Kyle the Apprentice Warlock

4:27 PM September 16^th 2026

Museum of Unnatural Science and History Employee Housing

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Anna paused in her second attempt to access television with her cobbled together system of antennae, laptops, and prism assistance. The floor was shaking slightly with each thump. They sounded like footsteps. Who the heck was heavy enough to gently vibrate an entire floor of a building with his footsteps down the hallway?

It couldn’t be a golem. Her mom had warned Anna about them, and for sure they would be too heavy to walk up the stairs into the building. Right? Then again, the building was physically and magically reinforced to be a safe haven during magical events. So…

But the steps had originated on this floor. Down the end of the hallway where there wasn’t a stairwell, so whatever it was, had already been in the building. And it was coming closer to Kyle’s door. Had some idiot left a window open? There had to be protections for that. Weren’t there?

What should she do? Her mom had left – called back to D.C. Her sister was out on a pointless quest for ‘real food’ as if she had no idea how to scrounge filling meals out of random shit in the cupboards.

Snorting in distain, she blew her pale bangs out of her eyes before setting her project aside. Her older sister’s behavior indicated a disturbing possibility, that perhaps her parents hadn’t always been the scatter-brained home keeping incompetents which Anna dealt with on a daily basis. Like maybe, they had grown up with regular homemade meals? Hmmm.

The thought elicited a frustrated growl from the teen, and she got up to check on Kyle. Yep. Still out cold. If the thing in the hallway really was a monster, Anna’s best bet was to move herself and her pets into her bedroom as far from the hallways as possible, wait for it to pass by, and hope it didn’t notice her and Kyle.

On the other hand, she was pretty handy with her magic if Anna did say so herself. Kind of. Mostly defensive stuff. And for real, what was the likelihood that it was a monster and not something super interesting like a guest of the museum. That was it. Rummaging in Kyle’s bedside table, she grabbed one of his spare wands – because an added focus would be handy in a building she cared about damaging – then headed to the living room.

When the young elementalist pressed her eye to the peephole with her heart pounding up in her throat, she blinked in surprise then frowned in disappointment.

“Boo!” She groaned. “It’s just the weird neighbor. Boring.” Sighing, she leaned against the door and tried to relax now that there was no exciting reward for her adrenaline-fueled anticipation.

“Sorry for being boring?” Came a muffled call from the other side of the door. Anna froze. He couldn’t have heard her, could he have? Slowly she turned around and put her eye back to the peephole. Sure enough, weird neighbor had stopped and was looking right at the looking hole. Yep. He heard her. “Is that Anna or Sam?”

“It’s Anna.” Sheepishly she unlocked then opened the door to peer at the twenty-something looking guy apologetically. A toothy grin with slightly elongated and rather fat canines spread across the kindly face with a shaggy mop of dirty blonde hair. “Hey.”

“I’m glad you are safe after all the crazy stuff that’s been happening.” The neighbor scruffed a hand through his hair causing an exposed bicep to flex impressively. Which is when Anna noticed that ‘Neighbor Dude’, as Anna thought of him in her head, was dressed in his typical garb of surf shorts, a tank top, and flipflops. His exposed skin was covered in hairy stubble indicating that until everyone lost power, he was probably shaving all his body hair off.

“Yeah. Kyle came and picked me up from school,” she admitted trying to downplay what had happened as Anna wasn’t exactly sure how much of what happened was going to be public knowledge when all was said and done. To her surprise, Neighbor Dude threw his head back and let loose a big hearty tooth-revealing guffaw. Those canines really were big. But way to fat to be a vampire. Anna shuffled further back into the apartment.

“I’m sure there’s way more to it than that.” He chuckled after his laughing outburst shaking a finger at her. That was when the teen noticed the bag over his shoulder.

“Um…maybe – are you going somewhere?” It wasn’t the slickest of topic changes, but Neighbor Dude didn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah. For sure. It’s farmer’s market day in the park. So…” He shrugged his muscular shoulders as if it was a given that he was going to go to the farmer’s market no matter what.

“Wouldn’t it have been canceled?” But Anna’s question was met with a blank look.

“Why?” And that question made Anna pause, because it seemed a given to her – a literal child – that the farmer’s market would have been canceled. Yet this guy didn’t have any inkling.

“Because of all the stuff that’s been happening and the danger of all the monsters about?” Neighbor Dude’s complete and utter lack of comprehension caused Anna to doubt her answer so she was hesitant as she said it.

“Nah, dudette.” Another chuckle and a bigger smile as he gave his answer in his lackadaisical surfer-dude drawl. “It’s cool, yo. This is the Central Park Farmer’s Market, you really think a little bit of magic is going to stop them? The venders are hard core. They stayed open during the apocalypse back in twenty-twelve. You want to come? There’s always cool stuff.”  Anna hesitated because she didn’t know this guy all that well. There also wasn’t really a reason for her to go out.

“Is it safe?”

“Absolutely, It’s guarded by security golems.” That actually kind of reassured Anna. It also kind of confused her because Kyle was just attacked by the security golems. “I mean, unless your brother is coming? He should stay home. The golems hate that dude.” This resulted in Anna sniggering, then covering her mouth with a hand, appalled that she had laughed at her brother’s misfortune.

“I think I’ll stay here. Kye will probably freak out if I’m gone when he wakes up.” She looked at the neighbor’s shopping bag wistfully because, honestly, Anna had been indoors for days, and it was getting old.

“Suit yourself, little lady. I can’t wait to get myself something tasty to eat. I’m all out of food.” Anna had almost closed the door and Neighbor Dude had turned away when his words clicked in her head. She flung the door open.

“There will be food there?” While she should probably stay home, it was also likely that Sam wasn’t going to find any open stores.

“Of course, there will be food.” Blue eyes sparkled with amusement as well-defined muscular arms spread in a wide-armed gesture. “It’s a farmer’s market.”

“Oh. Wait here a sec.” She closed the door and ran to the kitchen to leave a note for Sam and Kyle. Then she stol – borrowed – a wad of cash from Kyle’s emergency cash fund before running out the door and locking it behind her. “Let’s go get some food.”

“Sounds good. You need a shopping bag? I’ve got extra.” He pulled a reuseable cloth grocery bag with a museum logo out of his crossbody beach bag.