wicked children

by sugarweregoindownswingin

"childhood is a kingdom where nobody dies" rose quotes, some dead author probably castrating himself at her feet. Or, these kids never deserved happy endings.

i
Rose meets Dave when she is three, and the two become inseparable. They are the best of friends, and that is how it was meant to be, Rose theorizes. She's attached to Dave like no one else she knows. Dave likes Rose, too, and he doesn't know why, and he freely admits this. He doesn't care why he likes her. She's just his best friend.

They don't always talk a lot when they hang out-they just know what's going to happen. Rose looks at Dave, Dave nods, and they play Mario. They know what each other thinks, and they know that this is how it's meant to be. They're supposed to be telepathic, just like the Earth's supposed to go around the sun. They were made for each other.

But they aren't the only ones.

When Dave and Rose are five, they meet Jade Harley. She is tall and bright and never stops smiling, and they love her. A week after they meet her, she nets herself into their mental conversation, and they know that she was made for them too. Jade agrees.

With Jade, they are faster, better, and more outdoorsy. They find secret places with her, grassy and nature-y places, and they are beautiful. Jade brings out the beauty in places, and she pushes them to be faster.

They still are not the only ones.

When Jade and Rose and Dave are six, they meet John. John brings them laughter and interests and he makes everything perfect. John is the last connection. They are all four together and they are all four happy. Three days after they meet John, he links with them in their heads, and the world is connected.

The outsiders notice that they are strange, certainly. They definitely aren't normal kids. They sit together in a tight circle and laugh at jokes no one else can hear, although the punchline is sometimes mixed with the joke-thoughts of a child are unorganized and strange. But they are still happy. Being together makes them happy.

They spend the whole summer when they are seven swinging at the playground. Jade swings the highest and howls with delight when she goes higher than the others. John twists the rusty old chains of his swing tight, and then releases so that he spins almost out of control. Rose is silent until it's time for them to go home, and then she sails off her seat, giggling endlessly. Dave just swings. He swings back and forth and back and forth, still trying to hold a conversation with Rose and John and Jade, even while they laugh and scream in the air.

One day in August, with all four of them gnawing on popsicles, Dave asks a question.

Out loud.

"Hey," he calls once. Jade and Rose and John are confused, because they never speak out loud to each other now.

"Hey!" Dave yells again, and this time the other three look over at him.

"Wanna see something cool?"

Without waiting for an answer (all of them nodding eagerly-Dave knows a lot of cool things), Dave scrapes his sneakers on the wood chips to stop. When he reaches a complete standstill, he raises his arms far above his head. He closes his eyes, and begins mouthing words.

"Dave?" John asks. Behind Dave, he sees storm clouds gathering.

Dave! he tries to shout. Dave doesn't even flinch-he just keeps his eyes closed and keeps chanting silently.

Rose doesn't interrupt. She can see better than John, and she knows that all that's coming from behind Dave is a murder of crows. It's Dave's favorite trick-she's known him longer than both John and Jade, so she knows all of Dave's tricks. And his favorite trick is the crow trick.

Jade is silent too, but for a different reason. She loves her friends, and she knows that Dave is proud of this trick. It's rude to interrupt people who are doing something they enjoy, she knows.

Two minutes after Dave started his trick, he opens his eyes. Tugging his arms down sharply, the crows suddenly descend. Across the street, at the strip mall, people suddenly began screaming as the crows begin pecking at their skin and bags.

"I can even do that with any animal," Dave brags. "Animals all do what I say."

From across the street, the kids can all hear the people across the street tumbling and tripping and breaking all their purchases. Three minutes after the chaos began, the crows finally fly away.

"God dammit!" a man yells at the retreating birds. As if as one final adieu, the remaining crow poops squarely on the man's head.

Dave laughs. Jade, still swinging high, begins giggling along with him. Within five minutes, all four are laughing too hard to even talk to each other in their minds. John even falls off the swing, and that just makes them all laugh harder.

Child laughter takes longer to die off than adult laughter, so the kids laugh for at least ten more minutes, barely pausing to stick their popsicles back in their mouths so that the sugar doesn't stick to their skin. They are still laughing when Rose interrupts.

I can do something, too, Rose says proudly. Something cool. Jade and John stop laughing immediately. Rose and Dave know too much about cool things. Dave, however, works in one final snort before Rose gives him a death glare. Slowly, John climbs back up on his swing and kicks his legs back and forth.

Show us, Jade demands. Come on.

Hang on! Rose says insistently. Give me a second! She closes her eyes and starts breathing deeply. Slowly, she begins moving her fingers like cat's-cradle patterns. As her fingers continue flapping, the shadows of the still-panicked shoppers begin moving slowly. The shadows began to rise off of the ground, wrapping around their knees, and slowly become corporeal, tripping the shoppers and rising up in front of them once they're on the ground. The screams from across the street rise once again, making the kids start cackling. Rose loses her concentration, causing the shadows to drop back to the ground with a wet pop. She giggles at the chaos and confusion in the parking lot. She doesn't stop for a good five minutes, either.

"What about me?" Jade demands, several seconds after the end of the giggling fit. "I can do stuff like that too." Out of all of them, Jade talks out loud the most. It's unnerving, but it's also right in the worst way, so they try to put up with it.

John tosses aside his empty popsicle stick and looks at her. Show us, he says expectantly. C'mon, show us.

"Shhh!" Dave hisses, fixated by Jade. Her entire body is moving, as opposed to Rose and Dave's quiet movements. At the end of her odd dance, she stomps her foot on the ground. Across the street, the shell-shocked shoppers who were just beginning to struggle back to their feet begin screaming as the earth starts shaking beneath them. Jade keeps stomping her foot, and the ground underneath the shopping mall keeps shuddering, until an enormous crack opens in the asphalt, pulling one, two, three suburban consumers into the depths. With her foot hovering in the air, she stops stomping and falls back on the swing.

"I can do that," Jade brags. "I can make the earth move. I can make volcanoes erupt."

John looks at her in awe. "Wow," he whispers. "Wow. Jade, wow."

Jade grins back at him.

What about you, John? Dave asks suddenly.

Yes, Rose adds, what can you do, John?

"Yeah, John!" Jade cheers. "What can you do?"

John laughs goofily at them. Who says I can do anything? He asks mischievously. Maybe just you guys are the special ones.

Rose taps John's toe with her foot.

"Don't be ridiculous," she says softly, tugging her half-finished popsicle out of her mouth. "You know we're all special."

"Yeah," Jade chirps. "Come on, John. Show us."

John giggles as he finishes twirling in the seat. "Fiiiine," he teases. "Just gimme a sec."

John closes his eyes and tugs in deep, deep breaths. He inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales, and finally, after five minutes of nothing but breathing, he snaps his eyes opens and claps his hands suddenly. Across the street, the wind begins to pick up. As John keeps clapping his hands faster and faster, gaze focused on the far horizon, the wind across the street keeps getting stronger, pushing the panicked consumers further and further towards the pit that Jade had created.

People across the street start screaming. Jade and Rose and Dave start giggling uncontrollably, even when the adults yell at them to run for help. They keep giggling.

Inch by inch, and then foot by foot, and then yard by yard, the shoppers keep getting closer to the pit. With five final claps, John's wind picks up in speed and force, pushing ten of the twelve remaining shoppers and a car down the pit. Jade, perhaps as a finishing touch, stomps her foot on the ground, sealing the pit.

Wow, John, Rose thinks. Wow.

Uh-huh, John broadcasts, laughing. I can control the weather.

Cool, thinks Dave. That was cool, John.

John preens under Dave's praise. Wasn't it? He asks

Yeah, Dave agrees. Really cool.

"It's time to go," Rose says suddenly. The four turn away from the scene together, hand in sticky hand, as sirens come blaring up the secluded street.

They leave behind them four sticky popsicle sticks.

Hey, John, Jade thinks to them on the way home, This stuff makes us special, right?

Duh, it does, Rose interrupts laughingly. We're super special.

Like superheroes? Jade asks.

Yeah, duh, Dave adds. What else would we be?

I dunno, Jade thinks sulkily. I was just wonderin'.

John keeps quiet while she thinks that maybe what they did to the people across the street wasn't a good thing. It isn't important, he decides.

Wanna play Mario Kart? he asks suddenly.

Yeah!

Sure.

Definitely!

They don't look back.

ii
They go over to Rose's house, because Ms. Lalonde has the laxest rules about screen time.

"Now, Mr. Egbert," Ms. Lalonde wheedles. "Come now. It won't do you any harm to let your John stay over with Rose one night, will it?"

Muffled complaints from the other end of the line.

"No, sir. The kids will be in bed by eight o'clock, eight thirty at the latest."

Muffled questions.

"Dinner? I was planning on pizza."

Muffled complaints again.

"Oh, come now. Surely it won't hurt if he skips one night."

Ms. Lalonde is very good at convincing people to see her side of things.

Slowly, surely, Ms. Lalonde secures the agreement of the other three guardians.

"Good news, kids!" she sings. "All your parents agreed that you could sleep over tonight!"

"That's great, Mom," Rose says, without looking away from the TV screen. "Thanks."

"Oh, it's no problem, dear," she says, already turning back towards the kitchen. "I'll just go pop the pizza in the oven. Dinner in a half hour!"

"Thanks, Mom," Rose says, still staring at the TV.

"Yeah, Ms. Lalonde," Dave chimes in. "That's real nice of you."

"Yeah, thanks!" Jade chirps.

"Thanks a lot, Ms. Lalonde!" John adds.

Ms. Lalonde hums satisfactorily as she puts the pizza in the oven and pours herself a glass of wine.

It was a perfectly pleasant conversation. They're all such sweet kids, she thinks. Such sweet, sweet kids.

They never look her in the eye.

Her shadow flickers against the wall, and she pours herself another glass of wine.

Such nice kids.

iii
They sleep in the living room with the lights off. They do not sleep, not yet, but they lie still and close their eyes and do not speak aloud.

Rose, John calls, opening his eyes. Do your trick, Rose.

Yeah, Dave adds. Come on.

We're bored, Jade whines. Pleeeeaaaaaaaaaase?

Fine, Rose relents. Hang on.

