For readers unfamiliar with my writing, you can expect gore, angst, violence, pairings of the het, slash, femslash and crack variety, too many adverbs, too much swearing, and incomprehensibility on Christophe's part.

Also, Kenny/Christophe/Bebe best friendship belongs to Searyou. Think about it, because it makes amazing sense.

The cry for help alerts me.

I drop my grocery bag and tear down the street. The kid is still screaming ten seconds later, even when I turn the corner into the alley. The night obscures my vision, but the sound of scuffles and shouting echo against the walls.

The alley is long enough for me to feel lost after a few footsteps. I sprint in the direction of the scream. My sneakers pound into the pavement with each stride. As I near the source of the screams, I make out dozens of figures. Most of them are hunched over and leaning against the wall. Four are standing in a semi-circle with their hands raised. Something silver-gray shimmers in the air within their circle.

When I get close enough, I see the people against the wall are wearing handcuffs.

Another two people carry poles vibrating blue-gray color. They press them up close to the prisoners whenever they try to jerk free. They're all handcuffed together in a chain. And I have no idea what's going on, but I know it's probably not a good thing.

I push my hood off my head and stop half a dozen feet away from the group. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The little kid keeps screaming.

This close, I can make out more detail. Like, the people who aren't in handcuffs are all really tall and skinny and kind of shiny-looking. They all have eyes too big for their heads and they wear clothing I don't recognize, a floaty, airy cloth that almost hovers around their bodies. There's something about them that immediately strikes me as inhuman. Living in South Park, this is not the most uncommon of events.

One of the prisoners tries to struggle free, and an inhuman guard presses its pole against her head. Silvery-gray electricity buzzes over her skin. She shrieks, her voice grating my ears. She slumps to the ground. The other prisoners continue to cower.

"I said, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

The little kid has stopped screaming by now, reduced to just barest whimpers.

The four other inhumans continue to hold their hands up in the air with the light shimmering in front of them. They all have charcoal symbols drawn on their hands, which look kinda similar to Arabic lettering. I step towards them.

One of the inhuman guards blocks my way, holding its pole out. It pulls a pair of handcuffs from a pocket. The handcuffs are not modern and shiny, as was my first impression, but made of tightly woven strands of metal and glowing with a soft blue-gray light.

It extends the handcuffs towards me and snickers.

"You fucking wish," I say, and snap a kick. I catch it in the gut and it stumbles back. I whirl to kick the other guard, but the first one is already back at me. It jams the pole into my stomach.

The shimmery gray light erupts through me. Pain explodes. Dimly, I feel my knees hitting the cement, but the agony sears every other sensation away. I must be screaming, because I've never felt anything like this in my entire life, and then-

I wake up in Hell.

Because I'm Damien's 'special guest' I find myself standing in front of Satan's apartment. It smells like brimstone down here, but also a bit like the fake scent soccer moms buy for their cars, so I cover my nose with my sleeve while I knock on the door.

Satan pulls open the door a few seconds later. He's wearing a flowery apron. "Kenny!" he gushes.

"Uh, hey. Satan. Um. Is Damien here?"

He lets me into the apartment and I duck down the hallway. Damien is lying on his back in the middle of the floor, throwing tiny fireballs at hummingbirds swirling above his head.

"Dude," I say from his doorway.

He doesn't look at him. "S'up, dude."

"I died. I need to get back up fast. Some shit going on."

He rolls his eyes and stands up. The hummingbirds disappear. "How'd'ja die?"

I describe the inhumans and the shimmery light things to him. His brow furrows.

"Be careful, dude."

"You know what they are?"

"Yeah, and they're not pretty. They're outside my father's domain."

"So they're not from earth?"

He smirks. "That's right. I don't think I'm allowed to tell you much about them. It might start a war or something, and I'd rather just burn small animals than expend energy by fighting." He places a hand on my shoulder. "Sure you don't want to hang around in hell for a few hours until your curse draws you back to the surface anyway?"

He calls it a curse, but that's only his nickname for it. Even Satan has no idea why I come back to life.

"No, I've gotta get back up. They have innocents with them."

He snorts. "Oh, you. Ever the fucking hero." His hand heats up. The world fades to black. I wake up again, and this time I'm in my bedroom.

The darkness weighs down on my body, suffocating me. My blankets smell like age and mold and sweat. Should probably wash them. I throw the sheets off and roll off my mattress on the floor. I'm already wearing another orange parka, one that's not singed from the strange-ass electricity. My padding footsteps don't make a sound on our rotting wood floor. I ease out the window and into the night.

Before I take off again I realize I could probably use some help. I pivot and start jogging in the opposite direction of the alley where I found the inhumans. Although I need help, those things killed me. I can only ask for aid from someone I'm not really worried about dying.

I stand in front of a two-story upper-middle-class-suburban-home and try not to smash the flowers to little bits. It's kinda difficult because there are so many of them, like a daisy infestation. Also kind of surprising because frost coats the ground, but then, I wouldn't be surprised if Ms. DeLorn fertilized them with nuclear waste.

I clamber up the side of the house, propelling myself off the sill. Before I can knock on the second-story window, it flies open and something reaches out and yanks me inside.

I tumble to the ground, banging my cheek on the radiator, and get dust in my nose. While I cough and hold my stinging chick, I hear Christophe mutter, "Oh, eet's just you."

I look up to see his shovel raised above his head.

"Mmmppphh mmmpph mmmmpph mmmpphhh! Mmmmpmm mmpph mmpmpmhmp mmmpphmpph mmmpphh?" Which translates to, 'Of course it's just me! What were you going to do if it wasn't, smash my head in?'

"Take ze goddamn 'ood off," Christophe says, lowering his shovel and leaning back against the wall. He and Bebe are the only two people to ever ask me to do that. Also, he can't understand a word I say with the hood on because he still sucks at English after like ten years of living here.

I pull the hood off and repeat my statement. He just snickers, which is super comforting.

"There's no time to screw around, dude," I say. "We need to get somewhere. There's these people who are in trouble, and, yeah-" I don't know what to say about the situation before I stumble across the whole 'and I died' thing. And he would probably stare at me with his trademarked, 'Oh, um, okay, you're fucking crazy' look if I say anything about that.

I take another five seconds to describe the inhumans to him. Another agonizing five seconds. I don't know how long I was dead, but fate has a nasty habit of making me arrive a minute after I needed to be there.

Christophe's eyes narrow as I speak. "Mozzerfucking son of a cocksucking beetch," he hisses.

