Chap 10 : The Celestial Hermit Crab Emerges
Four days.
Four days of staring at a ceiling that stubbornly refused to transform into stars. Four days of lying in a bed that was too soft, surrounded by walls that were too pink, while nine beautifully dressed mortal males continued to stare at me from every direction with expressions ranging from brooding to mild concern.
The one who was apparently going to marry me someday was starting to look emotionally invested.
I had not left my room since we returned from the restaurant.
Not because I was hiding.
Celestial beings did not hide.
We retreated strategically to gather our strength, contemplate the nature of existence, and absolutely not because we had made fools of ourselves in front of mortals by producing mysterious liquid from our eyes while eating noodles.
I was contemplating.
Very intensely.
The fact that I had spent most of those four days attempting to contact the Celestial Tribunal was irrelevant. The fact that I had tried every incantation I knew—and several I invented in a state of spiritual irritation—and had produced absolutely nothing was also irrelevant.
The fact that this mortal body collapsed into exhaustion every night after even the smallest attempt at celestial exertion…
Was.
Fine.
I was fine.
Everything was fine.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
I glared at the square demon-box perched on the table.
The humans called it an alarm clock.
I called it an insult.
Fortunately, I had learned on the second day that a swift and authoritative strike to its upper surface produced immediate obedience, which was more than I could say for most creatures I had encountered in this realm.
I smacked it.
Silence.
Much better.
Then I lay there for a moment longer and listened.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
No footsteps. No voices. No sounds of Mum muttering about dishes or Dad making that strange humming noise he produced when he believed no one could hear him. No scratching of Tangled Menace’s pencil. No random, deeply suspicious bursts of laughter from behind closed doors.
They were gone.
All of them.
I sat up slowly, my joints protesting in the deeply offensive way mortal joints had apparently decided to function. The room swayed slightly. I had not been eating as much as I probably should have, despite the trays of food that kept appearing outside my door like offerings to a deeply antisocial deity.
The food had been… acceptable.
More than acceptable, if I was being honest.
Every morning, there was food outside my door. Every night, the empty tray vanished. No one mentioned it.
On the first day, Mum had left a tray containing warm rice porridge, several small side dishes, and a soft-boiled egg, each labeled in careful handwriting as though I required written clarification for basic nourishment. I appreciated the organization. It suggested competence.
On the second day, Dad left what he described—again, in writing—as sandwiches. He had cut them into triangles and removed the crusts, which raised several troubling questions about his judgment. I did not understand why one would deliberately amputate perfectly edible bread edges, but the result had been… suspiciously pleasant.
On the third day, Tangled Menace—whose real name I had unfortunately really came to know of was really name Mina—left a bowl of ramen outside the door.
Mina.
A name that, in the old realms, had once belonged to beings of grace, serenity, and celestial beauty.
This one was none of those things.
I therefore continued to reject it on principle.
The ramen had come with a note.
It read:
EAT, WEIRDO.
The handwriting was aggressive. The message was insulting. And yet the broth had been excellent.
I stared at the note for a long time before eating.
Then I ate everything.
And then, like some cave-dwelling shell creature, I placed the empty bowl back outside my door and retreated.
This, I decided, was deeply concerning.
But today, the house was empty.
And for the first time since waking up in this world…
I was curious.
I opened my bedroom door slowly, half-expecting an ambush.
No slippers flew at my face.
No alarm boxes shrieked.
No sisters materialized out of nowhere to insult my dignity.
Just a quiet hallway lined with carpet the color of resignation.
I stepped out barefoot—because shoes remained one of humanity’s more baffling inventions—and moved carefully down the hall.
The house was larger than I remembered from my previous excursions, though admittedly those had mostly involved being dragged through it in states of confusion, indignation, or mild trauma.
The sitting chamber came first.
A large couch in a colour that could not decide whether it was blue or grey. A dark television screen. A shelf filled with books, decorative objects, and strange plastic cases labelled DVDs, which sounded vaguely like a disease. There was also a framed image of a younger Mum and Dad holding a bundled infant I assumed was the original Sera.
Everyone in the picture looked terrified.
Reasonable.
I moved on.
The food chamber—otherwise known as the kitchen—was bright and painfully clean. A calendar hung on the wall, covered in scribbles and reminders in multiple handwritings.
Mina dentist 3PM.Dad’s birthday.Restaurant inventory.
There was also a magnetic board on the cold food cabinet that read:
We love you, Sera!And beneath it, in Mina’s unmistakably violent scrawl:
EAT SOMETHING, YOU WEIRDO.
I stood there for a moment, staring at it.
Then I turned.
And that was when I saw the wall.
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