I sighed and wiped my forehead off. The whole building was hot; the heat was turned up on a full seventy degrees, as it was the middle of winter outside, but oh! What I wouldn't have done for some snow right about now! I regained my stature and started practicing again, right block, left, left, forward punch . . . No, that didn't seem right . . . right, left forward punch, there it was! I was practicing for the han-sho-dawn, a Karate thing that I wanted to learn. I just had to keep practicing…

That was the key, of course. You know the term, practice makes perfect? Well, it's true. I saw the clock out of the corner of my eye. I blinked away some sweat and stopped my practice. Instead, I got into some relaxed stretches. It was almost nine o'clock at night and I needed to be heading home. I smirked and shook my head.

Suddenly, I liked the heat just fine. After all, who would want to leave a room that was so nice and warm, right? Anybody . . .?

I sighed and moved on down to the left of the large room, entering the women's locker room, took my shower, and then got dressed in my outdoor clothes after I dried off. I looked in the mirror while I put my hair back into a high ponytail. I was wearing my bell bottomed jeans and soft blue sweater with my extremely comfortable boots. They looked more like shoes, because they were short, but they weren't. I twisted the scrunchie one final time, and pulled the loop over the tail of my hair.

I have pale skin, and soft but sincere deep blue eyes. I'm about six foot three, tall for a girl. I took a last look around, and made sure I had everything. I slid my comb into my back pocket and putting my old clothes into my backpack, along with my water and leather hand gloves. I zipped it up and slipped on my long red jacket and put my backpack on. I left the dressing room and Waved goodbye to Anita. She looked up and smiled, before returning to her work.

'Okay,' I thought, looking out to the door. 'It's time to go, unless I want to be a puddle of liquefied Kiara on the ground in, say, two seconds,' I thought, and smiled lightly. I walked out the girls locker room, and out to the front door of the building. I opened the door, feeling the icy, chill cold air, and paused, enjoying the feeling of the cool, cold air on my skin.

Sometimes, I'm just weird. I'll like something one second and hate it the next. Like my cats, or my family . . . but who doesn't? Mom waking you up for school, or brother, always trying to trick me into eating broccoli, dad always being far too cheerful in the morning . . . Lets face it, I'm not the morning type, and broccoli is just gross.

I took a step out of the front door and nearly fell straight on my butt on the slippery, ice-coated walkway. Okay, that would have SO hurt! I began to wonder if they ever put salt on these damn sidewalks. I mean really . . . they have to have heard of salt before, right? I mean it isn't exactly unheard of.

I finally regained my balance after what must have looked like a very short and very stupid looking ice dance, and began to walk home.

There was a sound like static laughter in the air, and I glanced back, hearing it coming from behind me, although there seemed to be nothing there. It had sounded like laughter, but who laughed like static?

I frowned at this. What on Earth was going on? I shrugged. Oh, well. What harm was there in a laugh? Maybe I had made someone's whole day just by making him or her laugh. Hey, sounded like a plan to me. I smirked and shook my head. Yes, I did that a lot.

That's when I looked down, and saw something that should never have been there . . .

(( : Smiles.: So… What do you think? I'm in the middle of reworking all of my stories, so let me know what you think! Please Review. :) ))