"What?"

"Nozzing." He shakes his head and hefts his shovel. "Zere ees nozing we can do, McCormick, zey are too strong for us."

"Wait. What. Wait. You know these freaks?"

He grimaces and leans back further. Slouching is another one of Christophe's trademarks. He does it when he gets emotionally defensive, usually when warding off his mother or talking to a teacher. He's barely vertical by now.

"I know zem," he mutters. He lights a cigarette and starts to suck on it.

"So? Tell me what they are on the way! Let's go!"

He shakes his head and takes another drag.

"We can't fight zem," he says.

I clench my fists. "Maybe you missed my explanation, but like two dozen people were in chains. We gotta do something. At the very least, go to the fucking police, dude."

Chris is a short guy. I have three inches on him even when he stands tippy-toe. But his glare makes him tower over me.

"Do not fucking interfere wiz zem," he says. "You 'ave a gig tomorrow night, oui? Go 'ome. Get some sleep."

I want to keep protesting, but then I realize that maybe Christophe's right. Maybe this is dangerous. Maybe I'm an asshole for wanting to risk anyone other than myself.

"Okay," I say, and head back for the window.

He grabs my shoulder and glowers at me. "You don't give up zat easily." He sucks in smoke and keeps on glaring.

"Dude, you know me. Laid back, and stuff, right?" Except for that slight superhero thing I did when I was a kid, a superhero thing that has clung to me long since I discarded my costume. "You're right, dude. I don't know what's going on but you're probably right. Maybe I . . . maybe I just imagined it or something."

He roles his eyes but releases me.

"Just tell me what you know about these freaky things, tomorrow, please."

"Allright," he agrees. Lies. I know Christophe too well.

"I won't do anything dangerous tonight."

And Christophe doesn't know me as well as I know him, because it's not dangerous is you can't really die anyway.

I jump out his window and run for the alley.

By the time I arrive, huffing and gasping for air, the prisoners have disappeared. Now only a shimmery vortex remains. The silver-gray light contrasts with the blackness around me.

I look up and down the alley for a trace of the prisoners or the inhuman freaks. Nothing. I examine the vortex thingie closer. It's about four feet tall, and it hovers in the air, almost like heat on a summer day. I poke it. My finger disappears.

I yank my hand back and it reappears. Jesus Christ! The thing's not a vortex, it's a portal! With, like, freaking magic or something!

I stare at it for a few seconds. Okay, I know I'm immortal, and I know I've fought zombies and dark lords and shit, but the whole magic thing still kind of freaks me out a little bit.

I push my entire hand through, then pull it back. The air on the other side feels warmer than the freezing temperatures of late-November South Park.

Where the hell does this thing go?

Only one way to find out.

In retrospect, going through without help was kind of a bad idea, but it wasn't like I have anything to risk. I already know that regardless of how or where I die, whether it be by syphilis or in the lost city of R'lyeh, I'll come back to life in a couple hours. Still, it hurts when I tumble face first in what appears to be scrub brush.

"Ow! Fuck! Shit! Fuck!"

I roll into a semi-sitting position and start to pluck burs out of my palm and forehead. It appears to be dusk over here, wherever I am. Somewhere on the other side of the planet, maybe? How the hell would I know? Soft pink light filters over me from the sunset. I glance at my surroundings. Scrubbrush for miles. A few hundred yards ahead of me are the beginnings of a path. It leads to a full-on dirt road on the horizon line, and then I don't know where that leads.

I glance up at the sky and my stomach clenches. Okay. Two suns. They hover pretty close to each other. The shadows on the ground kind of spot from the way they shade. They're also smaller than the suns at home, and more orangey than yellow. I stare at them for a few seconds, and then my eyes start to water. I return to pulling the burs and stickers from my skin.

Okay. Different dimension. No big deal, right?

I sit up and dust off my jeans. Then I unzip my parka and tie it around my waist, because it's practically April weather over here. Okay, April if you didn't live in South Park.

There is no one for miles. None of the inhuman freaks, none of the prisoners.

I stare at the vortex (it's exactly the same on this side as the other) then decide if I can't find my way back I'll just die.

Then I start to walk.

The dust here poofs up around my sneakers and clings to my jeans. Within a few minutes my hands and face are dusty brown. As both the suns dip towards the horizon, the temperature starts to drop. It takes long then I would think for the suns to set. Do they have twenty-four hour days over here? The gravity seems to be pretty similar.

By the time I reach the hill, the suns have set and stars light up the sky. These stars seem closer (larger, at least) and they very more in color. The unfamiliar constellations wink at me. I glower back at them.

I pause on the crest of the hill. Below me, what appears to be a city spreads out to the next horizon line, like two hundred miles away. There aren't any skyscrapers, just tent-looking objects with radiuses the size of parks. Little huts dot the edges, like suburbs. I wonder where the hell I am. I wonder how the hell Christophe knows about this.

The prisoners have to be somewhere in the city. I start walking down the road, scuffing up huge dirt clouds until I choke. The brush starts to lessen, replaced by grass. The hill shallows out. Farmland chokes each side of the road, at least, what I assume is farmland. It looks more like grass almost a dozen feet tall, but dark red and bearing little purple fruits.

My stomach gurgles. My dinner was in that brown paper bag I dropped who knows how many hours ago. I reach out to grab a fruit, then stop. It could be toxic to the touch or something – who knows what crazy ass things these freaks eat? Even though it smells like fucking ambrosia. My stomach whines at me but I ignore and keep walking.

Footsteps mar the ground in front of me. A million of those inhuman freaks must have trampled this road. Even as I begin to see the city outskirts, everything is eerily quiet. No crickets, no cars, not even running water.

Huge gray tentlike buildings rise up in front of me. A gate made of woven metal bars my entrance into the city. As I get closer, I recognize some of the figures waiting in front of the gate. Some of them are the inhumans from earlier, the ones who killed me, although they have been joined by several dozen more of their kind. And then there are the humans.

Even though the road is almost a hundred feet wide, the humans fill it six deep. They all bear woven chains. They huddle together, children sobbing. Some of the inhumans from before are arguing with other inhumans at the gate. I hear a chink! as one of the inhumans drops several strips of shiny purple metal, each shinning with a several-gray light. The gates start to shift. Instead of sliding open, they simply begin to fade.

I attempt to hide in the grass-plant-crop-thingies, but the rustling alerts the inhumans. One of them points at me and shouts. Another one of them babbles. I have no idea what the fuck their words mean, but I can guess it goes something like this:

"Hey! It's that guy!"

