Oh wow, hey you guys! Took a bit longer than I thought to update! I hope most of my old followers are still with me, but I know thats probably not true because I accidentally deleted the story before I could put up the message. But I hope you all find this again.

I'm so happy to be revisiting the world of Hellboy, I love it there! This chapter is just really to introduce the story and character. I really hope I did well to build Jenny up as a character. She's like my lil sister! I love her! And I hope you guys notice how much we have both grown.

So I don't have much else to say other than enjoy the chapter and please please PLEASE review! I missed you guys!


Have you ever gotten the feeling that you weren't normal? That deep inside, you were bizarrely different from everyone?

Jenny guessed that she had had those generic angsty teenage sorts of thoughts, mainly through high school.

But at the present moment in time, those thoughts were pushed completely out of her head. Now more than ever, she felt a part of the crowd; this was a feat considering her unfortunate genetics.

With her hair included, she could easily tower over many people, almost reaching six feet. No joke, it made picking high school basketball teams awkward. The height and hair were thanks to her dad, floating like a storm around her head that was disastrously frizzy on the best of days. She'd been told by some that her green eyes used to sparkle mischievously when she was little. Now she kept mostly to herself, pranks being the last thing one would expect from her.

Introverted or not, there was no possible way to not be excited right now. College graduation had finally come.

Her hometown of Old Fort, North Carolina was 30 minute away from Asheville and a mere 5 minutes longer from the University of North Carolina campus there. She had spent four years there, studying Archeology and Photography.

She might not have lived with her parents as long as she did if her dad wasn't diagnosed with leukemia in her senior year of high school. Her mother needed her help more than ever with the horseback riding tours that made up their income.

But it all paid off now, as she sat in the crowd of graduates, trembling with excitement. The speeches had been made, hands had been shaken, and any second the final speech would end and they would be off to start their lives.

Well, that was how it seemed. Jenny wasn't so naive as to expect that she would immediately go on to do great things. She was more than willing to put in the time and effort to make it to the top. She had the brains and the brawn to blaze her own trail.

Jenny was so lost in her thoughts, she nearly missed the cheering as the valedictorian finished. All around her, people jumped to their feet and began flinging their caps. Jenny had to laugh as she joined them, sending her cap sailing high into the air.

As the crowds began to trickle away to meet for pictures with family members out in the lobby, Jenny quickly gathered her belongings and slipped through the masses. Her parents were waiting at the exit, all open arms and glowing, prideful smiles.

"Oh honey, I am so very proud of you. That was a wonderful ceremony." Her mother grasped her clammy hands in her own tight, weathered ones. Expecting her father's hair ruffle, Jenny nimbly dodged the offending hand, earning a laugh from the man. She hadn't been this excited about an accomplishment since she finally tamed the rather willful gelding her mother took in a few years ago.

They preferred to take only a few pictures, their growling stomachs dictating how much time they spent.

That night was one of the best Jenny could remember; there was good talk and good food waiting at home; even her father said that he hardly felt any pain. There at the dinner table, when all the food was put away and they all nursed cups of tea or coffee, her parents brought up the topic of the trip.

"New York City?"

"That's right. We know ya've been ta a few big cities, but ya've never been to New York, and we want ya to be able ta experience the world before ya settle down with a big fancy job." Her father said, leaning back with his hands pressed to his stomach, satisfied as always by his wife's cooking.

"Mom? Are you on board with this?" Jenny's mother was like her daughter in the respect that she preferred the country to the big city. In fact, Abigail Lockwood, was a bit scared of cities. In Jenny's childhood, she had drilled safety rules into her daughter's head; find a policeman if you get lost, don't stop for people asking for money, walk fast if you're alone at night. Sometimes Jenny listened, sometimes she didn't. She usually gave whatever pocket money she could to the homeless.

Abigail sighed, "You know how I am about cities, dear. But your father has a point. We never travel much unless it's in the area and you never got to backpack across Europe." Jenny smiled, remembering how insistent she had been that she wanted to take a year off before college. When that plan fell through due to her father's cancer, she stopped her complaints. "You might like the Big Apple."

"Say I agreed to this trip... How am I going to pay for it?" She had been saving money since highschool, putting a little in the bank with every paycheck she was given as a full employee of at her parent's ranch.

Even so, she wasn't eager to drain her bank account for one trip.

"We've got that covered." Her parents assured.

"What? You do?" Where had they gotten the money? They hadn't taken out a loan had they?

