Now That's What I Call a Bug! (solo)

    Zack laid back on the bed that he had been given. This school was like nothing else he'd ever experienced. This CITY was like nothing else he had ever experienced, back where he was from travel time was how long it took to get in the car and drive from point A to point B, down there, even in the middle of the night he could see them streaming past a wave of people, each of them with their own internal lives, hopes and dreams, their victories and sins just like him. There was a word for that, "Sonder" the moment where you realize the worlds of everyone around you are just as full and worthwhile as your own. It's part of what kept him so dedicated to the idea of doing right by others, because they were just like him and they felt the same struggles and pain that he would have in their shoes.
    "Nnn...this is too complex a line of thought for me to be echoing to myself this close to midnight." he said, idly thumbing the page of the comic volume in his hands. He sat up, running his fingers through his hair. "Mmm, damn and I'm talking to myself again. Probably chalk that one up to being in a foreign country on the other side of the planet and not knowing anybody yet." He said, standing up and stretching his back, his surprising amount of musculature pressing against his sleeves. "Something to worry about tomorrow, see what kind of activities there are to do, meet some people. Make some friends." he murmured, standing up and flicking the light switch only for the room to be lit by a strange blue glow. he turned the light back on and the sheen of light on the walls around him vanished, only to reappear upon the flicking of the switch. His eyes scanned with pure confusion over to the screen of his old laptop and he walked over to it, hunching over his desk to read the text scrolling across the screen. Half of it was in some kind of garbled script that he couldn't possibly parse but all of the lines seem to be translating one another with a matching English string.
    "Prepare for file transfer, execute Tamer.exe, loading..." Was the bit he could read, just above a scrolling progress bar. As it slowly filled the computer began to lightly bounce and rattle as if being filled with too much energy to bear. He backed up, tipping over and landing hard onto his squeaking mattress, unable to take his eyes away from the screen until with the final percentage of progress the screen flashed a brilliant, blinding light and then everything in the room went pitch dark.
    Something in Zack's lap suddenly felt hot and he yelped, jerking up to his feet again and looking down at the offending object as it dropped to the floor, a thin, gold colored device like nothing he had ever seen that glowed with a heat like steel off a forge before he reached down, the glow dissipating as he picked it up the heat having vanished all at once. Then, he blinked away enough of the spots from his eyes to see another glowing shape in the room with him. An egg, large enough to fit in his lap, all gold with bronze stripes running in rings around it. He crawled up to it on all fours, the closer he got the more it shivered and wiggled and softly bounced until with only the slightest sound it cracked and a small section of the shape opened near the bottom, a beady black eye peaking out with apprehenshion.
    "HOLY @#$%^& @#$%!!!" He said, scrambling backwards until his back was pressed to the edge of the bed. Making the entire furnishing rumble. He was jarred out of his unknown panic by the sound of whatever it was that was inside the egg squeaking and shunting itself back against the inside of the oval at the same time he did, shattering the rest of the fragile thing and leaving the tiny off-white insect blob shivering in pure, animal terror in a pile of egg shards that were softly dissolving away even as he was looking at them. It looked up at him, unstable emotion welling on its face until something broke the dam.
    "Uh...uh huh...uh huh....AAAAAN!~" It burst into wild, infantile tears of confusion, hurt and fear, water pouring down it's glittering cheeks as it hid its eyes with the thin sapphire wings on its back. That fully woke Zack out of his awe and staring. His brow creasing and his face becoming a mask of concern so potent that a master carver couldn't have replicated the emotion as perfectly.
    "Oh no you poor thing!" he said, reaching a hand up to his backpack and clawing out one of a handful of snack bars he kept with him, peeling it open and slowly, gently, with the top of his toe pushing it into the creature's reach. "Oh you little dear thing, don't cry. It's alright, here, eat something." He said and that, in turn, shook the little thing to its core. It stared at the food and then up at him and then back to the food, tears still rolling down its cheek as it somehow fit the entire bar into its face with no limbs, chewed maybe twice and then swallowed with a starving man's eagerness. "There you go, there you go..." he cooed, unpeeling a second and third bar and placing them gingerly close to the small bug-thing. "I'm not going to hurt you, nobody is going to hurt you. I give you my word." He said, reaching up to find a small electric blanket he kept at the foot of his bed, setting it down and turning it on. "Poor darling, you're shaking like a leaf."
    The little big poked at the edge of the blanket, feeling the fluffy electric warmth running through it and softly hopping up onto it to get at the second and third bars. Munching loudly down on the granola, honey and other things.
    "Th...thank you..." It said in the tiniest, fragile voice possible like it was made of the softest, brittlest glass. He balked a little bit at that but didn't let his surprise stay on his face for too long, the last thing this little dear needed was to get freaked out by something now of all times.
    "Uh...y-you're very welcome, darling. Now don't you worry, you eat up, rest and I'll...I'll figure something out to get you back where you belong." He said, furrowing his brow in thought, stroking his chin only to realize after a moment that the little thing had gone deathly quiet, before it began to bawl again.
    "I knew it, I knew it, this is all a dream. I'm gonna wake up...a-and I'm gonna be back in the rain, a-and I'm gonna be starving a-and-" It rambled, spiraling into a pit of sadness and resigned suffering. Zack reacted quickly, doing the only thing he could think of, reaching out and cupping the little beast in his hands, pulling it to his chest and hugging it as tightly as he dared, rocking back and forth until it calmed down.
    "Shh...shhh...don't cry." he said, repeating himself until the little bug calmed enough to stop loudly sobbing, he looked down into it's glittering black button eyes and softly cooed. "I don't know what you are, who you are, or where you came from. But if where you were had you starving out in the rain, then you have my word and my bond. I will never send you back there. No more. From now on you're going to be safe and warm and fed." he said, a determined twinkle in his eye. "I swear it." he said, hugging it back to his chest.
    "A...a..." The little thing whimpered, as if afraid to ask what was on its mind for fear of waking up when it all became too good to be true. "Are you my dad? I've never had a dad before...I've never had anybody before. I don't even know who or...what I am either..." She said, Zack getting quiet for a long, soft moment.
    "If...if you need one, little lady then..." He didn't take long to ponder his response, only a heartbeat. "Then yea, I guess I am. And there's going to be nothing more for you to worry about. How do you like the name...Marigold?" He said, looking back down to the little thing.
    Only to find the exhausted bug passed out, softly snoring, nuzzled deep into his arms.