Jerome, AZ
September 24th, 2018
18:29:12

I opened my eyes groggily, feeling a pounding pain towards the back of my head. I started to sit up when I saw a walrus standing over me. The walrus. Kassidy.

My heart was pounding and in the back of my mind I knew I needed to get out of here, but I sat there, frozen on the ground, looking up at the walrus. Besides the fact that it was, you know, a walrus that basically appeared out of nowhere, I noticed something really off about its appearance. After a few moments of staring back into its eyes, bewildered, I realized what it was. The walrus's eyes were an unnaturally bright, sparkling light blue. The same color that surrounded Kassidy's irises and reflected her hidden bubbly nature. It began to dawn on me that my brother had probably slipped some weed into my cupcakes or something. Yep, I thought, I'm flying high. That's gotta be it. I'm not really here, it's all a hallucination. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. I slowly backed away with a butt-scoot/crab-walk, not losing eye contact with the magic walrus. I didn't get further than a foot before I ran into a pair of legs.

"Jesus, girl, it's like you've never seen a walrus before" I looked up to see Jasper glancing down at me with his arms crossed, a mixture of disappointment and amusement apparent in his eyes. A small smirk tugged at the edges of his lips. I laughed semi-manically.

"YEA NO I'VE NEVER SEEN A WALRUS AND I'VE NEVER SEEN A HUMAN BEING TURN INTO A WALRUS AND I THINK I'M HIGH HOLY SHIT JASPER GET ME OUT OF HERE" I cried tears from my maniacal laughter, holding my gut like I'd lose it if I let go. Jasper stayed silent and watched my meltdown with that same smirk. Finally, I collapsed. I let every muscle in my body go limp and stared up at the glass ceiling, wondering why the fuck the walls and floors were made of glass. Of all things??? Glass??? Like, why??

"Jasper?" I asked weakly, closing my eyes. I hated feeling weak, but more than that I hated acting weak. But it was a Monday and with everything I'd been through I felt like I deserved a little breakdown as a reward.

"Do you need a tampon or something?" Jasper responded sarcastically.

"Can you just tell me why I'm here? I had a surprise birthday party to look forward to, I had a crush to throw myself at, I had a Spanish teacher to burn... I'm really not special, Jasper. I can put up with idiotic, psychotic scientists and kidnappers for a little bit, but this is getting freaky and as much as I hate to admit it I'm too scared to deal with this shit." My stomach clenched in response to revealing my true feelings and I closed my eyes tighter, hoping that when I opened them I'd be back in my kitchen, surrounded by pickles of all shapes and sizes.

"Since Kassidy's... indisposed at the moment, I guess I should be the one to tell you. Not that she's kept it much of a secret" Jasper muttered, throwing the walrus a hateful look. I opened my eyes and sat up, turning around and looking Jasper in the face. He sat crisscrossed on the floor next to me and, looking me straight in the eye, said, "All that magic shit is real".

"Well, no shit, Sherlock" I responded sarcastically. "A girl turns into a walrus right in front of my eyes and you expect me to think it's totally natural? Yea, people are always turning into walruses, it's the second most googled phenomenon after 'Voldemort stealing shampoo'. What's the point, Jasper? Why am I here?" I practically screamed in his face, getting more irritated with him the longer I talked.

Whipping a bit of my angry spittle off his chin with disgust, he looked up at me again. For the first time, I noticed how totally bland his appearance was. For a Latin dude, he wasn't nearly as hot as he should have been. His skin was a dull shade of tan, his eyes an even fuller brown. His hair was neatly combed to one side in the most boring and annoying way possible. He was wearing a prison jumpsuit, but it was green and said "Kidnapple #6" on the front and back in bold white letters.

"The point is, Vonda, you have powers too." He said blatantly, not showing the slightest bit of emotion. Naturally, I did what I always do. I flipped out.

