Stay
Ren read the letter in silence, stuttering his blue eyes across each line of script. The package was in the crook of their arm. The pattern had been so firmly set that they felt themselves doing it already: cutting the box open, trying to decipher what the suit was, then putting it on and piecing together what they’d become and where they were. That’s what usually happened, but that’s not what Ren did. They folded the note back up and walked to their room. In the closet where all the other onesies hung, they placed the package on the floor.
“No,” they said flatly. “Not this time. Not yet.”
Five weeks. For five weeks Ren, formerly Jared/Jasmine, had barely spent any time with their family. The one time they did was in the selkie universe. It might have been a trip back into human mode, but it was a trip which had been cut cruelly short by a kidnapping. No matter how well Laland had tried making it up to Ren by sending them to the Lugia universe where they were mayor, there was no security in anything besides family. 5 weeks isn’t a long time. It had only been 7 weeks since the human named Jared put on the skunk onesie and transported himself to another dimension, a mirror of his own but still removed. They had lived several lifetimes since then, an explorer plunged repeatedly into foreign territory barely modeled after the familiar, if at all. They kept going out of habit by this point. Maybe it was fear of what the omnipresent Leland would think or do if they refused. In a multiverse of magic capable of doing whatever it wanted with you, it was wise to follow the rules.
So it took some courage turning their back on the new package, but not a whole lot. Everything worth protecting is here in this realm, Ren thought to themself. I’m a superpowered digital creature, one with combat experience. What’s there to be afraid of? If Leland has a problem with it, he can take it up with me.
Ren sat down on the couch to watch the morning news, as was their routine apparently. Seeing Digimon being mentioned on the news and being a central part of entertainment still hadn’t gotten old. They had an entire list of their favorite movies to watch, those that had been produced after Digimon started appearing in this world. That was the new epoch which denoted BD and AD. Before Digimon, After Digimon. Current year, 15 AD, fifteen years since Ren had materialized into reality via Maria’s Digivice.
There was a stir and a grumble from down the hall as Maria woke up. A minute or two later she came trudging into the living room in her pajamas, brown hair a mess. “G’mornin’,” she groaned without looking at Ren. The Digivice bulged the sleeve of her pajama shirt.
“Good morning,” Ren said with a smile. “Sleep well?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 31 December 2025