My hoodie didn’t fit him, his shoulders were way broader than mine, so he spent the day either draping it around himself like a cape or clutching it in both hands. I wore one of Dad’s old zip-up hoodies so Mom could add runes later and give Syrin something he could actually wear.
By late afternoon, cabin fever hit hard. I finally convinced Mom to let us take a walk to the park. No monsters. No shadow-light flickers. No interdimensional drama. Just a normal walk.
Honestly, it was weird to have an entire day where Syrin was just there, but I wasn’t about to complain. We took shifts again that night. Still nothing. By the next morning, I was practically vibrating with the need to escape the apartment.
“Mom,” I said, following her into the kitchen. “We can’t stay cooped up forever. The connection is supposedly stable now with the hoodie, right?”
Mom frowned. “It’s not that there’s no risk.”
“Yes, but fresh air is healthy. Stabilizing. Therapeutic.” I tapped the counter. “So really, this is safety planning.”
“Maybe.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I can see you plotting, Trina. What did you have in mind?”
“I want to go to the zoo.”
Across the room, Syrin perked up like a golden meerkat. “Zoo? That’s where the animals live? The… what did you call them? Pandas?”
I beamed. “Exactly.”
Mom looked between us, then finally caved. “Fine. Our passes haven’t expired yet. And at least the zoo has decent parking.”
Before she could change her mind, I bolted to change into something more zoo-appropriate.
Thirty minutes later, we were in Mom’s car with a packed picnic lunch. Syrin was wearing hoodie version 2.0, newly charmed after my prep yesterday. He didn’t even freak out as we got on the freeway this time. Progress. In fact, he spent most of the drive with his face practically glued to the window, watching every tree and building like they were the zoo. Honestly, we probably could’ve just walked around downtown and he would have been amazed, but I definitely preferred a zoo trip.
By the time we pulled into the parking lot, I had answered questions ranging from what the painted lines on the road were to what people did all day inside downtown’s skyscrapers. The parking lot wasn’t any less fascinating.
“This place can hold many cars,” Syrin said, staring out at the mostly empty parking lot like it was a marvel of engineering.
“Yeah,” I said. “You should see it on weekends or during tourist season. The whole lot fills, and people start inventing new ways to park badly.”
Syrin blinked. “What changes on weekends? Do the animals do something special?”
I laughed. “No. Some jobs only work certain days. Not hospitals or restaurants, Mom and I work through weekends, but schools and offices close on Saturdays and Sundays.”
Syrin frowned. “But the zoo seems educational. Is it not part of your schooling?”
Mom chuckled as she herded us toward the gates. “It’s educational, sure, just the entertaining kind you pay for.”
Syrin pursed his lips, and his eyes turned that green streaked with pale gold. “So… the purpose is not to better understand the animals in case you encounter them?”
I couldn’t hold back a giggle. “No. You won’t encounter most of these around here. It’s for seeing animals from other places. Mostly just for fun and curiosity.”
He went quiet, clearly trying to process the idea of paid educational entertainment.
We reached the front gates, and Syrin stopped dead, staring up at the giant lion statue in front of the ticket booths. The enormous statue had one paw on the ground and the rest of its body raised in the air like it was leaping off a rock.
“It’s a cat creature,” Syrin whispered, looking up at it. It was pretty impressive. Syrin’s head was about the height of the bottom of its mane.
I put a hand on the big metal paw. “It’s called a lion.”
He murmured the name like he was committing it to memory.
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said animal names weren’t useful.”
“Maybe I changed my mind,” he muttered. He looked up at the statue again. “It’s as large as a dragon. Is it also intelligent?”
I grinned at him. “They aren’t actually that big. This one is just a giant statue. Also, no talking animals here. Or… telepathically communicating ones, I guess? Is that how you’d characterize dragons?”
Syrin hummed. “I’ve only met one, but it communicated telepathically.”
I grinned, glancing at the families walking past. If they could understand us, we’d be the “weirdos at the zoo” group chat story for the day.
