Young Writers Society

"Well, I didn't see a bathroom," Oliver quickly lied, "and we were trying to get here. Going on a detour would to find one would have been a terrible idea, and I was just going to hold it until I found one." Aegeas had a surprisingly strong grasp; he doubted he would be able to get free of it without causing a scene.

Bo had finally caught up. Aegeas was one step ahead of him in noticing. While Bo had been worried about Oliver's health condition he'd completely missed that Oliver was hiding something... that may or may not have had to do with his cracking skin.

"Oliver..." He would've put a hand on the boy's shoulder in confidence, if one shoulder wasn't already occupied.

"Is there something you're afraid to tell us? Because I mean, all I wanna do is help and make sure you're okay. If something's wrong... I mean, I know we're still practically strangers but, I'm not gonna kick you out. We've got no place to go anyway, and we're all gonna need each other. So I mean, unless you actually have been holding it this whole time, what's really going on, man?"

Oliver bit his lip. Bo seemed like a decent person, and Aegeas wasn't even from Earth. If he just focused on that, he could have told them the moment Bo asked the question. But it wasn't just that. If Bo happened to be from his reality, and let the truth accidentally slip out in a conversation, he would be forced to deal with the ramifications. It wouldn't just be him in trouble. Lucy - his best friend in the entire universe - would be taken apart and studied. He would, too, but he never wanted her to be put through that.

But how much would going in the bathroom really help? He didn't need a few minutes; he needed at least a few hours if he wanted the fracturing to start disappearing. He would have to keep running off. And even though it was theoretically possible, it would arose suspicion.

He took a deep breath, and his shoulders slumped.

"I'm not human," he admitted, his shaking voice little more than a whisper. "I've been-I've been pretending to be one. I had to. My home isn't safe. Earth...Earth was the only place we could go to..."

“Woah... dude...” Bo leaned down slightly, and decided to put a hand on Oliver’s other shoulder.

“That’s okay. To be honest with you, I don’t even think we’re from the same earth, but I’m glad you were able to find a home there. And, also like, you being human or not doesn’t make you any less of a person. Aegeas isn’t human either, but I think he’s pretty cool. A real brave guy. And you seem like a pretty courageous kid yourself - living on earth, feeling like a stranger to it, and not being able to be home ‘cause it’s not safe.” He paused, and looked down at Oliver’s cracked hands. “But uh... so, does that mean this is normal for you? Or is this still something we should be worried about?”

Bo's words made him feel safe. He wasn't sure what sort of reaction he had been expecting, but Bo's was perhaps the best one he could hope for. "This is normal," he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I can, um, change my form. But if I use another form for too long, my actual body begins to show. That's what the fracturing is - it's my actual skin peeking through. If you're alright with it, I could-I could go back to what I really look like. Then the fracturing would stop."

"That's the spirit!" As soon as he uttered the last syllable, the lights flickered.
"Woah, what's going on?" he asked, looking up at the panels of light that were now acting as strobe lights. The fridge was fine, giving a steady source of light, but the overhead ones were going to get irritating quickly. Then, as if someone were randomly pushing buttons, the microwave -
or at least, it looked like one - started up. With nothing inside. The lights went off, and the only light came from the fridge and the microwave.

Raiden sat down by the fridge and hugged the cheese close to his chest.

"Why didn't you just say that before?" Aegeas said. He hated how getting anyone to be honest took thousands of prodding questions and hours. Granted, Oliver's comments were weird - Aegeas knew plenty of people with multiple forms, but all of those were real, so why should this be any different? - but that fit with this place. "If it fixes things, do it. You've got nothing to be afraid of, since we're not on that Earth place. Chances are I've seen much weirder things than whatever you actually look like."

Then the lights over their heads flickered out, plunging the room into darkness.

I thought I heard a quiet siren in the far distance, but it turned out to be imaginary. As I was mulling it over, the lights began to flicker in the control room, so I moved over to the control panel to try and remedy them.

'Don't worry, Miss Lucy, I think I know how to fix that one,' I told my lone companion.

