November 26, 2008 3:00 pm
Santa Barbra, California: Earth
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I also tried out for basketball with Ames and Hudson, mainly because they wouldn't shut up about me trying. Long story short- I made the team! At the bottom of the list, but I made it all the same. But that doesn't matter, I probably won't get played anyways.

"Soren!" Vestry was filled with joy. "I'm so happy!"

"But we don't start till January." I told my brother. "That's two months away. What am I going to do with my life till then?"

"Relax Drama Queen. At least you have one less free period." He chuckled.

"Drama Queen." I grumbled under my breath. "Yeah right."

"You know I bet you would make a great actor." Vestry said as he wiped down the counter.

"But I need to find a way back to Malison." I took a seat on a stool by the counter. "This is all just temporary satisfaction with myself."

"But what if it is not?" Vestry said as he threw the rag into the sink.

"What do you mean?" I put my elbows on the black marble counter and look at my brother.

"Soren, I have been here for years."

"No! Don't say that!" I snap before he can finish.

"There is no way back." Vestry told me. "Believe me, I have tried...."

"But there must be." I turn from him.

"Soren I am sorry. But I have built up this place for myself, the truth is out brother. You need to accept that you will be here forever."

"There has to be a way to get back home." I state, I am determined.

Vestry placed a cup down next to me, pouring me a sip of sprite, then another one for himself. He sat next to me and we drank out sprite shots together. The bubbles from the drink slide down my throat, making me feel relaxed.

"Everything is going to be ok." Vestry promised. "Do you have a netpad?"

"A netpad?" I questioned. "Like I had time to grab that when I was banished. I'm a refugees, fleeing from my home... do you really believe I would grab the internet as I was racing for my life? I barely had time to grab my weapons."

"Want one?" Vestry asked.

"Heck yes!" I shout, putting my shot glass upside down on the counter.

Vestry ran back into his room, returning with a Malison netpad, similar to an Earth iPad we have at school, but way better. It could search every data base in the whole galaxy, you could find anything, see anything. It also had holographic projection and a virtual reality simulator. At this point it was the closest thing I had to home.

"Where did you find one of these?" I asked, clicking at the screen. The button scanned my finger, then showed me my home screen. I could access my account from any Netpad in the universe, my fingerprint was my ID.

"They took a lot of work, but I was able to make them. That's one of the things I specified in on Malison, back in the day." Vestry seemed to be proud of himself... he was such an amazing inventor.

"Vestry you are the best!" I hug around his shoulders, the device dangling in my hand. "I have missed you so much."

"I know... I have too." He hugs me back, rubbing my back with circles.

The next day I was actually excited for school. We would start our winter play, Romeo and Juliet. It's an old Shakespeare play. I hated Shakespeare, but what am I going do about it?

Shakespeare in general is just hard to read, that's why The Emblem, the planet of writers, banished Shakespeare to Earth. No one could understand what he meant by anything he said. Now the English professors of earth analyze his writing and literally make up what he is saying and what he means, then try and make high school students understand nonsense. Doesn't school just suck for these reasons?

As oppose to Malison, we are a superior planet, and we do not take English classes past middle school. Luke Zodiac absolutely hated English, he saw it as a pointless class because there was no right answers. He saw science and math as a superior subject and set about to make the planet better by adopting more classes into the school system. Luke never actually graduated from high school because he refused to take English. He payed for his own college, and studied Bioengineering, through his studies he had cured many diseases, and now is the top neurosurgeon in the universe. Schools started adopting his ways and took English subjects out of their curriculum, so prepare the way for a math and science based society. I was always the same way, wanting to go into medicine, so English was always boring to me, my medical anatomy class however was my favorite. I even took the class Luke taught on genetics and I remember him showing us how cancer worked and how he was going to find the cure through the blueprints of life, or in other words, DNA. I remember three years later he was awarded the Nobel prize for curing cancer.

I arrived at my drama class, and sat in one of the many seats of the auditorium, my teacher stood on the stage as she took role, then gave us the thrilling news of our parts.

"Mercucio will be played by Soren." The teacher finally got to my role and I was well aware of who that punk is, trying to get his best friend to party all night, a total boast.

"Alright actors!" The teacher announces. "Set the stage."

I hurry to the position she wrote on my script. Which is: Off stage. I won't come in for a few scenes, so I had lots of time to relax and read over my lines.

"Oh my!" The girl who plays Juliet spoke next to me, she was glancing down at her phone.

"What is it?" I asked, curious to see what was up.

"It's horrible." She stated. "We are doomed."

"What's wrong?" I asked, trying to see what she was looking at.

"Mrs. Nelson!" The girl ran over to the teacher, interrupting the scene blocking. "You all got to see this!"

I ran after her, eager to know what information was contained on her cell phone. So did everyone else in the class.

"Copper Cove High School." The girl stated. "Is also doing the performance of Romeo and Juliet."

The whole crew gasped, probably taking in all the oxygen in the room in one giant breath. Even I knew competition was bad. It helped firmed society, making us advance to become better, but it was horrible to be on the loosing side. In this case, I knew we were doomed.

"What are we going to do?" A boy spake.

"We must cancel our show." A girl with an Italian accent stated.

"We can't do that." A boy with a lisp spat.

"Mrs. Nelson." The girl with the phone looked at our teacher, demanding for a solution.

