“Hey… Hey, Josh!” Roughly shaking his shoulder, Thomas snorted disgustedly as Joshua groaned and continued to sleep. “Hey, Jackass! We’re at school already, dorkus!”

Groaning groggily, Joshua slowly wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. Forcing his tired eyes open, he struggled to place where he was, as he slowly looked left and right, up and down the aisles of the school bus. “Where are we,” he asked, groggily?

“School, dufus!” Snorting disgustedly, Thomas playfully smacked Joshua upside the back of his head, before finally turning and walking off the bus.

“Let’s go,” Mrs. Poff — the same old lady who’d driven the same bus route since before he could remember — urged him, impatiently. “Some of us have a second job to get to, once we finish up here.”

“Sorry,” Josh apologized, hurriedly grabbing up his backpack and rushing off the bus.

“Darling!” Giggling excitedly, Olivia rushed forward as soon as he stepped off the bus. Rushing over, she quickly wrapped her arm around his, snuggling tightly against his side.

“Darling?” Frowning, quirked an eyebrow quizzically, staring at Olivia. “Who’s your darling?”

“Why you are, of course, darling,” Olivia gushed, as she tugged him excitedly towards the school entrance.

“Woah! Hold up a moment!” Firming tugging himself free from her grasp, Joshua stopped right before walking inside the doors and stared incredulously at Olivia. “Just what the heck’s going on here? Nobody said anything about me being anybody’s ‘darling’ all weekend. What the heck happened overnight for me to be yours now?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Laughing lightly, Olivia tossed open both of front doors to the school, before trying to tug Joshua along inside with her. “You’ve got to be my darling,” she stressed insistently. “It’s the only way everything will work out in time this year.”

“Ummm… Okay?” Allowing himself to be tugged along, Joshua tried to sort out what she was talking about as he was steadily dragged ever closer to the cafeteria. “What’re we working out again? Remind me, please,” Josh asked politely, feeling like an idiot.

“Well,” Olivia giggled lightly, “there’s a lot of things we need to work out this year, since we think the end of the world as we know it, will probably be next year. We need dependable, long-term food, shelter, water, defensive skills and gears… Lots of things need to be done this year, to prepare for next year!”

“Ooookaaay… And what’s all that got to do with ‘darling’ me?” Somehow, Joshua just didn’t feel as if he was making the connection.

“Well,” Olivia blushed lightly, as she stopped tugging on his arm. Leaning up close against him, she quietly whispered, “Don’t you want to be with me?” Seeing the puzzled look that crossed his face, she giggled softly before emphasizing, “I mean ‘be’ be with me!”

“Umm… Of course I do,” Joshua answered honestly, blushing slightly. “But I still don’t understand…”

“Think simply,” Olivia chuckled, as she started tugging on his arm again. “If you want to do that,” she snickered, “then chances are, it has to be this year. After all, I’m saving myself for prom, and next year, chances are, there isn’t going to anything like prom — as we know it. That means if we miss out on the chance this year, we might miss out on it forever!”

“Okaaay… I follow that. I think,” Joshua muttered, as he was led into the cafeteria.

“Darling!” Hurriedly rushing over from where she was leisurely sitting, Rebecca scurried to capture his other arm with hers. Snuggling tightly to his side, she helped drag the slack-jawed Joshua over into the middle seat at the nearby table. “I’ve already got breakfast for you, darling! You too, honey!” Fluttering her eyelashes furiously, Rebecca half blew a kiss over at Olivia.

“…” Too confused for words, all Joshua could do is stare blankly at first one girl, and then the other. As Olivia giggled lightly, and Rebecca smirked mischievously, Joshua struggled to sort out what was going on. From the ways the girls were dressed in matching outfits, whatever was going on was obviously planned out ahead of time. Rebecca was wearing a long, loosely flowing black dress which covered from her wrists to her knees, and Olivia had on a matching white dress of identical styling.

“You haven’t explained it to him yet, have you honey?” Rebecca asked, smirking knowingly over at Olivia.

“I was just getting to it, honey,” Olivia chuckled. “It’s just too much fun teasing darling.”

“Honey? Darling?” Frowning, Joshua was completely lost and unable to follow the girls teasing.

“It’s like I was saying,” Olivia giggled. “This is the only year where I’m guaranteed to have a chance to fulfill mother’s fantasy of a prom night romance.”

