The Simulacrum

Book 2 Extra 2: Childhood Friends

It was already dark outside, and with the lights turned off, the only thing illuminating Joshua's living room was the old CRT television in front of the couch, a relic of the rapidly shifting technological landscape of the island. The place looked fairly ordinary even under the less-than-ideal lighting conditions. The white walls appeared light blue due to the light of the screen, and they were covered in numerous family photos, cheap landscape paintings, and other assorted decorations, giving it a cozy, middle-class atmosphere. There were only two people in the room, sitting on the previously mentioned couch, both of them cross-legged and facing each other.

The one on the left side was obviously Josh himself. He appeared to be in considerably better shape than before, the circles under his eyes all but gone, and he was dressed in a dark green tracksuit for some reason. On the other side of the couch sat Angie. She looked inexplicably more intense than usual, however she also had her hair in short twin-tails, which caused her already youthful face to look even more childish, completely ruining the serious impression she was trying to project. To further complicate the image, she also happened to be wearing a tracksuit as well, which matched Josh's in every way but its bright yellow color.

The two of them continued to look each other in the eye for a long moment, right until Josh audibly gulped and then asked, in a tentative voice, "What about zombies?"

"Beeep-beeep!" the Celestial girl suddenly exclaimed in imitation of some kind of buzzer while crossing her arms in front of her face to form an 'X' shape. "No zombies!"

"Oh come on!" Josh threw his hands into the air as he exclaimed in mock outrage. "There are no zombies either?!"

"Nope," Angie answered with a toothy grin. "Neither the magical nor the run-of-the-mill kind."

"What is the run-run-of-the-mill kind?" Josh inquired with a masterfully raised single brow of supreme incredulity.

"Oh, you know? The infectious type? The kind you get from a virus. Or a plague. Or some parasites. Or some kind of fungus." She paused for a moment and thoughtfully raised her finger to her lips, then she added, "Now that I think about it, there are a lot of different kinds of zombies, aren't there?"

"Yeah, and that's why I'm surprised none of them are real," Josh grumbled, apparently really disappointed by the fact that there were no ravenous undead hordes craving for the flesh and brains of the living out there in this great wide world, but then his eyes suddenly lit up and he asked, "What about mummies? Are those real?"

"Well, yes," Angie answered, visibly perplexed for a moment. "You can see them in museums and stuff."

"No, I mean the living kind! The kind covered in bandages and walking around with their arms stretched out, like this," he said as he pantomimed a stereotypical mummy, all the while still sitting in place. "You know? The Boris Karloff kind!"

"Oh, you mean that kind of mummy!" Angie exclaimed in revelation, only to shake her head right afterward. "Nope, those don't exist either."

"Seriously?" Josh all but huffed. "Man, none of the classics exists. No zombies, no mummies, no vampires, no werewolves"

"I told you, vampires do exist. Kinda."

"But those are not real vampires!" Josh protested. "Instead we have," he paused at this point and reached down beside the couch and picked up a notebook, one of his school ones by the look of it, and he turned it around so that he could see the hastily scrawled lines on its last pages. "So we have 'Celestials', 'Abyssals', 'Draconians' and 'Fauns'."

"Among other things," Angie agreed, if tentatively. Apparently the two of them have been discussing the various kinds of supernatural folk inhabiting this world, and based on her expression, she was already tired of the topic.

"I still don't understand why they are called that though. Why don't just call a rabbit a rabbit and call them angels and demons and were-beasts and whatnot?"

"That's just what we're called," the girl on the couch answered with a shrug. "Or do I look like an angel to you?"

"Actually, you do," Josh answered with perfect sincerity.

"Really?" Angie blinked at him as her cheeks subtly flushed.

"Yeah, with the wings and all? Total angel," he continued while still gazing at the notebook, none the wiser about the celestial girl's reaction. "Hey, I have another question? Elly's 'Draconian', right?"

