Excerpt: The End of the World

As Tieren passed through the halls, his little twin fans stopped him. He was in no mood to be congratulated for his good looks or ability to make everything and everyone around him cool. Who was he kidding, of course he was. He stopped when they asked him to and he bent down and scribbled his name in their books. Their eyes lit up with joy. Tieren had signed their books! Screaming as they ran down the hall Tieren turned around to find Ixxa behind him.
“Cute,” she assured him. Tieren turned away. “Say, do you want to have lunch?” How could she be so damned self-assured? He sighed before turning back and agreeing whole-heartedly. Together they wandered through the maze of halls making small talk, Ixxa commenting on how Tieren could improve on his skills and him nodding blindly, and numbly. They reached mess without Tieren realizing where he was walking. They each grabbed a tray and sat down near a window. Outside, the stars burned in the distance but the overwhelming chill of a sunless world was heavy upon the two members of the human species. Lunch began simply – “So why are you here? When did you arrive?” And so on. Ixxa responded to all of Tieren’s questions with an elusive simplicity. He knew that she was lying and she knew that she was a terrible liar. It wasn’t as though she laughed after each lie, but her eyes were forever twitching back and forth and eluding his gaze that she made it pretty obvious that was she told him was bogus and full of dishonesty. Finally he had had enough.