[https://i.imgur.com/gnT2RJi.png]

"What were you thinking?" screamed Johanna. Vicente’s aunt’s voice had been whittled by emotion. "Leaving my children at the zoo by themselves!"

Vicente sat there, the phone on an armrest, his head tilted back over the edge of the chair, dazed and cold. What rebuttal could he offer as she screamed of various dark possibilities— someone kidnapping her children, druggies luring them away, the kids getting themselves into danger through their own natural curiosity, simple fear and sadness overcoming them.

And then a new voice picked up, this one much deeper but no less authoritative. "You hear her, right? This was a mistake on every conceivable level. And you say you don't have any excuse?"

"No, sir."

"Where did you even go?"

"Senior’s."

"And he didn't have anything to say about this?"

"No, sir."

"Did he even know?"

As he opened his mouth, it suddenly dawned on Vicente that he couldn't drag his grandfather into this mess, so he said, "No, sir."

"Went behind his back, did you? I'm just... Mmmm." This was Ramon, his uncle for however long left until the man disowned him. Vicente felt bad for him and his wife, knowing that they deserved better than to have their children forgotten among a zoo of potential freaks.

He continued his policy of saying little as Ramon seethed.

"You know we could have you arrested for this, right? Perhaps that could set you straight."

"I do understand, sir."

"Look... I get that we should have run things through with you before now. We surprised you. But you explicitly stated that you were willing to bring our kids to the zoo. You said it. We heard it. There's no way out of this."

In the background, Johanna said something indistinct, but Vicente knew just by the intonation it was directed at him.

He looked over to Yulaan, who sat cross legged upon the floor of his den. He then looked back towards the wall and picked up the phone.

"We'll have to have a better talk about this tomorrow. I really want to see you in person."

"I understand."

"At the very least, thank you for asking if the kids are alright, no thanks to you."

"I get it, sir."

"Have a good day, boy."

The call ended.

Vicente blew out his cheeks. That went worse than he thought it would, but at the very least, 'they're alright.'

His grandfather's call about Totta's boys being in the area had set his heart off on a path of panic, so knowing that his underage cousins were not in the freak's grasp was the calm he used to tolerate his aunt and uncle's newfound resentment.

Veins crossed Yulaan's forehead. She sat with her eyes closed and fingers digging into her crossed arms. The way she held herself informed him that she was going to explode. In what way, he could not know. Yet the tension disturbed him.

"What's wrong?" he asked. She had been this way at Senior's house all the same, but the increase in tension was palpable. It was as if after leaving Senior, something in her snapped and even she was upset with him.

She said nothing, so that little seed of a possibility, that she also disliked his betrayal of his cousins, offered its own resolution.

"Well, you wanted those hocks, didn't you?" Was it wise to pawn this off onto her, he wondered. Would she be offended? "I had to give them to you, you know. That's what your old handler said. Give you whatever you want without hesitation, no matter the circumstances."

She did not stir.

But she did speak.

"I need to fight something."

His ears twitched. "What was that?"

"I need to fight something!" she roared. She stood and stormed towards a patio window. He got out of his seat and followed her. "Let me punch down more trees. I want to slaughter all the animals in this area."

"You can! I can't stop you. But I'd rather you not." The young Yaban started towards the window as if she was going to throw herself out, but the moment Vicente voiced his concerns, she stopped and turned.

"Do I have permission?"

"I'm just saying, I'd rather you not draw so much attention. It was different at my grandfather's place. He has an excess of trash and trees in his yard that he needed cut down anyway. This field my own house is on, it's supposed to not draw any attention for a reason."

She turned back and folded her arms again, the veins seeming ready to burst through her skin. "Then I won't. Not now."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"You can, if you really must. I just want you to know—"

Her tail lifted. "You expressed a fine point, Vicente. Enough."

She sat back on the floor next to the chair, this time grunting and seething through her teeth as if a monster beat at her chest trying to escape. She brought her hand towards her forehead as if her brain throbbed in her skull.

"I haven't fought anyone since my battle with Enekai," she said suddenly as Vicente sat back down. She spoke in a spooky, raspy way. "That was three months ago."

A shocked ‘hrrk?’ fell from her mouth as Vicente ran his hand running across her skull, his fingers passing through her hair over and over, scruffing her head up in a way that brought another purr up from her throat. All the latent tension began to fade. Her hair, standing on end and tense, seemed to relax ever so slightly and follow gravity's pull.

Then she beat away his hand with her tail. "I don't want to purr right now! I want to fight and kill stuff."

Vicente sighed. "You'd make a good narco."

Knock knock came from the front door.

"I wonder who that could be," said Vicente in a morose tone. Was it the police? Had his aunt and uncle followed through on their threat to have him arrested?

Vicente stood and pointed towards a closet. "Get in there pr go into another room."

"Why in there?"

"I'll give you whatever sort of fatty, fried foods you crave later on."

"I slaughter your offer.”

“I’m sure you will. But I need you out of sight.” He gestured wide, saying, “I’m all already in deep shit. Last thing I need is for the cops to think I’m trafficking little girls.”

She scoffed and turned her head to the side. “They're not policemen."

He stopped. "What was that?"

She then sat in his chair, her weight at first crushing the thing before she softened herself.

The Man in the Zoot Suit ambled to the door, each step carrying questions as to what Yulaan knew.

Upon opening the door and seeing his visitors, he finally understood the game.

