I cracked an egg into the pan. The sizzling sound immediately caught her attention. She tilted her head at the pan, then opened her mouth and started making perfect sizzling sounds.

  "Ssssssss. Tsssssss. Sizzle sizzle sizzle."

  "Do you just... learn to mimic that sound by hearing it once?"

  "Do you just... learn to mimic that sound by hearing it once? Once hearing learn do you learn mimic! Tssssss!”

  An airplane passed overhead, Shady’s large ears tilted up following it.

  Then she got distracted by her own tail and started chasing it in a circle, making airplane noises. Not like she was pretending to be an airplane, she was making the exact sound of a distant jet engine.

  "WHOOOOOOSH!"

  She spun in increasingly frantic circles, chasing her tail while making plane noises, until she got dizzy and crashed into the kitchen island.

  "Oof!" she said in my voice.

  Then she shook her head, looked at me, and said "Oof!" in the cartoon voice.

  Breakfast was a comedy of errors. I tried making eggs, but Shady insisted on mimicking my every movement, resulting in her stealing an egg and attempting to crack it with claws. The yolk exploded across the counter like a tiny yellow bomb.

  "Fuck," I muttered.

  "Fuck," she said happily, tail wagging.

  Great. I just taught a cryptid how to swear. Go me.

  I handed her a paper towel. "Clean."

  "Clean," she agreed, promptly eating the paper towel from my hand.

  "No! Don't eat that!" I tried to grab it from her mouth. “That's not food!’

  "No! Don't eat that!" she mumbled around the paper, playing keep-away with her head.

  By the time I had actual food ready, the kitchen looked like a breakfast-themed crime scene. Shady sat on the floor making “Oof” noises in my voice, feathered tail sweeping eggy debris into an even wider pattern.

  "Stop saying oof," I said, flipping the bacon.

  "Stop saying oof. Stop saying oof. Stop saying oof," she replied, seemingly stuck in a loop where every voice was saying "oof" and "stop saying oof" alternately.

  I grabbed the tablet and put on a different video, a musical lesson on basic shapes, hoping that it would 'reset' her.

  "This is a circle!" a very peppy female voice sang.

  "This is a circle!" Shady sang in the same voice, staring at the frying pan. She pointed at it with a clawed finger. "This is a circle!"

  "That's... well, technically the pan is round, so..."

  "This is a circle!" she said, pointing at my face.

  "My face is not a circle."

  "My face is not a circle!" she sang enthusiastically, then pointed at the ceiling. "This is a circle!"

  She had seemingly decided that "This is a circle!" was the correct response to pointing at anything.

  I tried redirecting her attention back to the tablet, where the educational video had moved on to squares.

  "This is a square! It has four sides!"

  "This is a square! It has four sides!" Shady sang dutifully, then looked at me and added, "This is a circle!"

  She pointed at the tablet. "This is a circle!"

  She pointed at her antler. "This is a circle!"

  She pointed at the bacon. "This is a circle! This is a square!”

  The bacon started to burn while I was distracted by her geometric nonsense. The smoke alarm gave its warning chirp.

  Shady threw herself flat on the floor, covered her ears with her hands, and started making the smoke alarm sound back at it.

  "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"

  I quickly turned off the stove and waved a dish towel at the smoke alarm until it stopped. Shady thankfully stopped her alarm song and popped her head up.

  "This is a circle!" she announced, pointing at the smoke alarm. “This is a… BEEP!”

  "No, that's... actually, you know what? Sure. It's a circle."

  "This is a BEEP! Circle!" she agreed happily, sounding like she was censoring herself.

  I served the slightly burned bacon and eggs on two plates. Shady looked at her plate with intense concentration.

  "This BEEP! Is a circle!" she declared, pointing at the fried egg.

  "Yes, that one actually is sort of round. Please stop beeping.”

  She picked up a piece of bacon with her claws and held it up. "Please stop beeping! BEEP! This is a circle!"

  "That's more of a... strip?"

  "This is a circle!" she insisted.

  "Eat," I demonstrated, taking a bite of my own food.

  "Eat," she repeated, then face-planted directly into the plate, attempting to consume the entire breakfast, ceramic plate and all, in one go.

  "No, no, no!" I pulled the plate away before she could swallow my grandmother's china. "Like this." I picked up a fork, speared some egg, and brought it to my mouth.

  Shady watched intently, then gingerly took the fork from my hand with her massive claws. She stared at it for a long moment, then stuck the entire fork, handle first, into her mouth.

  "For fuck's sake," I groaned.

  "For fuck's sake," she agreed cheerfully around the protruding fork. “BEEP! Circle! Square!”

  Then she discovered she could make the "mmmm" sound while chewing, creating a sort of appreciative humming noise that cycled through every voice in her collection.

  It was like eating breakfast with a very large, very enthusiastic audio sample library.

  She finished her bacon and looked expectantly at mine.

