Despite the pair having one last class of the day left, Cassie and Larson didn’t bother going. Cassie wanted to know more about what she was and Larson figured it’d be easier just to show her what he’d already found. They left the school grounds like everyone else who skipped their classes and walked together on the sidewalk.

Eventually, when they got to the neighboring houses, Cassie spoke up.

“This place we’re going to, it has all the answers?”

“Not really,” Larson started, “it just has what I’ve collected over the last six years.”

“Oh, by the way, you’re seventeen like me right?” Her eager voice rang out.

He confirmed her question with a simple nod, but then realized something, “wait, how the hell did you not know that?" he looked back at her, "you said we were in the same classes.”

“Yeah, but you being weird or whatever, you could have been like a thousand years old or something. It’s called a chronological age, not your physical age.”

“I’m not." Larson clarified, "I may not know all of what we are, but one thing’s for sure: we were still born the same as the rest of these Bumilians.”

“Is that what humans are called?” Cassie asked.

“In what I’ve read, they call humans that, yes; but it’s strange, because I assume we bleed red blood too.”

“Maybe the composition is different or something?” Cassie suggested.

“I thought that, but I haven’t been able to find anything good enough to hurt myself with in order to test that theory.”

Cassie kept that in mind. Her eyes looked around the area for a bit as they walked further away from the nice residential area and into where the homeless would loiter. It was a damp area filled with trash, abandoned buildings and homeless people under worn and torn blankets, resting beside barrel fires.

“Do you live here?” She asked with a slightly skeptical tone.

“Yeah.” He simply said.

“I don’t get it. Don’t you have parents?”

“Yeah, but they were annoyingly human. So I told them off and it made it easier for me to run away.”

“So, they’re not even looking for you?”

“Nope, and I hope to keep it that way.” Larson kept walking with her until they got to the very end of the road they were walking on.

Down there was a house gated off from the rest of the dilapidated houses beside it. The gate that separated the house had a door sized hole out front. Larson went through it and told Cassie to follow him. She did and now they were on the porch of the house. Cassie carefully stepped up weary of the floorboards as she stepped up.

“This place is pretty run down.” Cassie waited for him to open the door, “but it’s by a rift?” She asked.

“Yeah, I got pretty lucky.” When he opened the door, the inside of the house was nothing like its exterior. The once run down house turned into a clean and fully furnished home, with two floors and everything looking intact and newly built. Seemingly none of the problems outside were present in the home.

“Wait, where did you get all this stuff?” Cassie started to look at the decorations in the house.

“Where do you think?” He said taking off his coat and throwing it on the couch. “I stole it.”

“B-but you can’t do that! What if people see you?”

Larson looked back unamused, “You weren’t kidding when you said you don’t know anything. You realize we can interrupt wavelengths right?”

Cassie was shocked, “W-we can?”

Larson stared at her and let out a sigh. He touched his temple, “you know, I was going to give you some credit for being able to handle me, but you’re the biggest idiot. How do you not know shit about yourself?”

“I’m not all into trying stuff out, especially when I live in an area with a bunch of people around!” She yelled back.

“I swear if there’s more of us out there, it won’t be them who kills us, but your own stupidity.”

“I’m not stupid.” She retorted.

“Right, I just hope that Math exam doesn’t hold you back.”

“Look, math is hard! It’s not my fault, none of it makes any sense.”

Larson just scoffed at her and began to lead her up the stairs to a hallway with a few doors in it.

Cassie huffed and followed him, “you’re one person, why do you have so many rooms?” Cassie asked after calming down.

“This is how the house came, I just fixed it up.”

“Or maybe you’re bringing people over here and-”

“Shut up.” He cut her off, “humans are defective. I have no need to do anything with them.”

“You don’t even like girls?” She asked with astonishment in her voice.

“Why the hell would I? Most of them are either too concerned about their appearance, or they’re the complete opposite and annoy me because they can’t stop talking about how 'not like the others' they are.”

She laughed a bit, “I think most people are pretty. Some people have a uniqueness about them that I think about a lot.” her voice was dreamlike.

“You mean a crush?”

“It’s not like that!” She yelled.

“Whatever, just let me explain this to you.” Larson went into the very last room up on the second floor of the house and Cassie was presented with a study.

It was filled with books of all kinds, but what caught her eye was the empty bookshelf against the right wall. Larson went over to that side and picked up one of the few books there before walking back to Cassie.

“We… or at the very least me, are referred to as Fourth Dimensional Beings. We were born normally, through childbirth, but when we were born gave way to us being able to accept the powers that few are given. There are others of us that live in the fourth dimension; but, obviously, they’re not here. The only thing in here that my parents had in common with these guys is that they were interested in things related to spiritually and practiced it often.”

“Oh, my parents have this flower thing that my dad said is supposed to give your dreams energy.”

“Yeah, essentially it’s people who practice that mythical shit and from there, only a few of them get lucky like our parents did.”

“How many though?” Cassie questioned.

“Well, we’re two, so let’s think about the school we go to. In our grade alone there are four hundred students, we’re the only two who got it.”

