Blue Monday

Chapter 10 - What You Don't Know

***ALEX***

"Feathers? Are you all right?"

"Huh?" I look around, startled, and see Fionna sitting across from me. She's busy folding a black vest emblazoned with an angel-wing design on the back. "You know, impersonating an angel is a federal offense," I quip, unable to resist.

"You said that before," Fionna says. "And why'd you change the subject? We were just talking about The Walking Dead, I thought."

"Were we?"

"Holy crap, you must be really out of it," Fionna says with a small laugh. "Heh, you didn't get all butthurt when I said, 'Fuck you, Coral! Fuck you!'" She says that last part in a deep, manly voice with a bit of a Southern accent.

"Who's Coral?" I ask.

"You gotta be kidding me," Fionna says. "You actually forgot your favorite Walking Dead character?"

"No, I didn't," I counter. "How could I forget about Glenn?"

"Nice save there," Fionna says. She stretches her arms, then looks out the window. I follow her gaze, seeing a forest passing by at high speed. We're on a train. A really fast one, like the Japanese bullet train, if the rate at which the trees appear to be moving is anything to go by.

"You sure you're all right, though?" Fionna asks. I turn to see her looking at me, her face lined with concern. "You're really fidgety. Unusually so."

I look down to see my fingers twitching, even as my fists clench a bit. "Maybe. I guess. I...yeah, I'm in really deep shit right now, Fi."

"How deep?" Fionna asks.

I take a deep breath and tell her what just happened to me in real life, adding in my theory about how it might be the return of the Red Rain people. She listens to me in silence, only speaking when I'm done. "Wow. So Elijah was on to something? Maybe?"

"Our favorite psycho, am I right?" I look around nervously, half-expecting him to be in the process of walking into our compartment. After all, he's intruded into two dreams of mine and Fionna's so far. He seems to really like showing up when he's not wanted or expected.

"Yeah, I think you kinda understated it, Feathers," Fionna says. "That's deeper than deep shit. They're probably gonna want to extract your DNA or something."

"Thanks for the nightmare fuel," I groan, rolling my eyes. "I bet they're gonna forcibly wake me up any second now."

"They would, whoever they are," Fionna says. "Um, let's think. Who else's parents were in the whole Red Rain thing again?"

"Gonna have to be one of those, right?" I say, running through the names of everyone who was with us at the Smythes' place back in November. "I think we can rule out Gideon's 'rents, of course - they're not even on Earth."

"Wait, who's Gideon?"

"You didn't know?" I ask. "You might remember him as Dani." Fionna laughs awkwardly as she realizes her mistake, and we look away from each other for a moment. "Hey, if I ever get out of this bloody damn mess, I'll make sure to tell everyone you said hi, okay?"

"Sure," Fionna laughs. "'Cause most people regularly get said hi to by their dead friends like that."

"Okay," I say, clapping my hands and trying to get back on track. "Um, definitely not Robert or Jack, I don't think."

"Who are those two again?"

"Mr. Smythe and Mr. Darknell," I remind her. "Yeah, unless they're really good actors, I doubt they want to do any more experimental shit." I pause as another thought comes into my head. "Then again, Robert was helping Elijah, and he tried to hide that."