Chris Richards
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http://dragonworldz.net

A Forbidden Past � Chapter 1
The Storm

After only a month of school, Stacie was already at the top of her class. Being extremely intelligent, she didn't have any friends and was constantly ridiculed and humiliated at school. She always felt people were staring at her as she walked down the hallways. Everyone laughed at her when she had her locker open. Stacie was obsessed with anime, but more specifically the Dragon Ball series. In her locker she had pictures of all sorts of characters, but she had the most pictures of Mirai Trunks. Being 17 years old and having "cartoons" in her locker, everyone thought she was immature. She was quite the opposite. She was a very attractive young lady standing at about 5'9" and a healthy 120 pounds. She had shoulder length brown hair with baby blue eyes.

Even with the highest mark, she never payed any attention in class. She always was listening sub-conciously, absorbing the work, while she drew fanart of her with Trunks, or other anime characters. She aced every class, even though she never listened. Her only subject in which she stumbled was gym. With gym being her very last class of the day, she was in no mood to be around the grade 12 girls who constantly picked on her. They were working on martial arts, and Stacie, having taken classes, wanted to try and make some friends, and impress the girls. The teacher, Ms. Linch, had just stepped out to the office to take a phone call so she left Stacie in charge of the class. As she kicked her legs high into the air, everyone was staring as she was really getting into it, screaming like she was about to throw a ki-blast at an enemy. The most popular girl in school, Heather, walked by giving an evil glare at Stacie.

"What type of girl knows martial arts? Is that what your little cartoon characters do? Dance around screaming at each other? Its not real. No one in any of those stupid cartoons is real. They never will be! Grow up! You're in grade 12, act like it!" Heather said to Stacie. Stacie kept on kicking and added in a couple of punches, pretending she didn't hear the remarks from Heather.

"You are not impressing any one with your fancy foot work. Stop trying so hard. You are never going to have any friends. You will always be alone," laughed Heather. All of the other girls started laughing. Stacie got really mad. She did a cartwheel over towards Heather and stopped right in her face.

"What are you staring at loser? Get away from me you freak!" sneered Heather as she pushed Stacie down. Again, the girls laughed. Stacie landed on her wrist and screamed as she bent her left wrist backwards.

"Aww is the poor baby hurt? Why don't you get one of your cartoon friends to come and save you. I'm sure they would really want to be friends with a loser like you," said Heather.

Stacie was really mad now. She stood up while her wrist had already started to swell. The entire class was in a circle around Heather and Stacie determined not to let Stacie get away.

"Leave me alone, Heather. I don't want to hurt you," cried Stacie.

"Hurt me? YOU? HURT ME? HAH!" laughed Heather as she took a swipe at Stacie. "Come on then. You think you can hurt me? Give me your best shot!"

Stacie started to cry. Heather continued to egg her on while the rest of the girls were laughing hysterically. They kept pushing Stacie around and starting throwing paper at her.

"She's all talk. She couldn't hurt a fly. The poor baby. Are you going to go cry to Ms. Linch about your wrist? Who is she going to believe, you or me? Your never going to get anywhere in your life. Your going to end up a failure!" said Heather.

With that being said, Stacie cracked. She screamed loud making everyone in the circle back away, with the exception of Heather. The gym went silent as Stacie was panting, staring at Heather.

"A failure... a lonely, pathetic failure..."

"SHUT UP!" screamed Stacie. She took a step back, swung her leg around in a round house kick, hitting Heather right in the nose, then continued swinging her leg on the ground, knocking Heather's feet out from under her. Heather hit the gym floor mat with a loud thud. The class gasped in silence not knowing such force would come from the lonely girl. Heather slowly stood up, as a trickle of blood came out of her nose.

"You stupid bitch, that hurt!" cried Heather.

"But I thought I couldn't hurt a fly..." Stacie added.

Heather lunged at Stacie who bent back holding herself up with her arms, and with her legs, threw Heather over her head and onto the mat again.

"What is going on in here?" asked Ms. Linch as she came storming in. She saw Stacie standing on the mat looking over Heather who had a bloody nose. Heather started sobbing to add into the effect.

"Stacie, go home," said Ms. Linch. Stacie put her head down and walked over to the change room to gather her stuff. She found her clothes had been smeered with deodorant so she just wore her gym clothes home.

Stacie arrived home to find her mother's note:

Stacie,
(Friday the 2nd, 12:30)
Don't forget, I'm in Seattle for the week on a business trip, I'm going to try and sell some of my fashion ideas. Any food you want to reheat is in the fridge. Also here is $100 incase you want to buy yourself something. I will be back late on Sunday the 11th assuming everything goes ok.
See you then!

Love always,
Mom.

"Home alone for over a week. Now I'm even being abandoned at home," thought Stacie. She went into the freezer to get an icepack for her swollen wrist. Stacie wasn't home alone very often. Her mom worked at home ever since her father left her mom for another woman. Stacie was also an only child. She discovered anime on a trip to Japan with her mom 4 years ago. She has considered it the sibling she never had. She could always cheer herself up after a day at school by watching a tape of Trunks.

