The Other Side

Unfortunate Beginnings

Unfortunate Beginnings

I followed him down the docks. "What actually are you?" I yelled out to him. "You should already know!" He yelled back over his shoulder. "That's not an answer! You have to answer me! I'm royalty!"

Ah.

Old habits.

There goes my cover. Here come the weird looks. I knew I shouldn't have answered.

"Why are you here, if you're so 'special'." he said, spreading his arms at the word 'here'.

"I needed somewhere to go. I needed to get out, to be alive. I didn't want to go with the states, I wanted to go here. I didn't agree with their ruling. When I told them that I agreed with the Cratics government style, they told me to "knock it off." When I kept on telling them, they unofficially disowned me."

But the boy wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the sky. Rude. But as I looked around, everybody was looking at me with hunger in their eyes, looking at me like I was prey, and they needed to turn me in for their pack to get rewarded.

"Go! Run! Now!" The boy said.

He grabbed my hand and ran behind some trimmed bushes, perfect for hiding behind.

"C'mon. We'll go to my house." He whispered.

We snuck through a few alleys and emerged somehow at a beige house. The boy unlocked it with a gold key and stepped inside, motioning for me to follow him.

I walked inside and was greeted by a great golden dog jumping up on me.

I had always wanted a dog, especially a big one, but my family always said I couldn't have one. Stupid.

"Slobber and mud will be all over the place; no! We don't even have a backyard." My mother had said. She says that to everything. Well, the "No!" part, not the slobber part.

"My names Virgo," he said over his shoulder.

"Arlington, But you can call me Duo."

The boy grabbed chips- another thing I couldn't have, and ran up the stairs at an immeasurable speed; it was like he had practiced it. He turned the hallway and speeded to his room. He plopped down on the beanbag and picked up the book nearest to him. I settled myself on the floor and looked at the fluffy carpet. The book's title said Worlds Collide.

"So, do you usually bring strangers into your home?" I said sarcastically.

"Not particularly." He answered, his cat-like eyes scanning the words. I don't think that he would lift his eyes off that book even if the house was burning down.

"So what's the book about?" I said. I hated awkward conversations. Virgo lifted his head from the paper and closed the book, careful to balance each half between a side of his thumb. This was obviously a subject he liked. "Well it's about these teenagers stuck in an alien prison and they have to get out and I'm not spoiling but there's a big plot twist at the end and yeah!" "Huh." I never have really read for fun, so Virgo talking about the book so enthusiastically surprised me.   Then, the doorbell rang. "And that would be my sister." Virgo said, very un-enthusiastically.