Bo looked up and around as the lights flickered to darkness.

"Well. That's interesting timing, isn't it?" He laughed a little, pulling out his phone (still attentive to the battery life, but figuring this was as much an emergency as before). With a few quick swipes of his fingers he turns on the flashlight function, and they can see again, though not nearly as clearly or as far as before.

"I guess, if you don't need to be here for any medical doctory stuff, we can probably head back to the control room then, right? That sound good to both of you?"

Lucy darted over to the panel in question and rested her hand on Boris' to prevent him from pressing any more buttons. She could deal with a few flickering lights, but, for all she knew, he'd accidentally start a self-destruct sequence they had no way of stopping.

"How about I try?" she suggested. "Seeing that I know a little more about how this level of technology works."

She looked at the control panel out of the corner of her eye. For emphasis, she hit the control that returned the lights in the room to normal. She watched him expectantly, hoping that her response to situation would make her idea seem reasonable.


"That sounds good to me," Oliver was quick to agree.

He briefly glanced over at Aegeas, trying to understand why he had sounded so offended. Maybe his world was more used to the bizarre, and hiding something so important was frowned upon as a result? Lying was the only option. He couldn't just walk around and admit that he was an alien, just as Lucy couldn't admit that she was made of wires and electricity.

"And, uh, I'm going to change my form now," he added.

He closed his eyes and started to imagine the change. Imagined growing a bit smaller, but not too much - he had always been tall, even among his kind. He imagined his limbs taking on slightly different proportions, and imagined losing the little hair that he had. And he imagined his skin taking on the grey color that had been so desperate to show only moments earlier.

"Alright," Oliver said, opening his eyes. "I'm good now."

Lola moved to stand closer to the fridge, which was the only available light source. She could feel her heart rate begin to rise as a wave of panic washed over her. She looked down at Raiden, who was curled up on the floor. Concern took place of panic, and she sat down next to him. I mean...she thought, he's hugging cheese.

"Look, I guess this place really is haunted!" She laughed nervously, but her shoddy attempt at humor didn't lighten the mood that much. Not that it could get a lot lighter in the dark kitchen.

"I mean..." she attempted to recover after her last joke, "The kitchen is like-the best place to get stuck in! We've got food, a light source, and look!" She reached in her back pocket and pulled out her outdated phone. Thankfully, it did have a flashlight button (the only thing Lola claimed it was good for). She turned it on, and the small beam illuminated the darkness a little bit.

"There," she said, hoping it would cheer him up a little, "See?"

"Is there a sling around here?" Aegeas said, pulling his hand back when he felt Oliver shrink. "For my shoulder." Despite the faint light Bo provided, it was hard to see much of anything in the hospital beyond what appeared to be a few beds and strange equipment scattered around. His vision was best in the water, not in a dark room on land. He could only recognize that Oliver had changed form at all because of the vague gray blur that appeared at the edge of his sight.

On cue, the lights switched back to their full brightness, instantly blinding Aegeas. He covered his eyes, rubbing them to try and wipe away the wave of black spots. "What's with the lights?" he said.

'I concede, you are the superior phone operator,' I said, and stepped back from the control panel.

Raiden looked over at Lola, a small smile on his face.
"Thanks for your concern, Lola, but it's not the darkness that scares me."
He turned his head towards the microwave that was still going.
"It's the fact that that is on without anything inside!! Like I understand that it may be an automatic microwave but c'mon it's gonna screw itself over like that! Somebody's gotta like, fix that. That microwave is gonna like, blow itself up or something!" He spoke with vigour and much arm movements.

Lola stared at Raiden. His sudden burst of energy had not been what she was expecting when she sat down to cheer him up. She had also not been expecting the cause of his fears to be a microwave. Lola was more than a little embarrassed to have misjudged the situation, so she quickly tried to cover for her mistake.

"Well..." Lola said, "That's a reasonable fear too, I guess. I don't think it'll blow up unless you stick something metal in it, though."