Chapter Text
By the time the clock struck 6 in the morning, the last light in the Lake house was finally turned off. Barbara Lake, a current medical student and recently divorced mother, had finally finished her theoretical career jobs, after a full day of housework and schoolwork, she could get a modest three hours sleep before having to wake up to make breakfast for the day .
Funny that Saturday morning, she would not sleep just a couple of hours as she was used to, but rather that a little one with disheveled hair and bright blue eyes had been in charge of sabotaging her alarm to make sure she slept as much as necessary. By the time the sky was turning to warm orange hues, Jim Lake Jr was already awake and active, ready to take on as much housework as a 6-year-old could do - all because Mommy could finally take a break!
Breakfast was the main thing, because a growing child just like his mother, a future doctor, had to eat well. From under his pillow he pulled out the magazine page he had ripped from his last visit to the dentist and as fast and quiet as he could go downstairs, he ran to the kitchen to collect all the ingredients that were in the magazine recipe.
It was an omelet, something he could easily do without causing a fire, lately he was helping his mom in the kitchen and taking on more and more chores in food preparation, so he was confident that there would be no problem at all with him taking care of breakfast for the day by himself.
Confident and with a smile on his lips, Jim turned on the coffee pot so that when his mother woke up he could receive her with a cup of hot coffee along with the omelet. He could already imagine his mom rested, eating without falling asleep at the table and without having to worry about having to clean or do any other chores. He could even take care of lunch if necessary! Today he just wanted her not to worry about a thing.
He was in the middle of whisking the eggs when he heard something that brought him out of his fantasies. A strange noise.
He leaned out to the stairs, his ears sharpening to make sure his mom hadn't got up. Nothing, absolute silence.
There was nothing in the living room either.
"It's nothing" He said to convince himself, it was still early and maybe his head was playing a trick on him for getting up early. Obviously the darkness that was still in the house and that did not allow him to see anything through the windows was not causing him any paranoia to be hearing noises, clearly not.
But then he heard the noise again, this time louder and accompanied by what sounded like falling boxes.
Now he was sure where the noise was coming from. The basement.
His first impulse upon hearing such noise from the place of his house that he was most afraid of was running towards the stairs to look for Mom, to seek her protection in her arms and between her sheets. But hearing her light snores through her door, just as he was about to turn the knob to enter, made him stop.
He was supposed to be doing this to get her to rest, it was supposed to be a surprise, if he ran with her because he was scared of a noise, his whole plan would be ruined. He released the knob and went back downstairs.
Again he heard noises coming from the basement.
He gulped.
“I am a big boy. I protect mom now. ” With shaky legs, Jim returned to the kitchen to take what he considered a good weapon against whatever was in the basement: the largest metal spoon in the drawer.
Armed with his spoon and accumulating as much courage as he could on his little chest, the boy slowly approached the door that led to the basement to turn the door handle with trembling hands, fearful that his movements would alert any monster behind it and get himself attacked the moment he opened it. He raised the spoon in front of him when the door was finally open, shrinking and closing his eyes to avoid seeing his enemy in the face, as if the metal utensil was enough to scare him.
A few seconds passed and nothing seemed to eat him, so he opened his eyes.
He only found the darkness of the steps. He breathed again, not realizing that he had stopped doing it, he sat on the first step with the spoon firmly against his chest, waiting again for something to happen.
Again, nothing.
"You can do this, Jim." He took a deep breath, inflating his chest with it in a gesture of pure determination, and began to descend slowly, one step at a time and without removing the spoon away from himself. He kept his eyes open, waiting for them to adapt to the darkness in order to find any sign of what that noise had been, his ears until now only caught the light grinding of the wood under its weight as he advanced.
He was already halfway up the stairs when he finally saw something. What he saw almost made him throw the spoon out of fear, but again, as if it were a sword worthy of a knight, he raised it in front of him, threatening whatever was staring back at him.
"W-Who's there?"
He could swear it, yellow eyes were staring at him as intently as he was staring at whoever was the owner of those eyes. But he was sure it wasn't remotely as scared as he was.
The growl that answered his question could assure it to him.
"W-Whoever you are, I-I'm not afraid of you!"
It was a raccoon, it must be a raccoon, whenever a strange noise was accompanied by bright and threatening eyes that stared at him from the forest, his mother always showed him that it was just a raccoon. This could not be different.
"I'm not afraid of you either"
Only that raccoons didn't speak.
He wanted to scream but the words were drowned in his throat, it had closed as a maximum security vault, with all the fear he was feeling his head only managed to tell his body to do one thing. He threw the spoon directly at the owner of those yellow eyes.
