"I fell in love with a girl named Gazette, and we had a child named Czenna. This is what Eov has told me. We'd moved to a spacious house not far from the outskirts of town. Czen was sleeping when it happened.
"In the black of the night, someone set fire to Czens room. I'm still pretty sure it was aliens, even though Eov said it probably wasn't."
"Why would aliens set your house on fire?" Squee asked. He knew well the motives of aliens, but why death?
"Eov tells me it isn't true," He continued, "That I was part of an underground assemblage of believers determined to overthrow the oncoming invasion. But my gut, and my memories tell me I was.
"So, anyway, I broke into Czens room shortly after waking to the smoke, but she was trapped under the collapsed wood pieces falling from the ceiling. Then, I died. Horrifying, really; listening to your heart slow…
Gazette seemed to disappear into the moonlight. I never saw her again. The fire attracted the ambulance but I had already died. I had only a faint recollection of my wife and child after this. Eov told me it was unexplainable. She told me I had died, that she had tried to heal me but failed. The doctors where stunned. I should've died, no one resurrected me."
Sympathy hid in Squees' wide eyes as he listened, hanging onto every word. "So are you a zombie or what?"
Zai giggled a bit.
"No, kid; I'm not a zombie." The bus screamed as it halted. Zai had pulled the rope at his sop. Everyone on the bus watched Zai with admiration as Todd followed him into the park.
Squee took out his sign.