"Yeah! It's that guy!"

"Didn't we . . . . do something to him earlier?"

"Yeah! Um, I think!"

"Well, he's bothering us, so let's kill him again!"

That's paraphrased, of course.

Two of them advance on me, their blue-shiny spears extended.

I consider my options. A) Run like a gibbering moron, and live to tell about it. B) Stay with these guys long enough to figure out more about what the hell's going on here so I can at least try and convince Christophe to help me save these people . . . and live to tell about it anyway.

I hold up my hands. "Hey!"

They stare at me.

"I, uh, don't want to be hurt or something. So. I. Uh. Surrender!"

I hold up my hands.

One of them comes up and whacks me on the shoulder with the pole. More electricity.

This time when I wake up I expect to be dead. Instead, I'm curled up in a little ball with something metal wrenching my hands behind my back. Handcuffs, I guess. I've worn handcuffs before. These are warmer than any pair I've ever encountered. By the slap of chilly air on my skin, I can tell I'm only wearing a pair of jeans. I wiggle my bare toes. At least my feet aren't chained up.

My mouth tastes like a squirrel swallowed a can of hairspray, climbed into my mouth, died, and rotted for several days. This has happened to me before.

Floaty fabric obscures my vision. Dirt presses against my cheek.

I sit up, trying to make as little sound as possible. A little whimper escapes me when my muscles protest. My head pounds and my stomach fills with nausea. I swallow hard, because I really don't want to throw up with this hood on.

I'm about to attempt the whole 'standing up' thing when someone yanks the hood off my head. One of the inhuman faces gets into mine. They look different enough from us to be freaky, similar enough to sneer.

I scoot away until my back hits a wall. The inhuman person leers over me. I realize how freakishly tall all of them are; I haven't seen one yet under seven feet. A quick glance reveals my surroundings; a room with dimensions of a prison cell, walls made of the floaty cloth glowing blue-gray and somehow magicked to be hard like plaster, and dirt floors. It's cold in here, cold enough to make me think they've got some sort of artificial heating thing going on.

I lick my lips. "Um," I say.

"What's your name?" the inhuman thing says very slowly in very precise English. I stare up at it.

Okaaaaaaay. "Kenny McCormick. Where the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you people?"

The inhuman thing grabs me by the neck and lifts me into the air. I flail, kicking my legs out, shrieking for it to let me go. It works about as well as I expected it to. He (and I've decided they're definitely a he) just snorts.

"Who do you work for?"

His accent is kind of middle-eastern, like he's chewing on the words and barely just letting them drop from his mouth.

I don't think he's realized I need oxygen. My vision starts to go first. Panic eats at my nerves. I make more whimpering sounds, and then he drops me to the ground.

I crumple in a little ball, gagging on air.

"Who do you work for?" he repeats.

"Uh . . . myself . . . ?"

He kicks me with his metal-covered feet.

At least one rib cracks. The force rolls me over until I hit a wall. Pain floods me. It burns down my fingertips and dulls my thought processes. All I can think is make it stop make it stop make it stop! And then it occurs to me I might be in a kind of a torture cellar, which could kind of be a bad thing.

"Is it that rat with the shovel? Or the blond human with the sword?"

Christophe. Gregory. Christophe knew about the fae things – it's gotta be the two of them. I stare up at him and consider telling him the truth – that I don't work for them but I do know them.

But I can die, and they can't.

"Dude-" Cough. "-Don't know what the fuck you're talking about-"

"Don't lie!"

Another kick.

The instant agony of this one lasts for a bit longer before fading into an insistent ache.

"No human would willingly come to this world and approach us after we scared you away! Who do you work for? Who were those two humans with the shovel and the sword!"

"I seriously don't-"

I hold up my hands but he stamps down on my fingers, cracking them.

My vision goes black. After a few seconds it starts to spot and then I can sort of see again. I realize I'm screaming and stop. He just stands above me, grinning. I cradle my hands to my chest.

"I'm sorry," I whine, sounding like a pathetic child but not actually caring. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't-"

He pulls a metal rod from his belt, and touches it with his index finger. It lights up all shimmery blue.

"Who do you work for?"

I shake my head. "I – I don't work for an-an-anyone-"

He zaps me, and this time I really do die.

When my curse kicks in and sends me back up to earth, I wake up at about five in the morning, staring up at the ceiling. My body aches with the memory of torture and all I want to do is curl up and go back to sleep until my alarm goes off.

Instead, I think for a bit. Then, as the sun has just started to peek over the horizon (six o clock) I roll out of bed and begin my hunt for my notebook.

I find it crammed in the corner of my room behind my acoustic guitar. The first two pens I find are dead, but the third spits out (red) ink. I sit on my bed, which I call my bed but is really just a mattress on the floor. Then I begin to write.

FACT:

-Alternate world

-Seems to be inhabited by 'freak' creatures

-freaks physically strong, have magical powers, weaponry

-capturing humans – prisoners . . . motive . . . ?

CHRISTOPHE INVOLVEMENT:

-Freaks seem to know of him and Gregory.

-They do not seem to like him.

-Christophe is scared of them for some reason . . .

Need to talk to Christophe – see what he's afraid of . . . trick him into talking about it?

I underline the last sentence a bunch of times then throw my spiral notebook back into the corner of the room. Then my little sister Karen yells from the kitchen.

"Kennnnnnnyyyy! You said you'd get miiiiiiilk last night!"

Shit. I jump off my bed and start to search through my closet for a clean t-shirt. "Sorry!" I call. "I forgot!" It was with the bag of groceries I dropped back when I heard the scream.

"How am I supposed to eat my goddamn cereal without miiiillk?"

"Don't swear!" my father yells from the parents' bedroom.

"Don't tell her what to do!" my mother shrieks. They dissolve into squabbling. My two-year-old brother Kieran starts to sob. I locate a shirt that smells fairly clean and shrug it on, then run into my brothers' room. My older brother, Kevin, is passed out on his mattress still, probably hungover or something. Kieran is in a pile of sheets, tears running down his face. He clings to the bars of his crib.

"Stop that," I tell him, but lift him out of his crib anyway. "Kev, wake up." I kick him but he just moans and rolls over. Asshole isn't even supposed to live here anymore. He's supposed to be going to college. College. Yeah, right.

I hurry into the kitchen and deposit Kieran into Karen's arms. He immediately stops crying, because he loves the little bitch. Why, I do not know.

