Alex

Charlie

The first one of the two people left at the dining table to recover was a boy, although much much shorter than him he could tell he was about his age. How old was he? Even with his overwhelming embarrassment it was terrifying to not know how old he was.

"Wow," the boy said in amazement walking up to him," a real centaur!"

He had pale skin, small square glasses covering his bright, wide green eyes, freckles spotting his face and upper arms, pale hair sticking up like a downy fledgling, a black short sleeved shirt with some weird symbols on it and a large green face on it, and white shorts. He was kind of cute in a weird way.

He ran a hand down his horse body startling him and he almost kicked the poor boy in the stomach.

He started firing questions off rapid style "So like have you always been like this or is it a recent development? Do you belong to a herd and got tired of none of them bathing or do you live alone and become tired of not bathing? Are there a lot of centaurs? Are the horse bodies only orange, black, and white or are there other colors as well?"

"Uhm?"

"Are centaurs the only mythical creatures? MERMAIDS. ARE. THERE. MERMAIDS?" He muttered to himself for a second," Wait how would he even know that? Can horses swim?"
"Can centaurs swim?" He took a breath then started muttering under his breath again,"I should be writing this down."

He quickly grabbed an old notebook and pencil from around his belt he quickly flipped through it to a blank page in the process revealing extremely detailed drawings, math beyond my or practically anyone's understanding, and hastily scribbled down notes.

He shoved the pencil behind his ear quickly trying to rapid fire the questions,"Do you think..."

The one person left at the dining table, the other person had mysteriously disappeared while the boy was all but yelling rapid fire questions at him, an old man shook his head as if to clear it then ran over to the strange boy hastily shoving him out of the way.

"Hey...!" The weird boy said getting shoved into the splintery wall.

Alex shifted his attention back to the man in front of him with growing embarrassment again,"Hello, sir." He said quietly looking at the water damaged wooden floorboards.

The man with fear in his eyes opened his mouth wanting to say something but wasn't sure what before meeting Alex's eyes for a second before looking at the much more important clock by the door and finding his although very shaky voice,"What did you say you wanted?"

"To...to use your bath." He said feeling himself heat up again.

"We don't have a bath."

"What what do you have then?"

"A...shower?"

Alex looked up at him in confusion,"Shower?"

"You know it rains water down on you while you bathe."

"Wouldn't that hurt?"

"No," he finally met Alex's eyes and realized just how young he was, placing a hand on his elbow, the closest he could get to his shoulder, he started talking again but this time in a much softer voice,"where's your family, kid?"

"I..."he tried recalling them, but he... he couldn't. Which was just as bad as not knowing how old he was.

He heard something drip down onto the floor and he looked down, blood. He had been temporarily overwhelmed by the new surroundings and people that he had forgotten how bloody and bruised he was. It sure was a lot of blood. He fell to the floor yelling out, pain catching up to him yet again.

His vision started to go black and the last thing he saw before going unconscious was the man and the strange, strange boy running over to help him.