Twenty minutes later, the announcement of the train's upcoming arrival at the station woke the creature up.

The buzzing sounds of the train station made the creature whose mind was still dizzy curious. It propelled its body up and went to the car’s window; there, it saw the mass of the people rushing in every direction, stomping the smooth marble floors under the riveted metal frame of the roof. The view was far away, too far away for the creature to feel it, but the heat of so much human activity in one place still made its blood boil. Greed for something more made the creature move.

It put its hand on the window, and the bone inside its forearm strengthened before moving back from its usual position, piercing the skin of its elbow. Tension built up in the creature’s arm as the bone kept pushing outwardly, until it stopped moving. The next second, it violently slammed into the window through the palm, breaking the first layer of glass. The creature kept this piston like motion until it weakened the window enough to kick it down.

The window crashed loudly on the station platform and people exiting the train turned back to see what was happening. The creature’s arm turned back to its original shape and the creature jumped off the train. People that witnessed that moment realized that something wasn’t quite right, but meeting the creature’s eyes scared them away. They didn’t want to get involved with this thing, no matter what it was.

With its new face, the creature looked pretty ordinary. Flat as hell, white as porcelain, but forgettable. But its eyes, only its eyes, were striking. Burning emotions behind a deep fake blue, the color of the sea where it’s the deepest, the color of the sky where it’s the thinnest. The creature looked like it wanted to devour the world, but while its eyes were doing all the talk, its face lacked emotion ― like a bad conman trying to make you believe it would be all alright. There was hypocrisy in the way it moved ― with restraint. Light clumsy steps, fragile looking shoulders. The excess body mass on its crotch had disappeared so the creature looked like a cheap trickster pretending to be a confused woman in every way.

But the conductor wouldn’t mistake it for anything else.

From the position she was on the platform, she had seen it all. The window breaking, the creature escaping. And suddenly she had realized how her previous wish may have just come true. Mike might just be very dead, and now they were left with the risk of an unknown creature going berserk in one of the crowdest places of the capital. Even knowing the police were around didn’t relieve the woman’s anxious mood as the plan had always been to wait until all the passengers left the platform before staging the operation. Worse, the description of the creature that they had given them didn’t match up anymore, except for the clothes.

Fuck, why did she let Mike alone with this thing ? She should have known better, she should have ― the woman got startled out of her thoughts by the creature walking her way. The creature was looking straight ahead, seemingly unaware of the woman’s presence; until it passed by her and its line of sight shifted in her direction. The creature side eyed the woman with constricted pupils.

The threat was pretty clear.

Its eyes left her face soon after as it continued on its way, but the woman waited for the creature to be a few meters away before releasing her breath. This thing was nothing like the lost creature they took in. The way it carried itself, that new face of its ― everything was a clear sign of how self possessed the creature was slowly becoming. Like clay drying and taking its final shape, the creature was changing at a rapid pace.

Even if the police had been in place to welcome it out of the car train, she wasn’t so sure it would have been enough.

Be it submissive or aggressive, a creature that felt lost was easier to deal with than a creature that felt it might just be home. In most of the cases, the otherworldly creature’s confusion was working against it as the police seized it up. But if the creature didn’t fear that unknown world it had fallen into, there was not a lot to do; all that was left was a strength contest.

And the creature’s strength was unfathomable.

The creature reached the station hall and stared at the brightly colored ads hanging down the ceiling. Everything felt so new and worth exploring, everything looked like something the creature wanted to get its hands on, even people. Appetite made its throat parched as it followed the crowd, lost in a river of sounds, bodies and breaths. People wouldn’t care about the creature if they didn’t see it doing something out of the ordinary. None of them had the time to meet its eyes, or get startled by the color of its skin. They just moved on parallel planes, sharing the same space but not the same time.

The police were stationed just outside the main hall, on an adjacent street, waiting for people to leave the platform before surrounding the train and getting the creature out. The woman didn’t call them to tell them the creature was already leaving. Some gut feeling told her not to, less the creature came after her to pay this debt. She had hope that, considering the creature’s outfit being quite recognizable, they would see it and catch it before it left the station.

But no matter how recognizable the creature was by the design of its shirt, they weren’t looking for it. The crowd was too dense for them to focus on every passerby, and the creature slipped through their hands easily. It left the station hall by an exit they weren’t guarding, and took a step in the city. It looked up as it breathed lightly.

The sky was high and blue, and the light was beautiful.

