• You know, I remember how this all started. It started out as a normal day of me minding my own business. I had just arrived in Jocey to attend Jocey University, JU; I was on a full paid math scholarship. JU was renowned for its amazing science and math curriculum, and I was definitely amazed enough as it is by this Olympian city. It was my first time in Jocey, I know, gasp, but I gotta tell you, I’m only 15 so it’s to be expected.
    I came in by sea; longer trip than by airplane but it was so beautiful, what with the water churning around as if Poseidon was dancing below. Anyway, as I was wandering Jocey, I agreed with my earlier description of it, Olympian. It was as if the gods themselves had made (and cleaned) the city. The buildings seemed to be reaching Olympus themselves. Basically, it was way too much to take in, not to say I wasn’t trying.
    So far, just from the boat to downtown, I had passed the largest, most impressive library I had ever seen. Not to mention the people, I’m from San Diego, so I’m used to seeing different people. However, this was just weird, there were people covered in tattoos, people with piercings all over, and ones who looked normal with business suits, in other words all kinds of variety. I liked it, it was really refreshing, because they all interacted with each other without a second glance.
    So here I was, downtown in Jocey, an island with confusing coordinates, but I know it’s in the Pacific. Once again, I say, minding my own business. I was sitting on a bench, eating a tofu-dog (they sold them just like normal hotdogs! I was so ecstatic) and looking around. I was in one of the few places not surrounded by buildings, one of the few setbacks to this place (not the park, the fact that it was one of few). So, like I said, I looked around and spotted this brown haired girl. She seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place her.
    I tilted my head and went over to her, fully intent on saying “Hi” and seeing if she knew me (tofu dog eaten, and wrapper thrown neatly into the recycle bin). As I went over, she started walking the other way, making me sigh in annoyance; but I followed her, not losing my idle pace, she’d have to stop sooner or later, I’d catch up then. She did stop, at a newspaper stand, to browse through the books available. As I caught up with her, I heard this odd noise, like…shooting I guess. That’s what made me look up.
    Up on the rooftop, I saw this figure, black hair and outfitted in black, that’s all I could make out from my position. I think I saw the person look behind them, and then I froze in shock as it jumped off of what was an approximately fifty-thousand feet tall building; as if it was Hero! I heard the girl I had been ‘stalking’ (using the term loosely) gasp softly; I figured she was seeing what I was. Then, out of nowhere, another figure clad in white was with the black one and they seemed to grab each other’s hands and pull each other closer together and…for lack of a more appropriate phrase; they clung to each other as if their lives depended on it.
    Screech! Crack! Plop. I turned immediately to survey the scene that transpired directly behind me. There was a car with blood on the grille and a broken window shield; the driver seemed shocked and scared all at the same time. Then a little ways away was a body, crippled and broken, a human body, surrounded by a pool of blood. A car accident had just occurred, then I remembered the people falling and as I turned back to see what happened, I heard a sickening thud, the sound of someone hitting the ground and felt a tremor.
    I wasn’t completely sure, but I was pretty sure (that’s kind of contradictory isn’t it? Oh well) that two people shouldn’t have made a tremor unless they fell from a much higher distance or weighed more (I was approximating here) than they, but I may have been wrong. Regardless of what should have happened, the tremor did happen, as did my falling onto my butt very unattractively. When I looked up, I saw two other (smoking) people fall into the hole that the falling people made. I at first thought it was in reaction to the tremor, and went to offer my help. But when I got there, I realized they were undoubtedly dead. I believed they either choked on or swallowed their cigarettes, because I couldn’t see them, ew.
    Anyway, one important thing I didn’t see in the hole were the bodies of those who should have been there, the ones who fell. I looked up in shock to see the girl I had been following earlier, I guess all this just unlocked my memory like Pandora’s box or something, because everything came flooding out, she was Are.