Her fingers began flapping and moving again, and as they move the shadows peel off the walls and form themselves into shapes. First, a murder of crows begins levitating over the children's heads, and Dave begins giggling. Next, the shadows turn themselves into landforms and mountains and cracks in the earth, and Jade begins snickering madly. Finally, the shadows turn into gusts of wind and tornadoes, and John joins in on the laughter. After enough of this, Rose finally loses her concentration and joins the hysterics. The four children stay like that for sometime, pausing only to inhale great gasps of air between chortles.

It isn't enough, though. It's never enough.

None of it is ever enough.

iv
It is the summer after they graduate fourth grade that their parents separate them.

"It just isn't healthy," claimed Mr. Egbert. "I know you like those kids, but there are so many other friends you could make out there, son!"

"C'mon, little man," called Mr. Strider. "Camp isn't all that bad. It won't kill you. Besides, it's all about ninjas and shit."

"Now, darling," drawled Ms. Lalonde. "I just know that you'll love the camp! It's all about, erm," Ms. Lalonde glanced at the writing on the camp packet. "Creative writing! And I know how much you love writing."

"Sweetheart, I know how much you like spending time with your friends," began Mr. Harley. "But I also know that you will adore the camp. It's all about science and astronomy, and what could possibly be better for my little girl?"

They all force smiles. "Yes, of course," they say in unison. "I'm sure it'll be lots of fun."

They are lying, all eight of them.

v
The camps are farther away from each other than they had predicted.

Hello? Rose calls, like she's trying to speak with an old radio. Hello? Can you hear me?

No one responds, and Rose feels more alone than she ever has before.

"C'mon, honey," says Ms. Lalonde, tugging Rose forward. "We have to get you registered with your counselor."

Rose goes half-limp as she desperately tries to contact John. She loses track of where she is, what she's doing, why her mother is touching her. She is lost and confused for a full two hundred seconds.

Hello? someone calls. Hello, I heard you shouting?

Rose is relieved, frightened, and angry all at one time. It is a terribly lonely thing to be used to voices in your head and then have them all slowly tune out, and it is a terrible thing to hear a stranger's voice in your head. And it is a horrible thing to hear that someone has come into a place that once belonged only to you and your friends, and to learn that they are as good as you.

She is busy muddling through these emotions, in fact, when she meets the owner of the voice in her head.

The first one, anyways.

"Kankri Vantas," says the man in front of her. "I'll be your daughter's counselor while she's at camp! She can come to me with any concerns she might have, and she'll be waiting with me at the end of the day for pickup."

"That's great!" Ms. Lalonde chirps. She looks down at her daughter, smiling. "Alright, honey, it's time for me to go now. Be a good girl for Mr. Vantas, alright?'

Rose stares back at her mother, her face blank. "Okay. Bye, Mom. See you later."

Ms. Lalonde affectionately ruffles her daughter's hair before finally turning away from Mr. Vantas.

"Hello," says Mr. Vantas, looking at his clipboard. "Rose, is it? It's a pleasure to meet you."

You're a very special girl, he adds. But I'm sure that you already know that.

Yes, Rose responds before she can stop herself. After a few seconds of thinking, she decides there's nothing else to lose. I'm extremely special.

Kankri's lips curve up at the edges. I have someone you may want to meet, he thinks, before turning around and leading her to the creative writing room.

In her room, she falls in love again, with one girl. Her hair is inky black and there is a red marigold tucked behind her right ear. Rose nearly trips over herself trying to sit next to her.

"Hello," she says to the girl, and the girl barely looks up from her work.

"Hello," the girl responds elegantly.

You aren't so special, the girl thinks, enunciating every word. Kankri lied.

Rose's lips slowly curl upwards. She has something to show this girl who has stolen her heart.

Aren't I? she thinks loudly. The girl's neck snaps up to look at Rose, before she smiles widely. Rose's heart begins thumping wildly in her chest.

"Kanaya Maryam," says the girl, offering her hand to Rose primly.

"Rose Lalonde," responds Rose, taking the girl's hand and shaking it heavily. "You aren't the only one with secrets."

"I see," says Kanaya, grinning. "Would you care to share?"

"I'll show you mine, so long as you show me yours," says Rose suggestively, even if she doesn't entirely understand what she's saying.

"Very well, then," says Kanaya, and they adore each other.

But not forever.

v-i
"Mom, guess what!" Rose chirps when her mother comes to pick her up.

"What is it, sweetheart?" asks Ms. Lalonde. She is more excited than she should be, but it's understandable-her daughter does not initiate conversation with her often enough.

"I met a girl who lights up today!"

"Really? Darling, that's phenomenal!"

And you're too stupid to know what kind of girl she is. Rose adds silently. You aren't special like the rest of them.

Ms. Lalonde's gaze flickers, dims, brightens.

"And my counselor? He can read people's thoughts! Isn't that cool?" Rose continues.

"Yes, dear," says Ms Lalonde. She is slower to reply now.

Her daughter is such a nice girl.

vi
Guys? Dave calls out silently. Guys, can any of you hear me?

"Keep your head in the game, li'l man," Bro calls, pulling Dave through the crowd. "Move it or lose it!"

Dave, however, is lost in a daze as he is tugged through the crowd. He can't find his friends in his head, no matter how desperately he looks for them.

Guys? He keeps calling. Guys, where are you?

"Excuse?" asks a voice from above his head. "Excuse, are you Mr. Strider?"

"Yeah, whatsit tooya?" Bro grunts back.

HEY! Someone calls inside his head. HEY, DUMMY!

It's all too loud for Dave, and he shuts them all out for a good two hundred seconds.

Somehow, during that two hundred seconds, Bro leaves, his counselor grabs his hand and begins guiding him to class, and he receives signals back into his brain.

Hello? someone asks inside his head. Hello, child? Young Dave?

Whadda you want? Dave responds sourly. You're just my counselor.

Yes, his counselor agrees. But am also much more. Like you. Special.

Special how? Dave asks suspiciously.

Very special, she says mischievously. I Damara.

Hey, Damara, Dave says reflexively. What can you do?

Damara laughs. Stop time, she says. Move time, even. Change time.

Cool, Dave confesses.

Very cool, Damara agrees. We here now. You go.

Later, says Dave.

HEY, someone yells to Dave. HEY, ARE YOU THE DUMMY FROM BEFORE?

Dave rotates his head, searching for the root of the noise, before finally settling on a slight girl in the corner of the gym. Her hair looks like it'd been cut with rusty scissors, and her teeth look like small knives, and she's so unbelievably sharp it hurts Dave's eyes.

Shut up, Dave says. Don't you have, like, a volume control, or something?

I ONLY COME AT ONE VOLUME, STUPID! the girl laughs back. WHY, ARE YA JEALOUS?

Only in the way that your butt is jealous of the stupid crap that comes outta your brain, he retorts, and though it isn't his best work, it'll do for now.

There is a brief pause for a moment, while the knife-bred girl puzzles out how he's just insulted her.

Then, she starts laughing, loud as you please, like she wasn't just talking to a boy who was talking in his head. No one even looks at her funny, neither, and Dave grins because this means he won.

NOT SO FAST, STUPID, the girl yells again. TEREZI PYROPE DOESN'T LOSE IN A DUEL OF WITS TO JUST ANYONE!

I'm not just anyone, Dave responds. And it looks like you already lost.

The girl is silent for a good minute before she finally responds.

TOUCHÉ, she finally yells back. TEREZI PYROPE. AND YOU ARE?

A civilized human being, which is more than I can say for you.

NICE TRY, DAVE, Terezi responds laughingly. I CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU.

vi-i
The day does not end on that note. Dave improves his form, grips his sword better, and even manages to make a friend in Terezi Pyrope.

He does not mention this to his brother, who would laugh. He does not mention it to the other three because, although they are undoubtedly his best friends, he feels that this is a special secret for him and him alone.

vii
HEY! Jade howls silently. HEY, GUYS! GUYS, WHERE ARE YOU?

"Keep moving, darling," Mr. Harley says, pulling her along gently. "Come on now, you'll get to make tons of new friends at camp, there's no reason to dillydally!"

Jade remains completely oblivious to her grandfather, and continues shouting to her friends in vain.

Hello? someone finally calls back. What is it?

Jade is disgusted with this new voice. She hates it as much as a little girl with a bright heart can hate things. She's calling for her friends, obviously, not some stranger.

Go away, she tells the voice dismissively. I don't know you.

Jade does not lose place of where she is during this exchange. She does not miss what is happening around her, and she is completely sure.

"Excuse me, Miss?" calls her grandfather. "Miss! Might you know where I can find Porrim Maryam?"

The young woman turns around suddenly, placing her hand on her hip. "Can I help you?" she asks, in a way that implies that no, she can't, goodbye.

"Ah, I'm looking for a Porrim Maryam. Might you know where I might find her?" asks Mr. Harley.

"Yes, I'm Porrim Maryam. Is your…" she glances from Jade to Mr. Harley for a brief moment, trying to calculate their ages. "...little one enrolled in the astrology course?"

"Yes, that's correct. Her name is Jade Harley," says Mr. Harley. "Would you mind terribly if you took her over to the course? This heat wrecks havoc with my old bones."

Porrim rolls her eyes before scanning her clipboard. "Well," she sighs, "Jade is the last student on my list. I suppose I can-"

"Excellent," interrupts Mr. Harley. "Well, my sweet," he says, turning to Jade, "It's time for me to go. Be good for Porrim now, won't you?"

"Yes, Grandpa," Jade choruses obediently. "Bye, Grandpa. See you at three!"

Rose! She keeps calling while she converses. Rose! John! Dave!

Mr. Harley smiles. "I just know that you'll have a wonderful time, dear. Make lots of friends!"

"Okay, Grandpa," Jade says impatiently. "Bye, Grandpa."

Mr. Harley laughs and finally, finally turns away from his granddaughter.

"Are you ready?" Porrim asks. Brat, she adds silently.

"Mm-hm!" Jade chirps. Butthead, she retorts.

Porrim snickers behind her hand. "Neat trick," she finally says.

vii-i
Jade is, as Porrim promised, the last student in the classroom. There is only one seat left, and she eagerly takes it to get away from Porrim.

"Hi," the girl next to her whispers. "Hi, I'm Calliope. What's your name?"

"I'm Jade," she whispers back. "Nice to meet you."

"You too."

Can you hear me? Jade tries. Are you special, like me?

Uhm, I think so, Calliope responds.

That's great! Jade thinks, delighted.