The fresh air of the morning hit the creature’s skin and woke its senses up completely. Human activity was present in this city on an unprecedented scale compared to the small town the creature was born in. Streets bustling with activity, cars honking, people talking loudly. Abondance everywhere, misery hiding in the cracks on the concrete and behind overflowing trash bins. Every shade of life fighting each other in the same space, blending, discriminating.

And the creature standing in the middle of it all, bringing its own shade to the table. It took the creature one look to fall in love with the capital, but it would take longer than that for the capital to realize it had been parasited by something a little different.

Anyway, every arrival was worthy of welcome and so, welcome to you.

Welcome to the city of Oqaton.

***

The city of Oqaton was located on the west coast of the country, a little northern from the town the creature was born in, that was called Burðr. It had experienced rapid growth when two centuries ago, it had been one of the major hubs for trade slave before becoming, in the last century, one of the most important harbors of the west coast. The changing times had modernised the city immensely and developed the outskirts who had stayed as fields until then.

The historic center built around the old harbor had stayed the same architecturally, as the country decided to protect the buildings and the marketplace under its laws in order to prevent the city from losing its historic value. However most people living there had left to the outskirts and the historic center was mostly known for tourism and its main shopping street. Beyond the historic center, whose buildings weren’t that high, stood the skyscrapers of the economic giants of the country. They belonged to the first ring surrounding the historic center, which was divided into two boroughs : a financial district, where almost 40% of the population went working, and a district known mostly for its bars and restaurants. The second ring was least polarized but its lack of definition made it in certain areas one of the most dangerous places to be around. Some shops at night wouldn’t be the same as during the day, and newcomers would be warned to stay away from some streets. For the most part, it was still a relatively calm district, if you avoided the wrong neighborhoods, and the place where most of the population who lived in the third ring - which was mostly made of apartment buildings - went for groceries and entertainment.

After the third ring, buildings weren’t built so close to each other anymore, and their height started decreasing. The dense urban fabric slowly thinned out, but didn’t completely disappear as the capital was surrounded by a constellation of small satellite towns that depended on its activity to survive. The fourth ring was the biggest one : it included multiple residential districts, a huge shopping center and the population on the hills. Hills surrounded the city on one side, but the houses built there looked nothing like the ones that made up most of the residential districts. That’s where the city’s richest patrons lived, and it was a neighborhood only they would frequent as it was said it was a place where you could die on a whim. The streets on the hills had security cameras, but the footage never spoke in your favor and neither did the police if they were coming to fish you out of this sharks’ nest. Nonetheless, many in the city held the dream to make it and buy a house on the hills. It was considered like the paragon of success in the capital.

Dreams shared by many, but not shared by all.

The creature didn’t know any of this as it walked down the main shopping street of the historic center. The train station was located close to the old harbor so when the creature got out of the station, it naturally ended up in the historic center among other tourists that were here for the weekend. The creature’s appearance was a bit awkward in the middle of this Saturday morning crowd. It was dressed as a human, sure ― but it reeked of sweat and walked with a weird stance, unable to get used to thongs. People would naturally avoid it when passing by, as the creature ignored them all and stared at the shops’ windows with curiosity.

Colorful food, colorful clothes, colorful stuff going on your face.

There were many things it hadn’t seen before. The creature spent an uncanny amount of time just staring at objects and remembering their use, or counting the digits of the tag prices. Its theoretical knowledge was getting easier to access each time it found in this world a clue of it being valuable. Listening to people’s conversations, the creature tried to produce the same sounds while exploring the street. It knew how to talk, it just needed to do it. The main reason the creature wouldn’t talk is because it didn’t feel compelled to. Everything caught its interest but nothing stood up strongly enough for it to verbalize some kind of thought.

Until that moment.

The creature got attracted to the shop’s window like a moth to light. The shop sold jewelry, and the thing that caught the creature’s eye was an 1.38 carat ruby. It was beautiful, but it was also worth a shit ton of money; the creature had yet to realize it as it stared down at the ring it was encased in like it wanted to eat it. Big widened eyes, hands a little fidgety. The creature’s obsession was surging as dark waves in the depth of its eyes.

That thing was too beautiful not to be its.

Tiffany didn’t really intend to look at the creature. She was keeping an eye on a couple looking at the shop's display and pointing at rings, wondering if they were going to come in, when she saw them starting to whisper between them. It smelled like gossip, and she followed their line of sight out of boredom. That’s when she saw the creature staring at the red stone. The sight made her curious enough to keep looking, and then their gazes met.