    It was my first day in this school, which sucked, since it was the middle of the year. But everyone was nice enough, although I heard most of them giggling when my back was turned. I bit my lip, an annoying habit I have when I’m frightened or lonely. That’s when this girl came up; she was pretty, brown hair and green eyes. She just smiled at me and told me her name, Are, and asked me if I wanted to sit with her during lunch. I smiled; at least one person seemed to be for real. So we sat at a table with the rest of her friends and talked about where I came from, California, and how I was liking Ohio. My sentiments towards the state were the same as their own.
    I sat with them every day for the rest of seventh grade. They, she, were my first real friends at that dreadful school. I was seriously sad-i-fied when she left at the end of seventh grade. Then again, after she left, I went to a different school, where I accelerated and went to high school early, which is why I was able to come to Jocey at 15.

    I don’t know about Are’s look, but the look on my own face was one of supreme bewilderment, I think that was the one being mirrored back at me, but I’m not so good at face reading so I’m not quite sure. But I do know that we both looked from the hole and back at each other a few times before saying “Hi” meekly and obviously confused.
    “D-did you see that person jump off the building?!” I half asked, half exclaimed at her.
    She looked cutely confused, “No, I saw someone jumping out of a plane…didn’t you?”
    I looked at her like she was crazy, or maybe I was. I dunno, what I do know is that I was feeling jittery, this was like some kind of scary movie, or like Terminator. Then something dawned on me, I guess it dawned on Are the same moment, “Hold it, was your person the one in white?”
    About the same time, she asked, “Woah, was your person the one in black?”
    We both nodded and I was feeling more and more jittery, “Um…that was so a classified no one was ever supposed to see, Men in Black meets Terminator thing…let’s pretend it never happened, m’kay?”
    Are looked at me, I had a feeling she’d rather investigate than ‘forget’ this little experience. However, she just shrugged, “Sure. Let’s um, get some ice-cream or something.”

    To make a long story short there, we stayed there for three hours pigging out on ice cream and just talking about whatever didn’t have to do with the major weird that just happened. Finally, we agreed to go check out JU together. So we got one more scoop of ice cream and were eating them as we walked out. We walked out, and ran into someone, literally (our ice cream went flying, poor ice cream), but not just someone, the two that did the disappearing act.
    Both of our eyes were like saucers as we stared at them, they muttered sorry and continued on their way. We exchange glances and basically had a silent conversation that went something like this (I think, it may have been something about the moon being made of ice cream):
    ‘Those are the missing dead people.’
    ‘Duh, but where are they going?’
    ‘None of our business, let’s go.’
    ‘Let’s go after them? Just what I was thinking.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Look, they’re getting away…we either follow now or lose them probably forever.’
    ‘And that’s a problem because…?’
    ‘Don’t you want to know why they aren’t even hurt?’
    ‘Well yes but…’
    ‘Then come on!’
    In other words, I was vehemently against this, and Are forced me to do so. I guess she couldn’t just leave it alone; unsolved mysteries must be her sirens’ song. But in the end, we decided to follow them, actually this time it really was stalking. I felt like a spy, so I started humming the Pink Panther theme song. I looked at Are once, she was staring at them like she was Medusa and her eyes would actually do something, weird girl.
    Suddenly they stopped and didn’t even turn to us at first, “Why are you following us?” they asked, like I said, not even looking at us.
    So, automatically my response was, “I’m not, she is.” But somehow, that was Are’s response too, see how she lies?
    For some reason that made them turn to us, the one in white first, and then the one in black. There were two of them, twins, but fraternal, definitely. Or maybe it was just their clothes that made them look fraternal, not sure but there was a girl and a boy. The girl was the one who was dressed in black, and the boy in white. I hate to admit it, but the boy looked more delicate than the girl, it was kind of funny. They looked at us suspiciously and expectantly, awaiting an answer to their previous question.
    So, although it wasn’t my idea, I told them why we were stalking them in, what I hope, was an annoyed or rather interested tone (but only because I didn’t want to look stupid anymore with them looking at us like we were stalkers or something), “Okay look, we saw you do your free falling stunt. We saw the big hole in the ground you left, and we are quite sure that by human anything, you should be dead from the impact of the ground, whether you had a parachute or not, and had it been a bomb, it would have blown us all away. So, spill, why aren’t you dead?”
    Are came in there, “And don’t pull the ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about’ card because we know it was you two.”
    The girl tilted her head, “How could you know that if you supposedly only saw us doing a freefall?”
    My lips twitched as I held in a smirk, “Simple, you have the right body structure, two there’s the two of you, even if it was ‘twins’, I doubt that both pairs would be together. Also, there are no bodies and they were wearing what you are. And lastly,” I tried not to laugh.
    Are pulled gravel out of their hair, “It’s really hard to get this stuff in your hair unless you’ve made a hole in the ground.”
    They both exchanged glances and they seemed to blush slightly, “Man, you remind me of Leader-sama and Ruler-chan,” the boy said with a smile.
    I exchanged glances with Are, “Who and who?”
    They looked around nervously and (of course) suspiciously, “We…can’t tell you here, too many prying ears and eyes. But…we will tell you if you come with us.”
    I looked at Are and we had another silent conversation through looks (this one I was sure of):
    ‘No. رقم 号 號 Nee. Non. No. Αρ. いいえ。아니요 Não. Количество. No. Not gonna happen.’
    ‘Aw, come on, they look harmless.’
    ‘Looks can be deceiving, like they looked like they were gonna die.’
    ‘That’s different.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘Okay, look at it this way, we both have our cell phones and the police are on speed dial, we’re fast enough and smart enough to figure out if we’re in danger when we get to our destination.’
    “That’s if they don’t shoot us on the way,” I muttered aloud, in Are’s language, that means ‘okay’. Which is why she nodded to the twins.
    They smiled slightly and turned on their heels, expecting us to follow them.


