"Mommy?" a soft voice asks from the doorway. I sit up from my bed and look towards the sound. A small girl of five years stands, while clutching a stuffed bee toy. This little girl happens to be my daughter.

"Mommy I can't sleep," she yawns and comes over to my side of the bed and attempts to climb the bed, but falters and almost falls over onto the floor. Before that happens, I pick her up and sit her on my lap and smile. She looks up at me and plays with my medium length dark brown hair. She takes after me more than her father. She has my fair skin, and my large nose. I hate that that's one of the things she takes after me but it can't be helped.

"It's a bit late for you to still be up isn't it?" I ask her.

"I'm sorry but i can't sleep," she says "can you tell me a story?"

"A story? You've never asked me to tell you one before, why now?"

"The TV people read stories all the time and I wanna be like the TV people!" she proclaims.

"The TV people? Well I guess I could tell you abooouuut… how I met your father?" I tell her.

"Okay!" she bounces up and down repeatedly on my lap until I tell her to calm down so I can begin.

"Once upon a time," I begin. I close my eyes and begin to get lost in my memories of my teenage years. Back around my freshman years, when I was 15. I was a fan of many things such as Homestuck, Hetalia, and such. I went to a school called Autumnburgh. I had few friends, but they were there for me through everything. After a minute of thinking, I finally choose a day suitable for the story.

I wake up to the sound of my hand-me-down alarm clock shrieking from across the room. Note to self, turn the volume down after school. I get up to turn it off, before going to the kitchen to feed my dog, Ria. When I fill her bowl with the wet dog food, I set it down for her to eat. She dives into the bowl head first and devours it within minutes. While she eats, I grab myself a bowl of cereal from the cabinet above the stove. When I sit down, I hear my dad coming out of his room. While swallowing a spoon of cereal down, I watch as he stumbles into the living room and plops onto the couch.

"How are you Ari?" he asks finally noticing me.

"I'm fine," I say. Ari is just my nickname, but it's what everyone calls me. My full name is Ariane Hartmann.

I get up and go get dressed in my navy blue and khaki uniform. The coat is blue, with a collar popped up, and double breasted as opposed to a regular polo shirt that most uniformed schools require you to wear. The skirt is khaki with the signature navy blue band on the bottom. I put on my black stockings and black head band and look in the mirror. It's too much clothing for summer, but it's supposed to be a bit chilly today. However everything is in place, so I grab my bag then sling it across my chest. I run out the door to catch my bus while after letting Ria out to the backyard for exercise.

When the bus arrives afterwards of seven minutes of waiting, I sit in my usual seat towards the front of the bus. My stop is the second in a sequence of nine stops all together. My friend Daniela comes onto the bus two stops later, and sits next to me on instinct. She is a fan of anime like me, but prefers animes like Madoka Magica and soul eater over Hetalia. For a while I've tried to convince her into reading Homestuck but every day she claims she forgot when she gets home. I look at her about to ask the question, but I already know the answer.

"No Ari, I have not read it yet"

"Why not?"

"I had to take my brother to his flute lessons" she glares at me through her incredibly thick glasses. I settle back down into my seat, and take that as a suitable answer… for today.

I begin to daydream as usual. It's usually the same thing to distract me from my daily responsibilities. Juggling between all my school work and all my chores at home. Most other people would say that's not a lot, but to me it is. Especially with my A, B average I have to maintain. I was then jolted out of my thinking by someone shaking my shoulder. That said person happened to be Daniela.

"You daydreaming again?" she asks me.

"Yeah, the usual," I tell her.

"Well save the empty-headedness for lunch or something, it's time to get off the bus."

I felt my eyes widen, and I looked around the bus, everyone was gone like that. I got up and followed Daniela off the bus and towards the where we meet up with our other friends. Most of them I don't really talk with. Of the ten to fifteen people there, I talk to only three. Those three are Daniela, Nadia who is what most people call a "hipster", and celeste who loves reading but skips to a different book every other day. I sat on the bench and began to daydream once more. I imagined a world where I could live alongside my favorite characters. What it would be like to be in Hetalia, or to have the chance to play sburb from Homestuck. I know it would never happen tough, but to have the chance would be…. So amazing! It would be awesome to play sburb and meet all of my favorite trolls, or even my patron troll, but the truth was that I would choose Hetalia over Homestuck any day. It's not like i don't read Homestuck anymore or anything like that, it's just that Hetalia has been something I enjoy for the longest time. I even made a few dolls out of clay in 3D art club that I attend after school. I'm not the best at artsy type things but when I improve every now and then, it pleases me.

