“You doing alright?” 

Percy once again found himself staring at the mesh of shapes outside of Philly's car. The leaves had begun to change to an orange or yellow color causing them to look like a wall of fire as the car was moving at high speeds. Percy turned over to Philly who was fixated on the road as he asked his question. Percy smiled briefly despite the fact that Philly was not making eye contact.

“Yeah I am,” Percy said. “Why?”

“No, your just quiet, a bit more than usual.” Philly paused for a few seconds. “We haven’t spoken in like ages… I tried to call while you weren’t in class, I don’t know if I was interrupting anything.”

“Not really. I think I was just asleep that day.” Percy responded. “Sorry I didn’t follow up…”

Percy and Philly once again resumed the usual quiet moment.

“Do you feel like we're drifting apart?” Philly asked

Percy turned to Philly and looked at him before staring out the window. 

“I don’t… I don’t think so…” Percy said. “I think we're just busy and out of our honeymoon phase.”

“Probably right,” Philadelphia said.

… 

Sculptures, thousands of them, scattered all across an empty patch of dead grass. Each sculpture was of a different species, sasquatches, Semi-aquatic leviathans, wendigo, and even a few humans who were probably still in the hundreds of thousands at the time these sculptures were made, now nearly beings of the past. 

All of the sculptures, these slabs of light gray stone, used to be a living beings. Transformed by a rattlesnake gorgon, a race of gorgons that lived amongst these planes in years past, or at least that is what the plaques said.

“Do you wanna know something interesting about these?” Philly was looking down at Percy while walking through the field. 

“What?” Percy said.

“A lot of these sculptures are very scared, I mean obviously because they're dying to a Gorgon”  Philly shrugged. “ but some of these are just stuck in the moment. As if the gorgon wasn’t there and they just happened to meet its gaze.”

Philly pointed to a sculpture of a bold dragon standing over a carcass. 

“Like that one, you can see the pride in his eyes, his stature presents a bold sense of dominance over his prey.” Philly pointed to another sculpture, a sculpture of a sasquatch looking forwards with a gaze filled with deep thought while holding a book with thick stiff pages. “That one seemed comfortable here, he was probably thinking about something when he looked forwards. He probably came here to read every once in a while.”

“And what about that one.” Percy pointed to a pair of humans, both holding each other's hands. They looked away from each other but both shared a parallel gaze now facing a dead tree stump. 

“Hmm” Philly slowly walked over to it and looked at the face of this couple. 

“They seem to be having a good time,” Percy said.

“No…” Percy looked at Philly who was stroking his bottom tentacles like a beard. “I don’t think so.”

He pointed to the girl's cheek and the boy’s cheek.  and then moved over to the boy’s cheek both had tears

“They were both crying before,” Philly added. “Maybe they were upset about something before.”

“Really?” Percy lifted himself up slightly by fluttering his wings. “Maybe they’re happy tears. Maybe this was a marriage proposal.”

“Maybe…” Philly said. “It’s hard to tell.”

…

Once again, Percy and Philly found themselves walking down the damp hallway doused in orange lighting. They both walked together facing away from each other. Almost actively attempting to avoid eye contact until they reached Percy’s dorm.

They both stood by the door. Percy was getting his keys to unlock the door.

“Percy…”

Percy looked up at Philly.

“I- I think we should just be friends”

Percy looked up at Philly with a confused gaze.

“Like… we end this?” Percy asked.

“Yeah…” Philly said. “I don’t think it's working…”

“I get that…” Percy said. “To tell you the truth… I… I don’t think I love you anymore. I don’t know when that started but… I… I didn’t want to say anything…”

“Oh…”

“I want to be friends with you,” Percy said. “But I feel like we should stay away from each other for a few weeks.”

“Okay…” Philly looked down. “I’ll… see you around I guess…”

“Yeah…” Percy opened the door while facing Philly. Philly started to walk away as Percy entered his room and quickly closed the door.

Percy’s room was empty as his roommate had been out for a while. So Percy was left alone, standing in the center of the room.

He stood over a small circular carpet on the floor, somewhat dusty. His side of the room was a relative mess with items all over the place.

Percy slowly sat on the bed and turned on his phone. He was greeted by his lock screen which had a picture of him and Philly trying to cram themselves into a selfie. Percy immediately unlocked his phone and started scrolling through the forums.

He didn’t even read any of the posts.

He barely even looked at the photos.

He just monotonously scrolled through his phone.

His eyes were fixated on the screen for hours, the sun was setting so the light slowly left his room leaving him in the dark. Simply scrolling through a phone.

A drop of water tapped the screen softly.

Then another.

The storm had gradually set itself free.

Percy screamed, curling himself into a ball stiffing his body as he wailed loudly. He thought he sounded ridiculous. He thought about how his eyes were going to be puffy and how his fur is going to look weird. 

But the thing that occupied his mind the most was Philidelphia.