Yeah, I guess so! Calliope thinks back eagerly.

So, what can you do? Jade thinks back after a brief pause.

Do?

You know, like, what can you do? What makes you special, besides this?

Oh, um. Calliope takes several moments to think. I can, like, change things.

Change things how? Jade asks enthusiastically.

Like, I can make things change size. Watch. Calliope shifts her gaze from Jade's eyes and instead begins focusing on a stray pencil on their shared table. As she rhythmically taps her fingers on the edge of the table, the pencil begins inflating at a steady rate. She reverses the rhythm of her fingers, and the pencil shrinks back to its original size.

Cool, says Jade.

What can you do, Jade? Calliope asks. What makes you special?

Jade pauses a bit before she answers. I- she pauses again, mid-thought, before continuing on. I can change the earth. I feel everything that happens inside it, and I can change it. I can make volcanoes erupt.

Wow, Calliope says. That's way cooler than what I can do.

I think your thing is cool! Jade insists.

Thanks! Calliope responds cheerily.

At the end of the day, Jade talks her grandfather's ear off about the girl she met in class, and how she's her new best friend.

She is nearly lying.

viii
John does not stop trying to call for his friends. Guys? he shouts once, twice, three times. Jade? Rose? Dave? He calls, desperately hoping against hope that they will respond. They do not, of course, they never do, but he keeps trying.

Dave! he shouts, even as his father pulls him through the crowd, keeping a running commentary. Rose! Jade! Can any of you hear me?

"Hey there!" chirps a perky male voice. "I'm Rufioh Nitram, can I help you folks find anything?"

"Ah, Mr. Nitram, is it? I believe that you're my son's counselor?" Mr. Egbert inquires, pulling out a packet of papers he brought just in case. "He's here for the, um, comedy training course?"

"Yes, I'm the head counselor for that course." Mr. Nitram responds easily. "You excited, buddy?" he asks, turning his eyes to John.

John nods firmly, his thoughts still preoccupied with his friends.

"Is there anything that I need to do, to sign in?" Mr. Harley asks worriedly.

"Oh, you just need to go to that table-" Rufioh begins, pointing. "And sign yours and your son's name in under the course title, and then drop him off with me."

"Alright, thank you very much." Mr. Egbert says before patiently pulling his son along with him to the sign-in table.

You should be more careful with your thoughts, thinks Rufioh to John. You never know who might be eavesdropping.

I know that you're stupid, John counters. Rufioh, in turn, chuckles to himself.

Children are naïve, certainly.

viii-i
John keeps hoping that something will go wrong at the sign-in table. The class was actually full, the head counselor just left, no, I'm sorry, we don't have a John Egbert on record, you'll have to try again. Anything that will let him get out of going to camp and will let him go back to his friends.

Instead, everything goes horribly smoothly. His father signs the sheet and makes small talk with the boy behind the booth. Mr. Nitram, it turns out, followed the Egberts over to the table.. Disturbingly, not even his father has any worries about leaving. He just bends down, gives his son a kiss on the cheek, and leaves.

John is less than impressed with everything going on.

Hey, someone whispers to him. Hey, can you hear me? Hello?

John glances around, but the source of the voice stays a mystery to him.

Yes, he finally decides. Yeah, I can hear you.

I'm Vriska Serket, says the voice. What's your name?

I'm John. John Egbert. John thinks. Are you in the comedy class too?

No, says Vriska. I'm learning about stupid probability. It's stupid.

Then why are you taking it? John asks, genuinely interested. Why don't you take a cool class, like, uh-

'Cause my mom thinks I'm too lucky, Vriska grumbles. I'm not too lucky. I'm just regular ol' lucky.

How lucky? John asks, interested. This girl is special, he thinks, special like he and his friends are.

Really lucky, Vriska confesses. You wanna see?

John can hear the smirk in her thoughts, and doesn't bother responding in words. His eagerness and excitement, he is sure, is plain in his thoughts.

Ok, the girl says, considering. I bet you that I can throw a pebble and hit smack in the middle of the 'o' on that stop sign back there.

John swivels his head partway to look, and spots the stop sign. The stop sign that's at least three blocks away from the building.

Okay, John agrees. I'll take that bet.

A pebble zooms out from the group behind his, and-

John turns just in time to see the pebble hit the stop sign. Right in the middle of the 'o'. From behind him, he can hear a female counselor admonishing someone for throwing pebbles.

Wow, thinks John.

I know, right? asks Vriska proudly. I'm really lucky.

Are you sure you don't just have really good aim? John suggests.

Positive, Vriska laughs. I'm lucky at everything. Not just throwing some rocks.

Neat, John acknowledges.

Mm-hm, she agrees.

ix
The camps all last two weeks, which is a funny coincidence that none of them explore (nor do they explore the coincidence of all their camps running during the same time frame). They all come together, the day after their camps get out, and they are all drawn to the swings that they used to spend all their time on. Without a single word, they all begin swinging. Average ordinary swinging, if not for their silence.

What did you guys think? John asks. Absentmindedly, he begins to blow the wind across the street into a small cyclone, vaguely panicking several shoppers in the parking lot. Did you like, like it?

It was interesting, I guess, Rose says.

I thought it was fun, Jade interrupts. I met a girl who was special like us.

So did I.

Yeah.

Across the street, birds and insects between swarming over the cars while Dave begins humming a small tune.

I thought it was fun, Jade reiterates. The girl I met was special and she was my friend.

The girl I met was perfect and beautiful, Rose adds quietly. She glowed.

I met a girl who could tell whenever you lied, Dave says. She was too loud and too happy, but I liked her.

I met a lucky girl, John says finally. She could do anything.

The four children sit there, too young to be mourning the loss of summer loves and summer friendships and the way their relationships seem to crumble between them, but too old to move through friendships like they're flipping through the pages of a book.

x
Mysterious Deaths at Shopping Mall, 4/13/2005

Over the weekend, twenty-four people disappeared from a shopping mall across the street from a children's park. Surviving witnesses claim that they saw four children sitting across the street, giggling, but paramedics believe that this is the result of profound stress from whatever incident led to the disappearance of the people at the shopping mall. Government officials say that they are sending agents to investigate the disappearances.

Cursed Shopping Mall, 8/16/2009

Recently, the shopping mall at which twenty-four people disappeared in 2005 suffered more mysterious happenings. Shoppers reported strange weather, plagues of birds and insects, and strangely moving shadows.

act ii

i
They begin growing apart in middle school, as children so often do. Rose finds herself too busy with extracurriculars to hang out with her old friends, and, besides, she's met plenty of new people to occupy her time with. Jade is constantly traveling and researching and gardening to do much with her friends. Dave comes to school sullen when he bothers to show up at all, and his arms are always covered in cuts and bruises that get him sent to the guidance counselor, and John has drawn himself into his computer, where he meets people who live far away and don't depend on him for anything.

None of the new people they've met, however, are special the way that they are. They cannot hear the thoughts of others, nor can they do anything particularly extraordinary. No matter how smart or kind or tough or funny they might be, they were nearly useless to the children.

And that is how the original four managed to keep in touch with each other, even if their conversations were often hostile and brief. Their silent conversations rarely lasted longer than asking for the answers to a test.

They are better than they were at faking normalcy.

ii
It's late March of their eighth grade year when they are finally brought back together. John had been about to start a game code, Rose was beginning her violin solo, Jade was building a robot, and Dave had been making horrific drawings of blood and gore which the art teacher consistently encouraged.

"Will John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Jade Harley, and Dave Strider please come down to the principal's office," the ancient loudspeaker crackled. "That's John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Jade Harley, and Dave Strider. Thank you."

It is nearly a coincidence that their classes had all been in the same hallway when they were called to the office, and less so that the four of them come out of their classrooms at the same time.

Guys? Jade asks frantically. Guys, what's going on? What happened?

John shrugs his shoulders half-heartedly. I dunno, he says noncommittally. Maybe we all got in trouble with the same teacher.

The only period we have together is lunch, Rose reminds him, not unkindly. It's more likely that they're assigning us some community service.

Dave snorts. I ain't doin' any bullshit community service, he warns them.

God, Dave, Rose sneers. Don't be so immature.

In the time it takes the four of them to get to the principal's office, Dave attempts to start a fistfight with Rose three separate times, and is each time thwarted by Rose's martial arts training. John is uncharacteristically silent, and Jade is uncharacteristically worrisome.

They are not good, without each other. They are broken and quiet without each other.

But it is the way of the world for children to grow apart, as it always shall be.

"Ah, children!" cries the principal, clapping his clammy hands together. He is either too busy to remember their names, or he never knew in the first place, and both of these options enter the minds of all four children, and neither go unnoticed.

"Hello, principal," Rose says clearly, her eyes saying that she does not care.

"Is there, like, a reason we're here?" Dave interrupts. "Because, like, I actually enjoy art class?"

"Yes, principal," Rose says agreeably. "Why did you call us down here?"

The principal clears his throat. "There are, erm, some… government people here to talk to you."

"Why?" John asks, not quite hiding his confusion in his voice. "We didn't do nothin'." He folds his arms defiantly across his chest and stares at the principal.

The principal keeps his faulty smile plastered on his face as he shows the children into the office. "Be nice to our guests, kids. Be polite."

The four kids walk into the office one at a time, and Dave flinches when the door slams shut.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Rose asks, not quite politely. "What are you even doing here? This is a public school."

The tallest man in the room flips out something that looks like a wallet. "Sollux Captor, PKSTF," he says, flashing a badge. The other adults in the room follow suit, all showing their badges and introducing themselves.

"Feferi Peixes, Supervisory Special Agent."

"Mituna Captor, Special Agent."

"Dr. Tavros Nitram, junior agent."

"Equius Zahhak, Supervisory Special Agent."

The childrens' heads automatically turn to the remaining silent adult in the room. He shows them a badge similar to the previous five and waves, but still doesn't speak.

"That's Kurloz," Sollux explains. "He doesn't talk anymore."

"Great," Rose says sarcastically. "Introducing yourselves really told me why you're all here at a middle school."

John shoots her a sharp look out of the corner of his eyes, but she doesn't acknowledge him.