"What is this?" But his strength as a 6-year-old boy was not enough to cross the entire basement space to where the invader seemed to be, the utensil was halfway, in a neutral point of both where the light of the corridor still entered but the absolute darkness of the rest of the room began.
Jim felt himself shaking as he saw a hand approaching from the darkness, a blue hand. If he was not paralyzed before, now he was fused with the steps.
After the hand, an arm appeared, then another hand and little by little the body of the owner of those yellow eyes was revealed. In just seconds, the invader was fully revealed, all in order to smell a spoon he used to serve the stews.
It was ... A strange creature, clearly it was not a raccoon. Its skin was blue, but it had no texture of fur or scales or ... or skin, it was too smooth and firm. What was it made of? Another thing that drew attention more than the color of its skin, were the horns on its head, it had two pairs, two small on the top and some larger that waved slightly to the sides, they were a color similar to ivory. On his shoulders it also seemed to have protuberances, but they were not horns, they were slightly more translucent, it was noted by how the light that entered the basement interacted with these. Crystals? And… did he have more on his back?
"What are you?" He thought he had thought about it, but seeing the invader raise his head from sniffing the spoon to focus on him, he gulped at his loose tongue.
"Something you shouldn't be seeing" From the tone in which the blue creature spoke, it showed that he wanted to sound intimidating, aggressive, but even a small child like Jim could notice the shame that the slight tremor in his tone betrayed him.
"Then why am I seeing you?" He wasn't attacking him and seemed more interested in the spoon than in him, curiosity overcame any fear he had been feeling until now. He was a boy with a nascent streak for adventure. Could you blame him?
"... Because I failed to go unnoticed to enter your house" Now yes, the shame was more obvious. The invader dropped to his butt on the ground, taking the spoon in his hands to continue sniffing it.
"Why did you come into my house?"
"Because the sun is already rising" And the question that Jim was going to ask, was swallowed by the surprise of seeing the invader taking a bite out of his spoon, making half of the utensil disappear from a bite as if it were a simple caramel.
"... Do you have more of that? It was delicious.” It took him to see how the entire spoon was devoured so Jim could even remember how to speak.
"Uh ... I don't think my mom would like to know that you ate a spoon, if I bring you something else she may worry that she has lost kitchen utensils" A pout from the blue invader was his answer and Jim couldn't avoid a giggling, he puffed out his cheeks in a similar way to Toby when he was throwing a tantrum and it was a funny sight for him.
"Why are you laughing? Do you want us to fight? ” And his laughter died as soon as he saw the invader putting himself into a position similar to that of a bull ready to charge a bullfighter, he even moved his foot as they do to signal that it will take the hit! Jim moved his hands in frenzy, he was not very excited about the idea of getting rammed with those horns that he had on his head.
"Nononono, sorry, sorry ... You reminded me of a friend, that's all"
"... Did I remind you of one of your fleshbag friends?"
"... Fleshbags? Uh ... Yes, Toby may be a little… stuffed, but it's not to call him that”
"... Stuffed? No, I meant that all of you humans are fleshbags, you are a fleshbag”
"I am not a fleshbag!"
"Yes you are!"
"Not!"
"Yes!"
Now it was Jim's turn to pout, forgetting that he was in the basement, forgetting that his only light was coming from the open door into the hallway, he got up from the step where he was sitting and with a firm step, doing his best imitation to how he saw his mom acted when someone made her mad, he walked over to the blue invader and stood in front of him.
"I'm not a fleshbag, don't call me that"
His challenge position was quickly captured but he did not receive the answer he expected, until now the invader had remained sitting or walking on all fours, but seeing him stand in front of him with such bearing, made him respond in the same way. With a push of his arms, he got up and planted in front of Jim, puffing out his chest with the intention of appearing bigger, that even without that, he was at least a head and a half taller than the 6-year-old boy, and that without counting the horns.
"Well, humans are fleshbags, so that's what you are, fleshbag"
The two little ones held their gaze, blue eyes against yellow eyes, neither wanting to give his arm to twist in that silent challenge.
Their staring war lasted long enough that they had to look away to blink, both leaving their eyes dry for not wanting to give up. Jim was annoyed, but oddly, the invader laughed.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because I did not expect to see a child stand in front of the great Draal, fleshbag"
"My name is not fleshbag! My name is Jim! Jim Lake Jr!”
"Then we already know the other's name, Jim"
A snort came from Jim's lips while Draal only laughed.
Funny that this would not be their last fight, because what these little ones did not know is that their innocent interaction would be the key point for a radical change in the both of their worlds.
A change that only time would tell what kind of path will take. Positive? Or negative?
The divergence of fate had only just begun.