"Now, Now." Mrs Nelson clapped her hands. "We can not cancel this show."

"That's right." I stood up tall. "They challenged us, its on. We are going to make this the best freaking Shakespeare play ever to be performed upon this planet."

"Yeah!" The crew agreed.

"Now let's get back to work." Our teacher announced. "Soren, would you mind going down to the catacombs to get our costumes?"

"No problem." I stated, rushing off the stage and to the exit doors.

"Good luck with that." The girl with the phone sassed me as I started walking away.

"Why?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips.

"The catacombs connect with all the other schools in this area. Last time someone went down there, they died. All the police ever found was a thumb." She snapped, I couldn't tell if she was lying or not... not like I cared or anything, I could easily defend myself against any attacker.

"If you want to scare me, your going to have to do better then that." I turned on my heels and walked away from her.

I walked through the double doors and down the concrete stairs into the catacombs. There is no way I could possibly get murdered down here surrounded by mermaid costumes and fake sword props. That girl was just joking. She had to be.

Besides, this was the twenty-first century, people don't get murdered everyday. I hope I'm right about this, I thought to myself as I grabbed a flashlight from a table. It flickered on, giving me a glimpse of how everything down here was organized.

There were boxes upon boxes piled up down here, each labeled with a specific play title. I scanned each label for anything that said Romeo and Juliet, or Shakespeare, I found nothing. I felt a crack under my feet, beads rolled across the floor. I darted my light across my walking space. Someone had tampered with a box, it's ruminates were scattered across the floor. I picked up a piece of the cardboard box, a bit of the title was labeled Spear Romeo. The rest was all cut off. I could only assume that this was the box I was told to bring back up. My light flickered, I banged my hand on the side, making the light obey to me and turn back on. It obeyed, I glanced up at where the beam of light collided with the wall, a figure stood between the light and the wall, casting a long thin shadow up to the ceiling.

I could only stare at her beauty. Her hair was blond with pink coloring on the bottom. She wore a skinny pink tank top and jean pants with brown boots. Her eyes were filled wit beautiful make up, extending across each inch of her beautiful gray eyes. She was perfect.

"My light has found a fallen angel." I said to her, hoping to woo her with my very creative and well thought pick up line. I made a mental note to reward myself for that line later.

"Did you just call me Satan?" The girl spat.

"Umm-" I stammered. This was not how the dialogue was suppose to go, she was going off script. "No. I wasn't intending it."

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" The girl asked me, she walked closer to me.

"What?" I took a step back. This girl was throwing pick up lines back at me... I knew on earth girls would flirt with guys, but I wasn't expecting any girls to flirt with me, much less this stranger.

"Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" She asked again, coming closer to me. I kept stepping back until my back hit the cold stone wall and I couldn't move, but she kept walking to me.

"No." I stammered, her toes touched mine as she stood so close to me.

"Because you have a face of an angel." She leaned into me, pressing her lips onto mine. I dropped my flashlight and it collided to the floor.

I couldn't tell if she was teasing me or not with this kiss, or if she had poisoned lipstick and was trying to figure out what to do with my dead body after she killed me.

My eyes stared into hers as she moved away for a second before striking again across my mouth. Her kisses were passionate, full of meaning, like no kiss I had ever had before. She concluded kissing me as she wrapped her arms around my waist, inside of my coat. Her fingers sparked against my skin, sending bolts of electricity up my sides as she touched me. It was then my eyes broke from hers to her jacket name.

"Ray." She spoke her name.

"What is your?" She asked, keeping her hands on my waist.

"Soren." I smile as I look at her gray eyes.

"How lovely." She smirked.

I looked at her name, so plainly spelt, so plainly made. Yet, she was not the typical cookie cutter model that she appeared to be. Her name was under another, another that I would never be able to live with. A mortal enemy of mine.

Cooper Cove Theater Department.

I pushed her away as soon as I read that title. This was all a trap! Maybe to get me distracted while the other demons from that school stole our costumes and props! This must all be a trick... a game.

"You're from Copper Cove!" I gasped.

"So?" She shrugged.

"So-" I couldn't think of any reason to hate her. She was just from another school. I have never known why the schools were rivals, that's just what everyone told me.

It like if you put a bunch of people in a room and told one of them to stand each time a bell rang the others would eventually join in. Then if you slowly replaced each person with another without telling them any instruction everyone would eventually be standing up each time the bell rang for no reason whatsoever. They would have no clue, it's just been how it was done.

"I am not devastated by this news." I tell her. "But I can only fear what others might think."

"Why?" I ask.

She putting her hands in her pockets. Her hands looked cold, she was probably freezing down here since there was no heat.

"Our schools are rivals." She states.

"You studied the play Romeo and Juliet?" I asked.

"Yes." She nodded and smiled at me.

"Then you know how the families were mortal enemies? So are our schools." I had put this all together in my mind.

"What are you saying?" She looked confused as she walked across the chamber to me. "That we are Romeo and Juliet in the modern day."

"We both know how that play ended." I say, concerning her of the danger.

"Then we both know how to prevent it." She looks into my blue eyes.

I thought about it to myself. This was a crazy plan. But if she was willing to risk this, so was I. I removed my hands from my pockets.

"Hello my Juliet." I hold out my hand for her.

"Hello fair Romeo." She placed her cold hand into mine. I closed my warm fingers around her, I saw her blush and smile as she felt the warmth of my hand.

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