The Curse of Water

Chapter 10- Tempers Rise

Chapter Ten – Tempers Rise

“Apollo! Apollo!” I sit awake at 3 am trying to shake my friend into consciousness, but I only hear a few grunts after I manage to dodge out of his arm's way. “Apollo, please wake up!”

He opens one eye and emits a soft ray of light from his palm.

“What is it Marcus? Feeling alright?” He says with concern in his voice, sitting up.

“I'm fine, I'm fine! I'm just...freaking out! I have to submit the registration form for the beauty events today! Today! I have only a few hours to do this!”

Apollo sinks back on the bed, the light in his palm getting brighter.

“Marcus, it's one thing for you to be waking me up at 7, but it's 3 am. I've only been asleep for 2 hours!”

“But this is due at 7! You have to help me!”

“You're a pain in the rear Ramses.” He mumbles, but gets out of bed and hits the light switch. “Okay, what do you need help with?”

“Well, there are a million events to enter, and I don't know what I look good in! We never even talked about beauty events before. How many should I enter? I have 79 points to collect, I don't just want to do physical competitions as any points will help, it's always better to get more...”

“Woa, woa, okay, stop!” Apollo rubs his eyes and buries his head in his hands. “Man, I don't even know where to start. I already handed mine in this morning before rehearsal and thought you did the same. You're really asking the wrong person, Adam is the clothing expert.”

“Well then can you call him for me?”

“Why don't you call him? You're the one who needs help.”

“He's not home! Don't you think I tried?”

Apollo shakes his head and tries a few numbers before finally getting a hold of him.

“Hey, is Adam there?...Yeah, I know, it's 3...I'm sorry, please, it's urgent...Adam, can I ask you to come back here please?! Yes, now. Marcus needs...yeah, he's fine, just needs some clothing advice and apparently it will not wait. Sorry...20 minutes? Great, see ya...” Apollo hangs up the phone and goes to the fridge for a bottle of H20.

“Is he mad?”

“Who? Adam? When have you ever seen him mad?” He laughs, taking a long sip of the liquid.

“Did you wake him up?”

“No. He was...” He walks back over to the fridge to get some ice for his drink. “...busy.”

“Oh...doing what?” I ask curiously, and Apollo raises an eyebrow as if I'm the stupidest person on the planet. (Ugh, which he is probably right about.)

“So, what did you think of your father's speech?” He asks after firmly deciding not to answer my previous question.

“Well, it would have been really powerful...if he wasn't such an ignorant prick.”

Apollo laughs with me, sitting down on the couch. “You mean that he called salmon tuna?”

“Yeah, and the fact that...you know...fish can't drown.” I add, still immersed in the little rulebook.

“Is that helping? Staring at the book?”

“No” I answer, tossing it on the table. “I can't believe he is so dumb. He gets tuna brought in from the ocean, and most salmon is synthetic because it's hard to generate the right environment with H20 on the farms.”