They sat in a diner, exactly as it had been for decades. Nothing would ever change, for disrupting the status quo would doom everything.
The trio looked at each other with big Stepford grins on their faces. It was conducted as if they were in a play. Anne looked at the others with pride. They hadn't seen each other in ten years. They never spoke, never communicated. But that was okay. Because they had good lives. Or so God said so. And He dictated all.
"Boy, I sure am glad I'm back with my abusive parents!" Marcy said, "They moved out and left me only five months after I disappeared. But they cried a little, so that makes it okay!" Marcy's voice was odd and forced.
"Yeah. Besides, all they did was scream at you. That doesn't mean they're bad parents!" Anne said. "After all, we all know that the only criteria for being an abusive parent is hitting your kids."
"Well, I don't remember them doing anything else," Sasha said, "But since they're parents, that automatically means they're good people!" Her voice was insistent.
Anne felt strange. She blinked. "Wouldn't it be so much better if we were never friends? I mean, we never support each other, we've actively made the world worse by being friends, and we always get better when we're separate. Why are we friends again?"
"Because!" Sasha said. "Isn't this so realistic?"
"Now that you mention it," Marcy murmured, "Everything looks kinda 2-D…"
Anne sighed, "Sure am glad I'm away from those frog people. I mean, gross!"
"Could you imagine? They actually saw us as family ?" Sasha scoffed.
"Ridiculous," Marcy said.
"Boy, you know who I really hated? Sprig. That little twerp. I'm glad I can never see him," Anne found herself saying.
"And that big greasy guy I hung out with. Grimace? So gross," Sasha scoffed.
"Hey Anne, can you go away?" Marcy asked. "I need to get something and you'll just be in the way."
"All you do is hurt people," Sasha said. "Whenever we're together we destroy things. It's better not to get attached, and to stay aloof."
Something twitched in Anne's mind. "Huh… then why go on?"
"Why attach yourself to anything?" Marcy had a knife. She rubbed it against her wrist. Blood oozed out of her chest wounds and through her shirt. "Remember, don't fight things. It only gets worse. Change is only for the better. If someone tries to change you, let them. You have to do it. Change is always good. Change is never a problem. Change is always good. Even if someone else wants you to do it only for their own ends."
"What's going on…?" Anne held her head.
"No point at all! We're all temporary so enjoy it while it lasts!" Sasha sneered, "It's better that way. Leave your childhood friends behind. There's no point to anything anyway."
"Never fight anything. Never try to guide the future as you want it. Change is good unless it's the bad kind of change." Anne held her hand over her mouth.
"You must always obey your parents. Never disobey. Listen to God Almighty. Listen to your parents. But above all, I learned, never under any circumstances to try to live by your own rules. Don't create the future. Let others do it for you."
Anne looked down at her body. She was covered in bruises and injuries, scars and scrapes. Blood poured out onto the floor.
Marcy took out a gun. She put it to her head–
XXXXX
" Aagh! "
Anne's eyes snapped open and she sat up. She felt the real world hitting her like a truck. She rubbed her eyes and woke up from the nightmare, panting. She felt down her chest for wounds. Nothing but normal scars met her probing touch. Her elbow was still at an odd angle from being badly set years ago. Primitive stitches left a scar on one side.
Rubbing her eyes, the young woman looked at her watch. It was morning. She looked around at her bedroom, sat up in bed, and pulled her legs out from under the blankets. She was okay with it , wasn't she?
"Anne? Are you alright?" a voice called. Anne looked up at the door. Her mother stuck her head inside the room. Her eyes were wrinkled in concern, her mouth open slightly.
"I'm up, mom!" Anne replied, "I'm fine." Then in a lower voice said, "Just another nightmare." She looked over at the sleeping bag on the floor. Empty. She double-checked her watch. Her breath quickened.
"The others went on a grocery run before we went to the ceremony," Her mother said, opening the door further, "They said they'd meet us at the park."
"That's alright. I'm gonna go on ahead, then." Anne got up. Her mother kept looking at her. "I'm fine, Mom, really."
"Alright…" Mrs Boonchuy left the room.
