I finally got the last box packed up and stacked with the others by my door.  Just in time, too. My dad calls from the kitchen, “Alexia! Dinner!”

As my dad makes my plate, I sit down at the dinner table. He asks “so..” 

There was a pause, I looked at him with confusion but his face was turned away. 

“Yes?” I speak up and ask.

“Do you think, you know, that you’ll go to that party later tonight? I mean you’re old enough I think, as long as there no alc-” 

“I’m not going” I cut him off before he could start lecturing me.

My father turns around and heads for the table with two plates in his hands. “No?”

I shake my head “No.” 

“Hm.. well ok.”

I just smile, nod, and play with my food. It’s been really hard to eat anything bigger than a cup of Noodles. 

“Hey..” My father looks at me with worry.

“ I know it’s kind of hard for you to eat still, but please try.. Ok?” His eyebrows furrowed together slightly.

I just nod again and take a small bite of broccoli. 

My father smiles and finishes his dinner. “When you’re done could you clean up the table? I’ll do the dishes.”

“Yes of course! That’s the least I could do since you did, after all, make the dinner.” I give him a light smile.

After dinner, which I didn’t really eat, I cleaned up the table and said goodnight to my father.

I went to my bedroom and plopped onto my bed. “I didn’t even really do anything today, why am I so tired?” I say to myself. I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until I woke up  to a light coming from the floor. I thought it was a lamp I had accidentally left on and didn’t remember to turn it off. I reached down to try and turn it off, not fully awake, and I felt.. Well, not a lamp. I am now fully awake because I wonder, if that light isn’t from a lamp then what am I touching? Or rather, what is touching me?

I look down and see that the light isn’t coming from the floor beside my bed, but under. I jump up out of my bed, onto my knees, and on the floor where I'm met eye to eye with the upper half of a pink demon coming out of a portal under my bed. 

I stare at him blankly, not knowing what to do or what to say as he stares back with an embarrassed smile. 

“It’s been a while, alexia.” Oh my gods, it’s Frikio! I cover my mouth with both of my shaky hands. He starts to emerge from the portal and I back up, now standing, to give him room to come out completely.