As the sun began to rise once more on Asheton, woke up Felix, not that it would have taken much of anything, he tossed and turned all night, struggling to stay asleep. He could smell the faint odor of pancakes coming from the kitchen.
Shit, he thought. It was a dream. It must’ve been.
Felix ambled downstairs in his pjs, ready to greet Felicity, expecting a kitchen full of food prep and, well, food.
He stood in the kitchen, alone. Two out of three ain't bad, if you count a full pantry and fridge, which wasn't exactly what Felix had expected.
He ran the tap in the sink and washed his hands, staring down at the dirty dishes. A small voice in his head told him that he should wash them up, but a louder voice, his actual voice, told him to leave them to rot for all he could care.
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187 Maple street, downtown Asheton. That was the address for Emily and David Beaumont, the last time Sarah Beaumont had checked, anyway. And now she was checking again. Well, it was more of a surprise visit than a check up, but Sarah thought it might technically qualify as both. She shuffled uncomfortably on the porch, she didn't usually do this sort of thing, or most any other thing if she was being honest. She could count the amount of times she had been outside in the past year on two hands. She certainly didn't make a habit of turning up to people’s houses unannounced, but something had told her that she needed to this time, something small, close to her heart, persuaded her to do something she would never ordinarily do, because it had… what? Some kind of cosmic importance? Hogwash.
A dark feeling came upon her, one of the ones she had gotten off and on since childhood. She pushed it down and rang the bell again, and waited.
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Kyle stretched out in bed, yawning, his arms high above his head, nothing but a green silk sheet covering his nakedness. You didn't need much with the heat in Texas, even in November.
Kyle got out of bed and set a cup of coffee to brew. He looked over at the clock on the wall. 11:38am. Christ, he’d slept in. He wondered if Will would be up yet, then wondered if he would be busy if he was up.
He sat down a cup of coffee onto the table and opened his laptop.
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Will tugged at the bag, trying to get it to zip up. His dirty clothes had expanded into a sticky mess overnight, and he’d had to go to a Dollar tree at three in the morning and frantically search for sone damn plastic wrap. The slime they gave off was probably his least favorite thing about lizard people. Well, aside from their unhealthy habit of stealing people off of the coastline and cooking them in caves.
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Blood. Dreams of blood and fire flowed through Micheal’s mind like a thick black sludge. He was in a time period he didn't recognise as anything more specific than “medieval times.” There were people, yes, so many people, but none who were alive. They were all dead, dead by his hand. Strewn over each other in a bloody mess of torn limbs and eviscerated organs.
He had tossed and turned in the night, and awoke to find the better part of his bed sheet wrapped around his left leg and draped down the end of the bed.
He pulled himself up in bed and noticed the broken glass scattered along the floor. Damn, he thought. I.. I must have knocked over my glass in the night. He sighed, pushing the thoughts of bloodshed that had been so vivid out of his head and stepped out of the other side of his bed.
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“We are now boarding.”
Will looked up from his book. A gaunt, not unattractive, young man of around 20, dressed in an AmAir uniform, stood in front of the boarding gate with a smile plastered on his face.
Will got up, packed his book into his backpack, and said a silent goodbye to the city by the bay.
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Felicity shielded her eyes from the sun as she walked through the Italian Kitchen car park. She thought it was kind of tacky, if she was being honest, but they were a state-wide staple, and she certainly didn't have any scruples about eating there, and neither did Raven Stepton.
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“I just can't believe it.” Raven let silence (and the sound of chewing coming from the booth to the left of them) hang in the air for a while.
“On second thoughts I can, he always did walk like a pig.”
Felicity snorted into her wine glass, repressing a laugh.
“He stopped after I told him it made him look like a penguin…” Felicity paused, cycling through memories of a happier time.
“Hey, it’s the end of your marriage, not the end of the world.”
“It's social suicide.”
“Only at Harbor Church.”
“You're forgetting that my whole life is at Harbor Church.”
“It doesn't have to be.”
A waiter arrived at their table with two plates, a bowl of salad, and set of breadsticks
Felicity considered that for a moment as they shared out the breadsticks.
“Ok,” she said, what are you proposing? I leave Harbor Church and go-”
“To my church. To Pacific Heights. You know they’d be a position of some kind there for you, if you want one.”
She said it so nonchalantly, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Leave the church that your husband runs and join my church. A guaranteed position at Pacific Heights. Sure, it wasn't as large as Harbor Church, but it would be a nice change of pace.”
Felicity took a bite of breadstick.
“Ok.” Again, more confidently, “Okey, sure, yeah. Let’s do it.”