The weather must have changed. Her arm ached from that toad warrior all those years ago. She opened and clenched her fist. She walked over to her brother's things and to the bathroom. Anne looked at herself in the mirror. The young woman looking back was well fed and fit, a far cry from the malnourished girl who had stumbled out of the woods on a foreign world. There were old scars on her face, scratches, and pains. As she went to grab her toothbrush, her hand trembled. With her other hand, she grabbed it. She closed her eyes. Sometimes they still did that. Months of anime powers did a load of nerve damage. Feeling her way past Sprig's toothbrush, she grabbed her electric one. She opened her eyes again. She had needed special toothpaste a while ago.
She suddenly dropped the toothbrush. It whirred angrily and loudly outside of her head and tried to dive down the sink. Anne scowled at it and picked it back up. She looked down at it, and back at her reflection.
Why are you alive?
She grabbed the edge of the sink and tried to remember the breathing exercises her therapist told her, tried focusing on sound, anything. The anniversary tended to do this a lot to her.
Anne caught her breath. Still, the pain and the hurt were there. The torment that monster, that bastard, that… that…
"Anne?" Her mom was at the door.
Anne turned and put on a brave face, "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. I just…"
Her mother smiled a little but with a knowing twinkle. "Sweetheart, do you need anything?"
"No, no not today. I… I guess I stayed up too late again."
Her mom's smile faded. "Anne."
Anne looked down. Her hand was shaking. Then the other was too. "Uh…" She grabbed her medication. "I'm fine."
"It's bad today, isn't it?"
"I'm fine ."
Mrs Boonchuy sighed and rubbed her brow. "I've got some breakfast for you. I thought you'd need it today."
They went downstairs. "Where are the others again?" Anne asked, finding the kitchen table bare of friends and family.
"Your father went with them," her mother said. "Some last minute shopping, you know how it is this time of year."
Anne nodded. She tried to avoid looking at her phone. There were the usual congratulatory emails that got through her spam filters and settings… and the occasional insults. She ate her omelet somewhat sourly, looking at the table but not seeing it.
"Mom… was it a bad idea to… fight the guardian?" She asked, suddenly. She looked up at Mrs Boonchuy.
Her mother looked up from her food. "What do you mean?"
Anne shrugged. "Sometimes people… say things to me." She moved her egg miserably. "They say that… I should've been happy with what I got."
Mrs Boonchuy looked at her. "No, of course not! I mean, neither choice was bad , but…to ask you to do that was ridiculous! Mad!"
"How could it not be?" Anne moaned. "Nothing changed! It's just the same status quo!" She held up her phone, showing off the news headlines. "Just the same nonsense! Just the same crap over and over! Can't we ever actually fix something?!" She sighed. "Some days I wonder if it was right."
"But why?" Her mother asked. "You're happier now. We all are. Sasha is happy, Marcy is safe from her parents…"
"But…" Anne mumbled. She felt like a teenager all over again. "But so many other people got hurt."
"Well, if you had chosen to go with that creature's horrid offerings, you'd still have the memories…"
"I'd be separated!" Anne burst out suddenly. "Back where I started! But gee. I would be a little less grumpy! That's worth losing my entire family! We're all back to where it started! Does that really mean anything?! We lost everything! " Anne shot to her feet and pounded her fist on the table. "Damned if I do, damned if I don't!" She shook her head. "God damn it! If I had just…! If I hadn't…!"
She felt her mother embracing her, "It was a nightmare, sweetie, just a nightmare!"
"Why am I alive? What's the point of anything ?" Anne sobbed, "Why get attached to anything if it's only going to disappear?!" She kept crying, repeating her thoughts over and over.
Her mother didn't say anything, just kept hugging her.
"They're telling you you should not have fought it?" She asked eventually.
"Yeah," Anne sniffled.
"This stuff doesn't usually bother you," Mrs Boonchuy said softly, "Why today?"
"It's the anniversary, I guess," Anne answered. She sniffled and wiped her nose. She looked at the wall. There were photos from her high school and college years on the walls. She saw the photos of Hop Pop and her father, of Sprig and Polly on one of their goodwill tours… and the image from ten years ago, with her entire family reunited at last. The three girls, battered and injured, but happy to be alive, surrounded by their found family.
Anne's eyes shifted down. Why are you alive?