by L.G. Keltner
L.G. Keltner fell in love with reading and decided at the age of six she wanted to be a science fiction writer. She holds a bachelor’s degree in writing from Drake University. L.G. lives in Iowa with her husband and three children. When not writing, she enjoys amateur astronomy and playing trivia games.
There’s no sound in space. That’s what the textbooks say.
There’s far too much sound on a space station.
I sat on a hard bench on the edge of the Pryvale Station food court, my slender fingers curled so tightly that my fingernails dug into my palms. The buzz of hundreds of people talking filled my head. The clattering of trays and silverware made me grind my teeth. Each sound competed for my attention, causing my head to ache.
I caught sight of a familiar tuft of shaggy blond hair off to my left side. My body tensed. Don’t let it be him, I thought as I closed my eyes. If only ridding myself of the image would make him go away.
“Hey! Ear-ina! What are you doing here?”
I shuddered. Of course it’s him. Where else would Raffee Fletcher be?
Raffee had a habit of appearing whenever I least felt like seeing him. It didn’t help that I never felt like seeing him. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at his sneering face. That didn’t solve the problem of hearing him, though.
“Ear-ina! Should you even be here by yourself? Why aren’t you with your mommy?”
I could have argued with him, reminded him for the thousandth time that my name is Arina and that his name-calling is childish. Unfortunately, experience had taught me how pointless that would be. Instead, with a small smirk, I reached behind the shell of my right ear and flicked the small silver switch hidden there. Silence washed over me, and the tension bled from my muscles. The noisy world faded into the background. The faint vibrations of the floor beneath my feet were the only sign that I wasn’t alone.
I bet Raffee’s getting mad now. He doesn’t like it when people ignore him. I imagined what he must look like waving his arms and yelling, his face turning bright red as he grew angrier.
Minutes passed, and when I opened my eyes again, Raffee was gone. I stood and began the long walk back to my family’s quarters, leaving my ears off so I could give my aching head a break. I don’t care how well my modified ears work. None of that matters when my head hurts too much to make sense of it.
Adults passed me in the corridor, their mouths moving silently as they chatted with one another. Sometimes I liked to make crazy guesses about the hilarious things they might be saying, though I wasn’t feeling up to it at the moment. None of them gave me more than a passing glance, and I liked it that way. I was twelve years old, after all. Other kids my age didn’t need anyone older escorting them around the station during normal operational hours. (You can’t really call it daytime when there’s no sunlight.)
I made it all the way home. The dull gray door slid closed behind me as I made my way over to the computer panel in the kitchen. “Arina Grey, ID number 6143726. One dose of my medicine, please.” I couldn’t hear my own voice, but my mouth had formed those words so many times that I didn’t have to think twice about it.
Two cups dropped from the dispenser. One contained water, the other two little blue pills. I took the pills and went straight to my bedroom. Though it was the middle of the afternoon, I needed a nap. I collapsed on the bed without turning my ears back on.
“Arina!”
The voice jarred me from my sleep, and I bolted upright. Flynn jumped back to avoid a collision. Holding a hand over my racing heart, I took a deep breath. “You scared me!”
Flynn’s my older brother and all-around pain in the neck. At fourteen, he stands more than a head taller than me. He also seems to think he knows everything. “You scared me first,” he said in a stern voice, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You were supposed to wait for me to pick you up from class.”
“You were late.”
He sighed. “You knew I was going to be a little late. I had to finish my exam.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, too, but I did it defiantly. “Other kids in my class don’t have to wait to be picked up. Why should I have to?”
“It’s different for you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why doesn’t anyone think I can do something as simple as walk home by myself?”
Flynn sat on the edge of the bed. “That isn’t the problem. Mom’s just worried because so many people give you a hard time. She doesn’t want someone to hurt you.”
“I can take care of myself. You and Mom don’t need to do everything for me,” I muttered. I paused and remembered my silent walk home, as well as the fact that I’d gone to sleep blissfully unaware of the sounds around me. Anger simmered in my gut as I realized Flynn must have turned my ears back on while I slept. My hand flew back to cover the silver switch. “Hey! I had my ears off for a reason!”
“I’m sorry, but I was having trouble waking you up!”
I raised an eyebrow. “I needed the sleep. I had a headache.”
