“Nice, Drys,” Notto mutters.
Drystan makes anoofsound as he’s pulled down.
“Next round, Drys gets all the dicks,” Keary says through a yawn. He rolls onto his side and pulls me into his chest.
“It’s going to take me ages to get through gestation,” Drystan whines. “Let me be your pretty pregnant boy!”
I laugh, closing my eyes.
Keary sighs. “Drystan, we just started. Why are you in a hurry?”
“We did not. It’s been like… three months.”
My smile doesn’t leave as I listen to them.
“Please! I want to carry your babies! Little monstrous babies—all different.”
The library around us shudders, its walls shaking.
“He’s fine,” Notto calls. “Just being whiny. No need to get anxious, Poalo.”
We gained more pets since killing the pod that killed my parents. While Keary and Drystan tore apart the monsters in the building, Notto was out back freeing their beastly prisoners. The beasts wandered away, but over the week following, they found their way back to us.
It’s not just Kaida anymore. Now, there’s Poalo, Dexter, Tifany, Meatball, and Tongues. Don’t ask. You don’t want to know how Tongues got his name.
They’re all very protective, like hovering parents watching over their toddling infants, waiting for them to fall into the fire. Especially when one of us sounds distressed.
The first time they witnessed us fucking was… comically frightening since they were convinced that we were somehow torturing each other.
I saw the faces of the monsters that killed my parents. Part of me wishes the one that looked right in my eyes as he walked away hadn’t been dead yet. I’m forever going to wonder why he left me alive.
But a part of me feels settled by knowing that they’re all dead. This particular pod is nothing but a little dent in the numbers of pods out there, but it feels good to know that they’re dead. After all this time, they’refinallydead.
There was no sign of my parents, for which I’m grateful. I might have been a little disappointed at the time, but as we walked through that place, I knew that if I found them alive, they wouldn’t be in any condition to… live. Years have passed. If they’d spent years in the clutches of these villains?
I don’t wish that on them. They were good parents. They were good people.
For the past two months, we’ve wandered around Nyc City looking for my cousins. The colony I’d dropped them off at before following the pod’s trail was gone. No sign of them anywhere.
We’ve found no signs of them being carted off by the pods. The settlement has been disassembled entirely. The land where it had once been looks drab and empty, whispers of life that had been here a hundred years earlier still scarring the land.
The city is huge, though, so we’re still looking. Still asking around. There are millions of places for a small colony to hide. To absorb into another. To break into several smaller units. To move away from Nyc City entirely.
I want to find them, my only remaining family, just to see if they’re alright.
“Please,” Drystan tries again. “The pets all want us to have babies, too. Just ask them. Do you want me to have babies, Tifany?”
A low humming whistle fills the air, and Drystan grins. “See?!”
“You don’t know that’s a yes. She could be telling you to fuck off,” Keary says.
I snort. I’m startled when a loud banging on the door is followed by it swinging open. The resident of the library fills the door. He’s little more than a shadow. A dark wall of black energy.
“Your beasts are using the library as a scratching post,” he growls.
“It really butters your buns that they’re able to get this close, doesn’t it?” Keary asks cheerfully.
The answer isn’t pleasant. I turn my face into Keary’s neck so he doesn’t see me grinning.
