The main stage shimmered with dazzling lights and glitter cannons firing bursts of rainbow mist into the air. Animated characters danced across massive LED screens in looped trailers: knights with glowing swords clashing against brain-hungry, neon-green zombies. At the center was the bright, stylized logo for Nommie Zombies vs. Mythic Knights, and under it all, the unmistakable tagline of Zygurr Incorporated:

“Chew the Future!”

Celeste wrinkled her nose. “Subtle.”

“Looks expensive,” Lumina murmured.

A booming, upbeat voice filled the air.

“AND DON’T FORGET—CLAWS OUT FOR CANDY!
BONBON GIVEAWAYS ALL WEEKEND, COURTESY OF ZYGURR!”

A mountain of kids was already swarming toward the booth at the foot of the stage, many in cardboard helmets or zombie makeup. Just as Celeste and Lumina started heading that way, a clump of small bodies rushed past them, nearly knocking them sideways.

One of them—a toddler panda in an oversized mask shaped like a sparkly rabbit—stumbled to the ground, letting out a confused wail.

“Oh! Hey, hey—it’s okay,” Celeste said, immediately crouching to help. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

The little panda blinked up at her, teary but unharmed, and tugged her mask off to breathe. Before Celeste could say more, a panting mother with wild fur and frantic eyes shoved through the crowd.

“Cariad! Mae’n ddrwg gen i!” she gasped, scooping her child up into her arms. “Diolch—rili. Sori, sori—ro’n i wedi edrych drosti hi—”

Celeste could only nod as the panda mum offered one last breathless “Diolch yn fawr” and disappeared into the crowd, the toddler now babbling happily against her shoulder.

Lumina hummed a little tune under her breath, then said bluntly, “That was… a lotta chaos. Like, boom-crash.”

Celeste let out a small laugh, brushing fur from her skirt. “Aye, sweetheart, it was. But everyone’s alright, thank the stars.” She straightened and pointed gently toward the booth. “Come on, love. Let’s see about that candy before it all disappears.”

The air near the stage pulsed with light and bass beats, but for a brief moment, everything slowed down.

Celeste pulled Lumina into the frame of her comms crystal’s camera, fluffing her sister’s messy bangs before striking a graceful magical pose with her. The screen flashed. A perfect shot.

“Our first selfie as sisters,” she said softly, smile curling at the edges of her mouth as she peeked at it. “Oh, Lumi—you’ve been amazing today. Seven years old—seven!—and you’ve handled a convention better than half the adults I know.”

Lumina looked up with wide eyes, her cheeks pinking slightly. And then—slowly, shyly—she smiled. Not the polite, careful ones she wore like a mask, but a real one. A small spark of sunshine.

Celeste’s heart swelled.

At the foot of the stage, the candy giveaway was being manned by the least enthusiastic fox Celeste had ever seen. Her hair was dyed in streaks of dusty black and violet, eyeliner smudged from either fashion or despair—it was unclear—and her oversized Zygurr Incorporated hoodie hung off one shoulder like even her clothes were over it.

The fox—Ray, according to her crooked nametag—didn’t even look up as she half-heartedly tossed a sealed bag of glittery pink-and-green bonbons at Celeste.

“Here. Enjoy your dose of corporate joy. Don’t choke,” Ray mumbled, monotone. Her voice had the exact defeated cadence of someone who’d handed out candy to hyper children for eight hours and now existed solely out of contract obligation and spite.

“Thanks,” Celeste said hesitantly, catching the bag.

Lumina got one too, a little more gently. The wrapper was shiny and loud, emblazoned with zombified monsters and knights chomping on rainbow swords. The sweets inside gleamed oddly under the lights, too glossy, too bright, almost wet-looking in a way candy shouldn’t be.

Lumina frowned at hers. “That looks weird.”

Celeste barely hesitated.

“Oh, it’s probably just novelty colouring,” she said, already popping one into her mouth before she could think better of it. “Con food is always a bit strange, isn’t it?”

