“Tossing and turning couldn't be a worse enemy.”

 

Moaning as I rub my eyes, letting them adjust to the sunlight streaming in through the windows, I take a look around my room at all the things scattered across the floor thinking, if Cocoa were here, she'd tell me it needed to be cleaned. But I just didn't feel like doing it; I've always had it like this and it just never put me off. But I've seen Cocoa's room before and could see where she was coming from; she always had it spotless and organized.

 

Throwing the sheets off and swinging my legs over the bed, a small chill causes me to shiver from being in just a T-shirt and panties. I took off my bra and pants halfway through the night as thoughts consumed me of the events that transpired yesterday. I shook my head; sometimes my curiosity was just too much. It's like a black hole that just can't consume enough numbers. It was mind numbing at times, but I've grown used to it, or so I thought...

 

After I finally crawled out of bed, I carefully walked around the gears and machines scattered on the floor with years of experience to my dresser. I hadn't had time to compress these sets of clothes into buttons, but I grabbed them anyway and headed to the bathroom. I needed a shower to clear my head. Even though Cocoa and I were speaking again, she felt different and almost distant. It was easy in the beginning to talk to her after we had left school yesterday, but by the time we got to the junkyard, or more so inside-she had talked to Aurora just before we headed inside-she felt different. Even when she disappeared while we were searching for Dizzy I had thought she didn't want to spend time with me and left. Even now I still don't know where she went or why. I let the thought sit on my mind as I slipped out of my remaining clothing and into the warm water.

 

“Soak,” I say, letting the voice activated shower know that I just want to relax. The shower then turns on to a light, muscle relaxing pace as I let it soak over me. My gut then tightened at the thought of Dizzy as the water continued to wash over me. Using anything she modified while she was here caused the feeling more recently. It was inescapable. She, in a way, was very similar to me in terms of technology. And while she was far further along it than I was, I couldn't help feeling... “Jealous...” I whisper, now putting two and two together.

 

Thinking back on it now, maybe my nightmare wasn't just from my past, but also the feelings I felt toward Dizzy, which were mostly negative at the time. “I wish I had given her more time,” I murmur, small tears starting to form. “To really understand her. Now I just hope I get the chance to tell her I'm sorry one day...” Sighing, I tell the water to turn off, step out, grab my towel and begin to dry myself off. Once dried and dressed, I head over to the mirror and grab the brush; I didn't feel like having my hair done automatically today.

 

As I ran it through my hair, it somehow reminded me of how Cocoa and I did each others hair, and got me thinking if Dizzy would ever have enjoyed something like that. Almost like how an older sister and younger sister would do it. Probably not though knowing how she'd rather tear apart a microwave and build it again than sit in front of a mirror doing up her hair. “Not that I really do it up much,” I tell myself as I wrap it in a hair tie to form a ponytail. “Aside from this,” I tell myself, turning from side to side, satisfied with how it looks. I then grab my towel and head back to the bedroom.

 

“Good morning, Miss Random. Did you sleep well?” Tipsy asks as I come in through the door, care and concern flowing through her voice.

 

I threw my towel on the bed and sighed before answering her.

 

“I tossed all night, Tipsy. Something about Cocoa feels off and it kept me up.” And Cody to, now that I think about it. But I haven't seen him since yesterday, so I couldn't really say for sure and thus didn't say anything out loud. I scratched at my head with both hands, hair ruffling, questioning why my life was so complicated.

 

“It seems like something more than that,” she tells me, leaping up on the bed beside me. I forgot how human she was for looking like an animal, and for being a robot, but acting as human as I could have put into her system. It made for great conversation when there was no one else to talk to, which has helped more than once, especially when I first woke up here. I juggled the question of asking her in my head. She may act human and look like a cat, but could she understand human emotions? Not even I could put that much into a computer, no matter how hard I tried. In the end I decided to confide in her, at least about half of it.

 

“Ever since Cocoa's been spending time with Aurora, it felt like she didn't want to hang with me anymore. But then just yesterday at school she walks up to Cody and I at lunch like everything was just fine. Yet after school she still goes to chat with Aurora before we headed into the junkyard, and after she comes back as we head inside the junkyard, it's like she's completely changed. Then while we were searching for Dizzy-our reason for being there-she disappeared. And that's why I was up, tossing and turning because...she's just so...different now...” I struggled to get the last of the words out, not wanting to hear the possible truth myself.

 

My eyes then began to sting as tears started to form. Recalling the events overnight as I tried to sleep was vastly different from voicing them to tipsy and oddly enough myself, and as such made me more emotional than I thought I was.

