No one ever told Asa what to expect when coming into work. It was always a surprise for him, whether that meant big or small. Typically, Nasir was there to cause a ruckus as early as seven in the morning, resulting in headaches, copious amounts of coffee, and the ever present urge to slam a fist into the obnoxious twenty-nine year old’s face. Other times, Asa was gifted with fifty different tasks the second his sneakered foot passed through the sliding doors of the office, not yet even stepping onto the tiled flooring that was somewhat of a slipping hazard. He should know, he spoke from experience.
But, when neither of those things happened, Asa knew better than to breathe a sigh of relief and revel in what looked to be a calm day of work ahead of him. No, instead, he stood tenser, gripped his styrofoam cup of bitter black coffee tighter, and waited for whatever hell to begin, so that he wouldn’t have to the suffer the anticipation for too long. He didn’t have to wait very long. Within seconds of him placing his things down at his workstation, Vera was in front of him, her pretty face as serious and no nonsense as always. Asa allowed himself a brief thought, wondering if she ever grew tired of that expression, or if she had missed that day in school where they taught everyone how to smile.
She was a bitter looking woman, but extremely pretty. Or at least, that was what Nasir always said. Asa wasn’t one for agreeing with his colleague (not friend. No matter what Nasir said, they were not friends), but he guessed he could see where the attractive thing came from. Vera had long hair that reached her mid-back, an autumn red color that spoke of fallen leaves, and her eyes were a sort of haunting and alluring green. She was tall, but nowhere near Asa’s towering six foot three, and she walked everywhere in an impressive set of jet red stilettos with the narrowest heels anyone had ever seen. How she managed to stay upright all the time was a workplace mystery, and Asa had heard the secretaries in the front of the building wondering if she was secretly some sort of witch one night while leaving early, something he didn’t get to do quite often.
He gave her a bleary smile, knowing Vera would be able to see through his fake cheerfulness in seconds. It was always better to be upfront with her. Blunt, almost. “A terrible morning to you.” Asa said, his voice low and heavy. He was tired, but that wasn’t something especially new. Vera gave him a look, though her eyes were half hidden behind the reflection of her glasses, shielding him for the glare of her green eyes. Asa thanked whatever higher power existed that he wouldn’t have to be subjected to her glare so early in the morning. Vera made an unimpressed sound and crossed her arms over her chest.
“The boss wants you. Bring your things. You won’t be staying here for long. We’re moving you to another office.” Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Vera stalked off, not waiting for a response. She left Asa standing at his desk (or at least, what used to be his desk? He had no idea what was going on), blinking the perplexed look off of his face. When she turned the corner and disappeared down the hall, Asa quickly grabbed his stuff, nearly dropping his large cup of coffee onto the paperwork he’d left on his desk the previous night and followed hurriedly behind her, just in time to watch as she turned into their boss’ office, a room Asa had only been in a handful of times.
Something made him think he was about to be fired, and he scrolled through a quick catalogue of all of his actions for the last month, only to come up empty on anything that would put him at risk of losing his job. If anything, Asa was this company’s best employee, behind Vera of course. The woman seemed to never sleep, and was here from the minute doors opened to the second she locked them behind herself. With a heavy sigh, Asa balanced his things carefully in his arms and walked into the office, only to be faced with something he wasn’t quite sure was real.
There was a screen. A recording. A live video feed of two… Well, Asa wasn’t sure what, but he had a feeling he would soon find out.
— — —
Whatever they were…..they were obviously not human. Their skin was a dusty blue color, one of them a more navy and the other only a slightly lighter shade. A trail of thick and soft looking black and silver fur lined their necks in a choker-like appearance before disappearing down their backs in a single stripe, fading into a long, leg lengthed tail, the tip in the shape of of an arrow and covered in the same shade of fur, only slightly longer and thicker. Lavender eyes peered at everything, the only semblance of a pupil being a thin lined circle, almost translucent in color, moving around as their gazes darted around the room.
