"Carlos... it's time to wake, Carlos..." the beautiful man kept repeating, snuggled into Carlos as if he was a stuffed animal.
"What?" Carlos inquired, winding his arms around the man, sighing happily at the warmth radiating from him.
"Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wakeup. Wakeup. Waeup. Waeup." The man repeated, the phrase soon turning into nothing but an alarm-like sound, and as Carlos loosened his grip on the man he gasped as he seemed to break, each piece of him turning into the small radio in different colors. His face freezing into a picture-perfect form of shock, Carlos stumbled back, as everything seemed to disintegrate around him. A purple liquid started forming up and around him, like his own personal liquid force-field. But, unlike a force-field, the liquid started shrinking in closer and closer until it encased him in a molasses like gelatin. He tried to scream, but that ended up with more of the purple goo, going into his mouth and lungs, and he raised a hand to try to grab the goo and fling it off-
Carlos woke when his hand hit the wall. He sat up, gasping for air before he began to feel his face, relief flushing over him as there was no sign of purple goo on him. He was sweating, though.
He reached for his glasses, rubbing his eyes with his free hand as he grasped his glasses and shoved them on, too drowsy to be concerned that he almost jabbed out his eyes. He yawned, then stretched, then glared at his phone. The alarm was going off, the screen lit up with the title "Meeting- 8:00 AM". He quickly swiped his screen lock and shut off the alarm, smiling happily before it sunk in. Right now it was 7:45. There was a meeting at 8.
He rushed out of bed, falling to the floor in the process. There wasn't enough time to shower or shave, so he quickly changed, toothbrush in mouth as he patted his hair, not even bothering to try to brush the tangles out.
He spit into the sink, washing out his mouth before he checked his phone again, and cursed as the screen read 7:55. Slipping on his lab coat and shoes quickly, he ran out the door, keys and a briefcase full of material that he had put together days prior to go over in this meeting in hand, kicking the door closed behind him and wishing on his lucky stars that no one tried to rob him as he sped to the college.
Carlos ran into the conference room at the stroke of 8, and almost fell to his knees in relief (and exhaustion) as he saw that the meeting hadn't started yet. He didn't even care that every one of his colleagues was watching him as he found an empty seat and sat down. The Dean coughed, gaining their attention, and began to speak.
"Alright, now that we're all here, why don't you pass out those muffins, Josie?" An elderly lady smiled and stood up, and Carlos noticed that there was a quite large platter of cornbread muffins sitting in front of her. As she made to pick it up, Carlos was about to ask her if he could help when a man down the table stood up and hurried to her side.
"Ah, thank you dearie, but you know I can do it Cecil." She said cheerily, as the man (who he now knew was Cecil) smiled and chuckled, and Carlos froze. Something sounded oddly familiar about his laugh. But before he could think about it anymore, Josie began to talk. "I'm sorry for the muffins, they may taste a little different as they have no salt. The construction workers at my house accidentally knocked over the container as they were helping me this morning. They may be angels, but that doesn't stop them from being a bit clumsy! Oh, and on a related note, I just wanted to tell you all that the work on my house is almost done! Isn't that wonderful?"
Everyone around Carlos began to smile and say a generic, "That's great!" Or, "That's good news!" He gave her a small smile as a muffin was placed in front of him. "Oh, thank you." He called quietly to Cecil, and in return Cecil just smiled and nodded, continuing to pass out the muffins.
The Dean cleared her throat, quieting everyone down and gaining their attention, "Now, hopefully most of you remembered to gather some sort of information we can go over. This meeting is to help us each see how far everyone is getting in their curriculum. Now, since the science wing is the newest addition, Dr. Osario, will you kindly go first?"
