I woke up in a haze of sunlight, warmth, and the deep aching soreness of someone who’d just tried to wrestle Godzil with baby arms. My whole body felt like it had been dropkicked by a moon. My tail—

  Wait.

  I reached back instinctively.

  Gone.

  ‘…Oh no. No no no. My bance! My precious, furry gyroscope! It’s GONE!’

  I sat bolt upright—well, attempted to—my body wobbled like a busted seesaw and I promptly facepnted onto the floor beside the bed.

  “GRAAAANNYYY!” I screamed from the floorboards. “Did I squash you?! Are you okay?! Are you a pancake now?! Oh god, I killed the old dy who taught me how to suplex trees—this is why I can’t have tails!”

  But then I heard it.

  The slow, deliberate sip of hot tea.

  I peeked up from my prone position and saw her. Sitting at the table like nothing happened. Legs crossed, teacup banced in one hand, and the world’s most judgmental expression on her face.

  ‘She looks like yesterday was just a casual Thursday stroll. I turned into a skyscraper-sized monkey and wrecked her house again and she’s just… sipping tea.’

  She looked up and tilted her head. “So. You’re some kind of alien or something?”

  I blinked. “…Well. Technically, yeah. I mean, I am an alien, but I’m a nice alien. Mostly. I only turn into a rampaging murder monkey when there’s a full moon. So, you know. Not always.”

  I gave her a sheepish grin.

  She stood.

  I did not trust that glint in her eye.

  She walked over.

  And—WHACK—punched me on top of the head with the ft of her knuckles. I swear, my soul ricocheted off the ceiling before returning to my body.

  “OW! What was that for?!”

  “You didn’t think it was worth mentioning that you turn into a twelve-ton ape when you look at the sky?!”

  “…I forgot, okay?! Hehe…”

  She narrowed her eyes like a hawk analyzing her next prey. “You forgot.”

  I nodded quickly. “I forget a lot of things! I’m five! I’m lucky if I remember where I left my pants!”

  She grunted and rolled her eyes. “Stupid monkey.”

  “I prefer interstelr simian, thank you.”

  I pushed myself upright and tried to stand, wobbling like I had jelly for bones. My equilibrium was nonexistent. I took a step and—

  THUD

  Straight to the floor again.

  “Damn tail…”

  She huffed, picked me up with one hand like I weighed nothing, and dropped me on my feet. “Weirdest alien I’ve ever seen. You’ve got a name that sounds like a side dish, a monkey tail you didn’t warn me about, and apparently a moon-triggered doomsday mode. But whatever.” She cracked her knuckles and nodded to herself. “I took you in. I’ll do my part. You’re not dying. And you’re not killing anyone on this pnet, not while I’ve got air in my lungs.”

  ‘Okay that’s… kind of badass.’

  She smacked me on the shoulder. “Now quit being a drama queen and help me fix this bsted house.”

  So, with what limited coordination I had left and a tail that no longer existed to help me bance, I began dragging and lifting wood.

  She chopped down trees like it was her daily meditation routine. I carried the logs—well, lugged—each one practically half my body weight or more. I was grunting, sweating, and definitely contempting the pros and cons of space CPS when someone walked up the trail leading to our humble crash site.

  He looked… average. Bck hair, short, slightly pale from ck of training sun, arms thin but not weak, dressed in modest Earth clothes. Not a warrior, but not a slouch either. His eyes widened as he stepped into the clearing and saw the damage.

  “Mom! What happened to your house?!”

  I paused mid-lift, staring at him with a log the size of a body in my hands.

  ‘…Wait. Mom?’

  Granny looked up without missing a beat. “Had a storm st night. Trees flew. House broke. We're fine.”

  He blinked. “A storm did this?”

  “Very strong wind. Very rge trees. Fast velocity. You wouldn’t understand.”

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s definitely what happened. Just a casual hurricane that only demolished our house and flung me into monkey puberty.’

  The guy’s eyes drifted toward me—the tiny child lifting triple-sized wood blocks like a living ox. His mouth twitched.

  “Mom… whose kid is that?”

  “He was abandoned in the forest. Found him. Took him in. I’m a generous woman. You know that.”

  ‘Wow. She made it sound like I was a stray cat she fed once and kept.’

