I hate how good you are at making something cheerful sound so creepy.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
Final Word Count: 770 words
 

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I wonder if it makes me strange that I don’t really miss any of the people I’ve interacted with before we slipped away to Peculiar. I suppose it helps that I didn’t really have that good of a relationship with any of them. I never really made the effort of trying to get to know anyone on a more than just bare minimum level.

I’m fairly sure that, to the lot of them, I was always that weird, creepy guy who wore his sunglasses even inside. It certainly wasn’t out of choice that I wore them, and they made my life much more manageable. I know that a certain, lovable idiot is worried as to what might happen to me if they were to break. For one thing, I have more than one pair and they’re sturdy. They’re always on unless I’m sleeping and they clip at the nose, so I always know where they’re at.

I’m not all that worried about the glasses and, should something happen to the no fewer than four pairs I have, I know that they still have material to make me a few more pairs and we’d work something out, in the end.

Now and again, I do spare a thought or three to the people that we’ve walked away from. I’m not about to claim that they’re people we’ve left behind because, in the way that I see things, we haven’t left anyone behind. Those who had to come did and we’re still weighing the pros and cons of opening up the area to others. For now, there are only so many houses that are still solid enough for all of us to use and we’re slowly settling into a sort of way of life. Growing things, making things from scratch, it’s really different from how it all was.

Still, now and again, I do think back to the other people we used to work with. Two of them in particular I guess I could state that I got along fairly well with. They were interesting and they made the days go by faster when they were around. It was strange, at first. I had mistakenly thought them to be husband and wife when I first started in, but they were siblings and, you know what, they were okay with my mistake. Supposedly that it’s a commonly made mistake and that I’m one of plenty who thought they were married.

I think it’s in the way they acted; they seemed just so stupidly close. Not that I would judge them and whatever. It wasn’t my place. They would always refer to one another with nicknames so I honestly don’t think I ever really knew their names, even if I worked alongside them for something like a year. She was Dandelion and he was Weed. Her hair was bright gold, almost yellow-tinged so I suppose that her nickname wasn’t all that far off, and he was tall and thin. I don’t know that this is the reason why they each had these nicknames but that was fine by me.

Weed had this odd way about him. During their lunch break, I’d be walking across the doorway to get to another room at the back of the building and they’d be talking, he’d talk about nothing and everything but almost everything cheerful he’d talk about—kids playing, memories as they were growing up, the brightness of the fake sky above us—he’d manage to make it sound so creepy that it was unsettling. Dandy didn’t have any issues with him, and she honestly seemed to be encouraging him to talk in that odd, creepy way he did, but it did no harm, so why stop him?

These two do cross my mind now and again. I know they wouldn’t last in Peculiar. They’re very clingy as far as the comfort of their own home is concerned. I know that Weed has this little motorized bicycle that he rides around. I’m not sure how it works, he pedals some and then something about the battery charges from that and he can go shorter or longer distances without pedalling. All in all, interesting but not a necessity for me and yet I’ve never seen him on foot. Dandy, on the other hand, refuses to eat anything that hasn’t been put through the microwave until it’s steaming hot. I’m sure she’d have adapted to the way we eat food here but, at the same time, I don’t think so.

It’s in all of these little things and, as is, I think they’re doing just fine under the dome still, so really.

You can’t say I’m being mean just because I won’t do you a reckless favour.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Antoine Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 20
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 788 words
 

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I don’t know why I thought that, at the general age our group now was at, we all would be more than mature to not end up doing stupidly childish things. I know that not everyone defines childish things the same, but this still feels like something that is really out there in its own way.

Calling someone mean, because they won’t do you a favour that you’re asking for, is childish in my book; I’d even say it’s very childish. Especially since that particular favour is pretty reckless. As it stands, even if I had wanted to say yes to this particular team player, I wouldn’t have been able to thanks to my age.

The favour in question? This particular idiotic dude wanted me to head into the liqueur store and get them a few different things since they’re just nineteen. Hi, yes, hello, I’m not old enough to be drinking and, even if I were, I would never do that kind of thing. Underage drinking isn’t something I condone, and I don’t even like the idea of drinking at all but that might have more to do with the way I was raised than anything else.

When he first came up to me, all honey-sweet and smiling, I was a little wary. It’s not that we don’t get along with him when we’re playing, he’s a great player and we get along relatively well, but he’s always been toeing the limits of things. He’s skirting the line. The law might be right there—a good example being the one he’s currently sulking me for, alcohol—and he’ll try to see if he can’t find a way to sidestep that law to get what he wants. It’s not a great thing, especially if he has any hopes of making it big like most of us do.

I’m not going to lie, I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually gets dropped. He plays great, that’s not the point, the point is that I’m pretty sure that if he gets arrested for one thing or another, it’s not going to look great for his career. He came from another school—there weren’t enough of us at our own school when the scout came—and we only got to know him through playing games and practices, so I don’t know whether or not he’s really focused on the idea of being a professional player.

There are times when I get the feeling that he’s only playing because it was that one thing that presented itself to him when it did and that he’s taken this way out for the time being. He’s been late to practice a good few times, he does seem to pour his heart and soul into the games more than the practices and I suppose that’s mostly fine because the games are most important but you’re not supposed to skimp out on practices just because you think they’re not important enough.

I can’t judge him. I don’t know him on a personal level, but I think it’s really childish of him to pout and act all, well, childishly frustrated—stomped feet and all—because I refused to get him alcohol when he shouldn’t even be drinking it and doing that kind of thing would get me in trouble anyway. I don’t have a fake ID, I don’t want to have a fake ID, I like doing things the way the law tells me I should do them because it’s what makes sense to me, all right?

It’s certainly not because we’re in a state that allows people to buy alcohol when you’re not 21 yet that you should go for it, either. It’s still somewhat rare at this point that we go out of state for games but it’s always a pretty big deal when we do. Can you imagine the sort of chaos that would come if someone on the team was found out to be inebriated before a big game like this? I mean, I suppose that after is a case of whatever, since we are all eighteen and essentially speaking adults, but it’s still not something I really like thinking about if I can help it.

I don’t even really need to warn the others about him asking them for these things, he doesn’t hide his requests from anyone and I’m not the first one he asked. I think that only makes things a little sadder in the long run, that he seems just so desperate to want some alcohol in his life when I don’t even think it’s going to be any good for him in the long run. I’m not his parent, though, so whatever he does, at this point, is his decision.