What an exhausting work day. When a party spaceship breaks down in deep space for unknown reasons, my sister and I help to calm people, ration supplies, and send them out with their families, a few scant belongings, and enough fuel to make the passage to their home planets. Alial (my sister, whose name has been changed for security reasons, but which reasons I will get lazy about and refer to normally in the near future), is also a superhero, and sporadically appears and aids me in Dreamworld. Unfortunately, both of us have a rather botched sense of time, and quickly land on our street and trek up the hill to the Caldwell estate, where we are late for our friend Adnama's (also altered)18th birthday party. Her mother tells us it's been great, that she's just waiting for us to open the mysterious gift we sent--and Alial and I look at each other strangely. Gift? I think to her. What gift? We had forgotten about the party...we didn't have time to get one...
We race up the steps, both shouting at the same time, "Don't touch it!" and manage to crash through the door to Adnama's room just before she unwraps it, her hand hovering over the large pink package.
"Darling," I say quietly, "Have we ever given you a pink present before? You hate pink, remember..." Which, strangely enough, is our code for "Dangerous situation."
She looks down at the innocent looking gift. Alial walks over to the wall, unhitches the clock with her hand, and removes the batteries. In the brief silence, another ticking sound is revealed.
"How cliche!" laughs Adnama. "I wonder which villain is tracking us now." Because Adnama (also a super. There is a very random chain of events and reasons for all our powers, which I'll tell you about later) makes the best mental force fields, we leave her with the bomb and sneak outside to investigate the grounds for possible hiding villains. Which, it turns out, is quite easy. They were already coming for us...
As the dream switches perspective, a leering man cowers behind the neighbor's hedge, watching Alial and I progress down the pasture below Adnama's house. He adjusts his spectacles, presses a button on a control panel hung around his neck, and whispers into a mike, "Subjects in sight. First test initiated."
As Alial and I amble down the hill, a small girl suddenly steps from behind a tree in front of us in the pasture. She appears to be the girl scout mum and I saw yesterday night at Fred Meyer's, who mum bought two boxes of cookies from for $4.00, because she liked her singing. We stop short, and I gently query, "Hello... I remember you from the store. Are you lost? You shouldn't be out alone away from home, it's almost sunset-"
the little girl looks up and smiles, her eyes hooded and vacant, and pulls out a pocket knife.
"I'm not alone." As we look up, glancing around, shadows detach from all over the grounds- all people from our lives, passing acquaintances. All hostile, armed, and coming our way.
"I'll take the west side, you take the east grounds, we'll regroup at the top of the hill!" I shout, running for the shelter of the barn as shots ring out from an old man armed with an M-16, a guy I remember from dad's shooting club. A tall young boy and dark-haired girl pursuing me, I dart full-speed up the side of a metal shed. The girl, Stephanie from my AP Art class, vaults up the side, lands on her feet, and kicks me twice in the side before I can even catch my breath. I sarcastically retort, "My kidneys? Great idea-- but you missed!" and jump into a spinning kick, knocking her senseless off the roof of the shed. *Twinge of guilt. Who knows if these people are programmed, robotic, brainwashed, coerced?...Yet I keep running on the ground, keep playing in the heat of the game against their plans, not flying, not using magic, because I feel that we are being watched and it would be wise not to reveal too many of our secrets. Besides, this should be easy. We've fought harder battles.
Eventually, whomever observed us seems to have enough, for our pursuers suddenly vanish, as if merely holograms. It is dark, and we return inside, exhausted: only to find that Adnama is missing. We have played into their hands all along. I should have used magic...
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