It is pitch dark...

As Jackie stood hesitantly, Haley grabbed a container of paint which had previously been used for bird seed.  Donut quickly went to town on the playground, creating scenes involving some kind of bizarre robot apocalypse. The drawings didn't have a lot of fine technique behind them, but they had their respective charm to them. Haley went around the playground writing her name in different styles. Jackie was carefully drawing "Gradient Fish-Man Nine" in a victorious pose with semi-professional skill.

Donut walked over to Jackie's drawing and exclaimed, "Wow, I didn't know you could draw like that! Where did you learn this?" Jackie turned and replied, "Oh, I taught myself. I'm glad you like it."

They continued to draw until the sun started to go down. Jackie and Haley parted ways with Donut, taking the bus back to Jackie's house. On the bus Jackie was mostly silent while staring out the window, though she didn't have any comic book occupying her at this time. Haley stared at Jackie intently and inquired, "So?" Jackie's eyes darted back at her friend and replied, "So... what?" Haley gave an impatient breath of air before clarifying, " So, how do you feel about our visit with Donut?" Jackie's eyes relaxed a bit as she responded, "Oh, it was fine." Haley became slightly agitated as she leaned forward and said, "Jackie.. We haven't seen Donut since that time."

Jackie paused while looking at her foot. Haley continued while transitioning into a more neutral pose and expression, "Sorry.. I'm sure it just hasn't sunk in yet." Haley nudged her head a bit and said, "Yeah."

The two girls spent the rest of the day at Jackie's house watching B movies. Haley fell asleep on Jackie's couch, while Jackie fell asleep on the floor next to her television.



Jackie woke up in a pitch dark room. She didn't know how much time had passed since she was last awake, but this place was unfamiliar. The floor was cold concrete and she couldn't see anything, as there wasn't a light source to be found.

Jackie peered around what little she could see of the green, open space of the park. A whole lot of nothing greeted her. Sure, there were a few kids on the swing set and some older guys playing Frisbee. But Jackie was pretty sure Haley hadn't brought her here for either of those things. "Okay, what gives, Haley? You brought me here to go down the slide with you?" The joke thinly veiled Jackie's growing feeling of being messed with. Sometimes, she felt like Haley liked to poke a bit of fun at her.

"Oh ye who doubts more than she observes. Come on, then." Haley yanked Jackie's arm until she followed the older girl across the grass and around a group of trees. There, under the high roof, perched on the picnic benches, was a friend Jackie recognized even from a distance. "Is that Donut?" Haley laughed and continued pulling Jackie toward the picnic tables. "It is! It is Donut. Why didn't you just tell me-"

Haley shrugged rather than answer and threw herself onto one of the wooden benches connected to the tables. "Hey," was all she said to Donut, who nodded back at her without comment. He untangled himself from the picnic table and leaned down to crush Jackie into a friendly hug. The guy was nearly six feet tall and made Jackie feel like a shrimp, but a happy shrimp. As he straightened back up, his hand went automatically to his hair, making sure the greeting hadn't crushed his spikey 'do. Five inch spikes stood up all over his head, and a silver hoop glinted in his nostril.

"Where you been?" he asked as he sat back down. "Waited all afternoon." Donut, whose birth name was still a mystery to both Jackie and Haley, was always short on words, but he made his point clearly just the same. Haley gestured toward Jackie, "She wasn't home! I waited on her porch for, like, ever but she didn't show up. So I climbed through her window to wait. I dunno where she was for so long, but when she finally did show, she was all slow and pulled that stop walking without telling me gag."

Donut smirked. "And then you got a comic." Jackie blinked at him. "Hey! How did you know that?" Haley and Donut laughed at her. Donut was the one to explain, "We just know you is all. Don't panic. Nobody's watching you. That I know of, anyway." He looked around. In the few minutes they had been talking, the park had cleared out. It was nearly dark.

"Wanna play? " Haley asked Jackie. Haley ducked underneath the table and came back up with a handful of paintbrushes. Donut set out a few small buckets on the table on the other side. "What is that," Jackie asked, intrigued.

"Sidewalk paint," Donut responded proudly. "Made it myself. Chalk is for babies, but paint is for pros." He nodded sagely and handed Jackie a paintbrush. "Plus, you don't have to stick to the actual sidewalk with this stuff." To prove his point, Donut went over and painted a rainbow on the kiddie slide. "Plus it washes off, so who can bitch, really? Come on. Let's decorate."

