Surviving the Digital World

Early Mornings

I was woken up from my shallow sleep by a knock at the front door. I had set up camp in the kitchen, where I had fallen asleep on top of the pieces of the Digivice. A bottle of glue was tipped over, and glue leaked out of it. I'll have to clean that. I groaned.

"Ace, you're awake!" Tentomon was sitting in front of me on the table, as if he was keeping watch. "Someone's knocking.. Should you get that?"

I grabbed my phone and checked the time. "Tentomon, it's three in the morning.. Why's someone knocking on the door?"

The knocking resumed. "I don't know, I didn't check!"

I groaned, pushing myself up. I stumbled over to the door and looked through the peephole, expecting it to be some late-night salesperson or something else just as ridiculous.

To my surprise, it was Via. She had Gabumon covered with a sheet, and kept nervously glancing behind her. I opened the door, rubbing my eyes. "Via..? What do you want, it's three in the morning." I mumbled groggily, trying to not fall asleep standing.

Via sighed with relief. "Ace, can Gabumon and I hide here?" she asked earnestly.

I blinked rapidly multiple times, and glanced around outside the house. "Uhm.. Sure, come in." I ushered her inside and closed the door.

"Who was it, Ace?" Tentomon asked quietly from the kitchen. He poked his head around the corner and saw Gabumon, who was pulling the sheet off his head. "Gabumon! Why're you guys here?"

I shushed Tentomon, whose voice was rising steadily. "The others are asleep. Tell me what's up Via." I waved her towards the kitchen.

I plopped onto the seat and resumed working on the broken Digivice. "What's that?" Via asked curiously.

"Black's Digivice. She smashed it." I replied nonchalantly, focusing on fixing it. "I'm fixing it."

Gabumon inhaled sharply. "But, now Biyomon can't evolve!" he exclaimed in a hushed voice. "What was she thinking?"

"She had just gotten wind of the fact that people died during our battle with Raremon." I hated how casually I said that- people had lost their lives, and I was sitting awake at 3:00 AM trying to fix a broken Digivice.

Via was standing there, mouth agape. "You can't be serious!"

I nodded, my expression dark. "Dead." I murmured. "My guess is that Raremon's acidic vomit missed us and the orphanage entirely, hitting the pizzeria instead." I rubbed my eyes, feeling fresh tears stinging my eyes.

Via swayed on her feet, her face almost as unreadable as Black's had been. "That's... I didn't..."

"You didn't consider that we'd cause mass destruction?" I filled in her sentence. "I considered this. Have you seen how big our Digimon can get? AtlurKabuterimon is almost as tall as the biggest building in our city."

Tentomon was silent. I glanced at him and saw he had dozed off. I noticed that Gabumon had also nodded off, swaying on his feet. I smiled slightly, and moved over to Black's coffee maker. "I just- we never killed anyone in the Digital World.."

"That's because the Digital World doesn't have people. Or buildings to destroy. It's full of Digimon who are reborn if they're killed." Via fell silent, and I felt guilty for snapping at her. "Sorry. I've been up for a long time trying to fix Black's Digivice."

"With glue?" I could hear the contempt dripping off of Via's words despite her grief. "You're fixing an alien machine with... Glue?"

I shrugged, watching the coffee fill up a mug. "Biyomon suggested it. If it doesn't work, oh well." Via shuffled out of my way as I trudged back to my spot by the counter. "Anyways, why did you want to hide here? Is something chasing you?"

Via danced on her feet, an expression of grief and anger washing over her face. "My.. my parents." she growled. "They had gone through my stuff when we were fighting Raremon. They-" she broke off, her voice wavering. "They had read my journal. They kicked me out because I'm a lesbian."

My eyes widened. "At three in the morning?"

Via rolled her eyes. "They had stayed up all night reading through it. I've been writing for a long time, Ace." her eyes widened. "They know everything- the girls I've been with, the stuff I've done, my mental health..."

"Hey, hey, hey." I rushed over to her, figuring out how to comfort her. "I'm sure you're better off without them! If they can't accept you for who you are, then screw them!"

Via had her head in her hands. She looked nothing like the strong, brave person I'd come to know. "Hey, you can stay with us as long as you need. I'm sure Noah or Conner or even Jay would keep you safe!"

Via smiled sadly. "I only managed to get a few things before they forced me out. I got my Digivice and my phone, but- well, it's hard to grab a cat when you're in a time crunch. I couldn't get Sol."

I already had a plan forming in my brain. It was risky and very dangerous, but Via needed all the support she could get now. "What if," I started, but stopped. "No, it's stupid."

Via's eyes glimmered. "What? Tell me."

"What if we stole your cat back?" I suggested hesitantly. It was stupid. Via's parents were probably still awake, and they probably had at least some form of securi-

"That's genius!" Via's exclamation cut off my train of thought.

"Shhh, Black and Azalea are asleep." I hissed.

"Azale- never mind. Ace, this will be easy! My parents never installed security anywhere, my room's window can't even close properly! Sol comes to me when I call him, so we could just go up to my window, open it more, and call him!"

I was still hesitant. My movements were clunky and clumsy, and it would make this expedition ten times as hard. "Maybe we do this tomorrow-"

Via shook her head furiously. "He doesn't get fed unless it's me feeding him, and nobody takes care of him. It needs to be right now."

I was conflicted. Via's only a teenager, yet she's fallen off a cliff, almost died numerous times, and had just gotten kicked out of her parent's house. I'm only a year older than her, but I feel like she's so much younger than me.

I sighed. "Ok, fine. We'll go once I finish this coffee." I didn't expect my morning to start this early.. And this dangerously.