"We've been putting a lot aside lately, cutting back on some things. This is something we've been planning since your sophomore year of college." Her mother admitted.

"What about dad's chemotherapy fees?" The therapy didn't come cheap. Even though they caught her father's cancer early, it took up a large chunk of their savings. Her parents exchanged a look.

"We were waiting for tonight ta tell ya because there was already cause for a celebration," Jenny didn't miss her father taking her mother's hand under the table and the smile they shared. "The chemotherapy worked. Mah cancer has receded and there's a very small chance of it returning."

Jenny couldn't open her mouth for fear that the tidal wave of relief, joy, and surprise rising up inside her would spill out and drown them all in a fizzy cocktail of delight. Her parents beamed at her from across the table, amused by her shock.

"Are you serious? Dad, that's fantastic!" Jenny reached across the table to take their free hands, completing the circle of family, warm and carefree hearts beating between the three.

Later that evening, before she went to bed, Jenny took an old wooden frame and slipped her degree in the back. Proudly, she hung it neatly above her desk with her high school diploma and other various awards. She let herself slip into an easy, light sleep; feelings of love and pride warming her heart.

As July rolled around, Jenny began to prepare for her trip. She spent the morning of her departure packing suitcases into the back of her trusty, rusty old jeep. As she pulled away from the curb, she waved farewell to her parents who had awoken early to see her off.

After four hours on the road, the heat and her achy legs forced her to pull into a deserted rest stop. Cold sodas and snacks were packed tight in the mini cooler which she dug up. The bubbles burned on her tongue as she lazily scanned the parking lot. So far, the scenery was nothing new. Smokey forests, broad sloping hills, and the sky mercifully clear of rain clouds. But she knew that soon it would all give way to tall, reaching skyscrapers and city traffic.

After she finished her drink and a granola bar or two, she saw no reason to stay any longer and was back on the road within minutes. The sun was beating down, but the cover was up and the interior was nice and cool.

She turned the dial on the radio, scanning for a station. Finding a 60's pop station, she cranked it up louder and sang along as she weaved her way down the winding road.

~:~:~:~:~

"Oh man, I think that the seat may have melded to my butt." She moaned piteously and rubbed her backside. She had just pulled into the parking lot of her hotel in New York City not minutes ago.

A pimply teenage bellhop hauled the bags into the lobby and up to her room before her. Jenny checked in and rode up the elevator to the third floor. The boy was waiting and courteously showed her inside, handing her the key and left.

She whistled appreciatively at the grandiose room and silently thank her parents for making the hotel arrangements. Not to mention, it also had a stellar view. One window looked down at the street the hotel was on. Perky, colorful shops and dark, cozy coffeehouses lined the road. On the opposite side of her suite, another window oversaw the pool in the hotel courtyard.

She couldn't resist a nice dip in the inviting water, especially when no one was out there. Busy pools were ok, but one could only take so much of rowdy kids. There had been too many incidents of tidal waves to the face and children crawling over her like playground equipment at family reunions.

The temptation of the pool all to herself was too good to resist. She quickly dug a swimsuit out of her bag, left her bags unpacked, and remembered to grab her room key on her way out.

A hot breeze swept through the courtyard as Jenny stepped into the water, making the swim all the better. By the time she had had her fill of the pool, the sun was setting in the grey sky.

"Sunset... Wish I could see it from up there. I bet the view is much better in the clouds. But I'm stuck down here." She thought as she floated on her back.

Feeling a bit like Judy Garland, she let the water fill her ears and dreams of flying over the rainbow fill her mind until the sun slipped beneath the horizon.

~:~:~:~

Foreign sounds blasted Jenny awake later that night, namely a blaring car alarm directly under her hotel window.

Cursing at the time, Jenny stumbled to the window and glared down at the commotion below. An oddly large dump truck was attempting to back down the alleyway across the street. Instead, it had made too wide of a turn and had hit a car,setting off the alarm.

"Seriously? What is a dump truck doing out at this time of night?"

Granted, this was the city that never slept, but something about this seemed... off.

As if to highlight the peculiarity of the situation, men in suits and black overcoats came running out of the cars following the truck and began to direct the driver by hand, quickly and efficiently maneuvering the truck into the alley without further incident.

After the truck disappeared down the side street, the excitement died down. And yet, even when Jenny retreated back to bed, a curious feeling rested in her stomach the rest of the night.

~:~:~:~

By the time morning dawned on the fourth day of Jenny's trip, she had spent one day exploring the city and the next visiting Broadway. Even though it cost a fortune, she spent the whole afternoon seeing famous works put to life on the stage.

