Emeros X

Day 1.2

“So uh, Mr. Beecher…” Erin stammered.

“Actually, my name is Richard, and you apparently are Erin, yes?”

Erin nodded, pulling at your hair.

“Do you wanna sit down or something?”

Erin looked over to where Richard pointed and, just like her room, there were beanbag chairs. Erin nodded again, following Richard to the other side of the room. The chairs were all thrown up against the wall beneath the same kind of windows that were downstairs. They changed tints, just like the elevator panels did though. Erin told herself that she couldn’t move her head back and forth this time, unless she wanted Richard to think she was crazy.

“I’ve seen you at school a few times, actually,” Richard said.

“You have?”

Richard told Erin that he always saw her at Rebekkah’s soccer games. His sister, Julia, played on the same team. Erin hadn’t been to one of Rebekkah’s games for a while. She was surprised Richard even recognized her, as she had cut and dyed her hair since then.

“You look really pretty with this hair color.”

Erin looked down, pulling a few strands of her dark brown hair and smiled, letting go as the hair fell back to her shoulders.

“Thanks.”

The rest of the morning, Erin and Richard bounced from one topic to another, finding things that they had in common and of course, things that they didn’t.

“What do you mean football isn’t the greatest sport of all time?” Richard threw his hands up, nearly slipping out of the beanbag.

“Exactly what I said! Football is not the greatest sport of all time!” Erin answered.

“Fine. What is the greatest sport of all time then? Can you answer that, Erin?”

“Simple. Baseball is the best sport of all time.”

The argument continued until they came to an agreement that they would agree to disagree. Erin learned that they both wanted to travel when they got older, especially to somewhere that still had normal love. It was a shame that neither of them knew where that would be.

“I just don’t get it, you know? What happened between then and now?” Richard looked out the windows at the town below. “Even the windows in here are altered. Did you notice? It looks so bright in here as if it’s just natural light, but you can still see clouds everywhere outside. Just look.”

Erin looked outside toward the sky. She could just faintly see clouds around, and even thought she heard rain if she got really close to the window. The streets had more puddles now than they did that morning when Erin walked inside too. It must’ve rained, or had been raining, since then.

She looked back at Richard, who was still looking out the window, watching the cars drive down the road. His eyes reflected the tint of the windows, or perhaps they simply made them brighter. They looked impossibly blue to her, as if they too were chemically altered. He also seemed to have more freckles when she actually looked at him as well. The only thing that could possibly be a flaw was that his two front teeth were just slightly crooked, barely noticeable unless you looked to the side, and even then it was so minute, Erin could’ve easily missed it.