Never As It Seems

The Twist

It was only a matter of time until the Fuzzy Guys came back from their escapade to the other army base. The rest of them had left about fifteen minutes ago, and the small but mighty group of four was growing quite bored.  

"Maybe it didn't work out," said Flames nervously. He was sitting down against the wall and, out of a nervous habit, was repeatedly flipping open a flip phone. This particular flip phone had been given to him on his eighteenth birthday and was, in his opinion, as good a phone as any other. However, the thing he used it most for was to flip it open and close it again, and repeat the process, as he was doing right now and had been doing for the past three minutes. This was beginning to grow on everyone's nerves, and they were starting to stare at him, clearly annoyed. Much to their increasingly growing frustration he had not noticed any of these stares, and continued on with repeating the gesture. "Maybe they were smarter than we thought they would be, and they headed over to the other base. Or they're blowing up the base right now, as we speak, just because they like doing stuff like that. Ugh, why did I suggest this stupid plan in the first place?" He grabbed a tuft of his hair with his phone-free hand and pulled lightly. "This is aggravating." 

"I know the feeling," said Rick offhand.  

"Well, if we have to just sit here and wait and do nothing for any longer I am going to explode. Literally explode. There I go, kaboom, all over the place. Flames sautéed." 

"Maybe then you'll stop with the phone," said Adam.  

Flames stared down at the object in his hand. "Oh. I'm sorry. Was I -" 

"Yes," said Rick, "you were." 

"Oh. Heh." He coughed and ungracefully shoved the phone in his pocket.  

"Hallelujah, it's gone," said Annmarie. Flames glared at her, and she smiled an evil smile back.  

"Seriously, though, I kind of agree with you. What happened to these guys? Did they get sidetracked and go to Applebee's for a couple of hours?" 

"Aw, man, now I want to go there," said Flames.  

"I'd love to, too, but we can't," said Rick. "We've got to wait for them." He indicated the building next to them.

"Why, though?" he said. They looked at him curiously. "Why are we even waiting? It's not like we're planning another attack, or anything. We're just going to watch them. Why?" 

"Because it'll be funny, probably." He shrugged. "And if it isn't, I'll take you to Applebee's." 

"You're just saying that because you're planning on taking me there anyway, right?" He gave him an obvious wink.  

"Absolutely not," said Rick. He returned the gesture.  

"I could go for Applebee's right now," said Adam, sounding tired. Like Flames, he was leaning against the wall, although he was standing up and staring wistfully out at the bleak horizon.  

"Same," said Annmarie, who was sitting cross-legged to the side.  

"Not you guys too," said Rick.  

"When's the last time we actually ate, though?" said Adam. "Like, properly. I've just had coffee between now and this morning." 

"Lucky," said Flames. "All we've had is... bread and water?" He squinted at Annmarie. "Have we eaten since then?" 

"Hard to say," she said. "This whole time travel thing's getting to me. Technically, if that's true the last time we ate was in the future." 

"Weird."