"Uuu Yes, she is?" Angie answered a little uncertainly, apparently knocked off-balance by the sudden change of the topic. "I thought we were over that?"

"Yeah, but I'm curious: Draconians are descendants of dragons, right?" Angie nodded, so he continued, "That means that dragons are real, right? I mean, actual dragons. The big, flying, fire-breathing kind."

"Are there any other?" she asked back with a befuddled expression.

"After learning that vampires are body-snatching smoke monsters, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out dragons were some kind of giant radioactive space fleas from the planet Neptune or something. Oh, speaking of which, do we have aliens?"

"Not that I know of," Angie answered tentatively. "Also, there are no more dragons anymore. They just kind of died out, I guess?"

"Seriously? Man, this sucks. We don't even have dragons."

"You shouldn't miss them too much." Angie griped, obviously still a little upset about Joshua abandoning the previous thread of conversation, then she added, "They were total jerks."

"At least the Draconians are nice enough," Josh responded absent-mindedly, but then a second later he added, "Well, most of them. Elly's butler still gives me the creeps." At this point he paused again, and after some consideration he continued with, "Now that I think about it, I haven't met with other Draconians, have I?"

"I think the maids working there are also like that," Angie mumbled while reaching behind the couch and recovering an open bag of chips. "Oh? There're still some tortilla favored ones left. Do you want some?"

Josh only shook his head. When he opened his mouth again a few seconds later, he inquired, "So, this might sound like a silly question, but Elly's parents are also Draconian, right?"

Angie gave him a skeptical look at first, but in the end she nodded in the affirmative.

"And Lili's parents should be Abyssals, right?"

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"Yes, that's how genetics work," she answered with a tiny, puzzled frown, then she reached out with an impish grin while saying, "Weren't you paying attention during sex-ed? Should we discuss the birds and the bees again?"

"No, I was paying attention," Josh huffed and swept away the hand Angie used to poke him in the side. "I was asking because I was curious if you know?"

"I know?"

"Shouldn't you?"

Angie slowly cocked her head to the side and finally she asked, "Okay, I'm officially confused right now. What were we talking about?"

"Your parents, obviously." Since she still looked slightly perplexed, Josh forcefully cleared his throat and clarified, "I mean, if you're a Celestial, then logically it would follow that they have to be Celestials as well, am I right?"

"Well, I suppose they should be," she answered after a moment of hesitation.

"You suppose?" Josh retorted with a skeptical look in his eyes.

"Yeah," Angie answered, this time visibly bewildered by Josh's insistence.

"Have you never asked them?"

"How was I supposed to ask my" the Celestial girl began to grumble, but then halfway through the sentence her eyes suddenly opened wide in revelation, she raised her right fist, and then she theatrically dropped it into her left palm with a soft thud. "Ah, I get it now! You're not talking about my parents, but mum and dad!"

Now it was Josh's turn to furrow his brows in puzzlement.

"Wait a moment, now I'm the one who's getting confused. Aren't those the same thing?"

"No-no!" Angie denied hastily. "You see, mum and dad aren't my biological parents."

"You're adopted!?" Josh exclaimed with the subtlety of a main battle tank sneaking through a china shop, but Angie only shrugged her shoulders.

"Duh, of course I am," the Celestial girl answered with a less than subtle roll of her eyes. "Didn't I already tell you about it a long time ago?"

"Really? How long are we talking about?" Josh asked back with the lack of tact that was, at this point, more or less expected of him.

"In elementary," she replied while she once again furrowed her brows in suspicion. "Don't tell me you really forgot"

"Of course I have!" Josh immediately countered with, of all possible things, an indignant voice.

"Are you serious? Man, I knew you are a total scatterbrain, but come on!" Angie exclaimed with just a hint of a pout on her lips.

"I'm not! If anything, you probably never told me and now you're just trying to make me feel like an idiot," Josh argued while crossing his hands and scowling at his childhood friend.

"It's not particularly hard to do that," Angie countered in a flippant tone. "I don't even look like my mum or dad, so if you paid even a tiiiiiiny little bit of attention, you could've realized it on your own."

