�Hey�you� Kaori poked at Rika with a petrified cafeteria breadstick. Her heartless friend had callously forgotten to make lunch, for not only herself, but for Kaori also. Instead, Kaori was stuck eating questionable cafeteria food.

She was going to poison herself one of these days.

�Hey�Rika.� Kaori took a sip of her soda, pondering the heap of hair and cloth that was her friend. Rika lay unmoving, head in arms. It was raining hard outside, so the two friends were stuck in their fifth period classroom�Physics. Oh, the horror. Rika had walked into the room like a zombie, head lolling to the side with eyes wide and blank.

At first, Kaori thought it was momentary shock from consuming too much cafeteria food, or blankness derived from too many vector notes.

However, when Rika�s head fell onto the table with a smack, Kaori knew something was up. A faint mumbling could be heard from the area where her head should have been.

�You know. You can�t just sit there like that the whole day.� She directed this to Rika.

A faint mumbling seeped out. It sounded vaguely like, �Watch me.�

Kaori sighed. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Tears threatening to fall from misty eyes, Kaori slowly, reluctantly pulled out a stick of delicate, sweet, indulgent, dessert from a distinctive box lying at her side.

�Here, have a Pocky.� Kaori said, voice trembling. Faint gasps could be heard from around the room; everyone stopped what they were doing. A few girls ran out to see if the biology room had frozen over. There was no way that Kaori Cha, would willingly give up a stick of her beloved pocky. The last time someone had dared to take a stick from her� Well, no one really knew where he was now.

Hell hath no fury like a woman�s love for chocolate covered biscuit sticks.

A few minutes passed in the empty classroom. Nothing happened. The girls came back from the biology room, hands and lips blue with chill. A collective sigh went through the room. It was just a small incident; the world was not going to end.

Suddenly, a large bang echoed through the room. A few people screamed and dove for the cover of their desks. Like that was going to be useful during the end of the world.

�Uh�why�s everyone under the table?� A voice said. A girl stood in the entryway, blond hair dripping rainwater in the doorway. She stepped into the room, and the door slammed shut behind her. A couple students jumped when the door clicked shut. Lynne inspected the wall behind the door. There was a dent in it where the door had hit it.

�Oops.� She said sheepishly. �I guess I used too much force.�

�That�s the understatement of the year.� Kaori muttered.

�Anyway!� Lynne said, hopping up to Kaori and the horizontal Rika. �Guess what I found?� She bounced up and down happily, stopping only to stick a brightly colored magazine in front of Rika�s face.

Kaori craned her neck to read the article. �Got strange stuff growing in your refrigerator? Use�� She stared at Lynne, �Um�why is this so exciting?�

�Oh! Wrong article.� Lynne paused and turned a few pages. �Here. This one.�

�Cooking contest in the Oceanline Park on Saturday, from 10:00 in the morning to 5:00 in the evening. Prize: a year�s supply of dragon whiskers.� Kaori turned to look at the front of the magazine. �Martha Stewart Living? Lynne? Why are you reading Martha Stewart Living?�

Lynne blushed bright red.

==@==

Rika was in a world of black haze�of dim shadows and dark, dents where the fabric of space-time was creased. In other words, She had her head in her arms. The blackness devoured all; her thoughts, feelings, and vision. Then, a voice seemed to intrude upon the blessed silence.

Dragon�.

Dragon�

DRAGON!!!

Rika�s head shot straight up. Light flooded her vision. Like a girl brought back from death, she jumped up onto her seat.

�I�m saved!� She shouted, dancing around on the chair. All that stood between her and her salvation was a measly cooking contest. A contest she could surely win.

Lynne and Kaori backed away, Kaori by sliding her chair from the table, Lynne by bouncing gently backwards.

Inevitably, the force of gravity told control again, if a bit reluctantly. The world was getting a bit strange for it. Rika came crashing to the floor.

However, undefeated by this, Rika jumped straight up, and rushed out the door, taking the blessed copy of Martha Stewart Living with her. Hope had comeback into her world.

The class was still in the wake of such a drama. Within the span of forty-five minutes, hell had frozen over; a girl had immersed herself in an escapable sea of darkness, only to be fetched out by a copy of Martha Stewart Living.

�Eh?� The teacher looked up from her TV dinner. �What happened?�

A/N: Heh�finally finished the second chapter�.long awaited? I hope so. Eh, probably not. Here are some background character sketches for this story. These aren�t main characters, just the ones that have been introduced. The only real main character, as of now, is Rika. I don�t know if the others will get their own stories. I think I�ll type up a Kaori side story soon. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. I�ll try to type it today though.