Kaja Lando February 21st,20XX

I woke up to the warm stickiness of another body beside me and the soft feeling of a luxury bed underneath me. The body groaned as I moved, and small hands grabbed at the back of the fluffy nightgown I’d worn to sleep.

He had grown out his hair as he slept and it irritated the skin on my nose, arms and legs. All the parts of me that the nightgown I’d worn to sleep had left exposed.

Aaron had mentioned someone named Cherry while we took the clothes, but I had a hard time coming up with a mental image of anyone that would purposefully choose clothes like these. It wasn’t like I disliked the way they looked, or the way they looked on me, but they were pretty uncomfortable to sleep in.

“Hey, move off me!”

I’d tried to be understanding since I was older by a whole three minutes, and I knew how anxious Tillo got. However, it was one thing to ask to share a bed with me; it was something else to change shapes and take up more than half of it.

Tillo woke up and shook the mile of hair he’d grown in his sleep, out of his face. I could barely make out an expression from the mass of hair, but I knew my sudden wake up yell confused him.

“You grew out your hair in your sleep again! If you don’t change it back, I’ll find a pair of scissors and cut you bald again.”

He shook himself awake and dragged his small body out of the bed and out of the room. He liked to turn into a toddler before he slept since he said it was more comfortable, and he still hadn’t kicked his habit of growing out his hair when he slept deeply.

Still, it hadn’t happened for a while, so as annoying as it was, I was relieved he had grown out his hair through the night. It meant he had slept well.

Although it was already a new day, it was very early in the morning and things didn’t feel real. Our stomachs were full and my back didn’t hurt from sleeping in a weird position. We’d slept for a full 6 hours, but I felt over rested and sluggish. Usually, we would have needed to get up and run away before they caught us and forced us to go back home.

It wasn’t like it was an awful place, but they just didn’t have space for us. Tillo and I were old hands at running away, so once we’d gotten these powers, we’d used them to get as far as possible.

We’d even had a job for a while before the questions about our identification papers got too intense and we’d needed to run away.

I shook off the thoughts in my head and climbed out of the empty bed. It looked like I’d shifted a bit in my sleep as well, so I re-adjusted my height. I knew how much Tillo worried about me ‘losing myself’ so I tried my best to keep my height as consistent as I could. We were both 5’9 but sometimes Tillo would sneak up to a 5’10.

Since he was usually so against us using our powers unless it was necessary, I mentioned nothing and hoped he got more comfortable with them. These powers were too amazing to let time pass by and not use them.

Tillo disagreed, but I knew he’d get there, eventually. Even yesterday, he’d lengthened his hair more than usual and had changed his body a bit to fill out the dress better.

It was still early, but I didn’t think I could get back to sleep. I got out of the bed and fixed it up into its original state, then went into the closet and tried to find something new to wear. Tillo had been too tired to change the clothes for me last night, and I hadn’t wanted to risk flooding the room with fabric. It wasn’t like I couldn’t change the way the dresses looked, but Tillo was better at it than I was, and his transformations always lasted longer than mine did.

I grabbed a dress out of the closet and waited for Tillo to come in and help me change it into a jumper.

Right before I lost patience and went to drag him out of the bathroom myself, I heard the front door swing open with a bang and Aaron talked to the person who had come in. At first, I thought it was delivery, but the footsteps that entered the house and the familiar way Aaron called out a name told me it wasn’t.

The wood in the house was heavy in certain places, like the doors, but the walls and floors were pretty light and noise easily travelled between them. I got down onto my knees and pressed my ear to the cold wooden floor. But since the position got too uncomfortable, I laid flat on my stomach and listened to the conversation down below.

“Joyce!”

“Don’t scold me, Aaron! I’ve been up the entire night and I can barely see straight. Do you have a room for the kids? They’re half dead on their feet.”

“Did you finish all the legal stuff, at least? I can’t be an accomplice to a kidnapping!”

Although his words were harsh, his tone was playful. They made it obvious that they were comfortable with each other. Tillo stomped into the room and made me miss the next thing the woman said to Aaron, but I managed to catch Aaron’s response.

“Yeah, they’re upstairs. I think they shared Cherry’s room so these kids can take mine.”

“Why would they take your room? What about the guest room?”

“Its…. Kinda full. Also, don’t go into the kitchen yet. I already got Gordon to go out and get us some breakfast.”

“Aaron…. I don’t have the energy to investigate right now. Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“I’ll bright out the air mattress from the garage. Have the kids eaten yet?”

“Yeah, I bought them something at the hospital, but that was a few hours ago. Archer, Eva, come with me. This is Aaron, by the way, he’s the flying guy I told you about. Take a nap and we can do the introductions properly. There are two others I’ll want you to meet.”

The conversation ended, and I heard their steps thud up the stairs. I turned to Tillo, who still looked confused, and hissed at him as I jumped up from my damning position. I ripped the quilt off the bed and jumped in, then waved at him to do the same.

“Tillo! Get back into bed and pretend to be asleep.”

My twin brother was still disoriented from his deep sleep and looked confused at my request thankfully he cooperated without asking too many questions. His long hair had been braided to the top of his head, so he just pulled down the night mask he’s made at some point of the night and rolled to the left side of the bed.

As soon as we were settled, the heavy door to the room slowly swung open, and I heard the two adult voices speak in a whisper.

“Are these the kids?”

“Yeah, but it looks like they’re still asleep. I didn’t get them to sleep until pretty late last night. You should get some more sleep and we can all meet for lunch. It’s only 6 in the morning.”

“Let me at least get a look at their faces!”

“You’re the one that gave me their pictures! You already know what they look like! Besides, we shouldn’t wake them up. They weren’t in the best state when I found them.”

The door swung shut behind them and they bickered their way back down the stairs. I heard the bathroom in another room start and gathered that the kid the woman had brought was taking a shower.

Aaron had mentioned that there were others, but I didn’t think we’d get to meet them so quickly. He’d also talked about Joyce a bit, but she differed from what I’d expected her to be like.

During the presentation at our school, and on the internet she seemed to be a cool and calm person, Aaron described her as a warm, caring and competent person however, from the little I’d heard from her she seemed almost manic and discombobulated.

Maybe it was because, as Aaron had said, she’d stayed up the whole night, but I didn’t think a person could change so much after missing only a single night of sleep.

Tillo soon resumed snoring as he fell back asleep.

I hadn’t intended on falling asleep myself, but the rhythmic sounds of my brother’s sleep and the warmth and comfort of the blanket lulled me back to sleep.