Sollux continues to ignore Rose's question, and instead opts to glance around the office. "It's cramped, isn't it?" he comments. "Let's take a walk outside." He nimbly exits the room, and the remaining five agents stay behind until all the kids are following and won't have a chance to escape.

iii
"So," he continues, after they've all exited the school. "Ms. Lalonde, I believe? We're here for a very specific purpose, if you haven't already deduced. It's a bit of a sensitive topic, so I suggest we keep moving." He begins walking briskly ahead, all without looking behind him to make sure the kids are still following him-they are, of course. The five other agents have the kids surrounded, almost like an honor guard.

An honor guard for criminals.

All ten of them continue moving until finally, Sollux stops at the top of the hill behind the school.

"Here's what I want to talk to you about," Sollux says, taking off his sunglasses and finally looking serious. "I think you're special. All of you."

"Ooh, pervy," Dave interjects before Sollux can finish. Jade giggles into her palm and John snorts, and then tries too hard to turn it into a coughing fit. Rose remains impassive, staring down Sollux.

Sollux shifts his gaze to Dave. "You know that's not what I meant," he says.

"How do you know we know?" John asks, at last joining in the conversation. "Maybe we just think you're pervs."

Sollux turns his eyes to John. "April thirteenth, 2005," he says. "Think whatever you will about me, but I know what you four did."

John, Jade cries, panicking, John, what's he mean! What did we do, John?

Bro- Dave tries, choking. Dude, what happened. What happened, John!

John, it might be a bluff, Rose reminds him soothingly. They might not know anything.

John ignores the three in favor of waving his hand nonchalantly through the air, as though dismissing the agents. "What did we do, then?" He asks, leveling his gaze at Sollux. "What happened on April thirteenth, 2005, if you're so smart?"

Though he had been addressing Sollux, it is Feferi who answers.

"You killed people," she says. "So many people."

The kids are momentarily overwhelmed as they all yell and scream at each other silently. What happened, they cry. What does she mean.

"We don't blame you four," Tavros is quick to say. "You were only what, four, five? None of you could have been in full control of your..." he hesitates for a moment, searching for the words. "Powers," he finally finishes. "Besides, none of you could have fully understood what you were doing, so-"

This wrong, they know, he's wrong saying that he's wrong is he's wrong does he believe that what he's saying god dammit why won't they all be quiet-

"Hey," Mituna says, finally speaking up, with slurred words. "Will you all calm down? We're not here to hurt you."

The kids speak to each other in their heads, yelling and screaming and crying liar liar liar liar because they know what happens, and they know what liars do and what they say and-

Mituna grabs Dave's arm. "Hey,' he says, still slurring his words. "Knock it off."

Dave lunges away from Mituna, shrieking out loud and screaming inside in his head. All the agents hold their heads down and clench their eyes shut, and Rose spins her fingers like she's playing a violin concerto, so that the agents' shadows wrap around their feet and hands, binding them tight.

Dave, John says, not quite reaching for his friend. Dave, come on, calm down!

But Dave can't hear John. He wipes at his hands like they're covered in insects, and he summons a plague of crows and ravens to peck at the agents' skin, even as they shout for him to stop.

Dave! Jade exclaims, what are you trying to do? Please, Dave, let them go!

"You don't get it," Dave says, shaking his head. "None of you get it."

"Tell us what you mean then," Sollux says, his mouth semi-blocked by a crow. "No one has to get hurt today, kid!"

"You don't get it!" Dave yells.

Kurloz, whose bonds had been loosened when Rose had turned her concentration away from the agents, began reaching out for Dave. Dave, he whispers. Please, Dave. Just let us help you.

The instant his hands make contact with Dave, his fate is sealed. Dave leaps back again, and forces the crows to peck at Kurloz' tongue.

"Don't TOUCH me!" he yells. "Don't you ever touch me again!"

"Dave," Sollux says calmly. "None of us are going to touch you,, okay? But you're hurting Kurloz. You need to stop."

Rose binds Sollux's mouth shut with shadow, releasing his hands and arms, and Jade moves her arms to trap the adults in knee-high blocks of concrete.

"Dave," John says, still not quite reaching for John. "C'mon. Please, just make the birds go away."

Dave begins rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, until finally, finally, he flicks his fingers like he's spinning records, and the birds recede at last.

"John," says Jade. "What do we do? Can we trust them?" She glances anxiously between John and Dave and Sollux. "If we let them go, they might take Dave. We can't let them take Dave."

W-we don't want to take Dave away, Tavros interjects. We j-just want to help all of you. P-please, it's not, uh, not too late.

Shut UP! Jade yells. I'm not TALKING to you!

The four children stand in a circle, silently bickering about what they can do with the agents. Between sharp glances at the five agents and intense glares at each other, they all seem to come to a general consensus.

"I'm sorry," says Rose, ever so politely. "But we don't think talking to you is a good idea."

John mutters something under his breath, and Jade shoots him a sharp look. None of them are at all afraid, they are simply steadfast in their resolve.

"Then stop talking to us," Mituna says simplistically. "Ain't a tough problem to solve."

John, at least, has the decency to look mildly chagrined when he makes his next decree. "Well, that's the thing," he says, not looking any of the agents in the eye. "We don't know if you aren't going to, like, hurt Dave whenever you go back to your government thing."

Agent Zahhak looks mildly uncomfortable with this accusation, but he can't break the gag holding in his words.

"The obvious solution," Jade says, "is not to let you leave. Because we don't know what you might tell them, so we gotta make sure, like, you don't tell anyone anything."

The adults, who seem to be finally grasping the point of the kids' speech, begin struggling against their bonds. Even with their hands free, none of the agents can struggle out of their gags or release themselves from the blocks trapping their feet.

John scratches the back of his head. "I'm sorry," he offers, "if it makes you feel better. We don't want to do this. We just have to."

Without watching the agents for their reactions or even turning to talk to each other again, the four begin summoning their powers. John wiggles his fingers like he's typing on a keyboard, and Equius is struck by lightning, and is done to a crisp. John sighs, like he's completing a particularly tedious chore, and summons the wind to take away the body. Rose flicks her fingers around like she's knitting a scarf, and Sollux boils silently in his own shadow. She does not dispose of the body, for when she is finished, there is no body left for her to get rid of. Jade pulls her arm down sharply like she's playing a bass, and Feferi sinks deep into the earth, her eyes twisted in pain as she slowly, slowly suffocates. John and Jade clap their hands together, and Mituna is drowned in a sudden flood that becomes trapped underground. Rose and John hook pinkies, and Tavros is swept away in a breeze of shadow.

Dave, instead of using his powers, pulls a six-inch switchblade out of his back pocket and stabs Kurloz straight through the heart. Then, as he wipes the blood off his blade, he summons rats to finish getting rid of the body, and crows to carry away the bones.

What, he says, when he sees the others looking at him. Not like the fucker was gonna kill himself.

iv
They all go back to school without any further ado, and tell the principal that the agents had to leave suddenly. He believes them, yes, quite easily indeed. It's so easy to slip back into their routines.

They grow back together as friends, as children so often do, and begin spending more time with each other again. Rose and John kiss under the mulberry bush in the park, and Dave and Jade kiss in the pool at the community center, and they all kiss each other at sleepovers. Casual physical contact is the cornerstone of their relationship, even to Dave, and they slouch all over each other in every class. It is every cliched teen romance novel and a brand new genre all in one, and they all fall in love with each other through texts and thoughts and movie marathons that are halfway under the blankets.

v
They don't hang out at Dave's house, and he's still sullen and rude most of the time that he's at school. The lights in his house turn off earlier than everyone else's, and shouting arguments come out of his house nearly every night.

One night, in late April, the shouting finally stops. The next day, an exterminator arrives to take care of an infestation of rats and cockroaches. Mr. Strider stops being seen around town, and none of Dave's permission slips are signed. He is happier at school, though, and the bruises fade. Everyone is happier with Dave being happy.

vi
In another place, supervisory special agent Karkat Vantas is very close to having an aneurysm. A week after he sends six agents out to fuckwhere to investigate some creepy shit, and he hasn't heard back from anyone on the team. He shuffles through the file about who they were supposed to be investigating, and is a tiny bit shocked to realize that the people who are responsible for the deaths of twenty-four people in 2005 are only 14. He isn't entirely sure if these reports are accurate, because honestly, how could four five-year-olds kill two dozen people, but he doesn't have a lot of time to contemplate it, because-

"I'm tellin' you, Vantas, the only way we can handle this is if we get rid of all of 'em!" Agent Peixes exclaims. "You can't just let murderers hang around with normal people!"

Karkat pinches his brow. "And I told you, Peixes, They only killed when they were five. You can't put kids in jail."

Agent Peixes pounds her fist on the conference table. "Karkat, you can't just ignore what they did! Two dozen people died!. If not killin' 'em, atleast take them in for-for experiments, or into government custody, or something!"

Karkat looks up at Meenah sharply. "I sent a team to check up on the kids last week, Agent Peixes. As soon as they send me a report, I assure you, you will know."

Agent Peixes slammed her palm on the table. "That's not enough!" She glares down at Karkat for several seconds, before finally sighing and flopping back in her chair. "Karkat, you know that I'm not saying we need to bomb the kids-we just have to find a way to get them under control, like you did with those other kids."

Karkat waves his hand. "Yeah, yeah," he mutters. "It's too late for that, though. You have to get to them while they're young."

The meeting goes on in the same manner for another twenty minutes, with the other agents occasionally tossing in jabs and facts to stoke the fire of the debate. By the time the meeting's finished, they still haven't come to a consensus, and they table the vote for what to do about the kids until the next meeting, when they'll have their report and six more agents' opinions.

vii
In early June, the kids celebrate their graduation of eighth grade by going to a dance. The dance is at eight o'clock and tickets cost a dollar a piece, but all the kids insist on going. Jade sews her and Rose new dresses, even though they both could have bought one. The crooked stitches and the cheap fabric, however, liven the experience and make them both feel closer.

The four of them have dinner together at Ms. Lalonde's house, and nearly get grease and cheese and cheap tomato sauce all over their outfits, until Ms. Lalonde puts her foot down and makes the kids tuck their napkins into their collars. After dinner, Ms. Lalonde forces all of them to stand at the foot of the stairs, while she takes as many pictures as she possibly can.

"Mother, please," Rose says after the umpeenth time Ms. Lalonde tells them that she's taking "just one more." "Mr. Egbert is going to give us a ride, and it's rude to keep him waiting."

