Painful aches stab my body when I wake up. It's 10 PM; what kind of nap takes five hours? There aren't any raindrops against the window, so the storm must've stopped.

With my legs scattered haphazardly on the couch and arms stretching backwards, it's like I'm chasing something above my head. Chills that rain supposed to bring, maybe? The storm lasted for hours, but I still leave some sweat on both the couch's armrest and my hoodie.

The stupid cramps from my joints force me to sit properly. Which one, between Dad and Mom, passed these bad sleeping habits to me?

Once my heel touches the floor, muddy waters already wander above my ankle. Great, now I don't have any clean pairs of shoes and socks. How bad was the storm? Flood is this flat's common visitor, but its arrival never bothers anyone. At least my socks are always spared.

Now I need to wash and dry them. Can I use them tomorrow morning? Should I borrow Miro's? I wriggle my feet out of the soggy pair with much struggle since an unpleasant scent wafts around.

I look around, sighing at the mess. The flood brings some weeds, mud... and a floating shrimp with a pair of claws on its head and bulging eyes. It's upside down, with stiffly small legs. Its thumb-sized body is charred, like it just escapes from a grill.

Very unlike normal shrimps. It might be dead, but I itch to call Auntie Morgan. She might teach me about it. Without proper schooling, my source of knowledge is only Auntie Morgan, an aspiring zoologist whose brain can grasp any information except simple things like cooking, cleaning, and ironing. The animal fact she brings up is always interesting, and this one will be no different.

Skipping to the dishwasher, I scoop the unmoving creature into a pan, and climb upstairs. Either out of my excitement or clumsiness, my bare feet almost slip on the damp stairs several times.

Both doors are opened. The one ahead of me, which is dark and quiet, is Miro's. Light snores drift out of it. Meanwhile, Auntie Morgan's room still has some lights on. I knock the door gently and stare at her soaked pajamas on the desk chair, my nose scrunching up at how she hasn't bathed, or changed, since this morning. Several buckets of water lie in the center of the room, keeping the foul scent of rain and mix it with the stuffiness of book pages. There are also plenty of rain patches on her uneven bed, the latter signing how only one side is often used.

If Uncle Oregon hadn't left to Biliya Republic Army, Auntie Morgan would've cared more about lots of things.

She adjusts her wide-rimmed glasses. "Hello, Allice. What brings you here?" Her voice is shaky, frostbitten.

"I found this in the flood." I step into her room and hand the pan over. She cringes, either realizing that it's her precious pan, or the burnt scales of the shrimp scare her. Lifting the pan to her nose, she sniffs it, closing her eyes.

A moment later, her scream rattles the whole flat.

Clinging onto her nose are the shrimp's claws. It isn't dead... beezus. Auntie Morgan yanks it away, but it barely budges. Blood, whoever it belongs to, seeps out like a fount. I rush to her side to try ripping the claws off her nose, but they sink deeper instead.

"The pan." They begin to pinch her air supply.

I snatch it from her limp hands, wavering between the two. "What should I do?" My heart thumps loudly. The pan shakes in my grip.

"Now." She yelps, removing both her hands from the shrimp.

Muttering thousands of apologies, I swing the pan. It clangs against them. The shrimp falls to the floor in an ungraceful way, and I hurry to scoop it into a bucket of rain. Its twitching legs graze my palm, but I flip it off before it can cause more damage. Auntie Morgan clutches her wounded—and hopefully, not broken—nose, collapsing to the floor as well.

Shiver climbs in my bloodstream at her runny blood. A nonexistent sting pricks my nose. "Do you have bandages?"

"Just get me a tissue."

"But your nose looks bad..."

"It's nothing." She smiles tightly, still rubbing the bleeding holes. "Oh, and antiseptics will do."

The tissue recovers sweat, mud, and blood. I try to be careful while wiping her nose, but still, her cries are inevitable. "Close the door. Miro might wake up." She cleans her wound as I close the door.

The shrimp sinks in the bucket, its bulging eyes glaring. At the ticking of its claws, I scurry back to Auntie Morgan. She looks better—she can smile wider now. "I'm sorry." I daren't meet her eyes, fearing the judgment and resentment. Not that I have seen them before. "I thought it was dead."

"The mantis shrimp is a smart creature," she says in a lecturing tone. "But this one is more intelligent than its mainstream fellows. I didn't see it coming either."

More intelligent? "So what can't it do?"

"It floated when you found it. But only dead animals float. It tricked you." I help her stand, directing her to bed, but she collapses on the desk chair instead. "Now, we're getting a closer look at it." Like a child with wicked plans, she rubs her hands together, excitement widening her smile.

On the contrary, I can only purse my lips at the observation prospect. "It just attacked you."

"You ask for my opinions, Allice, and you'll do what I say."

There's no time to argue when she already shoots those words. It's like a slap to my face, a reminder that she's right.

A monstrous book rests on the desk, as if carrying all the knowledge in the world. She skips the pages swiftly, like she already remembers what's on each page. Unfortunately, besides forgetting my presence as the pages swallow her alive, she also forgets to stop the bleeding. So I grab another tissue.

