To be honest I was expecting it.

Ariel is really boisterous, she likes to talk to everyone. She is also your run of the mill fangirling freakout, who does indeed have a few boy bands on her playlist and crushes on a lot of boys.

How did I, Asriel, hopeless twin boy end up knowing this?

Well I'll have you know we've shared just about everything except underwear with each other from the moment we were born. We were the definition of close. I don't think there's a single embarrassing moment in our lives we haven't blackmailed eachother with. So yeah, yay for me.

I wasn't expecting her latest crush to be someone I knew.

See it had been a few days since the first day of school, and we had organized a small get together, Ariel was invited of course, and she wanted to bring along one of her friends. And after some texting back and forth we pulled together a plan for party night with the five of us.

So five o'clock I met a girl named Oswin, who's dry sense of humor and grammar nazi attitude was something to get used to. And the three of us headed over to Othniel's house, because his mother wanted to get to know us.

Five thirty we showed up at Mrs. Marrero's and the door opened, and I couldn't stop my sister before she dropped a terribly cheesy line.

    "Oh hello!" Ariel introduced. "You know what this sweater is made out of? Girlfriend material that's what, don't mind if I do."

    Torien's face turned a bright red and I slapped my hand onto my forehead.

    "Who was that girl?" He asked, once we were all inside.

    "Yeah, sorry about that. My sister can come off as a bit strong sometimes." I apologized sympathetically.

"Right." He answered, staring at her from across the room.

She waved at him and winked.

Torien shivered.

After a few minutes of shuffling around, Othniel gave us a tour of his house. It was very small, but not contracting. Very homey and perfect for a small family. Three bedrooms, one kitchen, one bathroom, one living room. The walls were a dark green color that was soothing and kind of made me crave olives. Which was what I ordered on my pizza a few minutes later.

    Eating with only the use of one hand is not as hard as it sounds. I manage along just fine. During dinner we talked about school and life, which was pretty radical.

    "So what do you kids want to do when you grow up?" Mrs. Marrero asked, she was a cool mom.

    "I have no idea!" Torien exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air and nearly whacking me in the face.

    "I'm going to be a District Attorney." Oswin answered. "Or a comedian."

    We all stared at her for a moment.

    "That was a joke, ha ha."

    Othniel burst out laughing. "Oh I get it!"

    I shrugged. "I'm going to be physical therapist."

Ariel smiled wide. "I'm going to be an occupational therapist and give his customers discounts!"

That conversation continued on for a while. Until the doorbell rang.

"I got this." I volunteered. leaving he table.

I opened the door to see a young girl around my age with a brown vest and several shiny patches littered across it. She looked like a Girl Scout. With typical blonde hair and a multicolored purple green and white braid running across her forehead. Her jaw dropped for a moment when I opened the door, but quickly regained her stiff compose.

"Hello sir! My name is Phira and I'm advertising some of my cookies! Introducing Goodie Cookies from Phi, they come in a variety of flavored including the old time favorite chocolate chip, and more. But that's not all, buy three boxes and your fourth comes COMPLETELY FREE!"

"Okay." I said, closing the door a bit.

"So what'll be sir?" Phira asked, staring at me.

"Who is it Azzy?" Ariel yelled from inside, before popping up at my shoulder.

"Oh my goodness, PHIRA!" She squealed, red hair flying everywhere.

The two bounced up and did that weird girly hug thing with only one arm. A practice Ariel tried to teach me but failed miserably.

"Oh my word you have to come and meet these guys they are absolutely tots adorbs, oh yeah, Phira, Asriel, bro, this is my buddy Phira."

"Hi!" She squeaked.

I don't how she managed to drag another girl into our party but soon we were decked out on some couches. Three girls on one side and three boys on the other. Othniel didn't have a TV, but he had this ancient looking book instead.

"It's fake," he announced. "It's just made to look old and cool. My mom writes her stories in them from when she visits other countries. I figured we could read one."

"All of us?" Torien asked, sounding unsure.

"Why not, I'll pass it around. Pick one that looks good to you." Othniel handed the book to Torien and he blanched noticeably, bringing on an ashy complexion. He was staring at the table of contents like it was going to eat him.

"Uh, you know what? Asriel should pick one, he's the new kid." Torien funneled with the book, almost dropping it before passing it over to me.

I shrugged and read down the the list. I spotted one name, Beowulf. It seemed interesting so I flipped to that page and cleared my throat.

"Once upon a time there was a king who's name was Hrothgar. He was a splendid king and his people loved him. In honor to his people Hrothgar built a great hall called Heroet, with pillars of mahogany and a roof of gold. Peals decorated the walls and the plates and goblets of the warriors and thanes who feasted there every evening along with Hrothgar himself. Were they told their tales of victory and brave fights against monsters on the expensive hides of rare animals. The listened to music played on harps of gold and drank wine aged for a hundred years."

