The note came to her during science class and it made her heart flutter. 'Will you go out with me? Check yes or no'. Immediatly she peeked over her shoulder to confirm it was from Tommy. By the blush on his cheeks while he kept his gaze on hisi schoolwork and the glares from the girls in the back, she could guess it was. For a brief moment her pencil hovered over the box marked yes, but she slowly forced herself to bring it down and check off the box labled no. A quick exchange of notes left her with one answer: 'why?!'. Why? She was his best friend after all. The two were thick as thieves, together forever. She had a crush on him since the fifth grade. Before she could mull over the reasons why the bell rang and she bolted, swinging her blue backpack over her shoulder and fleeing the scene. The piece of paper with the word why written on it fluttered off of her desk. It would reamin on the ground until the janitor swept it away. She ran until she was safe in her backyard, panting only a little. The blue backpack moved slightly on the ground where she left it. She zipped it open and glared inside. "Tommy asked me out today" she said in a flat voice. The answer that came out of the backpack was clear and pointed. One thing it was not however, was human. "AND WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM?" it questioned. "I checked off the no box." she grumbled, beginning to absently pull up tufts of grass. "GOOD. HIS LIFE WOULD BE IN DANGER. BESIDES, YOU'RE TWELVE. YOU'RE FAR TOO YOUNG TO BE DATING." the voice sounded satisfied. She rolled her eyes. "You're not my dad." Her mom waved at her from the patio door. She waved back. "Besides, I really like him. Why can't we keep him safe?" "COME IN HERE FOR A SECOND" Despite the commanding tone, she knew that it was more of a request. She stood up and placed both feet in the backpace. Suddenlt she was Elsewhere, floating through infinite darkness with a million stars ballet dancing around her. Before her stood a cluster of light, so bright and normal person would shield their eyes. She stared it unblinking right in the face- if that's what you could call the upper area of the creature. "YOU ARE THE SOLE GUARDIAN OF THIS REALM- OUR SAVIOR." it began. "I KNOW THAT IT IS A DIFFICULT TASK." She inturrupted it almost immediatly. "Difficult? Difficult is the math homework Mr. Summers assigned us for tonight. Difficult is hiding in a bathroom stall listening to Jasmine and Regina talk about how my new haircut makes me look like a boy. This? This is impossible!" "I UNDERSTAND. I WAS ONCE TWELVE TOO, YOU KNOW." She found this hard to believe. In her eyes the creature was ageless. It always had and always would be. "BUT YOU HAVE A SACRED DUTY. WE CANNOT PROTECT ANYTHING IN YOUR DIMENSION." She knew all of this, of course. A few months ago she had been walking home by herself- Tommy had been home with the flu for a few days- when she decided to take a different route. It was much shorter to cut through

I always have the weirdest bursts of energy when I wake up at eight o clock. Top it off with half an hour of yoga and I'm on fire. I'm totally going to beat this five hundred words a day thing let's go!

I sat on the couch and groaned. Well more like moaned. It came out as sort of an 'oooooo' sound. But even doing that did not catch the attention of Clarice. She had her back to me and was typing madly away at the computer. I turned my eyes to stare at the X Box and decided to try a little bit harder. 'OOOOOOOOO' I announced, waving my arms. Finally she turned her head to look at me, pushing her glasses up further on her nose. I tried to look as dejected as possible."Not right now buddy, I gotta do this paper." she murmured.

"Come on!" I pleaded, waving my arms. "Just a few more games of Call of Duty! I think I can beat you this time." Clarice smiled and shook her head. "Just a little bit longer and I'll be done. Don't you have anything to haunt or something?" I sighed in an exhasperated manner, but even that didn't quite seem to get to her. So instead I slouched dramatically on the couch, looking for something to do.

You would think that being twelve forever is great, but it really isn't. Not when you're alone. Particularly not when you just so happen to be a ghost. I don't remember how it happened, or what my life was like before I died. I just woke up one day, alone in an abandoned house. You would think there would be a great Someone to tell you what you're supposed to do when you're a ghost, but I had to figure things out for myself. As soon as someone had moved in I put on the best show I could muster. But within a day they had moved out. The same went for the next person, and the person after that. The house started to become more and more unoccupied because I scared everyone away.

