(Alright, cool!)
"I don't know." Laurel glanced over at Ana, a slight frown on her face. "Well, before we do that, let's make sure we have the weapons Endor and Alina mentioned. Just in case he doesn't like getting asked questions by two humans." She smiled slightly, then nodded. "Oh, yeah. That would really help. Everything you said, except for the studying part, I agree with. Who knows? Maybe we find something that gives us powers while looking for the weapons?" She shrugged, hoping what she'd just said would come true. It would be way quicker to just wipe all the monsters out with magic instead of having to try and learn how to throw knives.
(Sorry…)
"I sure hope so," Ana sighed, holding the steering wheel loosely in her hands. She turned a corner and hit the gas, sending the car shooting forward. "I would hate if we had to stay this powerless. I mean, the knives are cool and all, but still, I want a little more than two small pieces of metal."
She glanced over at Laurel and grinned. "I think we're totally fit to talk to him, what are you talking about?" She shook her head. "I hate being powerless."
(thumbs up)
"Agreed." Laurel nodded. In most of the books she'd read, the protagonist always had some sort of secret power. It would be nice to have some powers of their own. "Little bits of metal. They could help… as long as there aren't a billion monsters around." She grimaced slightly. "I mean… yeah. But he might not think the same way, unfortunately. It's his loss, anyway. We're awesome." Laurel grinned at Ana, trying to lighten the mood.
"Which, with our luck, there will probably be trillions." Ana snorted.
"It is his loss. We're awesomely amazing." She grinned. "Is that even a word? Awesomely? I don't know if it is, but it sounds awesome. If it isn't, I'm making it a word, from now on."
"Ha, yeah. Unfortunately." Laurel shook her head. With their luck, they would get surrounded by monsters and have no way out of it… unless they had some sort of magic. "I don't know, but I agree with you. It is a word, and it describes us perfectly." Laurel laughed. "Awesomely awesome."
"Awesomely awesomerest." Ana laughed. "We could make an entirely new portion of the dictionary, with words to describe us alone. We'd be amazing. And people would start using our words, and we'd be so cool." She snorted. "You see? This is what I think about when I'm bored."
Laurel laughed along with Ana, a bright smile on her face. If someone had told her the apocalypse was coming, she would have been skeptical. If they had told her that while the apocalypse was happening, she would be laughing her head off with someone she had just met, she probably would have laughed in their face. "Oh, we should!" Laurel agreed, nodding. "Well, I think it's brilliant. You should be bored more often!"
"I should be," Ana agreed. "I could invent something useful, that the world would need! Like peace! I don't think that's ever been tried before." She snorted.
"So… what now?" She asked, after a moment.
"Yeah, that would be something new," Laurel laughed, shaking her head a little as she did. "Well… I guess we try to make it to the town and find those weapons. And avoid the Shadow King, because as much as I think we're awesome, I think he's more powerful than we are. How else could he have such a weird name?" Her laugh was weaker this time, probably because she was talking about something that could kill both of them.
"That's true." Ana sensed the darkness and fear behind Laurel's words and tries to cheer him up. "But maybe one of the weapons we'll be getting is something that could give us magic. That would be cool, and totally worth it. Maybe the powers that we'll be given is pure awesomeness!"
"Yeah. It probably will." Laurel said, trying to say those words with as much certainty as she could. "Ha! If that's true, then our combined awesomeness will actually overpower whatever magic he has!" She was already moving the fear of the Shadow King out of her mind. It could come back if they actually faced him, and if that time came, they would probably have a bunch of magic and weapons on their side.
"Exactly! And then he'd never dare to show his face here again!" Ana laughed. She tried to act like nothing was wrong, that she wasn't afraid of anything, and certainly not this Shadow King. Which, of course, was a lie.
She sighed. "I wish that was true."
"We wouldn't even have to do much." Laurel sighed softly, eyes slightly dreamy. "That would be nice. I wish it was true as well." If the Shadow King lived up to everything that Laurel had heard– which honestly wasn't much, but what she had heard was bad– they would probably have to kill him in order to get rid of him. She wasn't looking forward to that. Hopefully, they'd only have to banish him or something.
"Yeah." Ana brushed her hair from her face. "I wish this was a VR game," she said slowly. "It'd be really, really cool."
She kept driving, trying not to think.
Laurel hummed in agreement, eyes focused on the road ahead of them. She was feeling sort of jittery now, unable to wait for the town to appear. She wanted those maybe-magical weapons now, and she wanted to believe that they would help her and Ana. There was nothing else to do but wait, though.
"We should be there in a few minutes," Ana said after a while. "I really hope there's candy," she said with a laugh. "I'm craving some big-time right now."
She flexed her hands on the steering wheel. What she didn't say was that she hoped that there was no monsters there, either. But if she said it out loud, she'd feel like she jinxed them.
"Oh, good," Laurel laughed, a slightly nervous undertone to it. "Yeah, totally. Something sweet would defiantly help here." She curled her hands into fists. It was great that they were almost there, but it also made her stomach turn. What if they ran into monsters? What if they ran into other people who weren't too friendly? What if… what if they ran into the Shadow King? They both had nothing but a few small knives to defend themselves with.
"It would. And then I could stop tasting stale air." Ana made a face. "My breath tastes terrible, ever since we started fighting the monsters. I think I got a little bit of their blood in my mouth, and it tastes awful." She laughed.
"Oh well." She turned a corner, and the small town grew into view, just a mile away. It was perfectly empty, and a bit eerie.
Laurel looked over at Ana, a slightly goofy smile on her face. "Ha, that is disgusting. How in the world did you manage that? And I hope that it never happens again. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." She shook her head slightly and looked ahead of them. At the sight of the town, her heart skipped a beat. "Well, that isn't creepy at all. Let's hope it stays empty," she continued in a soft voice.
"Well… if you hate a person that much…" Ana trailed off.
"I hope it stays empty too… although I wonder where the people are." It was so silent it was giving her the creeps.
"Yeah. Do you think…" Laurel paused, unsure if she should actually say it. "Do you think they're all dead?" She finally asked, her voice barely a whisper. "But, uh, at least there aren't any monsters around just yet." She shook her head slightly, trying to stop thinking about her dark question.
"I mean, given the lack of bodies, I don't think they're dead." Ana pulled into the parking lot of the candy shop. "Come on, let's get some sweets."
She stopped the car and stepped out, calling her daggers to her, so that she would be prepared in case there really were monsters around here.
"They might have been eaten…" Laurel breathed, her voice almost inaudible. Them pulling into the candy shop took her mind off of that terrible thought, for which she was glad. "Yeah, okay." She opened the door and got out, taking her knives with her. There was no way she was going anywhere without them again, even if everything looked perfectly safe. Even when she was going to a freaking candy shop, she had to be on edge. These monsters sucked.
"They wouldn't have been eaten," Ana said, sliding the door to the candy shop open, body tense and wary. "Unless the poor people were swallowed whole. There's no blood to show that they've been eaten." She slid the knives into her sleeves and tried to act normal.
"Well, at least we get free candy," she said, trying to sound energetic and optimistic.
"Well, that's a relief." Laurel blinked quickly, glancing around nervously. She really wanted to know where all the people were. But Ana had soothed her fears quite a bit. Those monsters didn't look like they could handle swallowing a human whole. "Yeah. That's defiantly a plus." She nodded, following Ana into the store. Laurel was determined to drown her fears in candy– just looking at it and hoarding, though. Getting sick to her stomach wouldn't help her chances of survival.
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