Percy was scrolling through his phone, standing on the right side of the hallway, backing himself as much as he could toward the wall despite the hallway being relatively inactive.

He looked at the forums with frustration, lamenting about his now dead plant, one of many to join the trail of dead vegetation carved out by Percy’s black thumb. 

Scrolling through the string of advice and the discussion only served as fuel for a fire that had been burning within Percy’s psyche for an unknown amount of time. Something that Percy couldn’t quite put out no matter how much he…

“Hey.”

Percy’s looked towards the right side of the hall almost immediately. Philadelphia was walking down the hall, this time the Eldrich being was wearing a black muscle tee stained with a white chalky substance with black jeans to match. 

Seeing Philly once again made Percy feel something he hadn’t quite felt before. Sometimes he felt this way with Sophia but this feeling was far stronger, and different. 

He felt very close to Philly but not in the way he expected.

“Hi, there.” Percy smiled.

“How’s everything been?” Philly asked as they began to walk down the hall where Philly came from. 

“Everything… good” Percy said.  

“Really?” Philadelphia asked. “You didn’t sound very sure.”

“Yeah. I’m sure. Assignments and such.” Percy shrugged. “If you going to get another degree just don’t major in psychology.”

“Duly noted,” Philadelphia said. “You need help with anything or…”

“No, no, no.” Percy shook his head slightly. “I’m alright, thanks.”

“Up,” Philadelphia stopped. “we passed it.”

Philadelphia took a few steps back until he reached an open door. Philly walked inside with Percy tailing in behind him until he was hit with amazement as he entered the room.

Percy slowly scanned the room attempting to process the large number of sculptures that filled almost every corner of the room.

Percy attempted to count the dozens, no, hundreds of sculptures that varied different sizes and shapes portraying creatures with a range of abstract forms.  

Philadelphia was able to maneuver around them instinctually to a medium-sized wooden table that occupied the right corner of the room. And even within that small corner of real estate, there were still a variety of small sculptures occupying the desk, some of which were half-finished. 

The closest one Percy was able to reach was the sculpture of a worm-like creature with a varying array of finger-like appendages making up his skin. At the tip was a circular mouth with spikes spiraling down the throat. 

The amount of detail surprised Percy as he couldn’t help but flutter his wings to hover near the top of the sculpture.

“Wow,” Percy said. “Did you make these all up from your head?”

“Thats my family,” Philadelphia said causing Percy to warm and stiffen his body with an uncontrollable cringe that could only follow from utter embarrassment.  “That one you're looking at is my older sibling.”

“That one is my aunt.” Philadelphia pointed to a sculpture next to the worm before pointing at another sculpture “That one is my other parent’s sibling on my dad's side. That is another one of my parent’s sib… wait… no thats my cousin.”

“You sculpted your entire family?” Percy asked.

“Almost my entire family,” Philly studdered. “I guess this is kind of a form of documenting their existence because I guess their all too busy, you know like hopping dimensions and haunting people in their nightmares and all that. Whenever I meet one of them, I just sculpt them so it becomes harder to forget their existence. ”

“Your memory is amazing.” Percy looked at another smaller sculpture of a familiar humanoid figure with dragon wings, a big bulbous head, and tentacles in place of its mouth. “Well, I think they all look great. The level of detail you put into them is…”

“Thank you,” Philly took advantage of Percy’s speechlessness. “I guess it makes me feel connected in a way. It makes them feel like family and not just… not just strangers.”

“Who’s that one going to be?” Percy nudged over to the sculpture Philly was working on.

“My Cousin, Cee,” Philadelphia said.  “Thats what I called him. If I were to say his actual name your head would explode.”

“Oh…” Percy paused. “Good to know.”

“Cee was… he was like my best friend,” Philadelphia sighed. “We kinda drifted apart for a while. Everyone I know eventually does. I wish it wasn’t like that but thats life I guess. That sculpture over there is of one of my parent's siblings on my mom's side, I only saw them once in my life for about two hours. That one I talked to for four hours during a dream I had. That one next to them I passed by one at a reunion and he was one of the only few to ever show up.”

Percy and Philly sat in silence, Percy felt mildly uncomfortable by how helpless he felt, he wanted to comfort him, maybe tell him its okay, but Percy didn’t see the use of assuring his friend that everything is okay even if it wasn’t okay.

 Philly started chiseling away at the marble, partially embarrassed, and slightly emotional. The chipping of the stone pushed his thoughts away for the time being.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.” Philly’s compulsion to apologize overtook him “That was…” 

“No. It’s fine.” Percy smiled weakly. “I’m always here if you need to vent or talk or anything.” 

“Thanks,” Philly paused. “I just don’t like being a downer.”

“Philly, don’t say that” Percy raised his voice slightly. “You’re not a downer.” 

“I know,” Philly said. “I’d just rather make people happy, you know. I don’t wanna scare people off and all that”

“Well, I’m still here.” Percy smiled, “Aren’t I?”

“Well you're a nerd so… ” Philly shrugged. 

“Philly,” Percy inhaled. “You…”

Percy sighed feeling slightly defeated leaving Philly to chuckle for a while as he continued sculpting. Percy looked down at the ground until a strange thought popped into his head.

“Wait” Percy raised his head slowly. “Do you just sculpt family or do you sculpt other people too?”

“I mean, I’ve sculpted friends,” Philadelphia answered.

“Did you sculpt me?” Percy’s question seemed to cause Philidelphia to squint his eye nervously.

“Maybe,” Philadelphia said slowly.

“I wanna see.” Percy walked through the forest of sculptures until he reached the table. Philadelphia put down the sculpture he was working on before grabbing a small sculpture on his desk. About the size of a regular human fist was a small sculpture of Percy.

“Wow” Percy looked at it closely, examining the incredible amount of detail engraved on the small slab of stone. However, something caught Percy’s eye and slightly took him aback “Is my snout really that big?”

“Uh…” Philadelphia held the sculpture up lining it next to Percy. Philly then faced the frontal profile of the sculpture toward his eye. After looking at them both for a while he said; “Yup”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Percy laughed. “My snout is not that big, and my eyes are not that small either. “

Philly looked at Percy’s face, then back at the sculpture, then back at Percy. Philly leaned in and squinted looking at Percy’s face closer. Then Philly leaned back returning to a standard gaze. 

“Do you mind if I take a closer look?” Philly asked.

“Sure,” Percy said casually, not really expecting anything to happen.

Philly leaned towards Percy and softly put his hand around his face holding it still and looking into Percy’s eyes. Percy had forgotten how warm Philidelphia was for such a slimy-looking cosmic sea monster. Percy himself couldn’t really help but heat up a bit out of slight embarrassment. Percy didn’t really know what was more embarrassing, the fact that he’d let someone examine his face in such a way or the fact that he actually…

 he actually…

… kind of liked it… 

“Yeah.” Philly groaned. “I messed up the eye shape a bit…”

“Really…”

“Yup.” Philadelphia then remarked casually. “Wow, you have really nice eyes.”

“Thanks,” Percy said awkwardly, not really knowing how to take a statement that was so large in scale and so new to him delivered with such a matter-of-fact tone

Philadelphia leaned back and sighed. Percy looked up at Philly, and they both stared at each other for a while.

“Oh shoot,” Philly shouted “It’s 3:26, you better get to class”

“Oh, uh.” Percy raised his voice. “I better get to class.”

“Alright,” Philadelphia said as Percy turned around. He quickly but carefully made his way toward the entryway.

“I’ll see you afterward?” Percy shouted. 

“Totally,” Philly said, he watched Percy leave, only staring at the door for a few minutes before slowly turning around and getting back to work.