All of that changed when Clarice showed up. At first I was going to scare her a bit, you know, out of habit and everything. But as soon as I walked, invisible, into that bathroom, I saw something that changed my life. Er, I mean my unlife. The water was running in the shower, and there stood this woman rubbing soap all over her body. The shower curtain was one of those clear see thru ones. I could see her boobies! I tried my hardest, but I immediatly began to giggle. It's not every day you see honkers like those ones. They weren't particularly big, but there they were, right there!

After the initial shock of finding a ghost 'peeping on her', (her words, not mine) we soon established some ground rules. First of all I wasn't allowed in the bathroom ever again since (again, in her words) 'I didn't even need to use the shitter anyways-fuck, I didn't mean to swear you're a kid'. Clarice was always trying her hardest not to swear around me. I didn't mind so much. I was learning a much more colourful vocabulary from her than I was from any of those other house guests.

There was an anger burning in Amber's chest, a fire crackling that she could not quite quench. Later after the accident, once she was cleared by the paramedics to go home, she paced back and forth in the tiny hidden room that had essentially become the super hero hide out for Power Girl and Bolt. Not that there was a Power Girl and Bolt any more. Just Bolt, all alone in the room which seemed brooding and silent now that Jenn's laughter was tnot there to echo against the metallic walls.

Okay I don't know what I'm writing but as long as I keep writing then it will be okay. This is not going as well as I thought it would. This passage is supposed to represent her rage at being a lone but I think I might have to do a bit more research into this before doing this passage. Instead I'm just going to write about something completely different and hope for the best

Loss is a hard thing to write about. You can never fully explain what it's like to have something that is no longer there, particularly when the something that is no longer there is a person and your whole world. If I were to lose Josh I don't know what I would do. Already my mind is off then other people's, like I have some kind of brain stutter when I can not figure out the right words to things. To lose Josh would be to make my brain permanently stutter, forget things entirely.

That's the problem with having a mental illness. My thoughts don't always come out the way I want them to. I can't find words to describe the feelings that I am feeling. It makes it hard to talk to people, as if there's some barrier there that doesn't quite get put up for normal people. I don't mind being not normal, but I would like it if I could enunciate my words better, and make people understand what I am thinking. I think that's why I want this passage to come out right, because I want people to feel what I'm feeling and they can't. This is the best I can do today. It's not five hundred words but I certainly tried my best even with the block. I'm sorry.

She had always been by her side, both in and out of costume. Jenn had no idea how she had gotten so lucky to end up with someone so amazing as her. It was all she could do to not slip out of her arms and get down on one knee right where they were.

Everything ends, and so to did Amber and Jenn's perfect night. Moments had come and passed, and Jenn still had not proposed to the woman of her dreams. She opened the door of her silver car and Amber got in, eyes shining. "You know," the girl murmured after Jenn had gotten behind the wheel. "This has to be the best birthday I've ever had. Thank you." Jenn smiled, but inward she felt terrible. She still hadn't managed to propose. But there were other nights in the future, and more crimes to thwart.

Neither of them noticed the car at first. The driver was obviously drunk, swerving this way and that. Jenn noticed just in time as he swerved into their headlights, careening towards them. With a large amount of force she swerved the wheel, turning the car abruptly to the right. A scream erupted from Amber's throat as the car pummeled into the driver's side. Jenn could feel a sharp stab of pain in her ribs and soon found it hard to breathe. Her head began to spin and she found herself fading in and out of conciousness.

Jenn came to with the sound of sirens pounding into her head and Amber shaking her awake. "My left pocket." she croaked out. Why was her throat so dry? "It's in there." With trembling fingers Amber reached over and slipped her hand into her pocket, eyes widening. "Not now..." she whimpered. "We are getting you help, you're going to be fine."

"No." Jenn's voice was stern. Out of all the perfect moments, she knew that this was going to be the best one. The pain in her chest indicated that this may be her last one. "Amber, I've waited too long for this." There were voices now, screams of horror. She could only imagine how horrible the accident was, exactly. "Will you marry me?"