"Am I supposed to pay attention to everything?"

"Yes, you should. Or at least to the important things. Like me," she answered while pointing at herself.

"Whatever," Josh grumbled dismissively under his nose, probably realizing he didn't have a leg to stand on, and afterwards they both stayed silent for several seconds.

It looked like the situation would soon develop into an awkward silence, but then, as if the previous argument never happened, Josh suddenly asked, "Are there any orcs?"

Angie glanced up at him in surprise, but after a split second she answered, "Nope," without a shred of her previous sulkiness.

"No orcs either? Damn," Josh whispered with the kind of gravitas usually reserved to strategists getting their plans foiled in period dramas. "How about elves then? I mean, the Tolkien kind, not the Keebler ones?"

"No elves either." At this point Angie tilted her head to the side a little and asked, "By the by, are we seriously going through all the fantasy races now?"

"Hey, you call them fantasy races, but a week ago I would have thought that Celestials were one, and yet here I am, talking to one of them."

"Lucky you," she replied with a smug little grin, but Josh only rolled his eyes at her.

"I really hoped elves were real though," he mumbled under his breath, prompting Angie to lean closer to him.

" Why?" she inquired as her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Joshua, naturally, completely disregarded the change in her expression before he told her, "Elves are supposed to be super pretty, right?" without a shred of delicacy or self-awareness.

"Depending on the source, yes" Angie, surprisingly enough, agreed on the spot, but then she added, "Don't we have enough pretty girls in our group though?"

"Nah, you can never have enough pretty girls," he answered with a toothy grin.

"So you like elves, huh?" she grumbled with a pout, "Well, I'm sorry you are not satisfied with us lowly non-elves, but if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath for a nonexistent elf transfer student to fall into your lap."

For a moment Joshua looked quite surprised by her sulky outburst, but after a short while he let out a small chortle and told her, "You know, I'm pretty sure that even if an elven girl did appear in the school, Leo would wrap them around his little finger in a day or two ." Angie gave him a curious look, which he finally noticed for a change, so he hastily continued, "I mean, think about it: Judy entered into our group, and a few weeks later she ended up as his girlfriend. Then Elly transferred, and she ended up the same way. Then Lily transferred, and she now lives in his house. If there was another transfer student at this point, I'm pretty sure Leo would sink his talons into her in no time."

"Now that you mention it, I guess you're right," Angie answered in cautious agreement, but then she suddenly asked, "Hey? Speaking of him, do you think their arrangement will work out?"

"I've no idea," Josh answered frankly, then after scratching his chin for a moment he added, "I mean, I'm one of your unpopular guys, so getting along with one girl is already beyond me. Two at the same time? I can't even imagine."

"Booo! You're already getting along with a girl right now!" Angie exclaimed while sending a kick towards him.

"Ow! Hey, stop that!" It took a few seconds for Angie to stop play-kicking him, at which point he told her, "You're not a girl, you are Angie! There's a big difference!"

Whatever that difference was, it still resulted in her redoubling her efforts to kick him off the couch. At last, after several minutes of struggle, which left the cushions previously on the couch scattered over the floor of the living room, they both returned to their previous, cross-legged positions while still heaving from the previous exertion.

Once again, it looked like the situation was on the brink of developing into an awkward silence, but then Josh suddenly cleared his throat and he sat up straight.

"So" he spoke up between two heaves, "Are there any goblins? I'm fine with either the low-level monster or the high-level banker kind."

"Nope," Angie answered with an almost triumphant grin. "There are no goblins of any variety."

"Seriously? What kind of unreality is this!?" Joshua abruptly burst out as if he just experienced the worst injustice in the universe. "How about trolls then? Are they real?"

"Nope again," Angie responded with a tinkling voice, apparently enjoying her childhood friend's faux anguish.

"Oh come on! No trolls either!? This sucks! None of the cool monsters are real!"

