Guys, I know it's been a while since my last upload, and I'm sorry about that, to you and myself. I was supposed to upload something every day, and now look. And if you're wondering, Crisper still isn't back from acting-college. He left this note on his button.

Dear Gamer,

I am still at acting college, but don't worry. I hired a stand-in last night and he should be here before the next update. Thanks for understanding!

Crisper Free

Anyways, as you can see I'm going to update TWP because it's the only thing I feel less-than-blocked on. Everything else? Blocked. Which brings me to the question….

Since Lukas lives in Minecraftia, does he experience writer's-block or writer's-sphere?

Also, if you spin an Oriental person around, will he be disoriented?

And while we're on the subject, why do overlook and oversee mean two entirely different things?

Just a few questions.

(a spider crawls into the room)

Oh my gosh, a spider! Imma crush da little-Oh, wait! There's a birthday card on it!

Dear Gamer,

This is the stand-in I was talking about. His name is Bobby and he likes buttons. Please do not crush him, I heard they have this no-refund policy, and this guy cost me a few bucks.

(excitedly looks up from card) Hol up, Crisper has money?

Yes, I have money, Gamer, I'm not poor like you. Anyways, please give him his peanut-butter jelly sandwich, his Capri-Sun and his Sun-Chips around twelve. Naptime is at 1:30, and he sleeps till three. If the router is broken and you can't upload, he'll be able to fix it.

He's good with the web. Must be woven into his DNA or something.

Well, I'll see you after the semester!

Crisper Free

(gives Bobby a skeptical look) You know how to work the buttons, son?

Bobby: Yeah, I do it a little.

Well, by all means, HIT IT!

(Bobby hits it)

The energetic children flew past idling merchants and citizens down the gravel road. Their heads snapped in every direction for a hideout, but every one of the tall, uniform buildings seemed to them like an orphanage. As Jesse ran forwards, Missy glanced back every now and then. No sight of the crazy man so far.

When Jesse felt the weight of his sister slowing down, he tightened his grasp on her hand and ran faster. "Missy, we have to keep going! They'll catch us if we stop."

Missy felt her legs starting to ache as her feet pounded the floor, trying to keep up with Jesse. "They're not even behind us, Jesse. We have to find a hiding spot."

"There is no hiding spot!"

"Well, we can't run forever!" Her chest felt like it was on fire, and each dragging breath stoked the flame. Her sweaty hand slipped out of Jesse's and she halted, bending over and panting. Jesse's chest heaved as he walked back to her and grabbed her arm.

"Why are you tired?" He doubled over and wrenched in the air. "We… haven't even been running that long."

"Well, you're tired, too!" She sat up long enough to point at him, but stooped right back down.

"I'm not tired. I'm just… enjoying this air." His heavy panting kept him oblivious to his sister's annoyed glare.

"There! There they are!" The crazy-man's voice halted their breathing and they straightened like deer hearing a gunshot. He glared and pointed at them from the other end of the street before launching into action along with a few burly, broad-shouldered men. Missy screamed, and Jesse swooped for her arm and dragged her behind him. This garnered more eyes from concerned onlookers, but the children ran on, forgetting to breathe, much less to take in their surroundings.

They ran as far as their legs and the gravel road could take them. The road faded into dirt, and the rose-patches to tall, rebellious weeds. Lone trees stood here and there on the outskirts of the city. Within seconds the dirt road disappeared into a dry, ugly meadow. The brushes and stalks of grass and weeds tickled and stung the kids' bare legs, but the men in their tough cloth-jeans over their long legs sailed across the fields, getting closer and closer.

Jesse and Missy could feel his bony hands digging into their arms, dragging them off to the orphanage, away from Mommy and Daddy forever. Fear and desperation spurred them further into the meadow.

"You children aren't getting away!" Missy saw Crazy-Man plodding after them with a demonically "helpful" sneer. Mid-run, he tripped over a rock and faceplanted with a thump. She almost laughed with relief when the other men stopped to help their leader up.

Jesse spotted a cluster of oak-trees a few yards away from them, the perfect place to hide, if for a few seconds. He and Missy darted out of sight before the man was back on his feet. The amateur hiders panted wildly.

"Jesse," Missy hissed, "we can't hide here forever. They're going to find us."

Anxiety twinged in Jesse's stomach. Missy was more than right; it was only a matter of seconds before those men rounded the tree, then it was another grueling game of lion and mouse. He wasn't sure if he could take another round of that, nor was Missy. He didn't dare peek around the tree's bark. They had to keep moving forward.

They scanned the hopeless plain of pale yellow and dying green. Their new life in the orphanage crept closer with each second, calling out to them like the antagonist of a horror-story,

"I know you're out there… I'm coming to get you!"