The girl was dressed in a simple gown, a dirty off white color, landing only at the back of her knees. It was conservative in style, but the edges were worn and threads looked as though they’d been yanked out, leaving it rugged and hole riddled. She had a heavy dose of thick silver hair, almost metallic in color, that glinted in the artificial lighting of the room. It was pulled into a straggly braid, reaching just an inch below the backs of her knees. Fuzzy, triangular shaped ears stuck out from atop her head, not quite where one would assume them to be, but a bit lower, about an inch above where normal, human ears would be. They were the same color as her hair, but the inside was a darker shade of silver, moreso resembling grey. Thin, almost delicate fingers affixed with long clawed nails picked at the hem of her dress, an obviously nervous action.
The boy was slightly different. His skin was a darker shade of dusty blue, making the silver of his fur stand out more. He was dressed in short linen pants that reached the backs of his thighs, and a shirt that only came down to the middle of his torso, revealing the lack of a belly button. His attire was as rugged as the girl’s, but dirtier, almost as though he had thought it fun to run through grass and dirt before his arrival. Again, different from his companion, his hair was a solid, ink black, long and scruffy, settling at the base of his neck in length. His ears were relatively large and fuzzy, slightly floppy at the upper point, but in the same odd spot. While they were the same jet black color of his hair on the outside, they were silver on the inside. His fingers were just as thin as the girl’s, and while his nails weren’t quite the same clawed length as his companion’s, they were just as sharp.
The two of them stood to be about the same height, though the girl was maybe half an inch taller. They stood close, with matching looks of unease and fear. From their facial features, it would have been fairplay to consider them siblings, but knowing nothing at all about them, beyond what could be seen, it was uncertain.
Asa could feel himself gasp under his breath as he watched the feed. For a second, he thought he was being messed with, that maybe Vera really did have a sense of humor, but in a weird, sort of messed up way. But when he finally managed to tear his eyes away from the screen that had been angled in his direction, Vera was not smiling. There was no sort of ‘gotch ya!’ look on her face, just her ever present serious gaze. The boss looked much the same, though his own cool blue eyes held a bit more emotion that Vera’s green ones.
“Mr Sayre,” Asa inwardly cringed. The boss never called him by his surname. He never called anyone by their surname. For the most part, the boss was a relatively casual person who participated in the jokes and events that went on in the rest of the office, but now…now, Asa could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
“Uh….yes? Boss?” Asa answered quickly, as soon as he managed to correct the jaw dropped look he knew was plastered on his face. The boss gave a short smile, but it wasn’t an amused one. The tightness in the corners of his lips made that obvious.
“I’m sure you’re beginning to question why I had Ms Noam,” another surname, “bring you in here?” Asa nodded his head, not quite sure if he could trust his voice. His boss took that as a good enough response. “Well, Mr Sayre, as you can see…we’ve come into possession of two intriguing children.”
Asa let out a harsh breath and nodded again. Wow, what a way to phrase that. The boss ignored him and continued. “I want you to care for them.” Well, Asa knew his boss was blunt, but even that seemed to come out of nowhere. He nearly choked on air and as soon as his fingers scrunched up, he could feel his bitten nails poke holes into the fragile material of his coffee cup, leaving the dark bitter liquid to seep through and drip down his fingers and hand onto the clean floor beneath him. It was silent in the room for several moments, other than the steady dripping of his gradually dwindling coffee.
The only reaction Asa could force out once he regained at least some grasp of his ability to speak was a sharp, “Huh?”. His boss smiled again, but Asa couldn’t really put an emotion to the expression. Maybe a bit of mild exasperation? He wasn’t entirely sure. He was still a bit...mind boggled. The boss let out a short sigh and eyed the mess on his office floor wearily before moving on.
“Mr Sayre, I’m asking you to do something extremely important. Do you understand me? This...company. I know we’ve always been very secretive about the exact nature of our work, but this...this is a culmination of nearly everything we’ve been trying to accomplish for twenty very long years. You’ve been a stellar employee for the past seven, and I would like to reward your performance with a...promotion of sorts. This is a very important task, Mr Sayre. Something I would not hand to just anyone,” and at that, Asa had to cut in.