“Of course, that means she’d have to win and become prom queen,” Rebecca smirked, chuckling lightly over towards Joshua.

“So for you to be my partner,” Olivia giggled, “then you have to become the prom king…”

“…which you obviously can’t do at the moment,” Rebecca smirked. “After all,” she teased, “what’s the chance that a majority of students will vote for an introverted gamer geek who nobody knows?”

“Umm… Sorry I’m an introverted gamer geek,” Joshua apologized softly, as a slight blush of embarrassment slowly colored his cheeks. They didn’t have to tell him how inadequate he was — he was already well aware of his own shortcomings. If it wasn’t for this weird World Renewal Project, there wasn’t anyway he’d be sitting between two such beauties.

“That’s okay,” Olivia giggled. “We’ve got it all sorted out, darling.”

“That’s right, darling,” Rebecca smirked. “We’ve got you covered. After all, what’s the easiest way to get a school full of students to agree to something?”

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“Let them rebel against something!” Olivia rushed to answer, not even giving Joshua a chance to say anything.

“But,” Rebecca warned, “it’s got to be something they can rebel against that the school can’t shut down, like transgender students playing sports.”

“Or two girls attending prom together,” Olivia added.

“Or two guys,” Rebecca agreed. “It’s got to be something pushing the envelop which the school doesn’t normally allow, which the students can get behind.”

“So we’ve decided to go with a non-binary polyamorous relationship,” Olivia giggled. “We’re both going to date you…”

“…and each other,” Rebecca interrupted.

“And each other,” Olivia agreed. “So we’re going to all go to the prom together, and put all three of our names onto the prom representative list…”

“…because God told us to,” Rebecca added, chuckling mischievously.

“God told me to date both of you and take you both to prom?” Joshua asked, raising an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a stretch of the imagination that nobody will ever believe?”

“Maybe at first,” Rebecca smirked, “but we’ve got a miracle to prove it.”

“We do?” Joshua asked, skeptically. “What miracle?”

“I’m not sick anymore,” Rebecca chuckled. “Everyone knows I had one foot in the grave and that my heart and veins were ready to give out at any moment. How would you describe me suddenly being cured, except by calling it a miracle?”

“Well…” uncertain about the whole idea, Joshua could only frown to himself.

“Let me break it down and explain it piece by piece for you, darling.” Giggling slightly, Olivia beamed brightly at Joshua.

“I wish someone would,” Joshua muttered, moodily.

“The plan’s like this,” Olivia giggled. “We’re going to tell everyone that me and Rebecca are long time buddies.”

“And you expect people to believe that,” Joshua snorted. Already, he could see holes in their plan. The two lived in completely different worlds at school. How the heck were they expecting anyone to fall for that?

“But it’s true,” Rebecca assured him. “Well, it’s true that we’re going to tell people that,” she added, compelled by the system to reveal the truth to him. “We’re just going to tell everyone that we’re ‘hospital buddies’.”

“Hospital buddies?” Joshua asked, curiously.

“Yeah, and let someone try and say we’re not,” Olivia giggled. “My mom visits the doctor like a zillion times a month…”

“…and everyone knows I’m constantly going to the doctor, the hospital, the emergency room…” Rolling her eyes, Rebecca coughed slightly, held her hand weakly up against her forehead, and pretended to be dying. “What,” she coughed feebly, “you don’t think I’d talk to someone my own age in the waiting room?”

“Are you calling me a liar?” Snorting, Olivia frowned heavily and glared harshly, directly into Joshua’s eyes.

“No. No… Not at all,” Joshua hurried to reassure them. “I just didn’t know you two knew each other like that,” he assured them.

“Ha!”

“Told ya!”

Both of the girls laughed heavily and reached across Joshua’s lap to offer each other a high five. “And that,” Olivia triumphed, “is how we’re going to deal with that.”

“And,” Rebecca added, “once they believe we know and talk to each other, then they’re hooked for the rest of the story!”