 

“I'm sure she's just stressful or busy,” Tipsy says, trying to console me by rubbing her head against my leg. “You two haven't spent a lot of time together recently, which could have caused a drop in normalcy between you two, making it awkward on both sides for either of you to voice your opinion without fear of judgement. That, and since she's been spending time with Aurora, her way of thinking could have changed, if only a little from her influence.”

 

All I could do was smile at Tipsy's words as tears trickled down my cheeks, as that's more or less the response I expected. At least it was an improvement from 4 years ago, when I created her. Back then, she gave way less human responses. It was only overtime that the program I installed allowed her to adapt to human emotions as you talked to her. But the discussion had stopped there as the doorbell suddenly rang, putting me on the defensive. “Who could be here at this hour?” I ask Tipsy as I push myself out the bed, wiping the tears from of my eyes before heading to the door. Whoever it was, I didn't want them to know I was crying.

 

Before I reach the door, however, I notice who's arrived as the door closes behind them. It was Cocoa, wearing a dark brown skirt and vanilla top. Her hair washed over her shoulders, highlighting her round face. It had grown out a little since the time we spent apart, and I didn't really notice it till now. Her chocolate brown eyes shone hesitantly from behind her glasses as she strode over toward me, despite a smile spread across her face. I could always read how she felt, even if she tried to hide behind her smile.

 

“Morning,” she says nonchalantly. “Did you sleep well?” she asks, taking in my clean, showered appearance and probably assuming I did.

 

“It was...something,” I tell her, unsure of why I wasn't just telling her I tossed and turned. I never kept secrets from Cocoa. Ever. Why was I starting now? Was it something Tipsy said just 30 seconds ago? Or was it because she wasn't giving me the full truth lately? Too many questions flooded my mind and I had to quickly push them aside before my curiosity attack again like a wet cat.

 

After studying me a little more, she cocks her head to the side and says, “Your eyes have a bit of a dark rim underneath them, and look a little puffy. You didn't really sleep, did you?” she asks me, face turning to one of concern. It was true I didn't sleep well, but I didn't want to tell her the reason behind it, or why I was crying, if she clued into that.

 

“I'll be all right,” I tell her, gesturing toward the kitchen. “We have some time before we got to go, want to get a bite to eat?”

 

Without question, and the sound of her growling stomach deciding for us, we both head toward the kitchen.

 

“Anything in particular?” I ask as we both take a seat. It's been a while since we both sat down here together, and I didn't know if she knew Dizzy fixed up the kitchen with voice commands or not. So when she says, “An egg omelette with sausage and toast?” no sooner does her question go through before it begins cooking up her food. She gave me a look of confusion, clearly surprised.

 

“Dizzy gave it voice activation. She said manual inputs were too time consuming and took up too much space, limiting how much freedom you could have,” I explain to her as her meal appears in front of her, the steam and smell waffing off the plate, causing her stomach to growl even louder. A fork then appears next to it with a knife on the opposite side. “Wow,” is all she could say. I soon followed suit and asked for my own meal with a glass of orange juice while Cocoa, true to her nature, asked for hot chocolate with marshmallows and caramel.

 

“It's delicious,” she tells me as she takes a bite. I also take a bite of mine and notice it lacked something, something Cody has taught me over time from us hanging out together. That no machine could replace the hands of a chef and the meals he could create. And while I agree with Cocoa on how well it taste-which if not for Cody would taste amazing-a part of me wished Cody were here to 'spice it up', as he says.

 

Cocoa then notices my longing look and asks, “You okay, Random? You look as if it's not all that good. Did it get cooked wrong?” she asks with a playful tone. I could tell she was trying to narrow the gap between us that Tipsy explained earlier, but there were still things from her I wanted to know, which made it hard for me to except the kindness and friendship. My rational side vs my I-love-Cocoa-like-a-sister side.

 

“It's okay, just feels like it's missing something,” I tell her, taking another bite out of it. “So do you want to hang out today or are you busy?” I ask, not getting my hopes too high that I'll be able to get something out of her without digging myself into a hole. I didn't want to hurt our friendship, but my curiosity was nibbling at the back of my mind again. It was a feeling I just couldn't quite scratch away, like a flea to a dog, which was just as annoying as I've noticed.

 

“I wish I could,” she starts, and I know exactly where it's going before she finishes. “But I promised Aurora I'd spend time with her today. She needs some help and I volunteered to help,” she finishes, avoiding just exactly what her and Aurora were planning to do. Not questioning her further, I took our dishes to the square hole in the wall and watched the machine take them away to be washed. I then point to clock and say, “we should go, otherwise we'll be late.”