Flynn’s brown eyes were suddenly sympathetic. “Where did you go?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. He’d found me in that food court plenty of times before. Each time had earned me a mixture of irritation and pity. This was worse than the headaches.
“Why do you go there?” he asked. “You know the noise bothers you.”
It always had, and I feared it always would. I was born deaf, and the implants that made it possible for me to hear were sensitive. Too sensitive. I went from being unable to hear anything to being able to hear everything. It overwhelmed me easily. Doctors hoped the headaches would improve over time, but they hadn’t yet. “It’s nice to feel normal,” I whispered as I stared at my shoes. If Mom were there, she’d lecture me for not taking them off before going to bed.
Flynn didn’t say anything right away. When he finally did speak, his voice was quiet. “I understand that, but I don’t like watching you hurt yourself. Is it really worth the pain?”
Flynn couldn’t truly understand what it was like, but I didn’t say that. I also didn’t answer his question. “I have some homework to do. Maybe you should go.”
He hesitated for a moment before pushing himself off the bed. “Okay. We can talk more about this later.”
After he’d gone, I lay back down with my hands behind my head. I didn’t doubt Flynn would be bringing this up again, but I didn’t want to discuss it. What was the point? What was so wrong with wanting to be normal for a little while?
Thanks to my midafternoon nap, I was wide awake well past my bedtime. At least my headache was gone. I listened to the faint sounds of the station’s oxygen recyclers and the less faint sound of Flynn snoring in the next room, hoping that they would help lull me into sleep.
It was past midnight when an unfamiliar sound started.
Tap tap tap. Clink. Tap tap. Clink clink.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows and listened. This was nothing like the rhythmic, predictable sounds I typically heard in the dark. This wasn’t machinery running like clockwork. What could it be?
Clink clink clink clink. Tap tap. Clink. Tap tap tap.
If any of my classmates heard something like this, they’d probably make a monster story out of it. That’s what Flynn and his friends liked to do.
Believing in monsters was difficult on a space station. Aliens of various colors and shapes passed through all the time. Many of them looked entirely different than the humans onboard, and they stood beneath the bright lights where everyone could see them. They weren’t hiding in the shadows, so they didn’t seem that scary.
This didn’t stop kids from telling monster stories. They told them for fun. They told them to scare their friends. Sitting in dark rooms, they could almost convince each other that monsters were real.
I remembered a story that left Flynn sleepless for days, though he’d never admit it. Flynn’s friend Connor had been sleeping over, and though I was in my own room, my sensitive ears picked up the tale through the wall.
“Did you ever wonder why Sanctuary Station was abandoned?” Connor asked.
“Not really,” Flynn replied. “I assumed it got old.”
Connor chuckled. “Nope. Age had nothing to do with it. They shut it down because people were vanishing, and no one knew where they were going. It started with only a few the first day, but within a week, more than fifty people were gone. A monster lived on that space station, you see. The monster stayed in the dark, hidden from sight.” Connor’s tone had turned menacing. “No one could see it, but that wasn’t what made it so dangerous. This monster moved so quietly that no one could ever hear it coming. People were snatched in their sleep, or taken when they got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Imagine it. You’re lying down, just about to drift off, and all of the sudden, a clawed hand digs into your shoulder and rips you from your bed.”
“That’s not real,” Flynn had said, though his voice trembled slightly.
“How do you know? People go missing all the time, and we don’t always find out why.”
“If a monster can’t be seen or heard, how do you know that’s what happened?” Flynn demanded.
“How do you know it’s not?” Connor asked gleefully. “Every once in a while, someone escapes and tells the story. One guy managed to get away, and though people thought he might be crazy when he told them what happened, the decision was made to close Sanctuary Station and abandon it. Too many people were falling victim to take the risk.”
Though I had no reason to believe in the monster from Connor’s story, I understood how some people could be frightened by it. Most people feared anything that could catch them off guard. The story simply didn’t frighten me the way it did others. That surely meant a few unexplained sounds in the middle of the night shouldn’t scare me. Right?
“It’s not a monster,” I whispered to the dark. “It can’t be a monster. Monsters don’t exist.”
I considered turning my ears off but decided against it. I wanted to be able to hear the sound in case anything changed. That didn’t mean I was scared, though.
