Shadow had no feelings—but words carried meaning.

  And somehow, he understood them.

  That document had sparked his curiosity.

  He wanted to know.

  To understand those feelings.

  Maybe even… embody them.

  Emotions that had been thrown at him again and again in his short existence.

  Love would come first.

  It was the one that awakened his desire for knowledge.

  Shadow would pursue love first.

  He watched the five tall beings working.

  He had to choose the most “unique” one.

  He ruled out his creator—he already knew too much about Lucas. He needed different comparisons.

  He also ruled out the tall beings with prominent curves; their behavior was far too different from that of his creator.

  He needed something different, but still simir.

  Something he could compare.

  Two tall beings remained—one long and thin, the other broad.

  Shadow heard the long one’s name: Dominic.

  He chose the other one.

  Dominic’s pale skin, he thought, might make him too visible.

  Crawling between dusty old desks, slipping through cracks and dim corners, he twisted in a spiral toward the desk of the broad one, known as Charles.

  He had heard the name while Charles and Dominic argued about whether the best soccer pyer was Pelé or Messi.

  Shadow observed Charles’s face.

  Disproportionate, he thought.

  A rge body with a small head.

  His expression was nothing like the woman’s on the bus, or Lucas’s when he finished urinating.

  His mouth spat saliva as the argument heated up.

  Shadow was searching for love.

  This wasn’t it.

  The frequencies irritated him.

  Unlike the baby’s cries on the bus, these had rhythm.

  They were nguage.

  Then why were such harsh, high-pitched sounds coming out?

  These tall beings weren’t infants.

  So why were they so... irritating?

  Shadow didn’t understand why they produced those noises.

  But he knew one thing:

  This was not love.

  Not calming.

  Not joyful.

  Just noise.

  He grew impatient. Irritated.

  He couldn’t stop them—they had nguage.

  And he could be seen.

  He couldn’t move objects—he had already tried using Lucas’s glowing, shiny block.

  Driven by the constant waves hitting his form, he had an idea.

  To stop them, I need to understand where the noise comes from.

  To do that, I need to understand the human body.