I whirl around to face the voice. Before me, standing slightly shorter than myself, is a digimon. I assume it is a digimon because I can’t accept the existence of aliens within the digital world.

It just… it just looks like an alien. That’s all. Like a little grey man with big green eyes. It would be more alien-like if it wasn’t wringing its hands like an anxious salesman, but it still looks like an alien. It even has a little laser blaster clipped to a small belt around its waist.

“Pay? Pay?”

Um, no, I’m not paying. One, I didn’t get anything out of this other than splinters in my fingers and sand in my mouth, and two, I ain’t got no money.

…Hey, wait a second, I can talk!

“No pay,” I say, taking a step back.

The little alien looks me up and down. It’s slightly shorter than me, so I don’t feel especially threatened by it. If it attacked, I think I could sever its neck before it could draw its blaster.

…But I want to change. I’ve got a mouth now. I don’t need to act barbaric and fight and kill and eat to live. I could just eat fruits, like Bukamon did. There’s plenty of coconuts around, so I guess my best bet would be to give them a try. Sure, I won’t evolve within the next decade, but I can still find my way back without overwhelming power, right?

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“No pay?”

My attention returns to the alien. Oh, yeah, I was ‘talking’ to this guy. Right. “No pay,” I repeat.

Apparently, my refusal is a great insolence towards the alien’s ancestors, because it stops wringing its hands and puffs itself up greatly, almost reaching all the way up to my chin. It’s actually at the perfect height to strangle, assuming aliens breathe. Otherwise, a good crack would do it well.

“If you no pay, then you work!”

…Uhuh? Is that so?

Now, I’m not normally one to dine-and-dash, but on account of no dining, therefore, one can assume a supposed dash would not be a dash, but rather a so-called ‘hasty exit.’

I turn on my heel and make a run for it.

“Crook! Crook!” the alien squawks. I can practically hear him pull out his blaster, but I’m much faster than he is, and before he can train his sights on my back, I’ve clambered my way up a tree, into the foliage above. From there, all I need to do is jump around a bit until I’m basically gone. The island is only so big, sure, but the alien doesn’t have all the time in the world, which I realise once the sun sets again. The alien is soon forced to cease his search once the sound of shopping cart wheels begins anew.

“Oh, hello, welcome, welcome!”

“Pay? Pay?”

“Thank you! Come again soon!”

And so, another day ends. My stomach growls. From up in the treetops, I can kind of see how the alien digimon passes by. His customers are completely invisible and shadow-like, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I wonder if they’re edible? Can they even be called digimon? Hm.

If I just dropped down, I could easily ambush him. He wouldn’t even have to suffer. One minute he’d be there, and the next…

I shake my head. No meat. I can’t even kill him properly because as soon as I touch his pixels I’ll just slurp them right up.

…Wow. Taking this world seriously is not easy. I can’t even bring myself to feel like that guy down there might be able to kill me.

My stomach grumbles again. I should try to sleep through the hunger. Sure, eating coconuts or whatever sounds great, but not if looking up means death. So, much like yesterday, I lie myself down on a branch and try not to think about if my dad’s already moved on.