Part I

Live in the Moment

"Fire Eye 'd Boy"

Crossing A Universe

Maude, Florence, Cara

Maude

Forget

In the space between thirty seconds, three minutes and half an hour, you have a sharp range of factors to include in an introduction. Of course, you have restrictions, for one; end with a beginning. Begin with a-

Damn it all.

Ask yourself this, how does one write the introduction paragraph on a paper subjected to 'introductions'? One doesn't. Clearly, one's teacher is having a bad day. One's teacher like's seeing pain expressed in one's class and so instructs a duty. One's teacher's instructed duty can only possibly be the impossible. And now, one is failing at one's third attempt to writing an introduction on 'introductions'. One doesn't particularly enjoy failing. Then again, one doesn't particularly enjoy general schooling. That didn't stop the government from landing one in public school. One is not- to a certain degree- exactly friendly with the world- (the whole bloody wide world) for landing one in this predicament.

Maude Smith did not like surprises (to put it lightly), so she never felt the need to consider them. Also, surprises being surprises, you really aren't supposed to consider them. Also, she didn't like plenty of other things, it wasn't just surprises. Also, an explanation will be provided to a later date. She had a plan, and no one was allowed to knock it up or down a level, shake it left and right, or generally toy with it. Maude was clever and logical and had her feet planted on the ground. No gust of wind could push her over.

It was afternoon, mid, she supposed (much, much later). Her pen tapped on the paper on the desk on the cold tile floor. Two minutes until the bell, she need only restrain herself that little bit longer. In a blur of agonizingly long nothingness, it was finally over. Maude ran to the breezy outdoors to meet up with her friends, her backpack hastily swung over her shoulder. She was relieved to be going home- after such a day. It was hotter than it should have been, she thought. Her massive bunch of curly, and unfathomably bright cherry red hair clung to her neck, and her eyes, comparable to the grey sky post-storm were often covered by her falling lids. In short, they day had drawled by (and by drawled she could only mean; took seven billion years in approximation).

They greeted her with normality, and the shortest of the trio scooped up her backpack hurriedly.

"Damn, I left my binder in Science Lab." Maude cursed. It was Friday, you couldn't have sugar without a little salt in her life. She was rather forgetful. Maude sighed extensively. The most negative expresser of their group, Cara made it her mission to let out the most disappointedly strangled moan ever witnessed and Flo exhaled at length to support the shorter's reaction.

"Come with me to get it, it's better then just staying here," she reasoned, "I'm really sorry," she added to be safe.

Cara would probably argue- she did, it was unlike her not to- though it didn't last long, her attention span was that of a six-year-old. They walked back into the building and down the stairs that lead only to the basement. It was dim lit and eerie. Not the sort of eerie in a horror movie, when you were waiting for the blood thirsty murderer with marriage problems to pounce any moment, but the sort of eerie you feel in a place that should never be empty and then suddenly is. Maude went straight to the Lab, this was too creepy for her taste.

Cara trailed behind her lazily, stepping between rays of sunshine from the small windows. White-silver hair, some choppy and loose, some in tiny discreet braids was restless on her shoulders as she looked this way and that- a facade to appear as though she cared. Flo made a turn into the boiler room, it was left open, and she'd always wanted a look inside. Maude searched around a little until she found her binder hidden under her neighbors table. She wondered about it's traumatizing journey between desks.

"Got it-" "Guys! Come check this out." Cara perked a little at the sound of mystery. Maude found herself being drawn towards her friends voice even more so.

They all came together around a valve.

"Oooh, a valve- well done Flo!" Cara grumbled, undoubtedly disinterested.

"I wonder why it's painted." Maude was curious; red, green, blue and yellow starting in the middle of the valve and expanding to the edge. She hesitated to reach out and trace the colors.

"What's this doing in our school? Look, the pipe it's stuck on doesn't even connect to anything," she pointed. Nobody found it necessary to reply any time in the next century until after what felt like ages;

"Bloody hell..." Cara sighed, rolled her eyes, reached forward and twisted the valve sharply.

"Why'd you do that!?" Flo exclaimed. "Well what was the point in just looking-" she began to expand, her eyes lazily half open and then abruptly wide; as there was suddenly a burst of light. Maude squealed unhappily, this was not part of her plan at all, her unmovable, unshakable, un-toy-able plan that was suddenly torn into bits and scattered across the the universe. The light flooded her vision fully for a good four seconds or so. Then, she was thrown back, and everything went black.

