Sophie had never seen the streets so busy. Usually their neighborhood was a quiet one–there were occasionally dogs being walked and children playing along the sidewalk, but for the most part, everyone kept indoors. So when there were hoards of bystanders crowding around the police tape, blocking any cars from passing by, Sophie did not see this place as her home.

Sophie had texted Daniel to check to see if he was up, but he hadn't responded, so she went to his front door and his guardian Mila woke him up and explained what happened. Daniel didn't even take the time to change out of his pajamas before the two took their scooters over to the other street.

Sophie leaned her scooter on a tree beside her. Daniel, however, kept his in his grasp, for fear of it getting stolen. But that was the least of Sophie's worries at that point. The ambulance had left before the two woke up, so now it was just a line of police cars on the side of the road, asking pedestrians and–supposedly witnesses–questions. Similarly to Daniel, barely any of them had even changed out of their pajamas.

"It's been hours," said Daniel. "Why are the cops still here?"

"The more people wake up, the more people want to see the spot for themselves. To make sure it's true." It was fucked up, but there they were, anyways.

Daniel shifted from side to side. "Did you know them?"

Sophie shrugged. "Not really. My brother did, and I've seen them around here, but I don't think we ever talked.

"Same." He paused. "It's kind of sad."

She nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. A far-away voice started to become more clear, and Sophie shifted her head towards the sound. A woman was having a discussion with a police officer, only it was more of a one-sided attack than anything. Whatever he had told her must have been really upsetting, because she was yelling at him to the point where he could barely keep his composure. A man, a good few inches shorter than her, stood behind, nodding at every word she said. Then, seated on the curb but still watching the conversation, was a girl Sophie recognized as AJ King.

She appeared to not have slept for days. Her eye bags were purple and thick, stretching down to her cheekbones, and pulling her bottom eyelid with them. Their hair was in a ponytail, but strands seemed to be popping out at every occasion. Their face was much paler than usual, their expression blank, a form of numb derealization.

Sophie didn't want to stare, but she couldn't help it. She had only seen this girl in school settings before. They had shared PE class together–and from what Sophie would tell from her expressions, both shared a disdain for it. They hadn't spoken more than three times, and she knew absolutely nothing about her. But now, she wanted to know everything.

"Does she live here?" Sophie asked Daniel, pointing out the girl on the curb.

"AJ? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. My step-mom knows her mom."

"I've never seen her here."

"I believe she lives on Quint Street." How did Sophie not know someone from her school lived in her neighborhood?

Suddenly, AJ's eyes met Sophie's. She knew she should have turned away, broken gaze, but she couldn't. Something in AJ's eyes reached out to her, like a plea for understanding. Sophie didn't know where she was getting this from–maybe it was the abundance of philosophical classical literature she had been reading–but she wanted to listen. And most of all, she wanted to know what the fuck happened to Cam Calloway.

♣

It was 9AM on a Saturday, and Tessa Hansen's nephew was seated at the kitchen table doing a math assignment. Tessa didn't know many kids that would do their homework on a Saturday morning, but in all honesty, she knew very few kids like Oscar, anyways.

Her nephew had always been eccentric, but it became more clear when she took him into her care. He had this way with people that Tessa had never seen before, and this air of confidence that he carried with him everywhere. She would be lying if he wasn't wildly entertaining to have around the house.

Tessa gathered the paperwork left on the kitchen counter, flipping through and throwing out what wasn't needed. The last sheet in the stack particularly caught her eye. It was a tetanus shot notice, reminding her to "get her child the vaccine if they haven't had it already!"

She turned towards her nephew. "Hey, Oscar, have you gotten your tetanus shot?"

"I don't remember," Oscar replied, not looking up from his homework. "Does it not say?"

Tessa grabbed Oscar's vaccination records from beside the refrigerator, reading down the list. "Nope."

"Well, when do I need to get it by?"

"You get it periodically. It's usually once every ten years, but it depends on when you got it for the first time."

"Oh! Then don't worry about it, Tessa. My mom can figure it out when I go back."

Oscar had been saying that for two years.

Tessa didn't have it in her heart to tell Oscar that that wasn't going to happen. Not only was he still just a kid, but how could you tell anyone that their parents probably weren't ever going to take him back? She wished for so long that her sister and her husband would come to their senses, for them to realize that they were acting childish and cruel for kicking him out, but after Stephanie and Sam dropped Oscar off on her doorstep with merely his records and essentials, then never contacted her again and ignored her except for emergencies, she lost that hope.

Every time Oscar brought up Tessa's sister, she was filled with an unbridled rage that she had to force herself to contain in front of him. Even after everything, her nephew still loved his mom. And that was more than she could say about her sister.

Tessa never planned to have a kid. She never married–only having relationships with men that lasted from one night to one month. And she liked it that way. However, when she was asked to take Oscar in, she did it without hesitation. Sure, she had never seen herself as a legal guardian of a fifteen-year-old boy before, but she had also never seen her sister as the type of person to disown her own son for being gay.