Missy clenched her brother's hand. How could they possibly be home before dinner if they were locked up like animals for the rest of their lives? She searched the fields with nothing in mind but security. It was there she found the complete opposite.

A little way up the hill she saw a run-down shack built with dark, but dying wood sitting lifelessly still among the flowing grass. There wasn't anything else to the empty, forgotten house, if she could even call it that. No one would want to go there.

And that was all the security she'd need.

A loose branch hung just above them, and she jumped and snapped it off.

"I heard something! Over there!" Missy's distraction was already working. Jesse grabbed her shoulder and gave her a look of anger and fear.

"Missy, what are you doing?"

"Distracting them!" She raised the branch high over her head and tossed it out as far away from them as she could. The stick shuffled in the grass as it tumbled through, and Missy smiled when she saw the men going after it. She grabbed Jesse's arm and ran to the house as fast as she could. The door shrieked when she wrenched it open and she and Jesse flew inside, slamming it shut behind them. The old, abused door fainted with such hard use and fell to the floor with a thwack that made the kids flinch.

They heard more commotion as the search-party clamoured towards the house, and they knew they needed to hide. They scanned the house for a hiding spot. In addition to looking dead on the outside, the house was also empty on the inside. An old chair and a tiny table, dining room for one, crammed against a wall, right next to a dusty bed. Jesse ran to the bed, dropping to the creaky floor and squeezing himself under the bed. "Come on!" He called to her, halfway under. She followed suit, squeezing herself in just as footsteps barged into the house. The kids held their breaths. All was silent except for the creaking wood.

"I don't see them… maybe they're hiding. I saw that door fall over."

"Nah, I don't think so," he walked right beside the bed. Jesse could see his leather boots idly tilting back and forth. "This place is so old and run-down, the door probably just caved in on itself."

"Yeah, like I wish this house would!" The third laughed. "Ah, I wish this place'd just… cave in on him while he's sleeping."

"Sleeping? Why not when he's wide awake to feel it?" Their laughing at such a gruesome topic would've sickened Missy if she wasn't already on the verge of vomiting with fear.

"Why don't we give him a hand?" Jesse flinched when glass exploded and shards reached as far as the bed beside him. The loud sound was quickly followed by soft, sinister laughter. "Sometimes I wish Isa wasn't so fair to him. Letting him out of jail was far enough, but if she'd loosen up a little on that vandalism-law when it comes to freaks like him…." Their feet filed out of the door.

Missy didn't push herself from under the bed until they were sure they were gone. She gasped when she saw crystal of glass spanning the dirt floor, all leading back to the now-shattered window. She felt Jesse's presence behind her as they both looked at the mess.

"Who were those mean people?" Jesse asked. He really didn't care so much who they were, so as long as they were punished for this. His eyes trailed to the door where dull sunlight streamed in. "You think we should go back out?"

Missy shook her head and plopped onto the bed. "Let's stay here and rest. I don't wanna get chased again." Jesse walked to the bed and laid opposite of her, so that his knees were at her head and vice versa.

"Missy, do you think this is Aiden's house?"

"I don't know, I thought Aiden was still in jail."

"Maybe they let him out, and his two friends." He sat up, suddenly noticing the orange tint in the sky. It was starting to get late, and they had gotten nowhere. But did he really want to risk going back out there with the threat of being sent to the orphanage? Finding Aiden was important but getting home at all was even more so. He wondered how things were going at home. By this time, they'd be working on math problems with their mom, or Uncle Lukas if that's what it came down to. Their dad Jesse would be running Beacontown with Uncle Radar until dinnertime. Who knew what Uncle Axel and Auntie Olivia were up to? Something cool, Jesse figured. Did anyone know they were gone?

Something shuffled through the grass and caught his and Missy's attention. "Someone's coming, hide!" They clambered underneath the bed just as the wood creaked, signaling that someone else was in the house with them.

The first thing Aiden noticed was the door was down. He'd seen worse, but this was new. He walked further up the hill to see the fallen door in all its glory. That's when he noticed the window, or the lack of window. Just a reminder of how everyone in town saw him, not counting his new black eye, all the trouble he went through to get the piece of bread he was holding right now (piece, not loaf), and... He couldn't stand in the doorway counting his troubles. The setting sun worried him. Sunset always brought the frigid night seeping through the rotting wood of his shelter and the mere sheet he called a blanket, and now nature's icy touch had a new way to torment him at night.

He sighed and stepped over his door, resolving to put it back up and then board up the window when he was finished hiding his food. Walking into the eerily empty house would've filled another with unease, disgust, but for Aiden the unease left him because it was empty. No one would be there to jump out of a corner and attack him like in the city. He wasn't always haunted by Gill and Maya's loathing stares, if not in his mind at least. He walked to his bed and pulled back the thin covering of his deteriorating mattress where a small card waited inside. He pulled it out and smiled weakly at it, a picture of him, his friends, and Lukas. Simpler days. Happier days. Warmer days.