Florence

Rise and Shine

There are no gaps in time, time doesn't actually have gaps- thinking about it in a non-scientific sense. You cannot have missing time- time is time is time is time and there's no vast emptiness to it like there could be in the universe. Time and universe are very different, no matter how much they are compared to be similar by society or the newspaper or a textbook in the library.

There are no gaps in time, Flo reminded herself again. It's a rule that cannot possibly be broken by even the most rebelling teenage high school drop out. You will remember, she urged. There must have been something besides nothing in those seconds she was knocked out. Though a part in the back of her mind (that damn adventurous part) pressed forward, what if it was a gap? What if they'd fallen into a gap stitched to portray an imperfection in time? No matter how much it compared to be indecisively alike to a gap in time, it was simply impossible.

There are no gaps in time. She exhaled heavily.

She had woke up two minutes before, assuming she'd dreamt it all up as the past hour came back to her. She sat bolt upright when she realized she was lying on dirt, not the usual soft pillow and mattress. Hair flew over her evocative chalk blue eyes. She hesitated to take in her surroundings, her friends lay across from her, unmoving.

She tensed unexplainably so and crawled over to Maude, joints creaking and aching like a ninety-seven year old. What if they'd suffered more than the headache she'd endured.

"Typical," she felt like muttering. "I'm the first to wake up."

But what if it was more serious than that? What if waking up wasn't in store for her friends?

"Maude?" she whispered. Her voice was gravelly, like she hadn't had a glass of water in a week. She stirred.

"Oh thank god. Rise and shine, sweetheart," she pursued.

"Am I dead?" Maude demanded weakly.

"This heaven sucks," she added before propping up on her elbows. They examined the area more thoroughly. To the west, was a field of cacti, and to the east, when she turned around, were a couple giant hills.

"I feel post-sloshed." Cara let out several curses, propped herself up and dragged over to Flo and Maude.

"Where are we?" she demanded. Maude looked angry, this went against all her personal rules.

"I have no clue. But I think if we start walking towards those mountains, we might have a better idea," Flo supplied. No one complained. Florence helped her friends to their feet and began to lead the other two towards the sandy hills. Within half an hour, they'd managed to pull themselves up the most part of the largest mountain.

"Uunnnggh." Cara's distaste in the heat of the desert began to show a little better and a little more often. Finally, after what felt like eternity, they were at the peak, and what Flo saw- was not what she expected.

Cara

Normal

Cara didn't really know what was going on that day, she'd been doodling, braiding bits of her hair and talking to Maude when her Physics teacher explained the plans to follow. She figured whatever it was, it wouldn't be too important, a lie, exams were nearing even faster than the end of the school year. She might have had to be prepared, but Cara really wasn't one for studying.

"Pinch me," she uttered, as she gazed over the view. It was a city. A huge city, for as far as she could see, contained in a smooth, large, very tall and thick, rock wall. The buildings were built in a chinese or japanese style, with pointed roofs and golden drains and dragon designs along their walls. As Cara concentrated, she realized a part in the middle, near the large castle like structure appeared much more upper class then the smaller cottages near the outer wall- of which there were actually three.

"We may as well go check it out. Find out where in the world we are." Maude seemed to be in complete denial, she hadn't said a word since they'd landed there, Flo was trying to be exceedingly polite and helpful at the time. They travelled down hill, it was much easier then before, and Cara didn't complain at all.

She was much too in aw.

Somehow, they'd made it to the wall in barely ten minutes and they were standing their, making up some story of why in hell they were there for two men in odd green, brown, black and white clothes with large pointed hats.

"State your business in Ba Sing Se."

"I've never even heard of this place," Maude muttered to Cara.

"Me neither," she replied shortly, sort of hoping it would console her somehow- though her Geographic knowledge appeared feeble in comparisons to Maude's.

"We're... Travelers.. Here for sightseeing." Florence was first to give explanation. They seemed to scale her up, and not in the 'checking her out' sort of way, but in the 'should I or shouldn't I run you through with my spear' sort of way.

"You may enter. Enjoy your stay at Ba Sing Se." it seemed like he had to say that all the time, and all enthusiasm was lost.

"Thanks." They made a sort of hand motion towards her and she awkwardly returned it.

"Word of advice, when you're in the city, buy some.. Normal clothes." one of them told her this blandly, then, before she could exclaim something rude, turned and moved the wall open. They put out their fists and hit their feet into the earth, sending a shudder into the wall and pulling it open slowly. The girls entered, Maude possibly- or possible not- on the verge of tears, Flo in a state of disbelief, and Cara still staring at the wall, not the city at all in a mixture of intense interest and confusion.