Elsie Gianni never enjoyed having to go grocery shopping on her own, but with a wad of her mother's cash in her purse, her phone turned up to max volume to be notified as soon as her wonderful boyfriend Lazlo texted her with the wonderful sound of a One Piece den-den-mushi, wearing an adorable black converse dress and her favourite pair of cherry-red high tops, Elsie didn't actually mind walking the three blocks down to Martin's for some emergency groceries. Even if it did mean that she'd have less time to watch episodes of her favourite anime ever: One Piece. Not that she'd been really watching it much lately anyway: what with her senior year of high school looming before her as well as college and the novelty of having her first-ever boyfriend, Elsie had been keeping fairly busy, too busy really to do anything more than read the weekly installments of the various mangas that she kept up-to-date with, the most prominent of which was, of course, One Piece.
But overall, Elsie was basically over the whole anime/manga phase, and since she'd even gone so far as to quit her job at the library to deal with all this schoolwork and college and boyfriend business.
"Bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda- katcha." Her phone sounded from the depths of her purse, and Elsie smiled. Den-den-mushi were the best, she decided, and, after looking both ways and walking quickly across the street to Martin's, she took her phone out of her purse and checked it. It wasn't from Lazlo, unfortunately, but almost as welcome as it: it was a text from Elsie's best friend Aida. Elsie unlocked her phone and replied to the text quickly: she needed to get the emergency stash of groceries quickly if she was going to get home in time for her mother to make delicious baked pasta for supper. Plus Elsie was really having a craving for some Starbucks and some thumbprint cookies.
Aida: Have you finished the history assignment yet?
Elsie: Not yet... going to Martin's to get stuff for dinner. Haven't even looked at the stupid book yet, lol.
Elsie hurried into the supermarket and looked at the list her mother had given her: penne pasta, Paul Newman's tomato basil pasta sauce, Italian sausage, and pre-shredded mozzarella and provolone cheese. Easy enough, and her mother had definitely given her more money than necessary to buy just that. So thumbprint cookies and a Starbucks frappuccino were not out of the question. And failing that, there was always Elsie's own funds in the form of her credit card, but she didn't think that she would have to resort to using that.
In less than twenty minutes, Elsie was headed back out of the Martin's with a single plastic grocery bag suspended by its handles from the crook of her right arm while in her right hand she held a most delicious grande-sized strawberry frappuccino. Sipping it, she looked both ways and began to step into the street when she heard the familiar
"Bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda bda... bda bda- katcha." Coming from her purse. Elsie smiled and blindly felt around in the bag. Maybe this time it would be a text from Lazlo. That would be very nice: since getting him to finally agree to be her boyfriend, Elsie's thoughts seemed to be running on rather a monopoly of fluffy thoughts about Lazlo. She tried not to go overboard with her thoughts, but it was so darn hard to do that whenever she saw something that she thought he'd probably enjoy, or the fact that she kept inexplicably remembering how very good he smelled. She knew that she tended to hyper-romanticize things, especially things like this, but what could she expect, brought up reading fairy tales where beautiful princesses always find their true loves and other such similar stories?
When she was about halfway across the street and there were still no cars in sight, Elsie finally found her phone and pulled it out, looking down at it and smiling. It was from Lazlo. Finally he'd stopped playing videogames and/or watching Netflix long enough to reply to her (very clever) earlier text. She hoped that he'd found her joke about hobbits hysterical, but it was always so draining trying to sound clever with each new text. At least Lazlo always knew what she meant, even when she sounded vaguely stupid. He understood what it was like to be a disorganized writer with hundreds of (very noisy) little people living in his head and demanding attention. Honestly, characters were so high-maintenance.
Her phone buzzed again and the den-den-mushi made its familiar call. Lazlo had sent her another message! Wondering what she had done to deserve such good fortune, Elsie began to unlock her phone to see what it was he was texting her about. She didn't even realize that she had stopped in the middle of the street. Or that the lights had changed. Or that a large pickup truck was headed straight for her at a good twenty miles per hour...
But she most certainly noticed it when it hit her.
First the sharp shove came, then the impact with the asphalt. After a few stunned milliseconds, pain flooded Elsie's nervous system and her vision spun and began to fade. She could hear the screeching of brakes and panicked shouting, but it didn't really register with her what was actually happening. All she could think was I hope that the cookies are okay. And my Starbucks. And then her world went black.
Author's Notes: Ah, yes, the dreaded Mary Sue. Actually, I really hope not: but we shall see, now won't we? Anyway, this is just a stab I'm taking at writing something semi-realistic... This little universe of Elsie's is actually helping me deal with some of my real life crap, and as I hope you'll realize from reading this first chapter, there's absolutely no way that this will all take place in the One Piece world. However, some of it will. On another note, I'm not exactly sure how long this will end up, but I'm thinking that it will be pretty short, as far as the number of chapters goes.
Peace out,
~Lucinda