Lumina watched her for half a second, then—because Celeste had done it, and because younger sisters were tragically vulnerable to bad examples—she copied her and ate one too.

And instantly regretted it.

The flavour was… indescribable. Like sour strawberry bubblegum dipped in cough syrup and dusted with burnt plastic. Celeste’s face crumpled in horror.

Lumina had already spat hers into a napkin. “What was that?”

“I think,” Celeste choked, clutching her stomach, “my tongue is dissolving. Oh, stars above—that cannot be safe.”

But then the feeling changed.

The sourness dropped lower.

A strange tingling unfurled through her chest.

Celeste’s breath caught. Her paw flew to her sternum.

For one terrifying moment, something beneath her skin lit up.

A soft glow pulsed through her chest—faint but unmistakable, hidden beneath costume fabric and fur like a lantern briefly uncovered.

And then—

everything stopped.

Not truly. Not in the way a room goes silent.

In the way a held breath silences a whole world.

The music seemed to stretch thin. The confetti drifted in the air like it had forgotten how to fall. A laugh nearby elongated into nonsense. Lights blurred into streaks. For the briefest, impossible moment, Celeste felt as though the room had frozen around her.

And she felt them.

Everyone.

Not as faces. Not even as bodies.

As presences.

A thousand tiny flickers and pulses all at once—fear, joy, irritation, boredom, hunger, embarrassment, delight, nerves, loneliness, excitement—every living thing in the hall blazing through her at once in one impossible sweep. It hit her so hard she nearly doubled over. The room became a field of stars and she, somehow, horribly, could feel where each one burned.

Then, just as suddenly—

it snapped.

Sound crashed back in.

The music. The crowd. The lights. The smell of sugar and cheap plastic and sweat.

Celeste staggered, sucking in a sharp breath.

“Celeste?” Lumina’s voice came small and worried. “You went all funny.”

Celeste blinked hard and stared at her own paw still pressed to her chest.

“I… yes. I think I did.”

Lumina leaned in, eyes wide. “Your chest glowed.”

Celeste looked faintly ill. “That feels like something I should not hear in public.”

A few feet away, she spotted someone else reacting the same way.

She marched back to the booth.

“Excuse me,” she said to Ray, who was now scrolling on her phone while mechanically tossing bonbon bags to passing kitsune twins.

Ray didn’t look up. “They’re made from seventy-two percent sustainable glitter. Side effects include fun. Next.”

Celeste raised an eyebrow. “It actually says that?”

Ray sighed like someone remembering the good old days before capitalism. She flicked her lanyard badge, letting it spin.

“I dunno. It’s in the employee script. ‘Smile, deliver product, downplay nausea.’ Blah blah blah. You want a refund? It’s free.”

Celeste crossed her arms. “Still. If something’s making people feel sick, shouldn’t you report it to someone?”

Ray finally looked up—her eyes half-lidded, dry as a desert.

“Blondie, I’m not management. I’m the candy goblin. They pay me in coupons and social credits.”

Celeste pointed at her badge. “Ray, right? Then Ray, is there some manager or supervisor I could talk to? Just to get the ingredient list?”

Ray sighed again. This time, it was deeper—like she was exhaling her will to live.

“Fine. If you want to file a formal complaint about candy, you can find a Zygurr brand ambassador at Booth E2 near the merchandise vault. They’re the ones with the chrome suits and dead eyes. Can’t miss ’em.”

“Thanks,” Celeste said curtly, already turning to leave with Lumina.

Ray called after them, voice dull as dirt.

“Good luck. And remember—chew responsibly.”

Celeste muttered under her breath, “I’d rather chew gravel.”

Ray chuckled once, low and short, before tossing another bag at a shrieking kid.

As they pushed back through the crowd, her stomach still gurgling uneasily, a chill prickled up her spine.

Something about those bonbons wasn’t right.

Mezzo—the dalmatian security guard—was gripping the edge of a metal crowd gate, breathing hard. His hair tilted sideways, revealing the stylized glyph etched into the back of his neck. A hybrid marker.

He met her gaze for just a second.