Tessa decided to change the subject. "We have your physical therapy appointment Wednesday. Does that still work?"

"Yeah." Oscar's head shot up and he shifted towards her. "Oh, is it okay if I hang out with my friends this weekend?"

"Todd and Jackson?" Tessa asked.

"No, the ones I hung out with yesterday. Theo and Sawyer? You remember?"

"Um, yeah. Yeah, what day were you thinking?"

"Not sure yet. Sawyer hasn't specified, but we texted last night and he wanted to know if I was available."

Tessa kept a smile from creeping onto her face. "So, this Sawyer boy. Is he-"

"No," Oscar interrupted a little too quickly. "At least... not yet. I would like there to be something, but I don't know if he's exactly... interested."

"I thought you had something with, um, Dewey?"

"Oh, no, we're done."

Tessa raised her eyebrows. "Just like that?"

Oscar nodded, setting down his pencil. "I thought he was out, but he was always hiding. Told me not to tell anyone. Usually I don't mind if a guy is closeted, but he just seemed ashamed. Then he just blocked me and started ignoring me."

Tessa felt her heart sink a little for him. "I'm sorry, Os."

"No, don't be sorry. It happens. Plus, it's been a few weeks. I'm over it."

"Clearly," she said with a wink. Oscar rolled his eyes, but his smile grew. He shushed her, then turned back to work on his assignment.

Tessa began to reorganize Oscar's files that she had set aside. The one main difficulty about taking Oscar in that started to show itself as Tessa went to doctor's appointment after doctor's appointment was that she knew less about Oscar's health conditions than she thought she did. When they asked "how have his multiple sclerosis symptoms developed at home? What differences have you noticed since he was first diagnosed?" she had no idea how to respond. Having only seen Oscar on holidays for the first three years of him using canes and crutches, she had barely any insight on his past daily life, and the doctors wanted a second opinion that wasn't Oscar's. Tessa tried to call her sister, but of course, she never answered, so she explained the situation honestly to the doctors. But that was just the start. She felt like she was memorizing what vaccines and treatments Oscar had gone through in the past for an exam that she had to get a perfect score on. She had cheat sheets, but she wasn't going to bring a filing cabinet to every doctor's visit.

She tried to not be too hard on herself–she knew she was trying her best–and to not show her frustration to Oscar, because having him feel like a burden was the least she wanted.

As she wrapped up one of her piles, she felt a slight buzz in her pocket. She pulled out her phone, reading one of her notifications that was from the local news. She read the headline, immediately clicking to read the full article. She raised a hand to her mouth.

"Oh my God," Tessa breathed. "Oscar, do you know Cameron Calloway?"

"No, why?" answered Oscar, concern showing in his voice.

"They go to your school. They're your age. They were found dead last night."

Oscar's face went white. "What?" Tessa walked over to Oscar's seat, zooming in on the news article. "Holy shit. Where was this?"

"Um, Rushing Oak. It's–"

"That's Daniel and Sophie's neighborhood." Oscar interrupted.

"Who?"

"They're Sawyer and Theo's friends." Oscar put his phone into his pocket, and grabbed his crutches that were leaning against the wall, standing up. "Can you drive me?"

"Whoa, where?"

"I need to make sure they're okay."

"Can't you just text them?"

"I need to see them."

Tessa didn't ask any further questions. She grabbed her keys and hat from beside the coffee maker and slipped on her sandals, the two leaving the house no more than a minute later.

♣

"We could just close up now," Caleb signed. "Nobody's coming."

"Funny," Kal replied.

"Seriously. This is boring." Caleb threw his head back in frustration. "I'd rather the camera lady come back here and ask us how to work her toaster."

"We can make it till Monday. Stay strong."

Caleb Houston-Reid and Kal Wei had less than two more days of work, then they got to enjoy their one day off. Since the two didn't have school to occupy their time–they decided taking a gap year was the best choice for both of them–and they were living on their own in a one bedroom apartment together that had bills to pay, they needed full time jobs. They had the advantage of being close to the manager, Joshua, before applying, since they always had a fondness for the store growing up, and the advantage of not having any competitor applicants when the two applied for the jobs. Hen's Antiques didn't have enough customers for Joshua to bother hiring many more people, but there were a few others that showed up during the weekdays. However, they came and went, only really showing up when the two couldn't work. Lucky for Joshua, Kal and Caleb had a spotless attendance record in high school.

Caleb threw a baseball up into the air and leaned to catch it, almost falling backwards in his seat. Kal saw him out of the corner of his eye, but his eyes were fixated on the jar in front of him, including the slug that sat in the middle of it.

Kal had no idea how that thing got back in there, but he wasn't throwing out the idea that he could be going crazy. It just made absolutely no sense that, after escaping, a creature would crawl back into its cage–and then somehow secure the cap again.

