UnEarthing Toroid

Part 2

Meanwhile, at the exact same time all of this was happening...

Lily was painting in her studio—or, trying to. Everything had been set up perfectly. She had her easel with a fresh blank canvas; a pallet with her oil pastels; the radio tuned to her favorite station; and a cup of green tea. The wide windows taking up practically the whole wall of the studio were looking out on a bright and glittering nighttime city scene. Everything was set to go perfectly. 

But when she tried to put her brush to the canvas, two very loud 'THUDS' rang out from the roof of the apartment building, making Lily jump and smear paint across the blank white. "Oh!" She exclaimed, her brow furrowing in disappointment as she looked at the big smear. "That startled me. Jeez...I wonder what happened." She frowned. It was too loud to be birds. Maybe one of the air vents had been blown over or something. 

Whatever had happened, it was quiet now, so clearly it wasn't that big of a deal. She went back to painting. It was about 20 minutes later that she was interrupted again, this time by a knock on the door. "Mm?" She tilted her head, glancing over her shoulder towards the living room. Mom will probably get that. But as she watched, no one went to the door. The apartment was quiet. The knock resounded again, this time louder. I guess she's asleep. Lily frowned and put down her paintbrush. So many interruptions...But she tried to shake off the prickle of annoyance as she moved over to the door and pulled it open. "Hello?"

Her eyebrows raised with surprise and confusion. Standing in the hallway in front of her were two teenage girls, dressed in fancy dark clothes. One had blonde hair curled into carefully arranged ringlets; the other girl had straight jet-black hair reaching all the way to her thighs. That wasn't the remarkable thing, though. The remarkable thing was that these were two of the most beautiful women Lily had ever seen in her entire life, including celebrities. Immediately, she felt her chest flutter with giddiness. Are these girls my new neighbors? Please tell me they're my new neighbors.

"&*, *&^%^ &%, &(*^ &*( &%*(*( &* ^$** &^ #%$^ ^& $^%?" The blonde girl asked, her voice sweet and lilting. The only problem was, Lily couldn't understand a single word that was coming out of her mouth. It was spoken in some kind of boxy, garbled language that Lily had never heard before.

"Um...Sorry, what?" Lily tilted her head. "I don't think I speak that language." When she spoke, the two girls turned to look at each other, their brows furrowed with just as much confusion as Lily showed.

"*& &*( ()* $&%^* *&((^?" The black-haired one asked, pursing her lips together.

"Was ist mit diesem hier?" The blonde questioned.

At least this language was familiar. Lily perked up a little. "Oh, is that German?" She recognized it from her vintage European indie films. "Um...Sorry, no. I don't speak German. Only English. Do you guys not speak it at all?"

They still didn't look like they got any of what Lily said. The black-haired one stepped forward this time. "Aga see? Kas saate sellest aru?"

"Oh." Lily shook her head. "I don't even recognize that one." The two strange girls sighed with frustration, glancing at each other with pained expressions. They're getting annoyed with me. They're going to go somewhere else! Lily panicked a little. She didn't want these girls to walk away before she at least learned their names and if they were going to be her new neighbors.

"Wait!" She called out a little too loudly, holding out one hand. With her other hand, she pulled out her cellphone and opened it up to google translate. She picked German and typed something into the screen, then told the app to play it out loud. She pointed the speaker at the blonde girl. "Sorry, I don't speak any of those languages." Lily said via google translate. "Just English."