“Okay,” Mom said. “Enough statues. Let’s go see the actual animals.”
We bought a ticket for Syrin and showed our passes and IDs at the entrance before filing in. I expected Syrin to be gaping at the shops and people; instead, I caught him looking over my shoulder at my ID.
“What?” I asked.
His eyes flickered silver. “Why do they need a card to let you in, but I don’t need one?”
“We have special passes,” I said. “This proves I live in California.”
He frowned. “I cannot read everything, but it has details about you?”
“Yep.”
“But I did not see Trina anywhere.”
Mom laughed. “That’s because her name is Katrina. Trina is a nickname.”
Syrin shot me a wounded glare. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I blinked, surprised at the fervor. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It…” He frowned, searching for words. “It’s proper. Names are important.”
“Well, in that case. Nice to meet you, Syrinthinor. My name is Katrina Tamara Mendoza.”
He went completely still, like I’d handed him a fragile heirloom. “Katrina Tamara Mendoza,” he repeated softly, tasting each syllable.
“Yep,” I said. “Just don’t start calling me that. I’m Trina. Only acceptable form of address.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Mom had her face buried in the map. “Let’s do the Africa side first and make our way down towards the pandas. Unless we want to do the bus tour?”
Syrin stiffened. Apparently, the bus was still a sore emotional wound. I hid my smile. “We can walk for now. Bus tour later if we reach maximum exhaustion levels.”
We veered right, passing the bus line, and headed down the main path. A few smaller enclosures lined the way—flamingos, some lizard things—and Syrin slowed at each one, peering in with fascinated confusion.
“So they are all in cages?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“And where do you get them from? Just… capture them? Are there teams of adventurers discovering new creatures for the zoo?”
“Uh… I don’t think so?” I said. “Some of the original ones maybe. But most of the animals here were born in zoos, or rescued if they were injured. And I think some get traded between zoos? Maybe some were captured.”
He frowned thoughtfully.
We rounded the bend, dodging a bus tour as it rumbled past, and finally reached the entrance to the Africa exhibit. The path opened onto a road overlooking a wide stretch of golden savanna grass dotted with acacia trees, and right there at the front, a couple of giraffes ambled lazily across the enclosure.
Syrin stopped dead the moment he saw them. “What,” he whispered, “is that?”
I grinned. “Giraffes.”
He stared like someone had just introduced him to a new category of creature physics should not allow. “It looks like a cliff crion that got stretched wrong.” He leaned against the railing to get a closer look. “Why is it so unnecessarily tall?”
Mom snorted.
“They use their necks to reach leaves in tall trees,” I explained.
“Yes, but—” He pointed at the closest giraffe, which was now arcing its neck to nibble at a branch in one of the fake tree feeder things. “How does it drink water? Does it find a waterfall? That seems impractical. Or does it simply—” He made a gesture like a collapsing tower. “Fall over?”
I burst out laughing. “No! They, like, splay their legs weird and bend down.”
I pulled up a picture on my phone of a giraffe drinking, and Syrin made a noise I couldn’t quite classify.
“That looks painful,” he declared.
“It’s normal,” I said.
“It should not be normal,” he muttered.
Mom leaned on the railing. “There are plenty of odd Kirathi animals.”
Syrin frowned. “Yes, but none so… strangely tall as that.”
The giraffe lifted its head again and blinked its giant, slow blink. Syrin blinked back like he’d just been personally acknowledged by royalty.
“It’s watching me,” he whispered.
“It’s not,” I said.
“It absolutely is,” he insisted, voice hushed. “Is it the guardian of something? Am I supposed to bow?”
I choked. “Syrin, it’s a herbivore.”
“Yes, but a very tall one,” he said, as if height equaled authority.
“No animals at the zoo are guardians.”
Syrin just nodded as if this was important information. Another giraffe lumbered closer, its shadow sliding over the edge of the boardwalk. Syrin’s eyes flickered gold-green in reflexive awe, and the giraffe paused, head slowly rotating toward him. He hesitated. “Am I supposed to greet it?”
