Afterlife

8

After spending an entire day, getting to know the ins and outs of her new surroundings, with the aid of Diego and Santino, Fiara made her way towards the common area of the group house to meet up with the others for the evening meal. As she made her way up the second rope ladder, she came to realize that all this climbing was going to take some getting used to, but it was a welcome change of pace from the usual dull and ordinary life she'd known before her arrival in Afterlife.

After climbing up yet another set of ladders, she finally made it to the correct level, and was ready to cross a bridge leading to the common area. Crossing the closest rope bridge, which was far more sturdy than she had previously anticipated, she then reached the porch, which surrounded the outside to the building like a ring around a finger. Once there she took a few steps forward, discovering the open door to the building and the sound of voices coming from within, where the others had already gathered moments before herself. Once inside, she found most of the group waiting in an area of the one roomed building that resembled a living room, with a large table in the center of the room for eating at, or whatever else may tickle your fancy, and along the one wall to her right was a kitchen of sorts, where Diego and Santino seemed to be having a mildly heated conversation about how to properly cook spaghetti. Diego apparently seemed to think it was a good idea to break the long pasta in half before dropping it into the pot in order to make it fit better, while Santino, being the resident Italian, found this course of action completely outrageous. That was the last bit of the conversation that she could understand before they then started arguing with each other in their native languages. Fiara then crossed the room to where the others were sitting patiently, watching the conversation with expressions that proved to Fiara that this sort of thing would happen often.

"I don't really see the big deal," Fiara said to them once she was close enough that she could speak at a volume that wouldn't be easily heard by either one of the bickering boys.

"Me neither," Connie replied from her seat at the end of the table, her elbows leaning against the top of the table so that she could rest her chin on her hands like a bird on a perch. "My mother always used to split the pasta in half, otherwise its too long for the pot."

"I mean its not really going to matter to our stomachs how long the pasta is when we consume it," Xavier put in from his own position at the table.

Fiara smiled at his reply. Xavier had a point. It was all going to the same place, so what does it matter how long the pasta is. She then looked around to see where the others were situated. Topaz was reading a book silently whilst sitting on one of the light green couches in the room. Once again doing everything in her power to avoid socializing with anyone. Then Marcus was located near the kitchen, watching Santino and Diego's conversation with great interest. Telling her that he could either understand both of their languages, or just liked watching them fight.

Deciding that just standing there watching would be a huge waste of her time, seeing as how she didn't understand either one of their languages anyways, Fiara then took this opportunity to look around the room a little more. The room was decorated in a relatively simple fashion, the walls being made of the same wooden material as the exterior seemed to be. With pictures and charts decorating various sections of the walls in the living room area. As she glanced over the various pictures, she smiled as she realized just how close this group was with each other. They were a family, just as the booklet had said the groups were meant to be. It made her wonder if the other groups were this close as well, or if theirs was a unique case, and that was why they worked so well together. Even Santino seemed to be enjoying himself in some of the photos. Proving to her mind once again, that he wasn't always as serious as he is now. She also noticed that most of the photos seemed to always feature every member of the group, except for one photo, which seemed to be in the center of everything, telling her that it was a picture of great importance.