He didn’t know if Officer Lewis checked the graveyard or if he did and found nothing there, but the next day came like everything else. There was no news about tall, mysterious stranger lurking on the graveyard, and his bullies were still being jerks. Even so, Surya decided to avoid the graveyard for a few days.

Life continued on.

If Jamie and Layla noticed his strange behavior, they didn’t say anything. But Surya overheard them talking about Mattie’s potential adopter, which of course followed by the talk about Nina’s potential adopter, and then Surya's.

“I’ve been thinking”, Jamie began with a heavy sigh. “I don't think we should let Surya be adopted. Because of his… y'know. Not everyone’s gonna be as welcoming.”

“That’s exactly why we need the social workers to screen them”, Layla sounded upset. “There has to be someone who will accept him, no matter what. Don't give up just yet.”

“I'm not giving up!” Jamie insisted. “Just… Listen, Bee, there’s something seriously wrong with that kid. No—not that kind of wrong. Just… y'know, it’s literally physically impossible to be born with tapeta lucida. Or unlimited teeth.”

“What do you mean?” Layla asked, voicing exactly what went through Surya’s head.

“I don’t know—that’s the thing”, Jamie answered weakly. “I asked around, but I just—I don’t want him to get hurt, y'know? Heck, Bee, I love him so much—he went thru so much. I just want what's best for him, y'know?”

Surya felt his heart pounding hard in his ears. Slowly and as quietly as possible, he moved away from them, his body felt like floating. He didn't understand what they were talking about—or maybe he did, but he refused to understand it. He always knew there was something really, really wrong with him.

Layla and Jamie would always say that Surya was beautiful no matter what, that he was special, even though some kids from his school (like the aforementioned Johnny) would say that he was a freak, a mutant. Was that really what he was? An abnormal kid who could never be accepted?

Surya sobbed into his knees one last time before lifting his head up. His dad’s gravestone was staring back at him, quiet as ever. Surya felt another familiar pain stabbing him in the chest as he realized, once again, that his dad wouldn’t be able to hug him or tell him that everything would be alright.

It had been six months since his dad died. Soon, it would be seven.

Sometimes, Surya was gripped by intense fear that one day he no longer remembered how his dad’s voice sounded like or how his smile looked like. He knew it would happen one day. He already couldn't remember the way his dad smelled like. Even though he still remembered being enveloped by that comfortable scent as he slept, the memory of the scent was lost forever.

What if he would forget about his dad at all?

Surya was too busy trying not to cry again when the crunch of gravel pulled his attention back to his surrounding. Immediately, he remembered about the weird creep from the days before. He was about to scream, but his own fear was completely gripping him.

“Please be at ease", the stranger said.

They sat a feet away from Surya, their hands raised in surrendering gesture. Their mask fizzled out and revealed a strange face—not human. It reminded him of a tiger or a cheetah, except this stranger’s skin (fur?) was blue.

“I realized that I did not introduce myself properly. My name is Aenzel. I’m here at Aelva’s request”, the stranger (alien?) introduced themself.

“… Aelva?” Surya mumbled out before he could stop himself.

Aenzel was quiet for a moment before they said with strained voice, “Please tell me, at the very least, you know your mother’s name.”

Hesitantly, Surya shook his head. Aenzel sighed and pressed the spot between their eyebrows with their clawed thumb. Surya suddenly had an overwhelming urge to apologize, except he didn’t know what to apologize for. Not his fault that he didn’t know anything at all about his mom!

“Are you… really an alien?” Surya asked, his curiosity piqued. “My mom was friends with alien?”

“I guess from Human’s perspective, I am an alien. But…” Aenzel frowned even deeper, if that was even possible. “I don’t know how to put this nicely… Surya, so is your mother.”

Surya ran over Aenzel’s words in his mind again, then again, then again before it finally clicked.

“My mom was an alien?!” he squeaked, wide-eyed. “But—but—how?? I mean—huh…”

Actually, now that he thought about it, it made a lotof sense. Everything that he overheard Jamie saying, it made a lot of sense. Jamie worked at the UESA—she had to have suspected something. His freakishness, was that because his mom was an alien? Did that mean he was part-alien?

Don’t want him to get hurt, was what Jamie said. Was that what would happen to him if people knew he was part-alien?

“You seem to be accepting this rather quickly”, Aenzel said. Somewhat, Surya felt that it amused them. He frowned.

“How do I know you’re not making these things up?” he asked. “How do I know that you’re not some kind of weirdo in a fursuit?”

“What’s a ‘fursuit’?” Aenzel blinked, confused.

Surya shrugged. Out of every weird human stuff that Surya did not want to explain to an actual alien, that was the first thing on the list—but that didn’t mean he had to accept the fact that Aenzel was an alien that easily.

“Do you really have a spaceship?” he asked.

Aenzel blinked again. “Of course.”

“Show me”, Surya demanded.