“I guess you can if you want,” I said. “But not necessarily.”
They stared at each other.
Syrin straightened, solemn. “Greetings,” he whispered.
The giraffe flicked an ear and went back to chewing.
Syrin exhaled, relieved. “It accepts my presence.”
I wheezed a laugh. “I can’t believe this is the thing that impresses you after fire-breathing lizard rodents.”
“The drakelings tried to kill me,” Syrin said indignantly. “And they are a nuisance. These creatures are peaceful. And enormous. I trust them more.”
“That’s… fair,” I admitted.
He kept watching the giraffes with a kind of soft reverence. “They are strangely beautiful,” he said at last. “Like trees that decided to walk.”
Which, honestly, was the most poetic description of a giraffe I’d ever heard.
We flipped around to the exhibit on the opposite side with a big swimming hole. A pair of hippos lounged half-submerged, only their nostrils and tiny ears poking above the surface like suspicious bath toys.
Syrin leaned over the railing. “What are these?”
“Hippos,” I said.
He lit up slightly. “They look friendly.”
Mom and I both choked.
“No,” I said firmly. “Absolutely not. They’re one of the most dangerous animals on Earth.”
He blinked at the sleepy gray blobs drifting in the water. “These?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the picture on the sign like he was checking if he was missing something. His eyes flickered gold when he realized one side was in Spanish. He glanced in between the enclosure and the sign. “But they are round, and it says that they eat plants.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said.
“They appear peaceful.”
“They’re not,” Mom said. “They can be quite territorial, apparently. Trina and I watched a documentary about it.”
“They do not even have claws,” he protested.
“Teeth,” Mom said. “Big ones.”
As if on cue, one hippo opened its mouth in a giant, yawning display, rows of enormous tusk-like teeth gleaming in the sun.
Syrin recoiled so hard his glow flickered white. “What— Why— That is not a herbivore’s mouth!”
“It is,” I said cheerfully.
“It absolutely is not!”
“Oh, but it is,” Mom said, sounding unreasonably amused.
Syrin stared at the creature in betrayed silence as it closed its mouth and sank peacefully back beneath the water.
“That thing eats leaves?” he demanded.
“Mostly grass,” I said. “They can run faster than a human, too.”
His irises streaked with bronze and amber. “You are telling me the water cow is faster than I am?”
I snorted. “Water cow?”
He gestured wildly. “It resembles a cow! A very angry boulder cow!”
Mom wiped a tear from her eye. “Syrin, trust us. Do not approach the hippos.”
His eyes shifted, silver bleeding into the bronze in at the edges. “I would never. There is a fence.” He glanced at the sign. “And I do not plan on traveling to Africa to find one.”
“That’s good,” I said, holding back my grin.
“Besides,” he muttered, glaring at the pool as if it had personally offended him. “I do not trust something that yawns like a demon and pretends to nap.”
The second hippo snorted loudly, blowing water into the air like a warning.
“I do not like the water cows,” he declared solemnly.
“Noted,” I said.
We moved on. We wandered through the rest of the Africa exhibits in a leisurely loop, Syrin alternating between fascination and horror the entire way. The zebras, according to him, were “confused horses,” the ostriches were “unsettlingly confident birds,” and the meerkats earned a very serious: “They are too small to be this vigilant. Something traumatic happened to their ancestors.”
Mom laughed so hard she had to stop and lean on a railing. Honestly… he wasn’t wrong. I doubt the meerkats at the zoo had ever actually been attacked by predators.
We made our way through the koalas and then the lemurs, which for some reason were the thing he seemed to like best. He said they seemed trustworthy. The penguins fascinated him.
“They have repurposed their wings for water,” Syrin said as he leaned against the glass, watching one swim. ”Very efficient. We have something like them in Crithnon, though ours are more scaly.”
“Really?” I asked.
Syrin nodded. “And ours are not black and white. They are blue or purple.”
I blinked. “Purple? Seriously?”
