Driving through town was a very weird experience. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love driving late at night when the streets are empty, but this time it just felt like something was off. The streets leading out of town were completely empty, the roads leading into the city, on the other hand, were packed full.
"Maybe it's just people from the suburbs coming into town." Sofy suggested. "Or people visiting their families."
"Spending the apocalypse with the family. Very cute" Thom added.
It didn't take long for us to reach the highway but it was a pretty chaotic car ride in my humble opinion, specially since Sofy and Thomas couldn't stop arguing.
"Why did you have to wish that, anyways?" I remember her yelling at him.
"You're the one that told me that we were gonna forget everything that happened on the next morning" he yelled back.
"If you didn't want it to go that way you should've talked to me about it instead of going around asking for the universe to help you out."
By this time me and Steve, who was in the passenger seat, couldn't stop laughing about the craziness going on on the backseat.
"Well, but it did work out, didn't it?" He replied.
"If it really did, I wouldn't be yelling at you like this."
Thomas felt silent after that, you could hear Steve going "oof" very quietly. He looked at me with a funny face, or I'm assuming it was funny since I could only see it when the highway lights hit the windshield. And that's when I remembered about recording this whole thing.
"Steve, take this." I said, pulling the little recorder from my pocket. "You two back there, shush it now."
"What am I supposed to do with that?" Steve asked.
"It's a recorder, my grandpa gave it to me a while ago."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"Well," I started, "I recorded part of the morning while we waited for Thomas to get home. And I thought it was a cool thing to do, you know, but it would suck if I did it all by myself. So you record a bit more of the day, in your perspective and then one of those two continue and so on."
"Why?" Thomas asked.
"Because it's gonna be funny." I simply answered.
"This is bullshit and I'm not doing it. Now slow down, we get out on the next exit." Steve said, pointing to the sign.
I didn't purposely ignore him, but I really wanted him to record it so I kept on trying to convince him, and eventually missed the exit.
He agreed to do it shortly after, when I almost hit a rabbit who tried crossing the road out of nowhere. Everyone yelled when I hit the brakes suddenly and then Steve grabbed the fucking recorder from my hand and told me he'd do it. I promised not to hit the car in exchange.
"How should I do this? Like telling a story to someone? Or more like a diary?" He asked. I told him it could be however he wanted, just try not to break the 4th wall so much. "That's almost impossible not to do, I mean it's a fucking recording."
Now I realize he was right.
He started recording and thankfully Thom and Sofy stopped arguing, I eventually got the right exit and that lead us to the bottom of the hill Steve talked about. He had finished his part a bit before we got there and I must say I think he did a pretty good job. The hill wasn't much, there was no sings, nor a parking spot, honestly I don't even know how Steve knew about this place. I ended up parking not far from where he said the trail would start.
"Awesome, now it's just a little walk up there." He said, pointing to the summit.
"How much is a little?" Sofy asked.
Steve shrugged and looked up. We could see the perfect outline of the hill, which was pitch black compared to the starry sky behind it.
"Two hundred meters, maybe?" He replied, making Sofy sigh. He opened the trunk of the car and grabbed a little backpack he had made before we left home, he pulled out one of those flashlights you can wear in your head, like a hat, and happily walked ahead of us. "Come on, there is a little trail."
"He's unbelievable." She said, slowly following him.
"I didn't even know he had one of those." I laughed, bumping my shoulder on hers. "Your turn."
I handed the recorder to her and walked ahead, ignoring any upcoming complaints that she could come up with. I still walked just a bit ahead of her and she seemed to be doing a good job, it was very funny to hear her telling her side of the story, specially about the said thousand voicemails I left her.
"Are you happy?" She later asked, shoving the little equipment back on my hand.
"A lot." I smiled at her and she eventually smiled back, ironically.
When we got to the summit, our leader with his headlight found us a good spot to stop and pulled a few things from his bag.
"Here's a picnic towel for us to lay down on, and I got two blankets, I hope it's enough."
"I think you're way too excited about this." Sofy teased him.
"I like the stars, ok?" He defended himself.
