"it's gonna be okay"

~3~

It had been almost four days since Darryl dragged Zak onto that rooftop.

The two had been camping out the 7-Eleven and in that time being, Darryl learned a few things about Zak.

     1. Zak was a bit of a troll.

And Darryl learned this the hard way, having had his water bottles stolen out of his hand and arrows go missing. And although he knew that it was all a joke, Darryl would get mad sometimes.

     2. Zak had a tendency to scream when surprised.

Example: Darryl was behind the counter of the 7-Eleven, looking for cash because why not, and poked his head up to see what Zak was doing. His counterpart must have seen him out of the corner of his eye and let out a high pitched shriek before realizing it was Darryl.

Example 2: Zak woke up in the middle of the night and saw a pair of glowing eyes outside. He screamed, waking up Darryl, when he realized that it was just a raccoon. Soon after, Zak started sleeping facing away from the glass door. After getting over the initial shock of being woken up so abruptly in the middle of the night, the two had a good laugh about it.

     3. Zak had an infectious laugh.

After every time Zak let out one of his recognizable laughs, he would literally cackle for five minutes, which Darryl couldn't help but join him. He would try to hide his giggles by covering his mouth with his sweatshirt sleeve, but it would never work.

Darryl also realized that Zak liked to use big words like "bisector" and "photosynthesis" to confuse him, especially when he knew he was on the losing side of an argument.

Also notable, Zak would quickly get attached to words or phrases that annoyed Darryl, such as "uh oh spaghettios" and "cheesy fries" and "I was testing" and "thin crust pizza" and his everlasting joke that Darryl was bald and was wearing a wig, which he insisted was not true.

But despite all of Zak's jokes, no matter how annoying they were, Darryl was genuinely happy for his company.

"Darryl, can I just ask why you say muffin all the time," Zak asked one day as they were going through the aisles, collecting chips.

"I suppose I used to use it as a replacement for swear words," he answered. "Ooh, pickle chips!"

As Zak continued down the aisle, Darryl grabbed the green bag and started to munch on his chips.

"Like instead of saying 'you idiot' I can say 'you muffin,' you know what I mean?"

"I suppose."

Everything was silent for a bit.

Darryl stopped cronching his chips.

"You know, I got separated from my friends after all of this happened," Darryl said quietly. "One moment they were there and the next, I was alone. They didn't disappear like everyone else; for all I know, they abandoned me."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's not your fault. It might not be theirs either. But I guess I'll never know."

"Maybe they're out there," Zak offered.

"Maybe."

a/n: any guesses as to what happened to Darryl's friends or who they are?