These pages have been taken from written notes and recordings on CDs by Junpei Enomoto and have been rewritten and compiled into a legible set of files with the help of Mr. Enomoto.
-one of the only willing witnesses to help us create this collection of files with as little discrepancies as possible.-
“I think..” Teagan huffs out a breath. “I think we lost ‘em.” All I could do was bleakly nod in response. Slowly we made our way to the gate of the apartment complex. I slid down the marble wall and pulled my knees up to rest my shaking arms upon. I hung my head low, the adrenaline coursing through my veins slipped away leaving only my exhaustion. I heard Teagan slide down next to me placing her board next to mine. “Dude,” a pause for a breath. “I don’t know where you learned to dodge like that but the next time we play dodgeball you’re on my team. What kind of police starts throwing fucking rocks??” I smiled weakly at her compliment, lifting my head to see what she was doing. “Speaking of which, I saw that one scraped your cheek, so here.” Teagan rummaged through her bag before piling out a small first aid kit. I only waved my hand dismissively. “I’m fine, it’s barely a scratch.”
“Mm don’t care.” She fiddled with the latch on the box, cursing some god under her breath. “Okay, wait you know what would go great? Atlas gave me this new pack…”She muttered mostly to herself as she shuffled the bandaids around before triumphantly holding up a sparkly Spider Punk band aid. “Now can I touch your face?” I give her the barest shrug. Quickly she swiped an antiseptic wipe across my cheekbone before slapping on the glittering band aid. The rock had barely grazed under my eye when I had stupidly glanced behind me at the sound of the police’s bounding footsteps. I had been trying to gauge how close they were and well you know the rest.
“Those rocks were pretty sharp huh?” I inhaled sharply. Sharp. It all was sharp, sharp was the mugs she threw at me. I did not tell her I got good at dodging things because of my mother. I did not tell her that the glass cuts stung worse, that her words cut deeper than any of the rocks. I will not. I will not. There is nothing to tell. Those thoughts looped in my head as the world got fuzzier. My breaths got tighter as my lungs furiously tried to expand and compress. “Hey, hey, dude try and come back to me, ya? What are 5 things you see?” I could just barely hear Teagan’s voice over the buzzing in my head.
“The trees..uh the gate, your eyes, my nails, the city buildings…”
“Okay 4 things you feel.” She slowly slid her hand into mine, giving me enough time to pull away if I so desired, squeezing tightly in a silent count of 4s.
“My sweater, your hand, my nail polish, the concrete..”
“3 things you hear?”
“The birds, the buzz of the city, uh.. your voice?” My breathing started to slow a bit more. “You’re doin’ great man, two to go. Two things you can smell?”
“Someone smoking a cigarette..and um oranges?” I glanced over at her confusion written on my face. “My perfume,” She huffed out a laugh. “Just for consistency one thing you can taste.”
“My saliva? What kind of school nurse question is that?” Once again the only response I got was a chuckle from Teagan. At the time I failed to notice that my breathing had returned to what it once was and was no longer ragged, how my body had relaxed from all my tense muscles. It took me a minute to fully catch my breath.
“Would you like comfort, to talk about it or a distraction? If you don’t know that's okay too.” Teagan had asked, their relaxed body language contradicted by the concern in their voice. We sat in comfortable silence for a bit, the only sounds being the cool breeze and tapping of Teagan’s pastel nails against the concrete. “Comfort.” I replied after a while. She shifted closer, slowly pulling my head down to rest on her shoulder. My mothers enraged face flashed through my mind, the broken mirrors, beer bottles. I traced the small scars that were scattered across Teagan’s hand. The sound of Teagan’s voice drowned out the sounds of my mother that crossed my mind. The ramblings of the definitions of colors and arguments with pissed off teachers brought me back everytime I started to get lost in my memories.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I was slowly stirred awake by Teagan tapping their pastel nails against my cheek. I instinctively threw a punch but she caught it with her right hand. Left one still holding onto mine. After slowly nudging my head off of her shoulder, she stood and stretched. “Sorry.” I murmured but she shrugged it off. “I didn’t want to wake you but…well they aren’t here yet and…you good dude?” I only continued to stare at her panic and fear writhing beneath my skin as the reality of what I had done came to realization. I held her hand. I had a goddamn panic attack just because a stupid rock. I fell asleep on top of her and then to top it all off I punched her as I woke up. Before I could voice even an inch of my terror and self-loathing, she spoke again. “You're good, man.” Facing the fence, her fingers curled into the links of the metal fence staring through it at the towering buildings in the compound. “I ain’t tellin’ no one.” She had spoken it into the wire but glanced back at me looking for a response. All I could give was a short nod. I still sat with my back to the short concrete part below the fence breathing a little better than before.
“Hey, question-e-nato hypothetically, how hard do you think it might be to jump the fence and just break into Xí’s apartment?” She asked, still looking through the fence but she had a mischievous glint in her eyes. The one that teachers’ would recognize and shout ‘Oh no you don’t!’. I decided to humor her ‘hypothetical’ plan of action. “Well seeing as we don’t have the apartment number or key to the place I think we could get as far as into the building before either getting caught or stuck.”
“Bold of you to assume I can’t pick locks.”
“Bold of you to assume you can correctly guess which apartment is the blank-faced alien’s.”
“I don’t have to.” Teagan tossed a phone at me. As I caught it, I realized it was Xí’s. Tapping the screen on, I saw the address of their apartment written in big letters across the screen. Well I guessed that solved that problem.
“I guess this means you're going to try to do it.” Teagan raised an eyebrow back at me. “We ain’t splittin’ up no more than we have to. It’s bad juju.” With one flick of their wrist they threw their bag over the spiked fence. “Aren’t you afraid your stuff will get damaged?” I question as I prepare myself to follow suit. “Nah, I altered it so that nothing would get damaged when I threw it. Magics of padding and such.” I rolled my eyes, my foot got as fair as the ledge of concrete before a shout startled the living hells out of me.
“HEYYYYY!! HEYYYYY!! WHAT DO YOU tHINK YOU’RE DOING??!!!” Luckily (or unluckily as one may view it), the voice came from behind the fence. “DRIVING A MERCEDES BENZ.” Teagan shouts back, cupping her hands to her face for extra volume. This seemed to shock the stranger momentarily as they scrunched their forehead in confusion, power walking towards Teagan unlike their original running.
Using their distraction, I made short work of the fence landing softly into the grass with a groan. My leg still tingling from my sleep threatened to give. Teagan slid her eyes over to where I was but refused to stop facing the approaching stranger. They had two long and skinny green antennas sticking out of their hair with two splotches of the same shade of lime green splayed on their cheeks as if someone had painted them on. Teagan seemed unruffled by their appearance, me not so much. First it was the animal head parents, then the weirdly dressed multi-alien police and then it was the blank-faced alien with their weird paper note stuck to their head and bright turquoise hair. You’d think I’d have gotten used to strange appearances by then but nope.