Carlos stood quickly, chair stumbling back as he coughed out a "yes". All of a sudden his nerves kicked in, and everyone's eyes now being upon him didn't help. "I-I brought some papers to help further explain what I'm going to go over, just a moment please." He popped open his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers, and began to go around and pass them out to the other teachers. 'These are students. You're going to teach them. That's exactly how this is.' He thought to himself as he handed out the last bit of papers and stood back at his seat. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, concentrating on his thoughts before he looked at everyone before him. "My name is Dr. Carlos Osario, or Dr. Osario, I'm the new teacher for Geology 101 and Biochemistry 401, for those of you who don't know. Tell me if you need further explanation on something, okay?" He started with, calming as the last line he said was the same thing he said whenever he was in the classroom, helping a student on a concept he didn't understand. That's right, this was a class of new students and there was nothing to worry about.
Slipping into his usual self, he went over all the subjects he had covered in the classroom so far, and he began to feel himself get excited as he went over the things he was passionate about. The few questions he was asked were easy to answer and before he knew it, it was over.
"Well, thank you for listening to me for so long, that's everything." He finished off, looking around to the faces of the ones watching him. Pleasingly, there were no expressions of confusion or boredom before him, only signs of Understanding, and a bunch of smiles as the teachers began talking to each other, thanking him as well.
He grinned as he saw that everything had gone successfully, and soon the Dean cleared her throat and silenced the chatting teachers. "Thank you, Mr. Osario. Mr. Peters, would you like to step up now and tell us about how the Ag. Classes are going?" A man stood up, stretching with a yawn. "Hello, my name is John Peters, you know, the farmer? And I would just like to say a warm "Hello" to Mr. Carlos, since I, as well as a few more of us, hadn't gotten to meet him yet."
After a smile and nod from Carlos, John began going into what was happening in his classes, and Carlos listened intently to him. But soon after two more teachers went up his mind began to wander and he would briefly look at the papers before him before "staring off into the void", as he had heard it called, zoning out and focusing on what he should discuss with his classes. Before he knew it, all the teachers except the few English, psychology, and engineering teachers had already gone up, and mostly everyone there, including the Dean, were fidgety and unfocused. Suddenly, the Dean's phone went off, and after looking at the text she had gotten, stood up. "There seems to be some problems going on with Finances. We'll continue this next week. I'll see you then." And with that, she left the classroom.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, everyone stood up and began to walk around. A few of the other teachers he hadn't met came and introduced themselves. It was all nice, and he learned a few new names, but something was bothering him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being… watched? Well, he did seem to have the attention of the entire engineering block as they wanted to bargain for use of the labs when he wouldn't be using them. But he swore, as he got up with a, "We can discuss it later, I have to get to the classroom," he felt a pair of eyes digging into his back.
He knew it was bad, but he ended class early that night. Swearing that, "Oh, well, we went over everything we needed to today," he waited till all the students were out of his class before he gathered all of his things and left himself. He didn't know what time the radio broadcast started at, but he wanted to be there when it did. Walking out of the college, he noticed that, surprisingly, he wasn't tired like he usually was these nights. Maybe it was because he had something to look forward to?
Carlos chuckled and brushed the thought aside. He had gotten more sleep than he usually did last night; it had nothing to do with a radio show. He began to pull out his keys when he remembered he forgot to lock his door. Sighing, he opened the door and set his things on the table, kicking the door closed as he began undressing. Gathering his discarded clothes off the floor, he placed them in the basket, making a mental note to do the laundry before too long. Donning sweatpants and a T shirt, he lounged on his bed for a few minutes, relaxing, before, slowly getting up and plugging the radio in. The familiar sound of static filled the air, and he snatched the note with the station number off the table before he began trying to find the broadcast.
He kept pushing the "tune" button until he got to the desired station, and was pleased when all that was on was music. The broadcast hadn't started yet. He climbed back into bed, resting and trying not to fall asleep before it started.
He didn't have to wait long. After two songs, the music died out and the voice form last night filed the room. "A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and strange lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale." Carlos raised an eyebrow at the intro, but closed his eyes as the voice began talking again, and he didn't mind letting his mind fall into this strange world that was being described to him. One with a forbidden dog park and angels and… wait. Hold on just a second.
