Everglow: Friend From Far Away

20 - Exposed

"Well I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's not something I'm really able to share with many people. It's nice to have someone to enjoy it with," Fischer said as the two of them exited out of the tree line. The house was just up ahead, and both of them were eager to get some sleep. The journey to the River of Lights had taken them into the early morning of the next day and so both of them were quite tired.

"For a race that is supposedly hostile towards things they don't know, you guys sure do know how to make your homes look beautiful," Ko quipped, wrapping the new purple cloak that Fischer had found for her tighter as she tried to fend off the cold air that surrounded them. It was supposed to be a dress up costume, but there weren't exactly a lot of options when it came to finding clothes for a digitigrade alien.

Fischer nodded slightly at her remark, "Yea well, it's one of the few things humans care about other than themselves. We're good at putting ourselves before everything else. Anyway, I'll let you get some sleep, you look like you need it. If you need anything just radio me," he said, referring to the walkie talkie he'd set up in the shed, lest she needed him for anything.

Ko gave him a nod, then a quick hug. The two of them parted, Ko heading for the shed while Fischer moved over towards the front door of the house. He knew his mother would be sound asleep but he still tried to make as little noise as possible. Opening the door, he quickly hopped into the warm air of his house. But before he could close it, he noticed something odd.

The lights were on. He could've sworn he'd turned them off before he took Ko out. Maybe his mother had woken up in the middle of the night to get a drink. It was unlikely, she usually slept like a rock. But even still, it didn't phase him much. Locking the door, he turned and headed for his room.

The door to the hallway was open.

It wasn't out of the ordinary for him to forget to close it. But as he walked into his room, he froze, almost dropping the torch in his hand.

"Hello Fischer."

A girl around his age dressed in a fluffy orange jacket with a grey scarf wrapped around her neck stood in his room. She wore white fingerless gloves on her hands and had long denim jeans on with dark black boots on her feet. On top of her head sat wavy bright red hair that came down to her elbows.

"M-Mira?! What. . . what are you doing here?" he questioned, surprised to see his best friend in his room at one o'clock in the morning.

"I wanted to check up on you. You've been acting really weird lately. Weirder than normal," she stated, folding her arms over her chest.

Fischer stood there with confusion flowing through him. "You wanted to check up on me at. . . one in the morning?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Well I've been worrying about you a lot lately. And I couldn't sleep tonight so I went to your work to try and find you. They said you had the night off so I came here, only to find the door unlocked. You weren't home so I figured I'd wait for you. Where were you anyway?"

"I was just going for a walk. I couldn't really sleep either," he lied, avoiding eye contact with his friend.

"Fischer, cut the bullshit. What's going on? You haven't responded to any of my texts, you said that you were busy with work when we tried to organize a time to hang out but when I asked your co-workers about that, they didn't know anything about you being called in for extra hours. Even when we do get to talk, you seem so much more down than usual. You haven't been yourself lately. You know you can talk with me right? I'm getting really concerned about you man," she worried.

Fischer felt a wave of dread washing over him as she spoke. She didn't know about Ko, but she was getting closer and closer to finding out.

"I just. . . I haven't been great lately. . ."