Stormbreacher - Book 1 of Titanomachy Series

Chapter 3: Friends?

"You said you lived in a town outside of Tiroy?"

I nodded, swallowing a morsel of salmon down my throat. It was surprisingly tough meat, and had taken me longer than it should've to gnaw through it. "Yeah. It's a really small suburb called Rhinewood. It's really super pretty, but it's a little too quiet for me."

Aunt Kia had brought us to the seafood restaurant some five minutes out from the apartment complex if traffic was kind to you. It was a humble little diner that was so close to the port and the shore that you could faintly smell sea salt in the air, giving a homey mood to the place. Aunt Kia had gotten takeout for her, Mom, and Persephone, while Carlos and I got to chill out and dine in the outdoor seating. He had ordered, like, twice the amount of food I had or something? If this kid wasn't over a hundred and fifty pounds, I'd be amazed.

"You get to see the mountains rolling through, every time you look out the window. It gets old after a little while, true, but every time you go somewhere real flat, you realize how cool of a place you get to live at." I said. Carlos nodded, and he began to bite into not one, but three pieces of sushi at the same time. It was impressive!

"I went to Tiroy by train, but fell asleep on the way there." Carlos grinned weakly. "I wouldn't have seen it."

"Ha!" I laughed. "What were you doing in Tiroy?"

"Tourist stuff. Nothing interesting." Carlos shrugged. "You've probably been to Tiroy, right?"

"A bit. Less than you'd think." I said. "I went there for tourism a couple of times. It's so much better than Veridian."

Carlos lifted an eyebrow, and I felt my cheeks grow hot. "Uh, no offense." I quickly added.

He shrugged. "Only some taken." Carlos' jaw shifted as he swallowed his sushi down his throat, and he coughed softly. "Why did you move all the way out here?"

I winced, as I distractedly poked at my fish with my fork. "Well...it's a little strange. My dad used to work for the government; he was a geneticist. I don't really know what specifically he did for the government or why."

Carlos tilted his head curiously. "Really?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. He'd send a check for us every month. That was our income."

"What did your mom do?"

"She worked part time jobs." I said. "We still needed extra money—Persephone has a number of health issues. She's had cancer in the past."

"Oh, no!" Carlos exclaimed, his chocolate-brown eyes growing wide with concern. "Wow...is she okay?"

"She's fine, don't worry about her." I said reassuringly. "At least, for now. But, it's a lot of money, and we're still concerned that she could develop another tumor."

"Jesus. I'm so sorry for her." Carlos winced, and asked, "So you moved to a cheaper place to save money? Is that's what's going on?"

I grimaced mournfully, and glanced down at my fish dinner. I wasn't even sure how much I wanted to eat it. "No. One day, Dad's checks stopped coming in through the mail, and we started to lose money. Really fast." I said. "Mom had to juggle Persephone's medical stuff with only her part-time income, along with all kinds of other bills and, uh..." I sighed. "Our financial situation—not too good."

"So you came here?" Carlos asked.

"Yeah." I replied. "Aunt Kia bought an apartment for us, and offered to have us move out here. It's cheaper, so Mom went with it, and now...well." I shrugged, and quickly bit down on my salmon. "Now I'm here."

Carlos winced. "Do you know what happened to your father?"

I shook my head mournfully. "No. He just...vanished. Last I saw him was Christmas, which is the only day he's allowed to see us. I never saw him again."

"I'm so sorry." Carlos bit his lip mournfully. "Sorry for your dad. I shouldn't have asked you."

"Eh." I wanted to tell Carlos that it was fine, but...well, it wasn't. Dad had meant the world to me...and now he was gone. So...now what?

I shivered, and pushed the memories of Dad to the back of my head. I'd done enough dwelling on it for today. "Well, let's change the subject. What about your family?"

"My family's Puerto Rican. We moved in a decade ago when my dad got a job out here." Carlos explained.

"Really? That's cool." I said. "You ever go back sometimes?"

"Yeah. We go back to Puerto Rico every now and again to visit my grandparents." He said. "I kinda wanna go back there again, but Veridian's alright. Maybe I'll live there when I'm an adult."

"Cool."

We exchanged some more information with each other as dinner dragged on. Carlos told me that he had three younger brothers and an older sister who was in high school. His family spoke Spanish at home, and his mother worked an office shift from home. I asked him what his grades were; he said his average was a B, but his favorite class in history was apparently an A.

"You like history?" I asked, finishing off my salmon.

"Yeah, actually, I do." Carlos paused to swallow his sushi, grunting as he sent it down his throat. "Ah. The school's history class is really lame. Super boring."

"That's no fun. What do they try to teach?" I asked.

"Titanomachy stuff. It's really depressing."

"Oh. Yeah, that'll do it." I grimaced.

The Titanomachy was an apocalyptic nuclear war that happened some five hundred years ago, and there wasn't a single corner of the earth that still couldn't feel its effects today. You didn't speak of it very often without hushed voices—even centuries later, it was a touchy subject that no one liked to remember. The death toll of the nukes alone, ignoring the nuclear winters and all the other crap they caused, was...what, 500 million?

"It's pretty unpleasant." Carlos agreed. "I tell my teachers, all the time, that I want to study older stuff. Y'know, pre-Titanomachy history. Before the world exploded."

I nodded, suddenly remembering the ancient music I was listening to in the car. "Y'know, I like to collect pre-Titanomachy media and literature. It's awesome stuff! Old movies, and books. Music. You should give it a look!"

"Oh, I already do!" Carlos suddenly started to excitedly bounce up and down. "I'm reading this book series called Harry Potter! It's like...I dunno, over five hundred years old? Have you seen it?"

"Heard of it. Couldn't ever find a copy." I said. "It used to be the most popular book series in the world, back when it was a thing."

"For good reason!" Carlos grinned. "It's really good! It's got a wizard academy called Hogwarts, it's got these prophecies or something, this jerk called Voldemort—his name means 'flight of death' in French, you know. I'll give you my copies! I'll want them back, but you should read 'em!"

"That's awesome. I've been reading these Dune books that I think came out around the same time as Harry Potter." I said. "It's science fiction set twenty thousand years into the future."

"Twenty thousand years?" Carlos whistled. "We should lend each other our books! I wanna read this Dune stuff."

"We should!" I agreed. "We should. But I have a whole apartment to move into. That comes first!"

Carlos grinned, and bounced in his chair again. "I haven't met any kids who are into that. They call me a nerd, every time."

I shrugged. "I mean, I can't necessarily argue with that. Anything over twenty years old these days is 'nerdy'."

"Unfortunately."