"Since when are trolls considered cool?"

"Silence, you heretic!" Josh retorted quite rudely, but Angie only giggled at his reaction, indicating that it might have been some sort of inside joke between the two.

"Well, if you are looking for monsters, Chimeras are apparently real," she suggested after she finished chuckling.

"Chimera...? Oh, right, that half-crocodile, half-gorilla, half-bear thing."

"I think it was more like half-bear, half-crocodile, and half-gorilla."

"Is there a difference?" he asked incredulously.

"Obviously," Angie replied with a firm nod.

"If you say so," Josh relented with a nonchalant shrug. "I wasn't paying it much attention at the time, but I don't think it was a cool monster-movie monster, but more of a scary horror-movie monster."

"Is there a difference?" she asked incredulously.

"Obviously," Josh replied with a firm nod.

"If you say so," this time it was Angie's turn to shrug. "Leo said it was regenerating like a troll though."

"Reeeally?" Josh enunciated like he was a detective who just found a crucial clue and he rubbed his chin in a very thoughtful manner to complete the image. "Then I suppose it was a little cool, just by association."

"Cool or not, I don't want to fight another one," Angie said with a shudder. "Those things are really, really scary."

"Oh, right. You guys also fought it," Joshua said as if it was something that slipped his mind. "Leo's been hogging all the glory for himself, so I almost forgot."

"I don't think he wanted to fight it either though. Or 'hog the glory'. Do you remember how mad he looked when he said that Ammy's grandfather called him 'Chimera Slayer'?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Josh responded with a non-committal shrug while silently mouthing something along the lines of 'being called chimera slayer is a little cool though', a sentiment he was so wrong about he definitely deserved a smack over the head with a slipper.

"Of course. I am always right, except when not," Angie grinned for a moment, oblivious to his silent words. Soon she noticed that Joshua seemed to be a little down all of a sudden, so she called out to him, saying, "Hey pal, what's eatin' ya?", using some kind of forced accent.

"I'm just a little worried," Josh answered after a small sigh. "This whole chimera-talk kinda reminded me of what happened on the weekend."

"Yeah, it was rough," Angie readily agreed with him.

"It was," Josh nodded, then he continued with, "And do you remember how Leo was talking about figuring out how my transformation thing works? And how I'm supposed to train to use it? It's like he's expecting something like that to happen again, and that I'll have to fight."

"He didn't seem to be just expecting it, he looked dead sure about it."

"I know, right!?" Josh agreed quite vehemently. "That's why I'm worried! I don't even know if I can do that transformation thing again, and yet he already wants me to fight against... Hell, I don't even know what! Nor do I want to know! Like, what am I supposed to do if another of those Chimeras or whatever show up and wants to eat my spleen?"

"Hey, let's be realistic!" Angie raised her voice in presumed encouragement. "The bad guys could show up whether you learn how to do your transformation thingie or not. In that case, wouldn't it be better to learn about it, just to be on the safe side? I mean, even if you can't fight, you can use your powers to run away!"

"Yeah, but that would make me a coward, especially if everyone else is fighting," Josh replied, obviously feeling more than a little appalled by the idea. "Like, how am I supposed to look any of you guys in the eye if you get injured while I ran away?"

"Hey, it's no biggie. I'm bad at fighting too! If someone wanted to punch me, I'd run away too!"

"Yeah, but you are the medic," Josh countered. "The medic is not supposed to be on the front line, so it makes perfect sense for you to retreat when an enemy is in melee range. Haven't you played any tactical RPGs?"

" I think you're ever so slightly overthinking this. Also, your analogy is weird," Angie told her childhood friend with a deadpan look that was more at home on someone like Judy's face.

"I suppose," Josh shrugged. "But then there are all of those prophecies and chosen one business too. It's a lot of pressure." He paused for a couple of seconds, and then he continued with a hopeful, "But then again, maybe that whole transformation thing was just a fluke and we are all overthinking this whole situation."