    Since nothing really happened on the agonizingly suspenseful ten-minute walk to our destination (it was like we were in a bad horror flick), I’m skipping it. We ended at a warehouse, and I gave Are a look. I think she was having the same thoughts as me, apparently, we watch way too many scary movies. Nevertheless, we followed them into what I was assuming was going to be our deathbed. I was thinking about how my mom would react to hearing I had gone to college and been killed the same day, or would she find out? Would they make it seem like I was here, or worse yet, make a robot version of me? Yes, those were my thoughts as we entered the warehouse.
    Boy was I pleasantly surprised that when we entered the warehouse, there were no people waiting to shoot me, actually, there weren’t any other people. They explained it was a vacation for their workers, though the workers didn’t know why. I nearly fell onto my butt laughing when I found out (1) that this was a rubber ducky factory and (2) they owned it. Of course it didn’t keep me from grabbing a rubber ducky to squeeze, Are did the same. Finally, the twins sat on a conveyor belt and gestured for us to do the same (which I didn’t, I don’t trust conveyor belts).
    “Okay, this is what’s up. I’m Kari, she’s Elphaba. We’re from the future.” Elphaba was watching our faces for our reactions as her brother talked.
    My expression was, I hoped, unreadable, although I was thinking, ‘Oh great, crazies.’
    “In our future, the world has been taken over by…what you all would call dictators. We call them Leader-sama and Ruler-chan.”
    I interrupted him, “Hold up, you said we reminded you of them. How do we remind you of dictators? We’re all for world peace and stuff.”
    Elphaba rolled her eyes, “So are they, our Leader-sama and Ruler-chan are strong, fierce, independent women. In fact they’re so many things I hesitate to call them women, their more on the verge of Goddesses.”
    I exchanged a glance with Are, she seemed to be buying this crap, but she obviously wanted to laugh at the Goddess part. I decided to humor Elphaba, “Then…what Goddess would you call them?”
    As if on autopilot, the two answered, “Athena and Aphrodite.” I could tell they’d thought about this before, they were a tad bit obsessive with their imaginary leaders.
    I tilted my head, “Um, hold it, why didn’t you die?”
    They blinked, and then smiled, “One of the things our Leader thought up, to make sure no one died an unnatural death because of stupidity.” They pulled at their skin and it began to come off, I covered my eyes before realizing they were just peeling off an extra layer, like a snake’s. I crinkled my nose, Are, however, was right next to them, looking at it (gross!).
    Seeing my expression, they laughed, “Ruler-chan doesn’t like it either, she thinks it’s disgustingly like a snake, and she hates snakes. That’s the main reason Leader-sama made them like this.”
    "What's so great about these dictators you have anyway?" I asked.
    Both of them gave me a look as if I were Niobe and these women were Leto, so I decided to change tactics, I tilted my head, “Tell us about your leaders, like how they came to power.”
    Elphaba nodded and began telling us about them, with Kari interjecting once in a while. Let me tell you, I could just picture everything they said. It was as if I was having a premonition of the future (if any of this was true anyway and not some sorority joke for the new girls):