She scowls at me. "Can't believe you forgot the milk. We don't have enough left for cereal."

"Sorry, sorry." I open the refrigerator door and stick my head in. I'm a so-so cook but I can improvise like no one's business. "Waffles? We can use peanut butter instead of syrup. And water instead of milk."

If there's one thing our family always has, it's peanut butter. Or pop tarts. Or peanut butter pop tarts.

By the time I've mixed up the batter, Kieran has gone back to sleep, so Karen hands him back to me and starts to make the pancakes herself so I don't screw anything up. I lay him down in his crib, check on my parents to see they've both gone back to sleep, and head on back to my room to find an acceptable parka.

I barely have time to eat before someone knocks on the door. "Hello?" Bebe calls into the house.

"You could wait for us to answer it!" Karen yells from the kitchen, already flipping the third batch of pancakes.

"Or your idiot brother could stop being so freaking slow!"

"Mmpphh!"

I throw my schoolbooks into my backpack and rush for the door. Bebe leans against the doorframe, arms crossed and single eyebrow raised. Her boobs are still like the most awesome boobs in the history of boobage, and they're still the first thing I notice every morning.

She snorts. "My eyes are still up here."

I nod in agreement.

"Good morning to you, too. We're late."

"Mmpphh? Mmmphh mmmpph mmppph!"

"Yes we are. Come on, dude."

It's snowing outside. I hug my parka tighter around my body. Bebe's boobs are so awesome I can see their shape through her coat. That is how awesome she is.

"Are you nervous?"

I loosen the hood of my parka. "For what?"

She rolls her eyes. "Your gig tonight, duh."

I step over a patch of ice and snigger when Bebe steps in it. She slips and clings to me to prevent tripping. I continue to laugh even as she stalks out in front of me.

"Not really." I haven't been thinking about it at all. I've been more focused on the whole 'inhuman freaks capturing people somehow connected to Christophe and Gregory' thing.

"S'only your second one."

And my first one was just my grandpa hiring me to play corny songs for grandma on their fiftieth birthday while he sang to her, off-key. This one is real, playing Beatles tunes at some rich North Park kid's birthday party.

"I'll be okay." I have the songs memorized. I can even sing them, too, not that anyone ever wants me to sing because I learned how to sing opera when I was like eight and so I always go an octave higher just to piss people off.

"Well, then," she says. "Did you study for your Field Bio test?" And so I make a face and she snickers at me and then we're in front of Christophe's house.

He bounds out the door a second before I knock on it. He's already to the sidewalk by the time Bebe and I turn around. Fortunately, he waits for us at the corner.

"Your mom?" Bebe asks when we catch up.

He grimaces. "She was trying to make me say my fucking prayers after I ate fucking breakfast. Fucking beetch!" He slings his shovel over his shoulder, two textbooks under his other arm. "You look like you didn't sleep at all last night," he tells me, his eyes narrowed.

"I'm okay." I hold up my hands. "See? Not a scratch on me."

"Wait, what?" Bebe asks.

"I'll tell you later," Christophe lies through his teeth. He eyes me for a few seconds, then shrugs and turns around. "Let's go, beetches. We're going to be late."

He and Bebe start to bicker over a cheat code on World of Warcraft. I trail after them, half-listening to their conversation, half-plotting a way to wring information out of Chris. He's clearly going to BS his way out of any corner I back him into. But he knows something, I know he does. It could be crucial in figuring out how to sneak into the city and locate all the humans those freaks captured last night-

We catch the 7:15 commuter bus instead of our usual 7:05 bus. There are a bunch of crazy homeless people on the route from South Park to North Park, but the half or so dozen high school students and the adults are pretty good at ignoring each other. From the stop in North Park it's a three-minute walk to Park County High School, although with the ice on the streets it takes more time.

We reach the school a full five minutes before the bell rings. Buses are still pulling in. Bebe bounds up the stairs ahead of Christophe and me, since her AP Lit class is all the way on the other side of the school.

An unfamiliar girl stands next to the double doors, her arms crossed and her head bent. She wears a frilly, almost Victorian dress that contrasts with other students' cold weather gear. Her arms are bare. She must be freezing. She looks up as we approach.

"Kenny McCormick," she says. Christophe and I stop.

"I need to talk to you."

Her voice is melodic and smooth. I glance at Christophe and he grins and nudges me. He's right. This girl's pretty hot. Not as much up top as Bebe, of course, but her skin is bronze and flawless and her eyes huge and her hips curvy under the tight upper body of her dress.

"Kay." I stop. Christophe heads through the double doors, smirking at me one more time before disappearing into the hallways. I move against the stairs to allow a clump of students to trudge past me. She waits until the tardy bell has rung and the mobs of kids have died away.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"Lila," she says, and offers nothing more. Then she holds out her hand.

As soon as I take her hand, I know I'm screwed.

Lila's hand glows with the silver-gray shimmery light. I stare into her eyes and see they are as gray and flat as the freaks from the other world. She shakes my hand up and down and keeps shaking it until the bell for the start of class has rung and we're alone in front of the school.

"It's nice to meet you," she says. She doesn't let go. Her lips stay curved up and absolutely terrifying.

"You're one of them," I say. She doesn't look like them. Her ears are normal under her curly black hair, her eyes proportional, her body filled out. But she smiles the same way.

"This body is just a disguise, yes," she says. "Although we're not 'them', we are the fae. And I see you are acquainted with that shovel freak we had so much trouble with last week."

"I don't work for him," I say. "I discovered you independently. What the hell did you do with those people you guys captured last night? What the hell is going on?"

"Oh, Kenny, Kenny, Kenny," she says, waving her free hand. "Questions are for the one who is in control. And I want you to understand right now that you are not in control. I could blow you into bits with just a thought. Understand that?"

I nod.

"Not that you'd care much, would you?" Her lips curl. "I don't yet understand you, Kenny, but I'm dying to know how you do it. Why don't you escort me to my Portal while you tell me all about it?"

"Um," I say. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"That's nice," she purrs, and starts down the steps. She doesn't let go of my hand and for all her diminutive stature she's surprisingly strong. I follow her over the yard and into the street. It'll take at least twenty minutes to get back to South Park. I can figure out a way to escape by then.

"How'd you – remember – "

"Remember?" Her eyebrows shoot up.

"Nobody ever remembers when I die."

