Chapter 1 — She fell from the sky
He pushed the door of the barn with his shoulder. The wood creaked like any other time, but that night, the sound wasn’t alone. Something from inside the barn alerted him despite the silence that always dominated that place.
The dust in the air shimmered in a beam of moonlight that pierced the ceiling through a hole that wasn’t there before, revealing a solitary, motionless, unconscious figure slumped against the cold wall.
AAt a fleeting glance, the silhouette belonged to an ordinary girl. The longer he looked, however, the more he sensed that something about her anatomy defied expectation. Her entire body was cloaked in a layer of soft white fur, fine as velvet. The extremities of her limbs and a handful of other features bore subtle animalistic traits, though some far more pronounced than others.
Her hair, as white as the fur that covered her body, veiled her face, but what little Felipe could make out unsettled him in an unexpected way. Though unmistakably inhuman, it possessed an uncanny familiarity, as though it had been shaped to evoke the same quiet humanity, so much so that his mind instinctively searched it for emotion. Above it arose a pair of ears nearly as large as her head, and a long white tail rested silently beside her legs.
Her slim body rested within a shell of scarred metal and torn cloth. The craftsmanship was unlike anything he had ever seen. Was it alien? Was it from the future? yet carrying a striking sense of familiarity, like something a human could wear as well. Accents of vibrant gold and teal stood against her snow-white fur.
Her right arm was severely wounded, bleeding from a laceration that could have only happened moments ago.
Suddenly, a flicker of life stirred within her. Her fingers twitched. A quiet declaration that she was returning. She clutched the gash in her arm, as if trying to hold herself together. Felipe approached until only a few steps separated them, trying not to scare her.
“Are you okay?”
He knew she wasn’t. He needed a response, not for her sake, but for his own. A single word, a single movement, anything to prove that this was no dream.
With her head bowed in silence, her eyelids trembled, slowly parting to reveal eyes of the same vivid teal that traced her armor. Bright as fragments of the sea beneath the lunar glow.
She whispered strange words, unfamiliar to any language that Felipe had ever heard before. She tried to rise, but her strength betrayed her. Leaning forward, she barely had time to regain her balance before the world tilted beneath her. Felipe moved without hesitation, without thought, without reason, with his instincts carrying him forward as he caught her before she could meet the ground.
Her tired eyes settled on Felipe’s. Freed from the curtain of white hair that had hidden it moments before, her face came into full view. A small, cat-like pink snout rested between delicate inhuman features. Felipe searched her gaze for an answer, a flicker of understanding, a plea, anything that could tell him what she needed, but only exhaustion looked back at him. Her sight faded, and her eyelids wearily fell shut once more. Whatever strength had carried her this far was gone.
The cold crept deep into the night, wrapping itself around them. Felipe felt the weight of the moment settle over him. Leaving her there wasn't really a choice. Whatever she was, she was still someone bleeding alone in the cold. Before he could think of a reason not to, he had already spoken.
“...Let’s get you into the house”
He spared one glance toward the jagged hole in the barn roof. Tomorrow, he told himself. He'd try to make sense of it tomorrow.
Felipe carefully lifted the strange girl onto his shoulder. He had never been responsible for someone else’s safety like this before. The weight on his shoulder felt far lighter than the one settling on his head.
His mind threatened to race ahead with questions, one after another, but he pushed them all aside. Whatever had happened here, whatever she was, none of it mattered yet. All that mattered was getting the strange girl somewhere warm and safe.
He carried her through the backyard into the house, pushed the front door open and flicked on the lights.
The chairs sat slightly out of place. A gaming controller lay abandoned on the table. Dirty dishes still crowded the sink. A pile of clothes rested atop the washing machine, waiting for a day he’d finally feel like doing the laundry.
For a heartbeat, the sight almost convinced him that nothing had changed, that the world outside had remained exactly as it always had. Then the stranger on his shoulder shifted ever so slightly, and the illusion quickly fell apart.
Felipe’s first thought was to lay the injured girl on his mother’s bed. His hand drifted toward the bedroom door, only to stop half-way.
His mother had been living in the city for quite some time now, yet Felipe still couldn’t bring himself to step inside. Every glance toward that door stirred something he could never quite name. A quiet ache that hovered somewhere between abandonment and nostalgia.
Felipe didn’t resent her. If anything, he understood why she had left. And yet, understanding did little to quiet the feeling that lingered whenever he thought of her.
