Daria and Jane returned to the Lane residence stuffed with pepperoni and cheese, their stomach gurgling at the rich abundance it was trying to digest. Stepping into the bedroom, Jane got to work assembling her easel and, as she looked to her friend, watched her compose herself more readily. The misanthrope removed her glasses, placing them on the side table, tied her green jacket around her waist, and flicked her hair back a bit. The artist's pupils dilated slightly, taking in the more mission-determined version of her friend, her stomach twisting a little.

Daria rested herself on Jane's bed, leaning on her front, whilst she placed a random book at her folded arms, overseeing the text blindly. Tucking a stray hair behind her ear, she looked readily up at her friend with narrowed brows.

Jane smiled awkwardly. "You um... comfortable?"

"As I'll ever be. It's gonna be a pain not being able to actually read, but I guess I can just meditate and stare off into nothing" she proposed.

The midnight-maned friend shrugged. "Whatever works for you"

With that, the more tentative and laborious work began. A few minutes in, Daria immediately regretting the pose, as her stomach began to painfully ache, after having stuffed her gullet with fast food. She furrowed her brows and groaned.

Jane paused. "You okay?"

"It'll pass" she assured.

Jane made sure to get the overall sketch done as quickly as possible, so she could start mapping out the lighting application further along in the painting. There would be a lot of heavy shadows, considering being almost directly under the main light source. Once clarified, she slowly began her work on colours, mixing a huge variety that left her pallette in a gigantic, but orderly, mess. It was so quiet in the room. Jane could practically hear her own heartbeat, as she dabbed, stroked, and enmeshed the piece with her brushes. The cute tink of her brushes and their swishing about in the provided water played as a form of entertaining audio for the bookworm.

"Can ya let me know when my eyes are done?" enquired Daria, briefly deviating from her instructions to lift her eyes to look at her. Jane nodded quickly, looking to her to assure communication, and Daria returned to the spot she was staring into.

"Okay, dude" excused the artist. Daria took the chance to rest her eyeballs, closing her eyes and letting her drift in a form of rest that didn't require an absolute surrender of her composure.

Internally, Daria was abhorring every minute of this. In her brain, she found herself trapped in a cage of exposure and Jane was peering into it, whilst she scrambled desperately to get out.

A dark sky gathered. Helplessly, she watched as the looming giant Jane reached in to grab her from the glass box. Producing a petrified squeak, Daria found herself utterly frozen in her friend's hand, awaiting the announcement of her final judgment. She reached for her face to find her glasses, but to no avail. She tried to speak, but she couldn't. It felt like her mouth had been filled with cotton. As if she had been mounted and stuffed, like some animated trophy. She could feel Jane's eyes.

Her eyes, staring down into every detail of her being, as she laid helplessly in her grasp.

The word's of Amy Lee's 'Everybody's Fool' echoed painfully in her ears:

"Without the mask, where will you hide?
Can't find yourself lost in your lie.

I know the truth now.
I know who you are.
And I don't love you anymore"

With that, she felt Jane's hand tilt and gravity yanked her down forcefully into a dismal abyss. The image of Jane shrunk further and further from her sights, until she was left with only herself. Nothing but her own, dull, pathetic self, in the dark. She wasn't even much of a person. She was an afterthought. The remnants of what could've been an interesting person. She may as well have been an artificial life form. An android, whose sole purpose is to absorb information, without actually showing any understanding of the human condition. Gradually, she found pieces of herself beginning to break off and dissipate into the starving dark. Fabric, hair, her skin, until all was left was her skeleton, which became nothing but a collection of ash, lost in the cold wind.

"Daria?" called Jane.

At that point, the bookworm realized she'd lost the pose she'd been trying to keep and had drifted off into a short sleep. "J-Jane! I'm sorry... I wasn't"

"Cool it, Morgendorffer. It's alright. It's done"

At that, Daria felt another sudden rush of immense reluctance tamper with her previously asserted confidence. Reached for her glasses on the side table, she sat up and wandered over, quickly cleaning her glasses before doing so.

Daria rubbed the last of the particles from her lenses and proceeded to look at the gift Jane had made for her. Sure as heck, Jane had really excelled this time around. Her establishment of the scene was intimate. A good full focus on Daria's face, as it looked down upon the pages nested beneath her folded arms. With her chocolate locks curtaining her pale features, the absence of the glasses served well to really portray the somewhat simple and almost bland features. She was plain-looking, technically, but her friend had done well to compliment her face with the dark application of colour and shading, like the detailing of the pale moon amongst the night sky. The eyes told more than anything. Whilst in the picture, Daria withheld a determined, focused composure, the details hinted in the eyes reflected some form of pain. That she was able to paint this was incredible more than anything. It was certainly an impressive piece.

"Holy cow, Jane" she uttered, absorbing the work.

"What do ya think?" probed the raven-haired beauty.

This would all amount to nothing if Daria didn't like the piece. But, that wasn't all Jane was hoping for. Daria thought for a long time, taking in the details of the picture.

"I didn't realise my eyebrows were so heavy" she mused.

Jane chewed her lip. "Um... well, they're not too heavy or anything. They're dark" she added.

Daria brought a hand to her face in thought, really processing the portrait.

"Shall I leave you to-?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Just gimme a sec" objected the nerd.

After an uncomfortable silence, Daria turned to her friend. "What do you personally make of this?"

"Well, I mean, I'll try not to massage my ego or anything. I think I captured your essence pretty well in this... Oh, christ. I'm starting to sound like O'Neil..." the artist quietly trailed off.