I walked to Thomas who was a few steps behind, I could clearly tell he wasn't very comfortable with all that situation. I handed him the recorder and he sighed deeply.
"Seriously, Mike?"
I nodded.
"You're the only one left..."
"Oh that's right," Steve said loudly, making both me and Thom turn to him. He walked towards us with the backpack in hand, "this is for you."
He handed a full bottle of vodka to Thomas, who now looked very anguished.
"What's that?" He asked.
"Well, you said you were drunk last night, so..." Steve didn't finish.
"He's got a point." I added.
Thom grabbed the bottle and Steve opened it for him.
"Sofy, be the lucid one here, please tell me I don't have to drink this." He begged her.
She shook her head slowly, trying hard not to laugh at him.
"Sorry Thom, but we better play it safe."
"Don't worry dude, we can share the second half." I joked.
Everyone laughed, except for him of course. He looked at both his hands, filled with stuff he didn't want to make use of.
"Fuck it, let's get this over with." He said before taking a big chug out of the vodka bottle.
I swear to god I think Sofy clapped a little when he did that. He chugged it for about 5 seconds, which is a lot in my opinion, and he didn't make a disgusted face afterwards, he simply pressed the record button very dramatically and stepped away into the darkness.
"You think this is gonna work?" Steve whispered at me.
"It's like god is flipping a coin and deciding the fate of the universe." I replied.
"Is that a no?"
"That's a big fucking maybe." I said with a smile.
We sat back on the picnic cloth and waited for Thomas to be back. The sky was truly something beautiful, I've never had seen anything like that anywhere in the city, but in the whole time the three of us laid there alone we didn't see a single shooting star. If there's a place to see it, it will be here, Steve reassured.
The place was silent and we could clearly hear Thomas telling his side of the story, although he tried hard not to be too loud, especially when he started talking about Sofy. I tried reading her face as he talked about her. It wasn't very clear, the darkness didn't help much, but the dim light of the stars were sufficient to notice she wasn't insensitive about it. Maybe his wish did work somehow. I think she noticed I was glaring at her because she looked back at me.
"You don't think this is gonna work, do you?" I didn't answer, I stood my ground before, trying to convince her to come, I couldn't just give her the same answer I gave Steve. "Why did you wanna come, then?"
I thought about it a little. Why did I really wanted to come? Was I so desperate to figure it all out, or was I just trying to help a friend dying for reassurance? Who knows, but I couldn't stand being at home anymore, maybe I was just bored.
"I was scared of getting punched again..." I smiled at her.
She laughed, but her face got serious again not long after. She raised her head to look at Steve who was laying next to me, she glanced at the darkness behind us, where Thom was getting to the whole wishing bit.
"Steve, why didn't you never tried anything with me?" She whispered.
Steve was probably deep on his thoughts, because it took him a bit to answer.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, we had our moments, like, times we were alone and hanging out, laughing or even crying together, but you never showed any kind of affection besides friendship," She pointed back with her thumb, "unlike him..."
"Uhh... I don't know, a bit after that fight I started looking differently at you, all of you actually. I realized you were my friends, my true friends, and I never wanted to risk that, for anything." He paused but none of us said a thing, all you could hear was Thomas reciting in the back, so he went on. "Don't get me wrong, I love you, but as a friend, but I think Thom never really moved on from that."
"I guess not." She said only.
We remained in silence for a bit until Thom came back, he didn't look angry or anguished anymore, he seemed relieved. He gave me the recorder back and laid between me and Sofy. She offered to share the blanket with him and he gave her the bottle in return.
"How was it?" I asked.
"Honestly, it felt pretty good." I couldn't help but smile. "Now you drink it."
Vodka tastes like piss, probably unicorn piss, but it did the job, and not long after we were three tipsy and one very drunk adult laying on the top at a hill hunting a shooting star.
"It feels like we've been here forever." Sofy said.
"It's probably been two hours" Steve replied. "Honestly I lost track of time a while ago."
"I bet it's like 2:00 AM." Thom said.
"It definitely looks like 2:00 AM." I added.
"It looks like 2:00 AM since I woke up." Sofy replied.
"Touché."