He turned away from the closed door and carried the injured girl into his own bedroom instead. The couch could do for one night.
He reached his bed with the strange girl still resting over his shoulder and pushed the messy sheets aside, laying her down carefully. He lowered her upper body onto the mattress before gently lifted her strange feet and settled the rest of her weight beside her.
His hands lingered for a moment after he let go. Her feet were clearly not human, yet oddly familiar. They didn’t look human at all, but they were exactly like those of a large cat. The sight felt strange, but not exactly unfamiliar.
But there was no room for distractions. The wound on her arm continued to bleed. A quiet reminder that beneath all the impossible things that were happening at that moment, she was hurt, and that was the priority.
Felipe opened the first aid kit his mother had left him months ago. He barely knew what he was doing. His hands were guided more by urgency than experience. The wound was deeper than what it seemed, but he managed to clean the it and wrap it tightly enough to stop the bleeding.
When he finally pulled away, his eyes fell upon the stains spreading across the bedsheets. Her blood had soaked into the fabric, leaving behind a strong crimson tone.
No matter how alien she seemed, no matter how different her body, her features, or her very existence were, her blood looked the same as his.
He finished tucking her beneath the blankets and turned towards the door, ready to leave her rest. But something stopped him. He couldn’t bring himself to walk away from such a strange sight, a presence so impossible, so otherworldly, yet undeniably real. His mind still struggled to accept what was before him. A being unlike anything he had ever seen, lying peacefully in his own bed.
Instead of leaving, Felipe pulled a chair beside the bed, facing the strange girl. He rested his arms on the back of it and lowered his head onto them, fighting against the exhaustion that weighed on him after such a long day.
He knew he should sleep, but some part of him feared that if he closed his eyes, he would wake up to find everything gone, a dream, a strange memory that had never truly happened.
So he stayed. He watched her sleep, searching for answers that would not come. Then she shifted beneath the blankets, curling into a more relaxed fetal position. He smiled.
The exhaustion of the day finally caught up with him. Before he realized, he had already fallen asleep.
Chapter 2 — The illusion of normality
The chill of the night was gone, replaced by the warmth of the morning sun and the distant chorus of birds.
Habit woke him.
Friday. Time to prepare lunch, get dressed, grab the backpack and head to school.
Still half asleep, Felipe had no intention of opening his eyes just yet. The alarm hadn’t rung, which meant he still had few precious minutes left to sleep.
Then something felt… wrong.
His back ached with the dull stiffness of having slept upright.
“Why was I sitting?”
His eyes flew open and then it came back to him. The illusion of normality crumbled once again. The strange girl was still there.
Felipe rubbed his eyes, almost expecting her to disappear with the last traces of sleep.
She didn’t.
She laid peacefully beneath the blankets, looking far more relaxed than the night before. One leg had slipped free from the covers, and her mouth hung slightly open, like she might begin snoring at any moment.
The morning sun danced across the worn plates of her armor, setting them aglow with soft golden light, never disturbing the peaceful rhythm of her sleep, like it was just a pajama.
Felipe couldn’t help the faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It caught him off guard. It felt absurd to find comfort in a scenery that was so impossible and unreal.
For a brief moment, every question that had haunted him the night before simply… faded. He wasn’t wondering what she was, where she had come from, or why she had appeared in that barn anymore. He was looking at someone who, after a night of pain and exhaustion, had finally found enough peace to sleep. She looked so disarmingly ordinary that the distance between “alien” and “girl” seemed a lot smaller than it had the night before.
Curiosity got the better of him.
He leaned forward, trying to get a closer look at her peaceful face.
The low budget plastic chair had other plans.
Its legs slipped out from beneath him, and a split second later, Felipe was kissing the floor with enough force to announce his existence to the entire house. The peaceful silence of the cozy morning was officially over.
The girl’s eyes snapped open.
In a single motion, she sprang from the bed and landed several steps away before Felipe could even push himself off the floor.
Her body dropped into a tense, guarded stance. Every muscle was poised to flee or strike, seeming to only now realizing she had spent the night in a stranger’s home.
Her eyes fixated into Felipe’s. She watched him the way a scared cat watches the hand that reaches for it. Frightened. Ears drawn back. Ready to react at the slightest movement. The gentle, sleepy girl from seconds ago was gone. Whatever calm sleep had granted her vanished in an instant.
The disbelief that had consumed Felipe the night before now belonged to her.
