Chapter 4 Melodia

When my eyes opened, light flooded in letting me know it was now morning. Traitors, the both of them.

I stretched my arms out, before flinching as I felt an unusual soreness in my whole body, but especially in my back. The heck? I was too young to be having back problems in the mornings. It almost felt like I had fallen on my back or something…

I froze as my memories of the night before all came crashing down at me at once. Anna running away from me, the monster slamming me into the ground, me destroying it with a magical black hole, the little fox.

“The little fox!” I shouted in a panicked whisper as I rushed out of bed and to my desk.

I let out a sigh of relief as I saw the little bundle of white fur move slightly under the blanket I gave him. I must have been a little louder than I wanted because the fox started stirring. I watched as he slowly stretched his body out, knocking the blanket off him. All the cuts were gone, as was the blood.

“Well that wasn’t fun at all,” he said as I forced myself not to flinch back. It was just so weird. You took one look at that cute and cuddly body and you expected a voice to match. Instead you got a voice deep enough to come out of a teenage boy. I would know, I live with one.

He kept stretching out his body in front of him. I didn’t say or do anything, wanting him to recover from what happened the night before. He finally finished and opened his eyes, his little smile evaporating the second he saw me.

Was it something I did? Had I messed up somehow? How had he even known I had messed up?

“I suppose we should start with an apology,” oh looks like I really had messed something up.

I tried forming an apology only for him to bow his head at me.

“I would like to apologize to you for the events of last night. There was a proper way our meeting and conversation should have gone and last night wasn’t it.”

He… wasn’t mad at me? Well I guess that was good. Having someone apologize to me was a new one, it was usually me scrambling around trying to apologize to others. Why was the little fox staring at me?

Oh right, I needed to actually accept the apology.

Okay I could do this. It was just a cute little fox I had already managed to talk to the night before. I took a deep breath and got ready to speak… and for no words to come out.

Maybe it was the daylight making it more real, maybe it was the fact he wasn’t injured anymore, maybe it was his voice throwing me off, but I couldn’t get any words out. It was almost as though the little fox had managed to cross over from something unreal which could be spoken with to someone real who couldn’t be.

No, I had managed to beat up a big monster last night, I could do this. I steeled my nerves and opened my mouth.

“Apology accepted,” I managed to eke out while mentally punching the air in celebration. The little fox was still looking at me weirdly, but at least I had managed to say something.

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“I see,” he sounded unsure for a second before shaking his head a little and continuing, “well, you might not feel the same after you hear what I have to tell you about the situation you have found yourself in.” He frowned before sitting back down on the pillow I left for him.

“Okay…” I glanced over at the clock and winced internally. It was already starting to get a little late and having to walk to school meant I usually didn’t have enough time in the mornings to spend it chatting. If I stopped to listen to the little fox’s apology, there was no way I wasn’t going to be late for school. I pointed over to the clock and hoped he would understand. “After school okay?”

He hummed to himself for a few seconds before nodding his head.

“I suppose that’s fine,” he finally decided, “nothing I have to say can’t wait a few hours… hopefully. Just make sure you come straight here after school. The sooner I can tell you this information, the better.”

“Okay,” I said before starting to grab everything I would need to start the day. Halfway through, I suddenly remembered there was one piece of information I needed from the little fox now rather than later. I stopped in place and looked at him as our eyes met. “Name?”

“My name?” He blinked in clear surprise. The look on his face faded after a second to be replaced by a simple grin. “You may call me Pickati. What about you?”

“Melodia Sonata Gomez Suarez,” I got out all at once, my name being one of the few things I almost never had trouble saying to other people. So it looked like the little fox was indeed the Pickati Anna had asked me about. Felt obvious in hindsight but I’m no time traveler so hindsight wasn’t worth much. I just have to keep moving forward.

Maybe I would be able to tell her he was okay today at school? No, best not to pray for miracles.

I sighed to myself a little while later as I poked my food with my fork. Mom had made everyone a quick breakfast before rushing off to work. And today the menu was some scrambled eggs and some buttered toast. Normally I could eat Mom’s food, but today was harder than normal.

“You alright?” Arturo asked as he sat down at the kitchen table next to me. “You look a little out of it this morning.”

“I wish I could talk to other people the same way I can talk to you, Mom, and Dad,” I groaned out what was technically not a lie. I just wouldn’t say what it was I wanted to talk about.

Ugh, just thinking about having to talk to Anna about Pickati was killing my appetite. I poked my eggs a little more when I suddenly felt a hand on my head. I slowly looked up at my brother who was giving me a wicked grin. I braced myself as he started messing up my hair.

“Well if you need any help, you know you can ask me right?” I did my best not to laugh as I tried to force his hand away from my head. At least my hair would be easy to fix.

“I know,” I lost my fight and let out the tiniest bit of a laugh as I managed to get his hand away from me. It was only a small laugh, but it was enough to earn a smirk out of Arturo. I put on a scowl before going back to my eggs. “But running to my big brother every time I need to solve a problem doesn’t feel like a real solution either. I need to learn how to do this on my own.”

“What if I come running to you instead,” he half joked. “Give you someone to stand next to before you make your move. Give you that extra bit of confidence you need.”

“Maybe that could work…” Now it was my turn to mess with him a little. “But I don’t think they let old people like you on campus unless they’re teachers.”

“Hey if your brother’s old, what does that make me?” Dad demanded as he walked into the kitchen ready and dressed to go to work. We all joked for a few seconds before Dad grabbed his lunch for the day and headed out.

I glanced over at him as he was on the way out. It was much harder to notice these days, but that limp of his was still there like always. An ever-present reminder of how I had messed up.

I finished breakfast, forcing the food down before grabbing my backpack and heading out to school. With any luck, today would be a nice and normal day. Or maybe I would even get the chance to talk to Anna like a normal person.

In fact, I may even have an ace in the hole when it came to this. All I needed to do to start a normal conversation was go up to her and tell her Pickati was okay. Everything would go from there.

Just two words, ‘Pickati’s ok’, and I’d be in the clear. Even I couldn’t mess up that badly. I put on a confident smile and proudly walked to school, a glimmer of hope shining in my heart.