Feeling Fin-tastic
A short story, cuz I can’t post this on twitter :P
Living outside of the orphanage was just as exciting as Nuzin had hoped. She waved all of her room mates goodbye when her new foster father came to pick her up. He was a saint; the orca who’d been visiting her for weeks now during her lunch had taken a liking to the rare species of dolphin.
And the first day she arrived at his home, she didn’t care that it was a just a two bedrom apartment, with one room that was a personal gym, and she didn’t care that he had an odd collection of protein powder in his cabinets. She was too excited to be in a place she could call home, and for hours after Takowa had taken her home,s he didn’t calm down. All she did was run around, asking questions, and bouncing up and down on the couch like a little pet who had the zoomies after a good bath.
When it was finally time for bed, and Takowa pulled out the futon couch, and made her bed with brand new pink princess sheets....
She couldn’t sleep.
Everything was fine; the noise level was normal, with her foster father listening to a pod cast quietly in his room. She knew just from listening, that he was checking on her often; each time the chair groaned he was leaning back to look out into the living room, and occasionally she heard him heave a heavy sigh through his blowhole.
Even feeling as safe and warm as she did, sleep wouldn’t take her away. She stared at the ceiling, suddenly feeling restless, and sad. She couldn’t hear her room mates sleeping, and the apartment was on the second floor; no crickets to chirp her to sleep, no birds settling down for the night.
She checked the clock on the wall above the T.V. after some time, having lost her senses to the dark and the ambience of a strangers apartment, and groaned. Only 11:24!
She was just about to sit up to get herself some water when she heard the chair groan again, followed by heavy but muffled footsteps. “Nuzin? Are you alright?” Takowa asked quietly as he peeked out from his room. “Do you have to use the bathroom?”
“What? No, I’m fine, I just... I can’t sleep! My whole body is wide awake!” she whispered, flopping her arms against her blanket. “I don’t know what to do.”
Takowa shuffled his tail as he thought; he wasn’t sure how to help a restless child. ‘Not sure how to do anything with a child.’
His inner conscious mocked him.
“Do you want to play video games?” he suggested with a shrug. “It’s what I do when I feel restless. Sometimes.”
Nuzin sat up and smiled brightly, and Takowa let out another happy sigh of relief. “That sounds awesome! Do you have Howl of Duty- Cuban Werewolf Trials?”
Takowa blinked in surprise, but nodded and went to sit with her on the pull out bed.
“How do you know what that is? It’s rated M, you can’t be playing that!”