Cassie furrowed her brows, “I-I don’t know what that means, but I guess it must mean we’re super rare! Like the zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero-”

“Shut up! Yes, it is like that!” She closed her mouth slowly, “anyways, as you said earlier, it means we can react to things so quickly it almost seems like we know what’s going to happen. There are some other things like: we can feel rifts in time and space, we can interrupt or block certain wavelengths, and we have immense strength and prowess.” He explained.

“But if we’ve never trained or anything, how are we good fighters?”

“I have trained. As for you, it must just come naturally.”

She nods, “I think so, 'cause whenever I try anything I’m pretty bad at it.” she laughed.

Larson sighed, “I swear, I wish I could kill you.”

“Well, you’re not gonna be able to!” She teased, “but is there anything else you found out?” Cassie was much more eager now.

“No, all of my information came from this study that was being done on beings like us.” He held up the book, “whoever that guy was either didn’t publish anything past this first book or died trying to write it.”

“Why not just find this guy’s kids then?”

“And do what, raid their ancestor’s homes?”

“You stole all this stuff, so I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Larson rolled his eyes, “you’re a bigger idiot than I thought if you really think these people care about their pasts. Especially, when it’s a phenomenon like us.”

Cassie took the book and looked at the 'about author' section, “still, I think we should try and find whoever this… barf guy is.”

“Barmen,” He corrected, “that wasn’t even close.” Larson said as he took the book back and returned it to the shelf.

“Then what are we going to do?” She huffed, “stay here forever?”

“Obviously not." Larson began, "I just have to keep looking for places where we can go to see if anyone knows anything.”

Cassie nods to him, “So you’re hoping to find out stuff by finding others like us!” Larson gave a soft nod, “then I’ll be here to help you!”

“There’s a huge part of me that wants to turn you down.”

“Why?" Cassie whined, "I love doing research like this and two is better than one.”

“Yeah, two of me. One of you is already too much to handle!”

She scoffed, “Look, we’re turning eighteen in a year and by that point we’ll be able to go and travel places without people thinking we’re too young. So how about we do whatever we can while we’re kids and then when we’re older we do more!”

“I didn’t think of that!” He rolled his eyes, “obviously, I was going to do that you dipshit.”

“So why were you planning on destroying the planet then?”

“Because I hate living here. It’s horrible either because of the weather that’s fucked to all hell or because of the people who are an insult to infectious swine. I figured killing a few people as a stress reliever wouldn’t be a problem.”

She put her hands on her hips, “I hope you took my warning seriously. I really won’t let you hurt anyone who doesn’t have to be harmed.”

His eyes narrowed, “what’s with you? Got some kind of savior complex?”

“No, it’s just logical not to do that.”

“Oh, it is now?” He humored her.

“Yeah, like, if you need someone to shut up about something they saw or did, what would you do?” She asked.

“Kill them.”

“Wrong! That just brings more problems.”

“I really don’t see how.”

“Because whoever you kill has family and friends who care about them. All of them will be upset that this happened and they’ll wind up going after you; and even though you’re likely strong enough to take them, what if someone like me agrees with them and decides to kill you?” he scoffed, but said nothing to her explanation. “See? So it’s easier just to comply with them. Ask them to not tell anyone about a particular thing and maybe oblige to something they ask.”

“What if they’re self serving justice bringers and don’t think to side with you?”

“Then you kill them!” Cassie declared.

“I’m getting a headache just trying to listen to you.” He left out of the study and made his way down the stairs into the living room. “We both have one goal in mind—to learn more about what we are. So since it would be easier to have you on my side, I don’t mind you sticking by me.” He sat at the table.

Cassie hurriedly ran down the stairs and almost tripped as she got to the bottom. “You mean you wanna be my friend!”

“We’re working together to obtain a shared goal.” He corrected her.

“Friends!” She exclaimed as she sat down across from him, “of course we can!”

Larson touched his forehead, “then, I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing and we can work out what we’ll do from there.”

She nods to him, “That’s fine, but let’s wait until tomorrow.”

“What? Why?”

“Because the name on that book looked familiar.”

“You mean barf?” Larson joked.

“Yeah… no! I mean his actual name.” Larson snickered, “anyway, I think I’ve seen that name before, so I was planning on doing some research.”

“Fine, as long as you’re doing something productive, I couldn't care less.”

“Couldn't care less? Isn’t it could care less?” Larson glared back at her which caused Cassie to focus her attention elsewhere. Cassie went and checked the time on her phone, “it’s six already! I have to go before my parents kill me!”

“They literally can’t.”

“I know, but I think they can, so we’ll talk more tomorrow. See you!” Cassie took off at a superhuman speed and was out of his house in less than a second.

Larson sighed and went to shut his door. Right as he was going to, Cassie suddenly appeared back at the door.

“What?” Larson asked with a deep frown present on his features.

“Sorry,” she said with a small giggle, “I just wanted to tell you that I’ll be at our Chemistry class tomorrow.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“Alright, bye for real this time!” Once again, Cassie took off.

Larson just shook his head and moved on. Though it seemed he was destined to be annoyed tonight as he heard a dog barking. The same dog that was always barking at him and his house. He went out and stood in front of the dog as it began to growl defensively at him, he crouched down and picked it up. The dog scratched and bit him all over while Larson moved him back over to the location where it typically came from.

“Damn dog… won’t stop barking at this place.” Larson sighed and finally went back into his home thinking the worst was yet to come.