“Oh… Okay.” That was Eve’s response. She walked over to the black recliner and sat down. Then her brown skin got darker until it was practically obsidian. After a few deep breaths, she said: “We can’t leave the island. We can’t enter the depths of the island. As long as we grow some crops and fish or hunt, we can survive until the island returns to ‘normal’… So it doesn’t really matter whether we’re on Earth and trapped in a bubble, or on another world.”

“Pft~!” I couldn’t help but laugh at that. As I grinned at her, I complained: “The difference is that we have no fucking clue what’s out there beyond the island itself. I don’t know what kinda defenses are protecting this place, but they might not be enough to stop a full blown invasion. Or a nuclear bombardment. Hell, there might be some weird sea monsters popping up or giant flying dragons…”

She looked like she wanted to laugh a few times and a bright-red blush was clearly overtaking her pitch-black cheeks, but she eventually regained her composure. I couldn’t help but say, “I think it’s kinda cute how much you struggle to restrain yourself. Don’t worry… Even if your muscles and bones turned invisible and I was just talking to a brain with eyeballs, it wouldn’t be half as weird as some of the hentai I’ve seen.”

Eve looked away from me and started staring at the wall again, while slowly saying: “I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier. It’s been a long time since I met someone in person and… But that’s no excuse. I shouldn’t have been so impulsive. I’m sorry you had to see me like that. And I hope this won’t stop us from becoming friends.”

“Listen, I didn’t say this before, because I wasn’t really sure if I was allowed to… And well, it’s a little awkward anyway.” I sighed and eventually admitted, “The truth is that I’m not ‘just’ Ana. In fact, it’s debatable whether Ana actually exists as an individual at all. She was born in a coma, spent her entire life until a few months ago unconscious in a lab somewhere, supposedly… And then I woke up one day inside her body, next to ‘Michael’.”

After a few seconds, she asked: “Didn’t you already tell me that the other day?”

“No, not exactly.” I snickered, then shook my head at her and explained: “After my original body woke up I umm, well, I figured out that I have two bodies now. I’m two bodies with a kinda-sorta hive-mind maybe? When one is asleep and the other is awake, I feel pretty much like a normal person would. But when we’re both awake… Maybe it would be overwhelming for a single mind to endure, but I technically have two brains. They just share memories and thoughts, so if you really think about it though, even normal brains have two separate halves that can do things individually. So it’s not really that strange. Okay, it is weird. It’s super fucking weird. But, that’s life I guess.”

After staring at me for a while, she finally sighed and then turned back to the wall. Although I’m apparently psychic, I couldn’t tell what the fuck she was thinking. Eventually I started talking again: “So~, anyway~… I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m technically single? And straight… Or well, you know, only attracted to women?”

“I’m… Gay.” Eve sighed as her face turned pinkish, “I’m only attracted to girls so… I don’t think things would work out between us.”

I snickered and shook my head, “Well we literally just met. So even if I think you’re sexy, I don’t really know you at all to be honest. You like birds, fishing, gardening and meditation… Do you like pasta?”

“Everyone likes pasta.” She smiled at me for a moment, before frowning as she covered her face with her right hand. The skin on her wrist was transparent, while her hand was actually bright pink. After a few seconds, she said: “I’m sorry… It’s just so hard to stay calm around you… Are you sure you don’t have any other ‘powers’? When I look into your eyes, I-I it feels like you’re… I don’t know. And just being around you makes me feel like my body is on fire. Wait, did you just say you think I look sexy?”

“Well yeah, from what I’ve seen so far at least. You’re pretty beautiful.” I scooted over on the couch and got much closer to the black recliner. Then I smiled and couldn’t help but ask: “Have you ever had a girlfriend before? You said you know some other people on the island…”

“Uh, umm…” She started breathing heavily, almost panting as she cautiously lowered her hand and turned her face towards mine. It didn’t seem like the transparent state was something she could control, since it was so inconsistent. For example, the left side of her face was light-beige, while the right was almost completely transparent, with the veins, muscle fibers, bones and ligaments completely visible. It seemed like her pink lips stayed the same though.

“I’m gonna take that as a maybe?” I raised my right eyebrow and wondered, “Maybe a short-lived internet girlfriend? Or a girl you had a crush on, but she only saw you as a friend?”

“Did ‘They’ tell you that, or did you just read my mind?” Eve cringed and her face turned bright-red immediately.

I shrugged, complaining: “If I could read your mind, I’d come up with something way harder to guess than that. I had one girlfriend in my life so far. We dated from the time I was seventeen to nineteen.”

She turned away from me and coughed, then quietly said: “I um… Already know about Veronica. ‘They’ gave me… A ‘lot’ of information on you. If you’re really Michael Cinagra, then… Well, at least the past fifteen years of your life are either on Facenovel or on your own website.”

“Hehehe~, well, that’s life now days.” I snickered and told her, “To be honest… If you read some of my stories, you can probably figure out the rest of my ‘entire life’, including my most fucked up fantasies and nightmares. Sometimes exaggerations tell you more about a person’s mind than the literal truth.”

Eve finally smiled and laughed at me… It was like a rainbow of vibrant colors erupted from her face and rippled across her entire body, down to her hands and legs, as her skin quickly turned translucent. Then she coughed and sighed, struggling to ‘hide’ behind the dark-brown camouflage that she forcefully created for herself.

“I’ve read some of your stories.” She paused for a while, before asking: “Are you really a furry?”

I smiled wryly, then in a high-pitched voice, cautiously said: “Maybe? Well you know, not in the sense that I would wanna fuck actual animals, or people in stupid costumes… I do masturbate to a lot of furry porn though. Wait, why? Holy shit, you’ve been living alone on this island for your whole life, so don’t worry. I won’t judge even if you tell me you’ve ‘experimented’ with the local wildlife or-”

“No! I didn’t-” She immediately lost her composure again, which I honestly found hilarious and started laughing. Then she covered her face with her seemingly fleshless hands and rambled: “I just, I… No, I’ve never had sex with any animals! Why are we even talking about this? Are you just trying to make fun of me?!”

“Oh calm down~… I’m sorry, but this is just my personality. I’m fucking weird. Everybody who knows me well will probably say something similar. I probably have Aspergers hahah~! Seriously though, I took a test one time online and… Anyway, this is probably a lot for a hardcore hermit to take. I’m basically just a shut-in at most. But I can still understand how overwhelmed you must be feeling right now.” 

I snickered and moved over closer. Then I suddenly got the urge to reach out and gently rub the back of my left hand against hers, which seemed to freak her out even more. I noticed that her ‘invisible’ skin felt more like very smooth and delicate scales. Not really surprising, since they probably spliced her DNA with a fucking geko or some such bullshit.

Anyway, Eve didn’t run away this time. She just lowered her hands and glared at me with slightly watery blue eyes. Yeah, not only were her cheeks and eyelids blue, the irises themselves were practically glowing in a bright azure color. I couldn’t help but ask: “Why do you keep hiding your face?”

The blue spread out and got darker, until her skin eventually settled on a purplish-red tint, while her irises were changing as well. She choked as she was about to speak, quickly turning her face away from mine again. We were really close at that point and I honestly felt a little self-conscious. I thought she smelled great, but what if she was on the verge of gagging because I smelled so bad? I do eat a lot of fucking garlic after all… Which smells great to me, but a lot of people hate it. And she already did have some vampire-esque tendencies.

Finally, she answered: “You don’t have to lie to me. I know I’m hideous.”