  "This is a circle!" she announced, pointing at my bacon.

  "You want more?"

  "You want more? You want more? You want more?" The voice cycling kicked in again.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I gave her another piece of bacon. She held it up triumphantly.

  "Beep! This is a circle!" she declared, then made jet engine noises at it before eating it. "NEEEEOOOOOWWWW! Nom!"

  I was starting to understand why people got exhausted taking care of toddlers. And this was just breakfast.

  After quickly washing the dishes, I turned to find Shady had somehow gotten her antlers stuck in the refrigerator door handle. She was making frantic "hhnnnngggg ng ng ng ng" noises while trying to back up, succeeding only in dragging the entire refrigerator a few inches across the floor.

  "Shady, stop!" I rushed over.

  "Shady, stop!" she repeated, continuing to pull backward. The refrigerator groaned ominously.

  I grabbed her, trying to hold her still while I disentangled her antlers from the handle.

  "Hold still," I grunted.

  "Hold still," she mimicked, then immediately started wiggling more vigorously. "This is a square!"

  After a brief struggle that reminded me of trying to give a cat a bath, I managed to free her antlers. She immediately bounded away, skidding across the kitchen floor and crashed into a cabinet, cracking it in half.

  The doorbell rang, startling us both.

  "BEEP! Circle!" Shady announced happily at the doorbell sound, then started mimicking it. "DING-DONG! DING-DONG! This is a—"

  I grabbed my tablet and pointed it at her, switching to camera mode. Instead of the black dog that had appeared in all yesterday's videos, the screen showed exactly what my eyes saw: a seven-foot antlered cryptid bouncing excitedly on her digitigrade legs.

  "Shit. Shit shit shit."

  "Shit shit shit!" Shady repeated cheerfully. "DING-DONG! This is a circle!"

  "Just a minute!" I yelled toward the door, then grabbed Shady's arm. "Come on, we need to—"

  "Come on, we need to BEEP! Let’s BEEP! Like a circle!" She followed enthusiastically as I dragged her toward the TV room.

  The doorbell rang again. "Darkbrook Communications! Here for your fiber installation!"

  "One second! Gotta lock up the dog!" I yelled as I shoved Shady into the den, her antlers scraping the doorframe and leaving gouges in the wood.

  "Lock up the circle! Dog up the second!" she announced.

  I fumbled with the ancient TV remote, cranking the volume to maximum. Some morning talk show blared to life, the hosts discussing seasonal allergies at ear-splitting volume.

  "Watch this," I told her, pointing at the screen.

  "Watch this! SEASONAL ALLERGIES! This is a circle!" She immediately sat down cross-legged in front of the TV, mesmerized.

  I backed out of the room, pulling the door shut and praying that Shady would be preoccupied with the TV and didn’t decide to escape.

  “Beep! This is a—" I heard from inside, followed by the TV host's voice being perfectly mimicked.

  The technician stood on the porch, a mustached guy in his thirties with a Darkbrook Communications polo and a toolbox. His van idled in the driveway, ladders strapped to the roof.

  "Sorry about that," I said, slightly out of breath.

  "No problem, Mr. Clifford. I'm Jake. Let's get you hooked up. The junction box is on the north side of the house, right?"

  "I... have no idea."

  Jake chuckled. "Old Archie never set up the fiber fully, just the cable. Always said the house ghosts didn't approve of modern technology. Let me check the plans." He pulled out a tablet, swiping through documents. "Yeah, north side. I'll need to run a line from there to wherever you want your router."

  From inside the house, I could hear the TV blaring and occasionally Shady's voice shouting "THIS IS A CIRCLE!" over the noise.

  "Maybe we could set it up in the kitchen?" I suggested, wanting to keep him as far from the TV room as possible.

  "Sure thing. Let me get started on the exterior work first."

  I followed Jake around the house, making small talk while he examined the junction box.

  "Lived here long?" he asked, as he began working on the box.

  "Just moved in a few days ago. Inherited the place."

  "Yeah, heard about old Archie passing. Good man. Bit eccentric though," Jake commented.

  From inside, a particularly loud "BEEP! SQUARE! CIRCLE!" echoed through the walls.

  Jake raised an eyebrow. "Got a kid?"

  "Yes... I'm babysitting my cousin today. She's... seven. Keeping her preoccupied with the TV, tablet with a voice copying app and the dog."

  "Ah yea." His expression softened. "My daughter is six. I get it."

  We worked our way back to the kitchen, Jake pulling cable while I tried not to think about the Wendigo contained in my TV room. He was just connecting the router when his phone buzzed. Then mine buzzed on the counter where I'd left it. Then the TV in the den buzzed, the sound cutting through several walls and doors.

  "Huh," Jake frowned at his phone. "Emergency broadcast?"

  The buzzing intensified, becoming a shriek of static that made my teeth ache. Every electronic device in the house seemed to scream in unison. The router Jake had just connected squealed with a similar buzz.

