I should've seen it coming. The way my father was training me under me thinking I was playing games. I should've just walked away when I had the chance, but no I had to stay here. My name is Eddy, Eddy Skipper McGee to be exact. I live with my father and my brother in the cul-de-sac of Peach Creek. I had two friends, Ed and Double D. I wish they were here with me now. This fricking tour bus full of us is going nowhere but anywhere. I wish anywhere had a destination.

I'm fifteen years old. It was the month before I discovered something 'special' about it. That's why I'm on this stupid bus. We're heading some place out in the middle of the desert. My dad didn't tell me where it was; just it was somewhere not here. Damn him for that. These kids are either my age or fourteen, but they don't care. They just want to see us die.

The only kid here I know is Johnny. Johnny Martinez; he changed a lot from when we were kids. Ever since that piece of wood Plank was sent to the chipper, he's gotten a lot less annoying and more or less quieter. He's gotten into a lot more fights; hell I'd say he's gotten equal to me on my rap sheet. But, I have to admit, he was always my counterpart. He wears clothes that resemble mine, baggy and loose. I even asked him if he was copying me, and he just blew me off and proved he wasn't. I got impressed by his attitude, and we've been somewhat friends since then.

We go through an underpass when I look up at the sky and realize it would be about nine o' clock. Johnny uncrosses his arms and pulls out a notebook. I look over and notice a bunch of words jumbled around on the page. I look closer and realize they weren't just rambles on paper; they were lyrics. I decide to ask him.

"Those lyrics you writing?" I ask.

"Yeah, so what?" Johnny responds.

"Well, I kind of do some music myself."

Johnny raises his eyebrow and straightens his jacket. He looks up and back at me and asks.

"Well, what do you do?"

I answer him by telling him I rap. His face kind of brightens up, but his lips don't form a smile. He takes an ear bud from his left ear and passes to me and says,

"I rap, too. You want to hear a song I recorded?"

"Sure, why not?"

As the beat begins to start, I begin to hear his flow and the words kind of speak to me.

Abstract, spitting these lyrics make this picture abstract.

The generals of the Army consider this a bad track.

As the cigarette ash falls from the frame of stick,

The sun goes down on the day, and the life gets hit.

Sent to heaven or hell, depending on whose life it lived.

So I sit back and smoke it while the losers get did.

Get drunk, get flunked but I don't care myself.

'Cause I'll end up like them if I be my real self.

I take the bud out and look at him; I tell him it was pretty good. He nods his head and points it toward a man; he's coming down the aisle. Before I could ask him, he closes his eyes and goes to sleep, his scowl not fading one bit.

"Time for you jack-offs to get to bed. You bastard children deserve to sleep now; you don't deserve to stay up like the hardworking kids back home. Get to it!" The man yells.

"Damn, dude. Do you really have to be that stingy?" I say under my breath.

The man slaps me in the back of my head; he must've heard me say that. I grunt in disgust and pretend to fall asleep.

I can't sleep. It's been about three hours and I haven't been able to sleep. It could be about eleven, but I haven't been able to do it. It's probably because I'm not used to sleeping on a bus. I look at Johnny and I see that he can sleep like he slept there for years. I can't understand it. I'll never know. The night sky rolls along while the bus shakes and moves. I straighten my do-rag and look around and behind me. There's an empty seat back there, and maybe I could move over there…no it wouldn't work.

Eventually I found out that these seats are modified to lean back, so I bring it back and lay down. I turn on my side and my eyes become heavy. Immediately I fall asleep, thinking nothing more than my friends back home and cheeseburgers and good times, and all of them will be dashed away before I know it.