“Uh huh,” Olivia agreed. “This weekend, Rebecca came over to my house to visit with me and mother…”

“…which is absolutely true,” Rebecca smirked. “They can check with either of our parents if they don’t believe us…”

“…and Rebecca had a strange dream that she told me about Saturday morning…”

“I did,” Rebecca assured him. “While I was sleeping over at Olivia’s, I had this really odd dream where God told me He’d heal me, as long as I could prove my faithfulness to Him. In the dream, there was supposed to be some mysterious guy who would ask both me and Olivia out at the same time, and we were supposed to say yes. Honestly,” she lied smoothly, “that’s about all I know about the dream…”

“…and that’s basically all she told me about it,” Olivia agreed, “while we were sitting at the mall Saturday and getting a new set of phones…”

“And then the oddest, most amazing thing ever happened,” Rebecca gushed suddenly! “While we were in the food court eating ice cream, you came over and said, ‘Umm… Hi. Would you like to go out with me, sometime? Maybe become my girlfriend? If you’re interested? Possibly?”

“It was soooo cute,” Olivia giggled. “I have to admit, you seemed completely awkward when you were asking, but you still asked!”

Following up immediately when Olivia stopped to gather an excited breath, Rebecca chimed in with, “And then when I asked you, ‘Who are you talking to? Me, or her…’”

“…You said, ‘I dunno. You. Or you. Either really,’” Olivia chimed in. “Apparently it was some sort of challenge for whatever game you were playing…”

“Ask the nearest female to join you on a date,” Rebecca intoned in a deadpan voice, while smirking over at Joshua.

“And after what we’d just finished talking about,” Olivia giggled, “we both had to say yes!”

“And I’ve been feeling sooo much better since then,” Rebecca laughed.

“It’s God’s will,” Olivia agreed, bowing her head piously.

“And… And you girls think that story is going to hold up to scrutiny?” Shaking his head from side to side, Joshua couldn’t help but feel that he was somehow being dragged into something troublesome.

“Try and prove it’s fake,” Olivia giggled, crossing her arms firmly across her chest.

“And just wait until my next trip to the doctor’s, and they find I’ve gotten a clean bill of health,” Rebecca chuckled, fully enjoying herself with the deception.

“We’ll get you the religious student’s votes just with this miracle alone,” Olivia laughed.

“And the rebels will vote for you,” Rebecca smirked, “just for the chance to cash in on the controversy and peeve out the teachers and schoolboard. There’s no way that the school will agree to a prom king with two queens,” she sniggered. “All the rebels will love to support it!”

“But with the current political environment being what it currently is,” Olivia chuckled, “do you think the school will actually go on public record and tell us that we can’t do it? The principle might object at first, but once mother gets on the news and raises a fuss about them discriminating against a non-binary romance, I image the school board will quickly fold on the issue. If not, I bet they will once mother mentions suing them.”

“Heck,” Rebecca shrugged slightly, “my own parents might sue them. They’ve been watching me die more and more each and every day, and all at once a miracle up and heals me right after I have a dream that God talked to me…”

“So, that makes you my darling,” Olivia giggled, staring at Joshua with sparkling eyes. “And Rebecca is my honey.”

“And the same for me,” Rebecca added, looking almost as if she was going to burst out laughing at his expression.

“And added bonus,” Olivia told him, cementing the idea, “if there’s anyone else who has joined the World Renewal Project, it’s they type of story which will draw their attention to us. We might be able to find someone else who was invited to the beta, like us.”

“After all,” Rebecca smirked happily, “it’s not like we can just tell people we’re participants, now, can we?”

“But anyone who’s a part of the system should be hypersensitive to any story involving miracles, or God, or whatnot,” Olivia continued. “When our story gets out into the public, if there’s anyone else who’s a beta tester, it should at least raise enough flags to make them curious about us…”

“…while still giving us plausible deniability, if we think they might be a dangerous ass,” Rebecca finished. “We can always just play it off as a high school plot to win prom, after my disease went into remission.”

“And… And I don’t have any real say in this,” Joshua asked, weakly?

“Not at all, darling,” Olivia assured him, happily!

“Nope,” Rebecca denied. “You’re already our ‘darling’. We’re going to work hard from now until the end of school to promote you as being special so people will vote for you as prom king.”

“Now,” Olivia giggled slightly, “all you have to do is help by proving to folks that you’re worthy. Get your grades up. Start some sports. Be more outgoing. It’s time for the mighty dragon to finally hatch from its shell!”

“Mighty dragon, my foot,” Joshua sighed. Looking down at the floor so the girls couldn’t read his lips, he softly muttered under his breath, “Somehow, I feel more like a turkey who hatched just a few months before the end of November…”