I woke up in what looked like an adorable little cottage. Honestly, it
looked like the kind of place you'd find on Pinterest. But I was lying
on something soft—way too soft. I turned my head to see... a lap.
And I wasn't on the ground. I was on someone's lap.
I slowly turned my head, only to be greeted by the sly grin of a fox
spirit. She had glowing blue eyes and a ridiculous amount of ethereal
fluff—the type of fluff you'd find in those Instagram posts with the
hashtag #notyouraveragecuddle. I froze.
"Uh... excuse me, are you... a fox?" I asked, still dazed from the fall.
She raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. "Not just a fox, no. I'm
Kyuu, your new... friend. But first, are you going to sit up or what?
You've been unconscious for like... a day."
I slowly moved, realizing I was still lying in her lap. This was so
awkward. "Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to, uh, pass out on you."
She just laughed, clearly not bothered. "You've got a lot to learn,
Zerin."
"Zerin?" I blinked, trying to shake off the confusion. "What kind of
name is that?"
"Your new name. Some random guy gave it to you when you
appeared," Kyuu said, not giving any explanation of who this
"random guy" was. "I think it suits you. Anyway, you should get up
now. I wasn't expecting to take care of some stranger, but you were
out cold, and you don't seem like the type to fight me off, so I just—"
I interrupted, still too confused. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I
appeared here? What do you mean, some random guy? What the
hell happened?"
Kyuu just shrugged casually, like none of it was a big deal. "I have no
idea. You were literally falling from the sky, like a SpaceX rocket on a
bad launch day, and crashed in front of me. I found you passed out
and decided to take you in."
"Right," I muttered. This was getting weirder by the second. I went
from procrastinating in my room to being randomly dropped from the
sky and waking up in the lap of a fox spirit. And now she was calling
me "Zerin," a name that I had no idea where it came from.
"I'm sorry," I said, still feeling disoriented, "but can you tell me what's
going on here?"
Kyuu looked at me with an amused expression. "You're in Vaylora,
dummy. This is where you'll be for... however long you decide to
stay."
"Vaylora?" I repeated. That didn't sound familiar at all. "Okay, okay.
But how do I get back? Back to Earth? Do you even know how I got
here?"
Kyuu just gave me a confused look. "No idea. All I know is, you fell
from the sky, and now you're here. Don't ask me how. I'm just a fox.
But you're stuck with me now."
I just stared at her. She was probably more relaxed than I should've
been in this situation.