Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig afraid.org. NS
Answer
afraid.org. 5 NS mint.ns37.net.
afraid.org. 5 NS house.ofpenguins.net.
afraid.org. 5 NS evergreen.afraid.org.
afraid.org. 5 NS tungsten.afraid.org.
afraid.org. 5 NS fueled.byhamsters.net.
afraid.org. 5 NS ns7.afraid.org.
afraid.org. 5 NS granite.afraid.org.
afraid.org. 5 NS evergreen.v6.afraid.org.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns7.afraid.org. 5 A 67.220.81.163
granite.afraid.org. 5 A 70.39.97.245
tungsten.afraid.org. 5 A 69.65.50.193
evergreen.afraid.org. 5 A 69.65.50.192
evergreen.v6.afraid.org. 5 AAAA 2607:f0d0:1e04:74:0:0:0:4
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0