He thought again about the broken window, the fallen door. It was pointless. If he froze and died, he would freeze and die. He flopped onto the bed but flew right out with a yelp when it screamed on impact. The unexpected cry of pain pressed him against the plain walls and nearly paralyzed him except for his pounding heart. Guilt-ridden as he was, he still managed to curse the council for restricting him from owning as little as a shovel. He often swore the council officiated that law solely in favor of the revenge-hungry guard and the city zealots.

A small hand clawed its way from under the bed, pulling the body of a young boy out with it, closely followed by another girl. Kids? He was almost scared to an early (somewhat welcome) grave because of kids?!

"You hurt my nose!" The boy whined, glaring straight at him.

Aiden glared right back. "Well, maybe if you kids weren't hiding under my bed it wouldn't have happened!" He remembered the door as he quickly studied his unwelcome house-guests. He pointed to the empty doorway. "Did you two do that?"

The little girl frowned at the mess, and then back at him. "Maybe?"

He drove a hand through his hair. "Maybe!"

Missy rubbed her shoulder and eyed the floor. "Yeah… maybe."

"Well, how about that?" He pointed to the window. "Did you do that, too?"

"No, those mean guys came in and did that!" The boy said. Aiden started to retort, but then he realized maybe someone else had done that. Aggravating as it was to think, it was a very plausible theory.

He marched to the window. "I swear to God!"

"Why did you just whistle?"

"What?" He glared at the girl over his shoulder.

"When you said 'swear', you made a little whistle. Also, my mom said, 'I swear to God' isn't very nice to say." Aiden lifted a brow at first, but then remembered his long-missing tooth and the new, unexpected music that completely nullified his harsh comebacks. Not one soul in prison would let up about Aiden the Mockingbird.

He leaned on the window-sill, gazing at the dying grass outside. "Shut up." He said it with such anger it came out with a shrill whistle.

"That's rude." Aiden rolled his eyes with a groan.

He turned around and faced them, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Listen, would you two just get out of my house? I'm tired, I want to go to sleep, I see enough trouble every day."

"What kind of trouble? Is your job hard?"

If being a punching-bag counted as a job, he would've answered yes, but like Gill and Maya probably were, he was unemployed. He held up the piece of bread. "You see this? It's all I'm going to eat for a while, and I had to get this," he pointed to his blackened eye, "to get it." Just scratching the surface of his sordid life dampened their moods, making them exchange sorrowful glances. "All I want to do now is go to sleep. Forever, if I can arrange that. There's the door." He elegantly gestured to the door, and then remembered it was laying across the floor. Forgetting it for a few minutes was remotely pleasant, but anger had found its way back. How was he going to get that fixed before sunset?

"But we can't leave."

He glared at the girl. "And why is that?"

"Those crazy people out there want to throw us into the orphanage."

He almost laughed. "The orphanage? You're scared of the orphanage?"

"Well, yeah."

"Kid, do you know what I'd give to live in an orphanage right now? At least they feed you there, give you a place to sleep, I mean hey! It's better than jail." He wanted to think that kids these days were ungrateful, but it always haunted him that he simply was not normal. If he'd kept his mind in a sane place, he wouldn't be wanting to go to an orphanage. He wouldn't even be in this dimension. He'd be somewhere far better, maybe even in his house, with his friends, with Lukas, and the door wouldn't be broken down or the windows smashed in. He was the ungrateful one.

"Um, sir?" The kid's awestruck voice didn't pique his interest, but he turned around anyways. The amazed look on both of their faces surprised him.

"What?"

"Are you… Aiden?"

He snickered with scorn. The way she asked made him sound almost important. He joked right along, feeling life shaking its whole being at him. "The one and only." This would've been the part where the innocent, tenderhearted children fled for their lives from the warlock's old hut, but life's script must've done a backflip because the two kids stared at him with not growing disgust, but growing awe. It was then he realized something was about to go wrong.

So, I finally got that writer's block stopped. Now for some more Regular, Natural, Sense-Making Logic I've found on the Reliable Internet:

If you want to see a younger version of yourself, you've gotta look at an older picture.

If I get out of the shower clean, why does my towel get dirty? On that subject, if you drop a bucket of soapy water on the floor, is it clean or messy?

The only time 'incorrectly' is spelled incorrectly is when it's spelled incorrectly.

Isn't it funny how you have thousands of little voices in your head, like the ones you used to not just read this entire story, but also to give Aiden, Missy, Jesse and others distinct voices?

Well, I've gotta run. I'll do extra reviews next chapter because… curfews. Close it, Bob.

Bob: (closes it)