Book 2 Extra 2: Childhood Friends (1/2)
It was already dark outside, and with the lights turned off, the only thing illuminating Joshua's living room was the old CRT television in front of the couch, a relic of the rapidly shifting technological landscape of the island. The place looked fairly ordinary even under the less-than-ideal lighting conditions. The white walls appeared light blue due to the light of the screen, and they were covered in numerous family photos, cheap landscape paintings, and other assorted decorations, giving it a cozy, middle-class atmosphere. There were only two people in the room, sitting on the previously mentioned couch, both of them cross-legged and facing each other.
The one on the left side was obviously Josh himself. He appeared to be in considerably better shape than before, the circles under his eyes all but gone, and he was dressed in a dark green tracksuit for some reason. On the other side of the couch sat Angie. She looked inexplicably more intense than usual, however she also had her hair in short twin-tails, which caused her already youthful face to look even more childish, completely ruining the serious impression she was trying to project. To further complicate the image, she also happened to be wearing a tracksuit as well, which matched Josh's in every way but its bright yellow color.
The two of them continued to look each other in the eye for a long moment, right until Josh audibly gulped and then asked, in a tentative voice, ”What about zombies?”
”Beeep-beeep!” the Celestial girl suddenly exclaimed in imitation of some kind of buzzer while crossing her arms in front of her face to form an 'X' shape. ”No zombies!”
”Oh come on!” Josh threw his hands into the air as he exclaimed in mock outrage. ”There are no zombies either?!”
”Nope,” Angie answered with a toothy grin. ”Neither the magical nor the run-of-the-mill kind.”
”What is the run-run-of-the-mill kind?” Josh inquired with a masterfully raised single brow of supreme incredulity.
”Oh, you know? The infectious type? The kind you get from a virus. Or a plague. Or some parasites. Or some kind of fungus.” She paused for a moment and thoughtfully raised her finger to her lips, then she added, ”Now that I think about it, there are a lot of different kinds of zombies, aren't there?”
”Yeah, and that's why I'm surprised none of them are real,” Josh grumbled, apparently really disappointed by the fact that there were no ravenous undead hordes craving for the flesh and brains of the living out there in this great wide world, but then his eyes suddenly lit up and he asked, ”What about mummies? Are those real?”
”Well, yes,” Angie answered, visibly perplexed for a moment. ”You can see them in museums and stuff.”
”No, I mean the living kind! The kind covered in bandages and walking around with their arms stretched out, like this,” he said as he pantomimed a stereotypical mummy, all the while still sitting in place. ”You know? The Boris Karloff kind!”
”Oh, you mean that kind of mummy!” Angie exclaimed in revelation, only to shake her head right afterward. ”Nope, those don't exist either.”
”Seriously?” Josh all but huffed. ”Man, none of the classics exists. No zombies, no mummies, no vampires, no werewolves…”
”I told you, vampires do exist. Kinda.”
”But those are not real vampires!” Josh protested. ”Instead we have,” he paused at this point and reached down beside the couch and picked up a notebook, one of his school ones by the look of it, and he turned it around so that he could see the hastily scrawled lines on its last pages. ”So we have 'Celestials', 'Abyssals', 'Draconians' and 'Fauns'.”
”Among other things,” Angie agreed, if tentatively. Apparently the two of them have been discussing the various kinds of supernatural folk inhabiting this world, and based on her expression, she was already tired of the topic.
”I still don't understand why they are called that though. Why don't just call a rabbit a rabbit and call them angels and demons and were-beasts and whatnot?”
”That's just what we're called,” the girl on the couch answered with a shrug. ”Or do I look like an angel to you?”
”Actually, you do,” Josh answered with perfect sincerity.
”Really?” Angie blinked at him as her cheeks subtly flushed.
”Yeah, with the wings and all? Total angel,” he continued while still gazing at the notebook, none the wiser about the celestial girl's reaction. ”Hey, I have another question? Elly's 'Draconian', right?”
”Uuu… Yes, she is?” Angie answered a little uncertainly, apparently knocked off-balance by the sudden change of the topic. ”I thought we were over that?”
”Yeah, but I'm curious: Draconians are descendants of dragons, right?” Angie nodded, so he continued, ”That means that dragons are real, right? I mean, actual dragons. The big, flying, fire-breathing kind.”
”Are there any other?” she asked back with a befuddled expression.
”After learning that vampires are body-snatching smoke monsters, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out dragons were some kind of giant radioactive space fleas from the planet Neptune or something. Oh, speaking of which, do we have aliens?”
”Not that I know of,” Angie answered tentatively. ”Also, there are no more dragons anymore. They just kind of… died out, I guess?”
”Seriously? Man, this sucks. We don't even have dragons.”
”You shouldn't miss them too much.” Angie griped, obviously still a little upset about Joshua abandoning the previous thread of conversation, then she added, ”They were total jerks.”
”At least the Draconians are nice enough,” Josh responded absent-mindedly, but then a second later he added, ”Well, most of them. Elly's butler still gives me the creeps.” At this point he paused again, and after some consideration he continued with, ”Now that I think about it, I haven't met with other Draconians, have I?”
”I think the maids working there are also like that,” Angie mumbled while reaching behind the couch and recovering an open bag of chips. ”Oh? There're still some tortilla favored ones left. Do you want some?”
Josh only shook his head. When he opened his mouth again a few seconds later, he inquired, ”So, this might sound like a silly question, but… Elly's parents are also Draconian, right?”
