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Throughout the last thirty minutes, I've been fighting a war with my worries, my fears, and my insecurities. He doesn't ask personal questions, and neither do I.
"Can I buy you another drink?"
"I'd like that."
"Well then," Will's hand encases mine. I can sense the amount of alcohol in his system, and suddenly, I'm not sure he needs another. I'm not sure I do. I lost my friends fifteen minutes ago, "Follow me."
The news that Mr. Bruno was watching earlier flashes across the screens at the bar as we wait for the bartender's attention, and I'm reminded of red and yellow headlines, anger, an uncertain future, and an impending war.
"Oh yeah, I saw that. They're worried that mutants or whatever are taking over. I guess they've rounded some up, and it was bad. They're screaming 'all-out war' now. It's wild. My dad called me about it earlier." He points to the screen that my eyes are locked on.
My head fights to bring me down to Earth, to get us out of here. My heart begs for one night. Who knows when we will get another now that ship prep is starting? I am reminded that all-out war is a too-familiar possibility for me.
"Do you really think there's that many mutants or whatever to be causing that much trouble?"
"I guess so. I don't know, but it's freaky, people with enhanced abilities. No, thank you. Anything inhuman is a freakshow to me."
"Right, what about some shots instead?"
His eyes rip from the screen to me and behind to an icy Santi by my friends, "Your cousin gonna like that?"
"He won't mind."
"Well, then, I suppose we have a plan."
The plan was awful.
I am stupid, and now the world is spinning and not in a good way. I manage to slip out back with a feeble excuse for a bathroom break. Mr. Bruno's voice invades my head alongside the blaring music and TV. My head begs to win this fight, and I beg it to forgive me for not listening earlier.
The screen pans to a city fifty miles from here with a violent scene. Little kids flipping cars was a church game compared to the images on the screen. Freaky. Freakshow. No, thank you. These are all too close reminders that we aren't wanted here. That we are different and feared and terrible. Mr. Bruno calls us the lucky ones to have been found by the Adults; some never do, and they meet the fate of the television screen.
Some heroes we'll be, we won't even be able to save everyone.
"Stop looking at that." Santi pulls me from the blue light. His icy eyes capture mine as his jacket crosses my shoulders. "You look like a girl with too much to drink," he says.
"You look like you got lucky in the bathroom. Fix your hair."
"Where's pretty boy?"
"Um, I took the shots with him because he called the mutants freaks, and then I came out here, so you know, I'm not sure I care to know. Needed to breathe."
YOU ARE READING
In All the Other Worlds
FantasiaAnother Planet, a different hope. Nine children, all the youngest of their families, were sent to Earth to avoid civil unrest on their own planet. They were to be well-crafted machines by the time they returned home. They were to rule. They were...
