Paradoxical timeline 2

Roxanne looked at the drenched Ryu, the gray veins, long nails and sharpened fangs as well as the narrow pupils, slimmer than a line.

She looked at him, his eyes looked around, his expression indicated he didn't recognize her. He felt different in her eyes, not the same Ryu but not a different entity either. Just different.

She sat on the grass crisscross, eyeing him carefully while he walked around in confusion.

'He feels more like a blob now, will it be safe to bring him back to the human zone?'

'Well he's freshly out of a risky modification, nothing strange about his behavior...if it don't last for too long.'

"Fruit land!" She shouted, he seemed to look at her direction.

"Big nameless brother! ummm Art history! Stained glass! BREAD!"

The words seemed to stimulate his memories as he rabidly blinked at her.

"Dead body...talking?" He finally spat, confused by her.

"It's me! Your favorite roomie."

He yawned, the exhaustion catching up to him.

At the shabby apartment she laid down his sleeping body on his mattress, covering him with cardigans the aunties and grandmas knitted for him.

Him sleeping on his back was a danger so she laid him on his side and put Mr.garlic behind his back as a wall.

Putting his giant cloud plush near him.

'Can't believe he had a custom made cloudy plush and left it at his brother's.'

Realizing that was all she could do she sat down to translate on the small table.

The trip down memory lane wasn't over yet. He remembered the bamboozled faces of the president and doctor when he ran and climbed a tree first day post surgery.

The pain of the fresh wounds and the adjustment to the ivory didn't stop him from zooming all day in the field like a cat at three in the morning.

He couldn't take movement for granted, not yet at least.

In contrary to how he was indoors. One of the quite children who avoided everyone. At that time the orphanage hosted twenty elderly and almost thirty kids. He sat on his medical cushion reading fruit land comics before dinner.

"It has been a month and he hasn't said any word yet." Aunt Martha worried.

"The speech therapist should come next week, maybe he just doesn't know the languag- never mind." President saw him reading alone. She yawned while filling custody papers for a kid.

Abuela Sofia sat near him, he didn't flinch but when anyone got closer he scooted away like the other person was a bookshelf about to fall on him, even if it was a smaller child.

"Can you read this story to me?" The grandma asked with a warm smile and a safe distance, so he did, a little broken here and there but he did.

"It my turn now, which story you want me to read to you?"

It didn't take long for him to follow her everywhere when he was indoors.

It started with pocking holes in the tres leches cake for Sofia, then mixing the dry ingredients for Martha's bread and sprinkling sesame on buns. The rest is history.

"Are you sure?" Uncle Joseph asked the president, eyeing Ryu who was collecting cut wood pieces and tying them clumsily.

"Yeah, let him hang out with ya."

"But he's still freshly out of hard times..."

"I know.. but you know, in order to heal one has to live."

The zoomies turned into day trips to the small forest. Armed with disinfecting spray and wipes and lectured about infection he went to follow his hunting instinct. Completely erasing his presence while roaming around, catching birds and frogs and letting them go after.

"So Ryu, tell me how you learned Sadi?" The speech asked as the last questions of the test.

"I changed the system language on accident and couldn't change it back for a while."

"I.. see. So as a last question, can you tell me about this picture?"

He looked at the family of three in front of a house with a red roof.

"Three people."

"What else we call them?"

"..Two adults and a child?"

"What else?"

"...Humans?"

The year passed, with the president's effort half of the kids found their family who they separated from or found new families. Some elderly moved too since the orphanage was too far away from everything, the last building in the land of the unwanted gave an isolated feeling at times.

Not even the big three of Grand gran Susie, auntie Martha and Abuela Sofia could convince him to go to school, something about it triggered him.

Though it wasn't as of a big deal as everyone thought. A social worker at the village school took the filled homework and exams.

"Alright kiddo, we're done. See ya next year...Just kidding, I'll be back to discuss if you wanna do fast tract from home."

The schedule of the following years was jam packed. Making he's bed before getting morning head pats, waiting for the bread to bake while getting more head pats. Giving foxy a monthly spa and playing in the forest. As well as being a self proclaimed professional make up artist at the ripe age of 10...before having a career pivot to a nail artist.

The present didn't overwrite the past, but the painful memories got more distance to it than before, like a bird reduced to a moving dot at the horizon.

Grand gran Susie and Abuela Sofia passed away, auntie Martha moved too. Most kids found homes. Foxy grew bigger and learned some tricks.

A see through, young surgeon with no name moved for the summer and Ryu learned the love language of endless roasting.

Doctor soon moved to the city.

At fourteen it was just him and president plus uncle Joseph who would move soon for his daughter's school.

At that year a wealthy business man took interest in the quite location. Before the mansion was finished he and the president were a unit.

The man brought his cousin Lisa too, she was a rude awakening of what it actually meant to live between humans while not being one of them completely.

Her radiation that squished his inside were more bearable than the day a social worker came to president with Sami. The corpses of the past started floating again, in the lake of his memories.

At the end he hopped on the mine cart next to his unofficial brother, looking back before departing to the city.

Maybe love was a safe building, a nagging doctor, a warm grandma and a president who handled the paper work, an annoying brother who left the door open when asked to close it.

Maybe it didn't last, but it was there.

He opened his eyes, noon light lighting the shabby apartment. Plants at the window, two giant plushies and a rock collection. Wooden walls that lived many memories before he came.

"You're finally awake."

He looked at his roommate, translating on the small table like the passage of time took a coffee break.

She stood and came back with a cup of water.

"You must be dehydrated, you slept for four days."