  I pced the wood down, wiped my hands, and marched over to them, pnting myself squarely between them like I was ready to deliver a TED talk.

  “You her real son?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

  He blinked. “Uh… yes?”

  “Come here. Let me hug you.” I spread my arms. “You poor, tortured soul. I can only imagine the psychological trauma of being raised by her and still turning out so… average.”

  I didn’t even get to finish the hug.

  CRACK

  I heard the knuckles first.

  I turned just in time to see Granny cock her fist back like a professional pitcher and BAM—my forehead took the hit like a champion. My body flopped backwards like a wn chair.

  She grabbed my cheeks in both hands and pinched. Hard.

  “You think I’m some grumpy old hag, huh, Vegetable?!”

  “Yesh!” I cried. “But in da most reshectful way possibul!”

  Her son watched the chaos, arms crossed, a strange expression on his face—something like nostalgia mixed with pure envy. He sighed.

  “You’re lucky,” he muttered.

  “Huh?”

  “She always wanted a kid like that,” he said, nodding toward me. “Strong. Wild. Able to actually handle her insane training. But my body… it’s just not cut out for martial arts. Never was.”

  Granny scoffed. “You turned out fine.”

  “You say that, but Sasha wants me to bring you back to the city. You can’t keep living like this. Especially now that you’ve taken in a kid. You need clean water, electricity, a pce for him to learn and grow. Civilization, Mom.”

  Granny arched a brow. “I thought I taught you to live your life however you want.”

  “You did. I’m trying. But this kid needs more than training. He needs other kids. School. Exposure to people who don’t smell like squirrels and kick trees for fun.”

  ‘Fair. That’s fair.’

  He added, “And besides, there’s that martial arts dojo you left under our old house. Still sealed up. He could train there. It’s better than swinging logs and punching squirrels.”

  Granny tilted her head.

  I saw it.

  The sparkle.

  That look in her eyes.

  “…You said there’s a martial tournament for kids?”

  He nodded. “Annual event. Tons of competitors. The kid’s clearly got power—maybe a little too much for someone his age. He needs a pce to train and learn to handle it.”

  Granny turned to me, eyes gleaming like a predator who just found a steak dinner in her mailbox.

  ‘Oh no. She’s thinking of enrolling me in the tournament. This woman wants to throw me into a public brawl with Earth’s mini gdiators.’

  She smiled, wickedly. “Alright. But on one condition.”

  He raised a brow. “Which is?”

  “I’m not letting this kid turn into some geek like you. If he gets gsses, I’m breaking them.”

  He sighed. “Good enough, Mom. Let’s go, kid.”

  I walked up, offering a proud little handshake. “Name’s Kalbi.”

  He smirked and shook it. “Carl. Nice to meet you.”

  Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a tiny capsule, and pressed the top.

  I braced.

  ‘Here comes the poof! The magic cloud, the twinkle, the animation!’

  Instead—

  BZZZZZTCHK-KSH-KLANGCLINK

  The capsule didn’t explode into a cartoon cloud like the anime. No, it unfolded mechanically. Parts clicked, expanded, twisted in the air, snapping together in a precise chain of movements. First the base, then the tires, then the frame, the engine, the doors—all constructed in under three seconds.

  What stood before us was a gleaming, clean, space-efficient capsule car with polished bck windows and blue trim.

  My jaw dropped.

  “…I am officially living in sci-fi. This is sci-fi. That’s not a car, that’s sorcery.”

  “That’s technology, kid,” Granny muttered.

  I turned to her. “You mean we could’ve had this the whole time? Press a button, boom—house? Bathroom? TOILET?!”

  She smacked the back of my head. “Finger on lips. Adults are talking.”

  I zipped it.

  Carl opened the door. “Come on. Let’s get to the city. We’ve got a long ride, and you’ve got a whole new world to step into.”

  I stared at the open car, heart pounding.

  ‘New pce. New challenges. New people. Maybe even capsule toilets.’

  Granny climbed into the front seat, looking half-impressed, half-annoyed. I climbed into the back, bouncing a little on the comfy seat.

  Carl started the engine.

  And with that, the weirdest family in the woods began their trip to civilization—with a monkey-tailed alien, a tea-loving martial arts grandma, and the brother-son-human bridge named Carl.

  The city had no idea what was coming.