Her gaze darted frantically across the room, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar walls and furniture. Then her eyes found the open door. Without a moment’s hesitation, she shot through the doorway with breathtaking speed and precision.
“Wait!” Felipe called. Scrambling to his feet as he chased after her.
She tore through the hallway and past the kitchen before reaching the front door. With a single desperate shove, she flung it open. The impact ripped the hinges free, sending splinters of wood and twisted metal scattering across the porch, and then… she stopped.
The strange girl stood motionless just steps out of the door, or rather, what was left of it.
Her eyes fixed on the world beyond. Rolling green hills stretched into the distance beneath an endless blue sky. Trees swayed gently in the morning breeze. Birds sang without fear, their voices weaving through the crisp mountain air.
Her rigid stance softened. The panic that had driven her vanished as abruptly as it had come, replaced by utter stillness.
She stared at the landscape in silence, as if her mind refused to believe what her eyes were seeing.
Felipe hurried after her.
The broken hinges still rattled across the porch behind her. He stared at the splintered wood, then back at the small white figure standing beyond it. A quiet realization settled over him: if she had wanted to hurt him, she wouldn't have needed to try hard.
"Hey!"
She didn’t react.
She stood with her back to him, her fear or concern for him now gone. Her entire attention was consumed by the view before her, as though he had ceased to exist.
Felipe shifted awkwardly.
"Hello…?"
This time she turned. Their eyes met. For a heartbeat neither of them moved.
The fear was still there, lingering beneath the surface, but it had given way to a quieter emotion. There was sorrow in her gaze that hadn’t been there before.
Almost absentmindedly, she reached for the wound in her arm. Her fingers brushed against the bandage wrapped around it, lingering on the unfamiliar fabric. Then her eyes wandered to the table beside the doorway, where the roll of bandage still rested.
Understanding dawned slowly across her face. The sadness remained, but the tension in her body melted away. Her shoulders relaxed, her ears lowered slightly, and she let out a long, weary breath.
Without a word, she stepped back inside.
As she crossed the doorway, her knees faltered almost imperceptibly. One hand caught the wall before she could stumble. She remained upright, but only barely. Whatever adrenaline gave her this strength began to fade.
Chapter 3 — Not going to school today
The pale girl walked heavily past the door frame and then past him. Only then did Felipe feel his face grow warm. It was an oddly familiar kind of embarrassment, the sort you feel when a guest you barely know comes over and you suddenly become painfully aware of every little thing about your house. The dirty dishes, the clutter, the fact that the front door no longer qualified as a door.
She reached the nearest wall, turned around, rested her back against it, and slid down until she was sitting on the kitchen floor. She stared blankly at the tiles, like she had finally resigned herself to whatever fate had brought her here.
Felipe glanced over his shoulder at what remained of the front entrance. The broken door leaned crookedly across the porch, letting the cool morning air drift freely into the house. He should probably do something about that. Instead, his attention drifted back at the strange girl.
He stood in silence, taking in the scene before him.
A front door hanging from what remained of its frame, an exhausted otherworldly girl having what looked suspiciously like an existential crisis on his kitchen floor. Then his alarm clock rang from his room.
He let a long sigh.
“Yeah… I don’t think I’m going to school today”
Felipe’s awkward sense of hospitality kicked in.
“She must be hungry, right? But what does she even eat?” “Is she cold?” “Is she bored? How do you entertain someone from another world? We don’t even seem to speak the same language. Of course we don’t. Why would we?” “…Do I offer her coffee?”
He paused.
“Wait… wasn’t coffee toxic for most animals? I wouldn’t call her an animal but… she is clearly not human either”
His eyes drifted towards the girl’s enormous ears and long white tail.
“…Let’s not experiment “
Felipe’s train of thought came to an abrupt halt when he glanced at her again. She was alive, but she might as well have been a statue. Motionless, silent. Completely resigned.
"Right"
Perhaps it is time to act instead of think.
He walked to the fridge, opened it, and after a moment of intense deliberation, emerged with a banana. Returned to the strange girl, crouched in front of her and awkwardly held it out.
She looked from Felipe… to the bright yellow object in his hand… then back to Felipe.
Nothing.
Her expression suggested she was trying to determine which of the two was more confusing.
"Oh"
Felipe peeled the banana, took an exaggerated bite, chewed thoughtfully, and held it out again.
A flicker of understanding crossed her face. She understood what it was, but she wasn’t interested. Without a word, she reluctantly turned her head away.