The racket continued for a good while longer. When it finally subsided, I caught a little bit of sleep.
I went to breakfast the following morning, my mind abuzz with the possibilities. What had I heard? I needed to share my experience with someone. Maybe I should have been prepared for the reaction I received when I told my mother. I’d dismissed my fair share of creepy stories over the years, but it still stung when my mom did it to me.
“I’m sorry, honey, but that sounds a bit crazy.”
I glared up at her over my cereal. “How is it crazy?”
I watched as my mom sat across from me at the kitchen table and folded her hands together. “Sweetheart, you’re telling me that you heard a monster while you were sleeping last night.”
“No. I said I heard something that sounded the way a monster might sound while I was trying to sleep last night. There’s a difference.”
“So, you’re saying it sounded like a monster, but it isn’t a monster.” Her face twisted with disbelief. “What do you think it was?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. If I did, I would have told you.”
Mom sighed. “Arina, what do you expect me to do?”
“Those sounds weren’t normal. I know that. I think we should tell someone, because something has to be wrong.”
Potential problems need to be addressed on a space station. Too many lives depend on everything running smoothly. That didn’t change the fact that my mother wasn’t taking my concerns seriously. “Honey, there are a lot of people working to make sure that everything functions the way it’s supposed to. If there are any major problems, someone’s likely trying to fix it right now. There’s no sense in worrying about it.”
“What if no one knows?” I asked.
“Pryvale Station has sensors and diagnostic systems to keep us safe. If something is wrong, we’ll find out quickly. You just need to get ready for school.”
As the head of communications, Mom worked with a lot of the station’s senior staff. She could inquire about almost anything that affected the station, including safety issues. Though I felt hesitant to ask, I still had to try. “Could you ask if anything strange has been going on?”
Mom looked hesitant too, but she nodded. “Fine. I will.”
Flynn walked me to school. I tried to keep as much distance between us as I could, but Flynn would only let me get away with so much. Most of the journey passed in silence, though he kept glancing over at me and biting his lower lip. He wanted to say something.
The station’s school resided about as far from our quarters as possible. The corridors there had dull blue carpet and the walls were painted white. Students bumped shoulders as they passed each other. I cringed when a couple of the students bumped into me more roughly than they did others. Flynn shot each of them a glare in return.
This crowded hallway also happened to be where my brother finally found the words he’d been dying to say this whole time. “I heard what you were telling Mom.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about this where other kids might overhear us. “I know you did. You were hiding just around the corner. I heard your breathing.”
He didn’t look surprised. “You know monsters aren’t real, right?”
It’s funny how people can hear something without really listening. “I never said there were monsters.” I looked around, searching for signs that anyone might have overheard.
“No, but you’re imagining that there’s something dangerous happening when it’s not, and that isn’t so different. We all get scared sometimes. We let our imaginations get the best of us. Part of growing up is learning to deal with that.” Flynn spoke as if he weren’t only two years older than me.
If not for the possibility a teacher might see us, I probably would have slugged him in the arm. I couldn’t stop the acid that crept into my voice. “Learning to stand up for yourself is also part of growing up. I don’t need you trying to convince me this is all in my head.”
Relief washed over me when we reached my classroom. This was where we went our separate ways. Flynn caught me by the arm before I could duck inside. “Hey, I’m only watching out for you. That’s what big brothers do. Please don’t be mad at me for that.”
I sighed. “I get that, and I’m not mad that you want to help me. I only wish you’d take me seriously.” Then I shook off his hand and went to take my seat.
Any hopes I might’ve had that Mom would discover something were dashed that night when she came home after her shift. “I asked around, Arina. Everything’s normal. There aren’t any odd malfunctions, and according to bio scans, there’s nothing strange to report.”
Maybe I should have accepted that and moved on, but I couldn’t. I spent the rest of the evening trying, and failing, to think of other reasons why the scans didn’t come up with anything. I went to bed more frustrated than ever, but still hopeful.
My covers formed a cocoon around me as I stared at my bedroom ceiling, my ears on high alert. I didn’t think I’d get much rest despite my exhaustion. The comments from Flynn and my mother kept playing through my mind.
“I’m not imagining things,” I told myself for what was probably the hundredth time that day. “I know what I heard was real.”