"I just-" Ms. Lalonde lip quivers. "My little girl is growing up so fast."

"And that camera can't stop time." Rose raises her eyebrows at her mother. "You can take some pictures when I get back, but as it is, we're going to be late."

Ms. Lalonde sniffles before enveloping her daughter in an uncomfortable hug that lasts close to a minute. When she finally pulls away from her daughter, there are tears in her eyes. "I love you, Rosie," she says thickly. "I love you so much."

"I love you too, Mother," Rose says gently. "We'll be back by nine, okay?"

Ms. Lalonde nods. "Okay, sweetie."

The four children file out the door, and Ms. Lalonde returns to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. Her daughter is growing into such a beautiful young lady.

viii
"Be out here by eight forty-five?" Mr. Egbert asks his son.

"Yeah, Dad," John says, tolerating a kiss on the cheek before hopping out of the car. "See you later."

"Thanks for the ride, Mr. Egbert," says Dave.

"Yeah," adds Jade. "Thanks a ton."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Egbert." Rose says formally, stepping out of the minivan.

"No problem, kids," says Mr. Egbert, tipping his hat. "Have a good time."

After Mr. Egbert pulls away from the curb, the four kids turn to walk into the school. "God, my dad is so lame," John groans, lost in adolescent selfishness. He mock wipes at his cheek and makes a face. "Ick."

Rose laughs and bumps John with her hip. "We're supposed to be having fun tonight, John. Chill out for like, five minutes."

Jade and Dave laugh along with Rose, and John eventually joins in. They're in stitches by the time they get to the door, and almost can't breathe when they hand the cashier their dollar bills. Their laughter, now, is greeted with light smiles, everyone so proud that these kids are having a good time. They can't hear the jokes going through the kids' heads, or the joking conversations they can have without laughter getting in the way.

ix
Jade and John are the only two out of the four who willingly go on the dance floor, although Dave and Rose do end up getting dragged out to dance more often than not. They choose partners for the slow songs, and shift pairs too often for anyone to keep track of who's with who. Several students report to each of the four to tell them that their date is cheating on them.

"Yeah, I know," John laughs, when the umpteenth person tells him Rose is cheating on him with Dave. "Don't tell Rose, but I'm cheating on her with Dave and Jade. And don't tell Jade that I'm cheating on her with Rose and Dave!"

Rose smacks him on the arm after the confused student wanders off. Don't tease, she chastises him. Not everyone gets it, don't be rude.

Twenty minutes later, though, Rose tells another student that her date was Cthulu-not Dave or Jade or John.

Don't tease, John says mockingly. Not everyone gets it. It's rude to tease.

Shut up, says Rose merrily, downing a cup of (spiked) punch. It was funny.

Jade comes up from behind them and hooks an arm around both their necks. Hey, cuties! she chirps. How you two doin'?

Rose laughs, reaching up from behind and kissing Jade on the cheek. Just fine, she says smoothly. Where's Dave?

He's chillin' behind the bleachers, Jade says nonchalantly. She sniffs the air. How'd they get alcohol into a middle school dance? she demands, snatching away Rose's cup. No more punch for you.

Rose laughs. I'd suggest looking towards the high school chaperone for that answer, she says. I'm not complaining.

I am, John says, ducking out from under Jade's arm. You guys go chill with Dave. I'm gonna go talk to the teacher.

Bye, Johnny! Rose giggles, hanging on Jade for balance. The two of them head off to behind the bleachers, while John walks off to confront a teacher.

xi
At 8:30 on the dot, four PKSTF agents walk into the middle school, after a brief but inconvenient argument with the cashier on duty. After a low conversation with the principal, the four agents begin lurking in the shadows around the gym, watching the kids and waiting for their targets. By 8:35, the four agents have found the people that they're supposed to secure, and have a definitive strategy to take them in.

Their targets have no idea that they are being watched, until their private moment is interrupted by the four agents.

"John Egbert?" asks Agent Vantas, to confirm. "And Ms. Lalonde, Ms. Harley, and Mr. Strider?" After seeing that he's got the right kids, he flashes a badge. "Karkat Vantas, psychokinetic security task force. Would you four mind coming with me?"

"Yes," Rose says rudely.

"We're busy," Jade adds.

"Fuck off," Dave summarizes, flipping the agent off.

John is the only one who stays silent in the exchange, and is the only one who has a sneaking suspicion of what may be to come.

"It was less a request, and more an order," says Agent Vantas, jerking his head to indicate the children should follow. "Come with me."

Despite much groaning and grumping, the four children pick their way out from behind the bleachers. Rose drunkenly slumps against Dave's shoulder, who only supports her through their walk out to the hall.

"Look," says Karkat, making direct eye contact with all four of the children in turn. "I sent a team to talk to you four, but they seem to have gotten sidetracked."

Jade and Dave and John and Rose all avoid the agents' eyes. They all remain silent, even, except for Rose. She begins giggling uncontrollably, until finally, she bursts out, "That was fun. Was real fun, entropy of decay."

Karkat glares at Rose until she lapses back into silence. "The point," he says, continuing without interruption, "is that after this dance, you four will be coming with me. You'll be staying at a government compound."

"Buh-" Rose hics into her hand. "But what 'bout Mom? I-I gotta tell Mom."

"Your guardians have all been well informed about what's happening," Karkat says, looking towards the lockers on either side of the hall. "They have all given their express permission for you four to come with me. No, you will not be permitted to stop off at your house first. No, you won't need to pack anything."

"But I don't wanna go," John says bluntly. "You can't make us go if we don't want to go."

Karkat signals none-too-subtly towards the three agents behind the kids. "If necessary, we will take you in by force. Understood?"

Rose glares at him and begins drunkenly wiggling her fingers. "The-" hic "-dark ones won't easily forgive this transgression!" At her words, the dingy shadows begin jerking towards Agent Vantas, thick enough and solid enough that Karkat can easily brush them away without any worry.

"Please don't make this any more difficult than this needs to be," Karkat says uncomfortably. "We're just-"

Before he can finish his sentence,, the three agents try to clasp handcuffs on the four kids. Rose screams and screams, throwing her head back and shaking her fingers like mad until the shadows fall loose from the floor and the ceiling and circle around, looking for a target, and Jade thrusts her elbows and feet backwards, knocking Agent Ampora to the floor and shattering the floor of the hallway, summoning even more shadows for Rose, and Dave shrieks and snaps loose of the handcuffs like they're made of twine, and he flaps his hands around until the hallway is overcome with mice and rats and birds and bats, and they all can't hardly see what's going on around them.

John is the only one who remains calm through it all. The shock of what happened, maybe-maybe he's in shock, and that's why he's so calm. He feels the burn of Dave and Jade and Rose screaming in his head, and he still stays still. It's not until he hears his friends screaming his name that he finally, finally reacts. Raising his hands high above his head, he summons the wind and the rain and great storms of hail that crowd the ceiling of the hallway.

The government comes for them, and they shatter the world.

xii
Okay, so they don't actually shatter the world. They create a crater in the school grounds with a five hundred foot diameter, though, and that's plenty taxing enough for four fourteen-year-olds.

They are brought to the compound anyway, in stretchers and barely breathing without machines, and it may have actually been easier in the long run for the kids to tire themselves out before they get to the compound, since they can't cause any trouble when they can't move.

The four agents, also miraculously get back to the compound with minimal injuries. It's a near-perfect operation.

Ms. Lalonde doesn't know where her daughter's gone.

xiii
Psychokinetic Security Task Force
The psychokinetic security task force, or "PKSTF," is a government task force meant to secure humans with psychokinetic abilities. All other information about the psychokinetic security task force is classified.

30 Times More of the Population has Psychokinetic Capabilities Than in 1995, Studies Say
Since 1995, scientists have known about humans with psychokinetic capabilities. Originally known as "superpowers", scientists have long since renamed these properties as "psychokinetic capabilities", and have dubbed people with these abilities "PK-Positive". From only 1% of the population in 1995, the population of PK-Positive children and adults has risen to 30% of the population. Scientists believe that if this trend continues, people without psychokinetic capabilities could become the minority of the population in just 50 years.

Bias Against PK-Positive People in Rural U.S.
Though the PK-Positive have been gaining political traction as of late, PK-Positive citizens who live in the rural and southern areas of the United States still frequently report violence and threats against they and their children, in spite of how the PK-Positive can easily use their abilities to fight against their non-powered neighbors.
'I just don't want my son to be exposed to them," explains one concerned citizen. "I can't imagine if he turns out to be PK-Positive. He's a happy little boy, and he has a very close-knit circle of friends. I'm very concerned about what might happen if he meets a PK-Positive."

Studies Show More Children Than Adults are PK-Positive
In a recent study, scientists found that children are more likely to be PK-Positive than adults. Using groups of fifty children from each grade level K-12, and another 1,000 middle aged adults, scientists surveyed each group to find which had the highest concentration of the PK-Positive. "We found that, over all, kindergartners were the most likely to be PK-Positive," explains Dr. English, head researcher. "We aren't sure if it's just that more children being born are PK-Positive, or if every group is equally dense, but the younger children are just less inhibited and therefore to share their experiences with us.

act iii

i
Four little kiddies, swingin' all together
One fell down, light as a feather
Three little kiddies, swingin' in sync
One fell off just quick as a blink
Two little kiddies, swingin' in time
One fell off, it's the end of the line
One little kiddie, swingin' all alone,
Jumped right off, time to go home.

ii
They do not wake up for upwards of three months, the children. They recuperate in the compound and they sleep and it is all the scientists can do not to start poking them and prodding them when they aren't awake to do anything about it, but Supervisory Special Agent Vantas puts his foot down at that. So the children wait, and they rest, and they do not speak. Machines monitor their brain waves and their heart beats and artificially pump air into some of their lungs.

In late December, nearly six months after the children had first come to the compound, the machines track an irregularity in John's beta brain waves, and he wakes up. Where am I, he begs the empty room. What happened?

John rips the breathing tubes out of his esophagus and breathes in, out, savoring the freeing feeling of pumping his own air into his lungs, independent of machines. He sits in the bed for a further five minutes, doing nothing but breathing and reaching out, exploring, searching for his friends' consciousnesses.

He is interrupted, however, by a squad of government officials.

"John Egbert?" asks one. "Do you know where you are? Do you know what's happening?"