Felipe wasn’t ready to give up just yet. He wasn’t asking for much. A word. A nod. Eye contact that lasted for more than two seconds. Anything that could be considered a successful interaction.
He quickly returned to his room and came back carrying the thick red blanket from his bed.
Taking a deep breath, he approached the strange girl as if she might explode if startled. Carefully, he draped the blanket over her shoulders… then immediately took three cautious steps backwards.
Nothing.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look up. She barely acknowledged that another object had been placed on top of her.
"…I will take that as a permission"
Carefully, Felipe stepped forward again. He gathered the edges of the blanket and gently wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking it snugly around her arms and neck.
She remained perfectly still.
Only moments before, she had stared at him like a dangerous predator. Now she simply let him wrap her in a blanket without the slightest hint of resistance.
Did she trust him? Or had she simply become too mentally exhausted to care?
Either way, Felipe took two careful steps back. His cheeks immediately grew warmer than ever.
Remembering the abandoned banana, Felipe picked it up to put it back into the fridge. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement.
The girl’s head had tilted ever so slightly toward him. She wasn’t looking him in the eyes, but any tiny movement felt like a milestone.
It was such a small gesture that no one else would have thought twice about it, but to Felipe, it felt like the first conversation they ever had.
-Changed your mind?
Trying not to scare her away from the little progress that he had accidentally made, Felipe offered the yellow fruit once more.
A small furry hand slowly emerged from beneath the blanket. Its short, soft fingers cautiously reached towards the fruit before gently closing around it.
Chapter 4 — Mania
As the strange girl gently ate the banana, the warmth in Felipe’s expression gradually faded.
The absurd little exchange that they had just shared no longer felt amusing. The silence returned, and with it came questions he had managed to keep at bay.
He watched her sitting on the kitchen floor, wrapped in the red blanket, carefully finishing the fruit.
“Should I call the police?” “Should I tell anyone? “What happens now?”
Every sensible part of him insisted that this was no longer his responsibility. Someone else should know. Someone better equipped should take over. And yet… a feeling inside him refused.
It wasn’t just the fear that she would become a curiosity locked away behind reinforced glass, dissected by people more interested in answers than compassion. That thought unsettled him, but it wasn’t what stopped him.
The truth reached much deeper than that.
More than once since finding her, he had convinced himself that none of this was real, that he would wake up, walk to school, come home, eat dinner, and watch another ordinary day quietly disappear into the next.
Ordinary.
For so long, that had been all he thought he wanted. But recently… the world had been feeling hollow. Ordinary was the empty chairs at the dinner table. Ordinary was pretending his mother’s and sister’s absence no longer hurt. Ordinary was waking each morning with nothing waiting for him except another day spent carrying grief that never seemed to grow any lighter.
The arrival of the strange girl had a turn towards a different direction. He understood almost nothing. And yet… for the first time in many years, he felt purpose. The realization frightened him. He should have been terrified. Instead, a quiet excitement spread through him, so intense it almost made him quiver.
He had no idea what would happen next, he had no plan, no answers. Only an impossible girl from another world eating a banana on his kitchen floor. And somehow… that uncertainty made the future feel larger than ever.
If she had truly fallen into this world by chance, then he would help her find her way home. And if there was no way home… then he would make sure she found one here.
Chapter 5 — First time?
As the furry girl finished eating the banana and looked at its skin with an expression that oscillated between disappointment and disgust, figuring that it might not be edible, Felipe’s brain was sprinting several kilometers ahead of reality.
One banana was hardly a proper welcome for a guest from another dimension. She deserved an actual meal. A meal worthy of an otherworldly visitor.
He rolled up his sleeves with the determination of a chef about to defend his worth in an international competition and marched into the kitchen.
Halfway through clearing a mountain of neglected dishes from the sink, another thought struck him.
She had spent the night unconscious in a ruined building… covered in dust… blood… and whatever else happened wherever she came from.
“…She probably wants a bath.”
He froze.
He looked at the kitchen. He looked at the bathroom. Then back at the kitchen.
He could cook while she took a relaxing bath. Efficiency. Like a perfectly functional household…
The thought lingered for just a second longer than it should have.
“…That sounds nice”
The smile on his face softened.
“Maybe a little too nice”
Felipe shook the thought away, evicting it from his mind.
Nope. Today is a happy day.
He marched into the bathroom, turned the hot water on, watched the bathtub begin to fill, nodded to himself with great satisfaction and returned to the kitchen wearing the unmistakable expression of someone who believed had everything under control.
