“Why should we believe you? We know you two are very close.”

Their hands were neatly folded, as if to give off the illusion that the tension in the air was hidden by their very normal nonchalant behavior. There was nothing unnatural about how they spoke in deadpan unison. How their backs were unbendingly stiff regardless of how they moved, as if their vertebrae were hot-glued together. It wasn’t strange at all how they looked like they were dressed two centuries behind, or how they knew Arthur. Or me.

They stared at me blankly through dark sunglasses. I half expected them to lick their identically chapped lips with assumingely very normal lizard tongues.

“Uhm,” I paused. It’s not like they were wrong. Arthur and I were close; and in all that time, fantastical things always seemed to happen to him.

Apparently, including being the target of two very strange, very large, dangerous men in outdated suits.

With very sharp looking rapiers at their hips.

I steeled my resolve, eager to have them release me. “It’s not a lie. Arthur couldn’t have taken your uhm, roe-“

“-clutch.” They corrected sharply.

“Right. Clutch, because well first, he doesn’t like eggs. And second, he was actually with me, at the movies.”

I tried to meet their eyes, but didn’t know which one to look at. I shifted uncomfortably.

“Which film did you view?” Their voices were cool and soothing, which made the hair on the back of my neck stand even straighter.

“Uhm. The Hunger Games?”

“The film that released nine years ago?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Do you know what we do with liars where we are from?” Their hands drifted to their swords.

“I-it’s a good thing I’m not a liar then.” I forced a loud chuckle.

They abruptly stood in unison.

I quickly located the door behind them and held my breath, muscles tensing in my legs.

“Thank you for your time,” they crooned at me, bowing slightly, “we will keep in touch.”

“Oh yes,” I said, scrambling up to speed walk the hell out of the room. “Please do that.”

After flinging myself out of the doors to wheeze out any lizard spores I might have sitting in my lungs, my first thought was to run directly across the street to the local coffee shop.

As much as I wanted to be as far away as possible from that room, I needed to sit.

The warm smell of coffee and baked goods greeted my nose, replacing the metal stink of the interrogation room. I sat at a table by the window, but before I could pick out one of the swirling thoughts in my brain, I heard a familiar voice.

“Bo! Hey!” It was Arthur. He beamed at me from the other side of the glass. “Come out here! I wanna show you something!” He beckoned.

I noticed my knees were trembling as I went out to meet him, placing careful eyes on the big office doors across the street. “Dude!” I hissed. “What the hell did you do? Weren’t you locked up? These two-“

“Bro, it’s a long story, but check out the goods.” He said, producing a woven bag full of round multicolored spheres.

It looked like he went dip-netting in a Chuck-e-Cheese ball pit. If the balls were slimy and glowed from the inside like some kind of smelly wet flashlight.

“Fuck me,” I said.

A sudden bone rattling shriek filled the air. My eyes snapped to the building across the street. There stood Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Diamondback Rattlesnake, mouths wide open; screaming in unison with their jaws hanging at an inhuman degree.

“Liar!” They screeched, drew their blades and lurched forward.

“Oh fuck me,” I said, tripping backwards.

Arthur tossed the dripping bag at me. “Run! Take the eggs! I’ll find you!” He had miraculously produced a sword from nowhere and leaped in front of me to meet them.

“Go!”