A shiver travelled down her spine as soon as those eyes were on her.

There were a lot of dangerous people in the capital and as a pretty woman in her mid-twenties, she had met a fair amount; but this felt like a new level of threat. The creature had done nothing to make her think that, but Tiffany had always considered herself to possess a godly like 6th sense. For example, she didn’t need to wonder if the creature was coming in to meet; she knew it would.

It was just a question of time.

The creature wasn’t really thinking about meeting anyone, but it wanted the ruby so it did enter the shop. Tiffany got rid of a client by redirecting to her manager to be the first in line to serve the creature. Tiffany was a great shop assistant, but she had always been a bit selfish and easily engrossed in things she shouldn’t partake in. Maybe that’s why she had such a keen 6th sense, she had been practicing it.

“How may I help you ?” Tiffany asked while smiling, easily catching the creature’s attention.

The creature blinked and pointed a finger to the position of the ring. Tiffany didn’t take offense from the seemingly condescending gesture and confirmed :

“The ruby ?”

The creature didn’t move, but its eyes were very much holding the answer ― they were fucking shining. Tiffany pursued her lips, trying not to laugh at the creature’s nose. She could feel her manager’s staring holes into her back. She didn’t have to think hard to know what he was thinking right now : no one in thongs should be allowed in, don’t talk to this hobo, don’t entertain it, get the police god damn it, what’s wrong with you child ? But she chose to ignore his stare as well as the other clients’ displeased expressions ― she would do that, a lot. Her fun was first, others were second.

“How much do you have ?”

Tiffany looked at the creature with a polite smile and a little mischief. She didn’t think the other had money on them. She scanned the creature’s body from head to toe, and saw a bill sticking out of its jeans pocket. She was surprised, and a bit pissed off at her assumption being proven wrong, so she asked fakely, “May I ?” before digging her hand straight into the creature’s pocket.

Tiffany counted the bills and suddenly felt better.

The amount was so small it couldn’t count as having money, so she was right in the end, she thought to herself.

The creature’s eyes went to the money Tiffany was holding to her face, trying to guess if it was enough from her expression. Tiffany guessed its intention and told the creature the truth with some kind of pleasure :

“It’s far from enough.”

The creature squinted its eyes. It didn’t like that, it really didn’t. But in contrary to Tiffany’s expectations, it didn’t make a fuss. It just stayed silent, like it was considering its options. After a while, something sounded near Tiffany, a voice soft like feather, light, naturally persuasive. The creature said its very first words in front of the woman, who was unaware of it but not unaware of the power hidden in such a voice.

Tiffany’s eyelids trembled.

“How much ?” asked the creature.

Tiffany took the time to think about it, while feeling like this situation was a little unreal.

“Hmm. You need to take the amount you have, and multiply by 2000, I would say ? The ring’s price is around 25,000P. There’s not a lot of jobs that pay that much.”

The creature stared at Tiffany, while it stored away that piece of information. Need a high paying job. Jobs were also something it knew about, even though it had never worked in its life. The creature nodded to show its understanding, then it turned away to leave. Tiffany saw that and panicked. She grabbed the creature’s arm by reflex. The creature immediately tensed up. It glanced at the woman over its shoulder, its eyes darkening. Tiffany didn’t give the time to the creature to lash out and offered on the spot :

“Do you want to eat lunch together ?”

The creature’s aggressivity cooled down as soon as it realized it had misunderstood the woman’s intentions. Its eyes were empty for a while, as it was caught off guard, but it eventually agreed to it.

“Okay.”

Tiffany didn’t expect the other to say no anyway, because she was an optimist by nature, but she was still happily surprised. Getting the creature’s approval, she added :

“Cool, then meet me here in two hours, we’ll eat together. I know a place cheap enough for you.”

The manager gave Tiffany a bad look, pissed off at the way she was ignoring the shop’s rules when interacting with clients. It was his boutique, not a place to hook up, god dammit. The creature looked at Tiffany, before looking at the hand she was using to hold its arm, and Tiffany naturally let go. Then she said goodbye to the creature as it glanced at her one last time before leaving the shop.

Tiffany rubbed her hands together, feeling giddy.

The manager sent her to the back shop, annoyed by her smile, but Tiffany couldn’t give less of a shit. She thought to herself that there was no way she wasn’t going to make a friend out of this thing.

She was too bored not to.