The information is, of course, all in John's head. He's in the compound, he thinks, that's where he was supposed to go before he shattered the world. He's going to be taken for something-interrogation or experimentation or something, he thinks.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "Please, what's happening? What happened to my friends?"

"Liar," says a shrill, young voice. "You do too know."

John leans to the left to look past the agents, in order to find the voice, but his body is racked with pain when he shifts. He doubles over, clutching his stomach, momentarily forgetting the voice and what precisely he thought was happening.

"Don't lie to us, Mr. Egbert," the lead agent says crisply. "Ms. Pyrope will be able to tell."

Images flash in John's mind as he slowly straightens up-a sharp-haired girl, maybe nine years old, with knife-sharp teeth and a knife-sharp wit, I met a girl who could tell whenever you lied she was too loud and too happy but I liked her but who is I it isn't John whose words are those-

"You'll be coming with us, Mr. Egbert," says the agent. "Now that you've sufficiently recovered, we'll be taking you to the residential hall."

"But-" John coughs, his breathing interrupted. "But what about my friends? I can't just leave them here."

The agents grants Jade, Dave, and Rose a cursory glance. "They'll be fine," he says dismissively. "We have top notch nurses and doctors at this facility, Mr. Egbert. Your friends will be well taken care of."

"No!" John says sharply. "No, I-I have to stay with them!"

"You will be coming with us, Mr. Egbert," the agent says sharply. "Either you'll walk there or we'll wheel your stretcher there ourselves."

"No!" John protests, "No, I have to stay with my friends!"

"John I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to," says the agent, stepping forward. "Just come with me."

"No!" John shouts, and his arm begins to flap at his side. Clouds begin to gather just below the ceiling, threatening lightning and hail. "No, I need my friends!"

"John, stop!" orders the agent. "Stop moving immediately!"

John's head shakes back-and-forth, back-and-forth. "No," he whispers, "no, I need them, I need them."

Before John's storm can truly begin, a hypodermic needle filled with a sedative is plunged into his arm. The agent leaps forward and pushes the plunger down, rendering John unconscious.

"Alright, let's get him out of here," says the agent. "Well done, Serket."

"Lucky shot," the once-rebellious girl says. "Just like everything."

The three kids all leave with the agent, quiet and willing, no anger in their eyes, no rebellion in their veins.

It is the way of life in the compound, to be demure and silent and move without being seen.

iii
While John moves through the compound, asleep and silent and unknowing, there is a revolution in the minds of the teenagers held in the compound.

We have to get out, whispers a sophomore-age girl who can create somethings out of nothings. I miss being outside, she whispers, without knowing why. I haven't seen the sun in ages. She doesn't remember what the sun looks like, she doesn't think, but the image of golden discs in the sky and the feeling of warmth spreads.

I'm going to run, considers a young girl, small for her thirteen years but faster and stronger and wilder than anyone would think, and when her fingers move people fall in love with each other. I need to run. I need to get out. I need to escape. The energy tucked in her body makes her want to explode and scream and rebel all in the same second.

We should leave, murmurs a fifteen-ish-year-old boy who can rip out people's hearts and souls. I don't want them to keep experimenting on us. I don't want to be here anymore. He doesn't know what he wants, maybe, but he knows for sure that what he wants isn't here in this hidden-away world.

I could leave, considers a seventh-grade boy with untamed hair and untamed ideals and the power to bring laughing shadow to wrap around anyone he considers. I'm fast and I'm strong and my mirth will protect me. What his mirth is, he does not know, he doesn't understand why he is trapped here. He is a little boy who is strong and fast and so very angry.

We could escape, mumbles a fourteen-going-on-fifteen girl who bends the laws of life and death and has lost her heartbeat too many times. I want to learn things. Thing besides what I can, like, do. She only knows what she does as resurrection and what the scientists say her gift can do. She does not know what she can do that isn't supernatural or scary or anything like that.

I'm not okay with this, mutters a thirteen-year-old girl with wild hair and sometimes-wild dreams and the ability to speak to ghosts. Her eyes dart wildly after she says this, as though her noncompliance will be recorded in a small black notebook that will decide that she cannot be trusted now. I'm not okay with this, she finally laughs. I'm not! I want to be happy! I'm not okay with not being happy! She does not remember happiness, this once-wild girl, but she remembers her wildness and her pride and she thinks that she'll be able to make something good out of the parts she has left.

We can all get out, broadcasts a still-wild boy with still-wild green eyes and the power to explode into light and consciousness and power. We'll get out together. His forest-green eyes sparkle with hope and glint with possibilities, and one by one his once-allies flee. This jungle-boy with wildness still in his heart and his spirit not yet snapped is dangerous, and the moment of wildness passes.

iv
There is a change.

The girl with life in her hands nearly returns to her small, demure self. She sits and she waits to be told what to do, and she remembers what she thought. She is not afraid. She fights aloud and interrupts experiments and spits bravery into her hands.

The boy with hearts in his hands retreats into himself. He remembers and he is not afraid. He is angry. He rages silently and fights, but he is sneaky enough to know not to show it. He heals wounds and quietly twitches experiments to be just off enough to be irrelevant.

The girl with investments in the void stares at her door knob. She rubs her hands together and out springs a key, but it is not the key to her door. She makes more keys, so very many keys, and she finally unlocks the door, and she tastes freedom on her lips and puts her thoughts in the back of her head.

The small feral girl with energy enough to kill begins running. She hurries whenever she needs to move and she revels in her fitness testing. She snaps her fingers and the scientists are distracted by each others' eyes and they are angry when they find out her tricks, but she laughs and remembers.

The corybantic boy with his frenzy of hair also recalls his thoughts, and he is quite a bit nastier than he was. He tugs at the researchers' hair and laughs at their reprimands. He is dangerous now that he's sober, dangerous and wicked and so very very excited about what he remembers.

The girl who discovered that she was no longer okay with what goes on in the compound remains calm and controlled. She grins wide, broad, gaping, when the door clicks shut behind her for the day. She is thrilled and cool and is so very not okay with this. She considers her emotions, now, and figures that she feels like the way her ghosts feel when she talks to them, as though they've been sedated for too long and are free.

A lucky girl laughs for the first time in so many years, and she is ecstatic.

Her friend, a girl with a penchant for spotting the truth, grins sharp-toothed and sharp-haired, like she used to.

A girl who is more bones than skin, who can turn space on its head and make it dance like a puppet for her, smiles, smiles like she did when she was young.

A glowing girl who enunciates her every word perks up. She remembers something from when she was young, meeting a girl who knew she was special and knew how to show that she was special.

Rose wakes up just after the wild moment, and leaves of her own volition.

Here I come.

iv-i
Silly little chickadees, goin' to sing,
'Bout breath and light and space and time
And other silly things.
They flew right through my windows,
The silly little birds,
And spake in lights and pictures too
But never said a word
They flew down south to Mexico
My finely feathered friends,
They said 'My dear, you cannot go,
for all good things must end.'

v
"Can you summon any type of weather indoors?" asks the researcher, and John responds in motions and wind rather than in word.

"Please speak aloud, Mr. Egbert," says the researcher. "You are being recorded."

"Yeah," responds John noncommittally. "Yeah, I can." His spine is curved forward and pressed down, and he has shadows under his eyes deep as the sea. He is a boy made of wind and air and he does not deserve to be trapped in these small halls and miniscule rooms.

"Mr. Egbert," says the researcher, "how old are you?"

John pauses for a moment, thinking. It hasn't been a year since he exploded, he doesn't think. "Fourteen." he says finally, nearly certain in his answer. "I'm fourteen."

The researcher makes a small note on the clipboard. "Mr. Egbert, have you ever considered combining your power with another PK-Positive's?"

John nearly laughs at this, the audacity of thinking that he knows nothing about his powers or what he can do with other people, but the air in the compound has curved his lungs and curled his body. "Yes," he hisses out. "I did."

"With who?" asks the researcher, looking up at John.

"Friends," John hisses. "With my friends." John knows what he sounds like-like he's been underground for too long, like he's forgotten how to speak and moves his consonants like snakes.

The researcher looks over at the guard at the door. "Let her in."

John looks over as the door moves soundlessly open.

And Rose Lalonde glides in. John straightens his spine when she looks over at him, and he is fully aware of what he looks like, with the indigo shadows smudged under his eyes and the way every part of his body droops.

Rose? he whispers, desperate to know it's her.

She smiles as she hears John. Hello, John.

John nearly wept at seeing Rose, so unchanged (he has not changed either, in this underground facility, he is still the same, not angry nor sad nor exuberant, no more so than he was) but Rose, physically, looks nearly the same as she had-the only difference, John thinks, is how very pale she looks, even with her black skin. It's a sort of deadness, he figures, a deadness that seeps into the compound.

He does not cry, though, he smiles for Rose and he performs the experiments as best he can.

He does not understand why Rose's skin is so, so cold.

vi
Rose is cold because she has taken in the shadows. They are in her mind and her heart and they infect her thoughts and actions and she sees them in the corner of her eyes. Her shadows are in her heart and her soul and they are still alive.

"See," the researcher says, pointing at the screen, crumbs falling out of his mouth, "your 'shadows' are fourth-dimensional creatures. You, yourself, seem to have a personal relationship with ana and kata, which are the directions you could travel in, if you were in the fourth dimension. Your brain waves seem to, eh, cross paths with ana and kata, if you will. You're like a puppeteer in the fourth dimension-this is a very special thing, Ms. Lalonde."

Rose nods, but she isn't listening, hasn't been. She gets special privileges, if she nods, if she's quiet, and she doesn't tell anyone what happens. The researcher is still talking, and pointing at the screen, and rubbing his hands on Rose's arm.

The shadows are from the fourth dimension, she heard, and her hands flit through the extra dimensional rift, and she pulls the monsters forth. She brings unto herself the anakata demons and she breathes in deep and out. The anakata demons will protect her, she trusts, and the next day there is a new researcher, old and ugly and craving youth enough to save Rose.

There is always another one, always another sacrifice for the anakata demons.

Rose is allowed to eat with John, and he keeps up a steady stream of chatter. He keeps his hand on Rose's, always, no matter how cold Rose is or how the anakata demons fight. He never tells Rose how cold she must be, never mentions how the anakata demons slither around his pinky finger. He eats with her and talks to her and she can pretend that they're back in eighth grade and nothing is wrong and nothing hurts.