With tears in her eyes, Amber whispered a soft "yes" and slipped the ring onto the proper finger on her left hand. Jenn licked her lips, struggling to focus on her last perfect moment. She knew that things were too late for her, but she did not wish for Amber to be aware of this. So she forced a smile onto her lips, looking more like a grimace. "Come on now, the police are on the way. Just for once they're going to be more useful than we are, how does that sound?" There was a pounding in her head and she could hear voices indicating that the police had, indeed shown up.

Amber was not as gullable as Jenn would have believed. She knew instinctively that her now-fiancee was dying. Without the other realizing it, she had her hand on the dying woman's chest and had restarted her heart around three times now. That was the perks of having the ability to shoot lightning, she supposed. But even if it bought the two temporary time, there was nothing that the paramedics or her could do. She pulled her hand away, drawing in a sharp breath. At the same time, the strongest girl in the world exhaled, and let out her last breath.

The sounds of the big band were just at the right volume that it was hard to hear. Not that it was a problem for most of the people in the dimly lit ballroom, it was dancing that they were after in the first place. But for twenty two year old Jennifer, it was proving to be a problem. She found herself frozen, staring into the emerald eyes of her girlfriend, two fingers in her pocket clutching on to the intricate ring she had bought a week earlier. Amber merely looked confused, her hand in Jenn's free hand. "I'm sorry love!" she called over what was supposed to be a quiet version of 'You Made Me Love You' by Barry Manilow. "I don't know how anyone is supposed to be able to hear in here. Come on, let's just dance!"

And so Jennifer found herself being pulled towards the dance floor. She sighed and slipped her hand from her coat pocket, knowing the ring would be there for the perfect moment. The problem was, the perfect moment kept on not happening. No matter what she tried, the moment would not come back. Mind you, there had been a perfect time to propose to Amber but it had come and gone. Besides, how many people would have wanted to be proposed to right after stopping a bank robbery in those silly costumes?

Jennifer and Amber had themselves a little secret. They had met during a medical study in university, about five years ago. Jennifer was as broke as any college student, and would have done practically anything for the money. Amber had been seeing a girl who had been working on the study, more than happy to give her a hand. However, though a series of accidents on the girlfriend's end, the two girls had ended up with strange new powers. Naturally the only thing to be done was sew up some costumes (not very good ones, though they did recently come in contact with someone who gave them a bit of an upgrade) and start their life of fighting crime. The city knew them as Power Girl and Bolt, and had no clue that the brunette and red head dancing so close to each other could possibly be those heros that had saved the day.

Jenn knew just how important the night was for Amber, and she wanted it to be perfect. It was her birthday after all, and the woman had never been known to have good birthdays. Naturally that was the day that the accident had occured, but it was only last year that she had called up Jenn crying. Her car had been rear ended, and insurance wasn't going to cover it. It had taken a long while for them to get that car fixed up. Living on a realitor's salary isn't always the best when you're just out of college. But so far today had been perfect, though the right moment had not yet come up for Jenn to pop the question.

The band had switched to a tender version of 'Love Me Tender', and Jenn couldn't help but smile as Amber held her tightly, singing along with the woman on stage. As sidekicks went, Amber, also known as Bolt, was perfect in every aspect.

It began with a feeling. The feeling that we had nothing more to write about, like all the terrible things that had once happened and had been the topic of so much of our media was gone. We all wanted to read poems from the heart, but we wanted to read them about the horrible things that was going on. But suddenly one day, nothing horrible was going on. World hunger had been solved, world peace had finally been achieved, and everyone was the happiest they could ever be in their lives. But there was an ache in our hearts that we did not understand. All that was left was to have fun. We would go out with our friends, spend time with our loved ones, but it wasn't enough. Human beings by nature are meant to be suffering. Too much of a good thing and they're liable to snap.

That's what happened to me one day. I snapped in the most unimaginable way possible. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't sick or anything- there was a cure to every known disease out there. There was nothing physically or mentally wrong with me, technically. But after three years of writing nothing but butterflies and rainbows, I had finally come to understand the human condition. It wasn't long before I was trying to find others who understood just as well as I did. This was done in secret of course. Just because there were no police anymore did not mean that there ws no one left to protect the fragile world we had so created.

