Force Five

Chapter 1 – Void

Emily Vanis yawned and blinked at her alarm clock. It flashed 9:23 pm, but that didn’t mean much. The alarm clock was broken. Blearily, she opened her eyes to find her watch. 7:02 am. Time to get up.

Stumbling out of bed, Emily felt around for her trademark hat. It was a simple baseball cap, completely white with a black visor. She’d gotten the hat four years ago as a birthday present. It hadn’t left her head since except to sleep, or swim, or shower.

Emily quickly shrugged on some clothes. Plain grey t-shirt, black jeans, nothing fancy. She shuffled into the kitchen, opened the fridge. Poured some cereal into a big red bowl. Breakfast. Her parents were still asleep. They didn’t like the morning. Emily didn’t either, but she had school.

Soon she was out the door, trudging through the winter rain to the subway. It was the fastest way to get through the tangled streets of New York City. Sure, it wasn’t exactly glamorous, but the nearest bus stop was three blocks, and more importantly several streets, away, and her parents weren’t about to drive her. They had enough problems with traffic getting to work.

A few stations away, Emily emerged from the tunnels just to the left of P.S.29, better known as Linda Green Junior High. Nobody knew who Linda Green was. Rumor had it that the founders of the school had come up with the name as an acronym sometime in the small hours of the night, but by morning only remembered the name.

Emily was always one of the first to get to school. She hurried through the hallways to get to her locker. It wasn’t hard to spot. Over the course of the year, the locker acquired all sorts of creatively derogatory letters, rather amateur caricatures, and general insulting graffiti. Emily was quite proud of her collection.

There are always those, in every stage of life, who feel obligated to belittle others. Emily was a thoughtful girl, given to analysis. She had noticed that a large amount of the kids considered “popular” were that sort of people. Naturally, she decided she wanted to distance herself as far as possible from this. It made sense that if popular people were mean, unpopular people would be nice.

((Action coming soon, don't worry))