A Little Thing

The apartment wasn't that big, two bedrooms, a tiny, tinny 'hall,' a bathroom, a kitchen and the rest of the space was a cross between a living room and dinning room. The apartment was quite warm despite the wind and rain just outside the windows in the dark night. The place was sandwiched in the middle of four other apartments in the complex so it didn't need as much heating in the winter.

It was well lit at the moment, almost every light was turned on so the young woman could see what she was cleaning or working on. The kitchen was nearly spotless in comparison to what it had been like just that morning. Plastic and paper bags full of cans, SoBee and PowerAid bottles, an empty pizza box, a ton of old news papers (minus the comics that were now hiding on top of the fridge) and other recyclables were piled near the door where they could be grabbed the next morning as the woman left to go to college.

The T.V. was also on, as was the X-box with a game in it. The somewhat large screen showed a setting in the Bionicle game world were the Toa Nuva of Air, Lewa, was perched high up on a rock spire, overlooking a lake and a few smaller spires, one looking like it was going to collapses if a father brushed it. Massive trees that were as tall, if not taller than skyscrapers were in the back ground.

The volume of the TV was turned to its maximum setting so the woman could listen to the rhythmic drum beats as she worked. Though the music ended up trailing off after if cycled through a few times, letting the sounds of frogs, insects and the occasional bird play out their endless loop.

The young woman was a student at the local Community College, she was twenty two years old, nearly twenty three, and worked at her family's business part time and did 'odd jobs' almost everywhere to cover the cost of text books, food, living and gifts for the upcoming Christmas season. Though for the last half year she had been working more than normal to cover the cost of an upcoming dive trip to an island in the Dutch Caribbean, Bonaire.

She was reasonably attractive, not overly so. She stood at about five foot five despite that fact she claimed to be five foot six and often joked about her height saying she was 'Half short, haft tall; because half of the people she met were taller them her and the other half shorter. Besides, she still had to drag a chair over to reach something on the top shelf. She had dark blond-ish hair that had a habit of sticking up every-which-way if brushed too much or ignored (like it was most of the time). Her eyes were a green/blue color, or hassle as her driver licenses' clamed them to be. The young woman wasn't the thinnest thing around but wasn't fat either, though she was trying to lose some pounds before the big dive trip like almost any female teenager would.

Hey, she wanted to look good in her new swimsuit! You never know when you might met a guy you actually like.

Her name was Tallen, named after a dragon slayer in some old book that her mother read and loved. She staunchly refused to let anyone other than immediate family call her 'Tally.' To her that nickname was just for family and no one else. Tallen wasn't overly fond of being referred to as 'Miss Patrick,' but was now having a grand old time at the collage telling people, "I'm sorry but I'm Tallen, Miss Patrick is my grandmother and she lives in Alaska." However, the young woman also answer to the names: Omicron, Omie or Icy, thanks to her best friend and a few others calling her those nicknames for the past three or so years, most from the internet.

It was Sunday night on a long weekend and Tallen was perched on a mound of blankets on her bed, her wireless keyboard in her lap and the wireless mouse on a small piece of cardboard beside her as she stared owlishly at her half written essay for her English class. Despite the game sounds from the X-box out in the living room, she had 'Shadow's Apology' from YouTube-dot-com playing in another window as she tried to think of what else to put in her essay. At the moment she had hit a minuet writer's block and was debating on poking at some of her other short stories (fan fictions) or working on one of her books.

Yawning hugely Tallen blinked at the tiny time display on her computer screen.

Nine-twenty-two.

It wasn't even ten yet and it felt like it was one-thirty.

"Hmmm." Tallen looked up at the red transformer toy that was glomping the top of her screen. She gave a faint smile and asked the toy, "Still in love with my computer Sideswipe?"

The toy didn't reply as it continued to hug the screen, madly in love with it. At lest he wasn't standing on the speakers and doing gods knew what to the poor screen any more. Tallen shook her head, she couldn't for the life of her remember why on earth she had posed the transformer like that, other than it had been funny at the time. It had been late then and she tended to get very….strange that late night with little to no sleep.

Yawning again Tallen stretched, and pulling the keyboard off her lap rolled out of bed. She went about turning everything off (including the computer) and starting getting ready for sleep. At one point she winced and backtracked to the kitchen to down some painkillers for cramps. It was 'that time,' but she was over the worse of it so it was all good, as long as her supply of tampons lasted...

Anyways, to get away that subject because a lot of people are uncomfortable with it…

Tallen had to remake her bed and dump all the junk she piled on top of it that day onto the ground she crawled under her mass of blankets, intending to turn in early for once.

Too bad fate decided to throw a completely unexpected and somewhat impossible curveball at her that night in the form a unique infant that seemingly showed up out of nowhere.

It was the next morning that she met the child. It's cries had jerked her awake and for a few moments her fogged up mind thought she was on Vancouver island with one of her sisters and her family instead of Washington state. But as she pushed back the covers, reality reinserted its self and Tallen realized that, no the crying wasn't coming from any of her neighbors but from her own living room. Confused but also worried the young woman stumbled over her Speech text book, a bra, a boom-box and sandal as she scrambled out of her room.

She froze when she saw what was making all the noise and stared in compete shock. There on the two low coffee tables that where shoved side by side in front of the couches, bundled up in her large aqua and white colored poncho and crying his little green eyes out was a baby.

A hedgehog baby.

A blue and tan anthro hedgehog baby.

"Oh my…" Tallen chocked and couldn't finish as she stared.