She knew then: he felt it too.

“CEL-LESTE!” came a shout.

Melody—vibrant tabby tail bouncing—came sprinting over, holding a torn-open candy bag in one paw, half-eaten sweets in the other.

“Did you try these?!” she beamed, eyes glittering. “They’re like—chewy starlight. I could eat a dozen!”

Celeste blinked, trying not to show the unease brewing in her gut. “Uh... they kind of made me feel weird, actually.”

Melody raised a brow. “Weird like good weird? Or weird like ‘oops, I licked a plasma battery’?”

“Closer to the second one.”

Before Melody could comment, a shouting match broke out nearby.

Mezzo had moved into a group of rough-looking teenagers near the stage wall, trying to quiet them down. But one of them—a fox with spiked bracelets—grabbed Mezzo’s badge and read it aloud with a mocking grin.

“‘Hybrid division’?” he snorted. “So what, you glow in the dark or something? Yeah, nah—we don’t gotta listen to magic freaks.”

The others laughed and shoved past him, nearly knocking over a signboard. Mezzo didn’t react beyond a tight jaw and clenched paws.

He smoothed his vest, tried to smile.

But Celeste saw it: the wear. The practice of pretending. The pain of being tolerated but never fully respected.

“Assholes,” Melody muttered under her breath, clearly having caught the tail end of it.

Celeste’s tail bristled, but she didn’t speak. She couldn’t. Not yet.

“Hey,” Melody said brightly, trying to steer things back. “There’s a gaming room upstairs. Wanna check it out? Could be a better place to meet your penpal—quieter, plus the air conditioning up there doesn’t smell like bubblegum regret.”

Celeste hesitated.

The strange static inside her hadn’t stopped humming.

It had softened, but now everything felt… sharper. Too sharp. The edges of people. The little moods in the air. The tension she hadn’t noticed before seemed to glow around the hall like coloured thread.

She knew it could spiral if she lost control—if her magic surged in a crowd. They were hybrids. If someone noticed…

But Lumina had already started climbing the steps, her candy bag forgotten in one paw.

Celeste followed.

As she set her foot on the stairs, she glanced back over the convention floor.

And the whole con looked different now.

Not visually, exactly. The same glitter cannons, banners, lights, crowds, merch, stage smoke. But everyone seemed outlined by something she could not name. The convention no longer felt like random noise and movement. It felt connected. Charged. Alive in a way that made her chest ache. Like she was seeing not just a crowd, but the shape of all their hearts pressing against one another in one enormous room.

It was beautiful.

And deeply wrong.

For one brief moment, through the tangle of minds and feelings and movement, she thought she felt her father too—

a familiar shape in the noise, stern and distant and heavy as iron.

Then it was gone.

Upstairs, the room was darker, lit mostly by flickering old monitors and the glow of retro arcade cabinets lining the walls. A few kids in cosplay huddled around open card game mats, controllers clicked like quiet mechanical insects, and the low thrum of chiptune music set a nostalgic atmosphere.

That’s when she saw him.

A lynx, tall and relaxed in a denim jacket patched with RPG logos, leaned over a pixelated arcade screen, playing a classic fighter game with focused ease.

Next to him stood two others:

—A brown teenage hedgehog with glasses and worn goggles pushed up onto his forehead and a rumpled lab coat full of button pins that said things like “I INVENTED THAT!” and “Trust me, I’m 90% sure!”

—And an eight-year-old fennec fox, petite but confident, dressed in a sleek blue jumpsuit with reinforced knees and a glowing card duel device strapped to his wrist like it belonged there. His tail flicked as he stared at a holographic display spinning just above the deck.

Celeste’s heart thudded.

That had to be him. The lynx. Her penpal. The one she’d traded theories with for months online under the name “Glitch_Stitch.”

He looked... cooler than she expected. But the warmth behind his posture told her this wasn’t some aloof stranger.

He glanced up from the machine, ears twitching.

And their eyes met.

Celeste felt something shift.

As if the static inside her had paused.

Just for a moment.