I waited. For the first hour, I was almost certain it was only a matter of time before the mysterious noises started up again. The distant and measured sounds of machinery were all that met my ears.
During the second hour, I felt slightly less confident, but I kept listening nonetheless. The steady rhythm of the air recyclers threatened to lull me into sleep, but I resisted. I had to stay awake.
I’ll hear the sounds soon, and when I do, I’ll know for sure that this is real. This was what I told myself, though I honestly didn’t know what I’d do after that.
Sometime after the fourth hour, I fell asleep without having heard anything out of the ordinary.
When I woke the following morning, I spent ten long minutes in bed straining to hear anything unusual. All I got were the telltale sounds of Mom making breakfast and Flynn shuffling to the bathroom with a groan.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real,” I told myself, though I doubted my words.
The next couple of days were uneventful. I kept my ears on all the time, which led to more headaches. I wasn’t the best of company, but I was on a mission. No matter where I went, I paid attention to everything going on around me. Among disagreements between friends, parents reprimanding children, and the hurried footsteps of people running late, I found no sign of what I’d heard that night.
What if everyone else was right? What if my imagination had gotten the better of me?
I’d nearly lost all hope of figuring it out when, while on my way to buy a new pair of shoes with my mom, I accidentally overheard a conversation outside one of the station’s restaurants.
“What do you mean? How could an animal have gotten into the pantry?”
This question snagged my attention, and I quickly spotted the man who asked it. The dull gray color of his uniform identified him as a security guard.
The second man was tall, slender, and bald. Almost like a Q-tip. He gestured wildly with his hands as he spoke. “I don’t know, but it had to be an animal of some kind. The mess I found . . . bags and boxes were torn open. Shredded. A person wouldn’t have done that.”
The security guard shrugged. “Sometimes kids will go out of their way to destroy things for the fun of it. Maybe that’s what happened.”
“No. I don’t think so.” The bald man sighed. “Whoever or whatever it was, I need you to find out. I lost a lot of money because of this. I can’t afford to lose anything else.”
Then my mother and I had traveled too far, and the remaining conversation was swallowed by the buzz of the lunch crowd. While Mom chatted about things she wanted to buy, my thoughts remained with what happened at the restaurant.
An animal? What kind of animal could be lurking at night on a space station? How did it get here? Where did it come from? Why hadn’t anyone seen it yet?
Though I didn’t have an answer yet to any of these questions, I felt certain about one thing. I wasn’t crazy. I had heard something that night, and I felt more determined than ever to find out what it was.
The next day, I barely paid attention to what my teacher was saying. She was talking about the first Martian settlers and the hardships they’d faced during their first year. I recall that much, but anything beyond that was lost on me. My eyes wandered the room, my fingers drumming quietly against the desktop as my thoughts roamed free.
The classroom had the same white walls and blue carpet the corridor did. Motivational posters about trying your best and the benefits of learning adorned the space. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to them, but one captured my attention. It showed a little girl with dark skin and big brown eyes wearing a lab coat and standing in front of a microscope. At the top of the poster, bold green text proclaimed, “Don’t wait! Investigate!”
Investigate. That’s what I needed to do. If I found enough evidence, someone would believe me.
After Mom and Flynn fell asleep, I slipped out of bed and began to prepare. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d need, though. I’d never planned a voyage like this before. How often does one get the chance to pursue a mysterious creature through a sleeping space station? It wasn’t as if I could ask anyone for advice, either. This mission had to remain secret, otherwise someone would stop me.
Thanks to knowledge gained from books and movies, I dressed in the darkest clothes I owned. Then I pinned my long brown hair to my head and covered it with a black fedora. Yes, situations like these usually had people wearing black stocking hats, but I didn’t have one of those. Having lived on a space station my whole life, I’d never had to deal with the winter weather they were typically used for.
I snagged a flashlight from my desk drawer. It was small, purple, and strapped to my wrist. Finally, I slipped my flat, rectangular holo imager into my pocket. If I did manage to find something, I wanted to get a picture of it.
Hoping I wouldn’t need anything else, I tiptoed through our darkened quarters and out the door.
The station had a different feel to it at night. The common areas, typically crowded with people, were empty. There were plenty of background noises, but they stayed at a comfortable level. My ears weren’t on the verge of overwhelming me. If I didn’t have a curfew, I might have made a habit of taking midnight walks.
