Year: 2020
As the sun rose on the horizon of the small suburban town, the pitter patter of the storm came to an end. Tree branches littered the streets as dead leaves were left stuck to the pavement, waiting for the next car to roll them over. Trees had cracked and died in the night, others laid solemn and alone on the ground; their time had finally reached the end. Despite the terrors of the night prior, the sun had parted the clouds as Moses did the red sea and returned a sense of order to the world. The chaos had ended. The consequences had not.
Cancer woke up the next morning and felt two different heads on his shoulders. He glanced at each, carefully trying to see who they were without waking them up, only to see Taurus and Gemini. He sighed and glanced at the zodiacs across from him. Sagittarius and Libra still slept; Sagittarius had fallen asleep with her head on Libra's shoulder and her bad foot resting on Cancer's booth, while Libra slept using Sagittarius' head as his pillow and his arms crossed. Capricorn was already awake. She was staring out the window of the diner, not seeming to notice Cancer.
"Hey," he said, quietly. She turned to him, her face twisted in surprise. He smiled at her in return.
"Hi," she replied, in the same careful tone.
"What time is it?" Cancer asked. He searched for his phone, but it was trapped under Gemini.
"Sometime after 6am," Capricorn replied, holding up her phone. She tried to turn it on, but it was dead. "The clock is too far away for me to see."
Cancer tried to look, but he couldn't force his body to turn without waking up Gemini or Taurus. He knew what a morning Taurus was like. It was not a fun Taurus.
"We have to get back to the school soon," Cancer reminded her. He pursed his lips, wishing he could get up.
Capricorn shrugged and shook her head. "It's Saturday, nobody is going to miss us."
Cancer nodded, and the conversation retired to a comfortable silence that was filled only by Libra's snoring.
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A few hours later, the other sleeping zodiacs awoke as if in sync with each other. Taurus was the first one awake, with her head falling off of Cancer's shoulder and onto the table before Cancer could stop it. When she regained consciousness, she squealed rather loudly, holding her head in her hands.
The other three jolted awake at the sound of her scream. Gemini glanced around, sitting up and trying to crack his neck after a long night of it being bent. Libra uncrossed his arms and sat up straight, shaking Sagittarius off his shoulder in the process. Sagittarius just blinked a few times.
"Where are we?" she asked, glancing around, trying to take in their surroundings.
As Cancer went to answer her, Taurus started swearing, "OW! That hurt like a bitch! My head is fucking on fire!"
Cancer sighed. He did not like a morning Taurus.
Between Taurus' cussing, Cancer managed to clarify, "We're in the waffle place. We must have fallen asleep here last night."
"Just for the record, last night did actually happen, right?" Gemini asked, rubbing his eyes. "Like, we actually were in a collapsing treehouse?"
Libra nodded, furrowing his eyebrows. "Yeah, that'll be a lot to explain to my mother."
"We can help you clean up," Capricorn offered, giving him a tired smile.
"Yeah, no. I'm supposed to be at the hospital still," Sagittarius reminded them. She grimaced at the thought of it. "I actually was never supposed to leave."
YOU ARE READING
Iterum | A Zodiac Story
General Fiction"Hey, what's this?" Sagittarius picked up a newspaper from the 90s, which featured six kids huddled around a book. "Those are the kids who went missing," Taurus replied. She read off the names one by one. Cancer's attention was piqued as the last n...
