Autumn

2: When night falls

                                           2: When night falls

            When Theodore was eight, his dad got so drunk that he thought it would be a genius idea to destroy their already-damaged fence. He woke up the next morning covered in dirt, his hands raw, wooden posts surrounding him, a throbbing in his temples. Despite his apologies and claims that he would repair the destruction, he never did.

            He left that same year, abandoning more than just a broken fence.

            Despite the lack of privacy between the two exposed houses, the neighbours never complained. There was never a family that stayed long enough to do something about it. Autumn and her parents were the longest people to stay and they had only resided in number twenty-two for sixteen months.

            But it was the absence of that fence that had drawn the two together. Autumn and Theodore  were two conflicting people by day, but when night fell, their worlds were parallel planets, mirroring the same orbit. Every night, they met outside and laid in the grass, indents in the ground—where the fence used to be—acting as magnet, to both attract them together, but also to keep them apart.

            “How do you think the world is going to end?”

            “Unintentional destruction. A lack of understanding for our natural environment will eventually lead to an industrialised wasteland, where natural resources are limited. In response, the government will control the dystopian society by dividing us into social classes where we will eventually become savage.”

            Her lips twitched into a smile. “Okay, now how do you really think the world is going to end?”

            “Honestly? Alien invasion. Not strange looking creatures or green, slimy monsters from the movies. I’m talking about doppelgängers; exact replicas of human beings, living nightmares. It may not sound so terrifying, but I think that’s what society is scared of the most. Themselves and each other.”

            “Well, shit, I shouldn’t have pressed after your first answer.” Autumn turned her head and smiled at him. “Now I don’t want to tell you my answer.”

            “Don’t back out now.”

            Theodore waited.

            “Stars,” she whispered after a while.

            “Stars?”

            “The stars will fall from the sky and shower us with gems. Beautiful to the eyes and deadly to the skin.”

            “Morbid,” he commented.

            “Mesmerising,” she corrected.

            Then, together, they looked up at the stars. In Autumn’s world, they were exquisite treasures, ready to fall from the heavens and destroy the world. Theodore wondered if such dangerous capabilities could be found in a girl. A girl like Autumn.