He finished his sentence with a dry chuckle, but a moment later his eyes popped wide open when Angie softly asked him, "Should we try it out then?"

He only blinked at her in silence, but after finally processing her words tentatively said, "You mean... the transformation?"

"Mm," Angie let out a soft sound in the affirmative while nodding twice, probably for emphasis.

"You mean... like... right now?"

"Mm," Angie murmured in confirmation again, though the nod following it was slightly less firm than the previous one.

"But... You have to cut yourself for that, right?"

"Not necessarily," Angie replied, her face gradually getting more and more flushed. "You remember the original way Leo talked about?"

"You mean... Err... You mean kissing?" Josh mumbled, getting noticeably reddened himself.

Angie nodded, this time somewhat hesitantly. Meanwhile, Joshua awkwardly averted his eyes and said, "Are you sure about that? I mean shouldn't your first kiss be with someone special?"

The bashful expression on the Celestial girl's face melted away like a snowball in a furnace, revealing an irritated scowl underneath it.

"It wouldn't be my first kiss," she stated with the bluntness of a falling anvil with ACME written on the side.

"... It wouldn't?" Josh's surprised eyes returned to her face in a split second.

"No, of course not," she huffed while her expression quickly morphed into a sulky one.

"Really? Wow! Who was the lucky recipient?" Joshua inquired with a provocative grin, which was covered up less than a second later by a pillow Angie smashed into his face so hard he nearly lost his balance and fell off the couch. "Hey! Ouch! Stop that! What's your problem!?"

"It was you, you inconsiderate jerk!" Angie exclaimed, her words punctuated by another smack with the pillow.

"What was I!? You're not making any sense!" Josh complained in return while trying to protect his face with his forearms.

"My first kiss, you idiot!"

"Wait, what?" he froze up for a moment, only to get smacked so hard in the face that he actually fell off the couch and onto a strategically placed stray cushion on the floor. He didn't seem to mind it though, as he immediately sat up and asked her, "When?"

"Back in elementary, you dunderhead!" she declared while throwing the pillow into his face.

"Seriously!?... Hey! Ow! Stop it already!"

Saying so, Josh picked up the same fluffy projectile and then promptly returned it to the sender. The few minutes following that could be best described as the world's most intense pillow fight, and it ended with the both of them heaving and the cushions scattered all over the place once again.

After a while, Josh climbed back onto the couch, his hair and clothes slightly disheveled but otherwise no worse for wear.

"So... Now that we resolved that... What are we going to do now?"

"Well, we are obviously not going to kiss after all that," Angie declared with a pout, which also highlighted how one of her twin-tails got undone in the scuffle and threw her profile off-balance.

"Hey, don't look at me like it was my weird idea!" Josh protested, earning him a wounded glare.

"It's not weird, and you're still horrible for forgetting our"

"Yeah, I sure am," Josh interrupted her with a huff. "I guess we're not going to have any kind of constructive discussion for the rest of the evening."

"Not likely," Angie answered, still pouting with the power of a thousand exploding suns.

"Okay, then I suppose we better return to our crappy horror movie marathon."

"That's the first sensible thing you've said in a while!" Angie declared, her sulking instantly replaced by an excited smile as she reached behind the couch again, and after some rummaging, she picked up a brand new bag of chips. While she opened it and put it onto her lap, Josh walked over to the TV, or to be more precise, the large VHS player under it, and he looked over the cassettes on the shelf underneath.

"Let me see" He began rummaging through the movies, only to abruptly stop in his tracks and glance over his shoulder towards the disheveled girl eating chips on the sofa. "Hey, Angie?"

"Hmmmf?" she responded with a grunt, most likely due to her mouth being full of potato flakes.

"Are leprechauns real?"

The celestial girl gave him an odd look, but then she quickly swallowed the contents of her mouth and answered with an upbeat, "Nope."

"Really?" Josh mumbled as he put a cassette into the player. "Good riddance. Leprechauns are lame anyway."