Confused atoms

- “Really nice view, huh?” He wasn’t wrong. A dim moonlight watched over the two teenagers as they lazily lay on the wet grass. - “It’s very pretty.” Maria agreed. - “Right? Look at all these stars. Did you know we were made of them?” In the horizon, Maria could make out the distant fire from the camp they had snuck away from. She knew they had to get back before the teachers noticed their absence, but one does not turn away from an audience granted by the heavens. Thousands upon thousands of tiny celestial white dots demanded her attention, and she happily gave it to them. It turns out, the boy lying next to her also needed her attention. - “You know; this reminds me a lot of this Nietzsche book I read.” He added. She turned on her side to look at him. She knew he was full of shit. There was no way in hell this guy had ever been within a kilometre radius of a book. But, he had a warm smile and cute eyes, so she humoured him. - “Go on.” - “Well, he is a very interesti...

I wish I could say that I wasn’t afraid of the dark. I was a grown woman. Independent, college educated and all that. But you know what? You try sitting in the dark in a huge Bulgarian mansion at night, where your only company is an old senile man. I tried to distract myself as best as I could. I listened to a couple of podcasts, texted some friends, and played some dumb games on my phone. But eventually, the battery reached 10%, and I had to find other sources of entertainment. Did I mention that this place has no working electricity? It’s weird, right? Surely this guy was loaded, or at the very least, had a rich relative taking care of his expenses. Not everyone has the luxury to retire in such a place.  So, why no electricity? Maybe he forgot to pay his bills. He’s been doing a lot of that lately. Yeah okay, that was a little cruel. I sighed and pocketed my phone, using my flashlight to navigate to the kitchen, where I retrieved one of the gas lanterns. It was al...