I roamed the corridors on tiptoes, ready to duck into the shadows if a security guard happened upon me. I’d been out for more than an hour when I finally heard it.
Tap tap. Clink. Rattle rattle. Thump.
The sounds originated from my left side. Maintenance crawlspaces and tunnels snaked throughout the entire station. One of those had to run behind that wall. I needed to find a point of entry. That proved to be tricky since we were near a cluster of restaurants and shops. Any doors leading to these tunnels were bound to be well hidden.
I eventually found what I was looking for concealed behind a large fake fern surrounded by benches. The door was narrow but tall enough to easily admit most human adults.
Clink. Tap. Clink clink. Thump. Rattle rattle. Bang.
The flashlight beam wavered as I reached for the door, the metal cool against my fingertips. I started to pull it open.
“What are you doing, Ear-ina?”
I froze in place, silently scolding myself for not paying enough attention to my surroundings. I should have heard him coming, but I’d been too focused on everything else to notice.
Clink clink. Rattle. Tap tap tap.
Annoyed by the interruption, I spun around and pressed a finger to my lips. My unwelcome visitor stood with his hand resting on the back of the nearest bench. “Shhh! I’m busy. You need to go away.”
Raffee’s jaw dropped. Of course he was shocked. I’d never yelled at him before. “What? You can’t tell me what to do!”
I ground my teeth in frustration. “I know you enjoy trying to make my life miserable, but could you please let it go this one time? I have something important to do.”
He snorted. “What could you possibly have to do at this time of night? You shouldn’t be out here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Neither should you. If you give me a hard time, I’ll turn you in for violating curfew.”
“If you do that, everyone will know you violated curfew, too,” Raffee said.
Hmm. I should have thought about that before I spoke. Now I look stupid. Good job, Arina. “Getting in trouble might be worth it to get you to go away.” Though he was still watching me, I knew I had to get moving. I didn’t have a lot of time before I’d lose track of the sounds. They were steadily receding.
“Seriously, what are you doing?” The nasty edge had dropped from his tone. Now he only sounded curious.
“There’s something in there, Raffee. I can hear it. I want to find out what it is.”
He started to open his mouth, and I guessed he was about to say something mean again.
I held my hand up and cut him off. “I don’t want to listen to whatever it is you have to say. You’re only wasting my time, and none of your friends are around to laugh along with you anyway.” Before he had a chance to respond to what I’d said, I stepped into the tunnel.
The flashlight beam bounced off the dingy walls. Beyond that I couldn’t see much, though the noises were a bit louder now, echoing slightly in the enclosed space.
Rattle rattle rattle. Scrape. Bang bang. Rattle.
“Hey! Wait up!” Raffee called out in a hushed tone as he hurried to catch up to me.
“Why should I?” I asked without stopping or looking back at him.
“Maybe I can help? What do you think we’re looking for?”
Curiosity is a powerful force. He’d never want to team up with me under normal circumstances, but away from watchful eyes and in the presence of a mystery, he’d changed his mind.
I sighed. I didn’t feel like arguing with him, and I certainly wasn’t turning back and going home. “An animal of some kind, I think.” I quickly explained everything that led to me lurking around the station in the middle of the night. He listened with great interest, and by the time I’d finished, his face glowed with excitement.
That look disappeared when I asked him what brought him out past curfew.
“My parents were fighting,” Raffee said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.”
Those words hit me hard. I didn’t know what to say. Though I was tempted to ask if this happened often, I didn’t. Instead I said, “I bet you didn’t expect to end up on an adventure like this, did you?”
That made him grin a little. “No, I didn’t.”
The louder the sounds became, the quieter Raffee and I tried to be. We didn’t want to let whatever it was know that we were closing in on its position.
Rattle rattle. Bang. Scrape scrape scrape. Rattle. Bang. BANG.
I jumped a little. We were close. My heart began to race, and my palms were sweating. I wiped my hands on my pants and pulled my holo imager out of my pocket. I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity if I could help it.
Raffee laid a hand on my shoulder. “Look,” he whispered, pointing to the side.
A vent opened into the right wall of the tunnel. The grate, which normally would have covered the opening, had been knocked to the side. A trail of crumbs littered the ground right in front of it. My shoes crunched over them as I walked. “It’s been bringing food in here,” I said. “I wonder where it sleeps. Or if it sleeps.”