Angie gave him a skeptical look at first, but in the end she nodded in the affirmative.
”And Lili's parents should be Abyssals, right?”
”Yes, that's how genetics work,” she answered with a tiny, puzzled frown, then she reached out with an impish grin while saying, ”Weren't you paying attention during sex-ed? Should we discuss the birds and the bees again?”
”No, I was paying attention,” Josh huffed and swept away the hand Angie used to poke him in the side. ”I was asking because I was curious if… you know?”
”I know?”
”Shouldn't you?”
Angie slowly cocked her head to the side and finally she asked, ”Okay, I'm officially confused right now. What were we talking about?”
”Your parents, obviously.” Since she still looked slightly perplexed, Josh forcefully cleared his throat and clarified, ”I mean, if you're a Celestial, then logically it would follow that they have to be Celestials as well, am I right?”
”Well, I suppose they should be,” she answered after a moment of hesitation.
”You suppose?” Josh retorted with a skeptical look in his eyes.
”Yeah,” Angie answered, this time visibly bewildered by Josh's insistence.
”Have you never asked them?”
”How was I supposed to ask my…” the Celestial girl began to grumble, but then halfway through the sentence her eyes suddenly opened wide in revelation, she raised her right fist, and then she theatrically dropped it into her left palm with a soft thud. ”Ah, I get it now! You're not talking about my parents, but mum and dad!”
Now it was Josh's turn to furrow his brows in puzzlement.
”Wait a moment, now I'm the one who's getting confused. Aren't those the same thing?”
”No-no!” Angie denied hastily. ”You see, mum and dad aren't my biological parents.”
”You're adopted!?” Josh exclaimed with the subtlety of a main battle tank sneaking through a china shop, but Angie only shrugged her shoulders.
”Duh, of course I am,” the Celestial girl answered with a less than subtle roll of her eyes. ”Didn't I already tell you about it a long time ago?”
”Really? How long are we talking about?” Josh asked back with the lack of tact that was, at this point, more or less expected of him.
”In elementary,” she replied while she once again furrowed her brows in suspicion. ”Don't tell me you really forgot…”
”Of course I have!” Josh immediately countered with, of all possible things, an indignant voice.
”Are you serious? Man, I knew you are a total scatterbrain, but come on!” Angie exclaimed with just a hint of a pout on her lips.
”I'm not! If anything, you probably never told me and now you're just trying to make me feel like an idiot,” Josh argued while crossing his hands and scowling at his childhood friend.
”It's not particularly hard to do that,” Angie countered in a flippant tone. ”I don't even look like my mum or dad, so if you paid even a tiiiiiiny little bit of attention, you could've realized it on your own.”
”Am I supposed to pay attention to everything?”
”Yes, you should. Or at least to the important things. Like me,” she answered while pointing at herself.
”Whatever,” Josh grumbled dismissively under his nose, probably realizing he didn't have a leg to stand on, and afterwards they both stayed silent for several seconds.
It looked like the situation would soon develop into an awkward silence, but then, as if the previous argument never happened, Josh suddenly asked, ”Are there any orcs?”
Angie glanced up at him in surprise, but after a split second she answered, ”Nope,” without a shred of her previous sulkiness.
”No orcs either? Damn,” Josh whispered with the kind of gravitas usually reserved to strategists getting their plans foiled in period dramas. ”How about elves then? I mean, the Tolkien kind, not the Keebler ones?”
”No elves either.” At this point Angie tilted her head to the side a little and asked, ”By the by, are we seriously going through all the fantasy races now?”
”Hey, you call them fantasy races, but a week ago I would have thought that Celestials were one, and yet here I am, talking to one of them.”
”Lucky you,” she replied with a smug little grin, but Josh only rolled his eyes at her.
”I really hoped elves were real though,” he mumbled under his breath, prompting Angie to lean closer to him.
”… Why?” she inquired as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Joshua, naturally, completely disregarded the change in her expression before he told her, ”Elves are supposed to be super pretty, right?” without a shred of delicacy or self-awareness.
”Depending on the source, yes…” Angie, surprisingly enough, agreed on the spot, but then she added, ”Don't we have enough pretty girls in our group though?”
”Nah, you can never have enough pretty girls,” he answered with a toothy grin.
”So you like elves, huh?” she grumbled with a pout, ”Well, I'm sorry you are not satisfied with us lowly non-elves, but if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath for a nonexistent elf transfer student to fall into your lap.”
For a moment Joshua looked quite surprised by her sulky outburst, but after a short while he let out a small chortle and told her, ”You know, I'm pretty sure that even if an elven girl did appear in the school, Leo would wrap them around his little finger in a day or two .” Angie gave him a curious look, which he finally noticed for a change, so he hastily continued, ”I mean, think about it: Judy entered into our group, and a few weeks later she ended up as his girlfriend. Then Elly transferred, and she ended up the same way. Then Lily transferred, and she now lives in his house. If there was another transfer student at this point, I'm pretty sure Leo would sink his talons into her in no time.”
”Now that you mention it, I guess you're right,” Angie answered in cautious agreement, but then she suddenly asked, ”Hey? Speaking of him, do you think their arrangement will work out?”
”I've no idea,” Josh answered frankly, then after scratching his chin for a moment he added, ”I mean, I'm one of your unpopular guys, so getting along with one girl is already beyond me. Two at the same time? I can't even imagine.”