"My essence"

"You know. The idea of you. It's what comes to my mind when someone mentions you or refers to you. I think of someone well-read, intelligent, witty, and... someone who's probably keeping under wraps more than what's necessary"

"You gather my insecurity from this?" the nerd queried, with a raised brow. Jane shrugged, looking down and rubbing the back of her own neck. "You see me as insecure"

"Not entirely. I just feel you maybe worry more about some things than you should. It wouldn't necessarily be accurate if I depicted you as fearless or some robot-"

"But, I imagine that's what others think of me" admitted Daria quite frankly, surprising herself and her friend.

"You think others view you as subhuman or something?" quietly probed Jane.

Daria sighed and turned away from the painting, folding her arms.

"Well, not everyone views you like that. I don't. Trent doesn't. That's clear. Don't you think maybe you're playing into your fear somewhat, by detaching from others and not being more honest with your feelings?"

"It's not always exactly easy though, is it?" Daria snapped suddenly. Jane's eyes widened a little, and she retreated from her. The brunette sighed again. "I'm sorry. Look, it's a great picture and everything, but... yeah. It doesn't exactly change anything about how I view myself, just how I know you view me"

Understanding, Jane took in the failure of her experiment and looked down at the floor. "And... does that matter for anything?"

"Of course it does. I'm glad you've depicted me in the most realistic way possible. It's just a reminder though of how I'm some social outcast" Daria confessed. "But, I'm also happy that my best friend at the very least can show that she sees me in a way closer to how I want to be seen"

At that, Jane lifted her gaze and delivered a warm smile to her.

"I just wanted you to know whatever you may think of yourself, I wanna stick by you. You're the most bearable human being upon this earth I've met, and I'm honored to be your friend"

"Suck up" teased Daria, giving her friend a small smile.

Suddenly, there was nothing.

Visually nothing.

Just darkness that festered their eyeballs with a random static residue of once perceived fragments of colour and light. "Dammit, power outage"

"Yay" groaned Daria.

"Trent! Do you have a flashlight or anything?" called Jane.

After a quiet moment, the brother replied. "Mom's got candles in the cupboard!"

"Of course she does" commented the nerd. "Who else in this day and age would want to primitively lighten their house like Oliver Twist?"

"If I remember correctly, she has these neat pine-scented ones" perked Jane gently.

"Fantastic. So whilst I eagerly await to return to the 21st century, I can let my imagination take hold and have me think I'm lost in the woods at night, where I'll either be abducted by a UFO or be shredded by a ravenous werewolf"

"Or it's the nice turquoise ones with the hint of the ocean"

"Or I can feel like I'm trapped under the ocean, whilst the hint of light I see could very well be the imitation brought by an angler fish wanting to bite my face off"

"Now, we wouldn't want that Daria. I just spent the last several hours painting that pretty face"

The silence after that playful remark told enough. Jane wished she could make out her friend's fluster in the fierce blackness that continued to rob both of their vision.

"I can actually feel you grinning in the dark, you weirdo" commented the bookworm, with some annoyance.

"Yer not afraid of the dark, are ya Morgendorffer?" pried Jane softly.

"I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm inconvenienced by the dark. When I know I can't see well enough to make myself around already..."

"C'mon, you're not gonna trip up or anything! Trent will be up soon to give us some lanterns to help us through these dreadfully thick mists in the marsh" Jane said lowly.

"Oh, good grief... Please stop"

"OH, WOE IS ME!" lamented Jane dramatically. "My tormented heart ever more aches, as I reach out ever more for my friend who is shackled by the dreadful embrace of the infinite stretch of the night! Take me, thou wretched, satanic entity! Let Daria flee from its jaws and I shall-"

Her ridiculous stage enactment drew to a close when she felt Daria grab her upper arms. Her frame bore some of the brunette's weight, as she brought forth and felt a sweet, soft touch to her cheek. What felt like a pair of lips.

Totally stunned, she brought a hand up to her face, where her friend kissed her. There was some shuffling, and a loud thud, where the nerd had hit her head on the wall, as Daria quickly vacated the bedroom. A moment later, Trent found his sister in a stupified state, sporting a lit candle in a lantern.

"Um... where's Daria off to in such a hurry? She scared of the dark?" he pondered.

The following morning, Jane went to the door to see her friend ready for classes. "Do you need an additional week to get ready?" she casually shot, seeing Jane fix her hair.

"Um... Nuh-uh. We're good to go"

"Cool"

Walking along, Jane made some brief, expectant gazes at her companion. Upon realizing the awkward interaction, Daria rolled her eyes. "If you're worried I'm a vampire, you could get out your mirror from your-"

"Why did you do that?" the artist asked blatantly.

"Do what?"

Jane's eyes widened, puzzled. "Last night..."

"What about it? You showed me the portrait and I said it was all good"

Was she deliberately avoiding the situation? It seemed so.

Jane was temporarily bewildered by Daria's dismissal of last night's 'thanks', but seeing how the misanthrope was usually stubborn in terms of displaying openly her emotions, she felt it was best to just take what happened for what it was worth and leave the matter unaddressed. Considering the chance Daria took to give an affectionate response for Jane's efforts, it was likely she was embarrassed and wanted to simply move on. In fear that her confidence would 'slip up', the tall teen forgave the interesting display of appreciation. Coyly, the artist felt a smile spread on her face and, wordlessly, the duo made another trek back to the hell of Lawndale High.

The End