The two girls browsed about the modestly-sized store while Cal used his peripheral vision to spy on the few customers in the place. Calvin brushed his thick fingers against his pale fuzzy arm as he browsed internet forums on his old grey laptop. The laptop and his elbow was firmly propped on the glass display case. Jackie was lured in by the new issue of "Gradient Fish-Man Nine!", a strange comic combining surrealism, urban themes, and extreme action. Jackie yearned to get this new issue, but she had insufficient funds. She grabbed the comic and walked over to Haley and asked, "Hey, do you think you could spot me on this comic? I'll totally pay you back soon." Haley turned to Jackie slowly with a cold stare on her face. Haley's index finger touched her chin in a pondering motion. She swished her head back and forth, changing facial expressions rapidly. Jackie became anxious, "Will you do it or not?!" she asked impatiently. Haley stopped and said, "Yeah, okay."

Haley bought the comic and the two left the store. "Here." Haley said as she handed Jackie the comic. "Thanks!" Jackie said with an intense smile. They started to walk down the sidewalk again. Jackie was focused on her comic, so she wasn't really paying attention as to what was happening in front of her. Haley gathered some air in her chest and said, "Okay, now that we've taken that little detour, let's go see what I brought you out for." Jackie snapped with, "You mean you actually had a real reason for bringing me out?" Apparently dumbfounded, Haley shot back with, "Uh, yeah."

A bit later they got on a bus and headed to a location that Jackie was unaware of. The bus was populated by various kinds of city people. Its air-conditioning made the bus a bit too chilly for Jackie's taste, but Haley didn't seem to mind. "Where are we going?" Jackie inquired. Haley responded, "If I told you, that'd ruin the surprise." Jackie continued to read her comic, and without realizing it, was putting a lot of trust in her friend.

Finally, the bus stopped in the middle of downtown. Haley started to get off the bus without letting Jackie know, so Jackie nearly panicked when she just noticed Haley walking down the isle and hurriedly followed her friend. Without saying anything Haley walked down a piece of sidewalk and Jackie followed. The town itself wasn't that big, so while there were large-ish buildings, there weren't any skyscrapers. The city planners had tried to give a healthy balance of cement and  greenery. Trees and patches of grass were strewn about this area in-between the buildings, but Jackie always thought this place looked fairly artificial.

At this point Jackie was nearly done with her 17 page comic (not counting ads), and noticed that they were heading toward Vermont Park, a popular park downtown. Jackie asked, "You brought me here so we could go to the park?" Haley tightened her lips and replied, "Close. It's what's in the park."

As they left the apartment building, Jackie slowed. She'd forgotten to turn off the stereo! But Haley was already running down the sidewalk and Jackie knew it was either follow or get left behind. So she followed. Haley didn't even slow down as she crossed the street, casting a quick glance in each direction and jetting across the asphalt. Jackie threw herself after the older girl and only narrowly avoided a car that blared their horn at her for half a block afterward."Where are we going?" Jackie asked Haley again.

 Finally slowing to a normal pace, Haley grinned at her friend. "Dude, I know this great place where we can pick up some hot guys with motorcycles." Jackie's mouth fell open and she stared. Seriously? Jackie was no prude, but if Haley wanted to pick up weirdos who liked to rev their engines and race down the highway, risking getting busted by the cops, she could do it alone. At Jackie's incredulous expression, Haley laughed. "Like I'd take you with me for that! They'd probably think I was your babysitter!" She gave Jackie's shoulder a friendly punch. "Want to get a soda?"

Jackie nodded slowly, knowing there was more to this offer than there seemed. And she was right. "Wait here," Haley instructed. She ducked into a convenience store and Jackie saw her rifling around in the magazines through the window. A few moments later, Haley reappeared outside with a hand in each pocket of her leather jacket. "Let's jet." Jackie found herself following Haley again, with no idea where they were headed. "What about the-" Before she could finish asking, Haley passed over a bottle of soda. "Oh. Uh. Thanks." Jackie took a sip and shook her head. Sometimes, not getting an allowance wasn't such a big deal. Unless you ran out of quarters.

As they walked through town, chatting about nothing in particular, they passed the comic shop and Jackie came to a halt. It took Haley a few moments to notice Jackie wasn't walking with her and had to jog back. As they stepped inside, Haley gave an exaggerated wink to the guy behind the counter and offered, "Your 'fro is looking fluffier every day." Jackie waved. "Hey, Calvin. How's the biz?" Judging by his t-shirt, which read "I'm only here because my server is down" people often got the idea that Cal didn't like or care about his job. But really, to him, it just wasn't a job. It was the chance to play with his favorite items all day long. "You punks don't have homework or something?" The comment was delivered dryly, but the smile that came with it was proof that Cal was glad to have visitors, especially Jackie and Haley.

She heard the noise from her mother's room. Quickly, she examined the room for an object she might be able to use as an impromptu weapon. She lifted the porcelain lamp sitting next to the tattered blue love seat and slowly crept to the source of the sound. "Hello!?" She asked half-demandingly. She move forward in the limited environment. Details of her mother's bedroom started to peak into Jackie's sight. Jackie continued, "I know somebody's here, so just come out! We don't have anything of value here."