    Ruler was said to be like Aphrodite, as she brought and shared love with every person and thing. She spread it like an epidemic along with honesty and generosity. She went to JU (see, all the smart people do go there) on a math scholarship and met up with Leader by some freak accident. The two, together worked on formulas to figure out many things, among those was the secret to eternal life. They just needed a larger, more involved lab and staff than was available to them at JU (and that’s saying something) so they took it to Leader’s brother, Daniel, who worked in a big science lab, luckily, they were up for any research and/or experiment.
    When they were twenty-two, they took over the world. They had Leader’s scientific exploits and Ruler’s mathematical mind and both of their common sense to figure out. They sent nuclear threats to every capital in the world, thus effectively taking over the world. With that power, they worked to make the world a better place, social status was dissipated, and everyone was happy. Leader and Ruler became more and more liked as they “grew older”; they were technically 322 but still looked not three months over 22.
    Leader was never seen without a book. She the more sensible of the two and made more decisions towards the government. Almost anytime anyone saw her, they were unnerved by her piercing green eyes. Ruler was oftentimes found roaming the streets dressed as a civilian to see how her people were really doing. Her blue eyes were icy when dealing with misconduct while they were devoid of emotion during hearings and full of burning passion when helping others. They were truly god-like.

    Suddenly both the twins’ wristwatches began beeping. They looked down and pressed a button.
    “Artemis, Apollo, portal opening…now. Aphrodite and Athena want to see you when you get home.”
    The twins looked scared, “Why?”
    “Something about time and space continuum, don’t worry, they’re happy. Ten minutes left to get to the portal and them before their tempers burst. Ares out.”
    The two exchanged glances then looked at us, contemplating something. Well so was I, a way out of here. I found a door when Are started giggling uncontrollably, “Hey Jessa, you still afraid of spiders?”
    “Yes…why?” I asked slowly. Well the answer to that question revealed itself when a spider crawled down my shoulder. I started screaming and running around in circles until it came off of me, “Damn you Athena!”
    The twins looked at me alarmed, “Did you just call her Athena?”
    “Um…no, I was saying that to the goddess Athena, ya know, the story about Athena and Arachne…how it’s Athena’s fault spiders are on this world…ringing any bells?”
    They smiled slightly, their contemplation over, “Okay then,” they pressed a button on their watches, “Ares, we’re bringing company; we think they’ll wanna see them.”
    “Okay, whatever you do, hurry up, four minutes remaining.”
    That’s when I thought about something, “What’s with this Greek theology stuff? Who is calling you two Apollo and Artemis? I thought your names were Kari and Elphaba.”
    They looked at me and sighed, glancing surreptitiously at their watches, “Okay, the one talking, Ares, is Leader’s brother, Daniel. We told you that part before, keep up! And we call each other Greek god names as a code, there are people who want to catch us and like experiment or something,” Elphaba said quickly.
    Kari, intent on his watch nodded, “Yeah, like the people we were escaping earlier. So come on.”
    I crossed my arms and gave him a look, “Uh, no.”
    He gave me an exasperated look then looked at his sister, she grinned, then dramatically sighed, “Want some gum?” she asked randomly.
    I blinked, and against all my instincts, took the gum, as soon as it touched my mouth it basically multiplied itself and kept my mouth shut.
    “And that’s Gummy Gum. The gum Ruler made to annoy Leader.”

    And that is why I’m in this car with a raving lunatic (Elphaba/Artemis/Girl-in-black, whatever her name is) driving way over the speed limit to take us to some portal somewhere that’s either really a portal, or just more madness. Then there’s Are, sitting right next to me all happily or something. Freak. I think you can see how it’s all Are’s fault.