"Uh yea no that makes no sense" I said quickly, getting up and backing away from him and the walrus, inadvertently trapping myself in the corner of the room. The walrus blocked the door and the window, so even if I had a key, I had absolutely no chance of getting out. What the hell was happening?

"Calm down, Vonda. Clearly, you haven't discovered yours yet. You said today's your birthday, right?" Jasper spoke slowly and cautiously, walking slowly towards me with his hands held out in front of him as if he was trying to calm down a wild animal. Despite my fear, a small part of me was glad I was finally able to get a little sympathy out of him.

Still backing away, I nodded slightly. "How old are you now?" He asked. I bumped into the mini-fridge and fell, my butt landing on the edge of it. I sat there, frozen, trying to remember my age.

I pulled out my hands from behind me and started counting my fingers. "Let's see. I was born in... Do you have a calculator?" I asked. "This could take a while".

Jasper cautiously walked towards me, and I let out a little squeal and backed myself further into the corner until he motioned that he was going to the desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small, 4-function calculator and tossed it to me. I grabbed it and plugged in about 20 numbers before I looked up and said "17".

"Ok so... where do I start?" His eyes slightly resembled those of a deer trapped in headlights, like he wasn't used to having to talk more than a few words at a time. "Everyone here has powers, and each of our powers is different. We are the first 7 of the 17 like us, with you being the seventh." He broke eye contact, seeming uncomfortable with the awkwardness of looking me in the face. I know I'm ugly, but I didn't think it was that bad, I thought, while he continued his explanation.

"So.. yea? There's 17 of us, each of us begins to show signs of powers at age 17. Monica's the only one who knows who we are and why we're like this. She kidnaps us when we turn 17 or when we start showing signs..." He paused when he saw my struggle to get words out of my mouth.

"This whole story sounds like Harry Potter and Micheal Vey's autistic baby" I finally said, incredulous. "Like seriously, whoever's writing this crap needs to take a writing class or something" I yelled, looking up at the ceiling and waving my arms.

"Bitch, you don't know how hard it is to try to not be cliche. Shut up before I write you into a gay strip club." A low, angry voice came from behind me in response. I turned around and nobody was there. Jasper looked at me like I'd seriously lost it this time while I continued to search for the voice. Shrugging it off as a figment of my imagination, I straightened myself back up and looked at Jasper with a smile. "Sorry, I lost it there for a moment. Please, continue telling me about the magical powe--"

I was cut off when I heard a familiar hiss from behind Jasper. The walrus, having eaten a sufficent amount of crab meat, began transforming back into a human. The smoke cleared and there stood Kassidy, completely naked save a few smoke clouds wrapped around her torso and waist in the shape of a crop top and skirt. Her short, blond bob was ruffled like she'd just woken up from a nap. Her pale eyelids fluttered open, and her blue, sparkling eyes locked with mine.

"Haha... whoops. I'm not me when I'm hungry..."

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[A/N]

Y'all this is important don't scroll all the way down yet

So I decided that not enough books let you have conversations with the characters. I mean, come on, how cool would that be? I would have loved to ask Harry Potter why he couldn't have just gotten contacts, but I guess it's too late now.

So from now on you can direct comments at characters and they (Aka I) will respond to you! You can have a conversation with Vonda, or any of the other characters! Yay!

I know I'm lame. It's lame. I've heard it all before. I don't really care.

If you have specific questions directed at the characters just mention in your comment who it's for and that character will respond to you.

In fact, I'll probably have characters respond to ALL comments. That's right, Vonda's taking control.

(Not that I get many comments in the first place)

So yea this is your reward for helping me get to 259 reads! How exciting.

It's very late and I'm very tired don't judge me. Or, go ahead and judge me, idgaf anyway.

Idk about everyone else but I'm excited. How often do you get to write books about pickles and interact with your 259 readers? Once every 17 years apparently.

What the heck let's get weird

Picklespeed, my loves
-BloodCurler