Parasite

Prologue

Charlie Elmer.

Lily Eyre.

Arthur Andrews.

They've been best friends since 2nd grade, even though they're from completely different worlds.

So different from each other, yet mysteriously the same somehow.

Charlie, that guy who tries to act like a "bad boy," the rebel.

Tries.

Keyword is tries.

And fails.

He thinks he's hot shit but really he's just a dork with a pleather jacket his mother bought for him from Target.

So he's pretty much just that guy.

That guy with a pleather jacket from Target.

Lily, a talented karate student who has a severe obsession with celery.

Nothing too odd.

But the populars have always wanted her to join their "squad" which is like an apocalypse in itself.

You really don't want to mess with the girls at Potomac Valley High. They find the newbies who seem to be pretty cool. And then, they destroy them. Turn them into something that makes them look better.

She's prime real estate for those preps to come in and bulldoze all over her personality and rebuild into some backstabber in shorts that aren't really shorts, more like underwear.

But that means leaving Charlie and Arthur in the dust. And that doesn't fly with her. So as long as Lily has Charlie and Arthur, she'll never become brainwashed like the rest of them.

Really though.

And Arthur, the brains of the group.

The one who does Charlie's homework because apparently Charlie is "too cool" for it.

The one who has the maturity to store half of his monthly allowance away, instead of blow it all in one go.

Like Charlie.

Instead, he saves it for when he needs to buy new socks (that weren't such a good look for the fact that they're such an awkward length) and paying his best friend's way through life.

He practically does everything for Charlie; the latter on the other hand, does nothing for Arthur.

Why he's still around, not even Arthur himself knows.

So you may be wondering what any of them have in common, why they are friends.

But the thing is, behind the pleather jacket, the infinite stash of celery, and the socks of "that awkward length" (even though it's kind of hard to look past them), they all need each other.

They need each other to practically function; each plays a role in each other's life.

They've never not been with each other. They can't even remember a time without each other.

But the one thing about the three is that they support each other, even if one can't stand that person that day, they're always there for each other.

They bring out the good side in each other. They bring out the bad side.

And they all are just trying to figure out who they really are.