I hear the loud speaker beep then call for me. It's only the beginning of the day though, so I really have no idea why I would be called. The loud speaker ends its announcement and then the bell rings for first period. I walk towards the main office. When I enter the office, I see my best friend Darren. He's taller than me by at least a foot, where as I am five feet and five inches. He has a darker complexion than me and he dropped out of school and got his GED this year so he's 18. Exactly three years and a month older than me. Truth be told, I was confused. We hung out all the time, so most people thought we were either siblings or dating. But I couldn't possibly go out with anyone when the men of Hetalia had already set such a high standard for people that might have a possibility of going out with me. This statement might be a bit stupid though considering if a male had said anything along those lines, he would be called sexist or something of the sort, so I keep comments like that to myself. However, back to the real world, my best friend of at least seven years was signing me out of school for the day, telling the woman behind the desk that he was my older step brother. My dad rarely has anything to do with this school, so it wasn't that hard to get away with such a lie, but if my dad found out about it, he would flip out.

We both walked out, and when we were out of ear range of anyone walking in or out of the school,

"What do you think you are doing you idiot?" I yelled at him.

"Your school should be more careful, I could have easily been there to kidnap you," He told me.

"But if I didn't know you, I probably would have spoken up, wouldn't i?" I asked him.

"I don't know maybe you would, but you're pretty gullible. I could have said that your dad sent me or something,"

"I'm not gullible!" I punched his arm in a fit of aggravation.

We walked to the local Wendy's when I had calmed down. He didn't order anything, he just told me to order, and he'll pay. I got two double stacks and some fries, and we sat down. He leaned towards me and whispered,

"If anyone asks, you're out of school because you had a doctor's appointment but it was cancelled at the last minute, okay?"

"Alright," I said back "I'm surprised no one stopped us yet…" I trailed off. He sighed and put in one of his ear buds playing some obscure bands song on blast. While chewing down some of my burger, I looked at his shoulder length hair, wondering why he took time and money out of his job at the liquor store to pick me up and treat me to food. It was still too early for lunch, but past breakfast hours, so not many people were at the small restaurant. I didn't care to take into account anyone that was in the bathroom. I swallowed down the last of my first burger and looked back at him. He was still looking out the window.

"Yo dork," I say to him

"Is that any way to speak to someone who just bought you lunch?"

"More like brunch, and I knew it! This was just blackmail!" I laugh.

"What do you mean blackmail?" he raises an eyebrow at me.

"Jokes aside, why did you get me out of school?" I question.

"Can't I just hang out with my friend for a day?" he laughs.

"Ha ha, now tell me the truth," I glare.

"No good reason really, you were just complaining a while back about everything around here being boring, so I thought 'hey! How about I treat her to lunch? That would be a good change!'" he laughs and takes a couple of fries from my tray and begins making an Eiffel tower of sorts out of them.

"Such a waste of good food," I say looking at the fry tower.

"Good? If you ask me, the 'natural fries' crap they give out is a lie, but you seem to like it" he picks one of the fries off the tower and eats it. I sigh and go to the bathroom after finishing my last burger to go wash my hands of the grease and sauce.

Only a few people know this but I have a really large fear of bathrooms. Many think it's very silly or even stupid, but the room itself creep my out. I guess it's because of the saw movies I watched when I was younger or something. Either way, to keep from having to curl up in the corner and cry, I keep the door open with something so I feel like I have an escape if something happens. Once again, I know it's stupid, but it comforts me. I went to put one of the trash cans in front of the door, when a woman in her older years came in. embarrassed, I put the trashcan back and went to wash my hands, all while blushing deep red. I was about to leave but the woman from before spoke suddenly.

"Miss, May I ask what your name is?" her voice was frail and she spoke softly, but I must admit, the request was…odd…

"Uh, my name is Ariane" I faltered.

"I see, I'm sorry but i couldn't help but overhear your conversation with your boyfriend back there,"

"You are mistaken. He's just a very close friend," I tell her.

"Well, I'm sorry. But I must ask you, are you really tired of this world you reside in?"

'This conversation keeps getting creepier and creepier' I thought. "I guess… there's not much for me except school, work then a family later in life."

"If you truly feel this way," she looks at me, her void black eyes staring straight at me. "Then I know of a way to cure your 'boredom'"

"I really have to go, my friend might be worried or something," I go to quickly retreat, but she latches on to my arm with a strength I would not have known she had. Her pupils, which surprisingly are easy to tell against her irises, dilate quickly. She pulls out a small owl bracelet and puts it in my hands. I take a quick glance at it but then look back to her. From that small peak, I could tell it was composed of a faded brown metal of some sort, and had blue green orbs for eyes, and its talons clutched a small scroll with clean parched paper. When I looked back to her, I had noticed her hair growing a bit darker than before. I hadn't realized that was possible though. She let go of my arm and walked past me towards the door. Before she left, she uttered a simple sentence.

"Good luck Ariane."

end chapter 1