Odd World

“Hurry or I’ll leave without you!”

Almost startled I come back to earth and finish brushing my teeth “I’m coming”

I head to the door, “We planned this epic Friday night to help you relieve some stress, wouldn’t want to miss it don’t you think?” she smirks

I roll up my eyes “We told no one and even Anton was getting worried, come on let’s not keep my sis and the others waiting”

“I wouldn’t dare” I replay sarcastically

I really need a break though, it’s not like I chose an easy career, chemical engineering is no joke

We step out of the building and it’s cold November weather which reminds me, in a week it will be my first birthday away from my family. I haven’t given it much thought though

“F*ck this is cold”

“This will be your first real cold winter, right?”

“Not much snow down on the tropics, people start freaking out if it drops below 15 Celsius”

“But that’s like 59 Fahrenheit” she giggles “I could go out wearing shorts at that temperature!”

“Well at least I didn’t have to worry about frostbite”

“Oh shut up”

We took the train to Berlin and were already entering a bar, it wasn’t am an ugly bar which only sold local horrible beer, in this one you could even order expensive cocktails!, not that I would or could buy any but still.

“Hey guys, you finally decided to join us!”

“Hi sis” says Selena

I look at her and she’s red-headed with some amazing green eyes, Selena and Alex are twins so they look similar. In my mind, there are 3 types of beauty: cute, hot and, well beautiful, Selena is hot and Alex is simply beautiful. She is wearing warm shoes, jeans and a brown coat, she’s a bit shorter than me but not too much.

“Hi Alex” I say as I approach to kiss her cheek

“He, I’m still getting used to the fact that where you come from, you guys greet friends with kisses and hugs”

“So friendly right?” An austrian girl comes to greet us, she has long blond hair and blue eyes, she’s on heels and wearing a pink kinda casual dress, without her heels she is shorter than me though. She faces me gesturing me to also kiss her cheek.

I let out a low chuckle and give in “Happy to see you too Marie, it’s been, what, 6 hours? So long!”

“I know right?” She giggles, from our group she’s the one who adopted my manners the most

I see 2 boys my age coming, one is Taiwanese(but that depends on who you ask). He’s shorter than me, his hair is a bit long and messy and he is wearing jeans and a brown sweater. The other one is German and clearly taller than me, I’m 1.76 m tall (5 feet 11) but he must be like 10 cm taller (he’s around 6 feet 4), anyway he has blond hair and like Marie, he’s also dressed like it’s the last day of summer.

“Hi Blake”

“Hi J.”

We both meet rather awkwardly. I don’t approach to hug him and I hesitate on whether I should go for a handshake or nothing at all. I used to be socially awkward but it doesn’t help that he’s maybe worse than I used to be.

Anton comes to greet me with a cocky smile “What’s up “mae”” (Mae it’s the costarrican equivalent of dude, mate and the such)

“Pura Vida Anton” I respond with a friendly handshake while looking up to face him

“Let’s get this night started!” he shouts

We are 3 hours into it, slightly drunk, we have talked and joked about stuff, but I excuse myself because I want a break.

“I’m getting a drink, be back in a short while” I stand up from our table and walk to the bartender

“A shot of vodka please” I say as I sit on a stool “Sure… here” he says as he retrieves the bottle and tiny glass and serves it. “Thanks” I pay him.

I grab the tiny thing with 3 fingers, slowly and gently I spin it in a small imaginary circle while I stare down at it and I’m thinking about what had happened and also about my family and my birthday next week. I guess I didn’t hide it very well because Alex came and sit on a stool beside me.

“A glass of water, please… thank you” she pays the man

“I didn’t picture you as a strong drinker”

I smile and look at her “Well with this liver (I palp my abdomen) you can’t really get started on just beer”

“Are you serious?” She glares at me,

“I’m not kidding, first time I actually got beyond the “happy” state I had to chug down more than 2 liters of beer, and it was German, but that’s too expensive and I actually do like vodka.” I think to myself <Though that was in the Volksfest, they pretty much scammed us>

“Wow, anyway I saw you kinda down a minute ago, is there something wrong?”

“I didn’t hide it very well did I?”

“Your special day is in a few days and you miss your family, right?”

<That’s not the whole picture but I don’t want to think about that>

“Yea but it’s all right, won’t be the first time I make my own birthday cake”

“I can’t tell more but you won’t need to, trust me”

“Wow spoilers, well I was thinking about doing something with you guys anyway, I guess I won’t have plan it now” I let out another deep chuckle.

“I was too obvious wasn’t I?”

“Yep, I won’t tell a thing don’t worry, maybe I’ll even forget about it, you’d be off the hook!”

She puts a more serious face

“Hey, I was thinking...”

“Ladies and gentlemen the karaoke is now open and our first participant” I look in that direction and one man is telling something to the presenter.

“Georg here will sing Despacito by Luis Fonci! Come and cheer for him!”

“This will be hilarious, I don’t know why Germans love that song but don’t know a thing about spanish, come on!”

She looks like she’s about to say something but I grab her hand and I pull her to follow me, which she does.

We sit on a table near the stage and the song starts, I am preparing myself for what is about to come. To my surprise, his pronunciation isn’t as bad as I expected but the first part is easy. Then comes the bridge, he’s having some trouble and I’m just trying to hold back, in one verse he could not handle it at all, it came out as gibberish.

<Don’t laugh, don’t laugh> I think to myself

Then came the chorus and the man nailed it but the rap is next and even for me it’s freaking hard to pull off.

And now, I’m requiring every ounce of my will power not to laugh out loud. Everything amplified by the feeling of intoxication.

I manage it until I look over to Alex, we make eye contact and both could not hold it anymore.

