The FK in the Coffee

Chloe was looking a little nervous, while Morgan was encroaching on her personal space. When Morgan apologized, Chloe slowly began to lean in towards Morgan. Wordlessly, she leaned over closer, and closer, so close that her horns were about to touch Morgan’s forehead. Once they were this close, she stopped, then grinned. “No problem. Apology accepted.”

The demon-girl fell back into her chair with a chuckle. “So... answers. As far as I can tell, it’s very similar. We have the same kinds of technology, for the most part, and even the same cultures, for the most part. Those kinds of differences are really small, and I haven’t noticed many yet. For example, we both have Star Trek, but my version of Picard had a French accent. The big differences have to do with supernatural stuff. And... uh, how the world handles supernatural stuff.”

Chloe paused, thinking of the best way to explain that part of her world to someone from here.

Chloe waited a few seconds for Morgan to ask a question. When she didn’t, Chloe continued. “There… isn’t as much supernatural stuff in my world. Humans were the only sentient life we knew of. The only kind of supernatural thing anyone knew about was a… condition that some humans had. It would change people, usually during puberty, in… unpredictable ways.”

She glanced over at her bags. Everything still seemed to be there. She repositioned herself so that the bags would stay in her peripheral vision.

“For example, we had shapeshifters, we had telepaths, telekinetics, a guy who could turn into metal, a girl who could control electricity…” She stopped. She would never be able to see any of those people, ever again, wouldn’t she? Not even the girl with the electricity powers.

Her eyes began to water a little. “Excuse me.” She grabbed a paper towel and wiped her eyes, but she didn’t show any signs of stopping. “And then there’s people like me. It’s rare to have the condition, and it’s even rare for the condition to irreversibly change your body, like it did to me. So I was a freak among freaks, I guess.” She chuckled.

“…Sure.” Despite the moisture in her eyes, Chloe’s voice remained level. She didn’t do anything about Morgan’s hand on her shoulder. “Aurora says she’s already trying to figure it out, though. She works at the school, and she’d supposed to be the local expert on this kind of thing. But… it couldn’t hurt I guess.”

“Number 24!” announced the man at the counter. Chloe excused herself to retrieve her order – some coffee, a sandwich, some chips. She blew on the coffee a few times before sipping it.

“People might think of my story as a cautionary tale about revealing ourselves to the world at large, though. Which would be unfortunate, because I actually don’t think we should all be hiding.” She picked up one of her chips, as though she was about to eat it, but stopped and looked up at Morgan. “…I didn’t get to that part yet, did I?”

“Alright.” Chloe ate a few chips before moving on with the story. She hadn’t had lunch yet.

“So. We were all supposed to be a big secret. We had been for over a hundred years, maybe even longer. Being a secret means we didn’t have a lot of written history, you know, so nobody really, uh…” She realized that she was going off on a tangent. “Anyway. Some idiots decided to blow the lid on our existence by simultaneously attacking the capital of every major player in the UN at the same time.” Chloe took a sip of coffee, then smiled as she slammed her cup against the table.

“And that was how we were introduced to the world. As terrorists who think that they’re better than humans and want to rule the world. People on the news were talking about exterminating all of us the next day. You know, because we all have the same opinions, and attempted genocide won’t rally all of us to fight back against the humans more.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. She stopped and stared at her coffee for a moment, her eyes following the way remnants of foam floated on its surface.

“That actually happened in some other countries. In my universe’s version of the US, some shady government agency kidnapped some of us, so we organized a team to bring them back. They chased us home and shot up the school, but we managed to fight them off.” She cleared her throat. “They seriously wounded fifty-one of us, and killed twenty six. Local hospitals couldn’t deal with all the wounded, and the people with healing powers weren’t able to do enough.”

The academy – the one she used to go to, not the one she went to now – was a small school. She knew all twenty-six of those people by their first names.

Chloe shrugged. She knew Morgan was trying to make her feel better. “Well, we are on an island in the middle of the pacific. So there’s that, I guess,” she nodded. “We are safe.”

She went back to staring at her coffee. She saw a pattern in the foam – for a few seconds, it looked like the letters F and K, as though her coffee was offering its opinion about Chloe’s story. F-dash-dash-K. She took another sip.

“…Being unsafe wasn’t the worst part.” She managed to say. “I survived, yeah, but I knew I wouldn’t get to have a life anyway. Even before all the genocidey stuff, I knew I’d have to hide away from the world for my whole life. Either to keep a big secret or to stay alive.”

She sighed. “And that might be kinda true here too, now that I think of it. Island in the middle of the pacific.” It would be depressing if she hadn't already resigned herself to it.