"Mr. Xaxalpa, is it?"

There stood two men in black suits, hidden behind black sunglasses. One was shorter than himself, perhaps teenaged in everything but voice. This one had a sort of 1940s shyster style to him as he said:

"We've been looking for you for a while now, good sir, good sir! Finally caught you when you're at your worst, I bet."

Then Vicente looked to the bigger man. This one stood stiff and uncomfortably. Every second Vicente spent examining him revealed new eccentricities. Crinkly skin. No eyebrows. Seven feet tall at the least.

The two men stepped forward. The shorter one slipped his hands into his pockets and grinned as if he was in for the kill. The strange one walked like a robot.

Vicente stepped back and against the frame of the door.

"Come on in. I'd like to say I've been expecting you for many years now."

The short man nodded, tipping his hat. Vicente tried to do the same, but pressed against nothing but his hair.

Out in the gravel driveway, there rested a shiny black Volga. A car he had only ever seen in Ukraine and Russia, now here in the southern pits of the United States. How beautifully it shined in the afternoon.

'Why did I leave Senior's place so quickly? He’d give anything to meet them.'

He turned to follow his new guests. All good minds would know better than to tell this lot that they didn't have a warrant to search his house. They operated outside the law, against the law, for their own purposes. This was the shadowy world beyond the milky walls of reality in which most people lived. Another world beyond the veil, one into which Vicente so eagerly threw himself as an everyday hobby and reason to pass the time. A day like today was not unexpected. Yet some part of him, this little innocent child he could not shake from himself throughout all his years of maturing, was still cowering at the thought this was really happening. They were here. They wanted him.

The world’s great mysteries live their best unresolved. Here was his chance to pull at the veil’s thread and reveal to himself and the world what hid so well away from sleeping eyes. That girl had given him that chance.

They hurriedly scuttled back out the door, tipping their hats.

"All apologies, good sir, good sir! All apologies! We'll be on our way."

He frowned. "Didn't you want to see her?"

"We've seen it. Oh we've seen it alright. You're in quite the pickle, good sir, good sir." Short-stack beat at the hood of the car as he passed to the driver's side. "We'll be watching you, good sir, good sir. Don't do anything hasty."

The big man stopped, turned a full 180 degrees, and said slowly and cumbersomely, "You do not know what she is." He completed his turn, stooped into the Volga, and vanished along the curves of the horizon with his friend at an easy pace.

Nothing else felt right. Nothing could follow up this little event and feel real. Least of all, talking to Yulaan. Something momentous had transpired, and yet the mundanity of existing in the present hid it to him. His mind in the future would look back upon this exact moment as the seconds, minutes, hours that changed the world and the very direction of life on this Earth.

Unsurprisingly she sat the same way she had done before, still nestled in his chair. The veins on her forehead continued to throb, even as she pressed her fingers together and sat cross-legged.

"What happened?"

She growled.

Again, he asked, "What happened? Did they try taking you?"

Again, she growled. She unfolded her legs, but remained sitting, instead pressing her hands against armrests in a slight forward lean. "I need to fight something."

Prickly horror itched his skin as he rubbed the back of his head.

Pushing herself off onto to her feet, Yulaan said, "I had to assert dominance," in that raspy voice that shook his core. This voice was unpleasant. Sinister. Demonic. Every word she spoke with it brought flashes of his bisabuela before his eyes.

'She's the devil!' she'd say.

'The Devil walks among us!'

'She's come to steal our souls and lead us astray!'

He had never felt so happy to know that granny Chavela was buried and gone. In fact this might have been the first time he could recall that he thanked her mortality for whisking her away from life. If she were still around, she'd most certainly die in fright anyhow.

But then he snapped back to reality and asked, "Assert dominance? Against the Men in Black?"

"Men in... black?" The way she spoke worried him further. Something in her struggled against itself, and the tension that scared him earlier began to fester into a greater horror. "Should I know who that is?"

This horror was new. No longer was it eminent from the little Yaban’s vibe. He licked his lips and said, "U-um, yes, actually. I've been dying to meet them all my life. I knew I'd have a run in with them eventually."

The tip of her tail smashed against the floor, shattering the wood paneling. "Agh!" She grabbed her head and sat back down. "I have to fight something..."

"What? What do you have to fight?"

She threw her hands down. "Anything!"

"I already told you, you can go ahead and punch down the trees. Just don't bring too much attention to us, and it's fine!"

"I...." She stood again and rushed to the door. "I should have killed them! That would've resolved everything."

"Kill— no, Yulaan, no. Remember what that man said! You can't kill anyone who doesn't threaten you directly."

"That's why I didn't. But I need to fight something, or else I'll break down." She clutched her head and then hugged her body, stumbling off against the wall. "It came on too quickly."

"What?! What came on? You need to tell me these things. I don't know how you work!"

"Aghhh!" She beat at the wall, her fist breaking through the plaster.

Vicente felt he could cry. How had he gotten himself into this nightmare? When could he wake up and resume his abnormal life? Why him? What was happening?

And what did she mean by all this? That she had to fight?

If nothing else, he could not regret any of his aunt’s or uncle’s words. They did not know the truth. And that was for the best. He could never bring his little cousins to harm, and in this moment, with this half-feral alien monkey undergoing what might have been a psychotic breakdown in his living room, he knew he made at least something resembling the right choice.

[https://i.imgur.com/gnT2RJi.png]