“Are you sure you want to go see my ship?” they asked.

Surya paused for a moment, before nodding hesitantly.

“Are you really, really sure you want to go, alone, with someone that you have yet come to trust, to see this so-called spaceship that could be hypothetical, wherever it is parked?” Aenzel asked again.

It was Surya’s turn to blink. “Oh.”

Aenzel’s ears flicked—somehow, Surya felt like it was alien equivalent of an eyeroll—but then they stood up and their mask fizzled back into place. “Observe.”

And they, for the lack of better term, disappeared.

One moment, Aenzel was standing right in front of him; and the next, they were gone. Surya rubbed his eyes to make sure that it wasn’t some kind of trick or something, but Aenzel was really gone.

“Uhhh…” Surya looked around. The graveyard was empty as ever. There was no sign of anyone around, alien or not.

“I’m right here, Surya”, he heard Aenzel’s voice coming from his left. Surya reached forward, only for his hand to swipe at empty air.

“Not there, here”, Aenzel said again. Their voice came from behind him, this time. Surya turned and threw his weight forward—but again, Aenzel wasn’t there and he flopped to the ground.

Aenzel could easily kidnap him and make him invisible too, Surya realized—but they didn’t. They did this silly little game instead. Surya was hit by the realization that he was playing hide-and-seek with an actual alien. It was just so weird.

And Surya was determined to win.

Aenzel didn’t make it easy for him to find, though. Their footsteps were quiet as if their feet were not touching the ground at all—maybe they were, alien and all. For awhile, Surya really thought that Aenzel was already gone, leaving him alone and making him look like an idiot.

But then he saw a movement at the corner of his eye and noticed the way air seemed to shimmer, like the desert when it was really hot during the day.

Surya couldn’t help but grin and lunged at Aenzel, but Aenzel was still too fast for him and his hand caught empty air. Surya knew how to spot them now, though, so he ducked behind a gravestone and carefully tracked Aenzel’s movements.

Without a sound, he jumped over the gravestone and landed on top of Aenzel, who was still invisible. He felt a pair of arms supporting his weight and pressed him close to what he guessed was Aenzel’s chest.

“You got me", Aenzel chuckled as they reappeared with a fizzle. “Do you believe me now?”

“You’ve got an invisibility cloak!” Surya grinned wider.

“Well… it’s a prototype stealth and infiltration suit that can bend electromagnetic radiation and completely conceal heat signature of the wearer to make them completely undetectable—” Aenzel paused and gave Surya’s hair a quick ruffle. “But essentially, yes, it's an invisibility cloak. I assume that humans don't have it?”

Surya shook his head and hopped off to the ground. “You're an alien!”

“The correct word is ‘Vaidesse’", Aenzel chided gently.

“Was my mom a Vaidesse too? Am I a Vaidesse too?” Surya asked, starry-eyed.

“Well, you're part-Vaidesse, it seems", Aenzel answered. “You didn’t seem to inherit any Vaidessian traits, but that's not unheard of in hybrids.”

“My eyes can glow in the dark", Surya pointed at his own eyes.

“And human’s eyes don’t?” Aenzel asked. They sounded curious.

“Nu-uh”, Surya shook his head again. “And my hands can do this thingy.” He demonstrated by pulling his hand backwards until the tip of his middle finger touched his forearm. Most people would freak out or worry that he would break his hand, but Aenzel simply stroked their chin.

“Hmm, hypermobility… Rather uncommon, but your mother has it”, Aenzel mused. “Perhaps your appearance is not the only thing you inherited from her.”

Surya’s eyes widened.

His whole life he’d wondered about his mom; what was her name, what did she look like, what was she like. His father had kept his stories about her vague enough, though, and Surya wondered if it had something to do with his mom being an alien—a Vaidesse, Aenzel said.

“How…” Surya bit his lips and hesitated. “Why didn’t my mom come to get me? I… When Dad died… I wished that she’d come and… and take me with her or something, I dunno.”

Aenzel’s face fell and something heavy dropped inside Surya’s stomach. Somewhat, he was already expecting this. It was too good to be true, after all…

“S-she died too… didn’t she?” Surya’s voice cracked. He was going to start crying again and, he hated it.

Aenzel looked like they were going to say something, but Surya’s phone began to buzz in his pocket. Surya frowned and took it out; it was a text from Jamie, asking him where he was and that he should go home soon.

Surya was torn. He still had so many questions, but he didn’t want Jamie to go looking for him and finding him with Aenzel. What if she tried to stop him from seeing Aenzel again? Even worse, what if the UESA took Aenzel away?

“I need to go, but…” he looked up to Aenzel; he wanted to ask if they would still be around tomorrow to answer his questions, but his voice refused to work.

“We will meet again", Aenzel said with a soft smile, an expression that Surya didn't expect to see on their face.

That was reassuring, at least.

But he didn’t see Aenzel on the graveyard the next day, or the day after that.