Yeah, he was going crazy.

As Kal stared at the slug, he saw a blurry Caleb in his peripheral vision waving his hands. He looked up. "Maybe you lost that jar and saw an empty one earlier so you thought it escaped?" asked Caleb.

Kal shook his head. "It had the cap on and the tip label. It was the same container."

Caleb blew air into his cheeks in thought. "That makes no sense."

"Exactly."

What made it even weirder was that Kal was pretty sure that the slug grew a few inches since he last saw it. That could just be his paranoia, but at that point, he wasn't sure.

"Maybe Daniel and Sawyer genetically engineered it?" Caleb suggested. "They're really into weird things."

"Why would Sawyer ask me to check it out then?"

"Well, maybe this is all for Daniel's project? Like, a documentary about weird alien things? He does really like sci-fi..."

"That's a stretch."

"Okay, then, what do you think, Kal?"

Kal lowered his hands and looked back down, while Caleb nodded and folded his arms. Kal rolled his eyes. The slug had made its way to crawling all the way to the cap, and Kal had to shake it to get it to fall down so that the dollar didn't bend into the cup. He really had to get a real lid for that thing.

Kal felt the ground shake as Caleb's baseball hit the wooden floor. He didn't know what he was looking for as he kept his eyes on the slug. Maybe he was just looking for... anything to happen. For it to suddenly show Kal its secrets, how the hell it managed to escape without a trace. It had to do, well, something.

"You're obsessed," Kal made out from what he saw out of his peripheral vision.

"I am not," he responded without taking his eyes off of the jar.

"Look at me." When Kal did not say anything back, Caleb walked over to him and pulled his chin upwards to face him. "Leave it alone. We can sweep and close up shop."

"We have an hour left."

"This floor is nasty."

Kal sighed. Caleb held out his hand, and he took it, pulled onto his feet quicker than he would have liked. He let go and signed, "Strong jock arms never go away."

Caleb smirked, shaking their head. "No. You're stuck with these cannons forever." They flexed their biceps.

Kal rolled his eyes. "Stop talking like a straight guy."

Caleb raised his eyebrows, mouth dropping open. "Is my jock-ness too straight for you?"

"No, that's hot. It's the fact that you used the word 'cannons.'"

Caleb punched Kal's shoulder. He headed back to his seat, and before Kal could process what was happening, a small, beaten-up ball was headed straight in his direction. He threw himself out of the way, and he felt the remnants of glass shards hit his forearm.

Kal threw himself backwards, heart stopped. The jar was in pieces on the table, spread not only across the surface but fallen onto the ground as well. A baseball was sitting comfortably on top of the frozen slug. "Caleb! What the fuck?!"

If Kal was freaking out, Caleb was absolutely losing his mind. He put his hands to his mouth, chest compressing and expanding rapidly. "I was just trying to throw it to you! Like, to flirt or something?"

"How is that flirting?!"

"I don't know, okay?! Oh God, is it dead?!"

"It doesn't die!"

Caleb's expression of panic mixed with confusion. "What?"

"It can't die! That's why I keep it here!"

Caleb ran his hand through his short, curly hair. "Wow, I thought it was just the weird colors."

"I mean... that too."

"So where do we put it?"

"Do we have another container back there?"

"We have everything here." Right before Caleb was able to sprint all the way to the back of the store, Kal moved his gaze back to the table. His hands began to tremble.

"Wait!" he yelled, voicing to get Caleb's attention. He felt the vibrations of Caleb's feet against the ground get closer to him. Before he had to even say anything, he felt Caleb's breath against him, and what was once a quick, shallow tempo immediately slowed to one long exhale. Caleb tapped his shoulder, and the two met with equally concerned faces.

"Where is it?" Kal didn't respond. "Aren't slugs supposed to be slow?" Kal still did not respond. In full honesty, he did not know what a slug was anymore.

The two leaned down to get a look under the table, disappointed but also not surprised when they found nothing but glass and dust. With every failed attempt to locate the creature, they felt their hope dwindle, and their fear elevate.

They had never been ones to describe themselves as having a fear of bugs, but a slug wasn't a bug. And nobody describes themselves as being afraid of slugs.

They turned the entire room upside down before meeting in the center once again. "It disappeared," Caleb continued.

"Told you."

Almost on cue, Caleb's face went pale, and he pointed to something behind Kal's head. Kal turned around slowly, and his hands shook even more.

In front of the boys was their missing mollusk, but instead of being about the size of two of Caleb's thumbs, it was the size of Caleb. The greens resembled throw up more than ever, and the red had Kal starting to believe that it was blood after all. Its eyes were longer than a clothing hanger, the pupils about the size of a human eye. It faced the two head on, practically burning holes through their foreheads.

It didn't move, and neither did Kal and Caleb.