Blessed by Night

Malachi hadn't been through any earthquakes as a kid.

However, he knew to react quickly enough to avoid the absolute worst of potential outcomes.

He lifted Bianca into the air from off the porch and telepathically lifted any of the old women nearby as well.

Since the area they were in was already fairly isolated, everyone was already in the yard and at no real risk of harm.

And after Anna came bursting through the door of the house with two large women in her arms, everyone was finally in the yard waiting out the seismic event.

Despite the initial panic, the earthquake subsided relatively quickly with no significant damage being brought to the house or anyone around it.

When the earth was no longer rumbling, Morgan was the one to sweep over the crowd and make sure there were no injuries.

"Everyone here alright?"

Groans of agreement came from everyone in the crowd, their only injuries being sufficient rounds of PTSD.

People had only just recovered

Meanwhile, Malachi and his fiancés were virtual messes.

"Shiro, where's your sister??" Sei was desperately trying not to let her voice rise too high above a normal octave.

The small fox girl let her tails and ears droop. "I don't know... She left while we were playing."

Maybe it was just the panic of the moment, but just then, Malachi would have given his left arm to hear literally any other answer.

- 10 Minutes Before The Quake...

Cami appeared in her living room, over 1,000 miles away from the barbecue and the kids who made fun of her.

Somehow, it still didn't feel far enough from those people who talked about her appearance.

Before today, Cami had never been talked about before. Especially not regarding her appearance.

She was only vaguely aware of the fact that she, and at one point her father, looked distinctly different from other people.

And after coming to recognize Evolved, she had never thought that she was all that strange.

But now, Cami felt as though her appearance was all she could focus on.

She didn't look like any of her mothers. Her sister, or even her father any more.

Now, she was experiencing a feeling that she didn't know how to contend with.

Isolation.

Cami wandered through her empty home with no real idea why she had bothered to come all the way here in the first place.

She knew that her parents would be upset with her for using her powers to leave their side.

Since the last thing she wanted to do was make them worry unnecessarily, she was planning to go back to the barbecue before they even knew that she was gone.

She just... needed to talk to someone who could've made her feel better.

Cami crawled up the stairs of her home at a slow pace- unafraid of being there by herself.

She traveled all the way up to her and Shiro's bedroom.

Malachi and the girls had put a lot of thought into decorating the space. In a room that was 700 square feet on it's own, there were two beds on either side of the room.

Split right down the middle, the space was half cyan blue and pink, while the other was a neat purple and black.

On Cami's purple side of the room, there was a large fish tank where Cami'sonly low breed swims around in his perfectly sterilized environment while being unburdened by the troubles of the outside world.

When he noticed Cami return to her room, he pressed his face against the glass while blinking his eyes in curiosity.

With so much already on her mind, Cami didn't even spare the creature a second glance as she went straight to her bed.

Her tablet sat untouched in the exact same place she'd left it before heading to the barbecue.

Crawling on top of her bed, she turned it on and immediately went to the video chatting app.

There were only three people in her entire list of contacts. She called the one at the very top of her list.

As always, the call rang no more than twice before it connected, and a cheerful, rosy-cheeked girl popped up on the screen.

"H-Hey, baby sis! Look, can you give me a-"

"SISSY!!" Cami immediately began bawling.

Serana's words became caught in her throat as she watched the girl who never cried over anything suddenly break down.

"H-Hey, what's wrong, dumpling?! Remember, big girls use their words!"

Cami sniffled as she wiped her watery eyes.

It took a few minutes for her to get herself together, and she was able to speak.

But even then, she would get caught up on her words mid-hiccup.

"W-W-W-We were at the b-b-b-barbecue, and t-t-t-t-this boy said..."

Serana could only listen to twenty seconds of the retelling before her blood pressure shot towards the sky.

"BABE! BRING ME YOUR SWORD!" She yelled off to the side.

Cami heard a man's voice come from somewhere in the background.

"Not that I'm fully opposed, but can I ask why?"

"I need it to fuck up some kindergartners!"

"Absolutely not."

Camille was a witness to a brief argument between her oldest sister and her brother-in-law.

Serana turned back to the young girl with a terrifying promise.

"You stay right there, baby doll. I'll be over in two minutes and then we're going to bust heads."

"I-"

Camille didn't get a chance to say anything else before her sister prematurely hung up the phone. Leaving her alone with just her thoughts.

Cami was already a capable fighter for a child. She could beat up a little boy her age or older even with two hands tied behind her back.

More than inflicting harm on the little boy, Cami just wanted someone to listen to her. And maybe even tell her that she wasn't as ugly as she felt.

Camille sat on the edge of her bed, wiping her face of tears.

As she watched the fan spin in a circle, she wondered if it would have been better or worse for her to just call her grandmother instead.

*Rumble!*

A slight shaking drew Camille's attention and made her glance out of the window.

She thought her sister was making one of her famous excessive entrances again.

The last thing that she expected was to see the entire world shaking.

A slight feeling of unease crept into her bones. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

When she glanced back at her fish tank, she found her axolotl swimming around in circles and losing his mind from the stress.

But it seemed like as quick as the shaking began, it stopped. Leaving Cami confused and wondering if everything that she had gone through was just an overreaction.

Before she could figure it out, she saw her shadow elongate at her feet.

"Cami!"

Not two seconds later, her father leaped out and embraced her in the tightest hug of her life.

Once again, Camille's heart started to beat rapidly with anxiety.

Looks like she didn't get back before her parents noticed after all…