He absolutely did not.
“Wanna come?”
He asked brightly, extending a hand towards her with an encouraging smile.
He knew she couldn’t understand a single word, but that was merely a minor inconvenience. Surely a warm smile, a friendly voice and enthusiastic hand gestures were enough to overcome the tiny obstacle known as “speaking completely different languages”.
His optimism had reached dangerous levels. He had already skipped several chapters and was mentally preparing for the part where they became best friends.
The overwhelming positivity radiating from him hit the strange girl like a physical force.
She blinked. This bizarre seemingly furless being was smiling at her like a golden retriever inviting her to see something incredibly important.
She had absolutely no idea what he wanted. His words meant nothing. His gestures somehow even less. But… he looked so absurdly hopeful that refusing almost felt cruel.
With the weary resignation of someone accepting that today simply wasn’t going to make sense, she slowly reached out and took his hand with surprising delicacy, contrary to her previous display.
Felipe’s train of thought immediately derailed.
He thought so much ahead that he skipped something.
Her hand was soft. Short, fluffy fingers rested lightly against his own, and smooth pink paw pads gave her grip a gentle feel.
His brain, being an exceptionally unhelpful organ, decided this was important information to focus on.
Her black claws looked intimidating at a first glance, yet they were blunt and rounded.
“…Huh…”
The silence stretched a little too long. The girl’s expression slowly tightened. She looked less like someone being guided somewhere and more like someone beginning to question every decision that led to this exact moment.
Felipe’s eyes fluttered.
His face became exceedingly warm.
“…Sorry…”
He pulled her hand to help her get on her feet and automatically walked in silence. Hand in hand. Accompanied only by the steadily growing sound of hot water coming from the bathroom.
Still with the red blanket on her shoulders, the girl looked around with curiosity, observing the white light and the surrounding vapor, trying to analyze the new room.
Felipe closed the tap and silence struck the place. Her curiosity was now shifting towards whatever he had just done.
Felipe wanted to make sure that she gets privacy, and that she is supposed to put her clothes inside the procrastination laundry bin… too much to communicate to a foreigner from an alternate universe, but his fantastical hope-induced delirium had catapulted him far from reality minutes ago.
He stood back up and walked towards the door while gesturing at her, gently pushing the air between them with both his hands to create an imaginary sense of distance.
Her thin eyebrows raised in realization and calmness. She seemed to understand, but he hadn’t closed the door yet. He wanted to make absolutely sure that she got the message before leaving her alone.
With her back towards Felipe, she slowly let the red blanket fall from her shoulders. She raised her left hand and did some small movements with her fingers that Felipe couldn’t quite make out.
Then a spectacular scene manifested in front of him. All the armor pieces that she was wearing vanished in a dim golden light, and only the form-fitting, teal clothing from underneath that covered most of her body remained.
He had been expecting her to react to the water tap as it was this kind of magical thing, but now he began to suspect that he might be the one being introduced to fancy technology, not her.
The girl let out a small and gentle sigh, finally free from the armor that she had been carrying all this time and then began to slip out the only stuff that she had left on her.
Felipe was still at the door, still waiting for any clue for privacy from her. It wasn’t happening. Felipe’s heart skipped a beat, and he bolted back to the kitchen before he could see anything that he shouldn’t.
“Did she not know that I was there?” “No, of course she knew” “Did she just not care?” “What was that?”
His breathing slowly calmed. His eyes fixed onto nothing in particular.
“Salted vegetables”, he muttered. “Salted vegetables will do”
The fridge had more than enough vegetables for two people. To an outsider’s perspective, a sign of a healthy diet. To Felipe, a haunting reminder to start eating actual food instead of processed snacks or skipping it entirely.
He wasn’t a great chef by any means, but he knew his way around a couple of dishes. The kind that only requires chopping things, throwing them into a wok and waiting until they look edible.
A chill breeze interrupted him before he started. He hugged his arms and moved his attention to the obliterated door. Perhaps his priorities were disorganized.
He managed to lift and accommodate the door within its frame. Pieces of wood hanging from it, cracks everywhere, hinges on the floor. He dismissed it all and went straight back to chopping carrots and leeks.
He rested his back on the edge of the kitchen table waiting for the food to finally begin making crispy oily noises from the wok and looked up.
“Was that just now the first time I ever held hands with a girl?”
Chapter 6 —
(working on it)