But not for long, never for long, because always, always, the researchers come along and hold her arms behind her back and tell her come along, Ms. Lalonde, it's time for your testing now, don't make a scene.

Her blood boils at them, thinking they have the audacity, the social class, to speak to her, to touch her, to think themselves better than her, and she yells Irish and not-quite-human at them because she is better than them.

The anakata demons told her so, and the shadows soothe her heart and lick her wounds when the researchers restrain her to take her heartbeat and blood pressure and even vials of her blood, hot red with smoky black goop floating in it. The researchers frown and scribble on their notepads, but her blood is always hot red, and there is always smoky black goop.

It is the way of the anakata demons, they tell her, the way that they claim her as their own.

We must run, they tell her, and she soothes them with soon, soon, she will get out. The anakata demons trust her, and she is theirs and she knows it. She will die if she leaves the compound, she knows, and she will die if she doesn't. Researchers or anakata demons, she thinks, debates, argues, and she decides.

After the researchers take her blood, she leaves. With shaky hands and pulsing vision, she pushes tenderly at the door, willing the anakata demons forward. The door doesn't give when she is gentle with it, doesn't give when she is more firm.

Rose Lalonde breathes in, out, and, with a swish and a flick of her fingers, the door explodes off its hinges and leaves a dent in the opposite wall.

An alarm sounds, and Rose flinches, covers her ears, and remembers.

She takes off running, fast as she can, with her skinny little legs and her ribs casting shadows on her stomach, and she screams. She runs and screams and uses the anakata demons to push the researchers away, into walls into circuitry into steam into open doors that call out feral feral feral.

left, demand the anakata demons, go left and then go right and then the last left and spin the wheel.

She makes it past the first left, air whistling past her and she remembers (john has the wind in his hands and he makes her go higher higher higher and she laughs and spins and tumbles and)

And Rose Lalonde is shot right through the belly button.

She should be worried, is worried, but she has to keep going. She shoves the guards back with the anakata demons, clutching one hand around her stomach, and she runs and bleeds and screams for forgiveness and retribution and revenge.

She makes it past the first right, and Rose Lalonde is shot in the leg.

She is limping now, barely alive, the anakata demons trying to stop the blood and cure her leg and get rid of the soldiers, but all Rose has right now is the soldiers so she screams and pushes herself and nearly (nearly) starts to cry (she hasn't cried since the night her drunk mother sat on the edge of her bed and told her how she felt john where are you help me John. John please help me.) and her nose is bleeding and her vision is red where it isn't black.

Rose is at the door with the wheel and she spins it desperately, pleadingly, she needs the wheel to turn why won't it fucking turn turn so she can open the godDAMN doo n-

"Ms. Lalonde?" asks someone who is not a researcher and Rose turns, heaving, panting, bleeding, (dying John I'm sorry).

"Let me out," says Rose, poor, tired, Rose, she just needs to go outside please. "Let me out and I won't kill you."

The man examines Rose and shakes his head no, he won't let her out, and Rose summons the anakata demons.

"I will kill you," she warbles, becoming corrupted, feeling the darkness filter through her marrow, breathing in shadow. "You don't have any powers, do you. No one here has powers. I could kill you. I will kill you." She doesn't move towards him, not at all, she has to get out of this door (John, come quick, I've found a secret passage! Jade, c'mon, there's something to explore! Dave, get over here, it's so cool, please, please won't you come.)

"I don't think you will," says the man, holstering his gun. "You're dying, Rose. The shadows are coming to kill you."

This is so outrageous that Rose laughs in his face, even though all she feels is rage and tired. How dare he. How dare this man dare to speak about the (horrorterrors noble circlers great watchers) anakata demons in this way

"Do you remember Doctor Scratch?" Rose asks, abruptly changing the subject. "He was a researcher here. He didn't come back."

"I know that you killed him," says the man. "I know that you killed him and your demons swallowed up his corpse like piranhas."

Rose laughs, prodding at this man's mind (karkat vantas s.s.a.) and opens her mouth to speak in human tongue. "Do you know that he liked to rub my skin? Do you know that he told me secrets if I took my clothes off? He liked little girls, entropy of decay, rotting of human morals, liked little girls he did." She barks out a small laugh, feels the anakata demons wrap around her tongue and she can't speak human (j-hones d'sibd aorjane memhdos j'hano ohnj plejad njjes) anymore.

The man looks away, acts like he didn't know, but she knows that he did, knows because they all want to feel her skin, tell her that she's such a sweet little girl, please won't you pose, please Rosey darling, please won't you let me love you please won't you call off your anakata demons (but they never say that in real life they tell her to watch for wandering fingers and she eats them) and they always call her Rosey darling she is always their little girl plaything until they die.

"Rose, just step away from the door," says Karkat, edging towards her. "Come on. Come with me, let's go, come on."

Rose is so angry, so very awfully heinously angry, that he is talking to her like she is his little girl plaything. She belongs to no man and she will destroy him. The dark ones flare behind her, her anakata demons coming to defend her, and like fire it licks her cheek.

Before Rose can blink away the anakata demons, the ones who use her like she's a little girl plaything, she is for none of them, she is for herself, but before she can finish Karkat whips out his gun and shoots her in the shoulder and (rain falls and stops just like you fine little toy) she tumbles and collapses and her vision fades and wobbles and like an exodus the anakata demons leave her and she speaks in human.

"My mother never loved me," she slurs, "never loved me I was an accident she took me and I was an accident and she hated me for it."

John, where are you? Jade I love you don't leave me Jade come with me please. Dave come closer come with me please Dave I love you Dave please.

John and Jade and Dave where are you why won't you come with me don't leave me I love you kiss me. Kiss me and bring me back to life.

"No one loves me," Rose murmurs, and she expires, her eyes all white and her tongue all gray and her power all gone.

John feels Rose's heart stop, feels her brain end, feels her for seven minutes until her consciousness disappears, feels her leave, leave with her anakata demons.

He feels her leave and he screams, howls, wails, summons a tornado and a hurricane and a windstorm and feels his heart beat beat beatbeatbeatbeatbeatbebebebebeat and his heart is disturbed and he is disturbed and Jade is-

Jade is awake.

vi-i
Deep within the wicked woods,
There dwells a wicked witch.
And though her eyes are lovely green,
She's really quite a -

vii
Jade awakens without fanfare. She growls when they try to separate her from Dave and bares her teeth when they threaten to sedate her, and she bites on air when she gets sedated anyway. She is wolfish, is the word, wolfish in the way that makes her look like she dwells deep within the dark old forest.

She is sedated and she sleeps for three days straight, with needles in her wrists to keep her alive. She sleeps and she wakes up and she fights, fights with the spirit of the beast in her heart, fights until she sees John in the experiment room.

John, she whispers, forgetting the rules about talking out loud. John, John, what happened.

"Hi, Jade," says John, almost cheerfully. "Did you have a pleasant wake-up?" John nearly shudders through the greeting, nearly shakes when he sees this wolf girl and remembers his best friends and the little girl who chased a frog all the way through the marsh in her picture day dress, and he sees what happens when a wolf is caged.

He is nearly afraid, but Jade tackles him in a hug and he relaxes.

The wolf is leashed, not caged.

vii-i
John has to get out, he thinks, even though he heard what the director said about those four high schoolers who died trying to escape last week.

(It started with the girl who sprinkled life and death like a baker and the girl who made keys out of nothing and the boy who stole souls and the wild wild boy who explodes and they were at the door when the neurotoxin came but oh what luck clean subjects for autopsies they will learn so much like how powers work and not to try to run).

John has to get out, he knows, he has to get out for Rose he has to get out because the weather is not meant to be restrained he is not a puppet.

He is so happy to be getting out.

It is midnight when he runs, with a breeze clicking open his door, subtle where Rose was exuberant, but John doesn't know which turns to take. He sends his little scouting breezes down the halls, sees the images, sees where the door is versus the halls, and he walks, jogs, runs, sprints, goes as fast as he can as hard as he can, and he is too impatient to wait for himself to spin the wheel, and he summons the wind like he's playing a piano concerto, batters the door with hail from Mozart and fights the hinges with lightning from Bach and assaults the wheel with hissing snow from Beethoven.

The alarm goes off, and John panics, heaving all of his power into the door because he knows, he'll get out for Rose, she deserves it, she deserves it and she needs him out.

A gun cocks behind him, and then another and another until there are ten guns pointed straight at him, but John does not cease his battery, he needs to get out, out, out.

"Step away from the door, Mr. Egbert," says an agent, not a researcher, he knows the difference. "No one needs to get hurt."

John sends breezes over his shoulder, knocks the guns out of the agents' hands, he thinks, and he keeps trying because he needs to get out, when-

There's a bullet through his neck, and he's bleeding and he sees-

Rose and Dave and Jade and he are all together and swinging and playing superheros and Jade falls out of a tree, and it's a stupid mistake but it's just a skinned knee and-

He and Dave are eight and they are trying to figure out how to give Rose and Jade their valentines because this year they say "xoxo" and that is a big step apparently, and they both get kisses on the cheek and-

He and Rose are seven in the town pool splashing at each other and they climb out soaked and both get smoothies and Rose pretends not to notice old men leering and-

He and Jade kiss and then some under the covers the night before the day their world ends and they laugh and laugh and laugh and-

John, at least, passes happily.

Jade feels John's heartbeat slow, slow, stop, feels his memories and feels him die and she doesn't realize until she touches her face that she's crying and she knows John is dead, technically, she knows that he's dead and she knows that she'll never hear him laugh again never hear him say hello or good morning or see his awful horrible bedhead ever again, but she doesn't know, doesn't actually realize what will happen, she has a horrible disconnect from knowing and accepting and she drowns in her tears, silly space princess with her silly friends dying and dying and dying.

Her thoughts are run-on sentences and her heart is ellipses and her eyes are flooding and-

and Dave wakes up, always the late bloomer, always fashionably late to the dead kids party.

ix
There is nothing in the room to tear Dave away from when he wakes up, no protests from him, emotionless even without his sunglasses, only flares of thought in his albino-red iris to show his inner thoughts, and it is the way of the world that no one looks into his eyes, instead staring at the star-white skin of his fingers.