 

As we passed through the door to head to school, we were assaulted by a vicious gust of wind, strong enough to nearly push us off our feat. We were both caught completely off guard in the clothing we were wearing-t-shirts, jeans and a skirt-as are hands shot up to our sides to hug ourselves at an attempt to ward it off. But it was too rough as it pricked at our skin, causing us to hurry back inside, the sliding door clicking into place as the heater switched on at my command.

 

Thankful for the warmth, I turn toward Cocoa with a confused look on my face and ask, “It wasn't like that when you left, right? Because I remember the sun streaming in through my bedroom window...” as I recall it I turn toward the window and see that the branches on the trees were struggling helplessly in the winds invisible grasp.

 

Cocoa's eyes following mine, she says, “It wasn't; it was a wonderful summer morning, perfect for a walk in this,” she raised her arms to her shoulders then lowered them down the sides of her body, using her hands to indicate her clothes which were a t-shirt and skirt. Clearly not something for the current weather outside.

 

“Weather channel,” I call toward the living room then begin to stride over to the couch, Cocoa following behind me. Tipsy was laying on the end of it, clearly undisturbed by the events going on outside. I guess that's to be expected when she wasn't truly an animal; they were more in-tune with nature than we were.

 

When the TV finally switched on and turned over to the weather channel, it showed a picture of someone near Oodles of Noodles in a heavy winter attire; black jacket, wind breaker pants and a pair of winter boots with a toque on their head. The wind looked even more terrifying there than it did here as the weather announcer tried to keep herself rooted in place while everything else around her bowed to its whims, except the camera man.

 

“I'm coming to you live and alone just outside of Oodles of Noodles where a vicious wind storm has just suddenly rolled into town.”

 

“So much for a camera man,” Cocoa says, a hint of laughter in her voice.

 

“These grey clouds above me just began to roll in not long ago, having mysteriously appeared on our monitors a short while ago,” she continues, shouting to over take the wind for dominance. The Camera however was wavering only slightly, as if it wasn't weighed or bolted down enough to protect it from the whipping wind. “We haven't had an incident like this for weeks, but it looks like our time has run thin-”

She stops abruptly and taps the side of her ear. No doubt an ear bud, sending her up to date information about the weather.

 

“Hold on, I'm getting news that a downpour is to follow, and going by the data they're getting, it's going to be exactly the same as before, maybe even fiercer. For those of you unaware,” she waves her hand up to the corner of the TV as Cocoa and I move to the edge of the couch to show a small video playing, from the look of it, last times events.

 

“This “metallic rain” as we call it had eaten through almost anything it came into contact with. Paint was lightly scraped from cars, branches from trees looking like they were nearly sawed in half and split down the middle.”

 

As she continues to explain the events, the images on the small screen in the corner appear in succession to match her speech and I shudder at the memories of being caught in that storm with Cocoa. It was right after we both got off school, and we raced over to Dan's as either of our homes were further than that. It turns out he was sheltering most of the towns people there, giving them towels and one free hot chocolate for those that wanted some. I had completely forgot about it till now. Even as we continued to watch, Cocoa tensed beside me. We both just couldn't believe it was happening again.

 

“Why?” Cocoa whispers, from the sound of it mostly to herself, but it's enough for me to overhear.

 

“Why?” I look over at her, concerned and curious. “What's wrong?”

 

“Hmm?” she turns toward me, unaware that she spoke anything at all. And before I can ask again, the phone rings, jolting us both. Sighing, I get up and head over toward the phone.

 

“Who could be calling at this hour, especially when we would have already left by now,” I ask Cocoa, taking the phone off the receiver and putting it to my ear before saying, “hello?”

 

“R---Random?” a voice answers on the other end, although it's slightly suppressed by static. “The---re's no... School is---n't going... be h---eld...” and then finally a “Click”.

 

Nervously hanging the phone back on the receiver, Cocoa turns toward me, turning the sound down on the TV and asks, “Who was it?” as turned her head to the side, her chocolate brown hair following it thanks to gravity.

 

“I... I don't know. But I'm guessing someone from school, as from what I could make of it through all the static, it's not going to be held today-” BOOM! A roar of thunder decides to cut me off, echoing through the house and even causing it to shake as both I and Cocoa jump, startled by all the events that have happened thus far.

 

Following it was a bright flash of lighting, illuminating the sky in a beautiful violet before rain started to fall. But unlike the “metallic rain”, this rain appeared normal, but was coming down twice as fast.

 

Both Cocoa and I stared at each other than turned our heads toward the window, watching the wind whip the rain, trees and bushes around effortlessly. We also noted that no cars were out and no people could be seen. It was like the rain storm from hell.