Finding the few that understood and getting them to band together was the easy part. The hard part was getting the technology to set our plans in motion. After all, once the world had no need for weapons they were destroyed. Not only that, but so was all information about creating said weapons destroyed. But a few of the older ones, they remembered. They gave us the directions in their quiet, wavery voices and we got to work in the dead of night. No one came for us because no one suspected a thing. No one even guessed that is was our fault the day that the elementary school exploded.

It was far too easy, unfortunately. We went in dressed as delivery men, moving the major bombs to the office- located in the center of the school. Others disguised as air duct repairmen moved up into the ceiling, making sure a bomb was placed above each classroom- exactly where it would cause the most casualties. We were in and out easily in the span of half an hour, and then we lit the place up.

Now don't get me wrong here. I know you're thinking I'm some sort of monster. To be honest I wouldn't be the one to correct you. I may very well be a monster, but as soon as the explosoins started, the people came running. Some of them did have good intentions and wanted to see what they could do to help out but most of them? They sat on the sidelines, watching as others pulled the bloody bodies from the wreckage, a sickly sweet sense of satisfactoin rising up in their chests where there had only been misery before. You're welcome.

All I wanted to do was remain inconspicious and meet my mom's new girlfriend. It had been a while since she was willing to find love again, in fact as long as she had me she had never had time for love. But here she was, going out and meeting people, and I had my new.... well, job I suppose it could be called. Would one night out have been too much to ask for?

I put a lot of care into what I was wearing that night. A white dress with orange polka dots that flared out at the waist sat comfortably on my body. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail, not caring much to bother with it. The slight curl my locks gave made it look a little more fancy, I supposed. It was a lot more effort than I normally would have put out, but this was after all for my mother. She had given up a lot for me, so it only made sense that I would give back.

Things were going well enough. The woman my mother was with seemed friendly enough. She gave me a big hug as soon as we were introduced, which caused me to freeze up internally for a moment, but it wasn't her fault exactly. She seemed to sense my nervousness and pulled away immediatly, mumbling a swift apology. The restaurant was busy, but my mom's date had thought far enough ahead to make reservations. It was when we were finally seated and I was peering at the menu when things went wrong. I was choosing between the chicken parmesean or the fettucini alfredo when a familiar voice hit my ears.

"Welcome to Springollo's, can I start you three lovely ladies off with a drink?" The voice practically purred. Without thinking I swerved my head to take a good look at my server- a bad move on my part, I have to admit. The man was around twenty and ridiculously good looking save the scar that jutted across his cheekbone. I was very familliar with that scar. I was the one who gave it to him, after all.

The man's hazel eyes narrowed suspiciously as they met mine, and a cold chill ran down my spine as I realized he knew exactly who I was. Immediatly my hand went to clutch at my fork, my knuckles turning white as I waited for his next move. To my surprise however, he straightened his gaze into a neutral expression before my mom and her date could see. He offered my mom a generious wink. "You three seem like white wine ladies. What do you say?"

My mom's answer didn't even register to my ears. I sat there in a state of panic, trying to figure out my next move. Do I excuse myself, say that I'm sick? Confront him right there and let everyone know who I was? All scenarios played in my head like a broken record, and none of them seemed to have solutions that I was fond of. I jumped when a hand was placed on my arm, and a voice spoke right next to my ear. "Jessica? Oh come on now, I'm sorry. She's rather jumpy, you know. It's the anxiety. Jessica dear what do you want?" My eyes focused on the form of my mother and I blushed, trying to contain myself. "Oh, the white's fine." I lied. That's when my eyes landed on the glass of wine already on the table.

"We already ordered drinks dear." My mom's date answered patiently with a hint of a smile. "We are just wondering what you wanted to eat." The man took in everything that was said silently, and I knew he was going to remember this and use it against me. I forced a smile to my cheeks, and decided that I wasn't going to give him any more ammo to use against me.