"Quit hogging the damned cheese then!"
"Would you two shut the hell up already?!"
"Why don't you go and shove a carrot up your -- "
"HEEY!!" Ejay yelled, pausing the movie. She stood with her hands on her hips at the sight before her: Sonic and Tai fighting over nachos and cheese, Kelsey and Tim practically throwing each other off of the couch. "You all either lighten the hell up, stop with the attitudes, or I break the frikkin DVD in threes!! YOU HEAR ME?! IN THREES!!"
They eventually ended up sharing the nachos and the couch. Ejay smiled and propped herself up against a pillow on the floor and continued 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'. That's right, it was the annual retarded sleepover that was held every first day of each month to celebrate the awesome randomness that was the group of friends nicknamed 'The Fated Hearts', after the undiscovered doujinshi that Ejay had made in the 8th grade.
A fancy storm was roaring outside, wind lashing everything and rain crashing down everywhere. Lighting and thunder was the main event, though, as the interior of the house lit up every so often with the flashing lightning, and they flinched at every boom of thunder.
"Not one man, no nor ten men, nor a hundred, can assuage me," Ejay sung along to part of 'Epiphany'. "I will have you...and I will get him back even as he gloats, in the meantime I'll practice on less hon'rable throats, AND MY LUCY, LIES IN URCHINS, AND I'LL NEVER, HUG MY GIRL TO ME, but the worth wait! I'm alive at last, and I'm full of JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYY!!" She finished just as the resolution on the screen flickered, making her twitch. It flickered some more, then went blank, just black and white scrambles.
Ejay growled, walking over to the screen and hitting it a few times with the remote. She sighed when nothing happened. She turned and chucked the remote at the fridge. She grumbled some more and switched the TV off. She looked down at it, listening to her friends whining. Then there was another loud sound, but it wasn't like thunder or a train or anything. It was silence, but it was deafening.
Ejay turned around again, holding her ears, and saw a small violet light towards the back of the kitchen. Out of that light swarmed a flooding darkness, spreading everywhere. She gasped, but nothing came out. Ejay put her hands to her throat and tried to talk again.
'Tim? Kelsey?!' She mouthed, then her eyes widened as the darkness was beginning to close around her. She yelled soundlessly at her friends, who were looking around wildly, shouting her name. 'I'm right in front of you!! LOOK!!'
Then the darkness closed around her completely.
Inside the darkness, Ejay continued to shout out for her friends. She stopped after a while and stood there in all dark. Nothing but the dense color of black surrounded her. Ejay was standing on something solid, to be sure, for she wasn't floating or drifting, but felt the heavy force of dark on her. She looked around, expecting nothing, then spotted a box. She looked at it, not daring to move.
Going against her fear of falling off of some unseen edge, she walked slowly towards the box, her hands out before her. Now she stood before that box, and leaned down. She picked it, up, examining it, then lifted the lid.
Inside were five charms: one like a hammer, another like a ship's wheel, a third like a red teardop, the fourth as a sun, and the fifth one as an 'X'. Ejay raised an eyebrow and reached down in the box for the X charm. She held it up before her, spinning it around on it's string. She shrugged and put it back in the box.
She noticed something else in there as well. A drawing. She 'wow'ed and took it out, too. It looked like a 5-year old drew it, but she could make out three people: one with spiky red hair in black, one wtih blonde hair in black, and another with brown hair in black, obviously a girl. They were all standing in front of a castle-like place, but the brown-haired girl was walking away from them, and the redhead was reaching an arm out towards her
There were a few more drawings there. One with the redhead, pointing to a fire-colored doorway, one with a mouse with a key-shaped sword, and another with a red-haired girl.
"Oh, one more..." Ejay said to herself, then smiled as she heard her voice. She reached in and yanked out a final picture, then stared at it for a moment.
On one side of the picture, there was the brunette girl with a key-shaped sword, like the mouse's. On the other was a brown-haired boy with a key as well; the boy was in a light spot, yet the girl was in a darker one. They both had their weapons pointed up at a heart-shaped moon.
Ejay stared for a second more, then turned the picture over. Something was scribbled in a girl's hand on the back.
"A scattered dream that's like a far-off memory..." Ejay read aloud, trying to remember where she heard this from. "A far-off memory that's like a scattered dream...I want to line the pieces up -- "
"Yours and mine."
Ejay looked around for the voice that had joined hers in the last line. "...wait...I know this...that voice is -- ah!!" She stopped as a bright light shone above her, then blinded her completely.
-
--
The sound of bells and the rumble of train wheels resonated throughout the lazily sunlit town. Children shouted and played atop Sunset Hill, and a dog barked off in the distance.
Five teenagers lay deserted and asleep on the ground in the Sandlot, each clad in black cloaks.
On the chest of one of them, there was an X shape with a jagged outline.