Recovering Our Own

Chapter Eight: A Serious Conversation

Above picture is of Darrin. This is pretty close to how I pictured him when I wrote this character.   Apparently this guy's a youtuber, but I've never heard of him and he just happened to look like this character. Anyway, to the chapter!

"Excuse me?" said Kallan, baffled at the boy's question.

"I guess not then, eh?" He said with a grin.

"Why are you asking?"

"Oh, you look familiar. I'm not sure how though. Maybe some famous person?" He paused and contemplated this thought. "Hmm, can't think of it now. I had it in my head just a moment ago..."

"Well, I should get going," Kallan said awkwardly. She had no experience in talking to humans, and though she had been assured they wouldn't she anything out of the ordinary about her, she wasn't so confident in that statement.

"Hey, before you go, you might as well know who I am," said the boy. He held out his right hand. "I'm Darrin."

Kallan reached out tentatively and shook the boy's hand. "Nice to meet you," she said crisply.

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" Darrin asked.

"Uh... Kallan."

"Kallan?"

"Yep," she confirmed, tucking her hands into her pockets and anxiously rocking back and forth on her heels. "So, um, maybe I should be going now..."

Darrin payed no attention, pulling a phone out of his pocket. "What social media do you have?" he asked.

"Huh?" she questioned, confused.

"You know," Darrin said, waving his phone slightly. Ah, I remember, Kallan thought. We did a lesson on technology during our Human Communications unit a while ago, I think. She smiled inwardly, remembering how Taya had been working on and elaborate plan to get internet on the Islands, which unfortunately had not succeeded.

"I don't have a phone," she told Darrin.

"You don't? Do you have any other ways I could contact you then?"

"Why do you want to contact me?"

Darrin was suddenly staring at his sneakers. "Oh, um, if I remembered who it was that I thought you looked like. Or, uh, maybe we could be friends? I mean, um, you seem like a cool person."

"Thanks, I guess," Kallan said with a small smile. "But no, I don't have anything."

"Overprotective parents?" he joked.

"Sister," Kallan responded. It felt strange to call Raidah, the Duxian, her sister, but it was the most believable thing. They actually did look very similar. Anyways, what was she supposed to say?

'Oh, I'm just here investigating the human world looking for my so-called 'Primum-twin', and that woman over there who looks about twenty one years old is actually thirty-five and the ruler of an entire species, one of the most powerful beings on Earth. We've been planning to kill you for centuries now, but don't mind us at the moment!'

Yeah, that conversation would just go beautifully.

"Oh, well, here's my e-mail address anyways," he said, holding out a slip of paper with an e-mail scrawled on it in slanting, loopy, lettering. "Maybe you can use your sister's e-mail, or she'll let you get your own eventually. By, the way how old are you?"

"Fifteen," said Kallan. She took the piece of paper, folded it and put it in her purse.

"Hey, same!" he cheered. "What school do you go to?"