Carlos opened his eyes and sat up, staring at the radio. He was a scientist. His home was next to Big Rico's. He knew that news spread fast in places like this, but announcing where he was to whomever may be listening? Who in the right mind would do that? And he didn't even want to think about the … bit too friendly compliments he was getting.
He debated for a second if he wanted to turn off the radio, but he decided to leave it on. "Maybe he does this about every new person in the community," Carlos muttered aloud as the voice went on about helicopters. He moved to rest against the wall as he continued to listen, chuckling at some things while furrowing his brow in confusion at others. He was beginning to relax before he heard his name, and he tensed up. He didn't exactly know how to feel about all these compliments. "Perfect hair"? Was he talking about the mop of knotted curls that could easily be mistaken for a lost dog? He ran a hand through his "perfect hair", trying to force himself to relax, but of course, the next couple of lines blew "relaxing" out of the water.
Josie's muffins. He was talking about Josie's muffins. This person was a teacher? He had been in the same room as this person? How could he have not noticed this person's voice? Well, he did zone out for half of it but-
Carlos stopped when he heard his name. 'What else is he going to say…' he quickly thought with dread as the voice spoke of what Carlos had "said" at this "town meeting".
He was pretty sure he stopped breathing when, "He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly," Came through the radio. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. What? What the hell? This was too strange to be real. He felt as though he had actually been transported to the strange town in the radio. Damn it, he should have paid more attention to everyone. Though this now explained the feeling of being watched at the meeting, it didn't make it any less creepy.
'Maybe it's just part of the show.' A small voice inside his head broke through the chaos going through it, and he stopped internally freaking out. Wait, maybe it was just part of the broadcast… he was just being used as a muse. Well, it didn't stop it from being creepy, but it helped him calm down a bit. But, if he was just being used as a character basis then why did he keep Carlos' name, Carlos's… everything?
He vaguely listened to the rest of the broadcast, noticing how some of the experiments he and his students in his morning class did became "studying a house that didn't exist", and finding out that there are "wild seismic shifts" that the town is not experiencing. There were words that he didn't listen to, and a song he ignored as his mind tried to wind itself down. He laughed at the Public Service Announcement, winced at the bit about the snake, and he began to just relax again, not even bothering to get riled up about being talked about, blowing it off to try to sleep.
Despite how badly part of his mind was trying to tell him to hate this unnamed man, who had apparently fallen for him, the rest of his mind just seemed to let things fall the way that they would fall. The man wasn't threatening him, not in the least. He even had to admit that part of him was… pleased? He had never heard someone talk about him like this. Then again, no one who had ever had a crush on him had ever voiced their thoughts. It was a strange feeling. He felt himself begin to drift out of consciousness as the man on the radio said goodnight, and he dreamed of angels and hooded figures.
Cecil set up the song list to play as soon as his microphone was turned off. As soon as it was ready, he stood up, stretching before picking up his mug of tea and taking a sip. He had met the infamous Carlos today, and he was exactly, no, better, than what Josie had told him. His perfect hair, perfect face, and oh, that smile… Cecil smiled to himself as he remembered Carlos grinning. He was too perfect to be true, and he was going to be in the same area as Cecil for who knows how long? Oh, the gods seem to finally be in his favor!
As he sat back in his chair, he recalled how Josie had told him just talk to Carlos after everyone left the room after the meeting and they were cleaning up. Maybe he could swing by his class tomorrow, say "hello"… Cecil took another sip of his tea, 'ask him if he's free this weekend'. Chuckling to himself, he looked up as Station Management tapped on the door, peering through the glass until they found Cecil, and motioning for him to leave. Sighing, he gathered his things and left the booth, the person with the next lineup smiling at him as they entered. Walking down the hallway to the entrance, he smiled as he went over his plans for the next day. 'Yes, I'll definitely go by tomorrow, things will go well, I can feel it.'