“Excuse me, Boss, but...why me? I mean, I know you explained why just then, but, no offense to myself, there are better workers here. I mean...Vera is a prime example, right? She’s been working here much longer, and...I....I’m not even good with kids, let alone...what they appear to be!” The rest of his coffee went splashing to the floor when he made a wide motion with his arms, and Asa let out a bitter curse as it hit his shirt and the bottom hem of his pants. The liquid was lukewarm at this point, but the sight of dark brown seeping into the white and tan material had him narrowing his eyes in aggravation. From the corner of the room, he could hear Vera make a small hmph sound under her breath, and rolled his own eyes.
Upon hearing his boss let out yet another sigh, this one heavier and louder, Asa flicked his attention back up to the man, rather than the mess around him. One of the papers he had tried to shove into his bag fell free as he shifted from one leg to the other and sopped up the coffee. The room smelled heavily of caffeine, but everyone ignored it for now, faced with things of greater importance.
The boss leaned forward in his seat, resting his chin on his hands which were grasped in front of him, eyes slightly narrowed in weariness. He looked older, which was saying something as the boss had always looked like someone much younger than his true age, which was generally a mystery.
“Ms Noam will also participate in this project, but with a less hands on approach. I have already attempted to place her in custody of these...children, but she seems to distress them. I know you may not think yourself to be capable, Mr Sayre, but you are my best bet. Please,” Asa felt strange over the fact that it sounded as though his boss was begging him. He both looked and sounded desperate. “Meet them. See how they approach you. If you truly decide you do not want to partake, then I will find someone else.”
Asa truly wanted to protest, but when he allowed his eyes to turn back to the live feed on the screen once more, he saw as the girl curled a protective arm over the boy’s shoulders. He watched as they both shivered in fear and apprehension. Asa could feel something in his chest come loose, and he turned his head back to his boss, eyes narrowed and determined.
“I’ll meet them. And then...I’ll decide.”
— — —
The first thing Asa noticed was just how sharp their claws were. Upon walking into the room, he hadn’t realized how fast it would take for him to be fully acquainted with them, but within seconds of the door to the room sliding open, Asa had only managed two steps before they were fully dug into the skin of his back and waist. A fuzzy tail wrapped itself around his left leg, and Asa had to grab onto the frame of the door to keep himself steady as something crawled across his body before settling along his lower back, purring happily, or at least, what he assumed to be was happy. Asa could hear his boss cough behind him, in no way concealing the laugh that threatened to bubble out of him.
“And you claimed you weren’t good with children.” He heard his boss mutter. If Asa was in any other situation, he would have whipped around to glare at the older man, but currently, he was trying to balance about forty pounds of weight on his back. He took a stuttered step forward and looked around the room, realizing it had been the boy who decided to use his body as a jungle gym and pillow.
The girl stood in the farthest corner of the room, arms curled over her body in apprehension. Her mouth opened, letting out snake-like hissing sounds, and when Asa paid more attention, he realized her tongue was snake-like as well, long and thing, with a slit cutting it down the center by about half an inch. Asa had to convince himself that he wasn’t dreaming, but the nails still stuck into his waist offered enough stinging pain for him to throw away that theory. He was, in fact, staring down what appeared to be an alien girl with both cat and snake-like characteristics, while her brother hung onto his back. Asa wanted to quit. This had not been in his job description.
“Uhh…” He offered, and the girl hissed again as she tried to push herself up further against the wall. Her tail whipped behind her in obvious unease, and her ears flicked backwards, in the same a cat’s would when they surged up for an attack. A sound, similar to the hissing, came from her, but the inflection was different and sounded almost like….words. It didn’t take long for Asa to realize that she was talking, and when the same sounds came from the body behind him, he also realized that she wasn’t talking to him, but the boy on his back.
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