He and Jade are allowed to eat together, and she tells him what she knows of what happened-there were at least fifteen of them, at the beginning, but Rose and John (stuttering) died trying to escape and those four high schoolers, poof, gone, and a tiny little girl with catlike tendencies was murdered by a wicked clownish boy, and no one's seen him since, and Dave considers that the deaths of children are what passes for everyday gossip here, and Jade finishes with now there's only about seven people left, she thinks, around that, if you count them. Dave nods slowly through her monologue, and she keeps going, keeps going even after she falls asleep on the table from her sedatives.

In the experiments, Dave draws cockroaches and spiders and mites and ants from wire-thin holes in the walls, and he hides some up his sleeves and sends them scouting out to find places for him to hide and escape.

The day after he wakes up, Jade tells him that she's running away to escape, and he jumps in to be her savior, or he tries, but Jade makes his wall fall just enough that he can't get out of bed, and he tries to imagine sweet little Jade, who likes everyone, as he remembers her, trying to escape, and killing people.

Jade is not the way Dave remembers her, because he remembers her as the princess in the tower and she knows herself as the hero who saves the day, and she tries to destroy the walls and she digs pits in floors and she stomps her feet and almost tantrums but she is a cunning wolf and the sweetest friend, and she is feeling wicked with her wolfish tints, and she fancies that she has wolf ears atop her head as she tumbles a brick wall.

(In hindsight, she could have simply moved the earth to make herself stairs to the surface, but she is too wicked and to canine right now to think of what would be rational Rose's solution, thinks Dave).

She builds walls behind her as she goes, doesn't let anyone follow her, throwing clods of dirt in the guards' eyes and heavy bricks at the men who try even harder not to let her pass, and she laughs, always.

He comes behind her, and she doesn't know where he come from, the strange agent who doesn't want to hurt them and comes out of hidden corridors that even she can't see.

But! She turns her head minutely, and there it is, there is the hollow in the six, six-and-a-half foot thick wall, a hollow that connects to somewhere, but she can't find where, the superb princess who fights her way through the world and sweet talks her way through her life.

The agent is still talking, and she is so very, very annoyed, very annoyed at this stupid agent, and when she was younger she would have dropped him into the earth, but she has trapped herself with walls and run herself ragged, even with her canine energies and her vicious passion, she is still nearly out of power, with nothing to restore it.

He has his gun trained on her, and she considers, maybe, raising her hands, because hey, that may be a way out of this.

She remembers, though, what she told Dave that morning about everyone who had died since she'd been there or gone missing, and she decides, no, she won't cause anyone else in this place any bad luck.

She launches herself at the agent, screaming, nails out and teeth bared, and-

I love you, Dave, I love you so much, tell John and Rose that I love them too, and I'm sorry.

There's three gunshots, three straight in a row, bam-bam-bam, and Jade stops in midair with three fist-sized blooms of blood coming out on her torso. She falls out of the air and hits the ground with a thud, and her memory is the first time she and John and Rose and Dave were all together and all were happy, and she recalls-

They are all four together, young and innocent and with no blood on their souls, and they are playing four-square, the version with tea party and snake-eyes and all the other embellishments, and they're all chanting together when Dave goes running after the ball, and they laugh when he dives to get back in his square on time.

Jade dies, unsmiling, but happy none the less.

x
Dave feels it when Jade dies and he howls, and they can all see the emotions in his eyes, his loss and tears and anger and fear and they see, soon enough, they see what their anger gets them, because Dave summons all his insects and they swarm the researchers, eating them alive, and the girl who wasn't-okay-with-this summons her ghosty goo friends and they haunt the ones the run, and she finally releases the ghosts from her service, finally, after so many years, and they run rampant. The lucky girl, the one from so long ago, she and the girl who destroys lies team up, and the researchers are hung, and the glowing girl gets ahold of a medical saw, and it turns wicked in her hands and everyone is afraid of this shining girl who lost her first love because of these people, and they should be.

The girl who is more bones than skin dies in the excitement, not before she made the researchers' weapons too small to fight any of the subjects, as they've all heard the researchers call them, and after her goes the girl who wasn't okay, who was so unokay that she didn't check behind her.

"We're PEOPLE!" screams the lucky girl, as she nails one of the supervisors in the eye with a quarter.

They all run away, all together, and it is frenzied and overjoyed and perfect.

The glowing girl quietly finds the morgue, finds the bodies, and she kisses her first love on her cold, dead cheek, and she leaves without telling anyone what she saw, without a chance to, even, because she is dead before she is out the door, and the lie-spotting girl is out of life in a quest for vengeance.

Dave is alone now, in sight of the door now, the final door, the door that leads outside, and it he and the lucky girl push it open and they are out, almost.

It is a dark corridor, they see, made of dirt and lit with small little lamps. They walk slowly, scared, shy, frightened. They come to another door, this one angled up, and when they push open the doors, they are dazzled by the sunlight, shaken by the change from the fluorescent lights to the natural sun.

And there are eight different government agents, all of them with guns pointed on them. Behind them stands Agent Peixes, and she sports a wicked grin with shark-sharp teeth, and this is not the same person who doesn't want to hurt them, just wants to get through the experiment.

Agent Vantas is dead, long live the queen.

The queen, regretfully, doesn't live for long. There are animals on the surface, worms and bugs and birds and things that move quickly and serve Dave, and the lucky girl aims a rock at her eye.

The queen is dead, painfully, now what is to happen to the mob, what is to happen to the children, not one of them in high school yet, some of them not even in middle school when they were kidnapped or taken or what-have-you.

The mob does not have time to make a decision, because Dave's bugs and animals come along, and only one shot is fired, one right at the lucky girl's head, and she, for the first time in her life, isn't lucky, and the bullet goes in straight in the middle of her forward, giving her a third eye, making her very, very beautiful and very, very dead.

Dave stands up next to the hole, sees a dead girl's corpse and eight skeletons wearing bulletproof vests and still having their guns, and Dave sighs that, out of all of his friends, he was the one who got out, when he was the one who was always inside, especially without his sunglasses, and he feels nothing right now, nothing where he knows Jade would be resplendent and overjoyed, where Rose would be proud and sneering, where John would be laughing and ecstatic.

Dave picks up the last gun, and the Dave disappears, same as his brother, same as his friends, same as everyone in the compound.

In another world, Mr. Egbert, Ms. Lalonde, and Mr. Harley mourn, silently, and pretend that nothing is wrong.

xi
The Truth of The PK-Positive Experiment

The U.S. government has revealed that they have been conducting secret experiments on PK-Positive children, by which they would kidnap children who had developed powers, and would keep them in a secret underground compound for months or years on end, with no contact between these children and the outside world, and without the children even being permitted to be allowed outside of the compound. On a recent raid on the compound, journalists found the decomposing bodies of a teenage boy and girl, both with bullets through their heads. Surrounding the children were nine skeletons, eight of which were wearing full tactical armor.

It was further discovered that the United States government has been carrying out covert assassinations on PK-Positive teenagers since early 2008. It is believed that the reason these teenagers were targeted was because they were too old to properly submit to the brainwashing techniques used by the government to control and suppress other PK-Positive people.

The Abuse of the PK-Positive: Enough

The recent discovery of the U.S. government's so-called "Prepubescent PK-Positive Experiment" has revealed much about the abuse of the PK-Positive in this country. The U.S. government has reportedly been kidnapping PK-Positive children for years to perform illegal and cruel experiments on children.

"My daughter was kidnapped when she was five," says one Ms. Leijon, tearfully. "I didn't even know what happened-I just sent her off to kindergarten one day, and then, eight years later, I learn that she was experimented on in some secret government compound. She was clubbed to death, and I don't even know what she looks like now!"

Stories like Ms. Leijon's are unfortunately common. Families have been torn apart, and none of the children have, as of yet, been reunited with their families, and it is believed that all of them have been killed in the government compounds.

End PK-Positive abuse today. End stories like Ms. Leijon's.

Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark, Volume 12: The Lonely Little Children

In a small town in America, there are four little graves, next to a playground. At midnight every night, four children will appear, they say, and they will run and play and act gaily as they please.. You must be careful not to be caught by the children at this time, because then they'll never let you leave. But, if you get close enough, you'll see the children as they are. The girl with short hair has no eyes, just empty black sockets. The other girl, with long hair, has wolf ears and howls on the full moon. The blonde boy has no teeth, just a wide-open mouth with gums and a tongue. The dark-haired boy, by comparison, has far too many teeth for his mouth, they protrude out of his mouth, and he will eat you.

These children are wicked, the townsfolk no, and only some of them know where they came from. An old, old lady, who has a glass of wine in one hand and a picture of who must be her granddaughter, says that the children came from when they all stopped living kindly, because those four children had killed someone, many someones. They lost their innocence that day, says the old lady, and that's why she says they're there.

If you can find him, there's an old, old man who exudes a fatherly air. He has a bumper sticker on his car that says "My child is an honor student" and in his wallet are so many pictures of a little boy, one with a small overbite. He says that those children weren't loved. :None of them were raised firmly, none of them were given the slightest touch of love. If you're quick enough, you'll catch a tear falling from his eye.

If you ask anyone else, they won't know. There used to be an old, old man who had a picture of his granddaughter in his wallet, but he died, years ago. There was a young man, a young man with a younger brother, but he disappeared before the children ever appeared.

The four children are like any other child, but no one can agree on ages-one says they are kindergartners, they are so small and innocent. Some say that they're third graders, they're so smart and they have such elaborate games. One once claimed that the children were middle schoolers, because that's when they shattered the earth.

The man who tells that story, however, is crazy.

Everyone knows this, in a town full of ghosts.

MISSING

Damara Megido, age 19, missing since 19 August 2009
5'8", black hair, brown eyes, Japanese features
REWARD: $10,000

act iv: a refuge

"Childhood is a kingdom where nobody dies," Rose quotes, some dead author probably castrating himself at her feet.

"Bullshit," Dave replies "Drink your fucking wine."

"Mistakes are proof that we are trying?" Jade offers off-handedly, some languid old perv probably haunting the corners of her mind.

"Deep bullshit," John laughs "Stretch your mind, Jade."

Because here, Rose gets drunk at prom, Jade gets a boyfriend who isn't Dave or John, Dave gets a girlfriend who isn't drunk in sophomore year, and John is at peace.

Here, no children were lost except the ones that got lost in growing up.

But there are happy endings here, and no one in this story deserves a happy ending.