1.2

1 0 0
                                    

 Chapter 2: Paint

"...I can't tell you much. Isn't it science fiction common knowledge that telling someone of the past too much would mess up the future?" Ava broke the news to Phantom.

"I suppose you're right." Phantom sighed, "Well I know now that I moved out, since you live in my house now." Logic was still present even in the absurd situation that they had found themselves in.

"So who's Jeff?" Ava asked, remembering the time Phantom had addressed her mistakenly as whoever it was.

Phantom sounded happy when he answered, "My friend. We call him Jeffery. I'm guessing you have his telephone, but I don't know why it ended up there at my house."

"Really? That's what you're confused about? What about the whole 'talking to someone from a different time' part?" Ava mentioned, shocked at how easy Phantom had been taking the information compared to her. Meanwhile, she had still been going crazy.

"Obviously I'm confused too." Ava hear the slight arrogance in his tone, too common of an occurrence in the short time of them knowing each other. "So how old are you?"

"Twenty-five." Ava didn't know why she was telling this to a stranger, but the time separation had felt like long enough where it would not matter, and she felt a bit safer.

"I'm twenty-four." Phantom answered with no hesitation, further assuring that he had a sort of confidence that was unmatched by Ava. It was something he sort of envied because he had lacked that confidence himself.

"What do you do for a living?" Ava had asked, not knowing what came over her that initiated her to begin a conversation.

Phantom chuckled, "I'm a singer, voice actor like movie or opera for show drama, I guess. I love music. What about you?"

"Do I love music? Or what I do for living?"

"Hmm why not answer both, I've got time."

Ava down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying to count the imperfections she could find in it. "I'm not that into music, I used to sing but now I don't. I like drawing and painting. Also, I a sort of novelist and I'm video gamer for a living."

"Video gamer? What kind of job is that?" Phantom had asked not in a mocking way, but genuinely. Ava had remembered that the man had been in the age where celebrities weren't near as common as they were now.

Ava smiled, "I forgot you probably don't know what those are yet."

"Yeah. Hello?! I'm in the past!" Phantom had joked with his sure-of-himself tone. Ava could start counting all the times she thought Phantom had seemed full of himself.

Ava gave a hearty laugh at the statement before seeing the time and bidding the man goodnight, "Well I have to go, I should sleep."

"Boo." Phantom groaned into the phone with no sting, but just for fun.

As fun as it was to speak to Phantom (despite how much she hated to admit the fact), it was getting late into the night and she had projects to finish. She saw no reason in halting her normal mundane routine of waking up and going to make a content now, life would be no different.

"Goodbye, wrong number." Phantom bid her goodbye with what Ava like would be a growing nickname.

"Goodbye old man." She retorted in response, half-hoping it would get a laugh out of the man, which it succeeded in doing.

"Hey! I'm not old yet." Phantom had corrected, before hanging up the phone for the night.

---

It had been a week since Phantom and Ava had first started talking, and needless to say they had become good friends.

Series BookWhere stories live. Discover now