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.