"Oh, that." She flicks her hair. The way she's gripping my hand requires me to walk by her side, when all I want to do is turn and run. "Galin visually imprinted your death into a tablet – I don't expect you to know what this means, unless you're well acquainted with how our world works – and showed it to me to prove he'd done the best he could in extracting information from you. You died rather unexpectedly. Most humans won't die from something as simple as that."

"Yeah," I say. "I'm kind of like that."

"Hmm. Interesting. Care to elaborate?"

"Finish your story, please."

"Very well then. Galin, my torturer, went back to clean up your body and found that it was missing with no trace of your blood. Then we rewatched the tablet and saw that you had disappeared, even though your blood remained. One of our sniffer hounds smelled your jacket and started to try and sniff you out, so we knew you must still be alive. And so we found out where you lived and where you went to school. A simple matter, really. You should not have given your real name. Please do not be so foolish in the future." She finally lets go of my hand, but only to pat my cheek, which doesn't make me feel a whole lot better.

"So, would you care to explain your magical come-back-alive act?"

We stand in front of the bus stop. It's kind of ridiculous in retrospect for something as grand and otherworldly as – what did she call herself? A fae? – to take the bus.

"What," I say, "don't they have spells for that in your world?"

She shakes her head. "It's one of the few things our finest magicians have not been able to duplicate into symbol format."

"Symbol format?"

"How we do spells. You'll learn soon enough." She waves her hands with a dismissive flick. The casualness implies time, which is definitely not something I want to spend in this fae world. I just want to rescue those people and go.

"What do you want with me?"

"Describe your dying trick."

My mouth is dry. I lick my lips and try to make a sound. "It's not a trick," I mumble. "I don't even do it on purpose. I die, I go down to hell, I wake up in my bed a few hours later perfectly okay."

In one way it's a relief to say this out loud to another living being and have there be an actual possibility of them believing me. In another way it sucks because she's one of the creatures who killed me twice last night.

"You just die randomly."

"Yeah. About once a week or so, although I used to do it more when I was younger. I don't know why it happens. Some serious occult shit I think. I die in the strangest ways. Once by eating a bunch of antacids and blowing up." The bus screeches around the corner and Lila and I step out. It's mostly emptied by now so we head for the back and relative privacy.

"Why? Why do you want to know? What do you want with me? Are you going to torture me for, like, invading your world or something? I'll never speak of it again, I swear-" And I realize I'm babbling now, so I shut up. She watches me, her lips twitching.

"I'll explain to you what I want, Kenny, when I feel like the location is more appropriate." She places a hand on my shoulder and sits next to me, her bare skin brushing my sleeve. "It has to do with that clever little dying trick. And I want you to realize that you are mine and you are completely under my control."

"Kay," I agree. I don't want her to blow my brains out. That would be painful.

"You're such a perfect pawn." She strokes my arm and sits next to me for the rest of the duration of the ride.

The snow is pelting down by the time we exit the bus. Ice chunks chip at my skin. I tighten my hood and shiver. Lila continues to show no sign of cold.

She leads me to the alleyway from last night. This time I take careful note of the street; it's near fifth and Grant, a little corner no one cares about. I almost trip about fifty bajllion times. Maybe the cold will kill me and I'll be able to get away from her. Whenever I'm more than a few feet behind her she grabs my wrist and drags me along.

The swirling vortex portal thingie is still there, although the light is dimmer. She touches it with her index finger and the light brightens again.

"Come along, then," she says, and I doubt she's going to let me argue. If the worst happens, I can just die.

I follow her through the portal and end up in the same pile of scrubbrush. My mind whirls and tries to process the midday suns glaring down from above.

Next to us is a huge boxlike contraption made of metal and covered with the floaty-gray-shiny papery cloth I've been seeing everywhere. It's about the size of a train boxcar, maybe a little larger. Lila extends her hand, and then practically drags me towards it when I try to hold my ground.

The inside walls are covered with the floaty papery cloth, except it seems to be slightly thicker in substance. A bench is built into the wall, made out of the tightly woven wire. Two of the fae-inhuman-freaks with symbols stand at the far wall. Lila touches the doorframe and the metal door fades back into existence. Then she gestures for me to sit on the bench. She sits next to me, too close. The two other fae press their hands against the metal wall. Their arms glow silver-gray. My stomach lurches when we rise up into the air.

The heat forces me to remove my parka. "Um, where the hell are we going?"

She raises her eyebrows and smirks at me in amusement. "My house," she informs me. "Where you were last night."

"I thought that was a torture chamber."

"I have a lot of rooms." She keeps on smirking. "So, why did that shovel-bearing human and his friend come to our world, and what do they want?"

"I don't know. Really. I don't. If you want to interrogate me about him again-"

"Oh, that's not that important." She waves her hand. "You're far more interesting anyway, Kenny McCormick. And you will be far more useful to me. Although I will want to know more about the human with the shovel in the future."

Cold shoots up my spine. "What do you want with me?"

She leans back against the wall. "I'll explain in due time."

"Who the hell are you people? Why did you guys kidnap those humans last night? What did you do with them-"

"Oh, please be quiet," she says. "The typical 'bewildered human' gets boring fast, and I have a feeling you're smarter than that. Since you apparently need it spelled out for you, I run one of the largest black market slave trades in the empire. We deal with humans from your dimension. We steal them in through various portals, we brainwash them in our capitol city, Hyen'lao, which you approached last night, and then we ship them all over the country for different uses, the main demand being in agriculture. Any questions?"

I stare at her. My brain trips over itself in an attempt to process what she's said.

"Slave trade," I say.

"We usually prefer to take humans from Africa and India, but we've found that humans in European and North American countries tend to be in better shape and can be worked harder. I believe the shipment you tracked down last night was from various parts of Colorado. We chose your city to build the portal in because of its abnormally weak barrier between the different dimensions. I suspect crazy shit might happen in your town upon occasion, hmm?"

I continue to gape at her. "Yeah," I manage. "You could say that."

My brain continues to try and equate 'slave trade' to 'tiny hot teenager sitting next to me. Apparently pure evil.'

"Why do you need me?"

"Like I said." She pats me on the arm. "You'll see."

We touch down.

When I step out into the sunlight, the city is in full swing. The box behind us fades and the two fae step up next to Lila and bow down behind her. She must be someone important. I continue to gawk at the city.