We break and start laughing. Unlike before, my laugh is high-pitched and erratic, doesn’t pass to much longer before everyone else is also laughing with us.

The man’s face is completely red, he frowns at me and shouts in German obviously furious.

“Hey Jackass if you think I’m doing so bad why don’t you come up here and show us how it’s done!”

Everyone stares at us and Alex tells me “You don’t have to, we could just” Me winking at her stops her mid-sentence.

“Challenge accepted!” Trying to sound as German as I could. With my German looks, this man doesn’t suspect a thing.

I go up the stage and the DJ puts the same song

At first, I try faking an accent, even during the first chorus but then came the rap.

I go full Latino and I kill it, people start clapping and cheering for me.

I finish the rap and go into the second chorus and I don’t fake it anymore.

People go nuts like I am the celebrity himself. When I finish they ask for another, and I sing again and again. After the sixth one, my voice starts cracking and I come back to our table where the rest of our group had joined Alex.

“Oh mein Gott Jürgen,” said Marie “since when do you sing?!”

“That was amazing dude, I don’t know if you saw that guy’s face change when you started rapping, his expression was priceless!” Anton mimicks a face of malice turning into one of annoyance, like saying “F*ck I screwed up”

We laugh

“I try my best to not disappoint, thank you very much,” I say as I comically bow

“Haha seriously though, when did you learn to sing like that, you told you had violin and guitar lessons but never singing ones,” Alex askes me.

“That’s because I never had any lessons. I’m self-taught. at my old school at the end of every semester, each class played one or two songs and I sang my last 4 and during my graduation” I scratch my neck a little nervous.

“Damn you got some balls made of steel then hu” smirks Selena at me

“Almost everyone I know would piss themselves before completing a sentence speaking so publicly”

“Honestly after every time I have performed like that, my whole body shakes uncontrollably for like 5 minutes, I think it’s just adrenaline coursing through my veins” Chuckling I raise my shaking hand “Look.”

We chuckle again but right after Blake yawns and so does Alex.

“I don’t know about you guys but I’m beat,” says a clearly exhausted Blake

“I can tell, I can barely see your pupils in there” Anton mocks him by almost completely closing his eyes.

“That’s funny and racist” responds Marie

“You know I don’t mean anything by that”

“Let’s just get going now, Selena and I could miss our bus and I don’t want an hour-long walk tonight”

We go out and start walking to the subway station, a few blocks forward then to the right a few more and barely just barely we manage to enter the last train of the night.

But our luck runs out after that,

<Hour-long walk it is then, p*cha>

If we weren’t tired before we're definitely now.

“I think tomorrow I’ll sleep till like 11 or so, my feet are killing me!”

“Yea I...” I trail off, something else catches my attention in an alley we are about to pass, the bird-like shape in shades of grey on the brick wall. I point at the thing “Did you see that?”

The bird moves a bit and spins around, its back now facing the street

“Yea I thought those little guys sleep at night?”

“Let’s go check it out” Selena nods and follows me, the shadow reacts and gets deeper into the alley. We enter and I see the shadow going between two buildings that are back to back forming a smaller alley.

<Maybe he or she’s taking us to its nest? Maybe it’s trying to protect it?>

We now stand at the entrance of the mini alley. I stare at Selena; she nods and we enter, we can barely walk side by side. I look at the end of it and the shadow is there, almost as it’s waiting for us. Seems like the alley is wider there.

<Well, that’s a welcome change> I think as we enter that wider area

“Where are you, little buddy?” Selena says

To that, the shadow reacts and turns, as if trying to face me from the wall. Then to my surprise, it starts coming out of the wall taking a 3D form about a few centimeters shorter than me. I want to run away but I’m just standing there wide-eyed as it walks towards me.

I’m scared, I hate horror movies, even Scary Movie gave me nightmares. It stops a meter in front of me and bends its long neck to the right like it was trying to get a good look of me. It straightens out again shaking a bit as if a shiver was running down its spine; it wiggles its wings and tail a bit.

I can’t describe it but it felt familiar somehow and that calms me. Seeing the change he moves a little, looking kinda happy that I’m not scared anymore and it raises one of its legs and extends it towards me with an open foot.

<Hm looks like you want a hand-footshake>

I hesitate

<Better not leave you hanging there>

I extend my right arm and shake its foot. To my surprise, I can feel its scales and claws. <Ok I’m definitely not just seeing things right now> but then the shadow starts fading away and I start feeling an electric current flowing through my body. Doesn’t hurt much at first but then it starts gaining force, it hurts, my whole body and it is getting worse.

I fall to my knees and hands, twitching in pain as it gets worse. I fall to my side I let out choked painting sound kinda like a growl; I trash and turn. I end up laying on my back.

The pain is unbearable and I can’t form any thoughts. I close my eyes for a bit and I feel like I’m going to black out so I open my eyes to try and resist it. I look at my feet for a short moment just before the inevitable I see a gray outline around me and at my feet have a dark shine to them.

Then it all fades to black.

Then the same electric pain wakes me up again, only this time it’s only in my insides so at least my arms, legs, neck, and head are free now. I open my eyes, to my surprise I’m in my bed, I look at my phone and it’s 4 am on Saturday.

<What the heck happened? Did I overdo it? I didn’t even drink that much> I get out of under my sheets and I notice I still have yesterday’s clothes on. I scratch the back of my head <could that have been a dream? I mean, I have never felt pain in one, and how on earth did I get back here yesterday?>

The pain fades away while I’m thinking, after trying hard to remember and getting sleepy I consider <Well maybe after a good sleep I’ll remember something>

After taking off my clothes I lay back down on my bed and under my sheets with one thing in my mind as I drifted off to sleep

<What the hell was that bird-like shadow?>