Chapter 1

Setting the Stage


The piercing sounds of my Invader Zim alarm clock woke me from my quite plesant dream. I groaned, cursed having to get up at five thirty every morning, then flung my arm over to my clock, knocking it over by accident, and swore when I herd the crashing sounds of not only my clock hitting my bedroom floor, but, what I could only guess was, my make-up, bottle of perfume, deodorant, bottle of water and speakers, which were attached to my iPod. The ringing still had not stopped and I threw off the blankets, which protected me from the harsh chill of my cold apartment, shivered and picked up the ringing clock, switching off the alarm before placing it, rather harshly, back onto my side desk by my bed. I sat on my Temperpedic queen-sized bed and rubbed my eyes, scratching off whatever those grainy pieces of eye crust are called and tossing them in a random direction. I then inhaled deeply and sighed, my eyes still closed, scratching the side of my ribs and stretching my body until I heard several cracks and pops.

I stood up and moved my feet across the carpeted floor of my bedroom, leading myself blindly towards my bedroom door so I could take care of my horrid body odor and use the toilet before I pissed myself. I maneuvered past almost everything in my room, but hit my hip against something sharp, which in turn landed on my foot. I swore again and rushed, or rather limped, into my bathroom. I flicked on the light, winced slightly when I opened my eyes, for my eyes had not yet adjusted to the light, and checked to see if my foot needed any kind of immediate medical attention. I soaked a washcloth in warm water and gently washed away the small amount of blood that had emerged from the little cut, then rubbed my face with the end that didn't come in contact with my blood and tossed the washcloth into the sink. I locked the bathroom door, turned the hot and old water knobs, swearing yet again when the water came spurting from the shower head, hitting me with a blast of freezing water, then stripped and, when the water was above ice cold temperatures, took a shower and brushed my teeth at the same time.

Once I had dried off and deposited my dirty PJs into my dirty clothes hamper outside the bathroom door, I walked back into my bedroom and flicked on the light, sighing when I noticed I had knocked over most of the things that were on my side table. After I had cleaned up that mess, I finished drying myself and wrapped my towel around my wet hair, turned on my iPod to the song "Sweet Transvestite" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, walked towards my dresser to pick out whatever clean clothes I happened to have.

My room was the spinning image of uptight-can't-stand-a-single-mess-nerdiness. All my art, craft, and cooking books were organized by height and width on my painted-like-natural-wood bookshelf and the dolls and toys that also lived there with me (yes, seventeen-year-olds can keep toys long after they've grown too old for them) were sorted by how much I liked them. I had one shelf dedicated to memorable items, such as a picture of my dad and I when I was five or so, a pair of salt and pepper shakers in the shape of a rag doll and a teddy bear, my Nightmare Before Christmas cookie jar, some horse figurines, and several other things I had collected and kept from my childhood. Two of my other shelves were dedicated to the few amount of book I ever read. The first contained all of the volumes of various manga series I had collected over the years, and the books that were not in the Fantasy genera. The second shelf contained all of my favorite Fantasy book, arranged by author's last name. My bed was usually kept neat, but I had slack off on that the last few days, so my blanket, comforters and pillows were scattered about horribly. My closet was where I, obviously, kept the clothes that didn't fit in my dresser as well at the rest of my shit that didn't fit in the open space of my room. I also had half of my closet made into a small quite space where I kept a lot of things a rarely showed to other people. The only other thing of any interest in my bedroom was my small TV, which I watched my Disney and "Adult" films on when I was bored.

Once I had put on a black exercise bra, some randomly patterned underwear and my pair of blue bell-bottom jeans, I sat on my bed and put on my deodorant and a bit of perfume, pulling my white tank top on and my Grey PJ tank top over that. I pulled out a pair of non-matching socks (one yellow, one striped), then snatched my iPod and walked out of my room, flicking the light off before closing the door. I hopped down my hallway, trying to put on my socks while keeping myself balanced upright and ran into the wall two times before flopping onto my couch and completely putting my socks on. I lay on the lumpy couch for about a minuet before jumping off and heading towards the kitchen for some breakfast.

