Fox Life

A problem dogged Iris. She kept thinking and thinking about it, but her mind could not find a way to go around it. Even though she had decided that it was for everyone's best if she left, how exactly was she supposed to do that? Money could be borrowed, but what about a passport and a visa? Those two weren't goods you could just take from someone.     

For the whole week, she thought and thought about it, but nothing good came to mind. She hadn't come to America before, so she had no clue how strict the checks were to enter or leave, but that was a problem for the later. She had stumbled on the very first step of leaving - having her identification documents.     

'How am I supposed to go anywhere without them?'     

She couldn't even get a job if she wanted, since for all intents and purposes, she didn't exist.     

This was a problem which required Kyro's assistance, but it was exceptionally hard to ask him. When he came home, he never said a word, disappearing in his side of the apartment. And coming to knock on his door was a task too great for her. She had come close a few times, but chickened out every single one.     

"You're a coward," she told herself for the hundredth time and closed the curtains. They didn't make the room totally dark, but a dusk descended on the place. "Good enough."     

She then went into the study and chose a horror movie to stream onto the TV in the living room. Her tolerance for scares wasn't great and so she usually avoided such movies, but at this moment, she wanted to do something unusual. She was quite tired of just sitting at home, watching the same romance flicks all day long, and being unable to come up with anything to solve her problems.     

Her brain needed some different fodder, so maybe a good scare would help.     

This also had the extra benefit of checking out a theory of hers. So far, she had been avoiding testing it out, but curiosity was killing her. If it worked, could everything return to the way it was and she wouldn't need to leave?     

Once she put on the movie, she brought Lucy over to keep her company. There was no way she could go through the whole thing without someone to hold her hand.     

The credits rolled, and her fingers on the cat tensed. The movie hadn't even started , and she was already scared. "Good start," she muttered to herself, forcefully keeping her eyes on the screen.     

She was soon disappointed, however. Although her mind was in a state of almost-panic, nothing happened. Her body was still that of a human.     

"This is useless." She frowned and looked down at the cat tightly grasped in her hands. It was good that Lucy was more like a fluffy pillow and less like a cat which would claw her eyes out for hugging it this close.     

As she got ready to turn the movie off, she heard the notice of a message from the other room. It wasn't her place, but after the last emergency, she decided to go and check it out.     

With Lucy in one hand, she opened Skype with the other. There, she saw a message from an account that was named Kyro Hemming. [Evacuate, this instant. My parents are coming, so leave with all your things. Take the card and go to the supermarket we went once. I'll come pick you up as soon as I can.]     

If she was a daring woman, she might try to act like she didn't see the message on time to leave. This could then lead to some interesting developments, possibly resulting in her gaining a greater purchase in this place.     

But that woman wasn't her. She didn't have the courage to pull something this crazy off and risk angering Kyro to the point he would never want to see her again.     

Swiftly, she closed Skype and maximized the movie to turn it off. At that moment, a disgusting creature jumped at Iris from the screen, claw-like hands extended to wrap around her neck. On instinct, she dodged to the side, and dropped off the chair.     

It took her a couple moments to realize how she could have fallen anywhere when the chair had armrests on the sides. Grimacing, she looked up at Lucy, who was shaking his fur and looking at her in disgust. He clearly didn't appreciate being dropped, even if his fall had been only a couple centimeters and on the chair.     

'Sorry, sorry,' she told him in a low screech as she jumped on the chair and then the table. The damn movie still needed to be turned off. It took her a bit of effort, now that she had already gotten out of habit of controlling the mouse with her small feet, but she managed.     

By then, Lucy had already left, and she noticed a pile of clothes on the chair. All of them were distinctly female, and if Kyro's parents saw them…. He was going to kill her, for sure.     

The clothes lay in a neat pile, with the open hole for the neck pointing toward the drop to the right. She cursed her luck for managing to change in the best way to fall off something, before taking a hold of the dress with her teeth.     

There was no hiding place in the study, so she dragged the dress under Kyro's bed. After that, she brought her underwear and slippers. She pushed all of them into one ball in the farthest corner and hoped no one would see anything. Otherwise, this might be even harder to explain than clothes on a chair.     

After that, she went into her room and hid the signs of her having lived there as much as she could. There was no way to take the clothes out of the wardrobe, so she focused on making the bed. It wasn't too easy with her miniature size, but at least it was summer and the blanket was paper thin. This was the only reason she managed to tug it around until it looked sufficiently decent.     

'I cleaned the cups in the morning, so we're safe on that side… Is there anything else I forgot?' She looked around, but saw nothing. 'Only the waiting left then.'     

As she curled up on the sofa, she wondered how Kyro was going to react. Was he going to be happy or pissed?