  "What the—" Jake blinked.

  His van's radio joined the cacophony, the shrieking static now coming from every direction. The kitchen lights above us flickered.

  "That ain't right," Jake said, backing away from the buzzing router. "That ain't no emergency broadcast I ever heard."

  The static suddenly cut off, leaving a ringing silence. Then every screen: Jake's phone, my tablet lit up with the same feed made up of radiant, freaky colors, making freaky noises that sounded almost like… eldritch words.

  "I… need to check on my cousin," I said, already moving toward the den.

  "Yeah, I'll... I'll be in my van. I'm done here anyway," Jake said, looking thoroughly spooked, walking over towards his radio that was making the same drowning speech noises.

  I unlocked the TV room door and burst inside. Shady was behind the couch, hands over her ears, making small whimpering sounds that cycled through every voice she'd collected.

  The TV screen shimmered with otherworldly static, colors swirling in random patterns. Then the static resolved into a face.

  It was like looking at Shady through a twisted mirror.

  Where Shady's features were soft despite their cryptid angles, this face was sharp as a blade. The skull-like elongation was more pronounced, the silver eyes cold as distant stars, the antlers fully dark bone without fuzz, featuring very sharp ends. Black armor covered her body, with crown-like black spikes extending from a dark feathered mane. The overall effect was like someone had asked H.R. Giger to design Sauron's hot sister.

  "INHABITANTS OF… EARTH," the Wendigo woman spoke, her voice cutting through the air like lightning crackles, excessively loud. Each word felt like it was being carved directly into my brain.

  Behind the couch, Shady made scared fire alarm beep noises. My blood turned to ice water.

  Shady’s family had arrived.

  "I am Admiral Evelithria Frontenachii, High Executor of the Frontenachii Colonial Dominion, Commandant of the Third Celestial Starfall Fleet.”

  “Ad Evely, Ad Evely, Ad Evely,” Shady whimpered.

  "I am here mainly for one purpose."

  The image shifted, and a three-dimensional hologram appeared beside the armoured woman. It was Shady, but looking very regal, wearing elaborate robes that seemed to be made of semi-transparent starlight folds, her antlers decorated with chains of silver and sapphires.

  "Princess Aquillianne Quantivia Frontenachii, heir Prima, has been murdered on the surface of this pitiful planet." Evelithria's voice vibrated across the house. "According to our Seers, her Astral signature terminated last night on this primitive world. We demand the immediate return of her body from the bastards who kidnapped and butchered our noble daughter."

  Shady—no, Princess Aquillianne—pressed herself further behind the couch, making tiny "no no no circle BEEP—" sounds.

  Evelithria continued. "If the Princess's remains are not delivered to one of our Corpse Seekers or Scrutimancers within the day, I will personally carve a fragment from your moon and deliver it to your most populated city as a demonstration of my displeasure. Now, if you do not believe in my capabilities…”

  The TV screen suddenly displayed the moon. A massive starship, looking like a cathedral made of black blades, hung in space beside it. A beam of crimson light lanced out, carving into the lunar surface like a hot knife through butter. A perfect cube, shimmering with lava at the edges, was pried from the innards of the moon.

  The crimson light swung the cube away from the moon towards the Earth.

  “This is a square,” Shady whispered, silver, terrified eyes peering above the edge of the couch, staring at the TV.

  The moon-cube vanished through some kind of a fissure in space and then the view switched to a closer view of Earth from above. Another black-blade ship traced a red line in deep space and opened a fissure and the moon cube appeared. The cube plowed downwards across the planetary atmosphere, igniting the air, heading towards what looked like a small, uninhabited island in the Arctic Ocean.

  “A simple demonstration of our prowess.”

  The explosion of the moonrock meeting the rocky island was... Catastrophic. The island didn't just explode, it ceased to exist utterly. Where it had been, a column of fire reached into the stratosphere. The shockwave spread out in a perfect circle, kicking up tsunami-height waves that radiated outward in every direction.

  The Admiral's face returned to the screen. "If the Princess's body is not returned within a single rotation of this planet, I will personally select a more... populated target. The choice will be random. The result will not."

  I gulped.

  Shady’s aunt leaned forward, her smile offering nothing nice.

  "The Frontenachii Corpse Seekers and Scrutimancers have already made planetfall. They will investigate every lead, examine every Astral imprint, check every continent until the body of our Prima is found. Any attempt to interfere with their investigation will result in immediate consumption. Not death—eternal consumption. There is a difference, and you will learn it well."

  “Learn it well,” Shady repeated in Evelithria’s voice, sounding a bit like herself now. “Not death. Consumption circle.”

  "Cooperate, and your existence will continue as our property under the management of the Frontenachii Colonial Dominion,” the Admiral added. “Resist, and your bodies will be peeled apart and kept alive for millennia as our wallpaper."

  The transmission ended with a ripple of colorful static.