With the icepack on her wrist, Stacie walked upstairs to her room to unwind and start on her homework. She got changed out of her gym clothes and into her PJ's.She put on some fast music to try and pick up her mood and zoom through her homework so she could relax all weekend. With in an hour, she had finished her homework and was hungry. She cooked up a quick meal for herself, and decided to get into her hot tub to relax her tense muscles. She turned the radio on and jumped into the over sized tub.

As the reception on the radio was crackling, she knew there was an approaching thunderstorm coming later in the evening. Before she turned off the broadcast, an interesting report came on:

"A magnetic storm is quickly approaching Earth. People with cell phones and pagers may need to be aware as satelite signals could be disrupted with the waves cycling through the air. Other electronic devices could also be disrupted, but only temporarily. People should have no need to worry as the effect of the storm will be short lived and should wear off after a couple of days. The time is now, 8 pm and this is..." the broadcast stopped as Stacie turned the radio off.

She walked to her room with a robe on, a towel wrapped around her hair, and a bandage on her wrist. She sat down on a cushion in the large bay window in her room and stared up at the sky. Suddenly, a star zoomed across the horizon..

"Hey! I'll make a wish," thought Stacie. "I wish..... I wish I was never alone and that I always had someone around looking over me." Just as she finished her wish, the star faded away into the evening sky. "Wishing upon a star.. how desperate am I for a friend?" She let out a loud sigh as she put her pajamas back on and went downstairs to watch TV in the back room of the house.

After about an hour, the thunderstorm had started. She jumped with the flash of every single lightning bolt. Stacie hated thunderstorms. She always feared she would be struck by lightning or a tornado would destroy her house. She decided to go into the kitchen to grab some herbal tea to try and relax herself. Suddenly, her mom's cell phone started to ring. She picked it up to see who was calling.

"Hello?" she asked but only static replied. She hung up the phone and it rang again almost immediately. She answered it again but only to find static. Again, she hung up the phone and it continued to ring. She decided to let it keep ringing hoping whoever was calling would give up. After about 5 minutes, the ringing persisted. Getting fed up, she went to pick up the phone, when it sparked and caught on fire.

"Aah! What the hell is going on?" screamed Stacie. She grabbed the phone and threw it out the back patio door. It hit the ground and shattered into a million pieces, still sparking as it lay on the lawn.

"Mom's going to kill me. I broke her phone. She's never going to believe me. No one ever does." Stacie sighed as she continued to watch TV. Suddenly, the image on the television started to become scrambled. Static kept flashing in between the images.

"Shit! Not the TV now!" She ran into the kitchen to get the fire extinguisher, thinking the TV would catch on fire, similar to the phone. All the lights in the house were flickering as well as the digital clocks displayed on the stove and microwave. Suddenly, it all went silent in the house, as all the electronic devices turned off. She ran upstairs to her room to look out the bay window to see if a power line had gone down. She looked up to the sky to see what appeared to be a meteor flying over her house.

"OH MY GOD! I'M GOING TO DIE!" she screamed as she ducked to cover her head. She heard the loud noise as the meteor hit the ground behind her house. At the same time, all the electronic devices turned back on. "What the hell is going on tonight?" she thought to herself. Then it hit her as she remembered the magnetic storm was coming tonight. "But why did everything turn on when the meteor hit the ground?" she thought. She had to find out what the meteor was, she loved anything space related. She slowly crept down stairs, making sure to look around every corner before she stepped out. She walked past the kitchen into the back room where she turned off the TV. She locked all the doors and turned off all the lights in the kitchen so she could try and see outside into the darkness. The lightning illumated her large back yard but still, she could not see the fallen object from the kitchen window.

"I'll probably get a better view from the patio doors," she thought. She slowly crept back over to the back room where the TV now lay silent. She walked past the fire extinguisher and peered out the screen in the patio window. She could still see the bits and pieces of the cell phone scattered about her back yard. Lightning flashed far in the yard showing a large crater at the edge of her property.

"My god that is one huge crater. Damn I wish it wasn't raining, I'd go out and look at it." She went back into the kitchen to reset the clocks on the microwave and oven which had shut off. She returned to the back room, turned on the light, and started to fiddle with the VCR. "Damnit why do these devices have to be so complicated?" she said as she played with the buttons, hoping to finally reach the correct time. Suddenly, there was a crunching noise from outside. "Huh? What was that?" she wondered. She soon realized that the sound was the cell phone, or what was left of it, being stepped on and that there was something or someone outside. She quickly turned the light off and peered out the patio screen. She scanned over the yard not finding anything except the scattered pieces of cell phone. A bright lightning flash then illuminated the entire yard, and she saw the silhouette of a person standing not even 10 feet infront of her.

"AAH!!!!" she screamed as she stumbled backwards, tripping over the fire extinguisher, and falling backwards onto her left wrist while knocking her head on the floor.