Chapter Text
When Niti was seven, she heard a child scream so loud she thought they were dying. It was shrill and loud and panicked and... one of Niti's favorite memories.
The child screaming was a seven year old Curtis Young with a squirrel clung to his face like a mask. He had been trying to find the source of the weird noise in his dad's truck. He found it, alright. It was a family of squirrels that weren't particularly happy about being disturbed.
He had run, flailing and screaming two houses down to the Chandran family home where little Niti was sat, drawing. She rushed to her feet and threw a handful of crayons at the squirrel which was enough to shoo it away.
The pair stared at each other in a shocked silence before Niti fell to her knees in laughter. Her parents had rushed out of the house at that point and were met with the strangest sight of one child laughing, the other close to tears. Two children that would become best friends for life.