Morgoth banged his hand on the table. “Goddamnit, you’re just children! You can’t take on this task alone.”

“Listen homeboy, we don’t have a choice. If you’re so concerned for our well-being, why don’t you offer your people to the cause?” November retorted, because how will this pass the Bechdel test if the female lead doesn’t assert some independence? And if Joss Whedon showed us anything its that girls are great at dealing with a vampyr.

“You know I would never sacrifice a single Eternal Child for the qualms of a mortal!”

“You don’t get it. They’ve come for the humans, and if you say nothing, they will come for you too. This planet will be theirs or it won’t be, they aren’t interested in sharing. This is your fight, too.”

Morgoth strolled to the window of his office, looking out into the starless sky, its glimmering treasures obscured by alien warships in the distance. “You make a good point.”

“So you’ll help us?” Jesse asked, looking up from Morgoth’s 200-inch TV.

“I can give you advice. Flee. Find somewhere secluded, away from civilisation. Wait until your race has recovered to stage a rebellion. You will not succeed here today.” 

November’s eyes sharpened like a samurai sword. “I’d sooner die.”

“And die you will. But look, if you’re not going to listen I might as well give you the key to your salvation, right? I mean, that’s the only purpose I’m here, to steer the heroes in the right direction, like an unliving McGuffin, right narrator?” No comment. Morgoth put a hand inside his coat pocket and withdrew two vials of purple powder. “These will take you on a spiritual journey. It’s there you’ll find the answers you need.”

“You always carry those around on the off-chance a couple of kids will stumble into your office looking to save the world?” November asked. Jesse pulled himself off the couch and stood by her side.

“Sure, apparently.” Morgoth said with increasing resentment to his ostensibly minor role. Look, don’t complain. M. Night is content to make himself the crucial minor character in every movie he’s made, you think you’re better than M. Motherfucking Night?

“Yes.” No backchat. Suddenly Morgoth tripped and stabbed himself through the heart with a conveniently splintered chair leg. What do you think about that?

“Come on, dude.” Alright fine, he didn’t. What he did do was hand the kids their vials, and ignoring their parents advice (never take potions from vampires), they snorted the lines like a pro.

The sound of waves caressing the shore rolled around in their ears. November rolled over to see Jesse spitting sand out of his mouth. “Where the gosh darn are we?” he asked.

“You’re in Ibiza, my friends!” said a woman who had a vague resemblance to Scary Spice. In the distance some phat beats started throbbing, getting louder and louder. A large green bus pulled up on a curb near the beach and honked twice. Honk honk. Ktsssssch, the doors folded open and some oily, muscular dude waved to them. 

“Jesse, I think we should follow them.” November said, mystified, though not totally unsurprised because based on that one Veronica Mars episode, crazy party shit like this happened in Ibiza all the time.

“I’m inclined to agree.”

Dutch Scary Spice ushered them onto the bus. It seemed the party spirit imbued all demographics, as it was populated by a clown, a Mexican farmer, several Wall Street yuppies, a Hasidic Jew, a mime couple who were mime masturbating each other, and Don King. In the back, in a roped-off area of the bus, were some other people dressed in yoga pants and tank tops like DSS. This is who Jesse and November sat with. “Hey guys, welcome to the bus. What’re you doing in Ibiza?” the blonde one asked. 

“We’re not really sure. We snorted some powder from a stranger and woke up here,” November replied.

“Hey, me too! Don’t worry, we are all family here. Sit back and enjoy the party. We’re gonna go see The Man.”

“The Man? Is he like The Wizard?”

“No sweetheart. He’s real. You might know him actually. He can fix everyone’s problems, that’s why we’re all going.”

November and Jesse stumbled as the bus took off. As the wheels turned, a disco ball descended from the ceiling, as did black shutters over the windows. Now the real party began.

Red, yellow, blue, red, green, blue agan, cyan, magenta, orange, black, white, and then some colours you haven’t heard of yet punctured their retina as their earholes were molested by some of the most innovative beats you’ve never heard, you poor plebe. Everyone was high as shit and dancing, having long abandoned any self-consciousness. The shackles were off, and the inmates were running the asylum. Jesse was on top of a table busting his moves, which loosely resembled those of Will Ferrell’s character in “Elf”, that movie where Zooey Deschanel has blonde hair. November and the blonde from earlier, who she’d since learned was called Mallory, were sitting at a table drinking Bloody Marys. Maries? Whatever. “So what’s the deal there?” Mallory asked.

“There? As in Jesse?” 

“Yeah, are you guys in love?”

“I don’t know if I even believe in love. I mean, I believe in romantic affection, sure, but the concept of ‘love’ seems so nebulous. I guess I feel like it’s so mythologized that it’s become unattainable, and anyone who doesn’t realise that is on a futile quest that’ll only end in frustration and misery.” November replied, stirring the thick tomato juice with her celery stick.

“Honey, you need to chill! Love is only as complicated as you make it. Don’t worry about how other people think about it, what matters is how you feel and that’s all.”

“That’s so idealistic though. We barely get to see each other because our lives are so different, I don’t see much point in pursuing something that’s going to suffer from each other’s absence.”

“Let me tell you something my mentor shared with me when I was an intern at DvF. ‘Absence is to love what wind is to fire. If it’s a small fire, the wind kills it. If it’s a real fire, it intensifies it.’ Diane Von Furstenberg said that, and if she don’t know shit about love, then none of us do.”

November looked over to Jesse, who’d just slipped of the table and kicked the farmer in the face. His nose was now bleeding.

The shades on the windows rose, revealing it was dawn. People in various stages of undress got up and gazed at the rising sun like a deity. The Hasidic Jew pulled a string of glowsticks out of his mouth, having swallowed them under the belief they were alcoholic candy. To be fair, there were a ludicrous amount of jello shots going around, and he wore glasses so you can only assume he was short-sighted and not just wearing them for post-post-post-ironic value. I don’t have to assume because I’m the author and I know for sure. Maybe I’ll tell you later. Is this foreshadowing? You’ll just have to wait and see ;-) (it isn’t, writers who use foreshadowing are cowards).