“SCOTT!” Stephen’s voice resonated through the halls of the apartment. The call woke Scott up.

Today Stephen had just come back from an internship. And Scott… well, he didn’t do much: he never really was the active type of person.

“What?” mumbled Scott from his bed.

“Come here!”

“Ok…” complained Scott as he dragged himself out of his room.

The apartment they lived in wasn’t very big so it shouldn’t take him much time to get to the living room. And yet, even though he only had five rooms to cross, it took him about thirteen seconds to get to the living room, which didn’t help with Stephen’s mood.

“Did you throw a party in here?” said Stephen once Scott reached him, in a sarcastic tone such that it was clear that the question was rhetorical.

Their living room wasn’t anything crazy in fact it was quite simple: as you entered it you had a couch to the right and in front of it a little table, of course the couch was facing a TV that was on top of a little table. Behind the couch was the dining table.

The night before Scott watched a movie marathon, and he hadn’t cleaned up before going to bed. To be fair he finished at three am.

“No, what makes you think that?”

Scott was barely awake.

“The fact that this living room is a disaster!” Scott’s answer confused Stephen a bit; he wasn’t sure if he got the fact that it was a rhetorical question.

“It’s not that bad.”

He didn’t get it.

On the table laid two pizza boxes, at least five soda cans, three bags of chips, and a bowl of popcorn, all empty.

“I could write a whole novel on how bad this room is.” Scott knew that he wasn’t joking, and that he’d do it if challenged. Stephen wasn’t the type of person to exaggerate. “Well, you better start cleaning up because Samantha is going to get here in five minutes.”

“FIVE MINUTES!!” Scott’s face suddenly turned pale white with fear.

Samantha was the owner of the apartment. She’d come once a month and check the house is still fine. Samantha was very nice but if she got here and she saw a mess she would get incredibly mad. In fact, it only happened once before, and she told them that if it were to be the case again, they would have to leave.

“Correct,” replied Stephen.

“Well come help me!”

“Now why would I do that?” Stephen gave a very slight smug grin.

Scott was choked by that answer. “What do you mean?!” he noticed that something was a bit off. But he was too panicked to think more about it. “Do you want to get kicked out!”

“I have other places to stay at…” said Stephen, unfazed by the menace.

At that exact second Scott disappeared from the room, and the very next one, he was back with everything you would need to clean an apartment. Then he got to cleaning fast, not very delicately, but fast. He missed a few spots here and there, but it was barely noticeable so he moved on. In fact, he was so fast Stephen could barely keep an eye on him. In only five minutes Scott was finished and was now lying on the floor completely out of breath, gasping for air as if there was a hole in his lung.

“You know what?” Stephen was visibly proud.

Scott couldn’t answer.

“I LIED! She comes in five days!” Scott was immediately filled with anger. He felt betrayed. how could he do this, to him! he was like a brother to him!

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And yet, he couldn’t manage to get too mad. Not only because it was, in part, his fault; he forgot the date. But because he noticed it, that slight unnerving thing with Stephen’s face, the small slightly twisted curve at the end of his lips, and didn’t dig any deeper on the matter.

Stephen had that ability, even though he was very disciplined, it didn’t mean he couldn’t be an amazing liar. He wouldn’t use it much, but from time to time he would make use of it.

Scott was a lazy person. But with the right motivation, he could be pushed to his limit, which was pretty far. And Stephen knew that fear was one of the best motivations, so he knew this would work on Scott, and it wasn’t the first time he took advantage of it, he managed to get rid of quite a lot of chores around the house that way. If confronted about it he’d say he did it for Scott’s own good. Which was partially true, but only partially. Truth is, Stephen didn’t really care for others, he did only what would get him to his goal; a job at the A.S.R.L. (Aliris Science & Research Lab). Why did he help Scott? He asked himself that very question often.

Since it was getting late and Scott was becoming very excited since it was his turn to pick a movie:

It was just two weeks since they had settled in the apartment, and there were already problems on the horizon. For example, picking movies, it was simply impossible to settle on what to watch each night, with Stephen wanting to watch the newest action movie and Stephen wanting to watch a documentary, and as I’m sure you guessed Scott didn’t like the documentaries, and vice versa. This action would end up taking up to two hours only to then not watch anything because it was too late. That obviously couldn’t go on long with Stephen around. So, he decided that it was enough, and that he had to come up with a solution, which came in the form of what he named the “Movie Treaty.” MT for short. And it worked. The treaty was composed of the following rules:

1.Each Saturday the One will be selected by the day: if the said day is to be even Stephen will become the One and is to acquire the position of superiority on the following factors for the day. If this isn’t the case then Scott shall become the One.

2.The One has the privilege to be able to select the entertainment which will be displayed on the television.

3.Any whom that isn’t nominated as the One is not to interfere in any way with the Ones decisions.

4.The One is free to invite anyone they deem necessary for their best enjoyment of the performance. Any whom that isn’t chosen as the One, is to ask for the One’s permission for inviting anyone.

5.The one and only exception to any of the previously mentioned rules is the only case of someone’s birthday, in this specific case the said person gains immediate position as the One.

6.None of these previous rules are applicable if this exact paper hasn’t been signed by both people concerned, in this specific case, Scott and Stephen.

As you can probably tell Stephen had the time of his life writing it. They both signed it and so it was placed in action. And today was the 15th which meant that he got to be “the One” and he had been waiting to see the last episode of what he hoped was not the final season of his favorite series. Even though he watched the rest of the show on his laptop, he wanted to see the last episode on the “big” screen.

Good thing he watched it then because he wouldn’t be able to watch another episode on a long time, since the next day university would start, and with it came a lot of work̴̫͇͍̒.̶̧͇̜̂̃

F̶̨̼̣̊́͐͠r̸̡͙̀͒ͅom the top of his tower, he frowningly observed his barren land. Only a couple of dead trees were sparsely spread over the desolate ground, the sound of the hot wind rushing through its scarce and dry leaves being one of the only sources of sound.

“This is insulting!” he declared, violently getting up from his chair while loudly hitting his desk.

“Yes, I understand sir but there is nothing we can do about it,” sighed a voice from the other side of the desk.

He turned to the meager voice.

“Is there? Does the fact we're here mean we can’t do anything about this?”

“isn’t that the whole point of why we’re here?” replied the voice in a suffocated tone.

Immediately, every muscle on him tensed in anger and his gaze sharpened “How dare you!” It shrunk back in its seat. He took a deep breath and turned to the desert that surrounded them. “How long can we go on like this?” Before the other one could answer, he continued, “I’ll tell you: not long! And I won’t stand around watching as I’m being deprived of what is mine. No, I say we go out there and even the board!” He once again turned to the other one.

“Sir, with all due respect, how do you expect to get away with such a thing?” advised the voice.

“I’m the punisher, not the punished,” he snapped back. “And besides, it’s been a while since we’ve done anything of relevance. If this goes on people will start to think less of me, of us. And looking around,” he said gesturing to the outside wasteland to make his point, “they already do. And that can’t be!” The other one looked thoughtfully to the outside.

“Sure,” he said with a sigh after some time “I’ll tell the others,” he added getting up from his chair and walking of̵̱̾f̴͖͗.̷̽