Jenny was surprised to find that she was enjoying herself so much. Other than the traffic, there was little different from Asheville. She even found her way to the public library. Her mother's voice floated through her mind, "You need to get out more! Spending all day cooped up inside isn't good. Go out, make friends, have adventures! See the world!"

This was a familiar argument from Jenny's youth. Eventually her mother came to understand that books were her friends. They were her adventures and through them she explored new worlds. At first, her mother didn't want to leave it at that, but her father stepped in on the matter.

"Leave it be Abigail. She's enough work ta do here on the ranch. If it bothers ya so much, she can come read ta me in the barn while Ah work."

As long as Jenny was technically outside and getting exercise by acting out her favorite scenes on top of the hay bales, her mother left it alone. It also let her spend more time with her father. She treasured those moments.

The New York City public library was, unsurprisingly much larger than Asheville's. The quiet murmurs of fellow patrons set Jenny's mind at ease. Here she wouldn't be bothered with lost tourists, no more familiar with the city than she was, or being handed another flyer for another hot, up-and-coming band.

Here, she could enjoy the peace and the pleasant permeating smell of old paper and lemon-scented cleaning products.

Here, Jenny could let go of her problems or stress and get lost in a new story for hours on end.

She wasted no time, speeding through the fiction section and selected a few promising novels with all the precision of a surgeon. Mythology was her next stop. Finally, with a hefty stack of books, Jenny carefully made her way to a vacant nook tucked away into the lower levels of the library.

As fun as it was exploring New York City, Jenny hadn't thought to pack any books with her luggage and was dying for a story. So as she curled herself into a cozy ball in the depths of a plush armchair, her focus narrowed until all she knew was the tale printed before her.

This was perhaps why the faint but steady rumbling sound refused to register to her brain until it was almost a roar.

Startled and a little scared, Jenny was yanked back into reality. Her head snapped up and tilted to one side, trying to identify the noise.

"What the hell could that be? Maybe the pipes are just really old or maybe it's a subway train... No way. I'm not far enough down for that... Am I?" While she was distracted by her own thoughts, the cacophony pinpointed to what seemed like the other side of the far wall. She slowly stood and crept closer. Now she could distinguish individual yells and squeals of pain.

"What the HELL?"

In the split second that the wall imploded and sent her careening back into chair, the world slowed in the way a person sees a vision of exactly how they will die, seconds before they do. She could pick out the individual bricks speeding toward her face with disturbing clarity. The dust billowed like Death himself, come to claim everything enveloped within the fog of destruction.

As her spine came in contact with the soft armchair she had been seated in just seconds ago, time sped back up. Air was refused entrance into her flattened lungs and her arm felt like a sumo wrestler had given it a good hard wrench backwards. As she lay curled up on the ground, now gritty with fragments of bricks, black spots danced in her vision.

Agonizing pain in the upper shoulders. It barely registered to her that she was in danger. Her arm. Thoughts ripped through her mind. Every disc in her spine shrieked. Faster than she could comprehend, she had pushed herself to a crouch and balled up behind the chair. Priorly hidden instincts made her tense in preparation. But preparation for what?

RUN.

Air whooshed back into her lungs, pumping adrenaline through her veins with a rush like she'd never felt before. She darted out from her hiding place and sped through the cloud of destruction just feet from her.

The door back to the upper levels was in her line of sight, a clear shot though the stacks. Surprisingly, few of the shelves had been hit. Books were jumbled in messy piles with pages stick up at odd angles like crooked fingers reaching for the sky. It made Jenny wince at the sight of crumpled pages, but she couldn't worry about that now.

She focused on hurdling the bookshelves that had collapsed in her path to the door. So close! It was right in front of her! Just a few more yards. All she had to do was reach out and grab the knob...

So of course, it was at that exact moment she was hit from behind by a flying mass. With a scream, her feet flew out from underneath her and she hit the floor with a loud bang!

Wincing at the pain radiating from her bruised behind, Jenny forced her muscles to move, now crawling for the door. But her legs had given all they had and she collapsed. What the hell was going on? Was this a terrorist attack? All she knew was that she wanted out. But the thick smoke and dust coated the back of her throat and fogged her mind, making it impossible to yell for help or think.

So she lay there in the wake of devastation, a once safe haven now destroyed, and when she couldn't hold her eyes open any longer, she gave into her exhaustion and fell into the black.