I lifted the book up and passed it to Torien, who frowned and passed to Othniel, who rolled his eyes at the red haired boy.

"All was merry in the land, except for one thing, and evil serpent who went by the name of Grendal was jealous of the squalor and victory of the warriors, for he was a cold and wretched creature. Prowling about the moors in search of any living thing he could twist into his will. So one night he crept into Heroet and murdered all of the sleeping warriors one by one, until he bathed in human blood."

"Lovely." Phira commented as the book was passed to her.

"Hrothgar and any remaining warriors wept for their fallen, becoming drunk on their own salty tears. But Grendal wasn't satisfied, oh no not again, oh goodness yep, he slunk in the next night and slaughtered them again. Ugh no here you go Ariel." Phira lent to book to my sister looking slightly green in the face.

Ariel grimaced and kept reading. "Grendal continued to plague the village, the beautiful Heroet abandoned. Hrothgar was in despair, his gorgeous city had fallen and falling to ruins before his eyes. Gosh this is dark, oh wait here we go. News of Grendal's evil reached the ears of a young prince, named Beowulf.  Ho ho ho, Beowulf feared no one and swore upon his life that he would free Hrothgar from his suffering, and the the power of good would always overcome evil."

Oswin cleared her throat and brushed aside a lock of brown hair.

"So Beowulf gathered his best men and sailed away to fight Grendal, the thanes welcomed Beowulf and the prince declared the he would be hosting a feast in Heroet to lure the monster in. And a glorious feast of the olds day's was hosted, and there was singing and great beasts brought down in honor. It was merry and happy and soon everyone feel asleep. Grendal screamed in rage when he saw the fires of Heroet ablaze again. The monster ripped through the doorway and most of Beowulf's warriors were killed."

Oswin offered it to Torien who refused so it was passed back to me. I scanned down the page quickly and my stomached turned violently.

"Beowulf  and Grendal were so evenly matched that their battle lasted days. Until finally Beowulf gained the upper hand and ugh eww...." I trailed off.

"What?" Ariel asked.

"Beowulf ripped Grendal's arm off with his bare hands, and the monster slithered away and died."

"That's the end?" Torien scowled.

    "You want to see for yourself?" I asked.

    "I take your word for, it's just soooo..."

    "Unsatisfactory, distasteful, unyielding?" Oswin tried, putting on her poker face.

    "Right, it's not a very good ending." Torien said.

    "Well in another version Grendal had a really unholy mother who Beowulf went after next, but she was so ugly she asked for death." Othniel informed.

    "Yeesh, you're not telling them that story are you sweetie?" Mrs. Marrero asked, ruffling his hair and bringing round a tray of soda cups.

    I reread the last chapter thoughtfully, Othniel left the boy couch and it wasn't long before Ariel sat down next to me and handed me a soda cup. Torien instantly looked like he had swallowed an entire lemon and scooted to the edge of the sofa.

    "Your friends are awesome." Ariel commented, ignoring Torien's obvious motive, or maybe she just didn't catch it. The second one was more likely.

    "Yeah I know." I replied, rolling my eyes as she decided to sleep on my paralyzed arm.

    "Just because I can't feel it doesn't mean I don't you're there." I sang.

    "Hmm." She answered.

    "Aw, Ariel are you dropping off right now? It's not even ten o'clock!" I scoured, then heard a chorus of unruly snoring start up from behind my shoulder.

    I reached across and playfully shoved her. I was surprised when she didn't wake up and fell right on top of Torien. The redhead made  a small squeaking sound and blushed harder than a tomato seeing a salad dressing. But he didn't move, in fact he looked like he inhaled another lemon.

    I shook my head and turned my attention back to the paper. Something felt wrong about how the story ended, I wasn't sure what. But I felt like there was more to the story than just that. This was probably gonna bother me for a while. Only I couldn't get over the fact Grendal and I were missing one of our arms.

After I had left later that night, the book was placed back on it's shelf. In the darkness of the night, a humanoid figure suddenly materialized in the middle of the dark room, his long toenails curling into the carpet. he wore a long brown trench coat over his misshapen body, and a pair of gold eyes stared out from the under curve of his brow.

He lifted the leather bound book and and traced a clawed finger over the crackling paper thoughtfully. Then he slipped the novel into his trench coat and dissipated into mist once more.

<>

Slowlybuildingdramacanyoufeeliticannoiamnothyperno.

I lasted two whole days before I published this.