He cocked his head. “Of course. Why is that odd?”
“We just… don’t see many purple animals here.”
He grinned. “They are poisonous. The purple or bright blue warns predators.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Poisonous penguins?”
“They’re called Thaylings,” he said. “There are large predators in the waters. The poison keeps them safe.”
“Like frogs?” I asked.
His brow furrowed. “You have poisonous… frogs?”
“Yep. Actually they’re almost the only poisonous animals I know off the top of my head. Most dangerous things here are venomous, like snakes.”
Syrin frowned. “Why do you think some of your animals are the same as ours while others are completely different?”
I blinked. “Ah… yeah, that’s a great question I am not qualified for.”
Mom didn’t even look up from the sign she was reading. “Because in the past, the portals were used more regularly. There was even some trade between Earth and Kirath. Some domesticated species were brought over, though it’s hard to say what came from where.”
I stared at her. “I’m sorry—what? You can’t just say that casually!”
She gave me an amused look. “Where do you think all the stories came from?”
Syrin just looked thoughtful and nodded. “That makes sense. The older sections of the library mention more portals. They say they fell out of common use because they were dangerous. Also some sort of… religious dispute? I don’t remember all the details.”
I just stared at the two of them. “I feel woefully undereducated.”
Mom smiled over the top of the map. “Good. Maybe you’ll finally read some of the books in our little library. Or Syrin could take you to the Tower. Their library is huge,” she said far too casually.
I choked on absolutely nothing. “Right! So, animals. Let’s talk about animals. Pandas. They are next. Time for the pandas.”
Syrin just blinked at me, clearly missing every single layer of what she’d implied.
By the time we reached the Asia trail, the crowd had thickened. Families, strollers, tourist groups—the whole zoo seemed to bottleneck in one spot. A sign overhead pointed the way.
PANDA EXHIBIT — 25 MINUTE WAIT FROM THIS POINT
The Spanish translation was underneath. Syrin stopped dead, staring at the sign like it had declared him unworthy.
“We… must wait?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said. “Pandas are really popular.”
He looked around at the snaking crowd of people. “But the animals are right there. The waiting is for what purpose?”
Mom lifted her sunglasses. “To prevent people from crowding the pandas.”
“But we have not crowded anything,” Syrin said, deeply offended. “We arrived in an orderly fashion. Do these pandas sense people? Are they so dangerous that you cannot afford to disturb them?”
Mom and I looked at each other and then both burst out laughing.
Syrin just glanced between us. “They… are not dangerous?”
“No,” I said. “Definitely no.”
“But we still must wait,” Syrin said.
“Yep.”
He stared at the sign again. “This is a punishment.”
“It’s a line,” I corrected.
“A punitive line.”
Mom patted his arm. “We suffer for pandas. That’s just how things go.”
Syrin frowned. “So… do they bestow gifts upon you when you arrive? Like some sort of fairy?”
I held back another laugh. “Nope. Just cute.”
“I hope so,” Syrin grumbled. “They must be extraordinary if they demand trials of endurance.”
I grinned. “Oh, they’re extraordinary. Just… not in the way you think.”
He gave me a deeply suspicious look, and we shuffled forward with the crowd.
San Diego Zoo map if you want to follow their path. They start at the bottom right in the urban jungle area.
Jane never planned on being an apocalyptic babysitter.
But more than half the world’s population disappears in the blink of an eye and magic starts surging, leaving her with a game system in her head and a nine-year-old kid in her party. Soon Jane’s days are filled with fighting mutated Earth animals, arguing with a stubborn system, and keeping the kid alive. But with it comes a peaceful sense of purpose that Jane has never experienced before… assuming they can survive the end of the world.
What to Expect:
- Lite LitRPG with a system that likes words more than numbers
- A found family dynamic that grows slowly but consistently
- Character development-driven story
- A little action/adventure at first but evolves into mostly cozy/slice of life
- Short, bite-sized chapters (1.5-2k words) getting posted daily for Writathon!