“What do you mean?” Raffee asked.
I shrugged. “We could be dealing with anything. What if it’s something no one has ever seen before? Isn’t this exciting?”
BANG! RATTLE RATTLE! THUMP! SCRAPE! BANG BANG!
I was a little bit nervous, but I wasn’t about to tell Raffee that, even though he was shivering despite the warm temperature of the passageway.
Given how near we were getting to the sounds, I shouldn’t have been surprised when we saw it. The maintenance tunnel intersected with another tunnel, and the trail of crumbs snaked around the corner. We followed and almost smacked right into it. I halted in my tracks, and Raffee bumped into me, nearly sending me sprawling. I barely kept hold of my holo imager.
I counted seven large eyes that glowed red, though countless smaller things that also looked like eyes surrounded them. I squinted and saw that those eyes were set atop a flat head. The creature had a pudgy gray body and six legs. Its mouth opened, revealing rows of flat teeth.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKK!
Normally I would have switched my ears off when assailed by such a loud noise. Pain bloomed inside my skull, but instead of trying to stop it, I held out my holo imager and snapped a picture.
A second later, the creature turned and bolted, its legs carrying it away from us far faster than I would have guessed they could. Before I thought to take off after it, it disappeared into the shadows.
Raffee, whose jaw had dropped open in shock, looked over at me. “Did you get the picture?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know. Let’s see.” I pressed the display button.
A moment later, an image hovered in the air. It wasn’t perfect. A large portion of the body was cast in shadow. The eyes, however, showed clearly, as did most of the head. It might be enough to convince someone I wasn’t imagining things.
“It’s the best we can do,” I said. “Let’s get out of here so I can show this to someone.”
Raffee cast me an anxious glance, but he didn’t say anything during our walk back. It wasn’t until we stepped out of the tunnel that he spoke again.
“My parents would be really mad if they knew I was here.” Raffee’s voice was pleading.
“Okay. You go back. I won’t tell anyone you were a part of this.” I didn’t need to cover for him, but oddly enough, I wanted to.
His shoulders sagged with relief. “Thanks, Arina.” Then he turned and ran.
The security guard I flagged down didn’t look pleased to see me, and it took a long minute to convince him to look at my holo imager. When he finally saw the proof, though, he immediately got his boss out of bed to see it.
It took a team of security guards and one of the station’s resident biologists to capture the creature. They managed to bring it in without harming it. Now they were studying it. No one had ever seen anything like it before, which explained why normal bio scans missed it. According to Mom, the station’s scientists were giddy over the discovery. She tried to tell me everything she could about their findings.
“It’s nocturnal. That’s why no one saw it before. Bright lights hurt its eyes,” she told me one day.
“It’s cold-blooded, so heat scans couldn’t find it,” she told me the next day. “That’s probably why it was able to stow away on whatever ship brought it here.”
I think she shared this information because she felt bad for not believing me.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t get a lecture about sneaking out at night, of course. I listened to the list of bad things my mom feared could have happened to me, but she didn’t seem as worried as she had in the past. Maybe I’d managed to prove myself to her, at least a little bit.
This conclusion seemed even more likely when Captain Ovid stopped by our quarters to see me. Captain Ovid oversaw the station. He had dark skin and dark eyes, and he was the exact same height as me. When my mom offered him a seat he shook his head. “I can’t stay long. I just wanted to have a quick talk with your daughter.”
I stood there, shaking from nerves as I waited for him to say what he came to say. I didn’t want to get in trouble, and I knew I still could.
Captain Ovid smiled. “Arina, we’re all grateful. You technically shouldn’t have been out past curfew, but you might have saved the station from countless problems. The creature could have done untold damage if it ever got into any vital systems.”
I shrugged, though the grin on my face was anything but casual. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Listen, if you ever hear anything else, just let me know. I’ll take your concerns seriously.”
That comment had me smiling for the rest of the day.
Raffee also stopped making fun of me, and interestingly enough, so did his friends. That isn’t to say that Raffee and I became best friends after that. We didn’t. We do catch each other’s eye occasionally, though, and I know we’re both thinking about the adventure we shared. There are some things you never forget.