"Do you remember how it was charred when we first saw it?"

I nod, looking back at it to find... beezus—where are the burns?

"Now it's not. It no longer smells like fire either." Amidst the eagerness in her eyes, there's a sliver of seriousness. "This, Allice, is not an ordinary Mantis shrimp."

"Is it what it's called?"

"Yes. It's named after the claws on its head—smashers, they're called—and its popping eyes." Auntie Morgan grins, pointing at a picture in the book. A shrimp akin to this one, but slightly bigger. So is our attacker still a juvenile? "I taught you that only a few animals can fake their deaths, right?"

I nod, tongue-tied.

"Mantis shrimp isn't in that list. No animal can recover from burns that quickly either. Cells take some time to regenerate. They can't heal in several minutes. It takes hours, days, weeks..."

"What are you trying to say?"

Silence embraces the room as Auntie Morgan fades into a daze. Seconds later, she snaps back, with hands tampering on the folders on her desk, flipping a paper and more. When she fishes out a seemingly-seven-paged bundle, her smile widens, as if she's being presented with the Nobel Prize. She smacks the paper's title to my face.

Somehow, she forgets about my illiteracy. Not the first time, though. I remove my intense gaze to the wet floor, suppressing shame from building.

"Why don't you read?"

"Unless there's a quick-learning potion, I can't do it still."

She slaps her forehead, giggling sheepishly. "Eh, sorry. Anyway, remember the research I told you? Knowing how scatterbrained I am and how curious you are, you must've heard something."

"Overthrowing."

Her giggle of misfits soon reduce into a scowl. "Seriously? Amidst all important details, you chose that one to hear?" More unheard words slip out of her tongue, but once the parade ends, she continues, "Have you been around Oriental City Zoo lately?"

"This morning." I close my eyes, allowing the details to surge alive as I narrate them to Auntie Morgan. The lush trees on either sides of the archway, Jorge's sickening face on the archway's screen...

"Again, you are so ignorant with details." She fidgets with her pen, sending a deadly sideway glance at me. "How about the gray liquid in their sewers?"

Now that she mentions it, the sewers were gray. Thick gray. "Does that mean something?" I scratch my head. The gears in my head are scorching hot as they connect a knowledge to another.

"The zoo is having a secret project that they don't share with commoners. Now, after several days wandering around the zoo on late nights until early dawn..."

I almost stumble to the floor. This woman is insane. Is this really my auntie, the sister of my composed and calm mom? The zoo's securities might label her as a psycho after seeing her peeking from the stone walls more than once. What's with her creepy research ways?

"... I conclude that they do something fishy after the zoo closes at 5 PM... until dawn. Some animals also disappear from their exhibits. There were eight waterbucks two days ago... and only five yesterday."

"They could've been pregnant or injured."

"As if those aren't suspicious enough, their sewers are covered in unnaturally thick gray liquid. I took some samples—it matched Chiroquin in the new chemicals database. Positive effects: boosting the work of cells, increasing immunity, fast healing. Bad effects: possibly damages the brain and brings out aggressive traits. They're very limited in nature."

The gears in my head are still whirring, struggling to sew one fact to another.

So the zoo is doing a shady operation which involves the whatever-quin and its animals. And as Auntie Morgan confidently claims, this baby shrimp is one of the outcomes.

But there are some things I can't grasp yet. Why are they doing this? And how could the shrimp reach us, was it carried by the flood, or...

"Here." Auntie Morgan hands over an earbud. Her smile is so radiant that the shrimp's wide eyes might be blinded soon. "Let's check the radio. I bet this dude isn't the only one carried by the flood..."

I'm about to place my bet when the radio on her phone crackles to life. Though I'm not a good listener online, especially when complicated terms are involved, I try my best to absorb the male announcer's words.

"Ornamental City Zoo has released an official statement that it has lost nearly fifty-percent of its animals: ten-percent are aquatics, five-percent are birds, and the rest are land mammals. Civilians should stay at home unless for urgent matters, remain calm, and obey the instructions from the zoo's staff as they conduct a thorough search of Dogson City. Updates will be posted on the zoo's website."

"Holy boars." What kind of cages are they in? For a world-class zoo like OCZ, this 'achievement' is unheard of.

The press won't forgive this. Moreover, the whiny citizens of Dogson. If OCZ's luck doesn't work out soon, the news might spread to Lizare City, Biliya Republic's capital, to the ears of Benjamin Kamal, our president. For the country's asset to behave that way...

It's nice to discover more of this city's rottenness, but it's intimidating to have loose animals with an aggressive liquid inside them.

If Auntie Morgan's theories are proven true, OCZ must pay the price. Harming wildlife deserves a dreadful punishment in Biliya. A part of me prays for more acknowledgements for Auntie Morgan, but a part of me doesn't want OCZ to bear mud on their reputation.

Is this purely an accident? The odd storm and this stray shrimp... are they linked? How about Jorge's threats... and his ceremony?

Why, on the first day of his reign, does this mysterious event happen?

Again, is this pure coincidence... or no?