The tentlike houses with walls made of floaty, papery, blue-gray-shiny cloth are opens up to reveal woven metal supports beneath. The box landed in what appears to be some sort of lot. We step out into the wide street made of dirt. The houses line either side. From what I can see, a system of streets makes up their city here the way ours does at home, only when I glance up I see metal strips about six feet wide floating above my head. Fae walk along them as if they're shortcuts, although I can only see the bottoms of their feet from this perspective. The streets are full of children, all skinny and tall and disproportional to what I think of a child as. Gangs of them play with blue-shining balls that hover in the air. The kids leap up to toss them back to forth. One of them almost runs into me before jerking away from me as if I'm toxic or something.

Carriages that look like floating boxes shine with the blue light as they glide in the air down the streets. But almost everyone walks. They're all barefoot. They wear clothes made of the same floaty cloth I've seen everyone. Fae exchange strips of shinning purple metal the size of pencils. It's quieter here than out home, but they shout in that garble-tongued language of theirs I still can't freaking figure out. Fae from the tent-houses sell the colorful fruits from last night, various different objects made out of metal and woven grass, clothing . . . I guess this must be some sort of economic district.

After about half a minute of staring I realize everyone has wings. They're translucent and some of them wear cloth over it, but many of them shake them out and let them rest against their backs. They look like leaves with all the color faded out of them. I don't see anyone using them, so maybe they can't fly . . . ? I glance back at Lila to see if she has them and yelp when someone completely different has taken her place.

"This is what I really look like," the fae behind me says in that familiar, snarky tone. I gulp and nod. She's about six feet tall, a couple inches above me, skeletal-skinny, with point ears and wings that drape over her back. Now she wears the floaty cloth wrapped around her body in a dresslike fashion, and more clothes to imitate loose pants. She's still pretty, I guess, if you go for the 'I'm-a-black-market-slave-trader" thing.

I look back and I start to notice humans everywhere. They dust the streets, they're stitching up floaty cloth in the corners, they're chasing after children and calling in that garbly language. Some of them are walking after fae masters and carrying huge loads of woven baskets. They wear the same kind of clothes as the fae, but each of them have various numbers of piercings on their right ears. None of the fae have pierced ears.

"What do the earrings mean?" I gesture to my own earlobe.

Lila has been watching me as I take it all in. "It denotes the wealth of their owner. The more earrings a slave has, and the material of the piercing, indicates a wealthier owner."

"Owner. Right." I keep on staring. "I thought you said you ran a black market. As in, like illegal."

"The import of slaves is illegal. It is not illegal to own a human."

"Right." I shiver.

Several of the fae have a tattoo in Arabic-esque symbols on their arms, maybe one out of every hundred I see, and only the adults. I glance back at Lila and see that she has tattoos running all the way up her arms and disappearing into her dress on her back. I'm afraid to ask what it means. The symbols glow slightly with the blue light. I think there are two kinds of magic here; the silver-gray light seems to indicate something less permanent, while I've only seen the blue-gray light in crafted and constantly-in-use things, like the boxcar and the weapons and on the fae's skin. The whole city glows weirdly, although the light is soft enough not to hurt my eyes.

"If you're done gawking," Lila says, "I would prefer for us to be on our way."

I nod and follow her down the street. People part in her way like she's someone important (or scary). It must be the tattoos. I want to walk next to her and demand a bunch of questions, but I don't think that's allowed. Whenever I try to move up the other two fae with us glower at me. We soon get stuck in crowds. I consider slipping off then turn that idea down. If she tries to force me into something I don't want to do, I can just die. It's kind of sad that's my solution to everything. As soon as I see what she wants, I'll either give it to her so she stops bothering me, or if it's something I don't want to do I'll find a way out of here.

In the middle of the street a few hundred feet up is a floating stage. My skin crawls when I process the scene in front of me. A female fae stands on the stage, shouting something while the crowd watches. A few dozen humans without earrings are crowded on the stage behind her. One of them steps forward and she shouts something.

It's like something out of a movie about the American slave trade, except I've never seen any human about to be sold off to be so freaking happy. They're grinning, a smile that goes all the way up to their eyes, as if they couldn't be happier about their rights being taken away. I glance around and my stomach clenches. None of the humans look unhappy to be here. It's like they've all been . . . brainwashed.

I glare at Lila's back. What the hell are they doing to these people?

After about ten minutes of us walking the crowds starts to thin. The tent-houses things start to have closed walls instead of the bared-shell ones of the more economic district. There are fewer fae on the metal paths above us. I watch the paths a bit more to see how they get on and off. They just reach up and touch the air below the path, and then shimmery blue light wafts down, and then their bodies rise up. To get down they just jump. I see humans getting up and down from the paths, so I guess it would be possible for me to use them, too.

As we walk, the house-tents get spaced farther apart and larger. Some of them have yards of tiny pebbles, like Japanese rock gardens except glowing purple and sandier in texture. A boxcar thing passes above us, and I see fae peering out windows, like they're riding on the bus or something. The children here come in smaller gangs.

We finally stop walking in front of a tent-house almost the size of Park County High School. It's made of several tents all connected to each other and towering above me. It even has a wire gate and a tunnel made of twisted dark ivy leading up to the first tent.

"My humble abode," Lila says, smirking as the human phrase rolls off her tongue.

"Holy shit," I say.

A human opens the gate for us. She grins like this is her favorite thing to do in the world. Shit, what the hell are they doing to these people?

We walk along the tunnel of dark ivy for about ten seconds before arriving at the door. There's yet another human at the door, a little boy a couple years younger than Karen. He's practically jumping with delight. I imagine my sister in his place and shiver again.

Inside the house-tent-thing has towering walls decorated with painted threads. Lights hover in the air above us, twisting the shadows of the room. Curtains nestle in the makeshift doorways. Blankets provide flooring. The smell of something sweet frying makes my mouth water. It's surprisingly homey for the lair of an evil fairy. Then a girl in her late teens runs through the room with a tray containing several bowls, somehow managing not to spill one. She offers a bowl to each one of us. The fae decline but I pick one up and examine it. It appears to be made out of woven grass. The contents are clear, like water, but when I sniff it the cloyingly sweet smell kicks my gag reflex into gear.

"That's extremely alcoholic," Lila says. "It barely affects us fae, but I advise you not to drink it if you want to be coherent for the next several days."

I gingerly place the bowl back on the tray. The human girl bows and steps back. Her hair is shaved down to her scalp and she has six piercings running up her right ear, all made of a dull-green-gray metal. She also isn't wearing much in the way of clothing, barely enough to be decent. I manage not to be distracted because she's little more than an anorexic stick.

"Hi," I say.

She smiles at me and says something in the fae's language.

"Um."

"Don't talk to her," Lila says, and flicks her wrist. Then the girl says something to her.

