In the midst of war, a lone protogen sets out to survive rather than thrive, after his ship crashes on earth. Will he make it back to a home he never had?
Disclaimer: this is a fictional work. Correlation between real world events and this story's c...
Music, as it turned out, was wonderful. Some of it was a bit odd, granted, but something about it made the world more vivid. Sometimes it was as if he was seeing a new color for the very first time. Sometimes it drifted him into states of mind that were unfamiliar, but in some moments, it just felt... right.
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He peered over at Mateo's little red speaker that sat on the freshly shined corner of the checkout counter. The sun streamed serenely through the dusty windows, (of course they were only dirty on the outside; he had scrubbed them). He craned to look over his shoulder at his shadow. His umbra stretched long and slender, but the shape of a tail and four pointy ears betrayed him. Nobody would notice though—at least nobody had... He caught himself mid realization that he too was surprised to see his own shape.
/][ FREQUENCY EMULATE << FM 80.7>> ][\
/][ BLUTOOTH CONNECT << MINISPC2 >>][\
To his delight, a new song he had never heard began to play softly as he worked. Two displays of canned meat remained untouched, and then his tasks would be done.
It had been days since he had volunteered to work for Roseanne—a week of awkwardly avoiding things and people—anything that would have given away his disguise. At every point, Mateo had been his saving grace. When the store needed to be swept, Mateo showed him to the mop and broom. When they had too many customers, Mateo had shown him how to work the register. And when he tried to compliment a customer with a line he had heard from a song, Mateo was there to diffuse the situation...
In hindsight, maybe "you're a little bit funny" from "your song" by Elton John hadn't been his best choice of words... although he hadn't known that THEN.
That was yesterday though, and today was today. The protogen stood back to admire his work. Today had been nothing but matching bar codes with items and listening to the radio. He was doing rather well. The flaps of the doors shuffled behind him as Mateo stepped into the shop with a yawn.
"Dangg, you're up early" he announced mid stretch. The protogen turned back to his shelf of canned meat, but he could feel two of his ears perk at the sudden silence from Mateo.
"Ragu... how long have you been up?"
The protogen paused, thinking. Why did he suddenly feel like he had done something wrong?
"Since the beginning of the morning" he said as slowly and innocently as possible.
"So like... 6?"
The protogen shook his head. "More like... 1?"
Mateo sighed. There it was again. He knew that sighhhh—the one that meant "I'm not even going to ask."
"Well, the store looks... great." This was new. Usually his misadventures didn't end in a compliment.