I suppose now would be the appropriate time to tell you more about who you've been reading about, for how good is a story unless you don't know about its characters. My name is June Harridan, my nickname is "Vixen." I'm seventeen and I'll be graduating from high school in about two weeks time. I'm temporarily sharing my apartment with my best friend, Veruka Widget, an extremely logical college student majoring in science and robotic developments, for two reasons; firstly, she has no place to stay and here my dad can charge her a little less on rent, and secondly, I need help with my classes and she's like my own personal tutor. But I'll get more into Veruka later, back to me. I'm five-foot-nine, have dirty gold hair, which needs to be cut, and I work part-time at the Cafe down the street from my apartment building. I'm completely insane, listen to the most random music, and spend most of my time in a bookstore or at some sort of school (I also volunteer at my middle school and am taking pre-college classes). I classify myself as the following: nerd, artist, pervert, convention freak, fan-girl, bitch, psycho, video game freak, cracker, non-dancer, Anime lover, social outcast, multi-talented, and, my favorite, tentacle lover. I couldn't care less what people think about me and I want to go to college and make my Dad proud. I wear a pair of fox ears and a fox tail (both which I bought at a yearly convention) a lot of the time, and people stare at me when I do, but, like I said, I couldn't give a shit what they think. I love my friends and if someone tries to hurt them, they're as good as dead.

During the time I told you all this I had already finished my breakfast, made a lunch and begun packing for school. There was a knock on the door and I yelled without looking up to the visitor, "Be right there!" After I had tossed my backpack onto the couch, I skipped over to the door, unlocked it and opened the door, losing the grin on my face when I saw who it was. There are six other apartments in the building my Dad owns; one for him, one for a newly married couple, one for a mother and her six-year-old son who I babysit on occasion, one that had not yet been rented out, my apartment and one most recently rented out to a young college student from New York looking for a job here in San Francisco. He is name was Renaldo Ester, or "Ren" as he asked me to call him, and he was standing outside my door. He was an all-around nice guy, accept that he was obsessed with me and he was nothing but a spoiled rich daddy's boy. The only reason he was even staying in my Dad's apartment complex was that when my dad was giving him a tour of the building, he had seen me in a cosplay outfit I had worn to this year's Anime convention. His hair was greased back and smelled of some weird hair gel, he always wore half open silk shirts, designer pants and shoes and spoke with a heavy New York accent, so heavy, that I could barely understand what he was saying a lot of the time.

I tried as best I could to smile, but felt my eyebrows arch up as they do during moments when I'm uncomfortable. "Hey Renaldo," I said, keeping my foot against the bottom of the door in case he insisted on coming inside, "what a nice surprise. On your way to find that job you've been searching for the past few days?" Renaldo laughed a bit and in my mind I knew he was going to try and pull one of his seductive accent-dependent moves on me.

"Actually, no Vixy." (This was his nickname for me when he heard some of my other friends call me Vixen) I hated when he called me that, "I was just on my way to get some breakfast and I wanted to know if you'd be interested in joining me. Who knows, maybe we could even go catch a movie...or I could take you shopping...maybe even get you a new swimsuit and we could go drive down to that rocky beach you told me about..." he raised his eyebrow suggestively and smiled a white, what I guessed was supposed to be sexy smile at this. I groaned and closed the door in his face, finished packing my things and re-opened the door as he continued to talk.

"Ok Vixy, no prob! No prob! No to shopping and swimming, sorry 'bout 'dat." I locked the door and began to walk towards the staircase, he followed, still talking. "Well then, hows about you and me get together later tonight and have dinner at the restaurant you've been wanting to check out for so long?"

"I have to study tonight."

"Alright then, hows about a movie on Friday night? My treat?"

"I have to babysit."

"Alright. Hows about I join you?"

"Absolutely not."

"Aww, come on Vixy!" by now we had come to the front door of the apartment, I turned right and went down a staircase to were the garages were located. My bike was between my Dad's truck and Renaldo's fancy imported-from-who-knows-where car that his dad had given him for his birthday. I unlocked my bike and tucked the chain and lock into my backpack, when I stood up I saw Renaldo leaning seductively against the polished surface of his car, his fingers running against the smooth, shiny paint. "Hows about you ditch that old rusty thing and I drive you, whaddya say Vixy?"

I rolled my eyes and opened the side door, I locked it and then rode down the street towards school, hopefully, this day couldn't get any worse...