Lila curses. Even if I can't understand the words, the tone is the same regardless of language. Then she follows the girl through one of the curtains and leaves me standing there with the two other fae.

I stand there awkwardly for a second. Once again, I consider running off. Once again I decide against it. Because honestly, what can she do to me?

"S'up?" I say to one of the fae next to me, the taller one with broader wings and spiked-up blond hair. He glowers at me. The other fae, a female, I think (it's hard to tell when they're so skinny) just stares.

"Um, I'm Kenny."

They don't say anything. I glance around the room. Several thick blankets have been stacked on top of each other. I imagine it's the fae equivalent of a couch and sit on it. The other two fae continue to glower at me. I consider making conversation.

Lila comes back, running her fingers through her long hair. "The Aliesh simply cannot decide where he wants to distribute. That's the sixth letter I've sent him about his location," she complains. "Frieh, Alow, have you been acquainted with Kenny?"

"Yes," the male replies in extremely choked English. I glare at him.

"Who are they?"

"Frieh and Alow are my advisors," she says. "When you're as rich as me, you can afford them. So, Kenny. We are here to talk about what I need from you."

She sits down next to me, a little too close.

"I think I've said this before, but I'm going to clarify. You are mine. Whatever I want, you will do."

Yeah, sure, whatever you say, lady.

"And don't make that expression, either," she says, smirking. "Just because you're a pseudo-immortal doesn't mean we can't hurt you. I've already had Galin perform surveillance on you. You have three siblings, two parents, and that blond-haired female friend of yours seems pretty helpless."

My shoulders tense up. Shit. I didn't even think about that. Whenever freaks like this try to get me to do what they want, they usually threaten me, no one else. Lila is the first one to know I won't care how much they threaten me personally.

"Don't fucking touch them," I say in a low voice.

She ruffles my hair. "If you do what I say, I won't have to."

I can't do what she wants. She's a slave-trading monster. I can't . . . I can't . . .

My shoulders slump. "Okay, what the fuck do you want? Let's get this over with."

"It won't be that easy, Kenny-dearest." She continues to pet at my hair in an extremely disorienting way. The movement feels good on my scalp, but at the same time the icy sense of otherness her body gives off makes me want to run away screaming.

"See, I have a job for you. A job that will turn out to be more of an occupation rather than a simple, easy-to-fulfill task."

My skin turns to ice, but I keep my expression flat. "Go on."

"You might have noticed, but all the human slaves working here are brainwashed." She nestles up next to me and continues to pet at me, like I'm a fucking cat or something. "This is very difficult process that requires a certain type of hypnosis. Unfortunately, this hypnosis is language-based. It can't cross the language barrier - hell, it doesn't even work on different dialects. To hypnotize a group of people, one can only talk to them in their language, say, English. And your human tongues are so damn different from ours and they're all so different from each other. It took me twenty years to become fluent in English because of how differently Lyah - that's the language is this part of the country - is from your human languages. I have translators that can speak Hindu, and one that can speak Swahili, but it's not enough. We need to expand."

My mouth goes dry. "Okay," I say. "Do a spell or something."

She shakes her head. "Magic doesn't work like this. If something magical directly affects the mind, it could cause permanent damage. That's why the human slaves we brainwash never recover after two or three weeks under the spell. They stay all-"

"Stoner-high?" I suggest.

"Precisely. They stay like that for the rest of their lives. And that's just a simple hypnosis spell. Language is much more complicating, because it's feeding the brain something new. There are very few language spells written, and only one that will turn an individual into an omniglot - that is, someone who can speak all languages. These spells are written by the fae magicians of the highest order."

"Like, you?"

She laughs. "Oh, I wish! No, I'm not nearly that talented. Those kind of fae are one in a million, and usually crazy. They spend their time thinking up spells and usually end up killing themselves in the process. Then there are the fae like me, the very upper end of the 'normal' bracket, who are very good with magic but poor at writing their own spells. Then there are the normal magic uses who can use simple healing charms and good luck spells without exerting too much energy. Most fae cannot perform magic at all. But the kind of spell I'm talking about, the multiple-language spell, will usually kill any kind of fae."

"Ah," I say. "Um. Okay. Why'd you write it?"

"I didn't write, like I said. The highest magicians wrote it, and some of them can use it, but none of them are interested in working for me and brainwashing humans. Then there are fae of the same power bracket as me, but they are too powerful for me to force into submission without a hell of a fight, and no fae would willingly burn this spell into their flesh. It would probably kill me, you see, which is why I am hesitant to put it on myself. And any fae with less power than me would definitely die if they wrote this spell upon themselves."

"Ah," I say. "Okay. "And your point is . . . ?"

"Humans can perform spells, although they almost certainly die the first time they're written into their flesh."

I get what she's saying, and I really don't like it.

"I'm not helping you brainwash people."

"That's nice." She pats me on the head. "Now, it will most certainly kill you, but this kind of spell doesn't fade from a corpse after death so I believe you will still be able to use it when you come alive."

"I'm not coming here and working for you!" I snarl. "I have my own freaking life back home, and I'm definitely not gonna help you enslave the human race!"

She sniffs. "We only get a shipment twice a week. I would only require your aid at nighttimes on these days. For the rest of the time you may remain in the human world. We will not even take any slaves from your tiny little town. This is quite a good deal for you, and I'm only offering it because I suspect you can just 'accidently' die every time I try to make you work for me unless I supply you with incentive."

I stare at her.

She's got it all planned out, doesn't she?

"I'm not helping you enslave people," I whisper.

"You don't really have a choice," she says. Then she claps her hands. Two symbols on her arms glow. Some invisible force knocks me onto my back. It feels like bonds tie my wrists and legs into the ground, even though there's nothing there but air. I try to wriggle but can't move. She towers over me. Frieh and Alow watch with disinterest.

"First of all, let's remind you what you really are," she murmurs. She wiggles her fingers and her hand glows silver. A knife appears in her palms. She reaches up and grabs me by the chin, pressing my head back. I glare up at her and don't say anything.

"I do hope this will stick even after you die." And then she goes to work with her knife, cutting out locks of my hair, shaving it down to an uneven, choppy fuzz.

Bebe loves my hair. She likes to play with it and compare it to hers. Christophe loves to make fun of my hair for being so freaking lanky and girly. I don't say anything, just close my eyes.

When she's done, she admires her handiwork. I open my eyes again in time to see the knife disappear and a pile of dull gray-green earrings come in existence in her palm.

