Chapter 4: Muffins with a Side of Very Bad Joke
"Aeris!" a voice called her back to reality, "Aeris!"
She opened one eye, "Wha-huh?"
"You have to get up. You fell asleep." Anika was wide awake.
"Wha time is it?" she asked sleepily, slurring.
"It's about 9:30. Oliver knocked earlier to tell us he's making breakfast. He said it would be ready by now."
"Oh...okay...that's nice...where's Alex?"
"Right here beside you." she was sitting up, back supported by the pillow and on her tablet, fingers tapping wildly.
Aeris turned to face her, pink hair fanned out on the pillow, and fringe in her face. Her sleepy gaze slowly started to come into focus.
"Are you...writing fanfiction?"
"I was typing up a log of what happened yesterday and what we saw, I'm trying to piece things together...and yes, I am. You can't go wrong with Black Butler fluff."
"Trash." said Anika.
"You were writing fanfiction earlier this morning when I woke up." Alex replied, pretending to sound offended when she really wasn't. The slight smile in her voice said it all.
"How can you be writing fanfiction in the situation we're in now?" Aeris asked, seeming disapproved. She didn't understand that. There were more important things to focus on. They needed to straighten out their priorities...
"It helps calm my nerves if I focus on something else." Alex explained, Anika nodding in agreement.
"Oh, got ya." Aeris said with an understanding tone. Her belly rumbled."I'm hungry. You said Oliver was making breakfast for us?"
"Yeah." Anika answered.
"Man, that Brit can bake." Alex commented, "I want more of his food."
"Alex, we need to be careful," Anika said, "For all we know he could be drugging us and we have no idea. But I agree, his scones were really good."
"Still, we don't trust this guy." Aeris added, "It's the basic rule that parents tell their kids, "Don't take candy from strangers"."
"True," Alexi replied, "Wait, are you two proposing we don't eat the food he makes us? He'll probably get upset. You heard what he said, we're only safe until we upset him."
"That's not exactly what he said..." Anika responded.
"No, but it was definitely implied."
"Indeed. Alex is right."
"I never said we shouldn't eat his food, i'm just saying we should be really careful."
"Oh yeah, definitely." Alexi agreed.
"Of course, yeah. This whole thing is really fishy." Aeris said.
"Of course it is, we're on an island...although we haven't had authentic British fish and chips yet."
Silence. Aeris and Anika looked at Alex like she was crazy, and then started cracking up. It was a terrible joke.
"What the h*ll? What even-" Aeris trailed off because she was too busy laughing.
"That was a terrible joke, I suck."
"No," Anika said between her laughs, "It was great. Terrible, but great."
There was knock on their door. "I hear laughter!" Oliver's peppy voice chimed from the other side of the door, "That means everyone is up and ready for breakfast! May I come in?"
"Yeah." Aeris answered.
The strawberry blond entered. He was dressed in a pink sweater vest with a matching bowtie and a white button up shirt.
"Good morning, sleeping beauties! How did everyone sleep?"
"Pretty good."
"Fine."
"Good."
Oliver smiled, "Glad to hear it! Well, I made muffins this morning, I hope everyone likes that. I also made your tea of course."
"Yeah, that sounds good." Anika answered.
"Lovely. Come along then!" He started out of the room and they followed him.
-xXx-
The rain had stopped late, late last night, and the sky was clear for once, casting natural light through the windows, which had the drapes opened, lighting up the house. This altogether gave it a more welcoming feeling. There was still an uneasy aura, but it was more welcoming all the same.
Oliver led them into the dining room again, where the tea and the muffins were waiting for them.
"I'm sorry I can't eat with you," he apologized, "But I already had my breakfast earlier. I have much to do today, but I wanted to ensure that you all got your breakfast before I headed out."
"It's okay," said Anika, "Thank you for breakfast."
"Of course! You are my guests aren't you?" he giggled, "Anyway, like I said, I do have some things to take care of, so I'll be out running around for a while, at least this morning, maybe even later than that. Feel free to go anywhere in the house you like, except for the forbidden room and my bedroom. And you can't go outside either, it's far too dangerous for pretty young ladies-or anyone for that matter. And if i'm not back by lunch, I've left some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the fridge for you. I shouldn't be out that long though." he finished rinsing his dishes, and closed the dishwasher.
"Where are you going?" Aeris asked.
"Nowhere special, just running some errands...Well, I really must go now, I'll see you a little later, poppets. Goodbye." and with that, Oliver departed from the dining room, in a rushed manor, avoiding any additional questions.
The girls waited until they heard the front door close before turning to each other.
"That was odd..." Anika commented.
"Check the door." Alex said, "I bet you it's locked."
"Will do," Aeris made her way over. "Yep, and I have no idea where the keys are. We're trapped. Uggh this whole thing is just terrible."
Alex exploded. "Terrible and getting worse! First of all, we got teleported by a map room and a mirror to a war-torn London, Big Ben almost killed us, we've basically been kidnapped by and now trapped in the home of an identity-confused, emotionally unstable Englishman who is possibly insane! He's so d*mn cute, but he's a creepy creeper!" Alex exclaimed, "I feel bad for him but the pet names are freaking me out! And some of the things he says make me incredibly uncomfortable! I don't care how nice he is! I don't like him! We're stuck in a future that's a disaster and which we know nothing about, with communication that doesn't work, and no way we know of that will get us home, after a third war that was supposed to destroy everything with nuclear weapons but didn't! Nowhere in any social science books does it say anything about a post-world-war-three world! If we don't get out of here I'm going be the next one to go insane!" She huffed.
"Alex, calm down!" Aeris exclaimed, "I know, everything sucks, but we need to think about this rationally. First of all, Oliver is going to be out for a while, so we have a chance to look around his home to see if we can find anything that will give us answers. He's nice enough that we can probably get info out of him too, like I already said. And, if we ended up here, we can get back. It might take time though. And we'll start looking for a way out too."
"But where do we go?" Anika asked, "Oliver said we'll get killed if we leave. And I don't think he's lying about that."
"I don't know where to go. But we need to get out of England, I don't know how, but we have to. And, we can defend ourselves." Aeris replied, "But before we even attempt to leave, we need to figure things out and try to understand how we got here in the first place."
Anika and Alex sighed, "You're right." The strawberry blonde replied, "before we figure out how to get back we need to unravel the mystery of this future world first. For example, how the world ended up this way in the first place."
"Yes," Anika agreed.
"Let's get started then." Aeris said.