The red numbers blinked viciously at Daria as she strained her neck to check her alarm clock from her position on the floor, the movement becoming the only sign of life to be witnessed from her in the past half hour. The time was 11:30 on a Saturday and, with a week left to finish the project, she could still here Jane's awkward mutterings about wanting to spend time with the new guy today. Tom was the name Jane had angrily reminded her when Daria had only used the most colorful and insulting language to describe him.
Jane had insisted on the collaboration of this project, reviewing the advantages of having her artistic capabilities in the mix and even enlisting her brother's help with audio. In theory, this was going to get them an A. Except, execution was proving to be more difficult as they were halfway to the deadline and both Lanes had still offered no contribution. Dejected, Daria turned to her computer. If Jane wasn't around to work on that stupid project, at least she'd have some time to write.
As she had left things last night, Melody Powers was just about to sever the head of one Captain Volkov with a guitar string taken from the quartet she had just obliterated after discovering they were spies picking up snippets of information at the lavish events she had so often been invited to and still so despised. As Melody wound the string in her grip and Volkov begged for his life- No, Daria thought, deleting a chunk of text. Volkov wouldn't beg, no man that had been so brilliant as to trick Melody would ever beg for his life.
Daria sat back and surveyed her work for a minute. She had been adding and taking away for a while now. Everything she typed seemed juvenile, as though she was trying too hard to sound intelligent. The narrative was abrupt, and the sentences were stiff; she'd never give writing like this any attention if it wasn't hers. The deep burning in her chest began as she stared at the screen ashamed.
When the glare began to hurt her eyes, she pushed the keyboard away and span in her computer chair aimlessly. When the thing she was best at started to seem too difficult, she began to feel entirely useless and she couldn't get anything done when she felt that way. Maybe that was the way Trent was feeling, she mused. Just last weekend he was saying how seriously he takes his music career, maybe all the new sound equipment was making him overwhelmed?
Her room, for all its books and bones, seemed empty now that she wasn't writing, and Daria couldn't help but see Trent like this too. Long limbs stretched across an unmade bed with a guitar just as his fingertips, the faded color of posters matching nicely with the junk that filled up the rest of the space on his floor and didn't bother his friends or even the girls he'd bring home and hush at the front door. Even with this chaos, he seemed alone.
Daria didn't want to feel like an idiot, assuming her and that cool guy she kind of liked were similar, even worse, connected, but she thought she could at least test the theory, right?
Author's Note: This is my first piece of writing in a while and I'm aware that it's riddled with mistakes. I don't think the tone is very well established and only some parts really feel like Daria to me. I'd love some feedback on what you think I can do to improve. On the other hand, I'm a passionate Daria/Trent fan and I'm very excited about this plot so I'm planning on making the next chapter much longer. Your opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