"No," I say.

"That's nice," she says, and proceeds to stab them through my earlobe. She's not at all nice about it, drawing blood and making me hiss in pain. It takes too long, far too long, and the whole time I want to kill the fucking bitch on top of me. I've never wanted to kill anyone so much before in my entire life.

"Perfect," she says when she's done, and kisses my ear. "These will definitely stick, too, because there's a spell on them that they can't even be removed from the dead, how about that?"

I close my eyes. "Just fucking get this over with." And I wonder how I'm supposed to explain this to my mom, to Christophe, who will probably know exactly what it means, and I wonder what the hell I've gotten myself into. Because I'm not a slave. I'm not fucking brainwashed. And I don't work for her. I'm fucking Kenny McCormick and I do not belong to anyone.

And now she snaps her fingers and a flame bursts onto her index finger. "Open your mouth," she orders.

I stare up at her. "Fucking hell no-"

"I said open your mouth," she says, and her symbols glow and the invisible forces cram my mouth open. I try to close it but can't, can't do anything but scream wordlessly as her hand draws nearer to my face. Fuck pride. I scream bloody murder and I beg as best as I can with just sound.

She ignores me.

The flame sears into my tongue. I scream even louder, trying to bite down on her fingers but unable to. The pain blinds me, sets every nerve up in sparks, eats away at logic until all I can think is get this out of me, get this out of me, fucking get this out of me! And it goes on and on until tears run down my cheeks and I can't even make a noise anymore as she carves letters into my flesh.

She pulls her hand back, climbs off me, and the invisible bonds disappear. I roll into a ball, burying my face into my knees and rocking back and forth. A new pain sweeps over me, a sick, nauseating one I feel down to the bone. I know it's the spell taking over me, infecting every inch of my skin. My mind goes blank from the white agony. Everything starts to fade away as I die.

I wake up without remembering my visit to Hell. My mouth is still on fire. I run for my bathroom and gag down as much water as possible, which only makes it hurt worse. I tip my head back and stare at my mouth in the mirror. The lettering carved into it is vaguely Arabic in nature.

Is it working? I don't feel any different. Then I catch sight of the rest of my face. My haircuts always affect me after I die, so I'm still shaved nearly bald. The earrings remain. It looks like I haven't slept in a week, and my terrified face stares back at me. I've died three times in the last day or so. My arms ache from exhaustion. All I want to do is pass out. I look like a completely different person.

I stagger back to my bed, sit down, and pull my knees up to my chest. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

"Kenny?" Bebe's voice. I sit up and start to look for something to put on my upper body. "Kenny? Where are you?"

"My room-" I try to croak out, except talking makes my mouth flame up and the pain triple, so I stop.

"Dude, why'd you skip school today of all days?" Her voice draws nearer to my room. "You know you've got a gig in, like, twenty fucking minutes, and I said I'd drive you there-" She stops when she enters my room. She stares at me for a bit. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Got high. Can't remember much of it," I hiss out.

"You fucking idiot. How the hell are you supposed to accomplish anything - oh, nevermind. Karen said she's watch Kieran while you're out. It's almost seven, let's go!"

I barely have time to grab my electric guitar before she snatches my wrist up and drags me out of the house. Christophe is waiting in the front passenger seat of her Subaru. He freezes up when she sees me.

"What ze fuck," he says, but by the way he's eyeing me I can tell he knows, or at least suspects.

"Kenny's a fucking stoner, that's what happened," Bebe mumbles, climbing into the driver's seat. She starts up the car and we roar off. I clutch my guitar to my chest, trying to process everything happening around me and miserably failing.

"You look-" His eyes run over me. I half-hide behind my guitar. "'Igh off your ass," he manages.

I shrug.

Maybe he doesn't make the connection. Maybe it was dark the last time he was over in the fae world or something. I don't even freaking know how he knows anything about the fae world or what he did there or why they all hate him. Maybe he doesn't know about the earrings thing, especially since I have so many. Maybe he doesn't think I could possibly be over here if I was captured by them.

I want to explain it to him so freaking badly, and get some - get some freaking help.

Except he can't know about what I just agreed to. That I agreed to help a ruthless bitch like Lila enslave innocents. Besides, what could he do to help? I'm the only one who can get myself out of this.

I'm such a fucking idiot.

"Yeah," I stammer out, trying to get past how much it hurts my mouth. "I was pretty nervous so I smoked a couple joints."

They believe me. Of course they believe me.

So Bebe drives me to my gig, which I care so little about at this point it take me the entire drive to remember what songs I'm supposed to be playing.

I move in a blur. The birthday party is outside. I'm supposed to be playing on the stage in the middle of everything. There are a dozen tableclothed circular tables set up around me, and a bonfire going to ward off the cold. Everything is staring at me, waiting for some entertainment high-quality entertainment. I only recognize a couple of kids from South Park. Token, who hooked me up with this gig, Red, and Token's friends Craig, Clyde and Jimmy all sit at the same table. I stare at them like the freaking stoner everyone thinks I am for several seconds. The rich kid who hired me, Tony, announces my name and sits down at his table waiting patiently. Christophe and Bebe stand outside the fence and wave at me in what I assume is supposed to be an inspiring manner.

I strum a few chords, then a few more. Then I open my mouth to sing. Only croaking comes out. The guests are whispering among themselves by now. I try again. My mouth feels like it's still on fire.

I hug my guitar to my chest and run.

Bebe and Christophe catch me outside the party near Bebe's car. "Dude, what happened?" she demands.

I shake my head and wipe my eyes, even though I'm not crying. My mouth hurts so much I don't even try to talk.

"I know you can play those songs, like, crazy well, and you, like, never get stage fright." She grabs my arm. I freak out and jerk away. She and Christophe flinch back simultaneously. They both stare at me.

"I need to go home," I mutter. I start to walk down the street.

"I'll drive you! It's like a two miles to the nearest bus station!"

Snowflakes start to powder my hair. "I'll be fine," I call back.

"Kenny, you freaking idiot!" she screams. I look back to see her try and go after me, then Christophe stopping her. I look ahead and keep walking, still hugging my guitar.

And I'm not crying, I swear I'm not. I'm just . . . I'm just really, really screwed.

HELL YEAH NANOWRIMO 2011!

I'm doing the 150,000 word challenge because I'm crazy. You should expect updates every two to three days.

Please review. I probably won't be able to reply, but I will read them.

Now, excuse me, I have 5,000 more words to write before I go to bed.