"Sofy, check the time on your phone." Steve asked.
She made a little dramatic drums sort of thing before telling the time, or at least she tried to, because it sounded very shitty.
"It's half past six."
I bursted out laughing, Steve booed, Thomas yelled.
"No way!" he said.
We all laughed a little together, then silence fell over us again.
"I'm sorry guys," Thom started, "you were right Sofy, I shouldn't have wished for shit. And I'm sorry I didn't speak my mind last night."
"What are you sorry for?" Steve asked. "We are having one of the weirdest meetings in history, cheers to that."
"And we would be toasted under the sun for that long if it wasn't for you." Sofy added.
"Thanks..." he said.
I turned my head to them and I could see they were looking at each other's eyes and smiling. I wasn't even mad he had broken his promise anymore, I just felt happy they were both sharing a good moment together, but I needed to ruin it anyways.
"If you two are holding hands right now, I swear to god, I'll throw up."
"Fuck off, Mike."
"I mean, even if this was really your fault. A sunless day won't hurt anyone." I went on, ignoring her. "Except maybe mother nature, a whole day with everyone having their lights on probably fucks her up a bit."
"And the stock market for solar panels, you probably ruined that too." Steve added.
"Ok I get it, guys."
"Also every nocturnal animal on earth who are probably having to use crack to deal with a night this long." I said.
"And every religious fanatic who went batshit thinking their gods have left them behind. Poor guys."
"That's probably enough, you two." Sofy insisted.
"What about all the sunflowers on earth, those poor little things must be so depressed." I mocked.
"Alright, alright, I am a terrible human being, are you happy now?"
"We still forgive you, tho." Steve said.
I couldn't stop laughing but I agreed.
"So what's the deal?" Thom asked, trying to change the subject. "I just wish for everything to go back to normal?"
"I think that should be enough." Sofy said.
"Well the star took you too literal last time, maybe you really should specify it." Steve suggested.
"Ok..." Thom said finally.
Those were the last words I remember hearing that hour, we kept on looking at the stars but eventually I fell asleep. I don't remember having any dreams, and honestly that's not really the point here. The point is, that I don't know how long later, I woke up with Thomas screaming voice.
"There it is!"
"What?!" Steve had been asleep too and was even more confused than I was.
"Make the wish, quickly." Sofy said.
Everything was kinda blurry because I had barely woken up, but I remember Thom closing his eyes and clenching his fists, he was really putting effort on that, when he opened his eyes he was smiling hopefully. He looked around, but nothing had changed, he looked at us and his smile started to slowly fade away.
"Yay..." said Steve ironically before laying down. I just closed my eyes and tried to sleep again.
"Did it work?" Sofy asked softly. Thomas didn't answer. "Well, don't worry, we weren't expecting it to..."
I know she tried to sound comforting, but it definitely didn't sound like that, it was more of a 'we expect nothing from you, and yet, you still disappointed us' thing. Trying to sort my thoughts before I fell asleep was a funny experience, the alcohol had some effect, but I was just happy and a bit relieved, it was glad to take that theory out of our heads but we would still have to deal with whatever the fuck was happening. I tried to think of the last time the four of us had had a sleepover, and how different it must have been. And with that thought, I fell asleep.
This time tho, I think my dream was somewhat relevant. I was in a jail cell, Sofy was next to me but she was playing cards with someone who was stuck on the wall, don't think too much about this part. I remember I asked her where were we and she said something like "go upstairs and see". Sure enough there was a staircase on the prison cell, so I walked it up and there was a trap door on the end, I opened and suddenly I was on a dark subway station, and I could see a little train light very, very far away.
I could see it was getting closer and closer, as the light grew bigger and brighter, but I couldn't move a single step, it was like I was glued to the ground, and the light grew closer and closer, I could hear the trails trembling as the train approached. And just like that, when the train was nearly about to hit me, and the light was blinding me, I woke up. And for my surprise, there it was. The fucking head light Steve was wearing, shining right on my fucking eyes as he shook me awake.
"Wake up, wake up." He said, still not aware I was awake and about to punch his face. "It worked!"
