Seeing Her

The market was only open early in the morning on Saturdays and Wednesdays. She'd missed her opportunity to stock up on animal organs the last two weeks, causing Aziza to pause her incredibly fast growth. This time, she made sure she bought more livers, stomachs and bladders than she thought she would need, and she struggled to heave them up the metal stairwell that lead to her third story apartment. The cheap handles of the deep, translucent pales dug into her fingers, the thin lids threatened to crack and pop open as the pales became oblong under the wait of their contents, making her ascent to the top floor uncomfortable and perilous. If she got cold cow blood on her bare thighs she would cry or throw up or both.

"Hodgepodge!" called familiar voice, breaking her concentration.

Yahaji winced. She couldn't remember how her neighbor had learned her terrible childhood nickname. She peaked around her shoulder to see him leaning into the mesh lining of his patteo. Karrell had been a snaggletoothed little boy, now he was a beautiful man, (high cheekbones, big pillowy lips, and a strong, angular jawline) with snaggletoothed humor.

"Hey! How are you?" she forced herself to say, trying to hit that elusive level of friendliness that was apparent enough to prove that she wasn't rude, but not so apparent that he'd think she was flirting.

"Hey," he said, "I've been hearing some weird noises from your house while you were gone. Everything ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He nodded.

"Ok, well, let me know if you need help with anything."

"Ok, thanks" said Yahaji. As she turned to leave, he stopped her by continuing.

"My auntie went to the worms for a treatment too. I know."

Yahaji froze, her heart began to pound as panic began to creep upon her.

"You know what?" she asked.

"It does something to you. My auntie started keeping strays, adopting racoons and possums and shit. Stopped letting people over her her house..."

"I'm not going crazy, " Yahaji snapped.

"Ok! Just, if you need to talk, I'm here."

Yahaji thought to tell him to close his mouth and mind his business, but decided against it. She was so close to being home and in her comfortable bed. Instead she thanked him, and continued to haul the organs up the stairs. Angrily.

If that nosy bastard was actually trying to be helpful he would've helped her carry this heavy ass shit. Didn't he see her struggling? And she didn't remember announcing her treatment with anyone. And how many years had her lived below her without uttering a single word? But now that she's pretty again he's concerned for her mental health, fuck him!

She placed burst through her front door with newfound energy,.

An empty cocoon cracked and sank under her feet like a stale taco shell and made a sick sucking sound as the fluffy inner coating peeled away from her boots, a sound Yahaji had become quite used to, but still hated passionately. Aziza was cocooning almost nightly these days, and rarely did the little girl think to clean up after herself.

"Aziza!" Yahaji fussed as she dropped her bucket of cow livers next to the tv, "I told you to do that in the bathroom. What if someone comes in here?" 

The eerie young girl peeled her attention away from the her drawings, rose from   her knees crookedly, unnaturally, and greeted Yahaji with a toothy grin. The beads in her hair clicked and clacked as she galloped to Yahaji and wrapped her arms around her legs.

"Ajee!" she sang, in a polyphonic voice. "You're back!"

Yahaji's annoyance instantly melted away as she squeezed Aziza back.

"Hey honey! I see you remembered to dress yourself again! All by yourself!"

The girl beamed.

"Uh-huh, I weared blue like my hair," she said, knocking her braids to the side to rattle her bright blue beads.

"I see! You look so adorable," said Yahaji with a smile,  "And you mean 'I'm wearing blue.'"

"I'm wear-ing blue like my hair!"

"Uh-huh!"

Yahaji felt energized enough to make some room in the fridge to store the organs. The excess would have to go in the fridge. Aziza followed her a few steps to the kitchen. She was a month old now, but had the appearance of a six year old. Her grasp of English wasnt at a six year old level, but she was learning fast.

"What did you do while I was out, queeny?"

"Uhmm, I drawed."

"You drew?"

"Uh huh. I drew."

"And what did you draw?"

"Ummm I draawwed..." she sang, her split voice sounding particularly alien,  "My sisters and my brothers and you!"

Her siblings?

Yahaji dropped the peppers she was handling on the counter.

"Can I see?" she asked.

"Uh huh,"

Azizas artwork was featured a two dimentional  world where all humanoids stood side to side and faced forward, while the fluffy, worm bodied figures stood sideways to show their figure. Each figure was astonishingly detailed, in an a-realistic way. She was drawing figures she had definitely seen as if  they had only ever been described to her. It was a bit unnerving, yet appealing.

The drawing were all similar in one way, three long legged girls with circles for hair held hands with a pile of fuzzy worms on each side of the. One girl with straight lines for hair, with two pink lines next to her. On the opposite side was Yahaji, with a triangle haircut and Aziza, holding hands.

"Wow this is beautiful, 'Zizi!"

Azizas brown cheeks flushed ruddy as she covered her face with tiny hands and giggled.

"Why is this girl always by herself?"

"Iono," said Aziza with a shrug.

"What's all this pink around her?"

"That's her room."

"Oh ok. Do the other girls have rooms?"

"Mmmmmn yes like we do."

Yahaji glanced around their studio apartment and recalled Lailu's complaints of the AUHE.

Something was definitely wrong here.

"Are you ready to eat?"