• NOTE: PLEASE READ CHAPTER ONE FIRST, LOCATED IN MY GALLERY.
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    August silenced her breathing and narrowed her eyes.

    "Do you really want to know, Trent Bryan?" She asked with the most serious voice Trent had heard from her so far. He suddenly faltered in his choice, but forced himself to nod.

    August grimaced as if in pain, then tilted her head to one side. "Are you sure?"

    "August, just tell me. I'm not going to tell a soul." Trent encouraged, but her tone of voice thoroughly frightened him.

    After a quick pause, August crawled from his lap and began walking out the end of the alleyway, straight into the middle of the street.

    "August?!" He shrieked and clambered out into view from behind the dumpster. He suddenly froze, every inch of him shaking.

    It was enough to make a grown man faint. There was not a soul in the street, not even occupying the cars that stopped inches from August. Even the harsh wind had halted in its path. The only living soul in the city was August, tiptoeing across the harsh asphalt surface.

    She trailed one hand across the hood of a black Mercedez-Benz that had halted just under her touch. She sheepishly turned her clover eyes in his direction, sweeping her short skirt with her other hand.

    "Wha--" Trent stopped himself and scanned the sky for something, anything. This couldn't be happening; it just couldn't.

    "Let's just say I have a gift." She called, her voice much larger than one might think possible from the small frame. The sound echoed over and over on the multitude of buildings that surrounded them.

    "You did this?" Trent managed and felt his gaze fall on the small girl again.

    "No, the little bird that passed by just a second ago chirped and everyone but us vanished before its eyes. Of course I did it." Her voice easily turned to an annoyed titter. She brushed her hand on something that Trent couldn't see above her, her face filled with admiration and love.

    "I'd like you to meet my dream world, Trent Bryan." She looked back to him, the mischievious flicker in her eyes again.

    "Your dream world..."

    "Yes."

    "But--"

    "Okay, listen." She suddenly leaned on the invisible figure; she looked as if she should've fallen over, but she stood with her usual majesty and kept her balance as she pointed lazily at him. "The guys down at the labs? They wanted to concentrate the gene that allows me to do this." She gestured with the same hand around her, her hand not interrupted by anything that seemed to be keeping her impossibly upright.

    "And this is... What?" Trent took a hesitant step out into the open, instinctively looking in either direction before crossing to August. Despite his efforts to reach her, she stepped back and danced toward the bus stop's bench.

    "I told you, my dream world." She repeated with a grin. "I control everything here. I even controlled you crossing the street just then. If I want everyone to disappear, then it becomes immediate reality. If I wanted to become invisible..." She paused and she slowly faded from vision until all that Trent could see was her cheshire cat smile. The mouth slowly formed the rest of her sentence, "then it becomes immediate reality."

    "This is impossible." Trent exclaimed and shook his head, on the edge of hysterics.

    "It's only impossible if I will it. And you might not want to argue what I can do when you're standing in front of that car right there. It looks to be goin pretty fast." She quickly reappeared and danced to the curb that stood between her and Trent. He immediately dropped his gaze to the black car August had been caressing earlier, and he broke into a cold sweat.

    "Now, if I wanted you to cross the rest of the street, I could probably make it happen." Trent tried to smile at August, but couldn't keep his eyes from the car's shiney hood. "However." His smile dropped. "If I wanted that car to just run right over the top of you, that could also be a possibility."

    The car lurched suddenly under their eyes, and Trent cried out with utter panic. August burst into a bright giggling fit, doubling over at the sight of his terrified face.

    "Sorry, sorry, I can't help myself. You're the first one in a while that I've let in here." She quickly calmed her laughter and she took a ballet leap into the middle of the street. Her skirt swirled lazily around her slim legs as she landed a perfect form.

    "Now, come on. Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play in the street?" She said this and started walking away, arms swinging this way and that.