"Ha ha, Relax. Did you know that your step-dad still reads nudie mags? Hasn't he heard of the internet?" A young female voice uttered from within Jackie's room. She was trying to put her finger on it. Seeing as how there weren't that many people Jackie interacted with, it wasn't that hard to deduce.

"Haley! What the shit!? Why are you in my house!?" Jackie asked with sudden relief while still being a bit irritated.

Haley was two years older than Jackie. She appeared to be of Asian descent, but Jackie never bothered asking precisely what her heritage was. She stood five feet and six inches, and while this wasn't very tall, it made her look like some kind of amazon standing right next to Jackie. She roughly had the build of one a mannequin in a department store. She had varied fashion throughout the week. Sometimes drastically different. Today she was wearing red and black striped stockings covered by a grey miniskirt, a white t-shirt with one of those yellow smiley faces with an eye patch, a leather jacket that belonged in a James Dean movie, and knee-high burgundy combat boots. Despite all this, her shoulder-length black hair was put up in a simple pony tail. Haley and Jackie were classmates last year, but Haley was kicked out of school for undisclosed reasons before this new school year started.

Haley walked in front of Jackie with a rolled up magazine, who still had the lamp in her hands, and gave a smirk with her bright purple lipstick using primarily the left side of her face. "I got bored, so I went to see what you were up to." Haley hastily explained. Jackie started to put the lamp back in its rightful place and replied, "Okay, but you can't just break into people's homes!" Haley's face turned serious with a lion's expression and said, "Well, you're not people." There was a slight pause before she simply continued by saying, "Hey, did you want to do something?" Jackie seemed to let this break-in go and asked, "Did you have anything in mind?"

Haley closed the window that had been open and then marched toward the front door, "Come on, let's go." As Haley opened it Jackie asked, "What are we doing?" Haley ignored the question she obviously heard and advanced in a direction.

Jackie almost smacked her nose on the front door of her apartment as she returned home. The door was never locked while someone was inside. Digging her house key from the pocket of her jeans, Jackie wondered where her mom had gone. Not that it really mattered. The key point here was that the boyfriend must be gone too, leaving Jackie with the place to herself for a while.

"I'm home!" Jackie called as she heaved her red backpack onto the couch. You know, just in case someone was here. She listened briefly for a return call, but when no sound came from the rest of the apartment, Jackie pulled her mp3 player from her backpack and plugged it into the stereo and cranked it up LOUD. Her mom and Larry, the live-in boyfriend, hated it when Jackie's music was too loud. They said it would make her deaf one day. But why live life worried about being hard of hearing one day when the music was playing now? No need for sub-par sound quality for fear of the future.

As Jackie made herself a sandwich, her mind played with the idea of the future. Wouldn't it be awesome if the future really was like video games and there were cars without wheels and people had jet-packs and could order food from a replicator? Of course, there would surely be alien races bent on destroying man-kind then, but they would be easy to take care of, anyway. "Set phasers to KILL!" Jackie shouted over the music as she squirted ketchup on her sandwich. With an uninspiring splatter, the ketchup welled up and over the edge of the bread. "Crap."

Jackie searched for a napkin or paper towel or something to clean up the mess. Her mom would be totally ticked if she came home and found the kitchen a mess. There didn't seem to be anything in the kitchen to clean up the ketchup, so Jackie headed to the bathroom to get some toilet paper. It would work, in a pinch. But she never made it to the bathroom. In the living room, the window next to the patio was wide open, yellow daisy-print curtains billowing in the breeze. Jackie was sure that window hadn't been open when she got home. She moved to the front door and checked the knob. Still locked. Jackie turned down her music and called out a questioning, "Hey?" The only response was the sound of a dresser drawer slamming shut.

First Post!!!

"Damn, out of quarters." Jackie expressed disappointedly, as she stood blankly next to the old arcade machine in the hotel lobby. She collected her small red book bag, and as she started to head out one of the hotel's staff gave her a suspicious look which made her glance over quickly, but she still marched out of the building casually as if she belonged there.

The town Jackie lived in wasn't huge, but it wasn't precisely what you'd call a "small town" either. Jackie usually wore a black hoodie and blue jeans. She was a brunette with a streak of blonde dyed in. She was fourteen years of age, and stood about five foot tall. Everywhere she went she brought her red book bag which almost always contained:

1.) Her personal journal

2.) An MP3 player with a thousand songs, half of which she even liked

3.) A deck of poker cards

4.) A razor sharp box cutter

There were almost always some other assorted goods in there, of course. It made her uncomfortable to ever leave the house without this book bag.

She walked back to her apartment with a blank expression staring at the ground, barely paying attention to what was going on in front of her. She fantasized about what she would do when she finally had what you and I would call "superpowers". To her, it was a natural assumption that at some point she would gain superpowers, and that life would get better. For now, she would have to put up with her mother and her mother's live-in boyfriend. It was whatever.