the smell and placing a flavor to it, his mouth watered at the thought of the warm cookies.

“…Its no problem. He’s a great kid.” Kiya overhears as he rounds the corner into the converted kitchen area. Coming face to face with a pair of unexpected figures he nearly rubs his eyes to confirm their existence.

“Mom?” Kiya asks, cocking his head and turning it between Matilda and his mother who sat comfortably at stools arranged in front of the island. “What are you doing here?”

“Introducing myself.” His mother smiles with a hint of a mischievous glint in her arched eyes. “I came to return the plate you keep forgetting and we ended up talking about all sorts of things.”

“You could’ve said you were here…” Kiya mutters with reddening face.

“It looked like you were having fun, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Harrah chuckles with a shrug. “Luckily Lynn taught me all about pictures and helped me make one.”

Clutching a small, folded packet of images she’d stealthily taken with the help of Jim’s mother and her cell phone, she had a feeling that even with this alone she’d gained much by coming here.

But in truth, this wasn’t the only gain. When Harrah first introduced herself and mentioned her business in the village, Lynn immediately mentioned her book club.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She was known for finding a way to work it into any conversation, but in this case, it truly did apply. They only talked literature on Thursdays, on Tuesdays it was a knitting and quilting group. And Lynn assured her they’d be happy to bring an extra sewing machine she could learn with next week.

Harrah hadn’t known exactly what to expect coming here, in her mind she pictured finding a store after getting off the bus that would sell jeans she could resell in her shop for huge profit. But in the back of her mind she knew that wasn’t an entirely realistic expectation. And from how Lynn had reacted when she heard about the clothing store, Harrah came to realize clothes weren’t something anyone here would be willing to sell. They weren’t exactly in an abundance.

“Hot!” Jim yelps as he bites into a Chocolate chip cookie impatiently.

“I said to wait.” Lynn sighs without turning away from her conversation. “So, I had to ask her, ‘Who’s really the problem between you two in the relationship; he’s right that foxes can get mange, and while your addiction is important, it can’t dictate everything in your life together’, and you know what she says?”

At this point neither of the two could predict a single word so they could could only shake their heads.

“She says ‘Gloria was the one who gave me the fox in the first place.’” Lynn concludes brandishing her hands as if ridding herself of the words.

“What?!” Matilda gasps clutching for Harrah’s hand for assurance.

“I know.” Lynn says with a shake of her head.

Harrah with a puzzled expression eventually gives in. “But wasn’t Gloria the one who told Bob…”

Stopping herself with a gasp she turns to Matilda and then to Lynn in turn.

“I KNOW,” Lynn reiterates with a deeper nod. “Oh my god, you guys will love our little group. We have THE best stories.”

“Seems like it.” Harrah pants with a shake of her head. The entire ordeal Lynn had laid out exhausted her, but she couldn’t get enough of it.

“I just don’t understand the part with the bees,” Matilda adds as she traces a few of the lines of the story in her head.

“I think it might have been a metaphor,” Lynn ponders with a hand to her chin. “Hard to know with her. Jim, your aunt Karen…”

“She’s insane.” Jim volunteers immediately without hesitation from where he sat in the attached living room.

“James that’s rude!” His mother angrily rebukes before turning back to Matilda and Harrah with a slight nod and shrug. “Yeah, she’s a few bits short of a byte.”

“Hun, did you hear Yoshi’s started doing deliveries.” Jim’s father announces from his recliner in the living room. Executing the plan flawlessly, Jim and Tyler throw him a pair of thumbs up’s.

Lynn, rolling her eyes from the kitchen with a shake of her head glances at her newly made friends. “They think they are being sly. Are yours this transparent?”

“My…” Matilda begins before realizing Lynn’s meaning. “Ah, I’m unmarried, and Harrah…”

“My husband passed a few years ago.” Harrah fills in for herself with a pained smile.

“Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to…” Lynn begins to panic worrying she’d poked a tender wound.

“But to answer your question.” Harrah continues with a rejuvenated smile. “He was, but that’s how I knew I could trust him.”

Pausing a moment to calm down, Lynn nods to herself. “We are eating together tonight, I won’t take no for an answer.”

Turning back towards the living room she mentally kicks herself as she realizes she’s encouraging a dangerous precedent. “Fine, Derek. Make one half-cheese. And this is the last time we are eating out this week, you hear me?”

“Thanks hun!” Jim’s father answers throwing proud glances to his son and Tyler. Plucking his phone from his pocket he begins to type the number. But just as the last number was entered, the entire room was dropped into pitch darkness.

A few screams came from the kitchen and living room as the unexpected change sent them out of their seats.

“What happened?” Kiya asks not understanding the sudden darkness.

“Is it the breaker?” Lynn asks her husband from the kitchen.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Derek answers, glancing at the empty signal bars on his phone. “We aren’t the only ones down.”

Flipping his phone around after finding the flashlight setting, he spreads it around to be sure everyone was okay. Once sure, he grabs a pair of flashlights from a hook near the doorway. Handing one to Lynn and the other to Jim he turns back for the door.

“I’m gonna go see what's going on.”

“I wanna come!” Jim immediately adds igniting himself from under his chin with the light.

“Nope. Everyone stay put for now until we know what’s going on.” Derek concludes after an array of possibilities began populating his mind.