“Now affirm to me one more time, Why did you require that I place the order instead of you?” Jay asks while staring intensely at Cielo.

“You don’t already know?” Cielo mutters while awkwardly panning his head down towards the table. They were all sitting at a small green metal table with an umbrella outside of a small coffee shop. It was still dark, maybe around 1am. Cielo and Skye exchange glances.

“I-I Can’t talk to people. Like, at all.”

“But what about school the other day?” Skye asked.

“I have no idea what came over me. The incident in the school halls was the first time I’ve talked to anybody aside from you two-” He looks down and takes a deep breath

“For the past three years.” Skye and Jay both looked shocked.

“And why would you act in such a way?” Jay asks. Paying no mind to the weight of the situation.

“Just get the damn drinks already, Jay.”

Without a word he gets up from his chair and walks into the shop.

“ . . . You’re comfortable telling me aren’t you?”

“It’s fine, I trust you, but now isn’t the time. We need to figure out what to do about the drug deals. That’s why we’re here isn’t it?”

“Yeah . . . But-”

“It’s fine, I’ll tell you once all of this is over.” Cielo said, Finally raising his head from the table.

“Fellow organisms, I have returned”

Skye lets out a sigh.

“Oh yay.”

He returned with Cielo’s drink in his right hand, Skye’s in his left, And his own in a third hand, sprouting from below his right shoulder.

“I presume you all have knowledge of my spirit, Correct?”

“No, But somehow I’m not surprised.” Skye grumbles to herself.

“Well, We need to keep our priorities set on making progress. What do you know about the drug deals?” Cielo asked somewhat impatiently.

“I don’t have very much, But a lot of the things I found could be potential leads.” She said, grinning to herself.

“Takeshi actually goes to our school. We've all probably seen him before but don’t remember since he’s a senior.”

“It would be greatly fundamental if you had a picture.” Jay added.

Skye looked at him with a pinch of annoyance, “Yeah, that would make it a lot easier, Don’t you think I would have showed you if I had one.

“Come on, Don’t be so short with him, That was a good question.” Cielo said.

“Okayy, B-But we need to stay focused . . . There’s a group of students who leave the school and turn off into an odd direction which only leads to alleys and dead ends. I didn’t have the guts to check it out since I wasn't sure if any of them were the culprit though. But that could be a good lead.

“How about we go around the Senior classes asking for anybody named Takeshi?” Cielo added.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“A weird name like that should be pretty easy to put a face to.” He continued.

“It’s getting really scary though. If he has other people to fall back on like we suspect, We’ll likely be easily outnumbered. We’re only a group of three people” Skye remarked.

“We could always find more.” Cielo added. Skye only looked at him funny.

“That’ll feel weird, adding random people just to bulk up our numbers.” Skye said.

“Then we’ll lose the bond we have.”

“Have you both never considered reproduction?” Jay added. Cielo and Skye stared directly at him and simultaneously said;

“Excuse me, What the fuck?” As if it was planned.

“Oh I’m sorry, I’m not referring to either of you, or sexual reproduction for that matter. Are you two still not familiar with how my spirit works?” There was a long silence before he continued talking.

“I can grow additional limbs from pre-existing parts of my body. A side effect of this, however, Is my lack of gender. I use masculine pronouns and act as such out of preference, But biologically I have nothing that would make me either male or female. In theory I should be able to morph into any given gender, Even hypothetical non-existent ones. But a single transformation can only last for twenty minutes, So it's pretty pointless. Hypothetically though, If I were to cut off a piece of my body, It should be able to grow into an entirely separate being, even if a little slowly.”

Skye nearly jumped out of her chair, But couldn’t think of any words before Jay snathced his knife off of the table and began to violently saw into his wrist. Skye started yelling, trying to get him to stop, nearly in tears from the morbidness of the situation. Cielo was stunned wordless, He was just sitting stiffly in his chair, not blinking once. Blood began spraying everywhere. Onto the umbrella, into everybody’s drinks, Into their faces. Skye cusped her hand over her mouth as if she was on the verge of puking before one final crunching sound was heard.

Jay wordlessly looked over at everybody else as if nothing had happened.

“What should we name them? They’ll also be genderless so I think leaving them to choose their own pronouns once they gain consciousness is the best choice. What do you guys think?” Finally, Skye jumped up from her chair, her hands on the table, staring directly at Jay.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?!”

Jay picked up the hand and dropped it in his glass of water.

“It needs to stay hydrated.” Skye started hyperventilating.

“What you’re saying is that your hand will grow into a separate person and your original hand will grow back onto your arm?” Cielo asked, completely composed.

“In a basic sense, Yes. The only problem being that in creating another life, I’m giving up some of my own. They inherited a portion of my intelligence, strength, and even lifespan. If I were to cut off a larger piece of my body they would have inherited a larger portion of those.” Cielo’s composure helped calm Skye down.

Monday - Highland high school

The cafeteria was bustling with the activity of students eating food and chatting in their friend groups. Cielo and Jay were sitting at either end of their table staring at the door waiting for Skye to arrive. Eventually, The door was pushed open with a rather excessive amount of force. It was Skye, Who somehow seemed to be tired and had a lot of pent up energy at the same time. She was Quickly trudging towards the table with her head towards the ground, grumbling all the way. She sat down at the table.

“You were the one asking the Senior year Geometry, Civics, and English teachers about Takeshi, right? How did that go?” Cielo asked. She loudly grumbled before planting her head on the table.

Nobody . . . Nobody named Takeshi in the senior year classes. It makes no sense . . . I knew for a fact that he went to our school.” She deeply sighed.

“What about you Ja-” She let out a shrill shriek

“DID YOU REALLY HAVE TO BRING THAT TO SCHOOL!?!” She asks Jay in the loudest whispering voice I’ve ever heard.

“Please, Admire. It’s already grown an entire arm. I think I can even make out the beginnings of a shoulder.” Jay had “Kay’s” arm floating inside of a gallon sized jug filled with water sitting on the table.

“L-L-look, Whatever, Did you find anything on Takeshi?” Skye asked, Trying her best to ignore the hand.

“No I have not.” Jay instantaneously replied.

“Of course,” Skye mumbled to herself.

“What about you, Cielo?”

“I haven’t either, It’s not all gloomy though, This makes me think it could be one of a few things. One; You were incorrect and he doesn't go to this school, Two; The name Takeshi is an alias to protect him from being caught. Or three; His existence is merely a rumor to cover up for something larger. Either way, we definitely have a large job to fill.”

“This isn’t going to be easy . . .”

Tuesday:

“I love your green hair, It’s so beautiful. Your eye too. The way you look at me with it, You make me think you already have a mind of your own. I can’t believe you’ve outgrown your milk jug so quickly.”