By Cassandra Hamm

You think you know all the weird creatures in the world—tiny dragons, cats with pine needles for fur—and then you try to enter your dorm room.

“Don’t go in there, Drew.” My roommate, Matt, blocks the door with his tall, lanky body.

“Um… why?”

“There’s a… situation.” Matt’s nostrils flare.

A faint screech comes from inside the room.

“You know we can’t leave Venus alone.” I glance down the hallway to make sure our RA isn’t listening. “She’ll burn the place down!”

“Yeah, well, she’s not exactly alone.”

I shove Matt aside—which is surprisingly difficult to do, given that I am also a twig—and open the door. A flash of gold darts across the clothes-strewn floor, chasing a brown blur—the flash of gold being my dragon, Venus, who is illegally living in my dorm room. I do not know what the brown blur is.

Matt shuts the door behind us. I whirl around to face him. “What did you do?” I whisper-shout.

He grimaces. “So, I was airing out the room because I didn’t want the smoke alarm to go off—”

I groan. “Venus?”

“No, burnt popcorn. Anyway, Venus started growling—”

“Wait, you opened the window? Venus could’ve gotten out!”

“She’d never leave you. Anyway, you should be more worried about what got in.”

I glance back at my fearsome little dragon, whose wings are flared aggressively as she peers under Matt’s bed. She may only be the size of a kitten, but she has double the mischievous energy.

I crouch, keeping my distance. Beady dark eyes peer through the debris. I stumble back. “Um, what is it?”

“A chipmunk?”

“Why did that sound like a question?”

“I don’t know! I haven’t been able to get a good look at it. Besides, I’m trying to keep Venus from setting everything on fire in her attempts to kill it.”

I’m convinced at this point that Venus must understand some of our language because at that moment, she lets out a puff of yellow flame. With an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp, I unleash the contents of an emergency water bottle over both Venus and the burgeoning fire. She wails and flaps her wings, spraying water droplets all over the carpet.

“I’m sorry!” I say. “I was just trying to keep you from burning down the building!”

If her glare is any indication, I’m not forgiven. I’ll have to fix that later. Otherwise, she’ll never sit in my lap while I write papers again. She’s like a nice warm pillow. Or, not pillow, because pillows are soft. A hot coal, maybe? Or, not that aggressive—a warm rock?

“Dude, how do you keep attracting all these weird creatures?” Matt asks.

“You’re the one who left the window open! Also, I had nothing to do with the pinecat.”

“Uh huh. You just helped Kitty smuggle it into her dorm.”

“Ever has a name, you know. And feelings.” Lots of them. Expressed with fearsome claw strikes.

Matt snorts. “Whatever. All I’m saying is, two illegal mythical animals is enough for one university. I’m not adding a third one.”

Not in the same room, anyway. I think Venus would murder me in my sleep if I allowed another animal in here permanently.

Venus charges under Matt’s bed. I wait for screeches of pain, but there’s nothing. She lets out a confused squeak and reemerges, scanning the room with slitted burnt-orange eyes.

Matt frowns. “Is there a hole in the wall?”

Venus races past me. I whip around to find a creature lounging on top of the microwave. It’s about the size of a chipmunk, round and furry with big beady eyes, but I don’t see any stripes. “What the—? How did it—?”

Then it vanishes. Straight up vanishes. Like, empty space where it used to be. I gape.

Venus slams into the microwave. I lurch toward her, steadying the appliance atop the minifridge. No crushed dragons today.

“Definitely not a chipmunk,” Matt wheezes.

“You think?” I spin around, trying to find the creature. Maybe it went outside. Please let it have gone outside.

“Okay, for real, you saw it teleport, right?”

I nod.

We stare at each other wide-eyed for a moment. Life was hard enough when I just had a tiny dragon living under my bed. Having a rodent that can teleport in and out whenever it wants—and who is in a mortal feud with said dragon—is infinitely worse.

“How do we get rid of it?” Matt asks.

A faint popping noise makes me turn. The sort-of-chipmunk is sitting on the windowsill, pawing at the latch. Its tail twitches frantically.

“Huh,” I say. “Maybe it can’t get out.”

With a cry of rage, Venus launches herself into the air, but the creature vanishes again before she can reach it. She howls a thankfully-infrequent battle cry.

“We’re going to get a noise complaint.” Matt’s face drains of color.

Our lack of cleanliness already makes us unpopular with our RA. Discovering animals in the dorm would be enough to get us kicked out.

“Wait. Let me try something.” I undo the latch and open the window.

Matt lets out a panicked cry. “Now more of them are going to get in, idiot!”

A small brown figure appears in the manicured lawn outside the dorm before disappearing again. The tension leaves my body. Goodbye, teleporting rodent. Please don’t come back.

Matt slams the window shut. “What was that for?”

“I was letting the thing out!”

“Wait, you were?”

“Yeah. I guess it can’t teleport through glass.”

“Huh.” Matt sinks onto his bed. “Does this mean we can’t open the window anymore?”

“I doubt that thing will want to go another round with Venus. Just don’t burn any more popcorn.” I glance at Venus, who is preening her golden scales. “And Venus, no more fires.”

She bares her sharp little teeth in what I swear is a grin. There are definitely going to be more fires.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassandra Hamm is a librarian, jigsaw puzzler, and cat lady who spends most of her time lost in another realm. Her award-winning work appears in various anthologies, including many of Havok’s other collections, and she served as editor-in-chief for the charity anthology The Sun Still Rises. A mental health advocate with a passion for social justice, she writes about shattered girls finding their way in the world.

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