The Kids Next Door. A mysterious yet seemingly omnipresent organisation run only by kids under the age of thirteen,
that needs no introduction.
A group dedicated to uniting all the mistreated and unwanted children of this cruel, cruel world against the
unfair and unduly harsh authoritarian group of tyrants known as "adults".
Where every member is given special training to become wise beyond their years by mastering skills no adult would
have taught them so young, and to stand united against a common threat that only seems to get worse even as the
world seems to get better, under the banner of a great and honourable leader known as the "supreme leader".
These are their stories.
Operation F.A.M.I.L.Y
Family
Always
Matter,
I
Love
You
...Good and evil...
A concept that needed no introduction to anyone in the modern and civillized world, was the concept of good and
evil.
A thought process devised by one of the greatest thinkers to ever walk the earth (whose
name history had sadly not been kind enough to record), that stated clearly that there
were only two types of people in this world, and that these two types were clearly distinguishable by
very obvious differences only an idiot would be unable to recognize.
Good people did good things like giving their money to charity or saving other people's lives and in general these people
would walk with their head held high surrounded by an adoring crowd whose hearts they had captivated through
the kindness expressed by their selfless actions.
If a fine event such as a royal feast were to be held soon, such people would always be welcomed as the guest of
honour and would be given the finest treatment available.
The king himself (or the supreme leader herself) might even promise his throne to them as reward for their heroism.
Then there were bad people.
Bad people were in many respects the complete opposite of good people. They did bad things like always trying to
take what was not rightfully theirs without even saying "Please" or "thank you", and they went around causing
general havoc and pain on others simply because they liked seeing the tears of those they hurt.
Bad people were never invited to any of the grand parties and feasts that Good people were the guests of honour of.
The king (or supreme leader)would do his best to pretend they didn't even exist, and if they tried to convince him (or her)otherwise,
it was the dungeons for that idiot who dared to speak against their leader after all the horrible things they had
done to offend the honour of a peaceful kingdom.
The differences even extended to the fashion choices.
Good people walked with their head held high dressed in bright and beautiful suits and dresses that clearly took
the tailor his time and effort.
Bad people crept menacingly along with their heads low and their shoulders slouched with an otherwise poor posture
sure to give them a crooked back at a young age. Their clothes would be decrepit and poorly made and like the people who wore them, have a dark and menacing air
that warned anyone that took a glance in their direction that now was the time to beat a hasty retreat and not
spare them so much more as another look.
Or to put it bluntly, good people deserved rewards for their good behaviour while bad people deserved nothing but
to be punished. Good people deserved all the friends they could get while for a bad person to have so much
as a single friend meant that hell was freezing over and that lady karma was once again getting in over her head.
It was a thing that simply did not happen in a fair world.
Obviously good and bad people were judged by their actions. If you jumped into a very deep river to save a drowning man at great risk at yourself because
you cared, that was obviously the mark of a good person. But if you pulled out a gun and started trying to shoot at the same strange man, then you would be doing a bad thing while becoming a bad person who could no longer be trusted or respected any longer.
But suppose hypothetically that the strange man was also pointing a gun at you and that it was clear that soft words would not melt his stony heart or
perhaps aiming his gun at people who were the friends you had promised to protect and be there for.
What then?
It was this whirlwind of an alphabet soup of bizzare thoughts which twisted and turned in the mind of
the eldest daughter of the Lincoln family as she sat with a sullen and impassive expression at the dinner table
with her mum, dad and younger sister at one of the rare occasions the family all had time to reunite as one.
Opportunities like this one came maybe once in a blue moon since every member of the family was an overzealous
workaholic in their own jobs as diverse as they were, and for Cree Lincoln, that was far too often.
The tall, dark and attractive teenager ate quickly and quietly, eager to get away from the table as quickly as possible.
Away from her family that she always found painful to be around but most of all away from her little sister and
that highly poisoned look which made the younger sibling look nothing less than a deadly snake in the grass waiting for the
first opportunity to ambush and utterly mangle its hapless prey.
The prey in this case being Cree who knew all too well how the moment the both of them took one step from the
sight of their loving parents how "truce" would be off.
Cree needed not lift her gaze to meet that of her once so adorable and fun-loving younger sister to know that
she too was reminiscing over the many terrible scraps they had gotten into over the years, each of which had been
both physically and emotionally jarring for both of them.
Each punch that her younger sister Abigail had been forced to throw had hurt Abigail as much as it hurt Cree.
Not that the bruise on Cree's left temple wasn't incredibly hard to bear in its own right with how it seemed to
unleash a horrible burst of pain every time Cree made even a small movement of her face to bite and chew at what was supposed
to be a delicious meal of roasted turkey with potato mash and beautifully blended gravy.
Yet try as she might to shrug it away, the pain made it all but apparent that this was not a wound that would
heal quickly.
The rest of the meal passed without event aside from Mr and Mrs Lincoln exchanging some small talk with their
younger daughter Abigail about some fairly inconsequential subjects such as the weather and the high rates
of unemployment that only seemed to be going up as the incompetent US government sat by and did nothing
along with a few encouraging words that as busy as mummy and daddy were with work at the moment, nothing could
change the love they had for both their younger and older daughter.
How the two guilty parents wished more time could be spent like this, the family together in one room talking
like a family should.
It wasn't long before the meal ended and every family member politely exchanged farewells and goodnights as
each headed to their separate room to engage in a little private time before going to bed for the night.
Cree was the last to leave. She sat silently waiting until the last sounds of her family's footsteps had died
away before with a deep sigh she finally deigned to rise and begin trudging upstairs barely lifting her
feet from the ground with each step.
Years of being dragged into one ferocious combat after another meant that her eyes darted about even as
she walked about knowing that this was probably the one place on earth where she needed not fear being ambushed as
it was only here that she remained despite all her poor life choices, a welcome guest.
She locked the door behind her as she went into her bedroom, her own little private paradise in this sad world where
one day the wind blew one way while the next day another so that nothing was ever sure.
And as had recently become her evening routine for when she was not otherwisely occupied with another violent
fight or a family meeting that was supposed to be comforting but never was, she walked to the mirror she kept
on the worn brown oak desk to have once again a good look at herself.
She wondered if this was becoming an addiction with how often she found herself doing this now.
Or whether she was simply getting stupider since Einstein's definition of stupidity was doing the same thing again
and again only to expect different results.
