Battery City, California - November, 2014

"Mikey, wait for me!" she short dark-haired girl yelled, running after her best friend. He laughed and turned around so he was running backwards. "Come on, Jess!" he called back to her, "Keep up!"

The two children - nine years old, by the looks of them - ran through a sun-bathed field, The boy was several feet in front of his shorter, female friend, though it was easy to see that he was holding back to wait for her. She slowed to a stop, dropping to sit on the ground. "Mikeeeeey." she said. "Please come back."

The boy ran back to where she sat and flopped onto the ground next to her, grabbing her hand and pulling her down with him. She giggled, turning onto her side so she could look at him. "I wish every day could be this fun." she told him.

He laughed, turning his head to the side. "Me too." he said. "We'll always be friends, won't we Jess?" The girl nodded, her black hair falling into her face. "Best friends." she agreed.

Jessica opened her eyes blearily, none too pleased to see her older brother leaning over her. "Come on Jess." he said, "You're gonna be late for school."

Jessica sat up, pushing Frank away from her as she did. "I was having a good dream for once," she mumbled as she stood.

Frank shrugged. "Sorry, You're going to have to wait for your shower, Lyric's in there right now."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. Get out."

Frank left the room as Jessica rolled out of bed and pulled her typical (boring, her head whispered) Better Living-issued clothes out of the closet. They were simple, black jeans, white blouse, black boots. Simple, but unpleasant. She had regular clothes, colorful clothes, in the back of her closet, but she could only wear them around her family, who didn't care what she looked like.

Jessica turned to the door leading to the bathroom she and Lyric shared - and they only shared it because they also shared a room. That was the thing with having five people live in a house built for four. Lyric wasn't even Jessica's sister. More like her best friend. She banged on the door. "Come on, Lyric, hurry up!"

"Give me like two minutes!" Lyric shouted back.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "NO." she said. "If you don't get out right now I swear I will break this door down."

She heard the water shut off a few seconds later. "That would be a bad idea, you know." Lyric said. Jessica sighed, slumping against the door. She knew the rules, knew them better than most, considering the amount of times she'd almost broken every single one of them. But it wasn't her fault BL/ind was oppressive and controlling. It reminded her of 1984, which she'd never read, but Frank had, and he had told her about it. Jessica had no problems with rules that made sense, but the ones BL/ind had put into place - Don't have your headphones above a certain volume. Don't dance. Don't wear more than a bit of color. - were stupid. Why did she have to follow them?

The door jerked open, and Jessica would have toppled over if not for her fast reflexes. Lyric shook her head, droplets of water falling from the wet strands of her hair and onto Jessica's face. "Your turn." she said simply.

Jessica scrambled up. "If Mikey comes by early, tell him I'm not ready yet." she said, to which Lyric nodded.

"Will do." Lyric said as Jessica closed the door.

There was one thing that Jessica liked about Battery City. Endless hot water. She wanted to stay in the shower for hours; it felt like the only place where she wasn't watched constantly. But it had to end at some point. When Jessica stepped out of the shower, she could tell by the volume coming from the kitchen that Mikey had come over early, and he'd brought his older brother with him. It was kind of nice, and kind of weird, that her brother's best friend was Mikey's brother. Including Lyric, the five of them made a very interesting team.

She came out into the kitchen, where Mikey and Lyric were calmly eating breakfast while Frank and Gerard attempted to make pancakes. Her parents had already gone to work. Jessica looked from Mikey to the older two. "Who authorized this?" she asked, pointing at her brother.

Mikey shrugged, shoveling cereal into his mouth "Who knows?"

Jessica shook her head, grabbing a bowl and pouring herself a bowl of cereal. As she sat down, she heard a splatter from behind her and Gerard said, "Crap, Frank, why'd you drop it?" Jessica sighed. This couldn't end well.

The news came in class.

The class was doing a group project on the Wars, which they didn't really need to do, since they had lived through them (Jessica still had nightmares sometimes, and she knew Mikey and Lyric did too), but they had to do what they were told. As every citizen of Battery City had to. She and Mikey were in an intense discussion about the cause of the Wars when Dr. Salvant, the school director, came in, his face grey. He whispered something to the professor, and left as quickly as he had come. The teacher came up to Jessica, bending down to look her in the eyes.

"Miss Iero," she said, "I have been informed that there had been...an accident. Your brother is here to collect you."

Jessica froze, her mouth open in shock. "W-what?"

The teacher glanced at Mikey, who was staring at her the same way Jessica was, then at the rest of the class. "Please, Miss Iero. Just go. Take your things." With that, she stalked back to her desk.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Jessica began to put her school things away. Mikey leaned over the table and grabbed her hand. "Call me, okay?" was all he said, and Jessica nodded. Mikey was her best friend, had been since they were babies; he knew everything about her. She stood up, pulling her bag onto her shoulder, and left the room before the stares bore holes into her body.

Lyric met her halfway down the hallway, her eyes wide. "What's going on?!" she asked.

"I don't know." Jessica said, her panic rising. The two took off down the hall to the main office.

As they entered, Frank turned to look at them. Tears stained his face. "What happened?" Jessica asked.

"Mom and Dad." Frank said. He took a deep breath. "They're dead."

I promised you something new, didn't I? This story has four chapters written so far, and I'm working on the fifth, so I'll update quickly at first and then it'll slow down a bit. I hope you enjoyed!